2013 Recap (1/3) : A year in numbers

That's it, 2014 is here and as customary is around blogland, I am supposed to reflect on the past and set goals for the future. But I'm not good at either of them, and that's why I make lists and take pictures, to help me remember what I have to do on a daily basis and provide evidence that I remembered doing it. Thankfully I also have a coach who can kick me in the butt when I fall off my hamster wheel. By the way, since I started working with a new coach this year, it'll be interesting to see how these numbers compare with those from the previous year.

Overall

900km more overall, in 40 less hours. Which means I'm either getting faster, or I'm spending more time on two wheels. I have a sneaky suspicion that it's more of the latter, because I haven't turned into The Flash yet.

One of the goals that I had set last year was to increase the overall mileage:

Not sure whether I want to set an overall target in 2013, but it would be nice if I could reach 5000km.

Mission accomplished! (now that's a surprise, because I had completely forgotten about this one). See what I mean? I better make those lists...

Running

Another surprise. I actually ran less. 

I remember setting this goal:

I reached my 1000km goal in September [...], so I gave myself a 1000miles (1609km) goal for 2013.

Total fail.

The fact that I only ran one marathon instead of three and got injured at the end of November is most likely why I didn't end up running more, but when it comes to the actual training volume, it was similar. I kept on running three times a week, but I got a bit faster in the end, thanks to all the speed work I did on the track with coach. My average pace is now about 30s/km lower. It makes me happy to see improvement, but I expect Ironman training to reverse the trend in 2014. Zone 2 madness, here I come!

Biking

This is where I spent all the extra hours! A difference of 1300km, 60h more on the saddle. Longest ride was 110km and I quite enjoyed it. I also biked more often, thanks to my new bike trainer which threw all the excuses out of the window. I embraced the suck and Trainer Road, and discovered more data geekery (FTP, TSS, kJ, FTP/kg). Brain explosion!

Swimming

Some nice improvements here as well. I swam 60km/20h more than last year and I significantly improved my pace. I became more comfortable in the water and I worked on technique quite a lot, but I did not always enjoy it. Once the open water season started though, I just immersed myself in the feeling and it was wonderful.

Weight

*sigh* I was hoping, once more, to get down to 125lb. I got as low as 131.5, which was exactly the same weight as the year before on "A" Race Day, but then I climbed back up after the last triathlon of the season and I am now at a higher weight than I was the year before. It's not a huge gain, it's "just" 8lb overall, 2lb more than last year, but given how it took me 8 months to lose 6lb, I already feel defeated knowing that I need to lose them again. Maybe I shouldn't think about it and let the Ironman training do its thing, but weight has always been a stressful topic for me, especially when I go up and down like this every year. This is one of the reasons why I hate the off season. I enjoy every bite I put in my mouth, but then I pay the price. Oh well.

It's just a number. I should not be fixating on a number, but I like the silly sound of it. Let's not lose perspective of where I've come from. In the grand scheme of things, it's just a little bump on the road.

All these are just numbers, some I love, some I hate. Today is January 1st and I return to my good eating habits. I was sidelined for a month, but I am also returning to the pool and the treadmill. Step by step, I should start liking them numbers again.

But when it comes to swimming/biking/running goals for 2014, in numbers, I have none. 

There is only one number that matters this year: 140.6.

2012 Recap (1/3) : A year in numbers

You thought I was dead, didn't you? Well, not this time, I survived the Mayan Apocalypse (complete and utter fail, by the way), our family trip to Disney World and Philadelphia, and a business week in Las Vegas. Not too shabby, and I am back with numbers, photos, stories and resolutions (just a few, I promise), which I am going to spread over a few posts because, let's face it, too much of it at once hurts. And because everything that happened over these past weeks has already been too much for me to even sit down and write any type of intelligible sentences, I chose to start off with numbers as they are mostly speaking for themselves. 3... 2... 1... Go! (thank you Runkeeper for crunching the numbers for me and to the Prt Sc key and IrfanView for allowing me to make them visual).

Overall

(this includes Running, Walking, Hiking, Cycling, Swimming, Elliptical, Snowboarding, Skating, Rowing and Yoga). I can't believe I did all that, but if I could sum it up in a few words, this year has been fucking fantastic! (sorry, me bad).

The different colored segments represent each sport, but I haven't figured out which one is which, so let's move on... (I suspect blue is cycling, green is running, red is walking and purple is swimming). No surprises here, the overall peak was just before my Olympic Triathlon in July, with most of the running happening before my 3 marathons in April/May and October.

Not sure whether I want to set an overall target in 2013, but it would be nice if I could reach 5000km. Take notes, you may want to check back on those and see how far off I was next year at the same time.

Running

The bars got significantly taller before the marathons thanks to all the Sunday long runs that took me passed the finish line, every single time. According to the numbers above, the longest race in distance was the Paris Marathon, the fastest race was the Toronto Street 10k (a week after the Paris marathon, go figure) and the longest (and most painful) in time was the Scotiabank Toronto Marathon. It also looks like the fastest most consistent month was April, but after that I started training for the triathlon and coach turned on the HR training at MAF and all records went down from there... If there is ONE resolution that I would like to keep this year is NOT to get so damn stressed out because of slow numbers. There IS a reason to this madness, but I think I will only see it once I finish my first Ironman. Until then, I need to keep fighting the urge to go faster, to want to beat personal records and keep up with hubbs (that's probably the hardest one). 

Oh and I reached my 1000km goal in September after running my longest training run ever, in Paris, nonetheless, so I gave myself a 1000miles (1609km) goal for 2013. Go me!!

Cycling

If you've followed me this year, the summer months were spent mostly on the bike in preparation for my first ever triathlon, the Toronto Triathlon Festival (Olympic). On the opposite, I completely snubbed the bike the months when I raced marathons (May/October). I suspect that 2013 is going to change all this since I'll be focusing on triathlons and so far, the longest running race that I'm being signed for is Around the Bay 30k in March, but my A-race will be Ironman Muskoka 70.3 in September.

As for the records, the farthest I've been on my bike was 75km in August, in a group ride with the Falcons, which was also the longest ride to date, but not the fastest. I am planning to do at least one Century ride in 2013, so stay tuned for that ;-).

Swimming

Slow but steady has been my mantra in swimming. I only started this year, trying to teach myself proper technique and still going through the frustrating phase of not being able to go long without the pull-buoy aka my water boyfriend or the wetsuit aka my full-body protection. Good news is that I can make the cut off times and I am not afraid of making contact with other swimmers, ducks, algae or fish. The long swims I did in 2012 with the Falcons at the Professor's Lake in Brampton were the best ever!! I feel totally at peace when I put my head down in the clear, peaceful waters of this lake and go in loops until the time is out. Is summer here yet?

I may not be ready for Masters yet, but at least I am looking forward to the time spent in the water.  To much more in 2013, the year when I will master the bow wave and not drink half of the pool while trying to breathe with a goggle in.

Last but not least...

Weight

With all those calories burned, I hoped I'd get down to 130, but I will take sub-135 too. The lowest I reached was 131, just around my triathlon, if not the day of (July 22), after which I started to put some weight back on, of course, by removing the bike volume from the equation. Despite what others may tell you, running only will not make you lose weight, at least not those pesky last 10 pounds, but biking does help a lot. This year my goal is to go down to 125, which means 12lb less than today. I am starting tomorrow! (no kidding). As to the body fat, I am not sure whether I trust my Withings scale with those numbers, but as a reference, I'll make a point of staying sub-20 if possible.

Alright, first recap post out of three is done and my head is about to explode. Will follow up with "A year in races" and "A year in photos" (ideas stolen from Katie, thank you!), sometime this week, if I find some computer-me-time. In the meantime, keep track of those goals as I'm gonna do a quiz at the end and you may even win something! *wink wink*

Happy New Year!!

I'm still standing

Tough week. Lots of work in the office, long days, workouts whenever I can, but at the end I haven't missed one. It all started last Sunday with a 1h20 long run that I decided to do on the treadmill since it was cold and icy outside. I was hoping to find a button to adjust the pace, instead I found one for the speed. You can tell I don't use treadmills that often. So anyway, I did a quick math in my head, I was planning to run at a pace of 6:30/km, but of course, treadmills are in miles. Multiplied by 1.606, so I got something like 10:11/mile and I rounded that up to 6mph. Just like in Office Space, those decimals did their job and after proudly finishing the 8 miles in the hour twenty, I put everything in Runkeeper and it ended up being a run at 6:13/km instead of 6:30/km. I had never done a run over 1h quicker than 6:30, so I officially run my fastest "long run" by quite a few seconds faster than what I had planned for. That'll teach me.

The week that followed kept the madness to a high level and seemed like a neverending workout. On Monday I did my first official "brick" even though my legs were really sore from Sunday's run. 30 min bike, followed immediately by 30 min run. I survived.

On Tuesday I was supposed to do hills, but I chose to postpone them until the next day and treat my legs with some painful rolls on the foam devil instead, inspired by the video in the previous post.

Wednesday was another long day, that ended with a fancy dinner at Baton Rouge restaurant. I took the special "Mardi Gras" fixed menu and worked my way through the 3 courses, trying not to finish everything, and especially not the decadent chocolate brownie nut cake that, I found out later on, had a whooping 1250calories in it!! Thank goodness I only ate half. But at the restaurant I knew that my day wasn't going to end on another defeat, so I went straight to the gym to attack those hills. I did 6 repeats at 8% incline and a constant 5.5mph pace, for a total of 40 minutes with the warmup and cooldown. By the end of it, I was ready to throw up the beer, the salad, the steak, the sweet potato fries and coleslaw and especially the damn chocolate cake. Miraculously though, I held all this in and managed to finally get into bed by midnight with stomach cramps that made me swear never freaking Mardi Gras again.

Thursday was a 50min run which I did with no surprises other than the nice weather.
Friday was back in the gym for bike intervals, those killer 5/1s which I attacked moderately hard while reading a new book (more in a following post).

And today, to almost end the week on a light note, I did a 7.5k walk to have a scoop of ice cream. Caramel turtle truffle at Baskin and Robbins, with coupons that we had for about... 10 years. After a few minutes talk with the manager, they accepted the coupons, so yay for keeping them for so long (and not cleaning up some piles of paper all this time). I then lost a few more electrolytes while crying my heart out at "The Vow", the latest tearjerker with Canuck Rachel McAdams (she's hot!).

Eventually made it home to type all this. And yes, I am still standing, but will soon have to walk up the stairs to go to bed. A 1h30 negative split run is waiting for me tomorrow. I guess I have to figure out what speed I want to run at... without throwing away the decimals this time... Wish me luck.

A Few Numbers

One thing I noticed across all fitness blogs that I visited is that people love numbers. I am a geek at heart too, so I will probably share numbers with you, although I don't think I will go in too much detail as I rather post the links that do so. For example, if you want to see my splits on a particular run, I will post a Runkeeper link to that activity and you can see all the details there.

I will give you some overall numbers though so you can get the big picture.

-Been running since October 2009

-Run the following races so far (see race results on the sidebar)

• Toronto Women's Run 5k (2010)
• Island Girl Women's 10k (2010)
• Longboat Toronto Island Run 10k (2010)
• Toronto Scotiabank Waterfront Half Marathon (2010)
• Around the Bay 30k Relay (2011)
• Mississauga Half Marathon (2011)

-I am 5'3" and currently weigh 141lb (goal of 130-135lb)

-I am a mom, I have 2 boys, 10 and 12 yr old

-My 5k PR is 28:24

-The longest I've ever run was 3h in summer of 2011 when I was training for the Scotiabank Toronto Marathon. I could not participate because I had my gallbladder removed a week before.

-I completed four times the 60k Walk to End Breast Cancer benefiting Princess Margaret Hospital

-Played volleyball for about 10yrs recreationally, then did 10yrs of martial arts (karate and taekwondo) before starting to run

-I love to hike, mostly for the purpose of geocaching. I often go at night with a bunch of friends because well, the day is not fun enough. The longest hike I did was about 20k in a day.

-I can play a mean ping-pong.

Alright, that's enough for now. In the next post I will talk about one of my favorite subjects, food. For now, I gotta eat my snack.