Putting my fish on: success!

You remember how I said a few weeks ago that I was terrified of open water swimming? It surely still stands true when I imagine myself at a triathlon start and getting thrown inside the "washing machine", but this week has been certainly memorable because I got my first taste of lake swimming and got pretty drunk on it. Lemme explain.

On Monday, I talked my youngest son into going to an open water swimming clinic for kids as a local coach member of my tri club is trying to put together a triathlon club for kids. The swim was at Kelso Lake, about 30min drive from our house and we were told that 4-5 other kids all between 10-13 yr old were going to attend. The day was a bit on the chilly side with temperatures in the low 20s Celsius, but it was beautiful outside and a shame not to go for fear of a cold swim. Although I had not planned on swimming, I threw my wetsuit in the trunk, just in case, and off we went.

When we arrived there, I noticed a lot more adults than kids carrying backpacks and didn't quite know what was going on until we arrived on the beach and they all started stripping and putting on their wetsuits. My son got ready to swim with the other kids and jumped in the lake whereas me, I was standing there puzzled, not sure what to do. I realized that the male coach, Dave, was about to give a private lesson to all the adult folks, while Lorene, the female coach, was going to teach the kids. So I asked for permission to put on my wetsuit too. I was in a hurry to join them since they were already in the water going over the basics and the dolphin dives... and pulled too hard on my wetsuit and put a nick in it. Oh well. Shit happens, it wasn't all the way through to the fabric and it was only one inch long. I tried not to freak about it and went in the lake to join the lesson.

Kelso Lake

It was supposed to be my rest day, but the coach had a plan for this clinic so to hell with my rest day. From then on, we did a lot of back and forths (one length was about 120m) across the lake learning the following:
- 2 lengths sighting
- 2 lengths turning around buoys
- 2 lengths drafting off another person's feet
- 4 lengths with water exit after the first loop, run on the beach and back in the water for the second loop
- 2 lengths with water exit and quick removal of wetsuit

Total 1500m of most valuable experience in a group where I got the right amount of kicking and pulling and being swum over and drinking water and untangling algae from my arms. It was a pretty awesome day and I am extremely glad that I had the intuition of bringing my wetsuit with me, even though I messed it up a bit. It's the life of the neoprene, what can you do. I did, however, learn a great tip for putting it on, which made all the difference on Thursday for the second open water swim of the week, but I'm getting there, hold on.

Before we move on, I guess it's worth mentioning my "wardrobe malfunction" when I removed my wetsuit at the end of the clinic. See, my regular swimsuit exploded the last time I went to the pool, growing 4 sizes bigger by the time I came out of the water. The fabric disintegrated even further when I removed it in the dressing room and I had to throw it directly in the garbage as there was no way to salvage it. When I went to the lake on Monday, I had with me an older swimsuit from the times I was 8 sizes bigger. It was ok while under the wetsuit, but when I peeled the wetsuit off, the swimsuit top (it was one of those tanktops with a separate bottom from a Plus size shop) went down as well as the fabric on the straps gave up under the wetsuit's suction force. Nice!! The guys were having a good chuckle while I was being assisted with the "situation". Anyhow, long story short, after Monday, I had no more swimsuits left, so I had to go shopping.

I had two missions before my Thursday official open water swim: to find neoprene glue and a new swimsuit. The first mission got delayed as I had a lot of work in the office and it just seemed impossible to find any in a physical store around me. Eventually I found someone who suggested to try a scuba shop and BINGO, found one last container of Trident neoprene cement (with more warning labels than rat poison). I was now just hours from the swim, so I drove there at lunch and back to the office and took care of the boo-boo on the spot, hoping that 4h of drying time would be enough.

I also went to a swim shop and found an "aqua suit" (as opposed to a regular swim suit, go figure). It's made by Speedo and it looks just like the one on this skinny woman on the right (that is not me, I don't think her thighs touch like mine).

So... where was I? Missions, right. Two out of two complete!! Thursday night could not come fast enough, so I drove straight to Professor's Lake, our neighbourhood "beach" with all amenities and lots of fun for the entire family.

Again, I felt lost for a few minutes, but decided to go in and ask for the open water swim group. They quickly directed me to the marina where many of the group members had already stored their stuff and were already swimming. Once more, put on my wetsuit, while being very careful not to make another boo-boo, pulling from the inside as I was taught by the tri coach. It worked like a charm and after a quick talk with the swim organizer who showed me the buoys and the direction of the swim, off I went.  A loop was 750m, he said most of the people were doing 2 loops. Put my head down and tried to relax, a bit overwhelmed by the experience - that lake looked bigger than ever! - but finished the first loop in 18 minutes and I was no longer scared at all. I could hardly contain my excitement for being there, having the whole lake for myself  in one of the most beautiful evenings of this summer.

My coach Dave (are all coaches named Dave? not to be confused with the coach from the beginning of this post) had given me 1h of swim practice for that night, so I managed to fit in 3 loops for a total of 2.35km in just 56 minutes, the fastest and farthest I had ever swum. The whole experience was so surreal, I didn't want to leave the place, so I took this picture right as I was leaving.

Professor's Lake at sunset with lonely buoy and lifeguard

Here is the Runkeeper workout, with GPS map and all, thanks to my new Garmin 910 XT watch, w00t w00t!

Needless to say, I came back home ready to eat my young. I settled on a bit of cow instead and one hour later, I went out for a 50min run as well. I never felt so lethargic as during that run, it was still extremely hot and I wished I'd gone aquajogging instead. My arms were also cranky for the rest of the week, reminding me that I had asked them to do over 1500 strokes each to drag me all across Professor's Lake. Last but not least, I also got my first chaffing ordeal because of my Xterra Vortex 4 wetsuit. Not sure how I could fix it, it's at the base of my neck, due to the overlapping pieces of neoprene making up the zipper protecting flap. I will try some PAM next time, maybe that will do it.

Neck chaffing, 2 days after

Any other ideas to stay away from chaffing on that particular spot? Thanks, Internets.

Feeling HOT HOT HOT!

Ole ole, ole ole... I don't know about you guys, but it's been melting braincells hot here in Toronto. This week we reached 43C/108F with the humidity factor and apparently this is just an intro to what summer has in store for us. This sounds good for some, not so much for others, I'm somewhere sitting on the fence as heat hasn't bothered me so much in the past. Proof is that I went out there twice this week in the scorching heat, one time to bike for 1h, another time for a 2h bike/run brick and I haven't died, wheee. I don't think I have a choice anyway, I cannot control the weather knobs and you can see below what my training weeks look like. They are more or less the same before the tri on July 22, but given the amount of effort I'm putting in, I wouldn't be surprised if I sign up for a half-iron before the end of the year. Ok, maybe not, I am not sure how my marathon training is going to interfere with tri training between July and October, but who knows what crazy ideas get to travel through my overheating brain during the summer months? You should always expect the unexpected with me.

As a proof of my madness, I also bought my first wetsuit. After doodling with the idea of renting one and still not finding a place where rentals are affordable and products are guaranteed to fit, I decided on an Xterra Vortex 4 fullsuit wetsuit thanks to the dozens of coupons floating on the intertubes. The particular coupon that I found gave me a rebate of 60% and I ended up paying $160 + tax + shipping for a suit worth $400. Not bad, given the popularity of this suit and the guarantees that they offer with it. It took just over a week to arrive and after an initial shock while trying to understand how in hell I was going to fit inside it (I got the Women's Medium size, but it looked tiny!), I was happy to see that indeed, it fit just like a glove and even better, it rewarded me with the instant superhero look.

Alas I could only wear it for about 10 minutes before I started feeling my insides slow cooking in it and had to peel it off along with 2lb of sweat. Since then, I had been VERY impatient to put it on again and try it in a real lake! Thankfully my local tri club has open water swims scheduled every week on Thursdays but alas they've been cancelled two weeks in a row, first time because of high levels of bacteria and yesterday because of a lightning storm (which looked just like this, I was in it).

Thankfully there is still a month before my triathlon and I haven't lost faith in the weather gods just yet.
See, I'm still smiling, even when I do my runs in the rain. ;-)

I'll leave you with a final note on this heat, a musical one, especially for those of you who live on the opposite side of the planet where you must starting to freeze your cojones by now. There you go! Feeling HOT HOT HOT!

Trial and error

Triathlon training is getting fun, folks. My weeks are now full on tri-mode: swimming and biking 2-3x week, running 3-4x week plus a few walks in between, with total volumes from 80 to 100 miles and guess what? I'm loving it! My body is adjusting pretty well, I think, and I am becoming rather obsessed with everything triathlon related, but I don't hide it, I am a bit anxious about what is coming. So much to learn and so much room for improvement, I hope.

Swim -
I am very slow in the pool, averaging 2:10/100m and loving the pull buoy because it's so much easier to swim with it, and I have a somewhat ok technique, but with a weak catch and pull (I think I am of the Bambino type). One thing I know I've improved upon is bilateral breathing - no issues there, however I know I am still lifting my head a bit and not relaxing my neck properly. Another problem is endurance, without the pull buoy I feel like drowning and I'm trying really hard to find a slow kicking rhythm, otherwise I don't last more than 50m. Also working on using my core muscles more by trying to rotate my body so I don't look like a floating pancake. Hopefully I can take another video of my swimming soon and you can point out all my flaws.
One thing I have not mentioned though - I am terrified of open water swimming. I used to swim in the ocean, without a wetsuit, so I know I can do it, but I haven't tried since I was 20 years old (that's quite a long time ago!). Thankfully today I made the jump, so to speak, and I bought a wetsuit because once you're committed to this sport, and I know I am, there is no point in spending 45 bucks in a rental when new suits go for $160, like this XTerra Vortex 4, which seems to be a good bet, given its popularity amongst triathletes.

Bike -
On the bike, I can hold some decent times for long-ish distances, averaging 16-17mph for a 2h workout, but having some issues with my saddle and aero position. The saddle is supposed to be good, it's a fizik Arione, but it may help if I tilt its head down a little - my lady bits are screaming in pain after most long rides even if I wear the most generously padded bike shorts. I also need to pay attention to my head position when riding in aero as neck gets stiff and a little achy if I don't switch positions every 15 min or so. One last thing is bike control and using appropriate gear ratios. I am not quite sure what to do because I don't have an onboard computer that counts RPMs and I am in love with the big gears like every newbie, so I must be overusing those in climbs instead of gearing down when needed.

Run -
With 2 marathons under my belt this year and another one this coming October, I feel rather confident there, I am definitely enjoying my runs - so far!, but again, I'm not the speediest mouse out there. I am hoping to finish my next marathon somewhere between 4h15-4h30, but today I got a taste of the (Ironman) endurance training medicine, and more precisely, running in zone 2, and it was horribly bitter. I don't know how my coach chose the 139bpm as my zone 2 average, but this better be wrong, it was the most painfully slow, crawling, trying-to-keep-a-running-form-when-I-could-have-walked run ever!! To put it into perspective, today I run 1h at a 8:17min/km pace, 3 full minutes slower than my 5K race pace!! WTF. Even when I started running 3 years ago, I was running faster than this. I know it's normal to feel this way about these runs, but I didn't feel like I was putting in the effort described here: "Starting to work just a little and you can feel your HR rise". This was no workout at all, damn it. Anyway, my coach gave me a Lactate Threshold test to do on Tuesday, so I will come back with my results then, but I think I know where this is going - all over the spectrum. My resting HR is 52 while my max HR is close to 200. When I ran the Paris Marathon I averaged 165bpm, so I was nowhere near my max. I think my zone 2 is rather beween 140bpm and 150bpm, but we shall see.

In the meantime, I found some good links about HR training on Beginnertriathlete.com.
Zone 1 and Zone 2 training explained
Lactate Threshold Heart-Rate Testing Protocol

Enjoy while I torture my brain.