At 3:30 today, it was at least 30oC (close to 40 with the humidex) and the wind was strong (26 to 37km/hr), but I made sure to get on my bike and get in a ride. Ironman is less than a month away and I know that I should be tapering, but I’m not quite ready. Well, maybe I already am, but it’s mostly by accident. There are many things going on with me right now and it is inhibiting my training in a major way. However, I still feel ready for the race and can’t wait for August 26th to come.

The ride today was hot and hard. I did an out-and-back ride on a route that I use often. It has some hills and it has great scenery and is relatively close to my house. Going out I averaged about 19 km/hr, which sounds more brutal than it was. In my mind, I pretended that I was climbing the huge hills that will be part of the Ironman ride. The wind definitely helped with this and I used my granniest granny gear more than once. It felt weird to use it as I hadn’t in so long, but it was good to know that it’s there when I need it. That’s why I keep my small chain ring. The ride was so hot that I drank two bottles of gatorade and one bottle of water. I had a gel before I went, but it wasn’t enough. I’m pretty much obsessed with my glycogen levels while training. It’s probably not necessary to be obsessed, but when I was coming back I felt a pang in my stomach and knew that my glycogen was low. As soon as I got home I had a smoothie with tofu, hemp, frozen strawberries (picked by my own hands), and raspberries from my garden. It was great.

While the ride out was super hard, the ride back was awesome! I was anticipating a great ride back, but this one blew my mind. I got up to 66.7 km/hr on my favorite hill to go down (I actually kind of like going up it too), which is the fastest I’ve ever went on that hill. I could have went faster, but my gears were tapped and my legs were spinning at about 113 rpm. IT WAS AWESOME!!! Such a rush! I was going 34km/hr on the flats and up to 60 km/hr on the smaller hills. It was great, just great. Felt so good.

I even wore my heart-rate monitor today, which I’ve been trying to use more lately. It’s interesting to know where I’m at, but not necessary. I think that I will wear it for Ironman just so that I can keep track of where I’m at.

So in terms of stats, my ride looked like this:
Distance: 42.63 km
Time: 1:46:04
Avg speed: 24.1 km/hr
Max speed: 66.7 km/hr
Average heart rate: 142
Time in zone: 1:44:02

On Friday I went for a 45-minute run in the heat. Basically right now I’m climatizing myself. I am quite afraid of the heat of Penticton and am preparing myself for it to be a hot day and if it’s not, I will be just as happy. It was a good run and I was drenched by the end (not really surprising). I forgot to take my stats from my HR monitor before I went for my bike ride, but I would say that I was in the same area for average HR.

I’ve still be swimming in the outdoor pool Tuesdays and Thursdays and I’m really enjoying it. I think that I’ll keep with it just because it’s so nice to swim outside. Lately I’ve been doing some intervals just so that I can remember what it’s like to push myself with swimming. I think I’m not really pushing myself because I know that during the race it’s just about getting through it. However, it would help the whole race if I felt strong in the swimming, which is why I’m doing the intervals.

My next triathlon is in two weeks and I’m pretty excited for it. This will be my fifth year doing this particular triathlon and it used to be my “A” race. It has an odd bike ride at 63km and a 13km run (usually it’s 40km and 10km, respectively) after the 1.5km swim. I’m not really prepared for such a short race, but it’ll be fun anyway. I don’t really expect to beat my PB that I set last year, but it would be cool to be close. I’ll start to taper next week. That’s kind of the beauty of putting a race 2 weeks before Ironman: it forces me to taper and recover in the weeks that I need to before the BIG one.

So the countdown begins: Ironman is a mere 4 weeks, as in 28 days, away. Bring it on!

I had a rough night last night and my anxiety levels were very high. This morning I woke up feeling like I had just been hit by a bus, not unlike what Michael Rasmussen must be feeling today as he watches his fellow cyclists leave him behind. I watched the Tour de France this morning, but was vibrating the whole time. My heart-rate was elevated even though I was not spinning my legs on the bike, pumping my arms up a hill, or slicing my arms through the water. I am working on a post about my anxiety and its effect on my training… or maybe it’s on my training affecting my anxiety. Either way, they go hand-in-hand these days.

So I took the day off of work and am glad that I did. I did some meditating, some chilling out, I chirped at the birds, and I went swimming. I did 6 x 200m intervals in the water and was worried that I didn’t have a stop watch to see what my time was. Then I had a thought… does time really matter? Does it REALLY matter if I shave off a few seconds off of my 200m time? The reason I do intervals is to be faster for the 4000m swim I have to do in exactly one month. Since I am trying really hard not to have any time goals for Ironman, I really shouldn’t be worried about times at all. I should be focusing on getting in my long rides/runs/swims and doing intervals the rest of the time. It doesn’t matter how long the intervals take me – what is important is that I do them and push myself. Maybe it matters to a pro or even someone trying to win their age category, but it does not matter for me at this time. Realizing this took tons of pressure off of me. So I just pushed through the 200m intervals and tried to get my heart-rate up as much as possible. I tried hard to make my arms feel mushy and pretty much succeeded.

I think I just need to keep realizing what is important and what isn’t. Priorites are important at this point.

Raw veganism has been an idea that has stumped me for a while. Maybe it’s the fact that I love my cooked carbs and figure that it’s enough. However, in the past month I have had a couple of very intense conversations with people about the raw vegan diet. With my anxiety acting up more than ever, I find myself drawn to the simplicity of the raw food/vegan lifestyle. I keep hearing about how great it feels and I can’t help but want to try it.

However, warnings keep sounding in my head about how I would be able to get the 90g of protein per day required for my training. I would have to eat a LOT of nuts and hemp seeds to make that happen. I have been thinking, though, that incorporating raw foods into my diet slowly might work for now as I make my way to Ironman. So I took the liberty at contacting my local bookstore and getting the books ordered. They won’t be here for a couple of weeks, but it’s better on my conscience than ordering it from Amazon.

Raw Food, Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow was recommended to me by my former roommate, Heather, who is trying to be mostly raw and absolutely loves it. I believe her since I’ve heard this numerous times from numerous people. I’ve also been part of a Raw Vegan Community on LiveJournal for almost 2 years now.

The Complete Book of Raw Food is the other book I ordered. I’m excited about having a good base for learning about preparation and that sort of thing.

I also found a great blog called Raw Food, Right Now. These people are very inspiring and committed to the raw food lifestyle.

I like trying things out to see how it works. I’m not sure how it will work as an athlete, but I guess I’ll find out!

I can’t believe it’s been over a week since my last update! There are a number of reasons for this: a 4-day weekend with no real training, the heat may have gone to my head, and the Tour de France is so controversial that I can hardly concentrate on anything at all!

Last Tuesday I did my first lane swim in an outdoor pool. It felt quite fabulous and now I’m trying to make my two swims during the week be in the outdoor pool. It takes a lot of planning to take my swimming gear to work, the pool, to work, and back home again. That is probably my biggest challenge right now: planning. Especially when I’m trying to find a way to carry all of my gear for bike riding AND swimming in one day, all based around work. Whew! It’s tiring!

That being said, I’m growing ever-more confident that I will, indeed, complete my first Ironman. I feel stronger than I ever have before and I’ve been training in the heat to prepare my body for the hell that will be Penticton in August. Running in 35oC heat always causes me to have thoughts like, “I have to stop. I can’t do this.” However, I overcome those thoughts with how it is good training and I can most definitely do this! This mental training is just as important as the physical training that I’m doing.

Last weekend I had a 4-day weekend. There is a wonderful music festival in the boreal forest that feeds my soul with music, food, wonderful people, and lots of dancing. It is the one weekend a year that I leave my running shoes at home. Despite it being an inconvenient time of year, it is very important to me to have this weekend of solace from training. It’s important so that I can continue my training with vigour and passion. That being said, it is also kind of difficult to get back into the swing of training once a lull has occurred. So I am taking it slowly but surely. This weekend I’m planning a 6-hour bike ride with a 1/2 hour run afterwards.

I have also been trying to fit in time to watch the Tour de France and to tend to my garden, both equally important to me. The garden is mostly weeded and I’m feeling better about it. The Tour, however, is a gong show. Doping and controversy hover over the race like a dark cloud and it’s discouraging to watch. Rasmussen, the man in the yellow jersey, has just been kicked out of the race by his team. I imagine that his team found out he has been doping or transfusing his blodd and his team wanted to save their ass. As an athlete and a cyclist, it makes me a bit jaded. I understand that these riders are under a lot of pressure, but it hurts the riders, the sport, and the fans who defend them continuously. Not to mention their sponsors. After so many years of the TdF, will people continue to put up with this bullshit? I am not sure. Every year I watch it as much as I can (although this year has been sparse because of so much training and other stuff going on in my life) and I even get cable just to watch it. Perhaps I won’t do that next year, I’ll just read the cycling news networks to find out who is doping, transfusing, or getting kicked off of his respective team. Or perhaps I’ll be a die-hard and just put up with it. At this point, I have to wonder if anybody in the tour ISN’T doping. Oh well, I’ll just keep watching so much and hope that a something good happens.

As for the rest of my training, it’s all coming along nicely. I’m incorporating more yoga and meditation, which are treating me right. My body feels so good now. I think I could do Ironman right now. It’s a great feeling for sure.

Last week, I committed to myself to get in a good weekend of training hard. So I did that.

On Saturday, I went swimming in the pool. I think people were surprised I was at the indoor pool rather than the outdoor pool, but the outdoor pools here don’t have lane swimming (I think that this is ridiculous and would like to see it change). I didn’t push it too hard because I think I’ve forgotten how to push it while swimming. I’m going to test this theory later this week, but I’m really having a hard time pushing myself to get my heart-rate up while swimming. It may have to do with my anxiety, but I will have to explore that further later. So I did an easy 2100 metres. a 250m warm-up, 3 sets of 500, 100m of kick, and 250m of cool-down. It was refreshing and it felt good. I am going to try to work in some intervals soon, now that I’ve gotten my swimming rhythm back.

Sunday was the big training day, though. I had a long bike followed by a short run planned. I did two laps of my favorite loop that even has some hills. The first lap I was accompanied by a couple of great triathlon people that let me talk almost non-stop about my personal problems. They were extremely supportive and without them there, I’m not sure I would have been able to continue on the second lap. However, I must have warmed up a lot from the first lap because I picked up the pace a bit (about 1.5 km/hr) and ended up with:
Distance: 115.70km
Time: 4:28:52
Max: 37.1 km/hr (on the flat!)
Average speed: 25.8 km/hr

That pace is a great pace for me and didn’t even feel like a race pace. So it was really exciting. My legs just felt really good. Afterwards, I changed into my shoes and put on my hat (it was hot and sunny, not unlike Penticton in August!) and did a nice 35 minute run. I didn’t go very far and it kind of hurt, but bricks are so important in training. It felt good to get out there and run… and it started feeling really good at the end, but I didn’t want to push it.

All-in-all, a great training weekend!

Ok. So I know that ice cream doesn’t really fall into the category of what a vegan triathlete should eat, but sometimes it’s nice to have a treat or reward of some kind. My attention was brought to this homemade vegan ice cream blog by the vegan pictures community on Livejournal. Somebody posted a picture of some mint chocolate chip soy ice cream and it made me so jealous… mint chocolate chip was my favorite type of ice cream when I wasn’t vegan, but I haven’t eaten it since I turned vegan (and probably for a while before that). So here is a recipe for it! Now I really really really want an ice cream maker! I’m sure I could find one at a garage sale or I could ask around for my friends. From what I’ve heard, ice cream makers are one of those items that you buy, use once, and give away/sell. So maybe I could get one without paying large amounts of money for it. If I do make it, I’ll be sure to report back!

Yesterday I went for a grueling long run by the river. It was so hot! It was about 31oC and felt like 36 with the humidity. It was almost unbearable. The first few kms were especially hard. I would run for a few minutes and then stop to walk. I did almost 11km in a little over an hour, which is pretty good for me on an average day, let alone a really hot one. I drank gatorade with my new fuel belt and it worked all right. It wasn’t really ideal to have something jiggling up and down while I was running and I was sweating so much that it was uncomfortable. But once it was done, I had a cool shower and it felt so good and I was glad to have done it. I’ll have to do more training in the heat from now until Ironman. That’s the beauty of doing a race where it is so hot. Here is the map of the run )

Last week was my recovery week from the Half IM and I have to admit that I loved every minute of it! I slept in, went for walks, and biked slowly to work. I went to a concert and I watched movies with my family. It was glorious!

At the same time, I feel even more inspired to continue the building period of my training. So this week has been about getting back into the swing of training. It’s funny how I miss something only when I haven’t done it in a while. I’ve also changed my schedule to include yoga 2-3 times a week in the morning. This will work because I should be running when it’s hot out later in the day. I’m a big believer in training how one races and the run is never the first event.

So on Monday morning I did yoga, but my most favorite DVD will not work anymore! So I was thinking that I might start going out to the back deck to get in my sun salutations. Tuesday morning I went for a run, after skipping my Monday night workout due to family and home stuff. Then last night I went for a stellar bike ride! I held a 25.5 km/hr pace for almost 2 hours. It was a great ride… one of those perfect rides where the sun was out, the wind was low, and my legs were responding the way that I like. In fact, I don’t think my legs have really responded to me that way all season… this is my favorite part of training! Feeling the power build and the blood rush, and all the endorphins flow through my body and I feel free from everything, like I could fly! So good.

So today is my day off. I was going to go swimming tonight, but after last night’s workout I think it’s best to give my legs a break. But it’s back to the grind on Thursday with a swim of intervals in the morning and a mountain bike ride with my beloved women’s ride. Friday morning is yoga time and I might go for a bike ride at lunch time. Saturday I’m going to do a long-ish run and Sunday I’m going to do a 4-hour bike ride with a short run for the brick workout. I’m excited for a weekend at home!

Breakfast of Champions!

Crystal and Luke’s oatmeal:
1 c. oats (cooked in 2 cups water)
add 1 cut up apple and some almonds near the end of cooking
sprinkle 1-2 Tbsp. of hemp seeds
sprinkle 1-2 Tbsp. of ground flax
add some soy milk

so tasty, so healthy, so filling, and so great!

Two weeks ago, I realized that I hadn’t followed up on ensuring that I would be able to eat at the Carbo-loading supper for the Half Iron(wo)man I was doing on the July long-weekend. So I emailed the race director and he gave me the number for the caterers. I called them and left a message saying that I was vegan and needed to be accommodated (I think I also mentioned something about the supper being worth $25, which is what my partner was paying). The race director then called me to tell me that they would accommodate me, but it seemed begrudging. It didn’t seem like he REALLY wanted to accommodate me and told me that I was the only person that had requested such a meal. I told him that I knew of at least one other vegan that was coming and that just because no one had talked to him about it, didn’t mean that vegans weren’t coming but that they weren’t eating the food! I suggested that he make an option on the online sign-up for a veg*n meal or meat. He didn’t seem very receptive to this, but I think that I will follow-up on this because I have seen it done at other races and can’t see why it would be a problem.

At one of the suppers, the chef (I got to meet him personally and he called me “the vegan”) told me that they don’t advertise the veg*n option. I still don’t know why they don’t. He prepared a stuffed pepper, which was pretty good. I know that I could have done it better, but it was pretty good. Better than nothing! They only prepared 6 veg*n meals for over 700 participants! I don’t know the stats on veg*n triathletes, but it seemed pretty disproportional considering that triathletes are generally health-conscious people.

At the end of the Half IM, I said to the race director after he gave me my finishers medal that vegans can finish too. He laughed, gave me a big hug, and said, “Of course they can!” It was a nice ending to the saga of the food at the Great White North Triathlon.