Swim Workout: Thursday 300s

I did this swim workout 2 weeks ago, and I thought it might be worth sharing. The general idea (especially the main set) is from Gale Bernhardt’s Training Plans for Multisport Athletes. The idea is a time trial test to determine race pace and other paces that are needed for tempo-type work etc.

Warm-up for 300m
Do 300m of power work with hand paddles
Do 3 intervals of 300m. Try to finish each of these with completion times that are within 15 seconds of each other. Effort should be hard, but not so hard that you’re blown up in the third set and the times are inconsistent. Rest 30s to 1 min between intervals
Do 3 sprint intervals of 50m. Rest 30s to 1 min between intervals
Cool-down for 150m

Total distance: 1800m

If you average the time of your main set 300m intervals and divide by 3, you get a benchmark time for 100m. Slower than this for aerobic work, faster for speed work…

Looking at the stats from my test 2 weeks ago, it seems my Garmin 910XT and I don’t agree on interval lengths. If I look at the average 100m pace for Intervals 3, 4, 5 (the main set), rather than the total times of the intervals, we see I’m not quite consistent enough; the times vary by almost a minute, when the paces should vary by about 5 seconds or less (5 seconds=15 seconds/3).

Oh well, I’ll be doing this time trial several times during the 27 week training plan, which starts soon enough…

July 31, 2014November 27, 2016

This Summer’s “Training” “Schedule”

It’s been a bit of a rough summer so far. In the Holding Your Ground post, I talked about how I wasn’t going to be breaking new ground in terms of distance or performance this year, and the way things are shaking out, I don’t think I’m going to do any triathlons this year. I had thoughts of doing Bracebridge again, or maybe dropping down to the Sprint level, but I think I know I’d be pretty much limping through it, and needing the better part of a week to recover. The concept of merely doing the race for fun and simply enjoying completing it appeals to me, but I know I’d be cursing how slow I am and everything that woulda/shoulda/coulda (Shel Silverstein shout-out!) happened this season with every stroke, revolution and step.

Immediately after getting back from Germany, I underwent a vasectomy. The snip. I’m thinking of devoting a post to it in case anyone was considering it and wondering about effects and impacts (don’t worry, there wouldn’t be any pictures), but for now, I’ll just leave it at the fact that I was unable to exercise (or even pick up the kids) for a week after a less-than-completely active vacation just as the summer was getting started. A summer that follows a brutal winter, where getting/keeping a good base was very unlikely. It also meant missing out on Band On The Run (at least the racing part, but the music festival/live concert was a lot of fun); I don’t think I’m going to post about it since it’s so long ago and I didn’t run it myself, but it’s a must-have for next year; family friendly, lots of fun.

So here we are, without racing goals, without a formal training program, with a weak training base and the summer has been rather rainy, if you ask me. Rain and storms has meant cancelling rides and open water swims at the cottage where I spend most weekends.

Still, I’m not writing this to describe what hasn’t happened, I’m here to celebrate what has been happening. For one thing, like they say in the movie The Crow, it can’t rain all the time, so the cottage has been good for open water swims. Unfortunately, due to some weird Garmin firmware crash (that my Forerunner 910XT has fortunately has recovered from) I don’t have any data to show you for it… the Garmin ate everything from June 23rd till sometime in Mid-July. I can tell you that I did the first one sans wet-suit.

That decision to swim without it was a good one, I got 1.4 km of swimming done in 33 minutes which made me feel good about where my technique, body positioning and endurance were at. I had a couple of other swims, one of which was in very windy and rough conditions and was really unpleasant, but at least it would toughen me up for adverse conditions, right?

We’ve taken the kids kayaking a couple of times too. The first time was about 1km, the second we got up to two. They’re pretty good about patiently sitting still, to the point where our arm endurance is a bigger limiter than their fidgetiness (I just made that word up).

The other thing the cottage has been good for is using my mountain bike. Rather than cart my tri-bike back and forth from the city, I just try and get out on the mountain bike, which I’m treating as part cycling training, part cross-training. The first time I looked for a trail in the area I encountered a massive mud puddle which a little too much for this novice mountain biker…. but when I hit the same trail the week after, it was dry enough to ride through and I got a little further.

Whenever I hit some challenging terrain (which, for me, is just about anything more than a dirt road) I giggle and hoot. I bet I sound like Daffy Duck out there.

Back at home, the Lightning Kid’s sleeping schedule has returned back to its horrible default condition. He’s less accepting of me as means to get back to sleep, but the good news is that when I’m industrious and organized, I prearrange my running gear so I can get up, grab it, change quickly in his room, and take him out running before he can wake anybody else.

It’s been a great opportunity to play with fasted cardio, since I don’t take any fuel before I go (though it’s super important to hydrate before and during, because I wake up as dry as a bone). I’m pushing the Chariot and taking it easy and just trying to kill 30-60 minutes so that the rest of the house can sleep. I don’t push the pace, and I’m just happy to be moving, and even then, I find myself tempted to stop running or turn around early. I’m training my body to recruit more of my fat stores, and training my mind to keep going even though I’m tired which is key for triathlon.

I wasn’t sure how much he was enjoying it, and in fact, when he starts asking for ‘Mama’ I know it’s time to get home quick, but I was surprised at how quickly he’s come to expect it: I got up early with him on Tuesday, and since I didn’t have my gear out and ready (and I was pretty groggy), I didn’t take him out. He grabbed my running shoes and though I took him out on the porch for a few minutes when he asked to go outside (not for long, because it was surprisingly cold and we were just in pyjamas), he threw a tantrum when he found we were going back inside. Sometimes when we’re out on the run if he starts to fuss I give him my water bottle to drink from. He hardly ever drinks from it, but he does play with it a little. The funny part is when he starts calling me to take it back; he’s like a little coach reminding me to hydrate.

So, though I haven’t exactly been lighting the world on fire, I’ve had some fun and that’s what summer’s all about… and it’s half over!

How has your summer been so far?

July 12, 2014November 27, 2016

Snapshots From Germany

In my on-going game of blog post catch-up, I would like to engage in the (probably pointless) exercise of telling you, dear reader, about our annual family trip to Germany. Last time I kept a detailed journal, not so much this time, so I’ll wrap it up in a single post, with just the broad strokes. With Germany in the World Cup final, I’m sure you’re all eager for a little taste of the Fatherland, right?

Travelling with small children is indeed exhausting, especially the flights, but I have to say, my boys are actually pretty good, all things considered and they get compliments from airline staff and other passengers. They’ve both been on planes since they were 6 months old, and while the Lightning Kid still doesn’t get the need to stay seated, they show their veteran flyer status in their general behaviour.

Due to the German holiday calendar this year, we weren’t able to spend as much time with my brother’s family, and we ended up heading to the Berlin area shortly after landing. Germany gave us some great weather this year, though it was late May, it felt like a full-on summer (meanwhile, back in Canada, the climate was still shaking off the Polar Vortex).

This gave us an opportunity to swim in the Havel river a bunch including off a boat! Shark Boy really improved his swimming and it ended up paying off a few weeks later at TriKids Burlington. I even got my own open water swimming training session, and though it didn’t feel great in terms of technique, performance or accomplishment, this is the first year I’ve gotten one done while on vacation though that river has been there the whole time, so I feel proud of it.

This boat was docked nearby, and it gave me a daydream about living on it, and having constant access to open water, living a nomadic, triathlon lifestyle a little like Team Wuertele. Having a cottage is pretty good too, though.

We don’t do much sight-seeing while there and prefer to be homebodies… it’s quite cozy. Apparently some ducks thought so too – but nobody told them that ducks aren’t roof birds…

The other big physical activity we did as a family was a bike ride; Shark Boy rode at 10 km on his own, and now that the Lightning Kid is a little bigger, he can ride longer in the rear seat – he is also carrying on his brother’s tradition of reaching forward to try and give me a wedgie.

While we didn’t sightsee, we did have to find ways to keep the kids entertained, and we looked into a couple of amusement park and play centres as we’ve come across them over the years. Lots of jumping and climbing for both boys, and it’s great to see the Lightning Kid really rock his gross motor skill development.

After Berlin, we did finally get a chance to spend time with my brother and his family, and what we didn’t have in quantity of time, we made up for in quality. Seeing the cousins play and bond really reinforces the feeling that family is something to be treasured. We took a nice hike up one of the Taunus mountains.

I also got a nice run in with my brother.

Like any vacation, it was over too quickly and now seems so long ago.

April 8, 2014November 27, 2016

Our Family Trip To Grand Palladium Mayan Riviera

We’re big on travel in our family, and we want to give our kids great, diverse experiences, even from a young age, even though travelling with young ones can be very stressful. So far, we’ve been going South in even-numbered years (it was Turks & Caicos for 2012) and ski vacations in odd years (Mt. Ste. Anne for 2011 and 2013). I’m glad this year wasn’t a ski year, because after the Polar Vortex(es) of this winter, I couldn’t take more cold and really needed some sun and warmth. We all did.

The Beaches resort in Turks and Caicos really spoiled us in terms of what was possible for an all inclusive with child care, but it was too expensive to repeat this year. My wife did some great research and we booked a Sunwing holiday through Corinne at Have Baby Will Travel. We were going to the Grand Palladium in the Mayan Riviera, Mexico. I’d been looking forward to it for a while but as the days before the trip trickled down to single digits, I got worried. I’d had bad experiences with charter airlines in the past, getting tripped up on baggage weight restrictions and being crammed (me=5’11.5”) into small seats. I’ve got to say, though, combined with our using their online check-in, Sunwing made it really fast and efficient, which is very important, because I find it hardest to manage the kids when standing in line. Having got through baggage drop-off and security quickly, we had time to kill before boarding but I find the gate area a lot better space for managing kids, the Lightning Kid’s disagreement with an escalator about direction of travel notwithstanding.

The flight went well too; the kids are too energetic to be easy on the plane, but they’re experienced enough flyers that they weather most of the challenges well. We were warned of keeping track of our immigration papers on the flight, and briefed about the customs procedure (where you push a button to determine whether you’re going to have your luggage searched) by the flight crew. Exiting the terminal, we bought snacks for the long bus ride to the resort – 15USD for a beer, a water and a can of Pringles. Ouch. The kids slept a little on the bus ride, which made things a little easier.

Grand Palladium in the Mayan Riviera is a resort with 4 different lobbies: Riviera, White Sands, Kantenah and Colonial. We were booked in the latter, which I liked, because as far as I could tell from the map, it was closest to one of the biggest pools, the kids water park, the beach, and definitely closest to the “Mini-Club” (child care). The Colonial lobby is next to a Flamingo lagoon, which made a strong first impression for our arrival.

Our room was ready with a crib, and the couch had been pulled out and made with sheets, so both kids would have a place to sleep. We’ve struggled with this in other hotels – we’ll request a crib, be assured that one will be there, and come up empty when we check in.

Once we were ready to explore, we found we had a neighbour: a rather large iguana; I asked Shark Boy to give him a name and he picked “Max”. At first we were astounded not only by how tame he seemed, but how nobody else seemed to notice him (or us staring at him). It turns out, these things are everywhere on the resort, and if you’re grossed out by lizards, I have to tell you that there was a startling absence of bugs, and maybe that’s a coincidence, and maybe it isn’t. The entire resort is peppered with mangroves, which not only protect the landscape from erosion and give the local fauna a place to live (while making little visits to the inhabited sections of the resort) but also provide extra shade. As a melanoma survivor, it’s not always easy to enjoy sunny destinations and the shade provided by the mangroves as well as some sheltered paths was really welcome.

Cooling off became our first priority. We found the big pool (or one of them) and started in the shallow end. Shark Boy has gotten the hang of swimming (thanks to his grandfather) and he splashed around in the water as comfortably as his namesake. We didn’t really get to sample the rest of the pool much; in spite of an on-site daycare, we spent most of the time with the kids… more on this in a bit. I would have liked to use it to swim a few lengths in the mornings before things got busy, or spend some time at the pool-side bar, but I was able to fetch drinks from it once or twice.

After the pool, we showed the kids the new water park. I took the Lightning Kid with me on a water slide and was chided by the life-guard who directed me to the rules board… where we couldn’t find what rule I had broken. Finally he pointed out “Always obey the life-guard” which would have to do. No big slides for the Lightning Kid, and he was hesitant on the smaller ones, but fun in the water is still a favourite for both kids.

The other thing that had made me apprehensive before the trip besides the flights was that we’d all be in the same room. The Lightning Kid was waking up 2-3 times a night still, I snore, and Shark Boy sometimes gets nightmares if he’d overtired or overstimulated (both of which were likely while on vacation), so I thought we’d all end up waking each other up and come back from vacation less rested than when we left. That couldn’t have been further from what actually happened. The kids were so tuckered out from walking and swimming in the sun that both nap-time and night-times were a breeze to get them down and keep them down. It’s almost upsetting to me, because we strive to keep them active and outdoors every day, but the Canadian suburbs simply can’t compete with living by the beach in Mexico. As for me, I think the sea air helped my sinuses or something, because snoring was lessened.

Speaking of the beach and sea, I think this was the best part of every day we spent there. Shark Boy could really show his stuff (and make his parents’ teeth sweat) being thrown around in the surf, and the Lightning Kid loved running into the water repeatedly after a (mispronounced) “1-2-3-GO!”, not to mention running up to people on beach chairs and socializing. I’m really happy that the boys were able to get so much out of being on the ocean.

The resort had activities that I would have liked to try including kayaks, catamarans and stand-up paddle boarding at the beach, not to mention archery on their sports field. It was for this kind of thing and the potential for date dinners/lunches that the ‘Mini-Club’ (for Shark Boy, age 4) and ‘Baby-Club’ (for the Lightning Kid aged 2) were supposed to come in handy. I think the Mini-Club would have been fine (especially once Shark Boy’s initial resistance was overcome and we got into a routine) for longer stays since they would take them to the water park or beach. The Baby Club, however, gave us a walky-talky to reach us at a moment’s notice (which you want in a way, just in case), but apparently had very limited range, as they specified we couldn’t go further than the beach or pool area. This, combined with picking the kids up at lunch time made for limited opportunities. More than anything else, we used our kid free time to research what on-site restaurants to try and other logistical details. I did manage to fit in one scuba dive, though. The dive shop was right at the beach and the dive site was only 5 minutes by boat, so I managed a single tank dive in something under 90 minutes; perfect when you have kids to get back to. The weather had been kind of windy all week, so visibility was not so great and we didn’t manage to spot any big ticket items like sharks or turtles, but I did see some lionfish, pufferfish and a seahorse (not pictured).

The resort had both buffet-style and a la carte restaurants. I was surprised by how good the quality at the buffets (La Hacienda, Tikal and Grand Azul) were with plenty of healthy things like fruits and smoothies, local dishes like antojitos, international cuisine including paella and run of the mill stuff like chicken fingers for the kids. By contrast, the a la carte places didn’t seem as good, with the Italian place (Portofino) being the biggest disappointment (slow service, bland food), the Japanese being mediocre (interesting Mexican twists on the sushi, but not high quality fish, I think). The Mexican a la carte (Adelita), on the other hand, was mouth wateringly good, and we had a nice, if rushed due to Baby-Club hours, date night dinner.

While we did get around the resort mostly on foot, there was the opportunity to take little trains (on wheels, not tracks) from one lobby to another and the boys got a kick out of the ride. Shark Boy and I used this to attend a ‘Surf Party’ with animal mascots (known as Raggs and Friends – side note: Raggs has a friend who is differently abled – hooray for inclusion!) run by the Kids’ Club staff. There were plenty of evening entertainment options for the kids (if they weren’t too tired from the days activities) including a Pinata party one night too.

Surf Party

Pinata Party

I have to confess that there were times I wish we had taken a holiday without the kids; the funny thing is that now I have trouble remembering the specifics of what made it so difficult. I guess it just got frustrating trying to take the kids to places like the pool and the beach while they actively worked against making it easier to do so (e.g. resisting getting dressed), even though the destination was where they wanted to be. What I do remember, is all the smiles and fun we had. Grand Palladium not only gave us a taste of sun and sea (as a family), but a good sampling of both Mexican cuisine and the local ecology too.

An Agouti

The resort has a crocodile lagoon in addition to the flamingo lagoons

Coati and raccoons were occasionally visible around the resort. We saw a monkey once too.

November 20, 2013

Watch Me Swim!

One of the things I’ve been itching to do since I have a waterproof (and idiot-proof) camera is get some underwater video of my swim stroke. I managed to do this a couple of weeks ago, but it’s taken until now to get this thing uploaded and edited.

Compared to the other two disciplines, my swim is strong, but that doesn’t make me a coach or expert of any kind, but I figured I could eyeball my form and evaluate it on a few key measures that I know (or at least, I believe) to be important. My information is partly from ‘Swim Bike Run’ by Hobson, Campbell and Vickers and the rest from informal chats both on-line and in real life with other triathletes. Key concepts are:

Hand Entry – ‘Always enter your hand into the water in a line directly in front of your shoulder… A common mistake among triathletes is “cross-over,” which occurs when the hand is place inside the shoulder line usually in line with the head.’ There’s an interesting parallel with running there, because your hands shouldn’t cross the mid-line of your body then either; it’s all wasted energy.
Catch – Once the hand is in the water, you actually complete the extension and reach the rest of the way forward underwater.
Body Roll – ‘… once the arm pull is ready to begin, your body has rolled to that side or your hips are facing away from your hand.’ Body roll is key to getting core muscle power involved in your stroke, but I confess I’ve gotten mixed messages on how much is enough. Swim Bike Run seems to indicate the whole body, while others seem to be saying that it should be mostly torso, with everything below the waist being more neutral in the water, which would result in a bit of a ‘twist’ motion. That’s the ideal I thought I was working toward, but the video might reveal otherwise….

Whether or not my roll below the hips is excessive or not, the asymmetry is a problem. Watching the video gives me some things to think about the next time I’m in the pool, and it’s cheaper than a coach.

July 23, 2013November 27, 2016

Midweek Motivation: Seek The Hard

I wanted to get this post out for Monday as in “Motivational Monday”, but instead I’ll steal from Kovas at Midwest Multisport Life and do “Midweek Motivation”.

I was riding along during the bike leg of the Muskoka 5150. I was somewhere around the halfway mark and had some of those nasty hills behind me, and I found myself cruising along and thinking to myself: ”This is nice…”

Then it hit me. I found it “nice”, because it was easy (there might have been a slight decline) and this was a race, I shouldn’t find it easy, and I couldn’t afford to savour it or draw this out. The easy, downhill or even flat parts should be over as quickly as possible, and I needed to get to the next uphill climb – I needed to Seek The Hard (part).

On that day, I tried to blast through the easy parts and get to where I was really working; on that course, in that weather, it wasn’t hard to find.

Seeking the hard in training is just as important – that’s how you get the most out of the time spent, and make yourself ready for any hard parts you face in training.

This last week, I sought the hard in my training.

On Sunday, I tried this WOD from AllAroundJoe, which combines swim intervals, burpees and sit-ups.

I completed the 5 rounds of 200m swim, 10 burpees, 10 sit-ups in 25 minutes flat, then did the 800m swim (after stopping to put on my wet-suit... doing burpees in a wet-suit on a hot summer day isn’t ‘hard’… it’s stupid… important to know the difference).

On Tuesday, I did a modified bike #WorkoutHack with less hill repeats due to the crazy heat and humidity. Check this out:

On Wednesday I tried our corporate gym’s ‘Tabata’ class. A warm-up, then 6 different Tabatas (most involved altenating whole body exercises on the 20 second work intervals). It was… intense, to say the least.

Friday was another hot day, and my weapon of choice was a Burbathlon. I’m hoping training in the heat gets my body acclimatized to it should the weather be as punishing on race day. I used this article to shape the kinds of strength work I’m trying to build into my Burbathlon workouts.

Fitness bloggers love to discuss what their mantra is; what do they repeat to themselves to keep digging deep and find the strength to keep going when they simply don’t want to anymore? Seek The Hard… I may have found mine.

What’s Yours?

July 17, 2013November 27, 2016

How To Put On A Wetsuit

I’ve had two wet-suits and they are both with sleeves. Though I won the second one (which I still use), I still advocate sleeved wet-suits over sleeveless (Farmer John types). I guess if you’re going to need a wet-suit you might as well get full buoyancy and insulation; I’d hate to go through the bother and expense and still be sitting in the water thinking: “My arms are cold.”

I’m sure the argument for more arm freedom can be made; all I’m saying is that this advice is intended for wet-suits with sleeves (though I bet a lot of it can still apply).

N.B. Always handle your wet-suit with short, trimmed fingernails. Piercing and scratching the outer layer of the wet-suit will hamper its effectiveness in the water and ultimately limit its useful lifespan.

The basic guiding principle is that higher is better. As you’re pulling the suit up your legs, keep hiking it higher. If the bottom cuffs end up too high on your mid-shin, you’ll still have an easier time getting them back down again once you have enough slack left for you shoulders.

Grab a bunch of your wet-suit and keep pulling it upward.

Hike it up!

Keep doing this as you get the suit on past your waist, right up your upper body. You’re moving any slack in the suit right up to your shoulders – that’s where you’ll need it. When you maximize the slack around your shoulders, you guarantee maximum mobility for when you’re doing your freestyle stroke.

Higher still!

I confess it takes patience to get things just right; if you have a friend/loved one/tri-groupie to help you, it can make it a lot easier.

Once you’ve got the suit all the way up, use the little tether (hopefully no-one has cut it off while trying to be helpful – long story), to pull the zipper closed. You may have to lie some flaps down to get the thing zipped; this is another part where being patient and getting it just right can save you chafing and frustration during the swim. We all want to be our best in open water and if you’re calm and comfortable it’s one less worry during the swim.

I usually put some Body Glide on my neck just in case, though!

Any other wet-suit tips you might know of?

June 30, 2013November 27, 2016

The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Part 1

Telling the whole wide world you’re going out of the country is not really wise – so though I wanted to blog about this trip to Germany as it happened, I needed to save up the posts until we got back.

This afforded me a unique opportunity to treat it more like an old fashioned journal. I’d write up the days experiences for later reading in a notebook – old school paper and pen!

The first thing on my packing list is running shoes. I’m hoping it’s going to be that sort of vacation. I’ve had similar ideas in the past and though these trips aren’t exactly sedentary, I usually only get sporadic runs in. The kids kill the plans, to be frank – they don’t sleep, they get sick, they get us sick and I’m too exhausted to train and it’s not fair to make my wife take them both when she’s just as tire, if not more so. It’s her vacation too.

DAY 1:

There was a a good deal of me that was afraid of this trip – the exhaustion and disappointment have detracted from the journey the last two times. Still I looked forward to visiting my brother and his family near Frankfurt and my Father-in-Law and his wife in Berlin and being on vacation beats digging ditches. The one thing that scared me more than anything was THE FLIGHT: 8 hours overseas with a 3 year-old and an 18 month-old. When Shark Boy was 18 months old we made the same trip and 3 adults weren’t enough to control him on the plane and now it was the Lightning Kid’s turn and there would be two of us, still with Shark Boy to contend with.

It’s been my experience that airlines don’t do that much to help the parents of small children. I don’t want special treatment per se, but I figure you can’t expect toddlers and babies to be reasonable so making them comfortable ends up helping make everybody more comfortable. We had two things in our favour this time compared to previous trips:

A direct flight
Lufthansa as an airline

We’ve had problems booking seats together on other airlines (KLM and British Airways to name and shame) and/or getting the bassinet row (up against the bulkhead – the airline gave them to tall passengers instead) but Lufthansa did both by default before I was able to do our online check-in. That was nice, but common sense is still not that common; the period when a man is rocking a baby to sleep might not be the time to ask him about menu choices in a loud voice, Ms. Flight Attendant! We basically pulled an all-nighter and the kids didn’t sleep enough but they kept their misbehaving (especially loud screaming/crying) to a minimum.

Between being up all night and jet lag, the first Saturday was basically a write-off for accommodating fatigue and allowing recovery. The only activity I can claim is lugging suitcases and chasing children… but our rewards were a filled-zucchini, wheat-beer, and plenty of chocolate.

The Zucchini was for lunch, traditionally the warm meal, whereas dinner is lighter.

DAY 2:

Between a nasty cough and jet lag the Lightning Kid gave us a rough night but thankfully Shark Boy adapted to the environment of his cousins’ bedroom with ease. Seeing the cousins (ours 3½ and 1½, theirs 4 and 2) get along and play together is one of the biggest appeals of this trip – better than the beer and chocolate even!

After taking the kids to a playground and lunch, my brother and I were able to go for a run. I remember grabbing my heart rate monitor strap while packing, but I couldn’t find it in my suitcase (flashforward: it was found in a box of diapers when we got home) – luckily I still had the Garmin watch unit to track and quantify the run. My brother led the way – luckily he let me know it would be a lot of climbing early on, so that three-quarters of the time would be spent on half the distance – otherwise I’d have thrown in the towel early. We got 10km done in just under an hour – pretty good considering the hills.

In the afternoon we made an outing to downtown Bad Homburg for ice cream – running and spaghetti ice cream were the two things I wanted to have regularly on vacation – things were off to a decent start!

I didn’t do any food photography or else I’d offer you a better view of Spaghetti Ice Cream. Note the Lightning Kid’s smeared face and trademark electrified hair.

DAY 3:

On Monday the weather was terrible and fatigue levels were high so we didn’t get up to much besides visiting my brother’s sister and brother-in-law (does that make them my in-laws squared?). It gave the kids a change of scenery and a chance to play with other kids (though I suspect the novelty of different toys is the real draw for them) and the adults got to partake in the German tradition of coffee and cake (though maybe I should have tried harder to emphasize more of the former and less of the latter.

DAY 4:

With the long weeknd over we had a prime opportunity to take the kids to a local pool. We took Shark Boy and his younger cousin and kept the Lightning Kid at home due to his lingering cough and a possible ear infection.

Community pools in Germany are like shopping malls with different size pools instead of stores – warm pools for kids, lap-swimming pools, outdoor pools, water slides, wading pools, whirlpools (do I sound like Bubba from Forrest Gump yet?)… enough to rival some full-on water parks in North America. It’s frustrating to think how often pools back home struggle to survive city budget cuts when they would have a fraction of the operating costs they do in Germany. It seems like the culture embraces physical activity and being in the water more somehow – which doesn’t make me feel any better about the situation back home.

The good news is that Shark Boy had a blast – his favourite was the smallest slide, though he was willing to do the biggest one with me – a long, dark twisting tunnel with lights that flashed on and off – he politely declined a second go round. Non-swimmer kids were required to wear water wings – these gave him some extra confidence to be at arms length from me; in fact, by the time I gave him a flutter board, he was using his flutter kick to swim clear away from me and I had to chase after him. Though it was heavily assisted – it was the first time he moved himself through the water independently and I considered it a milestone to be proud of.

TO BE CONTINUED! STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!

May 3, 2013November 27, 2016

Felicitous Friday: Week in Review

Another week has gone by with enough interesting developments to merit a recap post!

On Tuesday I did a new record for longest swim workout using the ‘Ladder’ workout from Meals And Miles’ Swim Workouts Compilation. That was before breakfast, and I made it to a Gravity Machine class for lunch. If I had one more workout/form of exercise, I could have called it another Trifecta Tuesday, but since I didn’t, we’ll call it a #FAIL 😉
Those two workouts made me a little sore for Wednesday, but it was some of the nicest weather we’d had all year, so wild horses weren’t going to keep me from doing a Burbathlon! I wasn’t too intense on upper body strength exercises, but I did fit in lunges with a park swing, box jumps on a bench, push-ups, step-ups on a stump, balance beam on a few logs, as well as jumping and (simple-)vaulting some logs and a baseball diamond fence.

It starts with a hill and a path into the woods….

The Big Hill to Climb

Dips in the trail…

This pic was taken in a colder season… but you can see the lunge with a swing.
That all left me too sore on Thursday to do my planned workouts, so recovery it was… especially since I neglected to wear compression or foam-roll the night before.
Friday is a day of excitement. I tried out a bike workout hack that I’ve had rolling around in my head for a while, but you’ll have to wait to see it.. The rest of the weekend is jam-packed with activities and get togethers including initial planning this year’s Levac Attack and a Fitfluential Tweet-Up (or whatever we call get-togethers of online friends) to welcome Pavement Runner to Toronto, where he’ll be doing the Goodlife Toronto Marathon.

How was your week? Is your weekend full of fitness and excitement?

April 24, 2013

Swim Workout Hack: Swim with 100 Pushups

Introduction

I started doing Burbathlon as a way to cheat on time, and hybridize two workouts: strength training and running. The end result has a cardiovascular profile similar to interval work, yet I get a better variety of muscular challenges than I’d get from either the gym or the trail alone. I thought about extending the concept to other triathlon disciplines: thus was born the #WorkoutHack.

Swim Workout Hack

I’ve been using the 100 Push-ups app for Android lately, and I’ve been a lot more consistent about getting the workouts in 3 times a week than when I first wrote about 100 Push-ups. This past Tuesday, I was running really late and the situation was made worse by the fact that I (temporarily thankfully) lost my wallet. By the time I got to the pool, I knew a full length workout wasn’t in the cards. That was OK, because the idea of doing a more high-intensity interval type workout had been kicking around in my brain for a while. These kinds of workouts are all the range, since they promise great caloric burn and metabolic boosting in little time, as long as you’re willing to put up with some painful intensity. Before I describe the intervals part, let me just fill you in on how I worked up to it:

250m warm-up

100m set concentrating on good form especially on the follow-through of my stroke.

100m fist swim; swim with fists closed, the idea being that after doing this, you get a better ‘feel’ for the water.

100m with open hands again – the ‘follow-up’

The idea was that I would then do my 100 push-ups workout for the day. These workouts give you a set of prescribed push-ups reps to do, then either a 60 or 90 second rest, depending on what part of the program you are in. I wanted to swim an interval during the rest period; if they gave me 60 seconds, I’d do 50m, if they gave me 90 seconds I’d try for 100m – which is a little fast for me.

On Sunday, I had performed the ‘exhaustion test’ for the end of Week 4: you simply perform as many consecutive push-ups as you can. The test should be performed within 48 hours of the last workout of the week, yet still rested from that workout. I scored 42 push-ups. Which, for Week 5, Day 1, put me here:

Set	Reps	Rest
1	36	60 seconds
2	40	60 seconds
3	30	60 seconds
4	24	60 seconds
5	>40	60 seconds

That was… a little tough for me. What’s worse, is that I had also been playing around with swimming unfueled; I don’t eat breakfast before my swims. The idea is exercise in a carbohydrate-depleted state might increase the capacity of the muscle cells to burn fuels aerobically. I only do this on my swims, and so far it’s been OK as long as I eat right after the workout (and a bit of a time saver in the mornings). It was not a good idea on this day however, and I ended up doing this:

Set	Reps	Rest
1	30	50m swim
2	23	50m swim
3	20	50m swim
4	19	50m swim
5	16	50m swim

That’s still 108 push-ups, so I’m not ashamed, but my advice to you if you try it (or to myself for future attempts):

Pick a workout that you think you can do, don’t try this when you’re at a new horizon in the program
Fuel beforehand.

That`s about a 30 minute, 750m workout that left me tired (the warm-up was omitted from my Garmin tracking by mistake). Workouts where you are tired (but still going) are the bread and butter of the triathlete`s regimen, after all.