2014 CANADIAN DEATH RACE

 

Finally after 5 Ironman, 6 Half Ironman, countless triathlons (my first in 1987) 20+ Marathons, Countless Half Marathons and Road Races, 2 Ultras, 50 for 50, 51 for 51, a handful of adventure and bike races, shoulder surgery x 2 and a pesky heart scare, I put the money down for the Canadian Death Race today....125k, 3 summits, 18 weeks away....did Leg 1 a couple of years ago no problem....how hard can 4 more be??? 

 

Well its going to be tough for sure.....I have always loved running uphill and this will be a huge challenge. Death Race is one of the worlds toughest adventure races. The 125 km course passes over three mountain summits and includes 17,000 feet of elevation change and a major river crossing at the spectacular Hell's Gate canyon at the confluence of the Smokey and Sulphur Rivers. 

 

Training got underway this week. The base of the program is long runs on both Saturday and Sunday starting with 2 and 2 1/2 hour runs this weekend building to up to 6 and 8 hour weekend runs! including 3 more weekday runs of 1 to 2 hours.....but no running Monday and Friday (recovery and rest for the weekend!).....weight training, stretching, yoga and massage. There is a couple of training camps in Grande Cache that allow you to run most of the legs over the weekend and get some training and logistical tips from some Death Race veterans. I will attend just one because the other one falls on the same weekend as the Calgary Marathon....which I will be running on June 1st!

 

Go Death Racer!!

Trying out some new gear in this photo from this morning. The Ultimate Direction PB Adventure Vest 2.0 Hydration System is a must have for the race. You can carry 2 water bottles, a bladder if you need it.....and lots of compartments for gels, bars, headlamps, poles, pizza, beer.....whatever you want. My first run with it was good. It stays close to you and very little movement and stays secure. This will be part of all my long runs from now on ! Retail price is 150.00 but if you tell Lisa at Run Walk and More that she looks nice....I'm sure you can get a discount!

 





 



Spring has arrived!




After a long winter of riding the indoor trainer, running on the treadmill or through knee deep snow, the past couple of weeks have cleared enough to get out in the great outdoors! Training has been going pretty good as Joe Friel is coaching me to "Your Best Triathlon". Joe is one of the worlds BEST tri coaches and since I dont presently have the resources to actually hire him, which can be a couple of grand a month, I have read all his books and am following his program. It is helping me to get deep into the how's and why's and science of triathlon training and it puts another dimension into the whole experience....this will be a BIG YEAR!!

Snow

And lots of it have put somewhat of temporary change of direction to my training plan for this month. It has been extremely busy at work the past 2 weeks and training has been spotty with no pool time and runs on the treadmill at work, some weights/yoga and a Crossfit class yesterday....more about that later.
Snow removal in Grande Prairie takes a lot of labor/equipment and is a time consuming process....its like GP is one big parking lot! We don't "plow" our residential areas as they do "back east". We blade the ice/snow to the pavement, work it into a long pile (windrow) of snow, move that pile to the side of the road, usually the side without a sidewalk, and then push the windrow off the road being careful not to leave it in peoples driveways, not damage trees, fences, ornaments, electrical boxes, light standards, fire hydrants, for sale signs, garbage bins, parked vehicles, little kids etc. etc. Some areas require the windrow to be left in the middle of the road and another crew will come and remove and haul it away. This all takes time! We will not complete this task in days....it takes weeks. After our crews busting their butts working 24/7 for a full week now in residential areas, with all of our equipment and 20 pieces of outside equipment were a little over half way through the residential areas of the city! If we had wide roads, big lots, and no parked cars on the roads we could "plow" our roads but for the most part we don't and therefore snow removal after the amounts of snow we have had this month will take time!
Anyway as I said earlier, I did manage to get in a Crossfit session yesterday and took a couple of coworkers along for a nice lunchtime workout......well it turned out to be a little on the "extreme" end for Crossfit as it was "Filthy 50" day which means 50 reps of 10 different stations. Doing anything 50 times gets hard after about 20 so this was intense and got my HR into areas its never been before.....50 box jumps, 50 lunges, 50 jumping chinups, 50 shoulder presses...you get the picture! I like Crossfit for a bunch of reasons especially the no fancy exercise machines part of it! Just using your own body and some old school gym equipment...thats it! As the tshirt says...."I Don't Use Machines.....My Body's The Machine!" Free Intro Class at noon today (Saturday) at VO2Max!

Winter Wonderland?

The view from my back deck! We have had record amounts of snow here the past week and we are buried! Needless to say it is extremely busy around the office!
Training has been so-so and I did miss a few of my planned workouts last week and probably a few this week but I am not to upset because this is early and sometimes other things really do get in the way! I am speaking at the Beginner Runner Clinic at the local Running store tonite and my topic is "The Benefits of Cross Training"....I think I will just talk about Ironman and bring a few of the IMC medals to pass around because they are cool!

Multiplex Tour

I organized a tour of the Multiplex for a group of local runners/triathletes. We were all in awe of the facility and so excited for the place to open...in less than a year! The main pool is 54m and a 6500 sqft fitness center and an indoor running track...the winter indoor triathlons will be awesome! There is also a feild house, squash/raquetball courts, a lazy river/spray deck/dino thingy to keep the kiddies happy and lots of space for fitness classes. It really will open up unlimited possibilities for Grande Praire on the Athletic scene and it will be awesome!!

The Week in Review

Looks like it snowed on the Big Island yesterday! This is a view of Mauna Kea taken by Lance Armstrong....he seems to be spending a lot of time in Kona lately. He has not come out "officially" to say he will race Ironman yet but how cool would it be to race the same race!
Training went great this week and hit all of my planned workouts. Did miss a swim but I will blame that on the pool being closed due to "contamination" on Thursday and called my 90 minutes of shovelling as "strength training". The Beancounters Run yesterday was the usual loop but through a foot of new snow, the "Powder Running" made it feel like a lot more. Richard put on a great class Friday morning and my swims were focused on 25 m of drills and 25 m of perfect (as perfect as I can do) freestyle. Can't decide on a long run or a 90 min Aerobic Base Builder Spinerval but I will be doing my first CrossFit today!

Let's get it Started!!

The year has kicked of with a couple of runs on New Years Day....and early one with Richard and Duncan and a later Resolution Run with the Club. It was great to see so many runners out on a nice and mild New Years Day! Got my first Spinerval workout done yesterday with the 90 min Mental Toughness and today got an early morning Yoga session, weights and some speed work at the Leisure Center and my first swim session since..........last August!!! The water felt great and it was good the get that monkey off my back!
My first BIG race is the GWN Tri on the long weekend in July so i am not activly training for that race just yet, but will be maintaining some running and cycling and will ficus on my weakest event...the swim...for the next 3 months. So this is my rough draft of my training from now untill the end of March.

• Swim 5 times a week
• Yoga twice a week
• Strength training 3 times a week
• Peak 8's twice a week
• Richard's Friday morning spin
• Beancounters Saturday morning run
• Spinerval workout
• 10 mile + Run

This may get disrupted somewhat from Feb 15 to 23 because I have to go to Maui but I may cross train by surfing or something like that!

And a couple more "Resolutions" for 2011

• Do at least 3 blog entries per week
• Detail my workouts to Training Peaks daily
• GPS all my runs

Back to work tomorrow......can't wait!!