Monday, February 25, 2013

Motivation Monday!

Truth! Yes it's the start of a new week and I'm feeling a little trashed. Last week we moved Sara's folks into a new house and then a major health scare happened in her family. Good news is everything is working out but the accumulative physical, mental and emotional stress takes its toll. Needless to say training took a backseat to the more important things in life and I've found myself playing a little catchup this week.

I got 2 swims, 3 bikes and 5 runs this week along with 2 strength workouts. A good week but yesterday I hit the wall. With the time off and stress from the previous week and the work travel and training from this week I was exhausted. I went out for my long run on the Bay course yesterday after dropping my daughter off at work for 6am -arrgghh!! I normally don't run this early and I know why - my body just does not like it! The other challenge was the footing. It had been wet then a light covering of snow caused icing. The problem was you couldn't see it and after 10+ almost-falling-down wipeouts with attempted pulled groins I was officially frustrated. I ended up doing 17K of hills over the slippery run and it was all I could do on this day. Every step was an effort it seemed. I thought I might get a second wind and start finding my rhythm but it never came. While this sort of day is never fun I always commit it to memory especially for moments in racing when things either start going badly or fatigue is setting in. Character building as they say right?!

Truth!!

The rest of this is for getting pumped for the next block of training.



Cheers!

Monday, February 18, 2013

WTC Tri Club Info

More Tri Club info...............


Hi Everyone – the IRONMAN TriClub program is off to an amazing start!


As many of you know (if you attended a webinar in December and January) one of the benefits of being a partner club with IRONMAN is what we can do to help you brand your club and build your club roster. Based on your feedback on our survey (yes we actually read every one of them and listened to you!) we developed three strategies to help you brand your team.

First- we are using our CRM and Active.com registration reports to connect athletes (who have agreed to receive emails form us) with clubs located in their areas. We have had several successful matches so far so we think this program will be particularly impactful to you.

Secondly, we are about ready to post our first Club Spotlight in a race athlete guide for IRONMAN 70.3 California. The final draft of the spotlight is not completed but I wanted you to see what a great opportunity these guides will be for driving membership to your club. How do you get in the athlete guide? You either let us know which races your club is attending OR you ask your club members to fill out this survey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/tribluprogram

We have only 12 -14 spots so we make a decision on who gets in based on the total number of athletes (that we know of) racing as a percentage of the overall club roster. Preference is also given to “local” clubs in the area. BTW if your members fill out the survey we can get them tied to your club in our system before race week – when they race they earn you points towards the IRONMAN TriClub Podium award (and great prizes!)

Finally, each week Kevin MacKinnon will be spotlighting a club on IRONMAN.com. We are doing a variety of fun little contests to see who gets focus on IRONMAN.com. Some of these contests include a Facebook Photo Gallery game J! The link to the first spotlight is included here: http://www.ironman.com/triathlon-news/articles/2013/02/trilavie.aspx#axzz2Kuj6bc8V

If you were unable to jump on a webinar and are interested in learning more about our program and how your club can be part of it, please reach out to me directly and we will schedule some time on the phone.

Looking forward to working with you in 2013!!


Liz


Elizabeth Kollar
Director of Athlete Development and Communications
World Triathlon Corporation
Ironman World Headquarters
2701 N Rocky Point Drive
Suite 1250
Tampa, Florida 33607
Tel: 813.868.5940 extension 3747
Fax: 813.868.5930
Cell: 310-923-0586
elizabeth.kollar@ironman.com
www.ironman.com











Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Dude! Where You Been?!

I noticed my last entry was February 3rd - it's been a while! But for good reason. I've had a lot of work commitments lately which has kept me on the road. I say "work" but it has been fun work. It started off in Ottawa. I took customers to the Ottawa Senators vs Washington Capitals game. The great thing about seeing a game in Ottawa is the low price of tickets. I use Stubhub for my ticket purchases and I paid less than face value for my seats. The pic above and below were taken from my seat. Yes that's Alexander Ovechkin in the penalty box in front of me. I also usually stay at the Brookstreet Hotel in Kanata. This is where the visiting NHL teams stay and I saw the Capitals board the bus to head to the rink. If ever in Kanata, check it out, and book through Hotwire - it's the only 4-Star hotel in Ottawa West.

I came back home briefly and on Sunday headed to downtown Toronto for the Canadian Hospital Pharmacists Conference. I stayed at the Sheraton which has a nice gym and 25m pool that is half indoor, half outdoor. I was meeting customers for a Super Bowl event and managed to get 1600m in beforehand, Then it was off to Real Sports Bar and Grill next to the Air Canada Center for the Super Bowel. This place only has 199 TVs! Lebron James and some of the Carolina Hurricanes players were there as well. My conference ended Tuesday at 2:00pm and I caught a flight to Montreal for a sales meeting at 3:15pm - just barely made the flight. I was in Montreal til Thursday afternoon. The hotel had a gym and I got up at 6:00am both mornings to get a workout in but it wasn't that great. Meetings include sitting all day and evenings are filled with company meals - good caloric accumulation! I managed to get out of Montreal before the storm hit. It was just starting to build as I landed.

The next morning I saw this!! I last looked out the window around 1:00am and it was still clear. Funny how much snow can fall in a short time. We stayed put as we saw lots of cars in the neighbourhood get stuck.

My street corner. The main street through our subdivision was manageable but sidestreets - forget it!

In a matter of 2 days we went from huge snowfall to mild temps so the roads were completely clear. On this past Sunday I was up early to head to Windsor and then Detroit for the Detroit Red Wings vs LA Kings game with customers. Here's the sunrise in Hannon as I left.

With the complete shift in temperature we got this beautiful ice coating on all the trees. Roads were dry fortunately.

Check this out - amazing scenery.

Here I am during the anthem at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. The game was unbelieveable! The Detroit goalie stopped 45 of 47 shots and Detroit won with 4.5 seconds left in the game. My customers had a blast.

Unfortunately my diet for the week looked a lot like this!!! I weighed myself the next day and it wasn't pretty. As punishment I went on a 20K run on the Around the Bay course. I definitely felt the week's festivities on the run - not good times!
Back to the workload for me - time to drop some lbs for the 30K Around the Bay Race for the end of March.

Cheers!

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Ahhh the Recovery Week

I've been putting in some quality training so far this year and I'm progressing nicely. One sure way I know I'm on the right track is how tired I am during the recovery week. For me the recovery week  means reducing my training hours to 6-8 hours for the week.

It also means getting some extra sleep to absorb the training - this is where the gains are made. I usually fail in this regard, however, as I don't usually get the sleep I need. Getting to sleep at a decent hour is just not possible in my house but that's okay.

I relax where I can and keep the activity lighter and less intense. I also don't freak out if I lose focus in the nutritional sense and have a couple of beers and pizza. If I restrict my diet too much than the training will feel too much like work.

Next week is the start of my next block n' build. My running and cycling is where I want it at this point and I'm beginning to get the work done in the pool. And February is a short month. I'll try to get over 100 miles running again and 250 cycling. Can't wait for spring and getting back on the road. Around the Bay training is going well, in fact, I'm ahead of schedule. I've done a 15.75 mile run with the Bay hills and felt good. The trainer rides and core work certainly have helped in this regard. Barring any illness I'm looking to improve performance.

Dork!!

For now I'll enjoy the rest of my recovery week. Superbowl is tomorrow - very timely for an easy training week. Definite cheat day!

Have a good one - Cheers!