January Training Logs

Over the past several weeks, I have been privileged to meet some incredible individuals by being chosen as one of the Talisman Centers DRIVEN5 participants. In the weeks and months ahead, I will be keeping a weekly journal to share my experiences, heart ships and victories, following my progression, and hopefully inspire you to set some of your own goals. The individuals below will help me reach my goals, and will be talking about them often.

Jon Bird, ETS & Triathlon Coach
Jon is my Personal Trainer who's strength are my downfall, its a perfect fit. His focused but casual coaching style bodes well with my serious yet playful approach to training.

Kelly Drager -Nutrition Coordinator
Kelly is my personal dietitian, who literally knows me inside and out, she is very kind not to judge. Over the coming months, she will guide my pre, during, and post race nutrition making necessary adjustments along the way.

Charlie Morin - Training Partner & my Border Collie
Charlie is ready to go day or not, rain or shine and always has a smile on her face. She makes the mornings bearable.

Jaime Morin - Wife, support team, biggest fan
Jaime is the most patient, understanding, encouraging and loving partner one could ever hope for.

DRIVEN5 - Training Logs

Week one - Mon Jan 12 - Sun Jan 18
December 17th 2008, the day I was chosen as one of the DRIVEN, I knew then only days remained until my life would change. It was therefore a very joyful and gluttonous Christmas season as the consumption of cocktails and goodies were abundant, my days were numbered. When I did receive my 4 week training schedule on January 12 it was 3:28pm. The schedule required a 65 minute run first thing in the am, which needless to say i didn't get around to until that night at 9pm. The Training Schedule was all business, and would take some getting used to, I ha begun the long disciplined 7 month journey ahead..

Monday - 65 minute run overall I felt great but I was tight in the hips almost from start to finish.
Tuesday - 70 minute ride on my bike trainer. It was tough as i needed to get my biking legs back, but 2 episodes of the TV show Entourage pulled me through.
Wednesday - I had a Run Lactate test which was fantastic, i haven't felt that spent and invigorated in a long time
Thursday - School in the pool and Jon taught me some simple floating techniques. I had to leave my water wings on the side.
Friday - An early 5:45am 90 minute run. Charlie couldn't get enough, and the run overall was great, had some minor cramping around minute 70 and head bobs at the office around 10am.
Saturday - My wife and I watched Eagle Eye while I rode for 100 minutes. (Good quality time with my wife now consists of me on my bike and her on the couch while we watch a movie)
Sunday - I crossed trained with 1.5 hours of cross country skiing then 125 minutes of pathway running at a cool time of 8-10pm A little chilly!

Week two - Mon Jan 19 - Sun Jan 25
The initial weeks were filled with pokes, prods and pinches, learning invaluable information about personal habits and where I need improvement if I am to reach my 2009 Ironman Canada goal. Body composition, nutritional analysis & lactate testing were taken to determine my current ability and devise the best action plan to best realize my full potential. The action plan Jon devised did not waste time, admittedly, having an ambitious season of 10 races ahead, there was no rest for the wicked. My first race, The Hypothermic Half Marathon, was only 5 weeks away and there is alot of work to do.

This has been a long week with back to back long runs to test my current abilities. There have been small improvements in the pool, Jon currently has me floating on either my left or right side with the bottom arm stretched forward. The idea is to correctly position my chest allowing my body to float to the surface, then time it so I can turn my face and take a breath, repeat for the full length of the pool and repeat on the other side. If at any point I panicked, choked on water or gasped for air, I was NOT to grab the wall or stand (If able to) I was to RESET by flipping on my back calming myself and then try it once again. At first I was only able to swim 10 meters before grabbing the wall, but quickly increased to the length of the pool (25m) It is one of what i hope to be many small victories that lay ahead.

Training overall felt good, other than being tired from my lack of nutrition before some of the runs. I was looking forward to my meeting with Kelly Drager (Dietitian) to get my eating habits on track. Turned out that I didn't require much changing at all, simply adjusting the quantity of food and the time of my meals.

Sunday was a long run of 130 minutes and has been the most challenging run on my schedule to date. I typically run my long runs around the Glenmore / Weiselhead park for two reasons, the first being new scenery. I am lucky enough to live one block from the city pathways, but running the same paths three to four days a week gets mundane. The second reason is to get used to the Weiselhead terrain as the Calgary 70.3 run is along this path. Charlie was again a little bean, content as can be to be running with his master in the great outdoors. By the time we looped the reservoir, we needed to extend my run by another 40 minutes, mentally I was done as we had completed the loop, Charlie on the other hand gave me a look as if to say "I want to do it again!" I forced a much needed gel down my throat and pushed myself onwards. When the additional 40 minutes was over, I was spent, out of gas, clearly my breakfast lacked the necessary nutrients to get me through.

Week three - Mon Jan 26 - Sun Feb 01
Monday was a test of my current physical condition and ability to recover as Jon had me run back to back long runs, Sunday 130 minutes, Monday 75minutes. On Monday I ran on a treadmill with a 1 degree incline running 5 minute intervals between level 6 and 8. The run felt great, my body had recovered from Sundays run and I was ready to go... Thursday was the highlight of the week with the official launch of the DRIVEN5. I finally met the other 4 athletes, it was great to hear the athletes backgrounds and inspiring stories and was very excited to learn that all 5 of us would be competing in the 70.3 Ironman Calgary! John Henderson from Shaw and his crew, Dan, were kind enough to write a story on Endurance Training and interview myself and another DRIVEN5 athlete Amy Woodward (The story will be available to view online).

In the background of working full time and training, any spare time has been dedicated to building my DRIVEN5 website and making contacts to obtain sponsorship, and raise money for the Canadian Breast Cancer Society. Once the website is launched, I will be sure to include details on my cause and how people can get involved.

Training this week has felt considerably more comfortable than week one. The biggest issue to date has been getting enough sleep. Most of my training has been late in the evenings which makes it very difficult to get up on the morning, Charlie however is good to go no matter what time of day. This weeks swimming lesson followed the official launch. I am slowly feeling more confident and calm in the water focusing on my breathing and proper technique. Its a slow process but i'm convinced I will make leaps and bounds in the near future. Jon has been extremely patient and assures me I am making progress, thanks Jon. Biking and running feel good, I'm at a point where I need to push myself hard to start feeling the gains.

Week four is a rest week, only training for 5 days with the intensity and duration minimal. My body is not used to this amount of training and is welcoming the rest, however I look forward to returning to the intense schedule and improving as best I can.