Full day...

I was up early, I love this no drinking the night before benefit. The plan was to do a 9:30 am ride with Alan Adcock. The only thing I wasn't looking forward to was the cool weather. It was about 58 F outside. I got saved by the text, Alan let me know that he couldn't ride until later, his wife cracked a molar and he was taking her to the emergency room. He said he'd be going later instead and not to wait for him. I texted back that I'm prepared to wait, I'm in no hurry.

Rather than just sit around the house and do nothing until it warmed up outside, I went to LA fitness. I did some weights and pushed the most weight I've ever pushed. I felt much stronger than I normally do. I wondered if it was from taking the creatine yesterday? After weights I hit the pool.

Going for a swim was a milestone of sorts, it was my third swim this week and my second day in a row. My focus is to get my upper body back in shape, to get my swim times back to were they were. Reid was telling me the other day my upper body muscles weren't as big as they used to be. Damn if that aint motivation. One of the things I did intentionally was but an Ironman tattoo and armband wrap on my right bicep, I felt that doing it would keep me motivated to keep me and my arms in shape, it would look bad to see an Ironman armband on a flabby, unshapely arm. Looks like it's working, it got me in the pool. Also, the weight session and the swim was not on the regular schedule. I added those in for fun.

My swim times are poor, it's really said. It does make sense though, last month I swam a total of 4.4 km's, this past 5 days I swam almost 11.5 km. The month before last I swam a total of 18 km's. It's obvious the reason my swimming is slower, I haven't swam as much as I used to. I was able to pull out on good 200 meters when I was swimming beside a guy who was doing flip turns and my competitive spirit kept me by his side, I did a 3:06 for 200 yards or a 1:47 pace / 100. Not near as good as my best 1:28 pace per hundred meters but it's a start, and doing it after swimming yesterday and blasting my arms and upper body with weights should make it impressive.

I believe muscle has memory and to get to a previous level is easier the second time around than the first time getting there. I see it all the time with pro athletes that take time off in the season or a year from injury and come back to the previous level pretty quickly. Heck, even I came back in the beginning of my comeback to my 20 year old triathlon levels. Then I took those levels and over the next 3 years raised the bar. Now I'm at LEAST 2 times, maybe 3 or 4 times, stronger than I was in my twenties. Based on this theory I'm thinking that it is possible for me to get my swim strength back before Nov 5th.

There was a major decision I needed to make today, do I continue with the Creatine or stop. Creatine will cause water weight. It helps with the muscle building and recover process, but causes weight gain. For vanity reason I shouldn't do it, for performance reasons I should. I decided to go for the performance and watch my diet more closely. I can understand why Creatine retains water, it's the magic stuff that heels muscles. I noticed that my body was more puffy today from the water retention. It was also one of my best ever weight training sessions, I had more strength than I could remember having in a long time. I felt like the Hulk.

With 48 days until Vegas I want to show up as strong as possible. I also need to show up as light as possible to handle all the hills on the bike. It's going to be interesting to see what happens. I was reading that if you only take 5 grams of Creatine or less per day you will only gain about a lb. Right now that's all I'm doing. I'm also taking more supplements than I'm used to taking. I'm trying to take as much stuff as possible to help my body recover. Primary flaxseed oil, Recoverite, Whey protein, Creatine and a multi-vitamin. On today's ride, yes I did a long ride today too, I stopped to take a pee and it was a yellow greenish. At first I thought it was my new sunglasses and then realized that it wasn't, the pee really was the most unnatural color. It wasn't a dehydration colour, it was yellow green.

Today was the first day I got to try out my new sunglasses. I found them online, they are prescription and only cost me $35.00 so I bought two pairs. One for bright days and one for dark days with a yellow lens. They couldn't have arrived at a more perfect time, late last week I broke my Bolle's. They were $300 sunglasses. In the past the ear sleeve came off and I fixed them by wrapping them with hockey tape so they wouldn't slip off my face and now the prescription insert broke. I've always thought that glasses were so expensive. You can buy a laptop for less than what they charge for many glasses. I think it's the biggest rip off. Finding equivalent sunglasses to my Bolles was a total joy, especially at 10% of the price.

I wore them on today's ride and they worked fine. Before I rode I ate, first time today, 2 poached eggs, 2 pieces of toast. That's it, that's all I had before my ride. On the bike I only had a power protein bar and 2.5 bottles of water. I was holding back, looking forward to a bonk if I could get on. I think pushing yourself to no eat on longer rides is good for you. I've heard Chrissie Wellington does it, not eating on a 4 - 5 hour ride. I guess it trains the body to get buy without food.

Riding with Alan is interesting. He's a good rider and constantly pushes the pace. On the hills I have to slow down to keep my heart rate in check. Even though we ride together there is not a lot of talking. If I go riding with someone I'm assuming it's going to be more social than performance. If not, I'd rather ride alone and get into the zone. During the ride Alan and I relieved last weekends Quad-zilla monster ride. No one could understand the scope of difficulty of this ride unless you do it. He said it was the first time every riding with Daryl, an ex-pro, that he saw him get out of the saddle to climb. We're also looking forward to next year, Alan says he's going to get a compact for next years ride and he explained to me what a compact was when I asked. It's smaller rings in the front.

About 1:45 into the ride Alan turned back, I kept going. I wanted to go longer and I was also looking forward to riding at my own pace and safety. Once I almost ran into Alan when we were at a turn on a street and I thought we were going right when he was going left. I wanted to get in 4 hours and had to cut it a little short, it was cool out and I was feeling mentally burnt. I even felt like calling a friend it got that bad although I pushed through and still got in my 100 km's. Alan said he went earlier in the week after the Quad-zilla weekend and could only do 90 minutes, his legs were thrashed. I was happy with my ride, I was also just as fast without Alan as with him yet my riding alone didn't seem as difficult.

When I got home I had a stretch, recoverite, whey protein and some fruit. My left ankle was also sore from the ride. Damn, that's a problem. It was fine until I was going up a hill and pushing to keep up with Alan. There's one drawback to riding with someone else, I wouldn't have pushed on my own so hard. It's getting to the point where if it's still hurting during my runs I'm going to have to get high powered drugs for it. It feels like a small stress fracture, I've had them before and I still have some of the high powered anti-inflammatory that the doctor gave me. I don't have time to let it fully heal before Nov 5th. Unless it's excruciating pain I'm going to run through it. Hopefully the cool water during the swims also helps.

The rest of the night was family relaxation stuff and I spent a few hours on the Internet looking at franchises and applying for more information. One that caught my interest was a membership based therapeutic massage place. They are very popular in the U.S. You pay full price for one massage a month and then get a significant discount on every other massage you or your family have that month. It looks like the Physio-Med one may not pan out, the locations I'm interested in are taken and they are also having difficulty finding a chiropractor who would partner. Frankly that doesn't bother me, I don't like Chiropractic, I think it's quackery and so do others. I've tried it all and I no longer go to a Chiropractor. To me the first choice is massage and physio with machines if the injury is really significant. I also like ART which is a form of massage. I don't think having a clinic without Chiropractic is a downside.

I was also looking at retail, everything from hair salons, to dollar stores, garage doors, fresh-healthy food vending machines and I even applied again for a Giant Tiger. I look around at some franchises that I could have got into, that are successful and I missed out on and at first got discouraged. Then I realized that around every corner is something new. The next great thing will be coming. The universe is ever expanding with good ideas and franchises or business ideas. I'm going to take my time and make sure that whatever I get into I've looked at from every angle and reduce my level of risk. I also really want to do something only in the Burlington, Oakville and Milton areas. Places close to home and all are high growth and high income areas.

I had to get off the computer, I was getting the sniffles. Alyssa has a cold and I thought I might be picking it up. Actually I think it's just post training sniffles and not relaxing sniffles. Hanging out on the computer and researching businesses is not relaxing, it's work. For dinner as I did computer work I had John Barclays favourite food, wings. We still have tons left over from the House of Payne Beer Run.

Weights - 50 min
Swim - 1:14:30 / 3200 meters
Bike - 3:28:40 / 102.1 km / 29.4 kph avg / 137 avg hr
2644 calories