SUB 40!

It’s time for a blog update. After weeks of stressing and nerding it up for endless hours, this week I have been finally able to rake in some decent running mileage in hopes of finally cracking the prestigious sub 40 minutes time at the Sun Run next weekend. And this year is definitely the year to do it. I say this because it’s been 3 years in the making and I have no more excuses. Anything over 40 minutes would just not give me any satisfaction!

My previous Sun Run times were as follows:

2006 45:53

2007 43:59 (1:54 improvement)

2008 41:49 (1:30 improvement)

2009 40:37 (1:12 improvement)

This past Wednesday’s interval run, most of us did 6 by 400m and 800m with 60 and 90 seconds rest in between on the track. My heart rate managed to reach a new known max at 194 bpm a few times, which is about 5% more than my normal max. I was averaging about low 170 bpm for the intervals. I hope this is a good sign of my fitness.

New Max HRT!!

I was holding paces in the 3:20s and under 3:30s with my very last 800m faster than my first 400m. Of course the pace times on the track is a little inflated than my road speed. I hope to do some more intervals tonight at the beer mile. We’ll see if I improved from last semester. =)

Winstorm 0 – the Wall 1

It’s been a little rough this past week, nevertheless long story short I’ve managed to survive it!

Last week during a pre-race training for Storm the Wall, I’ve managed to smack my lower right forefoot right against the wall at an awkward geometry. I felt this awful ‘guesh’ sound inside my right foot and knew instantly something was wrong.

The night was restless as I struggled to put the pain past me. The next morning, my entire right foot was swelling quite a bit that any pressure applied on it bought a world of hurt. Putting on a shoe was quite the challenge, I must admit. My little sister was kind enough to take some time off from work and drive me to the hospital. At the waiting room this super cute nurse offered to push me around in a wheelchair and then took some x-rays of the injured foot. Luckily the doctor said I had no bone fracture and said it should heal in a week.

Slowly my day-to-day recovery has been remarkable. I’ve managed to go from being on crutches (Thursday) to limping (Friday) to walking gingerly (Saturday) to a slow jog (Sunday). See exhibit A for my thankfully semi-minor bruise.

Exhitbit A - Bruised Foot

Tomorrow, I shall show the wall who’s boss. My heat at 11:55am Monday will be stacked with UBCTC favourites namely Vincent Lavallee and Andrew Wight. I’ll be hopeful if I can just qualify to the semis and buy myself two more days to recover.

Thanks for all the moral support, I really appreciate it. I've always considered my running ability a strength. For that reason, it is so surprisening for me to understand how difficult it is to jog 1 km, especially when one foot is constantly reminding you otherwise.

PS - Apologies for the lack of blog updates, I'll do my best to keep up with school winding down.

Pre-Race Series Thoughts

I think coming into this UBCTC Spring Fling Race Series people are wondering what I am doing here, because out of the top male contenders, I may be outcasted for not having a solid sprint in any of the three swim-bike-run disciplines. These much younger GUNS participating in this race series are easily smoking passed me in our intervals training.

AWESOME STREAMLINES (more or less)!!

I’m definitely not known for my sprinting ability compared to these younger guns, but rather known more or less for my race experiences, my ability to perform awesome streamlines, and my superb fashion sense. These are the assets I will be looking to improve upon. Also I’ve been nerding it up in the design studio a lot lately, so I can’t really brag about my fitness level as of yet. Clearly I’m no threat, if it was up to these tight olympic security road blocks seen at every intersection of the city, they might as well wave me straight through because I’m on nobody’s radar readings.

I think most people still don’t know my real name (Winstorm). So, I think this might be a good thing, I don’t have such a big target on my back to worry about.

Venue-Specific Training: A look at the...

...pads. Check 'em out, the venue managers got us all excited for the newly installed state-of-the-art safety pads. Interesting enough, we were the first public eyes to see them.

January Training Update.

Lately, I have been feeling great and training as much as I possibly can without hurting myself. This must be a positive hang over effect from last month. So far in January, my training hours have totalled double digits in both the swim and run. It’s a feat that I have not officially accomplished in any given calendar month ever, oddly enough. I know, I’m as shocked as you are. Of course, I was also pretty close a few times in 2009 but ultimately fell short. You can see from the figure below that the hours are reasonably uniformly distributed for swims and runs.

My Training Hours in January 2010

I probably shouldn’t feverishly focus too much on the numbers and worst, bore you with them. Beyond the numbers, I have also been ripping it up with the Ab Ripper X after our club’s Wednesdays evenings runs. You should check it out if you haven’t already. I’m only hardcore enough to do it once a week, unlike some  who do it rather religiously. I hate it, but I love it!!

Alas I don’t run on rainbows and sunshine all the time, training in February will definitely be hard-hit. I will be working thirteen shifts, a total of nearly 110 hours. I also will not be at school as often and swimming will definitely take a greater hit. Hopefully my banked time in January will help keep my momentum in the pool.

My venue training is tomorrow, so I guess this is the beginning of my volunteering journey for the Vancouver Winter Olympics. I’ll promise to keep you guys and gals updated.

Welcome 2010!

Recently, I’ve decided to put my global domination plans aside, and focus more on winter training and putting on a smile for that big sporting event occurring in early mid-February to early-March in Vancouver. Yep, if you haven't heard already, yours truly will be an official dedicated ambassador for Canada by volunteering as a host at the Pacific Coliseum for the upcoming Winter Olympics. Pretty stoked for it!!

Check out the 2010 volunteering workforce uniforms. Pretty sleek-looking and comfy!

Above is the vibrant blue jacket called the Wave.

My race schedule doesn’t start until May, so it will be an unusual longer triathlon off-season for me. Later in the season, the spring series with the UBC Triathlon Club will commence once again. In the meantime, stayed tuned on my volunteering journey, and let the games begin!

Winter Holidays 2009

(...the blog post I probably should have made about a month ago...opps!)

With the very first UBCTC Fall Classic Race Series all wrapped up, it’s finally nice to have some time off from racing. And by time off from racing, I really mean more time spent towards training. I’ll clue you in later why this is the case.

Coming into this race series, I would have no doubt chuckled if someone were to consider me as a ‘big gun’, let alone a podium finisher in the male division. This petite-figured Asian guy, often underestimated, surely wouldn’t attract the attention that other pre-series favourites would have, especially since there were many to choose from, trust me. You may go as far as to compare this analogy to the Team Canada Men’s Hockey team selection for the Olympics and I will probably be one of the guys that are good, but not good enough to make the team. Nevertheless this friendly scoring system of the race series became my best of friends, when it rewards bonus participation points for showing up and does a uniform distribution of points spread among the first to last finisher, meaning the system levelled the playing field for everybody. All of a sudden, winning the race series really came down to attendance to all the events, consistency to place well (not necessary well in terms of time as I have learned in the 500m swim test set), and malleability to the often challenging and sometimes unfamiliar events (like tire-changing and underwater distance swim).

I think I’ve poked fun at Nathaniel Janzen enough times during this race series, and by now he probably realizes this and doesn’t want to admit it on the record, but I think my level of competitive spirited smacktalk must had (yes must had!) inspired him to do wonderful things in the pool and the run courses, which he can tell you all about.

One thing memorable about the race series was Vincent Lavallee’s continued commentary throughout the series events and perhaps he may be most famous, if he isn't already, for his long-winded (21 minutes?) speech at the awards presentation. I don’t think I’ve heard anything longer and vividly delivered speech by a more-sober person. When stacked on paper against Matt Reeve, the eventual winner of the Vincent Lavallee’s Cup and race series overall leader, the numbers don’t look quite so impressive for my camp. To Matt Reeve's credit, he did beat me in all of the 12 events possible. I was not shutout though, the one competition he did not beat me in was the swim relay (since he was on my team, and hence it was not possible). Also, ahem...that famous bi-annual beer mile event.

After all this racing and training and yes school, I noticed my training log had significantly more hours than it did last year. In fact I was very close to the centennial markers for each of swim, bike, and run which I had not achieved in any previous years. Here’s a look at what I had.

Now flashback back to today.

I’m glad to officially announce that I have achieved this feat for 2009! I’ve also noticed an improvement in the swim department, which likely means for 2010 I’ll need to hit the pool at least 3 times a week to reap the gains. Maybe my numbers are still relatively miniscule compared to any professional tri-athlete, but hey it’s the personal success that counts.

It’s nice to reflect upon what I have done this year. Here’s a final look at my totals from 2008 and 2009 years.

Thanks for reading, I wish you a happy and prosperous new year!