So after 4 weeks, I’ve finished the base portion of the training plan. I am supposed to work out every day – but that is honestly crazy. I have just been happy to be motivated to do anything at all some days and my workouts sometimes have felt lackluster – I just feel it’s better than nothing. My training log is below from Excel. All of these workouts are supposed to be at a relatively relaxed pace to get ready to push myself in the next phase. I may not have always done that. Please note: all bike training has been done on a spin bike so far as my road bike is in the shop (and it’s been cold). The long runs have mostly been outside and otherwise have been on the treadmill.

If you look at the workouts missed, there’s a clear pattern. Swimming. It’s my weakest link and I have my excuses. The pool is too far. I had plans. I was sore. I was sick. Lane swim is too crowded. Well, I really don’t want to drown so hopefully I’ll do better in the next phase. I have already skipped Easter Sunday as the pool is closed but after that, I am promising myself to get better!

One thing I found surprising about the workouts are that when I finally stopped using the treadmill and ran outside, my pace had improved dramatically since consistently weight training. A sub-5:00 / km run is feeling pretty comfortable with a few 4:30-4:40 / km runs! It feels like I’m getting great benefits. I may do a trial of Strava Premium to see if it offers any useful information about my training. Next post I’ll go into detail about what kind of weight training I’ve been doing to see these improvements.

-Adam

Normally, I had been a runner most of my life. An average one really, as I’ve been doing half marathons once a year with a few other easier races. My best times have hovered around 1:40. Running on its own had been getting boring and I was avoiding what I was always bad at which was: swimming. I decided to bite the bullet and take adult swim lessons. I could barely swim 10 meters without stopping. I didn’t know how to breathe as stupid as that sounds. I thought it’d be great motivation if I signed up for my very first triathlon in June 2018 while I was taking lessons in January.

I decided on the Tri-A-Triathlon from the Subaru Series in Guelph because I had heard the swimming was not too bad. So it would start off with a swim of 375 m , onto the bike for 10 km, and finally a run of 2.5 km. I mentioned it to my swimming instructor and he didn’t really seem confident that I should have done that. Granted, the equivalent swim of 375 m is about 15 lengths of the pool of which I could only do 4 when I told him. But that was ok! I had a few months left to improve. Swimming was really my only concern.

I was almost ready! I initially was going to use my old mountain bike from grade 7 because I mean, how much worse could I do if I didn’t have a road bike? I mentioned this to my boss at the time and she said ‘You’ve lost already.’ Well, I was convinced. Time to invest in this new adventure. A few weeks before the race, I bought a road bike. I could now swim 400 m without stopping in the pool. Time to race!

I had reached out to my friends to see who else would want to do it and I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was a lot of interest! I completed it all in just under 50 minutes. My goal was just to finish and I was happy. I didn’t drown! Pictured here are my friends who also all did their first triathlons with me. It was an amazing experience but I wouldn’t say we’re heroes like the banner in the picture.

I had a great time doing the first race with no real training plan. This year however, I have decided to sign up for the Sprint Triathlon which has about double the distances. I will be updating my journey to train for it using a 12 week program in this blog. If you are new to triathlons, join me in my struggle!

-Adam