I knew Glo was getting serious about doing some triathlons when she started using Taryn’s (my gfs) bike this spring and refused to give it back until June 24th! I was super excited to have my sister join “Team Pickering” and I tried to help her out with some pointers and a couple of coached training sessions. 2 weeks before Welland we met in Binbrook and did an open water swim / family day at the beach, upon which Gloria followed up the swim with a bike and run. She was ready!

The night before Gloria’s race, we made sure he had her checklist of typical equipment ready. Saturday morning, Taryn and I drove to Welland and Taryn set herself up in the Recharge with Milk Zone with her massage tent as she now provides post race massages at most of the MSC events. I met with Glo in the parking lot and helped her go through the registration, transition set up and final race day preparations. The clock struck 10:10am and it was time to head down to the water for the pre-race announcements and then of course the quick warm-up / line up of many many first time triathletes. The Welland race is a time trial start format, so it is very common to see a long line of nail biting nervous looking people waiting for the inevitable plunge! I like to say hi to as many people as I can and assist them in whichever way possible. One time I helped a man put on his wetsuit as he was forcing his legs through the arm sleeves in despair wondering why it was so difficult.

Some nervous looking triathletes, but not Gloria! She is smiling!

Glo ready to rock at the swim start

I was probably more nervous than Gloria was. But at the same time I was having fun, taking pictures, saying hello to many familiar faces and just enjoying the fact that I was not racing on this day.

Glo stepped into the water, worked her way around the starting dock and Jason Vurma counted her down to her start. Her swim started of really well, she stuck to the plan and paced herself out towards the first turn buoy as we had discussed and planned for her strategy. If she was feeling good at the half way point of the swim, she could pick up the pace and go a little harder back into the swim exit. After a few nail biting moments, I saw Glo come out of the water looking strong and she ran her way up to the transition area to change for the 10k bike. I did the entire 400m run beside her with my camera in her face running and cheering like a mad man….quite the experience. I think Gloria sped up to get away from me!

The one thing you have to remember when doing your first triathlon is to put on your helmet first before unracking your bike. I am yet to see anyone actually get disqualified for this in a give-it-a-tri but I have seen a few people get a stern warning. Luckily, Gloria remembered, and did everything without a hitch. I ran around to the mount/dismount line, so as she was off on the bike, I was there yelling and cheering yet again! It was a lot of fun to be a spectator. After 20ish minutes I headed back over to transition and by the time I had walked over, Gloria had just pulled into the dismount area.

Glo keeping cool in the ubber hot sunny day

heading out on the run, in the blue top

She did a quick change in transition and headed out for the 2.5km run. By this point the sun was out in full force and it was blazingly hot out there. Thankfully the half iron was nowhere near this hot the following day. As per my usual routine, I followed her as far as I could, slapping around in my flip flops, deaking small children, spectators and hurdling random dogs as I tried to get that perfect picture of Gloria doing her run.

As fate would have it, I never quite got that perfect picture of Gloria running, in fact the best that I could do was get a shot of her running away from me as you see above. I did however manage to get her finishing on video!

Congratulation Gloria on a great first triathlon! Perhaps another Team Pickering trip will be on the horizon soon.

Every single competitor wears the same race top...hard to tell them apart!

Have you ever raced more than once in a single weekend? How about twice, maybe 3 times?? How does 4 races in one weekend sound?….sounds pretty ridiculous right? Then, let me introduce you to the American Triple-T weekend in Portsmouth, Ohio. The TTT consists of 4 triathlons in 3 days. The breakdown is as follows.

Race 1 Friday pm- super sprint (250m swim, 6k bike, 1M run)
Race 2 Saturday am –  1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run – challenging and hilly
Race 3 Saturday pm –  1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run – less hilly but still difficult
Race 4 Sunday am –  2k swim, 90k bike, 21.1k run….yup a half Iron.

As a side note, the half-iron on Sunday can be done as an individual race, without having to compete in the 3 other races. 

Whats interesting here, is that the races are broken up so recovery becomes critical between each one. Also, the intensity factor is high at all times, as a result, therefore pacing and strategy become critically important. Everyday brings something different. Different courses, different weather, different fatigue….very interesting.

Richard Pady of healthy results training and a small group of his athletes were heading down to participate in the race weekend. Rich asked if Taryn and I  would be interested in coming down with them and providing support for the gang. As luck would have it, we were free that weekend, and decided to accompany them on the camping extravaganza. We had never been to Shawnee State Park, but had heard good things about it.

Rich and his gang were not messing around. They came fully loaded with some serious equipment. A motor home RV with a build in kitchen and room for 4 people, and a pop up trailer with fridge and 2 double beds. Taryn and I “roughed” it in the old school tent, though we had an air matress and it was quite comfortable….apart from the getting soaked every night from the moisture in the air.

Post race massages

As support staff we wore multiple hats throughout the weekend. Cooks, cleaners, photographers, cheerers, drivers, equipment transporters etc. Taryn, a certified RMT at bedeskyRMT, even provided post race massages with her massage table she had brought. Between all of our tasks, we were on the move at all times doing something for the gang that were competing hard all weekend.

Rich and his gang were kicking butt all weekend. Deb Powell was dominating the womens field, and Rich was just 1-2 minutes down from the overall leader leading into Sunday’s race.

Fast forward to the final stage, the 1/2 Iron on Sunday, a.k.a. the little smokies triathlon. Little Smokies  is a very scenic and pretty darn tough course. It has approx 1200m of climbing over the 90k bike, and 550m on the 21k run…at least the swim was flat The race format was a time trial start, as it was for all of the American Triple-T races.

The swim was a 2 loop course, it was a beautiful lake swim, calm waters and well marked. I was coming into this race after 3 weeks of 20+ hours of training / week so my legs were still a little tired but I was hanging around the wrong crowd to look for sympathy. After all, they had just finished doing 3 hard races while I spectated. My goal in this race was to test my current fitness and my new bike. Therefore, no tappering was necessary, I simply ended my training block with this race.

The LS athletes had to wait for all the American Triple-T competitors to hit the water before we got to start. As you can see in the picture, there was a fair amount of traffic in the water for us. I decided I would line up at the front of the time trial start and see how I would fare. we had no way of knowing where we were in the ranking during the swim, which made it easy on tactics. Swim steady and don’t stop!

After jumping out of the water I made a quick transition and headed out. The bike course was a 2 loop course as well. 2 days prior, on the Friday, I was able to squeeze in a couple workouts between the AM and PM races while the HR crew was resting, so I did a half half Iron. I did a single loop of the swim, bike and run course to scout them out and see what they were like. I averaged something like 27km/h on the bike and thought wow…this is going to be a tough course. I was chased by a pack of 4 dogs that forced me to go anaerobic up a fairly long hill, and then I was finally stung by a bee or wasp which flew into my shirt on a decent. I also “found” an unmarked pothole that was hidden by shade from the trees during a fast descent. I hit dead center going approx 50km/h, luckily I was going easy and was on the breaks….I smacked this thing and almost got sent flying off my bike. It literally felt like my front fork snapped in half. Luckily it didn’t, my handlebars simply rotated from the force of impact and I stayed on my bike. I took note of where this unsafe hole was, and upon returning to the race site, shared my find with the race crew from HFP who organize the event. Right away they sent someone out on a moped to spray paint it, to avoid potential injury during Sunday’s race. Hats off to HFP for this…they did a great job all weekend.

My bike split was solid and as I entered the transition area, I was in 1st place leading the Half Iron race. I did my usual chugging of a red bull in transition, a tip learnt from Rich, gabbed my nutrition and headed out for the run. As I was exiting, I noticed the 2nd place guy coming in. He looked fresh and focused. We quickly exchanges a glance and then I was off to run. The first 2km of the run were brutal, as I had expected. By this point I had already put in over 40km of running this week alone, and my legs were heavy. I settled into a modest pace, approx 4:45/km as I knew the run was going to be challenging with the hills and the terrain. The entire run is done on a service road which is great, except that it has large rocks on it which really mess with your footing. Sure enough after only 3km, the 2nd place guy was on my tail. As he passed, I had a decision to make. Do I let him go or do I suck up some pain and chase. This guy was small, and moving fast!

I decided to match his pace and stay back approx 10m to see how things played out. By this point it was HOT outside. I noticed the leader was skipping aid stations….YES! I will wait until he tires and overheats I thought. From the 5k mark to the 11k mark we were running mostly sub 4min ks, save for on the uphills where you had to grind out an anaerobic effort to avoid slowing too much. It was hard work and this little guy was a machine. He was not slowing, he was getting faster!…meanwhile I, at every aid station had to grab about 6 cups of water and dump them on my head to avoid overheating as I was approx 50% bigger than captain runner in front of me.

The HR Crew

At the 16k mark we hit the final turn around of the race, he circled the cones and saw me approaching. At this point I was 1 min behind him. He did not look pleased to see me on his tail still. I believe he thought he had dropped me already because he looked rather surprised….then he SPED UP AGAIN. I could not believe it. How much faster can we possibly run after all these climbs? Well, I decided to “never give up” and continue to punish myself watching as the leader slowly pulled away. I ran my fastest kms of the day at the end but to no avail. I crossed the finish line in 2nd place 82 seconds after the leader. Hats of to him, and to everyone else out there suffering the wrath of the weather and the course difficulty.

My run split was 1:30:34. Had the little running man not passed me I probably would have run settled for a 1:35 or a 1:40 split.

My lesson learned, your limits are only in your mind!, NEVER GIVE UP!

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions about the American Triple-T, feel free to contact me

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After an incredible 3.5 months of training and racing in South America, Chris is back home and is offering an array of new services, including:

• Coaching (Triathlon, duathlon, single sport)
• Personal Training (Work one on one with Chris on swim, bike, run session or hit the gym to build strength and/or general fitness)
• Group Multi-Days (A great opportunity to work with Coach Pickering on the fundamental skills of your training with a group of friends)
• Programs (Learn to run programs, weekend training events, open water swimming skills etc)

More info found here TMT services

UPCOMING EVENTS

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A weekend filled with training, comradery, racing, and eating! Perfect!

A great opportunity to simulate real race conditions, and then the following day execute them, get in some extra miles and make some new friends along the way.

Join Coach Pickering and MultiSport Canada for a weekend of training and racing on May 26th/27th in the London and Woodstock areas.

Overview

Saturday is all about training. The day will consist of 4 workouts. Focus is on a long bike split into 2 rides, first ride from London to Woodstock, followed by an open water swim at Woodstock race site, a quick bite to eat, and finally a long brick from Woodstock back London. Wraps things up with a short social at The Koffee House.

Sunday is all about racing. Sign up for the MSC Woodstock triathlon with MultiSport Canada and then head out for a post race run if you have it in you.

Details

Saturday May 26th

9am: Bike from London to Woodstock along scenic country roads (approx 50km)

11am: Open water swim Pittock conservation area (Site of Woodstock Triathlon weekend)

12:30pm : lunch (Hero burger and Choco Milk)

2pm – Bike back to London the long way home! (approx 90k)

6pm – Run off the bike (approx 5k-8k)

9pm: Evening social at The Koffee House in London

*Times are a best estimate as we will be working around the MSC Woodstock sprint on Saturday.

Sunday May 27th

8am: Group warm up prior to Triathlon start (30 mins)

9am - MSC Woodstock triathlon - swim 750m, bike 30km, run 7.5km

after finishing the race, repeat the run course again to add a few extra ks for the long run.

Price

$55
TMT athletes get a 20% discount

Contact Chris for more information.

Note, you must register separately with MultiSport Canada for the race on Sunday.

TMT who?
TMT = Transition Myself Training - effective, professional and friendly personal training and multisport coaching based out of London, Ontario, Canada. Owned and operated by me, Coach Pickering, an NCCP trained triathlon coach, a CanFitPro personal training specialist, and a competitive triathlete. You can find all kinds of information on me in my about section on my website.

TMT – Why?
Achieving and maintaining good health requires effort, commitment, discipline and patience. With todays surplus of fast foods and sedentary jobs and lifestyles, the importance of exercise in your life should not be overlooked.

My philosophy is simple; everyone has the potential to be proud of who they are and what they represent.

I want to help you live a healthy, active and enjoyable lifestyle, while keeping you motivated and helping you grow towards achieving your goals. This goes for people of all levels and abilities. Whether you are trying to qualify for Kona, or you are starting an exercise program for the first time.

Status Update

• As you may or may not be aware, I recently made a career change and am now working full time independently as a coach and personal trainer. Look for new programs, event and services in the upcoming season. I am excited and am working hard at the preparations.

• Currently I am writing to you from Argentina. I have been doing some racing and training here in South America. Staying with my uncle, aunt and cousins in Buenos Aires.

• Last week, Team Pickering returned to Punta Del Este, Uruguay, where uncle Jorge and I competed in our 7th and 5th Ironman respectively. We both finished with a personal best time despite the blazing sun and howling winds. I had a very strong race and crossed the finish line in 3rd place overall.
  See link for 2011 video highlights

2012 Season & Goals

If you haven’t thought about next season, I encourage you to do so soon. Consider your goals and which races you would like to do and why. Review your lessons learned from the 2011 season and incorporate improvements into your plan. Now is a great time to get those wheels in motion.

Camp Cruz Del Sur – Argentina

For those of you who enjoy traveling and tourism as much as I do – I will be putting together a training trip for 2012. This will be an excellent opportunity to visit somewhere beautiful, get

in some quality training, and experience a different culture first hand. It is also a great opportunity to escape some of the cold Canadian weather, in sunny South America.

As a proud dual citizen and having spent over 5 months training over the past 2 years in Argentina, I have been able to find some of the best places to train in Buenos Aires. Now, I would like to share the Argentina experience with you. Camp Cruz del Sur is in the works and will be hosted in a beautiful country home known as “La Chacra”. It has a private 25m pool, a huge property filled with beautiful trees, flowers, workout areas, 3 horses, a private pond with ducks and chickens for feeding, there is also a clubhouse with tennis courts, a restaurant and another pool. Conveniently located only 1 hour away from Downtown Buenos Aires. I will be sending out more details in the future on this so stay tuned.
La chacra - Photo album

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I look forward to working, sweating & questioning our sanity together in the future.

Happy holidays, saludos.