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This wednesday was the 3rd and last part of the T-REX Triathlon serie. This was 3 races on the same course, 1 month apart. This time the water temperature was high (82 deg F) so wetsuits were not allowed. I had a bad swim again, but it did not reflect too much on my time especially since I did not have the wetsuit. I improved each leg over my previous races and got my personal best! I shaved another 2.5 minutes off the race in July.

Here are the comparison of the 3 races from the serie:

Here are the detailed results for the T-REX tri.

>> T-REX extended results

I finished in the top 9.5%, 45th out of 474 finishers, which is my best ranking so far! I am very happy with this performance. GPS tracks and performance graphs of the bike and run are available below.

>>Bike: Gps tack | Replay performance
>>Run: Gps tack | Replay performance

Few Pictures from my race (thanks to my wonderful wife!)

Few ones from our friend Tracy, including that incredible action shot of Craig right at the finish line and a good group picture.

As usual, many more pictures and 1000 pixels wide versions available in the album.

T-REX Triathlon

Update 8/27

Running Fit has compiled a result page for all people that participated in the 3 races of this serie. According to this list, I finished 22nd overall and 5th in my age group. Not bad! Here is a link to the age group results.

>> T-REX SERIE age group results

Saturday morning was the perfect day to ride my bike. I left bright and early at 7h15 am, the sun was out and there was no wind. I started with my now usual route to Amherstburg, but then decided to go further. I went for Harrow, using a small detour to get more distance in my ride. I was aiming for 100 km, not a small goal considering it’s only my 3rd ride! The scenery was simply awesome, in warm morning light, with waterscapes completely mirror-like.

Map of the route followed

(click on the map for INTERACTIVE version)

Stats of the ride.

Because of the lack of wind, I was able to keep a good and constant pace throughout.  

 Speed Graphic :

(click on the graph for larger version)

I am pretty proud of my achievement (I did 104 km in only 3h30 moving time), but I have to say I was not a pretty sight when I made it home. I was completely dead, and my legs could not hold my weight anymore. I felt violated ;). I think I pushed a little too hard for such a long distance, given my experience. I have to learn to pace myself I guess. I couldn’t walk until my wonderful wife gave me a leg massage to get the lactic acid out of that area.

I think it’s going to be a few days (more like a week) before I touch that bike again… I still managed to find enough energy to go for a 10 km rollerblade ride the evening of the same day (see Fitness Log).

The weather was incredibly nice Sunday morning when I woke up. It was the perfect opportunity to do my first longer bike ride. My friend Craig recommended a ride consisting of a loop between Windsor and Amherstburg, going through back country roads. I am sure he would have been very happy to ride too, but they had family visiting that weekend.

It went better than expected. I pushed myself so that I would be back home early, since Corinne was still sleeping when I left. As a result, I was quite exhausted when I returned, but I covered 61 km in 2h06 minutes, at an average speed of 29 km/h, which I think is respectable considering the fact that I just started biking again.

Here is a jpeg image of the path I followed:

Click this link to see an interactive version of this map in a new window.

Click this link to see the speed graph (lightbox).

I thought I would be quite sore today (the ride was yesterday), but I am happy to report that it is not the case: I do not feel it at all. I think I would be able to go for a longer ride, in the 100 km range, especially if I slow down a bit.

More information is available in the Fitness Log page.

P.S. Many thanks Craig for the good recommendation!

Finally, we had some very nice weather the last couple days. It’s just what we needed to start rollerblading again. Thursday evening, we met with our good friends Craig, Tracy (and of course Trails!!) at the river. While the girls walked the hairy little monsters (our dogs), me and Craig went for a few laps on the bike track following the Detroit River in Downtown Windsor, something we did several times last summer.

Last year, I was overweight and out of shape so I was almost dying just trying to follow Craig (and sometimes I had to give up). I would end up all red and out of breath with a crazy heart rate (up to 175).

The situation was quite different this year. The training paid off, and the amount of weight I have to carry around is greatly reduced (I’ll make an update on my weight loss soon) so the situation was almost reversed. Craig was far from suffering as much as I did last year (he rides his bike a lot, so he never really is out of shape), but he was the one panting at the end of the path. That felt good =).

I had my GPS Tracker with me, so I recorded the stats of the session.

Speed Graphic :

(click on the graph for larger version)

The track is about 5 km in length, so the speed dips at 5 and 10 km marks are breaks at each ends of the path. The last dip is when we stopped meeting with the girls again after a total ride of 13.7 km.

UPDATE 4/18/09 - One more Outing

I went alone  for one round trip on the riverside park with my rollerblades Saturday afternoon. We were going to the restaurant and wanted to spend a few calories before. Here are stats:

Broke the 3o km/h limit, on flat land. However, the wind was much stronger in one direction than in the other. This is easy to see in the graphic view of the run. See how the wind affects the average speed below, when you compare the going against the return trip.

(click on the graph for larger version)

One week in my first trip to France this winter (I am going back in March). For some reasons, there was never a need for me in that part of the world in the first 9 years I worked for the company, but suddenly they would need me for 3 months in a row if they could. I actually had the big boss of the plant where I am meeting me in order to convince me to stay. But I have too many things to take care back in America, including a very important renewal of my working permit in USA.

My first week went well, but now I am very sick again. Not the stomach (like Mexico) but a cold now: sinus problems, sore throat, etc. I hate being sick on the road. I feel like passing the whole weekend in bed. Anyhow… Yesterday, after stopping at the drugstore to load up on medicine, I decided to kick myself and do something anyway since Saturday was supposed to be the better day of the weekend. So I headed to the French South Coast for a new hike.

I opted for the hiking loop of ‘Calanque de Sugiton’. That’s a 5 miles hike, with a fair amount of hills to cross up and down. I brought my GPS tracking device with me, so I have the track of the hike below. I started from the ‘Domaine de Luminy’. The loop I followed brought me back by the side of the ‘Calanque de Morgiou’ and its port.

There was some technical sections for which I was really not equipped for with my interior gym shoes and my 40 lbs camera backpack and tripod throwing me out of balance. Also, there was some crazy gusting wind to make things worse.  In one spot, there was a vertical steel ladder you had to climb, with a very narrow corridor still going up with chains to hold through. Not so easy with the equipment I was carrying!

In another section, there was a very inclined crevasse that I needed to go down through with not much to hold through. Between my shoes slipping and my tripod getting caught in cracks as I was going down, I had a good scare! I actually decided to go back the other way rather than crossing this section after slipping once, barely avoiding a bad fall. But then I changed my mind again: I had less distance to cover by continuing than going back, and I was not sure when daylight would go down…

Beside the few scares, this was a very nice hike and the view was awesome. It must be more enjoyable in better and warmer weather. February is not very warm this year here.

I am not posting any big pictures yet because I really do not trust my laptop screen to make adjustments. I still made a small slideshow on ‘everytrail.com’ that you can look at to have an idea of the scenery. Just click on the image below to have access to the interactive view of this trip. This is another advantage of using the GPS tracker and geotagging pictures.

Click on image to access the interactive slideshow

Here are the statistics of the hike:

Once I am back home, I’ll process the pictures and post big versions of the nicer ones.

Today Sunday, I feel even sicker so I will take it really easy. No training, no sightseeing. The coming week will be demanding.

Ciao!

Here is the first test of the GPS Data logger in use. I brought it with me the other night when rollerblading with Craig, a good friend. We skated the park on the side of the Detroit River, in Windsor, in late evening after daylight was all gone. The result of the tracklog analysis is below. A single way is 4.8 km that we covered in 13 min 40 sec for an average speed of 21.3 km/h - Not bad! We usually skate about 2.5 to 3 times that distance.

 The output below was easily created from the GPS track log. It took less than 2 minutes to generate after the log file was retrieved on the computer.

Windsor River Side: One Way in rollerblades
Click link for larger interactive map