Spring is finally here! I managed a very fun 85km ride yesterday and a much shorter but still very fun 23km ride today. I am actually a bit sunburnt! Cycling tan lines are the best. Pink arms but white shoulders. Nice. It is so awesome to be out on my Blade Carbon Wheels again!!! #tanlines A post shared by Chris Brunskill (@chris_bskill) on May 5, 2018 at 4:27pm PDT Run I’ve managed to get running again, though I am still…
This morning I had a super terrific happy hour! AKA an FTP Test. This was the first FTP test of 2018, and second since I’ve started working with a coach. The first being just a baseline test of my fitness, this was the first real opportunity to see how the change in training, going from self-“coached” to actual-coached, is going. Did not disappoint! As mentioned, the 215 I had been training at was based on an almost-completely-untrained-after-winter-break test. That break…
It’s officially in the books. A great race for me and a fairly impressive feat of logistics from the IM crew. I really enjoyed this event from start to finish, despite a bump or two along the way. In the lead up to the race I had decided to shorten my taper fairly significantly. With the recovery from Guelph taking way longer than anticipated (a full week before I felt that I had power on the bike), I wanted to…
Well, I’m starting to feel good. Starting to get excited for IM Muskoka 70.3 this weekend. The race is Sunday, and the forecast looks great. The last two weeks have been somewhat of a blur. Flying by, lots going on both in my triathlon life and in my not-triathlon life. Personal stuff aside, recovery from Guelph took longer than I expected. I wasn’t really feeling back to my normal self again for 8-10 days following the race. My legs were…
Well, my season has officially kicked off. On Saturday, I participated in the Guelph Lake Olympic Triathlon at the Guelph Lake Conservation Area in… you guessed it… Guelph. All in all, it was a pretty good day for me and I’m generally happy with my results and with the event itself. I managed to take advantage of the increased training load this season and drop a few new PRs, test out some new equipment and skills, and still have some…
I get to celebrate the end of a HUGE accomplishment (for me). I’m in my last week right now of Trainer Road’s Sweet Spot Base High Volume. Holy cow does this thing WORK! I’ve put on over 50 watts from my first FTP test, and I’m sure I’ll add at least another 10-15 on my next test (Tuesday). That’s a ton of growth. I’m celebrating because its hard and I’m sticking at it. It’s a lot of cycling, and my…
Earlier this week I saw a tweet from GCN @gcntweet asking about a cycling component that I’d “dream of owning.” Naturally there was just one answer that I have right now, though to be fair there are quite a few. One of the pricier things I’d love is a new turbo trainer. I’m currently using a Kurt Kinetic turbo that is in the “old” style – I’m fairly sure. It is about 11 years old, and has actually held up…
I’m busting out of this rut. Here’s what’s up. This morning I had a terrible ride. That makes 2 of the last 4 rides being awful, with the others being not particularly great. Antelope +5 is 7 x 10 min in the sweet spot over 2 hrs. Should be do-able. I’ve done it before. It’s actually kind of fun. But it sucked, hard. So hard in fact that I stopped my ride mid-ride. I finished the first hour and quit….
Such a strange workout week. Dealing with two completely distinct issues: My back/sciatica. I posted twice this week already about my back, so I won’t go into detail about it again here. The pain is still there in my lower back area, though it is getting less and Advil seems to handle the worst of the pain. I’m doing physio exercises to strengthen the area and am hopeful that I have good, quick results. Not being in Aero is hell,…
Well if there was ever doubt in my mind about getting back into the swing of things, it is definitely 99% gone now. Since Monday, I’ve racked up 515 TSS (today being end of Wednesday) across all three disciplines. Whatever is going on in my back/leg doesn’t seem to be slowing me down. At least not much. I seem to be pretty much back to work across the board, and I’m pretty stoked about that. I did get to my…