Internal Mono(b)log

Kim and I made Vegan Creme Brulee for desert tonight. A little off my eating plan, but a small (very small) diversion and OH MY GOD(!!!) was it good.

We made 1/3 of the recipe, which was probably 1/2 as much as the 2 of us wanted, but realistically about as much as we should have at a sitting ;).  Cashews, Maple Syrup, Agar, Arrowroot Powder, Almond Milk and a little sugar… wow!

Rough nutritional analysis (per serving) via nutritiondata.com:

• Calories: 208
• Fat: 7g
• Carb: 31g
• Protein: 7g

Recipe via VeganGoodEats.com here: http://vegangoodeats.com/2010/07/la-creme-brulee-sans-la-dairy-pour-le-vegan/

With some patience and perseverance I managed to score myself a Garmin 910xt with a heart rate strap.  I was on the fence about these units until I started to research the battery life with the GPS on: 16 hours in pretty amazing in my mind.

DC Rainmaker has done his normal, stellar job of a detailed review of the Garmin 910xt and I won’t replicate it or even try to here.  See his blog for all that in depth content.  It really is extremely well done and well worth the read.   In general, if you’re looking at gear, check his site, he does an amazing job reviewing gear at a depth level that I sometimes have a hard time consuming, never mind producing! 🙂

What I’ll give you here are my initial impressions of the 910… kind of a reader’s digest view of the Rainmaker review if you will 🙂

Likes

• Pool swim mode: it’s nice to be able to collapse 2 devices (swimsense and 310xt) into 1.  The pool mode works well and the screen is much easier to read than that of the swimsense
• Battery life is stellar. Though I haven’t tested it yet, the quoted specs are great!
• GPS sensitivity feels much better than the 310’s: it seems to find satellites faster and keep lock in poor weather better
• Has “Training Effect”, which I haven’t currently used, but will explore (TSS is, in theory, coming soon and I’ll look forward to that for sure)
• Because the 910xt is ANT+, all of my existing ANT+ devices “just work”

Dislikes

• The smallest pool length it allows for is 20m.  My neighbourhood’s YMCA’s pool is 18m.  Hopefully a future firmware update relaxes the 20m limit.  I can’t see any good reason for it to persist.
• It appears that in order to upload swim workouts to TrainingPeaks I have to export them from Garmin Connect and then manually import them to TrainingPeaks.  This is pretty clunky and hopefully new releases of TrainingPeaks device agent or the Garmin ANT Agent resolve this
• No Heart Rate data on the swim.  Currently Polar is the only manufacturer of a strap-based HRM that transmits on frequencies that can be received in the water.  Why Garmin doesn’t do similar is beyond me.

Curiosities

• I have the quick release for the 310xt and anticipate getting it for the 910xt, though given the size of the 910 adding the quick release may just make it too unwieldy
• I’m really curious about the battery extender, though given the published battery life expectancies, you’d only need this additional battery life if you were doing ultraman or some other super-long event.

In Summary

If you’re a data addicted triathlete, like me, this is probably the closest to the ultimate training watch on the market today.  I can’t imagine you regretting the purchase.  Shame about the backlog but I know that Garmin is working hard to get caught up.

My sponsoring bike shop, Blacksmith Cycles, has loaned me a set of Madfiber Wheels for IMPanama.

If you’ve never seen these wheels they’re pretty spectacular!  They don’t have spokes per se, but rather, carbon ribbons that are an integral part of the rim and the hub.

They’re super light, pretty stiff, faster, deeper and more aero than my old zip 404’s.  These will come with me rather than my 404s.  I’ll have the following wheels in my arsenal:

• Madfiber Front
• HED Trispoke Front
• Madfiber Rear
• Zipp 808 Rear
• Zipp Disc Rear

I expect that unless it’s terribly windy, I’ll be running the disc at the back and the Madfiber or trispoke in the front.  During my taper and acclimatization rides in Panama I’ll be riding both combinations to see which I prefer and keep the other as a backup (just in case) for race day.

I picked up a Tyr Torque Pro Speedskin for IMPanama.  Apparently the water temperature will be in the 80s (26-27C) and definitely not wetsuit legal and wanting to get any legal boost I can, I figured a speedskin is a plus.   My Torque arrive a few weeks ago and on Sunday I finally had a chance to take it for a dip.

The suit arrives in a specially designed box that rivals any packaging Apple could come up with.  You immediately get the feeling that you’ve bought a quality product that has spared little expense.  The suit itself is well made: the zipper is strong, the stitching smooth and flawless from what I can see and the fit, while snug, is flexible and “suitable” (sorry, couldn’t help it) for the task at hand.

I took the suit for my Sunday easy swim: just an easy 2k at the local Y.  Sometimes the pool is empty, but lately, with all the New Years resolutions in play, it’s been pretty crowded so my expectations of doing any kind of 2k time trial were very low.  Unfortunately, my expectations were correct.  The pool was kinda silly-busy and the “fast” lane was filled with breast-stroking, unaware, “casual swimmers”.  What this meant to me was that I wouldn’t get any hard data about how much faster the suit would make me.  I did manage to get some data and some perceptions though and I’ll share those here.

I did manage a few lengths over the 2k without being impeded, those lengths were clocking in at the 1:32/100m range, where my normal swimsuit pace lately  has been about 1:40-45/100m.  One place that the suit was VERY noticeable was pushing off from the wall: it’s hard to describe but with the same effort you seemed to cover more distance and just felt smoother.

I’ll definitely get more data on the suit and have a post-race followup on it, but my first impressions on the design, manufacture and textile selection are all very positive.

There is one negative with the suit.  After my 40 minutes in the water, most of the adhesive logos were literally falling off the suit.  I’d left some in the pool somewhere.  Some were just barely holding onto the suit.  The rest came off in my hands with no effort.  I contacted Tyr asking “what gives?!” and they just directed me to the retailer that I got the suit from (I kind of felt brushed-off).  The retailer Swim2000 tells me that this is a common complaint and the cause for many returns.  That Tyr will accept the return without issue, even after IMPanama I can just exchange it.   So on one hand, it’s great that Tyr and its’ retailers stand behind the product and offer a great return/exchange policy; but, I have to admit, given the price-tag of this suit, such a blatant manufacturing glitch should be addressed before the consumer gets the product in the first place.  Further, I think that Tyr’s response should be (at least it would have been better received by me): “We understand this problem exists with some suits and we’re working to address it in manufacturing. Please accept our apologies and get in touch with the retailer where you purchased the suit to arrange an exchange.”

Anyhow.. I’ll stop ranting.  The purpose of the suit is not to display Tyr’s logo, but to make you faster in the water. It’s goals seem to be met. More data to come.

It’s all started feeling very real lately: Panama IM that is.  Flights and accommodations have been booked for a while, but lately I’ve starting finding myself thinking about what to pack, how and when to pack.  Wave start times have been announced and more vicerally my training during this last build cycle (which ends this week sometime) has been intense!  I’ve been loving the intensity, but I’ve learned to look forward to, and take full advantage of my rest days.  🙂

Today it’s 19 days to the race and I’m feeling good.  My nutrition is dialed, my equipment is behaving itself, my body is healed and uninjured and I’m in full-on risk avoidance mode (it it’s not helping me toward my goal and has even a remote chance of causing a race-limiting injury, I don’t do it).   Both eyes, mind, spirit (and hopefully hands will be) on the prize.

I’m going to attempt to write a daily (or near daily) ramp-up blog post here for the next 21 days as I do my final ramp up.  I’m going to take my GoPro camera (a chrismas gift from Kim)  and so I’ll shoot some training videos,  scenery videos while I’m there and try posting them here.

This is gonna be fun!  Can’t wait 😉

I recently picked up a TRX Force Trainer Kit.

I have to say, I’m pretty impressed.  The build quality of this unit is extremely high.  It’s clear that TRX spent a good amount of thought to ensure they were building a strong, durable and safe piece of training equipment.  The system also comes with a workout book that contains exercises and workout/conditioning programs.

I’ve only done the 1st 4 workouts in the series, but I can tell you for a 30-45 minute workout, you really feel it.  Many of the exercises force the use of small stabilizing muscles and a lot of core strength.  Strengthen the core and you get stronger everywhere.

Yes it’s a bit spendy, but it’s portable, well thought out and durable. I think it’s good value for the money and definitely a nice cross training aide for triathletes who spend a lot of time swimming, biking and running, but little time strengthening other muscles to avoid injury or become just generally stronger.  Compared to so many other tools that triathletes spend money on, it’s pretty cheap.  Compared to a gym membership, it’s very inexpensive.

🙂

Kim and I just made raw thai coconut cacao pudding in the blendtec. So good and so easy.

Ingredients:

• about 100g fresh young coconut
• a little coconut water to help blend
• about 2 tbsp cocoa powder (or nibs – we used powder because Kim doesn’t like the grittiness of nibs)
• agave or honey to taste
• pinch of salt

1. blend the coconut flesh to small chunks
2. in a small bowl mix the sweetener and cocoa
3. mix the coconut and cocoa mixture in the blender add pinch of salt and blend til smooth
4. refrigerate for about 15-20 minutes to set up.

Such a wonderful, tasty, healthy and low cal treat! Yum!  This will be made again for sure!

I had the opportunity to take a new Fizik Kurve Snake saddle for a test ride a few weeks ago. It’s a pretty cool saddle, firm where you’d want it firm, and pliable in all the right places. The saddle actually flexes and bends as you pedal to provide a pretty comfortable fit.

I was going to put the saddle on my P3C, but the rails on the Kurve are kind of oval or egg shaped in profile and I didn’t want to mar them by clamping them into the saddle clamp on the P3C, so I instead did my test riding on my Trek Soho. Certainly not the same experience as being down in an aero position on the Cervelo for 2-3 hrs, but enough to get some feel for the saddle. (Sorry, yea, bad pun, but it’s early and I haven’t had my coffee yet.)

On my commuter, the Kurve was pretty comfortable. It was so comfortable, in fact, that I had to keep reminding myself to think about how it felt – which is pretty awesome in a bike saddle: you certainly know if it doesn’t fit, but when it does, it’s just forgotten about.

Would I swap out my ISM Adamo Podium on my Cervelo for a Kurve? Hmm. No, probably not. I am a big fan of the ISM Saddles and how/where they distribute your sit-weight. BUT! If you are comfortable on more traditional saddle shapes and like the saddles like the Fizik Arione Tri 2, then you should definitely give a Kurve a try.

If you’re in the Toronto area, Blacksmith Cycles down on Queen West at Dovercourt Rd carry the full line of Fizik Kurve and they can set you up.

I couldn’t agree more with their findings. I’ve also tried most swimming mp3 players on the market and the SwimP3 rocks!

http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2011/12/great-swimming-mp3-player-shootout.html

Wow!  My computrainer is such a great tool.  I definitely need to post a real ™ review of it, but for now.  Here is a copy of the .3dc file for the Ironman Mont Tremblant course for those of you who are looking for something like this.

Enjoy!  I know I have been.  Especially loving the 12% grade climbs!  Booya!!!

IMMT.3dc