Zoot Ultra TT 4.0 review

As any triathlete knows, competing and training is largely mental. You can train all the time, but if you aren't confident in your ability, then you've got nothing. Now, while I've got plenty of self confidence in my ability, I find there's no easier way to give myself a little boost from time to time by buying myself little "gifts".

My first gift was my bike. Kinda pricey yes, but an investment. Then came some new shoes, my Timex Global Trainer GPS watch, a wetsuit, and the latest addition, triathlon specific running shoes.

I know I know, it seems like a gimmick. There are plenty of ways to sink money into triathlon, so shoes is just another one. But I began seeing Zoot all over the place and I knew I wanted them. I checked out my local shops to try on different models and sizes and settles on one that I like. Then I scoured the web to find the best price. The same pair that sold for $160 in store, I kind for $81.12 (including shipping) online!

Zoot Ultra TT 4.0

I had to wait a few days for delivery sure, but it was well worth it because I soon received in the mail my new pair of Zoot Ultra TT 4.0 triathlon running shoes!

So what makes these shoes special for triathlon?
The most noticeable thing is that these shoes don't have regular laces. It uses a built-in quick-lace system. This, along with the pull tab at the top and heel of the shoe allow for quick entry at transition, saving precious seconds. The Ultra TT is also designed to dry quickly while running. The shoe materials are very light and thin, and there are actually holes in strategic places to improve airflow. I love this because I know that I get really hot when I run and dump a lot of water on myself, which ends up getting my shoes wet, heavy, and blister-friendly. One last big thing is that they are specially made to be worn without socks.

After receiving the shoes I took them on a practice run on the treadmill at lunch for some long interval work. They feel great! The shoes are super light and move nicely. The one thing to note though, is that they are a fairly "minimal" shoe. I don't know if it was because I'm more used to shoes with a lot of support, or I was running very forefoot, but I managed to strain my calf, which has me out of run-training until it heals up. Also, I did notice that after 6K I was beginning to get the start of blisters near the ball of my foot. I checked online for suggestions, and I think that using a bit of BodyGlide on that area should prevent this until my feet get used to running without socks.

That's it for now,
Keep Tri-ing!

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Ile Bizard Blizzard Run 2012 Race Recap

It has been a few weeks since the last post, and I think the best way to go about this is to start at the most recent events then go back.

From Ile Bizard and new FB pic!

Last Sunday I competed in the Ile Bizard Blizzard Challenge 10K. I decide to do this run really as just a fun run, and it isn’t too far from me. I had been planning on running it at a pretty casual pace…but then I checked out last years results. In 2011, there were only 17 people who competed in my age group (25-29), and a fair amount were over an hour. Since I know my easy pace is about 6:00/km, I figured that if I push myself to even 5:00/km I could potentially break into the top ten of my age group.

I should also point out that I didn't want this event to disrupt my Training schedule, so I still went swimming the night before, and did 90 minutes of spinning the morning of the race. Anyhow, the race started and I got off to a pretty decent pace. The run began with a long uphill before winding into a forested area, turned back for the first 5K, then repeated.

The race was tough to be honest. I haven't done much hill training, and I was definitely running faster than I normally do for such a long time. At the end of the first 5K, you had to run to the base of the hill and then climb to the top before catching a break and leveling off.

In the end I finished in 47:10, a time that I was pretty pleased with, and I thought I probably made it into the top 10 of my age group. NOPE! I guess my age group got faster because I only came in 16th!
Either way it was a nice race and I enjoyed the challenge. My coach actually had a 10k time trial scheduled for this Saturday anyway.

I'll give a training update in my next post later this week, since this is getting a little long as it is.

I hope you've enjoyed reading, and Keep Tri-ing!

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Suicide Run Drills

This past Saturday, I decided to accept a friend's challenge to run suicide drills from his house to our old school, which is about 1.5km away. This was a bad idea.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, a "Suicide" is a drill used most often in basketball training. It's a pretty simple exercise that basically goes like this;
1) Line up at one end of the gym
2) Sprint to the the first line or a cone, turn around and sprint back to the beginning
3) Sprint to the second nearest line or cone, turn around and sprint back to the beginning
4) Continue until the farthest line, then build back down.

In a gym setting, this is a pretty tiring exercise because the athletes are going at a really high intensity the whole time. The challenge that I accepted was to do a Suicide, using city blocks as my markers. I originally had it in my head that I could do it in a half hour. Obviously I had not done the math, because it turns out that this 1.5Km stretch becomes closer to 15 when you are running it Suicide-style.

I did the run at night, because there are less cars on the road ( I live in a pretty quiet neighbourhood), and I wanted to run on the street since the sidewalks were pretty icy. Oh ya, it was also somewhere around -20celsius while doing this. It was so cold that the display on my Timex Global Trainer stopped working.

The drill is called a Suicide because it is extremely intense. On the road, it is pure torture. I had to run the same path over and over and see the same scenery, the same parked cars, so many times that I still see them in my dreams. My pace wasn't spectacular, which is pretty expected considering all the stop-and-going that I had to do. Also, I was for some reason unable to connect to GPS so I'm basing pace on my footpod, which I find to be a little off. However, I think I ran around 13KM in about 1:20, which come up just under a 10min/mile. Not fast but I'm satisfied.

Oh, in other news, I am officially registered for the Lake Placid Half Marathon ( see countdown on the right). I didn't realise that it happens to be the same weekend or right after my local Spartan Races, so I don't think I'll get a chance to try those out this year, but a Half in a  beautiful new location works for me! Hopefully I'll get to PR with all the training I'm doing now :) .

The next week should be interesting, as we are starting to ramp up the duration of our training sessions.
That all for now, keep Tri-ing!

PS. Shout-out to Tamara! (she definitely didn't ask to be mentioned)

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