I went for a jog yesterday afternoon and this morning. Edmonton is a gorgeous city with a beautiful waterfront and trail system running past the Saskatchewan river. There is one caveat to Edmonton though, winter lasts an exceptionally long time. As one fellow colloquially put it, Edmonton has two seasons: Winter and July.

Anyway, I’m gonna go running tomorrow morning and hopefully I’ll get a chance to take some pics this week and post ‘em online.

Okay, I know this update is WAYYYY overdue.

Monday: Swimming with the Wetcats for 2500 yds and a 30 min run Monday afternoon.

Tuesday: 12.5 Miles on the bike

Wednesday: 4.6 Mile run

Thursday: 8.1 Miles on the bike

Friday: nada. nyet. zip. zero.

Saturday: Saturday morning was the run before the honored heroes breakfast. Together myself and team green covered just over 5 miles.

Sunday: I got lost on the way to the swim clinic, so I swam over at the crap pool at 24 fitness. Blech, it’s such a nasty pool. Also, put in 30 minutes on the bike that afternoon.

Total distance: 4100 yds Swum. 13.21 Miles Ran 27 Miles Biked.

Thought of the Week: The truth is, it’s difficult to find the daylight hours to get the time in. If a conference call starts early or something else comes up you miss the AM window to get stuff done before work.

Well, I have lost a button from my Garmin Forerunner 201 GPS. It still works well as a GPS, but until I figure out how to repair the rubber button I lost, you must have a pencil or bit of twig to access and select the button on my unit. It’s a bummer, because this little guy is awesome for training.

I ordered a replacement last night and got the Forerunner 305 and the Edge cadence sensor for the bike. Thanks to a rebate, a deep discount from online providers and an online gift card I had, this bundle ended up costing me about $150. That’s a steal!

The initial difference between the x01 and the x05 series is obvious just to look at, the “watch”-like form factor. The 205 is a great training aid, but that sucker is huge. It’s like having a giant GPS brownie strapped to your wrist. I am looking forward to the slightly slimmer more squared display face. My 205 still uses a serial cable interface which are becoming rarer and rarer on laptops these days. Fortunately my work laptop is a dell piece of junk, but hopefully they have gone to USB. Also, they’ve upgraded the training software that comes with the system, I look forward to that. Finally, I am SUPER excited to try the new GPS chip they use in these newer models. People online have claimed to have much faster acquisition time and excellent coverage, even under cover of trees and indoors. This was an inconvenience with my old GPS. Of course, I did like walking for a few minutes to warm up before the GPS found the satellites.

The 301 series supported wireless accessories, like the heart rate strap, which comes with my unit. However, the 305 will support using the EDGE cadence meter so this will be a big boon to my cycling training as I’d rather invest in Garmin and get cadence, speed, coordinates, and heart rate all in one file.

I’ll post a proper review once I get it in the mail.

# Amazon link #

Well, as I suspected, cycling is the toughest sport for me to get out and do. I have a bike and so good cycling gear, but the rain and storms ocombined with a lack of experience has left me a little nervouse to pounding the pavement in Allen during morning rush hour. I suspect my cycling abilities will greatly improve by the end of this summer.

Wednesday night, I got in an evening run for 40 mins. The bad news is my GPS forerunner lost a button, but the good news is, I have purchased a replacement. More to come.

Daily totals:

Tuesday – Bike: 7.5 Miles

Wednesday – Run: 4.5 Miles

Welcome to the first day of official training. This morning began with a 3000 yd swim at the Oak Point pool in Plano with coach Bob Solow and the Plano WetCats. Swimming is probably the least worrisome of the three sports in triathlon to me but all of my training and methods are about 15 years out of date. It’s amazing how much swimming has changed fundamentally.

If you are interested in general fitness swimming, improving your stroke, or even racing, you would do well to come to the pool and spend some time with Bob.

www.planowetcats.com

Up tonight, a quick 30 minute run around the neighborhood.

*UPDATE* Had my run. Boy is running fun. Way, way fun. Whee.

Tomorrow is all about finding time for a bike ride.

Daily total: Swam 3000 yds. Ran 3.5 miles