Who doesnt love to the hate the 6 "Extreme" morons from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. I did plan to push myself this week with the various aspects of the training so i had this in the back of my head right before each work out. It didnt really help anything other to make myself laugh randomly out loud, which made others around me at the gym and the pool feel awkward and scared. Jokes on them, in my head i am hilarious, right self? Right Sean! There you see. 
Burgeoning mental illness aside, it was a great week.
I took some time off from work this week and did not really schedule anything for myself other then i wanted to extend my times/distances on all three aspects of the triathlon and push myself in my maximal zone training.
In fact Tuesday i did absolutely nothing except watch all the episodes of DareDevil on Netflix and eat popcorn from about 8am in the morning until about 1130pm that night. It was awesome and i regret nothing!!! Great series if you are a comic book nerd like i am just got me pumped for May 1st to see the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie. Next week's post will incorporate 'Avengers Assemble' probably every third sentence so get ready for that.
The "to the extreme" week went something like this:
Monday: 250m warm up + 1750m swim
Tuesday: DareDevilDay/Off
Wednesday: 1750m swim + 20mile Bike ride
Thursday: 250m warm up + 5000m swim ( yep you read that right)
Friday: 7km run
Saturday: Speed Test Day: 13m bike ( 33:13min) + 5km run ( 41:23min)
Sunday: Off
So not a bad week, i was really happy to have the time to push myself on a couple of things.
My Wednesday ride, I really wanted to see what distance i could get in an hour ride. I did a little over 20miles which is about 32-33km, I feel like i could get this time down and also that i am really looking forward to getting out on the road soon with my bike. 
Thursday's swim was my favorite workout of the week. I literally swam for 2 hours straight to hit the 5000m mark. Why the hell would anyone do that you may ask? Well, I wanted to see if i could swim that distance in the safety of the pool before registering for Epic Dartmouth 5k swim.
Now i know it will be harder in the open water or the lake water whatever, but i wanted to see if my body would agree to let me swim for that long in terms of time. After the first 100 lengths i was really questioning my decision making skills, i swam through 3 different lane mates in the 2 hours and was pretty much a prune by the time i was finished. 
But i was smiling from ear to ear when i was done, and even got a well done from the usually austere life guards. This was a nice step forward especially because i was not pleased with the volume of lanes the swim team was taking up on Wednesday and had to change my schedule for my workouts that day. How dare they right?
I was pretty exhausted for most of the day afterwards and my plans of cleaning our spare bedroom that had been buried over the winter went out the window.
Thursday was my longer run day. There was an attempt made to head to the gym after getting everyone off to school and work, but my body had other ideas, and i was outvoted so we ( yes the royal we) went back to bed and slept until noon. My get up and go from the day before had got up and went. Around 1pm i was able to rally and get to the treadmill, and gosh golly gee, it was my favorite treadmill. But to my suprise they changed the settings from the traditional miles/per hour to kms/per hour. Now this should not be that big of a deal, but i have structured my runs over the many years of using this beloved treadmill based on the miles and not the kms.
Oh yeah, this is my favorite treadmill because the max time is 75 minutes and not 20 like all the others. Yes i am a treadmill diva and i dont care, its my treadmill, so urybody else you have been notified. Back off.
haha
So after doing some not so quick math, and forcing my legs to move forward I did a little over 7kms in the hour i had planned. My top pace per km was about 7.3 which nets out to be about 8:15-30min per kilometer. My goal is to get to 8km per hour which would put me in the 7 minutes range per kilometer. 
I was happy, again that i could keep moving for the length of time, but really want to get my distance up as the weeks roll on.
All of which led to a very good day on Saturday.
I was really pumping on the bike to get my time to 33min and was able to pop right off and get on the treadmill to do my 5k. Now my time isnt stellar for the run but i did get the treadmill up to 7.8 and ran in the mid 7's for about 20 of the 41mins that it took me. i would love to get my 5k time down to about 37min in the next month.
I am hoping that heading outdoors will help accomplish this goal after i get the first few shin splint runs out of the way.
If only the weather would cooperate, this morning felt more like fall when spring with some massive snow flakes coming down. 
Also should be getting some more information about Big Boy Running shirts today, so that is pretty cool.
Should hopefully be a good week this week - going to be starting off with a run instead of swim and my goal will be to get my runs up to 3-4 per week over the next two weeks. Hope youse all ( avg of 15-18 of you) have a great week!!!
Sean "BigBoyRunning' Ryan

This week was a little bit of a progression back to regular training with the flu part of cold and flu being gone and now i am just left with the congestion, coughing and phlegm of a cold that is hanging on by its fingernails. It has been a lot easier to breath this week and with that i was able to push my pacing on all the different triathlon components. This week also included a commitment to try the 5000m swim at Epic Dartmouth with a University friend, that is us pictured above from our days practicing for mens synchronized swimming. We were both lifeguards in years gone by and love a challenge. My longest swim to date is about 2000m so this will give me something else to push for over the next couple of months in addition to the 2 sprint triathlons.
I am actually taking some time off of work this week to take back some of my overtime over the last 6 weeks but also to take a breather as we ramp up again with a new team of student leaders on May 1st, so it is good to have a bit of downtime between teams. I am going to be using this time to get my bikes ready and get start to move some of my training outdoors as i have been a gym/pool rat all winter. Now that the snow is melting and the temps are starting to creep higher in the Nish I am looking forward to start doing some 'real life' training outside to see if my times/distances correlate with what the machines have been telling me.
The week went like this:
Monday: 3x100m warm up and sprints + 750m swim ( 16:04min)
Tuesday: off
Wednesday: 13 mile bike ride ( 41:45min) + 20min run
Thursday: 1x100m warm up and sprint + 750m swim (16:15min) + 1000m swim
Friday: 5k run ( 43:08 min)
Saturday: off
Sunday: 13 mile bike ride ( 38:47min) + 30min run
So with this commitment of Epic Dartmouth 5000m swim I am going to have to break down and buy a wetsuit. I was planning on doing that anyway, but now I will have to with 3 swimming events on the books for this summer, so i cant put it off any longer. I recently purchased some swimming gear from swimoutlet.com and was pretty impressed with pricing, shipping and how quickly i received the items and the quality of the items once i had them. Do i dare buy a wetsuit online and not try things on? I dont know if i am that brave but the proximity of triathlon gear purchasing options where i live is beyond nonexistent so might be the only option. 
I have also started looking into having my own shirts made for 'Big Boy Running' might as well have something with my logo on it rather then other peoples logos, once i get further along i will post some picks of what the shirt will look like. 
Time to put this week to bed and get started on the next one.
Sean "BigBoyRunning" Ryan

While i did get over the fever/flu part of whatever invaded my body last week this week was a phlem phueled phiasco of hacking and coughing through pretty much every workout. Who knew that riding the bike or running would trigger an absolute avalanche of snot with every footfall or peddle rotation. 
One of the days i did a bike workout i pretty much cleared out the whole row of bikers on either side of me due to my non stop hacking and coughing. I sounded like darth vader at the end of Jedi when his breathing mechanism is all messed up. People were giving me a wide berth whenever i walked to and from different equipment, to the point that they were almost jumping out of my way as to not be infected with whatever was turning me into a snot zombie.
I was def having problems with my breathing for most of the week and the only real relief was having a never ending supply of cough drops in my face to slow the coughing and open up my breathing.
I dont even want to talk about the swim workout i did at the beginning of last week as i am sure i left behind a trail of snot similar to the BP Gulf of Mexico coast disaster. 
(news reporter voice) We are not sure what caused these swimmers to get stuck in this thick viscous substance, efforts are now underway to clean them and send them back into their natural habitats. Hopefully this tragedy will have a happy ending. Back to you Tim.
So the week coughed out something like this:
Monday: off
Tuesday: 2x750m swims
Wednesday: 25min Bike at aerobic zone + 25min run at aerobic zone
Thursday: off
Friday: off
Saturday: 50min Bike at maximal zone + 5km run at maximal zone
Sunday: 25min Bike at maximal zone + 20min run at maximal zone
Not my best week, but considering being at about 80% i will take it as a win.
I have also picked my races for the summer, sadly Bluenose will not be one of ones I am doing this year but maybe next year. Be the first year in 5 years that i have missed doing a distance at this race but the timing just didnt work out.
So i will be doing the Sprint Distance Port Hood Triathlon; the Sprint Distance for the Guysborough Triathlon and possibly the EPIC Dartmouth run and swim probably 5km run and 2000km swim.
Pretty excited to give these a go, and really looking forward to moving some of my training out doors in the next couple of weeks.
Sean"BigBoyRunning"Ryan

Holy crap on a cracker this was not a good week. After having such an incredible week last week with the indoor triathlon, it was a complete plummet to rock bottom this week. I dont know which exercise gods i pissed off, or bad karma i incurred or why my immune system decided to take a leave of absence without notice but i got nailed with the flu big time this week. I planned to take Monday off this week to give my knees a break from doing the indoor on Sunday and woke up Tuesday and my whole body felt like it was floating. Tuesday was a crazy busy day that was going to go full on from like 8am to 8pm that night so there was no time to really think about being sick. I am pretty sure that i had a fever most of the day as i only have recall of bits and pieces of the day. Needless to say, I did not make it to the gym on Tuesday.
Wednesday and Thursday, well, i dont remember these days specifically, but I had some pretty crazy dreams, drank as much water as i could, and probably hacked, sneezed and blew out enough snot to sculpt a life size replica of 'Slimer' from the Ghostbusters. Gross, yes, I know.
No gym either of these days.
Good Friday. Well, good in that this was the day my fever finally broke, but the rivers of snot and deep hacking coughs persisted which has but my back into spasm multiple times over the last few days. So yay me. Still no gym.
Saturday, when i woke up, i felt the best i had felt all week. I got a shower and felt a lot better. Usually Saturday morning is the time i do the weekly grocery purchase, typically on my own, but i was a little light headed from the lack of food, so my lovely wife came along to take on the driving duties to and from. Typically i am a flyer hawker, reviewing all products from the various grocery outlets to find the best deals, i knew i only had one stop in me, so i picked Sobeys and away we went. 
I have a good nose. I am like a bloodhound, if i ever lost my eyesight i would be SmellDevil. So even with 10 pounds of snot clogging up olfactory senses i could smell this obnoxious smell in sobeys. I cant exactly pinpoint what the smell was, but there was a strange strong smell like fresh cardboard boxes being rubbed with condom spermicide - it was a weird smell. 
Being lightheaded from the flu and this smell was not a good combo. We started moving down the rows fairly quickly, i was grabbing at random things and throwing them in the cart. This smell would not let up.
We finished, paid and got the hell out of there. At the check out i almost lost what little was in my stomach, but luckily didnt.
We got the car packed up and headed home.
Lucky for me that smell was stuck in my nose.
I am not sure if the smell adhered to my snot, or if my brain just wouldnt let the smell go because it was so strange, but all i could smell the rest of the day was that smell. 
Even now, a day later, I can still faintly smell it. So gross.
Also, no gym Saturday, and most likely there will be no gym today as i am still not 100% and still filled to the brim with snot.
So, yup, this has pretty much been the worst week that i have had, and the worst i have been sick since i really cant remember when. 
On the upside though, i do have a bunch of popsicles and hopefully the sun that is out today will melt some of the snow.
I am hoping to get back at training on Monday, and maybe this week off was a break that maybe my knees needed.
This does of course mean that there will also be no #cigarSunday which i am a little sad about, and of course it is a beautiful day, which is like a lost opportunity, but i couldnt deeply inhale anything without coughing up big chunks of gross things, so it may be for the best today.
Hopefully you all had a better week then I did, Happy Easter, and now its time for some duck calling and a popsicle.
Sean"BigBoyRunning" Ryan