Signed up!

TL; DR

This week covers Feb. 10-16. Today is a weird public holiday in my province, but not a day of rest.

• Signed up for my A race
• Called a snow day on my C race; what is a C race anyway?
• Big toe still in sad shape
• This week: digging out; gym anxiety

Committed!

Whenever I sign up for a race I feel boxed in; I really liked Patrick Delorenzi’s approach of training for Ironman fitness, and then finding the race to do as he got close to being ready. But that isn’t my approach for 2025; I decided late last year my stretch goal was a 72-mile triathlon; Barrelman is pretty much the last half-Ironman–ish race I can do this calendar year, and it’s only 12 days ahead of my 72nd birthday, so that became my actual “A” race. Anyway I wanted to train for it but didn’t want to sign up—but in a fit of optimism this week I pulled the trigger, spent the money, and committed myself!

My backup race for this season was Ironman 70.3 Florida. The vision was that I wouldn’t sign up for it unless I “had to”. I’ll admit that right now I’m reluctant to travel the States, just because of the current administration’s attitude to Canada.

This week’s training—except for Sunday, see below—has been 100% compliant. Funnily “good” weeks just inspire quiet joy, and no need to blog anything. 🙂

Not surrendering to the plan

The front page of this morning’s Toronto Star.

So, we got a lot of snow, about half of it from the wee hours of Sunday morning. Looking at that, looking at a car already covered in snow, and remembering my other white-knuckle drives this week (even with snow tires) I blew off the fun 5K I’d signed up for: it just didn’t seem worth it.

My mantra this year is Surrender to the plan—i.e. do what you planned to do. A friend—a good friend, to be clear—chided me over my blowing off the 5K. My coach was ok with it and I’m ok with it: it was a fun “C” race, the only accommodation to it was a couple of easy legs-moving workouts in the two days leading up to it.

Digging around the Web I found this interesting article on how you classify races A, B, or C. So now here’s how I classify the races I’ve signed up for this year

• The underground 5K I blew off: C—a fun race I did no specific training for
• Rose City sprint triathlon, June 22: B—“practice” race for my “A” race
• Not since Moses 5K, July 13: C—running on the floor of the Bay of Fundy is very cool, but this is really just the MacGuffin for our trip to Nova Scotia
• Toronto Triathlon Festival Olympic-distance tri, July 27: B—2^nd and last practice race
• Barrelman, Sept. 14: A
• Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon, Oct. 18: B-minus or C-plus—expect to ride my fitness from Barrelman, and I’ll likely only do it if my friend Diane wants to do it

Instead of the real-world 5K I was to run a hard-for-me 5K on my treadmill, but I went out too fast and DNF’d! But I learned some lessons about eating and pace. And, to be frank, it was nice looking out the window at all the snow but running comfortably.

Sad toe

(Couldn’t link to the source page, so no credit possible.)

8½ weeks after my toenail surgery the nailbed still hasn’t healed. My doc prescribed a weeklong series of cephalexin I’m just one tablet away from completing, but I wouldn’t say the apparent infection has subsided, nor has the nailbed ceased its disturbing generation of new skin. I’ll see my doc again this week.

It isn’t stopping me from walking, running, or riding the trainer, but it is stopping me from swimming: you don’t swim in a pool if you have a gooey wound, even if it’s not bleeding. At least I don’t think you do.

This week: Feb. 17-23

• Big project for today or tomorrow is shovelling out the car.
• Big project for the week is getting ready for our trip to visit our daughter in Vancouver next week.
• Sunday will see me going to the gym by myself. I can’t rationalize it but I find working out in the gym daunting. It really triggers my I-don’t-belong feeling.