Hi there,

Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. I guess time just got away from me. No excuses, I know.

Any­how, I thought I’d share with you my week­end of rid­ing in sup­port of the most wor­thy cause. The Ride to Con­quer Can­cer began on Sat­ur­day at Ontario Place and ended up on Sun­day, in Nia­gara Falls. What a won­der­ful event! The weather was pic­ture per­fect and the rid­ing was scenic and var­ied, with beau­ti­ful flats, rolling hills and some chal­leng­ing hills. There were 5500 cyclists par­tic­i­pat­ing and remark­ably, twenty mil­lion dol­lars was raised!

If you’re con­sid­er­ing doing this 2 day event, don’t put it off and reg­is­ter today for 2015!

I rode with a few friends and my triath­lete cousin, from D’Ornellas Cycling Club. First out of the gate on both morn­ings (get­ting out of Ontario Place was scary!) and the first group to cross the fin­ish line, both days. It ended up being a lit­tle longer than 100k per day. 106 on Sat­ur­day, and slightly longer on Sun­day, at 113. All in all, an amaz­ing weekend.

Today, I taught my usual ball/​core class, did bi’s and tr’s and decided that I should forgo any car­dio and let the legs recover a bit. There’s always tomorrow!

Hope you’re all train­ing hard and enjoy­ing this great weather.

Hi everyone,

Sorry it’s been awhile since my last blog.…

Today I’d like to chat about shift­ing your train­ing into gear, now that the warmer weather has finally arrived.

As you know, win­ter train­ing typ­i­cally is referred to as off or post-​race sea­son. Dur­ing the fall, after months of either rac­ing or high inten­sity train­ing, the body is in need of repair and recov­ery. Not only phys­i­cally do we need the break, but men­tally, it’s impor­tant to relax a bit and dial the work­outs down. This helps to pre­vent burnout and impor­tantly, injuries.

As a spin instruc­tor and cycling enthu­si­ast, I focus my win­ter work­outs around aer­o­bic base build­ing or long endurance rides which keep the heart rate mod­er­ate and steady. How­ever, once the miles have been logged, come Spring, we’re ready to dial up the inten­sity and work in some tough inter­val train­ing. There are lots of dif­fer­ent ways to intro­duce inter­vals into your work­outs, whether it be run­ning, cycling, and even resis­tance train­ing. Check out the link below for some cre­ative ways to amp up your indoor cycling work­outs. Hope­fully, though, we’ll be out on the road soon.…

The key how­ever with inter­val train­ing is to ensure that your high inten­sity zone is HIGH! Be sure to time the inter­vals and push as hard as you can. Train­ing with a heart rate mon­i­tor will help you to work within the rec­om­mended zones.

http://​www​.bicy​cling​.com/​t​r​a​i​n​i​n​g​-​n​u​t​r​i​t​i​o​n​/​t​r​a​i​n​i​n​g​-​f​i​t​n​e​s​s​/​q​u​i​c​k​-​c​y​c​l​i​n​g​-​w​o​r​k​o​u​t​s​-​p​o​w​e​r​-​a​n​d​-​e​n​d​u​r​a​n​c​e

On another note, I tried a new paleo friendly bread that it dead sim­ple and full of healthy fats while free of flour, eggs and dairy. I baked mine free-​form on parch­ment paper instead of in a loaf pan. It kind of looks more like a flat­bread but is totally deli­cious either way.

I like it toasted with almond but­ter, before I head out for a run. Hope you like it!

http://​www​.mynew​roots​.org/​s​i​t​e​/​2​0​1​3​/​0​2​/​t​h​e​-​l​i​f​e​-​c​h​a​n​g​i​n​g​-​l​o​a​f​-​o​f​-​b​r​e​a​d​/

Before:

After:

Hi everyone,

Now that we’re into April, I’ve ramped up my train­ing slightly with my sights on the upcom­ing sea­son. I’m think­ing of doing some tri races but haven’t yet decided what dis­tances I want to com­mit to. I’m wrestling with the idea of a half iron­man but I’m a bit ner­vous about the impact of the run on my body. I’ve been run­ning around 40-​45km/​week with no prob­lems other than a pesky glute that likes to tighten up, result­ing in weak­ened power of the legs. It doesn’t feel like pir­i­formis because luck­ily, I have expe­ri­enced zero sci­atic pain but I have been doing some dynamic move­ments that are help­ing to release the glutes. This arti­cle pro­vides some really good infor­ma­tion about pir­i­formis syn­drome and also illus­trates some of the exer­cises that I’ve been prac­tic­ing. Now get out there and RUN!! No excuses!!!

http://​run​ning​.com​peti​tor​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​0​3​/​p​h​o​t​o​s​/​b​e​a​t​-​p​i​r​i​f​o​r​m​i​s​-​s​y​n​d​r​o​m​e​_​9​8​2​0​1

On another note, I made a yummy Mid­dle East­ern inspired meal the other night to rave reviews. I took a lamb shawarma recipe, used chicken breasts instead, and served it with bas­mati rice infused with all­spice and cumin. I also added a hand­ful of toasted sliv­ered almonds and dried cran­ber­ries to the rice just before serv­ing. So yummy!

\http://​all​recipes​.com/​R​e​c​i​p​e​/​L​a​m​b​-​S​h​a​w​a​r​m​a​/​D​e​t​a​i​l​.​a​s​p​x​?​e​v​t​1​9​=​1

I also stum­bled upon this web­site which deliv­ers authen­tic Lebanese flavours. I love Mid­dle East­ern food and this site has some great restau­rant dishes to eas­ily repli­cate at home.

http://​www​.mamasle​bane​sek​itchen​.com/

Enjoy!

Hello there,

Today, after teach­ing a sports con­di­tion­ing class, one of the mem­bers came up to me and paid me the ulti­mate com­pli­ment. She said,” I used to be really intim­i­dated tak­ing your class because it was always very dif­fi­cult and I didn’t feel like I was fit enough to par­tic­i­pate. But then I decided to just go ahead and do my best and not worry about any­one else. I also lis­tened to what you repeated over and over again in the class and that was, to do as much as you can, rest when you need to, and come back for a few more reps.”

That, ladies and gen­tle­men, is how you get fit. If you’ve been tak­ing classes where you barely break a sweat or are able to do every­thing with ease then I hate to tell you, you are wast­ing your time and efforts. The only way to get stronger is to con­stantly chal­lenge your body. It might mean adding weights with each set, cut­ting your recov­ery time between sets, chang­ing the tempo of your reps, includ­ing a vari­ety of inter­vals, speed­work and hill climb­ing into your rides and runs.…the list goes on and on. What­ever you do, don’t con­tinue to do the same thing over and over again and expect dif­fer­ent results. That truly is the def­i­n­i­tion of insanity!

Now get out there and kick some butt!!

Happy Mon­day every­one! Hope you had a great weekend.

Today, I would like to chat a bit about the impor­tance of recov­ery in train­ing. Yes­ter­day was a per­fect exam­ple of my body cry­ing out to me for rest. Sun­days, are my long run days, and so, as per usual, I hopped on the tread­mill (I don’t run out­doors in the win­ter) and pressed start. From my very first few strides, I knew that this was going to be one long, ardu­ous run. I know, as all you run­ners must know, that the first 10 – 20 min­utes of a run your legs usu­ally feel slug­gish and your brain is sig­nalling you to stop but you push through because the legs begin to loosen up and even­tu­ally, you fall into your run­ning groove. Yes­ter­day was not the case. My legs felt heavy and tired through­out the entire run; my glutes were tight and sore and men­tally, it took every ounce of strength and deter­mi­na­tion to fin­ish. At the end, I felt com­pletely depleted; a far cry from a runner’s high, let me tell you.

Now I can­not tell a lie; I almost never take a rest day unless I’m phys­i­cally unable to train. I know that I should, yet I don’t and for what­ever rea­son, I seem to be able to push through on the days when I’m feel­ing low on energy. Mon­days, for exam­ple, I only teach a core strength class and usu­ally just train back and shoul­ders on my own with no car­dio work, so I kind of feel like that’s an active rest day. Well, it’s not and so today I am tak­ing a com­plete rest day (other than my class this morn­ing.) I’m hop­ing that I will feel recharged and reju­ve­nated come tomor­row morning.

I’d like you to check out this link below which is writ­ten for triath­letes but the infor­ma­tion can cer­tainly be used in your train­ing program.

http://​www​.train​ings​mar​ton​line​.com/​i​m​a​g​e​s​/​F​r​e​e​_​T​r​i​a​t​h​l​o​n​_​A​r​t​i​c​l​e​s​/​T​r​i​a​t​h​l​o​n​_​T​r​a​i​n​i​n​g​_​R​e​c​o​v​e​r​y​.​p​d​f

On another note, I made a really yummy muesli yes­ter­day that is so easy and good for you. I’m not a big dairy fan but I must say, Greek yogurt is pretty darn good and has a decent amount of pro­tein. You can cer­tainly change up your fruits; berries would be deli­cious as would the addi­tion of coconut, seeds and nuts.

Hope you enjoy it!

Muesli:

2 sweet apples, grated

1 can (500 mL) unsweet­ened crushed pineapple

1 cup low­fat Greek yogurt (plain or flavoured — I used vanilla)

1 cup large flake rolled oats

2 tsp cinnamon

Stir ingre­di­ents together in a large mix­ing bowl. Dig in!

Hi everyone,

Hope you’re all enjoy­ing your weekend!

Today I would like to chat about trai­ing within spe­cific heart rate zones. I recently pur­chased a mon­tior and have found it be a fan­tas­tic train­ing tool. I never really paid much atten­tion to my heart rate unless it seemed unusu­ally high or low, at which time I would typ­i­cally slow down or speed up accord­ingly. But with a mon­i­tor, you will learn how to train in a more dis­ci­plined, effi­cient manner.

Dur­ing the win­ter sea­son, I focus on base build­ing or build­ing my aer­o­bic capac­ity. For the most part, this means train­ing in zone 3 or at medium inten­sity. I like to think of this train­ing zone as “sus­tain­able dis­com­fort” or “com­fort­ably hard”. In terms of your heart rate, zone 3 is typ­i­cally betweem 75%-85% MHR.

I think the hard­est part about train­ing with a mon­i­tor is main­tain­ing the dis­ci­pline to stay within the zone and not go over/​under. Remem­ber, this is the time of year when we need to work on our endurance, not focus on anaer­o­bic or inter­val work. I like to throw in a few short sprints every now and again but for the most part, I like to keep my heart rate consistent.

Here’s a good link for those of you who aren’t sure what your MHR is. Keep me in mind, these are approx­i­mate cal­cu­la­tions, and there are vari­ances. I think equa­tion 6 is the most accurate.

Here’s to trai­ing smart!

http://​www​.digi​fit​.com/​h​e​a​r​t​r​a​t​e​z​o​n​e​s​/​m​a​x​i​m​u​m​-​h​e​a​r​t​-​r​a​t​e​.​a​s​p​?​A​g​e​=​4​6​#​t​a​b​l​e