(whoosh)
- Looking lovely as ever.
(whoosh)
Wait, I'm in the States now, mile from here.
(whoosh)
Morning trainiacs.
You might be wondering why I'm not starting off
today's vlog with a workout.
Well, number one, start of taper week,
and you don't work out on day one of the taper process
because it's not a week, we got about two and a half weeks.
Number two, I'm on my way to New York
for social media week, so I don't have a ton of time.
Actually boarding started 10 minutes ago,
but I got a really strong electrolyte drink,
super cool compressions socks,
and my, as always, totally done up travel pack.
Word of note, make sure you don't have a saddlebag
in your backpack when you're going through security.
That did not go over well,
I am now short one set of allen keys
and a CO2 cartridge.
This is like the fourth time that that's happened.
I mean, I didn't intend to do it,
I just bike with this bag all throughout the year,
and that's my saddlebag so I don't leave it on the bike
when it's locked up outside while I'm at work.
I gotta go hop on this plane,
I'm going to tell you about my super cool socks,
the electrolyte drink, taper week,
taper week, I need a coffee,
the taper process and how that starts out
with no workout today, get into all that
while I'm at the layover in Toronto.
(electronic music)
See ya.
Hello Toronto creepy dark bridge.
I am in Toronto for about a one hour layover.
Finally got some time to chat with you.
It is hot in here.
First off, addressing the obvious,
why I wasn't working out.
It is the very first day of taper day.
And how you deal with the first anywhere from one
to three days of a taper process is to take it
outright off, like nothing, nada, zero, zilch.
Why you do that at the start of the taper process
is to give your body a complete recovery.
Like you are flushing out as much
of your accumulated fatigue as possible
because remember a couple weeks ago when I said
that what you're trying to do in your training
is increase the volume of training
and get your body on a trajectory of getting stronger
and faster and adapting to that increased load.
And what you do at the start by taking a few days
outright off is boom, drop your volume,
your intensity, everything down to nothing,
and for a few days your body is still going
on that upward trajectory and you get a little bit of a gap
where your body is getting faster and repairing itself
well beyond what the load is actually on your body.
So in the first few days of taper week, do nothing,
taper process, do nothing.
I keep saying taper week, in the taper process
you do nothing.
But that means that today, travel day, we take it right off.
Now you might also be asking why am I taking
a taper process like two and a half weeks
out from Ironman Campeche, is that how long
you should be tapering for?
No, not really, the reason that we're doing that
is because I'm traveling and the taper is starting.
Ideally we would have wanted to be training this week,
but to be traveling while at the same time
continuing to train, it's too much of a load on your body,
and it risks injury and not really getting in
any quality training.
Traveling alone takes a lot out of your body,
and that is a very nice segway to
how to travel effectively.
So I mentioned that I have these good looking babies, eh.
How nice are those pantyhose?
I've got compression socks.
And I often get asked do I wear compression socks regularly?
No, I absolutely do not.
Inflammation is actually a big part of the process
to getting faster.
So things like ice baths and compression socks,
they decrease the amount of inflammation
that your body goes through.
Conceivably you would think it's a good thing,
but inflammation is part of the recovery process.
If you aren't going through the inflammatory process,
you're not necessarily going to be
rebuilding your body and getting as fast as you need to.
A good time to use things like ice baths
and compression socks during training is
when you have a race or a workout that you need to be
ready for the next day.
So in that case your soreness is gonna be down,
your muscle damage is gonna be a lot lower,
and you're gonna be ready a lot quicker.
So that's why a lot of athletes will use ice baths
during, say, a baseball season
when they've gotta play a game the next day,
or a football season when they have to play the next week.
But for the case of triathlon training
where the purpose is to go through
that complete rebuilding process over a matter of months,
you shouldn't necessarily be using things
like compression socks and ice baths regularly.
Why I use compression socks during travel
is because sitting for a long period of time
and going through all the different pressures flying
really messes around with your circulatory system,
and it can create a fair bit of water retention
and circulation problems in your feet.
I have varicose veins issues, so I want to make sure
that my circulatory system is functioning
on travel days.
So I tend to really only use compression socks
when I'm traveling.
Don't be that guy that's out in the middle of summer
wearing compressions socks around town, that's not cool.
Next thing that really helps for traveling
is I had to drink this whole thing in security
so that they wouldn't take it away.
I made a really really strong electrolyte drink,
there's a powder that I have that in one scoop
of electrolyte powder it's like something like
1200 milligrams of electrolytes,
and that's six times as much as you would get
from a Skratch or an Osmal, but I wanted to make sure
I was topped up on that.
So I didn't take a full scoop,
I almost never take a full scoop, tastes gross.
I took about a half a scoop to make sure
that going through all that dry cabin air,
going from one climate to another, and typically,
as I'm walking around, carrying a bunch of luggage,
I sweat a little bit, I want to make sure
that I'm not losing any electrolytes.
I think that is that.
I'm gonna go and grab a bite to eat
and get ready for the flight because I think
I've got about 45 minutes until we board,
and I'll check back with you when I'm in New York.
Oh, if anyone's in New York and wants to go for a run,
let's do it, team run, huh, huh, team run,
probably Wednesday morning, yeah, okay, let's do that.
Oh, one last thing that I forgot to mention?
Get yourself a pair of Bose QC35 headphones.
I talk about these a lot on social media, but oh my God,
these make traveling so much more enjoyable,
especially on plane, I find that just the (droning)
is draining and stressful and it raises my heart rate
and tires me out.
I had these one for the first time ever
on this last flight, game changer.
If you're looking for noise canceling headphones,
a friend of mine is actually Michael Fisher, MrMobile
on YouTube, crazy techy dude, and he says that these
are the best noise canceling headphones out there,
Bose QC35, I'll link it up in the description below.
I bought four for everyone in our office.
(electronic music)
Hello New York, looking lovely as ever,
constructiony as ever.
Coming from Winnipeg, Lyft and Uber,
it's like an arcade game for me.
- Hi, how are you?
- We're going to...
(electronic jazz)
All right, that's it, I'm here, I'm in New York.
It's my buddy Dave's place in Nolita, Manhattan,
and I am hands down
the biggest loser in the area,
I am not nearly hip enough to be hanging out in the
restaurants of Nolita.
I've gone and stocked up and done my Whole Foods run.
I think I'm gonna go find me a vegan spot.
I think that there's a pretty epic
25 year mother of the vegan restaurant community
in Manhattan kind of place, like,
just a kilometer and a half from here.
Wait, I'm in the States now, mile form here.
Vlogs this week are not gonna have a whole ton of
exercise in em.
But I do have a couple of interesting meetings,
planning on meeting people
in the sports marketing industry
and a really cool triathlon group around here,
so I'll try to bring you to that.
Otherwise, otherwise nothing,
that's it for the day.
I'll catch you tomorrow trainiacs.
Thanks for traveling with me today.
(soft piano music)