Christmas Comes Early: Vasa Ergometer

Today I received an early Christmas gift in the form of a Vasa Ergometer!

I've been invited by Vasa to participate in a triathlon swim training development program using the "Erg". Vasa Ergometers and Trainers are embedded in the competitive swimming community, but somewhat less so in triathlon. That seems surprising considering what a time saver this is for time-crunched multisport athletes.

I created a little video of the assembly process and captured my first time on the Erg. The kids joined in on the fun too!

One of the things I am most excited about is the monitor panel on the Erg that tracks time, distance, pace, stroke rate, and power. It will even measure stroke length and power for the left and right arms separately. This is going to take so much guesswork out of the swim and without walls and traffic to worry about, I can just focus on technique, power, and endurance.

Assembly was super easy. Vasa provides everything you need including allen wrenches, wrenches, and a flat head screw driver. The whole thing only took 8 screws. I confess on having to "consult" with the equipment coach on which side of a lock nut needed to point out. I guess I missed that in my ten years and three degrees of engineering education. The packaging and instructions were high quality (made in Vermont!).

It took a minute to figure out how to get on and off with any semblance of grace, but very quickly I was off and.....swimming! The kids tried it and enjoyed it too. It felt pretty natural! I had the resistance level set pretty low but even so it was quite taxing. That just tells me there is plenty of room to improve.

The Erg joins the bike trainer and we may dust off the treadmill and make this a whole family triathlon workout room.

Many thanks to Vasa and Fortyninegroup!

And family, I am still excited about and hoping to get the new spatulas on my Christmas list.

Elf Run Week

My 12-year-old will tell you December is his favorite month of the year. He simply loves the holiday traditions - cookie baking, filling his brother's stocking, the jigsaw puzzles, the tree, his concerts, and the parties. I enjoy it too, but my "to do list" grows to EPIC lengths which, if I am not careful, can lead to a bit of Scrooginess.

One of the ways I'm making my own fun is designating this as "Elf Run Week."  Last year, on a whim, I headed out on a run a few days before Christmas in a Santa hat and had such a good time I decided to start a little earlier this year and give myself most of a week instead of just one run. Today I broke out the new candy cane striped socks and Santa hat and set off on an early morning run. Any traces of Scrooge didn't stand a chance under those conditions!

For all my good eating, this is the one time of year where I break out ridiculous amounts of butter and sugar and bake. We made four kinds of cookies this year for a total of 48 dozen to package up and give to teachers and neighbors. And OK, we kept some too!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Sugar Cookies

Chocolate Chip

Oatmeal - Cranberry - Walnut

Mmmmmm.....hungry?

Swim Bike Mom book is here - Triathlon for the Every Woman

Look what came in the mail --  a hot-off-the-press copy of Triathlon for the Every Woman by TriCrowd's Meredith Atwood, aka Swim Bike Mom!

I'm looking forward to the read!

Officially www.CortTheSport.com

Over the weekend I finally legitimately changed my blog over to www.CortTheSport.com. It went pretty smoothly but there were a few hiccups. I lost all my favorite blog links in the right-hand column of the page and need to redo that. Also my "subscription" to my own blog no longer works so I had to resubscribe to my own blog and I suspect that is the case for other subscribers.

I should have pre-warned my subscribers but my research indicated that the existing blog feed would still work.

Oh, fickle technology!

My apologies for any inconvenience.

Saucony Kinvara 3 Shoe Review

This is my first attempt at a shoe review. I read the shoe reviews in the magazines and I am fascinated by all the ways they come up with to describe a shoe. I sometimes wonder if the writers are just laughing at what they write, knowing we are lapping up those sometimes silly phrases and analogies. It's like wine. Really? How can you write paragraphs about that? I have two things I can say about wine: (1) I like it or (2) I don't like it.

As for the Kinvara 3's, I will say after about 42 miles, I like them. I'll try to elaborate on the switch from my beloved yellow Kinvara 2's to the pink/purple/citron 3's.

First and foremost, I do kind like this particular color combo, and as luck would have it, I have a winter hat that sort of goes with them. Very important.

I was a little scared by the reviews and reports of rubbed heels from the higher rear shoe height. It's true, they do come up higher and it's stiffer too. You can even see the height and stiffness differences in the photo. I prefer the old version.

My solution was to stop my lacing one hole down from what I did on the 2's. I'm not sure my Xtenex laces (stretchy laces swapped in for the comes-with set) will really reach up another eyelet anyway, and they seem stable enough as is. There are actually two unused eyelets on each side if you really like to lace them up far.

The shoe feels a bit stiffer underfoot and sounds different but I'm not aware of or distracted by the shoe, so that's a very good sign. It has the same 4mm drop as the 2's and they weigh about the same (reported at 6.7 oz). The upper, with its 'exoskeleton' is less flexible and not stretchy feeling like the 2's. I miss the slipping my foot into the soft upper of the 2's.

All-in-all, I think I am OK with the 3's but still prefer the design of the 2's. We'll see how they do as the mileage grows in the coming months as I've not trained for the marathon distance in a shoe this light before.

I'll need to add another pair to the mix, and will likely go with another brand to give the feet a little variety. I like to keep the feet guessing. I'll stick with a lighter shoe with the minimal drop and am considering the Brooks PureConnect or Asics Gel Lyte33.