🏃♂️ Winter was back for today’s run
fitness
🏊♂️ 10 weeks since my last swim. This might be tough.
🚴♂️ Getting back into a routine with today’s ride
Etobicoke Olympium. 📍
🏊♂️ Spending the day at regionals with kid #2
🏃♂️ Added another event to this year’s race calendar. My son is going to join me for this one, which will be fun. His runs have maxed out at about 7km to date, so he has some training to do. I need to convince him that he can’t just sprint the whole thing.
Komoot’s Apple Watch App Gets Offline Maps & Routing: Hand-on!
In arguably one of the biggest bits of news for outdoor-focused Apple Watch owners in years, Komoot just announced true offline mapping and routing for their Apple Watch app. Up until now, their app required some sort of connectivity, notably to the phone, in order to have offline maps/routing.
This looks quite promising. I’ve been using the WorkOutDoors app for offline maps, but Komoot looks much easier.
Harmonizing my heart rate zones ❤️🔥
Sunday, January 4, 2026
One nuisance with using a portfolio of fitness apps is that each one has a different idea for what my heart rate zones should be. Although not usually a problem, I do get different summaries of my training intensity across apps and, therefore, slightly different advice.
One solution is to just pick one app as canonical which for me has been HealthFit. As a supplement, I also went through and manually set them all to use the same zones, based on HealthFit’s “Percent of Heart Rate Reserve” method. I like that this method incorporates my resting heart rate and that I get slightly wider gaps between zones at lower intensities.
Although my resting heart rate is automatically calculated from my watch, my maximum heart rate is more subjective. For this I’ve taken my maximum heart rates from recent HIIT workouts which I think is close enough for my needs.
I’m mostly doing this because I want to be more precise in my workout intensities this year. Feels like a worthwhile experiment.
🏃♂️ Snowshoes would have helped with parts of today’s run. My Arc’teryx kept my feet warm, but extra effort for a relatively slow pace
🏊♂️🚴🏃♂️ Filling in the 2026 race calendar by adding in the Guelph Lake Olympic-distance triathlon
🏃♂️ Burning off some Christmas cheer on today’s run
🏃♂️ I might regret this
🏃♂️ Ice and snow on today’s run made for a good ankle workout
🏃♂️ Although the novelty will wear off quickly, fun to have a proper winter run
🏃♂️ I’ve been using the new Workout Buddy on my recent runs, including letting it select my music. Every kilometre, I receive updates on my pace and heart rate, along with contextual information like recent elevation gains or total distance. While I can easily see most of this on my watch, the regular updates are helpful, especially now that I’m wearing long sleeves and gloves.
The Workout Buddy’s voice is quite natural, encouraging without being annoying.
The music choices were all good, well-aligned with my tastes and suitable for running.
Overall, this is promising, except for the hallucinations. My watch kept announcing songs that it definitely wasn’t playing. These were good songs, mind you, just not what I was actually hearing. Furthermore, there was a perplexing inability to read the watch display. For example, it cheerfully congratulated me on having run for 50 minutes when the watch actually showed 73. Then, it got increasingly inaccurate, repeatedly congratulating me for a 50-minute run over the next 15 minutes.
There’s potential here, but it needs to be more accurate. I’ll continue letting it pick music, but I’ll keep a skeptical ear out for its announcements.
🏃♂️ Just as I’m thinking through my next training plan, Göran Winblad offers wise advice about increasing running mileage.
🏃♂️ First snowy run of the season. I’d only just started wearing long pants last weekend!
🏃♂️ Well, there’s a week that hasn’t gone to plan. Try again next week!
🏃♂️ I’ve done this route dozens of times, but always counter clockwise. This was the first time clockwise and it is interesting how different the route seems when going in the opposite direction.
🏃♂️ I’d planned for a longer run, but allergies kept me up too long last night
🏃♂️ Clouds on today’s run, instead of smoke. Much better
🏊♂️ The lake is the only cool place around here and I’m grateful for it
🏃♂️ A sobering war memorial on today’s run. Likely a large proportion of the young men in the area are inscribed on it
🏊♂️ Nice to be back in a lake
🏃♂️ Hazy out there from the forest fires on today’s run
After three weeks with a Readiness to Train score around two, I’m glad to be back in the green. Time to get active again!
Tall Trees Muskoka. 📍
Reflecting on yesterday’s stomach troubles, I have to consider the deep fried butter tart I had the night before the race. A delicious concoction of a butter tart, wrapped in a cinnamon coated churro, topped with vanilla ice cream. Not traditional triathlon nutrition, but I’ve decided it prevented anything worse from happening, rather than contributing to the trouble.
🏊♂️🚴🏃♂️ I do these things because they’re hard. This was was the hardest yet: ridiculous humidity and some bad nausea on the bike made this one a struggle. 45 minutes slower than my last two attempts and every minute was earned. But, this is likely the one I’ll remember most.
Family Place Restaurant. 📍
Race fuel
🏊♂️🚴🏃♂️ I’m always worried that I’m forgetting something. Pictures like these help, plus a packing list in Apple Notes
🏃♂️🚴🏃♂️ Milton Duathlon 2025
Sunday, June 1, 2025
Part of the appeal of triathlons for me is that you need to stay adaptive and resilient, always adjusting to race conditions and feedback from your body.
Today was a good example. Cold weather and intense winds led to the swim being cancelled. So, the triathlon became a duathlon. Although I missed the swim, it was the right call. Still, it takes a moment to recalibrate to starting with a run, adjusting your transition strategy, and sorting out a pace target.
The winds made the ride rather harrowing, lots of gusts, plus a headwind for the big escarpment climb 🥵. Then on a steep descent, we got buffeted around while peaking at 70 km/hr. After one particularly strong gust, a rider behind me shouted out some profanity that was totally warranted.
At least the second run was mostly well sheltered and I could push the pace a bit.
Overall, still lots of fun though. This is my fourth time racing this event and they’ve all been well done.
