Stephanie's Pain Cave

text : Stephanie Jamin - photo : Gophrette Power

Coming off of a big 2015 tri season ending with the completion of my first Ironman, I took a small break in the early fall. As the popular quote goes, “If you change nothing, nothing will change”, so I decided it was time to focus on my run. You see, running and I have always had this love-hate relationship (ma bête noire!). Donc, avec l’aide de mon super coach Bart Rolet, je me suis lancée dans un plan d’entrainement de course spécifique d’automne-hiver sérieusement pour la première fois. To make things even more interesting, just before Christmas I won bib entry to the Boston marathon through my employer Abbott Nutrition and the World Marathon Majors program, completing my 2016 event calendar and giving me a pretty big running goal for the spring. This will be my first official full marathon aside from the one I ran in my Ironman last summer (Eeeeek!)

So here is the breakdown of my winter training :

I run x4-5 week, including a track session to work on speed, and hill repeats and stairs to work on strength (the crazy girl that can occasionally be seen running up-and-down Camilien-Houde, yep that’s me!). Une chance que cet hiver n’a pas été trop froid ou enneigé pour courir dehors, j’ai seulement eu besoin de prendre l’abris de la piste ou tapis roulant à McGill quelques fois. J’ajoute à ça souvent mes aller-retours aux entrainements à la piscine les matins parce-que c’est aussi vite que me rendre en auto et ça me donne quelques kilo’s de plus sur l’odomètre. De plus, il n’y a rien de tel qu’une ville qui se reveille…

I swim x2 week with La SwimSquad organized by my coach, right now focusing on changing some technique and seeing some good progress in the water. The effect of swimming in a group has really changed the whole dynamic of swimming for me, I have learned to love being in the water (even at 6:30 a.m.)! 

The “pain cave” is my friend “Jackness” and Bart’s basement, where I kept my bike and my TRX this winter.  We bike x1-2 week and are set-up using PerfPRO with multiple riders and monitors that guide us through our training based on our FTP. The program also measures our power, cadence and other fancy metrics to help us track our progress. We have an additional screen where we stream some random mindless series on Netflix or old school hip-hop videos to entertain us during our sessions.  Most sessions end with 15-20 minutes of strength & core work using the TRX. We are currently ramping up our weekly sessions in preparation for a training camp in Tucson, AZ - definitely looking forward to getting back outside!