Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

3 weeks ago I started long weight lifting program. I’m not a weight lifter, nor I ever plan becoming one, but I figured that this would be the best approach right now. I don’t plan any big event anytime soon (except ITU Olympic distance Triathlon and some Ocean Swim), so working on my basics seems reasonable. This year is going to be running one, as I want to finish two marathons and couple of shorter runs. So I’ve increased my volume and injured myself at the end of second week of new program.

Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

I don’t think that I’ve ever been so focused in my life. When I ended working for my last company I had the most unproductive period of the last year (and yet it definitely was not the most unproductive period of my life… sad but true). Lack of need of getting up early, not knowing how is next week going to look like and general boredom - not the best combination.

After I moved to Auckland it took me few weeks to settle down and figure out everything. I’ve found quite good gym, near by swimming pool and good places for open water swimming. But most importantly I’ve found new motivation for training. I’ve set up general plan for the whole year again, but that will come to life after my next race. Race, on which I’ve focused all my strength in last few weeks.

Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

That was a really good year! I’m not into detail month by month summaries, but I love data and numbers! So I took some time to bring all my training data into one spreadsheet. Thing is that I’m not using Training Peaks (yet!) and half of my data was in Polar Personal Trainer and another half - in Garmin Connect. That’s what Google docs are for.

Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

They say that no one ever regret done workout. I think that I learned how to love my training in the last few months. Sure, I could've done better job keeping up with everything that I've planned, but overall I'm happy with what I do.

They also say that the hardest part is to start. And despite having the fittest time of my life, I still struggle to start almost every single training session I do.

Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

It has been only a week since I've finished the London Triathlon, the race I've been preparing since January. Few months ago it was my ultimate goal for the year, but as it turned out you really can get addicted to racing, even as an age grouper. I was searching for another race in few months and decided to go all in. In 9 weeks I'm going to swim 1.9km, cycle 90km and run 21.1km in one of the most iconic races in Europe. I've signed up for Ironman 70.3 Lanzarote!

Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

Back in January, when I received confirmation of my spot in 2013 London Triathlon it seemed like a really long time to prepare. Suddenly it's only one week till the race. While I am prepared better than I've been expecting few months ago, there is still high level of anxiety involved. After all, with 17000 participants, it is the biggest triathlon in Europe. And I am going to be a part of it.

Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

Despite not being able to spend so much time in front of computer recently, I am still a geek who loves to play games. I've spent countless hours playing World of Warcraft, Starcraft 2 and Diablo. Back in highschool, when there was no internet yet (yes, there was that time) I disappeared for two weeks when I got Baldurs Gate. I've even finished Crysis 2, just to see how good the graphic were. Years of gaming gave me bad back and glasses (actually, my job gave me that...), but as it turns out, it is possible to transfer skills learned while gaming to workout.

Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

It was not that big of a surprise for me, but it is confirmed now - I suck at swimming. Ok, perhaps it's slight exaggeration, but the truth is that I don't feel as confident in the water as I would like to. There are many reasons for that, main being to volume of swimming I've done in my life, with 99.99% of lifetime distance happening during the last few months. And that is absolutely ok. But how to find motivation and strength to get better? One way is to realise, that being bad at something is a part of the process.

Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

I was very disappointed with the break I had to take because of the accident, but let’s leave that behind us already. I’ve been training out like crazy over past two weeks, I’m planning to cycle almost 300 km in the next two days. That will be a great test for my new bike ;).

Paweł ChalacisPaweł Chalacis

Time flies quite fast, it’s been already three months since I've started my Triathlon preparation. Over this three months I've probably swum and run more than in my entire life, I've experimented with few different meal plans, lost weight, gained muscles, spent countless hours at local Virgin Active gym, got few punctures and bought things I'd never thought I will own. And the best thing is that this journey has just begun!