Fitting in my training these past few weeks has been a challenge. I’m transitioning jobs, which means juggling handovers and prepping for the new role. A part of my responsibility for the role I’m exiting is coordinating a video project, which means spending a couple of days on set. Add in waiting around for new gear deliveries, and my schedule has felt pretty out of my control.
And if that wasn’t enough—cue the bad weather. An atmospheric river is rolling through, so outdoor training? Not ideal. Plus, a few of my usual pools are closed for annual maintenance, making swim sessions even trickier to fit in.
With all this chaos, my training has definitely taken a backseat. But I’m still managing two workouts per discipline each week, thanks to a whole lot of flexibility—constantly shifting my schedule based on time, energy, and what’s actually available. Sometimes, that means doubling up on workouts.
Over the past couple of weeks, my biggest workouts have been a 30-minute run test and an 800-meter swim test. I covered 5.65 km in 30 minutes, averaging a 5:19 pace on the run. For the swim, I finished 800m in 17:47, which breaks down to 2:13 per 100m.
As for the bike… I should probably do a new FTP test. My Coros watch says 204 watts, and that seems about right—but it wouldn’t hurt to check.
Right now, swimming is easily my favorite—it feels like a little escape. Since it takes some effort just to get to the pool, by the time I finally dive in, everything else just fades away.
Running, on the other hand, is the sport I’m squeezing in wherever I can. It’s the easiest to be flexible with, so I just fit it in when and where it works.
And cycling? Honestly, I’m not loving it lately. Between the weather and fatigue, I’ve been stuck riding indoors at night while my dog sleeps, and it’s just… boring. Not being able to ride outside hasn’t helped either. Hopefully, that changes once things settle down.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that flexibility is key. Not just for training, but for keeping triathlon sustainable with real life. Sometimes, that means doubling up—on workouts and daily tasks. If I’m driving to swim, I’ll grab groceries on the way back. I’m running or biking, I’ll plan a route that lets me run an errand.Training isn’t just about squeezing things in—it’s about making my life flow.
And flexibility isn’t just about right now—it’s about the whole year. It’s easy to stress about hitting every workout when it’s scheduled, but going too hard too soon leads to burnout. Right now, I’m just getting used to this new training load, setting a new baseline, and making sure that I can sustain this pace for the rest of the year.
This ride is a good example of all that. I biked from Mount Pleasant to Lumberman’s Arch in Stanley Park to help my wife return a race tag for a half marathon. It was a fun ride… until I had to weave through the seawall mid-race. But hey, that’s all part of being flexible.
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Finally back on the bike, and it feels so good. Starting a new training block, having a race to aim for—everything feels right. Even when the world seems like it’s spinning out of control, it’s such a relief to focus on my training. For a brief moment in this crazy life, I feel like I can take control back.
I remember why I started triathlon. Two years ago, during one of the darkest times in my life, I made the decision. It was the beginning of 2023, as we were finally coming out of the shadows of Covid and the world began to reopen. I had been locked up, living in a five-block radius, working in a windowless room. I was focusing all my energy on my creative projects and work, but it felt like the hours spent in front of a computer screen were slowly suffocating me.
I literally noticed that I was holding my breath for long periods while writing a stressful email or attending a Zoom call.
I lost 20 pounds. Looking back at pictures from that time, I was so thin and sickly that there’s no other way to describe it but to say I felt bad—physically and mentally bad.
Change is nothing new to me. I’ve gone through phases in my life. If you had asked me in 2019 if I’d ever do any of the three sports in a triathlon, I would’ve laughed it off, made a joke, and everyone would’ve been laughing along. But no, triathlon wasn’t even on my radar.
So how did it come to this? Before Covid, travel was my source of excitement. It was a huge part of who I was. I took two or three trips a year—flying on planes, exploring new places, tasting different foods, paying in different currencies. That was my thing.
When Covid hit, that travel bug was crushed. And unlike the cockroaches that can survive an apocalypse, the travel bug didn’t really come back. Sure, it would be fun to travel again, but I no longer had that intense desire. But I still needed something to look forward to, something I could work toward. I needed an activity that would regularly take me outside the house.
My wife became a big source of inspiration. She’s been a marathon runner for years, and she’d always tell me about the places she ran to. It blew my mind that, as a hobby, she could end up in totally different parts of the city. I wanted that for myself.
Triathlon turned out to be the perfect sport for me because it’s three sports in one. Training for a marathon means repeating the same activity every day, but triathlon is varied. Every day is different, and I love that.
Little by little, I started learning the three sports, having never done any of them before. The progress is steady, but it’s happening. What I love about riding, running, or swimming is that at the end of each session, I return home. Work, whether creative or professional, often feels like an endless grind. But sports have a sense of closure—a run, a ride, a swim, and then it’s done. And I feel good.
That good feeling has been a lifesaver these past couple of years. Life isn’t always easy, of course. But on a sunny day, when I’m out on a ride like this one, preparing for something ahead, it gives me a sense of hope. It’s a personal journey, but it fills me with a simple desire to keep living.
The world can be a scary place. There are people out there who aren’t kind. And when you’re on a bike, you sometimes feel that—like you don’t belong, or you’re in someone’s way, or even that you’re breaking the rules — when you’re not! But that’s just life. Even when the world wants me to feel bad, I don’t. I feel good.
Today’s a good day. This week’s a good week. And it’s the start of something great. We’ll get there. For now, I’m riding Ontario Street in Vancouver, one of the main north-south corridors that takes you from the seawall downtown to the Fraser River on Marine Drive. From there, you’re just a stone’s throw from the airport. This is my first time riding all the way south—a 65-block journey. Enjoy!
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Another beautiful day in Vancouver—cold, though. It’s just barely above freezing today. Still, any day in January without rain or snow? I’ll take it.
This week, I finally got around to tallying up all my metrics from 2024. Tracking data is something I genuinely enjoy, which is one reason I love triathlon so much—it’s basically an excuse to collect data. If I can quantify what I’m doing, it makes consistency feel so much easier. I bring that same philosophy to my creative work. Every day — or nearly every day — I track my creative writing and video creation the same way I track my workouts. I’m obsessed with my spreadsheets.
Here’s how 2024 shaped up:
I swam 90,325 meters in 44 hours, 20 minutes, and 26 seconds (5% less than 2023).
I cycled 3,901.07 kilometers in 175 hours, 21 minutes, and 32 seconds (22% more than 2023).
I ran: 621.44 kilometers in 67 hours, 11 minutes, and 29 seconds (23% less than 2023).
The big jump in cycling is thanks to our new indoor bike, which I added to my routine last year—it made all the difference. As for swimming, I swam less because I spent extra hours in 2023 learning how to swim, so naturally, I didn’t log as much distance in 2024 because I didn’t have that huge learning curve. For running, I held back intentionally to avoid overdoing it and risking more injuries.
2024 was my sophomore year in triathlon. While I packed the calendar with races, I’d call it more of a “slump year” training-wise. But seeing the data laid out, I know I’ve built a solid foundation. This year, I want to build on that thoughtfully—not just by chasing bigger numbers. These annual stats are a nice way to reflect on the work I’ve put in, but they don’t tell the full story. What matters to me this year is how well I’m performing in training and races.
Take swimming, for example. For my birthday, my amazing wife got me a game-changing gift: FORM goggles. If you haven’t heard of them, they’re like a smartwatch built into your goggles. They show data like pace and stroke rate while you swim. Even cooler, they give feedback on things like head position while breathing and overall swim efficiency.
After my first swim with them, I got a score of 40 out of 100. Plenty of room for improvement, but I’m excited to see how much I can progress.
With that said, I’m heading into year three of this triathlon journey. While improvement is always a focus, the real priority is maintaining the habit. I don’t even think of triathlon as a hobby anymore—it’s just what I do.
Before my training plan officially kicks off in a few months, I’m taking this time to maintain my routine and base fitness. There is no point in tiring myself out. This is my no-pressure, fun part of the year, and I want to enjoy it. And I definitely want to do a weekend ride. So I’ve decided to explore some parts of the city that aren’t great for structured training but are worth a visit.
Today, I’m riding to the West End of Vancouver to check out some of the greenways, including the Comox-Helmcken Greenway. Thanks to this project, there’s been a 49% boost in cycling trips and a 35% decrease in car trips in the neighborhood. While the greenway was originally planned to stretch across the entire city, only the Comox phase has been completed so far.
And since no ride into Downtown Vancouver is complete without detours, I got sidetracked by the demolition of the 115-year-old Dunsmuir building. It’s been a hotel, military barracks, and a shelter over the years, and now it’s making way for something new. From there, I’ll take a trip down the world-famous Granville Street.
Enjoy the ride.
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I’m Elliot, and I’m here to improve my cycling skills. To achieve this, I’m embarking on a project I call FTP Builder, inspired by the workout I’ll be taking on in Rouvy. This series will be told in five parts. This is the conclusion, entitled: The Gains
We’ve made it! What a journey. At last, we are here at the final part of this project. When I began, I was confident that after going through this training plan and racing the race, I would emerge as a better cyclist. I knew that if I put in the work, I’d see positive results in the end.
But as we know with sports, there are no guarantees. You can trust in the process and do every workout perfectly, but the only thing that matters is what happens on the day. And that’s what I love about it.
So, I returned to Stanley Park, both the virtual version and the real one, after a couple of weeks of recovery. In Part 2 of this series, I ran two time trials, to give myself a baseline number of one lap around the Stanley park course. As you may recall, I am training for a race later this year that will require me to do four laps of this course. So this remains to be appropriate training.
The goal in this episode is to do the time trials all over again and then compare my results. Did I improve? Do I have a proper strategy for when I have to do this in a competitive environment with other racers around me? What areas of my cycling abilities should I focus on after this? Where are my weaknesses still? These are all questions I have in the back of my mind as I return to the start line of the Stanley Park course.
Let’s begin!
Here I am once more in Rouvy. Last time I took on this course in the virtual environment, I had a feeling that I might not have given it my 100%, that in the end, I might have left a bit in the tank. Of course, in the moment, I was probably thinking about pacing appropriately, building up as I went, and aiming for a negative split.
This time, I wanted to try something different. I started off a little more aggressively, aiming to hold a steady pace for the whole course.
I immediately got my watts into the 200s, aiming for around 220, which is just around my FTP. This was about 40-50 watts faster than my first attempt. Things were looking good!
About 3 minutes into the time trial, I was just under 200 meters ahead—not far enough to feel comfortable. My ghost could still catch up, even though I was pushing much more power. But as more time passed and I maintained the pace, I was able to keep building the gap, which was exactly what I intended to do.
One interesting point to note was my heart rate. During my first attempt, my heart rate was about 15 bpm faster than in my second attempt, even though I was pushing harder the second time. This was good news, though it could also mean my heart rate monitor wasn’t working properly. Who knows?
I reached the first split at 7:12 in my second attempt, 42 seconds faster than my first attempt, which was 7:54. I was on pace to break my record and still felt relatively good as I approached the hill.
There was no sign of me slowing down at this point—I was full steam ahead. At the climb, my heart rate rose, but compared to my first attempt, it was still at a moderate zone 2 level. Yeah, something must not have been right, so we’ll take that metric with a grain of salt.
It’s incredible to see the difference in the power I was putting in. I remember that during the climb in my first attempt, I decided to turn it on, pacing myself for most of the race but pushing it now. I did the same in my second attempt. Finally, my heart rate shot up to 177, reaching zone 6 by the end of the climb. It seemed to at last calibrate appropriately. I was indeed giving it my all as I approached the descent, where I continued to put down the watts. I wanted to ensure there was no denying that I had improved.
By the end of the climb in my first attempt, my heart rate was only in zone 4. There was no doubt I had some left in the tank, and I had picked this point to really increase my effort. But it was too late. There is something to be said about being able to go steady and hard the whole way through.
In my second attempt, I was almost done by the time my first attempt finished the climb. I flew down the descent and finished at 15:17.9, beating my previous record of 16:38.7 by 1 minute and 21 seconds. I was on average 3 km/hour faster and pushed an average of 37 watts more. It’s safe to call it an improvement.
But wait, the experiment is not over. What about the real world?
So much had happened in the two months between the two attempts. Yes, I went through the training plan, but I also had a couple of crashes that messed up my confidence. I had low expectations this go. I knew beating my original time was possible, but I wasn’t willing to do anything too risky. My arm, although it felt much better, still wasn’t 100%, and I couldn’t shake the image of myself crashing on the descent. Nevertheless, I approached the start line with determination to try my best. It was all I could do.
Like my indoor ride, on my second attempt outside, I went out a lot harder at the start. If my training worked as it had shown, I shouldn’t hold back as much. I needed to go for it! This was especially true if I anticipated being a bit nervous on the descent later on. I wanted to give myself as much running room as possible.
My first checkpoint was the turn into Stanley Park, where I had to slow down a bit to anticipate traffic. I counted that I was about 8 seconds faster than my previous time. If I continued at this pace, I could build upon it, so I kept rolling.
I could feel myself moving a lot faster this time, but I also knew it was not going to be easy. Unlike my first indoor time trial, the last time I rode the course outdoors, I really was giving it my all.
Luckily, there were a few riders that day on my second attempt who were really flying, especially this guy. I used him as a bit of a carrot to chase, and he actually helped pace me. That guy was going fast, and if I could at least keep him in sight, I knew I could beat my previous record. But he was moving. It goes to show that as much as I have improved, there are still so many people who are better.
At the midway point, I counted about 20 seconds ahead of my previous time. This gave me a slight bit of comfort, but like I mentioned, the hard part was still to come: the hill.
Thanks to all my training, the hill didn’t seem that hard this time. Yes, it was still hard, and you can hear it in my breathing, but I managed to catch the guy who had zoomed ahead of me, and that made it feel easier. I knew I was on pace, I just couldn’t blow up now.
Looking at this footage, it’s interesting to see how green the park got in the past few months. That’s something that certainly isn’t replicated in the virtual version.
I got to the top of the hill about 36 seconds faster than my previous attempt. That hill climb allowed me to extend my lead by an additional 10-15 seconds. Now all I needed to do was stick the landing, get down the descent at a moderate pace, and I would beat my time. Good thing the guy I passed on the climb passed me again. It was nice to have him on the descent because it made the experience feel less lonely. Then another rider joined us. We were a group now, which really erased all my worries, and I could just follow their lead.
I did it! Got all the way down and I ended up beating my time by 45 seconds, finishing at 20:13 compared to 20:58. This was far better than I expected! I thought I was only going to squeak through with a few seconds left, but 45 seconds is substantial.
So in a matter of a couple of months, I improved my indoor time by nearly a minute and a half and my outdoor time by almost a minute. After my crashes, a part of me thought I might give up completely and find a new hobby where I could stay inside bubble-wrapped. I am thrilled that I stuck with it and saw an improvement. But I know this is only the beginning. There is so much more to learn and improve on. What fun projects I have ahead!
Thank you all for joining me on this journey. I hope you enjoyed the ride with all its ups and downs. I assure you there is more to come in my triathlon adventures, so if you don’t want to miss it, please subscribe.
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Elliot Chan 