Ottawa Ironman

Blog | Team Triumph Triathlon Club

Triathlon Training near Ottawa RSS Feed

Why You Don't Need the Gym to Get a Good Workout

The health and fitness industry has seen massive changes over the last year! People are preferring the convenience of doing workouts right from their home over travelling out to a gym. Think about when you first heard about personal training being done over video. Maybe you were skeptical of the benefits. You might have asked yourself if a trainer can really correct your form over a screen, or if the program would still be tailored to your goals. The answer to both of those questions is yes. I have been told time and time again how blown away people are by the virtual training experience. No more battling traffic, carving hours out of your schedule or cancelling last minute because your ....
Read more
Why You Should Consider Staying on Zwift through the Warmer Months

Training in the winter is always challenging. The race season seems so far away. Add in cold, dark wet days and COVID, well you know where we’re going with this. Thankfully we had Zwift and our Virtual Cycling Program to provide us with a structured and periodized plan that tracks our fitness and recovery. It was great to have a program to keep us motivated, connected with our tribe, and on track, even if the race season seemed unsure. Now that the weather is warmer, many of you are jumping off your trainers and onto the road. But wait…..should you stop Zwifting? Absolutely not! Here are some reasons why we think you should ....
Read more
Emily Graves Virtually Climbs Mount Everest

CONGRATULATIONS EMILY GRAVES!! She did it! Emily made it up Everest on Zwift. When she started her training plan, we figured it would take her 23 hours given her FTP of 113 watts. Aftercompleting a well-executed coached training plan, Emily pulled up her FTP to 152 watts. Sheincreased herendurance in Zone 1 and 2 and finished much quicker thanoriginally expected. Grab and drink, sit back and read herinspiring story of will, persistentplanning,consistent training and true grit! Emily Graves'Story:on virtually climbing Mount Everest on March 26, 2021 Why vEverest? It started with the Zwift concept (“Tron”) bike, those virtual multi/neon coloured bikes that ....
Read more
Celebrating St. Patrick's Day

Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick, is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick, the foremost patron saint of Ireland. How we celebrate this holiday inside of Team Triumph is with a 5/10km run along the canal followed by a brunch, but due to COVID, this year we added in a Virtual Zwift Ride and/or a virtual, do-it-yourself run. This was just one of the challenges we issued to our members for March. Two of our members sent in how their Do-it-yourself St.Patrick's Day runs went. Pretty darn impressive. Dan Begin hasn't run a 10k this fast since he was in his 30's!! Anita ....
Read more
Members Matter Inside Team Triumph

Member retentionis not a simple equation. It's a personalized approach to building a better relationship with each of yourmembers. It's about providing them with the value they are seeking and solving the problems they thought you could help with. Secondly, improving yourmembership retentionrate can also improve your rate of growth. With a more consistent consumer base, meaningful relationships between these regularmembers(and even between staff andmembers) are more likely to develop. This sense of belonging can drastically improve thememberexperience. Why focus on retention? Because you can’t afford not to. Experts estimate that it can cost as much as five times more to ....
Read more
What is an FTP Test and Why is it Important?

What is an FTP Test and Why is it Important? A Functional Threshold Power (FTP) test is a 20 or 60-minute bike test to see what your anaerobic threshold or Zone 4 is on the bike. You ride at a hard effort throughout the test maintaining a steady cadence of about 80-90 RPMs. Take your average power minus 5% if you do the 20-minute test or take the average power for 60 minutes. We usually suggest doing the 20-minute test since 60 minutes is brutally hard for the average athlete to push and focus their highest power for! Once you have your FTP, you can then determine your other training zones. If you don't have power on your bike did you know that you can do an FTHR test? The Functional ....
Read more
Climbing for a Good Cause

This past Valentines Day we challenged our members to take part in the SHARE THE LOCAL LOVE Climbing Challenge WHAT A BLAST THAT WAS! We had a crew of about 18 who climbed just over 1,500m to the top of Mt Vent Top and did it in about 2 hours and 15 mins. Of course, once we got to the top everyone wanted to rack up some kilometers for the challenge so we whisked down the hill! Meanwhile in Mt Tremblant...Here's Pauline's report: "Well, some of the Mont-Tremblant contingents of Team Triumph took up your challenge Julia and climbed the mountain. There were seven of us: Debi and Neil, Sophie and Francis, Renée and Andy, and me. Together, we climbed over ....
Read more
The Pursuit of Recovery

A common topic that comes up with our athletes is the question around overtraining and when to take a recovery day or week. As a triathlon coach, we do all of the strategic planning to put together an appropriately structured training plan but how each athlete reacts to the training stress can be completely different. As the science of exercise progresses, we are learning that metrics are a great tool to use for monitoring training stress. Using the Training Peaks coaching software, your coach can test for your training zones in all of your sports and then monitor how much training stress you accumulate. This Training Stress Balance (TSB) score is usually a pretty good indicator ....
Read more
Everest Challenge w/Emily Graves Part 1

Over the holidays, Emily Graves reached out for some coaching to achieve a goal of climbing the equivalent elevation and distance of Everest on Zwift. After analyzing her current metrics and zones, we put together a structured plan to get her to the finish line. Part 1 was to get her to Base Camp.Now that we know Emily's current abilities, we can build on that to plan Part 2 of her training. Here is her report: A triage between, and a test of #mindbodyspirit ! This rookie 54-year-old cyclist hit basecamp (4500 meters) and will now progress to train for the full Mount Everest (8849 meters) climb on March 26. It was a bit of a rocky start as my wattage was high (I thought there was ....
Read more
How Do You Enjoy Your Oatmeal?

It's well known that athletes not only like to eat, but they like to talk about eating. Recently during one of our Virtual Cycling Club rides where we converse on discord, the topic of "How do you like your oats" came up. Not a single one of our members liked their oats the same way. There are even a couple of rebels who will switch their morning oats out for another grain like Quinoa, Buckwheat or Millet. Here we share some of our member's favourite ways to eat their morning cereal. I like to blend in a little chocolate Athlete's Blend protein which contains all of the Essential Amino Acids we need to power up my workouts, combined with some collagen to protect my joints ( ....
Read more

Virtual Cycling Club - A. Laidlaw

This program provides the intensity of workout I was looking for as well as the structure, accountability, and a nice bit of social interaction. I have found myself setting some goals again for my fitness and having fun tracking them on Zwift, Training Peaks and Strava. Thank you, Julia and all of Team Triumph for once again pushing me to work harder and to have so much fun doing it." A. Laidlaw

Thank You Team Triumph!

Julia, I want to thank you for all you are doing for the Team Triumph community. I am so very glad we found Team Triumph (maybe 5 years ago?) not only for myself but for Claude as well. You have changed so many things for us -how we work out, what activities we do (like swimming for me..which I am now in love with…who knew?) and helping Claude to focus his dream to do an Ironman. And very importantly you have introduced us to so many wonderful people many of whom we now count among our good friends! I am so happy that your small business has survived when so many others have had to close. The closing of the OAC would have been much tougher for me (and for many others in TT I imagine) if I did not have this community.

Keep up the great work!

Ann L.

Grateful during COVID19

A huge thank you to my Triathlon coach, Julia Cooper-Aimers. She took the time last week to drop off (from a distance because of COVID19 restrictions) some tri shorts I ordered along with a well-appreciated note to remind me that there will be ups and downs and that things will get better. She has gone above and beyond to support all of her athletes and our Team Triumph club, by providing almost daily strength, yoga, and spinning videos that have been uploaded to Youtube for anyone who needs a little motivation during these challenging times as well as many words of encouragement. I am grateful for her support and encouragement. ❤️

Anita Lacelle Taylor

Awesome Swim Program

Training with Team Triumph for 7 months (so far) made me faster and stronger while building nourishing connections with like-minded fitness nuts and shattering the expectations I had of myself. TT is a crew of inspiring people pursuing epic individual goals and encouraging each other along the way. Julia and her team have expert knowledge and provide a thoughtful evidence-based group program that works. I am privileged and thankful to have Team Triumph in my neighborhood and can't wait to get back to the pool!

Alex Bourne

Putting Members First

I want to thank you for always putting our well-being at the forefront of your business model. You suspended face-to-face programs in a timely manner, leading the way in a fitness business world that took much too long to respond and put their members’ health and the community at risk. You « triumphed « in quickly acting to flatten the curve.⁣
⁣
Your caring nature resulted in a series of innovative and fun virtual sessions and opened them to the community. I am missing the live interaction now that I am working for a few months but I appreciate that I can access the videos according to my schedule. Yin/yang session tonight, just what I needed.⁣
⁣
Not to mention the check-ins, the home deliveries, the charitable events. Priceless.⁣

Simone Rose-Oliver⁣

Request Information Now!