A few years ago I decided to start keeping a training log and now that I have data for a few years it has been fun to look back and compare how I'm doing now to how I was doing before. This year with Ironman on the race schedule for the first time I know I need to spend a lot of hours sweating it out in order to reach a level of success that I will be happy with. Below is my progress to date and how it compares to the two previous years (up to May 27 of each year):

2012 Training Totals:
SWIM = 1.6 km
BIKE = 1914 km
RUN = 501 km

2011 Training Totals:
SWIM = 8.4 km (5.3 times more than this year)
BIKE = 816 km (2.3 times less than this year)
RUN = 80 km (6.3 times less than this year)

You can see a big difference but, this is not a fair comparison since I didn't do any races last year. To really get a grasp on how I'm doing I need to compare to 2010 where I completed 5 triathlons (4 at half Ironman distance) and 1 marathon. Also, in 2010 a large number of my personal records as seen on the right side of this page were recorded. So here it goes.

2010 Training Totals:
SWIM = 43.3 km (27.1 times more than this year)
BIKE = 871 km (2.2 times less than this year)
RUN = 198 km (2.5 times less than this year)

Well, it's obvious that I need to start swimming more but with more than double the biking and running totals I feel confident that I will be ready come August. And, those 2010 records I mentioned earlier, I have already broke 2 of them this year. I recorded my best marathon a few weeks ago during the Vancouver Marathon, and I dished out my best Mt Cypress ascent last week. So with my long distance running and cycling currently better than they have ever been, and with another three months of training before the big event, I'm feeling pretty good.

Actually, to be honest, the training progression happens so slowly that it's easy not to notice. Until I did this comparison I had no idea that I was training this much or, improving this much. I guess what I'm getting it is, if our successes aren't measured and recorded it's hard to recognize the improvements. Keeping a log of training time and personal records is important and can help anyone who is seeking to elevate their personal abilities.

So for the next few months the plan is to swim a lot more than I am now and keep biking and running like crazy. This is the home stretch now; it's no time to become lackadaisical. I need to stay focused and determined. I'm hoping to hammer out a good Half Ironman in July, ideally it will be my best ever but we'll see how quickly I can build my swimming up. I'm also hoping to beat my Iona TT record, and go sub 40 minutes on my Mt Cypress climb some time this year. It's only May, there's a lot more in store. I'll keep you posted.

For those of you who have kids and live away from family, you'll know how rare it is to have free babysitting and date nights don't come around too often. This weekend my in-laws are in town and Janelle informed me that she wanted to go see the last Harry Potter movie in theatres Friday night. Sounds good right? The problem with that is I stopped watching them after the third one (there are 8 in total now), and I have no idea what's going on. So starting on Tuesday evening I set out to watch movies 1-7 over three nights so that I am up to speed by Friday night.

Those movies are long man, and after two movies on Tuesday and a late return home Wednesday I accept failure claiming that it is very unrealistic to expect me to do this. On Thursday night however, I decide to read the synopsis of movies 3-5 and then watch 6 and 7. Done. I was up to 1:15am Thursday night /Friday morning and off to bed.

What I'm starting to get at here is I'm then up at 4:45am to prep and leave for my weekly Friday morning bike ride. It was another beautiful Friday morning and I enjoyed a good ride out to Deep Cover and then up Mt Seymour. My legs on the other hand were not very appreciative and rebelled against me most of the way. I could feel the lack of energy restricting my output and I had to settle for a slower than average pace.

When I returned from my ride to work I was 94km in. Not bad for a Friday morning.

After work, now this is where the story gets good, I'm riding home and my legs are still feeling empty. I need sleep more than anything. While riding around Stanley Park I come across another cyclist ahead of me. One thing that I've learned is that you need to be careful who you pass because the last thing you want is to be passed back. If you go for it you have to own it. I recognize from his nice bike and massive calves that he isn't the ordinary cyclist that you just fly by and that's the end of it. If I go for it I'm certain that he's going to challenge.

Do I hang back and draft off him for awhile and access the situation more? – nah, I zoom past him at 40km/h and I immediately see his shadow come across as he zips into my slipstream. I keep the pace, the legs aren't happy with me but, I've got to chew what I bite. After about 4km we come to a slight incline and he pulls up beside me and with a big smile on his face exclaims, “Wicked ride man!” We start drafting off each other for the remainder of the loop until we arrive at “the big hill.” At this point he's in the lead.

Within 20 metres from the start of the climb I decide to bring up the pace of the climb and pull up beside him and yell, “come-on, we got this, we got this!” He let's out a yell and we are both giving it, completely red lined the engine is about to explode and I can't wait to get to the top of the hill. Upon reaching the top we are both literally letting out yells and woots and I can't wait to pull off towards the Lions Gate Bridge and have him continue through the park so that I can bring the level down a bit. I tell him to have a good ride and then he pulls off to the bridge too. So I say, “I guess I'm not done with you yet,” and gear up for the climb over the bridge.

He looks over at my and with a smile says, “enjoy your ride,” and off I go and never see him again.

It was a pretty fun experience battling it out with a complete stranger. There certainly is a lot of testosterone when it comes to cycling and I wouldn't have it any other way. Kudos to that stranger for working me harder than anyone else ever has.

I'm sitting at work at 9:00pm on a Friday evening before a long weekend waiting for a massive file to upload to a website which will probably take about a half hour so I might as well use this time productively.

Last weekend I had the pleasure of volunteering at Ironman Canada and witnessing friends and complete strangers push their bodies to the limits in 30+°C temperature to complete one of the most physical one day challenges there is.

Four years ago I set a goal to complete Ironman in 5 years so if you're amazing at math you'll have already figured out that next year is my target date.

One of the benefits to volunteering is that you get priority over everyone else to register for a for sure sell-out event. This is a good thing too because when Derrick, Scott, and myself showed up to the registration site 2 hours early there were already a couple hundred people lined up to sign up.

I am very excited to officially announce my candidacy for Ironman next year and I couldn't be more thrilled. At this point I feel like everything that should have been done has been done and I'm right on track to hammer out an amazing race. I'm not rushing into this, or signing up on a whim. During the past four years I have gone from completing my first sprint distance triathlon, to completing 5 half Ironmans and another marathon. I will be completing another marathon in about a month and hopefully two more next year. I have finally procured a decent bike (post on that to come), and I have obtained the will to persevere.

While at the race I picked up this wrist band that they were throwing out into the crowd.

This will be my motivation. I hope that when it's raining and cold I'll be able to look at this and remember what it takes to be an Ironman and get out there and train.

I'm hoping that you all will support me in this goal. Without your encouraging words this all becomes a lot harder. I'll be updating you throughout this next year on my progress so that you can follow along with me on this Ironman journey.

You wouldn't have to look too far back in my blog history to read my Victoria Marathon Race Report as my blogging lately has been quite inactive. If you read it you would see that my time last year was 3:36:31 and my goal for this year was to qualify for Boston. Well, as soon as I heard that the Boston qualifying times were dropping by 5 minutes I decided that that goal was too hefty and gave up on that, instead I figured I would settle for a new PR.

My training has been okay lately. I've been getting a good long run in almost every Saturday and have slowly been building up the mileage over the past couple of months. I've also been doing some uphill strength training by doing the Grouse Grind every Wednesday night. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I did it three times one night. I've also been getting some good cross training by biking about 200km a week including a nice weekly ride up Mt Cypress. I feel like I've been doing a lot of the right things.

Lately on my long runs I've been getting some pretty serious pain in my left knee. I've been pushing through the pain to get my mileage up but end up running at an extremely slow pace near the end (about 6 min/km). Honestly, the pain has made me skip a few runs to allow myself to recover which has pushed me off my training plan and I wont be able to reach the distances I was hoping for prior to the marathon.

With the knee pain it seems unlikely that I will achieve a new PR this year and if I did decide to push hard through the pain I run the risk of injury and with big plans for next year, including Ironman Canada, injury is not something that I want right now.

I've been contemplating downgrading to the half but have now decided to stick with the full and take my time with it. I'll probably walk a bunch and take it nice and easy and just have fun with it. I figure I'll come in around 4 hours but I'm okay with that. I can just tick off one more marathon completion. I'm planning on running the BMO marathon in May so I can shoot for a good time for that one. For now I'm just going to do it for the experience and not so much the time.

Race day is October 9 in case anyone wants to come cheer me on. Your smiling faces are always helpful.

So I finally have something blog worthy. Today I was biking home from work as I do, minding my own business and enjoying the beautiful weather. I come to W 1st St in North Vancouver - a nice flat stretch of road with limited traffic and a chance to hold a decent uninterrupted pace. I usually hold around 37km/h here but today I was feeling particularly good and thought I would see if I could hold 40km/h. I gear down and hold on to my dropped bars and with a nice tail wind I easily bring it to 40, 42, 44, 45, 46... I hit a little bump and SNAP! Brief panic, wobble, wobble, wobble, coast to a slower speed and take a look at what happened:

I actually snapped the bar right off!

I don't know how I didn't bite it, I guess I'm a lucky guy. The brakes and shifters still worked so I shifted down to an easy gear and coasted the rest of the way home.

Considering my speed and the hardness of concrete I would say that was one of the scariest moments I've had on the bike. I'm happy to still have all my limbs in good working condition but am not looking forward to the repair bill.

I think I may have suckered a few of you in by my title thinking that perhaps my new TT bike would be making its blogging debut. I'm afraid I have mislead you, details on that will be soon to follow. The new ride I am referring to here happens to be my 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan just purchased shown below.

Yes, I have entered the minivan realm. The practicality wins over the need to hang on to the last bit of coolness that I like to think I possessed. All that has been thrown to the wind and replaced with full stow n' go seats. Lots of room for cargo and road trips are going to be much more comfortable now.

In other news, I'm getting close to getting my new bike. It should be built up this week and shipped out so news for that to come soon.

So yes, I haven't updated my blog since the marathon in October, and honestly my training has been much like my blog writing since then - nonexistent, but I'm hoping to still have a good year.

My race season last year was a little disappointing but there were some highlights:

I was able to swim faster and further than I ever had before including a swim from Alcatraz to shore, a 4200m swim at Kits beach, and a 33:33 half iron swim time at Sooke.

My cycling which had been my weakest triathlon event in 2009 became my strongest in 2010. I was able to push harder and faster. Some of the top moments were riding my first imperial century, climbing Cypress in 44:30, and going from 141st place at the start of the bike to 65th at the end during the 38km leg of the Banff triathlon.

My running took a big toll last year mainly due to a major neglect in training but with a desire to change that late in the season I was able to pull out my best Olympic distance triathlon run leg of 43:14 and I spontaneously signed up for the Victoria Marathon with 3 weeks to go and pulled out a new personal record with a time of 3:37. While training for the Marathon I felt a passion for the sport that I hadn't felt all year and I gained a renewed love of running.

My training totals are as follows:

Swimming - 75km, 28.2hr
Cycling - 4009km, 155hr
Running - 528km, 48hr

Sadly, the last time I swam last year was Sept 11, and the last time I ran was Oct 16. On the bright side, I started my new swimming plan today and got a few hundred meters in (man, did my arms ever get tired fast!).

So what is 2011 going to bring me?

Although I am planning on doing Ironman in 2012, I will be cutting back my training and focusing on shorter distance triathlons. I love the long distance, but this year I want to spend more time with my family. Janelle has been a great support to me, watching the kids all the time while I'm out getting in the miles, and I think it's time that I support her a little more. Besides, with Ironman next year, I'm going to need to be training a lot so I should be home more this year to try to make up for that.

So in planning my race season I think the Nelson Cyswog 'n fun is on the list, not sure what other tri's I will do. I will also be doing the Victoria Marathon again with hopes to qualify for Boston.

I still plan on training, just at times that are more convenient for others like swimming after the kids have gone to bed, running home from work which takes about the same time as busing, and going for pre-work bike rides come summer time. I'm not a student anymore. I don't have hours free in every day. Training now is much harder to do than before, but I believe that if I set my priorities and goals, make plans and work at it, I'll be able to accomplish the things I want to achieve this year.

The Victoria Marathon has come and gone and I am happy to report that I was able to complete it in a new personal record time of 3:36:31.

Going into this event I had a lot of doubt and uncertainty. Haunted by memories of my first marathon 5 years prior, I figured I was in for a lot of pain and a slower than desired time. I decided about a week ago after talking to fellow UBCTCer Melanie van Soeren to run with her for as long as I could and then finish what was left on my own after she dropped me. She told me her goal time was 3:40 - Boston Marathon qualifying time for females her age putting us at a 5:15/km running pace. Following this pace, the best I could finish would be 3:40 but more than likely, I figured I would come in closer to 4 hours. I had this window in mind and was psyched for race day.

Race day came and I finally found Mel in the pack of runners waiting to start with 1 minute to spare. We chatted for a minute and then came to find out 20 seconds before the race started that her new goal was 3:30 running a 5min/km pace. This was 15 sec/km faster than I had planned for and was faced with the need to make a split second decision to risk burning out and running the faster pace, or sticking with my 5:15 plan and running alone. Well, of course I had to gamble and stick with Mel. It was the right choice.

Before I continue, I need to mention how incredible this race course is. It was so nice to be back in Victoria, running through scenic Beacon Hill Park, and along the water on Dallas Rd and Beach Dr. Mostly flat, with slight undulating hills. The spectators are so supportive and the volunteers were great. It's a well run event and I recommend it to anyone thinking about making the trip here to do it.

Continuing on: We started running and impressively stuck to our pace quite well. We both were feeling great and frequently made comments to each other about how awesome the race was going. I held onto Mel for about 32 km when I knew I couldn't hold the pace anymore, and she seemed to be speeding up. I wished her good luck and cut it back. At this point I was well ahead of my 3:40 best case scenario goal and was quite happy to have that as my new worst case goal - did that make sense?

My pace became slower and slower as my untrained legs began to hate me for putting them through this, but I need to say, the pain was nothing like my previous marathon. I guess although I didn't log a lot of long distance runs this year, my experience that I've gained over the years, as well as all the Half Ironman triathlons I did must have helped. In fact, I never walked (besides through the water stations to drink); well, I sort of did once but found it to be more painful than running so I figured why walk when I can run and get it over with sooner?

I ended up finishing better than 3:40 as mentioned above by 3 and a half minutes. Considering how I signed up for this thing last minute and only directly trained for it for three weeks I am ecstatic about the result!

I need to do a big shout out to Mel and say thank-you for your excellent pacing, without her help I know I would have been a lot slower.  She did great by the way, coming in at 3:30.

I'm waiting for the professional photographers to post race day photos on their website that I can swipe but until then, I've got one photo stolen from Scott's facebook that he took of me at 41.2km.  Thanks Scott and Celeste for cheering me home!

41.2 km in and still this good looking!

Thanks to my Garmin I've got my splits as follows:

1 - 5:14

2 - 4:48

3 - 4:54

4 - 4:49

5 - 4:57

6 - 5:03

7 - 4:51

8 - 4:47

9 - 5:00

10 - 4:54 - 50:01 10km Split

11 - 4:54

12 - 4:51

13 - 5:03

14 - 4:52

15 - 4:44

16 - 4:45

17 - 4:55

18 - 5:02

19 - 4:51

20 - 4:51

21 - 5:01 - 1:45:09 Half Way Split

22 - 4:45

23 - 4:53

24 - 4:55

25 - 4:51

26 - 4:51

27 - 4:53

28 - 4:52

29 - 4:51

30 - 4:47 - 2:29:04 30km Split

31 - 5:07

32 - 4:58

33 - 5:17

34 - 5:07

35 - 5:29

36 - 5:34

37 - 5:28

38 - 5:56

39 - 6:02

40 - 5:40

41 - 6:03

42 - 5:26 - 3:36:31 Finish

I think it's pretty obvious where I really started to hurt. I hadn't trained my body beyond 30km in 5 years and it shows but it doesn't matter, I'm happy. I actually dropped a minute from 20 to 30 km so I think that's cool.

I want to put a big congrats out to Winston Guo for reaching his goal of qualifying for Boston with a time of 3:07:53 and to Vincent Lavallee for running a blistering 2:58:14 and becoming a true runner. Good job guys, you inspire me. And with that said, my goal for next year - qualify for Boston (3:10)!

Days until the marathon: 8

Lately I've been debating for race day whether to run fast up front and put some time in the bank but resulting in a really slow pace at the end, or starting slow and trying to hold that pace the whole way through, theoretically finishing at the same time. The second option seems like the better one but it's also so risky. I haven't ran longer than 30km in 5 years so I have no idea how my body will respond when I hit that point. Will I even be able to hold the slower pace? I might be a snail at the end either way.

To test out my options, today I ran 22km at a slower than normal pace with the hopes that I could judge how I felt at the end to see if I could hold this pace for much longer. At the end I was starting to hurt but could still pick up the pace to sub 5:00 min/km if I wanted to which was a good sign but I still don't know how I'll feel after 30km. I guess I'll just have to wait until the marathon to find out. I think I'm going to try the slower steady pace.

Since I'm not competitively running this marathon I had an idea that might be fun. I'm thinking about taking my camera with me on the run. I'll take pictures of my friends at the start. I'm thinking about taking a picture of my face every 5km just to see the progression of pain. Also, instead of spectators taking pictures of me, I'll take pictures of them. It's like a club where the outside is the inside, and the inside is the outside. Doesn't that blow your mind?

Days until the marathon: 13

About 20% of my year's total running mileage has occurred within the last month. Continuing my current training plan all the way until the marathon, that number will change to 30%. Surprisingly, it actually feels kind of good to be pounding the pavement a lot more again. Prior to triathlons, I started as a runner, and my running was my strength last year. This year I spent most of my time focusing on biking which paid off well but my running suffered as I hardly did it at all.

Today I decided to join up with the UBCTC for their Monday evening run through the UBC Endowment Land Trails and ended up running 10.5km at an easy 5min/km pace.  What was great about it was two things:

1. There were tons of people there, maybe the largest showing I had ever seen at a club running event, more than last year anyway. Actually, I didn't recognize more than half of them. It's nice to see so many people expressing interest in triathlon and in my opinion, finding a great group of people to train with.

2. How easy it was; we had done 8.5km and were almost done the run, I had to peel off to make it a little longer because I didn't want to stop. Sure we weren't going fast or anything, but I started to feel like this kid, or at least how I would feel if I were wearing such a sweet costume, hmmmm, Halloween is coming up...

It's great to see the progression and really fall in love with running again. I was starting to think of myself as a cyclist but now I see there is no way that I could give up running.

Sure, my training has started too late to make this marathon turn out amazingly, but I hope, that when the marathon is over, I can keep this motivation up and keep on running. It's exhilarating.

Days until the marathon: 14

Yesterday I set out on my longest run of the year.  Having ran 25km the week before I wanted to up it to at least 30km with the possibility of 34km. With rain the days previous I had been psyching myself for a cold and wet morning but as it turned out, it was quite lovely. It was a nice cool overcast morning, then the sun came out, and then there was a light breeze. With the day being as nice as it was I really had no excuses I could pull out.

I guess there's no need to drag this out into a long story.  Simply put, I ended up running 30.5km. It was slow and painful and tiring and it made me start to regret signing up for the marathon. Thinking about having to run another 12km at that point did not appeal to me. Trying to get into marathon shape in 3 weeks apparently wasn't the brightest idea. Oh well, too late now.  I'm not dropping out and I will finish, I just might be walking like a cowboy for a week or two after.  I guess I should be working on my Howdy's and Yee-Haw's.

My self designed training plan says it's now time to taper. No more long runs.  I plan on doing about 10km on Monday, 12km on Wednesday, and 22km on Saturday.

Days until the Marathon: 18

Today was to be a short run - about a 12km run home from work but I did something else instead. There are a few guys from my office that do the Grouse Grind every week and since it`s nearing the end of Grind season, today I decided to join them.  Not quite marathon training (there are no mountain climbs in the course) but I think it`s got to help somewhat.

I`ve done the Grind a couple of times this year but both times I was going up with people at a more leisurely pace so I was excited to hit this one hard, go at my own pace, and see what I could accomplish, not knowing what to expect.

I started the trail with a slight jog; I figured I should make some good time while the trail was somewhat less steep. Almost immediately I started to sound like a train and my legs felt like they wanted to cramp. I realized there was no way I was to hold that pace all the way to the top so I settled down into a quick groove. I hit the 1/4 mark in 12 minutes. Now I need to mention that the trail is marked at 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, and finish but these marks are for elevation gain - not distance, so since the first quarter is the least steep, it's also the longest. From that I figured my finishing time would be about 45minutes.

I continued on and hit the 1/2 mark in 8 minutes but from there I had to slow down a little because my legs were giving up on me. The next 1/4 took me 10 minutes and the final 1/4 took 8 minutes for a total time of 38:22.

Now that I've got a time I now have a benchmark for next year.

I would like to take this opportunity to put a plug out for my co-worker Duncan who is travelling to Tanzania next year to help out with the Canada Africa Community Health Alliance which specializes in bringing medical supplies and treatment to families in Africa who have little or no access to healthcare. He will help to oversee the structural design of a new healthcare center. Over the next month he will be doing the grind as often as he can and is looking for pledges (1-10+$/grind) to help fund his volunteer trip. If this intrigues you at all see his blog here: http://www.grindfortanzania.blogspot.com/. Instructions on how to donate can be found on his blog.

Yesterday I decided since the Victoria Marathon was only 3 weeks and 1 day away I should develop a training plan and start training for it. I ventured out on my longest run of the year; the plan: 25km.

I ran from my place down to Ambleside Park, back along the water to the Lions Gate Bridge, over the bridge to Stanley Park and down to and around the Seawall, and then back home. I was about 10km into my run and feeling great.  I had previously thought that running for 20km without biking 90km right before (which is what happens during the Half Ironman Triathlons) would be a cinch and thus far it appeared I was right. It didn't take long before I was proven wrong.

At about 16km my legs were hurting and with 9km to go my run turned from enjoyment to pure endurance. Anyway, I got through it.  I made 25km in 2:10. I feel confident that I will finish the marathon and I'm setting my goal time for sub 4 hours.  I'm pretty sure that with a few more weeks of training I would be able to go sub 3:30 but I'll save that for another year.  There's no point in pushing myself too hard and getting injured.

On a side note: one thing I forgot about was nipple chaffing.  Yes I'm one of the unfortunate ones who suffers from such.  There was a point on my run, and even now, where I wonder what hurts more, my legs or the nips. I'll have to remember to lube up before my next long run.

So with three weeks left before race day, meaning only two training weekends remaining, I plan on running a 30-34km run next Saturday and a 20km the week after to taper with a couple 10km runs in between.

On an additional side note: I had never done the whole Stanley Park Seawall before and it is quite gorgeous.  I saw Third Beach for the first time - it might be the nicest looking beach I've seen in Vancouver. I also ran about 7 feet away from a skunk.

This past weekend was the season ending triathlon for the Subaru Western Triathlon Series - the Banff Triathlon.  It was a long way to travel for a race (1700km round trip) but seeing as it was it's inauguration I had to attend.  This race only offered Sprint and Olympic distances so I took a break from my usual Half Ironman distance to attempt my first Olympic of the year (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run).

My race season had mostly been met with disappointment, posting much slower times than last year, and getting beaten relentlessly by Storm who no matter how far ahead of him I got on the swim or bike, he always managed to catch and surpass me on the run.

With the race being on a Saturday morning, the crew decided to leave Thursday evening after work, drive as far as we could, camp, and then continue on the next morning.

After hitting Sicamous, it was time to start looking for a place to camp.  Luckily we had our Splinter of Ninja Camping with us - Michael Duncan - who with unparalleled trained eyes managed to find obscure and hidden abandoned roads stemming off of the Trans-Canada Highway.  After a couple of failed locations we were fortunate enough to find a preemo spot near an old mine.

Setting up Camp in the Dark

Ninja Camping!

Morning stroke and I was able to fully take down my campsite and pack all my belongings back into the car before one generally good looking guy even got out of his sleeping bag.

The seven of us soon were off and back on the road.  Passing through Golden we saw a family of mountain goats chillin on the side of the road.  We stopped at Lake Louise and ingested some of the surrounding area's beauty.  We eventually made it to Banff and set up our camp at the gorgeous Two Jack Lackside campground - I highly recommend it.  The scenery was unlike the hustle of downtown Vancouver - instead of people and buildings tearing into the sky there were rugged mountains freckled with wildlife.

Excitement was in the air as the town of Banff was ready to welcome us into their home to race.

The team decided to hit the bike course to see what would be in-store for us the following day.

It was simply breathtaking.

As the day progressed and the evening settled in we looked for a place to eat.  I have come to find that my pre-race meal of choice is Thai Chicken Bites and pizza at Boston Pizza.  I like to order extra Hawaiian  pizza that I can eat the next morning for breakfast.  Every time I have had this meal pre-race I have had a good race and this proved to be no exception, but I get ahead of myself.

After enjoying a delicious meal, we headed back to camp to light a fire and make smores.

There is something about a campfire that just completely settles the nerves.  11pm came and it was time for bed.

Race morning:

We had heard the day previous that due to the combination of cold water temperatures and mountain air that the swim leg was to be shortened from 1500m to 750m.  At the time I was quite disappointed by the announcement because the swim is where I make up all my time on Winston and this was my last chance to beat him this year (It's great to have friendly rivalries to keep motivated). I figured it was game over between us. But when I stepped into the water a few minutes before the race started I began to feel grateful for the shortened duration. As I looked in people's faces - seeing the obvious discomfort from the frigid glacial water I tried to forget my own.  I soon started to shiver while wearing my wetsuit and noticed others shivering as well.  I think it was a smart idea to shorten the swim as hypothermia was a real threat -just ask Jared Penner who later pulled out of the race suffering from mild hypothermia himself.

Two Jack Lack

The swim was tough.  The 1500m altitude brought shortness of breath and the cold water seemed to freeze my arms so I could hardly bring myself to stroke.  I got through the swim and from thereon out it was a great race.

I decided to take my time in T1 - toweling off and putting on additional layers.  I burned 9 minutes and 5 seconds but I didn't regret it because although it was raining and windy, I was comfortable on the bike.  I left T1 in 163 place out of 350 but was able to pass 95 people on the bike, entering T2 in 68th - not bad. Although my body was warm, my feet were frozen.  So frozen that I couldn't feel them and struggled with putting my running shoes on.  I burned another 3 minutes in T2 but then I was off.

This turned out to be my greatest run of the year. It started off with frozen feet, but within a kilometer my toes were met with a burning sensation as they started to thaw. After about 5 minutes I ran into Winston and realized that he was about a minute and a half behind me (up until this point I had thought he was ahead of me).  I was feeling strong and was hoping I could hold him off for once.

I ran the first 5km in 22 minutes and at this point I was still feeling good and decided to pick up the pace (mainly because I could now feel my feet). I finished the last 5km in 21 minutes for a total 10km time of 43:14.  It was nice to be able to run a negative split.  I finished the race in 2:15:17 and was pleased to finally vanquish my foe who raced a solid 2:16:37 finishing only two spots behind me. Success!

My friends all did well.  Special congrats to Scott for finishing first in the 20-24 age group and Winston for finishing second in the same age group category.

Scott and Winstorm owning the Podium

I was going to leave in the early afternoon to hit the road back home and try to get back in a decent hour but they announced that there would be a draw for a Blue Triad frameset and you had to be there to win it. I figured the odds weren't great but good enough to stick around.  And am I glad I did.  My number was called and I won!  It was very exciting.

Blue Triad

I then drove all the way home, walked in the door at about 5:00am and slept for the majority of the next day.

What a fantastic weekend!

Ever do something spontaneously stupid? I fear I may have done just that.

See, I got an email update about the Royal Victoria Marathon - as I have regularly since completing the race 5 years ago - and thought to myself, Maybe I should sign up this year? So what if I have hardly been running this year? So what if race day is only 37 days away? So what if the time I start training for it is about the same time that I should be about to start tapering?

With all that reasoning, or maybe anti-reasoning if such a thing exists, it's not hard to believe that I had to sign-up.  I just completed my online registration and I am officially in for this year's race.

I am in no way expecting a good time, this is more of a completion race.  But seeing how my PR is 4:33 it shouldn't be to hard to beat (coming from someone with no training).

Wish me luck!

If you have read my race reports for races 1, 2, and 3 of the season you will have heard that my results have been less than impressive this year.  I've struggled with poor training and nutrition issues that could have been avoided and I was really hoping that this race in Sooke would break the cycle and I could finish one Half Ironman that I could be proud of in 2010.  Knowing that this would be my last chance I began planning how I would achieve success shortly after the Vancouver Half Iron blunder.

I turned my focusing largely towards the cycling leg.  Luckily I have a friend at work training for the Gran Fondo and he was also looking to get some extra training in which provided me with the motivation I needed to wake up at 5am a couple days a week for a pre-work ride up Mt Cypress.  Pulling in the extra mileage prooved to be worth the effort.

In addition to picking up my cycling time and continuing my open water swim sessions at Kits Beach Thursday evenings, I developed a nutrition plan that began a week before the race.  Simply: eat carbs, carbs, and more carbs.  I ate so much pasta that sufficeth me to say, I'm in no rush to eat spaghetti again.

Finally race weekend arrived, I knew that my weakness would lie in the run as I hadn't ran for over a month.  I decided to race the swim and the bike, and accept whatever happened on the run and I set a finish time goal of sub 5:10.

The day before the race Winstorm, Derrick, and I loaded up my car and off we went.  The weather was unlike the beautiful sunshine that we had been blessed with over the last couple of months with drizzling rain and light wind but I didn't mind.  I was determined to have a good race regardless of the weather.  A few hours later, we arrived in Sooke and met up with fellow UBCTC members Vince, Mel, and Ceilidh and finished our final preparations for the race on Sunday.

Sunday turned out to be a pretty nice day, blue skies and sunshine.  There was a mild headwind on the bike but it wasn't too bad.  I decided that for this race I would not wear my Garmin for the swim concluding that the risk of losing it in the water was not worth the benefit of wearing it so I left it connected to my bike all morning and lost track of time.  Upon returning from my final pre-race bathroom visit Winston mentioned that we had less than 10 minutes to the start of race.  I wasn't near ready: still wearing my jeans and needing to finish setting up my bike so I somewhat nervously quickly got it done.  Winston and I hurried to the lake for the swim, being the last two to arrive just in time to hear the announcer say we had 10 seconds to start.  I guess my warm-up is out.  The cannon went off and so did we.

The swim was marvelous.  I've never felt so good in the water.  Typically I do the swim in about 35 minutes but this time I came out with a time of 33:33.  I was happy to accept this delightful beginning.  I came out of the water in 22 place.

I got on my bike to start the scenic 4.3 lap bike course.  As usual, I took the first lap a little easy, spinning up my legs and becoming familiar with the terrain.  After finishing the first lap I started to race and finished the next lap 2 minutes faster.  After that I felt even better and dropped another two minutes off my next lap and then held that pace for the last lap.  I was passed by a few people but passed others for a net gain of 4 spots and came off the bike in 18th place.  Unfortunately two of the people who passed me were in my age group putting me in 4th place.

Getting off the bike and onto the run knowing that 2nd and 3rd place in my age group were not too far ahead I ran strong trying to catch them.  I'll mention that first place in my age group belonged to Vince who was having a great race and was simply untouchable.  Having not run for a month prior I didn't know what to expect but all that extra mileage on the bike seemed to help as my legs felt fresh.  I forgot my Garmin on my bike so I had no idea of my pace but I figure I was holding 4:30 pace.  Within the first 5km I caught and surpassed my age group competition and estimate that I got up to a 3 minute lead on who was now in third place as I was now in second.  After hitting the turn around on my first lap of the two lap run course and the terrain changed from downhill to uphill I died.  My legs shut down and my place slowed.  The remainder of the race was quite painful.  I got passed by one guy in my age group and I knew that the next guy was about a minute behind so I had no time to lose.  I ran slow, but I ran and held onto my spot finishing 18th overall and claiming third in the M25-29 category.

My final time was 5:08 so I was happy to achieve my goal of sub 5:10.  I was so delighted with the day that I started an impromptu dance party which Derrick, Winston, and later Vince were excited to join in on.

It was a great race and a great day spent with great friends.  Congrats to everyone for completing their races all with great times

This post will be lame because I'm too lazy to come up with something sweet to say or even post any pictures.

I did the Vancouver Half Iron this past weekend and it went a little something like this:

The swim was nuts.  It was my first beach start ever - typically you start in waist deep water, and for some reason it was more ferocious than usual.  I'm used to bumping into people and receiving / dishing out little kicks but on this swim I got kicked in the face, then kicked in the groin, and later smacked on the back of the head.  Who does breast stroke at the start of a swim?  Seriously, if you're going to be kicking out to the side, swim out of the way, and not where you are going to be assaulting my junk.  With that said, I was overall happy with my swim performance, coming out of the water in just under 35 minutes.

I was excited to use my new Garmin Forerunner 310XT Multi-sport GPS watch to track my race.  I spent a little time the night before learning how to use the multi-sport function but on race day I forgot and screwed up my timing.  About 5 minutes into the bike I reset my watch so I wasn't exactly sure what my time was for the rest of the race.

The bike was my worst bike this year.  I don't know what happened.  I've felt strong the last couple of weeks and even the day before we went on a short bike ride and my legs felt strong, but on race day they just felt empty.  Normally it takes me a little while to get going as I adjust from swim to bike but on this race it was the opposite.  I thought I had a decent first lap of a four lap course but then I got slower and slower each time, allowing more and more people to pass me.  It got pretty depressing.

By the time I got off the bike and was in T2 eating a Snickers bar (most delicious Snickers bar of my life by the way) I starting thinking about pulling the plug on the race.  It's hard when you have a personal best you want to improve on but know there is no chance.  I thought to myself, do I really want to run 20km just to do worse than I did last year?  I was hungry and depressed but wasn't made up on my mind so I started out on the run knowing that the run course passes by the transition area every 5km and I could drop out in 5km if I wanted to.  I got about 1 or 2 km in when I decided, yep - I'm dropping out and I started to walk.  I don't know if it was fatigue or that stupid Shaun White Oakley ad I saw on the bus stop that really annoyed me.  You know the one, Inside Outlaw or something like that.  I don't know why that bugs me so much but every time I see it I'm annoyed.

When I neared the 5km mark I couldn't bring myself to quit just yet so I ventured on.  I ran into Scott Chris who was volunteering that day and I stopped and chatted with him for a couple of minutes.  I continued walking for about 5 minutes and then started to run.  For some reason, I just continued to run and never stopped again until the race was over.  I was feeling pretty good and even skipped a few aid stations.

I ended up finishing in 5 hours and 23 minutes.  Not great, but not bad considering how much I walked on the run.  For some reason I had it in my mind that I was going to finish in around 5:45 so when I came to the finish I was pleasantly surprised.

Oh well, maybe I just need to accept this year as a write-off.  My performance has been pretty lame but at least I'm getting some good experiences.  So far in this race series I have experienced cold, depression, and bonking.  Learning how to deal with these problems is only going to help me achieve my main goal right now which is to complete Ironman Canada in under 11 hours in 2012.

The next race is in Sooke next month.  I'm considering sitting this one out but we'll see.

Anyway, hats off to all my friends who raced this past weekend.  Many achieved new pb's and new distances.

Triathlon season is alive.  I just finished my second Half Ironman 3 days ago and it's hard to believe the next one is just 11 days away.  My training this year has been less than stellar so as to be expected my results have not been that great so far, but there have been some positives.  Race reports below.

First race of the season was at Shawnigan Lake on May 30.  It was an amazing trip with about 10 people from the UBC Tri Club heading out for the adventure.  Big thanks to Celeste's mom for putting us all up.  The race started with a swim in freezing cold waters.  I'm glad I went in early to let my body adjust to the temperature because the shock when my face hit the water was unbearable at first.  Soon the water was fine to swim in and the real challenge was how the cold would be affecting me later on in the race.

When I got on the bike I had a hard time getting my legs going because they were so cold.  I keep telling my legs to spin but they wouldn't listen.  It was a 4-lap course around the lake and my first lap was okay, but then my second lap was a couple minutes slower and wasn't going well.  When I hit the third lap something happened - my legs came alive and my adrenaline was pumping.  I started yelling at myself to push.  Not in my mind, I'm talking full out yelling out loud.  I'm sure people thought I was crazy.  Every time my legs started to burn I just keep yelling, "oh yeah! I love it! I love the burn!"  This lap was 3 minutes faster and I held that pace for the next lap passing a lot of people.  It was the first time I had a faster second half so I was pretty happy about that.

The run was average.  I'm not running as much this year, and what was once my strongest event has now seemed to become my weakest.  I held a consistent 5:00min/km pace for the whole 21 km and finished in just under 5:15.

My legs were tired but as I approached the finish line I had the idea to ninja kick across the end, so I did.

Thanks to a small amount of people in my age group and two of them dropping out of the race I surprisingly finished 3rd in my age group.

I had three weeks to go until my next race in Victoria.  I decided to start going to the open water swims at Kits Beach with Vowsa to work on my open water swimming and sighting.  This proved to pay off as my Victoria swim time was about 6 minutes faster than at Shawnigan.

The bike course in Victoria was pretty tough.  There are a lot of rolling hills which take a toll on the legs and it got pretty painful near the end but I pushed through.  I started the run feeling okay, legs were sore, but I was pushing through and they started to warm up.  I was able to catch up to and pass a couple of people in my age group so it wasn't going too bad.

For a couple of days prior to the race I had been a little sick and my appetite wasn't that big.  This was my problem in Victoria.  Near the end of my first lap of a two lap run course I started to feel hungry.  I`ve never felt hungry in a race before and I knew this was going to be trouble.  I started to feel light-headed, which turned to dizziness.  I began to run zigzagged and my vision was going in and out.  Clearly I was bonking.  I considered trying to push through it and hopefully making it to the finish but I sensible decided that the smart thing to do was to pull the plug.  I finished the race but I walked from 15km on and so I was passed a lot.  I dropped 74 spots on the run.  I ran the last 500m or so and finished just under 5:30.

Sure the race didn`t go well, but I dropped a lot of time off the swim, and my bike ride was relatively good.  It was slower than Shawnigan but the course was a lot harder so that was fine.  I just need to work on my running and I should be able to come in sub-5 consistently.  I also dropped a minute off both transitions.  So there have been improvements.  Hopefully I can plan my nutrition better and have a good race in Vancouver July 4.  I think it`s too soon to make any substantial gains on the run but hopefully by the Sooke race at the end of August I`ll be cruising.

Here are the results:

Shawnigan
Swim: 39:24
T1: 3:23
Bike: 2:44:19
T2: 2:28
Run: 1:45:23
Finish: 5:14:55

Victoria

Swim: 33:17

T1: 2:10

Bike: 2:47:12

T2: 1:28

Run: 2:04:46

Finish: 5:28:51

Over the last few weeks I have been trying to increase my base mileage on the bike in preparation of the Half Ironman race series that I'm doing that starts this weekend.

A few weeks ago I did my first mountain climb up Cypress which nearly killed me, luckily there was an ice cream truck on the way down and we stopped for some much needed sustenance.

Vince enjoying his Spideysicle

The week after that we decided to tackle Mt Seymour.  It was painful but I didn't near death so I considered that an improvement over the week before.  We added some extra miles so that when I got home I had done 125km that day.

At the top of Mt Seymour

Our victory food, Cinnamon Buns from Cobs

Sunday night I was planning out my bike ride for Monday and I got the crazy idea to do a Century which is a 100 mile ride, that's 161km.

I woke up Monday morning feeling a little sore from my 20km run Saturday afternoon but was still determined to complete my first Century.  I packed a lot of food to ensure my body would be fueled for this undertaking and left to meet the boys.  I knew Vince and Matt would be coming but I wasn't sure who else would be coming.  When I reached the meeting place Sherwood was there waiting and shortly after Barry arrived.  My plan was to take the ride nice and easy so that my legs would hold out but with these two there I knew that wasn't going to happen; I don't think they have a slow gear, so I was a little worried about how this ride would proceed.

Once the whole party was together we set off.  Our ride to Deep Cove was not insanely fast but near the end of it I was having trouble just staying in their draft; clearly I was the weakest link there.  I managed to hang on and soon we cut over to Mt Seymour.  I decided to take the ascent easy and I was surprised at how much nicer that felt.  After Mt Seymour we once again stopped at Cobs Bread for some tasty snacks and then proceeded onward.  We went to Indian River Road and then headed west to Horseshoe Bay.  Now it was time to head home.

At about 136 km in I was riding over the Burrard Bridge, Vince pulled off and Barry, Sherwood, and Matt sped on ahead so I was on my own.  I surprising felt pretty good except for some mild discomfort in my gut.  I knew that I would be under 100 miles if I just went straight home so as I reached the University Endowment Lands I continued to loop around campus to get the extra miles that I needed.

As I continued my ride, the pain in my stomach grew stronger and stronger.  It became sharp and breathing became a burden.  Every time I drank or ate anything it hurt.  I pushed on anyway.  Fears of some internal rupture filled my mind but I pushed them aside and kept riding.  And then, believe it or not my spleen ruptured!  I didn't know what it was at the time but the sharp shooting pain in my stomach forced me to stop my bike.  I fell to the ground grasping my mid section in agony.  I knew something was wrong so I called 911.  Everything after that was a blur, I have mild recollections of the ambulance ride but mostly I just remember waking up and having the doctor explain to me what happened.  Okay, not really.  No rupture.  But that was the scene that played in my mind.  I pushed on.  It was strength vs will, me vs the road.

My bike computer wasn't working so I had no idea what my total distance was.  I knew that after Vince and I separated I had to complete 26 more km to reach the 100 mile mark and I thought I had done it.  I went home and mapped out my ride.  The total distance: 100.002 miles.  Talk about calling it close.

My First Century

It feels great having accomplished this goal.  It was a challenge but rewarding and that's what it's all about.

There have been a lot of amazing things happening in my life lately but this post is devoted to the best one of all.  My newest daughter, Brylee Drew, was born Tuesday April 27 at 5:45am.


Janelle was given the due date of May 1 but for the four days previous to Brylee's arrival, Janelle had been having a lot of contractions on and off.  Sunday night was looking quite likely as they started to become quite regular.  She called me and told me to come home, I was at the school studying for a final exam the next morning.  I came home and for the next few hours the contractions continued and then all of a sudden they stopped.  I was bagged, and due to the lack of sleep and loss of study time I was in no shape to right a final exam Monday morning.  Luckily my prof was very understanding and he let me post-pone my writing until Thursday.


On Monday Janelle felt no movement from the baby all day which was quite unusual for Brylee who liked to kick a lot.  She called the midwife at about 4pm and she was told to head to the hospital for an assessment.  It turned out everything was fine which was a major relief.  We explained to the midwife that we would really like her to induce labor.  This typically would never happen before a due date unless there was some medical reason but Janelle's family is known for quick labors and Kaylen was pretty fast and there was some concern about having a baby in the car.  There was also the issue of final exams; I already had one postponed, and I really didn't want to postpone any more, not to mention all the study time I had been missing.  To shorten the story they decided to break Janelle's water at about 10:30pm Monday night and then we were to wait.  By 2 nothing had happened so they gave Janelle Oxytocin and at 3:15am she started having contractions.  They woke me up from off the floor at 3:45 as things were getting going.  And at 5:45 Brylee came out.  2.5 hour labor with only 4 minutes of pushing, not bad.


Brylee was 7lb 10oz, blue eyes, brown hair, 20in long and healthy.


She is the most adorable little baby, I realize I'm biased but she is really cute and we are all really excited to have her.


The labor went great and both Brylee and Janelle were able to come home from the hospital that afternoon which was a good sign.

Me with Brylee a few minutes after she was born

Kaylen loving being a big sister

Our newest family photo

On her way out of the hospital

It didn't Janelle long to start putting bows in her hair

Our cute little girl

Happy mommy with her baby

Eyes wide open