Half way

Today marks the academic halfway point for me! Woo Hoo! This has been a stressful week with exams and waiting for the results, but I passed, so I keep on going with the process.

Today also marks one more week until I get to go home for Thanksgiving. That will be awesome, I can hardly wait. Poor Darcy is so out of sorts and poor Sue is having to deal with everything. It's a pretty crappy situation, but we're halfway there.

Thanks to all those who have emailed support, it meant a lot especially this week.

ps: Happy 60th Birthday to my Father-in-law! Way to go H, you've honed that body into one that doesn't look much older than 70!

Have you heard of this?

There is a club called the "Marathon Maniacs", their goal is usually just to complete a marathon in all 50 states at some point in their lives. Some are little more hardcore and try to do 50 marathons in 50 states, in one year.

But this is crazy. Dean Karnazes is the ultimate of ultra-marathon runners. He has been featured in Runner's World several times and was one of the first people ever to run over 300 miles at one time! Although, he did admit to occasionally falling asleep while he was running.

His lastest endevour has been to run 50 marathons, in 50 states, in 50 days. Don't worry Sue, this is something that I will never have interest in trying. It's for the clearly unstable.

Stress time

We are rapidly approaching our first set of "pass/fail" exams. We do them early next week. Even though I feel well prepared, I've done very well on all the review material and have improved the little areas that needed improving, the stress level is rising quickly.

I'm enjoying the program and have wonderful classmates. These are some of the most dedicated and supportive people that I've ever had the pleasure to work with. But that is also how we got here...

So, I've got a few days of practice and studying left, then it's crunch time.

Feeling guilty

Darcy had a great week last week with Stef, but this week has noticed the difference with Stef gone. I can't help but feel guilty for putting Darcy through this stressful time. She's so young and she doesn't understand that I'm not there right now. She's at the point where she doesn't really want to talk to me on the phone. I think that's because she doesn't want to talk to me, she wants to see me, to play with me, she wants me to be there.

I know that if all goes well, this will really pay off in the end. But right now I feel like a pretty terrible father for forcing such trauma on her young little life.

One Quarter Done

Three weeks in. It's amazing to think that I'm already 1/4 finished. In some ways it feel like I'm been here for ever, but in other ways it feels like time has just flown by. I have an amazing group to work with, we can totally count on each other for help and support. That has made life away from my family easier.

I'm still keeping in shape. I'm not biking nearly as much as I'd like to, I get out maybe twice a week, but my running is still going nicely; I get in about 20 miles a week. I'm also able to swim more consistently and the weight are always available too. Although, I have yet to actually touch them...

Combined, I've managed to put in over 150km in since I've been here.

Home

I'm home in Windsor for the long weekend. On Thursday I told Darcy that I would see her Friday. We barely made it, but I was in her room watching her sleep at 11:55 pm. When she woke up this morning, I walked in and she started to say "Hello, Mommy." But she caught herslef and spent the next five minutes saying, "Daddydaddydaddydaddydaddydaddy!" In between that she would say, "You were in the telephone." It's good to be missed.

Oh yeah, Sue missed me too.

Tonight on CNN - program change

There was supposed to be a documentary feature about the eight years that Sue and I have been married, but it's being replaced with ongoing Katrina coverage.

What some people will do for ratings!

Love you Sue, even if we don't have our own tv special ;)

Distance

I'm in Montreal for the weekend. Stef and I went for a long ride this morning, nothing hard, just keeping an easy pace over mostly paved trails. We got as close as we could to the F1 Track, where the Champ Car Series is having a race this weekend. We were within a kilometre of the track and could see the tents, I could also hear the cars all the way from here, about 12.5 km away. We did do dome gravel trails and a few sections of trails that are still being completed. Some good hills and some good descents (with some nice skidding). It was a great ride, we were gone for 2 1/2 hours and covered 47.5 km, according to Gmap Pedometer.

It was an intense first week. I'm really enjoying the learning, but it's really hard to be away from Sue and Darcy. If you've read Sue's blog, you'll know that Darcy's having a tough time adjusting to my being away. It's having an effect on all of us. Fortunately, next weekend is a long weekend and I'll headed home to see my favorite girls! Yee Haw.

I love Air Canada

Have you seen Windsor Airport? If not, it's small. I think there is one gate. Yet, the last two times I've flown from Windsor to Toronto, my bags have been lost. What is up with that? How hard is it? There was only one plane in Windsor, how come my bags didn't get on it?

I won't even get into some of the other diasters that AC & I have shared. I could write a book about it.

My dear wife, who I totally ADORE for her wisdom, suggested last week that I take a uniform as carry-on, just in case. Being the obedient husband that I am, I followed her advice and packed everything I'd need for one day in my carry-on. Except toileteries. Now, my first day is done and I STILL DON'T HAVE ANY LUGGAGE!!! I'm told that they will be delivered today, but I'll believe it when I see it. Big points to Sue for coming up with her idea. Wow, I'd be so totally up the creek without that suggestion.

So here I am, with the clothes that I wore yesterday and the one uniform I carried on. Hopefully my bags come soon.

Like right now would be nice.

----------

UPDATE: 9:00pm

Apparently I'm quite a powerful writer. It turns out that as I was writing my little rant, my bags were being delivered that very minute. Hah. Oh wait, they were only 22 hours late, so it's really not THAT funny.

Some things

There are some tri pics up on my Flickr page. Jake took them(thanks eh!). I tried to post some here, but blogger can be stupid about those sort of things.

If you notice the one with the floating sludge, maybe that'll explain why I had a mini-barf or 'vurp' while I was swimming. I had forgotten about it until Monday afternoon. About 3/4 of the way through I had swallowed too much water and the GU energy gel I took before the swim was starting to fight back. Mix the two things together and a burp with a tiny little bit of flavor is what I got. Thankfully, nothing more than that.

Jake noticed that I came out of the water way sooner than he expected. There were about 15 pros who start 3 minutes ahead of everyone and then the men under 40 were the next wave to go. He figures I was in the top ten of my wave out of the water. I was first in my age group, but didn't know that at the time. It's funny though, here I am disappointed with my time, but top in my age group and well ahead of everyone else. When I got out on the bike about I started getting passed by a number of people who were flying. At the time I thought to myself, "Why are these guys so far back?" Never realizing that it was me who was so far in front.

Last night I went for a 5 km run. I had decided earlier in the day that I was going to break my PR of 21:11 and then Jake challenged me to break his record of 20:35. I got to the halfway point at 10:13 and was pretty sure I could match Jake's time. It was very hard work, but I cranked it out in 20:19! That works out to 4:04/km or 6:32/mile. Shattering my own PR by 52 seconds. I was gasping for air like I never have before; an awesome run. This way I leave my job with the fastest 5 km time at the shop, if only for a day.

That's right, I'm done at the print shop. It was hard to say good-bye. I had been there for seven years, three months and fifteen days, give or take. With both of our family's being out of town, we've taken to adopting people as our family. My co-workers were family and it's hard to see them go. I leave Sunday for my training period. It's 13 weeks long, but fortunately I'll be home again in two weeks for Labour Day. Sue will be on her own for a week and then she's taking in a boarder for a month or two. She's a girl who's getting pushed out by her current landlord and is getting married in December, so doesn't need a lease. The timing is perfect and Sue is excited about having adult company. Also, after Labour Day my sister has agreed to stay for a week to take care of Darcy. It sounds like Stef has a whole curriculum planned, hopefully she can keep up with Darcy's pace.

I'll have internet access while I'm away but I doubt I'll have much to blog about. My goal is to study hard and pass everything. They have great facilities so I'll also be able to keep my swimming, biking and running at a good level. No fall races for me this year. Next year I'll do an Olympic tri for sure.

Titcombe out.

Race Details

It was a perfect day. A little chilly when I left the house, but beautiful by the time the race started. We couldn't have had better conditions.

The Swim (800 metres):
Same course as last year, straight out & back along the shore. Because of this it's really shallow the entire way. My strategy this year was to be more aggressive and get towards the front of the pack. I was near the front, but really didn't settle into a good rhythm until the second half. Even though the lake was very smooth, I kept swallowing water and, for some strange reason, my goggles decided that today would be the first time they leaked. So I had to keep emptying them. I felt good the whole way, a decent effort, tired but not too tired. Here's where things get weird. I got to the timing mat and hit the split on my watch, 14:30. What? Two full minutes slower than last year. Very strange.

I did some looking at the results and compared times of big name people with their times of last year. Almost everyone, including the pros, was about 2 minutes slower. So, it seems a little fishy that everyone would slow down by nearly the same margin. I can see myself slowing down that much, but not the pros. There were some world class racers there and it just seems impossible that I would slow down by the same amount as they would. My conclusion is that either this years swim course was too long or that last years swim course was too short.

Anyway, I was now two minutes behind schedule and had ground to make up. After the swim, here is my placing:
14:30 - 40/161 overall & 1/19 age group

T1 (swim-bike):
As I'm running up the beach the swim cap and goggles come off. Last year they had kiddie pools to wash your feet of in (I slipped and almost fell), but there were no pools this year. Fortunately, I had planned to wash my own feet off anyway. I got to my bike, sprayed one down, put one sock on and slipped on one shoe (thanks to my YANKZ laces, highly recommended), then repeated the process on the other foot. Voila, I've got my shoes on all I have left to do is get my shirt on. Somehow I managed to put my shirt on half inside out and got stuck. So I wasted about 30 seconds wriggling out of my shirt, getting it the right way and finally getting it on.
Time: 1:54 (1:13 faster than last year).

Bike 30 km:
There's not much to report about the bike. I worked hard and kept the pace as high as I could. We were blessed with a tiny headwind for the first half, but I knew that the would be a tailwind for the second half. I was drinking gatorade every ten minutes and took a GU energy gel after 30 minutes. I think that I ended up over doing it on the bike and had too much stuff in my stomach for the run. Oh well, lesson learned.

My time on the bike was:
55:45 (32.3 km/hr) - 71/161 & 12/19 (18 seconds slower than last year).

T2 (bike-run):
Put the bike back on the rack, take off the helmet, start running.
Time: 43 seconds (15 seconds faster than last year).

Run (6 km):
I knew I was a much stronger running this year. It showed right away as I really didn't feel too bad off the bike and ran with a good stride immediately. A few people passed me in the first couple of km, but after the halfway point, I did not get passed once and must have passed a dozen or more people. I was running stronger as they were fading. In the last 2 km, an older gentleman and I were running together and started picking off people ahead of us. We hit the 5 km marker and I picked up the pace again, he was a few seconds behind me at the line. Turns out he was Richard Kniaziew, a local man who once did the Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. His daughters have both been very successful triathletes. One of them, Blaire, place eight in her age group at Hawaii last year. Clearly I was in good company.

I was very happy with my splits:
4.41
4.35
4.28 - 13:44
4.26
4.29
4.18 - 13:13
Total run time:
26:57 - 51/161 & 7/19 (1:08 faster than last year).

The official standings have me at:
1:40:03 - 58/161 & 9/19 (3 seconds slower...)

They say that the clock doesn't lie and I won't argue what the clock says, but I know something is not right. Initially, I was disappointed about the swim putting me so far behind, but I figured that with the amount that I actually swim, the result was fairly predictable. But now I know that something was different from last year, either way I know I improved. I'll just have to go out and crank it up another notch next year.

Time = Huh?

The official results aren't posted yet but, according to my watch, my time was 1:40:00. Or, exactly the same as last year! Huh? How is that even possible? I knew I wasn't going to set a world record, but I was hoping for some improvement. Like not even a second or two? Weird.

Once the official results are posted I'll write a report and all that.

Release the hounds!

Sunday is race day for me. I'll be competing in the annual Windsor Triathlon. It's an 800m swim, 30 km bike & 6 km run. Last year I finished in 1:40:00 and I'm very confident that I will improve upon that this time around.

As usual, I give myself three goals:
I know I can do less than 1:40:00.
I'd really like to do less than 1:35:00.
I'd love to do around 1:31:00 or better.

One last easy swim-bike combo tomorrow morning and then rest until Sunday morning. Then it's time to hammer.

Pirates - Movie Review

Warning, if I haven't seen it I will ruin the plot, not that there was much of one.

Okay Disney, what's the deal? I can't figure out who you're marketing this movie to. It's way too long for anyone, way to gory for kids under 10 and way to predictable for anyone older. What's up with that stupid love triangle? And I'd also like to question your lack of imagination and recommend that you try to invent new monsters.

So, it's too long. It runs around 2:20 and could easily be 40 minutes shorter. As most people that I've talked to have said, "It's long and nothing happens." Ohhhh, there's Capt. Jack Sparrow using himself as a human pole vault! Ohhhh, there's Turner being overbearing and super-clever. Ohhh, there's Capt. Jack again speaking circles around everyone. Ohhhh, there's Turner escaping from a rolling prison ball, and then from a rolling water wheel. Ohhh, a three man sword fight. And my favorite, ohhhh, a scary octopus like monster that can will swallow you whole and then keep you undead for a hundred years on the ocean floor.

This monster has already been in some small films that have had limited success. I believe you'll find it in "Return of the Jedi", he eats Bobba Fett. And it makes a cameo (in it's flashy new water form) in "Fellowship of the Ring" as the fellowship is entering the mines of Moria. Seriously, this is the best Disney can come up with? Pretty uncreative.

What bugged me the most was how Keira Knightley's character turns herself into a no good pirate floozy. She challenges Jack to do what is right and not to force her into a situation where her honor would be compromised. For a moment we think he's abandonned everyone and his beloved ship, The Black Pearl. In the end he returns to what he wants most, his ship and goes down with it, proving that he is a man of (moderate) honor, after all he is still a pirate. Knightley's character, one the other hand, abandons her honor to lure Capt. Jack into being trapped on the Pearl while it is under attack. Is that really the character type that Disney is looking to sell to young girls?

Writing: poor, trying to be way to clever way too often.
Acting: Depp is very funny, I like him. Knightley is nice to watch, but a terrible character. Bloom tries to do too much with very little.
Action: Cool, but repetitive and the sequences are too long.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Word verification

I've been getting some 'comments' lately that haven't been contributing to the blog. So I've turned on the word verification thingy.

Sorry for any inconvenience. Spammers stink.

Oh boy.

I was at the pool this morning and I've started to recognize some of the regulars. Two that really stick out are a pair of older men and that are seriously overweight. I'll call them Mr. Big #1 and Mr. Big #2. They know each other and are forever talking about different business ideas in the locker room. I'm pretty sure that Mr. Big #1 is the owner of a couple of local restaurants. Sometimes Mr. Big #2 makes it into the pool for a swim. I think Mr. Big #1 just uses the hot tub.

Today they and I were the first three people in the locker room. The combined weight would have been somewhere in the neighbourhood of 860 lbs., and I tip the scales at 160 lbs. Since the triathlon is next weekend, I was using this as a chance to practice getting dressed while wet and getting used to biking after swimming, so I was getting my locker set up and putting my stuff in order when I heard a clapping sound.

I turned around to see that Mr. Big #1 had sat down on the bench between lockers, but he was naked. His enormous 350 lbs. butt was firmly planted on a slotted bench in a communal locker room. I shuddered and nearly gagged. As I promise to myself, I will never touch that bench or any other bench in that locker room ever again.

After thoughts

It's Thursday and my legs finally feel normal again. I can walk downstairs again without any trouble and I had some decent power on my bike rides today. Which is good, because I'm going to do my first post-race run today. Just an easy 2 miles to remind my legs what it feels like to run. Hopefully they cooperate.

I was looking over my splits. Each 5 km got slower, not surprisingly.
5: 23.35
10: 24.37
15: 25.05
20: 25.35

This race offered free massages to anyone who signed up. I thought that was going to be a treat. The problem was that the tent was full of people who ran the 5 km race and were getting full-body massages, so the people who ran the 10 km had to wait for them and the people who ran the half-marathon (21.1 km) had to be last to get a massage. Jake told me that the same thing happened to him after running the Forest City Marathon (London) in May. He eventually saw an open table and just lay down. Someone got mad that he cut in front of her kids, who ran all of 2.5 km, but he didn't really care. After all he had just run a marathon, that's 42.2 km, if you care.

Maybe I'm coming across like a jerk (it's my blog, I can do that here), but does anyone who ran 5 km really need a 45 minute full-body massage? I ran 21.1 and I only wanted my legs. There's got to be a better method of giving free massages. Surely there could be cut-off time frames for the other races and then when the half-marathoners come in, they get priority? But again, unless you set the world record, does anyone who ran 5 km really need a massage? So after signing up, I waited around for almost 15 minutes and still had at least 20 minutes to wait when I decided to leave. That could be part of the reason that it took four days for my legs to feel like legs again.

There is Strength in Numbers.

It was hot here today. I don't know what the actual high was, but yesterday set a local record. The course had some shade, but not nearly enough. I covered myself in Darcy's SPF 50 sunblock, even still my nose got a little burned.

Jake and I ran well and chatted together for the first eight km. We passed a few people, we got passed by a few people and we played tag with some others. We tried to run through the water stops, but we quickly realized that it was more important to get the water in us then to splash it on us. At about the eight km point Kelly, one of the people we'd been playing tag with, joined us. She has run eight marathons, including Boston twice. I was impressed. During the rest of the race we found out that she is turning 40 and has two kids, 7 & 9. She didn't look like it! So now there were three of us running together. The chatting we did really helped take the focus off the heat.

We got to the half way point (10.5km) in 50.44. I was very happy with that time, considering the heat. Sue, Darcy and my in-laws were waiting for us at the turn-around and gave us some bags of oranges that I had prepared. The oranges really hit the spot. I was having trouble drinking Gatorade (some mild nausea) and was only able to take in water without feeling sick, so the oranges helped get rid of the sugar taste left by Gatorade and gave me a bit of a boost too.

At about 14 km I started to have trouble. I was running well, but couldn't keep cool. It was here that I was most glad for having these two more experienced runners chatting. Even though I couldn't say anything, the conversation really kept me distracted from the task at hand and I knew that I couldn't let them get ahead of me. If they had dropped me, I surely would have crumbled. I really learned the truth to the saying 'there is strength in numbers'. At 16 km, as I walked through the aid station, I got my wind back and started to feel better. "5 km left. I know I can run 5km." That was all that was going through my head.

With about 4 km left things were starting to turn for the worse again. Jake is a very nice guy. He was in a really good mood today and thanked every single volunteer and police officer on the course. As he and Kelly joked with each other I thought to myself, "Jake is really in a good mood. But, that good mood is really starting to p!ss me off." I gave myself a little head shake and thanked him for keeping me in the race. With 2 km left Kelly said that she wanted to pass the girl that was in front of us and she took off. She went by easily and it completely crushed the other girl. As soon as Kelly went by, the other girl started walking. She was broken. When Jake and I went by, with about 1.5 km left, she looked really disappointed.

We caught Kelly again at the last turn and pushed her to keep up with us for the finish. But once I could see the line, I just let everything out and Jake and I sprinted for the line. I heard the announcer say, "Here come two guys who can feel the finish line!" I crossed about a step or two ahead of Jake. Our second half was done in 52.34. A very solid split.

Our splits were very steady throughout the race. Right around 4:45-5:05/km. Our first one was too fast, 4:24. But our last one was just as strong, we finished the last one in 4:25. For the record, I beat him to the line. But officially, he is listed ahead of me in the standings. I'm okay with that because if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been where I was. He did all the work, I just tagged along for the ride. Total time: 1.43.18, 19/55 overall & 10/17 in age group.


I feel great about it. For the first time this race has ever been held, it was top notch. Things were very organized and the aid-stations were pretty well done. My biggest beef was that plastic cups are really hard to drink out of while running. But that didn't matter, because I walked through most of the aid-stations. And I got to meet Shelley in person. It was an honor to get my finisher medal from someone who's completed five Ironman races.

Great to meet you Shelley, thanks for putting together such a great event!

Time

Official time: 1:43:18 (7:54/mile)

Something like 18th overall. Jake really help me through some tough times. The heat was insane.

Full report to come.

Prediction

So what do I think I'll run on Sunday?

Goal: Finish the race.
Must beat this time for my own pride: 1:45

I know I can beat this time is I run well: 1:40

If conditions are ideal would like to run: 1:35

The forecast is for 33C on Sunday. So if it's hot and sticky first thing in the morning, I'll run slower so that I don't totally fade in the second half. If things go well, I'd like to run the first half in 46 minutes and the second half in 50 minutes.

I've done my last short run already and will rest for the next two days (while travelling back home). My legs should be pretty fresh Sunday morning.

--- UPDATE: It is sorching hot here in Windsor, so I'm going to add at least five minutes to all of these. I'd rather finish on slowly on my feet than not at all.