a video!

Hello hello.

I have a brother who is a genius. Mikey accompanied me on a run a did yesterday, took some video, and came up with an AMAZING little short film. In it, I suffer badly, talk about why I got into triathlons, and give some insight into why I do what I do. I hope you like it.

Mikey tells me this video is part of a project that he’s working on that looks for ways to combine body, mind, and soul. I’ll post his website link when things are ready.

the greatest thing.

So I was showering this morning after swimming. I had just gotten thumped by 6X400 on 5:30 where despite Tom’s urgings that I “beat the set before it beats me,” Coach had to adjust the pace times for me. I’ll “beat” it next time.

So yeah…the shower. I got to break out a new bar of soap today. Irish Spring. The green bar. And what a lather it kicks up. I hardly had to scrub. And as I’m hardly scrubing away, I thought “there’s just something special about a new bar of soap.” 

It’s going to be a good day.

catch-up.

My apologizes for the delay in posting. You know those weeks when you have very little to do, and as a result you get even less done? Yeah. That’s what I had. So let me catch you up on the lifestyles of the rich and famous…or perhaps, I’ll just tell you what I have been doing for the last week.

I do three things, really. I train. I do things that might help me get a job in the fall. And I talk to Amy. Doing those three things really takes up a lot of time.

Update #1: Long Course racing is really long, and really boring.

I suppose it was one of those things when coach and I thought, “It’ll be good for you,” “it’ll build strength,” and/or “it’ll be fun.” Well, I suppose it was all those things, but I think we missed the one that said, “3-hours-of-just-below-threashold-effort-hurts.” And hurts badly. After racing it (”it” being a 2kswim, 55k bike, and 15k run), I learned a lot of things: it takes a heck of a lot of focus to swim 2000metres without getting plain bored; muskoka is really hilly, and really bumpy; and if i don’t conserve my energy (even if I’m feeling good), the second half of the run always hurts more than the first. So there it is. Lessons learned. And we’re ready for the next one.

Coach also decided it would be good to tack on one more week of hard training before a rest week. So this past week was a little tough. It looked like: 3k swim, 30kbike, 3k harder swim, 35minute run, 2hr hard ride, a 3k swim, and another 2hr ride. I felt like garbage for all that. But THEN I did a great run (3k, 2k, 1k on desending pace), a solid 3hour ride, and one of my best swims of the year (24X100 on 1:35…got down to 1:12s which is like swimming with a motor for me). So that’s good.

Update #2: I applied for a lot of jobs

Some good things happening here. Maybe a long-term position (”long-term” meaning 6-9months) in the Toronto area. So we’ll see.

Update #3: I hung out with Amy, and we went to the best wedding ever!

My cousin Sophia got married this weekend. Welcome to the family Jeremy! Italian weddings are really something. You eat all morning in preparation for sitting still in the ceremony. Then you go back to Nonna’s house and eat in preparation of eating at the reception. Then you go to the reception and eat and drink for a couple hours in preparation for the midnight snack. Then you eat for another hour or so to prepare for going to bed. Then you sleep. Then you wake up. And go eat breakfast. After all that, you feel really good about yourself because you know you’ve consumed enough calories to last for several weeks. Or that’s how I’m trying to swing it.

Me and Amy.

My very Italian family.

The beauty (ful) bride and the beast.

Yeah….

Update #4: Sharratt Destroyed Everyone At Guelph Lake

Props to Dave Sharratt for really lighting it up at Guelph Lake. For the time being, I’ll concede that he is a better triathlete than I. But don’t take my word for it. You can read it here.

Update #5:I won’t take so long to update next time

competitive spirit?

From time to time I need a reminder. It’s a reminder about sport, and why we’re all driven to do it, and how if we make it life and death, we’ve kind of missed the point.

Like today. I was running down the beltline in Toronto. And the trail was packed. Packed. Like, constantly weaving in and out of people, dogs, and humidity packed. And I’m lost in my own little world, worrying about all my little junk. About how I had a sore calf, or how I didn’t feel particularly bouncy, or whether my legs would be “there” when I needed them at tomorrow’s race. But as I ran towards Amy (who was walking the dog going the other way), she had this wonderful little smile on her face and a highfive waiting for me. And as I slapped her hand, it was almost like the sense was slapped back into me. Smile, pal. You can run. So run. Run free. And be happy because of it.  

And then I was at the Muskoka race course, about to jump in for an easy pre-comp swim when a middle aged gentleman approached me. He had overheard Chris, Danielle, and I talking and apparently it “sounded like we had done this before.” He was about to compete in the sprint race and was wondering about wetsuits and water temperatures and the like. As we conversed, I realized that even though this man would be several minutes behind after the swim, he had come to the race to compete. To challenge himself. To achieve a goal. Speed was relative. He was going to go as fast as he could, and he was going to feel good about himself at the end of it.

Or maybe an incident from World Triathlon Championships sums up some of what I’m talking about. One of our national team athletes, Kyle Jones, had his swim cap stripped off his head during the swim. Being that the water was in the low 50’s, his entire body froze, and he couldn’t use his hands, and he certainly couldn’t undo his wetsuit. This sucks because Kyle’s work habits are legendary (Kyle once said to me after swim practice, “No matter what, the hardest worker always improves” and he’s certainly proved that). Anyways, as Jonsey ran out of the water, a french athlete lent a helping hand…

As I left the conservation with the middle-aged-swim-guy he said, “Are you here in the competitive spirit?” Arrogantly, I did some silly looking arm swings and smirked as I moved on. If I could take it back, I might have said, “Just like you are.”

let’s play a game.

Let’s play a game called, See How Much Water You Can Drink Without Going Pee. If we played yesterday, I would win. And win badly.

In other words: I rode 90k yesterday, and ran 10k immediately after (finishing at the hottest point of the day). I thought I had drank enough on the ride, but the last 3k of the run convinced me otherwise. As soon as I finished, I chugged 1.5litres of water in the Shoppers Drug Mart parking lot, and then ate an orea McFlurry (it was certainly earned!). Over the next several hours, I drank another 3litres of water [that's almost 5litres total]. And I didn’t even feel the need to pee until 4hours later. Since then, I’ve been flowing like a fire hose. So I think equilibrium has been restored. Which is good, because the fun starts again tomorrow.

Friday’s fun looked like a math equation.

4200m open water swim (6×400 des 1-3)
+1 hour break
+1:45minute ride with some threashold-type intervals (I had a really good ride today!)
+Immediately into 10X400 with 200rest (broken as 4, 3, 2, 1). I ran between 1:12-1:16 for all, and felt strong.
+Immediately diving back into the lake to cool off.
+30minute ride home.
____________
=7 hours of triathlon related activity

Here are a couple pictures (stolen from the PTC blog) from a workout James and I did on Friday.

Muskoka is this weekend and I’m really starting to feel strong. We’ll see what happens!

Also…Props go out to Tom. Season debut, and a big W! Atta boy.

are you kidding me?

1 dead as car plows into Mexican bike race

Police say American driver was apparently drunk and fell asleep at wheel

MONTERREY, Mexico - A car plowed into a bike race along a highway near the U.S.-Mexico border, killing one and injuring 10 others.

The 28-year-old driver was apparently drunk and fell asleep when he crashed into the race Sunday, police investigator Jose Alfredo Rodriguez said Monday.

A photograph taken by a city official showed bicyclists and equipment being hurled high into the air by the collision.

Rodriguez said Juan Campos was charged with killing 37-year-old Alejandro Alvarez of Monterrey.

Authorities said the wreck happened 15 minutes into the 34-kilometer race Sunday along a highway between Playa Bagdad and Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

Campos said he is an American citizen living in Brownsville. The U.S. Consulate could not immediately confirm that.

“We are looking into the incident in terms of whether American citizens were involved,” consulate spokesman Todd Huizinga said.

—–

In other news, Craig has almost 5 hours of fun planned for tomorrow…and it’s supposed to be 30degrees, plus humidity. Water. Water. Water.

when greatness calls…

Okay, so this is worth telling: my blog has gotten 620 hits since yesterday.

Now, I’m a modest-kind-of-guy . I figured my readership was restricted to my girlfriend, my parents, my brothers, and my triathlon addicted friends (I still think that’s mostly true). And until half-hour ago, I didn’t realize you could check how many hits/day your blog got (my brother just told me, I promise). So we checked. And for the month of May, my blog got about 25hits/day. Much more than I expected.

Until today. When the numbers sky-rocketed. Seriously, the graph has this little tiny horizontal line throughout May, and then BOOM, vertical express!

So why the change? I’ll tell you why.

Because Simon Whitfield (who has his own wikipedia entry!) somehow found my blog and put a link on his to mine. I’m going to take this as evidence that the Canadian triathlon community is growing, and following our Olympic athletes (Simon, not me) diligently (which is great!). And just to be safe, I’ve included a picture from today’s race to keep me humble.

Post script: The race today was a big learning experience. I’m not going to make excuses but it seems my muscles had difficult remembering how to sight in the open water, ride up big hills, go down big hills, and avoid swallowing a lot of lake water. I managed to finish 8th place, with a decent time, and I’m confident I’ll learn from here.

Thanks for reading.

And go Simon go!

a quote a day…

This week in memorable quotes. Brought to straight out of the mouths of PTC members.

“If you hold your stroke count, you can do whatever you want.”

-Said when I asked coach if I could increase my speed if I held my stroke count. The set was 3X8X50 on 1:00, with the goal being to hold 37strokes/50m. My last round were all 33sec/50 (and I held my stroke count) and I felt in control the whole way.

“You need to HTFU.” [harden the F up]

-said by Tom due to my whining about the wind, or having to swim in the hot pool, or the cold, or not knowing the workout in advance, or any other number of things.

“This is what you’ll look back to in the race and think, ‘I can be tough’”.

-said by Coach with one 2k repeat left (after descending the previous ones 6:45, 6:36, 6:34). The last one was 6:30 with James rocking me with 400 to go. James gets an honourable mention for stating, “I had to keep you honest.”

“It’s HIM!”

-said by Angela when Craig heard a high-pitched scream coming from the 60degree lake and rightfully assumed it belonged to a girl. I should point out that there was no sun out, and it was really, really cold. I’ve included a couple pictures because this blog is sorely missing them.

And lastly: “I’m not going to get beat by any juniors!”

-Said by in me in reference to tomorrow’s Milton triathlon. Self-explanatory.

Checkya.

summer strikes

This just in: we finally got some hot weather. And as much as I like the cold (summer is actually my least favourite season), it’s been nice to be outside without a sweater on.

So, an update for you. Hmmm…things are grand right now. I have one more week of placement, and then I’m chilling for most of June, making lots of trips to Toronto, training my guts out (or at least as much as Craig will allow me to), and sleeping like a champ.

Training has been going quite well. I don’t want to give away all of Craig’s secrets, but we’ve had some solid workouts. My running is feeling solid right now, so that’s great. On Friday (after a tough swim in the morning), we did a 2k, a bunch of 400s with short rest, and then another 2k. My first 2k was 6:30 (and felt great), and the second was 6:35 (and stung like a hornet). But considering it was a fairly tough course, I was pumped.

Then today I did my longest ride ever with Tom. It was supposed to be 60minutes base, 60min steady, 30min threashold, and 30 easy. But “we” mis-calculated and ended up riding 108km (3.5hours). I’ve never been over 100before, and I’ve never had such defined suntan lines (thank you spandex bike jersey!). My garmin said I burned 4300calories. I’m not sure if I believe it, but that didn’t stop me from eating all the food when it was over.

My next race is on Sunday, in Milton. I’m wondering if we’ll get to swim…considering it hasn’t really been warm yet. Even if they make it a du, I really don’t want to get beat by any juniors (yeah, I said it). Soon enough I’ll be old and have no chance at all. So it’s on.

Peace out.

race one: (mostly) successful

First race of the year was yesterday. In it, I accomplished all of the following:

-knocked the cobwebs off
-raced in the worst conditions ever (5degrees C, rain, 40km/h wind)
-felt really strong on the first run (3:22/k)
-almost got disqualified running out of T1
-killed myself riding 15km/h into the wind
-fell asleep riding 70km/h with the wind
-had the fastest* run split (3:30/k) (I’m disqualifying Kozi due to his multiple all-Canadian running status)
-got absolutely smashed by Sharratt on the bike (although I beat him to the 1200metre mark on the first run)
-got beat by a bunch of junior aged athletes (Fear not: I’ll have my revenge).
-finished 8^th overall, 1^st in my age-group.

So yeah, good start. As I was leaving the race, I noticed all the expensive bikes. Like, really, really expensive bikes. I started thinking about my bike, and how it makes noise and isn’t all carbon fibre. And I thought that maybe I would ride faster if I bought a $6000 bike. But then I remembered something that Miguel Indurain (5-time winner of the Tour de France) said when he saw the $250,000 bike that Trek/Lance were developing. Four simple words: “don’t forget the legs.”

So I’ll go with that. My legs vs. those bikes. We’ll see what happens.