Merry Christmas

Wishing you guys a Merry Christmas from both Jess and I

Twas the night before Christmas

Well another year, and it's Christmas Eve, hope you guys are all having a great time with family/friends/people/objects.

~Cheers

When to call it a season

So as you know how all sorts of professional sports have an off season of some sort,  and these occur at different times.  The cycling season more or less ends around late october ish, early november.  That is for those who don't race CX, which kinda just makes you keep on going year round if you do road/MTB/CX or some combination thereof.  Running is kinda something that you can just keep on doing year round as long as it's not insanely cold outside, I'm usually game for a run.  If you read about my awesome game of dodgeball you will know that I magically managed to cause myself excessive amounts of unneccessary hurt.  After that though everything just kinda hurt, quads, hammies, knee, hip flexors, arm, back pretty much EVERYTHING.  So then I thought maybe I should take a break. So it's kinda worked out that way, exam break means lots of time devoted to studying and as a result, not a whole lot of working out.

I can't believe it's already been a year since I plotted out my entire marathon training schedule.  So after doing two marathons, attempting to fit in a whole bunch of biking, and then starting to get reacquainted with the pool, it's honestly just left me drained.  Especially the pool part, I swim as awesome as a lead anvil, just saying.  The other thing is not only am I physically tired, I'm just tired (although that may be more so because of just not sleeping enough).  So if you've gone a decent chunk of time without actually taking serious time off, regardless of what sport you do, it's probably not a bad idea to rest up a bit, enjoy the festive season, eat lots be merry.  Did you know that there is healthier egg nog which has 50% less fat than normal eggnogg? I didn't but I will get some tommorow and let you know how it tastes.

So here's to taking a week (or two, or maybe even three) to rest up, let your body heal, and hit 2011 again and hey who knows you probably have lost less than you thought you would, but your body will be ready to start training again (I'm looking at you Lisa).

Good luck on exams for those of you in Uni, I can't wait to be done

~Cheers

A nonconvential way to workout (and cause injury)

I was invited to go play on the science team for faculty wars to celebrate the end of the semester along with Nog Fest.  We were playing dodgeball, and it kinda conjured up images of my old high school gym teacher telling us that Dodgeball is not an adequate form or exercise.  So on the night of we played our first game, we were using these rhino skin balls, which fly unbelievably fast but don't hurt when you get smoked with them.  The problem with having such light balls is they tend to catch a bit of wind when you throw them and veer off at an angle.  Makes for a sweet throw if you can replicate it.  So the cool thing with these things when you're older is certain rules change.  For examples, it goes from Head Shots are not allowed/valid/legal to headshots are ENCOURAGED.  I may or may not have been deliberately aiming for some people's heads (hey I'm sure they did the same thing).

I knew that my arm would for sure be sore just because I don't usually throw stuff that much, but who knew that there would be an entire list of injuries.  I pulled my hammy and glute on the left side, tweaked my knee, and then have a sweet battle wound from trying to catch a ball (more on that in a sec).  This wasn't even the next day and it already hurt lots, this isn't boding particularly well.  Unfortunately our team lost in the playoffs, but I mean hey it was a ton of fun.  In the last game we were losing pretty badly at which point I got the brilliant idea yes I can catch that ball, no problem right?  Well I dived for the ball, at which point I realized that I would be going down onto the ground.  The option at this point was to belly flop and slide or tuck and roll.  Channelling my inner starfox (do a barrel roll!) I did exactly that as that is what the sane/logical thing would be to do.  Unfortunately the role worked, but the ball came popping out after I was on my back again (Apparently muttering "come to papa" does not in fact make the ball come, shucks).  I was out, but at least the entire team got to see a wicked barrell roll and everyone knows about it, and it was a valiant effort.

It is now the 2nd day after, and I still feel like I have been run over by a truck, my back's sore, legs are sore, knee still hurts, arm's sore.  Who knew that dodgeball is so physically intense, both in terms of getting smoked with balls as well as taxing the body.  Annnnndddd back to studying

~Cheers

Common misconception with goggles

A commonly held misconception is that the rubber is what creates the seal to keep water out with goggles, I thought that too.

So if you've read this blog over the past 4 months or so, you will know that I've been floundering around in the pool,  Waving around my arms pretending that I'm swimming.  Well I had a pair of goggles that I liked quite a bit, but in my brilliance and probably morning sleepyness I left them somewhere.  So I had to get a new pair and Lisa had told me about these amazing things called swedish goggles.  In my ignorance, I asked who makes their goggles in Sweden, at which point she corrected me to say that they're called swedish goggles, originally made by Malmsten.  Then they got bought by Speedo, and now they make them.  So what do they look like?

Cool thing with them is you can really customize them however you want, different lenses, coatings, nose pieces, strap, string, and they're fully customizable (more on that later).  So I walked into Swimco and asked about them, the sales lady kindly told me these are like the worlds most uncomfortable goggles.  Inside I'm thinking great.  As you'll see there is no rubber gasket on these goggles which is usually what helps to keep the water out, so more doubt on my part, but hey don't judge a book by it's cover. 

So I got Speed Theory, my team shop to order a pair for me, they're not too too expensive, it's 18 bucks for two pairs.  Now the only catch is that you have to assemble them yourselves.  This is both a blessing and a curse.  That nose piece is the worlds most finicky thing ever, I actually messed it up on my of my pairs (I tied it too short, and already cut the string).  But this allows you to customize the fit so it's perfect on your face, so long as you don't do anything stupid like cut the strings too short.  Second problem I ran into was I attempted to rub off the anti fog coating on one of the lenses, not only did this scratch the hell out of that lens, but it's also not anti fog which is mildly annoying.  So in terms of building it, just go meticulously, slow is smooth, smooth is good.

So how do they stand in the water? Well they are indeed waterproof, no problems on that.

These goggles really are minimalist design, but that's actually what makes them so amazing. They don't feel like they're there after the first little bit, you have pretty much unobstructed view under water, and lets be honest, they actually look pretty sweet, and they're not bulky.  So even though I screwed up with all the troubl of assembling mine, I think as long as you assemble them properly, these goggles are amazing, and you never really do want to go back to a regular pair.

~Cheers

Pretty Lights.... oooo.

So I'm going to be the first to admit, I like shiny things, be it metal, lights or whatever.  I also happen to think that the lights on the bikes in Tron were pretty cool, turns out I wasn't the only one who thought this.  There's a trio of guys in California,  Kent Jim and Adam that have developed what I admit is actually a pretty cool lighting system.  I however though it was just pretty lights but turns out it's actually meant to be funcitonal.  When you're driving, it's always easy to see someone who is well light from behind, all it takes is a little red blinky, but handlebar lights leave a little bit to be desired either because they're not bright enough, and if they are bright enough, there's probably a good chance you'll blind any oncoming traffic.  So the solution?

Well enter the revo lights, which makes your bike look kinda like those in Tron, but also lights you up pretty well.  This is what it looks like, but I'll let the video do the talking

But here is a nice video which brings you on a journey through their development and shows you what it looks like in motion, pretty cool stuff.

 

So ya i'm super excited, don't know if I'd put this on my bike but man it looks really cool.

~Cheers

Training Updates

So this week was a little bit of a throw away in terms of training, and it's actually all my fault.  I(we) procrastinated on a couple papers we had due this week.  So note to self, if you have a 20 page research paper that you've been given all semester to do, it's probably a good idea to not do all of the work for that in all of a week.  And then when you've been given a term paper for english, also a good idea to get it started more than a couple weeks before it's due.

Soooo with that out of the way what did I get up to? Well I swam on Monday, wasnt anything huge, just a bunch of 100m repeats because I really need to make sure I'm keeping on track for pace.  The next thing I've been told to do is 200m ones, just the very thought of them brings bad thoughts to my head, if 100m sucks already, and there's a non-linear increase in pain with distance increase, you should find me somewhere near the bottom of the pool motionless.   
Tuesday was supposed to be a run/weights day with a friend, but he forgot his card and it just ended up being a solo run/weights day.   
Wednesday was a bike day, and I thought well I've been using trainer road(still need to write about this) for a little bit now, well 3 weeks to be exact, I wonder how much improvmenet I've been able to eek out of a few relatively focused workouts.  So I did some power tests and I'm up a whole 7 watts.  Now I'm really making this out to be a lot more than it is, because that only translated to something like a .1 or .2 increase in overall speed.  But he I'll take whatever I can get.  I am however still a good 60 70 some watts from a friend who can ride circles around me, up and down hills, on flats..... pretty much she is in a completely different class.
Thursday/Friday ended up being giant work days on the essays so I actually just did a lot of finger moving on my keyboard, and ass planting on chairs, so not much to report there.

I am however hoping to head out for a run later today, even though it's kinda cold, kinda icy, and probably quite dangerous, I'll let you know how it goes.

~Cheers

New Shoes?....... come sooner please

So I've been running with the same model of shoes for the past..... 3 years now? They're the wave creation from Mizuno, and I've probably written a post (or 3 about them) and for good measure, here's another one.  They've finally release pictures and some details about the next iteration, the 13's, and I already like the shoe and I haven't even stepped a single foot into one yet.  So first off, what do they look like?  Well they've gone a little bit less shouty this year than they usually do

Mens

 

The silver shoe almost reminds of those gillette fusion commercials where orange comes flying on one side and then blue comes on the other and they join and you get a pretty explosion.  I'm not quite sure how I feel about the big holed mesh.

Womens

 As you can see in the crimson version of these mizuno designers must have run out of money, because that is yellow in the mens shoe is blue on the women's shoe, nicely done.  They seem kinda subdued again, but hey you never know they might be super flashy in real life.

So whats different? Well they've made them lighter again which is nice, and apparently the shoe is a little bit more flexbile in the heal to toe transition.  I shall let you know when I manage to get my paws on a pair of these.

~Cheers

Hills hurt....Couches kill

I was actually talking with my brother last night about the need to take a break after a season of running, and I ended up taking like a month off, and got back into it, but then I took another break, just because I've been really busy.  However I went for a run today, and I cannot remember the last time I have felt that awful after running:
a) less than 5 k
b) running it at a pace that is around 10 min miles

I came to realization, you never forget how to run, it's a basic concept that we have ingrained into use from caveman times.  You also never forget how to run fast, also from caveman times.  What does happen is that your body gives you a biggggggggg screw you if you've taken a lot of time off and then decided a brilliant idea would be to attempt to go for a fast-ish paced run. I got a major stitch at mile 1, then another one at mile 1.3 and then it just kinda kept on hurting till I got back to my house.

  Guess my goal trying to swim twice, ride twice and run once and stretch after all activities kinda flopped.

I swam once, rode twice, and ran once.  I did however stretch lots, which is a good thing because man was I ever sore when I got my massage on tuesday.

~Cheers

Old habits die hard

I just got back from a massage appointment, and it just got me thinking to most athletes, and even an age old adage.  "Old habits die hard" I never ever quite stretched enough, never really worked enough on my core, or functional strengthening to prevent injuries, and even though I've tried to make conscious efforts to change all of that.  Does it change anything if the things that I'm supposed to be doing are actually good for me?  Not really, it requires a buy in on your part to know that what you're doing will result in tangible benefits.  It's the same idea with a coach, putting your faith in them to do the right thing to maximize performance.  So what is the whole point of this post, well it's 1 part sharing where I've been, and 1 part possibly putting this out in the internet so I follow through with what I say I'm going to do.

I've talked a little bit about stretching in the past, and I really am not here to say that it helps prevent injury etc because that's highly debated.  What I do know for sure is that life is better with stretching (even ignoring the injury aspects of it).  You can be strong as an ox, but if you have a very finite range in which you can exert that power, than it's not particularly useful.  I never really thought about it, but thanks to Bill, something that's so obvious is now just a little bit more on mind.  The other thing is that if your muscles are in tip top shape, and constructed in the linear fashion that they're supposed to be, then you can clear whatever metabolic waste you have built up more efficiently.  If however you have a bunch of scar tissue, criss crossed linkages from over exertion/under recovery than your endurance is also compromised.  So that's kind of the short version of it

What am I doing, well I'm going to stretch after every workout (we'll see how this goes, I'm notorious for this in swimming because after you're done swimming you just want to get out and hit the showers).  I've used this excuse in the past, and really it shouldn't be one, spend like 5-10 minutes stretching, it'll do wonders.  I'll do core work at least once a week (this is also great for not falling off your bike once spring comes around).  Lastly this isn't so much related to stretching, but I'll try to put in some specific workouts every week:
2 swims
1 roller session
1 interval session
1 run
1 core workout
Lots of of stretching.

Now that it's out here on the interwebs, hopefully it'll keep me a little bit more accountable.

~Cheers

Food Time: French Toast at Vendome Cafe

So I really like food (it's probably one of the reasons why I was a little bit of a fatty as a kid) and I've found some pretty cool places to have meals around time.  Hopefully this will be a section where I can share some of those place with you, and what I found was tasty to eat.

The place in question is called Vendome and they bill themselves as a touch of Europe in the heart of Sunnyside.  It's actually found in the vendome building which has a bit of a storied history (of which I read on a plaque and have promptly forgotten).  You can find their website here, they don't have a whole lot, except some pics and an address (940 2 Avenue Northwest  Calgary, AB).  They're open 7 days a week for "breakfast, coffee, lunch and brunch".  I went for breakfast with Jeff and Carm.

Overall the experience was actually really good, they have an open kitchen so you can see the chef making your food. Even though there's only one cook, the time we had to wait for our food wasn't long at all.  The downside to having an open kitchen is that your clothes smell of the place after you leave.  I had the french toast which was actually really tasty.  It was french toast with caramelized bannanas, whiped cream, and cream cheese and cinnamon.  When my plate arived I saw a mountain of cubed french toast and while I was slightly skeptical but much to my surprise it was good. The batter is adequately crispy but the inside is still soft and moist.  I would've liked the bannans to be a little bit more caramlized because they ended up being a little bit more mushy than caramalized.  Note to all other people who would follow the logic that when something is hot and you want to eat it, you blow on it to cool down.  This doesn't work when you have icing sugar dusted on top of your food as you will also dust your neighbors food with icing sugar (in this case, eggs benny).  So the big question is would I go back and eat it? Absolutely, it was a good price, and huge portions, and tasty to boot.

Jeff and Carm had the benny and the fritata.  The benny had a twist because it used black forest ham instead of back bacon.  The egg was a little bit too well cooked and wasn't quite runny.  They also used a kind of bread (it looks kinda like a triangle, the stuff foccacia sandwiches come on?)  But overall benny was good.  Carms fritata was apparently well cooked and wasn't rubbery, I wouldn't know, haven't had any before.

So vendome cafe is definitely a place to try out for breakfast, I really liked the french toast, the portions were good, service was quick, and prices were reasonable ($10-$14).

~Cheers

Race Report: Run without Borders

So this was a race that I did for the first time last year and it's mean to benefit doctors without borders.  It was cold last year, if anything it was even colder this year.  It was a glorious minus 11 degrees when I got out of the car to head into Eau Claire.  An amusing anecdote was that when the race marshall asked everybody to start heading out to the start line, everybody went out one set of doors and then waited in front of the second set till we were prodded on our way out. 

The Race Itself
I am not a short distance runner, by any means, I can run 100 meters at max effort and that's about all the ability I have for short distance running, however this wasn't the most serious of races and I somehow found myself at the front of the start gates.  If any of you guys have run the mother's day race you'll know that thte throngs of people make it difficult to get a good time unless you're at the front.  Right from the get go two guys just hit the front and went like bats out of hell.  I had the brilliant idea that yeah I'll follow them I'm sure to get swallowed up by the people who really are racing for a decent time.  Weird thing was that it never did happen, I kept on running at the front, I could see the two guys ahead of me, but there wasn't a chance in hell I was going to catch them.  If you look at the race route here, it was close to the 14th st bridge that I got passed by med school chic (for lack of better name).  On the way back I saw there was a guy in a white shirt that seemed to be gaining on me.... joy. This was pretty much the first half of the race, very solitary running.

The way back however when the guy in the white shirt caught up, I heard some very vigorous breathing, nothing quite like a snorting guy bearing down on you to motivate you while running.  I turned around and took a closer look, he was wearing a deadmonton losers jersey.  Guess I really had no choice but to beat him now.  Double the motivation.  Being a longer distance runner than 5k, I knew that it was probably unlikely that I could beat anyone in a straight up sprint for the finish.  So I started to throw down some little accelerations forcing him to follow me.  If he was going to beat me? I was going to make him work for it.  At this point, I've already lost the feeling in my face for the better part of the race due to the cold, but my hands werent' numb yet so I still felt pain, another reason to run faster and get back to the warmth of eau claire.  With the last 200m or so in sight, with one last 90 degree right, I decided it's now or never and just broke out into a full out sprint.  Thankfully I had a little bit of traction and didn't go slip sliding on the last turn (although that did happen on the course) and managed to pull out ~15 meter gap on the guy (says Amy).  It helps when you know that you're in pain and going through hell, so is the guy running behind you, so just keep on going right though it.  Finishing time was ~22.41 (it wasn't officially timed).  Cool thing was race marshall was like I need your name and bib number (Sweeeeettttttt, oilers guy asked him if they needed his, response? No.....DENIED). 

The last part of them trying to get my name (which they still screwed up when announcing it) and bib number probably took a good 5 minutes, mostly because I was just completely spent so thanks to Amy for telling the marshall my name and bib number. So at the end of the day, froze my butt off, ran harder than I can remember in a very long time, and got some sweeet swagg to show for it.  It's a third place, but hey it's my first and only medal for running which I think is pretty sweet. Thanks for reading.

~Cheers

A return, finally!

So this blog has kind of been in a coma lately, there hasn't been much happening, but I think I'm going to start writing in it again, I honestly kind of miss it.  So in the next week or so, I'll be telling you about a few things (in no particular order)
-a sweet cafe I went to this morning for breakfast that makes a different style of french toast (but it was still plenty good)
-a cool piece of software that makes training suck a little bit less
-really cool goggles that seem to fly in the face of all logic
-training updates
-a race report (Run without borders)

So hopefully tommorow I'll get out that race report, there's something exciting to share in that if you haven't already heard about it.

~Cheers

Quick Updates, we've been swamped

So I think it's been a while since I last posted, I think it was something like week 2 or 3.  Since then it is now week 6, and some things have happened.  Both Jess and I have gotten sick at different times. I've started to get better now that I'm back at working out, so between weeks 3 and 5, not a whole lot got done, but we're back.  Jess then got sick a couple weeks ago and is attempting to get better. 

We've also been super busy with labs, homeworks, school in general that something has to give and that something is usually training.  I've managed to get in a decent amount of swims, breathing is still apparently harder than one would think.  Although you will be glad to hear I am getting better at this.  I also got some sweet goggles that I'll talk about later, it seems really counter intuitive but they're wicked. 

I'm also taking part in a little charity fun run on November the 5th, it's called the run without borders.  All the proceeds go to benefit Doctors without borders and it looks like it should be an epic run. 

I'll hopefully post something by the end of the week, Jess should also be posting here soon with something.

~Cheers

The Art of Deception

As an endurance athlete (I am using that definition in the most literal sense, I endure through it) pushing ourselves to go faster/farther is part body, part mind.  I would almost say for running it is more mind over my body.  If you bonk however in biking though nothing in your mind can force you to keep on going when you're muscles are done. This all stemmed from an experiment by Dr. Thompson at Northumbrian University in England. 

Cyclists of all people usually know what their limits are, like how hard they can push, how long they can push etc.  So cyclists were pitted in a race against themselves.  One of them was themselves going, while the other was also themselves going at their "best effort".  However, this best efort was actually about 2% more power, which translates into about a 1% increase in speed.  They were actually able to match this avatar doing "best effort" which is faster and stronger than what they've ever done.  The cool thing is it's not just a one off but rather a true change in performance.  This was actually replicated when people thought they were racing another rider across a screen, but this was actually just a CGI image of themselves doing a real best effort.  However at the end there was a burst of speed from the real rider to cross first showing once again, you go above and beyond what you think is your max.

So if you've already done your best effort, than where does this energy come from?  It's thought that it comes from your anaerobic system.  This is limited by what you actually have in the muscles.  It's almost as if your brain is preventing your body from working too hard.  However in competition, your body can tap into these reserves, you can dip further. 

Money however is not a motivation, cyclists were told to ride their best effort, and if they could beat their time they would get money.  So if there is this magical reserve to tap, how much is there to tap?

The tests were repeated with cyclists going against avatars that were either 2 or 5% more.  One group was told about this, and the other group was just told the avatar was going at best effort.  The group that was told about the avatars going faster gave up right away, only being able to do repeat their best effort.  Those that were deceived could keep up with the 2% one, but the 5% one was just too much, so there is a limit.  If an athlete thinks a certain pace is possible, he or she can draw on an energy reserve that the brain usually holds in reserve.

So there you can, this probably helps explain why we can usually go faster in races, even if we have ridiculous expectations about our ability.

~Cheers

Week 2: The pool is still not my friend, but we're getting there

So those of you that read my post last week will have read about my attempts at picking up a second job, being a fish.  Week one on the new job provided some unconveniant truths.

1) I have not swam in 9 years
2) Breathing on a bike/running is not the same in the water (well not in the water, but same thing)
3) Swimming is something that you don't retain over time like running or biking
4) Some people swim, some flail, some flound, I do the latter
5) This all leads to the final realisation that I suck at swimming and it's going to need lots of work

So what did I do this week, well Monday was a new workout and it seemed alright.  I felt kinda funny in the water, and now in hindsight it was also probably the same time that I started getting sick (more on that later).  But it was actually the first workout where I didn't feel like I was going to pass out in the water.  A note to self though, if you're done your workout and you're waiting for a friend, towel off don't sit out on the deck sopping wet and being cold.  It's not good for you (But it won't actually make you sick).  Tuesday morning I realised I'm actually sick..... so not a good thing. 

Clearly the best course of action to take when one is sick is to do a double workout day..... right?  Well went and swam in the morning, longest swim so far, 2000 meters, and it was good.  Save for the fact that I was still sick.  Then decided to go run at night, and then woke up thursday still feeling like crap.  Moral of the story? rest while sick, if you must workout, don't do doubles.    I've come to some new realizations in the pool, I can't do flip turns.  I apparently can't judge distance under the water because I'm always like a couple cm too short. I also can't do a flip, because I torque my shoulder and somehow end up being diagonal.

So next week we'll try learning flip turns and I'll bring you more stories from my adventures in the pool. 

~Kel

Week 1: The pool is not my friend

So last week I made a return to the pool after some 9 years away from swimming, and man was it ever easy to sum up how I felt.  In one word? CRAP.  The thing with swimming is it's not like running or biking in that if you take an extended hiatus away from it, the worse that happens when you come back is you lose some speed, and you loose a little bit of endurance.   Swimming however felt like I had literally lost EVERYTHING.  I think it took all of 50 meters for me to realise that man swimming is super hard.  Then I probably another 5 meters to realise that there is no way in hell that I'm going to be able to do 3.8 km.  So pretty much at this point right now it's just a case of swimming as much as possibly and hoping that the form starts coming back and in a hurry.

Making running interesting: Trail-peats

So after running a big race, I've been kind of lacking motivation to go running in the past few weeks and that has ultimately resulted in me running about 3 times in the course 2 or 3 weeks, which really isn't helpful at all.  So in a bid to hopefully get out running more, I went and joined the lululemon market mall run club.  I actually took part in this when they first started back about a year and a bit ago, or maybe two? But the cool thing is it's free which is sweet, you get to meet some other people that run, and the best thing is you usually find some new running trails/routes that you've never done before.

For those of you that run around the edworthy area, there's these things called the Douglas Fir trails (at least I think that's what they're called) which kind of wind through the trees and it's actually sweet because it'll help build up stability with your muscles which should help prevent injury.  So go check them out, should make you a better runner. There's up, downs, uneveness, tight corners, stairs, and then all the way at the top there is a nice scenic view, and you can run down and start all over again.

~Cheers

Another year, new tidbits to share

So I've been pretty quiet with this blog over the past little bit, but most of that has to do with me also taking a break from training, I've just been out riding for fun, doing lots of interval training with Julie while she's still in town and it's definitely made me a better rider.  I have some exciting things to share over the next few days, and Jess should be making more appearances here because we're embarking on something together.  Other amusing anecdotes that will be shared over the next few days in questions that I've been asked  by friends, that start off something like "Can you teach me how to......(insert activity here)?"  So here's to the start of an exciting year for both of us, we'll let you know more as it happens.

~Cheers

Slacking

So I've been slacking a little bit with these posts lately, much like how I've been in general since I've finished the marathon.  But I think I'll get back to it because I do kind of miss this, but here are some of the posts that I'll be posting about in a little bit.

-Full race report from San Francisco
-My adventures around google and "the mothership"
-Tales of lots of bread
-San Francisco anecdotes

But today's post is about something else that I've really come to realise over the past few weeks. A break (or an extended hiatus) can do wonders for training.  After SF, I didn't lace up the shoes for.... over two weeks actually until Julie asked if I could "teach" her how to run.  I still don't know what that means but currently it just means running with her.  But on monday's run I didn't run particularly quickly, I didn't run it because I needed to, nor did I have anything to accomplish on this run but run.  It's kinda nice not to have to hit splits, match paces.  But the bigger thing behind taking a break is you don't want to burn yourself out, it's no fun when you don't enjoy what you have to do like 5 days of the week and for extended periods of time. I had contemplated running the Edmonton marathon this weekend, and it was going to be awesome too because it's pancake flat (Which might possibly be where I attempt a bq assault) but after going for 8 months, I didn't have another month of training and racing in me.  So if you're ever getting to that point where you don't feel like you have the drive to go out and run/bike/flounder or anything like that, just take a break, it will actually probably do you more good than to slog through the training.

~Cheers

How much difference a click can make

I'm sure everyone who has facebook have seen some of their friends pop up with a Nike+ update saying something along the lines of xyz has just started a run, like this status or comment to cheer them on and they'll hear it.  Something not too different than this.

Now I know yes they might sometimes be annoying if you have a friend who wakes up every morning and starts a run and you see these updates, but do your friend a flavor, and click like on their status.  They'll hear cheers while they're running and this can make a huge difference and actually  make the run suck that much less.  I know I try to do it for my friends, but hey you don't need to get our of your bed early in the morning and stand on the side of the road to cheer your friends on and this actually works just as well.  So go ahead, click like and they'll hear some cheers and keep on running.

If you want to go one step further write a comment, I have some pretty awesome friends like Sara, David and Lisa who write some of the most hillarious comments that are always a boon to read after.  So from one runner to you, press like or write a comment when you see a nike running update, we thank you.

~Cheers

San Francisco Marathon: Race Report (One line version)

So I'll probably write a real one (pictures included) about my SF marathon experience, among other things, but a one liner version.

The course was unbelievably hilly, legs were feeling happy at mile 17, then died and came in at a 3:52. I could still walk and felt not too bad. 

~Cheers

Cool Gear: The Stick

So this weekend I'm going to be running the San Francisco Marathon, and anyone whose put themselves through one know that the biggest thing about a marathon is recovery after it which can either put you in great shape the next day or that you can be absolutely screwed.  I've used a foam roller in the past to help roll out any sore spots but it's not particularly condusive for travel so there's things like mini travel rollers but even then it's still a relatively big cylinder.  Soooooo enter..... "The stick"

 Essentially the idea is you can kinda give yourslef a massage with this thing, it's actually a little bit better because you apply more pressure at certain areas comparatively, or less if you want.  It's literally a stick that you can throw in your travel suitcase and away you go.  So I'll let you guys know how it goes both the stick and the marathon. Have a great long weekend guys.

~Cheers

Rain Runs

This morning I went for a run in sopping rain, and both Lisa's and my mom thought we were absolutely nuts for still going in the rain.  There's a few things that I actually kinda like about the rain.  Especially during the summer that we've had in the past few weeks with it being stupendously hot, the rain actually cools it off quite a bit and that way you're not completely dehydrated.  As for complains about being soaked? you actually don't notice it all that much once you're in the rain because once you get wet than you don't really notice it.  You notice it when you get home and you're absolutely drenched and dripping water everywhere.  But things to make rain runs more enjoyable, wear a waterproof layer on top (yes I know it's obvious but everyone should have this in their closet).  Dress lightly underneath, but make sure you're going to say warm because as soon as your body temp drops you're going to start running into problems.  If possible, use an old pair of shoes becuase they're going to get wet, squishy and probably pretty dirty.  I hate it when I have dirty shoes (but that's probably just one of my OCD tendencies).  Do wear a cap, it'll help to keep the rain out of your eyes.  If you have a set of shades with a clear lens, even better (I still need to get something like that).

Now the first and most important thing when you're done your rain run is strip your clothes and hop into the shower, because if you don't warm yourself back up you're probably going to catch a cold which will horribly throw your training off.  Stretching eating and what not can wait till later in the case of rain runs because getting yoruself dry and warm is a little bit more important.  If you can avoid doing too long of runs in the rain it'll be good because when you're shoes get waterlogged, you'll likely get more rubbing which will lead to blisters which suck.

Now the best thing is if you can avoid rain runs then that's probably your best bet, like me right now.  If I went running now instead of first thing this morning, I'd even have sun, but if you must, dress light, don't go too long, and make sure you're nice and warm after.

~Cheers

Another episode in my life as a stationary snob

So today's post is going to be a nice little short one that highlights another one of my exciting findings in the life of a stationary snob.  Most of us have heard of a company called Uni, they make lots of different pens, but what you probably didn't know is that they're actually made by a subdivision of Mitsubishi.  I remember many years ago they had a pencil that was a multi function one, so you had 3 pens and a pencil.  The cool thing with selecting this was just as long as you had the label of the writing implement you wanted to use facing you and pressed down it would select it automagically.  So that was probably my first experience with cool Japanese stationary.  The other thing with the Japanese that is also really cool is that they will think up of a solution to a problem that you probably didn't even realize existed.  Enter the Kuro Toga

Look at all the pretty colors

 So what does this magical pencil do?  Well everytime you lift up the pencil it rotates the lead ever so slightly.  You may be asking what is the point of that?  Well first off I will show a picture that will probably make ZERO sense, then I'll give a blurb

Look at me spin ma

So if that made absolutely zero sense, don't worry I was thinking that when I first saw it too.  Essentially the "problem" with normal mechanical pencils is that as you keep on writing on a single angle, you will start to get a increasingly flattened edge.  The problem with this (more so in chinese or southeast asian writing) is that your characters get more difficult to write neatly.  Anybody whose had asian parents will know of the experienece of being told WOW your writing is messy.  Seriously we hear about it all the time.  So the question is does it work?

Yes it really does stay sharp the entire time, other cool thing is your lead is less likely to break because you don't have to manually change the angle to get that sharpness.  So I'll write with it a bit more and come back and let you guys know how it is.  Initial impressions, the pencil is SWEEEEETTTTTT

If you guys want to know where to get them, drop me a line, and I'll let you know where I got mine.  As far as I know you can't get them in Calgary yet.

~Cheers

Feeling computer illiterate in OSX

Well finally updated to Lion today, and had heard a few friends gripe about how scrolling is funny and this and that.  So here are my thoughts so far.  I liked having a three finger swipe left and right changing my pages, I mean it's not a huge deal that it's now two finger swipe, the only problem now is that software needs to reprogram itself to take advantage of this.  So I mean that will come with time. In addition to that I need to learn like all of my gestures again, grrrrrrrrrr.  Just when you've gotten to a point when you know how to use everything it changes.  I guess this is a relatively significant OS update as compared to Leopard vs Snow Leopard.  There's cool things like mission control which is essentially a souped up version of expose which I do like.  Not sure how I feel about launchpad though, that may have something more to do with the fact I have more apps that I actually use on a regular basis.  I'm also trying to figure out why my iTunes has died on me right now. So as a whole yeah it's kinda cool, I like things like the new lock screen, but there are also some other things that I'm not quite sure about

Why it's called a rest day and not rest days

So the other day, well more like last Thursday I decided that i valued my sleep a little bit more than wanting to drag my lazy ass out of bed to go running and put in the training that I should.  So that day I decided that I was just not going to run because I wasn't feeling like it.  The only upside was I got to go look at lots of super nice, expensive and fast bikes that evening at Calgary Cycle.  But Friday was when I had an actual scheduled rest day, and I've been trying hard to take those after realizing that rest day doesn't mean pick up your bike and go do 100k or more with some pro cyclist friends of yours.  Somewhat defeats the purpose of having a rest day in the first place. 

Fast forward a little bit to saturday's run, now at this point I actually kinda like my 6 mile runs, I consider them my alright rights, not particularly long, and I feel comfortable doing them day in day out, it's become that new comfort distance (which is SCHWEEEET).  The thing with these so called comfort distances is that you become pretty comfortable running them and you know just how hard you can push your body, what kind of pace you run without needing to look at a watch etc.  However as I hit about 3 miles and started turning around I just felt like the legs were not feeling it, in the sense that you get when you're just tired, or exhauhsted.  Weird thing was that I wasn't really feeling either, just the legs weren't in it.  So I was thinking well this isn't good, I've got my race in a couple weeks and I feel bad after doing 3 miles, crikey I need to race for 26. 

That night when I was planning well what do I do now, do I continue with my 16 miler tommorow, do I shorten it, what should I do.  I also dabble from time to time in cycling (but really I'm rubbish at it) and decided that I was going to do a long ride on the bike around the time that I would spend racing (slash training mileage).  You can swap these things back and forth as long as it's the same kind of effort for about the same duration.  This would let me know if it was just muscle fatigue, bad day or what not.  So Sunday morning, woke up bright and early and headed out to Bragg Creek with Brian and Jeff.  Going out there wasn't bad we went at a pretty decent pace and I realized that I can bike with only one hand on the hoods (WIN) still working on doing it with the other hand and then no hands at all.  On the way back there were some tri cyclists that were also heading back and it was kind of a matter of pride thing that I couldn't get passed by them, so I went to the front and just kept on pulling at a decent pace around 37 km/h.  When I finally swung off the front Brian informs me the "bridge" group is about to catch us.  (I'm thinking seriously? I thought I was setting a decent pace, apparently not.  So they pass us, and we sit on them for a bit and Brian asks if we're going to go for it, I say sure.  So Brian begins the work of shutting them back down, we hit the roundabout, thinking we've catched them and they turn right (dang).  Around this time we see another tri cyclist a bit of a ways up front, and I'm determined to catch back up and pass them, and absolutely bury myself to catch up, taking a huge pull but at the end of the day MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.  The legs were definitely there, even while pacing them up a hill at a very quick pace, although I did blow up.

So now if you're still reading which you're probably not you're asking, where is this going and what does this have to do with the post's title.  Well I realized that the legs were indeed there,
 granted I probably shouldn't have pushed that hard, but the thing that I realized was that yesterday's run didn't go poorly because I had too much mileage or anything, it's just that they were a little bit sleepy and needed an opening up.  It's the same thing I talked about last week about running two a days where the morning run is meant to open up your legs. 

Moral of the story? if your schedule says take a single rest day? take a single rest day and not too, if you don't want to go do the full run and least go run a little bit because then at least your legs aren't just resting for two solid days.

~Cheers

The appeal of a run/walk strategy at a marathon

So anybody that's run a marathon before will undoubtedly have seen pace bunnies that will have their designated pace time filtering throughout the start area and then if you run with them in the race you'll have noticed that they don't do a strict running at the pace that they'll need to hit the goal time.  Now there's been a lot some rumblings from both camps on either side putting forth some good evidence on why you should(n't) do it.  I tried it the other day on one of my longer runs and definitely I can see the appeal of doing it but I've come to some conclusions about this run walk strategy.

Doing a run walk is slow
Well straight forward logic would dictate to be likely true because if you're running at the same pace for 10 minutes and then suddenly plop in an extra 1 minute break of course you're going to be slower.  But the cool thing is you're actually probably going to be running a little bit quicker than your target pace and then when you take your one minute break and finish it you're not all that much slower.  You can also modify the amount of time spent running/walking to help change this a bit.  The other thing is that you will likely be a bit fresher in the end because you've give yourself 18 or more 1 minute breaks throughout your race which could be a huge deal.

You need to follow it if you're doing it
For example if you say I'm going to do 10 on 1 off, you need to follow it because it can be very easy to say hey I'll take another 30 seconds here, and then you're bit by bit not taking 1 minute but 1.5 or 2 so you need to follow it in order for it to work

Your body is not meant to run 3 hours plus straight
The reason for doing a run walk is to give your a rest in between because it's not built to do that, sure the winners will run the entire time, but the amount of time that they've dedicated in order to do that is absolutely unbelievable.

It requires some calculation
If you are going to succesfully pull this off (which you can, people have run sub 3:30's on a run walk strategy) you need to calculate roughtly if I go for 10 minutes, and walk for 1, how fast am I running, how fast am I walking, what kind of distance do you cover in that time so it is completely doable you just need to plan it out a wee bit.

~Cheers

Why water may not be the best thing to rehydrate with?

So it's the summer months now, even if mother nature is being a little bit of a pain and gracing us once again with cloudy gloomy weather.  I blame Julie for taking the sun with her when she left on Saturday.  So last wednesday I was running and probably about after 4 miles I felt absolutely parched (or pooched, but more likely both).  Now people will always say the best way to rehydrate is with water, but I've talked about that in the past how maybe it's not the best, but there's more now, and now that it's summer and with lots of fruits there's better way to rehydrated (Tastier too).  No rehydrating usually has some target in addition to just drinking more water be it something like electrolytes (gatorade) or something like vitamins etc....

So the cool thing is I mean I knew that watermelon is full of water, or something like oranges etc.  But there's some fruits that are good for water AND something.

Electrolytes
Things like cantaloupe peaches and strawberries are great for giving you both water as well as electrolytes, and the best thing is that you can eat them whole, make a dessert or even a cold soup....mmmmm cold soup.  (Peaches, cantaloupe, peach nectar, lime juice and sea salt)

Vitamin C
Watermelon, kiwi and citrus fruits are great for getting vitamin c, I mean people know about oranges but what it is good for is that Vitamin c helps with your immune system, UV rays, and countering the effect of pollution and sweating.

Recovery
Pineapple and Cherries are great for recovery after a run because it helps with reducing inflammation as well as speeding up muscle repair.

Immune System
Yogurt and Kefir are good for ensuring your gut is full of good bacteria which is good for helping prevent bad stuff colonizing your gut. 

Other good things to drink instead of recovery is chocolate milk (which is great for recovery due to the perfect ratio of carbs to protein.  Coconut water (which is awfully tasty, and is good for electrolytes because it's got less sugar than gatorade).  Green tea is also good for anti-inflammatory properties.

And with that, time to go eat some cantaloupe.....mmmmmm cantaloupe.

~Cheers

The dreaded doubles and how to do them

So with most things training, if it's good for you it's usually a love hate relationship.  Hate to do them but love the results that comes from it.  Things like early morning runs, intervals, maximal efforts and the likes.  The same goes for doing two a days.  Usually two a days are great because you can get in more mileage and since it's usually spread out over two runs it doesn't put quite as much fatigue on your muscles at one time (it's almost the same premise behind a run/walk strategy at a marathon)


So why would you want to do two a days? You're essentially doing twice as much at least that's what your body feels like so you do need to build up to it, but once you do it's absolutely fantastic.  You get better economy and cardiovascular fitness just by sheer volume.  That benefit is really just a measure of scales.... run more means you're probably fitter.  If you're doing 40 minutes or more 5 times a week, you're probably ready to try and start tackling doubles. So how do you do it?

There's actually a pretty methodical way of going about this. You take your normal run, and divide it by 2.  So for me that'd be doing something like a 5k run (3 miles) in the morning, and then doing about a 6.5 km (4 miles) in the afternoon.  So you're probably thinking HOLY CRAP instead of doing 6 miles, you're now doing 8 miles, and depending on how your run that day is it might end up adding a ton of mileage on.  So the key with this is that you should build up slowly by taking your two easiest easiest runs and turning them into doubles.  This way you'll be able to adapt your body to the load, increasing your mileage and conditioning (that never seems to be where it should be).

So now that you've managed to do it on your easy runs you can start doing it on your longer so called quality runs so like pace runs or just the long distance ones.  This is less so to build up more mileage but to make sure your legs are nice and loose and make sure you feel awesome (the cycling equivalent of opening up your legs with a warmup before a tt and near race level).  Usually you don't want to do it on your super long distance one unless you need more mileage.  The other thing that is almost great but nobody does it going for a walk/run in the afternoon after a morning race (or you can go for an easy spin on your bike.....VERY EASY) which helps to get the blood flowing again so you don't get any awesome swelling and you'll recover faster. 

The thing to always remember with this is if you're running doubles, don't do everything at 100% effort, back it off to 60-70 as you're trying to do doubles, not every day but as many as you can without burning yoruself out.  The other thing is if you're going to do doubles do it consistently, so if that means once a week, twice a week, but keep it consistent.  You'll see results come through, just give it a bit of time and don't kill yourself.  Happy running

~Cheers

THHHHHHHOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRR

MAILLOT JAUNE

So Le Tour started a couple days ago (On saturday to be exact) and it's actually been pretty sweet to see my favorite rider and team crush it so far.  On Sunday they took part in the team trial, managing to put 4 seconds between them and BMC which put Thor in the yellow jersey (leader of the race, Maillot Jaune) and they were also leading the team classification.  Also helps that they've been riding the new Cervelo Yoda...... (no it's not actually called that, but I think thats what Millar or Zabriskie nicknamed it)

Yesterday's team trial always presents a spectacle, partially because I think when you have a train of riders just streaking down looks WICKED.  See below

Today was a sprint stage which resulted in a second win in as many days for Garmin Cervelo.

Some people say you shouldn't celebrate if you're not the first over the line, I disagree though man, especially when they helped get you there.  I also love how Thor is just popping his head out there, and has a giant grin on his face, props to the world champ and tour leader for pulling out a phenomenal lead out to get Farrar get there in a hurry.

Although I do have to say the best comment and picture of the day comes from Thor being in the polka dot jersey.  Even the commentator was like I see you're sporting the mountains classification jersey.  He's a sprinter and sure he can go deep in the hill but he's not that good.  Thor responded with that this was the first and probably last time he will wear the jersey

I guess the other thing that has always drawn me to Thor is that he's actually quite comical in whatever he does, and he's unbelievably humble.  Like when he won a stage at AToC it was all because of his team, so and so on the team did this.  I mean common who doesn't love a humble, hillarious norsk.

After he was relegated in today's sprint at the intermediary, he responded with the fact that he was trying to rub some sunscreen off on Cav.....BRILLIANT

So there we go, another day, another yellow jersey, and another stuffed lion, Chapeau Boys

Happy Canada Day

It's great weather outside today guys, what are you getting up to.

My love/hate of 6 am runs

Now I'm usually in my mid week training block (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday) because I have rest days on Monday as well as Friday, so this makes for a pretty nice block in the middle of the week which allows me to go run in the morning, and then continue on with the day.  Although lets be perfectly honest here, it's more a hate relationship when I actuall have to get up before the run, and usually about the first half of the run, and then on the second half and after the run I'm loving that I went to go run.

This week I actually managed to hit all three runs, and I can't remember the last time I've done all my runs in the morning, but my legs were feeling pretty tired this morning when I went for my last run.  But let's rewind a bit to recap this week.  Mondday was a rest day so I got to sleep in.

Tuesday was a 6 am run day, but it was only the first of three in a row.  I use this app called sleep cycle that measures your sleeping patterns and then wakes you up in a 30 minute before your set time up to your set time.  I've found that in situations where I need to be actually coherant or I'm not getting enough sleep I'll use this as my alarm along with another one as backup.  It essentially taps into your iPhone/iPod's accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure movement, the awesome thing is that I've found that when it goes off you can slap the bed in the general area of where it is lieing on your bed and it'll snooze.  So..... cue ringing..... followed by a slap *BOOM* and alarm goes silent.  Snooze function kicks in for a bit, and rings again, and I slap it again, silences and then comes right back ringing. It's at this point I realize my 30 minute window before my set time has already been exauhsted, I guess it's time to get up and go running.  It was actually quite an enjoyable run especially because it was nice and warm and no need for anything more than shorts and a t shirt.

Wednesday morning was a pleasant surprise because I actually managed to drag a friend of mine Lisa out to run with me at 6 am.  Not gonna lie you know you have great friends when they're willing to get up at an ungodly hour to go run with you.  I actually kinda jokingly asked her the night before, hey want to go running with me tommorow at which she actually responded yes.  So here we go running, we decided to do an our and back and she'd just turn back a little bit earlier. And away we went.  I thought she was going to turn back at 30 minutes and I'd finish my distance and then turn back and start running her down.  It's just like the peleton trying to catch a breakway.  Only problem is that I realized that when I started turn around and run back she was already a mile ahead, which probably meant that in the remaining three miles I'd have to make up a mile on her, soooooooo running like over 3 minutes faster per mile than her.  Unfortunately I can't sustain that kind of pace (7 min miles) for much more than 3 miles, because I'm running flat out, and that's fresh.  Long story short, I didn't catch her because she turned back after 26 minutes.  But anyhow it was a good run, and the cool thing about running so early is that even when you're done you're run you still have the entire day ahead of you.

We're both way too happy for this time in the morning

Today's run was probably the slowest of the bunch, I'm pretty sure I ran the first mile with my eyes closed because I was pretty tired and I felt like I was pushign hard but it didn't say I was going all that fast.  Me thinks it's time for a rest day, but unfortunately I have been talked into spending 4 hours on my ass...... no not sitting on my couch but riding so I'll let you know how that goes.

~Cheers

Riding Bow Valley Parkway

So on Sunday, I managed to get the oppurtunity to ride the Bow Valley Parkway just off highway 1, past Banff all the way to Lake Louise, well not quite, didn't go up to the lake but I stopped at the bakery, so that's almost the same thing..... right? Well anyhow I did this ride last year and I think I had probably had my bike for not all that long maybe about 2 months.  Of this time, about a month of it, it was out of commision due to an awesome crack in my seat stay that made me slightly hesitant to ride the bike.  After all of that got fixed though I was back riding and this I think was probably my longest ride so far last year.  I wasn't particularly good, actually I was probably rubbish at this point and thus the ride itself was quite difficult.  For those that haven't ridden Bow Valley Parkway, here is a profile of it, and you can take a look, it's literally in between lots of mountains and offers some great views to look at.
The Ride So that link there will actually take you to see all the cool stats about this ride that is the story of today's post.

So without further ado, lets get to it.  I went out with Jeff and Anna, both people that are on STC like me.  It was actually kind of a gloomy day because it started off raining, but thankfully it let up in time for us to go riding.  There were also fires that made for some awesomely smokey weird views.  The ride it self is pretty much all uphill all the way to Lake Louise, and for some reason that day I actually didn't feel bad on the bike, in fact I felt alright.  The ride itself starts off with a little bit of undulating hills, up down up down, up and down, till you hit the first of the real hills.  I think it was around this time that we saw a person up the road going at a fair lick.  Now Jeff is a climber there's no disputing that but since he's broken his second shifter, he's riding on a sweeet Argon 18 cross bike.  I thought there's no way he's going to attack up this hill, I mean we are going to catch her anyways.  But I think it was also around this time that logical thinking went out the window.  Jeff decides to light up the climb, I follow and as i'm following him up the only thing that's going through my head is man if we keep on trying to destroy each other on these climbs I'm not going to survive.  Thankfully we pass the female rider (she was wearing a Mt Ventou Jesery).  Rumor has it that there's a weekly race that goes up Mt Ventou, or Alpe D'Huez.  These are both ridiculous climbs.  Like Ventoux is something like 8 to 9 percent average (possibly more) up 21 k. Like I enjoy climbing, partially because I'm lightweight but I can't even begin to imagine racing up this, let alone every week. So really cool this lady had a Mt Ventoux jersey if she really did climb. 

Now an unfortunate thing that often happens when going out riding with other people is that you don't really work with the, you're beside them chatting with them, having a good ole time and....... wasting energy.  Thankfully on this day we did decide to work together, and I actually enjoyed pulling this day (this may have had something to do with my mis alligned shifters after my crash resulting in me thoroughly enjoying having my hands on the top of the bars.  I think our average speed going out there was about 27 and this was into a headwind.  I was determined to hit an average speed of 30 over the entire distance, but before that we had to head to the bakery at Lake Louise.

Laggan's Mountain Bakery and Deli makes some really really good pastry items.  I had this pizza bun last time that was deeeeeeeelllliiiiissshhhhhhhh.  We went later this time so it was a lot less choice but still some really great stuff.  I had this saskatoon berry square (which was really just like a saskatoon crumble)  Jeff had this english pinwheel something or other (I still don't know what it was)  Imagine something like a cinnamon bun, but a lot lighter, without the syrupy cinnamony mixture and replace it with just a light sugar and dried fruit.  It was pretty good.  Like any ride you have to draw between resting and catching to tail wind.

Determined to actually make the 30 km average, we pounded it back somewhere around 35 and up the entire way, it was actually pretty sweet and nothing was going to stop us, not even the tail wind turning into a headwind which always seems to be the case.  You will always have at least 1 headwind...... you will likely have a headwind on the way back too.  If you are lucky you will have headwind then a tailwind..... you will however NEVER get a tailwind both ways. 

I think that's enough rambling for this ride.  I've taken to doing six AM runs tommorow and if the weather holds out (Which I have a feeling it won't) will be a double day with the run in the morning and training with the team in the evening.

~Cheers

The road to ..... somewhere

So I've been away from the blog lately, and given it a little bit of thought because it's turned from what was originally supposed to be a blog Jess and my adventures towards Ironman Canada in 2012.  Along the way there were little blips that were kinda training experiences for this big goal, I ran a marathon last year, I ran a marathon this year, and I'm running another one in the not too distant future. Jess is running Edmonton in August, and then we have to get our act together and start training for Penticton pretty much after a little break from her marathon. 

So with that little blurb out of the way, I think there's some other stuff to talk about.  This blog like I said was supposed to be about our adventures and I think more and more I've been turning it into a blog that's about biking, running and the gadgets that go along with it.  I don't think that's exactly where I want it to go, although I definitely enjoy doing the occassional review, looking at stuff that I can't afford to have but would be super cool to anyways, and sharing my experiences. So I guess from here on out, there's going to be a little bit of a revamp of the blog.  I think I'm going to work out with Jess (fingers crossed) that she'll write a blurb here once a week about how her training is going, because as you all have probably realized I am absolutely horrible with asking her how her training is going.  I'm going to cut back on the wishlist, review posts, and combine those into kind of a once in a while gear post, either new gear of mine, new gear I want, or gear that I've used and tell you how it is.  I think I'll also post a lot more after training and let you know how it goes, and hopefully if I find a better camera some more pics.  So there you go, maybe I'll even change up the layout of the blog and some colors, but that should all be coming up in tommorow post where I talk about the weekends ride which was awesome.

~Cheers

Product Review: ZipVit ZV-1 Energy Drink

So I talked about expensive nutritional stuff from a swiss company called ZipVit in a post back in..... April I think and one of the things that I talked about was their sports drink, called ZV-1.  Now as far as sports drinks go, they're usually all pretty good for loading you up with energy, some just a little bit more effectively than others. The only problem with all these little things as I've talked about lots on the past is that when it's working..... you don't notice it.  Like if you drink gatorade and it's working, you don't bonk.  If you drink Gatorde (or not) and you will bonk, then it's something tangible.  The other thing is an energy drink isn't going to suddenly turn you into Jens.  So after that little meandering, lets get to it. 

Today's post is hopefully going to be the new format for review stuff, a little bit of a preamble, pricing/availibility, some nice rhetoric and a quick summary portion. 

This powder either comes in individual sachets, or you can get a tub of it (which is cheaper, but because ZipVit stuff is pricey... is very expensive). 

It'll run you about 20 bucks for a tin which gives you 25 servings (750mL) which I mean at the end of the day is 80 cents a serving, but I think it's still about double the cost of good ol gatorade which is the benchmark for most other "sports drink".  One of the gripes with sports drinks is they can ruin the effects of a short workout, pretty much putting you back at calorie neutral and Gatorade has something called their G-Series (2 I think) that's meant to combat this, I'll test it out soon.  When I poured out the single serving of this powder, I was actually pretty alarmed by how much powder was making its way into the bottle but hey it said one packet, into 750mL so I just listened to them.  Turns out that it actually wasn't sweet at all which was pleasant, and it made you want to keep on just sipping away at it keeping you continually hydrated, and energized which was a good thing.  I had the fruit punch flavor, and if I were to make one comment/complaint/observation is that because it's not particularly sweet, there's also not a whole lot of guidance in what you're actually tasting I mean it's kinda sweet, and it doesn't just taste of sugar, but I'm not quite sure what it tastes like.  They also advertise that it won't upset your stomach which is always a good point.  I've made note multiple times that I am a nutrition snob in that I won't race on anything that I haven't tried thoroughly before, and I won't train with something that doesn't at least sound fantastic on paper (or if it's shiny, it supercedes most of my logical thinking).  It went down, stayed down and my stomach was nice and happy, so I guess it's true to their claims. 

Pros:
- Delivers what you need without a huge fuss
- Not too sweet
- Easy to go down and keeps you reaching for the bottle

Cons:
- Expensive
- Not quite sure what it tastes of, but it's not unpleasant

Bottom Line:
It's a good drink, does the job, but it's wee bit expensive so it'll be saved for the days where I feel like treating myself.

Happy Summer Solstice

So today's post which should've been some training tips post...... was swapped out with a 100km ride with Simon, I'd say that was a pretty awesome trade..... see you tommorow with a review post, now the question is what to review?

Wishlist: Shimano Ultegra Di2

Today's post actually comes on the back of some pretty exciting news from the Japanese bike parts manufacturer.  They introduced this back in the Fall and brought with it some pretty big leaps in bike tech.  Prior to it all shifting that was done on a bike for mainstream products was by mechanical movement (pulling or slackening a cable) which seemed like it was a little bit old fashioned to Shimano, so they made an electronic group.  The Di2 stands for Digital Integrated Intelligence.  It's got a CPU on the front mech which allows for some cool stuff to happen while shifting.

Now with electronic shifting, you literally just push a button and it'll move your mechs for you.  Everything is still the same just as if it were the mechanical version.

Now some other things electronic shifting allow you is that the front mech will actually time when it's the best point to do a shift, and it's not going to be a huge delay like multiple seconds, but rather just a position on the cassette.  There's specific notches that are so called "shifting gates".  All of this is done through the front mech, which also trims your front cage so that you won't get any chain rub and therefore no noise.

The rear mech will just keep on whirring away based on your button clicks, and hopefully shouldn't drop your chain like Andy's did at least years tour, but apparently he was having chain problems on a tt recently so maybe I should hold my toungue on that comment. It looks more or less just like the mechanical version but instead of having a metal cable go through, there's just an electric wire that goes into the unit.

Now with all this talk of it being electronic, there clearly has to be a battery right? Well that looks like it's been more or less transferred over, and it still looks about the same, and like the other batteries, this can mount below your bottle cage relatively easily

So there you have it, brand spanking new gear from Shimano.  The Dura Ace version works great, that's why a ton of pros use it.  Fortunately, it's going to be coming down quite a bit in price, probably around 1500 bucks which is still a lot, but a TON cheaper than the Dura Ace version of it.   Rumor has it that it should be hitting bikes by the time the fall trade shows come around, when manufactures start announcing 2012 bikes.

~Cheers

Training Updates - June 17, 2011

Another week, more rain.  It almost seems like mother nature doesn't want us to train, but I refuse to have any of that and train right through it.

Jess
This week was probably a disaster week for Jess, she had an exam that she was writing and thus devoted all of her time to that.  But now after this it should be smooth sailing, and a whole lot of training en route to intact edmonton derby marathon..... (It's actually called the Canadian Derby Edmonton Marathon) in August.  I still haven't decided if I want to/can run that marathon in August so we'll see how that goes.

Kel
I think this is probably one of the first decent weeks I've had since my crash, but it's good to be back and going again.  There's no words that can describe how much being away from exercising sucks.  But here's a quick recap of the past week in my life of training

Last thursday: I just did a one hour ride on the rollers, you don't really ever appreciate how difficult something is till you do it for yourself.  Be it climbing a hill, running a course, and riding on rollers is no different.  There's almost no friction and it's horribly difficult just to keep going in one line and balancing because you literallly have no friction between your wheels and the cylinders.
Sunday:  Finally managed to go for my first run since the crash, and it was just kinda seeing if my knee could take it.  It wasn't too bad, the road rash stil hurts a little bit but the knee isn't horribly sore
Monday: Rest day
Tuesday: This was an epic evening ride on highwood pass, there was no cars on the actual pass portion which was great because it made for super easy riding where you could take up an entire line on sweeping corners and just hammer away at it
Wednesday:  I somehow thought it would be a good idea to squeeze in a run before a class of mine, and of course there is.....
a) never enough time, it takes longer than you ever think it will
b) if it looks like it will rain...... it will..... but only if you go outside to do something.
So of course those two inevitabilites happened, and Edward and I got absolutely soaked on the run, it was just a short 8.2 km that was run kinda slowly
Today:  I went on another 5 km run around my house, just trying to loosen up everything from yesterday, and keeping up my form for SF.  IT's going to be a long way but we're making it there bit by bit.

Tommorow is a rest day for me, and I'm greatly looking forward to it, hopefully I'll be able to do some of my longer runs. 

~Cheers

The story of bike names

So a funny thing that I've noticed is that we as a society like to name our possessions, cars, computers etc.  I've been contemplating what to name my bike for a while and last night it got it's name courtesy of Kelly.  So here is the name.......... "The Slut".

Now with all names for bikes, there's usually a story behind it.  My bike is made by BMC and it's called the Road Racer SL01.  Now we had thrown the bikes up on the roof rack and Kelly was thinking man Kel, why on earth do you have such profanity on your bike.  The top portions of the 0 and the 1 were kinda cut off, but you sould still see the S and the L, and therefore that is my how bike got her name "The Slut".  The bike on the left is another friend's bike.

My brother's bike is quite green and her name is Fiona.  Like princess fiona from shrek who is superbly green. So that is the story of my bike finally getting her name after many months of riding.  This actually isn't the first time that it's been brought out that it looks like my top tube has the word "slut" written across it.  How did no one at BMC's visual department catch that, oh well.

So thanks again to Kelly for finally officially naming my bike, Anna for arranging an awesome ride out on highwood yesterday, I'll talk about that on Friday.  

~Cheers

*Because a certain someone, not naming any names got angry that I didn't give them due credit, here it is, yes you made the observation, we just never named her that way.... yet

Wishlist: Speedplay Pedals

So I've taken a little bit of a hiatus from this blog, been a little bit busy, little bit tired that and I somewhat forgot to write the saturday post.  But today is the return of posting and the monday wishlist post of stuff I'd love to get if money were no object, but unfortunately it is and therefore I'm only going to be wishing that I had all these cool gadgets and toys.

Today's post is about something that probably doesn't get all that much thought, I mean I didn't give my pedals a whole lot of thought when I got mine.  Find a pair of pedals, if they work, don't spend too much money on them because it can be better spent elsewhere.  So I got a pair of plain old Shimano 105 pedals, I even got them cheaper because Bow Cycle kindly price matched them for me.  It was also before I got my bike that I started following my first team (Cervelo Test Team) and they used these pedals that looked kinda weird.

I mean usually your cleat is relatively small, while the pedal itself is relatively big.  Speedplay reverses this and makes a few claims about it.  They say that it's light, and yes the pedal/cleat system is quite light.  There is a a ton of ground clearance because the pedal is so small, it easily clears the ground.  The contact from the cleat to the pedal is also huge because now you've got that entire platform for your foot from the cleats. 

Other little things is that it's dual sided entry which makes them an absolute joy of just literally being able to mash your foot down and you'll lock in.  Second thing is these pedals don't employ the use of a spring loaded jaw mechanism, but rather is a true locking mechanism.  They say that it's easier to get in/out of and better for your need.  A lot of people that I've talked to say otherwise, but hey that's their marketing department trying to make a sell on you. 

The other thing is because of how speedplays are built, there is a TON of customisation and I mean a ton.  Like a dealer fit kit has different size spindles, float, cleat adjustment, shims, everything that you could ever want/need.  And they're also highly rebuildable, like you can literally rebuild an entire speedplay unless you've snapped the spindle off.

Both my brother and I have scratched the hell out of our pedals from various encounters with the pavement and this probably could've been prevented with fancy schmancy pedals.  The other thing is you can get various materials for what the pedal spindle is made out of and that allows you to have a pretty fluid sliding scale for prices which is sweet.

Last of all, last year Garmin bought Metrigear and there looks like there might be a speedplay pedal that can do power measurement too.  That my friends would be AWESOME

~Cheers

Training Updates - June 9, 2011

This week has been a little bit of a disaster for both of us, partially because of certain upcoming exams for one and then a giant dose of road rash for me.  As you may have heard me mumble about earlier, I have had yet another intimate encounter with the road, and I can't say it was consensual or enjoyable for that fact.

Jess
This week has been super busy for jess and she's been busy with work so running's taken a little bit of a back seat.  It's not too bad she's still got time before her marathon and she is putting time in running and some time biking so she's still staying active, just not doing as much running as a schedule prescribes.

Kel
I actually had not too bad of a week..... kinda.  I managed to go for a long 16k run on Saturday with Edward and Dana and they're really good runners, but we were all hurting from one thing or another so we took it nice and slow.  Sunday was supposed to be another run but got distracted by running errands.  Monday I went out for a 60 k bike ride and just when I was almost home, I hit a hole and went flying and then landed on my shoulder and have been out of commission for a little bit.  Today however I spent an hour on the rollers, which are unbelievably tough, but it was good to get the legs pedaling again.  Not a whole lot of pain, but my shoulder and left side of the body is still kind of stuff.  Hopefully I'll be able to get back into running again, it's alright because my running plan kinda had an extra week built in, I just didn't think it would be used resting although hey it might have been meant to happen.