Stretchies!

There are some nice stretches on the [bike] Ride to Conquer Cancer Web site.

When should we celebrate the New Year?

I do feel a bit like Dilbert: why should I celebrate an arbitrary point on the calendar?

I could see celebrating on Dec. 21 or 22 (the winter solstice),* just like pagans.

On New Year’s Eve I was so beat I went to bed at 7:30 p.m. Toronto time. I rationalized it that “real” midnight was at 0:00 Universal Time, which happens to be 7 p.m. in Toronto. Now, wouldn’t that be easier on those of us who are late-middle-aged or older?

* The 2007 winter solstice was at 20:08 Universal Time on Dec. 21, so after midnight Dec. 22 between Halifax and the International Date Line.

No whining about the weather!

Had my first ride outside in what seems like months. We’ve had a fair amount of snow and a couple of freeze/thaw cycles that have left a lot of ice here and there, and turned the windrows (i.e., piled up snow) into something akin to rock. (Managed to damage one of my car’s integral mudflaps on one of them yesterday). But, in general, the road surfaces are clear, no precip. in the forecast, and the temperature around freezing. For the whole ride the temp. stayed steady at 1°C (about 34°F), with no wind, so pretty good. I underdressed my feet and perhaps my torso, but the rest of me felt fine—oh, and I wore my glasses, which acted as a heat sink and gave me an ice-cream headache without the benefit of the ice cream! I’m so glad I got out today instead of doing a two-hour trainer ride watching meaningless pro. football games.

Marathons save lives!

The current British Medical Journal has an amusing, maybe even fascinating paper asserting that fewer folks die in marathons from heart attacks than would have died if roads hadn’t been closed for the marathon. BMJ is letting you read the whole paper for free here.

Rethought objectives for the year

I’ve been thinking about the objectives I drew up for 2007/08, and have come up with a slightly reordered and extended list:

1. Learn to suffer.

2. Improve my time management, with respect to working out.

2½. Be more consistent. This is a new objective, but I think it may well fall out of No. 2.

3. Get to the weight room twice a week at least. This was No. 4 in my Oct. 28 list; I moved it up because I need to increase my focus on it—I haven’t reached this objective in any seven consecutive days.

4. Improve my technique, in all three disciplines, but especially swimming.

4½. Improve the weaknesses Scott identified. This was in the biomechanical assessment I wrote about here. Especially after I worked with the trainer at my gym, I think that upper-body strength is important—because it’s so lacking!

5. Lose some weight: <170 lb.

6. Maintain a positive mental attitude. This is new, and is derived from an article by Jason R. Karp, “7 Habits of Highly Effective Triathletes”, in Triathlete No. 284 (Dec./07). The “7 Habits” are:

1. Effective training.
2. Consistent training.
3. Adequate recovery.
4. Setting goals.
5. Coaching.
6. Nutrition.
7. Positive mental attitude.

Nos. 1-6 are covered in my objectives. No. 7 intrigues me. All my life I’ve alternated between cheeriness and gloominess. For a variety of reasons, my gloominess has dissipated as I’ve careened into my fifties, and I find that having a “positive mental attitude”, insofar as one can cultivate such a thing, helps a great deal. One example: in the gloomy days, if I lost a work-out, especially through some poor planning or lack of focus or commitment on my part, I was inclined to see it as proof of my unworthiness to aspire to an Ironman, and I would then bag my work-outs for a couple of days. Nowadays I’m much more inclined to shrug, make note of what I could, maybe, have done differently, and move on with my training plan. We’ll see how this goes, but I’m pretty, yes, positive about it.

I’ve also settled on the races I’d like to do:

Feb. 24: YMCA Half Marathon, Peterborough, Ontario

Mar. 30: Around the Bay Road Race (30 km), in the town of my birth, Hamilton, Ontario

May 19: Victoria’s Duathlon, in Waterloo County, Ontario

June 15: Muskoka long-course triathlon (swim 2 km + bike 55 km + run 15 km), in and around the resort town of Huntsville, Ontario

July 6: Peterborough Half Iron Distance Triathlon (swim 2 km + bike 90 km + run 21 km)

Sept. 7: Ford Ironman Wisconsin Triathlon, in Madison and Dane County, Wisconsin

Only Ironman Wisconsin is an “A” race. The rest are really “C’s”: I’m doing them for fun, for practice.

“6½ Questions for 2007”

One of the senior Triathletes of the Dead Runners’ Society sent “6½ Questions for 2007”. Her questions are in bold italics; my answers are not:

1. What one word describes your 2007 season? Does it match what you said last December in anticipation of this year?

Bittersweet. No.

2. What one word comes to mind when you think about your 2008 season?

Resolution.

3. Did you race any new distance this year or try any new type of racing or sport?

Yes: Ironman.

4. What was your greatest thrill or joy this year from training or racing?

Learning to swim in open water; being able to do the Ironman-distance swim in training and in the race (albeit slower than I wanted).

5. What was your biggest disappointment this year from training or racing?

DNF at IM Wisconsin.

6. What was your favorite race in 2007?

Only did one: IM Wisconsin, which I enjoyed despite DNF.

Oxymoron of the day

The National Geographic Society has Explorers-in-Residence.

Along the same lines, I was driving to LAX Friday through Gardena, and saw a sign on an industrial building:

LIFE UNIVERSITY
M.B.A. – Chinese Medicine – Theology

That got a smile for the odd combination. It will perhaps not surprise you that Life University is not accredited. (It’s worth clicking the link to see the weird and ungrammatical mission statement.)

Canadian capitals

It’s rather sad, but posting the entry below made me realize how little travelled I am in the country of which I’m a proud citizen. Of Canada’s fourteen capitals, I’ve had contact with only half!

Run in:

Canada: Ottawa
Alberta: Edmonton
Ontario: Toronto
Prince Edward Island: Charlottetown

Slept, but not run, in:

New Brunswick: Fredericton

Visited:

Manitoba: Winnipeg (very fleetingly)
Nova Scotia: Halifax

No contact:

British Columbia: Victoria
Newfoundland & Labrador: St John’s
Northwest Territories: Yellowknife
Nunavut: Iqaluit
Québec: Québec
Saskatchewan: Regina
Yukon: Whitehorse

Running in Sacramento: almonds, deer, cyclists, and thugs; state capitals

I was in Sacramento, California (pictured), for about 15 hours, but managed to get in a 1¾-hour run. Because of a conference call whose time made sense to people in the Eastern Time Zone, I got out just at civil twilight Tuesday morning—about 6:15 a.m. local time.

I had asked members of the Dead Runners Society about running in Sacramento. Although the listmembers had suggested I run to the Capitol and then to the American River, a map one of them pointed me to showed a direct route from my hotel at G and 16th streets to a bridge across the American to the American River Parkway (below).

This route took me past Blue Diamond® Growers’ plant (warehouse? packing plant?). The point is that monado loves Blue Diamond almonds, so I got to see whence they come. Rather disappointingly, there was no scent of nuts in the air.

Just across the bridge I saw ahead of me what I thought was a Very Big Dog. Watch out, I told myself—then I realized it was a deer! An urban runner like me doesn’t see a lot of deer, so that was kind of cool.

Otherwise the only wild life I saw on the trail was some noisy birds I couldn’t recognize (magpies?), some mallards, and lots and lots of cyclists. I only saw four other runners (three in one pack) in nearly two hours, but lots of two-wheelers, including lots twice. Most responded to my good-mornings.

On the way back along 16th Street, now in daylight, I passed under some railroad tracks through a narrow foot tunnel that stank of urine. When I’d run out I’d thought it might be a bit scary, and I got the proof when I came back. Three tough-looking guys were hanging around at the entrance. Following the Manly (but Perhaps Stupid) Code, I didn’t show fear but kept jogging. At first they were friendly—“Hey, make way for the runner!”—but then they started demanding what was in my FuelBelt bottles, and wanting some water. They actually ran after me. I kept jogging as if I didn’t care, and nothing happened—I suspect even my slow pace is more than they can maintain for a hundred yards. But I saw my heart rate had jumped up 30 beats!

My meeting later that morning was across the street from the Capitol, and I realized I’d added another U.S. capital to my list. Well, I hadn’t been keeping a list, so I’ve now compiled one, and here it is:

Run in:

Washington, D.C.
Sacramento, California
Boston, Massachusetts
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Madison, Wisconsin

Slept, but not run, in:

Denver, Colorado
Atlanta, Georgia
Topeka, Kansas

Driven through, or stopped at:

Boise, Idaho
Annapolis, Maryland
Lincoln, Nebraska
Albany, New York
Raleigh, North Carolina*
Montpelier, Vermont

* We did run, and sleep, in Chapel Hill, which could be counted as a suburb of Raleigh.

The new era dawns

On Friday I “[r]ather grandly … set Saturday, November 3, as the beginning of a new … era.”

So how have I done?

Saturday, Coach Steve set me a simple work-out: “Run 90″ base pace with 3 x 15″ tempo HR 155 (5″ easy base pace jog RI)”. My plan was to have breakfast and coffee, and get out around 7 a.m., running up the Don River and Massey Creek, probably to the Woodbine Bridge, and back. That would have me back at the house about 8:30, well before M. and our visiting granddaughter would rise.

Well, big surprise, it didn’t happen. Once again, I was tempted to cuddle, and that’s what I did–for two hours! It’s fair to say that this restful, quiet cuddling is among the great pleasures of my life—but it’s unlikely to get me under the finishing banner at Monona Terrace before midnight on Sunday, September 7, 2008.

By the time I roused myself I wasn’t going to be able to get out and back by 10:30 a.m., our projected departure time for the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, so I decided to run after we got home—or perhaps even from the fair.

Of course, things didn’t work out. Rather than showing up at the fair at 11 a.m., we were there after 1 p.m. Then we walked around for almost four hours. In due course, I got back to our van, changed, and, indeed ran home via the Goodman and Don trails; it was a nice run. Actually the only thing I did wrong was running after I’d spent more than four hours on my feet. Why hadn’t I run to the fair?

This morning went better: I got a little mixed up about the switch from Daylight to Standard time. I knew about it, but didn’t do the time arithmetic properly. I slept in, but I did get out a bit after 8 a.m. for a three-hour ride.

I also picked the wrong route. About 1 h 20 min in I ran myself up against the Rouge River. I could’ve humped my bike up the slippery stairs on the left bank, but decided against it. Instead, I biked home against the westerly breeze.

I only suffered for about 15 seconds, maybe 30, as I ascended Bethune Boulevard. (This is the same route as I blogged last year; and I always wonder about the name of the street!) The hill doesn’t seem that steep, but I briefly considered clicking out! But I persevered.

At home I had just enough time to inhale a p.b.&j. and a mug of coffee before we drove to swimming, where Coach Kelvin worked on my technique. And I think we had a breakthrough! More on that perhaps later.

All in all, the new era dawned messily, but so far so good. The key point: I did the work-outs, and they were good work-outs.

Tomorrow: some routine blood tests, but I can’t eat for 12 hours beforehand. I’ll swim at lunchtime, and then run home.