Swim Training Rant

To All the Fish Out There,

Let me start by saying I honestly have all the respect in the world for the fishes of the world, those who seem to happily swim endless lengths in pools the world over. I'd even say I am envious of your swim speed, your training work ethic, not to mention your ability to endure the mind-numbing routine of it all.

I need help figuring out how to like swim training more. At its best, swimming is as cool as it comes. On a longer swim - typically, for me, this just applies to OWS - there are those zen-like moments where I can really feel like I am in the groove & soaring through the water (even if it's just barely under 2:00/100m) and it is a great feeling. I like that, except it happens pretty rarely, and just about never when training. This is frustrating, because I am almost always happy when I anticipate, execute, and recall just about every run and ride that I have.

The facts the way I experience them:

If I want to run, I put on my shoes and head out the door & go & go until I can't go any more. I breath in the fresh air and see the sun, while doing intervals, taking it easy... whatever I want/need to do. When finished, I am revitalized; it's usually one of the best parts of my day.

If I want to ride, I put on my shoes, head out the door, throw my leg over the seat & go & go until I can't go any more. I breath in the fresh air and see the sun, while doing intervals, taking it easy... whatever I want/need to do. When finished, I am revitalized; it's usually one of the best parts of my day.

my old swimming hole:
the Point Richmond Natatorium, Point Richmond, CA
(I swam there when it was in colour)





If I want to swim, I get in the car (which, to operate, costs money and pollutes), drive to the pool (if it is open when I am free), strip naked in front of others (I mean once in the change room, not the parking lot), lock most of my crap in a pay locker to keep others from stealing it, furtively wet myself for health regulation purposes under a scalding hot non-adjustable shower that I have to keep switching on because the timer button lasts for 4 seconds, gather up my other, non-locked-up crap together and march out onto the deck past air exchangers that blow my skin cold enough for goose bumps, wander about the one end checking out lanes trying to get a sense of where some others of similar pace/effort are swimming so that I can intercept them to discuss my needs and reach a truce for lane sharing, go & go until I run into the feet of one of them and have to stop or one of them runs into my feet and I have to stop, continually evade the tools who swam a fast set but now do slow-mo breaststrokes for cool down without switching lanes, stare at a line on the floor of the pool the entire time, try to get my intervals in without compromising my pace/timing or that of others, climb out and reverse the whole cold/hot/nude-fest/locker/drive-in-traffic process. I've been in Zone 2 or above for, at best, one third of my time invested. Almost every "fish" I have ever come upon maintains that I need to do this at least five or more days/week if I am going to acquire that mystical "feel" for the water and see real improvement. Huh. Sorry, but I've "felt" enough water to know that - unless I am missing something here - I will content myself with coming into T1 and having an easy time finding my bike, if you know what I mean. I haven't even addressed the post-swim itchy skin and congested sinuses, not to mention swimming through others' pee.

So what am I missing? Just the fact I wasn't doing this as a kid? Bad genes? Not wanting to offend, but, for me, it is just too sad a way to spend solid chunks of five or more days per week trying to get a better "feel" when it will only yield me a handful of minutes of improvement per tri. The compromise to make it otherwise would cost too much in my quality of life. This sounds like the sour grapes of a pool newdle; it's not that serious - like I said I really do think the act of swimming itself is very cool - it is just that the training sucks!

Gawd that felt good.

signed,

The Water Foul [sic]

Up Against the Curse of Quality

Sure, we rail against products that crap out on us before their time. They waste our money and burn through our patience, whether it's from leaving us in a lurch or with a stain on our carpets. It's no wonder we heap scorn on them - I get that. But what about where the opposite occurs? Like the proverbial bad actor in a never-ending death scene, some items in our lives just don't get the message that the hook in the wings is coming for them. Unfortunately, some objects we own have outworn their welcome for various reasons and yet they linger, stubbornly providing all of the functionality they've always promised while giving us no real reason to deep six them. The problem for some of us is in letting go, we can't simply abandon something just because we, or the item, or life itself has somehow changed. The balloon hasn't got a hole in it - that would alter it to the point where it is no longer a balloon but instead a wrinkled blob of latex. In our case, the balloon perhaps doesn't float to the ceiling quite so readily, or we've grown weary of its colour and no passersby are wanting to take it from us. We can't just release it. So while everyone around us updates their entire world like a new skin (but seemingly every seven months instead of seven years) we plod on in life, supported by unappealing, fully-functioning, high quality crap.

Take, for instance, my Nokia phone. Please. I even bought it used from, clearly, some harder-hearted soul than me - someone able to just hang up on their relationship when the latest, thinner, more-feature-laden "personal communication device" came along - and this little avocado coffin simply refuses to die. It holds a charge longer than my pants' lifespan; its reception makes newer, sexier phones seem like they're tethered to the end of a string; it unfortunately has texting; no matter how many times I smash drop it to the ground the pieces always snap back together, and, like a faithful, pathetic mutt, it never, ever gets lost, no matter what tricks I try. Although I am sick of all the laughs I get from 9 year olds when I whip this out to call home, some part of me cannot justify replacing it until it dies.

And then there's my eight-year-old Corolla. It's scratched up and dinged to hell. It isn't roomy or fast. And it's certainly silver - inside and out. But the stinking thing starts up in a jiff... every... damn... time. Even when it's 30 below and my fingers can't even turn the key in the ignition it somehow manages. Okay, I know, it's my fault. I could have seen the writing on the wall, given the stellar reliability records this vehicle has, but I still stupidly drank the value Kool-Aid, and now have to live with this thing for the foreseeable future, while every week someone else on my street pulls up in something quieter, roomier, sexier, more colourful. While I'm tempted to try draining out its oil to see how long it will last, with my luck it'll be like the 1970 Beetle I owned all over again - it was missing its pressure relief valve for over a month and cruised nearly 500kms with zero oil pressure. With my luck the Toyota will still be roadworthy when the rest of the world is flying to work in their skycars.

The oft-used family bread machine is a joke, and the manufacturer insists on repeating the punchline ad infinitum by making replacement pans available more than a decade after we bought the thing. Three times, each of them years apart, the little gasket around the spinning paddle finally leaks, and I have no choice but to buy another pan so the entire machine doesn't need replacing.

The plastic main control panel cracked after years of button pushing, and once the buttons themselves also quit I stupidly figured out a way to hot-wire the circuit board with a teaspoon in order to fire it up.

Alas, it seems that until that glorious day when this white elephant finally gives up the ghost, I am stuck with an endless supply of terrific loaves of bread.

Now, if only my MEC cycling shorts would just fall apart, this rant wouldn't even be necessary. I could live with the phone, and when it's dark, and if I squint my eyes just right, the car looks okay, I guess. But these shorts are the bane of my existence. I needed a pair of cycling shorts one crisp autumn day, when it was clear that my increasing mileage was straining my dwindling inventory of viable bike clothes. Being the time of year it was, the store's selection of summer gear was understandably paltry - the racks were now jammed with thermal goods of all styles and sizes. The only shorts available were on a bottom shelf near the washrooms, and they were clearly that year's summer orphans and castaways. The good news for me was that they had a size Medium, the bad news was their colour was a shade the labels optimistically called Anthracite. Who makes cycling shorts that are not black - the time-worn tone of discretion? Being more beggar than chooser at this point, I relented and bought the wretched garment, telling myself that one year - just one year - I must try shopping for seasonal gear when most sensible, ordinary folks do. To make a horrible story short: the rugged yet breathable fabric has, with repeated washings over several long seasons, faded into an alarmingly light charcoal that no longer camouflages my "package". Yet the shorts continue to provide all of the comfort that they originally did; their seams refuse to fray, the elastic cuffs - while puckered like a grandma sucking back a Big Slurpie on Bingo Night - are nowhere near giving up. The solution here: avoid arrest by only wearing them indoors, on stationary trainer rides. Preferably with the lights out.

Would you be caught dead in these? I may, because I am certain to expire before they do.

Until I figure out a way to give up texting, baking, riding and driving, I can see I'll need to dig deep to cope with the upcoming decades. The planned obsolescence train pulled out of the station before I arrived, so I am stuck with some very high quality junk. Sure, I could donate it all to some charity, but, truth be told, I think I've almost grown fond of these unrejectable castoffs. What can I say? I'm a softy standing up defiantly in this throw-away society of ours. Either that, or I'm just too cheap to trade up.

My First Marathon: Qualified for Boston... 23 Days Too Late!

3:34:15

61/293 AG, 699/3951 OA

23 days?! This is not to say I needed over three weeks to finish my run, just that I did so after Sept. 24th, 2011, the date when the BQ time for my 50-54 age group was dropped from 3:35:00 to 3:30:00. C'est la vie! It was a great experience to finally find out what is behind the curtain of all of the 32km training runs I put in and am happy to report that I came through the 42.2 virtually unscathed, especially if one ignores that I walked like a cowboy for the first couple of hours afterwards. Most everything went according to plan (including my pace through about 35kms!) and outside of the nasty westerly winds I can't really point to any downsides to the day. Temps were on the cool side - just nosing above 10C. - the threatened rain held off, the water and gatorade were flowing from the well-staffed & friendly aid stations, and the helicopters tracking my progress remained aloft in spite of the gale-force gusts.

The corrals that wound up and down University Avenue were well organized and packed. At the start our 3:30 pacer left 'hot', seemingly about 30 sec/km faster than necessary. I was hardly committed to him, and this just reinforced my choice to fly solo. Nevertheless, I kept tabs on the group for a large part of the race, as they settled in to the right timing after several kilometres. We hustled south onto Lakeshore Boulevard and turned west into the full effects of the day's weather. "That wind was standing people up," said Dave Scott-Thomas, head coach of the Speed River Track and Field club and its third and fourth place finishers - and Olympic qualifiers - Reid Coolsaet and Eric Gillis. Luckily it was still early in the race, and by the 12k turnaround I was spot-on for pace. From here it just a matter of running across the metropolis to the far east side with what was now a lusty tailwind. Along the way a couple of out-and-back detours to the edge of the lake piled on the mileage, often accompanied by live music of every genre coming from intrepid bands on temporary stages. Great crowd support throughout, though through the docklands it predictably dwindled to a few close-huddled souls clapping their hands more for warmth than cheer. At those times I tried my best to re-assemble my form into something graceful enough that I could muster a wave and smile of appreciation for them.

We eventually turned onto Queen Street and continued east; the road began to rise and fall in gentle rolling hills (at least, I think they were rolling, unless I was hallucinating by this point) as we headed to our far turnaround. And now the race began. We were just past the 20 mile point, now facing square into this wind, and rising up what we had just come down. It was very sobering, and it really broke many remaining clusters of runners apart - folks were dropping like flies left and right. There was very little respite from the winds; at points it seemed like 100m of open road between me and the next runner ahead. Perhaps it was the novelty of being in my first marathon: although I progressively slowed in the final 7kms I wouldn't exactly call it a bonk - it was maybe The Wall but without the despair, suffering, nausea, and fabled "dark places" that so many others speak of. All that stymied me were the twinges from my calves and hamstrings that told me I couldn't claw my way back to the 3:30 pace group that was tantalizingly close at the east-west turnaround. If I was to push any faster I knew I would cramp up (which, in fact, happened once when I abruptly changed my plans at the final aid station @ 40k. With no intention to stop, the fetching siren calls of Water?! and Gatorade?! made me self-evaluate, and as if on cue my legs tightened up. I veered over, grabbed a gulp, touched my toes to stretch it out, and continued my feeble pursuit of the 3:30s)

It's really funny how our constitutions fade in the final phases of endurance tests, often with such little warning. As the office buildings and CN Tower loomed larger, and the crowds became thicker, and the cheers got louder, and the gusts became stronger, the streetcar tracks criss-crossing the final intersections devolved into a cruel test. They were like a barbed wire fortifying the finish area, as if only those souls tough enough to navigate across these scars in the cement without tripping themselves up were worthy of finishing. My feet were gimbaling around between strides with a mind of their own. It must have looked like I staggered out of an all-night office party and right into a marathon finish.

No longer was I hoping for my C goal (sub-4:00), nor my B goal (sub-3:40), I had now replaced my A goal of sub-3:30 with Don't Fall on Your face in the Chute in Front of Your Family and Thousands of Strangers.

Mission Accomplished. And, I am happy to say, with a smile on (although my wife insists it was a grimace. I just say she was on the wrong side of the road)

Lessons learned:

1) It's not worth engaging another runner in one-upmanship when said competitor is dressed up like a large green lunch bag, or pepper, or cushion, or something similarly stupid interesting. This green "thing" (I was frankly afraid to turn & look closely) almost matched me step for step through the midway point in the race, and I was worried that as time went on it increased my chances of being caught up in some race photos with the guy. So I wondered, do I let this (admittedly fast) green pepper go and have to look at him for hours, or should I bury him now and hope to rest up a bit once he was in my mirrors? Of course I hit the afterburners and left him standing, but I may have burned more matches in my book than was wise. Silly male pride.

EDIT: Good grief. I was in the midst of greatness and didn't know it... ran neck and neck with a bottle that ended up in the Guinness Book of records.

Yes, son, I may not have BQed, but I still finished ahead of a record-setting bottle.

2) Members of the general public - even tubbies - can walk really, really fast when one doesn't want to be in a hurry, like the minutes following the end of a marathon. I crossed the finish line, ambled along with the dream-like flow towards the food/medals area, walking like I'd just completed a week-long cattle drive, and once I merged onto the public sidewalk to find my family it was like being thrust into some cartoon, with humans scurrying about everywhere. Old ladies cutting across my bow, even. What a hilarious sensation.

3) It is possible to run a marathon on shoes (Mizuno Wave Precision 12s) that have over 200kms on them and still walk away on uninjured feet, with skin as smooth as a baby's bottom. Thank you, Mizuno, and John & Paula at Foot Tools for the advice.

4) Continue to practice drinking from aid stations without slowing down, but do so with water until it's perfected. Gatorade splashed in the eyes can sting like the dickens. Must be the electrolytes.

POSTSCRIPT: My sister called me later that afternoon, with what I thought might be congratulations, she being the running pioneer in our family. Instead, she had the task of informing me our 85 year old father had died that very morning. He had a good life, and had, in fact, successfully cheated death on an ongoing basis this past 3.5 years, since he was in a huge car accident that no one could be expected to survive. Long story short: at the visitation on Tuesday, my three sisters and I popped in early with a cordless drill and an old, favourite vanity license plate of his, and hot-rodded his coffin for him.

Having been born & raised in Cairo before moving to England, he'd become skilled in five languages, and chose to have IMSHI on this plate, which loosely translated from Arabic means Vamoose! I can only hope he's tearing around now in a red TransAm or Corvette, with my Mom riding shotgun...

Having Fun on The Jobs

the Pixar triumvirate: Ed, Steve, and John - photo from Pixar

In the spring of 1997 I had the good fortune to be finishing up from Pixar's storied "P.U." after months of drills and exercises to familiarize ourselves with their MENV software package, and the studio was kind enough to celebrate our class's graduation with a party outside the cafeteria at their old residence in the rabbit warren offices of Point Richmond (prior to our move across the road to Frogtown, which was prior to our move down to the Delmonte factory in Emeryville.) It was a beautiful late spring day, and we set up around some picnic tables. The idea was for us initiates to perform some skits in front of the rest of the staff (about 140 others at the time) to informally introduce ourselves and break the ice a bit. My partner in crime was fellow Canuck - and animator extraordinaire - Pete Nash. We loosely rehearsed a duet performance of us extolling the virtues of Canadians beyond our reputations as great animators; we wanted to demonstrate our country's superb cuisine and talent for music as well.

We hauled out and plugged in both a hotplate and an amp. While I gave a cooking lesson on a rasher of peameal bacon (not easy to find in the SF Bay area), Pete - decked out in grunge wig and sunglasses - wailed away on his Fender. It was a delectable melding of grease. Once the cornmeal edges had crusted up golden brown, I slipped the plate across to John Lasseter, who was seated at the nearest picnic table along with Pixar founder Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, Andrew Stanton, and Pete Docter. Without missing a beat John got up and deferentially skipped around with the plate of sizzling pink pork and set it in front of the card-carrying vegetarian Mr. Jobs. Steve of course would have none of this and insisted on passing it right back to John, with a certain gusto that implied if it ended up in Ed's lap it would not have mattered. Happily the flimsy paper plate held its integrity throughout the highjinks and the slab of sow never hit the grass.

This little episode confirmed for me that we were in the midst of some golden years. I saw here some very talented people gathering together to celebrate their company's growth and promise while ascending the crest of a wave that was bigger than anyone could know. Steve was in the midst of re-assimilating with Apple, and his "other company," Pixar, was gearing up to capitalize on the wild success John brought them with their first feature film. The opportunity for egos to dictate the tone of the day was huge, yet here they were playing hot potato with a sliver of Canadian bacon on this warm and sunny March morning, like a bunch of kids.

Loneliness of the Long Distance Rider

Memory:
Not bicycling this time; I was riding my fully-laden KZ1100A across Canada one summer long ago, tenting as I went, blasting upwards of 1,000km/day. How I loved that bike.

When in the big sky country of rural Manitoba I saw a huge storm brewing on the horizon, so I pulled over to the gravel shoulder of my two-lane road to pull on my rainsuit. I set the bike on its kickstand and turned away to shove a leg into my rain pants. Unfortunately the shoulder's camber was a tad steeper than I counted on, so the bike was perched quite vertically. Sudden gust of wind, followed by a terrific crashing sound. I spun around to see the bike laying on its side, tilting downwards towards the ditch. Gas was spouting out of the tiny vent hole on the gas cap. I looked down each direction of the highway... nothing but the cliche heat shimmers. Crickets chirping. It would seem I was on a more isolated road than I realized. Or was I?
Standing there with mounting panic I somehow got that sense that I was being watched; it turns out that a herd of cows was lining the fence at the roadside. They were chewing their cud, not a care in the world, just watching - I suppose - to see what my next move would be. Somewhere in a field a cicada buzzed.

It is amazing what fear, adrenaline and leaking gas can do to motivate a person. I wedged various body parts into the "pile" I had formed myself into under the bike, incrementally raising it. I was so hot and tired after that I think I dispensed with the rain suit in the hopes a soaking would be refreshing. Turns out the storm blew to the north and I missed it anyway.

I am truly blessed to have ridden all of the great motorcycles I have (GPzs of every size, Ninja Turbo 750, 6 cyl. Honda CBX, Suzuki Katana 1100, KZ900, etc.) without ever hitting the pavement. Sure, I've had my share of clipless falls on my bicycle but never have I felt as silly as when standing on stage in front of an audience of indifferent bovines. Tough crowd...

Sulphur Springs 10k trail run

May 28th 2011 - Never did I think racing 10k in 53:38 would feel so great, but then I also wasn't sure my 16 yr old son, Graham, would have the sangfroid to be seen running with his uncool dad.

This culminated on the dampest, chilliest morning the RD could recall in the 19 yr history of this trail running event, hosted by the Burlington Runners club. In the eight weeks previous we tried our best to adhere to a Franken-schedule I pulled together with considerations of our vastly different life timetables, running base levels, motivations and health, not to mention nuisances like homework, 2011's notoriously limp weather, and perhaps most importantly, Graham's knees' propensity for pain.
From the outset I had resolved that if I could get him across the finish line happy and healthy my mission would be accomplished. To this end we took things slow & steady; my GPS-free pacing usually erred on the side of prudence over heroics; we chose gravel over pavement whenever possible, and Graham's untimely success on the school badminton team meant new tournaments turned run days into "cross training" as the schedule broke apart like a pack of dogs at a cat show. Rather than overtrain the distance I gambled to have him just train up to it so that May 28th would be pretty much the first time he experienced the full 10 kilometres.

To his credit Graham always held up his end of the bargain, even running a few times on his own when my schedule just wouldn't sync with his and no more days could elapse without setting us back. We went out in the dark, in the rain, at the crack of dawn, whenever we needed to ensure no more than two consecutive days were skipped. He patiently indulged my verbal questionaires about his knee pain as we ran, with the distinct understanding we would back off the pace if he felt anything above 1/10 on the soreness scale.

A recognizance run at the Dundas Valley Conservation Area a couple of weeks before the big day gave us a better sense of what we were getting ourselves into, and it was clearly going to be no cakewalk. Very steep hills scaling both sides of the narrowing Niagara Escarpment promised more than enough challenge to every joint and muscle south of our navels.

The race itself went according to plan. Our barely-spoken hope was to break one hour; while I'd admonished him to avoid time goals - especially for a first time at a new distance, because it might push him to the point of injury - there is no denying that this round figure kept cropping up in our sights. In spite of that, my adolescent partner displayed remarkable discipline by remaining within his limits, even with many rabbits bounding ahead of us. We covered the distance with a consistency that made me proud. It was apparent that my training plan was decent enough, given how we made it to the crest of the final, very steep, long hill - just hundreds of metres from the finish line - intact and still running. Indeed, when Graham's closest AG competitor slipped past us with less than a minute to go, all it took was my breathless "go for it" for him to shift into a finishing kick that made his old man proud and nearly sent his feet sliding out from under him on the last hairpin turn in sight of the finish line.

Watching my 16 year old sprint toward his first finish (and a podium one at that!), and pull away from me in doing so, was a memory I'll cherish forever... it made me laugh out loud with joy. When I saw him photographing his muddy shoes afterwards it struck me that we may just be doing this again.

And Now For Something Completely Different...

... a brief binary animation. A few years ago I was tapped by the folks at SIGGRAPH to experiment with the Benetton Flipbook program, a very simple online software that allows a limited amount of "pencil mileage" per frame. Using only the 1 & 0 of the binary system as my sole graphic elements I dove into hatching a little story from that...

Around the Bay 30k - The Betrayal of the Bunny

2:32:15 (chip time) 102/452 AG, 819/2963 OA

After all was said & done, the bunny was only human.

This past winter felt like a long one, and when Sunday, March 27th, broke clear and cold - around -8C with a northerly windchill yanking it down to the double digits - I was resigned that today would be no different from so many other weekend morning runs in the last few months. Except this time I'd drive a short distance before starting, and there'd be about 6,000 others joining me. Luckily the race headquarters was open to us - Hamilton's cavernous Copps Coliseum was a giant hive of activity until the 9:30 start. By this point the sun was shining down on our horde of shivering souls. Piles of snow and ice skirted the sides of the route and made finding one's stride an exercise in patience.

A few zigs and zags brought us to neighbourhoods along the western edge of Lake Ontario, where winds picked up but not enough to halt the locals in their housecoats at the ends of their driveways intrepidly cheering us on, waving cowbells in one hand while cradling coffees in the other (with the occasional cigarette lending a distinct... texture to the atmosphere)

Passing the relay teams' first transfer zone about 10k in unleashed those fresh folks who clearly relished weaving between us in the manner of bike couriers threading their way through traffic jams. Good for them - haggardness would soon set in as they tried scaling the highway overpass without slowing down. From here we traversed the lift bridge that allows freighters access to the bay around which we were running. Its open metal grating was broad enough to give me nervous ankles so I backed off slightly to ensure stability. At about this point I realized I was inadvertently matching strides with the 2:30 pace bunny; he and his entourage had ebbed and flowed around me for the first 45 minutes or so. Until now in my brief running career I hadn't paid pace bunnies much heed, fancying myself as a lone wolf who only answered to himself. It's hard to pinpoint what made me fall under the spell of those large, undulating pink ears of his on this particular day. Perhaps it was my nervousness at tackling this new distance, it may have been the allure of simply trying something new, it certainly didn't hurt that his pace coincided with my best-pace goal. Regardless, somewhere before Burlington I resolved to hitch my star to this lapin rapide. If nothing else it would be a welcome diversion for the hills that defined Burlington's Northshore Boulevard when we turned west about 20k along the route.

My decision, mid-race, to latch onto a pace bunny was silent, invisible. I didn't need to declare my kinship with his panting disciples, there was no rule about swinging my hat around backwards, I didn't even break my stride. Nobody knew (much less cared) that now I was a follower. It felt like taking a bit of a vacation, even slipping back into childhood. Hey! I can relax now, Dad's in charge!
Alas, my hare-trigger resolve was sorely tested early on when after just a few kilometres of rollers I needed to drop off the rear of the 2:30 pack for a sudden heart-to-heart with my knees, which had begun sending hints that it might be prudent to stop immediately and cheer everyone else on. Luckily, by backing off a tad I was able to re-focus on my smoothness and pick up the pace again.
One bit of business before catching back up to the group was a quick stop and u-turn for a hug with my friend, Pat, who was manning an ad hoc aid station at the foot of her driveway. Also snuck in a low-five with another tri club friend, Margaret, telling her I needed to hustle to stay with my bunny because if I win they're paying $4000 for first place! I wonder now - recalling the tepid chuckles from those around us - if people thought I was seriously deluded, instead of purely kidding.

Before long we passed the 25k mark behind the beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens, and I noticed not a leaf of it; I had begun slipping into that surreal state of perception that endurance folks sometimes experience (or is it just me?), where landmarks begin to lose some of their clarity and relevance as we hunker down for The Serious Work afoot. As we began our descent down Spring Gardens Road to cross Grindstone Creek - the gateway to our point of reckoning - I yanked off my glove and high-fived Stan Wakeman, a roadside icon for a number of years who braves the chill by playing Queen's We Will Rock You! at full volume on his boom box.

Seconds later, with no warning, just as we began ascending The Hill* on Valley Inn Road the ears came off. Literally, my bunny tore his pink ears off and clenched them in his fist as he slowed down to a walk. His day was done, as it was for so many others ascending The Hill like extras from a George Romero film. For one brief instant, in my naivete, I was incredulous. Can bunnies even do this? Aren't they the lop-eared cyborgs of running - able to stoically maintain their pace and banter effortlessly all without breaking a sweat? I watched our group of lemmings disperse in slow motion (I mean, really, how quickly can you get away from someone when you are running up a steep hill?) As I, too, slowly edged past him I think I whispered a thank you - not sure because I also had to cough to clear my dry throat. Unless I'm mistaken I heard him sigh in response. Regardless of this development he could take pride in having ushered us through the minefield of hills for the past 6k and delivering us to the cusp of the home stretch. Glancing back over my shoulder I saw him slowly cobble together the beginnings of a run, albeit with the spring sprung from his hop. Kudos to you, my furless friend… may your racedays be blown through by tailwinds and your burrow stay dry.

Suddenly I was high, but not from a runner's endorphin rush; I had reached the plateau of York Road, and it was all downhill from here. A slight descent eased our final kilometres toward the cheering throngs inside Copps Coliseum. We passed the Grim Reaper & his sidekick stationed beside a cemetery, urging us on with wisecracks like The end is near! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

A final cruel dramatic test was the steep short service ramp we had to descend to reach the coliseum's ice level and the waiting finish line. Baby steps baby steps don't blow it now and Check… we are clear for final approach! The cheers, the big screen coverage, it was all a blur. A nice volunteer told me I could stop running now. I agreed, and wandered off to claim the pita bread and orange juices that I felt I'd earned.

In retrospect, I am very happy with both my prep and my race-day execution, and my exploration of in-race pacing via bunny was a pleasant experience, cottontail calamities notwithstanding. I am certain I will be back to the Around the Bay, with the obvious goal of wanting to go sub-2:30 next time. If anyone is sitting on the fence about this event I highly recommend it; just come prepared by packing your own bunny if it's that important to you.

*(7.6% gradient rising nearly 30m over less than a 400m distance, compare to Boston's infamous Heartbreak Hill @ 4.5% over a slightly longer stretch)

Race Report: Burlington's Chilly Half Marathon & Frosty 5K

Chip Time: 1:39:20
30/189 AG, 255/2278 OA

I beat the pepper!

It's funny how one has time to obsess about competitors during races, especially longer events. In any contest of speed, from running to motorcycle racing, competitors live in parallel worlds of relative velocities - one beheld by the spectator watching them, and another one interacting with their fellow competitors. In effect, two events are unfolding at once: the faster race as seen by the stationary observers on the sidelines, and the slower one where we gain and lose ground on our competitors. In an earlier life, when racing cars, I found it remarkable how, while we may have been hurtling along over 220 kph, my competitors and I were, in fact, engaged in a low-speed tussle for position. Once the race settled into its rhythm, those around me would be so closely matched that we could likely pass a tray of eggs between us at any moment and never crack a shell. It is a calm in the eye of a storm blowing past the spectators.

From this placid vantage point one can study one's opponents, size up their strengths and weaknesses, then calmly hatch a plan to vanquish them. Curiously, I found out in early March of this year that this strategy is really no different even when we find ourselves pitted against two and a half metre tall vegetables.

In my case, during Burlington's Chilly Half Marathon, I resolved no two-legged garden-variety opponent is going to beat me without a fight, even if it had to be across rutted ice tracks in places. Which it was. I've got to hand it to Mark Sullivan, he was in much better condition at 18 kms than I could ever hope to be if I was similarly swaddled in what must surely have been an itchy, sweltering get-up. For a few moments as I hobbled up nearly alongside him, I basked in the peripheral celebrity I'd imagine the Prime Minister's Secret Service agents must experience when their boss is caught in the spotlight. Spectators and volunteers vigorously clapped and cheered him/(us), and it soon became apparent that unless I moved on I would look like a Clingon*. And the last thing I needed was to be caught up in the finishing chute near him: photos of me edging out a giant pepper, or trailing just behind it, would surely be equally humiliating either way, especially if my teenaged sons got hold of them.

I threw another log on my fire and proceeded to pull away from him as best I could. In taking my leave I wish I had mustered something wittier than "Looking hot, man!" but at this point there was only lactic acid coursing through my brain.

So don't take it personally, Mark, but I just had to do it. The way I see it, it was win-win: you still took first in the Produce Category, and I avoided permanent ego scarring.

Kaz Novak — Metroland West Media Group
From the Burlington Post: "Mark Sullivan, in his red chili pepper outfit, was one of close to 4,000 participants in the annual Chilly Half-Marathon and Frosty 5K that was held throughout Burlington during miserable weather on Sunday morning."

*someone who actually thrives on this overspray of attention, and lingers around to receive it.

Surviving Bad Design, Part Deux

Our second instalment in an ongoing series of reasons to fear people's judgment turns its eye on matters of taste and choice. Whereas Part One detailed a poor design that sprang from a few unhinged individuals affecting untold numbers of innocents (and students) in brief but painful ways, today we explore those curious design mis-steps I call Feeble Attempts at Radical Taste. Design FARTs frighten me because not only do they likely spring from the creative loins of aesthetic first cousins, others will actually come along and purchase them, spending years driving, cleaning, and even polishing these things.

The Real Problem:
(sidestepping the fact I am a design snob) These same people are also all driving on the same roads I cycle on, making subjective decisions that are no more sound than what led to little useless chromed widgets on fenders in the first place.

What really chafes here is the cascading effect of a FART. History of dangerous design tells us this is not as benign as a bunch of butterflies flapping their wings, ignorantly generating cyclones halfway around the world.

We instead see uninspired designers stepping into the cloud of other manufacturers' FARTs and deciding that, Yes, I too would like to update our tired model with a pointless chromed exclamation mark! A dash of something sophisticated, yet… uhm, uh yeah! - edgy!

And when people buy these aberrations they just encourage the illusion that the FART was appreciated, when in fact it merely came with a vehicle that may have had the lowest lease rate in its class.

Why would someone who thinks this is acceptable have the good spatial sense to not try to squeeze past me near the crest of a hill, rather than wait a few seconds more for a clear road?

It's easy to imagine a daydreaming designer (is there any other kind?) hurtling along a rural road at 89 kph while smugly musing: "Let's see... what say we tack on a gaudy, chromed, fake vent on the side of the [hapless vehicle on daydreaming designer's board], to break it up a smidge? ... Yeah, I could be onto something here... It can be (how long?!) long enough to... uh, uhmmmmm. Huh - looks like a bike... dang, it is. … it'll run along the beltline untillllllll, uh… shiite, oncoming car. Okay, if the cyclist doesn't veer left at all we should be… Ah-ha! That's it. Until it's lopped off by the door seams! We'll set it just in line with the door seams… don't dodge that chunk of wood, pal, I've gotta get to work to jot this down - you might become fender trim…"

Trifuel's Great Gobbler Challenge - Let the Tradition Begin!

Our intrepid little group of online friends logged runs over 16 consecutive days to see who could tally up the greatest distance, and I managed to squeak in 94.7 miles. This, it turns out, was enough to snag the inaugural trophy, so kindly shipped up by AT from North Carolina.

The proud bird now has a place of honour on our family trophy shelf. As it tied in with American Thanksgiving (and helped burn calories acquired then) I thought it fitting to include photos with some delightful homemade pumpkin pie top-dressed with organic whipped creme.

A slice of that would have given me enough fuel to top 100 miles in one go. Maybe next year!

Much to be thankful for, indeed. Not least of which - beside the fitness to even partake - is the spirit of friendship and encouragement on the Trifuel website.

Thanks, AT, for starting up what I hope becomes an annual event.

It's great to extend the season by a few more weeks with some friendly rivalry!