First Ironman Training "Progress Report"

This IM training is difficult to schedule! I mean, I knew it would be, but being already at upwards of 15 hrs/wk, I find the impact on family time is remarkable compared to even half distance training; I'll clearly need to take more care scheduling things as Build & Peak stages arrive. Up before 5 this morning to squeeze in my first ever 4 hour ride - the 1st hr was in the garage on the trainer due to darkness. Something like 727m elevation change in the 3hrs outdoors. It was only about 4*C (39F) with a fair windchill, so I felt the full brunt of numb, frozen toes & hands... I could tell I was still pedalling because I wasn't falling over, and my shifting was a crapshoot! I know I may regret wishing for warm days come June and July, but this "Dude can't abide" with the way my feet thawed in the shower - not since childhood when we'd stay out 'til dusk on an icy pond curling with frozen dog turds have I felt such a burning sensation as I defrosted.

I'm lined up to do IMMT as my first, this August. I've done several sprints, an Oly, and a HIM in prior years, with numerous running events from 10ks thru marathon distance. I am lucky enough to have dodged injuries so far, and ungifted enough to have dodged the podiums (by a wide margin) as well. I'll be in the 50-54 AG @ Mont Tremblant.

Currently wrapping up my 7th week of following Matt Fitzgerald's Essential Week-By-Week Training Guide. I chose this 24-week plan because I had good success (for me) using his HIM plan to prep for the hilly Muskoka 70.3, so I figured if it ain't broke...

For those familiar with it, I am using level 4 for the swim and level 9 for the bike & run. My reasoning is that given how much I dislike swim training (though my attitude is improving in lockstep with my endurance in the pool) I don't want to invest the amount of time that would be needed at this stage to improve significantly. It's a bang for the buck consideration; I see my late-onset swimmer "style" as something of a finger print that I won't radically alter in the next few months, so while I will still keep up with my coached club swims and work on drills, I'm resigned to focus on increasing my distances to build up fitness & I'm pretty satisfied with that.

I will be looking to up my bike mileage whenever possible. I came to triathlon from a very modest biking background.

And since running has been on a steady rise through my three years in multi-sport - picking up speed & endurance without any injury (knock on wood) - the level 9 distances are not intimidating given what I've been used to in the past year+.

I splurged on a Castelli Free Aero Race bib - very nice... the Progetto X2 pad was absolutely "invisible." Thanks to folks on the Trifuel forum advocating bibs from their first-hand experience, this is now one less worry as I approach the longest of training weeks. After the ride I felt excellent - no screams in the shower when water hit the Joy Zone, and I never once had to do the R&R (Rise & Reposition) thing at any point in the four hours.

I'm not using a power meter - not that I am opposed to it, just can't justify the cost right now. I have had excellent results in the past three years solely based on RPE, with a touch of HR now and again as my version of a poor man's reality check. Fingers crossed I can carry this sense through the 140.6

Simple Pleasure this morning: I was reminded of that extreme feeling of thirst quenching I get from a glass of plain water ~ 20 mins after the initial recovery drink & shower. It's like the perfect moment of desire meeting with satisfaction.

Around the Bay 30k & My Post-Race Appointment to the Ministry of Silly Walks

2:21:09 chip time
74/517 AG
631/6119 OA

Happily, quite uneventful! The race was well-managed, as always, and began on an overcast, relatively warm (7C), fairly windless morning. Surrounded by the collective warmth of over 6,000 runners, I felt I could have managed with just a t-shirt, but as soon as we made it to the lakeside and the hills of Burlington's North Shore Blvd. I could just see my breath - the perfect day for an event like this.

With a few split times noted down on a wrist band, I was aiming for a 4:45/km pace based on best estimates from the recent Chilly Half Marathon and my 2011 marathon, which would give a 2:22:30 finish - a solid 10 minutes faster than last year. At first I worried this might be too ambitious a step in one year. Then I thought of the alternatives, and when the images came around to one of me in diapers at an old folks' home in a few more decades - I said screw it: go for the gusto and rein it in later if necessary. There'd be lots of time for crokinole in the years to come...

By the first 10k I was even a full minute up on where I needed to be, and from then on did my best to pull back a tad to just maintain it with my goal pace. I expected that the notorious hills found in the mid-20kms would yank that minute - and perhaps much more - back from me. Instead, my winter training runs through the area with the TCoB and Pace Performance seem to have paid off; the hills didn't really phase me and it appears I was able to maintain that cushion of time right through the end.

On the Side

- I was happy to see that my 2:30 pace bunny from last year was back in the saddle again. Quite the thing to recognize individuals in such a large crowd. Mind you, the foot-tall pink ears don't hurt.

- Unfortunately, for a spell I was pacing not too far off a barker. She was one of those types who perhaps fancies herself to have more experience and speed than those around her (so why's she running with us?), giving her the right to vocalize all of the thoughts that many of us think but are either too polite or too laid back to speak. I slowed at one point to grasp a drink at an aid station late in the race, with a plan to carry it forward to drink in the cup toss zone beyond. I wasn't fast about it, my coordination at 25kms in wasn't meeting any country's Olympic cup-sweep qualifier standard, but I was by no means parking myself in the way. Instead, I heard Nostoppinghere! over my shoulder as she padded past. Right, duly noted, coach. Then a few kilometres further on we were negotiating a 90 deg. turn, and, as always, I was running the tangents, being deliberate to always leave a "lane" to the inside should anyone faster than me wish to pass. I always try to do this as a courtesy, not sure if it is even an unwritten rule (though it sounds like a nice gesture). Sure enough, Mrs. Hustlebark announces her presence as she tucks in for a pass with something along the lines of Shouldn'tcuttheinsidelikethat! For Pete's sake, lady, just stuff a gel in it. I started to wonder if I was being tested for a runner's license I didn't know about and if I now blew the parallel park I'd fail altogether. Funnily enough, I noted that she was cutting the corners where pylons were set up in mid-street. When I made my subsequent pass on her (which happily "stuck") I thought of barking out that her number was on backwards (she had a triathlon race belt that slipped around) but instead thought I'd take the high road and just silently went past... trying all the while to keep my gasping in check to make it seem like a piece of cake.

- Speaking of passing, one fellow who seemed to be in my AG must have blown by me at least five times over the course of the event. Sure, there's normally an ebb and flow between participants that sees them trading the edge back and forth, but what was remarkable was our speed differential - it was like a Maserati constantly ripping by only to need to stop for gas every 10 minutes. One time it was ostensibly to tie a shoelace, another time I think he was stretching out his muscles, etc etc. I don't know if he managed to catch up, or even continue, to the end, but it is easy to imagine him telling friends how he really likes running but is always battling one injury or another. I just wanted to reach out and say Hey pal, take a little off it and you'll make it to the end!

But that might have just come across as barking.


Ah Yes, Post-Race

Given how uneventful this race played out for me, still, there always seems to be a story. In this case: I find it funny how I can somehow manage run a hilly 30km race, finish intact with a new PB, feeling on top of the world, only to scotch it all by stretching my legs too far too soon and winding up doing the Dance of the Cramps - by the roadside, no less.

Being part of a single-car household, I needed to get out of Dodge ASAP after the event to pick up family members at another event, so I made a beeline for the parking lot. It was packed with others arriving for the myriad festivities on, so I did a quick baby-wipes/shirt change and vacated the space before it got more hectic, telling myself that I felt so good I could wait until I got near the expressway to go through my stretching ritual. What's 15 minutes, right? After hydrating and noshing to my heart's content as I drove, I pulled over on a nice wide gravel verge of the onramp I came to. I got out of the car, strolled to the right front fender, and luxuriously elongated my calves with a gastroc stretch. Then it was time for the quads, so I bent down to grab my right foot, planning on hucking my leg up behind me so I could feel that nice pull up the hip flexors. Suddenly I found myself splayed on my Corolla's hood in a painful cramped pretzel, as if I was being busted by the Highway Patrol for dangerous driving. I slid down, pretending I could stand on my legs, and proceeded to stagger around the car like John Cleese doing his Minister of Silly Walks routine, looking for that one illusive pose, that single gesture, that would tell my muscles it was okay to let go now, because daddy's here and everything will be okay. Holy mackerel.

Not only that, but as I was only just starting to be able inhale again, a car pulled over and backed up to me. Great. Just what I needed - a stinking Good Samaritan to complete my humiliation. It turned out the guy was from out of town - just like me - and he was lost, but unlike me at that moment, he was able to walk and talk like a human. He approached me and then quickly slowed when he saw my plight, asking Are you all right? Good, I thought, he wasn't sure... perhaps it wasn't obvious from a distance that I was in distress. Yes, I snorted, just working out a little tightness after my run. I hoped he wouldn't ask for details and, to his credit, he just launched straight into his plight, opening up the rumpled hand-drawn map that had led him astray. While I was in considerable discomfort, I couldn't shake my innate desire to help out a fellow traveller and dutifully pulled out a regional map we had, setting it on the trunk. With my lower lip quivering and eyes welling up, we leafed through the patchwork pages until he found his miscue and I finally found a ridiculous pose that relieved the tension. With a handshake of gratitude he was on his way, and we were both the wiser. He knew what any visitor to Hamilton learns eventually: there are some places you really can't get to from "here", and I learned that even if I execute a great race, I can't keep taking my dismal muscle strength for granted and will need to address that before going longer or faster.

And so it begins... IM training under way

First of 24 weeks' training down in the books, and I was done like dinner. Never before did the words Recovery Day sound so sweet; I already know why some people sport messages on the backs of their jerseys that say This sounded like a good idea 10 months ago...

Banner Day: Half Marathon PB & a Lick of Paint

Burlington's Chilly Half Marathon
1:34:33 - 26/237 AG, 244/3294 OA

Had a blast today competing for the second time at this event. Compared to last year's ice-pocked surfaces, this edition had dry roads going for it, although the 40+ km/hr headwind gusts along the final 8kms made me want to shift to a lower gear at times. A group of about eight of us seemed to bunch closer together as we approached Burlington's downtown for the finish across from city hall. The pace steadily picked up in the final 2 kms or so, different people taking turns surging ahead. It stirred up some long-forgotten race craft memories for me, and I quite enjoyed it; as we turned right and headed up from the lakeshore to the finish line we all let it rip with the crowd's yells and cowbells ringing in our ears. I thought, This must be what it is like in one of those campy heist movies when the getaway car breaks down and all the crooks try to outrun the police and no one wants to be last, in case they're caught. Good fun - and no doubt we all had better times than we might have otherwise. I don't recall a finish quite like that, and hope there are more racers like this surrounding me in the future. Too often I think everyone is in their own world (of pain, preoccupation, fatigue, whatever) as a race runs down - especially the longer ones, perhaps, which can devolve more into being just about completion than competition - and we all just seem to slog across the finish, maybe breaking into a valiant hustle for the last few dozen strides. But this was a good barnstormer with competitive adversaries.

The organizers did a solid job putting on this show. Loads of volunteers, lines of (not lines for, lines of) shuttle buses at both ends of the morning, a wonderful venue for remaining warm (the newly-opened Performing Arts Centre... how often can you sit back in a plush theatre seat to await the call to the start corrals?) lots of easily-accessed refreshments at the finish - including chilli & beer! - not to mention the coolest "twist" to a finisher's medal I've seen!

The little chilli pepper guy in the middle of the medal not only has a "rhinestone" inset but he also spins like a top!

The GPS Inside Us

Like most everyone, I was hoping to improve my time at this distance. Doing so would set up my Ironman Mont Tremblant training in the best possible way, motivation-wise. In keeping with my low-key (read: cheapskate) training methods, I continue to not own a GPS pace watch, in favour of RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion) to set my tempo. I rationalize this as a great way to remain in touch with how I am feeling at all points of an event. In this case, I wanted first & foremost to improve my 1:39:xx personal best time, but my A goal was to get as close to 1:35 as possible, assuming all systems felt good throughout. It would stretch me to near the limit I thought I could hope for at this point in the season (and in my life!) This meant a goal of under 23:00 mins. for every 5kms covered, ideally closer to 22:30. I knew I had a chance to nail it as I kept hitting my Split button on my watch at the 5/10/15/20 km intervals and got back readings of 22:33, 22:21, 22:23, 22:31! Between my adrenaline of seeing the consistent numbers, and the clot of like-minded runners surrounding me in the last 15 minutes, I had no choice but to come out with a new personal best!

The Honey-Do List Gets Trimmed

After the usual post-race shower & self-congratulatory food fest I found myself dressed in old clothes, so I took the opportunity to apply a second coat of Benjamin Moore eggshell acrylic to our entire upstairs, including the two story staircase. Lots of up-and-down on the ladder, with nary a cramp or tweak of knee pain. In hindsight, it was probably a good way to remain limber in the hours following an event like that. Can't help but wonder now if I could have sprinted even harder at the finish...

Aliens Among Us

These are alarming times, and I am getting testy about it. Take microwave ovens, for instance. Some models beep up to five times when the food has finished heating. Is there some societal fear behind this innovation? That I might decide to heat some food and then forget I am hungry? Perhaps there's a greater number of people than I realized who turn around and find themselves in the kitchen for no apparent reason, and it is only thanks to the genius of appliance makers that a string of five annoying, uninterruptible Pavlovian beeps brings them back to their senses. Come to think of it, every time I press a keypad button, I hear a beep, even when it is clear that my entry is changing the display. Could be a concession for the visually impaired, you might say. How could it be, when the panel is an absolutely flat touch screen, with no distinguishing textural features to identify the buttons in the first place?

Then we have automobile makers thinking that electric door locks need to announce they have executed The Lock by honking the friggin' vehicle's horn. Why is that necessary? I push the 'lock' button, I understand the vehicle locks itself. If it's locked, I know the alarm is "armed," for heavens' sake. If it matters to me, I can even do this within earshot of the door lock mechanisms clicking shut as my rolling fortress seals itself off from the nefarious scum wandering the parking lot pushing their grocery carts. I swear I am going to punch the next SUV driver who blithely walks away from their truck and then flicks the key fob over the shoulder to Activate Locking & Alarm Mechanisms Now! just as I am strolling past the grill. You heard it here first.

My washing machine beeps every time I switch a dial to a different setting. Do I not recognize when I am grasping a dial and turning it from Normal to Permanent Press? And don't even get me started on the quasi-alarms that Windows builds into their OS, spewing Musak declarations that, "Yes, I am really shutting down because you told me to shut down and I asked you to confirm that you want to do this and you did agree that, yes, this is what you wanted to do so I am doing it for you like you told me to." It's like a dog, waiting for my praise or a biscuit. Don't take it personally, computer, but, all robot apocalypses aside, the last I looked you were still just a machine and as such, when I tell you to shut down, I want you to just shut down and shut up about it - hold the emotional melodious goodbyes for when you get your hard-drive swapped out or something a bit more serious.

So it is a small wonder that when we unwrapped and fired up our new waffle iron, I nearly dropped my bottle of maple syrup on the floor when five strident beeps rang out shortly after I'd poured the batter in. It's not some male point of pride that made me skip the owner's manual on this - I just assumed I plug the stinking thing in and it heats up and then I cook my waffles and then I unplug it when I am done. Delving into the manual showed me how dangerously ignorant I was; there was a small chorus of beeps that, if listened to keenly like a bird watcher waiting for calls in the forest, would navigate me through the stages of warm-up, readiness, mid-way testing, and must-surely-be-cooked-to-perfection-by-now. Once my nerves calmed down and I ate my carillon-cooked waffles, I pulled out my trusty side-cutters and like a vet with a Cocker Spaniel pup I flipped that iron over and snipped away the troublesome bits. That last process wasn't in the owner's manual, but for those of you wanting a bit more control - and silence - your life, here is how it can look:

so satisfying...

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...