Canada Day!

I managed to cram quite alot into my day off yesterday.

Part 1 - VOWSA Canada 2km Swim
2008 time - 40:02
2009 time - 40:06

I felt like I was flying on the swim this year, I even drafted the whole way, but did pretty much the same time as last year. I'm taking this as further confirmation that my swim improvements in the pool are entirely due to improving my kicking off the wall skills!

After the swim I spent time with the LETC folk and, for yet another year, didn't win a draw prize.

I was surprised to bump into Jed, someone I played ultimate with and against for years. He was volunteering and we had a good chat and a bit of a catch up session.

Part 2 - Crazy bike repeats
We brought our bikes so Teresa and I headed out (sans everyone else as I managed to waste enough time they left without us) and did the evil "Belcarra Loop."

For EBL you head to the Belcarra Picnic Area, go to the end of the parking lot, turn right onto Bedwell Bay Road then back to the road at the base of the hill heading back to Belcarra. There is only one long hill but the short hills are evilly steep to climb, as in stand on your pedals and hope you don't have to get off your bike and walk level of steep, then it's twisty enough on the way down that getting too much speed is nerve wracking as there are lots of blind corners.

My program said 6 loops but as the loops were taking me 20min I decided that Alan didn't mean for me to do a 2+ hour intensity workout and Teresa and I stopped after 4. The traffic was also increasingly nuts as the day went on - picnickers headed for Sasamat and Belcarra were parking on every available piece of shoulder and being fairly oblivious to cyclists. By the time we got back to the car to load the bikes we had no desire to fight our way through the crowds to cool off in the lake, we couldn't get away fast enough.

Part 3 - Yaletown Grand Prix
At home I had a quick shower and lunch then headed out to meet up with the LETC folk and watch the Yaletown Grand Prix criterion and running races. The crit's were fun to watch - lots super fast cycling action, although the men's pro race was a blow out as two guys lapped almost the entire field.

Two women from our club were in the elite women's running race and they blew the rest of the field away, taking 1st and 2nd. It's hard to cheer when it's neck and neck you you want both people involved to win! Tall Dave was in the men's race and I saw my second random/misplaced-ulti-player of the day as Vince was in the race too. He did a double take as he heard me yell his name, not sure if he knew who I was.

Cheering for Rachel & Martina in the women's elite/pro (I think) bike race was fun too. Luckily for us Rachel was in pink and yellow and therefore easy to spot - you don't have much time to catch people as they whiz by. Martina got lapped out of the race but as she'd hit the podium in the two previous races she done that day I'm thinking she could consider it a good day of racing!

The End
By the time I got home I was pooped - super early morning, a race, a hard workout, then standing around in the sun with not hat and yelling loudly can take a lot out of you!