Kelowna Apple - Quick and Dirty Race Recap

Last time I did the Apple in 2008 my overall time was 2:47:28, and it was a PR that I haven't beaten since.

In 2008 I was determined to set a new run PR and was so disappointed at failing to do that it took me a while to realize I'd set an overall PR (I've put a lot of work into the mental side of things over the last three years because of this meltdown).

This year I again went in with high expectations for my run and was again unimpressed with it, but it did at least turn out to be better than 2008. The bike was on par with what I've done in the past few years but apparently this is the year of the swim!

2011 splits:
Swim: 26:54 (2008 - 31:11, no wetsuit)
Bike: 1:19:26 (2008 - 1:18:56)
Run: 51:48 (2008 - 53:52)

Overall:2:41:33

Now I need to figure out how to get the same improvement for my bike and run.

Osoyoos Half - Pre Race & Swim

Three alarm clocks (iPod, phone and motel alarm clock) proved adequate to wake me up on race morning. I had debated setting a wake up call but forgot to see if it was possible. Luckily for me there wasn't a triple apple device/cellular/electrical failure, but in future perhaps I shouldn't push my luck.

I then proved that quick oats definitely cannot be cooked the same way as instant ones. It was difficult to decide whether stodgy or gluey was the more appropriate descriptive term for breakfast. Happily the coffee was excellent and, as a bonus, I didn't do a "Valencia" and dump it on anything.

After that the regular race morning ritual of going through the checklist one last time before packing my bag and heading out. 

Being in transition in the morning and knowing very few people felt odd. I'm used to having an LETC horde in any race I do, plus I now know lots of other Vancouver area racers. That didn't stop me from talking to everyone at my rack, of course, but it did still feel a bit lonely.  I eventually bumped into Andrew Graham on the beach, just in time for him to do up my wetsuit (thanks!) and shortly after my swim warm up I found Kristie. I stuck to her like badly cooked quick oats as I wanted to draft off her, or at least try, for the swim.

We watched the men head out then waited seven minutes for our turn. I started near the front and was jostled and bumped a fair bit, but having done a 1,500m battle swim time trial with Bronwyn, Clayton, Dr. Dave and Amanda in June it barely registered. The start put me in a good position to find a draft and I managed to swipe a good pair of toes from someone pretty quickly. 

Nearing the first turn buoy I decided I'd give the turns we'd been practicing with LETC a try. At the buoy I did one back stroke then back to free and ended up facing the correct direction with a nice pair of feet directly in front of me. Normally I lose my draft on the turns so this was quite exciting.  I executed the turn again at the next buoy and ended up hitting my draft amidship. Not only was I keeping up on the turns, I was gaining!
 
It was a two lap swim so after 900m we had to exit the water, run around a buoy on the sand then get back in. This turn I didn't execute so well.  I cursed as the women I'd been swimming with gained several yards on me on the beach. Happily I had also mastered the dolphin dive in training with the club and quickly got back with my pack.

Two more fast turns, several upgrades to faster feet and we were on our way back to the beach. The pace picked up and the group I was with got strung out into a long line, I was second back but as we got out of the water it looked like there were at least six or seven of us.

On the beach I checked my watch and was stunned at my time - 35:40. I'd just set a 2km PR of 36:42 at the VOWSA Canada Day swim and didn't expect to match it, must less beat it by a minute. I headed to T1 feeling pretty amazing.

Iron Mountain Sprint Race Report

Another short triathlon, another small field and another podium finish. I could get used to that last part!

I had been warned the race might not be the best organized but was still surprised that it started half an hour late. My swim warm up went from reasonably long to way, way too long - I was in the water for 55 minutes before the race started. That was plenty of time to get chilled and lose all benefit of my warm up run. I guess I'm not used to doing the "second fiddle" races, like sprints seem to be.

It was a beach start but with only about 70 racers and a wide starting area it wasn't too crazy. From some reason everyone seemed to swim way off to the right. After the initial 100m the swimmers around me all swerved to the right and to get a draft I would have had to swim about 10m off course to get a pair of toes.

I opted to keep my line and try to get a draft at the first turn. Unfortunately the swimmers at my pace took the turn wide, I didn't get jostled but I also didn't get close enough to draft. Same thing at the next turn. Very odd. I spent the return leg just out of draft range from a pack of about 10, never managing to catch up.

Swim time: 15:39

I lost a bit of time in T1 cleaning off my sunglasses, it had been raining all morning and they were too fogged up to see through. The guy next to me on the rack took the time to towel off! Did I mention it was raining?

I spent most of the bike passing people, which was good for my ego. There were lots of beginners, so a lot of yelling "On your left!" so they'd move over. It was pretty spread out though, not s terribly crowded course.

One of my bike goals was to be passed as late in the ride as possible by Natasha. I'm a faster swimmer than her (for the moment!) but she's a very strong cyclist so I knew she was coming. She caught me 2/3s of the way through the third lap, so I was happy with that. I kept her in sight the rest of the ride.

Bike time: 48:20

A bit of a rookie move at the dismount, I got off my bike a too soon and had an extra ten seconds of running.

Quick change to run gear, to the cheers of LETC folk who'd done the Olympic earlier in the day.

I could still see Natasha in front of me but knew from her pace it was unlikely I'd pass. Not that I didn't try!

On the second loop Stephanie, who had her schwag from winning the oly women's race, told me I was probably the 4th woman. This gave me an extra push and as I passed a two women I had the urge to ask which lap they were on. Sadly they were on their first and I never caught Natasha so I finished 4th overall. Also, because the race had ten year age groups, Natasha was in my AG and took first.

Run time : 22:04 (4.6 km course)

Overall time: 1:28:41

Training, Procrastination and Nuun Slushies

I had two decent workouts today.

This morning's introduced a new swim toy - the sponge.  Imagine giving a 6 year old long strips of sponge and telling them to make an octopus.  The result (less the poster paint, googly eyes and glitter) is then tied to one end of a long piece of string, the other end of the string goes around your waist and you swim with it tagging along behind you.

While it provides some drag the point of our workout was to use it to smooth out our stroke.  It gives tactile feedback, if the string around your waist jerks and pulls unevenly then you aren't keeping a consistent speed.  I discovered my kick is fine but on my stroke I slow down when I breath. I corrected it but it's a lot more work when you don't get a mini break every third breath!

I was dreading my run, the main set of which was two times 5km at my half marathon pace.  I dreaded it enough that I employed as many procrastination techniques as I could manage:

- check my email (I wouldn't want to be late in replying to anyone!)
- wait until the last minute to figure out what my pace should be
- post on Facebook 
- put away clean laundry
- search for my spare key
- check the weather online (cold)

I finally ran out of ways to put off the inevitable and headed to the track.

I haven't done as much track work this year as in the past and it really shows.  I used to be a metronome, I could keep my 400m pace to the second. Now I'm all over the map. 

I was completely off pace for my first 5km, the first km was a disaster and the following four were better but not by much.  I managed to keep closer to pace for the second set, and was fairly consistent, but I was still slower than I wanted to be.  I don't know how much the cold weather affected my speed or if I was having an off day, but the pace I was trying for was the pace I ran at the Fall Classic so it is achievable. Frustrating regardless of the reason but I do know now what my focus needs to be through my taper - nail my marathon pace.

As to the cold, it was definitely not warm this evening.  After my second 5km I tried to take a swig from my water bottle only to find it had frozen. I've never had that happen at a workout before. It turns out, however, that cola flavoured Nuun makes a tasty slushy.

Be Prepared!

After a week of "too much overindulging" over Christmas I'm trying to get myself back into some semblance of a workout routine that I can carry over into the New Year. 

In mid-December I decided to sign up for a swim clinic in the week between Christmas and New Years.  I figured that as I'd avoided the pool for two months I'd need a bit of a jump start for my 2011 swimming.

I opted for the Infinity Clinic, put on by the coach of my masters swim (can I call it "my" swim when I bailed on almost the entire fall session?).  Until about 8:45 last night I thought this clinic was at the Vancouver Aquatic Centre.  Turns out it's at the UBC pool, rather a significant difference as that's an additional 25-30 minutes biking.  Annoying, and a bit embarassing, but at least I figured it out before I left for the pool this morning.

Also turns out the swim starts at 5:20, I'm not sure what was in the flyer (that came out, like, two weeks ago, why should I remember?) but that seems a bit early.  Even just ten minutes later would be lovely!  The coach sent an email stating that the pool wouldn't open until 5:15 and apologized to those folks who'd want to get in earlier.   That made me laugh.  My plan was to come screaming into the pool at the last possible second.

Signing up for the clinic gave me the impetus to finally  get the rack put on my new bike and to finally use it to bike to swimming.  As I put my paniers on last night, however, I realized that they don't quite fit the new rack, the s-hook is about 2mm too small to hook securely onto the bottom of the rack.  Probably would have been useful to figure this out prior to biking the breadth of the city at 4:30am with fully laden paniers.  It was a bit of a slow ride as I was anxious to avoid potholes or bumps that might send my gear flying off the bike but I made it to UBC with everything intact. 

I was also slow as I'm getting used to the new bike and to mountain bike clips, as well as to riding with paniers for the first time in seven years.  I vididly recall when I had paniers on for the first time and tried to take a corner at speed when they were full of heavy groceries.  For your future reference, your ability to turn declines sharply when you have a lot of weight on your back wheel.

Much as I hate getting up at that hour, and despite my various trials and tribulations with the bike, I love having the road to myself.  It's a super fast ride (even when you're being uber cautious to avoid flinging your belongings onto the street) when you don't have to stop for traffic.

And the clinic was well worth it.  There aren't a lot of people in this session so I'm sharing a lane with just one other person.  The small numbers also mean we get a lot of feedback from the coaches.  Plus I got to try swimming on a tether and, just for added weirdness/geek factor, swim over a mirror while tethered so I could see what I'm doing when I swim.  I move my head to much, on pretty much every axis, and my elbow is way to high in the water making for too shallow of a pull (the coach pointed this out, I'm not skilled enough to figure out for myself).

When the swim was done I had my proof I haven't swum in ages - I forgot to bring a towel.  Happily the woman I share a lane with lent me a towel as she brings two.  Yay for prepared people who're willing to lend things to strangers!!! 

I expect to be somewhat more prepared tomorrow, although I just realized that I will have to bring two towels (mine plus the borrowed one) so my precarious paniers will be even more heavily laden!

The Long Lost Calgary 70.3 Race Report

I found this in my drafts on my blog. It's a bit rough around the edges but it'll do.

I had a great swim - took over two mintues off last year's time. I started way further to the front than last year and had no issues with the washing machine for the first third. Kept ending up behind swimmers who couldn't sight and ran into them when they stopped to look for the bouys, annoying but fun to pass people. It was a bad decision to wear my blue goggles, have had trouble sighting the red bouys all summer with them but in the gloom at 6:30am it was impossible to see them - I looked where the swimmers in front of me were and aimed for the middle of the pack, assuming the swim support would herd the outside stragglers.

After a great swim had a stupid T1 and set out on the bike about the same time as last year - I was a bit spiny after the swim and not moving straight plus it was super muddy and slick after a night of hard rain so hard to move quickly without going down.

Wet roads and a slight headwind made for a slower bike. I raced the first 60 or so km as usual - found a pace group and leap-frogged with a few people. On the second big hill it started to fall apart, I couldn't keep up and suddenly everyone was passing me. The last 10 km was a slog and all I wanted was to get off the bike.

Decent T2 then a horrible run. I had nothing in my legs and my lungs weren't cooperating, I just wanted to quit and finally decided I'd do 10 and 1 and ignore splits as by 4km I was already off my target pace by 5 minutes. I couldn't push the pace as my breathing would get out of control, and halfway in I had nothing in my legs. The upside was that I didn't "catastrophize" and managed to keep positive and adjust my game plan to suit the reality of the day.

Lot of little things I did wrong - didn't adjust sleep patterns in advance (late-ish nights and slept in), not the greatest diet, more alcohol than usual - but I think it was the throat infection that killed me as I've been knocking out long rides for months and while I can see a bad run from the above I don't see why I'd die on the ride. I think my big mistake was not opting for a slower bike pace to account for being sick. I could be deluding myself.

My feedback on the race - the pre-race logistics are a serious pain in the butt. Made for a long Saturday, I was pretty tired and cranky by the time I got to the hotel on Saturday afternoon even though I'd drank lots of water and eaten well. Also the post-race food was nasty - a can of pop, small bag of chips and a subway sandwich. That's it. For $230.00 I expect a bit more. Think this is my last time at this race.

All Right Already!

Apparently people do read my blog and a few of them even like it. I always thought it would be great to have adoring fans but it turns out they can also be demanding. So fans, here's a post for you - now leave me alone!

What's happened since my last post?

I did finish the Calgary 70.3 - blew up on the bike (I'd been sick, remember), had a slow run and a long day and came away generally unimpressed with the race. The raison d'etre for the whole trip to Calgary turned into the least fun part, happily the rest of the trip was a blast. Next year I'll do a race first then head out across the rockies.

I then decided to take a break from running to give my foot a rest and I focussed on biking and swimming.

Swimming with Fast Lane at Kits pool was phenomenal and I felt that I made huge gains in the water. I've built on those gains in the fall by signing up for Dolphins and, um, mostly sleeping in. Something about getting up at 4:30am in the off season is just plain wrong. Various people have tried to point out the error of my ways, none have come up with a suitably compelling reason.

I had fun doing long rides with the IMAZ crew, building up distance for the Gran Fondo. I got sick with a horrendous cold the week before the ride and wasn't 100% (not even 75%) on the day of but still did the ride. It was tough grind at the very end, everyone seemed to have issues at about the 100km mark, but fun. I'm not sure it was $250.00 worth of fun, however, so I'm passing on doing it next year.

Apparently riding 120km mostly uphill while suffering from a cold is not a good way to kick said cold. The cold took another week to go away then a cough settled in that lasted for almost two months. The upside was that I discovered you can get cough syrup with codiene without a presciption and that the stuff gets me seriously high!

In late September, after not having run for two months, not having exercised in almost a month and with my plantar faciitis issues unchanged, I decided it would be a good idea to sign up for a marathon. There was a ridiculous travel industry deal for the Bahamas Marathon, I figured even if I crawled the marathon it would be worth the trip.

I went back to phsyio and figured what my issues are. Basically I'm an idiot - a weak core and unstable supporting muscles were causing the problems. This was bad in that the plantar faciitis was caused by neglect but good in that there's a workable solution. A week of doing the plank and various exercises from Janet and I was doing great. I'm not 100% but getting there.

I got back on the bike, riding with Barb Zimich's group. She's a fantastic coach and I'm really enjoying riding with her. Her surgery and the cold weather has put an end to that for now but I'm really looking forward to riding with her in 2011.

So that's where I'm at. I will publish my Fall Classic race report soon. I promise. Really.

Fast Lane Summer Masters – Pros & Cons

The Dolphin swims ended last week so I'm signed up for the first time with Fast Lane for their morning sessions at Kits Pool.

When my alarm goes off staying in bed always seems like a much better option than swimming so I've decided to come up with a list of the Pros and Cons of getting up for the Fast Lane swims.

Cons:

• Getting up at 4:30am.
• Extremely hungry at 7:30am.
• Stunning sunrises can make it difficult to see when swimming East.
• Scenic North Shore mountains and ocean vistas distract you from paying attention to the coaches.
• Post swim sneezes at work.

Pros:

• No traffic at 5am – best biking ever!
• Kits Pool!!! 137.5m of Awesomeness.
• Swimming in Kits before all the crazy people show up.
• Tons of cool people to chat with before the swim, between sets, mid-length …
• Great coaches.
• Second breakfast.
  

Canada Day Swim 2010

While I'm posting race results I should add in the Canada Day Swim.

2km open water swim - 37:34

My goal was a PR - I'm going to make you read to the end to find out if I did it!

I wasn't sure I'd get to do the swim this year as I missed the online sign-up and had to show up stupidly early to sign-up on race day. Valencia, my chauffeur, is a hero for being willing to get me there on time. I was the second person to sign up!

No issues at the start, the crazy drills I'd done with the club (beating up Dominic, Natasha and Clayton two weekends prior) helped as the crowding didn't faze me at all. I surprised myself by getting on Bronwyn's toes and holding on to the first turn. I lost her there, found another set of toes, lost those toes at the next turn then suddenly found myself with no one anywhere near me. Not sure how that happened!

I finally started catching up with someone at the first of the two turns by the camp, by the second bouy either she slowed down or I found my turbo gear and I blasted past her. On the last leg to the beach I kept thinking that the Dolphins swims of 3,000 - 4,000 m meant I had no excuse and had to power through to the finish.

I was okay with my time, I figured I was close to previous times so didn't get too excited. I just looked up my previous times tonight:

2008 time - 40:02
2009 time - 40:06

Holy smokes! 2.5 minutes off my previous best, not too shabby. I guess there is a pay off to getting up at 4:30 for the Dolphins swims.

Vancouver Sprint Triathlon

Overall time: 1:32:06
Swim (500m): 10:12
T1: 4:11 (Yikes!)
Bike (26km): 51:27
T2: 1:25
Run (5km): 24:53

The swim was nuts, but everyone was in the same boat (that boat most likely the Titanic). It was a beach start, we lined up about 10m from the water and when the gun went off we ran to the water. It was the craziest swim start I've ever been in, a total washing machine to the first bouy then it got worse!

The current was extremely strong. We watched the half iron swim start and saw how much even the strong swimmers at the front were pushed to the West, most of them undershot the bouy and had to backtrack to get around it. We planned our swim accordingly, start to the right of the beach and aim far to the East of the first turn. Despite aiming wide I got to the first bouy slightly to the left, which wouldn't have been a problem except that most people had missed it by a far greater margin and there was a mass of people almost at a stop trying to get around it. I was boxed in and couldn't swim around or over anyone, it took me about a minute to get past. Apparently one of the men from the earlier wave was clinging to the bouy, which was causing some of the problems.

The second leg of the swim wasn't much better. The swim bouys were small and hard to see and just for fun one of the lifeguard boats was in the line between the bouys and made it impossible to see the bouys anyway.

I made it out of the swim close to my predicted time of 10 minutes and then had to get out of my westuit. I'm happy my A race has wetsuit strippers!

My instructions were to go all out in this race. It was hard to do so in the chaos of the swim so the bike was where I could start doing this. Teresa got out of T1 just ahead of me so I chased her to the hill and caught her there. Then she passed me back, and the trend for the bike was set - she and I leapfrogging the whole way (she won the race to T2). It was fun having her push me on the bike, the idea was to all out the whole time and she kept me honest.

The run was hard to get started and my breathing got a bit out of control but I didn't panic so I'm considering that a victory! I also ran through a stitch (passed two people while doing so) so I think I was reasonably tough!

I figured 25 minutes or less would be good so I certainly hit my goal.

There were a ton of LETC'ers racing (lots of AG podiums; the women took first, second and, as we consider Stephanie's sister an honourary club member, third overall; and RJ came 2nd overall). Actually I knew a lot of the people taking the podium, one of the fun parts of being in the tri community for five years.

There was also a ton of LETC folks volunteering - great to see the club well represented and all of them cheered us on as they went by so that was a big boost.

Final note - chocolate milk as post-race food was the BEST IDEA EVER!!!

Shawnigan Lake Race Report

Yesterday wasn't my greatest showing at 3:07, but it was supposed to be a training race so I'm being philosophical about it. Or trying to be.

Exec Summary: So-so swim in cold water, excruciatingly slow and cold ride on dead legs, decent run with a big negative split.

Take aways: 1) Cold really saps my energy. 2) Not sure if doing the Vancouver Half is a good idea, wondering a fast oly be better than a slow Half IM? I want to do another tri prior to to Calgary, just trying to think what would be best.

Long version:
Ended up without enough time pre-race to do a real warm up for anything other than the swim. Would have liked to have run but that wasn't in the cards.

The water was very cold. I had a neoprene swim cap (purchased last Tuesday - yay!), which likely made a big difference, I definitely didn't suffer as much as most people. I got into the water about 15-20 minutes before race start as 1) my watch was fast, 2) I didn't run so my whole warm up would be in the water (in retrospect I might have had time for a short run but everything after that would have been a panic) and 3) it was very cold so I wanted enough time to acclimatize to the temp. After about five minutes I was comfortable in the water and quite warm, however I totally froze during the 2-3 minute wait at the shore for the race to start.

The swim was unspectacular. I had difficulty drafting as either the people I was drafting off couldn't swim a straight line or I couldn't. I kept losing the toes in front of me so gave up and swam my own line and took the draft when it presented itself. About 30 min for the swim, not great.

T1 was a gong show. I lost the use of my thumbs and the rest of my digits didn't work too well as my hands were numb so getting out of my wetsuit was interesting. I also opted to wear a jacket and gloves, which slowed down T1 but definitely helped on the bike (an Elite racer was taken off the bike course in an ambulance due to hypothermia - it was cold). My legs were totally dead - mostly due to my long rides earlier in the week but also my thighs were frozen from the swim and didn't warm up until halfway in.

I tried to keep a high cadence, especially nearer the end of the ride, to get blood circlating to my feet but that didn't work. I got passed a lot on the bike, didn't like that but managed (mostly) not to get agro and try to re-pass everyone. The course was hilly, wet and full of potholes/uneven pavement so not easy to stay in aerobars.

T2 was faster - less need for opposable thumbs.

The start of the run was tough - uphill on tired legs and numb feet. I got feeling back in my feet at about 2km in, then immediately wished I hadn't as the pins and needles were terrible. I finally felt comfortable at about 3 km.

I was well over my target pace of 5min/km so I stopped taking splits and concentrated on form. I'm still working on headspace for the run portion, keeping positive is currently more helpful to me than killing myself to stay on pace.

At the turn around I felt strong and picked up the pace, repeating my mantra of "Easy", and started to reel people in. I didn't take my split at the half but as I was at 16:50 at 3km and I finished the run in 52 & change I can extrapolate a negative split.

My overall and AG ranking are lower than usual for me. Not thrilled about that but it's a training race.

Happily others in the club had great races: Marie came second in her AG in the Oly, as did Dominic in the Sprint. Not sure how Chris or Jeff did in the half, however Jeff's time was 5:05 and I believe Chris' was under 5:30, so they both had a good chance at the podium.

I have plantar faciitis, it didn't bug me in the race or last night, but my heel hurts a today so I definitely did some damage. I'm off to physio after work to get Janet's assessment.

Quick Update

Since my last post we had time trial week.

Swim: 1500m - 28:17
I've never done a 1500m time trial in the pool so no idea where this puts me in terms of training. I'm usually about 30 minutes in a tri but that's open water so I'm not kicking off the wall every 25m.

We'll just hold onto this number for reference!

Bike:
16km TT - 31:28
Not a good time for me compared to the last year's time I can find - 28:50 from August and 29:41 from April. Something to work on, I guess.

Run:
5km - 24:15 (pace - 4:51/km)
3km - 14:24 (pace - 4:48/km)
This workout was nasty. We showed up expecting a 5km TT, but arrived to find out that would be followed by a 10 minute recovery and a 3km TT. I thought I was going as hard as I could for the 5km but somehow I managed a faster pace for the 3km rather than the 5km.

Alan said we weren't pacing properly. I think I just take a long time to warm up!

This week things are feeling solid. I'm finally feeling in the groove, I'm feeling strong and focussed and fit! It might have something to do with just coming off a recovery week, but I also think I've adjusted to my training schedule. Regardless of the why, I'm happy to be happy!

Down From the Trees

I spent a good chunk of the spring "in the trees," as Amy put it, but seem to be back on solid ground now. Although if Team Pink builds a tree house I want to be in the club!

Having a definite schedule really helps (I am so not a spontaneous person - I need a plan!). I'm feeling more on track and in control now.

I've signed up for the Dolphins masters/tri swim classes so I have a good group to swim with. They're great but holy hot tamale it's early. My alarm went off at 4:14 am yesterday and all I could think was "seriously!?" I glared at my alarm clock for a good minute before turning it off.

The first class I went to was quite the comedy of errors:

• I got up earlier than I ever do, and managed to make enough noise getting up and out that I woke up my landlady. She was, understandably, unimpressed (but quite nice in expressing her unimpressed-ness).
• I biked to the swim (haven't commuted by bike in years).
• I swam for longer than I ever do both in terms of time and distance.
• I somehow (i.e. was totally impatient and took off first) lead the lane for the first 30 minutes and killed myself to keep my place, then whimpered my way through the next hour.
• I forgot to bring water. 2+ hours of exercise and no water. Brilliant!

Yesterday was my second swim and I managed to get out of the house quietly, place my self appropriately in the lane and stay hydrated. Sadly someone walked off with my fins so it wasn't a perfect morning, hopefully they'll return the fins tomorrow when they realize their mistake.

Tomorrow. Ooh, that'll be a fun one. The only way I can get to swimming is by bike so I'll ride in. However, to get to the club run I either have to 1) ride home, change and rush to the bus, then bus or scam a ride home or, 2) ride directly to the run and ride home after. Option 2 has the disadvantage of making for a long and tiring end to the day but I waste less time in transit and rely a bit less on the kindness of my East Side clubmates for rides.

I may be cranky on Friday, probably best not to talk to me until I've had my coffee!

Pool Stories 2 - The Big Show!

Monday saw our intrepid explorer (me!) travelling into another dimension - one of early morning hours and and inexplicably happy swimmers.

Wednesday involved different dimensions, decidedly larger ones.

Yes, that day would see me heading to the big show, the serious pool for serious swimmers, 50 metres of poker-face intensity, swim hard or go home - the Vancouver Aquatic Centre. This is where the serious swimmers go, I was a little nervous as I'd heard people could get impatient with slow pokes and I'm not the fastest swimmer out there (except at Percy Norman
Pool from 6:17-6:22 am).

The day started poorly and my original plans had to be put aside due to technical difficulties (i.e. hitting the snooze button too many times). The morning swim got shuffled to an afternoon swim, with grand plans to spin after.

When I arrived at 4:30 it was lap swimmers nirvana. There were four 50m lanes: slow, medium, medium (although presumably a faster medium) and fast. FOUR LANES! I'm sure I heard angels singing when I saw this.

I jumped in and it was glorious. Five or six folks in my lane, all a little slower than me but I timed my intervals to avoid them and it worked well.

Then lane four was closed and those folks pushed into my lane. No worries! They should all be ahead of me so no problems. A little tight for space but all good.

About 400m later I finished my length to the site of a "Lane Closed" sign. Now we had to shuffle into lane two, about 20 people doing 20 different paces. Suddenly it got annoying. Especially as I was doing a pyramid (100, 200, 300, 400, 300, 200, 100 - my fallback mainset when I have no real plan for a swim) and was about to do the longest sets.

I survived, and realized that after being afraid of cranky faster swimmers that that turned out to be me (I'm sure there's some new age-y conclusion I could reach about becoming what you fear). Instead of being annoyed, I mostly managed to treat is as training for crowded tri's and that I was adding mini-sprints every time I passed someone. At the end of the workout I was in a good mood and had not attempted to use any pool toys as a weapon, generally the sign of a good swim.

Various observations from my swim:

• At masters I am a slower swimmer, in tri's I'm mediocre but in rec centre lap swims I am apparently a speedster. There is no glory to being the fast swimmer in a crowded lane, just a fair amount of frustration.
• VAC is not home exclusively to elite, super-fast swimmers. Or at least they don't do the Wednesday afternoon lap swim.
• The wall is my friend - compared to a 25m pool, when swimming 50 meters my stroke count was embarrassingly high while my 100m times slowed by 5-10 seconds.
• Getting lost in a change room is really distressing. And sort of embarassing to admit to.

If I manage to conquer the snooze button tomorrow morning should be the sequel - "Big Show 2 - Swimming at Sunrise!"

Pool Stories 1 - The Twilight Zone

My pool (YWCA downtown) is closed for three months so I’m experimenting with finding another pool that’s convenient. A little frustrating to deal with mid-season, but I’ve decided I’m taking a tour of the Vancouver Rec Centres.

First Stop – The Twilight Zone
On Monday, my first YWCA-less day. That morning it seemed I was traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination. Next stop, Percy Norman Pool!

The pool opened at 6:15 and, as usual, I messed up my bus timing and got there ridiculously early. Walking in I was dismayed to see a crowd already waiting. Even more dismaying, none of them looked like speedy swimmers. I seemd to have hit the seniors swim and was upset that I’d likely spend my entire time stuck behind geriatric breast strokers.

As I was thinking these thoughts, I noticed something weird. Seriously weird. These people were happy. Cheerful. Smiling. Chatty. They seemed to know each other well and all said good morning (in one of at least three languages). When the staff member showed up they asked about her vacation and teased her about her tan.

In the change room there was no glowering over bench space, people moved aside to let me in and smiled. Smiled! Did I mention it was 6:15? In the morning?

On deck it got even stranger. While I was looking for somewhere to drop my towel the lifeguard approached and asked if I was new to the pool. She gave me the goods on everything (dive tank, slow to fast lanes, no flags so be careful with backstroke) and told me to come to her if I had any issues or questions. Proactive lifeguards - what universe is this?

The lanes weren’t as slow as I expected but I was still continuously passing all but one person in the fast lane. However, there was plenty of space to pass and the slow swimmers would stop at the wall and let me by, even the men (at the YWCA, a woman passing a male swimmer is generally viewed as an attack on his virility).

I couldn't get in as long as swim as I would have liked as I had to get to work (couldn't they just pay me for not showing up??), less than an hour of swim time but about an hour of commuting doesn't quite add up to a good morning workout location. Hopefully when the new pool opens someone will start a masters class that begins earlier in the day.

My conclusion: a pool full of happy, chatty, cheerful swimmers and staff early in the morning – quite possibly the strangest swimming experience I’ve ever had. Not sure if I'll back before the new pool opens, however, as the location unfortunately doesn't quite work.

Next up - Vancouver Aquatic Centre.

The week in review

"Week in review" sounds much better than "I'm totally behind on posting."

I blame drugs and alcohol!

Robaxicet on Wednesday, and no photo that day. I put my back out changing my bike brakes the previous Sunday and that threw me off from workouts and life in general for the week. The back is mostly better but I'm still babying it a bit.

I did get in a good ride out to Iona with the crew on Saturday and the back didn't protest until right near the end. I did my first post-bike run of the year regardless of the back.

Vast amounts of Malbec on Saturday night made for a fun evening but I forgot about getting in even a last minute shot. The Malbec also made for a painful start to my Sunday a.m. swim. The upside was that the workout would have been hell regardless (all out sprints interspersed with core work) so I got all the pain out of the way at the same time. By the time we ran I was feeling vaguely human and knocked out 1:20 reasonably easily.

And then the allergies kicked in Sunday afternoon:

Defunct playground equipment by Lord Byng Pool. sort of how I felt during the swim!
Sakura!
Rainbow seen in the a.m.
Cherry trees on the banks of the Fraser. I forgot my camera but the light was so fabulous I took the shot with my phone. It didn't turn out half bad.

Multitasking

On Sunday afternoon I set up my perfect Olympics viewing environment. Then promtply fell asleep.

In my defence, that morning I'd had a solid swim workout immediately followed by a thoroughly evil hill running session. Furthermore, naps are written into my schedule by my coach. ("Nap" and "eat" are two instructions I have no problems following.)

Leek

I was extremely tired and extremely cranky today, a result of my blow up on the run yesterday, so I'm treating myself with roast leek.

It's pretty and tasty but you have to rinse it very well as there tends to be lots of dirt in the crevices.

Despite being cranky I managed to have a decent swim this morning. I wasn't sure if swimming four days in a row would kill me but I seemed to have a good workout. We worked on pull, with lots of fist swimming. The last piece was supposed to be 400m with a 25m sprint every 4th length. I decided, however, it was going to be a time trial. I did the 25m sprints every 4th length except that when I hit 300m I went all out for the last 100. I didn't tell Mauro, who is usually the same speed as or faster than me, as I knew he'd stick to my feet regardless of what pace I held. I was trying to make him blow up (and to get a good 400m time), which is mean but I know he'd do the same for me.

Oh yeah, my 400m time was 7:10. I'm somewhat impressed with myself!

Sunday Trifecta

A perfect Sunday trifecta: - swim, run, EAT.

Swim
It was kick day in the LETC house of pain. 45 minutes of kicking: with fins, without fins, with kickboards, without kickboards, one fin only ... pretty much any combination the coaches could think of. I'm surprised we didn't have to balance them on our heads for 100m.

We then did half an hour of increasing intensity, finishing with 200m at all out pace (or some technical term that almost but didn't quite mean all out). I predicted 3:40 and did 3:32 so not bad.

Run
I had 1:45 on the schedule and intended to go out easy but got caught up in an interesting discussion with some of the newer folks. The wheels came off 40 minutes in, not my smartest moment but I'll take it as a learning experience.

After the run I had to scoot home so that I could complete my prescribed post-workout nutrition (like I'd forget that!), ice bath and nap in time to get dessert and head to Amy & Brian's for their Superbowl bash.

While delaying getting into the ice bath, an activity I'm highly skilled at, I took pictures of the birds that have invaded the neighbourhood with the coming of spring. These suckers are LOUD! They're also tearing up everyone's lawn in their search for grubs.


My picture of the day, however, is of one of the East Van locals who can be found in the neighbourhood in any season of the year.

Don't mess with guys - they're smarter than most people and they hang out in gangs called murders.

EAT (aka watching the Superbowl)
The game was good to watch but, as usual, took second place to the company. And the food.

Amy & Brian put on a fantastic spread, as usual, and the other guests brought great food too. I was too disorganized to cook something impressive so I just brought cookies (they were really good though!).

I may not have wowed 'em with my cookies but I stunned everyone with the tale of my culinary adventure of the previous evening. Apparently I'm the only one who'd heard of cinnamon bun french toast. I'd seen this delicacy in a Denny's type restaurant in the States years ago and filed it away in the "ridiculous but potentially yummy recipes" part of my brain.

This weekend I had cinnamon buns that had gone a bit stale and decided to slice them up, dip them in eggy milk with a splash of vanilla and fry them. I was a little leary of what they'd be like. Holy smokes they were good! Even better smothered in maple syrup.

Dolphins Swim Clinic

"A goal is never fully defined by just one number. The number is always set in a context, and it's the overall context that endows the number with its true value."
Gregory Bassham

This morning I went to a clinic put on by the UBC Dolphins with coaches from the UBC varsity swim team.

There is so much involved in swim technique, much of which I'm not doing correctly, that it's hard to cover much in an hour but the session was very good. We worked on kick, (apparently if you want to have a good kick you should stop running!), recovery and pull. We didn't have time to get to breathing (we had to go for an hour with no air! okay, maybe not) but the notes they gave us have some useful tips.

I'm looking forward to getting back in the pool tomorrow to see how much I remember and if it has an effect. By Monday I'll have four days in a row of swimming, that should have some sort of positive effect!

On a different topic, I've been reading "Running & Philosophy." Not quite what I expected, I get the feeling the philosophers are trying to dumb things down for a general audience, but there are occasional gems and good quotes, such as the one above. I'll try to post any others I like, and maybe build my own database of inspiring quotes.