Alive With Sport

I hope I can buy this as a t-shirt:

Racing yesterday at the Kelowna Apple was good fun.  It’s pretty cool to race in the same events with folks like Simon Whitfield (who repeated his national championship) and 1200 triathletes from across Canada.  The event is really well organized and I just clued into why there where bins of Apples everywhere.  It’s the Kelowna Apple, duh!  I had a good laugh at myself when I “got it.”  My goal was to try for a top-ten finish and I was a wee-bit off that spot for worlds but I was still happy with how the race went yesterday.

I had set myself a goal of 2h35 for an earlier race in the season, called the Peach.  Yes, I’m having a fruit inspired season.  I was 2h38 at the Peach, so I still had that 2h35 goal in my head.  I finished at 2h34 yesterday and it felt good to beat that goal.  I know this goal is conservative in terms of my abilities but it felt pretty good for where I’m at right now. Read more »

I really like swimming in oceans, lakes, and rivers. I like outdoor pools too, but oceans and lakes – they take the cake! This morning, I rode my bike down to the ocean to swim the Kits Challenge. 1.5km in 24:40 this morning has me thinking about some of my favorite swims ever. I swam once in the Indian Ocean.  It was glorious.

I jumped off an iceberg once into a lake called Lake Lovely Water. That was COLD!! I like it when you swim over the sandbar at Boundary Bay and the crabs give you their best ninja impressions. I love swimming in the Caribbean Ocean because you can float forever and snorkel as you go. As a kid, Lost Lake, Lightening Lakes, and Deer Lake were some of my favorite swimming holes.  As an adult, I’m grateful for every time I discover new and beautiful locations for swimming outdoors.

The swim at the Peach was crazy blender of arms legs and a full on kick in the face but I was calm – and apparently kind of slow. Sigh.

This bike was fun. I’m feeling strong on the bike right now. This route is a tough hilly route and I was riding without any bike computer so I kind of got into the racing – which made it fun. At one point, I realized I was forgetting to eat. So I sat up, had a little break, drank some water, and ate some gels. Once that was over, I actually had the TV announcer going in my head “… and now back to our regular scheduled programming.” The rest of the ride was spent catching the next rider on the road. I was happy with where I placed myself off the swim/bike.  But, I almost seriously bit it on the bike dismount.  I changed my mind about the shoeless dismount at the last minute – and my legs weren’t ready for this last minute change. Fortunately, I stayed upright but I think I scared some poor volunteer as I stopped mid cartwheel right in front of her. I guess more practicing on the dismount is in order.

The run was tough and I didn’t really go very hard.  Even though it wasn’t really hot, I was too hot. I should have worn my visor not the hat.  I liked cheering for all the people I knew in the race. Overall, I was pretty happy with my finish. It wasn’t as fast as I was hoping for but I can see that my goals are within sight.

swim 29:06
bike 1:17:26, avg speed of 31kph
run 50:34
2:39:26

This Swim Across the Lake event is awesome. I’m totally doing it next year. The goodie bag was awesome. The organization was awesome. The beach towel you get for finishing is awesome. The food and coffee afterwards was awesome. Hanging with Kathryn was awesome. Figuring out our swim heat mistakes at the last minute was awesome. The swimming was awesome. Calm deep blue water. That’s at least half a dozen “awesomes” already. The only thing that wasn’t awesome was getting up at 5am to head off to the races two days in a row. But even that wasn’t too bad.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that my swim time was awesome…
33:53 for 2.1km = 1:37/100m

“Here for a good time (not a long time)” is today’s Canada Day swim theme song. Except I need to change the words… to “and a long time”. I had a good time at today’s race but I was slow. Nothing went wrong. I just couldn’t go any faster.  I felt more like this,

… and not at all like this:

I’m feeling tired and discouraged but hopefully a nap and a visit with my niece / goddaughter this evening will fix me right up.

Wow, the Longest Day run at UBC is awesome! If you haven’t done this race before, you should put it on your calendar. It’s got a great friendly community vibe and has the best post-race food you’ll ever see. My friend Stephen took this “action” photo to prove it. They had cheesecake and ice cream for dessert, for pete’s sake. That’s my kind of race!

Lots of friends & familiar faces… equals lots of fun!  However, 10Km races are hard.  The 10km distance is not so much fun (after about 6km) and this route had a little hill that almost got me.  Even if it was hard, I was only 30 sec of my 10Km best so it’s a good start.

True competition is a cooperation where competitors bring out the best in each other.  One competitor emerges as a winner but both have cooperated to create the performance.  I was recently reminded of this idea when flipping through my copy of Tim Gallwey’s book “The Inner Game of Tennis.”  If you’ve read Andre Aggasi’s great book – Open – you’ll remember him describing the scene with Marcos Baghdatis.  He describes that they were both thankful for the shared experience of some epic tennis.

This is what I’m hoping will happen with the last game of the Canucks season.  Please let the Canucks play at their best.  And, Boston too.  I’d much rather we win the cup in a well played game with no crappy calls or dirty hits or blow-outs.  Just good fast hockey, with good goals, and then this town will erupt.  The Stanley Cup deserves to be awarded in a spirit of competition and cooperation.

This is what we live for…

Does this sentiment apply to triathlon?  I think it does.  I think that’s the beauty of doing races.  The sense of community, the cheering, sharing your energy to help others, racing with friends, celebrating achievements with others.  For me, this sense of cooperation that I find in triathlon competitions might be what keeps me coming back for more.

My cousin and I have signed up to do two races in one weekend. What were we thinking?

We’re doing the Race Across the Lake in Kelowna on the Saturday and then the Peach Triathlon on the Sunday. I’m not sure why exactly… but I’m sure we’ll have fun. Right, K?

I guess we might take after this crazy old fart (his words, not mine).

I’m mixing up the my triathlon training this year by playing a social ultimate frisbee game on Tuesday nights. It’s fun – and a great dose of family and friends – to balance with my triathlon craziness. I haven’t played since 2005 and it’s a bit of a shock to the system.

I wore my Garmin last week to see exactly what kind of workout Ultimate Tuesdays deliver. Garmin made a little movie for me [click the image below to play]. You can see where my stuff was on the sideline, my lazy defense, our sometimes crazy offense, and where I parked the car (& please excuse my visit to the washrooms). Triathletes and their technology. Jeez.

I ran 6.8km in 2hrs 40min – which sounds VERY slow and steady! Ultimate is pretty much the opposite of slow and steady and involves lots of short bursts of sprinting, lots of standing around, and lots of smokies on the BBQ.

Throw a frisbee at the finish line & all my Ultimate Tuesdays will pay off.