Alive With Sport

I walked out to Hunter trail with the dog today… and took this picture on my phone (believe it or not).
I have a special place in my heart for bald eagles.

Torbin bought 20lbs of smokies. That’s $130 worth. They’re homemade natural beef sausages from the Steves farm – so they are awesome. But 20lbs, man we had a good laugh. He didn’t know how much he was buying. Man, that guy, I guess that’s why I’m marrying him!!

http://www.stevesfarm.com/steveston/beef-for-sale/

Hope the story made you laugh. Now, if you know of anyone who wants to buy a couple pounds of smokies. I’ve got some for sale!

Happiness is a garden party with loads of your friends. Last night, we had tons of fun. We’re looking forward to next weekend.

I got this nice email today from one of my best tri buddies.

What a great swim race. Well done.

Thanks, best tri buddy, it WAS awesome.  I forgot about the 5 min head start that the boys got – so I thought my time was 1:10.  When I saw it was 1:05 (later in the afternoon when I checked the results online) I was really excited.  Were you there for the awards?  I was wondering if I got a ribbon.  I would be proud of that ribbon.  It’s 8 min faster then the last time I swam the Canada Day swim.  Woo hoo!

On Wednesday, I’m going to race the 4km swim at Sasamat lake. I love this photo of me and my Dad. Apparently, I’m having a tantrum.
Swimming outdoors is one of my favorite things.  No more tantrums.

I ran in a new area today and it was beautiful. Mixed trails and road with lots of time spent along the river shoreline made for a nice route. I also enjoyed talking with Rob about his IronMan Coeur d’Alene experience and relaxing in the sunshine on the Starbucks patio after the run.

1:43:17, 19km
Avg HR 143
link to route map

I had a nice leisurely ride with my LETC friends this weekend – which was really just an excuse to do brunch. Thanks Amy for making the awesome French Toast! and Brian for making me multiple lattes! The start was a bit like herding cats [right Brian?!] but once we got rolling the ride was very nice. Laurel, the swim coach from the SAA joined us for the day. My favorite part was riding with the ladies (Bronwyn, Laurel, and Teresa) out and back on River Road. After arriving home, I headed back out on the bike ride – this time with the dog. We hung out on the beach, she had a quick swim and then I read my book while she dug holes in the sand. All day bike with friends followed by an afternoon on the beach, yup, life is good.

3:27:05, 83km
24.1kph Avg, 51.3 kph Max
129 Avg HR, 160 Max
86 Avg Cad, 113 Max

Stan took some pictures from the brunch so I’ll post ‘em up here tomorrow – when I remember to bring my camera and the cable … here they are!

This week, I was back to my comfortable summer routine of weekly workouts. Monday off, Tues/Thurs running, Wed/Fri swimming, and a few more workouts thrown in for good measure.

Here’s the stats for my Tuesday bike commute. The second half was harder because realized I was going to be late for the run.

45:51, 21.4km
28.2 kph Avg Sp, 49.6 kph Max
139 Avg HR, 161 Max
85 Avg Cad, 104 Max

Followed by an 8 or 9km pretty hard tempo run (with quick T2 at my place). I showed up a bit late so had to rush and then run hard to catch JJ and Calvin,

Wednesday 3400m morning swim, raining so happy to skip the bike ride in the evening

Thursday run, hills 4 x loop at QE park in Vancouver

Friday 3400m morning swim

The second half of my Oliver race report is here. I don’t want to stretch this race report out too much longer… but the reason why I’m reflecting is that I’d like to learn from what happened on the run – specifically on the second half of the run. Short story, I ran out of gas. For the long story, keep on reading.

I felt great coming off the bike. I came in just behind one girl, and noticed that only one bike from my age group’s rack had returned. My head space was great – and I was feeling great. I wasn’t running hard, just steady. I definitely felt the extra effort on the bike, but was still running well. I passed a bunch of folks including one girl within the first 5km. At the first turn around, I could see some very strong racers behind me so I knew I was in a very good position. My headspace was awesome. The run hurt, but nothing out of the ordinary.

I’m not exactly sure where it all went wrong. But I definitely ran out of gas. Somewhere in the first loop I discovered that my stomach was saying, “No way, Jose to gatorade.” I tried to get a gel in me Read more »

The first half of my Oliver race report is here…

Race Day morning started really early. 4:30am or 5am or something ridiculous like that. I’m not a fan of the early wakeup. Since it was so early, we decided that it was a dumb idea for Torbin to come with me to the start. It’s tough being a spectator – because you can’t go anywhere I go – and I basically just hang out with my triathlon friend and/or focus on the race. So his plan was to sleep in and then come see me later in the afternoon. Good plan, worked out well, especially since I know that his support is there every day!

Ok, so now we’re at the swim start. I’m a different swimmer now. Much faster, so I wanted to get a spot near the front. I was in the first row… but way out on the side. The strategy worked well. As you can see from the picture, it still was a bit crazy but I was way more comfortable. I like the new one loop course. My time was 34:03 (last year 34:54) – Hmmm, maybe I was a little too comfortable and probably should have gone faster. Oh well, no biggee, it was comfortable.

After the swim, we had a 500m-650m run to transition. It wasn’t too bad… kind of a nice opportunity to get your head back from the swim and get ready for transition. There was one bike gone from my rack, and this helped me to think, “OK, race starts Read more »