Boston-bound!

Last weekend I raced in the Goodlife Fitness Toronto Marathon, doing well enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon. I'm still hobbling around the house... Racing was a bit of a last-minute decision as I only actually signed up six days ahead, but teaching a marathon clinic and my Ironman training gave me some confidence.

This year I got a ride to the starting line from a friend, so I was able to sleep in a bit instead of lining up for the shuttle busses. The forecast was pretty good; cold but calm and clear. It was a couple of degrees above zero before the start but rose to about 8°C by the finish. I wore a pair of Adidas running tights that gave a bit of "three-season" warmth and a new Running Room long-sleeve top that was also a tiny bit "fleecy" for warmth over a technical t-shirt. I wore a lightweight headband and knitted gloves too. My shoes were new Mizuno Wave Creation 10's. I was a bit unsure about them as my last pair had started to cut into the outside of my left foot during the Muskoka 70.3 race a month before. What was missing this time was my heart-rate monitor. I decided to race "old-school" using perceived effort this time. I did however clip my iPhone to my race-belt, so I could assess my performance afterwards. I regretted that though, as the phone bounced around too much and the Nike+ software didn't activate properly for some reason. It gave me a time but not a distance!

The start was pretty straight-forward, although there was a lot of crowding in the minutes leading up to the start. It took me about 45 seconds to get to the start line after the gun sounded, during which I joked about how I was "racing" but not even breathing hard. Almost immediately I caught up to a Toronto Triathlon Club friend who is usually faster than me. He was accompanying his brother-in-law on his first marathon, so I ran with them and chatted for a few kilometers but pulled away when I realised that I was not holding my intended pace. I had grabbed a 3:20 pace band from the race expo and really wanted to hold 4:44/km.

The race played out nicely from there. I held my pace well although the way the marathon and half marathon courses diverged and reconnected made the distance markers a bit confusing and gave me a moment of panic when they appeared to swap... I tucked away the headband and gloves around the 10K mark. It was great seeing friends (Paula and Jennifer seemed to be everywhere) along the course, working in the aid stations (Dan Rishworth from Enduro Sport gave me my first Gatorade) and at the finish line. I get a huge boost from that support. Up to about 30K I felt strong and passed a lot of people. But shortly after the turnaround point on the waterfront section my ankles started to get sore and my quads tightened up. I pushed on though, only taking three walking breaks.

Climbing up University Avenue I knew I was going to easily achieve my goal of qualifying for the Boston Marathon by coming in under 3:30:59. My 3:20 target would have also been met if I hadn't taken my walking breaks, but I still crossed the line at 3:24:22, giving me a Personal Best time by 6:34. My overall pace was a decent 4:51/km. Yeah me! No race photos yet, but here's a link to an interesting PDF that the organisers provide to each finisher. I finished 223 out of 1930.

Funny story: By random chance I reconnected with some friends from my days at Sick Kids; Dr. Brenda Gallie, a cancer researcher focusing on retinoblastoma, and her assistant Lucy. They had some fundraisers racing for their charity and had brought over a young Kenyan runner (David Kipsang). I spoke to him after the race and learned that he'd been delayed getting to the Half Marathon start line. He started a couple of minutes after everyone else and had to run through a field of 4900 runners, but still managed to finish a strong second! What if...

After spending the rest of Sunday curled up in a ball whimpering, I drove over to my friend Brian's on Monday to watch the Brazilian Grand Prix on the PVR. It was an eventful race with qualifying scrambled as a result of heavy rain. There was no rain on race day, but plenty of incidents. A three-car crash on the first lap nearly led to a trackside fist fight. During the ensuing safety car deployment McLaren's Kovalainen left the pit with the fuel hose still attached and Kimi Raikkonen had to drive through the resulting flames. Fortunately both were able to continue without consequence. Jenson Button managed a fifth-place finish giving him enough points to clinch the 2009 Driver's Championship in spite of starting 14th on the back of a gutsy drive. His teammate Rubens Barrichello was on course for a podium finish before an overaggressive passing move by Lewis Hamilton cut his left rear tire. Nick Heidfeld's BMW sputtered to a halt on lap 28, out of gas. One more race on the calendar; Abu Dhabi on November 1st.

Listening to: Day After Day by Inward Eye from Throwing Bricks Instead of Kisses.

Mars!

OK, it's been "forever" since I posted. I've been wasting my energy again arguing with climate change denialists. This weekend I'll be running on the Toronto Marathon, so that means that I'll owe myself THREE race reports. Ugh.

But today I saw a photo of Mars on the Bad Astronomy website captured by the HiRISE orbiter... Wow. The black tracks are the product of dust devils. It's a wonderful world we live in. Click on the image to read more about it.

Nov. 6th update: The Big Picture, another internet fav over at The Boston Globe, has posted a series of juicy Martian images. Check them out here.

Took an eight year-old to see a preview of Where The Wild Things Are yesterday. Who knew you could make a film about a ten sentence book? Interesting, but personally I preferred District 9...

Listening to: Hell Yes by Beck from Guero.

Details, details

More fascinating photos from Mars as the high resolution camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter comes on-line. Gorgeous stuff.

Follow-up to Wednesday's Provincial election: The Liberals are back in with a second majority, Conservative leader John Tory didn't even win his own seat (which happens to be my riding, Don Valley West). Let's see what happens this time.

I found a copy of the Hotel Chevalier short film "somewhere". Interesting back story for The Darjeeling Limited. Natalie Portman seemed uncomfortable with her nude scene though.

My poor over-worked iPod nano gave up the ghost after my hour of riding in the pouring rain. I've fiddled with it myself and had the guys at iRepair look it over, there was nothing to be done other than replace it at the Apple Store. :-( Still, the new nano is cute and has more capabilities. I bought the (red) one. Sheryl is looking forward to finding it cleaned up and placed under her Christmas tree when my Ironman training is over.

Lastly, but most importantly, my VRETA sofa has arrived from IKEA. Finally a place in which to sleep in front of the TV.

Listening to: 1234 by Feist from The Reminder.

Emerging from my cocoon

It's been hard to find time for blogging lately. My father's wake, moving into my new townhouse, a general flurry of activity and a bit of an emotional dead zone have conspired to keep me away from the keyboard. So here's a ten minute summary of the last few weeks...

Chris returned from camp having ultimately enjoyed himself but missed his "second life" in World of Warcraft. His mother has bought him a MacBook laptop in the belief that this will help him with high school. Jury's out on that one I think. He's been at my place for a few days but has mostly been with his mother since getting back from camp. He returns Monday for his week with me although the house is still mostly heaps of boxes. He's also finished his first week of high school, which seems to have gone well. I'll need to pump him for details tomorrow. While he was with me he had an "introduction" morning to get familiar with his classmates and get the lay of the land and seemed to be comfortable with the prospect of high school.

My half brother Hugh was in town for a week or so staying with my sister. He helped me move in along with Sheryl and my friend Adrian. Hugh, Chris and I spent some time together, watching Ratatouille and spending a day at the CNE. The CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) is Toronto's classic end-of-summer fair. We watched the Canadian International Air Show, which Chris deeply resented, rode the roller coasters and observed piglets and baby goats. Hugh is now visiting my brother in upstate New York but should be passing through town in another week. Maybe I'll have a place for him to stay this time.

What about me? Well I've been busy ignoring the piles of possessions scattered throughout my townhouse. I've also been teaching my Running Room clinic and trying to stay on top of my own training. I've got the crazy idea of going down to Australia for my father's final wake and doing an Ironman triathlon at the same time. It's also Toronto International Film Festival time. This year on top of my usual volunteering I've got a paying job helping operate one of the Festival's box offices. For the last week I've working from as early as 5:30 AM until early afternoon as a Box Office Line Supervisor. In the afternoons I've been a Volunteer Captain at various theatre venues. This will continue for another exhausting week. Didn't help that on Opening Night I went to the Gala party and stayed out until 3:30 AM, leaving just 90 minutes for sleeping before the next day started!

Speaking of the Toronto International Film Festival I've managed to see two films so far, which surprised me given my wild over-commitments; When Did You Last See Your Father? and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Both are excellent films with great performances, camera work and scripts. The first film hit a bit too close to home, dealing with a man coming to terms with the impending death of his father. These films will undoubtedly be released widely, I generally try to get to films at the Festival that are unlikely to show up on North American screens but these happened to fit my free time slots.

Listening to: The Reasons by The Weakerthans from Reconstruction Site.

Sickening...

I went for my longest run this morning, 23K in 2:06, even though I had a bit of a scratchy throat. The run time was a bit slow because I ran into a friend, out for a walk with one of her friends, twice. The second time I slowed to a walking pace for three blocks so we could catch up. My running gloves were soaked with sweat and when I started running again the breeze chilled my fingers almost to the point of frost bite! This photo is the bark of a Plane tree I passed in the Mount Pleasant cemetery on my run. The texture caught my eye.

Well I'm watching the Oscars right now, getting into and out of bed depending on my temperature. I know I'm sick when I wear socks to bed and put ketchup on food. Watching the Oscars also counts a sign of physical malady...

Time to get back to bed, as I'm getting chilly again... Here's a new photo of Mars though, taken by the European space probe Rosetta as it swept past Mars. It's going to get four gravity boosts, one from Mars and three from Earth, to accelerate it fast enough to catch the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. Might as well take some photos along the way!

One last gasp; I see that The Lives of Others has just won for Best Foreign Language Film. I saw it last night, it's a great film, about the brutality of an authoritarian state (East Germany), personal weakness and redemption.

Listening to: Shiver by Natalie Imbruglia from Counting Down The Days.

Oscar Night 2006: The Review

Thumb up, or thumb down? This reviewer liked the loose and slightly political approach that Jon Steward took, especially the fake 'negative ads', but shook his head at the idiotic knocks against watching films at home. "There's no place to see them but a big screen..." Poor Jake Gyllenhaal could barely say it with a straight face. Overall thumb slightly up, if just for the gay-cowboy montage. Those web mashups sure went mainstream in a hurry!

The Oscars got off to a great start from a TV point of view with George Clooney's Supporting Actor acceptance speech. He actually said something! And I agreed with his sentiments... Almost everyone else was a mumbling idiot, and rude as it was by the show producers, they generally deserved the abrupt microphone cut-offs. LeeAundra Temescu has the right idea: win or lose when you have a chance to directly address the world, say something worthwhile. Prepare a freakin' 45 second speech, not a laundry list of agents and producers! Everyone in the biz knows that stuff and the public just sees you kissing butt at the highest possible speed. Not flattering.

Not many surprises otherwise. Crash did better than expected, but they lobbied very hard. Brokeback Mountain did a bit worse. Apparently Reese Witherspoon worked the voters too (she did have a great performance in Walk the Line though). The Original Song win by Three 6 Mafia for their 'crunk' tune It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp was unexpected but I don't know what it means. The nominated songs were generally boring.

Listening to: A Love That Will Never Grow Old by EmmyLou Harris from the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack.