iPad Mania

So yesterday Apple introduced the iPad, their no-so-secret tablet computer. Kind of like an iPod touch with a 10" touchscreen. Nice! Want... Great screen and battery life, really nice interface and apps (plus it runs almost all existing iPhone apps), interesting digital bookstore. Fascinating speedy new Apple chip, the A4. But not gonna jump in. Money's tight. Wouldn't be prudent. Sorry, channeling G. H. W. Bush for a minute there.

A few surprises though; Not "widescreen" format so HD video will have some significant black bars around it, no "regular" phone functionality, no camera(s). Like the iPhone, it doesn't support Flash, which is still regarded as controversial. I'm totally OK with that though, I have Flash disabled in my browser by ClickToFlash unless I specifically want something to load.

Other news: my newest Running Room Marathon Clinic started this week, we have 33 members. Join us! I guess my long runs will have an official distance and then something extra... 10K is not a long run!

Culture: Watched the first episode of Spartacus: Blood and Sand on HBO hoping for more Rome, but it's really more 300. That's not a good thing. Comical special effects, lousy writing... I'll give it another chance though. I have Caprica on the PVR, I'll watch it this weekend. High hopes for this series. I saw the new Sherlock Holmes film last week. Fun to watch and entertaining performances, but again lousy writing.

When I heard the news of the terrible earthquake in Haiti a few weeks ago, I knew it was going to be like the earthquake in Bam, Iran or the tsunami in Sumatra. The Haitian death toll is approaching 200,000. It couldn't have struck a more unprepared or fragile population... I encourage people to donate to non-religious disaster relief organisations such as the Red Cross, Care, or UNICEF.

Listening to: My City of Ruins (Benefiting Artists for Peace and Justice Haiti Relief) [Live from the Kennedy Center Honors] by Eddie Vedder from My City of Ruins (Benefiting Artists for Peace and Justice Haiti Relief).

Just under the wire...

What wire, you ask? The surely-not-a-month-between-posts wire... Between working flat-out at the law office and teenage disputes with my son I've had hardly any energy for blogging. A bit of facebook and flickr juice, but not much there either... But there's been plenty to talk about. Maybe it's best to work backwards.

Place	Time	Cat.	Swim (750m) Cat Ovr Time /100m	T1	Bike (30K) Cat Ovr Time km/hr	T2	Run (7.5K) Cat Ovr Time /km
110	1:48:17	M45-49, 12/67	5 69 12:49 1:43	3:03	19 133 56:03 32.1	1:30	15 143 34:53 4:39

Yesterday I had my first triathlon of the season, the Milton Sprint Triathlon. It was a cool and sunny day, but quite gusty. Everyone was chilly before the start, but the water proved to be tolerable (in a wetsuit). I'd assumed that conditions would be warmer so I bought yet another pair of arm-warmers as insurance. They were good to have on the bike, but I never felt cold at all. Lots of my teammates from the Toronto Triathlon Club were on hand, so we helped each other out and kept each other relaxed while waiting for our starting time.

The swim was a bit slow,12:49, because the lake was choppy and my left goggle was flooded for the whole swim. I was also protecting my right shoulder a bit because of an ongoing rotator cuff injury. I stayed to the outside for most of the swim which kept me out of the traffic until the last 200m. Starting in the fifth wave I had to swim through most of the two waves ahead of me! Transition was painfully slow, I fought for "hours" with my shoes and socks and then with the simple act of pulling on my arm-warmers.

The bike went well, 56:03, even though the wind was a frequent problem. Just as I crested the notorious Sixth Line hill I caught a particularly cruel blast. I had got off to a fast start on the bike but lost those gains almost right away as my new race belt came undone. I had to circle back to retrieve it and knot it around my waist. In hindsight it was a pretty funny moment; my race number lay there in the middle of the course with a veritable stampede of approaching riders behind it! I waved my hands wildly to signal that I needed to edge into their path and managed to retrieve it but I lost a couple of minutes and was probably re-passed by 50-75 bikes. Once I was up past Sixth Line hill I set to work. On the return leg Sixth Line hill was my friend. I topped 80 kph going down! Exhilarating. I felt so good getting back to transition that I didn't pay attention to the dismount line and had to backtrack a bit. :-)

The run was steady on trails, 34:53, although the wind was even a factor there. I had also forgotten how hilly the run course was! So overall a bit sloppy and unprepared, but great fun and that's what I was looking for.

My parents dropped in that afternoon on their way home from a friend's memorial service. We don't get together too often so it was nice to catch up and drag my son away from his Xbox for a while. Summer plans were discussed briefly, and a promise was made (by me) to get a medical check-up with a particular reference to daytime sleepiness. (Is it narcolepsy or cancer? Or just a mellow personality.)

Films: on Saturday I decided to stay home and ride indoors, which I generally hate to do. I wanted a sleep-in, and maybe to have some time with my son. That didn't pan out, he took his MacBook into his room for the three hour duration of my workout... We've had some tough times lately. I watched a couple of On-Demand films while riding in the living room. The Bucket List: Decent performance by Morgan Freeman, but I didn't care much for the script or Jack Nicholson. The next film was even worse: Shoot 'Em Up. Fun seeing the Toronto locations, but what a stupid film! Yeah, I know all about "graphic novel" sensibilities. The only reason I stuck them out was because I was desperate for distraction. The films were particularly hard to swallow after having seen Up last weekend. The early montage of the character Carl's life was blatant exposition that left some of the kids in my audience restless but it was also a rare moment of heart-felt cinematic reflection. They could have turned on the lights right then and I would have left satisfied. As always with Pixar, the art direction, script and voice work were outstanding, this time blending a more classical "cartoon" look and a bit of a claymation feel.

My first marathon clinic came to a close at the end of May with 15 of my students running the Ottawa Marathon. A wide range of times, some surprising results, and a few people sidelined by injuries... I wish I could have been there to cheer but I had a training weekend in Blue Mountain already booked with my triathlon club (great weather, great workouts) and I have to watch my racing in the lead up to Ironman USA this July. We gathered last week after the first session of the next Marathon Clinic for a celebration dinner. About a dozen more of them had run in the Mississauga Marathon a few weeks earlier. They were a good group, and a bunch of them are returning to prepare for a fall marathon.

Formula One: I think there have been two races since my last post, Spain and Monaco. Brawn Racing is continuing to dominate with two more wins by Jenson Button and Red Bull is a solid second, but it looks like Ferrari are back in the game with Kimi Raikkonen on the podium once more and Toyota starting to fade back. Last year's champions McLaren are still struggling to adapt to the new regulations. Monaco was an interesting race to watch this year, tire problems made handling unpredictable and also my friend Brian had recently taken his family there as part of a Mediterranean cruise and had walked parts of the race course. Neat to hear how the streets are used normally!

Oh yeah, I've done a couple of more little TV spots! One for a drink that contains glucosamine for sore joints and another for Polydent. Eeek! Am I old?

Listening to: Maybe Tomorrow by Stereophonics from You Gotta Go There to Come Back.

Nose to the grindstone

In my last post I mentioned a new job. For the last six weeks I've been working in a friend's law office helping with their municipal tax appeal business. It's been a pretty hectic time as I came on-board just a few days before the deadline for requesting an appeal of the 2009 property valuations. The phones were ringing off the hook and I was learning the business on the fly! I did quite well though. Now we are just as busy entering data, a lot of data, and preparing for the actual appeals. It's going to take months, which means lots of paid work but also lots of repetition.

Today I got out of town with my triathlon club for a group ride. Excellent weather and good company for 60K. It was wonderful to feel the wind on my face and the road under my wheels. My next Ironman is less than three months away, it's kind of snuck up on me. I've got to get serious about my training! This is tempered by a need to restrict my swim training as I've managed to hurt my right shoulder rotator cuff. Tomorrow morning I'm taking my Marathon Clinic on a 33K long run, the final significant run before they head off for the Ottawa Marathon on May 24th. Last Sunday's 29K run went better than I expected, a comfortable pace that brought me home in 2:30.

Recent films: The Wrestler on DVD. An interesting character study, but the conclusion felt a bit forced. Mickey Rourke gave a great come-back performance as Randy "The Ram" Robinson. Marissa Tomei's performance as the stripper Cassidy was brave as she spend a substantial chunk of screen time topless. I saw Safina Uberoi's documentary A Good Man at the Hot Docs film festival last night. The film is about a struggling Australian sheep farmer with a quadriplegic wife (he married her that way) who builds a brothel... You couldn't make that kind of thing up, could you? It was well made, but at times I was just shaking my head at the what they were going through. Perhaps an Australian farmer is the only kind of person on earth so inured to hard work and disaster that they'd be able to step up to a task like that.

Last weekend's sparsely-attended Bahrain Grand Prix did not feature rain. It was hot, hot, hot and looked like a set from the first Star Wars movie... Most of the action was in the first few laps and the rest of the race revolved around tires and pit stops. In the end Jenson Button of Brawn GP was back on top for his third victory in four races. Sebastien Vettel's Red Bull car was unable to challenge because of traffic in the early part of the race but did hold off Jarno Trulli's Toyota. Lewis Hamilton kept McLaren respectable by finishing fourth while Kimi Raikkonen earned Ferrari's first points of the season with a sixth place finish. Next stop, Barcelona.

Final thought: Is this Swine Flu thing really just another regular flu or a real new health risk? "Regular" flu kills about 500,000 people a year, but they're mostly health-compromised already.

Listening to: Don't Let Me Fall by Lenka from Lenka.

What I did on my "winter vacation"

Wow, has it really been a month since I posted here? Funny that the last post should be a report from a winter half marathon and this post is the night before another race (the Around the Bay 30K race in Hamilton). I'm fighting a pretty bad head cold, so I'm not sure if I'll "race" or just "run"...

I've been writing during this intermission but mostly arguing with smug global warming denialists on a "scientific" web site. It's amazing how they can keep bringing up the same discredited arguments and flawed logic and think that they're clever. Every now and then I go through a phase of feeling obligated to point out their incorrect facts and falsehoods but as George Bernard Shaw advised, "never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

So what else is happening? I've seen a few films. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - an interesting film but left me a bit flat. Watchmen - good special effects and an interesting premise of "superheroes" as deeply flawed vigilantes. But poorly executed and I could have done with less time spent with a large glowing blue penis waving in my face...

Last weekend I was on set for three days straight, often pretending to read a prop book. Given the time I was facing I decided to read the damn thing cover to cover. Train by Pete Dexter. It was a quick read, luckily. Train is a "film noir" novel set in 1950's L.A., mainly about a black boy with a gift for golf. A bit racially stereotyped, but it kept me going.

This evening it Melbourne Australia will be the first race of the 2009 Formula One season. Big changes to the rules are in place and team financing is in turmoil because of the economic downturn. The rule changes, aimed at increasing the chances to overtake, are as follows: electrical energy boost allowed for six seconds per lap, slick tires again, restricted aerodynamic parts to reduce turbulence for following cars, two adjustments to the front wing allowed per lap. Other changes are aimed at reducing the cost of racing, they might show up as lower reliability or less chances to improve the car during the season. At the end of qualifying in Melbourne, Brawn GP Racing, a team cobbled together after Honda abruptly pulled out of F1 a few months ago, is going to have both their cars in the front row so this may be an interesting season!

Listening to: Wherefore And Why by Gordon Lightfoot from Gord's Gold.

Danny Kassap

Back in September Danny Kassap, a friend of mine who is a world-class 2:14 marathoner, collapsed from a ventricular fibrillation at around the 5K mark of the Berlin Marathon. He was in a medical coma for two days after his collapse, his life saved by a spectator who performed CPR. Danny's collapse was triggered by a cold virus that had lodged in his heart muscles, a freak occurrence that has probably not caused any long term weakness.

His story was the topic of this past weekend's broadcast of The Inside Track on CBC Radio One. You can download it here. He's hoping to return to training soon, still targeting the 2012 Olympics.

Danny faced medical expenses from his treatment in Germany that for him were crippling, but local runners rallied to help cover his costs. Always pay for travel health insurance!

Update: Yeah, I watched the Oscars on Sunday night... I got a laugh out of Ben Stiller's impression of Joaquin Phoenix's new dazed rapping "Unabomber" persona. Hugh Jackman did a good job hosting and the first "low budget" dance number was fun, but then it reverted to the conventional "big" style. It was great to see Slumdog Millionaire do so well. Having a group of past winners on stage introducing the acting nominees was an interesting decision, but it ended up being too fawning.

Spoiler alert! Speaking of films, in recent weeks I saw both Slumdog Millionaire and The Reader. Both were enjoyable stories with great performances and style. I'd been wanting to see Slumdog Millionaire ever since it got so much buzz at the Toronto International Film Festival last September and finally saw it at a friend's place on a dubious quality pirated DVD. It really captured the daily struggles of life in the Mumbai slums, and the romantic story line was compelling. The Reader was mainly enjoyable for the actor's performances; Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz, David Kross as the young Michael Berg and Ralph Fiennes as the adult Michael. I have to say the pivotal plot twist of her accepting jail for a war crime that she wasn't particularly responsible for rather than reveal her illiteracy was a bit unbelievable.

Listening to: Save Tonight by Eagle-Eye Cherry from Desireless.

News "Flash"

In my morning internet peregrinations I came across a review of a free Flash game called Auditorium. Take Flash, particle physics and music samples and stir intelligently... The result is a very appealing online puzzle/game. I think their web connection has been "slashdotted" since I visited this morning though. They need to host the game somewhere upstream of their office's internet connection! It would be really cool on the iPhone's touchscreen, but the iPhone is a Flash no-go zone...

Last night I went out with some friends to see the new Baz Luhrmann epic Australia. I'm a bit ambivalent about this one; it was nearly three hours long, ended at least three times and is the first film I've been to that required two "bio breaks". (Note to self: a 10 liter cola is not helpful when watching epic films.) The plot verged on nonsensical and the acting was generally way over the top. The special effects were painfully obvious. BUT... the star was really the Australian landscape, which was beautifully captured and little Brandon Walter's performance as a "creamy" half white-half aboriginal boy was fabulous. Writing this crystallises my thoughts: I have to vote Australia off the island. If you want to see the subject of historical Australian prejudice against half-white children dramatically presented rent the film Rabbit-Proof Fence.

Politics: Stephen Harper is so freaked out due suddenly realising that a minority government has to get support from other parties, who have a constitutional right to propose an alternative government that doesn't include him, that he is going to address the nation tonight. This should be interesting.

Listening to: Hate to Say I Told You So by The Hives from Veni Vidi Vicious.

Black Friday

No posts in a while... Maybe, like my triathlon training, I'm taking a bit of breather? But now it's time to ramp up again because in 2009 I'm determined to hit the starting line of Ironman USA this coming July in excellent condition and in a competitive state of mind.

So today is "Black Friday", the day after American Thanksgiving when all the retailers turn their focus exclusively toward Christmas. Big one-to-three day discounts on electronic goods are the order of the day to stimulate consumer enthusiasm. There's always some desirable item at a crazy low price but only for a very limited quantity. Crowds form waiting for those retailers to open and the pour through the door in a frenzy creating excellent news coverage and "mind space" of who has the best Christmas pricing. Well this year a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by the stampede. But someone got a fantastic deal on a 42" flat panel TV, so its all good.

Politics: In the U.S. Barack Obama is acting as de facto President while George W. Bush wanders aimlessly toward the end of his term, effectively fiddling while Rome burns as the monumental economic crisis largely produced by his policies devastates the U.S. economy. Luckily "President Elect" Obama seems to be hitting all the right notes as he selects his cabinet. George seems to be focussed on all the brush that needs clearing back at his ranch in Crawford, TX. The right-wing bloggers are however reading everything that happens as proof that Obama's Presidency is already a failure. Good luck with that one!

Here in Canada the newly re-elected Conservative government is trying to slip a bunch of ideological and partisan measures into an economic stimulus package promoted as helping the Canadian economy cope with the expanding world-wide financial crisis. Effectively Harper is daring the Opposition to bring the brand new government down over it. However the stimulus package looks weakly designed and ill-conceived and this maneuver may backfire, perhaps resulting in an embarrassing retreat or as an abrupt end to Harper's government. It should be an interesting few days.

Culture: The Art Gallery of Ontario has just re-opened after years of reconstruction. I'm aching to get a look inside, it's architectural makeover is getting great reviews. I've seen a few films lately, Clint Eastwood's new film Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie, was pretty good. Jolie's performance was great but the last third of the story, an amazing true story about the disappearance of a boy in the 1920's and the LAPD's cynical response, seemed a bit disjointed. Before that I saw Rachel Getting Married. Also a good performance by the female lead, Anne Hathaway as a recovering junkie/bridesmaid, but I found the whole wedding scenario irritatingly chaotic. So no thumbs up. Too bad, I usually enjoy Jonathan Demme films.

On the home front, I've survived a one year-old's birthday party (dim sum buffet with Sheryl's friends, family and "out-laws") and an eight year-old's birthday (boys running amok in a party room). Yesterday Chris' mom and I had a round of parent-teacher interviews to discuss his interim report card, which was predictably lousy. His highest mark was a 77 (still below that classes average), his lowest mark was 10. 10! Ten!! X!!! Consensus is "smart kid who won't do his work or pay attention in class". Welcome to each of the last ten years of Chris' school career... So once again the hammer will come down on distractions: Xbox 360, TV time, mindless web surfing. Those are my areas of expertise, not his. :-) He actually seems to be OK with this, perhaps he was waiting for some external feedback to let him know he'd gone overboard.

Two other bits news: I've been elected Vice President of the Toronto Triathlon Club, and have passed at least part of the web master duties over to a new volunteer. Also, the music video shoot I was recently in seems to be getting ready for release. There's an official "behind the scenes" clip out on YouTube, although sadly there is no footage of the supporting cast...

Listening to: Being Here by The Stills from Oceans Will Rise.

Advice to the Film Lover

So I've been working at the Toronto International Film Festival's Festival Box Office beside Dundas Square for ten days now, starting generally at 6:00 AM. I did the same thing last year. Things are starting to settle down at last, and today was quite easy. Here is some insider's knowledge for ticket buyers...

Advance Ticket Packages: Great idea; saves money and gives you (almost) first shot at available tickets through the lottery process. Every year though there are long lineups of frustrated people. They line up to get their selection form, they line up a few days later to drop off their completed selection form and a third time to pick up their allocated tickets. It's a great chance for me to get to know everyone, chit-chat, etc. Here is the way to do it without sacrificing six to ten hours of your life. Sadly we'll only have a short chance to get to know each other this way:

• Don't wait for your selection form to decide on your choices. Use the TIFF web site to make your choices before you even come down to the Box Office the first time. Fill out the form on the spot and give it back to us.
• When you fill out the contact information do it very carefully. If we can't correctly read your e-mail address you won't get a helpful e-mail later telling you which of your selected films you were able to get tickets for. You'll be in the dark until you pick up your physical tickets.
  
• Remember that you don't have to select all your films up front. You'll get vouchers for any remaining choices that are easy to use during the Festival. Leave a few vouchers for hot tip films.
  
• Don't come down the first day with all the OCD types to spend a half day trudging toward the front of the line. Wait a day or two for the crowds to subside. It's a lottery. Your selection form goes into one of a number of cartons. This year there were 68 cartons and the randomly selected starting carton was the ninth one. This means that this year the first people to drop off their selections were actually among the last to have their choices processed.
• Mid-morning and mid-afternoon are generally quieter times of day at the Box Office.
  

Donor Ticket Packages: Same as above, but your selections get processed before the above 68 cartons. The donation threshold for access to this early access dropped this year to $250. If you really, really, really want to get your exact film selections this is an option worth considering.

Pre-Festival Single Ticket Sales: A few days before the Festival begins individual tickets go on sale. Once more it will be all about crazy long lines and frustrated people. Trust the Festival's programmers. The "big" films will be in "big" theatres. You don't need to be first in line to get tickets to a particular screening, wait a day or so!

In-Festival Single Ticket Sales: The Box Office will open at 7:00 AM, but the line ups to buy tickets or convert vouchers will start several hours before.

• After the first few days the Box Office will often be pretty quiet and the 7:00 AM die hards will likely be processed in the first ten minutes. Sleep accordingly.
• Try buying your tickets online or by phone and picking them up at the theatre on the day of your first screening.
• Screenings can swing from "on sale" to "off sale" and back again as allocations change. Don't give up and check as early as possible on the day of screening, when ticket allocations are most likely to be released.
  
• Rushing a screening is often a successful way to see a film, even if it's sold out. Knowing how soon to join the rush line is a black art, but two hours is probably a sensible outer limit.
  

Hope this helps someone next year!

Yesterday I was able to get some Festival tickets for Sheryl, Tamara and myself for the new period piece The Duchess, a film about Princess Diana's equally scandalous 18th century ancestor the Duchess of Devonshire, starring Keira Knightley. Well produced, but I found Keira's performance a bit forced and the plot, "woman trapped in a loveless marriage", lacking in nuance. Great sets and locations though!

Today I rushed More Than a Game, the documentary about the grade school basketball team that included Lebron James. Loved it, recommend it. The director made interesting "dimensional" use of photographs to flesh out the footage he got from the early days. A great tale of talented boys learning to be men, nearly undermined by LeBron's seduction by celebrity.

Listening to: I'm In Love With The System by Forgotten Rebels from In Love With The System.

A Boy and his Bike (redux)

Last year during the Toronto International Film Festival my street bike was stolen. A week ago the Toronto Police made a big bust, uncovering a stash of over 3,000 stolen bikes at a local "bike dealer". That's a mind-boggling number of bicycles. Seems more like a compulsion rather than a business, unless the goal was to help keep crack heads in ready money.

The police decided to set up a massive temporary "come and get your bike" depot, with fairly lenient proof requirements, so I headed down this afternoon to see if I could find my poor old Trek 800. No luck, but I did snap this iPhone photo of just a fraction of the bikes the police were trying to return.

Speaking of TIFF, I'll be on staff as a Box Office Line Supervisor again this year. I'll cut back the volunteer side this time though so I can actually see a few films...

And speaking of film, last night Sheryl and I took in the new version of Brideshead Revisited on the spur of the moment. There was an outstanding TV mini-series version back in the eighties. This much shorter film version stands up, although the homosexual subtext rises to the surface a bit too bluntly and plenty of other nuances are lost. Ben Whishaw as Sebastian Flyte and Michael Gambon and Emma Thompson as Lord and Lady Marchmain really stood out. Nothing like a tale of declining aristocrats and manipulative Catholic mothers!

Listening to: Precious (Michael Mayer Balearic Mix) by Depeche Mode from Precious (Remixes).

On the road again

So... two weeks of massive activity and nothing to show for it on the old blog. Catchup time again!

I spent a week on the road, dragging Chris and Sheryl along, beginning a on the 18th. We drove to Lake Placid to watch Ironman USA. I also wanted to ride on the course and sign up for the 2009 race. Poor Sheryl and Chris spent most of the weekend hanging around the country inn I found for us to stay in. I had a great ride on Saturday with a dozen team mates on the Ironman USA course. It was a good workout and gave me confidence about the hills I'll be facing in Ironman Canada in four weeks.

Race day was terrible though! Torrential cold rain almost all day, with the racers unprepared for the conditions. Most of the spectators (i.e. me) were similarly unprepared. I had to abandon the sidelines a few times to warm up and buy dry clothes. Because of road closures I was effectively trapped in Lake Placid while Sheryl and Chris, and the car, were back at the inn. It was inspiring and affecting watching the racers cope with the weather, especially all my friends. I shouted encouragement to one and all and nearly wore out my cowbell. Not many pictures from the day though, as I was worried about damaging my camera. I kept running into Tara Norton, a top ranked Canadian pro athlete on the sidelines. After the race she put me in touch with a friend with a spare room in Penticton, so now I know where I'll be staying during Ironman Canada.

Although the race was still underway most of the roads were re-opened in the early evening. Sheryl and Chris came into town and we had a nice warm restaurant meal, watched The Dark Knight at the local Bijoux and then headed back to the course to watch some of the last few racers reach the finish line. Mini-review of The Dark Knight: interesting final performance from Heath Ledger, everything else about it was crap.

Monday was when the enticing part of the trip began for Sheryl and Chris. We drove into New York City, stopping briefly at my brother's house near Woodstock to drop off my bicycle. We spent three nights in Brooklyn at the funky new Nu Hotel. Lots of shopping, gallery visits, and general tourism. We visited, as I always do, my brother's old neighbourhood of Brooklyn Heights and the Brooklyn Pier. Subways were ridden, tour boats were traveled upon, streets were walked. We even took a bicycle cab one evening. Sheryl loved the shopping and exploring the Meatpacking District, I loved the ambience and MoMA, Chris loved the food and the NBC Studio tour. Chris hated the shopping (although he seems pleased with the summer shirt I bought him) and hated the MoMA (hardly anything's modern or art!). Incidentally, the MoMA has a great web site for iPhone users that gave commentary as we wandered the galleries!

The big buy of the trip was the Garmin GPS I picked up toward the end. I was getting sick of losing my way... It worked great and Sheryl bought herself one the next day.

Heading back toward home we stopped overnight at my brother's house to visit his family. Nice to see Maya and their girls looking well. Sadly my brother was in Mexico an assignment for Rolling Stone. Maya blew us away, as she always does, with her gourmet Indian cooking.

Since getting home I've been training like mad trying to make up for the lost week. On Saturday I rode 140K solo, on Sunday I put in a 24K run. My calves are sore as hell now! I've been massaging them with my "Stick" which has helped quite a bit, but I have a physio session scheduled for Friday morning. I spent an evening watching my recording of the German Grand Prix and rubbing my calves. An interesting race, with Lewis Hamilton setting a pace that Ferrari weren't able to match. A big shunt by Timo Glock's Toyota (see photo on the right, he was fine) bunched everyone up and Lewis had to overcome a bit of poor team strategy to win. He's back in the lead of the driver's championship now. Neither Kimi or Massa were very competitive this weekend, Ferrari has some ground to regain.

Listening to: One Horse Town by The Rembrandts from untitled.

What a Day That Was

I raced in the second running of the "Nissan Ten Miler" this morning. Not a politically correct distance in metric days, but there you go. Call it the "Sixteen K'er". Yesterday I cycled 120K with a friend, this morning I cycled 7K down to the race (and then back again). So the legs were well warmed up (make that worn out). It rained a bit as I traveled down and the forecast suggested that we might have thundershowers at the start time. In the end it was merely overcast and a bit windy. However it was pretty humid, so it was a hot run. Yesterday was crazy humid, on my long ride my friend and I had to give up on our sunglasses because of the heavy fogging.

The 21K run I did last weekend in Peterborough as the final leg of my Half Ironman had been a lot slower than I'm capable of, so I had something to prove to myself. That run had been at a pace of 5:20 per K while I normally train at a pace of around 4:45 per K. Well today I dug in and managed a pace of 4:19 per K! I'm quite pleased with myself. My heart rate averaged 163 and peaked at 183, which translates as an average of 87% and a peak of 98%. The peak was achieved during the finish line sprint...

Here are the numbers: 1:09:11.6 final time at a pace of 4:19/K. 97/778 overall men, 13/107 in the M45 - 49 category. A pretty even gun time split of 34:07 out and 35:17 back. I'll stick a few photos in here when they are online.

My training plan called for a three hour run today so I'm almost two hours short, but that's racing. I'd prefer to see my plan specify distances instead of time, a three hour run is getting close to a full marathon distance for me, which isn't something to recover from in a day. For me a two hour run is probably more useful at this point. Maybe I need a "higher performance" training schedule.

Hancock. A story of love and redemption. Make that a story of redemption and then love. Chris and I saw this film last night. Some good moments, primarily in the first half, but it took an interesting concept (underachieving sarcastic superhero) and squeezed the life out of it. It seems to be doing well enough at the box office though. Will Smith was good, Jason Bateman was great, but Charlize Theron couldn't overcome her unrealistic character.

Listening to: What a Day That Was by Talking Heads from Stop Making Sense.

D's. Whoo hoo!

So my son's Grade 9 exams are over and he has his "preliminary final" marks for all his courses. He went into exams with five failing subjects out of seven, but he managed to pull himself together enough to get to a passing grade in all of them! Who knew I'd be celebrating my gifted-program son not failing? Well there you go.

In other news, I finally watched the Canadian Grand Prix on Monday, eight days after the race. I'd managed to remain completely ignorant of the result until the following Saturday when a friend let some details slip before I could plug my ears. What an interesting race! Drivers complaining about the track surface, last minute track repairs, spin outs galore and race-changing drivers errors...

Lewis Hamilton (McLaren), Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) and Robert Kubica (BMW) were duking it out with Lewis having a reasonable gap at the front, but crashes that brought out the safety car bunched them back up. They all pitted together but Kimi and Kubica, who had quicker pit stops, were lined up at the pit lane exit waiting for a stoplight to let them back onto the track. Lewis Hamilton didn't notice them and plowed into the back of Kimi, ending both of their races. Kubica avoided damage and went on to win his and BMW's first race. His teammate Nick Heidfeld was second, making for a perfect race for BMW, while David Coulthard made an appearance on the podium for Red Bull. There were some great passing moves, particularly by Felipe Massa, through out the field. That's the upside of an unpredictably slippery track. Kubica is now narrowly in the lead of the driver's championship, with Lewis Hamilton, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen close behind. Its great to have such a competitive season.

This week was another Ontario Tourism photo shoot, this time with "my wife" and another couple. We spent three days "shopping", dining, wine tasting and playing golf, all for the camera, down in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Ironically Sheryl and I were there just a month ago, but we weren't paid for doing it. I didn't know who else had been cast, but my "wife" turned out to be the same woman from the last shoot and the other wife was a friend from The Shopping Channel.

Turning to my crazy "nine weeks to Ironman Canada" training program, this morning I rode out of the city at 7:00 AM for a three and a half hour ride, where I encountered all kinds of triathlon club teammates out for their rides. This was followed immediately by a 48 minute "brick" run and then a long nap...

Earlier this evening Chris and I went with Sheryl to see Mike Meyers' new comedy The Love Guru. A friend of Sheryl's was on the production team and there were tonnes of Toronto locations. A paper-thin plot with lots of crude juvenile humour, but a few guilty chuckles. Not much more to say about it...

Listening to: Return to Innocence by Enigma from Love Sensuality Devotion: The Greatest Hits.

The Workout That Wasn't

Last Saturday I had planned to join my triathlon club for a long ride in Milton and then travel onward with Sheryl to Niagara-on-the-Lake for a weekend away. Trouble was that when I got up on Saturday I was still feeling lousy from this extended (two damn weeks!) cold I've been battling, and there was dismal weather predicted. So the ride was reluctantly dropped from the agenda and we settled for two days of wine tasting and dining. When I remember to get my camera out of the car I'll post some photos on Flickr.

We stayed at Heather Croft, a heritage farm house operating as a B&B a few clicks outside of Niagara-on-the-Lake. We visited a couple of wineries, Vineland and Cave Springs, on our way there, dodging rain storms as we went. Sheryl's dog Barkley came along as we couldn't arrange a dog sitter, he got to see a lot of the inside of the car with interspersed gallops around various parks. Sunday was damp and cold, so we drove into Niagara-on-the-Lake and along the Niagara Parkway. "NotL" is a pretty little town, but completely tourism-oriented. Not an authentic experience! The Niagara River had some interesting views though and we stopped for an expensive-but-mediocre buffet lunch atop the Queenston Heights. We drove back to the Cave Springs winery for dinner at the Inn on the Twenty, which was fabulous. On the way there we happened to cross the Welland Canal as a lake freighter was leaving the lock. The nerd in me couldn't help stopping to watch the whole process. We almost missed our dinner reservation, and almost ran out of gas, but it all worked out.

Monday was back-to-the-city day, but we visited the recreated Fort George before starting back and stopped for tastings at Inniskillin, Jackson Triggs and Hillebrand wineries. Didn't like what we tasted at Hillebrand, but we did have a great lunch there before hitting the highway. Fort George was an eye-opener for Sheryl, showing the harshness of life in the early 1800's and some details of the War of 1812.

Back in Toronto I picked up Chris. He was aching to see Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. I very reluctantly agreed to go. My god, what a skin-crawlingly awful film! Stupid, stupid, stupid, with puerile nudity. I am so mad at myself for letting Chris talk me into seeing it.

Listening to: Time to Pretend by MGMT from Oracular Spectacular.

Where did I go?

Where did I go? To bed. I've been battle a nasty head cold and a bad cough for two weeks now! Yike. This photo is from a recent long run, which I've been trying to keep up in spite of my general illness. Now let's see if I can remember what's happened since my last post.

Sheryl's back from Australia with many entertaining anecdotes to impart, perhaps not so entertaining from her perspective... Overall she had a great trip, with lots of relations visited, her new granddaughter presented, and time spent with her daughter living in Sydney.

There have been two Formula One races, Spain and Turkey. In Spain the Ferrari's were one-two followed by Lewis Hamilton's McLaren. Hamilton's team mate Heikki Kovalainen had a massive high-speed crash that buried his car underneath the crash barrier, but he proved to be unharmed other than a minor concussion. In Turkey Massa's Ferrari triumphed, while Lewis Hamilton managed to stay just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. Istanbul Park is a great track for overtaking, which made for a lot of great battles throughout the pack. A fun race.

Last weekend Chris and I went to see the new Hollywood blockbuster Iron Man. Kind of fun actually, which is a relief as these comic book properties can be terribly mishandled. I enjoyed Robert Downey Jr.'s performance a lot and the effects were excellent. Never mind that there's no way that funky metal suit could hold enough fuel to go more than ten meters...

Speaking of fantasy, I've finally come 'round on the Sci Fi TV series Battlestar Galactica. I wrote it off when it arrived, remembering the seventies version and linking "BSG" in my mind with the goofy Babylon Five series. But a friend's wife finally convinced me to give it a try, and I've used my recent downtime to watch the first two seasons almost back to back (thank you BitTorrent). Great writing, great performances. The effects are generally good, but I hate noisy space explosions and jet fighter-style spacecraft maneuvering. That part I just have to suck up. Lots of relevance to a post-9/11 Iraq War world too... I wonder if I'll catch up before the fourth and final season finishes.

So I'll close off, still hacking away, but planning a big cycling workout tomorrow followed by an overnight trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake with Sheryl.

Listening to: Again and Again by The Bird and the Bee from The Bird and the Bee. Check out the great viral Mac-lover's video for it on YouTube.

Kiss me, I'm not Irish!

St. Patrick's Day is upon us, and I invariably do my best to ignore the whole faux Celtic mess. But this year, because I've been teaching a 5K running clinic, I'll be down at the Steam Whistle Brewery with my students racing in the Achilles St. Patrick's Day 5K Run. There's a post-race beer and bowl of "Irish Chili" for all the runners, with an expected temperature of just above freezing I think the chili will be the preferred recovery technique.

I just got a mad idea; I'm going to ride down to the race on my street bike! It will be about 12K each way. I've been reading Simon Whitfield's blog, SQWRACING, and he's posted a lot of bike training video footage that has me aching to feel some pavement under my wheels again.

Here's a photo from my iPhone: On Thursday I helped a makeup student friend out by being the subject for her makeup effects exam. The final "look" was a vagrant after a fight... I kept the makeup on afterward so I could surprise my son, and didn't end up removing it until my 5K clinic so they could get a laugh too. Click on it to see it larger!

Earlier this evening Chris and I met up with Sheryl and her grandson. We had a nice quick dinner at Spring Rolls and then headed over to the movie-plex to see Horton Hears a Who!. Only problem was that little Oliver got a rare stomachache and really wanted to get back to his Mum. That left Chris and I with pre-paid tickets to a kid's movie... We sheepishly took our seats and sat through some imaginative animation and flashes of clever dialog, but sometimes a good little story just can't be stretched to feature length. Of course Oliver's stomach returned to normal about ten minutes later, while Sheryl was driving him home. "Can we go back to see the movie with Chris and Ben?"

In a few minutes the first Formula One race of the 2008 season will begin down in Melbourne Australia. Brian and I are taping it, we'll watch it together after dinner Sunday night. No spoiler e-mails please! Looks like another McLaren/Ferrari season with BMW lurking in the shadows. Last year's rookie sensation, Lewis Hamilton, is on the pole for this race. Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 champion, had a mechanical problem in qualifying and will be starting 16th. This season will have a night race in Singapore, and traction control has been eliminated. This promises to produce some hairy starts...

Listening to: Will It Go Round in Circles by Billy Preston from Ultimate Collection.

Culture Update

So I have survived the blizzard(s) of March 2008. We got two big snow falls within a few days of each other, but it looks like a $20,000,000 snow removal operation will not be required as was the case last month. This poor Hummer was entombed during last month's snow falls.

I finally saw the great new Coen Brothers film No Country for Old Men last weekend. I had wanted to catch it at the Toronto International Film Festival, but never got a chance. It reminded me of their first film, Blood Simple. Nothing wrong with that... Both films revolve around two hard-bitten characters on a bloody and remorseless collision course. Bit of a bigger budget this time 'round though. I also saw The Counterfeiters, a nuanced Holocaust film based on the true story of Jewish artisans forced to carry out a Nazi counterfeiting scheme.

I've finally got around (ironically enough) to starting a book my mother loaned me called Oblomov. It's a classic of 19th-century Russian literature about "a really lazy guy." I'm enjoying it, but I think Mum's trying - very subtly - to tell me something, which adds an irritating layer to the experience...

I was back at Absolute Endurance with my Running Room 5K Clinic a while ago for a gait analysis session. Taking my turn on the pressure pad I discovered that I've been wearing the wrong shoes for two years! Not that I was complaining. Turns out I don't need "stability" shoes, I need "cushioning" shoes. My feet don't wobble, but they hit hard. Really hard. So I've got a new pair of Mizuno "Creation" shoes to get used to now, with only a few weeks to go before my first race of the season, 30K in Hamilton.

Listening to: Every Day Is Exactly The Same by Nine Inch Nails from Every Day Is Exactly The Same (Remixes).

Up the Yangtze

I saw the new documentary Up the Yangtze this evening. When my friend Adrian suggested we go see it my first thought was of the Monty Python record album sketch of a made-up football supporter's song praising the river - "Szechuan is the province, Shanghai's the port. Yangtze is the river that we all support!" In the end Adrian couldn't come so Sheryl and I went without him on the opening night.

What a great film! The director Yung Chang found the perfect family to focus on, peasants scraping out a living in the shadow of the Three Gorges dam, with the water rising inexorably around their shack and their daughter being sent to work on the cruise ships that run up and down the river. Following them showed the human reality of this massive civil engineering project. To me it was the story of China's headlong rush "into the future", with tradition and humanity discarded without a backward glance... Yung managed to capture some very vulnerable moments as his subject family was forced to make desperate choices. The film's web site is uptheyangtze.com. Yung was in the audience for our screening and gave us an update on his subject's lives since filming was completed.

Update: The director's parents used to be my parent's neighbours! My parents came back from a Yangtze cruise about 12 years ago and urged them to take their Canadian born and raised sons to see China. The rest is history...

I suppose I have to be honest and report a personal tragedy. I managed to upgrade my iPhone too enthusiastically and it's now non-functional because of conflicts with the hacks that enabled me to use it in Canada. I'm kicking myself, and have fallen back to my Motorola Razr that doesn't dial 9. There'll be a way forward again in a few weeks...

Open the Floodgates!

Boy it's been hard to get back into blogging... I enjoy it, but it takes so much time. I've spent the last week battle a stomach bug that has kept me very close to the toilet, so I suppose I've actually closed the floodgates. Now I need diarrhea of a different kind!

So yes, I did spent three weeks in Australia last month. Way too much to put in one post, so I'll leave that on the agenda, perhaps even with a "table of contents" entry to organise it. Instead I'll start with Christmas and fill in the gaps later.

Christmas this year was at my sister's place. Chris was with me Christmas Eve and Morning, and my parents came in to town and stayed at a hotel for several days, which let them visit their town friends and eased all our travel plans. Very civilized, I thought. My brother had no respite though, they came up from New York state with their twins and they pretty much all got sick as soon as they started traveling. His girls are growing up fast and were fun to have around when they happened to be healthy.

We ended up dining together the day before Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve, and again for Christmas Lunch. Not only was it a lot of food, it was a lot of family! Note to self: spread all that stuff out next year, like over a month perhaps...

So what did Christmas bring for everyone? Lots of technology, lots of movies, lots of books. Chris got a new iPod nano, some spending money in his iTunes account, and the new Simpsons and Futurama movies. Sheryl got an iPod nano too, while her daughter got an iPod Touch. I got a nice sweater that I've been wearing almost on-stop, and an iPhone! Too bad I can't hack my iPhone to work as a cell phone in Canada (yet), but it's a groovy iPod, camera, and web browser. Santa brought Chris and I a new 32" Sony Bravia flat panel TV too, which Chris in particular loves...

New Year's Eve was an interesting variation on a theme. I spent all New Year's Day, starting right at midnight, demonstrating Bowflex fitness equipment on The Shopping Channel. Seven hour's worth of muscle building! Personally I've usually chosen to spend New Year's Eve quietly at home.

Since then I've been pretty busy with my triathlon club getting plans together for the coming season, leading another Running Room 5K Clinic, and other Shopping Channel gigs (January always has a big fitness focus apparently).

I did manage to find time to finally replace my superannuated 1994 Cavalier. Two weeks ago I picked up a 2006 Mazda 3 Sport, which is a much nicer ride... I managed to keep the news to myself for about a week and surprised Sheryl by showing up at her office behind it's wheel. My first road trip was this past weekend, heading up to the Washago International Film Festival (a weekend of spy-themed DVDs at a friend's cottage; Diamonds are Forever - a camp hoot with appalling acting, The Conversation - I loved it, but it's better seen alone, On Her Majesty's Secret Service - more camp, The Departed - excellent but grueling), where this photo was taken.

Last week I went with Chris to see Juno, a film he's already seen with his Mum. A fun film with entertaining dialog and a fantastic lead from Ellen Page, but I think the teen pregnancy thing was handled a little too lightly... Still, worth seeing.

Listening to: Oxygène Part IV by Jean Michel Jarre from Oxygène.

Ironman Western Australia Report

Time to pick up the keyboard and start blogging again! Here's my day-after report on my first Ironman triathlon...

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I'm lying in bed typing this, the day after Ironman Western Australia... I had a great race and beat my expectation by over an hour! Here's the play-by-play.

I got to Busselton with my son three days before the race. Busselton is a small town, so I was worried that I hadn't arranged accommodation before arriving. Our first stop was the Tourist Information office. They found us reasonable place to stay pretty quickly, so that was one worry off my back. That evening was a problem though, as I developed a splitting headache during dinner and felt progressively worse through the evening. At about 10:00 PM I had a pretty intense hour in the bathroom throwing up... After that I was fine though, and was even able to get enough of a night's sleep to get down to the beach Friday morning for a 7:30 AM open water swim. The water was relatively warm, but quite choppy. Lousy surfing and lousy swimming too!

I joined in the group swim anyway and managed to complete my planned wet-suit/salt water training session. I got a few mouthfuls of salt water, which wasn't pleasant, and found that my goggles weren't snug enough in choppy conditions. It was good to have a chance to chat to the other competitors and get a feel for the swim course, which simply traces the Busselton Jetty clockwise 1.8 km out and 1.8 km back (the longest wooden structure in the southern hemisphere!).

After that Chris and I drove over to the Cape Naturaliste lighthouse for a break. We'd planned to also see the nearby scenic caves, but ran out of time as I had to get back into Busselton for race registration. In the late afternoon I went for a 5K run along the beach. The winds were pretty strong, so I got stung a bit by the sand when I ran into the wind. The run course for the race was further along the same coast, so the run was also useful for preparation. Aside from the blowing sand the run was gorgeous. A very lightly populated beautiful white beach stretched as far as I could see in either direction. To the east was the impossibly long Busselton Jetty, to the west was Cape Naturaliste.

Saturday morning was the race briefing. Pretty straight-forward. I decided to ride down to it for my shake-down ride after reassembling my bike. Through out our time here the main roads have been busy with competitors riding along the edges, even today, the day after the race. On the way out of the briefing I saw the Shimano tent and decided to ask them to have a look at my bike. Good thing I did, they spotted that my chain was twisted! I needed a new one, they recommended I replace the cassette (rear gears) too. A local bike shop (thank you South West Cycles!) did the work on the spot and I was able to get back to our hotel room with just enough time to finish packing my race bags before I had to get everything back down to the race site for drop off. I was nervous going into the race on a new chain and cassette, as I only had time for about 5K of testing. In the event the chain and cassette worked out fine.

About a week ago I learned that my New Zealand cousin Jane was also in the race. We met after dropping off our bikes and transition bags and had a chance to catch up and for her to meet Chris. I hadn't seen her in 14 years! Saturday was pretty cool and windy. The forecast for race day was calm and mild, so I decided to pick up a pair of arm warmers in case it was chilly on race morning. I was only prepared for a hot weather race.

I got a pretty good night's sleep, and for 4:00 AM race breakfast had my usual big bowl of oatmeal, followed this time by a nice hard boiled egg. It was a bit cool in transition, but not too bad. I was just barely OK in my tri top and tri shorts. I met my cousin again, who was just a few spots along from me, while we were re-checking our bikes. I'd planned to carry water with me and a bunch of prepared water bottles on my bike, but I took my cousin's advice and went light. Only one bottle (called a "bidon" here) on the bike and nothing on my race belt other than my salt tablets and iPod nano (against the rules if I brought my headphones, but OK just as a pedometer). In the race I grabbed bottles as I needed them from the aid stations and on the run there were aid stations every 2K so I never had to worry about hydration. I popped my first of only two gels at around 5:45 AM.

The ocean was calm, so I only tightened my goggles a bit. I think everyone lied about their expected swim times, because although I'm a pretty fast swimmer I was placed in the fourth zone! It may have cost me 5 - 10 minutes. Que sera sera. Everyone started at the same moment, but us yellow caps were further back in the pack. We had fireworks (hard to spot in daylight...), a fly over (three Cessnas...) and then the national anthem. The pros started at 6:00 AM to a ear-splitting boom, and then the entire procedure was repeated for the age groupers, with a soothing air horn in place of the cannon, at 6:15. It took me a long time to fight my way through all the slow swimmers in front of me. It really was like a washing machine and I spent a lot of time breast-stroking while I looked for a path I could swim up through. Lots of contact in the first 500 m. At one point I felt like I'd whacked someone pretty hard, so I stopped to check. It turned out I'd knocked a woman's goggles off, so I helped her find them before continuing. I also spotted a floating piece of plastic which I grabbed and offered to her. It was a race ID bracelet, but it turned out to be mine, not hers! I stuffed in down my wet-suit and pressed on. I heard later that someone broke three ribs on the swim.

I got a few good gulps of salt water during the swim, but managed to fight my way up to 174th place by the time we hit the sand (10/70 in my age group) with a time of 59:12. Transition went pretty well, although I had a bit of trouble getting my socks on. I decided to leave the arm warmers behind, and it was the right choice.

For the bike and run leg I was determined to follow my heart rate. I started off close to 80%, but settled down to about 72% on the bike. The course was three 60K loops, and with moderate temperatures around 20C and overcast skies it was pretty much perfect racing conditions. I stuck to my own pace most of the time, but the flat course led to the development of some significant "pace lines". I kept out of that nonsense. Each lap ended with a short turnaround in the center of town, I always get a great boost from the cheering crowds. I looked for my son each time, but only spotted him on the last loop. It was tough not knowing where he was, but a great relief to finally see him. I saw a lot more of him on the run, which was also three loops. I had 3 - 4 Lava Salt tablets on each roughly 90 minute bike lap, and probably consumed four bottles of Endura and two of water. I probably ate three banana halves and three "ANZAC biscuits" (aka hard oatmeal cookies).

Halfway through the second loop my groin began to heat up and I realised that I'd forgotten to apply Bodyglide there... I pulled into an aid station, took a pee break, and used some Vaseline from the first aid tent to address the problem. If I had a do-over I'd probably choose to pull padded cycling shorts over my tri shorts for the bike leg. Near the end of the final lap of the bike course my hamstrings and Achilles tendons started to twinge and feel tight, so I backed off the pace a bit and tried to stretch them out. By the time I hit the transition tent I felt fine.

I did have two little off-course adventures on the bike... Coming back into town at the end of the second loop I briefly lost control of my bike going through a roundabout. When I regained control I was heading straight for a metal fence at high speed! I couldn't stop in time, but I managed to redirect myself enough to pass through a very narrow gap and merely skin my knuckles... The riders I was traveling with at the time congratulated me on my trick riding. I only lost about 10 seconds in the incident, but gained a huge adrenaline boost. Early in the third loop I slipped off the asphalt onto the soft shoulder, which I always hate. There was lots of slippery grit to deal with but I managed to recover despite nearly coming to a stop. It felt great to finally unclip my shoes and pass my bike over to a volunteer. My bike leg is always the weakest, I was 33/70 in my age group and 392nd overall. Second transition went well. I changed socks, knocked back my last gel of the day, discarded my Fuel Belt water bottles, let a kid slather me with sun-block and set out (the next day I discovered that he'd missed my shoulder blades, resulting in an entertaining iron-tan).

Following my heart-rate again, I planned to keep it below 80% on the run. For the first lap I hovered around that mark, but managed to rein myself back in for the rest of the run, probably averaging 77% (when all was said and done, my overall average heart rate was sensible 134, which represents about 73%). I also planned to walk all the aid stations; I only have one running pace and it's too fast for marathon distances. That worked out well, as I was able to run strongly from start to finish. There was a yo-yo effect though as I passed some people many times. I didn't have any serious trouble with the run, no post-bike heaviness and no excessive leg tightness. On the first lap I felt some of my toes pressing against my shoes, which I never normally feel. Perhaps my socks were pulled on too hard? The sensation went away though and the only foot trouble I had was a small blister on the outside of my left heel, which I didn't even notice until after the race. The balls of my feet were a bit sore for the last half of the run, which isn't unusual for me. I guess I'm landing more on the balls of my feet than the heels. Maybe I should get some of those weird Newton shoes!

On the run I switched to water and cola, not wanting to get into any digestive problems. I did eat a few melon chunks because, well, I love melon... Each lap I downed three Lava Salts. With the run aid stations only 2K apart I had lots of chances for nutrition and I probably had a cola and a water each time. I wonder if I was over-hydrated! Never felt like I was sloshing. My heart-rate dropped to about 65% at the end of each aid station walking stint. I did stop twice to stretch, not because of any problem but the hint of muscle spasms at the end of the bike made me cautious.

There were a dozen Canadians in the race, I ran into a guy from Milton on Saturday, we called out to each other as we crossed paths on each lap. I found that it really helps to have some little interaction to anticipate during the long lonely miles. My cousin Jane and I also hailed each other in passing. At the end of the far turnaround on the run the interaction was hugs from some young Australian girls... I always pull back up the rankings on the run, I was 10/70 in my age group again for the run and 255th overall.

Hitting the finish chute felt great, as I was still running very strongly. Amazing how fast you collapse afterwards though! Two very nice, but short, Aussie women held me up and walked me to the recovery tent, and I enjoyed a great massage... Ironman Western Australia is the only Ironman to offer alcoholic drinks in the recovery tent, this is a policy that other venues should consider! I didn't get much of a chance to watch the finish line afterwards as my son finally found me and wanted to get off his feet. My half-brother in Perth had also arrived by this time, so we shared my athlete's post-race lamb curry meal and headed back to the hotel where I fell asleep after making a couple of calls back to Canada.

My overall time was 10:46:01 and I placed 287/997 overall, 15/70 in my age group. A pretty good debut, if you ask me! Now to start planning for my next Ironman and see if I can, eventually, qualify for the World Championships in Hawaii. I finished so strongly that I'm sure I can take over an hour off my time. With a bit of work...

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I saw Atonement last night with Sheryl, what a great film! All about consequences and trying to, well, atone for mistakes against a backdrop of the Second World War... I know the book, but haven't read it. I'm trying to decide if it's a romance or a tragedy but I guess, as always, its a bit of both. Great performances and cinematography. There's a fantastic almost five minute long single take scene portraying the Dunkirk evacuation that just stunned me. James McAvoy and Keira Knightley were "very watchable", while Saoirse Ronan and Romola Garai as the young/adult Briony managed to carry a heavy emotional load. Vanessa Redgrave was, as always, awesome in her small role as the dying elderly Briony revealing the unexpected true ending.

Listening to: Teardrops by The Proclaimers from Sunshine On Leith.