The Forty-Year Punchline

I never realised until last night that the title of the comic strip Andy Capp was a pun on the word "handicap"! I just took it as a simple reference to the main character's omnipresent headgear... I present this as a public service to others in similar need of enlightenment. This long-delayed revelation is the funniest part of that comic for me.

Not much to else to report. I'm ending a de facto vacation from triathlon. I haven't swum or cycled since my last race back in September. This week I've returned to the pool and started spinning again. I'll also add a few trainer rides or CompuTrainer workouts into the weekly mix. I've got a lot of ground to cover again.

I've been nursing a pinched nerve in my neck since Christmas Day, which has made training a bit unpredictable lately. It's also made my Shopping Channel appearances using various fitness equipment a bit dicey. Thank god for back pain medicine!

I took time off this Fall partially to refresh my mind but mainly to spend more time with my 16 year-old son Chris. Unfortunately that part of the plan didn't work out as he's been fairly distant and moderately hostile, choosing to spend large periods of time at his mother's house rather than live by the rules here. Frustrating and quite sad for me, but perhaps this is part of his search for independence. I hope we find a way to enjoy time together again.

Listening to: Fireflies by Owl City from Ocean Eyes.

TIFF '09 Day One

I was volunteering at the Toronto International Film Festival last night, working as Volunteer Captain at Roy Thomson Hall. The Opening Gala was Creation, a biopic about Charles Darwin starring real-life husband and wife Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly ("English naturalist Charles Darwin struggles to find a balance between his revolutionary theories on evolution and the [his] relationship with [his] religious wife, whose faith contradicts his work." according to imdb.com). Jennifer looked great in a towering pair of heels, which came off the moment she got to the Green Room :-). The film seemed well received by the audience and the evening went smoothly from my perspective. I'll be back at RTH all next week, so I hope this is a sign of things to come.

Through the evening I circulated around helping where needed and making sure the volunteers were in position at the right times. The big change this year was the move of the Red Carpet from the normal east entrance to the west side of the building, which opens onto a pedestrian park. This resulted in a lot less congestion during admission, but the Red Carpet team had to deal with a much more spread-out environment and they had tons of communication problems due to balky walkie-talkies and incomplete talent schedules. It looked great to the casual eye though... There was even an excellent high definition video feed from the Red Carpet into the theatre as well as the internet and a few other Festival locations.

Now I have a bit of down-time before my Ironman 70.3 race up in Huntsville on Sunday. I'm going to try to take it easy so I can get to the starting line with better energy reserves than I had at Ironman USA back in July. (Yes, I will post that race report soon!)

Listening to: A Day in the Life (in glorious mono!) by The Beatles from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Countdown to the Film Festival

The Toronto International Film Festival starts on Thursday night... I've been involved in some of the training and orientation sessions over the pasts few months and during TIFF (Sept. 10 - 19) I'll be volunteering at Roy Thomson Hall most evenings. This grainy snap is from inside the auditorium at RTH, a few minutes before the theatre volunteers arrived for their orientation.

Today I drove up to Wilcox Lake for a short ride (60K). Along with the start of TIFF I also have my last triathlon of the season on Sunday, the Ironman 70.3 Muskoka race up in Huntsville.

Listening to: Was a Time (Favretto Remix) by Whigfield from David Rocco's Dolce Vita.

The Usual Suspects

So I'm less than a week out from my next Ironman race, down in Lake Placid... If anyone cares to follow me online, here's the link. My race number is 1555.

Training has gone well although I didn't always meet my training volume goals. On Saturday I was up at Wilcox Lake for a 2K swim, two hour ride and 5K run. The weather was great and it seemed like everyone I knew was there. All my Pro friends were doing their own workouts, Club members were circulating up and down Warden Avenue, even friends from various gyms I've been to were there!

I got a late start because I've been looking after Sheryl's little dog while she's on vacation with her family in the Turks and Cacos. He's now diabetic and a bit of a revenge pee-er so I had to give him his insulin and a good walk before I could safely leave the house. When I leave for Lake Placid on Tuesday I'll be transferring him to a mutual friend.

I helped run an Open Water Swimming clinic again this year, down at Cherry Beach (see photo above). Ayesha Rollinson was the leader this time, she's an ITU racer and ran us through all sorts of gung-ho drills. The water was nasty cold, which was good (?) because I could feel two spots in my wetsuit where icy water was trickling in. One spot is now repaired, the other might not be fixable.

All the "good luck" nights of drinking are done with, nothing left to do but drive down and see what I've got in the tank!

Listening to: Ready, Steady, Go by Oakenfold from Bunkka.

Make Hay While the Sun Shines

Today was an epic training day. Up at 6:00 and on the go until 2:00 PM! Fabulous weather, sunny and hitting 30C, and I got in a great workout for all three sports: 2.1K, 33 minute open water swim. The City strike has closed all the pools that I usually swim in, so it seemed like a good day to get up early and add a swim as you can't lock the doors on a lake. 127K, 4:12 long ride (all the way up to Jackson Point). A short 20 minute quick 4K run. The bike ride was beautiful, especially along the shore of Lake Simcoe. I rode almost the entire distance solo but kept crossing paths with friends.

When I got back I just dumped everything into the house and joined Sheryl, Tamara and their family at their Club's pool. Nice to float in the cool water... Tamara took advantage of my dehydration to buy me a couple pints of Stella Artois and watch me get loopy. Her toddler daughter thought I had become her new best friend forever!

Other triathlon news: last weekend I helped officiate at the Guelph Lake Triathlon. Steady rain during both races (a Give-It-A-Try and a Sprint), no rain between races... The transition area, where I was working, and the parking lot were both grassy fields which became absolute mud pits! Strangely, it was good fun. I kind of fell into the officiating thing when I saw in interesting e-mail from OAT (Ontario Association of Triathletes). Nice to give back. This race was my first training session.

The week before was my own race, the Muskoka Long Course triathlon. 2K swim, 55K bike, 15K run. The swim and run are disproportionately long at this event. I enjoyed myself and saw lots of friends before, during and after the race. Here are the numbers:

3:41:16. 230/672 overall, 30/76 in my age group.
Swim 32:29 1:38/100m. 64/672 overall, 6/76 in age group
Bike 1:48:29 30.4kph. 297/672 overall, 43/76 in age group
Run 1:15:12, 4:01/km. 297/672 overall, 41/76 in age group

I felt good at the end of it but my time was almost exactly the same as last year's. I want progress! I had good fun with Paula, a fellow Toronto Triathlon Club member, on the run. I passed her just after the run turn-around and about a kilometer later came to an aid station that a grade school-er was staffing. The girl had left a tray of water cups on the ground to do something else for a moment, so I stopped to pick up a cup and ended up handing out water for a few seconds to the runners behind me, including Paula. Then I gunned past her again! As seems to be the pre-race theme this year, as we were all floating around waiting for the start I grabbed her feet and threatened to suck on her toes. My winning ways seem to have worked though, she's letting me stay in the townhouse she and some friends have rented for Ironman USA. Paula has been dealing with a recurring brain tumor; she races to raise funds for Leukemia and Lymphoma research through Team in Training.

Last week's Formula One excitement was over the major team's determination to start a rival schedule because of the arbitrary and dictatorial manner of the FIA President Max Mosley. I was rooting for them, but it looks like Max has blinked and will step down next year. Next race will be at the Nurburgring in Germany in two weeks.

Time to collapse into bed! I have to lead my marathon clinic on an 18K run tomorrow morning, with an extra 8K thrown in just for me...

Listening to: Ain't No Rest for the Wicked by Cage The Elephant from Cage The Elephant.

Tracing

I'm "tracing" up in Huntsville tomorrow. That's a "training race". The Muskoka Long Course race is an oddity; long swim (2K), short ride (54K), long run (15K). It was a world championship race back in the 90's and still draws a small pro field for the Chase (women pros get a head-start, there is a single prize pool). I earned an Ironman Canada slot in this race last year. I didn't know until a few days ago whether I'd be able to go up because my son's time with me has been all screwed up due to a combination of teenage resentment and exam studies. But I'm heading up in an hour or so, and I've even arranged a "home-stay" like to pros often do! One of my marathon clinic students offered to put me up at her parent's cottage a few minutes north of town.

The water promises to be pretty durn cold, probably 61°F. I'm planning on a double swim cap and on pre-filling my wetsuit with warm water. Because of the long stony walk to the swim start I'll also be adding a disposable pair of sandals to my gear. The transition area is totally changed this year because they are in the midst of construction of accommodate next year's G8 Summit on the same site. Fingers crossed.

I'm about six weeks out from Ironman USA and a bit behind schedule in my training program. I've been training pretty steadily, but at a relatively constant volume and have also been pre-occupied with my marathon clinic student's own schedules. A couple of weeks ago I finally glanced at my own training program, which I'd printed out and was just sitting around waiting for me. I was supposed to be six weeks into it already! So I've pretty much jumped in close to the volume I should have been building up to...

That's why this weekend's race isn't going to be all-out.

Perhaps my training isn't as far off schedule as it looks though. I've been cycling in to work quite often, adding about 80K a week of un-logged "bike intervals" to my routine. I missed a week of bike commuting because of a flat though, which cost me about $100. I destroyed three tubes, two sets of cheap tire irons, a crappy pump and replaced the rim tape in vain trying to fix it! Initially I though my son had deflated the tire as it went flat overnight, which shows you where things stand with him these days. Then the inner tube seemed to suggest a spoke puncture, so I replaced the rim tape. Finally I spotted the chunk of glass that was the root of the problem. Between pinch flats and re-punctures I managed to use all my spare tubes and break my pump. With no functioning bike pump I swallowed my pride and took the wheel down to a bike shop and begged them to do it for me. I have no trouble changing my tri bike's tires, but my commuter bike tires have a wicked bead. The mechanic turned the air blue trying to change it himself, and ended up using a different sized inner tube as well. So I bought a new better-quality pump and left feeling mechanically adequate again.

I watched the Turkish Grand Prix with my friend Brian last weekend. Jenson Button got his Brawn-Mercedes past Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull before the end of lap one and cruised to his sixth victory in seven races. Mark Webber and Vettel's Red Bull cars filled out the podium. Ferrari is slowly returning to form while McLaren is still back in the weeds. The most interesting drive of the day was Rubens Barrichello in the other Brawn car. He had a terrible start but fought his way forward heroically before having to retire with gearbox problems on lap 48. Track temperature was in the high 40's C! Tire wear was a big factor.

I also saw the new Star Trek film last weekend. I've always enjoyed the franchise, but have never been a nerd about it. I enjoyed the new take on the old characters. The acting was good and effects were, as always these days, spectacular. Funny how the 'tech' in science fiction films always gets cooler even if they're set in earlier times than the previous film! The best stuff was, of course, in the trailer... I glad they respected the redshirt principle though. Some things are just sacred.

Listening to: Typical by Mute Math from Mute Math.

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.

Misheard Remarks

My friend Sheryl is recently back from two weeks in Australia. They flew on Qantas Airlines and had some "adventures" getting down there... However this fact is just background for a conversation Sheryl's daughter had with her young son. For some reason she was answering a question about Jesus and she told him that Pontius Pilate had condemned Jesus to death. Her son was aghast; "A Qantas pilot killed Jesus?" Now that's an LOL.

I've just started teaching the Running Room's winter Marathon clinic. We have a great turnout of 37 people and they're all experienced enough that we can do some good runs together. There is lots of running ahead of us, the goal race is the Ottawa marathon on May 24th, with the Chilly Half on March 1st and the Around the Bay race on March 29th. This will be the third time I've run the Around the Bay race - 30K with plenty of hills and often cold, wet conditions. It should be a good clinic, especially as I have drafted a friend as co-instructor to help out.

A friend of mine who is in two of my worlds sent me an e-mail about my modeling. She's a Running Room clinic instructor and also responsible for the Ontario Tourism photo shoots that I've done. It was a surprise for both of us when our paths crossed at the Running Room. Anyway she just sent me a proof of my first cover shot! Hurray! Now the fame and accolades will begin to pour in! It's a travel brochure for "Elderhostel, Adventures in Lifelong Learning"... :-)

We had a brutal winter storm today, and I ended up arriving late for my booking on The Shopping Channel. Ugh. Fortunately it was a show where we swapped back and forth so my modeling partner did the first half and I did last. The other two shows were fine and as the equipment was pretty conventional cardio equipment (a treadmill and an elliptical) I could actually log it as real training time. Training is going well, I'm getting some good indoor rides in, taking the swimming seriously again, and getting lots of running done in spite of the poor weather. I just need to increase the cycling volume a bit.

Listening to: Eleanor Rigby (Soulwax Remix) by Beatles vs. Kraftwerk from Soulwax Presents Hang All DJ's Volume 5. The electronic undertones really magnify the bleak feeling of the original Beatles tune...

New Year's Resolution?

Gee, kind of forgot about the blog for a while. In spite of the thousands of e-mails begging for the thrilling details of my life. Not! So what have I been up to? (This simply is so I can document any needed alibis because no-one else reads this.)

First of all, Christmas. My present came a few days early unfortunately. I was at the gym a week before Christmas chatting with a friend on my iPhone and he was goading me about my "obsolete" iPhone with it's cracked screen. I adamantly defended it; no replacement as long as it keeps working! Ironically that was the last time the damn thing worked properly. An important strip of the touchscreen stopped responding and all I could do was answer calls. I mulled it over for a few days and bought a replacement. That was the end of Santa's generosity to me this year...

The family holiday gathering, back at my brother's house outside of Woodstock, NY, was another compressed experience with everyone mostly happily jammed together and four nieces alternating between delight and despair with no known cause for either state. It was nice to see my brother's twin girls growing up. Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was watching my son be the responsible oldest cousin; mediating disputes, helping with chores, reading bedtime stories. Maybe that was my real Christmas gift. Chris seemed pleased with his presents;  notably a new Xbox game, some Rock Band accessories from me which opened his eyes, and a little throw-away present of a flowing sand desk toy that seems to have found a permanent home beside his bed. And lots of Toblerone bars, Terry's Orange balls and clothes... As a joke I filled both of our stockings with mainly new socks.

January means New Year's resolutions for most people and since losing weight is almost always at the top of the list the Shopping Channel has been providing lots of fitness buying opportunities. I'll probably have been on air more than ten days by the time this month is out. I got off to a bang with three days back to back starting with January 1st. With between three and six hour-long shows each day that's a lot of working out! My right shoulder (rotator cuff?) has been a bit tender for months now, at the moment it's extra sore from all the punishment.

I haven't made a New Year's resolution myself because I'm down on the artificiality of New Year celebrations. But I have awakened to the fact that it's time to start getting serious about training for Ironman USA this July. I've been adding swims into my usual schedule and I'm starting to focus more on my indoor cycling. I got talked into taking over the Marathon Clinic at the Running Room this time 'round. It's a big step up, but at least I'll be able to treat the Clinic runs as actual workouts. It's been cold out there too, we're in the middle of a deep cold snap. I almost got frostbite in an intimate area on the run in this photo.

Lots of activity on the computer front. My parents bought a new laptop to take with them on a three month trip to Mexico. I got it set up for them and moved over all my step-father's writing from his ancient PowerBook. I ended up having to buy a USB floppy drive to download floppies into their new MacBook! The new MacBook is a bit of a mixed blessing, We can all stay in touch better now but they're inundating me with news and questions. These trips used to be a sort of "time out"... I also helped another friend get set up on her new old Dell desktop which was a bit of a stumbling around in the dark. I got there in the end though.

Professionally, I've landed a contract to re-do the web site for a local gym. Nice to make some money from all my computer monkeying! I'm going to use an interesting Content Management System from Squarespace so they'll be able to do most updates themselves. I've also had to troubleshoot a problem with a web site I helped set up for a friend, irisimages.ca. The hosting company, bludomain, seems to have overwritten almost all the files! Kind of the opposite of what they're supposed to do. I'm doing a bit of forensic work to recover it.

 Listening to: That Old Pair of Jeans by Fatboy Slim from The Greatest Hits: Why Try Harder.

Birthday Boy

Lots of facebook birthday greetings today from friends. Not much celebration of my 48th otherwise. I had a nice lunch with Sheryl at the Senses cafe (spelled "Sen5es"), a family meal on Sunday at my sister's, got a few calls from friends, had a little supermarket cake after dinner with my son.

But it was festive yesterday! I got a last-minute role in a music video for Jaydee Bixby, who has done a country cover of Cliff Richard's song 21st Century Christmas. I only crossed paths with Jaydee briefly, but we heard his takes (catchy...). For some of them he was performing in sync with a sped-up tape; on final playback it would be returned to normal speed. He told me it was a difficult, but the director wanted to accentuate his expression for dramatic effect when slowed back down. My role was "wealthy father", part of a family that was materialistic, distracted, and disappointed by their presents. Another couple had the roles of poor-but-grateful family. I hope I spot the video when it hits TV!

The weekend was spent at a friend's cottage with my fellow Toronto Triathlon Club executives, discussing the past season's activities, planning for next year, and drinking... It looks like I'll be Vice President next year. We did manage to get a run in on Saturday afternoon, although a hearty lunch of chilli made the last 5K "uncomfortable." I left right after breakfast on Sunday to get back into town for Sheryl's granddaughter's first birthday lunch, so I missed the planned bike ride.

Final bit of adventure last week; I drove to Buffalo and back on Friday before heading out to my friend's cottage. My sister-in-law asked me to carry some of her Maya Kaimal Fine Indian Foods gourmet sauces over the border for a potential distributor to evaluate. 412K round trip, seven hours of sitting in my car (and then two more getting to the cottage). Whew.

Still recovering from my recent marathon. I'm looking forward to a bit of down time before I start scheduling the 2009 training regime!

Listening to: 21st Century Christmas by Cliff Richard from 21st Century Christmas.

Signs and Portents

What does a dying pigeon on your doorstep "mean"? I know a bird in the house is supposed to be bad luck, so maybe I dodged some? The poor thing must have flown into a window and dropped down onto my porch. I thought it just might be stunned when I saw it last night, but it was dead this morning. Sad.

So: a bit of politics. Tuesday was a federal election in Canada, called by Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. This was in conflict with his own new fixed election date law, intended to eliminate "tactical" election calls. It seems that Harper thought he spotted a chance at getting a majority and discarded his electoral reform principles to make a grab. In the end the Conservatives did increase their seats, but not enough for a majority. Their popular vote didn't actually budge, the increase came from an erosion of the Liberal party's support as voters moved to other left-of-centre parties. The result is exactly the same minority government as we had six weeks ago. This was also the lowest voter turnout ever for a federal election.

The Liberals never earned the electorate's confidence this time. Their leader Stephane Dion, who I respect as an honest and intelligent politician, was unable to overcome either his lack of eloquence in English or a long-running Conservative initiative to belittle him. Stephane has been, and would be, a great Minister but I always thought he lacked political presence. The Liberals seem to have put past scandals behind them, but they need fresh leadership to regain voter support.

The New Democratic Party had a decent gain in seats, primarily due to Liberal voters moving further left, the Green Party also gained votes but didn't manage to turn any of those votes into seats. Ten years ago voters on the right complained that the Liberals were unfairly dominant due to right wing votes being spread between the Progressive Conservative and the Reform parties, now the shoe seems to be on the other foot.

Turning to myself, I'm tapering for this weekend's Toronto Marathon even though I'm also battling a pretty nasty head cold. On Tuesday I went out for an "easy run" with some friends and ended up covering 12K in a 4:28/K pace! Easy, boy. Last night I joined my triathlon club's new swimming workout and ended up pushing myself pretty hard there too. It's so much more fun to swim with athletes rather than recreational swimmers like I've been doing up to now! I'll have to take it easy though as my swimmer's shoulder is acting up again...

This photo is a funny out-take from my recent photo-shoot at Langdon Hall.

Listening to: She Comes In the Fall by Inspiral Carpets from Life.

Hitting the Streets

This morning saw the ninth running of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon and simultaneously the first running of street circuit the new Singapore Grand Prix.

I ran down to City Hall with some friends to watch the race for a bit and to try to spot my friend Brian who was racing in the half marathon. I arrived just in time to catch him running the last 200m and got a couple of snaps. He was digging pretty deep... It was a great day for a race, dry and cool. After chatting with Brian for a minute and with other friends I ran into, I turned around and ran back home. Clicking out my run on gmap-pedometer.com I discovered that my run was just over the half marathon distance! So I ran one too and in about the same time...

Brian and I have a decades long tradition of watching Formula One races together. We've missed quite a few this summer, but got back on track this afternoon after we'd both recovered from our exertions. The new Singapore Grand Prix was run this morning, which meant a first-ever night race so the European TV audience could watch in their usual Sunday afternoon time slot. It was an eventful race, even though street circuits are hard to pass on.

The Ferrari's were up front again, with Massa on pole and Kimi in third. Between them was Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren, and notably in 15th place was Fernando Alonso who had been fast in practice but had technical problems during qualifying. The start was smooth, with Massa pulling slowly away from Hamilton. Kimi lost a place and struggled to stay in touch at first; he soon came right though and was closing in on Hamilton. But when mid-fielder Nelson Piquet crashed on lap 15 everything changed.

The safety car brought everyone back together. Several cars running out of fuel had to pit during the attendant pit lane closure, this meant that they had to later take a ten second stop and go penalty. When the pit lane reopened most of the remaining cars dove in to refuel while the safety car was still circulating. Massa pitted from the lead, but accidentally left before the fuel rig had been removed. It snapped off and was dragged like an enormous snake to the end of the pit lane where Massa had to wait for his pit crew to run up and remove it. This left him suddenly at the back of the entire field. Just when he seemed to have the race sewn up he went from hero to zero.

On the other side of the coin was Fernando Alonso, who had started in 15th. He was suddenly in the lead, with only the drivers who had to come back in for pit lane penalties ahead of him! He managed to stay comfortably out front for the rest of the race and had his first victory in over a year. Hamilton lost few places during the same safety car period, but was able to get back up to third by the finish. Kimi also recovered ground, but a brief loss of control in the closing stage of the race led him to bounce of the wall exiting turn ten and put him out.

Big week coming up: shooting two TV commercials and doing another day on The Shopping Channel. If only every week could be like that.

Listening to: Here's Where the Story Ends by The Sundays from Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.

F-F-F-Fashion!

Last Friday I had my first "fashion" modeling gig on The Shopping Channel wearing Olympic 2010 clothing, displayed here on Kellie, my first and dearest screen wife. This is as close as I'll ever get to "The Games"! I was a bit nervous doing semi-runway stuff for the first time, especially with the cameras broadcasting it all across the nation, but it worked out. The clothes were a bit big on me though, everything was XL while I'm really a Large. The following day I had a few shows with the irrepressible Rosalie Brown (Hi Rosalie!) demonstrating Leg Magic. Always tough doing a 15 minute workout of a product intended to be used for a minute at a time...

Now I'm on full taper mode. Just a few short easy workouts left in the final few days leading up to Ironman Canada. I leave Thursday morning and race on Sunday. My bike is packed up and my other gear gathered together. I've been inspired by some of the performances I've seen at the Olympics, particularly the men's 8 rowing, marathon and triathlon (natch).

Listening to: Starry Eyed Suprise by Oakenfold from Bunkka.

Evacuation Zone

I went out for my last long run before Ironman Canada on Sunday morning. I do these Sunday morning runs from The Running Room's Yonge St. store because there's always a big turnout and the selected routes vary quite a lot, which helps keeps things interesting. This time the 29K route we were going to follow headed off to the northwest.

The run proved eventful... First as we crossed the 401 freeway, Canada's busiest, I noticed that there were no cars on it. That was a bit odd. After my run I learned that there had been a massive propane depot explosion in the area. 12,000 people had been evacuated in the middle of the night and as many as 50 homes are apparently unlivable. It appears that there were two fatalities, one during the initial blast and another during the containment effort. Our route actually skirted the evacuation zone!

During the course of our run we were also detoured several times due to minor flooding on the parkland paths we were partially following. The first one we hit, a "drowned" bridge, looked modest enough so I waded across barefoot (after chasing a heron off the path). But the rest were too big and we had to detour around them. Between that and the usual minor map mis-readings we turned our 29K route into a 33K one! Still a good solid run, completed in 2:38.

Saturday was spent getting vibrated on The Shopping Channel. I managed to get back home for a two hour bike ride on my trainer, and in the evening dropped in on Sheryl's Bollywood party. The ride was great, averaging 32kph, but the party was a disappointment as a lot of guests didn't show up because of heavy rain. My assorted tray of Indian sweets was well received though!

Today was supposed to be my training day for the Toronto International Film Festival, where I'll be working as a Box Office Line Supervisor, but Chris developed an earache over the weekend that kept him awake all night. So we spend several hours at the doctor's waiting for a missed appointment. The doctor thinks it's transient but we have a prescription as a backup.

Listening to: Every Day Is Exactly the Same (Sam Fog vs. Carlos D Mix) by Nine Inch Nails from Every Day Is Exactly The Same (Remixes).

Release the Hounds!

I had a physio session this morning on my aching legs that brought tears to my eyes. Thanks Cindy... I feel much better now though and have just finished a spinning class. I'm about to bike 15K down to an outdoor Olympic pool for a long swim.

I am so eager for the sound of the starting gun at Ironman Canada. Let me at it!

Listening to: Thank You World by World Party from Goodbye Jumbo.

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.

Mountain Stage

I've spent several hours this morning riding my bike trainer while watching Stage 10 of the Tour de France. It was a mountain stage, which inspired me to push myself a bit. My upcoming Ironman race out in B.C. will have some significant climbs and I need to get some equivalent training under my belt. My son slouched on the sofa beside me playing Flash web games until he could return to his Xbox 360...

Earlier this evening I helped lead an open water swimming clinic for my triathlon club. We swam down at Balmy Beach in Lake Ontario. Seventeen members turned up for it, and the water temperature was actually pretty good. Nice workout too.

This weekend (actually tomorrow evening) I'll be driving down to Lake Placid for three purposes: get some big hills under my belt on a massive training ride, cheer on team mates that are racing in Ironman USA this Sunday, and sign up for next year's race... Sheryl and Chris will be coming along, we'll also be visiting my brother and his family north of New York City and spending a few days in New York as well. Its going to be a hectic week!

Listening to: I Love to Move In Here (Holy Ghost! Remix) by Moby from I Love To Move In Here.

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.