New Workout

This is how I workout, but instead of mouse traps I use Bear Traps to work my glutes.

Concussion Recovery

I am pleased to announce I have moved on to Step #2 of my concussion recovery!

What does this mean? It means I can proceed to:

"Light aerobic activity (WOOO!!!) such as walking (wait, WHAT?)."

So, I no longer have to stay in bed all day. I managed to get through 24 hours without a headache meaning I can proceed to the next step. If my headaches come back I will need to go back though.

Still going to be a while before I can exercise again. Hopefully by the time the Olympic break is finished with I can be back at it. Jogging at least. I was making such gains in the pool and running that its a shame I've lost out this time.

This has been pretty much the worst time for a concussion. I'm not supposed to watch TV, use my computer, read a book.

How am I supposed to avoid everything these days. With the Olympics there is just too much to do.

On the topic of the Olympics. Canada is stinking it up with the medal count at the moment. I heard on CTV that Canada (as of Saturday) had 24 top 5 finishes, of these only 8 were medals. The United States on the other hand had 31 top 5 finishes, 24 of which medals.

Come on Canada, get it together!

A friend of mine had an interesting Facebook status, he asked;

Would double-gold in hockey actually redeem our lack of medals and plethora of 4th and 5th?

Unfortunately I think it would, which is kinda sad because Hockey is the only sport in the Olympics that in Canada doesn't need the publicity or money.

Hope everyone is enjoying themselves. Vancouver has had INCREDIBLE weather the past week which has made my sedentary lifestyle painful. The first perfect biking days of the year have been wasted!

Derailed

I'm way to busy for a real post, but I've got so much to say!

Friday night I went to a pool party at UBC and was jumping off the 3m diving board and faceplanted in the water and the net result is I'm pretty sure I got a concussion. I heard my teeth clap together and I've had a headache since. How did I do this you ask. Well it was pretty much like this:

yeah, pretty stupid. And it HURT!

How did I feel about this? well, this photo summarizes my feelings quite well.

The net result:

I can't believe the lack of focus I've had. Unable to concentrate on anything which is really inconvenient because I have a lot of work to do in the lab this week.

As much as I've read about concussions, they say you need to get rest and drink water. I've been able to do about 50% of that, however, today I have been in the lab for 15 hours so far and when contemplating going home I'm thinking that this would be a "short" day. Last week I managed over 100 hours over 6 days! Gross. It feels like I am on Christmas holiday when you no longer know what day of the week it is.

Why am I so busy you may ask? It's because I have a committee meeting this coming Friday where we are deciding my future. Can I start to write up my thesis? Has my progress been adequate? Soon I'll have to make real life decisions which is scary. I much prefer the alternative:

But, in all reality I do need to start wrapping things up and moving on.

How does all this relate to triathlon you may ask? And what was derailed? Well, I've read plenty about how with concussions I shouldn't be physically exerting myself. Something about causing more brain damage. As a result I have had to postpone my 50 day running challenge. I will probably delay it until Friday. Hopefully the headaches are gone by then. This has been a huge bummer because we had a 500m swim test set yesterday where I "cruised" trying not to get my heart rate up and just focus on Distance Per Stroke and managed a new PB of 7:12. Had I not been concerned with raising my heart rate above 140 I feel like I could have gone much faster. Even that exertion was too much and my head was spinning for the rest of the day which led to my conclusion that I needed a break. Even walking up stairs is rough. This sucks because I was right on track for an awesome 5k run time trial this coming Wednesday. Instead I'll just have to spectate.

Thankfully with the help of Advil, I can control the head and get some work done. The only issue I've noticed is that my focus is completely gone. I need to try really hard to get anything done this week, even writing this post I kept getting distracted and off topic. Oh well. Hopefully some of my cartoons have been at least entertaining. If nothing else this post has been:

Have a good weekend everyone!

Oh wait, its Monday...

WWJD?

Often I have trouble motivating myself to work out in the morning. These past few weeks with the added workload and late nights mixed in with the crappy weather we've been having has made morning workouts even harder if not impossible.

Yesterday when Sherwood asked if anyone wanted to do an 8AM ride this morning, I looked at the forecast and saw rain. Sitting in lab at midnight I had convinced myself that this wasn't a good idea. Following a wet ride home I toiled with the idea. For some reason the letters WWJD kept running through my head.

WWJD?

No! Not this guy!

Then who you ask? What other J's do I know. Although typically I take this next guys advice, turns out this J is also not my guide.

J is none other than Jens Voigt. The workhorse of the peloton.

Jens is probably my favorite cyclist. So much so that my friend Amy was making fun of me for having a man crush because I was talking so much about him. He is in no way the most exciting to watch, however, if someone told me he was in a breakaway I would definitely tune in to see the outcome. He probably won't win, but you know he will be putting on the hurt.

One notable quote about Jens Voigt I remember reading from David Millar's Tour de France diary. It was a conversation between David Millar and Robbie McEwen.

Robbie McEwen, phenomenal sprinter

David Millar, time trialist

Quote from David Millar:

"I found myself next to Robbie McEwen for a minute in the bunch, we exchanged pleasantries and that obviously led to the weather, which was incredibly windy and storm like.

RM: "I bet there isn't one guy racing today who woke up and looked out the window and thought, YES, YOU BEAUTY!"

ME: "Yep, this is shit..."

We both pause.

RM laughing: "Well actually, Jens probably did."

Then we both start laughing and say at exactly the same time,

RM + ME: "YEAH, HE DOES THAT EVERY DAY!"

RM laughing: "Animal."

ME laughing: "Freak."

That had us chuckling for a few more minutes and says so much about the man, the machine that is Jens Voigt."

Awesome!

So whenever I am in question of whether to ride or not, I always have to ask myself, What Would Jens Do? The answer, Always ride!

In case you wanted to know how H.C. you are and needed a reference, I've snatched a rating system from Cyclocosm.com to evaluate my Jens Factor (FYI don't google the word Hardcore images without safesearch on... YIKES!)

Todays ride comes out to a big fat ZERO on the Jens factor. It wasn't windy and was warmer than 4*C. Clearly I need to HTFU. But at least I was out there. Matt pointed out that Jens would have ridden more than 18km but I take what I can get, I've got a day job.

If ever you need inspiration while out there riding, just remember these words from Jens himself. When asked what he says when his legs are burning, one quick reply is all that was needed.

Hopefully we will see more people out to tomorrows ride than last week.