SON OF A B#%$@!

So I've got some bad news pertaining to my biggest race of the year, the Victoria International Half Ironman taking place this weekend.

I brought in my bike to get a tune up on Tuesday, expecting to get it back Thursday or worst case scenario Friday. Well, last night I got a call from the shop telling me that my shifter for my rear derailer wasn't working. Apparently it would shift up but not down. Strange, it worked fine when I brought it in. So that sucks, then they take no blame for any of it and tell me it will be 300$ to fix. So much for a 60$ tune up. I still have to go in and talk with the owner. I won't go on a rant until the whole process is over and done with to judge how they handled it. 

Bad news being, even if they fix the shifter, the bike won't be functional until next Tuesday. SHIOOT!

This isn't good, seeing as how I have a race Sunday. 

FORTUNATELY, I have a new toy that may come in handy. Check it out, I made a little video about it. Make sure your sound is on. 

Its SO PRETTY! I just got it last night. Mike and Chris brought it down for me from Kelowna!!! MJ, after much deliberation, I finally decided on a bike! 

I'll have more photos and details of how it rides after the weekend. The crummy news it that, I have so far ridden a total of 0km! Whats that saying about never try anything new on race day?

My main concern isn't so much for my performance, I'm sure I'll be able to do fine on the new bike, probably even better than fine. Its just I'm worried about injury. Since I haven't gotten used to the bike, there will be a lot of little stabilizer muscles that could get tweaked and very unhappy with me. 

Thankfully, Noa Deutsch has come to the rescue. She did a bike fit for me earlier this season (which I just realized I haven't written about but thought I had), and it was fantastic. So she is giving me an emergency bike fit Saturday morning before the race. 

Hopefully all goes to plan.

Pre race thoughts to be posted tomorrow. There may be a lot of mistakes in this post but my computer battery is nearly dead and I have lent the plug to a friend for the night.

Adios!

Storm the Wall Final Report

After a week of hard racing, 1 relay team and the individual race, totaling 7 climbs of the wall, I'm upset to see the week come to an end.

Storm the wall week is by far my favorite week at UBC. Weather permitting it can be fantastic!

Getting to the final had a few bumps. For the semifinal on Wednesday it was snowing and raining at around 2*C. It was brutal. I was second to the wall but knew I had to conserve my energy to get over so I wasn't too stressed about not being in first. 

After a few missed attempts due to the wet wall I made it over winning my heat and advancing to the final. 

The final was intense. The weather was perfect. Nice and sunny and hot. I actually remember feeling heat on my back during the bike. Couldn't have asked for a better day. I've described the competition, so without further ado, here is my video masterpiece which hopefully gives you an appreciation of the whole race.

Special thanks to Derek's girlfriend Carolyn for filming this for me!

I'm in the Orange, second lane on the left, then it goes: some guy, Matt, Nathaniel, Derek.

Matt and Nathaniel Storm the Wall Videos

This week I tried my luck as a film maker producing this short youtube video's.

Considering I needed to run along and try and film everything I think I did a pretty good job.

These videos are of two members of the UBCTC, Matt Reeve and Nathaniel Janzen. They both has pretty solid races. But nothing compared to todays.

Later this weekend I will have a full production video of our STORM THE WALL FINAL that took place today.

But no spoilers...

Enjoy

Boulder Day 1

Day 1 in Boulder

Last night was pretty relaxed, we went to a bar called Mountain Sun. The food was alright, the beer was really good (It’s stout month so they had a whole bunch of fancy unheard of types) but the service was terrible. We had to wait a really long time to be seated (so long that we actually went next door for a round and nachos before being seated. We pretty much just hung out there and then got to bed fairly early in preparation for a big day. 

Waking up we made a feast of eggs and toast to the tunes of I’m on a boat and promontory mixed in with a little of anything else we could find on my computer. After a leisurely morning we headed out to Target to look around before starting a hike. Kelly and Will tried to get me to buy this shirt

but I decided that I couldn’t. Instead Will and I both made a pretty sweet purchase. It will be a little hard to explain where we got them, but I thought that for 9$ it was a pretty good find.

I also got a pair of boxers with Bikes on them, but I figure you guys don’t need to see a photo of me in those, not yet at least.

Check out Will, he's pretty badass!

After this we went on a hike to Chautaqua Park. The hike wasn’t exceptionally rigorous, however, it was pretty icy at parts and a lot of fun.

This is how far we made it before someone started complaining (It was me),

 and this is how far we made it before Kelly stopped laughing at my and Wills jokes, and when she denied Will a kiss (they're dating). We were parked at that car just down the way.

Notable moments during the trip:

 

The Views

The Jokes

Will Dribbling Pee on his shoes (PHOTO DOCUMENTATION)

The Peeps:

A video which very well depicts our hike 

The hike was fun, the weather was fantastic and as you can see I started off in just my vest and a t-shirt. I actually made it all the way up dressed just like that, it was only when we stopped to take photos that I got cold. Roughly 3 hours later and a whole slew of photos later we made it back to the car. The rest of the night was spent making dinner, eating cake and watching the movie “Get Smart”. I’m not usually one for Steve Carel’s movies, but I found this one to be quite funny. We also sampled a local beer, Left Hand (we got a variety pack) and it was really good, I especially liked their Milk Beer, apparently it has lactose in it so some people may not like it, but it had a really great flavor.

For dinner we made a pasta dish that was made for me by a friend last week. It was really simple and good. What you do is;

Cook broccoli, coli flour, and cherry tomatoes in the oven with Olive Oil and Vinaigrette.

Boil Pasta

Then once everything is cooked, add prosciutto cheese and spinach and your ready to go. It wasn’t as good tonight as last week, but still filled me up.

Now, its almost bed time, and we are waking up early to do the race in the morning. During the hike I wasn’t really noticing the altitude, maybe I won’t during the run either. Keeping my fingers crossed. 

Roller Antics

Tonight I had a lot of work to do, a grant proposal first, and once that was finished and submitted, I had to prepare my lab presentation for tomorrow morning.

Before starting in on the lab presentation, I decided to take a breather and have some fun since I've been working more or less since 8AM straight. Did I want to do a normal 20 minute spin to loosen my legs? I decided to mix things up, since I wasn't really looking for a workout I decided to make a video of myself on the rollers doing some of the tricks I've been practicing. 

So here it is. 

-Getting on without a support

-No Hands

-One Leg

-Standing Up

-No Hands One Leg

-No Hands One Leg Clipping Back In

Let me know what you think. Also what other skills and tricks should I work on?

Next skills to work on:

-Removing Shoes

-Dismount Triathlon Style

The video was a little rushed, although I said I was procrastinating for a little bit, I still felt like I should get back to work sooner than later. Had I put in more effort I could have made it better, but for tonight, I think this was fine.

I'm not all to sure why it cut out so quickly at the end there. I did the other leg as well and then came over to turn off the video but I must still not be good at this whole youtube thing because it cut the video about 30 seconds short. Oh well, I didn't really say anything new.

Oh, and I nearly forgot, last week a fellow triathlete from North Van, Meyrick Jones who I've referenced a few times in my blog got a sponsorship from Lululemon and as a result he held a contest for one of two jacket/sweaters (wow lots of hyperlinks). And I won! This was pretty exciting news this morning, a little cheer me upper in the middle of my research. I've never actually met Meyrick but a few of my friends have and say he's a pretty nice guy, and so next week I'll be meeting him, I'm pretty excited. It will be nice to finally meet the person I've been reading about and put a face to the name.

 

Anyways, back to the lab book. I will be ready for when this weekend finally comes.

First Time on Rollers

Alright, so I got my rollers this afternoon, and today was my first time trying them out.

To many of you who hoped I would fall and make a fool of myself, well I'll just let you watch and see what happens. I think you may be laughing once or twice.

Enjoy

Now that I'm done playing on the internet, I think I'll actually go use them for a while



Youtube cut off my HEAD! Oh well, worst things have happened