Highs and Lows

This past week has been filled with a lot of highs and lows. It started off pretty well, my friend Derek and our new swim coach Liam both gave me swim tips at the end of last week. Very simple things, elbow position etc, and WOW did they make a difference. I won't hesitate to say that with one practice I was swimming 5-6 seconds/100m faster for the same effort.

Well thats not exactly the true, its greater perceived effort, but since the stroke is better, its targeting the bigger stronger muscles so the perceived effort is greater, but total energy output is the same.

Who knew a minor change in shoulder/elbow angle could be so drastic. 

Just to demonstrate the change, last week I would be struggling to hold 1:30/100m if I were doing more than a couple. Sunday at practice the workout was 6X100 pull (I'm even slower at pull) and I managed to hold 1:25 for all of them. This was very exciting for me. 

I'm going to have to make a comment to Derek and Liam about giving me swim tips the week before Storm the Wall since they are my major competition.

Come Tuesday afternoon things were going great, then the week took a turn for the worse. A friend and I decided it would be a good time to take a jump off the high dive. Lots of people do it, whats the big deal, it will be fun. Well I landed funny in the water and it honestly feels like I broke my tailbone. Awesome...

Honestly. Sometimes I'm an idiot. 

Two days later and it still hurts to sit down and depending on the movement (kicking in swim) it still really hurts. Hopefully it will be better by next week when Storm the Wall starts up, otherwise I will really pissed with myself. 

To make matters worse, things just went downhill on Wednesday. I woke up that morning feeling fine, got up and headed into the bathroom and got really dizzy, This happens sometimes when I get up to fast but this time was different, I felt really panicky for some reason. I quickly sat down and waited a few seconds for my head to clear. Now things get hazy, I think I went to stand up but I'm not too sure, the next thing I know, I'm laying on the floor and have knocked over everything in my bathroom. I'm boiling hot and still a little out of it, I stumble to my room and lay flat out on my bed and notice I'm sweating like mad. This last for 2-3 minutes then I start feeling normal again and just get cold. I notice my shoulder is stinging and check it out, only to notice I'd caught myself on the radiator and put a nice 4 inch cut on my shoulder. Fortunately its not very deep.

Its a pretty wimpy cut, the reason I'm showing it is more just to demonstrate the fact that I don't even remember getting it. Thats not cool.

The strangest thing of all this, after that 5-10 minutes passed, I felt perfectly normal again. I think this was caused because I sleep under heavy blankets and my heat is often left on. I must have overheated during the night and had similar symptoms to a mini heat stroke or something. 

I decided despite the fact that I was feeling alright to take the day off work, more because I was stressed over fainting, not wanting it to happen again outside of my house. 

Anyways, yesterday passed. I got some good reading and a bunch of naps in and today I'm feeling back on track. Did my swim workout tonight and had a pretty solid swim (despite doing it all pull).

Even though I don't feel sick anymore I still feel under the weather or something strange like that. Its almost as though I feel like I should be feeling sick, so I'm moping around waiting for it to hit. 

Who knows, tomorrow is another day. Going to get a good sleep tonight and hope this all passes by the weekend. I've been having a lot of good weeks lately. A downer was bound to happen eventually.

Sweet Football Fantasy Draft

I don't play football, but I can appreciate how awesome this is. 

Likely its been manipulated in the video but who cares.

My favorite is the first guy.

Velodrome!

Over the past couple of weeks many members of the UBCTC have made trips to the velodrome in burnaby to give a try at track riding. Its a pretty good program they have there, every week they offer learn to ride courses to introduce people to riding at the velodrome.

Just some background on the velodrome. Its a 200 meter track, with 47 degree banking in the corners. That is steep! You need to be riding at least 30kph in order to not slide out of a turn.

Two weeks ago I took the learn to ride 1 course which introduced getting up onto the track and then simple riding techniques like holding a line. Last night I took learn to ride 2 which was a little more technical. We learnt to ride right next to someone, riding with one hand (preliminary technique for riding the Madison), and finally pacelining.

Its a lot harder than it looks. But once you get the confidence in the corners you can really rip along at a good clip. Unfortunately I don't really have many photos from the nights out, my camera has broken. But I do have this one taken by Meyrick during our learn to ride 1 course.

During our first visit it was Claire, Kendra and I from UBCTC who went out. Claire sent me this photo of the three of us.
Unfortunately last night we didn't get any photos, but it would be more of the same.

I hope to soon take learn to ride 3. During that you do more race like techniques at higher speeds. 

Now that I've done LTR 1/2 I can go for drop in. So I hope to do that every once in a while over the summer as well.

Awww SHOOT!

Tonight talking with Kevin, he brought to my attention that the Desert Half Ironman (Nationals) in Osoyoos is on July 12th. NOOO this can't be, it was on the 6th last year. It should be on that weekend again this year, allowing me to compete there and then race Vancouver the week later.

But alas, as it turns out, both races are scheduled for July 12th, 2009. And I'm currently registered for both.

This isn't as bad as it sounds. I didn't pay for Osoyoos because I got a free entry when I won my age group last year. So I'm not actually losing any money. But its still frustrating because I wanted to race Osoyoos because its nationals, but I also wanted to race Vancouver because my friends will all be around to watch.

Its a no brainer at this point. I'm almost 100% sure I will be doing Vancouver. Rob (my roommate) is racing his first half iron in Vancouver that day, along with a few other friends. Its a much more boring course, but how could I even debate. Vancouver is all paid for (through the Subaru 4 pack) and its right outside my door. The race at this point would cost me nothing, whereas Osoyoos is at least a 300$ investment.

This is somewhat good news though. Last year I struggled because Victoria, Osoyoos and Vancouver were all within 21 days. This year this means I'll have a full 21 days to rest from Victoria to Vancouver and will be able to really attack this race instead of coast it like I did last year.

I'll hopefully make up for it this year thought, maybe throw in a race sometime in August like the Kelowna Apple, an Olympic distance and also nationals.

Oh decisions decisions. Anyways, bedtime for me now. Early morning swim tomorrow with Derek. Hopefully I can sneak in some technique analysis from Derek tomorrow.

Midweek Update

Blisters are still on feet from the UBC tri, however, with proper taping am able to run on them no problem.

Tonight we did a great hill workout, running from Jericho beach up to Chancellor Blvd. Definitely left me tired. Was getting leg cramps sitting on the bus, must have looked some kind of crazy.

Swimming is coming along, I'm still struggling to get the mileage in, but I think that with school settling down I should be able to get back on track. I'm having a lot of trouble waking up in the morning and as a result keep missing workouts. I'm getting plenty of sleep but still sleep right through my alarm.

Finally, I think there may be a second trip to the Velodrome this Friday. I went a few weeks ago and it was awesome, but there should be a full post about that coming soon. For now, I'm going to read my book and head to sleep. I've been reading "I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb, its a good book but far too long, and midway through a whole second story line picks up which I somewhat lost interest in. It will be nice to finish this one and take something lighter, and a little less depressing.

Thats all for now, I'm OUT!

Casper WYOMING!

Now that Blogger has decided to give me access to my blog, I can finally update on my trip to the states.

The second half of my trip to AMERICA was spent in Casper Wyoming visiting my friend Mike. Mike is pretty much my oldest friend, I've known him longer than I can remember. He has a cottage right next to mine in Amherst Shore, Nova Scotia. He is currently working for a drilling company and living in Casper.

After taking a short ride from Denver to Casper on a small prop plane, I was welcomed to Casper with the wind and Mike. Mike picked me up at the airport in a behemoth of a truck. It was his company truck, a Heavy Duty Ford F350. It was pretty sweet and the topic of many of my jokes/comments throughout the rest of my trip.

That first night we didn't do all to much, simply went back to see his house (thats right, Mike is a home owner) and make some delicious pasta dinner. I mainly spectated, Mike and Gina made most of the dinner.

That night we just relaxed and watched movies. The next day Mike and I woke up early and headed to the gym. We did pretty well of making this our morning routine of getting up early and working out. Was nice, I normally am really bad in the mornings, but having someone else there to push me to go was great. 

The gym was funny, although a fully functional gym, when you walked in they didn't ask for any identification or anything. I guess if you know about the gym, you must be a member. So Mike (who is a member), and myself just walked in each day. By the third day the lady at the desk even recognized me and said hello.

On my first full day in Casper, Mike and I went to see the Pioneer Museum where I learned all about the Oregon Trail, Pony Express, and many other adventures of pioneers heading west back in the day. I learned that the pioneers heading west was the largest non forced migration in human history. Something like 400 000 people traveled west.

I think the museum was built somewhat for children, but Mike and I had a good time all the same. 

Pretty Sweet Bison Skull

Mike puling a wagon.

My second day in Casper was spent doing MENS WORK! Mike is selling his Bronco and we needed to clean up the engine and also get it running again. After a quick trip to a motor shop we got a bunch of supplied to get the engine fuel intake working again. This involved Mike fiddling with stuff under the hood and me sitting in the drivers seat turning the key on demand.

After a little while, we got it working again. 

Mike jump starting his truck from his other truck

Just to demonstrate the behemoth that is his work truck

Mike hard at work

Mikes house, it came with the skull. SWEET!

Once we got the truck all cleaned up we went up into the mountains for some sightseeing. There were some really steep roads which would have been amazing for biking, check out this road carved on the mountain. We drove up it, some parts easily well above 10%.

View of Casper from a lookout on the mountain

Once we got over the mountain there was a valley and snow on the other side, unfortunately the road was closed off due to the snow, but we got out and took some photos. It was crazy windy and just starting to snow, the clouds were really blowing in. 

Random broken down barn.

My attempt at demonstrating how much wind there is

Mike and I drove to the end of the road, check out that truck, its huge! Mike is tall to begin with

When we got back to the lookout the clouds were coming over the mountain. I tried to get a few photos of it but none of them really give it any justice.

This is probably the best photo of the clouds just gliding down the side of the mountain

On our way back to town we saw some wildlife. We had actually seen quite a bit of it, but never this close up. I have no idea what these were called, I think American Antelope or something, someone correct me...

Following our little nature expedition, was dinner and a movie, we went to see the international, I thought it was pretty good.

Friday was my last day in the states. We went out for breakfast, and then did a little shopping. I wanted a belt buckle and boy did I find one!

Check it out. 

Then we did the long drive to Denver where Mike dropped me off at the airport.  Wyoming wasn't quite what I expected, I thought it was pan flat other than the rockies, however there were random flat top mountains all over. I wish I had gotten a photo, but my camera broke. 

All in all a fantastic trip!

Parting thoughts on Wyoming that I found interesting:

- In Wyoming, you can't recycle, apparently the state doesn't have a facility for it so everything simply goes in the trash. Being a neighboring state to Colorado and coming from Vancouver this seemed crazy. 

- Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE has a truck. One day we drove in Gina's car and I felt like less of a man in Wyoming, and she has a nice car.

- Gas prices are ridiculous there. Mike's truck took 38 gallons of gas for 68$. This got us the 300 miles to Denver. Convert that to Canadian. 150 liter tank, brought us 500km. Had we not been driving a diesel truck, prices would have been 30% cheaper.

- The current threat level in the airport is ALWAYS at orange. 

Anyways, thanks Mike for the hospitality. Sorry this post too so long to get put up. I blame it on two things, first blogger sucked this past week, and you introduced me to the show Weeds. Well, now I'm all caught up.

Take Care!

Oops

A lot of talking about me, I forgot to mention everyone else. 

Facundo won the race in an awesome display of dominance.

Nick Finished solid in 3rd, letting me know I have a lot of work to do before our next meeting in two month.

Jamie unfortunately was sick twice on the run, and had a disappointing run split but still managed to finish in 5th. 

And Matt finished right behind me in 8th.

There were also a lot of first time racers this weekend. 

Andrew Wight and Claire Askew from UBCTC both did their first triathlons this weekend and both did much better than I had my first race way back when. I don't know all the results yet, when I have more time, I'll make a list.