Interesting Post

I've begun reading this blog by Dave Moulton:

( http://davesbikeblog.squarespace.com/blog/2009/12/7/the-golden-age.html )

a month ago, and I must admit that I agree with almost everything he says.

I've commented to friends how I find it sad that kids "can't" play outside anymore alone because its dangerous. I played outside all the time as a kid disappearing into the woods for hours to build forts or just wondering around with my friends.

Read through the post, and try and answer the question at the end.

Question: What are you doing to make your life better? Not necessarily more prosperous, or easier, but a better quality of life

Boys Weekend

As promised, I bring you photo documentation and the story of my trip to Victoria last week! The mission of the weekend. Celebrate Pat's bachelor party and catch some fish. I was picked up Friday afternoon and we headed for the ferry hoping to make the 5pm. Unfortunately traffic had other plans, arriving us at the ferry at 4:50, too late to get on. Oh well, we had an hour to entertain ourselves. This made for a good introduction to everyone who was going. Myself, Erich and Pat I already knew. Dan and Nate were new to me and we got to know each other over a bottle of Fireball. What I learnt over this weekend. Fireball isn't very good.

Dan and Nate with fireball!

Getting on the 6pm wasn't such a big deal and it was actually one of the fastest trips over to the island I've ever done. The girl behind Pat and I thought we were really entertaining.

Pat and I on the ferry

We decided that this was going to be a classy weekend, and as such, Erich decided that the entire time he was away, he was going to be wearing a suit (unless fishing). Taking the ferry as the start of the weekend he suited up.

He needed a little help with his tie

Arriving at the other side Derek picked us up and brought us all to the hotel as we prepared to go out to dinner. Oh, and one rule of the weekend. To participate you needed to have a mustache and join Pat's Movember team. Sure I didn't have one in the photo above, but I made short work of that once I was at the hotel.

Friday night was more or less uneventful after the ferry and dinner because we were waking up REALLY early to get out to Sooke to go fishing. We had to be on the boats by 7:30 so were up by 6.

For Erich, Pat and I this wasn't too hard. However, Dan and Nate who were a little more liberal with their servings of fireball and cocktails at the restaurant found the morning a little harder.

Waking up to go fishing, we had no idea what the weather was going to be, forecast all week were terrible and kept changing. So it came as a great surprise when we woke up and looked out and saw this!

7:30 AM

And with a little photo manipulation and posing, you saw this!

7:30 AM on the Pacific!

And this!

Few morning beverages to kickstart the day

We started fishing and the first 40 minutes were pretty slow and cold. We were a little tired and grumpy, I wasn't too sure what to expect. however, shortly after that we had our first success. We were using down riggers and trolling so we rotated who got to reel in when a fish was caught on one of the 3 lines. I got pretty lucky and managed to snag some awesome ones.

My first catch of the day: Before 9AM

Notice Mustache out in full

We had two boats out, My boat had all the non hung over guys. As a result we caught all the fish. The other boat. Didn't have so much luck.

Vince, Roger, Pat, Erich

(believe it or not, they all had mustaches... WEAK!)

And I'm not even going to explain this next photo, all I will say, is I decided to fight the fish as close to nature as I was willing to be, and was rewarded with my biggest fish of the day.

This guy is so dirty

As part of BC fishing law, we had to purchase a 1 day license and were only allowed 2 salmon each. By the end of the 5 hour fishing trip we were throwing fish back hoping that our 10th would be the biggest. In all between the 5 of us on the boat we caught probably close to 15 fish and threw a bunch of the smaller ones back.

We had a pretty successful haul. The other boat. Not so much, they only caught 3 fish...

Pat showing off his catch

Since we caught more than was allowed, and the other boat didn't catch enough it worked out well because we could share. Here is my boats catch. My big catches were the 4th and 5th down coming in around 9-10 pounds!

Hey Dad, Jealous?

I thought I was being so clever by holding the fish closer to the camera to make them look bigger. I think it worked

The dirty work.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on what perspective you take, my camera ran out of batteries and I was able to take no more photos than this. Thankfully there wasn't too much else photo worthy.

We followed fishing with a fantastic lunch. I'll have to get the name of the restaurant and spread the word. And then back for an afternoon of recuperation. Dan is studying to become a chef and cooked up one of the fish exceptionally well along with some vegetables and risotto. It really was fantastic. Then we hit up a night on the town.

All in all a great weekend and hopefully we do another like it in the years to come.

Sad day in lab

Today was a sad day in lab. As the semester is approaching to a close, many changes are taking place.

The lab numbers are going from 4 grad students, 3 post doc's, 3 technicians and 2 undergrads, down to 1 post doc and 1 technician and a bunch of grad students. The result of which being that today was one of my best friend, Paul's last day.

The celebration of his last day was somewhat anti climactic, however, we went out for a friends birthday and had a good time nonetheless.

My main fear is that without the everyday exposure, my connection to Paul will fade which would be unfortunate because he has been a great friend over the 2.5 years I've been in BC. Hopefully this post will catch his attention and prevent that from happening.

I decided to write this post to congratulate him on moving on from the lab and wish him the best of luck in whatever he decides to do in the future.

See you soon Paul!

Tri BC Gala

This past week a group of the UBCTC and I went to the Annual Tri BC Fundraising Gala at the Stanley Park Rowing Club.

I wasn't too sure what to expect, but it was a lot of fun. All together we had 10 of us from the club, who get along really well and had a good time.

The atmosphere of the Gala wasn't as much "Party" as it was "Socialize and Mingle", nevertheless it was a good time and it was nice seeing some people I raced against in the summer and haven't seen since.

Paul Regensburg and Meyrick Jones

Meyrick encouraged us to come out and I'm glad he did. There was a great talk by Triathlon Coach and Commentator Paul Regensburg. He told a great story about the 2000 olympics and how he announced for CBC Simon Whitfields win.

A few things that would have been a nice addition for future years would be recognition for the racers over the year. I personally have never been to the Tri Quebec Gala, however, I know that they give out awards for the Age group Athletes of the year in each age group along with club awards etc. I think this is a big motivator to get more people out, whereas here in BC although there is a provincial race series. There is never any mention of it.

I personally have been 2X BC long course champ but other than an e-mail haven't had it mentioned anywhere.

Anyways, thats my 2 cents on how to improve Tri BC and the Gala.

Winston and I dressed somewhat similarly

Following the Gala, the group of us went over to Matt's place for a few more drinks and games.

All round it was a pretty fantastic Thursday night if I may say so myself and hopefully we can have a lot more team outings like this in the future.

Can anyone say Fondu?

Fantastic Weekend!

Teaser Post

This past weekend I was in Victoria for a friends Bachelors party. It was a blast, dinners, fishing, a few beverages, late night adventures!

Pictures to follow.

Oh, and I have a new favorite song.

Half Marathon Photos

Photos are up, and thanks to Winston and SI Photography I got a few.

The start line ones make me laugh because I went out way too fast.

And who knows why my time was 1:26:27, clearly the clock says otherwise.

Oh well.

And who knows why my time was 1:26:27, clearly the clock says otherwise.

Oh well.

Since UBC REC goes with the cheapest timing system around, my ankle was all cut up by the timer, I had to take it off and perform a classic move at the finish line.

Wet, tired and cold.

Wet, Windy and Cold Half Marathon

I had been debating for a while as to whether I would run the half marathon this past weekend for a while. With my mom in town, and she hasn't seen me race since 2006, I decided to enter and see what I could do.

Weather predictions didn't bode well for the race. As would be expected for the fall classic, the forecast was calling for rain. As luck would have it Thursday-Saturday were next to perfect days and then come Saturday night the sky opened up and the rain started.

Waking up Sunday morning at 6AM I took a quick peak at the weather network and this is what I saw

Now I realize that says Nov 16th, but today and yesterday have had the same weather

It was about 4*C and raining pretty steady for Vancouver. Fortunately though the entire course was always sloped in some direction and the result being I never found the puddles too hard to avoid. Don't get me wrong I was soaked, but at least my feet were never squishing around in my shoes.

I dressed pretty well for the race which made the rain and cold not an issue. The hardest obstacle yesterday was the wind. Being a smaller half marathon than the Victoria half (1000 people vs 5500), I found myself running alone a lot and out along Marine drive the wind really picked up. It would have been smart for me to put in the extra effort to keep right behind people for this section but heinsight is 20/20 right.

All in all I had a good race. Slower than victoria 1:26:29 but considering the conditions I'm pretty pleased with myself.

I could have done a little better with the pacing, I have been running a lot of mile/5k runs lately and when the gun went off, I shot out like a bat out of hell. I ran my first km pulling back at 3:26 pace and was in first place for nearly 800m. Oops, I probably paid for that a little. Live and learn.

I had a lot of trouble seeing the km markers, some of them were hidden in the bushes so I only have a few of my splits.

1km - 3:26

3km - 11:11 (7:44 2k)

8km - 32:01 (20:50 5k)

9km - 36:07 (4:06 k)

10km - 40:19 (4:12 k)

12km - 48:50 (8:30 2k)

18km - 1:14:23 (25:27 6k)

21.1km - 1:26:29 (12:06 -3.1km)

Average pace 4:06 YUCK!

To see how the rest of the UBCTC did check here