Sick Sick Sick

This is pretty much what I do when I'm sick, draw in my coloring book, play with my toys, lay with my teddy bears and act sick in bed.

Well, if the title of this blog post doesn't tell you enough, I'm kinda sick. To quote my mom, I've been "Burning the candle at both ends". Unfortunately, unlike the photo, my mom lives on the other side of the country, so I had no one to complain to. Fortunately I'll be seeing her on Wednesday.

Work has had me really busy lately, and I've also picked up a few extra responsibilities. Just over a week ago, the UBCTC club president stepped down because his course load was too heavy and wouldn't allow him to dedicate enough time to the club.

We hung in limbo over if we would hold another election or simply promote a current club exec. My role on the executive was somewhat undefined, I was run coach, however, also played a role simply as consultant, for which I brought up the McGill Triathlon Club probably far too often.

It took about 2-3 days before Andrew suggested to the rest of the exec that I should take over. Before I could come up with a rebuttal for this, I was already voted in. I didn't really want the responsibility, however, I must admit, I enjoy being in the position. I find that I am working hard at it and hopefully doing a good job. The only downside I can see is that sometimes I push unimportant things like sleep aside for a few hours while I get things done. Last week after having a few 12AM nights in lab followed by 6:30AM wake up calls, led to a tired Vincent and I got sick.

Tri Club out at Iona, man we will look good when all dressed alike!

All of this to say my half marathon training has taken a hit. The only real exercise I have done over the past week has been the group ride that the triathlon team did on Saturday. We had a group ride followed by a beginner cycling clinic at 11, and midway through the ride I realized I wouldn't be back in time to lead the clinic. With that Matt and I had to put a pretty strong effort for a 2 person TT to get back to campus. Killing ourselves we got back by 10:58! SUCCESS! As a result, I've had no voice since. Oh well.

Today, Monday, I'm on the mend and hopefully in two days I will be all better. Lab has settled down and I should be able to get some nice early nights before I leave for Calgary for a few days. More on that later!

On a finishing note, Saturday was a beautiful day and we had as I said our first group ride, followed by a cycling clinic and the UBCTC welcome back BBQ. Everything in my mind was a HUGE success. To read more details about the day click here to read Winston's report.

Erich's Odyssey Part 1/5

In the spirit of the upcoming Vancouver Half Iron, I've decided to post the lead up training log of a friend of mine, Erich Schmitt. Exactly 10 days prior to the Victoria New Balance Half, he decided to sign up and compete on ZERO training. A little background on Erich. He is a Varsity Swimmer from UBC who now simply likes to talk smack. Here is how it went.

Day 1.
8k run, 4k swim, 1.5hr bike (might as well start with a bang).

Days till half ironman: 10

I am a serial hobbyist. It's not my fault, there's just too many awesome things to do. Surfing, guitar, stock trading are just a few, although with, ahem, varying degrees of proficiency. Even my swimming would fall under this category when you consider that I've only trained 20 out of the past 58 months (a 4:22 400im doesn't seem so bad when you look at it that way). Which brings me to my latest "hobby": long distance triathlons. Or perhaps I should change that to singular as it appears one is going to be enough.

"Why not do a triathlon this summer to stay in shape?" I thought. By the time thought became action, I found myself entered in the second longest race in the sport with exactly 10 days to do some sort of "training". Of course, my original intention was the much more reasonable Olympic distance, but since my buddies were all doing the half iron, I wasn't gonna be the one to miss out on all the fun. (Note to self: there is something to be said for being reasonable.)

60 seconds into my first training run and two things are obvious:
1) Despite sitting on my ass for the past 3 months, aerobically this will be no problem. 14 years of swimming will do that to you.
2) The real problem: I have no strength whatsoever in the muscle groups required for running. Did I mention the run is a half marathon? (21k)