Police half no show!!

Hey there,

It's time for another update. The training is going ok, or at least it was. Lately I've gotten a sore throat and have been weak at times since the weekend so I know my body is trying to tell me somthing. Time for a break??? I would have to disagree, but hey, sometimes your body knows best. Sorry I didn't show at the Police half, some of you may be wondering why. I didn't feel particularly happy about racing since the temp is so low. My asthma makes it particularly difficult to run hard. My running still isn't there so to say I was unmotivated going into the weekend would put it mildly. Then when I woke sunday morning I had a sore throat, so that settled it, I'm a no show. I hope the rest of you did well.

I did a couple rides already with the tues/thurs IG crew. They were good, really hard though. The first was a hills night in tuscany(Calgary) with a short hill that we did just before IMC last year. I at first figured that Greg would take it easy on us since it was our first outdoor hill ride, I was dead wrong. I think I managed 8 repeats alternating hard/easy (if there is such a thing as a easy hill). At one point I remember doing a hill with Greg on my tail watching my technique. At the top he gave me a few pointers then he has the nerve to ask if that was a hard or easy one???? I'm like, you couldn't tell??? What can I say obviously I have lots more work to do to be able to climb like him. I will try to push him though mark my words, if I have to TT it down the hill to get a head start on the next one I'll do it. hee hee

The second was last week ummm somtime before the cold crappy weather came back. Greg wasn't there actually so he phoned Leslie and gave us the workout by phone. It was pace lining with some tempo, again I thought hmmm doesn't sound too tough. I was wrong again, Chris immediatly takes off head down TT into the wind all the way to Cochrane. I thought we'd be pace lining, riding "together" but I was wrong. So Trevor and I hook up and make it our goal to catch him. I don't know about Trevor, but I had to work my ass off just to keep up. We took turns evenly pulling and slowly slowwwwwwwwwly we pulled Chris back. We tried to get the rotation going, but Chris would have none of it and took off on his own again just before we got to Cochrane. Trevor dropped back and I stayed just with in reach till we stopped at the top of the Cochrane hill, man was I ever wiped, so much for aerobic, hee hee. But what a way to break in the outdoor season, too bad I'm sittin in doors now.

So with the crappy weekend, trying to taper a bit for the Police half, then getting the sore throat I haven't really done much for 4 days now. Oh well I think I am dodging most of the cold by taking vitamins, plenty of rest, and of course garlic pills. I should be ready to go by wednesday for sure. Looking forward to this weekend. the forecast looks like +14 for the long ride, it should be good to get out there again and letter rip. Cheers all,

DP

Hallo!!

Hey bloggers/Creepers

The weather has been a lil cooler this week again, even involving some snow eh. I think I still did all my runs outside, but I've had to put the bike back on the trainer. Last weekend I was able to get out for my long ride. It wasn't that long perhaps 2:15, but it was nice to roll into Bragg creek again. I visited that lil town a lot last year on the way to either Elbow falls or Millarville. I think I convinced Leslie and Chad to go with me this weekend, maybe we can make it all the way to elbow falls. Although I think that'll probably be more then 3 hours. Wednesday is always the tough running day. I did 75 min with 4x5min, my legs are aching today from the effort. We also had a pretty good swim later that evening, so good we actually got kicked out of the pool and had no time to soak in the hot-tub grrrrrrrrrrrrr. Oh well I think it was around 2500m in 1:10? Short stuff too, somthing like 5x100(pull on the evens) 20 secs rest, 4x25 hard on 1 min, 4x100(50 ez 50 build)15 secs rest, 4x25 hard on 1 min, 3x100(25ez,25build,25mod,25hard) 10 secs rest, 4x25 hard on 1 min, 2x100 pull 5 secs rest, 4x25 hard on 1 min, 1x100 hard. So as you can tell the key was trying to recover on the 100s, lots of rest on the 25s to go fast. Good workout Greg. Today should be fine for another out door ride, I hope. I might join a easy running group here at work, they have started running wed. at noon. I don't think they do much more then like 20 min so I should be able to just add it on to the schedule. The police half is comin up not this coming weekend but the weekend after. I still don't feel like doing it, but who knows I will treat it like a workout and not care about the time. I'll be faster then 1:45, slower then 1:30 that's the only prediction I'm making. Put it this way, I'll get further then last year which was maybe 100 metres? /knockingonwood Who's looking forward to the May long camp???? I AM!!! Here's to riding till I drop, picking myself up and riding more. I'll be packing the polysporin(no pardon on the pun). Here's a picture of me at Bragg creek this weekend, if I didn't have the head covering on you'd see my new buzz cut, woooooahhhh. Cheers,

DP

Interesting Dream

Hey,

Ok so I had this dream on friday night. I'm sure more of you have had this dream where you get to the start line, about to hear the gun, you look down and low and behold you forget your shoes. Or you forget somthing else major just before the gun. Oh well this one had a bit of a twist to it so I thought I'd share.

Ok so I was being dropped off at the start area ready to do my Ironman. I'm not sure the location or even who dropped me off. I assume it was a friend or family member, I don't think it was Lisa, but not sure. Anyways I got my wetsuit on and went into the water to do my warmup. I had plenty of time, nothing would go wrong right?? WRONG!! Anyways I decided to swim a bit out and follow the shore line. As I was swimming along I noticed the wind pick up. Ohhhh I look out and see some big rollers way out on the swim course. They may have been 3-4 ft rollers already. Yikes, starting to get worried. By that point I was a little ways out but I could see the bottom of the lake. There was a pier near by to break up the waves as they came in to shore. The lake was a lot bigger then lake okanagan, other then that everything appeared like Penticton. Oh well I look down and suddenly see this huge shadow down on the bottom. Could it be ogopogo??? Nooooo it was a monster shark!!! Hammer head and 12 ft long. I wasn't freaking out yet as he probably saw me long before and was still on the bottom. Anyways I decided not to risk it and shinnied myself up on the fence/pier thing. A bunch of other swimmers were getting close and I yelled at them to get away, SHARK!!! So as I sit up there safe I look down and see that the shark really had no interest in the swimmers, he was clearly feeding on schools of fish down there on the bottom. So I decide I can't sit there forever and can't really call for a boat, it was windy only swimmers near by could hear me. I'm not exactly sure how I got back on shore, pretty sure I swam since the shark didn't seem interested in human meat. So I get back to the start and this is where we slip into the familiar dream. We're in the water, gun about to go off and I think to myself OMG my bike or none of my transition stuff is set up yet!!! So I think delayed them, yelled at the starter to hold off a bit and I run around trying to find the people that dropped me off. I get the race director/officials to even call for them over the loud speaker to find out where they're at. I had none of my stuff there, not even my bike. Oh well I think they promised to set up my stuff and that I should just go swim, and that's where I woke up. I told lisa my dream just so I'd remember it. That's it, that's my dream, so you can bet I'll be lookin for mr. hammerhead come Aug. 30th. Maybe it'll help me swim faster???

I had a pretty good weekend of workouts. Friday I did my long run well not very long 90 minutes which I ran at the talisman. I was planning on swimming after, but I went there early and there were no lanes open at that time so I just went home. Yesterday I did 2.5 hours on the bike and followed it up with a pretty hard transition run. I did my usual pond loop which normally takes me 27:40, with a little less slush and pushing a lil harder I managed 26:30 yesteray. wooo that felt good. Today I've already gone and done a hill workout, ran to the biggest hill near by and did 8 hills 1.5 min in length. Not quite the 2-3 min that I was supposed to do but I did the whole hill in 1.5 min and the last grade was so steep I had to run on my toes. Not an easy hill to run. 2-3 min on the treadmill would have been way easier, I also ran most of the way down since walking it would take too long. Doesn't sound hard, but trust me it hurt. My total run including the run home was 1:12. Off to the pool later to swim with Chad and Leslie. Greg is sick, poor guy he's had a run of bad luck lately. :( Oh well that's all for now, TTYL,

DP

It's on!!!

The food challenge again this month. No pop, fast food, beer, chips, chocolate for the month of april. A guy I work with was talkin about doing that this month. I've already failed in a way cause I had some chips and chocolate yesterday, but from this day forward. NONE, I promise. I can even tack on a couple days to make up for April 1st.

I'm still hungry!!!!! grrrrrrrrrrr

Seriously, I eat and eat and eat all day long, have a big lunch and I have one plum left(I don't care for plums) and I'm still hungry!!!! Ok, here's the breakdown, I had a yogurt, 2xgranola bars, a asian mango jelly thing(you know the kind you get in the asian isle of the grocery store), at home I had some kind of pastry thing with a cup of choc. milk for breakfast. For lunch I had a big big tupperwear thing full of all kinds of goodness, ham, potatoes, peas, green beans, hmmm something else. Then a bag full of stawberries, and a bag full of carrots for snack later. Just now I ate an apple and finished up the bag of carrots. Hmmm there's gotta be more I just can't think of it right now and it feels like my tummy is telling me it wants more??? Maybe I have a tapeworm??? My co-workers think I'm weird cause I have a big lunch kit and somtimes it can't be closed cause my food is sticking out the top of it. They just assume I eat all day, that's it. I don't really, but I do munch on stuff much of it. Most of the time it's healthy stuff, somtimes bad snacks. Anyways I know I need the calories, but seriously I ate a lot today!!!

QOTD: “hard work beats talent when talent does not work hard.”

I do, I'm totally a inspirational junkie. I also have the dream of going under 10 hours some day and possibly qualifying for kona. Here's a cool RR, not just for sub-10 dreamers, everyone should be able to relate and get somthing out of it;

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/From_Serious_Fat_Guy_to_Kona_-_My_Kona_Qualification_Story_P2263694/

My legs feel like jello

Hey all,

I thought I'd try to keep this bloggin thing going a few days, see if I can get into it. Just like running I'd lost my mojo and the only way to get it back is to do it more often right? The last couple of days have been good, yesterday I had a good run finally. I did somthing different, I forced myself to run with someone slightly slower then I usually run. At least for the first 30 minutes I kept with this gentleman. He didn't seem to mind and I even asked if I was annoying him. I know some people don't like it especially on the bike. ;) But we've NEVER DONE THAT(sarcasm). Anywho as soon as he dropped off I kept going and picked it up having done a "proper" warmup. I know it sounds crazy, who woulda thought doing a proper warmup would yield results. After that I found my legs and increased quite a bit near the end. My 90 min. Z2 probably creeped up into the Z3 by the end, but hey I really needed the confidence booster. I felt great at the end.

So Chad Leslie and Greg showed up for the swim and they were all excited about the new IM. Anyone else interested in St. George Utah??? Sounds interesting, I did some research on the place, there's some bad and some good things. I'm a lil leary, not quite convinced on it yet. The biggest thing is it's a May IM which means long long trainer rides. I'm getting better aquainted with the trainer, but could I handle that??? Def. not at this point, maybe by next spring I could. Oh well it was the topic of discussion before we started the swim. We did some kind of descending thing. They moved the bulkhead during one of our sets, which actually made one our 50s 60, and our next 50 75 as they moved the bulkhead. It makes for an interesting swim. Somtimes it seems like the wall has moved when you get tired, here it was actually moving. I didn't get clothes lined like last time with the flag thing that they drape across at the 5m marks. Nice of them not to do it this time. One of the last sets we did 4 x 50 all out. So I come into the wall just behind Greg and he mentions to me, "You didn't look like you were going very hard". I wasn't thinking and quickly stated that no I cut the gas before I got to the wall. Greg is usually not a slave driver, but this clearly made him frown. He tells me at that point somthing like, "No, I want you to drive alllllll the way to the wall" Do it again, this time push harder, effort wise then you've ever pushed. What a dumb ass, mental note*** don't ever tell your coach your sand baggin it, bad idea. Anyways he made me do a 5th one too, big meany. I really pushed like he wanted and nearly paid the price(as well as everyone else swimming near by) by barfing into the pool. Man I can't remember ever bein that nautious. Oh well lesson learnt, pay attention to the little things, one detail in itself won't make a big deal, probably won't affect the outcome at all on Aug 30, but a little thing here, another there, yet another there...... well you get the picture DETAILS!!!

Todays bike was good, I'm really likin these MAP intervals, they hurt like heck. I had about 3 sets of them ranging from 45-90 secs and 4-6 of them with a break inbetween. I'm sure most of you guys in the class will have had the same thing, I think I'm a phase behind them since I started a few weeks behind with the indoor sessions. I checked the distance to St. George Utah, I'm allowed to do an IM and Lisa likes the idea of me bein done the race early summer which gives us more time for other fun summer activities which don't interfere with training, ha ha. or the other way. Utah is close to Vegas so we could do some things there, not that we're big gamblers but neither of us have been to Vegas so it would be nice to do. Spring should be here shortly and I'm lookin forward to training with the group again, I miss the comradery how ever you spell that. I think Greg was talkin about doin Edworthy hill or maybe tuscany as soon as the temp gets into the double digits. Gotta get the bikes tuned up, oh well that's it for now, hopefully I'll blog again soon, later,

DP