I haven't posted in a while now. I'm not in the biggest of writing moods right now, but I figured it was time for an update.
I've made a big decision as far as my running career goes. Come January I'll be moving down to Scottsdale Arizona until the middle of May to train full-time with the "elite" group of the training centre. The group that is going down is really out of this world. The core group of guysconsists of Matt Lincoln, Geoff Martinson, Quin Ferguson, Andrew Ellerton, Justin Marpole-Bird, Darren St. Clair (UK), Nate Brennan, and myself. There are also some super talented girls that will be down there in Ashley Hinther, Lemlem Bereket Ogbasilassie, Lisa Aguilera, Andrea Parker and maybe more that I don't know of. There are also other athletes that will be coming and going like Taylor Milne, Kyle Smith, Olivier Collin, Leanna Maclean, the list goes on.
Long story short, the group is unreal, I'm going to get my ass kicked day in and day out, I'm going to love it, and I'm going to run real fast!
The main point of this post was to give a big thank-you to my sponsor. Matt Norminton and the Running Room have been more than generous to me over the last year and a bit. Most recently setting me up for my trip down to Arizona. Hooking me up with more shoes than I hope to get through, spikes, nutritional/hydration products, socks, clothes, and everything else you can think of.
These words don't express how truly appreciative and grateful I am, nor could any other words.
Thanks Matt and Running Room.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
The Wonders of the Amazon
I have had some business ideas for a couple years now. When I was back in Calgary I shared these ideas with my friend Darren and he was super receptive. We started elaborating on my original ideas and actually came up with a pretty sweet concept. We even went and talked to some "experts" who are already in that particular business and they even offered to help us out when the time comes.
When we were chatting with our "expert" she told us about a cool documentary and some books that could help and educate us. So last night I was searching on the web to see if I could find some of what she suggested. Unfortunately it's a bit of an obscure topic and I was unable to find a torrent for the documentary. She suggested that I try looking on amazon. I had never been on the site before, so I decided to check it out. I ended up getting 5 books for like $40. $8 per book, can't complain about that. When in reality I got a couple books for $0.01 but shipping was like $6.50 or something.
Not all the books had to do with business either, in fact only 1 did, the other 4 were purely for pleasure. I took out my reading list I had written down a little while ago and searched a few of the books. The prices were right so I couldn't refuse!
I'm excited to get all my new presents and have many hours of entertainment for only $40.
When we were chatting with our "expert" she told us about a cool documentary and some books that could help and educate us. So last night I was searching on the web to see if I could find some of what she suggested. Unfortunately it's a bit of an obscure topic and I was unable to find a torrent for the documentary. She suggested that I try looking on amazon. I had never been on the site before, so I decided to check it out. I ended up getting 5 books for like $40. $8 per book, can't complain about that. When in reality I got a couple books for $0.01 but shipping was like $6.50 or something.
Not all the books had to do with business either, in fact only 1 did, the other 4 were purely for pleasure. I took out my reading list I had written down a little while ago and searched a few of the books. The prices were right so I couldn't refuse!
I'm excited to get all my new presents and have many hours of entertainment for only $40.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Nostalgic
It's sometimes funny how this world seems to work. Lately I've been watching an old favourite TV show of mine, "The Wonder Years". From watching it I often felt very nostalgic and wished I could go back to being 13 and relive some of the exact same things that Kevin Arnold was going through. Little did I know that in the week to follow, I would be given a chance to do just that... somewhat.
On the 25th of August around 10:15am I embarked on a road trip to Calgary. I was headed home to visit my parents and Darren St. Clair, who was flying in from London, England. I decided not to rush the trip out and stop off in Kamloops on my way out, the old stompin' grounds. For those of you who don't know, I spent my younger years in Kamloops before moving to Calgary. I got in touch with my old bestfriend, Lauren, and we made plans to meet up for dinner. I ended up hanging out with her and her family for about 6 hours. It was really great to spend time with her again, and have the opprotunity to chat with her mom, dad, and sister. All of which I hadn't seen in roughly 6 years.
Through sitting and chatting with Lauren and her family, I was shot right back to when I was kid. Lauren and I remembered stories from back when we were young. Her mom told us a lot of the same stories, but from the adults perspective, which was funny. We went through her year books and I was able to see the difference between how the people looked when I left Kamloops compared to how they looked when they graduated high school, if they graduated. We also went for a drive around the old city. We stopped by my first house and neighborhood in Kamloops. It was almost too much, I had an overwhelming giddyness the entire time. It was such a trip back in time to drive around and remember the way I walked to school, where I used to play, who lived where and surprising to learn that most people still live in the same spot.
After the trip back in time I went to sleep totally content and with a big smile on my face. I woke up early the next morning and headed on out to my final destination, Calgary. A few days into my trip I would be thrown back in time once again. Darren and I were headed to Canada Olympic Park to check it out, and on the way I decided to stop by my old high school and take a peak around. As we walked the halls I was reliving memory after memory and trying to tell Darren about as many of them as could. Then we stopped at the wall with all the class photos and find my photo and looked through the few years before and after my graduating year. It was fun to look at everyone and tell Darren stories of all the different people.
The whole trip I couldn't stop thinking how funny it was that for about 2 weeks leading into the trip I was watching the show wishing I could go back, and then in a way I was given that opprotunity.
It's a crazy, whacky, wonderful world we live in...
**And I forgot, I also found all these old photos and letters hidden in the back of my closet. That was another trip down memory lane!
On the 25th of August around 10:15am I embarked on a road trip to Calgary. I was headed home to visit my parents and Darren St. Clair, who was flying in from London, England. I decided not to rush the trip out and stop off in Kamloops on my way out, the old stompin' grounds. For those of you who don't know, I spent my younger years in Kamloops before moving to Calgary. I got in touch with my old bestfriend, Lauren, and we made plans to meet up for dinner. I ended up hanging out with her and her family for about 6 hours. It was really great to spend time with her again, and have the opprotunity to chat with her mom, dad, and sister. All of which I hadn't seen in roughly 6 years.
Through sitting and chatting with Lauren and her family, I was shot right back to when I was kid. Lauren and I remembered stories from back when we were young. Her mom told us a lot of the same stories, but from the adults perspective, which was funny. We went through her year books and I was able to see the difference between how the people looked when I left Kamloops compared to how they looked when they graduated high school, if they graduated. We also went for a drive around the old city. We stopped by my first house and neighborhood in Kamloops. It was almost too much, I had an overwhelming giddyness the entire time. It was such a trip back in time to drive around and remember the way I walked to school, where I used to play, who lived where and surprising to learn that most people still live in the same spot.
After the trip back in time I went to sleep totally content and with a big smile on my face. I woke up early the next morning and headed on out to my final destination, Calgary. A few days into my trip I would be thrown back in time once again. Darren and I were headed to Canada Olympic Park to check it out, and on the way I decided to stop by my old high school and take a peak around. As we walked the halls I was reliving memory after memory and trying to tell Darren about as many of them as could. Then we stopped at the wall with all the class photos and find my photo and looked through the few years before and after my graduating year. It was fun to look at everyone and tell Darren stories of all the different people.
The whole trip I couldn't stop thinking how funny it was that for about 2 weeks leading into the trip I was watching the show wishing I could go back, and then in a way I was given that opprotunity.
It's a crazy, whacky, wonderful world we live in...
**And I forgot, I also found all these old photos and letters hidden in the back of my closet. That was another trip down memory lane!
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Ucluelet/Tofino.
Alright, I now have more places than a tent somewhere in Kananaskis that I want to live. I was just up in Ucluelet, or Ukee as the locals say, and Tofino for a few days visiting my good friend T.J. and loved every minute of it, even the 6 hours spent being sick on a boat in the ocean.
My journey started after work at 2pm. I zipped home to pack really quick and head on my way. However, while I was packing I got a nice surprise text from a good friend, Jocelyn Arnason, from Calgary that I hadn't seen in a long time. So I went and met her and her boyfriend on the patio of Canoe Club for a chatski and a quick bite to eat. I had never really spent any time with her boyfriend, so it was really nice to get to know him a bit and to spend time with her. Not to mention that it was an absolutely gorgeous day outside. It was just a little preview of how epic this trip was going to be.
I left Canoe Club around 5:30 and hit the road. I had talked to a few different people before leaving and had heard mixed reviews, some said the drive was almost 6 hours, some said 4 hours. It ended up taking me just under 4 with stopping for A&W and getting pulled-over once. Luckily I got a really nice RCMP guy and he only gave me a warning. If you have never done it before, the drive is a lot of fun, and beautiful. The road is pretty easy going until you get up passed Nanaimo and get off Highway 1 and turn into the 14. Once you get there it starts to get a bit windy, but this is also where it starts to get really pretty. The forest becomes a lot more dense and you drive passed some really pretty lakes and coves. I got to see an amazing sunset. I turned around a corner and all of a sudden there was this gorgeous little bay. I debated pulling over for a minute to watch, but it was getting late and I was unsure of how much father I had. I kept driving and just took as many peaks over as I could, which wasn't many because I was going down a pretty steep windy hill. As the sun went down, the fog rolled in which also made for some pretty cool views. Finally around 9:30 I arrived at the Canadian Princess Resort, which is where T.J. works. He still had awhile until he was off so I just sat and chatted with people and had a couple beers. Once T.J. got off we just headed to his house and sat for awhile catching up and having a couple more beers then went to bed.
In hindsight staying up that late and having that many beers was probably a bad choice. We had to get up around 05:00 because we headed out fishing at 06:00. We got up, had a quick cup'o'marnin' (aka coffee) and headed to the boats to start our adventure out on the old salt chuck. We were going for a pretty long run out into open water. The capt'n said there was some good fishing about 2hrs out. So T.J. and I poured ourselves a cup of tea and prepared ourselves for a long boat ride. I made it about an hour until I started to feel kind of queasy and about another 30mins until I start ralphing. As soon as we stopped I stumbled my way into the wheel house, laid down on a bench and that was game over. That bench became my little resting spot for the rest of the trip. Anytime I tried to open my eyes I immediately felt sick, so I just kept them close and tried to sleep as much as possible. At one point when I was awake and could hear people talking about whales, apparently there were two swimming right beside the boat, and one father out that totally breached the surface. I was pretty upset about that, I mean I was upset about the whole thing, but especially missing the whales. Luckily the fishing trip only cost me $20 instead of the regular $140 because Teej works for them.
Once we got off the boat I felt almost normal. We stopped on the Princess and had a big lunch to replenish everything I left out there on the chuck. After lunch we headed back to T.J.'s and had a 30min nap that turned into a 2 hour nap, clearly we needed it. Once we got up we had a delicious dinner of fresh Halibut that Teej had caught that morning with potatoes and salad, so good! After we finished the scrumptious dinner we headed out to do some rock climbing. We made a pretty sweet little boulder problem which neither of us could fully solve. We then enjoyed a nice cleansing ale on the rocks while watching the sun set, headed home chatted and then headed to bed.
We woke up with the plans to have a quick breakfast and hike out to a WWII Canso bomber plane that crashed in 1945 with a few of T.J.'s friends. T.J.'s brother-in-law had other plans however. He made us a huge fantastic omlette and bacon breakfast. Instead of heading out around 11:00 like planned we started the trip around 13:30. Other than taking a few tries to find the trailhead, the hike was flawless and a lot of fun. The bomber was amazing and we had a lot of fun climbing on and exploring the plane. After the hike we headed into Tofino so that Phil, one of Teej's friends, could buy some new fins for his surfboard. I wanted to stay and bum around Tofino a little more, but we just headed back to Ukee to have a BBQ and Phil and Dave's. Which pretty much brings an end to that night, we just hung out, had a BBQ and a few drinks and then called it a night.
The next morning T.J. and I went surfing, which was really fun. It was my 3rd time ever surfing. The waves weren't exactly the best, but I managed to catch one really good wave which made it worth it. Unfortunately Teej had to work at 15:00 so we didn't have too much time on the water, but after we were done we went to a nice little restaurant for lunch. We got a table with a good view of the beach and had a nice little man-date. After I dropped T.J. off at work and said goodbye, I brought my surfboard back and decided to head into Tofino to explore a little more than the day before. Coinsidently Laura Mitic, Julia Tschanz, and Adrienne Attorp had just arrived in Tofino from Victoria. I made plans to meet up with them and wandered around with them for awhile. And then finally it was time for me to head home. It was a sad realisation. I really enjoyed my time up there, it didn't even feel like I was in Canada. But within a mere 3hrs45mins later I was back at home and in the real world once again.
This trip is definitely on my top 3 favourite trip list. It was hard for me to leave. I had the urge to just pack-up everything and move out there and be a huge surf-bum and grow a big gnarly beard. Now I have a decision to make for once I'm done running, a tent in the mountains being a climbing-bum, or somewhere up in Ukee or Tofino being a surf-bum...
My journey started after work at 2pm. I zipped home to pack really quick and head on my way. However, while I was packing I got a nice surprise text from a good friend, Jocelyn Arnason, from Calgary that I hadn't seen in a long time. So I went and met her and her boyfriend on the patio of Canoe Club for a chatski and a quick bite to eat. I had never really spent any time with her boyfriend, so it was really nice to get to know him a bit and to spend time with her. Not to mention that it was an absolutely gorgeous day outside. It was just a little preview of how epic this trip was going to be.
I left Canoe Club around 5:30 and hit the road. I had talked to a few different people before leaving and had heard mixed reviews, some said the drive was almost 6 hours, some said 4 hours. It ended up taking me just under 4 with stopping for A&W and getting pulled-over once. Luckily I got a really nice RCMP guy and he only gave me a warning. If you have never done it before, the drive is a lot of fun, and beautiful. The road is pretty easy going until you get up passed Nanaimo and get off Highway 1 and turn into the 14. Once you get there it starts to get a bit windy, but this is also where it starts to get really pretty. The forest becomes a lot more dense and you drive passed some really pretty lakes and coves. I got to see an amazing sunset. I turned around a corner and all of a sudden there was this gorgeous little bay. I debated pulling over for a minute to watch, but it was getting late and I was unsure of how much father I had. I kept driving and just took as many peaks over as I could, which wasn't many because I was going down a pretty steep windy hill. As the sun went down, the fog rolled in which also made for some pretty cool views. Finally around 9:30 I arrived at the Canadian Princess Resort, which is where T.J. works. He still had awhile until he was off so I just sat and chatted with people and had a couple beers. Once T.J. got off we just headed to his house and sat for awhile catching up and having a couple more beers then went to bed.
In hindsight staying up that late and having that many beers was probably a bad choice. We had to get up around 05:00 because we headed out fishing at 06:00. We got up, had a quick cup'o'marnin' (aka coffee) and headed to the boats to start our adventure out on the old salt chuck. We were going for a pretty long run out into open water. The capt'n said there was some good fishing about 2hrs out. So T.J. and I poured ourselves a cup of tea and prepared ourselves for a long boat ride. I made it about an hour until I started to feel kind of queasy and about another 30mins until I start ralphing. As soon as we stopped I stumbled my way into the wheel house, laid down on a bench and that was game over. That bench became my little resting spot for the rest of the trip. Anytime I tried to open my eyes I immediately felt sick, so I just kept them close and tried to sleep as much as possible. At one point when I was awake and could hear people talking about whales, apparently there were two swimming right beside the boat, and one father out that totally breached the surface. I was pretty upset about that, I mean I was upset about the whole thing, but especially missing the whales. Luckily the fishing trip only cost me $20 instead of the regular $140 because Teej works for them.
Once we got off the boat I felt almost normal. We stopped on the Princess and had a big lunch to replenish everything I left out there on the chuck. After lunch we headed back to T.J.'s and had a 30min nap that turned into a 2 hour nap, clearly we needed it. Once we got up we had a delicious dinner of fresh Halibut that Teej had caught that morning with potatoes and salad, so good! After we finished the scrumptious dinner we headed out to do some rock climbing. We made a pretty sweet little boulder problem which neither of us could fully solve. We then enjoyed a nice cleansing ale on the rocks while watching the sun set, headed home chatted and then headed to bed.
We woke up with the plans to have a quick breakfast and hike out to a WWII Canso bomber plane that crashed in 1945 with a few of T.J.'s friends. T.J.'s brother-in-law had other plans however. He made us a huge fantastic omlette and bacon breakfast. Instead of heading out around 11:00 like planned we started the trip around 13:30. Other than taking a few tries to find the trailhead, the hike was flawless and a lot of fun. The bomber was amazing and we had a lot of fun climbing on and exploring the plane. After the hike we headed into Tofino so that Phil, one of Teej's friends, could buy some new fins for his surfboard. I wanted to stay and bum around Tofino a little more, but we just headed back to Ukee to have a BBQ and Phil and Dave's. Which pretty much brings an end to that night, we just hung out, had a BBQ and a few drinks and then called it a night.
The next morning T.J. and I went surfing, which was really fun. It was my 3rd time ever surfing. The waves weren't exactly the best, but I managed to catch one really good wave which made it worth it. Unfortunately Teej had to work at 15:00 so we didn't have too much time on the water, but after we were done we went to a nice little restaurant for lunch. We got a table with a good view of the beach and had a nice little man-date. After I dropped T.J. off at work and said goodbye, I brought my surfboard back and decided to head into Tofino to explore a little more than the day before. Coinsidently Laura Mitic, Julia Tschanz, and Adrienne Attorp had just arrived in Tofino from Victoria. I made plans to meet up with them and wandered around with them for awhile. And then finally it was time for me to head home. It was a sad realisation. I really enjoyed my time up there, it didn't even feel like I was in Canada. But within a mere 3hrs45mins later I was back at home and in the real world once again.
This trip is definitely on my top 3 favourite trip list. It was hard for me to leave. I had the urge to just pack-up everything and move out there and be a huge surf-bum and grow a big gnarly beard. Now I have a decision to make for once I'm done running, a tent in the mountains being a climbing-bum, or somewhere up in Ukee or Tofino being a surf-bum...
Monday, August 16, 2010
Epic 2 Week Break.
Every year the majestic animal known as the middle distance runner is set free by his/her coaches and allowed to do WHATEVER he/she wants. To see what happens in the absolute freedom, lets take Canadian middle distance runner, Peter Corrigan as an example.
I have to say, this 2 week break was like no other break I've ever had. I took this break more seriously than ever before. I'll have to go back to Toronto just after my less than stellar heat of the 1500m at nationals. Cliff Childs and I were both mildly disappointed after missing out on the final by a few spots and headed directly to the liquor store and picked up a few beers. We were staying in different places so we split ways with plans to meet up at the track in 30mins. I took the subway back up to the apartment I was staying in and freshened up. I decided I'd walk back to the track and enjoy the nice day. I also decided it would be a good idea to keep it classy and brown-bag a couple beers on my way. On my way to the track I ran into my newly engaged friends, Matt Norminton and Jen Kemp, so I sat and had another beer with Matt. So after about 75mins I finally made it to the track. Watched a few races, and then headed out to the pub to drink. I went to bed around 2:30am that night, got up around 11am did some mild detox and started drinking again around 4pm. This night was so much fun, I'm pretty sure I danced for like 4-5 hours straight. I stayed up and got on a bus at 6am to head to the airport and ended up stayin awake until about 8am when I crashed on a bench in the airport. woke up around 9am to get on my flight, lucked out with 3 seats to myself, sprawled out and fell asleep before take off. I slept on and off the entire flight and woke up in Victoria, my body ravaged, my voice gone, and unsure how much dignity I had left, haha. Karl Robertson picked us up from the airport, I was trying to tell stories but gave up after a few mins because my voice was so bad. On the ride Karl asked if I wanted to come camping with him and a few others later that afternoon. Without hesitation I said "NO". I was in no shape to go camping. When I got home I went straight to bed, slept for about 4 hours, woke up, called Karl and told him to come pick me up. Went to the liquor store, bought 16 Pilsners and got right back down to business. After some story telling, laughs, and a little skinny dipping it was 2am and time for bed. We woke up at 9 the next morning and I cracked my first beer at 9:30 and had hotdogs and cheese-smokies for breakfast. That afternoon we went and rafted down the Cowichan river and then I headed home to finally give my body a rest.
I took a few days down, put in some hours at work. I also did a ton of climbing and went to Thetis lake and did some cliff jumping and about 100x more swimming than I had done in recent memory.
I was just biding my time in these days off until August 11th. This was a date that was down in a lot of people's day planners for a few weeks. Not only was it Deirdre's (and all of the engineer's) last exam of summer school and one of her last days in Victoria, but also Kendra's Birthday and one of Logan's last days here as well. To celebrate Dee and I decided to have people over all day for BBQ and drinks. On my way home from work at 2 I stopped by the liquor store and picked up a cheap flat of beer to enforce the mandatory shotgun upon entry into the backyard. Long story short, the night was amazing, everyone had a blast, there was no drama, no crying, one guy puked, but at like 6 so he slept for a few hours and then rallied like a champ. The party really lived up to expecations, if not exceeded them.
The following night Kendra had some friends from home over to Victoria and we went out for a night on the town. We decided to start classy and head to Monty's and then continuing the classy we went to Plan B. It was another awesome night of good times and dancing. After we got home from the bar a couple buddies and myself sat in my backyard watched the meteors.
Today I'm heading up-island to Uculuelet to visit my good friend TJ. We're going to go do some ocean fishing tomorrow morning, some bouldering and also hike up a mountain. Soon after I get back from TJ's I'm heading out to Calgary for a week to see friends and family. Also, Darren St. Clair, a good friend from the UK is coming to visit. I'm really excited to see him and spend some time out in to the REAL mountains.
As I said earlier, I've taken this break more serious than ever before. I partied harder, relaxed more, and did more epic things than any break I've ever had in the past. I'm going to do my first run today up in Uculuelet and I am really excited. I actually had to force myself to NOT run these past couple days. Luckily the scorching heat helped a bit. I'm stoked on getting out there this fall, healthy and injury free and pounding out MILES! I've started reading Once a Runner for the umpteenth time to get me even more pumped. I am totally refreshed and got some things out of my system now before the season starts.
WOO RUNNING!
I have to say, this 2 week break was like no other break I've ever had. I took this break more seriously than ever before. I'll have to go back to Toronto just after my less than stellar heat of the 1500m at nationals. Cliff Childs and I were both mildly disappointed after missing out on the final by a few spots and headed directly to the liquor store and picked up a few beers. We were staying in different places so we split ways with plans to meet up at the track in 30mins. I took the subway back up to the apartment I was staying in and freshened up. I decided I'd walk back to the track and enjoy the nice day. I also decided it would be a good idea to keep it classy and brown-bag a couple beers on my way. On my way to the track I ran into my newly engaged friends, Matt Norminton and Jen Kemp, so I sat and had another beer with Matt. So after about 75mins I finally made it to the track. Watched a few races, and then headed out to the pub to drink. I went to bed around 2:30am that night, got up around 11am did some mild detox and started drinking again around 4pm. This night was so much fun, I'm pretty sure I danced for like 4-5 hours straight. I stayed up and got on a bus at 6am to head to the airport and ended up stayin awake until about 8am when I crashed on a bench in the airport. woke up around 9am to get on my flight, lucked out with 3 seats to myself, sprawled out and fell asleep before take off. I slept on and off the entire flight and woke up in Victoria, my body ravaged, my voice gone, and unsure how much dignity I had left, haha. Karl Robertson picked us up from the airport, I was trying to tell stories but gave up after a few mins because my voice was so bad. On the ride Karl asked if I wanted to come camping with him and a few others later that afternoon. Without hesitation I said "NO". I was in no shape to go camping. When I got home I went straight to bed, slept for about 4 hours, woke up, called Karl and told him to come pick me up. Went to the liquor store, bought 16 Pilsners and got right back down to business. After some story telling, laughs, and a little skinny dipping it was 2am and time for bed. We woke up at 9 the next morning and I cracked my first beer at 9:30 and had hotdogs and cheese-smokies for breakfast. That afternoon we went and rafted down the Cowichan river and then I headed home to finally give my body a rest.
I took a few days down, put in some hours at work. I also did a ton of climbing and went to Thetis lake and did some cliff jumping and about 100x more swimming than I had done in recent memory.
I was just biding my time in these days off until August 11th. This was a date that was down in a lot of people's day planners for a few weeks. Not only was it Deirdre's (and all of the engineer's) last exam of summer school and one of her last days in Victoria, but also Kendra's Birthday and one of Logan's last days here as well. To celebrate Dee and I decided to have people over all day for BBQ and drinks. On my way home from work at 2 I stopped by the liquor store and picked up a cheap flat of beer to enforce the mandatory shotgun upon entry into the backyard. Long story short, the night was amazing, everyone had a blast, there was no drama, no crying, one guy puked, but at like 6 so he slept for a few hours and then rallied like a champ. The party really lived up to expecations, if not exceeded them.
The following night Kendra had some friends from home over to Victoria and we went out for a night on the town. We decided to start classy and head to Monty's and then continuing the classy we went to Plan B. It was another awesome night of good times and dancing. After we got home from the bar a couple buddies and myself sat in my backyard watched the meteors.
Today I'm heading up-island to Uculuelet to visit my good friend TJ. We're going to go do some ocean fishing tomorrow morning, some bouldering and also hike up a mountain. Soon after I get back from TJ's I'm heading out to Calgary for a week to see friends and family. Also, Darren St. Clair, a good friend from the UK is coming to visit. I'm really excited to see him and spend some time out in to the REAL mountains.
As I said earlier, I've taken this break more serious than ever before. I partied harder, relaxed more, and did more epic things than any break I've ever had in the past. I'm going to do my first run today up in Uculuelet and I am really excited. I actually had to force myself to NOT run these past couple days. Luckily the scorching heat helped a bit. I'm stoked on getting out there this fall, healthy and injury free and pounding out MILES! I've started reading Once a Runner for the umpteenth time to get me even more pumped. I am totally refreshed and got some things out of my system now before the season starts.
WOO RUNNING!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Not So Long Road.
Well, I'm happy to report that I've pretty well already achieved more this season than I really thought I would. I have to admit, quite on characteristically, I was fairly pessimistic about the season. The first couple months of training showed no sign of this season being very successful, nor did the first race. Flagstaff gave me the first glimmer of hope for the season where I put together a string of pretty good workouts. After continued success in workouts post-Flagstaff and a new personal best in the 800m here in one of the Q Victoria track series races my normal optimism started to come back.
It seems to have paid off. I went over to Vancouver for the Harry Jerome Track Classic. Originally I was put in the national level 1500 which pretty well would have been a time trial between Logan Burke and I. After some carefully worded e-mails to the meet director I was moved up into the Olympic Development race. On paper this section looked much better and promised a good time. In retrospect, either race probably would have been good. Logan ran really strong and if both of us had of been in that race we may have ran even faster than I eventually did in the OD section. On a positive note I took the win for the second year in a row in that section at Jerome running 3:50.22. There were tons of amazing results that day. There were 6 different sections of the 1500, national, olympic development, and international for both men's and women's. Our group won 5 out of 6 sections, only missing the international women's section. Even though we didn't get the win, all three of the girls from out group ran Personal bests, seasonal bests, or close to. The success from the group was continued in the 800s with wins and PB's and SB's and smart tatical races all over the place. It was really fun to be there and seeing everyone's success.
After coming off Jerome it was hard to believe we could be stronger as a group, but we did just that at our home meet here in Victoria. Logan, Cliff, Goeff, and myself all ran in the international section. Literally every one of us ran either a HUGE PB or a significant SB. Cliff went dropped from 3:50 all the way down to 3:46.50, it was nutty! Logan dopped 2 seconds off his PB from 3:49 to 3:47. Geoff took a second off his SB to run 3:40 and I ran within 0.2 second of my PB running 3:46.83. It was awesome, everyone was so stoked after we crossed the finish line. Hugs and highfives all around it was just a great atmosphere to be in. Along with our great performances was Kyle Irvine's second sub-4 in a row with James Barnes dipping under the barrier as well. Big Doug Oxland and Josh Cloutier both ran very well. There is just too many people to mention. Lemlem rocked out a personal best in the 800 with a2:03. Laura Mitic has been a machine all year. I don't know the numbers for sure, but she has dropped an outrageous amount of seconds off her PB. She ran 4:34 in the national section of the 1500m where 4 other girls from the group all ran very well. The women in the international section did really well, but I have to give best performance to Julia Tchanz, who continually blows my mind, running a big PB in 4:22. Andrew Ellerton snagged another win with Quin Ferguson running great for 3rd place.
Everyone is just buzzing right now. It's great to see fantastic results from the people you are out on the track and trails with shedding blood, sweat, and tears on the daily.
Feeling good is a good feeling.
P.S. I apologize if I missed anyone. There were just too many awesome performances.
It seems to have paid off. I went over to Vancouver for the Harry Jerome Track Classic. Originally I was put in the national level 1500 which pretty well would have been a time trial between Logan Burke and I. After some carefully worded e-mails to the meet director I was moved up into the Olympic Development race. On paper this section looked much better and promised a good time. In retrospect, either race probably would have been good. Logan ran really strong and if both of us had of been in that race we may have ran even faster than I eventually did in the OD section. On a positive note I took the win for the second year in a row in that section at Jerome running 3:50.22. There were tons of amazing results that day. There were 6 different sections of the 1500, national, olympic development, and international for both men's and women's. Our group won 5 out of 6 sections, only missing the international women's section. Even though we didn't get the win, all three of the girls from out group ran Personal bests, seasonal bests, or close to. The success from the group was continued in the 800s with wins and PB's and SB's and smart tatical races all over the place. It was really fun to be there and seeing everyone's success.
After coming off Jerome it was hard to believe we could be stronger as a group, but we did just that at our home meet here in Victoria. Logan, Cliff, Goeff, and myself all ran in the international section. Literally every one of us ran either a HUGE PB or a significant SB. Cliff went dropped from 3:50 all the way down to 3:46.50, it was nutty! Logan dopped 2 seconds off his PB from 3:49 to 3:47. Geoff took a second off his SB to run 3:40 and I ran within 0.2 second of my PB running 3:46.83. It was awesome, everyone was so stoked after we crossed the finish line. Hugs and highfives all around it was just a great atmosphere to be in. Along with our great performances was Kyle Irvine's second sub-4 in a row with James Barnes dipping under the barrier as well. Big Doug Oxland and Josh Cloutier both ran very well. There is just too many people to mention. Lemlem rocked out a personal best in the 800 with a2:03. Laura Mitic has been a machine all year. I don't know the numbers for sure, but she has dropped an outrageous amount of seconds off her PB. She ran 4:34 in the national section of the 1500m where 4 other girls from the group all ran very well. The women in the international section did really well, but I have to give best performance to Julia Tchanz, who continually blows my mind, running a big PB in 4:22. Andrew Ellerton snagged another win with Quin Ferguson running great for 3rd place.
Everyone is just buzzing right now. It's great to see fantastic results from the people you are out on the track and trails with shedding blood, sweat, and tears on the daily.
Feeling good is a good feeling.
P.S. I apologize if I missed anyone. There were just too many awesome performances.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Always Turn Right at the Seven Foot Midget.
So, Wednesday after weights Cliff and I were talking and decided that for the afternoon run we'd go somewhere we had never ran before. After some discussion we decided to head to Goldstream Provincial park. When I worked at the Langford Running Room, I would always hear people talk about how good the running is there so we thought it would be cool to check it out.
After a short NHL '10/guitar hero session we suited up and headed out the door. Once we arrived I went and paid for an hour worth of parking. The strangeness starts with the ticket that the machine printed out. As I said, I paid for one hour, the time I paid was roughly 5:00pm on June 23rd. The ticket that was printed expired around noon on like June 15 or something. I took this as having infinity parking because I could just fight that their machine was crazy. After having a confused laughed at the parking pass we went to look at the map to figure out our run. Once we had looked it over a few times over and memorised where we planned on going, we embarked. We set of down a really nice trail that ran right along a little creek that, despite our mapping, came to an abrupt dead end. "Oh man, are you serious? I thought we had this figured out." We doubled back and went under the highway through a little run-off tunnel. We got on another trail which we believed to be the one we had planned on taking. Again, this one came to an abrupt dead end, but at the foot of a gorgeous waterfall. Cliff and I took a few minutes and hopped around on the rocks around the waterfall and just took in the breath-taking scenery. "This is the textbook definition of awesome." It truly was beautiful, I felt like I should have been plugging the end of my long ponytail in to the plants (Avatar). After we finished playing at the waterfall we once again doubled back and found another map and re-plotted our run. We figured we had to cross the creek, which was luckily dry at the moment and climb a little bit to a platue that we could then run on. A little bit of a climb turned into a solid like 10-15mins of a run/walking up a crazy steap hill. Once we reached the top there was suppose to be a trail that kind of leveled out that we could run along for about 2km. In theme with the run, this was not the case. We could not figure out/find the trail we needed, so instead we decided to run along some train tracks. "At least they'll be flat." We followed the tracks for about 20mins and then realised that on either side of us was a pretty steap drop, and that we needed to somehow get back down to the car. We took the next trail we saw that headed roughly in the direction we needed to go... down. The trail was more of an illusion than anything, after about 10m it had disappeared and Cliff and I were in the middle of the forest. We figured that it could be too far until we found a trail so bush-wacking it was. 30mins of no trail, no sign of life, lots of dense bush, tree scaling, laughter, and a few false alarms we emerged on a real trail. Taking this as a good sign we cruised along it until we found another map. Surpringsly we were actually where we had planned to be, just didn't take the way he had planned. So once again, we looked at the map intently and took mental notes of the rest of the trails we needed to take.
I think I'll make a diagram of this, but for now I will explain it as best as possible.
Once we were done looking at the map, we'll call this map #1, and were sure we had figured it out we set off down the trail. We knew that we had to do a bit of a figure-eight type deal. We did the upper loop of the eight and conviniently there as another map, map #2, we rechecked ourselves, confirmed the trail we needed and went on our way. Can you guess what happened, somehow we took the wrong trail and looped all the way pack to map #1. So back to map #2. Once again we checked it and figured out what we had done wrong and set off, this time on the right trail. We arrived at another map, well, looked like a map from a distance. I am certain at one time it was a map, but when we arrived it read "Seven Foot Midget". We relied on our natural instincts and go left. WRONG, back to map #2. "This is ridiculous, worst mark trails ever". From there on in it was pretty smooth sailing. Had to do a bit of a sketchy river crossing and running along the highway. But about 75-80mins after departing and only MAYBE a total of 60mins running, we arrived back at the car. Luckily despite the crazy parking pass it was still there and ticketless. We did a bit of a stretch session and headed into Langford for a quick snack. The quick snack turned into the most delicious masher meal. We went to Nando's Chicken and ate a fully chicken, 3 cobs of corn, 3 baked potatoes, and 4 pieces of garlic toast. Nando's only serves corn on the cob for the summer and I suggest getting there ASAP and having it. Best corn ever, full stop. My mouth is watering just thinking about it...
Long story short, no matter what you do, ALWAYS turn right at the seven-foot midget.
After a short NHL '10/guitar hero session we suited up and headed out the door. Once we arrived I went and paid for an hour worth of parking. The strangeness starts with the ticket that the machine printed out. As I said, I paid for one hour, the time I paid was roughly 5:00pm on June 23rd. The ticket that was printed expired around noon on like June 15 or something. I took this as having infinity parking because I could just fight that their machine was crazy. After having a confused laughed at the parking pass we went to look at the map to figure out our run. Once we had looked it over a few times over and memorised where we planned on going, we embarked. We set of down a really nice trail that ran right along a little creek that, despite our mapping, came to an abrupt dead end. "Oh man, are you serious? I thought we had this figured out." We doubled back and went under the highway through a little run-off tunnel. We got on another trail which we believed to be the one we had planned on taking. Again, this one came to an abrupt dead end, but at the foot of a gorgeous waterfall. Cliff and I took a few minutes and hopped around on the rocks around the waterfall and just took in the breath-taking scenery. "This is the textbook definition of awesome." It truly was beautiful, I felt like I should have been plugging the end of my long ponytail in to the plants (Avatar). After we finished playing at the waterfall we once again doubled back and found another map and re-plotted our run. We figured we had to cross the creek, which was luckily dry at the moment and climb a little bit to a platue that we could then run on. A little bit of a climb turned into a solid like 10-15mins of a run/walking up a crazy steap hill. Once we reached the top there was suppose to be a trail that kind of leveled out that we could run along for about 2km. In theme with the run, this was not the case. We could not figure out/find the trail we needed, so instead we decided to run along some train tracks. "At least they'll be flat." We followed the tracks for about 20mins and then realised that on either side of us was a pretty steap drop, and that we needed to somehow get back down to the car. We took the next trail we saw that headed roughly in the direction we needed to go... down. The trail was more of an illusion than anything, after about 10m it had disappeared and Cliff and I were in the middle of the forest. We figured that it could be too far until we found a trail so bush-wacking it was. 30mins of no trail, no sign of life, lots of dense bush, tree scaling, laughter, and a few false alarms we emerged on a real trail. Taking this as a good sign we cruised along it until we found another map. Surpringsly we were actually where we had planned to be, just didn't take the way he had planned. So once again, we looked at the map intently and took mental notes of the rest of the trails we needed to take.
I think I'll make a diagram of this, but for now I will explain it as best as possible.
Once we were done looking at the map, we'll call this map #1, and were sure we had figured it out we set off down the trail. We knew that we had to do a bit of a figure-eight type deal. We did the upper loop of the eight and conviniently there as another map, map #2, we rechecked ourselves, confirmed the trail we needed and went on our way. Can you guess what happened, somehow we took the wrong trail and looped all the way pack to map #1. So back to map #2. Once again we checked it and figured out what we had done wrong and set off, this time on the right trail. We arrived at another map, well, looked like a map from a distance. I am certain at one time it was a map, but when we arrived it read "Seven Foot Midget". We relied on our natural instincts and go left. WRONG, back to map #2. "This is ridiculous, worst mark trails ever". From there on in it was pretty smooth sailing. Had to do a bit of a sketchy river crossing and running along the highway. But about 75-80mins after departing and only MAYBE a total of 60mins running, we arrived back at the car. Luckily despite the crazy parking pass it was still there and ticketless. We did a bit of a stretch session and headed into Langford for a quick snack. The quick snack turned into the most delicious masher meal. We went to Nando's Chicken and ate a fully chicken, 3 cobs of corn, 3 baked potatoes, and 4 pieces of garlic toast. Nando's only serves corn on the cob for the summer and I suggest getting there ASAP and having it. Best corn ever, full stop. My mouth is watering just thinking about it...
Long story short, no matter what you do, ALWAYS turn right at the seven-foot midget.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Reading List.
After many years of not reading, I have really started to enjoy it over the last couple years. My library was slowly and steadily growing for a while but has now become stagnant. I have been on the look-out for one particular book ever since 2008 when I was out at Dalhousie. A friend of mine, Ross Jacobs, used to always read excerpts from a book called "The Average American Male" by Chad Kultgen, and they were always hilarious. Clearly it has been a bit of a fruitless, haphazard goose-chase searching for this book seeing as it has taken me over 2 years.
At work, I have recently gone from last in seniority to second and received my raise for making it to 6 months! This means a couple of things, a) I can pick and choose shifts a little more and work it around my training a lot better and b) I'm going to have a lot more money. With this increase of income I have decided to continue the now stale growth of my library. So yesterday in my boredom at work I decided to do a little research and create a book-wish-list. I went online and explored the "books" tab on Google. It was really neat, they have loads of books on there and you can even search to see if what you are looking for is in a library near you. When you do the library search, they also give you lots of books that other readers enjoyed. A lot of the books even have a "preview this item" option where you can read a good portion of the first chapter of the book. After a couple hours of getting paid $14.58 to look for books I comprised a list of 9 books that I thought looked interesting.
The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen
I Just Want my Pants Back by David J Rosen
Goodbye Lemon by Adam Davies
Not That you Asked: Rants, Exploits, Obsessions by Steve Almond
Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilman
The Fuck-up by Arthur Nersesian
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max
The Contortionist's Handbook by Craig Clevenger
I seem to enjoy quasi-realistic fiction books. A lot of these books are kind of "a-in-the-life" style where there is one main character that is narrating or being documented. The stories are a bit out there sometimes, but are ones that could and do happen in real-life.
If anyone has read any of these books please let me know how they were. I'd also like any suggestions for good books you have read, send me anything and everything you've enjoyed.
At work, I have recently gone from last in seniority to second and received my raise for making it to 6 months! This means a couple of things, a) I can pick and choose shifts a little more and work it around my training a lot better and b) I'm going to have a lot more money. With this increase of income I have decided to continue the now stale growth of my library. So yesterday in my boredom at work I decided to do a little research and create a book-wish-list. I went online and explored the "books" tab on Google. It was really neat, they have loads of books on there and you can even search to see if what you are looking for is in a library near you. When you do the library search, they also give you lots of books that other readers enjoyed. A lot of the books even have a "preview this item" option where you can read a good portion of the first chapter of the book. After a couple hours of getting paid $14.58 to look for books I comprised a list of 9 books that I thought looked interesting.
The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen
I Just Want my Pants Back by David J Rosen
Goodbye Lemon by Adam Davies
Not That you Asked: Rants, Exploits, Obsessions by Steve Almond
Apathy and Other Small Victories by Paul Neilman
The Fuck-up by Arthur Nersesian
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A low Culture Manifesto by Chuck Klosterman
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max
The Contortionist's Handbook by Craig Clevenger
I seem to enjoy quasi-realistic fiction books. A lot of these books are kind of "a-in-the-life" style where there is one main character that is narrating or being documented. The stories are a bit out there sometimes, but are ones that could and do happen in real-life.
If anyone has read any of these books please let me know how they were. I'd also like any suggestions for good books you have read, send me anything and everything you've enjoyed.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Off to the Races.
Well, Flagstaff has come and gone and once again it was a fairly uneventful year. The training was great though. I went in fairly unfit and came out rocking workouts in similar splits as I was this time last year. That success from Flagstaff has continued now that I am back home in Victoria. Cliff Childs and myself had a really great workout on Tuesday. (2x800)(5x300), we went 2:01 and then 5mins later 1:59-2:00 and the 3's were 45,45,44,43,41.
I am surprised and happy to see that the fitness is coming back so quickly. I have a few races coming up in the next little while. I start with an 800 in Victoria on June 5th and then the weekend after I head to Edmonton and run in the Northland Park 1 Mile Road Race and the day after rock a 1500 at the Edmonton International. I'm using the mile/1500 back to back as a little preparation for racing back to back days at nationals.
I'm really excited to get back on the track and in some good races. As I said in my previous post, feeling good is a good feeling. That has become a bit of a mantra of mine lately. Hopefully this feeling and excitement will continue through to the end of the season and I can throw down some good races.
I am surprised and happy to see that the fitness is coming back so quickly. I have a few races coming up in the next little while. I start with an 800 in Victoria on June 5th and then the weekend after I head to Edmonton and run in the Northland Park 1 Mile Road Race and the day after rock a 1500 at the Edmonton International. I'm using the mile/1500 back to back as a little preparation for racing back to back days at nationals.
I'm really excited to get back on the track and in some good races. As I said in my previous post, feeling good is a good feeling. That has become a bit of a mantra of mine lately. Hopefully this feeling and excitement will continue through to the end of the season and I can throw down some good races.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Feeling Good is a Good Feeling.
Well, I officially opened my season two weeks ago now. I went over to Vancouver for a 1500m. The result was an eye opening 4:02. Until then I hadn't ran over 4 minutes in a couple years. I wasn't really upset with the time, nor was I very pleased with it, obviously. I led a lot of the race, but when those boys starting picking up the pace near the end of the race, I just did not have the turn-over to keep up. When I crossed the line, I was hardly out of breath which just confirmed what I already new about where I was as far as fitness goes and made me feel good about the 3000m I had coming up a week later. The 3000m wasn't anything special, 8:34, but it was a much better result compared to the 1500m. Cliff Childs and myself were trying to help Dylan Haight along to the World Junior standard of 8:15. I think we may have been able to do it with slightly better pacing of the start, oh and if there hadn't been a 60km/h head wind on the home stretch.
After the 3000m a bunch of us went out to dinner and then headed to home. Most of us had to be up at 3am the next morning to leave for our training camp in Flagstaff, so it was an early night. However, racing at around 7:15pm and not eating until around 9:30pm really doesn't set you up for a great sleep. I don't think I fell asleep until around 1am, and even with my crappy sleeping pattern, 2hours is not enough. I felt golden until our lay-over in Seattle were I had a nice long nap in the terminal, which continued on the flight to Phoenix. We did arrive in Flagstaff until roughly 6:30pm... 15hours of travel time is lllooonngg.
I've known been in Flagstaff for just over a week, and have a week left. We've only had 2 track sessions so far, but it's been good. We did the same 2 workouts last year, and I was running roughly the same times. Considering I missed pretty well 3 months of training, I'll settle for running the same times as last year. I was a little sore after the first week, but I got a nice massage after the session on saturday and after some self treatment on sunday I feel great going into the second week. Feeling good is a good feeling because it is going to be a tough one. We're doing back to back workouts tuesday and wednesday and then another one saturday.
Anyway, not the most exciting post, but I was bored and just wanted to throw up a bit of an update.
After the 3000m a bunch of us went out to dinner and then headed to home. Most of us had to be up at 3am the next morning to leave for our training camp in Flagstaff, so it was an early night. However, racing at around 7:15pm and not eating until around 9:30pm really doesn't set you up for a great sleep. I don't think I fell asleep until around 1am, and even with my crappy sleeping pattern, 2hours is not enough. I felt golden until our lay-over in Seattle were I had a nice long nap in the terminal, which continued on the flight to Phoenix. We did arrive in Flagstaff until roughly 6:30pm... 15hours of travel time is lllooonngg.
I've known been in Flagstaff for just over a week, and have a week left. We've only had 2 track sessions so far, but it's been good. We did the same 2 workouts last year, and I was running roughly the same times. Considering I missed pretty well 3 months of training, I'll settle for running the same times as last year. I was a little sore after the first week, but I got a nice massage after the session on saturday and after some self treatment on sunday I feel great going into the second week. Feeling good is a good feeling because it is going to be a tough one. We're doing back to back workouts tuesday and wednesday and then another one saturday.
Anyway, not the most exciting post, but I was bored and just wanted to throw up a bit of an update.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Long Road
Well, the good news is that I finally had my first legit track workout yesterday. My hip has been pain free for 2 weeks today and I've been doing some harder training since, but nothing too crazy. I've been doing a lot of steady state workouts and as a result I'm really aerobically fit. The moderate bad news is, as I found out yesterday, I have a bit of work to do in the speed department. We did (500,500)(400,400) with 10mins steady state for set break. The 500s were meant to be at 1000 pace and the 4s and 800 pace. I was 1:15 for both 5s and 58 for both 4s. I felt pretty controlled, I was definitely pushing it harder than I have in a long time. I just don't have the turn over in my legs right now to dip down into the quicker times. Luckily speed is much easier than aerobic base to develope. I am still very optimistic that I'll be able to throw together a respectable outdoor season!
I also have a long road in school. I was a bit sick a few weeks ago and had a ridiculous sleeping pattern. As a result I was hardly ever awake and felt like garbage when I was. I kind of fell behind in my self-appointed schedule, but I've been working hard and am slowly and surely getting caught up. Apparenly I'm not a very good father (reference to my first blog post and school being like a baby).
I also have a long road in school. I was a bit sick a few weeks ago and had a ridiculous sleeping pattern. As a result I was hardly ever awake and felt like garbage when I was. I kind of fell behind in my self-appointed schedule, but I've been working hard and am slowly and surely getting caught up. Apparenly I'm not a very good father (reference to my first blog post and school being like a baby).
Thursday, March 4, 2010
72 hours of National Pride.
Last weekend I headed over to Vancouver with some friends to check out the olympics. It was truly unbelievable. We left on friday morning and came back Sunday night and for that entire time I'm pretty sure a smile never left my face.
We started the trip out right by stopping at the River Rock Casino to redeem our free fries. For anyone who doesn't know, whenever you buy a ferry ticket to Vancouver, the back of it is a coupon for free fries and a drink from the casino and the bus we took dropped us right out front. Anyway, since we were obviously trying to spend as little money as possible this free meal was undeniable. While we were eating we all got out our changed, which averaged about $0.35 for each of us, and decided we'd gamble it in the penny slots. Much to our disappointment we found out that even though they are called "penny slots" you have to put in at least $5 which we didn't want to do. After a failed attempt to gamble we headed back to the bus and embarked on our final leg to our friend, Mark's place. Upon arrival we said our hellos and promptly asked directions to 1)the liquor store and 2)the bank. We proceeded to pick up the essentials, beer, vodka, juice, and money. We headed back to Mark's had a few brews donned our Canada attire and then jumped on another bus to another friends house were a free dinner was waiting for us. We had good eats, watched the hockey game, and also a few more drinks were inhaled... I mean enjoyed. Dinner and the game ended and we decided now was the time to go check out the famed Robson Square area, this did not let down. It was absolutely crazy, people every where just having a good time. I actually even ran into two friends from Calgary who were in for the weekend, it was really awesome. We ended up meeting a few more friends from Vancouver, heading to a little restaurant/bar, had a few more drinks and just hung out and had a good time. That night was the earliest of the weekend getting home at about 3am I believe.
Friday night was amazing, but it was just a warm-up for saturday. I woke up at around 9:00am to get ready and head to the track with some of the UBC guys for a bit of a workout. I was super proud of myself, I'm usually so terrible for getting up to go to workouts the morning after a night out. But the with all positive energy that was in Vancouver there was no way you could feel tired. After the workout we went to Subway and someone bought me some sort of sub. (you'll see why I'm mentioning food later on). I got dropped off at Mark's place, ate a quick lunch and then headed downtown to do some touristy olympic stuff. Seeing that Cauldron in real life can not be explained in words. To know that the flame was started in Greece by the sun and has traveled from there to here and literally from sea to shining sea across the entire nation and then to see if burning in front of you, words fail. That big ol' smile was probably at it's biggest looking up at that flame. After seeing some sites we headed to Steamworks where I actually met up with another friend from Calgary. We chilled there for a bit, I got some free nachos from a couple sitting next to me that couldn't finish them (the theme of free food continues), shared a pitcher with my buddy and just spent some time catching up. After dinner we headed back to Mark's got a few more drinks, and this is where the night of craziness begins, I'll try and keep it short. A bunch of us had previously made national teams before, so we all got dressed up in our Athletics Canada gear, spandex mostly and headed downtown. We went to this thing called a "decentralized dance party." Basically, this guy has an FM transmitter and syncs a bunch of boomboxes together, like 60 of them, and people just dance in the streets. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=338187812948&oid=490446050366 Thats a link to a video of this dance party, it was soo soo much fun! After that we walked around, peopled asked us for pictures seriously like once every block which was awesome, we tried to get into a few bars but the lines were outrageous. As we were walking I saw this building that looked like it was on fire. I think they had LCD screens in the windows or something. I thought it looked really cool so I stopped to take a picture. As I was taking the pic, a guy from the building yelled at us and said, "FREE BEER!"... That is all we needed. In sync all like 8 of us decked out in Canada spandex darted across the street and into this building. Inside was really cool, and kind of hilarious. It was sort of an art gallery type thing. There were different pictures all over the walls and up front were about 6 old guys rocking out. One or two were on guitars, another playing like trumpet or something, I don't know, but it was awesome. Turns out the free beer offer was fake, but he did agree to give us $2 beer which is pretty much free! So we partied there and after the old guys stopped playing all the lights went out and a crazy like lazer/light show started and this DJ came out and rocked the house until like 3am. It was one of the better parties I had been to in a long time. After that we pretty much just went home.
The next day we woke up and our buddy Reid comes waltzing in the door at like 10am. He's still wearing his canada spandex and stuff. We asked him where he was, ha. He said that he blacked out after we had pizza downtown and came to in the River Rock Casino (which isn't close at all!) at a poker table with $60 of chips in front of him, so he gambled it away and came home, HA! So for the rest of the day we pretty much just watched canADA WIN THE SWEETEST GAME OF HOCKEY EVER!!! Headed downtown, experienced the pandemonium for a little while and started our journeys back to the island.
I can honestly say I have never in my life felt more proud to be Canadian and never more unified as a national as those 17 days the Vancouver 2010 Olympics spanned. I hope that I can, but I will be surprised if I or anyone will ever feel the way I'm certain every Canadian felt, especially after the gold medal hockey game. What a way to top off an amazing experience. Hats off to all the organizers that set everything up starting with the torch relay and going through to the very end of the closing ceremonies.
Lets not forget! Our Paralympic athletes are set to be in Vancouver starting March 14. In 2006 in Torino they rocked it winning 13 medals, 5 of which were gold, 4th most of any other country. Lets keep the energy from before going for these athletes and try to set more records on our own soil!
We started the trip out right by stopping at the River Rock Casino to redeem our free fries. For anyone who doesn't know, whenever you buy a ferry ticket to Vancouver, the back of it is a coupon for free fries and a drink from the casino and the bus we took dropped us right out front. Anyway, since we were obviously trying to spend as little money as possible this free meal was undeniable. While we were eating we all got out our changed, which averaged about $0.35 for each of us, and decided we'd gamble it in the penny slots. Much to our disappointment we found out that even though they are called "penny slots" you have to put in at least $5 which we didn't want to do. After a failed attempt to gamble we headed back to the bus and embarked on our final leg to our friend, Mark's place. Upon arrival we said our hellos and promptly asked directions to 1)the liquor store and 2)the bank. We proceeded to pick up the essentials, beer, vodka, juice, and money. We headed back to Mark's had a few brews donned our Canada attire and then jumped on another bus to another friends house were a free dinner was waiting for us. We had good eats, watched the hockey game, and also a few more drinks were inhaled... I mean enjoyed. Dinner and the game ended and we decided now was the time to go check out the famed Robson Square area, this did not let down. It was absolutely crazy, people every where just having a good time. I actually even ran into two friends from Calgary who were in for the weekend, it was really awesome. We ended up meeting a few more friends from Vancouver, heading to a little restaurant/bar, had a few more drinks and just hung out and had a good time. That night was the earliest of the weekend getting home at about 3am I believe.
Friday night was amazing, but it was just a warm-up for saturday. I woke up at around 9:00am to get ready and head to the track with some of the UBC guys for a bit of a workout. I was super proud of myself, I'm usually so terrible for getting up to go to workouts the morning after a night out. But the with all positive energy that was in Vancouver there was no way you could feel tired. After the workout we went to Subway and someone bought me some sort of sub. (you'll see why I'm mentioning food later on). I got dropped off at Mark's place, ate a quick lunch and then headed downtown to do some touristy olympic stuff. Seeing that Cauldron in real life can not be explained in words. To know that the flame was started in Greece by the sun and has traveled from there to here and literally from sea to shining sea across the entire nation and then to see if burning in front of you, words fail. That big ol' smile was probably at it's biggest looking up at that flame. After seeing some sites we headed to Steamworks where I actually met up with another friend from Calgary. We chilled there for a bit, I got some free nachos from a couple sitting next to me that couldn't finish them (the theme of free food continues), shared a pitcher with my buddy and just spent some time catching up. After dinner we headed back to Mark's got a few more drinks, and this is where the night of craziness begins, I'll try and keep it short. A bunch of us had previously made national teams before, so we all got dressed up in our Athletics Canada gear, spandex mostly and headed downtown. We went to this thing called a "decentralized dance party." Basically, this guy has an FM transmitter and syncs a bunch of boomboxes together, like 60 of them, and people just dance in the streets. http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=338187812948&oid=490446050366 Thats a link to a video of this dance party, it was soo soo much fun! After that we walked around, peopled asked us for pictures seriously like once every block which was awesome, we tried to get into a few bars but the lines were outrageous. As we were walking I saw this building that looked like it was on fire. I think they had LCD screens in the windows or something. I thought it looked really cool so I stopped to take a picture. As I was taking the pic, a guy from the building yelled at us and said, "FREE BEER!"... That is all we needed. In sync all like 8 of us decked out in Canada spandex darted across the street and into this building. Inside was really cool, and kind of hilarious. It was sort of an art gallery type thing. There were different pictures all over the walls and up front were about 6 old guys rocking out. One or two were on guitars, another playing like trumpet or something, I don't know, but it was awesome. Turns out the free beer offer was fake, but he did agree to give us $2 beer which is pretty much free! So we partied there and after the old guys stopped playing all the lights went out and a crazy like lazer/light show started and this DJ came out and rocked the house until like 3am. It was one of the better parties I had been to in a long time. After that we pretty much just went home.
The next day we woke up and our buddy Reid comes waltzing in the door at like 10am. He's still wearing his canada spandex and stuff. We asked him where he was, ha. He said that he blacked out after we had pizza downtown and came to in the River Rock Casino (which isn't close at all!) at a poker table with $60 of chips in front of him, so he gambled it away and came home, HA! So for the rest of the day we pretty much just watched canADA WIN THE SWEETEST GAME OF HOCKEY EVER!!! Headed downtown, experienced the pandemonium for a little while and started our journeys back to the island.
I can honestly say I have never in my life felt more proud to be Canadian and never more unified as a national as those 17 days the Vancouver 2010 Olympics spanned. I hope that I can, but I will be surprised if I or anyone will ever feel the way I'm certain every Canadian felt, especially after the gold medal hockey game. What a way to top off an amazing experience. Hats off to all the organizers that set everything up starting with the torch relay and going through to the very end of the closing ceremonies.
Lets not forget! Our Paralympic athletes are set to be in Vancouver starting March 14. In 2006 in Torino they rocked it winning 13 medals, 5 of which were gold, 4th most of any other country. Lets keep the energy from before going for these athletes and try to set more records on our own soil!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Back on the Track
Well, after about a month I'm finally back on the track and running consistantly to schedule. I had my first track workout on tuesday which was pretty successful. I did a broken mile in about 4:06. The workout was 2 sets of 8x100m at 1500m pace with 15sec recovery, ha. What I had to do was set my watch to countdown 15seconds and every time it beeped I had to go. If I finished the 100 in less then 15seconds then I had extra recovery and if I took longer to run the 100m then I had less recovery. On paper this sounds like a ridiculously easy workout, in reality however, it was tough!
The next day, on Wednesday I had one of the most fun runs I have had in a long time. Logan Burke and I went out to Thetis Lake to throw down an hour on the trails out there. I started the run in brand new never run in shoes and by the end of the run I don't think there was any white left on them at all. We were running through ankle high mud, shin high puddles, hurdling fallen trees, dodging roots and climbing up and down various pitches of hills. There were a lot of times I thought for sure one of us was going to roll an ankle or completely eat it, but ironically the only time either of us fell was on flat ground when I carelessly stumbled over a rock.
I was meant to have my second workout back this morning, however I slept through it... oops. So now I have to do it tonight after work at like 11pm. I'm actually pretty excited to do it at that time. It's been so nice and clear here lately, it'll be pretty cool to do a workout under the stars. It's another seemingly easy one on paper, but we'll see how it goes. 2(8x200) at 1500/3k pace with 1minute rest.
Slow and Steady
The next day, on Wednesday I had one of the most fun runs I have had in a long time. Logan Burke and I went out to Thetis Lake to throw down an hour on the trails out there. I started the run in brand new never run in shoes and by the end of the run I don't think there was any white left on them at all. We were running through ankle high mud, shin high puddles, hurdling fallen trees, dodging roots and climbing up and down various pitches of hills. There were a lot of times I thought for sure one of us was going to roll an ankle or completely eat it, but ironically the only time either of us fell was on flat ground when I carelessly stumbled over a rock.
I was meant to have my second workout back this morning, however I slept through it... oops. So now I have to do it tonight after work at like 11pm. I'm actually pretty excited to do it at that time. It's been so nice and clear here lately, it'll be pretty cool to do a workout under the stars. It's another seemingly easy one on paper, but we'll see how it goes. 2(8x200) at 1500/3k pace with 1minute rest.
Slow and Steady
Saturday, February 13, 2010
A day in the Life.
Wake up/get out of bed no earlier than noon. Shower. Get dressed. Cook breakfast/lunch and dinner all at the same time. Play a little COD on live or watch TV. Head to work at 14:00. Work until 22:00. Go home. Play more COD or watch TV until 01:00 or 02:00. Go to bed. Repeat.
... I need to become an athlete again.
... I need to become an athlete again.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Another Shot.
Well, it's been almost nine months since I last made a post on my blog. There have been a ton of things happening in my life since then, some pretty major things to be honest. I'll try and do a quick catch up. Mmm, but where to start.
Track and field.
I had kind of a bitter sweet summer of racing. I had an amazing start to the season. I was running pb's every time I stepped out onto the track. I eventually lowered my pb from 3:49.81 from the previous season down to 3:46.63. The race that I did it in was pretty cool as well, it was the Harry Jarome Internationl Track Classic. I had felt absolutely terrible the couple days leading into the race and during warm-up nothing changed. My run, drills, strides, everything felt so labored and just plain shitty. But as they say, that is often when you have your best races, and I sure did. I had no expectations going into it, I had no worries about splits or anything. I just went in knowing that I could win it and I did just that and it happened to bring a great time along with it. Unfortunately that's kind of where the positivity ends. After that was Nationals in Toronto which were terrible. I ran like 3:56 and didn't even come close to making finals. But I still had Canada Games coming and had a great shot at winning that. Heats went really well and pretty much exactly how I had predicted. Then for some reason they decided putting finals like 3 days after heats would be a good idea. Between heats and finals I just totally lost interest mentally. The day came to race and I had no drive and I don't even know what place I ended up but it definitely wasn't on the podium. Then I had my couple weeks break which was great, lots of fun. After the fun was had I started my base training, and everything was going awesome. I started throwing down some great long runs and was feeling good. Suddenly with no real reason I hit a huge mental block and running became unenjoyable and a really big chore. I struggled through it and eventually came around and got into training hard again... just in time to get injured. And that's where I'm at now. I am nursing this stupid hip injury. Good news is that I'm on the mend running again and have the deep burning desire to get back out there and hammer out some workouts when I'm 100% again. Oh, and I finally found a sponsor too! I'm now a proud member of the Running Room Athletic Club. I hesitantly left the Calgary Spartans in October and joined the RRAC and have loved every minute of it. Matt Norminton up in Edmonton has really got a great thing going and is doing more than anyone I know in Canada to help make our sport better.
Life.
Man, life has been a roller coaster. I'll try and sum it up quick. Kyla and I broke up right after Nationals last year. I struggled with that for awhile, a yo-yo of emotions you could say. I'm proud to say she's still a good friend and I think we've finally found a pretty good balance where both of us are content. In my weird mental battles with running and such I've gone on a few benders and have lived the life of a "normal person" that I always used to wish I could. I now know why I chose the life of an athlete, I never felt so shitty as I did when I was drinking and staying up and not eating right. Mmm, what else... I've taken up the guitar, or at least trying to. And the most recent and exciting news iiissss.... I'M A STUDENT AGAIN! I enrolled in three online classes last night. I'm on way to be back in university and racing in the CIS again next year! I'm really excited about it, but kind of nervous too. I decided today on one of my runs that it's kind of like having a baby. All of a sudden I have this huge new responsibility in my life that I'm not quite sure I'm ready for.
Well, I think that brings you mostly up to speed. I'm going to try and keep this a little more regular so I don't have to write huge novels like this every time.
Cool guys, thanks for reading.
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