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).
Sunday, March 28, 2010
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!
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