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.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
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!
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