explosion

yes, I haven't been posting, but I haven't been motivated much either. The first week after hearing about Shigeru I had a hard time getting out of bed and when I got on my bike for the first time on Thursday, I had absolutely no desire/enjoyment. That Saturday my HR (159-161bpm) told me I was at race pace but it felt really calm and my perceived effort was very low. FFwd to this past Saturday at Gatineau Grand Prix... after two months of general low intensity (my achilles) and next to nothing during the last two weeks, Gatineau was a disaster.

I was nervous and knew I didn't want to get boxed off the road but yet I managed to start near the back of the pack and to the side. Right at the start, someone started braking and I panicked and locked my rear... faaantastic. Then, someone raises their hand in the middle of the pack, I had nowhere to go and almost slowed to a start just before the first hill. Next thing I know my legs are full of lactic acid and I can't climb for my life. My HR was waay over in the 170's and I was struggling big time. Then, it starts raining. The forecast was for sun & heat - I was p*ssed. Ever since crashing on a downhill in the rain I'm hesistant about going full tilt downhill so I didn't. Then the inevitable happened and my HR just wouldn't go down. I'd love to know the max I hit. My effort was lowered buy my hr was still in the mid 160's... I couldn't recover and was dying. Then of course I feel my calves cramping... eesh. Everything that could go wrong was going wrong - except for my achilles which never acted up. After two laps I pulled off. (46km?) At least I got a helluva training ride as I haven't gone that far redline in a long time.

I got some nice compliments from 'becca's coach so I feel ok. I really have to just ride more... that lactate threshold testing is looking more and more important...

its now or never.

I'm sorry the picture is so tiny, but my scanner doesn't scan slides too well, and this had to be done in short notice. That's me on the left, and the funny squinty guy was one my best friends growing up. Nothing ever came between us; we just drifted apart over the years and living rather far from each other. Our moms called him Shigechan. He died earlier this morning in a car accident.

I have never lost someone this close to me. Ever. Last year was the first time I attended a funeral, and it wasn't someone I knew very well. As much as I keep feelings to myself, I can't help myself today. I am posting his picture here today because I would like to dedicate myself to doing Peterborough next year, in 2007, for him.

Why am I doing it for him? Simply because I cannot remember this day as the day he died. Today also happens to be my father's birthday. Instead, I will remember him on the day he got married. The day I wanted to do Muskoka Triathlon. June18th, 2006. I will obviously do Muskoka 2007 for him as well, but ultimately I will do Peterborough and I will succeed.

I find it a bit sad that death has been one of my major drives to do triathlon. Am I selfish? Maybe. The reason I started tri, or at least started to run was when my uncle died. After a long battle with a virus that he and my father had, he died. My uncle was a lot more active than my father and I simply couldn't understand. A few weeks or months later, my violin teacher, whom I have known since I was four had a stroke. It was humbling to see this great man whom I have long admired in a state where his body was failing. His mind was clear but could not control his own mouth. I can't imagine a better reason to keep doing it than to remember those who are close to me and to keep myself in as good as health as I possibly can. If not for me, than for those around me.

Shigechan, when I learned you were getting married I thought "wow, he's really growing up!". But when I saw you at your wedding, you were the same goofy, silly guy you always were. You were a kid at heart, and always will be in my memories. You've taught me more than you think, and for that I thank you. May you rest in peace and never grow up. I'm doing this for you - you were always faster than me at undokai (that's the pic, from '83) so its about time I caught up to you!

determined.

No, I'm not determined to not fill up this blog, but this has to with someone else's determination. I somehow got suckered into riding back from the west island with this superfast, crazy kid, MW. Sure enough, we were passing cars on the left and whizzing by at 40km+. Anyway, when we finally hooked up back on the bike path, this guy was riding towards us with one arm in a cast/sling and... he was missing at least 2-4 front top teeth. We just coasted next to each other and started laughing and laughing. He was definitely, *the* ugliest man we saw that day. Even uglier than the man with the hairy fat boobie chest riding a scooter on the bike path. Anyway, it was a good laugh for the day.

I better rewind to the beginning of the wek. Sunday swim, tried to run in the evening but after 25mins or so my body just felt like crap. I guess I really pushed it at Sutton-Jay. Monday I had a decent run instead, around 50mins. Tuesday I still couldn't get up for the swim, and had an easy ride on the junk bike to Lachine to watch the mardi cyclistes. Zz. Wednesday, good run, 1.10. Thursday swim - had some good drafting behind K. Friday, was supposed to take it easy, but ended up walking all over town trying to find a present for my dad's b-day. Its pretty sad how hard it is to find a tape deck around here. I could only find a demo Yamaha, and finally the Denon m-101 series but at 350$ I was hesitant. I was also surprised to see Audio cd recorders still haven't gone mainstream. Sony's was 650$, and the Yamaha with HD was well over 1000$... eesh... Anyway, I ended up getting a Tivoli radio. I had seen it a while back in the bbc mag my dad reads, but I was really impressed by the simplicity and sound. If any of you still listen to the radio, check it out. Depending on how it sounds at my parent's place, I may get one for myself. The tuning knob is sweeet.

Anyway, so this morning I agreed to meet a couple of people riding at 8am, but once I was up I was busy reading the TdFrance headlines and watching... The Littlelist Hobo on CTV hahaha. I *had* to see the end of the episode for some reason so I only met up the gang at 8:30ish. Did Summit circle maybe 5-6 times? only 2-3 at a serious effort. Then ended up sitting around talking at the lookout of Summit circle. At one point a family came by and the little girl didn't want to leave. (She pretended to not hear them when they kept calling to her - she just stared at the forest in front of us) So while being dragged by her mom, she decided to kick V's helmet which was on the ground. It was hilarious. Completely intentional and V was like "heeeeeeey!" (not in a mean way) hahaha. I ended up deciding to accompany V to his parent's place in the west island... and that's where the blog wraps around.

ps. Aki is getting FASTER. (possibly fatter too.)
pps. happy Canada day!
ppps. this Aveeno sunblock is really smooth and non-scented but I seem to look a bit roasted. I should probably stick with neutrogena... anyone try their sport version? its a couple of bucks more...

Sutton-Jay - beautiful sunny 24C+ day

There's a popular ride the local clubs like to do between the two mountains and today a couple of us decided to go. I was a bit late meeting the bunch but once we were on the road, myself and crazy A were slaloming a bit through traffic. At one point where we just started speeding, we crested a hill and I suddenly saw brakes... then... we saw why... there was a bike in the middle of the road (obviously flew off a rack) and people were dodging it. My friend and I were laughing. We started looking to see whose it was but no one had pulled over. Only maybe 5km+ later did we see two cars on the side of the road, one with a roof rack, one with a trunk rack and three people engaged in a very interesting discussion. Hahaha. I hope they got their bike back.

We got to Sutton ~10. We headed off, and I just hung back as I never warm up quickly. E and A were butting heads over directions so we took a couple of wrong turns along the way. A couple of unncessary climbs later, we reached one of the peaks, one which I had climbed on the other side. I felt good, went at my pace and took off. I had about 2min on the closest person. Flying down was fun but only in the ~50's. We stopped at the gas station, filled up on sandwiches and started for the other peak (near the ski resort). As soon as I started I felt bloated. I chugged the end of my mango gatorade and was feeling a bit gassy. I managed to take off again, and reach the summit first. (barely) Then I realized there was another. That one was brutal. Not as bad as two years ago when I first did this ride and was zig-zagging across the road just trying to get up, but I seriously wanted to get off and just walk. While waiting for our buddies at the top, this woman came flying up the incredibly-bad-ass climb. As soon as she reached the top, she yelled "I'm going after **" and went back down! (There are some mountains I'll go back down to help my friends climb - that part was NOT one of them.) We later found out the maniac woman was ... Lynn Bysette... (national team) She made it look so easy. And damn... she had nice legs...

On the way down, M and A had a bit of a tiff "ride safely!" so M and I took off, barreling down the roads at 60km+, and at some point my computer says I hit 81.6km/h. Not bad. It felt a bit like the races on tv as M and I were drafting off each other, to maintain a minimum 60km+ speed. At one point a giant dump truck was behind us and the road became a bit narrow so I was focused on staying as close to the shoulder as possible - yet keeping my speed - in the end he never passed us. Thank g-d... We reached the bottom, hid in some shade and waited a few minutes for the chickens to join us. When they finally did, E was standing in front of us straddling her bike and we suddenly hear PPPSSSHhhhhh. AHAHHAHAHA. She was like "NOOoo! this is the third time this week". After wrenching the wheel away from her (she didn't want me to help) I noticed the rim tape was finished and was even off the holes - no kidding she keeps getting flats. After a bit longer than needed, we started heading back. More road confusion, but we headed in the right direction. Then A's front just exploded. sigh... and he didn't have a long valve tube... some nonsense later we were finally back on the road. Once we crossed the border, M and I started racing a bit, and after a while I was alone. I decided to try the "one man breakaway". I died about 2km before town but managed to hold them off by about a minute ... yay.

So what did I learn today? I'm still a decent climber despite the good 10lbs or so I've gained over the last year. I can only imagine what I could be like if I lost even half that weight... and weird... my back is in good shape... (it was a bit sore this morning)

pps. We got back around 4:30 so it was about a 6hr+ ride ~100km. Probably ate ~5bars=1000cal+5bottles=700cals? dang... at least 1700calories on the bike... hmm and yet thats a a bit of deficit considering the temps and effort... I hope I'm losing some weight this week...

So here I am. Finally. Where have I been the last month? nursing my achilles which was bothering me. I was only doing easy rides and no runs. Even swimming was hurting it a bit. We'll see how the week progresses, but I should be back. My new goal is Ottawa Grand Prix... (bike race). I'll post more about it later. THanx for reading :)

aw sh-t

Where have I been? What a week...
So last Thursday I went to swim and my achilles was hurting me. I took it easy, and left early. Friday I saw my physio and he told me to take some time off. Saturday was raining cats and dogs so I didn't go to the workout. Sunday was very lazy too.

Since then I've been biking. It finally stopped raining so since Monday, I've ridden about 300km this week so far. I went to swim last night - I felt mediocre. At one point my calf/gastroc felt a bit tight but my times were ok. Today I'm finally exhausted. Hopefully I'll get some easy spinning in. My rpms are dropping.

Oh right. The sh-t. So I went over the icebreaker yesterday and the may flies were out. Not in full force (I've seen worse) but bad enough that my shorts, shirt, helmet & hair were covered in them. As I turned around at the end of the stretch, I sat up to drink some water and... SPLAT! It felt like someone hit me with a water balloon. But no... I turn over my wrist and there it is... white bird crap. On my glove, on my top tube, on my water bottle (thank g-d I was carrying my nalgene) ... EVERYWHERE... damn birds...

riding in the rain. riding in the rain.

Yesterday was pretty busy - started with my 7am swim, which was interrupted by a fire alarm, (although no one seemed to exit the building). Then, as it wasn't raining yet, a bike ride warm-up to polytechnique and up the hill twice standing, then Mt.Royal front side 5x. I felt really good after the second one, spinning well and strong seated. 6pm ride at the F1... in the rain. I did a half assed ride of base, race-pace and above laps. Some assh*le in a black bimmer almost ran me over twice as they "raced" the course. I hope they crashed soon after... I'm pretty tired today...

I am SO sick of seeing this image every frickin' day! With the exception of ONE bike workout so far, its rained on every bike workout day. How am I supposed to get a long ride in? eeeeeeeeeesh! Rain, rain go away, come again another day...

Friday run was ok, we were at Lafontaine and I was able to hang on at a good pace. Did some weights beforehand and so I was pretty sore all weekend. Saturday it rained all morning for practice but 'becca and I did the backside of MtRoyal 9x. We were unsuccessfully trying to fix someone's flat but it took so long that by the time I got home I was shiverring. Arg. Finally cleaned the junk bike but it looks like it'll rain tomorrow too. Sunday swim was hard, 5x300, did them in between 4:45-4:55. I thought I felt strong on the last one but only mustered a 4:52 so... Even though it was forecast to rain, it stayed fairly clear... too bad it was mum's day, otherwise I would've gone biking... (although it was good I didn't since my left knee feels funny and my right foot callus/corn is getting really annoying and its affecting my gait.)