Baking - and Not the Tasty Kind

It's been hot in Vancouver lately, to say the least. We've had almost a week long run now of record or near-record temperatures and we aren't set up to handle it. While 34 degrees (95F) probably doesn't sound like much to most of you, it's worth noting that Vancouverites don't even know what an air conditioner is. The average temperature this time of year? According to the Weather Network, it's 23C (73F). So yeah, it's hot. My office is on the top floor of a warehouse type building with a black roof and not nearly enough ventilation. To say that my brain is fried by the end of the day is almost not even speaking figuratively!

But there is hope to be had. This weekend we're off to the island where, in Victoria at least, it has been a little cooler and is forecast to be back to those mid-twenties temperatures by Saturday. And next week's forecast for Van City also shows some relief on the way.

It can't come soon enough for this Ontario kid. I guess five years out here has turned me soft.

The Plan

Interesting times, these. I have to admit some lack of motivation having completed all of my "A" races by the first week of June. I'm still training, but it's been pretty haphazard and unfocused. However, we're now just nine days from me actually racing my only Olympic length race of the year, so here is the game plan ...

At "Self Indulgence", as the race has been renamed (it's actually called Self Transcendence), Amy and I did the relay last year. She swam, I rode, and we ran together to splits of 28:xx, 1:10:xx, and 53:xx. A few weeks later, I went to Kelowna and posted very similar splits in the Apple. Both races resulted in total times, with transitions, of just over 2:30:00. So the goal this time is to crack the 2.5 hour mark. I felt better about the goal of cracking 2.5 hours in an Olympic distance in 2009 when I thought I'd be racing Kelowna again, but the Self Indulgence features a tougher bike course that is going to make the goal a real challenge for me.

I'm going to need a strong swim. No pussyfooting around at the start like usual for me. Gotta get in the mix and find some draft-worthy toes early on. Just put my head down and swim hard is basically the plan. With a good efficient T1, I plan to be out on the ride by the 30 minute mark. The bike course is made difficult by the climbs on it and the difficulty in getting rhythm. It has been with that in mind that I've gone out the last few Saturdays and done a few real "suffer-fest" rides on the North Shore mountains. Last week's ride where I climbed nearly 7,000 feet over the course of 118 km in under five hours, was especially ruinous to my legs, but I'm hoping that it pays dividends next Sunday. Should all go well, I'll post a bike split right around 1:10 again and be into T2 just before the 1:40 mark. Again, with a smooth and efficient T2, the goal will then be to run a 48 minute 10 km to finish it off under 2.5 hours. Would that be a 10 km PR for me? Yup. Can it be done? I guess we'll have to wait and see, but I'm sure hoping so.

But "Wait a minute!", you say. "Weren't you two racing Self Indulgence last year right after your wedding?" Yes, we were! This Sunday is the one year anniversary of the marriage of Team Pink! One whole year of wedded bliss in the books. So Sunday morning I'll be bringing Amy pancakes and a mocha in bed to let her know how special she is. After all, pancakes are the traditional first year anniversary gift right? Paper, you say? Nah, paper's not all that tasty.

Time Trials & Suitcases

Last night was the once every four weeks bike time trial that our club does. It's a 16 km out and back with a not-too difficult, but not perfectly flat profile (it climbs about 200 feet):


Coach Alan told us that we'd only be doing one TT last night (as opposed to doing an ITT and then a TTT based on times), so we had better "leave it all on the road". Based on that guidance, I went busting out of the gates and rode as hard as I could to try not to get caught by all the folks who lined up behind me (we start from expected slowest to fastest and there were a lot of people behind me at the start). I had it in my mind that I wanted to break 25 minutes last night and, thanks to a little bit of a pull at the end from Andrew as he became the only one to pass me, I made it in 24:58. Average speed of 38.45 km/hr (23.9 mph)!

The whole ride hurt a lot as I got my heart rate way up into max territory and let the lactic acid burn. But I survived to watch Le Tour this morning where Phil Liggett broke out Team Pink's favourite phrase about suffering on the bike. As Nicki Sorensen flew under the 5 km to go banner on his way to victory, Phil exclaimed that Nicki was digging deep into his "suitcase of courage"!

I think I need to find myself a suitcase of courage one of these days.

Drunk on a Sunday afternoon

I will preface this with a warning: it was Erin and Andrew's wedding this afternoon. And man the wine was great. No less than could be expected from them. But this half of Team Pink is kinda many a little slightly kinda a bit under the influence. And last night there was a bunch of excitement what with Joanne and Torbin`s BBQ shinding and meeting some twitter peeps and those SAA peeps... ya ya LETC SAA LETC SAA snap snap Jets and Sharks. OK OK it wasn't that bad they are cool people. Really they are. But in any case please excuse any gammar and spelling mistakes. I've had a bit too much this afternoon....

So Saturday was a challenge. Up Cypress. Which killed me. KILLED me. At kilometer 11 I couldn't turn the peddles over anymore. I was wimpering. But Brian wouldn't let me quit. Damn his eyes - but at the same time bless him for pushing me. I was crying and dying inside (Cactus: she actually did almost tear up - I was worried that pushed her too far. But she totally toughed it out!). It was hell on wheels. It's like this is April in July for me - i.e. the start of real training rather then half way in. I was like this last April except it's next July so this SUCKS. I think I need to suck it up if I want to do the IM Canada course this summer (as always) but still it was tough. So I'm beating my self up a bit but still I made it up there to the power lines. Barely. But still. And then I slept Saturday away after tasty tasty burgers.

Sunday, today, was awesome. I slept in and still caught the end of the Tour. Which was somewhat exciting. And it was off to the WEDDING. Erin and Andrew. I remember driving out to the lake with Erin a few summers ago when she turned to me and said "you know who I like in the club: ANDREW." And then a few weeks later the two of them were off on a date on Canada Day (for part of which we invited them to dinner and said bring dessert and drinks... good idea when you want to set friends up... it worked here for sure and we got Mojitos and ice cream, strawberries and angel food cake out of it). So yeah, today was their wedding and it was spectacular. So congrats to Erin and Andrew and all the best in your life together. WEEEEEE

And in other news I saw this in the "24" on Saturday when we were getting our post long ride burger at Veras. (OMG best burger EVER. mmmmmm burger.) Not my type manwise but good quote. You might have to click on the pic to see the whole this in full size.

The Rare "Positive Split Workout"

After being too lazy to get over to the North Shore for Wednesday night's climb up Seymour, I dedicated myself to putting in a real solid effort on what was scheduled as some hill repeats followed by short track intervals last night.

Unfortunately, Andrew announced that this would be a positive split workout, which I accepted with less than the appropriate amount of dread. You see, three short hill repeats, one long hill repeat, four 400's and four 200's appear on the surface to be not that bad. Very manageable even. But when the instruction is "take the first one so hard that you start to throw up a little and feel the lactic acid pooling up already", you're in trouble. This was the "how long can you keep going after it hurts" practice.

I had a horrible practice. The nausea started in the third hill repeat. The plain old stomach cramping started on the long fourth repeat. Dizziness kicked in somewhere around the third 400 m repeat at which point I waved the white flag and skipped the fourth. The 200's were a sufferfest. And the 3 km "cool down" run back to the community centre was just a survival march as my stomach continued its rebellion. I'm glad I went out and hurt. I wish my stomach had co-operated better. And I'm going to be far more wary next time Andrew says the words "positive split tonight".

I Heart Canada Day in Vancouver

Canada Day in Vancouver rocks! We got things started yesterday morning with the open water swim races at Sasamat Lake out in Port Moody. While I did the 2 km race a couple of years ago, I made this year's race one of my stepping stones towards Ironman by signing up for the 4 km. I'm not quite sure why I felt the need to sign up for 4 km of swimming, but Pants says it has something to do with this cat ...


Whatever the reasons, I waded trepidatiously into the lake just before 8:30 yesterday morning and after a great deal of flailing around and probably swimming in a zig zag pattern that would have made Charlie Brown's shirt jealous, I got through the two laps in 1:13:28. I was hoping for under 1:15, so I was pretty happy, but definitely worn out. That's an awfully long way to swim - especially when you swim it hard knowing that you don't have to bike afterwards!

Once we got back home from the lake, we did end up getting on our bikes for a bit of a hill repeat workout. While Amy ended up working a lot harder than me because I flatted and skipped out on one of the repeats, it was still nice to get out and ride for an hour or so.

Following up our ride, we treated ourselves to big wonderful burgers from Vera's before walking down to spend most of the afternoon watching the Yaletown Grand Prix where Amy (other Amy in LETC) and Martina kicked butt finishing 1-2 in the 4.5 km running race and then watching Rachel have a great race in the women's pro bike race. We also say Dave run a great race in the men's 4.5 km and enjoyed watching two of the pro men lap the entire field in the last race of the day.

After all of that, we were exhausted. But what a great way to spend the holiday. Couldn't really ask for much better out here!