Time for a change...

First, I will apologize for both the delay in writing, and then second for having you come somewhere else for my "rant" - I decided that I needed to use a better tool to keep track of my journey, so I have decided to use this - I think that you will find it a worthwhile change, if for no other reason than it should be easier to read.

I am going to start with today, and work my way backwards in time - it has been a while, so I will bring you all up to speed. Apologies abound for the length of this one... I am going to work at doing this daily, I think you will find your visits more rewarding in future. I promise. For real ;)

Today has been a generally good day, bike training went well, swimming notsomuch... it seems that my left shoulder is unhappy with my current training volume, and so I swam about 500m easy today, and then spent some serious time contemplating in the steam room... the steam room is an excellent place to reflect - if you have never tried it, I highly recommend it.

This morning, I ran into Nick (you can read a bit more on Nick below) at the pool - he saw me before I went in, and I ran into him on the way out - he thought I had endured a solid 1.5 hour swim, but I had to confess that the majority of that time was spent soaking up steam.

Yesterday we went down to the beach in Frankston, to do the local 1.2 km open water swim. That was an experience for me, and for Alli - though quite different for each of us! My swim was supposed to start at 11:10, but was delayed until about 11:20 for some reason (giving me a little extra time to burn myself in the hot Australian sun). Things started out relatively well, but as we got out into the deeper water, things got rough - as rough as I have ever experienced (that said, this is only my third ocean race, so my experience is quite limited actually). We swam out and around a pier (they call it something else, but the name escapes me - nothing docks here, I think it was a jetty). Either way... I thought I might get tossed into/under said jetty as I swam around it. I was busy breathing on my left side - the jetty was on my right - so I didn't actually see how close I got. Nevertheless, I got tossed around like a... I don't have an analogy here, but needless to say, it was a rough go. I had a great deal of difficulty sighting the buoys as I went, but eventually made my way around the final buoy, and began heading into shore. I ended up easily 800m off of the finish line (the waves were pushing me to the far right) so I ended up running a LONG ways on the beach to get in - some smart guy on the beach commented "nice beach run buddy" as I ran past. Well, I made it... I thought I would be in last place, but it seems that some other poor souls got lost at sea (so to speak - we were swimming in the bay, hardly in the middle of the sea ;) Regardless - I finished 29th overall and 8th in my age category (out of 174 and 26 respectively). This was decent, considering how much further I actually swam. My total time for this race was 20:21.16 - 4:16.12 off of the winner. Maybe better next time....

Alli was unfortunate in that someone decided to change the start time for her age category, but failed to properly inform the participants. So - she ended up missing the start of her race, and ended up swimming the entire thing by herself. I am sure that she will mention more about this in her rant, so be sure to take a peek there - she was pretty choked. Regardless, her ACTUAL time would have put her in roughly 6th place - very probably better, had she actually had someone to compete against and/or follow. I will leave the rest for her words :)

The swim was good, though the day got VERY hot (around 43 degrees was forecast, but it's hard to say where it ended up). We went from the beach to the gym, where we did our weights (despite our very tired and sore legs) then went home... arriving back at about 9:00 - just in time for bed :) A long day, but good nevertheless.

The day prior to the swim saw us out on the bike at about 7:00 AM - our new Saturday ride has us riding 6 hours or 180 km (whichever comes first ;). I managed only about 150km in the 6 hours that I had - the thermometor rose to about 44 degrees according to my watch, and I ended up running low on water, and probably hadn't eaten enough in hindsight, so the last hour was pretty difficult. Drinking my Ultima on the bike was a lot more like drinking tea than drinking anything refreshing (I do not care how you slice it, hot tea is NOT refreshing in the 40 degree heat on the bike ;) The run off the bike was the tough part, but we managed through it... it was a good training day despite the heat.

So, I will obviously not walk you through the two weeks prior (I could not remember if I tried) but I will summarize a bit.

Last weekend we managed to make it out to do a sprint triathlon (750m swim, 20k bike, 5k run). This would not have been much of a challenge on its own, but the day before we went for our long ride (five hours). On the way home I took a wrong turn TWICE and lost Alli - I ended up being on the bike for about 7.5 hours and a total of around 180km. This didn't do much for my race on Sunday... but neither did the fact that the trains do not start early on Sunday mornings, and we were forced to ride about 50km to the start of the race. Nevertheless, the race was fun, and I was able to push myself relatively well, considering my tired legs. The run was OK (about 20 minutes off the bike is not too bad, especially with tired legs). The highlights of the day were the free massage afterwards, and the post-race nutrition - a huge bag of nacho chips. Tasty... no nutrition there, but the thought was good (and of course, I ate them up without hesitation :)

The week prior to the race, I ran into a fellow by the name of Nick Conway - he is an up and coming professional triathlete in the area. Top ranked in Australia, in fact. We got chatting in the gym after he noticed the Edmonton ITU triathlon shirt that I was wearing (he actually confused me for an actual elite athlete - that is truly amazing ;) Nick was pretty cool - he took us out to ride with a local group, and we got to chat with him a little on that ride. Learned a little bit about what it is like to be a professional triathlete. Doesn't sound easy (if you were thinking that it might be). We plan on taking Nick out for some grub one night, just to learn a little more about how he got into the sport, and what his experiences have been thus far. He will be visiting Canada this year to compete in the Duathlon World Championships, which are to be held in Cornerbrook Newfoundland. He asked me today if I knew the area... unfortunately I am not much the expert, but I will work on finding him someone familiar with the area - anyone know any newfies from around Cornerbrook? Drop me a line if you do.

Ok - that's the update, now some time for nonsensical ramblings... ready?

Nonsensical Ramblings for Monday, January 23 :)

Today I was thinking about a question that I get asked with relative frequency - why do you do this? That's a good question, one with a complicated answer. Since I was young, and witnessed an Ironman on television, I thought "now there is something that I want to do". As with all things, I figured once would be enough, but as it turns out, once was not enough. I decided that I actually wanted to do this, and do it well, which requires more focus than just "finishing" - not that there is any shame in "just finishing" an Ironman. Let me tell you - it's a lot of training just to get to the start line, nevermind the finish line. Anyone who has done it knows... and most who have done it once, will do it again. It's truly an experience.

So, the experience is one reason - then there is the test of my personal limits. That is a big one. I want to see how far I can take this thing - I know I can do much better than I did in 2005, and if I put in a solid year (or near year) of training, we know that different results will follow. So, why not? I am always up for a challenge, and this seems a reasonable challenge.

Before I left, a friend of mine mentioned that I am selfish. He wasn't specific on why (and I didn't have a good opportunity to ask) and so I am left to guess. Ironman is mostly a one man (or woman) event. You are out there alone on raceday - more or less. Most races will see well beyond 1,000 participants, but in the end, you are on your own. What you need you have to carry, or have waiting for you at one of the two pickup spots on the course. It's a long day - 8.5 hours if you are a professional, or up to 16 hours if you are not. That is a very long time. The journey is not easy, and it can be lonely at times, but then the Ironman becomes a metaphor for life, as this is how life often is. Challenging, lonely - you and your demons. Just compressed. So the question becomes - is this a selfish journey? Largely, I suppose it is. It's hard to say that I am doing this to somehow better the world around me, but I would like to think that by taking a hack at this, I am doing something to enhance the lives of those around me.

What am I talking about?

I have been told more than once that I am an inspiration. This, in and of itself, is inspiring. Life is tough - and there is a lot of negative influence in our world, so if I can have a positive influence, if even just a little bit, then I would like to think that I am doing this for a reason other than just to show people "that I can". Many people have inspired me in life, far too many to appreciate or even begin to acknowledge here, but some of you know who you are, others do not. Some of the people that have had a large influence on me and my life may well be subconcious to me - I couldn't even say... but they have had an impact, and I think that the web that we weave as we waddle on through life is critical. Everyone that touches your life has the potential to affect it, and I would like to touch people positively. This is a bit of why I do this.

Another reason that I can think of, and frequently think of is ridiculously simple. Because I can. Yup, I have two legs, I can run bike and swim, so why not? There are thousands of others out there that look at something like the Ironman who say "I wish I could do that" but cannot. This is NOT the same as the people who say "I wish I could, but my knees would never tolerate it" - these are the people that might say, rather "I wish I could do this, if only I had legs" or whatever physical limitation they might have... I watched a man get out of his wheelchair and into the pool today. He obviously has no use of his legs, but he makes an effort - I see him often. I don't doubt that he has a strong desire to do more than he does, but he is physically limited in what he can do. Others might not have the same obvious physical limitations, but they still cannot get out there to do what I am doing (cancer, arthritis, MS, and the list goes on and on). Either way - I like to think that I am using the ability that I have been given, perhaps not to enhance their lives, but knowing that I can do this, and am using my ability and desire to be a happy healthy guy.

Ok - this has gone on quite long enough, but perhaps it gives you a little insight into why I am doing this thing. Ironman is first on a list of many things to come - the destination this time is Ironman, and that destination may change, but the theme will not!

Until my next post... ciao.