- How am I supposed to hate a team that got kicked off a flight for being too drunk? Gotta hand it to those Russians. #
- Pretty damning evidence HBO has on hockey's attitude to concussions. Even I could tell something was wrong w Crosby and nobody said a thing. #
- Awesome: "If I would have myself passing to me, I would have 24 [goals] too" – Henrik talking about Daniel. #Canucks #
- One of these days I'm going to give in while riding home and get a hot dog from that vendor at English Bay. Today was almost that day. #
- “@jfriel: Mental toughness is burning desire, unwavering discipline, strong self-belief and exceptional patience.” #
- Another Monday, another spin class done. Nothing like 550W sprints and 300W+ intervals. Good times. #
Jan
13
Twitter Thursday
Jan
06
Twitter Thursday
- I love you McSweeneys. “@mcsweeneys: Far and away our most read story online this year: http://bit.ly/9YriiT” #
- 24.3k of swimming later and managed to turn out 10×200 faster than ever. I might be cut out for this endurance stuff after all. #
- I will be using this response in the future. RT @thesulk: "2011! Can you believe it?!" "Yes. I get how time works. As should you." #
- Anchorman! What a great way to start 2011! #wheninrome #
- Just watched (500) Days of Summer again. Possibly my favorite movie scene ever. Just brilliant. http://vimeo.com/9443097 #
- So has anything happened since I left work when Canada was up 3-0? #wtf #
Dec
31
I will be using this response …
I will be using this response in the future. RT @thesulk: “2011! Can you believe it?!” “Yes. I get how time works. As should you.”
Oct
11
…Best at the End
An explanation for “…best at the end.”
On my drive to and from Kelowna for Nationals this year I listened to the audio book of “Good to Great”. At the end, after loads of business related examples, Jim Collins related a story of a high school cross-country team that was an example of the good to great philosophy:
The coaching staff of a high school cross-country running team recently got together for dinner after winning its second state championship in two years from good (top twenty in the state) to great (consistent contenders for the state championship, on both the boys” and girls” teams).
“I don’t get it,” said one of the coaches. “Why are we so successful? We don’t work any harder than any other teams. And what we do is just so simple. Why does it work?”
He was referring to the Hedgehog Concept of the program, captured in the simple statement: We run best at the end. We run best at the end of workouts. We run best at the end of races. And we run best at the end of the season, when it counts the most.
So simple and yet so brilliant. Here’s an example of how the simple statement was put into practice:
Everything is geared to this simple idea, and the coaching staff knows how to create effect better than any other team in the state. For example, they place a coach at the 2-mile mark (of a 3.1 mile race) to collect data as the runners go past. But unlike most teams, which collects time splits (minutes-per-mile running pace), this team collects place splits (what place the runners are in as they go by). Then the coaches calculate not how fast the runners go, but how many competitors they pass at the end of the race, from mile 2 to the finish. They then use this data to award “head bones” after each race. (Head bones are beads in the shape of shrunken skulls, which the kids make into necklaces and bracelets, symbolizing their vanquished competitors.) The kids learn how to pace themselves, and race with confidence: “We run best at the end.” they think at the end of a hard race. “So, if I’m hurting bad, then my competitors must hurt a whole lot worse!”
It was a story that rang true to me in so many way. “Best at the end” reflects the importance of pushing hard right to the end of workouts and trying to outwork others. “Best at the end” reflects that my strength is over long distances and pacing myself. “Best at the end” reflects my desire to put in my best races at the most important races. “Best at the end” reflects a long term attitude that emphasizes patience in development rather than “fast now”. “Best at the end” reflects my desire to be the best I can possibly be.
So as I move into the “off-season” and I start to plan and set goals for the coming season I’ve decided it will be my mantra for next season.
I swim…best at the end.
I bike…best at the end.
I run…best at the end.
Best at the end.
Sep
06
Quick Updates
Going to be efficient with some updates about the last two weeks and what’s ahead:
- Nationals in Kelowna went well. Going in I wanted to be top 15 and thought with a great performance could possibly hit the top 10. Ended up 15th in what turned out to be a very competitive race.
- Last weekend I raced in the BC Time Trial Championships. Hit my goal of averaging 40 km/h in a 40 km bike time trial averaging 40.7 km/h. It was good enough for 7th place in Cat 4. Left me satisfied for hitting my goal but wanting a better overall placing
- Had planned on racing the Vancouver Tri today but didn’t as my hip has been hampering my running the past week or so. Instead, I braved the rain for a ride out to Horseshoe Bay with stops in Stanley Park on the way out and way back to cheer on Jeff, Facundo, Martina and George (doing his first tri I think).
- So instead of running I’ve managed to get in a couple extra bike rides in preparation for the Whistler Gran Fondo next weekend: a nice little bike race from Downtown Vancouver to Whistler (120 km). Haven’t done a 100 km ride since the spring so we’ll see how I hold up.
- The Gran Fondo will be the unofficial end of the summer race season. With it comes the start of the fall run season. After having to sit it out last year with my stress fracture I’m really looking forward to getting some solid running in this fall. Already got my training planned out so now I just need to make sure my hip heals in the next couple weeks so I can hit the ground running.
Aug
19
Ready To Start
Tomorrow I head to Kelowna for Nationals. It’s been a long year since I was there last year and now as I rest up and wait for Sunday there is only one thing on my mind: I’m ready to start…
My mind is open wide and now I’m ready to start.
Aug
11
Race Report – Walnut Grove Sprint
Every second counts.
It’s so easy to say, simple to ignore and hard to put into practice. And then it stares you right in the face on a results list and you realize how much it really does matter. A tie for 1st overall? Really? Are you sure?
With a pool swim for the Walnut Grove Sprint, it was nearly impossible to figure out exactly where you stood during the race. Even at the finish line, Rob and I compared our watches and couldn’t figure out who had beat who. And as it turned out, neither could Race Headquarters. So co-winners it was.
Of course with a result like that you can’t help but got back over your entire race and think about all the places you could have save a second: hesitating coming out of the pool to figure out which way to go to transition, slowing down around corners on the bike to avoid slower bikers, fumbling with my shoes in transition, going the long way around a barrier on the run to get around slower runners. Not to mention pushing just a little harder at any point in the race. It’s enough to drive you crazy. Or make you better next time.
Overall, I was pretty happy with the race. However, I have to go back to something Paula Findlay said after winning the WCS race in London:
“This was absolutely the best result of my life, but not quite the best race of my life.”
Such an awesome reminder that the process is more important than the outcome if you want to be as good as you can be. There is always room for improvement, even if you end up on top.
The biggest one for me at Walnut Grove was my swim. With all the extra time I’ve spent in the pool this year, it was frustrating to swim essentially the same time as last year at this race.
It also may seem crazy, considering I posted the fastest bike split, but I think I had a few lulls on the bike where I should have pushed harder. Looking at my data after the race I saw I was a fair bit faster on the 2nd lap so I definitely could have been faster on the first lap.
As for the run, I was pretty happy. 17:59 is a 5k PB (triathlon or not) which is a nice sign that all the run work I did in the spring is starting to pay off. Now I just need to find a way to extend that into a 10k as I was pretty smashed by the end of 5k.
Now a week or so of continuing to bring the speed up a little more and getting plenty of rest before Kelowna.
Aug
07
Details
It’s August and that usually means starting to round a corner. After a tough July of hard training and consequently lacklustre racing, I can feel myself starting to round into form as I had planned. My speed in workouts in slowly getting faster and it feels like the long winter and spring is starting to pay some dividends. I also managed to set a 10k PB by almost 45 seconds in Squamish last weekend with a 37:34.
With important races like Nationals in Kelowna coming up, it also means that all the small details surrounding training become more important. Things like proper recovery, nutrition and sleep all come to the forefront (although to be honest they really should be all year round).
And I’ve found a most unlikely ally in helping me with these details: my iPhone. I know, those of you who don’t have one are sick of hearing how great they are but there is a reason you keep hearing it over and over again. So, a couple of iPhone apps that I’ve found have been a great help in some of my training details.
Sleep Cycle
The perfect app for tracking how much and how well you’re sleeping. Making use of the accelerometer in the iPhone, Sleep Cycle measures the movement of your mattress (you have to keep your phone next to your pillow as you sleep) to determine how deep your sleep is. The less movement you make, the deeper the sleep. You can then review your sleep pattern in the morning and even set your alarm to go off within a given range of times when you are in a more awake state rather than a deep sleep (it really does make a difference).
While those are cool features, the most useful part of the app is its unbiased recording of how much sleep you get. I always assumed I got plenty of sleep (at least 8 hours a night) but after a week or two of using the app I quickly realized I was fooling myself and that the 8 hours was simply a best case. My average was closer to just less than 7.
So I’ve been trying to get that average up to 8 with the help of the app but it’s still a battle.
Lose It!
A weight loss app for an athlete seems counter-intuitive but hear me out. Like the Sleep Cycle app, Lose It! has features built in that I find incredibly useful.
The most basic being able to simply track calories. It allows you to enter and save any food, create recipes (so you don’t have to enter each individual ingredient in something like a smoothie), and quickly copy meals from previous days (great for someone like me who eats basically the same breakfast everyday). It also allows you enter in calories burnt from exercises (which I take from my heart rate monitor or estimate from swimming) to ensure a calorie balance each day.
The main reason I started (and continue) using the app though was its ability to then take what you were eating and calculate percentage of calories were coming from fats, carbs, and protein (as well as the absolute amounts of each). In the spring I had run into GI problems on a couple of runs and knowing that I had a tendency to eat a lot of carbs (even before all the energy drinks, bars, and gels) and thought that might be culprit. Sure enough, after a week of using the app I saw what I thought I might find, an inordinately high level of carbs.
I adjusted my diet and now I’m able to make sure I keep a decent balance in what I eat (and have avoided any GI problems). It should also help in making sure I get a few extra carbs in a couple days before races.
So if you’ve got an iPhone, give these apps a try (Lose It! is free and Sleep Cycle is less than $2 if I remember correctly).
Now lets just hope this rain quits before my last triathlon in prep for Nationals at Walnut Grove tomorrow.
Jul
23
Inspiration
Inspiration comes so infrequently and in the most unlikely of places sometimes. So I like to keep a collection of things to get me motivated when I need it.
A couple of recent YouTube finds that have fit the bill lately…
Today I found an interesting source of inspiration. I had planned a tough workout on Knox Mountain in Kelowna (~3.5k climb with 250m of vertical) with 4 x climb alternating easy/all out.
On my first all out climb I noticed a Dad and his roughly 8 year old son (he could easily have been younger but saying he was 6 just seems ridiculous) just starting up the mountain each on their own bike. Then on the decent I saw them again, this time the kid had hit a really steep part (probably about 12%) and was out of the saddle trying to do his best Andy Schleck impression on his tiny bike. It may have been the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
The next time up (easy this time), the kid was off his bike, walking it up the steep part but not giving up. So I slowed as I came up beside him and gave him some words of encouragement to keep going. His face lit up in a way I can’t even describe.
Sure enough, on my next decent he was back in the saddle climbing again and seeing that gave me the inspiration I needed to smash up the mountain one last time all out. This little guy wasn’t complaining one bit when the majority of kids would have given up and would be sulking on the side of the road. It was truly amazing.
So I smashed up the mountain one last time and as I passed the little guy, I managed to let out a “go, go, go” in between gasps of breath. Again, his face lit up and I could see him pick up the pace ever so slightly. It was all I needed to push my way to the top. You were my inspiration today buddy.
So it was a great workout which was much needed after yesterday had been washed out by torrential rain, hail, roads with no shoulder, flats and tubes with the wrong valve. Some visual evidence of Jeff changing a flat (note the water rushing around his feet) and the river of water coming down the road from all the rain.
Jul
08
Jacked and 1:18
Some random Thursday fun…
