Tuesday, July 28, 2009

To a Good Tour

Great Tour this year, I enjoyed every stage.



Out for cycle myself, fingers crossed for the knee.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Peanut Butter and Honey

When I was younger I wasn't a peanut butter fan. I have, however, been a honey fan for some time; Honey sandwiches were a favourite for school lunches. THere is something about the texture of honey that is irresistible. Peanut Butter came later, much later.

I would hear stories of people eating PB right out of the jar with a spoon and couldn't comprehend the habit. I remember a particular story that was told to Stevo, Scotty and I in the hot tub a few years back where a guy had a marathon runner stay with him for the Royal Victoria Marathon i think, and this guy would eat both by the spoonfull, one after the other.

Well, over the last 12-18 months i have become that spoonful tucking guy. I eat Peanut Butter and Honey more than any other food item. I cannot believe how much of it I actually eat.

One day I decided i needed to put some numbers to this craving, so I went to Costco and bought a 2kg Tub of Peanut Butter and a 2 kg tub of Honey. I would eat them both as I regularly do and once finished would count the days it took and from that determine how many calories per day of the two I was consuming.

Here are the Tubs upon arrival, July 4th, 2009.






Here are the Tubs on completion July 27, 2009



Together the 4kg's of golden deliciousness had 20,000cals of chemical energy. The period of time was 23days subtract 4 days when I was away, so believe it or not I consumed roughly 1000cals of the mixture per day over the time period.

I believe the craving for these two food items stem from their ease of preparation (no prep necessary unless you use bread), energy density, ease of digestion, and ease of eating (no chewing really). Together the two fuel me through training.

I do however need to watch the intake of them when I am not training that much, like right now. I do not want a relapse to last year which involved nutella

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Knee for Sale

The day after racing in San Francisco I did a run in Golden Gate Park before departing for Victoria. WHile on the run I began to feel some knee pain in my left knee. This has happened before but it usually shakes itself out. This time however I had to stop and walk it off. I hobbled back to Serge's appartment (Thanks very much Serge for the great hook up and city tour). I felt it would pass and things would be fine but after attempting a ride the day after arriving home I realized the severity of this injury. The pain was too much..

Since then I have been having a lot various types of treatment on it from many helpful therapists and doctors in Victoria. It is beginning to improve but still has some time before I can resume regular training. No time is perfect for an injury but I think this is as close as it gets for me. There is not a lot of racing for me at this time and perhaps this break will serve me well later in the season. I will however not race in Calgary 70.3 next weekend, it is out of the question. Instead attention will paid to getting this knee working properly again and focusing on Kelowna.

My season after Kelowna also remains questionable. Initially I thought of racing ND Olympics and a 70.3 but with this injury I am hesitant to ride my TT bike. I think I rode it too often and too long at first and brought on anatomical changes to my lower body to quickly.

Swimming however is gonna quite well at the moment, I am logging great mileage and feeling great. Tomorrow I will swim a 3k Open WAter race for Multiple Sclerosis .

One activity on the bike which I think I could handle is the BierBike, what a great idea, bringing together two great passtimes into one! Unfortunately i don't think it would ever fly in North America.

Monday, July 13, 2009

San Francisco ITU Treasure Island

Yaaar Matey. Sailed back in from Treasure Island last night with mixed results.

The race was held on Treasure Island, located under the Bay Bridge (connects SF to Oakland) under sunny skies and temps of 22C air, 17C water. Wetsuit swim with one of those hokus pokus deep water rope starts, not a fan. Received a good Brazilian beating for the first 250m but then settled into a good rhythm for the remainder coming out near the front of the main group after 1500m.

Had decent T1 but the man I needed to mark, Mr.Whitfield, had a better one and had an agonizing 15m gap on me onto the bike. I hovered there for what seemed like a couple of minutes, contently thinking that the group forming behind me would catch up and we could reel him in. I lacked the killer instinct to burry myself in an attempt to bridge up to Simon. This was costly and a valuable lesson. The group did catch me but Simon rode away and joined the front three of McCartney, McClarty and Leto. However my race came to quick end when on lap 4 of 6 I heard the sound we all fear in racing...passing gas...from my tire that is. A flat front going into a tight corner spelt danger and I just managed to hold the corner and get off the course.

First flat when racing, has to happen sometime.

The race was not done though for my teammates so I set out on the run course to cheer on Simon, Andrew, AP and Kris. Simon set it on cruise for the run. The camo suit was quite fittingly for racing on a abandoned military base by the way! The highlight of the race was watching AMac take home 2nd! The break stuck and he had a great run! AP and Kris I think were happy with aspects of there races, but the full package wasn't there for them on this day.

I was so pumped for Amac and Simon at the finish that I went in to congratulate them both right after. What was I doing....I didn't belong there and then I go on to steal a high five from AMac as you'll see at around 1:30 into this video




Good times for all maties!

Now back to the grind, approaching 70.3 Calgary off ye starboard bow!