Better late than never...

The title is in reference to this very late Ironman Canada race report, but it also nicely sums up my result: I did finish my first Ironman race on 28-Aug-2011 in 12 hours and 42 minutes.

Am I happy with this result?

Good question - one I have asked myself quite a bit over the last few months. I know I ought to be. In all reality a sub-13 hour first time Ironman finish is a respectable result. Also, it was incredibly hot that day; in Penticton the forecast was for a high of 33°C and that makes it way hotter in the Similkameen Valley and to about 7-gazillion degrees running along Skaha lake in the mid afternoon with nowhere to hide.

And yes, in many ways I am really happy. I finished reasonably healthy and in good spirits. And after all, sub-13 was my "B" goal. With my "C" goal being to simply finish. The "A" goal was to finish in sub-12 hours.

One can, and perhaps should, argue though that I set my goals too soft. The A-goal should be nearly unattainable. That is, only if everything goes absolutely perfect should I be able to reach that goal. And with that said, it should have been 11 hours, with a B-goal of 12 or 12.5 hours.

But I am getting older, "of a certain age" per se, and I want to enjoy this sport still for a very long time to come. At the Oliver Half Iron race this year I promised myself to stop creating these kinds of goal-pressures for myself and just race for the fun of it. This promise, as it turns out, seems to be a work in progress...

So in all honesty, I am a little disappointed in the final time and know that I could, and should, have done better. Sub-12 is totally attainable for me. I know where I made the mistakes and ended up falling short. And with that I take comfort that this was a great learning experience and will serve me well in my next iron distance race.

Heck, it wasn’t just a great learning experience, it was a great experience - period!

Here now how it all played out.

Lawrence and I arrived in Penticton on Tuesday evening to be there nice and early before the race to acclimatize and get all the pre-race stuff done without any stress. On Wednesday we met up with our training buddy Gen and went to listen to Jordan Rapp speak at the Penticton Wholefoods. Thursday was race registration, Friday the athletes meeting, and Saturday bike check-in. Doesn't sound like much, but add in a little bit of training, cooking, and numerous trips to the local Starbucks and we were constantly on the go it seemed.

With Esther (not my wife Esther, but my training buddy Esther Lee) in the suite next to us at the Rochester Motel on Lakeshore Drive, there was naturally a lot of tri-geeking going on with all the meals we usually had together. Good times all in all and helpful to calm the re-race jitters.

Although Esthi (my wife this time) initially didn't plan on coming to Penticton for the race because of work, she found a way to make it happen in the last minute: take the Greyhound bus from Vancouver to Penticton on Saturday and fly home super early on Monday from Kelowna. That was a totallysuperwickedawesome surprise!

On Saturday evening, after a nice dinner, it was all about triple-checking the special-needs bags (the transition bags were dropped off the day before together with the bikes) and some more tri-geeking. My nerves were seriously out of control by that time.

Sunday morning the alarm got us up at 3:45 am. Holy F...! Really?! It sure felt like I had no sleep whatsoever. But there was a lot to be done: get the coffee and the oatmeal ready, slather on capacious amounts of SPF50, and make sure to put on the right gear including the timing chip. "Will I need long sleeve/leg morning gear? Ah, screw it... it'll be warm enough" (it wasn't).

Just before 5 am Esther (training one, the wife was still in bed), Lawrence, and I make our way to the body marking area. Just as we were walking down Lakeshore, Esther noticed that she was missing something... The wetsuit! Oops, that could be a problem. So we wait while she gets it and in then Eric who is another client of our coach Lara joined us as well.

Next up was the special needs bag drop off and after body marking it was on the way to the transition area we met up with Lara, who gave us final words of encouragement and advise. Especially with this heat we are to make sure to keep cool by dousing ourselves with water wherever possible and drink more water than usual.

In transition the first order of business was to make sure the bike is all set: pump the tires, put the first load of drink in the aero bottle, put the concentrate bottle in the down tube cage, turn on the Garmin 310XT and put it on the bike all set up for multi-sport starting with the bike, put the valve cover on my aero jackets (wheel covers for the rear wheel), and bring the bike pump over to Lawrence. When he was done I found Lara one more time as she was kind enough to look after it for us.

Finally time for chillin' out before we were allowed on the beach for the swim warm-up. I used this time to drink a bottle of Powerbar Perform (the official Ironman sports drink) and go over my race plan in my head another time.

It was actually quite simple:

• Quick warm-up in the lake
• Start the swim somewhere in the middle, relax and try not to get bothered by the vast number of people
• Try to move through the swim to bike transition quickly but without rushing.
• The goal for the swim and T1 was to be 1:30 or better.
• Take the bike easy - really easy due to the heat and to save myself for the run. For nutrition I planned on consuming 6x roughly 750ml of my Infinit Nutrition formula in a slightly higher concentration plus lots of extra water from the course. My aero bottle had the first load ready to go and I had a triple concentrate for the following 3 hours on the bike which I would dilute with water from the aid stations. At special needs I had another bottle with a double concentrate for the final hopefully less than 2 hours. Should I fall behind in time and need more nutrition I would take Perform from the aid stations.
• Again, move quickly through T2 without getting flustered by rushing it too much.
• My goal for the bike and 2nd transition was 6 hours or better.
• The plan for the run was simple: run only one mile! Well, 26 times that is. I was going to run - ideally at a 6 min/km pace - from aid station to aid station and walk along the aid stations while taking on Perform, cola, water, and sponges and ice as needed. In the end I planned to finish the run in 4:30 and thus the overall race in less than 12 hours.

Simple, right? Ahh how wonderful plans are! Here is what actually happened:

Warm-up

Bumped into Gen and after a big hug we were off for a short swim. Back on the beach it was waiting around for the pros to go at 6:45 and then, finally, after about a year of training and waiting and anticipating, I was lining up at the start of my first iron distance race: Ironman Canada 2011.

Lessons learned: other than some slight training modifications and attitude adjustments in the immediate pre-race prep I wouldn't change a thing.

3.8 km Swim

Utter madness! Swimming with nearly 3,000 other people is quite something that is hard to put into words. The expectation would be that it thins out over the course and while technically it does, it really doesn't. Look at successive areal pictures of the swim start and you'll notice that everyone is spread out over hundred some-odd yards along the beach and is than aiming for and swimming towards the first sighting buoy. It actually started out with decent space but soon turned into a totally annoying washing machine. Whenever I wanted to swim faster to get out of a tight spot, I seemed to get into more trouble. So in the end I mostly just relaxed and slowed which seemed to get me in a better swim position. I really cannot say that I expanded much energy swimming. Instead the energy that I did use was to fight off people that got a little too aggressive.

Result: 1:16:42

Lessons learned: different from race to race, but at IMC I would start further to the right and in general I need to become a (much) better swimmer. I believe there is a huge advantage coming out of the water in less than 1:10 hours that goes well beyond the few minutes saved.

T1

There was no way I could have run out of the water and through transition. It was complete gridlock and just walking was slow going. I did find a pair of volunteers to strip off my wetsuit rather quickly and was on the way to get my swim-to-bike gear bag and into the change tent. The tent too was super busy and I actually had to look around to find an open chair. Then I got a bit discombobulated and things slowed some. But I got all the right gear on eventually and was off to my bike. Saw Lara and the Right Shoe gang cheering at the bike exit and felt happy and good to be on my bike.

Result: 0:05:40 so swim and T1 well within plan

Lessons learned: be much more methodical in the steps involved and pack the gear back accordingly in sequence.

180 km Bike

I could go on writing up all the gory little details of the bike ride but have come to the conclusion that summarizing is a better way to go.

I took the bike ride easy. With the temperatures of the day and all good advice received, this was probably not a terrible idea… except I took it WAY too easy. My goal was to race at an average of about 180-190 watts and that would have been plenty conservative. I ended up averaging only 169 watts. Doesn’t seem like much, but it would have made all the difference in the world. This was really dumb too as I had the read-out right in front of me on my Garmin 310XT.

The other interesting thing was that the arch of my left foot started to get really tight at about 90k and kept hurting more and more. I thought I’d be fine carrying on until the Special Needs at 120k where I planned to get off the bike briefly anyway. On the way there I was already not pushing much with my left foot anymore and instead pulled on the pedals to make up for it. Not the smartest thing to do in general – and especially not if you plan on running a marathon after the bike ride. When I tried getting off the bike at Special Needs, I almost fell over as I couldn’t stand on the left foot. So I took some time to try and massage the pain out of the foot and when I put the shoe back on I didn’t tighten the strap as much.

The remaining 60k were much better but the pain was not going to go away completely so I carried on pulling up when it got too bad and that kept me going alright. When the right arch started feeling tight as well I immediately loosened the strap a bit. Hey, I am not completely stupid, right?

The pain and foot issues aside, the bike ride was awesome! Really awesome! Keith from North Shore Athletics, loads of people from SpeedTheory, Darryl at one of the aid stations, and of course Lara was on the course as well cheering. I know that Esthi was out there as well, but I don’t remember seeing her on the bike – just knowing she was there was great though.

Result: 6:16:02

Lessons learned: Hey numb-nuts! This is a race – not a casual-weekend-club recovery-ride! Look at your power output and if you feel way too relaxed you may want to think about picking it up. And another thing, numb-nuts… when it hurts, it’s not likely to magically stop hurting over the next 30-90km. Do something! And do it now!

T2

Got off the bike remarkable well but could not run or even walk properly. My left foot hurt like hell. So I hobbled to the gear bags, got mine, and continued to hobble to the change tent. Before putting on running shoes I had to try to massage some of the pain out again. Eventually I got impatient and just kept going. Had a porta potty pee stop and walked more than ran to the volunteers with the sunscreen. All lathered up I finally started actually running out of T2 and onto the run course.

Result: 0:06:30 – between bike and T2 almost 30 min slower than I had hoped for.

Lessons learned: be much more self-reliant as far as sunscreen is concerned. Not sure if I ever get to the point where I would forgo the porta potty for time savings…? Other than that, same lessons as T1.

Run

The first 5k of the run I was doing really well. Perhaps even too well as my average pace was slightly faster than then planned-for 6min/km. This quickly corrected itself in the next 5k. Even though, at the 10k mark I was bang-on at just over an hour. From here on things started to unravel. My foot was killing me and that not enough, now also my hamstring started to object – really no surprise there. Add in the no-shade-heat along Skaha Lake and I was just not in a good way at all.

As mentioned earlier, I was planning to walk through all the aid stations, but after some 20k (now I was at 2:16 hours and clearly bleeding time) I walked all the uphills as well – the real and the perceived ones. At 30k I was at 3:33 hours and already nearly a half hour behind schedule on the account of walking just randomly. At 40k I was at 4:43 hours but now with the end near something resembling a second wind had kicked in and I was pushing it again. Or whatever passes at this time for ‘pushing it’.

Although I finished the run in a time that I would rather not advertise and the various pains were really annoying, in retrospect, there were so many great moments too:

• Esther passing me at … I don’t know where – maybe at 15k in? And I knew that that was coming and well deserved for her.
• Seeing most of my training and racing buddies along the way; even tough didn’t have the energy to properly acknowledge them.
• All the people cheering – the ones that knew me, including Amanda and Ben on their bikes and Keith on his scooter, the assorted Right Shoe athletes not racing that day, the ones I didn’t recognize because my brain blanked out.
• The ones that so enthusiastically cheered for everyone. Like the one with the sign saying “Looking Good! Got Stamina? Call Me! ###-####” which made me smile every time I came by it.
• Then with less than 2k to go, Esthi was on the side of the road and started to run with me. And all I could think of was “Hey! I could get DQ’d for that!” And I actually told her to not run with me. Clearly I am claiming brain-fart on that one.
• Along the finishing stretch was Murray from Speed Theory and cheered his lung out! That was awesome
• Then, just before the finish chute, was Lawrence (who finished nearly two hours ahead of me) yelling out “Klaus Schoenwandt, you are an Ironman!”

See, the one thing I really wanted, was to hear the incomparable Steve King announcing exactly those words when I cross the finish line. Except when I came in Steve was on break and that iconic line was not being used as much as it used to be in previous years. Lawrence did a great job making up for it though!

Result: 4:57:22 – Ouch!

Lessons learned: hmm not sure. I think that much of this falling apart can be blamed on all the events preceding it. Clearly the one thing that I could and should improve in is mental toughness. And overall I need to do a much better job at weight management. I started the race with just under 190 lbs or so and I should really be at least 10 lbs less than that for an event like this.

In a nutshell: can’t wait to do another one! Challenge Roth 2013!

Special Thanks:

First and foremost, I owe a huge thanks and debt of gratitude to my wife Esthi for her infinite patience and generosity – both with my time and financially the way I emptied money into the black hole that is first-time-Ironman-racing. Love you lots!

Naming all the others that so much contributed to this awesome experience would be way too much so I just use short form here.

Coach Lara, Rand, Danny, Leigh, Heather, Eric, Vittoria, Lorena, Amanda, Ben and all other Right Shoe athletes, Keith from NSA, Jeremy, Doug, Murray, Mike and all other Speed Theory Vancouver peeps, Shaun fromPacific Rim Multisport, KC and Janka and the other coaches from Fastlanes, Peter “Seahiker”, Jason, Darryl, Sarah and Matthew and all the other athletes who have made training so much fun, Timberly and Laura for keeping me well aligned, and all my friends who had to listen to me tri-geeking way too often and still kept a smile on – thank you all! I could have done it without you and I wouldn’t have wanted to in any case.

Notably absent from the list above are my good friends and training partners Gen, Lawrence, and Esther. A very special thanks goes to you for sticking with me through all my random complaints and for not giving up on me but pushing me on instead. I am very happy and honoured that you trained with me and shared your experiences and advice along the way. You guys are awesome.

IMC Training By The Numbers

This must be the tapering slump... all of a sudden I have too much time on my hands!

The bike has been serviced by the folks at SpeedTheory and I took it out for a good spin. This, then, also is my "longest" workout for now until the race itself. A whopping 2 hours! 1:30 on the bike followed by a 30 min run. Tomorrow I'll swim a bit and next week - Race Week! - all the workouts are fairly short.

Well, Sunday won't be that short, but that is not a workout per se but The Race.

With a mere week until Ironman Canada I was wondering how much training I actually have done. And more importantly... Was it enough?? Surely it cannot have been enough??!! OMG! I am freaking out! Maybe I should be cramming in another 7-hour ride and a 36k run?! Maybe start it with a 4k swim to be sure?!?

STOP! Breathe.... Relax! In-and-out-and-in-and-out. Phuuu OK, that's better.

Maybe it wasn't enough - I don't know. But it is what it is now.

And here is what it was and is:

• Weeks trained: 36 -- from about mid-December last year
• Out of the 36 weeks I had 20 weeks where I completed at least 30 min less training than was on my plan... not good! Well over half. But in the end it all comes out pretty even with 471 planned hours and 449 completed.
• Days off: 55 or about 1.5 per week but that includes those due to injury or being sick
• Total number of workouts: 341 - just about 9.5 per week or 1.7 per day
• Races as part of training: 3 - First Half (half marathon), Delta Tri (sprint), and Oliver (Half IM)
• 88 Swims for 84 hours (and maybe something like 250 km but that is just calculated)
• 104 Bike sessions for 207 hours and some 5,650 km
• 26 of those were followed by Brick Runs for 9.75 hours and 108 km
• Stand-alone Runs I did 90 in 98 hours and covered some 1,030 km
• I also completed 42 strength training sessions for about an hour each
• Not counting the three races that is about 450 hours of training -- and all of those numbers include the taper training that I am planning to do until next week Saturday. 

My goal for Sunday is to have a ton of fun and ideally don't hurt too much on the run. If I can also get away without any mechanical issues on the bike ride and no GI problems throughout the race that would be super splendid! It would also be nice if I don't get kicked around too much in the swim and come out of the water with my goggles still on.

But if pressed for a time answer, I would have to say that I would LOVE to come in under 12 hours. That is not entirely unrealistic, but a lot of things will also have to click and go well.

• Swim and T1... maybe about 1:30
• Ride and T2... hopefully 6:00 for a total of 7:30
• Run... oh the run... I'd have to do it in 4:30 to make the magical 12 hours. 

We'll see. Thanks for stopping by.

DOMS and DOGS

I just got back from a two day stint in Pentiction with Lawrence and Gen where we rode the IMC course almost two more times before the taper starts. And I am so ready for the taper too! 

Anyway on Saturday we rode the full course right after we arrived, starting at around 12:30 PM. Initially I had also planned a 45 min brick run but bailed on that due to some minor hamstring issue that was acting up.

On Sunday the plan was to swim for 30 min in the morning and both Gen and Lawrence did just that while I rested some more :-)

Then we rode the course again. Or rather I rode the majority of the course, cutting out the bit from Barcelo Road to Becks Road and the "Out" from the Out-and-Back. Essentially turning from Highway 3 onto Barcelo Road and riding the Back to the turn off by The Bear. This made it about 160 instead of the 180 km.

Below are some of the riding stats. And it was hot both days. Very hot! Great training and riding in prep for the IMC in 3 weeks.

Where was I? Oh yea... DOMS and DOGS.

Clearly after a weekend like that I am suffering a bit from Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS)

And in addition to that I am also suffering from DOGS: Delayed Onset Grumpiness Syndrome...

I just went to buy stuff for dinner at the local IGA. I decided to make Brown Rice Pasta with Pancetta, Peppers, and Spinach sauteed in Garlic Olive Oil.

So I need some Pancetta and should have been forewarned that I am in for a treat when the guy in front of me asked for some nicer Prosciutto than the dried out piece in the show case and the 15-year-old behind the counter offered him some of the Prosciutto Salami... "No thanks" the wise man said and it was my turn. "I'll have about 120 gram of the Pancetta please; thank you." The piece they had in the show case was still wrapped in plastic. The kid grabbed some shit-arse salami next to the Pancetta and I corrected him before he could cut something I (or anyone else in the their right mind) could possibly want.


Off he goes "cutting" my order of Pancetta. Or so I thought. When I looked again and saw what he was putting on the scale I nearly lost it. I looked like he tore it off with an old cheese grater and to make things worse he piled it on squishing it as he goes. That was it... I told him to stop but despite being completely at loss for words I layed into him. Not sure exactly what I stammered together in my shock and frustration. In the end I think I said something about having the courtesy and decency to treat the food like food and not like some dog-food. He asked me if it was the presentation I objected to. WTF??? No! I asked him what his thoughts were on how I would possibly cook with that. He shrugged and tried to pull a slice up that was just a shred. Case in point, thanks!

He went back at it and actually managed to cut decent slices that were also not too thick. Why not do the right thing in the first place?

Infuriating! Not so much the kid's behavior - although that too - but much more the store management who clearly doesn't care enough about their product, customers, or employees to give them at least a minimum of training and then holds them to a certain standard.

Anyway. DOGS. Dinner Time.

Peace! One Love! 

I AM BACK BABY!

Or at least I hope so... still coughing a bit and the nose hasn't quite stopped running either.

After last Friday's 4k Canada Day Swim Challenge I went down like a ton of bricks. Got really sick and stayed the rest of the beautiful long weekend in bed. The thing is that I sort of felt it coming on for quite some time, but it was never really here or gone. As of Friday afternoon it was here alright!

On Monday I went to work only to attend one meeting and pick up my laptop. Then I worked from home the rest of the week except Thursday and generally feeling quite lousy.

Obviously I missed a lot of workouts. Specifically a 6 hour ride with 30 min brick run on Saturday and a 2:45 hour run on Sunday. I did every day at least one session more or less well but that barely kept me from getting completely rusty.

The good thing is I suppose my body recovered rather well then. Today I embarked on the missed 6 hour ride instead of doing the recovery 3 hour ride. Going more or less all easy I did 180 km in the 6 hours! NICE! I am very pleased with that. I was also pleased with the 30 min brick run at the end of it as I managed to keep a 5:30 min/km pace.

Interesting was that I ended riding all by myself - albeit in perfect riding weather. A bit boring, but good practice for IMC and super efficient time management. Only about 20 min add-on time over the 6 hours for pit-stops and traffic lights and such.

Now I am quiet knackered though... Just wolfed down a few slices of left-over pizza and am now ready for a shower and a coffee.

Tonight: enjoy the weather on a patio for dinner with Esther and a glass of vino tinto (or two).
Tomorrow: 2:45 run after a good sleep-in.

Thanks for checking in!

Canada Day 4k Swim Challenge at Sasamat Lake

Two days ago, Friday, July 1st, Canada Day, I participated in the Canada Day 4k Swim Challenge at Sasamat Lake in Port Moody. This was the 20th anniversary of an annual event put on by the Vancouver Open Water Swim Association (VOWSA).

I normally do not take part in this as July 1st is also Esther and my wedding anniversary and I prefer to spend a nice day with my wife.

This year however I am also training for Ironman Canada and the 4k would be a good test of my swim abilities over that distance -- the Ironman swim distance is 3.8k. 

As we had all year unseasonably (and IMHO unreasonably!) cold temperatures, the water temperature at Sasamat Lake was only about 16 degrees. Not unbearable but a little cold. 

It is a two loop course and on the first loop I felt pretty good with the exception that I had some difficulties sighting on the last bit just before the second loop starts. The second loop on the other hand was not that good... I kept getting off track and started cramping in my left leg and right foot quite a bit. 

In the end I came out of the water in 1:21:03 (2:02 pace per 100m). By far not spectacular or what I was hoping for, but good enough. 

Seeing that this is also Esther and my wedding anniversary we had planned to go to dinner to the new Hawksworth Restaurant at the re-build Rosewood Hotel Georgia. Esther was still fighting a cold with a nasty cough and now I was coming down hard as well. In the end it would have been a waste for us to go to a nice dinner the way we felt and we reconsidered in favour of rest.

Not only that, but I also missed two huge workouts due to this annoying cold: yesterday a 6 hour ride with a 30 min brick run and today a 2:45 hour run. I will take this week as an early recovery week and make up for the lost long workouts next weekend.

It's all good!
Now where are my pills??

Thanks for stopping by.

2011 Stanley Cup Finals Game 7

Esther and I watched Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Canucks and the Bruins at Jimmys Taphouse just across the street from us. Jimmys is a bit like our Cheers. It is close by with a generally friendly crowd, nice wait staff and bartenders, and the manager is a nice guy too; and like Cheers we have come to known many of the other regulars as well.

Due to Jimmys location they are always packed on Game nights and on Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals of course even more so. Ruben, the manager, promised that he'll try to keep us a seat available for when we come after work. This of course is nearly an impossible task with the amount of people streaming through on a day and night like that. The game was on a Wednesday and I decided to start work really early to be able to leave early as well. So I managed to be at Jimmys in the early afternoon and get myself a nice spot at the bar. There I had a late lunch (I worked through lunch to make sure I get everything done in time) and generally passed time to read the various news paper takes on the game today.

Just before the game started at 5:00 PM, I managed to get another seat next to me for Esther who was on the way from her shop. She made it just in time for national anthems and the start of the game. The atmosphere was amazing! Everyone was so into it and we all were - of course - feverishly hoping for a strong Canucks performance. While it was a really good Game, the Bruins well outplayed Vancouver which in the end was reflected in the score of 4-0 for the Boston.

At the end of the game we watched the Boston victory celebrations and the post game interviews as we finished our drinks. The next thing we hear is a few loud bangs as something outside exploded. Looking out the windows we saw riot police slowly moving rioters down Homer Street toward Robson. Clearly there was no going out of Jimmys now as we had not the slightest appetite to be wrapped up in that chaos. So we stayed inside and watched it. Friends of our who were watching the game at a home further down Homer Street texted us that we should come to meet them or they would come to meet us for some last drinks of the night. We told them that this would probably not be such a good idea (or even possible) and this is when they too noticed what was going on.

There is really no need for me to go further into the details of the riot as it has been covered in great detail by all the new media already. As soon as feasible we just went home and to bed as it was a "school night" after all and we both had to work the next day.

I do however want to post here the account from one person on the inside of it. A friend of mine works for the VPD and obviously was on shift that night. The next day I sent him an email to ask if he is alright and this is what he responded with: (re-published here with his permission)

Wow what a night! I have seen many clips of things on the news now and it was just as bad as it looked. We were seriously outnumbered, as a huge number of people had come into Vancouver with the intent of having a riot.

Before the game was over we kept encountering roaming groups of people who were unaware of what the score was in the game, and openly admitted they had come to town for the riot that would follow.  It's shocking that there is an idiot subculture that exists only to cause damage, pain and suffering to others. Almost as bad are those who stand and watch, unknowingly provide shelter behind which vandals can run and hide. A number of police officers were injured, but thankfully none seriously. Several police cars were set on fire, others overturned, and many with all the windows smashed out – likely a couple of dozen no longer driveable as a result. Close to 2 dozen privately owned vehicles were set on fire, and countless damaged from hooligans smashing windows and jumping on the vehicles. The windows of many stores were smashed and the store looted.


As most Vancouver members were already working, we called for reinforcements and got busloads of police coming in from Surrey and other RCMP detachments, as well as Port Moody, New Westminster, West Vancouver, Delta and Abbotsford.


Our group of 4 saw one [city name removed] resident carrying a street barricade up the stairs to the library and smash the window. We quickly moved in and caught him, only to then the surrounded by the crowds jeering that we should let him go. Moments later a metal piece of the same barricade (with sharp edges and weighing 15+ lbs) came flying through the air, striking a woman (who had moments earlier was shouting at us for police brutality) in the head. In the confusion we managed to get ourselves, the prisoner and the injured woman out of the crowd to safety. She went off to the hospital but is lucky to be alive.


What followed were several hours of tactics and tear gas trying to reclaim the downtown core. With squads in full riot gear with shields blocking the side streets, we would fire tear gas at the crowds and charge towards them to drive them out of the downtown core. Eventually they all dispersed, and then the challenge was to keep looting to a minimum until the store fronts could be boarded up.


I was exhausted when I got home but glad to have been there to experience things first hand. It was a honour to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with my brothers and sisters in blue tonight trying to keep our city safe.

The public backlash against the rioters in the following days and weeks was nothing short of astounding either. With pretty much everyone now carrying some form photo or video camera, there is just not as much hiding - or forgetting. Except that the criminals rioting and looting seemed to have not been aware of that.

I also don't want to go into a great discourse on how these criminals where treated in the aftermath, but my point of view is this:

• Yes, they fully deserve to be publicly named and shamed for what they have done
• Yes, these "normally good kids" that "wouldn't condone looting on any other day" and have jobs, careers, and volunteer etc should lose their jobs and face the full punishment of the law
• No, I do not think that it is OK (or in any way appropriate) to contact and harass them directly (leaving a comment on their public blog is IMHO not contacting them directly) and even send threats and hate mails. 
• It is even less appropriate to contact and harass their employers, friends, parents, or anyone else they are or have been affiliated with

I hope that this form of online mob behavior has now largely stopped as well!

What I found truly amazing though is how the city and the true Canucks and hockey fans came together over the next few days, starting on the very next day after the riot, to help clean up the city and leave friendly notes on the boarded up windows. That showed the true spirit of the people of Vancouver - not that of a handful of professional rioters and lots of drunken idiots.

Some impressions from my way to work on Thursday:

Then over the next few days, this started to emerge:

The last picture is one of a police cruiser that initially was parked on the street the next day and someone placed a post-it note of thanks on it. In no time lots of other people did the same. When the cop/s came back to the vehicle they did not want to drive it away for fear of losing the notes. Eventually it was moved to the plaza in front of Sears for a a few days and covered in notes. When I took this picture I asked the cops who were nearby how long this would stay there. He told me that they would need to move it that night "as you can imagine we are a little short on drivable cars..."

The boards that covered up the windows at The Bay will be preserved by the city and the police made sure that they photographed this cruiser in a lot of detail and they will preserve all the notes as well.

As for the Stanley Cup... let's do it next year!!

Thanks for stopping by.

2011 Oliver Half Iron Race Report

Let's start by saying that the weather in the early part of the season here in Vancouver, well... sucked! Low teens for temperatures and rain more often than not was the norm. Before Oliver, my training buddy Gen and I managed to go to Lake Sasamat twice. The first time we lasted 20 min in the water and had other people telling us how impressed they were with that as they went out of it after 5 minutes! I know my eyeballs were frozen after that and I was drained of all energy. Nonetheless we ran 2.5 (or so) hours in the Balcarra region afterwards and this was the suckiest run of my life! The second time we went with peeps from the North Shore Tri Club and  SpeedTheory in Vancouver and while the waters were far from warm, it was bearable for some real swimming.

OK, back to Oliver. So the one nice weekend in BC happened to be on race day. 30+ degrees! Great as IMC practice, but still a bit of shock to the system as we haven't had a chance to train in anything close to this.

I carpooled with my buddy Esther (no, not my WIFE Esther who has seen all of triathlon she ever wanted to see and then some) and we planned to leave on Friday at around 1:00 PM. On Thursday night I got my bike ready and noticed to my absolute shock that the crack was somehow stuck. Not so much that it would not move, but enough that it was really (!) hard to move. So on Friday I got myself a ZIP car and made sure to be at SpeedTheory by 10 AM on the dot. Ever helpful Jeremy opened the door and looked after my bike. He did the best he could for the few minutes we had, but at the end the crank was still moving much harder than it should do or did normally. OK, this has got to be good enough. Drove home and finished packing.

Esther picked me up pretty much on time and we headed off to Oliver. We arrived in the early evening at the Cactus Tree Inn in Oliver. Since I tried to get a hotel room late, I ended up with the only room they had left: the "Romance Suite. No kitchenette, no fridge, no nothing -- not really: big bed and a large jet tub in the room - all to myself. Whooheee. Oh well. I made due with ice and the fridge in Gen and Eric's suite.

Saturday was all about the mini-tri to get through the motions, picking up the race package, getting the bike sorted and into transition, and attend the pre-race meeting. The crank was still a bit stuck but there was nothing I could do about that now.
Lesson: Check these things well before travel day.

What I should have done is go through the gears one more time before storing it in transition as the bike was in the car again after the mini-tri. As it turned out, they were quite a bit off. Nothing unmanageable, but annoying during the race for sure.
Lesson: After the last bike assembly always give a test tun through all the gears.

Saturday evening was Game #2 between the Boston Bruins and the Vancouver Canucks and Esther, Gen, Eric and I met in Gen and Eric's suite for dinner. I brought white elbow pasta with a bolognese style sauce I made with little veal and lots of assorted vegetables and spiced it up some with chipotles. Yummi but as it turns out, just because it is all ground up, it is still full of fiber... more on that later. We stayed until the game was over early in OT when Vancouver scored the game winning goal.Time for some sleep now.
Lesson: Really constrain all fiber intake days before a long race.

I got up at some ridiculous early time on Sunday to have breakfast and get ready. The transition and body-marking opened at 5:30 AM which is when Esther and I left the Motel and headed over to the race site.

Setting up transition and going through the usual pre-race motions and also tried to get all the Right Shoe athletes together for a group pic. Gen and Eric were already down by the lake already so we took the picture without Gen. Doug from SpeedTheory found us a photographer. I still don't know where those pictures ended up.

Thankfully they changed the cut-off for the "geezer" category for this year and so despite being in the 45-49 category, I got to start with the first group, men under 50, and didn't have to wait around. So very punctual at 7:00 AM the race got underway.

Swim: as we all know, swimming is my nemesis discipline, but despite this I was hoping to swim the 2k in about 35min. I listened to all the good advise for weak swimmers to position yourself away from the front. So I did and ended up in the washing machine of swimmers how sucked at this almost as bad as I did or even worse. Couldn't get any rhythm going the entire time and exited the water in 39:32 - boo!

T1: pretty long run from the lake to the transition area but everything worked out pretty well and I was pleased with my time 4:44.

Bike: I felt good on the bike right off the get-go and try to keep it to my planned power output of 220 watts and ended up with 215 watts average. I also think that I negatively splitted, but have no proof for that. Another thing I don't have proof for is that the fact that I am certain that although my power reading was 215 watts, I outputted probably much closer to 230 or 240 watts  with the remainder being chewed up by the crank. As my power is measured in the rear hub, anything that gets chewed up by the drive train is not actually measured. Not a big deal normally as it is always roughly the same, but in this case it was not the same due to the crank issue. Anyway, it was what it was and I still enjoyed the bike ride tremendously. Not too hot (yet) and not too cool and really beautiful scenery. With the time of 2:41:47  I was very pleased too.
Lesson: none really, just need to look better and sooner after bike maintenance.

T2: really pleased with this transition too - for once: 1:32. And I was really surprised to run out of the transition with Paul at the exact same time.

Run: It is now right around 10:30 AM on the hottest day we have experienced this year. With Paul running ahead of me I just motored along when at the 2k mark Gen came shooting past me. The first 4k felt quite good and I made sure to keep the pace easy as I knew this was going to get tough soon enough. And it sure did. The sun was starting to get to me and I went from feeling really good to really crappy within a matter of seconds. I also noticed that I seemed to be closing up to Paul... Paul is a much faster runner than I am and closing up to him is was only possible if he was really suffering. Sure enough, right around 5k I passed him and he was not having a good time.

As I kept trudging along I noticed that the funky feeling in my tummy did not just seem to be temporary and started bothering me quite a bit. I tend to get slight tummy issues in long races that require me to go to the bathroom. That is why I started to take Immodium AD in the morning of a race and another one at just before race start. I had a third Immodium in my fuel belt "just in case" -- this one I took earlier in the run when I first noticed that the rumbling didn't want to go away. Now at about 7 or 8k in I had to stop at a porta potty despite the three Immodiums.

The porta potty was cooking all day in the sun but was thankfully not used much and/or the chemicals used really work well. So I was siting there in this shit-house sauna, hardly being able to breathe, and I was thinking "I am too old for this shit!" from now on I'll race for the fun of it and don't care about being competitive with anyone else or myself anymore.

From there on I continued the run much more relaxed and perhaps a bit slower. But it was still hot as hell and what got me through were cola, water, and sponges at every aid station. At 19k or so I saw Paul again up ahead who passed me while I had my nature break. I picked up the pace to catch up and even thought I run it in with him. Boy oh boy, he was really suffering and I there was no way that I would slow down to his pace. So I just kept going and finished the run in an abysmal 2:03:36 (with the potty stop being about 4 min)

Final Race Time: 5:31:08. A little faster than in 2009, but slower than last year.
Summary: So-so swim, good transitions, great ride, and totally crappy run (pun intended).

Yes, I know it is now almost a month after the race... I just came down with a nasty bout of a cold and wasn't able to do much of anything today - least of all a 6 hour ride followed by a 45 min brick. So I guess I had some time to finally write this up.

Thanks for checking in.