Waiting

We spend much of our lives just waiting around. Even though I think Jason and I do a good job of staying active, busy, and filling the time, I still end up waiting a lot. Friday I flew to Coeur d'Alene for Jason's Ironman and we drove home Monday. For example, here is the waiting I did this weekend.

Waiting at the Victoria airport to catch a flight to Seattle.

It was pretty quiet there for a Friday afternoon.

Aren't the little planes that take us off the island cute?

Waiting to take off.

Waiting to disembark.

Waiting at customs (didn't think I should take a picture there,

I'm pretty sure they frown on that).

Waiting in the Seattle airport for my flight to Spokane.

I decided to wait somewhere useful.

Waiting at the gate to board the plane.

Waiting to go for a ride.

Waiting at lights during my ride.

Waiting for Jason as he checks in his gear at IMCDA.

Waiting for Jason's race to start in the morning.

Waiting for Jason to relax after racing before going to dinner.

Waiting to cross the border.

Bonus - no waiting for the ferry home, we drove right on!

Trainer Riding

There have been a lot of talk, articles, and generally hubbub about trainer riding lately. I'm pleased to report that Jason and Coach Kiki have had me on the trainer riding bandwagon before there was even a bandwagon. So here are some tips on how to make what can be an excruciatingly boring workout actually fun... and hard!

Obviously a bike, but really important - a good trainer! We have had many generations of trainers, and found that it's generally true that a fairly large chunk of change has to be spent on getting a good trainer. Back in the 80's I owned a "wind" trainer, graduated to magnetic, and now we have fluid trainers and they're awesome. Quiet, smooth, and a lot of resistance.

Some essentials - a towel because it doesn't take long before the sweat is dripping, my Garmin (even though I'm not going anywhere...) to measure time and cadence, and the tv remote for some background noise, as I can never seem to concentrate on an actual show while I'm riding.

A fan (see above about the sweat), especially when riding in the summer.

A workout. It's not a good use of time to just sit and spin. Trainer workouts can be really intense, focused, and useful.

A little buddy to come check on you periodically.

A riding partner - helps with motivation, eases the boredom, and gives some general camaraderie.

A positive attitude - it can be tough to (literally) spin your wheels for an hour, two, or more in the basement.

Running Surprise

Yesterday afternoon Humu and I were running a trail on the outskirts of town. It's a trail we run a lot, and yesterday was a pretty typical day for that trail. Lots of birds, a snake, more birds... then from out of the woods came a giant. A huge elk sauntered casually across the trail, completely unconcerned with our presence.

Wildlife around these parts is a pretty common occurrence. The particular trail we were on seems to always have signs posted by people warning of a bear or cougar in the area. I've seen elk outside of town, from my bike or my car as they're grazing in a field. I was surprised to see one so close to town, and on it's own as they're usually in large groups. I wondered if I was about to run smack into the entire herd. The sub-species of elk we have on the island, Roosevelt elk, is larger than their rocky mountain cousins, and this point is brought home when you are standing in front of one by yourself.

I didn't have my phone or camera with me, so I couldn't

get my own picture. This one is from Wikipedia.

It wasn't easy to find a good pic; when I googled elk images

most of them were dead, with a hunter standing over them.

Luckily Humu was behind me, so I caught her and clipped her leash on before she took off. She REALLY wanted to chase the elk (I never said she was the smartest dog), and holding back a dog who is more than 60 pounds of pure muscle is no easy task! I'm pretty sure that even though elk aren't known as vicious, it wouldn't care for being chased by my dog and Humu would lose that battle. The elk disappeared into the trees, and soon enough Humu was distracted by birds and other smells again.

Good Deeds

Smack in the middle of my beautiful sunny ride this morning, I saw a woman walking her bike on the side of the road. I pulled over when I noticed she had a flat, and asked if I could help. Wow, I thought to myself, here is my chance to do something nice for a complete stranger! We so rarely get the chance to do a true good deed.

She didn't really know how to change a flat, and she'd given her spare tube away to a friend on a previous ride, so was pretty stuck. She was trying to get ahold of her husband to come and get her. I do know how to change a flat, and I was carrying a tube (even though I ride road tubeless and almost never flat - still want to be prepared in case I do...), and better still had a CO2 cartridge tucked in my seatbag from the sprint tri two weeks ago. I was pretty excited about that, because I rarely use a CO2 cartridge and have these panicky thoughts at times that when I really need to, in the middle of a race, I won't know how (even though yes, I have practiced), and my tire change will take longer than my bike split.

So I helped change the tire and inflated it using the CO2, and helped her put her wheel back on and get everything dialed in again. She was heading the same direction as me, so we rode to town together. So now my good deed made me feel warm and fuzzy about helping someone, gave me a chance to practice changing a tire, and gave me a riding partner for a bit. Win-win-win!

We had a really nice chat all the way back to town, about tonnes of stuff we had in common. Turns out she was also a high school biology teacher, from up-island, heading to my town for her daughter's swim meet. She's getting into triathlon, and is doing some of the sprint races I did last year. And to top it all off, we had a skookum tailwind pushing us back into town - obviously my reward for stopping to lend a hand.

She graciously offered to stop at the local shop, buy a tube, and deliver it to my house. Instead, I asked her to stop for someone who needs help someday and pay it forward. I like thinking of all of us, in this global village, looking out for each other and taking care of those who need help. What a nice world it is, when the sun is shining, we are all smiling, and giving from the heart.

Don't be Jealous...

Don't be jealous that I'm here with Ryder Hesjedal. Right after this photo was taken, I gushed and babbled like a fool to him. I thought Catherine was going to pee herself laughing at me.

Jason on the Tour de Victoria start line,

right behind Trevor Linden and Ryder.

Busy day in Victoria yesterday; just behind the TdV

start/finish, yachts were heading out of the inner harbour for

the annual Swiftsure yacht race.

Westshore Sprint Tri

Smack-dab in the middle of a 4-day long weekend, when it seems everyone else is relaxing or out working in the yard, I decided to get up ridiculously early to do a sprint tri. I've mentioned before how I don't like getting up at dark-thirty (ok, at least it's light this time of year), yet I keep choosing to do things that force me to.

I ate a quick breakfast of oatmeal and banana, and mixed a bottle of Vega Sport for the drive into the city. The race was at the Juan de Fuca rec center: a 750m pool swim, 20k bike, and 5k run. Easy peasy, right? After all, I did an Ironman a mere 6 months ago, so this should be nothing.

Arrived, racked my bike, scoped out the routes through the transition, chatted with friends, then assembled on the pool deck for my heat. I'm not a huge fan of pool swim races, as I prefer to swim my own race, but at least I was the first in my lane (total 3 of us in the lane) so that was good. At the signal, I pushed off and went pretty hard for the first 100 meters, but when I looked at the pace clock it said 1:35, and I felt like I was going harder than that. That story would continue.

After counting my 30 lengths, I hopped out (looked at my watch - 13:04 - ok but I felt like I was working harder than that), waved to Jason who had ridden in to watch my race, walked out of the pool (not allowed to run on the deck...), and then ran the long way to the transition area. It was down a roadway, around a hockey arena, and into a parking lot. I grabbed my bike, and ran with it another really long way out of transition. For some reason, the organizers decided to make us run out of transition, out of the parking lot, and then down the road a bit before we could mount our bikes. Huh?

The bike course was actually quite pretty. It went down a nice descent to Esquimalt lagoon, through the lagoon, around and then back up. Twice. So I got a super-sweet descent twice, a windy flat lagoon twice, and a steep climb twice. I tried to push as hard as I could, but for some reason felt I should be going faster than I was. Maybe because I was back on my road bike with clip-on aerobars instead of the Transition. Maybe it was just the day.

Starting lap two.

At the end of the bike, my split was 41:00, but my Garmin said 18.5k rather than 20. An ok time I guess since I haven't really been doing any high-intensity stuff on the bike. Back into transition, I fumbled getting my socks on, slammed a gu washed down with some Vega Sport, and headed onto the run. I was thinking of going no socks, but glad I put them on as the run was on a bark mulch trail, and by the end I had a lot of bark pieces in my shoes. For only 5k, it was harder than I thought; up, down, around, and up some more. Not to mention, the trail was really soft, and it seemed like I was sinking in on every step. Kind of like running on pillows.

Approaching the turn-around.

I just couldn't push hard on the run. I tried, but my legs felt heavy and I couldn't get them to turn over. I wasn't having the run I wanted, especially since I have been working on running and have definitely been running faster than I did that day. I wanted to run 32 minutes, instead my run split was 37. I turned in 37 minute run splits for the two sprint races I did last year, so it's disappointing that it seems I haven't improved yet. But - I will say this run course was way harder than those. And I think I have improved, I just didn't have it on the day.

Positives: I had fun, got to see some friends, raced in nice weather (overcast, not too warm, not too cool), got a super-sweet Adidas zip-up with my entry. Negatives: I didn't ride or run the splits I thought I would. No biggie, really, because now I have a time to beat next year.

How does such a short race (total time 1:36) hurt so much?

UPDATE: I just looked at the "official" results, and I had the fastest swim and the second-fastest bike (bike times include T1 & T2 in the results) in my age group. So that's something.

My Weekend in Pictures

I had a fabulous weekend. I can't believe how much I managed to pack in... and not be exhausted by the end. This one of those weekends that left me recharged and ready to go, and really feel like I was living like I mean it!

We started off Thursday night heading to the Pixies concert in Victoria:

Smiling even though we just paid around $8000 for two beer.

(That's about $10,000 US right now though, so silver lining...)

The last time I saw the Pixies live was in December 1991 (gasp!) when they opened for Jane's Addiction... they still rocked as hard as 20 years ago!

Friday, my friend Diana and I drove out to Port Renfrew to check out some field trip opportunities for our students.

Typical "wet coast" day on the outer coast.

Had a super-yummy blackberry & walnut salad from the

Coastal Kitchen in Renfrew - highly recommended!

We brought Humu with us, and there's nothing like a happy dog on a beach...

(Ummm, my hands look freakishly large in this picture...)

The west coast can be a wild place - winter storms bring giant uprooted trees crashing down on the beach, where they stay and become fabulous natural art. Here are a couple of my faves from Friday:

Home from the other side of the island, and off to the pool, where on a kick set I saw a naked guy... he obviously didn't realize he was standing in front of the change room door when he was drying off. Sorry, no picture! But it did make for some good laughs! I wasn't laughing, however, when he bent over to pick up his towel - I did not need to see that.

Friday night Jason and I headed to the pub with Will and the Stevenson brothers. More laughs.

(Disclaimer - I did not take this photo)

Saturday I had a really nice 3 hour solo ride. There were a few big thunderclaps, but luckily I managed to stay dry, despite some very wet roads. Yay to missing the deluge!

I love the roads I get to ride on!

Late Saturday afternoon Jason and I went shopping for new running shoes. I never get to pick my shoes, I guess that's what happens when you have a BFF who owns a running store. Norm's choices never let me down though, so no complaints.

Saturday night, relaxing on the couch!

Sunday morning, and a run with the dog. Got to try out my new kicks:

I ran on the Trans Canada Trail, with the claim to fame as being the longest trail in the world. Currently it's over 16,000 km long, and when it's finished will be 22,000 km across Canada - from Atlantic to Pacific to Arctic Oceans. We live within about a 10 minute drive from the island section. Sometimes when I'm out there, I wonder how many others across our nation, especially on a beautiful Sunday morning, are out on a stretch of TCT right then.

Looking down from one of the old rail trestles

that make up part of the TCT.

Wildflowers are out!

Sunday being Mother's Day, I took my mom out to lunch at a local vineyard. Service was reeeaaaalllly slow but the risotto was delicious.

I kind of meant it to be more scenic, but the

leaves aren't out on the vines yet...

Sunday afternoon Jason and I went for a ride together. One of my favourite things to do!

We spent the evening in the hot tub then watching tv. What a great weekend!