hey everyone, it' Trishmas eve!!

What the hell is Trishmas eve?  Yeah, that is what I said the first time I heard it as well!  Well, it is the night before December 1, 2009.  And in December is the birthday of my awesome wife, Trish.  Yeah, I know it is one day so what is with the Trishmas stuff.  I tried, you guys have a talk with her!  So, for most husbands, December 7 would be the day to have breakfast ready, dinner out, flowers and all of the other romantic things that go along!  Well, yeah, sure, my darling milks it for all its worth and had dedicated the entire month of December as hers!  Everyone take a moment in wishing Trish and Happy Trishmas!
I hope that she has the greatest season of all!  Tomorrow I am going to start by treating her to dinner and a basketball game, oooo, lucky her!  Then on Wedesday she gets to go for Wings and beer, Thursday she has a night out with the girls and then on Friday, well that will be her day again.  To be totally honest, she deserves anything on the planet that she wants.(OK I am going to gush about my wife)  She is the coolest most patient, supportive, did I say patient, understanding, enthusiastic person in the world.  If I was a girl i would still want to be married to the she is so damn cool.  She is 100% behind this IM chaos, has supported me through 5+ years of obsessing over ski industry stuff, she makes my lunches, washes my clothes, organizes my mess!  and she has a full time job!
She is the most awesome!  Happy Trishmas trish!  I love you!

PS  when I am done Ironman(and maybe a couple more events, I will clean up the garage...)

Cheers as the beginning of the holiday season is here!  Take time to thank the ones who stand behind us as we ride our days away, our friends who dont see us as we go run, our spouses who take care of stuff because we go to the pool.  It is a time of the year to reflect on how lucky we are to be who we are and the lives we have the privilege to enjoy, take a moment to remember how it is we got here and lets all celebrate a happy, healthy and safe future!

a great weekend of fun...

It was am awesome weekend!!  Other than the fact that I should have been skiing and am not!!  Oh well, it could be worse!

The weather is certainly providing for some very non seasonal activities.  Early November and still able o run trails and be out road riding without being frozen,  WOW, it sucks!  On the positive side, I did get to do both of the non seasonal activities and had a great time doing it!  The photo of the trail was an awesome run yesterday.  The trails are in great shape and very dry and the area is awesome.  It is in a river ravine that I have not run before and a great change of pace from running on the road all the time.  I will definitely be using them for training next season. It was also a great morning, the temp was perfect, the rain has stopped.  We had 11 people out.  It was great as Trish came out for the run as well. THe course is good as it is an 10k loop s you can choose how far you want to run, cut off at 10k or do more!  It has a couple of awesome hills as well, to make certain that the workout is not too easy. I did discover than for my training runs I need to put a focus on doing my run and not the groups.  I went out at a 4:45k on my start.  So, in the future I will pay attention so that I can get maximum benefit from the workout!

Today I was able to get out with Bryan Payne at http://trainingpayne.blogspot.com for an great ride.  When I started the day I thought it was a little cold so I made a half decision that I would swim instead.  I sent a not to Bryan, who suggested he had the gear and was ready to go. AWESOME idea!  The day was great it was a fantastic ride.  we rode up north west of Burlington for about 60k. I have been on some of the roads that we were on, but not nearly all the great scenic places we were able to see today.  We saw chickens crossing the road, a field of pics eating corn(cool photo).  It was great as the traffic was light as well! I also liked the opportunity to ride with Bryan.  I respect Bryan as he is a committed trainer and works hard behind the sport.  his recent awesome finish at Clearwater proves that.  We had a great ride talking about, tri's, families, work and all sorts of other things.  A great ride enjoying the weekend!  You can learn a whole lot about a person chatting on a ride. If you have read his blog you will know he is a great guy and very entertaining.
THis great weekend finished off with a few friends over for Grey Cup! What a game, down to the last play!
I hope your weekend was great and you were able to fulfill a little more of your dreams!
Congrat's IM Cozumel folks!  hope you had a great race!

Another goal accomplished......:)

So, some of you know how this training stuff(coming back to it) started for me. For those who dont I will tell you the short version! A few short months ago, I was tipping the scales at a little higher weight than was acceptable. I was getting to the point that I could no longer squeeze my butt into clothes. So, a good friend of mine Hugh started to call me 'fat guy'. He is the same friend that all old guy(because I am a couple years younger, I can) In an evening of banter I suggested to him that I could make my weight number go backwards but, his age number would always get bigger. Those were fightin' words! I was at 222 lbs and he bet me that within 3 months(begin of Sept) I could not be under 200lbs. Hmmm! I am not a gambler of betting man, but, when a sure bet comes along there is no way I can pass it up. As I looked back, I gained weight sitting on the couch watching TV eating bad food, I could do the opposite and get back to where I was. The bet was to my benefit and to all those who were there. He would buy dinner for all of us(there were 7 of us there). Another friend who was there knew I dont go halfway when I make a commitment, so, he thought he would up the challenge. He said, 'you can lose it but you cant keep it off until December 1' He would double the bet by offering the same wager, another dinner for me and all my friends. A no brainer x 2!
I won my first bet at 198lbs! It was a good dinner! Tomorrow I will accomplish my second goal, winning the next bet! I should be at about 192 and more than 10% reduction in BMI. I love friends who are willing to take dumb bets!
What kind of goal did I accomplish....losing weight seems it would be the goal!  No!  It is a means to the end.
A couple of years back I had friends who completed an IRONMAN.  I looked and spoke with them with the greatest respect seemingly knowing what went into training and accomplishing such a crazy goal.  As a blogger friend would call it 'BHAG'(big hairy audacious goal)  In the back of my mind I thought, WOW, that would be such a cool thing to accomplish.  The thought was very shortly followed by a rush of negativity of all the crazy things you had to do to get there.  And away I went. Yeah, on my bucket list, but I will dig that out later!
My Goal!  My silly friends betting me(and losing) accomplished an unconscious goal of not allowing my mind to prevent me from doing what I dream!  Along the way of feeding my friends via silly wagers, I had to get in shape.  So, swimming, biking, running was what all my friends did so I joined them.  I could not swim a length of a pool so it was self imposed torture to do it.  But, suck it up butter cup, you have something to get done here!  I learned to swim and actually started to like it.
So this weekend I have spent a little time reflecting on where I am now because I was willing to accept losing.  I am on the train to being more physically fit than I have in 30 years.  I am on the train to hearing someone saying 'john, you are an IRONMAN'.  On a train of learning new things, meeting some awesome people.  A train that will likely almost wreck a few times over the next year!
BUT, I have accomplished the goal and realization, that, ONLY ME CAN DECIDE WHAT ME CAN ACCOMPLISH AND NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!  Live for your Dreams!  they make life a blast, you learn more along the way.

Mind over matter....

this week was a great one all around. Over the week, I had great workouts, enjoyed spending time with my friends, had some good sucesses at work, have a great side project cooking along.....like most weeks, all I can say is Life is Good! The only thing I can complain about is the lack of snow! Mother Nature is being nasty to the skiers of the east. Last year at this time it was wonderful, this year, Ha! HA! Not gonna happen! Oh well, at least I am healthy and can go skiing when it finally does start to snow.
Tonight was a night of mental training! Mind over matter! As it is off season, doing nothing is always an option(within reason) After a day of running around I got home with the intent of going for a run. After wrapping up some loose ends for work I was ready to go. Then, my mind introduced the 'no, you can rest thought' I knew I was doing a long run in the morning, so could it be that bad to do nothing? Hmmmmm.....the battle went on for a short while. Then proper reasoning took over....off I went to get my gear on. I headed out with no real distance or plan in mind. In theory if I was on a plan, it would be tempo day. A good run faster than race pace. So I trotted off along my run. I found myself before long feeling not bad and sped along a little. Hmm, think maybe I should slow down, but, the mind took over. My yoga practice has taught me a bit about relaxing as I am running and allowing myself to relax more. So I continued along with a good focus. As I moved forward I found myself in a great groove with my mind taking over and allowing me to relax and push a harder pave than I have done in the past. I just kept pushing not letting my mind tell me different. It was a great result. My pave was just under 5 min/k. Faster than my last tempo and a little easier. I used my mind to push me harder without giving up rather than allowing it to defeat me and allowing me to sit at home!
It was a great lesson in mental training and one that I will carry forward with me! I am happy that I went out, the result was fantastic.
Remember the mind is a powerful thing, it will play all sorts of funky tricks on us. We chose to do an IRONMAN because we have the ability to direct and lead out thought process. As we work through the off season, dont let your mind rule your game, rest when you should, work when you should, have fun and take time to have a beer or tow once in a while. Hell,let me know where you are going and I will join you!
Have a great weekend! and remember, Live for your Dreams!

Good luck IM Cozumel folks!

It's time to ski, come on already!!!!

OK, usually I am a happy go lucky guy....now I am getting frustrated!  Anyone who knows me well enough, knows that all of my training originally started as a result of a desire to be the best that I could be for skiing!  I started off a long time ago running, then cylcing then the gym and it grew from there.  Tonight I am going to talk about skiing.
I did however have a great workout today(because I want to ski better)(oh yeah, and I registered for an Ironman).  As you may know swimming is the furthest thing from nautral for me.  I ahve had to work at it and continually focus on drills, putting in time and studying what to do.(to dumb to get a coach)  So, today I had a 2500m swim in 55 minutes.  For those of you speed demons, it likely seems a little slow, for me, I was thrilled as hell to have done a straight lenght practice in that kind of time.  The great thing is I finished it with energy to burn and was not sucking for air when I finished.  It is crazy that 4-5 months ago, I did not want to swim because O sucked os bad, now I look forward to it and love doing my practice!  I also started my morning with a great Yoga practice.  If you dont do Yoga I can not encourage you enough to get at it.  It is a tremendous workout both physically and mentally.  I am benefiting from it in developing a stronger focus and ability to not lose my ability to breath through the hurt during workouts.  I think it is a great benefit to anyone who participates in endurance sports.
Back to skiing for a while!  My passion since I was a kid was skiing.  Here is a little background....  As a kid who grew up in northern Ontario the expectation was that I would become a hockey player.  Like every parent, mom would drop me off at the rink for practice 2x a week(back then kids only practiced twice so they still had time to be kids)  My week night practice was acceptable, but Saturday when the ski hill was open was a different show.  I grew up in the far north, the streets in the winter were solid ice and a lot of it.  You could actual skate on the streets there was so much ice.  My mom would drop me off at the outdoor arena for practice and then head off to the grocery store to get her shopping done for the week.  Well, I did not have a lot of time for hockey while the ski hill was open.  As soon as my mom would leave, I would take off from the rink and skate home along the streets.   As quickly as possible a I would put on my lace up ski boots and head to the ski hill.  Holy smokes!  You should have checked out the fireworks when my mom got a hold of me when I finally came off the ski hill.  By this time she would have finished shopping and then ran around town like a maniac looking for me. Only to learn from little Bobby who bumped into her that I had taken off to go skiing.  Well, good thing I had a lot of fun on the ski hill, because the resulting punishment from taking off without letting her know was not a treat.  But, I was not the smartest kid, the next week I completed ACT 2, the same show, and guess what, the same result.  Needless to say, I was grounded for a good while, but, she figured out I was not going to be Wayne Gretzky quite fast. My hockey career was over and I became a ski nut!  That was a long time ago and my passion has not waned a bit since.  I have continuously worked on my ability to ski, I teach on the weekends for fun, I met my wire taking a course, I am on the Canadian Ski Instructors Board of Directors responsible for a provincial training program.  Guess you can figure it out, I like skiing. Last year was one of my best seasons ever.  I was able to ski 50+ days over the winter, skied in South America for 2 weeks in the summer and for a week at a training cap in Zermatt in October.  The awesome season was topped off with the season beginning in November with the greatest ski conditions in a long time.  The attached video is a quick clip of Trish and I on our first day out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMOqirNT9LASo, my repeated moaning about the weather is about not being where I like to be this time of year.  If any of you have a phone number for mother nature, do me a favor, give her a call and tell her to stop being a b*&%......its ski season and it is time for snow!
So enough of my moaning about snow(I know most of you dont want it come)!  Other than my selfish obsession(the other one after tri) life is damn good!  A loving wife, a great family, a good career, my health, my friends and the pleasure of getting out of bed every morning and being able to stare the world in the face and taking in everything that it has to offer!  I hope that you have had an awesome day, been able to enjoy the victories and learn from the frustrations and look forward to the sun coming up tomorrow.  Cheers to all and please check your black book for Mother Nature number(if it snows after you call her, I'll shovel your driveway!)

I digress.....

Today, I am not going to talk about tri stuff, actually I am stealing a great story.  If you are a triathlete this should open your mind, if you own a dog you will appreciate  the story, if you are human and have 'those' days, this could put it into perspective.  Although is is not a human story, I have said it before, think about it, is it so bad, it could be a lot worse.  And never forget, LIVE FOR YOUR DREAMS, they are possible!!!

This dog was born on Christmas  Eve, 2002. He was born  with  2  legs and of course could not  walk when he was born. Even his mother did not want  him. His first owner also did not  think that he could survive and he was thinking of 'putting him  to sleep'. But then, his present owner, Jude  Stringfellow, met him and wanted  to take care of  him.She became determined to teach and train  this little dog to walk by himself.    She named him 'Faith'.  In the beginning, she put Faith on a  surfboard to let him feel the movement. Later she used peanut   butter on a spoon as a lure and reward for him for  standing up and jumping around. Even the other dog at home  encouraged him to walk. Amazingly, only after 6 months, like a  miracle,  Faith  learned to balance on his hind legs and to jump to move forward.  After further training in the snow, he could now walk like a  human being.  Faith loves to walk around  now. No matter where he goes, he attracts people to  him. He is fast becoming famous on the  international scene and has appeared on various newspapers and  TV shows. There is now a book entitled 'With a  Little Faith' being published about him.    He was even considered to appear in one of  Harry Potter movies.  Jude Stringfellow has given up  her teaching post and plans to take him around the world  to preach that even without a perfect body, one can have  a perfect  soul.  In life there are always undesirable  things, so in order to feel better  you just need to  look at life from another direction. I hope this message will bring fresh new  ways of thinking to everyone and that everyone will appreciate  and be thankful for each beautiful day. Faith is the continual  demonstration of the strength and wonder of life.

The 3 B's!

Had an action packed day! Started a 6am with a great run. Mother Nature was seemingly apologizing for not sending any snow yet, she did it by holding off on pouring while we went for a morning run. Went out with our twice weekly coffee group and as usual had a great run and great coffee afterwards. I love going through the training with friends and like minded nut cases as it makes you want to go stronger and never miss a workout.
Work today was a barrel of monkeys! Had anyone asked me how my day was, only one answer would have come to mind, 'living the dream'. Some of you may recognize this from my previous blog for the others, it is my positive sale guy way of saying the day sucks but because I am a positive sale guy I can never say that. You know what, now that I past it all, how bad was it? I didn't need heart surgery, my head is still on top of my shoulders and hell, I am still standing on the top side of the grass! It was another day with the experiences life gives us.
The great part of my day was THE 3 B's! What is it you ask? Well, basketball, which I get to enjoy quite a bit(Raptors, not me playing), beer, which is a required part of a good basketball game, and bad food, something I have not had in the longest time. The basketball game was great as the raptors won, the beer well that goes without saying! The bad food, well, I now why I don't eat that crap anymore! It was a truly entertaining evening! And, I used it as a rest night!
After all the excitement I need to get home now, so without further delay I have to go to the washroom and get on the train home! Have a great night! Cheers to all!
Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

And another great day it was! Thank you Tim Horton!

Tim Horton's coffee shops rule!  Yes, the coffee is amazing, but tonight it rules for a different reason!   After a productive day at the office I got home about 5 and got set to go out for a run.  So, the weather was decent, i got my gear on and headed out the door.  Running later in the day is generally when I run.  I am awake, have eaten so have good energy level, and I like the scenery of people buzzing home from work, all rushed to get home to do chores.  So, off I went on my run.  Tonight was a LSD run, so I searched for a groove and settled in.  As I trotted along, I felt like a million bucks.  I did find my groove and I have to day one of the most comfortable runs  have had in a while.  That is until 11.44km when my stomach did a little rumble.  'Oh', I thought, what a bizarre time to have my stomach rumble like this.  I figured it was temporary and I could continue along.  THEN, another rumble, but this one was not little and it had something it wanted to tell me.  CRAP, pardon the expression, I had an emergency on my hands.  I was about 2k from anywhere and my stomach was at war with me.  What the hell was I going to do now.  The thought of running faster crossed my mind, Yeah RIGHT!  All I could do about now was run and pray that my butt cheeks were not going to fail me!  I looked at the forest along side of me, and the thought of the nice wet leaves off the giant maple trees was not going to happen.  I had to go so bad that every part of my body was cramping. Then lucky me, I turned the corner and I knew there was a Timmy's just up the road.  Yes, it was up the road, a hill about 750 meters long before the resting place.  I stumbled along, my heart rate up about 15 beats per minute as I continued my panic.  Finally, I got there....ran into the place, the whole time hoping nobody would be there. Horay!  It's empty!  About 30 seconds later I came out of the washroom, the lady at the counter looked at me with an almost frightened look on her face as she asked me if I wanted a coffee. I kind of chuckled as I said no thank you and shuffled out the door.  What an adventure that was!   Thank you Tim Horton's, you came through when most needed again!  The rest of my run was wonderful, I felt light as a bird on my feet.  My heart rate dropped about 20 beats, my pace picked up and I continued along with a wonderful satisfied smile on my face!  I had won the match!
That is how my day came to an end!  What a fitting way to end a day that was filled with adventure and good times.  I had a great productive day at work, couple new customers, an order to add along with it!  Hey, things are picking up a bit.  I have a couple side projects that are adding a big intrigue and excitement to my day to day as well.  I'll share more about that when the time is appropriate!  Well, my day is about to wrap up.  Tomorrow is early run day as I am going to Bball game tomorrow night, and trying to squeeze in a swim in afternoon.  So, I hope your day was a happy one, with a lot of success and fun and hopefully some kind of ridiculous story you can share with your friends one day as well!  Cheers!

Answer to an important question?(important to me....)

Here is a non tri question to anyone out there, please send me some feedback and comments!!

PLease define what you think the defintion of a "sales manager" is  and what the characteristics/qualities of an effective and suucessful sales manager would be.

Thank you for your feedback and I will explain it all at some point in a little while! 

Cheers

What a wonderful world!!!

I started my morning with that dull headache, one that was the result of having enough drinks to get up and dance(if you have seen me dance, that should tell you I drank to much).  BUT, I didn't let it stop me from the awesome day that was going to start!  The sun was bright, the temperature was still warm out and, as my neighbor once said it, another day on the top side of the grass! Forget the headache, get out of bed and go and enjoy what the world feels like dishing out today!
Trish and I got our bikes ready and got on the road.  We had decided last night that we should meet Hugh and then ride out to Burlington for some breakfast.  The temperature today was perfect for riding, did not have to overdress to stay warm, the wind was light and I was enjoying a ride with Trish. As we rode along the Lakeshore, there were people everywhere, on bikes, walking, running, playing with the dog, as far as fall days go it was a perfect one.  We made our way to Hugh's and stopped in to pick him up for the journey. Hmmm, he had the same dull headache, maybe it was the water at the bar last night, he was at the same place??  You think??  Like a Sunday should be, we stopped at his place and enjoyed a coffee with him and Denise and talked about the fun night we had on Saturday.  It was one of those mornings that you are motivated, ready to go, but being on the chair relaxing seemed like the right thing to do.  After a while, I jumped up and suggested we get out for our ride before the ski season arrived.  We were all too comfortable and not moving!  The ride out to Burlington was good, not much traffic, nice sunshine, I was happy I did not let the dancing headache stop me from my ride! We wen to a place called Benni's for breakfast.  Great little restaurant with live music. Not a bad way to start the day, a good ride and some great food! After a great ride home, I went out for a run to finish off my training for the day.  I have not done a lot of bricks type workouts, now I try and do  run of some kind anytime I get off the bike.  While I was out for my ride my HRM decided it was taking the day off.  Then, I head out for my run and the same thing happens again.  Oh well, its not life threatening, my data will say it was good training day.
Once the training was over, the 'honeydo' list had to be addressed.  It was a good afternoon to put up Christmas lights.  Here is the deal on the lights, it means I have to get on the roof and hang over the eaves through.  Every time I am up there I get freaked out imagining falling.  I spend an hour feeling afraid of falling off  the roof.  Guess if I was in the union I could get someone else to do that job for me, or file a grievance!  Damn, the lights do look good. Not the Griswalds good, just good.
Tonight was Craig's birthday dinner.  What a great way to end the day and the weekend.  A few of us have some great ribs on the BBQ!  Trish served squash with dinner.  When is the last time you had squash, what a great side dish.  I probably have had it less than 5 times in a year. This eating well habit is great for learning new good things to eat.  For desert, Trish has brought an apple pie from her mom's house.  Her mom is the apple pie queen!  Every person who has tried her pies says they are the best she has had.  I want to see if I can start selling them for spare cash for tri gear.
So, I started my blog today by saying 'what a wonderful world'  After a day like today and a great weekend, well.......that is all I can say!  Looking forward to a good week, more fun, more friends....and more sleep than last night!
Cheers and catch up with you soon!

An IM realization!

Tonight was a great time! I was able to spend an evening with the greatest number of type A IM personalities you could find without actually being at a race. What a great time it is to BE able to hear the energy in the room!

First I must wish Bryan Payne at great happy birthday! After a great training year he turned out a race that makes Canada proud! Awesome race, awesome  3 year transformation, great motivation!   And, there were a lot of great stories there last night. From Miha's swim story, to John B's over the top experience. It is the first time I have been at a party  that I wanted to talk to everyone and every person had an interesting story to  tell.  It was a very entertaining night!  Many of the people that we met at Bryan's were also blog people that he had never met face to face before.  It is an interesting thing that happens in the blog world.  It's like internet dating, last night all the dates met each other for the first time!  Putting a face to the name makes the daily posts more interesting!  Unfortunately, we had to leave to go to another party, that took us a while.  Each time we were almost on our way, another great story that could not be missed!
We did finally get out and joined another group of IM people at a local bar to see a great band called the 905!  What a good show.  They are an 11 piece band that plays classic rock, the place was full and everyone was dancing.  Have had to leave from Bryan's, it was a good place to end up as it was the continuation of a fun night!
Well, I am playing a game of catch up and finishing my post from last night.  I have spelled checked it and now have to get my butt in a bike saddle and enjoy the day!
I hope everyone I saw last night has a mild headache from to much fun and that today is one full of fun and the great things that life throws at you!!  Cheers

Sent from my BlackBerry device on the Rogers Wireless Network

How many days to form a habit???

OK!  Day 3 on my getting up pre 6AM to do some kind of workout.  I suppose the weekend wil be the test, I have challenged myself to get my ass out of bed tomorrow morning and go for s haort run even though it is a rest day!  I am going to stay in bed Sunday as rest is probably good.  I am going to follow my rest with a long'ish ride, as the waether looks to be great adn tehn a 20k run.  Hopefully OI am smart enogh not to ahve too many beers on Saturday night!?
 So my questions was "How many days to form a habit?"  I have been told 21 days. SO that means I have 18 more of getting out of bed before 6 and then I am cured??  Dont think so!!!  I think back to some of the bad habits that I have had, they took me about 3 days to develop, and truth be known some are still there.  Why is it only the good habits are hard to accomplish!  So from this oint forward, enbough about my lazy morning habit.  The only way I will post about it again is to face the humiliation of failure when I dont stick with it!!
This morning was an awesome day for a run I joined my friends at "BeanThere" in Oakville for a short run.  They have been doing this morning run for quoite a while now and I am lucky to be able to join them as they are a great group to train with.  On days that are about putting in some miles, I can find someone to go with and on the days when I want to kill myself with a grueling fast run, I hang on and see how long I can watch the backs of the OCD only can run like it is a race guys!@  Regardless of my choice of the day it is a great start.  And Brett makes a good cup of coffee to finish it off with!
The rest of my day today was a blurr!  I was busy at work and had a tone of meetings.  I intended to go or a swim late in teh day, but got caught i traffic and had to bai.  Hmmmm, its Friday, think I will go for a beer with Trish and Hugh!  So, off to the pump(the local bar) we go and have a beer and chat about our day! As always catching up at the end of a eek is a lot of fun!We all did have a great week with success t work, new goals reached and new dreams set!  And, we have tomorrow to look forward to!
We had a great night with our guests.  I had not seen some of them since our wedding 5 years ago.  It was fun to connect and hear the stories of our wedding night! Carlo and Monica live in Port Credit which is close for us. Declan and Linda were hear this evening as well!  With 3 kids staying with Grandma this is a relacxing night!  Declan has done 2 IM's!  A great dinner guest.  Within minutes we start a discussion on IM and, believe it or not it does continue for a while.  I am gaining to more in depth and better understating each day that I move towards the start line.  It is a great feeling, although I realize that come D-day that are still a thousand unfelt thoughts to experience.  I am thinking that is why we decide to do this crazy thing!
Over the course of this evening I also tweeted with http://trainingpayne.blogspot.com  . He just finshed the 70.3 world's and is in relax mode.  Check out his blog to see the fun he started having tonight!  And, Happy Birthday Bryan!  His brithday after  a great race, this is his week!
Tomorrow I am off for my class room traning for Craigleith, which is my winter weekend ski teaching thing.  It should be a fun day. a lot of other instructors will be around. It will be a grat day for catching up wth everyone.  Then tomorrow evening is action packed.
As tomorrow is Bryan's birthday, we are going to visit with him for tha as well as to celebrate his awesome accomplishment at 70.3 worlds t.   following his party we are meeting our AM running group at a bar where a great band is playing..  Should be an awesome night I am looking forward to seeing everyone out of running shoes and relaxed.
Time for me to sign off, tomorrow is a rest/workout day, so I must get some sleep!
Cheerrs, and have an awesome weekend!

Another morning, another workout!!

My required, not so true excitement about how getting up early was not so bad was met with reality.  It SUCKS!  Who wants to get out of bed at 530AM to go and do a workout!  Missy, you are rigth!!  But, this moring, yes, 2 days in a row I climbed my sorry butt out of bed and went out for a Yoga class!  WOW!  What a way to wake up.  I cant complain, I like the practice as it helps my focus, my breathing and the all required stretching time I dont do otherwise!  And, hey, in a studio with my wife and all the other wonderful morning friendly ladies!  It makes a bad scene not so bad to handle.  This morning was darker and drearier  than others this week as it was pouring when we left the house....what the hell is that!!  It is Novemeber, Mother Nature should take a look at her damn calendar see it is November and turn on the snow making machine now.  This is crap, last year by this time there was snow on the ground and my skis were waxed.  Oh well, sooner or later she will get off her nice fall weather high horse and treat the skiers to a good dump of snow!
The next part of this blog may offend if you have a week stomach or do not have a sense of humour.  I am recounting a story that was on the menu as a joke of the day at a cool pub in ski country.   Most of you maybe familiar with a couple the feeling except not as bad as this person suffered:

Colonoscopy Memories

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep', which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven.  I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of our enemies.  I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous.  Then, on the day before the colonoscopy, I began my preparation.  In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.  Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep.  You mix two packets of teh powder together with in a one liter plastic jog, then you fill it with luke warm water.  Then you have to drink the whole jug.  This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes  - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.  The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humour, state after you drink it, a ''loose' watery bowel movement may result'.  This is kind of like saying after you jumop off a roof, you may experience contact with the ground.  MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative.  I don't want to be to graphic here, but, have you ever seen the space shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience with you as the shuttle.  There are times when you wish the toilet seat had a seat belt.  You spend several hours pretty much confined to hte washroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything.  And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel start to travel into the future and expelling food that you have not even eaten yet.  After an action packer evening, I finally got to sleep.  The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic.  I was very nervous.  Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage.  I was thinking, 'what if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.  At the clinic I to to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said.  Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by a sadist pervert, the kind that, when you put it on makes you feel more naked than when you were actually naked.  Then a nurse named Eddie put a needle in a vein in my left arm.  Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down.  Eddie also told me that some of the people actually put Vodka in their MoviPrep.  At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself to tipsy to make it to the washroom, so you were staggering in full Fire Hose mode bouncing off the walls like a Looney Tunes cartoon, You would have no choice but to burn your house!!!

I let my 77 year old fairly prudish mother in law read this, she almost peed her pants!  You have ot admit it is hilarious at the expense of others!

So, I am off to have al early diner.  Thank you to Kelownagurl for her recipe page, I will let you know how it was.  Having an early meal as I am going to head off to the pool after I digest and have a little swim and drill practice tonight!
Have a great evening and enjoy your accomplishments!  Cheers

Who said getting up early was bad....LOL

OK.  Thanks  for the advice on early morning tools to get up, I am going to head out and look for a SAD lamp to help me get this morning thing taken care of!  BUT, victory this morning!!  Got my sorry butt out of bed and got to swimming.  Not without some effort on Trish's part.  The alarm was set for 5:15, when it went off I suggested that she hit snooze.  That was all part of my strategy set before I went to sleep.  Then, 10 minutes later wehen she came to tell me to get up, I questioned her because I had not heard the alram go off again.  How dare she steal my extra 2 minutes of sleep!  What an ass I am!  She goes through the efforts to get me up because I am undisclipined, and I give her attitude!  I am so lucky bto have a wife who is an absolute angel!!  Thank you for putting up with my crap darling! 
So I made it out to the pool for a moring swim.  I was meeting Hugh and Pete there for a workout.  I was quite proud to be there as the same time as Hugh  who was actually counting on me not showing up.  My thoughts are with Pete who had to head urgently head  for western Canada to be with his brother who is sick with cancer.  It is such ba terrible disease and so many frinds have been affected.  In teh summer I do the Ride to Conquer Cancer in order to help out in any way that I can.(you can make a donation to my find rasing efforts at http://www.ridetoconquercancer.ca/ and enter my full name or my particapant number My Participant ID: 540230-0)  Many people we know today and future generations are counting on continued reseasrch to help find a cure!  Pete, best wishes to your brother in his fightt!!!
My swim this morning was great.  I still moaned about being out of bed for a few minutes after I started and then.....WOW.....I started to get teh awesome feeling of being there and getting it done!  Mind over matter!  I guess there is a lot of truth to the statement.   I am going to take the energy from this morings workout and use it to continue the momentum!
Following my awesome workout I had a great productive day at work.  I have a huge project that is almost complete. It was a bouncy road long the way, but with a project of that size I suppose it is to be expected.  And on continuing projects and new business, I would say that I currently holding my own.  It seems that things are picking up a bit, which should make the beginning of the year a good start and build into 2010.  Enough about work, that is not the fun part of what I do!
The weather today was awesome.  Beautiful sun, 8-9 Celsius, not a lot of wind.  So, I left the office at 3:30 and took advantage of the weather to do a run.  Today is theoretically tempo day, so off I went to get dressed and ready to go.  On days like today, I see all kinds of people running in shorts, so I thought I may have been the odd guy and decided to do the same thing today.  I have a rule of 10 degree Celsius, it is time to put on a pair of tights.  No, not today, thought i would do what everyone else does.  Sorry to insult all of you winter short runners, but, it is stupid!  My damn legs started off pale like the fall weather makes them, then graduated to a nice bright red, finally on the last 2k they were a deep purple!  Bloody hell, my legs were frozen.  I am not opposed to cold weather, after all I will go out and ski when it is -30, but, get real, I wear the proper clothes to correspond to the weather!  Otherwise my run today was awesome.  I started training properly using zones about a month ago.  Today the product of that started to show.  I am not rocket man by any means, but my run today impressed me.  Being a tempo run I needed to run a 160+HR.  That I did, I averaged a 162 and a 5 min/k for 7k.  A month ago I would have run the same route at a 5:20 at a HR average of 170+.  So as I try and temper my enthusiasm and keep in perspective that it is very early in the process, this run re-filled my glass of KoolAid!  Wahoo!  I look forward to continued progress and more improvements as I start the real training in the spring.
In the past while I have had some challenges with my left quad and hamstring.  Tonight was treatment 2 in the cure.  I went out to SPC in Port Credit for an ART session.  How can anything that hurts so bad help out so quickly.  Last week I had a continuous nag in my leg, that went away with the first treatment.  tonight he found another knot deep down that was nagging a bit on Sunday's long run.  Net result, the treatment should help me in maintaining a continued progress.  Hats off to the staff at SPC, I have used them  a few times in the past for some ski related back problems and they are always successful in getting to the problem without any sideline time!
Overall I had a great day!  As I am not in training I think I am going to head off and have a glass of wine.  I hope you have a great night and while you sleep tonight find the inspiration to find and seek your next dream!!

Go man go!

Like I am not crazy enough about the IM world at this point, I just watched a video of 2005 IM World's!  WOW!  Those people are machines!  I think most people would think it is nuts!  No, not me, it just fuels my fire to want to be called an Ironman!
I am seeing a lot of blogs for people getting pumped for upcoming IMCoz!  Each blog I read is awesome!  I look forward to the excitement of the prerace jitters and all of the chaos that goes along with it.  Not that I am counting,, but another 298 days and I will be there! Wahoo!  Only a ski season and a whole lot of training between here and there!
Today was a fun day.  As I am getting more focused on my training I thought about how I would want to start of 2010.  So, I planned on doing a resolution run on New Years day.  It would be one thing to get out and do it myself, no, that is far to simple.  So, I contacted the club that I ski at and proposed that it be a club event.  So, New Years day will ideally see 30-40 people join me  on a short run to start off 2010.  What a perfect day to start a year.  A 10-15k run, followed by a great day of skiing!  Then I suppose a New Years day hot tub party!  Can anyone find anything wrong with that idea??
To date all of my training has been going great, with the exception of one thing.....I dont want to seem to get my lazy ass out of bed in the morning.  When I do I am on top of the world and get a super start to my day, but, for some reason getting up in teh dark just seems wrong!  So once again, I stayed in bed while Trish headed out to Yoga, any ideas??  Other than telling me to get my lazy ass up!!!  I'm, giving it an honest try again tomorrow with plans to head out to the pool for an AM swim.  You can rest assured I'll be bragging if I manage to get it done!
Had a good workout day today.  Not a ton of time spent, but good quality.  For the first time this season stayed indoors and did a spin.  As I find the geometry totally different I did an easy 25 spin with some variety.  I followed that with a nice easy short run to get the legs into the groove.  Overall it was an hour workout and a lot of fun!  Have to say, it was damn cold out there tonight!
Tomorrow a charity group is doing a pick up of items that we dont need.  Anything from clothes, to dishes to whatever else we have not used.  It was a great thing to do for 2 reasons.  A) Help out others  B) clean out what we don't need.  The overall side benefit was finding a lot of good performance clothing that was buried away.  That is good  dont need to go and get any more clothing.
Well, as I am a big boy and I am going to get up early(I think) I am heading off to bed now!
Happy training and have a great night!

I'm addicted....

I guess at some point along the road to an Ironman you have to reach the tipping point where you are doing it because you have a general huge enjoyment for the rush of the sport???? Well , as my count down timer fell below the 300 number today, I fell onto the wagon.  I am really enjoying the training, the camaraderie and the overall healthy feeling I am developing as an overall result!  Hope all you IM people out there will confirm that the rush is genuine and continues along the road!  If not, oh well, I have drunk some kind of koolaid and I am sticking with it!  As mentioned my race is 299  days away.  Still a long time, but I found it kind of exciting today to see a symbolically large change in numbers!  How many more runs, swims and bike rides does that translate into,  looking forward to it!

Had a great day today.  I have recently started doing some product reviews for Lululemon.  Tonight was a product training session for the staff at the store and I was asked to join them as a 'model' to demo the clothes and tell the staff how I would use them and what I thought.  It was a great night, got to meet a couple of other athletes, the staff at the store and check out some of the features of Lululemons performance clothing.  I have recently started using Lulu's performance clothing and I am impressed.  They spend a lot of time listening to customers and are coming up with some great stuff to train in.  I hope they continue to develop great clothes! thanks for the invite Lululemon Oakville!  I met Adam Dunn tonight who is a Lululemon ambassador.  He is a 4 time Ironman including one trip to Kona.  great coincidence as 2 of his races have been Wisconsin. We were able to talk a bit about the race and will continue come summer.  They do a couple of rides in the AM each week and I will likely join is once and a while.  Again, part of what I love about the sport.  It seems all the people involved are very genuine and ready to help out and share the awesome stories that they have.
Well tomorrow AM is Yoga to keep the muscles stretched.  So I should pack it in now! Have a great night!  Cheers!

A great weekend!

Weekends are meant to be enjoyed with friends and family, and this one certainly did not fail at all!  I am sitting writing my blog with a satisfied smile on my face after an action packed couple of days!
Yesterday we headed to Collingwood and spent the day with you winter friends.  What the heck are winter friends??  Well, many of the people that we ski with we only see from December until April.  So when the season starts it is like home coming, getting to see all of them and sharing stories of our summers and our goals over the course of this ski season.  It is a blast to hear what people have done and spend a day dong some lazy socializing.  And like most ski related activities, finish up with a beer or two out on the deck!  C an you find anything wrong with that?
Since I last saw my winter friends, I have dropped a few pounds.  It did not go unnoticed.  The reaction is a great passive motivation. People asking what the heck I am doing and how I lost all the weight.  Of course the discussion evolved to IM and my plans to compete at Wisconsin next year.  As most people are not in the IM world, hte reaction is quite interesting. It ranges from 'holy crap are you nuts'.....to absolute intrigue at the process to get there.  As I am on a great high these days sharing my excitement is great.  I tried to take a bit of the enthusiasm and bottle it,  I imagine I may need to take a big drink of it when in hte midst of heavy training next summer.

After our day with friends we headed out to check out our winter hang out.  We have a great cottage on Georgian Bay.  The views are to die for, with the water on one side and the hills on the other for us to enjoy.  Our group(Trish, Alex, Monica, Edward and myself) quite like the place.  It is very comfortable and does not feel like a rental property like other places we have had in past winters. I must say, one of the best features is the Scandanavian spa on the front deck that overlooks Georgian Bay.  After a great day of skiing and a long run, it will be a great luxury to jump in to the spa and relax.  Hanging out in a hottub when the temperature is -10 and it is snowing is something that everyone should experience.  The town of Thornbury is also a cool, quaint little town.  After the rest of the winter gang headed home, Trish and I( and our dog Karma)hung out for the evening  As we are only getting it ready, w had no food so we headed out into the village for dinner at the pub.  The pub we chose had a scotch list of over 350 choices. It almost makes you want to start drinking scotch.  I never thought 1.5oz glass could cost $1200.  That must be some good scotch!  We had an awesome meal in a very cool and relaxed place.  We will definitely go back to THE DAM PUB again.
This morning we called up Trish's mom and met up with her for some breakfast on the way home.  She is an awesome lady.  Any lady who loves to iron is has to be cool.  Yeah, she loves to iron.  she actually asks us to bring up our ironing so that she can do it for us. So, this morning I get back a bunch of my shirts that she had taken care of for me!  It was fun catching up with her and beginning to plan the Christmas season.
When we got home today, both Trish and I got our gear on and headed out for a run.  I kinda went a little longer than I anticipated today.  I planned on 18k and ended up just over 24.  I guess I can say it is miles in the bank.  I planned the first half of the route and the second half got away with me a bit.  Oh well!  It was an awesome afternoon for a run with the temperature being perfect.  Trish also ran a bit further than she usually would.  Who knows what she is training for????  She will not share with anyone what she might do(not even me) I will certainly encourage whatever race she may or may not want to do.
As I said at the beginning of my post, a great weekend had by all!  I hope that you all had the same experience!  Cheers and Happy Training! (or rest if you have recently raced)

Once there was a fat guy....

What I am talking about......Well, my post tonight must start with a big congratulations to Bryan Payne who set a PB at the 70.3 World's today.  If you have read his blog,  http://trainingpayne.blogspot.com  you will know why I have names todays' blog as I have.  It is awesome to see that someone makes a decision and has a dream.  And with outstanding determination goes all the way and makes it a reality. Awesome race today Bryan, an inspiration to the rest of the once fat guys out there!!!!

Today was a day of other inspirations as well!  I was at a function today to launch the 2009-10 ski season.  It is always a pleasure to be with other ski enthusiast and to share my passion with them as we head into the winter season.  Many athletes look at the winter as the cold snowy time to train.  No, not me...it is the time of year to train after an awesome day of skiing and being able to share my passion for the sport teaching and coaching.  It makes the tun afterwards a pleasure and no matter how cold a lot of fun.  At todays event, Chris Rudge, the chair of the Canadian Olympic Committee came out and spoke with us.  In his presentation he talked about the  commitment in Canada to be the best, the quest for the podium and not accepting anything but the top.  In the context of his presentation he talked about many athletes who have worked for years with the goal of the Olympics in mind.  With the games in Canada this winter, the dreams are set to be realized.  Canada and the athletes have worked together to reach for the dream and not allow anything to deter the road towards the ultimate that had been imagined.  As ac country at the elite level, a no holds barred nothing will set me back attitude had produced one of the best groups that Canada or the world has seen in years.  He showed a presentation that was given in the contecxt o the recent PANAM games bid in which Toronto was successful.  It presented a kid with a dream and followed his lifetime commitment to achieve it!  I look forward to watching the games this year and seeing Canada accomplish the best!  
I have been inspired in the past couple of weeks with repeated examples of individuals accomplishing the impossible, reaching the dream!  Brian Stemmle who would not accept anything but the top, our current winter Olympic team made up of athletes that have spent a lifetime getting to the start line, IM friends who trained and have realized the apparent impossible, and many other cyber space 'friends' who are about to reach the impossible goals they have set.  Some of you may be familiar with ROAD ID.  It is a safety organization that makes up safety wrist bands that you wear with emergency contact info.  On the tag is a space to put an inspirational statement that represents you .  On my band, before having the pleasure of seeing such inspirational speakers and world class performances, my statement on my band is "LIVE FOR YOUR DREAMS".
Thank you to all of the people that I have heard and witnessed this week.  More that ever you have proven that nothing is impossible, if you believe in something, dream that you can do it......the only thing stopping you is yourself!
LIVE FOR YOUR DREAMS!!!!!  (otherwise life will get a little boring!)
Cheers!

LIFE IS GOOD

Those who know me are familiar with the title of my blog today!  I likely have a dozen pieces of clothing and my outlook on life is exactly that way!  As the Life IS GOOD slogan says, 'Do what you love, Love what you do', living with this being a  motivating principle makes each day another one to enjoy.

This evening we were at a the grand opening party for POWER YOGA  CANADA.  Over the past week i have talked about how cool it has been to practice at the studio.  Tonight's opening celebration was a moment to appreciate the LIFE IS GOOD motto and seeing someone who is living their dream.  Kindli and Pauline are the girls who have studied Baptiste Power Yoga and made a choice to chase the dream of having their own studio.  Hearing them speak this evening was great as it served as a further inspiration that living for your dreams is the best way to start each day.  They have a great studio, a clientele that has followed their practice and now  as they wake up each morning, it is to continue the dream that they had of having a studio of their own.  I wish them the best of luck and I look forward to continuing to practice with them and seeing the studio grow.
Tonight's event was a great way to end what has been a very good week.  I had another great week of training with good workouts each day culminating this evening with a good brick workout.  I enjoyed each of my workouts and can feel the benefit of the time that I am committing to date.  With another 308 days I should continue to progress well.   One of the other benefits to all of this training is how well I am sleeping.  I go to bed and no sooner than my head hits the pillow I am out.  With the progress that I am enjoying to date, I now need to get take some energy from it and use it to motivate me to start some weight training.    I would like to get some base training in now as it will benefit me later.  When I start my full program in March, weight training is a big part of the program, a bit of head start would get me going!
Another part of the week that I have enjoyed is seeing Bryan from http://trainingpayne.blogspot.com being down at the World Championships.  It is cool to see another individual who had a dream reaching it because he believed in it and applied himself.  His week was exciting with the temporary loss of his bike by the airline.  With that problem solved and the clock ticking, in less than 12 hours he will be on his bike somewhere along the road, making his family, other Canadian and himself proud of his accomplishments!  Way to go Bryan, have an awesome race!
Tomorrow we are heading up to Collingwood to get our chalet set up for the ski season.  We are also going to go to the club and do an orientation session for the start of the season.  It will be great to catch up with everyone that we have not seen in all summer.  Going up north is always great as well as it is the beginning of the ski season which always excites me!
Well, like most nights around this time I must pack it in!  Need some sleep as one of the things that going up north does require, is me dragging my butt out of bed a little early tomorrow.  Have a great friday night and dont ever forget.....Live for your Dreams!

Another day another workout.....

This has been another inspirational week on the training schedule.....oops, I am not training I am 'exercising' as it is off season!  But, yeah it has been a great week!
This week I took time to A) workout  B) breath  C) reflect on the lucky life I lead  D) appreciate others E) respect the friends that I enjoy and the races they are about to start shortly......I think this gives a general idea of how great week it has been.  A lot is happening that makes me stop from time to time and appreciate how lucky we are!
Today was a day that helped me appreciate some of the race time tension that may happen.  Bryan who is in Clearwater at the 70.3 World Champion kinda lost his bike.  He got to FL yesterday and Southwest could not find his bike.  I know I would have likely flipped, but it is not me down there.  After 12'ish hours of stress his bike did show up and he was able to get out on a great relaxing ride.  I am thrilled for him as he is able to relax and focus on his huge accomplishment this weekend! Good luck Bryan and have fun!
Another exciting part of the day, my training partner and good friend Hugh got into a small accident on his way to the airport in SC. It seems that it wasnt to bad as he was able to make his flight.  Lucky for him the US marshall was very cool and helped him make his flight on time.  And, he did come out to the pool with me this afternoon for a good training swim.

My swim today was great.  Most of them are great. Each time I am at the pool and think it is tough I think back to the beginning of the summer when I could not swim 100m.  Now I am able to knock off 2000m without being in a desperate gasp for breath.  A litttle bit of work and a lot of mindset seems to be able to kncok off some major accomplishments.  I look forward to continuing the training and hope that it only gets easier as I continue to focus on where I am right now!
This morning, contrary to everything my brain tells me to do, I got up and went to YOGA.  Think about this for a minute, 6AM, get out of bed, put on clothes to workout and head off to a Yoga studio.  Anything wrong yet, then.....guess what, it is 630 AM dont forget, and I am asked to bend over and touch my toes.....hey, do you know I have not had coffee yet, now stretch and twist.....dont get me wrong, I am really enjoying it....just not accepting the fact that it is 630AM.  The net result is an awesome class and a truly spiritual start to the day!  In a very short while I have gained a discipline in going to yoga.  It have learned how to relax a bit, focus on the pose that I am completing and allowing myself to relax.  I have learnt to breath, hnmmmm, maybe I will try while i am running and swimming, it seems to work for me! I think overall it is a great discipline to continue as it will help me all round!
well, guess it is that time, I want to run in AM and I need to excessive sleep.  So, all my friends who are at races, kick some IRONMAN asss!  All those who are tapering, taper, you deserve and have trained for where you are and its race time!  You will have an awesome race and another notch on the bed post! Cheers

Dont forget who got me here....

As Remembrance Day(Memorial Day for US friends) is coming to a close, I spent some time reflecting about the world around me today and how privileged we are.  Many of our grand parents sacrificed their lives for our freedom.  Many of our friends are currently on the front lines doing the same thing, so that we can carry on and live our lives peacefully and chase our dreams.  I also took a little time today while I was not thinking about myself and my next workout or training frustration and thought about how lucky I am to have an awesome wife who supports me 100% through the ups and downs of the privileged dream I get to chase.  Thank you to all those who have allowed us to live in freedom today, and to my awesome wife and friends for putting up with this self absorbed world of IRONMAN!  The picture below is a Trish an I on our first anniversary.  She is a champ, as someone who had no aspirations of doing more than her daily 5k, this is a photo of her and I on our first anniversary after completing the Toronto 1/2 Marathon!  (still trying to convince her to do a marathon, don't think so)

I have been reading a few friends and others bloggers notes the past couple of days.  IM friends who are off to Clearwater and other late season races in the next short while.  I want to wish them all awesome races and hope that you enjoy the fruits of your long hard training.  Enjoy the road you will travel and remember to have fun!  As I read about everyone heading off to races, I am still not cluing in to the fact that my day will be here in less than a year.  Sounds  a little ridiculous to even be thinking about it, but, a lesson I learnt from all the others is that it will be hear in no time.  It interesting being in 'off season' but being concerned about getting miles in and workouts finished so that I am ready.  What I am doing now is seemingly bonus work, and I really should not be doing a whole lot of it.  So, today I decided as I am planning the training from now until the end of the year that I will include a couple of days that are 'dont forget to have an extra beer' training days!  Next summer is going to be to consuming, so what the hell, I have time and I am in decent shape now, relax!
On that note, I had an awesome run this afternoon.  Started the afternoon with a swim drill practice to blow off some post work stress.  Great practice time, pool was mostly empty and with no training partners it kept the pool time to focused technical training.  I put in about 1500-1600 m knowing that I was heading out for a run afterwards.  After the practice I had to scream home to get ready for my run.  I had an appointment for some ART to try and cure and recurring and nagging hamstring knot.  for the last month i cant seem to get the knot out of the very top of my hamstring.  So, I figured before it becomes something else I would get it addressed.  So, I put on my shoes and headed out to run to my appt.  I was late so it served as a great reason to have to pick up the pace today.  I am generally a 5:30/k runner, today I ran a 5:10 and felt great doing it,  my HR stayed at 162 which is great considering last night I did a tempo run at 5:23 with the same HR.  I did discover in analyzing the 2 runs one of the differences.  Last night I ran with an iPod.    NO MORE!  I find it a distraction and I lose focus.  It seems as the music changes so does my rhythm, so, problem solved, I will listen to music after my run! My ART session was a grueling pleasure and I believe it will provide results.  I now have a series of exercises to complete twice a day in order to get the knot loosened up and to strengthen the muscle I have not been using as a result.  I hope this all translates into continued improvements!!
My plan for the next few days is to plan out my race sched for next season.  As Race A is IM, I am going to consider all other races C.  That being said, I want to use the early races to get myself into the frame of mind mentally.  Work on getting my head to the start line without being a bundle of nerves so that I can get on the road focused on racing and not calming down.  With the swim being my weakness, starting calm will be important.  Most of all though it they will be a part of my training and not to work to set any PB.  Go out and have some fun and get into the race spirit.
After a great day I am heading off to get some rest. I have a decent workout day planned tomorrow, short run in AM, Yoga to keep stretching and then another swim practice tomorrow.
All you people about to race.....take a deep breath, enjoy the place that you have trained so hard to get to and run a proud race!  Cheers and Good luck~!