IronMonkey

IronMan Canada - the detailed version.

2006-09-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

The first alarm went off at 4 AM; the second at 4:15 AM but I was up eating my muesli up by then. At 5 AM I met some of the team in the hotel lobby to catch the shuttle down to the starting area where a stream of athletes were heading into the transition areas. My first stop was to drop off my special needs bags and get body marked. After a quick trip to the porta potties, it was time to put on my wetsuit and get ready for the swim. The transition area was buzzing with activity by now with two and a half thousand athletes making their final preparations. Before I knew it it was 6:30 AM and we were being herded onto the beach accompanied by a constant beeping noise as our timing chips were activated as we crossed the timing mat. The atmosphere on the beach was electric with athletes hugging each other and their friends across the fences that separated the supporters from the beach. The light was soft and the water calm and smooth. I moved over to the far side of the beach and hung out with Joe and Kamal who, like me, were planning to enter the water towards the back of the pack so as to avoid the masses. At 6:45 with the sound of a cannon the Pros headed off, and we waited for our turn.
Here are a couple of pics of the beach area just before and one from above just after the start.

At 7 AM the cannon was fired once more and we were off. I waded into the water for about 100m and then dived forward and begun my 2.4 mile swim. The start of the swim is potentially one of the most difficult parts of an ironman as two thousand odd people fight for room to swim. It is not uncommon to get wacked about a bit or swam over as everyone jossles for space. The worse case scenario for most athletes is being kicked in the face and losing your goggles. For some reason this start was very civilized. I didn't bump into anyone until about 15 minutes into the swim. In all the swim went smoothly. I settled into a rhytm which I held throughout the swim, and exited the water after 1 hour 26 minutes.
One of the nice things about ironman triathons is that they have strippers! Wetsuit strippers that is. So instead of struggling out of your wet suit on your own, you get thrown on the floor by three strippers who tear off your wet suit for you, and boy, are they quick. Once my wetsuit was off, I grabbed my transition bag and headed to the tent to change into my cycling gear.
The first 40 miles of the ride were reasonably flat which made for a fast ride. I covered the first 40 miles in 2 hours. There were two major hills on the course. The first, Richter Pass, came after about 40 miles which consisted of a long gradual climb over about 6 miles followed by a fast steep descent. Before the second climb there was a curious out and back where the special needs station was located. Before I got there I had a flat which took me a few minutes to sort out. Unfortunately, none of the water stations had a pump so I had to ride for about 20 miles on a back tire that was not quite fully inflated. This was fine while I was on the flat but I was a little concerned that I might have to descend on it. Eventually, I spotted a bike tech at the side of the road assisting someone and managed to get sorted. A minor irritation I know but it seemed like a big deal at the time. The second big hill, Yellow Lake, started at about mile 92 and peaked at mile 100. By now, my backside was getting a little sore but I was holding up well otherwise. Although this hill was late in the ride, I knew that it was downhill all the way once I reached the summit. Also, there were cheering crowds all of the way up to the summit which lifted my spirits. This is where the benefit of being in a TNT top pays off - All around the course there were TNT supporters who gave an extra cheer when they saw the purple flames. I knew that I had made it to the top when I saw my coach Wayne who ran along side for a while to see how I was doing. I was also pleasantly suprised to see Raj who had driven up to cheer the team over the hill. The rest of the ride back down into town was a breeze. I completed the ride in 6 hours 23 minutes at an average speed of 17.5 mph.
Here I am on the bike.

Now came the run. After another change of gear, I set out on the run course. The impact of the heat was far greater on the run than on the bike. As I headed along the lakeshore for the first time I passed Jasper Blake who was finishing in first place on the other side of the road. This played with my head a little as I pondered on the fact that I still had the whole marathon to run. I tried hard to run below 10 minute miles for the first couple of miles but quickly realized that I would have to ease off if I was to survive the heat and be able to complete the whole marathon. My strategy was to run to each water station, which were approximately 1 mile apart, where I would walk while I drank a cup of water and Gaterade. It seemed to work fine for the first 13 miles except that I took to constantly checking my watch to see how many minutes I had to go until I reached the next water stop. This started to drive me a little crazy. So much so that when I saw Raj at the mid-point I deposited the watch with her and ran the second half of the marathon without it. The run course was quite stunning. Once we had cleared Penticton we run alongside Lake Skaha to Okanagan Falls. Much to my suprise at about mile 6, I passed the first of three pro athletes that I would beat home - they must have been having a miserable day. As the run progressed the sun gradually decended and the heat eased off a little. I stuck to my run-walk strategy for most of the run except that I did give in a couple of times to walk up a hill on the way back. The run back to town was a major mental challenge. I had never ran a marathon before and had not run more than 20 miles in our training program, so I was entering unknown territory. Here I am on the first 1/2, still looking reasonably fresh!

I smiled when I reached mile 17. This is Raj's favorite point in the marathon as the remainder of the run is in single figures. One of the nice things about the course was that it was an out and back route. This meant that I got to see some of my team mates as they were passing on the other side of the road. Also I got to see some of my training buddies who had come out to support us. As I came back into town I was first joined by Lara and then my Mo who urged me on towards the finish. The final mile came unexpectedly, and I found myself heading back out along the lakeshore before I turned back towards the finish. It amazed me that I could still manage to find a surge at the end. I suprised myself by figuring out that I needed to outpace the two runners just in front of me so that I could cross the finish line on my own and ensure that the photographer got a clear shot of me. Crossing the line was a blur. I heard my name being called out and then I was collected by one of the catchers, had a medal put around my neck, was wrapped in aluminium foil, given a cap and T-shirt, and had a bottle of water thrust into my hands.

For some reason, I decided that I wanted to seek advice from the medical crew. Although I had drunk a huge amount of fluids during the day, I had yet to pee. I thought it might be wise to ask them how long I should let this go but they would not let me go so I had to sit in the medical tent for an hour while I drank 3 litres of fluids. It was like a major disaster zone in there - there were scores of sorry looking dehydrated athletes vomiting all over the place. I think that being there was making most people feel worse. Anyhow, after an hour I talked my way out and went to find Raj. We walked back most of the way to the hotel to where she had parked the car and headed for our room. After a quick shower I devoured a pizza and watched the last hour of the event on the TV. It was fun seeing some of my team mates finishing. It would have been more fun to have been down at the finish but I really didn't have the energy. The event closed at midnight with a firework display although the finish line was left open for a while to allow some of the late finishers a chance to cross the finish line.

Overall, it was an amazing day. The event was extremely well organized and the support from the locals was unlike anything that I have come across before. Penticton is a relatively small town, yet over 4000 locals volunteer their time to help make the event happen. It is no suprise that this is one of the most successful IronMan events in the world.

Once again, I would like to thank all of you that have taken an interest in my journey to completing my first IronMan. It has been a great experience that was enhanced by being able to share some of it with you all. So much of a great experience that I have signed up to do it all again next year! Don't worry, I am taking a year off from fundraising, so you do not need to run when you see me - not that you would get very far...

IronMan Canada 2006

2006-08-31T14:42:00.000-07:00

As you can see from the photo, I completed IronMan Canada in 12 hours, 55 minutes and 14 seconds!

Here is a quick overview of the essential stats. I will add a more detailed race report in a few days time, once I have a chance to catch up with myself.

The swim (2.4 miles): 1 hour 26 mins 29 secs
Swim ranking = 1836 / 2451

The bike (112 miles): 6 hours 23 mins 12 secs
Average speed = 17.54 mph
Bike ranking = 1502

The run (26.2 miles): 4 hours 44 mins 15 secs
Average = 10.5 min/mile
Overall ranking = 1050

Thank you again for your support. With your help I raised $7745 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America. Our team total exceeded $750,000!!

This week I'll mostly be doing an IronMan

2006-08-21T22:29:00.000-07:00

OK, this is the final week leading up the big event. I travel to Penticton with Raj on Thursday morning via Vancouver on an nice and early 6:14 AM flight. We have a couple of days prior to the event to settle in, register and get our acts together. The race itself will start at 07:00 AM Sunday morning. If you are interested in following along on the day you can click onto the link for IronMan Live (embedded in the title above) and see how I am getting on. The site will have details of my progress including my swim time, and bike and run splits. My race number is 1154. Check it out! Also, check back a few days later when they will have posted a video of me crossing the finish line - Yes, I am going to finish!

The latest weather forcast is for a high of 91. I was hoping that it would not be this hot but the forcast was for 70 a few days ago, so who knows.

It is time to taper

2006-08-09T15:24:00.000-07:00

The time has finally come to start tapering our training in preparation for August 27. Last weekend was our last major training weekend which I celebrated by doing the Marin Century. This is a fabulous 105 mile ride around Marin which starts in San Raphael and heads north out to the coast and back via Petaluma. Although it is a beautiful ride, it is also one of the hilliest rides that I have done for a while taking in such classics as the Marshall Wall. The ride is well supported, and ends with a well stocked barbe that even had Hagan Das ice cream bars! If you didn't know already, ice cream has become my essential recovery food after a big ride.
On Sunday, I joined some of the team for a couple of laps of Aquatic Park, and a 10 mile run which I did with Susie.
Monday was a rest day and the start of week 1 of our 3 week taper. The first week doesn't seem much easier than usual but things start to look noticably lighter as time goes on. By the end of the taper, I am hoping that I will be energised and ready to go. However, I had better go easy on the ice cream or I may not be able to get off the couch.

The Triple Brick

2006-07-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

The peak of our training program came this last Sunday with us taking on the triple brick. The event was held in Danville in the East Bay which had been experiencing some super hot temperature over the last few weeks. The previous time that our group had a training session here, the temperatures were above 100 which took it toll on several team members. Fortunately for us this time the temperatures didn't get beyond the 90s - which was hot enough.
A brick, in case you were wondering, is a bike and run done back-to-back. A triple brick is a bike and run done back-to-back three times. In this case each brick consisted of a 30 mile bike ride followed by a 50 minute run. In all this translated into 90 miles of riding and about 18 miles of running.

Here is a picture of me on the second run trying to keep up with Kim who ultimately left me in the dust! I am wearing our teams racing vest which we will all be wearing when we do our Ironman.

And the beat goes on....

2006-07-24T22:36:00.000-07:00

The weeks go on and on and on....and the training goes on and on and on....it seems almost endless. But the end is almost in sight. This week will finish with us doing the infamous triple brick - a day long event where we ride for 2 hours and then run for an hour, and then do it all again, twice. The bonus is that we get to do it all in Danville which has been experiencing temperatures about 110 degrees F. Nine hours of fun in the sun. The triple brick is the peak of our training after which we get to taper until the big day.

On that note, some of my team buddies competed in IronMan USA at the weekend and completed their first IronMan. Congratulations to Cesar, John and the rest of the team.

And I moved it back again!

2006-07-07T22:37:00.000-07:00

Well, I tried a new blog site but as much as I like how it looked, I must admit that it is much easier to maintain this one.

So what have I been up to for the last few weeks? The good news is that I have made my minimum fundraising total!!! Thanks to all of you that have supported me. My total is just over $7500, and our team total is up to $537,000 which is quite amazing.

A quick update on training - we still have another month of heavy training before we start tapering off. Last week was another landmark training session. We set off to do a 104 mile ride around the vineyards up in Santa Rosa but due to some dodgy map reading ended up doing 120 miles by mistake. The last 15-20 miles were rough as it was quite hot out there which made it hard to tolerate the liquid energy drinks. I think that I must have been running pretty low on energy.
The following day we had an interesting pool session where we simulated a mass swim start in the pool. Basically, this involved trying to swim down a lane lined with the rest of the team trying to bash you with their swim belts. I woud heartily recommend it as a hangover cure.

On July 4th, I swam 2 miles in Aquatic Park in an hour with Steve and Cesar, and managed to keep up with them. Maybe I am getting the hang of this swimming business.....

I've moved my blog

2006-06-11T23:01:00.000-07:00

I have moved my blog to a new site. I think it looks better - let me know what you think.
Click on the title above or th elink below to get there.
Cheers, John

New Web Site

TEXT

My Great Escape!

2006-06-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

Ever since we moved to San Francisco I have been intrigued by the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. I had often thought that I would like to do it but not being much of a swimmer, I was always put off by the long swim accross the bay. However, last November I gave the lottery a go, and got lucky.
The event is like no other triathlon consisting of a 1.5 mile swim, a 1 Km run to transition, an 18 mile ride and an 8 mile run. It doesn't sound too difficult but in reality it is a very tough course all around.
It all starts with a 5 AM check-in to set up your transition area on Marina Green. Fortunately, Sunday was very mild and there was a beautiful sunrise over the Bay. After we had set up we were bused off to Pier 3 on the Embarcadaro to the ferry that would take us out into the Bay. The ferry left at about 7:20 AM so there was quite a bit of hanging around which most people spent linng up for the porta-potties.
The boat was packed with 1800 athletes; the pros and under 40s were crammed into the lower level, and the over 40s onto the second floor. The boat was manoevered into position just west of the Rock so that we could start at 8 AM. Getting 1800 people off a boat in a matter of minutes is quite a feat. One the horn sounded, the pros hit the water, jumping or diving from the deck. Here are some views of the swim start:

Thirty second later the rest of us were herded through the boat and into the water. In all it must have only been about 5 minutes from the start to when I suddenly found myself leaping into the icing bay water. Well, to be honest it didn't feel that cold. Usually it takes me a few minutes to adjust to the temperature but on Sunday I felt just fine.
I decided to risk taking a cheap waterproof camera with me on the swim. I was a little unsure whether it would work or how I would carry it but I ended up tying it to my zip cord and dragging behind me in the water. Although the quality of pictures is not great, I think that it gives a good idea of the amazing views we had from the water. Once I cleared the shadow of the boat I could see all the major bay landmarks: the Bay Bridge, the City, Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz. It was quite an amazing view. Here is what the Rock looks like from the water:

Initially the swim when quite smoothly. I was using Fort Mason as my direction locator and felt like I was making good progress. Over what must have only been a few minutes, everything changed. The fog rolled in and the wind picked up. Suddenly it was hard to see anything at all.

Fortunately there were plenty of kayaks around to direct us and you could just about make out the shoreline. The wind came in from the west and created some rather large waves which made the swim a major challenge. It felt like every other stroke was met by a large wave bearing down on me. It was noticable how split up we all were. once I got into the swim, it seemed like there were only 2 or 3 people in sight for most of the time.

Still I somehow made good progress through the waves, and before long I could site the finish down by the Marina Yacht Club. A large crowd had gathered to cheer us out of the water and down to the transition area.

The bike ride was a blast. It was a familiar course which made things a little easier in that I thought I knew what to expect. Basically, we rode a series of hills with little flat ground. The course ran up through the Presidio, out to the Legion of Honor, down to Ocean Beach with a loop though Golden Gate Park and back. It was hard and fast.

To be honest I had been dreading the run almost as much as the swim. Again it was realitively short at 8 miles but the course had a few major challenges. The first was a long climb up the stairs that run from the Warming Hut to the Golden Gate Bride, the second was a run up and down Baker Beach on the sand, and the third was the climb up the Sand Ladder from Baker Beach. This combined with more hills and some very narrow and congested trials made for an exhausting but exhilerating run. In many ways the run was a lot of fun as I got to see a number of my team mates along the way including Cesar, George, Victoria, Michelle and Coach Wayne. Also, the spectators had much more of an impact. I was wearing my IronTeam jersey so I got an enormous amount of support along the way. In addition to Raj, there must have been 15-20 of our team out around the course cheering us along. On top of that, there were a quite a few people from TNT teams around the country with who we exchanged "GO TEAM!" along the way.
In the end, I had a good run and finished strong which is just as well as it is less than 3 months to IronMan Canada. Here I am in the finishing straight:

My finish time was 3 hours and 11 minutes; the swim took 50 minutes, the bike 1 hour 2 mins and the run, 1 hour 7 mins.
Overall, I was happy with my performance. Most importantly, though, was the sense of accomplishment from having completed one of the classic San Francisco sporting events - one that I thought that I would never be capable of doing. Here is to hoping that I can get to do it all again next year!

Escape from Alcatraz

2006-05-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

Coming to a TV near you soon.... next Sunday, June 4, I will be competing in the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. The EFA triathlon is a major event with approximately 1800 athletes, many of them professionals, throwing themselves off a boat and into the bay to swim from Alcatraz to Marina Green. After that we get to cycle to Golden Gate Park and back, and finish off with a run to Baker Beach. Part of the run involves running along the beach and up the infamous sand ladder. However, the swim is the most daunting part for me as it will be the longest distance, 1.5 miles, that I have done in a competition. Also, rather than easing my way into the cold water, I will be jumping straight in from the boat along with hundreds of others. The Bay is currently around 54 deg which is rather refreshing. The big unknown with the swim is the current which can be a big help or a big pain and will make or break the day! I am trying to find out which station it will be showing on so stay tuned for more information. Maybe I will be on the telly!

Fundraising Update

2006-05-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

The good news is that I have raised $6500 to date, and that our team total is now over $400,000.

The not so good news is that I still have to raise at least $1000 more, and have run out of steam. So if any one has any exciting ideas or would like to make a donation (there is a link at the top right hand of the page), please let me know! The money will be going to help fund the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. One of their major functions is to provide funding for research into finding new treatments for leukemias and lymphomas. If you want to find out more about their activities check out this link:

http://www.leukemia-lymphoma.org/hm_lls

Thanks! John

UVAS Triathlon

2006-05-22T13:35:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I participated in my second proper triathlon of the year at the UVAS 14th annual south bay triathlon. This was held by a reservoir near Morgan Hill which necessitated me getting up at 4 AM to travel down to the event. It was made harder as we had had a fun night out bowling with Chuck and Karen at Presidio Bowling - check it out - it has a kind of dated eighties feel to it and they serve beer and deep fried foods - perfect for a nice healthy night out.
There were about 600 people taking part in the triathlon with 87 in my age group (40-44). The swim was a little more enjoyable than before with the water temperature being higher than the air temperature. I swam the 0.75 miles in 26 mins, a slightly faster pace than my previous open water race at Wildflower (0.9 miles in 32 mins) but very slow compared to the winner who did it in 14 minutes! The transition to the bike was quick and efficient and I was out on the 15 mile course in about 5 minutes (no splits were provided). As it was a short ride, I pushed hard along most of the course keeping my speed up over 20 mph for most of the time. I had some fun passing and being over taken by 3 other guys at numerous times over the course - I think that they must have thought we were racing or something. The ride was slowed a little by the weather as it rained for most of the morning - this was weird as it rarely rains in May and we were in the South Bay area. I completed the ride in 52 minutes according to the race results with an average speed of 18.2 mph. In contrast my bike computer indicated that I did it in 45 minutes at an average speed of over 20 mph - I cannot explain the difference - I know that I rode faster than 18.2 mph as I did a ride at that speed the day before at an easier pace. Not much I can do about it. I took the 5 mile run easier as I am still recovering from my calf injury - this felt a little tight for most of the run and was quite uncomfortable afterwards. My run time was 38 minutes - 7:40 minute miles.
Upon reflection, I am not sure if I would do this event again. It was a hike to get there from SF and not worth splashing out for a hotel for. Although the event was run reasonably well, it didn't have much of an atmosphere but that could have been the result of the rain. One interesting aspect was that they gave you a beer with your post-tri food. A suprising number of people indulged considering that we ate at about 10:30 AM.

Calf Update

2006-05-15T13:45:00.000-07:00

Many of you will have heard me moaning on about my calf over the last few weeks. So I am sure that you will be nearly as pleased as I am to hear that I am back running again. I had run for the first time in several weeks at Wildflower last week which went reasonably well. After that my coach suggested that I rested it for another week and substitute my runs with pool running. If you have ever tried pool running you will know how incredibly boring it is. There is not a lot you can do while you creep from poolside-to-poolside other than day dream.
The plan for last Sundays workout included a one hour swim in Aquatic Park followed by a 2.5 hour run. I knew that I couldn't just jump back into things full on so I planned to run for an hour and see how things felt, and maybe run for another 30 minutes or so after that. As it turned out, I headed out with John, Kim, George and Sussi and managed to hold a reasonable pace, although we let George go at the first hill. The course included running up from Fort Point and down to Baker Beach where we had to endure the nudist (no they were not attractive), and the sand stairs. The latter is a very steep sand bank with some logs pretending to be steps. The only way up is to walk it. This was an interesting experience as it is part of the Escape for Alcatraz course which I will be doing in early June. Jenny, who I ran the second half of the course with, told me that her tri club practices on these by running up them with a backpack full of sand. Apparently it makes the race seem relatively easy. After completing 1.5 hours of running with the group I still felt good, so I decided to push it a little further to complete about 13 miles in 2 hours - all without any discomfort in my calf.
One of the key parts of my recovery has been the deep tissue massage therapy that I have been getting from Jenny at PSOAS. Without this I think that I would still be hobbling around. I would strongly recommend her if you need any body work.

Wildflower

2006-05-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of weeks I have been recovering from a minor calf strain that I sustained while I was out on an easy short run. The injury was a flare up of an old skiing injury that I acquired about 4 years ago. It had been fine for the last year but the stress of constant training took its toll. Also, it sounds like I had not been keeping up with my nutrition which contributed to the problem. So for the last 2 weeks I have not run while my leg recovered. To help things along I have also had several deep tissue massage sessions at PSOAS, and have been icing and stretching.
So with this behind me I headed down to the annual Wildflower event with Graeme to participate in an olympic distance triathlon (1.5 km swim, 40 km bike and 10 km run). Wildflower is a huge triathlon festival held in the middle of nowhere (40 miles SW of King City) at Lake San Antonio. Being about 1/2 way between SF and LA it attracts thousands of athletes from all over the state as well as many from all over the US and beyond. In addition to the olympic distance there is also a 1/2 ironman and a mountain bike event. In all, over 6000 athletes compete in events over the weekend.
Originally, I had also entered the 1/2 ironman in a relay team so that I could get some additional swim experience but we lost our runner to knee surgery last week, and I ended up being the only member of the team at the event. Fortunately, I had also entered the olympic distance as a secondary event just to get some more race experience. Graeme had also entered the olympic event as part of a TNT team.
Since our last trip to Lake San Antonio a few weeks ago, things had warmed up. Instead of rain and fog, we were exposed to temperatures in the 90s which is a bit of a shock to the system after the long wet winter that we have had in SF this year - not that we ever get temperatures in the 90s. Still, the area was still green and lush, and there were plenty of wildflowers in bloom which made for a pleasant environment.
As there were over 2500 people competing in the olympic event, the start was staggered. Every 5 minutes a wave of athletes would entered the water for the 1.5 km swim, each wave having a different coloured swim cap - mine was yellow! My group, male 40-44, started in two waves at 9:45 and 9:50 with me entering the water in the second wave with about 100 other guys. Swim starts can be rather intimidating with everyone trying to find their pace among the crowd, and it is not unusual to get beaten about a bit. I purposely headed to the far right side of the pack to minimize this but I still ended up colliding with some of the slower swimmers in my path. The swim course was a rectangle marked by bouys. The other challenge I have with swimming is keeping a straight line but I found that by swimming on the right side of the group, I stayed closer to the line and did not drift to the left due to the mass of swimmers in my way. The swim went reasonably smoothly. A couple of times we were caught up with by the fast swimmers from one of the groups behind. The first I usually knew about this was when one of them hit my feet - this is annoying as it breaks your rhythm and my natural inclination is to look back to see what is going on. Still, I survived and managed to complete the swim in 32 minutes.
From the swim I ran into the transition area to pull off my wetsuit and put on my cycling gear. Once we had mounted our bike, we were greated by a steep mile long hill that took us up to the main part of the park. The bike course was a series of hills with little flat ground. I decided that I would do most of my work on the bike to compensate for an anticipated slow run. The upside of being a slower swimmer is that you get to overtake many more people on the bike. All of the competitors have their age written on their calfs so you can see who you are overtaking. I enjoy seeing the ages go down as the ride progresses. By the end, I had started to catch up with some of the 20 somethings - most satisfying. I completed the ride in 1:21 with an average speed of 18.3 mph which was reasonable considering the difficulty of the course.
On to the run which I was feeling a little anxious about. My calf felt good but I had not run for 2 weeks so I was determined to take it easy. Also by now it had got rather hot which made things very uncomfortable. So I headed off along the lake shore at a steady easy running pace hoping that nothing would go astray. As the run progressed I settled into my pace and tried to focus on keeping my strides short and my cadence up. The middle of the run was basically a long steady hill on tarmac which made the heat more intense. Fortunately, at the water stops they were spraying us with water which gave some brief relief from the oppressive heat.
The last section of the run was a mile long downhill section. Potentially, this was the most dangerous part of the whole event for me so I cut my stride length and focussed on keeping my speed consistent. It worked and I got to the bottom without any drama, and entered the finishing cute to hear my name over the PA. After crossing the finishing line I had a medal thrust upon me, a wet towel slapped over my head, and my timing chip removed all in a matter of seconds. Then I was spat out into the post-run area with a drink in hand where I waited for Graeme to finish. I look at my watch and registered that I had finished in 2:50 - I had set myself a goal of sub-3 hours so I was pleased with this. After a quick calculation, I realised that I had done the run in 8 minute miles rather than the 9 - 9.5 minute miles that I had planned - my leg felt good.
Graeme finished about 30 minutes later as his wave had started after mine. He put in an impressive 3:08. Hopefully, this will encourage him to do another event later this year.

Vienna 2

2006-04-29T15:36:00.000-07:00

No exciting developments here in Vienna. However I feel the need to address a couple of classic Austrian stereotypes:
1) Yes, as you can see in exhibit 1, some of the locals do dress strangely.

2) No, the Danube is not blue. In fact is a rather muddy looking river.

Also, I wanted to share this strange image from the Gilead stand at the conference. I am guessing that it is a liver but who knows. Please send you thoughts to john.martin@gilead.com. I am sure that he would love to hear from you.

The last couple of days have been busy which has made it hard to train. The swimming pool has been filled but the staff are very insistent that I cannot use it until May 1st - the day I leave. Another stereotype comes to mind...

Vienna I

2006-04-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

After an early start from Fraser's place, I made it here without any problems. The hotel, a Hilton, is based by the Danube in a residential area 5 miles or so out of the city and several miles from the conference centre. It is one of those bland hotels that is in serious need of updating. Fortunately, it has wifi, but much to my despair, the pool is empty, and there are no plans to fill it anytime soon. I asked the staff where I could swim, and they suggested the jacuzzi. Not really what I was planning on doing. Anyhow, there is a small gym with a bike and rowing machine so all is not lost.
I have never been to Vienna before and apart from the Sigmund Freud and the Mozart connections, I don't really know much about it. After spending the afternoon wandering around the city, I don't really know much more. Here is a random picture from downtown Vienna. It is very germanic but also reminded me a little of Amsterdam and Paris in parts. There were a lot of tourists. I managed to get a little lost on the trams and ended up several miles off course. Naturally it had to rain when I decided to get off and try to retrace my steps. The conference starts up properly tomorrow.

Vienna Bound

2006-04-21T22:27:00.000-07:00

Next week will find me in Vienna attending a conference on liver disease. It is the first time that I have travelled far since starting this crazy training program. I have purposely avoided travelling so that I can concentrate on my training. However, it was hard to turn this job down. The conference, an annual event which I have been to for the last 5 or 6 years, rotates to a different european city each year. From a business perspective it is a great opportunity for me to network, and keep up with the field. Usually it is also a chance to catch up with a bunch of friends but it seems like few of them will be there this year.
So my challenge for next week is keeping up with my training program. It looks like my hotel has a gym and a pool so I am reasonably optimistic about it. I just have to get over the jet lag.
I have one other challenge this week - an old skiing injury has been playing up. Basically this means that I am not running for a week as I let it settle down. It is an odd injury in that it doesn't stop me from cycling. It was probably the result of me being a little overtired following the 1/2 IronMan the other weekend, and maybe, based on the results of a nutritional assessment that I had in the week, because I am a little undernourished. It seems like I am not getting enough protein into my diet which combined with the slow recovery could have exaccerbated my leg. Looks like I will be eating a lot of fish in the coming weeks. Let's hope that I don't get mercury poisoning as a result.

1/2 IronMan Weekend 2

2006-04-10T19:05:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Graeme, Andrew and I escaped from the city and drove down 101 to Lake San Antonio. The ride was uneventful other than for a pit stop at Denny's in King City where I loaded up with fish and chips, onion rings and a vanilla milkshake in preparation for Saturday's big event. King City was one of the places that we had camped last summer on the AIDS ride.
As expected it had started to rain, and by the time we got to the camp site things were looking gloomy. Fortunately, we found a decent spot to camp in near some of the IronTeam who had established quite a nice little set up. I quickly realised that I was out of my league when it came to camping. Apart from my tri gear, all I had bought was a tent (borrowed from Brandon), a sleeping bag and food. Everyone else had come better prepared. Most had larger tents with annexes, camping chairs, and cooking stations. One team had even brought a generator and a TV. It is hard to believe that they could not go without TV for the weekend.
I had a very restless night. For some reason, I do not sleep very well when I am camping. The rain didn't help as I was worried about touching the sides of the tent and letting water in. Also, we had to get up at 5:30 which played on my mind a little.
Come 5:30 AM it seemed like most people were already up and about. It was wet but the rain had stopped. It was odd eating breakfast standing in the dark by my car. I had pre-prepared a bowl of oatmeal overnight which tasted rather good.
By 6:15 we had driven down to the lakeside to get our gear sorted out and our transition stations set up. As it became lighter it also became apparent that the lake was covered in fog. Obviously this was a big problem as nobody could see where we were going to be swimming. After some discussion, our coach Tom declared that we would swim a modified course consisting of four shorter loops. This was a little disapointing in that the distance turned out to be a little shorter than the 1.2 miles that were originally planned.

The lake was cold but nowhere near as cold as the Bay. It only took a few minutes to adjust to adjust to the temperature, afterwhich it felt fine. The swim went well. As the course was shorter there were a lot more turns to negotiate and more jossling to contend with which was fine by me as I need to get used to this. After four loops, I headed back to the shore and over to the bike transition.
The bike ride was a tough but scenic 56 miles. As we climbed out of the valley the fog lifted and the sun came out. It was great to see blue sky after so many weeks of rain. The course was rather hilly. The first 2/3rds were made up of rolling hills over which I managed to keep an average speed of 17 mph. The latter part of the ride was more challenging. At about mile 40 we encountered 'Old Nasty', a notorious hill, with a false top. In fact it had two false tops which nobody had warned me about. The hills took their toll on my overall speed which dropped to 16 mph. Overall, I completed the bike course in 3 hours 25 minutes.
The run was something else. It started off well with the first couple of miles around the edge of the lake but got tougher as we headed inland and up onto some rain drenched meadows. Some of the hills were just too steep to run up. However, apart from a couple of short walks, I managed to keep running at a steady sub-10 minute mile pace. After about 9 miles we were back on the road running down a long hill only to have to turn around and run back up it again. The run was rather lonely as I only saw one other runner until we rejoined the road. For some reason I kept thinking about mountain lions.
I completed the run in 2 hours 5 minutes, a little under 10 minutes per mile, which I was extremely happy about considering how hard the course was.
In all, the course took about 6 hours 20 minutes with transitions. I came in 9th out of the 100 or so of us that participated. Overall, I am quite pleased with how things went especially as this is supposed to be one of the hardest 1/2 Ironman courses in the country.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful. On Sunday we manned a waterstop for another TNT team who were running a 1/2 marathon in preparation for the Wildflower in a few weeks time. It was quite a hoot. Apparently we could be heard for some way off.

1/2 IronMan Weekend

2006-04-07T11:14:00.000-07:00

I am currently preparing to leave for a weekend of camping in the rain so that I can participate in a 1/2 IronMan (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride and 13.1 mile run). I am working my way through an enormous list of things that I will need to get me through the weekend which is rapidly filling up the car. I am not too sure how I am going to get Graeme and all of his gear in the car, let alone Andrew who is coming along as a volunteer for the weekend. It will be a cosy 3-4 hour ride to the camp site.
This is our 1/2 way to IronMan weekend where we get to test out some of our race day strategies in preparation for the main event in August. It will be a completely new experience for me. Although I have cycled and ran these distances before, I have never swam so far in one go. The course is also supposed to be one of the toughest around (Wildflower long course), and there is a possibility of rain- probably overnight, so camping will be fun! The action starts at 7 AM tomorrow morning when we jump off the dock into Lake San Antonio (http://www.lakesanantonio.net/). Depending on how tough the course is, I am hoping to get around it in 6-7 hours. DId I mention that we will be camping in the rain?

24 Weeks of Training

2006-03-30T17:57:00.000-08:00

This is the 24th week of our training program so I thought that it would be fun to review my training log and generate some statistics. Since starting the program I have done the following:
1) 227 training sessions (47 bike rides, 82 runs, 65 swimming sessions and 33 core training sessions)
2) trained for over 210 hours (8.75 days)
3) rode 1181 miles
4) ran 405 miles
3) swam 96000 yards (60 miles)
On average, I have trained 6 days a week, up to 3 times a day, for 10-12 hours/week. This will increase over the coming months as we ramp up the mileage.

75% and climbing

2006-03-26T23:36:00.000-08:00

After last weekend's hellacious training sessions, we got to have a recovery week. Although we still trained six days this week the intensity of our training was lighter and the duration shorter. I felt fine early in the week but the weekend caught up with me later in the week. Next week we are back on the pyramid.
This week also saw another fundraising landmark with my total reaching $5700 or 76% of my goal. Thanks again to you all who have supported me.

What did you do this weekend?

2006-03-19T20:43:00.000-08:00

This was my training program for the weekend.

Saturday (Treasure Island):
45 minute swim in the Bay
45 minutes of run drills
45 minutes of spinning
45 minutes of road cycling
45 minutes hill repeats (this was one mean hill - I thought that I was going to throw up at least twice)
45 minutes of core training
45 minutes of spinning (including lots of single leg exercises)

We were supported by Raj's sister, Karmjit and her family, Raj, Jeevan and Simran, who were visiting from Toronto. It was great to be cheered on my Jeevan and Simran who seemed to enjoy their visit to Treasure Island despite the lack of treasure.

Sunday (San Jose):
One hour swimming
One hour run
One hour cycle
30 minutes circuit training
30 minutes spin
30 minutes running
30 minutes spin
One hour pool running and cool down.

Basically, we did 5-6 hours of exercise each day. One of the major objectives of the weekend was to ensure that we were adequate nourished and maintained a good electrolyte balance. I have been experimenting with a whole range of sports drinks over the last couple of months. However, my options boiled down to two products that are designed for endurance events: Sustained Energy and Perpetuem. Both products can be mixed up into concentrated drinks that can last for up to 5 or 6 hours which is really useful when you are cycling a century. They have several other advantages over your average sports drink. One of the major differences is that they contain protein which is important for long workouts in that you need to ingest protein otherwise you might end up using your muslces as fuel. Anyhow, I gave up on Sustained Energy last week as it was making me feel sick, and spent this weekend evaluating Perpetuem. Fortunately, I tolerated it well - many people get GI upsets. So it looks like it will be my energy drink of choice. Also I have fallen in love with peanut butter and honey sandwiches which taste amazing when you are working out hard.

Next stop a half-IronMan (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile cycle and 13.1 mile run) on April 8.

Glucosamine for Knee Pain

2006-03-09T16:42:00.000-08:00

Like many people I have periodically suffered from knee pain, which I usually attribute to increased wear and tear from running. Fortunately, I have observed over time that my painful knees tend to resolve on their own regardless of whether I do anything about them or not. On a couple of occasions I have tried supplementation with glucosamine but I could never be sure whether the subsequent resolution of my knee pain was a result of treatment or just natural resolution. So I was interested to see some new research published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week.
The study by Clegg et al was a randomized, placebo- and celecoxib-controlled (Celebrex) trial of 1500 mg of glucosamine hydrochloride daily, 1200 mg of chondroitin sulfate daily, or the two in combination. The study did not find a difference between the three supplement groups and placebo. However, there was a significantly greater response seen in the celecoxib group compared to placebo. In an editorial, Hochberg notes that the findings are not surprising and consistent with a meta-analysis of eight randomized trials of glucosamine hydrochloride or sulfate. Although there are other studies to the contrary that demonstrate that glucosamine sulfate and chondroitin sulfate have resulted in improved function in patients with arthritis of the knee. So what does this all mean? Hochberg recommends that patients with symptomatic osteoarthritis of the knee should try treatment with glucosamine sulfate and chondroitin sulfate for three months to establish if there are any benefits. He also notes that there is no evidence that these agents prevent the formation of osteoarthritis in healthy persons or that they are effective in persons with knee pain and normal radiographs. So unless you have been diagnosed with osteoarthritis then I would save your money.
The big problem that I have with nutritional supplements is that they are not subjected to the same standards as regular drugs in terms of determining whether they are safe and efficacious, and are not reviewed by the FDA before they are marketed. In addition, many are not manufactured to the same standards as regular drugs, so it is not unusual to find that there is a lot of variability in the contents of products. So be careful what you buy. If you do buy supplements then try to find a company that adheres to good manufacturing practices.

$5000 and climbing

2006-03-03T16:53:00.000-08:00

This week saw my fundraising total cross the $5000 mark. As of today, I am at $5400 which leaves just another $2100 until I hit my target. Considering that I am only about half way through the training program, I am rather pleased. Thank you all who made this possible. In fact, 42 of you have sponsored me to date with an average donation of $128.57.
I also heard that our team fundraising total is now over $250,000 and that we are looking good for a grand total of $500,000.

This weekend we will be cycling 55 miles and running 3-4 miles on Saturday, and on Sunday we get to swim in Aquatic Park for an hour be followed by a 100 minute run. Bring it on!

Have a great weekend.

Ben Nevis and Beyond

2006-02-26T22:04:00.000-08:00

We are now in the build phase of our training program which consists of four week training cycles of increasing duration. Each week there is an increase in the mileage and duration of each activity until the fourth week when we have what is called a recovery week where we take things a little easier. The next cycle starts the following week with another step up. This week was supposed to be a recovery week. However, at times it didn't feel much like one. On Saturday we set off for a ride in the hills around Woodside, south of San Francisco. Our program called for a 2 hour hilly ride followed by a 30 minute trail ride. Our ride captain had other ideas. He offered us an enticing alternative 50 mile ride over the hills to the coast and back which most of the group opted to do. Well, that was until we tackled the first hill. After a 40 minute climb up Old La Honda Rd, most of the group decided that they would take the shorter route avoiding any further climbs. About 12 of us pushed on. The nice thing about big climbs is that you usually get a good decent to look forward to. This was no exception. The decent to the coast seemed endless depsite us maintaining an average speed over 25 mph. At one point, I managed to break 40 mph.
In the cycling world, what goes down usually has to go back up, and that is where the fun started. It took an hour at an average speed of about 6 mph to get back up to the top of the ridge. The road was essentially a series of endless switchbacks that climbed ahead of us for a far as you could see. It was also a single lane in a poor state of repair. Fortunately traffic was light which is just as well. After about 30 minutes my back started to ache. By 45 minutes I was ready to get off my bike and lay on my back but I foolishly battled on.
In all we climbed over 4500 feet. To help put this into perspective, Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the UK, is about 4400 feet high. Mt Diablo, the tallest mountain in the Bay Area is about 3800 feet. Check out the profile of the ride above.

Double-brick anyone?

2006-02-20T14:03:00.000-08:00

Sunday's coached training session was a landmark in our training program. The double-brick is a step towards the infamous triple brick which we will undertake in the summer. A brick, if you are wondering, is a bike ride followed by a run. A double-brick is a ride-run-ride-run session. To add to the fun, we had to get ourselves out to Danville for a 08:00 start. Never having been to Danville, nor having any idea where it was, meant that I had to get myself out of bed at 6 AM the morning after my birthday party. For some reason nobody seemed to want to go home on Saturday night despite professing to that the fact that they usually went to bed at 10 PM. Anyhow, I didn't feel too bad getting up which I put down to the extra ice cream that I had in preparation.
Danville, is a quiet suburban town on the East Bay a little west of Mt Diablo. It is cold there. The temperature was at least 10 deg F lower that it was when I left San Francisco which made for a rather chilly ride. Still, the surrounding countryside is rather pretty and the roads were quiet which made for a good ride. I remained a little cold for the whole ride as we were told to keep our pace down at 15 mph to simulate a long ride. Riding slower meant that my heart rate was below 100 bpm and I didn't generate any additional heat. After the first ride, we quickly tranisitioned into our running gear and hit the Iron Horse trail for a 40 minute run. Foolishly I hooked up with three of the fastest runners in the team and ended up running a hard 5 miles. My heart rate jumped from sub-100 to the low 140s where it stayed for the duration of the run. I vowed to ease off for the next run. The run was followed by an 80 minute spinning session which we did in the carpark on an Albertson's. Spinning is no easy option. It is like cycling with no stop signs or downhills. It has added hazzards such as one-legged cycling, which is supposed to build power, and invisible hills. The final run was quite nice in comparison. I hit the trail on my own for the first 20 minutes and hooked up with John G and Kim for the return leg. We ran maybe 1/2 min/mile slower that the way out which made all of the difference.
In all the session lasted about 5 hours and I felt pretty good at the end of it. My only concern was that I felt like I couldn't drink anymore sports drinks. I have been experimenting with a variety of drinks. The one that I used the most on Sunday was Sustained Energy which is widely used by triathletes. It has the advantage of being very calorific, and you can mix it up to give you 1000 cals in 750 mls. The downside is that it has the consistency of, and tastes like wallpaper paste. After drinking 1.5 litres of this, my stomach was telling me no more!

Half way to $7500!

2006-02-13T22:54:00.000-08:00

This has been a good week for my fundraising efforts. I am pleased to announce that I have passed the 50% mark to reach $4,000. I was hoping to make this sum by the end of February but am relieved that it has come a little early. Many thanks to all of you that have made a donation. In fact, 32 people have sponsored me to date. Now, I just need another 25 to 30 people to help me get to my target of $7500.

San Francisco Half Marathon

2006-02-05T21:44:00.000-08:00

Sunday February 5th, was not only the date for the Superbowl but also the San Francisco half marathon. This year Graeme and I ran it with Raj and Brandon who have done this on numerous occasions. The conditions were perfect. I had a reasonable run managing to keep a consistent rate of 8 minutes/mile, and finishing in 1 hour 44 mins. This was slightly faster than my last 1/2 marathon which I did last summer. Other than sore quads, I recovered from the event quite quickly. After a rest day on Monday, I had a hard pool session (2100 m) and I felt no ill effects.

On another note, I heard that I got a place in the escape from Alcatraz triathlon which is being held on June 4th. I had given up hope on this but my name was pulled on the final round of the lottery. It must be my lucky year as I had also been selected for the London Marathon (I have defered this until 2007). The escape from Alcatraz tri is famous for the 1.5 mile swim from Alcatraz. This isn't an easy task as the water is cold and choppy and there are strong currents. It is no suprise that few people ever managed to escape from the prison by swimming.

Pandemic Influenza

2006-02-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

I spent Wednesday and Thursday of last week in DC at a conference on pandemic flu. To say the least, this was a fascinating but sobering experience. I was there because I have been asked to coordinate a supplemental publication based on the meeting which will be published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases later this year. One of the bonuses of this project was that I could coop the help of several of my friends who are also freelance medical writers, which made it quiite a social event.
The objective of the meeting was to generate recommendations for how state and local authorities could prepare for an influenza pandemic. It may not sound that interesting on the surface but it starts to get rather frightening when you start to realise the impact that a severe pandemic would have on all of us.
There were three pandemics in the 20th century (1918, 1957 and 1968). Of these the 1918 pandemic was the worst resulting in between 50 and 100 million deaths wordwide. To put that in context, approximately 40 million people have died from AIDS in the last 2 decades. The world population has grown by 3 times since 1918, so if the same type of pandemic occurred today, we might expect to see 180-360 million deaths.
What is particularly worrying about pandemic flu is that it can result in high death rates in otherwise healthy people. In contrast, seasonal influenza, which occurs every winter, kills about 1 million people worldwide but many of these are old.
The thing that really struck me was not that a pandemic could kill a lot of people but that it would have a devistating effect on all of us due to the disruption that it would cause. It is likely that every aspect of our society would be impacted by the large numbers of people that fell ill. Hospitals would be overwhelmed, and businesses would either grind to a halt or only operate at a greatly reduced level. The supply lines for industry would be thrown into chaos. Travel would be prohibited. Foods and medical supplies would be limited. We would not be able to rely on others to come to our aid as the the whole world would be similarly affected.
There is some hope! An infrastructure is being implemented to allow for the rapid manufacture of vaccines that would help protect at least some of the population. Antiviral drugs are being stockpiled which might help contain an outbreak or protect essential workers. However, I think that we all need to identify what we need to do to ensure that we are prepared to ride out the worst of it. At a minimum, I will be adding to our earthquake kit to ensure that we have enough food for at least 2 weeks. There is a lot information available if you want to read up on this. I would suggest starting at http://pandemicflu.gov/general/.

The Louie Triathlon

2006-01-23T10:26:00.000-08:00

Sunday saw me competing in my first Olympic distance triathlon (0.9 mile swim, 26 mile bike and 6 mile run) at the 5th annual Louie Triathlon which was held on Treasure Island. This is held in memory of Louie Bonpua who managed to complete Ironman Canada despite having active leukemia. Similar to our last triathlon on Treasure Island, this was a combined North and South Bay Team event with over 100 people participating. Unlike our last outing to Treasure Island a couple of weeks ago, when it rained on us non-stop for 4 hours, this time the weather was perfect.

Once again, I am grateful to Raj for the photography. I am impressed at how quickly she is improving as a sports photographer.

So here is my report. As I mentioned, the weather was fabulous but somebody had forgotten to turn on the water heaters so the bay was bloody cold! Here I am at the start waiting for my wave to go in. Note the TV camera - there were two local stations covering the event, which was reported on the 10 O'clock news later that day.

The swim consisted of three circuits of a triangular course around the bay. Despite the cold, I managed to swim the entire course without stopping which is the furthest I have ever swum continuously in open water. I have been experimenting with strategies to combat the cold. One was to use ear plugs so that I don't get dizzy from the cold water getting into my ears. The other was to wear neoprene booties so that my feet don't get so cold. This is a big problem for me as it is no fun running on numb feet. The ear plugs worked out quite nicely but the boots didn't seem to make much difference.

This course is a little different from most in that we had to climb a long steep set of stairs to get off the beach and then run 1/2 mile to the transition area which is what I am doing in the above picture.

The bike course was flat but technical. We had to do six laps of the course which had an endless number of turns resulting in a lot of speeding up and slowing down. There was also some local traffic which added to the challenge. Still, this is my strongest discipline and I had a lot of fun chasing down the other riders.

And finally the run, which consisted on four laps of a 1.5 mile course. The feeling finally returned to my feet after a couple of miles. Here I am on the finishing straight!

Overall, it took me 2 hours and 56 mins. I am not sure of my splits as my bike computer stopped recording. However, I estimate that it took me about 45 mins for the swim, 1:20 for the bike and about 45 mins for the run. As the start was staggered, I am not sure where I came in overall, but it was somewhere in the first 25%. Hopefully, we will get a breakdown from our coaches. It is not that I am competitive or anything.....

Thanks again for all of you support. If you haven't done so already, please consider sponsoring me. I need to raise at least $4000 by the end of February.

This is why I work from home.

2006-01-17T18:15:00.000-08:00

Every now and again I realise that working for myself from home was one of the smartest things that I have done in a long time (that and marrying Raj). I had a training session in the pool today which went fine. However, swimming laps in the pool is far from interesting. So instead of doing my run on the treadmill at the gym I drove down to Ocean Beach and ran along the ocean front. I am sure that I couldn't do this sort of thing if I still worked inside an evil corporation.
At first I wasn't sure if I was going to like being on my own all day but I kind of got used to not having to commute, not having to deal with all of the office politics, and not having to deal with other people's issues. All in all it is a much more civilized way to pass the day. An extra bonus is that I get to see more of Raj as she is usually off at some point during the week. It also allows me to train like a maniac!

New Year Resolutions?

2006-01-05T15:32:00.000-08:00

The New Year came and went without much of a fuss this year. We were battered by a series of storms which have now passed, and have been replaced by some rather nice'n mild weather. I caught up with some of my team at the track last night and was suprised to hear how many had taken a break from training over the holidays. Some were paying the price as our coach put us through a short but tough speed session on the track. Other stuck to the plan, fearing, like me, that if you miss too many sessions then it will be difficult to keep up as the training builds over the coming months.
Taking up more exercise is supposed to be one of the three most common New Year resolutions. The other two are giving up smoking and dieting. Sadly, most people fail miserably at all three within a very short time. Just go to a gym this week and see how many new people there are - most will not be there next month. My only advise on this is that you want to exercise more regularly, then you need to find something to train for. It doesn't have to be an IronMan, it could be something as simple as entering a 3-mile fun run in a couple of months time. Without a focus, regular exercise can be hard to sustain.
So what about my New Year resolutions....well, the only major changes I made were implemented several months ago so they are not really new. But, I do intend to keep them up for this year. Apart from all the training, I gave up caffeine a couple of months ago which was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Although there is caffeine in many places that you might not expect, such as chocolate and GU, so I am occassionally exposed to it. This has been quite beneficial in that I do feel less stressed overall. In addition, I decided to cut back on alcohol. This may be a bit of a shock, but I really haven't missed it. I do still have the occassional glass of wine if we go out but I am rarely drinking at home. What I find odd is that I don't miss it, and when I do drink, I don't feel like drinking a lot. We will see if it lasts!

Let it rain!

2005-12-28T13:35:00.000-08:00

With the holiday season came our rainy season. We have been rather lucky to date with the weather and have not really had to make any accommodations for it. However, that all changed over the last couple of weeks as we have been hit by a series of heavy rainstorms. The picture of the lemon tree sums it up for me. The winters in Northern California are relatively mild in comparison to the UK. In fact it is so mild that we can grow our own lemons. Still it rains, and when it does, it can be heavy. This has made training a little more challenging. If it rains hard, I can cycle on my trainer in the garage, and running in the rain is OK so long as it is not too heavy. Swimming sounds like it would be the least affected, but in reality is probably the hardest hit in that I have to cycle to the pool. So far, I have only had one major soaking but I am sure that there are more to come.
On a more upbeat note, I have completed 12 weeks of training and met my first fundraising goal of $1000. The next goal is $3500 by the end of February, so I will be in touch soon!

92 g of Protein/day

2005-12-13T15:32:00.000-08:00

I think that I might have previously mentioned that I was undergoing a nutritional assessment so that I can ensure that I am in good nutritional shape for my training program. This consisted of two visits to a specialist clinic in Walnut Creek where they I supplied blood, urine and sputum samples, completed a bunch of questionnaires and was wired up to a bioimpedence device. I got the results of the assessment this week which were quite interesting. One of the most suprising findings was that my basal metabolic rate was lower than expected. Basically, this tells you the amount of energy that you need if you were to sit around and do nothing all day. Think of it as a typical day in the office. Anyhow, my BMR is about 1800 cals, 200-300 less than was expected for my size. The information is really important in that I will use this plus the energy that I expend during training to figure out how much to eat every day. For example I burn up 1100 cals during a 2 hour training session today (my groovy Polar heart rate monitor calculates this for me), so I need to eat 2900 cals if I don't want to waste away.
Another important piece of info that I obtained, was that I need to eat about 92g of protein/day to ensure that I can repair and build new muscle. This isn't that easy to do. I have started supplementing my diet with protein shakes using whey protien. However a scoop of whey protien only has 14g of protein.
As you may be able to tell, I am becoming a little obsessive about this! It has made me realise that I really don't have much idea about what I am putting into my mouth everyday. Who knew that a slice of wholemeal bread has 5g of protein? I see a steep learning curve ahead!

Treasure Island Sprint Triathlon

2005-12-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

On Sunday we participated in the first triathlon of our program. TNT set up what was advertised as a Sprint Triathlon on Treasure Island (no there isn't any) for the South and North Bay Ironteams. It was a beautiful cold (for SF) winter day. The event was supposed to be a 600m swim, 12 mile ride and 3 mile run. In reality it turned out to be a 1000m swim with a 1/2 run to the transition area and then a 12 mile ride and 3 mile run. Our coach thought that it was better we didn't know how long the swim was as it might freak some of us out! Anyhow, I was pleased with my performance. The water was rather cold but you get numb to it after a couple of minutes. The start was a bit scary in that you are surrounded by the hectic random movement of other swimmers limbs. I took a few hits but overall, I survived unscathed. The swim did feel long at the time but I managed to swim both laps of the course without stopping once! Getting out of the water was fun as I was mildly dizzy. It didn't help that we had to climb a large ladder to get off the beach and run 1/2 mile to the transition area in our wet suits (see top picture).
The transition went well and I was off on my bike pretty quickly. Raj estimated that I was about 30th (of about 80) at this stage. The cycle route was flat but had lots of turns which made for a lot of slowing down and speeding up. The ride was uneventful. I managed to pull back quite a few cyclists and was only overtaken once on the three laps of the course. I completed the ride in 38 minute with an average speed of 19 mph.
The transistion to the run was quick and I was off running the two laps of the course. The one big problem that I had with the whole event was that my feet were still rather numb while I was running. This is a strange feeling! It also makes it hard to get into a fluid running style. Despite a reasonable run, I did not feel like I was in my groove until towards the end of the run. Anyhow, I finished comfortably in 9th place! I must admit to be a little proud of myself in that I would have been happy coming in somewhere in the top half of the field.
The training program is clearly effective as I felt fine at the end, and had no aches or pains the following day. However, I did have a nap on Sunday afternoon, although I suspect that this was because we had to get up so early.

A big thanks to Raj and Graeme for coming out to support me and helping with the event.

Does it get better than this?

2005-11-28T11:57:00.000-08:00

In addition to the picture of me on my cycle trainer from our training session last Sunday, I have included the view that I had from my bike. You can understand why find I find training in a gym so boring when you can work out with a view like this. The session was quite a hard one nonetheless. We did three cycles of 20 minutes on the bike followed by a 10 minute run, and topped it off with 45 minutes of core training.

Testicular implants for pets

2005-11-22T07:49:00.000-08:00

The internet is a wonderful thing. It always amazes me how you can start out in one place and end up finding your way to somewhere rather bizzarre. He is a point in case. I was reading the Guardian on-line and ended up at www.neuticles.com. This is a company that produces testicular implants for pets. Apparently, Neuticles allow your pet "to retain his natural look, self esteem and aids in the trauma associated with neutering." Over 100,000 caring pet owners cannot be wrong! Neuticals come is several sizes and models. There is a version made of polyprophylene which cost about $80 / pair and another in silicone which cost from $150 / pair. There are even versions for cats! Be warned they have a US patent so don't try this at home!
The reason why I stumbled on this page was because I was led to the Improbable Research web site (www.improbable.com) by an article in the Guardian about the effect of masterbation on attention (conducted at the University of Pittsburgh). The Improbable research bunch award an annual Ig Noble Prize awards for acheivements that makes you laugh but subsequently makes you think. Neuticles was a recent award winner.
What has this to do with my training? Not a lot but it made me laugh, and then I found myself thinking about how many cats there are in my neighbourhood with artificial testicles.

Aquatic Park - Open Water Swim!

2005-11-20T17:07:00.000-08:00

Today was our second open water swim which was held at Aquatic Park. I am grinning like a maniac because I had already tested the water and determined that it was freezing. One of the exercises of the day was practising mass starts. Although there were only about 50 of us, it was quite an experience with all of us charging into the water at the same time. It is quite challenging trying to swim in amongst so many limbs while maintaining the right direction. At several points the guy behind me managed to swim over me. It was an interesting experience. However, I guess that it will be a little more difficult when we have to start with 2000+ people.

Work - Training Balance

2005-11-16T23:15:00.000-08:00

I spent the last 4 days working at the annual AASLD liver conference in San Francisco where I reviewed the latest data on treatments for chronic hepatitis B. My task was to review all of the new data and put together a summary presentation for a review meeting on Tuesday. I have done this before but there was a lot more information this year which made for some late nights. On top of this I had to train! Saturday wasn't too bad as we had a lecture and only spent an hour spinning but Sunday was something else. After spending 1 hour 45 mins in the pool, we then spent another hour or so on the track doing drills, and then topped it all off with some core training. It was a tough few hours after which I had to scurry off to the conference. I didn't get to see much of Raj which was the hardest bit. Saturday's lecture on nutrition was fascinating. It has been described as the fourth discipline and is clearly an area where I need to do a lot of work. A couple of big take home messages: 1) no artificial sweetners - they are neurotoxins, and 2) it is time to decrease or maybe eliminate caffine from my diet.
Finally, I got a heart rate monitor. More to follow on this once I have figured out how to use it.

One month down, nine to go!

2005-11-07T08:58:00.000-08:00

As I start week 5 of my training, I thought that this might be a good time for a quick bit of reflection on my progress to date. It has been an interesting period of adjustment. It is stating to feel normal to train nearly every day. In fact, it feels odd not to. Today is my rest day and I feel at a bit of a loss. I have made significant progress with my swimming. Previously, I was only swiming up to 200 m at a time however, yesterday I swam for 45 minutes in open water without too much effort. It seems like all those hours in the pool are making a difference. Curiously, I have not lost much weight. I was a little disapointed by this but I have toned up somewhat, and I guess that I developed more muscle and have less body fat than when I started. Raj has commented that I have much bigger shoulders and pecks.
Our training load will build up significantly over the next few weeks. We are on a 4-week cycle where we build up our training volume over three weeks and then have an "easy" week. Things step up noticably at the start of the next cycle (this week!).
I have also made my first fundraising goal of $1000. Thanks to those of you who contributed! I still need to raise another $6500 so please sponsor me if you can.

Barney for Supreme Court

2005-11-03T14:54:00.000-08:00

Hot off the press:
Alito is history. Barney is in.

Source: Steve Bell, The Guardian

Bicycle Trainer

2005-10-30T14:13:00.000-08:00

So some of you heard that I got a bicycle trainer. No, it is not a pair of little wheels to help stabilize me! If you look at the picture you can see that it is a stationary bike trainer. If I master this then I can add the little wheels next week.
I will be seeing a lot of this trainer over the coming months. It is a useful tool for sorting out my riding technique. I have never really paid a lot of attention to cadence (number of revolutions per minute) in the past but I am told that it is now time to (new gear opportunity - cadance monitor!). The trainer helps to get you used to riding at a certain cadance without interruption. I have been practicing riding at 80 to 110 rpm in various gears over the weekend - it can be quite hard and I am starting to miss stop signs and traffic lights. Our coach also has a series of torturous exercises that we have to do using the trainer. The worse is cycling with one leg. If you think that it sounds easy, try it, it is not. The added twist is that you have to keep a very fluid motion going and not stutter. Apparently this helps you get more power out of your cycle strokes.
The pics were taken in our garden and choosen by Raj who is rapidly becoming a sports photographer. I am wearing my 2004 AIDS Lifecycle bike top.

Halloween Horror!

2005-10-27T14:37:00.000-07:00

I have never really understood the elaborate efforts that people go to for Halloween. It seems like decorations have been up for weeks now. Anyhow, I was struck by this article in the paper today:

Hanging Mistaken for Halloween Decoration

The apparent suicide of a woman found hanging from a tree went unreported for hours because passers-by thought the body was a Halloween decoration, authorities said.
The 42-year-old woman used rope to hang herself across the street from some homes on a moderately busy road late Tuesday or early Wednesday, state police said.

The body, suspended about 15 feet above the ground, could be easily seen from passing vehicles.

State police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Oldham and neighbors said people noticed the body at breakfast time Wednesday but dismissed it as a holiday prank. Authorities were called to the scene more than three hours later.

"They thought it was a Halloween decoration," Fay Glanden, wife of Mayor William Glanden, told The (Wilmington) News Journal.

Monday, October 24, 2005

2005-10-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

Monday is my rest day so it is a good opportunity for me to stop babbling on about myself and share something more interesting with you. Here is a fabulous photo of Brandon at Machu Picchu from his recent trip to Peru with Dion. Dion had suggested that I have some sort of hunk of the day picture posting - I thought that the pictures of me fell into this category but apprently not. Anyhow, I would be very interested in posting your pictures, quotes, rants or whatever, if you want to forward them to me.

Swim Pix

2005-10-23T18:52:00.000-07:00

For all you non-believers, here is the evidence that I can swim! These shots were from our pool training session which was held at an aquatic centre on the planet Moraga. Well, Moraga is near Fayetteville, but it felt like I was on another planet. The aquatic centre belonged to a local high school and was better than anything that I have ever seen in the UK. They had three large pools. One, which must have had 12 lanes, was being used for a competition so there were hundred of kids around. We used one of the smaller pools which only had 6 lanes. Still, it was fun. Yes, I am actually enjoying swimming which is a big suprise. I still find the drills difficult but I seem to be making great progress. Our coach videod us and provided feedback on our technique. I was waiting for him to burst out laughing when he reviewed me but he was rather encouraging. I seem to be wiggling about a bit were I shouldn't but I have a good prognosis. I even received a prescription for some remedial drills to correct the unnecessary movements.
I also noticed that I don't come away from a decent swimming pool with a streaming nose. I think that my local Y must use super-strength chloride or something that the WMD inspectors missed in Iraq, which I guess is understandable as most of the people that use the pool are either kids or over 85, and thus are prone to leaking urine. I think it is time to find another pool.

Bike Gear Kit - Purple Flames!

2005-10-22T14:51:00.000-07:00

OK, so I know that you have been waiting to see me in my new sexy ironman gear. Raj took this picture of me this morning before our group spinning session. Yes, those are flames, and no, they are not coming out of my behind.

Friday October 21, 2005

2005-10-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

My training for the last three days has been swimming (mainly drills) and cycling which I have managed to integrate into to my work schedule without too much hassle. Although I had to go swimming rather early today due to a business meeting at lunchtime. It was a bit tough swallowing water so soon after breakfast.

New toy alert! I acquired a cycle trainer so I can do spinning on my bike! I will get to do my first work out with this tomorrow. Hopefully, I can catch a few pictures to post.

Also, I had a nice boost to my fundraising today with a generous donation from Carol. I am now at $750 which is close to my immediate goal of $1000 by the end of November. Feel free to be the one to who tips me over! By the way, as an incentive, I am offering a free framed print to anyone who donates at least $100 by the end of November. Check out my donation site at the link on the right.

Tuesday October 18, 2005

2005-10-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

Start of Week 2
Resting pulse 56, weight 164 lbs (-2lbs)

Monday was a well earnt rest day which allowed me to focus on work. I am fortunate have a lot of interesting projects to work on at the moment. I am in the process of making revisions to finalize a manuscript for Hepatology which was submitted a couple of months back, and which will hopefully be accepted for publication soon. Also, I am putting the final touches to another manuscript, an updated set of treatment guidelines for chronic hepatitis B, which will be submitted for review tomorrow. My biggest ongoing project is a report for a long-term clinical study in chronic hepatitis B. I will spend the rest of this week, in between training, working on my third draft.

Today's activity was a 48 minute run split into 3 x 15 minutes sessions with a one minute walk in between. 'A walk!' I hear you cry. Well, at the end of each 15 minute session I had to sprint for 30 seconds, so a walk was required.

I got a nice quote from our Team Manager today:

"I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver."
--Maya Angelou

So get liberating your souls!

October 15-16, 2005

2005-10-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

This was a busy weekend! No doubt just the first in many. I trained on my own on Saturday (swim session and bike ride) and joined the group for an Iron University meeting on Sunday at Redwood High School in Corte Madeira. This was a mixture of pool-work and core training. The pool work was focussed on swimming drills which are supposed to help improve your form. Technique is everything with swimming, and I don't have much. Anyhow, despite swallowing a few litres of pool water, I managed to do all of the drills. Most importantly, I am not the worst swimmer, which is a big relief.

The second session was a review of core training, injury prevention and running drills. Core training is hard, especially as I haven't done any for a long time. These exercises are designed to strengthen all of the core muscles involved in swimming, running and cycling and will improve our performance as well as reduce the risk of over use injuries...so the theory goes...

Our coaches are big fans of foam rollers which was great to hear. I became a big foam roller user during the AIDS ride last summer. Foam rollers massage your muscles and help you to recover from your exertions. I swear that this is why I felt so much better on this years AIDS ride. The picture is one of me rolling at a lunch stop somewhere near Santa Barbara.

I spent most of the rest of Sunday setting up our new Tivo box, which after some initial problems, seems to be up and running. No more adverts!!! Lots more South Park!

October 13-14, 2005

2005-10-14T09:13:00.000-07:00

Two pool sessions. I guess that I will be seeing a lot of the Y over the coming months. Thursday was an enhancer day where you get to work on your weakest event which is why I swam. At some point, I need to start doing drills to improve my technique. I believe that swimming is as much about good technical skills as fitness. As my swimming technique is somewhat lacking, I have much to do here! Our coach will be videoing us at a future group session which should be very informative. I am sure that I will look like a lumbering mass of splashing and flailing limbs. On the positive, I am swimming further than I ever have before, I just need to figure out how to cover another 3500m.

October 12, 2005

2005-10-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

My first track session at Kesar Stadium, which was awash with hundreds of runners participating in a variety of training programs, including at least 3 TNT teams. After a 15 minute warm up, we ran for 30 minutes at a moderately hard pace to see how many laps we could run. Again, this was to set a baseline to judge our progress. I managed 15 laps (6000m), averaging 2 minutes per lap. It was the first time that I trained with the larger group and it felt quite good, especially as I lapped quite a few people!

I have also started to research the benefits of food supplements. This seems to be a bit of a wishy washy area. However, there seems to be some research that has been well conducted. So currently, I am looking at upping my omega-3 and antioxidant intake (lots of fruit!). Hopefully, I can do this through my diet rather than having to take supplements. I am also trying to get to grips with high and low glycaemic carbohydrates. High index carbs are bad because they are rapidly absorbed cause spikes in blood sugar which results in the body producing lots of insulin. This can reduce blood sugar levels rapidly and result in you being hungry again, so you eat more high index carbs and so the cycle goes on. Low index carbs are good because they are absorbed more slowly release energy over a longer period of time and avoids spikes in insulin secretion. I think that is it but let me know if I have got it wrong. The thing that suprised me is that many foods that I think of as being healthy, are high index carbs. Some things that I will have to cut back on are pasta, potatoes and white rice. Interestingly, to me anyway, many fruits and veggies are low index e.g. apples, oranges, and kiwi fruits. One huge suprise is that chocolate is a low glycemic food!! Praise the lard!

October 11, 2005

2005-10-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

Baseline HR: 58
Baseline weight: 166lbs

Today is the day that I actually start my 10 month training program for IronMan Canada which will be held in British Columbia next summer. For most of the program, I will need to train for 6 days a week. In addition, I will also be required to do two training sessions per day for 3-4 days a week. As Monday was my rest day, it looks like I will be busy for the rest of the week.

My first training session was in the pool, which is just as well, as it is my weakest event. After a 150m warm up, I swam for 10 minutes to see how far I could cover, which will serve as a baseline to judge my progress against. I managed 14 lengths (350m) without stopping! In all, I swam a total of 1000m, 25% of the distance that I will be swimming in the IronMan. Now I just need to figure out how to swim 160 lengths without stopping, and still feel good enough to cycle 112 miles and run 26.1 miles!.
My second session of the day was a 30 minute core strength training session. Improving my core strength is supposed to help all three of the disciplines and help prevent injuries - we will see.

Background

2005-10-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

I spent Sunday October 9, 2005 meeting the other 50 or so people who will be part of the San Francisco North Bay TNT IronTeam and who will also be participating in either IronMan USA or Canada. I walked away from the meeting with a pile of information to get me started, and an enhanced feeling of nervous excitement, plus a long list of new sexy IronMan toys to acquire.

The training program started with a rest day which I quickly put to use with a trip to Sportsbasment to acquire a wetsuit. It has been a while since I bought a wetsuit, and I soon got to appreciate how different they are these days. My previous suits had been for diving and windsurfing - these were thick clumbsy but warm and bouyant. After trying out 4 suits, I ended up with an Orca Speedsuit which looks as though it is designed for a 40 lb 4 foot midget. Somehow the thing stretches to cover my body like a second skin and still lets me flail my arms around in a swimmy-like fashion. Other gear aquired included a swim belt (so I can run in the water - maybe I will be able to walk on it if I hit my fundraising total), a neophrene helmet (we will be swimming in the Bay all winter!!), and a ton of sports drinks and energy bars.

Why am I doing this? Well, I am doing it to raise at least $7500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I think that this is a great organization in that a lot of the money that they raise goes to medical research. The $400,000 that our team aims to raise will provide funding for 3 full-time medical research positions at at an institution such as Stanford. Also, I get to participate in a fabulous well thought out program and achieve something that I could probably never do on my own. So check out my donations page and sponsor me!

http://www.active.com/donate/tntgsf/frysci.com. Thank you!

By the Way, for those of you who may not know, an IronMan consists of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and a 26.1 mile run, all of which must be completed within a 19 hour limit.