New blog look
Yep... got bored of the old blog look. Chose this from the template gallery. Am hoping to get the WordPress blogging software installed in the next month and tweak things a bit further.
Police 1/2 - a great result for me. Calgary was fun. Naomi ghosted for a PB.
Wedding info - Yes, you can come (maybe) :-). No, it won't be fancy. Life is pricey, our wedding can't be! Summerland... maybe.
I need sleep.
The big announcement
Naomi and I have decided to get married August 20 in Penticton. We'll both be competing at Kelowna Apple, then heading down to Penticton for Ironman Canada (which only I am racing). You can
read Naomi's post on it here. We're going a bit non-traditional... so no big party, just a simple ceremony. We haven't thought about any more details than that.. so if you ask.. I have no answers!
:-)
Do I even need to mention the weather?
For my blog readers not in western Canada at the moment... we're getting out heaviest snow fall of the whole winter. Except someone forgot to tell mother nature that it's SPRING!! I've had enough of Canadian weather... I'm outta here!
I signed up for the duathlon this weekend.... but I don't know if the weather will improve in time, or it may have to be canceled. Let's hope not, I'm keen to do my first race of the season.
I guess I'll have to suck it up for this week on the trainer. I've do most of my running on the treadmill or indoor track at the Kinsmen Centre... so the weather hasn't upset my running.
Despite the weather, I'm quite motivated at the moment. Probably because I blazed some new PR's for my run and swim workouts this week. A wee bit of rest after Maui to absorb the training and recover... and I'm suddenly smashing into new levels of fitness! WOO!!
My bike is in! In a box at Element that is. Still waiting on different aerobars to arrive, but there is a good chance it will be built by the end of this week. I may or may not post pics... my super secret stealth fighter might have to be kept confidential until race day. :-)
Wow
A brutally honest post from Paul Tichelaar on his blog. Awesome, just awesome.
http://ptichelaar.blogspot.com/2008/04/yesterday-afternoon-i-went-out-for-bike.htmlYour an inspiration for us all Paul. It's not easy to get to the Olympics...
Seriously...
Just kidding on that last post obviously... :-)
Just signed for the Sandy Beach Duathlon, here's the site, let's do the du!
http://sandybeachduathlon.com/
Season Goals
- break 1:50 barrier at Olympic distance
- win Ironman Canada
- run 31min 10k
- sub 5min beer mile
- swim 1500 LCM in under 16min
- learn to juggle 10 swords/torches at once
Sounds about right...
Thoughts on Maui and the Haleakala ride
Incredible. I love the island of Maui. I'm so thankful to Tony for convincing a group of us from Calgary to train there in 2005. On that first trip, I spent two weeks on the Valley Isle... and had some of the best training of my triathlon "career" to date.
However, this time was much different. I was traveling with Naomi, the trip was for only 8 days, and we flew with United Airlines through two connecting flights instead of the wonderful Calgary to Kahului direct flight I had last time with SkyService.
8 days was barely enough. With the hassle of packing/unpacking bikes and flying, it felt like we had just started to get in a groove.... and then had to go.
With two weeks, I had plenty of time to do all the training I wanted, yet still get in plenty of beach time and relaxing. With 8 days, it seemed like we were trying to squeeze everything in, the "rushing" we were trying to avoid from our regular lives. The last day of the trip... instead of doing Haleakala in the Saturday sunshine, I opted to hop in the Jeep and spend our last day in paradise with Naomi in the sand and surf. It was worth every moment... sometimes training is NOT the priority!
I did feel a bit bummed about coming to the island and not doing the epic Haleakala summit.. 38 miles of unrelenting ascent (plus an extra 6 of downhill from the hostel to the turn-off of the climb). I told Naomi that I felt some good energy and wanted to attempt a pre-dawn summit. Tony has told me he did this once in an attempt to do his Crazy 8 ride (riding the summit and both east/west mountain loop - 380km in one day)., so I borrowed some bike lights from a guy who worked at the hostel, pack my bags, and tried to get a few hours of sleep before leaving.
I awoke at 2am feeling pretty chipper. There were a few people in the common room next to the kitchen still having beers. They all thought I was a bit nuts but gave me some encouragement. I made some quick PB&J sandwiches and found some cold coffee in the coffee maker... so decided to drink it too. I wandered out to the balcony and watched a couple of rather odd "women" highly intoxicated and acting unruly in the parking lot across the street. I quickly determined they weren't women at all... but they were wearing dresses and wigs. Mildy amused at the interesting nightlife in Wailuku, I finished my preps and tried not to get noticed as I headed out the door.
The streets of Wailuku/Kahului were silent and a bit damp from some rain, but NICE. The traffic on the island is pretty dense during the day. I actually felt safer riding in the night than during the day! I quickly made the turnoff to Pukalani and started ascending. A light drizzle started, but the air was warm, so I pushed on.
At Pukalani I made the turnoff to the seconday highway. The shoulder narrowed to about a metre, but cars easily spotted my lights and were quite good at giving me room. I'm not sure how far I climbed, but Naomi showed up in the jeep much earlier than expected. She said she was worried about me but encouraged me to keep going. Thanks hon! :-) We both commented how INCREDIBLE the clear night sky showed the stars. Maui still has minimal light pollution (although the cities are getting much bigger) and the Milky Way was clearly visible. I told her to go ahead and meet me every 4 miles or so.... and I would jump into the jeep if I couldn't summit before the sunrise.
So, I pushed on into the darkness.... and a sixth sense told me to stop and shine my light to the left. There was the plain wooden sign marking the final turnoff to the summit. I had missed the green road sign already. Very lucky, I made the turn and continued. The thought in my mind... "I wonder if Naomi saw the sign, it's hard to see". The though occurred to keep going down the main hwy to see if Naomi had missed it, but I had to stay the course in case she hadn't.
Well..... 9 miles later I was around 6700ft above sea level. I was feeling strong, but my water supply had run out since Naomi still hadn't found me. I pulled to the other side of the road to make the descent back to Kahului when she finally pulled up. She was sobbing and distraught at losing me. I said it was ok, it was an easy sign to miss. After three hours in the saddle, I put the bike in the back of the jeep and we rushed to the summit, just in time to catch the sunrise. Well worth it!
A quick descent, packing, a last trip to Pa'ia to watch some surfing... and so ended our Maui adventure.
So after another long 24 hours of flying, and jetlag... my body hasn't been feeling that hot this week. I skipped and shortened a few workouts and just got back in the full game today. Training holidays are great.. but they don't do much for your consistency... which is the real key to improvement.
Well, it's getting late and I have a run in the morning, so I'll save some thoughts on training methodologies that I've been putting together for my next post.
Mahalo for reading,
Greg
Island Time
I apologize for the lack of updates, but since my laptop was stolen last week, I have had to make best use of my time while borrowing Naomi's laptop in Maui... which meant checking and responding to mail and not much else. She took the time each day to write in her own blog about our adventures, the link is in the menu on the right, but in case you didn't notice... I'll post it here again:
http://yourtrigirl.blogspot.com/I have actually enjoyed my time away from the computer. I'm not looking forward to returning to work tomorrow! However... mortgages, car payments, and triathlon gear don't pay for themselves, so back to the grind. Although, my time on Maui reinforced the perspective that sometimes all we need is a fun job, a cheap place to live and a surfboard. :-)
I took more "vacation" time, and less training than I had planned on Maui, but I think I really needed the stress-relief of just lying on the beach. I still managed some good cycling, some great swimming and a few runs.
Our trip home was a bit ridiculous though. Two airlines, ATA and Aloha, went out of business while were in Maui. It was on the news everywhere, but I didn't pay much attention to it until someone at the hostel casually mentioned that Aloha and United Airlines had codeshare flights. A quick check of our itinerary revealed that our Kahului to Honolulu flight was run by Aloha. United was able to get us on another regional carrier called
GO! for no charge.
Well... GO! were a pain to deal with, tried to over-charge for our bike boxes, and then didn't get them on the first flight off Maui... so they almost didn't make our connection to SFO. I would not purchase a flight with them EVER. United Airlines was ok to deal with I suppose... but we could have and should have flown WestJet. Marginally higher ticket prices, but less stopovers, less hassle, friendlier service, and nicer planes. If you go to Hawaii... choose WestJet.
While I was gone, my new driver's license and credit cards arrived in the mail, the locks changed on my condo, and a new passcard purchased to get into my parkade... so things are coming back together. I'm still hoping for a recovery of some of my stolen goods... I'm going to call the EPS and Kinsmen Centre tomorrow to find out... but I have not much hope at this point.
Maui - Monday/Tuesday
Monday...
Easy ride out to Lahaina to start the day. Temperature already climbing up to 30C by the time we hit the Lahaina Aquatic Centre. I love the temps here.. not too hot, not ever cold.
Since we had a late start, out swim set started at around noon. Already a bit pink from the sun, we opted to cut the swim to as much as we could get done in a hour. Was not feeling it in the pool today... just tried to get through the set.
A quick lunch at Maui Taco's, some pics of the sights in downtown Lahaina and we were off to complete the West Maui Loop. Leaving Lahaina at 2pm we had plenty of time to complete the loop before nightfall, right? Well... Naomi had a tough day at the office and we were still 10 Miles from Wailuku at 5:30pm. Luckily, a couple guys from the hostel were driving back at the same time and were able to get Naomi home. I stuck it out at TT'd the remaining portion to get in with barely enough sunlight.
I had forgetten that the West Maui loop, while not long, is extremely technical, with some seriously tough climbs... I think the "wall" is something like 25%?
Well... we made it home and survived.. s'all good.
Tuesday was fairly easy. A cruisy ride out to Kihei for a swim at the aquatic centre there. The pool was fairly empty and I actually felt good in the water this time. The lifeguard invited Naomi and I to the weekly open-water swim from the Maui Prince resort to little Makena beach and back. It sounds amazing.. I think we'll be there on Sunday.
After the swim... a little R&R at Kamaole Beach Park III. We stuffed ourselves first at the awesome organic food market. The waves were pretty good and the water was warm.. but once again, the trade winds were blowing something fierce... I had sand in EVERYTHING when I returned to the hostel.
Another ride and swim on the plate tomorrow... can't wait. :-)
Oh yeah, Naomi has posted pics here:
http://picasaweb.google.ca/yourtrigirl/Maui
