Welland Half Ironman Race Report

the welland canal

This past weekend was the 2nd annual Welland Half Ironman and I was there to suffer on a sunday morning with a few hundred other masochistic lunatics. not an A race for me, but a good chance to practice a few things and judge my fitness.

This race is the only "off label", non ironman brand half i have done, but i must say that in terms of organization and overall race experience, it really lacks nothing and even trumps the official ironman branded events which i have done. the whole thing was well organized, seamless, and about as pleasant as a 6 hour endurance event can be, from start to finish. They even had Steve Fleck there, from 19 Wetsuits, acting as announcer, and it was cool to hear your name as you struggle with your shoelaces in T2.

Part of the appeal is the size itself. 500 athletes makes for a much less congested and more pleasant experience on the race course than 2500. chocolate milk and hero burgers afterwards are a real bonus, which could only be topped by a beer tent and a live band. i guess i need to race more in germany... although i am not really sure how much fun it is to drink beer with a bunch of triathletes...they are mostly pretty boring. and come to think of it, i am not sure i would make the drive home with beer and burgers inside me post race, so let's just forget that. the only thing that is missing is all the m-dot gear at the expo, that is not really missing anything, except an opportunity to wait in line and spend more money.

so, come to think of it, a local race like this, done this well, aces a big, huge, ironman brand race any day. it is like like having coffee at the local shop, where the owner talks to you and the decor is unique and ambient, and things are more relaxed and personal,  as opposed to lining up at starbuck's and ordering coffee in some strange language we have all been forced to learn. (a good analogy except that sometimes at m-dot races you get coffee time coffee in a starbuck's cup, if you get my drift.)

enough rambling. race report.

welland is like a post card, except economically depressed.

 it kinda looks like how i imagine roth.

anyways, it is a simply beautiful setting to race in. country roads. a calm canal with parkland and condos all around. passing by a lake on the bike. a run along fitness trails that are beside water the whole time, with shade, trees, birds, and beautiful views every single step of the way. and lots of support from aid stations, which are well stalked and organized.
and a course that was made for PB's. fast and flat.
what more could you ask for? this race is destined to become a classic.


my race:

swim: my garmin strap broke just before i got in the water, so i had to stash it near a pilon on the ramp to transition. it was still there at the end of the swim, proving that the crowd was filled with good, honest people.  the water was quite warm. perhaps the course was a bit long this year as many many people had longer times than last year. but it was as pleasant as any mass start style swim can be. i had the usual boredom half way through. but overall, just a nice swim. the water was pretty warm, so making it wetsuit legal was a bit of a stretch in my opinion, but i didn't mind.

the run to transition is 1/2 k, over a large patch of rocky driveway just before you enter transition, so this was the worse part of the race really. it would be nice if they paved the whole thing. i ended up walking on stones, ouch, ooops, ouch.

bike: flat. a bit windy at points. passes a canal filled with water lillies. then turns into farmland. lollipops around and passes the shore of lake erie. quite a beautiful bike course. i was assessed a three minute penalty for i don't know what. kind've ironic given that i had to endure some jerk drafting me like crazy, then trying to pass me on the right, in between his spurts of sudden acceleration pauses to ride beside his girlfriend and chat, and then fall back and try to pass again. i am glad that he got left in my dust at the 65k point.  some people... and i get a penalty??? just another example that life really is not fair. i just didn't have magic legs on this day and i couldn't make the most of the ideal conditions, but i did manage a personal best, 2:36. good, i know  there is better in me, just not on that day.

run:somehow, i managed to make nutritional errors 101 on the bike so i ran into major stomach trauma from a glob of goo in my gut. this lasted for 10k of stitches, burps, vomit feelings and running at a walking pace. i seriously contemplated not finishing. but i just kept going, and drinking lots water to dilute the monster gel baby in my gut. i could not take in more fuel, my stomach would not handle it.

my stupid garmin strap broke so i ended up running holding it pocket watch style. no big deal.

at 10k things picked up and i actually started to run. another runner came up beside me and was going almost exactly the pace that i felt i could muster, so we ran together for 10k and picked people off, and had our own little mark allen/dave scott thing...funny, cause we did not say a word to each-other the whole time I ended salvaging a 1:41, which while not what i know i am capable of,  was nowhere near as bad as it could have been.

the run course is about as nice as can be. i am not a fan of loops, but that is all i could criticize. it was simply beautiful. 

finishing strong without my gel baby

in the end, i clocked a 5:05 (i am ignoring that erroneous penalty), a good time on a less than perfect day and a wake up call not to make stupid mistakes at ironman.

the welland half ironman race, is a small, beautiful and well run 1/2 ironman with a course that is set up for PB's. it is a race that anyone who lives close by should put on their calendars. it is also proof that the ironman label, is simply that, a trademark label and that their races have nothing up on local race organizers, who when they  know what they are doing, are offering a superior race experience.

Half Iron Dude, Full Iron Dad

granted, this is only my fourth year in the sport and i still have yet to race more than 20 races, including little local sprints...but the perfect day still eludes me.

sunday was the welland half ironman, full race report will follow. but yesterday was the toronto full irondad, and there is no question about which day i am more proud of!

first, i will consider that my post race recovery consisted of a chocolate milk, a hero burger and...drive 1/2 hour back to the hotel, shower, pack, load the car, rack the bike drive for 2 hours home, un-pack, un-rack, bathe the baby, go get food, eat food, sleep.

ok, now we are on monday...the toronto inner city full iron-dad day.

5:30 wake up, change baby, give bottle, play with baby
7:00 tag team with nanny, back to sleep for 45 m (o.k., i am not made of iron here!)
8:00 drive car to shop, drop car off
8:30 ride bike back home
09:00 do laundry, unpack suitcase, tidy up
10:30: rest hour, hang with family eat, watch True Blood season premiere on the PVR
11:30 ride bike back to car dealer, pick up car, drive home
1:00 shower, dress, walk to work
1:30-6:00 work...busy day...one crisis, 2 consults, 10 clients...
6:00 play with baby, bathe baby
6:30 return emtpy bottles, drug store, wine store, grocery shopping
8:00 eat
8:45-10:00 help my wife with some work related stuff ( with my remaining brain cell)

10:00 pm sleep.

all one day post race. wow. i am proud.

welland half iron race report to follow...

Burritos, Baby and Recovery

last week was a recovery week.

this week is pre-race (more on that later)

all of which means i have been a bit bored from a training standpoint.

how do i tie all this in to the words going through my head? baby...burritos...recovery...

 well...i have been thinking about the perfect recovery food. one that feeds your mind, soul and body.
for those of my readers who live in the toronto area, or who will visit, i need say no more than:

Chino Locos: http://chinolocos.com/


there is nothing more heavenly than a juicy, plump, fish burrito from chinos, stuffed with chow-mein noodles. ahhh. the perfect recovery meal. hold the sour cream and cheese if you are trying to get to kona. add a glass of mendoza malbec and you have the perfect last supper. forget the cigarette, just shoot me when i wash down the final bite with my malbec and send me straight to heaven.

ok, that is the burrito. the recovery. what about the baby?

my baby, stupid. my baby girl. we have been hanging out reading elmo, watching sesame street, changing poos, pointing at dogs and dancing every morning. she is my regular morning date. (and she has no idea how much tour de france she will be watching at 5am on the pvr in july, she will become a little french baby). she is just on my mind. plain and simple. and i want to document that because she is my morning angel on this road to .....penticton.

DeSoto T1 First Wave Review

ok, so i have had a brief moment of pseudo-philosophy last entry and so my heart wrenching self-disclosure about the woes of chemotherapy and radiation are temporarily out of my system.

so, back to basics, a gear review.

and i don't have to force this one, not at all. the T1 First Wave wetsuit is one of the most mind blowing and paradigm shifting pieces of equipment i have ever owned.

My T1 Out of the Box

i got mine in the mail two weeks ago, just in time for open water season here in ontario. i have since had test swims in lake wilcox (about 68 degrees) and lake ontario (high 50's). a couple choppy swims, and one of those swims that makes you think you are in that martial arts movie, crouching tiger hidden dragon, floating on a glass lake at dawn. the T1 was great in all situations. warm in the cold water. excellent flotation. but just like a dream to swim in.

this wetsuit has increased my enjoyment of open water swimming by 100%. and i have swam in several top brands, which are now hanging in my closet and will soon be up for sale on slowtwitch.  here is why:

-it is the easiest wetsuit that i have ever put on. i am not exhausted from fighting the the fricking zipper for 10 minutes and rolling rubber up my belly and down my arms for another five. i am not tired and sweating by the time i have it on. the top goes on so easily i could not almost believe it. the bib-john is just like putting on the bottom part of a traditional wetsuit, but a little easier, because there are no arms flailing around.  no more asking strange foreign people walking by the lake at dawn to do up my zipper. i will never need to be zipped again!

-it is equally easy to get off. the material really is very supple and flexible.  the top comes off like a dream. you flip it up like a sweater and the arms come off very very easy. the bottoms are easy because there is less to contend with. no arm fabric in your way. the rubber is very flexible. is just pops off around your feet the way you want it to. no more standing there like and asshole falling over trying to get my f'ing wetsuit legs off. this wetsuit will make my T-1's a bit faster, i have no doubt.

-it is as warm as any other wetsuit. there is no issue with water entry which is what i guess everyone is anxious about in moving to a two piece. but believe me, actually less water enters the suit. at least for me.

-the neck is lower, so i don't choke. i did chafe slightly first swim (over 3k). but you really don't feel as restricted by a high neckline in this suit. and there is no velcro to contend with, no zippers on your c-spine. it feels like you are wearing a nice, comfortable sweater. just really tight. like a miami clubbing sweater...but that is another story.

-my arms can do whatever they want, however fast they want. i can actually swim the way i do in the pool.  no shoulder fatigue. i am not fighting rubber with every stroke. i was able to finish my stroke completely. my elbows were free to go nice and high. my arms could stretch as far as i wanted. really, i mean imagine swimming in a wetsuit and feeling absolutely no restriction to your arms or shoulders and that is the feeling. it is awesome. my stroke rate was naturally increased as a result.

-it is more flexible around the torso, so i can roll better than with any other wetsuit.and, no, the top does not ride up. it stays just where it should. but it really does allows greater rotational motion than any other wetsuit. this makes sense. you are not fighting rubber, it is moving with you.

-i have bigger more muscular arms and shoulers than most triathletes. the T-1 allows you to mix different top sizes to bibjohns, so you can always have a perfect fit. you don't have to be built like michael raelert (and do you really want to be???)

-the bio-stroke mummy arm thing is no gimmick. my arms feel like they are in a perfect position for my catch and pull. this wetsuit has actually taught me to swim better in the pool!

--tom brady wears it to play football in the snow

ok, now that is cool.

and it tells you how flexible the arms and shoulders are. 

this wetsuit has me looking at people squeezing into their one peicers just wondering why or how i ever did that. i feel i have re-discovered the world of wetsuit swimming, as it should be. and freed myself from the land of neoprene bondage torture.

while i was picking sizes i had great service on the phone with steve at desoto. i mentioned the brand i was currently swimming in and he told me it would be like moving from a ford to a ferarri (i own a ford but i took no offense.) i thought, it is nice to have such brand enthusiasm, but this guy is over-stating things a bit. well....he wasn't. 

there really is no going back to a one piece when you have tried a desoto wetsuit. trust me. it is one of the best investments you will ever make in your triathlon career. and they have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, so just go for it. or don't. i don't care. i will feel superior and have a better swim experience. come to think of it. don't order one, not if you are racing in canada anyways...

The Fight versus the Whisper

fighting for your life, is, in so many ways, easier than just living it.

this week things have been going very well. the weather is great. the training is fun and hard, long, but rarely boring. however, i guess the fact that i am trying to kick my fundraising into gear is giving me flashbacks about what it is i am fundraising for and the experiences i had while battling cancer. andthese have been flashing through my head during my workouts.

imagine being in third year medical school and being told you have a tumor growing in your chest, right next to your heart. sorta rocks your world and is out of the course of what one might expect from life at that point.  imagine night sweats so bad that your whole bed is soaking wet each morning and you are not sure why.  imagine six months of chemotherapy, nausea, mouth ulcers, burning veins, low blood counts, delirium. imagine radiation burns under your arms, electric sensations down your spine, hair falling out, the energy being sapped from your body. imagine all food tasting metallic because of radiation. imagine a fever followed by days of your skin burning on fire. imagine going into shock during a test and almost dying. feeling your body temperature dropping, sensing your blood pressure bottom out, your consciousness fading, until the IV adrenaline kicks in and a warm hand on yours starts to bring you back.
 
all of this is not meant to be depressing. but perhaps to help the reader better understand why i am doing what i am doing, where i have come from and why i am volunteering for such a strange and masochistic battle. maybe even it explains why i am craving another battle which pushes me to my limits.

 going through cancer treatment is hard, yes. but easier than the phase which comes after in which you have fought your battle, you have paid with your pain, and now, you are launched into the great unknown....remission.

in spite of all its difficulties, ironman is a fight that is preferable to the limbo of doing nothing except just living and hoping for the best...remission. i wonder if finishing will leave me with the same sense of fear of the mundane that finishing cancer treatment did. oh well, there are always other ironmans....(sorry P).

remission is a dog from hell because there is no fight.  there is just living....and hoping for the best.
in some strange way, we are all in remission. like the two characters in that famous french existentialist play, we are waiting for godot to come....hoping for the best.  aren't we all in the same boat? aren't we all in remission in some kind of metaphorical way?and isn't it the moments when we face a battle that we become the most alive?

i have so many ideas for blogging over the next few weeks. i promise that this blog will become what i have always hated, a mindless exercise in show-me-ism. look what i did. look what i am doing. look what i used to do it. look how hard i trained. i am great. (or not), but just look at me...

i wonder what exactly it will mean to cross the finish line at ironman. will it be a giant FU at cancer? will it be a day of grandiose thumbing my nose at time, decay, illness? will it be the ultimate actualization of my inner hero?  or....will it be about those moments of pain, boredom, weakness, stomach upset, sore ass, toying with mechanical on the bike...etc. will it be about keeping going in the face of a whole pile of shit that could stop me if i let it? will it be about whispering, steady and long, instead of shouting loud and proud?

someone once wrote that ironman is about who whispers the loudest.

that's the hard part to grasp. real grandiosity, real heroism, arises from a loud-enough, yet consistent whisper. it is life in the remission zone, not a grandiose fight. it a consistent application of force, not against some monster, but just in the cause of life itself. i guess it is like a hum, a mantra, the eternal ohm.

please donate to the leukemia and lymphoma society. there are many who need to shout loud and fight their battle before they return to the land of remission and the land of living great through a whisper and they need your help.

First of June

not the official beginning of summer, but here in Toronto June 1st sure feels like it.

what a day today...the kind that makes you glad to be alive. it was sunny, hot, windy, and just downright summer-like.

it also felt like the true beginning of my ironman ramp up. my first really long triple session outside. i hadn't realized how much i both loathe and miss those. they are lonely. they are long, dusty, windy, tiring, and mentally challenging, but punctuated, almost always, by epiphanies of sensation that make them as addictive as crack.

started in lake wilcox; the legendary, singular macca and nexus of toronto area triathletes. i started late so it was quite windy and choppy today. it is one of the most serene and beautiful places to swim...

when your bike loop takes you between two lakes, past panoramic vistas, gorgeous houses, sunbathers, horse farms, golf courses, and small hamlets with elderly chinese ladies selling water in ancient, singular variety stores, then you know you have a nice loop.

i rode to jackson point.

need i say more?

well, there was also this:

and this:

a very very nice bike ride. the scenery more than made up for my sore ass and sunburnt shoulders.

the run was hot, windy, on dirt roads and looked like this:

the best part of my day, was when i got home and went to the park with my daughter and blew dandelions on the grass and watched her laugh with delight on a swing.

 what else good could happen? BBQ? sitting outside on the deck sipping wine? massage? chocolate with chili? a good bowel movement?
no comment.

 just a good day on the road to penticton.