Krabbe.ca - Josh Krabbe's personal webpage

This Blog Retired

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 11:28:35 MST

I enjoyed the challenges of coding my own website features for quite a while but ran out of patience to continue along the long road of coding by myself so moved my posts over to a Wordpress engine. This is better organized in some sense and I no longer have to worry or care about much more than writing stories and posting pictures. I'll continue to do that... so visit the site again and subscribe to the wordpress generated feed instead of the josh-coded feed.

Wednesday Night XC comes to an end

Thu, 14 May 2009 15:08:06 MST

Wednesday night cross country came to an end this Wednesday. Probably the best shape I've been in for any cross country season yet. The results tell lots of the story.

Dawson Park - 4.5 km

19th Overall - 7/21 in M2029

Time: 17:35 Pace: 3:55/km

Rundle Park - 4.5 km

21st Overall - 7/23 in M2029

Time: 18:18 Pace: 4:04/km

Mill Creek Park - 5.4 km

24th Overall - 8/25 in M2029

Time: 21:08 Pace: 3:55/km

Kinnard Park - 5.2 km

24th Overall - 7/16 in M2029

Time: 20:31 Pace: 3:57/km

Goldbar Park - 5.6 km

22nd Overall - 6/15 in M2029

Time: 22:45 Pace: 4:04/km

But the results don't tell the whole story. Each week was a fantastic event with something worth remembering

Dawson Park - 4.5 km

Pat Kong's first ever victory. Scott Buchanan showed up after having trained apart from Triathlon Club for much of the winter and suprised us all with a second place finish. We all wanted to know his training protocol and after being rather loose with the specifics we all jokingly assumed he must have been blood doping for the event. I suffered from a serious aching torso for the rest of the evening, a good indication I ran at my absolute capacity.

Rundle Park - 4.5 km

Pat wins his second race despite a crash caused by unsure footing and too much concern for the wellbeing of other racers. I catch Glenn on the downhill and we run side by side for the final kilometer. I average a higher heartrate than any other workout I've recorded to date on my Garmin. We all celebrate the domination of Pat Kong with Kentucky Fried Chicken following the race.

Mill Creek Park - 5.4 km

Pat doesn't want to be tripped up like last week and sprints off to a huge lead in the first 400 yards. He goes on to win his third race in a row and there is speak of him sweeping the whole series. My own race goes well despite running largely alone. The course is largely flat and demands lots of concentration to keep the pace high in spite of my legs being in the midst of half-marathon recovery. Tri club celebrates with chocolate milk and brownies following the race thanks to the gracious hosting of Emily.

Kinnard Park - 5.2 km

The rain absolutely pours between 5:30 and 5:45 letting up nicely to allow us time to warmup in relative dry and warmth. The rain starts to absolutely pour once the race starts and we're running drenched. Brian Torrance shows up and gives Pat a run for his money... dropping him on the final downhill and beating him by a small margin. My race is well run on the uphills until I loose ability to see in the rain with foggy glasses on the downhill and can't quite let it rip as fast as I'd like. The other tri club boys ahead of me all get beat by his ladyfriend Krissy Dooling and feel a bit humbled by the fact that a girl beat them for the first time this season. We drown our sorrows arising out of the reality that there are faster runners out there who just don't always show up by getting all you can eat chicken wings and eating 30 each.

Goldbar Park - 5.6 km

The run is by far the most rolling of any in the series starting with a long and tough hill at about the 1 km marker and going on to roll up and down for most of the rest of the way. We all wait for Brian Torrance to change in the washroom before starting... when you're one of the fast guys the world makes concessions for you. Pat is beat again as a few more quick boys show up as well. My own race goes well with a bit of a slow start I left myself lots of people to pass through the rolling hills. I in fact passed my first person on a downhill in any race ever. It's a skill I finally realized I needed to develop when Pat told me that it was my weakest link. The season ends with a huge potluck party back at myu house hosted by triathlon club. The Wednesday night runners as well as dozens of other club members show up for BBQ burgers and a post workout potluck. The capacity of the house is tested as the weather outside is a bit chilly and we eat and eat and eat until we can't eat anymore. When that's all done everyone grabs a plate and does another round packing a lunch for the next day. I still have enough leftovers that it barely can fit in the fridge. New wheels are a hot topic of conversation as Stefan has ordered new Easton EC90 TT wheels with his tax return and I've just found a second hand Renn Disc online to complete the racing setup for the next few seasons.

Spring Thaw 2009

Mon, 11 May 2009 13:52:04 MST

The UofA Triathlon Club's annual Spring Thaw triathlon came and went this past weekend. The club puts on the race as an effort to expose people to the sport of triathlon and get people out to try the multi-sport experience. Our club even received a few thousand dollars to subsidize race entry fees for UofA students towards this end... making this the cheapest triathlon in the province for UofA students. It was even cheaper for members of the Triathlon club who all raced for free once again this year. It also happens to be a great opportunity to RACE!

Lots of the club's big guns spent their morning volunteering so it wasn't quite the showdown of Triathlon club skills that it could have been but non the less members of the club had an excellent showing... taking the top four spots for men and top two spots for women at the Sprint distance.

My race day started with a 4:30 am wakeup and first breakfast prior to arriving at the race site prior to 5am to help set up the transition area and some of the course. Heavy lifting before 6am! I then had to try and figure out for the first time in my racing career how to do a pre-race meal and then do another one all before my swim heat hit the water soon after 10:00 am. It was a bit tricky and I don't think I did it exactly right. I ate a full breakfast (got rid of the overnight hunger) at 4:30 and then proceeded to try and also eat a normal meal at around 8:30 am like I would have done anyways. I wasn't hungry enough to really eat but kind of ate anyways and drifted a bit close to the race in terms of time prior to racing that I was still eating. Ooops.

I cited a swim time of 13:30 and hopped in a lane with some likeminded people and one dude who was insistent on swimming 13:00 flat. He was very concerned about being able to pass up during the swim and so we all agreed to hit people on the feet when we wanted to get past and then to wait up and let those people past. That's standard fare for faster swimmers getting by, no big deal. Into the water we go, I'm the first one out and cruise along at about pace for a 13:30 swim. Our friend the 13:00 swimmer has made up his 20 second deficit in swim start by the time I'm at 75 meters (Hmmm... sounds like he's trying to swim about an 11 minute time?) and goes ahead. We're all enjoying the draft for the next couple hundred meters and then some more passing starts to occur. Some people need to go by me and I go by a few people. It's probably the case that no-one is strong enough to lead the line at the speed we're swimming but everyone in the draft line would like to pick up the pace just a tad. As some people pass one another and wait up at the end one swimmer gets crammed into the little space where there previously was no swimmer before and now has no option but to hit people on the feet, now not trying to elicit the "wait up and let me pass you" response. Frustration and confusion ensues. We get to 600 meters and I want to pick it up for the last three laps. No-one else must be counting I think to myself and cruise out of the line down the middle of the lane... No one will believe a foot tap anymore. I pass three people down the middle and the heartrate is picked up a bit. It's a tight squeeze and there had been some shoulder bumping but I pass the 13 minute dude during my last fifty and climb out at exactly 13:30 minutes. I suppose it's a form of success?

Into T1, I've got a shammy towel and try to soak up some of the water in my shorts and from my thighs so they're less likely to be chilly on the ride and cruise into the transition zone. Helmet on, number on, go!. My transition cannot be any faster as I run down towards the mount line and hop aboard the P2. I'm running my HED3 up front and aero-helmet and get some cheers and jeers from the tri-club members who are volunteering. You're not allowed to be slow if you've got the gear to go fast.

I crank out the first lap including the emily murphy hill with an average speed of 40.5 km per hour. As I settle in to ride the next lap I've got a knot in my upper stomach, I try to ignore it and keep pushing... the second time up the hill isn't quite as fast and I deal with a bit more traffic. By the time I'm up top my average speed has dropped to 39.8 kph... I get aero off the top of the hill and keep cruising, I chug down about a third of a bottle of gatorade. I brought 2/3 of a small bottle thinking I might drink twice but elect to just stick with drinking once. The nose of my seat starts to rotate down a little bit from level, argh! that's not supposed to happen. There's nothing I can do though, I've been riding hard out on the tip of it trying to be as aerodynamic and powerful as possible, now my seat is effectively a tad too low. I continue through the third lap and just as I summit Ben Adam is arriving off the next swim heat. He's quick and I'm determined to stay with him for the lap. I have no problem doing so until I climb the hill the last time and don't want to go anaerobic. I did for the first three laps but stay seated and make an effort to stay aero on the last lap so I'm not in the midst of recovery when I arrive in transition. It's a good choice and cruise back into transition. I take the dismount a bit too quick as I leap barefoot from the bike and the pavement kind of hurts my feet. Oh well. Into T2 I come, rack the bike and helmet off. I've elected to wear socks even for 5km because I haven't trained without. They probably add two seconds per foot, I'm relatively successful I decide as I stand upright again and Andy is yelling at me to show my number as I leave T2. The race belt is on inside out and the side displayed is just white! The draft marshals apparently couldn't have given me a penalty even if they wanted. (Not that there was anyone nearly fast enough for me to draft).

The first 100 meters is quick but the subsequent 500 meters are slow. I'm frustrated as I feel like I just can't pick up the speed. It takes probably the whole first kilometer before I feel like I'm actually pushing the pace on the run and am breathing hard. I crank out the first half and come to the turnaround. I'm far ahead of everyone else from my heat so until now the only people I've seen on the run course are barely moving people from the previous heat. Once on the return I feel like I can let it fly and feel pretty good. I'm running about as fast as I think I can run but not getting tired out. I've only got a kilometer and a half left I think to myself when I go past Cory and Simmon volunteering and they shoot my photo. I can't run fast enough through the final stretch it seems even though the pace isn't terribly fast. A few hundred meters to go and I switch from run to sprint and finish a bit wobbly on my legs. Once the heartrate drops back from the sprint finish I feel pretty good, I probably could run another 5 km and not be too much slower I think to myself. That's frustrating, I couldn't have run any faster. Serves me right I suppose, marathon training doesn't translate to top end 5km speed.

There's not too much time for me to to wait after finishing until Ben cruises in off his bike is out onto the run. Next off the bike is Lindsay and she's got a pretty good gap on both Stefan and Pat who come in off the bike together. Pat flies through transition and Stefan has to tie his shoes, he's just racing for fun today, he won his category at a bike road race the day before and has nothing to prove. Pat is off to hunt down Lindsay and record the fastest run split of the day.

Total results for myself include almost a 40 kph bike split and reasonable run at 20.5 minutes for 4.8 km. My swim time is a whole minute faster than last year when I believe I was told I was finished swimming after only 700m. In total that translates to the equivalent of about 2 minutes improvement on the swim (reality only 1 minute faster) and I cut a minute on the run as well as a bit more than 4 minutes off my bike time. I'll attribute 5 seconds of that to the helmet, 5 seconds to the race wheel, 5 second to the new bike aerodynamics, 5 second to the new bike's weight and 10 seconds to my better aerodynamic bike body position. That leaves me 3:30 seconds of raw 'effort' improvement on the bike from last year. All in all the improvement of my swim as what was my limiting factor didn't make as much difference as the improvement to my bike top end speed which was refinement of my strength. That's not terribly encouraging to make me keep working on the swim... but that's where the deficit to the competition still lies. The beginner lane at triathlon club pool swims has been eliminated and I will be taking that bull by the horns next winter. Swim improvements from here on out for the 2009 season are likely to be minimal. I'm content to swim about a 35 minute half ironman pace (equivalent to this swim speed) as I feel like anything more is going to tax my ability to run a fast 21.1 km.

The annual showdown with the Spring Thaw Triathlon will come to an end in 2010 as I'll be race director for this event which precludes me from competing unfortunately. It should still be a rocking race and I'll likely pick up one other short course race next season just for fun to test out the speed, probably more likely to be Olympic distance than sprint though, a one hour effort is relatively rather unsatisfying once you're tapered for it.

May 2009 Epic Adventure

Mon, 04 May 2009 12:53:50 MST

The 'May 2009 Epic Adventure' of the University's Triathlon Club happened this past weekend in Canmore. 10 athletes tired of the indoor bike riding that Edmonton has enforced for the past half of the year got out onto the open roads. For myself it was an opportunity for my second and third serious outdoor rides of the season. I'd done a couple 'Coffee Shop Route' trips to St. Albert and one 'Bakery Run' out to Calmar thus far but these were to be somewhat hilly and long!

Saturday morning we headed out just before 10 am waiting until the world had warmed up a bit from the overnight low of minus 8 and then set out. We rode Highway 1 through the park gates to the bow valley junction and then along the parkway to Castle Junction. From there we headed up and over the continental divide on Highway 93 and descended the other side to the paint pots at approximately the same elevation. The climb was great, rather unrelenting as a whole but the pitch did vary enough that I still found opportunities to move from seated to standing. The south side (BC side) of the pass on the return wasn't nearly as steep and the descent was long and fast, spinning out my top gear on the bike didn't occur for long stretches at a time so I inevitably was putting out the effort to keep myself cruising above 65-70 kph instead of slowing down. The return climb was nice and then the steep descent was amazing. Dave and I co-operated on the downhill trading drafts and I broke 75 kph. From there the group split, some returned to Canmore directly and others took in a climb on Mt. Norquay. Simmon and myself turned left and headed out to ride the second half of the parkway to Lake Louise. Simmon turned at the end of the road and I continued for a further 5 km up to the Lake Louise Chateau as my final destination. The return was a long push into a headwind, 50 kms of rolling hills along the parkway. When I reached the end we had about 30 km to return to canmore and I needed a little break before continuing. A little bit of sugar and a quick rest of my legs and I was game to get back on the road. Simmon and I drafted one another back holding mightily respectable speeds considering the duration of the ride, the headwind which was luckily beginning to die off and a rather meager showing in terms of long-rides so far this season. My longest at 120 had been trumped by almost 85 kms and Simmons longest of 2009 by more than 100 kms.

The hot tub greeted us instead of a short run as most of the others did upon their earlier arrival and then the eating began.

Sunday's collective ride was to be shorter so I headed out an hour earlier than their scheduled departure in the vehicles planning to meet up with them along the way at Kananaskis village and ride with them from there. I rode an average of 35 kph with a sidewind for the first hour and then began to battle the wind from the south on the second hour of my ride. I saw the cars go past loaded with bikes and I had motivation to really keep the effort level up if I was going to meet up with them for the ride. All was well in the end as I arrived on time but it took some hard work to do it including a top speed on one of the downhills of just 32 kph into an exposed headwind.

The group stuck together for the most part after meeting up and we rode a double paceline 30 kms south into the wind. Once we reached the gate to Highwood pass we turned around and headed back north with the wind at our backs. The speeds leaped by a significant margin as we rolled along at 45-50 kph along the flats and returned home in significantly less time than we had taken to ride out. After shuffling luggage and packing bikes we were still able to head out for a run together through Kananaskis village and down towards the river. Putting a hill, and a rather significant one, into the gameplan for the brick run was maybe not such a good decision following two days of serious riding because that's the part of the weekend that I can still feel, the calves aren't super pleased today, likely magnified by the car trip home almost immediately after the run. --link-- --image removed--

That's just a teaser photo: the rest can be viewed --link--in the Canmore Training Weekend Photo Album and have been stolen from Becky and Justin. Thanks!

Calgary Police Half Marathon

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:51:24 MST

I ran the Calgary Police Half marathon in 1:36:23 on Sunday April 26. It was one of my least favorite races of all time but it did result in a personal best on the distance so in retrospect I am happy to have run it. I perhaps also learned a few things while running it, maybe it's more likely that thinking about why it felt so lousy afterward was how I learned a few things. None the less I'm pretty confident I didn't run as fast as I could have on the day due to some poor pacing choices and I probably didn't run as fast as I could have that week due to some poor tapering choices. The results however are good so let's start there. I was actually quite quick, averaging 4:35 per kilometer is more than acceptable considering all the factors. I also have to consider that I ran 26.2 miles only three weeks prior and that my training focus on the run has been endurance with the focus on pushing past the two hour mark. While it seems a bit silly to suggest that the half marathon is not really an endurance event the honest truth is that it's bordering on not being one. I have pretty good reasons to believe that my body's glycogen stores when topped off properly run themselves out in about 100 to 110 minutes when riding a bike through triathlon club practice if not supplemented with a few extra calories. While running is different than the stationary bike and considering I did consume 100 calories of shot-bloks on the run in addition to two cups of Gatorade I had absolutely no need to run off anything more than glycogen and sugar-burning aerobic work during the race. If the muscular endurance is there to get me through about 34 kms with no ill effects and my glycogen storage is good enough to go the distance then realistically 21.1 kms shouldn't be considered an endurance challenge, it's an aerobic one meaning unfortunately that my speed should basically be a measure of how much my huge body could breathe and how much I was willing to hurt to stick it out. --image removed--
(Taking in a bit of food was probably an unnecessary safety net but as I'm used to taking 100 calories every 5 miles on runs lasting longer than 60 minutes I opted not to play with something that works, it certainly wasn't going to slow me down anyways.)

That's all said basically to suggest that I did run a fast race, that I have developed the endurance to crank out a 21 km run at hard effort without feeling the need to really dig deep to keep it rolling once past the ten mile mark. I found myself actually looking forward to getting some intermediate miles down between 10 miles and 12 miles, in retrospect those are normally finishing miles. I wasn't struggling to be able to maintain the pace I ran towards the finish, I just couldn't pick it up. The endurance was there but the speed wasn't.

Perhaps describing why the speed wasn't there starts with a little description of the taper, or lack thereof before I discuss the race-day strategy. Following the marathon three weeks prior I found I was capable of hard aerobic work on the bike within a few days but my ability to do any real effort while running had totally disappeared. I rode hard at triathlon club practice and wimped out on the runs, even having to quit an intervals set halfway through, I couldn't manage it and walked slowly home from the river valley. After a week and a half I was out on my feet again and was successful for the first time at a Wednesday Night Cross country race. My legs held up for 17 minutes as I ran slightly above my aerobic limit the entire time. I felt great and likely as a result of this positive feedback to the restoration of my running I took the training hard right through the weekend and into the next week. I racked up my biggest 7 day stretch yet in 2009 with varied sport focus including two excellent 10 km run efforts at moderate pace. I cruised right along into the next Wednesday's race, this time running a bit closer to my aerobic capacity for the duration. The taper would begin Friday for Sunday's race by taking two days off. Not really a taper at all you might say, and you'd be right. It would have likely been sufficient to rest up if I had not just completed a serious training effort spanning 13 days without a break. Friday and Saturday were spent in recovery mode from the training load of the last weeks and not acquiring the extra bits of rest required for a good race performance.

The mental preparation for this race was also lacking, I hadn't actually decided what my goal pace was supposed to be, I tossed around the idea of trying to run 7 minute miles and aiming for a 92 minute time. Perhaps it was my fast performances at Wednesday night races that suggested this in my head. I knew however that I was far more likely to be successful at running an even pace the whole race and probably would reasonably shoot for 7:15 miles if aiming for an even paced race. I started the race not having decided upon the plan, hopping the fence into the starting chute without really gauging whether or not I was self seeding appropriately. We cruised out of the start and I nailed two 6:45 miles in a row, I was feeling pretty good, refreshed and plenty happy that it wasn't snowing or raining as had been forecast. This was a terrible pacing strategy and I would pay for it, I slowed appropriately to approximately the pace I should have been running the whole race by the time I went through 5 miles but was perhaps a minute ahead of all the people who were running this pace consistently through the race. That meant there was a slow and steady stream of people passing me as I went down the hill into the weaselhead, I had an incorrect picture in my mind that it was a steep downhill and short jaunt over to the uphill on the other side. The flat across the bottom was an entire mile long and I got frustrated a bit confused by why things seemed to be going the way they were and saddened that there were people getting past me. I was well within my limits running through this stretch and should have upped the pace and stuck on the tail of any one of the other runners but instead I was hesitant to choose one, worrying about the consequences of passing control of the pace over to another stranger. Up the hill I went, the cycling muscles came into play and I passed a few people on the ascent. The race gets a bit tedious here through to the ten mile point and I was still running well within my limits not terribly pleased by my pace but accepting the fact that I was sufficiently quick to still have the 1:40 under wraps. For a few miles this became the plan, keep it under 1:40? That was outrageous and when I actually calculated how slow I could go and was then starting to go I realized I had to pick up the pace. Having chosen a specific planned pace would have been valuable here but that wasn't the case and I opted to make a last ditch effort with about 4 kms out to salvage what I was realizing was a poor race plan by picking the nearest tall guy and deciding to run his pace as he went by. It worked for 300 yards before we went up and over the overpass and I needed to pass him on the uphill. Down the other side and I was out on my way through to the final 3 kms, the disaster zone was finished and I finally picked up my pace to a moderately hard effort hovering right around my aerobic threshold and went for it. The ends of races are always interesting some people fade badly and others pick it up, as I was picking it up some of those ahead of me were also speeding up and my plans to knock them off one by one got a bit complicated or I was getting to the border of being out of it. I came through the 21 km mark with one other man who started a sprint to the finish and I started to go with him but as soon as I realized he had me beat I backed off. No point in loosing a sprint to the finish I thought to myself and just ran it in across the line.

Summary of results: --link--here.

Yakima River Valley Marathon

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:23:46 MST

It has been a few days since the race and I decided that it�s probably a good time to write down a few reflections of the marathon last weekend before the details are out of my head.

Thursday morning I gave a presentation at school and after lunch got on a plane down to Abbotsford BC where my brother Silas picked me up from the airport. I stayed with him and his three roommates in a rather full two bedroom townhouse that they are squishing into in favour of cheap rent and the ability to buy ski tickets. The next morning we made the 4.5 hour drive south from Abbotsford to Seattle and then 100 miles east to Ellensburg Washington via the I-90. The snow up top was still DEEP but as we descended we entered the desert and the temperatures crept up. We would sleep the night in Ellensburg and the next morning I�d run down 42 kilometers through the Yakima River Canyon towards Selah Washington. After checking into the hotel I found online that upon first appearance gave thoughts of funky smells and creeky beds, but turned out to be excellent annoyance free and cheap accommodation, we drove the course. The route is winding and generally downhill and for miles 3-26 passes through a canyon that�s just barely wider than the road, a river famed for its catch and release fly fishing, and a train track. We guesstimated the mile markers as we drove and I picked out a few mental notes along the way, there�s a pacman painted on a cliff at the half marathon point and made a mental note that the downhill after the first hill is steep and the second hill has a false summit. All things I mostly knew and there were to be mile markers along the way anyways, so I wasn�t obsessive about it and we enjoyed the views. Four and a half hours of driving adds up to a pretty good amount of time to sit in a car, especially when I�m focused on super hydrating my body, enough said. --link-- --image removed--
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We arrived and looked for the Selah Civic center along the west side of main street for the pasta dinner and decided to park the car, get out and look for it a bit better as the google maps pointer suggested we were pretty close. Once standing on the curb it was abundantly obvious where it was, across the street that we�d driven past twice already. Google is good but it�s not perfect!

As we chowed down on spaghetti and looked through the race package documents Silas and I came to the realization that there were more than a few crazy marathoners present at this particular race. Perhaps it had the highest concentration of what might be considered crazies at any race in the USA this year. The Marathon Maniac club was having its annual reunion race at this marathon. A club composed of people who run marathons like they�re going out of style. Some travel to run every weekend, some race on back to back days. Some are finishing up an all 50 states marathon challenge and some have already completed it. One was to run his 100th marathon tomorrow and another was on 428 or something like that. A bit of an intimidating crew! Silas groaned every time a new stat was mentioned, and then they made the marathon first timers stand up, there were 7 of us� Out of 441 people.

Following dinner we headed back to the hotel, unpacked all of my junk and set things ready for the next morning then hit the sack. Up an hour and a half before the race start I chowed down on bread, jam and bananas for breakfast and some Gatorade. Silas warned me not to keep drinking or I�d spend the whole run stopping in the ditch, I assured him that wasn�t an issue as I put away a bit of milk and more Gatorade. Off to the race start we went decked out in Triathlon Club colours. It would be warm enough to start out in a wind breaker and T-Shirt and so the hoodie was stripped off even before I began. Walking 500 yards to the start was enough warm-up for me and one last watering of the bushes, a star spangled banner and we were off. --link-- --image removed--
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The first mile was slow, I was happy to take it easy off the start and ran it about 1 minute slower than my planned pace. The group was starting to thin out as we wove around through some farmland before making it to the canyon. Mile two was a fast one, taking the first mile easy meant people running my pace were already a bit further up the road. It would prove to be my fastest of the day and I soon settled down and nailed the third mile in exactly 7:37. It felt good, this was the planned pace for the race and I had no qualms about running that pace. I�d been tapering my volume way down and hadn�t done much of anything significant all week long, two steady runs, two hard hours on the bike and an easy half hour in the pool. What had been a pace that felt fast during my biggest volume weeks earlier in the buildup felt completely manageable. That�s a good sign I thought to myself.

I was now tucked in with people running approximately my pace and was no longer moving my way through the field. I had to keep an eye on the clock as well as focus on my position relative to multiple runners because I wasn�t about to gauge my pace off of just one person. These are people all planning to run faster than 3:30 and I was almost guaranteed that a few of them had done that more than ten times, maybe fifty. I was in the mix with quite a few of the marathon maniacs. Up one quick rise and suddenly we came around the corner and we in the canyon. I needed to start eating already and I felt as though I had just started but the numbers don�t lie, I�d gone 5 miles and that meant I had to put down 100 calories, that�s the game plan and I�ve got to stick to it.

Things cruised along nicely as we faced no more grades through the next 8 miles. The sun started to warm things up and I wanted to lose my gloves and toque. They couldn�t be abandoned just anywhere, I needed to wait for an aid station with a garbage can. I�ll just keep wearing them I thought to myself, but it was starting to heat up and with a solid 5 kms of waiting for the next aid station I started to get warm. Looking down my windbreaker�s arms were soaked with sweat. I took the gloves off and decided to carry them as starting to drip sweat was in no gameplan of mine. Finally an opportunity came, I lost the gloves and toque and kept on cruising feeling quite nice in the sunshine. Ten miles down, nearly halfway there, I started to chat with another runner, he was wearing an IMAZ visor so we discussed the heat and wind in Tempe, he�d raced in 2005. Faris Al-Sultan had won in hot and windy conditions before going on to slaughter the competition at Kona that fall. Suddenly we could see a clock on the road up ahead. 13.1 miles down in 1:39:40. That�s a half marathon PR and I hadn�t really worked yet, that�s good though I thought. Keep it steady for another ten kms to the hill and then I can get going if I still feel good.

Another mile done and my fellow triathlete went missing, who knows where to, forwards or backwards I don�t know. Around the corner we come, aid station and a big hill. This was the short one, about 4 minutes of effort and we were up top, a few guys had a sound board out with huge speakers echoing some rock and roll off the canyon walls as we climbed towards them. Over the crest and down, down, down, this descent was steep and I tried to keep it even and smooth, light on my feet I thought to myself. The canyon widened out a bit for a stretch and I ran alongside a marathon maniac for a while. I was keeping the steady pace from before and glanced at my heart rate, 174, I�m at the top end of acceptable. I cannot let this rise anymore or I�ll be in trouble, the plan is to keep it between 162 and 172. I don�t need to slow it down yet but I have to be careful not to speed it up. Should I keep running beside this maniac or not? It�s not a good idea if it will push me, it is a good idea if my mind starts to wander a bit, it�s easier to keep it steady beside someone else. I decide to stay with her and we get to some shade. My heartrate drops back to the middle of the range and I feel alright about that. We�re back in the sun soon enough and I take off the windbreaker. It gets stuffed down the back pocket of my jersey. 20 miles down, I thought the hill was supposed to start here. It�s probably just around the corner. Nope, maybe the next corner. I start to wonder what�s going on when it�s not around the that one� it�s getting close to the 21 mile marker when it finally comes into view. I slow to a walk through the aid station as I have done once already and take a powerade and water, mix the two and chug them down, then another two cups. I�ve been drinking two cups every 3 miles but my mouth is dry and don�t want to wind up crashing into dehydration in the last 5 miles. The hill is a gentle grade but it certainly takes a long time to climb and it�s starting to feel hot. It�s getting up to 20 degrees and I�ve still got tights on. One little patch of shade three quarters of the way up and I walk for 20 steps. Out of the shade, I might as well run. One last patch of shade as I crest the hill, I resort to another 20 steps of walking.

I�m at the top of the hill now, keep everything under control until you�re at the top of the hill I had been telling myself as I felt like I could have picked up the pace for much of the morning. Once again the heartrate is 175, slightly high but I�m getting close now as I�ve eclipsed the three hour mark. It�s now time to pick up the pace but now I can�t. The slight cambers in the road as we�ve run have been mostly long sweeping right turns and sharp left turns, my left leg had been slightly higher than my right for the majority of the time and I can feel it in the sides of my thighs. I�ve been able to feel it since km 25 but now it hurts. It�s surface pain, not deep, so I�m not really worried about it, it just hurts. It�s a gentle downhill but I can�t take advantage of it, the fronts of my quads don�t want to run down a hill. I haven�t been running down hills all winter, it�s icy in Edmonton and running downhill is a sure bet to wipe out. The pain slowly notches up and up until I decide I�ve got to take another quick walk break, it�s more than 20 steps this time but soon enough I�m back at it. I�ve got to count when I start walking I tell myself, that way I�ll never walk for too long. I run until it�s too painful and take another walk break. One more time, running is just TFH (hard) I can�t run even though my head says this is not the fastest plan and then I�m back walking for a stretch. I near the 25 mile aid station and take one last look at my watch. 3:20 is gone but 3:30 is all but guaranteed if I can at least run most of the way. I stop and walk through and pound back 3 cups. Don�t pull a Paula and loose the nutrition plan on the home stretch I remind myself. It�s a good thing someone famous once made this mistake because I�ll never forget myself. Back running. It�s downhill again but I�m close now so I�m not stopping to walk, with about a half mile to go it flattens out and I�m feeling better about the situation, the pain in my quads is stable, not getting worse as I run. One old guy comes past me and consciously make the decision not to think about racing him. I�m on the border of holding it together so I�ll just hold it together. --link-- --image removed--
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I see Silas in his red jacket, give him a thumbs up and come off the side of the road into the finish area. My name is announced, and I don�t really know where the line is but I have to stop or I�ll run someone over so I stop. Someone comes from behind me to pull the tab off my race bib, obviously I ran a bit too far. The race director spots the little shiny foot on my race number and give me a hug, I�m a newbie. I�m offered an aluminum blanket and a bottle of water. I chug the bottle and grab another bottle of juice. I finish it also on the spot. Another bottle and I make the slow walk to find a chair. I bend my knees to sit down and pause. All the people around me laugh, �you�re not getting back up once you get down� they tell me. I sit down and am feeling pretty chilly so I tuck the edges of the blanket in around me. Another one is blowing around on the ground and I wrap it around my legs. I down a few bananas. Another bottle of juice, a can of antioxidant baloney that someone is sponsoring the run with. It tastes awful but it�s liquid, cookies, yoghurt, some gummi bears. We chat a bit and Silas tells me that I�m number 46. That�s weird I thought, there were a lot of people ahead of me at the end, but it meant that I was actually at the front end of when things started to get busy. --link--Look here for an illustration of that.

Getting out of the chair was a lousy process as was the walk down the road to the car. Race organizers had showers available with towels, soap and shampoo in the local Jr. High school and once I had given the quads a bit of a massage under the hot water they felt a lot better. We sought out an unsecured wireless network in the community to send a few emails and then ate lunch, I was already ready for it. 4:00 arrived quickly and we ate dinner for the awards ceremony but hopped in the car to begin the drive home before anything happened. Sleep? No way, we stayed up late drinking cheap American beer at a campfire on the banks of the Fraser river in Abbotsford once we were home.

CAMR Reform

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:11:04 MST

A recent letter to my member of parliament. I'd encourage you to read it and consider contacting your federal representatives as well. If you're really out of the loop you can find out who your MP is --link--By using your postal-code.

Hello Linda Duncan.

I don't know how intimately you understand the worldwide AIDS situation, it's a complicated beast to say the least. Inarguably a huge contributing factor to the perpetuation of this issue is the fact that people don't know any better than to keep spreading the disease either because they don't know they're infected or because they don't know how to take simple steps to prevent transmission. Getting people started on treatment is intimately tied to education. Communities of people living with HIV/AIDS who are living as a result of ARV treatment change the societal outlook on the disease, instead of a silent killer amongst the culture treated individuals are given physical ability to stand up against it and confidence against the disease is created within the community. This is a step along the avenue to conquering the disease. 2.3 million children under the age of 15 are infected with HIV. Less than 15% of the 780,000 children who need treatment are on the necessary medicines.

I personally don't think it's particularly important to discuss how many people are going to die this year as a result of this problem. Anti-Retro-Viral treatment is not going to keep them alive forever. They do however, change the perspective of a community being wiped out by the disease, the question is a quality of life for the living. It's about creating hope and inciting change.

You might be interested to know that I along with approximately 100 other students at the University of Alberta (the vast majority of whom I presume live in your riding) raised nearly $7000 at the end of last month to support the work of an organization called Dignitas International. (www.ualberta.ca/~dignitas) Our fundraising is basically going to be purchasing drugs and that's it. Getting drugs moving is considered such an important part of this process that all we focused on this year as students was awareness and the purchasing of drugs. The International organization is putting a huge effort towards distribution and care system optimization (I'd be excited to provide more information about dignitas international if you're interested) but drug movement is a huge deal, so much so that it's all we focused on for this year's fundraising event.

Here is where the situation involves our national government and therefor you!

In 2004 Canada responded to the urgent need for medicines in many developing countries by creating �Canada�s Access to Medicines Regime�, with the goal of getting more affordable, generic medicines to patients in the developing world. Unfortunately, the initiative was, and remains, seriously flawed. The bureaucratic burden associated with it has limited its use to one instance in the last 5 years.

The good news, though, is that CAMR can easily be simplified� without any additional spending. In testimony and submissions to Parliament, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and other organizations have outlined how CAMR can be streamlined by moving to the �one license solution�. Canada�s largest generic pharmaceutical manufacturer has made the commitment that, if CAMR is simplified, it will produce a lower-cost children�s version of a key AIDS drug for export to developing countries under CAMR. I request that you support the bill associated with this issue, a long term positive impact is directly linked to the passing of this bill.

I recognize that as a representative of this area you'd like to represent our interests but likely struggle a bit to know what people deem important. Consider the fact that there are 100 constituents who actively are making an effort to see AIDS drugs moving. I have a hard time imagining that you could even find 100 people who in principle are against the concept let alone making an active effort with their time and money to move in that direction. Please bring the situation with the CAMR to the attention of the New Democrats and request party support in the HOC. Bringing this issue beyond attention and towards action is critically important.

I look forward to hearing your response.

Josh Krabbe

Taper Time!

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:18:57 MST

As suggested last week these past 14 days were spent with a serious run focus. I only managed to get in the pool for one swim and only 3 hours on the bike this week. That's a lot less than normal, especially since it was supposed to be build week 3 (biggest volume and intensity) with the triathlon club. I had to opt out of a few fun workouts as a result.

The run goal of making 84 km (two marathons) this week was threatened a bit by the outrageously cold temperatures on Monday and Tuesday and Tuesday's runs were done inside which is monotonous and I feel like is a bit tougher on my knees than the outdoor variety. Highlights were a 1 hour 13 minute ten mile run on Saturday in slushy conditions and an 2 hour 57 minute long run today in falling snow on top of the nicely frozen slush from the previous night. This long run was the longest of my preparation and was 32.3 kms in length. I think I've got nutrition sorted and am very glad that there will be water stations along the way on race day as almost all of Edmonton's public drinking fountains are shut off for the winter and it's tricky to rink enough on these long runs. I'm also doing 100 calories of --link--shot bloks every 40 minutes along the way and am implementing that strategy on all of my runs longer than 10 miles during training.

I'm feeling good albeit tired and experiencing some muscle soreness. I've got one run left that I would consider to be a tough one this Wednesday and then it's really taper time as nothing left is too difficult before things get really tough between 10 and 11:30 am on April 4; the race starts at 8 am. I will be shooting for 3:20.

Winter!

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 09:59:52 MST

This is not running weather: --link-- --image removed--

8 Months of training

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:51:32 MST

The beginning of March marks a few things in my training. 8 months since the start of the Sea to Sea Bike tour. One month until my first marathon, 5 months until my main race of this season (Ironman Calgary 70.3) and 18 months until Ironman Canada 2010 (Penticton).

The past 8 months have been quite successful in terms of keeping the volume in. Since my shoulder allowed me to basically do whatever I wanted again I haven't let my 7 day rolling average drop below 1 hour per day except for a few down weeks during periodization in the fall and just prior to Christmas when I sprained my neck. I my pseudo-taper (partly planned - partly lazy) coming into the Birkebeiner I hardly got below 10hrs/wk in comparison.

This weekend is 4 weeks away from the marathon I'll be running in the Yakima River Canyon in Washington state. I'll have run 70 kms this week by the end of the weekend and expect to run 84 (two marathons) next week. I will continue with the sustained run volume through half of the next week and then begin a 2.5 week taper. My long runs still planned are a 28 and a 32 km each weekend and will also be aiming to run a 10 mile and 12 mile run at sub 7:40min/mile pace. Those 4 key runs remaining actually constitute a good portion of the run volume I have to fit in and based on how they go I will be deciding upon what my planned marathon pace will be come race morning. I've been training with the hope of trying for 3:20 which is a 7:38 min/mile pace. I will have to decide if I feel prepared to tackle that before race morning. When the gun goes I need to know if I'll be aiming for 3:20 or aiming for 3:30 I cannot decide mid-way and so that's what some of the focus with these runs is for, determining what I will decide to bite off. Of course I'm hoping that I feel confident through these runs and can do the 10 and 12 mile runs at this pace but if I end up with a bit of a reality check I am ready to have my reality checked.

A plot of the last 8 months rolling average is available --link--here if you're interested.

Egypt Lake Backcountry ski trip

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:23:30 MST

Skied in to Egypt Lake Cabin on Feb 20 this year starting from the parking lot of Sunshine Ski resort. The first day was about 13 kms over Healy Pass, a tough uphill for a good stretch and then some really spectacular skiing above treeline over the pass before descending back into the trees through a maze down to the cabin. --link-- --image removed--
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Saturday we spent the day in the valley exploring the lake and then doing a few short descents along the side of Redearth creek to test out or tele skiing skills. The ultimatum is that we don't really have any tele skills. That didn't stop people from jumping off cliffs though! --link-- --image removed--
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The highlights of the trip were obviously the great weather as well as a pretty great crew of people who ended up coming along. It was a bit of a mish-mash of all sorts of people I know from whereever but 'the common cause' is nortoriously efficient for drawing people together so by the time we headed out on Sunday it wasn't a van load of strangers any more. --link-- --image removed--
--link-- --image removed--

The ski out was 20.1 kms via the redearth creek drainage which is a fantastic quick descent on an old fire road for at least part of it. The crew for the 2010 trip hopefully isn't quite as hard to recruit... No news yet on where I'm planning to plan a trip to but we'll definitely be doing one. Definitely going to do at least a two night trip, it's far superior to the quick in and out. By the end of one day it doesn't quite feel like we'd escaped civilization but the second night certainly changed that, one watch and no electricity had us tired out enough to head for bed soon after 9 pm.

It should be bike season now...

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:11:40 MST

It's getting awfully close to bike season. If you don't know why that's a good thing then you should watch this video. If you think that's a great thing, then you should also watch this video.

Birkebeiner

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:36:14 MST

The Birkebeiner is a 55 km ski race that happens annually just east of Edmonton at Blackfoot recreation area. It's a Norwegian themed event in commemoration of a story of way back along time ago when some Norse guys saved the baby prince of Norway by carrying him 55 km on their backs to safety... eventually he would grow up and reconquer some other part of the country and re-establish his rightful role as monarch... it's supposed to be a good story that makes you feel all nice...

Well the way it's celebrated doesn't exactly feel so nice. Or at least the last stretch of it for myself was a really serious challenge. I don't think I'd say that is is definitively the most difficult thing I'd ever done in the world of sports. It was however the longest stretch of time that I put out a good solid effort without really stopping to take a break. Total time: 6:10:44. I've ridden my bike more more than 6 hours on numerous occasions but they all either included good breaks or periods where I didn't exactly feel like I was asking a lot of myself. Skiing yesterday on the other hand, I spent almost the entire time asking a bit more out of myself as I skied.

The morning started Uuber-early as I caught a ride with a couple friends (Ben and Lindsay) who were volunteering as medical staff at one of the stations along the route. This meant that they were supposed to check in at their site at 7 am and needed to drop me off on the way... Leaving some time just in case we got lost it meant that I was up, dressed, packed and had fried 4 eggs for breakfast by 5:30 in the morning. I was the first skier there by more than 20 minutes and took my time looking around and then just sitting my bum in a chair to wait it out. I learned a few things watching people arrive. The early people are all old. The early people almost all know eachother (or at least they know some people). The early people like to discuss waxing techniques with words and phrases that are all totally over my head. The early people all have very practiced routines. I could tell because they often paused, looked at something and made a mental checkmark. I learned an interesting way to carry energy gels: They are slipped into the sleeve of your shirt at the wrist inside the outer layer (which is tight... all early people wear tight clothes) and one goes above and one below the wrist, an elastic band (that is red so it matches the shirt being worn... early people all have color-coordinated racing gear) is wrapped around the gels and the shirt. To remove a gel from this location while skiing along and holding a pole you just bring your wrist to your mouth and pull the gel out by your teeth. Then it's only a one handed affair to grab, rip, spit, suck, squeeze and throw the empty gel to the ground without loosing any speed. Early people are intimidating to people wearing relatively loose clothing that wasn't color co-ordinated. Had no race morning routines, knew none of the other early risers, and I planned on carrying the bit of food that I did have in my backpack and relying mostly on the aid stations for my nourishment. I switched somewhere in there from the generic to the personal. Let me be specific then... I was unprepared.

I made up my morning routine as I went along, put my ski boots on and sauntered down to the start with my skis and bag. I tossed my skis in a snowbank and weighed my pack... rules required it to be 12 lbs or heavier. Mine was more than 12 kg before I emptied it, most of my stuff went into the dry gear bag but the things I figured I would want or might need during the day stayed on my back. I cut it down to 15 lbs. I was using my backpacking backpack because it has my preferred shoulder straps and waistbelt. It meant thought that I needed to keep my sleeping bag in the bottom to maintain it's shape so the waistbelt is actually good... Another rookie mistake... carry more than you absolutely need to.

I saw a few people I knew, my supervisor from school and his wife along with one of the other guys (Graham) from our lab. I tested out the wax job I had done for my skis and it was acceptable. I had done something correctly! I chugged a liter of water, ate a muffin and made a washroom pitstop and soon enough it was time to line up. The start is 12 skiing lanes wide and heads out across a lake where the lanes eventually disappear and people have to merge. There are a few signs along the side telling you how to seed yourself in the back and I choose to stand by the slowest sign. The countdown begins with a 15 minute warning. A ten minute warning, seven minute warning someone sings O Canada with a voice that either has decided it is too cold or too early in the morning... A five minute warning. I comment to one of the guys standing near me that calling them warnings isn't the most encouraging of choices of vocabulary. He laughs and agrees, it's his first time too and we're both happy to know we're not alone in the sea of people who are starting to hop up and down with their skis on and doing arm circles to loosen up. I take off my fleece jacket and put on a windbreaker when we hear the three minute warning. The one minute to start isn't a warning, just a notice, and both me and my new friend glance at eachother with smiles on.

The horn sounds and we're off. During the final three minutes there have been about 8 rows of people accumulating behind me and the pressure is on to ski and not hold them back too much, everyone skis at the pace of the person in front of them even though that's a terrible strategy for spreading out and merging together. I pass a few people who are standing up between the lanes shuffling backwards trying to retrieve a dropped pole or a missing toque. I'm not a total screw-up thus far and keep on trucking along way faster than I've pretty much ever skied before. After a couple merges the clump I'm in is really getting bunched up and I glance at my watch... oops I forgot to start it. That sucks. Before we know it the lake has come to and end and we're narrowed down to 3 lanes. The race leaders are tiny ants on the horizon and we just passed the 2 km mark.

I ski the first 7 kms or so in the midst of some pretty big groups. It's going good, I feel the permission to ski at my own pace. I see Graham ahead of me and slowly reel him in... he's going about my pace but his stride is funny compared with mine and it's distracting to ski behind him. I realize I need to find someone to follow who is mentally relaxing to ski behind and going my pace. The problem is that now there isn't a huge selection of people to choose from. I'm skiing in a little group. One guy goes by and I like the look of his feet so I want to follow him. Problem is someone else is on his tail so I can't switch lanes. Maybe it takes a whole kilometer to get behind him... oh well something to think about. I latch on behind the orange coat guy who I notice is on rental skis... I wonder what his story is. We pass a sign giving us a 1 km warning to the first station. We pass an outhouse and my orange coat pulls off the track but I'm not stopping to wait for someone to follow and continue on to the aid station. I pull off the track and have someone right in my face with a tray of gatorade. It's steaming and warm, another new experience, but this one is great. I drink two cups. Eat two pieces of banana and a cookie. I realize I'd better get skiing as no-one else seems to be taking this long at the stop. I shoulder check and step back out into the track and then finally look on up the hill ahead. There is not a soul in sight. I only stopped for 1:06, what happened to my group?

I ski along largely alone and pass one person who is going so slow I can hardly imagine how she was still ahead of me. I start to look around and take note of all the hoar frost on the trees. I hadn't really noticed until now, it doesn't really show up sparkling until the sun shines on it which it was starting to do. Soon enough the trail merges with the 31 km route and there are people all around again. They started 1/2 hour later than the 55 km skiers but took a shortcut so they've traveled less distance than us but are on the same track. None of them have packs and the timing of their start and distance mismatch puts me amongst slightly faster people than I had been skiing with alone. That's okay with me as long as there are some people around and I pick a small group to follow. We come into the next station and I find myself having skied past all of the drinks and need to do the awkward backwards shuffle for a while before someone notices what I'm trying to do and brings me two cups of warm gatorade. I drink them, take a cookie and a piece of banana. I shoulder check and wave to my friend Scott who comes past in the 31 km race. I can't step into the track quite yet and have to wait for a bit. I'm skiing along in a clump again and prefer it at least for now. We come down around a corner and the hill suddenly gets steeper. I'm standing bolt upright and suddenly my balance is off. I'm balancing on one foot and then am sliding on my side. Quickly I'm back upright before I get run over but managed to force an older lady to hop out of the tracks in the left lane to dodge my skis. She isn't pleased with me and tells me not to fall, that I should try to balance better and then maybe I wouldn't fall. I apologize and continue along. The route is getting a bit hillier, or at least the hills are longer each time than they were earlier in the game. The wax is still holding up great and I'm pretty proud of myself. Another aid station warning and before I know it we're at the next stop. Another two cups of gatorade. They also have 'cup of noodles' soup but I don't want to take the time to eat it. A few pieces of banana, some cookies and see that there is blocks of cheddar cheese. I think back to the summer bike riding and always having some cheese strings while on the bike... yep I can eat that I've done that before. It seems like other skiers are avoiding taking the cheese like a plague. Is this a bad choice? I wonder as I pop a whole handful into my mouth and ski off down the hill and on towards the next aid station. It's protein I tell myself and put the questions out of my head.

I'm now skiing behind some really funny guys. They're on the short course and making jokes, I stick behind them for a bit. Their km markers are different than mine because of their shortcut detour. Theirs are a bit closer together than 1 km it seems to the guy. The difference between the 55 km markers is longer than the distance between the 31 km markers and joke about the implications not knowing that I'm listening. When they get two markers within a single one of my km markers I pipe up... we all laugh and continue on.

The next aid station arrives and it's the one where Ben and Lindsay are volunteering. I down another two cups of gatorade a few pieces of banana and a cookie. We take a picture together but it has to be on Lindsay's camera because mine is frozen solid and says it needs a new battery. It's easy to be over 12 lbs when you carry dead weight like that. I stop here for a bit and dig through my bag so I can change which gloves I've got on. My gloves have turned into big wet bags on my hands with all the sweat and are in need of a change. Wet gloves into the backpack and dry ones out. That adds weight to the pack I thought to myself... oh well.

Leaving station four is straight up a hill and it's a long one too. There are still lots of 31 km people around who all seem to be happy with the fact that they've only got about 10 kms left. I've got more than 30. I realize as we climb one of the hills, maybe it was the first one, maybe it was the next that my groin was starting to be pretty tired. I keep trucking along and the uphills are all pretty long, after having realized I was starting to get sore (I've been a bit tired for quite a while already) that this was going to be a long 30 kms. Someone pulls up next to me and says "Hey, are you Josh?". I have no idea what the connection is and he explains that he's the husband of another grad student and had been with Graham when we saw eachother before the race. He gives me a bit of encouragement as the two routes split and John goes the way of the 31 km tour. I turn left and continue uphill. I'm in behind a familiar person, the girl in the purple jacket. I think the guy in the orange jacket was following her just before we got to the first aid station. I tuck in there and am pleased with that situation. I pass her going down a hill and she never re-passes me. When I shoulder check I can't tell who is behind unless they're in the other lane so I have no idea if she is still skiing with me or not. A few more exciting downhills with corners at the bottom and I pull into the next station. I've got the pattern down now... Pull in drink a cup of warm gatorade and chow down a few bananas and a cookie. The bananas are starting to be frozen bananas because the time gap between the first people and me must be getting longer. I drink the second cup of gatorade afterwards so I don't have a cold mouth and hop back in the tracks. As I'm leaving the station I'm passed another bit of banana, this one is peeled for me so I take it. I'm barely finished chewing and a lady is trying to put a cookie in my mouth. I take it between the teeth and keep skiing. I wonder if they're trying to fill me up because they're starting to think of us people at the back of the pack as in need of care and attention. That frustrates me as I feel okay and keep skiing. I'm happy to be fed cookies but what about their motivation for feeding me?

Off we go into a tough stretch. I'm in behind an old guy in a puffy red down jacket. He has a bit of a stoop and doesn't hold his head up straight but I can't ski any faster than him. I stick in behind a guy who is likely close to 50 years older than me and barely can hang on. My wax starts to fail me just as I'm being humbled by an old guy. It's getting warmer and warmer and I'm probably wearing off quite a bit of wax with all of my weight and the crystals in the snow, it's pretty abrasive stuff in these conditions. I tough it out starting to slip now and again as I cruise towards the 6th station. I'm super pleased when I see the 1 km to the station sign and manage to stay with the old guy all the way there. Not being able to pass a 70 year old is one thing but to have been dropped by him would have been another story.

I'm focussed on getting some wax on my skis as I come through the station and am looking for somewhere out of the way. I only grab one cup of gatorade and pull over. Skis off and get the wax out. Failing to have grabbed any food I pull out a fudge and protein bar as well and chow half of that down. I look at the little thermometer hanging off the back of my pack and it says minus 8. I can't believe that, it's supposed to be minus 15 right now I think to myself. I ask the others who also have stopped to wax if I should be using blue. They all say that's what they're putting on so I do two coats of it the first one thin and I make sure to spread it evenly the second one my hands are starting to get cold so I spread it a bit thicker and don't so such a good job with the cork. Forget it I tell myself, I'm going to be bleeding from the knuckles if I don't get my gloves back on. My body apparently is starting to direct it's attention towards locomotion and not doing such a good job with the peripheral roles. I wonder if I'm digesting anything that I'm eating. The protein bar was probably not the best choice, sugar would have been better. A quick pee while the outhouses are convenient and I'm back on the skis.

I bomb down a great hill onto a lake and head out across the lake. It's spectacular and the sky is mostly blue. I can see skiers up on top of a hill along the lake ahead and realize I'd better savour the flat lake while I can. I get off the lake at the same time as a girl in blue splash pants. I think back to the morning and think that she doesn't qualify among the early crowd with baggy pants like those. Off we go up a hill and approach a guy decked out in a matching dark green outfit. He qualifies for the early crew I think to myself and we pass the 35 km sign. Only 20 kms left. As we're passing Mr. Green I realize that he's probably only 23 or 25 and gets the boot from the early-risers list, not old enough. I tell him that I noticed he was checking his watch at the 35 km mark and ask him if he thinks we're on track for a 6 hour finish. He says that he hopes so. I'm encouraged and get back to work and chase down the girl in blue pants. 6 hours would be great. I calculate my finishing time based on that estimate... it's three o'clock pm. I then realize that I felt like that was a whole calculation, adding 6 hours to 9am! That's not a good sign, maybe I'm getting a bit stupid as well. No time to think though, I'm on track for six hours and I've got to ski. We cruise through some hills and have some really exciting downhill stretches. There's been yellow signs that say caution on top of lots of these hills, just a notification that you're going to be going down a hill. One of them actually means caution here though, sharp left midway, then the pitch gets steeper so you can gain some speed just in time for the sharp right at the bottom. I'm having fun and feel like I'm really cruising along. Into the next aid station I tell myself that I can't stop too long. I down two cups of gatorade. A few bits of banana and a cookie. My mouth is frozen from the bananas and I drink another gatorade to warm it up.

The people at the aid station tell me that the next 5 kms is the hardest part. I look at the course profile which is taped to my ski pole and it looks hilly, no worse that the section where I was trying to keep up with the old man though and now I had good wax. I motivate myself to give it a solid effort as I can make it to the finish in 6 hours and huff out of there and up a big hill. I'm doing more herringbone with my skis than I have been doing for most of the day. It's been about 15 kms since I decided my groin was tired and it's now categorized as totally worn out. My hip flexors are tired and pulling each ski through is taking quite a bit of work. I feel like my strides are getting shorter and tell myself that if my strides are getting shorter then they'd better be getting faster. I don't know if it helps me increase the cadence. I meet up with a guy who has a timex GPS unit on his backpack and I ski next to him for a while. We debate the merits of the Garmin unit that I'm using versus the timex one that he has. He's a mountain biker and just bought XC skis at Christmas. He's also totally out of his league and thinks that all of his friends are probably done by now. He's efficient on the uphills though and pulls away from me even though he says his wax isn't quite right. I think that means I'm getting tired.

The next station warning happens at the bottom of a short hill and as soon as I'm at the top I can see it down the other side. That was the shortest kilometer of my day for sure, it's making up for that longer one earlier I think to myself and am happy that the long one wasn't second, I don't know how well I'd deal with a long kilometer at this point in the game. This aid station is all about efficiency they don't want us to stop here, just ski slowly and they'll keep feeding us. I think it's because they know if we stop we might not start again. The guy hands me a gatorade as I slide along and just as I do my pole jabs in in front of me and my arm goes shooting up. That cup is on the ground. Efficiency is not the order of the day right now, survival is. I step out of the track and eat my requisite two pieces of banana and drink two cups of gatorade without spilling any more of them. I take a cookie as I leave, chew on the way I tell myself. I can still make it in six hours.

The hills are tamer in the next stretch but they're not getting any easier. I ski next to a guy from "out east" for a while. He's also having a tough time, 55 kms is a long way. Slowly though we drift apart. It's now less important to try and ski alongside someone else or tuck in behind someone whose stride is not distracting. I could care less as I'm now giving things a really serious effort. The six hour goal is motivating me and I have that little bit of hope that the course is getting easier the closer we get to the finish.

One kilometer to the next station seems to be a long kilometer and it finished with a big uphill. As I get to the top I can really feel my heart racing. I am having a tough time and I think the people who are feeding can tell. One guy is peeling my piece of banana for me and when I protest he just does it anyways. "That's what we're here for" he says. I get some gatorade in me and this station has definitely taken advantage of the fact that sugar solubility in water increases with temperature. They sure were able to dissolve a lot of gatorade I think to myself... it was about 10 kms ago that I couldn't add six hours to 9 am and now I am having no trouble thinking about chemistry. Some things are weird that way. I feel like my heart rate is not getting under control and check my monitor. It's not recovering as quickly as it should. I feel like my body is making the decision about the six hour goal on my behalf and with about 8 kms remaining I had better not be to intent on that for my first go round.

The difficulty of the course was leaning towards my favour but I wasn't really intent on taking advantage of it. My friend with the timex GPS unit who had stopped at the "highly efficient" station to rewax came by like I was standing still. The route was mostly straight and we could see where we were going. I thought back to the road into Snowville Utah that I rode this past summer on my bike. It was one of my favorite days, endless pedalling in a straight line. I think part of it was realization that the sense of progress is somewhat arbitrary. I was cycling about 38 kph for a long stretch that day and it felt like we were going nowhere.

The diversion to thinking about riding a bike was appreciated and soon enough the straight bit had come to an end. Another station, this was the last one. Remembering Paula Newby Fraser falling apart in the 1995 Hawaii ironman due to skipping some of the last aid stations and being passed by Karen Smyers for the win I pulled in and drank my two cups of gatorade. Another bit of banana and a cookie. I had 5 kms to go and the 6 hour goal was out of reach. Out onto the trail again we soon joined up with some of the other events in progress. No 31 km skiers were to be seen but the 13 km skiers were plentiful. They all had lots of energy and were moving all of their body parts with full ranges of motion. That was certainly something I hadn't seen in a while out on the 55 km course. Everyone moving my pace had developed their survival skiing mode and was implementing it in fine form. These skiers were doing another fine form and it wasn't particularly uplifting.

We got to split off of the trail of the quick skiers after a short stretch and got back onto our own route. The snow was quite grainy and in places where herringbone was necessary to ascend a hill the track was chewed up into a sand pit. Pushing against mooshed snow suddenly became incredibly demoralizing and even though these hills were tiny compared to the long ones earlier the challenge seemed enormous. Slow progress down the trail. I switched to the left lane because it was slightly less chewed up as I was all alone. No-one could complain about not being able to pass me as I had been alone for the better part of three kilometers. The one km to go marker came and went and then I heard someone coming from behind me. I planned that I was going to try and race him if he was carrying a pack. I was not about to be passed by someone this late in the game. The mental preparation for the sprint finish was building and building. I felt already like I was going as fast as I could but I was pretty sure that if this guy actually passed me I could just tell my body to go a bit faster and it would have to find another gear. Slowly the sounds were closer and I checked over my right shoulder. This guy had a green bib and wasn't carrying a pack. What a relief! I wouldn't have to race to the finish after all. I slowed it right down having passed the final 100 m marker and skied in to the finish. All by myself.

After having my timing chip removed I slid over to the guy weighing packs and he hung mine on the scale. 9.5 kgs. My pack had gained about 5 lbs since being weighed. The pad on the back was saturated with water, I hadn't weighed in the fleece jacket that I had ended up carrying the whole way and swapped mitts. I was congratulated on having weighed in with the heaviest backpack of the day thus far. No-one else skied the Birkebeiner 2009 with a backpack heavier than mine any faster than I did. That's a record I don't think I'm going to try and keep for next year. I don't know if that means I should switch backpacks to one with less comfortable straps and waistbelt or I should figure out a lighter way to pack this one with everything I need.

I've never eaten a hotdog that tasted so good in my entire life before.

I tabulated a few stats based on data from my Garmin: StationRest TimeHR recovery 11:060:20 22:530:36 33:111:07 411:00*1:01 52:451:06 612:40**0:59 72:460:58 81:41

1:34! 93:16

2:16! 101:311:11 FinishN/A

5:14! Total:39:49 * Picture with Ben and Lindsay and mitts

** Waxing and washroom break

A few graphs from the garmin: Heart rate - Elevation - Speed --link-- --image removed--
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Eddington Number

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:20:00 MST

The Eddington number, E, is the number of days in your life when you have cycled more than E miles.

It originates with Arthur Eddington, who was a physicist, who reached an E-number of 87 by the time he died in 1944. If you want to learn about his exploits in Physics then read --link--his Wikipedia page. The idea is that increasing Eddington numbers isn't all that simple of a feat once your number gets pretty good. To bump up from 60 to 65 all of the rides that you did that were between 60 and 65 are discounted and you need to do that many more above 65 plus the 5 actual rides to bump you from 60 to 65.

So the question you're all wondering is "what's my Eddington Number" I'm absolutely sure. Go calculate it! I don't have any idea what yours is... unless you were on the SeatoSea bike tour and rode EFI (which means different things depending on who you are... "Every Fabulous Inch", "Every Fantastic Inch" and of course some other versions. The tour prescribed that everyone would complete enough rides to score an imperial Eddington Number of 48 and a metric Eddington Number of 53. The metric one isn't as good of a measure in my opinion as it weights quantity a bit higher than quality. Of course this discussion is a big fat sliding scale and I suppose the imperial version is just nice because that's the only way you can compare yourself to Arthur Eddington.

I'm currently sitting at an imperial EN of 54 (metric 65 FYI). I am confident I'll make it to 60 by the end of this season (15 rides) without thinking about it. 65 requires 25 rides and 70 would require 33 rides of the correct distances respectively. 70 might be reachable but would require that I'm careful not to log too many between 60 and 70 miles, gotta make them all count!

As this is obviously a lifelong kind of game and not for a single season... then it would make sense for me to keep chipping away at the number of rides I put in above 100 miles as that would quite obviously be a cause for some celebration quite a few years down the road. It's only 82 rides away! Plus they all count for these lower scores (60-70) as well which is nice.

Bike is here!

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:35:13 MST

My bike showed up today... --link-- --image removed--
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It probably won't ride on any roads for a few weeks, perhaps even months. I think I might even wait to ride this new bike out on the road until there has been a bit of streetsweeping done. I've got the first cervelo (dual) that I can ride on the sandy streets when the ice melts. Oh yeah, ice, it's raining out there right now. It would qualify as relatively hard rain for the beginning of June. The bike ride to school tomorrow is going to be nuts because of it.

Triathlon Club ski trip

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:33:43 MST

Triathlon club made its annual ski trip to the mountains last weekend. Panorama was the destination and even though there hadn't been snow in about two and a half weeks the combination of excellent weather (blue skies), good company and ski equipment I don't mind skiing over gravel and bushes with made for a very fun weekend. The temperatures were well above zero both afternoons and the snow conditions were nice and soft, unfortunately this meant that early morning skiing and some of the groomed trails were icy disaster zones but for the most part we still had a good time. I skied mostly the top half of the mountain, running some of the same runs repeatedly once they were discovered by our group to capitalize on skiing where the snow was and keeping a positive attitude by not worrying about the patches between here and there that were a bit bare. --link-- --image removed--
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A New Racing Bike...

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:55:56 MST

There's a new bike in the quiver! --link-- --image removed--

After being professionally measured in early December I began the quest to find a bike that would suit the position I hoped to ride with for the next season (well next many seasons) of triathlon. My demands were a bit odd including an 890mm bottom-bracket to seat-top height and the hope of riding in excess of 80o seat tube angle. The scoping out of all the bikes was happening at about the same time that Slowtwitch published it's analysis of the pro positions on their bikes in Kona. It's an interesting article and something I'd recommend perusing. If the bike positions aren't something you're super concerned with you will like the photo of Faris Al-Sultan with a bottle of gatorade stuck down the back of his speedo. Compare those shots with a few photos of yourself and there's likely a few obvious things to improve. --link--(Slowtwitch link) --link-- --image removed--
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I had a number of bikes that should have worked but the demand for something specific really bumped the prices into some of the upper brackets for what would have been ideal. I was excited to try out the same bike that --link--Torbjorn Sindballe rides (Argon 18 E-114) but recognized that the pricepoint was too high to even bother trying to sit on a frame that would work. I'm too big to get a frame that most shops carry extras of and it's not really fair to have one of them ship a frame in if I'm not actually going to consider buying it. I toyed with the ideas of Felt (B2-series awfully steep but not good value and DA is just too expensive), Look(496 has too much lacking, 596 is too expensive), Orbea (well Ordu's too expensive, Ora's not serious enough) Kuota (Kueen K is too expensive, Kalibur is not steep enough)... really I thought about a lot of things and after many hours of research I came back to cervelo. I've been riding a Cervelo Dual from 2004 and have enjoyed it thoroughly but it just can't go steep enough on the seat-tube angle. It's also been crashed twice and starting to put upgrades on a bike that's been smashed is questionably intelligent. The next models up in the cervelo time-trial lineup rock out around the 78 degree mark without even trying. Pushing the seat forward is 80 degrees, maybe even 81 if I splurge and go for the (second from the) top of the line P3. I got myself on a 61 cm P3 bike in Calgary over Christmas and it fit like a glove, steep and really really tall! I couldn't justify the price differential to the better bike without actually trying out the P2 which might or might not have been able to do the position. After waiting around for one of them to show up at a shop and then to be built I was able to hop aboard one of them a week ago Saturday 7 weeks after the process began. The results were good, the seat tube stays steep enough when pulled out to accommodate my enormous legs. I had solved the problem of correct positioning at the cheaper of the two prices and with only one of these bikes left in Alberta at the 2008 season's prices I got it before the availability was lousy and then every other bike I had previously eliminated would have been back on the table for discussion. The following photos are on the new bike but they're action shots and not fitting shots so the comparison to the still shots on the fit bike don't correspond exactly. --link-- --image removed--
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It's silver and red so that aero-helmet I bought back in October matches nicely. I had debated at the time whether or not it was a wise idea to get a silver helmet considering I had no other silver cycling gear... but it turns out to be an excellent match. It doesn't exactly match with my racing kit for next season which is green, gold and black to represent the University of Alberta but that'll just have to be how it is. The stuff you can't see from the photos that is worth noting is that it's setup with Shimano DuraAce components, visiontech up front, and FSA Hollow-Carbon cranks. The seat is fi'zi:k Arione and the wheels are the standard Shimano R-500 that it seems like the whole triathlon world rides as their training wheelset.

WestJet Seat Sale!

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:26:41 MST

Plane tickets have been booked for the flight out to Abbotsford and Victoria for the beginning of April. That means I've committed to running this marathon and it's no longer just an idea. That also means I shouldn't be writing a blog about buying plane tickets, I should be outside running.

This will be my first marathon. I'm training based on a modified version of the Furman Institute's marathon training guide. It of course doesn't expect that you spend 3 days per week in the pool, commute everywhere by bike and do a fair amount of cycling on the side. I'm not hoping to slaughter a 3 hour time or anything spectacular so I'm leaving out a lot of running speed work in favour of doing my very high aerobic intensity work in other sports and focusing on strength (hills!) as endurance with my runs which are aiming for 4 or more each week. If you think that all translates into not actually following a FIRST (Furman Institute of Running and Scientific Training) Plan you're probably mostly correct. I am doing my long runs according to their guidelines of distance and pace. Pace is what the program has it's reputation for, you can't dawdle on the long runs, a long run should be a run! The long run get's it's own day of the week (mine moves around... not FIRST) and I'm hitting the longer version of the tempo run each week as well. The short speedwork is mostly being skipped and I do a short run of hills instead most weeks. Like I said though, I'm getting high aerobic demands in what FIRST would consider my cross training, I still work hard in the pool and speedwork on the road can't get me that many gains. I don't hope to run terribly fast, I want to finish well and begin the triathlon season without a running deficit from the winter. I've also drawn upon Gordo Byrn's training philosophy quite a bit in developing my training plan and the two most specific rules I'm trying to follow with regards to his running advice are: Don't sacrifice tomorrow's training by overdoing it today. Try to maximize your ten year mileage.

The race for those of you who are interested is called the Yakima River Canyon Marathon. It follows the yakima river between Ellensburg and Selah Washington. This is part of one of the rides from the Sea to Sea tour this summer. My blog post on the day's ride is available --link--here and it is entitled "A Big Ring Day" as I rode the whole day in my 53 tooth ring. That's because we had a tailwind and it was slightly downhill for most of the day. The marathon course does go generally downhill but not by much and there's a big hill that comes at 21 miles in. It's not going to be a walk in the park but how could I not go back there when the scenery is so great. Here's a photo from this summer: --link-- --image removed--

Christmas Break

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:26:31 MST

Christmas break was spent in Calgary for the most part. It resulted in an awful lot less running than I hoped initially due to absolutely outrageous temperatures and then a lot of other activity. The hopes of getting out running frequently over the break weren't met but when it's because I wound up doing quite a bit of skiing the trade off isn't quite as tough to take.

The skiing trips worth noting were a day's ski from Sunshine parking lot up to the summit of Healy Pass. This was in anticipation of skiing into Egypt Lake shelter in February and I wanted to gain an idea of the layout of the valley and gauge the equipment needs on the trail before going in with a dozen or so people. Dad and I were on the trail soon before 9 am and made it to the top of the pass around noon. The wind was really howling up top so we didn't spend much time there, just skied off the far side for a few hundred meters and then returned down the hill before taking lunch in the shelter of the trees. --link-- --image removed--

The next week I skied up to Burstall Pass with both my Mom and my Dad on a new(ish) set of skis that I pillaged from the garage and had some new binding mounted on. This resulted in me having skins for the climb up to the top of the pass and I was really quite grateful for them. The ski in was nice, the climb was tough and the assault on the actual pass was I suppose unsuccessful. When we popped out above the treeline we were probably a half kilometer north of where we probably should have been. This resulted in us deciding that we'd done enough elevation and turned around to beeline it down the hill.

The very next day we skied in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park and skied up to Elk Pass before summitting Blueberry hill. The ski was fun and flying back down after all the work to get up seems to be more rewarding each time I do it. I think it's a matter of me winding up heavier and heavier each time I've gone as I've grown up from being a little kid.

The following day I headed out with the whole family for two days skiing at Revelstoke Mountain Resort. The hill opened in 2007 and currently has the longest vertical drop of any ski hill in North America. We quite enjoyed the hill even though snow conditions on the bottom half were a bit sparse here and there. The weather was different at each different spot on the way up the mountain. The first day skiing in clouds up top and clear skies down below and the second skiing in blue skies and a bone chilling wind at -25oC at the summit with a snowstorm happening in the valley below. The hill is quite steep and I quite enjoyed it, it's obviously built to have a few more expansions added in coming years as currently there are a few more traversing requirements than would be ideal but for the time being that's alright. Apparently every room in the whole town is basically booked every day of the year so some parts of the development there need to hurry along to make this place catch on in a big way. --link-- --image removed--
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Quote of the day

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 22:16:13 MST

"If a parrot said my name wouldn't that be an onomatopoeia" -- A good friend of mine (November 27, 2008)