it's good to be back

Last June I partially tore my left achilles tendon. I was lucky because it wasn't a complete rupture, a subject that has constantly been in the back of my head since my father ruptured both of his and I got to see the tendon literally coil into a bump near the top of his calf. So May 2011 was my last race, which didn't go particularly well, I did 2/3 of the Subaru Victoria 70.3 and had to leave the run to my friend Shauna, and the rest of the year was a bust while I recovered.

Nine months later and I finally have returned to a sport that I love so much and it felt great. March 11th was the UBC Triathlon, my first triathlon in quite some time and it went pretty well. The training w/ Bjoern at UBC Dolphins has done wonders to my swim, which resulted in me taking out the 1.5k swim in 26:52, a PB. Yes, there was some drafting involved, but the 500m splits are faster than my last 500m swim TT during the 2011 UBCTC Race Series. A VERY long T1 after and I was flying down the bike course on my trusty Orbea, although admittedly the Cervelo should have been used. The bike wasn't ideal, mainly because the last lap was complete shite due to my aching back from being in an overly aggressive position in the drops or doing the Merckx style TT (yes, the Cervelo should have DEFINITELY been used). That didn't matter, though, because despite my Garmin failing (database full apparently) I was able to run myself into the ground and I finished strong. Strong enough that I ran 2 minutes shy of my 10k PB. Given I had just swam 1.5k and biked 40k, that's pretty good run in my book. 2011 is a year I'd like to forget, but the latter part of the year (after getting the okay to start training again) allowed me to build my base line and 2012 looks promising. What's next? Time to up my running since I want to set a new PB in the 10k during the Vancouver Sun Run, and a month later I sorta have a marathon to run. This ought to be fun.

Training Total: Swim 50.20k / Bike 823.42k / Run 99.21k + whatever I do after class today

are good deeds really that hard to come by?

So today I did my due diligence as what, I presume would be, any body would do. En route to work I walked past a bike and it caught my eye. Not a particularly nice bike but something about it struck me as odd... the lock. Evidently the person had secured the lock to the bike but had neglected to realize they didn't loop it around the bar.

Given this is Vancouver and 2000 bikes are stolen annually, I was surprised to say the least. Long story short, I brought it into my work place, left a note on the lock station, and eventually the owner, who apparently looked very distraught, came in. She thanked me and explained how this never happens, etc. I was just happy she didn't end up another statistic and another drug deal went down, cause really, most bikes probably get stolen by meth-heads that need money for a quick score. Anyway, what I find peculiar was that during the conversation with her and the secretary, whom called me to let me know the owner had come in, was they were surprised by that fact that I did the good deed/went through the effort. Are good deeds really that hard to come by now a days?

On a side note, I thought this was a great article relating to bike thefts in Vancouver. Never thought about using powertools to steal bikes.

2 months and 22 days in...

New year, new goals, new blog... well, not entirely accurate as 2012 is 2 months and 22 days old. However, I do have new goals and a "new" blog, per say, in the sense that I've scraped much of what was here in an attempt to do a do-over and forget 2011 and the injuries with it.

The new goals of this year or really, the big goal of this year is simple - be ready for Ironman Canada. This year Ironman Canada falls in August 26, giving me 186 days until I swim 3.8k, bike 180k, and run a full marathon. Fun. The first 2 months and 22 days have been good. I've joined UBC Dolphins and and despite the suffering, I am finally feeling better about my swim. My running, which I desperately need to pick up in terms of volume, has been getting better and I completed my first half marathon of the season with a PB of 1:45:00, dead. It's not fast, but it's the fastest I've officially done and could probably have done better since I didn't feel like dying at the end.

Biking has been great, and like real cyclists, I am embracing my inner masochist and am putting plenty of km on my tires, rain or shine, and even did my first attack on Cypress yesterday. Got plenty of looks from people who were confused by my presence. Oh, and that little pimple after Cypress, that's Grouse Mtn. That ride has completely drained me and I may have strained my hamstring, time for some R&R for the next few days.

Training Total: Swim 32.15k / Bike 699.98k / Run 80.43k