Already thinking about some new goals for 2012 even thought you have signed up for six races already? Want to still make resolutions for the New Year, even though your diet is impeccable and your time management is all set for 12 hours a week of training? Looking for some new inspiration to take into a new year of training? There’s nothing like the New Year to set hearts afire and to create excitement about new beginnings and fun achievements. Athletes are a hopeful bunch, full of optimism about what they can accomplish, and sport is pretty much the role model environment for positive thinking. One year in the sport or triathlon will show you that you are in the leagues of positive thinkers: people who are determined to hurdle obstacles, deal with pain and find new ways to excel.
Here are 5 other ways to be optimistically intelligent in 2012:
1. Listen to your inner pessimist. Pessimism, long the foe of athletes, might actually serve a purpose in prevention of long term injuries. Knowing when an injury is real and potentially serious is a strong skill. Pushing through pain because of positive thinking (“I can do this!’) might be what leads to the positive diagnosis on the MRI.
2. Be Positive NOW. Pay attention to what you are doing in the moment you are doing it. Instead of filling your brain with thoughts of future races, people to beat, and performances, focus on the process while you are training. Nothing creates FLOW like being in the moment.
3. Be honest. Optimism isn’t just a routine of ‘positive thinking’ and ‘affirmation’. Optimism is a generally hopeful view that things will be ok. Most of the time things turn out just fine. What clouds the issue is the definition of what ‘fine’ means to different people. Make sure your vision of success is yours, not some fabrication from our happiness obsessed society.
4. This leads us to happiness and optimism. Happiness is a word with very little meaning anymore. Contrary to popular culture, people are not happy all the time. Think instead of purpose and joy, your sense of community and the things about sport that you love. Smile while you do the things you love, and accept all of your moods.
5. Stay in the moment, but move forward. Triathlon is about forward momentum and finesse, efficiency of movement in three sports and being streamlined, strong and focussed all at the same time. Strive to create this forward momentum in your life, choosing things that give you joy, doing them with a sense of purpose: be graceful and grateful and nurture your inner optimist.
Wishing you all the best and much joy for 2012!

I just finished my last race of the season. I planned a good season ending double whammy of back to back weekends of racing, hoping that would allow me to fall idle for a few days following, during a vacation in the sun of Oahu, doing pretty much nothing but hanging out with my family on the beach. I am notoriously bad about taking a break. I have whole years in my track record where I ran year round and raced 4 seasons: indoor track and International road running in the spring; triathlon, duathlon and North American road running in the summer; road running and cross country in the fall and holding that fitness through to more racing in January: repeat. So many times I have ‘finished’ my year with a marathon and then kept training hard through the Christmas Holidays, being too antsy to stay indoors, too fit to stop. Too many times these seasons have eventually ended with injury, colds, burnout, and plateaus. How to balance the love for running and being outside with the need for recovery has become a lifetime mission.

Enter the double whammy: my last 2 races of 2011 were an invigorating mixture of everything I like about running and racing: first I had the National Cross Country Championships in Vancouver. Before this race, I calculated that this would be my 16th start in a 25 year span of racing Senior Nationals, since coming 5th in my first go around when I was 19. This year was the epitome of true cross country test: 7km of muddy track, puddles, hard corners, short hills, wind and rain. After the women took out the opening km in 3:05 or something equally crowd thinning, I found myself in 20th, after which I chiseled away for the next 3 laps, moving solidly up the field with my endurance, and moving into 11th at the end. Within minutes of the end of the race I was freezing, teeth chattering and hands shaking uncontrollably.

A week later I was in the warm and humid environment of Hawaii, to race the XTerra World Trail Running World Championships on Oahu. This was my first go at a trail race and what an invigorating introduction. I mean the hills were just so steep and long it was not like ‘normal’ running there were few areas to get into strong tempo but I soon learned to absorb the rhythm of the trail and to find efficiency as often as possible. The single track sections along the ridges were truly awesome and the downhill plummet through the jungle was insane and hilarious. I almost wiped out at least 5 times, just tripping and crashing and sliding: never felt so ungraceful as a runner! The crazy no holds barred free fall of running put me in 2nd overall, not a bad day in the jungle.

It was an awesome day as a family too: Maia ran her first 5k, and hardest race to date and finished 2nd in her age category, while Ross raced the kid’s run, got taken down by another excited competitor, but got up and kept running. The Kuola Ranch race site was magnificent and by early afternoon we were heading back to the North shore surf and I was ready to start my ‘off season”.

I know myself pretty well. I can bank on having trashed legs for at least a week after a half marathon, and I figured a hilly 21k would take even more out of my body and give me a good reason not to run for a week. I spent the next few days on island time, relaxing with my family, look at ‘Honu’ or turtles on the beach, building sand castles. I did two short little recovery runs, a little swimming (er, looking at coral and fish: that counts right?), but mainly took the opportunity to turn off the training clock.

Some athletes look to the off season with relief, fantasizing about the chance to leave the bike in the garage for a while, a break from the early morning swim workouts and a slacker schedule in which to catch up with non triathlete friends. Others look at the off season with a mix of dread and anxiety. The off season stretches ahead like one long rainy day; with no planned workouts, no races and a lack of structure, they worry about gaining weight, losing fitness, and losing their minds.

For both athlete mentalities, and everything in between these extremes, understanding the purpose of the off season helps in maintaining sanity and a sense of continuity in one’s training. Viewed in the context of the full season, the off season period or the rest phase is a necessary and important part of athlete development. The off season technically links one season to the next and theoretically provides a period of regeneration that allows the next season to be a build on the previous one. It is easier to maintain motivation and a sense of purpose throughout the off season if athletes are aware of the distinct and crucial purpose that it serves in their overall progression.

Without an off season there is no long sustained period of rest and over time, neither the body nor the mind will be able to recover from the rigors and stress of training and racing. The result is either burn out, injury or inexplicable feelings of fatigue and exhaustion, not unlike sleep deprivation. Every athlete has a varying tolerance for season duration, but very few athletes can continually perform well for periods of over ten months without some sort of off season or down time.

Since our racing season usually is slotted into spring, summer and fall racing, the winter is the natural time of year in which to take a break. A six to eight week period anywhere from November through early February, when the weather is also typically at the coldest and wettest (at least in northern US and most of Canada), and also coinciding with the winter holidays is the most obvious time. Taking your break when the kids get out of school for Christmas can be an easy way to do it. Whether you love or hate the off season period, the following pointers will help you make the most of the winter downtime and allow you to make a positive bridge from this season into next.

Commit yourself to the off season and to understanding why you are taking a break. Moving from competitive phase to rest phase is probably the most radical change between all the season’s macrocycles. Preparatory to pre-competition and pre-competition to competition are relatively flowing adjustments. Going from training for and completing Hawaii Ironman to lying on the couch watching some reality TV show based on extreme sports is a huge leap. If you are one of the athletes that find it hard to stop training and working hard, embrace the idea that you are being good to yourself by taking a break and reiterate to yourself often that your body needs the rest in order to absorb all the training and racing from the season. Often our minds repeat words and stories that are habitual and not even true, so if your story line goes something like this; “I am losing all my fitness. I am gaining weight. I am getting slow”, replace with the affirmative such as, “My body is resting and becoming stronger for next season. I am a smart athlete and I train smart too”. In repeating these new true phrases, you will start to believe them and will have developed a new skill at the same time: the power to change your thought process.

Understanding why we are doing what we are doing, in training as in all our work and life gives us a greater sense of purpose and ability to commit. It is good to remember that the end result of the off season is not to be fitter but to be fresh and excited to begin a new season.

During your off season, you will at first likely notice the lack of instant gratification that comes from twice daily training sessions. One of the most difficult aspects of rest, injury or pregnancy in sports, is this reduction in the almost clockwork feedback. The off season can initially come as a sense of let down or anti-climax to feelings of gratification we have received all season long from our most intense training sessions. In essence, athletes get ‘addicted’ to physical and emotional feedback: the feeling of well-being and accomplishment that accompanies working out. Removing that sensation leaves a void. Although it will seem difficult to deal with, remember that the inactivity shock will wear off and in seven to ten days or less you will have normalized to the current program of restful recovery training or sheer non-activity.

Inspiration can be a powerful motivator at this time of year. If you feel committed to and inspired by what you are doing, you are more likely to have a sense of purpose in your path. In the off season, without the continual feedback from workouts and coaches, you will have to develop an intrinsic sense of motivation that is derived from being inspired by your own life. Inspiration comes from a deep place in our soul, and is truly connected to who we believe ourselves to be and what we see ourselves doing in the future.

We can find inspiration everywhere and anywhere, so intrinsic is it to life. Films and sporting events, books and music can all carry inspiration. Inspirational speakers are different than motivational speakers in that they speak to a universal human trait that is part of our very souls. Motivational speakers, while also relevant to sport and business, speak to tactics and methods of achieving that greatness. Find ways to be inspired this winter: choose movies and books about greatness, about people doing amazing things, about people who have found ways to succeed under difficult circumstances. I can well remember the first time I saw “Chariots of Fire”. The music, the imagery, the message of passion spoke to many of us. Write a journal about how you achieved personal bests in your last season, about the goals you reached and the ways in which you found success in small ways. Be inspired by your own life and the lives of people around you and you will build a sense of motivation that will rise out of the winter skies come time to train again.

Here are four books that I have found inspiring at various times in my life:

The River Why, David James Duncan
No Shortcuts to the Top, Ed Viesturs
A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle
In Pursuit of Excellence, Terry Orlick

Here are some things that help me come back from my winter holiday feeling fresh and rejuvenated, and ready to train again when the kids go back to school.

1. Eat well as a commitment to your health, not just your sport: appreciate the holiday treats in moderation and bask in the chance to eat without worrying about training on a full stomach, but still eat well.
2. Don’t just stop training, but take out the mental stress. Keep some minimal race pace simulation in swimming, cycling and running. Consider taking a yoga class over the winter to keep you strong and flexible while you are taking your rest. Yoga is rejuvenating and is refreshingly non-competitive. Most athletes gain tremendous benefit from the breathing and focusing techniques.
3. Do some research on equipment upgrades and what is new and cutting edge. Organizing this now allows you more time to focus on simply training later.
4. Review your last season’s goals (that you wrote down at the start of the season: remember?) and reflect on your progress. Don’t set your new goals just yet, but this will get your mind turning over with pertinent information for forming next season’s goals.
5. Stop and smell the roses. Have you ever really looked around while you are running? Go for your easy runs without the watch and enjoy the chance to just let go of having to run a certain pace. Let your mind wander (sometimes I write whole chapters of my imaginary memoirs on a 45 minute run). The point is to get in touch with the activity and the process, the sheer act of running or riding or swimming, or even hiking, skiing or skating, without the attachment to progress and outcome that the racing season brings.

Here’s to you being inspired and ready in 2012

Lucy

Anybody who follows my blog, even if you have only ever read the title, knows that I am more about the process than the outcome. I am all about the effort, and very little about the gear. Not sure if it was my modest upbringing on the rugged east coast of Nova Scotia, where—twenty years before the invention of good trail shoes– I used to have to layer plastic bags in my running shoes in the winter in order to keep my feet warm while jumping snowbanks, or simply the fact that to be a lifelong athlete, you have to—at some point—get over the need to win every race and accept that the journey is the goal.

Sport was very much an emotional process for me: I am used to digging deep, going beyond the necessary effort and finding some true grit inside. Proving every time I went out the door that I had 110% to give…that seems to have been my mantra for many years. I once wrote in my journal “Transcendent moments in sport seem to be effortless, yet without years of diligent effort, they can’t happen.”

I wrote that apparently, after reading a quote by Ken Ravizza in Andrew Cooper’s book “Playing in the Zone”…”Transcendent moments in sport seem mystical and difficult to duplicate at will…you can only prepare the ground for it to happen. Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident prone.”

If that is the truth, then that’s probably why I still run and race. These small accidents of enlightenment keep on happening. And it’s not always an elegant process.

Recently I had go into this huge Rubbermaid bin, to haul out all my journals in order to find some fact verification about the 2001 World Duathlon Championships. This was a race that took place less than a week after the events of 9/11, and in fact Lance and I were in a jet, in the air over Italy and about to land in Bologna, when the twin towers were hit. The week’s events are a blur, not only because of the ensuing blanket of emotional grief and collective shock, but because of the jet lag and being up all night with an 18 month baby coupled with the concentrated nervousness of getting ready for a World Championships that was put on hold for 48 hours. Needless to say some of the facts of the week are a little fuzzy in my mind, even the part where I showed up in transition the morning of the race and the official noticed a crack in my helmet and told me I had to find a new one…one hour before the race was to start. I sort of remember running back to the little hotel, bursting into the breakfast room where the age groupers that had races the day before were relaxing over coffee and toast and asking very loudly if anybody could lend me a helmet. I found one, it fit ok. I was allowed into transition. Not elegant.

I actually haven’t found the journal of 2001 yet so I didn’t get to check these facts out, but it did get me to thinking about things I actually love, things that make my sport easier, better, more enjoyable. Concrete material objects. Yes, my journals are one thing.

In Pursuit of Excellence, by Terry Orlick. I love this book, partly because Terry Orlick is a Canadian and a brilliant sport psychologist, and because it is so readable. This was the first sport psychology book I ever owned, and I am not sure where the original copy is because Lance and I loaned it out so many times. I have the new edition. I loved it as a young athlete: it really helped me organize and use my mental capabilities as an athlete to a great degree.

I have been sponsored by New Balance for a couple of year now, and have settled into my new favourite running shoes, hands down the 890 Barringer/REVlite. I love this shoe. It is lightweight enough to race in, and well, I race in it, run base in it, run tempo in it, run track in it, and wear it around with my jeans. The 890 is an awesome shoe if you are into a lightweight neutral shoe with a minimal but highly responsive cushioning and a great ground feel. I can’t describe it any other way, but I love a shoe that feels both a little cushioned (but not squishy) and well behaved in the movement department. The new REVlite midsole are responsible for the lack of heft; it’s sort of like wearing low profile tires on your feet. Just enough tread to get around corners super fast but with lots of room for feel. New Balance has produced the shoe in lots of awesome colours too, which is just plain fun. OK, so I do love the cross country spikes and racing flats too….

I also love my PowerBar sponsorship. I have been sponsored by PowerBar since 1996 which is a fairly long time in the world of sport and I think that it just goes to show that community and partnerships can be strengthened and built over time. I can’t imagine training and racing without PowerBar gels and sport bars. How many times have these little bursts of energy saved me, saved a training day or a race? And more importantly, I distinctly remember training before PowerBar came along. I would honestly die in the last hour of every single session, or I would be dizzy and lightheaded from lack of calories. It’s amazing really, how much that small package of nutrition has done for my training. PowerBar is as much a staple of my athletic lifestyle as my shoes and my bike.

Now, I know that not just a few runners and triathlete really like compression garments. I wear compression socks when I travel but they have never really done anything for me in training or racing. Maybe I am just too tame to be seen wearing long pink socks in a race, or my claves are too puny for it to make any difference. Back in my twenties, I used to wear the same pair of lucky underwear every time I raced so I can understand the psychological pull of compression socks.

But recently I did try a new compression garment. A company called Intelliskin asked me to try out their new sports bra: the IntelliSkin’s Empower PosturecueÔ Sports Bra.

Posture and efficiency are closely linked in distance running. Having the correct posture helps you run tall and with improved biomechanical efficiency: this reduces fatigue over the course of a long run. The longer you can run, well, the faster you will go and your chances of injury are reduced.

I am happy with this product for 2 reasons: it has great functionality as a posture supporter and for cueing me to running tall and well and it works great as a running bra. Not all sports bras make great running bras…running is a highly dynamic activity with lots of arm, torso and shoulder movement. You need a comfortable sport bra that fits well without binding, chafing or constricting.

What I really liked about it though was the support it offers for posture and keeping the shoulders back while running, thereby reducing neck strain and overall fatigue. Throughout my training runs I was reminded to run tall and relaxed, two cues that create optimal biomechanics for running fast. You can look at it here:

https://shop.intelliskin.net/EMPOWER-POSTURECUE-SPORTS-BRA_p_62.html

This garment would be a great support to wear while travelling or while working at the computer, helping cue to correct posture and reducing the fatigue of sitting.

Of course, now that I have started there are a gazillion other things–material and emotional–that I love about running and triathlon. My Blue bike, coffee, muffins, chocolate, finishing a hard session, funny posts from the athletic community on facebook, getting muddy and wet, having a shower after getting all muddy and wet, and the smell of grass, travelling, poetry.

For now, I will leave you with this other not-quite-a-poem I found in my journals when I didn’t find what I was looking for:

A journey taken spontaneously,

Started when there didn’t seem to be a choice to NOT run

Running found me, seeped into my bones one year

And spread itself up into my heart.

What’s on your list?

The Game of Racing: Make Every Move Count

Do you have a race this weekend? Close to home we have the ‘GoodLife Victoria Marathon, ½ Marathon and 8k race weekend and over there, across the Pacific the biggest Ironman show on earth is percolating beside the lava fields of the big Island. And after long months of preparation and dreaming, athletes everywhere are flocking to late season races: from 5k to marathons to the Ironman World Champs, eager to test out their fitness. By Monday morning there will have been some ups and downs: this much is true. This weekend there will be some great moments, some incredible victories and some races that are…well…pure adventure.

Time to clear your head. If you clear your head to the task at hand and review your goals for the race, your mind will calm down, you will know where you are going on race morning and your path will be full of fun. Now is not the time to ask yourself a million questions that have no answers. Do you know how much energy it uses to ask yourself questions that you can’t answer? Not to mention that it gives you this crazy muddled feeling that saps your strength. At this point, you are logistically organized, sorted out and on time. There is one last thing to drive home before you hit the starting line: are you ready for the game?

Racing is a game. It is a competitive arena, a test of determination, strength, skill and savvy. Some of the games are more important than others; some come heavily weighted with expectations and goals. Some races are just for fun, to remind us how to enjoy the game.  All races are opportunities to excel, to show mastery and skill and to learn. This is what makes sport so satisfying.

There is no magic to racing well. You merely have to be ready to embrace every situation. Having a great race is like any good fortune though: it is a combination of experience, impeccable preparation and things outside of your control all going your way. While ‘Beginner’s luck’ is often true, good racing comes from years of experience and reflection, from being a student of the sport, from loving the game, and from being in the right attitude at all the right times.

Racing is a combination of being internally focussed on your best effort at all times, while being aware of external factors: knowing the course and knowing your competition (and using this knowledge to your advantage). External factors in racing also include having a strategy, pacing well, and making solid (and quick) in-race decisions.

Nowhere can you watch a microcosm of his game unfold better than on the track in middle and long distance races, where runners jockey for position, use patience and tactical skill and unleash their full running potential all at the same time. On the track, athletes are forced to run in a tight pack, and the good racers can run behind the leaders patiently, immersed in the act of racing, fully present in the grace of their movements. There is no anxiety in their position, but their senses are wide open, looking for opportunities to challenge, to make a move, to take advantage of a small opening as soon as it presents itself.

If racing well means being fully immersed in the experience of the moment, how do great racers look at what’s unfolding around them? Being externally aware is both necessary and crucial, but that awareness is purely objective and not hinged on the self in endless negative self talk: am I doing ok? You have to run with your cognitive senses wide open and with complete inner confidence that you are doing right.

In other words, the external awareness has to be free of anxiety. The freedom from anxiety is easier for some athletes than for others, but all athletes can hone this ability. To illustrate, consider a situation in which you are racing close to another competitor. As you run, you can focus on running in rhythm with them, and creating a positive feeling around this aspect of the race. The external awareness of racing, footsteps, breathing and moving is a huge part of the sport. There is no anxiety in this moment, until you bring it in. Wondering if you can maintain pace, who will win in the end, and if you are doing well enough are all irrelevant thoughts that creep in out of habit. The game of racing dictates that you can be relaxed when racing side by side, enjoy the competitive arena in which you find yourself, and know that getting to the finish line first isn’t about fear, it’s about the game. Your competitor is merely a player in that game.

Another way of looking at it is to consider the aspects of pacing and patience. Pacing requires patience. Being patient and knowing that you can run on someone’s shoulder with patience, confidence and attention is crucial. In the strategic game of sport, it is sometimes worthwhile to sit back behind someone. A great athlete can lead, or follow with the same confidence in their ability. Following means to run your race, from behind.

The best athletes are great learners: they take home lessons from every experience. The biggest factors to success are continuing to learn and making it fun. View your sport as a game, a game in which you are a key player in your own success, and make very move count.

Clear Your Head/Create Success!

Lucy

What I know is that I run because I feel at home with running and it has always been my form of meditation. When I run I am free and thoughts flash through my mind with delightful ease or they pass not at all in those rare moments when my mind is only engaged in the act of running. When those thoughts are not helpful, or when they are old stories meant to hook me in to old habits, I see them for what they are because the rest of my body is both moving, but still.

I rarely think of my runs as a means to an end, though sometime I might think of my goals in that way. Running gives me a chance to release that thought and see goals as moving targets to shoot for.

When I am running I am fully committed and there is no fence sitting. This is a breath of fresh air in a life of responsibility and minute by minute decision making about what to make for supper or what is the correct way to respond to a frustrated child.

Each run is an adventure, of appreciating the feel of the air, the look of the sunlight as it slants through the trees or the way the trails opens up to a pasture full of sheep.

Some runs take me to greater adventures than others, but they are all the same.

Running just IS.

Lucy Smith

Taking kids overseas, now that is adventure unto itself. Giving them a chance to test their patience in long airport line ups and multiple security checks, to listen to other languages and eat unfamiliar foods, and to get by with what few toys they can carry in their carry on bag…it’s pretty fun to observe your kids negotiate their way around a foreign environment.

Our trip started with a half ironman triathlon, and ended with a stop at the California Pizza kitchen in downtown Manila, but in between those two experiences there were many extraordinary moments, first time events and mangoes.

All ready to Go!

We left Canada on the 10^th of August, at night, on an overnight flight to Manila. Four pieces of checked luggage and 2 Blue racing bikes makes for quite a load, but nothing compares to the days when the kids were young and we also had a car seats and a stroller to lug along!  Those overnight flights are quite something, 13 hours in the air but if you can sleep for 7 or 8 hours, watch a movie for 2, enjoy the in-flight meal for 1 hour, they don’t seem so long. And going west is easy. We went to bed at 11PM on the plane and landed 13 hours later at 4 in the morning. We were picked up by Alex, one of the Polo tri club members and by 5AM were on our way through the early morning streets of Manila for a nice breakfast before heading out to the Triathlon site at Cam Sur. Alex took us to the Peninsula for breakfast, one of the nicest more traditional hotels in Manila and before long we were seated in an elegant marble lobby with towering plants, blooming orchids and oversized tapestries hanging on the walls. It was grand, with the sophistication and formality of European influence. The kids feasted on waffles and mangos, my fruit plate was a heaping vitamin fest of mango, papaya, banana, melon and watermelon and there we enjoyed our first wonderful Philippine meal. We were alone in the lobby restaurant at 5 AM, save for one other table, occupied by a man and a woman who seemed to be consuming large quantities of beer and champagne. Hard to imagine how they were going to get through their day after that breakfast, but everybody has their own story.

Soon we were on our way to Camerines Sur for the Cobra Ironman 70.3 Philippines for three days of fun. As we landed Ross pointed out the window with joy…there was a band and dancers right outside the plane to welcome all the triathletes! It was loud and joyous and colourful, we were all given a traditional necklace made of Puka shells and it was a wonderful start to the weekend. Ironman events are always fun and boisterous.

The Grand Arrival in Cam Sur

There is a staggering amount of energy around a half or full Ironman and the Philippines race committee went full out. Between the athletes arriving with their blinged out racing bikes, to the extremely loud music that played constantly, to the smoking hot sun and humidity it was triathlon sensory overload. Going to triathlons is like going to a nightclub, without the night and the alcohol. It’s really just a big dance party of people showing up, showing off and having a ball. Can’t say I have been to a smoother run operation as far as checking in and getting ready to race goes, especially since we showed up only 2 days before the event and  I was unfamiliar with just about everything.

Race site was a Wake Board Park. A man made oval shaped lake with an island in the middle is surrounded by small cabins, and wake boarders can wait for a moving cable that runs overhead. You grab on to the rope as it goes by (sort of like the rope tow idea in skiing), hop off the launch pad and wake board around the lake. It was great fun to watch. The 70.3 had basically taken over the wake board park, setting up the pop up Ironman Village complete with restaurant, IM store and sponsors booths. Because of the heat, the restaurant tent had to be air conditioned, a feat accomplished by the aid of a WWll diesel engine that was constantly being tinkered with.

Power for the aircon came from this WW2 diesel engine.

The Wakeboard park and swim venue

My pre race ride was short and I only wanted to test my gears out, but there was no way I was going to venture out onto the zoo of a highway by myself anyway. Philippine traffic, while not aggressive or all that threatening, is mainly, congested, erratic and a crazy free for all, similar to driving in Italy, except for the sheer diversity of vehicles all trying to drive in the same space. Trucks, buses, vans, SUV’s, motorbikes, Jeepneys*, motorized tricycles, non motorized tricycles and bicycles all vie for a right of way, passing and going 2 or 3 abreast in what are mainly 2 lane roads. So my pre race ride was confined to several laps from transition to the highway and back.

We discovered an Iron kids race was being held the day before the half ironman and Maia decided she wanted to race, so Lance hunted down a bike for her to borrow and we got her signed up. She got her own official wrist band and race packet full of goodies, a race cap and even a timing chip that had to be attached to her ankle. It was all pretty exciting and she did an amazing job of getting herself ready. Even though she obviously has great resources to draw on, her motivation is all her own. It was her first open water mass start swim and she was very meticulous about going over the course, the transitions and figuring out exactly where she had to be.

On the Alaska Milk sign

Saturday morning we were woken up at 4:30AM with the sound of a downpour. Water streamed off the roof of our cabin, bounced off the deck outside the window. As she watched the rain she looked at me and said “They won’t cancel the race will they?”

Ross waiting for Maia

It’s always amazing, as a parent, to watch your children as they grow up, to support their activities as they gain independence. This was one of those moments. My role as mother and parent was being intertwined with that as spectator and fan. In the end, Maia’s race turned out to be an emotional mix of motherly love and fan appreciation.

Uncle Dan, Lance and Ross watch in T1

 The 300m swim was a huge challenge for her, and she switched to her fastest stroke, the breastroke half way through. While she rode, I waited at the start of the run course for her, while Ross played in the lake. I couldn’t get Ross out of the water—not that I can blame him, it was boiling hot already at 7AM and the water was nice—so I let Ross frolic, keeping one eye on him, and one eye out for Maia. Finally, I caught sight of Maia, and in that instant I knew something had happened. She had a look of distress and pain on her face. Her legs were covered in dirt; blood was caked in several places on her thighs and elbows. She had crashed and even though she was sobbing, she ran on.

Aftermath

On her second lap of the 2k ran, she was still running on, determined to finish and catch 2 girls up the path. She finished the race, after 2 crashes on the bike: one from being run into by an older kid and the second crash by hitting a spectator who walked across the course at the turn around. While in the medical tent getting her scrapes and bruises tended to, the older boy came and apologised, then a camera crew came over to interview her. She bravely told them about the race and her crashes then said that she would do the race again next year if she was there! Needless to say, Maia got lots of attention for the rest of the day for being so brave and tough after her crashes, and several athletes told her that she instilled a new sense of inspiration in them for their own race the next day. What a way to start the weekend!

I was very relaxed and excited about racing. I think it had something to do with the fact that I was racing age group not pro and it seemed to take the edge off somehow, which of course raised the question in my mind about whether racing pro could ever have that same sense of ‘fun’. Take out the money and the endorsements and the career on the line and it all changes. Or does it? Anyway, the main reason I didn’t race pro, is that at the start of the season, when I was suffering from pneumonia, I didn’t set any triathlon goals for the year, and in April, when my lungs were still healing,  I started riding my bike to gain strength, but racing triathlon wasn’t really on my radar screen. When I finished my first triathlon of the year in Victoria I had only set up my Blue time trial bike the week before, and swum 3 times (total since 2009 and that 3 times was all in the week before the race to see if I could survive the swim). After my second 10 day training camp, I was really starting to enjoy riding again, but at this point it occurred to me that all the pro rules had changed for 70.3 and Ironman events and I had missed the boat by several hundred miles had I wanted to race pro anyway this year. Hence, I asked for an age group spot in the Philippines, but decided beforehand that I was not going to take a spot to either 70.3 or Ironman worlds as an age grouper. So that is that back story to my relaxed and calm race demeanour.

I loved the race. I loved the experience of racing age group, and just being around so many other racers during the day. Getting up at 4AM was also a piece of cake and it was a nice treat, with the time change, to be wide awake and ready for action before the sun came up. I was organized and while I was a little nervous about the swim and the possibility of rain I was mainly excited. Because Lance was also racing I had to leave Maia and Ross with a nanny for the morning. Neither one was that excited about that, but our friend Kerri was also there with her daughter Kayla. Kayla is Maia’s age and helps out with Ross so I wasn’t too worried. They would survive just fine without me for a morning!

Maia gives her first sport interview.

Lance was in another wave, so I spent the last 20’ before the start by myself. I didn’t even really know anyone in my wave, so it was just me and several hundred swimmers, crowded in a holding pen by the beach. I saw Dan before the start. Dan was at the race coaching ad it was fun to have my brother out there. There weren’t that many women. A remote controlled helicopter camera hovered over the crowd, who all cheered and waved in excitement. I was in the third wave of swimmers, 5’ after the 30-49 age group for men. I just put myself second row and centre and got prepared for a washing machine. It was crazy fun. Usually I am in a wave of 10-20 women and it’s very quiet, especially for me as I usually swim alone. This was the opposite experience. I fit right in; in fact I was actually a better swimmer than most of the people around me for a change. It was great for my swim ego and I found myself right in the melee, doing fine, finding my space and my rhythm finding feet, swimming past people, getting bumped and jostled and swum over. I only got really whacked once. You always realize it later in the day, when you wonder why your brow hurts, then realize it’s the result of your goggles getting jammed into your face when someone hits your in the swim. The swim was very physical. Within several minutes I had swum up into the back of the wave in front and spent the rest of the swim negotiating my way past slower swimmers and people breaststroking along. After swimming around one small lake, we had to get out of the water and run over the second even smaller lake, the shallow wake boarding lake. Water so shallow and cloudy your couldn’t see your own arm pulling in front of your face. But the buoys were large and plentiful and I swam as hard as I could to finish. I came out in 35’, in a non wetsuit effort was instantly buoyed up by my smokin’ fast swim!

Transition was long and narrow, and my bike was at the end. I got out on the course and spent the first 35km filing up past other athletes. I was hard to pass sometimes as people were riding 2 abreast up the road and maybe with the language barrier, my shouts and pleas for “passing on your LEFT” went mainly unregarded. So I had to just go for it and pass up the centre line most of the way. I felt amazing. After the hilly 40k blast fest at the Sooke Olympic the weekend before, the flat constant effort was awesome. Although I was concentrating on riding well and staying aero, the course was interesting and fun. We kept going through small villages, that would be covered in race flags and banners and the street would be lined solid with people cheering. You would buzz by, get out in the open for a while and then hit another little town. To the left and right were mainly fields and pastures, those huge gray cattle standing out there silently amid the green.

The rain started around 35km. Light at first then tuned into an absolute downpour. I had removed my glasses, as I couldn’t see and then my eyes became flooded with rainwater. The rain came down in buckets, flooding the roads, you could see it bounding off the pavement in humungous drops, and it pelted my skin. The rain added to the sensory adventure of the day. It reminded me of racing boats in high wind and the constant spray that soaks you relentlessly. But it was also fun. I was laughing at how hard it was raining, what a crazy experience it was. After the half way mark, the numbers thinned out and the men who had been challenging me fell off the pace. I was alone for most of the way back to transition, just a few people way up to the road to key off.

As we rode through towns on the way home, the people were still there, standing in the downpour, some were holding broad green leaves over their heads, some were holding umbrellas and many just stood there, hair plastered against their heads, rain streaming down their faces. Cheerleaders with pompoms, bands playing, and dance troupes carried on in their vivid outfits. Soon I tuned into the laughter as I rode by. Little children would laugh at me as I passed. At first I thought they were laughing AT me; that I must look ridiculous to them, out there riding in a bathing suit in the rain. But then I realized that they were laughing at the fun of it all, that these triathletes buzzing by was just so fun they wanted to laugh out loud with joy. Their gleeful laughing and smiles reminded me to have fun with my day, not to take myself too seriously. That by being out there in my bike, I was taking part in some crazy fun adventure of sport. The children’s laughter continued on and on through the ride.

The usually fatigue started to set in close to the end of the ride. It was a flat course and I had pushed the same 2 or 3 gears for the whole ride. I had no guide for my effort, being out there on my own, except that I knew I wanted to ride close to 2.5 hours and since I had hit the turnaround at 1:15, I was on target. The perfect cone shape of Mayon Volcano was my guide back to transition. I hit T2 with that ingrained sense of urgency to get out on the run. Dismounting with much more grace than I did in Sooke the week before, and managing to keep hold of my bike this time, I took off with the intention of hitting a 1:30 half. Without doing any heat acclimation training for the humidity and heat, that was my goal for the day. AAAH. That lovely feeling of starting the run after the bike….my quads told me that yes, I had ridden hard. It was such an effort to run. It is such an amazing thing, to be both living the effort and almost beside yourself at how much effort it takes to run even 7 minute miles off the bike in that heat. After 15’ the effort becomes less of an issue as the legs adjust to the pace and your body finds some rhythm in the effort to propel yourself with efficiency. Alongside the triathlon pain, that run was a pure delight. It was hard and somewhat uncomfortable, but it was also beautiful. We ran out through the rice fields, along narrow roads that were lined with shacks and lean tos and all manner of put together dwellings. Chickens ran along the road in front of me, Van Halen’s “Jump” blared from a boom box from under a steel roof shack, a goat was tied up alongside the track. Children ran out from the fields along single track paths that divided the race paddies. Kids laughed and shouted at us, and slapped our hands as we ran through the villages. There was joy everywhere and the more you interacted with the people cheering, the louder and more boisterous they became. The run went by terribly fast. Over the slippery metal bridges I ran, Dan was out there, having run out from the transition to record in photographs and cheers on athletes from the Polo Triathlon team.

I so looked forward to finishing the race, to being able to stop and rest my weary legs, but at the same time I didn’t want the race to finish. I wanted it to carry on for a little while longer, I wanted to stay immersed in this wonderful day, like the time I did the NYC marathon and I didn’t want the last mile through Central Park to end.

In the end I did have to finish. I ran into the Ironman village, completely satisfied, tired and happy. After the race, I did stop. I stopped and chatted with pro Amanda Stevens about the day. And as we stood there, after a while I wasn’t sure I could move again. I was hungry but had no appetite yet. I saw the massage tent so I gravitated towards that and was guided into a mat on the floor, among a hundred athletes. I lay down with gratitude. The tent smelled nice, and there were little bright coloured paper balls hanging from the posts. A nice touch. I gave in to the ground and being able to rest and with the healing hands of a massage therapist rubbing my tired muscles, I had a space in which to feel appreciation for the experience I had just being given.

Lucy

To see Dan’s photos from the race go here:

http://triathlon.competitor.com/2011/08/photos/photos-ironman-70-3-philipines_36821

After a two year hiatus in my 15 year career racing triathlons, I found myself standing on a pontoon last Sunday, with 15 other pro women at the Sooke International Triathlon, Olympic Chase Edition. There I was, goggles pulled tight under my cap, staring down some serious fog and looking for the first buoy. Honestly, it was a beautiful morning. Still, calm, water was like glass and it was a wetsuit swim in what would be called bathtub water temperature for the West Coast. Still, I couldn’t see the second buoy and frankly that almost unnerved me as I knew I would be spat off the back of the pack no matter how fast I turned my arms over. I took the far right spot, the safest and most outside position, and at the start whistle, dove in dutifully with my head low, didn’t lose my goggles, rose to the surface amid the churning bodies, breathed, swam and….in seconds…was alone. Me and the fog, by myself, keeping my head low and hoping that the big orange Bema buoy was going to appear soon. I found my way around the course. I have raced pro triathlons for a few years now, so this was not a new scenario-being solo at the back in the swim-and as usual I used all my old tricks. The biggest trick is just a mantra: finish as fast as you can because then you get to BIKE and RUN. If I could have one triathlon wish, it would be to be able to feel, just once, what it’s like to be a really fast swimmer, like 17:30 for 1500 fast.

A good swim for me is one where I deal with the open water heebie jeebies, if they come up, and where I simply focus on swimming and breathing. A really good swim includes finding some feet to draft on as well. I had 15 minutes before the men started in the chase format, and I was pretty sure I could get around one lap before they started. As I swam past the pontoon after the first lap, I saw them there, all lined up in their black wetsuits, like a bunch of penguins on an iceberg, about to jump in right on top of me. I swam faster, thankfully they didn’t jump on me and I pulled as hard as I could to stay ahead. They all caught me before the turnaround buoy. MUST GET TO BIKE.

Once on the bike, the rest of the day went like clockwork. Hammer the bike, hammer the hills, stay low and aero, and use everything to go as fast as possible. The West Coast Road is challenging and hard, giving lots of opportunity to use bike skills and be tough. I had done a great 10 day block of training with Amanda and Brent, Jonathon and others who were in town for a LifeSport training camp  with Lance and I knew that I had the fitness necessary to ride hard. Sometimes it’s a bit of surprise, how fast this fitness comes back, but I think I paid my dues between 1996 and 2007 because I can get fit fast. Besides, that Blue is extremely fast. I didn’t let up on the ride once. I hammered right to T2, where I promptly almost fell off my bike and then dropped it. Not the most graceful transition ever, but I think I was on a mission and forgot the small detail of smooth transitions. Besides my feet and hands were frozen from the foggy morning and riding in wet gear.

Love that Sooke course and the new trail through the bushes. It’s so hard too…to have to get off your bike and run those hills, but hard is good. I found myself in 5^th spot coming off the bike. Amanda was out of sight, having already given herself an 8 minutes lead on me because of her lightning swim. All I could do there was keep the spread even for the day. But there were two women I could catch and so that became mission #3. I actually forgot about the men chasing us, but by chasing the women in front of me so hard, I kept ahead of many of them. It was hard but so much fun, pulling out all the stops, using my run speed and efficiency to reel them in step by step. I just gave in to the fun and challenge of racing. I moved into 4^th on an uphill at 7k, and then chased down 3^rd by 8k. After that it was a matter of racing through the trail and holding off more guys. In the end I was 3^rd women and 9^th overall in the chase race that included men and women.

It was an awesome weekend of racing, getting to see all the coaches and people from LifeSport, Tyler from PowerBar, Larry and Bob from Subaru and many many friends. It tied up the 10 day training camp well and gave me one last strong day before I tackle the Cobra 70.3 Philippines this weekend. That is going to be a different sort of challenge!

Lucy

Vacations and training are mutually inclusive. Especially when you have unlimited access to beautiful trails, outstanding scenery, the freshest air ever, amazing food, and the ability to hang out with your kids for the rest of the summer’s day….

Finding my Element on Hornby Island

For me, vacations and training are mutually inclusive. I do not need a vacation from training, as training is simply my recreation, my hobby and my passion, even if it was my job for twenty odd years. My favourite vacations include unlimited access to beautiful trails, outstanding scenery, the freshest air in the world, amazing food, and the chance to hang out with my husband and kids for the rest of the summer’s day.

There are places in this world that we just have an affinity for, for some reason they resonate with our lives and give us that inexplicable sense of well being.  These are the places where we feel completely in our element when we are in them.  Hornby Island is my soul food and I am sure that it has a lot to do with my own East Coast childhood memories of days spent playing at beaches and drinking sandy lemonade, spending all day in adventures in the open air, and countless hours beachcombing and building forts. Hornby Island reminds me of my love of simple abundance. Give me open air and a chance to run in a trail I am a happy camper.  Give me a place where my children are happy running on the beach and watching anemones eat and I am a happy parent.  When Maia runs down to swim in the salty tide pools after supper I feel happy. When Ross is running like an agile mountain goat across the moonscape of sandstone formations I feel content. When the kids are on their bikes whooping down a swooping trail I want to laugh out loud. There is something wonderful about parenting, when you realize you are creating happy family memories, memories that seem merely to be another layer of your own existence. From the family board games and endless rounds of UNO, to the ambles along the beach picking up random rocks, there is nothing like being together in a beautiful spot.

The longer I visit on Hornby, the more I realize that the island is telling me something about how I want to live and to love my life. I understand and accept that we live in the age of technology, electronics and social media. Our lives are now intertwined with the reality of Wi-Fi and instant connection and immediate access to any information about anyone and anything at all. In fact, the internet is precisely what has made my transition from full time professional athlete to coach, writer and mom possible. With World Wide Web I can work anytime and anywhere, connect with athletes, coaches, magazines and products on a global scale, and build my job around the schedules of my children and family. Computers have allowed me to access a professional life while maintaining my personal values of staying at home with my children and being a part of their education and exploration of the world around them.

So, when I go to a beautiful and natural place like Hornby Island and unplug, the whiz of connectivity falls away. What takes its place is silence, the sound of wind, the vivid colour of a sunset, the ability to fall silent oneself and switch off, while switching on in a very real and human way. I connect with life through the natural world. As a child we were always outside. I learned early to read the weather through clouds, the pattern of gusts on water, the thickness of ice. I watched ospreys feed and hurricanes blow through on their coastal rampages. We grew up on islands, coastlines and in forests. Being outside is my comfort and I take joy in listening to the croak of ravens, watching an eagle, tasting a salmonberry and feeling sunshine on my back.

Life becomes simple while on Hornby, the daily race becomes stripped back to what’s necessary and what’s pleasurable, and while we can’t—don’t want to even-live like this year round, being in holiday reminds me of the framework of values that I want to bring home. I wrote in my journal while I was there. My favourite journal is a spiral bound Hilroy. I write long hand. At first it’s messy as I do so much keyboard typing these days but as the days go by, the scrawl becomes more artful and elegant. Like a preserver of ancient language I do not want to forget how to create cursive writing. I create art with the kids, often collage projects that we can construct using found objects and the paper supplies I bring from home. Cut and paste and glue becomes a metaphor for the way we all construct our lives out of pieces we love most.

Training on Hornby becomes a daily ritual and a treat. Whether getting out at dawn and having the whole island to yourself for two hours in the trails, or getting in a late afternoon ride as the sunlight slants through the Cedars and falls on the distant slopes on Strathcona, my times spent training are pure bliss. My favourite run is still a loop of Helliwell Park, although the trail to the Co-Op and beyond is a lot of fun with the twisting single track, tall grass and huge trees. Getting up into Mount Geoffrey-the mountain bike park- is a thrill all to itself. There are surprisingly few people out in the woods, as I rarely come across another soul and every run and every ride is like a meditation. Listening to footfalls and breath while surrounded by bird song and trees. I don’ have to rush. There is nothing to get back to, no schedules to keep, nobody waiting for me. I take my time for a change, cooling down at the end of a hilly brick workout, meandering down the driveway hot and thirsty. When I come in, the kids are happily playing UNO with Lance or reading, or they are not even there. They are on the seashore, hitting rocks into the bay with bleached out baseball bat sticks.

Even the food becomes simple, pure and wholesome. I am cooking in another kitchen away from my array or knives and pots, ingredients and staples. I grill salmon and steak a lot, make simple potato salad several times, use up veggies to make a chopped salad. There are herbs on the property: oregano and lemon thyme and chives and they make everything taste divine. I can’t describe the way those fresh picked herbs add a sense of liveliness to food. On Canada Day Maia and I made a special dessert of fresh strawberries and whipped cream layered with Graham Cracker Crumps and drizzled with melted Denman Island chocolate. You make do with the basics, and food is delicious out on the open deck.

Do I train on vacation. Yes I do.

When are you in your element? Find it and run with JOY!

Lucy

Why Using Your Brain Matters

The ancient Egyptians thought that the heart was the human centre of emotion, thought, and intention.  At the end of the day, they would pick the brain out of the skull and unceremoniously throw it away, but would take great care in preserving the heart, putting it into a special canopic jar to be entombed with the mummified body. Without the knowledge of the physical body and neuroscience that we have now it is not hard to understand how they might feel that a person is ruled by their heart. Even today, modern champions are said to run with guts, with pure passion, from the heart. We rarely hear a commentator say, “She really ran with her brain today!”

All endurance coaches know that to be successful an athlete has to combine three essential things: pure passion, physical training and great attitude. Some would say that passion falls into the attitude category, but I argue that passion sort of comes with who you are and what you like, whereas you can adapt, change and improve your attitude: you decide to be a smart and savvy athlete, you decide to take care of all the details that lead to success and you decide to choose success in any given situation. You even decide to train. Passion without direct action is random energy. Fun maybe, but random. If you have great specific genetics for your particular passion then you are the making of an Olympian, but you certainly don’t need to be an Olympic Champion to have passion. I talk to a lot of age group athletes, most of whom share my same passion for racing, some of whom are way more organized than I am about their sport, more focussed and more high tech by a long shot. Many of these people aren’t going to break records or become world champions, but I always know they are going to be OK when I talk to them and see the passion behind what they are doing.

I have always had a passion for running and racing, particularly after I found out that I was actually good at running footraces.  I guess you could say that my passion followed a curve from loving excitement and big races to a pure love of sport and that’s why I continue to run. Whereas once I was only passionate about training and racing, now I find that to be a backdrop to my interest in being fit and healthy and connected to my body in an athletic and educated way. That has barely waned. My obsession for only my own career path has simply morphed into a more all encompassing model that includes my whole family and the people in my community. I think we all know the role that passion plays: it gives us meaning, makes us happy and when we are passionately involved with something we love, we get those beautiful clear moments of life, which we call being in the zone.

What also matters is attitude.  Attitude is malleable; you can change your attitude as the situations arise and constantly adapt your attitude as you go. It’s amazing really; you control how you control your attitude. I once read that in the game of life, attitude is really your only card to play. We have all heard the speech: you can’t change the way other people act, you can’t change the weather and you certainly can’t change your parents. But you can control your attitude and your own responses to the world around you.

At a recent race I was on a yellow school bus heading out to the start line of a Half Marathon. I sat next to a young woman on the bus and as we headed up the highway for the thirty minute drive to the start line we got to talking. I learned that it was her first half marathon ever, that she had just started running last year on the encouragement of her boss (that’s a good type of boss), that she had set this as a goal for herself, had trained toward it, and she even had a bit of a plan for the morning. She asked me about what to wear. I was so impressed. Here was someone who had embraced a new goal, been as smart as possible about training and was looking forward to the challenge. As we talked I found myself walking with her through her race, a race that was going to be not dissimilar to my own, only slower. I asked her if she was ready for that moment in the race when her brain started to tell her that it’s difficult, uncomfortable and hard to run this fast for so long.

We have to use our brain in racing in order to fully participate in the event. What are you going to do at 12k, when your body starts to fatigue? Are you going to be ready for this moment if it comes, if not at 12k, then at 15k or even 20k? What is going to be the difference between fuelling your passion and achieving success, or ambivalence, self sabotage and choosing failure? What is going to make the difference between satisfaction and disappointment as your cross the finish line, no matter what the actual outcome?

You can bet your racing flats it’s not going to be the beep on your multi-function running watch, the pace on the GPS monitor or the colour of your racing singlet. While these gadgets are useful tools in teaching you about what you can do, only you can control your attitude or your relationship with your race. That’s what I love about running and racing. There is no switch you dial in at the start of a race that puts you on cruise control for the day. While we all want to have effortless, incident free days, we are more often faced with multiple opportunities for making choices during one run. Your brain has to be switched on. Showing up is not just a saying about getting to the start line; it’s about being fully engaged in your passion.

You have to use your brain, you have to be prepared to think on your feet and you have to be both completely aware of your internal feelings and the race that is unfolding around you: the people, the course, the environment. There are new cars these day that have all kinds of built in automatic systems that are meant to either assist or replace human effort: they can parallel park for you, navigate for you, and even slow down when you start to get too close to the car ahead.  This is fine, but for people who actually like to drive, or who are genuinely interested in driving well or who derive enjoyment from reading maps and figuring out where to go—people who actually like to use their brains– these gizmos are merely helpful aids.

For now, nothing like that will ever replace the human brain in racing, because enjoying racing is all about being required to use your head.

The awesome thing about racing is that you have to use your natural instincts and intuition. You have an internal sensor called ‘depth perception’ that alerts you to the closing or widening gap between you and the person up the street. But intuiting the gap isn’t all there is. It’s way more subtle than that and therein lays the fun! Being smart in racing is when you are tuned into your body and the people around you in more than a physical space awareness: you just know when you are reeling in the person ahead, because you can also sense their fatigue from the various body cues you have learned to read over experience. You can read the energy of the person running on your shoulder and intuitively know when you need to make your move, and you know when you have to concentrate for several moments to bridge the gap to the next pack.

I think the ‘moment of truth’ that arrives in so many races, that is the point where your passion and your attitude intersect. Are you ready to dig deeper at that moment? Are you prepared to put your fears and doubts aside? Have you already rehearsed how you are going to rise to the challenge?

Are you going to feed your passion?

Race like you mean it.

Lucy

T is for Toronto and Taking a Breather (all mums need one now and then)

 First of all, the result. I am not being hard on myself, only realistic, but speed is relative and fast is a feeling and I was somewhat surprised to go over 1:20 in the half today. The Toronto Molson Half Marathon, supposedly downhill and fast wasn’t that fast for me. Surprised because it’s been a long time since I have run that slow and I am not about to admit that turning the corner to 44 means I have to run 2 minutes slower for the half than I am capable of. But it’s not all about times is it? I raced well, came 2^nd overall and 1^st masters and surely pushed up my fitness.

At least I ran faster than that guy ever did!

I came out to Toronto to get in a race in the Eastern half of our great country, that part that lies well beyond the Rockies: to take a little field trip of sorts, beyond the British Columbia border, to have a small R & R break from my other 24/7 job of raising children, taxi driving and stocking the house with necessities for daily family life. A job I love and find meaningful, but from which a small break is sometimes nice. Coming out East is always a returning to my roots sort of thing for me, as it gets me closer to Nova Scotia, not that close exactly, but closer than Vancouver and definitely: Ontario is East. There are more Timmies on the corners out here and more people from the Maritimes hanging out, and people are impressed that you made the trip from so far away as the West Coast.

I started the race on the conservative side, wanting to run a strong second half and although it’s a downhill course, there were hills and wind in the second half. I quickly found my spot, running 3:45’s; in third place but ready to pounce in the second half. I had a few guys around but it took over 10k to sort that out. Coming up on 12k I made a jump to a fellow up the street as it seemed more fun and productive to run with him than alone and he kept on waving to friends along the course. Coming up on his shoulder he asked me if I was still having fun. ‘Oh yeah!’ I replied. I was now in 2^nd and feeling smooth, if not stellar. A few moments of brief conversation and it turns out this guy is from Nova Scotia, sailed in the same bay as I did, knows the same people-including my brother- and went to the same High School even, albeit 15 years after I did. Holy Cow. Small world. After that short chat I was huffing a little too hard so I shut up and enjoyed the Bluenose Camaraderie all the way home in silence. He fell back just a short way from the finish but we had a good laugh after the race. When I finished the announcer said I was from the other Sydney: Nova Scotia. Yup, closer to Nova Scotia out here. Thanks for the pacing Jeremy!

Running in the rain wasn’t too bad at the time, but within minutes of finishing I was desperate for an emergency blanket and a warm drink. Brent at PowerBar gave me some dry clothes to add to my 3 layers and I survived the walk back down University to the hotel, watching the marathoners streaming in, and feeling happy that it wasn’t me!

One of the benefits to travelling on my own is that I get to read the whole Saturday Globe and Mail from cover to cover without having to abort the mission in order to make Lego cars, French toast or to retrieve a lost toy. It is always nice to get caught up in current affairs and what’s happening though I skipped the sports: these days you can learn about the hockey play offs from pure social osmosis. So I was both interested and shocked to read about how the Bluenose ll is being almost completely rebuilt back in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. It was great to read about, but I was dismayed at how this piece of personally relevant cultural news had somehow sailed over my head. As a kid I always felt proud of the fact that the Canadian dime had the boat from Nova Scotia on it. That boat was the original Bluenose, a fast racing boat and fishing schooner; a part of Nova Scotia history. (As a point of reference, the Bluenose on the “Schooner” beer label is the Bluenose ll, a boat which was actually built by Oland Brewery as a promotion (!) and later sold to Nova Scotia, and which has been a staple tourist attraction ever since). Now the article in the paper was mainly concerned with the controversy over the technicality of whether the ‘new’ boat, which is being painstakingly crafted using old wooden boat methods, should in fact be called the Bluenose lll since it has very little of the original boat left in it. What caught my eye was the fact that the old Bluenose ll has been mainly scrapped and some of it will be sold for souvenirs. I really have to find out what those will be.

So, it’s been a nice weekend. I had a good race, caught up with some friends and, while it seems awfully quiet around here, I have been able to reflect and relax. After the race I took a walk back up University and visited the Royal Ontario Museum. Now this was interesting. There’s nothing like putting the world you read about into context by looking at a real artefact. They have real mummies in there! One is opened and one has never been opened. There is a mummy on display that has been x-rayed (to see the amulets) but it’s never been tampered with. I have read all about mummies and pyramids and tombs because I have kids and kids love Egyptian history. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries so many mummies were destroyed, torn apart and unwrapped and discarded, until the next generation of  ‘educated’ people got smart and figured they better save a few. The x-ray machine and CT scans helped on that front as well. So it was very interesting to see real mummies, the amulets, the canopic jars (where they put the organs) and the mummified animals, including hawks and kittens and a baby alligator.

The closed mummy with canopic jars.

The open Mummy: wishing the kids could see this one!

I also learned about a mineral called Smithsonite. Really! And was quite impressed with the bird room that displayed birds of the world in flight.

Note the Canucks jerseys in the background.

By the time I decided to walk back to the hotel, the day had taken its toll. My legs ached with every step, my feet were sore and I had that familiar weary feeling from physical exertion. I strolled back down in the Sunday afternoon drizzle stopping at Timmies for a bagel and tea. Thanks Toronto.

Lucy