"Unbagged"

Just like the groceries at the store.  Not only do you no longer get a "bag boy", you don't even get a bag!  What's so funny about that of course, is the pretense that it is in the interest of preserving our environment as opposed to the reality.... that some bright guy figured out that by riding the "green" wave he could save the corporate food giants a whole bunch of money.  Woohoo!  Long live free enterprise!

Anyway, I feel kinda back in the saddle today.  Probably because I had enough rest to get a good workout in.  Ride, run, and I actually got to the weight room for my preliminary test workout.  I already had all the speciifc exercises determined, and so today I started to establish specific weights that I can handle.  Tomorrow or friday I will go through the routine in its' entirety.  Most of it has come from the training recommendations of a man they called "The Grip".  He was once acknowledged by Outside magazine as the worlds fittest man.  Mark Allen won the Hawaii Ironman 6 times after having failed to do so 6 previous times.  He credits weight training with the difference. I suppose I should listen.

Bike 34 kms, 1hr, 5 mins
Run 7.3 kms,  37 mins
Weights, 45 mins

"Exercise is for people who can't handle drugs and alcohol." --- Lily Tomlin

"Everybody wants to know what I'm on. What am I on? I'm on my bike busting my ass six hours a day.
What are you on?"---Lance Armstrong

Love
Peter

"Bagged"

Mentally that is.  The hard parts for me are not the physically painful ones.  My body was hurting today and yet I would happily have gone running for an hour or two.  But I know better than that and so I resisted.  But what I need to do with those times is focus on other stuff, like swimming technique or bringing my weight room plan to completion.

But alas, I am a weak human being and so I will just have to accept that it was a holding pattern day....I don't even feel like blogging.

Enjoy the rest of the day, but do me one favour.  Once you read this, try to find someone you can give a hug to, and then do it...just for me please...so I can feel like I accomplished something today.

Swim  45 mins

"Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical."---Yogi Berra

...and one cause I liked it...

"He who lives in the single exercise of his mental faculties, however usefully or curiously directed, is equally an imperfect animal with the man who knows only the exercise of muscles."---Francis Wright

 

Love

peter

 

"The Top Ten Ways You Can Tell You're Not a Serious Cyclist"

Number 10:  You wear a pink helmet!

Number 9 :  When a car passing in the opposite direction is driving straight at you, you crowd over and yell obscenities instead of playing chicken!

Number 8:  You steer around flattened skunks instead of squishing through them!

Number 7:  You slow down and look both ways before you fire straight through stop signs and red lights!

Number 6:  You listen to the Mamas and the Papas while you ride, and sing along with California Dreamin!

Number 5:  You don't wear a multicolored shirt with a pouch on the back and covered with corporate logos!

Number 4:  You wave at all cops and all farmers pulling manure spreaders!

Number 3:  You don't try to jump the railroad tracks....and yes I've seen it done...both wheels, both tracks!

Number 2:  You leave your bike in the garage instead of beside your bed

....and the Number 1 way you can tell you're not a serious cyclist....

 You stop and get off your bike, rather than pee down your leg and into your shoe!

100 km ride---3hrs, 20 mins

"Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon."---Bill Strickland

"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live."---Mark Twain,

Love
peter

"This is the Day the Lord Has Made"

I seem to remember a line something like that from my youth with the catholics.  I don't  remember whether it was part of one of the voodoo rituals, or part of a hymn or whatever, but for some reason it has stuck with me.  Regardless of whether you call him (her/it),  God or Lord or Creator, or Providence, or Gitchi Manitou, I'm pretty sure there's one of them out there somewhere, and this day he made especially for me.

How can I tell?

Well let me tell you!  I woke up this morning in the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in (it's in my bedroom), beside the only woman I've ever loved (she still turns me on), went for a nice run around the block (some people can't do that), then spent most of the day with my little brother Terry (who I hate to admit has better technical aptitude than me) doing stuff I really like (working with my hands), went to visit my son Jon for 5 mins (turned into 45) and then headed back home to that same bed with my sweetheart in it.

"This is the day the lord has made"

Terry and I were working on this....a home for his motorcycle.

Old John came by for a while as well, but he didn't do dick all, so he couldn't be in the picture.  And any mistakes I made were because he was constantly distracting me.  But he did give me a few hundred peg board hooks so we're good John!

And if there is still any doubt in your mind as to whether this day was made for me I give you this.  The 401 was under construction on my way home, and the traffic was backed up for at least 10 kms......going the other way!!

7 km run---35 mins

"Personally, I don't choose any particular religion or symbol, or group of words or teachings to define me.  That's between me and the most high, you know, my higher self, the creator"---Erykah Badu

....I really love this one, and it's especially for you Old John...

"The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do".---Orison Swett Marde

Love
Peter

"Triathlon Day"

Up at dawns crack and out the door.  First a nice little 30 km ride in perfect temperatures and practically no wind.  Then off the bike for a jog around the block...7 kms and a bit.  Then a road trip to London to purchase a new heart rate monitor,

ain't it pretty,

back home for leftover spaghetti, and then off to the pool to see if I would be able to float any better.  Lastly, a 5 minute weight room instruction from old Roo, and I pretty well have my strength training plan in place.

Yes....I will clean it up and put it in a nice spread sheet.

The bike ride was great! (really great)!  The run a little tough but I survived (worrying about my achilles again).  The swim was just a bit discouraging ( got my hopes up too quickly). The weights a reminder of the part I don't like (but Im gonna do it anyway).

The whole day was a forewarning of just how tough it will be to do an Ironman, but it also somehow reminded me that I can do it....patience, patience, patience....and consistency and discipline, and confidence, and hard work.

Roo and I capped off the day with dinner for two at Braxtons....no kids, no grandchildren.

Bike.....60 mins
Run......40 mins
Swim...40 mins

“If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking."---anon

"You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience."---Stanislaw Lec

Love

Peter

"All Work and No Play"

I had to drive to Brampton this morning and while I got back at a reasonable time I had no energy for anything, except for cooking up a big pot of spaghetti.  By the way, here's a diet tip that I learned from Roo.  Instead of pasta sauce use salsa for your noodles.  It tastes great, has far fewer calories and almost no fat, and the real kicker is that you don't have heartburn for the rest of the day and most of the night....of course I use extra mild salsa...

And that's about all the wisdom I have for today.  Lack of exercise also seems to result in lack of inspiration for me.  I think that working for a living is simply bad for my physical, mental and spiritual health.

Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”---Buddha

“Work is the refuge of people who have nothing better to do”---Oscar Wilde

love
peter

"The Great Equalizer"

In the water buoyancy is everything.  You will know of course that things float or sink based on their weight, compared to the weight of the water they displace.  So big things with lots of air space float, and smaller denser things tend to sink. That's why the old girls at the pool with a few extra chins, porous old bones, and other extra buoyant material would never be able to drown even if they tried.  I happpen to have very dense bones and not very much trapped air in other forms, and as such I sink lilke a rock.  That reality, combined with a lack of athletic ability handicaps me in a serious way when to moving through the water.

So I started this DVD based program called "easy freestyle" from a company called Total Immersion.  The whole program is focused on relaxing in the water, getting streamlined, and getting the most forward motion out of the least amount of exertion.  It starts you right back at the basics and I think it is gonna help me.  Never having had any kind of formal swim coaching I think it will be good to start from scratch.  I am cautiously optimistic but we will see how it goes.  I think it is gonna challenge me mentally as I try to figure it out, but since I know my swimming weakness is not due to strength or fitness limitations, in my head is where the answers lie.  Stay tuned.

In order to challenge myself I do wish to tell you the specific goal I have in mind for the swim training, and perhaps racing portion of Ironman.  In my earlier life (10 years ago) I could swim fairly endlessly at a 20 min/km pace in my speedo.  In preperation for 2009 that had deteriorated to about 23-24 minutes.  I could still do 20 min k's in my wetsuit (in the pool) and in actual fact my Ironman time was just slightly slower than that (1hour 23mins total).  My goal?  I want to get back to the 20 mins in the pool(speedo time), and if I can do that, I believe I can get my overall Ironman time down to 1 hour, 10 mins.  I think I can do it!  Stay tuned.

The swimmin pool at the Y, or rather the mens change room at the Y, gave me my chuckle of the day yesterday as well, and I wish to share it with you.  Actually it was more than a chuckle.  I was laughing my bare ass off  along with a few other naked old gofers.  Here's the scene.

A gentleman cames in from the shower area, arrives at his locker and proceeds to look for the key to his lock.  After frantically searching his person (he was naked) and looking through his towel and his swim trunks, he came to the conclusion that he had either lost the key, or locked it in his locker.  So he puts his trunks back on and heads off to find the maintenance guy.  Some few minutes later he returns with a guy in tow who is carrying a fearsome looking set of bolt cutters.  The gentleman points out the lock in question and the maintneance guy proceeds to snap it in half and toss the parts in the garbage can.  The gentleman says thanks, and proceeds to open  his locker.  I had my back turned by then and so all I heard was, "aaahhh just a minute please", in an attempt to call the maintanance guy back.  "I think I got the wrong locker".  Of course that set up a chorus of groans and laughs from all concerned, including me.  It was priceless.  Apparently his was the adjacent locker.....a locker which innocently displayed a different but similar lock....with you guessed it....the key in the lock!  That's when I started rolling on the floor. 

10 k run today, 52 mins

"Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise and encouragement - and we will make the goal".---Robert Collier

love
peter