Seattle, Hot Wheels, and an Unexpected Offseason

So a lot has happened since our last triathlon related post. I'll give you a quick rundown.






Injuries plenty
Sickness Everywhere
Canceled Races

Basically I learned being new to this whole triathlon thing my body needs a rest after a the long summer racing season. The marathon that Kristi and I had scheduled for November proved to be too ambitious. As a result, after the summer races ended and we started to pack on the training miles in preparation our bodies started to give us some signals that we needed a rest. I got a fairly serious calf injury that has taken almost 7 weeks to fully heal. Kristi injured her hip and knee and to top it all off while trying to keep the training volume up and with our nutrition being less then perfect germs took advantage of our weak immune systems. I missed a week of work, have had a slow recovery and Kristi has fallen sick as well. The past 2 months have not been good and neither of us got to the starting line of the Seattle Marathon.

So what is the lesson learned? The body NEEDS a rest, so give it what it wants.

With that aside and our plane tickets already booked to go to Seattle we figured that we would take it easy and have a nice relaxing weekend. We checked out the very cool Experience Music Project, got nice massages is a Russian bath house, Kristi shopped till I dropped, we ate WAY too many vegan donuts and I picked up some slightly used racing wheels at an amazing price!

Really the only important thing in the above paragraph are the wheels that I have obtained that will hopefully propel me to lightning fast speeds at races this year. They are beauties :). Zipp 606 clinchers, which are essentially carbon fiber wheels which have a deep rim profile that will make me a lot more aerodynamic in my races. The front tire has a 58mm deep rim and the rear 81mm. I should get an extra 1.5 - 2 KPH or speed on the bike out of them which means that hopefully I'll be able to push around 33 - 34 KPH (21 - 22 MPH) in some of the shorter races.

Kristi picked up lots of new clothes and was very excited to be let loose in a city with real shopping. In around 10 hours of shopping we didn't even cover more then 2 square blocks! Her shopping stamina is quite remarkable. I have never seen her so focused an motivated :). We also got a chance to check out the Whole Foods in Seattle. So much vegan and organic goodness packing into such a small place. We ended up eating breakfast there 2 of morning that we were there and ate 8 donuts! Well I ate about 6 of them but I figured what other occasions do I get to eat donuts!

Lets see what else happened. Oh yes, we got massages at a Russian bath house called Banya 5. This was my first professional massage ever and I must say that I will be getting more. Although my masseuse put me into excruciating pain as he dug into my back on several times, it was actually quite enjoyable. I'm not sure how to describe it. But it was a good pain.

Well there is a fragmented description of the past weekend as well as the past few months of training. Hopefully all the resting and relaxing we have done will lead to happy training in the new year. I suspect that our coach will have us taking it easy over the next few weeks and start into some serious training come January.

Hot Child in the City

Hello, folks. I write to you from a bathtub in the city of Elvis impersonators and shotgun weddings. Yes, that's right, I am in Vegas. For work, not fun mind you, and hard work at that. Standing on your feet all day while schmoozing with doctors and trying to sell medical devices really takes it out of you. But why am I writing from a bathtub, you ask? Good question.

You see, in this city, cheap hookers abound, but I challenge you to find a gym open past six o'clock in the evening. My hotel's gym is only open from 6:00 am - 6:00 pm, which means that the 15k run that was planned for today has been scrapped in favor of a leisurely soak in the tub before dinner and the obligatory "team-building" (i.e., binge drinking with co-workers) that typically follows. Though I suppose the reasoning for terrible gym hours is clear -- get thee into the casino -- it is nonetheless frustrating. I was really looking forward to a precious hour of "me" time in the midst of all this teamwork. Not to mention how proud I was of myself for mustering the energy to even put on my gym clothes after such a long day. I suppose my only option at this point is to peel myself out of the bathtub and meet my colleagues for what I imagine will be a long night after a long, long day. On the upside, the hotel I'm staying at has a roller coaster. That should get my heart rate up!

For those of you who have been worried since the beginning of this post about me using a laptop while in the bathtub, let me put your mind at ease. I have made it to the end, dear friends, without so much as a minor shock. It's just as well...I'm sure there are plenty of shocking Las Vegas moments yet to come.

Ode to Disco

It's been a rough couple of days for our little Disco doggie. An accident at the groomer has left her with ulcerated corneas that, though healing nicely, are causing her a lot of pain. Through it all, though, she has been her spunky, playful, and just generally loveable self. What's not to love, really?







And since I'm posting photos, what the heck...here are a few more.

No, that's not half of the Village People! It's James and Kristi on the way to a Halloween party.


Kristi about to dig into breakfast at a Penticton restaurant.


James and a big sandwich. No real reason for posting this other than, wow, look at that sandwich!

Just Half and We're Baked

Several weeks ago, James and I completed the Royal Victoria Half Marathon. Please refer to photo of us at left, looking happy and exhausted. The distance was a first for both of us, something we love because you always set a personal record the first time around! Though the day was cold and rainy, it was a fun experience to take on the challenge with so many other people, and it was an important stepping stone on our way to the Seattle Marathon.

Since our last race, we have upped our mileage as well as our time in the pool. Because we continue to be plagued by overuse injuries, presumably caused by missing too many key runs throughout the summer and early fall, the mandate from our coach is essentially to spend as much time pool running as possible. All of our long runs are long run/walks, and we are focused on injury prevention and our long-term Ironman goal. While it's not particularly fun to aqua jog, get poked by the chiropractor, and roll around on a big piece of foam (okay, that part is kind of fun), I'm glad we're having these complications now instead of the middle of next summer. The point of a fall marathon was to introduce us to endurance training and help us work out the kinks, and it's done exactly that.

And now, as we prepare to slog through a long, wet winter of training, let us review exactly how we ended up here.

First, James and I went to spectate at Ironman Canada in Penticton BC. We met up with a bunch of our friends from Victoria. Some were racing, some were just spectating like us, but all were confirmed tri-geeks.




We watched the swim.


We watched the bike.


We watched the run. (Yes, that is Lisa Bentley.)


And somehow, even after seeing all of this, we still waited in line.


And we signed ourselves up for 2007.


And then we went to Hawaii and forgot all about it.


Don't you wish you were in Hawaii right now? ;)