Running and cycling with Bill

Name:
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Sunday, May 28, 2006

National Capital half marathon

So after doing my pee checking, for the male 10k winner of the National Capital race weekend, George Misoi of Kenya, who won for the second year in a row, in 28:30, on Saturday night, I rolled out of bed early Sunday to get to the Ottawa Hash House Harrier water station for the marathon. But back to the pee checking: for a couple of years my running group has supplied the volunteers to chaperone the top winners as soon as they finish and until they can deliver a urine sample for the anti-doping testing program. This does lead to a certain amount of jokes, and is a story in itself, but it is quite serious stuff, and even the Hash House Harriers treat it so.

Our water station was at the 7k point going out and the 15k point coming back. The weather had all of sudden turned quite warm, and even with the 7 a.m. start, runners were noticing the sudden heat. I took my XM Radio sateliite radio stuff and set up speakers to play bluegrass music really loud, which probably pissed off the nearby residents, like our Prime Minister, but no one came out of their dungeons to complain. All the water station volunteers and runners liked it.

After watering several thousand marathoners, I headed over to the race HQ to get ready for the half, starting at 10:15 a.m., and of course the increasing heat. It was going to 29 Celsius today.

Met a bunch of running friends as we were getting ready for the start, with some 7500 participants. Shant go through all the details, but it was warm, and I went through a huge amount of water, in and on me. For the relative lack of training, it went pretty well, and I finished with a chip time of 2:00:40, good enough for the top third of my age group, which was satisfying. About 12 minutes slower than my PB last year, but that goes to show what proper training does.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

What are the odds?

For you mathematicians out there, perhaps you can tell me the odds of these events:

I was biking home from work on Wednesday, on a lovely evening, when I realized my month old Specialized All Condition Kevlar rear tire had sprung a leak. My bike shop guy had installed this tire when he did some other tune-up things, and told me it would be much more puncture resistant than what I had. Realizing I foolishly did not have the most correct tube, or patches, I called my wife to come get me, but started to change the tube anyway. I found the tire very stiff and had not finished when she arrived, so we loaded the bike into the van and headed for the shop. Mark finished the job in record time (I hate him for being able to replace a tube so fast) and we took the bike home, as well as a proper size spare tube for the tire.

A few hours later, I went out to the garage to get the bike ready for the next morning commute, and discovered the rear tire had gone flat, again. This time I decided to fix it no matter what, and some time later, I had installed the new tube, and cleaned the bike which was desperately in need of it after four solid days of rain. I discovered a tiny pin hole leak in the tube I had been carrying around with me for many months. So, two flats on the same tire in three hours.

It gets better...

Friday I do not cyle to work, and was on my way to work in my car, and my parking space at a friend's home, when I heard a pop and soon realized my right front tire was going flat. These are high performance touring tires, with 45,000 kms on them. I have been driving for some 48 years, and have had one flat tire, in 1999, in all that time. (That time it was on the highway with a tire that had only 1000 kms on it.) I managed to get to my parking space, and after work changed the tire to the small spare, and took the flat tire into the tire repair shop Saturday morning. They discovered a 2" nail in the tread. They repaired the tire, reinstalled it, and I headed home, no more than 6 kms, wondering how I had angered the tire gods so much.

It gets better...

About four hours later, I went out to my car to do some errands, and did not look at the repaired tire on the opposite side of the car. About 100 metres down the road I realized something was not right, pulled over and checked. Would you believe the repaired tire was completely flat once again? So, back to replacing it with the little dinky spare, and my wife will take the flat one back to the shop on Tuesday to yell and scream at them on my behalf. I have no idea what happened; there is no obvious damage or puncture. I watched the tire tech do the repairs and all seemed normal.

Can you understand why I was somewhat reluctant to start using my wheelbarrow for some gardening chores after finishing my errands? However, so far, the wheelbarrow tire has held up. And I even have a spare tire/tube for the wheelbarrow. The tire gods must be satisfied.

Four flats on two tires in four days....

I need another glass of wine.

Turns out that I had picked up yet another nail in the same tire in the course of the drive home from the tire shop, a few kms on main roads. So far, the tire is holding...

Sunday, May 07, 2006

Better late than on time


It just struck me that I did not do a post about the delightful February week we spent in the Dominican Republic, in a little town called Cabarete, a few miles from Puerto Plata. We stayed at an all-inclusive hotel named Azzuro Beach, and quite enjoyed it. Spent a lot of time on the beach, catching up on a lot of reading, snorkeling, some sight-seeing, and enjoying the bounty of all-inclusive drinks. The local beer, Presidente, was most enjoyable.

The beach was great for running; I did a half hour run before breakfast and then a couple more half hour runs during the day. And endless walking on the never-ending beach as well. It's one of the top areas for kite surfing in the world. Here's a picture.

One night we strolled down the beach a few hundred metres to a bar to watch an Ottawa Senators hockey game on TSN; that was weird.

Saturday, May 06, 2006

One week down...

Having set the goal of running after biking home from work, which is something I have never done before, I have managed to get through the first week of it. Each day my time got better. Still not quite at target half marathon pace, but I'm getting there. Today was a good 9.5k run and tomorrow will move up to a 15k run. Friday has become my one day off, as I drive to work that day, instead of biking, so decided to take the whole day off.

I'm looking at other half marathons in the fall and early winter, to make into a short vacation. The Las Vegas half on December 10 is looking interesting; my wife is all in favour of it!!! Anyone out there done it??

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Training 101

So I started my regimen of running after biking home from work; sort of a delayed duathlon. Being a long-time member of the Ottawa Hash House Harriers, but somewhat errant in attendance recently, I decided that going out with the hash every Monday night in May would count for training, and I get to hoist a beer or two as reward, and to replace those missing carbs. That worked great last night, as we had an 8-9 k run and then lots of good food and beer afterwards.

Having pushed myself to the front runner ranks during the run, I found the "golden spike", a painted railroad spike the Hare had left along the trail, which earned me a great prize: another can of beer wrapped in a mouse pad that looked like a pair of running shoes. How appropriate.

Tonight I biked my 16 kms home into a ferocious wind, walked the dogs for a half hour, and then headed out for a run. Went down the great stonedust path very close to home, complete with toboggan hill and other natural delights, grinding out a 6 km run. A bit tougher than usual after a fast bike ride, it seemed, but it sure made dinner taste good. Makes for a pretty short evening by the time all the chores are done, but that's training...