Fast is good!

I'm training to race Ironman USA this July. I am not an Ironman athlete, nor have I ever aspired to be one. As I've said in this blog, I'm doing this for the Ironcops for Cancer who I admire and support. I'm happy just to get the opportunity to experience and Ironman. I won't be racing to see what heights I can take my performance to.

That said, I don't want to suck at it!

On the contrary, I would really like to do well, and when I say "well," I mean "better than anyone would expect of me."

So I've trained. 3am wake up calls to get on my bike in the basement in the winter on a spinner, sweating like crazy, hammering out workouts that felt ridiculous. But I did them.

Swimming for 1 hour and a half in the pool, where I never like to be because I not only am not a very good swimmer, but because I also am afraid of the water. But there I am.

Running has never been difficult for me. That's because I've always been able to get away with trying just hard enough to do well.

So yesterday I put it all on the line and ran the Limestone 1/2 Marathon. Nothing new here, as I've done this many many times in the past. After pbing six years ago at 1:38 and change, I was happy to come in at or near that time every race. But this time it would be different.

This time I made it impossible for my usual "just hard enough" effort by telling everyone I knew of my 1:35 goal! No pressure. Now I HAD to come trough with something.

My friend Dalton is fast. He wins tris and running races. He always strives to get the maximum out of his performances. But two weeks ago he came down with a very bad strep infection, and then relapsed a week later. So as a recovering runner, he offered to pace me. I like a fool, accepted.

He and I were joined at the line by another Ironcop, Allyson who is much much faster than me, and so I knew the day was going to hurt. But I did it.

Dalton took us out at a steady but manageable pace, which we held until about 3 ks to go. And by the time I finished, dry heaving and barely able to process oxygen, I'd ripped 4 and a half minutes off my best-ever 1/2 marathon finish, and took home a medal in my age group.

Now I can go back to my steady, but not fast training. I can go back to pain-free workouts that will build my base, but not my speed. I can go back to working on becoming an Ironman. But I'll never go back to running any race "just hard enough."

Thanks Dalton and Allyson.

Green (with smoke and mirrors)

Tomorrow, you'll be blasted from all corners with Earth Day hype. Radio, tv, newspapers, and the internet will all be teaming with advice, guilt, fear-mongering and just about anything else that works so that they'll feel like they've done their bit to be at the leading edge of the environmental movement.

And whether it's the radio person showing up in their hot logo-d SUV at the groundbreaking for the new Green library branch in Calvin Park; or the TV mobile truck idling incessantly out front of City Hall or the tons and tons of colourful inserts in the local paper, or even the ridiculous over-packaging of yet another should-I-try-to-recycle-this-thing-when-its-obsolete? modem...it will all just prove how the media, as usual, will have you thinking that we created the entire environmental movement.

NBC is "green" all this week. Good for them. The paper here has a new "green" column that pops up several times a week. Love it! My own radio station and it's cluster jumps in every year with Pitch In Kingston, to do our bit to clean the city. Yay us!

I just wonder if the desired effect is happening, or are we in the media just making ourselves feel better by preaching a "tough" message to our users.

The roads are littered with crap that didn't have to be thrown there. Our city still dumps raw sewage into the lake and river. Gas prices are out of control, but talk to anyone and they'll tell you how "it's not like you can get by without driving."

I saw someone driving a Prius throw something from their window the other day. My family throws organic stuff in the garbage when the composter is just 30 metres from the house. We all drive buy junk laying beside the road...and keep on driving.

Tomorrow we'll all be talking a good game.

How many of us will actually have the guts to take things one step further...change our bad habits, and save this planet?

Geek or Nerd

I could never tell the difference between geeks and nerds. For my first ten years of school, I was probably one of the latter, then even though I worked very hard to change my image, there was still a lot of nerd showing through all the way to college.

Post-secondary education was Radio Broadcasting. Definitely geek. Though I read the liner notes on every recording I ever bought, which in hindsight is kinda nerdy.

Then it all changed. Suddenly I was one of those ultra-cool radio djs. Those slick pseudo-celebrity dorks who don't really have jobs, or at least job descriptions. I had finally pulled myself as far from nerdiness as my limitations would allow.

The fact that I had lots of extra time on my hands, lead me to reconnect with my inner jock, taking up golf, skiing, hockey, softball, running, swimming, triathlon, oh and Frisbee Golf (alright, Frisbee-anything is nerdy, no matter how jock-ey you think you are playing it...try describing your sport to someone who doesn't play it. If the word Frisbee is part of it...you're a damn nerd).

After all those years of having to know facts and formulae. After all that studying math and science, and politics and all that other uncool stuff, I was finally able to forget it all and just get out there and sweat!

And yet.

Golf just never made sense. No amount of reading, swing analysis or watching other golfers added to my results. It was as though one could just not think their way to a better game.

Skiing was pure joy. No thinking involved. This lead to my being excused from several hills, and eventually abandoning the sport. Softball was worse. The more I thought, the worse I got. My brain was best used in my eloquent vitriol, which was usually wasted on the opposing teams and unfortunate umpires.

Running clicked though. Biking too. And swimming...now there's a sport where no amount of physical effort will ever help.

Yes, triathlon combines three sports that take constant and exhaustive analysis, thought and discussion. Every footfall, every turn of the pedal, every degree of the stroke is a wealth of information (and misinformation), fed back to my far-too-curious mind. Can't keep up with the other runners? Get a heart rate monitor! Don't just use it though. Even better, read ever article ever written about the thing, then spend months putting together the way you SHOULD use it. Then when that all fails, declare that hr monitors are useless and should be shunned. Then buy a "better" one and repeat the above process.

Can't ride fast enough? Get a better bike. Wait! Spend at least three years of potential work time researching the exact bike that will make me a near-pro. Then spend the next seven messing with it to make it "better." Not to mention the need for at least a dozen different spin philosophies. Then when things are working just right, decide that you need a new bike.

Don't get me started with swimming. That much time spent with your face down in the water in near hypoxia has lead me to believe that I can actually think my way to the other end of the pool without actually moving my arms or legs. Oh yeah, the shaved legs that were meant to tear tenths of seconds off those swim times.

In a word after all the time I've spent cleansing the nerdiness from my being, I think I have finally become...a geek. Sigh.