Highs and lows

Well isn't life interesting, one day you can be like a well oiled machine and the next you can be a snot factory with the wheels falling off. I had a great ski this past Saturday, I classiced for 30 km, with Tom, Dave and the president of Nickel Plate himself Mike Bartier or Mr. President as he prefers to be called. It was a perfect day, the sun was out and the snow was fairly quick. The first lap felt great I went 59:45 for 15km, with an average heart rate of 138. I just tried to stay steady and not work too hard. On the second lap I turned it up a little bit and attacked all the up hills and sharp corners. I went 58:15 for the second 15km with an average heart rate of 143. It felt a lot harder than that. After I finished I think this is where the grease turned to snot, I didn't get enough post-effort fuel in and I was cold even though I changed clothes. Now being Monday and having taken yesterday and today off I'm still feeling under the weather. Hopefully tomorrow brings a little more health.

This leads me to some thoughts. It's funny how we (we - meaning people in good health who are active and eat right and get enough sleep) take our health for granted. I couldn't imagine living with an extra 25kgs or some sort of cardio respiratory disease. So with this feeling of "ok I'm sick but when I do feel better I'm going to really appreciate it" I'm going to continue doing work for the upcoming week and get to bed early, so that I can fully appreciate my glorious predicament of being fit, healthy and happy.

wash your hands

Due to "Them's fighting words" comments left on the blog about what is and what is not "montage" training, the previous post has been altered. In doing so I hope to not get 'remined' again by any other members of TBD. It would be a bloody day if I were to meet them in a back alley after a triathlon, considering we can all run pretty fast and they are all way bigger than me.

Snow Shoeing in the Sunshine!

This post is a little late, but as they say in the world of Assessment for Learning (AFL) better late than never. So last weekend Katie and I were up at Apex with our friends Crystal and Dan who were up from Vancouver. It was a great time of skiing, skating and snowshoeing. Oh and some beverages were consumed and some games were played (Blokus and Crib) We shared the dinner making responsibilities, we made a nice chicken stirfry with rice noodles and Dan and Crystal brought massive Halibut chunks for our consumption. I have never tasted fish that nice before.

Fortunately, for all those concerned the weather cooperated as well. When I say cooperated I mean plus 12 and hot, getting our winter fix of vitamin D. Here's a couple of shots from a balmy snowshoe.

Into the clouds!

Well, if you were in the Okanagan Valley today you probably didn't get to see the sun. I was fortunate enough to have the morning off, so Katie and I went up to Telemark in Westbank for a ski! It was glorious sunshine and the trails were mighty quick! What a way to start the day!

GMW

Old School Rocky Training

Rocky Balboa is one of my idols, he trained in Siberia for what seemed an eternity. I try to emulate the 'montage' everyday. Grunting Helps.

First Ski Race of the Year !!

I had an excellent cross country ski race today up at telemark in Westbank (West Kelowna). It consisted of 15km classic - my wax although not all fancy pants worked amazingly, and then a 15km skate ski - my wax was a little slow but it was really soft as well.

The reason why I say excellent, is I didn't get chicked, well not if you count the girl (who I found out this morning she is in grade 10, turns out she is an even better runner!! Can you say future Olympian? ) who was on a relay team who nipped me at the line. I'm gonna say that I beat her because I was slowing down to go into transition so I didn't ski by my skate skis. And thats all I have to say about that. Kudos to Katie for hanging out for six hours and taking some sweet shots!!

hi