ian donald

filling in the gaps

2012-01-26T18:08:00.001-05:00

sorry for all the words in advance. i don't like reading either.

in november, cross country season came to an end. most runners took a week off, regrouped, and got back out on to the trails to prep for indoors. the triathletes that dabbled in xc did something similar with down time followed by training that wasn't so running focused. what did i do?

neither.

i opted out of competing in triathlon this year because i had a 2011 season not worthy of government funding for 2012. i could no longer afford to keep going in the sport. it costs upwards of $8,000 a year to train and compete depending on how much you want to travel for races and camps. i don't have this money and that's the reality. this was a tough decision because it's not as if i can pick it up again on a rainy saturday. triathlon is a lifestyle and requires a complete commitment. long story short, here i am in january, face a little rounder, routine non-existent, and with no real goals beyond getting out of bed in time to poor beer for psych professors. i haven't been this out of shape since the cough epidemic of '09 or that summer in high school when i stopped swimming and worked at mcdonald's instead. as my training partners will tell you, my ass was huge that summer. the whole reason i came to guelph was because i wanted to train with the best and get a degree on the side. now i'm left with the degree on the horizon but have very little interest in it's real world application and consequently have lacked any real world motivation.

so what next?

well i want to run cross country again. my varsity experience this year was a lot like an experience at a few parties in tenth grade. i've been talking a lot with a certain girl, i find out she'll be at the same place on piccadilly on saturday, we go upstairs after i've downed my second beer taken from my parents fridge, make out a bit, and then BAM! busted by a bunch of kids looking for some sort of perverted thrill of finding their friends half naked in a walk-in closet. so in this metaphor the girl was 'running well' and my 'friends' were an injury. really got blue balled this season and i want my saturday back.

but xc is so far away! so i decided that exercise was optional, not a priority, and i've sat on my arse instead of staying in shape. then, at dinner at symposium last week, alexander decides that i should run a marathon. he says it will give me some structure, a goal, a fitness boost and as a side benefit he can take wagers on whether or not i break 2:40. this idea sounds exciting. so the two of us convince craig and voila! im running the ottawa marathon in may to give myself some structure before i build up for an xc season in the summer! fun times! i've run two days in a row and i feel like a new man.

backtracking to that whole 'not at all interested in school thing', i know i'm not the only person to ever dislike class. but i figured that if i was still sitting in a lab diluting acids at the age of 21, it would at least be something i was planning on doing after university. it's not, i've wanted to be in media since the tenth grade. so connor clerke and i are going to host a radio show on the campus station! getting back into the media scene will be refreshing and might help with the funk. funk is only good when played you're at the albion, not when it pertains to a lack of drive. so i'll let you guys know when it's on and i encourage you to listen because i promise you that if it sucks we'll stop doing it!

thanks for reading! here's a deep 'bop it' run with some of the nation's best multiplayer athletes. plenty of talent.

and here is the black and white of life with a CCR soundtrack!

i went up, came down, and then i was home

2011-12-23T14:01:00.000-05:00

have you ever flown porter? porter is great. it takes all the fun parts of flying, bundles them up into a little ball, and throws it right at the nut-sack of all the bad parts of flying.

sorry, i just read watson's blog. his style is contagious.

nevertheless, i do believe porter is a swell way to travel. first part of the trip was just a quick greyhound to t.o., free shuttle to the harbour front, and then a 37 second ferry ride to the runway. no fuss, no muss. i was so early that they threw me on an earlier flight. no line-up at security. a surprise of the pleasant variety. when i started taking off my belt i was asked whether stripping was something i did for fun or if he was going to have to tip for the entertainment.

then, the best part: the lounge. i got my own comfy chair with a reading lamp. the reading lamp was unnecessary as the room was well lit by natural light that shone through the wall length windows. but i liked the reading light. it made it homey. i pull out my mac for a standard wi-fi sesh. low battery! darn. lucky there is an outlet right. under. my. butt. but now im hungry and still tired from the accidental all nighter the night prior. what's that? shortbread cookies? no, not shortbread cookies. shortbread cookies with chocolate chips in them. they were very small so i went back for a few rounds to stock up on the goodness and get refills of starbucks coffee in my dime sized tea cup.

then the flight. to be expected at this point, it was quick and painless like a doctor's appointment without the probing. arrived in ottawa to the opening scene of love actually with a nice relaxing holiday on the horizon. a short christmas list for me this year.

winter's hard. so have some pancakes.

2011-12-07T00:18:00.002-05:00

recently i went to waterloo for the night with my boy dj malta aka matty mac aka young flex to visit his sister for her 19th birthday. his sister has a sweet flat. the building is new this year and every little apartment is straight out of elle decor magazine.

you caught me. i just did a google search to make reference to a legitimate interior design magazine.

so we're hanging out in leah's suave apartment and 'look at me now' comes on. if you haven't heard it, busta rhymes spits a verse in there at light speed. probably the fastest rap of the year if you look at the billboard charts for hip hop. maybe one of you indie kids knows of something faster. i'd love to hear about it. anyways, one of leah's friends starts rapping along with it and i go bananas because i'm legitimately impressed with his ability to rap with busta in this particular verse. i tweet about it, forget about it the next day, and move on with my life.

then this weekend, while sitting around in a similar situation (drinks, apartment, people), the song comes on again. when busta's verse comes up, more than half of the dozen people sitting around get in on the rap, and their deliveries were almost spot on. i became the minority because i could NOT rap with busta. needless to say i was, again, impressed, and this time quite shocked. rapping fast is cool, and apparently a hobby among 20 year old yorku students.

the next morning i had pancakes and they were served to me with maple syrup out of an old bottle of patron. so when i saw the video below, i figured i had to share that story. embrace exams, there's egg nog on the other side my friends.

well i wouldn't call stratford part of the GTA...

2011-12-01T12:14:00.000-05:00

...so let's call it the "battle between two 17 year old rappers from southwestern ontario".

that's not as catchy.

one of these guys you might've heard of. you may not know his last name, though. the girls are usually screaming by the second syllable of justin.

the other guy is a little under the radar. but he has big dreams. he calls it #dreamchase. i dig it.

bieber..

and the believer.. devon tracy

vagabond

2011-11-25T16:43:00.001-05:00

the inn!

leaving guelph on thursday and roaming around a big city all weekend is starting to feel like a routine. rolled into toronto this weekend for a bronze med/bronze cross/first aid/CPR crash course at a pool downtown. decided i'd stay at a hostel nearby instead of going home every night at the end of the long days. it will probably cost me about the same amount, lessen the chances of me getting lost for the 6th time since noon, and hopefully i'll get to meet some rad people while i'm here! i'm rooming with a german dude and a couple IT guys that are here for work. i don't know how to pronounce their names but they seem nice. my course goes till ten every night but i'm going to try and duck out early to make it to one of the evening events they have planned here. wine and cheese with hippies sounds a little better than simulating mouth to mouth on 14 year olds.

went to a wicked concert last night. my second time seeing hey rosetta and they did not disappoint. i was actually pretty lucky to get in in the first place. i had no ticket and was forced to scalp outside the phoenix concert theatre. tyler and his buddy keith were there to help me. just when it seemed that all hope was lost, a guy came up to the three of us and said he had a free pass for himself and three others. he said he didn't want any money for it. tyler and keith's faces light up but i decide to blurt out, "thanks but my friends already have tickets. we only need one. but those three guys over there need some help!" the guys overhear this and come scrambling over to meet their new best friend, free pass guy.

ten seconds later i've realized what i've just done. "really ian? you need a ticket, a guy offers us three, and you decide to open your mouth! we could've all gotten in for free and sold our two tickets for beer money!" i lowered my head and sat down on the curb. lucky for me keith spots a guy selling a ticket to a scalper and hops in. keith was on the ball last night. he tells the guy that we're actually fans and starts belting out a tune. the guy tells the scalper to get lost and i get in for a fair price! hopefully karma will help me in the future after that momentary lapse in judgement. i just don't know if karma will help me if karma secretly knows that i wouldn't do it again if something like that were to happen. don't know if karma keeps track of motives behind behaviour. i'll have to wait and see.

happy weekend! rip it up at nats this weekend, friends! you especially scott.

feel good

2011-11-24T02:45:00.002-05:00

"andrew is the hip hop expert."

"dave is the musician. he drops in and lays down the genius shit."

"kurtis does the dubstep... BOWWOW puttaputtaputtaputta.."

"sam is the factory. he mashes it all together."

a moment in mtl...

they dropped this track a couple hours later. they explain that while avicii has been done, this is very different from the 'levels' mashups you've heard before.

QC, MTL... next up T.O.

looks like someone got too excited to tape the finish line

2011-11-17T05:31:00.001-05:00

here's what the lads caught this weekend when we went out to watch the gryphs take home two team CIS titles for the 6th year in a row. the bulk of the non-race, behind the scenes footage is stuck on tyler's fancy schmancy hi-def camera... for now. probably for the best. nothing worse than looking stupid on the internet when you're applying to work at a summer camp.

enjoy this version! i'm off to montreal to try this GoPro out some more.

momma's boy

2011-11-10T07:51:00.002-05:00

up early to go hand in 'that' paper. here's to the soundtrack from 'the sandlot' and to thursday night shifts so that your mom isn't the only one helping keep the bank account afloat!

it's a bonfire

2011-11-07T19:17:00.004-05:00

november 7th. the gryphons head to the Canadian University XC Championships this weekend. an incredibly talented and hardworking team across the board. on a personal level, i made a few mistakes this fall that cost me dear fitness and a spot on this squad when it came time to put 7 guys on the line. such a short season that there is very little room for error when it comes to staying healthy and injury free. i look to head back to the drawing board and help this team out next year. hopefully with my youngest brother by my side. no pressure buddy.

i'll be road tripping to quebec with some fellas this weekend to support the team and ideally make the squad run faster by yelling in a highly encouraging manner. apparently we have girls coming with us, too. i mean, this is something i can definitely get over, but i was really hoping for a bro-road (brode?) trip with beef jerky, loud tunes, and few pee breaks unless it also involves hopping out of the car to spontaneously fish for trout in a small ravine or to pick up a stray dog and bring him along with us so he can stick his nose out the window and feel the wind against his face. where is the dog gonna sit if there's a girl in the car? i'm not sexist, i'm just a bro. bros need bro time. i'd love to lie to you all and say that we'd also be looking to camp out on the course the night before, but we'll be staying in a best western because our trip organizer matthew isn't nearly as hard as i thought he was. his sister is so much harder. she should come instead. matt, you're cut. rookie girls, you better be hard. yeah, ciara, i'm looking at you. no stuffed animals this weekend. unless the gorilla and penguin have somehow learned how to speak french and start a bonfire with few resources, they will be staying home where they are safest.

stay tuned for video updates from the weekend and stories from a vagabond taking cheap bus trips to montreal to see his brothers and a band, toronto to get certified water smart and nyc for the ultimate tourist experience.

the salt mines

2011-09-10T13:23:00.000-04:00

i finally caught a glimpse of why mr. jackson might refer to the daily grinds around the guelph trails as the 'salt mines'. out for some intervals yesterday with the group, running 6 minute pieces around the bubble. a road mixed with gravel, dirt, grass, divets and hills, the running isn't easy. the sun came back out yesterday, the heat was on, and i was not. about halfway through our third piece the body started to shut down. as the guys flew past me, dust was kicked up into my face and sweat dripped into my eyes. the lips went chapped, the stride shortens, the breathing heavy. the group well up the road, i laboured home at a pace slower than my warm up. it is in such a state of dehydration and glycogen depletion that we begin to hallucinate, or in the very least, look for possible sources of energy. on monday and wednesday it was the pear tree in the arboretum that saved me. today, i had no pears. the river looked good. i stooped down and cupped my hands. when i lifted what i could from out of the small ravine, i noticed the murkiness and that the source of the water came directly from a pipe. not always an ideal way to hydrate. i was well enough to know that i had to move on.

trudging on. this road is long.

empty pop can caught my eye. wow, ian. you're fucked.

chris drove me home from the edge of what i now know to be my own personal salt mine. the moment when the sweat and dirt met in my eye will not be soon forgotten. even if that's not what rob means by 'salt mines', i can at least confide in what emotions might be meant by that phrase. sweat, the teary eyes it evokes, and the hopes of a silver lining when the dust settles in the coming weeks.

she saw me in the back room lifting lots of stuff

2011-09-04T17:09:00.000-04:00

i'd never had that much trouble sitting down. i picked the clunky metal chair up in an attempt to avoid the unpleasant sound that comes from scraping the legs across the floor. but all the pushups from the day before had me shaking and i couldn't control the placement of the chair when i slammed it back down on the ground a few feet back from the table. if my plan was to not make such a scene, i probably should've just dragged it. i planted each hand on the shoulders of my friends seated on both sides of my dinner plate. i slowly lowered myself down and grimaced as soon as i was forced to squat 2 degrees past upright. when the drama queen finally landed in her throne, she smiled. "if i feel like this every day this fall i don't know if i'll be much use to myself or anyone else."

training camp was what i like to call a "temporary success". coming back from a week off i put in my biggest run week ever. it was still only half of nixon's mileage the week prior to camp, but i'm thrilled to still be standing after the grind up at golden lake. fueling the upcoming week with free food from orientation week and the milk that alexander left in the fridge before he left for beijing.

enjoy the changing of the leaves, friends.

"griffin, griffon, or gryphon"

2011-08-28T19:00:00.000-04:00

the final day of receiving this glorious email...

tomorrow the never ending exercise adventures of ian donald continue when a pack of "legendary creatures with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle" set off for golden lake for a lil' training camp.

legendary these men and women are. combining for 11 of the past 12 CIS XC Team Championships, the gryphons have never had such a huge target on their backs. i can't wait to see what our captains and coaches have in store for us this year. an exciting first varsity team experience lies ahead for myself and all the other rookies.

but ian, you still can't swim!

when in rome, i say.

washing off the deckles

2011-08-22T13:00:00.003-04:00

no one likes a depressing blog. we read blogs because we want to read about awesome stuff that people are up to! so let me tell you about some of the cool stuff my friends did this weekend instead of the less than exciting performance that i had!

"is that joanna? yeah, that's joanna." 2nd into T1. swimming with the fish.

tristan starts 5k run down 75" on leaders. runs from 13th to 3rd. must be that 'adaptability' trait he spoke of at the press conference. fights no matter where he is.

in true dominika fashion, ms. jamnicky bridges 20" gap on bike to ride up to leaders and then lead the charge up to hillary another 20" down the road. #beastmode

kyla coates doesn't pass out and gets on CDN podium instead!

alexander hinton joins 2 of Canada's projected 2012 Olympic team members on CDN Elite podium. execution.

deseray ridenour wins 12-13 Kids of Steel category at the age of 11, solidifying her title as the favourite grandchild. sorry christine.

and i live to fight another day. another year. new goal is to crush this guy next august.

aka the kelowna hostel

2011-08-19T11:44:00.000-04:00

3rd year back in kelowna for nationals. seems they always have a new name for this little hotel.

in 2008 we knew it as the MOTOR INN. everyone stayed at the motor inn. i remember riding most of the 20km bike between packs that year. i raced in matt vierula's kiwami suit. uniform rules had just come into effect. i remember a 6th place finish and crossing the line to see a huge smile on mark okany's face. and i remember lowell. if you don't, you weren't there when we went door to door singing happy birthday to strangers with a DQ cake, or when he performed a pirate themed musical by himself at the PEI test event, complete with backflips and multiple character portrayals.

in 2010 this hotel had been revamped with a new name: the INN & SUITES. i do not recall any significant renovations, but the name change was enough to attract a couple new faces for at least one night. another 'learning oppourtunity' in T1 gave me a repeat of my 6th place finish of 2 years before. new triathletes had come, some had gone, but a core group of about 10 guys celebrated their final race as a junior in style: by walking 40 minutes to the bar, deciding the wait was too long, and walking home to grab snacks at metro instead.

2011 has come and i now wait until sunday to compete. according to the okanagan shuttle service, this place is now also known as the KELOWNA HOSTEL. i give it more credit than that with the free wifi, breakfast, trendy upper level lofts and prices that do not coincide with what i know most hostels to charge their occupants. twice the distance this year, a couple 2012 olympians to toe the line with, a decent hill that we rep 6 times... lots to look forward to.

travelling to kelowna is the closest thing i know to time travel. with the 3 hour time difference my sleep cycle readjusts to that of a working man. as much as the hay is in the barn, i'd like to put in some volume over the next few days. i'm eating too much to last this taper in a lean condition. off to the pool.

attempting to confuse race officials (VIERULA)

mischief not yet managed

2011-07-15T09:57:00.001-04:00

finally took a closer look at the manual. realized i need a memory card to do anything with footage i shoot on the GoPro my dad generously gave to me. once that's taken care of we'll be ready to rock! and yeah, i'm planning to try it out first on some 10 foot waves.

the winnipeg jet REMIX

2011-07-13T16:26:00.000-04:00

sarah-anne has come to join us for a couple weeks here in guelph! i don't know if this is the welcoming gift she expected but hopefully i don't scare her off right away...

the san fran champ everyone!

"i want to be where the PBR"

2011-07-06T18:10:00.000-04:00

i think i've finally figured out where my fancy for redheads began. a few nights ago i stumbled upon hipstermermaid's twitter. obviously my feeling of inferiority towards a hipster, real or fictinal, kept me on "her" page for several minutes. then i started to stare at the photo. and it hit me. it all started with ariel.

back when i first saw the little mermaid i was immediately drawn to this girl. i could dance around with plausible explanations for why this is the case but unfortunately for me my mom has the apparent reason documented in a little book of quotes that she kept when my brothers and i were young and said things.

"ariel is really pretty."
"why's that, ian?"
"because she has big boobies."

i like to think that there was deeper meaning for my attraction to ariel, but that i was just too young at the time to properly describe my feelings. i do know that i was heavily influenced by the media's portrayal of people in society, as evidenced by another quote of mine.

"that guy is really cool."
"why's that, ian?"
"he's wearing lots of chains and other cool stuff."

here's to hoping i've grown.

switching gears, a decent chunk of the RTC heads out of town this weekend for the continental cup in san fran and the world cup and pan am juniors in edmonton. they are all packing bikes 'n getting on planes 'n getting excited. special shout-out to jeff scull, started triathlon training 6 months ago and is lining up in san fran against a solid field in his first draft legal race. i will be staying in town to get my butt kicked by cyclists on tuesday nights, swim some laps in a droopy speedo (makeshift dragsuit!), and coach a kids' tri camp for a couple days next week. i'm hoping to have them shattered by wednesday. that'll be sure to make dorelle look like a saint when she coaches the second half of the week.

I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter

2011-06-28T13:36:00.000-04:00

Dear Ian,

Coteau was another rough go for you this year. You swam about 3 seconds slower than you had to, and the only way you were going to make up for it was in a flawless transition. You didn't have one of those, and for the umpteenth time, you just missed pack. But we're getting there. Up until now you've been missing pack in 750m swims. A 1500m swim was a new challenge and you'll now know that next time you have to risk going out too hard to catch onto faster feet. The washing machine sucks when it lasts for twice as long. And show some f*cking desperation out of the swim exit, you know those are the most crucial 5 minutes of the race!

Not much to say about the bike. A pack of 3 is almost always going to lose time to bigger packs out front. You're certainly not strong enough right now to pull a group up. But the three of us kept our heads on and got to T2, Pat a little back from a flat 1km out.

You went out and ran steady, wanted to at least give yourself the option of feeling good late in this race. We were so far back that you were only able to pass a couple guys, but you should be ok with running close to the leader's times from out in no man's land. You know that you can often assume too much in this sport if you take out a mistake you made here or there, but damn it, Ian, if you had just practiced putting on that helmet a couple more times you would be sitting here with ITU points, QFG points, and a finishing position that doesn't make you cringe and want to crawl into a hole. So let's start getting things done so you don't have to keep blogging about mediocrity.

You have just less than 5 weeks until the Hometown race, Ottawa Sprint World Championships. Due yourself a favour and stay focused until then. No more five-day 'mental checkouts' and let's get back into the chin-up routine you were rocking in the spring.

Sincerely,
Skull Head

triathloncode: reeling her in

2011-06-19T17:39:00.000-04:00

triathloncode: reeling her in: "Going into the week before a big race, I can always tell how well my training has been going based on how much I resist recovery. When I am ..."

This Weekend: 4 TC athletes lining up in Coteau, Alison and Christine off to St. Malo.

the asterisk

2011-06-17T10:08:00.000-04:00

training can be difficult, some days more than others. sometimes we need certain aids to get us through a workout. and while it may seem fine and well to help yourself out now and then, getting used to certain aids can come back to bite you in the ass. we calls these aids 'the asterisk', because a good workout just isn't quite as awesome when you give yourself the luxury of a training environment that resembles racing.

take coffee for instance. i used to resort to caffeine at only the most tired of times. but once coffee started to make every workout feel more manageable, i started having 6 a week. now i don't really get that kick anymore! it's come to the point where i try and lay off the stuff a few days before a race just to feel a bit better than usual when i take it an hour or so before the race.

and dragsuits? forget about it. with swimming as my weakest link i've always looked for an edge in the water. i wear a cap, too. i just want to keep up. but when racing season comes and everyone sheds the extra layers, they all seem to take off. the satisfaction of waiting until race day to take off the suit is something that i would love to feel. i tell myself that i'll 'suit up on monday', but i never follow through. i'm gonna suit up after coteau. believe me?

but is this the attitude i should be taking into my first olympic distance race? no way! the confidence i've gained from some better sessions thanks to a firing nervous system and a slick exterior have to be worth something. but just in case you're wondering how much help you're giving yourself, here's a list of some 'asterisks' that may be relieving you in your daily efforts. 4 or more of these in a single workout and you might as well not even count it as mileage:

-caffeine
-lightweight equipment (flats, wheels, speedo)
-rest day prior to workout
-in the presence of olympians
-in the presence of attractive males/females
-more than 4 hours sleep
-tires bumped above 70 psi
-removing gluten from your diet
-hearing good news before the workout

hope this helps! start choosing the harder routes and race day can only feel easy!

some photos of yesterday's run. everyone displayed great angles.

Tuesday Tutorial: Smoothies

2011-06-08T19:57:00.001-04:00

it's a day late but i didn't want to wait 6 more days to post it. this is a tutorial that the viewers need to see ASAP to help beat the heat wave.

milton tri

2011-06-05T20:19:00.005-04:00

man, this blogging thing gets tough. all the super short form tweeting has killed an attention span that was already on the cusp of completely dissipating. if 'Running With The Buffaloes' hadn't been divided into a series of 4-page chapters there's no way i would've been able to get through it last week and finish a novel for the first time since the 6th or 7th grade. i'm like a cat with some string. you gotta convince me that there is some sort of break, somewhere in the near future if i'm going to even consider putting in an effort (< character flaw? hater). and yeah, i don't exactly remember how i got through the high school system without ever finishing an assigned reading. but having the internet, a well-read girlfriend and the ability to spew BS with HB lead definitely played out in my favour. if there were two teams, the novels' content often played for the other guys.

i guess what i'm saying is that i'd like to keep my race report to under 140 characters because anything longer will probably get confusing, off-topic and contain a series of lies about impressing the cute female rep at the goodlife fitness tent after the race. so here goes:

deceday@miltonneed2lernhow2deal/wHeavylegsAndRunLikeBrownleesMyTeammateCrushedMeOnRunShouldiRunMore?Idunnoback2worktmrwiguessloveyouguysmuah

results: http://www.sportstats.ca/display-results.php?lang=eng&racecode=100090

140. i like to be efficient, like liam neeson.

ego pt. 3 - scott's crown

2011-05-30T11:56:00.000-04:00

the 1500 is just not my thing right now. after my third relatively disappointing race in a row, i left the track and ran straight up grange rd to let off some steam. it is especially tough for me to race in non-tri specific races these days because my ego takes a beating when i expect myself to be able to deliver no matter what the discipline or distance. that being said, i may have to take another crack at scott's new family record later in the summer. for now it's a few more weeks of work before my first draft-legal olympic distance race. i know that the 1500 is going to feel so trivial when i'm slugging it out for 10k down that long, endless bike path that runs along the river in coteau du lac.

the weather looks to be heating up in guelph. the sun came out at the end of yesterday's 3+ hour ride, and while this usually wakes me up a bit, that's right about the moment when it started to hurt. we're moving today's run to 5pm to attempt to avoid the wave of heat that is scheduled to sweep in in about 20 minutes..

but it gets you lean, right? so does spinach.

ego pt. 2 - updates

2011-05-27T17:06:00.002-04:00

SCOTT: had a breakthrough and ran 4:01 for 1500m, the 12th fastest time by a high schooler in ontario this year and a solid result for a first year senior. his fourth place finish at regionals has earned him a spot at OFSAA. he also ran a PR in the 3000m, although he failed to qualify in that event.

IAN: has sore calves from his 5k on tuesday, but hopes that the race has slingshotted his fitness into sub 4 territory. has taped up his legs and done nothing but 4k swims and easy 30 minute runs in hopes that everything will fall into place come 6pm tomorrow. also bought new socks, calf 'guards' and running pants in hopes of feeling more athletic. if it doesn't make him faster, it will at least make him slightly more fashionable on a budget that would impress even the thriftiest of shoppers.

ego

2011-05-26T10:20:00.000-04:00

when i was 16 i ran 4:07 for 1500m. four years have passed and i have yet to attempt to break that time. ever since triathlon became the priority the speed work has taken a back seat. there's a new sheriff in town. scott donald now has the family record. 4:06.

scott turns 17 today and will be looking to grab a new 3k PR when he toes the line with several sub 8:50 guys today in ottawa. he runs the 1500 tomorrow. he'll be looking for a top 4 performance in either race to grab himself a spot at OFSAA. the family record may be even lower by friday afternoon.

naturally, i have to defend my honour. on saturday i'm lining up at the final meet of the 401 series.

Men's 1500 Metres Section 2 (6:40 pm)
Rismay, Dalton Missassauga TFC 1991
Montgomery, Kevin York University TC 1987
Monet, Sebastien Vaudreil-Dorion 1989
Rouleau, Marc-Antoine Vaudreil-Dorion 1993
Leishman, Eric Track North 1990
Suda, Matt London Runner 1986
Koziarski, Robert Speed River 1988
Hinton, Alex RTC-Guelph 1991
Lapierre, Maxime Laval 1988
Larouche, Anthony Laval 1989
Donald, Ian RTC-Guelph 1991
Lavigne, Alexandre Laval 1993

HEAT SHEETS: 401 Distance Series - News - Speed River Inferno Heat Sheets http://www.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?do=news&news_id=19014&year=2011&event_id=5718#ixzz1NT1T3gbQ

i'm busy prepping for a 2-hour slug fest in june. i don't remember how to race for 4 minutes. this should be an eye-opener. will i rise to challenge and maintain my rightful place in the pecking order? or will i crumble and accept the defeat of the younger donald? stay tuned.

a pain soon forgotten

2011-05-25T11:50:00.000-04:00

i walked out onto our front steps. it was sunny and warm and i wasn't surprised to see the neighbors outside as well. i did my best to scrape the yellow buds off my broccoli and into the bushes. my neighbor asks me why i'm doing that to my broccoli.

"well, i think this yellow stuff is nasty. can i still eat this?" i show him my broccoli.

"i don't know."

"i like broccoli," my other neighbor pipes in.

"so do i," i said.

then dorelle and ang pulled up to take us to london for the 2nd installment of the 401 Distance Series. they told me that i could still eat the broccoli. i hopped in and waved goodbye to a couple of five year olds.

then we all ran 5k. i know exactly when a race is starting to hurt because it's always right around the time when i start to fantasize about the high jump mat. the sweet, sweet high jump mat. it has to be the comfiest surface i can imagine and it just happens to be right at the finish line of yesterday's most discomforting 918 seconds. but that's 6 seconds of less discomfort compared to june of last year so i'm going to keep rolling with the consistent mileage and see if i can join alexander in the sub 900 club sometime soon!

man power

2011-05-21T22:29:00.001-04:00

finally a visible use for all that energy output.

post ride endorphins make simon a little crazy. pippa gets tossed!

angles

2011-05-19T18:24:00.001-04:00

i'm gonna rip off another short blog 'cause it's summer and i need to share this.

the video below discusses how inefficient of a runner chris solinksy is, while still holding the american record at 26:59 for 10km. as i seem to have some of the same problems (tight hips and shoulders), i am going to go stretch those buggers for a solid half hour every day and see where that gets me! they say that solinksy must have a V02 of about 90 to compete the way he does. well guess what. i've been measured with a V02 of 92 and i don't run nearly as fast as this guy! i must be really tight and/or severely undertrained! another theory to bring to coach tomorrow..

enjoy!

Watch more videos on Flotrack

i'm up early, let's rip one off

2011-05-19T06:26:00.000-04:00

no bus pass no mo' 'cause we in the summer semester, yo. gotta walk, bike and bum rides off roommates when they're heading in the same direction. naturally, you'd think that i have to leave earlier for swim practice if i'm choosing to walk. this is not the case because i have taken over the pool equipment room as my own personal change room. this new spot saves me at least 2 1/2 minutes of walking and stair climbing from the depths of the regular locker room, allowing me to still leave the house at 6:40.

'tis quite foggy this morning, and since i enjoy fog, i might just leave early and bask in its' presence for a few extra moments.

alarm is poppin'. let's kick it.

comfy like blankets 'n tea, yo

2011-05-17T14:18:00.000-04:00

with a cameo from dr. stephen hinton!

never passing up an opportunity

2011-05-15T21:30:00.002-04:00

i'm selling my kuota kharma. the bike is 54", full carbon, and the frame is stiff. Shimano 105 groupo, frequently tuned. i put these details up on TriRudy.com, my go to classifieds for triathlon ever since I moved to Ottawa. within a few hours i had a reply and the man asked me for a photo. as craig had just taken the bike back to my family in Ottawa, i asked them to take some photos and send them to me to pass along. this is what i got back.

thanks guys. glad she could provide that much entertainment at dinner tonight.

asking $1350 if anyone is interested!

i like glee, okay!?

2011-05-14T12:00:00.000-04:00

there are a lot of cheesy jokes, cheesy songs and like most of the glee club, i don't like rachel and i usually check my email during her solos. but it's all worth the wait because sue sylvester and britney are JOKES and when the guys dance and sing it reminds me that when guys dance and sing it can be awesome. so now i never feel bad about dancing and singing. i do it anywhere and sometimes it is awesome. i save my best moves for the second cup baristas because the lifeguards don't yet appreciate the brilliance of a well delivered 'dougie'.

this one clip combines the awkward and the awesome that this show offers. i don't model my fist pumping or tail shaking off of these guys but they flex some pipes every time that chorus comes.

triathloncode: we're on the same team!

2011-05-09T19:16:00.001-04:00

triathloncode: we're on the same team!: "this is what i tell my calves every time they tighten up. but they don't listen to me..."

the whole house drove up to london for some track racing last night. there was some good, some bad and some ugly when steve puked after his 1500.

drove the mutual boys home in steve's sunfire once all was said and done. her name is 'rihanna' and she took us on a calm and smooth ride down the 401. she is not to be confused with matty's identical red sunfire named 'paula'. alexander and i thought it was pretty funny that their cars were the same until we remembered that we have identical red vehicles of our own. victoria and rachel have been lovely additions to the house.

the red island

2011-05-04T10:39:00.001-04:00

the social mediasphere is asking "how did that happen?". in reality, conservatives tend to be older people and just aren't nearly as common on twitter. canada as a whole actually wanted conservatives in power more than any other party.

but with only 39% of the vote and with their polar opposites the NDP gaining 66 more seats than in 2008, you know people are going to ask, "how can you have a majority when less than half the country wants you and more people than ever are voting for a left wing party?".

guelph stayed liberal, one of very few districts to do so. here's a look at the area:

election day kept me on my butt for 14 hours on monday. this made tuesday's training about as comfortable as harper's french. today can only be better.

where are your tax dollars going?

2011-04-29T10:32:00.000-04:00

education > 8-lane tracks > another election > wedding ceremonies for the royal family

don't worry, only the British tax payers paid for that last one.

we have 60GB of internet usage a month in our house. while we often surpass that amount by watching hours of YouTube videos, i don't think i would ever feel compelled to stream the wedding of someone i don't know. i think the reception might be a little more interesting once some of the bridesmaids start poppin' the champagne.

my boy MattyB sums it up pretty well. found him on YouTube while I wasn't watching weddings. those hip-hop classes are doing wonders, really diggin' his moves.

out of [ice cream]

2011-04-22T10:13:00.002-04:00

this one time, i entered a race with two other guys and a girl. it was a relay race down preston street in ottawa. everyone in the race was given the same type of bike. it looked like this:

if my memory serves me well, each rider rode about a mile and i was my team's anchor leg. i got on my bike right behind the leading team. i quickly passed their rider. then my muscles started to burn. this is common when you work them at a high intensity. it is through training that we can attempt to prolong the period before this 'burning' happens all over your body. however, this may have been the year that i worked at mcdonald's, ate at mcdonald's, and did not do much exercise (thus, shortening the time it took for me to reach this point of heavy lactic acid build-up). by the second and final turnaround all systems were starting to fail and i could feel the guy i'd passed coming back on me. in the final straightaway he passed me. he had been the superior rider, both physically and strategically. i was defeated. and i let down three other people, too. maybe even their families if their families valued this sort of competition quite highly.

but what was the worst part?

the winning team got their weight in ice cream. my family had a fit when they found that out.

i am sorry trevor, matt and that other girl whom we recruited the day of. if you ever want some ice cream i will buy you some. but not your weight in ice cream. i don't have that kind of money and we should all strive to be eating healthier foods, too. just the other day i had two heads of broccoli. before eating the broccoli i didn't feel good at all, but i felt great after i'd consumed the broccoli. i don't think it was a coincidence. i think the broccoli is definitely what made me feel better.

on the other hand, i have also recently succeeded in finishing every box of cookies i've opened within 6 hours of opening it. clearly i still lack proper reasoning skills and i continue to contribute this to the lack of frontal lobe development that adolescent boys display into their early 20's. today i attempt to hurdle this obstacle and make sound decisions that improve my well-being.

triathloncode: mind games

2011-04-17T19:51:00.000-04:00

triathloncode: mind games: "-Ian- In a sport that requires hours of somewhat monotonous exercise, you need to find ways to motivate yourself on a daily basis."

more 'coding', yo.

and 'like' us on facebook, yo. for every 10 people that like the facebook page my self-confidence goes up 1 star point.

"we're out of TP, again"

2011-04-13T16:27:00.000-04:00

it's a common phrase at 5 mutual. we must be addicts, going through a pack a day it seems. it was time to sit down and figure out why this was happening.

"steve, how many sheets would you say you use per... 'sitting'?"
"i'd say seven."
"that's per wipe?"
"yeah."
"you don't fold it at all to use a clean side?"
"no."
"so maybe as many as 20 sheets..."

we thought we'd figured out the source. but then we realized that steve uses a different bathroom than the rest of us! that's a completely different source of toilet paper!

so we split a pack of 24 amongst the four of us that were home at the time (benoit was m.i.a.), and we'll have to see who runs out first. if there are no outlying trends in the results, we'll assume it was benoit. in that case, we shouldn't have any problems with future TP supplies as the frenchman moves out on may 1st. he and his sparkling clean behind will surely be missed by all. especially if we still don't have a new roommate by then!

i'm off to search the classifieds.

thetriathloncode: distractions

2011-04-11T12:31:00.000-04:00

thetriathloncode: distractions: "Would it be irresponsible of me to call exams a distraction? After all, the weather in Ontario is finally starting to cooperate and with th..."

Triathlon Code is a new team of 6 Canadians that are committed to the long term goal of representing Canada at the 2016 Olympics. I am privileged to be a part of the team, Simon Whitfield having set all 6 of us up with generous sponsorships. We're looking to promote the sport in a big way! We'll be sharing our stories through social media but also at triathlon events all over the country in 2011 and beyond!

"uni-turners" (another urgent PSA)

2011-04-09T19:57:00.001-04:00

CAN'T TURN LEFT

CAN'T TURN RIGHT

in most lane swims, counter-clockwise is the assumed direction. lane swimming is like driving. swim up the right, pass on the left.

sometimes we change this custom. swim teams will alternate between clockwise and counter-clockwise directions in order to not smack arms in strokes like butterfly. at the rtc we do camera work with the lens set up between two lanes, forcing both lanes to swim up the middle when coming back towards the camera (in order to get a better look at the stroke).

both these situations are troubling for me. i can't do flip turns pushing off onto my right side.

throughout my swim career i've done my best to avoid "opposite lanes". back in high school we started using this method after a couple girls had been smacked hard by some of the bigger guys on the team. everyone (except these select girls) was opposed to the idea, but it had to be done. it was no longer a safe environment. the lanes were mostly separated by gender and when the team continued to bicker day after day about who must swim opposite, coach marie decided that boys and girls would alternate directions between practices. i was so frustrated by opposite swimming that i would take this 'schedule' into heavy consideration when deciding which swim workouts i'd be going to that week. if i was forced to swim opposite, i would make hard cuts inside the flags to flip on the opposite side of lane. sometimes i'd tell the boys before a main set that i was going to lead the lane 'normally' instead and hope that the girls and marie wouldn't notice. as a last resort i'd even switch into a much slower lane to avoid the turns altogether. i just would not face the problem head on. i don't know if i will ever flip right.

and now a similar problem on the track. last week i ran 4x2miles tempo in the assumed counter-clockwise direction. i messed up my left knee, the 'inside' leg that takes all the pressure from those left turns. to be noted is that craig suggested an alternate venue before the workout. but i like the rhythm of the track. point is, i went to physio and the guy tells me that the right side of my pelvis is tilted forward, probably from years of running counter-clockwise around an oval.

what about cycling? well i can't really corner well in any direction, but the right turns are definitely even worse.

so if there's something to be learned from all of this is, turn in both directions when you train. otherwise you'll end up like me: unable to cooperate in a pool, taking 10 days off running to let a knee heel, and getting nervous when you find out the bike course at 2009 junior worlds is made up of only right hand turns.

rideshares

2011-04-05T19:12:00.001-04:00

one more tip to add: make sure you don't fall asleep on the drive. i don't know about you but i'm pretty vulnerable (susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm) while i'm sleeping.

as of this weekend the score sits at ian: ~ 5 or 6, crazystalkerkillers: 0 (based on whether or not i am alive after the trip).

cutting down on the crap

2011-03-31T13:10:00.000-04:00

yesterday i was directed to the blog of a fellow runner and friend, kirk scheibelhut (SHY-BUL-HUT). kirk started the website to accompany what he calls his 'nth comeback to running'. as a side note, he coded the website himself. straight swag.

when kirk is fit he is capable of running very fast, but injuries have been plaguing him since early high school. this may be some of the inspiration for his most recent post regarding the nasty comments posted on the internet about runners who are underperforming based on their personal best times. i'll let him do the talking (link above, great read!).

then this morning i stumble upon something else under YouTube's trending videos. my baseball coach when i was 11, Doug Jeffries, reports for CKWS news in Kingston. he made a similar plea to kirk's, in the video below. has to make you wonder if Canadians could really raise their game across all sporting events with just a little more positivity.

resisting dollar beers

2011-03-28T15:47:00.001-04:00

they call it marathon monday. it's a new thing. people drink all day starting at 6 am. to stop myself from partaking in days like this i put in five hours of exercise instead. it worked on st. patty's day and today is going well, too. my own marathon of sorts. i might still wake up tomorrow feeling like i ran into a brick wall but at least this type of brick wall gets me places.

that's not a knock on those partaking. i'm just having so much more fun this year feeling fast instead of going out till 2am and missing workouts the next day. my habits are far from perfect, but the recent breakthroughs have given me plenty of motivation to stay home. 'home' might still involve some hosting duties, but i justify those with some financial compensation that the night brings (see post below).

speaking of money, i finally got enough ad clicks that google is sending me a cheque! as soon as it comes in the mail i'll remove the ads and stop selling out!

1200's on the track tonight. i have a few more key runs before i hit pavement on april 9th for a 5k. i'll follow that up with one more 1500m in the pool and a 10,000 on the track in may. mooloolaba world cup this weekend got me really fired up to start racing!

ok, 'new' artist. if you don't like him, that's fine with me. the guy's straight hipster, he won't care either. but i catch a new line every time i listen to his stuff. it is clever, clever, clever.

"i have worked all winter, i will not fail summer."

graphin' pt. 3

2011-03-20T17:11:00.000-04:00

i call it the 'kegger threshold'. the house is so gross in the morning that i need to leave and go to the pool. when i get back i'm either ready to clean or the place has been cleaned up by those responsible for the mess.

posed nude for a friend's photography assignment on saturday. sorry, no sample prints. now i'm thinking of taking up nude posing as a part-time job. easy money.

lazy playlist maker

2011-03-18T14:42:00.003-04:00

1) open itunes
2) go to the search bar
3) type in a word

example 1: 'edward' gives me twelve tracks by 'kathleen edwards' and 'edward sharpe and the magnetics zeros'.

example 2: 'band' gives me 43 songs including tracks by 'the band', 'band of horses', 'dave matthews band', 'matthew good band', a new song 'bandages' by hey rosetta and the track 'that band' by craig cardiff. i crack this one out for swim practice.

example 3: 'love'. 117 songs. mix of genres, but most of it looks to be depressing. niiiice.

try it you lazy kids!

his real name isn't edward

buzzer beaters

2011-03-15T10:50:00.000-04:00

who you got? whoyougot??

rtc hasn't shown much interest in a March Madness pool. gonna have to take my bracket elsewhere.

but it did bring up the conversation of a possible ITU World Championship Series pool. craig is convinced that he'd clean up. not sure if we'd do it draft style or pick whoever you want. we will have to get it together before sydney WCS april 9th. man the season comes up fast.

we went out to st. james for 4x1200 last night. craig shovelled the snow in lane one throughout the workout so we ended up with better footing on each successive rep. i attribute my descending skills to that and jason's surges on reps 3 and 4. i love what jason, alexander and i have going right now. two solid run workouts every week with these guys, either tempo or intervals, and we all bring something different to the workout. the guys can always count on me going out a second or two too fast and i can always count on them to be running up on my shoulder on the last 30 seconds of each rep and on later reps in the workout. we'll be testing ourselves on the roads in the next couple weeks.

let me know how you think a WCS pool could work well.

saving daylight

2011-03-14T10:54:00.001-04:00

my mom didn't call me and coach craig didn't send us an email reminding us to flip our clocks forward on sunday. how are we supposed to stay on top of things if we don't have our mom's telling us about daylight savings and our own coach won't even send us an email? so we slept in sunday and missed the 11-1 swim. i was so rattled that i did nothing until 7. i can't get anything done in a 23 hour day.

the one positive to the time change was that instead of waking up for my night-time pee at an awkward hour of 4 or 5 am, i woke up to pee just in time for breakfast! this made me very happy because i can't fall back asleep once i've woken up to pee. so this one positive has made up for all the negatives of a time change!

this morning i swam and then lifted some iron! i feel inflated!

and now i'm drinking coffee so i'm using lots of exclamation marks! IF THE TRACK WAS CLEARED OFF I WOULD DEFINITELY RUN 20KM STEADY ON IT RIGHT NOW! AND THEN I'D RUN 1.1KM A LITTLE BIT SLOWER AND FINISH UP IN ABOUT 75 MINUTES FOR A DECENT HALF MARATHON TIME! I JUST WROTE ALL THAT HOLDING DOWN SHIFT BECAUSE I FORGOT THAT CAPS LOCK EXISTED! CAPS LOCK SHOULD ALSO WORK ON NUMBER KEYS SO THAT I DON'T HAVE TO TURN IT OFF TO DO EXCLAMATION MARKS11111111

'squints' put the idea in my head years ago.

2011-03-11T12:40:00.002-05:00

like 'squints', i'm skinny, wear glasses, and sometimes have trouble swimming in the deep end.
and every morning i consider acting sneaky, rotten, low and cool...

please vote for these guys.

2011-03-09T20:59:00.000-05:00

...by clicking LIKE on the youtube video. i know that you probably get asked to do something like this a lot, the new way of determining winners of competitions being through the number of 'likes' it gets on facebook or youtube. but if these guys win they get a big prize and i may indirectly reap the benefits of that. so i guess i'm asking you to do me a favour. and if you don't like me then you're doing it for chris and connor, both great guys.

also, you should seriously consider a summer semester at guelph. i approve the message below whole heartedly and would love to spend time with you if you choose the royal city for a summer sublet.

and if you don't like me then you can hang out with chris and connor, both great guys.

some of the recent applicants

2011-03-08T17:50:00.000-05:00

... looking to join the furious tigers !

get feisty

it's the only way to win

the track

2011-03-06T16:29:00.000-05:00

walk out the gate from the NTC pool deck, down a little hill, and you come to the track.

it's where tyson gay trains (spotted on day 4 of camp)...

we had a go on it, too.

5 degrees and raining. i'm beamin' !

2011-03-05T09:58:00.000-05:00

i'm going to go for a run. and i'm going to wear shorts.

here's a story. you know the grove we always talk about? yeah, the one in clermont, florida. see above.

it's ten miles long right? sorry, 9.8. just under ten makes sense because you get times that resemble a flat 10 mile run and the grove is a bit hilly and sandy at times.

so what is a good time for a sort of hilly, sandy 9.8 mile base run? well, if we assume most of the guys i run the grove with are in 14:45 to 15:30 5k shape, a good base run pace is anywhere from 4 minutes to 4:15 per kilometre (according to jack daniels). that means running the grove in anywhere from 63 to 67 minutes. last year, derek and i dipped in at around 62:30. with the slow terrain, that's maybe a bit rich. but in order to be content, you know i had to go faster this year when we ran the grove on a warm evening last week.

tristan asks me if i want to go sub 60 with him. i decline and watch him tear off down the road.

wow, is that sub 60? he was 100m up the road 4 minutes in. i was breathing heavily at 20 minutes and by then he's out of sight. i figure that based on his pace, i'd better get going if i want to run faster than last year. at 30 minutes i finally had to chill out for a minute to refocus for the hilly back half of the run. but that's right about the moment when jason flies by me! i made a point to keep him in my sights and work the uphills to earn my downhills. at 55 minutes i can see the end of the loop. probably not a coincidence that it was also when i started feeling good. i finish up in 59:15, 3:45/km pace. i'd broken 60. jason runs 58:40, and tristan..

55:27.

that was the punch line, basically the whole point of me telling that story. tristan ran fast. as a general run, tristan runs fast.

we fighting in a war that we can't see

2011-03-02T19:30:00.002-05:00

national training centre
clermont, florida
feb 27, 2011

the hope with my videos has always been that you'll either like the content, the song, or a little bit of both.

are you taking first year common sense? what's the course code?

2011-03-01T20:16:00.003-05:00

i started to catch onto this 'phenomenon' when we all came back to school in september 2004.

stay away from the bench press.

drink milk, feel loved.

i was wondering where all the winter weight went...

i'm not very coordinated but i'll always be difficult to live with.

that's my dad. he fits in with the late 80's/early 90's photo theme.

mood swings

2011-02-27T19:47:00.001-05:00

i get them on training camps.

one moment i'll be keeling over on the side of the road, ready to hop in the support van and quit the sport. i'll go silent, listening to others get high on the sport on the car ride home from the pool. you want to go home and focus on something that doesn't give you such mixed results.

but then there are the moments where you see the work start settling into your skin. a good effort feels smooth, seamless, and on the cool-down you share laughs and stories. the sun sets and you feel good. you don't want to go home to the cold weather. i love you canada, but damn, you can be frigid.

finished the camp on a high note in all three disciplines. lots of fitness to take home to guelph and some exciting opportunities in the near future. i am joining five other young canadian triathletes on a new dynamic and community involved team that we are developing thanks to mr. whitfield and several sponsors. lots more to come soon.

hump day

2011-02-23T21:35:00.002-05:00

my only regret since acting silly on day 2 would be not taking proper care of my bike before a time trial. i thought i was strong enough to not need a bunch of my gears on the rolling hills. halfway through the 18 km roller coaster it was finally too much to be looking down every 10 seconds to see where my chain was. i cursed a bit and coasted in to the finish, more than 40 seconds behind the main group and over 3 minutes behind marc antoine. whoever gets me on their team for the group TT is not going to be pleased but i plan on redeeming myself and proving that it was a one time thing. also looking forward to some more high quality running as it seems to be the easy runs that are giving me troubles.

some of craig's shots:

thought i'd been getting smarter

2011-02-21T10:12:00.001-05:00

this one's a little graphic. here's your heads up.

we've been joking on this camp about how some of the words that come out of our mouths have showed a regression in maturity. it turns out the way i approach my training has shown a similar regression as of late. i ran my body into the ground on day 2 of a 10 day camp.

day 1 was a light swim, bike and run. day 2 was a little more. it started with a set of 9x400's in the pool. long course is hard so it must be good for me. hopped out from that and got some food in before what ended up being a 105k bike. the bike has felt nice since cole helped me replace a very old chain that had definitely been affecting my riding. combine that with beautiful, warm sunny days and you're reminded why you love the sport. but that's when i get excited and get way ahead of myself. i ended grinding in some extra work because i couldn't change into some smaller gears. cole and i hadn't left quite enough chain links so i was forced to push some inclines in bigger gears to avoid coming to a dead stop. at 70k i was starting to feel that it. i fell back to the support van and angie tossed me an apple. greatest apple i've ever tasted. it tasted like the apple orchard from 1st grade.

but no matter how amazing that apple tasted, it wouldn't save me. on the last 20k stretch i had some of the oddest cramps i'd ever experienced. my hand wouldn't close and my abs were popping in and out of my body. i made it home but only because a single pedal stroke can generate enough momentum to move a bike quite far.

45 minutes later we were leaving for a run at the orange groves. i was expecting some ugly results and for some reason when i feel that terrible i feel the need to increase the effort so as to hold the same pace i would on a day where i don't feel so awful. i left about 90 seconds behind the group and was planning on gradually catching up to them. i caught the two frontrunners, tristan and alexander, at about 5k in. this told me i was going much too fast and that i would soon pay. we turned around. the run home would be a solid net downhill with a tail wind. i would end up positive splitting by over 2 minutes. i ran the final road holding a side stitch with one hand, a cramping hamstring with the other, and clenching my butt cheeks closed.

i crawled around the house for the rest of the night experiencing the most physical discomfort i'd felt since i covered my girlfriend's bathtub with puke back in 2009. not even the comfy rugs in this lovely home could save me. the sunburns on my calves don't like to make contact with anything. along with some more cramping and severe headaches, the burns did a great job of keeping me up for a good part of the night. that brings us to the now where i stayed in bed this morning when everyone else went to swim practice. a couple more hours sleep, a coffee and some cereal and i feel ready to tackle two of today's three sessions. although today i hope to apply more sunscreen and keep the training controlled to avoid hospitalization.

oooooh people are home!

talk soon.

he can [see] !

2011-02-17T10:47:00.000-05:00

replace 'fly' with 'see', keep the joyous chorales, and that's how i felt yesterday when i stepped outside with my new pair of specs!

it's a whole new world! but i'll save that disney clip for later..

they get the hang of it pretty fast. those are some hard cuts at the moon. raptors could use some of that agility.

flyin' out to cali in the morning for some fun in the sun and clouds. we'll be using planes unless my gatorade powder starts showing magical tendencies.

bloody sunday

2011-02-15T14:47:00.000-05:00

the distance jump from 750m/20k/5k to 1500m/40k/10k is a big one. in many cases, guys struggle with the step up from junior to senior racing because it's harder to hide a weakness. my weakness is swimming. while i've sometimes been able to hide it and have the race workout perfectly for me (see oklahoma 2009), not being able to swim fast has hurt me and will only hurt me more now that the distance has doubled.

unless i get faster.

so i'm swimming more. pretty simple.

i do not find 1500m swims fun. i find them exhausting. sometimes i like the feeling of exhaustion. but when exhaustion sets in when you're swimming, you start to sink. i correlate sinking with drowning and i've never been a fan of drowning.

i don't know how much swimming it will take to embrace the distance.

i raced 1500m on sunday. a bunch of the rtc did, hopping in the final event of a last chance provincial qualifier meet in guelph. warm up ended before 9 and our event wasn't called until nearly 11:30. sort of troubling, but what can you do? i tried to stay warm and i did a great job of not thinking about the race at all. i was thinking about all the metal i wanted to lift once it was over and how much fun it will be to swim outdoors next week in california.

then you dive in and you remember why you came to the pool.

tried to keep it controlled for the first 500m. 5:58 split. felt comfortable. but look out! the hurt is comin'. by 900 i was on the rivet and had no gear other than swingpullswingpullFLIP. second 500 was 6:07 and the last was 6:10. finished with an 18:15.

this result was mostly positive. this is probably 30 seconds faster than i would've been this time last year. i also met the minimum time standard that trican sets for entrance into world cups. i'd like to shave another 15-20 seconds off of that by summer and have long term goals of being in 17:30 shape for the 2012 season. lots of work to do but it's nice to have an idea of where i'm at.

i'm debating switching a bike workout tonight with some pond hockey. similar muscles groups and if i work it right i can probably skate in a way that resembles the cadence work that we have planned.

i just wanna play some pond hockey! i'll ask craig.

new hey rosetta album out today. imma check it out!

lab rat jason

2011-02-14T16:45:00.001-05:00

best of the web this week

2011-02-09T15:58:00.000-05:00

here are some things that are worth the time you allot to surfing da internetz:

1. Evan Andrin interviews Jeremy Rae, the first of our Canadian running generation to run a sub 4 minute mile. His run at the Meyo Mile this weekend ranks him internationally. Mainstream journalism sucks. Jrae is going to have many more interviews in his lifetime but, unfortunately, none will ever be this good.
http://eandrin.blogspot.com/2011/02/congrats-on-race-dude.html

2. while my life happens to be bro, yours might not be. here's something for the kids that i threw stuff at from car windows all through high school.

MYLIFEISRUN

3. if you're a white boy living in guelph and feel creative wit ya words, it's only a matter of time before you try rappin'. jackson, holmes and mosher dropped this track feat. an appearance from andrew "no bs" nixon.

http://soundcloud.com/collektive-thought/the-feelin-is-mutual

short

2011-02-08T15:44:00.005-05:00

my dad always told me i'd grow up to be taller than him. but here i am, 20 years of age, and i am still shorter than my father by at least an inch. barely scraping the wood at 5'9", i feel... short.

i feel short because most guys are taller than me. it could've been all the running i did as an eight year old. maybe i stunted my growth by hitting pavement too often. or was it not enough sleep in high school? more than likely it was just an unlucky dosage of the short genes on my mom's side. whatever it is, i'm probably stuck with it unless some miracle growth spurt arrives in the next few months. haven't had one of those in a while.

being short sometimes makes me feel sad because it can make one feel like less of a man. most guys get to compensate for their height with bulking up. me? i'm skinny as shit because i make a habit of burning any excess calories that the body could use to bulk up, or who knows, maybe even grow vertically.

so why does it suck to be short, or as i like to call it, 'not tall'? 1) tall people are better at sports and 2) girls are taller than you when they wear heels.

because i can't compensate with hulk-like traps, i do something else that psychologists might compare to what bullies do in school yards. i pick on my shorter roommate and i look up athletes and celebrities on google to see if any successful people are my height or shorter.

so let's address problem 1 and find some decent swimmers, cyclists and runners that are short:

swimmers: you know the piggot twins? they swim hella fast and they're not that tall right? and javier gomez. he's 5'9" and he swam 15:4X for a short course 1500. alright, you can be short and swim fast.

cyclists: these guys can be pretty short. robbie mcewen is TOWERED over by those french chicks on the podium at the tour. looked it up. he's not even 5'8". lance? he's 5'9.5". alright, we good.

runners: gebresslasie and bekele, two of the best distance runners of the last decade, are 5'5" and 5'4" respectively. and the sort of chubby kid that crushed me in mexico last may? he was tiny. david mendoza, what up?

so problem one has been addressed, on to problem two.

what happens when you see a cute girl at franks buttttt she's wearing really tall boots and you think that you might just be looking up a tad when you look into her bright blue eyes? i'm kidding, i never get that close to a woman. but if i did, what would i do? would i cower away feeling inferior? no, you can't do that. you have to exude confidence, just like lil' wayne, tom cruise, eminem or usher, all of whom are shorter than i.

really? usher?

yeah usher is short. so is justin bieber. but aside from rose, most of his fans still get they're height marked on the doorways by their mother. hell, so does he, kid has at least three more inches in him.

alright, we cool. i can still win tris and win women's hearts. if that was something i was into..

stood up

2011-02-05T11:30:00.000-05:00

alexander and i were very excited for our double date last night. we got all dolled up. we were dressed to the nines. well, i was. alexander chose to wear cotton. a silly choice, in my opinion. it didn't take long for him to start sweating through his shirt once we got to the venue. i peered over at him as it built up from a small stain on his back to completely covering his upper body with a thick, dripping layer of moisture. he could've rung that thing out like a j-cloth.

grace and marcy were expected to show at 7:30. 7:30 came and went. grace and marcy were nowhere to be found. we'd gotten there just before 7 because sitting at home dressed so nicely made us feel a little pathetic. besides, they'd have no way of knowing when we showed up and how eager we were to get the night started!

luckily for us marcy and grace were two girls that we'd made up so that we could double book 2 treadmills. we popped off another few miles and hopped off at eight, alexander soaked from head to toe and me hacking up the remnants of last week's head cold.

banked and bonked, i went on a real date with tyler to get some 'curry in a hurry'. alexander went to hang out with a real girl!

real is good!

university needs more treadmills.

archie

2011-02-03T11:00:00.002-05:00

don't know if you've heard, archie got married. him and veronica have been together for at least a year and a half. it's a real shame that he didn't choose betty, i think we were all rooting for her. i get it, veronica has an appeal that any guy could fall victim to. but marriage, archie?! buddy... c'mon. jughead shouldn't have let that happen.

so i'm at max mart a couple nights ago and a recent archie comic catches my eye. thought i'd check up on archie, see how his marriage was coming along. first page i turn to? veronica is sitting on reggie's lap.

case closed. you made the wrong decision. Archie editors, did you plan that or are you just not updating your comics with the story lines that you advertise on the covers? maybe i should've read the comic to figure it out for myself but the clerk was staring at me because he thinks i steal from his store after this one time that i stuck my phone in my pocket in front of the counter. he thought it was a chocolate bar.

should've picked betty.

(sigh)

assistant coach

2011-02-02T10:10:00.004-05:00

gots to blawg 'cause i gots da readerz today. we off school!

this is great because i dodged a midterm that i was not ready for. this does interrupt training, though, considering that most of my workouts are done in campus facilities. i'm going to have to embrace the ten below temperature, heavy wind and foot of snow for a run today. but then i have the rest of the snow day for movies and pillow fights!

with kate ballard taylor's daycare having some staffing issues, coach taylor will have to miss a couple sessions to take care of his daughter over the next few days. bittersweet for him because his daughter is awesome but the rtc needs a coach! luckily our assistant coach/medical assistant has stepped in. in his most recent email:

Good decision coach,

The boss is away for the next couple days so as the appointed assistant coach I'll be a bit more in charge.
Tomorrow morning swim, as usual. It will be just a gentle 3.5k so if you want to show up a few minutes late, that is fine. We will be in the water by 7:10-7:20... Get a good sleep tonight, maybe have a light stretch before bed too. Optional Creelman breakfast after the swim tomorrow for those inclined, they have lots of CHO (that stands for carbohydrate) and protein rich foods so probably a good decision.
I'm liking the dedication I have seen lately, let's keep it coming, the race season beckons.

See you tomorrow squad,

Coach.

for more information on the new assistant coach, a recent interview.

*UPDATE! athletics centre is open! i can swim! and i'm going to take this oppourtunity to grab a treadmill, too, so if you hear about this news just stay home and let me use your time slot that you probably had to book on sunday.

university needs more treadmills.

nothing beats rocking out once like rocking out twice

2011-02-01T10:31:00.006-05:00

not that other things aren't as good as rocking out.. but in terms of making a comparison, one can see that it would be much easier to mathematically compare rocking out once to rocking out twice than it would be to attempt to compare something like rocking out once to a freshly baked lasagna.. does that make sense? i tend to not make sense.

where this is all going is a story from when i was younger. we had this computer at my house with windows 95 on it. you might expect that when it came time to upgrade to windows 98, i would be super excited because when you are young newer is always cooler and having something that your friends have is seemingly essential. but that was not the case for me when we got windows 98. with windows 98 came the loss of windows 95. what did windows 95 have that was so special? when you clicked on 'my computer' it would bring up a dozen or so icons, two of which were very special. my dad told me i shouldn't go messing with anything in 'my computer' but i figured if i stuck to just these two, we'd be safe. one was a game where you went around a maze collecting diamonds and shooting stuff. i don't remember much from it but i do remember the game resembling a midnight rave with all the lazers and colour. the other icon that caught my eye was the music video to weezer's 'buddy holly'. i loved that they made it look like they were part of the show happy days! i'd never even seen happy days! but it was cool that they got to be in the 50's with the fonz and sing to girls in dresses. i have no idea why this video was included on windows 95. but i guess the time frame checks out because i'm pretty sure the blue album was released in '94. i used to watch that video every day and the blue album is still one of my favourites along with coldplay's 'a rush of blood to the head' and bon iver's 'for emma, forever ago'.

so this brings me to the rocking out twice part. the best part of the blue album IMO is the last song 'only in dreams'. every time i hear it i get amped because i know they rock out so hard and then i have to think about whether it was the first time or the second time they've rocked out. if it was the first, then i get excited to rock out again and if it was the second i've probably rocked out enough for one day anyways and should be okay with another song starting. check out this encore from a concert in the mid 90's!

aaaaaaand here's the cd version, the one that i rock out to.

it's too bad weezer is all pop now. am i right ms. partridge?! yeah i'm right, i'm half artist half scientist.

i think your mom's tight

2011-01-31T11:32:00.003-05:00

phresh flowz from UofG student, Dave Winfield. makes his own beats, too.

check his channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/GrimCityWinfield

verzbicas

2011-01-30T19:04:00.002-05:00

Local Student Lukas Verzbicas a Cross Country Phenom, Gatorade National Player of the Year: MyFoxCHICAGO.com

poor brother

2011-01-28T16:42:00.000-05:00

sam: i just missed a call from Amir Blumenfeld. i'm gonna go kill myself now.

ian: whaaaaat?! explain.

sam: buddy saw him in toronto and had him call me.

ian: i am so sorry.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

missing my two breakfast specials for $7.98

2011-01-25T10:54:00.000-05:00

this morning i had to pass on team breakfast at my favourite diner, Angels. i had to go to class. these circumstances really suck because team breakfast is one of the greatest parts of the rtc, which is already a great place to be even without a breakfast after morning swim. now, i'm in that class that i thought would be important to go to. i realized pretty quickly that i definitely should've gone to Angels. we're discussing bar graphs. if you don't know what those are, i meant no disrespect.

but you should never complain about school being too easy. you're just asking to get smacked in the face on a test.

i've decided that benoit will be making the coffee anytime i have an important workout or race. when ben make coffee, ian do good. don't question it, just roll with it. also, benoit confronted the guy that we are certain stole the money from my locker. the guy was all like, "hey man, i'm just down here making a phone call" and then he gave some fake name and stumbled over some more words and wandered off. he's just lucky i wasn't there, too...

everynone.com

2011-01-18T21:48:00.002-05:00

Routine 07 from Routines on Vimeo.

not the last time you'll get to hear alexander sing

2011-01-17T21:34:00.000-05:00

peak of my musical career

2011-01-15T16:44:00.000-05:00

i prefer songwriting. no one can compare me to the original.

troubles

2011-01-14T15:31:00.000-05:00

i have a blogging issue..

90% of the material i want to write about should not be posted on a blog like this if i want to keep a decent reputation with potential sponsors. for example, i can't talk about going to the bar the other night and taking a trip to the bathroom and using the urinal and how two girls i barely know came up behind me and thrusted me from behind until i finally lost my ability to aim and started peeing all over the walls and a bit on the guy beside me.

i blame rob watson for this sudden compulsion to write about such delightful things. but hey, he has sponsors too right?

something i can talk about is how benoit was the best roommate ever this morning and brought me coffee in bed. it was really tasty, way better than any of the crap i've made since setting up the machine. i believe he also drugged the coffee because i didn't sleep last night and today's swim was my best since summer when i kept up with tyler for the better half of a long, steady set. the other variable that i advocate for is how much faster one swims at 11am compared to the early morning. the difference is so large that i've actually stopped caring if a 7am swim goes poorly. i just blame my circadian rhythm and move on with my life.

if you ever break a world record in the morning, go back to the track/pool/road at night and do it again.

it's science. and once i'm done this degree, i'll be half a scientist. i think i know what i'm talking about.

class discussion

2011-01-11T20:32:00.001-05:00

philosophy professor asks the class what the term 'regularly' means. asks what we do on a 'regular' basis. notices i'm staring at my computer instead of pondering his question. decides to pick on me.

"do you regularly make eye contact?"

"i try to."

"do you eat regularly?"

"several times a day."

"do you wash your hands regularly?"

"yes."

"do you have sex regularly?"

i pause.

"if you answer this question correctly, your luck just might improve", he says.

"can you define, regularly?" i guess he'd made his point. regularly is a subjective term.

"um, well i tend to eat more---"

"okay, okay, you're off the hook."

coffee

2011-01-10T20:25:00.002-05:00

i have now have a device that makes it.
dropped down to 4 courses and none of them discuss ATP or DNA.
cousin is pregnant.
have a new training partner that runs 14:02 for 5k.
californication is back on.

thumbs UP.

yearbook quotes

2011-01-06T22:33:00.001-05:00

grade 9:

"...I don't know if you remember but one time I made fun of you at a track meet because you were all alone and I talked to you about your sweat pants. I'm sorry. I'm so happy we met and I know we'll have so much fun these next few years."

"hey hope you win the world race when you're older. ttyl. p.s. sarah might still like you."

"we had some pretty fun times getting separated from each other at McKellar. come get your sweater before I burn it."

grade 10:

"it was a sick year with x-country, b-ball, track and science. i still owe you for bringing us to ofsaa 'cause it was sick tagging along and making a fort in the hotel room."

"...thanks for letting me interview your mom for careers."

grade 11:

"this year has been super fun with all the cross-dressing and girls nights."

"...pasty white legs and red short shorts..."

grade 12:

"...we are best friends and our spouses hate each other so we spend all our time at a little vietnamese restaurant..."

"stats show that men in plays get much *****, so keep doin' yur thang..."

packin' up the yearbooks, photos and instruments and headin' home to guelph.

graphin' pt. 2

2011-01-03T17:36:00.000-05:00

i'm 98 percent sure i was at this show.

2011-01-02T23:27:00.001-05:00

one of 2010's finest hours.
well... more like 40 minutes.

graphin'

2011-01-01T18:09:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T15:25:00.002-05:00

Mixtape Collektive: vampires are so hip.

2010-12-24T11:50:00.000-05:00

Mixtape Collektive: vampires are so hip.: "what an overwhelming theme. these are the tracks that have made me stop whatever i'm doing to focus on listening. if it's playing in the ca..."

the lengthiest post i could handle with a serious head cold.

isolated from the real world until my immune system can do it's job.

must be christmas time...

2010-12-20T16:11:00.002-05:00

mom is lecturing me about my diet, dad is telling me to wear warmer clothes in case the car breaks down, scott is texting handfuls of girls and sassing everyone and sam is coming home late from 'band practice' putting together elaborate snacks that wouldn't normally make sense on paper. i take drives in the honda, stop and go through bustling neighborhoods, listening to mixtapes from high school and sharing pool time with my friend's moms and old men who, surprisingly, seem to travel faster in the water than they do through the change room. i make it to the christmas parties, enjoy the punch and carols, and it's not long before i get the question as to which olympics i'll be attending...

the drive home involves some serious introspection, you might imagine. some parents just love to hype up the neighborhood kids.

packed light so i better go wash the running clothes.

stay thirsty.

Mixtape Collektive: missed the boat

2010-12-17T15:47:00.000-05:00

Mixtape Collektive: missed the boat: "guys, i just finished exams. also, my funding from quest for gold just came in. i'm quickly slipping away from this week's theme! but lucky..."

new mixtape post.

today is a good day.

needle in a haystack. a male, asian haystack.

2010-12-16T14:20:00.001-05:00

so today i thought i saw the guy who stole money from my locker. ben came to verify the suspect and deemed it an incorrect suspicion on my part. "he was shorter."

so i guess i'll keep looking for a stalky asian guy with gelled hair and a chubby face. the only thing that lets me sleep at night was knowing that at the beginning of the day i didn't have the money and i was fortunate to incur it in the first place through a lucky textbook sale. what also gets me through a dumb mistake of leaving my locker open is finding the thrill in stalking potential criminals. i wore my longest coat today. felt like i was part of the mafia.

also wore sweatpants.

shit.

double swim and a light trainer ride to finish off the day. combine that with hours of stalking and you can probably guess that i'm not particularly motivated for my final exam tomorrow. moving down to an 80% course load next semester to save the scholly.

at least three of the 5 mutual dwellers are writing our final exam tomorrow morning so we're obviously going to be up at 7 to rock some motown tunes on vinyl. lil' MJ, take me home to christmas!

check it. phresh new blog.

2010-12-13T18:02:00.000-05:00

my hippest music snob friends set up a music blog and they are letting me partake, too!

this week's theme: "I'm broke, its Christmas and there's a good chance I just failed my exam"

at the end of each week we're going to pile up all the tracks from the five of us and make a phresh new mixtape to drown our sorrows, meet new lovers and spoil our sisters' appetites.

to see it, read it and hear it, click here

poetry

2010-12-10T13:00:00.004-05:00

A Yorke:
"10x 400 with a gypsy eyed j-raz pouring dirt on the tombstone of my broken soul."

the one and only, john rasmussen

photo essay

2010-12-09T12:40:00.003-05:00

i believe this was taken in iceland. love the colour. had to share it.

a friend was disappointed to hear that a genome was not in fact a mythological creature of the gangster variety. another friend made her this christmas card to help her feel better.

now i'm not saying i'm qualified to work for a legendary site such as collegehumour.com, but if the above portion of this article is any indication of what it takes to write quality humour, i'd say i've at least started thinking along the right lines.

merry christmas! love, the mutual

can't hate on facebook

2010-12-07T18:01:00.002-05:00

if it didn't exist i wouldn't have been able to get in touch with the university president over the weekend to get access to the mackinnon building to get my exam study supplies that i'd locked in the mep office the night before unaware of the fact that the place would be closed until monday. alastair summerlee, everybody. what a guy! works off 40 minutes of sleep a night, 1 meal a day, still has a wicked british accent after 23 years in canada and shows up on campus on weekends to help out even the dumbest of students!

so yeah i broke my "no facebook" rule. facebook saved me in a way that office hour emails could not.

although i don't know if any amount of studying could've saved me from my second morning exam, today. so rattled. afternoon swim was an angry one.

trying to figure out if anyone took a special liking to my morning outfit of two sweaters and baggy sweats. this site is taking off. it looks like the hormones are FLYING in the library. no one is safe. not even ugly people.

now i can't embed the family christmas card, but i CAN link it. sorry, another link. this one is worth the virtual desktop clutter. the jumping beans are definitely a highlight.

i'd be silly to use my brain for anything other than studying right now

2010-12-06T23:09:00.000-05:00

so i'm not going to write anything original. just link a video (not that he needs help with website traffic) and tell you that all it's really missing is rick say dressed up as a detective with a freshly lit cigar and off-white fedora. it took simon 11 minutes and 37 seconds to make this. may or may not be a PR of his.

from - to, NOV-DEC, a film noir project from swhitfield on Vimeo.

not so primal living

2010-12-02T10:30:00.004-05:00

woke up to a text (thanks technology) from coach CT saying that he had sent the swim workout via email (thanks technology) because he wouldn't be coming into guelph that day as his car was not starting (thanks technology). no coach means that practice obviously doesn't have to start until 7:15 so i played a game of crazy cabbie on mindjolt.com (thanks technology), my newest distraction since i got rid of facebook for exams. yeah, any activity on my account is likely alexander. he's got my password. let me know what creepy messages he's sending you during this two week period.

only a few takers at this morning's practice, and if my math and perception of my surroundings are correct, it was the four youngest and arguably best looking members of the group. the old folks were either off selling oddly shaped blinds for oddly shaped windows, drinking jagerbombs (thank you chemistry) at franks, or doing dive starts with cuties at varsity practice. who am i kidding? franks closes at 2:30. tyler was obviously at an after party serenading women with instruments and calm vocal utterances.

my plan was foiled when certain barbadian athletes decided that practice should start before 7:15 a.m. i was in by 7:11 and i was 300m behind! luckily i like to crush warm up and i only had to cut a couple lengths to start the main set with my comrades. a solid set of hard trey-hundo's, some kick to presumably strengthen our legs muscles, and some paddles for those adventurous enough to take a gander past 5k. then, minus the inspirational talks with craig, the usual gossiping with lifeguards, maybe some hot tub (some controversy on this one) and a chilly walk home to the mutch (new spelling) before morning classes. i just downed some great chili that my mom sent up with my brother this past weekend.

photo of the week has to come from own vault because my usual source is under alexander's control:

this is from my cousin's summer wedding. she married a newfie. this is his dad. he tore up the accordion.

p.s. movember raised over $60,000,000 dollars for prostate cancer research!
also, please take the time to look up the definition of 'serenade'. it's precious.

xc nationals

2010-11-29T14:00:00.004-05:00

woke up at 10am to the season's first blanket of snow, my brother's attempts to sleep in were disrupted by my frightening blank stare that i sustained until he opened his eyes. stare was followed by oatmeal, loud music, coffee and a cab ride over to the course. had to save the legs, serious elevation changes between 5 mutual and the arboretum.

with all the snow, boys started rolling out big pins. i decided on nine inchers for my nike milers, thought that would be enough for a shoe that's thinner than most slippers. i felt really good once i pulled off the sweats and was fired up by the atmosphere that this sort of race comes with. got to the line beside woodfine and speed river teammate, connor clerke, anxiously awaiting the stampede.

on this day, i had the choice of being a wildebeest or being simba. i guess i could've been a hero, too, like mufasa. but we all know the hero dies in the end, even if he does save his son in the process. the course dips into a tight turn less than 200 metres into the race, and when i lost one step off the start, i was definitely setting myself up for serious simba symptoms. luckily for me, wlidebeest are stupid, and in most cases, lack the aerobic conditioning to maintain pace after opening up 8k races with a 66 second quarter mile. and so after some batting and bruising i found myself sitting at the rear end of a 15 person pack led by luc bruchet, rossy p. and, *sigh*, a bunch of high school kids.

maybe it was the pints that night or the studying i've done since, but my memory is starting to fail me as to how the rest of the race played out. i basically hit the hurt around 5k and played leap frog with stephen hosier between 11th and 12th place. i felt pretty rude breathing so heavily down his neck with a k to go and that's probably why he finally decided to leave. i was left all alone out in twelfth and happy to hear that we'd separated ourself from the rest of the 200 boy/man field. i waddled up heartbreak hill and grabbed myself an 8k time of 25:21. ross got it done up front! big ups, big ups! was great to have support from friends, not to mention everyone that cheered "go river!" that always helps in heaps. which reminds me, moulton, i owe you team fees.

was a fun way to finish off a season and i look forward to seeing the translation on the roads in the spring. focus flips to swimming now. i'll see if i can find a new disney analogy for the 1500 TT in february.

race footage. thanks for the shout-outs DST!

check out the blog roll to the right for a bunch of other race reports.

so icy

2010-11-28T10:16:00.006-05:00

before i get into the grittier details of the weekend, i wanted to show the blog readers the quality of athleticism that we strive for here at 5 mutual.

also of note: video soundtrack provided by the champ himself.

footage:
NEW ROOKIE BOYS BLOG!
runningdownadream92.blogspot.com

Triathlon Magazine Canada article

2010-11-25T18:10:00.001-05:00

sometimes i wish i could just skip this whole university thing and just get out into the working world. i'd prefer to be writing sports articles rather than 3000 word essays about neuroscience and law. not that neuroscience and law isn't interesting, but it doesn't seem to spill on to the paper the way the former does.

here's my first of hopefully many articles that i get to write for the sporting world:

It's every triathlete's worst nightmare. You jump into the chilly river at your first World Championships, thrashing around with 60 other athletes, battling for position with something that resembles your swim stroke. All of sudden your wetsuit zipper comes flying back and a cold rush of water streams through your suit. After a few more strokes, the suit begins to fall off your body, and one arm is dangling at your side. Has your entire year of work all gone to waste? Not for Joanna Brown of Carp, Ontario, when this nightmare became a reality at the World Junior Triathlon Championships held September 12th in Budapest, Hungary.
*full article*

triathlon does movember

2010-11-23T18:48:00.001-05:00

brook powell

jeff phillips

ian donald

leif baradoy

...and it's for a good cause! some quick stats:
- my team has raised over $3500 for prostate cancer research through movember.com (my mospace)
- that doesn't even rank us in the top 650 teams in Canada!
- Canadians have raised over 13 million dollars off the site alone, slightly ahead of the UK, Australia and the United States. the top six countries have raised about 39 million dollars.

i might not ever shave. wish every month was november.

kidding. in november it's dark and cold and the christmas songs don't lift morale until classes are finished.

a couple loose screws up there, no doubt

2010-11-22T13:53:00.000-05:00

i did it again. 12 mile run on the track. i don't know why i do it, i just do. it was a base run but i blame any deviation from 4 minute k's on the fact that it was quite chilly outside and i was eager to warm up. also, it gets dark at a depressingly early hour and my watch is hard to read without natural light. so i like to get'r done before that becomes an issue.

i have no idea how saturday (nationals) is going to go. i have indications in my training and racing that indicate a possible top 10, and other days where i don't know if a top 20 run will even be possible. i'd like to think that while i haven't put in as many miles as most guys, i've done more hours of 'exercise' and that if i don't go out at a silly OFSAA pace, i might feel good enough to run with some decent guys. the goal at this point is to lose to as few high schoolers as possible. pesky 5th years, included.

other things i am looking forward to this week are the arrival of a new mattress, my brother's visit to guelph, time not spent in class and pints.

photo of the week: rachel munger

club provincials

2010-11-16T10:58:00.001-05:00

another good effort in preparation for nationals on the 27th. race went out really slow and didn't string out until the final kilometre or so. looking back at the footage, my leg speed still needs some work and in order to not feel upset about my performance afterwords, i need to test myself a bit earlier in the race to avoid pouting over a 5 second loss..

dear mom

2010-11-13T14:17:00.002-05:00

you always told me that a typical 'nerd' might go home at night, sit in their room and read a dictionary. i think it's the core of your jokes making fun of dad. but mom! that's exactly what eminem does! all i want is to become a successful white rapper, and you may have robbed me of my chance of developing a decent vocabulary! no wonder dad has such sick flow.

you were right when you said i'd regret quitting piano. you should've been more authoritative with that one. my kid is going to get locked in a room with an endless pool, fridge, toilet, and more instruments than he knows what to do with. he can socialize with the other kids once i've deemed him capable of serenading an audience.

my wife has no stake in the above, unless her beliefs agree with the above.

you think i'm irresponsible with my things? TWO of my roommates leave their BIKES on our FRONT lawn overnight. key words capitalized.

i know you want to teach me how to cook better meals, but the truth is, teaching me how to boil water was probably enough to satisfy my caloric needs. i cook the pasta for 7 minutes, then throw things in from every food group. if i don't bonk at swim practice the next morning, i deem the meal a success.

the youngest donald needs to read this to salvage what is left of his adolescence. sam is already quite verbose, plays all instruments, and more creative and patient than i in a kitchen. and although scott is the best looking of the three, he needs to know that his hobbies should probably extend beyond collecting odds and ends from garage sales if he wants to have anything to talk about on his multiple future dates.

i'm sorry for ever seeming disappointed on christmas morning. i was a materialistic little bugger. also, my new desire to sleep past 7 am on christmas morning is not due to a lack of enthusiasm, but merely a greater appreciation for eight to ten hours of sleep. if it were up to me we'd continue to shift our christmas traditions further towards a 10 am wake up, extended time with cinnamon buns and orange juice and, of course, a trip to the jewish community centre for a full day of family fitness. the benefits of exercise are so much more fulfilling when they are shared amongst loved ones.

as unappreciative as i sometimes look, i am boggled by how well you've dealt with and taken care of three kids, a husband and, R.I.P, rufus. but i'm starting to see how the impossible becomes possible: coffee.

scott's packing list for his trip to guelph: running shoes, bit of cash, an ugly christmas sweater and a boisterous attitude. optional: cow bell

your packing list for scott's trip to guelph: food that fills the excess space in his travel bag..

love, ian

p.s. did dad actually read the dictionary for fun?

facebook to fit in: follow these simple steps to be just like all your friends on your favourite social networking site

2010-11-12T09:48:00.000-05:00

1. post youtube clips of your favourite childhood tv shows. act (or even feel) overly nostalgic and then forget about it moments later.

2. let everyone know when you get to the library. let them know when you're leaving. show frustration. the amount of studying you actually accomplish means very little when you look this studious.

3. click on 'attending' if it looks trendy. whether or not you go is irrelevant.

4. real friends will see you on your birthday, but we're not all real friends and we don't all live in the same city. a wall post on that special day is usually enough to at least make someone feel popular.

5. find a cute girl, creep her profile, and connect the laptop to the 47" screen in the living room to show her off to your roommates. you know who you are.

6. know where chris from work went on holidays. ask him where he went on holidays, anyway.

7. post old photos of yourself. two options: scanned and naturally worn out from years in the closet OR edited with a sepia tone.

8. make friends with photographers. slight changes in light exposure make us all look attractive.

9. status updates should be ironic, lyrical, simple or completely non-sensical.

10. are you under 18 with a set of ovaries? 'selfies' are still cool, but make sure they have love song captions attached to give your onlookers a better sense of the real you

through thick 'n thin, we've seen it all

just know i'll catch you if you fall

if you feel picked on, i'm guilty of at least 3 of the above..

things that are awesome

2010-11-11T10:10:00.000-05:00

free coffee
warm gloves
mood lighting
old buildings
the girls on collegehumour
ukuleles
clean kitchens
slam poetry
hot tubs

AND...

seeing a video before it goes viral. we caught this gem at 300 views: