Taking the plunge

It's official. After months and months of fence-sitting and fretting, I finally did it. I coughed up the entry fee and signed up for for the 5th Annual Triathlon of Compassion. I've been somewhat negligent in my swimming workouts of late, having remained far more focused on running instead, so I'd better "get wet", so to speak, and reacquaint myself with the joys of consuming chlorinated water while trying to stay afloat (ie. my version of swimming).

Seriously, though, I am very excited about this event. Not a word of a lie, I think my pulse rate went up to over 100 bpm while I was filling out the entry form! I started talking about competing in a "tri" over a year ago, and to be perfectly honest, I've (not so) secretly wanted to complete an Ironman-distance triathlon for many years ... I guess I've gotta start somewhere, right? This is a good race to choose for a first time event for me ... it's close to home (the Esquimalt Rec Centre is the hosting venue - about 1 mile from where I live), and as such, I know the area and the pool well. The bike and run courses are both familiar to me, and most importantly, as a "triathlon newbie", I'll feel right at home. I understand that many folks use this triathlon as their first attempt, so I won't feel too intimidated by my fellow competitors. On the other hand, I was just checking out last year's results, and there were some serious contenders, too. Given my lack of experience in the sport, combined with a lack of training in the swimming/cycling department, I have no expectations about my performance in relationship to others. I'm just excited to take on the challenge.

To that end, though, I'd better get off my duff, and head over to the pool. I'd like to get a least a few swimming sessions in before the big day. Thanx for taking the time to peruse my pages. Cheers!!

Here we go again ...

I guess I wasn't kidding when I titled my last post ... six bloody weeks ago!! It isn't really practical (or even remotely interesting!) for me to detail out 6 weeks worth of workout material, so I'll just try to hit the highlights.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I was preparing for the Oak Bay KOOL 1/2 Marathon. I've gotta give a shout out to Dave Milne and his staff at Peninsula Runners for putting on a great event. Race day (May 25th) dawned calm and cloudy - perfect racing conditions! I took off at the start maybe a wee bit too fast (3'49" first km) but settled down and hit the 10K mark at 39'59" - bang on projected pace. The second 10K has a bit more "up" than "down" in it, so I wasn't tremendously surprised with 40'55" for the second 10K split. Official finish time ... 1:25:03, which was fast enough for a 14th place overall finish, and a (surprising!) 3rd place in my age category. The full list of results is here. One other point of interest for this race - having run most of the course on my own, I was lucky enough to hook up with 2 other runners for the last 4 km's or so (is 3 runners considered a pack?). We traded off the lead several times, and with just a few hundred metres to go (most of which was uphill) they took off and left me in their wake. I just didn't have anything left in the tank for a solid finish kick. Kudos to them both for pulling me along those last few km's - thanx Jordan and Greg.

This year, so far, has been a banner year for me in the running department - I've set PR's at 5K, 10K and half-marathon distances, and have thus far remained mostly injury-free. All the signs are pointing to another PR this fall at the Royal Victoria Marathon in October. There are no guarantees at the marathon distance, tho .. last year I started the race feeling totally pumped for a PR, and ended up not even finishing (see this post for a full recap). This year, I have chosen to follow a (very ambitious!) training program designed by Bruce Deacon. I'll try to keep you posted on my progress - I'm finding it very hard to squeeze in "blog time" between work and running and the rest of my life.

I did hit one major milestone earlier this month. Before I get there, I have to digress into a bit of history... Although I ran in high school and military college, I drifted away from the sport in 1990. For the next 14 years, I didn't pay much attention to my health ... I smoked for over 10 of those years, and tried quitting several times before it finally stuck. There were a couple of failed attempts at returning to running in earnest as well. I marked my official "quit date" as August 28th, 2004. My "return to running" started (painfully, if memory serves) on October 1st that same year. Since that first run, I have been faithfully logging my workouts, and keeping track of my total mileage. On June 3rd, I officially passed the 8000 km mark of cumulative distance. I haven't figured out how many training hours that translates into - lots and lots would be the short answer!

One last bit of news ... Michelle and I are looking forward to July 1st - we're both participating in the HBC "Run for Canada" here in Victoria. I'm running the 10K event at 8:00 AM, then Michelle and I are going to do the 3km walk together at 10:00. We're both very excited - it's a great cause and a fun way to spend some time together, too!

That's enough for tonight (that's more than enough you might say!) I'll try to post shorter, more frequent entries, but I can't promise anything. For anyone who stuck around to the end of this post, thanx for taking the time to read.