Going back to my roots

So, how was it?

Not bad really.

Scotland, well I kinda missed it, spending most of my waking hours on the blue carpet. I did get to see a bit of Edinburgh one afternoon, which was nice, having spent some time there in the mid-90s when my brother was doing his MA. Otherwise I was cocooned on race-site. What was funny was that as the bike-course was right-handed (the same way we drive in Canada) and I spent 120kms on Moto2 on Sunday, I was thoroughly confused on Monday as to which side of the road was which!

That city World Dus were in is pronounced Ed-in-bra by the way, if I hear Ed-in-borrow one more time I'm going to hit someone.

I didn't go to Leeds this time. Ever since my mother used her own father's death to play family power politics, I figured there was nothing there for me now. I might have grown up there, but I think many of my formative experiences, the really instructive ones and the ones that really helped to shape the man I am today (like him or loathe him), happened elsewhere.

So elsewhere would be our destination.

London was always gong to be a different story as this is the city I self-identify with. I can see northern mill-towns when watching independent British films and the sight leaves me relatively unmoved. A shot of the London skyline, even the stereotypical St Pauls/Tower Bridge/Gherkin one, not so much.

30 St Mary Axe

And The Gherkin was built long after I left.

I got to see many of the places that were important to me; the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN), where I did my co-op year (as you'd call it here) in the electrophysiology department...

NHNN

As an aside, around the corner from NHNN (in fact between NHNN and GOS) is, to my sensibilities, this contradiction literally set in stone...

No visit to London is complete without a pilgrimage to Bloomsbury way, the place where I decked out hard and got those titanium screws in my head...

A re-creation of the nearly-fatal moment.

...this is just around the corner from the British Museum, my favourite spot to kill time in London; just grab yourself some time and be immersed in 4000 years of human history.

...and while in WC2 there is Condor Cycles on Grays Inn Road, with all the Tour of Britain leader's jerseys in the window.

After the "emotional" reunion with the road-surface on Bloomsbury Way, Condor meant yet more Ti, but that's another post.

Yup, that's a "Sale" tag; get me outta here, STAT!

Big Ben (or more correctly St Stephen's Tower) at night; arguably a view that hasn't changed for a hundred years

The Eye is new, but somehow it fits in, even to my retro-grouchy eyes

A packed lunch in Russell Square

A stroll along the now-gentrified South Bank, around the back of Southwark Cathedral towards the Globe Theatre and Tate Modern.

In "my day", a walk such as this would have been fraught with difficulties, now it's the proverbial (and sometimes literal) walk in the park.

I was scared when I got here that London would have changed and would no longer be the city I remembered. Perhaps I remembered it as a party town for students and that reality would not fit comfortably with the responsibilities, limitations and exigencies of the 40 yo me.

London has changed, but it's evolved. Some bits are way more tacky; swathes of mobile phone shops, betting shops, Tescos Metros and "British-themed" shops selling a bastardised version of the British experience. But these places are more than balanced out by Cool Britannia; the reclaimed areas of the city which twenty years ago were nigh on unapproachable but have since been gentrified to provided markets and boutiques and coffee shops. The tat might have encroached on the West End per se, but the boundaries of Cool Britannia have also encroached upon the darkness to bring light.

It would be unreasonable to expect London to have remained unchanged in the 20-odd years since I left, but, you know, I like what they've done with the place!

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When you're tired of London....

I'm not sure about Samuel Johnson's old quip, but to be honest there is so much more to do in London nowadays. Granted, most of that seems to be Costa Coffee and Cafe Nero, but Sammy-boy was hanging out in coffee houses anyway writing his Dictionary, so I think he'd be happy today.

We are "doing" London, but not necessarily the touristy London. There's a time and a place for that, but I'm not sure where or when that might be. Yesterday we had to skirt Piccadilly Circus (there was no other way) and it was just as tacky as the Royal Mile in Edinburgh; all things "British", or in other words any old tat with a Union Flag on it. Urrgh! Instead we've stayed a little off the beaten track.

A word about that track; my training might have taken a bit of a hit but that doesn't mean I've been staying off my feet! We ended up doing an 25km walk on Tuesday; not entirely voluntarily as there was a tube strike and getting to-and-from any open tube stations and/or lines took up a lot of that mileage. Add the 12K run we did in the morning, and that was nearly a 20 miler! It was only supposed to be a 8K run but we got a bit lost. Those have all got to count as MDI prep miles! Please?

We're staying a little out of downtown at my brother's place in N22; it's hilly here too; Muswell Hill (as name-checked in Madness's Driving In My Car) really is a hill! It's steep around here as everything climbs up to Alexandra Palace, one of the highest spots in London. You are rewarded for making the climb by a great view of London, from the East End all the way across Docklands, the City and the West.

At least I'm eating. Not quite the predicted diet of pork pies, jaffa cakes and M&S trifles washed down with Lucozade, but I'd be lying if I were to say none of that hasn't passed my lips. Gastronomically, it's been a good trip so far; a couple of low-points to be sure, but I wonder if maybe I don't get home-sick or time-sick as food-sick...

Oh, and a lot of bike shops; but both of those deserve their own posts!

It's also becoming apparent that while I'm over my jet-lag (finally) I suffer from chronic culture-lag. For example, my accent has remained unchanged but my vocab has changed dramatically. So currently I have some weird mid-Atlantic culture going on, and that's mid-Atlantic as in mid-Atlantic Ridge, not Maryland. You know how it takes one day per time zone to acclimate to jet-lag? Maybe it takes one decade per time-zone for culture? I'm currently somewhere over Iceland.

Pickled shark anyone? Eek!

Despite putting the miles in, I'm not exactly doing it in appropriate footwear

Yup, all that walking, but in these shoes? Cue Kirsty....



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Eating my way across the Atlantic

I had this running through my head head yesterday

No, I don't harbour a secret desire to dance on stage in stockings and a basque (or do I? I see you shiver with anti...ci.......pation), but rather "I'm going home".

Anyway, as promised, I haven't gone for arun yet but I have been steadily eating my way across five time-zones (plus one YHZ to EWR then minus five to EDI).

Started out at a diner-style place in EWR which was unremarkable, but at least my pet cow enjoyed the unsweetened iced-tea

Well, unremarkable expect for the Red Velvet cake, which was red and velvety and surprisingly good.

and it even came with a cherry on top :)

On to EDI via very unremarkable airline food, one meal I think I actually ate while asleep (talk about waking dreams). Once in EDI, the eating began in ernerst.

We went hunting for coffee and a sandwich and ended up at Black Medicine Coffee Co. The plaque outside says JK Rowling wrote some parts of the early Harry Potters upstairs which may, or may not (depending how you feel about Quidditch and butterbeer) be a compelling reason to eat there.

We were a) hungry and b) in need of coffee. The sort of "if I don't get a coffee in the next ten minutes there'll be murders" kind of need. That seemed compelling.

The Americano was a bit overextracted but it hit the spot nonetheless. I admit it may also have been a pharmacological need; the junkie doesn't assay the purity of his heroin, he just shoots it up. Still, it came in a cool cup.....

...and a chocolate chip cookie! Their relative ineptitude with the espresso machine was instantly forgiven!

Fortified by coffee, it was onwards and upwards to Marks & Spencer; purveyor of fine trifles

It was hard not to leave with a couple. Their time will come.

I was also struck by this crisp packet

Patriotic chips! Take that Freedom Fries!

Finally, I got la belle to try haggis. Apart from not liking oatmeal, and haggis is basically a savoury oatmeal sausage, she did concede it didn't actually taste that bad!

Finally, no trip abroad is complete without either signs of the bicycle apocylapse or that Halfax just isn't pulling it's weight. For a city of it's size and relative own perceived coolness, there weren't that many fixies about, and even then they all had brakes; but no helmets. Has Edinburgh escaped hipsterism? Speaking of helmets, you can tell the people who are in town for Worlds as they are the only ones wearing helmets. Expect the Team Canada coach, I'm pretty sure I saw him rocking a cheap ten-speed on Georges Street sans casque. Muppet! Speaking of Georges Street (I'm all about the segues today) I saw this beastie in a shop-front. It's a single-speed with a coaster brake like the ones in the Cycle Gallery on Quinpool, not a fixie, but I did like that chain-protector.

I'm sure that as chain protectors it probably doesn't work very well, I mean when you want personal protective equipment, be it a chain-guard, face-shield, steel-toe-cap boots or condoms, you don't want minimalism, but you have to admit that even as you look at your ruined pants' cuffs you'll think "but hey, the chain-guard looks kinda cool".

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Going Home?

I'm off to Blighty for twelve days, and this is filling me with conflicting emotions; some kind of nationalistic syncretism I suppose.

As with so many things in life, my feelings are likely summed up my Matt Johnson and The The

"I love and I hate this place, I ran away but I couldn't escape". That'll about do it.

Maybe I feel not so much home-sick as time-sick. What I crave for is not London per se, but what London, or the UK for that matter, meant to me at a certain time. Will it be the same now, or will it just be a dirty, smelly city full of overpriced food and pick-pockets? It would be like having a secret desire to go to England because of the films of Richard Curtis and then finding out it's not all Four Weddings, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones, Love Actually and snow at Christmas.

We'll see.

What I predict, with a reasonable degree of confidence is that my diet, not to mention my training, is going to see a not inconsiderable hit in the next ten days or so. I'll try and keep up the running, get out in the mornings, knowing I have a full coming up really soon. As for the diet, well, I'll letting that slide. You won't be seeing that thin guy on the cover of Optimyz for a while. Oh yes, it's going to be ten days of pork-pies

and jaffa cakes

and Marks and Spencers trifle

washed down with lashings of Lucozade.

And then when we hit London, Hot Salt Beef Bagels

From this place

Yes I know most of this stuff (bar the bagels) is available at Petes, but it just isn't the same having it here. Besides, I know probably I will only feel at home again once I have my first Tim Hortons on the way back from YHZ on the 12th; just so as I don't drive the car into a ditch you understand.

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Cobequid half-marathon

So I went back to Truro today; it was only the second or third time I'd taken junction 13 off the 102 instead of just driving through with a steely resolve to look neither right or left as I was en route to somewhere nicer and sunnier; Magog, Coteau du Lac, Ingonish or, God help us, New Glasgow!

It was going to be potentially worse as the race started about 500m from my old place. Short of starting at the AC, this was as bad as it could possibly be. On the other side, I had to bite the bullet and go there at some point.

I was worried about the race too; there were many names in there to be worried about. David Holder has been giving me a kicking all year; dropped me like 3rd period French at the Moose, was sub-3 at Boston and ran away from me at Enfield like I was standing still. Terry Molloy, former provincial champion at the marathon and winner of the Bluenose half in a very good time. Sure, I had the better of him at the St Andrews half in 2005 and he always calls me a "nemesis", but that result was a life-time ago in running terms. Navy Tridents coach Tom Soehl has been running well this year; an 18' at the Lung Run 5K and a 38' at the Bluenose 10 (and that isn't a flat course). All in all, he's running at my speed but to my mind an unknown quantity over the longer distance but that doesn't mean he should be discounted. In fact he was looming large in my mind as the dark-horse. Then I saw Dan Murray, HOTH RD warming up. Dan pushed me hard at Cabot Trail up and over North Mountain and as a cross country skier (like Tom) has the gas to go all day. Still, no Rami, no Ray, no Shawn Deleu, no Denise, no Solomon, no Azuf, no Derek, no Harry (the list goes on, and on).

I counted my blessings that at least the really speedy guys weren't there as we lined up at the start. I still seemed to be at work, helping Luc from Atlantic Chip corral the cats without people crossing the mat. Handshakes all around; really, this is a civilised pastime; we may hate each others guts and wish harm on each other for 60-90 minutes every other Sunday but other than that, we're all friends. We listened to some heart-tugging words from Chris Cashen on the anniversary of his stroke and we were off.

Boy, it was a fast start. Dan, David, Terry together with Matt Callaghan and Ian Holdway. We soon found out Ian was running the ten and discounted him, but we ended up running to the turn with him anyway. The whole front group, with with exception of Ian, was for the half. So we had the long race leaving the short race behind! That's screwed.

We clocked 3:36 for the first kilometer. As a measure of how hard the race was, and how hard it continued to be, the only words spoken between all of us for the duration of the run were

Me: "Is it me, or is 3:30 a little fast?"

Terry: "Not for a 5 K"

Group: (general murmuring of assent)

And that was it.

The group slowly shed members. Actually, the first casualty was Dan's shirt, which he shed after a kilometer or so. Ian kept on breaking off the front, and Matt kept on pulling him back. We all keep on telling Matt he starts too quick and then blows spectacularly. He knows his but still can't rein it in at the start. Oh well, his loss. We let him do the leg-work and drafted him. He fell behind at the 5K mark, as did Dan.

This left David, Terry and I. The view after the 10K turn over the bay of Fundy was truly spectacular, but there was little time to enjoy it. We were knocking out 3:50 kms and were concentrating on staying in a tight little group. Some people said to me later "boy you lot were drafting" (a nod to the triathlon official in me who spends all summer telling people not to draft). Truth be told, we were running so tight, we weren't just drafting we were bump-drafting; there were plenty of inadvertent knees and elbows.

We hit the 10K at 38:02. Last year I did the 10 in 37:55 and my two outings over 10K this year (Pictou Lobster and Shelia Poole) were 38 highs. This pace was possibly too much for me, but I took a leaf out of an article in Triathlon Magazine Canada by Lucy Smith (there's always a Cyclesmith connection) where she talked about not letting negative thoughts into your head during a race. So I focussed on how I felt; relaxed, loose, in control, in the right place, in the mix, leading and not following instead of oh-my-God, I haven't run consecutive sub-4s since Natal Day and that was only for 6 miles not 12 and it nearly killed me.

I had my rough spot between 11 and 14 kms. First Terry and then David hit the front and in both cases I felt they were pulling away, the elastic was stretching and I couldn't get it back. In both cases, I fought back onto the heels in front with the help of the other one, when they thought I was about to let the race get away from us both. I was running like a cyclist; drafting, spending energy now to save more later, drafting some more, running in single file not abreast.

I think I pissed Terry off a bit with this, but as he said later, he's not used to running with a group. There's some truth to this; usually we're spread out to hell and back in ones and twos. Rarely are we in a larger group, and more rarely still is it a fast competitive group pulling complex moves like drafting and through-and-off.

At 14 kms I came around and started to take my turns on the front again. Soon the 10 km turnaround was in sight and knowing there were only 5kms left really made me feel confident.

Terry was tailed off around 16 kms. I don't really know how it happened; one minute he was there, the next he was gone.

Then, there were two.

I didn't want to get into a sprint with David; his legs are longer than mine and will win any sprint by default. I wasn't sure if I had the legs for a long flyer either. So much for having a race strategy. Actually I don't usually have one anyway, I just go out and let the cards fall where they may. However, the cards had fallen and I had no idea how to read them.

With about 2 kms to go there was a little up-and-under where the trail went over a paved road. Somehow here I got a little gap on David, only 10 m perhaps, but over the next few hundred metres the gap didn't come down. So it looked like fortune had forced the race, I sure as hell wasn't giving up a gap with 1500m to go, so I decided to use it.

I slowly raised the pace (I didn't quite have the legs to "boot it" in the classical sense of the term) and eked out the gap. I think I spent most of the last 1000m running scared I was going to hear David's footfalls behind me. After all, for most of the race he had been toying with Terry and I, seemingly letting himself get dropped and getting back on with ease. I was told I didn't look back in that final K. Why would I? I'd shot my bolt, this was all I had. Anyway, somehow, he didn't have the legs to close the gap, and with 400m it looked like I had it. I saw Joshua, Daniel and la belle cheering with 200m to go and I allowed myself a smile and a wave, it was definitely mine now.

I daren't slow up until I hit the line (Eric Zabel in the 2004 MSR anyone?) but I did allow myself to put my hands in the air, celebrate a little and enjoy the finish. Mac reckons I would have been sub 1:20 if I hadn't been aeroplaning down the finish chute like a Premier League soccer play who's just scored a goal. In my defense this was my first win in a year, since the last Run Runners, and I've clocked up nearly 20 races since then, so this felt even more sweet. Winning in front of your children? That's an indescribable feeling. Plus, I didn't expect the win, not with David and Terry et al. A fist-pump from a 40 y.o. age-grouper never looks pretty, but I was releasing some of that tension and that joy at finally getting another win.

Plus, as the first running of the Cobequid Half, this was the de facto course record too. Someone tried to deflate my bubble telling me that folk would be gunning for my "soft" record but this didn't bother me; I'm on the books as having the slowest winning time in the Valley Harvest full ever, and I'm perfectly at ease with that.

I toyed with the idea of finding the Truro Daily News hack and telling him (her) to make sure they captioned my picture with "Andrew Dacanay, formerly faculty at the Agricultural College on Pictou Road until he was screwed over by Hossain Farid", but thought the better of it. Even the Daily News wouldn't print "screwed over". Besides, my erstwhile colleagues will see it anyway and say "Did you ever find out what actually happened? I heard a story that......" and start the chatter and vaguely informed innuendo and that's better than any industrial tribunal.

Besides, I finished the day with this;

Something different to hang the Boston medals off, no?

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Miss Ann Thrope

An Americano and a Chickpea Roll from Just Us. Just the thing to warm me up after a jaunt in typically British weather for this morning's ride.

It was misty, foggy and a bit drizzly, but despite the absence of a real source of water (drizzle just doesn't count) it was soaking wet. Squeezing 120 into my Contis before leaving just left me with a bike with the handling characteristics of Salé and Pelletier (or if you're my British reader, Torville and Dean). Despite the Britishness of the morning, oddly, I was in Canada. Of course this is Nova Scotia, Nouvelle Eccosse, so maybe that was it instead. Training perhaps for Worlds in ten days. Not that I need to train riding in the dreck, I just need to train standing around in it.

At least I wore black socks, white ones would have been ruined.

Nice Roubaix though.

More-so than the changing of the leaves, I think this is the cue for cyclists that 'cross season is around the corner.

I think on a day like this the Roubaix is a badge of honour that says, however subtly and slightly grimily, yeah, I got out. You?

Speaking of getting out, I had the occasion to actually get dressed the other day too.

I don't mean I habitually walk around stark bollock naked all day, but I mean an occasion to get dressed in the big-boy clothes. The ones made of natural, non-breathable, slow-drying fabrics. The ones where the seams are sewn, not glued. The ones with proper fasteners; buttons, frame-style buckles and yes, even cuff-links and not Velcro, full-length zippers, ratchetting plastic buckles, snaps and elastics.

Are cufflinks too much for a random Monday morning? Can you ever go wrong with a simple silk knot? In Evolution David Duchovny asks Orlando Jones of Jullianne Moore "Garters? For a day-function?". Same reasoning. I would say why not?

I also crashed. Not on the bike (I didn't even touch the damn thing Monday) but physically. I'm not sure why, maybe a reaction to the long weekend. In fact a series of long weekends. The funny thing was, even in the depths of my crash I found myself being punctiliously polite. I'm normally a please-and-thank-you and holding doors open for people (of either gender) but somehow being in the misanthropic depths accentuated this rather than making me a psychotic social misfit. Go figure.

In the Right Stuff (I think), Tom Wolfe describes the counseling potential astronauts received on how to dress and how to behave. For example, if you must put your hands on your hips, fingers forward. Only women and interior designers place place their thumbs forward. Really? Am I being judged on how I stand with my hands on my hips? And do I care? The answer to the first may be yes but the answer to the second is most definitely no. I'm secure enough in myself not to worry how I'm perceived.

He then goes on about socks, of all things. How they should be dark and sober and above all mid-calf length, so there is no visible skin. Now that's where I diverge with Tom.

The "uniform" for guys not in an actual uniform is regrettably uniform. It's drab, it's bland, it's samey. There's very little leeway to change it up, dress it up, to allow your own personality to come through. The only way to personalise it is to change up the little things. You look mostly normal to the casual observer but it's only on closer examination that the casual observer notices there's a little of you there.

The way I do it, not surprisingly, is with socks. I wear cycling socks. Not the white ones, that went out in the 80s, but the coloured and patterned ones. The ones I wouldn't wear on the bike. A little more understated than novelty ties, not to mention more mature, and a little less ostentatious than cuff-links, tie-pins and the like. Not that I dislike cuff-links, I like them, but always try for the understated rather than hit you over the head with them.

Plus I think my legs don't actually look all that bad, especially when they're shaved, and a little glimpse of smooth calf between the sock and trouser-cuff? not quite stocking-top territory I grant you, but it's enough for me.

So, that was nearly all dressed up in the big-boy clothes then!

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Home decorating tip?

Just saw this on a cyclingnews.com feature on the Garmin-Transitions service course in Girona.

Gives and entirely new meaning to the expression "quick release".

The article itself is a bike-porn fan's dream, and certainly a lot more uplifting than the interview with David Creed they ran last week.