Penguin Run 10 Miler

Before I start, let me start with the traditional, annual posting of The Clash's Train In Vain. I know it's a break-up song for Viv Albertine of The Slits by Mick Jones, but the sentiment in the title, train in vain, speaks to me as a jobbing age-grouper. Train in vain.

Train with no reasonable expectation of doing Anything with that training. It's frustrating. Here we are in June, fricking June, and I've raced one. The running club's track meet. A one miler and a two miler back in February more for fun than anything else. Wow. Glad I put all those miles in. You see, I've done a shed-load of miles this year. How much is a shed-load nowadays? It's about 1700 kms. That's a metric shed-load. An Imperial shed-load would be about 1050 miles. By any standards that's a long fucking way. Ironman snobs can fuck right off about now, but yes it is.

I finally got to race ten days weekend at the Penguin Run,a 10 miler in Enfield. It's a rolling out-and-back. It was a bit of a late entry as I only found out late that I wasn't working and was able to go. It was a hot day. Obviously singlet weather. I had a major fashion crisis. Do I go with the tried and tested Halifax Running Club singlet or do I rock my new Marathon Maniacs singlet? I really wanted to wear the MM singlet, it was, after all brand new, never been worn. But can one wear an MM singlet in a race other than a marathon? The consensus was yes. The MM singlet is earned and so you can wear it when you want. It might not be appropriate attire for the office but it would be just fine for the Penguin 10 miler.

The 5km and the 10 miler lined up together. The trick here was to self-seed a few rows back so as not to get caught up with the 5. As a Timex Series race this year, the 5 was almost a who's who of local running, so not getting caught up in their race for the first mile and a half was vital.

After a kilometer I was in a small group with Dave Holder and Matt Callaghan, both in the ten, and a few 5 km runners, including fourth lady on the road, Maura Wieczorak. We set a reasonable pace, a six-minute mile for the first mile, enough for us to consider slowing down a fraction. At the 1.5 mile turn we we surprised to see a guy ahead of us, we had thought we were the lead trio. Is he one of us? He had the lead car so yes he was. What to do? We thought we'd sit tight and see if he came back to us.

After another mile it was clear he hadn't done a Matt Callaghan and gone screaming off the front. Already I though we'd lost the win and settled down for a more tactical run for second. I made some crack about this is where Rami come steaming by and asks why we're hanging around but was quite surprised for something like this to actually happen.

It wasn't Rami but Leo McCosham who came steaming by at three miles. I thought he might slow down and join the group but he just cruised right on by. I looked around and my two companions were not showing any signs of moving so i quickly jumped and closed the gap to Leo's heels while it was still possible. It was like bike-racing again, but in slow motion!

Behind me, neither Dave or Matt were trying to close so i was on my own with Leo. We were doing 3:4m per kilometer. I didn't last long and was dropped by Leo in very short order. I had a decision to make; try and get Leo's heels back and likely blow up PDQ, drop back to my erstwhile group and likely get worked over by Matt n' Dave in the finale, or try and hang my ground in a no-mans-land. I chose to stay. I felt pretty good and concentrated on setting a steady pace. It was soon clear that i was slowly putting time into Dave and Matt whilst not conceding too much to Leo. In fact there was quite the yo-yo going on as i would grind up to Leo on the uphill and he would pull away on the downhill. There was precious little flat! Meanwhile Ian up front was slowly drawing away from us all. 

With about three miles to go a few things became apparent. I wasn't catching Leo. Dave and Matt weren't catching , it was really hot and i might break the hour. Of all these things, the hour was the cool one. I think my 10 mile PB is 64 minutes.

The important thing was to keep my rhythm. I tried not to think about it too much and concentrate on keeping the pace. At 8 miles my legs started to get heavy but I still kept them going around. Somehow. I tried not to look at my Garmin too much. The hour was still a possibility.

The last 500 m were an eternity. I wasn't looking at my watch any mote, just focused on the line. The last 100 m was hill. All i could think off was the guy Doug Hyami resuscitated at the Ottawa half three weeks ago.

Ever wonder why the last mile of a marathon as all the deaths? Why does mile 26 see significantly more deaths (and the Doctor in me makes me chose my words with scientific care) than mile 25?  The International Marathon Medical Directors Association can almost predict where people, will keel over; they call it the x-spot. You see, for the last three hours you've been running at a steady state, steady pace. Suddenly you see the finish-line. This is the x-spot. You try and put in a burst to the finish-line, be it for a PB, a BQ or just because.

I have always thought of these last minute, half-assed sprints as uncool, even if I've done my fair share in my time (but in my defence they were all a long time ago when I was much younger!). If you had that energy for a silly, worthless sprint against yourself you would have been better off metering that effort out over the course. Instead of sprinting for whole seconds, you could have whole minutes. Muppets. Anyway, now there is a nice medical reason for not going insane in the finishing chute, as well as the stylistic argument. Suddenly your heat-stressed, dehydrated, over-caffienated, hyponatreamic body is put under even more stress and if you have a predisposition to a cardiac arrhythmia then bingo, out it pops and down you go.

 This wasn't a marathon but I'd been on the red-lime for an hour! My Garmin gave me an average of 177 bpm for the hour. I hit 184 over the finish line as I tried to break the hour even by a second. I saw the clock tick over the hour a few meters out.

There's a picture that seems to show me slowing before the line, I think this was whem the clock ticked over. I was gutted. Still, a PB by goodness knows how much. I clung to third and even double-dipped for second -place master. Not a bad morning's work. La belle also placed third overall and we have a matching set of plaques.

 Next up this weekend the Johnny Miles full. I feel like i have unfinished business with this race. The course had ,e last year but i don't think it was the course that had me but my lack of preparation that jad me. So I'm going back and this time it's kinda personal. Let's see shall we?

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Running In The Right Direction

Let me be the first to say that I'm not in the pay of the Bluenose International Marathon (BNIM). Nor, must it be said, am I a great friend of the race. I placed 2nd overall in the full marathon in 2005 and didn't get anything for that, no medal, no cheque, not so much as a free entry for next year. This "so long and thanks for all the fish" attitude I experienced in '05 gives my dislike of the race some legitimacy, or so I like to think.  A victim of Race Director Gerry Walsh's great democratisation of running; don't give prizes to the winners so everyone feels like a winner.

Certainly this build-it-and-they-will-come attitude has worked. The event has grown three-fold over the last eight years to about 12k runners, if you include the kids' run on Saturday, even if the actual marathon component has remained constant at ca. 300 runners. What's not to love about an event that is mobilising an extra >5000 people a year to do something? Even if your actual marathoners occasionally get pissed off by the ignorance of local media labelling all 12 000 runners as marathoners when actually only 3% of us are,and jealously guard the designation.

Yet I digress.

In my opinion, and yes it is an opinion (not Holy Writ) this was one of the best run BNIM in recent years. Which likely goes against what some are saying.  I can say this despite my ambivalence towards the event. I like to think I have some perspective on the matter; I've run most of the BNIM, to date six full marathons and one half-marathon. I've been there for the crappy weather, the confusing courses that even local runners couldn't keep straight in their heads, the mass DSQs, the cross-overs, I've nearly hit oncoming runners, a friend of mine was hit by a car and I believe la belle was once stopped en route by police and course-marshalls to let vehicular traffic have priority.

Not this year.

Incoming director Gerri Wallace took the race by the scruff of the neck and shook it up. The confusing courses were gone. I'm partial to the old, original course that took in oxford, Jubilee, Connaught, Almon and Young, but I can see how the city doesn't like that course.  This year it was quite intuitive for a change, no more two and a half loops of the North End and an "optional" loop of the Citadel! Dartmouth then Halifax means a lot more cheering in the final stages of the marathon. The timings were different and they helped to cut down on course congestion. It wasn't totally alleviated, but until the city allows them to run the 5 and 10K on Saturday, a la Run Ottawa, they'll never fully solve this. If the event continues to grow the way it has however, then the city might soon be amenable to this. One hopes.

Runners have always complained about not having a closed course. I don't think this town will ever give us 26 miles of roads all to ourselves but this year had more road closures and parking bans than previous years. This goes in the category of things unseen. Your average runner won't even have noticed there was less vehicular traffic on the course this year and is likely not even be aware of this. So consider yourself told!

Kudos to organisers, but the far end of the Dartmouth side of the marathon route, a part of the course visited by only 300 or ca. 3% of the participants, had the same look & feel and attention to detail as, say, the Five Corners intersection, visited by all 12000 runners, sometimes more than once.

There were some problems on the Halifax side, I won't deny it, but remember, this was, essentially the first time this course had been used, there were bound to be some mishaps.

They also had some great green initiatives, like the Hydropouch and using HRM tap-water, reducing the bottle and cup count considerably. Like the course, these initiatives were somewhat imperfectly done, but this can only be a learning experience, both for HRM, the LOC and the runners.

One of my favourite expressions about racing is adapted from a saying attributed to the Duke Of Wellington, that one might as well tell the history of a ball as a battle. He meant, of course, in either situation, the experience of one or two people may not be representative of the whole. The same applies to racing. My experience of BNIM , from the vantage-point of the 3:30 pace bunny may be, and is, slightly different from that of la belle, as the 4:00 pace-bunny, which again are different perspectives  from those of any of the other 12 000 runners.  Ditto the spectators. So, all I ca say is that for my time and place on the course, it looked pretty good. Not perfect by any means, but pretty good. In fact, at the risk of repeating myself, the best for a few years.

Finally, before you say anything about this apparent BNIM love-in; Gerry - I'm still waiting for my 2nd place overall gong from the 2005 event. Just sayin'

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Run Rabbit Run

So, marathon#18 in the bag, and my second time pace-bunnying a full.  In fact my last two marathons have been as a pace-bunny for the 3:30 group.

Bunnying a marathon seems to have piqued many peoples' interest, so how is it really?

I think the trick is to pick your pace-group carefully.  Some people have asked me "isn't it difficult to run at 5 minute per kilometer (5:00/km) pace?".  I would answer, for myself, "no".  If I were to go for a nice, relaxed run I tend to average out between 4:30 and 4:45/km,  So running at 4:45 and 5:00 is really quite natural.  Any slower and I'm constantly pulling away from the group.  I'm not being an arsehole, I just find it very difficult to run that slowly.   Conversely, for the faster paces it's running at 4:15 for three hours that is decidedly unnatural!

It is, of course, personal.  La belle's likes to bunny the 4:00hr group or about 5:40/km. It's all about preference.

The second thing is a marathon is not a distance to be run with alacrity.  You need to prepare to bunny a marathon in the same way that you would prepare to race one.  I stopped cramming the miles in a couple of weeks ago and cut down from 100kms to 50km to 30kms during the taper.  I still had the huge pasta dinner on Saturday night, I still went to bed early, got up early and my race-day ritual contained all the usual little personal tics it would have had for a "real" race.  

Except this is a real race; I might not be racing for absolute performance but instead I'll be expected to lay down a time not too far removed from an all out effort (only 19% slower from my current best pace).  Remember, a marathon isn't a race you can be guaranteed a finish; it's so long, too much can go wrong, or many things have to go right - some of them out of your control. I won't deny, I had butterflies in my stomach standing on the start.

One thing I noticed in Moncton and confirmed here was that bunnying a marathon feels just like running one for yourself only less-so.  So I still felt that slight tightness in my hamstrings and ITB at 15 miles, those little niggles that remind you you've been running for a while and which may yet develop into a disabling attack of cramp.  I still got that slight sense of ennui about the whole thing around 31 kms ("aren't we done yet, I've been running all day") and a slight sense of bonk-i-ness at about 34 kms, the "sod it I'm going to pack it all in and crawl under the nearest bush and sleep before I do myself some real harm" feeling.  Except, like I said, less so.  So the feelings tend to pass relatively quickly instead of sitting on your head and growing into a big black dog that's constantly dragging you down.

Some of that is to do with your group.  As pace-bunny you are part pace-setter, part drill-sargeant, part agony-aunt and part cheer-leader.  So you encourage, threaten and cajole your charges to the finish-line.  This can be quite fun and it is certainly rewarding to get people to personal best times.  

Interestingly, and perhaps intuitively, I ended up running with three distinct groups.  Most people positive-split a marathon, that is run the first half faster than the second.  Pace-bunnies are expected to run an even split; the same time for both halves.  In Moncton and Halifax I ran an even(ish) split; 1hr 44 min for both halves. So, there's always a big group for the first half; if you're shooting for 3:30 then a 1:45 half is eminently do-able.  I had a fluid group of at least five for both events, but as there are always people who don't want to run with you but just want to keep you in sight, I don't know how many people were keying off me in the first half.  

After the half, the first group starts to melt away and is replaced by a second group of people who started just a tad fast, are starting to fade and are coming backwards to you.  How long this group stays depends on how quickly they're fading.  Yesterday, I had completely swapped my group between 21 and 25kms.  At one point I felt like a mother duck with a loose line of nearly ten people stretched out behind me.  

This group eventually implodes too as the distance mounts.  At Moncton I ended up with one guy by about 21 miles and we came to an agreement; no walk-breaks, just 5:00/km and walk the aid-stations.  Same here at Bluenose; I was all alone by about 31 kms, so I just kept to pace.  At 35 kms I picked up a marathoner who was kinda walking and he said he wanted to try and run in with me.  So we hooked up and I got him through a very tough 4 kms around the park. There was a touch of the blind leading the blind here however as I was having my own moments of self-doubt in the park and having to shepherd someone else through their own helped me to dwell less on my own inner demons.  Coming out of the park I still had a couple of minutes in hand and at 40kms it was clear we were going to come in around 3hrs 25 minutes so instead of keeping the pace down I let it creep up a little and then we booted it for the last kilometer,

Job done.

Here are my kilometer splits from Garmin.  A fairly even pace throughout and even though I felt like I was slowing down, clearly I didn't.  

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy that graph.

Yup, geek!

Unfortunately, no HR data as the Polar I was wearing died half-way through.  What are the odds; it performed yeomans' service all the way through training and the battery dies 1/3 through my first race of the year!  Johnny Miles maybe.

After I finished I turned around and went back down the course to bunny in the people who had dropped off the pace. Big props to them all.  That's Brett Glover below, a trackie and x-country guy from SMU.  His Dad was running the half and Brett did a couple of training runs with him.  Brett took this race on with one 20K long-run under his belt and did it in Vibram five-fingers.  He ran through the first half with me, 1:44, bang on schedule.  He even put the boots to me on Maple Street!  He dropped off on Agricola and I didn't see him again until I picked him up again at Cogswell and Brunswick and ran the last three-hundred metres with him to see him home for a stonking 3:44 marathon debut.  

A shout out goes to Jennie Orr, Michael Gaudet, Rachael House, Andrea Moritz, Cyrus John, Chad Smith and Steve Elliot, all people I spoke to and ran with en route.  I know there were more, and I"m sorry if I can't remember your names.

Kudos one and all, it was a great experience to run with each and every one of you.

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An open letter to the Chronicle Herald about the Bluenose

This one goes out to the sports staff at the Chronically Horrible and Monty Mosher, a man who always either mispells my name in the results or faced with a seemingly impossible unScottish series of vowels just gives in and omits it all together.

We marathoners are a sensitive lot. It's a Sisyphean task. We toil all year under the most outrageous conditions; sleet, hail, rain, snow - the USPS has nothing on us. Many of us are family people so we often do our miles in the dark at antisocial hours before the kids get up or after they go to bed. We don't want medals (well, a nice, understated finishers' one perhpas), we don't want glory nor we want too much attention.

All we want is some Goddamn respect.

I don't call myself a marathoner, I'm just a guy who runs marathons and yes, I'm running the full at the Bluenose International Marathon (BNIM). I shouldn't have to even qualify that as 'full' marathon as a marathon is, by definition, a set distance, but I digress.

This isn't somthing I do on a whim.  Oh, I think I'll do a marathon next week. This takes planning.

Let me tell you what it means to be a guy who 'just' runs marathons. The last time I checked my training log I had just shy of 1600 km run since January 1. That's 1000 miles. I've been thinking about this event since Christmas last year. Every run and every missed donut is connected with this goal even if only tangentially or as a mere whisper at the back of my mind.

I am not alone. The mileage may vary but every man Jack (and woman Jill) who lines up on Sackville Street at five-to-eight on Sunday has a similar story. Everyone from the grizzled veteran to the excited-yet-scared first-timer has a tale of dark and cold and ice and unfriendly dogs and impossible, self-supported training runs that took them to the far corners of HRM, sometimes all on the same day!

So Monty, please do us all the favour of refraining from the tautology of the "5km marathoner". Such a thing doesn't exist.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no marathon snob. I appreciate, understand and laud the effort and achievement of all 10 000 runners this weekend. It's not "only" the 5 K.  If that's all you have in you then all power's to you and you have my respect. Five kilometers or forty-two, neither are distances to be undertaken with alacrity, one is not worth more or less than the other and congratulations on both taking up and beating the challenge.

However Monty, just don't let your quest for inclusiveness get away from yourself. We guys and gals who do marathons run all year in the metaphorical and literal dark and this weekend is our only chance to come out into the light at home. So please, no medals, no glory. No NBC-style video of us running through the park in slo-mo cut to inspiring instrumental music. Just a little nomenclaturial respect.

On behalf of the 350 registered marathon participants on Sunday, I thank both for your time and your attention to this matter.

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Underuse injury

So here we are, ten days into the speed-taper for the Blue Nose International Marathon (BNIM). What a fuck-up. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not speed-tapering because I'm being an arrogant bastard, oh this is marathon #18, I'm too good to taper like a newbie. I'm speed-tapering because I was a fuckwit unable to use a calendar. 

The exchange went something like this

(la belle) "So, a 100 km week? You know it's Bluenose in two weeks?"

(me) "Don't be daft lass, it's only May 5th. BNIM is at the end of May, always has been. I've got three weeks"

"It's on the 20th this year numbnuts, that's two weeks tomorrow"

"No it's not"

"Yes it is"

"Calice de ciboire d'hostie de tabernak"

"You missed the accent in 'câlice'"

"Double fuck"

"Indeed"

So I've been on an enforced diet of not running for ten days and does it ever feel wierd. I'm constantly tired; I slept for 12 hours and was nearly late for work the other day, and I start at 10 in the morning, now that's tired. My body aches all over and my ITB is niggling again. Also, despite not burning the equivilent of an extra three days worth of food on the road every week, it seems like I still have an appetite like I am.

Some of this is catastrophizing; every little twinge is a stress-fracture. This is quite normal before a big event and I believe it has even been scientifically documented.

Some of this may be due to what Stacy Juckett-Chesnutt calls under-use injuries. I think that when we're training hard our mind doesn't let our body think too hard about what it's doing, it just does. Even if you don't want to go out, your body still makes you. It's a machine, albiet one with no imagination and a disturbingly single-minded focus. When we taper our mind gives our body permission to relax, and when it does, all the aches and pains and niggles come out in a rush with a vengence. 

Also, I got what I thought would be my BNIM shoes, the Mizuni Elixir. Mildly posted, I've run in these before. But their mild lateral post, usually OK for my gait, has made my ITB flare up again. That's the third time this year, all three times correlate to correctional footwear. Lesson learned I think.

At least this is making me rest up even more than I would. You see, at the end of the day, a marathon is not a distance to be run with alacrity. When you do, and when you allow your hubris to get the better of you, funny things happen. Not funny-ha-ha either, but funny-peculiar. Ask la belle. So even though I'm "only" bunnying and I'm "only" running to a 15 minutes personal worst, I'm taking this seriously. You see, those quotes around 'only'; these are sarcastic air-quotes, there's nothing "only" about running a marathon, at any speed. You must respect the distance, whether it's marathon#1 or marathon#101. if you don't, the marathon will turn around and bite you in the arse. Or the ITB.  Or maybe your hamstring. 

So any first-timers out there, don't worry if you're feeling simultaneously nervous, keyed up, on edge and excited. I'm feeling just as nervous, just as keyed up and on-edge and simultaneously excited as you are yet I should know better. I'd be worried if I wasn't! 

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Turnaround

Currently in recovery from a couple of mad weekends and anticipating a couple of more mad ones.  Plus, it's been busy at the shop and that takes it out of you.

A couple of weeks ago I did a one-two race gig over the weekend.  Not racing mind you, but all the other stuff. 

After a year's absence I was back to lead bike at the Lung Run, a wickedly fast, flat 5K down on the waterfront.  It was good fun to work at a running race again.  Sure, I timed the Moose Run 25K a month ago, but that was a cold, windy day and I had to scarper pretty much as the last runner finished so I could make the symphony.  Not conducive to hanging out with the runners and having a chat.  

At the Lung Run I was able to catch up with a bunch of people I hadn't seen all winter, which is always nice.  The sun was shining and afterwards they had beer, free beer at that, which made the hanging out even more fun.

I did 25 kms on the bike at the Lung Run, circling endlessly, leading the front-runners in (and trying not to let them run me down at the same time) then going back encourage the mid-pack and safely shepherd the back-markers home.

The next day, Sunday, I was at the Halifax Citadel for the first running of the MEC Citadel Run, a 5 or 10 km run up, down and around the Halifax Citadel, including a loop of the moat, sorry ditch.   It was  a unique experience being in the moat, sorry ditch, something usually denied (I think) to regular visitors.  Plus, access to the moat, sorry ditch, was more than the French ever managed.  

Oh yes, we may all be friends in one happy Europe now but still, don't mention the war! Any of them.

The races were started by a kilted Highlander firing a Brown Bess and the kids' run breifing was done by a senior NCO, both from the 78th.  Honestly, with the bagpipes, kilts, muskets, walls, ravelins ad moats (sorry ditch), I could have been in a Sharpe novel.  

As well as time the adult run I led out the kids run; a 1km sprint around the moat, sorry, ditch. The kids all had on kilts from the Citadel's interpretative centre.  I even put one of those kilts on, just to get in the spirit.  When RNS asked for voluntolds to time the Citadel Run I jumped at the opportunity; I mean how often do you get to hang around and, in part, take over an historic monument for the morning? How could I say no?

This weekend I got to go up to Pictou with La Belle for a work retreat of hers.  As well as the retreat-y stuff she had we managed to squeeze in a 2 hr ride and a little run.  I took the new Kona fixie.  I may be a bit of a saddle freak as I only have 100 kms on a brand-new Brooks Swallow and I'm finding it pretty comfortable, easily as comfy as the Fi'z:k Arione on the Chinese crabon frame.

I was at the retreat as Dr Mrs La Belle, a role I have danced a couple of times before.  Rather than go shopping with the other WAGS, I was able to read and read and read.  Not even on a computer screen, but proper, paper, bound books.  I did some damage to the stack of books I got at the book-sale two weeks ago between the really well catered and apportioned meal breaks, all of which were buffet style (clearly they didn't know I was coming).  In many ways, this was a little vacation for me, all 36 hours of it, and my GP and cholesterol be damned, 

I'm calling this weekend a speed-taper; 5 mile run, 35 mile bike-ride, tons of sandwiches and litres of coffee.  Somehow I haven't really been looking at a calendar and it just occurred to me that Bluenose is two weeks today, and I just knocked off a 100 km running week.  It scares me that  technically I should be in marathon shape; I don't feel it but then again I don't think I ever do.

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Reduce, replace, recycle.

I bought my first bike in 1986.  It was a black Peugeot Premiere, just like the one above, and it was my pride and joy.   I got it at an LBS in Otley, Chevin Cycles.  I learned a lot on that bike; how to ride, how to crash and how to look after it.  Basic wrenching in other words.

I do remember it was a bit of a pain to look after.  I'm not sure if this was because it was a genuine pain or of it was because I was doing this with a bone-ended wrench, a strange flat wrench with many bizarre shapes stamped into it (see below; what is that square hole used for?  I still don't know) and a flat-head screw-driver I permanently borrowed from my step-father.  He wasn't going to miss it; me makes me look like Mike Holmes.

Funnily, the mechanics tell me each Kona we get comes with one of these in the box.

As I got more into cycling my range of tools would increase, there wasn't a single Allen bolt on that Peugeot for example,  but at the end of the day after twenty-plus years I was still essentially doing my wrenching on the kitchen table, crawling on my hands and knees under the bottom bracket, losing important screws under the cooker and trying not to get oil on the landlady's carpet.  

One of the nice things about working at Cyclesmith is that after twenty-six years (gulp) of cycling I finally have access to a real workshop, one with work-stands and real tools; big, fuck-off, shiny ones with three-foot handles and the scars to prove it.  Not to mention there's nearly always a guy to pull your proverbial and literal nuts out of the fire when you get in over your head.  

My first project was breathing new life into an old frame.  I'm sure you remember the Kona Kapu.  Dedacciai steel frame and forks, chromed lugs.  After getting a crabon frame from one of the mechanics it was time for a switcharoo.  The Ultegra 6600 came off the Kapu and I turned it into a fixie.

Yeah baby, yeah,

The beast's heart is the steel frame.  It's almost the same colour as one of Eddy Merckx's Molteni orange bikes and that's good enough for me.  Plus the Kona logo on the downtube is quite classic-looking.  I could look like Merckx; granted a 1985 frites-eating, Duvel-drinking Merckx rather than a in the maillot jaune but will attack over three cols just to teach a teammate a lesson and win by 15 minutes Merckx but a Merckx nevertheless.

The second heart (if you will), is the rear wheel.  A White Industries ENO eccentric hub so a vertical drop-out bike can be used as a fixie.

It's not as secure as a wheel with track-nuts so the chain has to be constantly tightened, but as a solution to keeping a frame on the road, it's quite elegant.  It's laced, naturally, to a Mavic, an Open Sport.  Maybe change to an Open Pro in the near future.

ENO uses a proprietary cog design, quite beautiful really, but if you want to change gear you have to plan in advance as these are special order from the States only.

The rest of the drive-train are 175mm Ultegra 6500 cranks and 105 BB from the old '02 Lemond Buenos Aires with a 42T Blackspire chainring for a 69" gear.  Made in Canada eh! 

The front wheel is something I rescued from a landfill recently; the guy was going to bin it and wanted to know if I could give it a good home.  Ambrosio Elite 19 rim and Campagnolo hub.  The spokes are a bit rusty, a good candidate for a quick rebuild I hope.

Up front a 1" Gold Soto Voce Chris King headset.  

They say the first thing any staffer does upon getting a job at Cyclesmith is buy a Chris King.  I think we've sold three Chris King headsets in the last twelve months; two to me, so I'm no different.  Perhaps on second thoughts, I should have got a silver or pewter one to match the lugs and on third thoughts, I think it looks good with the gold. 

There's a gold Chris King road BB in the bling cabinet at C'smith.  It's pretty much dead inventory.  I've been looking at it, maybe I can bling this baby up some more.

The King was a pain to install.  The blogosphere said the Kapu used a JIS 1" headset rather than the standard ISO 1" headset.  Even though the crown-race diameter is supposedly smaller on the ISO than the JIS, I still had to file away at the steerer to get the crown-race to fit.  What do I know about metalwork: I'm a biologist!  I'm not trained for this.  So, a twenty minute job took nearly four times as long.  I was glad to be in a bike-shop with all the tools, not to mention a mechanic who didn't mind my silly questions and wasn't adverse to twatting a $220 headset with a hammer.  Repeatedly.

Stopping power courtesy of some shiny new Tektros.  Nothing special here, but I needed something with a longer reach than the Sora dual-pivots I had.  Funny old frame that Kapu.  Yes, it's a fixie.  Yes, it has two brakes.  I'm not stupid you know.  Many of our customers at C'smith are MaxFacs surgeons; I'd rather continue to meet them professionally on our terms, not theirs!

Finally, a Brooks Swallow saddle, direct from Birmingham.  This was the roadies saddle of choice back in the day, the day being the 1950s.  

It adds a nice, classic finishing touch to the bike I think.

It's sitting on a swan-necked Campagnolo seat-post that I've been carrying around for twenty years waiting to put on a bike.  It looks really good with those lugs too.  I wasn't expecting that! 

You hear a lot nowadays about the gimme-gimme culture and how when people want something they want it now; instant gratification.  I like to think I'm a little more traditional, what they called delayed gratification.  I've been waiting nigh-on two decades to use this seat-post.  I wonder if that's why la belle thinks I look so happy to have put this thing together.

Cue bizzarre, Brooks-porn, up-skirt money shot.  You know I had to.  

Speaking of Brooks-porn, I'm Proofiding the hell out of it.  

Of course, a Brooks is the epitome of delayed gratification.  In the succinct words of my boss (who has 14 Brooks, mostly Pros) 

"Two applications of Proofide. Ride it for two thousand kilometers and it should be fine"

You know I only did 5000 kms last year, right?  Guess I should stop running then.

I'm not quite finished.  I'd like to put Vittoria Open Corsas on, the ones with the tan side-walls.  That would like pretty awsome.  The pedals too.  I know I should go for some quill-pedals with stainless baskets and brown Christophe straps, but I also want to ride it.  It has Shimano M520s now, I think I might get something along the same line, maybe with nicer bearings.  Or maybe some Looks.

Now, all I want it to do is to stop raining so I can take it for a ride.  Never get a Brooks wet, they're a bit like Gremlins in this respect.  Quit raining already!

Fini.

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