R.U.I.

Hydration.

Sugars.

Pain management. 

All important to endurance athletes (let's just gloss over the fact I just called myself an endurance athlete shall we?). So when a colleague asked if I wanted to head over the Freemans on Quinpool Road after work (conveniently located a 10m stagger from the shop's side door) how could I say no? Yes, I know I wanted to head out for a quick run after work but I figured a quick brewski; hydration and sugars with a small dose of pain management and I'd still be good for that quick 5 miler along the waterfront.

Alas, I plumped for the Bridge Brewing Company's Farmhouse Ale.  It's good stuff. 

Smooth.  Strong.

Strong as in having one is like having half-a-pint-of-wine-strong.  The first time I had one it went down smoothly.  I chased it with a greasy pizza, and then chased the pizza with another Farmhouse.  The second was as smooth as the first. I felt pretty good.  No side-effects from pharmacologically active two-carbon hydroxyl compounds, 

Then I got up and found some-one had stolen my legs.  Tonight was pretty much the same except with only one beer and no pizza.

Clearly at odds with Douglas Adams' assertion that there are a number of environmental and weapons treaties, as well as laws of physics, which prevent it from being mixed on Earth, Bridge Brewing Company's Farmhouse Ale is clearly the earth-bound equivalent of a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, famously described as like having your head smashed with a slice of lemon, wrapped around a gold brick.

Don't panic indeed,

The subsequent run passed without too much incident, given that I was technically Running Under The Influence, although at one point I was all so long and thanks for all the fish.

Seriously. Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters. Don't do it!

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St Andrews Triathlon Weekend

I'm really looking forward to this weekend.  No getting up at 04:00 on Sunday and spending 12 hours on my feet as for the past six weeks (or so it seems).  Bluenose, of course was an exception except instead of standing up for 12 hours I ran a marathon instead. Easy money.  A weekend off. Then Navy Tridents as TD (12 hours on race-site), Cyclesmith Duathlon as RD (another 12 hours if you include the tear-down), Greenwood as a bog-standard line official (12 hours if you include the commute), the Edmonton World Cup (three hours jet-lag either way, 12 hours on site three days in a row and the red-eye home), another weekend off except I worked at actual work instead and then the St Andrews Tri-weekend.  This weekend; nada. No work, no race. Maybe a little lie-in.  The guys want to do a twenty-miler on Sunday; I'm all for it but I'm vetoing any start-time that begins with the number 6.

St Andrews was the last of the crazy string of races. There was a junior national series race on Saturday and a 1900/90/21 long-course on Sunday. I originally wanted to do Sunday's accompanying short-course (1000/50/10.5) but somehow got suckered in to TDing it instead. I'm still not sure how that happened.

Maybe there's a story in that we only had a team of six officials for the weekend: four from NS, two from NB. Who knows? I'm not even sure who I was representing on Sunday! Not TriCan.  TNS? Not sure how I can swing that. Ditto for TriNB. Freelancing maybe! Whistle for hire :)

It was great to work with the Juniors on Saturday, I think I'm starting to get to know some of the kids. I know la belle is; after all she's the one who's been registering them for the last couple of years. I just get to check their bikes.   

As well as some of the Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta teams there were other familiar faces too.  The Nova Scotia Canada Games team was there too, getting some last-minute race-sharpening in and checking out their competition for Sherbrooke.

On Friday we drove to St Andrews and, by luck or judgement (I don't know which) our motel was next-door to registration and practically next door to TZ.   Linda McLeod from TNS was the TD for the Junior and I got to HR, which for Friday meant attending the briefing, answering some questions, pre-checking some bikes and wheels and catching up with coaches.

I also got to go on the bike famil.  No cops, just the LOC and a big truck!

While I was having fun with bikes and riding in a big-ass truck, MC was running registration. Again.  She's got this down to a science!

The RDs, Garth and Helena Millar are expat Brits and great to work with. They had a lot of experience back home as RDs, experience those of us in blue vests and the fancy hats ignore at our peril.  Hanging out with my countrymen had a deleterious effect on my accent though.  I met a few other friendly faces too; Scott MacKenzie and John Russell from TriNB, who I'd run in to at National meetings before. It was great to work with them again.  Tracy Shelley, as junior race series RD, was there too. We've kinda worked together before, but this was the first time we were on a team together. Nothing got by Tracy (even if I called her Shelley for half the weekend, she didn't miss that!) and she helped us a lot in the absence of a team-leader to oversee the fancy stuff.

Saturday was an early start. 04:00 reveille, TZ at 05:00.  The Juniors are always nicely disciplined and need very little herding compared to age-groupers. Thank goodness! We got the ladies off in time and they didn't disappoint, blitzing through the course. 

I can't remember much from within the race because with such a small team we were constantly rushing from one thing to another whilst simultaneously trying to do the officials thing.  I was feeling more than a little stressed about converting the T2 run-out into the finish line in less than ten minutes after the last athlete left T2 but to my surprise we had it done so quickly we were actually twiddling our thumbs waiting for the first lady. Let's hear it for Garth and Helana's experience.  It was also nice to have la belle out of registration and backing me up; I didn't have to ask, she just did.

The only fly in the ointment was the short reset time between the ladies and the men and unfortunately we started the latter ten minutes late. That's a bit of a big deal, but they were faster than the women, with the lead man in under one hour. Crickey! 

One of the things about working a race at this level is that you get to use the whole rule-book.  Most AG athletes are familiar with the swim, TZ, bike and run portions, but these only occupy the first third or half of the book.  The rest is about running a high level race.  For only the fifth time in my officiating career I got to break out the awards ceremony protocol (MC seemingly lives the Uniform appendices nowadays).  It's quite surreal to go from bike-mechanic, line-referee to show-producer in the space of 90 minutes. I think we did a good job, even if the duck-tape wouldn't stick and we had to get two six-footguys to hide behind the  gantry and hold the TriCan tapes, and St Andrew's and the Algonquin Hotel certainly gave a great backdrop.

The award winners didn't get medals though, they got original art-work from a local artist.  Cool.

There's not much to say about Sunday's age-group race except that if it was this good this year, I can't wait to see what it will look like next year after Challenge drops off two containers of branded stuff.

As you've all undoubtedly heard, I ruled wetsuits out on the basis the water was between 26 and 28C. Never mind the "No Wetsuits" and "Really No Wetsuits" rules that WTC seem to have, this would have been no wetsuits under any code.  I heard a fair amount of grumbling before the event, but no-one came up to me afterwards to complain.

Funny story. The NB athletes don't know me. So I walk into TZ just after 06:15 (yes we were late, but I was triple-checking the water temp) and announced 

"Ladies and gentlemen: I am the bearer of bad news,,,,,"

and gave the spiel. No 'suits, no socks and so-on.

A little later one of the NB athletes comes up to me and says

"With your accent, even bad news sounds better!"

Cute. And no, she still wasn't allowed to wear one!

The draft-busters here were given a treat with two almost WWII-vintage motorbikes with sidecars, ammunition panniers, Brodie-esque helmets, the lot!   La belle did over 100kms in one of Sunday, and I wasn't able to get a pic but here's Tri NB prez Paul Lavoie in the other one....

Very Escape to Victory. I told la belle if her pilot tried to jump the wire into Switzerland she should call me immediately or go in the cooler. Of course, comms with someone in a sidecar were awesome. We could talk and text no problem as she wasn't holding on to her pilot! It's the way to go. Plus, it's never felt more appropriate to call the shot-gun passenger on a moto the rear gunner!

Fokkers at 12 o'clock indeed.

The shadow of Mont Tremblant was all over this race. It was a great race and Challenge St Andrews (as it will be next year) will be a great event in it's own right, and it will stand in it's own right. However with many people either coming to it having done the 70.3 a fortnight ago or using it as training for the full IM in a month comparisons are hard not to make. One woman came into T2, flopped down on her tri-mat and said "that was harder than Tremblant", in an awestruck way.  I heard many favourably compare the course to the Tremblant course; unrelenting rolling hills. Very little flat. Nothing too steep but the hills keep on coming.  If, when, you come here for the race, forget that you're in the foothills of the Appalachians at your peril!

This didn't seem to deter the athletes. As they collected their stuff from TZ at the end of the day, they praised the enthusiasm of the St Andrew's crowd, the guerilla aid-stations and the friendliness of the town. I always say a measure of how welcoming a town is to a race is by the number of guerilla aid-stations and St Andrews wins hands down.

We stopped in St Hubert in Moncton on the way home; a Quebec resto la belle really misses. As your average OCD endurance athletes we usually stress a little at the sheer saturated fat content of BBQ chicken with fries and gravy but when we realized this was literally our only meal of the day, we settled down and ordered more coleslaw.

So thats that. Smashing weekend and I hope they ask me back next year; I'd be there in a heartbeat.

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Ja, I'm a hipster

The stereotype of the LBS is that it's owned by an ex-pro and staffed by a bunch of up-and-coming guys in their late teens who are more interested in pro-dealing their shot at the big time than customer service. Cyclesmith is not like this. The average age on the sales-floor in the low 40s and most of the guys are on career 2.0.  One of the advantages of this is a wealth of disparate experiences and a fairly thick skin to boot. I like to feel we're also pretty small-l liberal; black, white, pink, rainbow. It doesn't matter.

There is one caveat. They used to say that anti-catholicism was the last remaining acceptable -ism in North America. At Cyclesmith creed or colour doesn't matter but i think there is one, last acceptable -ism.

Hipsterism.

Well, certainly against each other.

Hipster, like art, is notoriously hard to define.  There seem to be some commonly agreed-upon biomarkers; fixed-gear bikes, tattoos, facial hair, art-house coffee shops, music from the eighties and beer.

Here, many of us accuse each other (jocularly, mind you.  At least I hope it is) of being hipsters, we'll great each other with "I'm sorry sir, we don't serve your type in here", and deny any such accusation against ourselves.  As the definition if hipster is so vague, it's easy to pigeon-hole so-and-so as a hipster based on meeting only a small set of criteria e.g. bike and beer, whilst willfully ignoring facial hair and "career" in social media.  The "no I'm not a hipster" defense doesn't do anything as, as we we all know, there's nothing a hipster likes less than being pigeon-holed. It's a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose situation.

I'm going to take a stand. I'm not going to deny my hipsteristic tendencies any more. Just like suppressing your sexuality can lead you on your knees getting arrested for indecent acts public washrooms, I'm afraid that if I continue to deny my hipsterism, I'm going to end up simultaneously wearing fake tortoiseshell glasses and contacts or start drinking PBR.  So, whilst I may not have a bike-polo mallet (Tony Lacopia, I am talking to you), my name is Andrew and I am a hipster.

Lets look at the evidence.

1) I live in a condo in the North End of Halifax. When you read the "Gentrifying Scum Out Of Our Neighborhood" graffiti, they're talking about me or to me.

2) Not only do I drive a Smart car (four seats are too mainstream), so does my wife. In fact, we park two Smart cars in a single parking spot in that gentrified North End condo. Because one spot per car is, well, just too mainstream.

3) We were early adopters of Two If By Sea cafe in Dartmouth. We don't go any more because it's way too crowded nowadays and the nature of the crowd has changed since their halcyon opening days. In short, we don't go to TIBS, a watch-word for hipsters in this town, any more because it's too mainstream!

4) Instead we go to Java Blend. Does it matter we can see it from our balcony? No. Does it matter if Jim is a friend? No. Does it matter that Jim supports the events we put on including our wedding? Hell no. What matters is we get our coffee from the same place as this guy.

5) Fixies. I have two. One is a straight-up fixie, one is a road-bike conversion. I'm the original owner of both. They have brakes, fenders, a GPS speedo. In short they're proper bikes and I do proper rides on them. Have you done Peggys Cove on 68" fixed? Does any of this matter compared to the fact I bought one of the frames because the chromed lugs made it look retro? Retro? Authentic? Hello? Hipster.

5.5) There's a Brooks saddle on one of those fixies. Sigh.

6) I'll freely acknowledge my shoe problem (Filipino!) but really, I have a bike jersey problem. Hell, I could have a chapter of the Bike Jersey Project book all to myself. I'd like to draw the jury's attention to two jerseys. The Crest jersey was my club jersey in the late eighties. It still fits me. But it's like from the eighties. Pretty hipster. The retro-look Adidas wool jersey? I bought it on sale at the La Cordee in St Bruno because it looked retro and would look great when I was on those fixies. Hipster? Duh!

7) Spandau Ballet, Simple Minds, ABC, Culture Club? I like music from the eighties. Of course I like music from the eighties. I came of age in the eighties. Mind you, I like The Smiths nowadays, but I didn't care for them in the actual eighties because everyone else was listening to them; in short they were too mainstream. Evidence perhaps of latent hipster tendencies even back in the eighties. I had a crush on Molly Ringwald when I was, like, you know, in high school and she was playing kids who were, like, you know, in high school. Does any of this stand in mitigation against the fact I have hours of eighties music on my iPod and copies of The Breakfast Club and Pretty In Pink on the shelf? Hell no. Hipster.

8) I can, in fact, wear my wife's jeans. The legs are a touch tight and a short on me, but that's OK because then they don't get caught in the chain. The only thing that's worse than this would be having those Rapha jeans with the Rapha logo on the inside, so it can be read when the pants-cuff is rolled up to mid-shin. Furthermore, I do, in fact, have actual Rapha cycling clothing and yes, I have worn the cycling cap as a stand-alone fashion accessory.

9) I used drink imported Belgian beer; Hoegaarden, Duvel and the like. Pretentious? Moi? I used to think it was about getting in touch with my inner Flandrian (cyclocross is the next big thing you know), but really it was more about Molson being too mainstream. Who cares if Olands is brewed down the street and fits in with the 100 mile diet ethos (hipster), but hipster beer credentials trump buying beer with a low carbon footprint. Nowadays, I get my beer in a growler, because bottles are, like, too mainstream.

10) I don't have tattoos. But I get enough cat-5 tattoos at work portaging the bikes around. I don't so much have a chain-ring tattoo on my leg as having a succession of them. Similarly, I don't have a NOBR AKES knuckle tattoo as I skin my knuckles on other peoples bikes. Seriously man, permanent tattoos are just too mainstream.

I'm trying to get help, but it may be too late. It may have run it's course. In short, my name is Andrew and I'm a hipster.

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Run Rabbit Run

I think my attitude towards running is getting a little hedonistic. It's because of the bunny ears.

No, not that kind of bunny ears, although that would be hedonistic,  These kind of bunny ears.

Slowing down and, figuratively speaking, smelling the roses has reminded me how much fun running can be.  Not only that, but if you are not turning yourself inside out to get a PB or a BQ then even running a marathon can be fun, and fun is surely why we do this. Goodness knows we aren't doing it for the money and the consensus is out as to whether we're doing this for the good of our health or not (as we might be shortening our lives) so we might as well be having fun.  Isn't that hedonism?

My average marathon time, not including the three or four pace-bunny outings, is around the 3:07 mark, with a handful of outliers eight-to-ten minutes either side of this arithmetic mean.  Nicely Normal.  This translates to an average 4:26 kilometre pace.  Bunnying a 3:30 or longer takes the pace down to 5 minutes a kilometre or longer.   I've been asked, more than once, isn't it difficult to run this slowly?  No is the answer. If anything, it's the 4:26s that are are abnormal.  If you were to send me out Garminless (which is to say functionally naked) I would naturally do a 4:40 or 4:45, so doing a 5:00 isn't too much of a stretch. Besides, if one is bunnying a Running Room group to 3:30, they may be on a 10:1 run:walk schedule, which equals a 4:45 running pace with a 1 minute power walk.

I don't train differently if I'm "only" bunnying.  My last outing with ears was Bluenose 2013 and I still put in the miles, let me tell you.  Many of those long runs were cracked off at a pace significantly faster than my projected bunny pace.  I didn't even have a marathon of my own coming up, BN was it, and I still racked up over 1000 miles in training since Jan 1. Seems excessive?  Twenty six point two are not numbers to be taken with alacrity and, regardless of pace, you need to treat the marathon with respect.  One reason I train "properly" is because the marathon treats my body the same way, whether I'm bunning or racing.  When I'm bunnying, I often find my body goes through the same stages of aches and pains and bonkiness as in a raced marathon, only the crappy sensations don't come on quite as hard and don't last quite as long.  Similarly, I usually recover somewhat more quickly after a bunnied marathon than a raced one. Going down stairs after two days instead of three perhaps.

One hears much of bunnys and bunnying strategies.  Most of these are somewhat negative and I'm rather glad never to have heard through the grapevine "that 3:30 bunny at the x marathon was a real muppet".  The singular most important trait in a pace-bunny is to run steadily and even split the marathon. People may come and go out of your group, but as long as you run at 4:45 or 5:00 or whatever, you are doing your job. It may seem heartless to erstwhile members of your group as you steam away slowly after 20 miles, but you must stick to the pace. No deviations. It's a bit OCD, but as runners we're all a little OCD at heart, so it comes naturally!

It annoys me to hear the bunny horror stories about bunnies who bolt off the line in order to "gain time", which we all know is a marathoning fools' errand, and are never seen again. It's not sensible running if you're trying to run for yourself, much less if you've been entrusted with getting others in on time. I once heard of a bunny who crossed the line fist-pumping, like he'd got a good time for himself.  Did I mention he was ten minutes ahead of schedule too?  It may seem like a bit of a lark;  they pay your entry and you get to run, albeit in the dorky t-shirt and ears, but remember; you're essentially employed and entrusted for the morning to run a pace.

Alternatively, the 3:15 pace-bunny at Dublin was a right sargeant-major. I heard him coming, barking orders "water station coming up; water on the left, Gatorade on the right", "Left hand corner coming, lets swing right and run the tangent". I almost expected him to say "...and if you see a kitten in the middle of the road, don't stop! Take no prisoners".  

I don't bolt off the line, I don't bank time (on purpose) but neither am I the Dublin RSM.  I'll be your friend, I'll cajole and coax and encourage, I'll talk and tell jokes or I'll listen.  I'll work with them, not against them. At the start I ask the group that coalesces around me at the start how they want to run; run:walk or continuous, It's the same either way to me, this is their race, not mine. Whatever strategy they choose, I tell them I'll re-assess it periodically.  Sometimes we can keep on schedule to the end, sometimes we need to change, but let me worry about that.   I've had to do both.  I'll dole out a bit of tough love though. If one thing is certain, I tell them, I will run 3:30. That I guarantee,  I won't wait for you.  I'll come back for you once, but after that, you're on your own.   

Bunnying also gives an interesting perspective on how one runs a marathon.  In my experience, and those of others, one runs with several distinct groups. You start with a reasonably large group hoping for, let us say, 3:30.  Most of this group hangs with you for the first half.  No problem. One or two might drop off.  Somewhere between 21 and 25 kilometres this groups melts away in ones and twos.  Gradually, your original group is replaced by a second, people who were likely aiming at a 3:15 and are now coming backwards steadily.  This group might last until 35 kilometres until it too melts.  Eventually, you will pick up a few stragglers who were likely on pace for a 3:10 or better until they hit they wall.  One or two of these stragglers will find the energy to hop on your heels for the last mile or so to the finish. It makes you think upon how you run your own races. The standard deviation on my personal 4:25 average must be quite large; likely starting at a brisk 4:15 and slowing to an ignominious 4:40!

Running is often seen as a solitary activity. When one thinks about doing good by running, one thinks of charity running, which apart from pan-handling around your family, friends and acquaintances (no doubt at the same time your friends are doing the same) means running in an actual bunny suit. Or a fat-man suit. Or a turtle suit.  Of maybe just a baggy cotton t-shirt a la Simon Pegg in Run Fatboy Run, which you just know is going to do a job on your nipples.  Or you could give back to the running community by working at races or even organizing a race.  I've done those latter two. Man, that's hard work.  So, as well as the sheer unabashed fun of running, pace-bunnying has another reward.  You get to help out a bunch or runners by doing what you enjoy doing, viz, running.  Win win!

Interestingly, pace bunnies in Halifax are usually organised by the Running Room.  When I started this ears gig five years ago or so, I was the only non-Running Room pace bunny. At the last Bluenose, three or four of us out of the full. half and 10 were Halifax Running Club. I'd like to take a little credit for that, along with la belle, for getting the word out.  I think more and more of our running partners are starting to see pace-bunnying not as a chore, not as something to do if you can't race but as a rewarding and meaningful activity in it's own right.  Something I hear isn't "I wouldn't like to do it" but "I don't think I'd be good at it", which could be dissembling but I like to think is a more nuanced way of saying they're not sure they could harness their run-like-the-wind urges to come in bang on time.  Why don't you just try it, I usually reply.  You'd be great at it.

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Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Why, Spongebob Squarepants of course.

But more about the yellow, square absorbent one in a bit.

I really wanted my next post to be about the pace-bunny experience. It's pretty much written, and I'd love to share it with both of you.  However, I've just had a deeply unsatisfying morning that has left me more jaded with age-group sport and age-group athletes than I would care to admit.

La belle and I scored free entries to the Penguin Run at the RNS banquet last year, so we cashed them in. Except the ten miler was now a half-marathon; not an entirely popular decision I understand from listening to chat.  Oh well, it is what it is.

Overall, I like the new course. New race HQ is about a kilometre down the old course from the old one. Parking was easier. It's outside, so that'll make it tricky if it rains but with the mercury (technically ink-in-glass nowadays) hitting 28C, that wasn't a problem today.

A pretty traffic-free course, and by my Garmin, bang-on distance.  I heard some people complaining it was long, but I think they were running the tangents, not out on the left, hang a u-ey at the turnaround and come back on the left.  I saw a bit of that going on.  We (as in RNS) need to get that sorted.

Fortunately, the course was essentially traffic-free, which with runners using whichever side of the road they felt comfortable using, was a good thing. There was even a guerilla water-stop at 10km, which is always a sign that the local community is getting behind the event.

The course is really quite lumpy; not Cape Breton hilly, but grinding rollers. As you can see, not much elevation in any one hill, but they just came one after the other.

No flat to be found.

I got stuck in from the start; the first two kilometres were a bit fast, sucked along by the concomitant 5K but I tried to keep a lid on it.  I was aware of a presence on my shoulder after the 2.5km turnaround for the 5K, and could see three people up ahead; Bryan Hipson, Mike Vargo and some guy no-one knew, who turned out to be a ringer from Saskatoon. We think he found it somewhat hillier than he was used to. Oh well, come to Nova Scotia for the lobster and the hills!

My shadow became my problem. I wasn't able to elicit much information from him, apart from that his name was Patrick and he did the Bluenose half in 1:24 or something and was looking for a sub-90 performance today.  I don't know what he looked like, so I'm going with this.

I never saw his face, he never came through (not once), he never put his face in the wind. I was just aware of a figure on my shoulder. We were running pretty steady, between 4:05 and 4:15 per kilometer, nothing earth shattering.  It sounded like he was working. After a while I started to get a bit aggravated about the lack of coming through to do his share of the pacing. I made a couple of half-hearted swings across the road to gesture "your turn", but no, my heels were a good place to be.  I tried to be a good lead; pointed out the holes in the road (they were legion) and the water stops and tried to make sure we both had room at the table so we could run through unimpeded.

Still, no pacing help.  I was feeling like a pace-bunny all over again but no ears. Except there was no talking because Mr The Star was wearing an iPod, so all I got for conversation was the steady tschh, tschh, tschh of the beats. After an hour I got a bit too P.O.d by that and asked over my shoulder

"Could you turn that down or something?"

No reply

"Sorry, but could you turn that down or something?"

Pause

"Sorry, I had to turn my iPod off so I could hear you; what did you say?"

"Nothing"

Grrr.

So I slowed down and made some wild course changes from the shoulder to the yellow line and back, trying to force him to to come through. Douchy I know.  We only had three miles to go. I think I nearly went at ninety degrees at one time, but my faithful shadow stayed glued.  I think I heard something along the lines of "wow, it's like you're trying to get rid of me".  I didn't hear the sounds of pennies dropping.

The penultimate kilomter is an uphill drag, noting crazy, but after the rollercoaster of the previous nineteen it was heavy on the legs.  I tried to slow up a little to save something for the flat finish but it was really to no avail as my bolts had been shot off on each hill, trying to wear him down.  Coming around the final corner I turned and said "I suppose you're going to outsprint me now". 

With 700m to go he became quite voluble.  He was quite chuffed. Didn't think he had it in him to run that fast in the heat, didn't think he'd be able to stay with me. He couldn't come through because he couldn't have lasted out front at that pace for long.

With 500 m to go however, the front suddenly became a tenable place to be and he smoothly accelerated away. Clearly the previous 20.7 km were not to his liking, but this stretch had him written all over it!  I think I slowed down. I hope I did, because I conceded fifteen seconds in 500m.  Chip-time was a loooong 1:26. Let's do the maths.  That's 5160". Five hundred metres at 4 minute/km pace is 2 minutes, 120". Or 2.3% of the race in front.  I spent the previous 97.7% or 5040" dragging his arse up hill and down dale.

I've had many stand-up, knock-down, drag-out fights in running races and triathlons and, win or lose, I've always been able to walk up to the guy (or gal), put out my hand and say "well done, great race". Regardless of the outcome.

Not today.

On the plus side, Mr The Star had a great race. He didn't think he had it in him but he did anyway. You can't fault that.  Tactically it was pretty astute; draft off the faster guy, come around at the end for the result (even if the result was a big 4th overall). Result! Tactically, I ran a bad race; too much time on the front, chasing my own demons (I've never run a half longer than 90  minutes and I wasn't prepared for today to be that day) and not paying enough attention to the guy behind.  Plus, I think I gave up as we rounded the last corner with 700 to go. I know my heart wasn't in it.

Still, I feel used and essentially douched out of the position (yeah, yeah, that big 4th). In purely impassionate terms, he had an excellent race, I had a sub-par one and the better guy won. I just don't have to feel that way.  From my perspective, it wasn't a classy move, even if it was the right one.

I didn't stay for the awards, I was too steamed. I still am if truth be known.  La belle picked up my prize.  I haven't opened it.  If you want it Patrick let me know. It's yours. You earned it, even if you didn't work for it.

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A fit-ing process

By the time you read this I'll be back in Canada but for the purposes of writing, you find me in international departures at BWI. I just realised why this place looks familar (beyond that I was here three days ago), I was last here in 2006 (I think) with Jessica Boyd on our way to the aforementioned EFHW in Gettysbury. The drive out of Baltimore -in the dark on an unknown interstate and in a rental car, was particularly interesting, as I recall, as was getting lost in rural PA trying to find Gettysburg; something Lee probably hoped upon Meade! I can't for the life of me remember want we were presenting, probably Aeromonas salmonicida type IV pili, or maybe Type III secretion. I can't rightly remember. Either way, it seemed dreadfully important at the time!

Minute mircobial structures, needless to say, are not what brought me back here, it was the Trek fitting course. We just finished two intense days of anatomy, biomechanics and actual mechanics, with a hefty dose of evidence-based myth-debunking thrown in. Pure bliss in other words.

This is probably a good time for a Trek joke. As most of you know, my ex-wife is South African and a native Afrikanns speaker to boot. I learned a little Afrikaans, most of which I've forgotten and I realy only use at the ITU World Duathlon Championships when dealing with the South African team. Is jy die team van Suid Afrika? Ja? Lekker! Kan jy Engels praat? Ja? D'is guid! and then spent the rest of the conversation sounding like Matt Damon in Invictus! Anyway, the word "Trek" is a loanword into English from Afrikaans. It's a good job we have it, because without it the Trek Bicycle Corporation would be know as the Pull Bicycle Corporation which is nowhere near as evocative!

The course was full, with some 24 people plus Jeff Lohr and Dr Mark Timmerman from Trek, who were giving the course. 

Most of the 24 were from two big local IBDs; Race Pace from MD and Spokes Etc from northern VA. Both are independantly owned with multiple locations. They both had strong fitting cultures, even having dedicated fitters, as well as a women's program that caters to women by women. Others had come from further afield; a fairly strong Pennsylavania contingent, one guy from Boston and four Canadians. As well as myself the were three guys from JoVelo in Mont Tremblant, Jon (owner) and Dan are below. Needless to say, we stuck together.

IMHO the course was pitched ideally to someone like myself; slightly geeky, bike-experienced, bike-shop experienced and still doing a lot of hands-on in the store. I knew quite a bit of what was being presented, so I didn't feel overwhelmed with information. Rather, I was able to process the old information which was being presented; often within a framework which it hadn't necessarily had before, and integrate it with the new knowledge. Plus it's all about applying the scientific method; observe, hypothesize, predict, experiment, repeat. A process I've been doing my whole adult life, expect now I can do it with bikes! Surely a win-win.  

So overall, I now have a much better understanding of the background of bike-fitting now together with a coherent framework in which to put it and some processes to make it easier to perform. Also, when to perform it; we spent a lot of time discussing the difference between "bike sizing" and "bike fitting" which is much a business discussion as it is a cycling discussion. Anyway, this was the whole point of me coming.

Day one was lectures. Gross anatomy, biomechanics, bike mechanics and business. The load was shared evenly between Jeff and Mark. Mark was a true academic, in that he was easily sidetracked from the lecture, but to this LBS guy, the excursions from the syllabus were still interesting and added to the experience rather than take away.

The evening was on Trek at a local bar/resto called Frisco, chosen for the bewilderingly large selection of real ales on tap. Bike shops and Belgian beer; need I continue? The JoVelo guys started with shots and the evening went downhill from there! The conversation was wide ranging. We went across cycling from Trek business philosophy (in the lucid interval before the 11% ABV artisanally-brewed beer took affect), He Who Must Not Be Named(you couldn't go to Nike and not talk about Tiger Woods either! Iluminating discussions, let me tell you!), doing business against Sportcheck and MEC and finally ending with a surprisingly passionate debate on mandatory helmet use by adults!

Day two was hands on all the way. Before lunch we learned the first part of any bike fitting; the interview and testing. I was the guinea-pig for the physical examination demonstrations and Mark confirmed what I knew. I am chronically stiff, especially in the hamstrings. Never mind a Speed Concept, I think I'll have to Project 1 a Trek Verve. I think a nice Fox fork, Alfine Di2, some tubeless ready 29er race-wheels and Brooks B33 ("for our more robust customers").

The afternon was pure self!  We got our new shoes; Bontrager RXL !

We also did a full fit on ourselves. We got to be both client and fitter, seeing the process from both angles (as it were). Speaking of angles, we all downloaded digital protractor apps for our smartphones as there weren't enough goniometers. I guess I'll have to ask The Guys at work about using my phone on the sales floor!

 

Dan from JoVelo did an excellent job fitting me!

There were four sizing stations in the room, one with a differently-sized 2013 Trek Madone 5.2 and most of the tools required. Unfortunately, some of the kit destined for the course ended up in Illinois (?) so we were a little short on some things.

One sign you've been in a bike-shop too long? Totally blasé about the bikes. There was, what? $15000 retail of carbon bike just lying around, not to mention a couple of thousand dollars worth of stems, saddles and bars. Stuff most people just stop and stare at. Not to mention drooling slightly at the corners of the mouth. we need to keep a mop on the sales floor! And all you could think was "oh, another full carbon Madone? M'eh. At least it comes with the Ultegra crank". On the plus side it means we can play with these things with a certain degree of impunity, we're not intimidated by the presence of so much carbon. On the minus side, my wow-factor quotient is now so much higher than before! Along with many guys in the shop, I think I'm regressing and get more excited by nice steel now than carbon!

The fit process was great. As well as learning a whole bunch, I got a set of fit coordinates I can transfer over to my own bikes at home. If anyone is wondering, especially those people with model-year 2012 Speed Concept 7.0s, the 54cm Madone was a good fit, but a 56 cm Madone would be a bit better, espcially as my chronically tight hmastrings mean I can't run the drop I think I should have and I could use the extra head-tube. Plus it would be more aero, all other things being considered. Once you get to the retail price of a Madone 5.2 then Project 1-ing the bike for the custoom paint and nice wheels becomes a bit of a no-brainer. Just sayin'.

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Whatever happened to Virginia, Wolfe?

Overall, I'm feeling pretty stoked about this week, seeing as it finds me at a Trek Bicycles fit course. The Trek fit course has four stops this year; the Canadian stop is in Vancouver at the end of April, which is why this week finds me at the Doubletree Inn, Columbia, MD instead, Maryland being a lot easier to get to than BC, not to mention the jet-lag is a lot more manageable.

It's not the jet-lag that has me somewhat disoriented. Sitting here I'm probably only one hundred miles or so as the crow flies from Gloucester Point and Newport News, where I post-doc'd in the late nineties at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS). Even though that was 13 years ago, the license plates and Food Lion grocery stores and the general ecology of the place are familiar enough that I don't look twice, even though I think I should.

Also, for most of the years I was with the Feds, every March or April I would attend the Eastern Fish Health Workshop (EFHW), which was always in a mid-Atlantic state; Virginia (West or Occupied), Pennsylvania or either of the Carolinas. It was an opportunity to catch up with old colleagues from VIMS as well as other Canadian researchers. Plus, organiser Rocco Cipriano, was a bit (well, a lot) of a civil war buff and the EFHW would always have a battlefield tour one evening; Harpers Ferry, Antietam and even Gettysburg. Knowing I was coming to Baltimore in late March I would occasionally catch myself thinking "oh, it'll be great to see Steve again" before realising I wouldn't, unless he's had a career change like mine recently. I think Rocco managed to turn his love of the civil war into a paying proposition after he retired, so it's possible, but unlikely.

I managed to shake some of the disorientation off with a short run after I checked in. I was initially skeptical, thinking I'd probably have a shitty 5km on the road facing oncoming traffic; they don't like sidewalks in this part of the world. I was blown away to find a network of paved cycling trails, in the style of la route verte in Quebec, that snake around the woods in this area.

As I may have said, I'm super-stoked to be doing a fit course; I really enjoy the bike-fit process. I mean who wouldn't? It's science and anatomy and angles and bikes and problem solving! Chicken soup for my sciencey, bikey, nerdy soul I don't know if I'm any good at it, but this will make me better at it.

Preparing to start geeking out in three, two, one....

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