Yes, it has been awhile and lots has happened: Lance gives up as does WTC on Penticton and Ironman Canada. Challenge Family triathlon steps in and takes over the iron distance race in Penticton (Challenge Penticton), I signed up for Challenge Penticton and two of my athletes have outstanding performances in the month of August. I wish I had time to write about all of them but since I have to go back to my real job tomorrow :-( so my time is limited. So, in the interest of time I will heap some praise on my two athletes, Jen and Andrew. Jen competed in the sprint race at the Apple Triathlon in Kelowna on August 19th. She worked really hard for the past three month and of course, hard work pays off. She won her age group by 5 minutes! She beat her PB by 6 minutes and she finished 5th overall out of the women. She had a great race. Way to go Jen! Andrew was going for a Kona slot at Ironman Canada on August 26th. He had a great year of training. He was in great shape. We had a great plan for him and he executed it almost flawlessly. He came out of the water 5 minutes down from where we had hoped. Andrew said it was a really rough swim in terms of body contact. Ah, the mass open water swim start. Not for the faint of heart. Once he got on the bike, he was a superstar! He passed 32 guys in his age group and over 600 people on the bike! What a ride! We worked really hard on his cycling so I wasn't really surprised. Running is his strength and he passed 3 more guys in his age group with a 3:14 marathon. He finished at 9:44, 7th in his AG and an amazin 37th overall! He had beat his previous IMC time by over 50 minutes! Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough for a Kona slot. There were only 2 slots for his AG. I am very proud of him (and Jen too of course!) and I look forward to working with both of them again!

Someone asked me recently about Lance's return to triathlon. I think it's great! It's certainly going to make Kona interesting this year. Here's some otherthoughts about LA. Disgraced former professional cyclist, Floyd Landis, recently admitted that he did use a banned substance when he won the Tour de France in 2006. No, really? He lost the race lead after Stage 16 when he finished over 8 minutes behind Spaniard Oscar Pereiro. The next day, Landis miraculously picked himself up off the deck, rode a 120 km solo breakaway up the mountains to win Stage 17 by almost 6 minutes and regain the yellow jersey. This would be equivalent to coming back to win a hockey game from ten goals down after the first period and losing your two best players. Landis went on to win the Tour but was eventually stripped of the title when he tested positive for EPO (a banned substance used by endurance athletes to increase oxygen in the blood). Nobody was really shocked. Cycling has always been rife with doping scandals. Tom Simpson died on Mont Ventoux in 1967 after taking a mixture of amphetamines and alcohol. The Tour de France in 1998 was called the Tour de Dopage (need a translation?) because of the Festina Affair. Even the greatest cyclist ever, Eddy Merckx, has had three positive doping tests. He claims innocence in all three cases but you have to wonder. What makes the Landis admission such a story is that he spent two years defending himself and racked up almost $2 million in legal fees. Why spend all that time and money when you were you were going to come clean anyway? Landis has certainly screwed himself out of any comeback to cycling. No team in their right mind would sign this guy. So, what do you do you’re your ship is going down? Take someone with you and Landis, of course, went after Lance. Lance is Lance Armstrong, 7 time winner of the Tour de France. He actually won 7 in a row but more amazingly he won them all after given less than a 50% chance of beating brain and testicular cancer. Being accused of doping was nothing new to Armstrong. How do you go from being a rider who was known more for winning one day races ( “classics”) to your death bed to winning the toughest stage race 7 straight times? Given cycling’s notorious past, he must have taking something, right? Nobody will ever know for sure but he has peed in more test tubes than the rest of us have toilets and has never had a positive test. He has said numerous times that it would be stupid of him to go from almost dying to taking performance enhancing drugs that could have the same end result. A positive test would also ruin his credibility as well as his Foundation aimed at fighting cancer. Armstrong has always wanted to be known more as a cancer survivor than a Tour winner. Given this, it would be hard to believe that he isn’t clean. Some of you regular readers may be wondering what this has to do with triathlon? Well, Lance has thrown his hat into the ring for the 2011 Ironman World Championships in Hawaii. Much has been made lately of how he will do in Kona. Armstrong was a top ranked triathlete as a teenager before turning to cycling so this will be nothing new to him. I think that given his competitive nature and his superhuman endurance capabilities, he will fare very well. Craig Alexander (current two time defending champ) has nothing to worry about but a top twenty isn’t out of the question. Just as long as he continues to do it clean. The sport I love is Hilary Duff compared to cycling’s Lindsay Lohan and I would hate to see that ever change. The only triathlete to ever get caught doping at Kona was Nina Kraft in 2004. In keeping with triathlon’s image of honesty, she admitted to taking EPO and took her punishment unlike Floyd Landis. Okay, enough of the history lesson. We have too many great athletes nowadays whose accomplishments are tainted because of doping. Even someone like Usain Bolt has to be suspected of doping because of all the sprinters who were caught before him. I am proud to say that triathlon’s doping record is very short. Besides Nina Kraft, I could only find two other “big names” that were listed as being caught for doping. So, I welcome Lance’s return to triathlon not only because it will make that race even more interesting but also because Lance fits the mould. He trains hard, he is kind to others despite reports to the contrary, and he is clean. Maybe Lance should have been a triathlete all along. Then, he wouldn’t have had to put up with the Floyd Landis’ of the world trying to drag him into their own sinking ships.

Good morning. It's 5:30am on a Saturday morning. Why am I up this early on a Saturday? It's the only time I have today to do my workout. My wife works all day today so I am on duty all day. Sometimes I can do a bike workout while my three boys are playing or watching TV. However, they are boys so they fight and I have to get off my bike, give them heck then get back on. I need some focus this morning because I am going to do a 20 minute power threshold test on my bike. I am excited to do it because I like to push myself but I am also nervous because I'm afraid of what kind of numbers I'm going to see. That last two days I've done nothing. Been sleeping and napping a lot. Feeling unmotivated. I don't think there is anything wrong with me. Maybe subconsciously my body was telling me to rest up for the test today so I can put up a big number. I guess we'll see in about an hour.

A New Year.

When I did my first Ironman Canada way back in 2000 I kept a journal. It was a record of all the events of that year leading up to the race. Doing my first Ironman was a significant event in my life and I wanted to remember it. Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the like didn't exist in 2000 so those thoughts stayed private although some of them did make it onto a website of the running store that I worked at back then.

I am going to start to keep a journal again for my year (well, part of a year) leading up to the Great White North triathlon (GWN). It's a half Ironman on the first Sunday in July located in Stony Plain, Alberta. I've done it 6 times previously but I haven't since 2005. So why am I keeping a journal for this year? I have no real motivation for keeping a journal for this excpet that I like to write and this is a good subject to write about. My first Ironman journal was a good way for me to reflect on training and life events. Instead of keeping these thoughts private, this time I'm going to share them through this blog and through Twitter and Facebook. Why am I going to share them? Well, I guess it's because I can. With a click, I can share my journey with people all over the world. Some may find them interesting or even motivational. I'm hoping that maybe some of those people can send some motivation my way. I'm excited about doing the GWN again but achieving my goals for the race are not going to be easy and a little extra boost from some folks out there would be great. Or, maybe no one reads this except my Mom and I have to find my own motivation. Doesn't matter, I'm doing it anyway. The kids are up now so it's time for me to go be Dad. TTFN!

I love you Dad.

Part of my evening routine is the watch the news. Sometimes I wonder why I do it because most of the news isn't good news. The other night was no exception. One of the stories was about how teens are going into department stores and knocking over displays, going into grocery stores and knocking stuff of the shelves. Basically, acting like total jackasses. One young man was riding a skateboard through a store and totally ignored the store employee trying to get him to stop. To top it all off, they record their antics and post it on YouTube. Watching these idiots was one thing but to read some of the comments that like minded morons were posting were almost worse. "Soo funny" or "that's awesome". How do any of these people think that this is okay? We are raising a generation of kids who have no respect for others or their property. What's up with the parents of these kids? The reason for the title of this post is that my Dad may have been tough on me and I didn't always like it but it was for a reason:he loved and wanted me to grow up to be a good person. I think he was successful. I wasn't a perfect teenager but what teenager can be perfect with all those hormones pulling them in ten different directions. But, I knew better than to trash a department store or disrespect my elders. I hope that as a father of three boys, I can do as good a job of raising my boys as my Dad did.

Musings on Kona

This is a little piece I wrote last year about Kona. I look so forward to the TV broadcast every year. It's this Saturday on NBC at 2:30PM Mountain.

Thirty two years ago, 15 men of questionable sanity stood on a beach in Honolulu, Hawaii for the first running of what will become the Holy Grail of the sport of triathlon, the Hawaii Ironman. The race was created from the debate of who was more fit: swimmers, cyclists or runners? Navy Commander John Collins, the founder of this madness called Ironman, suggested that the debate be settled by combining three existing long distance events already on the Island, a 2.4 mi./3.86 km swim, a 112 mi./180 km bike ride and a 26.2 mi./42.2 km run (the marathon). Some history suggests that Ironman was born out of a beer fuelled bar bet. That would have been easy to believe because someone must have been pretty blasted to dream up something like that and even deeper down the bottle to agree to take part in it. Nonetheless, those 15 guys showed up, hungover or not, and Ironman was born. Of the 15 who started, 12 finished. The winner was Navy man Gordon Haller in a time of 11 hours and 46 minutes. Second place finsher, Navy SEAL John Dunbar, was leading off the bike but faded after running out of water. His support crew gave him beer instead.

Ironman has so many crazy and inspiring stories in its past. Before the 17 hour cutoff was instituted, Walt Stack took over 26 hours to finish the race in 1982. Why so long? Well, he rode on a single speed bike and he stopped at a waffle house for breakfast before finishing the race. Also in 1982, Julie Moss had the lead with 500 metres to go when her legs gave out forcing her to crawl the last 15 metres to the finish line. Sian Welch and Wendy Ingraham tried to outcrawl each other for 4th and 5th place in 1997. There’s a great clip of it on youtube. Then there is the “Ironwar” between Dave Scott and Mark Allen in 1989. Dave Scott was “The Man” at Ironman through the 1980’s winning six times. Mark Allen had always finished just behind Scott in those races. He figured that the only way to beat him was to stay right on his shoulder for the whole race. It is very rare that in race as long as Ironman, you get two guys side by side for the whole race but that’s just what he did. The strategy paid off and Mark Allen finally beat Dave Scott.

My favorite Ironman story is about Dick and Ricky Hoyt. They were a father and son team who did Ironman together. Ricky was born with so many birth defects that the doctors told Dick to institutionalize him because he would be nothing but a vegetable. Dick knew different and was determined that Ricky would be able to do almost anything other kids could. His determination paid off as Ricky attended public school and graduated from University in 1993. Dick’s determination to include Ricky included sports too. Dick started running and pushed Ricky in a modified wheelchair. That led to them competing in Hawaii. They would swim with Dick pulling Ricky in a rubber boat attached to Dick by a bungee cord. Then they would bike on a two seater bike, with Ricky sitting in a seat on the front of the bike. Hardly aerodynamic. Then, Dick would push Ricky in a wheelchair for the marathon. They finished under 16 hours. You would have to see it to believe it. There’s a clip on youtube called “CAN”. I challenge you not to cry.

I have never been to Kona either as an athlete or a spectator. I have vowed in print some years previous to this that I would someday qualify for the Hawaii Ironman. That will take some doing. My fastest time at Ironman Canada was almost a whole hour slower than the last qualifier in my age group. I figure that if I keep racing, I can maybe qualify when I’m 60. I sure hope it happens sooner than that but that’s how tough it is to get to Kona. So why try to do something that difficult? As JFK said of putting a man on the moon, “We do these things not because they’re easy but because they are hard.” I can hardly wait to cross that finish line in Kona. I often visualize myself running through the carpeted finishing chute, high fiving spectators. I can almost feel the heat and the excitement in the crowd. It will be worth all the hard work that I will have to put into it.

What is your Hawaii Ironman? What is that thing that you want to accomplish? Is it a triathlon? Is it being able to run around the block without throwing up? Is it quitting smoking or losing weight? Whatever it is, take up the challenge. It won’t be easy but what in life is? Taking on that challenge will make all those other life challenges seem trivial. Cleaning out the garage will be a walk in the park compared to fighting off that urge to inhale that can of Pringles. The thing is, we are capable of doing great things for ourselves and our family if we put our minds to it. If Dick Hoyt can, can’t you?

Welcome to my blog!

I know, not very creative and this post isn't even original.  It's one I posted about a year ago on the Mud Sweat and Gears website.  My hope is to post things as I think of  them.  Obviously, most posts will be about the great sport of triathlon: personal stories, thoughts and other ramblings.  Also, since I now have the power to blog about non-triathlon things like why people can't park between the lines in a parking lot.  A real pet peeve of mine.  I hope you enjoy!

MY ADDICTION

 What you might hear  at a TA ( Triathletes Anonymous)meeting:

                “Hello, my name is Dave and I am a triathlete. I have been a triathlete for 12 years.  I used to be a football player but my supplier (The University of Alberta) ran out of stuff (I used up all my eligibility).  I needed a fix, man.  I tried golf but I couldn’t get the same rush. (I was a lousy golfer.  Still am.)  Then I found triathlon. I wasn’t sure at first.  Two hundred and fifteen pounders in spandex isn’t a pretty sight but after my first race I was hooked.  I started training all the time, I lost a whole bunch of weight and maxed out a credit card.  I even started shaving my legs.  I’ve done three Ironmans and I want to do a fourth.  What the hell is the matter with me?  I tried to get out a couple of times but the stuff is too strong.  I can’t stay away.  It’s gotten so bad that I think I want to try an Ultramarathon.  What is my family going to think?  I need help!”

If you are reading this then you are either my Mom or you are just like me, a triathlete.  We are addicted to early morning swims, riding more kilometers than some people put on their cars and running until we feel like puking.  And we will read anything about triathlon because we are either looking for something that will shave a few minutes off our run time (or waistline) or we are looking for support from fellow endorphin junkies.  Most of our non-tri friends don’t understand.  They all think we’re nuts.  Sometimes I think I’m nuts but when I don’t train in the morning, I go through withdrawal and feel like crap for the rest of the day.  Sound familiar?  If yes, then you need help.  That’s why I’m here.

Paul has been supporting my habit for 5 or 6 years now.  I can’t really remember.  We used to do deals in his garage.   All kidding aside, Paul is has been big help to me and my triathlon addiction.  This little column is my way of paying up.  My hope is to give some training advice, tell some funny stories and bring more of us triathlon junkies together.  There is a lot of us out there (in Sherwood Park) and we all could use a little support.  The first step is admitting it. 

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