Starting 2014 blogs with a rant

So. Entertain me here with a bit of a rant. When talking to someone out side your normal circle try not to use words like 'only', 'slow', 'fast'. And by this I mean don't compare yourself to others unless you're doing it within your circle for smack talk. Until recently I was one of those that compared myself to others, talked about slow I was compared to others, put myself down in front of those that were faster than me. I even had someone point at a coworker half my size and ask if I'd rather have their body. I've been reflecting a lot this month (having hard time getting back into training) and realized I like my busy! My body took me on a marathon, a whole lot of triathlons, not to mention about four half marathons, who can say that? It's a work in progress and I must love all progress....slow or fast!

As for my rant. I was in the stream room after my swim lady week and an older gentleman was asking about my swimming. How far I went that daddy, etc. I didn't want to say my 1000m was a short swim so I said I was testing my 1000m for an upcoming trace. We got into triathlon talking and, although he's blown out his knees and is limited to swimming, he's going to start upping how many Lengths he does. That I was am inspiration for him to do more. This is someone at least 20-30 years older than me. Me....I was an inspiration. Maybe it was the way I talked about my training, I could have been a number of things. Just remember...you never know who you will inspire. If you just change the wording slightly!! You could really have a difference on someone's life.

If you do marathons and someone is doing their first 5km...don't use only! Congratulate them! Sometimes it's embarrassing and hard to get out the door when you first start something.  I don't know about the rest if you runners but anytime I see someone struggling I just want to high five then and keep going!

Happy training!

Song of the day!

I just discovered Jessie Ware the other day and am loving this song!

http://youtu.be/u03f5Wnwff0

Bulletproof Executive and chocolate covered strawberries!

I'm currently on day 33 of the bulletproof executive diet. One of my coworkers turned me onto it. Interesting. No grains or dairy for 33 days, I've had sugar but only here or there (mostly in my chocolate! You're allowed 85% or higher chocolate!!) Its been working out so far. I've been PBing a lot with my running, once or twice with swimming and am lifting heavier with some things. Although, after having a great weekend of lifting at the gym I had my ass seriously kicked by my trainer on Tuesday. He reminded me bad lifting days are only around the corner :)

I will be having a few bourbons for the first time though on Friday night. I've not had a drink for almost two months, but, allowed to have spirits if they aren't mixed. Perfect! I love double bourbons on ice. And I shouldn't say "allowed". I'm enjoying this diet (not diet, lifestyle). Its making my more energetic, I'm no longer bloated, I find that I have better workouts, PBing my runs. Its worth continuing to see what else I can do with it.

 I've been riding a lot on weekends. Its been unbelievable weather in Vancouver the last couple months! A lot of extra fall mileage has been put on both my bikes. My cyclocross was "injured" but is back in action! I've no idea how but I completely bent my back wheel, the expensive one! It rides much better now that its fixed, and my chain is repaired and my front tire is tightened. I have a feeling I should take a course in bike maintenance and repair! Luckily I have someone on retainer that can fix my bike for me :)

 I've also been trying my hand at some yummy, and quite interesting, desserts. The cookies are simple recipe, honey, almond butter, pumpkin and spices, dropped onto a cookie sheet and baked. We've decided they'd be delicious frozen with coconut gelato between it!

I also informed of a super easy recipe for making chocolate, I thought, hmmmm, you could totally make chocolate covered strawberries with it! Yum, delicious. You have to leave in the fridge after it hardens but so delicious! I decided to make my own healthy pops, bananas with almond butter between, then dipped in chocolate! Delicious. Bonus picture, my cat's demon eyes. I was eating something, he wanted to know what and tried to make me share!

The chocolate was easy, double broiler (I used a small pot and small bowl), coconut oil, raw cocoa, honey. Boom! That's it! You need to play with it for thicker or thinner consistency. But its pretty basic and very easy. Have I mentioned how delicious too? Very!!

Whistler 50 - 2013

Once again my friend Thomasina, Anna and I took a couple teams to Whistler for the run and it didn't disappoint! Year two and my team (Get Ready for My Sweetness) took off 30 minutes from the previous year. Thomasina and Anna's team (Taste the Rainbow) took off 50 minutes. We had fun hanging out, it was WARM!!The morning started off as 0 degrees, yes, some frost but it was clear and by the time the last person was coming across the finish line it was 18 degrees. Did I mention this was October 19? Yes!! After I was mocked all week talking about Pure Bread non-stop, just about the entire team fell in love with the place (if you haven't been, go! Delicious!) I can't wait for Whistler 50 - 2014!

Vegas 2014!!

I'm currently on my couch watching the finish line of Florida Ironman. A girl I follow on facebook (A Fat Girl's Ironman Journey) is still out there with 2 minutes left to cross. Its inspiring watching the last few minutes, those last few people coming across that finish line, knowing they've been out there, on their own for almost 17 hours. Can you imagine? 17 hours swim, bike, run. Trying to hit each of the cut offs within time. Amazing!!!

2015 Whistler Ironman is still on my radar. For now, I'm registered for 2014 70.3 Half Ironman in Vegas, and, because so many of my friends have FOMO, I've a group of them coming down to do it as a relay! Woot! Very exciting. Although scary, never been to Vegas, must not wander Vegas while trying to focus on race, will get distracted!

Currently training for my first race of the year, UBC Tri-du (love that race!!). Actually, thinking of a run in West Vancouver the weekend before as my first official race but I guess my first triathlon will be the UBC Tri-du. I might have convinced people to do that one with me as well :) yes, I'm evil!

And yes, my injuries from the summer are starting to heal. I did a metric century last weekend on the bike, slow pace but felt great! I'm currently trying the Bulletproof Executive diet (lifestyle, its' not a diet) to see if this can help with weight loss and improve speed. So far so good but second time around trying it and currently on day six. No sugar, no grains, no dairy (I miss cheese) and no alcohol (I miss dairy more than my scotch and bourbon). Headaches are mostly gone :)  Doing my first brick tomorrow so we'll see how much its helping so far!

My non-athletic experiences of Ironman Whistler (what a fantastically fun day!)

As someone who took up racing two years ago, its amazing to think, I've never watched a race, not even when I tried to run a few years ago, I've never really watched a race from start to finish and since I withdrew from Ironman 2013 I wanted to still experience it. I've watched Ironman on TV since the early 80's and always thought, wow, one day I would need to try this, so it went on my imaginary bucket list. It was a wish but I never thought it would happen. Even watching an Ironman was on my bucket list and I was not disappointed!

I volunteered for beach assistance. I got up at 3am on Sunday morning, you could feel the excitement and nervousness in the air. I'm sure very few people who were doing Ironman slept the night before. I wandered out from my hotel about 4am, to my delight Starbucks was open! Grabbed a coffee and headed to the free shuttles. There were already a lot of athletes there getting marked (marking was happening near the T2 section), a full bus took off to the water and my bus was full when it left, it was barely 430am.

The mood on the bus was mostly up, nervous, the guy beside me was quiet, understandable! Then two Australians got on the bus, with sort of a Fuck yah mother fucker we're doing Ironman today attitude! I got there early and not surprisingly a lot of athletes were there already, I'd say about 1/3 of those participating in the day. When you looked at the lake it was calm like a bath-tub, steam was rising. It looked absolutely perfect for a morning swim!

My assignment that morning was helping the athletes out of the wetsuits as they came out of the water (strippers!) We didn't really have much to do until the athletes starting coming out of the water so we helped them until their wetsuits. I know its hard to get into one on my own so if we saw someone struggling we just went and start helping them. The elite men were to start at 650am, the women at 653am then everyone else in a mass start at 7am, no matter if they were in the water or not. They had to swim out 200 metres and tread water until the start.

One of the best parts of the morning (before the swim started) was the man who just saw his wife and daughter into the water for their first Ironman, then, the announced said broke the surprise, he was going to Ironman with them! This was probably the third time I cried that morning. It was pretty cool, he had secretly checked in his bike, gotten marked, brought his wetsuit. He had his trisuit on under street clothes, quickly changed and got into the water to a rounding applause from those that were on the water watching and all of the volunteers!! So exciting!!!

About 740 the first elite man was out of the water (HOLY SHIT!). The elites don`t want our help, the people that want our help are the newbies! Just before 8am the athletes started out of the water and our job started. Man was it fun! We were told if we hadn`t `stripped` wetsuits before we should watch a couple rounds and then jump it. It`s not overly difficult to do, just need to help them out when they come out of the water. Some were funny. After saying to one guy `don`t worry, we`ll have to stripped out in a matter of seconds` his response was, where have you been all of my life. Another older athlete said as were helping him out `please don`t lose my speedo`. One girl from Manitoba was so bad ass that she swam the entire thing in her bathing suit!!! She got serious props from all of us on the beach! Total badass.

I was mentally cheering on all of the athletes still in the water. They were starting the count down for when everyone had to be out of the water. Probably 20 people didn`t make it. Some because of medical reasons when they got out of the water. most because they were still in the water. At the cut off there were people just right there but weren`t allowed to continue (like, a second or two late). Ron Zalko (founder of Ironman Canada) said that if they wanted to try again next year he would pay for their entry fees!

We did some clean up and then I walked back up to the village. I watched some of the bikers pass and, wow, hams! As they passed people they would put their hands to their ears or wave their hand up in the air...wanting us to cheer them on. There were some impressive bikes (its like bike porn to me), amazing riders! I went and joined up with my friends that were there. My friend Erika bought me a cowbell! Woot! Now I could be really loud and annoying while cheering!

We wandered over to T2, watched some runners take off, then wandered over to the farmers market for a break, tea and turnovers then back to watch the action. We were hanging out for a bit watching the runners around the 4 or 5km point. We saw a few people with good sense of humor! A buy in a tuxedo t-shirt (actual bike shirt), one dressed up like a school boy, another as spider man and someone with a plaid shirt (again, an actual bike shirt!).

Then it was finish line time!! We were there early so we got to see the top men and women cross. Trevor Wurtele was the male and  Uli Bromme the top female. I know she spent the last few hours at the finish line as well! So very cool.

I got to watch a couple people finish their very first (don`t know if last) Ironman. Both were over 40, both had sub 12 hour 30 minute Ironman times! Impressive! I spent most of the next 5 hours at the finish line. Yacked to people from all over the world, some were there to cheer on random strangers (like me!) and some were there watch their family or friends come over the finish. Got to mock an American because he was complaining he couldn`t stop saying Eh! I told him it`ll never go away and he`s now officially a Canadian! There were also some French people who seemed to be violently cheering on their friends. Was pretty funny to hear and watch!

The last two hours of the finish line were the most moving, and tons of fun! About 10-1030 the finish line was 4 to 5 deep in spots, one to two deep in others. Runners came down the finisher chute high-fiving on both sides, one runner stopped and proposed to his girlfriend (she said yes). A mom came down and was greeted by her son (about four) dressed as Ironman. Another dad was joined by his five kids (all under the age of 7).

The last runner came across at 11:57 and some seconds. Then the countdown and the course was officially closed.

There are so many emotions that I felt that I haven`t shared, and might not. There are other stories I experienced that I haven`t shared yet. I also have pictures that I`ll share once I download them. It was a long day for me, not NEARLY as long as the athletes. Everyone, whether an 8 hour 40 minute finisher or 16 hour 57 minute finisher deserves as much admiration as possible! I do lean a little more towards the 16 hour 57 minute finisher though. Most were struggling, sweating, hoping to make each cut off. There`s a reason the crowds are bigger from the 14.5 hour marker and on. Random strangers cheering on random strangers. Seems like a perfect way to spend a lovely Whistler evening to me.

I feel so inspired to pick up the training and I`m going to make it to 2015. I`ll be in line Monday, July 28, 2014 to sign up! And PS, my hotel is already booked for 2014 to volunteer again!

Song of the moment

More like song obsessed with right now! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-7lUTFuutU

I know, I do like my house music. This song reminds me of hot summer nights, after hours location so sweaty that the walls and ceilings were dripping, music pumping until 6am. Walking home at 7-8am with a smile on my face from dancing and hanging with my friends.