It's alive.....

Right, due to me being incredibly lazy, I have fallen behind in my blog writing, so this entry will try and catch you up with where I am and then we can return to normal service as soon as possible.

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I wrote this part of the blog back in August and never posted it...

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The afternoon after my half marathon race, Gayle landed at the airport in to claim the title of my first official guest (Martin you don't count as you were helping me move in therefore you were 'The Help'). If you cast your minds back I was telling you that during the race there was a light drizzle of rain which kept be nice and cool. This drizzle became a downpour on the way to the airport. By the time Gayle was through customs it was lashing it down. Regardless of the weather, we headed off and did a quick tour through downtown and thought that due to the rain the indoor aquarium might be a plan. We thought this as did half of Metro Vancouver. The queue was a round the block and with my stomach still feeling the effects of the run (runners know what I mean, non-runners don't want to know) I vetoed the aquarium and decided that as the rain had started to ease from monsoon to at worst flash flood levels we Capilano Suspension Bridge a try.

This turned out to be one of my best decisions all week, not saying much but still. The bridge is located half way up Grouse Mountain and because of this , as we went up I think we either went through the low cloud level or we just struck it lucky and the sun came out in a big way. I'll be as brief as I can in describing the place. Basically it is a massive canyon that for reasons that seem to resemble a well known joke, a rather rich fellow decided to build a bridge across to get to the other side. We happened to come across a free tour of the park and one of the first nuggets of information we were told was that this was the fourth incarnation of the bridge. This prompted me to ask what I thought must have been a common question in response to this info, "What happened to the first three?". As usual I assume to much, after he stopped what I thought was an unnecessarily long laugh, the guide said that no one had ever asked the question previously. Long story short that were replaced due to just improved building materials but I still think before you walk out over a very deep hole you should know what you are letting yourself in for.

The view from the bridge is amazing and apart from slight rocking, which adds to the fun, is a very safe way to get to the other side, the chicken will be informed. On the opposite side of the canyon they have setup a fantastic treetop walk, some viewing platforms of the river which flows beneath the bridge and a few other attractions to keep your interest. The Capilano Suspension Bridge is now and official stop on the Parker vistor tour schedule.

The rest of the week Gayle and I meandered our way through Vancouver doing your usual tourist things, shopping, cycling around Stanley Park, going to the Indian festival (free Indian food, whoo hoo)

I had a great visit, thank you for the company Gayle.

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3 months later....

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In the last few months I have been having a great time in Vancouver and doing a little travelling too.

I have now run the Chicago Marathon and completed it with in my goal time and BQ'd (Boston Qualified), I needed to complete the distance in 3:10:59, I rolled across the line with time to spare, 5 seconds to be exact :) My watch read 3:11:05 but thankfully the race chip read 3:10:54 and that is the one that counts! A quick shout out to Andy and Martin who also completed the race, Andy completing his first ever marathon in a scorching time of 3:56:11 and Martin who smashed his target time of 3:45 to come home in 3:37:17. A BIG thank you again goes to Gayle for being our spectator support extraordinaire (her turn to run comes soon).

After the run, we managed to do a small road trip through, Cleveland and onto New York City. While New York weather let us down a little , the run through Central Park was a great highlight.

I also managed to get back down to Houston to see some friends I have missed since being 'up north'. It took all of 30 mins after landing before I need to change my t-shirt due to sweating. How quickly I had forgotten. Another BIG thank you has to go to Dan, if it wasn't for some persistent questioning of flight times I wouldn't have found out I was half way to the wrong airport in rush hour traffic! Thankfully all it cost was a $100 dollar taxi ride and a brand new bottle of eau de cologne, no time to check bags so id didn' make it through airport security :( Lesson learned! Thanks to Alan and Gill and Dan and Leann for putting me up for my stay. Another lesson that some Woodway residents should learn is that when late night skinny dipping in the pool, check to make sure no one is watching you from the balcony ;) Maximum points to the brave resident though for getting two girls into the hot tub in the first place!

Running wise I have been ticking over since Chicago. PRR club nights have kept be honest and most Sundays I have been fortunate enough to have been invited on some great runs around different parts of Vancouver. The best one of these runs having to be the last quarter of the Knee Knacker trail race course. Amazing scenery and I can easily see trail running becoming a big part of my running.

PRR also took part in the very wet and cold Haney 2 Harrison 100K relay race. We had a great day, even with a 6:30 am race start in the dark, cold, wind and rain. I got to run leg 3 of this adventure, a 15.5k distance with the first 7.5k up hill. I let myself down a little my attacking to hard to begin with but will be wiser for next year.

The movies I have seen over the time have been far to many to report back on but for me the top picks have been: Inglorious Basterds, Whip It and Zombieland.

My last topic for this catch up is skiing. Grouse Mountain has now opened there ski runs, well one run so far. I was lucky enough to spot an offer for Grouse which allows me to go skiing one night a week for the season for the really cheap cost of $150. Wednesday was my first trip up there. I lugged my skis, boots, two set of poles (don't ask) and sundry items, gloves, helmet etc.. on to the skytrain then Seabus and then finally on to the bus that would take me up to the top of the mountain. I did all this dressed in full ski gear, needless to say I got a little warm and a also few odd looks from passengers on all the forms of transport I took. Arriving at the top I found there were 100 kph winds and a snow storm in progress. Not letting these small issues get in the way of skiing, I strapped up and went for it. After approx. one hour of getting ready, 1 hour 20 minutes of travelling to the very peak and then another 10 minutes waddling to the slope it self, I was on the snow for maybe 30 minutes. With only a very small slope open and near snow blindness, there was little fun to be had. But I will say this, it was good to have a look around and to actually have even a truncated play in the snow. I look forward to more slopes opening and the weather improving.

I have skipped lots of stuff unfortunately but I shall try to get back to form and I have even joined twitter (see link on the left) as a micro blog to try and keep me up to date.

Thanks for reading and I promise to do better in the future.

Birthdays come and go

Well I certainly have been busy over the last week so I will try and not bombard you with my usually level of mind numbing detail.

After much self congratulations on hearing I had finally completed my Open University degree last Thursday morning, I wandered up to Swanguard Stadium in Central Park to watch the final of the men's 5k race in the World Police and Fire Games. Not wishing to show any disrespect to the fireman of the world out there but it seemed to be they received a good drubbing from the police. But that is just my take on it, not sure who came out on top for the entire games. The racing was good and it gave me a chance to practise some sport action shots with my camera, as it turns out I still need more practise.

Thursday nights club run turned out to be a little harder than I had imagined. A large number of the club was taking part in a 80k (50 mile) trail race on Saturday so I had thought that most would be taking it easy on Thursday in preparation for this. I yet again underestimated these guys. Their idea of tapering for a race is very different from mine. In brief, after running up a hill ()I say hill but I think crampons would have been more suitable than running shoes) to what I can only guess/hope is the highest point in Metro-Vancouver, we had a brief respite in Queen Elizabeth Park (awesome views) before running (free falling) down the other side of the hill to the site of the 2010 Winter Olympic village. After reaching (hitting) the bottom I committed the cardinal running club sin of falling so far behind that I missed the pedestrian traffic light and the rest of the group had to wait for me to play frogger across the road to catch up to them. It didn't get much better from there, I managed to keep them in line of sight until the last kilometre then just meekly finished off.

I don't want you to get the wrong idea here. The rest of the runners in the club are fantastic, they have been really friendly and welcoming and have never once complained or even rolled there eyes (that I have seen) as I gasp for breath at the back of the pack. I also don't want you to think that I'm not enjoying it either. It is a great challenge every time I go and I feel even in the short time I have been going, my running has improved. So far each run has had a different route and I'm seeing parts of the city and surrounding area that I would not normally see. Running clubs are only as hard as you want to make them, give it a go, you don't have to be fast or take part in races, you get to meet some great people who encourage and help you achieve what you want.

Friday was my Birthday!!! Thank you to all those that sent messages, it was great. After a finishing work and speaking to my Mum I had a day of mooching around, and buying myself some presents. I have now got my wireless network up and running so watch out for the video guided tour of the apartment soon. I also got the Wii connected up so I could practise my tennis. In the evening I headed off downtown to try out another restaurant , this time The Keg won my business. The Keg seems to be a Canadian chain who specialises in steak, who am I to argue. I had a great meal here and while a little more expensive than else where, on special occasions worth the extra, nothing too fancy but nice. After steak, jacket potato and a range of deserts (best not to ask) I got home after having a good night out.

As mentioned a little earlier, PRR members were taking part in a race over the weekend called the Stormy Trail Race which wound it's way around the mountains of Squamish valley. This was meant to be a relay race which the club had entered 5 teams, but some thought that the idea of taking part in a 80k (50 mile) relay version of the race was a little to sissy for them so they attempted the whole race on there own! I had volunteered to help out at one of the aid stations along the course and to be a backup runner if anybody had to drop out. I could do a whole race report here on the days events but in the hope you are still reading this and I would like you to finish I will be concise.

The alarm went off at 3:30am and I was picked up at 4am, FYI, people were still coming home from a good night on the town. We got to the race start by 5am and the race got underway at 6am with a 12 hour cutoff for the race. I nearly got to run a couple of times but on both occasions the opportunity was wrenched from my grasp (sigh). I spent the day eating sweets and crisps that were meant for the runners and cheering as they went by. Meanwhile, our club runners put in an amazing effort. Every team finished and one team only missed a prize due to a course marshal mis-directing one of there runners. All of the solo runners finished under the 12 hour deadline and not only that but Elle beat the male and female course record from last year, winning the women's race and coming third overall having taken 57 minutes of the female course record (her own). These guys did an amazing job and I can't wait to give trail running ago myself. This will have to wait just a little bit though as the amount of lost skin and blood makes me think I will wait until after the marathon. An awesome BBQ followed the event and finally made it home at around 9:30pm. Long day and I didn't even run.

Up early again on Sunday at 5:30am. This time it was my turn to run. I was taking part in the Delta Half Marathon which was about 25 mins south of Vancouver and most importantly, flat as a pancake. Due to some interesting difficulties with my car here I was very grateful for the lift to and from the race. On arriving at the start the first thing I noticed was the three fire engines lined up out side the leisure centre where the run was starting from. I'm still not sure what the problem was but the result was there were no restroom facilities, thankfully a nearby tree did the trick for me but members of the female persuasion were getting a little antsy. A Porty-potty was found and after a 15 minute delay the race was started. Just before we got off a light rain started which kept me nice and cool, if a little damp, for the race. I set off well and after settling in everything went well until the course turned into the wind, in all fairness wind might be an exaggeration, draft would be more fair but at the 9 mile mark it was enough to slow me down a little. My target was to finish in between 1:30:00 and 1:35:00, I crossed the line in 1:32:27 so job done. They had a nice pancake breakfast for the finishers, a good medal and just as important for me, a good ribbon too.

For future reference, a steak dinner on a Friday night, an early morning the next day eating sweets, crisps and BBQ, followed by a late night, another early morning and a 13.1 mile race does not a happy stomach make!

I'm going to cut you off at this point as there is more to come from the day and I don't want to overload you. I'll post again soon.

Thanks for reading.

Sea Creatures, celluloid and bits of paper...

So far so good this week. The temperature has come back down in to the 20's and I have stopped looking like a damp rag. Tuesday was running club night and I tackled the journey this week for the first time by public transport. If I haven't already mentioned, I am but a stones throw from the Vancouver Sky Train line, and when I say stones throw I mean it. One good pitch and I would be looking at at a misdemeanour, which considering it runs until 1:30 in the morning and I can hear platform announcements is sometimes a very tempting trade off. But still it is convenient when I need it. I also have recently found out how to buy a pack of tickets at a discount as well so I'm now only paying $1.90 (£1 give or take) a journey.

Getting back on track (pardon the pun). So I start off with a 10 minute train ride into the middle of downtown, which out me in Granville Station (watch out for the theme here), I then walked out on to Granville St. and walked several blocks along there, about another 10 minutes. I then come to Granville St. Bridge which while a little scary in how close the traffic gets but does give a great view of downtown and the surrounding area, and adds another 10 minutes to the trip. After a very short walk I'm on Granville Island (see the pattern?) and 5 minutes away from the False Creek Community Centre from where we run from. So about 35-40 minutes from door to door which is the same as driving but I don't have to worry about parking or having a drink afterwards.

Tuesday was also the day I joined the running group officially. After three trial runs (the jokes keep coming) I decided that I would pony up the membership fee of $35 and legitimise our relationship. I became member 99 and after a few poorly received joke about being '...a man not a number!' (Canadians, Eh!) we went out for a club warm up then out on our individual group runs. This week saw another harbour run with a nice hill thrown in for good measure. But to add to the general scenic nature of the club runs we had a guest participant for a leg of the course. A harbour seal found us to be mildly interesting/amusing and swam along the sea wall with us until we turned away from the water. After climbing a fairly step hill we the proceeded to throw ourselves down and a bloody step hill. I don't think I have ever run that fast or with so little control and hope never to do so again. The hill in question was in the great neighbourhood of Kits and was lined with street cafes and shops. I will take a moment now to apologise to anyone who had the evening meal/walk/drive/cycle ruined by me as I hurtled out of control down the hill praying that no one would step in front of me or drive out of a side street. Picture in your mid the scene from Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy is being chased down by that giant boulder, I was that boulder and the poor unsuspecting residents and visitors of Kits were brave and quick witted Dr. Jones.

The evening ended with a good blue cheese burger and a couple of pints (yay for not driving) in a Granville Island bar next to the waterfront. And after said couple of pints, the walk back from Granville Island, across Granville Bridge, along Granville St. and into Granville station didn't seem as appealing as before so I took a $3 water taxi (aka dinghy) across the creek into downtown where is was but a short walk to the train and home.

After finding a cheapish cinema at the weekend I decided to head back and make use of their Early Bird Special. If you turn up for the first showing of a film then it is only $7.95. This cinema seems to be a bit of an oddity as it is part of a major chain but seems to show a lot of Indie flicks and small films that don;t get a wide release over here, which is great but just unusual. After having a quick browse of the listings I found the film Moon, a UK film (brilliant to begin with) staring Sam Rockwell, who I have always found to be a good watch as he seems to pick slightly screwed up characters to play. As I have said in the past I will try and not spoil any film on here for anybody who hasn't seen it, I will just say give it a quick over view though. The film is set 40 years into the future where we get the majority of our power from a harvested element from the moon. Sam Rockwell plays Sam a lone worker on the moon who is coming to the end of his three year contract to maintain the facility with the help of the bases AI machine GERTY (voiced my Kevin Spacey). After an accident caused by an hallucination (been alone to long?) things start to get a little funky. This is not a fast paced Sci-Fi action film, the fact that it is based on the moon is hardly relevant, it give several nods to films past and has a very old style of film making quality about it. Worth a watch.

On the flip side to this, I rented a DVD called Columbus Day with Val Kilmer. Now there is some controversy over this film as two versions have been released, an action version and a drama version, I have no idea which one I watched I just know I was bored my it. I have heard rave reviews about it so don't take my word for it but to me it seemed badly acted and filmed.

Last bit of news for the day. It appears that I have some how managed to wangle a pass from my last Open University course. For those that I have bombarded with simple math questions over the last 12 months I thank you, your hard work paid off. A special thanks goes out to Gayle's sister's friend's young son (see I worked hard to find these people) who while we were waiting in an airport lounge to go skiing, chipped in his effort. Also thanks go Andy who checked the kids working out, Martin for having random questions thrown at him from upstairs, Mat for emailed random questions and some assignment checking and Darren for helping ensure assignments were delivered on time including a very last minute assignment emailed at 7 am ish standing in snow from a stolen wi-fi connection out side a pub in Morzine France.

With the successful completion of this course I have finally finished my BSc degree which I started long, long ago. Whoo Hoo!!!

[The seal photo is for visualisation purposes only, I cheated and thieved it off the Net, I didn't have my camera with me.]

Big Helmets and Truncheons

This weekend saw the opening of the 2009 World Police & Fire Games here in Vancouver. Teams from around the globe are competing over 10 days in disciplines from track and field to angling (I kid you not). On Saturday you couldn't move for bumping into a Fireman, steady girls. On that subject what is it about fireman that get you so worked up? It's the helmets right? You know it is. Also I think street crime over the next week or so will be at an all time low as lots of burly, short haired, stern looking guys are prowling around the city, it doesn't seem to matter if they are in uniform or sports attire, you can spot them a mile off.

The track events are being held in the park I use to run around so I 'll be trying to go and see a few events over the time they are here. As I ambled around the park on Saturday they were starting some of the field events and it could be my imagination but these guys seemed to be taking it very seriously. I have looked over the schedule of activities and was disappointed to find there were no pole sliding events or chasing the Chav sprints, feel they missed out on an opportunity there.

The heat is slowly dying down now, in the high 20's until the end of the week when it should cool further. Friday was still warm and I have to admit to having great difficulty shifting myself out of the apartment and actually ended up just vegetating the day away in front of the TV watching a few classic films including Back to the Future. That film is great, and I don't care how old I get I still want a Deloren!

Saturday did see me lever myself off the sofa for at least a small time, after a very, very leisurely plod around the park I went down town to hunt down a nice meal. After looking for the Vancouver HardRock Cafe (closed down) and the Vancouver Planet Hollywood (closed down) I found a place on Robson St. called Milestones. I had a very nice meal at a fair price even if the Pepsi was flatter than my backside. Will be adding that to the list of revisits.

After leaving the restaurant comfortably full I wound my way through the streets ending up at one of the downtown cinemas. Now so far I have found Canadian cinemas to be quite expensive at around $13 dollars a film, but I was surprised to find even on a Saturday that they were charging a matinee fee and was just $9, score! The film in question was an Indie movie called '500 days of Summer' starring Zoey Deschanel (she's lovely) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who played the young kid in 3rd rock from the Sun. No spoilers will be found on these pages but I can safely say it is worth a watch when it reaches a cinema near you.

Sunday, as anyone who has done marathon training will now is LSR day, Long Slow Run. I have to say, I both love and loathe LSR day. It is the one day of the week you should never skip if you can avoid it as these runs are the ones that will get you across the finish line. They are a chance to test out how your endurance is building up and see what your heart reckons to the endeavour and when you have finished it you know your are not running that far again for at least a week. Really everything you do during the week is in preparation for this run, you can run as fast as you like but if you can't keep it going over the distance then the marathon is not going to happen. That is not to say that if you fall short one week on a long run then you aren't going to be able to the race, I have missed my target several times, but it does act as a great measure how you are doing and it improves your mental outlook at the race to know you can at least go this far and what it feels like to do that.

Having said all the good, the bad is that there is no way to cheat the LSR. At some point in the day you have to get up out of bed and put in the miles. I'm fantastic at creating delaying tactics to avoid the reality of having to start the run. My favourite one at the minute because I'm using the treadmill is to wait until there is a good movie on TV so I have something to watch as a clock up the miles.

So with Galaxy Quest starting at 2pm I finally managed to get myself out of the apartment and with lubed nipples (I learn my lessons) I headed off to the gym. The reason I have been using the treadmill for long runs at the minute is one because of the hot weather, it allows me to put lots of water bottles around me, and two, because I'm still looking for a flattish place to run, I like hills now but I still don't want to run them over any distance. I think my Sunday sessions on the treadmill haven't gone unnoticed either. It started a couple of weeks ago with a polite notice on the gym room notice board saying that would residents please remember that a maximum of 30 minutes should be spent on the treadmill if others are waiting. This noticed then moved right next to the treadmill and now it is not so polite. In my defence I do offer the treadmill to anyone that comes into to the gym, but I'm starting to think there might be a language barrier issue at work here. Anyway I have now come up with a new plan, I have printed a notice declaring that I'm marathon training but will be happy to move off the machine if someone else would like to use it. To add to this I'm going to get it translated into a couple of the more common languages in the complex, hopefully that should assuage my guilt.

This weeks run went very well considering it is still like an oven in the gym, I took 3 bottles of water with me and still managed to lose 4 lbs in sweat! I had a slight hiccup with my heart rate monitor half way through, either the battery died or my heart gave out, given the continued breathing I went for option one. So after Galaxy Quest had finished and School of Rock was reaching its crescendo I finished the run. One problem I do seem to have picked up is a sore right Achilles tendon, I'm hoping that cause is that I have been using some light weight trainers on the treadmill and that they haven't been offering enough cushioning for my stompy gate. I'm going back to my normal trainers this week and with some rest, ice, compression and elevation (R.I.C.E love those acronyms) I'm hoping it clears up.

Enough of my droning for this post, I will go and get on with living. A quick mention to Andy, Gayle and Martin who ran in the Wellingborough 5 mile road race this weekend, they all put in personnel best times and did themselves proud, well done guys. Good Job!