Run, Cook, Bike

After a fairly active weekend I decided to take Monday of from running and give my body a much needed break. The weather while rainy was still pretty warm so I did make the choice to still get out of the apartment and go for walk. The park near my apartments is always great to have a wander round and even with a light drizzle it was a pleasant walk with the squirrels bounding around and do mock charges at you, still not use to that one, and the big Koi Carp type fish skimming the surface in the lake scaring the heck out of the ducks.

Tuesday started off with a full on down pour and the forecast looked like it was set to stay for the day. With running club in the evening I was already dreading a third run in a row of getting soaked. Through the afternoon the rain was on and off and when I left the apartment there were some pretty ominous black clouds hanging over downtown. But I'm glad to say after getting there and changed and actually out on the Tuesday club warm up, the sun came out and it was a great night for a run around the creek.

With 12 days to go until the Sun Run I'm trying to push hard on the club runs and my one speed work session a week and with some great runners in the club it is easy to find someone to push that bit faster. Due to the creek run being about 1K shy of 10K we added on an extra part to get closer to the 6.2 miles of the race. With the sun hitting the water and a cool breeze it was a good evening for finding that little extra motivation and even though we took a quick break at the half way point I'm really happy with the workout, especially as we almost did negative splits virtually the whole way round (each K faster than the last). The average pace was about 4:08 per K over the 9.6K distance, to get my dream result in the race I need 3:59 min per K. So still a little to go but I'm feeling positive that I will get close. And the best bit of the evening as always was having a couple of beers after and now that we finish before dusk we get to sit my the side of the dock and drink watching the sun set over the city, brilliant!

I've been looking forward to today for a little while now. Ever since I started my month of vegetarianism I have wanted to get Sukhi to show me how to make some authentic Indian dishes from scratch. Having finally got myself organised and found a time we could do, today was to be my cooking lesson. The first thing I have learned is just how many different things go into the dish. With Sukhi help I have know got more herbs, spices and seeds in my kitchen than ever before, they have even now got there own special box.

Not only did Sukhi show me how to get going with the base for a lot of Indian dishes he also showed me some cooking basics which I have been frighteningly lacking, things like how to dice an onion, up until now it has been more like a massacre than dicing.

After extensive not taking and Sukhi making it look so effortless I'm psyched to give it a go on my own. I have a suspicion that it will take a few attempts to get anything close to what I ate today but I'm up for the challenge and what's the worse that can happen, right? :)

And yes what we did today was vegetarian. A spicy mushroom dish which had a great kick and even made my nose run a little. With the meat embargo ending on Friday I shall be adding chicken to these dishes as well but also doing veggie ones as well, I have come to appreciate a veggie option every now and again.

With my cooking class over and a nice tingling feeling on my taste buds it was back to Costco to finally get off the fence and buy a bike. I have chosen to get a cheap hybrid option that will get me around town and then if and when I give triathlons ago I can get a specific road racing bike.

After doing a few laps of the Costco isles and taking pictures of me in different helmets, turns out I look stupid in all head wear, I have got the bike and helmet and weather permitting I shall cycle down to club tomorrow night to test it all out. I shall report how city riding goes shortly.

Finally, having received a fair amount of stick for NEARLY peeing in the Costco sink I will endeavour to get a photo to prove how easy an error it was to make. Only problem with this is finding a moment when the the place is deserted as people sort of get funny when you take a camera out in the restroom, go figure.

I know what I did this weekend!

Well to sum before I even start, this weekend lived up to and surpassed expectation.

I had been wondering whether or not to take part in a trail race this weekend as I have never done one and do enjoy the trails and wonder what the differences would be from running on the road and on the trails. This weekend saw the first of the Five Peaks series and I had thought about giving it a go. As it turns out I didn't, It cost to much and it was to far away so the story of my first trail race will have to wait for another day :)

Instead, Ross, PRR's esteemed president suggested doing an orientation run (means trial run, I think) for the ominously named, although I'm assured it's for a different reason, Iron Knee and Tender Knee races. So at 8am on Saturday morning Ross, Barry and myself were to be found on the North Shore lined up in the drizzling rain waiting to go for a bit of a jolly in the mountains.

The group that organise these events are called Mountain Madness, name says it all, and are very well organised at that. On arriving we were handed maps with a full list of directions on that the course would be taking. Unfortunately these directions mainly consisted of trail names such as Power line, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Old Buck and Mystery Creek to name a few. As this meant pretty much nothing to any of us we resolved to follow the trail run leaders instead, who make sure no one actually gets lost. There was a many groups to cater for most abilities so if anyone is tempted, you could do a lot worse than to try it out with theses guys and girls, and for once in running the girls seemed to outnumber the boys.

This would be Barry's first real trail run and while the temperature was cool and the rain coming down it did nothing to dampen his spirit of taking on the challenge. We all headed off and the order for the rest of the run was pretty much sorted straight off, Trail leader Darren in front, Barry close behind and Ross and I trying to keep them insight. The course was only 12k long but fairly soon into the run we were faced with the Power line Trail which is aptly named as it follows the power lines running up to the side of Mt. Seymour, raising over a 1000ft in elevation over nearly 3k of constant incline. After attempting to run the first couple of hundred metres we all pretty much switched to power hiking, then hiking, then walking and then using our arms to push our legs to keep them moving. I have to say it was a bit of a challenge. As always though, what goes up must come down and let me tell you it was a fun run down. I have said it before about trail running but there is something that makes me feel like a little kid again. Running heedlessly down a mountain jumping over rocks and trees and splashing through mud and puddles, it real is great fun. We eventually arrived back at the start after nearly an hour and half, coated with mud and all with big smiles plastered over our faces, although that could have been due to the fact that we could now change into warm dry clothing, you decide.

The fact that it was still only just after 10am meant we decided to grab some brunch and headed over to a place I first went to when I got to Vancouver, The Three Lions. A British pub where the football (soccer) was on the TV and we could grab some breakfast and an early beer, well we had been running we had earned it!

After getting home and soaking in the bath for a while to regain feeling in my toes I got the mundane weekend tasks out the way, clothes washing/drying etc and in between cycles, catching some welcome naps.

Saturday night and for once I had plans that didn't involve running what so ever. Ed had organised a meal at a restaurant called Chambar where Belgian Tapas was the theme, followed by a film and then a few drinks.

Trying to speed up this blog I will just say that while the food and drink at Chambar was amazingly cooked and presented I was left a little hungry and it was a tad expensive. I think that it is more due in fault to me than the restaurant. I get a little grumpy when portion size is small and to be honest I'm just probably not sophisticated enough for places like this, which the fact that I managed to drop a muscle into my lap attested to. Don't get me wrong though I did enjoy the meal, The different beers that the waiter kept recommending were great and I did try muscles for the first time which as long as I didn't look at it as I ate it, tasted lovely. The bits of bison we had while small were very tasty as well. Although I did draw the line at calamari, I have said it before and it is worth saying it again, I like calamari as long as it is not in it's original form, tentacles, I don't do tentacles!

It should be observed at this point that this weekend has not been a good one for the vegetarian challenge with several slip ups. I would however argue that I would have hardly eaten if I had stuck firm and frankly I have been very hungry all weekend.

The least said about the film the better. We saw Control Alt Delete and frankly while I try and find the good in most movies this was just horrendous from start to finish. It was a Canadian film, shot in Vancouver I wanted to like it but just couldn't. Not to spoil it for anyone but the basic blot is that it is set in 1999 and follows a stressed head programmer who is in charge of Y2K fixes for a major corporation. He finds the only ways to 'relieve' his stress is to drill holes into PC's and screw them. I kid you not. There were a couple of funny moments and good performances but nothing could make up for the scenes of him banging away at his desktop or in the big finale, the firms mainframe. Wrong, wrong, diddly wrong! Stop funding this rubbish, there are talented people out there, let them have a chance.

Right, I've got that out my system. Thankfully the evening picked up again after that with us heading into Gastown and a great cozy little bar called Six Acres. With pictures on the wall of celebrity guests, ranging from Rowan Atkinson to Don Johnson and a shelf full of board games like Ludo and Connect 4 this was a great place to hang out, sample some more tasty beers and enjoy the conversation. With Victoria back from her trip to Australia and Barry, Ed, his friend Fiona from New Zealand and myself we covered most a vast array of topics thinking nothing of bashing our way through politics and religion, insulting pretty much everyone along the way, or I did at least, fun times :)

Sunday morning and again the alarm is going off before 7am. With only a week to go before the Vancouver Marathon and Half, this morning's Sunday PRR club run headed off the trails and back onto the road. We were running from the False Creek Community Centre where we meet on normal club nights and running up to the UBC campus and back with a round trip of just under 22k, perfect warm up for those running the half next week.

The run is basically a 9.5K 'ish flat run out to UBC where we climb a long but not steep slope into the UBC campus, turn around and retrace our steps back to the Granville Island. There were lots of runners out today getting in the final long run before next week and several times we saw people we knew along the way. The running community here is very friendly and it's great to have some one give you a wave when you are not feeling that into it. We also managed to run through a film location who seemed to be trying to recreate a carnival type scene at one of the many beaches along the way. I do still get a kick from seeing all the trucks and lighting and cameras although it is a fairly common occurrence here.

After getting to the top of the UBC hill and turning around the weather which had started off cold and windy decided to through another element into the mix, rain. It was a long hard slog back, running into the wind and rain I was soon drenched and frankly I was sapped of any energy I had left. The film crew seemed determined to get there scenes shot with background cast playing Frisbee and the like in beach wear while simultaneously shivering. The last 3K were really rough, with not a dry centimetre of clothing and cold hands and soaked feet I had to remind myself many times that I was doing this for fun. I think I can safely say we were all glad to get back and finish and in not a to shabby time considering the conditions.

A quick change into dry clothes and a hot drink and muffin at Pedro's perked everyone back up in no time.

Getting back home and again sitting in bath to warm up all the cold bits I found myself heading for what must have been the umpteenth nap of the weekend. I'm a napping animal!

Power nap over and done with, I awoke to find the sun had come out. I had promised Sukhi I would take a quick look at a PC problem he had and I took a walk in the sun over to his house. Thankfully I managed to find the problem fairly quickly, which went to fix some of the wounds to my ego that my issues earlier in the week had caused and in reward Sukhi came along to help me look for a bike. I have been thinking of getting gone since I got here as Vancouver is a very bike friendly place and it would not only give me a different form of exercise but also save me a little money on Sky Train tickets.

I'm still indecisive about getting a road bike or a hybrid but I'm leaning towards hybrid as it would take a little more punishment which as I haven't really ridden a bike in many years it would probably sustain regularly.

To top of the weekend I was even treated ti a magnificent home barbecued burger with freshly made spicy onions. I know, I know, I'm not meant to eat meat at the minute, but I have been hungry all weekend and have exercised more than enough to justify the calories and frankly this weekend I have been so low on energy that I felt that I need meat. I will say that this is my own fault as for the rest of the month energy has not been an issue but with a tough end to the week and a busy weekend I have not had the time it takes me to think of and prepare the proper vegetarian dishes. I have been lazy and that is the cause of lack of energy but it still doesn't alter the fact that I was drained and so fell back to what I know and that is meat. Sorry, I feel bad, I really do, but I want to be honest about these challenges and some are harder than others.

On the plus side on getting home and pottering around for as bit I discovered I was still hungry and even though the desire to fall back on my old friend McDonald's was strong I didn't and instead whipped up a fast vegetarian pasta dish which did the job nicely.

So while eating that meal I made another error by watching this weeks Doctor Who episode in the dark. For those that don't watch it you may think me foolish but I would put money on the fact those that do understand why after a few minutes the little voice in my head was screaming at me to turn on the light or at least pull the blanket up a little higher. Good to see the new Doctor return to form.

Oh and I nearly forgot, as near misses of death inducing embarrassment go the trip to Costco ranks right up there. Popping into the rest room I walked into the men's area to be faced with a fairly common sight, a big long chrome trough to pee in. As I stood up next to it and prepared to get out little David I started thinking how high this trough was off the ground, it was pretty much at my waist height and being 6ft (YES I AM!) I thought this a little odd. with fly down and getting ready to 'shake hands with the man' I finally realised one small detail I had previously missed. this particular chrome trough came with taps! Bugger! I had very nearly peed in the sink. As I subtlety relocated myself to the right location I did say a little prayer of thanks for the last minute revelation. May be a little more attention to detail is required on my part.