MightyMojoMentorGroup -- (Full House!) (Page 182)

DOUG -

Very fine photos, and you're assumption was correst -- it's good to have a "visual" of you!

As for your variety of chafing, maybe also ask at a bike shop for something along the lines of chamois butter.  I think BodyGlide will end up being less expensive (and perhaps less messy), but if a bike place can give compelling reasons for something else, then it's worth considering.

Thanks again for the photo links!

DAVE -

Not a math teacher per se, but just a garden-variety grade 5ish teacher.  My tendencies were always broadly liberal arts, buit along the way I got waylaid by "soft" sciences -- ecology and physical geography (esp. geomorpholgy).  That explains my years doing arctic and subarctic fieldwork, and also, as for the math part, why I never completed my M.Sc. -- I did the scientific publication, but couldn't be bothered to do all the seemingly meaningless statistcial analyses.  So, no, math is not my strength!

I too have had a few flirtations with Joyce's biggies, as well as Gravity's Rainbow.  My last stab at it was about two years ago, and I made it through about 130 pages before something else came along and hijacked my attention.  That's still high on my reading list....but we'll see, we'll see.

BTW, the "new" edition of Finnegans Wake has just been published, and it is in the same vein as the Gabler edition of Ulysses -- about 9000 corrections that are supposed to be in line with waht Joyce actually intended.  As near as i can tell, most of those corrections seem to be small vagaries of spelling and punctuation, and not too many whole-paragraphs and the like added.  If I eer make it through either FW or U, I'll let you know!

Proust, anyone??

JOHANNE -

Those transition times are remarkable -- especially your niece's.  And overall, her time is really superb.  How old are both of them, and how many IMs has each done?

I'm a big preacher of not "wasting" time in IM tents, and definitely trying not to sit down......but the T times for my two irons were not close to as solid as your niece's and nephew's.  I should go back to my logs and check to see how relatively slow (compared to them) I was! 

Thinking about it, I think for my second iron my T times were okay, but for IMLP, I have my doubts.  Part of the T1 time there is a looooong run from water to tent, but even once in the tent I wasn't super-quick.  I think.

Congrats on the positive run, and really big congrats on focusing on the idea of "staying in forward motion" at IMAZ.  I love that way of expressing it!

GEORGE -

What a long day for you, and you get my vote for super-volunteer.  You had two very nifty gigs -- "catcher" and bike-put-backer; lucky guy!

Kinda sorta ready for Summerside?

I received the 1st email on Saturday inviting us to sign up for next year:

IRONMAN Volunteers and Athletes,

IRONMAN is saddened to confirm that Penticton, Canada, has chosen to not move forward as the host for the 2013 edition of IRONMAN® Canada. We hoped that IRONMAN Canada would continue in the City of Penticton, which has served as the host of the race for 30 years, and that the relationship between IRONMAN and the city would continue indefinitely.

As IRONMAN continues to finalize details, we would like to offer the following opportunity for 2012 IRONMAN Canada volunteers, as well as all athletes who have previously raced IRONMAN Canada:

IRONMAN is aggressively pursuing multiple options, as our goal is to have IRONMAN Canada in 2013. By clicking here, volunteers and athletes will be put on a preferred registration list for the new IRONMAN Canada, tentatively slated for late August/early September 2013. Please note: you must complete the entire process and click “submit” to confirm your place on the registration list. Access to this link is available for a limited period of time, between Aug. 25 at noon PT and Aug. 30 at midnight PT. The preferred list will give volunteers and athletes one week (in advance of general proposed registration) to sign up for the new IRONMAN Canada event. Additional race and registration details will be announced during the week of the 2012 IRONMAN World Championship, which takes place on Oct. 13.

IRONMAN is pursuing multiple unique venue options for the new IRONMAN Canada race and is excited to build upon the long-standing tradition of IRONMAN Canada as one of the most iconic races in the global IRONMAN Series. The new race, tentatively scheduled for late August/early September 2013, will feature double the amount of age group slots for the IRONMAN World Championship, an increase from 50 to 100 slots, as well as an increase in KPR points and prize money for professional athletes.

As an additional race option, general entry for IRONMAN Mont-Tremblant, IRONMAN Coeur d’Alene, and Memorial Hermann IRONMAN Texas is also still available. Visit www.ironman.com to register.

Thank you for your continued support of IRONMAN, and we hope to see you at another IRONMAN race soon! If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].

-- The IRONMAN team

Then today we received this email:

IRONMAN Athletes and Volunteers,

IRONMAN would like to thank the 2000+ athletes who have signed up for preferred registration list for 2013 IRONMAN Canada. We want to remind athletes and volunteers that this offer ends at midnight (pacific time) on Thursday, August 30. If you haven't registered yet - click here!

Thank you for your continued support of IRONMAN and we're looking forward to seeing you in 2013!

According to a newspaper article in todays "Penticton Herald", the IM group is looking at a new location like Whistler (euber expensive) or Vernon (two hour drive north of here - nice but not as nice as Penticton) and timing it to conflict with the Challenge date to steal as many athletes as possible.

The newspaper author suggested that if the two events were timed two weeks apart people could do two events in two weeks but I don't think that is the plan.

I think WTC will do all it can to see Challenge Penticton fail because if they don't then other communities may follow suit.

I also received an email from Challenge Penticton on Saturday also inviting us to register for the race and if I could I certainly would but I'm no where near ready for a full distance but I may be interested in a relay participation.  We'll see what happens.

It was a long day (13hrs) without a break or sitting but we volunteers got a lot of energy from the athletes.  It was really a lot of fun.  It was especially exciting when the crowd cheered in Sister Buder.  Today I was surprised to find out she lives in Spokane Washington and her 82yr old time was faster than her 77yr old age group record.  She looked serene and well at the finish line.  Of the people I caught at the finish line especially near the end, I took quite a few to the Med tent. 

Apparently, Sister Buder said she won't do another full distance Triathlon but she would like to do a relay next year. 

Tonight I tallied up my volunteer time to 43 hours total in 4.5 days so I haven't worked out since last Tuesday.  I hope that Challenge will give us something better to eat.  All they gave us was Domino's Pizza for lunch and dinners.  By Sunday I just stopped eating pizza (I made sure I took some of my own food). 

Today I went for a 50km bike ride and it felt pretty good.  Tomorrow I'll go for a wetsuit swim and a 5k run.  The weather has cooled dramatically (only 22deg today about 72F) so I figure Sunday should be wetsuit legal.  I may not be as ready as I was for the Apple Sprint but I expect to do no worse and I'm hoping to knock a few minutes off - unless the lake gets rough.

Also today I went and just bought a tri top for Sunday.  I tried on some larges and "sausage casing" comes to mind.  I opted for a fairly cheap XL tri top and I'll order a Desoto when I think women won't scream and babies won't cry when I wear it.

I forgot to mention that my wife caught the last person to finish at 16:59:55.  A young girl from San Clemente I believe.  She wasn't feeling well so Ruby fended off the media and took her straight to the med tent.

I waited and caught a local fellow 3 minutes after midnight.  He too wasn't feeling well so I helped him to the med tent.  I had to get mad at people blocking our way so I was elbowing people and yelling, "Comiing through!"  The poor guy was in bad shape so I rushed him a bit.

I'm going to write up our experience as soon as our company leaves.  Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe in Triathlon talk.

Finally got around to looking at some videos that were taken of the tri camp I attended back in June. These are the swim videos:

Side view, long front and back view, short front view

Small world! The women your wife caught was Kelli Telling. She was part of my nephew and his girlfriends group. Yes, she does live in San Clemente.

My niece is 35 and this is her 3rd IM, my nephew is 33 and this is his second full IM finish. He went to IM New Zealand but it was shortened to a HIM. Both are pretty competitive with themselves

JOHANNE -

Oh, I had forgotten the NZ story concerning your nephew!  Mercy!

I checked my T times from Lake Placid, and they were bad.  T1 was 8:09, but that was about midpoint for those who were in the top ten of 55-59 (I was 55 then).  T2, though, was 7:27, which was quite a ways the worse of the top ten 55-59.  I ahve some vague recollection of an equipment kerfuffle, but it is not at all clear.  It might've been laces, could've been a change of tops?  I can't remember.  Anyhow, the next slowest T2 guy in the top ten was 5:42, so whatever ahppened was unfortunate.  But it didn't really matter, as I finished in 12:57:37 and the a.g. guy ahead of me was 12:32, and the next 55-59 after me was 13:02.........so i could've taken even MORE time in T2!

My second iron had better T times -- 3:40 and 3:50 -- so whatever befell me at Placid wasn't there at The Canadian.  I know part of the T1 differential is the very long run-up at Placid as compared with a much shorter one at TC, but still.   Overall, TC is a far easier course than Placid, at least physically.  Mentally, it can be wicked, with twelve out-and-backs on the bike, but because I had done the half there 2 or 3 times before the full, I was kinda prepared.  I did that one in 11:54:44, but with a run that was something like a MILE overlong.  This is the same course that ANNE and her Ken are doing on Saturday, but with a few minor midifications -- one of them being that it is now supposedly measured correctly!

Here's to you and IMAZ --- and staying in forward motion!!!

GEORGE -

Thanks for those WTC and Challenge updates -- intriguing stuff!

As you probably know, there's not much love lost between me and WTC, and part of what I'm feeling in the IMC situation is that they have reaped just about what they have sown.  They are no strangers to the policy of "engulf and devour", arrogantly and bullishly moving into new places and messing with already-established races (and not just long-distance ones).  They then jack up prices and have horrific refund/cancellation policies, and generally figure the world will come to them (which, surprisingly, it mostly continues to do).

That said, I also can't 100% support Challenge trying to steal IMC territory from WTC; two wrongs don't make a right, do they?  But then I hear the thoughts of a counter-race at Whistler or Vernon and think:  "How WTCish that is!"  At the end of the day, i want them humbled, and I want them to be human with regards to athletes:  both in terms of refund policies and in not overcrowding courses.  On top of that, they can return to having expos that are well-represented by any merchants who want to pay for space, as opposed to a select group of hand-picked companes to the exclusion of all others.  Mostly when I think of WTC, the common "b" word for illegitimate children comes to mind!

As for the thought that people could do two long events in two weeks --- won't be many takers for THAT!  I guess if one is a full and one is a half, sure, but most humanoids cannot pull off two irons even four weeks apart.  Or they can do it as a way to claim bragging rights..........but the second one sure won't be pretty (first one might not be, either).   There's a well-known Canadian guy named John Wragg who has done a massive number of irons (I think he was at IMC this year), and he is about our age.  I'm not sure what drives him, as his finish times are usually in the 15- or 16-hour range, and that's just a lotta lotta long days out there on very expensive courses.  He might be one who would do two in three weeks, but he's really a way-out exception.

GEORGE again -

You did massive hours at IMC, and made a big difference for a lot of athletes.  Just so you know!

GEORGE,

You've provided some really interesting reading over the past week or so.   I couldn't believe how many volunteer hours you put in.   At Lake Placid the volunteer slots were only 4 hours long but you could pick an additional time slot if you could find one available.   The food pretty much sucked there, too.   I would have loved to worked the final shift but it was one of the first to go.  

Hope you have a great race this weekend.  You are going to look great in that tri-top!    Have been too wrapped up in myself lately and apologize for not yet reading your last race report. 

Tried to view these, but my computer blocked me, saying they were unsafe sites.   Are they OK?

ANNE -- and DAVE!

Same thing happened to me, or at least I couldn't work my way through them.  I figured it was my own computer ineptness rearing its ugly head again, but if guru ANNE can't get to the videos then I know the problem is not just me!!!

Those links are on a free file sharing site called Mediafire. I had no trouble downloading them, but there were a bunch of pop-ups. Maybe that's why you're being blocked.

I put them on my Google Drive. Try these links:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxIZH86g1ZxLLTFlNlRMenFGdkU

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxIZH86g1ZxLUXhfZ2xkQUtJTUk

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BxIZH86g1ZxLY1JtRlNjdDEwVWc

General Note

My subnormal season has had a few abnormal races, and the one this Saturday is falling into that pattern.  Road construction forced a change of bike course, announced a few days ago, to a different part of town, and going from 14 to 15 miles.  That was fine.  I just got a new email, changing it again to one that is only 11 miles.  That is not so fine.  The race also has a 3-mile run, not 3.1; that is mildly irksome.

Positives?  Water temp is apparently 67, so wetsuit is fine.  And as the race historically provides all five splits, i go there confident that that will be the case.

But even though my right knee is still not 100% ----- I WANT MORE BIKE MILES!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ride to the race. That should settle you down

Dave - Flip turns and dolphin kick!  Wow!  I liked seeing your swim stroke for my own interests.

Johanne - It was Kelli as you say.  Also Ruby said that when she got to the Med tent she asked, "her friend" if she wanted the media to see her and her friend said no.  Might the friend have been your niece?

Steve - Being only a lowly citizen I know nothing about the situation but I would wonder if the City of Penticton would have initiated talks with Challenge.  Also, as I understand it the corp. was asking Penticton to come up with considerably more money than they were already paying to, "keep IMC in Penticton".

43hours does sound like a bit too much, eh! 

Anne - They have the same 4hr time slots here but when we registered I also said I wanted to volunteer more so they asked us what we wanted and when we told them we got everything we wanted (that was last year).  This year we had contacts from last year (and from GranFondo) to help us get what we wanted.  You are too kind with your comment about looking fine in a tri-top.  Suffice it to say there won't be any pictures.

FWIW - This year there seemed to be a lot of injuries.  I saw atleast 6 or 7 ambulances and I also received 12 bikes without riders (including a paratriathlete's bike).  Today one of our Captains told us there is a woman still in ICU here in Penticton after a bike injury.  I hope she'll be okay.

Today, I went to Okanagan Lake for a swim with several of the swim fit fellows and it was strange to see the lake virtually empty after it was packed last week.  The water has cooled off about 3C to 19C/68F so it was quite nice.  I swam 1800m in about :42

This afternoon I went for a 5K run (with 2.5K warm up/cool down).  I may have been hallucinating but it seemed to feel a bit easier.  It was a lot cooler than last week but it was still pretty warm to me.  I was most distressed to see that some trees are beginning to change colour!  Time to start planning that trip.

Tomorrow, I'll drive to Summerland and bike the bike route and maybe run a bit of it.

JOHANNE -

Funny girl!

I know people who take the approach of, if a race doesn't give them enough miles, they hang around for a while post-race and then re-do it on their own.  But that's not me, and I'd rather just kvetch some!

Had I not pre-registered, I don't think i would go down for it..........but the upside is that, with my jury-is-still-out knees situation, the 11/3 B/R combo ought to be a safe testing-gound.  But I'll probably do that as a brick today, so that ought to tell me something.  Mostly, I'm sure I'm decently recovered (based on my past week or so of training) ----although not certain enough to make firm plans for a race in PA next weekend that features a 38.7 mile bike and 6.2 mile run (in addition to a .6 mile swim).  Sunday and Monday will be the big training-tests for that baby!

----- And I just noticed that I had left out the "15" from the mileage of the bike in the first announced change.  So it has gone from 14 to 15 to 11; will there be another announcement today or tomorrow, i wonder??

Wow, what a mess. Good luck anyway.

DAVE - Nice! Solid form and technique. Good to know that I'm not the only person in the world who turns towards the bottom immediately after flipping. I've noticed a lot of swimmers push-off and stay with their face towards the top of the water for a while before rotating to face the bottom of the pool.

Question about how you use your Forerunner 910xt in the pool. I've been to DCRainmaker's website that has instructions and in-depth reviews of this product, but it still didn't answer my question. When you're finished doing a set of say - 200 yards - and then you have a rest interval before you start another set, do you hit your time button then hit your lap button by holding it down til it says the "3-2-1" and goes to 0:00, or do you just hit your stop button, then your lap button once resulting in no change on the time showing on the face of the unit? DCRainmaker says that when he wants to measure his workout's intervals he will hit the stop button then hit the lap button to differentiate each set he wants to measure.

Does my question make sense? 

I'm trying to time each set separately so I can see what my pace is for each one. Obviously, I'm still confused on how to do this. When I upload my workout to Garmin Connect, there's about 15 different swim workouts listed for each time I swim. Wondering if there's another way to go about this...to keep all the data in one workout, but have the times for each distance separate?

LOL! 

JOHANNE - For some strange reason I thought you were racing IMAZ this weekend. Talk about early-onset Alzheimer's. Are you at least racing in something this weekend? 

I'm racing the Disney 1/2 marathon. I'm not sure you can call it racing though Dave and I have done this race for 3 years now(we missed last year and didn't sign up before it sold out) with our youngest since she's going to college in L.A. She leaves to go to school and a week later we get to see her again for the race! We decided since this is probably the last year (she's a senior) we're going to do this race, we would run together. That means it'll be a picture taking extravaganza through the parks and Angels stadium. Should be a really fun weekend!