Since I assign no religious significance to my seasonal celebrations I always end up a little melancholy this time of year when I think about everything Christmas.  As such, as we prepare to tuck into our Boxing Day leftovers, the things I wish for pretty much remain constant, year in and year out.  I don’t really think the following things have a snowball’s chance in Hell of changing much, but wouldn’t it be nice if they did?

Religion

A niqab covers all but a woman's eyes

I’m mainly talking about extremism, and not in the way our media tends to portray it as a problem exclusive to Muslims and other non-Christians, but all extremism.  Since religion counts on emotion and faith to exist and, with its cultural and historical significance often giving it a pass from scrutiny, organized religion of any kind taken to extremes is dangerous.

I personally feel religion is dangerous – period.  This, for no other reason than any system completely based on faith is not my kind of system for living life.  However, I also strongly believe that we each have to follow our own path.  The minute a belief system harms others, though, it ceases to be a benign personal choice.  Unfortunately, the rights the western world has generally enshrined for individuals around religious freedom, makes stopping extremism difficult.  And any system based on faith and emotion is ripe for abuse in the hands of the wrong people.

Whether you’re talking about Jim Jones and Koolaid, Muslim women being forced to endure second class status and wear niqabs, priestly abuse of boys, polygamy and underage brides, or countless other human rights violations in the name of a deity, the toll of religious extremism on people is incalculable.  Without extremism, the U.S. and some allies wouldn’t have spent the last decade plus, mired in a middle eastern quagmire that killed thousands of innocent people.

The sad thing is that the concepts upon which religious violence are based are utterly meaningless.  At their core, these problems generally boil down to whether your God or mine is a better one to believe in, or whether your or my way of life is best.  With thousands of years behind religious extremism, no one is about to convince most believers that they’re misguided.  Even Buddhism, with no one deity and its central tenet of attachment as the root of all suffering, has had to deal with its share of scandals regarding monks and boys.

Animals

I recognize that many people are attached to meat and that this isn’t likely to change significantly.  However, their desire for meat often makes them ignore or avoid the reality of how their food gets to their plate.  At least, I’d like to think it’s that because it’s hard to believe anyone wants to eat meat when they realize how the vast majority of animals are raised and slaughtered for their consumption.  There will always, unfortunately, be people who like meat and simply don’t care about the animal suffering.

How many kids discovered a puppy or kitten under the tree this year?  Probably too many.  Companion pets are a wonderful thing, but when they are bought on impulse or as a surprise for kids, enough thought has often not been given to what is effectively adding a member to the family.

The BC SPCA strongly recommends against giving pets as gifts during the holidays (or at any time in fact), undoubtedly due to not wanting the shelters to fill up with discarded gifts animals, that seemed a good idea at the time.  Given their campaign to find good homes for (at present) 4000 animals that need adoption, inadvertently adding to the tragedy hardly seems a good idea.

“The SPCA strongly discourages giving pets as gifts. But if an individual or family has carefully considered their decision and the responsibility of a new pet, the holidays can be an optimum time to adopt. Families are more likely to be off work or school during the holidays and have more time to spend with each other and with their new companion animal.”

It’s a shame that such a largely enjoyable time of year has such a downside from the perspective of animals.  Halal or Kosher meat is a step in the right direction.  However, eating a little lower on the food chain and making sure pets are adopted with a lot of planning and forethought, can make a huge difference.

Greed

Boxing Day shoppers (Financial Post)

Regardless of what your celebrations look like for the holiday season, it’s hard to escape the fact that consumerism has made a mockery of what Christmas is supposed to be.  As fewer people go to church and celebrate in traditional ways, we now welcome the season to get great deals on electronics, clothes and other stuff we don’t really need.  Children are conditioned by advertising (and modern parents who often fail to set many limits at all) to expect Santa to bring them all kinds of stuff, most of which will be played with a few times and tossed into a chest of other unused stuff.

This runs completely counter to the concept of giving, which is what Christmas is supposed to be about.  If children are raised with the expectation of getting and not giving, they’ll likely grow up into adults who spend most of the holiday season overindulging and looking for as many deals as they can and hoping for as many gifts as they can from others.  This is not to say that these same people don’t do some giving as well, but from what I can see, collectively we spend a lot more time over the holidays in getting mode, as opposed to giving mode.

Generosity is the habit of giving freely without expecting anything in return. It can involve offering time, assets or talents to aid someone in need. Often equated with charity as a virtue, generosity is widely accepted in society as a desirable trait.

I’m well aware that often, people do give more at this time of year than the other 50 weeks.  Sometimes, though, while charities (particularly the ones that help the homeless this time of year) are appreciative for the extra help and donations, some lament the lack of generosity and charity the rest of the time.  It’s only so rewarding to get extra help, when most of the time, there isn’t enough.

It’s not just the exchange of gifts where greed shows up this time of year, but in all the overindulgences I mentioned earlier.  Pulling back a bit, buying less stuff we don’t need and spending less time overeating, overdrinking and in pursuit of acquisition would help us all.  The problem, of course, is that one person’s overindulgence is not another’s.

Maybe the answer, then, is not so much in whether we give at Christmas. Maybe just spending a little more time year-round donating money, fundraising or volunteering for worthwhile causes.

Greed and animal welfare

Nine years ago, The Guardian’s George Monbiot got it right I think, when writing about the impending crisis of using our arable land for raising livestock for dairy and meat, as opposed to feeding people directly,

Our seasonal excesses would be perfectly sustainable, if we weren’t doing the same thing every other week of the year. But, because of the rich world’s disproportionate purchasing power, many of us can feast every day. And this would also be fine, if we did not live in a finite world.

Flash homepage for a NY design firm

Over the course of the Twitter conversation, the site’s owner (@zutalorsinc) chimed in, saying they’d love to hear our thoughts on the design.  Since they’re in New York, it’s not likely to happen, but given what transpired afterward, I don’t think they really wanted to hear my thoughts.  More on that in a minute.  An interesting preface to what comes below is that the site’s owner also retweets negative comments about their site, so it’s pretty clear to me that they don’t mind offending users.

In truth nobody was actually particularly negative in our discussion. In the screenshot above, there’s nothing immediately offensive about what you land on, after that is, being assaulted by your monitor flashing multiple neon colours at you for about five seconds.  Exploring, however, reveals several problems:

• it’s entirely done in Flash
• if you resize the browser window small enough, the NEW! image obliterates all the links
• nothing is properly scalable for the viewport
• the footer text with their address is hard to read against the photo background
• every letter is a link that opens another window, thus removing control from the user
• clicking ! opens, by my count, 28 new windows – yes, you read that correctly
• there is no clear call to action anywhere, with some of these new windows sporting bright neon messaging and some with catalogue-style layouts of rapidly changing tile images, apparently part of what you finally realize is a very poorly implemented design portfolio
• an uncomfortably large mouse pointer that makes the whole interface feel cumbersome

Insulting or what?

It was really the image that greets you in a mobile browser than sent my offense-o-meter over the top.  Would you give your business to a design firm who essentially told you to get lost if you were using a mobile browser?  Didn’t think so.  The image to the left is what greets you if you access their site on mobile.  What is obviously an attempt at cute humour basically tells the user to fuck off.  Nice.

At any rate, the conversation ended with me tweeting, "Awful strategy, wrong assumptions … And your design, while interesting, is poorly implemented."

Invading email privacy

The following is an email, verbatim, from Frank DeRose, of Zut Alors! Apparently, my last tweet directly above prompted Frank to look at my Twitter profile, go to my web site, click contact and fire off a response. Creepy and offensive, all at the same time.

After thinking about the above tweet for an evening, I felt compelled to send you a quick email explaining some things to you:

1. You are presenting your opinion like it is some kind of fact. That is a shame, and frankly, presumptuous and arrogant. Just because you don’t “like” something doesn’t make it wrong, bad, or anything else. It only means you don’t like it, I appreciate the fact that you design interfaces; as a designer you should be aware that there is more than one way to solve a problem; what we find an appropriate solution, you may not… that’s fine. That’s what makes the world interesting, you don’t have to look at things you don’t like.
2. Criticizing, in a public forum, people who are trying to do something, seems to me small minded. What is the benefit of you saying “Zut Alors sucks?” I see many things throughout the day that I do not like; I have never take a “public” stage and spent time trying to harm someone else… why do you feel the need to do so?
3. I find it difficult to belieev you understand our strategy, considering we have never taken the time to develop a strategy. We make work to satisfy our clients and entertain ourselves; there is no strategy. There is only the work. And I would love to hear what assumptions we have made…

I think the next time you decide to spew a bunch of hate you should think about why you are doing it before you do it; the world is shitty enough without adding bile for no reason. I appreciate that you don’t like our website; you don’t have to.

Clarifying my position in response

I was pretty taken aback that someone not only hunted me down in this fashion, but managed to misinterpret what I said and be so apparently clueless as to good web design practice. It’s not like I hide my contact information at all but I also don’t expect someone to do this. For my money it’s pretty bad form and pretty thin-skinned of him. My response below.

Frank;

Let me respond, point by point, so you know where I’m coming from and so you can stop frothing about something you clearly didn’t ‘get’ on Twitter.  BTW, hunting down my email and sending a defensive email is probably guilty of some of the things you accuse me of below.  And, sending me an email like this doesn’t ensure your privacy with regard to the discussion therein.

1. No I’m not presenting it as fact.  A tweet coming from an individual is an opinion.  If I was presenting it as fact, I’d say it was a fact, backed up by something or other.  However, it is fairly common among those of us who do, and have done for some time, design as a living, that opening numerous new windows as children/orphans of the first window, is bad ux practice.  The landing page also has issues too numerous to get into here, but just one of which is that resizing the browser obscures most of the content, defeating the purpose of having a web site.  Finally, what you chose to do as humour for those on mobile devices was, in practice, presumptuous and arrogant.  All of us tweeting yesterday found it insulting.  If you’re not designing for mobile now, you’re likely missing the boat.  And, if you don’t want criticism that you take offense to, try not to insult those users in the first place.  OK?
2. Criticism?  Or, perhaps feedback you don’t like?  You’ve put your site in public and you’re presumably trying to sell things with it.  Instead of getting defensive, why don’t you do some real user research on your design?  You might learn something about it, but to paraphrase your position from bullet 3, there is no strategy and you only want to entertain yourselves?  OK, then …  If you think I was trying to harm you, or saying you suck, then you missed the point entirely.  All this after your mobile message basically tells users on such a device to go away.  Talk about the teapot calling the kettle black.
3. Yeah, it’s pretty clear you don’t have a strategy, nor have you given the least thought to users and your site.  Unfortunately without strategy, it’s hard to properly satisfy your clients because a design without strategy often falls flat on its face as, in my opinion, yours has.  What assumptions have you made?  Well, for one, when you responded on Twitter that your design deserved more than viewing it through a phone, you assumed that’s the platform a mobile user has.  Plus, putting that message on your site for mobile devices assumes those users can’t browse your site.  Connecting what I said to those assumptions, your site is very poorly designed precisely because all the multiple windows removes control from the user and is bad UX practice, plus it simply won’t work on a mobile device.  There is no reason at all for doing it the way you have.  It invites feedback, criticism and frankly, mockery, as Amy’s original tweet to which I responded is testament.  Why don’t you ask others or users of your site what they think of the design.

You put something out on the web, you invite criticism and, if you are not prepared for it or can’t take it, you get defensive.  Nice.  I haven’t spewed any hate or bile, and suggesting I have is childish.  It’s not a case of me liking your site because if you’d taken the time to think about what I said on Twitter, I said it was an interesting design but poorly implemented – two very different things, which apparently you can’t discern the difference between.

Oddly, I never received a response to these points, but Frank did kindly tell all of us who’d tweeted about his site originally to "have a nice life" the next day.

following isn't the social part

Twitter is my one exception. I regularly chat about shared professional or personal interests and, along with Google Reader, it’s my primary source of new information. I learn more from the links I click in Twitter than pretty much anywhere else. However, while it was the intrusive nature of Facebook that convinced me to leave twice, if anything vastly reduces who I follow on Twitter, it be the unwillingness or inability of mostly brands and nonprofits to understand how to use the medium and why their approaches are just noise, if not downright irritating.

On a personal level I don’t feel that it’s a big deal if people I follow necessarily follow me back. Nor do I feel I have to follow back everyone who follows me, particularly if a glance at their stream reveals nothing I find interesting. However, this approach is a mistake for smaller nonprofits, in particular. I connect with many small or local causes that have a few hundred followers at most. While the information they tweet is sometimes useful, the two-way communication is often not.

Why nonprofits need to understand the medium

I’ve never understood why a small organization with limited funding wouldn’t just follow back those who are showing interest in what they do, but it happens a lot. Being able to DM members and friends can be pretty important to nonprofits for the purposes of organizing and exchanging sensitive information. Creating real dialogue without a follow back is impossible when trying to DM a nonprofit is disallowed because they’re not following you. Just like that, high value social dialogue becomes low value broadcast noise.

Recently, as a couple accounts I follow were hacked, this was brought into even stronger focus, as phishing links were DM’d to me and there was no way to privately let them know. When I explained this to one of them publicly, they had no clue that this is how the platform worked. This is an organization to whom I’ve given money as a member. Not only did they not understand the medium, but they seemed to not understand why it would be valuable to follow back all their members.

Mind you, this same organization sends out aggregate newsletters and hasn’t a clue whether the recipients are members or not, as the newsletters often sell existing members the benefits of becoming a member. Frankly, this is insulting and disrespectful because the message is that they can’t be bothered with rudimentary member relations or email and member list merges. Further, if organizations take the time to obtain social media handles of the members who will provide them, it might be worth making the initial connection themselves.

Similarly, I’ve had nonprofits I connect with on Twitter ask me to DM them, again only to find out I can’t because they don’t follow me. In a related, but different vein, I’ve had organizations who do follow me ask me to email them … only to respond to the email back on Twitter, telling me to phone them. I’m not sure whether this is not getting Twitter or not getting communication in general. If I’ve taken the time to send them an email I’m obviously interested in more intimate communications. By responding to that email back on Twitter, after asking for it, they’ve discounted the effort my email took by not making the effort to respond in kind AND put it all on me to keep the conversation going.

If I was going to give small nonprofits a piece of advice around current online communication, it would be to take the time to find out who your members are and leverage every platform, where possible, to make a direct and personal connection to each of them. Yes, this is time consuming and many of them probably feel they don’t have the time. Losing paying members to apathy is probably far more expensive in the long run. Large nonprofits with tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers might have a harder time, but they can still do things better.  Meaningful social dialogue is the heart of online community organizing and, social media makes this so simple, it’s stupid to not do it.

Most brands need to do more than promote

I used to follow quite a few brands, mostly related to running, cycling and triathlon, and in my web design account stream there was a fairly liberal dose of user experience and web design rock stars. I lump these ‘people’ in with brands, because the way some of them communicate, they pretty much cease being people in any real sense and seem more interested in remaining conference stars than doing anything of real substance. Whether shoes or a speaking engagement, it’s about brand awareness. I don’t expect people or brands with a huge following to necessarily follow me back, but I do expect them to share useful information and answer questions, as opposed to incessantly self-promoting.  Frankly, it was this design rock star thing that recently had me revert to one Twitter account, with my web follows restricted to those accounts that only share tips and links – no more real people from the web world unless I know them personally.

I think Brian Solis pretty much nails it when he writes about why followers are disconnecting with brands on social media. While I don’t follow all that many brands any more, his sentiments are largely what has made me begin disconnecting.

Once-willing consumers will soon become reluctant to connect with brands or will completely sever social ties to brands once they deem the connection fruitless.

What Solis is getting at with regard to social ties is a key point (though I find it ironic that, as of my reading, he hadn’t chimed in once on the comment stream the above post has generated). If I want bland, one-way broadcast of a brand’s message, I’ll buy a magazine or watch their ads on TV. I suspect I’m not unlike many others in that, when I follow a brand on Twitter, I’m hoping they’ll not only respond if I have a serious question, but maybe they’ll toss something that I can use my way. I’ll even go beyond the study he cites, suggesting Facebook ‘likes’ are about receiving discounts and making purchases.

While deals on products are nice, brands should also be sharing with their social media followers, general and useful information about the things they use their products for, though this is far more likely to occur on Twitter than Facebook. For example airlines could send air travel tips, or running shoe manufacturers could share non-product resources or links to interviews with athletes. Sure it’s extra work, but hardly excessive, and it’s the kind of thing that builds loyalty because customers get extra value and they don’t feel like they’re just money in the eyes of the brand.

What I don’t need, however, is what I see for the most part. 250,000 followers, 17 following, and an endless stream of bland promotional tweets or retweets of glowing things some customer said. No conversation, no response to real questions and no effort at all to make their account personal or real in any sense. It’s not all bad, mind you. For every bad Expedia or GranFondo Canada experience (which admittedly surprised me) I’ve also been the beneficiary of wonderful Twitter interactions with the likes of WestJet or AxureRP. Not only are these latter two examples of those who solicit support questions by Twitter, they answer them quickly and will extend the conversation to email if the medium is not enough.

Meaningful social dialogue with customers and members is not rocket science, but it is also not easy. It takes time and work to connect with your constituents in a real way. As more and more organizations embrace social media platforms, many will end up giving up in frustration. There’s a lot of information out there and, with the social component key to succeeding on the web now, those who take the time to do the grunt work and respect their followers will ultimately succeed. Those who don’t will see an initial flood of followers dwindle and die, with their organizations likely to follow. I know I’m on the verge of a massive unfollowing. How about you?

Bing map from Garmin Connect - click for player

As with any of the other 5 Peaks events, I had nothing from last year to compare this to. And, as with many of the other 5 Peaks events, they had to do some last minute route tweaking due to trail conditions. The route still climbed up around some of the Diez Vista trails but was about 13k, as opposed to the planned 16k. With the aforementioned physio and training issues, I downgraded to the enduro this past week, as I was originally registered in the half marathon. 13k was a good distance today – nothing too gnarly but enough to get a workout.

My first couple miles weren’t bad, even with heavy legs from a lower body/core workout and nearly an hour on the trainer yesterday. From that point, my typical lack of big hill training and trail running played some kind of role, made even worse by my recent low mileage. Looking at my mile splits and elevation profile, there’s a pretty close correlation between the two. The hills didn’t feel too bad, even if they did feel a bit slow. The reduced elevation gain of this run from the other 5 Peaks events had me feeling I should have been a little faster overall, but given everything I still ended up planted firmly in the middle of the pack. I was in the back third for men, but 6/10 in my AG with a time of 1:24:54 and it turns out I had a better race than I originally thought (and in truth it did feel better). As I wrote this right after the race, the posted results at the event suggested my finish was kind of lower than expected. However, looking at the official results as I update this the Wednesday after the race, officially I was 30th overall, 26/77 for my gender and 8/26 in my AG, so I did move up a tad from absolute mid-pack. Greg had a good race, knocking about 14 minutes off last year’s Buntzen run and Dario, in typical fashion, was sixth overall and third in his AG.

Splits and elevation in perfect harmony

The aforementioned

I’ll just briefly touch on my past few weeks. The knee has continued to become less and less of a factor in my running thankfully. The rehab and strengthening I’ve done seem to really have put it in a decent place. However, for some time I’ve found my hip gets weaker the longer my runs are. It really impacts my push off and how I can finish runs. I decided to hit Sport + Spinal in Yaletown, given I had good results with Colin on some upper body stuff a few years ago. He has since become a strong proponent of Intra-Muscular Stimulation (IMS), which is effectively deep muscle acupuncture, the purpose of which is to get the nerves and muscles working in proper harmony again.

I won’t pass judgment until I’ve had my third treatment in a couple weeks and I’ve seen whether there’s any significant or lasting improvement. So far things feel decent and different. Colin’s analysis also suggests my arches are collapsing enough that there’s a good chance they’re a prime suspect in some of my alignment and knee issues. As such, I’m also running with some arch support. All in, I’ve needed to give the IMS treatments two or three days before working out again and I’ve added the orthotics so things are quite different. Another physical issue for which I have no diagnosis or treatment yet, is my mysterious toe cramping. Beginning somewhere in the early summer, I’ve had shooting crampy pains in my middle toes which can get bad enough to force me to stop and give them a crack. I didn’t see that issue today, but it’s always percolating.

I’m not sure how much all this affected this run, as I had a similar middling result to the other 5 Peak runs. Since I have no other races planned at the moment, I now want to give my physio and orthotics a chance to do their magic (or not as the case may be). I’ve also got to figure out where I want to go, as I’m mulling over a return to multi-sport, or leg and foot willing, considering a really hard season of running next year.

Perhaps I should have taken something this week as an omen, though I’m not remotely meta-physical or religious. While I registered the day after the event last year, I hadn’t checked the registered riders list since I received email confirmation and had an online receipt for ride entry. However, upon hitting package pickup on Friday, I was nowhere to be found and had no ride number assigned. A visit to the Solutions Desk was met with confirmation of payment and a quick number assignment, but activating my ride chip showed it was valid with no name attached. In other words, I may have ended up riding as nameless rider 8100. I’m not sure my non-existence constitutes cause and effect, but at this point I’ll take anything beyond bad luck.

I prepared pretty well this year, doing three months of 50-110k rides on most Saturdays and including good climbs – sometimes lots of them – in my training. When I rode part of the Ironman Canada course two weeks ago, I was climbing great. With the exception of one small mistake, my pre-ride prep on Friday was good this year, too. I stocked up on a tube (so I’d have two), Nuun electrolyte tabs to pop in my aid station water refills, had lots of gel and Honeystinger waffles for nutrition and even bought a brand-spanking new jersey. I had arm warmers, calf compression sleeves and all my cycling stuff ready and waiting the night before and all my equipment was checked and adjusted well before bed. I even got a really solid night’s sleep on Friday, something I often don’t do before an event.

I woke up feeling really good. Usually there’s some little ache or pain, but everything has felt great this past week as I did a 30k road ride Wednesday night with 8x800m intervals at the track and then took Thursday and Friday off completely to have fresh 122k ride legs. My bad luck and mistake would come just after rising in great spirits, though. I’ve decided to write it up using the Kubler-Ross model of the 5 stages of loss/grief. Some people don’t buy the model, but I find I experience something in all five stages when bad stuff happens.

Denial

My key mistake would be leaving my tires to top up the morning of the ride. I had a flat for the first time this season after Penticton two weekends ago, but it happened in the vehicle on the way back. Since I hadn’t changed a tube since I put my new tires on very early this spring all I had was two older tubes and used one of them for the flat. I found the presta valve a little manky. It was tough to get the pump to hold and inflate it, but it worked and I’d done two trainer and two road rides since changing it. It seemed to lose pressure slightly faster than my older rear tube but was fine nonetheless. This is what drove me to wait until ride morning to top it up. The valve indeed was manky and broke while I was inflating my front tire at around 5am on ride day. Whether open or closed all air in the tube wooshed out in about 10-15 seconds.

At this point I wasn’t yet changed or slathered with sunscreen for the ride, nor had I brushed my teeth or finished my ritual pre-ride oatmeal. The plan was to leave at 5:30 and have my wife drop me off about a ten minute ride from the start prior to 6am, while she continued on to Whistler for a Saturday overnight stay. Even fixing one flat didn’t put the plan too much in jeopardy. Two flats was a bit dicier and three flats was getting really risky. Imagine then, having a broken valve cause one flat and, with rusty tube changing technique and all, proceeding to pinch-flat my two remaining tubes as I struggled with my tire levers over the next half hour or so. I really just couldn’t have foreseen this happening. The reason I feel this was a mistake and not just happenstance, is that had I taken care of my tires after dinner the night before and had the same thing happen, I could have quickly gone out and purchased several tubes and taken all the time I needed to get my tires worked out.

As 5:30 rolled around I desperately looked through all my bike stuff in the garage hoping for a long-lost road tube to emerge and by 5:40 it was clear that wasn’t going to happen. I sat in disbelief in my basement family room.

Anger

I’m not sure I was angry after I was in denial or during, but I was sure pissed off, regardless. As tube after tube was going down to tire levers and wheel rims, pretty much every possible swear word was coming out of my mouth. I grumbled and muttered as I franticly searched in vain for an orphaned road tube. I don’t think my anger dissipated for a few hours, but it finally did give way to other emotions as the day unfolded.

Bargaining

OK, so I did a crappy job of changing my tubes and had no options left. At 5:45, well after we planned to leave, I was still thinking I had options to get a tube. Unfortunately, most of the people I knew who were doing the ride were flung all over the lower mainland. As they’d all likely be on their way or at the start and with no time to meet anyone, trying to call to get a tube was pointless. The event website showed pumping stations at the start, but no full mechanical aid and with no day of event contact information, I decided to try to get some kind of answer about start-line support through Twitter. After all, they were tweeting at 5:45 on ride day. I’m not suggesting that they owe a guy with bad luck any pre-ride support at all, but I was a little dismayed about their lack of response, given the message I sent.

my desperation tweet for help

I sent a couple of desperate messages and never received a response, even though there was a steady stream of ride day promo tweets. This included telling everyone to be sure to watch for celebrity cyclists almost immediately after my second plea for help. I guess they just didn’t get the tone of desperation in my tweets, but knowing the celebs would be out did rest my nerves somewhat.

Oooh, Cyclebrities! And me with a little ol' flat.

As the clock was rolling toward 6am I had to make a decision. Try to throw everything together and get downtown, hoping to find the mechanical help I needed at what would likely be 6:30-6:40, with 20 minutes to ride time or just pack it in and cut my financial losses … This would mean my wife driving me right to the Hornby and Georgia chute and having a load of luck on my side. It would also alter my wife’s travel plans and get her stuck trying to navigate to the #1 highway through all the race stuff.

I was very close to heading down, but I also know myself too well. When this much stress is piling up and putting me way behind I don’t deal with it particularly well. Would I luck out and get the help I needed to change my tire? How would I still then have a spare tube for the ride? Could I actually consider grinding this thing slowly on a heavy mountain bike? That last question wasn’t really a consideration, but it went through my mind. In the end, partially cutting my losses and reducing the stress won out, but not easily. As I write this, I still haven’t digested it all.

Depression

As we rounded 6am, and my wife had assured me over and over again not to worry about the wasted money and telling me how sorry she was, I really was a sunken guy. I know this was a ride, not a race and since the cycling training actually benefited my running significantly this year, I haven’t once been mopey about wasted training. However, I was feeling the best on my bike I had in ages, the day’s weather was going to be nothing short of spectacular, I was happy I was going to be able to make up for having to pull out last year and, with the pre-paid hotel, the financial loss so far was about $400. I hate wasting money.

So, now a secondary decision to make. Should we go up to Whistler to use the hotel in heavy race-day traffic, watch the first riders come in and then just chill overnight, or just not bother? I really didn’t care, but my wife was looking forward to an overnight stay in Whistler and we could keep the costs reasonably low. So, probably somewhere around 6:30am, with me bummed out, pissed off and in disbelief, we headed over the 2nd Narrows Bridge to the upper levels highway toward Whistler. I wasn’t sure if going to the scene of the event I couldn’t do would be any kind of distraction, but it didn’t end up being.

The rest of the weekend

By the time we hit the Lynn Valley area the traffic was at a pre-ride standstill, clearly prepping for the controlled ride of 7000 cyclists up Taylor Way and onto the highway. Knowing we’d be stuck in traffic anyway, we headed off the highway to get coffee and a snack in Edgemont Village in North Vancouver. In the first good thing to happen all morning, we chose to head out to Horseshoe Bay via Marine Drive and had pretty clear driving all the way to the highway.

Winner Zach Garland

2nd and 3rd battling, Adam Thuss and Craig Jones

We got up to Whistler around 9:30, got parked at the hotel and even made it to the finish line to watch the first few riders come in. As you can imagine, I was not in the greatest of moods. Watching people finish something I was supposed to be doing, from the sidelines, did nothing to quell my mood. The 3:17 or so winning time was pretty blistering. I say “or so” because posted results only show the top three Giro riders and no actual time(PDF). I guess this is in keeping with the spirit of a ride, as opposed to a race.

We went off to hunt down a little breakfast and coffee and had, perhaps, the worst food and service in recent memory at the BG Urban Grill. I’m afraid rebranding Bread Garden is doing nothing to hide how bad it has become. After a little dodgy nutrition, we pretty much noodled around the village the rest of the afternoon on what is rumoured to have been the hottest day of the year so far. It felt very much the same three weeks ago in the Village when we did the 5 Peaks Whistler-Blackcomb, but regardless, it was toasty. We had an early dinner at one of our favourite little Whistler eateries, La Brasserie and then caught the first few songs of the 54-40 show at Celebration Plaza. It’s fair to say that celebration was not really on my mind.

54-40 at Celebration Plaza a little after 7pm

I was coming around but still out of sorts and, besides, four or five three chord, 4/4 rock tunes is about my limit. We grabbed a cold drink and walked around until 8:30 or so and then closed off a quiet night with Donnie Brasco on the tube.

I guess if there’s a silver lining to going up is that last night I had what might have been the best night of sleep in ages – nine hours of completely uninterrupted deep sleep. While I’m still licking my wounds a bit, I feel a lot better today. I’m always of mixed feelings when I go to Whistler, as I love doing events and outdoor stuff up in the mountains, but the poor vegetarian eating options, crowds and overpriced everything really generally leave me flat on every visit. In hindsight, given my mood, it might well have been better to lose the $150, than spend the gas and food money. All in, aside from cycling related costs, not doing the ride ended up being $500+ and the not doing the ride part made going up far less enjoyable.

Takeaways

Every event or race, good or bad, has lessons to impart and my non-2011 RBC GranFondo Whistler was no different. I was pretty well prepared for the actual ride, but when it comes to events with a mechanical component in particular, I will leave no key adjustments or maintenance to the day of the event. The most I should have left to do was eat, get dressed and put everything in the car.

Until recently I thought I was jinxed on the Scotiabank Half Marathon, as something or other always killed my entries, with the fourth time being a charm. I’m not sure I’d spend the money required for the GranFondo every year, feeling kind of jinxed on this one after two bupkis attempts. I expect my road riding will only increase, though, as it’s had such a positive effect on my overall fitness. I won’t plan the GranFondo in advance again, but there are always riders looking to transfer entries the week before the race and I might consider doing it again that way.

Right now, I’d really rather not think about it too much.

I’ll start with a little background info. The snow pack on Whistler forced the organizers to switch gears pretty late in the game and move this puppy over to Blackcomb Mountain. I don’t have last year to compare this to, but from what I can tell, the move only resulted in positives for participants. The forecast for race day was to be 28 celsius in the village and the post-race afternoon temps surpassed this. I’m not sure what the upper alpine temperature was, but I’d guess it was low to mid-twenties by race time at 11.

Pre-race

I had one of my somewhat typical pre-race sleeps. Since these are relatively short and pretty low key ‘races’, I don’t get much in the way of nerves, but I sure found I was waking up every hour or two. Nonetheless, I felt pretty fresh on race day. Since the race started at 11 and we couldn’t get a late enough checkout time to come back and shower first, we had to check out prior to leaving for the race. It was really no big deal, as the front desk held our luggage securely, allowed us to remain parked underground and let us use the pool, hot tub and adjacent showers after we returned.

The first advantage to be had as a result of the move to Blackcomb was that, since the Blackcomb gondolas were not in operation, we got to ride the Peak2Peak gondola between Whistler and Blackcomb. Having never taken it before, I wasn’t disappointed. If I had half a brain, I’d have taken my phone up in my checked bag and there would be a lovely photo right about here in my report, but you’ll just have to believe me if you haven’t ridden it, the trip rocks. The gondolas opened a half hour early to take racers up and the ride was calm and uneventful. Skies were clear and blue and we got to the Rendezvous about 45 minutes before race time.

The Race

There really isn’t a lot to say about the run itself. The views were spectacular though and, on the enduro course, there were two pretty good climbs of close to 1000ft each, whereas the sport course skipped the second climb and hooked up again as we came back down. I guess I seeded myself a little further back than I should have, because while I only recall being passed once I probably passed 20-30 runners myself. I’m not as strong on the trails as I am on the road, and I’ve ended up right in the middle of my age group in all the 5 Peaks races this year, and at 21st of 39 in my M40-49 AG, it was the same thing this time.

If I have one disappointment with seeding myself here it probably comes from complete unfamiliarity with the course. With the exception of short sections of some of the descents, most of the time was spent on very narrow single track. While the climbs were steep enough that there wasn’t much point in passing, I may have lost a couple minutes caught in single file lineups of racers unable to make their way around those in front of them. Most folks were pretty good, but the occasional participant was a little unclear on the etiquette involved when there’s a big gap in front of them and 20 people crawling up their backside. It was too risky to pass aggressively. Given the terrain and grade, hardly a big issue, though. My splits ended up being pretty slow, but I fared pretty much the same as in previous 5 Peaks events. And, did I mention the views? The pace was such that I really took the time to enjoy them.

There was a little snow in places, but conditions were, for the most part fairly dry and dusty and we finally got a nice leg of rapid descent for roughly the final half mile down a ski run road to the finish. My allergies flared up like crazy for about five minutes at the end of the race, as I couldn’t stop hacking the dust out of my craggy, dry throat. Instead of the return Peak2Peak/Whistler gondola trip, we opted for the cooling breeze of the quad chair down to the base of Blackcomb; a really wonderful way to end our great time up top.

Post-race

This was my wife’s first trail race and she did great on the sport course. She went in with no expectations and had a blast. I somehow doubt this will be her last off-road event. I think she might even do the sport again at 5 Peaks Buntzen Lake, when I do the half. Barry had a great race, with a 1:18, while, in typical fashion, Greg ran neck and neck with me and we both finished in 1:29 and change. We’ve been within a minute of each other on all 5 Peaks so far, save for the Seymour run that my wrist merked, in which I unfortunately DNF’d (officially, but shortened to the sport unofficially).

After our chair down the mountain, our pool, tub and shower time was very short lived as we were ravenous. A quick caffeination and snack break, followed by chow mein, tofu and Sleeman’s at the Chinese Bistro and we were on our way home around 4pm.

If there’s one additional benefit to hitting Whistler last weekend, it’s that I got two drives to preview the RBC Whistler Granfondo bike ride I’ll be doing on September 10th. All I can say is that I’m glad I’ve been hitting a few hills in my Saturday rides this summer.

The snow and muck made for pretty fun conditions on the course, but the start/finish area at the Seymour day parking area was swarming with flies. While the pre-race start line racer brief was happening, all you could see was hands flailing hopelessly to swat away the bugs. The sport and enduro courses were exactly the same until the sport was finished and the enduro did another, shorter, two mile loop.

The first mile was a forced slow start as winding up Mystery was pretty snowy, muddy single track with no room to pass. Coming down the gravel ski run, the clog cleared and then as the second mile looped mostly downhill on Seymour Road, I was beginning to hit a decent pace on pretty easy going. Mile three was mostly climbing up Old Cabin and slowed significantly as it looped back toward the start/finish. Somewhere around halfway through this third mile is where today’s problem happened. It wasn’t just the change in elevation gain that took my two mile average pace of about 9:15 and ballooned it to 11+.

Cutting myself short

I slipped on a small slab of wet shale and fell backward. It was the kind of thing I’d usually roll through, get up and keep going from, with nary a thought. Unfortunately, as I went down I used my right hand to break my fall. This was the same right hand that I used to break my road running fall a week and a half ago; the one that ended up mildly sprained as a result. I shook off the sudden ache and started running again, but I really couldn’t run the way you need to run trails any more. Instead of picking lines and bouncing from point to point, I was cautiously watching every step I took, paranoid that going down again might cause some significant damage to my wrist. As we looped up the gravel road toward the finish line/enduro loop, I decided to go in and wrap it up at 5k. The thought of gingerly running another two miles this way just wasn’t worth it.

Unfortunately, I forgot to stop my Garmin for about :30 after I crossed the finish line, so my official 5k time is 36+ish. I don’t know for sure and, truth be told, it really doesn’t matter very much. At this point, there are results pages on the 5 Peaks site, but no content. I’m guessing I probably registered a DNF or something, because when they asked me if I’d completed the enduro I said I’d landed on my hurt wrist and cut my race short. I guess I should have lied … I could have come in first overall in the 8k!

A week and a half ago

The gallery below (click the tiles for larger versions) has a pic of the path where I tripped in Burnaby (complete with its 4-inch root bumps) and a few fresh, bloody pics of my knee, elbow and right palm. The elbow and knee don’t really hurt now and are just sporting scab remnants. While it looks the least problematic in the photos, shortly after this pic the wrist swelled a bit and has been a major pain when pushing, grabbing or squeezing anything, including resting on or using my road bike brake hoods. Prior to my 5 Peaks adventure it had begun to strengthen and could tolerate some weight. I’d hoped to test a road ride after the trail run, but opted for a 70k trainer. I’d kind of like to know I can brake if I’m going to ride on the road.

I registered an email complaint with the City of Burnaby, including some photos and, while a return call took some time and nothing of my bloody injuries was ever acknowledged, they are fixing the path as of this writing, so I guess it was a victory of sorts. I’ve often commuted over that washboard, thinking it would hurt someone eventually.

Is this what you want your CBC showing?

As such, when I recently saw a tweet by the Vancouver Humane Society (VHS), to send the CBC an email demanding they stop broadcasting the Calgary Stampede rodeo, I decided to send one. As opposed to repeating the letter here, you can edit and send your own email on the VHS site. You can also get contact information for Bell Canada to demand they stop sponsoring the rodeo.

I was somewhat surprised to receive a response from Jeffrey Orridge, Executive Director of CBC Sports, but was then disheartened to read what appears to have been crafted directly from talking points supplied by the Calgary Stampede. It’s basically paraphrasing information published on the ‘animal care’ section of the Stampede’s web site. Below I have interspersed paragraphs from Mr. Orridge’s response with paragraphs from my email back to him so that it flows like more of a dialogue. I CC’d this to the VHS and to Vern Kimball, Calgary Stampede CEO, reachable at vkimball@calgarystampede.com. Oddly enough, no response from Mr. Kimball so far.

The email dialogue

My position is that the CBC’s views are exactly what is wrong with how we generally view and ‘use’ animals in our society. Organizations like the Calgary Stampede and those who support what they do begin from the assumption that it is our right to do as we wish with animals. Many people who disagree with rodeo and other forms of animal exploitation ‘entertainment’ take exactly the opposite stance.

CBC: As the Calgary Stampede organizers are committed to providing the highest standard of animal care and safeguarding animal welfare, the organization works regularly with the Calgary Humane Society and the Alberta SPCA to ensure that stress on the animals is absolutely minimized. Both groups are on-site monitoring events and all competing animals are under constant veterinary care and attention throughout the Stampede.

Me: While the animals are certainly under some form of care, I cannot agree that the Stampede is committed to providing the highest standard of animal care, or they wouldn’t do this in the first place. Care says to me and many others that we’re protecting them from harm in the first place, not treating it when it occurs. The fact that they are working to ‘absolutely minimize’ stress on the animals suggests that it is wrong in the first place. Why do something to an animal when; a) they are incapable of giving their consent or choosing to do it, and; b) it requires stress precautions be taken in the first place?

If you could somehow ask a calf being roped, where its neck is yanked so hard its entire body flips out from below and lands with a resounding thud on its side, or a horse or bull being cinched around the loins so hard that it is trying to kick off the strap, whether some veterinary care after the fact makes the experience worth it, I have a pretty good idea what the answer would be. Or, put another way, if the Stampede instead decided to expose children to this depravity, but deemed it acceptable because they had a doctor on hand, no one would support it and you certainly wouldn’t broadcast it. However, because ‘entertainment’ animals are viewed as commodities and products, somehow it’s OK. We likely wouldn’t even do it with family pets. Of course, if they are not being used for these purposes, cattle are being raised for meat and dairy, so who’s to say which fate is worse?

CBC: It is also true that the animals involved in the Stampede are extremely valued by their owners – indeed the animals represent a considerable financial and emotional investment. Ensuring the safety of the animals and humans taking part in the Stampede are of paramount importance.

Me: I agree with the point you make about the value these animals have for their owners. It’s a strange type of emotional connection that allows a person to put their ‘loved ones’ through something like a rodeo event, but there is no question at all it’s mostly about money invested. Someone spends this kind of cash purchasing, feeding and raising an animal, they better be able to make a profit, eh? I seem to recall that the slave trade was based upon largely the same principles.

CBC: As you know, CBC has a long tradition of bringing this event to Canadians, one we feel has important value to a significant number of our viewers. Of course, we recognize that not everyone shares this perspective. It is clear that you fall into the latter group.

Me: If this programming has so much value for your viewers, why is it often being shown at midnight, when very few people are even watching? Is it the viewers that are important or some obligation you have to the Stampede that keeps it in your schedule? You say it has ‘important value to a significant number of your viewers’ but don’t offer any supporting evidence. Is it proof that we can hurt, exploit and use animals for our own purposes that has value? How about that our position at the top of the food and intelligence chain means we can do as we wish, with no concern for the terror and fear our actions cause in non-human animals.

CBC: I should like to point out that CBC News does broadcast news stories on the rodeo, including information about any animal injuries and care violations should they occur. We have also in the past aired features bringing attention to the differing opinions on rodeos as a representation of Canadian culture today.

Me: In some ways broadcasting this event demonstrates just how depraved people can be when it comes to their views on animals, though animal abuses in our society are far worse than this in many ways. Perhaps if you not only did news stories when injuries and violations occur but accompanied your Stampede broadcasts with information that balances the equation, it would be a start. And ‘injuries and violations’ are a laugh because animal protection laws have not been updated in ages and offer almost no protection. Further, those who violate them get slaps on the wrist and fines. Perhaps it’s not surprising that the CBC broadcasts this cruelty when society as a whole seems to care so little for animals.

If you feel similarly

While the odd voice doesn’t change this kind of policy, many voices do. In his opening paragraph to me, which I didn’t post above, Mr. Orridge states, “We know there is not a universal agreement about rodeos, and the Calgary Stampede in particular, among CBC’s viewing audience, but there are a number of actions both the Stampede organizers and the CBC take to address the strong differing points of view on this subject.” To open form letter responses this way is clear indication that opposition is strong to the broadcast of these events.

Further, that the Calgary Stampede publishes such a large section on animal care at their rodeos is further proof that a lot of people are speaking out about their distaste for the event. Add your voice to the mix. Direct communication is often the best approach and contact information for both Mr. Orridge and Mr. Kimball can be found below.

Jeffrey Orridge
Executive Director
CBC Network Sports
T. 416 205 5036
F. 416 205 6520
jeffrey.orridge@cbc.ca

Vern Kimball
Chief Executive Officer
Calgary Stampede
T. 1 800 661 1260 (North America toll free)
F. 403 265 7197
vkimball@calgarystampede.com

Coming across Burrard

My recent training was nothing to write home about, but given that I’d registered for the Scotiabank Half several times and some circumstance or other had prevented me from doing it on three previous occasions, I felt it was imperative to get it off my bucket list.  Plus, a net downhill race is a decent way to compensate for poor training.  I’m glad I did finally do it because the weather was just about perfect – reasonably mild at the start line, clear blue skies and wonderful sunshine all through the race.

In the beginning

I didn’t pace this race as well as I did the BMO Vancouver Half in May, but I don’t think it was a major issue due to my knee-induced training decline over the past couple months.  Since the first three miles or so slopes gently downhill it’s very easy to go out too fast and I definitely did.  There’s an out and back leg on SW Marine Drive, the halfway point of which is about three miles into the race.  At the 5k marker I remember glancing at my Garmin and sporting a pace of about 6:35 min/mile.  I knew I wouldn’t hold that very long and as I came back north on Marine after the turn I lost about 10 seconds per mile overall between roughly the 5k and 7k points.  As things leveled off on NW Marine, and I got to the infamous UBC hill (going down thankfully) I was doing a 6:45 mile.

Mid-race decline

It may have been somewhat foolish thinking on my part given my training, but my hope was that I’d gain back most of what I previously lost heading down UBC hill and be doing a sub 6:40 mile as I headed east along NW Marine, Highbury and onto Point Grey Road.  While I did manage to get back down to about a 6:40 pace – at the 10k mark at the bottom of UBC my time was 41:25 – there was no way I was going to hold this through the remaining 11k of the race.  Plus, after UBC hill the remaining part of the course is flat to rolling with a couple challenging little inclines.  In particular, I know I lost some time coming up from Jericho on NW Marine to W 4th and then held fairly steady until I hit Point Grey.  The corner of Highbury and Point Grey is roughly the 9 mile mark and my pace was up to a 6:52 mile by this point.

Closing with(out) a bang

Point Grey Road turns into Cornwall and takes you over the Burrard Bridge toward the finish line at Stanley Park.  By the time I was into the tenth mile of the race I was noticing some hip issues – my left hip, of course, as all my issues tend to occur on my left side – creeping into my run.  The fear I had for my knee causing problems never really materialized, but my hip was feeling pretty weak in the last 1/3 of the race.  I wasn’t really experiencing pain, just having no real power to push off with my left foot.  I’d say that’s the only major problem I experienced.  Until the hip fatigue appeared I was thinking that I could probably hold the pace I had and finish with a sub 6:55 mile for the race.  Given that this was my surprise pace at the BMO Vancouver Half, in spite of my recent training, I had begun the race hoping the net downhill course would allow me to come in a touch faster.  It was not to be.

Between nine and 12 miles I lost roughly six seconds per mile for the race, adding about a minute and a half to my overall time in this short stretch.  Doing the actual math for this segment is kind of depressing because it means I blew the opportunity to come in faster than the BMO over less than 1/4 of the race.  By the time I was over the Burrard Bridge and cruising the last 1.1 mile of the race along Pacific and Beach toward the finish line in Stanley Park, I was doing a 6:59 pace and that’s what I finished with.  At least I didn’t lose any additional time in the final mile.  Oddly enough, with a final time of 1:32:12, I came in 8th in my age group, exactly the same place as I did in the BMO Half, with a 1:31:09. Given how weak my hip became, I don’t think going out too fast really hurt me in this race, unless it was partly to blame for the hip in the first place. My feeling is that the hip would probably have been an issue regardless of pacing and I would have been even slower without the fast start. At 10k I was on pace for a sub 1:28 half.

How a lack of training likely contributed

As I indicated in my May training journal, I simply didn’t dedicate enough time to training because of numerous reasons excuses.  I started June much better but ran into a snag two weeks ago.  On the Saturday I did the 5 Peaks SFU 10k Enduro and then did a trainer ride on the Sunday.  That afternoon and early evening I did some fairly strenuous landscaping in my garden.  Lots of bending, kneeling, digging and pounding stuff into the ground, but nothing over the top.  For whatever reason my left knee didn’t like the gardening one little bit and starting hurting toward the end of the day.  The knee was quite painful for several days and caused a full week off of running or cycling – in fact I had a noticeable limp for over a day.  Presently it’s not where it was prior, but is slowly improving bit by bit.

I have lamented the fact, several times, that the trail running I wanted to do this year has simply not materialized.  I haven’t made my way out to nearly enough Club Fat Ass trail runs and I haven’t even begun the somewhat regular Grouse Grinds (and runs above) I planned on doing.  Since I’ve been coping and experimenting with my knee diagnosis all season, I’ve been adamant that I include a fair bit of cycling and I generally target roughly a 2:1 ratio of cycling miles to running miles per month, but that’s no excuse.  There just might be a correlation between little to no hills, gnarly trails or north shore mountain runs and my poor showings at the two 5 Peaks BC events so far.

My consistency has been up and down, with a couple breaks of a week or so over the past couple months.  The vast majority of the runs I did do were largely somewhere between long and tempo pace runs, but no distance-specific speed or hills and no periodization or phasing of any kind.  I honestly believe you cannot expect to shave time and get stronger without that approach.  While the running hasn’t been what I want, I do believe that the cycling has been a saving grace of sorts.  The fact that I’m still getting on the trainer regularly and doing interval drills to improve my endurance, speed and power has probably allowed my running to not decline further than it has. I’m not anywhere near PB territory, but the fact that I’m close to getting back under 1:30 on the half is something to hold onto and work with.

Training numbers since May 1st

When I look at the chart above, it’s actually closer to what I’d like to be doing in one month, as opposed to just under two months.  Ideally, I’d like an ongoing weekly base of about 25-30 miles of running, 50 miles of cycling and three hours of lower body/core resistance, primarily for strengthening the knee.  My training is by no means beyond repair, but I really have to be more diligent from this point forward, and regardless of my best efforts I’ll need a little more cooperation from the knee – or at least less whining about garden labour and the like.  Providing I get that cooperation, I’m looking at a Mount Seymour 5 Peaks training run on July 10th, another north shore 32k on July 24th and getting weekly Grouse Grinds happening for a good solid regular hill session.

Up next

I’ve got roughly a month until the next 5 Peaks run, then another two over the following couple months, with the Whistler Granfondo 120k bike ride in September.  At this point, I’m not registered in any more half marathons or other events.  I’ve been toying with a fall marathon as a birthday present, and if I don’t go in that direction for early October, then another half in the fall is a real likelihood.  I’d love to think about another marathon, consider a return to triathlons or possibly even look at a 50k ultra.  Until my knee stabilizes, however, doing so has a big risk of simply setting myself up for disappointment.  Without significant improvement, that may have to happen through surgical intervention, so all bets are off.

The day was pretty much perfect for a run – overcast and coolish, but no wind, rain or any other elements that could have caused problems, and a nice dry course.  I saw quite a few folks from the Broadway Running Room, including Greg, Alan, Jason, Evie, Carolyn (and Andrea volunteering).  I also caught a glimpse of an ex-BCIT co-worker, Mike and had a quick chat with Lara, too.  The early part of the run was good, with a fairly solid attack on the downhill, looping around the outside of the course.  In fact, at this point I felt like I would probably hit a better pace than I had at Golden Ears with a pace well below 8 minute miles a good way into the run.  It was pretty clear that my performance would end up being similar to Golden Ears, though, when I hit the uphills and power hiked too many of them.  In fact, with no hills to speak of on my legs this year, you can take the word power right out of that previous sentence.  What I did barely qualified as brisk walking.

While none of the hills at SFU feel like Incline does on the Golden Ears course, you definitely feel the elevation gain big-time as you come back down after the first loop.  My quads seemed to fatigue pretty quickly and I felt significantly more tightness halfway through the race than I did at any time on the longer Golden Ears course.  I wasn’t sure how the loop would change the second time, but instead of the gnarly single track through the trees, you head up a largely straight and steep incline aptly named “Cardiac Hill.”  While I wouldn’t say it was particularly taxing on my heart, my poorly trained hill legs just couldn’t get a good rate going at all.

This straight, steep climb takes you right up to the road and into the finish very quickly.  So far, 2/5 of the 5 Peaks series done and I have yet to do the trail running I was hoping I’d be motivated to integrate into my routine.

Rationalizing poor training

There were plenty of reasons excuses for such low mileage last month but none of them valid enough to really prevent me from training.  I did a paltry 55 miles of running for the month of May, and that’s really what I expected to do in about half the month.  At the beginning of May I had a four day conference and I found I was just too tired at night to get my run on.  During the last week of May, in Ontario, I didn’t run nearly as much as I was hoping either.  No big reason, but I just didn’t do it.  That’s just the road, though.  Even more disappointing is the fact that I just can’t get motivated to hit the trails and my hill workouts just don’t seem to materialize.

I was starting to do some regular short hill repeats integrated into my weekly tempo runs in April.  Not only did May kill that momentum, but my knee really does keep me from putting everything I can into a reasonably hard regimen of training.  It’s been up and down, tight and loose and all things in between.  As I write this, it’s been more than a week since 5 Peaks SFU and in that time I’ve had a complete cessation from training for the most part.  The day after the race I did a 1.5 hour trainer ride, followed by a pretty solid seven hours of garden landscaping.  By the time I was finished with the whole weekend, my knee was beyond tight and causing me quite a bit of pain.

I was limping pretty good last Monday.  As the week progressed, the knee loosened to the point whereby Friday I did a full upper and lower body resistance session, a very easy 30 minute stationary bike ride and capped it off with an easy 5k run on the road.  It didn’t get too sore after that, but did tighten up every so slightly.  As such, I gave it the full weekend off.

A break from the training and racing journal

While I am certainly not stopping running, cycling or the races in which I am currently registered, I don’t feel like tracking them this public way for a while, through journal posts.  My hope was that, providing I stayed reasonably healthy this year, I’d have an ongoing monologue for reflection and analysis.  It’s pretty clear right now, that I can’t count on my knee cartilage enough that I can train as consistently as I want.  My strategy is beginning to lean toward much more cycling and much less running and seeing how things pan out with a really consistent approach to joint strength and flexibility.  I’ve got a half marathon next Sunday which I fully intend on running, but for which I will likely have one more mid-week run and that’s it.  It’ll be slow.

A half marathon was something that I used to simply put in the middle of training for longer distances to gauge progress and practice racing.  Now, given the knee, I can’t even treat it as a target event; rather running races of 5k to half marathon distances will be something I use to try to ensure my fitness isn’t slipping too far.  I’m hoping to not let that approach slide.

Until I get the meniscus damage; a) mitigated to the point that it’s not an issue; b) figured out for exactly what it is and change my realities; or c) possibly fixed through surgical intervention, I’m going to have to take a different approach to what I’m doing.  Most of my cardio will come via the bike, with a run or two a week to test where things are.  A really thorough approach to strengthening the joint and some physio consultation is also likely on the agenda.  Finally, if I begin to have flareups like the one this past week, I’ll be revisiting UBC and seeing what the pros and cons of surgery really are.

For now, I’m a middle-aged guy who’s just going to try to stay fit.