Life in the slow lane

Old To Slow GIF from Old GIFs

I stood from my chair and felt a little pop. Like the sort of small creak you might hear when you stretch your neck or step on a loose floorboard. That was it. My back had gone out yet again. I say "gone out" as though my spine had left my body for dinner, a movie, or maybe a night at the theatre. No, my back was not enjoying light entertainment. My back had stiffened and contracted to the point where I was now shorter. I bore a comical resemblance to Tim Conway's shuffling old man. It may have been funny if it didn't hurt so much. Lightning strikes of pain in my lower back lose their punchline, but never their punch.

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Losing my religion

Arlin Marshall (1955), photo by Bob Mizer, from, "Beefcakes and monkeys: Bob Mizer's muscle men" via The Guardian. Needless to say, my beefcake days are either well behind me or far ahead.

Me: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been a week since my last workout, and I accuse myself of the following sins: I've been indulging in chocolate and ice cream bars and carelessly ingesting carbs.

Gym Priest: Alright, my child, say five "Our Fathers" for your penance, track your eating habits and nutritional intake with an app on your phone, don't forget to take 5 mg of Creatine with a glass of water each day, write down and plan your exercise goals for the week, and remember to stay hydrated.

Me: Thank you, Father

I have genuflected at the altar of weights in great hopes of altering my weight, but I'm stuck and feel like I'm going backwards. I've been trying so hard to get back into "game shape" to do this charity ride by focusing on more difficult rides, biking wherever I go, and hitting the gym for resistance training. Yet, the only resistance I'm getting is from my body. They say, "Use it or lose it," meaning, I assume, the more you use your legs, the longer you'll be able to use them - like a sort of muscle generator. Lately though, rather than getting stronger, it feels like I'm wearing myself out. Aren't there only so many miles my knees can take before the warranty is void? I'm not just feeling worn out, but I feel like I'm wearing out. Not fully broken, but limping towards the finish line.

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How to Remain Positive

You can buy the vibe at TeePublic.

After another silenced spring for Leafs' fans, I've been thinking how not to let it get me down. I proposed finding a nice cave with a contemplative view of nature. With cave prices being what they are these days, an alternative might be to find a way to improve my attitude. A quick Internet search led me to the Mayo Clinic's page on Stress Management. I'd like to share some of their insights, if I may.

It begins like this:
Identify negative thinking.
Focus on positive thinking.

Well, that was easy. Unfortunately, we know the human mind doesn't work that way. You can't just tell someone who is worrying, not to worry and assume your work here is done.

Here is a list of actions to make your outlook more positive:

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It’s the hope that kills you 

The underdog Leafs won the Stanley Cup in 1967.

While reading Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography, I took note of this passage on the slate used in London. “Much of the slate used in London building is striated by what geologists term 'pressure shadows' but they are inconspicuous beside the blackened surfaces of Portland stone.”

It’s often said that pressure makes diamonds but in Toronto I think pressure, like the striations in that Welsh slate makes shadows. Shadows, like a hex that darkens the eyes of men. Men who wear blue and white. Playing on a pro team in Toronto, where every eye of every media is glaring at you, must be a pressure that inevitably wears you down. Then again, being worn down on a pro athlete’s salary is not the same as everyone else’s “being worn down”. With the Leafs exit from the playoffs, two contrasting quotes came to mind. One from the team’s perspective and one from the fans’ point of view.

“A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.”
– Jack Dempsey

While this team found ways to push back and win in ways they couldn’t in previous seasons, they still need to learn how to get back up when they can’t.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

To be a Leafs fan is to see the team fall, bite your lip until it bleeds, urging them to get back up from the gutter we’re all lying in. Lying in that gutter, looking up at the stars, we hope to see our team soar among the constellations of champions. We hope for the best but expect the worst. All too often those expectations are met. We hope they’ll do better next season, but we all know it’s the hope that kills you.

Skating Through Winter 

A little downtown skate.

For most of my life skating meant only one thing: hockey. As an adult I've moved on from late night shinny and pickup games that required an hour of driving for 45 minutes of ice time and a following day of barely being able to lift my feet, to more leisurely skates. Skating now is that more civil activity of circularly striding around a rink or trail until the cold has taken hold and your body has told you it's time to move on. Still, the glide, the breeze and especially the sounds are very nice. That scraping of blades on the ice reverberating and echoing around you is so evocative of childhood winters. The skating in circles, while repetitive, does remind me of those occasional school trips where a busload of us would be driven to the rink and told to skate dutifully around while perhaps the worst speaker system in the world blared some fuzzy Bay City Rollers. For those of us who played hockey it was a fun moment to skate circles around school bullies who inexplicably didn't play hockey (most likely due to some economic disadvantage). Even better for me, as I, for reasons still unknown, could skate backwards almost better than forwards, now had a chance to impress the most unimpressionable prettiest girls in our class. Oh yes reader, I played it cool. I would stride around letting my teammates whiz by, then with the simplest of spins, cruise easily around the bend, building speed with every crossover, then overtake Alison, Kim, Gina or Tina, and looking back at them say with an easy grin and head tilt, "hi, I think you're skating the wrong way." before hearing a resolute teacher yell, "Mister Rogers! Please, turn around!", "Yes, miss" I'd say and swoop past that one girl who'd falsely protest, "Hey, watch it, show-off!" then in a gentlemanly and quiet manner offer, "oh I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." At which point I would pick up enough speed to lap my clumsier classmates and glide along side her and say, "You again, didn't I just see you here?" I think I could elicit a giggle. Here, on the ice I was as confident and pithy as any Jane Austin paramour. Off the ice, I had nothing and would return to doodling in the back of my Hilroy notebook. Innocent times. I still take pleasure in some, though not as much, love of the ice. I see it in others too. We're not the brash ones. We're the ones holding back and making space for kiddos that might fall, who then decide to lie there looking up at the clouds. Trust me, we want to break free but we'll put our hands behind our backs and slip into an easy floating pace.

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Simple Math 

How do you run faster as you get older? Simple math really. Hard Work + Never Quit = Payoff.



There are a lot of great things about this story but the simplicity of just running without the gym membership or all the fancy doodads is what gets me. I've never understood why more people don't run especially when there is almost zero barrier to entry. I understand why the less affluent aren't as healthy as the more affluent. Cheap, empty calories versus expensive fruits and vegetables, access to health care, longer working hours, shift work, longer commutes all lead up to a less healthy lifestyle. Yet the answer is right in front of our eyes and so few of us take the time to see it. Running isn't like other sports with registration fees, expensive specialized equipment or access to highfalutin facilities. You just put on a pair of shoes (even the cheapest will do) and go. Any time, day or night. As far as you want, as fast as you want.

Ask Memo. Memo knows.

In Between Moons 

"What’s happening with you?" He asked.

Such a loaded question!

So much can happen in a month, in between new moons, waxing and waning, in between tides, like all that water sloshing and pulled between the Earth and the Moon that it can all be a bit overwhelming.

“In between moons
I was the spring, I was the spring

In between moons
I was the sea, I was the sea”
– Eleanor Friedberger’s In Between Stars

Here’s a rundown:
Last year’s tax refund literally got lost in the mail, and I was unable to register to file online this year’s taxes until very recently (they had my home address wrong due to a mistake my accountant made when filing last year. It has since been corrected).

Work is completely unfulfilling which I guess is why they call it “work” and not “happy fun playtime”.

I spent all my secret squirrel savings on new windows.

It continues to be the worst wet and cold spring in years.

I’m still overweight AF (sure Mom, that means “as fudge” what else would it mean?)

Yet, on the bright side:
Raps win by a buzzer beater and despite the strangely sexual tinge of that expression, it was a good thing… and with four bounces off the rim and a ball going straight in the hole, it actually was the best sex I’ve had in years. It was definitely the best sex Toronto has had since the famous “bat flip” (no bats were harmed in said flipping). Though now they find themselves back on the ropes.

Working from home a lot = restorative napping at work.

Due to last year’s tax filing mix-up, I will hopefully get a windfall of two years of tax refunds in the next month or so which may put a dent in “window debt ceiling” and restore the secret squirrel funds.

New windows are “fire*” as the kids say (*yes Mom, that’s a good thing!)

At least it’s not winter. It isn’t even raining this morning.

Enjoying Game of Thrones and Veep finales unlike others who started a petition to rewrite this season of Game of Thrones and think you can rewrite another person’s art if you get enough signatures.
This long weekend is as vital to my current health as any penicillin to a dying man.

Champions league final should be a cracker.

Writing it all down makes it seem less overwhelming. I wouldn’t go as far to say underwhelming but maybe an even whelmed. Yes. I’m back on an even whelm which is not the sort of thing they write songs about (ooo Baby, I’m back! Back on an even whelm!) but it’ll do.

Dames on Frames 

#bikes #bikestagram #bicycles #bicykel #fixies #fixiestyle #fixedgear #fixied #fashion #track #city #cycle #cycling #bike #cool #singlespeed #live #time #trackbike#fixiebike #fixieporn #fixielife #fixiegirl

A photo posted by M (@krasahor) on Sep 16, 2016 at 10:39am PDT

There is something about bicycles that is immensely empowering, particularly for women. From the suffragette movement to the Ovarian-Pscyos Bicycle Brigade to the hashtag #IranianWomenLoveCycling, bikes remain an enduring symbol of female emancipation. I’m not even sure I understand it. Well, of course I don’t. I’m not a woman and I never will be (unless I’m involved in a horrible automated corn shucker accident). Thus I will never understand the sorority of the travelling pants, by which I mean cycling shorts. I won’t understand it in the same way women can’t understand male-bonding bromances. To be sure, some men can’t wrap their heads around non-sibling, non-romantic male friendship. I point to the many snickering critics who surely would deem Frodo and Sam’s relationship in the The Lord of the Rings, as one long in-the-closet gay love fest. Admittedly, the friendship is even closer in the text without the longing looks cast in the movies, but I’d wager it was based on something J.R.R. Tolkien experienced in the actual trenches with actual mates at the battle of the Somme. This is entirely beside the point. It’s not even beside it, it has totally nothing to do with it at all. The point is, ladies and gals love cycling and it allows them to seemingly bond closer when they bike together. I’m going out on a limb here, a very treacherous limb to say when I see women riding together, it seems more fun. They really look like they are having more glorious fun.

Okay okay okay okay okay - before I am immolated upon a pyre of my own words here, this has nothing to do with whether women are able to perform sport at a high level. Obviously they can. Obviously I’ve seen plenty of women, young, old, big or small, surpass my inept hijinks to know any woman or girl can outperform this particular man. It’s just, women don’t exhibit the kind of bravado or braggadocio that men do. That’s not to say it doesn’t exist. Maybe I just don’t know the female version of braggadocio even though tennis, MMA fighting, ice hockey, rugby and soccer all have female versions of aggressive, take-no-prisoners style competition. Conversely, many male athletes also perform at a high level and exhibit the sort of fraternal respect you’d like to see in sport. For some reason rowing and curling crews come to mind.
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I’m a Runner, Not a Fighter 

Still frame capture from Flickr user TiaMichele

To make conversation at a get together where I knew only one other person, I said I had tweaked my knee running. The other person, listening politely, inquired, “Oh, you’re a runner?” I took a moment to take in both their surprise and question. I mean, I’m surprised I run. Look at me. I’ve almost run 1000 km* in the past twelve months and yet I don’t look like a guy who ran thousands of steps burning thousands of calories. My answer then was, “Well, I have two legs and I regularly lift them up and down in a running motion… but I wouldn’t say I was a ‘runner’ per se.”
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Learning to Breathe Underwater 

Like Courtney Barnett, I was having trouble breathing in

I used to think it odd that no matter how much I swam, it didn’t make me a better runner or cyclist. Likewise, biking didn’t seem to improve my running or my swimming. Admittedly, if you run, it does help everything. Running seems to be, pound-for-pound, the quickest way to lose weight or to stem the tide of being out of breath while climbing stairs. Lately though, I’m starting to think that’s not quite true. Swimming is really the linch pin in everything else. It took me ten days to realize it.
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On Little Cat Feet 

“The fog comes
on little cat feet”

I’m starting to feel that way about my running. I pad around the city on little cat feet. When I’m running on the sidewalk and I’m approaching someone from behind I’m very conscientious not to spook them. I assume they won’t hear me because my step is so quiet. A couple of years ago I read about something that became kind of a trend; running on your toes. The basic idea was we were all heel smashers and our tricked out running shoes with super spongy heels allowed it. This was generally seen as detrimental, so the theory went, to our feet, joints and muscles. After reading the list of problems of landing on your heel during running, I realized I was a prime offender. I did some more reading, I watched some videos and set out to try changing how I ran.

It’s so elemental to how you’re constructed, to who you are, that it’s counter intuitive to change how you run. I run the way I run because that’s how I run. Like breathing. Yet that very logic made me consider the change. You breathe differently when exercising (definitely when you swim or run or bike) so why not run differently?
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Frequency Versus Intensity 

“Exercise more often” is the single most important thing I would say to someone who doesn’t exercise. It doesn’t have to be hard. Even if it is very brief, just start. Just do. Otherwise, you won’t, then you won’t again. Then again. Before you know it, the one thing you haven’t done is exercise. That’s what it is like for me. I go through two weeks of “crushing it old skool style" - running up hills, biking hard, swimming in cold water. Then something would happen and I’d miss a day or two. No worries. I’ll go tomorrow. Or the next day. Then I found I was starting from scratch all over again. I always thought it seemed to take three weeks to get into the habit of exercise and then another three weeks to notice any changes in waistline, energy etc. The thing was though, looking back at my exercise data (I track a lot of things), I don’t think I ever gave it six weeks to take.
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Absolute Beginner 

“My left leg became paralyzed by the sensation of nerve endings coruscating from my hip to my toes”

Tonight for the first time since January 18, I recorded a run. Before that, my previous run was on October 6, 2013. Following this pattern my next run will be sometime in June. Why the lapse of laps? Well, a few days after that run in October my back went into painful, movement stopping spasms. The kind of spasms you see people being shocked by a Taser having. This back pain was followed by a new weird thing whereby my left leg became paralyzed by the sensation of nerve endings coruscating from my hip to my toes. That’s right. Somewhere, the muscle inflammation in my back had compressed a rather useful nerve. Several massage sessions, countless muscle relaxants and heat & ice compressions later, my leg was useful again. About six weeks had passed. In that time the atrophy of the thigh of my left leg seemed only anecdotal. Following climbing up a set of stairs I’d think, “That’s odd, one leg feels fine while the other feels as though I’ve climbed Kilimanjaro.” Eventually that leg strengthened. Then again, strengthened for stuff like walking a few hundred metres or for sitting at a desk. Occasional attempts at exercise seemed frivolous at best. As an estimation of exactly what I was dealing with, I could measure the diameter of one thigh as about 3 inches smaller than the other. Still, time heals all wounds, I thought – except for the big open puss-filled ones that kill you from infection. Time doesn’t help those at all. As I’ve discovered and really should’ve known, given my history, time does not strengthen atrophied muscles. All time does is atrophy them some more. Time is a bit of a bugger if you ask me. The only way to un-atrophy an atrophied muscle is to exercise it.

Which brings me to tonight. Tonight I donned my running gear and noticed in the dusty mirror (note to self: dust mirror), that I was fat. Not, you know, circus-fat nor even evening-news-program-story-about-obesity fat, but for me, fat. I won’t bore you with the numbers but I haven’t tipped the scales at this number since sometime in 2006 after months of recuperation and feeling sorry for myself when I broke my collar bone and had radial nerve damage in my forearm (which I presume is the only place you could have “radial nerve damage”). Not only am I fat, but I am in the worst physical condition in memory. With the daunting task of not only raising money for the Ride to Conquer Cancer on the horizon, but also having to ride in the Ride to Conquer Cancer, I figured it was about time I tried to conquer my waistline.

“Captain, my Captain and all that crap.”

I started a couple of nights ago. The first 20 minutes of the rest of my life. I got on the trainer (also dusty; I really should dust more often), and did an interval set of 2-2-1. I fully intended to ride again yesterday, but I fell back into my habit of knocking out a nap and waking so late as to make the whole idea ridiculous. Tonight, my feared rival, Couchie, beckoned again. I sat but did not succumb. Up I rose, up towards the challenge. Captain, my Captain and all that crap. Getting dressed was really depressing. I looked like I was wearing a down vest under my t-shirt. I decided to wear a jacket which helped a little (more likely, it offered little help). During some pre-run stretches I felt my back complain but I ignored it. I set out into the cold evening air and took the first tentative steps towards a full trot. So far so good. Except, you know, for my knees and feet (high arch pain which I’ve had for ages). Soon I was treading along, not easily mind you, but at least I was moving. My pace was slow by my standards but I was determined not to push myself so hard I wouldn’t survive the first short jaunt.

“I remembered what is so great about running: stopping.”

When it was done, my legs felt better and even though my breathing was laboured, I remembered what is so great about running and my favourite part: stopping. I’m only partly joking, because it’s when you stop that you get that feeling of all the bad stuff leaving your system, all the toxins course out of your skin, the lactic buildup floods out of your legs, the crud in your nose is loosened and ejected (by force if necessary) and all that stress in your shoulders and neck just evaporates up the chimney of your head. It felt good to shake off the cobwebs of a long unforgiving winter. The only thing that really bothers me is when you let yourself fall out of all of your good habits and exercise, the setback is immense. I’m not five weeks out of shape or three months behind in my exercise. It’s as if I had never been in good health to begin with. I’m back where I started years ago. Back at the very beginning. An absolute beginner.

Good as Gold 

Crosby celebrates his breakaway goal that put Canada up 2-0 over Sweden. Image via Globe and Mail

Sometimes actual gold is much better than "good as gold". I laughed, I cried, I celebrated with a breakfast even Ron Swanson would love – two pieces of fried chicken on a pancake, topped with bacon and poached eggs. Canada winning Men's hockey gold was a good way to start the day, then having brunch with Mark and Mary made it better. I finished off my sauntering Sunday at the Art Gallery of Ontario to see the Guggenheim show which featured some wonderfully famous works particularly by Russian exiles such as Kandinsky and Chagall.

Ironically, the Sochi closing ceremonies featured set pieces showcasing Chagall. He died in France you know, because he was a libertine artist - oh and Jewish. He never returned to Russia though he pined deeply for it. Despite works by Nabokov and Chekov, it seems contemporary Russians are blind to irony. The opening ceremonies in Sochi featured music by Tchaikovsky, who many scholars believe was gay, though Russians prefer to think of him as just a cool lifelong affirmed bachelor. Ahem. Snow goggles aren't the only rose-coloured glasses Russians wear. Still, all in all, a good show by Russia, including seeing a Pussy Riot beat by a Cossack with a whip (how many times do you get to say that?) and a backdrop that allowed Canadians to shine ever so brightly. Here's to winners, the fourth-placers and the upside downers. Beardmode engaged.

Hashtag: PriceisRight 

Jamie Benn tips a pass into history - GIF via Deadspin

Canada hasn't necessarily been a scoring juggernaut during these games, having scored only 3 against Norway, 2 against Finland, and most frighteningly, only 2 against Latvia. Compared to the fast flowing and scoring Yanks, our guys appeared a little constipated in the goal-flow column of the scoresheet. But they've been stingy too and they outplayed the Americans for most of the game and kept them at the doorstep. A few of us in this office gathered in the conference room (with our laptops just in case some work was required) and tensely enjoyed the game to the bitter end, knowing one shot could sink us or lift us. Thus it was, that one goal was enough to reach our one goal – the gold medal game. That's been the big difference in this Team Canada from other Olympics squads. In the past we've had teams that have struggled to score and lost by trying and pushing too hard to get to the other team's net rather than minding our own.

What was dread is now hope and the Swedes look beatable instead of formidable. It should be another high paced, action-packed game on Sunday. I thought about titling this post, "Benn there, done that." but it sounded like a horrible Ron MacLean-esque pun so I went with more a comment on what a stalwart Carey Price has been and that the hashtag “Priceisright” was trending on Twitter (along with ”BEEROCLOCK”) after the game. Maybe we do put too much emphasis on hockey at the Olympics and maybe the Dutch put too much emphasis on speed skating and the Norwegians put too much emphasis on cross-country skiing but that's what we love about the Winter Games. Suddenly us smaller countries are on equal footing with countries like US, Russia, Germany or China. Sometimes, we get the better of them too.

I was going to put “Comeback Kid” as the track here, but what were they coming back from? Bitter Rivals makes more sense:

Like the Legend of the Phoenix 

National GIF of the Day via Deadspin

What's that expression? Sometimes you have to be lucky to be good and sometimes you have to be good to be lucky.

The Canadian women's hockey team was clutch, and not the kind of clutch you take to the opera, ladies. So here's to you Marie-Philip Poulin and probably one of the greatest comebacks in Canadian hockey history. Hopefully we can finally put to bed that grainy footage of Paul Henderson jamming the puck over Tretiak.

A Boor Who is a Bear 

Here I am, hurtling in place, laying across down filled cushions.

The Sochi Olympics have begun and with every shot of an athlete hurtling over snow mounds with the Caucasus Mountains in the background I am reminded how much I would rather be sleeping bear-like. Recently I was looking at the symptoms of Seasonal Affected Disorder (S.A.D. for short), and if it weren’t for the vagueness of the description, I’d say I have it in spades -

Symptoms:
• Difficulty waking up in the morning: check. Why limit it to morning? I could sleep anywhere anytime, and I doubt I’d wake up until May.
• Lack of energy: check. So… much… effort… typing this.
• Difficulty completing tasks: check. I can barely finish this sent…
• Inability to concentrate: well, the television and the insides of my eyelids have my complete attention. Does that count?
• Withdrawal from social activities: I may have passed on a couple of opportunities to step outside because it involves stepping outside.
• Decreased Sex drive: No comment (I could just say I’m “going through the motions” but that already reveals too much).
• Compulsion to eat – especially carbohydrates: Are bread, potato chips, mashed potatoes and French fries carbs? Cheese and crackers? Wait? Is everything a carb now?

Diagnosis
• A pattern of these symptoms occurring at the same time of year for at least two years in a row but not at other times of the year. Hello? Every winter of my adult life just called and it says I’m bumming them out.

Treatment
• Despite having read about sciencey treatments involving light therapy, I’m pretty certain the cure is called mid-March, often celebrated by drinking until you vomit green beer or by travelling somewhere sun-filled and warm.

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Just Did It 

Haruki Murakami, author and spiritual leader of runners around the world. Image via New York Times

“As we're finding out, there are a lot worse things in life that we "just have to do"…”

As Nike implores us to "just do it", I just did it. Don't know why I did it? Not sure how I did it? I did it with a nagging headache. I did it without much preparation or training. I did to forget I was wasting my vacation. I did it to not think about other things. I did it to ignore my parents' health. I did it to ignore strife in the world. I did it to avoid my grossly messy apartment. I did it to avoid taxes. I did it to avoid other people. I did it to avoid the fact there were no other people to avoid anyway. I did it to make up for wasted time, as if it wasn't just wasting time in a different way.
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Run Time 

Read "Marathon Man" by Mark Singer in the New Yorker. Illustration, Peter Arkle

Lately, there's been a lot of talk of doping around Lance Armstrong (check Twitter for #DopeStrong, #Livewrong) and all those implicated by the USADA's investigation into doping in pro cycling. Unfortunately, some much admired riders have been found to have cheated including Toronto's Michael Barry. The upside of this has been riders like Barry, who have admitted to doping in the past and now ride clean, sound genuinely contrite. At least three riders for Slipstream sports have admitted to using for the very fact that they want to clear the air and start again, riding clean. Slipstream's manager, Jonathan Vaughters, has been open about past indiscretions and the desire for his team to ride and win clean. The default position of Armstrong remains to deny, deny and deny. Which in itself may indicate a darker nature to his personality. Like George Constanza said Jerry, "It's not a lie, if you believe it."

There's more than one way to lie and many more ways to cheat. This weekend the second of Toronto's two annual marathons¹ is being run and with that in mind, and Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan's recent exaggerated claim (lie?) of a sub-three-hour time (he actually ran 4:01:24) it seems a strange coincidence that I finally got around to reading the story of Kip Litton. Kip Litton is a Michigan based dentist who had set a lifetime goal of trying to run a sub-three-hour marathon in all 50 states. His motivation was apparently to raise funds for cystic fibrosis research as his son has the disease. The only problem is, Kip Litton appears to be a cheat and a near pathological liar. His unusual and compelling story is told in the New Yorker by Mark Singer . It begins fairly innocuously but by the end you're just fascinated with the "why" and the "how".

Check out the story and ask yourself, "why?" I understand the bragging rights of lying about achievements. I'm sure I've exaggerated claims in the past, but when I started to exercise for my health and not my bravado, I realized the futility of stretching the truth. Why lie to yourself? What's the point? Whenever I'm entering my runs or rides into my log, I might be tempted to round up the distance and down the time, but it's more interesting to me to see my real improvement or deterioration. Lying about or cheating during amateur runs seems the same as writing in a private diary that you were a wealthy spy with a cavalcade of lovers left strewn around the globe. Why bother? Not to mention the effort involved in maintaining such a fiction. I can barely get around to legitimate web updates never mind inventing new ones.

FN1 - The course record for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon is 2:07:58 for men, Jerome Drayton's 37 year Canadian record is 2:10:09. I never plan on running a marathon but even at my best 10 km pace I might be able to break 3:30:00 (though not bloody likely).

It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Times 

A weekend in which, a young triathlete named Paula Findlay finished dead last in her Olympic debut and taught me something.



The extraordinary photo finish of the Women's Olympic Triathlon

On Saturday, I experienced a personal triumph. I rode over a 100 km in under 5 hours in some punishing heat (30°C, though the "Feels like…" number was more like 38°C).

one hundred and eleven Kilometres
4:48:50 hr
2750 calories
3 bottles of water
1 bottle of Gatorade
1 can of Coke
1 can of Red Bull
2 cream cheese and jam sandwiches
1 energy bar
2 Hostess chocolate cup cakes
2 Advil
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