Winter Holidays 2009

(...the blog post I probably should have made about a month ago...opps!)

With the very first UBCTC Fall Classic Race Series all wrapped up, it’s finally nice to have some time off from racing. And by time off from racing, I really mean more time spent towards training. I’ll clue you in later why this is the case.

Coming into this race series, I would have no doubt chuckled if someone were to consider me as a ‘big gun’, let alone a podium finisher in the male division. This petite-figured Asian guy, often underestimated, surely wouldn’t attract the attention that other pre-series favourites would have, especially since there were many to choose from, trust me. You may go as far as to compare this analogy to the Team Canada Men’s Hockey team selection for the Olympics and I will probably be one of the guys that are good, but not good enough to make the team. Nevertheless this friendly scoring system of the race series became my best of friends, when it rewards bonus participation points for showing up and does a uniform distribution of points spread among the first to last finisher, meaning the system levelled the playing field for everybody. All of a sudden, winning the race series really came down to attendance to all the events, consistency to place well (not necessary well in terms of time as I have learned in the 500m swim test set), and malleability to the often challenging and sometimes unfamiliar events (like tire-changing and underwater distance swim).

I think I’ve poked fun at Nathaniel Janzen enough times during this race series, and by now he probably realizes this and doesn’t want to admit it on the record, but I think my level of competitive spirited smacktalk must had (yes must had!) inspired him to do wonderful things in the pool and the run courses, which he can tell you all about.

One thing memorable about the race series was Vincent Lavallee’s continued commentary throughout the series events and perhaps he may be most famous, if he isn't already, for his long-winded (21 minutes?) speech at the awards presentation. I don’t think I’ve heard anything longer and vividly delivered speech by a more-sober person. When stacked on paper against Matt Reeve, the eventual winner of the Vincent Lavallee’s Cup and race series overall leader, the numbers don’t look quite so impressive for my camp. To Matt Reeve's credit, he did beat me in all of the 12 events possible. I was not shutout though, the one competition he did not beat me in was the swim relay (since he was on my team, and hence it was not possible). Also, ahem...that famous bi-annual beer mile event.

After all this racing and training and yes school, I noticed my training log had significantly more hours than it did last year. In fact I was very close to the centennial markers for each of swim, bike, and run which I had not achieved in any previous years. Here’s a look at what I had.

Now flashback back to today.

I’m glad to officially announce that I have achieved this feat for 2009! I’ve also noticed an improvement in the swim department, which likely means for 2010 I’ll need to hit the pool at least 3 times a week to reap the gains. Maybe my numbers are still relatively miniscule compared to any professional tri-athlete, but hey it’s the personal success that counts.

It’s nice to reflect upon what I have done this year. Here’s a final look at my totals from 2008 and 2009 years.

Thanks for reading, I wish you a happy and prosperous new year!

Hurry, Hurry Hard! Curling Cross Training I call it.

Last Saturday evening, 19 more or less civil engineering students cleverly dropped their pencils and calculators for a moment and ‘hurried hard’ their way onto the curling sheet at Marpole Curling Club to throw some stones and to sweep like a madman.

A bunch of super cool curlers!

Brian and I had arrived there a few minutes fashionably late due to a small oversight – initially heading in the opposite direction...opps. This curling rink certainly was well hidden from civilization, which was located inside a mysterious gloomy, windowless warehouse.

Eventually, with practice for nearly an hour, we were ready to rock and roll and started playing a game.

Brian and I were on the cool red team, thus for justification of sporting this awesome red toque.

Brian whipping out the big guns and big take-outs.

My first two shots came shortly after my teammate, Marcel who had just missed both of his shots. The pressure was on me to put something or anything in play with 3 blue stones looming the house. My first shot, heavy! My second, light! Having mastered the draw weight and launch from the hack in practice, I totally choked with everybody watching me. Man, the pressure. Luckily our girl Skip bailed us out and made an awesome takeout to prevent the blue team from scoring more than one point after the first end.

Me blowing the shot.

Money shot, oh I mean the photograph!

Joel Atwater showing us how it's suppose to be done.

I got to call the shots in the second end as Skip. It was fun playing the Skip, as I had no idea what my hand signals really meant, and I got some funny looks for my gesturing too. When it was my turn to shoot, the left side was wide opened. My nerves settled from the first end and I curled my stone behind a guard. Perhaps it was the magic of sweeping? Jeff, the blue Skip, hits one of our stone out, however we still had one closest to the button. This was my chance to score two points and redeem myself for the first end. With barely a 3mm gap, my second shot stuck around a centre guard and was enough to take two points for second end (granted I actually had the entire left side open to make the shot). Success!

Sweeping was harder than scrubbing grime off concrete. Joel was yelling "hard" and "off" unexpectedly, and at one point Liliana on the blue team jumped to all the excitement (left)!

We ended up exchanging one point for the remaining third and fourth ends. All in all, it was a lot of fun! Not too bad, considering this was my first time curling.

Final Score: Red 3 - Blue 2

NB Fall Classic Half Marathon Race Report

Coming into this race, I had my hopes high especially coming off from a pb time in Victoria. I believed I was capable of a sub 1:28.

It turns out I was ‘CLOSE’-ish with a gun time of 1:32:39 [just maybe twist palm of hand back and forth a few times].

Here’s the story. The weather for the race morning was not exactly the prettiest of conditions: cold (6°C) , wet (20-30mm) and windy (39km/hr E, 50km/hr gusts). Despite having suited up well with four layers and having proper taper and rest, as well as having my pre-ritual breakfast (a bagel and banana and orange juice no less), I couldn’t escape from whipping out the weak excuses. I had overlooked one detail - ample time for warm-up.

It’s my own fault really. Oh man, how EMBARRASSING!!! The morning was chaotic, I had totally lost track of time after waiting in the long line-up to pickup my chip and race bib. Ideally I would have warmed up for 10-15 minutes prior to starting. So I just smiled it off and started.

My smile and warm-up run :)

On hindsight, I probably would have only shaved off one or two minutes given the harsh conditions. Still two full days after, my legs are in a world of hurt and I guess I have to be impressed with my time for doing the half marathon on literally cold feet.

Despite the lack of a proper feel-good warm-up and the tough conditions, this race was actually a lot of fun. A few friends were doing the race with cold feet as well, so I wasn’t alone.

My attempt to round up the troops and get Chris Scott, Nathaniel Janzen, and Ceilidh Curtis to smile at the camera.

Eric Suess and I met up around the 3km mark and just after the first turn around at 5km, Liam Harrap had caught up. I could only hold their pace until 7km mark when I had to slow down and hover around the 4:20 pace. I tried to keep up but my legs had given up at that point.

My second lap felt a little faster, running it more aggressively. I managed to reel in a handful of runners whom had passed me late on the first lap.

Liam braved the conditions with only the coveted UBCTC Tech Tee! He really could handle it, since he has experience with extreme training in Iceland from doing a year of study-exchange there.

Chris Scott making it look easy.

Vincent Lavallee pulling away from everybody...

...and him finishing.

Liam Harrap went on to having a stellar first half pb of sub 1:28! Check out his souvenir on his left knee.

Nathaniel sporting a sleek toque.

Scott finishing in a pb time!

I have to thank my dad for these great action shots he took.
Congrats to everyone who did the Fall Classic, check out our club's results here.

My Splits (min/km)
1km 4:14
2km 4:07
3km 4:08
4km 4:07
5km 4:14
6km 4:01
7km 4:21
8km 4:40
9km 4:34
10km 4:46
11km 4:21
12km 4:21
13km 4:40
14km 4:14
15km 4:08
16km 4:20
17km 4:33
18km 4:28
19km 4:28
20km 4:26
21.1km 4:26 (4:53)

NB Fall Classic Half-Marathon Prerace Report

Alright for Sunday’s half marathon run, sub 1:28 bring it on.

One thing that could be stopping me is that I’ve been battling a scratchy throat since last Wednesday 5km run. All these competitions in the UBCTC Fall Classic races series and midterms have been taking a great toll. To describe the sore throat, it feels like a funny bone caught against my throat only when swallowing. My dad has provided me some amoxicillin pills and my sister has also provided some vitamin C tablets. There has been no symptoms of a running nose nor coughing. Today I had it checked out, and my doctor told me it’s just a common viral infection (no case of H1N1 luckily). Training wise, I haven’t skipped a beat with my routine being normal.

I have found this relevant section on Antioxidants in the latest Canadian Running Magazine (Vol2.Issue8.Pg56).

Running causes extensive oxidative damage, potentially leading to upper respiratory tract infections, muscle soreness and stiffness. Antioxidants like vitamins C and E are essential components of recovery. Vitamin C is imperative for a strong immune system and increases iron uptake, aiding oxygen delivery to muscles...

So it turns out my little sister was right on insisting I take these Vitamin C tablets. Who knew?

5K Run Rematch results in Roles Reversal.

The running gods certainly have a way of flipping the tables around.

Flashback to the mile event from two weeks ago, I was leading out the chase group on lap 2. I was the official pace bunny, that is until the group had other ideas heading into the final laps. Nathaniel Flipper Janzen was one of the few who managed to reel me in and steamed passed me on final lap to decisively take fourth place, while I was breathing heavily to claim fifth place just a couple seconds back.

Now to the 5K event. Prior to the run I came across a random running forum online for tips on running my fastest 5K, which suggested taking the first half mile (800m) with an easier effort. Then at least in theory, I would be trying to ‘finish strong’ rather than trying to ‘hold on’ for the remaining distance. I’d decided that distinguishing the two was going to be based on level of effort rather than on time. This of course is always easier said than done, especially if you have to keep eyes on your closest rivals (i.e. in my situation Flipper and Scotty-Doo). Although I was wearing my GPS watch for the entire time, I didn’t get to see my time until I uploaded the data into my computer because of the dark/wet conditions.

The graph below is a rare peak at my heart rate during the run, which shows a distinct jump in heart rate at the first half mile (For my dedicated and loyal structural engineering readers, this graph is not to be confused with a load test for a stress-strain relationship...although one can say I’m quite a ductile material if that was the case).

At about the first km mark, Flipper was impatient of my pace setting and started to book it with madfish-like intentions. Liam Harrap and I was hanging on to Flipper’s pace, who seem to have borrowed the pace bunny page from my books. I was impressed with Flipper and Liam’s running abilities and thought this group was going to pull away like how it did in the mile. Even up to the fourth lap of the 5.5 laps run, I thought Flipper was very close to dropping me. Like a true competitor, I kept onto him matching him stride for stride and taking longer breath slowly one by one. Slowly but surely, a gap opened between Flipper and I as we approached the 1km to go mark. My watch started to beep from this point onwards which was telling me to slow down (heart rate reached 189 max bpm see graph above). Ironically, this time I finished fourth place and Flipper just edged out Liam for fifth place. My final time was 18:35 (much faster than expected). Surely this rivalry is starting to heat up.

Pace times:

Lap 1 3:12 (3:33 min/km)
Lap 2 3:14 (3:36 min/km)
Lap 3 3:22 (3:44 min/km)
Lap 4 3:31 (3:54 min/km)
Lap 5 3:26 (3:48 min/km)
Lap 5.5 1:47 (3:34 min/km)

5K Run Rematch!

I have a funny feeling today’s 5 km Event is likely the rematch of the exciting Miracle Mile witnessed last week. However, this time the finish will be more favoured for the distance runners rather than the sprinters.

Beside the favourites such as Barry Claman and Vincent Lavallee, I anticipate Andrew Wight to break out of his shell and run a solid sub 19 minute 5K time. He has been relatively quiet in the series of late and has been looking for ‘lunch meat’ for a while now.

In short, it was brutally fast how the mile unfolded last week. I can relate to Vince’s experience of the mile. I averaged 3:08min/km pace for the mile with an impressive result of 5:11 but was out kicked by Nathaniel Janzen and Jared Penner on the final lap, despite running a 76 seconds final lap. It turns out my role as the pace bunny virtually had little effect on pushing the pace.

I hope to run a little more conservatively today and a closer even split.

Now, I may be only a few points behind Flipper in the overall standings, and some points over Scotty-Doo, but that may be deceiving since there are still two major pool events left in the series. For those events, I’ll just be trying to finish for the bonus participation points, whereas Flipper and Scotty-Doo are expected to obtain maximum points. Currently, I’m still fighting for a podium position in the men’s division and I am excited to see how it all unfolds in the next few events.

Mile Showdown

For tomorrow’s much anticipated showdown of the Mile Event after a week-long delay, competitive spirits are at an all time high.

Competitors have deemed me as their pace bunny since I am not known for having a world-class finishing kick but rather a fast start. I will be trying to improve upon my previous time of 5:41. That means a strong run from start to finish, gracefully dropping competitors one by one hopefully. A few dark horses are expected to win the event; however, the race within the race is the true battleground for the overall contenders group.

That group includes the likes of current golden-cape holder and uphill run event winner Matt Reeve (the coolest brace face I know), two-time events winner Nathaniel Flipper Janzen, speedy negative–split Scotty-Doo, and Mr. Modest Andrew Wight. As to date, all but Mr. Modest have made their claims on beating me to the finish line. Is that so? Little did they know...