Triathlons / Duathlons

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nfflagTen more days until IRONMAN CANADA. Ten more days until I wave my Newfoundland flag around like a lunatic and cheering people on as they haul ass. I had all sorts of plans to make a tank top or t-shirt with “TEAM (Boyf’s last name)” on the back of it. But I fail at being creative lately. I probably shouldn’t say that as I’m a Graphic Designer and being creative is what I do for a living. But, y’know.

Do you know the distance of an Ironman? Well let me inform you on these insane, threatening major details of the race. My boyf will start off (wearing one of those one piece tri suits that look like wrestling outfits) with a 3.86 kilometre swim. Kill me now right? I mean I can’t even swim 350 meters right now — wait wait back it up. I can’t even jog that far continuously without getting wheezy. But that’s why he’s the triathlete and I’m the couch potato soccer player. At the moment he’s trying to decide whether or not to jump in at the start with everyone else all the 2,300 competitors at once in one wave, or wait an extra ten minutes (which, really isn’t that big of a deal on a 13 hour race! Right? Maybe I’m wrong.) and jump in semi-comfortably. After being kicked in the jaw a few times during that dreadful painful swim he then has to go fetch his tri bike (Kuota Kalibur ow ow!) and start peddling for a full 6 straight hours until he finishes the 180.25 kilometre bike ride. Ya. Insane. I’ll probably take a few photos of him hopping on his bike, then go back to the hotel for a NAP! Yes, you heard me correctly. There’s two mountains that he’ll have to climb during the bike course which he’s already talking about, which also worries me quite a bit. Mountains are tough babies. Ah, and after you’ve swam and biked those distances without a pee break? Get ready to … barf your guts up. Apparently it’s ‘the norm’, as your body is pushing itself in ways you couldn’t believe. Imagine running a marathon after all of that? A full 42.2 kilometer run! Ouch.

I’ll happily be cheering from the sidelines. Plus, the fact that I haven’t been west of Ontario, ever. This should be quite the experience. After the race I can’t wait to taste test out some of the winery’s in the Okanagan valley. I’ll be bringing my laptop as I‘m too addicted to leave it home we’ll probably need it to scope out some hotels while we’re there.


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Photos, Triathlons / Duathlons

Sunday’s triathlon photo post!

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As I mentioned in my post yesterday I willingly woke up at 3:30AM on Sunday morning after getting five hours of sleep in order to get up, gather my boyfriend’s things and head up to Peterborough as he race in the Half Ironman (2k swim, 90k bike that ended up being only 85k, and a 26k run!) Doesn’t that sound ridiculous to you? If I had my car, I’d drive the poor soul to his race. Instead he drove three hours and then did a 5 hour race immediately after. Then after the guy raced we headed back home almost an hour later and got stuck in cottage country traffic. Sweet.

Needless to say it was a quiet ride up north as I wrapped myself tightly in the fleece blanket and boyfriends fleece zip up over my head so I couldn’t see the sunrise when it started to. I’m not a happy person in the mornings especially when I don’t exactly need to get up. I was hesitant on the whole situation as waking up at 3:30AM doesn’t exactly appeal to me. But, I’m a supportive race crew girlfriend and sometimes we sacrifice sleep for boyfriend’s dedication!

Moving onto photos, but before I do I have to confess. Due to lack of sleep, I show you poor quality photos as a result. I totally missed him on the bike coming in for the dismount, and I shot some terrible ones of him going out for the run. OH WELLZ is all I can say! There’s always next race :)

swim

Pre-race. JUST finished racing to get his wet suit zipped up (courtesy of yours truly — professional wet suit zipper upper! I usually have a few strangers come up to me and ask them to zip’em up. Of course, it’s usually quite difficult for the older men who have…ahem, grown out of their suits. I usually tell them to lift their arms above their head, that way it’s easier for me to zippit. Hee hee!

swim2

Oh yeah. That’s a hoard of people jumping in after the gunshot start. I’m not sure why they didn’t do the swim in waves. My boyfriend was smart enough to get a swim cap for the ‘last wave’ so he wouldn’t get bombarded by the amount of swimmers by his side. Oddly enough, I don’t think there was much difference. Look at the pack of them!

swim3

End of the first kilometer loop, and yes they had to get out of the water and run a hundred meters only to get back in the water and swim another KM. Wouldn’t be me! Guess that’s why I’m the photographer and not the athelete! :)

bike-transistionInside the huge absolutely huge transition area. A lot of folk come out for this race, even from the states.. I had to snap this photo real quick as he has very fast transitions. Here’s my boyfriend with his coner helmet on. I used to make fun of him wearing it last year, as I thought it was completely ridiculous, but now – now it suits him and he looks like a pro. GO GO GO!

emptyAnd waiting for all the riders to come back from their 90km bike. The transition area goes almost as far as the eye can see, right? Huge race.

runRunning along the lakeside. This is probably at the 5km mark of his run. On the grass!

highway

So here is us right after we got in the car and back on the good ol’ high way.

monday

The next day resulted in… Outside previously all day with sensitive skin (7am – 4pm)? End result: Sunburnt (sunburned?). I look so disappointed, hahaha. Pitiful!

I’d also like to mention that I’m currently trying to figure out the RSS feed for this website. I’ve put a trouble ticket in with wordpress and they’ve already told me to look at the CSS validation on it — which doesn’t work anyway! So I’m still at square one as to go about fixing this annoying problem.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting my mini-shopping spree that I talked about.

Finally, I’d like to wish my friend Johanna a very happy birthday!!!!! She is SO awesome and I love her to death as my buddy!! This is us back in Newfoundland, Christmas time. I think hope she reads this site still. So HAI JOHANNA!! Yay.

n-j

Annnnnd that’s a wrap. Peace out everyone!



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Triathlons / Duathlons, Wasting Time

Very random

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  • Weekend was very very busy and now I’m very very tired. Sunday we woke up at 3:30AM to head to Peterborough for the Half–Ironman my boyfriend competed in (photos soon!). We got back in time for my soccer game at least! We lost.
  • I think I wished too hard for the sun to come out this weekend. I got burnt yesterday. Bad.
  • I signed up for Dairy Queen’s mailing list and got a coupon e-mailed to me. Buy 1 blizzard, get 1 free.
  • I will have a real post later as I feel incompetent to come up with a real post.
  • I also used a lot of coupons on Saturday and got some great deals and freebies. Will also post that later.
  • I’m going to do the “10-things” (The HonestScrap award comes with a caveat or two. Firstly, you have to tell your readers ten things about you they may not know, but that are true. Secondly, you have to tag 10 people with the award.) that Pam tagged me in below, break the rules and not tag 10 people. Mine are so boring:
  1. I remember faces and never names. I’m often too embarrassed to ask the woman in the elevator her name again, because I’m sure I’ve asked her 3 times already. She always greets me with “haaallooo nansee”.
  2. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will never purchase my car (at the price I want to pay for it) before the end of the summer.
  3. If I’m in a bad mood — just give me food. Food always makes me smile. Especially at work, when it’s free.
  4. Before every soccer game or anything athletic like going on the track for a run, or climbing at the gym; I get so incredibly stomach sick. But not enough to get ill.
  5. I’m an amazing saver if I have something in mind. I will put everything I possibly can towards that little piggy bank in order to get the amount I aimed for, as fast as humanly possible. Sometimes I even eat poorly because of it. Oops. Guess it’s a good thing though, because I don’t like debt therefore I never have any! lol
  6. Sometimes I wish I had my Brother and Mother’s outgoing traits. But I’m a bit shy and awkward like my Father.
  7. I have nightmares that my teeth go back into place. Like they looked before braces. I wear my retainer nightly. My boyfriend got me into this fantastic habit, as he still wears his religiously — every.singly.night. after 6 years of having braces off.
  8. I wish I had an SLR camera. However, I probably wouldn’t be patient enough to figure out the settings to make the photos look awesome. Instead I will stick to my point and shoot.
  9. I want a puppy. I also want an Acura TSX in white, more vacation time, spend more time with my Irish nephews, and own a home. HA!
  10. I blush when I hand over coupons to the cashier. I don’t know why I feel so embarrassed sometimes.
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