Biking Photos

It seems like I can take good photos while biking! Check this out from this past weekend's triathlon:

Me Biking - 2016 Toronto Island Try-Tri

Multisport Canada Toronto Island Triathlon

August 20, 2016

Photo by ZoomPhoto

The Bag Boy

Sunday Mornin' Coming Down - A post about my Dad each Sunday, named after a song that he loved.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have now done the Toronto Island Try-Tri three times. The first time in 2013 was only a few months before my dad's unexpected death. He had accompanied Mom, Jason, Teri, K, and I to the island to cheer us on and watch our stuff while we competed. When writing yesterday I came across the fact that Dad's last comment on Always Standing had been about my race that year.

Doing the race for the second time in 2015 was really difficult, I remember getting emotional on the last stretch of the run. I hoped he was proud that I was still doing this type of thing. I was sad that he missed the chance to hang out with a bigger group since more people came last year. I missed seeing his smiling face in the crowd. I think I held it together for the most part after the race.

This year was different. I was a mess after I finished running. I actually hadn't thought about it until I crossed the finish line and then it was a rush of emotion. Three years ago he had been there; now I picture his face but can't hear his voice in my head anymore. I know he is cheering me on but I forget what that sounds like. I miss his support and his energy. I cried for a long long time as I sat in the shade after I finished this year.

Third Time Today

I don't know how I missed blogging about it last year, but I did the Toronto Island Triathlon for a second time and today I did it again for a third.

In 2013, Mom, Jason, Teri, K, and I went to the island for our first triathlon. The event is in August, but I didn't end up blogging about it until October.

Then in 2014, I had planned to do it. Jason and I actually signed up even though it would mean returning early from our Killbear camping trip. Then Jason hurt his ankle, and I was having such a nice time up north we decided to skip it.

Last year, a bunch of us did it again. We launched what I anticipate to be Meg's illustrious triathlon career, Teri and Jason joined me in doing it a second time, and we convinced Matty to come out at the last minute. It turns out I never posted about this, even though we had done a fun training session at the cottage, and I improved my times in almost all the areas, and there was a great picture of me biking!

Me Biking - 2015 Toronto Island Try-Tri

Multisport Canada Toronto Island Triathalon

August 22, 2015

Photo by ZoomPhoto

A Slow Bike Ride

Jason and I went for a bike ride on Sunday and he just uploaded the information from the fancy GPS computer that he has. I already knew that it had been a slow ride, at one point we were passed by a runner. When I asked how fast we were going, Jason said we were going 8 km/h, which is terrible! People walk at about 5 km/h. However, it was not only a slow ride but not as much of a change in elevation as I would have hoped. Here are the statistics:

Ride Duration: 48 minutes
Length: 7.7 km
Top Speed: 21.2 km/h
Average Speed: 11.3 km/h
Max Grade (hill): 4.7%
Average Grade: 0.2%

We are going to have to up our training since we are going to sign up for the Toronto Island Triathlon (end of August) this week.

The Last Comment

Sunday Mornin' Coming Down - A post about my Dad each Sunday, named after a song that he loved.

I am running out of 'lasts' from my dad to share. I have already posted about the last email that he sent me and the last texts. I went through the posts that I made on Always Standing  in the Fall to find the last comment he made. As I have always said, I live for the comments and luckily Dad was good about posting them. So, I don't know about the last thing he read on the blog but I am going to guess he was pretty caught up. However, the last post he commented on was just over a month before he died. In mid-October I did a short series called Results Week that detailed times from the summer Triathlon that I had participated in, with Mom, Teri, Kendra, and Jason. The final post detailed my results.

Results Week - ME!

Posted on Always Standing on Saturday October 19, 2013.

The next weekend, on Saturday October 26, (in the morning according to the comment posting data) my dad made the following comment (all spacing and spelling is accurate):

It was great to see you " JUST DO IT " and finish.I would have never finished the swim Dad

I love how supportive he always was. It was great to have him around that day on The Island to help and cheer us on. I reviewed the whole week of posts and I don't even know if I mentioned him, let alone thanked him for being there that morning - it meant a lot to me at the time. Still today, the whole Triathlon experience stays with me as a wonderful memory. I love the above comment that he left. It was months after the event since I was slow to write about it. All his comments were great. His honesty was unfaltering, he was open and kind and sweet and funny. I am so sad that he won't be leaving me any more on Always Standing. I will miss his encouragement, I loved when he read what I wrote.

Results Week - ME!

I didn't do as well as everyone else - but I had such an amazing time that my poor scores just inspired me to work harder for next year. After finishing I couldn't stop smiling (and panting.)

Finish: 262
Gender Place: 147
Category (F 25-29):  31/32

Total Time: 1:25:19.2

Swim (400m): 15:49
Transition 1: 5:01
Bike (10km): 33:46
Transition 2: 1:34
Run (2.75km): 29:11

Side note, I think my terrible transition times didn't help; the transitions are often called 'the fourth event'. I took a lot of thought into setting my area up to speed transition, but it didn't help. For sure next year I want a bucket of water to clean the grass and sand off my feet after the swim before having to put socks and shoes on for the bike and run.

Results Week - Jason

So, Jason beat all of us, which I am going to say is because he swims a lot during the winter and bikes a lot during the summer. He was a bit nervous for the running part, and we did train for it, but he ended up getting a good time, especially after being tired from the swim and bike. The picture on the left is from the start of the race; just before the start of your heat you can get in the water to His category was also one of the first ones to go and the rest of us got to watch his entire swim and cheer as he came out of the water and ran back to get his bike for the second part. It was really inspiring and I think it gave us a boost before we started,since he did the swim in such a short amount of time. And the whole thing - IN UNDER AN HOUR! So impressive.

Finish: 129
Gender Place: 85
Category (M 30-34): 12/18

Total Time: 0:54:28.4
Swim (400m): 11:08
Transition 1: 2:57
Bike (10km): 21:59
Transition 2: 1:15
Run (2.75km): 17:11

This is Jason after the race. (He won a water bottle as a door prize.) I am excited to start training with him again for next year. We need to start going to the pool in the evenings to beef up our swimming.

Results Week - Mom

I finished before my mom ... but she beat me. Her category started last so there was at least 20 minutes between us; she caught up and I fell behind and when you look at the finishing times and stats she did amazing! (Totally kicked my ass.)

Finish: 247
Gender Place: 135
Category (F 55-59):  5/6

Total Time: 1:10:05.1

Swim (400m): 14:37
Transition 1: 3:59
Bike (10km): 28:07
Transition 2: 0:54
Run (2.75km): 22:31

Results Week - Teri & Kendra

Seeing that Teri now consistently runs in 10km races and K has completed a marathon in the past, I knew they would do well at the triathlon. And I was right!

Before The Race

K and Teri

Photo by My Sports Shooter

Teri and K finished together, I actually think that they crossed the finish line holding hands - I can't show that shot because, unlike the one above that was in the Sports Shooter 'Free Zone', you have to pay for finish line photos. Anyway, Teri and K finished 206th and 207th - 99th and 100th for women. For their category, which was also my category, they were 21st and 22nd of the 32 females from age 25 to 29 that raced on Toronto Island that day.

Total Time: 1:00:58.7
Swim (400m): 12:37
Transition 1: 2:49
Bike (10km): 26:48
Transition 2: 1:00
Run (2.75km): 17:46

Short Week - Results Week

To jump start me back to writing more regularly for Always Standing, I am setting up short series of posts with the various results for everyone who did the Triathlon back in August with me. Here we all are after the race:

MultiSport Canada Triathlon Series - Toronto Island 

August 24, 2013

Me, Jason, Mom, Teri, Kendra

Photo by Dad

If you are impatient and want to ruin the surprise you can look us all up on the Sportstats page HERE. However, results will be posted on Always Standing following the above photo from the right this week:
Teri and Kendra: Wednesday
Mom: Thursday
Jason: Friday
Me: Saturday

Time To Get Fit

As I mentioned before, I did a Triathlon at the end of the summer. Even though training for it didn't go as planned and didn't happen as often as I would have liked - I did still train. I spent a couple of days each week swimming, biking, or jogging. Now, without the motivation of a race looming and with the cold weather approaching, I find myself loosing the fitness I had. So, I am joining a gym at work! I hope to do cardio exercise on my lunch hour.

So Much Fun!

Today's triathlon was so much fun! I love running but I loved this type of race even more. I had a great swim and then things basically got worse from there but it was still a blast. (Endorphin High!) Everyone did very well (and got better times than me) and Dad was there to cheer Mom, Jason, Teri, Kendra, and I on. It was a prefect day to do it and so beautiful to swim, bike, and run at Toronto Island. The results aren't up online yet and I didn't remember to take a picture or write the times down from the paper copy they had at the race. I do remember getting 32nd out of 32 for my age group but was not last over all. I will post times later on.

Scared To Give-It-A-Tri

Originally Jason and I were registered to do the Sprint Triathlon on Sunday. However, training this summer didn't go as well as I had hoped and we decided a few weeks ago to switch to the smaller Saturday version (Give-It-A-Tri) with Teri, Kendra, and my mom. The Sprint triathlon was going to be a 750 metre swim, 20 km bike and 5 km run. The smaller one that we are doing tomorrow will be swimming for 400 metres, biking for 10 km and finish by running 2.5 km. Even with the smaller distances, I am still nervous about it. Mainly the cold water at the moment but also worried about how to do the transitions between events and being embarrassingly slow.

Registration Complete

I just finished registering for my first Triathlon! It was surprisingly expensive and none of it is connected to charity, but having run a few events in my life, I understand the cost to create a race like this. At the end of August I will be completing in a Sprint Triathlon on the Toronto Islands. I will need to swim for 750 metres, bike for 20 km and finish by running 5km. Trust me, I have already started to train for this! Before I could register I have to get a race license from Triathlon Ontario, which was a strange requirement. So far, Jason has registered to join me, and Teri, my mom, and Kendra have registered to do the Give-It-A-Tri, a smaller version done on the same weekend.

A Biking Poetry Plan

I am starting to bike occasionally to and from work. I thought I could record when I do and what times I achieve on Always Standing, I could also write a poem each time. During my bike to work I often spend the time thinking about various bike related poems.

Of note is the fact that I am training for a small triathlon being held at the end of the summer on the Toronto Islands, I will post more about that another time.

The Bike To Work - 7 km - Almost totally downhill. My goal for this is to keep getting faster obviously, but I don't want to work up a sweat before heading into the office. So my plan is to try to get used to high speeds on my bike, and use my brakes less.

The Bike Home - 20 km - The first half is flat but the last 10 km is steadily uphill with a 'killer' hill right at the end before my house. Jason has mapped out a route for us to take home that works out to 20 km, it is longer for him since he bikes down from his house to meet me at work. The triathlon cycling distance is 20 km but the Toronto Islands are flat so by doing this route hopefully I can get in better biking shape with the hills so that not having an incline will seem easy.

Today's Times:
To Work (7km) - 32 minutes
Home (20km) - 108 minutes