February 2006 - ActiveSteve

Weekend Racing / Training Fun

So.. did everyone get outside and play this weekend? I made sure to get out and freeze my extremities a few times over the course of this weekend. First off was the finale for the Mad Trapper Snowshoe Race series held out at Mike Caldwells ‘Ark’. I had to go to it solo this time around, as Kev was otherwise tied up, and Jim was helping a friend carry out a last-minute move. The pending snow had me a little worried when I went to bed Friday night, but when I was leaving Saturday morning, the roads were still clear. I arrived about 30 minutes early, in time to weasel my way into scoring a set of Atlas DTSL snowshoes for the race. These are the ultra-light racing version of what I use. I’ll compare it to going from running in construction boots to slapping on a pair of running shoes! Not to mention that I didn’t whack my ankles repeatedly. As a result, I was able to boot it for most of the course. As my reward, I wound up finishing in 7th place(hmm..results actually have my in 8th, oh well)! Yay me. Funny thing is, my time was comparable to the other 2 races. I can only assume the course was a little slower than last race. Even better than that is the fact that I wound up in 4th place over the series for males. Yippee. Have a look at the full results.I still ended up pretty pooped, and soaked. I kind of blew up on the second lap (hilly course), since I went a bit too hard on the first lap (flat course). As usual however, it was a great time. I’ll have to return next year.

Life in General

Makin’ it Pretty….

Alrighty then, second bar update in under an hour. How’s that for service! Lucky for me tonight is a slow training night. Just working out on the ole Bowflex, which gives me time to type between sets. That’s basically the reason I’ve been a slacker on updates as well as the bar building itself. I’m basically putting in lots of training time. Evenings and weekends. Running, swimming, spinning, wave-running, working out… Not to mention the snowshoe races, Winterlude duathlon, and upcoming winter adventure race! When I’m done, I’m usually pooped, and just feel like veggin’. Oh yeah, and add to that the intense Olympic fever I’ve got, forcing me to watch extra TV! Looks like I’m getting a bit off topic, doesn’t it? Sorry. Just felt I should explain myself. That and tonight I seem to have a little extra time to type away here. It’s nice for a change. Anyway, on with my story…

Life in General

Bar Update – Routing Done!

I just had a look at the last time I posted anything on the bar project, and realized that I’m way overdue. Last posting was January 16th!! My apologies to all my loyal readers 🙂 Although things haven’t been steady, I have definitely made a lot of progress since the last update. I had to first go out and buy a router table, and then put it to extremely good use by routing all of the various pieces for the bar. Who knew cabinet making was such labour-intensive work? I can definitely appreciate why custom-built cabinets cost big bucks. Every step along the way has unique challenges. In the picture to the right, I’m holding up a couple of my favourite examples of routed wood. These pieces are for the cabinet doors. I’m not even sure of what all the steps were called for those pieces. I think I did some rabbets, mortises, tenons, and even some radiusing. Of course, when it’s all done, to you, it’ll just look like a cabinet door. To me however, I’ll remember that at the onset, it was a rough piece of 1×6 Clear Red Oak, 8 feet long, and some 1/4″ Oak plywood! There’s a certain satisfaction in doing something all by myself from scratch. It can be pretty relaxing.

Race Reports

Gettin’ it Done, the Long Run of 21….

Whew! Well, that was a fun time! First off, sorry that the site was done for a while there. It turns out that someone hacked Kev’s server while it was on vacation at our place. They were trying to hijack it to use to send spam. Luckily, Kev didn’t have a mail server configured on it, so instead, they just deleted a few files so that the thing would not boot properly. That’s all been cleaned up now, and Kev and Dave put on a new Linux OS which should improve a few things.

Anyway, on to the story of the day. That would be my painful 21.2km run from Kev’s new house in Stittsville to our house. Strictly speaking, 21.2km isn’t really all that bad, the problem was more a result of alcohol consumption the night before. Kev invited the boys out for the first Poker tourney at his new place, and it ended up being a sleep-over party too, so that we could properly enjoy the night. Well, yours truly made sure to partake, and that resulted in some rather not nice feelings in the morning.

Race Reports

Fast Run… Slow Ski!

1 Comment

Well, the Winterlude Duathlon (ne Triathlon) has come and gone, and I guess I might as well tell you all a little about my race. As the title suggests I had a great run, but my skiing (as predicted) was somewhat slower. I’ll say this however, I’m plenty pleased with how it ended for me, I did better than I expected. Also, off the top, I’d like to say thanks to Jody for yet again being my number one supporter / paparazzi for this event. Have a look at all the pretty pictures she took. It’s nice to have someone there for you, and take photographic evidence (good and bad – stupid balding spot!!). As mentioned previously, they had to make significant changes to the course, as a result of recent warm temperatures. In the end, we ran 8km, all along the Queen Elizabeth Parkway (which was nice), then skied 5km windng through the arboretum. The run was flat and fast, with only water, no ice to contend with. When the smoke cleared from my shoes, I had ran the 8k in just over 35 min. Great! At that pace, I’d theoretically finish the marathon in 3hr. 8min. 30sec. Hmmm, that would qualify me for the Boston Marathon! Yeah, right, I won’t hold my breath. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t keep that up for another 34km! Regardless, it was my fastest 8k ever.