September 2007 - ActiveSteve

… A Hard Day Biking

Howdy all! Well, the full title of the post might actually be more like A Hard Night Drinking Leads to … A Hard Day Biking, but I thought that was a bit too long for a blog posting title, and might be a bit misleading 😉 This little story is about a biking tour that I signed up to do more or less on a whim a couple weeks back. In fact, it was the day after my Iron distance triathlon that someone mentioned they were going to do it, so I decided I’d sign up as well. After all, in my mind, a 170km bike ride on a Sunday would be a nice way to spend a day, now that I knew I could handle those distances. After all, this was billed as a “Tour”, not a “Race”, with a sport group and a touring group. That was my plan, to just take it easy and tour. Well, things don’t always go the way you plan, and if you read on, you’ll read what I mean by that in the context of this event. If you’d like, you can check out a map that I put together of the bike ride. Sadly, there are only 6 pictures, as all the batteries I had brought were dead. However, you can go to flickr, and check out other pics that explain the story as well!

Race Reports

Bouncing Back… With Another Gold!

Howdy gang. Hope everyone’s had a good week! It’s hard to imagine but just a little over a week ago I completed my first Iron Distance triathlon. The first order of business after doing something like that is of course to rest for a little bit. However, that’s not the way I roll over here atActiveSteve .com! Although I did manage to do absolutely no training for the entire week, I didn’t want that to continue indefinitely, so on Wednesday I looked into doing the 5 PeaksEnduro trail running race at my friend Mike Caldwell’s property (the ARK) in Farrellton , Quebec. At the time, I hadn’t decided exactly whether or not I’d actually race. I thought that I would either volunteer at the race, or maybe do the short (5-6 km) race. As you might imagine though, things didn’t work out quite that way. Read on to find out what I’m talking about. You can also check out some of the pictures taken at the race by the fine folks at ZoomPhoto.ca.

Race Reports

I…AM…IRON…MAN !!!

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Well, here it finally is folks. My post about the recent completion of my journey to become an Iron..Man. I can’t use the term Ironman itself, as this term is trademarked, and the race I took part in isn’t an ‘official’ Ironman event. Whatever. I still did the distance, endured the pain, and went through all the training. So I still feel pretty damn good about it 😉 As you’ll note, I’m calling this a journey, because it isn’t as simple as just doing a race. Getting to this start line involved about 9 months of training and sacrifices. I really couldn’t be a big party animal on weekends. Instead, I was up early mornings pretty much every single weekend, doing 6 hour bike rides or 3 hour runs or putting time in the pool. Often times, I actually had to do more than one of those per day. Yup, my weekly training regimen consisted of between 12 and 20 hours a week! Of course, rather than always just training, keep in mind I also raced during all this time, doing numerous triathlons and adventure races throughout the early season as well! But, since you’re reading this, it means that I made it to the other side. This post will be all about my race day, as the rest is essentially history at this point 😉 In order to help you understand the most about the day, I’ve done a few things for you. First off, head over to flickr for a folder full of race pictures. Secondly, since I had my Garmin on during the race itself, why not have fun and browse the Google map that I created, that includes some of the pictures? Good enough? Excellent, now on with the story.

Life in General

Rob and Anna get Married… Craziness Ensues!

Well, a mighty congratulations goes out to Rob and Anna, who tied the knot just over a week ago at Watson’s Mill in Manotick. I was lucky enough to be one of the four best men to take part in the wedding, and share in their special day. As a result, there was a fair bit of partying to be done as well, which included not just one, but two bachelor parties, as well as the wedding itself. And all this a mere week away from my Iron-distance triathlon! This post will share a bit of the fun that we had over the week before the wedding, as well as the wedding itself. The fun was multiplied by the fact that we had some special guests come from out of town that we hadn’t seen in a while, which made it all the better. Namely, Tanya, Troy, Duane and Boris made the trip from their respective corners of Canada to celebrate with us. Read on to hear a bit more about this once-in-lifetime event for Rob and Anna. If you’re so inclined, you can also head over toflickr to paw through the many pictures that we took.

Life in General

Taking the Time to Relax

Howdy folks! I’m sure if you’re reading this post, you’re expecting me to be writing about my latest race result, right? Well, much as I’d like to jump the gun and get right to it, I’m still a couple posts behind, so rather than just skip them, I’m forcing myself to at least write a few paragraphs on a couple things that happened before this weekend 🙂 As you’re no doubt aware, I’ve been doing a lot of training lately in preparation for my Iron distance triathlon. However, in the last few weeks of training for any big event, you’re supposed to do what’s called a taper, which is when you reduce you’re training volume. So this post and the next are about what I did during that taper. It’s important to make sure that you take some time to recover and get yourself mentally prepared for the big race! Read on to hear about what I did a few weeks back.