2007 - Page 8 of 15 - ActiveSteve

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.

Life in General

Bon Voyage Hill-Meyers

Hi folks. Well, although summer is traditionally a time of relaxing and getting outside to have some fun, it’s also a time that some people prepare to embark on the next stage of their careers and / or lives. One group of such people that are close to me are my sister, my brother-in-law, and my cute little niece. You see, they’ve just gotten themselves packed up and ready to move away to Riyadh for at least the next two years on a foreign service posting! In spite of the fact that I’ve been training like a madman, and very much self-absorbed, they’ve been very much on my mind, as this is a big move, and means that I won’t get to see Helena entering the terrible twos. I’m going to lose valuable time in my plot to turn her into a little hell-raiser! Oh well, I’ll just have to count on Patrick to do that for me I guess. Anyway, this post is really just to say Bon Voyage, Good Luck, and Thanks for everything to these important members of my Ottawa family. Read on if you’re interested. Also, you can check out some of the pictures of the last few days of their time in Ottawa.

Race Reports

A Gold Rush for ActiveSteve

Yup, after years of trying for it, I’ve finally landed a legitimate first place finish in a race. It’s just that simple. I could go on with the fanfare, and a long build up, but why put you through that, right? However, since that would be completely out of character, I’ll back up now, and give you the entire background and story. The event I’m talking about is the National Capital Kayak Triathlon, put on by Somersault Events, and took place at Mooney’s Bay in Ottawa on July 28th of the long weekend (well, long weekend for those who work in Ontario… I had to work Monday). It was to be my last race before the Iron-distance race I’m doing on September 1st. Also, my goal was to win this one, not just ‘do well’. If you’d like to see some pictures of this race, check out the folder on Flickr. Now on with the story.

Race Reports

Training, Training, and More Training

Howdy folks! You may be asking yourself, why is it that ActiveSteve seems to be perpetually two weeks behind in all his postings? Well, that’s a pretty valid question, and with this little post, I hope to enlighten you a bit as to why that is. Essentially, it’s a question of time. You might have noticed that I tend to get a little verbose when writing up my postings. Ihonestly don’t mean to, it’s just that I seem to have a rambling writing style. I’ll decide to just write a little paragraph about a certain leg of a race for example, but when I get down to it, I start describing a whole lot of little things in it. I’m not sure why that is, I guess I just want to make sure that my readers are getting a true sense of my experiences. Where and/or what will this ever get me? Well, not a hell of a lot, other than when I’m old and wrinkly, I can bring all the old stories up (I hope), and relive my ‘youth’. So there you have it. But I digress. This post is about my training, not my rambling ways, right? Hee hee, see, there I went again.

Race Reports

Burning Rubber and Missing Checkpoints

Good day race fans, and welcome to another edition of ActiveSteve’s race reports. I’m writing to you about my most recent race experience. On the weekend of July 21st and 22nd, Carl and I took part in the Raid Pulse staged race. This was the first time I raced in a staged race in its entirety. You see, I previously did race in a staged race, but I only participated in the second day. This was the Sea2Summit race a couple years back when Kevin supported me. This time I had the time to do the whole race.This particular race was based in Montpellier, QC, and would consist of 3 separate stages. The first stage would start on Saturday morning, and last 6 to 8 hours. The second stage was to be a night stage of 2-3 hours. The final stage would be another day stage on Sunday again lasting 6-8 hours. In order to be well prepared, we decided to head up to the race site on Friday night, and beat the morning rush, since it was a 2 hour drive, and we’d need to register as well as get all our gear together by around 9am. Read on to hear all about this fun experience. To save you any suspense, no, we didn’t win, but we did have a great time, and raced well as a team. To check out some pictures from the race, head over to my Flickr folder.