Friday, August 26, 2011

Almost go time at #imc11. Follow #2071 on http://www.ironmanlive.com Sunday. What to say when I’m on the run. Human? Robot? #DaftPunk

I leaked out my bike plan in my last post so before I go hide under a rock until start Sunday morning I’ll leave you with my run plan.

Human? Robot? The internal struggle, like Spock’s Vulcan versus Human dilemma. Human useless on run, robot good, just input energy and keep parts lubed for optimum performance. As human as possible (hopefully very little) for 30 km, but after that point if you see me it’s: ROCK, ROBOT, ROCK! Otherwise you are likely to only get a blank stare, particularly if all is going well.

Other than that disconnecting from the grid now until Monday, hope I got nothing but good news for you.

Happy trails (till we meet again),
boB

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

OK Falls Report (Wed), my #IMC11 ride song. Dance if your legs are feeling good or you’re happy to be off the plane. One luv to #TeamSheri.



Dready got a job to do

And he's got to fulfill that mission
To see his hurt is their greatest ambition, yeah!
But-a we will survive in this world of competition,
'Cause no matter what they do
Natty keep on comin' through,
And no matter what they say-ay-ay-ay,
Natty de deh every day. yeah!

Natty Dread rides again,
Through the mystics of tomorrow,
Natty Dread rides again:
Have no fear, have no sorrow, yeah!

I and I welcome you to the sunny OK Valley, where tomorrow Dready goin’ to ride again just one more time before Sunday. Hope the journey out here was smooth.

Irie,

boB

Monday, August 22, 2011

OK Valley of the Dolls IV: Bon Voyage Team Sheri... Mega Shark vs GiantOctopus... AO, IM, & rubber?... bad html trip...

Most of Team Sheri is packing their bags excited about heading out to the cloudy OK Valley where the “skies are very cloudy all day”... at least for the last day. The Sica Family was treated to the best $1.19 CDN we ever spend on a dvd rental, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, an epic tale and truth be known gentle readers, I was definitely pulling for Mega Shark. Swimming at 500 knots, that’s my game plan for Sunday. And also getting some SERIOUS air:

(wouldn’t watch this if I was flying in the next day or two, I warned you...)



Sorry to spoil one of the obviously important character development scenes, but it relates to my feeling for Mega Shark as a metaphor for our substantial carbon footprints. In the movie Mega Shark challenges our refusal to acknowledge our environmental stewardship by challenging our thirst for unlimited travel over, on and under the sea by consuming airplanes, ships, submarines and the Golden Gate Bridge. Yes, you can argue when Giant Octopus destroys the Japanese oil drilling station he is making a similar statement, but consider he attacked an easy target, in a country that imports 99.9% of its oil. Taking down a couple Kuwait-flagged tankers, now that would have moved me. But hasn’t Japan been picked on enough by creatures from Monster Island?

Oil, petroleum, rubber... ahhh, what would IMC be without AO worrying about rubber? I remember 2008 and coming back to my answering machine in August and hearing a hysterical voice screaming:

TIRES TIRES IN THE GARAGE TUBES TIRES GARAGE BREAK DOWN THE DAMN DOOR AND GET TIRES. FLATS, MANY FLATS, MUST RIDE MORE TOMORROW SEND THEM IMMEDIATELY IN A PLAIN UNMARKED BOX FOR PICKUP AT THE LOADING DOCK AT THE SUPER DUPER FOOD STORE IN OROVILLE AT MIDNIGHT BY “TONY”

Strange times indeed. So I was not surprised when I got a call last night that I knew was coming...

I CAN’T GET MY WET SUIT OFF. IT’S STUCK. TF CAN’T PULL IF OFF, I HAD TO DO THE APPLE TRI IN IT. I’M SWEATING LIKE CRAZY AND HAVE SWAM 15000 M THE LAST 2 DAYS. I NEED A WETSUIT GIVE ME EMILIO DESOTO’S F$&KING CELL NUMBER NOW FOR AN IMMEDIATE SUNDAY NIGHT ORDER/HAND DELIVERY FROM SAN DIEGO TO OROVILLE. BEHIND THE SUPER DUPER AT DAWN, ATTN: “BLACK VELVET”

Diverting her eye to the sale page on the website I was able to hang up and immediately change my cell phone number and block my skype account.

These are weird times and as the density of Team Sheri increases in Pleasant Valley it will only get weirder. IronMeg is sending obscure emails in raw html, her brain moving so rapidly she can’t wait for her computer to parse:

< h t m l > < h e a d > < m e t a h t t p - e q u i v = " C o n t e n t - T y p e " c o n t e n t = " t e x t / h t m l ; c h a r s e t = u t f - 1 6 " > < / h e a d > < b o d y > & # 1 8 4 9 2 ; TML dir=ltr>& # 1 8 4 9 2 ; EAD>& # 1 5 3 7 0 ; META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=unicode">& # 1 5 3 7 0 ; STYLE type=text/css>p { margin: 0; }& # 1 2 0 9 2 ; STYLE> & # 1 9 7 7 2 ; ETA content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.3698" name=GENERATOR& # 1 5 4 2 2 ; /HEAD>& # 1 5 3 7 0 ; BODY> & # 1 7 4 6 8 ; IV id=idOWAReplyText48774 dir=ltr>& # 1 5 3 7 0 ; DIV dir=ltr>& # 1 7 9 8 0 ; ONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>Thanks...

This is not the kind of email one’s head deals with easily even after 45 min swimming in the crystal clear lake, head darting back and forth in case Mega Shark wants to double-down on a couple of high stakes 10x100 sets.

People: don’t panic! Ahhh what the hell its too late, go for it, panic, and I’ll be cheering for ya’.

PO,

boB

ps: holy tap-dancing Jesus, IronMeg just sent another 12,100 characters of html gibberish. “Mostly harmless”... Postcard to MJ: Weather is here, wish I could read it!

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Black Velvet and that top relay prize... Down in Kelowna TF is stillthe King... the little Tugboat nails the swim... Nice appetizer but..

Back from the Apple Tri in Kelowna. Great race, course, organization, etc. They care and it shows. I did the sprint as a tuneup for next week’s fun, AO was excited to be chosen as head biker and driver for Team Black Velvet, who won the woman’s title. Add TF’s gold medal in the M50-54 and that gold van is full with 4 gold medals, and of course, Mr. OF, THE coolest looking dude in the transition area (they should have given him a medal for that).

Up in Memphis the music's like a heatwave 

White lightening, bound to drive you wild 

Mama's baby's in the heart of every school girl 

"Love me tender" leaves 'em cryin' in the aisle 


Yours truly had a fund day satisfying his 2 race goals.
  1. Stay upright on the bike

  2. Don’t pull nothing on the run.
Mission accomplished. I haven’t done a tri this short except for the TTT prologues in a LONG time, strange to finish the run and not feel like you cashed in all your chips. Felt pretty good on the climbs and had a good swim. That was fun, and now it's time to start thinking about going 226.2 km next weekend.

Untitled

Kudos to CSS for all his race support help!

Friday, August 19, 2011

OK Valley Report II: Fast times on the run; show me the way to YellowLake?; damn right it’s the F*&king little L liberals fault

Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you're ev'rywhere
Come and get your share 




Time flys like an arrow, fruit flys like a banana, et? So it is Friday already and didn’t get to report on yesterdays run. Well it was shine on, good news and karma for you who have done your hills.

OK Falls is out at the end of the run course, and it is the 10 km on either side of the turn-around point where the biggest hills live. Did a 14 km recon run and wasn’t no thing after all the times up North down Griffith on those endless long runs. We’ll see when it counts. Wish I could have John yelling in my head during the race to kill the pain. God bless ‘em.

So today Mrs Sica kindly agreed to drop me off for a ride that was supposed to start at the end of the bike out/back (at 120 km, where you get your special needs bag), but we got just past Twin Lakes not quite half way to Keremos and big time construction, 20 min waits to get on the road and well the mission got scrubbed. Taking out amazing amount of rock on BIG trucks. Will they open the road for next Sunday? Who cares, I got my own troubles. But the important part I got to do the descent down to Hwy 97, which always gives my trouble but with the headwinds today wasn’t too bad and my shorts stayed nice and dry. Got to swing round through Penticton and draft for a while behind a huge road vehicle, must have been going like 40 or 45 behind its huge slipstream with the aforementioned headwind on the descent now at my back flying along the Lake. Recon’ed the MacLean monster, the steepest and meanest climb on the course (take note of that). Pavement is in rotten shape but you will be going < 10 km/h so don’t sweat it.

Down the Highway past OK Falls and on the way back pulled out into the rest area and got some wisdom dropped on me:

Img_00012

“LIBERALS are strictly for the RICH. The rest of us are EXPOITS (sic)”

Which is the way it is today people. The liberal school system is not even teaching tense any more, and we have decayed into a society of grim acronym and texting-speak. I close with the wisdom of Pierre Trudeau:

It's nt d Nd of d wrld, bt u cn C it frm der*

PO, and shine on like the moon and the stars and the sun,

boB

ps: Savvios Family Restaurant in Oliver (right on Hwy), highly recommended, Greek/Italian.

* ”It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.”

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Okanagan Report - 8/17/11 - Frost-filled water/Richter/Lenticularclouds/Birds of Fire

Got in yesterday, all gear + Ms Patricia all made it fine, css came in under cover of darkness. Great deal on a car out of Kelowna, it has small holes about the side of a quarter on a cluster on the side but cheap. Barely shut/open my peepers and heading down to Osoyoos this AM to see how steep Ritcher has gotten. Big cup of joe and the country station was wailing cause it fits. But first a dip in the water with AO and Tone. Well second, the first matter concerned AO's directions, let's just say while I would seek her advice in many matters blackjack is not one of them, she would hit on an ace/king, know what I'm saying. Unit 21 NOT 22, sorry to wake you folks, this is the way I always dress in black neoprene and goggles and it has a real slimming affect got to run now and visit your neighbors. So swim/swim the water is so clear and cool here you feel like you are floating on top of it. Then on the bikes and up Richter and if you been doing your hills you have no worries. Got reminded about the mountains though; up Richter, no wind, big headwind on the backside, don't think I exceeded 60 klicks per hour on the descent then we did 8 of the 12 rollers and back up, so like 1100 m of climbing. Then the worse/best part, descending Richter. My shorts are in the wash now, but it is the best way known to do a bike check cause if it holds together it is fine. Celebrations/high fives followed hitting the stop light at the Husky station.

Coming home it was awesome, with Birds of Fire cranking, to wit:


And all over the black as John McLaughlin got it in high gear these lenticular clouds popped out everywhere (see photo). We don't typically see these in Ontario, as the best way to form them is to have rapidly moving air push over a mountain and cause a "rotor" on the lee side of the hill, like a big trough that lifts and drops air rapidly, so the (relatively) moist air that is lifted forms pancake/have you seen the saucers shaped clouds. So surf was definitely big, at least at 5000 m altitude. Another change in the weather in the last hour, cloud and very windy. This can happen on the bike anytime here, bang a headwind, so try to save some energy on the bike just in case.

Lencld

PO,

boB

Monday, August 15, 2011

"Not goodbye, solo hasta luego | Operation Groundswell"; A New Hope forCSS?



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CSS is back from Peru; this wrap-up blog post talks about have they've changed since they left Canada.