Friend over for the weekend and visit to the dentist

The last week or so has been a bit of a whirlwind. I had a friend stay with me from last Thursday to Sunday. He was on a business trip with his job here in Vancouver. He was a friend of mine that I originally knew when I lived in Toronto growing up, basically ever since high school. When we graduated from high school, we both ended up going to the University of Ottawa together and we still hung out together. When I moved out to BC, we kept in touch via e-mail and saw each other every now and again when I would fly back home to visit friends and family. It was his first time out here visiting me and I would say that we had a relatively fun time. On Thursday night, we went out to see the Trailer Park boys movie (Second time for me actually) and just chatted and hung out at our place. On Friday, we drove to Mount Baker and all the way to close to the top of the mountain to where the snowline was. It was kind of neat standing in the snow when on the ground below the mountain there was nothing at all. We then drove to Bellingham, WA where my friend and I had a meal and he bought some liquor that was unavailable in Canada (which he had to pay a hefty duty on at the border). I was able to get back to Burnaby just in time for swim practice. Swimming on Friday was fairly uneventful as we did mostly drills and some vertical kicking at the end. I definitely found the vertical kicking somewhat tiring.

On Saturday, my friend and I walked around Metrotown mall and he bought a few things in the Asian grocery store T&T as well as had a look at a few other specialty stores. We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant in Metrotown and a late night dinner at a Korean Restaurant on Kingsway. Both were absolutely delicious. I especially loved the Korean restaurant. Their BBQ Pork and Beef is absolutely to die for. The only problem with the Korean place was that it was a bit pricy but every now and again, it would definitely be a nice treat in the future.

On Sunday, I drove my friend to the airport and said goodbye and wished him a good flight. For the rest of the day, I didn't do too much except go to the gym on Sunday night and had a workout. I felt that was quite refreshing.

Monday was a fairly uneventful day and swim practice was somewhat challenging. With a set of 3x100 IM on some fast intervals followed by a set of 2x50 by stroke (We did this set 3 times). The fastest I managed to go on was 1:45 on the last 3. I know I made 2 out of 3, so hopefully I'll be able to improve on that in the future.

Today was a bit of an adventure as I went to the dentist. I hadn't gone since 2002. So, I was a bit nervous as to what I would find. Fortunately to my surprise, there was not much of anything wrong with my teeth at all. There was one cracked filling that needed to be repaired as it was causing me some discomfort sometimes when eating but now that that is taken care of, shouldn't be anymore problems. The dentist said that there were no new cavities so that was good.

The rest of the day was uneventful with the afternoon at work and I went to the gym again after work. I worked out pretty hard again especially on the weights. My arms are a bit sore after doing some strenous sets of lat pulldowns especially. Let's hope it pays off.

I think I'm going to relax now.. watch some TV with a glass of wine and just chill out until I go to bed...

Really hard workout last night ...

Last night at swimming we had a ridiculously hard workout. I think Coach Brad was really being a bit sadistic this time. I remember when I first saw him write it on the board, I said.. "You must be joking" "No way.." and then Darcy (girl who swims in the lane next to ours said).. "if you're saying that, I'm afraid to look at what he wrote.." It turns out the entire practice was 6x500 broken up as follows. Yes that's right 6x500. The first one was choice swim on 9:00.. The second one was pull on 9:00. The third one was first 300 swim and then the last 200 IM on 10:00. The fourth one was another pull on 9:00. The fifth one was kick with fins on 10:00 and the last one was swim on 8:00. By the 4th one, I was pretty tired and hurting. I think most of us were too but maybe it was good that Brad did that as it will get us in better shape for the upcoming meets. I had a look at the UBC Masters website last night to have a look at the meet entry form. They have the usual range of events. I was trying to figure out what I would swim at the meet. It looks like I'll probably do 3 events - 50 free, 100 IM and 200 back as they are fairly evenly spaced and I wanted to get in a 50 free in there so I could try and break 30. I think I can do it!

I wanted to head to the gym today but just ran out of time. I have some prep work to do but hopefully will be done by about 10:00. The gym is open for another hour after that. Depending on what time I finish, I hopefully can get at least a 40 minute workout in even if I only do a few of the weights.

A friend of mine also is going to be coming to town for a few days this Thursday and staying with us from back east. I'm really looking forward to it as I haven't seen him in a while and he has never visited us here out west before. It Should be great. I think we will have a lot of fun as I'll show him around all the sights etc.

I'm feeling a bit tired today so hopefully I'll also be able to head to bed early as I've been having a bit of insomnia as of late... let's hope that tomorrow I'll feel refreshed.

Swimming this week and this weekend.

Overall this past week, I had a fairly productive one as far as swimming goes. This past Wednesday, we did some tiger sprints as well as a broken 200 IM (Some people decided to do a 400 freestyle pull for time). The tiger sprints were definitely challenging. We had to swim underwater without fins for one length and then sprint back as fast as you could. I did manage to make to make all the first part of the tiger sprints underwater without taking a breath so that was good. The broken 200 IM was actually quite exceptional. If the time I did for that is any indication about how I would do in an actual race, then I would absolutely blow my time from last year away. Last year my best time in December was a 2:59 that I did at the UBC Meet. The broken 200 IM I did a 2:43 from a push. It broke down as follows: 38 for 50 fly, 1:30 for 100 (50 back and 50 breast) and a 35 for 50 free. My best ever time when I was 16 for a 200 IM was a 2:33. So the fact that I could do that time now is pretty amazing really.

On Thursday, I went back to the gym to lift some heavy weights for both upper and lower body as well as do some cardio work on the cross trainer. I like it better for cardio work than a treadmill as it's less hard on the joints. I really pushed myself especially for the weights. For the lat pull downs, I am doing around 145lbs now for 12 reps. By the last one, I can barely move my arms, so that's good. Most of the other machines (leg extensions, bicep curl, triceps etc.) I was doing between 80 and 115 lbs, so hopefully I'll be able to build up further strength.

As a result, I was very sore for Friday's practice. My swimming wasn't terribly slow but I didn't feel that great in the water. We had to do a set of 18x50 pull on descending time intervals, starting from 1:00 and going down to 40 seconds. A few people attempted 35 seconds, but I don't think I will be able to do that quite yet. Who knows in several months though. I did make all the intervals which is good.

After swim practice on Friday night, my girlfriend and I went out for a late night dinner at a place on Kingsway in Vancouver called Top's Restaurant. I was doing research online for some 24 hour restaurants close to here and I found one on Kingsway not too far away in Vancouver. We went there and found it to be very pleasant. I ordered a Mexican Primavera dish which basically is Penne noodles in a primavera sauce and ground beef with taco seasoning mixed in. It tasted really good. We also had a starter dish of some pita and hummous.. man, that was the best hummous I had ever eaten ever in my life. It was so awesome!! I would totally recommend this restaurant for anyone who is out late and want to have a good place to eat. They have a wide range of items on their menu and the prices aren't too expensive either.

Today, I didn't do too much. I pretty much slept until noon and then did some work on my computer downloading a few things and watching a couple of movies. I was I managed to get all of the Trailer Park Boys episodes on my girlfriend's new computer so I'm sure she'll be happy about that.

Tomorrow, I think I'll mainly focus on my preparation for my classes for next week and then go back to the gym in the evening to do some more weights and cardio.. hopefully it will go well.

Friday's practice

Last night's practice wasn't too intense. Coach Brad took it easy on us... relatively. We started out with a 400 on 7:00, a 200 on 3:30, 100 on 1:45 and then a 50 on :40, another 100 on 1:45 and then the last 50 on :40. The first 400m I went perhaps a little bit too fast, faster than I thought I should be going as I went a 5:51. The rest of it was fine and was able to make the 2 50s on :40 which was good. After that, we did another set but I can't quite remember what it was for some reason. My brain seems a bit foggy right now.

I do remember the main set though. Coach Brad split us up into 3 groups, 1 sprint, 1 middle distance and 1 distance. The sprinters did a 300m to get warmed up and then did a set of 8x50 on 2:30 at 95%. The middle distance people did 8x25 kick on :40 and then 9x100 with every 3rd one at 95% and the other two smooth. The distance set was 3x300 pull on 4:45/5:15, 4x100 on 1:45 and then 5x50 on :50. Scott was the only one to do the distance set in the far lane. There were about 4 of us who did the middle distance set (myself, Ian, Darcy and Kira) and everyone else did the sprint set.

It went pretty well for each of the 3 fast 100s. I did a fairly good time on each. The first fast 100m I did was backstroke, I did a 1:28. The second fast 100m I did was IM and I did a 1:29, and the last 100m I did was also backstroke, and I did a 1:25.
It went fairly well I think. Brad challenged us to do 1 of the 100s butterfly and the other 3 people doing the set did so except myself. I guess I just wimped out this time around... maybe next time.

I saw the TPB movie yesterday. It was hilariously funny as I expected. As per usual, Cory and Trevor took the heat for the crime that the boys did. In the end though, they got away with their scheme and the movie had a happy ending. I won't say anymore details on here for those who are interested in seeing it.

This weekend is Thanksgiving but I don't think I'll be doing anything special as our original plan to go to Calgary was cancelled due to scheduling problems. I'm sure we'll have a nice big bird and some good food on Sunday night though. I'm sure I'll be eating Turkey leftovers for the next couple of months.... but that's not entirely bad.

Brad says that there will be practice on Monday if they are able to keep the pool open. I'll definitely be going, and hopefully it will be a fun practice after all that turkey. I don't think I would be able to handle anything else.

Fast swimming yesterday and rough day today..

Today I had a bit of a rough day today. I had a few of my students really act up on me today. One of them even called me a "Jackass" and a "Butthead" in front of everyone in the class. Needless to say, I wasn't too impressed and I kicked him out and told him not to come back until he's ready to be pleasant and not act rude. I guess as a teacher you are supposed to get used to stuff like this but for me, I always find it hard as I am a sensitive type of person. It took me a few moments after that to regain my composure to finish the lesson. Let's hope that it doesn't happen again.

Last night was a pretty interesting practice at swimming. We started off with 4x100 which wasn't so bad and then we did some drill 25s which were kind of interesting (all 4 strokes). Next, we did a set where we did 2x100 and a 50, and the last 15 to 5 metres depending on what were doing, were all flat out. I did backstroke for this set as I wanted to challenge myself and I did a pretty good job I think as I didn't have any problem making the intervals which were supposed to be for people swimming freestyle. The last thing we did was 2 timed 50s with fins on 35 seconds. Again, the 35 second pacetime was supposed to be for freestyle but I decided to do it backstroke. The first 50, I did a 31 for 50 back with fins. The second one I died a bit and went a 35. I really must have tightened up on the second 50 because I didn't notice a big difference in speed between the two. Overall, I was pretty satisfied with my effort and I made both on the pacetime.
The really fast girl in our lane (the one that I have a bit of a crush on) went amazingly fast. She did a 28 for 50m freestyle with fins. I think that definitely turned a few heads, especially among the guys in the fast lanes as she beat a few of their times. A few of us congratulated her and talked to her afterwards about her swim. I look forward to seeing what she can do at the UBC meet in November. One of the other guys suggested that we could have a mixed relay.. who knows what will happen.

Tomorrow the Trailer Park Boys movie comes out! Yahoo!! I can't wait. It will be really awesome. I am such a big fan of that show. I have every single episode on DivX in my movie collection. I even recently downloaded the special they showed on Showcase of the behind the scenes footage in making the movie. It looks really good... I know my girlfriend will love it because her "hunk" will be on the big screen.. I know I will hear for the next several days about how big Julian's muscles are and how sexy he is... *rolls eyes*

Anyways, this weekend is also Thanksgiving. I don't have any special plans. Originally, we were supposed to go to Calgary to visit some friends there but that fell through unfortunately. Our friends there were going to be busy this weekend and won't have time to hang out with us as something else came up for them as well. THat's ok though. We can still have a great turkey dinner here :-) I'm looking forward to it...