wanderer

400s are lots of fun.....

2007-10-13T19:49:00.000-07:00

We had a pretty tough swim practice last night. I think Coach Brad's goal was to get over 3000m and for many of us, we accomplished just that. The entire practice was as follows:

4x400 on 6:30
3x200 on 3:15
3x100 on 1:30
4x50 on 1:00 as fast as you can go.

I kind of went into the workout with the mindset that I was doing a 1500 swim and not 4x400 and so on. I figured that it would save me my energy and I'd be able to complete it somewhat decently. That's not to say it was all that fast but at least I finished without too much trouble. I pretty much kept the same pace the whole practice except for one of the 200s where I tried to speed it up a bit and managed to get a 2:49 which for me isn't bad. The 4x50 at the end I also tried to go somewhat hard as that was the intended purpose as laid out by Brad. I did the first one freestyle on 39 and then the other 3 backstroke averaging about 42 or 43. I was pretty tired so those times aren't that bad either. I guess the whole point of this exercise was to make up for all the thanksgiving turkey that most of us had. With a meet only about a month and a half away, I think most of us including me need to get into better shape...

Last night's swim practice

2007-09-25T07:55:00.000-07:00

Well, we've been in training for a couple of weeks now since the beginning of the season. I seem to alternate feeling either really good at practice or really stiff. I guess it's just getting those cobwebs out of my system. Last night's practice was short but at some parts intensive as we had to do a 100m pull or swim for time from a push. At first I didn't really feel like going too hard as I knew it would hurt but I surprised myself with a 1:10.8 100m freestyle swim time from a push. My goal was only to go about a 1:15. So, definitely moving in the right direction at this point in the season. I hope that I am able to keep up such momentum over the months. As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm not sure how much extra training I'll be able to do for the next while due to work commitments but I'll try and get at least a couple of weight sessions in as well as mabye an extra swimming session every now and then.

On a side note, last Sunday I went over my teammate and friend's house Joe to work on some Halloween projects. We first started by putting primer on some sections of graveyard fence that he and his nephew had cut. It actually wasn't as tedious as I thought it would be and it was a nice break from what I normally do. I will also try to make it next weekend to help out either with finishing the painting on the fence or helping out with other related projects.

I guess I'll end for now. Until next time...

P.S. I will try and update my blog photo as soon as I can find a suitable picture as the one I have there is very out of date.

It's been a little too long since my last update

2007-09-19T07:56:00.001-07:00

Well, I have to say that I've really let this blog go for far too long without updating it. In fact, I haven't updated it since last April after the masters short course provincials where I posted my results. A lot has happened since then. I got a new full-time job working at a new school as well as doing private lessons in the evening as well as continued to train throughout the summer to keep up my conditioning. I think it worked for the most part since now that the new fall season is upon us, I am feeling quite good in the water. This time around, there certainly seems way more people than last year. We had 6 in our lane at one point on Monday night. I think it was getting a little bit crazy. Hopefully some of the people will decide to stop swimming which will free a bit of extra space as even now, doing the workouts can a little bit crazy. I don't think I will be able to do much extra on top of the 3 times a week at this point as I have a lot of work commitments but I'm hoping by the end of October, things will slow down a bit and I'll be able to perhaps get in an extra practice at the pool or some extra weight sessions. I know this can only help me but as everyone knows, life gets in the way and certain things have to take priority.
Anyways, this post will be short as I have to run but I'll try to update more frequently now.
Until next time...

BC Provincials Day 2 Report

2007-04-23T00:25:00.000-07:00

Well, today went quite well also. I got to warmup late again this morning by about 10 minutes due to not paying attention and making a wrong turn despite the fact that I had driven to the pool the day before. I guess I was just not awake yet...
Anyways, I went and jumped in for warmup and I started feeling light-headed and a bit dizzy while swimming. My muscles felt fine but I felt a bit tired.. probably due to lack of sleep. Anyways, I had a nice long warmup and then got out about 10 minutes before warm up was over. I felt quite sleepy and so I had a quick rest but I wasn't able to rest for long as I was up fairly quickly for my 200m freestyle which I had decided to swim as IM. Eventually my heat was up and the starter blew his whistle. He said take your marks and we were off. The butterfly portion felt strong and controlled which was surprising as I had felt badly all warmup. The first 25 metres of backstroke I mainly used as a bit of recovery from the fly but the second 25, I sped up a bit. I turned it on in the breaststroke and then in the freestyle I really nailed it. In fact, I found I had a lot more endurance than I thought. I only started tying up on the last 20 metres. So, it worked out perfectly.
My final time was 2:50.59 which was more than a 4 second improvement from my time at Nanaimo in December.
My splits were as follows:
37.12
1:21.25 (44.13)
2:11.84 (50.59)
2:50.59 (38.75)

I had a while to wait until my next race which was the 100m backstroke. I pretty much relaxed and took it easy waiting for my race. Based upon my 50m and 200m time yesterday, I was hoping for a 1:15 or 1:16 in the 100m backstroke. Eventually, I was up for the 100m backstroke. I was swimming in lane 1 and so I had an outside lane. The starter said take your marks and then we were off. My start wasn't as good as the 200m or 50m start yesterday but it was still fairly decent. The first 50 metres felt controlled and I poured it on the 2nd 50. I think my turns were fairly good as well. I didn't really screw any of them up majorly. I have to say though that I had an incredible finish. I basically timed the finish perfectly and lunged for the wall. I ended up just getting inside my target time and so I was happy. My final time was a 1:16.92 with a 37.43 split at the 50 metres.

The last race of the day I wasn't really looking forward to but I reluctantly decided to do it anyway. It was the 800m freestyle. I was racing in the same heat as my teammate Kyra. I figured that she would beat me by quite a bit as she was swimming really well this weekend. My strategy was basically just to go in and take it easy for about 600 metres and then see what I had left. Eventually it was time for us to get up on the blocks. The starter said take your marks and then we were off. After the first 100 metres, I could see Kyra 3 lanes over way out in front and at that point, I decided to not worry about sticking with her. I pretty much swam the whole race at my own pace and I didn't really push myself too much. In fact, I kind of lost count and then by the time I realized that I had only 50 metres to go, I didn't have enough time to turn on the jets. My final time was a 11:49.77 with a 5:56.59 split at the 400 metres which means I negative split it. The funny thing was that it didn't feel like a negative split at all. Kyra finished the race I think with a 11:25.70, so kudos to her for that good swim.
Again today, almost everyone on our team had great swims. Kyra swam a 2:28.54 for 200m freestyle, Carl swam a 28.69 for 50m freestyle and Mark swam a 29.96. I was pretty impressed with those. But the swims I was the most impressed with was Scott's swims in backstroke. Wow! That was beautiful swimming... He did a 32.27 for 50 metres and a 1:10.55 for 100 metres. Way to go Scott!

Well, I have to say that overall for me and for the rest of the team, that was one of the most successful meets in a long time for everyone. I was quite pleased with my own performances and I think most people were satisfied with theirs... This is the end of the season for me. I am contemplating swimming in the summer meets to get some extra times in but that has yet to be determined.. I'll have to see how things go.

BC Provincials Day 1 Report

2007-04-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

Well, what can I say? I did really well today in all of my races. In fact, our whole team did well. I think virtually everybody who swam did a best time. Some other outstanding performances from the team include: Daryl 41.58 - 50m breaststroke, Kyra 1:06.77 - 100m freestyle and 1:16.67 for 100m butterfly, Carl 1:09.81 - 100m freestyle and 1:22.16 for 100m I.M., Charles 1:16.28 - 100m freestyle, Scott 1:18.77 - 100m butterfly and even Darren who has basically come to only 3 practices in the past month was able to pull off a 1:03.96 for 100m freestyle and a 30.35 for 50m butterfly. Unfortunately, Kim did not show up due to illness but apparently she is supposed to come tomorrow.. so we'll see how that goes.

In any case, I got to the pool about 5 minutes late for warmup but it was no big deal as most people ended up late. I don't know why on earth they made the warmup start at 7:00am. I still think personally that this is way too early but it didn't seem to affect me too much. Actually when I dove in and started my warmup, I felt really great. My muscles felt relaxed for the most part and I felt fast through the water. I don't know what it is but there is something about this pool that seems really fast... Anyways, after warmup was over, I went and relaxed a bit and was told by Suzanne (another Hyack coach) that they needed a backstroker for their 4x50 medley relay which was the 2nd event as the backstroker which they already had was unable to come due to work commitments that early in the morning...As a result, I swam the 50m backstroke on the medley relay. In hindsight, I'm kind of glad that I did it as it was a good warmup for my 200m backstroke later in the day.
The referee blew the whistle to get into the water to start the relay. I got ready on the blocks and focused on getting a quick and powerful start. When the beep sounded, I had a great reaction time and a fairly decent start. The first 25 metres felt very smooth and effortless and then my flipturn was pretty on as well. I did a couple of dolphin kicks and then poured it on the 2nd 25. I probably ended up even splitting the 50, at least that is how it felt. My final time when I touched the wall was a 35.66. I was pretty pleased with that as it was by far my best time in a race and even 3 tenths faster than what I did in practice that one time. The rest of the people swam the remaining legs of the relay and I think everyone else did pretty well too.

I had a long wait until my next race which was the 200 backstroke. After the relay, I did a quick warm down in the adjacent pool which was set aside for that purpose.. As the 200m backstroke race was approaching, I was feeling pretty nervous as I was hoping for a good time, although I didn't know if I would totally blow my time away or maybe just improve by a little bit. I was seeded fastest in my heat with an entry time of 2:50.00 and so I had a good shot at winning the heat. I talked to coach Brad in terms of my strategy to follow in the 200 and he really emphasized to me to work the 3rd 50 which I made a mental note of. Eventually, I was up for the 200m backstroke and the referee blew the whistle. I got into the water. The ref said take your marks and beep and I was off. My start was fairly decent as well. I don't think it was good as my 50m backstroke start but it was not that bad either. The first 100m felt strong and smooth and I didn't really get fatigued that much. When I flipped at the wall for the 100m, I could see that I was at least a body length or two ahead of everyone else. The 3rd 50, I really cranked it hard as I remembered what coach Brad said. I think I managed to extend my lead to another body length or so from what I could gather. The last 50 hurt a bit but I was still able to hang on and when I touched the wall, I didn't immediately look at the clock but then when I looked at it, I saw that I had won my heat by 4 seconds. My final time was 2:46.46 and here are my splits:
38.70
1:21.27
2:03.68
2:46.46

I think the pacing here was much better than English Bay as that 3rd 50 in English Bay was pretty brutal. I more than made up for that here which was good. On a side note, Scott did a fairly decent 200m backstroke time in the heat after mine with a 2:42.27. I think he might have been aiming for under 2:40 but overall from my vantage point, it looked pretty good.

My last race of the day was the 50m butterfly. This was my fun race of the day as I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't have long to wait between the 200m backstroke and the 50m butterfly with only the 100m I.M. in between. I got up on the blocks when the ref blew the whistle. The ref said take your marks and then held it for a while. I almost lost my balance and so I had to lean back up a bit and then by the time I did that, they said go and I got a really bad start off the blocks. The race itself was pretty good and my stroke and turn were not bad. I still managed with a 34.27 which is a half a second improvement from my time at English Bay. I think had I gotten a better start, I could have been under 34. Carl and Kyra nipped me at the end of the 50 with a 34.10 and a 33.87 respectively. I guess next time let's see if I can even up the score...

Overall, I am quite satisifed with my first day of racing at provincials. I can only hope that tomorrow will go better. I have the grueling 800m freestyle as the last race. I hope to be able to conserve all my energy for that as I think I'll need it...

Sick

2007-04-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

These past few days I have been feeling like crap. It all started on Tuesday when I started getting this massive migraine that wouldn't go away. It kind of stayed with me for a while and was at its worst yesterday. I also had a bit of an upset stomach and fatigue as well. I decided to attempt to go to practice anyway because I thought that I only had a couple more practices to get in until provincials which are in less than 2 weeks. I made it through the warm up of 8x50 on 1:10 but by that time, my headache had gotten totally unbearable and I decided to leave practice only 15 minutes into it. I figure I should give myself E for effort but it was terrible. I basically spent the rest of the evening in bed and tried to fall asleep. Although, it took a long time since it seemed that the tylenol that I took to help took its sweet time helping the situation. I eventually did get to sleep though. This morning I woke up feeling a bit better although with still a slight headache. My energy level has been a bit low lately. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe I'm over exerting myself since I have been going to workout virtually every day for the past couple of months. I don't think I'm going to head to the gym tonight since I'm feeling so worn out... I should go again a few times before provincials. Although, I think I'm going to lay off the weights. I hope by Friday, I will feel better and well enough to go to practice....
I'll see how things go...

Busy Weekend

2007-04-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

This past weekend has been pretty busy for me. It started on Saturday morning when when I went to a surprise swim practice that had been scheduled for us at the Canada Games Pool. Since Friday and Monday practice were cancelled, our coach Brad was successful in getting a few lanes of pool time during one of the other Hyack sessions on Saturday Morning. About 6 of us showed up and overall it was a pretty good workout. You can read about the full details of the workout on Scott's or Joe's blog. Overall, I felt pretty good during the whole workout which was kind of surprising for me since I had only gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before because of staying up late finishing things. The main set was a choice of a middle distance or sprint set. I chose the middle distance and I did it backstroke. We did a series of timed 50s and then a couple of 100s even split. I took it pretty easy on the 100s and went hard on the 50s. The fastest I could muster on the 50s was a 38.9 which with so little sleep isnt too bad. Although, I have to say my backstroke is feeling a bit tighter lately. I'm not sure if it has to do with the weights I've been lifting at the gym lately or not. It doesn't seem to be affecting my other strokes as much. So, I'm not sure what it is.

After practice on Saturday, I went home and had a 2 hour power nap before I started doing some spring cleaning around the house. I packed up a couple of old boxes of things and tidied up here and there and spent the remainder of the day down at Barnett Park and had a picnic with my girlfriend. On Sunday, we drove to Abbotsford early in the morning to attend a church service at my Aunt and Uncle's church there. We spent the whole day there socializing and having a big Easter meal. I have to admit that this whole weekend I've stuffed myself silly with food. I probably have gained a couple of kilos just with that. I'll have to maybe spend a bit more time at the gym this week to burn off some of the excess calories.

Today, I don't have too much planned. I don't have to go into work today and I probably will just relax and go workout later at the gym and maybe also squeeze in another swim workout if I can.

Feeling is a bit sluggish

2007-04-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

The last week or so I've been feeling a bit sluggish. I'm not exactly sure what it is. I even skipped my gym session on Tuesday but I still don't seem to have much energy. Last night at swim practice we did a sprint 50 set again for our main set:

2x(2x50 on 1:15 and an easy 50).

Naturally, I did this sprint set backstroke. My times weren't that bad but I did feel I had to push myself a lot more to make myself go faster. My times were as follows: 37.9, 38.0, 39.1 and 37.2
I hope that I start feeling more energetic. I want to make sure that I'm healthy and feeling good for provincials.

I've been having to take the skytrain a lot lately because the job I'm currently doing is downtown and I don't feel like driving my car and paying a lot of money for parking. I will have to be extra careful and wash my hands as I know the skytrain is a place that is very easy to get sick due to the amount of people that use it every day. I guess I'll have to see how everything goes...

50s backstroke

2007-03-29T20:08:00.000-07:00

Last night was a fairly easy practice compared to what we did on Monday. We started out with 12x50 alternating 25 single arm fly, 25 freestyle for odd 50s and and 25 full stroke butterfly, 25 freestyle for even 50s. We did this on an easy 1:10. The next thing we did was a kick set which of course I elected not to go first. The main set was a set of swimming followed by sprint 50s of stroke. It went something like:
300 on 6:00
50 choice
200 on 4:00
50 choice
100 on 2:00
50 choice
1 minute rest
50 choice

Of course, I did them backstroke and I did really well it seems. For the 4x50 backstroke I did the following times: 39.6, 37.6, 38.0 and 35.9

The last one was really great. 35! I guess I'm not surprised but it bodes well for provincials if I can keep myself strong and healthy. I hope to be able to continue to swim well between now and then...

We warmed down with a 100 easy... overall I enjoyed this practice and hope to do something similar to it in the future.

Really hard practice last night

2007-03-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

I must say that last night we did a really hard practice. The main set was 10x200 on the following intervals: 3 on 3:30, 2 on 3:15, 3 on 3:20, 1 on 3:10 and 1 on 3:00. I was actually okay for the first 6 or 7 reps averaging slightly under 3:00. THe last 3 reps I got really tired and had to let my lanemate Kyra go ahead of me as she was starting to catch me. It made me doubt my physical fitness as I really need to try and keep the same pace for all of them. I think the last 3 I did in like 3:05 or something like that, which could be worse I suppose. My goal for the next time that we do a set like this is to try my best to keep the same pace on all of them and no matter what happens, keep going first unless Kyra or someone else in my lane starts touching my feet. I need to be stronger mentally in sets like these and not give into the pain. Hopefully that will come in time with better fitness. I am going to be going to the gym tonight to do some heavy cardio work and some weights as well. We'll see how that goes...

XII FINA World Championships

2007-03-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

I just want to let everyone know if they don't already know that the XII FINA World Swimming Championships are happening right now in Melbourne, Australia. Events got started yesterday and so far it looks like some pretty fast swimming is going on. Although there were a few surprises like Grant Hackett only managing a bronze medal in the 400m (lost to a Korean) and a few people being shut out of finals who were medallists at the world championships in Montreal 2 years ago. Anyways, here is the link to official results of the meet

http://www.omegatiming.com/swimming/racearchives/2007/melbourne2007/index.htm

Hopefully, Canada can win at least 1 medal. I know the competition is really fierce but we'll see what happens...

Surprising swim last night

2007-03-22T21:05:00.000-07:00

Last night's practice was fairly uneventful for me except for the very end I must say.
In any case, I am wondering if I should permanently move up to lane 5 or 6 since I always seem to be running over people either in my lane or in lane 3 while I'm swimming. I find it distracting at times but on the other hand, it's a positive sign as it seems as though I'm getting faster or others are getting slower. I guess sometimes I fear that I will get run over on certain sets in lanes 5 and 6 (such as pull sets or kick sets) as I can't swim those very well. Those are one of the few types of sets in my lane where people can keep up to me or even pass me. Jody almost lapped me on the 16x25 kick we did yesterday.

Anyway, the very last thing we did yesterday night was a timed 100 with fins. I decided to do backstroke since I wanted to see what I could do with fins. Suffice it to say, I totally blew my expectations out of the water. Granted, the fins that I used were scuba fins and absolutely huge compared to the fins of everyone else but nevertheless, I still surprised myself. I ended up going a 1:05 for 100m backstroke with fins. That's really amazing! If I can even add 10 seconds on to that time by provincials and do a 1:15 with regular backstroke, then I'll be ecstatic! I guess time will tell to see how well I'll do.

Tonight I did a very short workout at the gym (only about an hour) but at least it was better than nothing. I am not too sore right now but we'll see how I feel tomorrow at swim practice.

Workout last night

2007-03-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

Last night's swim workout was pretty challenging but I found the main set to be quite fun.
We started off with 12x25 on :40 doing the following:
1 swim butterfly, 3 butterfly drill
2 swim butterfly, 2 butterfly drill
3 swim butterfly and 1 butterfly drill.

Overall that set didn't seem too bad for a warmup.
The next thing we did was 7x100 on 1:50 choice or pull (needless to say I did easy backstroke for this)

The main set was as follows:
4x100 IM on 1:50
200 IM on 3:40
4x100 IM on 1:40

This set actually was pretty tiring. Fortunately, I made all the intervals on the last set of 4x100 despite the fact that I had to swim around people a few times as I was going on a faster pace time. I was averaging between 1:32 and 1:38 on all the 100 IMs for both sets and I did a 3:14 for the 200 IM.

We finished off the practice with 12x50 pull/choice on :55. That was not too bad and I was able to do them easy backstroke without any problem.
Total for this practice was 2600m. It's pretty good, definitely one of our longer practices to date. It's good that we're having these practices now so that we can get in shape for provincials.
I don't think I'll head to the gym today even though I have time since I seemed to have developed a cold and am feeling a bit sluggish today. I think I'm going to take it easy and go on Thursday instead.

Final decision for events at BC Provincials

2007-03-18T13:14:00.000-07:00

I had a look again last night at the event list for the upcoming BC Provincials in Surrey to decide what events I want to swim. I must say this year the events are very poorly spaced out as some events like 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly were back to back (not that I'm swimming those races but it's a good example. A lot of people who swim one would do the other as well).
Anyways, after careful consideration, I've decided to enter into the following events:
Day 1 - 200m backstroke and 50m butterfly
Day 2 - 200m freestyle (swum as IM), 100m backstroke and 800m freestyle.

I realize that there is only 1 event on Saturday between the 200m backstroke and 50m butterfly but I figured that since my main event on the first day is 200m backstroke, the fact that I wouldn't get much rest between that and the 50m butterfly isn't that important since the race is only a 50 and I'm doing it mostly for fun.

On Sunday, I may or not may swim the 800m freestyle depending on how tired I feel. I will enter it anyway since it is the very last race and it doesn't really matter how I swim it. If I do swim it, I hope to go a time around 12 minutes.

Anyways, that's about all. I tried my best to come up with the best events possible based on the schedule they've provided. Let's hope that next year they come up with a better schedule that will take into account most people's event choices!

Hard Workout Wednesday and other news

2007-03-16T11:52:00.000-07:00

I have to say that Wednesday's workout was really challenging for me. Our main set was 4x(3x100) on various intervals. Initially, I was going to go on a slower pacetime but my teammate Dan in the next lane was kind of goading me on to try and make the same intervals that they were doing. Never one to back away from a challenge (and also feeling like I would be perceived as a wimp if I backed down), I said yes. The pace times that they were going on were: 3x100 on 1:40, 3x100 on 1:35, 3x100 on 1:30 and 3x100 on 1:25. I didn't have any problem making the times until the last set. 3x100 on 1:25 nearly killed me. I did make 2 out of 3 (1st one I did a 1:21 and the 2nd one I did a 1:24 or 1:25) but by after the 2nd one, I was literally hyperventilating as my body was just pushed to the breaking point. The third one, I let my teammate Kyra go ahead of me as she was already catching me on the 2nd one and I didn't have any energy left to go hard on the last one. I ended up swimming the first 25m backstroke and swam the other 3 lengths easy freestyle. I actually felt quite ashamed of myself since I felt I wasn't able to make all 3 on 1:25. I just literally ran out of gas and air as well. Let's hope that I will be able to do a good workout tonight.
I haven't been able to go to the gym lately as much as I have wanted to but that is actually due to some good news. I got hired for a job starting this week and it's 15 to 20 hours a week at a school downtown. I have to buy skytrain tickets to get there since I don't want to drive but the pay is good and at least it's something. I hope that after June, it can turn into something more permanent. I'll know more by that point. I will still try and get to the gym at least once this weekend for a weight training session and do some cardio as well. Provincials are coming up soon and I hope to be able to get in decent shape. I certainly didn't feel like it after Wednesday's workout but I hope that can change.
On a side note, last night I made a bit of a blunder while cooking tacos for myself and my girlfriend. I had forgotten that I didn't turn off the element on the stove after I cooked the beef and I left a plastic bag full of tortillas on the element. Well, the next thing I know.. the bag caught fire and burned some of the tortillas inside as well. I was able to put out the fire but after I did and moved the bag from the element, I noticed that some of the plastic from the bag had somehow melted its way on the element and I couldn't get it off later. I think the element still works as I tried it later but it looks like crap. I guess I'll have to be more careful about things from now on in the future.

US Masters Short Course Championships

2007-03-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

I was doing some research the other night about other possible meets that I could go to after provincials in April since it seems I won't be able to go to the Canadian Masters Nationals in Winnipeg in May due to financial reasons. I discovered that the US Masters Short Course Yards Nationals will be held in Federal Way, Washington (a suburb of Seattle) the same weekend as Canadian nationals. Since it's a lot cheaper for me to go to Seattle than it is to go to Winnipeg due to distance etc., I think I'll look into the possibility of competing at the US Masters SC Nationals instead. Apparently, if I only want to swim 3 races, I don't have to meet any of the qualifying times which is good because unfortunately, I don't qualify in anything for my age group. I have only swum in a yards meet once or twice in my life so I'm not even sure what I could do. I imagine it must be somewhat easier since the distance is slightly less.
I hope to maybe convince a couple of people from my team to go to the SC Nationals in Seattle. I'm sure they might be more inclined to do that than go all the way to Winnipeg... we'll have to see how it goes. I really hope that I'll be able to go...

Swimming well last practice

2007-03-09T18:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I think I need to update this blog more often but something always seems to get in the way. Usually, I either forget to do it or just get interrupted with something that seems more urgent. In any case, I did find some time this evening to update.
My swimming has been going pretty well lately. At Wednesday's practice, we did a set of 5x200 on 5:00 descending each interval by 4 seconds as our main set. I decided to do it backstroke since it seems as if it is my best stroke lately. I did really good times and and was able to descend them perfectly. I started out with a 3:07, then a 3:02, 2:57, 2:55 and the last one was 2:51. That is only 2 seconds slower than my masters lifetime best that I did a couple of weeks ago of 2:49.67. I hope it is a good omen for provincials. Hopefully, I can knock it down another few seconds and go around 2:45. I would be thrilled with that. But even if I don't do that, I will still be happy since I accomplished my goal this year for masters which was to break 2:50 in the 200 back.

Yesterday was an absolutely crazy day for me. It was one of those days where everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. I woke up and tried to print out a resume for a job interview that I had and realized that I was out of toner. I quickly tried several different places to see if they had the kind of toner I need for the printer and I was out of luck, so I ended up not bringing my resume. I decided to take the skytrain to where I was going instead of drive since it was downtown and I don't like to pay for parking and all the congestion. The skytrain ended up breaking down for about 1/2 hour which made me late for my interview. I felt very nervous during the interview since I was kind of already in a flustard state of mine when I arrived. I found out later that I didn't get the job but it was not a surprise to me. Then, I go to pick up my laundry from the laundromat and several of my nice shirts are ruined with some kind of ink stains on them. I am not sure how that happened. Anyways, needless to say I was very glad when that day was over.
Today has been pretty quiet thankfully. I have spent the day mostly relaxing and doing some household chores as well as *finally* find a place that sells the right toner (too little too late I suppose). I also did some grocery shopping.
I hope swim practice goes well tonight. I really enjoyed Wednesday's practice, so hopefully we can do something similar tonight.

English Bay Meet Report

2007-02-19T16:25:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was the English Bay Swim Club "Love to Swim" Competition at the UBC Aquatic Centre. I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of my swims. My training had been going fairly well despite some personal setbacks in January that I'm still trying to resolve. I went into this meet with out any pressure or strong expectations on myself. I was just wanting to go in and have fun and see how I swam. If I swam great, that was good. If not, there was always next time.
Well, my strategy seemed to work as I had an excellent meet! My teammate Joe and I arrived at the pool a little ahead of time and did some stretching. I decided to go in and warmup right away because I knew that my first race would be coming up soon and I wanted to warm up adequately yet give myself enough time to rest between the warmup and the race. I swam about 800-900 metres in warmup and everything felt pretty good. So, I was fairly satisfied.

My first race was the 400m freestyle which was the first event of the session. I was racing one of my teammates Ian who was doing 400IM instead of 400 free. I thought that there was a good chance that he would beat me doing IM since he is really fast. We got up on the blocks and the gun went off. I dove into the water and started swimming. My strategy was to take it out quite easy the first 200m and then really crank the third 100 and bring it home the last 100 with whatever I had left. I swam the first 50 or 100 metres and I could see Ian quite a ways ahead of me after the butterfly portion of the IM. I was expecting this and it didn't really bother me in the least. The 2nd 100 I started to build a little bit but I didn't really give it yet. I could see that I was starting to catch Ian when he was doing backstroke.
On the 3rd 100, I really gave her and passed Ian while he was doing breaststroke. At about 300m, I started to get tired but I just held on the last 100m and then touched the wall. My time was 5:30.03. I was pretty tired but quite satisfied with my time. The best part was that I was able to negative split it like I wanted to. My first 200m was 2:45.8 and my second 200m was 2:44.2.

My next race which was soon afterwards was 50m breaststroke. This was my joke race as I didn't really care or even have a goal time in mind. I swam it and was fairly pleasantly surprised. I did a 41.13 which was definitely faster than I was expecting. I think a lot of people on my team were surprised by that too especially since I am known as not being a breaststroker.

My 3rd race of the day was my signature race - 200m backstroke. I was swimming next to my teammate Scott who is an excellent backstroker. He's been swimming quite well lately and I fully expected him to be way out in front during the race. Well, when it came time to race, it didn't turn out that way at all. The first 50m I was actually ahead of him but then he caught up and we were pretty much neck and neck the entire way. I started to tire on the 3rd 50 and he passed me by a little bit but then I could see that we were pretty close on the last lap and so I gave it my all. In the end, Scott beat me out to the wall by about half a second but I was quite satisfied with my time as I broke 2:50 like I wanted to. I went 2:49.67. Scott was ahead of me on 2:49.00 but he seemed visibly annoyed with his time. I am sure he will do better the next time he races it...

My last race of the day was actually a relay race. I decided to enter originally just because I thought my teammate Joe was in it but after I realized he wasn't, then I just swam it anyway for the fun of it. I decided to do 50m butterfly for time (instead of 50m freestyle as it was a freestyle relay) and the rest of my teammates on the relay didn't seem to mind. I lead off the relay with a 34.74. I was definitely satisfied with that as well as it was faster than what I swam the last time I did it a couple of years ago and was at the end of the meet.

Overall, I was quite satisfied and I hope to keep up this momentum and swim really well at provincials.. I guess time will tell...

Backstroke feeling good

2007-02-10T14:28:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling really good on my backstroke lately in swim practice. On Wednesday, we did a set of 6x50 and then 8x50 on 1:00 and 2:00 respectively and I was averaging around 39 or 40 for all the reps, and on the last one, I think I did a 38 or 37.
In practice last night, the end was a strong 100 and I did a 1:26 for that. I wasn't even going all out and I still managed that. I'm definitely satisfied with those efforts. I think I have a good shot at the meet of breaking 2:50 for 200 backstroke this time around. I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch so to speak, but I think I have a legitimate chance. Nothing is ever set in stone until I've absolutely done it. THat's one thing I've learned. So, I'll just have to wait and see what the result will be and hope that it will meet my expectation.

It doesn't look like I'll be going to the Victoria Meet in March due to some cash flow problems. The truth is, I lost my job not too long ago and I've been unemployed for the past couple of weeks. It's not something I like to talk about because I feel ashamed but I am looking for more work to tide me over. After June, I'll reassess my options and see what I'll do. As a result of all this, my cash flow is pretty tight as my girlfriend is the only one right now who is bringing in any money. So, I decided to cut the Victoria meet out. I could use that money to buy groceries instead I think.

Anyways, it's not all bad. At least I'll still be able to go to provincials since it's local. I will work towards that.

Swim Practice Last Night

2007-02-01T12:45:00.000-08:00

Last night's practice was fairly uneventful actually and not too strenuous I think despite the complaints of some people.
We started off the practice with 8x100m on 2:00. The first two were swimming (choice of stroke) and the last 6 were 50 kick/50 swim. It was actually pretty challenging to make the pace time for the 50 kick/50 swim since my kicking is so poor and most of us didn't use fins.

After that, we did 3x400 on 8:00, 7:30 and 7:00 where each 400 was divided up as follows:

100 backstroke
200 IM
50 fly
50 free.

I actually did fairly well in this set as I seemed to virtually lap the other people in the lane. I'm sure everyone else was tired though but overall I didn't mind it. Even the 50 fly wasn't too terrible.

We finished off the workout with 4x50 (50 scull/50 swim) on 1:15.

In total we did about 2200m which is a fair amount I guess but it didn't seem like it for some reason. I hope I can keep up the momentum in my swimming for the swim meet coming up in a few weeks.

Swimming going well so far

2007-01-30T12:47:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in a while since I've been quite busy at work lately with a few setbacks that I'm still trying to work through but hopefully things will get straightened out shortly.

Fortunately, my swimming has been going fairly well as of recent. I have actually laid off the weights quite a bit and believe it or not, I think it is helping me. I think I actually may be lifting too much weight for a swimmer and it's probably not helping me much. I'll go back on the weights at a later time but just do more reps at a lower weight.

I think there is a good chance that I can break 2:50 in the 200 backstroke next meet. Last night we did a main set of 6x100 Backstroke on 2:30. I was averaging about 1:25 or 1:26 for all of them. I was fairly pleased with that. I would like to try and get that down to closer to 1:20 maybe by the end of the year. That would be really nice. Anyways, one thing at a time but so far, I'm pretty pleased and hopefully I will be able to go under 2:50 at the meet. The only thing I need to make sure of is that I take it out hard in the race. That's what I have been thinking about. I will have a better shot then.

New Year and swim practice

2007-01-11T16:35:00.000-08:00

Well, 2007 has been here for a while now and so far it's been pretty quiet. There is not much new to report really. I've just gotten back from holidays about a week ago and am starting to get back into my old routine. I have to admit that this time around it's been tough to get going. I've had a couple of setbacks at work and am trying to work through the problems. I'm hoping to get things resolved by tomorrow or Monday at the latest. My swimming has been going pretty well, although I'm still quite stiff at practice for not having swum much during the holidays. I'm hoping in the next couple of weeks that I'll be able to get my muscles back into the swing of things again.

Due to the snowstorm that we had the day earlier, only 6 of us showed up for Wednesday night's practice. We started off with a 500m warmup doing whatever we wanted. Next, we had a choice of 3 things we could do: 3x50 from a dive on 4:00 all out, 5x100 on 2:30 holding 90% effort or 4x200 Pull on 3:45. I didn't feel much like sprinting so I did the 4x200, but I did it backstroke with Brad's approval. I didn't go that fast. I was somewhere around 3:15 for all of them which isn't too bad considering that I haven't trained much lately.

After that, we did 4x50 kick with fins on 1:00 descending each one. Then, we did 16x25 kick/swim. Going down, it was head up free kick with fins and then coming back, it was butterfly kick with our hands at our sides. The last 2 25s were freestyle and butterfly. We repeated that 4 times.

Next, we did an IM set which was 12x25 IM on :45 and there was a breathing pattern. We had to do 2 breaths on fly, 12 dolphin kicks on back, 3 underwater pullouts for breaststroke and 1 breath for freestyle, and do that 3 times for a total of 12x25.

We finished off the practice with a 200 warm down. Overall, it was a fairly relaxing practice with not too much excitement. I'm sure more people will turn out on Friday than yesterday and then I think things will really start to get frenetic...

Christmas Post

2006-12-21T19:19:00.000-08:00

First thing I want to say is that it's been a while since I've blogged last, but I'm on vacation now so I'm happy about that. It's been a relaxing week so far here at my relatives' house. Definitely a lot more than I expected.

Anyways, I recently read Joe's blog with a christmas theme list to answer. So here it goes.

Egg nog or hot chocolate? I prefer Egg Nog actually even if I know it's not good for me, usually without alcohol. I've never liked hot drinks even on cold winter days.. yeah I know I'm strange.

Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa wraps presents and puts them under the tree. My wrapping sucks but I give it a go anyway.

Colored lights on tree/house or white? Coloured for sure.

Do you hang mistletoe? Nope. I don't see a reason to.

When do you put your decorations up? I decided not to put any decorations up at my place since I knew I wouldn't be there for Xmas, but if I did, then probably some time at the beginning of December.

What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Turkey (dark meat)

Favorite holiday memory as a child? Spending Christmas at my grandmother's house out in the country and opening up some cool toys or video games that I wanted all year.

When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I can't remember but I don't think I was devastated about it when I found out since I knew that my parents would still buy me stuff.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Nope, not a family tradition although I know it is in some cultures.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? just with lights and coloured balls amnd sometimes candy canes. I have good memories as a child decorating the tree with my mom.

Snow! Love it or dread it? I love it also and don't mind driving in it provided I have the right winter gear on my car. I must say that there is nothing more beautiful than a really sunny day where the white snow sparkles in the sun and the air is so fresh and crisp.

Can you ice skate? certainly but not that well actually.

Do you remember your favorite gift? Yes, I remember when I was a kid, my aunt bought me the newly released Super Mario Brothers 2 for Nintendo and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I played that game all day on Christmas day.

What's the most important thing about the holidays for you? Being with family, relaxing and not thinking about work.

What is your favorite holiday dessert? Definitely a gingerbread house. Yum!

What is your favorite holiday tradition? I don't think our family had any notable traditions that I can think of.

What tops your tree? I'd probably put a star.

Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving for sure. It always makes me feel good knowing that I made someone else's day.

What is your favorite Christmas song? Jingle Bell Rock

Candy canes? I don't mind as long as they are not the white and red kind.

Favorite Christmas movie? Elf by far. That movie is absolutely hilarious!

What do you leave for Santa? Cookies and milk.

Well that answers the Christmas tag. I hope that my readers will enjoy my answers. Otherwise my trip has been pretty good. I went for my first swim practice in a week with the local masters team here. Actually most of the team members spent the whole practice playing water polo since they had just finished a meet but a few of us who were just visiting from out of town did a whole practice. I swam about 2400m in about 45 minutes as follows:

400 warmup
8x50 on :50
4x50 kick on 1:15
do that twice

300 swim
200 pull
100 kick
200 pull

At first when I dove in, I didn't feel that great but towards the end of the practice, I started feeling better. I think I'll go swimming again on saturday morning to keep up my fitness. I have to admit that I've been cheating a bit on my diet but at christmas time, it's really hard not to.
I'm also happy to report that I'm completely done my Xmas shopping except for the gift for my girlfriend. I'm not sure what to get her, but I guess I better decide soon.

I went to my aunt's house today to help install a new CD Rom and put her old existing hard drive into a new computer but I ran into a bit of a snag. I had no problem putting the CD Rom in but when I put the 2nd hard drive in and connected it, the computer couldn't boot up properly. I know that I have to switch the little piece of plastic at the back of the Hard drive from primary to slave (either primary or secondary) for the computer to recognize it in the BIOS but I couldn't figure out which sets of prongs on the back were what since it was not labeled... in the end, I didn't manage to finish the job since my aunt had to go to bed but I guess I'll just have to do it trial and error.

Well, this posting has turned out to be a mix of everything from Christmas to swimming and even some technical stuff. Overall though, I'm happy to see my family so that is good.

Diet doesn't seem to be working...

2006-12-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

Well, I got my mealplan book from the dietitian the other day. I started to follow some of the meals outlined in the book but unfortunately, I don't think this diet is working. Some of the recommendations seem pretty ridiculous to me (i.e. 2 pieces of fruit, some nuts and milk with protein powder for breakfast, a small can of tuna with a couple of slices of green pepper and a stick of skim mozzarella cheese for lunch). After two days of this type of diet, I really started feeling dizzy and hungry as well as losing concentration. I wasn't able to focus at work and could not do my job very well. As a result, my performance began to suffer not only at work but also at swim practice. Friday night's practice was a joke as I had no energy at all to do any of the sets. At that point, I said enough was enough and decided to modify the original diet that they gave me to add more complex carbohydrates. They say that swimmers need those anyway. I guess I'll just have to watch which ones I eat. It's better to have energy and maybe lose weight more slowly than feel hungry and weak all the time I say. However, I still plan to stick with the protein powder as I think it will help me in the long run and I enjoy eating it. Let's hope that it works out for the best.

I'm not sure if it's the diet or what it is.. but I feel really worn out this past week.. it seems like I've been hit with a mack truck or something... Maybe I just need some rest. I'm going back to Ontario in a week or so to visit with some friends and family. I'm looking forward to that. It should be invigorating I think. I'm also going to try and do some training over the holidays to keep up my conditioning... I won't be back until January 6 or so. Maybe after a good night sleep also I'll feel better. Let's wait and see what happens.

Nanaimo Ebbtides Swim Meet

2006-12-04T18:40:00.000-08:00

Well, this past weekend I went to the Nanaimo Ebbtides swim meet in Nanaimo, BC on Vancouver Island. At first, I didn't even want to go because I had had such a poor performance at the UBC meet a couple of weeks ago. I felt pretty badly and at the time, I didn't even think I wanted to do much more competing this year. Fortunately, my training partner Joe convinced me to try the Nanaimo meet and swim a couple of off events to just have fun and enjoy myself.

We left on Friday evening after I got home from work to go to the ferry. In the car there was myself, my training partner, his wife and his son. We would be staying at his parents house who live in Nanaimo. The ferry ride over that night was relatively uneventful. I hadn't eaten supper that evening so I decided to grab a bite to eat on the ferry. I ate a vegetarian slice of pizza, a small bowl of clam chowder, a banana, a rice crispies square and I drank a 5 alive. It was pretty expensive at around $12 but I wasn't sure if I would be eating anything later that night so I didn't mind spending the money. As it turns out, when we got to Joe's parents' house, they had some delicious smoked sockeye salmon and some cheese and crackers waiting. That salmon was definitely some of the best that I had ever tasted in a very long time... excellent stuff. We settled into bed that evening and I slept on an air mattress which actually was pretty comfortable. I brought my own pillow and sleeping bag(s) which I needed both of since it was quite cold in the house overnight there.

The next morning quite early in the morning at around 5:30 am, I had a really strange lucid dream about dogs running around and people whispering things around me. I still remember it now. This wasn't any normal lucid dream for sure. I've had lucid dreams before but nothing like this. This was really freaky in that I swear I was hallucinating. I've never had that experience before. I actually believed what I was seeing was real and I didn't realize that I was dreaming and when I finally came to, I felt a bit spooked out actually. In any case, I was able to go back to sleep for a couple of hours before I had to get up for breakast and get ready to go to the pool.
For breakfast that morning, I had a delicious waffle made hot off a waffle iron. It reminded me of something my grandmother used to cook as she used to have an old waffle iron and made us waffles sometimes when I was a kid. After we ate breakfast, we got ready to head to the pool in time for the 11am warmup. When we got to the pool and went to register for the meet, I found out for some bizarre reason that myself and one of my other teammates who was at the meet also (Scott) were not even on the MSABC system and I had no number for the meet. In addition, Joe was registered with the Prince George Masters which obviously is a mistake. We discussed with the MSABC registrar and he decided to have us swim at the meet Unattached for now and hopeully get this fee mixup straightened out. Scott was nice enough to pay the $30 at that time to make sure that I could swim that day. Joe also I think was able to get them to change Prince George on their system so that he was registered with the correct club - Hyack Masters. I know that Joe already sent an e-mail to the registrar, our head coach and our coach about the mixup. Hopefully the problem will be rectified in the next short while as I don't want to have the same problem in a couple of months at the English Bay Meet.

In any case, warmup itself was pretty uneventful and I was able to get in a long warmup and loosen out my muscles after having missed several practices that week due to the snowy weather. The water temperature was not as cold as I remember it 2 years ago when I went to provincials, so that was a positive thing.

Joe brought along his new digital camera which took excellent video and still shots of course as well. We used the camera to record our races which I will have shortly posted up here. I hope to send it to some friends and family who are interested. My first event up was the 200m I.M. I was feeling pretty good before the race.. I had a few jitters before the race but that is totally normal for me. Then the starter blew his whistle and I was up on the blocks. "Take your marks", "Beep!" and then I dove into the water. The first 50m of butterfly felt pretty good. I was actually going a lot faster than I thought afterwards. The backstroke I started to get fatigued a little bit but still managed to hold my own especially on the 2nd 25. The 3rd 50 of breaststroke was somewhat painful and slow and it was at this point, that the guy I was racing caught me. By the time I got to the freestyle, I was really getting tired and was just trying to hang on. When I did the flipturn for the last 25m of the race, I saw the guy who had caught me right beside me. Somehow, I found extra energy and started to sprint to the wall. The other guy saw that and started to sprint too. We were stroke for stroke right into the wall and in the end, he got me by half a stroke. It was a great race and I shook his hand afterwards. As a bonus, I beat my best time from this time last year by 4 and half seconds. I went a 2:54.83 from a 2:59.19 last year.

The next event up was 100m butterfly. Beforehand, I knew that this was going to be a painful event but I was prepared mentally for that. Since I was in the fastest heat, my strategy was just to swim my own race and not pay attention to anyone beside me because I knew that they would be going way faster. I dove in and started swimming.. the first 75 metres felt great actually. It was the last 25 that was a killer which I predicted more or less. By the 85 or 90 metre mark, my arms were struggling to get out of the water. I think my final time was a 1:26 which isn't all that great but I guess it's a starting point.

After the meet, we went back to Joe's parents house for a nice dinner and to relax. I also got a chance to meet up with Joe's sister, brother-in-law and niece. One of the first questions that his sister asked me when I told her that I was a teacher was if I could speak French. When I told her that I did, then she wanted me to practice with her daughter. That caught me a bit off guard but I was more than happy to speak to her in French. Her French was actually pretty good even if she did make one or two mistakes. I guess being a teacher, you can't help but notice these kinds of things. I also spent a considerable amount of time talking to Joe's brother-in-law who is pretty interesting. We had a lot in common as he is also originally from Toronto. We reminisced about the differences between life here and there... and I told him about some of my childhood memories...

Afterwards, we had a wonderful pork tenderloin dinner with some wine and it really hit the spot. I really enjoyed it. At the dinner table, Joe's dad told some really funny stories that just made crack up. One of the stories had to do with all the crazy things that they used to do way back in the day (1940s and 50s). A few crazy examples include a doctor prescribing patients to smoke cigarettes to calm them down (today it seems so ridiculous I had to laugh), using X-rays without any protection when you buy a new pair of shoes to see if they would fit etc. He also told us about some pranks that he pulled on some of his friends like exploding cigarettes and pretending that he ingested sleeping pills etc. Those stories will definitely stick in my mind for some time to come.

After dinner, we didn't do much except get ready for bed because we had to wake up early the next morning to catch the 8:00am ferry. That night as I was dozing off to sleep, the alarm clock radio on the refridgerator unexpectedly went off at midnight. I immediately woke up and become a little annoyed and went and turned off after a few minutes. That was definitely unexpected. When I woke up the next morning to go to the ferry, I felt a bit groggy and it took me a while to wake up but in any case, I was able to get my stuff together and we made the ferry just in the nick of time (I would say with about 5 or 10 minutes to spare). On the ferry ride back, half way across we spotted a pod of porpoises swimming in the water just off the side of the boat. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like that before. I've seen whales and dolphins etc. but not that many all at once. I really enjoyed that.

We eventually got to the other side at Horseshoe Bay where Joe drove me back to my place. All in all it was a really fun weekend and I hope to do something similar again in the future

First practice at Chimo...

2006-11-28T22:25:00.000-08:00

Well, last night was our first practice at Chimo pool. There were only 5 of us that showed up that night no doubt to the dumping of snow that we got over the weekend which made the roads extremely treacherous. Despite the poor road conditions, I decided to make the drive up to Coquitlam to swim. I left early and gave myself lots of time to get there because I knew I would not be going very fast for fear of colliding with something. I don't have snowtires on my car but fortunately, I learned how to drive in the winter in Ottawa, so I learned how to drive in snow effectively. I think that has made a big difference in my confidence in my ability to drive in these conditions.

Anyways, the practice was fairly difficult but not too much so. We swam a total of about 2300m. We started off by doing 10x50 on :50. The first 4 were freestyle and the 5th one was backstroke. We repeated that twice. I was pretty stiff when I got into the water so I didn't go that hard on that set until I could get my muscles loosened up.

After that, we did a long kick set with fins as follows:

250 kick on 5:00 (1:00 pace per 50)
200 kick on 3:40 (55 pace per 50)
150 kick on 2:30 (50 pace per 50)
100 kick on 1:30 (45 pace per 50)
2x50 kick on :40

The last 2 kicks I made but not by much, only a couple of seconds. I guess having big fins is an advantage.

The next thing we did was 4x100 IM on 2:30 descending 1-4
My times were:

1:37
1:31
1:29
1:26

So, definitely not a bad effort. I was pretty winded by the end of the set so I guess it shows that I was definitely working hard. We finished off the practice with a 200m cool down (50 scull and 50 swim).

This brought us up to a total of 2300m which is pretty good. On a side note, I do not like swimming in this pool that much overall since it so warm. You jump in the shallow end and it's virtually a bath. It's horrible. It's definitely not conducive for any kind of fast swimming but I did the best I could under the circumstances. I'll have to swim there anyway at least until the 15th of December, so I think I can put up with it until then.

After that, I'm heading back to Ontario for 3 weeks with my girlfriend to visit our families for the Xmas holidays. I plan to continue doing some training (both swimming and weights) while I'm gone. I'll just have to find some good workouts to do. I know that there are swimming and workout facilities in virtually every place that I'll be going. I don't think it will be too much of a problem.

Hopefully the weather will hold up for the Nanaimo meet this weekend. We're supposed to get some more snow later this week but I heard it's not going to be that much (maybe 1 or 2 more cm). I am fairly sure if only this amount falls on top of the snow we already have, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I'm just going over there primarily to have some fun and swim some off events. Let's hope it turns out to be a good time.

Losing Weight

2006-11-25T20:32:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been doing a lot of thinking and I think that one of the main reasons why I'm not swimming as fast as I'd like is still the weight issue. I recently went for a body fat test analysis and found out that I have about 10% extra body fat that I shouldn't have. The average person is supposed to have 15-18% body fat and I have 27.1% so it's not the greatest. Don't get me wrong, I've come a long way in terms of my weight actually. Shortly after my parents died, I went through a kind of depression and I gained a huge amount of weight. At one point, I was 220 pounds! Now for a guy who is only 5'8" that is certainly not healthy. Fortunately, I'm down to 182 right now and my target weight should be about 155 or 160 with my height.

I've decided to take a bit of a different approach this time and I went and consulted a dietitian to help me plan meals properly in order to help me lose weight. It turns out after talking with him, a general assessment is that I've been eating far too many carbs and not enough protein and this is causing me to lose weight a lot slower than I normally would be considering the amount of exercise that I've been doing as of late with going to the gym and doing the masters swimming.

I should be getting my diet book some time in a week or so. I'm actually really excited because I think that this is going to make a big difference for me. I never really realized that my eating habits were holding me back but I guess it's true that what you eat is just as important if not more important than how much you exercise. The diet book is great in that it's tailor made for each person so that what is in there is specifically to help me. It also gives step by step instructions as to what food to buy, how to prepare it and how much of each type of food to eat for an entire month. I think in the long run it's going to be great. After all, if I am having to pull an extra 25 pounds through the water while I'm swimming, it's only natural that my times would be slower. It's like swimming with a 25 pound weight attached to your ankles... let's hope that over time I can get rid of that weight and be fit, lean and stay healthy.

Poor performance...

2006-11-20T18:09:00.000-08:00

Well the recent swim meet this past weekend was not my best performance by any stretch of the imagination. I actually felt quite disappointed (and still do). I guess I just don't have it anymore which is too bad because I didn't think I was washed up just yet. Also, I was still fighting a cold at this meet and that zapped my energy a bit. That could have made a difference I'm sure. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to stop swimming by any stretch of the imagination. Although, I'm debating in my mind as to how much I actually will compete in the future. I definitely know that I won't be going to the Nanaimo meet. I think I need some time to assess where I am at and think about what competitions I want to go to in the future. I definitely will be going to at least one or two more this year maybe more depending but I don't think I want to go to Nanaimo at this time.

I know I've been through a lot in my life and I have my own issues that I'm trying to work out maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself on why I'm not swimming well. After all, in many ways, I don't even feel like the same person that I was when I was 16. I look at things I've done in the past.. I look at old ribbons and medals that I won.. I look at academic reports that I've written in high school and university and I think, it's not me who could have done that. It sounds weird to someone else who is reading this that I could think this way. But it's true, I actually think sometimes that I'm not the same person as I was when I was younger. My life has changed so much from then to now that I might as well be a different person. I've changed completely beyond recognition.

In any case, I'll keep up my regimen of training and working out and hopefully in the long run, I can see some results of at least staying healthy and losing weight if not improving my swimming times also.

Only a few days before the start of the meet...

2006-11-14T15:44:00.000-08:00

Well it's only a few days before the start of the swim meet this Sunday. So far, my training has been going alright. Although I've had a bit of setback this past week with a nagging cold that won't seem to go away. It seems I am getting sick often and it usually sticks with me for a while. Fortunately, I can feel that it's starting to go away now, so I think I should be fine by the weekend. I guess being a teacher, catching colds and other viruses should just be considered an occupational hazard. Although, I think I'm going to try and start to take more preventative measures in the future from catching more things. I'll try and use antibacterial cleanser several times a day on my hands to lessen the probability of ingesting germs.

Today, I think I'll go to the gym later on and do one last weight training session before the meet. Hopefully it will prove to be useful. I will also go to the gym on Thursday too but I'm just going to focus on cardio for that session and not do any weights.

I have to admit that after last night's practice, I've been feeling a little bit of self doubt as to how I'm going to fare this weekend. I've been training really hard and going to the gym several times a week to supplement my water training to try and significantly improve my times. The way I look at it is this. My best 50m freestyle time ever was a 27.4 seconds in a race. That was only about 10 years ago. Mind you, I did virtually no physical activity between 1997 and 2004 due to university obligations and difficulties afterwards from my parents passing away in 2001. I guess maybe I expect too much of myself but I can't see that I'm that much different today than I was back then. Sure, I'm a little bit heavier now and that does make a difference but I am not sure if it makes that much of a difference especially now that I've been back in the water for about 2 years now (not training nearly as heavily as I did back then). I should be able to go 28 seconds for 50 free. I certainly don't expect a lifetime best or anything but within 2 seconds of my best should be a reasonable goal. I am not sure what else I can do to make myself swim faster. I have to admit that I do feel a bit frustrated as I tried my hardest and was only about to pull off a 30.1 seconds. I think there are a few things I can do to improve it a bit.. but I don't know if I can improve 1 whole second :-(

The second sprint 50 we did on practice yesterday was a complete write off as I kept banging my hand into the lane rope as I was swimming. I totally lost my concentration and at about 60 meters. I kind of gave up and did a 34 I think.

Another thing I notice when I swim any kind of freestyle race is that I get incredibly nervous before the race whereas whenever I swim a backstroke race, I feel quite calm and serene. I am not sure why this is. It might have to do with the fact that when I was younger, freestyle was my best event and even now there are a lot more people competitive with me in freestyle than in backstroke. Maybe I feel nervous that I am not going to look good compared with them. I'm not sure. I wish there was a way I could get over this nervousness. Maybe that is making the difference.

Anyways, the meet is coming up this weekend. I will try and think positively about things and do my best to achieve results that I can be proud of.

Friend over for the weekend and visit to the dentist

2006-10-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

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 ...

2006-10-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-10-14T23:28:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

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..

2006-10-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

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...

Really hard workout and a new girl in practice.

2006-09-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

Phew...

I just came back from the gym where I had a really intense workout. I was talking with one of the fitness people at the gym and she said I should try and vary my workouts and gave me some suggestions. I changed my routine so that I was doing 2 minute sprints with the exercise bike between each machine on the weight training circuit in order to keep my heartrate up instead of just doing 30 minutes on the bike straight before the weights. Man, was that ever hard! About halfway through the circuit, I was just dying. I had to lower the intensity a bit. I was even starting to feel light headed. Anyways, I think it's a good starting point and hopefully it will help my fitness level in the long run. I did manage to finish the circuit in the end so that's good. Let's hope that I'll get better at it over time.

The other thing I wanted to mention was this new girl who is swimming in our lane. She is really fast (especially at butterfly and kicking - she went 1:43 for 100m kick in practice). She is also extremely beautiful. In fact, she is probably one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I just can't get her face out of my mind. She is just mindblowing and perfect in almost every way as far as I can see. If circumstances were different in our lives as I'm attached (have a girlfriend) and she also has a boyfriend, then I'd be all over her. Perhaps in another life maybe things would work out differently.

Joe, if you are reading this, I know you probably know who I'm talking about so I hope that you won't say anything to her at practice when you see her next time.

Anyways, it's been a busy day and I think I'm going to have a rest. Let's hope Friday's practice was as fun as yesterday's with the relays. That was great fun and I even beat an old nemesis in 50 freestyle which made me feel good despite the fact that he dove in ahead of me. I've been feeling good about my swimming these days. Let's hope that it keeps getting better.

The Swim Season is upon us!

2006-09-24T16:33:00.000-07:00

Wow..

It's been a while since I blogged last. I haven't blogged since I came back from vacation at the beginning of August. Well, not too much has happened since then. I am swamped with work now that the new semester has started. I guess that's a good thing though as it's nice to keep busy. It looks like I'll be going to Calgary on Thanksgiving weekend to visit some friends of my girlfriend. Hopefully, it will go well.

On the swimming front, things are going quite well. I've decided to do some extra work in addition to the three practices a week that I do in order to lose weight and get into better shape for the upcoming season. I've signed up with a membership at a gym and have been doing some weighttraining as well as a bit of cardio to supplement my swimming. Let's hope that it will pay off. So far, things have been going really well. I've been swimming much faster than I anticipated so far this season. On Friday night's practice, I did a 36.8 for 50m backstroke which technically is faster than my time at provincials last year in Kelowna where I did a 37.03. I am hoping to get down to 35 or so by Christmas time and also to break 30 for my 50m freestyle. That would be good.

I am hoping that the upcoming week will continue to be good.. let's see how things go.

Part 2 of my adventure...

2006-08-02T23:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I ended the last post by saying that I would just stay in Thunder Bay for a few more days and then my girlfriend would fly back and we'd continue on through the states back to BC. It didn't exactly work out that way. After about 3 or 4 days in Thunder Bay, I became incredibly bored and I figured that I should do something about it. So, as crazy as it sounds, I decided to drive as far as I could in one day in the direction of Ottawa and see where I ended up as I figure I could meet up with my girlfriend at some point along the way and she could cash in her return ticket to Thunder Bay and use it at another time. I managed to drive for almost 15 hours straight that day and I made it as far as Pembroke, Ontario (which is about 1 hour 45 minute drive east of Ottawa). I crashed at my aunt and uncle's place there for the night and by that point, I had been driving so much that I began to feel light headed so I thought it best to stop.

The next day I woke up and went over to my aunt and uncle's office. They run the local Weed Man franchise in Pembroke and I chatted with them and met their assistant. We went out for lunch at Boston Pizza and I was able to catch up with them on all of the family gossip. A few hours later, I was off driving towards Ottawa and made it there in about 1 and a half hours to Kanata Town Centre where I was supposed to meet the GF. We relaxed there and then stayed at a friend's house there which was great. I enjoyed hanging out with some old pals at my old haunts from my university days. It sure brought back memories. I have to admit that I do feel a bit nostalgic for the place sometimes...

Anyways, I stayed in Ottawa for about 2 days and then we continued east to Laval, Quebec where I met up with another friend. We had a delicious home cooked pizza and went to a bookstore that afternoon. In the evening, we just chilled out with him and slept over at his place. Early the next morning, we headed out of Montreal and down towards the U.S.

We made it as far as London, Ontario that day and stayed in a motel just off the highway that night. Unfortunately, they only had non smoking rooms available and the room we had really reaked of cigarette smoke which made me nauseous but I still managed to be OK. The next morning, we checked out early and made our way to the US border at Port Huron, Michigan. We didn't have any problem whatsoever with the US customs and proceeded to drive on I-69 in Michigan going towards Chicago. We made it to Chicago later that afternoon and finally was able to meet up with my friend Haukur and his wife Jennifer. I hadn't met his wife before since they got married since the last time I saw him which was 8 years ago. Haukur is originally from Iceland and he moved to the US after he got married to an American lady. Jennifer was really nice and we enjoyed hanging out with them. They took us out to a Mexican restaurant the first night we were there and they had live mariachi bands. I didn't know any Mariachi tunes but Haukur knew one and asked them to play it. It was pretty good. The food was also excellent.

We got back to their place late that night and crashed on the floor. It was pretty comfortable so we didn't mind. The next day we went out to Navy Pier on Lake Michigan and looked around. It was really neat. It was a kind of a carnival like atmosphere with a ferris wheel, amusement park rides, live shows and entertainment and lots of concession stands and delicious food. We wandered around took photos and then just relaxed by the lakeshore. It was such a beautiful day and we really enjoyed ourselves.

That night we had dinner again with Haukur and Jennifer at an old fashioned Chicago Style Pizza place. Let me tell you... the pizza in Chicago is like no other pizza. It is super thick and heavy. I was full after like 2 slices and normally I could eat 4 or 5 slices of a normal pizza. We ended up taking the pizza home in a doggy bag to eat for later. After dinner, we just headed back to their apartment and chatted some more before we went off to sleep.

The next morning, we were off on the road again driving west through the US. That first night we made it to Rochester, Minnesota. Along the way, we stopped off at Madison, Wisconsin for lunch. We had delicious smoothies and quiznos sub. We walked around town and took a few photos of the capitol building and walked down by the lake. The city of Madison is actually located on an isthmus between two lakes. It's definitely a relaxing and unique city.

After staying overnight at Rochester, Minnesota, we continued on early the next morning. We drove through the rest of Minnesota and headed into South Dakota. We noticed the landscape getting progressively flatter and more arid as we were driving further west. We stopped in Sioux Falls, SD for lunch and ate at Taco John's which is a US chain similar to Taco Bell or Taco del Mar. We continued driving west along I-90 into the night. At about 10:00pm we were driving in the pitch black night and suddenly on the side of the road, I saw a woman walking right on the shoulder of the interstate highway. I turned to my girlfriend and said, I just saw a woman walking out in this darkness alone. I decided to stop the car and to check out to see if she needed any help or if there was something wrong. I managed to walk back about 200 metres and meet up with her. She seemed so happy and glad that we stopped. It turns out that she was working outside all day long on construction and her boyfriend just ditched her on the side of the road and she had to walk 20 miles back to the place where she was staying in a nearby town. Well, I decided to give her a lift there as it was on our way and not too far and I didn't want to see her alone in the dark. We drove for about 10-15 minutes and chatted with her and found out her story. She was very grateful for us having driven her back to her place. She gave us both hugs and we were on our way again. We drove about another half hour or so and we were in Rapid City, SD. We stayed the night there without much incident but were shaken a bit by the woman we had picked up that evening on the interstate.

The next morning, we got up early and decided to go to a local laundromat to do laundry and have breakfast. After that was done, we headed into Mount Rushmore and spent the good part of the day there looking around and taking photos. It was pretty spectacular to see the carvings of all the different presidents. The details on each of the faces was so intricate. It must have taken the sculptors a long time to get all the details exactly right. We really enjoyed hiking around the mountain and taking in the local scenery of the area. After spending a few hours at Mount Rushmore, we headed into the nearby town of Keystone to eat a delicious pizza there and talk with a few of the locals. They seemed really nice and friendly and were very glad to tell us a bit about the area which was quite interesting.
That evening, we continued on the interstate into Wyoming. At this point we noticed the landscape get extremely arid to the point that you could barely see any grass at all. Just rolling hills of dirt. It was a virtual desert which kind of surprised me as I didn't expect this at all. We stopped for the night in Sheridan, Wyoming and just relaxed at the hotel. The hotel we stayed at had a pool so I got some swimming in and just enjoyed myself.
The next day, we decided that we would take a detour off the interstate and drive into Yellowstone National Park on the western boundary of Wyoming. I must say the drive into Yellowstone was just as spectacular as the park itself. The scenery started to turn mountainous closer to the park and I saw a lot of eerie and interesting rock formations along the side of the road. It was really cool. At one point the highway we were driving on went right through the middle of a canyon! I couldn't believe I was driving inside a canyon.. it was that spectacular. The canyon must have been a half a mile wide and about maybe 1000 feet high. It was truly an amazing site to behold.

We entered Yellowstone park a about an hour later after eating some lunch. We drove a bit around the park without seeing much initially. After about an hour or so, we started to see the geothermal hot springs that the park is so well known for. We walked along different trails to have a look at the different formations. We saw steaming and boiling pools of every shape, size and colour as well as pools of boiling mud. It was certainly something that I had never seen before on such a scale. I really enjoyed it and it was really a unique experience. After walking around the pools for a while, we drove around a bit to see if we could see any wild animals that are also supposed to be in the park such as: bison, bears, moose etc. but alas, we didn't get a glimpse of anything. To finish off the day at Yellowstone, we drove up to the Old Faithful geyser, probably the most famous one in the world. We stood there for about an hour and waited for it to erupt. It erupts with a steaming plume of water every 90 minutes or so and we had just missed the previous eruption by 10-15 minutes or so. Nevertheless, we waited there and we saw Old Faithful spout off and it was also pretty amazing and I got some good photos of it too. It was also definitely something I had never seen before. It was the first time I had ever seen a geyser erupt. It was almost surreal.
That evening, we drove out of the park and drove a little bit into Montana before we settled for the night at a small village about an hour north of Yellowstone. There wasn't anything spectacular about this village except that I remember that there seemed to be this moth infestation. Everywhere I looked at night there were moths. At the gas station where I filled up, I couldn't hardly see anything except a huge swarm of moths and they got into everything, my clothes, car etc. I was glad to get out of there in the morning.
The next morning, we started to drive through Montana and we stopped for a late breakfast at Butte. We ate at the local subway and just relaxed for an hour or so. I kept driving and at this point, I had the idea that I could probably get all the way back to Burnaby by that evening. So, I kept driving and we had lunch at a place called Zips in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. It was a pretty little town on a lake and it seemed really picturesque. I hope to go back there one day.
At this point, my girlfriend suggested instead of driving all the way to Seattle on I-90 and then drive north on I-5 into White Rock, BC, that we take an alternate route which turned out to be much more scenic in the long run. She suggested that I get off about half way across Washington State and drive north and cross the border at Osoyoos, BC. From there, I would take the Crowsnest Highway (Highway 3) all the way back to Burnaby.

We got off at the exit we were supposed to in Washington State and proceeded to head north. I didn't realize it at the time but hte scenery on this drive was also pretty magnificent. There were some really interesting rock formations and a large lake that was quite beautiful. I stopped and took a few photos on the side of the highway because it was so lovely. We kept driving north until we got to the Canada/US border. The Canadian customs agent that we had this time around was pretty strict. She kept us there for several minutes asking us lots of questions, which I had no problems answering. Finally, she let us go through and we were back in Canada. By this time, it was getting dark and we stopped at the Tim Hortons in Osoyoos for some dinner. I remember I had a chili and my girlfriend had a bagel and cream cheese. We continued driving west along the Crowsnest Highway. I also didn't realize at the time that driving the Crowsnest at night would be absolute hell. It was such a difficult drive as there was no lighting and very sharp curves. It was lucky that I was able to keep the car on the road as I had little to no warning about which direction the road would take. Fortunately, we were able to drive the remainder of the Crowsnest without incident until we got to Hope. There, I gassed up the car and we continued heading down the Trans Canada back into Burnaby (coincidentally the exact same highway that we used to leave Burnaby going east. There are only so many ways out of the GVRD it seems.). We arrived back here in Burnaby at about 3:00am early on Saturday morning and then went straight to bed as I was quite wiped as you can imagine....

The next day I just did some unpacking and dealt with some loose ends that had come up during our trip as well as back here in Burnaby but there were no major problems...

This definitely was one trip that I won't forget for a long time.. as it was special and really a lot of fun. Maybe one day I will be able to do something like this again. I am going to be uploading pics of this trip to the net, I will post the link here once all the photos are uploaded.

And now, it's back to the daily routine. I have to start getting myself prepared to start teaching classes again in the middle of August. I am actually looking forward to going back to work and to start swimming more and to get into a rhythm.
I hope that the coming fall has good things in store.. I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens....

On Vacation...

2006-07-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been on vacation for the past week and it's been somewhat relaxing. I decided to take my car on a roadtrip with my girlfriend... a long road trip. I started in Burnaby, BC and drove to Banff, AB the first night and stayed at a hotel there that a friend of mine works at. She got us the staff rate on the room which was great as Banff can be really expensive. We drove around town a bit and then drove back out towards Lake Louise and Moraine Lake which was absolutely beautiful. I hiked around a good part of the lake and even went as far as swimming.. some of the Japanese tourists there thought I was a bit nuts and proceeded to take photos of me as the lake temperature was only about 5C. I wish I could have spent more time there. I must admit, I like the mountains around Banff than the ones around Vancouver. They seem more jagged and have more character to them. The ones we have are kind of rounded and don't seem as spectacular for some reason.

Then we met up with a friend of my girlfriend and her husband in Calgary for coffee. That was pretty fun and it was the first time that I met them. They seemed really nice and hopefully we can get together with them soon. We then started to drive across the prairies... a little bit outside of Calgary, we hit a massive hailstorm... it was kind of frightening actually since it came out of nowhere. Hailstones the size of ping pong balls were pelting my car and I was afraid they were going to smash my windshield. Fortunately, nothing bad happened and the hailstorm dissapated as quickly as it appeared. We drove several more hours and stayed the night in Swift Current, SK at a hotel. There wasn't much to see there so we continued on our way the next morning.

We stopped briefly in Regina to have a quick look around and take a few photos of local landmarks like the legislative buildings and the saskatchewan river which was fairly nice. It was very windy there that day but otherwise not unpleasant. We continued east and managed to make it to Winnipeg late that night. I was able to hook up with some old friends of mine who moved to Winnipeg recently. We stayed at their place and hung out with them for a bit which was great since I hadn't seen them for a long time. I really enjoyed that and I think they did too. I stayed in Winnipeg for 2 days to recharge my batteries and then continued east and made it to Thunder Bay 2 days ago (Wednesday). I've been here since. I was originally planning on driving all the way to Ottawa but my girlfriend managed to talk me out of it and instead, she wants me to stay in Thunder Bay and relax while she flies from here to Ottawa to spend time with her family. I'm not sure why I agreed to this. She says that I'm too overtired from driving but I still think I could handle it. In any case, the plan as it stands now is that she's going to be in Ottawa for the rest of the week and then I'm going to stay here. She's going to fly back to Thunder Bay next Friday and then we'll drive south into the US and visit with an old friend in Chicago for a few days (one that I haven't seen since 1998). At that point, we'll drive back to BC through the states which is something I haven't done before. I have to admit that I am a bit disapppointed as to how things have gone so far. I wish I could have driven to Ottawa but I know that my girlfriend wouldn't have been satisfied with that. Anyways, I guess I'll just relax here for the next week and see how things go....
I'll keep up to date on new developments as they happen.

Canada Day has come and gone....

2006-07-02T00:35:00.000-07:00

Wow what a great day today!

Happy belated Canada Day (it's after midnight now, so it's not Canada Day anymore.). I had a great time today. I watched the Canada Day festivities today on TV from Ottawa and felt a bit nostalgic about all the places that I used to go when I was in university... It's good to think about memories...

Later that day, my girlfriend and I were originally going to go down to the planetarium but we later decided to go to the beach instead since it was a nice day and she had the full day off which was great. I spent quite a bit of time swimming and cooling off in the water. With my busy work schedule and the other things I do, I don't get out as much as I would like so today was a special treat for me.

Later this evening, we met up with some friends for dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory in New West and played games and talked. We played pictionary and a couple of other games and got back not too long ago.

Since I got home, I've just been drinking a bit and relaxing. As a result, I'm a bit drunk writing this blog right now.. so hopefully it won't be too bad. I've had about 5 coolers and a couple of shots of rum...... I'm going to be on holidays for a bit anyway so I guess it's another reason why I'm celebrating.

Actually as of the end of next week, I'll be gone for about a month or so to various places. I'm heading to various places in Ontario as well as Chicago to visit an old friend that I haven't seen since 1998. It should be great to catch up with him. Also, at the beginning of August, I'm heading to Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico to visit with another old friend who I also haven't seen since university. It will also be my first trip to Mexico so hopefully will be a lot of fun.

Anyways, I better stop writing before I get too drunk...

Who will be in the world cup final... ?

2006-06-28T07:54:00.000-07:00

This is the question I've been asking myself as of late. I have been following the soccer tournament on and off for the past few weeks. I haven't had much time to sit and watch a full game due to scheduling and work commitments but I've been able to catch up on the highlights in the evenings. So far it looks to be a pretty interesting tournamet with some surprises (i.e. Australia making it to the 2nd round). In terms of the eventual victor of the tournament, I still think it's going to be Brazil... I know a lot of people think that the team is overrated but I think they still got something left. Of course, I would love to see an underdog or a lesser known team win the world cup for the first time. However, something tells me that the chance of that happening is pretty slim even though it's something I would like to see if Brazil doesn't win. Anyways, I guess time will tell to see how things play out...

Short course swim practice

2006-06-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

Last night's swim practice was done short course due to the fact that this weekend they're having an outdoor swim meet at the pool that we train at and they had to put the bulkhead in ahead of time. I have to admit that in many ways it still felt easier than long course but hopefully that will change as we go later on into the season. We had a choice of doing 2 sets. One was a sprint set of 50s and the other was a distance set. I wasn't in the mood to sprint last night so I did the distance one.
The set was as follows:

400 freestyle @ 7:00
300 freestyle @ 5:20
200 I.M. @ 4:00
100 freestyle @ 2:00
50 freestyle 100% all out
100 freestyle @ 2:00
200 I.M. @ 4:00
300 freestyle @ 5:20
400 freestyle @ 7:00
300 freestyle @ 5:20
200 I.M. @ 4:00
100 freestyle @ 2:00
50 freestyle 100% all out

That set pretty much took the entire practice with a little bit left at the end for a warm down. On the 2 50 freestyles all out I did a 35 and a 36. So, it wasn't too bad. When I first started the set, it seemed rather daunting but as I got into it, it didn't seem that bad and I felt relatively good after finishing it which is great.
On Monday, we're back to long course again. I hope that I will be able to feel as good on Monday's practice as I did last night.

New principal

2006-06-22T22:22:00.000-07:00

Recently at work, we've had a change in management or staff at the upper levels. We have a new principal or head teacher I guess you can call at the school. The good news is that I have worked with him for quite a while and get along really well so I'm happy about that. We had an important staff meeting today to discuss all the changes in policy towards the school curriculum. I was really excited about what was said at the meeting. The new principal has some really great ideas and I think the school will function a lot better in the future now. Before sadly, there was a lot of miscommunication and disorganization but since the old principal got fired, I think it's going to be a new era for the school. I won't be working too much over the summer as there won't be a lot available and I'll be going away as well for a few weeks. However, in September, I think it will be very exciting...

Grouse Grind

2006-06-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

Today I did something that I haven't done in quite some time. I did the Grouse Grind. I did it 2 years ago before I had started swimming and this year, I was hoping for a better result than when I first did it. Alas, it was not to be.... I am actually quite disappointed in myself. It took me well over an hour to do it and it hurt a lot... I figured that all the swimming I've been doing would have helped but it didn't really make much of a difference. Perhaps this is because swimming works different muscle groups and also perhaps because it isn't as cardiovascularly intensive. That would be my best guess...I guess I was expecting more.. Hopefully in the future, I'll be able to do it again and do better...

Why does long course always feel so long?

2006-06-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been feeling fairly tired lately.. I just want to sleep all the time. I'm not sure what it is but I just have no energy. I went to my swim practice last night and it wasn't too bad. We started with a 200 backstroke and then a 4x100 kick with fins on 2:00. Then we had a choice of doing one of two sets. Either 5x200 (first 3 IM and the last 2 50 swim, 100 kick, 50 swim) on 4:00, or 3x800 on 15:00. Needless to say that pretty much everyone did the 5x200. The only person who did the 3x800 in our group was Kim. She's a bit of a distance person so I am sure she didn't mind... After we did the 5x200, we did 6x50 on 1:00 sprinting in and out of the wall which was tiring in itself. I mixed it up doing freestyle and backstroke. After that, we had a warm down which I did about 100m.

In any case, I just couldn't get going this practice... my stroke felt good but my energy level was really low. I was able to make all the intervals but not by much. Chris seems to be swimming well these days so I always let him go ahead of me.

I hope that I start feeling more energetic soon and maybe feel like I can get in better shape.. that way, long course won't feel so long anymore...

Nude cyclists?!?

2006-06-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

I witnessed something very odd this afternoon...
I was meeting up with a friend at the Starbucks on the corner of Robson and Jervis in downtown Vancouver. We were discussing the issues and I was giving her a bit of a hand with her homework when all of a sudden out of nowhere, I see this line of cyclists who are wearing ABSOLUTELY nothing cycling down Robson Street.. people were just staring them in disbelief as they were cycling by. After doing some research later, I discovered that it was the "World Naked Bikeride." It turns out it is essentially a protest against people using their cars and reducing emissions. It is definitely a good cause although I must admit that it was totally unexpected. Let's hope that their efforts are not in vain. That should teach those idiots with their H-1 Hummers and big honking SUVs a thing or two...

False Alarm

2006-05-30T00:14:00.000-07:00

I had a bit of a scary experience leaving work today this evening. Currently, I am teaching an evening class on Mondays until 7:30pm. I am usually the last one to leave the school so I had to lock up. Normally when I lock up I have to arm the alarm system on the school's front door. Well, I pushed the wrong button on the control pad and didn't arm it properly so when I left the building, the sirens came on and within minutes there were police cars at the scene.. I had to explain to them that I was an employee who was leaving late and had punched the wrong button when leaving. The police called the principal of the school and she confirmed to them that everything was alright and that I really was an employee. Fortunately, nothing bad happened but it was scary there for a few moments especially when the cop cars came.
I'll have to be more diligent in the future...

Illness

2006-05-27T22:29:00.000-07:00

It seems I've been getting a bit sick lately. The second time in the past week or so that I've felt ill. This time it seems to be worse though. I've got the worst headache and I have almost no energy. I feel I can barely walk. It all started this morning.. I woke up and felt like crap. I ended up spending most of the day in bed.. I just didnt have the energy to do anything. I hope this isn't a continuing trend. I think I've been eating relatively healthy lately so I don't think that's the problem... Maybe it's just bad luck at the moment.. oh well no big deal I guess.
I think I'll go lie back down....

Forgot the URL

2006-05-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

I forgot to put the URL in my last entry. Here is the URL

Nationally Ranked

2006-05-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

I just found a website which has all masters swimming times ranked according to age group and gender. They only rank up to 20th place and it's for all short course times done in the year 2005 (January 1-December 31). I was surprised to find that I actually ranked 13th place in the 200m backstroke from the time I did at the UBC meet in December. It was a shock to me since I know the time I did wasn't that fast. It's true that only 16 people swam the event but still, it's surprising. A few other people that I swim with also ranked for their age group:

Ian 18th in 100 back, 10th in 100 fly
Katrina (who no longer trains with us) 19th in 200 breast
Doug 18th in 100 back, 13th in 100 fly

It looks like we're not doing too badly as a group.. a couple of other guys just missed the rankings only by a little bit... hopefully next year we'll get more people on there.

Until next time...

Birthday celebration

2006-05-13T16:58:00.000-07:00

Well... I can say it now.. Happy Birthday to me!

I'm officially 28 years old. A lot of people may not think that is old but it just seems like yesterday that I can still remember when I was in high school. It's pretty frightening actually. Sometimes I feel like I just want to relive my childhood all over again and maybe learn to appreciate it more. I think a lot of people feel that way though.

Anyways, I didn't do much on my birthday. I was planning on going out for dinner on Friday evening but I ended up staying late at work because one of the other teacher's was sick and I had to fill in for her as they had nobody else.. and they were begging me to stay. I couldn't really refuse because it would look bad. So, I ended up staying until 8:00pm that night and didn't get home until almost 9:00pm because I had to drive back home from Tsawwassen where I teach.

Anyways, my girlfriend and I ended up having a good dinner as we went to Milestones and had one of their great pizzas. It was totally awesome! My girlfriend liked their pizza too and she said it was by far the best pizza she's had in BC so far. After that, I went home and opened some gifts that she got for me and also some that relatives sent in the mail. I also got a lot of phone calls from family and friends that I wasn't expecting wishing me happy birthday. I thought that was pretty cool...

I also have some other news... it looks like I'll be moving at the end of this month (until the beginning of July anyway). I'll just be moving in the area here in Burnaby. I'll be moving to a smaller place on a quieter street near Metrotown. It looks pretty good. My girlfriend hasn't seen it yet but I'm hoping that she can see it tomorrow. Based on what I know, I think she'll like it. It's certainly a lot cheaper than what I'm paying now. One of the reasons I'm moving is that my landlord here has raised the rent immensely and now is starting to charge me for things that he didn't initially...it's too bad. I like this place.. but it's getting to be too much of a hassle and besides, my girlfriend has issues with our privacy here. I hope it will be better at the other place.

Anyways, I'll write more details as I know them... Until next time...

New Language

2006-05-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

As you may know, one of my other hobbies is creating "conlangs" and "conworlds". It's basically a form of creative expression for me in my spare time. Some people like to draw pictures, some like to write stories, I like to create languages and fictional countries. One of my most recent projects is "Antarctican language" or "Napaakisu" in the local language. I've devoted a website that I've created to the project. Here is the link:

http://www.geocities.com/napaakisu/

I have about a 16,000 word dictionary and rudimentary grammar on the website as well as a bit of a description of "the Antarctica of an alternate universe".

Here is an example of text from Antarctican. It is Article #1 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (the most translated document in the world apparently)

NAPAAKISU TRANSLATION:

Kifefu hehupa uo haxoha uu penuxu panuno nupa pahepa lukiko tipopi nupa lukiko pepanu ai. Ia nihote faso kosifu nupa xuxuno, nupa ia sosa xuto mumi lukima mesoki fakoso kakoli faso papena ai.

Here are translations of the same document to other languages:

ENGLISH TRANSLATION:

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

FRENCH TRANSLATION:

Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits. Ils sont doués de raison et de conscience et doivent agir les uns envers les autres dans un esprit de fraternité.

GERMAN TRANSLATION:

Alle Menschen sind frei und gleich an Würde und Rechten geboren. Sie sind mit Vernunft und Gewissen begabt und sollen einander im Geist der Brüderlichkeit begegnen.

SPANISH TRANSLATION:

Todos los seres humanos nacen libres e iguales en dignidad y derechos y, dotados como están de razón y conciencia, deben comportarse fraternalmente los unos con los otros.

RUSSIAN TRANSLATION:

Все люди рождаются свободными и равными в своем достоинстве и правах. Они наделены разумом и совестью и должны поступать в отношении друг друга в духе братства.

CHINESE TRANSLATION:

人人生而自由，在尊嚴和權利上一律平等。他們賦有理性和良心，並應以兄弟關係的精神相對待。

JAPANESE TRANSLATION:

すべての人間は、生まれながらにして自由であり、かつ、尊厳と権利とについて平等である。人間は、理性と良心とを授けられており、互いに同胞の精神をもって行動しなければならない

ARABIC TRANSLATION:

يولد جميع الناس أحراراً ومتساوين في الكرامة والحقوق. وقد وهبوا عقلاً وضميراً وعليهم ان يعامل بعضهم بعضاً بروح الإخاء.

INUKTITUT (ESKIMO) TRANSLATION:

Inuit tamarmik inunngorput nammineersinnaassuseqarlutik assigiimmillu ataqqinassuseqarlutillu pisinnaatitaaffeqarlutik. Solaqassusermik tarnillu nalunngissusianik pilersugaapput, imminnullu iliorfigeqatigiittariaqaraluarput qatanngutigiittut peqatigiinnerup anersaavani.

SWAHILI TRANSLATION:

Watu wote wamezaliwa huru, hadhi na haki zao ni sawa. Wote wamejaliwa akili na dhamiri, hivyo yapasa watendeane kindugu.

HINDI TRANSLATION:

सभी मनुष्यों को गौरव और अधिकारों के मामले में जन्मजात स्वतन्त्रता और समानता प्राप्त है। उन्हें बुद्धि और अन्तरात्मा की देन प्राप्त है और परस्पर उन्हें भाईचारे के भाव से बर्ताव करना चाहिए।

HAWAIIAN TRANSLATION:

Hānau kū'oko'a 'ia nā kānaka apau loa, a ua kau like ka hanohano a me nā pono kīvila ma luna o kākou pākahi. Ua ku'u mai ka no'ono'o pono a me ka 'ike pono ma luna o kākou, no laila, e aloha kākou kekahi i kekahi.

SWEDISH TRANSLATION:

Alla människor äro födda fria och lika i värde och rättigheter. De äro utrustade med förnuft och samvete och böra handla gentemot varandra i en anda av broderskap.

FINNISH TRANSLATION:

Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan. Heille on annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä.

ESPERANTO TRANSLATION:

Ĉiuj homoj estas denaske liberaj kaj egalaj laŭ digno kaj rajtoj. Ili posedas racion kaj konsciencon, kaj devus konduti unu al alia en spirito de frateco.

In any case, these are just a fraction of the languages that this document has been translated in. The last one I put up there, Esperanto, is actually a constructed language in of itself. It was created in 1887 by Dr. Zamenhof, a Polish doctor who had a vision of creating a neutral language for global communication that wouldn't favour any one ethnic group over another. It was definitely a lofty goal even if it didn't match up to expectations. Esperanto is by far the most successful of the constructed languages we have today and as many as a couple of million people can speak it fluently in the world.

As you can tell, I'm a linguaphile and I probably will be posting lots more linguistic tidbits here in the future...

Until next time...

May 1st...

2006-05-01T22:57:00.000-07:00

Wow.. May 1st is here. I can't believe it. Summer is just around the corner it seems..and you know what that means.. outdoor swimming at central park! yay! Although, I must say one thing about outdoor swimming. It sucks for backstroke which is my best stroke at the moment because the glare of the sun always gets in your eyes and it's harder to swim in a straight line. Perhaps I should invest in a pair of tinted goggles.. we'll see...
Also, another important date is coming up soon as well. My birthday is less than 2 weeks away. I'll be 28 years young... wow how time flies. I often find nowadays I feel nostalgic for my childhood. I would say that I had a pretty good childhood. There were certainly a lot of happy memories. I must say that oftentimes I wish things in my life were different.. but I guess you have to deal the hand you are dealt with...

I hope that my gf does something special for me on my birthday. She hasn't said about anything she is planning. Hopefully it will be a nice surprise. I'm hoping that we can do some travelling this summer. It feels like I haven't taken an extended vacation for ages... There might be a possibility later this summer to take a trip for work to Taiwan for a couple fo weeks where hopefully I can spend a bit of extra time relaxing as well as doing work of course. I'll have to see how it goes.

Swim practice was alright tonight. We did 16x25 - 4 on 40, 4 on 35, 4 on 30 and 4 on 20. The last four was basically a sprint and I didn't even stop at the wall but instead did flipturns and kept swimming. After that, we did 3x100 backstroke on 2:00 with fins for time. I did a 1:17, 1:12 and 1:09. I was fairly happy with that. Then, we did 4x75 on 1:40 where we had to equal our 100m backstroke time with fins doing a 75 without fins. I didn't have much of a problem with that. I did about 1:03 or 1:04 for each 75 without fins which is about 1:24 pace for the 100m backstroke. So that's not too bad. We did 4x25 of backstroke drill after that where we did one arm and then the other arm and then catchup drill.

After the backstroke was finished, we did a timed 100m breaststroke negative split. I surprised myself and did about a 1:40. Chris killed everyone and did a 1:28. Man, that guy just loves to race...We finished off the practice with 4x50 free where we did the first one on 40, then the next one on 50 and the last 2 on 1:00 (to warm down I would imagine). I didn't have much problem making the first one and then the last 3 I just really didn't try very hard. Overall, it was a fairly short practice but definitely fairly high intensity.

In any case, tomorrow won't be as hectic as it was today. Monday's are always pretty hectic for me as I have to get everything organized for the upcoming week. I think I'll have a nice rest now....

Pictures from Provincials

2006-04-26T23:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I was able to get some pictures of myself at the provincials which took place last weekend. I must say that the photos turned out quite well. Based on what I saw, I think my backstroke start needs work. It's something I think I can really improve upon. In the coming months, it is definitely something I will focus on.
Anyways, It's been a bit of a letdown since the provincials were over. You get on such a high at the swim meet that when it's over, it feels kind of anticlimatic. I guess that's the best way to explain it. I guess that is how most things are in life though...
Well, let's hope that these photos get posted properly and until next time...

Hello....Jagdeesh? Bueller? BUELLER?!?!

2006-04-24T20:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I've returned home from the BC Provincial Championships in Kelowna. It was quite an adventure as you might gather from the title. You might be thinking... who on Earth is Jagdeesh? Well, I can tell you that at 3:30am on the first night at the Hotel.. my buddy Joe and I thought we had received the wakeup call for the swim meet. And when he answered the phone... he said "hello" into the receiver and the person on the other end said... "Hello..Jagdeesh?" and Joe being disoriented as he was .. said "uhh..no" and hung up. Meanwhile, I thought it was the actual wakeup call and was starting to get ready when Joe finally told me that it was a false alarm and eventually went back to sleep after the 2nd or third time he told me (That's how out of it I was!).
In any event, we finally got the wakeup call and headed to the pool. My first day was "so-so". I was a bit off on all my races but considering I only got about 4 hours sleep that night, it wasn't too bad considering.
My times the first day were as follows:
50m backstroke - 37.03
100m backstroke - 1:20.10
200m freestyle - 2:40.50

That night, we left the meet and went to a banquet. That's where the other part of the title comes in. The MC at this banquet, he was a real tyrant. My buddy Joe thought that he reminded him of the principal from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day off.... I couldn't stop laughing when he said that.. because I realize how true it was. He was so irritating. He kept saying things like "THE BAR IS CLOSED!!" and "ONLY ONE TABLE AT A TIME! SIT DOWN!" .. and I was thinking to myself.. get a chill pill buddy... he also had this really bad scowl on his face and seemed completely miserable... put a total dampener on the mood. Not that the mood was that lively to begin with as most people were quite tired from the meet. I was practically falling asleep at our table. I felt as though I had lead weights on my eyes and just wanted to collapse right then and there...
Fortunately, we got back to the hotel at a reasonable hour and then fell asleep at around 10:00pm. The next morning I felt quite rested and had a lot more energy than Saturday. This new found energy also reflected in my times. I did 2 best times on Sunday out of 2 races which was great. My times were as follows:
100 IM - 1:18.50
200 back - 2:54.40

I negative split my backstroke race which even surprised me... I knew I took it out easy and I really wanted to work the second half. I guess I really got it down pat. I just remember telling myself after the first 50... ok not yet.. not yet.. not yet...and then when I flipped after the 100, I said to myself..ok now start to pick it up.. and wow.. what a great race. I was really happy with the way I swam it.

So in the end, the meet overall was pretty good. I am satisfied with myself. I think this will be the last meet of the season for me. I am not planning on going to either nationals or worlds as I know I would just get slaughtered. That's ok though.. maybe in a couple of years :-)

I'm hoping to get some photos of my backstroke race e-mailed to me and then I can put them up here. It should be great. For a more complete sequence of events of this weekend, you can check it out on my buddy Joe's blog.

Until next time...

Provincials fast approaching...

2006-04-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

Well, Only a few more days until the BC Masters swimming provincials this weekend. I'm really excited about it. I have been swimming relatively well as of recent and I hope this translates into good performances this weekend. Last Monday night, I did a nice workout with my swimming buddy Joe. The set that I was most happy with was the 5x100 freestyle that we did. I kept a steady pace on all 5 and I was really happy about that. I did - 1:25, 1:25, 1:25, 1:23 and 1:20 for the last one. It definitely shows that I'm getting in better shape.
I'm curious to see what tonight's practice will bring. I am not sure if coach Brad will be tough on us or will let us off easy seeing as we need to taper for the big meet.
I'm going to bring all sorts of goodies with me to keep us entertained. I'll bring along several movies for inspiration, some great tunes to listen to in the car and my notebook computer so we can post pictures and communicate with people on the net about everything. Once the meet is over, they should post the results online.
So, until next blog (which will probably be from Kelowna), wish me luck....

100 Things About Me..

2006-04-15T21:56:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty good day. I woke up early today to go swimming with Joe, a buddy from swimming. We did a pretty hard workout. You can read about it on his blog - http://cyboc.blogspot.com. Anyways, after that, I came home and had some preparation to finish for my classes on Tuesday. I guess I wanted to get it out of the way. It didn't take as long as I expected so that was good. I also found out that the only problem with my car was that they didn't top up the transmission fluid properly.. duh! Oh well, now it seems to be running really well so I'm happy :-)
Later in the day, I didn't do much. I played some scrabble with a friend online and he kicked my butt... kind of embarrassing considering his first language isn't even English. Oh well... that's the way it goes sometimes.
Based upon some recent insipiration, I've also decided to come up with 100 Things about me here as well. You will probably find some funny, some quite sad and others quite weird. But hey, that's me right? I'm a unique person...

100 THINGS ABOUT ME

1. My full name is Damien Christopher Ponech
2. My birthday is May 12, 1978
3. I have green eyes and short brown hair.
4. I have lived in 3 cities in Canada: Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver
5. I have set foot upon every continent in the world except Africa and Antarctica
6. I am able to speak to one degree or another most of the major European languages and some Asian ones too (French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Norwegian etc.)
7. Inventing my own languages is actually a hobby of mine
8. Yes, that is a bit nuts.
9. The sport that I'm the best at is swimming
10. My best swimming stroke as an age-group swimmer was freestyle, now it appears to be backstroke.
11. Despite the fact that I'm a swimmer, I almost drowned at age 6 and my mother rescued me.
12. I once drank paint thinner as a child and had to be rushed to hospital. Luckily, they did or they said I could have become blind.
13. I swam across a 16 kilometre lake once.
14. The furthest I've biked in one day is about 385 kilometres
15. I used to compete in Triathlons when I was a teenager.
16. I have only had sex with 3 different people in my life (not all at the same time of course!)
17. I currently have a girlfriend (as of 2006)
18. The feature I most look at on women is their hair.
19. I prefer women who have natural looking features and don't look like barbie dolls.
20. I once slept in an outhouse (not willingly of course)
21. I currently own a Silver 2-Door 2002 Hyundai Accent (as of 2006)
22. Chocolate, Strawberry or Vanilla? - Chocolate of course!
23. Croutons or Bacon bits? - Bacon bits :)
24. I have a B.A. Honours in applied linguistics and a B.Ed. from the University of Ottawa
25. I only got my first computer in 1996.
26. My favourite foods are pizza and tacos.
27. My favourite dessert is Rocky Road ice cream
28. My favourite colour is blue
29. I've never had a full beard or moustache
30. I've never owned a house
31. My favourite movies of all time are The Cube and Rain Man
32. My favourite type of music is anything 80s (mostly new wave)
33. I have no brothers and sisters - I am an only child
34. Both my parents died some years ago. So, I'm an orphan too
35. My father died of a heart attack and my mother died of a brain anerysm
36. When I was 5 years old, I tried to drive off with my parents car and got into an accident.
37. I've never been involved in a major accident since then except a few fender benders
38. I've only gotten one speeding ticket in my life.
39. I still drive fast anyway.
40. I've never smoked cigarettes or marijuana in my life.
41. The only food that I won't eat is eggs. Can't stand them!
42. I'm currently 5'8" and 170 lbs. (I was once as high as 220 if you can believe it! ouch!)
43. My favourite fruit are grapes
44. I hate the cold. I much prefer hot temperatures to bitter cold.
45. I've held the following jobs in my life: mailroom clerk, landscaper, teacher (current job), tutor, customer service at a bank, working for the university of Ottawa with the student union, inventory clerk, factory worker, government of Canada employee at Health Canada/Justice Canada and courier.
46. I was always an above average student but never was the top student in any of my classes.
47. I was once stung 50 times by a swarm of bees when I ran into a bunch of nests while out picking raspberries one day.
48. Ever since that time, I have a bit of a phobia of bees, hornets etc.
49. I am also afraid of heights.
50. I've never been struck by lightning
51. I've never won the lottery
52. The one trait that I dislike the most in people is stupidity/ignorance.
53. I tend to swear a lot
54. I have had road rage before but never acted on it.
55. I've felt an earthquake before in person
56. I've seen a tornado before in person.
57. I have a bit of an obsession with the weather and tend to watch the weather channel for hours at a time.
58. I seem to have a gift with memory. When I consciously decide to remember a number or a statistic, I tend to never forget it.
59. I like to look up my friends on Google Earth
60. I'm currently located at 49º12'53.00N 122º58'53.09W
61. I get bored easily
62. I don't tend to watch many sports on TV except when the Olympics are on. Then I'm glued to the set.
63. I've been to several Major league baseball games in my life - A few Toronto Blue Jays (in Toronto) and one Baltimore Orioles (in Baltimore)
64. I'm quite absent-minded despite the fact that I have a good memory.
65. My mother told me that I never actually learned to speak proper English until I was about 2 years old. Before that, I would speak in a kind of gibberish that only she and my dad could understand. It seems I was inventing languages even as a toddler!
66. The coldest water I've ever swam in continuously (for more than 20 minutes) without a wetsuit is 48F. I went swimming in a lake in October in Ottawa as a swim practice once.
67. I would like to cut a hole in the ice somewhere and do a polar bear swim sometime. I know it doesn't seem to make sense since I don't like the cold
68. I have a currency collection with coins or bills from almost every sovereign nation and dependent territory on Earth that issues their own currency. (I think I'm missing about 9 or 10 of them)
69. I am of Irish and Polish descent. My last name is Polish in origin
70. I own a Super Nintendo and like to play all the Mario Bros. video games. I can't really get into these new fancy games these days.
71. I like to read Wikipedia for fun.
72. I've had 2 pets in my life. Both of them were dogs. My first dog was a purebred sheepdog named Barclay (from Sesame Street) and my second dog was a half black lab/half bouvier mix named Ebony.
73. I'm not gay or bisexual.
74. I've got every single Unicode font on my computer (i.e. I can pretty much type in any language that exists or has existed on the Earth)
75. My favourite breakfast cereal is Honey Nut Cheerios
76. I like to watch cartoons - mostly anything Disney
77. I never seem to have much of a problem adjusting to jetlag. Within 1 or 2 days, I'm feeling perfectly fine.
78. I once had to translate for someone who didn't speak English.
79. My girlfriend and I currently own 5 computers between us - 2 laptops (1 Toshiba - Pentium IV (works sometimes), 1 Acer AMD), 1 E-mac, 1 Celeron 366 (not working) and 1 Pentium III 800mhz.
80. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronomer or cosmologist when I grew up after visiting the planetarium several times as a kid.
81. When I was 2 years old, my mother took me to a doctor and told her that I was autistic and a vegetable because I hadn't started talking at that point.
82. My worst subjects in school were art and music.
83. I take size 10 shoes
84. Currently, my waste size is 32"
85. My favourite alcoholic beverage are vodka coolers (Mike's Hard Lemonade etc.)
86. I'm addicted to gummy bears
87. I rarely listen to the radio
88. I made a really bad politically incorrect comment once and I'll never forget it. I still feel ashamed of it to this day.
89. I love watching the Trailer Park Boys - Bubbles is my favourite.
90. I'm also a huge Star Trek Fan and I own all 10 movies in digital format plus several episodes of Voyager and Next Gen too.
91. I consider myself to be a very messy person
92. I'm not a coffee drinker at all. I will only drink tea.
93. At home, I often only walk around in my underwear.
94. Peppermint or Chamomile? - Peppermint!
95. I usually wake up at around 7:00am to get ready for work during the week and sleep in on weekends.
96. I hate wearing ties and I avoid wearing them at all costs.
97. I've been run over a car twice in my life. Both times I had nothing broken miraculously, just some bruises.
98. My mother always used to make me peanut butter and honey sandwiches to take to school for lunch when I was little.
99. I consider myself relatively intelligent.
100. I know that I'm a good person inside.

Easter weekend is upon us

2006-04-14T00:52:00.000-07:00

I'm glad that the week is over. Well, at least it's a shortened week. I had to get up extra early this morning (5:00am) to run an errand and now I'm dead tired. I don't even know why I'm still awake... I can be a sucker for punishment sometimes. Tomorrow I have to take my car in to check out the transmission. It's been doing some weird things lately. For example, when I stop at a stop light and then start again and put my foot on the gas, the car will rev up and then kind of sit there and then I'll feel like this "thud" and then the car will suddenly switch into gear and go. That certainly doesn't seem all that natural to me. I got my transmission fluid and oil changed a week ago. Although, I highly doubt this has anything to do with it. I certainly hope it isn't anything serious. The last thing I need is to fork over several extra hundred dollars on repairs. Sheesh!

Swim practice has been cancelled for tomorrow and Monday. As a result, I'm planning on going training early Saturday morning with a buddy of mine from swimming at a pool of his choice. I think he's taken care of figuring out the schedule. Provincials in Kelowna are next weekend (the weekend after Easter.) I think this may be one of my my last meets of the year. I don't think I'll go to nationals. I think there might be another meet in Coquitlam in June and I might go to that. We'll see.

Anyways, I guess that's all for now.

2006-04-11T00:01:00.000-07:00