a post I wrote for one of the national papers, they waited too long and never posted it so I'm "sticking it to the man" and posting it myself.

"It's all about the process, if I prepare relentlessly the outcome will take
care of itself".

a blog by a guy who runs around in his swimsuit
for a living...



A while ago I was doing a treadmill session while watching the Habs verses the Flyers -- it's the closest I'll come to playing in the NHL. I finished my workout just as Steve Downie of the Flyers triped up the Habs goalie Carey Price and all
hell broke loose. The camera focused on the punching and grabbing (along
with the WWE style take-down the commentators seem to miss) but I wasn't
watching the melee. I was watching the corner of the screen where Carey Price, the habs 20-year-old rookie goalie was standing with his Ken-Dryden-inspired
helmet, regrouping and mentally preparing himself for the next Flyer attack.
I can't help but be envious of the pressure he's under, the hockey-crazed
city of Montreal and Habs fans across the country (that's you Adrian Leslie)
riding on the shoulders of a 20-year-old. (by the time I finished the session
Carey Price was sitting alone on the Habs' bench having let in 3 goals on 20
shots..... he would be back, just not tonight).


What I would do to have that opportunity? I love triathlon because it's an
incredible endurance sport with a great grassroots following, but I sure
wish I got to compete more, pissing off some crazy orange army of Flyers
fans by scoring the game winner in OT. Ted, Adrian, Jesse and I used to play
street hockey on Couper street (if you asked me, we never played long enough,
I guess that's how I ended up in triathlon). At the time it was the golden years for Edmonton, and we all wanted to be number 99.

Twenty years later, my version of street hockey is doing 10 times three minutes
at faster-than-Race-pace with 90 seconds of jog recovery while the boys skate
back and forth looking for an open shot.

My version of crowd noise is our daughter Pippa cheering for daddy when
Jennie brings her into the training shed to watch me train. Jennie pointed
out the other day that I tend to really bump up the speed when the action
heats up -- which means if the game starts with a bang I'm in for a tough
workout.

Coach Joel and I are trying to take my running to a new level, so the more
action-packed NHL playoff games the better. We're focusing on strength right
now which means hills, hills and more hills. We've added "the flag pole loop"
to our arsenal of Beacon hill run loops here in Victoria. It's a repetitive
loop of deceptively steep hills that run up to the Beacon hill flag pole,
run over 20 meters, down, over, and up then again. We run five to six loops with five hills per loop on six minutes. The workout starts out fairly steady but by loop number three I'm counting down the hills and I'm telling myself: "Javier would do an extra
loop" (Javier Gomez world #1 from Spain).

Last year I wasn't able to teach Javier any lessons. He gave me six Spanish
"lessons" in a row, so I'll chip away until August and start with some
Canadiana I learned from Don Cherry on tonight's coaches corner.


"Smarten up, eh. It's a sweater not a jersey. It's a dressing room not a
locker room. There are no lockers in a dressing room. We're Canadian, come on"

Javier, Don would like to speak to you in the booth.

S