A marathon of sorts

Here's my latest "surprise" project, in short:

• Delivery date to customer - December 30, 2009
• Corporate shutdown start - December 24, 2009
• Days before shutdown - 9
• Estimate (days) for development work - 10
• Estimate (days) for QA testing - 3

Guess I'd better get to work. :)

I thought I'd be more bouyant

Swim: 1900m @ 1hr

Apparently all of what I ate has not become a sufficient amount of fat to offset the lack of training. This extra bouyancy was nowhere to be found tonight. In fact, it clearly identified a lack of strength, and probably added a bit of extra drag too. :)

Tonight's swim was all about strength and form. The strength part came in the form of IM and IM drill. The form part was the short but timed freestyle sets that were between the IM bits. IM wears me down faster than sandpaper on butter (don't ask where I got that from, but it does illustrate my point...I hope), so there's nothing left in the arms or legs when it's time to do 100m on 1min45 (which should be easy for me). It took a lot of grit to keep form as best as possible, and let the muscles burn from the lactic acid. In swimming, form is king.

I nearly bailed on the swim today, but knew that Warren would be there tonight. I was SO tired that I was ready to sit on the sofa and watch the Sens vs. Leafs game (even though the Sens lost - sigh). But I knew that, as always, I'd feel like a million bucks afterwards - and I was right.

'Tis the season!

I know I'm supposed to be training, and I know I'm supposed to be writing to this blog, and I know I'm supposed to be eating better. But let's all face it - it's the holiday season. And so far it's been a lot of fun. A lot of work, but a lot of fun.

There has been a lot of family time, and lot of daddy-daughter time, all through the week. Christmas decorations, setup of the Christmas trees, hanging of ornaments, gingerbread house making, "snow time," and Christmas card making just touches the surface of what we've accomplished outside of work. I find that I'm seeing the holidays through my daughter's eyes more and more each year.

Friday night my wife scored a bunch of tickets to the Ottawa 67s hockey game. It's our junior team here, and along with being significantly cheaper than Senators tickets, it's far more kid friendly as well. My daughter absolutely loved it, and lasted a full two periods before succumbing to the sleepies (and crankies). We'll definitely be going back with her for more games through the year.

Saturday we entertained our good friends Scott and Alison and their two kids. The three kids basically played all on their own for a few hours, then we all consumed copious amounts of food and desserts, and then Scott and I took the kids into the yard for snow time. We did "bowling" with the kids on saucer sleds, and then headed to the backyard with shovels to build a sledding hill. Then they hit the swings and chased us around. All told, we ran the kids around for about 70min - they were spent! (As was I.)

Sunday was another playdate for my daughter, which covered more dress-up time, more Christmas crafts, and more snow time. We built-up the sledding hill more and got it up to about 4' high now. The kids were sliding a good 30', and were getting closer to the fence each time. My father-in-law and I are now trying to figure out how we can mist water on the hill and build it up even further. :) It could turn into a full-blown bobsled run if we do it right!

So yes, there's been no training this week. It may even continue that way for this week. But it's all good, 'cause the holidays are generating a lot of fun for us all. We're all tired from that - but it's a good tired.

The trianing attitudes may change after this weekend, though, as NBC is airing their annual Ironman World Championships Recap this Saturday. According to Ironman.com, it airs 4:30-6:00pm EST. I love watching it, and I'm pretty sure that it'll motivate me to move my ass much more than I am now!

It's here!

After calling him out on my previous blog post, Scott's finally given out his blog! It's amazing what a bit of well-positioned guilt will get you. :D

Check it out @ 52comeback.wordpress.com -- and be sure to check out the video in the About section. Those of you that follow the Ironman may recognize this piece.

Now to get him to post to it... :D

Less stress, better performance

Swim: ??? @ 1hr.

I have absolutely no idea what we covered today at masters. Josh, our coach, left it to The Fates tonight. He had a list of 6 smaller sets for each lane, and one die. We took turns throwing it and whatever number was up indicated the set we did next. It ended up being sort of hard, but the time sure flew by. A fun way to work our butts off. The end was all kick, with Josh yelling out "hard" and "easy" whenever he felt like it. Let's just say that I was holding everyone up here, and I felt like I should have had the disability parking pass on my kickboard. :)

But tonight had a totally different feel for me. Unlike last week where I was stressed about work, and had stressed all day about getting my H1N1 flu shot (I get horribly nervous with needles), today I was calm and relaxed - even with the on-call phone (it was in a Ziploc bag on the pool deck with me - good thing they're waterproof!). And I could sure tell. My stroke count returned to normal, my energy level and stamina were up, and I was much more relaxed (even if Josh says I need to relax more). Big change.

Unfortunately, my buddy Scott (who's blog is, apparently, still TBA) had a tough night finding his groove. He still did great, but he felt like it was a tough one tonight. Truthfully, you've gotta have days like that to make the others all the better.

One thing I did notice, though, is that my kick is virtually nonexistent, and my freestyle stroke is almost entirely upper body. I'll have to keep that in mind when I'm looking to focus on certain aspects of strength and stamina training.

Snow has finally arrived in Ottawa, and everything's right at the freezing mark. Sidewalks and roads are rather "if-fy" and I expect that there will be little running had this week. Especially after the anticipated 20cm of snow on Wednesday...followed by 10mm of raid...followed by freezing temperatures. Better get the salt ready.

Calmer, An Indoor Group Ride, and a Ballerina is Born

Spin: 1h20min (Spinervals 13.0)

Calmer

Yes, I've backed off on the oppression rant (for now at least). Some rational thinking, some "big picture" examination, and a few well-timed emails from previous coworkers has certainly helped. To all of you that listened with willing, open ears - big thanks. I'm back to taking care of what needs to be done, and I have a mindset for moving forward. For now, that's all we can ask for.

Ride

Today was my first group ride with someone other than my wife. Scott invited me over this morning for a great workout. Scott offered the basement, I brought Tough Love. We got through the first 1h20 of that video, and we were feeling pumped and strong. Puddles formed, bottles were emptied, and we survived. I love that video, and it was good fun sharing it with Scott. I love the motivation I get from others.

Ballerina

This fall, we enrolled my daughter in ballet with her great friend, but this year it was at an actual dance studio. She absolutely loves it, and loves seeing her friend every Saturday morning. Every year, the school puts on The Nutcracker entirely with students from the school, save a principal dancer from somewhere else (this year it was a principal male dancer from Paris!). The whole family dressed up and headed to the theatre today for the show.

I've gotta tell you, the show was amazing. And even more amazing when you think that the oldest performer would be under 18. It wasn't the Royal Winnepeg Ballet, but it wasn't that far off either. The entire performance was terrific, and we all enjoyed it. I had tears in my eyes every time I thought of just how proud and excited the kids and their families must be - what a great experience for them.

And my daughter got to see just what you can do with ballet. She knew what a ballerina was, and what ballet is, but to see what it can deliver, and how involved you can be in it really lit a spark in her. She was mesmerized for pretty much the entire 2hr performance, and loved the sights, sounds and motion. It was great to see her pick out kids she new - "There's Jennifer!" is the only one I can remember (she had a lot of roles!). She got a lot out of it, and I think her ballet lessons are here to stay.

Trying to destress

Run: 3.3km @ 16min

This helped, but not as much as I had hoped.