I figured it out (5 peaks related)

A post on RunningMania.com and some responses identified why I felt something was 'missing' at Saturday's 5 peaks race. They had lost a generator (no music), miscalculated the number of goodie handers for the number of people, and hinted at some other issues.

I chaulk it all up to being the first race of the year and I'm sure all will be fine for Durham Forest on June 12.

5 Peaks Dundas

Okay, I liked the race itself. 5 peaks does a great job of setting up a course and making sure everything is clearly marked and each runner knows which way to go. For the non-race components, it seemed otherwise a wee bit...shall we say...flat. I'd run two of these events two years ago and something changed.

Okay, sign up for all 5 events, you get a nice technical shirt (lt blue for the guys, pinkish for the women). All participants on race day get a pair of nice Wigwam trail socks. Not a lot of bling otherwise. I seemed to recall getting a little packet with some kicking horse coffee and a couple of other things last time around. Food seemed sparse to me. The ever popular bagels were there but they were snipped into tiny little pieces, maybe quarter sized or less. There was some peanut butter (maybe nutella? wasn't sure), some humus, slices of melon and oranges. But everything seemed tiny little bite sized. Since I ran 12k enduro, and the 5k sports had long since finished, it seemed as though it was all picked over and not replenished or something. I dunno.

Now, for me I really like the race itself to be done well and that's where the priorities need to be. Course should be well done and safe and good start / finish. All of this was done very well. The staggered starts they did were fine, since it's chip time that determines finishing time and position, they don't use gun time. That's good and keeps the course from being overcrowded, especially at the start. The course wasn't closed, we encountered other runners and the occasional cyclists, but at least for me this didn't pose any problems.

This course is relatively easy by 5 peaks standards. Not a highly technical course, with runnable climbs and descents, footing that you didn't need to concern yourself with (only one short section had any real tree roots to get in your way) and the conditions were good and dry. I wore regular light cushioned trainers figuring it was all I'd need on this course and that did work out. It's fun to hit a trail race without knowing the course as you need to somehow adapt to what lurks around the next corner and you're never quite sure how long any particular hill will be.

Prizes were in the form of medals, top 3 overall (m/f) and top 3 in ages groups (basically 10yr groupings) and I was fortunate (or fast) enough to get one. A few draw prizes were given out. Instead of drawing from box the organizers opted to do some goofy challenges. Fun, but a bit hokey and not many bothered to hang around for them.

It's a good race and race series, but there was something that seemed lacking, certainly in relation to the last time I did these. Maybe it was just because it's the first one of the year and a few kinks are being worked out or something. I think the food issue needs to be addressed, especially for a late morning race that extends into noon. I was happy to get home and get something proper beyond a corner of a bagel. There was only 5 or 6 porta potties available which meant a lengthy wait over the final half hour before race start. Not being a gun timed race, this wasn't catastrophic for the runners since they could start after others left and still get a proper time.

Nonetheless, I'm looking forward to the next event on June 12 in Durham regional forest. I did run this course before so I know what to expect.

I think I'm ready

5 peaks race 1 is on Saturday, Dundas conservation area.

I did what I call my 'setup' run yesterday. Several days before raceday I give a good tempo effort. I have to get my breathing up for a sustained period, strengthen the diaphragm and everthing that connects together in there. If I don't do this, not only will I lack the necessary snap in my legs, but I'll suffer from stitches horribly. It's one of the things I'm prone to in hard running.

Keeping the volume up and pace down is great for development. If I don't do this I just won't have the engine necessary to carry out a good effort. I wished I'd known this several years ago. Naivity of figuring you can just blast out every run and you'll do nothing but get faster. It doesn't work that way though. You can't look at running from the perspective of this run or this day or this mile. It's all about this week and this month and this cycle and this season and this year, and so on.

But when the season approaches, gotta bite down and push it through some hard efforts. Most of my hard efforts this season are hill related, as that's what this 5 Peaks race series puts front and center. I still have to hit the tempos, it's the only way I can get myself up the pace and hold it on race day without clutching my side and slowing down. So that's a big part of the setup run, to push it and give innerds a chance to adapt and recover.

3 days are left and I do feel pretty good right now. Last time I did a cycle like this, despite the slow average pace of my runs and the pedestrian feel they give back, come race day I was amazed that I could hold a hard pace. It's strange, you don't think you're going to be able to do it because you've run so slow for so long. And then when you do go hard, you're waiting for it to come up and bite you, but it doesn't quite. That's what volume does for you.

You need to look at your runs from the perspective of the whole cycle, not just one ro twn runs. To develop as much as I'm able to with the amount of time I'm willing to dedicate to this thing, it's making sure I can get in all the workouts I'm able, fit in enough quality to make sure my legs will turn over, and have enough of an engine tht when they do turn over, they won't cease up. That's what it's all about. Too much quality, and I'll spend too much down time trying to recover and basically losing whatever I gain. Not enough quality and, despite the gains within, I can't exploit them.

Anyway, 3 days to go. I have to use road shoes as my trails aren't fitting right anymore but the course isn't that hard so it should be okay.

The hard sell on home water purification systems

This seems like the new Amway. A neighour's sister is getting into this as a business prop and is 'learning the ropes'. So were asked and agreed for her to do her shtick for us, for practice. A couple of neighbours and her sister also said they'd agree to a demo.

Toronto water is notorious for it's hardness, we all know this. We ourselves don't drink or use tap water directly for cooking, it all gets filtered first and that gets rid of the chlorine, the scale and the hardness. This business is local but I guess they have a couple of offices elsewhere. What they sell is a reverse osmosis (RO) system for drinking water and a water softener for the rest of the house. The RO system tucks under the counter with a small pressurized tank to hold the purified water and the RO filter system itself. If you want the 'whole house' system, add on the water softener that goes in the basement.

Anyway, the promo material has lots of skull and crossbone images, pics of people in full has protecting outfits. The word 'carcenogenic' shows up a lot. The speel does drops of chemicals into water to show chlorine content. This was her first failure with our filtered water. Most people neglect to change their water filters and after a couple of months they're useless. But we do ours. So the chlorine test on our tap water, of course, showed up an expected level. Their filtered water showed none. The test for our Brita filtered water barely registered and the fridge filter water showed nil. I'm sure she'd usually get a hit on the brita water, just not ours (we had actually replaced both filters within the last week).

So the next demo, she takes a peculiar electrode apparatus designed to fit in two glasses. In each glass a pair of electrodes are emersed and she plugs the thing into the wall and turns it on. In her water sample, it does nothing, while in the tap water it starts bubbling away, as expected. What's peculiar though, a red film is forming on the top of the water and gets darker and thicker the longer she leaves it in. Then she mutters away that this is a simple test using 'safe' metals in the electrodes of aluminum and iron. Now, iron in electrolysis, not only with the electron transfer cause oxidation of the iron, but also splits water into oxygen and h+ ions and increases the level of oxidation of the iron, thus all the red floatsum. The device also hid the iron inside an aluminum shield with little holes in it so you couldn't see the iron itself and what was happening to it. At the end of that demo, you have a glass full of reddish sludgy water, which she claims is drinkable because it's tap water. Well, it's not quite.

Next she does something else with a couple of test tubes that didn't make much sense except one gets cloudy and fuzzy and the other stays clear except for a small amount of crystaline material said the be nothing more than the added chemicals themselves.

The final demo, two beakers of water, one her sample of purified water and the other is tap water, adding detergent and showing how much more detergent it takes to create bubbles in the tap water and thus demoing the cost savings you'll have. Except that her sample water is the reverse osmosis water, which you'll only see from your kitchen tap fitted with the RO filter. The rest of the house lives with what the water softener supplies.

Then comes the hard sell. The simple RO system under the counter for drinking water only sells normally for 6 thousand dollars, but buy right there and you get it for 3000. They install it, it's guaranteed for 15 years and they'll service it each year but you have to buy the replacment filters, which run 100 bucks for the carbon filters and 199 for the membrane and sediment filters (replaced 1.5-3 years). The whole house system sells for something like 8 or 9 thousand, buy today for 6 thousand. So you get the 'if the issue is money, what will it take for you to buy today?' stuff and it's just different plans stretching out for many years in smaller payments but ends up being way more than just the lump sum prices. Naturally, we declined and I just said that since the brita cleared the water nicely I see no reason to go beyond that.

Since she's a friend of a neighbour I didn't want to burst her bubble too much and she seemed rather excited about the product and is hoping she can make a few dollars off it. But I quickly sent a link of info to her sister's hubby with info about it in case he even considers buying in for whatever reason. The demo was pretty hokey, between the toxic-waste style written material and the very questionable demos with pseudo-scientific explanations for what's going on.

For those who may be approached, read this. If you ever do consider a water filter system for home, RO systems (like ones from GTAWater can be had for a few hundred bucks with filter costs of about 65 bucks a year. Water softeners are iffy and have associated problems so be leery of the 'whole home' systems. To make proper use, you would really want to keep the water softener water away from the drinking water, and this means having some plumbing work done to separate the lines. Plus softener systems require salt replacment and may pose health risks to people with high blood pressure or heart conditions.

Bye bye Lakeport Brewery

I guess all good things must come to an end.

I think I've tried every beer there is out there. When it comes to an everyday drinker, the priorities are pretty simple...taste great and don't cost an arm and a leg. When I lived back in Cape Breton it was Ten Penny, Moosehead or Oland's. James Ready stuck with me for a while, partly because of the name, party because of the taste. I was never an Alexander Keith's fan, it always came across as bitter due to the hop content.

When I moved to Ontario, I had quite a variety to pick from. Norther Breweries was a fave for many years, and when I was making my own brews they were one of that last holdouts for non-screwcap bottles and I still have a collection of NB bottles in my shed, should I fill a new carboy for fun. Another long standing regular was Molson Stock, which few people bought by I liked it becuase it was just that little bit different. Sleeman's was another, a bit pricey but they sure brew a good beer.

When the really cheap lowest-legal cost beers started competing, I picked up a few Lakeport Pilsner for fun...not a bad beer and cheap as it got. Not the type you would give to company but okay for drinking regularly. Then, one day, Lakeport came up with this:



It was love at first taste.

I found a beer that met everything I wanted. It was cheap, tasted great, and I didn't mind serving it out should friends come by. I even got a good chunk of the neighborhood hooked and soon everyone had a yellow honeycomb style case in their basements.

The story behind Lakeport is quite the success story. Lakeport had been around a while, competing with the multitude of other local brewers for a share of whatever market was left over by the big 3 of Molson, Labatt and Carling. Interbrew was busy buying up markets and accumulating into their vast empire. Sleeman's made a huge splash and managed to save the very wonder Upper Canada Brewery with their marketing power, and allowed UC to do their own thing even under the Sleeman umbrella.

Meanwhile, a young and aggressive Teresa Cascioli was hired by Lakeport's new owners became it's CEO. Under Ms. Cascioli's guidance and targetting the buck-a-beer campaign and a quality brew, Lakeport went from near bankruptcy to a legitimate threat to the Ontario market share of drinkers, so much so that Labatt and others had to start promoting clear knockoffs of Lakeport's products, particularly it's Honey Lager, in response. Lakeport grew to hold an incredible 11% of the Ontario beer market, which is an astounding number when you consider the players.

Cascioli held as 20% share long after buying out the owners, and then taking Lakeport public. Things changed in 2008 when Cascioli talked shareholders into accepting a 201 million dollar offer by Labatt for Lakeport's products and holdings. Ms. Cascioli sold out to a cool 43 million (and, honestly, it's hard not to blame her) and walked away from the brewery she took into the mainstream. I knew it was just a matter of time. As long as the beer came out of the Burlington Street plant, with the same formula and the same taste, I was okay even if the price made a modest jump or two.

Then came the big news. Labatt will seal the doors on Lakeport's Hamilton plant on tax day, April 30th, 2010 and move 'production' to London. I have a sneaking suspicion that with the move of the brewer, there will be a change in the beer itself, to London mass-produced standards and suppliers dictated by Labatt and parent Anhauser Busch. Shortly after the last remaining stock leaves the chilled shelves of The Beer Store, my beer will suddenly change, likely to a repackaged version of the Labatt Honey product that was created to compete with Lakeport's wonderful lager.

I thought I had my beer. Maybe it won't change, but my lovely find will now have a bitter aftertaste even if it doesn't and I won't be content with that.

All I can do is salute the 143 fine people that helped supply me with a lot of tasty calories over these last few years. Come April 30, I will take on my last case of Lakeport honey. When it is gone, my search will start anew.

So long Lakeport, it was wonderful knowing you.