The crew at Running Ahead are busy following the progress of one of their members, Michael Henze, who posts under the moniker Dopple Bock. You can tell by the insanely high monthly numbers that he was training for something special, that something being the IAU 24hour Championships in France. At the point of this posting, Mr. Henze had covered 192km in 18 hours and 22 minutes, over a 1.26831 km loop, sitting 20th overall and 3rd American (ultra-maniac Scott Jurek is in 2nd, and 1st American). Besides needing to be loopy just to do this race, doing it on a 1.3k loop would put anyone over the edge.
I can't fathom that much running. I cover 2 hours and I'm ready to quit. It must take some form of fortitude to fight the discomfort and the demons that lurk with the time involved. You would need to be so incredibly comfortable with running, you would need to live it, breath it and basically make it your every waking hour, to run something like this and actually be competitive in it. I don't know what you would do when you finish a race of this type. Drop on the spot...crawl under a leaf and sleep...celebrate by doing a jig. I dunno.
For me, I had a couple of off days, getting only 11 miles from Monday to Wednesday with a few screwups in my schedule (including forgetting to pack my shorts for noontime runs). I did get 12ish in today so it makes up a little bit for it. It's okay, the legs appreciated the short break. Weather's been off this week as well, it seems April was the prime month this season so far and May has definitely seen the cool off.
Just over 4 weeks to Durham forest. Gotta keep it up.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Friday, May 07, 2010
7 days 70 miles
It's May 7. My log shows 70.9 for the month so far. It's been a quiet week and I've been able to haul my butt out of bed at the 6:30 alarm and get out for (most of) an hour each morning. Then my standard 5 easy at lunchtime. Didn't do a hill workout since I wanted to be getting out twice a day and kept the priority on that. The consistency makes a difference and you can feel it after even one week.
It's not hard to do but it sure can be freaking boring at times. It's all time and not really miles, an hour here, and hour and some there, 30 minutes here. The miles are just scenery passing by and cracks in the sidewalks moving under your feet. After a while you feel like all you're doing is running all the time. I can't imagine what the guys pumping out 130, 140...200 feel like. I can see myself doing a couple of hours a day, I don't think that's really all that extreme or excessive. If I capped noons to 45 minutes, I could see 1:15 in the mornings and that would all be doable. The trick is to keep the effort down so you're not needing a good 24 or more hours recovery. Fine for a while, I could make a May of it.
Inevitably everything else spills over that time so I'm not in bed on time, not able to get out at noon or for long enough, things get cut short, yada yada yada. Basic rule is, run when you can cuz later might not work out. We'll see how the month goes.
It's not hard to do but it sure can be freaking boring at times. It's all time and not really miles, an hour here, and hour and some there, 30 minutes here. The miles are just scenery passing by and cracks in the sidewalks moving under your feet. After a while you feel like all you're doing is running all the time. I can't imagine what the guys pumping out 130, 140...200 feel like. I can see myself doing a couple of hours a day, I don't think that's really all that extreme or excessive. If I capped noons to 45 minutes, I could see 1:15 in the mornings and that would all be doable. The trick is to keep the effort down so you're not needing a good 24 or more hours recovery. Fine for a while, I could make a May of it.
Inevitably everything else spills over that time so I'm not in bed on time, not able to get out at noon or for long enough, things get cut short, yada yada yada. Basic rule is, run when you can cuz later might not work out. We'll see how the month goes.
Monday, April 26, 2010
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.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Mylar Balloon
I don't know why, but I found this fascinating.
As I started out this morning, it's clear, a few high light clouds, sun's not up yet, and it's dead calm. I turn and start running just loops around the track, and I'm quickly caught off-guard by a blue mylar helium balloon that's sort of drifting very slowly across the sidewalk. It's not heavy enough to land, not light enough to rise up, just at that proper weight where's it's bang on the same density as the air. So it drifts about, bobs up, bobs down, but mostly just moves along with whatever slight air currents abound.
In the first pace, it's just a bit higher than I am tall, it has no string attached. It drifts under a tree and just lightly nudges the bottom branches. From there it moves slowly northward into the main field of the park, which is surrounded by baseball diamonds and a club house. As I run my loops I just watch it drifting about, seeming exploring the field.
Along the back of the park I see it's moved down to ground level and the bottom 'plug' skips along the ground, nudging it up when it strikes something, then back. It's moving towards the clubhouse, which has a large covered area like a veranda, and I figure if it goes in there, it'll get stuck and stop.
A lap later it's changed direction, now drifting from north to south. It heads into the back part of one of the larger baseball diamonds, drifts under the foul ball netted and bumps up along the tall chainlink fence that surrounds it. There's just enough moving air to keep it bumped against the fence in a sort of 'stuck' position, and it sits there for a lap.
At this point, the sun is peeking over the horizon, although the field is still in shadow, but there becomes enough radiant energy from the lighted sky to just warm the balloons interior a tiny bit, and it moves upwards into the netting of the batting area.
Another lap, I check the fence and the balloons not there. Seems the air had shifted a little bit again, moving from south to north again. The sun is now above the buildings and balloon has now warmed up more than enough to escape it's earthly grip and is soaring high into the air. When I first spot it, it's moved to the north end of the park and about 70 feet off the ground. With each passing lap and the warming sun, it travels higher and higher and further and further north. By my 6th lap, it's out of sight and disappears into the blue sky.
I was thinking all the time what a cool video it would have made.
As I started out this morning, it's clear, a few high light clouds, sun's not up yet, and it's dead calm. I turn and start running just loops around the track, and I'm quickly caught off-guard by a blue mylar helium balloon that's sort of drifting very slowly across the sidewalk. It's not heavy enough to land, not light enough to rise up, just at that proper weight where's it's bang on the same density as the air. So it drifts about, bobs up, bobs down, but mostly just moves along with whatever slight air currents abound.
In the first pace, it's just a bit higher than I am tall, it has no string attached. It drifts under a tree and just lightly nudges the bottom branches. From there it moves slowly northward into the main field of the park, which is surrounded by baseball diamonds and a club house. As I run my loops I just watch it drifting about, seeming exploring the field.
Along the back of the park I see it's moved down to ground level and the bottom 'plug' skips along the ground, nudging it up when it strikes something, then back. It's moving towards the clubhouse, which has a large covered area like a veranda, and I figure if it goes in there, it'll get stuck and stop.
A lap later it's changed direction, now drifting from north to south. It heads into the back part of one of the larger baseball diamonds, drifts under the foul ball netted and bumps up along the tall chainlink fence that surrounds it. There's just enough moving air to keep it bumped against the fence in a sort of 'stuck' position, and it sits there for a lap.
At this point, the sun is peeking over the horizon, although the field is still in shadow, but there becomes enough radiant energy from the lighted sky to just warm the balloons interior a tiny bit, and it moves upwards into the netting of the batting area.
Another lap, I check the fence and the balloons not there. Seems the air had shifted a little bit again, moving from south to north again. The sun is now above the buildings and balloon has now warmed up more than enough to escape it's earthly grip and is soaring high into the air. When I first spot it, it's moved to the north end of the park and about 70 feet off the ground. With each passing lap and the warming sun, it travels higher and higher and further and further north. By my 6th lap, it's out of sight and disappears into the blue sky.
I was thinking all the time what a cool video it would have made.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Peaking for the Peaks
A couple of years ago, having plateaued in development and PRs for running, I needed to change things up a bit. I'd seen George Malloy's Summer of Malmo workout schedule from links on Letsrun and thought I'd cook up my own version as a test. So from April through the summer I boosted my volume to getting as much as 70 miles as week and sustained 200ish mile months with lots of doubling up (and the occassional triple tossed in for good measure) and lots of easy miles. It worked out nicely and I netted a new 5 mile PR when I ran the Nightcrawler in June.
Another little thing I did was run a couple of 5 Peaks Trail Series events for fun. I ran their 'enduro' events which are about 12k in length, figuring this makes for a good solid Saturday workout even if I don't do well. This year I signed up for all 5 and the first one runs on April 24, just over 5 weeks away.
I don't know how the races progress from event to event. It seemed to me they start them off 'easy' and progress to 'hard', with easy meaning lots of hills but less technical details, and hard being hilly and very technical. Durham forest was the first one I ran, very hilly but not an otherwise demanding course (good footing, reasonably wide, easy to pass...or be passed as it may be). Rattlesnake Point was very difficult with some hills that were simply unrunnable and slippery moss covered rocks and roots throughout. Last year they kicked off on a ski hill in Kitchener, which seemed to not go well as most racers slogged their way through mud and snow, with even the fast guys barely managing an 8 minute pace. This year it starts in the Dundas Conservation area and I'm not quite sure what that area is like, but I suspect it's somewhat hilly and manageable recreational foot trails.
For the last few months, I've been trying to keep decent volume and plenty of running, but it's always tricky in the spring. Fortunately the weather this winter and spring has been outstanding for running. So no excuse there. For the most part it's been work and home that's kept me from filling the log the way I want to. I have though been able to put short boosts of runs together, getting 30-40 miles over a few days, and then being forced to back off with my other obligations. I hope this works to keep pushing me upwards, theory being that the short but heavy cycles of running can carry over a couple of slack days.
For now I'm more or less on track. I've gotten my butt onto the hills the last few weeks for consistent hill workouts, focusing on short hills which is more applicable to these races. I'll still do some long hills for the endurance benefit. I don't think track workouts are worthwhile. And I need, need, need to discipline myself to adding strides on some easy runs. Also doubles are there, I should (he says, hopefully) get 9 runs this week alone, and then the weekend stuff.
So 5ish weeks to race-one, which won't have any real taper but will have easy runs the couple of days leading up to it, and no hills that week except what's normally on the routes I run. If I can keep mileage in the 50's and 60's and not drift back into the 30's and 40's, all should be fine.
This week it's been nearly summer like. Next week apparently mother nature is to remind us that it's still winter/spring and we shouldn't get too comfortable yet.
Another little thing I did was run a couple of 5 Peaks Trail Series events for fun. I ran their 'enduro' events which are about 12k in length, figuring this makes for a good solid Saturday workout even if I don't do well. This year I signed up for all 5 and the first one runs on April 24, just over 5 weeks away.
I don't know how the races progress from event to event. It seemed to me they start them off 'easy' and progress to 'hard', with easy meaning lots of hills but less technical details, and hard being hilly and very technical. Durham forest was the first one I ran, very hilly but not an otherwise demanding course (good footing, reasonably wide, easy to pass...or be passed as it may be). Rattlesnake Point was very difficult with some hills that were simply unrunnable and slippery moss covered rocks and roots throughout. Last year they kicked off on a ski hill in Kitchener, which seemed to not go well as most racers slogged their way through mud and snow, with even the fast guys barely managing an 8 minute pace. This year it starts in the Dundas Conservation area and I'm not quite sure what that area is like, but I suspect it's somewhat hilly and manageable recreational foot trails.
For the last few months, I've been trying to keep decent volume and plenty of running, but it's always tricky in the spring. Fortunately the weather this winter and spring has been outstanding for running. So no excuse there. For the most part it's been work and home that's kept me from filling the log the way I want to. I have though been able to put short boosts of runs together, getting 30-40 miles over a few days, and then being forced to back off with my other obligations. I hope this works to keep pushing me upwards, theory being that the short but heavy cycles of running can carry over a couple of slack days.
For now I'm more or less on track. I've gotten my butt onto the hills the last few weeks for consistent hill workouts, focusing on short hills which is more applicable to these races. I'll still do some long hills for the endurance benefit. I don't think track workouts are worthwhile. And I need, need, need to discipline myself to adding strides on some easy runs. Also doubles are there, I should (he says, hopefully) get 9 runs this week alone, and then the weekend stuff.
So 5ish weeks to race-one, which won't have any real taper but will have easy runs the couple of days leading up to it, and no hills that week except what's normally on the routes I run. If I can keep mileage in the 50's and 60's and not drift back into the 30's and 40's, all should be fine.
This week it's been nearly summer like. Next week apparently mother nature is to remind us that it's still winter/spring and we shouldn't get too comfortable yet.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Dear Red Wing Blackbirds
Yes, I know spring is upon, and you have all migrated back north from the tropical abodes.
But please curb the desire to peck at my head as I'm doing my lunchtime runs.
I can hear you fluttering from tree to tree on the other side of the big fence the separates those big Richmond Hill homes from the street. And I know you're tracking me as I make my way up the incline of Leslie Street to the top. But don't think for even a minute I'm going to be changing my route on YOUR account. This route is nice and undulating, with no flat areas, and I can push a hill, or elect to glide quickly down if I want to work on my turnover. It's large enough that I can substitute for a hill workout if I miss my Wednesday morning ravine appointment.
Yes, they've returned. Usually I spot them first in the Leslie spit, which they seem to enjoy perching on for a while until the snow moves out. This year, we've seen almost no snow at all. If all the snow we had this year fell in one day, it would have been a fairly decent shovelling day, but not enough to shut er all down. So the birds have moved in early. Robins have been here all winter, I've seen them gathered in the hundreds in the trees even when it was 15 below. They've separated now, or maybe the migratory ones have moved back in, but they're also now in the neighbourhoods, singing away at the morning sunrise.
Speaking of morning sunrise, it's been so nice to run in the sunshine in the mornings. All of that will take a temporary haitus when DST kicks in this weekend, and I'll have to start out in the dark again. It's the price us runners pay for a brighter evening.
Anyway. I did sign up for all 5 of the 5 Peaks trail series here in south ont. First race is April 24 and I'm trying my best to be in shape when the first one goes off in Dundas. We'll see how I fair in my shiny new 50+ age category.
But please curb the desire to peck at my head as I'm doing my lunchtime runs.
I can hear you fluttering from tree to tree on the other side of the big fence the separates those big Richmond Hill homes from the street. And I know you're tracking me as I make my way up the incline of Leslie Street to the top. But don't think for even a minute I'm going to be changing my route on YOUR account. This route is nice and undulating, with no flat areas, and I can push a hill, or elect to glide quickly down if I want to work on my turnover. It's large enough that I can substitute for a hill workout if I miss my Wednesday morning ravine appointment.
Yes, they've returned. Usually I spot them first in the Leslie spit, which they seem to enjoy perching on for a while until the snow moves out. This year, we've seen almost no snow at all. If all the snow we had this year fell in one day, it would have been a fairly decent shovelling day, but not enough to shut er all down. So the birds have moved in early. Robins have been here all winter, I've seen them gathered in the hundreds in the trees even when it was 15 below. They've separated now, or maybe the migratory ones have moved back in, but they're also now in the neighbourhoods, singing away at the morning sunrise.
Speaking of morning sunrise, it's been so nice to run in the sunshine in the mornings. All of that will take a temporary haitus when DST kicks in this weekend, and I'll have to start out in the dark again. It's the price us runners pay for a brighter evening.
Anyway. I did sign up for all 5 of the 5 Peaks trail series here in south ont. First race is April 24 and I'm trying my best to be in shape when the first one goes off in Dundas. We'll see how I fair in my shiny new 50+ age category.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Both First and Last
First and last, me in a race. You might think...I ran a race by myself, thus first and last. Nope. How about, I was first in my age group, but last in the race? Nope again.
I ran my first race of 2010 on New Year's Day. And it was my last race in my 40's. I'm now the proud owner of a brand new age group, 50's and up.
I can't say I'm overly distraught with turning the big five-oh. On the other hand I'm looking forward to it. I get a few months grace of getting in some good efforts in the new a/g before all the other 40ish folks that pound out races make the grade. Some already have, like James and Rob Earl of the East Toronto striders, so they'll still be waaaaaaay ahead of me no matter what. Several others are still not quite there. I may have to do some cherry picking to take advantage of it.
Running has sucked lately. Caught a cold in November, took a week off. Thought I was over it, then it came back on me in December. Never did make it to 2 grand in miles for the year as a result. Put in a few runs over the last couple of weeks and kept from failing too badly at the Hair of the Dog 9k down at the beaches. If the link doesn't show it, the balmy beach canoe club puts in on each year on NYD. Peach Schnapps is available at the turn if you feel inclined. Course seems good, Gmaps shows it to be 8.9k, and when you thrown in all the dodging around dogs and walkers and the like...just about 9k seems right.
Did meet and someone from Running Ahead there, who was in a similar state of not having run much over December. It was the 'neither of us has trained for this' showdown. I squeeked in the victory by a few seconds.
It's nasty cold out. I don't know why it has the be so damn windy at this time of the year to go with the sub zeros already in place. Adds that extra little sumthin that makes you want to stay indoors.
Seasons greetings, all.
I ran my first race of 2010 on New Year's Day. And it was my last race in my 40's. I'm now the proud owner of a brand new age group, 50's and up.
I can't say I'm overly distraught with turning the big five-oh. On the other hand I'm looking forward to it. I get a few months grace of getting in some good efforts in the new a/g before all the other 40ish folks that pound out races make the grade. Some already have, like James and Rob Earl of the East Toronto striders, so they'll still be waaaaaaay ahead of me no matter what. Several others are still not quite there. I may have to do some cherry picking to take advantage of it.
Running has sucked lately. Caught a cold in November, took a week off. Thought I was over it, then it came back on me in December. Never did make it to 2 grand in miles for the year as a result. Put in a few runs over the last couple of weeks and kept from failing too badly at the Hair of the Dog 9k down at the beaches. If the link doesn't show it, the balmy beach canoe club puts in on each year on NYD. Peach Schnapps is available at the turn if you feel inclined. Course seems good, Gmaps shows it to be 8.9k, and when you thrown in all the dodging around dogs and walkers and the like...just about 9k seems right.
Did meet and someone from Running Ahead there, who was in a similar state of not having run much over December. It was the 'neither of us has trained for this' showdown. I squeeked in the victory by a few seconds.
It's nasty cold out. I don't know why it has the be so damn windy at this time of the year to go with the sub zeros already in place. Adds that extra little sumthin that makes you want to stay indoors.
Seasons greetings, all.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Zenit-E
Every now and then you encounter an indescructible force. Something that seems like it will last forever, or at a minimum, it will out last you. I've found a few of these things along the way. One is a plaid shirt I received as a Christmas gift when I was 19. I still have it, it looks exactly the same as it did 31 years ago. The buttons were replaced but that's all. Properly made polyester can withstand a nuclear holocaust.
Another is my Zenit-E 35mm camera. Pumped out of a former Soviet Union factory to the tune of some 12 million units, these 1 kilo bricks were the workhorse of photography in many an overseas country. I had wanted so bad to have a proper 35mm single lens reflex camera when I was young. People would take such great pictures with them. Load them up with professional looking small canisters of film and display lengthy exotic 35mm negative strips.
My camera at the time was a Kodak X15 Instamatic that accepted (rather expensive) Magicube flash blubs. They were bigger than standard bulbs, never required batteries, and triggered from a small metal spring that ignited a lightly explosive powder and caused the bulb to essentially 'blow up' inside. Don't ever drop these suckers, as they would become quickly useless if you did.
K-Mart had in it's display case in it's camera department a nifty looking black and silver slender SLR camera, marked as a Zenit-E. It was made from a single cast aluminum housing, with a long rectangular window in the front (which turned out to be the light meter) and the usual array of buttons and dials that marked a handheld 35mm SLR camera. True TTL viewing and return action mirror. However, this unit had a flaw. The stock Helios 44-2 lens had small but obvious bubbles in the main lens element. A customer who was checking it out just before me and my mom got there had noticed it. The sales guy was going to pack it up and return it to the distributer, but we talked him into cutting a few dollars off the price and I got my camera. In retrospect, the lens was half the camera's value so it wasn't a great deal.
As the Zenit was equipped with M42/1 thread mount, lenses were readily available, and rather cheaply as bayonet mounts were far more popular than the screw mount of the Zenit. I picked up a pair of prime lenses at a photo shop for 50 bucks, a very fast Pentax 55/1.8 and a 135/2.8 Haminex. The Pentax lens is excellent in quality, the Haminex also pretty good, and at 135mm makes a great portrait lens.
Zenit-E outfitted with Hanimex 135mm/f2.8 lens
The Zenit carried me until 1985, when I could afford an update and purchased a Minolta X-700, which was Minolta's top offering on an SLR. Fully automatic, the Minolta was an excellent camera although prone to problems in the mechanisms. It's been repaired once and, if I really felt the need to reload a film camera, it would need a second repair to correct the lens speed sensor. The Zenit was in the shop once to fix a faulty shutter blind that blocked out the far right portion of each frame. This was quite long ago and it's worked flawlessly since. I take it out from time to time and run the mechanisms to keep them from ceasing up.
I'm thinking of dropping by Henry's and pick up a roll of film just for the hell of it. I'm sure the film and processing will cost more than the Zenit is actually worth (as it often goes on Ebay for about 10 bucks), but it would be worth it to see what comes out of it. If not at least to see what anyone might think seeing me using it.
Another is my Zenit-E 35mm camera. Pumped out of a former Soviet Union factory to the tune of some 12 million units, these 1 kilo bricks were the workhorse of photography in many an overseas country. I had wanted so bad to have a proper 35mm single lens reflex camera when I was young. People would take such great pictures with them. Load them up with professional looking small canisters of film and display lengthy exotic 35mm negative strips.
My camera at the time was a Kodak X15 Instamatic that accepted (rather expensive) Magicube flash blubs. They were bigger than standard bulbs, never required batteries, and triggered from a small metal spring that ignited a lightly explosive powder and caused the bulb to essentially 'blow up' inside. Don't ever drop these suckers, as they would become quickly useless if you did.
K-Mart had in it's display case in it's camera department a nifty looking black and silver slender SLR camera, marked as a Zenit-E. It was made from a single cast aluminum housing, with a long rectangular window in the front (which turned out to be the light meter) and the usual array of buttons and dials that marked a handheld 35mm SLR camera. True TTL viewing and return action mirror. However, this unit had a flaw. The stock Helios 44-2 lens had small but obvious bubbles in the main lens element. A customer who was checking it out just before me and my mom got there had noticed it. The sales guy was going to pack it up and return it to the distributer, but we talked him into cutting a few dollars off the price and I got my camera. In retrospect, the lens was half the camera's value so it wasn't a great deal.
As the Zenit was equipped with M42/1 thread mount, lenses were readily available, and rather cheaply as bayonet mounts were far more popular than the screw mount of the Zenit. I picked up a pair of prime lenses at a photo shop for 50 bucks, a very fast Pentax 55/1.8 and a 135/2.8 Haminex. The Pentax lens is excellent in quality, the Haminex also pretty good, and at 135mm makes a great portrait lens.
Zenit-E outfitted with Hanimex 135mm/f2.8 lens
The Zenit carried me until 1985, when I could afford an update and purchased a Minolta X-700, which was Minolta's top offering on an SLR. Fully automatic, the Minolta was an excellent camera although prone to problems in the mechanisms. It's been repaired once and, if I really felt the need to reload a film camera, it would need a second repair to correct the lens speed sensor. The Zenit was in the shop once to fix a faulty shutter blind that blocked out the far right portion of each frame. This was quite long ago and it's worked flawlessly since. I take it out from time to time and run the mechanisms to keep them from ceasing up.
I'm thinking of dropping by Henry's and pick up a roll of film just for the hell of it. I'm sure the film and processing will cost more than the Zenit is actually worth (as it often goes on Ebay for about 10 bucks), but it would be worth it to see what comes out of it. If not at least to see what anyone might think seeing me using it.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
An ode to the junkie
8 years ago I stumbled across the Kickrunning site while looking for weight training info for runners. I created an ID and signed on and soon was posting to the boards. Kickrunning became merged with Coolrunning and eventually bought out by Active.com. While the boards prospered as kick and cool, the boards were drastically changed for Active and most of the regulars disbanded to other sites.
For over 8 years we've chatted and posted our thoughts and training. We've met each other at races and get togethers, most didn't hide behind the guise of an arbitrary user name.
Joe came on the boards about 5 or so years ago, he was a heavy guy, built like a tank with long dreadlocks and a penchant for extreme fighting events (and he competed in some events too). But he was also a kind and gentle man, who would literally give you the shirt off his back if he felt you needed more than he.
Posting as VoodooJunkie, his size and larger than life attitude made him quickly popular on the forms. He didn't hide behind his ID, he gave details of himself and his life and didn't hesitate to show up at as many events and social happenings as he could. I never met him, those that did could only have the most positive things to say, any who did were instantly his friend.
Despite his size he pushed himself in running, completing many road and trail marathons, always wanting to bring his time down, doing his best in Chicago last year with a 3:40:30.
Late Thursday he posted his last run report, doing 20 miles in 3 hours, 3 minutes and 39 seconds on a humid sticky evening. On Friday, Joe was gone. His workplace posted this article to say he died from heart failure. Perhaps his penchant for burgers (he's competed in many a burger eating contest, and has won more often than not) couldn't be offset enough by the miles he's put in. We'll likely never know.
Joe was a good one. He made the virtual space and the real space a more enjoyable place. I hadn't conversed with him in a long time as he moved over to Kickrunners while I've been on the CHRunners site, both sprung up from the demise of Coolrunning. But I was always amazed at his tenacity and desire to give it his all whatever he did, there was no middle ground.
So long Voodoo
Alive is a good start to the day. Take it from there
For over 8 years we've chatted and posted our thoughts and training. We've met each other at races and get togethers, most didn't hide behind the guise of an arbitrary user name.
Joe came on the boards about 5 or so years ago, he was a heavy guy, built like a tank with long dreadlocks and a penchant for extreme fighting events (and he competed in some events too). But he was also a kind and gentle man, who would literally give you the shirt off his back if he felt you needed more than he.
Posting as VoodooJunkie, his size and larger than life attitude made him quickly popular on the forms. He didn't hide behind his ID, he gave details of himself and his life and didn't hesitate to show up at as many events and social happenings as he could. I never met him, those that did could only have the most positive things to say, any who did were instantly his friend.
Despite his size he pushed himself in running, completing many road and trail marathons, always wanting to bring his time down, doing his best in Chicago last year with a 3:40:30.
Late Thursday he posted his last run report, doing 20 miles in 3 hours, 3 minutes and 39 seconds on a humid sticky evening. On Friday, Joe was gone. His workplace posted this article to say he died from heart failure. Perhaps his penchant for burgers (he's competed in many a burger eating contest, and has won more often than not) couldn't be offset enough by the miles he's put in. We'll likely never know.
Joe was a good one. He made the virtual space and the real space a more enjoyable place. I hadn't conversed with him in a long time as he moved over to Kickrunners while I've been on the CHRunners site, both sprung up from the demise of Coolrunning. But I was always amazed at his tenacity and desire to give it his all whatever he did, there was no middle ground.
So long Voodoo
Alive is a good start to the day. Take it from there
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Ah summer running, the sights, the smells, the piles of garbage
Yes, it's the continuation of the city outside workers strike. The parking lot just below my training hill has an 8 foot high fence around it and a very neat pile of garbage constituting it's holdings. It's nicely done actually, every bag doubled up (or else you get to take it home and try it again), nothing torn or badly leaking. Even downwind from it, it's not too bad.
Our continuing cool summer has a lot to do with it, the baggy contents of the garbage piles aren't getting the opportunity to ferment in the heat like the last strike. The backyard pool is feeling the thermal pinch, and a lack of attention as a result (good thing I have a chlorine generator on it, otherwise I'd probably have drained it by now), but the plants and flowers have been thrilled by it all. Driving to work and running at lunchtime, the aroma of flora is almost overpowering. Back in the city the flowers and the garbage piles are basically cancelling each other out. If summer should suddenly decide to descend on us, it might be a different story.
Still struggling with scheduling. Did 7ish this morning and 5 more at noon, and I'd like to keep that trend going. Early rise tomorrow morning as I have a major task to do (demolish and rebuild a small porch) that will take the whole day so I want to get my run in bright and early or else it won't happen. Not sure how Sunday will fare, it all depends on how much of a toll Saturday takes out of me.
Press on.
Our continuing cool summer has a lot to do with it, the baggy contents of the garbage piles aren't getting the opportunity to ferment in the heat like the last strike. The backyard pool is feeling the thermal pinch, and a lack of attention as a result (good thing I have a chlorine generator on it, otherwise I'd probably have drained it by now), but the plants and flowers have been thrilled by it all. Driving to work and running at lunchtime, the aroma of flora is almost overpowering. Back in the city the flowers and the garbage piles are basically cancelling each other out. If summer should suddenly decide to descend on us, it might be a different story.
Still struggling with scheduling. Did 7ish this morning and 5 more at noon, and I'd like to keep that trend going. Early rise tomorrow morning as I have a major task to do (demolish and rebuild a small porch) that will take the whole day so I want to get my run in bright and early or else it won't happen. Not sure how Sunday will fare, it all depends on how much of a toll Saturday takes out of me.
Press on.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Stabilty? Yet?
57 miles in 6 days over 10 runs. Some level of consistency going on.
A strike by Toronto city outside workers is creating lots of summertime havoc in the area. Summer has started both officially and atmospherically as we are finally breaking 80's for daytime highs.
The local outdoor community pool has been undergoing renovations for the last two years. The work began two years ago with a hired contracting group, which dismantled the the changerooms and storage area for renovation, took the money, dissolved the company and left a hideous looking parts trailer on the grounds. A hot summer goes by with no relief for most of the locals, and a new group is brought in to finish the job. This goes on last summer with the pool remaining closed while a new pool heating system, handicapped accessibility ramp, revamped buildings and a kiddie splash area are all put into place. The pool was filled, open for two days, the closed and drained when the outside workers strike began on Monday.
Accessibility to Toronto Islands is impaired as ferry service is halted. Garbage collection is stopped, and finally...worst of all...the local race schedules are in jeopardy as many are held in city maintained parks, and the outside workers strike has put the kabosh on that. My real concern now is whether the water fountains in the park will be running. I assume the washrooms will be locked up but surely they could have left the taps on.
Luckily we just had garbage collection at our homestead so we have maybe a bit more leaway than others may have had (garbage collection alternates with recycle pickup on alternate weeks so garbage bins fill for 2 weeks before being emptied). The picketers are blocking access to the transfer stations, which normally stay open by management staff even during strikes, which is causing more problems. In the past pickets couldn't be set up at the transfer stations for legal reasons.
Now, all of that sounds pretty nasty for a hot summer. To cap things off, we narrowly averted a strike by the LCBO which controls the booze outlets (brew drinkers, don't panic! This doesn't affect The Beer Store!).
At any rate, my schedule has settled down a bit and I've managed to get daily doubles in on weekdays. I'm keeping it light with 4-5 milers every morning and at noon. If I can discipline myself to a proper bedtime I should be able to get 7 each morning which gives me a potential 60 weekday miles, plus weekend runs.
With luck, the strike will end after I've accumulated a good quantity of mileage and I can return to the local park race series with intentions of holding no prisoners.
A strike by Toronto city outside workers is creating lots of summertime havoc in the area. Summer has started both officially and atmospherically as we are finally breaking 80's for daytime highs.
The local outdoor community pool has been undergoing renovations for the last two years. The work began two years ago with a hired contracting group, which dismantled the the changerooms and storage area for renovation, took the money, dissolved the company and left a hideous looking parts trailer on the grounds. A hot summer goes by with no relief for most of the locals, and a new group is brought in to finish the job. This goes on last summer with the pool remaining closed while a new pool heating system, handicapped accessibility ramp, revamped buildings and a kiddie splash area are all put into place. The pool was filled, open for two days, the closed and drained when the outside workers strike began on Monday.
Accessibility to Toronto Islands is impaired as ferry service is halted. Garbage collection is stopped, and finally...worst of all...the local race schedules are in jeopardy as many are held in city maintained parks, and the outside workers strike has put the kabosh on that. My real concern now is whether the water fountains in the park will be running. I assume the washrooms will be locked up but surely they could have left the taps on.
Luckily we just had garbage collection at our homestead so we have maybe a bit more leaway than others may have had (garbage collection alternates with recycle pickup on alternate weeks so garbage bins fill for 2 weeks before being emptied). The picketers are blocking access to the transfer stations, which normally stay open by management staff even during strikes, which is causing more problems. In the past pickets couldn't be set up at the transfer stations for legal reasons.
Now, all of that sounds pretty nasty for a hot summer. To cap things off, we narrowly averted a strike by the LCBO which controls the booze outlets (brew drinkers, don't panic! This doesn't affect The Beer Store!).
At any rate, my schedule has settled down a bit and I've managed to get daily doubles in on weekdays. I'm keeping it light with 4-5 milers every morning and at noon. If I can discipline myself to a proper bedtime I should be able to get 7 each morning which gives me a potential 60 weekday miles, plus weekend runs.
With luck, the strike will end after I've accumulated a good quantity of mileage and I can return to the local park race series with intentions of holding no prisoners.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Hello Summer
Are you out there?
Not here, not yet. Good running conditions if you like it cool.
My log's in tatters (or taters? I dunno). Work has been keeping me busy the last week and cold windy conditions (and a ton of yard work to do) kept me home on long run Sunday. Last night I was still awake at 2 as my daughter was up late getting some school work finished, which left me cutting ZZZzzzssss.... until I had to get up.
Anyway, I did manage 5 this afternoon, a measily 2 yesterday morning and none in the afternoon. If I can squeeze in a couple this evening I will but not much hope for that. I just need to bed it early tonight and force my eyes open in the AM.
I know the plan, I know the schedule, like that back of my hand. And, as always, implementing the sucker is being a beotch. 4-5 easy Monday AM, 4-5 easy Noon. 5-6 up-paced Tues morning, 4-5 easy at noon. Wednesday hills or intervals, 4-5 easy at noon. Thursday mid long, another 4 easy at noon. Friday 4-6 easy AM, 4-6 easy at noon. Saturday trail or tempo. Sunday long.
It's not hard, it's manageable. It's just finding the bloody time, not just for the run itself but the time away from that to be prepped for it, like getting to the sack at 10ish, clearing my morning work by noon.
Even now the phone rings, I have to close up and head to the beach for my daughter's soccer game. That'll push dinner to later and then by the time dinner's settled down the tubes it'll be bedtime.
I'll get this moving yet. It's got to start in the evening, bed on time, up with the early alarm. I'd love to have the full hour in the AM, which would bring me to ~7 miles each morning, and tack on at least 4 at noon. Even that would be a sealed 11 a day through the week and then the weekend work.
Le's go dude...get 'er done.
Not here, not yet. Good running conditions if you like it cool.
My log's in tatters (or taters? I dunno). Work has been keeping me busy the last week and cold windy conditions (and a ton of yard work to do) kept me home on long run Sunday. Last night I was still awake at 2 as my daughter was up late getting some school work finished, which left me cutting ZZZzzzssss.... until I had to get up.
Anyway, I did manage 5 this afternoon, a measily 2 yesterday morning and none in the afternoon. If I can squeeze in a couple this evening I will but not much hope for that. I just need to bed it early tonight and force my eyes open in the AM.
I know the plan, I know the schedule, like that back of my hand. And, as always, implementing the sucker is being a beotch. 4-5 easy Monday AM, 4-5 easy Noon. 5-6 up-paced Tues morning, 4-5 easy at noon. Wednesday hills or intervals, 4-5 easy at noon. Thursday mid long, another 4 easy at noon. Friday 4-6 easy AM, 4-6 easy at noon. Saturday trail or tempo. Sunday long.
It's not hard, it's manageable. It's just finding the bloody time, not just for the run itself but the time away from that to be prepped for it, like getting to the sack at 10ish, clearing my morning work by noon.
Even now the phone rings, I have to close up and head to the beach for my daughter's soccer game. That'll push dinner to later and then by the time dinner's settled down the tubes it'll be bedtime.
I'll get this moving yet. It's got to start in the evening, bed on time, up with the early alarm. I'd love to have the full hour in the AM, which would bring me to ~7 miles each morning, and tack on at least 4 at noon. Even that would be a sealed 11 a day through the week and then the weekend work.
Le's go dude...get 'er done.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Fast runners coming to Toronto
Thursday, June 11th, is the inaugural Festival of Excellence event to be held here at University of Toronto's Varsity Centre Stadium, a beautiful and intimate field in the uptown core near Bay and Bloor. The complex is recently renovated with a striking blue synthetic track and 5000 seat grandstand. Standing room only tickets for this event are $25 dollars while grandstand seating ranges from $50 (obstructed view seats) to $110 dollars, with finish line seats at $160 and finish area (whatever that means) at $250.
The depth of this field gets richer by the day. 100m and 200m WR holder Usain Bolt will be competing in the 100m against the likes of Shawn Crawford and Ivory Williams. The 400m sports our own Tyler Christopher and LeShawn Merritt while the mens 5000 meters has 3 sub-13 entries in Saif Shaheen, Boniface Kiprop and Ahmad Abdullah. Lists for the women's events have yet to be posted.
I think I'd like to go. I better get tickets soon or be stuck with bad seating. I think the $75 grandstand seating would be a steal for an event of this calibre, and who knows when we'll see this kind of talent in Toronto (or even Canada) again, barring winning an Olympic bid.
The depth of this field gets richer by the day. 100m and 200m WR holder Usain Bolt will be competing in the 100m against the likes of Shawn Crawford and Ivory Williams. The 400m sports our own Tyler Christopher and LeShawn Merritt while the mens 5000 meters has 3 sub-13 entries in Saif Shaheen, Boniface Kiprop and Ahmad Abdullah. Lists for the women's events have yet to be posted.
I think I'd like to go. I better get tickets soon or be stuck with bad seating. I think the $75 grandstand seating would be a steal for an event of this calibre, and who knows when we'll see this kind of talent in Toronto (or even Canada) again, barring winning an Olympic bid.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Sharepoint and Infopath
A departure from the usual running related info.
In my real daytime job I write code. The platform for the last few years has been web related code and I'm currently writing against MOSS 2007 (Sharepoint) and Infopath. We're using Infopath as the means to access content since it's easily modifiable by customers without the need for a development environment. This implies, unfortunately, that's it's not a development environment itself.
Infopath has been around a little while, it lets users create forms for use with workflows and a way of entering metadata with documents. It's matched with Sharepoint's document modelling and they two go hand in hand. If you install Infopath 2007, you can create and modify forms for your company and they're easily deployed and maintained using Sharepoint central administration.
What it doesn't do well at all is allow designing a form in one environment and deploying it to another. As a software developer, this is what I do all the time. This is the whole gist of enterprise level development. I've been saddled with the task of wrenching what I can out of these forms for the last couple of years. If I'd known what I was getting myself into, I would have gladly handed this over to another member of our team.
Infopath is an ad-hoc tool. You have an installation already, you create and deploy forms on it for users to use. It's architected this way, this is it's basic design. In the past, Infopath forms and templates were comparable to Word documents and Excel spreadsheets in that you really need the installed client to use them, and with Infopath you don't have any other way of using them, the technology is proprietary. To ease the customer burden, Microsoft took advantage of XSLT technology as a way of being able to render form content in a web browser. The introduction of Infopath forms services grants access to forms and form content through the browser. There's some tradeoffs with this, and this is where the fun begins.
First off, once designed in the browser, more than half the functionality of Infopath disappears. Many usable controls won't work in the browser, dynamic access to the document model is suddenly restricted. HTML is stateless and therefore the dynamic interplay of form and host goes out the window.
Secondly, the introduction of forms services inherently creates it's own tier in the architecture. This brings the dreaded NTLM double-hop restriction into clear play. As most deployments of forms and forms services will be in such environments of at least 2 tiers, virtually everyone who's ever implemented Infopath through forms services has encountered this problem.
As a bonus, data connection errors in Infopath are displayed to the user as the completely useless 5566 error, which claims an error has been logged in the event viewer (which is a lie, unless you've explicitly written errors to the event viewer yourself in the web services you may be hitting, or not) and gives virutally no detail on what went wrong. To troubleshoot, you need to peruse IIS and Sharepoint logs to see what happened. This doesn't always work because sometimes the call never makes it to the actual server, so you have nothing to go by. And don't think you can just bring up native Infopath to help (as Infopath will display the actually error encountered), because almost always the problem will not occur in native Infopath with it's direct calls to the web services, thus avoiding double-hop scenarios.
To help alleviate the problems, data connection files can play the role of intermediary between Infopath, forms services and the service layers you're trying to reach. It doesn't necessarily solve them, but it at least gives you a fighting chance of getting things to work. For starters, you can add explicit credentials to the connection files (bad idea from a security standpoint, but it usually will work). Or you can leverage some back end help in the form of Single sign on, Kerberos authentication, or forms services proxy. The forms services proxy is a bit of a mystery, there's tons of info telling you how to enable it and get the forms to use it, but squat explaining what it actually does from within. Kerberos ain't all that welcome either as it and Infopath don't seem to get along very well, as we're now discovering in our rollouts. It's less about Infopath in this case and more about web services, but you have few options on how to access server content in Infopath without web services. You'll find that you'll need to go back to Visual Studio to make your web services Kerberos friendly before this option is viable.
I can only recommend to anyone out there that's planning on using these tools that they should do their homework first. There's much more information available than when I started, and I sure could have used the information in the links below when I started this. Good luck, you'll need it.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms771995.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc704269.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms772101.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/infopath/archive/2006/10/02/Data-Connections-in-Browser-Forms.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb787184.aspx#ip2007AdvancedServerSideAuthentication_UsingtheSingleSignonService
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms464040.aspx
http://www.thenewmossness.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=19
In my real daytime job I write code. The platform for the last few years has been web related code and I'm currently writing against MOSS 2007 (Sharepoint) and Infopath. We're using Infopath as the means to access content since it's easily modifiable by customers without the need for a development environment. This implies, unfortunately, that's it's not a development environment itself.
Infopath has been around a little while, it lets users create forms for use with workflows and a way of entering metadata with documents. It's matched with Sharepoint's document modelling and they two go hand in hand. If you install Infopath 2007, you can create and modify forms for your company and they're easily deployed and maintained using Sharepoint central administration.
What it doesn't do well at all is allow designing a form in one environment and deploying it to another. As a software developer, this is what I do all the time. This is the whole gist of enterprise level development. I've been saddled with the task of wrenching what I can out of these forms for the last couple of years. If I'd known what I was getting myself into, I would have gladly handed this over to another member of our team.
Infopath is an ad-hoc tool. You have an installation already, you create and deploy forms on it for users to use. It's architected this way, this is it's basic design. In the past, Infopath forms and templates were comparable to Word documents and Excel spreadsheets in that you really need the installed client to use them, and with Infopath you don't have any other way of using them, the technology is proprietary. To ease the customer burden, Microsoft took advantage of XSLT technology as a way of being able to render form content in a web browser. The introduction of Infopath forms services grants access to forms and form content through the browser. There's some tradeoffs with this, and this is where the fun begins.
First off, once designed in the browser, more than half the functionality of Infopath disappears. Many usable controls won't work in the browser, dynamic access to the document model is suddenly restricted. HTML is stateless and therefore the dynamic interplay of form and host goes out the window.
Secondly, the introduction of forms services inherently creates it's own tier in the architecture. This brings the dreaded NTLM double-hop restriction into clear play. As most deployments of forms and forms services will be in such environments of at least 2 tiers, virtually everyone who's ever implemented Infopath through forms services has encountered this problem.
As a bonus, data connection errors in Infopath are displayed to the user as the completely useless 5566 error, which claims an error has been logged in the event viewer (which is a lie, unless you've explicitly written errors to the event viewer yourself in the web services you may be hitting, or not) and gives virutally no detail on what went wrong. To troubleshoot, you need to peruse IIS and Sharepoint logs to see what happened. This doesn't always work because sometimes the call never makes it to the actual server, so you have nothing to go by. And don't think you can just bring up native Infopath to help (as Infopath will display the actually error encountered), because almost always the problem will not occur in native Infopath with it's direct calls to the web services, thus avoiding double-hop scenarios.
To help alleviate the problems, data connection files can play the role of intermediary between Infopath, forms services and the service layers you're trying to reach. It doesn't necessarily solve them, but it at least gives you a fighting chance of getting things to work. For starters, you can add explicit credentials to the connection files (bad idea from a security standpoint, but it usually will work). Or you can leverage some back end help in the form of Single sign on, Kerberos authentication, or forms services proxy. The forms services proxy is a bit of a mystery, there's tons of info telling you how to enable it and get the forms to use it, but squat explaining what it actually does from within. Kerberos ain't all that welcome either as it and Infopath don't seem to get along very well, as we're now discovering in our rollouts. It's less about Infopath in this case and more about web services, but you have few options on how to access server content in Infopath without web services. You'll find that you'll need to go back to Visual Studio to make your web services Kerberos friendly before this option is viable.
I can only recommend to anyone out there that's planning on using these tools that they should do their homework first. There's much more information available than when I started, and I sure could have used the information in the links below when I started this. Good luck, you'll need it.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms771995.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc704269.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms772101.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/infopath/archive/2006/10/02/Data-Connections-in-Browser-Forms.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb787184.aspx#ip2007AdvancedServerSideAuthentication_UsingtheSingleSignonService
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms464040.aspx
http://www.thenewmossness.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=19
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Mississauga Half Marathon
1:33:02
I'm good with that. I'd figured on a 1:35 based on my training. My 5k on Wednesday evening gave me some hope for a better finish. It's hard to say if that race impacted my finish today. I was glad for the hard workout which let me get a better feel for the effort and I could handle breathing harder as a result. On the downside my quads were a bit sore throughout the race but honestly never became a problem. Were I doing the full, I'm sure it really would have shown up, but I could handle it over the half.
This was about 5 seconds faster than I had run this course 2 years ago. I wasn't in great shape then either, so maybe with a little work I can reclaim a PR here next year, even though I'll be in a new age bracket then. It was nice to see the sub 22 opening 5k, despite being into the wind, and being able to keep in the 22's the whole race. In case anyone else ran this and didn't notice, the 10k sign is about 250 meters past the actual 10k split point.
All and all, a good effort. A bit chilly down there, but good for running the half. I'm curious how those doing the full handled that N/W wind.
I'm good with that. I'd figured on a 1:35 based on my training. My 5k on Wednesday evening gave me some hope for a better finish. It's hard to say if that race impacted my finish today. I was glad for the hard workout which let me get a better feel for the effort and I could handle breathing harder as a result. On the downside my quads were a bit sore throughout the race but honestly never became a problem. Were I doing the full, I'm sure it really would have shown up, but I could handle it over the half.
This was about 5 seconds faster than I had run this course 2 years ago. I wasn't in great shape then either, so maybe with a little work I can reclaim a PR here next year, even though I'll be in a new age bracket then. It was nice to see the sub 22 opening 5k, despite being into the wind, and being able to keep in the 22's the whole race. In case anyone else ran this and didn't notice, the 10k sign is about 250 meters past the actual 10k split point.
All and all, a good effort. A bit chilly down there, but good for running the half. I'm curious how those doing the full handled that N/W wind.
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