best run in 5.5 years

Today I went out for my prescribed 50 minute endurance run. My HRM was being a PITA so I put the read out on min/mile. I know it needs calibration to be a little more accurate but I calibrated it for walking before I was able to run for more than 3-4 min at a time. In general, it is pretty close because when I run on the Heritage Trail, I have mile markers to guage things by. Anyway, I got adjusted just before my run and I had a massage last Thursday and I think that made all the difference in the world. I busted out my first sub-12 minute mile in years and was able to keep up the pace for another two after that. I was able to do 3.9 miles in 50 minutes. Not bad if I might say so. I actually did a 10:50 for my last mile. I must admit, I was "husky assisted" on that last mile as I let the leash out a little more than I usually do and Koda pulled me to my fastest mile ever, or at least since 2002. I think my best 5K was around 29 minutes in a sprint triathlon. I must check the results to verify that. Anyway, Im happy to report I am getting faster and I might be able to do Beaver FReezer in around 1:18 or so, Im hoping.

Return to OHSU

For the first time since I left the hospital on November 3, 2002, I returned to OHSU. We had to take Taggy there for an appointment with a specialist at the children's hospital (everything is normal). While we were waiting for his appointment, Stacey and I were sitting reminiscing about the last time we were there. I got kind of teary eyed and of course, being a man and all, I didnt want my wife to see me doing that so I got up and went and played with Taggy. We finished his appointment and he and Stacey wanted to ride the tram down the hill so I got the car and met them at the terminal. Later, after the kids went to bed, Stacey and I sat down and she told me about how surreal it felt to walk from where Taggy's appointment was up to the tram. She had to walk through the area where she waited for the hospital staff to take her and Taguen, when he was only 3 months old, to my room on the day of my injury. It was very emotionally draining for her and I wish I could have been there with her. I vividly remember everything about the rehab center but was unable to recall much about OHSU except for the homeless person they put in my room and she said the same thing until walking through the ward today. She is an exceptional woman and I am lucky to have her in my life.

New training program, dreams, Kona

Yesterday, I started on the latest installment of my triathlon training. With a new goal, the Canadian Paralympic Cycling Team, I had coach Scott (www.f9tc) design a program with early season time trials as the focus. The times for the national team in the 20k were in the low 30 minute range. My best 20k without doing much training was 36 minutes. As I said, with proper training, I think I can do much better. I have great equipment in my bike and race wheels, I have one good leg, so I think I can power to a low 30 minute finish. My friends Jen and Dean at Bike Central have offered to help me learn to ride on the track as this is something else I think I could excel at. Although the 2008 Paralympics are out of reach, the Pan Am games and World Championships are not. I am looking into going to Montreal in May to be classified and race for the first time against other physically challenged athletes.
I emailed NA Sports for the second time in as many years about adding an additional category to their PC division. The ITU, International Triathlon Union, has a category that I fit into and I am lobbying for NA Sports to adopt it as well. Last year they basically said I wasnt PC enough to compete in the PC division. Granted, I am not going to be breaking any land speed records but at least I might be able to get the elusive Kona spot without having to go the lottery route. Wish me luck

More goals, future paralympian??

Ever since my life was changed by a surgical procedure gone awry, I have been trying to find things that I can be competitive in with people that have like injuries. This is how I found the Challenged Athletes Foundation. Recently, just for fun, I was looking at the results for the World Paralypic Cycling Championships. Im not sure what my classification is just yet (Im working on that detail), but I think I could be competitive with the class I think I am in. With proper coaching (thanks Scott), I know I can achieve this new goal of mine-making the Canadian Paralympic Team. I have been talking via email to the Canadian Cycling director for the Paralympic program and he has been very positive about the possibility of me competing for my country. First thing I have to do is get classified, then start earning points via UCI registered events. The only problem with that is the cost of traveling to events. At age 41, I am excited about the prospect of becoming a member of the national team but I am not getting my hopes up just yet. I have to be diligent about my training while maintaining a good relationship at home. Its a delicate balance but I think I can do it.

Turkey Trot and feeling old

Well, its official, my son is better than me at something. Its only a matter of time before he overtakes me in other things. Im not giving in though. He is going to have to earn it.
On Turkey Day, we got to the gym and he was real excited. I was still trying to stay awake, it was only 645am afterall. We said hi to friends and Kelton overheard one of my buddy's asking his son if he wanted to ride his bike 8.5miles with him running or if he wanted to run 3.5miles with one of the his own friends. He chose to ride with Dad but then Kelton turned to me and asked if we could run the 8.5 mile route to which I replied "um, HELL no!". Just before the proverbial gun (it wasnt a race), I ran to the truck to get the dog and then we were off. I had made sure Kelton brought his gloves and he was wearing his soccer warm ups so he was toasty but before long, he had the gloves off and his top was unzipped. Sure as clockwork, the dog had to do his business and without warning, he let loose in the street right in front of probably the only person that wasnt running. She was coming out to get her paper as I was in front of her house trying to scrape dog poop off the street. A whole bunch of people were still behind us and as they passed, Kelton and I were trying to make sure they didnt step in it. After we cleaned it up, we started running again. Kelton made a comment about his not even training for this run. A few minutes later, he asked if we could go faster, once again, I replied with a resounding, "Hell no!", but I said he could go on if he wanted and just to follow everyone else. I expected him to want to walk a bit but he just started running a little faster, then before I knew it, he was out of sight. Bob, the gym owner, and his wife, Patti, were at the only turn Kelton had to make, serving your choice of champagne or water. I jokingly asked which one they gave my kid. They were very impressed that he had was doing so well and that he was kicking my ass severely. I think he probably finished close to ten minutes before I did and he was back at the gym enjoying hot chocolate while I was walking the last half a mile or so. I am so proud of him, he did the entire thing without having to walk AND he wanted to do more. Well, at least at the time he did. Not long after that he was walking funny because his legs were sore.

swimming

A few months ago, I started swimming with a couple of friends. We wanted to get 2 times per week but due to various reasons, I only managed once a week with them and only one time with the Saturday morning group. Yesterday, after three, maybe four weeks of missing Tuesday/Thursday swims, I got wet. Jeff and I started out and got 400m in before Eric got in. We did pulls of 200m each then took a minute or so rest and by the time we finished, I had 2200m in. I think I hurt Jeff and Eric on my last pull or at least the last 100m. We went from 1:55/100m to 1:40/100m and after we were done, they were rubbing their shoulders and trying to catch their breath. I might have a new patient out of the deal too!! It was fun and I am looking forward to getting back to my routine of 2-3 swims/week. I have been trying to get Stacey to commit to training for an event with me and once we have that goal, I think we can get ourselves up early or training later after the boys go to bed.

Tomorrow is turkey day and if all goes well, Kelton and I should be up running a 5K tomorrow at 7am. Since he has been getting up at 6am lately, I dont think it should be difficult to get there.

Riding in the rain

Saturday I hooked up with a bunch of people at Athlete's Lounge for a wet ride. Some people had fenders, others had none but even the fendered bikes threw up a ton of spray (after the ride, I took my bike down to Bike Central and asked them to put flaps on each fender). Before the ride, one of my new team mates came in the store and said he forgot his shoes. Luckily, someone in the store had a pair of shoes and I had a pair of pedals with me so he was able to ride. He also had a gift for me from Coach Scott at Factor 9 Triathlon Coaching in the form of a new visor with his logo on it. Pretty cool way to start the ride. We went out in a group of about 15 or so and ended up splitting the group about an hour into it. I rode for about 1:40 or so, not sure of the distance as my cheapo computer had died. It was a flat to rolling ride which was great for me as I had only been able to ride once in the past week. My HR Ave was 146 and overall my legs felt great and I wasnt sore at all afterwards. Aside from the spray, the rain hit us on the last 15 minutes of the ride but we were already wet. Athlete's Lounge, one of the sponsors of Ironheads, was a great host and had great facilities including a shower if you needed it. Some people are going to ride on turkey day at 9am and another group is trying to ride at 630am. I think it will be in the low 30s on Thursday so I am not sure I want to ride my bike in that, more for saftey reasons than the cold and Kelton and I are already planning to run/walk the Turkey Trot at Lacamas Swim/Sport at 7am. Who knows, I might see if its OK that I ride afterwards. It is afterall, the time of the year when most people gain weight, I might as well not add to that number. Ciao for now,
DS

San Diego Triathlon Challenge 2007

This year on November 1 was the five year anniversary of my injury. A lot has happened in five years. My most proud accomplishments have been the completion of three half iron distance triathlons and an Ironman. Two of the half iron distance events were in La Jolla for the SDTC. This year I was going to do a relay and just do the swim portion of the event so I could enjoy the expo but mother nature and apparently some criminals prevented that. The event was cancelled three days prior to the scheduled date due to the wildfires that damaged Southern California.

I was a little disappointed in one way as I was really looking forward to the inspiration I always got from watching challenged athletes compete. I am a PC athlete myself but I have all my limbs and I dont use a wheelchair so I am in awe of those less fortunate than I when it comes to injury. On the other hand, I was happy to not add to the chaos that was happening in the San Diego area.

My swim training was not what it could have been but I know I would have been able to pull off a 35 minute swim even with the limited pool time I had. I am lucky to be able to swim well without too much effort but for the 2008 season, I plan on working towards a sub 30 min swim time in the half IM distance. I thought about joining the local Masters club but I don't know if I can make the swim times. At the same time, I like the coach Bert, and think he can help me attain my goal time. I have been swimming with a wetsuit or pull buoy for so long, I will need to really work hard to be able to swim without either one so I can be more efficient when I have to wear my suit.

Tomorrow Im swimming with a couple of friends something I hope to be able to do regularly. I am much faster than they are which makes it easy for me to transition to swimming device free.

This is therapy

So, if you are reading this, most likely you already know me. If, however, you dont know me, I will give you a quick overview. Hope you dont fall asleep before I get to the good parts, I tend to ramble :)

My name is Darren, Dad, Big D, Son, Barrel (ask my friends why), Doctor, and some other things. I am a chiropractic physician, specializing in sports injuries. I am a husband, a father, a son, a big brother, a little brother. I am an Ironman. I am physically challenged. I have a very loving family that supports me, trains with me, and puts up with me and my "stuff".

I started out thinking I would be writing this for therapy but now Im interested in doing an ongoing thing for friends and family to have something to read about the goings on here in rainy Camas/Portland Metro. Sorry in advance if this bores you but I think I can throw some humour in there somewhere (for the Americans reading, I didnt spell humour wrong, Im Canadian and thats how we roll with words like that; honour, colour, etc).

I guess I have to fill in the "about me" section so ciao for now.

Lake Stevens, 53mph on a bike, PR, good times

I wrote this a while back, right after I did my last triathlon on July 8, 2007, thought I would share it. It will take me a while to catch up between then and now, October, but I will give it my best shot.


Its been a long time since I wrote anything but I am feeling inspired this morning. My coach, Scott McMillan, of Factor 9 Triathlon Coaching (http://www.f9tc.com/), got me through another long distance triathlon at Lake Stevens. Its one of the new stops of the Ironman 70.3 series and it is just north of Seattle so real easy to get to.
The week and a half before the race was spent travelling to my homeland of Canada and sitting in 90+F weather beside the lake I grew up next to. It was great because I did all my swims in open water and all my bike rides were on hilly roads. Little did I know that those rides were preparing me for the two lap course around Lake Stevens.
Two days before the races, we got into Lake Stevens and while the family went to see Ratatouille, I went to check out the race course. I didnt actually get to do that because I spent two hours trying to get the local bike shop to dial in my gearing. Apparently, SRAM cassettes do not compute with Shimano shifting unless it is on friction (vs index/click) and even then, the SRAM spring is very powerful and pulls the rear derailleur down a couple of gears unless you hold it there. That comes into play later during the race which I will describe later. So, by the time they figure out that they cant help me (and make my shifting worse than when I got there), it was time to get the fam from the movie.
Fast forward to race day. 4am, alarm, scares the crap out of me and everyone else in the room, but they quickly went back to sleep. I got all my stuff on while I was drinking my breakfast and before I knew it, 6am came and we were off to the race. Stomach doing flip flops for the entire morning untill I met up with a bunch of people from my club, then it calmed down. I didnt feel stressed but I guess thats what it was.
My wave was off at 7:04 and it was the biggest field in the race, 110 40-49 year olds. I was registered as a clydesdale but they didnt separate us from our age groups. We were off on the gun, and it was no where near as intense as trying to swim in Floriday IM but I still got swam over. I quickly found my pace and I also found that all the buoys were tied to a line that ran the length of the course which ensured that I was not off course and I didnt have to waste time and energy sighting the next buoy. Im not sure that was cheating in anyway but I know Im not the only one that found it. I passed quite a few of the 30-34 and 35-39 ladies groups that went off before us and I thought I was having a great swim. I finished in 36 minutes, one minute off my goal time but respectable in my group, 42/110 and 10/35 Clydesdales. My T1 time was not bad, 3 minutes, longer than I wanted due to the short run and wetsuit removal but I was OK with it.
The first few miles of the bike were easy, a couple of short rollers but good enough to get me out of the red zone and calmed down for the ride. I passed quite a few people til the first of 4 hills rolled around. Only about 4-8% grades but only 1/2 mile or less but man did it take a lot out of me on the first lap. My bike didnt shift properly and I was forced to hold my bar end shifter to keep it in the 26 because when I let it go, the spring pulled it back to the 23, kind of hard to climb in for a large man but I was able to recover on the descents and I am thankful for momentum because I was able to roll up some of the rollers without much effort. On the first lap, the steepest descent, I was able to hit 50mph while in my aero bars but an impatient local in a BMW pulled out in front of me. I have cat like reflexes apparently, because I was able to get out of my tuck and onto my brakes. He caught up to the people I was gaining on and he hit the brakes too but he turned off before I could give him my commentary on what he just did to me. Anyway, same hill, a little over 1 hour later, I was on the bull horns, ready to hit the brakes and I got up to 53mph. What a rush. No speed wobble from my Zipp 808 wheels and I could have gone faster Im sure if there hadnt been S curves on the hill. What a RUSH!! I didnt feel like I had much else to offer after the last hill but I seemed to find an extra gear about 5K from T2 probably due to crowd noise and the announcer. I was a little bummed when I was in T2 and I heard then announce the womens winner was 1K out and I knew I still had 3 hours of run/walking ahead of me. Nonetheless, I headed out of T2 5 minutes later (ankle braces take a while to get on).
I ran out of the transition zone and through the crowd with the speed of a turtle but hey, I was running instead of walking. As soon as I got out of view of the crowd, I walked to the first feed zone where I used the portapotty and got my drink on, water of course as they were out of beer. Funny, thinking back, I used the portapotty on each of the frist three aid stations at Ironman but didnt have to go til 4 hours into this race, was I dehydrated? Anyway, back to running. I ran/walked for a while but before too long, it became a long walk, short run, then a REAL long walk, shorter run. I drank water at each aid station and had a powergel just before I got there but note to self, get a belt with water bottles on it, the aid stations were too far apart for a hot race, at least for me. I had to get some vasaline at about mile 8 because my underarms, already chafed from the swim, were starting to sting but that quickly soothed it. Oh, also, another note to self, get some spray sunscreen as the stuff that was applied at 7am, before swimming, doesnt last all day apparently. Around mile 10, I tried running again but I had a sharp pain in my left knee so I walked til mile 12.5, just before the crowd came into view, and I ran to the finish. My family was there to see me run the last 100m to the line which was a big thrill for me since they didnt get to see me at IMF. My oldest was too shy to run across the line with me but they were right there to hug me afterwards.
A few friends from my club were there and they cheered me to the fnish which was great too. All in all, even with the shifting problems on the bike, the knee pain, and the sun burn, I had a great day. I even drove us all the way back to Portland, three hours away. So, in retrospect, I think I could have finished in under 7 hrs with a few factors changed, but overall, I PR'd by 1 hour, 3 minutes over my best finish in that distance so Im happy.