One final word

I thought I was done with blogging, but apparently I'm not. Just one last post before I close the book:

A week has past since Ironman, and as the post-race fatigue subsides, both my reflection on the event and my outlook for the future has shifted. I may well have been in a highly fatigued and emotionally numb state when I wrote my race report; as the days have passed and my energy returns (how quickly that happens!), I've felt increasingly happy with the experience and proud of my achievement. I think I can do better though, so (surprise, surprise) I will likely do another Ironman next year. I'm setting no goals and making no promises to myself; for now, I am happy to ride my bike and run some trails and paddle around in the pool.

Over the last week, a lot of people have politely pointed out to me that my achievement in my first Ironman was an incredible one, and the sharing of my journey to get there inspired them in small ways and great ways. So other than feeling increasingly proud of myself, I am feeling overwhelmingly proud to have the friends and family that I have. Thank you to everyone who has reminded me that I have reason to be so on both counts.

The Race Report (get comfortable for this one)

Life is full of surprises, and sometimes it's our own reactions to what life brings that surprise us the most.

The biggest surprise of Ironman for me was that I wasn't moved by it. The day was exciting, it was fun, it was exhausting, it was overwhelmingly long and it had some seriously uninteresting stretches. It also had touching moments that I will never forget. But did I cry at the start line as the sun rose on the Mediterranean, or did I well up with emotion as it was setting on the hills behind Barcelona when I crossed the finish line? (I'm not just being poetic; it really did happen like that). Did I battle with inner demons and emerge victorious time and time again during the 11 hour and 45 minute stretch in between; was I touched by my own humanity and the humanity of those around me who were each engaged in their own battles no less kind than my own?

Nope. When I crossed the finish line, my predominant thought was 'I don't think I'll do that again'. The next thought was 'what's to eat?'

So I feel exactly the same the other side of the race. I've done plenty of endurance races that have left me forever changed, and weirdly, Ironman wasn't one of them. I'm going to offer up some theories as to why later. But now that I've given my emotional summary of the race upfront, I'll go into the details of the day. Here's how it unfolded:

I traveled to the race site, located in the Barcelona suburb of Calella, with my fellow club members who were doing the race: there was the club President and chief training partner Arnold, Eric, a former professional boxer from Alsace who says that doing Ironmans makes boxing look like a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, Vincent, a doctor who distributes handy medical certificates to club members at licensing time, and then there was me. We were originally supposed to be five but we lost Bruno, another doctor, to a bad fall in the vineyards a few weeks back that left him with a self-diagnosed twisted pelvis that he's been writing heavy-duty painkiller prescriptions for ever since.

Vincent stayed in separate accommodations becasue he had his family in tow, while Eric, Arnold and I shared a trailor and fought like cats and dogs for the entire day preceding the race. Eric irritated everyone by humming non-stop in a subduedly anxious manner, Arnold kept wondering out loud why everyone expected him to know the answers just becasue he's the club President, and I was mad that I got the blame for getting us lost four times when we were trying to find the bike park at check-in time (I didn't volunteer to navigate, I just happened to be the only one who had thought to print the map). I managed to miss the English race-briefing (couldn't find the venue for that either) and had to attend the French one, which in typical French manner turned into a heckling match which I was sure was going to culminate in a strike on the part of the French athletes as they took up arms about everything from the ambiguity of drafting penalties to the lack of translated pre-race information that the Spanish organizers had emailed out in the preceding weeks. Eric hummed throughout the entire briefing and Arnold looked like he was ready to break his legs. Having learnt to keep my questions to myself at this point in the day, I sat tight and put on my best angry face in an attempt to fit in with the crowd while trying to absorb the important information, like what to do when you want to drop out.

A pictoral interlude.

The buoys marking the swim course:


Eric checking in his bike:


Preparations in the bag tent:

Saturday evening: we ate an early dinner on the trailer's balcony, shared a bottle of wine and watched the moon rise on the water. We agreed that it was indeed a full moon, concluded that it responsible for our agitated states and collectively forgave each other our transgressions of the day before going to bed. I slept fitfully.

Five am: breakfast, washroom, dress, do hair, undress, washroom again, redo hair, fret over what goggles to wear.

Seven thirty am: am standing in my wetsuit in the 'holding pen' for swim start, wishing that I'd picked the other goggles with a darker tint becasue the sun was breaking the horizon immediately behind the first buoy.

The Swim.

The swim was a beach start, single lap 3.8km course. It was essentially an out-and-back with a two-buoy turnaround. There were thirteen waves spaced two minutes apart (for non triathletes: sometimes swim starts are broken up into groups, called waves, to avoid crowding in the water). The male pros were first, then the female pros, and then I was in the third (which consisted of all female age groupers, which turned out to be just 90 in a field of 1,700 competitors - apparently women's participation in endurance sports in Europe has some catching up to do on North America). I lined up behind the front girls, hoping to draft the leaders and avoid getting stuck in the middle of the pack if the pace wasn't too brisk in the first few hundred meters. The gun went off and we ran into the breaking waves.

Everybody talks about the brutal mish-mash of an Ironman swim start, with kicking and thrashing, being swum over, having goggles ripped off, getting pushed under and having to fight to catch a breath. I had prepared myself for this a thousand times over, but there was none of it (in no small part due to having a wave start of only 90 athletes). Us girls organized ourselves into a tight but fluid pack that swum together until the first buoy turn. Other than the tapping of a hand on my foot as I was drafted, I had no other physical contact with other athletes in the water. The pace of the leaders was faster than I wanted to swim in the first twenty minutes, so after the turn they broke ahead and I pulled back and led the chase pack. I tried to focus on using my upper body (I have a strong kick - and I like to use it when left unchecked) so I switched to a three-count kick to conserve my leg power for later in the day. The water was beautifully clear and the sun was rising behind us; with every sixth breadth I could see the orange globe moving up on the horizon under my right arm. While there were waves, they were of the large rolling kind that aren't difficult to swim through but do shift the landscape moment by moment. Sometimes the buoys marking the turnaround in the distance were there, and sometimes they weren't.

Which brings me to the task of sighting. While I might not have a strong sense of direction on land, I am usually a fairly good sighter in the water. It's fair to say that the swim course buoys were a little lacking in height, so I was counting on the kayacker that stayed close to our pack to do some guiding. Big mistake. When I arrived at the first of the two buoys marking the turn around loop, a referee boat pulled up. There was some shouting at the kayaker, some whistle blowing, some general confusion in the water, and we were turned at an angle to loop a different buoy. I now had the bulk of white swim caps marking the female agegroupers, mixed with the odd blue cap from the first of the male agegroupers who had caught up to us, ahead of me. I still don't know what went wrong and why our course wasn't corrected sooner, but word at the finish line was that we were not the only wave to do this and the swim times reflect it.

The return leg of the swim was uneventful; I stuck in the middle of the group and was happy to be able to draft somebody else when I caught onto the feet of a male age grouper. When the beach began to draw near again, I returned to a single-stroke kick rhythm to encourage the blood back down to my legs (thanks for the tip about this, David - it worked and I could run out of the water without too much dizziness). My swim exit:



The Bike.

I've never been so bored in all my life. Six hours and three laps of an uninteresting waterfront route. Lack of beauty in a landscape might not affect some athletes, but it leaves me climbing the proverbial walls of my mind. I've never visited the stretch of coastline east of Barcelona before, and I won't hurry back; it's the sort of place that you might think is suitable to pass a week's vacation if you're British. Maybe I've been spoilt with our largely untouched coastline in Southwest France; but in any event I've lost my taste for concrete highrises and was missing the beauty of vineyards, olive groves and Mediterranean pines. I definitely, definitely enjoyed training for the bike portion a thousand times more than I enjoyed the actual bike portion of Ironman. I couldn't wait to get out of the saddle and do something else.

This sums up my feeling on the bike:




The Run.

Having said that, when the bike was drawing to a close, I had absolutely no interest in running. My legs were feeling fine (although I had a period of feeling a little physically low in the second loop) but my mind felt numb and I would venture to say I was actually feeling indifferent to the race at this point. It's true that I had periods on the bike where I completely zoned out and I don't recall what I was thinking, but I clearly remember the very lucid thought that I would much, much rather spend the afternoon at the beach than running a marathon. I tried to pep myself up with coke at the final bike aid stations, but they'd run out. Some had also run out of water, and towards the end they were handing out no other food other than whole, green bananas (not very palatable, or open-able) and whole energy bars still in their packages (also not very openable). It's a good thing I was in my indifferent mood at this stage or I might have had more to say about it at the time.

But back to the run: four loops of an equally non-descript waterfront course. Thank goodness the crowds were good: the Spanish know how to throw a party and every bar and cafe along the route made sure they did. Spanish kids went crazy with whistles and blowhorns at aid stations. The sun was high at this point in the day, and I had stupidly counted on suncream being available at the exit of the second transition zone; there was none. I felt fine in the first 20 kilometers, running a fairly steady pace and alternating between water and coke at every aid station. Around kilometer 15, I was delighted to find out that I had done a good job of staying hydrated with the arrival of the desire to visit the little girls' room. Only, there were no little girls' rooms to be found on the run course. Yes, there were no portapotties. Don't read the next paragraph if you're delicate.

The absence of portapotties is less of a problem for little boys who can go at the side of the road, but the girls were left with little choice. Yup, I 'went on the run', or as the French say, 'j'ai fait le pee-pee dans les shorts.' A lot of people advised me to 'practice' this before race day, because it's a bit of a skill. I didn't practice it becasue I had no intention of doing it in advance, but I actually found it was fairly easy to do. However, and I am sharing this as a warning to other athletes who like me, might think it's a good idea to then rinse off by dumping cups of water on your legs at the next aid station: don't do that. Four steps later, I realised that my runners had filled up with (I imagine) both liquids, and each and every step for the next several kilometers was soggy, heavy and squelchy until the heat of the pavement dried them up. I cursed my lack of foresight with every step.

Next problem: a few kilometers later I began to notice the skin on my arms and shoulders turning red and could feel my lips starting to burn. I am usually a stickler for wearing suncream and my pink arms became distracting towards the end. Luckily I had a good base tan from a summer of swimming outdoors and my damage wasn't too bad; other athletes were doing less well and there were some badly burnt specimens towards the end of the afternoon. I cursed the race organizers, pulled my visor low on my face and battled through the second half of the marathon.

This was without a doubt the hardest part of the day. My creado (hey Anthony - this was the best I could come up with) was 'just keep putting one foot in front of the other'. That seemed to work, but I didn't enjoy one single step. Nobody else seemed to be enjoying it either; I'm not at all sure that it's a good thing to pass other athletes again and again on a four lap course - it's sort of like being forced to watch your own deterioration in a mirror. The final kilometer, which was marked 800 meters too early and made for a seriously long final push, was tough. My expression at the finish might belie this, but I was really just delighted to be done:




I found Arnold who had crossed the line just ahead of me and we exchanged war stories and grievances. I sat with my head between my legs for a while, ate the corner of a bagette, waited for Eric to arrive, gave up after an hour and went home to sleep. And that was that.

So why wasn't my Ironman experience as meaningful as I'd expected it to be? I have no idea. Perhaps what there was to learn was, for me, learnt in training. Perhaps it was learnt in previous races, or perhaps the magic of Ironman has been a little too hyped-up. Perhaps I am in too much of a post-race fatigue to really feel the extent of what it means to me (although three days later, I feel fully recovered but am not going to do anything silly like start training again right away). Or perhaps (and this is currently my favourite theory), I belong out in the woods. So guess what I'm doing next? (yes, of course I've already thought about that) - I'm going back to ultrarunning. I'm going to keep swimming and biking because I like both and the cross-training is good for the mind and body, but my next race will be out in the hills, away from concrete, away from hoards of other people, away from aerohelmets and compression socks and disc wheels. I might keep blogging, but don't count on it. I might start writing something else instead. I might stay vegan since I am now convinced it's the healthiest way to eat, but it's more likely I will be vegan just most of the time since it works better with the rest of life. I feel pretty flexible on all these fronts.

So maybe Ironman did change me, just a little.

My biggest thanks to everyone who's been reading about my journey. Your interest and support made the biggest difference of all.

Just Briefly...

I just arrived back from Barcelona and made the slow trip up the stairs to my first floor apartment. My body feels like it did 11 hours and 46 minutes and 42 seconds of non-stop exercise two days ago. For those who checked my results online, thank you for the congratulations. I am happy with my result, but the day sure had it's ups and downs and mishaps, not least of all when I managed to add 200m to the swim by heading in the wrong direction, or when aid stations began to run out of key things like coke, or when the final kilometer of the marathon was mis-marked. I will write a full race report soon, but suffice it to say that it's not a good idea to do an Ironman that is in it's first year of operation. None of the split times reported on the site are accurate, but the overall times are. My actual splits were:

Swim: 1:15:30

Bike: 6:11:59

Run: 4:12:15

Final time (includes transitions): 11:46:42

Category Position (female age 30-35): 7/25

Female Position (non-pro): 27/96

Overall position: 796/1755

Just thinking about these numbers brings on a new wave of tiredness. Time for a nap. Stay tuned for a detailed race report which I might give some thought to when I wake.

Oh, and here's a quick picture I took from our rented trailer that overlooked the race site:

Almost forgot

If anyone would like to follow my progress on Sunday, there should be live ticker coverage here:

http://www.challenge-barcelona.com/acompanantes/inscripcion.php

Be warned: the English section of this website is a little disorganized, so I can't promise that the ticker will appear on this page; you might have to search a bit. As a very, very approximate guideline of when you will be able to track me:

The swim starts at 7.30am CET and I am in the first of eight waves. I estimate, very, very approximately, to be clocking somewhere around the following: swim 1 1/4 hours, bike 7 hours, run 4 hours.

Do I need to say 'approximately' again? Anything can happen on race day; but I want to give followers a rough idea of when to expect to see my live results. I will be truly happy to finish upright and smiling before they start handing out the glow-sticks on the course; if I am faster than any of these approximations, I will be thrilled.

Thank you to everyone for the words of encouragement after my last post and know that I carry them with me on Sunday.

My Finest Hour

I normally post a round-up of my progress in the preceding month on the last day of the month, but I'm not going to do that today. My race is in three days, and I'm more interested in looking forward than looking back. Perhaps that's how it should always be in life.

But some of my thoughts are wandering back over the last nine months. It's been a long journey, and without a doubt one of the most delightful of my life. I was reminded of this in a recent email that a very good friend (and seasoned Ironman-er) sent in recent weeks (hey Anthony - did I ask permission to quote you? If not, too late now!):

I’m so excited for you, though, as you take on this final phase of the “quest”. This last month is really about soaking in everything. Think of all the changes you have made, all the sacrifices, and all the ups and downs, and really try to smile and appreciate it all for what it has been for you. If you haven’t found that yet, then use this month to think of the life you are creating for yourself, a happy, healthy, fulfilled life. Find a purpose that you can draw on for your race. A mantra, a phrase, a life-purpose that you can grab on to that will carry you through to the finish line. Think of those who WILL be there to see you. Your new friends, your new community, all of what has become the new “Rachel’s life”. And think of all your adoring fans back home, who think of you constantly, wish you the best, and love you for who you are.

Besides warming my heart to no end, Anthony's words reminded me of something I need to remind myself of: that it is often the journey, and not the final competition, that shapes us. Everybody says that doing an Ironman (and I think this can apply to anything we take on in life that is a challenge to our comfort zones) is life-changing. You are not the same person on the other side of that day.

And yet as I reflect on the last nine months of preparation - from tugging my mountain bike over snowbanks in Switzerland through a morbid January to my first sleeveless rides through the poppy fields and budding vineyards of springtime France, from running off over-indulgence on the streets of Rome the morning after discovering vegan pizza to searching German supermarkets for anything that didn't contain sausages, from trying to motivate myself to go to the pool and swim just one kilometer in an icy March to being first out of the water in open-water training sessions under a hot early evening sun at Narbonne beach - I know that I am not the same person that set out on this path. It's true that I have made many changes in my life this year, from leaving a relationship to moving countries, but the journey of preparing for Ironman has been the rhythm beating in the background throughout. It's brought me joy and it's brought me frustration; it's brought reflections to my mind and it's brought people into my life; there have been days when I didn't want to do it and days when it was the only thing that kept me sane; it's shaped my choices, and it has therefore shaped me.

I noticed this week that I began to have thoughts along the lines of 'I just want it to be over with.' A fairly normal evolution of emotions as the reality of what I'm about to do (I'm going to run a marathon after swimming and biking for how long?) looms large and fear and anxiety begin to creep in. But why would I wish away a day that I have looked forward to and prepared for for so long? As another wise person once said to me before I took part in my first marathon (Hey Anthony, was this you again?): you did the work to make it to the start line, and whatever happens on the race course, no one can ever take that away from you.

Who knows what will happen out there on Sunday. But when I'm standing at the water's edge, waiting for the gun to go off in the pre-dawn light, I'll know that the journey alone was worth it. So I'm going to relish in these, the last few steps that lead me to the start line. Whatever comes to pass will come to pass; for now, this is my finest hour.

One Week to Go

It's now one short week till my Ironman, and my thoughts are occupied with the last minute important details, such as what to wear in various possible weather scenarios, and what will I do with hair to ensure it does not become a source of irritation over the course of a 12-hour event (I have a time of 12 hours in my head inasmuch as I hope to finish somewhere around that mark, but as I have to keep reminding myself, I will be happy to finish upright and smiling).

My mindset is otherwise quiet in this final week of preparation. I am focused on eating well, eating light (hard to do after a summer of eating to keep up with an average of 20 hours a week of training), sleeping well and minimizing stress. I've been noticing a decrease in my ability to manage small daily stresses, like the bank not being open when I want it to be, or the baker running out of my favourite wholewheat minibagettes, or clients emailing me with questions that I've already given them an answer to, or swimmers who rest against the wall between sets in my lane when I want to flipturn, or what is my French landlady earnestly trying to tell me I need to do about my heating system to prepare it for the winter months and why is it so important when it's still 30C outside, or the increasingly unfavourable dollar to euro exchange rate which is calling for a review of my entire personal money-management strategy, or the obvious design flaw in my new mp3 player that prevents continuous play between playlists and how will I explain that in French when I try to return it, or why can't I figure out how to reprogram the digital clock on my oven after last week's power outage, and other other such minor crises of daily life. I'm attributing this decrease in stress-management ability (also known as 'being irritable') to a latent case of pre-race nerves that is resting just below the surface of my psyche, since I outwardly seem to be quite calm.

Another possible explanation comes from a book I'm currently reading by vegan triathlete Brendan Brazier. This observation has nothing to do with being vegan, it's simply an observation that he makes on one of the non-physical benefits of endurance training; he is comparing the effects of long training sessions, such as I have been doing at least once a week for the last six months, with the benefits associated normally associated with Yoga or traditional meditation:

Normally thought of as a good thing, information is in fact a problem in modern life. There is simply too much of it, most of it useless. And harmful. Yes, harmful. You may think you can just ignore useless information, but it occupies space in your consciousness and thereby slows the rate at which you can make use of information you actually need. Think of a computer's memory being filled up and cluttered by a constant bombardment of spyware downloads, resulting in a reduced processing speed.

If we retain only important information, the brain will be better able to process that information, make sense of it, solve problems, and allow the subconscious room to work...traditional meditation results in restricted information intake and thereby gives your brain a well-deserved break. Active meditation in the form of running and cycling provides an opportunity for the brain to mull over information it already has, while restricting entry of new information. No need to go on an information fast - a select information diet will enhance your brain's ability to form thoughts, make connections between ideas, solve problems and think clearly under stress.

(Brendan Brazier, Thrive Fitness)

It's true that I have solved some of my biggest and smallest problems while out on the bike or out for a long run. I typically have something that I have to write down straight away when I walk in the door, or a burning phone call to make or email to send. Going for walks or sitting in the cathedral isn't quite providing the same thing; they quieten my mind but they don't give rise to the same creative thought patterns that result in eureka moments (I'm attributing this to the absence of increased oxygen flow to the brain and/or repetitive body motions over long periods of time). In any event, I think I will just have to settle for being a little less mentally sharp and a little more irritable this week - and dare I let myself think this far ahead - for the several weeks of recovery time that will come after October 4th.

Seeing Purple

If the red of poppy fields marked early summer in the south of France, and the yellow masses of sunflowers marked the hot and hazy days of August, then it is purple that marks the close. Purple grape juice soaks the roads through the vineyards, making them too trechorous to ride on. The vines that are still waiting to be harvested are heavy with purple grapes. A variety of purple plants that I can't name are in bloom around town. There is a wild grass growing out in the fields that has tinted purple tips in certain lights.

It's just two short weeks till Ironman now, and as the decline in my training volume opens up more hours to be idle, I have been going for walks with my camera to capture the different shades of purple before they pass:

So how do I feel as the big day draws near? It changes by the moment. I feel exicted, I feel anxious, I feel a little indifferent at times. I have a need to be reclused. Other than taking myself on rambling walks with my camera, I have been visiting the cathedral to sit in the silence that is left in the wake of the summer tourists, staying home to cook elaborate vegan meals for one while listening to endless Tracy Chapman, writing out french verb conjugations in cafes inbetween people-watching, dragging my mountain bike out to roll along the country lanes on days that I am not supposed to be training but am missing the sights and smells of the countryside terribly. As the race draws near, I have less desire to be social, and that includes blogging. I've never thought of it as a social venue in my life before - I thought I was just keeping an online diary of sorts - but I suppose it has come to be that to me. So if my desire to write and share myself continues to wane, there might not be much news from me until after d-day on October 4th.

And with that, I am going back to mywithdrawn state.

Words from Chrissie Wellington

For those who follow the world of professional triathlon, and for those who don't, the current world champion Chrissie Wellington (UK) has some things to say that are worth listening to. This is a girl who entered the sport at a very late age, having discovered that she had a talent for it when she began running and biking to avoid weight creep in her late twenties. She left a successful career in International Development to become a professional triathlete a few years back, and has gone on to smash just about every record in the sport since. She has become known for never, ever racing without a smile and she hangs around the finish line to greet every finisher for hours (and hours and hours) after she has won.

I admire her for what she's done athletically, but more importantly admire her for what she has to say. She caught my attention when I heard an interview where she referred to her struggle with the idea of committing 30+ hours a week of her life to triathlon training, when there were bigger problems out there in the world that need addressing (she was working for an NGO in Nepal at the time). She described it as seeming 'so self-indulgent'. It's a theme she repeats here in a recent interview she gave; but it sounds like she's finding a way to use her athletic talent to make a difference in the ways that she wants to, and for things that she quite frankly thinks are more important. This is an athlete who has her eye on a bigger picture and her place in it. I've heard reporters refer to her as being a 'down-to-earth' athlete, but I don't think this does her justice: her off-the-field communication parlays a depth of character and a worldview that I find refreshing and inspiring in the world of professional sport. And yet she makes no bones about being out to win every event.

KM: I've always said that you learn more about yourself during an Ironman than you do in so much of life. You probably did your first Ironman in a different light to the rest of us – you'd already seen quite a bit of the world and life by the time you got to Korea. What have you learned about yourself during your various Ironman races? Do you like what you've learned?

Chrissie: Training and racing is a continuous learning process, with huge highs and deep lows – much like life itself! I have learnt so much about myself over the past two and a half years - to calm down, to rest my mind, to think more logically, to act more deliberately (this is a particular struggle, as evidenced by the fact that I recently walked into a cement bench, and have spent the last three weeks hobbling around!), to be patient, to believe in myself …and much more besides. But yes, triathlon has taught me so much, both from looking deep into myself and reflecting on my personality, and my strengths and weaknesses - and also from watching people around me. You realise the body’s amazing capacity to endure pain, that the mind and body are so much stronger than we may give them credit for, to be calm in the face of adversity, to cope with defeat. In terms of “do I like what I have learned?” I think back to what Paula Newby Fraser once said -‘Be kind to yourself.’ So, yes, although I am my own harshest critic, I am trying to do just that – to like what I am learning, and be kind to myself at all times!

KM: What would it mean for you to win Kona again? On a related note, how important are records for you – both the world best time last July and the course record in Kona?

Chrissie: It would mean that I am the best in the world for one more year! And that is a huge honor, achievement and a tremendous opportunity and privilege. I always race with three goals. To cross the line first, to enjoy it and to try and win in the fastest time possible. If that means I break a course or world record then that’s the icing on the very tasty cake, but the victory is always first and foremost in my mind. There are too many variables affecting times, year on year and race on race. It makes comparisons really difficult. Plus, I am a total numerical retard …as many of my training partners know, I can’t even do 300m in the pool without losing count! As far as records go, of course, I am so happy and proud to have my name etched in the triathlon history books. By breaking records I hope to show that women are a force to be reckoned with, that we can get faster and stronger, and raise the bar for future athletes to aspire to. But to know deep inside that I have given it everything is the most important thing.

KM: Brett Sutton, along with one of your former teammates, both told me you're not in this to just win triathlons – that you have much more of a “mission”...what is it that you'd like to achieve within triathlon?

Chrissie: Not long after I started as a professional in February 2007, I remember saying to Brett ‘I feel so selfish. All I do is swim, bike and run – and this is all for me. I am not helping to make the world a better place’. And he replied ‘Chrissie, just you wait, before too long you will be able to effect change in a way you never thought possible’. Brett is so perceptive and wise, and of course two years on – yes, I have the platform that I have always dreamed of to achieve my mission, and bring about positive change. That’s partially why winning is so important to me. Of course I am a fierce competitor, and I love to work hard, smash myself and fight for every victory – but through every victory I have more of an opportunity. To speak about things I am passionate about, to inspire and encourage others, to lead by example, be a role model for change, to raise the bar, to raise awareness about important issues, including GOTRIbal (www.gotribalnow.com) and also setting up my own NGO in the UK in the future. And that’s something I never want to take for granted, and which drives me each and every day.

Within triathlon – swim, bike, and run alone – I want to be the best that I can be, to work as hard as I can, lay everything on the line and push myself to reach my full potential. I don’t have goals in terms of the number of races I want to win, or times I want to do, I simply want to do my best, and strive to be as strong as I can physically and mentally. And through this, yes I want to achieve so much more, in and out of sport.

Taking Stock: August

I finished up the month by catching a tummy bug. I made a little bed on the bathroom floor for two nights in a row, dropped a further kilo, and cursed my luck for it happening in the middle of the final surge of training before the taper begins. I got back in the swing of things yesterday with a 3hr bike/1hr run run race-pace brick workout and felt fine; although my stomach was a little shaky towards the end, everything stayed down.

My training volume this month turned out to be almost exactly what I did in June:

Riding: 33.5 hrs
Running: 13 hrs
Swimming: 13.5 hrs

...both of which were less than what I did in July (rode 42hrs, ran 18.5, swam 14hrs - only I was too tired to do the math on that at the end of July). In July, I seemed to be buzzing all the time and had trouble sleeping. I've settled down this month and feel like the training I did, while lower in volume, was of high quality. I feel faster across the board in all three disciplines; yes, even on the bike. In short, I feel like I can cautiously say that everything is coming together well.

So, recipe of the month. I got a lot of inspiration in the Pyrenees (no, not from the homemade sausages) by Spanish-influenced cooking. Vegetable paella is on my list of ones to find a recipe for, and I am gearing up to make oven-roasted vegetable fajitas any day now, but haven't gotten around to making the guacamole and salsa. So I'm settling on a vegan pesto sauce that I can't get enough of.

Pesto sauce is always so versatile, and this one is no exception: I've been using it for pasta, on crackers with a dainty olive as an appy, spread on a sandwich (it's really, really good with a homous and cucumber sandwich) and marinating peppers in it before roasting them on the grill.

Ingredients:

* 1 large bunch of basil (about 3 cups, loosely packed)
* 2-3 large cloves garlic
* 6 Tbsp raw pine nuts or walnuts (or a combination of the two)
* 3/4 – 1 tsp salt, or to taste
* 6 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
* 1/4 cup nutritional yeast (optional, but raises the nutrition content)

Preparation:

Place all ingredients except the olive oil and nutritional yeast into a food processor. Process to a finely ground consistency. Add olive oil and process again, until smooth and creamy. If desired, add nutritional yeast and process again until creamy. Keeps in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.

Just one month to go; I'm on the home stretch.

Time to talk about somebody else for a change

Every now and then, I receive a random email from someone I don’t know who has come across my blog online. David Deak is one such person, and with his permission, I want to share a little bit of his story here. Besides it being an incredibly inspiring one, from time to time I quite frankly get a little tired of talking about myself.

David is a Toronto-born Canadian living in Denmark. He entered into the world of triathlon the same year that I did, 2006, but tackled the Ironman distance sooner than me by taking a crack at IM Austria in 2008. Having apparently enjoyed it, he signed up for the IM Austria 2009 the very next morning.

As David began his preparation for his second Ironman, he began to dabble in the world of vegan eating. Like me, he was largely motivated by a quest for optimal health and fitness, with socio-moral-philosophical reasons weighing in a close second. He read The Thrive Diet (an excellent guide to vegan eating and training by professional triathlete Brendan Brazier) and then T. Colin Campbell's The China Study. Like me, David began to notice his energy levels increase and his fatigue cycle decrease between training sessions with a plant-based diet.

A few short weeks after his first Ironman, David’s family received some unfortunate news. His father, who had suffered from type-II diabetes and high blood pressure for a number of years, was diagnosed with end-stage renal disease (considered terminal). David’s dad was told he would have to choose between a life on dialysis or possible kidney donation. David and his brother, Andrew - also a vegan - put themselves forward as possible kidney donors. They spent the fall and winter of last year undergoing the necessary medical tests to determine who would be the most compatible and lowest risk donor. The results concluded that David was the only possible option. In the meantime, David’s father’s disease had accelerated much quicker than expected and by January of this year, he was put on dialysis.

David accepted the role of organ donor to his father without question, although certainly not without mental turmoil. Both the risks associated with kidney donation (not least of all, decreased longevity) and the unknowns of being able to pursue his new-found passion for triathlon with one kidney weighed heavily on his mind. The medical team had no idea if it was even possible to train for an event like Ironman with one man in two down. There was also the burden of further medical vetting of his father and the seemingly constant postponements of the surgery date as the medical team tried to ensure that his Dad was in a condition to handle the transplant.

David continued with his preparation for IM Austria, albeit sporadically, while being fully prepared to cancel his participation if it clashed with the surgery date. It was around this point that David came across my blog. I think he was using a combo of keywords relating to vegan and Ironman on google, and there I was. David got in touch and shared his story with me, and we swapped emails for a few weeks on being Canadian in Europe, being vegan in the sports world, and being under pressure in expected ways through life’s varying twists and turns.

Shortly after I first heard from David, the date for surgery was finally set – and it happened to be ten days after IM Austria. A little more mental turmoil ensued, and David decided to go ahead with the race while preparing for the donation; who knows if it would be his last opportunity? Through all of this, he continued with his vegan diet and got his Dad on the bandwagon in the hopes that a plant-based diet might abate his rapidly deteriorating condition. The preparations to donate proved to be intense and his training suffered to the point of being non-existent (and he didn’t mention this at the time, but I later found out that somewhere in the middle of all this, he also changed jobs and moved house).

July rolled around, and David drove down to Austria to toe the line at the edge of beautiful Lake Worther in Klagenfurt on July 5h. He swam 3.8km in 1:09, biked 180km in 5:11 and ran 42.2km in 3:37 to finish in a remarkable overall time of 10.04.

Only the pros were ahead of him.

The next day, he got in the car and drove back to Holland, where his dad lives and where the kidney transplant was to take place. He rested a few days as other family members arrived in Holland to help, before driving himself and his Dad to the hospital. The surgery went well, and within two days he was out of hospital. A few days afterwards I received an email from David:

“…doing an Ironman is kind of cool and pretty hardcore, but donating a kidney - that is way more crazy and way more hardcore! It’s scarier and definitely plays around with the mind a little…but I am really glad I did it. It has given my Dad a second chance at things. The doctors reported that he has a "turbo kidney": they had to scale back his medication abruptly because the kidney was doing such a good job and brought all the blood markers (creatinine, phophorous, etc.) down faster than record. That news made us all smile – they suspect that it’s due to diet and my ironmanning.”

That made me smile, too.

It is now six weeks since the operation. David’s recovery is similarly going extremely well, and he’s back on the bike and running on a regular basis already, with just the one kidney. The scar is still preventing him from swimming, but it’s close to being fully healed. Obviously not one to rest on his laurels, he’s already signed up for IM Lanzarote next year, and plans to be the first vegan with one kidney to complete an Ironman.

He’s got me beat.

What a small dose of CNN can do

Following on from yesterday's brief muse on new world vs. old world living, it's true that I am beginning to notice the degree of my separation from life as I used to know it.

I've lived in small-town France for three months now, and I know all my neighbours by first name. I stop to talk to old men playing bowls in the small villages I ride through. I lean out the window and watch children play in the narrow old town streets beneath my apartment. I will spend up to five minutes practicing the pronunciation of a word that contains the vexing double 'll' in French with a patient friend. I wouldn't dream of missing my post-lunch siesta without a very good reason and I don't sit down to dinner before eight, and I always sit down to dinner. The idea of getting either food or a coffee to go seems absurd and come to think of it, I haven't seen a Starbucks in a very long time (the French have done the best job of resisting North American chains of any western European country I've visited).

Today I did something that had me really sit up and take notice of the extent to which I have become cloistered from the new, or English-speaking world (for me, the two have become synonymous). Thinking that it's been a week since I updated myself on current affairs, I tuned into CNN radio online this morning. I could only take it for ten minutes. I've never had much of a tolerance for mainstream American journalism and have not been a fan of CNN in particular, and while I didn't tune in as a means to stimulate some critical thinking or bolster my social awareness - I just wanted to hear the headlines - I was shocked at how quickly the soundbites of 'news' sickened me.

I turned it off and walked down to the market to talk to my favourite vendor, Jerome. Other than being the only vendor in the market who speaks a little bit of English, Jerome became my favourite when I tasked his cheeseless aubergine gratin a few months back. It was a little piece of vegetable heaven in a plastic tupperware. Having given up a career in four-star restauranteurism in Paris, Jerome returned to his native region in the south of France in search of a life that would be less likely to lead to burnout. He now resides in a nearby village with his wife and two children, with whom he's free to spend time with in the afternoons after the market closes. In the evening, he prepares the selection of plates that he sells hot and cold the following morning, and people like me can dine on a potpourri of dishes - I eat all the vegetable side orders - made by a chef with four-star Parisian restaurant training, all for a couple of euros. Jerome tells me stories of life on the restaurant circuit, his travels to work in hotels in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Dallas, and why life is better now. I counsel him on his fitness regime: he is up to running an hour at a time and recently bought a rode bike. Ten minutes of this was a good antidote to the CNN exposure and left me feeling a little encouraged by the state of the human condition, but still wondering if I will ever be able to cross the chasm back into a world where News is Entertainment.

Business as Usual

It's back to business as usual here in Narbonne; the bumper-to-bumper camper vans that have lined the beach roads for the last three weeks are slowly tricking away and I'm noticing fewer and fewer Parisian license plates with irate drivers behind the wheels around town. The weather is hot but pleasantly breezy and the vendanges (grape harvest) began a few days ago, heralding the beginning of the end of high summer. So rather than dodging the camper vans, I'm now dodging grape-picking machinery on the vineyard routes. The harvest is low-key right now - strictly for chardonnay and a few other early-ripening varieties, I'm told. When the harvest is in full swing in a few weeks time, I'll have something new to look out for on my rides: the slip-and-slide that I've been warned will ensue when the roads become soaked in grape juice and decorated with slippery grape skins. It seems that a cyclist has many foes, even in cycling paradise.

In my preparation for Ironman, I have arrived at the 'heart' of the training program: three weeks of race-simulation training sessions with a sprinkling of anaerobic interval workouts in all three disciplines; all designed to bring together the last seven months of training into an explosion of peak fitness that will presumably burst forth on October 4th as planned. As far as I can tell, everything seems to be going accordingly to that plan.

In other news, I've updated the gadget on the left that shows my recent pictures so that it now actually merits that name. It only took me a full morning to figure out how to do what I did seven months ago when setting up my blog. It served to remind me of how very un-technical I am and left me musing as to whether I am better suited to a life where the seasons are marked by the cycle of the vines.

P.S.

I haven't been asked how I felt after a meal this many times since the time I tried a deep-fried Mars bar in a chip shop in Glasgow.

I felt fine, everybody, after my concessionary consumption of meat and cheese last week. I had no stomach pain, no bloating, no gas or any other ill-effects that I'm receiving inquiries about. No limbs fell off either. And no, eating sausages didn't feel like that first sip of water after crossing the desert. The meal tasted good, but largely becasue of company I shared it with.

And no, I don't think this is the beginning of the end. Quite the contrary, in fact: my new rule of allowing myself to break the rules from time to time in the name of accepting hospitality with a little tact and grace makes staying (largely) vegan for life seem more plausible to me than before. I estimate that my diet will remain 90-95% vegan now, and yes, I will continue to write about my experience as I prepare for Ironman. Now that I'm home, I'm cooking up a storm in the kitchen. I've missed good vegan home-cooking over the last week more than I realized. In fact, my first meal back at home felt a little like I just crossed the desert and had my first taste of fresh water.

Sit Down Before Reading

Things can change quickly in the mountains. Weather systems move fast, changing blue skies into rumbling thunderstorms in a matter of hours. Rapid changes in altitude can chill the air quickly; the temperature at the top of a col can be ten degrees lower than the temperature at the bottom. Ideas can change quickly, too. I have always found that spending time in nature, and in the mountains in particular, can silence the chattering in the mind, change the colour of certain feelings, allow for new ideas to bubble up, and give old ones the space to redefine themselves or be put to bed if found to be no longer useful.

So here's what came to pass in the mountains for me last week: I ate meat. And cheese. That's right: I ate meat and cheese. It happened like this: we arrived at our final stopping point of the trip, a remote chambre d'hôte in the foothills of the Pyrenees. For those who are not familiar with the chambre d'hôte experience, the arrangements are similar to a bed and breakfast in that you have your own room and washroom facilities, however the experience is more akin to being a guest in the host's home rather than a formal accommodations arrangement (in the old days, it would more commonly be a farmhouse where the farmers wife took in paying guests to subsidize the household income).

All this means that you eat meals with the family.

So there I found myself, seated at a long, wooden table in the kitchen of a remodeled eighteenth-century farmhouse perched on a hilltop with a panoramic view of the Pyrenees on one side, and a view down into the fields where the family’s horses were grazing on the other. Our hosts, Dorothée and Jean-Louis, had invited us to share an aperitif with them while they buzzed around the kitchen and adjacent terrace, preparing dinner and sharing in tandem the story of how having raised five children, they discovered, fell in love with and bought the old ruined property eight years ago and have since devoted all of their time to rebuilding it into haven where people could come and experience nature and hospitality in a pure and simple way. I was doing my best to follow along in French, but was mostly staring at the outdoor firepit, upon which Dorothée’s homemade sausages were roasting, and wondering how on earth I was going to explain my dietary particularities to our hosts. Dorothée was telling us how her and her sister had spent a day making the sausages together, using meat left over from last year’s hunting season, while she checked the progress of the potato gratin that was made with potatoes from their garden and cheese from a neighbouring farm. Three aperitifs later, the sun was setting and dinner was almost ready. I went upstairs to fetch a sweater and mull things over.

It took all of three minutes. I decided there and then that the time was ripe to change les règles (change the rules) for the remainder of the year: I would henceforth lay aside my vegan preferences when eating food that others have prepared for me. Having settled on that, I descended to the kitchen and broke bread with our hosts and the other guests who had assembled around the kitchen table; twelve of us in total. Over the course of the next three hours, I consumed some of the best sausages I have ever tasted in my life, cheeses that I had never heard of before because they are particular to that region of the Pyrenees, a homemade apple torte that most likely contained butter and eggs but I wasn’t asking, and last but certainly not least, ice-cream.

I realize that this news may come as quite a shock to my readers (and hence the forewarning heading), but in fact, it's been on the cards for a while. The need to be flexible at certain times in life is a concept I've been turning over in my mind for some time now. It doesn't come naturally to me; I have somehow had being flexible tangled up with lack of commitment for goodness knows how long (I recall my stringent examination of labels and in-depth investigations into the stock used to make soup in restaurants back in January with a wry smile now; I actually stopped doing that a few months ago). There's a quote out there about how the happiest people you will meet in life tend to be the most flexible in the face of changing circumstances. I can't find the quote, but I am beginning to understand it on a new level, and would even add to it: relaxing a rigid approach also opens up the mind to see new opportunities as they arise. And all this has nothing to do with a lack of commitment. My life has changed dramatically in the last eight months; I don’t have the solitary life that I had when I first decided to become vegan in Switzerland. I share meals with others more frequently here in France, and while I’ve been amazed at how others have gone out of their way to accommodate me and have taken it as an opportunity to show the depth of their hospitality and their ability to adapt, I no longer feel the need to adhere to my diet preferences with an unwavering rigidity. I have no doubt that eating a diet free of animal products has put me in the best health of my life and can fully support an Ironman training program with surplus energy to spare. In that sense, the need to test the hypothesis under scientific conditions has, for me, past.

And I am beginning to understand that you can hold true to the spirit of a commitment without living a black and white life. In other words, I am becoming more flexible.

And suddenly, I feel happier.

Notes from France again, before the rain set in

And finally, coming back into France for the last few cols on the list:




After Col de Peyresourde and Col de Aspin, storms blew in and I've been reduced to trail-running on soaked-out mountain passes. My legs are complaining but my buttocks seem relieved.

You can't please everyone.

Notes from Spain

Descending Col de Portillon (1293 m) Spain.

If I look like I'm having a good time in the picture, it's because I am. Also, it was taken on a descent: my face doesn't look the same on the way up. My internet access is still limited, so I can't report in any more detail than that. And my fingers don't work so well anyway after holding on to my brakes for dear life on the long descents. And I can't sit down for long periods of time either. But I'm having a lot of fun, and I think my legs are actually getting stronger each day. Either that, or more numb.

Notes from Andorra

It might only cover 470 km2 of ground, but it has some serious peaks and valleys. Andorra is, in fact, all peaks and valleys. Don't come here expecting to do any gentle, scenic flat bicycle tours.

Here's what we did on day one:


Ouch.

Now I know why this nation has the highest life expectancy in the world; their ancestors couldn't go anywhere without climbing or descending anything less that a 10% gradient.

We're leaving for Spain now, but not without partaking in another façon de vivre known to promote general well-being: duty-free shopping.

Taking Stock: July

The end of July always feels a little bit sad to me. While May and June hold the promise that the best of summer is yet to come, July is the subconsciously ideological peak. And though August is usually a lovely month in the various counties I've inhabited in the northern hemisphere, there is no denying that it is the month that heralds the beginning of the end.

So I'm trying to remain chipper as I do my round up of the month and prepare to make the leap from 7/31 to 8/1 (or 31/7 to 1/8, depending on which side of the Atlantic you live). July has flown by in a blur of manic training: I trained more than I've ever trained in my life in the past month. I have taken the last few days off to eat a lot, drink a lot and sleep a lot in preparation for heading into the Pyrenees for what I am now dubbing to be col-bootcamp. I started to add up my hours of training over the last four weeks and abandoned it when I kept getting different numbers at the end of each week's sub-summary; so let's just say it was a lot. I averaged around 25-30 per week. In terms of bodily changes, I dropped 4 kilos by restricting my carbohydrate intake at non-exercise times of the day, and restricting alcohol intake. Then I gained one of those kilos back in the last week, which may not be such a bad thing. No muscle soreness or fatigue to report, but a definite desire to sleep more.

Before my body decided it's time to take another nap (it keeps happening very suddenly), here's recipe of the month:

Vegan Banana Bread:

    3 ripe bananas
    2 tablespoons olive oil
    2 cups flour
    3/4 cup sugar (or 1 ts stevia, and add a little extra flour)
    1 teaspoon salt
    1 teaspoon baking soda
    1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a loaf pan. Mix the mashed bananas and oil in a large bowl. Stir in the flour, vegan sugar, salt, and baking soda. Mix in the nuts. Pour the well blended batter into the greased pan and bake for one hour. Remove and let cool.

This recipe is so easy and so good, and I found that it allowed me to take a post-lunch siesta for just the right amount of time to allow it to bake and when the kitchen timer went off, it was time for mid-afternoon coffee and banana bread. Speaking of which, I'm now ready for a nap.

It's a good life.

Getting out of town as the world (or at least, the rest of France) arrives

I am suddenly beginning to understand why those who live in the south of France do not stay in the south of France for the month of August. I'd been warned and now, before the 1st of August has even rolled around, it's started: le monde arriverais (literal translation: "the world is coming"; figurative translation: "a lot of people are on their way").

It started about a week ago when I noticed an increase in the number of cars (and worse: camper vans) on some of my favourite bike routes between here and the beaches. I'm talking about bumper-to-bumper traffic that came out of nowhere. Then I noticed a swelling of patio furniture and bottoms seated therein in the normally peaceful square with the tranquil fountain below my apartment's windows. I suddenly can't hear the fountain anymore. And then my favourite fruit and vegetable stall down at the market sold out of local melons two days in a row before I got there. All of this points to the inevitable truth which, in spite of the warnings from locals, I was hoping would not come to pass: France is going and holiday, and they are all coming here.

It's well known that this nation takes the month of August off. It's also well known that the French like to vacation in their own country. But France has only so many beaches and a large number of the least spoilt beaches are right here. So my little piece of protected paradise is about to be invaded and I'm feeling irritated that unspoilt will be spoilt for the next four weeks, but also validated by the knowledge that others want to be here, too. It's just a few too many others, all at the same time, for my liking.

So I'm doing the sensible thing and high-tailing it out of Narbonne and into the mountains for the first week of August (I have no idea what I'll do to survive the other three; but an emergency solution was needed). I've booked a week-long trip in the Pyrenees that, for some, would meet their own definition of holiday hell: I'm going to ride my bicycle up the major cols of the Tour de France. Seven days, six cols and four star accommodations that are never more than spitting distance from a lake or pool, and that will hopefully cater to a very hungry little vegan.

Besides the pertinent objective of escaping the emerging fracas here, the other obvious objective is to continue to build my strength on the bike. And if climbing 9,000 meters in seven days doesn't do it, I'll be convinced that nothing ever will.

Summer Fêtes

Watching the vines fill out and noticing that the grapes are burgeoning week by week has reminded me that summer is advancing. August is right around the corner, and as with all good passages of time, I don't know where the last few months have gone. Around Narbonne, the red blooms of poppy fields that danced with the faintest breeze in early summer have been replaced by fields of sunflowers that stand tall and and intent, heads following the sun's orb from morning to night with a delightful earnestness.

And the summer fêtes are well underway. The idea seems to be that each weekend, a different village around here throws their fête, and everybody from the other villages descends on that village to turn it upside down. The following weekend, it's somebody else's turn. I'm not too sure what we are celebrating other than it's summer, there's a lot of wine around, and this is France. Last weekend, I traveled out to Tousan in the heart of the Corbières, a moody appellation that stretches from just west of Narbonne to the foot of the Pyrenees and produces some of the darker and bolder reds of the region. Normally a sleepy little village containing one café, a couple of auberges and a post office, Tousan pulled out the stops and welcomed five hundred people into it's streets and cellars for an all-night, all-singing, all-dancing wine fest. I'm no longer surprised to see that five-year-old children outlast me at French parties; I laid down my arms at 3am on the village-square-come-dancefloor and quietly faded into the auberge with some excuses about training for an Ironman.

Then there was the recovery lunch the following day. I was lucky enough to be invited to attend a luncheon at a domain on the outskirts of Tousan that has been handed down from father to son for generations (note to self: when in France, it's a good idea to make friends with domain owners where possible). Back in Canada, we sometimes barbecue with cedar planks because, well, we have a lot of cedar on hand. Here in the heart of France's largest wine producing region (recently acquired fact: one in ten bottles of wine produced in France comes from Languedoc), they barbecue with - what else - old vines. You have to see it to believe it, and I'm kicking myself for not having the wherewithal to take a picture of the old knotted vines that fueled the old tin barbecue and gave the Merguez sausages a delicious slightly smoked, earthy flavour (so I'm told - I munched on pasta salad while 'forcing' more rosé down).

I also somehow managed to force myself out for a long trail run during the course of the weekend. How often to you get to ask a domain owner, 'do you mind if I run through your vines?'

And thankfully somebody else had the wherewithal to photograph me:

It's good to have some moments of summer captured as they pass.

What Two Days of Rest Can Do

There's a saying in the triathlon club, a sort of inside joke, that is called out by individuals who are feeling particularly sprightly at the start of a long group ride:

'J'ai le feu dans les jambes aujourd'hui!' ('I have fire in my legs today!').

It took me a while to work out the context, and now I understand that it essentially means that one is feeling good today and the rest of the group better watch out. A contrary joke has evolved in accordance with the fact that there are three doctors in the club: this one is often called out in the back half of a long ride when one is not feeling so good:

'Est-ce qu'il y a un medicin dans le peloton?' ('Do we have a doctor in the peloton?)'

Needless to say, the latter was becoming a favourite of mine - until today. After collecting my bike from the repair shop this morning, where it had spent two days getting the handlebars straightened out after Tuesday's crash while I spent two days icing my hip and picking gravel out of my skin, I headed out for a hill training session to see how things were functioning. I was pleased to see that my bike now rolled in a straight line, and even more pleased to feel that the two days of complete rest did wonders for my fitness. I truly had fire in my legs; although out at my lonely hill training spot in the heart of the vineyards, I had no one to tell it to. I banged out five-by-five hard gear repeats into a noteworthy headwind, before making my way over to the pool where I found that my shoulder is still a little lacking in mobility and swimming in a straight line proved to be a bit of a challenge, but I was otherwise the fastest fish in the water.

I think I might incorporate some forced rest into my training cycle more often, only without the high speed body-slam on a wet road.

Fragments of My Week

I started several good posts in the last week, and successful finished none of them. Now they've all become fragmented bits of old news, so I'm scrapping all of them and serving up some bits and pieces of what's come to pass in the last week in my world:

I just wrapped up a serious week of training that included several high intensity bricks, back to back rides of 4 hours and 3 hours, a 4km swim continuous pool swim, a few open water swims, a 2 hour trail run, and an unscheduled 1.5 hour mountain bike ride that I threw in while trying to catch a stunning sunset over the Mediterranean on Sunday night. While I was doing that, Chrissie Wellington smashed the previous female Ironman world record at Challenge Roth, Germany, with a time of 8.31.59, and she did it all with her usual enigmatic smile that belies any pain or suffering. Up in Saint-Fargeau, Mark Cavendish won his fourth Tour stage with the grimace of an athlete giving everything he's got to the finish line. I lost three kilos and gained one back, then took a break from my no alcohol rule to celebrate my first Fête Nationale July 14th in a flurry of champagne accompanied by red, white and blue fireworks. I discovered that heritage tomatoes (in season right now) can be very neatly scooped out with a melon baller and stuffed with all sorts of things that are good sources of plant-based proteins, like lentils, quinoa, garbanzo beans or amaranth, along with a medley of fresh herbs from my terrace (or mixed with my homemade vegan pesto sauce - currently in the lead and a definite favourite for recipe of the month), before baking to aromatic perfection. I bought an electric fly swatter and can't remember the last time I had so much fun with a purchase under $5. The heat carefully built to what even the locals called opressive levels until last night, when the heavens opened and the rain came down so hard that the shutters on my windows shook to wake me from a deep sleep at 3am. Yes, sleep returned to me this week and I'm clocking a good six hours at a time, torrential downpours notwithstanding. In the slippery aftermath of the storm, I crashed on my road bike on a lonely stretch of road in the early morning and am now having trouble lifting my right arm over my shoulder. It doesn't seem to be anything more than bruising and I expect it to pass in a few days, although I'll be sporting a nice road rash at the pool for the next few weeks and will then have to work hard to re-tan some of the surface on the right side of my body. I learned how to say 'what an idiot I am' (je peux être bête!) and how to conjugate the verb 'souffrir' (to suffer, or to be in pain). I'm working on finishing one of the three books I'm reading and expect the lack of shoulder mobility, combined with the otherwise low-volume training week coming up, might help with that. Maybe I'll also do a better job of finishing my blog posts in a timely manner.

Blinked and Missed It

I did, in fact, blink and miss the tour go by yesterday. Something popped up at work that required my immediate attention, just as the stage was kicking off in Cap D'Agde, and I made a decision that, with hindsight, indicates that I have not fully assimilated into French life: I stayed home and worked as the Tour passed by. I kept one eye on the live coverage and felt a pang of regret when I heard the sound of the broadcast helicopters drone by in the distance, but consoled myself today by going out for a long ride on the same route that Lance was on yesterday. I'm now plotting a way to watch them in the Pyrenees, which could prove to be more exciting anyway if I can position myself on the side of a mountain with the other two thousand people.

This week is an intense training week; and combined with the elimination of some of my favorite things (namely, bread and wine) and restricting the consumption of all simple carbs to training sessions, I've already dropped almost a kilo (about two pounds, North Americans) in six days. I'm finding it interesting to see how my musculature has changed with Ironman training, only I didn't know how much it had changed until I started to drop the layer of subcutaneous fat that I hung onto for too long after the harsh Swiss winter (which, of course, required copious amounts of bread and wine to endure). I'm now discovering that I have muscles in places that I didn't have muscles before: in particular, I have a set of forearm muscles that startle me a little every time I look down (from the swimming, one would assume). I've always had a fairly petit upper body and narrow wrists, so this is taking some adjustments in my self-perception, and to my horror is making my non-adjustable watch feel tight. I also spotted some abdominal muscles on the sides of my trunk; also a new phenomenon, and there are two lines that define where calf muscles are, rather than just the one I had previously, which I have mixed feelings about.

But all superficial preoccupations aside, my energy levels are going from strength and strength and I've got my biggest weekend of training yet planned to really put things to the test. Stay tuned.

Blink and You'll Miss It: The Tour Passes By

Simultaneous with, or perhaps a contributing factor in, my blossoming interest in becoming a better rider, Tour de France fever has been slowing building across the southern provinces. Somewhat unremarkablably for France, it seems to be perfectly acceptable behaviour to finish work early, or not go to work at all, to watch the Tour. Every man, woman and child takes an interest in what is more than just the country's oldest and most prestigious international sporting event; it's a national pastime spectator event and the best fodder for small talk down at the market. And like all contentious topics in France, everybody's got an opinion, which they don't mind sharing, on who's doping and who's not - and these opinions change on an almost daily basis. It's hard to keep up.

Today, the Tour passes by little ol'Narbonne. It's a fast and flat 196km stage that takes some of the vineyard routes that I now consider to be 'my routes'. I am heading out shortly to carve out a good spectator spot in one of the smaller villages outside Narbonne, where I am then going to try very hard not to blink and miss them fly by.

For those who are watching live coverage in Europe, and for those who watch the highlights in other time zones, I'm outfitting myself in a white t-shirt with a denim miniskirt in a blatant attempt to catch Lance's attention as he goes by. Look out for me.

A Time for Research and a Time for...

Every now and then, I become acutely aware that I am using the word 'research' as a euphemism for procrastination. So after a solid week of 'research' (although to be fair, I did consult with a host of people whose opinions I value when it comes to triathlon training - you know who you are!), I am ready to make the following changes to my training program:

1. Overall increase in bike volume: I am lengthening all my sessions somewhat and am adding a fourth session on the bike which will be a steady-state session with a transition to run.

2. Overall increase in intensity of mid-week bike sessions: I will continue with one weekly session focused on hard-gear hill training and one session focused on flat accelerations and go as hard as I can on both. While I had already started to move my training in this direction, others have now confirmed that it is absolutely the right thing to do and I just need to be patient to see the results.

3. Keep the Sunday sessions with the club to strictly endurance sessions: in other words, no racing with the boys allowed, and let myself be pushed if it means saving my legs for harder mid-week training.

4. Lean out some more: while I did a good job of leaning out in recent months by cutting back on simple carbs (most notably for me, and quite the personal sacrifice while living in the south of France, wine and bread), it can't hurt to carry less kilos in the saddle still. So I have cleared my social calender of evenings out until the end of July, and have set a goal of dropping 4kg (yes, in addition to occasionally dreaming in French, I have started to think in kilos). I'll write more about how I'm safely doing this later.

5. I will quit worrying about why I am sleeping less and in the absence of any negative effects, will use the extra time to train more.

So now that the time for research is over and the time for action is here, I headed out to a particular favourite hill-training spot yesterday and upped the anti on my hill repeats under a hot midday sun. It's a remote spot on a narrow road amongst some of the older chateaus; the domains that flank the road look like they are small-scale production from old and knotted vines and there's not a welcoming degustation sign in sight (classic old chateau behaviour). Cars rarely pass out here and the cicadas are so loud that they drown out my heavy breathing. The hill itself is really just a gentle slope, although it doesn't feel like that after eight seated reps in my highest gear, all of which made me quite suddenly miss doing the research.

Taking Stock: June

It's the last day of the month and it's official: I'm tired. I was surprised by it this morning when I woke up and looked at the clock and it was 6.30am, and I realised I'd slept right through the night. But I'm now less surprised by it having done my diligent summary of my training volume this month:

35 hours riding

16.5 hours running

13.5 hour swimming

June was the first month where I can say I trained hard in all three disciplines consistently; and the total volumes show it. I'm pleased with my progress in both running and swimming; both feel good and I can feel myself gaining strength and speed.

The bike, however, is another matter. I think it's safe to say that my concerns in this area are building to a quiet crisis in confidence. It started when I began to do speed and strength drills with Arnold and Sabine six weeks ago. Realizing that I hadn't been pushing myself enough in this way, I've been incorporating these drills into my training at least once - but often twice - a week. And I feel like I've made zero progress. My endurance on the bike remains good, but heaven help me if I have to ride into a headwind or climb a hill; I seem to lack the power that others have. I feel like the group Sunday rides are charity sessions: since the rule is that nobody is dropped from the group, the stronger riders hang back and push riders who are struggling to keep up. This means that I regularly spend a good portion of the back half of a long ride with a hand on my back. While this makes me feel feel warm and fuzzy inside, it leaves me teeming with frustration that I require help to keep up.

I'm determined to find a solution to my lack of strength on the bike, and that starts with finding out why. This week is going to be all about reading everything I can find online on the topic, quizzing those who have the Ironman training experience that I lack, a reexamination of my training program and of course, a reexamination of my diet. It would be foolish to not query whether there is something missing in my nutrition that is holding me back from making gains in this area. I'm not resting until I find an answer, and I'll be reporting back on what I decide needs to be done.

And now moving onto the area of my diet, and recipe of the month. A few weeks ago, I had a particularity animated and exciting moment in the organic foods store when I found nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast, for those who aren't familiar with it, is an inactive yeast that is bright yellow in color and has a nutty cheesy flavor. It contains eighteen amino acids, making it a complete protein, and while being rich in a plethora of vitamins and minerals, it is an especially good source of the much coveted b12 vitamin for vegans. It comes in both flakes and a powdered form, and it melts just like cheese when added to hot foods.

I used nutritional yeast regularly in Vancouver before becoming vegan because of it's health benefits and was sad that I couldn't find it anywhere in Europe. But the south of France has pulled through for me again and I did a small dance in the aisle of the Biofoods Coop when I saw it, bold and yellow and en masse in a bulk foods bin. I filled a large bag and rushed home to make something I've been missing terribly (those who frequent the Naam restaurant in Vancouver will know what I'm talking about here):

Miso Gravy

3 tablespoons of red or yellow miso
1 and 1/2 cups of water
1 and 1/2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tablespoons of nutritional yeast
3 tablespoons of unbleached flour
2 teaspoons of minced fresh basil or 1/4 teaspoon of dried basil

Directions:

1. In a medium-sized pan, bring olive oil to medium heat, then add onion and garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes, or until onion is tender and translucent.

2. Reduce heat to low setting and add flour and nutritional yeast. Stir steadily for 1-2 minutes.

3. Add water in a slow drizzle while stirring briskly. Bring heat up to medium setting and continue to stir regularly for about 10 minutes, or until gravy begins to thicken.

4. Once the gravy has just started to thicken, reduce heat to medium-low setting and add miso and basil. Keep the pan uncovered and stir occasionally. It typically takes about 15 minutes for the gravy to fully thicken and become smooth.

Pour over baked or mashed potatoes (great comfort food when feeling blue after a punishing outing on the bike) or (lower-calorie but equally tasty option) a plate of steamed vegetables.

Sleepless in Narbonne

There's one particular phenomenon that's been going on in my body since becoming vegan which I haven't said much about, mostly because I don't have a good scientific explanation for it, which I hate. So I'm throwing it out to the floor: can anyone find a decent explanation, backed by empirical data, for why I need less sleep as a vegan? It's been getting more extreme with each passing month; my body refuses to stay unconscious for more than three hours at a time, and for no longer than six hours in a twelve hour period. I've resorted to napping in the afternoon for thirty minutes becasue I'm deathly afraid of not recovering well from the training volume that is ramping up week after week, but actually I'm not tired with or without the nap (though I have to say that a siesta after a morning of heavy training and a hearty lunch really does feel good; not to mention how very southern-European I feel)

Possible explanations I have read all revolve around the animal kingdom: herbivores sleep much less than omnivores, and omnivores sleep less than carnivores, who typically sleep for more than half the day. Theories behind the explanations revolve around how the energy-intensive process of digesting meat requires more shut-eye time. But these are parallels, anecdotes, observations. I am looking for something more solid to put my mind at rest when it's awake and racing at 4am. I need to know that I'm not going to keel over into a comma induced by overtraining and confounded by sleep deprivation anytime soon.