Although the softer earth slows run times down, the Miquelon Lake trail was by far the most beautiful run I’ve done in my triathlon career thus far because the course was set on a pathway through trees and near small lakes. I would love to do this race again next year.

My proudest achievement was that I came out second overall on the swim and was able to pass the leader with a fast transition from the swim to bike. I’m very pleased to say that I defended my first place position for the first 7km of the ride and only dropped to 5th place by the end of the bike portion. Running was my weakest area. I had a slower transition and simply didn’t have the energy to maintain my standing. Nevertheless, I am extremely happy with the race, considering my training schedule in August dropped significantly (due to social activites, concerts, trips, and activities).

I’m convinced that if I actually trained with a club, or stuck to a good personal training schedule, then I could be placing much higher in competition. A pair of aero bars and some race-weight wheels might be nice too . . .

(please let me know if you have any comments or corrections)

UPDATE:I updated this list because I had a couple song titles that were lyrics, not proper titles (eg. I called National Anthem Everything in the Right Place) and I mislocated one song. Thanks Gareth and Alden for the corrections.

The recording begins with me reading some twitter poems.

Enjoy.

no more calendar waterclock to-do list
turning off the
             tick of work
reminders
and                  no more
spotless desk
i’ll
instead
          roll dust
on my bones
until           dusk
swear off alcohol
tell tall tales
to children
have parents
  everywhere
  angry
                     toothpaste poison
                     tantrums get you what you
                     want
everyone makes a deal
with the weekend
to forget the weak
in themselves
forgive all our
                 pants   and
                 jackets       their

                 necessity
strip mine wallets
  for id
drink until
last call pentecost
with disciples you don’t
  know
parents of pages
you can lie ink
onto

i forgive
  wristwatches
  mobiles
  rubbish
  and salary

all the offspring
rampant and accidental.

                                                               By Leif Baradoy

The film follows Tracey Berkowitz through two or three days of her troubled teenage life. McDonald offers the viewer touching and troubling insight into Tracey’s reality, crafting the story by overlaying screen atop one another to give the film a mosaic quality (like the photo I included here). The effect is beautiful and, at times, rightly overwhelming.

The Tracey Fragments blends form and content powerfully. Tracey’s story is told in fragments that the viewer pieces together as the film progresses. Unlike bad modernist poetry, each fragments engages and involves the viewer; you don’t feel like you’re watching an experimental art film that obessess on form and forgets content. The interaction between the various frames added to the power of an already emotionally charged plot. I wish I had not missed this movie on the big screen—it would have been an even better experience. I loved the play between the multiple frames on screen.

Lastly, Broken Social Scene did the score for the movie. Their layered style of music compliments the cinematic style of The Tracey Fragments. I’m hoping to pick up the soundtrack, although I’m avoiding downloading it from iTunes because I’m not impressed with their bitrate encoding.

I just finished completeing an Olympic distance at the Coral Springs triathlon (1.5km swim, 40km bike, 10km run). I am pleased with my effort at this event. My time was 2:34:08! Plus, in the men’s 20-29 age group I came in third overall (age group resutls here). Furthermore, I hacked over 15 minutes from my previous Olympic time (2:49:20). Not too bad (my goal was to improve by 10 minutes).

I’m by no means an expert, but here are some more things I’ve learned about doing triathons. Read about what I learned at the first event here.
(1) Get tri bars. A tri specific bike is a luxury I can’t afford. I opted for an entry level Trek 1600, but I haven’t been able to throw tri bars on them yet. Tri bars help you get more aerodynamic and they permit you to lean into your bike, meaning that you actually get to rest you arms. This would have been really helpful on today’s ride. It seemed there was a headwind going both ways.
(2) Learn to drink. Although I don’t overhydrate to the point of danger, I did have to pee during the race (just like the first race). I’m not hardcore enough to urinate in my shorts while running or biking, so I relieved myself during the transition. This cost me about a minute. Speaking with some experienced racers, they suggested drinking lots of water the day and night before, but not too much water the morning before the event.
(3) Draft. Drafting is not permitted on the bike, but it is permitted on the run. I saved myself some energy by running a few feet back from another runner when we were going into the wind. This saved me a noticable amount of energy. Admitedly, drafting is somewhat bad form, but if the opportunity arises, do it and then move on!
(4) Master the transition. I haven’t done this yet, but I am getting better. Bike gloves take too long to put on when you’ve just come out of cold water and they aren’t necessary for the race. I ditched them and suffered no ill effects. Don’t eat in the transition area (even if it is a gel). Do that on the road.

I’m happy to say that I learned from my first event. I stuck around for the awards ceremony, got a free massage, at lots of free grub, won a bike jersey, and got my third place memento!

I met some great people at the event, but Steve sticks out in my mind. He placed his bike near mine in the transition area, so we got to talking. Turns out Steve signed up to do an Olypmic distance on Thursday, after reading an article in Impact Magazine about triathlons. Steve is a younger and fit looking guy, so he figured he would try one out. He opted to do an Olypmic distance with nearly no training! He hadn’t swum in over six months, he didn’t bike very often (his bike was a older, 10-speed with a heavy pannier cage on the back), and ran “from time to time.” But, he simply committed to doing the event, appraoched the whole thing with a really positive attitude, and then gave ‘er. He finished the event in 3:13:00—a respectable time. Nice meeting you Steve, whereever you are. I hope the pointers I gave you helped!

This cash grab angers me for a number of reasons. Not only does it hamper the use, adoption, and development of an effective technology, but this plan shows no respect for customers. The sender of the text has already paid for the service, like a letter sent through Canada Post—the sender pays, the receivers the letter. How can Telus and Bell justify having both sender and reciever pay for the same message?

Telus Mobility spokesperson A.J. Gratton told Canwest that the “volume [of text messages] places tremendous demands on our network and we can’t afford to provide this service for free anymore.” This is simply not true. In an attempt to put a positive PR spin on this story, Telus has opted to lie to the public. The data demand, and therefore the cost, is negligable.

Here’s some math from the Torontoist:

Even at 10¢, a text message already costs the customer sending it almost five times more than it does to send the equivalent amount of data to the Hubble telescope. 15¢ per text message means that any time a customer sends or receives a message (which can’t be bigger than 140 bytes), they are paying the equivalent of at least $1,101 per megabyte—and, if they are, say, Bell customers sending a message to other Bell customers, Bell makes the equivalent of at least $2,202 per megabyte.

Have a link at wikipedia for more info about SMS texting and data costs.

I’m currently a Telus client, but my contract ends in November. I’m going to play the field and find the most innovative carrier I possibly can and then support them. Neither Telus nor Bell seem attractive to me right now; in fact, Rogers is starting to look good! Canada is in desperate need of a new mobility carrier that balances profits with customer respect and satisfaction.

Lastly, don’t buy the line that “Canada is a large nation so mobility costs have to be higher.” Large nations like Russia don’t have cell phone prices like we do simply because people wouldn’t pay such exorbitant rates.

So, how can you sway Telus and Bell? Write a blog post about this topic. Write a note on Facebook and share it with all your friends. Check for Facebook or online petitions. Make some noise online and see what happens.

Photo by .natalie from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

I feel great about how I did—eighth out of fifty-five males. I completed a 500m swim, 20km ride, and 5km run in 1:07:23! Of course, this race didn’t have a lot of elite racers (next week’s Coral Springs race will), but my time was still respectable. I really tanked out on the bike ride (16 out of 55) and I’m not sure why. I think I might have injured myself about a month back, because I’ve been feeling slow on my bicycle in general lately. I should probably ice the area in question and refrain from riding.

If you’re interested, you can see results at this webpage.

Looks like it will be a great weekend.

I will be reading with Asa Boxer and Dominique Frissard. Asa’s book, The Mechanical Bird (Vehicule 2007) will be available for sale.

This event is free of charge. I hope to see you there!