Survived the long day.

My extra-long Saturday went off without a hitch. The weekend started out with a basketball game on Friday evening which we won by 15. It was not a pretty game, but we took the lead ad held it. I think I scored about 8-10 points. I was supposed to go to a dinner party already in progress, but I went home to sleep instead, which I think was the wiser choice as I had to be up at 7:00 on Saturday for the Hypothermic Half-Marathon. The weather looked like it would be a manageable -1 degrees, but it was snowing. Alex and I picked up Franck, one of my running partners, on the way. We went to pick up our timing chips and ran about 2.5 km as a warmup. It was still snowing and there were some treacherous icy patches on the course. Franck has always been quicker than me in our runs and has a best marathon time of 3:07, but I could not have predicted how fast he would be in the actual race.

My hope for the race was to finish in under 1:35 and ideally, very close to the 1:30 mark. To do 1:30, I would need to maintain a pace of 4:16 per kilometer. There were 453 runners in the race, quite a large turnout for an amateur race in the middle of winter. Franck and I placed ourselves near the front. I knew I was not one of the absolute fastest guys, but I figured I would not hold too many people up either even if some faster people started behind me.

As we got going, I was in site of the leaders for a few minutes. I was wearing my GPS watch, so I could see my time elapsed, distance run, heart rate and pace. I saw that my early pace was too fast, under 4:00 for a while, then around 4:05. I tried to will myself to slow down, but it was not easy. I knew that the key to a good time over a long distance was to pick a pace you could maintain and save energy. I don't know what made me think I could maintain such a pace, but it was not realistic. The race was made up of three laps of 7 km. I completed the first lap in under 30 minutes (I had told Alex to come outside at the 30-minute mark to cheer me on, but I was there too soon!) but I knew that I would be paying the price later on. I felt like crap after one lap. Franck and the other fast guys were long gone.

In the second loop, I struggled to keep under 4:20 as a pace and mostly managed. At about the 11 km mark, a guy who had been slowly gaining on me passed me and began to pull away. I was then even more certain I had gone out too fast. The third lap was uneventful. I was finding it tough out there. It was not too slippery, but it was still snowing and the wind was blowing it everywhere. I kept telling myself "only 5 more km"... "only 15 more minutes". Still, I was struggling. A couple more runners passed me in the last 3-4 km, but not the swarms of people I was expecting. I was actually lapping some of the slower runners who were completing their second lap while I completed my third.

Finally, the finish was in sight and the race that seemed to have been going on forever was over. I managed a time of 1:33:40. It was slower than I had hoped, closer to 1:35 than 1:30. However, after having mismanaged my pace and really struggling for the last 2/3 of the race, I was satisfied. Alex was waiting and greeted me at the finish. I was really exhausted, as can be seen from the photos she took. Franck was there too. I knew he was fast, but he finished in 1:26:01. Holy crap. I guess I can't blame the winter conditions for my time then, as they seemed not to affect Franck at all.

The results are up today and Franck ended up 5th over all, out of 453 runners. Wow. I was 23rd, and I can't complain about that. It makes me feel better about my so-so time to see that it was still good enough to put me roughly in the top 5 per cent. It's time to stop fooling around now and begin marathon training for Ottawa!

Even though my race was over, my day wasn't. I had a quick bite at the post-race buffet and headed off to coach my girls' basketball team. My starting center was not there, but the girls played a solid game. We lost by seven, but I can't really fault the way they played. The opposing team had more wins than us and now have 6 wins to our 3. We are sitting in a precarious 6th place out of 12 teams and I don't even know how many teams make it into the playoffs.

After the game, I went home to relax a bit before heading back to the high school to coach the grade 9 girls. The first half did not go very well. The offence was simply not there, and the team went down by 22 points at half. My best 7th grader was borrowed so the team would not lose by default and she did really well, considering she was two years younger than the other girls. The second half went better and the final margin of victory was 22 points, which means that we were not outscored in the second half. Too little, too late.

I had time to relax a bit more before going to Alex's cousin's birthday party for her husband. I left a bit early and got to bed at a reasonable hour before sleeping for 11 hours. My calves are still sore, but otherwise, all is good. A long day, but a good day.

Here are some photos taken by Alex:

Before the race, eating power jelly beans

End of the second lap, one to go!

Finish line... finally!

Just after the race, feeling dead

Me and Franck. Franck doesn't even look like he's run 2 miles!

A few minutes later...

... feeling a bit better.

Blog Title Change

As you may have noticed, I just changed the title of this blog. I felt that a title referring only to automotive topics no longer reflected the content of the blog. In fact, since I started this blog a couple of years ago, my hobbies have multiplied and I have found myself writing about running, coaching and playing basketball, and several other topics... hence the name change.

As an illustration of this, I don't really have anything automotive to post about. As far as the other topics go:

Girl's basketball: our team suffered our worst defeat ever last week against the first place team in the league. We lost 56-17. I think we only had 3 points at half, so there was a decent improvement in the second half. The other team was very fast and they could shoot and play defense too. We really had no chance to win, but I would have preferred a closer game. I think the girls were a little stunned at the beginning of the game and they played a bit nervously. I have to learn to show them how to play with confidence even against superior teams.

My own team has done OK. We lost by 5 points 2 weeks ago. I had 14 points in the first half and none in the second. I missed two foul shots in the last minutes, as well as a 3-pointer. Could this have made a difference in the outcome? Maybe. Last Friday, we won by about 20 (I scored my season high: 16). I stuck around to sub in for another team and we won that game as well, so it was a good night.

Nico's dad Christian drafted a 12-week marathon training plan for me, for which I am thankful. The training will officially start in March, but I have to be in decent shape from the beginning. That means that my current 2 runs per week are insufficient. After my half-marathon this Saturday, I will start running 3 times per week. As for Saturday's race, I would like to put in a good time, although I suspect I will be closer to 1:35 than to 1:30. Christian said that if I want to do a marathon in 3:15, I need to be able to do 3 km in 11:30. I am still waiting for the weather to be warm enough to try to set a fast 3 km time.

Saturday will be a long day, as I have the half-marathon at 9:00 and I'm coaching my girls at 12:00, as well as Val's grade 9 girls at 4:00. Did I mention I also have a basketball game Friday night and parties to attend both Friday and Saturday? Sunday will likely be spent on the couch watching the Olympics.

Speaking of the Olympics, I'm so glad that Alex Bilodeau managed to take Canada's first gold medal on home soil. Maybe glad isn't the right work... relieved?

Cool cars spotted:
AMG C63
Audi S5 convertible
BMW M3
BMW M6

Basketball diaries

As I mentioned last week, my girls' basketball team and I were headed to Cowansville for the annual Massey-Vanier Dragons basketball tournament this past weekend. My team now has a record of 3 wins, 5 losses (wins in our last two games) and we're steadily improving. Last year, when I went to a tournament in Repentigny with my old team, we lost all three games. I figured if we won one game this year, it would be a decent result. This would also be our first time sleeping away from home as a team. I don't know what made me think that Alex, my sister Val and myself would be able to get any sleep in a classroom with 16 teenagers...

Our first game on Saturday morning was a disappointment. We were clearly outmatched by the other team, which was in fact a AA level team, even though we had signed up to play in the lower level, A, where we usually play. The girls didn't play very well as they were clearly stressed by the whole novelty of going to another city to play three games in one weekend. One of the organizers came to see me after the game to ask me why our team was so aggressive and to complain about my girls' behaviour. My girls told him that they were on the receiving end of some pretty indecent language. I don't think the organizer did anything about their complaints and we were getting a weird vibe from him. He hadn't even talked to the coach of the other team about the game, he only mentioned "what he had heard".

The second game went a bit better, but we still lost by 22 points. The second team was also AA though. This meant that we would be playing in the consolation game on Sunday morning against a team that had lost to this second AA team by only 6 points. At the same time, the older girls from my school, coached by my friend Pascal, won their two AA games on Saturday and were headed for the finals on Sunday evening, against a team they had beaten in two previous meetings this season. Each of our teams had been assigned a classroom where we would sleep on the ground in sleeping bags. I had allowed 4 girls from our grade 8 team to come to the tournament (Val coaches that team) as spectators and they were staying in our classroom, bringing the total up to 16 girls.

Although there were three adults in our classroom, it was impossible to enforce any kind of discipline. The organizers had promised a movie, but it never materialized. There wasn't even a cafeteria-type place to hang out. Despite this, the girls had got it into their head that there was a party going on in another of the classrooms and were pissed off that we weren't letting them go. There was in fact no party, but the girls were 100% convinced we were keeping them from the party of the decade. I was pissed off and sleepy, Alex was also pissed (but quite effective in dealing with the girls!) and Val was sleeping right next to the door, preventing anyone from escaping after midnight. Alex would escort the girls "who had to go" to the bathroom one at a time. After an eternity (which was in fact only about an hour), we got to sleep. We had a game to play at 9:30 am and I wanted them up at 8:00.

The next morning, we actually managed to get up, make sure everyone was on time and win our game. Our offence was shaky, with many easy shots missed, but the defense was solid. We won by a single point to end our tournament on a high note. We waited all day for the older girls' game. It turned out to be a real nail-biter, with our school losing by a single point in overtime. All in all, the tournament was a good learning experience for the girls (and me!) and we had a fun weekend. However, due to the way it was organized, I don't think we will be heading back there next year. There are many other tournaments out there to choose from.

My men's team lost by 2 points on Friday night. I was quite disappointed in the way things turned out, as we were unable to get a shot off in the final seconds. Also, I've been scoring very few points the last couple of games (total of 10 points in 2 games). Still, the team that beat us is the first place team, so it wasn't all bad.

Montreal Car Show

I was not really planning on attending the car show this year, as I'm not really that into new cars. However, Alex got a free pass to the show and graciously handed it over. I decided to do a quick walk through the show today at lunch. Here are some observations:

The AMG SL63 Black: mean looking. I like it. I was surprised to even see one at the show.

Lamborghini: there were a bunch of Gallardo's and Murciealago's, including a Balboni Edition. There was even a Gallardo race car. Wow. Lovely cars.

Ferrari California: looks as good as on TV, but not as good as a F430.

AMG SLS: good-looking car, but not exactly stunning.

Ford Fiesta: the only car I sat in. Seems like a good quality car, though really, it's not that small. I hoped it would be smaller, I guess.

Lotus Evora: a lovely car for 84 000 $. It's not that big, unless you park it among a bunch of Elise's and Exige's.

Mazda RX8: I was considering this as a used car, as you can buy early ones for 10 000 $ now. I noticed that the rear legroom is a joke though. Maybe it would make a good second car, but not a good primary car.

Acura: what a frikkin' boring lineup.

Pininfarina: neat electric car on display. The battery weighs 700 pounds though. Ouch!

Manic: Manic was a Canadian sports car made in the 60's. It is not that pretty, but it only weighed 1500 pounds!

Micro cars: cool display including the Peel P50, the world's smallest production car (50 cc, 250 pounds!).

All in all, the prospect of buying a new car still seems like a huge waste of money, especially considering the caliber of used cars available for 10 000 $ or less.

In basketball news, I'm heading to Cowansville this weekend with my girls' basketball team. We have three games over two days. I hope we can come up with a win, although it looks like we're playing some pretty strong teams. My own team is playing tonight and I hope we can keep our win streak alive.

In running news, I had trouble keeping up with the faster guys in my running group for the first time last Sunday. It was a 20.5 km run and I was out of gas in the last 3 km. This might be due to the fact that I had not slept much as it was the morning after my birthday party. Soon enough, I will have to start my training plan for the Ottawa marathon.

Cool cars spotted:

AMG G55

Audi S8

Bentley Continental

Mitsubishi Delica 4x4

BMW M3

BMW M6

The Big 3-7

I know I have not posted in a while. I have a few minutes of free time, so here are some updates!

It's my birthday today. I'm 37. I saw what I want this morning on my way to work: a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8. I really love these cars.

Speaking of Evo's, Carl was gracious enough to allow me to run a couple of sessions in his Evo 10 at the ASE Lapping Club's winter lapping day last Sunday. Here are a few photos by JAG:

Learning to drive the Evo 10

Careful, the car is borrowed!

Oops, a bit too close to the edge...

AWD + snow = fun!

Not all the Lancers were EVOs

The car is stupidly fast in the snow. I'm no expert at driving an AWD car in slippery conditions, but I managed to pick up a bit of experience. We realized that running in Tarmac mode was more fun than running in Snow mode. With the Tarmac mode, you can provoke the rear of the car with the gas pedal

In other news, my girl's basketball team won a second game last Saturday in convincing fashion. Although the team is only 2 and 5, we are in the positive in the points for / points against column. When we lose, it's not by much. When we win, we win big! The team's offence is finally starting to pick up. We have a non-points tournament next weekend in Cowansville, and I hope we can string together a couple of wins.

I haven't had a game in my men's league since before the holidays. We hadn't lost in a while and I hope we can continue the streak this Friday

I managed to keep running twice a week during the holidays. Alex gave me a great GPS watch with heart monitor for Christmas. It's great fun to analyze your speed, heart rate and the route you took from the comfort of home. I even figured out how to map my runs with Google Earth. Pretty cool! It's been cold out, but one stays surprisingly warm when running!

Cool cars spotted:
Audi RS4
New Audi S4
Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8
BMW M3
BMW M5
BMW M6
Bentley Continental
AMG C63
AMG G55

What does it feel like to run 70 km in one day?

Well, I am now in a position to answer that question... It feels great, when you're done. Before that, it feels pretty crappy in the last couple of hours. On Sunday November 29th, Nolin, one of the guys from the Running Room running club, casually asked me if I felt like participating in a charity event on the following Friday that implied running all day and raising money to fight poverty in Trois-Rivieres, a city about 140 km east of Montreal. I asked Alex if she was up for a day trip and we decided to do it. Nolin told me you run as much as you want and when you get tired, you hop on the bus that follows the runners. He explained that you can run as much as 84 km. I figured I would run as long as possible.

When we arrived in Trois-Rivieres, we were given "Noel du Pauvre" T-shirts and little banks to collect money for the charity. There were about 15 runners at the beginning of the day and we were told to go into all the small businesses on our way and collect for the cause. I was astounded at how well this worked! People in Trois-Rivieres are quite generous. I collected more than just small change, including 20$ bills. Alex was recruited into driving the sweeper minivan and, although she was told someone would eventually take over, she drove that van for the full 9 hours! She definitely made her contribution to the cause.

As for the actual running, it was slow going with all the stops to collect money. However, by lunch time we had run about 28 km. There was a mix of hard-core marathoners and weekend runners, but everyone was able to actually run. There was a 40 km loop we were supposed to do twice. We were told the second loop would be faster because we wouldn't be collecting money at that point. We had to be at a telethon at 7:00 pm, so I knew there was no way we would complete over 80 km by that time.

We were joined by other runners throughout the day. Nolin ran almost the whole time, taking only short bus breaks. As we got to the final two hours, I figured out that only one other guy and myself had run the whole distance. The other guy was Patrick, a veteran marathoner with a best time under 2:50 (that is quite fast!). By 5:00 pm, I figured I might as well hang in there until the end, even though my calves were sore, as was my right knee. Cardio-wise, I was doing OK, as we never really went that fast. In the end, Patrick and I both made it and the bus odometer showed that we had gone 71 km.

We grabbed a shower at the local university and went out for dinner with the group of runners at a lovely pub called the Gambrinus (owned by one of the hard-core runners). We had to figure who was going to drive on the way home... Nolin had run 65 km and was not in much better shape than I was. I couldn't very well ask Alex to drive after she had driven for 9 hours in the sweeper van. As a result, I ended up driving us home. I guess I was still on the high from the run, as I never felt tired.

I am very happy with the way the day went. That run qualifies as the hardest thing I have ever done, physically, in my life.

Otherwise, I have been running with the gang from my local Running Room every Wednesday and Sunday (I took yesterday off, figuring I had deserved it). I am in pretty good shape.

My men's basketball team is on a roll, as we have won our last three games. I am playing pretty well, especially on defense.

The girls' team (Reine Marie Diamonds) finally won a game! It was a convincing win as well, 48-24, and not against the worst team either, as the losing team had one win and two losses before our meeting (we had four losses at that point). I hope that the girls see this as a turning point in their season.

Car wise, not much has gone on. Pascal has my race car at his place and will be working on it in his spare time.

Carl bought a new Evo. I am really jealous, but could never justify the expense of a new car, no matter how droolingly cool it was. Still, nice car. It made me check out the cost of used Evo's in the USA. Still too expensive!

Cool cars spotted:

Ferrari 360

Ferrari F430

De Tomaso Pantera GTS

Lotus Exige

Alfa Romeo Giulietta

AMG C63

Audi R8

Audi RS4

Audi S6

Cadillac XLR

Nissan GTR

Nissan Skyline GTR R32

Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 1

Bentley coupe

Maserati GT

Aston Martin DB9

BMW M6

Stuff

Not much has been happening on the car front, as the racing season is over. I will soon be dropping the race car at Pascal's, where it will spend a good part of the winter. Pascal will be freshening up the interior of the car and taking out the transmission so it can get some much-needed attention. The synchros were grinding pretty badly in 3rd and 4th gears.

I haven't been driving that much, actually, as I seem to be able to get a lot done on foot. I mostly use the street Civic on weekends and to go to basketball practices and games. My girls' team lost their first game 35-31, but they played quite well and I have no complaints. After several losses, my own men's team finally won a game.

I've been going running twice a week with a group from my local Running Room and it's working out quite well. I no longer have Nico as a running partner as he is now training with his ski club for the cross-country ski season. I plan on participating in the Ottawa marathon in May 2010 and several Running Room regulars will also be doing this race. I know you're not supposed to have a target time for your first marathon, but I would really like to qualify for the Boston marathon with a time of 3:15:59 or better!

I've notice a couple of new cars on the roads these days:

New Golf: nice update to the sixth generation. Still a bit big for my tastes, but a good-looking car.

New Mercedes E-class: blah... nothing exciting about this car.

BMW X5M: what a great-looking SUV! Flared arches and huge wheels and brakes make for a serious-looking vehicle. I like it.

Nissan 370Z: I've mentioned it before, but the more I see this car, the more I like it. It looks like a modern front-engined Porsche. Nice.

Cool cars spotted:

Ferrari F430

Ferrari 328

Bentley Arnage

Porsche 997 turbo

Audi R8

Audi S8

Audi RS4

AMG C63

BMW 2002

Austin Healey 3000

Aston Martin Vantage

Aston Martin DB7

Maserati GT

Maserati Quattroporte