Changing seasons

We've reached that time of year where I'm transitioning from winter sports, like basketball, to summer sports, like auto racing. Our first AISA race driving school of the year will take place at St-Eustache next weekend. It's sold out, which is good, and I look forward to heading out to the track. Unfortunately, my race car will not be ready as we are still waiting for the transmission rebuild. I really hope it will be ready for the Calabogie school 3 weeks later, as I have still never been able to take my car out at Calabogie.

The girls' basketball season will most likely be wrapping up this week. I tried to continue practices after the end of the regular season, but turnout has been low. This Thursday will almost surely be the last practice of the year. I taught some of the girls who did show up to play horse, and I hope it catches on. I will try to find opportunities for the girls to play this summer if they choose to. I received my Canadian coaching certification card by mail, which is quite satisfying (even though I met the conditions over a year ago!).

My own team has now won both our best-of-three semifinal games and we will be heading to the finals in two weeks. There were only four players on the opponent's team Friday, so it was an easy win. I scored 20 points, but it wasn't that hard with only 4 defenders. The final will be extremely tough, as we take on the first place team.

The marathon training is going very well. I've been running four times a week, following Christian's plan. I am at my lowest bodyweight in over 10 years, even though I'm eating quite a lot. According to my training watch, I burn over 2 000 calories on a long run. I have met all the training goals set out in the plan, the intervals speeds and the average speeds on the longer runs. Yesterday, I was supposed to run three ten-minute blocks at an average of 4:30 per kilometer in the context of an 18 km run, but I managed to average faster than 4:30 for the whole 18 km. I think this means I'm in better shape than I was at the winter race, since I averaged the exact same speed over a pretty similar distance, including climbing to the top of Mount Royal yesterday. I went out for a 24 km run with Franck this morning, and I was really beginning to feel the fatigue in my legs. If you add yesterday and today's run together, the total length is the same as a marathon. I'm beginning to see that the marathon is going to be something seriously tough. I'm trying not to think about it too much and just follow the training plan. If I just do what I'm supposed to do, hopefully I will have no regrets, even if I don't meet my target time. Averaging 4:30 for 42 km is going to be seriously tough. I look forward to the challenge though!

I rode in Carl's Evo again yesterday. It is a phenomenal car with stupid acceleration. However I also got a chance to drive Carl's friend's E46 BMW M3. What a great car. I think I would really rather spend 25 000 $ on a great used BMW than 45 000 $ on a new Mitsubishi, even if it is faster. I can't wait to get my own BMW and have that feeling of driving a nice car!

News of Alex

Alex likes to read the blog and also seems to enjoy being mentioned in it. I know two facts to be true: 1) she will never go to the trouble of blogging for herself or even posting in any form of blog or internet discussion, ever. She is keyboard shy, even though she spends many hours per week getting her emails just right. 2) she has no problems with information about her being made public, including in this blog. I will therefore experimentally begin posting news of Alex in green and see what transpires.

Alex is out of town on business. She attended a psychology conference in Atlanta last week, the type of conference where one presents a poster instead of a paper. The conference part went well. When asked what Alex thought of Atlanta, she responded "I didn't really feel like exploring, so I don't know". She did enjoy at least one breakfast buffet.

She is now in Chicago, staying with her aunt for the next week and catching up on some work with her University of Chicago at Illinois post-doctoral professor/boss. She will be back in town next Saturday. She thought that I should have mentioned in the blog that she too went running in Cuba. Another quote from Alex: "You know that thing you're supposed to get, the runner's high? I don't get it. I now know running is not the sport for me".

Cool cars spotted:

Land Rover Defender 110 TDi

Ferrari F430

Ferrari Testarossa

Bricklin

New Audi S6

New Audi S4

AMG C63

AMG S63

AMG E55

Mercedes SL600

Mercedes Unimog

Maybach 57S

BMW M3

BMW M5

BMW M6

BMW M Coupe

Jaguar XF-R

Jaguar XK140

1980 BMW 320

BMW 633

Porsche 998

Porsche 997 turbo

Maserati GT

Bentley Continental

Seat Leon

Toyota MR Spyder

Lexus IS-F

Nissan Skyline GT-R R32

Triumph Spitfire

Triumph TR8

Acura NSX

Dodge Viper RT/10

And I'm back!

This is the first opportunity I've had to write since my vacation. It was only one week, but it seems to be taking me all week to catch up on work. Luckily, I have an intern to help out for a few more weeks.

How was Cuba? Great. Relaxing. Great weather. Beautiful beach. Decent food. My biggest complaint was the other tourists. It's amazing how much some people can eat, drink and smoke. I guess that's what you get when you choose a budget all-inclusive hotel. Do I sound a bit snobby? I guess I am. Second biggest complaint? No diet soft drinks at my hotel.

The Cubans were great. They were a friendly and seemingly hardworking people. We were in central Varadero and this allowed us to see many Cubans in their day-to-day lives. We also took the bus to Havana and walked many kilometers exploring the city. It's mostly beautiful, but also a bit depressing to see the condition of many of the neighbourhoods. Still, I would recommend this type of trip to anyone, whether your goal is simply to relax on the beach or by the pool, or to explore a new country.

The cars in Cuba are a strange mix: American cars from before 1960, Russian cars from the 70's and 80's, and modern Korean and Chinese cars. This was the first time I had seen Chinese cars. They look a lot like Korean cars.

I brought my running gear (except my watch) and planned to cover some decent miles. On my first day in Cuba, I planned to go running for about an hour. After 30 minutes, however, I was cooked. Although I had brought a couple of small water bottles, I was overheating, even though it was 5:30 pm. Still, I managed to go out on three other occasions for an hour each. I went out again yesterday and I felt pretty good. I'm glad I didn't take the week off!

The results are now official. My girls' basketball team finished in 9th place and missed the playoffs by one spot. Ironically, Val's team, that finished in last place as far as I know, made the playoffs in her age group, due to the number of teams in the league, I guess. I will go check out that game tomorrow. My men's team will be in its first playoff game Friday.

Cool cars spotted:

New Corvette ZR1

New Audi S4

Porsche Panamera Turbo

Cadillac XLR

Cadillac Allante

Vacation!

This post is the last thing I'm doing before my vacation to Cuba, so I will keep it short. I've been keeping up the running plan (ran on Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and today) for the Ottawa marathon. I was not able to do 3 km in 11:30 today, which I was supposed to do as part of a 12 km run. I only managed 11:47. Still, I'm getting in the mileage. I plan to bring my running gear (minus the GPS watch, illegal in Cuba) on the trip so I can do some hot weather training.

It's actually been very hot here. I was able to wear shorts to go running three times this week. Today was a big day, getting things ready at the office to take a week off, then running 15 km, then playing basketball (we won by 10, I scored 8), then packing. I'm pooped and going to bed!

Cool cars spotted:

Lexus ISF

New AMG E63

AMG C63 with modded exhaust

Ford GT

Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 1

Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8

Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 10 without the rear wing

New Audi S4

Audi S6 V10

Aston Martin DB9

1992 Mercedes 500 E

Ferrari F43 Spyder

Final game of the season.

The Collège Reine Marie Diamonds lost their last game of the season yesterday. We were down by 17 at the half, we cut the lead to only 4 by the end the the third quarter, but things fell apart in the fourth quarter and we ended up losing by 24 points. It is now extremely unlikely that we will make the playoffs, as it would take default losses by the 8th place team to drop them into 9th behind us. I really hope we can achieve more than three wins next year. The team worked hard this year and really deserved more wins. I also hope that most of the grade 7 girls return next year so we can play in the same division (grade 7-8) with a more experienced team. I plan to continue to hold practices once a week to keep the team in shape and maybe teach them a couple more things this year.

I have officially started the 12-week marathon training program that Christian prepared for me (Merci Christian!). I was afraid I would get a late start as I had quite a sharp pain in my shin at the end of last week and over the weekend. I think it was tendinitis. I took it easy for a couple of days and didn't run last weekend at all. On top of that, I have been wearing running shoes all over the place instead of other types of shoes with poor support or no cushioning. This seemed to work, as I was able to start the program pain free on Tuesday. Here are the instructions according to the plan, and what I actually did:

March 9: 12 km including 8 x 30-second intervals at 16.5 km/h

I managed 10.2 km and all the intervals at target speed

March 11: 14 km including 6 x 400-meter intervals at 16 km/h

It was late after basketball... I managed 12.6 km and completed the intervals, although on some I did not manage the target speed. In most cases, this was due to a crosswind.

I know I have to stop slacking off on the target distances, and I plan to faithfully respect the plan this weekend (runs planned for Saturday and Sunday). I don't know how I will manage in Cuba without my GPS watch (it's illegal to bring a GPS device to Cuba), but I figure I can make some decent calculations with the stopwatch alone. I look forward to running in shorts and a t-shirt!

There has been little progress on the race car on my end, although Pascal has been working on the interior. The tranny is out and we have to find someone to put all the pieces together: new synchros, new final drive, change to a different differential that will fit with the new final drive. We also need a new clutch. Pascal will then put it back in the car and the result should be a better accelerating car (with only 111 ft-lb of torque).

Cool cars spotted:

Audi RS4

New Audi S4

Bentley Continental

Ferrari F430 (spring is here!)

Maserati GT

Maserati Quattroporte

Mercedes 230G

AMG CLS63

Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 1

The Olympics are over.

I'm one of those people who complains when Canadians don't perform well at the Olympics. Anyone who followed the Vancouver games can figure out that I was complaining quite a bit at the halfway point of the games a week ago. I was really surprised at the turnaround in performance as far as Canadians winning medals. I also watched the hockey final yesterday and I could feel butterflies in my stomach, which is not common when I'm simply watching something on TV. All in all, I am extremely pleased with Canada's performance at these Olympics. To go from no gold medals at Montreal and Calgary to 14 in Vancouver is truly astounding. Last Friday, I had to go through a professional inspection at the office. This was quite stressful, but I think it went OK. We'll see when I receive the Bar association's recommendations. My 12-week marathon training officially begins next week. I've been trying to ramp up the mileage so it will not be a shock to my system when I have to run over 60 km per week. In the past week, I ran 6 km on Monday, 6 km on Wednesday (in the slush) and 28 km yesterday with a small group from the Running Room. When you start to run distances like this, you can really explore areas further from home. This was the fist time I ran to Laval, for example. I look forward to planning my longer runs on the map so I can enjoy new areas in and around Montreal. I had a basketball game Friday night and we lost in overtime. We played a solid game, but our shooting fell off in the second half, probably due to fatigue, as we were only 5 players. I think I scored 9 points. I finally scored a foul shot (1 for 2), which has been a problem for me lately. There is only one game left for the girls' team, in ten days. It looks like we will not make the playoffs, as the best we can realistically hope for is a tie with 8th place with a team that beat us, which would relegate us to 9th. Only the top 8 make it to the playoffs. I feel bad about this, as my team is made up of a good bunch of girls. Happily, most will still be eligible next year to play in this same age group, which should mean a few more victories. Car stuff: not much going on with my race car. I've been closely following the lead up to the F1 season. It should be a very interesting beginning to the season: there are several new teams (between 2 and 5, depending how you count), Schumacher is back, and Villeneuve is negotiating to get back in the game as well. The season starts in less than two weeks. Cool cars spotted: Audi S5 New Audi S4 AMG E55 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo II Hummer H1

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