Bouq 'Emissaire

How to recover from Food Poisoning . . .

Day 1:

• fluids & electrolytes, 0 physical training.

Day 2:

• stay on the electrolytes, minimal physical training.
  
• attempt @ eating organic kefir yogurt successful.
  
• 12 noon toast test, test successful.
• 2pm massage to flush remaining poison.
• 4pm reestablish GI bacterial content with 54 grams of smelly cheese, (Bouq'Emissaire - raw unpasturized goat's milk blue cheese from Quebec.)
• 5pm -9pm green tea flush.
• 9pm organic pro & prebiotic yogurt with organic banana for dinner.

Recovery complete.

Rest well.

happy dogs

Back hanging with Rex & Kona.

There's something quite special about the relaxed, peaceful, mindful state of a happy dog. Chill'n with Rex & Kona is food for the soul.



This was taken at Juan de Fuca a few weekends ago, the epic long run double bike breaking day. Another thanks to Hicham for lending me his Redline bike right before the start.

There are a few more cross races left in the Vancouver Island series with the Double Cross weekend fast approaching.

I will definitely be peaking at the end of November. For what? We'll leave that as a surprise.

Rest well.

2xNap

Today was a double nap day.

Swim, Nap, Bike, long Nap, Run, Work, Now.

The napping seems to have particularly helped with mental recovery from the past 10 day build. Physical recovery will take longer, but in the mean time I think I have arrived to a place where I can reflect on the weekend.

Concentration Practice. Meditation Practice. Contemplation Practice.

These are things which occur during all aspects of our inner and outer lives, even if we are consciously unaware.

During our training, practice, and living we learn to become aware of reactions. These can be physical, emotional, mental . . . and on.

With practice we learn to observe the reaction, and ride past without judgment or consideration.

When the body becomes increasingly taxed physically, other aspects also become challenged and their stability can vary.

Feel the roots. Breathe like the leaves. Feel the flow.

and Rest well.

Oil!

Today the body was craving oil. Lots of it.

The mire thought of fast burning long bike ride style sugars made the body shudder.

Today's diet reflected the feeling.

Breakfast: Fruit & Eggs
Lunch: Fruit & some hemp / soy style new age drink

Snacks were plentiful throughout the day, mostly a variety of seeds and more fruit.

Dinner. I came home from work craving more oil and what do ya know. . . There's pasta & snapper with this chopped up olive & olive oil mixture waiting right there. So good. Perfect meal to appease the bodies oil craving. Thanks for the nourishment.

Recovery Monday training was good. Detox Monday diet was good. Onto another great week.

Rest well.

create - complete

Great day.

The legs seem to have found themselves, well appreciated and content with a weekend well done. This morning's run was fairly short, considering volume of the past few weeks. It's all perspective anyhow.

If today's schedule said 2:20, 2:20 it would be, and that would be that. If it said 60 easy, 60 easy it would be, and that would be that. Today it said 90. 90 it was, and that was that.

The rest of me is almost back to earth.

Tomorrow will be the real test. It will be a test to see if I can rest.

The official start will be the master morning routine which really ends up creating the rest of the day. The outer interaction will start with an easy bike to bring nutrients where they need to go, (could be a heat cranked environment). After that I plan on eating 2 pieces of cinnamon raisin toast with peanut butter and honey. Then I will go back to sleep. I will wake up feeling awesome, eat something (probably leftovers), and head over to the pool. I will stay on the water, catch it, pull it, and push it. The feet could be in fins. Next will be more eating, perhaps a shower, and change for work at Oak Bay Rec. Work will be sweet as all Monday's at Oak Bay are. Home for dinner. Eat. Master evening routine completes the rest of the day.

Thanks for a sweet one today. Tomorrow will be another wicked awesome one.

Rest well.

Shelled

Fed and ready for bed after a full day of practice.

Even though it's after 10, I'm still a little high from the day.

Sometimes it can take a day or two to return back to earth. Generally I start to feel normalized within a day or so. Complete physical recovery may take 10 days, then there's the emotional recovery. Who knows how long that takes. One thing is for certain, the big days take their toll from multiple angles.

It's a feeling I've only really experienced a few times, mostly during some kind of extended solo exploration, whether it be on the water, in the mountains, or on the bike.

There are definitely hIs and certainly lOs. The important thing to remember is there is always comforting companionship.

Riding past a sheep farm, sailing through the kelp, climbing through the trees. These are times where we find companionship, and find balance. We can release the excited and/or agitated energy and simply thrive on calm, the calm knowing of ourSelf. We ease into the connectedness between us and our surroundings.

Most of the time it's invisible, although it can help to attach something which in the past, has helped us create and sustain the silent calm feeling. Simply breathing out the excited/agitated energy, and breathing in the earth, mountains, and fall colours can be enough to spark change in our perspective.

Bike: 75min warm up, 4 x 75min @ pace with 5min rest, 30 min cool down.
Run: 20min @ pace.
Swim: 1K @ floating pace.

I think the bike pace volume was about 205K for a total of around 240. Soleeeed Ruben. Soleeed.

Run tomorrow will be a fun one. Thanks for a great day.

Rest well.

In the Long Run

We're post Wednesday ride and it's now pre-Saturday ride.

Wednesday was good one, and tomorrow will be even better, but first a catch up story from last Sunday's long run.

It was a run which brought me back to the fall training camp days of Gryphon Nordic Racing. Good old GNR.

These runs were long, perhaps the longest to date. Then there were the epic roller ski sessions. For some reason we figured 1 500mL bottle of watered down Gatorade would suffice these sessions. A roller ski bonk is a bonk of it's own kind, much different from a bike or run bonk.

Fortunately, the past few years have rubbed off a little wisdom. This time I brought along a flask of diluted gel & 1 bottle.

The workout was pretty straight forward. Warm up, main set, cool down. 20 minutes, 105 minutes @ pace, 15 minutes. Just run.

Perfect day for a run at the lakes. Fall colours, soft & moist earth, cool temperature, loose arms, welcoming water, and a pair of legs which felt fairly decent.

3K loop for a warm up, shed the coat, pick up the bottle, head off. There's really little to say for the run. Time just seemed to disappear. It's really arbitrary anyhow.

I had the watch timing HR & km splits, but the overall run time was hidden. Before long, the run evolved to a steady hummm, much more than just a run. There are however, 4 memories:
1) starting
2) at 23 K I forgot if we had done 2.3 or 1.3 loops. Same difference, either way it's just running.
3) at 24 K the Jazz man said, "We need to stop for a moment." I wondered why. Why @ 24? The important numbers are 3:50/K, 155HR . . . why 24? ahhhh . . . 24. Quick birthday celebration and back running. Wicked awesome party. That was definitely the best one yet. Thanks dude.
4) finishing

Great run, about 34k to the day. Ice the legs. Back home and transition for cross.

3 bottles of gleukos,
1 can of coke,
1 bowl of spicy squash soup,
1 piece of toast,

Pack up Jalapeno, throw some clothes in the car, cross shoes, compression socks, a we're off.

3 energy bars in the car,
1 more can of coke,

and before you know it we've arrived to Providence Farm in beautiful Duncan. Mt. Tzouhalem provided a phenomenal backdrop. Great place for a cross race. Thanks to Providence farm for hosting the event.

warm up,
1 bottle of gleukos,
1 energy gel,
1 handfull of jelly beans,

Race ready.

As usual I took the first loop fairly easy. Keep it cool, test the legs, feel it out, find a groove for the course.
Ok, the legs feel 1/2 decent, try an attack to move through the group. That was easy. Sit in, feel the groove. Keep riding. Things are good with this group.
Ok, you're here, may as well race it up. There's a group up ahead. Take the technical parts easy, allow the HR to drop, recover a little and hammer the hill. Easy way to move up.

The rule with Nordic racing is that he who can recover the best on the downhills can race the fastest up the following hills. Apply this to cross and technical sections become the downhills.

Smooth like chocolate. Ride up to the group, sit in. 4th place and things feel good on lap 4/10. Hmmm maybe a little too smooth. That back tire is starting to feel a little flat. Ahhh who cares. Keep riding. Hmmm now it's rough again. Back tire is totally flat at the bottom of the course.

Sweetness. More running for today. Jalapeno fits nicely on the shoulder. The trek back to base camp and the wheel pit was wicked awesome practice running with a bike.

At the pit . . . Do you have a pump? We do have a wheel you can use, but it's campy. Well, I'm riding SRAM, so I suppose we'll find out if it's compatible. Toss it on . . . hiii -- hoo -- silver, and we're off.

Shifting works, sweet. We're good. 1.5 more loops. Chase 'em down.

Next time up the big hill. Snap. There goes the chain. Too much torque??? or perhaps despite seemingly smooth shifting, campy is less than compatible with SRAM.

So that was that. Fun racing, fun running, and mud is always sweet.

Conclusion: Even after the long run, there's more running to be done.

Rest well.