Posted by Kevin, on January 5th, 2008 
I got back onto the bike the other night, and that is definitely a good sign considering it is only January – last year I think I may have cycled 2 or 3 times all winter. Granted that was on rollers, which are significantly harder to use than a stationary trainer. So while Steve is off cycling in NZ for the next 3 months or so, I’ve got his trainer and have actually started using it. The first obstacle was changing the back tire on my bike, something I’ve never done before, or at least not on a road bike – I remember changing tires on my ‘dirt bike’ when I was a kid. Anyways, I picked up a trainer tire (Continental Ultra Sport) on the advice of my friend Paul. I got the tire from Kunstadt Sports in Kanata. For some reason I got a great deal on the tire – it was marked for $45.99 but after ringing it up, they only asked me for just over $41 – taxes in! Sweet! I got the new tire installed with no issues and hooked the bike up to the trainer. Unfortunately the ‘resistance change lever’ for the trainer was meant to be mounted on smaller diameter handlebars (25-26 mm) so I have been unable to mount it to my bike which has the larger diameter handlebars (31.8 mm). I’m still trying to think up a complication that I can rig up – I think some copper plumbing pipe will be involved. I started with an easy 45 minute ride while I watched The Celebrity Apprentice. As you can see from the picture to the left, I also set up the camera to take a few shots of me while I rode. It was good to get some exercise in again, and doubly good to be on my bike again. Now I just need to try to keep it up. :) [...]
Posted by Kevin, on September 28th, 2007 Since I’ve been back to work (from parental leave) I’ve been trying to cycle in as much as possible. Unfortunately I don’t get as much chance as I’d like to (I’d cycle every day if I could) since dropping Liam off at daycare necessitates me driving on those days. Better one or two days a week than none though I guess. Here are some observations I’ve made during my commute to/from work on the bike: A lot of drivers just don’t know how to deal with a bike on the road. Some are overly aggressive (angry that they have to share the road I guess) and some are overly ‘polite’ to the point of disregarding the rules of the road by trying to give you right-of-way when you shouldn’t have it. Both of these types of drivers drive me nuts – and I think more-so the ‘polite’ drivers! Of course I’m not that surprised, a lot of people have a hard enough time following the rules when simply sharing the road with other cars so… [...]
Posted by Kevin, on June 11th, 2007 I dropped Amy and Liam off at the airport on Thursday morning and they aren’t returning until this coming Saturday which means I had this past weekend all to myself. Seeing as I don’t normally have that kind of free time, I decided that I had better take advantage of it while I could. The fact that I didn’t do any (substantial) drinking and in fact was in bed by 1030 every night this past weekend is a testament to how much my life has changed since Liam came along. It was an enjoyable, but very tiring weekend. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on June 4th, 2007
Amy and I finally got around to getting a helmet for Liam (check flickr for some photos) so that we could try out the chariot as a bike trailer. We’ve been wanting to go riding as a family since Amy got her new bike, but just haven’t been able to find a helmet for Liam. We checked a few places and they all seemed to be too big. In the end, we ended up getting the smallest one we could find (at Kundstadt sports in Kanata) and used that. It is a tad too big, but he’ll grow into it. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on June 2nd, 2007
So while Steve is out purchasing kayaks and UMPCs, Amy and I picked up something a little more family oriented – not to say that a kayak or UMPC couldn’t be a family purchase… Anyways, as you can see from the photo to the left, we went out and bought a new Chariot for Liam. We opted for the Cougar model (their mid-range offering) and went with a two seater in anticipation of more kids to come. We picked up a couple of conversion kits for it – namely the jogging and biking kits. Amy has made good use of it so far – using it on her daily 5K walks, and I’ve even managed to get out running with Liam once – just today actually. As for the bike kit…we haven’t made use of that yet because we haven’t been able to find a helmet for Liam yet – but maybe today we’ll find one. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on June 1st, 2007
Turns out all that training I did paid off this year. This year I followed Hal Higdon’s Intermediate I marathon training program and with a few exceptions, (trip to Mexico, recovering from Norwalk) I followed it very closely. In addition, I trained pretty strictly using my heart rate monitor and I think that made a huge difference. My goal for the race this year was once again 3:45:00, just like last year, but this time I think it was more realistic. In the end my time was 3:46:43.4 (chip time) – which is DAMN close to my goal (and an improvement of over 17 minutes from last year), but still over it. I’ve got a tiny bit of disappointment over that fact, but not in the way I ran the race so… [...]
Posted by Kevin, on April 30th, 2007 I’ve been following this training program by Hal Higdon for my marathon training this year. Things have been going really well for me so far this year. I missed a week way back in February because of our trip to Mexico but other than that, I’ve been pretty strict about my training. The other thing I’ve done differently this year is to train by heart rate (rather than pace or time), except during my pace runs, and I think it’s made a huge difference. Well last week was another exception to my strict training schedule. I ran on Tuesday as scheduled but then woke up Wednesday with a sore throat and a congested head. I ‘worked from home’ all day and didn’t start feeling any better despite the extra rest. I skipped my Wednesday run and went to bed early. Thursday came and I decided to head to work, mostly because we were going out for a going away lunch for my boss who recently quit. By the time I got home from work I was feeling much worse than when I woke up so I once again opted to skip my run and go to bed early. Friday is a rest day in my program so no skipped run there. :) [...]
Posted by Kevin, on January 30th, 2007
So Ottawa’s hypothermic 1/2 marathon has come and gone and I’ve yet to post about it – more on why it took me so long in another post. What can I say about this event? Lets start with the positives – I managed a personal best 1/2 marathon time of somewhere around 1:47:19 (my previous best was set during last year’s marathon and was 1:55:04) and I ran nearly the entire race with Grant – he beat me by about 2 seconds I think. In the end, I was pretty pleased with my time. I think we (Grant and I finished one after another) finished somewhere around the middle of the pack. Why all this guessing on my part? Well that leads me to the negatives from this race. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on November 30th, 2006  I was talking with Grant about running the other day, asking him if he had been doing any training and he asked me if I was going to do the Hypothermic Half in January. After that, I saw the race listed in Steve’s Upcoming Events sections of his site and figured he was already registered. So – after visiting the race website and finding out that there are only 300 spots available, I decided that I had better hurry up and register. [...]
Posted by Kevin, on July 16th, 2006 My longest ride to date and it was through the mountains (hehe) of Gatineau park. We left from Grant’s place just after 0700 this morning and took our usual route across Champlain Bridge towards the park. After climbing that damn Pink Lake hill we opted to take the route that would take us up Camp Fortune rather than King Mountain on our way to Champlain Lookout. Camp Fortune wasn’t as bad as I remembered it being which was nice surprise. I managed to drop one of my water bottles, but luckily it was on a flat stretch so I just had to turn around and pick it up rather than having to chase it down a hill. [...]
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