The Manlius Formation

During my recent trip north I learned a little about Canada Day, which is being celebrated today. I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t know much about the history of Canada’s origins, but thanks to an article in the paper at the hotel, I learned a little something.

Way back in 1867, the British Parliament passed the British North America Act, which organized the four original provinces into a confederation. This was done mainly to counter the Manifest Destiny practiced by the rabble-rousers to their south.

Over the years, various other acts were passed, granting more and more power to the Canadian parliament, until the 1982 passing of the Canada Act. The Canada Act finally granted Canada full control over its constitution, although Queen Elizabeth II remains the Queen of Canada, and Canada remains part of the commonwealth of nations (UK, Australia, Jamaica, etc) who share the Queen as Head of State.

So on this grand day, I say thank you to the nation that gave us the Ski-Doo (so-named thanks to a typo of the name “Ski-Dog”), the green plastic garbage bag, and Alex Trebek.

And Canada won. Big time.

So my friend, Dan, hadn’t been back to his hometown of North Bay, Ontario, since his family left the area about 25 years ago. Recently he discovered that the lakeside town of 50,000 souls hosts a triathlon every year. Our wives were kind enough to let us head north for a weekend so Dan could check out his old digs and we could test our mettle against our northern neighbors. With spousal permission and passports in hand, we headed north last Friday to take on Canada.

The race was a 1 km (0.6 mile) swim, 34 km (21 mile) bike, and an 8.4 km (5.2 mile) run. What you don’t see in these numbers is that the bike course and run course are both out-and-back routes that are uphill on the way out and downhill on the way back.

Due to the twisty, turny nature of the bike course, and my aversion to dislocated hips caused by running downhill in an uncontrolled, failing mass of arms and legs, the benefit I get from going downhill does not cancel out the penalty I incur going uphill. In other words, I anticipated being slowed down on the uphills more than I could make up for on the downhills.

Coupling this with the fact that I can count on two hands the number of good, solid bike training days I managed to fit in so far this year, and that the longest I’ve run is 5 miles, I went into the race thinking I’d approach it as a tough training day and finish in about 2 hours and 10 minutes. Dan’s expectations were similar since he’s biked and run about the same amount this spring and summer.

As you can see in the results, I met my goal – to the second: 2 hours, 10 minutes, and zero seconds. Hey, I’m a Capricorn - that’s what we do. Dan was right behind me, beating his goal by almost 7 minutes. Not bad.^[1]

When all was said and done I finished 48th overall out of 115 competitors, and 6th out of 8 in my age group. While I’d like to finish closer to the middle of the pack of my age group, I’m pleased with this result since I was WAY underprepared for the bike and run. Unsurprisingly, my bike was weak (70th overall and last in my age group), but my run was decent (8 minute miles).

What was nice to see was that all the swim training I’ve been doing seems to be working. I swam an average of about 1:40 per 100 yards, which was in the top 30 swim times, and just happens to be the goal I need to reach for the Skaneateles Skinnyman triathlon with my TMF comrades. Chris and Kathleen, I hope you’re taking the challenge seriously!

Dan was just a little behind me on the swim, faster than me on the bike (you’ll pay for that, Dan) and darn close on the run, finishing 57th overall. Not bad for a guy who bought his bike, like, 2 months ago and just started swimming. I have to start doing secret workouts and find a way to hold him back.

So how about the winner? The winner of the race was Len Gushe from Ontario. I know exactly when he finished, because we were right next to each other on the run course about 50 yards away from the finish line. In fact, we were facing directly at each other. This is because I was just starting the 5.2 mile out-and-back run and he was just finishing the 5.2 mile out-and-back run. That’s right, folks. I was starting the “out” and he was finishing the “back.”

He beat me by almost 40 minutes in a race that took me 130 minutes. I would have had to go about 30% faster in each event to finish with him. In my defence^[2], this is a man who won his age group and finished 60th overall at the 2000 Ironman world championships in Kona, Hawaii. ^[3]

And talk about your coincidences: check out this photo of me, Dan and “the Gushe” (I don’t know if they call him that, but Dan and I do). Len is the one with all the muscles. I’m the peon in the blue shirt near the car in the upper right corner running away from the camera. Dan is the cyclist at left getting ready to enter the transition area on the right of the photo. Check out the gallery for a few of the photos I took at the race.

So, to recap: Fun road trip, I got to see Canada for the first time, Dan and I did a longer race than we were prepared for and lived to tell the story. Not a bad weekend.

1. A note on the results: the two transition times - T1 (swim to bike) and T2 (bike to run) - are usually broken out separately, but based on where the timing mats were located, they seemed to have combined T1 with the bike time and T2 with the run time. I am notoriously slow in T1 – I dry my feet, take in some nutrition, look around, paint a watercolor, write a poem, and then get on the bike – but it’s still no more than 3 minutes. All in all, it shouldn’t affect the bike time too much. However, a 1:40 T2 time translates into about 20 seconds per mile for a 5 mile run. Bottom line though: the first one to cross the finish line wins regardless of how many splits you get. [back]
2. Do you like the Canadian spelling, eh? [back]
3. So how do the distances in the North Bay Triathlon translate into Ironman distances, you ask? Good question. All you need to do is repeat the North Bay swim 3 more times, do the bike 4.3 more times, and then do the run 4 more times. That will give you the Ironman distances of a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run. Not for the faint of heart. [back]

Daniel is one dog-year old today. How exciting!

We gave him the choice of a “big” party or a “big” gift. He chose the “big” gift. He was very excited when he (incorrectly) guessed that this “big” gift was a few packs of Pokemon cards. To bad we didn’t know that before we blew an order of magnitude more cash on a Nintento DSi, which he’s had his eye on for some time now.

Here are a few photos from the day, including one with his buddy, Austin, at Johnny Rockets for supper.

My guys are 5 and 7. Wow. The time truly does fly by. On the other hand, we’ll soon be starting 74 days of summer vacation. The boys will be home with Kath most of the day, every day. Time may not fly by so quickly at that point. But that’s another story…

Spinach and beets were the first seeds planted (May 3), followed by carrots and radishes the next day. A few weeks later (May 23) we put in tomato plants and sowed corn and cucumber seeds. Most recently, Thomas helped me plant beans on June 6; they sprouted in 4 days!

As far as harvesting goes, we have eaten or given away loads of radishes, and we’re going to have some spinach with supper tonight. I included some photos below for all you veggie voyeurs out there. If you need to satisfy your craving for higher resolution vegetables, head over to the gardening section of the gallery for full-size images.

Spinach (right) and beets (left) with tent structure for pole beans, followed by the aforementioned pole beans. The idea is that the beans will grow up the poles and provide shade to the spinach and beets since they don’t like full summer sun.

Tomatoes and cucumbers. The cukes - planted in the cross pattern - should fill in around the tomatoes and help trap moisture as the weather gets warmer.

Radishes (top) and carrots (bottom). I can’t believe how fast the radishes grow. Lesson for the future - don’t plant all your radish seeds at once. And, yeah, I know that the carrots don’t like the rocks. We’ll just have to see how that works out.

Corn. By far the one I’m most excited about. I have three rows like this one next to each other. I plan to plant some squash between the rows and see how that works out.

One other thing I’ve learned already - the garden is too small. I have a feeling that this is what happens to every gardener. Still, we’ll get some nice benefit from even this modestly-sized plot. And there’s always next year.

And swims again!

And runs again!

What, pray tell, am I talking about? Well, before the Manlius Formation was a widely read^[1] and critically acclaimed^[2] website, it was the name for the geological structure upon which my town sits.

However, before the website, there was the triathlon relay team composed of yours truly on the swim leg, “Crankin’” Chris Kopf on the bike, and Kathleen “Kath-me-if-you-can” Sokolovic on the run.

TMF roared onto the triathlon scene in the Skinnyman triathlon on Labor Day weekend 2008. Out of 16 relay teams, we finished in a solid 14th place, which the sharp-eyed reader will note is NOT last place. Note that one of the teams we beat was called “The Old Farts” and we were roundly bested by a team called “Just for Fun.”

This year’s challenge to my teammates is to finish in the TOP HALF of the co-ed teams. That’s right. The TOP HALF. Our finish time last year of 1:42:38 would need to have been 10 minutes and 20 seconds faster to meet that goal. If my math is correct, that means we each need to improve by at least 10% (including the transition times) over last year’s times.

Kathleen is already running her target time on a regular basis, which points towards a likely scenario where she blows that time out of the water. I think she can do it.

Chris is a powerhouse who I know can add at least 3/4 of a MPH to his average bike pace.

I’m not drowning when I swim (always a good sign) and I think with a little focus I can shave 10 seconds or so off my 100yd average pace on the swim.

Can we do it? I think so.

1. Average readers per post = 2.8 with a standard deviation of 1.7 [back]
2. Will Kopf raves, “i dont like manlius formation” [back]

In honor of the day, a photo of the Best Mom Ever tending to her charges…

We started the day with a nice hearty breakfast of challah bread french toast, and it’s a good thing, too, because we needed the energy. Today was busier than yesterday.

After breakfast, Kath started the process of applying waterproof sealer to the deck while the boys helped me sow our first seeds in the garden. We put in spinach and beets today. (Tomorrow we’ll put in the carrots and radishes.) I kind of let them explore a bit, so I’m not expecting neat, segregated rows of perfect seedlings. I’m learning to embrace the chaos that travels with my boys like Pigpen’s cloud. It’s easier to give in than to fight it.

After spending the morning doing that and hanging in the backyard, we had BLTs^[1] for lunch and then the boys and I headed to Thomas’ second tee-ball game of the weekend. Thomas played catcher for two of the four innings. No, I don’t know why a catcher is needed.

After tee-ball, we stopped in at the bike shop to make a second attempt at finding a rack to hold panniers on the back of my bike. No luck again.

We arrived home and found Kath breaking in the new lawn tractor. Yee-hah!

I pulled out an old tree-bush-thing while Kath mowed, the boys “washed” my car^[2] and I even got to do a little mowing myself, which I found to be very therapeutic.

We had one of those thrown-together suppers that is surprisingly satisfying, cleaned up, and put the kids in bed - which is where I’m headed in five minutes.

Oh, one more thing. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that as of today we have another shoe-tier (tyer?) in the house. Way to go big D!

1. …almost as good as a nice mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich; when the mutton is nice and lean. [back]
2. which is not much cleaner, but is now nice and streaky [back]

Excellent progress today on the home improvement front. Since the boys woke up at 5:54am today (yes, you read that correctly), I had a new faucet purchased AND installed well before lunch.^[1] Thomas was my helper while Daniel attended his first soccer game of the season with his chauffer/coach/mom.

Here is the new faucet, in all its brushed-metal glory:

Mmmm. New faucet.

After lunch, the kids and I took some time to spread the recently-delivered top soil and compost in the garden. They did an admirable job. Click on the thumbnail to see the full-size images from the gallery.

After that we took a little break and drew up plans for where we want to plant stuff in the garden. I need to pick up some fertilizer, but I think we’re ready to put in spinach, radishes, beets, and carrots this weekend.

1. I have to note that installation was WAY easier than removal. [back]

Let’s start with what I didn’t do tonight after supper. I didn’t clean up, enjoy a lovely dessert, and watch a lovely movie with my lovely wife.

Instead, I did this:

Not so lovely sink demolition

So I was upstairs and I heard Daniel and Thomas come in from outside. They were playing in dirt (of course) and had just begun to wash up in the kitchen sink when I heard Daniel in a panic: “Mommy! I need you here!”

I arrived downstairs to find the kitchen faucet in his hand. This had happened before and was an easy job, but the way it broke this time was a unrecoverable - I needed to remove the entire faucet. Of course, this was not possible without removing the entire sink.

At least I know what I’m doing tomorrow in between t-ball and soccer.

I stopped off at Tracy Lumber Saturday afternoon to pick up the 2×10s, and had time this afternoon to put together the frame for the raised garden bed. Next step: get topsoil delivered.

I snapped a few pics of my helper and our finished product. Click on a thumbmail to see the full-size image in the composting and gardening gallery.