Livin It Up

The greatest thing you can do with your life,
is live it.

James Kelly

Ahhh, the holidays. Funny how a few weeks in a warm place can change your state of mind. Especially when you spend a number of your training months double layered to keep out the cold. I don't care if you're in Hawaii or in the Baja Mexico, there is something about running in your shorts beside the ocean that just makes it easier.

This is the time I use to get my sorry butt in gear for the season coming up. Usually after our annual trip to Ironman Canada I take a few weeks off. If I am feeling particularily lazy, more than a few. So for me to get going again I need some motivation. Like temperatures in the 70's. I just feel more like getting out there and getting it going. I think from now on when I need a break I'm just going to take one and let the chips fall where they may.

Leg Up

Reach down and give someone a hand up.
A small thing with great impact.

James Kelly

The last couple of years I have struggled with a nagging hamstring tightness that I just could not seem to shake. Running on the flats was no problem, but in my neck of the woods there are very few runs that are flat. Every hill with any kind of a grade gave me great difficulty. The left hamstring would protest at even the shortest of climbs. I ran this way for a long time thinking that I was just getting old and I would just have to make the best of it. Finally, the tightness in the hamstring moved into my lower back and made it hard to even sit in the car for any length of time.

I have had the back thing before, a trick hip that likes to go out at any given time. I did my usual thing in that case, off to the chiropractor. One look and he just shook his head. "How long have you been walking around like that" he asked me. I didn't have to answer, he had my records. I hadn't been in to see him for five years.

Hey, snap, crackle, pop, guess what I don't have any more. No, not the pain in my back, it's the pain in my ham that's gone.

As seasoned athletes I think we sometimes have the idea that we can work through the pain or the injury. Trust me, give yourself a leg up and the second you think something is wrong, go see someone who really knows what it is.

Downhill Scares

The road behind me holds great memories
The road ahead, anticipation of the adventure
And where I stand right now is exactly where I want to be

James Kelly

I have never been one to hold back on a downhill. Man, I rode up here so I'm riding down. Funny how you always feel like you're the fastest at these times and you are always surprised when someone comes ripping past you on the down.

This year I put a small, but high quality helmet camera on and went for a ride. At the end of this ride there is a 14% grade hill. Now for those of you that have never seen this kind of hill, it's the one that can get you up to 80km an hour in a wink. Let me tell you when I look at the video of the downside of that hill, I don't know if it's the sound of the wind, which sounds like a jet aircraft, or just how fast the trees are flying by that almost scared me. I say almost, because anyone going over 80km an hour on a peddle bike better be a little scared or they are going to be a lot road rashed.

Last year on the downhill side of Yellow Lakes at Ironman Canada, the guy in front of me got speed wobble. Trust me, I was praying for the guy, 'cause if he went, I was going too. He hung on but I can still see that front wheel of his wobbling like mad, and hear him cursing like a banshee.

Well, there is always a little risk in anything you're riding. Your bike, the next big wave, even that heated seat in your new pick-up. You gotta be careful because the second you take your eyes of the prize someone will throw a hockey stick between the spokes.

Freezin'

You never really know what you have,
until your neighbour gets a better one.

James Kelly

Hey, is it freezin' out or what? Man, the pathways are clear and newly shovelled, but when it's 42 below, it's 42 below. People always say, I'm freezing my ass off. I always wondered if you only froze half your ass off, would you run around in circles? Or, if your ass falls off on a run in the woods does anyone hear it fall?

Well, those questions may not seem too deep, but when you've been sitting around the house for days because in this weather exposed skin freezes in 9 seconds, you start to get a little goofy. Anyway, seems like yesterday it was good to be outside. Oh hey, it was yesterday.

Well maybe I'll ride the windtrainer one more time this week.

Patience

Everything comes to those who wait,
and sooner to those who go get it.

James Kelly

They say that patience is a virtue. Well who the hell are they?

One thing that distance athletics does teach is patience. Often as not, the one who goes out fast comes home slow. Often, not always. We call it, save it up Sammy. You sorta hold back, saving your energy for the last part of the event. Hoping that you didn't hold back to the point where you can't make up the time you lost saving it up.

Great in theory, but sometimes you just gotta go hard, right to the wall. If you're always patiently waiting, you will always be watching people go by. Once in a while let her go. It's the only way your gonna know where you stand.
I don't mean put yourself in the wagon, but 'til you walk or win.

Go get what you want and be patient with those who get in your way.
Also, I want to know who Sammy is too.

Daydreams and Nightmares

To find the wind you need only to open your wings.

James Kelly


Have you ever had one of these dreams?

It's Ironman, you've just gotten out of the water in a great time. You fly through transition and head out to the bike racks. Suddenly you think you have forgotten where you parked your bike. Come on man, it's got to be right in this row. One over from the big tree when I face the lake and half way down. Now where the heck is it?

This is the point you start to do that thing when you can't find your keys. You know, second guessing the fact that you were sure you put them right there. Right beside the phone when you came in. Well, obviously someone has moved my bike, or worse taken my bike by mistake.

Now the panic sets in. Your hollerin' for your bike louder than Jurgen Zack without a helmet. It's right at the point where you're just starting to get that sick feeling that this is the day you are not going to finish, when you wake up, sweat running down your back. And you say thank you out loud. Funny how a nightmare can be a thankful thing.

I know this feeling in a small but real way. One time I got to the start line late after hitting the snooze button one too many times. I was just about to hit the beach when I realized I had left my goggles in the hotel room. This day I was fortunate and found friends standing behind the swim transition fence and one of them ran back to my room for me and brought back my goggles. Just in time for the start.

Really, how many times have you looked into that sea of faces trying to source out someone familiar and seen no one. I have one or two of these dreams before every Ironman. I like to think of them as good luck omens. I remember one such dream I emerged from T2 and was half a km into the run before realizing I was naked. That one wasn't so bad, just seemed to scare a few kids.

There is no point I am trying to make here. I just wondered if anyone else had these dreams.

Bla Bla Bla

Sometimes, if you listen very close,
you can hear someone else talking.

James Kelly


How many times have you been out for a great day of training with a group of fellow athletes and ended up hitting the local pub? Maybe the conversation turns to training schedules. Someone has found a new coach, maybe someone has a nutritional idea.

So who's the guy, and I know there is one in every group, who, after a couple of beers, turns into the world's greatest all-seeing, all-knowing, done everything athlete? Maybe not even after a couple of beers, maybe they just start right in with a neverending litany of how many races they have done. How many times they have bonked. How many times no matter what you say, they say better?

It's like they've been sitting on the edge of their saddle all day waiting so the sound of passing cars won't interrupt the brilliance of their natter. How many times have you just given up trying to get a word in edgewise because as soon as you open you mouth, buddy's been there, done that? And how many times have you headed to the can and just kept on going out the side door?
Then the next day when the guys ask you where you got off to, you tell them your head was ringing so loudly from buddy's tirade that you didn't know you had left until you woke up the next day and there was silence.

And last but not least, who is that person, who because they have some degree in some related field, figures they can sit there and adamantly drive nutritional and training theoreries down your throat for an hour even though they have never even done a triathlon and don't have the foggiest idea what it takes to finish an Ironman let alone get to the start line?

I admit sometimes there is a good story or two to be told, and God knows that after a couple of Pil*, I myself have prattled on about something I may have thought was extremely interesting.
But if you have more than a weekends worth of tall tales that you are just itching to tell someone, anyone about, for God's sake man, write a book and leave the rest of us to our wings and beer.

*Pilsner beer. An excellent, rough and tumble Canadian brew.

Where no man has gone before

Step off the path of life,
and discover the forest.

James Kelly

I grew up in a small town north of Toronto. Looking back those days play out like something out of a movie. Our home stood on an acre of land on the outskirts of town. There was a river that ran through the back yard big enough to float rafts made of pine trees cut from the miles of forest that started up right where our lawn left off. Summer days were spent building these rafts, fishing, camping or just exploring all the things that miles of untouched forest could hide.
Winter brought the ice and neverending games of hockey, and chasing rabbits through chest deep snow in the woods. There always seemed to be an adventure either real or imaginary just outside the back door.

Triathlon is a lot like that for me. It brings with it a real sense of adventure. Every training ride in the mountains, every run in the river valley and every open water swim brings back that old sense of youthful freedom and discovery.
Every race holds just enough sense of the unknown to make it an excellent way to stray from the path, to boldly go and to triumphantly return. Another story to share with friends over a couple of brewskies.

You can stay on the path if you like. It will most likely take you safely to you're journey's end.For myself, I'd rather get a few burrs caught in my coat.

Dreams

When reaching for your dreams,
you may have to stand on your tippy toes.

James Kelly

I have always carried three goals with me on race day. One, what I expect to accomplish given my training. Two, what I will accept as a decent effort no matter what the day brings. Three, my dream goal. This is the day when all the planets align. The fitness, the weather, the nutrition and the mechanics.

The hardest part of any dream is recognizing when to push the envelope. How do we know that that perfect time and place is now? This is the moment you get up on your tippy toes and sprint.

Well, I guess that is what drives us to any dream point. The challenge and hope that on that perfect day we are ready and able to see the dream and meet the day.

Get out

There is no adventure inside the box.

James Kelly

Have you ever seen a reality show that was really like real life? I hope not. If you have, give your friggin' head a shake.

In the first place, if you are sitting around watching someone else's idea of reality, you got to get out of the house. Survivor, yea OK, but I mean, that's more like a game show. Anyone watching Bridgette Neilson's show where she is living with some washed up rap guy? Holy shit man. You can't tell me that's entertainment. It's not even stupid funny. And don't go, well how do you know about it? I don't, that's why I don't know what washed up rap guy's name is.

I'd like to meet the guy who thought that that would be an interesting thing to put on TV. I'll give him a dose of reality and beat him senseless. No wonder kids are walking around with so many screwed up ideas. They think that the drunk, drugged and homeless are something people will pay you to be.

This weekend Ironman Hawaii will be showing live all day on ironmanlive.com and over the years they have worked hard to perfect the live feed for Internet and have changed the format to bring on board live helicopter feed and motor bike footage. Here at least, is some real human struggle. Mind over muscle, body over time. Not pouting for half an hour because the only boy dating all six other women living in your house has decided you're out. Somebody shoot me.

Oh well, shizzle zezzle

Dare to tri

In a world of complacency
The daring few have become just that.

James Kelly

Sometimes just getting to the start line is the hardest part. Over the last few years there have been many hazardous conditions leading up to and including race day for a number of Ironman races.

The first Ironman Utah was a disaster. Some swimmers who thought they heard the start gun headed out onto what they thought was the swim course, ending up getting pushed two km down the beach from the actual finish line.

Ironman Canada 2003, with raging forest fires all around the town of Penticton, firefighters and water bombers were at a premium. Oddly enough a burning bird nest took out the local electricity and the Friday night carboload was held on the local baseball field. Funny no one really noticed the smoke until they looked at their photos and realized they had been running in fog all day.

Now Kona, the news makes it out like the whole place is gonna slide under the waves. Well not according to a few buds who are over there racing. Looks like business as usual.

If this was going to be easy, well you know, but I mean jeeeze common guys.
Triathletes are getting too pampered. This whole sport used to be about the daring few. Now the few who dare are labelled as trouble makers or worse yet non compliant. Sometimes even looked upon as crazy. I await the day that someone looks my way with consternation and distaste. That will be the day I know I have become a true trier.

Get passionate

If they are tears of joy
then start a flood.

James Kelly

What brings tears to your eyes? Is it a sense of relief at making it to the finish line? Is it the pain or is it the sense of accomplishment and empowerment that comes with what you knew all along? That you could do anything you wanted in life, you just had to find the start point, the confidence, the drive, the sense of self.

Once you understand that inside you there is a spirit greater than anything you could imagine, and once you find the way to tap into that spirit, you will meet all obstacles with the same resolve that you do on race day. Adapt and overcome. One step in front of the other, so that every day of training and racing and every day of your life makes you greater than the day before.

Don't be afraid to shed a tear or two in the process.

Hooked

If it feels good, try to remember how you did it.

James Kelly

Hey, ever talk to someone after their first half marathon? They are so stoked. You can hardly stand the bright light shining form their eyes. What would you give to get that innocence back? Really, you shouldn't have to give anything. That's the thing with endurance sports. Every day is a new day, every race has its own set of rules, every time you set out to challenge yourself you should get that feeling. The day you don't get a rush of adrenaline at the start line or at least one moment of doubt, that will be the day you give up the sport. Because that will be the day that the effort will be meaningless and there would be nothing for you to gain by continuing.

I for one, hope that day never comes.

Say it any way you want

If you can't speak your mind, keep trying.
Silence never moved anyone.

James Kelly

Hey, tonight I used a word that my friends and I have used for years. I used this word forgetting that I was amongst people who were not privy to the inner word group used in my circle of friends. These people assumed I had made a serious faux pas. I, on the other hand, thought my word was descriptive and spoke more to what I was imagining.

Should I apply somewhere to have this word and others that I use to be officially inducted into Websters? I mean, why isn't it as easy as selecting, add word to database. Or why isn't it as easy as having the word accepted for what it is? A bastardized version of the original. Created with a sense of humour, but with a sense of pride as well.

Like the word, sha, an obscure colloquialism confined to mid-Ontario and southern Ontario through the seventies. A slang, meaning, sarcastically yes. Unless you were from that region you would have probably looked sideways at anyone using it. That is, until Mike Myers, a Toronto region boy, brought it to pop culture in the movie Wayne's World.

I guess sometimes you just have to accept that your idea of change, even if it is as simple as scramblizing a well established word or two, will probably ruffle the feathers of those steeped in traditional word, and oh yea, boring.

Give it away

Hold out your hands and see how many take hold.

James Kelly

Would you ask a stranger for a co2 cartridge if you were out? Hell yes you would, if it was in the middle of a race. Would you ask you're best friend for a hundred bucks if it meant your mortgage payment? Not if your life depended on it.
Why is it so easy and yet so hard? What are the parameters that make it so easy sometimes to accept or to ask for help and sometimes not be able to find the words?

Sometimes strangers become our closest friend if only for a moment as they pass by and throw a tube or a co2 cartridge our way. Yet our true friends who we surround ourselves with every day, feel like outsiders because we feel what, too much obligation, familiarity, too much, "hey guess who had to borrow from me"?

It is amazing how much giving there is our there. Not just on race day, but every day. You just have to look or ask or hold out your hand. Don't be afraid to ask because sooner or later you will be asked to give. Either way you will get more than you bargained for. Really...

Ride on

When the body grows weary
the memories grow strong

James Kelly

Man, some days you just got to wonder if your gonna get it done. You look at the schedule and its calling for a six hour ride with a one and a half hour run.
These are the days I try to bring back some of my favourite race days. The ones that went well and ended with some good friends and a few brews.
This may seem weird but I don't focus on the actual event itself but on the sense of accomplishment I felt in the days after.
That for me is a stronger motivator. I think of how great I felt wearing the finishers tee. Of how good it was to say ya, I finished when someone asked about the race. And in the telling of the day to anyone who would listen.
These are the things that get me out the door with some good vibe happening.
I think that come the day when the cranks have turned over for the last time and the runners are bronzed up and sitting on a mantle some where these will be the memories that will keep my spirit in a permanent state of runners high.

Game Face

The man in the moon has never smiled

James Kelly

You know that point in the day when you are starting to suffer? For some of us it's one minute before the gun goes off. For others it may be somewhere on the run. No matter who you are or where you are from. Newbie or average Vet. Some time, some where there will be a point where there will be some suffering.
The face you put on through those periods tells more about you caricature than the finish time you achieve fighting through that point.
This is not the time to vent you pain on the person who you have to rely on for the rest of your day.
I have often witnessed a volunteer taking the brunt of some athlete's misplaced sense of urgency for a miss passed water bottle or the greatest of all evils running our of gels.
I must admit that I have myself expressed displeasure( I use this word because I can honestly say I have never been angry enough to actually yell at a volunteer) to a volunteer for having been sent in the wrong way on a course, but that's the thing. There was a day when there were no volunteers, there were no gels and a lot of the time your guess was as good as mine as to which direction you were supposed to be going.
You got to love the fact that once in a while you go the wrong way and the challenge just became a little bit bigger.
Here is my question. Do you accept this challenge or do you yell at a volunteer?
Get your game face on and smile and thank your volunteer no matter how crappy you feel.

When the going gets tough

Have you ever watched the sun rise and thought,
not this again.

James Kelly

Wouldn't it be great if you could take your work ethic in your training to every other aspect of your day to day life.
Can you ever remember a day when you had a tough workout or a race didn't go quite the way you had imagined and just said screw it, that's it, I am never going to do this again.
Ya, I know, somewhere out there someone has a legitimate reason for saying that but I mean in general. All things being semi good. Do you have a tough day and then just decide you don't want to tri anymore?
There has to be bad days. Otherwise what would you have as a base line. There would be no way to gage your great days.
Trust me, the great days are in there. Even if they are few and far between. Sometimes the distance traveled between the sweet spots make them a whole lot sweeter.
What amazing things life and athletic training are, you have the opportunity to get up tomorrow and tri again.

The Swim

If it seems dark at the end of the tunnel
try turning on a light

James Kelly

How often have you looked down into the depths of some deep dark body of water and imagined some monster coming up out of the depths to snap you up, or swam through a patch of sea weed or grass and imagined hands grabbing at your legs and dragging you down.
Everyone has their own swim demon. That's good. What ever your fear may be you will, at some point in time have to confront it. Better it be on your own time than three hundred meters into an Ironman swim.
Don't think that you will get over your demon in the middle of two thousand thrashing bodies, many with the same fear as you.
I guess the old saying applies, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.
Get out their and swim.

Finish Times

It's not that you live your life by the numbers but
how you live your life between the numbers

James Kelly

Ah, the Internet. So much information and so easily accessible too. You can even watch your favourite Ironman live, on the computer, all day long, if you have a fast enough connection. I have actually sat and watched the finish line for hours so that I could cheer a friend or friends across the finish line in some far off place.
Still we have to do a little jonesing. Even though the facts of the day are there for anyone who wishes to search them out. Right down to the extra time you took in transition to drink one more Gatorade.
I can tell you that I am a very right sided person. The details of my race day fade very rapidly. Oh sure, I can tell you my best ever time at a number of different distances. For a few days following a big event I can even tell you that specific finish time, thought barely. But for me to tell you exactly what my finish times where at any given event over the last twenty years? Ya, right.
So why do people quote finish and split times with such authority some times as much as twenty minuets out on either side of the quote? Usually, though I am sure unintentionally, the faster of the two.
Hey, your times you time. The only way your gonna get a way with that story is if we've had too many beer and tequila shots on this years fishing trip

A New Set of Wheels

when you take the measure of your life,
use a large cup
James Kelly

Hey, didn't your wheels used to come with the bike? I mean, are you kidding me? $2500.00 for a set of wheels.
I could have purchased four of my very first bikes for that kind of money. Ya, I know, you're thinking, holy crap, how old is this guy.
Well old enough to know that I can go down hill faster on an ten year old set of Campy Zonda's that cost $550.oo full retail, than on a set of $2500.oo Zipps. Whats that you say, Zipps have dimples. Great, well so does an old guys ass but you wouldn't... Actually scratch that thought, but you get where I'm going with this.
Is it the wheels or the idea of the wheels that makes you go faster.
Tri this, train a little harder, buy a set of wheels for $1500.oo give the other grand to a struggling fellow athlete.
Not only will you be a whole lot faster from the harder training but you"ll be a whole lot stronger for the gift

Getting Started

If you turn around at the finish line
you can see the start of a new race

James Kelly

This years Ironman Canada was the second year in a row where circumstances beyond my control made for a very long day.
Last year it was a bike crash, this year was defective cycling shoes.
Though I was disappointed with my result these issues did nothing to undermine my determination to get back out there and tri to get my best time ever.
The finish line for me has never been that. I don't think I have ever crossed one without immediately wondering how I could do better and when that chance would come.
I will always turn around at a finish line and look back because to me its not a backward notion but a new look to future races hard run.

Adapt and Over come

A locked door is nothing but an opportunity
to discover a new key
James Kelly

Has anyone ever had an issue on course at Ironman? If there is someone in the room that doesn't have their hand raised, lucky you. Isn't that what that day is all about? Its about overcoming the issues that arise on the day. Flat tire, wind, rain, heat, nutrition all of the afore mentioned.
Who can say what that day will bring. Not just to the middle but from top to bottom. I think every one has seen the video of Paula Newby Fraser collapsing meters from the Kona finish line.
There will always be a challenge and there will always be a kink in the process.
Ironman and the training that goes with it is the key to bring to every locked door situation.
What a great tool to make a key.

Ride Times

Can some one explain to me why every one bitches about their inability to hold it together on the ride on race day when they can't even make the scheduled rides on the weekends. I know, lots of stuff gets in the way. Yard work, kids, breakfast, it's too cold.
How many times have you sat around waiting for one or more of the group to show up on Sunday morning only to have them call an hour after start time and give some lame excuse why they cant' make it. Not to mention an apology for holding up the whole group.
Today is Sunday. Why am I sitting here writing this? I have been waiting for those in our group who expressed a wish to ride this morning to show up.
New rule for the year. If your not there at start time, I guess you'll be riding alone, catching up or struggling on race day.

Bikes and Stuff

It seems a little crazy to me that we try so hard to push our youth toward fitness and the sport of triathlon but where can they come up with the costs of equipment and entry fees let alone the training costs on swim, gym and pool facilities.
As in any sport everyone wants there child to succeed and do well but we leave so many great talents behind because of their economic situations.

Is is just me or do you think things are getting outrageously over priced?

Tri Slag

What the hell?

Whats with all the downloading of stuff at Ironman Canada this year. For me one of the fun things about spending so much money for an event is getting the results in a nice package with all times and transition times broken down. Also, down load my own finishers certificate? Come on guys, its the little things that count, like having porta units close to the finish line so you can gack in private.