Genius mixes that allow me to LIVE

Alternative mix:
1) Base Song: "The Royal We" by Silversun Pickups


2) "Gold Guns Girls" by Metric
3) "Countdown" by Phoenix
4) "Ricochet" by Shiny Toy Guns
5) "Signs" by Bloc Party
6) "Percussion Gun" by White Rabbits
7) "Hell" by Tegan and Sara
8) "Checkered Floor" by Silversun Pickups
9) "Stand inside your love" by Smashing Pumpkins
10) "Chemistry of a car crash" by Shiny Toy Guns
11) "Exogenesis Symphony Part 3" by Muse
12) "Help I'm alive" by Metric
13) "Sometime around midnight" by Airborne Toxic Event
14) "Evil" by Interpol
15) "There's no secrets this year" by Silversun Pickups
16) "11th Dimension" by Julian Casablancas
17) "Rome" by Phoenix
18) "Gimme sympathy" by Metric
19) "Ghost town" by Shiny Toy Guns
20) "Everlasting" by Smashing Pumpkins
21) "Luno" by Bloc Party
22) "Sea Legs" by The Shins
23) "Typical" by Mutemath
24) "4th Dimensional Transition" by MGMT
25) "Rusted wheel" by Silversun Pickups

'Genius' is a pretty great idea. It's also pretty awesome that it can now compile a playlist on your iPod touch (and maybe more models?) without a connection to the internet. Absolutely key for long trips.

I'm nearing the end of a much needed recovery week which has really recharged my batteries. Last week I had close to what I'd call a mental breakdown at our hard run at the Bog on Thursday. The plan was to do 5-6 reps of an approximately 8 minute route at 10k pace, but after 3 I basically collapsed. I had troubles breathing and for the first time since I've started running, I didn't want to run at all. I just wanted to lie on the ground and DIE. All of that said, I'm well into my recovery week and I'm pretty ready to go for the next few hard weeks. Swimming has been a huge change in intensity and I'm super pumped. Thanks go to Phil for allowing me to swim with his guys!

It's a shorty, but basically all is well.

As an aside, it's incredibly irrelevant to bring up past events when they have zero bearing on one's future. Something I need to learn to do I guess.

Back to it, Bazan, and Black Holes

Back to bid'ness.

It's been a ridiculously eventful week and a bit since the PT Team got back from Tucson. A point form list will suffice:

• Stayed in a crappy hotel in Phoenix on the last day of the Olympics. It also happened to be in an extremely sketchy part of town. The local NBC station there (on the very limited cable in the room..) did not air the Closing Ceremonies.
• LOTS of work on the sponsor front. Writing letters and compiling results has never been more exciting!!
• Swimming better than I have all year.
• Fatigue set in from the camp, but without injury or lapse in motivation. Incredibly excited for what's to come this summer
  
• Short but amazing weekend with Ally
• NICE WEATHERRRRRRRR... until now that is.

Now to the Bazan Bay 5k. So this race has stuck out on my race calendar for a few reasons. 1) It's the first flat-out 5k that I've ever done, 2) I came into the race on the most tired legs I've EVER had, 3) It's a very early indicator of how I can perform without speed-work in my running training.

All of that said, I didn't feel a ton of pressure going into the race. I felt relaxed and ready to push my body extremely hard for 16-17 minutes. I knew how much training I'd done in the 2 weeks prior, and also knew that it would be as much of a mental game as a physical one. So in essence, because I was relaxed I knew that mentally I was prepared. I put the faith in my legs even though they were hurting.

The race itself was quite uneventful. I took a different approach than the Pioneer 8k (went out in 2:50 for the first km, 4:55 for the mile) and decided to be a little more conservative the first 2 km. I wanted to see a stronger back half than I had in my last few running races. Unfortunately, I didn't see the desired result with regards to splitting, as you can tell:
Km 1: 3:07
2: 3:12
3: 3:18
4: 3:32 (OUCH!!!!)
5: 3:21

Planning-wise it was not my best race, but I can't complain about the results. 16:36 on tired legs is a marked improvement... Ok well I don't really have a base-line on which to improve but I'm PUMPED. In the last kilometer I puked in my mouth a disgusting 3 times, each time swallowing it. Fortunately I was able let loose a little after the finish in an empty field. Also, I out-kicked this guy who passed me about 500 meters from the finish, marking my first real sprint victory to the finish. Ok, it's not like our pace was THAT blazing fast, but I'm still stoked that I had my first sprint finish.

In other news, lately I've been reading Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time." Yes, I know millions of people have read it and probably written blog posts just like this about it, but it's BEYOND fascinating. Hawking himself is hilarious. He pokes fun at himself, at the overall study of physics, makes clever analogies, and reuses examples to utter hilarity

E.g. he writes about this one astronaut falling into a black hole multiple times, but as his explanations of black holes gets more complex, as does the fate of the astronaut.. "imagine a lonely astronaut falling into a black hole, he wouldn't get far beyond the event horizon before being ripped apart" --> (later in the book) "remember the poor astronaut? Since black holes emit radiation, all matter that falls beyond the event horizon is returned to the universe as radiation. So not only did our poor astronaut venture into a black hole, experience the collapse of a star, and be ripped apart by the gravitational forces beyond the event horizon, but he was returned to the Universe in a less-than-ideal form." Ok, so I'm a SUPER huge dork for thinking that's funny, but who else could make astro-physics this interesting?

I just wish I had the education to allow me to have a more acute understanding of the mathematical principles that he employed to map the universe as he sees it (I'm not saying he's 100% correct in all his theories, but wouldn't it be amazing to see the universe he does?). But then I remember calculus.. intro calculus.. and how little I enjoyed it... Maybe quantum mechanics would be more fun?

Or maybe I should just stick where I'm comfortable.. History and political science. Yup, I think I'll do that...

Also, a cool little event... I'm heading to Vancouver this afternoon and will be meeting up with the lovely Ally. Upon my arrival, we're heading to a "Hungry4Change" charity dinner to support Oxfam UBC. The focus of the dinner is on Global Food Security, so I'm excited to see what's coming! I'm also beyond excited to be heading to Vancouver too :) Wooooooo!!

Until next timeeeee!
Derbearrrr



P.S.: A sweet new band featuring the lead singer of the Shins with their first single, "The High Road"

Tucson... An interesting place to be.

I wish I could write a long-winded post about Tucson and the people there, but it can be fairly easily summed up:

-Some people are VERY friendly
-Some people are VERY unfriendly
-Most people who drive cars, shouldn't be allowed to
-Many drivers HATE cyclists (or they just give off that impression because of the above point)
-The architecture doesn't vary... Unless you live on a hill
-NO drainage for water on the roads = 1 lane of lakes on EVERY road
-It's really too bad there's an accent over the "n" in "La Cañada"

Now, for the super exciting part, the Camp and the training itself. As it is said "a picture is worth a thousand words," so you can tell that all of us on the PT Team had a GREAT time. We stayed in this one level house (in a gated community, like most places in the Oro Valley) which had EVERYTHING we could have needed (minus actual beds and a big screen, but for less then $1000 for the week for all of us, we can't really complain).





Stopped by construction.. What do you do? YOU TAKE AWESOME PICTURES


Leg size + ugly face comp = 2 points for Derbear.. Too bad Kamal killed me on Lemmon :)

Training. Wow. That's all that I can say about that. Throughout the camp, I only missed one workout, a 30 minute recovery run on one of the first days I was there. I don't know if some of my early difficulties at the camp were due to elevation, sickness, or just the radical difference in climate, but basically I had severe asthmatic symptoms, and a very high heart rate during not-so-hard efforts. One swimming workout stood out where my heart rate was (and NO I'm not exaggerating) 198. I counted 33 beats in 10 seconds. 33 x 6 = 198. And from what I remember the effort was not supposed to be over that of a steady state set. Noa and I both were a little concerned, so I ended up skipping the recovery run after that swim. By Wednesday everything was good though, starting with a very difficult hill repetition running workout.

Things just went uphill from there... Literally. The Mt. Lemmon climb on Thursday was UNREAL. By far the most difficult cycling effort I've put in. We did a full 27 miles to the "Ski Valley" and by the end I was just begging for it all to be over. I also messed up about 2 miles from the finish, and descended about 1 mile into Summerhaven, which is were there is apparently a famous pie and cookie shop. Mmmmm. Maybe not a huge mistake.. But regardless, the ski valley was the final destination, so this resulted in a little detour that probably cost me around 10 minutes. My final time was 2:20 (after minusing the time from my little navigational error), so there is still lots of room for improvement. And believe me when I say that I will improve.

Cycling was by far the most challenging part of this camp for me. As many of you know, it is not my strength. I was pushed far beyond what I thought possible for me, so I am incredibly satisfied with the work I put in. Running and swimming were also extremely challenging. With hours exceeding my biggest week EVER by 10 hours, I was pushing myself SO hard to complete every workout to it's intended purpose. Tons and tons of hard running. As an example, after we got back from Lemmon, we were sent off on an hour long hard run.. The intervals themselves were not long, but MAN did it hurt. Ask Kamal or Adam or Matt.





Our beautiful 25 yard pool... Too bad we could only get 2 lanes out of the 7,000 empty ones..


Outrageousness... CHECK


Couldn't even tell you...


Last ride, pre-feast. I think my face describes well how the last ride felt....

Regardless, EVERYONE performed extremely well under the pressure of very high volumes in all 3 sports. Poor Tyler was near 30 hours of riding for the week since he has a stress fracture which sidelined him from running. He was also our King of the Moutains on Lemmon, rattling off 27 miles in an astounding 1:56. What a BALLER. Kamal pounded through every workout, killing the pace in the runs and rides, and smashing the swims. It was a struggle to even stay within eyesight of him on some of the runs and rides!!!!! Adam was on fire as well, looking in great form for the early season which I'm sure will be a VERY busy one for him. Finally, Matt and Amber from Kingston joined us for the camp, and Matt also put in one of the biggest weeks of his life, also quoting that "Mt. Lemmon [and the ride to it] was harder then the IMC ride." So congrats to him on excellent effort throughout the week as well!!!!

And finally, thanks to Noa for putting everything together! Although there were times were mentally I just wanted to quit and throw my bike in a ditch (literally), she talked me through everything and I come out of this camp SO PUMPED for race season. Over 32 hours of training is NUTSO for me, but I'm uninjured, and absolutely inspired to get back to training.. starting today with a swim :)

When all is said and done, I had an amazing trip. All you guys at PT are absolutely fantastic and it was incredible getting to know you guys better. I'm pumped for our team relationship to keep getting better and better. Let's tear up our races this summer :)

See you later, ACRIGATORS
Derbearrrr
PS: BUBBLESSSSSSS! Thanks to a certain very special someone, for an AMAZING care package :) :) :)

Bubbles to finish off a 2 hr. desert foothills run!