Pic Spocket

I was in Paris last week for about 10 days to give training at an aerospace customer. Weather was about the same than here: cold in freezing point temperature and cloudy, so not the best time to be there.

I was staying in a hotel in the Porte de Clichy area. On my first night there, I took a longish walk in the neighborhood. My first feeling was ’sensory overload’: so many people, cars everywhere, very dense presence of stores of all kind, crowded sidewalks, etc.  After half an hour or so, I stumbled upon one of Paris landmarks: the Moulin Rouge cabaret. I am sure you have heard about the movie of the same name.

From my hotel room on the 6th floor, I could see the Effeil Tower in the distance. If you remember, a year ago I posted pictures of the monument…

 After a 2 weeks break from training, it was time to get back into running, but it was not an easy thing to do on weekdays: all parks were opened only from 9am to 5h45pm during winter hours. So I resorted to run in the dense urban area, which meant a lot of stop and go, crowded sidewalks, and REAL busy intersections to cross.

On Saturday, I could run in the small park behind the hotel, doing a countless number of loops to get my 30 minutes in. After that, I walked toward downtown. I ended up walking for over 4.5 hours. I got into very big crowds near the big shopping areas like Galeries Lafayette. Near there, I took a few pictures of the ‘Academie Nationale de musique’.

My walk then brought me at ‘Place Vendôme’, all decorated for the holidays.

Keeping walking, I then arrived at the beginning of ‘Champs-Élisées‘, one of the most famous street in the world also part of the final stretch of the ‘Tour de France’. For the winter, they have a big wheel at one end. I was cold so I warmed up with a glass of warm wine.

I walked it till the ‘Arc de Triomphe‘, another big landmark in paris. I went on the top of it in 1997, but this time I just looked at it from below

After that, I walked back to the  ‘Champs-Élisées‘. As daylight was falling, the neighborhodd came to life.

On the Sunday, I went to the Louvre Museum (I will post pictures in a separate post) for a quick visit. It ended up in a big weekend of walking and running, which may have contributed to my demise on Monday evening’s run. On a small 45′ run (9km), my hip flexors started to hurt. I stopped running before it got too bad and decided to eat at the hotel to avoid further walking. Even then, a sudden movement during diner caused my left hip flexor to snap. After that, I was not even able to walk anymore that evening, and I limped hard for several days afterwards.

It’s now been a week, and I am still not 100% and not ready to run. So much for taking time off training to give the body a break… Sounds like I may have been better not stopping hehe!

Food was awesome there and with the lack of exercise of the past weeks, I now have an extra 8 lbs and the holidays have not started yet… I’ll have to start taking control of that.

More pictures and larger versions below.

Paris Walk 2010

This article is the third and last part of this serie. (Part I - Part II)

Clearwater Beach benefits from 360 days of sun per year…. That’s right.. no typo here. We could see this first hand since everyday, we had a clear blue sky. Every morning and every evening would bring very colorful sunrises and sunsets. We enjoyed it everyday, but never took time to photograph it.

On our last evening in town, after the race, we made a point to go out on the beach and enjoy our last sunset. I brought the big camera and the flash to get some nice pictures. Here the sun setting, and a nice group picture!

Here is the Turner Family…

Craig took over the camera so that we could have pictures of us as well…

The typical palm tree silhouette pictures… Not bad considering I did not have a tripod with me. There are all hand held.

The colorful sky over the Gulf of Mexico: 

Once we were done and the sky was quite dark, we headed into town to have a good meal. As we were walking on the beach, I could not help but notice this strong image… The silhouette effect of Corinne, Craig pulling the stroller and Tracy carrying the baby against the colorful sky was just awesome. I dropped belly on the beach to get the shot. I think that is one of my favorite this year

More pictures and larger versions at the end of the album below…

Clearwater 2010

Hope you liked these!

See part I for the vacation week.
See part II for the race report.

I’ll break down the Clearwater FL trip in 3 articles. This is the first part.

We arrived in Clearwater with our friends Craig, Tracy and Baby Turner about one week before race day. Despite our attempts at travelling light, between baby stuff and all my racing equipment, it was clear upon landing that the rental car size I had originally reserved would not cut it. So up to the counter we went to upgrade. I was offered a minivan, but I hate minivans and big SUV’s were too expensive. So we settled for a Crown Victoria. That thing has a trunk big enough to hold a few dead bodies and more hehe! Still, we had to keep some luggage with us in the car. Good thing I did not have my bike with me since I used the TriBikeTransport service.

We hit a snag when we got in Clearwater: the keys to the Condo we rented for the week were not where they were supposed to, and the agency is closed on the Sunday. After trying to reach them without success, we wandered around for a couple of hours, starting to wonder where we would camp if we could not reach anybody. Even the emergency number we had did not work. After digging deeper in the paperwork, we found a backup to the emergency backup number (?!?) so we finally managed to reach somebody that would get us the keys we needed.

Things were not looking too good on that first day. Temperature was really cold and the wind was blowing like crazy. The stroller was going away on its own because of the wind! It felt as cold as it was when we left home. Fortunately, things would get better in the following days!

The condo we had was just awesome: view on the water channel behind from the balcony, huge amount of space, nicely furnished with everything we needed to cook meals, wash clothes, etc. Perfect setup! Moreover, it was only a 5-10 minutes walk to downtown Clearwater Beach and Pier60, central point for the upcoming race. Here is a view at night we had from our huge balcony. In the distance, we see the bridge (causeway) that I would have to cross so many times during the race.

Cadence (Baby Turner) quickly got comfortable in the Condo

In our first days, temperature got nicer, in the low 80’s, sunny everyday. In our first couple of days, we walked around and did a beach day. All the beach shower posts in the area had a turtle on it. The sand on the beach was deep white, the finest sand I have ever seen, groomed every morning. It felt really fluffy when walking on it right after being groomed.

Pier60 was one of the local attraction and we went on it. Every evening, they had local artists selling their creations on the pier, but nothing really caught our eye.

During that time, I had a light training schedule to follow, about 1 hour per day with light swims and run sessions (my bike would only show up Thursday). It was nice to be there early on and see the race campus slowly getting built and seeing more and more athletes arriving and training in the area as the week progressed. The Ironman race there is a big show, being the world championship.

When Wednesday came, it was time to register and hit the expo and the Ironman store. I had plans to get a lot of t-shirts and training gear as souvenir of this experience: who knows if I can ever make it back to the Championship! I pushed to get there early, and as a result we were amongst the first visitors

One funny thing. One day in the elevator, we meet this very nice lady that reacted to Craig’s “Ironman Muskoka” shirt and started conversation. It took us a while because we did not recognize each other right off the bat, but it turned out it was Margaret, another athlete from the surroundings of Windsor, and we have the same coach! We saw each other at least once at a training day last winter. They happened to be in the condo unit right beside us. What were the chances?! Margaret is competing in the 60-64 age group. What an inspiration!

Her and her husband were super nice and they invited the whole bunch of us for their “traditional Ironman turkey dinner” which we gladly accepted on Wednesday evening. Dennis Masse, also from Team LPC was in the area to volunteer and see the race during his vacation. We had a very nice evening. Here are both of us near the Ironman Media Lounge.

The area is known for Dolphins. And we saw many of these. Triathletes swimming at the beach actually happened to have Dolphins following them. We actually had a show right at our doorstep, from our balcony, when the “little toot” tour boat came around. 2 dolphins were following them and they started playing right below us. Pretty cool!

On the Thursday, I could get my bike from TriBikeTransport so I was there at the opening, helping them setting up the tents. I got my bike, so I could do my small bike+run workout. Craig ran with me. The area was super nice for running. You could feel the place getting alive with all the other triathletes training on the strip.

In the afternoon, we went in the “John’s Pass” touristic area where there is a lot of shopping, boat rentals and boat tours. I have never seen so many Pelicans.

After going through the shops, we did a bit of sightseeing. They had one of those bridges that opens to let bigger boats go by, like in the movies

After an Ice Cream, we decided to go on a small dolphin boat tour excursion. It was nice to go out on the water and see all the properties on the side of the water.

We also saw several birds, including 2 Bald Eagles in the distance, and others including pelicans once again.

Everybody enjoyed the ride.

As for Dolphin sightings, we saw one or 2 very briefly at the beginning, but nothing else. We actually saw more action at the condo.

Funny thing: back on land at the ticket counter, they had this machine… We have the same type in Canada, usually to attempt picking up toys or similar things. But here, you were trying to grab a live lobster.

Out the boat, Corinne and Tracy tried a “Hurricane Simulator” machine. It did not look like much from the outside, but look at Corinne’s head once she got out.. hehe! Good times.

Thursday evening, we went to the Ironman banquet on the beach at sunset. It was quite nice. They had these huge lanterns on the beach, all the tables with white table cloth, food was pretty good for a buffet (I liked the Ironman airbrushed cookies). They had a parade of all the country flags: 60 countries participating at the race. We had the usual pre-race briefing at that occasion once the live band finished playing.

For the Friday, day before the race, I had to stay off my legs as much as possible if I wanted to perform on Saturday. So beach day it was!

More pictures and larger version in the album below.

Clearwater Vacation

See part II for the race report.
See part III for the last Clearwater sunset. (to come)

Just back from a long weekend completely off the grid - no internet, no emails, no computers and no phone - at the beach in Ipperwash in the Grand Bend area with Corinne and Newton. We refer to these as ‘Newton’s vacation’ since we bring him along for the ride. We stay in a very simple motel in the area over there, that accepts dogs.

It was quite relaxing especially since training is still VERY light in my case. I am still nursing a pain issue in my right knee that occured after my last race. Every morning, we take breakfast as ‘take-out’ and head out to the beach in Ipperwash. Hard to get a better parking spot…

Quite nice actually to have all your stuff so close hehe

The first 2 days, there was a lot of waves, but that did not keep Newton from having the time of his life down there. He just loves water, and fetching the ball. Put these 2 things toguether, and he’s having a blast!

We also went for a stroll in downtown Grand Bend to have a bite on the Saturday afternoon, but finding a parking spot over there is kind of a nightmare. After that, we headed to the ‘dog beach’ at the ‘Pinery Provincial Park’ for some more beach time. I actually did a 30 minute training swim covering roughly 1500 m parallel to the beach (no pics).

The weather was not as nice on Sunday, but we still enjoyed the beach before driving back to Windsor. Back to work tomorrow morning!

Here is the link to the photo album. Take time to browse it, there are a few really good ones of Newton.

Ipperwash Beach 2010

After my Half Ironman in Orlando, Florida, we went down to our usual spot in North Miami Beach for a well deserved week of vacation. We always said we’d like to go on one of these airboat tours in the past, but never acted on it. This time, Corinne made me give my word before we left Windsor that this time we would do it. And so we did! We went with my aunt, uncle and my mom also staying in Miami.

We went in the Everglades National Park, wetland covering a huge portion of southern Florida.

Here are a few pictures. The first one is of another boat we crossed path with.

We were hoping to see alligators during out tour, but no lock in the first half. We did see this very colorful bird:

Then we got to see a bunch (6 or 7) alligators in the second portion of our 1.5 hour tour. It was great! They actually seemed to be curious and did not try to get away when the airboat passed close to them.

Back on land, the guy said we could hold a “small” alligator in our hands if we wanted too. Imagining a baby, we said “Sure!”. Turns out the “small” alligator was 6 years old… Corinne and me got to hold it. Here is Corinne posing with our guide and her new friend…

More pictures in the album below!

Everglades Airboat