I like Philly Cream Cheese

Yoga at noon hour St Clair with Yvonne.

My legs felt like cement tonight at TISC Practice during the relays. I felt like my technique continues to fall apart on the sprints, although I was feeling quite a bit better on the under-carve of the crossovers when we were doing our slow 10 lap warm-down.

I probably won't sleep tonight... departing for Philidelphia at 4:30 in the morning. I can sleep in the car... 8 hours on the road.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Lucky Charms and Nature's Path Optimum Power and Vector Cereal. Gazpatcho Soup with hot sauce. Flax Bagel with salmon cream cheese, apple, banana, Turkey Mr Sub with all the fixin's on multigrain bread. Chicken Rice Soup. Blue Goodness Smoothie. Grape tomatoes. 2 chocolate cookies. Iced Tea.

On the Go!

Busy day.

Taught my kickboxing class this morning at Victoria Terrace. Good energy in the room. Didn't quite get enough sleep last night. Went to bed too late and only got four and a half hours sleep... need to work on that.

I did Pump at noon hour, but my knee and shoulder are still bothering me. I seem to be fine when doing kickboxing and skating, but squats, clean and press, and shoulder track aren't working for me. Kept the weights light and skipped out on shoulders, abs and cooldown.

Went to Lawrence Park track for a few laps before my meeting. It felt so nice to be back on a 400 meter track with it's nice straightaways and a corners that aren't as tight as the 200 meter track. Felt a bit sluggish, perhaps from the excercises we did on the weekend?

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Lucky Charms/Vector/Optimum Power Cereal in Soy milk, blueberry/mango/strawberry/orange juice/ginseng/soy milk smoothie with greens. Whole wheat pasta with baby corn and spinich and veggie dogs in ragu and salsa with olives and pickles. Chicken. Salad with blue cheese dressing. 5 peices of bread with margarine. lemon mirangue pie with sherbet. Booster Juice with Wilderness Boost.

Rest and Nutrition

One of the things that I came away with from the Inline Skate Camp in Ottawa is a resolution to try and be better about rest and nutrition, particularly as discussed in the seminar led by Beth.

I generally eat fairly well at home, which I attribute completely to Jen's Vegan influence. It turns out that the few non-Vegan things that I keep around the house are a problem. Specifically Tuna Steaks and canned albacore tuna... essentially they are big fish who eat little fish and there is concern about the mercury levels. If I do eat tuna, I should try to eat chunk light tuna from skipjack.

The other staple of my diet is bagels, which I love to smother in cream cheese... which is essentially all fat. I'll have to think of an alternative type of spread... my second choice would be peanut butter, but I tend to have an allergic reaction to it despite how much I love it (although there is a concern with the fat content there as well.

When I eat outside of home, I tend to go for tasty treats and I am particularly fond of all-you-can-eat places. If I eat out less, I can probably curb those tendancies. Or perhaps try to choose slightly smarter things from the menu. When we were at Mister Sub after practice last week, Mike Murray mentioned that a bit of mustard was preferable to mayonaise for example because mayo was pure fat, even the light mayo. Something to think about since I use light mayo or miracle whip when I have tuna fish sandwiches.

I'm thinking that I should try switching over to Turkey in place of Tuna for sandwiches, although it doesn't keep as well as cans of tuna in the pantry, so I have to make sure that I eat it within a few days.

Carbs are my friend when it comes to endurance sports. Whole grains are better than white flour pasta and breads. Brown Rice is even better. I should try and eat more brown rice. Pasta is mostly water.

I am getting enough fruit these days, and should cut down on the juices which have too much sugar and calories. Smoothies are okay because they use the whole fruit. What I need to increase is vegetables. At least one portion of dark leafy greens a day, and one portion of bright red, yellow or orange veggies a day. I think cherry tomatoes covers this (or does that count as fruit?), although I think carrots would be better. I realize I eat a bowl of gazpatcho every day which has the veggies in it, but I think there is a concern about the salt.

Which brings me to the amount of salt I have in my diet. I'm not sure if it's the physical activity which has my sweating and craving the salts, but I definitely eat too many things like pickles and olives.

I'm doing pretty good with the Omega 3 "good" fatty acids. I eat fish (again I should switch the kind of fish I eat), as well as Yogurt and Soy Milk that is fortified with Omega 3 quite often. I also eat Flax Bagels and Bread, which isn't the ideal since the flax needs to be ground up to be effective in my system. Hopefully there is ground up flax in Flax Bread and Bagels, and not just the seeds on top of it that isn't digestible by the body.

I should eat more beans, although I'm they aren't really my among my favourite foods and I generally don't like the texture of beans. I should chew them thoroughly to avoid gas.

Beth also debunked the myth of female hormone cyto-estrogen in Soy. It is impossible to consume the volume that would be needed in order to have an effect on you. So there is nothing to worry about there.

Portion control is the other thing I have to be mindful of. Binging at meals instead of having reasonable quantities. Portions are actually smaller than I think. Usually the mound of pasta I consume in one sitting for example could easily be halved.

What was interesting for me was the fact that when Beth sees an athlete with a bit of weight around the middle is how much sleep they get at night. I also know that it has to do with eating too much before bedtime when the body goes into hybernation mode. I need to consume most of my calories in the morning to fuel me for the day, a pretty substantial lunch and then less in the evening. Generally I binge after working out or TISC practice in the evening.

Rest is important for recovery and developing those dedicated skating muscles. I know I have a really erratic sleep pattern... sometimes going to bed at the same time as Jen at 10 at night, and other times staying up working until the sun comes up. From the vegetarian seminar we attended a couple of months ago, I learned that the body creates it's "anti-depressant" chemicals around 2:00 in the morning, so I should try to be more consistent with my hours of sleep as well as the amount of sleep I get instead of ping-ponging my sleep duration and schedule constantly.

Stuck in Meetings instead of Skating

I was a little late for yoga at noon hour with Frances at Mount Pleasant. Upper back holding quite a bit of tension and the shoulder is still an issue. I'm planning on giving weights a try tomorrow. The ginger orange aromatherapy massage was nice as usual.

Wanted to do weights today, but it didn't work out. Despite the heat, I was also pretty dissappointed that I couldn't go to TISC practice tonight because of my meeting tonight.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Lucky Charms and Nature's Path Rebound Cereal and Vector in Soy Milk. Orange Juice, Booster Juice with Warrior Boost. Whole Wheat Pasta with spinich and veggie hot dogs and olives in Ragu and Salsa. Chocolate. Banana. Gazpatcho with Hot Sauce.

New Kickboxing Class at Parkview

I was still a bit stiff and sore from the weekend clinic when I headed over to Parkview to teach my new kickboxing class at noon hour. I thought I was running late, but it turns out it's only a 45 minute class that starts at 12:15. I was a bit worried at first when I got to the empty studio, but fortunately 2 people showed up. Parkview is just converting over to a Goodlife, having been acquired from Sportsclubs, so the membership isn't familiar with Body Combat and the full schedule doesn't kick in until August. I'll have to go up to the cardio studio next time and see if I can drag some warm bodies downstairs. It wasn't too intenst of a workout for me given the fact that it's a class of beginners and a shortened class on top of that. Hopefully I can up the level of the workout over time as I build this class.

Other than the road-rash on my rear, I seem to be holding together. Although my shoulder is still bothering me. Let's see how I do with weights this week.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Lucky Charms and Nature's Path Rebound and Vector cereal in Soy Milk. Gazpatcho Soup with hot sauce. Tuna sandwiches on flax bread with light mayo and pickles. Yogurt and Strawberries. Whole Wheat pasta with spinich and veggie hot dogs and baby corn in Ragu and salsa.

Eddy Matzger Double Push Tutorial

For reference to follow up on the clinic this weekend.

OTTAWA SK8 WEEKEND!

What a fantastic way to spend a weekend!

I would totally recommend this event to skaters of all abilities. When else would you have the opportunity to be coached by both Eddie Metzger and Barry Publow for an entire weekend? They are both very passionate and very knowlegable about skating. My impression was that they are generally on the same page and within the same ballpark about most things, although their approaches and strategies might differ. For me it was fascinating and informative and a very valuable experience to have back-to-back sessions with Eddy and Barry where both of them were demonstrating their own unique kinds of double-push drills. There are great things you can draw upon from both styles of teaching. Eddy's enthusiams is infectious and having taken one of Barry's Speedcamp Clinics a couple of years ago, it was a great opportunity to once again see his technical expertise in action. Both of them obviously love teaching skaters of all levels and abilities, and it really shows.

I also found Beth Mansfield's nutritional information for athletes very insightful and valuable. It turns out that the non-Vegan food that I keep around the house for me to eat is pretty much "bad". Tuna Steaks and canned Albacore Tuna are large fish that eat smaller fish and thus have higher levels of mercury. Better that I eat more Skipjack tuna for example. Also I should lay off the cream cheese... it's pure fat. Although for me the alternative Bagel-spread is Peanut Butter... which I have an allergic reaction to.

Best of all was the really cool folks from the skating community that I got to hang out with. It was a great opportunity for me to spend some time with some of my Montreal 24 Hour teammates like Danny Dutrisac, Mike Garvin, and Dean, guys I've skated with in many events over the past few years. Reacquainting with folks like Stephane whom I skated with in the 1/2 at the Ottawa Inline Festival two years ago, meeting really cool skaters like Murray, the one man skate club from Orillia, Pascale and Genevieve from the Montreal Dance Squad 24 Hour team/Roller Montreal, being coached by guys like Youri and Stephane, and so many others that I got to interact with during the weekend. Steve MacDonald, the president of Ottawa Inline is a real gentleman and a great host.

It also occured to me how glad I am that Carolyn has become so involved in this sport to the extent that she's as excited as I am to be doing this clinic as the only other TISC representative (besides myself) here this weekend. I've known her since my days at Queen's University, and even though I've made some really great friends within the skating community, I derive a great deal of satisfaction that I managed to recruit her from the ranks of my non-skating friends. This way, I don't look so crazy whenever I talk about doing a weekend out of town skating trip like this... as soon as the non-skating friends start looking at me funny I can just point over to Carolyn who tends to be a better yardstick of sanity if there are two of us involved instead of just me.

Of course it was great to spend the weekend with Jen. Given the fact that she did all the driving, particularly the exhausting drive home, treated me to the hotel, Ethiopian dinner, chocolate vegan cake and other wonderful birthday suprises, made sure I ate a healthy breakfast, tended to the embarrassing road-rash on my rear, covers all the details that generally slip my mind, and is extremely supportive of my skating in general and is willing to spend a weekend with me at a Skating Clinic in Ottawa, I'd have to say I'm a really lucky fella indeed to have such a wonderful girlfriend!

There is just so much to try and capture from this weekend. If Ottawa Inline ever hosts something like this again, I would definitely go back, and I would heavily encourage others to attend as well.

I'm just amazed the incredible value we received for what we paid for. It ended up being less expensive for Jen and I to join the Ottawa Inline Club as a couple and register for the Weekend Event. So we got a membership into the Ottawa Inline Club out of it as well (which allowed them to extend the invitation to me to join their 24 Hour team a couple of months back). On top of the seminars and skate sessions with Barry, Eddy and Beth, we also got a set of twincam bearings (which I generally use for races), a Skatefarm T-shirt, Lunch was provided both days, and there was a great Buffet Dinner at the Lonestar where they had a party (and I'm told a live band playing disco!) on Saturday night. We were too tired to stay out for the live music and dancing, but I can't think of any other skating or athletic event in general in the past few years that gave use that much bang for the buck.

I'll try and capture some of the things I learned this weekend and the drills we did when I have more time.

As a rec skater, I really need to practice the hill-technique we learner in slowing down the hill by doing the ski-style slolum (sp?). It would be a useful skill for me to work on. I had the first spill of the weekend when I was taking the hill out of control and ended up with some road rash on my rear.

We did some really good drills as well to focus on the carving that is necessary... on crossovers and working up to the double push.

WHAT I ATE ON SATURDAY
Muesli Pita with apricot jam. Pear. Banana, Vector Cereal. Tuna and Chicken Sandwiches. Cherry tomatoes, broccoli, celery. Gatorade. Corn Chips and Salsa. Mixed veggies... carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, etc. Chicken and Steak Fajitas with Sour Cream, Cheese, Gaucamoli, onion. Green Apple Vodka Drink. pineapple, strawberries, watermelon. Chocolate brownies.

WHAT I ATE ON SUNDAY
Muesli Pita with apricot Jam. Apple. Strawberries. Veggie wrap. Ham and Tuna and Chicken Sandwiches. Gatorade. broccoli, cherry tomatoes, red pepper, celery. 3 chocolate cookies. Harvey's Angus Burger with Bacon and Cheese and all the fixin's. Fries with lots of ketchup. Pepsi. Chocolate Milkshake.