Back from the Sun, Back to Winter.

Oklay so my wife and I just got back from the Dominican Republic. Oh how Imiss the warmth and sunshine. Today they are calling for another winter storm in Halifax. Seriously, Spring has officially arrived and I have to put up with 10-20 cm's of snow again. I was so happy to see grass, even though it was brown. The tropics had me spoiled.

I have posted some pictures from the trip in my web album. Check them out.

I must say though, that the thing I miss the most about the trip is the nice man that made me poached eggs each morning. I never liked poached eggs a whole lot. I like them a lot when someone else makes them for me. The free booze was okay as well, but fresh eggs for me was a hit. Oh and fresh doughnuts with sugar. Darn, now I am hungry.

Bluenose Marathon

So my wife and I decided to throw our hats in the ring and join up for the Bluenose Marathon. It is a marathon help each year in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Now we didn't actually choose to run the marathon proper as we are both very new to the running game. Instead she chose to run the 5K and I chose to run the 10K. This will be very fun I hope. I looked at last years entrants for the 10K and there were over 1500 people running that event.

The most I have ever run in a day, at this point, is 8K which was broken into 2 sections of 4K for a duathlon (there was a bike ride in the middle portion). So 10K will be a good challenge for me and really give me something to train for.

Now the event isn't until May 15-17, but entering now saved us $60, so it was time to take the plunge and join up.

I guess that training starts today for me!!

PETA? Sea Kittens? Crazy?

Okay, so now PETA wants to re brand fish as Sea-Kittens (http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/). Their hope is that if people think that fish are kittens they won't eat them. Really? Are they truly that mad? Have any of you tried to hug a fish? I have, it isn't fun. And I must say that I like fish. I have very nice tropical fish tanks at home (which I am sure PETA hates as well). But they still aren't fun to hug and play with like real kittens.

And if you do go to the website you will notice it is focused at children. This is possibly the part of PETA I hate the most. They aim a lot of stuff at kids without parents permission.

I think in the end they should approach this anti-fish eating campaign a different way. When I was young I didn't eat fish due to its icky factor. Fish were slimy and gross. Go with that PETA.

But at least PETA lets you design and download your very own sea-kitten. Awsome:


Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!

New Year, Same Bad Weather

Wow, how can the weather be this bad in Halifax. I am not sure how often I have seen the sun these past few months, let alone how often I have been able to keep dry. It is either rainy, snowy or foggy. Often I feel like we must live in a mountain or something.

Cold I can deal with, I can dress properly for that. But cold and wet. Yuck.

Yesterday my bike drivetrain froze up. Too much water in the rear freewheel. There is nothing quite as nice as peddling on your bike and not going forward. In the end I had to go home and take it all aprt to clean thinsg up. Lots of good grease later and I am back and riding again. Though not today as it is cold and rainy and they tell us that it will freeze over and be a sheet of ice going home. Ahhh.

Gas Prices Drop !!

Well I'll be. I never thought I would see it again but gas in Nova Scotia has finally dropped below $1 a liter. Wow. Now as a cyclist I don't use a whole lot of gas driving my car, but I do use some. So seeing the price drop is great in my eyes.

Of course it is simply a reaction to the falling economy, which isn't a good thing. But it could be worse. The economy could be down and the price of gas could be up!

Movember - Important Info here folks

What is Movember? Read about it in detail here . Simply though it is a fund raiser for Prostate Cancer in which participants pledge to grow a moustache throughout the month of November and you pledge to give them support and hopefully a donation.

I donated to my friend Mike Milloy . By clicking on his name you can also donate to this worthy cause. Or maybe you already know someone who is seeking donations, or maybe you want to grow a mom as well!

Duathlon

Well I completed my first ever Duathlon. This took place in Riverport, Nova Scotia. This course was familiar to me as it is where I race my bike each year. For this race though I had to run 4km, ride my bike 28 kms and finally do another 4 km run. Running isn't my strength, in fact I just started doing it seriously this summer. Still I managed a personal best time int he first 4k, then did a great 28k tima trial on my bike with an avg speed of 33km/hr followed with a very slow but steady final 4k. I was spent for sure but managed to place 45th out of 84 people entered which was a great intro I think. I look forward to doing another one in the future.

Also I must say wow to the Triathlon Nova Scotia people who put on the event. Well organized, plenty of help, computerized time tracking, plenty of food and water and all went at schedualed times. That meant we were done, had lunch and awards were handed out all before noon.

My total time of 1:35 is now my base for future events.