It's "In and Out" Burger time...

All good things must come to an end. Today was the final day of “Training Payne’s Southern Californian Adventure”.

I had my second good nights sleep in a row. It must be the light blue walls in Nina and Dana’s spare bedroom. I’ve been told blue is a soothing colour. At least I hope they were blue. I am slightly colour blind, so they might not have been. My family constantly bugs me about it. I’ll often hear things like, “That’s not brown, it’s orange”.

It’s amazing I built a career in the colour printing business. I’ve done hundreds of client colour checks and convinced most the color was a perfect match. I didn’t realize until recently that I’ve got the common red-green type of colour blindness. At the time, most clients thought I knew what I was talking about. Opps.

Today I started my morning with a run, which I rarely do because my legs are usually stiff when I wake up. (I said “legs”, plural). In order to get the day’s training in, I had no choice. I opted to run rather than swim in an outdoor pool first thing in the morning.

My run started SLOW. It probably took a good mile or two until my legs loosened up. I ran along a bike trail and realized that weather is all relative. It was a sunny, early morning 11 C, maybe warmer, and almost every cyclist I saw had a jacket on. Some were even wearing toques and gloves. They looked like I do, when I ride in – 5C with snow on the ground. Seeing them all bundled up reminded me that I’m in training Heaven.

When I got back to the “International House of Triathletes”, also known as IHOT, Nina and Dana were in their home office. It was a cool sight. Each on opposite ends of the room, sitting back to back, working away on their computers. Dana in his pajamas with messy hair and Nina freshly showered after a workout and in her bathrobe with a towel wrapped turban style around her head. Ah, the benefits of a home office. What a great lifestyle if you can swing it.

I quickly changed and headed to the pool. I really didn’t want to do today’s long swim session, but I “Sucked it up”. It was China or bust. No regrets. I kept telling myself “this is the last 5500 meter swim leading up to China, all the rest are shorter, you need this swim, physically and mentally you need this swim. Just GETTER DONE!”.

I will say that doing a long swim in a 50-meter pool is the best. Less turns, closer simulation to open water swimming, less lane congestion and it’s easier to keep count of your laps. Other than that, I like 25-meter pools better.

This session was a good test. Part of the main set was 2 x 1500 meters. Although, I felt okay, I wasn’t fast. I was around a 1:49 p/100 pace. I just didn’t have the “jam” in me to go hard today. Mark Allen’s taken me to the wall and I’m glad my taper starts Monday. I need to put some strength back into my soul. At least the time seemed to go by easier listening to my underwater iPod.

When I got back to IHOT, Nina and Dana picked me up an “In and Out” Burger, Fries and Chocolate shake. “In and Out Burger” is a fast food chain and Southern California Phenomenon. The store colours look similar to McDonalds, but the food at “In and Out Burger” is way better and it has the constant long line ups to prove it. It was the best possible food choice to end an awesome 11 days of training in Southern California.

After our good-bye’s, Dana followed me to FedEx to make sure everything went well with the shipping back of my bike. It’s a good thing he did, because there was a problem, FedEx said it was “too big for them to ship back without going freight”. There was no way I was sending my bike International Ground Shipping; I may never see it again until AFTER China.

I was a little behind schedule by now and was concerned that if things didn’t go smoothly I could miss my flight. In the end it all worked out well. I hit every green light, I returned the car and the shuttle was waiting, my terminal was the first stop, there was only one person in front of me at the ticket line and security was a breeze.

I even had time to call Alice using Magic Jack. It must have been a funny sight for the other passengers to see. For those that don’t know, Magic Jack is a devise that plugs into any computer and you then plug a regular phone into Magic Jack. The concept is that all the calls you make and receive are free. Kind of like Skype, but with land lines.

Anyways, here I am in the Airport, I pull out my laptop, I connect Magic Jack and I pull out a home phone out of my computer bag and plug it into Magic Jack. Most people in the airport are using cell phones and I’m using some devise with a clunky home phone attached to it. It’s the type of phone you’d see being used when a phone repairman is up on the pole fixing something.

In all the years I’ve been travelling, I’ve never seen someone talking on a long corded home phone that’s plugged into a laptop at the Airport. It takes courage in the face of ridicule. It’s amazing what I’ll do to save a buck. I’m sure if my family was with me, they wouldn’t want to be seen anywhere near me. Next time I use it in the airport, I’m going to give more of a show and use it wearing a trucker hat.

Unrelated, I wanted to thank everyone for posting suggestions through my blog to John Barclay. John’s doing Ironman China in 17 days and has historical problems with his legs cramping and wants to know how to prevent it. I gave John advice and I realized it wasn’t complete. My original advice was to “Suck it up!” and “drink more water!”. But what I forgot to add was to also take a Midol beforehand.

John, if it works, I want half the sponsorship dollars you get from Midol.

Oh, and last but not least, thanks again to Nina and Dana for taking such good care of me. They not only welcomed me in their home, but they also treated me like a King. I can't say enough how much I appreciated it. Now that I've met them and hung out with them they're no longer twitter friends, they're now real friends. Very cool.

Mod Run - 1:15:20 / 14.05 km / 5:22 pace / 124 avg hr

Long Swim - 1:47:57 / 5500 meter

These Winter Olympics are making me crave the Summer Olympics. I can now see why Johan lost every Judo match for 4 years straight.