Break from work

This past Saturday was exactly six weeks to Ironman Sweden. We 'celebrated' such a day by biking 185km in the Vercors mountain. We went further than we had gone before and made it all the way to the Col de Rousset where we had one of many snack breaks. The climb up to the Col is 6.2km long from St.-Agnan-en-Vercors with an average incline of 5.2% and maximum of 8.5%. The climb is rated category 2 following the Tour de France ratings where they range from HC (Hors Catégorie -- the most difficult) to Category 4 (the easiest). After the snack break we went ~100m further up over about 5 km to the 'outlook' point where we reached our highest yet in France -- about 1370m. The climb that always starts the bike rides from Grenoble into the Vercors is from Sassenage (essentially Grenoble) up to Villard-de-Lans which is nearly 20km long and goes from 200m to 1100m. This is a Category 1 climb. Our legs were VERY tired by the end of the day. In addition to the litres of water and gatorade that we consumed plus lunch in Lans-en-Vercors and other snack breaks including entire boxes of cookies and family-size bags of chips, these are approximate averages of consumption per product per person:


-- 3 Coca Colas (/person)
-- 3 coffees (/person)
-- 1 red bull (/person)
-- 3 chocolate bars (/person)
-- etc.

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Last week I spent in Brussels for a project kickoff that I'll be a part of. The kickoff was unfortunately not very exciting as it entails a lot of meetings about not very interesting things and it does not entail very much free time. I did get to enjoy some Belgian beer, however. I hope that the actual work on the project and its results will be infinitely more interesting than the meeting itself was.

Other interesting news is that I may finally have a date to defend my thesis! If some things can be sorted out, I may come back to Canada on August 30th to do the defence on Friday the 31st. It looks like an external examiner has been found and most people are available. Unfortunately, we also need someone who is familiar with my work but from within the university and NOT in our department. This was easy as there was someone from the math department who was on my advisory committee but he will be away during this time. Hopefully a suitable replacement can be found and this date can be confirmed soon because then I can buy a ticket asap before the prices are too insane. If the date works it should be perfect because it will be after the race and all the training and I won't have to worry about missing training days or wrecking up my body from jet lag and lack of sleep!

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It is really nice to have our friend Thony staying with us. Last year he was visiting us in Guelph at essentially the same time when we went to Peterborough and did the Half Ironman race. This year's Ptbo 1/2 IM was yesterday (of course we didn't do it this time). Last year we watched the Tour de France on my computer screen over the Internet with a pixely broadcast that would intermittently cut out. This year we're watching it in HD on a big TV so that's pretty nice! We were of course cheering for Ryder but after the big crash on Friday he was injured and so had to withdraw and go home for some rehab. He plans to be back for the Olympics though so maybe the extra rest will do him good. I haven't chosen a new person to cheer for yet but yesterday's first successful breakaway was pretty exciting and the stage was won by a 22-year-old French rider which must have been pretty amazing for him.

Back to work...