Spring in full blossom

We came back yesterday to beautiful sunshine in Vancouver and were supposed to start preparing the living room for painting right away. But I needed a hair cut and Jeff had to renew his driver’s license. He dropped me off at the mall and I walked back home – stretching my legs from the morning race. And it happened that I brought my camera along. Vancouver is so beautiful in the spring – this isn’t the best area to show it so it’s mostly close-ups. Enjoy!

BC Spring Long Distance Champs – Apr 14

First K1 race of the season. BC Spring Long Distance Championships in Pitt Meadows on the Alouette River. I was smarter this year and only signed up for th 18km rather than 36-maybe-30km with portages. Not enough on water time this winter and my butt wouldn’t last for an over 2hr paddle. Anyway, when we got there the race official already changed the course (same happened last year). Instead of 3 laps of 6km we were now only doing 3 laps of 4.4km. Most people would have thought that’s better but I prefer the longer races since all I have right now is endurance from cross-country skiing but no speed whatsoever. So I convinced MJ, head official,  that we should do 4 laps of the 4.4 which would get us close to the original 18kms. I am sure I made some new enemies as they adjusted ALL the races to one lap up. Only the 36-maybe-30km got away with less kms, the 18kers did about the same and the 6kers had to do 2km more . Needless to say I regretted that when I was on lap 3 .

The weather was okay, mainly overcast and a bit on the cool side – except when the sun came out for a bit and I overheated quickly. I remember it being much wetter and colder last year. No wind either and NO portages for me. So all looked good. My start was better than usual as well as I tried to stay to the side out of the wash – well that only meant the wash hit me a bit later . Oh well, I didn’t go in but I still stopped paddling a few time – really shouldn’t have to, there was not a single moment were I really was that much on the edge, stupid brain!!! So as usual I had to pick my way through all the boats that got out ahead since they don’t seem to mind the wash. Had a hard time to get around the only Marathon C2 out there since they through an awful wash – nice to sit-in in my surfski and being pulled along, not so nice in a K1 when you are scared of wash. But shortly after the first turn I managed to get by as they slowed down around the turn. I also caught up to fellow BCKC paddler Trevor D. - one of our youth that are training hard all year – for sprint that is not so much distance. Having said that, their “coach” Jim, who is also our clubs commodore who used to be the 200m-guy was in the  36-maybe-30-now-26km race and actually finished it not too far behind the leaders in 3rd place – I think this is the first time I saw him finishing a long distance race Well done, Jim! Back to my race. I meant to sit on Trevor’s wash for a bit but we soon caught up to Nick F.  also a BCKC paddler and got split up. I came out ahead of those two. Nick is a really good paddler but he so hates long distance . I am not sure why he does these races every year. He finished way back with his dad Kurt. Both of them are great cross-country skiers and should have better endurance than I … but again they do more sprint rather than long loppets. Maybe the skiing was good for something more than just enjoyment being out in the snow . So after passing those two I had 2 guys from Ridge ahead of me to chase. They were probably 100m ahead but even though I got a bit closer on the up-river portion they always pulled away again on the down-river stretch. But at least I had someone in sight the whole time – not like last year where I was sooo far behind, doing the 20-turn-out-to-be-24km race. On the up-river stretch of lap 3 John George (fellow skier and paddler), who was doing the 36-maybe-30-now-26km with the portages in his surfski on which he damaged the rudder on turn one and therefore ended up behind me only to pass me every lap since I passed him again while he was on the portage, came as usual flying by me but this time he had Trevor in town sitting on his wash. I would have been toast if Trevor would have been able to stay with John and get ahead but lucky for me the turn messed things around again and Trevor and I ended up with each other. I am usually no good on the side wash but since Trevor didn’t want to sit on my wash I tried sitting on his – and it worked for once . So he pulled me almost the whole way back to the lower turn. But we separated when he got into really shallow water – I did NOT push him into it – and I pulled ahead. I figured he’ll catch up right away but I never so him again and he fell way back. Found out after the race that he had a really sore shoulder – so much about being proud of beating the young gun, it was only an injured young gun . So the last lap was only a battle against myself feeling tired and sore. But I never got lapsed by Ian or Jan who were the leaders of the 36-mayby-30-now-26km race and are REALLY fast. So the finish line judges were actually still alert when I came in this year – last year they were chatting and drinking coffee when I arrived after 2hrs and 45min. My time this year was definitely under 2:00hrs - shorter distance and no portages (forgot my GPS and results are not posted yet). I even had enough time to put my boat away and change so that I could take a picture of the 36-maybe-30-now-26km race finish.

By the way the Alouette River is a really nice place for a relaxed paddle. Jeff, was wasn’t racing, took his surfski up and down the river (see his post). It does get shallow in spots so watch your rudder – right John – or better use a canoe.

MJ took a whole bunch more pictures: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1011802182&ref=tn_tnmn#!/media/set/?set=a.10150726769534014.426207.238470264013&type=1

Jeff going out on his paddle

Caming back in.

The start – 18kers and 26kers together

Being chased by Trevor – his techniques look sooo much better. I gotta do some video again.

Shook off Trevor again

Working hard :-)

Me coming in to the finish (staged since Jeff didn’t bother to take a picture of the real finish)

All smiles and sore

The leaders, Ian ahead of Jan, of the 36-maybe-30-now-26km race racing towards the last turn

Jim finishing in 3rd place – he still looks strong

First Tan Line

Another wonderful spring day in Vancouver – temperatures above 10C and mostly sunny. And what did we do? Wash walls, tape door frames, remove base boards, fill holes …. The prep time takes 3 times as long as the painting itself. At least the first two rooms are done . We finished the second coat yesterday afternoon. And I must say they don’t look too shabby. Except all the stuff is still underneath the protective cover in the middle of the room.

Okay, we did get out for a nice long paddle this morning on Burnaby Lake. The water was flat for almost the whole time – the wind didn’t kick up until we were on our way back from the third lap to the dam. Felt really good in the boat and even did some 15 stroke accelerations on 500m. I was wearing shorts for the first time this year … and yes that did result in the first tan line of the paddling season.

I love the lake on days like this – sunny and calm.

Not pretty but tan line none-the-less

And to finish off a good day we went over to Jeff’s parents for a great easter dinner. Ate enough to last us all week

Final loppet of the season

It was actually called a Woppet - not sure why – again held at the Whistler Olympic Park in Callaghan Valley.  Uncharacteristically for me though, I opted for the 15km course rather than doing the 30km. I would have really liked the 30km course on my classic skis but the website didn’t say it was all tracked for classics.  So I did it on my skate skis – first race after a month of practice. The weather was just gorgeous!! Blue skies and relatively warm. The snow was pretty good too except for the very first bit which was icy – but all flat. I knew the course pretty well except for one short piece and there were no real scary downhills on it, except for the section I didn’t know . And even though I was as expected near the very back of the field I did have other skiers in sight the whole time. Traded places with a guy a couple of time - he was faster uphill, I was faster downhill and we were pretty even on the flats. Unfortunately the last part of the race had more ups than downs so he finished a minute or so ahead of me. But I almost caught the girl ahead who was must faster on flats and downhill sections but really suffering on the last few hills. So was I but I pushed through it. The 15km went by really quick – my time was 1hr08min - quicker than I could have done it on classics. So finally I wasn’t dead last AND I finished before the first skier in the 30km race AND I could take a picture of Jeff finishing the 30km loop – I call that a good race:-). Jeff finished the 30km loop in 1:32 – pretty awesome.

Paddling friend Mike who is an awesome cross-country skier also raced the 30km while his wife Kelly and son Cam competed in my race finishing way ahead of me. Mike came in fourth overall in a tight sprint finish!!

I took a lot of pictures since it was such a nice day.

A beautiful day at the Callaghan Day Lodge

View west from the lodge

Jeff and I before the start

Jeff lining up for his race…

… ahead of Mike F.

And there he goes… ahead of Mike at least for a little bit.

All the 30km racers on the course

Mike coming in….

… in a close finish

Jeff going up on the last climb of the course (15km didn’t inlcude that one – it was a cruel climb)

Jeff finishing

Post race BBQ at the lodge in the sun – PERFECT

Drive home – looking at Black Tusk

Black Tusk – even closer

Tantalus Range impression

More Tantalus Range impressions

We actually started….

…with our mini-renos that is. Monday night we cleaned out the two rooms downstairs breathing in a LOT of dust and who know what else. Bit yucky but we hardly ever use those rooms. Tue/Wed were busy with other things – paddling mostly. Thursday evening we went and bought the paint. And Friday afternoon we started taping up the edges and painted – not until after a morning ski at Cypress mind you. I was hoping to go for a paddle after the painting was done but was way too tired. This rolling on paint is frickin hard work. Jeff got away with doing all the edges and a lot of watching TV while I slaved away downstairs painting the walls.

Lots of snow at Cypress – count the layers in the bank? Bit icy conditions in the morning though.

Back room after the first coat went on – looks too pink in the picture but there is hardly any natural light in the room :-)

Jeff is doing the edges in the front room

First TNR – Apr 3

And of course it was raining!!! But at least no hail. Temperatures were cool but the turnout was pretty good. I had a decent race trying to break free from Rod in his single and Marshal and his partner in the double but at the end ran out of gas and got beat by both of them. Fun though if you go in with no expectations after a winter of hardly any training. Looking forward to just paddling a few more races

Welcome to Deep Cove in April – welcome to overcast and rain :-)

Before the race – paddlers were hiding out of the rain

On the start line – can you see the rain?

Trying to get by Rod

Skiing buddies Angela and Dan working hard in the double – timing looks good

No April fools joke

We actually bought some paint sample today. Decided to add more color to our house – yellow living room, orange bedroom and blue kitchen. And not just tinted white but real colour . So we had to try it out first. The yellow and orange went on quite well but the blue in the kitchen just didn’t want to stick. Well, I guess the guy at the store was right when he suggested we should consider sanding the kitchen and bathrooms before painting to get all the grease and grime off the walls.

Spring is here! Time to clean – well renovate the inside of the house

Paint swatches – Sun Shower Yellow, Hawaiian Passion Orange, Liberty Blue for the upstairs; Mystical Sea for the bathrooms and Winter Glaze for the downstairs

Will it be too yellow if the whole room looks like this? Sure looked nice in the bright sunshine today. The color totally dissapears at night under incandescent light.

Gotta paint some palm trees onto the orange wall to make it perfect ….

I can’t believe we are really going to do this. Although we were supposed to clean the walls downstairs since that’s were we want to start – practice – but opted for sitting on the sofa all evening :-).

Nice day

Although colder than last week, we had a great paddle this morning on Burnaby Lake. It started of cloudy and threatened to rain and there was a light cross wind blowing from the south. Not my favourite conditions but soon enough the sun came out, the wind shifted to the west and all was good again. Except my butt got really sore after about 15km. Nevertheless powered through the 3 laps to the dam and finished my 20km paddle in under 2hrs. Not bad after a winter of almost no paddling.

Cloudy when we started our paddle

But nice by the time we finished – Vicki was practicing driving the safety boat under Dave’s guidance

Only managed to get out once last week – Thursday. Biking up the hill on my new bike in the rain, paddling K1 in the rain … only because Jeff went skiing and offered to pick me up at the lake afterwards so that I don’t have to bike home. That was the night before when it wasn’t raining yet. And of course he didn’t have a cell phone on him so that I could let him know that it is pissing rain down here and I won’t be going to the lake. But at the end it was a really nice paddle – in the rain. Lake was flat!

Ski Jumping

No, no, I did not pick up another winter sport but they had the Canadian National Ski Jumping Championships on in Callaghan today. So after my ski – 2.5hrs on skates all the way to Madeley Lake and back along Around the World and Brandywine – I stopped at the bottom of the jumps to watch. I have never seen this live and it was really cool – and scary! The first few jumpers got down to the 70+m mark. Looked pretty good to me but there was more to come. This was the third jump on the tall jump and they had seeded the competitors from shortest to furthest jump. So the good guys were at the end. And I was surprised when I heard that 3 jumpers from Germany were also in the mix – forth to second last jumper. Those guys jumped into the 130+m mark. I thought that was tough to beat but then came the last jumper from Canada. And that guy, Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes - 20 yrs of age, flew down all the way into the flat safety zone -142m. Whoa!!

Before leaving I got a picture with the German jumpers – asking them in broken German but they were willing enough. Martin Schmitt was part of the German team that won the Silver Medal here in Callaghan on the HS140 during the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. This picture is for my friend K3 in Germany!! She is a big fan of anything to do with ski racing – on TV that is. Nevermind she would blow me away in running, biking or swim

Last but not least exciting, we saw a Lynx or Bobcat crossing the road into the Olympic park today. He trotted across as if there were no road – with 3 cars barreling down on him. unfortunately we were car 3 in the line but got a good view of him when he vanished in the trees. Sooo cool – my first Lynx/Bobcat.

Just before we left it started snowing again - thick heavy flakes. They may have snow till June

One of the early jumpers landing around 70+m

Martin Schmitt in flight, landed in the red area – 130+m

Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes, landing past the red – 142m

Me and the Germans – Martin Schmitt on the left

Views weren’t as nice today – the snow-loaded clouds were drifting into the valley

Not my picture but that’s what it looked like when I saw the animal

The things Jeff does to not vacuum

Yesterday at work I got an email from Jeff out of the blue with the word “house” in the subject line. I was thinking we had another break-in or worse fire or whatever but no - here is what it said:

“Hmmm, I think I’m ready to take on this project…paint our place and replace the flooring…and you?”

Neither of us are big on renovations. Can’t remember when I last touched a paint brush – other than painting paddles. So of course I was curious what brought on the notion of renovations all sudden. Here is his answer:

” Well, I have been thinking about vacuuming the carpets for quite some time…even almost had the machine out one night but then you came home early so we went skiing…figuring I can put it off again if we do the reno’s.”

Friends of ours are doing a big renovation to their house – tearing down half the place in the process – but they love to do that sort of stuff. They bought the place because of being able to renovate it. Jeff and I bought our place because we could move in without doing anything – but that was more than 10 years ago. For years we have been looking at our carpet and all the stains thinking this gotta go soon. But then we were too busy paddling and training. All last winter Jeff worked really hard on his skiing – going up Cypress almost every night. But Cypress turned the lights off as of Sunday. Fishing doesn’t start till May 1. And Jeff figured we can spend the month of April renovating the place. My guess it’ll take a bit longer than that

So from now on I may not only talk about paddling and skiing on my blog but also renos!? We will need lots of help though.

Question 1 – How do you remove the base boards?