Hello Everybody!
Well it’s been 2 weeks since I last wrote, and while that is nothing compared to the last time a C4C left made an entry, it still feels like a while. Last week was a recovery week for us after some hard weeks of training in March. I decided that I still needed to do some hard work though, so every day I would do one hard, quality session on the water, and take the rest of the day to recover and rest. I think this worked out well, as at the end of the week I felt very refreshed mentally and physically, but still felt very sharp on the water. During some of the afternoons off, Gab, Morty and I rented a stand up paddle board, which was loads of fun and something I will definitely get more into in the future.
To finish off our rest week, Emilie and I headed down to Miami and Fort Lauderdale for some time away from The Pines. Nice beaches and some great dinners were had by all. The veal shank I had (as well as the pork shank from the German restaurant we went to earlier this trip) made me realize that the shank cut of meat is probably my absolute favourite when cooked properly. It was so succulent and tasty that it made me feel sorry for vegetarians everywhere. Although I’ll admit that if I was trying to convert one, I probably wouldn’t start out by giving them a calf’s calf!!! HA! Oh man, veal shank is a calf’s calf, I just realized that as I was writing and had to take a minute there to recompose myself. Great stuff.
Ok, so after that nice recovery week, we really revved it up this past week with a lot of hard workouts on and off the water. We did some 1000m testing on Tuesday that went really well. I did one of my best times ever and the curve on my lactate graph had a bigger curve than Marty McSorley’s stick in the ’93 cup finals against Les Habs. Let’s hope Jacques Demers doesn’t call for a measurement…
What? You don’t remember that? Stanley Cup Finals, Game 2, 1993, Montreal Coach Jacques Demers called for a measurement on Kings defencemen Marty McSorley’s stick, leading to power play goal by Montreal. It lost the Kings the game and they went on to lose 4 straight, robbing The Great One of his 5th Stanley Cup.
Well, if you don’t know old NHL stories, I can’t go on all day telling you about them, so I’ll get back on track.
The rest of the week was tough, with the wind seeming to come directly from the side every day, making quick work of our shoulders and thus causing the thawing out of every ice pack in our freezer. Hopefully I’ll be able to lift my arm again by Monday…
Today we did 250m testing, which was how we like to say in the paddling world “really hard”. I was paired with the blue guy who is standing next to me on the homepage of this website. It was pretty fast and we really got our lactate pumping, but not as much as the champ Aruss (check homepage, the guy on the other side of me suffering from jaundice or gout, not quite sure which), whose millimoles per litre of lactate was just short of the seventh prime number. Nice work buddy. This week also marked the return of poker to The Pines resort when upwards of 30 players from around the world met at Hoagies for a tournament of Texas Hold ‘Em. While my luck was nowhere to be found, the Mortman represented C4C well, making it to the final 4 and making the game more enjoyable for all who attended as usual. Gab’s fate was similar to mine, and Aruss suffered an embarrassing loss to Genevieve. Nice work Ge, the T-shirt looks great. The champ ended up being Attila, as in the Hun, but more commonly know at Hoagies simply as Todd. Him, Kyle and Aruss are off in an even bigger tournament today, and hopefully with no Genevieve to call his every bet, he’ll have a bit more luck.
In other news, the Edmonton Oilers are up one game over the Chicago Blackhawks in the Conference Final of my Xbox NHL 08 season with Forward Mark Oldershaw following up his Hart-winning regular season with an equally impressive playoff performance.
Also, this just in, I am extremely hungry and am off to find dinner somewhere as it seems my room mates have left me to fend for myself this evening. Shall it be Chinese, Pizza, or some sort of shank? All three sounds good to me. Until next time, thanks for reading.