Happy Birthday To Us

Well, it's one year ago we started publishing, so that's a happy-birthday to us. Let's see where we stand since we typed "I'm back.....".

On the Facebook side, we have (as of today) 340 "likes", which represents something like 60% of our current membership of 500+. In reality, of course, it isn't so cut-and-dried. We have likes from all over the country, indeed the world including the UK and Australia (I wouldn't get too excited by any page-views from the Philippines, one suspects these are just misdirected searches for the TA's other name). On a monthly basis, about 75% of our "likes" check in with us via Facebook. So, about 45% of our members (75% of 60%) use Facebook to keep tabs on us, which makes it a reasonably effective and efficient way of reaching our membership. Then there's the multiple-reader effect; if one person in a house reads, then it reaches all members of that house.

The demographics of our FB friends mirror what we think our reality is; we are an organisation of 25-45 year-old guys being chased (in the words of ex-Pres Dan Gautreau) by the 25-45 year old women.

Onto the blog you're reading now; the TurnAround. We've published a round 100 articles (101 with this one), with just under 8000 page-views. A huge shout-out goes to all the contributors; Kurt Stevenson, Mark "Cookie Monster" Campbell, Marie-Claude Gregoire, Chris "Bighead"Milburn and Ryan MacDonald all contributing directly, whilst Ron MacDougal, Mike Parker and the crew at Live Multisport have all contributed ideas, content and the like. As we always say, this is your blog, not mine, and a sincere thank-you for making this what it is. Keep 'em coming.

It is nice to see that when ranked articles contributed by Ryan, Cookie and Chris all make the top-ten list.

The global reach of the TA is impressive. Most page-views are from Canada, with 500 from the States, >150 from the UK, 120 from Oz and a handful each from Germany, China, Denmark, Japan, Slovenia and Russia. The TA can take the credit for some of those UK hits when we were updating the blog from Worlds, but we're pretty sure we weren't anywhere near the Pacific or Eastern Europe this year.

Most of you reach the blog through a Facebook update or by googling "triathlon + nova + scotia + blog". In an interesting snap-shot, we see TNS collectively is still predominately on PCs and most of you still use Internet Exploder with a few iconoclasts on Chrome or Firefox or something even more exotic. No judgement, just saying. Very few of you use us Mobile. Is the blog limited on mobile devices or is finding TNS when out and about not of importance to you? Let us know.

Also, as you'll have noticed, we recently automated the Facebook/blog update system. We added a couple of other news-feeds we thought you might like. If you find this annoying (the ITU updates a lot) let us know and we'll think about taking that bit down.

At the recent TriCan AGM and Sport Leaders Conference we collectively found, in talks with communications professionals and other triathlon PSOs, that we could be doing so much more with social media but, and this is a bit but (no jokes please) compared to other PSOs we are kicking ass and leading the way! Nice to see TNS showing well at the national level.

In the coming year we'll try to use these tools more effectively. We've already started to use Facebook as a calendar and we'll continue to use it as a separate online calendar with race-dates and other dates (such as the awards banquet - November 5th 2011 - mark your calendars now). The blog has already spawned a second blog, that of the Provincial Training Centre; between the TA's inane spouting and Shane's altogether saner advice on the PTC blog, we'll try to keep you informed. trained, motivated and occasionally amused.

We said last year we would "sort out" trins.ca and we're still trying to do that. So, in the meantime, use FB and the blogs as your primary point of contact, and whenever anyone asks, send them to those URLs to get a taste of who we are and where we're at.

Here's to another fruitful online year!

AD

Oh; who's bringing cake?

Getting you muddy, one person at a time

Triathletes are renowned for skipping around puddles so as not to get their pretty white trainers dirty. There has been a rash of opportunities to get muddy recently, and as Mark Campbell said to us once "we're on a mission to get triathletes' shoes dirty, one athlete at a time", so let's see how we got on.

Before we get to the mud, a quick mention on Laura Keefe, who was second in her age-group at IM Florida a couple of weeks ago. She also qualified for Kona, and has the advantage of havng nearly a year to train and taper properly for it. This was also her first stab at the distance, and caps off an amazing year of racing for Laura. Congratulations.

So, like so many pre-schoolers, back to the mud!

We're please to see so many of you embracing dirt in the off-season. Firstly the Cuddly Coyote Trail Race, an event which the Advertising Standards Authority may have to get involved in given the possibly misleading and ambiguous use of the word "Trail" in the title.

The triathletes present were given a send-off by Cookie McScotch, the "award" for the Tartan Tally/Cookie Counter smack-down between Mark "Cookie Monster" Campbell and Ron"McScotch" McDougal. Ron tells us that Cookie McScotch will be travelling with him on his racing adventures from now on, kinda like the Travelocity gnome but with less hat, so we look forward to seeing Cookie in exotic locations. For now, Bikes and Beans in Tantallon will have to do;

Among the TNSers at Cuddly Coyote were Darlene Chapman and Provincial Champ Heather Doucette;

Bev Richardson, Tammy Slaunwhite and Judy Allen;

Ron MacDougal (getting taxonomically confused wearing his bluenose Bunny ears to a coyote race and what appeared to be autumn tartan camouflage) and Cyclesmith Du winner Jamie Haynes;

No adventure-type race in NS would be complete without Cookie Monster himself, here with a cookie;

Mark said he wasn't a race-organiser per se, more an ad hoc technical director. We think that his duties in this regard extended to eyeballing the course and saying "nah, not technical enough";

Here are Mark and Ron together with Steve Saunders listening to the race-briefing ("if you find a trail, well done, we didn't put one in")...

...and finally, a couple more of Ron with Brigitte Saborin and iRon Allen.

Then, of course, there's the ongoing saga of Cyclesmith's Kona Kup-A-Soup Cyclocross series. After several years, we finally got our "epic" 'cross picture. Terry Tomlin says it has a touch of the Mount Suribachiis about it and Dan Utting wanted to know what the theme-music is; we're going with Just Like You imagined by Nine Inch Nails, or maybe the Johnny Cash version of Hurt ("I hurt myself today, To see if I still feel, I focus on the pain, The only thing that's real").

We're not the only muppet getting epic down Seaview Lookoff Park each Sunday morning in the name of bicycle-portage. We saw Navy Tridents Prez Harry Reddin there last week (no photo unfortunately). Then there's Tim Brooks (we're pretty sure that's Tim under that muck, it's Tim's number-plate)....

...and Gerrad Lewin, who must be wondering why there aren't barriers across the bike course hiding a mud-pit when he races Continental Cups. You've got to admit, that would certainly enliven the race a bit!

If it looks epic, it's because it is!

Speaking of epic, slightly farther away, and presumbaly somewhat warmer, Chris Waldron took on La Ruta de los Conquistadores, a 4 day, 360km MTB stage-race in Costa Rica with 14000 m of climbing. Yikes. Makes The Moose seem flat. Anyway, he finished in 108th place with a time of 32:50, far from DFL and even got his picture on Cyclingnews.com (Chris is Plate#318)!

Chapeau Chris!

AD

Trash talking

If you scoot over to the side-bar on the right there, you will see a new graphic. Email trash-talk has spilled out into the public domain and here at the TurnAround we are only too willing to give it an airing and maybe even stoke the flame. Mwah ha ha!

In the red corner (the predominant colour of the MacDougall tartan) we have Ron "McIntrepid" MacDougall, the man who will do a marathon on any given, random Sunday purely because he hasn't done one yet this week. This guy has more dossards in a drawer at home than TNS has in it's stash at the office. He has so many numbers written on his arm over the course of the summer that his farmers' tan is less a line than a palimplest. You get our drift.

In the blue corner, we have Cookie Monster, Mark "the Mule" Campbell; past-president of TNS, multi-race-organizer and guy with the largest number of Ironman completed under his number belt than any other Nova Scotia athlete, past or present. This is the guy who does Ironman as training for other things, things like E2C and TransRockies. Not to mention doing the 280km Cabot Trail Relay in an ever-decreasing team.

The smack-down is quite simple; Tartan Tally or Cookie Counter?

If you don't mind, the TurnAround will act as TD for the event. Normal rules apply. We'd like to see sportsmanlike conduct; no spitting, gratuitous elbows, coarse language, blows below the belt or sticks in the spokes. To qualify for the counter/tally, the "event" must have issued a bib-number, bike-number, body-marking, timing chip, Popsicle stick or the sport-appropriate equivalent. We'll accept anything as long as this is done. A multi-day event will be counted as multiple events as long as there is a break (or maybe a sleep) between the events. Transrockies; six legs in six days, would be six events. E2C, a 24 hr orienteering event run off in one go will be one event. In the event of a disagreement, the gray area will be resolved by the Competition Jury, namely by polling all of you.

In case the Tartan Tally and the Cookie Counter are tied come December, we'll need a decider; a Ron vs Mark cage-fight perhaps. Or maybe a time-trial! Or competitive coffee drinking? We're leaning toward a combination cage/coffee/TT but we'll let you decide if it comes to that!

Yes, we acknowledge that by merely ("merely", ha!) counting the number of races, and not the type of race, we are giving equal weight to, say, a 5 K and an Ironman. Here at the TurnAround we are not distance snobs, and recognise racing for racing's sakes. It doesn't have to be long to be a meaningful sporting achievement.

At the time of publication it's (we think) 14-12 to the Tartan Tally, with Mark making a swift comeback after the Cabot Trail to do both Cyclesmith and the Muffin run. So good luck guys and may the best man win. Plus, it's going to make an awesome end-of-season graphic!

AD

Hoots mon....

Well folks, the Sunday morning lie-in is officially history for another eight months; race-season is here. The Hypothermic Half or the Back To Basics 8-miler will have marked the first time most of us would have had the opportunity to pin on a race number this year and we know many of you did. Coming up this Sunday is the Moose run, but before we get to that, this seems like a good idea to look at the "How Many Races Did You Do Last Year?" poll.

This was for any type of race, not just tris or dus; you could count running races, bike races, adventure races, wheatever you liked. As far as we were concerned if they gave you a dossard or they wrote on your arm; it counted.

The most popular answer was six-to-ten, with just over 40% of you doing this number of races, followed by ca. 35% with between one to five and then a few hardy souls with over ten, with at least one person at twenty (pers comm). Ron MacDougall clearly didn't vote; by our tally he added at least twenty-five dossards to his already impressive collection; that guy has his own personal sponsor for safety-pins (and possibly ibuprofen)! We understand Ron has heard of the notion of the "taper" but bears no truck with it, and to be honest, it seems to suit him well.

These data support the data we have in the office for TNS sanctioned events, with a majority of members doing less than five races in the series, although last year Ryan Kemp did a knee-shattering ten events (which considering we only sanction a dozen or so is a huge number). Chuck in a Bluenose, Cabot Trail and the Rum Runners and there's your six-to-ten!

So coming into this year, how many races do you anticipate doing? We know that you won't have mapped out in excruciating detail what you'll be doing in the 3rd weekend of October (PEI marathon? NSAC Homecoming 5K?) but you'll have a rough idea of how you think the year will pan out, what your goals are, your A-races and B-races, so let us know. Same caveat applies; if they're going to give you something to pin on or print on your arm and contralateral leg, it counts!

So, back to the Moose. Of course, we can never say "Moose" without thinking "Loose", "Aboot" and "Hoose"...



As any with confirmed survivor of the eighties, we had to have the Bad Manners version, but for you traditionalists out there, here's the original Lord Rockingham's XI version....



and if you think you can understand that, then try Donald Where's Your Troosers.



And that's the easy-to-understand version!

Anyway, back to the Moose. It's traditionally a Boston warm-up but many Bluenosers test their form here too. The Moose won't tell you if you're on form for that spring marathon, but it will tell you if you are not. It's a pretty low-key event; no chips, just some poor sod from RNS with a stop-watch and a clip-board, you'll get a dossard but it will likely be from the 2005 race-series or something. Mark Stein will probably be giving it the usual though, although the music may be off in deference to the neighbours (how are we supposed to race without a bit of "Gonna Fly Now"?).

The Hoose this Moose is Loose in is the Buffalo Lodge in Eastern Passage (here). The RNS website has it starting at 10:00. It's free to enter, but a donation is gratefully accepted.

It's an out and back, starting from the Lodge. There's a little detour around a subdivsion to get the distance in at the beginning. Hang a left on the Cow Bay Road, pass the eponymous Moose and carry on to nearly Rainbow Haven where you'll turn left onto Bissett Road. Carry on to the turn, which is at the lot where they film the Tailer Park Boys. Then come back the way you came. The terrain is gently rolling, apart from the bits which are quite viscously rolling. It's historically windy. The last four editions have been under sun, but it has been known to snow. Despite it's low-key status, there are four water stops, at roughly 8 km, 13 km and 17 km and 23 km, but bring your own magic potion, it's usually just water.


After running all those rollers, you can be a bit punch-drunk come the end of the race. The Moose is what you're looking for. In case you manage to miss a huge fibreglass moose, look for the windmill instead. Failing that there's a water table here too. All of these signs tell you that you are nearly home. It's not the Citgo sign, but it's nice to know what you're aiming for. It's about a kilometre from the moose/birdchopper/watertable to the intersection, where it's a left and another kilometer to the finish.


Be warned, there is a little uphill here just after the junction that can be a nasty little sting in the Moose's tail. Take a leaf out of the TA's book should you be in a battle here; don't take the lead too early, bide your time, just let buddy/buddyess do the work up the hill (about 500m) and as soom as the road starts to flatten out and turn to the left, punch it.

This is a race that triathletes have really made their own recently. Well over 20% of the field are triathletes, and to be honest, it is often the first time many of us see one another after a winter of long dark solo runs and hours in the basement on the trainer. Honestly, sometimes the craic is more a part of this event than the race itself sometimes.


Rami "The Rocket" Bardessy and Denise "Pocket Rocket" Robson have a tendancy to win with course records (last year, he made it look so easy, at least the bastard could have broken a sweat, or made a show of it feeling hard), but behind them the racing is in earnest. We understand that Rami is going to line up this year and that the trash-talking has already started in earnest.


Behind Rami, well Ray Morehead, Harry Neynens and Terry Molloy have all performed well here and are all candiates for the T-shirt. Or maybe a ringer has moved into the area over the winter and is going to put twenty minutes into us all. Perhaps Denise Robson will girl the whole field for her first overall win in Nova scotia. She's due an overall (no pressure Denise).

After Denise, the ladies' race was very interesting last year, with Stacy Juckett and Marie-Claude Gregoire taking it down to the wire with 2nd place overall (or first regular person) going to Stacy, but only after some late final mile action.

We also understand that TNS banquet guest speakers Dave Nevitt and Ray Williams are going to do a double Moose (a herd of Moose? A mega-Moose? A tera-Moose? Meeses? we can't decide). Any bets on if the Cookie Monster will do the same?

So, instead of doing yet another long run around the pennisuala, why don't we see you at the Moose this weekend? Sunday at ten......