A Very Sad Day

I received a phone call on my cell from home during the actual Ironman Hawaii race as I was standing on the side of the road on the bike course, part way up the hill to Hawi in Hawaii, that I had been dreading. Our dog Maxwell had not been well - severe arthritis had made him almost immobile, plus he had a serious growth of some sort in one of his elbow joints that was causing him significant pain. He had done further damage to the elbow just by trying to get up and now was totally immobile. He was 12+ years old and our Vet had said that perhaps it was time. I was completely overcome with emotion standing on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere on the Kona Coast, but I knew that it was the right thing to do. I felt terrible that I was half way around the world at this critical point, but I knew that he was in good hands at home.

Max, had a great life. He was my running buddy years ago. He had swum and fetched sticks and balls in both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and just about every other body of water he ever walked or run by. His preferred state like most Labs was, wet, muddy and cold! He was loved by many in a large and extended family. He in turn loved everyone he ever met. He was gentle, friendly, and reliable and always there for me or anyone else in the family. I will miss him dearly.

Assorted Images From Ironman Hawaii

No time to write anything to involved now ans time is tight. Tomorrow is the big day. The 30th Ironman Hawaii will start at 7:00 local time. I have loaded up some pictures and comments to give a bit of flavour for the past few days.

Paolina's bike in race-ready mode. All tuned up, dialed in and ready to go!


Heather Fuhr, Paula Newby-Fraser and Peter Reid - Ironman Hawaii winners all, signing autographs at the Expo. Pete says he has been asked numerous times if he is racing! I can confirm absolutely, that the three time IMH Champis enjoying retirement and has no plans of a come-back.


Paolina, our friend David Ahrens from Toronto and then perhaps the three best coaches in the sport of triathlon - Barrie Shepley, Joel Filliol, and Paulo Sousa!


If it's Thursday before IM, it must be time for the underpants run. It's a long story that I will have to save for another day. Here's Paolina with Louis and Elvis!


Even though she is racing, my wonderful wife knows the medicinal value and recovery properties of a nice Merlot.


Yours truly, relaxing with a Longboard Ale, a nice local brew at the Kona Inn, the spot to watch the sunset in Kailua with a nice drink.


Every morning starts with a big mug of Kona Coffe


Cliff English and last year's second plave finisher Sam McGlone(unfortunatly out with a foot injury) at the morning swim.


Paolina hamming it up for the camera before our swim.


Morning swim scene and it is quite the scene!


Paolina greeting a cruise ship as it comes into Kailua bay. When these folks come ashore for tours, they must think this super-fit spandx clad crowd of Ironman athletes to be rather strange!


Time to check the bike in!


Paolina and her Timex team-mate Rachel Ross.

Another Kona Update

Busy day today in Kona at Ironman Hawaii.

I met with Jeff Keil, from Colorado, one of Nineteen's sponsored age-group athletes at the morning swim. Jeff has been one of the top age-group finishers here in Kona in the past and we are proud to be working with him this year. He's going to be wearing one of the new Nineteen Frequency SS( Speed Skins) in the race, and I needed to get him his suit.

Very busy down at the pier this morning. Bumped into all kinds of people that I know - endless list. I was planning on being there for about 30 minutes but this easily stretched into an hour and a half really easily. Chrissie Wellington, who won the women's race last year, and is the huge favourite to wins again this year, and possibly challenge some of the all time best course times, of the great Paula Newby-Fraser, was at the pier this morning and caused a bit of a frenzy with the media, other athletes and gawkers. This was as about as paparazzi as it gets in the sport of triathlon!

Paolina and I met up with my friend Joe Foster. The plan was for Paolina to ride with Joe out from Waikiloa out to part way up to Hawi and back. The ride went well and it gave me the opportunity to travel along in the car and pass up water bottles and encouragement. The ride went well and it let Paolina see some of the more technical parts of the course.

Lot's of other riders out on the bike course near town and also out on the section that we were on as well. We saw Torbjorn Sindballe, being motor-paced by someone on a scooter out near the look-out past the airport. He was moving along very fast.

It was the Parade of Nations tonight and Paolina took part with her Team Timex team- mates tossing out Timex Swag for the crowds on the parade route.

I bumped into three time Ironman Hawaii Champ Peter Reid this morning. It was good to see Pete again. He was back here in Kona doing some promo work for Specialized and leading a group ride this afternoon for people test riding Specialized bikes.

As some of you know I am working on a story on the changes in the Ironman Hawaii even in the last 15 years since I was last here 15 years ago. Below is a list of some of the things I know for a fact are very different based on what I have seen in the past few days:

- No underpants run – People actually did the whole race in a speedo! Seriously!

- No internet – you had to wait a month until Inside Triathlon and Triathlete came out with there November issues

- No Cervelo – Phil White & Gerard Vrooman were poor post Graduate Engineering Master’s students at McGill University

- No Slowtwitch – See no Internet!

- No Ford – The sponsor back then was Izusu, I think!

- No wind – ’93 set the standard for calm and cool by IMH Standards – it even rained in Hawi that year.

- No IMLP, IMFL, IMCA, IMAZ,

- No 70.3 races!

- No need to enter IM races a year ahead of time!
- No Compression socks, no powermeters, no super aero-frames, no salt pills

. . . . . and so on.

More photos on the day. Thanks for reading:


Testing the new Nineteen SS(Speed Skin) - it's fast!


View of the Queen K Hwy from the car - it's not that scenic!

Paolina and our friend Joe Foster on the recon ride past Waikiloa
This is were Nineteen wetsuits got it's name - Hwy 19 or the Queen K Hwy. Over 80% of the Ironman Hawaii bike and runs courses take place on Hwy 19, but most call it the Queen K.
Paolina's Timex team bike in race trim.

Scene from the Ironman Hawaii Parade of Nations.

Team Timex Pre-Parade strategy session

Ironman Revisted - Fleck's Back In Kona

It's still the same. You step out of the plane on the tarmac at the Kona airport and that hot, humid air hits you. You first thought is, how can I ever do an Ironman in these conditions..

This time I am not racing, I am hear supporting my wonderful Wife Paolina. However, for me it's a bit of a trip down memory lane. I have not been to the big Island since 1993 when I raced here in Ironman Hawaii for the 2nd, and as it turned out last time. There have been a lot of changes in the event and in the sport, in the intervening 15 years and I hope to chronicle some of those in a story that I am writing for Triathlon Magazine Canada to be published in the December issue. Fifteen years does not seem like a long time, but in a young sport such as triathlon, that is half a life-time ago! We have come a long way since then.

It may surprise many these days, that the sport of triathlon was in a bit of a slump in the early 90's after the buzz and hype of the early years in the '80's had worn off. Races did not sell out a year ahead of time!

Stay tuned and I will try and go over some of the many other changes as we work our way through Race Week.

We arrived late on Saturday night and immediately went to bed. It had been a long day travelling from Toronto. Sunday proved to be a bit of a recovery day for both Paolina and I after the 20 hour trip here, so we laid low and went for an easy swim in the afternoon. Already Kailua is a-buzz for the race this year as athletes are flooding into town.

This morning we have been to the Morning swim and have met many old friends and some new ones. Paolina is amazed at the clarity of the water in Kailua Bay and that you can see all kinds of fish while you swim. At first this freaked her out a bit but after two swims, I think she likes it. She is now out for a ride on the Queen K Hwy with some friends of her's from her Team - the Timex Pro Triathlon team. I am in the Media Room doing some writing at catching up on emails.

Last night it was a real pleasure to have a few drinks with some old friends, while watching the sun set at the Kona Inn. Apparently, some of this group have been doing this every night of race week for 26 years! Lot's of tall tales around the table.

Below are a few pics of the first day and a bit.


Paolina Checking out The Swim Start

The view from Lava Java having breakfast


Team Timex Heading Out for Ride.

Breakfast At Lava Java

Interbike Report

This Interbike report will have no pictures of funky aero bikes or gadgets, so you can exit now if that's what you are here for. There's lots of threads with cool bike pics at www.slowtwitch.com I am writing this up, so that those outside the business may get an idea of what it's like for a small company exhibiting at a show like Interbike in Las Vegas.

Tuesday

- Arrive from Toronto around noon.

- Booth set-up on Tuesday afternoon went well. Had a bit of a hassle getting past the Teamster folks at the back loading dock. We have one of those portable booth-in-the-box set-ups that we just roll in and hang up our samples on.

- Retired to my hotel room to further review dealer numbers and notes. It's going to be a hectic first two days as we are completely booked up with meetings and I want to have as much info as I can on each account in my head.

- Grab dinner at a Resturant in Harrah's with a colleague who had gone to the Demo Day and I get all the updates on that.

- Go to bed reasonably early as I know the next three days are going to be very long and tiring.

Wednesday

- Show opens and we are right into it with meetings with customers and prospects.

- We over-hear all the noise down the aisle about the Cervelo P4 launch but, we carry on talking wetsuits.

- As usual it's way too cold in the hall. Why is the AC at the Sands set to Arctic?

- Meetings, and more meetings. Even a few drop-bys which is nice.

- I bump into Gerard Voormen and Herbert Krabel enroute to get a quick drink of water( voice going horse already from dry air, AC and talking - not a good sign) I have a spare few minutes, so Gerard, Herbert, and I don't talk P4 which is right there in front of us. Instead, we have an entertaining, but brief discussion of the fashion forwardness of shirts tucked in or out for men. For the record: Krabel - cool Slowtwitch T - un-tucked in. Voormen - dress shirt tucked in. Fleck - Dress shirt un-tucked.

- Back to the booth and more meetings.

- Herbert Krable drops by the Nineteen booth in a rare lull in the action and snaps a pic of the new Nineteen Frequency SS. Pic goes up on ST later on. Thank you Herbert.

- Simon Whitfield drops by to say "Hi" but I am conducting a meeting with two dealers so we acknowledge each other with a head-nod and a Thumbs Up. One of the dealers wants to know who that was???

- Show wraps up for the day and as we walk by the Cervelo booth we stop and chat with some more of the team there that we know( Both Cervelo and Nineteen are in Toronto) I finally have a closer look at the P4 - looks cool. Learn that Cervelo has formed an R & D allienace with top Canadian Wheel-Chair racer Geoff Adams to make cutting edge wheel chairs - very neat. Meet Geoff for the first time.

- Onto the Competitor Group Party at V. Open bar with many key tri and bike industry insiders = many very interesting and entertaining discussions( some/much of which can't be printed here!!!) Thank CEO John Duke and our rep Sean Watkins for the party. Compliment Sean on his funky head-ware - a plaid poor-boy cap.

- Introduce someone to Dan Empfield, who did not know who Dan was and, I tell my friend, that we would not be here doing what we are doing if not for Dan - He is the Godfather!! Thank you Dan. We are all grateful. Seriously.

- Off to dinner with a customer at Tao. Great food and cool music.

- There is talk of doing some gambling, but we decide at 11:30pm that our day is done.

- Back at the hotel room we get the report on the Cross race from someone, the Lance news of the day and some other stuff.

- Fall hard asleep shortly after mid-night

Thursday

- Really a repeat of Wed. Mostly chock-a-block with meetings all day.

- High -light of the day: Two dealers drop of finished pre-season orders. Booking season is off to a great start!

- Lance siting. By chance, I am walking by the Oakley booth and just as I am walking by the entrance Lance pops out with body guards all around, but we still pass almost shoulder to shoulder.

- Bump into Gerard V. again. I note that he has his dress shirt is untucked today and I compliment him on how it looks!!

- Tribe Multisport drops by for their meeting. Kevin W. and the team from Tribe seem to do this show right. They go all out! It's Las Vegas baby!!

- See Andy Ording from Zipp and we have a quick catch-up chat near one of the concession stands as I grab a quick snack and drink. Andy sponsored me with Zipp wheels, years ago when Zipp was just starting out. One of the nicest guys in the business.

- AC still arctic in the Sands convention center. Throat and voice getting worse. More than a few folks walking around with jackets on!!

- On a bathroom break I meet up by chance with Whitfield. We quickly catch up. He's going to be on Royal Canadian Air Farce( a Canadian Comedy show) later on this week. I say that I will see if I can come to the taping. My son loves the show. Simon says to contact him if I have a problem getting tickets.

- Day wraps up and we head to the Cervelo Test Team Launch party, ironically back at Tao. Good food, good drink and more interesting discussions with a number of industry insiders, reps and others.

- Walking back to my hotel I spot Cid Cardoso Jnr and the team from Inside Out Sports at Chipotle( they had been at the Cervelo event to). We all sit down and have a good catch-up over burritos. They are going to the USA Crit Champs and offer me a drive. So off we go.

- Back from the Crits by about mid-night, but run into another customer in a bar at Harrah's and we share a night-cap and then after that I hit the hay by 1:00am


Friday

- At the Nineteen booth more of the same, but mercifully, booked through only until 2:00 today then more or less done.

- Feet are starting to get a bit sore. Same for the back

- Super Freelance photo and writer-guy Jay Prashun drops by to have a look at the Frequency SS. Thanks Jay. Again, I am with a customer, so I let Jay shoot what he wants and we agree to get together for lunch in Kona in a week and a half.

- Dean Jackson from Blue Seventy wanders over for a chat as things start to slow down. I should note that a number of the key Tri vendors( Cervelo, Felt, Scott, Blue Seventy, nuun, Orca, Orbea, 2XU, Rocket Science, and our selves are all within a very short walk on the massive Sands convention area show show floor - sort of an informal Tri-Zone). Shows winding down so Dean and I have a chance to talk about the wetsuit business and where we are all at. Good talk with a good competitor and the wetsuit business leader.

- Spy Bryan Rhodes in the aisles some where and I congratulate him on his IMC win. We talk IMH. and Rhodsy gives me the inside run-down on who is fit and who is not for the top men. Bryan thinks he has a great chance at IMH. Go Rhodsy!

- On Friday afternoon as the attendees start to leave, there tends to be more booth to booth and Exhibitor to Exhibitor chat. One of our neighbours, BigFish, make these very cool folding bikes - that people can take on buses and trains. They are from Slovenia and looking for business in North America. I give her a few leads of shops in the Toronto area that specialize in commuting bikes. We also talk about triathlon in Slovenia - it's growing rapidly. She shares with me a few key tri contacts over there.

- A customer who I was not expecting to see does drop by, and would like a detailed Nineteen PK session for a couple of his staff, who are along with him who are new, so I happily ablidge.

- The show really starts to wind down as we get closer to closing time at 6:00pm. I start to make notes, review each meeting and sort through the stack of business cards that I have in my left pocket. Only one no-show in three days of meetings and a good number of walk-bys. Perfect!

- At 5:30 everyone is starting to break-down their booths so we start in. Takes about an hour to pack everything up for us, just like the set up was. Then it's off to the Airport to catch the flight home.

- Tex-Mex for dinner and a few beers at the airport then the over-night flight back to Toronto.

Home now and already starting to get orders in for next year and follow-up on new leads that we dug up at the show. All-in-All it was a great show. I really did not get to see much of the show, but that's OK. Key thing is growing Nineteen's business and on that front it was very successful.

Sorry for the long report. Just thought some folks might like a slightly different perspective on Interbike than more aero bike pics :-)

Here are some pics of the Interbike Trade Show:
Our little spot at the Interbike Trade Show

Breaking the booth up and packing up.

Shopping cart of outlets from booths

Cleaning The Mind - Keeping It Simple

The financial news is not good. Gas prices are all over the map. The whole North American continent is in the midst of an election - Canada and the U.S. It's a time of extreme uncertainty. It's not the end of the year yet, we still have over three months to go, but in a way I have already turned the corner and am working away on 2009. In this business, the sporting goods business, that's the way it works. In light of that, I have just cleaned off my desk - time to start fresh and focus on the task at hand, which at this time of year is getting our ( Nineteen Wetsuits) information out to all our customers and to as many prospects as we can. So despite all the uncertainty and variables that are going on with the economy, with the elections and in the greater world, it's nice to just zero-in and focus on one thing - building our Nineteen wetsuit business and focusing on our sales and business development. At times like this it's best to keep things simple. That I find sharpens my focus and allows me to really get done what needs to get done.

It's been a good year. Our sales grew by over 50% this year. Based on conversations I have had with many dealers who are both customers of ours and good prospects, I have a good feeling that we could equal our growth this year in 2009. That's very encouraging. However we can't wait around for that to happen, we need to go out and make it happen - by talking to customers and prospects, making proposals and receiving orders. It helps that we will see many key people in the business next week in Las Vegas at the big Interbike Trade Show ( www.interbike.com ). Trade Shows get mixed responses these days when you bring the subject up with people, but I figure you will never have that many key people all under one roof at one time in a business - make what you can of it. Many go to Trade Shows, set up their booths and wait for people to come by. This approach rarely works. I have spent the last month booking meetings with many key customers and prospects. We have over 40 meetings set up. For some people, it's the only time all year that we get to see them personally. More time with customers and prospects is always good thing.

We have some very exciting additions to the Nineteen line for next year that we will be launching at Interbike - some very cool stuff actually that I know we are going to sell a lot of. Check back in, in a short while and I will have more information on some of the new Nineteen Product for 2009.

That's it for now. I will try and make the blog posts more regular.

I Knew That I Would Not Be Good At This

Where does the time. I knew that I would not be good at this. I had admired other peoples blogs from afar for some time. Somehow they always seemed to have some snappy well written post up on their blog or something else entertaining almost every day. I will fully admit that it's been nuts recently with work, with Paolina getting ready for Ironman Lanzarote, me squeezing in the odd ride here and there, Matthews soccer practices and games also trying to keep up with all the social networking on Slowtwich, Facebook, Imeem, and then Paula Newby Fraser sends me an invite to join some new triathlon dedicated social networking site called IamTri or something like that. It's being run by the WTC - the people that run the Ironman races. Looks interesting, but it's just one more thing to get to check out and do each day before . . . . . getting to my blog which I have been terrible at updating.

Work: Nineteen Wetsuits

Currently we can't make them fast enough. Orders are flooding in and we are still signing up new dealers. So far we are over 50% ahead of where we were last year at this time. We have had to, at great expense, air-freight in our last two shipments from Hong Kong where our wetsuits are made, just so that we could fill back order and have stock to fill current orders. In this business it's one of those good problems to be having. I would like at this time to thank all of our wonderful retail customers who have really stepped up this year for Nineteen and also the end-user customers who have bought Ninteen wetsuits this year. Thank you to all of you. The picture to the right is of Tereza Macel who was the first woman out of the water yet again - this time at Ironman Arizona. She's wearing our Nineteen Frequency model. We have sponsored Tereza for a few years now and she has been great to work with. Unformtunatly Tereza just broke her arm in a freakish accident whike out running - we wish her a speedy recovery.

I was asked in an interview, recently why Nineteen has been so successful. I am not sure there is one thing. There are a number of market forces, that in addition to our hardwork and our products great quality that are all coming together to move things forward. It's very exciting to see the progress. As a life-long sales-person, this is what you live for.

IM Lanzarote
The great news is that Paolina finished a strong 6th place in a very competitive women's field. I am so proud of her. She trained really hard for this. Went in with almost no racing yet this year. Travelled a long way to a strange place, and did very well on what is generally regarded as the toughest IM race course in the world. As if they all are not hard. The picture on the right is of Polly doing some rather unorthodox training for the race. It is typically very hot in the Canary Islands and it's not been very warm here this spring. What to do.?Set the bike up on the trainer in the bathroom. Put a heater in there and get the room up to 30C. Do some high intensity cycling sessions( 90 minutes tops) to get used to the heat. Whatever it was, it worked out well as the heat on race day was the leat of her concerns. Polly got a spot for the Ironman World Championships in October this year in Hawaii. So looks like another trip for her and hopefully for me to to another hot, humid and exotic Island.

Polly also received a nice new bike fram from the fine folks at Trek Bicycles - one of her sponsors on the Timex Triathlon team. We had it built up and detailed just in time for a few last training rides before heading off to Lanzarote.

What else is going on?

Matthew has been playing up a storm on the soccer pitch. His team the Aurora Stingers are off to a great start this year. With a nunber of wins. League play has started and will go all summer. Aurora is a hot-bed for youth soccer. They have so many kids that are good at Matts level that they have two Rep/Club teams. It's amazing to watch the level of skill at this level( 10 & 11 year olds)
At right is Matthew at a training camp that he went to at Bethal College in Wheeling W. Virginia

The Victoria Day Weekend was designated as a Severn River Cottage work weekend. Unfortunately the weather did nit cooperate and it was rainy, cold an windy all weekend long. We distched plans to put a new roof on the cottage, in light of the weather - for roofing you really need sunny clear conditions for 3 - 4 days and we opte to start a refurbishment of sort of the Boathouse. It desperatly needed new decking, so we started on that only to discover that some of the support beams right at the water line where in poor shape. Suddenly, a relativly easy a straight-forward job, just became very complicated. My bother-in-law, my Brother with the aid of my Step-Father and myself came up with a plan and it all fell into place. We replaced the beams, re-engineered the deck substructure to better facilitate drainage and then got at the decking. Unforntunately we ran out of time to get all the decking done. It will have to wait for another weekend. Sorry. No pictures. My brother John took some on his Camera phone. Everyone fogot the "good" cameras. Edit - Now we have a picture!

Finally, I did the first Cyclissimo bike club race of the season on the weekend. The picture to the right is of me racing last year at the KW Classic race. I had no expectations going in. "Training" has been sporadic at best, but I managed to hang in there with the strong guys until the end, but was dusted fairly badly in the sprint. Received a nice compliment from JP the winner, for a nice lead-out on the final run in to the sprint at the finish and for so much work during the race to keep the pace high and form the final break away. That's bike racing - sometimes the real hero is not the one across the finish line first! :)

That's it for now I need to get back to some writing and editing that I am doing for the Subaru Triathlon Series Program.