I decided to get out for a run in the cold sunny weather today and ran around Ile Saint-Louis:

It was a crisp beautiful autumn day. I was the only runner in shorts, and one of the only runners out at ALL. There don't appear to be many runners in Paris. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

On the way back home, I ran through a back alley and found this great cathedral.

And a few blocks from home there is a little shop with this sign. I liked the sign and thought that it was worth taking a photo.

There are a lot of tiny little shops near our place that have art in them. Wait what on earth is that in the window??

It's a bust of Michael Keaton's Batman. Creepy.

Aujourd'hui était le jour 3 ici à Paris. Olivier et moi réellement avons obtenu de prendre le petit déjeuner ensemble, alors il se dirige pour travailler, et je suis allé au loin au yoga de Bikram. Il y a un petit studio impressionnant juste près de notre endroit, droite autour du coin d'un magasin de Apple.

(photos courtesy of www.yogabikramparis.com)

Alors je suis allé de nouveau au au braver les bas-côtés de BHV pour trouver un fusible pour le transformateur que j'ai fait sauter, et pour acheter quelques dishtowels. Je suis parvenu à diriger ma voie par ces essais et tout le personnel était très utile aussi longtemps que j'ai souri. Beaucoup. C'est un fait que des humains sont câblés pour sourire sur la commande pour long car vous les rayonnez un sourire et puis leur demandez de vous aider à parler meilleur français, ils semblent répondre bien.

Maintenant de nouveau au travail sur mon timezone américain du nord !

Oh yes, a little promotion for Vonage. I brought my Vonage adapter here to Paris so that I could have all of my North American phone numbers ring here. And it's working perfectly. So my SF and Vancouver numbers all ring my phone here and I can call out just like when I'm at home in Vancouver. It's a bit surreal actually how well it works. When did VoIP actually start to work?? It used to be a nightmare.

Technorati Tags: paris, bikramyoga, puppy, travel

I'll keep this short or I'll get all sappy. I love hanging out with this group and pushing our bodies and suffering together. It's the best thing I could possibly do with my time. Thanks guys (and girls).

I am signed up to race with a friend of mine for this year's BC Bike Race, a 450-500km, 7 day stage race on mountain bikes that goes from Victoria to Whistler from July 1st to July 7th. We put together a blog so that people can follow along if they want as we train. Our team name (and blog name) is Team Sport Goofy. Come and join us for the ride!

Thanks to Ean and Sibylle for throwing a great Club Fat Ass party - the Capilano Canyon Night Run. About 40 30 of us gathered at the William Griffin Rec Center tonight to do the run.


Sibylle threw me out of the short distance group, so Blue and I joined the tail end of the long course team. Thankfully Doug was at the end doing sweep. Then I stopped to wait for Doug...and lost the group entirely. So I joined up with Ryan and Ellie...and we got lost. We backtracked and found Craig who led us....onto the short course.

Finally we intercepted the Long Coursers, lost Ryan and Ellie to the LC team and Craig, Blue and I ran on through the night in relative solitude enveloped in fog. When Craig and I were almost done the course, I was attacked by a pack of coyotes that ripped at my flesh. One by one, I beat them off me, and ran to catch up with Craig. [Update: Apparently somebody at the party spread rumours that there were no coyotes and that in fact I tripped into a prickle bush that tore up my leg and hands after doing my business in the bush - the nerve of some people!]

The run ended about 1h 30 min later back at William Griffin, and was followed by a quick trip to soak in the hot tub at Harry Jerome. Lo and behold, the hot tub was out of order. Or they saw us coming all covered in mud and decided to put the sign up to stop us from muddying up their hot tub!

So, never a group to be daunted by such a thing, we created a game of six person, four ball murderball in the pool, much to the dismay of the lone swimmer in Lane 1 who we seemed to graze more often than he wanted.

Murderball was followed by a fantastic potluck at Ean and Sibylle's place. Unfortunately it looked like it was full swing when I had to hoof it back to get to bed so that I could get up early for a ride with a buddy.

Thanks for the great evening everybody!

Boy, you have to do a lot of work to escape the cloud and get near the sun when you live in Vancouver! But it was worth it.

My friend Michael and I met at Seymour Mountain at 10am on Sunday morning. Even from the parking lot, we could see a thick white cloud cover blanketing Vancouver and Burnaby. We headed up the mountain, stripping layers as we went and it didn't take long before we were down to our single layer shirts.

There were lots of people up there skiing, boarding, snowshoeing, and enjoying the sun. We had lunch on top of second peak, lay in the sun for a while, and then ran, slid, and fell down the mountain as fast as we could. Note to self: wear pants with a stronger material on the bum...

Thanks for a great day you two!

Back at the beginning of July 2006, I signed up at a new gym called Crossfit here in Vancouver. I heard about them from a friend of mine who is in the emergency response team in a municipal police force and he had recommended them based on some information he had read. As you'll see from my previous post, it wasn't a good start. I didn't even make it through their assessment and was out for the count for five days.

But this was something that seemed like it was a good fit. It is designed to be useful in every day life. It had lots of variety. And it was a cross between Olympic lifting, gymnastics, and sprinting / rowing. I thought...any gym that has rings and bars and ropes hanging from the ceiling and lets you play like a kid is my kind of gym.

Well, I promised them and myself I would do a six-month review and here it is. Crossfit Vancouver rocks! The owner Craig Patterson and his excellent team are a blast to work with and are obviously really excited to be doing what they're doing and it shows. I had a great time, suffering alongside my fellow Crossfitters this past six months and here are some of the results so far:

July 1, 2006:


Dec 2006 (six months later):


When I did my assessment at the beginning of July, I pulled a neck muscle trying to do my fifth pullup onto the bar and had to quit for a week. Six months later, I did a Murph (1 mile run, 300 squats, 200 pushups, 100 pullups, and 1 mile run) in 48 minutes! And for another workout, I managed 60 ring dips and 60 pullups in 30 minutes. There is no way I would have been able to do any of this six months ago. So...does it work? Yep. But I would say that it requires consistency, close attention to diet, and LOTS of sleep.  I CAN'T WAIT to see what we can do together this year! I'll be sure to file another update at the end of June 2007 to let you know how it's going.

The best part about this gym is the people. The trainers are focussed on our success. Everybody who shows up is there to push themselves hard and to support each other. We workout together in groups so there's accountability. And what other gym gets you to climb ropes, flip tractor tires in the snow, play on Olympic rings, learn how walk like a bear or a duck, and make you workout so hard you're not sure if you should pass out or throw up? What's not to like?

If anybody else wants to suffer have fun with us, email me at troy at troyangrignon dot com and I'll introduce you to the Crossfit team.

Happy New Year everyone and best wishes for happy and healthy 2007!

Here is a little video I threw together about our epic snowshoe running day on Cypress Mountain yesterday. Remember to get out and enjoy winter while it's here! Thanks Ean and Blue for a GREAT day. Hope to have many more of these before the snow leaves us again.

This film was made entirely with my pocket-sized Olympus Stylus 750 camera and iMovie.

Soundtrack: "Running Two" from "Run Lola Run" available at Amazon.com here. To watch the large version of the film, click on the YouTube logo in the lower right hand corner, and then when you land on the video on YouTube, click the icon in the lower right hand corner of THAT. (It's two steps from here is what I'm saying.) Otherwise, just click on the middle of this video and enjoy it right here on the blog.

Here's a great story about a dog helping to rescue Danielle Ballengee. I love these stories.

A few months ago I wrote about my friend Nick's company and project called GiftTRAP. It is a board game with many twists. It contains over 600 photos collected from around the world, many of them from Flickr photographers. It is being used to raise money for charity for a non-profit entity called Right to Play. And it is being launched globally on something called Massive Play Weekend where they will attempt to garner a world's record for largest number of locations playing a board game in the history of the world. Nick embodies Goethe's quote: "Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men."

If you are interested in hosting a game and being a volunteer:

• sign up to be a Massive Play weekend volunteer on the site
• order a MPW free game board (they ask you to pay the $12 to cover S&H though)
• Pick a venue (home, coffee shop, bar, office your call)
• Invite some friends to play anytime on 6th-8th October 2006
• Play at least once with friends over the Massive Play Weekend
• Send us an email to confirm your event and include a photo of your event
• MPW is a fundraiser. So were asking you to use your imagination. Charge people to play, pay for the postage or auction your copy amongst friends

If you donate you will get entered into a draw. The winner will get 5 nights here; www.bigwhiteselect.com including ski passes. Pretty cool!

I highly recommend that people take a look at Nick's site and consider helping him raise the charity funds and maybe even be part of setting a world record.

Good luck Nick!