Click the map to follow along!

Here is the overview of the course and event. Gory details can be found here.

Congratulations to everybody who came out. Check out the full race report.

Note: Blue the dog and I didn’t do the 50, we did our own custom length of 24k and ended up at Delaney’s for a mocha to warm up from the rain and wind!

I just heard today that you’re gone. Sorry to hear that mate. I enjoyed working out with you at Crossfit Vancouver. We called you “Nutts” for short because you were a big dumb-ass, always clowning around, but you always worked your ass off too.  We were sad to see you go but knew you had to go find something important to do with your life.

I like the official photo. You cleaned up nice. I noticed that you managed to sneak in that sly grin of yours even on an official pic.

Good luck where ever you are Andy. I know your crew in the military and your family and your crossfit family will miss you.

The CBC article is below:

CBC News – British Columbia – Military procession to honour B.C. soldier killed in Afghanistan.

Here is a CrunchGear review of the new Vibram Five Fingers KSO Treks. I can’t wait to get and try a pair. I have the Classics and the regular KSOs and they’re great but I need more grip for the snow and also the mud in the trails near my place.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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!

I signed up two weeks ago and went in to do my assessment. It was an inauspicious beginning. After about 15-20 minutes, I strained my neck doing pull-ups and had to pull the plug on the day and start over again a week later. Not surprising given my various back injuries that have kept me in rehab over the past 12 years. Interestingly, both of the main trainers had serious back injuries which they managed to heal with this workout so I’m hopeful that it will continue the progress I have made by trainiing with other methods.

A week after my false start, we tried again. I did the full asssessment and then began the one-on-one classes with the instructor. I have done only three classes so far. Without a doubt, it uses more of my muscles and is more exhausting than most of the workouts I have done in the past except perhaps all out adventure racing. It feels AWESOME in a “can you scratch my back and shampoo my head because I can’t reach behind my head right now” sort of way.

The primary trainers Craig and Trevor are great guys and the other folks I have met at the gym have all been really great and super supportive. Supportive in a way that says, “oh you have no idea how much pain is coming your way”

I’ll report back on it in a month or two once I have gotten past the introductory sessions that one has to do before one can join the beginners class. The reason for the rigor on that is that they want to ensure that you have good form and movement pattern in all of trhe exercises before they unleash you in a classroom. It’s a great practice on their part.

More soon.

Back in November 2005 at the IT Financing Forum, Anthony Lee from Altos Ventures talked about how he was particularly interested in “capital efficiency” and he found that Vancouver companies were, on average, 10x more capital efficient than Valley companies. At the time, they had a 75M fund open and had earmarked 4 of the 20 slots for Vancouver-based web 2.0 related companies. Anthony commented that more companies dies from too much money rather than too little and that capital efficiency = a higher Internal Rate of Return = the company is more appealing to venture capitalists.

John Berchers from Crescendo Ventures  (Palo Alto, Minneapolis) whose fund had 1B under management and a currently open fund of 650M, commented that Vancouver had “great people”.

And finally, Nicholas Darby from Dow Venture Capital Fund (a 400M fund inside the $48B Dow Chemical), talked about how there were only four countries that they invested in because of the great education system and good talent pool: Israel, USA, UK, and Canada.

Also, Boris was being modest and didn’t include his own startup in the list. So I would add some more interesting companies to the list starting with his:

* Bryght – Boris Mann, Roland Tanglao, Kris Krug, Richard Eriksson, and Colin Brumelle’s Drupal based startup that extends the Drupal platform and builds cool apps. This team works with Dries Buytaert, James Walker and Adrian Rossouw, the original Drupal team.
* DabbleDB – Avi Bryant and Andrew Catton’s Access/Filemaker killer (easy database creation on the web)
* Raincity Studios – Robert Scales’ Drupal/Bryght site web design firm
* Flourish Media – Karen Olsson’s Web & TV production firm that produces among other things, “Universe Village” – a sustainability game/TV show for kids
* Ma.gnolia – Todd Sieling’s social bookmarking application that looks nicer and does more than competitor del.icio.us.

Updates:

* EZ Systems – the open source CMS people are building a new office here with Zak Greant helping to set it up. (Thanks Ben!)

Know any other interesting companies you would add to the list? Drop me an email or add a comment!