Beards, Barbells, and Beer

Still no Beer!

Alright alright...

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Pecan Pie Porter from Double Trouble Brewery, straight out of my old university town of Guelph, Ontario. When I saw them post about this on Facebook I was intrigued but wary. I was hoping for a slightly sweet, nutty, porter but was worried that they would go overboard and try to make it actually taste like pie (some breweries have tried this and it is usually sub-par)

Thankfully they went with the former and produced a medium-bodied, nutty porter. It reminds me of Black Oak's Nut Brown ale, but with a bit more body and less hoppy. Definitely not as heavy as some porters that I've had. The main flavour is a nutty chocolate malt with a bit of hops in the finish. The touch of sweetness balances well with the hops. You can smell the pecan/caramel flavour but not really taste it. Overall a nice beer.
 
I received four different beer's from Left Field Brewery which is in our neighborhood. When a friend came by a few weeks back we tried them all so I unfortunately didn't really savour them and pay as much attention as I often do.

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I don't really like grapefruit but often like grapefruit-y IPAs since the grapefruit flavour is mild. This beer tasted a lot like grapefruit juice and frankly I thought it was gross. My wife liked it so I guess if you like grapefruit it would be good.

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This is the same beer as above but with Cranberry. It really cut the grapefruit flavour so it was alright. Again my wife liked it more than I did.

Both were smooth and easy to drink with some spice flavours which is typical of saison beers.

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This is more my speed. Nice and thick with chocolate and coffee notes. A hint of vanilla and a touch of hops. Heavy but drinkable.

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This is one of Left Field's core beers i.e. widely available year round. Its a nice solid brown ale that should appeal to anyone who likes malty ales.
 
Sun Nov 19, 2017

Hockey
This was a fun game. Our opponents were a fast team and we had to play smart to keep pace, especially because we only had two lines. The entire game was played at a good pace but never got dirty or chippy. It helped us that our regular goalie was out of town and the replacement was really good. Otherwise I think it wouldn't have been a close game.

We opened the scoring about 5 minutes. I carried the puck down the left side and both defensemen came at me so I fed the puck to my winger who was wide open in front of the net and he chipped it over the goalie. However a minute later our opponents scored to make it 1-1. In the second period the action was back and forth and we traded goals again, ending the period 2-2.

In the third our opponents controlled more of the play but fell somewhat into the trap of their top players trying to do everything so he were able to contain them somewhat. It looked like we would end with a 2-2 tie when in the last minute our opponents really started pushing. They held the puck in our end for a while and had a few chances but our goalie made some big saves. Our winger picked up the puck and had a chance to clear but he tried to skate out of the zone, was stripped of the puck, and of course our opponents top scorer end up with the puck and scored with about 20 seconds left to win it 3-2.

It was disappointing to lose but overall it was a fun game. Playing a team like this really highlights that I've lost a step though. There were a few times where I thought I could blow by someone or get to a loose puck first but I don't have the jump I had before. I feel like it's a combination of the extra weight I'm carrying and the loss of strength. My conditioning is feeling better (i'm not totally gassed by the end of the game) so the next thing to fix is that lack of jump. That said, I've done well adjusting my game to focus more on position and passing so as a result I still have 7 points (2G, 5A) in 7 games and am playing well defensively.
 
I picked up some extra cans of the Pecan Pie Porter for Xmas and grabbed two other holiday themed beers to try:



Greene King Festive Pudding Ale. The bottle says it tastes like Christmas Pudding in a glass but I beg to differ. It was fine as a strong brown ale but there was minimal spice flavour. The strongest taste was a boozy licorice/molasses flavour. Very malty. There may have been some hints of spice but it could have been my imagination. Not a bad beer but nothing special and did not deliver as advertised. Considering it was $3.50 I wouldn't buy it again.

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This is more like it. It poured a nice amber colour with a decent head that quickly evaporated. Strong smells of gingerbread and other spices. Medium-body and easy to drink with adequate amounts of cinnamon, ginger etc on top of a solid malty base. My one quibble is that it tasted a lot like a pumpkin beer and I would expect a Winter beer to be a bit heavier. But seasons aside, it was a tasty brew and I can see it having fairly wide appeal for the average beer drinker.
 
Mon Nov 20, 2017

Conditioning
Warmed up on the elliptical for about 10 minutes while I played around the touch screen trying to get it to do intervals like I wanted. But alas not, dozens of programs and settings but no way to just do simple high/low intervals. So I moved to the C2 where I did 100m on (~20 seconds), 40 seconds off. 20 intervals. Finished with a few minutes walking on the treadmill and some stretching.
 
I was working from home last week while my roof and eaves were replaced and then I got a cold so missed a bunch of gym time. I was feeling half decent today so back to conditioning...

Wed Nov 29, 2017

Conditioning
Walked for 5 minutes on the treadmill and then did 5k. Took 37:15 which is a bit slower than a couple weeks ago. That's not surprising since I'm just getting over a cold and had to keep a slightly slower pace through the first 4 km to keep my HR around 140 BPM.
 
Wednesday night my son had a fever and barely slept thus I barely slept and felt like crap on Thursday. I took a sick day on Friday and felt better by Saturday after fitting in a few naps.

Sunday Dec 3, 2017

"Hockey"
I put the quotes because I was late leaving for the game and ran into brutal traffic so I made it to the rink with a few minutes left in the first period and got onto the ice about 5 minutes into the second, basically missing half the game. I took a few shifts at center to get warmed up but then dropped back to defense to let a winger move up since he's been stuck on defense for a few games. At that point we were down 2-1 despite outplaying the other team. We continued to press in the third period and just could not score. They added another goal to make it 3-1 so we just started pushing all-out but to no avail. We let in one more goal to lose 4-1.

It was a nothing game for me. I never felt warmed up and felt slow the entire time. I did have one good chance where I jumped into the play and the center spotted be a short breakaway. I could hear everyone yelling that someone was on me so I quickly shot without really looking and the goalie made the save. Oh well. Our next game is at 10:15pm so I will be missing it.

Mon Dec 4, 2017

Condiioning

- Treadmill: 5 minutes walking, 15 minutes jogging, HR around 135-140 BPM
- Recumbent bike: 15 minutes, HR around 130 BPM

I wanted to switch to the elliptical to give my knees/ankles a break but they were all busy so tried the bike. I was able to find a good resistance to keep BPM around 130. I look through all the programs on the touch screens and there is no way to create a basic interval program. It's pretty lame that the cardio machines all have a fancy touch screen and fancy features but no simple things like intervals. I guess I'm stuck with the C2 for intervals, which isn't a bad thing.
 
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Muskoka Brewery Shinnicked Stout - A delicious stout that almost makes up for this brewery getting rid of their Dark Ale (but why not both??). Nice and dark, notes of cocoa and vanilla with a dry, mildly bitter finish. Full of flavour but easy to drink. This is one of my favourite Ontario breweries,
 
Tues Dec 5, 2017

Conditioning

Warmed up with 5 minutes on the treadmill and then switched to the bike. Did a few minutes at medium intensity and then did intervals, roughly 30 seconds on (level 18), 60 seconds off (level 6) for 20 minutes. Serious quad burn. HR went up to around 140 and dropped to 115-120 between intervals.
 
Thurs Dec 7, 2017

Conditioning
About 5 minutes of walking on the treadmill then did 5k. Took 37:10. A bit of walking and stretching to finish.

I didn't play hockey this weekend because the game was at 10:15 and that's too darn late. Though ironically my wife and I did some Christmas baking and ended up being awake until midnight anyway because we were waiting for some cookie bars to cool off before putting them in the fridge.

Mon Dec 11, 2017

Conditioning
4 minutes walking, then did 5k. Time was 35:10. This time I set my "base" speed to 5.2 mph and occasionally bumped it up to 5.6 for 30-60 seconds which was a good recipe for shaving some time off. The last time I did it I set the base at 4.8-5.0 and bumped it to 6.0 but that just resulted in tiring me out faster. In hindsight it makes more sense to bump up the speed that I do most of the jogging at.
 
Tues Dec 12, 2017

Conditioning
5 minutes on the treadmill, 5 minutes on the recumbent bike. Then 20 minutes of intervals on the recumbent bike. Did one lap one, 3/4 lap off, roughly 25-30 seconds on, 45-60 seconds off. I don't think I was fully warmed up and my quads were burning the entire time. Walked on the treadmill for a few minutes to cool down.
 
2018 New Year Check-in

From a training standpoint last year was a write-off. I gained weight, lost strength, and lost or maybe barely maintained my cardio (but being heavier makes me feel worse). In 2018 my plan is to continue with conditioning and loss 8-10 in Q1. After that I want to switch back to lifting. My tentative plan is to start light in April, progress until June and then test my maxes so I can set proper goals for the end of 2018.

Goals for Q1 (Jan-March)

* Run 5k in under 34 minutes with average HR < 145 BPM (recent best is 37:10)
* Row 2000m in under 8:00 minutes (recent best was 8:33)
* Weight under 215 lb (currently 223)

Normally I do Mid-year and then end of year goals but I'm trying shorter term goals this year. I hope that will make it easier to stay on track, especially with the weight loss. The 5k goal is based on a site that gave average 5K pace by age group. For 35-40 year old men the pace would result in a 5k time of 33:45 so under 34 minutes puts me at average.
 
Wed Jan 3, 2018

Conditioning
20 minutes on the treadmill (5 walking, 15 jogging) and then 15 minutes on the elliptical. My calves were burning. Average HR was 136. That isn't super accurate though because it includes a few minutes of walking plus about 5 minutes where i did facepulls and stretching.
 
Fri Jan 5, 2018

Conditioning
5 minutes warm-up on the elliptical and then 10x1 minute intervals on the C2, 1 minute rest periods. Set the pace boat to 2:00/500m and kept that pace pretty evenly. Average HR was 131.
 
Thurs Jan 11, 2018

Conditioning

Warmed up with 5 minutes of walking on the treadmill then jogged 5k. Took 36 minutes on the dot, a new best. Walked for a few more minutes to cool down. Average HR was 140.
 
Fri Jan 12, 2018

Conditioning
Warmed up on the treadmill and C2, then did 30 seconds on, 30 seconds rest on the C2. Pace of 2:00/500m. 20 intervals. Woop.
 
Sun Jan 14, 2018

Hockey
We kinda got screwed this week. Due to a quirk in the schedule we had to play against a team that got bumped up a division earlier in the season. They were destroying everyone in our division (except us but they still beat us 3-2) so were moved up. Anyway we had to play them again. They are a very fast team and we were able to keep up with the them in the first period. We even had some stretches were we had constant pressure but their goalie played well and we couldn't score so we ended the first period down 1-0.

In the second the tide started to turn as we started to slow down. We still managed to stay in it, trading goals and ending the 2nd period down 2-1. However in the third they continued to come at us and we couldn't keep up. We had some chances and manged one more goal but their goalie shut us down and we allowed their top scorer too many chances as he poured in a hat track and we lost 5-2.

I had a pretty good game. I scored a nice goal in the second period (grabbed a loose puck, deked a guy, and put a wristshot top corner) and felt like I did a good job of containing the other team defensively. My cardio also felt decent for the first time in a while. Hopefully I can keep it up next week when we aren't playing such a strong team. It would be nice to feel more like my usual self by the playoffs (March).
 
Tues Jan 16, 2018

Conditioning

20 minutes on the treadmill, 15 minutes on the elliptical. Average HR was 129 BPM.
 
Wed Jan 17, 2018

Conditioning

Intervals on the C2, 1 minute on, 1 minute off, 10 intervals. 2:00/500m pace. Did a few minutes warm-up on the C2 and a few minutes cooldown on the treadmill.

Weight this morning was 215.8 which is nuts. Over the last 10 days I've gone low-carb which I think dropped a bunch of bloat.
 
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