A recent letter to my member of parliament. I’d encourage you to read it and consider contacting your federal representatives as well. If you’re really out of the loop you can find out who your MP is By using your postal-code.

Hello Linda Duncan.

I don’t know how intimately you understand the worldwide AIDS situation, it’s a complicated beast to say the least. Inarguably a huge contributing factor to the perpetuation of this issue is the fact that people don’t know any better than to keep spreading the disease either because they don’t know they’re infected or because they don’t know how to take simple steps to prevent transmission. Getting people started on treatment is intimately tied to education. Communities of people living with HIV/AIDS who are living as a result of ARV treatment change the societal outlook on the disease, instead of a silent killer amongst the culture treated individuals are given physical ability to stand up against it and confidence against the disease is created within the community. This is a step along the avenue to conquering the disease.

• 2.3 million children under the age of 15 are infected with HIV.
• Less than 15% of the 780,000 children who need treatment are on the necessary medicines.

I personally don’t think it’s particularly important to discuss how many people are going to die this year as a result of this problem. Anti-Retro-Viral treatment is not going to keep them alive forever. They do however, change the perspective of a community being wiped out by the disease, the question is a quality of life for the living. It’s about creating hope and inciting change.

You might be interested to know that I along with approximately 100 other students at the University of Alberta (the vast majority of whom I presume live in your riding) raised nearly $7000 at the end of last month to support the work of an organization called Dignitas International. (www.ualberta.ca/~dignitas) Our fundraising is basically going to be purchasing drugs and that’s it. Getting drugs moving is considered such an important part of this process that all we focused on this year as students was awareness and the purchasing of drugs. The International organization is putting a huge effort towards distribution and care system optimization (I’d be excited to provide more information about dignitas international if you’re interested) but drug movement is a huge deal, so much so that it’s all we focused on for this year’s fundraising event.

Here is where the situation involves our national government and therefor you!

In 2004 Canada responded to the urgent need for medicines in many developing countries by creating “Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime”, with the goal of getting more affordable, generic medicines to patients in the developing world. Unfortunately, the initiative was, and remains, seriously flawed. The bureaucratic burden associated with it has limited its use to one instance in the last 5 years.

The good news, though, is that CAMR can easily be simplified… without any additional spending. In testimony and submissions to Parliament, the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and other organizations have outlined how CAMR can be streamlined by moving to the ‘one license solution’. Canada’s largest generic pharmaceutical manufacturer has made the commitment that, if CAMR is simplified, it will produce a lower-cost children’s version of a key AIDS drug for export to developing countries under CAMR. I request that you support the bill associated with this issue, a long term positive impact is directly linked to the passing of this bill.

I recognize that as a representative of this area you’d like to represent our interests but likely struggle a bit to know what people deem important. Consider the fact that there are 100 constituents who actively are making an effort to see AIDS drugs moving. I have a hard time imagining that you could even find 100 people who in principle are against the concept let alone making an active effort with their time and money to move in that direction. Please bring the situation with the CAMR to the attention of the New Democrats and request party support in the HOC. Bringing this issue beyond attention and towards action is critically important.

I look forward to hearing your response.

Josh Krabbe

As suggested last week these past 14 days were spent with a serious run focus. I only managed to get in the pool for one swim and only 3 hours on the bike this week. That’s a lot less than normal, especially since it was supposed to be build week 3 (biggest volume and intensity) with the triathlon club. I had to opt out of a few fun workouts as a result.

The run goal of making 84 km (two marathons) this week was threatened a bit by the outrageously cold temperatures on Monday and Tuesday and Tuesday’s runs were done inside which is monotonous and I feel like is a bit tougher on my knees than the outdoor variety. Highlights were a 1 hour 13 minute ten mile run on Saturday in slushy conditions and an 2 hour 57 minute long run today in falling snow on top of the nicely frozen slush from the previous night. This long run was the longest of my preparation and was 32.3 kms in length. I think I’ve got nutrition sorted and am very glad that there will be water stations along the way on race day as almost all of Edmonton’s public drinking fountains are shut off for the winter and it’s tricky to rink enough on these long runs. I’m also doing 100 calories of shot bloks every 40 minutes along the way and am implementing that strategy on all of my runs longer than 10 miles during training.

I’m feeling good albeit tired and experiencing some muscle soreness. I’ve got one run left that I would consider to be a tough one this Wednesday and then it’s really taper time as nothing left is too difficult before things get really tough between 10 and 11:30 am on April 4; the race starts at 8 am. I will be shooting for 3:20.

This is not running weather:

The beginning of March marks a few things in my training. 8 months since the start of the Sea to Sea Bike tour. One month until my first marathon, 5 months until my main race of this season (Ironman Calgary 70.3) and 18 months until Ironman Canada 2010 (Penticton).

The past 8 months have been quite successful in terms of keeping the volume in. Since my shoulder allowed me to basically do whatever I wanted again I haven’t let my 7 day rolling average drop below 1 hour per day except for a few down weeks during periodization in the fall and just prior to Christmas when I sprained my neck. I my pseudo-taper (partly planned – partly lazy) coming into the Birkebeiner I hardly got below 10hrs/wk in comparison.

This weekend is 4 weeks away from the marathon I’ll be running in the Yakima River Canyon in Washington state. I’ll have run 70 kms this week by the end of the weekend and expect to run 84 (two marathons) next week. I will continue with the sustained run volume through half of the next week and then begin a 2.5 week taper. My long runs still planned are a 28 and a 32 km each weekend and will also be aiming to run a 10 mile and 12 mile run at sub 7:40min/mile pace. Those 4 key runs remaining actually constitute a good portion of the run volume I have to fit in and based on how they go I will be deciding upon what my planned marathon pace will be come race morning. I’ve been training with the hope of trying for 3:20 which is a 7:38 min/mile pace. I will have to decide if I feel prepared to tackle that before race morning. When the gun goes I need to know if I’ll be aiming for 3:20 or aiming for 3:30 I cannot decide mid-way and so that’s what some of the focus with these runs is for, determining what I will decide to bite off. Of course I’m hoping that I feel confident through these runs and can do the 10 and 12 mile runs at this pace but if I end up with a bit of a reality check I am ready to have my reality checked.

A plot of the last 8 months rolling average is available here if you’re interested.