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Barrelman Triathlon – My first Half-Iron distance triathlon, and the biggest goal for the year. It’ll be just after my 42nd birthday, and if you’re a fan of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (like I am), you’ll know 42 is an auspicious number, so it feels good to commemorate that birthday with something big. It’s going to take a lot of time and effort to get ready for that race, so it’s important to keep it in the forefront of my thoughts.
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187. That’s my goal weight in pounds; back in the 90’s it was passed around as a kind of gangsta symbol (let’s not go too deep into the darker meaning of it… it’s a good weight for me and it sounds badass). I’ve kissed that line, and moved back up a pound or two only to return to close to it. I need to hold to the principles of the Doctor’s Diet for the majority of the time. I think my increasing training schedule will help me even travel below that line but I need to make sure that I don’t start burning muscle by not allowing my calorie deficit to get too big on bigger training days. And those calories, of course, need to come from the right (i.e. healthy) sources.
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Monetizing the blog (or at least making it a little more professional). This is the least serious of my goals both in priority and in defining what the goal is. The truth (or at least what I tell myself) is, I just like writing and I would do this even if no-one read. Still, I do get a kick when I get engagement from readers, and I enjoy when the blog generates an opportunity to try new things, and I get a wee bit envious when I see other bloggers get opportunities that have passed me by. Because writing is the part of blogging I enjoy most, when I get time to devote to the blog, I write a post. If I want to capture more opportunities (reviews, events, sponsorship), I know things have to change a little. Self-hosting the blog (on its own domain) and re-design could potentially generate things like brand ambassadorship or other opportunities. The driver is more recognition and/or status than actual money, however, I do need to keep in mind the fact that this blog is a hobby about my hobby, and will always be prioritized as such; i.e. way down the line from some of the other items on this vision board.
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Bicycle. A half-iron is serious enough mileage that a new bike is called for. My old bike (with aero-bars I put on myself) is not going to cut it; it’s at least 14 years old and I’ll bet the frame is a bit fatigued – I can see lateral motion in the lower parts of the frame when I pedal on the trainer. The bike in the pic is a the Trek Speed Concept, and while I haven’t decided necessarily on that particular one, I do have to admit both the old steed I’m thinking of putting out to pasture and my mountain bike are by Trek, they’ve served me well, and the Speed Concept is available at price points in the kind of range I was imagining myself spending. Plus, there’s that whole ‘Trek’ name that gets a rise out of my inner geek, you’ve seen me show the Live Long and Prosper (RIP Leonard Nimoy) next to the Rock Devil Horns… I mean it ‘Live Long and Rock On”.
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Resolve. My word of the year. There are bound to be challenges to all these goals, so central to achieving them is RESOLVE. I can either find a way around an obstacle (RESOLVE the problem) or show grit and determination to power through it (using my RESOLVE).
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Reading. Shark Boy has learned to read independently (simple words, but he does get them on his own) and obviously we want him to progress. I’m reading him a few pages from The Hobbit every night too, and it’s great seeing him get engaged by longer form story-telling (and dragons and wizards etc. too). We need him to improve his printing, and I hope I can get him do to a little writing of his own. The Lightning Kid needs to work on letter recognition and some of the basic precursor skills that feed into reading; it’s early yet, but we know it will take him longer so it’s great if we can get a head start. I’m proud of how we get outside and active as a family (and looking back at the February goals, I know we rocked them), but the more academic stuff can’t get left behind either. I’m also happier myself if I can get at least a little book reading (sorry, blogs and articles on the web don’t count) done every day.
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Walk The Line. I’m proud of my kids, which means I’m proud of my family which means I’m proud of our marriage. For a marriage to withstand raising children, never mind rambunctious, dynamic ones like ours, never mind if one has special needs, never mind if you’re constantly out and about as a family, it needs resilience. Resilience is built into a marriage in a similar way to how it is built into a body: it takes a variety of factors. For the body, it’s the right mix of nutritional ingredients and varieties of exercise. A resilient marriage has a similar variety of necessary components – and I probably haven’t learned them all yet, to be honest. I know respect, time for meaningful communication, affection, quality time and actual adult date nights are in there for sure. I’m proud of how well we’ve been able to stick to those things during the past 7 years. Training for a longer distance triathlon will impact all those things, I can’t deny it. What is important is that I keep to that line as closely as I can, even if I wander off it a little. I mustn’t, as Joey Tribianni might put it, let the line become a dot to me. I was going to call it Holding the Line, but then I couldn’t make a Johnny Cash reference, and you should always make a Johnny Cash reference if you’re given the chance.
March 4th? March Forth!
Friday Five: Tips For Active Family Living
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Leave it to the last minute.
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Be Flexible (WYCWYC*)
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Consider the Long Game
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Use Your Optimism Muscle
- Both boys were sick with nasty colds, and I had one too, feeling feverish and being nearly unable to swallow on Friday night, meaning…
- I barely slept between taking care of their various discomforts and my own
- We didn’t get outside much
- The kids demonstrated that they still don’t listen no matter how many times they’re told, to the point that their doting grandmother even noticed that their behaviour was lousy
- I got the Lightning Kid to his soccer program and Shark Boy to his dance lesson on time.
- The kids and their grandmother got to spend time together/I got to see my mother.
- The kids and Shark Boy’s Godfather got to spend time together
- We got to enjoy my mother’s wonderful cooking
- I got to do a favour for my wife, who totally deserved the weekend away from the kids
- I got more bonding time with the kids, especially cuddling up with the Lightning Kid during his nap (while I read a few chapters on my e-reader)
- It honestly gave me a sense of achievement to have gotten through it all (parenting is the ultimate endurance sport)
While the weekend doesn’t typify one of our family outdoor adventures (we only got outside long enough to shovel her driveway), it’s a good demonstration of how your attitude re-frames the experience.
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Sacrifice
Collingwood Madness (Part 2)
Apparently Shark Boy really struggled to finish the trail with legs that must have been tired from the snowshoe race. We packed it in, and headed to the Day’s Inn where my wife had booked the last available room earlier in the week. It has a pool, but we were sorely tempted to check out a water park found in Blue Mountain Village that we’d heard good things about. It’s called Plunge! and we gave into temptation and took it. We were a little worried because it seems like the Lightning Kid gets sick every time he goes swimming. I hoped that he’d spend more time with the splash pads than immersed in deeper water and that it might make the difference.
The boys chilling before we went to the Aquatic Centre |
Friday Five: February Goals
I was inspired by Krysten over at Darwinian Fail to write up a series of fitness goals for February (and also, though not as recently, Robyn Baldwin’s Winter Bucket List). I guess I’m really feeling the flow fitness wise. Let’s see if I can round this out to the standard Five for Friday, though I expect some inter-dependence in these, if not out-right recursion (that’s a reference for any programming geeks out there).
- Start implementing the structure of my Half-Iron training plan. Though I haven’t thoroughly outlined it in this space yet, you might have caught a glimpse of the training plan last weekend. In the early stages, I’m allowed 30-60 minute spin classes for bike rides (even when more in specified) and some workouts are marked with an asterisk which means I can cross-train in other activities instead of biking or running. The important thing for me before the official plan kicks off in March, is getting used to the logistics of over an hour of strength training on Mondays and Wednesdays, as well as making Tuesdays and Thursdays both Swim and Run days.
- Snowshoe. Not only is this a valid form of cross-training mentioned above, but having bought a pair of snowshoes last year, it’s a return on investment. I’m hoping to do the Tubbs Romp To Stomp this weekend. I wanted to continue my commute series by snowshoeing to work after the last snowstorm, but it was too cold. Still, with some initiative, I should be able to fit some snowshoeing in. (Update: I did 20 minutes worth on Thursday morning… it’s exhausting, especially if you’re doing it on unbroken fresh snow).
- Combine Weight-lifting and Yoga for Strength. One of the things I’ve noticed about the training plan is that there’s no room for yoga, and the other is that strength workouts are timed for 1 hour and 15 minutes. I rarely lift weights for more than an hour – in my defence, I tend to structure whole body workouts and execute them in circuits. Maybe I could learn to space out the sets, do more sets, and make bigger gains, but the truth is I also get bored. I figure if I stay close to my basic structure which includes split squats, deadlifts, lat pull-downs and bench presses (or my dumbbell doubles time-saver) and vary things by throwing in some extra exercises that I see here and there, especially functional ones like pistol squat modifications, negative phase pull-ups, and handstands, I’ll get good variability and gains. And of course, I’ll cap the workout off with some yoga flows that will include strength/balance work (crow pose is one I’d like to master).
- Continue with the Doctor’s Diet I still haven’t written up a comprehensive review of this yet. Since I’d like to continue the weight loss, I’ll be alternating between the STAT and RESTORE plans which are similar, but the RESTORE is more permissive in its list of fruits and has more (complex, not simple) carbs. The longer we stick with this the more natural it becomes to adapt our lifestyle to it. We still lean heavily on the meal plans, but we’ve had (and will continue to have) on the fly substitutions when we’re out and about.
- Enjoy the outdoors as a family I think I can give us an ‘A’ grade on this for the winter season so far, we’ve gone cross-country skiing, I’ve taken Shark Boy skating, and the boys have even fooled around in the snow while I shovel the driveway (they even help shovel for a few minutes before a better offer comes along in the form of the neighbours’ snowbanks). Not only do I want to keep it up though, I also want to do even better than we have done. So far there have been 2 factors that keep us from enjoying the winter outdoors on some days: 1.) No snow. Snow is what makes winter fun especially for kids; we need it for cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, tobogganing, snowmen, and general fooling around. There’s not a lot we can do about the actual weather, which brings me to factor number 2.) The cold. While we do have to think safety first, and some of the days have simply been too cold to avoid frostbite or hypothermia, there have been days where the kids are seemingly fine, but the adults give up the ghost first? Why? Simple, we just put on coats, hats and gloves, whereas the kids have long underwear and more importantly snow-pants on. Obviously, the answer is for us to put on snow-pants and get down to their level; we’ll probably be warmer playing along than standing there supervising anyway. We can use our ski-pants, but I’m curious if they have snow-pants for adults…
Youth Are More Active Than You Think…
King of the Playground |
Best of the Beaches Kids of Steel Duathlon starring Shark Boy
For the third year in a row, Shark Boy has participated in this Fall tradition of doing a Kids’ Duathlon down at Ashbridges Bay. He’s getting to be a veteran of multisport, but he still seems to want me pacing him for re-assurance. I don’t mind the exercise…
Saturday was a jam-packed day, as after the duathlon my wife and I attended training run by the Down Syndrome Association of Toronto, and Shark Boy would be going to a birthday party. I’m happy to say we got it all done, but let’s just focus on the exercise and activity – that’s what we do in this blog.
Thanks to a public address system hooked up to loud speakers, we all knew how much time we had to get the bike and helmet set up in transition. Shark Boy was running in the second heat (which didn’t help our schedule much). I could see he was nervous before the start, and yet eager to go, but he still did a great job of keeping the excitement in check so that we could have a good time.
He’s been talking a lot lately about being “the fastest” and while I don’t want these events to become high-pressure and competitive, I did let him know that if he wanted to be the fastest, he was going to have to lead the pack a little and tried to coach him on how to do that.
Running, he really put the pedal to the metal – he was gasping for air after the first run leg (50m) heading into transition. We’d reviewed the important safety steps about putting on the helmet and walking the bike to the mount line before the race, and he nailed it. As usual, the bike course made it look like he was on a motorcycle compared to the other kids – his focus did start to wander a little on the middle part of the bike course when you can look out at the lake; I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree after all! I do the same thing…
The bike course is 600m long, and ends with an uphill climb, and he got up it by himself (except for my constant cheering). Again we executed a good transition, and then we got to see him run like I’ve never seen before. He had his mouth wide open gasping for air, and though the last 25m (of a 100m run leg) started to lag a little, all it took was a reminder that “drinks and cookies” were at the finish line and he started to sprint. It’s what we call in German “Endspurt”.
The Need for Speed… and anonymity. |
Apparently the Lightning Kid did a great job of cheering “Go, go, go” to everyone and also enjoyed pretending to take pictures. We looked up the race stats later that evening and found out Shark Boy was 4th overall, and 2nd place boy (the girls took the top 2 spots!). We’re really proud of him; I hope he’s enjoying the sport for itself, and not just the fatherly bonding and approval, though.
Terry Fox Run 2014
Once we had our stickers and ribbons on, I got excited at the prospect of finally doing the course in its entirety, in the correct order of kilometer markers. We took Shark Boy along on his bike and headed North. The North end turnaround is about 2km from the start, but you see a 9km marker on the way, which we would face later. I tracked our run with Endomondo, and when my wife heard the app announcing our pace at every kilometer, she’d cringe at how we’ve slowed down over the past 10 years or so. I figure you’ve got to be happy to be still moving and getting out there. We took water at the North end, and turned back toward the start. From there, you head to the South End turn-around which occurs around 6km. Shortly before then, we ran into the Lightning Kid and his grandparents, and Shark Boy let us know he was done for the day – he probably got around 7km or riding done.
My wife and I carried on to the Southern end, took some water, then back to the start and past it for another 1km to the 9km mark, then the final stretch. I got her to space the walking breaks up a little to more regulated intervals instead of just willy-nilly.
I don’t know whether to be proud or ashamed of how I egged my wife on for the rest of the trail, but I’m proud of her for getting out of her comfort zone a little by pushing pace and distance, and hopefully it made her a stronger for the next run she does.
Once the run was finished, we had hot dogs and hamburgers with a little extra playground time. We didn’t quite make it to the bouncy castle or hot air balloon before they were shutting down, but we still had a nice day out and raised $175.00 (thanks to our generous donors).
Friday Five: Top 5 Fall Races
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Lakeside Sprint Triathlon. The only thing standing between me and a triathlon-less 2014. I hope I’ll have a respectable time that is comparable with past performances, but with the differences between courses, there might be no sense in comparing. I’ve never been to this venue… I’m just looking forward to getting my swim/bike/run on again.
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Terry Fox Run – This is a threepeat for us (Triathletes love 3s). Here’s the family donation page if you want to help fight cancer with us. I’ll be recovering from the Lakeside Tri the day before, but this is really leisurely family fun. Let’s hope for good weather.
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Kids of Steel Duathlon – Shark Boy is going to threepeat this one this year too. Between this and the Kortright Centre, I’m hoping to light a bit of a fire under him as it dawns on him that races can be more than just a light bit of sightseeing; if he wants to be “the fastest” (his words), that might mean starting at the front and going as hard as he can. On the other hand, I don’t want over-competitiveness and pressure rearing their ugly heads. I want to coach him, yet let him take the lead as to what he wants to get out of these events… does that make any sense?
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Levac Attack – Registration is now open! The event has been moved to Mississauga and takes place on Saturday October 4th (event details here [Facebook]. A very small race with great post-race food, that is accessible for strollers and whatnot. We are in our 5th year of raising money for Mount Sinai Hospital’s Maternal-Fetal Medicine Unit.
I know I basically asked you for money twice in this letter, Dear Reader. You can’t really blame me for assuming someone so attractive, well-dressed and discerning as yourself might also be rich though, right?
Race Recap: 5 Peaks Albion Hills
So, the Friday before last, I did one of my morning runs with the Lightning Kid. During my lunchtime spin class, I could feel both a tug in my hamstring and my Achilles acting up. That didn’t seem good, but I took it easy that weekend at the cottage, except for an open water swim, so I figured I’d be fine.
The same thing flared up in a Boot Camp class on Tuesday, and I began to think I was in trouble, since I had signed up for 5 Peaks Albion Hills that very morning. I had to take an Ibuprofen just to get through my Wednesday and by Thursday night I was soaking in a cold water bath (no ice, though, I just can’t do that to myself). The latter seemed to help and I was willing to brave it by Saturday morning.
Albion Hills is a great park that we visit often for cross-country skiing. I wish I could say that the skiing made the trails familiar to me, but everything looks different in snow, but at least I’d done this race 2 years ago… but more on my race later.
As always at the 5 Peaks series, it starts with the Kids Challenge; all participants get a bib with the number 1 on it, because they’re all winners. We were rushing up to get the kids’ bibs and safety pins when I ran into Robyn Baldwin (whose blog I’m sure you read, right), and though we didn’t have time to greet her as well as we should have, did us a solid of capturing great race photos of the kids, so big thanks to her.
The Lightning Kid gives Robyn a High Five |
Shark Boy in action – Courtesy of Robyn Baldwin |
Lightning Kid waves to the fans – Courtesy of Robyn Baldwin |
At previous races, I’ve run with Shark Boy while my wife has run with the Lightning Kid. Last year, he needed to be carried a lot, but he did almost all of the Heart Lake 1 km Kids Challenge this year unassisted, so I was game to switch kids with her this time. Uh-oh, not only did she struggle to match Shark Boy’s pace, but the Lightning Kid must have been a little thrown by the switch because he hesitated and paused as the pack pulled away from us, and when they began to disappear from sight, he threw a mini-tantrum or two. Luckily, he’s still motivated from those morning runs and understands the concept of “Go, go, go!” so I got him through the course with a fair amount of carrying. What he lacks in speed he makes up for in charm and charisma because he put on a grand show of waving at almost everyone he could.
They stuck around after their race just long enough to see me off on mine, then it was off to the on-site splash pad and pool. It’s really great that 5 Peaks is using these awesome venues of the Toronto Region Conservation Authority – they make for great scenery and family fun.
Wanting to play it safe and conservative with my right leg, I decided to seed myself in Wave 4, which ended up being the last wave, but also the best behaved, because according to the Race Director’s announcement, we get to hear our instructions 4 times. Heh.
The race course was described as a roller-coaster with lots of single-track, and the latter fact made for some line-ups in the early going, even for last wavers. Still, I enjoyed taking it easy and knowing that simply finishing would be a fun day and mean my leg hadn’t stopped me. In fact, I jumped a foot off the trail to take a picture of a unique looking stand of trees:
The roller-coaster description held true, and the kilometer markers seemed to tick off fairly quickly – time flies when you’re having fun. I managed to pass a lot of people more through technique on the hills (especially downhills) than conditioning. Some of the sights I saw included a girl who stubbed her toe while wearing those Vibram Five Fingers Barefoot shoes (ouch) and a guy who looked like he belonged on a tennis court. Tennis shoes, polo shirt… look, I get it, not everybody needs to be hard-core dedicated to the sport, in fact, I love the idea of people trying things out for the first time, without necessarily having spent money on all the best gear. It’s just that this guy had all grey hairs, so I’m thinking he’s not some 21-year old who is going to bounce back from the kind of injury that improper footwear is going to cause. he Sport course ended up being 5.7 km by their reckoning or 5.3 by me & Endomondo’s.
I’m really happy that I crossed the finish line strong, and I did comparatively better in my age group than at Heart Lake (13/20 is better than 24/28). Once I had retreated to the shade and gotten my water and banana, I had a chance to talk with Robyn and Jessica from Laces and Lattes (who, again, supplied me with a discount code for the race entry as well as kicked butt in the Enduro category). We talked blogging, heart rates, upcoming races and adventures – it was a great way to highlight what an inspiring, fun community that I can connect with through active life blogging.
After the great time we had as a family that day, the Kortright Centre race is basically a done deal…