Welcome to 2016

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competing, cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, hockey, training, working out

Happy New Year. At least, I’m hoping.

We all went in separate directions for New Year’s Eve but Laura and I did something we never do on Dec 31 and had a nice dinner out. Then we barely made the counting in of the new year before we crashed because we are a wild party. Chris was out with friends, Pad was out with the hockey team in Halifax. And now it’s 2016.

Some people will make resolutions for 2016. I’d like to start the 2016 work year by being warmer than I am today. Everything else should fall happily into place after that. The -25 windchill was a bit jarring this morning when I left the house at 530a for the gym. It was my first early-morning outing since before Christmas and I did not enjoy the sensation.

Back to work after two weeks is tough enough. Back to work preceded by a 6a return to the gym is tougher. And the temperature, darkness and Monday malaise piled on top of me like a blizzard.

But the workout was fun. It almost always is – even at 6a.

Patrick’s mountains

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ATC, christmas, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, fitness, hockey, training, working out

I was driving home from the gym a couple days ago. The sky was a funny colour of grey and white and black. The clouds didn’t so much blend into one another as they sharply contrasted and layered upon one another.

It gave the impression of looking at an old Tom Thomson painting and it reminded me of a morning long ago when Pad and I were driving to a hockey practice as dawn broke.

Clouds hung over the far side of Lake Ontario and reached down to the horizon. Pad was in the back seat and said, “Hey dad. I’ve never noticed those mountains before.”

I looked again and he was right. The clouds looked every bit like a distant mountain range — dark and ominous and inviting all at the same time. I’m pretty sure I didn’t take that moment to inflict a geographic lesson on him — it was just too pure a moment of wonder. By the time we emerged from the rink the mountains were gone. But I never forgot the sky that day or my kid’s take on it. Patrick’s mountains return every now and then, usually in the morning. I always smile at the memory.

He got it right, even if there are no mountains outside Rochester or Syracuse or Utica. I’ll always know they’re there. My kid showed them to me and every now and then I’m lucky enough to see them again, if only for a few moments.

Looking for the sweet spot

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christmas, diet, exercise, family, fitness, training, working out

I’m off for a couple weeks,  a personal tradition that dates back to when the boys were little and the excitement leading to Christmas was more fun than the day itself.

I suppose that is still true, but the boys are older, rise later and disappear earlier so it’s a little different now. Personally I’m no less excited to have them home than I was then. They’re just bigger.

So we do different things. A little shopping. A little this. A little that. And I’m just pecking away here to let you know I’m still alive.

On Monday, Chris came with me to the gym. I think I will summarize by saying he came away with a new appreciation for what his old dad goes through virtually every, single day.

I know that because at the end of the workout — and because I was off work we went at noon, not 6a — he said “You do this EVERY day?”

Yep.

Five for Friday: Vol VII

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christmas, cycling, diet, family, fitness, hockey, training, working out

A resumption of Five for Friday, the Internet’s surest sign that I have nothing interesting to say . . .

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Turns out the biggest tactical error of my week was taking Thursday off from the gym instead of today. That thing I said about Thursday always being the hardest day? Yeah. Well, not this week.

We did something today called the Spartan 300. And while what most of us did is probably a modified Spartan 300, it was still pretty tough because I’m old, not nearly in good enough shape for stuff like that and I’ll be suffering for the rest of the day.

The whole circuit involves 300 reps of five different exercises – you repeat the one you start with at the end. So it’s like 50 pushups, 50 suitcase lifts, 50 squat jumps, 50 shoulder presses,  etc – and it turns out you’re not allowed to have a drink of water until you’re done the circuit. Because Spartans didn’t stop for water because if they did someone would cut their heart out and eat it in front of them.

Or something like that – I was dizzy from dehydration at that point and wasn’t really paying attention any more.

A day of rest

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competing, diet, exercise, family, fitness, music, training, working out

For the first time in a long time I did something different on a weekday morning. I stayed in bed.

My habit since late June is to (mostly happily?) get up at 515a or so and head to the gym every Monday through Friday for a workout. Contorting on artificial turf at 6a is not really “fun” – that’s the wrong word. And pushing weight and pulling yourself through circuit training and flop sweating in the spin room is not entirely a recreational pursuit.

Did I mention the 6a part?

But it is a decent way to start a day and you get fit – or fitter, at least – and you meet some really good people.

With the exception of days when the place is closed – Sundays and holidays – and days when I was sick (three) and days when I was out of town, I can’t remember a weekday since late June when I just stayed in bed rather than work out. (Other than when I was ordered out of the place to rest in late August.)

Today I wasn’t sick or out of town. I wasn’t hurting. There was no injury. But Richard  — who trains us and whom we entrust with our well being — he likes to make sure that recovery days are part of the training regime. And he has been suggesting I needed to take a day or two and just let my system catch up.

Arguing with Richard is pointless, so I did.

The Christmas season starts

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christmas, diet, family, fitness, training, working out

Mild temperatures and an empty house mean that regardless what the calendar says, Christmas spirit arrives more slowly than it once did.

Two weekends ago we turned on the exterior lights and Laura started putting out some of the decorations, which added a less of a Christmas flair than, for me anyway, a sense of anticipation. And not for Santa but for when the boys come home from school.

And on Sunday afternoon, Chris – having finished his final exam on the ridiculously early date of Dec 12 – came home Sunday armed with laundry. And now it is starting to feel festive.

Chris wasn’t home 10 minutes on Sunday and he was eating homemade minestrone. And then he started helping with the decorations – he put together the Christmas village which has been as standard as stockings hung with care.

Chris being home means I have someone with to watch old Christmas movies we’ve seen a hundred time. It’s what we do.

Sentimental Xmas Memory #2

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christmas, exercise, family, fitness, hockey, ice wolves, junior hockey, kids hockey, la ronge, pond hockey, training, working out

No five for Friday today. Instead another holiday flashback.

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With temperatures in southern Ontario hitting double digits for most of the last week, it doesn’t feel like Christmas is barely two weeks away. It makes it more palatable to drive a car in flimsy Under Armour shorts at 6am, without benefit of heated seats, and it sadly makes it impossible to skate on a pond on natural ice.

Which brings me to Sentimental Christmas Memory #2. Pond hockey.

Climate change deniers can deny all they want. The winters are shorter and warmer now. If you want to argue about something, argue about why that has happened. But the fact that it’s going on around us is irrefutable.

I remember as a kid practically exploding at the prospect of Christmas vacation. Christmas was, for sure, a very big deal in our home and my parents deserve a lot of respect and credit for making it that way for us. We didn’t have a lot of money but I never went without anything I needed. A lot of things I didn’t have, well, I didn’t need. Some of the traditions around my Christmas at home survive to this day with our family and I suspect some of them will move along with my sons when the time comes.

Sentimental Xmas Memory #1

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christmas, competing, cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, training, working out

One vivid memory I still have left of the Christmas’s of my youth is of the inevitable family outing to shop at the two “big” department stores in Halifax, Eaton’s and Simpsons.

Neither exist today.

Both were located close together in a corner of west-end Halifax, virtually across the road from each other with lots of parking and expansive display cases of goods and things. Women in tall hats and men in thick glasses looked busy. These were classic department stores with soaring ceilings and lots of marble and big pillars and that perfumey smell. As a kid there was generally very little upside to going to these stores, especially close to Christmas.

My family was not one for spontaneous acts of spending and in the run up to Xmas any kid was smart enough to know you were hooped – any gift was going to appear under a tree. Simpsons and Eaton’s did not have great sporting goods departments but the toy sections could be a wonder. Not that it mattered, again, in the weeks before Christmas. But if you felt the need to underline your desire for the Johnny Seven One Man Army, well, the department store toy department was the place.

It would be crowded and you would be hot and uncomfortable in your boots and winter coat. But Christmas was never complete without the trip to the department stores and it was a sign that Christmas and all the wonder of that season for a kid was close at hand.