…keeping the winter at bay

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

On a winter’s Sunday I go
To clear away the snow and green the ground below
April, all an ocean away, is this the better way to spend the day?
Keeping the winter at bay

— January Hymn, The Decemberists

We really don’t have much to complain about this winter around the weather, but I’m not going to let that stop me.

Yesterday, for the third straight Monday since the end of the holiday break, the weather has been, well, winter-like. In each of these weeks, Monday has been the coldest, most miserable day of the week and frankly if you have to stand on a train platform to start your week, that’s cruel.

Well, at least until today. Which was colder and more miserable. Yay.

There’s a small blessing to be had that we actually use our garage for parking the cars, unlike most of the people on our street. The advantages are that I don’t actually have to go outside first thing in the morning (except today, for garbage day) and there’s never frost on the windows to be scraped off first thing in the morning.

But the garage is still plenty cold and (old man whine again) my car doesn’t have heated seats. Heated seats would make the start of a -14 day a lot better.

And on top of all that, yesterday was what pop culture calls Blue Monday. I assumed that it was invented by a bunch of psychologists who wanted to be interviewed by the CBC, but even better, it turns out it was invented by a travel company to remind us how much happier we would be somewhere warmer.

Five for Friday: Vol IX

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

The five for Friday lazy blog is back. As we hear at the gym, pitter-patter let’s get at ‘er.

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We have a bunch of our out-of-Toronto managers in to head office for a couple days of meetings as we do annually. I was told this morning that in my absence from one gathering it was decided an intervention was needed to get me off my training regime.

All in jest of course, but it does highlight at least a little what is considered “normal” in our society and what isn’t. And a guy who takes a pass on drinking with co-workers (subbing Perrier for beer) or opts for the vegetable ragu over a steak and fully loaded baked potato is going to become a target.

I’ve been at this long enough now that my efforts are not news. But people now react with “are you STILL doing this?”

It’s mostly good natured but there’s no doubt it makes some people … well, uncomfortable isn’t the word, but it does leave them a little off centre.

Live and let live, say I. If people ask what I’m doing, I tell them. The physical changes in my appearance are significant enough that colleagues who haven’t seen me since July ask.

Otherwise, I just do my thing.

A spin for a winter’s day

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competing, diet, exercise, family, fitness, general, hockey, spinning, training, working out

Every now and then a day at the gym turns out better than you imagined it would and today was a day like that. And that’s saying something because I really like working out and I like the people at my gym, so most days are good ones.

Today is Day Two of the 81-Day Challenge. And today’s benchmark test was a 25-kilometre ride in the spin room. No one was looking forward to this. The race was strictly against the clock. It wasn’t so much a race at all as it was – for me at least – a benchmarking of modest progress over the preceding months.

But spinning is hard work, if you’re trying. You stop spinning, you slow then stop and you’re trapped in the spin room that much longer. And today, no one was allowed to leave until you did 25 kilometres. So go fast, leave fast.

Do the math. If you peddle at a 25 km-per-hour pace, it will take you an hour. I wanted to be out of the room by 7a so I would have time to shower and catch my usual train. Plus the weather made driving slow. So, add on another 10 minutes for that mess.

We went in the spin room about 620a and were quickly at it. I needed to be sub-40 minutes to make my train.

The challenge and the challenged

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

We started a new challenge at ATC this morning that is intended to change the way we think about and manage our diets as much as address our fitness.

I won’t bore you with endless details but the highlights are it’s a team concept – Coach Dave and I co-captain one of the five teams – and each of the seven members of the team can contribute points by adhering to rules like filling out a diet diary, not drinking alcohol (at all), only eating meat four times a week, eating no dairy products at all and showing up at the gym and working out, among other things.

You can get bonus points for doing extra challenges – which might be additional pullups or pushups or a long spin. We don’t know yet.

Most of the first two days this week are devoted to benchmarking where we all are so we can (hopefully) see how far we have come by March 31. Weight loss is not a vital component but it should be an inevitable result of working out regularly, eating lower fat diets and more vegetables, and cutting out beer/wine/etc.

March 31 is a long way off but I will declare some goals that can be mocked later if I don’t reach them (I will make them, trust me) – first, I’m going to weigh 214 pounds on or before March 31, and I’m going to be able to do 35 pushups, and I will move my visceral (belly) fat to 5 (from 7).

I have no clue what life is like in your world but I have tendinitis in my elbows so getting to 35 pushups will be some work — about double where I am now. I tried to do pullups today and it was ugly after the first one. I did one (1) in textbook fashion. After that, searing pain and I hung on the rack like so much meat on a hook.

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.

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.

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.

More mountains

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AUS Hockey, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, fitness, hockey, training, working out

An elite mountain climber is said to have been asked what he saw at the top of the mountain. And he said: more mountains. So with that inind . . .

After losing a bunch of weight and improving my fitness, it’s easy to fall into a trap and think the beast has been slayed, I’m a fit guy and Men’s Fitness is holding on line 2 to arrange a photo shoot.

I don’t often have such moments – almost every day I work out, there is an actual National Lacrosse League all-star training with us, as well as three or four other youngsters who actually are very fit. I mean, machine-like athletes with highly tuned bodies.

Not a middle-aged guy in danger of pulling a hammy unloading empties at the Beer Store.

So, we older folk don’t need to look far to see what work remains. And for me, it’s all work.

But there are days when you are rockin’ some new clothes and the sales women were a little more flirty than you’re accustomed to and you lose all perspective for 10 minutes. And then you show up at the gym on Saturday and Richard throws in an exercise you’ve never done before and later you feel like you should spend the rest of the weekend in a Jolly Jumper.