The long weekend

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

Some end of the long weekend this and that . . .

Our house is in a quiet neighbourhood. Nothing much ever happens. Occasionally the kids at a nearby pool get a little loud for an hour, or someone has a once-a-summer backyard party that goes into the night. But, pretty tame. We all smile and roll with it.

So yesterday I’m out in the yard cutting, mulching, edging, fertilizing and more. A relatively new neighbour – they’re been there about a year – calls hello over the fence.

Chit chat. Nice guy. Oh, BTW. We’re having a party for my daughter’s first birthday tonight and … it might get a little loud. I wave him off. No worries my friend. Little girls and piñatas? How rowdy can it be? Don’t give it a thought. Enjoy the party.

So, seven hours later at 10:45p, Pad – who has to get up around 6a for work – comes down wondering when the pounding south Asian disco music – and the music was really, really bad – is going to let up. It was so loud that even with the windows and doors closed, we had to turn the volume on the TV almost halfway to full to be able to hear it.

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Cause and effect

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Alberta, diet, family, Global Warming, wildfires, working out

This may seem obvious but hear me out.

If you eat chicken wings every night for dinner and have four beers every night and you never exercise and have poor sleep habits, bad things are going to happen. Sure, you can get away with some of that for a while. Being young helps.

But sooner or later, the clothes stop fitting. Climbing stairs is harder. Your trim waist disappears under fat. You’re at risk for major disease – cardiovascular, type-2 diabetes, joint problems. Eventually, there’s a high probability you will die prematurely because of things that were always in your control to change.

There are wildfires burning all over Canada – especially in the north and west. The horrific scenes from Fort McMurray are the defining image of the spring weather, but there are fires in B.C., northern Ontario and across the Prairies.

And it’s just the first week of May. The trend from long-term data is bad – the US National Interagency Fire Centre says last year was the worst on record for US wildfires. And there have been fires consuming more and more acres of forest, year over year, since 2000 than in the years before that. Simply put, the problem is accelerating.

Why?

Is it just me …

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cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, music, prince, training, working out

It could be a result of my creeping old age, which some days is less of a creeping like an afternoon shadow across a patio and more like a wild galloping horse from which I have fallen, attached only by a single foot stuck in a stirrup as I get dragged along to an inevitable conclusion.

But my question is this: is it just me, or is it cold?

This spring seems to be slower in arriving than a tax refund. Slower than just about any spring I can recall in the last few years.

It is absolutely true our winter was relatively simply – maybe two or three mornings when shovelling was required and perhaps two or three weeks of true, raw chilling cold. So are we paying the price for that now?

Where are the scientists and their data on global warming, alarming us about the coming tropical reckoning? Even on Saturday and Sunday, days filled with glorious sun and blue skies, it was too cold for my old bones to cycle. The windchill created on a bike moving 25 or 30 km per hour is outside of my comfort zone.

So no biking for me yet – and no, I have not yet replaced the Bianchi. These things take time.

Two in the win column

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

I will bore you with a short entry today that is large on bragging rights and short on substance. Your humble scribe begs your forgiveness on both those counts.

The humble brags involve two significant “dubs” as the kids say – a dub being a “W” which is a win. So, follow along, I had two big wins.

The first win was Saturday morning when I was part of a small but loud crew from our gym which climbed all 144 flights of stairs in the CN Tower. We were not fastest and I was certainly not fastest among the five of us. But I started last in our crew, and we all finished within two minutes of each other.

My time was 22:14, which I thought was okay for an old guy and well below the 40 minutes or so that we were told was the generic benchmark for average. I am nothing if not average. No pauses or breaks en route to the top, I just climbed.

Springtime in Canada & other lies

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diet, exercise, family, fitness, lacrosse, weather

Some weeks ago – three? Maybe four? – I put away my long wool winter top coat and draped the scarf over it and moved on to my light, three-season trench coat.

Temperatures were warmer and climbing. Snow had given way to rain. The rhythm of the season began pounding the unmistakable beat of spring. Bring it on.

It is alleged Mark Twain once said the coldest winter of his life was the summer he spent in San Francisco. Mark should have tried on springtime in southern Ontario for winter weather.

Monday’s morning snow was a kick in the teeth, followed by the curb-stomping of today’s cold (-9 when I left the house today after taking out the garbage) to be followed tomorrow by the continued indignity of more rain, sleet, snow and cold.

And what’s strange is where my head goes in weather like this, at this time of year.

Lacrosse tryouts.

11

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cycling, diet, exercise, family, fitness, hockey, spinning

I was all ready to go this morning, just like I always am. An almond-milk-and-fruit concoction in the fridge and my day’s clothes hanging in the mudroom to minimize disruption to those I love most as I exit home at 530a.

Which is a bit of a canard. In the universe that is our home I am the most disruptive force, a belt of careening asteroids at the best of times, colliding gracelessly with objects both inanimate and organic regardless of proximity to my path. And at 520a, brace for impact.

Anyway, to get to the point, they had to get by without me this morning at the gym and I am confident they did just fine.

Today is my first down day in the last 27 – the sprint run to the end of the challenge motivated me to forego a couple of dates that normally would have been rest days, but the nasty weather and a couple creaky joints made it an easy call this morning. Me and the asteroid belt called an inaudible audible and I slept (sort of) for an extra hour.

Sort of running. But for a cause

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competing, diet, exercise, family, fitness, training, working out, world vision 6k

This Saturday I will do something I have never done before by participating in a six-kilometre “fun run” to raise money for fresh-water wells in arid African villages.

I quietly reached out to fewer than a dozen family and friends whom I figured would be sympathetic to the cause (and to me) and asked for modest contributions. They exceeded my humble goal, and now it’s on me to finish the route and make good on the commitment.

Me and running have an indifferent relationship – and you will note above I didn’t say I will be “running” the course, I said I would participate. I have no doubt my fitness level and cardio/respiratory capacity is more than sufficient for six kilometres – it’s my gimpy old knees that will likely require a run/walk/run/walk regime.

Back when I used to walk for fitness and stress management, I had a route of 6.25 kilometres that I could do in about 55 minutes. Most people don’t walk that fast. So, I know that I can finish the course on Saturday in less than an hour. It will be managing my ego to ensure I’m not the last person out there that will be the challenge while not grinding my joints into powder.

Five for Friday, Vol VIII

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

The first five for Friday of 2016. Save your noise makers for something more worthy.

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We have started the post-holiday period by getting back to eating better at home. By better, I mean healthier. And normally I add that by “we” I mean “me.” But in this case, it’s “us, mostly me.”

Laura is being patient with me while I move to more plants and less meat, which she is all for — it’s all a challenge for me, really.

You can’t just eat a lot of fruit – too much sugar if you overdo it. And prepping healthy stuff to keep handy at work may only seem like a little bit of work but it’s the organizational effort that grinds me down. Typically I’m not home from work until close to 7p – after leaving the house for the gym at 530a to start my day.

That’s a long day. When I get home I have to do my laundry from the gym, organize my clothes for the next day (trust me, this is not a task to be done on the fly at 515a unless you’re indifferent about having underwear, socks or a shirt or belt), make sure my water bottle is filled and my pre-workout snack is ready to eat in the car.

Leaving any of these things to be done in the morning risks it not being done at all. Actually, what it does is ensure disaster. So, adding snack prep to that list … I’m not there yet.

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.

Five for Friday: Vol V

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AUS, Black Friday, cooking, cycling, dalhousie tigers, diet, exercise, family, fitness, hockey, running, training, tug of war, working out

Some things are old. Some things are boring. Now you can have both in the same place. Welcome to Five for Friday.

Item 1. A couple notes about the Athlete Training Centre, where I work out. There is an open house there tomorrow from 1p to 5p and if you live or work on the west side of greater Toronto and have an interest in getting fit, come take a look.

The bad news tomorrow for the regulars is that the morning 9a class is cancelled owing to the elaborate preparations for the open house. And given that I have a peewee hockey game to help coach at 315p and another pair to convene after that, I won’t be taking part in any of the demos. That’s probably good news for the ATC.