Baby Steps

So last Friday I did indeed take the dog out for a walk at Heart Creek, where I was able to let my creativity flow and took 150 pictures.  I posted a 20 pictures to my picasa site from the hike.  I attempted a ride on Saturday from Seven Persons a small town, not more then a blip on the map, but has FANTASTIC smoked meat, the best beef jerky or sassages ANYWHERE. But I digress, it was very windy and at -10 C with a 40 kmh wind made for a very unpleasant ride, so alas after a few km I turned around and admitted defeat.

I finally put on a new Odometer on my bike on the weekend so am able to track my distances; Monday and Tuesday I did the long ride from C.O.P. to downtown and back, discovering its 30km, so a major increase over my shorter ride of 8.4km.  Wednesday / Thurs I decided to do the shorter ride giving my legs a chance to recover and allow me to do some running.  My goal for Friday is to do the long ride again. I have found that I am not as dead tired on this ride as I was last week, so that's encouraging.

I did also do a short run Tues and Wed evening.  I really haven't had the energy and I find my body giving up really easily.  Tonight I am going to meet up with the Red Rock Running Club in Cochrane, and try out their runs.  I'm not used to running wit others so this will be a really new experience.  My other concerns are that my running has been languishing and right now I am down to just runnign 3-5km not the 8km I had been up to in October, and theirs are probably a lot longer then mine as well as probably a lot faster then me as well.  I am praying that it all works out as I know I need the running to improve my cardio.

And thank you all who have donated to

New Adventures

Tuesday - I've extended my bike ride to 12.5 km one way, and doing the last hill up to Canada Olympic Place (C.O.P.) I knew I was running out of steam.  Looks to be a lot of snow predicted tonight, so I may shorted my ride to my shorter 8.4 km one.

So this week I was sick Monday but got in a late evening run, I did do 5km but not without a lot of rests.  Tuesday I challenged myself and biked from COP to downtown (25 lm) and back.  Which really took a lot out of me, I was sooo drained Tuesday night.  So Wednesday I decided to take it easy and do the short ride from Shouldice (16 km).  Thursday I did the Shouldice ride, and made awesome time getting downtown, so good I decided I should do a run at lunch.  

Well I really didn't want to do the run, I had myself almost talked out of it a few times.  But I finally decided I'd go and try it and if I was that tired and drained then I'd quit. The run started okay, I knew immediately that I'd need to take more breaks but thats okay.  What bothered me was that I didn't have any tunes to distract me and that my legs felt like lead weights for most of the run.  I did my shorter downtown run (from 10th to Princess Island Park) which is about 3.5 km.  My ride back wasn't so bad but nothing like my morning run.  

It makes you wonder what keeps a person going, that drive to get up and go for a run when your tired, when its so tempting to just sit and relax and chat with friends.  Days like today really amaze me that I actually accomplished so much, when I wanted to do so little.

Tomorrow (Friday) we have off at work, so I was thinking I'd mix things up and take my dog for a hike in the mountains.  Something I've not done in the winter but I know he'd love it.  There is a great little hike called Heart Creeek close to Canmore, so I think I'll go do that and perhaps wander around Canmore afterwards. 

Who knows what other adventures I'll take on this weekend.  Perhaps a really long bike ride, or a dip in the pool or....  

Going for your gold

Well after a week of not doing a lot of exercise I finally got off my butt on Sunday and went for a really short jog!  Hurray for baby steps, this is where its been all heart.  Its hard to stay motivated when you naturally an inactive person and you've been slacking all week, okay for most of my life, so for me to kick it back into gear really takes a lot of effort on my part.  Its also hard mentally when you go for a jog and you feel like you have gone back to the beginning.  My runs are shorter and I need a lot more breaks then I did a couple months ago. 

I am a big fan of the Olympics and am an ardent Canadian so while I am watching the Olympics I think about their goals and their dedication to those goals. They too have distractions of life, those days you feel blah, or feeling under the weather.  There are those weeks where its bitterly cold or you just can't get in the training time you need.  I am so not in their league, but when you watch them on the slopes you can feel a piece of the blood - sweat - n - tears that it took for them to get there. 

To know that they spend their life in many cases working to this one goal; that one moment, in many cases only 30 seconds of actual time to show the world that they are the best.  Its fantastic to watch them when they take the gold, and its heart breaking to see them when they make a mistake, quite often a minor one, but when you are competing against other elite athelites that is all it takes to end their run.  

In a few months I too have the goal of biking 200km in one weekend, to bring awareness to prostate cancer and the battles that those who have cancer must fight.  They don't have the luxury if failure, to them failure means death. There is no second chances.  Please help me bring awareness to the affects of Prostate Cancer and support me in my goals of biking to Vancouver and my Ride to Concquor Cancer.

Click here to dontate or learn more about my Ride to Conquer Cancer.

So this has been a very challenging week, it looked so promising last Friday, but Monday came and its gone downhill since then.  Its one of these weeks where you need to maintain a strong mental attitude.  I have heard when doing marathons that the first half is all legs and the second half is all heart.  Well this week is a heart week.

Monday as I was about to leave the house, my dog fell off the bed while jumping on the bed (I was in the wrong spot). Sadly is wasn't a great fall and his hind leg got caugh on the bedpost while his body was on the gound.  He was upset and thinking of calming him down before I took on the task of helping him with his foot, I reached to his head and he used my thumb as a chew toy.  Its very important to note that a Labrador can anialate a tennis ball in 10 minutes, my thumb being not as tough as a tennis ball was fairing a lot worse.  I used my other hand and in his mouth and was able to retrieve my other hand.  Alas both hangs got mangled.  On a good note, while I was dealing with my hands he managed to get himself unhooked and happily wandered the house while I dealt with my injuries.

So I didn't need any stiitches but I did need antibiotics and have a couple of minor infections on the wounds.  They are now healing although the thhumb will take a while to really heal as I think the tendons got some abuse.  So needless to say I have no done any majoy physical exersice this week, in fact I've been sleeping about 12 hours a day or more when I can.  I am blaming the need for all all the eexcess sleep on my injuries.

So today I'm going to try for eithhr a run or a bike ride, and see how that goes.  Last weekend I did have a success as I challenged one of the hills in Cochrane and made it to the top using my new bike.  Now the bike does need some tuning, but I did get there!

Another major even happened last Friday.  I joined the "Ride to Conquer Cancer", this is a 200km ride over 2 days in June to raise money for fighting cancer. Even though it sounds like a generic cause, you can specify which cancr I want the money I raise to be donated to.  I have requested all money I raise to go to Prostate Cancer... please check out my page below and donate generously.  As well please ask your friends and family to help support this cause as I can not do it withhout you. 

Here are the links to my Ride to Concquor Cancer

Click here to visit my personal page.
If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address:
http://www.conquercancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Alberta2010?px=2361639&pg=personal&fr_id=1332&fl=en_US&et=wBULbrMrNGp6oPCR6cBpGA..&s_tafId=158461
Click here to view the team page for Crazy Cranks
If the text above does not appear as a clickable link, you can visit the web address:
http://www.conquercancer.ca/site/TR/Events/Alberta2010?team_id=29240&pg=team&fr_id=1332&fl=en_US&et=rRKq8Ayz1uq-eaxQN3qNFA..&s_tafId=158461

Clothing woes

I got up this morning and being Friday I get to wear jeans to work.  Wooot!  I grab a pair from my closet and find them a little hard to put on I had to struggle some to get them buttoned up.  Now I know I've not been great this week, I ate a large bag of peanuts so figure the problem with buttoning them up has to do with excess salt in my body,  plus the pants have been freshly washed & dried, so they have also shrunk some. 

I figured that over the day they should stretch out and they have gotten a little looser but not a lot; so hoping they aren't my larger pants (36) and that they are my smaller ones (34)  I check the tag . Well they are actually 32's, which means I've a pair of stolen pants on my hands.  I musta gotten them from my gf's kids some how.  And instead of being a bad week, looks like all the biking I have been doing has been working well for me and I'm still a Big Ole Looser!!!

Now my question is how do I get my stomach to reflect the same losses; I remember as a teenager never having as big of a gut. Which by the way is the last time I could fit a pair of 32's.

January has been a success

January is almost over and for training its been a great month.  I started biking the first week of January, the last 2 weeks of January I biked every day to work doing 150km.  I am definitely getting stronger in the legs and faster in my biking (I think).  I have been biking from Souldice park to down town (8.4km each way), I have been wanting to tackle the hills in Cochrane but they are still quite daunting and after biking all week I think its good to let my legs recuperate. 

So my goal for February barring the expected and dreaded winter blast is to start biking from COP to downtown.  http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ab/calgary/392126470803483132 is a link to my planned route.  It will be just under 14 km each way so I'll be doing 140km a week, nearly doubling my distance and adding a small hill into my training.  First week I want to just do the extended route once, but as the month progresses its my intention to add 1 extra day of the longer route each week, until I am doing the longer route as my standard route.  As an added bonus the new route will burn about 700 Calories, not as great as running but that's okay. 

Sadly my running has been languishing, I have really not put a lot of effort into my running, so I've decided that starting next week any day I don't bike the extended distance I will run at lunch instead.  Now this is also contingent on no winter storms, blizzards, or getting side swiped with a flu. 

I am still very pumped about my bike ride trip this summer and think I will be in very good form to accomplish it.  There is fund raiser for Cancer this spring in Alberta called "The Ride to Conquer Cancer" which Cenovus is participating in, its 200km over 2 days and I think this could be a great practice form me as well as help raise awareness for Cancer. Now this event is not specifically for Prostate Cancer, but I think its still a great event to raise money and awareness for Cancer.

Sign up today on The Ride to Conquer Cancer Website:
http://ab10.conquercancer.ca/site/PageServer?pagename=reg_now

Week Progress

My new bike came in last night, and I got it all assembled and did a token ride down the street.  I did have to use the junk peddles they gave me at the store.  Today I bought many of the important accessories for the new bike, and brought my old bike in for a desperate tune-up. I now have a bell (briiing, brrrring), odometer, bike-lock, water bottle holder, seat bag, and a tool for doing bike repairs. Still need air pump, bike seat and a set of peddles for it. 

Biking this week has been fun, I've biked Mon, Tues, Wed and Thurs for a total of 120km.  The trails are mostly good but there is some icy patches and then there are some rough icy patches (not fun). I've been biking from Souldice Park to downtown Calgary (15km each way).  I started biking to work mid December with a few weeks of doing just 2 bike trips a week, and some running thrown in.  This week I biked and ran Monday, but thought I should let my body work at building up my biking legs as I've been exauhsted most evenings this week and have gone to bed early (10-11pm) which to me is very early, I'm usually a night owl.

Tomorrow I hope to do another lunch run, of 6.4 km.  I am not sure if I'll bike in tomorrow or now as I probably should let my biking muscles have some rest breaks as well.   The funny thing is that its faster (and cheaper) for me to bike in from Souldice Park then to drive to a C-station (LRT) and take the train in.

This weekend I may mix it up a little and go for a cross-country ski trip or perhaps throw on some rollerskates (yes skates) and jump back to the 80's at Lloyd's.  Although I may try and do "the hill".  Cochrane is mostly in a valley. Now there is 4 ways to leave Cochtrane, but to leave the valley you need to bike up a hill in 3 directions, and in the fourth its a narrow road with minimal shoulders that takes you into the reservation.  So I have for 10 years been handicapped on my biking and have not done anything too significant.  So I may start to bike up the hill as far as I can make it and then turn around and come home, I am sure over time I'll build up the muscles and endurance to take on "the-hill"  aka hwy 1A that goes up to Glen Eagles.

Biking can be a very expensive sport, it just seems cheap!  Those accessories add up in no time and some of them are fairly important. Like the $50 bike lock.