Running

Earlier this spring I thought I would try running.  Well, actually, last fall I ran about 5 times when I was feeling desperate enough to need any sort of exercise, and running was the only option.  This spring, for reasons unknown now, I felt inspired to enter a running race with Ann-Marie.  We had plenty of time to train (five days or so) and it was a distance I thought I could complete (in some time frame...).

In the week leading up to it Ann-Marie would claim that "I haven't trained so I probably won't do very well, and I hope I can just keep up with you"**.

Ann-Marie's concept of not training is going for 1 hour runs at lunch five days a week.  My idea of not training is, well, not doing anything related to the activity I'm preparing for.  However, we went for one or two runs together and I felt pretty good.  In fact I started to believe that, shucks, maybe I can keep up with her and imagine if I beat her!  Wouldn't that be something?  I kept this delusion up for quite a few days!

So race day arrived and I had set some goals for myself:
1) finish the distance (25km trail run)
2) run as much as I possibly could
3) finish with dignity

I was feeling great on the day of the race!  I had no expectations (except that I might beat Ann-Marie!), and was just out to finish (and kick my wife's ass!).  Off we go, trotting along with a bunch of other better prepared masochists.
About 2km into it I still felt great, passing all sorts of people, jogging along at a reasonable pace, great!
At around 3km we started into some pretty decent elevation gain, still feeling pretty good I kept prancing along, maybe walking here and there, Ann-Marie still running.  But hey, I can walk the steepest bits and still keep up.
3.25km...Hmm, can't seem to catch up to Ann-Marie and she's running all the steep bits....
4km there she goes!
5km, okay, now I'm feeling tired.  Jesus, really, 5km?  20k to go?  Okay, it's okay I can do it just easy does it...
12km feeling alright!  Kind of downhill now.  Still, where the hell is the aid station?
18km I feel awful, this sucks, I'm never going to finish, my legs feel like they're filled with lead and I'm practically crawling on my hands and knees on the descents.  Why did I enter this??

Make.  This.  END.

20km flat bit, I can run and feel alright, drifting along listening to the ringing in my ears and starting to hallucinate.  The odd cramping hamstring makes me look like Terry Fox once in awhile, but I'm almost there!
23km some grandmotherly racers doing the 10k have found a rattlesnake.  For not-so-brief a moment I consider trying to catch it in the hopes that it will bite me and I can quit.

"oh yeah, well I was bitten by a rattlesnake and had to pull out, yeah I'm pretty disappointed, but hey, better luck next time eh!".

The next 2km are pure hell, and I'm cursing the race organizers and Ann-Marie for letting me sign myself up for this.  Other racers, mostly 14 year old girls, are floating past me like ghosts.  Maybe they are, I'm definitely hallucinating now.

Finally, I can hear the finish line and I pick up the pace a little, stand a little taller and try to regain my dignity.  Unfortunately, this pretty much depletes any energy I have left, and 50' from the finish, with people cheering and clapping and shouting my name, both calves cramp up simultaneously.  I end the race unable to lift my toes out of the gravel, and unable to lift my knees high enough to prevent my feet from scraping the ground.  Kicking gravel along ahead of me I stagger across the finish line.  It doesn't matter though, all I can see are stars and all I can hear is the ringing in my ears.  And I'm done!

God I was so happy to lie down on the ground!!  Ann-Marie gave me a big hug and led me to a cool soft patch to lie down on.  So in the end I didn't beat Ann-Marie, in fact I think she beat me by 25 minutes.  It gave me a whole new respect for how dang fast she really is!  But unbelievably I was second in my age class!  I won't mention how far ahead 1st was... but second, not so bad off the couch.  Ann-Marie was the second woman, and probably top five or so, so yeah, not so well....

Afterwards, I got in the car, drove to the airport, got on a plane, traveled for 8 hours.  Then the next day I spent 9 hours in a helicopter, then the following day spent another 8 hours traveling.  This, as you can imagine, is not the recommended way to recover from a 25km trail race for which you were completely unprepared.  For the next week I could hardly navigate curbs, and any route I walked couldn't have any topography.  It was a full 7 days before I could touch my legs without them hurting.  Ann-Marie's legs?  Well I think she was running again a day or two after the race...


**eyes rolling so hard...

Peace Out!

We finally broke out the canoe after a busy summer of working in the yard, working out of town and just basically running around like headless chickens (who all still have their heads, btw... for the time being).
We did a trial run down the Columbia.  With grand plans, we set out from Revelstoke at about 4:00 on a saturday night, expecting to paddle the 48km to the truck in the next 24 hours.  This, of course, didn't happen.  Headwinds and flat water scuttled our grand plans so we rigged a sail and sailed back up river, it was awesome!

Starting out on the Columbia

Tobin caught a nice Bull trout!  We lost it right at the boat, but it was a real beaut'.

Hurray, camping!

Laziness is the real mother of invention.

After cutting our teeth on the Columbia, and deciding the boys could tolerate more than 20 minutes in the boat, we piled in the truck and drove to Hudson's Hope.  The plan was to paddle the Peace, from Hudson's Hope to Taylor, BC.  About 100km of gentle water with a reasonably remote feel.  This is what I was after, and secondly, I really wanted to see the Peace river before it gets flooded by Site C.  Site C is pretty much an inevitability, and it will be sad to see another big, historic river turned into a lake... I wanted the boys to experience this river so they can appreciate the irreversible effects of some industries.

Hudson's Hope , worst weather of the trip!

Lunchtime!  Or was it snacktime?  Or just leg stretching time for the fifth time that day?

The Gates!!  Woooo, the Gates!!!

Roaming around the boat, getting snuggles

So nice to hang out on the river

Tobin was so industrious, he was out of the boat and setting up camp before any of us

Helping with dinner

Smallest kid gets the biggest bowl

This is what I was after!

Just look at those two

"let's go!"

 Who can see the bottom (of their beer)?

We took a wrong channel so had to line back up across a gravel bar, this was very exciting for the boys

Camp 2, tent ended up somewhere drier later in the evening...

The boys were SO tired every day, Tobin just hanging out on his chair enjoying watching the current go by.

Breakfast, fueling up for the day!

"we want to push off, can we push off?" was the cry heard every time we beached.  This was usually a pretty complicated affair involving one of us hauling a kid into the boat once the water got too deep and we started getting separated from them.

Nick wears his camo like an invisibility cloak.

Had the trip gone differently, the next 3 pics would probably be a metaphor for our collective states of mind and enthusiasm.  Instead, we all had a good time, but this series cracks me up.

Hurray, I love canoe trips!

I'm tired and hungry and there are bugs.

\

This sucks, I wish we were watching the Teletubbies.

Site C, looking upstream from where the dam will be.  Water level will be 30m higher, flooding out beautiful riparian cottonwood spruce habitat and high productivity farmland.  Sad.

Grey Owl, paddling through Site C.

 

From the base of where the dam will be.

  

 Okay, this is where I go from being all 'nature guy canoe paddling bird watcher' to 'HOLYSHITLOOKATTHATBOAT!!!!".  Our take out happened to be right at the place where these INSANE river jet boat races were going on.  It was like rally car racing on rivers.  To back-track, growing up in Kelowna, the highlight of the summer was the Regatta.  And the best goddamn part of Regatta was the jet boat races.  We could hear them start up from our house, and as soon as they did we would jump on our sweet bmx's and pedal down to peer through the fence at the pits.  The boats had these huge, supercharged, blown, unmuffled big block V8's and they were A-W-E-S-O-M-E.  Not just cool, it would bring tears to my eyes listening to them and watching the rooster tails spraying out the backs. I would lie awake at night wishing I had one, and I would stand on the beach hoping someone would offer me a ride in one.

So consequently, you can imagine the reversion to my bmx pedalling self when we heard these boats in the distance.  Ann-Marie started losing her patience when, as we were tying the boat on the truck, I would yell "THEY'RE STARTING!!!" and drop the rope to run down to the beach to watch the racers do a massive aquatic burnout in their jet-powered vehicles of my youth.  Goddammit, it was awesome.  Here's a short video of some of the early heats.

You know they're loud when they drown out a helicopter

Babysitting stories

Our good friend, "Uncle John" helped out this week, picking the boys up from school, taking them to soccer, and feeding them dinner.  What a star!!  When I came home from my appointments to take over parenting, John said, "everything went fine.  I'm going home now.  Talk to you later."  OK.  The boys were tired and were asleep instantly.

The next day, I receive an email from John relaying a few more of the details from the evening...


John wrote:

I got a wee bit worried for a bit there...the walk home started with a Tobin crash...this is where my caring and nurturing side comes out

"is your nose bleeding?"

"noooooo"

"can you wiggle your face?"

"yaaaa waaaaa"

"you'll be ok...by the time we get home it won't hurt anymore"

..a few more antics on the way home(I seem to remember Nick getting tangled up in a soccer net like a duck in a six-pack holder) then they both bee-line to the back yard for a group pee. I'm worried that things have gone feral too early in the evening.

..turn oven on, herd them inside, Tobin crashes again

"are you bleeding?"

"noooooo"

"Oh good, maybe get ready for dinner then...go wash your hands"

"Nick! where are you...?"

"out here"

"come on in"

"I can't get down"

"down from where?"....I go pluck him off his perch.

"how did you get up there? now put your backpack away and go wash up"

"No!"

"Yes, now." success...the only compromise was shoes outside instead of in...which seemed fine since I was wrong...all the shoes were outside.

serve up some salad...they argue, Tobin wants privacy to poo. Nick runs off.

now they're both gone...Tobin pooing and Nick, I don't know.

Tobin emerges, I serve up the salad..."chicken fingers coming soon...I forgot to turn the other knob on the oven. Chicken don't have fingers."

"I'm done!..."

"I'M DONE!..."

"I'M DONE!..."

"Tobin, what's Nick saying that for?"

"He's done pooing, you need to wipe his bum"

"you're kidding, do I have to wipe is bum for real?"

...laughing..."Ya"

eventually all is well and dinner is served. some experiments are done with the water and salt. some other experiments with ketchup are kyboshed before they start. wine is drunk.

Nick thinks he's Zorro with his fork, Tobin is getting energy back...on the verge of a lord of the flies style revolt.

"guys, stop eating like maniacs" says I, mimicking a maniac...erroneously, as this now becomes the sole topic of dinner as they take turns pretending to be 'maniacs'. More dangerous fork-play has me bargaining / ordering that the fork is to be pointed down...."like a spear fisherman". As I explain to Nick, Tobin stands on the table "like a maniac".

I try and get them to eat like "kings"...dainty-like, and silly. It words for 10 seconds then back to maniacs. Somewhere in the din I hear Tobin say something like "I'll be king of kings.....I'll be GOD!".

All food is eaten, cookies are delivered via a lego truck on the table, more wine and settled in for TinTin and wine.

I did, however, forget to put them in jammies...they were so still and subdued for TinTin I totally forgot!
It's totally fun once in a while...but I have no idea how you guys make it when you're alone for days and days! Wine and TinTin, I guess.

Wasa Lake Triathlon 2013

Tobin, now 6 years old, and Nick, 4 years old, completed their first triathlon at Wasa Lake (30km north of Cranbrook)!  This involved *swimming* 50 meters (in a very shallow lake), biking 1.5km, and running 500meters.
Unfortunately for Nick, and thanks to his unorganized mother, he completed the whole event in his Crocs and still came in 4th place! (despite his shoes coming off multiple times during the running section).  I found his runners in his school bag about 2 hours after the event - ARG!

fishin'

Last week some friends invited us to go fishing on Arrow lake with them.  I didn't tell the boys, but kept them ramped up by saying 'something awesome is going to happen tomorrow...'.  We got about 8 hours of really good behaviour out of them with that one.  They were PSYCHED when Todd came to pick us up with the boat on, and their two boys all camo-d up and vibrating in the back seat.

It wasn't just regular stand-on-the-shore-and-make-some-lame-casts kind of fishing.  It was fancy-20'-boat-with-electric-downriggers-rod-holders-barbeques-and-fish-finders kind of fishing.  Indeed, serious fishing.  Once set up we trolled around the lake, with me trying to keep an eye on the rods, but continuously upended by Todd who would shout "FISH ON!!!!" every now and then and jump up from steering to leap to the back of the boat to grab a rod.  Meanwhile I was left trying to figure out which of the four rods had the fish on.

It paid off though, here's Nick with his fish.  He didn't want to hold it.

Fish #2, very pleased.

I was the only one not dressed in camo.  Who knew camo was important even for fishing?

And one of the hens enjoying spring.

The youngest is not so young anymore...

Hey, you.

  Bling

All he really wanted was:

And a gymnastics party!  I'm not sure who had more fun, the kids or adults!

Bicycle cake

This morning on the way to school they just looked so sharp I had to take a photo.