I did the Butterfly!!

Surprise! I had to use fins.
That was during yesterday's swim, and I forgot to mention it. Can't imagine why. Maybe senility is setting in.
Surprise! You were expecting a year end wrap up.

What I really meant was for this to be a 2010 year end post.
Surprise! I'm not going to talk much about Ironman Canada.
Liar. Maybe. Let's see how this turns out.

I've known all along I didn't want to work full time till I'm old, then do geezery retirement stuff till I die. That's no fun. Part of the plan was to transition to working less than full time, and having more time for things I want to do. Some of you have heard me mention my buddy Alan who "aspires to schedule his work life the way most people schedule their vacations."

In the grand scheme of things it's gone pretty well, for the first year at it. I'd have liked to work a little more during the rest of the year, and a little less during the training peak for IMC, but I'm not at the stage where these things are under my control. In any case my two employers during the summer were everything I could ask for in terms of flexible working hours. Which, given the crappy weather that often moved in during the late afternoon allowed me to get in more rides.

I've no real idea how the work thing is going to go for 2011, but there were a number of inquiries early December, then I think everyone went into year end mode and put off whatever could be put off. Some of them are projects I'd really like to be involved with. If any of you happen to know of someone needing a business analyst please get in touch with me.

Keith's Odyssey to Planet Fitness reached a major milestone with the completion of of IMC in August. However, I gave the blog the title I did because fitness is no longer just a destination for me. One can't "do" fitness, check it off the list, and then forget about it like the naked tandem skydiving with the hottie instructor. Over the last three years my activity levels have gone up to levels I flat out wouldn't have believed 5 years ago. What's more, I want to keep those levels up by continuing to be active. Well, not active at training for IMC levels. That was a bit much.

But I do want to be active doing things I enjoy. I'm still hoping to get out and try snowshoeing this winter. I've been meaning to try for years. I'd also like to rent some cross country skis and see if I can still do that. On good days I'd like to take snowboarding lessons, but I'm under no illusions about that. My ballroom dance instructor took snowboarding lessons in her mid 40's and her teen aged daughter went along to laugh at her mom falling on her ass. It didn't happen. Not once. But then with her dance background one could have expected her to be balanced and coordinated. I'd expect to fall a lot.

About now lots of people set their race goals for the coming year. I haven't done that yet. Firstly I'm enjoying the unstructured activity too much. Second, I have trouble committing to a goal when I'm not healthy. My right knee is a bit wonky these days, though the ART/Chiro and Prolotherapy, to say nothing of regular leg exercises, have been doing good things. I'd like to get some solid bike workouts under my belt before making the assumption it's ready for regular, structured training building towards a goal race.

Speaking about training, I have not the slightest idea in the world how many K I ran or biked this year, or how many hours I swam. Nor have I any interest in doing any of the activities it would take to find an approximate answer. I'm kind of amazed that some bloggers can give their distances to the nearest 10th of a mile or K.

There are some thoughts about race goals, but that's all they are, thoughts. If I'm not ready in 2011 the race will still be there in 2012, or other races will be. I have to live with this knee the rest of what I hope will be a long and active life, so I don't want to bugger it up by trying to push it more than it's ready for. What are those goals, you ask? They revolve around half IM's where I think I have something to prove. It's funny, I'm quite reasonably convinced I could do IMC again, quite a bit faster, but I'm under no compulsion to actually go do it. On the other hand, there are several halfs I need to revisit. Grrrr.

Which reminds me, once upon a time I promised to take a photo of all the medals so far, because one of my readers wanted to enter a race that gave out finisher medallions. So here they are. It's surprisingly difficult to take a photo of shiny objects. What's more these are even in order, top to bottom, left to right, just like reading print.

Just for fun, since I'm posting photos, find the cat in this photo.

The really huge decision for me was to join Facebook. For a long time I thought about the privacy violations, and how much I enjoyed, in a curmudgeonly sort of way, being a technological Luddite. But then I noticed I was losing touch with blog buddies. Their posts became more infrequent. Fewer people were commenting. A couple of them hinted all the action was on Facebook, and they no longer had the time to blog. Too many words, or too slow a typing speed, or something. Later, when I got onto Facebook, all my suspicions were confirmed. Here is the proof. Unlike SOME people I understand that a link to a Facebook page might not be visible to all my readers, so I took a screen shot.

Which leads me to the saddest event of 2010, finding out that Route 40 in Turner Valley had closed their doors. It was quite simply one of the best places to eat within driving distance of home. It took about a half hour to drive there, but the mountain scenery was usually spectacular any time of day or year, and the food was awesome!

One of the things I get a kick out of reading blogs is the bleats of people much younger than me as they get older. I have a niece who was seriously spooked about turning 30. That seems impossibly young to me now, even though in my head I still think of myself somewhere in my early 30's. There are some things I wish I had done differently back then, but there's no crying about it. Those decisions helped make me the me that I am today.

Here I am 2011, happy, reasonably healthy, and good to go for another year. See you there!

Running Niggle-free

Started today with a swim. Short warm up, lots of kick and pull drill. 6 x 100 on 2 minutes, all under 100 seconds. Woohoo! Water feel was great. Chatted briefly with Jarrett. The pool was almost empty today, I almost wish I could have swum more and enjoyed it. 1.5 hrs swimming.

It's sunny out and nice, only -18 C (0F). Did my leg exercises to warm up, then ran 45 minutes. You know when you take your first steps you sometimes know it's going to be a good run? That was today. My legs felt strong, it was a great day to be outside, and I had a super run. Not one single niggly at all. Not fast, even by my standards, but the intent was remind myself of this whole running thing. Toward the end my calves were getting a bit tired so I called it at 45 minutes and walked 10 minutes home, stretched after. Most of the run was on cleared sidewalks, but probably half the run was on uncleared paths. I'm really pleased by this, given how little I've run in the last several months.

I just found our long awaited plans to visit S&K&E have to be put off a week. One of them isn't feeling well. Sigh.

Oh, and I put all my videos onto one blog page for easy reference, because I know you're all dying to see whichever ones you have missed. Look down below my blogroll for the pages. It's called My Videos. Here's a direct link for the lazy.

A lazy swim; it's also not too cold out either

Right now, mid-afternoon, it's not quite -17 C (2 F) so I'd call it just a bit brisk, especially since there's a light wind blowing and a bit of snow coming down. What with an ART/Chiro session and a strong 30 minute core session I'm not really up for a run today, but one is on the books for tomorrow. It should be about the same temperature, but maybe sunny, so it should be a good day for a run. Core included 13 pushups (a new record for me!) 50 squats and 100 crunches. Plus other stuff. Felt pretty good.

News from the ART/Chiro session is good. My doctor says the muscles and stuff around the knee feel stronger, and the whole joint feels more stable. It seems to be responding well to the treatments. Maybe this weekend I'll have another go at the bike and see what happens.

But this morning I was feeling lazy, and didn't want to swim too hard. So I relaxed and thought about my stroke trying for smooth and relaxed and easy. The feel of the water was there big time! Mz Elegant joined my lane so that was encouragement to not lollygag around in the lane or I'd get run over.
1K 18:30
2 K 37:12
I figured that was enough so I started some kick and pull drills, alternating with some faster swim sets to keep up with the two other guys that joined when she finished up. Yeah, I admit it, my inner shark came out to play. It was kind of fun lapping them, especially since one of them at least was trying to keep ahead. I really didn't want to push it too hard so I called it a swim at 1.5 hr mark. The only pauses were to take the fins off or on, so I'm guessing I swam somewhere between 4 and 4.5K.

Chatted after with a couple of the guys that had been in the pool. I'll be seeing one of them at the Mercury Rising Swim Camp, and told another about it, so I might be seeing him too.

I happened to be downtown a little while ago and went through some of the +15 space. They've been doing a bunch of renovations on it, along with still working on the Devonian Garden space. This was THE primo space in downtown Calgary to eat your lunch in winter, since it's a fully enclosed 3.5 acre multi level rooftop garden space. It's supposed to re open soon, and I can't wait. It was amazing before. Here's what the +45 space looks like. One entrance to the Devonian Gardens are just behind me in this shot. It's from the east end of the +45 looking west towards the food court.

Same spot, looking down a bit more.

Looking down even more.

Here's a partial view of a glass bridge that's not yet open. This is looking more east.

 Moving along a bit and looking almost straight down. Those glass panels look down onto a street. All this is a big pedestrian bridge between two buildings, part of the +15 system. This is one of the reasons that people working downtown don't mind winter so much. Once you're inside you can go almost anywhere, if you don't lose your sense of direction, and can get through some of the non-intuitive bits. It's an amazing space. There are at least 57 bridges connecting the buildings downtown, and about 16 K of space connecting them. It's a great place to stroll. I have had dreams of doing a running race through one of the bigger loops, once the Penny Lane section is rebuilt. Here's a map, which includes The Bow, but not the Penny Lane section, even though both are at essentially the same construction stage.

Just to round out the tour of downtown, here's the new tallest building in Western Canada, Encana's Bow building. 58 floors, 236 m (774 feet) high. Looking nice! Just because I love this sort of thing, here's a time lapse video of them working on the first 10 stories or so. I'd love to see the same thing for the whole building.

And now my hair is dry again, so it's time to go shovel snow. We've got it light compared to some, like the US NE area. But Vancouver Island has been getting dumped on as well. The Mount Washington ski resort got nearly 3 m over several days, then in the last 24 hours they got another 2 m of snow. I'm glad I'm not digging that out.

Lotsa swimming, no crunches.

I was a bit of a slacker over Christmas, but I'm getting back on the wagon again here. Monday I met up with Richard at Canyon Meadows. I ended up swimming 2 hours doing lots of different stuff, including a drill where you always have to finish the 50 at the top of the clock, and every time you start one second later. That was fun. Lots of kick drill and other arm drill. After we went for coffee and a great chat.

Tuesday was an hour of swimming. I tried that same 50 m drill but this time looking at my watch to do it on the second. Coming back on the 12th one I didn't make the time. Went into the dive tank for a half hour of water running that felt really good.

Supposedly I was to have an ART/chiro session, but the office was closed. Maybe it's for tomorrow. My knee is feeling pretty good, though it was a bit achey during my walk today.

The slacker period ends tomorrow for core as well. I've been doing the leg exercises, but not the core workout. So much for 300 crunches every day for a month.

The pools have been quiet this week. Too quiet, as they say in the old Western movies. I fully expect a swarm of resolutionistas in the pool next week. Getting in the way. Swimming in the wrong lane. Taking up all the good lockers. Sigh.

Christmas run

We had a wonderful quiet day today. Opened some gifts. Drank coffee. Chatted. I took two wine kits to the next stage. The white clumped together beautifully. It's going to settle out in a nice layer that will make it easy to rack it for the bottling. This photo was taken less than a minute after I stopped stirring, and you can see the dead yeast clumping together and falling like snow. That's the way it should be.

I got in a solid 45 minute core workout, 3x100+1=301 crunches, 50 squats, but only 10 pushups. It's hard to keep the core under control when a huge belch comes out. Then out into a nice day for an easy 35 minute 5 K run. There were some twinges, but the sorest spots was the back of my calves just below my knees. It was about 0C so I only needed to wear tights and a long sleeve tech shirt over a short sleeved shirt. Stretched afterward and showered.

In the meantime Linda had been working on Christmas dinner. Roast goose with orange slices, carrots, potatoes, core, and stuffing. Blackberry gelato for dessert. mmmmmmm. This is what it looked like before we dived in.

Oh, and the chocolate moose box? All gone.

Sunday was some errands and family stuff. 3x100=300 crunches plus leg exercises, 30 minutes.

Normally I'd put a weekly summary here, but I'm not going to bother. There is only about 30 minutes of running cardio, and lots of core stuff.

Christmas tree decorating

The time has arrived. We got our tree decorated. We can even prove it with 5 minutes of video. Pity we didn't figure out where the centre of the camera view was. Nor could I make iMovie do a true time lapse, but this is more fun this way, since you get a close look at some of our ornaments, some commentary, and most important, wine!



In other news, the chocolate box is almost gone. Here's the last little bit remaining. It was very good.

I've done nothing for workouts since yoga on Wednesday. NOTHING! I'm not training for anything, and I've enjoyed sleeping in the last few days, and doing what I like during the day. So I don't need to be working out at this time of year. Nor will I feel guilt for what I eat. Next week I'll be back on the fitness wagon again. That's soon enough.

A quickie question for you all

There is a reason I'm wearing hearing protection in this picture. A real reason, not just some frivolous thing. Now that you're all deeply into the Xmas cheer beverages, I'm curious as to what your imaginations will produce for a reason.

There will be another, more serious post later, perhaps with a video, if I can get it to work like I want. Yes, that's a small part of the wine racks in the background.

I suppose, since I have some Southern readers, that title should have ended with a y'all. If I spelled that right.