Quite pleased with myself! I recerted my National Lifeguard Service qualification tonight at the annual “Old Fart” recert at Dovercourt. I was a bit apprehensive before going… my qualification has been expired for a long time (about 5 years I think) and I knew I would be rusty. I didn’t want to be embarassed by falling flat on my face, but things actually went quite smoothly. I’m a lifeguard again.

I met an interesting person tonight too, one that I thought would be a good fit for both Jen and I in terms of a new friend who also is into the outdoors and stuff. Perhaps I should have said would have been a good fit, but actually it was a bit of a missed opportunity because I didn’t really make the connection with the person despite chatting for a bit.

Thinking about the situation in hindsight I realized a couple of things. First, I spend a lot of time getting people to talk to me while I listen. That is nice, but I realized after the fact that the person likely did not know that we shared interests, because I didn’t provide any information that revealed my interests… I just listened. Second, I realized that I have no idea how to move from the “hey this is a nice conversation but we’ll never see each other again” stage to the “hey let’s get together sometime” stage. It must be possible to do, but the devil is in the details and I’m never sure how to go about it.

Coming up in a future entry… how to ensure you won’t be invited back on a winery tour…

 › sports     2006-05-17 01:10   ...1 comment

Here’s the thing. I’ve never been into team sports. I know you will all be shocked to hear I was that kid who would much rather have done some tedious homework rather than play a team sport. I played soccer for a few years (kid soccer is a serious institution here in town) but it never clicked with me. I just never got into it. I wasn’t very good at it. Lately I’ve been speculating about why that might be.

I think I’ve figured it out: Most team sports are just plain old mean and rude.

The standard team sports (e.g. hockey, soccer, basketball, waterpolo, football, quidditch) all share a similar game play idea: keep the token (ball/puck/quaffle) away from the other team and defeat the goaltenders. Whenever possible you should steal the token away from an opposing player. Whenever possible you should interfere with an opposing player to frustrate them and prevent them from making progress. If you can be in their face pushing them around, that’s great. Basically, you should make life lousy for the opposing player, and inhibit them in every way from doing their best.

Does anyone else think that is weird or unnatural? After all, here in 2006 we are all supposed to be sensitive new age folk, valuing everyone’s efforts, looking for win-win situations and being co-operative. Why do team sports have to be nasty. I don’t like to be nasty, so why be nasty on the pitch?

I think I like the idea of a team-based sport from the point of view of being on a team. I like the idea that there’s a social aspect. That one is motivated to show up and play hard by the desire to not let the others down. Shared achievement and shared disappointment. All that stuff. It’s appealing. But I just don’t like getting in there and tripping people up and pissing them off.

There are other team sports, I realize, and some of them aren’t appropriate because I’m just not that co-ordinated (e.g. volleyball). But I don’t dislike them nearly to the same extent that I’m put off by the canonical team sports.

What kind of team sport would I like to be involved in? I don’t dislike the idea of friendly competition. I like the idea of teams playing against each other. That gives you a reason to get out there and try. I just don’t want to be in-your-face about it.

I remember in grade 7 or 8 I ran on the school’s 4x100m relay team. I really enjoyed that. I got to try my hardest for my team, directly against four opposing teams, and I didn’t have to be nasty to anyone. It was very polite. And sweaty. There need to be more sports like that.

I don’t mind the shuffleboard/curling type games where you aim to frustrate your opponent politely and from a distance. Those sports are low on the sweat factor though…

What kind of energetic team sports are left that one can play politely? Enquiring minds want to know.

 › sports     2006-04-03 23:56   ...2 comments

It’s a beautiful winter day today, and the photos in Andrew’s soon-to-be-infamous Cock entry made me realize that I haven’t posted any photos in a while. I’ve been taking a bit of a photo break, I guess, as I’m never that inspired by generic “Winter” photos and we haven’t done much this winter outdoors due to the soggy conditions. Also I’ve been spending too much time ranting about politics.

I just remembered, though, that I did take pictures a few weeks ago when we were snowshoeing. I’ve been playing with exposure compensation on my camera, and I’ve just started to understand what it’s for. I overexposed most of the photos, but here’s a few good ones of Jen and one overexposed one that I still like because of the stream shape.

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 › sports     2006-02-11 12:13   ...0 comments

It has been a very busy week, but I managed to squeeze an hour of time out tonight to inaugurate the Rideau Canal here in Ottawa.

For those not in the know, the canal is the world’s longest skating rink (confirmed by Guinness) at 7.8 km (4.8 miles). It’s quite a good skate to go from one end to the other and back. I did nowhere near the full canal tonight… just a quick skate around Dow’s lake.

The canal opened for skating today, and although it looks like it will be a good season, waiting until 8pm meant that I didn’t get optimal conditions as I’m sure it was very popular. There was a lot of scraped up snow and the ice surface needs to be flooded a few more times. Despite that, I got up to a good speed with only a few stumbles on hidden cracks in the ice.

I was particularly pleased that it only took a few minutes to get to the canal. According to the inestimable Google Earth (doesn’t seem to be released, yet I seem to have a copy… weird) I am 363 metres from the canal, 720 metres along the road. There’s something fun about living 363 metres from a major tourist attraction… that is actually worth going to.

So, who wants to go skating?

 › sports     2006-01-07 21:59   ...0 comments

The race weekend hires a cool service that tries to take photos of as many runners as possible. When the event is all over they put up a database which you can search by bib number. This year, they emailed me with a link directly to my photos online. How cool is that?

I love that in these photos my feet are not touching the ground. It kind of reminds me of Calvin’s TV.

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 › sports     2005-06-05 09:56   ...1 comment

As many of you know I repeated the Running Room clinic this year. It really is a good way to get kick-started for the summer. The first week (March 7th) we actually ran on the canal, and as with last year the culmination of the clinic was the 5k on race weekend.

This year has been a bit different from last year. For one thing I have actually gotten to know the people in the clinic this year, and have been running regularly with a running partner from the course. She and I (and a friend of hers) ran the 5k today at a very comfortable pace (aside from a little rubber burning right at the end). I really felt quite relaxed as we did the run, quite unlike last year’s feeling that I was going to expire, and ran it in about the same time as last year too (45 seconds slower or so this year).

Altogether a different experience. I am glad we started near the front this year which meant we could avoid bowling all the walkers over along the way.

Definitely something I would consider doing again next year.

 › sports     2005-05-28 23:55   ...1 comment

Just happened to see this blog entry today about a guy who has problems with drivers while riding his bike. Perhaps not the ideal set of responses to these problems… but kind of funny!

 › sports     2004-06-10 11:34   ...1 comment

Well, my running clinic has come to a good conclusion with this weekend’s National Capital Race Weekend. I ran in the 5k race, and I am pleased with the experience.

I believe that my spring running plan has been a success, as I am now running about the same amount I was running three summers ago, and it is only May, so I have the rest of the summer to keep exercising. I feel sure that if I had not done the clinic I would have only now been starting to think about a running plan.

There were some frustrating aspects to the race. First, the large number of walkers (it was officially a run/walk race) were a bit of a problem. There were 3447 other people in the race, so there was a lot of threading your way from side to side along the course as you tried to run through the walkers. Also, I went out with my clinic to run the supposed course earlier this week, but the route we ran was not the real route, so that led to some uncertainty on my part during the actual event. Lastly, I feel that I finished with energy to spare, so I wish I had pushed myself a bit more.

It has been a learning experience. If you really want to challenge yourself, I have learned, you need to go out on your own with a stopwatch. The race atmosphere is fun, and the screaming hordes at the finish are fantastic, but you can’t look to the race as a challenge. It’s kind of like a nice party that you have an invitation to (by virtue of your training).

I do have a snazzy medal, and it is something that I would definitely do again, but I would go in with very different expectations.

Hey to you all with 300m to go!

 › sports     2004-05-30 22:53   ...1 comment

Thought you might like to know that my running clinic is still going well. This week I got both practise runs in; I ran on Monday at the course as well as on my own on Wednesday and Saturday.

Doing the practise runs really helps. This week was 3 minutes running followed by one minute walking, all repeated 5 times. On Monday it was quite a lot of hard work. Wednesday was much easier until the last repeat. Today was quite easy… I even ran 4 minutes on one of the repeats by accident, and was fine. So practise really helps!

One thing I really like about running is that if you can stick with it the improvement is really dramatic. Like you’re panting crazily after running 2 minutes one week, and two weeks later you’ve doubled the amount of running you’re doing and feeling great. The clinic is cool because you’re out for a fixed time (20 mins or so) each week; slowly but surely the 20 minutes becomes more running and less walking.

Anyway, all this running is covering a lot of ground… To give you some idea of distance, it’s from our place across Bronson and along the canal to Mexi’s at Dow’s Lake, and then back again.

 › sports     2004-04-17 23:12   ...0 comments

Well, after all these entries where I make you work, it seems only fair to stray back into content providing mode.

Yesterday we went hiking in Gatineau Park. It was still very muddy underfoot, but it was lovely and warm. One thing about this time of year that I love is the number of babbling and chattering little streams that run through the forest. Some have official bridges over them, but others have little more than stumps and stepping stones.

We went about 4:30, after I’d met with my supervisor and after I spent some nice time with my parents. The drive out along Meech Lake (yes… the Meech Lake) was scenic, although we did wind up behind some people who were driving at like 25 km/h, so let’s just say we had time to truly appreciate the surroundings during the trip from Chelsea to the trail.

Click below for more photos.

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 › sports     2004-04-10 11:12   ...2 comments

I did my first practise run this afternoon. I’m supposed to squeeze two of these in a week, doing the same routine that we have done in class on Monday night. This week I’m only going to have gotten one in, but that’s not the end of the world.

I was hoping to do it with Jen, since she wants to do some running; I thought that perhaps she would like to try this regimen. Unfortunately, due to a scheduling snafu, time to do this vanished as she was going to see Scooby Doo 2 with a crowd this afternoon.

No matter. The run was good, and I met up with Dan at the bookstore where he was getting the present we contributed to.

 › sports     2004-03-27 18:29   ...0 comments

Well, alert readers may remember that I said I didn’t want to miss the first Running Room run clinic. And I didn’t. I signed up for the Monday evening learn-to-run clinic, and last night was the first night.

I decided that the session starting in March would be the best, since it goes for 10 weeks, and should leave me running 20 minutes non-stop by the end of May or so. That will set me up for a (hopefully) good summer of independent running. Having signed up for the spring clinic means starting in March, and it has been so nice here since the beginning of March. As a special treat for the first clinic, of course, the temperature did drop back to -10°. I dressed up though, and it was actually fine… much better than I had anticipated.

I have run before. About 3 years ago I was running 5km 2-3 times per week through the summer. So taking a learn-to-run clinic felt like it was going to be good as far as helping me to get out there at a specific time, but also pretty soft in terms of difficulty. I was happy to find that there are many people just like me in the class. With a class of about 100, there are people who run fast, and some who run slow. There is one instructor, but many group leaders; when we go out running, the group leaders run at different paces, so there is a subgroup for any pace. I was worried that the first class running practice (run 1 minute, walk 2 minutes, repeat 6 times) was going to be super-boring, but since I ran in the front group it was actually a good challenge.

One other good thing about this class is that I’m hoping to learn this method of ramping up distance more gradually. My old method of run-till-you-drop-and-hope-its-further-than-last-week is trial by fire for the first 5 or 6 runs, and probably not that good for me either. At the clinic, I certainly could not have kept that pace up for the whole distance without the walking, and week by week the balance will change over to running until we are running 10 minutes with a 1 minute walking break. I think I will delete the walking break when running on my own.

Anyway, I found the class helpful. When it’s over I’ll either continue on my own, or consider signing up for the next session, which takes you from running 20 minutes continuously to running 10 km.

Also, the end of this clinic coincides with the National Capital Race Weekend, so I am considering doing a 5 km run as a part of that.

 › sports     2004-03-23 09:58   ...1 comment

Perhaps next year we’ll be able to participate in this cool event.

 › sports     2004-02-13 22:15   ...0 comments

We made a special trip to Toronto to visit with Hilary, since we had not crossed paths with her during the holidays. One of the highlights of our visit was a trip to High Park (see also here) where we skated on Grenadier pond. Only a few small patches of pond were cleared, but it was super-fun.

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 › sports     2004-02-09 02:35   ...1 comment

Jen has been watching the ski conditions like a hawk since the first snow several weeks ago. Nothing like getting your first ski of the year in within the first week of December… Bodes well for the year… send us some of that snow!

P8-P9 loop. Gatineau Park 1/250 sec @ F6

 › sports     2003-12-07 23:20   ...0 comments