Alive With Sport

I seem to be immune to the triathlon bug this year. You know the bug – the one hits for weeks or even months after you sign up for some race that scares the pants off you. Not that I’m cured, I do forsee that this bug will hit again in the future. It’s just that I’m seeing that there’s more to this sport than just an obsession with training & racing.

I’m finding other equally rewarding ways to stay involved. For example, this weekend I volunteered at a water station at the Ladner Half marathon. It was great to see everyone out there! As a bonus, we were stationed way out on the country farm roads right beside a self serve farmers kiosk with beautiful purple, yellow and orange tomatoes.

I’ve also been using my bike as a way of traveling lately. Commuting is a great way to get in the training, even if you don’t have a big race that scares the pants off you.

My all time favorite motivator for getting out there is being outdoors. With no racing bug to focus the speed and distance, I’ve been enjoying the settings even more. I have really appreciated my favorite trails and especially the swims in Boundary Bay. Getting outdoors is what it’s all about!

In previous year’s, all of this crazy triathlon training was about the racing but this year its about the events. A subtle distinction, but a distinction none the less.

What a better event to kick of the year, then my swim bunny appearance at the Delta Triathlon:

I recently wrote this story about how my coaching and athletic experiences and connects to my professional life as an educator. I share this post here (mirrored from my professional site) to get you thinking about how sport carries over into other areas of your own life.

My view is that good teaching is a lot like good coaching.

Trading my Team Canada t-shirt for a Team Mexico shirt at the 2008 ITU World Championships - a highlight for me as an Athlete

Athletes and Coaches from Team Canada (Red) & Team USA (Blue) at the Pan American Junior World Cup, circa 1999 - a highlight from my Coaching experiences

When I reflect on my experiences in sport, I find that there is a lot of carry over into to the realm of education. For example, my involvement in high-level amateur athletics taught me the importance of goals. Celebrating success, how to deliver and receive effective feedback, and how to tap into motivation are all things that I’ve learned about in sport and now focus on in my teaching. I also think that the collaborative relationship that successful coaches and athletes share mirrors a good educator – student relationship. Building on these reflections, I believe that it is my role as an educator to encourage students and to coach them for success.

As a bit of background information about myself, I’ve been involved in sport for many years. I’ve participated in high-level amateur sport, enjoyed recreational leagues, and coached Junior (<19) as well as Masters (40yrs+) athletes. As I tell the story of my athletic experiences, a few achievements stand out as highlights including a 4th place finish at the Pan-American Junior Track & Field Championships, a 2nd place finish in the Honolulu marathon, National Team carding in the Olympic Hopeful category during my university years, and more recently my finish at IronMan Canada.

Throughout all of these experiences, I’ve been lucky to have interacted with some very talented coaches and mentors. My earliest teaching experiences are based in coaching. These experiences range from: coaching experiences in track and field at highschool, university, and provincial levels; being a guest speaker for Sun Run clinics; designing and coaching marathon training programs; participating in NCCP level II certification courses as a guest speaker and participant. Here’s a few more highlights from my own coaching experiences:

• 2000 & 1999 National Team Manager, Canadian Junior Racewalk Team, Athletics Canada.
• 2001 – 1995 Head Coach, Racewalk West Track and Field Club.
• 2000 Coach, Honolulu Marathon Training Program, Joints in Motion, Arthritis Society.
• NCCP Level I, Level II (theory) Coaching Certification for Track & Field, specialization Racewalk

Involvement in sport is a life long passion for me. In addition to being personally fufilling, I’m constantly learning about myself, about good coaching, and about scenarios for success. I’m happy that I can make these connections between two of my passions in life: 1) being active in sport, and 2) being an effective educator.

A while back, I had a small film crew follow me around to make a “day in the life of..” style short film. It was a pretty interesting experience – and as a side bonus, I got some really cool photos of my bike.

To get these photos, and the associated film footage, I rode behind a pace car with driver, photographer and cameraman hanging out the back.  As I mentioned, it was quite an interesting experience.

Some of my favorite rides **

The Belcarra ride

Wednesday night out at the races route -
South Dyke Ride

Stanley Park Route

Tour de Richmond

Commuter Routes

The longer way home from UBC – via speedtheory

Bike commute to/from UBC – starting at Zaber

Zaber to UBC

UBC to Zaber

Granny bike to run group

Mountain Bike Routes

Delta Trail Ride

Get Yer Cyclocross Bike Out

**note If you see a “this workout is not available for viewing error”, find the – amp; – in the URL and delete those four characters – then the links should work. Stupid WSIWG editor is screwing up my links

I’m 7/7 in the Feb bike challenge! It’s Monday and I have to admit, my legs are tired. Riding 1hr on your bike isn’t actually that much, but I’m feeling it. With such a busy weekend**, scheduling workouts was a challenge (Sunday included a 6am trainer ride and a 9pm speed endurance run – accompanied by Torbin on the bike with lights). Today, I opted out of bike commuting to give my legs a couple more hours of rest. The downside is that I may be on the trainer until the wee hours this evening.

**I took the Triathlon Community Coaching course this weekend. I made some great new contacts/friends and took away some great practical tips about safety. On that note, I’m going to go buy myself a RoadID right now. If you don’t already have one, do the same!

Here’s what my Feb totals look like so far.

Bike for 182.1 km in 08:43
Run for 25.1 km in 02:22
Total Duration: 11:05

Here’s the results for my first couple days in the February bike challenge

Day 1 – 1:02:19, 22km – nice ride, mild weather
Day 2 – 1:20:51, 27km – soggy bike in the am, nice in evening, also had a quality run session
Day 3 – 1:01:18, 17km – all over downtown

Wednesday night I was super tired, so went to bed early. Man it’s awesome when you actually get enough sleep. I so rarely feel well-rested. Tonight, is a bike commute home through the city. I’m going to meet up with a few of the other bike challenge ninnys for company.

I have accepted a challenge, worse I even up’d the ante – and bet on it. The challenge is to ride your bike every day in February for at least 1hr. No make up rides the next day & no whining (ok, I admit – I added the no whining part for myself). My friend Murray has 5 other silly ninny’s who’ve agreed to accept his challenge via facebook. I was thinking to myself about all the excuses for days that I’m going to be way too busy to ride, how my coach is not going to like this plan, and I how I didn’t actually officially accept the challenge… Murray just kinda assumed that I was in. [Whine, whine, whine.] I don’t even know all the other guys. [Not fair, poor me] I’ve got to say, “I hate it when I whine”. Even if it is only internally. So, in a rash moment of “What the hell?!” I went and bet everyone that I could do it and they couldn’t. $20 to the charity of their choice, if they finish and I don’t!

Shoot.

On my bike commute in this morning, I was thinking to myself that this wouldn’t even be a challenge (and people wouldn’t think we’re crazy) if we all lived in Amsterdam – where bike culture is part of everyone’s life.

I need to reset my counters, I got me some new runners. I always forget when I’ve bought a pair of new runners. Thus, I also always forget how long I’ve had my current pair of runners. Last weekend, my arches started hurting so I’m sure I put way too many miles on that last pair. This weekend I’ve got a 1 hour 40min long run on the books, and I’m starting to think about race plans for the Langley half marathon. Calm, confident but aggressive – that’s what I need to be. Just like this guy.
photo by Torbin, Serengeti safari, Tanzania 2009