Bike to Work Week (aka Rainy Hell on Two Wheels)

New week of PE and I had to miss the goals setting class for a meeting...

For me, this week, my goal was to participate in HUB's Bike to Work Week and so despite a crazy hard rain yesterday AM, I rode for one hour, and was drenched before I made it up the street halfway from my home.  Yes I have rain gear, but there is no such thing as a waterproofing your face...

To top it all off, the jacket I wore did not keep the pocket seal and I got my iPhone wet!  That is not a good thing seeing as I use it for work, and play and overall just organizing my life.  I feel like my students I imagine - useless without a phone! Anyway, I am trying the rice trick and hope to have yee ole phone back up and running in a few days, otherwise there will be tears for a week (I jest).

Anyway, three days in and I have done just under 35 kms, burned just under 1000 cals, drank a cup or two of dirty road water and overall feel better than I did if I wasn't riding - despite the heavy horrible rains.

For the Ride to Work Week, they allow people to register online and then they calculate the collective total of carbon emissions that have been saved because people aren't in cars. And when people aren't in cars, they live longer...

Isn't that what its all about?

Just a few kilometres on the saddle...

In preparation for the 2013 Ride to Conquer Cancer (RTCC), a two day, 250km journey from Vancouver to Seattle, there is one serious goal one has to undertake: time in the saddle (what the seat is called on a bike for those who don’t know).  This can be achieved a number of ways, but ultimately, there is nothing other than sitting on the seat and pedalling that will get the job done...

So that said, my riding partners and RTCC team-mates dedicated our Saturday morning to a long 100+km ride that would take us from East Vancouver, through downtown, around Stanley Park a few times, across the Burrard Bridge, along 4^th to Spanish Banks, up to and around UBC all the way to Iona Beach by the airport and back again...and we start our ride at 6am!

While we are not speed demons, we are not on a Sunday stroll either.  We pedal as we are able and ultimately, the four hours and thirty minutes it takes to do it all comes with incredible side benefits for one’s health.

Here are a few of the statistics around Saturday’s ride:

Duration (riding time): 4h:35m

Distance: 105 kms

Average Heart Rate (AHR): 128 beats per minute (BPM)

Maximum Heart Rate (MHR): 168 BPM

Calories Burned: 4142cals

What amazes me is not the distance, nor the effort involved, but how that in a few hours, one can burn more than double the recommended caloric intake for a man my age (45). That has obvious significant health benefits...

But I didn’t stop there. We have to go back a day...

Again its the idea of getting time in the saddle and preparing the body for pedalling so Friday I left work and decided I would head off for a little dipsy doodle home plus a few extra kms. I stopped by my Love’s home for a quick hello and realized I hadn’t started all the computers, heart rate monitors and gear but know that for the most part I add about 10kms and a half hour...

Duration: 1h:20m

Distance: 35 kms

AHR: 146

MHR: 174

Cals: 1154

So here we are – two rides later and 5,296cals burned...140 kms.

Ultimately, while I worked hard, rode through massive cold spring showers and cursed the weather gods for making it so crumby Saturday morning, I am none-the-less incredibly thankful that I am still able to do this level of activity and do so in the face of recovering from my knee surgery a year ago. And today, after a simple stretch immediately following the ride and a hot bath, today I am more than able to have a normal day – relatively pain free.

While cycling isn’t for everyone, it is possible that someone out there find some form of fitness that captivates and benefits them like I have found cycling to benefit me.

Go out and find your thing!

Softball Thursday

POWER PE: an amazing day of softball skills, fun, sun, and unity of purpose around home plate. Trusting all learned something about themselves today, and about the game of softball.

Food Matters: a documentary film response

“Food Matters” – a documentary film I’d yet to see that deals with the issue around nutrition, health and the medical industry’s inability to focus on the idea of prevention as opposed to reaction in its approach to personal health.  Definitely made me want to reconsider many of the food choices in my life.  While they have improved dramatically since the days of two pounds of deep fried Teddy Style Hot Chicken wings nightly at my local pub back home in Ontario, I still am a sucker for a flavor disc from Dominoes or a bag of salt and vinegar chips…or a Starbucks donation treat that lies like some kind of sacrifice on a platter three feet from the edge of my desk.  So unhealthy that mess is…

Food Matters made me realize that the human body has the potential and the tools to cure itself – if given he right nutrients and that many of the diseases that Western societies suffer from are for the most part, primarily a result of the deficit of nutrition found in the food we regularly consume.

For me I need to stop junky pleasure food, cut down on processed foods, and get back into shopping locally, and ensuring that at the very least 50% of my daily sustenance is based on raw veggies of all kinds.  And to start the day with a huge glass of water – just to start the body going.

And in my community, I am always talking about the merits of eating well – but now I need to serve as that example by doing it and modeling rather than simply talking about it.  Time to show to play as opposed to being a bench warmer backseat coach…

Physical Activity and PE Class

At 45, after numerous leg surgeries, and a knowledge that I am getting older, I came to the conclusion that in order to stay on the planet longer and watch my son grow up, I need to be physically active.  

Ten years ago, I rediscovered the thrill of the cool sheet of ice and the thrill of team play - and joined my first ice hockey team since I was 16.  It has been invigorating and a reawakening of my youth and winters.

And I forgot how often I had hit the ice in the past, but not as a player, but as a referee.  So I got my BC certification, donned the striped jersey and have fallen in love with hitting the ice three to four nights a week and getting an amazing skate in and being responsible for the safety of youth who play the game. It is the best form of paid exercise I know...

Almost at the same time, a very good friend offered to sell his mountain bike to me.  I lived downtown Vancouver, but was young and naive and thought I could easily ride to and from work.  While I managed, after breaking the chain on the old mountain bike, I realized I had a desire to better myself by taking a serious leap forward and purchased a hybrid commuter bike.  It had thinner wheels and was compared to the old hunk of steel above all else - fast. Much faster.  

Suddenly I found myself loving riding for longer distances than I thought myself possible and voila - I rode in my first Ride to Conquer Cancer in 2011...a 250km two day trip from Vancouver to Seattle.  I was hooked as I rode within masses of other cyclists, thirty to forty road cyclists, all moving together as a team - a mass of machine and muscle flashing past me.

And now, a few years later, one torn right MCL in my right knee, a major knee surgery to repair damage done in the accident (a year ago this week),  I am back to riding 90 odd kms on a weekend on my very first road bicycle, loving that fact that I am able to be training for my second Ride to Conquer Cancer. 

And teaching PE!

Brilliant.