Category: family

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The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Part 4

When we last left off, my brother and his family had just joined us in Heiligensee, near Berlin.  Read The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Parts One, Two and Three if you haven’t already.


DAY 13:


Once the kids are all up, we got the fun of seeing them play together and then a quick bike ride to the park – with a combination of bikes with kid seats, a trailer, and little bikes for Shark Boy and his cousin.  We got to the playground, played on the playground train (made of stumps) then the slide and a game of hide and seek.  The Lightning Kid sat this little excursion out in favour of a morning nap – but when we got back for lunch and naps for the rest of them – it was his turn to ride in the bike seat.
I generally prefer the trailer for safety reasons, but it’s great to see him enjoy the ride (and more importantly, tolerate a helmet).

We’d seen posters around town for a Kids’ Fair near the big shopping mall.  Things to do for kids seem to be always available in Germany – if you know where to find them.  In this case our search led us through the mall which resulted in extra stops for espresso, ice cream (my third spaghetti ice cream of the trip) and books (as well as a tantrum or two).

We had some trouble finding the place (it’s a semi-industrial/commercial park) and when we did – there was barely anyone there.  The carny/operator guy seemed to think the threatening weather had kept the crowds back but I couldn’t help but think the hidden location added to that.  The good news was we could walk onto any attraction like a bouncy castle as a family or even have rides stopped and started at our leisure.  There may have been some bent rues about adults on rides too… We called it an evening before the rain hit and got the kids home for dinner and bedtime.


DAY 14:

In the morning we took all the kids on another riverboat cruise except the Lightning Kid.  Its pretty uneventful, in spite of the kids’ efforts to run around, split up, and generally get close to railings and other threats.

In the afternoon my brother’s family and mine split up to visit different friends – in our case, an old friend of my wife’s who lives in Teltow.  It’s a second chance for Shark boy to play with his little friend who he’d previously abandoned in favour of a boat ride.

To me, driving in Germany is a little more stressful than back home – there’s different rules for right of way (cars entering the street from the right have right of way unless otherwise marked – very counter-intuitive), you can’t turn right on red, the speed limits (or lack thereof) on the Autobahn and generally dealing with the fact that you don’t know where you’re going.  Like I said, it’s a little more stressful.. but factor in dark and rainy weather, rush hour traffic and noisy kids in the back seat and you have a white-knuckle experience.  Our GPS unit seemed determined to route us to every major road and highway via some byzantine combination of side streets and alleyways.  There might have been smoke coming out of my ears by the time we got there but it’s nothing a beer and pasta dinner (plus cake and cookies) couldn’t fix.

DAY 15:

We took the kids to Jack’s Fun World again; it was interesting to see how the presence of his cousins affected Shark Boy’s behaviour – he was a lot more game to get onto structures and trampolines and less into riding solo on video game motorcycles and other stationary, coin-operated machines.  He even tackles some slides that he left alone the last time we were here.  A big highlight for me is seeing the Lighting Kid flash his big smile at me when we ride the little train together.

Knowing we’ve got the journey back to Frankfurt the next day, we opted for a slower afternoon rather than take the kids swimming – they’d had enough big time action for the day.  It was nice to keep things simple at home and we got a shot of the kids together on the couch in what is becoming an annual tradition.

DAY 16:

Heading back to Bad Homburg, the families were splitting up in a race – the train (ICE & S-trains) versus car.  Would the delays of train stations and transfers be less or more than those of Autobahn traffic jams? (Note: my hand-written journal runs out here. A month later and my memory of our last day is a little hazier). We rode the ICE a little more knowledgeably this time, and managed to keep the boys reasonably entertained (resulting in reasonably good behaviour) for that portion of the ride back. Moving around the cars and getting food proved challenging, as the train was full of drunken, loud Bayern-Muenchen fans on their way back from a Champions League Final victory.


We made it to Frankfurt station and felt like ice cream… but we were being ice cream snobs and the Hagen Daaz and Movenpick kiosks were not going to cut it, so we got a couple of pastries instead and boarded the S-Bahn/S Train. S-Bahns are a little like street cars on steroids, and tend to help bind outlying communities and suburbs to the downtown core of cities like Frankfurt. Ours was very crowded and our stroller had to fight for space with bikes… while a separate section of seats were vacant. They were ‘First Class’ seats; I found the idea of a First Class section in a commuter train service very odd, but there you have it.

Riding the rails (again).

We spent a lovely evening as two families; the kids playing in the backyard and take-out pizza for dinner. One last night and the next morning we would be winging our way home.

The flight home was not overnight like the way to Germany, so we were a little worried. Fortunately, the boys kept their chaos on the lighter side, and we also had another empty seat beside us. We shuffled around quite a bit to keep everybody satisfied.


This picture is not representative of the overall flight

The young lady you can see in the background of the picture actually managed to catch Shark Boy and keep him from falling off the seats while he was sleeping. I thanked her profusely, but the best part was that she had forgotten a bouquet of flowers, and we were able to find her at baggage claim and return them to her; Shark Boy did the honours of hand delivering them. And with that, we were home, safe and sound.

Obviously there are a lot of great memories in a trip like this, but I won’t lie: it was exhausting, and overall made me wonder if it’s worth all the effort. More than what I got out of the trip, or what the kids got out of the trip though, is its symbolic value (for lack of a better term). We are a family with widely varied interests and priorities, we might have some special needs, we have personalities that could be classified as forces of nature, but we will travel. We will seek adventure, we will cherish our extended family, whether it’s now when it’s hard because the children are so young, when it’s a little easier because they’re somewhat more manageable, or even when they’re teenagers and don’t want to hang with their parents quite so much. Values like these are instilled through tradition, and tradition means repetition, and sticking to it even when it’s hard.
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The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Part 3

See Parts 1 and 2 if you haven’t read them yet.

DAY 9:

Still more rain and cold that morning – it was starting to really get to me. It was either pouring or drizzling all. the. time. We managed to while away the morning knowing we had a game plan for after the midday nap – Jack’s Fun World – an indoor playground built in an industrial warehouse space – it was HUGE. I started calling it “Captain Jack’s” after a song Shark Boy had learned at daycare – especially because it reminded me of another Captain Jack Song.




The place was filled with ball pits, climbing structures, trampolines, slides and such which were included in the admission as well as things that costed a surcharge – bumper boats, video games, mini-golf, and those stationary rides you find in shopping malls like cars, trains and helicopters that shake when you put coins in. To my utter disappointment Shark Boy wanted nothing to do with the former attractions and insisted on the latter (I refused to spend an extra cent). It’s not that I found that kind of preference shocking in general – I probably would have done the same thing at his age – but it seemed so out of character for HIM.

After a meltdown about me not springing for mini-golf clubs (how does he even know what that is?) my low-blood sugar detector went off, and we got both kids some ice cream. That seemed to do the trick – he was into the ball pit and climbing structures in is usual way – seemingly teleporting from one end to another – and generally taking years off my life as I’d lose sight of him every few minutes.




He’d give us another example of his over-abundant energy levels before the night was out. Our hosts, my father-in-law and his wife had the idea to have dinner at the local resto-pub – it’s a short walk away from the house. Shark Boy got a chance to show off his new bike and his ability to ride it, while my father-in-law opted to spare himself from the rain and make the short drive. We crossed the street, put him on the bike, pointed him in the direction of the restaurant and off he went. I was carrying the Lightning Kid and I lost sight of him quickly. It took me a good minute to realize that our two ladies who were walking ahead of me had no idea how far ahead he’d gotten and when they started trying to catch him they’d be far too slow. I dropped the Lightning Kid off with his grandfather at the restaurant then took off at my top speed. I was in jeans and running shoes and I went full out for 600 m before I even saw him. His grandfather’s wife had asked a jogger (with a better head start than me) to stop him. He was already at a major intersection when normally his habit was to stop at every crossing.



I was too winded and angry to muster a good scolding or punishment so I put him back on the bike back toward the restaurant with instructions to stop when he reached his mother. He ignored that and blew right by her. Another sprint for me and bike privileges revoked – my idea to throw the bike into the river was not taken seriously by anyone. I guess I should have been grateful to do some speed work – but safety first, especially for the kids.



DAY 10:



I guess the night cooled off any bike-related anger. My father-in-law, a.k.a Opa wanted to take Shark Boy on a longer bike ride. We planned to meet in town; my wife, the Lightning Kid and I would go in by car – while Opa and his wife would take Shark Boy through the forest on the bikes. I had my reservations but if they wanted to take on the challenges of a preschooler, more power to them. I told him not only to listen to when they told him to stop, but to ask them to stop if he was getting tired.



They ended up taking a wrong turn in the forest looking for a pen where wild boars are kept (not so wild, I guess) and long story short – they rode 10 km. He’s three and a half. He’d been riding a bike for less than a week at this point. He even had too much spare energy to sit still in a chair at the restaurant were we all ate lunch together (“Weil” – aptly name since service took a “while”). Fortunately we were seated outdoors (the weather was finally warming up – in fact the intense sunlight took some getting used to) in the pedestrian area of town so he could run around.




We ate Flammkuchen and afterwards we went to an Italian Ice Cafe that had a Spaghetti Ice Cream so good it made the last one I had in Bad Homburg seem like hot garbage.



We got home and put the boys down for an afternoon nap and I took that as a cue to get a run in. Shark Boy’s achievements of the day inspired me to go long – I skipped my *Burbathlon* antics to taake a route along the river Havel. I needed my hydration pack along since lunch had made me thirsty, but that also let me take my camera long to get some pictures from the riverbank. 12.5 km – my longest run since the *Chilly Half-Marathon*. I had a respectable pace that I liked, though I think I missed the negative split.







DAY 11:



German Hay Fever seemed to have been worse than the home brew and the Lightning Kid was still experiencing lots of wake-ups and still consistently getting up at 5 AM. These two factors had me too tired to do much on my morning walk with the Lightning Kid beyond a few toe-touching type light exercises and some triceps dips.

Get two of every animal…





The weather turned so nasty that hail pellets are overflowing the gutter. The day’s Saving Grace (or saving throw, for you geekier types) is a date night at a nice Italian restaurant.



DAY 12:



We take a riverboat cruise from Tegel back to Heiligensee – keeping a 1&1/2 year-old safe, yet happy on a boat is a lot of work but a mid-day snack of Berlin Currywurst knocks an item off the ‘must-eat’ list…



My allergies were starting to kick into high-gear… the congestion from hay fever relegated me to the couch for snoring but it works out since I’m better able to greet my brother and his family when they arrive late that night: Let the Games begin!

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What’s A Taper?

WRONG.


This always happens.  I get about 2 weeks out from a race, and if I mention it to anyone who’s familiar with structured training, they’ll say something along the lines of “Oh, you must be in Taper”.  Tapering means decreasing the training volume prior to a race to allow your body to be its best for race day but that means you have a high volume of training to come down from…
While I can say I stayed active on vacation, I can’t claim to have kept up a triathlete’s regimen either.  Too little swim and bike, and even the running I did was kind of lacking.  I took an honest evaluation of where I’m at, and having done 10 km and 12.5 km recently, I’m pretty happy with my run shape.  I haven’t swum recently, but there were no real problems there on 2.4 and 2.6 km training sessions, so I think a 1.5 km sanity check swim where I swim the entire distance straight through, preferably in open water will do.

That left the bike.  I said I was going to increase bike performance by increasing bike training volume and intensity.  While I think I increased the proportion of bike training in my overall schedule, I didn’t exactly set the world of fire with the bike this pre-season.  Luckily, I was able to get out for a ride this Saturday.


The first half felt really good.  I kept looking down and seeing cadence over 90 RPM, and I felt like my moving average speed was 30 km/h or more (if you account for stopping at stop signs or traffic lights, average speed goes way down).  I was using 360 degrees of my pedal stroke to generate power (at least it felt that way – spinning as opposed to mashing down on the pedals).


Split
Time
Moving Time
Dist
Elev Gain
Elev Loss
Avg Speed
Avg Moving Speed
Max Speed
Avg HR
Max HR
Avg Bike Cadence
Max Bike Cadence
Calories
1
10:39.3
9:29:00
3.97
27
7
22.4
25.1
36.7
149
209
77
109
120
2
10:13.9
9:32:00
4.61
10
8
27
29
38.5
154
168
82
101
135
3
10:31.0
10:05:00
4.76
13
12
27.2
28.3
38.4
157
170
83
110
142
4
10:55.7
10:21:00
4.77
10
10
26.2
27.7
43.4
154
173
81
108
134
5
11:32.6
10:16:00
4.74
12
12
24.7
27.7
43.2
152
168
83
109
128
6
16:03.1
16:03:00
8.05
16
18
30.1
30.1
41.8
157
170
86
106
205
7
15:56.2
15:54:00
8.05
20
18
30.3
30.4
41.6
162
172
87
112
210
8
7:29.5
7:30:00
3.74
0
28
30
29.9
43.5
152
168
80
106
64
Summary
1:33:21
1:29:10
42.69
108
113
27.4
28.7
43.5
155
209
83
112
1138


I did notice that all that tended to go away as my resolve and concentration waned in the latter half of the ride.  From the stats it looks like I was able to correct the backslide in intensity.  I wanted to fuel this training ride at the last minute but didn’t want to use up my gels, so I gave a Clif Shot Blok (courtesy of Darwinian Fail from the FitfluentialTO tweet-up) a try.  I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to take one or more, usually it’s a gel every  45 minutes or so. After checking the website FAQ, it looks like I’d have been better off taking the whole pack of 3 blocks. Whoops.

Anyway the goal was to hit 40km or 90 minutes of riding whatever came first, and I’m happy that distance was achieved first (though not by much).  I still need a sanity check brick workout to test out my legs coming off the bike.  This sort of sanity check “untaper” training isn’t recommended if you’re at a new distance; I’m getting away with it (so far) because I’m sticking pretty close to my general conditioning and even I’m not stupid enough to try and build up in the last two weeks…

Sunday’s ride was in sharp contrast to Saturday’s… we went for our first bike trip as a family. Only the Lightning Kid wasn’t propelling himself. Shark Boy and my wife both tried out new bikes. I was expecting to go slow, but I still wasn’t prepared for how slow, I honestly couldn’t go slow enough and balance the bike at the same time, and with the Lightning Kid in the Chariot getting impatient and squawking at the frequent stops (when he should have been napping), it was more of a mental exercise in patience than a workout of any kind. That’s OK though, we do these things almost as a proof of concept, to keep up good active habits as a family and the speed will only increase from here.

Do you observe the taper?
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The Germany Journals (Ger-nals?) Part 2

This was the day we would make the trip from Frankfurt to Berlin.  While my wife and I packed, my brother took Shark Boy outside.  The next thing I knew, he’s asking me: “You know your son can ride a bike, right?”


To rewind a bit, Shark Boy does a great job on his glider bike and can balance and steer no problem.  Still when we’ve tried to move him up to a regular bike, he’s stayed fixated on the idea that he needs training wheels.  He even threw a fit when he saw me remove them from his new Ultimate Spider Man bike.  Getting him to ride it has been semi-successful, but he still didn’t seem that close to being able to go it alone.  A couple of days watching his older cousin ride a bike, and away we go!  Swimming … biking … can Kids Of Steel be far away?


Before our train departure, we walked around downtown Frankfurt for a bit, which I recommend for those that like modern architecture and/or high-end clothing stores and had some lunch.



Sandcastles in downtown Frankfurt.


The Inter City Express is a world famous fast train – I was excited to show it to Shark Boy after he’d read about it in books; although we were on it last year he didn’t notice much – a stomach bug had turned him into a near-zombie.


We had a cabin “reserved” – the 8 Euro extra charge didn’t make much of a difference as we had company the entire 4 hour trip.  I guess the train was too full – I’d have thought two small children would have been more of a deterrent to solo travellers. It turns out, you can only reserve the seats you sit it, which makes a certain amount of sense, I guess.


I spent most of the train ride carrying the Lightning Kid through the cars of the train (including ones that were identified as ‘QUIET’) from one end to the other.  Someday I’m going to write a post about all the calories I burn on the kids that I don’t get to count…Both boys fell asleep with all of 45 minutes left on the train ride.  Still we arrived in Berlin (Spandau Station) excited to start the next phase in our adventure.


A little too excited in the boys’ case! The new environment seemed to be an over-stimulation which combined with their over-tiredness to make for a very late, tedious bedtime routine – bad news for their jet lag adjustment.


DAY 6:


Thanks to our hosts taking the boys on first thing in the morning, I had a bit of a sleep-in .  We took them into Tegel for some shopping – riding a double-decker bus is a big draw for Shark By and the Lightning Kid seemed to like it too.  The effects of the night before were felt heavily as the kids seemed to need lunch and their nap times an hour or two earlier than expected and hopes for getting a run in while they napped in tandem were dashed.  I took the Lighting Kid to my favourite playground in the stroller.  I hadn’t changed out of my jeans but my plan B was successful – he fell asleep on the way there.  I used the park benches and playground for

  • Incline Push-ups
  • Tricep Dips
  • Negative Phase Pull-ups
  • Squats
  • Single-leg lunges on the swings
  • Inch worms (on the train set – plank across two ‘cars’, then bring feet forward to the car your hands are on, move your hands forward into another plank, etc.)
  • Planks
  • Side Planks
Tricep dips on one of the ‘train’ cars



I was doing a side plank on a park bench, looking at a (rare) blue sky, listening to the birds chirp and thinking about how peaceful it all was when I heard “WAAAAAAH!” – the Lightning Kid woke up.   Still, everybody had gotten what they needed: fresh air and exercise for me, sleep for everyone else.  We had a very pleasant rest of the afternoon as a family.


DAY 7:


I don’t really want to write about this day.  The only undertaking was a trip into town for a few things and the promise of ice cream.  It was a nightmare as the kids’ nap and eating schedules were still off, so there were a lot of tantrums and screaming.  AND THE ICE CREAM CAFE’S MACHINE BROKE DOWN SO I COULDN’T GET SPAGHETTI ICE CREAM!


Side note 1: If you don’t know spaghetti ice cream, it’s soft ice cream pushed through a press to come out in noodles, coated in strawberry sauce and either grated coconut or white chocolate and the whole pile hides a little mound of whipped cream.


Side note 2: I might as well take the opportunity here to talk about one of my favourite things here in Germany.  When a house uses radiators for heat, it’s hard to stay warm if you’re in the wrong spot and we’ve had unseasonably cold (and wet) weather here this trip.  The plus side is these incredibly practical radiators in the bathrooms (and sometimes in a front hall).  Back home, between swims, gym workouts and showers not to mention regular hygiene I go through a lot of towels so I’d love it if I had one of these that could not only quick dry a used towel, but warm it too.



DAY 8:


In spite of continuing cold and rainy weather we braved a trip to the forest playground – Shark Boy rode his bike the entire way there while my wife chased him and I pushed the Lightning Kid in the stroller through the drizzle.  He fell asleep again before we got there and while Shark Boy played with his mother I snuck in a few push-ups, step-ups and tricep dips.  The playground is somewhat sheltered by the trees but when the Lightning Kid woke up and the rain worsened we opted to return home.  After an early lunch we got the kids down for a tandem nap and instead of the run I wanted to do, I did a living room workout instead.
  • Push Ups (100 Push Up workout 5 sets – 20, 30, 18, 18, 34)
  • Negative Phase Pull-ups
  • Lunges with 3 kg dumbbells overhead
  • Side Planks

I also developed and exercise with
  • no weights/equipment
  • functional compound movement
  • whole-body muscle recruitment


My idea is to create an alternative burpee (my wife dubbed my creation “burpees for engineers” finding them somewhat complex).  I’ll share it in a future post, but for now let’s stay on topic.


We had arranged for an afternoon playdate for Shark Boy with a friend of my wife’s and her 4 year-old son that afternoon at the same time that my father-in-law was having visitors who came by boat.  What ended up happening was that he was effectively kidnapped (I’m sure there’s a term for nautical abductions) for a few hours and our poor 4 year-old visitor had to split his time between the 19 month-old Lightning Kid and the grown-ups. Yuck!

Luckily Shark Boy came back in time for them to spend a good hour or two torturing me with silly faces.  We watched the all-important Champions League (soccer) final between two German teams: Bayern Muenchen versus Borussia Dortmund being cheered on by my wife and I respectively.  What can I say? She sure can pick a winner – she married me didn’t she?

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Mothers’ Day

There’s two important mothers who have helped make me the man I am today, and if part of who I am is a triathlete, then they’re a big part of that too. Let’s do this in chronological order…

My mother was born in immediate post-war Germany, so she started off tough, as you can imagine. I know one story where her mother took her three daughters (my mother being the youngest) to pick potatoes from a field just so they’d have something to eat. My mother ended up with shoes full of blood – she couldn’t have been more than 3 or 4 years old. She grew up without a father thanks to the war, and my grandmother, my aunts and her had to move around a fair bit. Still, somehow they muddled through.

Athletically her side of the family has been very tennis-centric. It’s amazing to watch my mom play tennis (especially since she wins a lot) – no hard or fancy shots, she just hustles for the ball, and returns it consistently, grinding her opponents down. I haven’t stepped on a court in years, nor seen her play recently, but I bet it’s still the same. Growing up, we didn’t just have tennis though. I can remember being in Scouts (everything from Cubs to Venturers), piano lessons, soccer, judo, diving, softball… the list goes on and on. On weekends we’d bike as a family or cross-country ski or hike at the cottage. We were a multi-disciplinarian, multi-sport family, so now, I’m a multi-disciplinarian, multi-sport man.
When I met my wife, I was immediately impressed by how many pies she had her fingers in (figuratively speaking, you understand).  She was working full-time in a marketing executive position, volunteering with a Young Executives of Canada subcommittee of the German-Canadian Chamber of Commerce, teaching special needs kids to ski, all while maintaining an active social life and close ties to her family.  She even seemed game to take on training for a half-marathon with me, so that’s what we did.

Getting to know someone as a friend and better through running (or another form of training, I suppose) till the point where you’re starting to fall in love with them is something I’d wish for anyone who tries to lead a physically active lifestyle.  Running, exercise and physical challenges have always been part of our relationship, and now they’re part of our family life too.  Bringing triathlon into any relationship takes the support of your partner and it can mean outright sacrifice too; so I’m lucky to not only have her in my life to do all those little things that make swimming, biking and running possible, but also that she enjoys similar pursuits and I get the chance to return the favour sometimes.  For the second year in a row, I will be taking care of our sons on Mother’s Day while she runs the Sporting Life 10K… and we’ll be all waiting for her at the finish line (this year I even did the race kit pickup!).

The Human Totem Pole from last year

 Happy Mother’s Day (or Mothers’ Day… there could be more than 1 mother in your life!) How have the Mothers in your life shape your healthy lifestyle?

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Pin-It Party Link-Up

Lindsay from the Lean Grean Bean had the wonderful idea to leverage a little Pinterest and help a bunch of bloggers bring attention to some of their older posts.  Blame me or my equipment, but I generally don’t have the most jaw-dropping pictures… I do know that visuals are important in blogs, as walls of text turn people off.

I picked 5 posts based on 1.) they had to have a ‘Pinnable’ image and 2.) they represent the real heart of what this blog is about.  Here are my 5 posts:

Now that I look at them, there’s not a lot of triathlon representation, which is the main theme of this blog.  Well, my triathlon posts either don’t have good images (that originate from me), or just don’t have the level of originality that I want to present today; e.g. race recaps – I swam, I biked then I ran.  So did everyone else.  The posts above, though? They have that special Iron Rogue brand of crazy.  So go ahead an pin an image!  You can find me on Pinterest here.  And be sure to go to Lean Green Bean for other great posts on fitness and wellness.  I’ll even put a few links in the comment section!

EDIT: Can’t put links in the comments, so here’s some of the other participants I’ve visited:
Itz Linz
Coffee, Cake and Cardio
Family Fitness Food
Fit 2 Flex
Let’s Walk and Talk/

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#BostonStrongTO (West End) Recap

I woke up on April 22nd and looked at the newspaper.  The Boston bombing and subsequent aftermath and investigation etc. still dominated the headlines.  “It’s been a week… only 7 days.” I thought to myself.  It felt like longer, so much had happened in those seven days, yet I still hadn’t had the chance to really commemorate the victims, the survivors, and runners of every stripe.  Until that day.  I’d been looking forward to this for the past few days – the ever awesome PavementRunner kicked off a #BostonStrong event for any city that felt like it, and Phaedra from Blisters And Black Toenails took up the organizational torch.  While I had run a mile with the boys the day after the bombing, I still wanted to do this one because:

  1. Running with other people, especially those united in a message like this one, really underscores how running is a community, and frankly, too much of how I engage with that community is merely over the internet, and not in person
  2. High Park is pretty.

Evening events are ones I often have to skip since they collide with dinner and bedtime for the kids, but both my wife and I are runners, and we both feel emotionally affected by the tragedy, so while wrapping the entire family up in this thing wasn’t quite a no-brainer, it was something we both wanted.

I found myself getting inspired, and the next thing I knew, I was plotting a way to add a soundtrack to the event.  I packed a stereo we used to stick in the back of our Chariot to blast out music during the Levac Attack, and I knew I had a Neil Diamond CD so we could play Sweet Caroline (the unofficial Red Sox anthem) and I grabbed a few extra Dropkick Murphys songs for the iPod (which docks into the stereo).  I modified a #BostonStrong bib Phaedra provided to use the numbers 416 and 905 (the most common area codes for the Greater Toronto Area), and figured we’d attach them to the stroller.
Represent!

After picking up the family and heading over to the Grenadier Restaurant parking lot.  People were asked to wear the Blue and Yellow of the Boston Marathon; in our case, my wife wore the yellow, and I wore the blue – both from previous years of the Sporting Life 10K (which she is doing again this year).  I was a little surprised to see how many people had actual Boston Marathon gear on… these were serious runners who had qualified and run the world’s most prestigious marathon in the past.

When the official start time hit, Phaedra thanked everyone for coming, and mentioned how we were all in solidarity of those that wouldn’t have been able to finish their marathons.  It was a short speech, and soon the mass of blue and yellow was off.  It took us an extra 10 seconds to get the kids strapped in, so we were at the back, and we were not going to be gaining much ground on the group.  Phaedra hung back at the first curve to make sure we were doing alright, but overall, the group was leaving us behind.  I had thought the course was meant to take us North out of High Park for a few blocks, but just shy of the entrance the pack turned back making the route a nice loop back.  The loop closed back near the restaurant making one lap just over a mile, which was where we lost sight of everybody.  

Courtesy of Blistersandblacktoenails.blogspot.com


I’m not going to lie, that irked me a little bit; maybe everyone who runs Boston is fast, but I thought the idea of being in it together was an important one, and I had come a fair distance and kept my kids up past their regular dinner and bedtimes for this, hoping that the crowd would provide them a little bit of distraction.  Still, as a family, we were going to stick this out and finish our planned 5k.  It’s their loss, since they didn’t get to hear my sweet tunes.



Shark Boy is 3 years old and had a lot of questions about what we were doing, and that in addition to the natural inquisitiveness of that age, is not shy about garnishing his investigations with the ubiquitous “why?”.  I tried to explain that Boston was a city, and a lot of people were sad there, and we wanted to show them that they didn’t have to be – sue me for trying to keep things simple, and some details I simply didn’t want him being exposed to.  The next thing I know, I’m saying that some bad men had hurt a lot of people; I still thought I was within safe territory, but then he asked HOW the bad men had hurt the people.  Oof.

The way it was working out, it would take 3 laps to finish the 5km.  The Lightning Kid was starting to get impatient (i.e. tired, fussy, hungry) with the whole thing, and the last lap was pretty much a torture of screaming.  We split up so I could get him back to the parking lot faster, while Shark Boy tried his hand at running about a half kilometer.  His enthusiasm warmed my heart with pride, but I think we need to teach him about pacing if he wants to last as long as a kilometer.  He also needs to learn about watching his step, since he tripped within the first 10 strides.  He would have made better time if he hadn’t stopped for “hug breaks” with his mother; I can’t hold that against him, in fact, he may have discovered a new running method! Imagine instead of walk breaks or water stations along a race, you could get a hug from your mom… maybe you’d get a personal best!

The Grenadier Restaurant kept their cafe/snack bar section open long enough to feed us, and then we packed it all in and got the kids home for a late bedtime routine.  I’m still sad and sorry for what happened on April 15th 2013, but if I can take a little solace in something that came from that day, it’s that it gave me an opportunity to make April 22nd 2013 a special day.

For a recap from within ‘the pack’ head over to Blisters and Black Toenails.

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For Boston

Everyone has to talk about the tragic events at the Boston Marathon.  Maybe it’s cathartic, but in spite of the fact that at this juncture everything that can be said has been said by people before me, and yet, I can’t leave the topic untouched.


What I’ve liked the best, is people looking for the good: those that ran toward the blast and had the courage to try to help.  Mr. Rogers said to “look for the helpers.”  Others made similar statements, only with more words, and starting with f-bombs.

Most of us (including me) try to make sense of the events:”Who could have done this? Why would anyone do this?”  We try to rationalize something that could never make any human sense.  It occurred to me, that this instinct to rationalize comes from our empathy, and our desire to try and see another person’s point of view, no matter how insane or evil it is, comes from the same place that makes it unthinkable for us.  We humans think of other humans, not targets or assets.  And that gives me comfort too.

There were lots of ideas of how to show solidarity with those affected.  Wearing race t-shirts, running for 103 minutes (for the 3 dead, and another 100 because I guess people like long runs), running for 26.2 minutes (for the 26.2 miles of the marathon), or simply running a mile silently.  I was actually having a good, if busy, day today – I had a productive flow going at work, and we got some good news regarding the Lightning Kid’s overall health, but I worried about missing my chance to say something, to do something, regardless of how small and insignificant these gestures can seem in the shadow of enormous tragedy.

When I got home from work, just before dinner, I put on my marathon shirt…


And took my boys out for a run.  Just a mile, and I had to negotiate that Shark Boy would be able to ride his bike immediately after, but I dedicate that run to Boston, to the Boston Marathon, and to runners everywhere.

Notice the Peace signs?

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Review: Crossfit/Crossfit Kids at SquareOne Crossfit

Way back in 2012, I started researching where I might be able to try Crossfit.  Crossfit has exploded in popularity especially in the past year, so I feel a little silly introducing and explaining it, but here goes…


Crossfit started as a way to ‘Open-Source’ fitness.  Open Source software is free to use, and the computer programming code is free and public; not kept secret.  In fitness, the concept would be a workout that is publicly available as opposed to something you had to pay an instructor or trainer for.  Every day a ‘Workout of the Day’ or WOD would be published that could be done with fairly basic equipment you could put into your home.  Exercises were drawn from Olympic weightlifting and gymnastics to promote functional strength as well as endurance, balance, flexibility, agility and co-ordination; true multi-dimensional fitness.  Where it grew as a business was again similar to Open Source software: though anyone could do it and the accessibility was appealing, this stuff was sophisticated enough that it made sense to engage an expert.  Crossfit gyms, or ‘boxes‘ (called this, because they seem plain and spartan compared to the modern gym – no frills, just the weights and equipment you need) started springing up, and certifications were created by the originators of the movement.  Nowadays, there are competitions, and they are sponsored by Reebok which has dubbed Crossfit “The Sport of Fitness”.
The SquareOne Box


There are a few boxes locally, and they all had their apparent pros and cons (from what I could tell by web research), but besides proximity, one big advantage that SquareOne Crossfit had was a Kids program.

They run their Crossfit Kids program on Sunday mornings, and for parents who want to do the WOD, they’re able to do that in parallel.  That clinched it, since we’re always looking for ways to keep Shark Boy entertained and active.  I wanted to make arrangements for a free trial in December, but with the holidays, it took until now to get us ‘in the box’.

Shark Boy and I got there for 8:30AM when the classes for kids 3-5 take place.  We met with the Kids’ instructor Arianne, and I did the initial paperwork.  Unfortunately things weren’t yet in full swing post holidays, so Shark Boy was the only kid in class and I think he was a little intimidated.  I hadn’t built it up for him too much, since I didn’t know what to really expect, but he was game for trying things as long as I accompanied him initially (and did some of the exercises too).

It starts, of course, with a warm-up.  Arianne put an agility ladder on the floor and had him (us) do two-footed jumps over each rung of the ladder back and forth.  We then moved on to jumping in and out (to the side of the ladder) and jumping on one foot.  Though he’s very athletic, I was a little surprised to see he had no real idea of how to jump on one foot – the learning begins!

After the warm-up a class (adult or kids!) moves on to the skill lesson.  We did squats, with hands overhead.

The ‘work-out’/WOD portion of a kids class seems to be game oriented, which was great.  Shark Boy was in his element playing  Lumberjacks and Farmers (knockdown pylons or put them back upright), Tail-Tag and Simon Says were all part of the deal, and it got more fun as some of the kids from the 6+ class started to trickle in.  He was obviously having fun and getting more comfortable and needed less hand-holding from his father.

I got to meet some of the other Crossfitters and people walked up and introduced themselves; from what I read, this friendliness is part of the general culture, and I was glad to see it wasn’t just hype.  It also meant I didn’t have to figure out the warm-up on my own:

Some of these were very familiar, but I’d never heard of Dislocates (sounds painful!).  Essentially it was holding a bar with wide grip and rotating it around to your back without bending your elbows.  Good mornings are bending over (from the hips) with a straight back.

I knew I’d need help on pull-ups; I can’t do them.  I did like their method of assisting the pull-up: a resistance band looped through the foot – you end up mimicking the real movement very, very closely.  I was a little embarrassed to be using the strongest band (giving me the biggest possible assistance) and I was reconsidering using that particular one as I got through my ten reps, but by the last one, I noticed I couldn’t quite get my chin up to the bar, so it was probably the right one after all.

The workout of the day was called ‘Linda’ and it meant doing sets of three exercises in descending number of reps: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 ,1.
“LINDA”
The first exercise was the Deadlift.  Here’s where I got my skill lesson prior to the WOD.   Chris, the man in charge, showed me how to do these correctly.  The second exercise was the Bench Press; I had done these on Thursday and had a good idea of how much weight I could handle.  I shared a bench with another man who wanted to lift the same amount as me, since benches were limited and the turnout that morning was good.  Rather than do a Power Clean (which is somewhat technical and would need a little more teaching/practice), Chris had me do a Sumo Deadlift/High Pull which was a Deadlift in a wider stance (with an narrower grip) combined with an upright row at the end.

The weight to be used was based on your own Body Weight (BW)… that wasn’t going to happen.  I tried to pick weights that would be sensible for me to get the form right and not injure myself, and of course… sweat.

On deadlifts, I need a lot of work.  I’m shrugging my shoulders and/or pulling my arms to get the bar moving up, I don’t bend my knees enough for the bottom, but I kept my back straight and didn’t hurt myself.  Bench presses went very well, and I was generally struggling to get that last rep on every set.  The Sumo Deadlift/High Pulls were a little weird – maybe I should have tried a bigger weight.  Apparently the key is to really pop your hips forward and get the weight accelerating upward, but it always felt like cheating to me.  Still it gave me an idea of the kind of motion that is involved in the Power Clean.

I finished in 20 and a half minutes, making me the third one done.  I can’t be too proud of that since I know they were taking it easy on me since it was my first time. Otherwise, how could I have taken the boys tobogganning that afternoon?  I gathered up Shark Boy and asked him if he enjoyed himself… was it something he’d like to do again?  He said yes, and so help me, I felt the same way.

I spoke to Chris about options for my son and I and everything was very low pressure.  I should say, no pressure.  I was overall very pleased to note that this box focusses on form over intensity; I’d had fears that the kind of ‘all or nothing’/’pain is weakness leaving the body’ wouldn’t fit well with my history of injury.  Chris’ outlook was refreshing in its simplicity: they’re there to get people fit.  If they can’t walk the next day, how can they come back to work out the next day?

Both Shark Boy and I have packs of drop in classes bought, so I guess the cult of Crossfit can count us in.

Have you heard of Crossfit? Tried it? Loved it?  What about Crossfit Kids?
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Motivation Monday: My Sons Are My Heroes.

Over at my Lightning Kid Blog, I recently announced that he had taken his first steps.  He is a little short of his 15 month birthday, and we’re over the moon about his development.  It’s not only terribly early by the developmental milestones for children with Down Syndrome, it’s within the range of typical development.  I was watching him try standing the other day.  He’d crawl on hands and knees, get his feet under his hips, straighten up into standing, then flop onto his butt… but he was doing this over and over again with an intensity and persistence that could only be described as furious.  Tenacity is going to serve him well because I know he’ll face adversity as he gets older.  Likewise persistence, as my father used to quote Calvin Coolidge:


Now Shark Boy’s persistence isn’t any lesser, but a little more annoying, since he will argue on everything with me, sometimes I feel like he’d dispute the colour of the sky.  What’s remarkable about him, is his response to being tired: he simply goes faster.  Think about it: if you had to pull an all-nighter, and you started feeling drowsy, you’d probably put on a pot of coffee.  What if you did a sprint around the block?  That would wake you up!  Shark Boy had discovered this little fact from the time he could crawl, I figure.


If you ask just about any toddler or preschooler whether they’re tired, they’ll automatically say no even if all signs (fussiness, irritability, eye rubs, yawning) point to yes.  Shark Boy (and again the Lightning Kid to a large extent) don’t just talk the talk, they walk the walk.  As their parent, I find them exhausting obviously, but in moments when I can reflect on the day, I still admire that even as the energy in those little bodies starts to wane, their spirits want to keep going.  If I may quote my eldest son:

Words to live by…

On a bit of a post-script, I found other inspiration this week from an unlikely source… a brewing company.  I read a bit about Rogue Ales; obviously the name alone appealed to me.  They’ve got a lot of different flavours (like Chipotle Ale) that I want to try, but it looks like it’s a little hard to come by in Canada, especially in the Greater Toronto Area (BC looks like it’s better off).

By the power of Greyskull I will track down and drink this beer: @rogueales Chipotle Ale:rogue.com/beers/chipotle… #beerchat
— Axel Kussmann (@apkussma) January 4, 2013

I started poking around the website and found their ‘Declaration of Interdependence‘ down the page was the following image and text:

Source: rogue.com via Axel on Pinterest


  • Rogues take risks.
  • Rogues are willing to shun titles and personal financial success in the
    pursuit of the greater good.
  • Rogues pursue the long shot.
  • Rogues have respect for diversity.
  • Rogues are never satisfied to rest on past laurels.
  • Rogues work hard.
  • Rogues are driven to succeed in their chosen field.
  • Rogues ignore the accepted patterns and blaze their own trails.
  • Rogues have raw talent and focus on that talent.
  • Rogues are honest with themselves and others.
  • Rogues are rebels.
  • Rogues have one foot in reality to let them get the job done, but they are, nonetheless, led by their dreams.
Some of those really spoke to me (maybe not so much the one about raw talent…).  I’d like to think they apply to my life and my pursuits…

Have you ever found inspiration from an unlikely source?