Hockey Team Allegiances

The great Edmonton Oiler years in the last half of the 1980s were the milieu in which I developed a keen interest in watching hockey. From grades 5-9, I faithfully memorized the players names, numbers and stats. In junior high, several of us would surround the newspaper in the library and check the scores from the previous night's games - many of which couldn't be published in time as the games finished after the paper's deadline (3 or 4 time zones later). We collected Upper Deck, O Pee Chee, Score, Pro-Set hockey cards and poured over the Beckett price lists to see if we had any valuable cards (we didn't). I got to watch the odd Oilers game when they played the Canadiens or Leafs or Bruins since they were closer to our time zone, but mostly it would be in the morning sports news highlights that I would catch the cool goals.

My interest in hockey faded though high school and college, just as the skill and success of the Edmonton Oilers faded too. Once I entered the work force, I discovered the Memorial Cup and World Junior Championships and even perked up when Edmonton leapt into the Stanley Cup Finals in 2006.

The last couple years, I have begun watching the Montreal Canadiens. Their fast style of play, amazing goal tending, and deep heritage have stirred a little bit of that junior high boy that is still left in me. The Habs have shown amazing team work in the regular season and this year finished second overall. Last night they lost their bid for the cup in the quarter final, but last year they made it to the semi-final.

Last night Blaise stopped watching the game after the second period because he was bored. I can see why - the Habs were losing, not much going on outside the neutral zone, hard to tell who the players are.

So why was I glued to the screen? I think there is a deep desire for victory, even a proxy victory through tough, hard working, highly skilled men. I think there is a value in elevating the excellent within your tribe and celebrating their highly developed skill. I think it should inspire and encourage others in that same tribe toward excellence in their fields.

ISU World Allround Speed Skating Championships 2015

A couple weekends ago, Calgary hosted an international speed skating tournament. World class competitors - I think all of them were at Sochi 2014 - competed in 4 different races each and scored points. The champions were the ones with the least points. You can find the results here.



Blaise and I decided to attend to see what the sport was all about. It was hosted at the Olympic Oval on the University of Calgary campus where the 1988 Winter Games speed skating events were held. The facility still looks wonderful and there is a nice torch reminding visitors of the site's heritage.



We were late arriving, so we missed the opening women and men's races of 500 m. I heard from a coworker who was also there that these were the most exciting races. In fact, the Canadian athletes performed best in these. So we ended up watching all the long 3000 m women's races and the 5000 m men's races. While it was certainly fun to cheer on the athletes, see how they paced their various laps, and witness a couple athletes catch up to their single opponent - it wasn't too gripping to see people skate round and round in ovals.



I was particularly impressed with two things: skill and power.



Generally, we cheered. I took photos. We had a snack. Blaise and I sat in three different locations as there were lots of empty seats. Blaise remarked that we got to sit in some really good seats and that if it were the olympics we would have had to pay way more money! He's right. We only paid $25 total - olympic tickets could have been in the hundreds of dollars to see the same skaters skate.





The fans were often more interesting than the races. Not surprisingly the majority of the crowd was identifiably Dutch because of the blinding orange jackets, hats, scarves, dresses, pants, and jumpsuits. They were loud, but the old Norwegian men were way louder. These guys sported lovely traditionl knitted sweaters and funny caps covered in pins.

The one cultural group I thought was a bit odd were the quiet Russians. I thought how odd it was to be waving a Russian flag despite the current Russian aggression in Ukraine. But hey, there were a couple Americans there too. With flags.



24 men and 24 women raced in pairs in 4 rounds over 2 days.



We cheered on Canadians Denny Morrison (7th), Ted-Jan Bloemen (16th), Ivanie Blondin (6th), and Kali Crist (8th).





This guy won for the men: Dutch skater Sven Kramer. I guess he has some serious cred.

Marathon III: Victoria, BC

Following my second marathon on June 1, I barely ran at all. I wasn't trying to avoid running, it's just that there was no time or urgency. I had moved; I was wrapping up a very difficult year of teaching; I was enjoying my summer holidays. I was content not running. However by mid-August, I was ready to jump back into the habit of running. I signed up for the Goodlife Fitness Victoria Marathon and bought my plane ticket. I had 8 weeks to train, but was already mostly conditioned, so I dove into the last 8 weeks of a 14 week regime.



My friend Marc is poised to run the marathon too. It is his first, so he is nervous. I am stoked. My running pace has improved so much in the last 8 weeks over my spring running that it is a real possibility that I will achieve my sub-4 hour goal.

Waking up early Marc and I force feed ourselves energy bars, bananas, water, and a bagel. Nipple band-aids are applied. We walk down to the legislature building from our hostel with another runner who is running her third marathon too. We drop our bag with sweater/extra gear at the bag check and get into our pace groups. I'm with the 4-hr gang, but bow to retie my shoes at the last minute and fall behind a little as the start gun sounds.



The mass start isn't nearly as bad as in Calgary and I catch my group and then the 3:45 pace sign and I pass him and maintain a lead on the this group until km 25. Our first 10 kms take us through the upper city on Johnson St and then downhill through loops in Beacon Hill Park. As I leave the park, I hear a man cheer from his balcony, "Go Hulk Hogan!" I chuckle. Then realize he is talking about me because of my yellow bandana. Then I laugh.

I run past the first gel table and exclaim when I realize I've missed it. A fellow runner gives me one of his. He had grabbed 2.

Victoria is a small city, so the groups cheering are small and spread out through the course. It is still encouraging to see the familiar signs of encouragement. The route takes us along the coast and back again with little intervals into residential streets and the beautiful Oak Bay. I spot the marathon winner who finishes 90 minutes before I do as he runs by going in the opposite direction. He's flying. The turn around point is at 23 km and I keep my eyes peeled for Marc who is a couple kms behind me. We high five.



I am carrying my phone with Runkeeper on. While training, the app makes announcements every 5 minutes like:

"Time: 55 minutes. Distance: 10.34 km. Average Pace: 5 minutes 19 seconds per km."

This is really handy during training to help with keeping pace, but I do not want to annoy my fellow runners and I am interested in running on instinct, so I have the sound turned off. I can enjoy the resulting data after the race though. My paces end up looking like this:

0-10 km: 5:15 min/km
10-21.1 km: 5:23 min/km
21.1-30 km: 5:31 min/km
30-42.2 km: 5:51 min/km

The last 17 km take us runners back along the shore road intermittently. The cheering throngs are thinner now and running is more laboured. Cheering at this stage of the game is far less gratifying as the runners are not very responsive. I am surprised at a number of conversations that are happening in the 30s. I run alone ping ponging between about 40 runners. At one point I have 3 women running directly behind me. I quip "this reminds me a lot of high school." "Because the girls were chasing you?" "Yes."



I take my fourth energy gel at km 37. I pick up water and gatorade at each table and dump out half on the ground so I don't dump it all over myself. I gulp it all down - unlike the sipping I do in training. I note at km 39 that I never have to do this again. I have a feeling that I will get my sub-4 hour time, but I can't be too sure. I feel like I'm slowing down. I'm not completely discouraged, but I can't really feel the joy. I run past a walking firefighter in full gear who is doing the marathon in the name of someone.



By km 40, I am a different person. I feel the joy now. In fact, I'm sort of emotional the last 2.2 kms I strip my head of the bandana, headband and sunglasses. There are a couple little climbs and descents, but they are irrelevant. I'm floating. The crowds are starting to fill up now. There is energy everywhere, like static between the runners. We've made it. I can hear the announcer ahead. There are placards on the ground stating 800m left, 600 m left. They seem to accelerate.





Then the final corner and I can see the finish line and the timer ahead. I'm floored that the clock is reading 3:53. I'm way faster than my expected time. I sprint the final 300 m and I discover that I have so much strength. I let my head fall backwards and allow my legs to do everything.



The line is behind me. I respond that I'm fine after a medic asks when I stumble a bit when I slow to a walk. I bow and accept the medallion. A light fabric jacket is given to the runners so they don't freeze once our bodies cool. I enjoy orange slices and juice. I lay on the legislature lawn near the finish line. I check my chip time on my phone: 1:52:22. I cheer in runners until Marc crosses the line and we limp back to our hostel for showers and then food.

Marathon Training for Marathon III

2.5 months after running the Calgary Marathon, I decide to run the Victoria Marathon over Thanksgiving weekend in October. This gives me a mere 8 weeks to train, but since I was already somewhat conditioned from the spring I figure this won't be an issue. I had 17 weeks to train for my first marathon and 16 weeks for my second one.



I am half way to the marathon now and I have run 174 kms staying on target with my training regime with the exception of 2 runs when I was sick for a weekend. I experienced some rather severe shin pain in the first couple weeks, but the pain hasn't carried further than that and only resurfaces when I play tennis (mysterious). I have supplemented with a bit of ultimate frisbee and cycling to work.

The RunKeeper app has been fantastic in tracking distances and paces and even providing my training program. The connection to friends who are also running has been encouraging and even delivers a level of accountability. Yesterday I discovered the RunKeeper site which allows for far more analysis. I even downloaded all of my runs and imported them into Google Earth to show all the trails I have pounded in Calgary, Radium and Red Deer in the last 4 weeks.



My longest pre-marathon run is coming this weekend (and the heaviest running week too at 79 kms). I still have 167 kms total to run. The best part is that I really enjoy the runs when I have the time. The cool weather is definitely a bonus too!

Spruce Meadows

Spruce Meadows is the premiere equestrian sport venue in Canada and it is just 30 minutes from where I live. If you saw Ian Miller compete on Big Ben in the 80s and 90s on TV, it was probably at Spruce Meadows. When Amber told me I had the morning to myself during my first week off these summer holidays because she was taking the kids to Spruce Meadows, I offered to take the kids because I've wanted to visit there for a long time. She gladly took the time to herself.





I don't know who we are watching or what competitions are on, it is just really neat. The riders look super spiffy. From the vantage point of being just on the other side of the fence from the horse jumping, I can tell there is a great deal of athleticism involved in taking the horse around the course and jumping with them over the barriers. Of course the horse does most of the work...





The grounds at Spruce Meadows are beautiful. I do not feel like I belong since it looks like most of the people there probably own jumping horses (there are not a lot of people there, in fact the place is rather desolate) and likely have cars and vacation homes to reflect this kind of wealth. It is not my culture, but I like the well kept gardens and the elaborate jumping courses.

We visit three venues. My kids lose interest in the horse jumping pretty quickly as it doesn't really change from competitor to competitor except for the odd bar being knocked down. All of the announcers have British accents (like in soccer) and one of them butchers nearly every rider and horse name - so that is pretty fun. All the riders are from Canada, USA, and Mexico.





We grab an ice cream and walk around a little. My kids play on the playground while I snap pictures. Oh, and except for the ice cream, the whole thing is free of charge. I even ask where I am supposed to pay the advertised $5 and no one can tell me.

A lovely way to spend a quiet day.

Man Scouts: Shooting Sporting Clays

June 20, eight Man Scouts from New Hope Church drove out to Silver Willow Sporting Club near Carstairs for an evening of shooting sporting clays with shotguns. Few things can compare to the sheer manliness of shooting a shotgun - maybe growing a beard? Anyway, we split into a couple teams and ran through the beginner/intermediate shooting course which is 10 stations with 2 different clay launches at each station where each shooter gets to shoot 5 clays (50 clays in total).







It's been a few years since I shot a shotgun in BC with uncle Terry, but I get the hang of it again pretty quickly. We alternate who goes first at each station since the first clay is sometimes difficult to spot as it flies from different spots in different directions and at different speeds. The challenge is to shoot it early if it is flying away from you and lead your sights ahead of where it will be. The launches are under little wooden shelters and fire clays in a great variety of settings: swamps, clearings, woods, bushes. A few clays come flying from up over your head and you have to spot them as they go flying away from you.






The entire process is very high tech. Your purchase of clay discs is loaded onto a card which is then placed onto a controller. The controller has two options, A and B, which launch the two different clays. The shooter loads their shotgun in a wooden frame and cries "pull" which is signal to the other who is managing the controller. Our group let the first shooter decide what the 5th shot would be: A or B. One of the unique shots was one that was shot along the ground and bounced around like a running rabbit (I didn't hit that one).







I intend to shoot only 25 clays with my buddy, but my buddy doesn't show up so I fire 50 shells and end up with a decent bruise on my shoulder. And yes, I held the gun tight against my shoulder and my face tight too. I end up with a rather modest score of 21 hits out of 50. The best shots are John and Kenton with 35. I admit (or provide excuse for my poor showing) that I got lazy and tired during the last 4 stations. I enjoyed taking pictures and watching others shoot. It was a long week leading up to this night.

Marathon: The Second

Ever since having finished my first marathon in May 2012, I have been longing to replicate the experience. It was one of the most exhilarating times of my life. So, in early February I casually mentioned to Heather, one of my housemates, that I should run the Calgary marathon on June 1st. She said if I would run the marathon, she would run the half. I said sure. Then she registered.















Training again was the true struggle. I was forever faced with time challenges as my work and home responsibilities made it difficult to carve out hours to run. In the end I ran 450 kms in training over the 16 weeks prior to the marathon, with a couple 32 km runs in there and a host of intervals and hills (oh, Home Road!!).

I was so busy leading up to the marathon that I hadn't really had much time to fret. The day before, I went for a 15 minute run early in the morning with Heather to get the muscles ready, then collected all my gear together for the early departure to the race the next day:

running shirt, running shorts, light socks, hydration belt with 4 bottles, bandana, headband, bib, running shoes, cash for after, lip balm, face sunscreen, sunglasses, train tickets for transport to and from the race, fruit gummy snacks, ibuprofen, nipple bandages, GPS tracker, energy gel, bag for bag check with morning sweater / deodorant / after flip flops / Nalgene with frozen protein shake for after

I ended up making a last minute call and leaving the hydration belt and bottles behind in favour of a lighter fun and relying completely on the water/gatorade tables every couple kms.





The gate I was supposed to begin the race with was inaccessible when I arrived and so the run began at a much slower pace than I had hoped. I weaved between people trying to get ahead of the masses for the first 4 or 5 kms through Inglewood, Bridgeland, and East Village. The runners eventually thinned out and I haphazardly ran into my old friend Tom from university. He was running his 7th marathon - his first was the same as my first. We hadn't seen each other since college, back in 1996 maybe. We loped along together for a couple kms and then I left him behind as we approached Mount Royal University.



We wound back into downtown and over the 14th street bridge into Kensington where I ran into my beer tasting buddy Gordon. He was there taking pictures for another friend, so he snapped a pics of me too. I ran west and then turned around 3 kms later and ran along Memorial Dr all the way to Centre St when I crossed back into the south for the final 4 kms (which were brutal!). Jesse, a coworker, came down to the river to cheer me on and for the final 7 kms he rode his bike parallel to the track to encourage me. He snapped a few great shots too.





As I mentioned, the last kms were gruelling. I accidentally dropped my last cup of water 3 kms from the end and I was so thirsty! Also, at about km 32, I put a powergel in my pocket and it burst there. Tangerine flavour goop ran all the way down my leg and stuck between my sock and the top of my foot. It was very uncomfortable - and I needed that energy. The only injury I suffered was my sock tearing at my skin where the gel was.







The end was glorious. I was disappointed that my time wasn't better, but I did beat my 2012 time by 4 minutes. Amber, the kids and my friend Stephanie (who ran the 21.1 km) were at the finish line to cheer me in. I got my massive belt buckle and water and bit of snacks before grabbing my checked bag with the protein shake. It was still cold. The kids had their medals from their 1.2 km run which capped off a total of 42.2 kms that they ran in the months previous, so they ran marathons too.



My family went home before I did as there were things they needed to tend to and I still had my massage. My massage was great, mostly due to the fact that I wasn't moving and I was laying flat. I then took transit home and walked the 1 km home.