Thoughts on Motivations

So I don't blog as much as I used to. Perhaps I have run out of things to say, or I've said all I had to say. I doubt that, but it is Sunday evening now and things have happened. This blog post, however, will not be about those things, but only feature some photos of what's been up while my thought train thunders down the line.

Slugs from the south. Lovely, lovely critters...

Once a week I would like to blog, perhaps as a recap or about a specific topic. This won't be some thoughtful, insightful, in-front-of-the-fireplace-legs-crossed-with-a-glass-or-brandy-in-a-comfy-chair type of post, but just things I feel like saying. If you're expecting that, well, I guess you should click on "Next Blog". I guess I am not out of things to say afterall.

Running in the humidty and heat. At 630am.

The biggest thing I have to talk about is motivation. Where it comes from, and where it goes, and what to do with it. Please, do not take what I say as advice, but merely accept it as a Lorne brain dump. 

Giant freekin spiders. Sheesh, probably poisonous too... Let's pet it.

I spent 21 or 22 days on the paleo diet lately, I can't really remember. I was perhaps looking for this fountain of youth or a magic pill. But for what? I don't need to lose weight. I don't need hardcore sport performance improvement. I didn't really know what I needed. It probably had something to do with not losing energy and  being able to keep up with my 2 year old son. So I dived in head first and tried it out. I was aiming for 30 days, but that is in fact, just a number. So no wheat, no dairy, no sugar, no processed foods. Food I can catch, hunt or gather. Meat, veggies and fruit, nuts and seeds. It's pretty straightforward and i did really well. One of the first things I noticed was an increase in energy. This was largely due to the fact that I was consuming a low GI / no sugar diet, so no insulin crashes. 

Driving in Georgia. Many many miles of this.

That was the continuing trend for the whole time. No crashes in energy levels and a feel-good feeling throughout. I was highly motivated to make it through, and especially motivated as I was on the road and traveling lots. I wanted to beat the travel odds about eating well while on the road. And I succeeded. For a while, at least. I could eat at pretty much every restaurant, but had to carefully scan the menu for what I needed. And pretty much every restaurant had paleo friendly choices (with clever omissions of certain ingredients). So I remained motivated. But after a while, especially on the road, I tired of eating chicken salads and such, and Trader Joe's GF Beef Jerkey, and nuts, etc.... But I proved it is possible. It's just not my thing though.

South Carolina peaches, nom nom nom.

You see, I am a foodie (self-proclaimed), and I love to try everything. So that became an issue, especially being in a new culinary location. I wanted to try new foods, and since I ran out of reasons to continue eating paleo, I stopped eating paleo. But a new problem arose.

Somewhere in someplace in either South Carolina, North Carolina, or Virginia. I can't remember.

I took the stop-paleo situation as a total dive-bomb into lack-of-motivation land. I don't know what happened, but since then my motivation has not existed. I guess I have to wonder what I am motivating myself to do. Well, perhaps I linked eating paleo to successes in health and fitness. And since I stopped eating paleo, I figured I didn't need to exercise anymore. Well, I know that is not true, since I love to exercise (yes, I do). But what happened is that I did stop exercising, and I lost motivation to do the things I love to do when it comes to exercise. When I stop running cause I don't feel like it, something is up. So what is it? I don't know, but here are the things I would like to do:

-100 pushups in a row. Yes, that is right. 100 straight, strict pushups. I can do about 30 right now. Hmph.

- 5 km run in less than 20 minutes. I've gotten to 20:20 before, and now I am probably around 24 minutes.

- Canadian Death Race (Aug 2013). 127 km of dire agony on my legs. I don't know why I want this one, but I do. 

- 12 strict chinups. I dont' even think I can do one.

The knots of roads while driving into Washington, D.C.

So what am I to do? I bought a day planner to keep myself motivated. That didn't work well, as it has sat empty for the last week. I read about how to do it. That works Lorne, that really works. Eventually you have to do it and stop reading. I guess all I have to do to is start slow. Crawl-walk-run. That's my approach. I think perhaps that my largest problem is I hit the ground running and fall apart quickly. I think I can still run a 20:20 5km or do 50 pushups. I can't, and I don't want to admit that I can't. Pride and ego are getting in the way of progress. They're getting in the way of anything, really. They're killing my motivation. So I guess I know what I have to do. Break down my goals into crawling steps. 

The White House at night.

Next week, I will detail how I break down my goals into achievable steps. I will try to make my blog posts into weekly posts as well, as I think that is good. I've learned a lot about myself just by writing tonight.

Lorne :-)

Commuting Fun!

As was my goal earlier this year when I bought my bike, I wanted to do a daily commute on the bicycle. Well daily doesn’t happen, but frequent does. Here are some photos (up until the point where my camera ran out of batteries).

 

Ok, the exposure settings suck, but there is a deer in the picture as I head west towards the mountains.

 

See, a nice deer! Blurry, yes, but definitely a deer.

 

Heading south on Horse Creek Road towards the tracks. This morning I had to wait for the train for 5 minutes, but most days there are no trains.

 

Riding through the neighbourhoods towards the intersection. Beautiful way to start the morning!

 

Coming up to the intersection, you can smell all the fast-foods being prepared. Not exactly the best choice for an active morning, but oh so tantalizing when you’re riding on an empty stomach.

 

This is passing the Tim Horton’s in town. It looks as if I’m playing in heavy traffic, but actually I am just passing parked trucks.

 

I used to take the pathways under the bridge, up the other side, across on the pedestrian walkway and then back under the bridge to the paths, but I realized it’s safe enough to just ride the shoulder.

 

Crossing the bridge over the Bow River. The river has been really swollen this year. Usually in the morning it is quite low then by afternoon it is much higher, but now it seems to be always high. It even floods the parking lot underneath quite often.

 

Rather than heading up the highway, I take a right at the lights into Bow Meadows (I think) and aim for Tower’s trail. Sure it’s an additional 10km, but it is so worth every minute of it!

 

Ah yes, Tower’s Trail hill. One of two major hills (if you want to call it major) on the ride. Major enough to cause me to pant.

 

At the top of the hill, the sun just peeks over Big Hill. Such a pretty way to start the morning!

 

At the top of Tower’s Trail hill, some rolling roads that turn into gravel. I figured my ride to be about 56% tarmac, 44% gravel. That’s why I have the commuter bike and not a road bike, as mine can handle the gravel.

 

And there I am. At my desk being a good worker.

Commuting on the bike is great cause it’s the perfect way to start the morning, then I spend all day looking forward to the ride home! Sure it may take 1:15, but it’s no big deal to me cause I enjoy it so much! A great way to get some fresh air early in the morning. Usually when I ride to work, it ends up rainy or stormy, but hey, it’s half the fun seeing whether it rains or not! So far this year, I’ve logged 530km, which I think is pretty good (considering I’ve only put 1600km on my motorcycle).

Grand Valley to Horse Creek Loop

So the other day, we (neighbours, that is) decided to go out for a bike ride. Road ride. Yeah, and since we live on one of the most fantastic bike loops in the area, we decided to pedal out the Horse Creek – Grand Valley loop. GPS data can be found here.

We did the loop clockwise, starting on the highway from our neighbourhood going a few km’s west (into a strong headwind) to Grand Valley road and taking that north. The hills are called the Wildcat Hills.

Once we turned north, the winds weren’t so bad and the hills provided some protection. And there were some nice views along the way.

J and his fancy road bike. I have a single speed commuter and had to pedal like mad to keep up. Perhaps that is some incentive to get a hub-gear.

Taking photos of yourself while biking is tricky, but I think this turned out alright.

One of the nicest things about this whole loop is that it is smoothly paved the whole way! Very nice for skinny tyres and keeping the speed up.

Cows! I like cows! They are very photogenic and taste delicious!

There are no really steep climbs on the loop which is nice. Even though the loop is over 40km, I believe even a novice road rider would have few issues! Plus the scenery is just fantastic!

And of course, wherever there are fields and hills, there are trees, so they deserve a picture too.

J and K coming up the last section of Grand Valley Road before we headed east towards Horse Creek Road. Very easily identifiable by the stop signs.

K coming around the bend and heading east! I think she really enjoyed the ride!

The connecting road TWP 280 between Grand Valley and Horse Creek Road is very nice, with trees whizzing by you (depending on how fast you pedal) and is quite flat and straight. It’s so very peaceful.

Having fun with the camera. I sure hope there is no car coming towards me….

Coming down Horse Creek Road there are some slight downhills and bends in the road. Very fun and quite fast! Again, perfect scenery.

I was trying to get the camera as close to the road as I could without wiping out or dropping the camera. I think this worked out quite well.

Riding south on Horse Creek Road gave us a bit of a crosswind, and all the grasses made that nice summer rustling sound that I love so much. Hopefully this photo captures that sound in some way.

The last stretch of road brought us back in to Cochrane and in view of the mountains. I love living here. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.

The beauty of riding the bike is the quiet and the peace that it creates. There are no motors, no stereos or noisy distractions. Just the road, the bike and your legs hammering away like pistons on your pedals so that you can feel the exhilaration that is road biking. And better yet, the Coke at the end of the ride that you share with friends as you plan your next ride.

Running in Mukluks, first run Review

Here it is, the first running review of my Hunter mukluks. I can’t wait forever for the snow to run, so I figured cold weather would be good enough. So I finally headed out to the Ranchehouse Ravine for a good running loop. Relatively cool, somewhere around the 0 mark, and easy, rolling terrain of various surfaces (dirt, pine needles, rocks, roots, gravel).

Run data can be found here.

Not exactly what I would call appropriate dress attire for running (cargo pants aren’t good enough), but a wool top and toque will suffice for now.

The mukluks fit nicely under the cargo pants. I tied up the calf drawstring and actually broke one. I have to remember that they are made of leather, not shoelace. My main concern was the the boots would “flop” as I ran, and sure enough they did. I have to find a way to hold the boot on the calf so that doesn’t happen.

First run in the new mukluks. Not much but a blur. I must be a super fast runner.

The Ranchehouse Ravine has such a great variety of trails, from single track through the grass to pine needle and rock. The thing I really noticed was that I could still feel the ground through mukluks as I did in my 5’s. A definite plus for anyone used to barefoot / minimalist footwear.

Roots and rock. The flat soles of the mukluks didnt’ disappoint with over-cushioning and such. I like feeling the ground, and these mukluks still allowed me to do that all the while keeping my feet insulated from the cold.

One thing I did notice in the mukluks was that walking up a very steep incline, my feet would slide back in the boot. This is largely due to the soft sheepskin lining, which I am sure will become a little more coarse as I wear the mukluks. It’s not too big of a deal, and I’m thinking of ways to keep my foot secured in the mukluk without compromising the feeling.

More variety of trails. So nice out, it felt great to run again.

No leaves, but what do you expect for November? I’m still waiting for snow. Forecast looks good. It was bit chilly, but the mukluks proved themselves VERY warm and soft. Nice.

Me running. I was able to keep the stride identical as if I were wearing my 5’s. The weight of the mukluk was not noticeable until they started bunching up around my ankles. Again, something I am trying to remedy.

My beloved mountains, always beckoning me to visit them. Soon enough. I have some trails that I want to try running in winter. Anyone care to join?

I would like to add that descending the grassy hills was a breeze. The Vibram sole in the mukluk provided TONS of grip, especially on the path covered in grass. No slippage or anything, and as I expected, my foot stayed planted in the mukluk. Points for that.

The Horseman, ever so faithfully watching over the town. Nice photo op too.

Looking up at Mr. Horseman of Cochrane.

All in all, an excellent run. You can see how the mukluks bunched up around my ankle. Not too big of a problem and it’s something that I am trying to solve. I am going to look for cinch straps to put in place of the leather lace. Ideally, if the boot came up to just below my knee, keeping the mukluks in place wouldn’t be a problem. But I am testing these out for this purpose exactly.

Total distance and time of my run was 4.5km and about 27 minutes.

Manitobah Mukluks Hunters: Flat and Cool

Pros: Super comfortable, stylish (always a bonus), warm, soft, as close to barefooting as possible in sub-zero temps, superior grip

Cons: Boot bunches around the ankle, leather lace more of a decoration than practical, sheepskin lining causes foot slide in boot on steep inclines

Overall: For an off the shelf mukluk that wasn’t made for running at all, these boots held up great. With a few tweaks and mods, as well as some snowfall and suede protector, these could be the start of something fantastic for those who wish to continue minimalist running in sub zero temps. For the conditions listed (dry, cool, relatively flat), I give these mukluks a 7/10.

I’m not done reviewing. I still have to see how these hold up on true trails (mountains), in snow, and in –10, –20, –30, –40 and perhaps –50 degree weather (that’s Celcius, my friends). I am also going to try them with snowshoes, on ice, and for sprint and interval trials and also with stationary workouts. So stay tuned and I will keep the reviews a comin’.

I would also like to add to the variety of locations that pushups can be done. Enjoy!!

Pushup #12 – Outside on a wooden deck.

Pushup #13 – On a fence. Challenges balance in many ways.

Pushup #14 – In the leaves. Man these leaves smell good.

That’s all from me. Coming up are more mukluk reviews and Parliamentary Pushups, French Pushups, perhaps pushups IN a plane and terminal pushups. Still open to suggestions,