Weekends

I thought I would take you on a little trip with this post, a little because I have been making the same short excursion for the past four weekends, and a little because on the drive I started thinking about weekends.......how we cherish them, how we wait for them to come, and how we use them. So this is a story of what I did this weekend........a few people might care, some might not, but either way there are a couple of nice pictures....enjoy.

I usually start the weekends with a later wake up time than my normal 6 am, then take it nice and easy with a great cup of coffee and a read of the weekend paper. This weekend was not much different, its quiet in the mornings and  I am usually alone for the first couple of hours, I settle into my comfy chair and look out the window thinking about the day. Thinking, do I want to do what I planned or is there something else on my mind that feels better, feels right, feels like it should happen today. Nope...the plan stays as is, a short trip up to the Callaghan Valley and some skate skiing.....my chosen choice for exercise on the weekends now.

Today is going to be sunny and clear and I cant wait to see how beautiful it is up in the mountains........preparing for skate skiing is much easier than downhill skiing. The most significant difference is the weight of all of the equipment! Doesn't sound like much of a revelation but believe me when you are lugging all of the stuff through snow while generously overheating it makes a big difference!

So its a quick trip downstairs into the car and we are off to our destination.........the Callaghan valley, home of the Whistler Olympic Park and some best Nordic terrain in BC. Check it out.........http://www.whistlerolympicpark.com/           

The trip will take about a hour and a half and the drive is beautiful...............

As we transition from the city and the greenery of the North Shore mountains we start seeing more and more snow, its truly a wonderful experience, to watch the natural beauty of BC move from one season to another, it never gets boring, never.

So what do you do when you get there, well after a quick stop at the day lodge its off to the warm up/practice area. Practice area you say? Why would you want to do that........? Well I have come to realize that this new sport is much more difficult when you are not warmed up, and its ALL technique, well maybe not ALL but mostly...because I have muscled my way through many a sport and survived, albeit barely with some. But this one, wow.....you get it for a few slides and then its gone. You go from the iconic image of the skier gliding from side to side with ease to a cross between a dog scampering up a frozen cliff and a old man walking with a cane to go up stairs..........and it all happens in an instant!

But each time I go out I get a little better, and it happens a little more often so I guess there is hope. I have been out every weekend for the past four weeks and must admit that I really do enjoy it. I think there is a trait I have that is helping a little, you see I inherited a stubborn streak. One that has proved to be a good thing to have given the athletic choices I have made, and one that has contributed to more than a few injuries! That being said, this time around I am trying to use it for good......to push me to continue to try my best but not "push" through pain....yeah , yeah, sounds simple I know...but it has taken me two Ironman's and a ton of advice from a great coach to realize it! Thanks Mike...........

So lets talk a little about why I have to be so stubborn to learn this sport....one of the first times I did this I was dumbfounded by the amount of balance that you need. I do various types yoga three times a week and had thought that my center of gravity was rather well known to me. Not the case, its a little different when you are sliding forward at the same time you are trying to stand still! Then as you are gliding you point your ski out to the side and push off, like skating, kind of. You see when you skate you have a short, and sharp, edge to use. In this sport there is no sharp edge and the skis are twenty times longer, allowing for many of opportunities to cross them, flip them, and other physical mishaps to occur. So how many mishaps did I have, well I can say proudly only one.....which was two less than my counterpart on the same day! 

Mishaps and all , its a fantastic exercise! Your heart rate gets so high you think you are going to pass out, but when you crest the hill and look back you feel so fantastic about where you have come its overwhelming. My arms, specifically my triceps were so sore the first time we went out even sleeping was hurting them, not to mention my yoga class the next day when I went to an arm balance and collapsed onto my face, yes it was as graceful as it sounds! Then there is that little muscle that I used to watch contract on the professional triathletes as the ran or cycled by, you know the one, high on the hip, (I know it sounds a little perverted but I point it out only for descriptive purposes) its likely used  to make them fast which is evident by me not having one........or at least I didn't think I did. Turns out I do, but it doesn't work!

When you go downhill with these skis you are taught to snowplow to slow yourself down, and even stop. The difference that I want to point out again is that these skis do not have any metal edges, just a little plastic lip, one that requires what feels like an Herculean amount of force to be applied to slow down even just a little. And yes, you guessed it, that little muscle high up on your hip is the one that engages when do this. And mine started screaming, not in the "hey I am that muscle that's going to get a little work now" no, no, its more like "I am the muscle you didn't think existed and if you don't stop doing this right now I am going spasm so bad you will never walk again". So needless to say the communication was one way, drawing on that stubborn streak of mine I ignored the chatter and kept going.

With the tenacity of a cat on catnip I continued and it's paid off, I now can say honestly that I go downhill now with out the need to have odd internal conversations and even rather enjoy the rush of the decent on those skinny little planks.

We wrapped up the day with a light snack at the day lodge and then started home, the beauty of being so close to this wonderful area is that we can do a trip and it really does not take your whole day. The trip back was uneventful however after a few of these excursions I have learned a few things that I thought I would share.

1. Mini Van's are by far the most dangerous vehicle on the roads. 
2. After the age of 40, an hour and a half is a long time to wait to go to the washroom.
3. There are more Audi station wagons on the road with ski racks than I thought there could be. 
4. Police officers driving in the right lane make everyone miserable.
5. Skis should be securlely afixed to one's ski rack. 
6. There must be at least twelve different sports you can do from here to Whistler.
7. Voices on the radio sound the same no matter what station you listen to. 
8. Depending on the song, silence is golden! 

Driving back to the city I thought I would snap a few closing shots of the final approach to our downtown abode. Passing the hottest sport in town right now, then traveling down the avenue to home.......... 

So that's was my weekend, well not all of it of course....what did I leave out? Well an absolutely fantastic dinner at a french restaurant that is participating in the Dine around Town. Wow is all I can say....a wonderful dinner with a wonderful bottle of wine..........a great trail run in Pacific Spirit park, a walk downtown for a little shopping and finished up tonight watching the NFL Pro Bowl where my friends Luke and Kevin are watching in Hawaii (I am so jealous!) and then a little dip in the hot tub downstairs before bed..............All in all , a great weekend.......I certainly can't complain!

Till next time.............

Moments

A women was walking alone along a tree lined trail one morning, the sun was shinning brightly, you could hear the fresh snow crunching under foot. It was winter and the opportunity to spend some time in the woods with herself could not be passed up. As she walked she came upon an old man wrapped in a blanket sitting on the side of the trail. Concerned she asked if there was anything she could do to assist, the answer that came was simply a "no". Curious as to what the old man could possibly be doing she asked "why are you sitting here? What are you looking at? the old man answered, "I am looking at the trees". The women turned around and looked in the direction the man was staring, there were snow covered tree's, a blue sky, both which stood out against the fresh fallen white snow. She said to the old man, "it is rather beautiful but I am sure there are trees you can look at where you could be more comfortable" The old man replied "but not those trees, not in this moment". Feeling that the old man wanted to be left alone she started to walk away, but after a few steps, her curiosity driving her, she turned and asked "but why those tree's, why that moment?" But the old man was gone.............

Time goes by quickly......but moments will last forever, choose them and cherish them often.................

Till next time................

Yoko Ono, yes...

Most people that know me know that I love to try new things, some I am not bad at, some I am terrible at and others....well lets just say those experiences are ones that you should keep to yourself.

Experiential learning is the name of the game when it come to me...the thrill of not knowing what is going to happen next, the pride you have when you master something you have never been able to do, or even just the feeling of knowing you have done something you wanted to, ticking it off the list shall we say. Ah if we only had time to just do............

Recently I have had the opportunity to take on a new sport.....mostly by necessity for a race I signed up for with a great team of friends, cross country skiing, not the classical variety but skate skiing. Some people were advising me that its a very difficult thing to do and that its really really hard....well so far I have found that it is.....BUT that's what I love...... we shall see what category this new experience fits into!

That brings me to the title of this blog, and the name of our team that is entered into this great race, Team Yoko Ono......

You see Yoko Ono no matter what you think about her and how responsible she was for breaking up the Beatles, she was willing to try and do just about anything! Take her singing...some say she was being artistic...personally I think that should have been one of the experiences she should have chosen not to share....and what about her “protests”? The “bed in” John and Yoko stayed under the covers for days on end at hotels in Amsterdam, Holland, and Montreal, Canada in 1969 to promote their campaign for world harmony and the end of the Vietnam war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeDocgPpGd4

This was obviously a much more serious topic to tackle but in essence its really was another experience, although I think a few of us could honestly say that staying in bed for days at end would be a welcome experience!

And then there is her poetry, some rather strange but some touching....

CLEANING PIECE III

Try to say nothing negative about anybody.
a) for three days
b) for forty-five days
c) for three months

See what happens to your life.

And her art.....there is a story of how John Lennon and Yoko Ono met, the story goes that he visited a preview of an exhibition of Ono's at a gallery in London on November 9, 1966. Lennon's first personal encounter with Ono involved her passing him a card that read simply "Breathe". However, the Ono work which Lennon saw at the gallery show that awakened him to her was "Ceiling Painting," described as follows: "The viewer is invited to climb a white ladder, where at the top a magnifying glass, attached by a chain, hangs from a frame on the ceiling. The viewer uses the reading glass to discover a block letter "instruction" beneath the framed sheet of glass – it says "Y E S." 

Another display was a white board with nails in it with a sign inviting visitors to hammer a nail into its surface. Since the show was not beginning until the following day, Ono refused to allow Lennon to hammer in a nail. The gallery owner whisked her away, saying, "Don't you know who that is? He's a millionaire!" Upon returning to John, she said he could hammer in a nail for five shillings. Lennon replied, "I'll give you an imaginary five shillings if you let me hammer in an imaginary nail". And the rest is history!

Now don't get me wrong, I can honestly say I have never really been a big fan of Yoko Ono and I am not trying to draw any relationship between my choices and her's. What I have always appreciated about what she does is her ability to put her fears aside and do what she wants to do, to experience what she wants to experience. Whether she is good at it or not.........

Fear drive us away from trying new things, fear or what other might think, fear of not being the best, fear of failure, they all keep us from experiences....and experiences are what make us who we are. They give us a perspective about the world that we might not have had before.

Experiences open us to ourselves and our fears, once we have seen our fears we know what we are facing, only then can we overcome them.

Like Yoko Ono said:

All my concerts had no sounds in them; they were completely silent. People had to make up their own music in their minds!
Yoko Ono

What?

Well, actually.....never mind............Go Team Yoko Ono!

Till next time...............

It's been so long.......but its a new year so lets try again!

Well that's an understatement......Its been about 6 months since my last post and I am amazed at how fast the time goes by. Without sounding like everyone else that to do these things I am resisting the urge to promise posts every week! However that being said with work now settling down and my life feeling a little more in order I am convinced that I should be able to post on a "regular" basis!

So what have I been up to? Well lots of working....and then working some more. That's what happens when you get a new job. Other than that there have been many a dinners at great restaurants, great excursions to Seattle, Whistler,  and back to the Island, oh yeah...and a little trip to Hawaii!

Vancouver has proved to be a good move for me, we are definitely in a smaller place but we are right in the heart of downtown. Yaletown offers everything we want and in 20mins we can be in the North Shore mountains where we have gone running, skiing, and just being. Grouse mountain is a great little ski hill and Cypress offers some of the best Nordic skiing around, both of which we have been doing.

Speaking of skiing, we have not really skied since we moved out to Vancouver and this weekend was our first venture back into the sport. Interesting to say the least...you know that feeling when you think you know how to do something but when you go to do it your body just doesn't want to remember! First on the list was downhill skiing, fearing the worst we walk over to a green run at Grouse mountain and with apprehension I flung myself down the hill and while I was whizzing down I thought to myself  "is this a good idea for someone who was told by their neurosurgeon not to fall down again?" But that was quickly replaced with "this is a blast" so there you have it...I am skiing again, not hitting any hard stuff....yet!

Day two....cross country skiing. My motivation for trying this sport is a little race we have agreed to participate in....Snow to surf in May 2011, and I really wanted to do something new, something I have not down before.....cross country skiing. With that in mind we headed up to Cypress just yesterday, rented equipment and headed out. We started with the classic variety and Dwight instructed on technique, now I have to tell you that this little sport is much harder than it looks! In classic Nordic skiing you ski in these tracks that are laid out through the trails. The idea is to use a running motion and glide on your skies....what I was doing I would not call gliding! I would have called it a crude sliding and not at all graceful.......

After falling down numerous times and not really being able to get the hang of it I decided to ask Dwight calmly if we could go back tot the rental hut and try to Skate Skiing technique....OK so it was not so calmly asked and maybe it was not even an ask.....more like a if you don't get me off these things life is going to get miserable! So we headed back and to my delight when we clicked into the skate skies and started on our way I was much happier. I am not exactly sure all of the technical reasons but I very much enjoyed this type of cross country skiing. There is a lot more control and I don't feel restricted to the ruts that are created, although you can use them if you want to.  It is difficult however, don't get me wrong I have not had that kind of cardio workout since Mike introduced us to hill training at Rainbow park! I did teally enjoy it and hopefully we can get out on the weekends so I can enjoy it even more.

This weekend reminded me again however lucky we are to live in such a beautiful part of the world.....to be running in the sun along the ocean one moment to skiing in 300cm of snow the next. Truly a blessing.........

Hopefully I have not lost too many of my fans and that you enjoy the posts to come........looking forward to chatting.........

Talk soon, Anna