Continue reading »]]> It’s about 5:30 in the morning, which means that I’ve been asleep for about 11.5 hours. Yesterday, as soon as I got home from my parents’ place I just plopped down on my bed and passed out. I really only had two activities. In the morning I had my run, and in the afternoon I had my bread class. Both are really draining but manageable on their own. What I didn’t anticipate was the effect that both would have put together. So yes, I fell asleep at 6, woke up briefly at 2 a.m. to turn off the lamp besides my bed, and now here I am feeling like I missed something important. I think next time I have to work on keeping my energy levels up…or perhaps rely on stimulants. I can’t afford to lose 1/8 of the weekend like this, you know what I mean? Argh.

Continue reading »]]> My latest coaching gig began last night. It was the first night in a long time that I ran. If I think about it, it’s sort of embarrassing. I mean, to some extent I’m kind of an ambassador of sorts to the activity. And yet, there I was actually avoiding running for weeks. I was feeling a little bit shy to actually get out there. Well, shy or not, I just had to set that all aside. Compared to some of my previous clinics this is a relatively smaller one. All the same, I have to pump out the positivity. Every single bit matters, right?

On Monday night there was a really heavy dumping of snow in the Toronto area. By Tuesday the temperature rose well above freezing meaning that much of the snow had melted down into pools of slush on the sidewalks. During the run my clinic members gingerly sidestepped around everything. I tried to encourage them to just plow through the puddles. I set an example by doing so myself. I ended up with cold soaked shoes, but I didn’t mind. Nasty, but a good reminder about the joys of running through winter.

When I got back to the store, I got my street wear together and headed for the change room. As I sat down I started peeling off my cold socks. As I did my wrinkly shrivelled feet seemed to gasp for air. All of a sudden I had to just pause. I wasn’t about to cry or anything but I knew that there was a thought there that was begging for attention. I wasn’t really able to put it all together until I took a moment to focus. That’s when it finally came to me. The result was mildly melodramatic, but so damn eloquent. After my long absence from running, having done a run among everyone else at the store: I felt whole again.

Continue reading »]]> Ehhhh, well this week has had its share of rough patches. I’ve been having a tough time with work lately. I’m on a project with an imminent deadline that seemed impossible to meet. I stayed late on Thursday to try to catch up only to get blocked for unknown reasons. Apparently, I had been given an example to work from that was faulty in the first place. Wonderful! On Friday I was rather frustrated at myself during CrossFit. I was having a fair bit of trouble keeping good form on a certain move and as a result coach prevented me from going further that day. I knew I could do better. I was just not performing. So yeah, perhaps my last Facebook posts have been a bit gloomy.

I suppose I could focus on all of the negatives but there have been plenty of good things as well. I’ve managed to be rather social this week. Right after Friday’s workout I went home, changed, then headed downtown to hang out with friends for someone’s birthday. Today I started another improv class which acts as an assessment of sorts to see where we might fit in in terms of future performance opportunities. I have good vibes about this class. Right after I went home then drove up to Markham for a get together with some running friends. I swear, I’m everywhere.

Anyway, I guess the purpose of me writing all of this is just to have a self-reminder that the quality of our weeks depends on what pre-determined stance we take when we view things. Know what I mean? I suppose this means that I need to encourage positivity. I suppose that’s a possibility, no?

Continue reading »]]> Technology can be so damn fickle, right? I mean, how do we cope when it fails us? Yesterday, as I pulled out of my parking spot to leave for work I noticed a line up of cars heading toward a closed garage door. I rolled down my windows to listen to what discussions were going on. Seems like no one was able to get the door open. We deduced that we wouldn’t be able to leave the garage. I just turned the car around and headed back for my spot. I went back to my suite and emailed my manager explaining my situation. I was debating whether I should wait it out because surely someone would have left an angry call or two to the building’s manager to get the door open, or if I should take the bus to work. Taking the bus would be an hour long journey that I was not keen on making. The other option I considered was if I should take the day off. I mean it kind of felt like the universe was sending me a message, right? I visited the garage every half hour or so to see if the situation improved. Finally, sometime between 9:45 and 10:15 the door was opened manually. That’s when I headed in.

So, that sort of makes me pause for a bit of reflection. It’s not like I was trapped. I mean, I could have easily gotten around by transit or other options. Still, the lack of convenience seemed to trump everything. I won’t say that I was content to stay put, but rather, the other options weren’t appealing enough. That’s ridiculous. Oh well, it doesn’t matter I guess. It all just shows me that I need to be thankful that we’ve got such a convenient life, know what I mean?

Continue reading »]]> On Saturday I was downtown celebrating a friend’s birthday. She had decided that as part of her celebration we would all go for swing dance lessons. Hoo boy. Well, I gamely joined in. The room was large, and attendance was heavy. We we split into leaders and followers. Eventually we were paired up. For each move we shown were asked to practice that move with our partner. They moved through each move way too fast. I was stumbling through some of them, and as the person leading that often prove disastrous. After every move the followers shifted down so we all got new partners frequently. With things moving quickly, even if I hadn’t picked up a move we had to move on. Unfortunately, the following movements built on the previous ones. The ballroom was also rather hot meaning that I was sweating like mad. Between movements I had to wipe myself down to get back to a presentable state. Wow. In terms of first impressions that’s pretty bad. Think: bad sweaty dancer. Blargh.

When all movements were shown we were expected to pull it all together. I was able to eke something out, but it wasn’t great. It seemed like most partners I got had at least some experience, making me feel like more and more of an idiot. Well, after the lesson, finally the lights came down and the jazz band started. The band came from New York City. They were wonderful. We were told that there were a few people among the dancers who were more experienced and would be able for partnering for practice. I eventually had a chance to practice with the music. I clumsily pulled the routine out. It wasn’t graceful at all. The partner innocently asked me “Were you partner with people that didn’t know what they were doing?” I replied “No, that’s all me.” Thanks. I’m willing to take the blame for me own lack of skill. And from that…I stopped dancing for the night.

Slammed.

Continue reading »]]> Well, after the successful completion of my introductory baking class at GBC I decided that baking would be yet another hobby that I would actively pursue provided there’s enough time and energy to do so. I spent a lot of time looking at the offerings and tried to figure out how each one could fit into my already hectic schedule. Eventually, due to the fact that I seemed to have more events/parties/invitations landing on Saturday afternoons/evenings I decided to take a class scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Between the cookie class and the bread class I opted for the bread one thinking that I might be more likely to meet someone from my old class. Upon arrival…nope: I didn’t know anyone. Actually there was one person there that knows me from Markham RR. Small world, eh? I haven’t coached her (yet) but at some point I gave a talk to her clinic regarding race day preparation. In any case, in the class I ended up with a totally brand new partner and after a slight rough start we were successful with the execution.

Pretty cool, eh? I got to take home half of this. Almost looks pro. There’s something about doing it there in class that I have trouble replicating at home. No, I don’t think I’m imagining it. Perhaps it comes from having a partner there who’s able to act as a second pair of eyes to verify everything. I don’t know. When I try to execute these recipes at home I end up bungling something a good percent of the time. Last night out of boredom (as it often happens) I tried to repeat what I did on Sunday. I didn’t want to do the whole thing so I cut the ingredient weights in half. I had to do a bit of extra work with regards to the yeast. In class we use fresh yeast, but here at home I have the active dry stuff. The teacher said that the conversion was that I’d only need about half of the active dry yeast to replace fresh yeast. Well, all right then. So, I took the weight in the booklet and cut that in half. As things were mixing I added more water to get things going. I really must have added too much. The resulting dough wasn’t all that tough. It was quite soft and sticky. I could have added more flour to balance things out, but I chose to just work with it. Heh. Well, after proofing and baking the resulting loaves were sort of flat. When I ate them they tasted a little odd. The crust wasn’t quite so good. Nope, not a good result at all. I had to analyze my moves to figure out what went wrong. Well, just like the last time I had to do an ingredient conversion prior to cutting the amount in half, I forgot cut the amount of yeast I needed in half. Yeah, and the wet dough made things hard to handle. Eeeeeeeeeeh. I know I can do better. Thing is, I’m now stuck with a lot of average bread. I’m sure I can do something with it like make an awesome bread pudding. All the same…bah! I know that if I want to get better I have to practice, so I don’t mind. In any case, this is something I enjoy. The next few weeks are going to be some tasty ones.

Continue reading »]]> Earlier tonight our improv troupe had our big beginning of year kick off meeting. It was the first time we had been gathered together since last year. It really felt like everyone was enthusiastic and ready to work. After some initial administrative talk we got around to playing some games. Whoo! As much as we were sort of out of practice there was a lot of hard laughter. I swear, with another week or two of practice and game play we’ll all be back up to speed. We’re looking at getting a couple of shows ready over the next few months. If we keep up this level of commitment and passion we’re going to have a bloody great year. Really, that’s what this first meeting was all about. This was our way of recommitting to the group and to each other.

Yes, I want to keep playing with you all.
Yes, I want to continue to work hard to put shows together.
Yes, I want to grow in skill with all of you by my side. 

I feel lucky to have ended up with such an dedicated group. Over the past year we’ve learned so much from each other and from the shows we’ve put together. We’ve gotten stronger because of it. All I know is that this is a good sign of things to come. Right on.

Continue reading »]]> Over at my CrossFit box there are a couple of ropes for those days when rope climbs are part of the day’s skill lesson or workout. I really haven’t seen them get much use, but that’s most likely because I tend to go there on days when more emphasis is put on weightlifting skills. Anyway, after yesterday’s workout a bunch of us were talking about climbing the things. One of the coaches came over and gave us a short overview to satisfy our curiosity. It seemed like wrapping the rope around our legs to create enough friction was an important part of it. Well, one of us tried it out and actually got a fair bit up. In all honesty I was in awe. I half-heartedly grabbed a rope and tried to lift myself, but I didn’t get quite as far. I just got back down and stared at the rope. It brought back some memories of the gym at my elementary school. There was a rope there, but no one every climbed it. Back then I reasoned that my lack of upper body strength was too much of an impediment to ever get far on it. That fear has propagated all the way up to this point in my lift. It has formed a block such that now when I see the rope I just figure that I’d have to get stronger.

As I was getting ready to go home I spoke to another coach and pointed to the rope while saying “I’ll climb that one day.” He told me that I could do it now. I just gave back an incredulous look. He asked whether I was physically incapable or whether it was just fear. I was about to say that I was incapable but I sensibly chose fear as the better response. He said that all of us can climb it, and that he’d show us how to do it on Friday. Well, fine. I really want to know how.

When I got home, I spent a few minutes looking up YouTube videos on rope climbing to see the technique. Honestly, the videos seemed to indicate that with proper foot technique climbing a rope doesn’t involve too much upper body strength at all. Seemed a bit crazy to me, but the people in the videos made it look doable. I don’t know. It might take me a while to get my coordination down, but I might be able to do it all. I want to know that something that was a block previously is conquerable. I’m ready to prove it. I want to be able to mentally tell my 12-year-old self that I shouldn’t let a rope like that intimidate me.

Continue reading »]]> I’m slowly making my way through my various issues. I mean, we all have our own shit to deal with. It just so happens that since May of last year I’ve made it a specific thing for me to actually deal with some of them head-on instead of just setting them aside in perpetuum. Anyway, one thing that I’ve figured out for myself is that my image in my father’s mind seems to be stuck in a much younger stage. It’s entirely natural for parents to worry. I get that. Still, at some point a parent has to let go. I am perhaps not convinced that my father understands that. I mean, I will never truly know what’s going on in his mind, but I have enough hints to indicate that in his mind he’s frozen me in a younger state where I’m in need of protection.

I guess all of this has been an issue on my mind since my last visit to my parents’ place this past weekend. At the dinner table my father was heavily suggesting that I cut back on my running. He was concerned: do I really need to run as far as I do, especially if I’m also doing strength training, improv, baking, working, and generally living life? Well, the obvious answer to me is, YES. I want to do all of that, and I have the ability to. He replied, “but aren’t you tired?” Of course, I am! And really, what’s wrong with being tired? Sometimes I’m going to end up exhausted and worn out. I see no problem with that, as long as it’s not a daily occurrence. It really becomes an issue if I’m doing stuff that I really don’t want to do, and obviously that’s not the case. I do what I love. He then pointed out an earlier visit to their place where I ended up napping on their couch waiting for dinner. Eh? So what?

You know, I do understand where he’s coming from. I get why he might be concerned. All the same, I am aware that it’s not an issue for me. I have the ability to monitor my energy levels, and to cut back and add activity as I see fit. If it’s all far too overwhelming I know that I can scale things back. Thankfully I still have the clarity of mind to recognize when I’m going too far. I really don’t need to be protected from myself. I can be strong all on my own, thank you. I just wish that my father would understand that and not worry so much. The last thing I need is for him to live in such fear.

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9:55:16 PM Lee: Change is often difficult, and almost always necessary
9:55:21 PM Jay: Absolutely
9:55:27 PM Jay: I like “pruning”
9:55:41 PM Jay: The concept
9:56:00 PM Lee: I recognize it more than most, I think, but still don’t always do it. Ya, too much growth/life is actually bad.
9:56:12 PM Jay: It’s not sustainable
9:56:21 PM Lee: Nicole had a quote from a yoga book that had a similar message, about how unrestricted growth becomes destructive.
9:56:35 PM Jay: Kind of true
9:57:37 PM Jay: If you are everything to everyone, then you are good to no one
9:57:48 PM Lee: Take that, Systems Design Engineers