Superfunkomatic - Observations of the Socially Inept

well, since the beginning of december i’ve been on a quest to get back into reasonably good physical condition. and folks, it’s working!

i started at a plump 212 pounds. after two and a half years of knee injuries, shoulder injuries and general malaise i was finally able to start training again. man, i didn’t realize how shitty i felt. no wonder i felt like such a lazy bag of turd.

i’m much closer to my ‘fighting weight’ now at a much leaner 194 - float like a butterfly, or moth, and sting like an, um, wasp (not quite a bee, yet…).

my initial attempts to run were a disaster - 5 miles (too much), and really started to screw up my knees. it took 65 minutes to run five miles. being that i’m a very polarized personality (all or nothing, go big or go home) - i thought more of a good thing would be a good way to get started, not so much!

so then i started building from 1 kilometre and working on speed and adding more distance each week. in 16 weeks i’ve gone from 12+ minute miles down to about an 8:50 mile. i’m up to 8 kilometres in 44-49 minutes. pretty significant improvement.

so i’m nearly ready to run 10K distances - maybe in about 4-6 weeks.

Tags: forest gump, running, training

well. calgary has gone from having 6-10 inches of snow to being 20 degrees today. it is absolutely gorgeous outside. or as i’ve been want to say lately – ‘bitchin!’

there was no excuse not to go for a ride today. nothing too far. just from here out through springbank and along highway 22 to bragg creek but a nice ride just the same.

there were literally swarms of bikes at the gas station and mini-mall in bragg creek. first really nice weekend of the year brings out all the bikes from hibernation.

this was also fiona’s first ride on the highway 2-up/doubling. it’s about 90 kilometres return, so it’s a good way to get used to highway speed, balance and the unruly winds just west of the city. all in all it was a great ride and i think fiona is slowly catching the riding bug.

Tags: fiona's first ride, first ride, riding

holy crap,

everytime i look at my blog another month has gone by. not sure where the time keeps going.

a few updates –

i’m nearly done my first (of two years) of my BEd program to become a teacher. only two more weeks left this year. it’s been a great experience and i’ve learned heaps. my experience in the schools has confirmed that, indeed, i have made the right decision and i was ‘destined’ to become a teacher. it has been one of the most challenging life changes i’ve ever met, but daily i have experiences that show me what a wonderful career choice i have made.

i’ve also recently finished training to be a motorcycle instructor. this is going to be a blast! i’ll have part-time, and possibly nearly full-time work, every summer if things work out. it’ll be great to teach kids throughout the school year then i’ll get to teach another passion of mine, motorcycles, to adults. can it get any better than this?

no really big plans this summer, so i’m looking forward to some ’smaller’ projects around the house and enjoying sitting in the yard or the occasional jaunt on the motorcycle through the mountains. now, if the weather would just co-operate…

well, not a particularly eventful ride, but a ride nonetheless.

it was -4 degrees celcius this morning when i left. nice enough day, but cool. my new cold weather gloves were awesome and kept my hands really nice and warm - i’d love to shake those warm hands with the inventor of goretex, it’s so awesome.

the bike ran like a top. what a difference from driving my gutless mazda truck and our little toyota car and the power of the motorcycle.

time to start thinking about short day rides until it warms up a bit, and soon enough longer day rides and perhaps a weekend trip or two this summer.

well, winter is nearly over. the weather is slowly coming around. we’ve had above zero weather for the last two weeks, and it sounds like we’ll have more this week.

this can only mean one thing - time to bring out the motorcycle, yeah! lately i’ve really been getting the itch to ride again. if the weather holds out, next week i’ll start riding to my school placement and the university again. the trouble is, every year when i say “it’s time to ride,” we get nailed with about a foot of snow. so this year i’m keeping my fingers crossed.

i was able to find a pair of cold weather waterproof riding gloves for $30 bucks through the VFR discussion forum. great deal! they are gore-tex, so they’ll breath and they are wind and waterproof. so my early and late season rides will be much, much warmer.

New Alpinestars Gloves, toasty!