"ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN STILL DO IT"

 June of 2021 I found myself in the Okanagan for a work conference, but more importantly... Ironman Canada-Penticton training. I happened to be there during a smokin’ hot week... we’re talking 40C/100F. Seeing that I’d finished my ski season only a couple weeks prior to this, there was no way I was heat trained. It made for a challenging week of training, but I was loving it.

On my first bike ride the plan was to ride up to Penticton and back, around 150Km or so. I had a tail wind and I could feel the heat building. When I finally made my destination, Skaha beach in Ptenticton, I knew a short break to carb up, rest and cool off was mandatory if I was going to survive the ride home. 

At the concession stand I bought for the ridiculously low price of 7$, a Red Bull, Coke, and mega Freezie. I told the owner that in my depleted state he could probably take advantage of me and charge any price and get away with it...I kinda think he was doing that anyway.

As I refreshed myself taking in the scenery a friendly local struck up a conversation with me. An obvious retiree, he had a very tanned (shirtless) body, and was quite large. He was sitting on a park bench next to his giant trike. You could see he was sort of disabled as he had crutches in the basket of the trike. As we talked he interestingly seemed very knowledgeable about cycling and training. He remarked about my Colnago bike and mentioned he’d once owned an Italian Colnago as well. Intrigued, I began to probe a bit. 

It would have been easy for me to be curt and dismiss this obviously old and out of shape retiree, but eventually our conversation changed drastically when he dropped a bombshell that totally changed my view. He said he had done Ironman Penticton with his first one coming when he was the age of 60. What!!! this guy and me were Ironman brothers!! It didn’t matter that he was now 90 years old and could only manage to ride a trike. We began to share Ironman stories and there was a bond between us that only those experiencing this challenging, unique race could fully understand. For both of us one of the highlights of our lives were when announcer Steve King declared to each of us in our successive races, “You are an Ironman!!”

As our conversation eventually wound down my new Ironman brother shared some words with me I will never forget. He said that "in 30 years, I will be like him so enjoy it while I can still do it."

After this simple but profound statement I got on my bike rested, cooled and carbed up. Soon the headwind picked up and the heat and fatigue began to rise. If you’ve ever done a long ride you know the feeling... the euphoria of riding turns into simple survival and you just gotta make it home. However, the tougher it got, the more I reminded myself of those poignant words, “enjoy it while you can still do it.”

I hope I never forget those words and savor every precious moment of the gift of training, racing and living an active moving life.

Ode to Wood Skis

 

What can I say? I LOVE my wood skis!! In fact I have 5 pairs. 3 that I ski on, 1 in front of my house for decoration and a final pair in my living room! The latter are real beauties. They were owned by a really old guy from Finland (as are the skis) and they have multiple vertical laminates and a beautiful finish. They are a true work of art. When he passed away his kids gave them to me exclaiming, "he'd want you to have them because we can see you really appreciate them!"

When I started ski racing in 1977 on my high school team, we got to squeak one season in on wood skis before the fiberglass revolution took over. At the time I didn't have nearly the appreciation for this privilege. The pair the school loaned to me were a true work of art. They were a wood racing ski and the handiwork on them was amazing. I wish I owned them now.

Skiers today no longer have the opportunity to pine tar a wood ski. The aroma still brings incredible warm feelings to me. With wood skis you kick wax them tip to tail or heel to tip. We never bothered with glide wax. Sure they were a lot slower, but man you never slipped on your kick! An interesting observation is that if you look at the temperature recommendations on kick wax tins I'm convinced that they are still written for wood skis and not the cambered fiberglass wonders everyone skis on today.

On slower days, or really cold days when you have no glide anyway, I like to get out my wood skis for a spin. I find that they are really good for technique development. Everything really slows down. You can concentrate on technique without the fear of slipping. You can rehearse good technical body movements without making technical errors to compensate for the potential slippage. Plus, the ability to let your mind go and not have to totally focus on having everything correct in your technique in order to avoid the inevitable slipped kick is really freeing.

Another advantage to wood skis is that for my marriage it's a great equalizer. In the picture my wife and I took a leasurely (leasurely for me) ski stroll on a Sunday to a scenic spot at the Canmore Nordic Centre for a picnic. She had her racing gear and we kind of ended up at the same speed. 

I sometimes wonder what happened to my high school racing wood skis. They took a hit mid season as we were lined up preparing to do an interval start race. My good friend and team captain Dave Sheehan, was jumping up and down to stay warm and unfortunately jumped onto my tip breaking it. My coach, Tom Beaver, eventually put them back together with a block of wood glued on top. Aesthetically they didn't look as good, but they were still just as fast. They helped me earn my first high school athletic "letter" (for our letterman's jacket). They were also the skis that launched my love of cross country ski racing. 43 years later I'm still going at it....thank you wood skis!!

FORGING AHEAD IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

 I recently plunked down 1k$ (Canadian) to register for Ironman Canada. when this race returned to Pentiction I immediately wanted to give it a go for my 4th time, however with the steep price I was slow on the draw and it filled up in 24 hours leaving me out in the cold. That was for the 2020 race, which got cancelled in the pandemic pandemonium. All the entries for that year got transferred to 2021, yet for some reason they opened up some spots, hence my pulling the trigger a little quicker this time and getting in.

The way this pandemic and wildly inconsistent policies are going there is a very good chance that the race won't go even though it isn't until the very end of the summer, August 29. I'm hopeful that the race organizers will find a way to make it work. Of course I was hopeful we'd have a skimo race season in 2021, so much so that I bought a new pair of skis and bindings costing 1.5k$. 

So the question I asked of myself, "Did I waste money by registering (and getting new race skis)?" My answer is no. The reasoning is that the power of hope is worth spending the money. When I bought the skis I fully believed that we'd have a race season, but even so I must have had doubts because my training motivation was waning. I felt that I needed a shot of motivation and a sparkling new pair of skis for a time actually provided that boost. 

Same thing for Ironman. I know there's a good chance that the race will be cancelled, but I want...I NEED to have hope. Hope that life can still have fun and challenging outlets like a 3.8KM swim-180KM bike and 42KM run. 

In so many ways training brings intentionality to my life. It brings lessons of life learning. It makes connection with other extreme training people and I like how my body feels when it's in top shape. But to fully engage my heart, mind and body into a training regimen I need to have a goal and a purpose. Registering for Ironman Canada 2021 is serving that purpose for me. So even if the entry fee gets burned, it'll be worth it. Disappointing for sure, but let's hope it doesn't come to that.