Winter's Last, Brutal Kick???

Joy here...February 2nd is Groundhog Day here in North America, and while Bill Murray may have made that day famous in his movie where he is doomed to live the same day over and over again and Punxsutawney Phil and Wiarton Willie are a couple of groundhogs in the US and Canada who pop up on that day in the middle of winter to make their little, furry prediction about how much winter is left until spring arrives, it really just remains to be seen whether or not a little rodent (cute as he may be) can really predict spring's arrival.

But after Friday's great ski in newly fallen snow, winter began to kick and fight rather harshly against the rodents' predictions of an early spring.  Saturday came with howling northerly winds gusting up to 70km/hr, closing out the day with blowing, icy snow.  Instead of running out there in that, I settled onto the bike for a 60minute ride in the basement and then did some pushups afterwards, staying nice and toasty warm indoors.

Can you see how crusty that is?

Then on Sunday, The Man, the Sashinator, and I all headed back out to that park to do a ski loop.  To quote Julia Roberts from Pretty Woman:  "Big mistake. Big. Huge."  All that wintery wind and ice from Saturday had turned the entire landscape into a frozen skating rink.  Instead of snow that you could easily glide and ski through, feeling your legs push with each step, we were stuck trying to move sticks over a layer of snow frozen solid.  Imagine a crusty layer that crunches, but does not break, and you'll get a sense for what we tried to "ski" through.  But, being the troopers we are, we stuck at it for an hour, not getting any grip or any good glide, but doing our crunch, crunch, crunch loop nonetheless.

After that, when Monday came, I just curled up on the couch when it was time for me to do a workout and watched some special features on my 8-movie set of Harry Potter blu-ray discs.

But Tuesday came, and I dutifully put on my minimus running shoes to head out the door.  My last run was two weeks ago, so I was a little worried.  At this rate, I'm not going to get to the finish line of my upcoming 1/2 marathon, but when faced with a kind of lag in training, all one can do is get out there and just keep going.  So that's what I did.  I was out the door in the cold, chill air that the weather network is predicting just might be the end of winter.  By Wednesday, so the predictions say, we might be experiencing +10C temperatures.  And so while I didn't run far, and I didn't run fast, as the tips of my fingers felt chilled right through my gloves, I just told myself over and over again that it might just be the last, brutal kick of winter.

And that, my friends, is something to celebrate!

So if I can't celebrate a milestone run where I was super fast or super fit, I can celebrate a milestone run that may just bring along the end of winter.

We'll see.

Over and out,
Joy

TGIF!

Snow Shadow Ski Joy

Joy here...Back when The Man and I first started dating we enjoyed the fact that we weren't TGIF folks, you know the type, those who have a job which is full of drudgery that they struggle through each week, just waiting until Friday rolls around so that they can relax into themselves and do what they want.

At the time, we were obsessed with our work, and so for us, a Friday was no different than a Monday or a Saturday; they were all work days.  We just worked all the time, and couldn't imagine anyone not wanting to be enveloped in a world of work that was intellectually stimulating and rewarding.  When we weren't working, we were talking about work.

Okay...so that was 5 years ago...

...fast forward to now:  We've gotten over the delusion that work is something good in and of itself and the notion that working all the time is somehow something to be desired.  In fact, the pendulum has swung the other way in our life, and we are now happy to be able to try to contain work to the minimum hours necessary and to be able to have a flexible work schedule that allows us to sneak out and have a workout in the middle of what would be a "work day" were we one of those with a 9-5 job of drudgery.

The beauty of a still and snowy TGIF morning.

So while TGIF still doesn't mean anything particularly special to us, because a Friday is just like any other day, a day in which work and life must be balanced in a healthy and productive way, this Friday we made it our own TGIF by heading out first thing in the morning for a quick ski before starting our work day.

No one else was out there except for the vehicle that goes over the fresh snow (that has fallen without stopping all week), making new grooming trails for our cross country skis.  So we got the chance to ski out there under a snow white sky surrounded by a snow white world as the very first ones to use the newly groomed tracks.

So we worked up a good glide shifting our weight from one foot to the other and we did the loop around this particular park (a little over 5kms, I think).  And after 40 minutes, we were good and worked out.  Our legs were aching from our Thursday workouts, as were our arms, and with the full-body motion necessary to get the full fun of cross-country skiing, we really felt that we were getting a good workout in.  By the time we made it back to the car it was only around 9am.

So while most people out there would be settling into their desk or their cubicle, starting their TGIF and already thinking about their weekend, we were packing our skis back in the car to head home, feeling refreshed, invigorated, and excited, ready to tackle whatever the day was going to bring to us.

And so I say:  Thank Goodness it's Friday!

A beautiful winter landscape...thank goodness!

Over and out, 

Joy

Sunday Morning Ski

The Man waxing his skis.

Joy here...After Thursday's double-double workout with my spinning class in the morning and strength training in the afternoon, I decided to give myself Friday off.  But then it was snowing like crazy, so I decided to give myself Saturday off too.  You can see where this is going right?  Friday off, Saturday off, Sunday off, Monday off...

But instead, on Sunday morning, The Man, the Sashinator (one of my cycling sisterhood friends), and I headed out to the local ski loop where The Man and I had our very first failed attempt at skiing earlier this year.  But this time we did the approximately 5km loop with no troubles, even adding a bit of distance.  We went up our first real hill (having to do the awkward sumo wrestler walk to get up) and down a steep incline.  We got our glide right, and we enjoyed being out in the sun.

I can even say that even though it was -10C I was able to get a pretty good sweat going.  In fact, I even had to undo one of my outer layers to try and "cool off."  Can you believe it?  I never thought that the concept of "cooling off" would be necessary in an Ottawa winter, that's for sure!

The frozen lake and beach.

I'm used to trying to "cool off" while Nomi and I run loops around the lake in Malaysia, but here I was, skiing beside a reservoir in a park not unlike the one Nomi and I run through, but in a totally different season, a season where the landscape is covered by fresh, white snow, and the beach is the sand of the snow blown along the crest of the shoreline.  And the shore itself is invisible beneath the blanket of snow that covers both the frozen sand and the frozen lake equally; where one starts and the other ends is invisible.

This park's landscape would seem so familiar to Nomi were she to come in the summer time.  She would feel the warmth of the sun on her skin and see the people relaxing on the beach and running along the pathway in their shorts, sweating as we do when we run in Malaysia.  But in the winter, it would seem something entirely different to her.  She's never run in snow; heck, she's never seen snow in real life, but here I was, skiing away through it and on it, feeling my quads burn the more I pushed and the faster I got, and it made me think:

Canada sure is a strange place, isn't it?  A place of contradictions, opposites, and diversity. 

And that's, well, that's kind of neat. 

Ha ha!

Over and out, 

Joy

2 1/2 Hours of Skiing = Priceless!

Joy here...You know those old MasterCard ads?  The ones where the price of a series of things would be listed, and then at the end, the final item would be "priceless"?  Well, I feel like we could run an ad like that for our holiday Monday 2 1/2 hour afternoon cross-country ski:

Cross-Country skis, poles, and boots = $1,661
Day Pass to ski in park = $28
An afternoon of skiing = Priceless!

You can see the groomed classic cross-country
ski trails on the left and right hand sides
of the parkway under a gorgeous sky.

A friend of ours used to be a competitive cross country skier, and he grew up in Ottawa and so knows the routes and skiing conditions around here like the back of his hand.  Monday was a statutory holiday (Family Day) in the province of Ontario, so the friend, The Man, and I got in our car before noon as the sun was rising and the temperature with it under a clear blue sky.  We headed to the park where we ride our bikes all summer, waxed up our skis, and headed out to the groomed tracks for a mini-lesson with the friend.

Well, our mini-lesson was actually 2 hours long!  He was good enough to run through a whole host of drills with us, to watch our form, to critique us, and to teach us how to use our poles, how to go up ascents on cross country skis, and finally how to come down hills.  And then he trundled off for an hour of skiing by himself at his own rate and pace, while we practiced the drills some more, and then went to the local cafe to buy him some snacks for spending hours and hours with newbies like us!

The beauty of the park in winter.

I've written before about the winter blahs and how taking up cross country skiing just might be the remedy to the annual onset of S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and I can assure you that on Monday morning I was a little ball of stress.  I was grouchy about how I haven't accomplished all the things I want to/need to.  I was stressed about what hangs over my head that needs doing.  I was freaking out about finances and financial planning.  And I was generally feeling like I'm somehow living a life that is out of control and not as productive as I'd like it to be.

Well, after heading out into a beautiful day, where we literally shed layers of our clothing as time passed, I feel like everything was right in the world.  I could feel the sun on my skin, and the sky was an indescribable shade of blue, something that seemed like Barbie's blue eyes or a Malibu swimming pool, but in making those comparisons, it cheapens the aqua purity of the infinite blueness of the sky arching high over our heads but yet somehow seeming so close, you could have, in the words of WWII poet John Gillespie Magee Jr, reached out and "touched the face of God."* It was one of those days where the exhilaration of movement and the endorphin rush of the workout and the natural beauty and the camaraderie all worked in beautiful concert together to create a sense of the sublime, the beyond.

The warm sun keeping us comfortable in the snow.

The hours passed by in a mere moment, and I couldn't believe that I had been out there for 2 1/2 hours by the time we called it quits.  I could have kept on going.  Gone were my worries of the morning.  Gone were my insecurities about my fitness.  Gone were my feelings of inadequacy about my work.  Gone were my frustrations about there not being enough time in the day.  Gone were my feelings of hate towards winter.  Suddenly, after spending hours out there moving my body, finally feeling the rhythm of the skis gliding and my body being able to "kick" and get power, I no longer felt like my world was closing in around me.  And as that weight lifted, I looked to the Man and we both agreed that getting out there to ski in the winter, just like getting out there to cycle in the summer, is an important part of our physical and mental health.  I felt like I had plugged in my waning batteries and had them fully recharged, and now I'm totally juiced up and ready to go.

And I've got a friend and a husband, and a beautiful park that lies there on our doorstep just waiting for me, to thank for it.

And so, I say to you, THANK YOU, and thank you, and thank you again.

Over and out,
Joy

*The quotation is taken from the poem "High Flight," which can be found online here, with a little bit of info about the author.

Joy-the-skiing-Pioneer

Do I look like I know what I'm doing????
(Because I don't.)

Joy here...Now that I've signed up for half marathon #3 in my short running career, and now that I've found that my key to surviving an Ottawa winter lies in cross-country skiing, I've had to integrate cross-country skiing into my workout repertoire.  So that repertoire at the moment includes short (60-minute) runs, indoor bike rides (both at home and at spinning class), once-weekly strength training, and now skiing.  None of this is being done at this point with any real plan in place or any real strategy.  My strategy thus far is simply to move the body and hope that come the end of May I'll have enough fitness to have an enjoyable half marathon.

Yesterday we planned to head out to do a cross-country ski and practice some of the drills that our instructor gave us on our first ever lesson, but when we went to the park where there are groomed trails where we planned to just go back-and-forth on a stretch of a 5km cross-country ski loop, we discovered that there was some sort of race or event taking place.  The nice, quiet loop that we had hoped to use was being used by tonnes of other people, and we figured that we didn't want to get in their way.

We, therefore, had to find another place to go.

The snow-covered ground, without a
ski trail to be seen.

Now, my usual winter self would have thought, "well, I guess the workout gods are giving me a message to just turn the car around and go home, crawl back in bed, and eat chocolate."  But my newfound skiing self thought, "okay, let's just find another place with snow and make our own trails!"

With that pioneering spirit of adventure that my immigrant great-grandparents would have been proud of, we pulled into another park, this one deserted, and planned to just make our own trails.  Instead of counting on groomed tracks into which we would insert our skis and just move forwards practicing what our instructor taught us, I looked out on the blanket of fresh, white snow, uncharted and untouched, and I told The Man to get behind me and follow my lead.  And then I went out there...poles and skis moving bravely over uncharted territory.

There was ice and snow, and the terrain itself rolled in unpredictable ways beneath the camouflage of ice and snow, but I was able to get a good glide going with my skis.

Look at the sun valiantly trying to shine
over the winter landscape.

The sky was white; the snow was white; and we trundled onwards and outwards...figuring out how to make our skis go uphills and then downhills (down, definitely being more fun than up), and at the end of it all, we were able to look back at those ski tracks that I had made through the virgin snow and be proud of the progress we had made and proud of the mark we had left behind us.

And so as we finished our 60 minutes of skiing through open, snow-covered fields, with the sun trying desperately to break through the snow-white clouds above, we got in the car and felt a sense of accomplishment.

It's amazing what a little spirit of adventure can do!

Over and out,
Joy

Ottawa Survival Guide: Take Up Skiing!

Joy here...I've logged countless hours on this blog complaining about winter.  I've offered a definition of S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), and drawn attention to when that dark cloudy malaise descends upon me and makes me feel as though I'm living life while squashed under a weighty mattress of laziness as a motivation hoover sucks at me constantly.

But then...

...in the midst of all this "I hate winter" "get me outta here" stuff, I discovered cross country skiing.  Now, to be sure, our first attempt at this sport didn't go so well.  We were underdressed, underprepared, and we froze our butts off.  It was miserable, and did nothing to ameliorate the negative effects of winter, or what a student once referred to as the "ferocity of the weather."  But after last Friday's lesson with our instructor, we headed out on Sunday on our own to practice the drills she gave us.

I could hear her in my head the whole time (your weight must only ever be on one foot at a time...drive! with the back foot...left, right, left, right) as we went back and forth on a stretch of trails in Ottawa's Greenbelt area for just over an hour.

The not-so-green Greenbelt.

This is our fifth winter living in Ottawa, and lots of people told us that we should take up cross country skiing, but I'll admit that I never really "got it" if you know what I mean, and here are some reasons why:

1.)  Partly, the cheapness lag leftover from years of being an impoverished graduate student made it seem like a really big step to invest in a bunch of new equipment for an untried sport.  (Buying a house, though, somehow made spending money on sport seem like small potatoes.  It's funny how a mountain of mortgage debt makes everything else seem insignificant!)

2.)  Then there was the fact that I had tried cross country skiing as a kid growing up in Winnipeg, but never really remember any serious lessons about technique.  My previous, childhood cross country ski experience was of the "shuffle, shuffle, shuffle" variety, which was no different really than sliding on a polished floor with socks (except for the addition of skis).  That wasn't really an experience that I felt I needed to reclaim as an adult...but that skiing is NOTHING like real cross country skiing with proper technique.

Back and forth, back and forth...

3.)  As well, I'll admit that there's something bordering on the embarrassing about not having any skill or experience at all at something that it seems kids around here know from the cradle.  Ottawa has a very "small town" or "clique" feel about it at times as though you're just supposed to be "in the know" about certain things, and so there's no way for anyone to learn about those certain things if they happen to be an outsider.  In principle and in practice this drives me nuts about this town.  So generally I have avoided doing something particularly "Ottawa insider-ie" as a form of rebellion against this insider/outsider parochialism, and skiing (the equipment, the lessons, the places to do it, etc.) all fell into this category that I have been resistant to.

4.)  And then there's the ever-present winter blahs that just make starting something, anything new in the middle of winter an insurmountable hurdle that I just can't overcome, no matter what.

This year, however, we made the decision to give this sport a try. We bought our skis before we left for Malaysia for the holidays, knowing that if we didn't get all our proverbial ducks in a row beforehand, there's just no way that we'd do it mid-January.  If we weren't ready to go upon landing back in frigid Ottawa, then it would just be too easy to put it off for yet another year.

Sunset on a beautiful winter day of skiing.

And let me tell you...I think that every person who moves to Ottawa should get an "Ottawa Survival Guide" with page 2 indicating that they need to take up cross country skiing (page 1 can be all about the canal).  They should run (not walk) to their nearest cross country ski store and get all set up before winter.  Sign up for introductory lessons, and just get out there.  Feeling the skis glide beneath your feet and the sensation of fun, power, and speed in the middle of winter can give you a boost in your mood that is the only effective corrective to S.A.D. that I have experienced, and for the first time in my adult life, I may begin to look at snow differently, and I may just look forward to winter.

For now, I'm just looking forward to Wednesday, my next ski day!

Over and out,
Joy

Skiing Success: I Found My Mojo!

Joy here...Since returning from our holiday in the tropics, when we ate, ate, and ate some more, I've been having a really hard time getting into any sort of fitness regime.  I've committed to doing my barefoot runs in Canada with my New Balance Minimus shoes rather than my trusty Vibram five-fingered ones that just don't work in this climate, and I've set great goals for myself to run a good 1/2 marathon in May and my first-ever full marathon in October, but I've still struggled with the onslaught of winter and how it has kicked my motivation to the curb, and then stomped on it for good measure.

snow, snow, and more snow

But with the Trainer's encouragement and chastisement ringing truthfully and honestly in my mind, telling me to get off my butt and take control of my life, my mood, and my potential, The Man and I headed out for our first, true cross country ski lesson.

Last Sunday we had an aborted mission, but this Friday, things were set to be very different.

First things first:  We bought ourselves cross country ski pants and full balaclavas to protect our faces from the weather.  We also waxed our skis before leaving the house, rather than doing it in the frigid parking lot.  We wore under-layer gloves under our mitts, so if we needed to take off our mitts, our fingers wouldn't freeze instantly.  And then we headed out to the park where we spend our summers riding our bikes to meet our new instructor.

And she was great!

groomed cross country ski trails in the park

She was no-nonsense.  She had us clip in and move forward so that she could assess our level (really, really rudimentary).  Then she had us take off one ski and put our poles to the side.  Our first drill was to ski for about 400m on one ski alone so that we could really get the feel of the truism about cross country skiing that you are only ever to have your weight on one foot at a time.  So we propelled ourselves forward, skateboard style with one ski on, and it was fun.

Yes, I just said that about something to do with winter:  IT WAS FUN!

What a revelation!

We spent an hour with this instructor, and I didn't even feel the cold.  She had us doing all sorts of drills:  with poles, without poles, one foot and then the other, using our abs only, using our arms only, driving our feet forward...  I found myself surprised when the hour was over.  What?  It's been an hour already?  I found myself thinking.  How could that be possible?  I don't think I've ever spent an ENJOYABLE hour outside in -20C temperatures since I was a little kid making snow forts in my backyard with my brother and sister.  It's probably been 25 years since I actually liked winter.

more groomed trails

When I felt those skis glide beneath my feet, I got the sensation of FUN.  Can you believe it?  Fun and winter have never gone together for me.  While I've done lots of things to help me deal with winter (like spinning classes, strength training, signing up for races to force me to run in the winter, riding indoors in the trainer, or trying rock climbing), I've never actually done a sport that is dependent on winter.  And now I got the smallest of glimpses of something that just might help me to make friends with winter.

It's not about the sport itself.

It's about being outside in the beauty of winter's landscape and not feeling the cold.

It's about getting an endorphin rush and a dose of vitamin D which makes me think that the world is a happy place after all.

It's about feeling like I don't have to run and hide from this season.

Finally, for the first time in my memory, I feel like someone has opened a window and showed me a whole new world where I just might be able to enjoy winter.  It's like glimpsing the very edge of a secret world that has been locked and hidden from me my whole life.

I can't wait to go skiing again!!!

Over and out,
Joy (the skier-in-training!!!)

How to survive the winter...

The snow pile in our back yard, and the frigid blue sky.

Joy here...Okay, so winter has taken ahold of Ottawa with a vengeance.  Not only are we getting constant snowfall, but we're also getting ice in the form of freezing rain.  Now usually when there's a lot of winter precipitation the silver lining in all that is that the temperature isn't too bad.  Usually when there's snow and freezing rain the temperatures are hovering around zero (which, trust me, for winter is pretty comfy).

But, alas, this winter Mother Nature is playing one heck of a sick joke on all of us, because she's whacking us with mountains of snow and ice while also plunging the mercury down into the depths.  We're routinely waking to temperatures in the -20 C range, and with the windchill factor the temperature feels more like -30 C.

Opie, my trusty steed, now relegated
to sitting on a trainer in our basement
after such a full summer of riding hills.

In my last post, I promised that I was going to just keep going and not let the winter blahs get me down this year.  Last winter I started spinning classes and strength training as part of my strategy to get through the winter, and this year I've kept up with those activities, as well as using our indoor trainers with our bikes and buying a spin bike to use as home in addition to running outside in those new balance runners of mine.  So that's a lot of strategies in place to get through the winter.

On Saturday, after my last run and my last post about not giving up, I dutifully got on my spin bike while The Man was on his trainer.  He was doing a 2 hour ride on the bike and I had a 1 hour one planned.  For the first 1/2 an hour, I was just going really hard ("give'r" in the parlance of my hometown),* until The Man told me that in this "base building phase" of my workouts leading up to my 1/2 marathon and marathon goals, I shouldn't be working myself quite so hard, but keeping things in the easy mode, so I pulled myself back a bit.  I rode for one hour exactly, and in the end my average heart rate was around 136 beats/min, which is my easy zone.  At that heart rate, for instance, I can run and run and run without getting tired.  So even though my legs were tired because of the drills that I put myself through during the first 1/2 an hour, I didn't feel like I overly taxed myself.

The three stationary bikes facing the basement TV:
Litie (the Lightspeed), the spin bike, and Opie (the Opus).

But, no matter what, our rides indoors are always second-best to riding outdoors.  A basement is always just a basement, and something is always lacking.  Nothing beats getting outside.

So this winter as part of our strategy to survive the season, we bought ourselves cross-country skis.  Cross country skiing is a big deal in this part of the country, and everyone we know has told us that the only way to make friends with winter is to take up this sport (Nordic skiing as opposed to Alpine, or downhill, skiing).

Okay, so fine.

We bought ourselves some cross country skis and started to try to find someone to give us lessons.  Now, this is harder than you might think.  The city offers lessons, but you have to try to sign up through some archaic City of Ottawa recreation website, which doesn't really work, and you need to first create an "ID" just to log in...then you need to try and find out when there are slots that are free...then you need to pay upfront...then you can find out whether or not you can join some lesson with some other people...

Sitting in the car, waiting for it to heat up enough to
defrost the windows so that we can see enough to drive.

All we were looking for was someone to teach us what to do.  So we metaphorically told the City of Ottawa's website where to go and how to get there (I'm not sure it heard us).  Then we began our google quest to find a ski instructor in the area.

We called all the people we came up with.

All of them aren't interested in teaching super beginners (like us), but are interested in coaching people who already know how to ski.  As soon as The Man would begin his schpiel:  "I'm from the tropics; I've never been on cross country skis or done winter sports; I want to learn how to ski..." they would already tell him they didn't teach "beginners."

Loading up the skis for our first foray into
the world of cross country skiing.

Okay, so, f_ck it, we'll just head out on our own.  That was our thought on Sunday.

It was -23 C (with the windchill it felt more like -33C).

So we loaded up the skis in the back of the car, dressed ourselves in what we'd wear for a cold run, got the proper ski wax, and headed out to a local park where there's a 5km cross country ski loop that we've been told about.

We parked the car, turned it off, and got out (mistakes, all three).

We had to take off our mitts to put on our ski boots; then we had to keep our mitts off to wax the skis (more mistakes).

We were freezing.

Then we tried to clip into our skis.  The wind was tearing through us, and we were already shivering, the tips of our fingers burning with cold.  Someone skied passed us and said:  "you should probably have some face covering; it's pretty cold out here."  No sh_t sherlock!  Finally we were clipped in to our skis, but we were frozen solid.  We couldn't speak because our teeth were chattering, and we hadn't even started yet!

Home again...unloading the skis with the car still running...
it's warmer that way!

So we pushed forward, and then The Man fell over.  You can't blame him.  He's never been on skis before.  He was covered in snow and couldn't get up.  So he took off his mitts (again) and clipped out of his ski so he could stand.  But then he couldn't get back in.  I skied over, took off my mitts (again), and helped get him back in.  By this point, there was so much standing around in the frigid weather that we were ready to die.  Seriously.

We went forward for about 30 more seconds before we admitted frosty defeat, turned around and got back in the car as fast as our frozen little feet could carry us.

It was a huge ski failure.  Huge.

We got back home and stood in the hot shower for about 30 minutes before we finally felt ourselves begin to melt.

And then I threw all my resolutions out the window and did no physical activity Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.  In fact, I just stewed in a big ball of winter-induced rage.

Over and out,
Joy

*give'r 
Etymology: Canadian, particular to rural areas...
1. Going all out and/or balls to the wall to take care of business as quickly and as awesomely as possible 
2. Acting in a way that is like you're rocking out really hard, but at the same time, trying to solve a problem that may or may not involve drop-kicking something without hesitation