Hey, I’m Walkin’ Here!

As I have mentioned I have a couple of kids now and I am the primary caregiver through much of the day.  With that in mind it has become unbelievably difficult to make my usual fitness routine a part of my day.  This has not been helped by the fact that Amber has been sick or overwhelmed by school interviews, new job positions and moving her things to new classrooms.  I have not been out running or biking since Wednesday of last week.

I have, however, been walking.  I think I have walked every street between my house and the Tim Horton’s end of town in the last few days.  Each morning after breakfast, which is at about nine or so, we pile into the stroller and head out.  It’s kind of nice actually, the baby likes the stroller and the older one likes to look around and wave at people and cars and such.  I like it because while it’s not the high intensity workout I am used to it is still a workout since it’s walking while pushing a huge double stroller.

I’m hoping that once my mom has had her checkout by CAS I can at least get out the couple of days she is here during the week and on the weekend when Amber is home all day, wanting an hour or so to myself is not such a bad thing I don’t think.

I am going to have to make an adjustment to my distance goals though and add ‘walking with the stroller’ a category of my distance travelled.  I of course was not counting any walking before, like if we walked to the store or whatever, but if I even have a hope of keeping my goals in sight these morning and sometimes afternoon walks will have to count toward the total.

Well, I’m A Parent Now

I’m officially off on Parental leave from work starting Monday, though I have been off since Thursday as our newest little addition has come to stay at our house for good (unless some crazy unforeseen events occur).  Sadly dear readers I cannot post pictures as we are still technically Fostering at the moment, but she is a blonde haired, blue eyed beauty. 

Some who are reading may recall that this is actually my second crack at this as I did have a step daughter for almost four years from my first marriage.  I know I was not as good at the time as I could have been and I hope to do a much better job as a parent this time around.  There are over ten years more life experience and a College Diploma in Early Childhood Education, and three years working at day care between my previous experience and this new endeavour.

I’m pretty jazzed about the whole thing as you can imagine.  It’s changed my schedule quite a bit but I have managed to fit in my running this past week, but to be fair Amber is still off from teaching until the start of September.  Once she goes back to that I’m sure my schedule will change even more.

What is even more exciting is that we’ll be getting a second child in less than a week actually.  See they are sisters and the most previous foster parents of these two children couldn’t take on two children, so we got tapped! On Friday of this week I’ll be (foster) dad (for a short time until we adopt) to not one, but two girls! Awesome! I’ll keep you as up to date as I can and post pictures once I am allowed!

Now That’s What I Call A Week Off

I mentioned that I had last week off work and that I wanted to go at least 140 kilometres during that time.  I’m happy to say that it was a huge success and in between some visits with our first foster-to-adopt child I was running and biking around the countryside like crazy.

I actually did a little more biking than I expected and a little less running than I wanted but all in all the goal was achieved.  Twice during the week I rode my bike from here to Peterborough up to Lakefield and back.

It’s a good ride and is about 34.5K which is a good amount of time to spend too, about an hour and a half.  My dad can ride for hours on his bike and but the time I’m out for about 80-90 minutes I’m done.  Not because my legs are sore or anything, just because my bum is sore and I’m a bit bored with what is going on.  Maybe if I had bike shorts that would be better.

On Friday I was out riding and came across two people on their road bikes, (I have my mountain bike this year) and I thought ‘Hey, I’m passing these folks!’ and so most of my ride I was up over 28-30Km/h (17-18 mph).  I caught up and passed them and stayed ahead! The next day I did the same route but only managed about 22-24 Km/h (13-14 mph) it just goes to show how a little competition can drive you.

I only ran three times this week, but I ran 10k twice and 6k once and due to weather, the first 10 and 6 were on the same day, just one at about 6am and the other at about 6pm!  They were good enjoyable runs really, but they were not record setters for speed that’s for sure.  My legs were a bit tired by mid week!

Come Saturday morning I had gone 143.84km all told, completing my goal with a day to spare.  I would have gone out again Sunday, but our little on woke up at 4:30!  Amber got up with her, but when I got out of bed she was still awake so I didn’t think it would have been fair of me to head out running or biking or whatever, plus I figured I had earned a day off!

So all that, some drawing and a lot of playing on the floor was how I spent my week off work.  Now I have three days to go until I’m off for 35 weeks!

Git On Yer Bike

As stated earlier, I wanted to go at least 140 kilometres this week.  It looks like I’m well on track for that since it’s only Thursday morning and I have travelled 102 and change.

Most of that distance has been on my bike as I have made a point to get out and do some sort of riding every day except Tuesday so far, and on Tuesday I ran twice.  I skipped Tuesday on the bike because it was a bit drizzley when I went out in the late afternoon.  For some reason I’d rather get wet running than I would riding.  I think because it helps keep me a bit cooler when I run, and so it makes it a bit more enjoyable as compared to being really hot.

Twice now this week I have ridden from my house, in to Peterborough and then out to Lakefield and then back home, 35k in all.  it’s a pretty nice ride too except when the wind is coming up the river and pushing me back.  I hate riding into the wind, it just seems like you have to work so much harder, especially on a mountain bike where you are sitting more upright.

What are your favourite conditions for a bike or a run or a jog or whatever it is you do outside?  Let me know in the comments!

Going The Distance

All too soon the weather will turn ugly here in Canada and so over the last few weeks I have been working hard to go as far as I can each week in order to be able to meet the distance goals I set for the year.

Last week was great for that! The first two days I was able to switch around my lunch to the end of the day and leave a few hours early because I was cooking and we had low numbers at day care.  Tuesday i rode my bike 53k even.  From my house in Bridgenorth, down through Ennismore, through Gannon’s Narrows, to Buckhorn and then back past the road to Curve Lake, through Selwyn and back home.  It was a 2.5 hour trip and it was great!

It’s been nice and cool this past week too so I was able to run in the afternoons and this week I actually ran just a smidge over 30k.  Five of those were actually my fastest run through town in the last two years as well.  Sprinting like mad I covered the distance in 21:50.  Not my fastest 5k time ever to be sure, but doing that the morning after walking around the zoo with kids for 9 hours, not too bad.

So why all the importance on distance?  Simple, the spring this year in Ontario was atrocious and there were a few weeks were I only travelled 10 or 15 kilometres! That really set me on my heals as far as distance goals goes.  I figured since the start of July I wanted to average at least 80K a week, which is about double the average I would want to meet my over all distance goal of 2500K for the year.  How has that been going? Well in the five weeks of July (which includes up until yesterday) I went over 500k!  Take a look!

The red is running, the blue is biking, the orange at the end it the weeks totals

I have this week off work and my hope is to average about 20k a day, so about 140k for the week, we’ll see how that works out.