Winterstart and...

Well aren’t you all looking lovely today. Yep, this new computer technology that lets me see you through your monitor is fantastic. Well, except for the tacky pyjamas (should I be typing the Queen’s English or US?). Alright, kidding aside it is a wonder how the days are now shorter and the air is truly full of the cool of fall. Darn near chilly these days. About two months ago we were joined by our old friend Ken from India and he found the 8C temperature to be downright chilly. I can only imagine his fright with the frost on the car these last few days.

With the start of November comes the Winterstart Night Run this weekend in Banff. I always enjoy a race that has non-stop beer at the finish line and the odd hot tub hi-jinks to follow. No matter what you have heard, it wasn’t me. Really! Good luck to all those heading out to Banff to enjoy some good old fashioned night running with 1500 of your closest friends. If you couldn’t get in I would bet there are the odd bibs available at the Tech Shop for you to snap up and be official on race day. Whatever you do, don’t be a bandit. If you want to be a part of it without the bib, volunteer and you will get all the swag and the cool kids will like you better! So anyone coming up for the weekend?

Good luck as well to any of you heading off to New York for the big marathon Sunday. I know a couple of buddies there right now, but I will be very surprised to hear that Carrie and Tanya got up early and trotted 42.2! I think they are still hung over from the Anderson Cooper experience.

As for the usual Saturday trot, I will have the group meet inside the Eau Claire YMCA for the 9 am trip around our soon to be exposed new Peace Bridge. Jen is into her big run for Hawaii (34 km), as well there are the usual suspects in need of moral and emotional support. Come on down and say hello to your fellow trainees and share in the sweat. I will be enjoying two nights of Banff bliss so don’t wait for me!

Our JIM participants are holding a few events over the next couple of days. Please support them if you can. Pay it forward, so to speak! Yep, same day but with 50 volunteers raising money for JIM it does happen!

     

The Calgary Herald sometimes surprises me with some inspirational stories that need to be shared with the masses. Today they had a couple that really resonated with myself and hopefully YOU! I see it is written by Claire Young…our best Winterstart friend in Banff is also Claire Young…coincidence???

Calgarian Linh Huynh believes good fortune is meant to be shared.
So when she won $10,000 this year to make her dream of running a marathon in Antarctica come true, she chose to also grant a wish for a child who has come through her own marathon battle for health.

Julia Dureski, a seven year-old cancer survivor, recently had a chance to meet the woman who is funding a trip to Hawaii for the whole family through her $10,000 donation to the Children’s Wish Foundation. Huynh, 36, visited the family at their Riverbend home in southeast Calgary to learn more about the family she is helping.

The ESL instructor at Bow Valley College believes she has been blessed in her life — she was born in Saigon during the Vietnam War, and her family left during the exodus known as the Boat People. All 10 of her family members are safe in Canada, where she was raised, for which she’s grateful.

“Everything I wish for comes through,” she says. “My wish is that people hear this story and realize it is within everyone’s power to change another’s life.”

A year ago, Huynh was obese, according to her body mass index. The weight had crept up through the usual suspects — inattention to what she was eating and neglecting exercise. She decided to regain her health and spend a year “attempting the impossible.”

But what seemed impossible in the planning has proved achievable, from the 10-day solo bike trip along the pilgrim path in Spain to completing the Ironman triathlon in Penticton, B.C. Along the way, Huynh lost 40 pounds and won $5,000 in the weight-loss challenge healthyloser.com. Then, she won $10,000 from the CBC’S Xtreme Lean Adventure Challenge to fulfil her dream of running the Antarctic Ice marathon — a trip costing close to $14,000.

In her entry for the contest, she’d said she wanted to go to Antarctica to run a marathon “because its mere geographic location, combined with the physicality of the event, created a challenge that most humans would never dare to attempt. It was a physical and mental feat that would test my own limits and I hoped one day I would have the opportunity to rise to the challenge.”

Huynh plans to run a marathon on every continent; this will be her third.

After meeting the family, Huynh thinks the foundation couldn’t have picked a more deserving group of people to receive the wish.

At the age of five, Julia was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, the most common soft-tissue tumour discovered in children.

“We took her to the doctor, and we thought she was suffering from a bad sinus infection,” Julia’s mother, Cheryl, said. It wasn’t until the tumour began to grow out of Julia’s nose that the cancer was diagnosed.

Surgery was never an option, as the tumour — the size of three BlackBerry phones stacked — was growing behind Julia’s left eye and threatened her sight. Instead, she had chemotherapy and radiation at the same time. She dropped from 45 to 32 pounds, underwent 43 weeks of chemotherapy and 28 days of radiation and missed 98.5 days of Grade 1.

“It was not a lot of fun,” Julia says, turning to hide her

face in her mother’s hug.

Julia is now blind in one eye, but the treatment preserved the vision in the other.

“The remainder of the tumour is left, about five per cent, but it isn’t growing. She’s in remission,” Cheryl says.

During her visit, Huynh learned how the family drew together to support Julia. At least one family member was with her for every treatment and hospital stay.

Cheryl, a bookkeeper, stopped working to care for Julia. Her father Gary, a cabinet maker, took four months off work because he lacked the concentration to safely work with power tools.

The illness affected her siblings, too. Emma, 20, reduced her psychology studies to a single class so she could help out. Teagan, 13, grew her hair out and donated it to make wigs. And the crisis was felt deeply by Shane, 12, who offered thanks at the Thanksgiving church service to the doctors and nurses who were keeping his sister alive.

“We’re so thankful that we’ve got the opportunity to go and celebrate Julia and her health together,” Cheryl says of the trip.

“The sun, sand, pool, snorkelling — she loves them. She’s a beach girl.”

Donations can be made to Huynh’s endeavour by going to the Children’s Wish Foundation home page at www.childrenswish.ca, selecting the Alberta and Northwest Territories from the chapter tab at left, clicking on the news and events tab, and scrolling down to find the Antarctic.

And of course with many of us getting ready for a marathon in either New York or Hawaii, or even races like Winterstart tomorrow, I think this is a good story to read…

MIKE BATES MIKE BATES IS A CERTIFIED PERSONAL TRAINER AND TEACHES KINESIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR. HE OWNS REFINE FITNESS STUDIO IN WINDSOR, ONT., BLOGS AT REFINEFITNESS.CA AND CAN BE REACHED AT MIKE@REFINEFITNESS.CA.

Running over mental obstacles

There is a great book by Bob Schwartz called I Run, Therefore I Am — Nuts! (humankinetics. com). What is great about it is that anyone who has spent any time running will relate to the stories he tells. It’s like a Seinfeld episode for runners. I would argue non-runners should read it as well, so they can get a better understanding of what is going through a runner’s head.

Many of these stories could easily relate to beginning exercisers, experienced exercisers and outdoor cyclists.

With fall marathon season in full swing, I thought it would be good to discuss some of the mental challenges runners face during a race and their training.

Many runners are chronically obsessive about their training and everything around it. Anything that throws them off their routine can cause some runners to be significantly affected before or during a race.

While it’s true that to run a five kilometre race, 10-km race, half marathon or full marathon, you need to put in a certain amount of training, the main obstacle most runners need to overcome is a mental one.

Running any distance is going to have pain associated with it. I’m not referring to physical pain that indicates an injury. It’s the pain associated with pushing yourself outside your comfort zone. The more runners do this during training, the more likely they’ll be successful during a race. A certain amount of pain is normal.

Runners competing in races this time of the year have most likely put in time on the pavement and/ or treadmill so the race won’t be too physically draining. This doesn’t mean the race will be easy. But if you have put in your mileage each week, your body should be ready.

Below you will find some common mental challenges you may encounter during the race and how to overcome them:

Everyone around me seems to be going so much faster, maybe I should try and keep up.

Ask yourself why you’re doing this. Are you running for you or to win your age group? For most, the accomplishment is simply finishing the race, so keeping up with others does not need to be a priority. If your goal is to finish in a certain time, then you most likely know where you should be at each mile or kilometre. Place your focus on your pace. By the end of the race most of the people you think are going so fast may actually finish behind you.

My legs are burning or they feel like they weigh 100 pounds.

Some people refer to this as “hitting the wall.” During a race many runners will experience this. This may mean walking for a couple of minutes. For some, this may be a sign they’re pushing themselves too hard. For others, it’s simply one obstacle during a race they need to fight through and when they do they will feel like they have their second wind.

There is no way I can finish. What have I got myself into?

Focus on finishing one kilometre at a time and don’t think about the total distance ahead. Remind yourself how important this goal is to you and how much time you have spent training. This race is the reward for all of your hard work.

Ah, it is great to be back to the long email…

Have a great weekend,

John