Ironboy Rules!

As of May 23rd 2007 I was still telling my friends "I'll never run a marathon." This was usually the comment that came right after "I will never, ever go in an Ironman!"

So I was wrong.

Last June I found myself saying "yes" to one of my more persistent friends when he bulldogged me into joining his Ironcops For Cancer group, and eventually entering Ironman USA.

A year of training went by in the blink of an eye. The thought (threat?) of a 3.8 km swim, 180 km bike and 42.2 km run focused my triathlon training like never before. There were very few workouts blown off, or mailed in. I found myself getting up at 3am (just weeks into a brand new job mind you) to do gruelling indoor rides on my trainer. The pool - where I'm never comfortable - became my second home, and I fell even more in love with running.

I worked so hard at it all, that by early May of this year, I was happily making predictions in private about my sub- 12 hour Ironman!

It's funny how things change, and not always in a bad way either. In late May I ran my 7th Cabot Trail Relay in Nova Scotia. I took on the easiest leg I'd done in years, and promptly had my butt handed to me. It was a bit humiliating.

Then a week later, I joined a crazed bunch of tri-geeks at Lake Placid for "Epicman." It's a nine hour training day where we swam in 55 degree water for 45 minutes, rode the entire 180 km bike course in a cold, constant downpour and then ran until the nine hours were up. It took me 20 minutes to get my face in the water...the bike was a disaster...and my run turned out to be a 2 km jog, just to say I did it. It was humbling.

I had six weeks to try to reset my priorities. Time was no longer an issue. The goal was simply to finish this crazy thing, and hopefully, have a great run.

Two weeks before the race, my training partners weren't sure I was even going to show up. They were concerned about the number of rides, runs and swims I'd missed, and by how I'd slowly disappeared from their radar. I was concerned too...very concerned.

When we showed up on the Wednesday night before the race, I had all the stuff I needed. My body was fit and trained. I had a place to stay, and stuff to eat. And deep deep down, I was freaking out.

We swam the course on Thursday morning. My time was the best I'd ever put in on that distance. We rode on the run course. It felt great. Leading up to race day, I got in all the rides, runs and swims I'd need to boost my confidence. But I was still not ready.

Saturday, my wife and son showed up. Seeing them calmed me down, and also pushed my anxiety up. I couldn't fail in front of them. Now the stress was getting to me.

Race day, I got up at 4 am, which for me is sleeping in. I ate, talked a bit, then got a ride to the start. It was cloudy and cool, with no wind. We got into our wetsuits and slowly 2300 Ironwannabes slipped into the warm, clear waters of Mirror Lake. Just before the gun I got into a great conversation with a woman who works with the Elizabeth Glazer Aids Foundation in Washington DC. What she does was so much more impressive than doing a triathlon.

The gun went off. I stuck my face in and swam hard. There were hands, and arms, and feet, and legs and bodies everywhere as we all stroked our way to the turn buoy. Two minutes in, I stopped. I couldn't do it. I was having a full-blown panic attack with no more than 200 metres done in my swim. I tried again. No way. It's impossible to describe the feeling of intense dread that takes over. It was enough to make me entertain thoughts of swimming to shore and calling it a day. I tried again. Worse. Looking behind, there couldn't be more than ten people, and they seemed to be swimming just fine. Finally, after 20 minutes of stopping and starting, I got going. It was tentative, slow and painful, but I was moving forward. The the rain started. At first it was just a light shower, but by the time I hit the beach, it was a full-on downpour. Lap one took 57 minutes. That's about my slowest time ever on 1.9 km. I ran across the beach and back in for the second lap. Slowly and steadily my strength and courage took over, and I pulled out of lap two with a respectable, but way-slow 1:34 swim.

A quick 300m run in the rain to the change tent (after having my wetsuit stripped off by a complete stranger - oddly interesting) where I got into warm, dry bike clothes, and I was off to the races.

The bike started a bit squirrely. It's a very tricky, steep hill with a couple of sharp turns, and hay bails for those who get it wrong, just to get onto the bike course. After the long climb out of town, we had a rain-slicked hell ride down horrible pavement for the legendary descent into Keene. After fifteen minutes of thrills and luckily, no spills, I turned onto the most pleasant part of the course, wet, chilled and happy to be there. The entire first loop was uneventful. Volunteers and spectators were rain-soaked, but incredible. They yelled, cheered, and even held our bikes when we used the porta-johns. We were fed, bandaided and basically coddled unlike anything I've experienced in a triathlon, ever! I got into a kind of weird Zen on the ride. I talked to other riders (I never do that) and I looked around at the gorgeous scenery. For reasons I'll never know, I never once looked at my watch. Lap two was even more fun than the first. And all this with the rain coming down harder and harder every minute.

I finished the second lap, ran back to the change tent and got into warm dry running clothes.

Now for the last ten miles of the ride, my legs were feeling pretty bad. I found every hill harder than the last, and my speed just wasn't there anymore. So I was very surprised that my first steps felt awesome when I took off on my first-ever marathon. I had to pull my speed back at the one mile marker because my time was way under my plan. My wife had told me before the race "don't think about how far you have to go, just how much you've done." So when I hit the one mile marker I said out loud "one mile down...one to go." That kept me in it the rest of the way. I passed my wife and son twice on the bike and three times on the run. I swear I went faster, and felt stronger each time. By mile 10 I was the clear favorite for "most annoying athlete on the course." I badgered anyone who started walking to "run with me." I hammered up the hills, and down the other side. Water stop people were thanked, hugged and thanked again. As I passed the last water stop of the day at mile 25, I gave them a standing ovation. Then I took off hard for the finish line. Three people were in front of me with 200 metres to go. I put them away and had the best finish of my life.

I stopped at the line and just drank it all in for a few seconds. Then the nice people there asked me to walk forward ten feet to get my timing chip taken off, and to get my finisher's hat and shirt. Someone had already put a medal on me...wish I could remember that! I could barely walk after the finish. I left everything on the course. It was exhilarating!

The world looks a bit different to me now. I see more things as possible. I feel that I can achieve anything I put my mind to. I'm so ridiculously content.

I am an Ironman!

Happy Trails

I just got back from the Cabot Trail Relay Race in Cape Breton NS. Here are some observations from that experience:

Running is Easy

Compared to driving 14 hours just to get to Moncton, anything is easy. We headed out under cloudy skies, which just got worse as the trip went on. My co-driver got nailed for a $125 ticket by the Quebec Provincial Police just 20kms after leaving Ontario. Then the rain hit. The wipers didn't stop working for ten straight hours, some of which were pretty shaky considering how little one could see when stuck behind a water-spewing semi trailer. Then after a good night's rest, we did it all over again all the way to the Cape!

Plans Don't Always Work Out

Since I didn't have much time to run leading up to the race, I figured I could get a few quality jogs in before my leg of the relay. I didn't factor in the +3 Celsius temperature, with rain and fog, and ground so wet that you got two instant soakers just going out the front door! I also conveniently forgot that there would be scotch and beer. Neither of those two items encourage one to "go for a run."

Gas is Cheap

At least here in Kingston it is. We filled up at the Shell downtown at $1.23 per litre. It was $1.40+ in Quebec, about $1.26 in New Brunswick and $1.36 all over Nova Scotia, where the government legislates a one-price-everywhere policy. The spending money I withdrew before we left was gone before I knew it.

Running is Hard

I was in great shape for my leg of the race. I knew the terrain, the distance and what the conditions would generally be like. But there were a few things I didn't know such as: not warming up would mean I ran tight for the first fifteen minutes; coming down with a cold really does make it harder to push your body to the limit; and skipping that last-minute visit to the portapotty can be nearly fatal! I'd planned to make the top 15 and finished 15th. However, my time was slow, even by my standards, and I got beaten by a woman just ten seconds from the finish. And so it goes.

Good Times Don't Last

It seemed like the five days were over before they even started. Good friends, good music, good food and some pretty good running went by in the blink of an eye. But still, I'm glad to be back.

Fast is good!

I'm training to race Ironman USA this July. I am not an Ironman athlete, nor have I ever aspired to be one. As I've said in this blog, I'm doing this for the Ironcops for Cancer who I admire and support. I'm happy just to get the opportunity to experience and Ironman. I won't be racing to see what heights I can take my performance to.

That said, I don't want to suck at it!

On the contrary, I would really like to do well, and when I say "well," I mean "better than anyone would expect of me."

So I've trained. 3am wake up calls to get on my bike in the basement in the winter on a spinner, sweating like crazy, hammering out workouts that felt ridiculous. But I did them.

Swimming for 1 hour and a half in the pool, where I never like to be because I not only am not a very good swimmer, but because I also am afraid of the water. But there I am.

Running has never been difficult for me. That's because I've always been able to get away with trying just hard enough to do well.

So yesterday I put it all on the line and ran the Limestone 1/2 Marathon. Nothing new here, as I've done this many many times in the past. After pbing six years ago at 1:38 and change, I was happy to come in at or near that time every race. But this time it would be different.

This time I made it impossible for my usual "just hard enough" effort by telling everyone I knew of my 1:35 goal! No pressure. Now I HAD to come trough with something.

My friend Dalton is fast. He wins tris and running races. He always strives to get the maximum out of his performances. But two weeks ago he came down with a very bad strep infection, and then relapsed a week later. So as a recovering runner, he offered to pace me. I like a fool, accepted.

He and I were joined at the line by another Ironcop, Allyson who is much much faster than me, and so I knew the day was going to hurt. But I did it.

Dalton took us out at a steady but manageable pace, which we held until about 3 ks to go. And by the time I finished, dry heaving and barely able to process oxygen, I'd ripped 4 and a half minutes off my best-ever 1/2 marathon finish, and took home a medal in my age group.

Now I can go back to my steady, but not fast training. I can go back to pain-free workouts that will build my base, but not my speed. I can go back to working on becoming an Ironman. But I'll never go back to running any race "just hard enough."

Thanks Dalton and Allyson.

Green (with smoke and mirrors)

Tomorrow, you'll be blasted from all corners with Earth Day hype. Radio, tv, newspapers, and the internet will all be teaming with advice, guilt, fear-mongering and just about anything else that works so that they'll feel like they've done their bit to be at the leading edge of the environmental movement.

And whether it's the radio person showing up in their hot logo-d SUV at the groundbreaking for the new Green library branch in Calvin Park; or the TV mobile truck idling incessantly out front of City Hall or the tons and tons of colourful inserts in the local paper, or even the ridiculous over-packaging of yet another should-I-try-to-recycle-this-thing-when-its-obsolete? modem...it will all just prove how the media, as usual, will have you thinking that we created the entire environmental movement.

NBC is "green" all this week. Good for them. The paper here has a new "green" column that pops up several times a week. Love it! My own radio station and it's cluster jumps in every year with Pitch In Kingston, to do our bit to clean the city. Yay us!

I just wonder if the desired effect is happening, or are we in the media just making ourselves feel better by preaching a "tough" message to our users.

The roads are littered with crap that didn't have to be thrown there. Our city still dumps raw sewage into the lake and river. Gas prices are out of control, but talk to anyone and they'll tell you how "it's not like you can get by without driving."

I saw someone driving a Prius throw something from their window the other day. My family throws organic stuff in the garbage when the composter is just 30 metres from the house. We all drive buy junk laying beside the road...and keep on driving.

Tomorrow we'll all be talking a good game.

How many of us will actually have the guts to take things one step further...change our bad habits, and save this planet?

Geek or Nerd

I could never tell the difference between geeks and nerds. For my first ten years of school, I was probably one of the latter, then even though I worked very hard to change my image, there was still a lot of nerd showing through all the way to college.

Post-secondary education was Radio Broadcasting. Definitely geek. Though I read the liner notes on every recording I ever bought, which in hindsight is kinda nerdy.

Then it all changed. Suddenly I was one of those ultra-cool radio djs. Those slick pseudo-celebrity dorks who don't really have jobs, or at least job descriptions. I had finally pulled myself as far from nerdiness as my limitations would allow.

The fact that I had lots of extra time on my hands, lead me to reconnect with my inner jock, taking up golf, skiing, hockey, softball, running, swimming, triathlon, oh and Frisbee Golf (alright, Frisbee-anything is nerdy, no matter how jock-ey you think you are playing it...try describing your sport to someone who doesn't play it. If the word Frisbee is part of it...you're a damn nerd).

After all those years of having to know facts and formulae. After all that studying math and science, and politics and all that other uncool stuff, I was finally able to forget it all and just get out there and sweat!

And yet.

Golf just never made sense. No amount of reading, swing analysis or watching other golfers added to my results. It was as though one could just not think their way to a better game.

Skiing was pure joy. No thinking involved. This lead to my being excused from several hills, and eventually abandoning the sport. Softball was worse. The more I thought, the worse I got. My brain was best used in my eloquent vitriol, which was usually wasted on the opposing teams and unfortunate umpires.

Running clicked though. Biking too. And swimming...now there's a sport where no amount of physical effort will ever help.

Yes, triathlon combines three sports that take constant and exhaustive analysis, thought and discussion. Every footfall, every turn of the pedal, every degree of the stroke is a wealth of information (and misinformation), fed back to my far-too-curious mind. Can't keep up with the other runners? Get a heart rate monitor! Don't just use it though. Even better, read ever article ever written about the thing, then spend months putting together the way you SHOULD use it. Then when that all fails, declare that hr monitors are useless and should be shunned. Then buy a "better" one and repeat the above process.

Can't ride fast enough? Get a better bike. Wait! Spend at least three years of potential work time researching the exact bike that will make me a near-pro. Then spend the next seven messing with it to make it "better." Not to mention the need for at least a dozen different spin philosophies. Then when things are working just right, decide that you need a new bike.

Don't get me started with swimming. That much time spent with your face down in the water in near hypoxia has lead me to believe that I can actually think my way to the other end of the pool without actually moving my arms or legs. Oh yeah, the shaved legs that were meant to tear tenths of seconds off those swim times.

In a word after all the time I've spent cleansing the nerdiness from my being, I think I have finally become...a geek. Sigh.

The Planet Is Saved!

Saturday night the whole world came together in a huge show of support for what's becoming their favorite planet. For an hour, all of us shut down all the points in our house that drew power from the grid. We burned candles. We talked about the environment. Some even fondue-d!

For one whole hour.

Sixty minutes.

I really enjoyed it. The house was so quiet. The neighborhood was filled with people out walking as families, taking in that suddenly-brighter starlit sky. My family got into it too. My son commented that he liked the silence, and he grudgingly passed on watching the Habs/Leafs game (which, as it turned out, wasn't the result we'd wanted anyway). My wife said it made her much more aware of the "phantom power" draws around our house.

In the midst of Earth Hour, my sister called from Arizona. I asked her what they'd be doing when their turn came in an hour and she said: "what is it?" She said there hadn't been a word spoken in their rural corner of the state. I had to tell her the concept, to which she commented that it was "a great idea." Yet she was unsure as to why Earth Hour wasn't being promoted on any of their local media.

And that's where my cynical brain starts to get fired up. In Sydney Australia, Paris, Toronto, Kingston, Seattle or any other modern, post-industrial centre, we already get it! The people in charge (the Dick Cheneys, and the Stephen Harpers) privately have to admit that we need to change some things before all is lost, but they won't in public for fear that we'll suffer dire economic consequences, and worse...they'll fall from power. The public though, is showing that more and more, we really do get it.

But in the other world... In the parts of our planet where people have for too long suffered in poverty and oppression, and where in just the past decade they've begun to taste the possibility of a better, modern, more convenient way of life...in India, China, Brazil, wherever. In those places, all the awareness in the world about climate change, won't keep the population or their leaders from the status quo. In places where the media is used for little more than just a pr service of the government, the public will know only what the government wants them to know. Perhaps rural Arizona could be lumped in there, along with rural Alberta and a lot more places that are closer to home than we'd ever imagine.

Earth Hour is a great way to get the message out to ourselves. It's a really important exercise we should partake in on a regular basis to keep us on-task, to fix what we can with global warming.

But we've got to get the other world to buy in too.

Al Gore is making trips to India now to preach environmentalism. He's teaching small classes of local folks to get the message out to the masses, in hopes that the billion citizens of that country will be there with us. He thinks he can do the same in China (if he can turn that regime around in their thinking, he deserves a second Nobel). Perhaps he could take some shorter trips to Yuma, Cold Lake, and Tamworth to make sure we're all on the same page.

I laughed on Saturday night when I saw it. We'd already overloaded the grid for the few hours before "lights-out" by charging up our cell phones, Psps, laptops...whatever. Now here in the middle of our our of self-congratulatory hour of darkness, I saw who the true benefactors of this Earth Hour were. It was written in clear, easy-to-read font right on the package of tea light candles we were all burning: "Product of China."

Time to Commit

About a year ago my good friend Chuck the Cop talked me into joining his Ironcops For Cancer team. This was a group of motivated individuals who've decided to help raise cash for the Canadian Cancer Society by fundraising, and to draw attention to this, they compete in an Ironman triathlon.

4km swim...180km bike...42.2km run

I talk to quite a few people every day on the radio, and my family has been deeply touched by cancer, and I like to train with motivated people. So I had to say "yes."

Yes to long gruelling bike rides. Yes to swimming until my eye sockets puff out like an iguana. Yes to running long, slow, solitary runs. Yes to stinky, sweaty, filthy running/biking/swimming gear in piles near the washing machine. Yes to eating even more than I already do. Yes to constantly feeling tired. Yes to every joint in my old beat up body screaming at me to stop.

Perhaps if I'd paid more attention to what Chuck the Cop was saying to me, was that I was saying "yes" to actually RACING in the Ironman triathlon too!

4km swim...180km bike...42.2km run

After that finally sunk in, I started to slowly freak myself out. I've raced three 1/2 Ironmans in my short career, and none of them went well. I'm getting older, slower and no smarter, so how the hell was I supposed to turn it all around and finish one of the most challenging outdoor pursuits going?

Oh, and I've also gone on record as saying I thought Ironman "was a ridiculous distance." Oh, and that "friends don't let friends race marathons." I've never run longer than 30km at one time, and that was just last year, and it was long, and it was tough, and I swore I'd never go that distance again.

I used to ride at a respectable speed. Last year that all got away from me, and I found myself getting dropped by the other riders earlier and more often than ever.

Let's not even talk about the pool. I'm not a good swimmer. I'm not a mediocre swimmer. At best, I'm a bad swimmer.

4km swim...180km bike...42.2km run

By the end of last summer, I'd raced another 1/2 Ironman. My swim was so-so. My bike ride was dead-on what I was aiming for. My run blew big time. It was even slower than the last time I tried to do a half.

Another couple of races brought less than great results.

Then I got injured running.

Finally, I found every reason to not swim; not ride...just plain not do anything.

I went to a talk with Tony O'Keefe. Tony is a mutant. He races ultra-Ironmans. These take place over two days, and in them the athlete has to do basically double the Iron distance...which is ridiculous. And Tony is one of the best in the sport!

But I listened to what he said that night, and I listened very well. He told us all that we do this running and triathloning, because we want to be good at it. We want to beat our last time. We want to beat that person who finished in front of us before. We want to win in whatever way we can.

I thought about how I'd talked about the Ironman: Stupid distance. I'm not trained. There's no way I could pull it off. Don't have the time to commit to that. I've been injured. My bad friends made me enter. I realised what a load of crap that was. I wanted to do an Ironman race as badly as anyone, and I wanted to do it well.

I just didn't want to SEEM like that's what I wanted. I dreaded the thought of letting people down, so I was acting like it was something that was being foisted upon me. That way if things didn't go well, it wasn't my fault. And if I did really well, then I must be really special. What a crap attitude.

So, I went to the pool. The hated pool. The horrible, breath-stealing, humiliating pool. And I started swimming. 50 laps the first time. 50 laps that seemed like 500. Nice old ladies doing the breast stroke were passing me. I had to stop at the end of each lap and hold on to the pool deck to catch my breath. But I went.

And I stuck my bike on the trainer and rode. 1/2 Hour the first time. Didn't think I could get through another second, but I did, and I told myself that I 'd do the same thing at least twice more every week.

And I ran. I hurt, but I ran. It wasn't far, and it wasn't fast, but I ran. Funny thing is the injury went away, and I remembered why I do this silly sport: I love to run!

By the end of January, I was getting in the pool even on the days I didn't want to. I was riding the bike at a ridiculous time every morning (I work at 5am...you do the math), and I was saying "yes" to everyone who wanted to go for a little jog.

By the end of February, I was starting to see results in the pool. I was feeling better on the bike and my running was getting pretty smooth.

Now here I am about four months away from the race, and I feel like I'm on track. It's not just that I can train. I want to train. I'm having fun in the pool. The spins are giving me lots of time to catch up on my iPod and the runs wash away the stresses of the day.

4km swim...180km ride...42.2km run

It's not gonna be easy.

But it's what I want to do...and it's gonna be fun!

Shovel This!

In November my sister went to Arizona.

Her husband scored a sweet contract gig that would carry him through the colder months of Canadian winter, and they liked the idea of a paid vacation, so she went. Just before taking off, she asked my son if he'd look after shovelling their walks and driveway to make the house look "lived-in" for the winter, and of course he said "yes." She even offered him what we thought at the time was an unnecessary financial incentive, which thrilled him more as he's saving to buy a laptop.

Then she flew south.

Both my wife and I were concerned that she was overpaying our young guy, considering the four times we shovelled our own drive last winter, but a deal is a deal.

Then winter happened.

Though many respected meteorologists and climatologists have explained their theories of what's affecting our winter here in Kingston, none have made a lick of sense to me. It started snowing one day in November...and never stopped! Our driveway has narrowed to a fraction of it's size; my sister's walk is exactly one-shovel wide now, with little hope of widening soon thanks to ice accumulation, and the snowbanks are so high at the end of our driveways, that we're considering a traffic-control tower so we can safely egress into the street. Even the paper delivery people have had to quit tromping across the lawns between houses in our neighborhoods, as I believe some of them were lost in the deep snow (I shudder to think of what horrors will be revealed to us come the spring thaw).

I called my sister in Arizona to tell her this, but she seemed distracted by the extreme heat, and had to cut the call short.

My son is just one person. The dumps of snow, ice pellets and just plain ice are too much for any one, so he's recruited my wife and me to help him perform his duty. He barely has the energy left to clear the snow from our drive and walkway, let alone deliver his papers, do his schoolwork and play Wii! But now, even my wife and I are losing it. Her back is aching, and my arms have gone to jelly. It's so bad that I can barely last an entire swim workout...actually, I was never all that good at swimming, so I guess this is just a really good excuse for not improving this off-season.

People all over our city are fed up. They've booked last-minute vacations; flocked to shopping malls and perhaps even tried drinking their way back to being able to deny this cruel season the pleasure of imprisoning us in it's icy grasp!

Every fall, I start gearing up. Literally. I get all my winter running/biking/existing clothing together; buy what I need to add a little more comfort to the dark days, and begin to prepare mentally for the lack of sunlight, the snow, the cold and the rest of what winter brings. It's usually pretty easy to predict what's coming.

If I do all these things correctly, I can usually make it to March Break with a sense of hope for the warm days ahead.

Unfortunately, to quote our city's snow-removal managers: "I just didn't budget for this!"

I wonder what they're talking about today in Arizona.

Evolution sucks!

It may be one of the hardest things to admit for a good red-blooded Canadian, but here goes: I suck as a hockey player!

For anyone who's played with me over the years, this revelation is on par with "gas prices are going up," "there are idiots driving amongst us in Kingston," and "gee, TV is really getting bad!" My dad had me read "Hockey, Here's Howe" cover to cover when I was a kid. Didn't help one bit. I played three years of outdoor shinny in my formative years in Kenora. Nothing. Later in life (my 20's) I got the hockey bug so bad that my wife had to do an intervention to pare things down to just 6 games per week.

And still, my hockey skills never seemed to rise to the level of the effort I put in to them.

Right from the beginning though, I learned that "other" way of making the score sheet: penalties! With the exception of spearing and fighting, I think I managed to spend time in the sin bin for every possible infraction. I still have the distinction of being the only Labatt's League player ever to be assessed 3 minutes in the box for hauling down my own player!

There's something haywire in most male minds that turns us into hacking, slashing, high-sticking morons as soon as we get a hockey stick in our hands. I am a proud member of this fraternity.

About ten years ago, I hung up my skates, and hid my stick away, deciding that I just didn't want to be that person anymore. I played one last tournament (got in a fight), and one ball-hockey tourney (earned the ire of every team for my stick work), but that was it.

But I got the bug again at the last Fronts game at the M Centre. All the good stuff about playing came back to me. Hauling the gear into a too-small change room...staking out a place. Taping my stick just right. Taping my skates just right. Taping my pads. Tape! Gawd how I miss hockey tape!!! Then there's the warm up, where you assess the other team, crank off some feeble slap shots to get your goalie into it and even try to figure out which officials showed up, so you know what you can and can't get away with. The up and down the ice action of the game...the penalties! Even after the game when you sit sweaty, stinking and sore trying to peel off the layers of wet gear, while talking a better game than the one you just played. I miss it so badly!

So I signed up to play in the ball hockey tournament put on by Startek last weekend. As soon as I showed up, I knew I was in trouble. This wasn't going to be a "fun" mixed-gender, no-skills bunch. No, these were the usual bunch of has-beens, would-have-beens, and never-coulda-beens out hacking away at the ball and more often, each other.

My first shift was great. I got my face right into it and scored a cheesy one. By my second one though, my stick was getting up, and I was grabbing, pushing, bumping and basically working my way into getting a well-deserved two-hander. But for once, it wasn't just me! This whole tournament was full of hackers. I'm so glad the Big Brothers (who were the benefactors of the day) didn't bring out any of their little Brothers to see it.

The older, slower and less-skilled the player was, the more apt he (never she) was at those nasty little slashes on the ankle, or the ever-popular awful slap shot into a crowd of unprotected and unsuspecting players.

We lost all three games, even though our goalie stood on his head. We played them all close, but just ran out of gas by the end of each game.

For the past ten years I've turned my attention to a completely different past time from hockey. Triathlon has taken over my spare time. I love the training, the racing, the challenging of what I used to think were my limits. With the exception of the swim, it's relatively no-contact. The only thing close to a penalty was the course marshall who cautioned me about drafting the bike in front of me (which I wasn't).

After a six hour plus tri, I'm usually pretty tired, kinda sore and starved.

Today, one day after my first hockey tournament in a decade, I'm sporting some interesting bruises, my muscles are so sore that I'm walking like a 90 year old, and my back has never felt so sore.

Think I'll stop into Canadian Tire on the way home today and see if they have a good price on that really good hockey tape!

Nice Rink!

Just a few thoughts regarding the new arena:

1) After being at three events there in three days, I'm still having difficulty actually believing that it's here. I caught myself on each of the three days thinking "wow, this is really Kingston!" It's an awesome facility, with a very motivated and energetic staff. Even the Fronts have taken their game up several notches.

2) Kingston people have needed the ability to drink beer at their seats for sporting events and concerts for far too long. At the Hip show on Saturday, one could hardly get to one's gate for the long lines of thirsty music fans waiting in line to buy beer. During the show, people in our row kept going back for more. At five bucks a cup, it's not only one of the best prices downtown, but it's also going to dig a huge chunk out of what we owe for making this place.

3) The Fronts games will slowly become better-attended. The thousands of faithful who said they'd never go "all the way downtown" for a game? Well they came. Hundreds more were at their first OHL game in a long time (or ever), and they'll come back. It's excellent hockey, and it's cheap!

4) The people who cried about how the parking was going to be a disaster have gone back to complaining about other things such as expensive gasoline and the fact that they'll never stop using the word "township" to describe parts of our city. At the end of the Bulls-Fronts game Friday, I waited at my seat for about 15 minutes to let the crowd die down, fully expecting the streets to be crazy with people. They weren't. I was home in the west end just 15 minutes later. It was even more efficient after the Hip concert Saturday. Sunday was even better. The arena will not be the source of traffic headaches. CFB Kingston/RMC/every government office, all spilling out at exactly the same time will continue to be a far bigger problem. This is where I could tell you to use Kingston transit, but I get the feeling you're just not listening when I say how easy, cheap and efficient it's become.

5) Downtown bars, restaurants and shops are LOVING the response to having an arena downtown! Even after the game on Sunday afternoon, it was tough to get seated in some places. The best thing that could happen is more great restaurants, bars and shops opening to take advantage. Perhaps our old derelict Police Station would be the anchor in a block of cool new places running down Queen from King Street.

6) Wolfe Island people will love how easy it is to get to and from the arena. In the summer, Marysville residents won't even need to take their cars! However, they'll be unhappy that some will continue to park on the ferry dock instead of paying for the incredibly cheap parking that's available.

7) It still needs a name. Maybe the Drivec? I'll keep working on that.

Did we lose a bet or something?

My first impulse was to puke.

After getting up at 3:20am to work myself through a 65 minute bike spin in my basement, the last thing I needed was to see a note from my wife saying "Are you ready for ten years of The K-Rock Centre?"...gag!!!" At first I thought she was doing that thing she does. You know, keeping me on edge, so I don't let down my guard for the inevitable bad news that could come at any time. (she feels that perhaps I tend to react in a rather sagiune way, and need the occasional SCARE)

But she woke up at 4:30 to tell me that it was indeed true, that K-Rock had been declared the sponsor of the new downtown arena. She and my politically savvy daughter stayed up ridiculously late to watch city council make the declaration live on channel 13. Both of them found the news disturbing, off-putting, even creepy. My daughter's instant concern was that NONE of the groups she'd go to see would ever come to Kingston now. We eventually calmed her down.

When I got to work, it was obviously even worse. Our morning staff were reeling over the news, and the notion that we had to deliver it in some way that a) informed our listeners, yet b) didn't give a competitor any publicity. Second-guessing, speculation and rage dominated our off-air activities. We put our GM Greg Hinton on the air to give the company line, and got our fair share of indignant emails from our audience, slamming city council, the mayor, the arena management group and just about anyone else involved for making such a stupid decision.

As for me (glad you asked), well, it was a challenge. First off, a lot of my friends know that my easy-going, sometimes stoic demeanor is a total fabrication. My temper is so quick that it catches me off guard sometimes. But, I work hard at "not letting things get to me." When I do my "who gives a crap" schtick, it's usually in an attempt to hide my feelings of "who can I strangle?"

So, at work I was the most peaceful, objective, even thoughtful person for most of the morning. I slipped a couple of times on the air, but it was barely noticable. Then I eventually went home, and thought about the whole thing some more.

I watched John Wright on the CKWS 6 o'clock news. He said that this would be "good for the city, and good for everyone" which I guess means: "screw all the other media, I got the rights, too bad for you." Mayor Rosen told us it was time to "move forward" though I'm sure what he wanted to say was "where were the rest of you cheap bastards when your buddy Johnny here came to us with some real hard cash?"

And that's when I started to see things as they truly are.

Is having to deal with the major sports and entertainment venue being branded with our direct competitor's name for ten years going to be challenging? Yes.

Did city council make a bad decision? Yes, but they had guns held to their heads, and would have been just as wrong if they'd turned it down too. These people made the best choice humanly possible under very very diffcult circumstances.

Does anyone care about the impact of other media pulling some of their support for events at the new arena? Probably. But I'm not 100% convinced that is ever going to happen.

Our radio business is not easy to understand from the outside. We're constantly defending our brands, while changing our product to attract more listeners, more clients and more money. We live and die by ratings, which are driven by how successfully we get our name recalled by as many people in the listening area as possible. It doesn't necessarily mean they listen to us, just that they remember us. By which we can prove ourselves an efficient and economical vehicle to get our clients' products and services recalled by these people. Which means we have a steady revenue stream to afford us the resources to do it all over again.

Spending huge piles of money is rare in this biz. It's even rarer in a market this size.

The fact that a national arena management firm, a very thoughtful and skeptical city council and a non-network owner all came together to create a radio sponsorship on a 42 million dollar project, means our business is still for real.

No internet station...no TV network...no satellite "radio" provider has of yet been named as sponsor on a valid entertainment venue.

Thanks to John Wright and whatever means he had to use to get this to happen, everyone in our business feels just a little bit more valid today.

Get Me Outta Here!

Some time after Christmas it started. The first thing I noticed was how difficult it was to get going after napping (when you get up at 3:30am, napping is normal...try it). Then workouts were getting "missed." Cooking started to become a chore, and the very thought of leaving the house after coming home each afternoon was, well, appalling.

All that should have added up to "something's wrong" but I still didn't get it. It wasn't until I found myself one Friday night on the couch, watching TV (no not a show, just something on the tube) that I realised what was going on. I was getting depressed!

For weeks the newspapers and TV have been filled with stories about SAD. When the daylight wanes, and the fun of Christmas is long past, our bodies naturally react by going into a kind of light hybernation. I can't remember it ever getting to me before now, but then again, I've always been either too busy with work, or too lazy to work out, so there was no opportunity to actually sit motionless and feel totally bummed.

That awful Friday night, I ripped myself off the couch, put on my stuff, and did a 45 minute spin on my bike. It wasn't great. I was still stuck in the basement, sweating like crazy, and going nowhere, but at least I was getting out some agression.

Last week it started getting to me again. The crazy snowstorms and flash freezes didn't help, as they gave me just another reason to put off going to the pool, riding my bike or going for a run.

So I did something about it.

My son and I piled a couple of shovels in the car, and headed for my sister's place. We spent over an hour and a half digging out an enormous pile of snow from her drive. It was hard. It was cold. It was wet. In fact it was potentially the least pleasant thing either of us could think of doing at that time.

It was brilliant!

Three important pieces of my life came together: vigourous exercise; a team-oriented task to accomplish and being outdoors! By the time we were done, both of us had pulled outselves out of the SAD doldrums, and were ready to sleep like dogs.

I applied my new-found psychological knowledge the next day by going for a run in the snow with a good friend who was also feeling seasonally down and out. The holy trinity of movement, accomplishment and outdoors came together, creating...two bummed out listless individuals.

Stupid psycho-crap.

I'll try again tomorrow, but right now I just need a nap.

Knock Knock!

You'd think that someone who does what I do for a living, would have no trouble walking up to people's doors and talking to them about important social issues.

You'd think.

For most of my life, I've spoken out of turn, been asked to "keep it down," said inappropriate things at even less appropriate times, and generally not really concerned myself with the consequences.

I've also been able to do a job where I get to speak out and speak up every day. Issues and events that are important to me and my friends and family get aired to a large audience, and I get to be the person delivering the message.

So when March of Dimes called a couple of months back to see if I'd be interested in canvassing our neighborhood for their annual fundraising drive, my first thought was "are you frickin' nuts?"

Going door, to door in the suburbs? These are people with names like: "Mr. Accurate," "The crazy chick who drives too fast," "Mr. Bi-polar," "Cellphone-guy," "Witness-protection-couple" and so on. Then there's "I should know her name because I talk to her quite a lot but I don't," and "woman who calls me by name and gets me to donate to the heart and stroke people every year."

I'm the worst neighbor in the world. It's taken me years to even start shovelling the other side of our shared driveway. It finally sunk in that it didn't matter why it wasn't shovelled, or that they never really did my side. What did matter was how much of an ass I looked like by only doing my side.

So after about ten seconds of dead air, I responded to the March of Dimes recruiter with a hearty "sure!" I almost barfed. I can't knock on these people's doors and ask for money. What the hell have I done?

So in a couple of days, I'll take my little kit around, wearing my MOD pin and my best smile. I'll knock on doors of people who know who I am, some of whom I'll be seeing for the first time ever. I'll cheerfully extol the virtues of this important organization for which I've spoken so eloquently on the air. I'll ask for donations, and happily answer questions. I may get turned down. I may get surprised by some people's generosity.

This is so far out of my comfort zone, you can't even imagine how stressed out I'm getting.

And yet...

There are so many decisions we make every day based on how we feel we could benefit. Life is a competition. Whomever ends up with the best and most, wins.

Too bad life doesn't work like that.

We can only grow by trying new and scary things. That which doesn't kill us, makes us stronger (that was my dad's best line).

No, door to door canvassing will be a big, scary, learn-as-you-go challenge. Which is what makes it worth so much.

Because the challenge, is the reward.

Work-life Balance

Being a radio guy can be pretty exciting. I for example, get up at a crazy time of day to come in here, play some awesome songs, talk to listeners about stuff, and make wisecracks about whatever I feel.

I get to go to great shows. I meet people who I'd normally never get to know. I get news releases from people and organizations that normally wouldn't give me the time of day.

My workday isn't quite as long as most.

Like most folks in my business, I seek out things to feel that I'm earning my keep. I'm on two or three boards of local community groups. The Kingston Half Marathon and Beat Beethoven put up with me as one of their co-directors, and I'm always ready to take on whatever community challenge comes my way. That stuff's easy. I'd do it anyway.

Back before I had kids, I decided that I needed to play hockey, baseball, golf, Frisbee golf, ski...whatever else I could find to keep moving. I got pulled into running by a couple of bad friends of mine, which lead to more bad friends who pulled me even further off the couch and into triathlon. After much failed protest, I'm now training to race in an Ironman triathlon, which is only exciting and interesting to the other fools who do this sport, so I won't bore you any more with details.

I read books. Lots of books. Always have, and always will.

There are some great TV shows that need to be watched, and not just the NHL, NFL, Olympics, World Cup Soccer and occasional F1 race, and every minute of the Tour de France.

Anyone who knows me knows that I eat. I eat a lot.

And there's sleep, commuting to and from work, and my freelance voice and pr work.

Leaving me with, what?

Sleep.

But last night, I was vegging on the couch with my son and daughter. We were mocking Access Hollywood or some other lame waste of TV...referencing our favorite out-there TV shows and movies and talking about music. There was no format, structure, expectation, deadline, cause, politics, demanding client or any of the other things I deal with all day. Just the three of us, together, having a laugh, and using our brains.

One quality hour with the family makes all the rest seem like I'm just filling time.

Now its a Wally and Joe Show

A few years ago, I was managing two radio stations here in Kingston. Every day, people would just drop in for whatever reason. Some were looking for jobs. Others were trying to sell us stuff. There were people who just kind of showed up to make complaints about our stations, city council or the state of the youth of our nation.

But one day, a friend of mine showed up carrying a pair of signed drum sticks. He was obviously upset, and needed to talk to someone immediately.

It was Wally High.

Wally has helped promote live music in Kingston since forever. He was the energy and effort behind A Joe Show, which raised money for the local Music Lending Library in memory of the great Joe Chithalen.

One of his biggest Joe Shows ever featured the Doobie Brothers, and the day Wally came in, he'd just got news that their long time drummer Keith Knudsen had died of pneumonia. Wally, it seems, knew everyone in the music business. And they knew Wally.

After I talked to him for awhile, he handed me the drum sticks, and asked that I do something with them in Keith's memory.

That's what I remember most about Wally High. Not the Ackroyd-Stones-Bill Murray connections. Not the third-hand stories about him. Just a guy who felt so badly about losing someone dear to him that he had to find a way to get the rest of us to remember that person.

Wally was a poet. He was a musician. A biker.

He was Wally.

I saw him last October at the Brew Pub. It was one of those oh no-Wally-wants-an-interview moments. We talked for a few short minutes, and I invited him to come on the air at FLY FM with me to promote his new cd release. Then days, weeks and months passed, with not a word from him. There was also no Wally High CD to be seen or heard anywhere.

A few weeks ago I heard that he was having that long-awaited party. I came up with the usual excuses, blaming the fact that I have no car, can't stay up late and/or have something "family" to do that night. Then to my shock, found out that I may have missed my last opportunity to see the guy. Wally was dying of inoperable cancer. Crap!

A very good friend of mine was there. She said it was an amazing night. Wally performed with some of Kingston's best musicians, and the mood of the night was light. There was even talk that he was looking better than anyone expected.

Two days ago, the show was over. Wally died.

Kingston is not limestone. It's not just Queen's and RMC. It's more than the prisons, the lake and the quirky little stores downtown. Kingston is a collection of some of the most interesting characters outside of a novel by Dickens or Irving. Wally was one of the last of that bunch.

I'm sure he and Joe are putting a band together, wherever they are.

Just Don't Wake Me Up!

Have you heard it yet?

There's something new and very very different in Kingston. I know, I know, Kingston has a built-in resistance to "very very different," and "new" is anything that's been here for less than 50 years.

I was skeptical too. When my bosses at FLY FM approached me last fall to see if I was interested in having a show on their new station, my first thought was "wow, a job! My family will not starve...my kids can go to University some day...I can order new bike gear!" But, when they described this new station, I wasn't so sure.

They drew a picture of an alternative music station, aimed solely at Kingston. This station would do things quite unlike anything else on the air. The music. The news. The people talking. All would be as un-radio (if it's not a word, put in in Wiki for me). As I sat listening, all thoughts of the groceries, the tuition and the hot new bike clothing faded away.

I was obviously no longer able to distinguish reality from my vivid fantasy world. The hallucination was so strong, that actual people were now speaking words I'd imagined.

After asking the right questions like: "are you kidding me?", and "who are you people?", I started to believe that this was really going to happen.

By mid-December, the station was on the air and there I was getting to play awesome music, spout off about whatever and get paid for doing it!

By late December, we had callers...real, living, job-holding callers who wanted to help us build this into something special.

Now here it is January 2008. We've made it one month without the parent company so much as making a peep about what we play, what we say or anything else we do.

If you haven't heard it yet, please try it. 98.9 The Drive. Our signal is pretty small, but our techies will have us up loud and strong in a few weeks. Meanwhile, we're live on the web too at 989.fm.

Listen to it. Do what you do best, think. Then let us know what's right, what's wrong and what needs to be done. We've got an anonymous line for you to call at 613 433 1380 ext. 320, or you can call us on the air at 5440 98 9.

I think this just might work!