Elevation Place 30/30 Week 2

This is the second in a series of blog posts about my participation in the Elevation Place 30/30 Fitness Challenge.  Click here to read the first week.

Day 6:

Back on the treadmill!  I’m going to stick with last week’s cardio workout suggestion.  I realize there’s a new one on the whiteboard but I’ve already memorized the other one and I’m already working with enough numbers to try remembering more.

Obviously I’m a huge music guy and I’m beginning to understand the importance of a good workout mix.  It’s taken a bit of fine tuning – lately I’ve been a big devotee of the improv4humans podcast while walking the dog.  If you run into me and my dog Sasha around the Elk Run ball diamonds and I’m laughing hysterically at seemingly nothing, this is why!  Unfortunately working out to a podcast wasn’t really getting my juices flowing so I turned to my master iTunes playlist.  1022 of my favourite songs, curated over many years, with a mix of everything from soft singer-songwriter material to rock to EDM to Christian metalcore (yes, this is a thing).  I’m finding this mix, which I usually enjoy, is hit-or-miss on the treadmill.  Stuff like Eric Prydz or the Foo Fighters, anything with a good beat really, is solid.  Some of my more introspective favourites like Aidan Knight, whose music I adore and would normally never skip, just don’t make me want to keep moving.  I’ll have to pare this list down and make a separate playlist that only contains songs with a decent BPM.  If anyone has any good song suggestions, particularly from the EDM universe, let me know!

One thing I love for workouts are these.

I see many people with their phones resting on the tray of the treadmill with a somewhat awkward headphone cord running out of the jack.  The Plantronics BackBeat FIT is a great solution for this inconvenience.  It connects to your phone via Bluetooth.  No more dealing with cords while working out!  I loved these when my sister and brother-in-law got them for me for my most recent birthday and I love them even more now.

Day 7:

I was finally feeling comfortable enough in this space to attempt my first core class!  My wife Lauren had been encouraging me to try spin.  Before getting pregnant she was doing at least one spin class per week and said it would kick my butt.  Actually, she said the bike seat would hurt my butt.  I had been warned!

Melissa was the SpinFit instructor in a drop-in class that included two spin newbies other than myself.  I thought she did a great job tailoring the class to something that wasn’t too difficult for the new folk while providing a good challenge for the grizzled spin veterans.  She also didn’t force us into a particular gear, letting us set our own ‘home gear’ and deciding what our maximum tension was when we were pushing through more strenuous sections.  At the end I felt I probably could have pushed myself a little harder but the burning in my legs and sweat on my brow was an indication that I’d had a solid workout.  That wasn’t so bad after all!

I spoke with Melissa after the class to find out how she puts together a good workout.

Day 8:

“So, you said you’ve never been climbing before?” said one of the other drop-in class participants as we stood at the bottom of a 5.10b route at the Elevation Place Climbing Gym.

“Not really.  I thought this was an ‘Introduction to Climbing Movement’ class.”

“Well, not anymore!”

My experience in this class, and this brief exchange, was a summary of why I think many newbies feel intimidated getting into fitness in Canmore.  Many times something advertised as an introductory or beginner class becomes something more advanced due to the experience level of the other participants.  My wife had a similar experience at an introductory yoga class a few years ago.  In this case I was in a drop-in class with five other men who were obviously not new to climbing.  I have no real qualms about this.  It’s a drop-in class for anyone with a membership and if one wants something more personal and tailored to their experience level the gym offers private one-on-one instruction as well.  But it sure didn’t help my confidence level to be sent up a route like this on my first go and I was feeling extremely uncomfortable.  I clearly had no idea what I was doing.  In a situation like this the challenge for any drop-in class instructor is to make sure everyone gets something out of it and I think Tahashi did as good a job as possible on this front.  He sent me over to another section of the wall and had me working on the little things like silent steps, ‘glue hands’, and ‘glue feet’, and just generally getting comfortable on the wall.  This is good for me because I have three things working against me when it comes to climbing:

1. I have scoliosis, a moderate spinal curvature that makes doing anything that requires upper body mobility challenging.
2. I also have bunions which makes using climbing shoes without my custom orthotics painful.
3. I have a lingering fear of heights which has improved since childhood but still rears its head a bit when I’m high up supported by nothing but a rope and my own strength.

Tahashi would run back and forth between me and the rest of the group to check in and offer a few additional pointers.  Behind me on another section of the wall I was being schooled by a 4-year-old girl.  How very Canmore.  But my frustration and intimidation soon gave way to a sort of zen-like rhythm.  Hand, hand, foot, foot, hand, foot.  Watch where you’re grabbing and stepping.  Shift body weight using hips.  “I did it, mommy!  Do I get a sticker?” yelled the little girl behind me.  Yes, me too!  I want a sticker too!  But I settled for a job well done and for stepping outside my comfort zone.

Day 9:

Treadmill time!  I’ve managed to ramp myself up to a point where my lower ‘speed walking’ rest and cool-down pace is close to the running speed I started at on Day 2.  3.3k in 30 minutes.  Sweet!

Day 10:

My mother-in-law came over to help us get our house in shape.  We have a new baby coming in the next few weeks (which will make completing this challenge extra…umm…challenging) and one of our goals was to get rid of an old couch in our living room and replace it with a nice one collecting dust in our basement.  So I spent part of the afternoon moving this beast up a flight of stairs.

Man, was I ever sore!  Working out after that was not on the top of my list of “Things I’m excited about today”.  But I promised my 5-year-old son Ben we’d go to the Elevation Place pool after dinner and did still want to parlay that time into the 30/30 challenge somehow.  Was there a way to combine fun time with the kid and a decent workout?  Ben was game to help me out.  Thus, ‘Lazy River Motorboat’ was born!

Pretty simple really.  Ben and I each grabbed an end of a paddleboard and I’d swim us around the lazy river, using my other arm and legs to propel us.  He offered a lot of “Faster Daddy!  Faster!” encouragement from behind but not a lot of actual kicking assistance which worked out fine as it made me work harder.  It definitely got my heart rate up!  Ben continued to push me throughout the evening.

“Okay buddy.  I think I can do one more lap and then I’m done for now.”

“Two!  Two more laps Daddy!”

Ben would make an excellent personal trainer someday.

It can be a challenge to balance a good workout and have fun with your kids at the same time.  Sometimes you need to get a little creative.

One third of the way done!  It’s been fun pushing myself to do this.  Stay tuned for Week 3 next Monday!