Finding balance in the busy-ness

Trying to balance running and cycling... and family, and work, and M.Ed, and .........

September has nearly come to a close. It started with a Meet Your Maker experience, that was very, very enjoyable and disappointing all in one, and ends with a decision to can the cyclocross season altogether. Along the way included 45 hours of physical activity, nearly 370kms of running on the month, the start of the SFU HEAL Masters in Education, along with September start up at school.

Finding Balance--the test of ones life:

Needless to say, it has been a busy month. Trying to find balance between late night studies, early morning runs, weekend long runs, classes for me at SFU Surrey and my own delivery of classes, and impromptu appointments like one the other evening ("Oh, by the way--it is meet the teacher night at the kids school. See you there!) have me reeling with energy and fatigue, trying to process the fast paced mad action that a jammed full schedule dictates. Our time is not our own--it is for those that expect of us. Kids, students, classmates, spouses, family, we give ourselves over to those who we are responsible to.

Resuscitating my run: Fall marathon training

From  Sept 13th:

After the Knee Knacker, I was cooked. Running had lost it's appeal. I had no desire to lace them up and go out for any amount of time or distance. With the MYM50 fast approaching over the summer, I realized that for my own health and well being, although I could attempt it, it was going to be a really bad idea to complete a 50 mile mountain run and feel like running in the following weeks.

Flash forward to Sept 13th. With the Victoria Marathon in mind, and the success of the MYM50 DNF, I have managed to amass a solid block of training in the past 2 weeks. A couple of 32k runs, some tempo, a Yasso 800 session, and morning runs of between 11k and 18k, and I am getting my stuff together for what may prove to be a great marathon. With the impending cyclocross season upon us (something that I am taking a break from this year), running and staying healthy is the main focus of my training.

SFU and HEAL M.Ed.

HEAL SFU Graduate Studies

As of September 2013, I have started to complete at Masters of Education at Simon Fraser University. This means some of my running and biking exploits will have to be put on hold while I attempt to do some higher learning.

This page will follow my journey through the SFU M.Ed HEAL program, related to assignments and allow to connect with other HEAL M.Ed candidates. I will continue to write both blogs, only Watershed Athlete Heal will be a blog that discusses issues related to health and activity with an academic spin. This will give the audience of Watershed Athlete a glimpse into my academic life and focus.

Check out my academic work at Watershedheal.blogspot.com

Meet Your Maker 50mi 2013: My first DNF.

There is nothing sad about not finishing a race. Nor shameful. In fact, when knowing that one is underprepared to race, the DNF can be a godsend.

The 2013 Meet Your Maker 50 mile ultramarathon went off this year with twice as many competitors, over 300, topping the inaugural year's count of just over 140. I was one of the solo competitors who signed up almost a year ago with dreams of finishing the ultra for a second time. After this year's Knee Knacker and the feelings that I had in my body in the following weeks, we set out a plan to deal with the MYM50 ultra, undertrained.