It has been a while since I have last written. June went by like a blur and it looks like July could be the same. Here is a short update of some of the things going on in my world.
In early June I traveled to Calgary to give three speeches and do a triathlon. The first speech was for the Learning Disabilities Association of Alberta – Calgary Chapter and the other two were for the Vitalize Conference.
The LDAA talk was held at Foothills Academy, the co-sponsor of the talk. This is an outstanding school for students with learning disabilities. I had a very warm and receptive audience who included my girl friend’s parents seeing me speak for the first time.
The Vitalize conference took place at the Calgary convention center and had over 1000 participants. This conference is held by the Wild Rose Foundation to bring together people around Alberta who work in the non profit / volunteer sector. It was an excellent experience speaking at that conference. The highlight was when one of the audience members’ stood up to share his/her “Big Harry Audacious” goals for this year. This turned out to be a moving experience for the audience members as many had never shared their goals with anyone let alone stand in front of an audience and shout it to the world.
On the Sunday (date should be mentioned, otherwise say “On one Sunday”) of my short visit to Alberta I took part in an Olympic distance (1.5 km S, 40 km B, 10 km R) triathlon, my race of the year. Before the race I was very concerned about the water temperature as it was snowing on me in Calgary the day before the race.
The man made pond was cold but bearable at 13 c. The swim went well but as I started the bike section my race and life flashed before my eyes as I slammed into a parked car. I was trying to get my foot into my bike shoe which was already clipped into my peddles when I put my head down and veered to my right. Fortunately I lifted my head a split second before I hit the back corner of an SUV that was parked along the side of the road. If I had not lifted my head I may have lost all my teeth. In the split second I managed to turn my shoulder into the car to take the hit. I bounced off the car and fell to the pavement and immediately thought what a *%$$#%(*& idiot I am for doing that. At first I thought my color bone may have been broken but it turned out to just be a bad bruise that was really going to hurt tomorrow. At this point it was too cold and I had too much adrenalin to feel much pain. Fortunately after straightening my break hood my bike was good to go and I continued on with the race. The rest of the bike and run went very well and I ended up coming 5th overall out of 90 or so competitors and had a respectable time despite the crash.
Much of my time in the rest of June was spent planning the 1st annual Paradise Triathlon. I was the committee chair and by default ended up being the race director (and few other roles) as well. Being the first year of the race our small but hardworking committee tried not to reinvent the wheel to often and really leaned on committee members form other races for advice. The week before the race saw my stress level reach new heights as I was being pulled in 10 directions and seemed to have a million little details to remember. I desperately wanted to run a quality race and have every thing run smooth.
Fortunately all of our ducks lined up in a row and the race ended up being a tremendous success with 85 athletes finishing the race. Those were some highlights of June.
July has stared off with a massive amount of training; this will be the most important month from my Ironman training. In the first week of July I rode over 450 km! Every day will see training in at least two sports over 2 – 6 hours.
I will really try to write more often throughout July. I have a presentation coming up for the Skills Link Groups in St. John’s on July 18. Other things keeping me busy are the growing number of new clients we have at LiveMore Virtual Assistants and of course Ironman Triathlon training. I only have 53 days until the one of the biggest and most significant events of my life, Ironman Canada!
LiveMore!
Shawn
