Long Weekend Travel

If there’s one thing we want to instill in our kids, it’s that travel is something to be excited about and not something to be feared.

There are a ton of neat places in this world and getting to visit them is one of the privileges that we have as fairly well-to-do Canadians.

Lindsey just got back from Vancouver today after spending a week there on a YMCA cultural exchange. They visited and hung out with a group of kids from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in North Vancouver. In a month, the same group of kids will come here, to Toronto, to see our part of the country.

Mackenzie hopped on a plane today with my mom and they flew over to New York City for the weekend. They’ll visit the landmarks like Central Park, the Highline Trail, Times Square and the Brooklyn Bridge. I didn’t visit New York until I was in my 30’s so for Mac to get to go there at age 16 is a real treat.

Montréal Skyline by Christine Wagner (CC 2.0)

We’re not immune to the travel bug either. With the kids getting to go away, Ginny and I started getting jealous. So we booked a last minute weekend in Montreal. We’ll take the train tomorrow (Friday) and stay a few days before returning on Monday.

We should probably tell Lindsey that she’s only getting one night in her own bed tonight before she’s hopping the train with us to Quebec. I think she’ll be okay with it.

Leafs game with a few locals and @ginnykoole and @mackenziekoole

Reconnecting Instagram

Heads up. I’ve reconnected my Instagram to the blog here via OwnYourGram and the IndieWeb plugins. Posts on Instagram will now also appear here (although not in real time).

I’ve recently re-opened up my Instagram and I’ll be using it more, despite my reservations about Facebook and the app in general. Case in point, immediately on making my profile public again, the bullshit spammy followers started showing up (as expected).

Heading north.

Palmetto Bluff Half Marathon

My second half marathon outside of Canada was a warm one…as expected. We drove down to Hilton Head over two days on Friday and Saturday with a stop in Charlotte. In hindsight, the half marathon in Charlotte on Saturday morning might have been a better idea.

Race morning featured sunny skies and 18ºC temperatures which for this Canadian runner was not ideal. I was hoping for something more like 12ºC at the start, but beggars can’t be choosers.

The little town was picturesque and the start line was the prettiest I’ve been a part of. The race started about 7 minutes late while they waited for a late shuttle to arrive. It was a mass-start with 10km, half marathon and full marathoners all hitting the line together.

The 10km runners peeled off around the first mile marker and it was just the half and full marathoners from there out along a fairly flat and straight road. I ran well for the first 5km with splits of 4:59/km for all five. Yeah…consistent.

After that I started to slow a bit as the shade disappeared and the heat started to build in. My heart rate was up a bit from what I would expect at that pace which I assumed was from the warm weather.

The back side of the course was free from shade and it was pretty hot. I was struggling to hold any sort of pace without spiking my heart rate up to 170bpm. I started doing run/walk after the one hour mark and used the water stations to cool off with cups over the head and in my hat.

Around 17km things got better with a bit of a sea breeze and some shade. I picked up the running (over walking) and set about to run it in as best I could. In the end, it was a 1:57:10 which was good for 101st overall and 14th in my category. Not my best, but given the weather I was happy.