Paul Simon

Well, I can scratch another thing off my list of things I want to do before I die. Seeing Paul Simon in concert was one of them. By the way, there are things on this list that don't involve risk of death, etc. Last night the only risk was driving in Vancouver which can be risky I guess. Anyways, the concert was fantastic!!! I have loved his music for years so it was great to go and hear it live and honour all the work he has done. I love the subtleties in his music and the funky rhythms. After taking guitar lessons a couple of years ago, I wanted to play some of his music. I, then, realized what difficult combinations and unique chords he uses for his music - at least it looked that way to me. Wow, no wonder his music sounds so different. I appreciated him even more learning that.

He played some of the oldies as well as some new ones from his current release, Surprise. I think he may be bored singing some of the oldies as a few of them were remixed and you had to listen closely to the words to tell that they were older songs. He did refuse to sing 'The Sound of Silence', but still had enough of the other songs to make everyone happy. Three encores later, we just wanted more from him. Oh well, I had great time and will be probably serenading my clients today with his music.

Dan Millman

Over the weekend I went and heard Dan Millman speak (thanks Marcia). He's written 'The Way of the Peaceful Warrior' amongst other books. This first book is currently a feature film out in theaters. I saw the movie last month and enjoyed it. He was a champion gymnast - and still a very fit 60 year old guy who did a handstand on stage!!! I like the fact that he can relate meditation/etc to being an Uber athlete. In another of his books, Body,Mind Mastery, he discusses how you can get to reach high goals, but staying centered and not pushing too hard. I am going to try to use this for my Ironman training. Yes, this might be hard for me, but being afraid of being a super-taz has also kept me from having a big goal lately. So it's great for me to have this resource. I also like that he relates Eastern based principles into daily, real life and makes things very practical and doable. So I highly encourage anyone who's interested to check out the movie, Peaceful Warrior.

Another Ankle Sprain

So I'm just getting recovered from my last sprain and back running about an hour and a half when I sprained my other ankle a couple of days ago. Right before I was going to do another race. It seems like this happens just before a race. I might get nervous about this before Ironman now. Anyways, it's not as bad as the last one, but still a good sprain. Will be off running for a while again. What can you do?? Guess I need to sit more still for some reason, but why start now?

Nootka Trail

So after I got back from signing up for Ironman, I headed over to Vancouver Island to hike the Nootka Trail. It's deemed like a more rugged and lesser known 'West Coast Trail', but it has become more well known so I figured there'd be enough people on it to be safe enough to do it solo. Given that I was solo, I got to do it in the reverse direction to everyone else as they fly into the start, but the take off area is so short that they can only take one passenger - so that was me! This gave me more time to hike as I didn't want to charter a plane by myself. So you get there by driving to Campbell River and, then, head straight west to Gold River. I, then, took an old steamer boat, the Uchuck on a beautiful 2 1/2 hour ride to the the village of Yuquot on Nootka Island.



I hiked for about an hour and then got caught at a tidal lagoon where I couldn't cross at high tide. It was a beautiful beach so I just stayed there for the night and just relaxed. The next day, the tide was low around 11am so there wasn't a rush to get going. I saw where there were flags on the other side of the water, so I walked through the water with my Tevas, put on my boots, bushwacked for a bit and realized that this was only marking a survey stake. So I had to put my Tevas back on, cross the water twice and finally found the trail. It took me 50 minutes to get this far.



Great start!! The trail was quite rugged. I'm really lucky I had my hiking poles and the weather was dry or it could have been dangerous. It was enough that I packed like a girl so my pack was heavy and I was alone. I was being as careful as I could since I realized the injury potential. I saw this sign for caves, so I went to check them out.



I came back to my pack and realized that my water bottle had got clipped off the back of my back by one of the many branches!!! I needed more than half a liter for the trip so I left my pack and went back to get my bottle. There and back took another hour. So, I'm now up to 2 hours longer than needed!! Oh well, I wasn't in a rush, but not really what I needed to do! I only saw people at the end of that day, which make me realize really how vulnerable I was since if anything had happenend, they wouldn't have found me until the next day. Anyways, I set up camp on a secluded beach and just hunkered down. The next day was a lazy start to the day again. Later in the morning at low tide, there were a lot of sea otters in the kelp. It was fantastic and you don't get to see them in the wild very often!! I figured it was time to get going and I got to the next main beach after going up and down a couple of these ropes!!!



I stopped for a break and realized that a sandal had come off the back of my pack!!! Nothing has EVER come off my pack before with all the backpacking I had done. So that killed another 1 1/2 hours!!! It was getting after 5 and I had wanted to get to Calvin Falls that was supposed to be beautiful and have an off day there. I figured I could always camp before that if needed. So I start off and about halfway there, I see these bear prints in the sand with fresh bear poo close by!!!!



I was singing away just to make noise so that they would leave me alone!! Talk about a little freaked out. I got halfway to the falls and I could see how far I needed to go so I just went for it since I figured that at least there had to be people there. I hoofed it as fast as I could since it was starting to get dusk. I finally rolled into the camp 10 minutes after dark - luckily the moon was bright. There were a couple of parties there so I was relieved and, also, I didn't have to hike the next day!!!

It was great at Calvin Falls!!! The fresh water went into a big swimming pool that you could even dive into! It was a warm day so I made my own shade.



Another party was spending the day there with me. A group of 4 women in their 50s - very inspiring!- and I knew one of them!! The places you meet people. I used to work with Jan at a clinic a few years back so it was fun to catch up!! There was this cool shelter by the food ropes and we made a momento from us gals - Ms. Calvina (after the falls)- with Jan on the right.



The next day I headed off and went over some great headland rocks with the waves just crashing into them. Saw more sea otters and finally made my destination of Third Beach!! It was beautiful again. A couple of hammocks and a rope swing. The scary part again, was that I didn't see anyone all day!! And I couldn't share this beach with anyone. It was still good to relax, regroup and be with myself. Here's me lying the hammock really not wanting to get up and back to reality!

Ironman Canada

Well, a lot of time has past since I did my first Ironman distance Triathlon. I swore that I would never do it again after I finished, but I've learned never to say "never". The urge to do another one has been there for 10 years - which is actually how long it's been since I did a triathlon!!! Time flies. So I went up to watch this year's event in Penticton and found myself in line to register the next day. So I have done it folks!!! I'm officially in the race. I have to get a new bike to replace my 15 year old baby and just get my butt back out there. I will do some different sports just to keep it fresh and fun for training. Call me crazy, which you have done, but it'll be good to get this out of my system after all this time!!!!

New Water Sports

So I had tried 2 new water sports earlier this summer - sailing and kayak surfing. I have since tried 2 more new ones. One of my clients took me out on in Outrigger Canoe. This is a Hawaiian style canoe with a pontoon-like thing off one side for stability in the ocean. My first time out was windy and wavy so we were catching some surf on the waves. It was fun, but a lot to know about reading the ocean water. A little different than white-water river water. Anyways, she's trying to recruit me for racing. It might be a good change of pace to do a new sport with lots of fun gals. We'll see.

Then, I went paddling a couple of weeks ago with Marcia up at Bunson Lake in Port Moody. She had a surf ski while I paddled a single kayak. I tried her surf ski after and realized just how tippy those things are. Mind you, it was too long for me so hard to brace with my feet, but I sure appreciate how much work it is to paddle those things with any power!!!