Snowboarding

For me, winter season has only been about the cold weather and wearing layers of clothing to keep myself warm. This season though, I think I’ve gotten more out of it, and enjoying it more because I was able to do a lot more winter activities this time around. A few weeks back, I got to try cross country skiing. And last Saturday, I was finally able to try snowboarding. Winter activities though can be expensive. Aside from the gears that you will rent (if you don’t have your own), you also need to buy lift tickets. But at the end of it all, it’s all about the experience – did you enjoy? Did you have a wonderful time?

They said that snow came in a little late this season so even though it was already March, there was still some new snow up in Cyress that day. New snow is nice because it keeps the slopes powdery soft and makes it look even more beautiful and pristine. Below is one shot of Cypress Mountain from base. This was one of the locations during the Vancouver Winter Olympics last 2010. They still have the Olympic logo up.

As this was my first time snowboarding, I was mentally and physically prepared to fall down a lot. I did fall a couple of times, with the last big fall resulting into a huge bruise of different color near my butt. I still blame the girl who sort of slightly collided with me as we alighted from the ski chair lift. When you’re in the lift, you only wear one of the boots in the snowboard and your other boot is not strapped into the board. So when we alighted from the ski lift, we both fell down and I ended up falling sitting down into the other empty boot strap in my snowboard, causing me this huuuuuge colorful bruise by my butt/hamstring area. Ouch. After a week, it’s still there – thankfully, not as painful anymore.

My free lessons were provided by my friend – my “teacher” for the day! Two other friends were supposed to come with us but one of them ended up being sick so they had to back out. Too bad because our designated teacher was pretty good and patient. That or I was a good student – learned quickly. Depends I suppose who you ask.

We first started with the basics, and then moved on to the bunny hills. This is an excellent way to start learning snowboard – gliding down on a not so steep slope, taking your time. I think we were there for 1-2 hours just going down the bunny hill, then walking up again, and then back. It gives you a little bit more confidence especially since the next you want to try is the higher slope – this is the time you’d need to ride the ski lift already. My officemate gave me this simple advise, that I followed, and worked like a charm. When you’re turning, exaggerate – do not hesitate and just pull your other leg around in an exaggerated manner. It is quite hard to explain here, but if in the event I have friends who are new to snowboarding, I will give them this tip for sure.

I think majority of the hard work happens in the core and lower body. Seems like it’s mostly in the legs for balancing and breaking, and then the core to assist you for movement and picking yourself when you fall down. Snowboarding take a lot of strength, that’s for sure. And during snowboarding downhill, having a lot of hesitations will make you fall down more. Be cautious, but not too much too. It’s like riding a bike - when you’re too slow and hesitate a lot, it’s much harder to balance the bike. 

As much as it was so much fun to snowboard, the after effects the next day were terrible. Two huge bruises in my butt and hamstring, and my legs were very sore. The shins in my legs hurt because of the boot. Over fatigue. Then again, we were snowboarding for almost 5-6 hours. Did I enjoy? Yes, definitely. I was hoping to try it again, however, winter season is almost over so I might have to wait for the next season before I can enjoy this activity again. It’s tiring, but fun and exciting at the same time. It’s more exhilarating than cross country skiing for sure, especially with the speed that comes with it. Until next season then!

Winter Season!

This winter season is by far the most memorable I’ve had. A lot of firsts.

Snowmobile

Last January 18 – two days after I came back to Vancouver from Manila, my friends and I had a planned snowmobile tour activity up in Whistler. There was a discount package from Groupon that gave us around 50% discount for the tour package. Couldn’t get any better than that. So we bought and booked it last November.

How it’s setup is that each tour group will have one tour guide, and depending on how many you are in the group, you may have to share a snowmobile with another person. The tour guide will bring you to different routes, trails and sights. If I remember correctly, the whole tour took around 1.5 or 2 hours. You can also swap with your partner as to who gets to drive the snowmobile.

I only tried to drive the snowmobile once for maybe 15 minutes. The rest of the trip, I decided that I wanted to the passenger instead of the driver. For me, getting to drive it once was good enough, and I preferred to sit at the back as I get to enjoy the sights more!

This is an activity I would probably just do every now and then. For one, it’s expensive, and two, I still prefer driving a car over snowmobiles. haha

Cross Country Skiing

The original plan last Saturday was to do a snow shoe tour up in Cypress Mountain. But that same morning, my friend suggested that we try cross country skiing instead (Both of us haven’t tried it yet too). Unfortunately, I never got to snap any photos at all during my 4 hour cross country skiing endeavor, and thus I only have here a picture to remind me of my first ever cross country skiing experience – my new goggles.

Usually in cross country skiing, you won’t need to wear goggles. Goggles are primarily used for downhill skiing and snowboarding. However, we ended up buying one because there was such a heavy snowfall that day that we needed something just to cover up our eyes.

I never knew this before, but cross country skiing is a bit different from downhill skiing. One of the main difference between the two is that the boots used in cross country skiing has its back detached from the ski itself, as opposed to downhill, where both front and back of the boot is attached to the ski. Aside from that, the size of the ski for cross country is a little bit narrower as compared to downhill skiing.

Cross country skiing is simple, it’s like walking on skis. However, the challenge for me is during the low downhill slopes where you need to break or change directions. So hard and stressful! The way to break your speed is to move your skis on an angled placement - think of it as an inverted V, and then pushing outward. It looks so easy when you see other people do it, but when you yourself have to do it, nerve-wracking! I think I fell face down a couple of times!

And you know that you’ve been working so hard because when I went home, my inner long sleeved shirt was wet by the armpits and the elbow part. To think it was snowing like crazy up in the mountain – I’m pretty sure that wasn’t because it was hot! I was quite sore the following day too. But all in all, this is a fun activity/workout that I would definitely do again, maybe every weekend (if I were rich!).

Snowboard

Maybe this weekend? I do have new snow pants that I just bought this week. Haha

The Chief

No, this is not about Sir Chief (which by the way, thanks to my recently installed TFC, I can now watch Be Careful With My Heart again).

I’m talking about Stawamus Chief.

After two years, I got to climb Stawamus Chief again! I thought it was three years ago, but I guess not – it was two years ago based on this blog post.

The hike this time around was much easier from what I remembered before. I think it’s because the mountain was dry, making everything a little easier, especially climbing up. Aside from that, I also remembered that the when we got up to second and third peaks, there wasn’t much of a view to see because it was very foggy. But this time around, I finally got to see the view, and what can I say, it was amazing.

This was the view from the top of the second peak. We skipped the first peak and went straight to the second peak. Took around 1.5 hours, I think.

By peak 2.5, (half way to third peak), this was the fantastic view of Squamish:

Here are my friends enjoying a short break:

I find that hiking down the mountain is as hard as hiking up. Going down puts a lot more stress in your ankles and your knees. I woke up this morning with my legs hurting like crazy.

3 of us, out of 5 got stung by bees though. We accidentally plowed through a path full of bees. Their sting was quite painful. I got it by my right calf and it was swollen a bit for some time, but eventually subsided. I put some meds after as it was aching a bit last night, and I woke up this morning feeling nothing on the sting bite. But then again, my whole legs are still aching.

After wards, just like our previous chief hike, we went for a nice meal after at Whitespot. I had two full glasses of milkshake (butterscotch and blueberry). So much for all that calories I burned during the hike! I may actually even have gained.

Until next time the chief! Hope to see you again.

Kona

A year or so ago, I bought myself a new bike back in Manila. Check this post. It was a good bike, but not great. And unfortunately, Malabon area wasn't suited for cyclists so I ended up not using it as much (but that's just one of my excuses). Now it's currently gathering dust in our garage. Hmm, maybe I should just sell that.

Anyway, over the past few months, I've mentioned that I’ve been using my aunt’s old mountain bike to ride around the area. I’ve been enjoying biking here because Vancouver is a cyclist’s city. It’s very bike friendly. There are bike lanes and paths everywhere. Especially during the summertime, there are a whole lot more cyclists you’d see around the city. I’m still not a cyclist commuter, but who knows, maybe next time I’d be like my teammate, who goes to the office using her bike.

As much as I love riding around that bike, there are two major problems with that bike. First is that the lower gears are very noisy. Since it wasn’t used for a long time, it just probably needs more tuning, or maybe even parts replacement, who knows. I had it checked out previously, but he said that it might have to be replaced. The challenge with being unable to switch to lower gears is when you’re riding uphill. Bike just gets too heavy that I have to just walk the uphill area.

And this brings me to the next concern that I have – the bike is a bit too heavy for me. It’s actually built as a mountain bike. I wanted something of a hybrid between commuter and road bikes.

And besides, it’s really not mine, it’s rusty….

And… ok, I’m giving myself a lot of reasons why I need to get myself a new one.

And thus, last Saturday, I finally got it. My new toy!!!!

It’s a Kona Dew 2013 model. It’s the basic model of the Kona line of bikes and it’s a hybrid between commuter and road bike.

My cyclist friend recommended a nice bike shop by Burnaby and so I decided to drop by there last Saturday. My friend actually recommended this brand as well, and when I asked the shop keeper what he would recommend, he actually recommended this Kona Dew for me. It’s a pretty good bike model for someone who’s simply looking for a good ride to get around the city.

He allowed me to test the bike outside the bike shop (there’s a bike pathway just by the back). After riding it for just 5 minutes, I loved it so much that I went back and bought it at once! 

It is however on the pricey side…but nothing to worry about because I’m loving it so far!

I had to wait for Sunday night to finally ride it out in the city.

My first ride on my Kona was going to Granville Island, which was roughly around 16.6 km according to Runkeeper. I rode it at night, while the sun’s just about to set. And such a wonderful experience because not only did I get to see the sun set by False Creek, but also discovered that there are public pianos situated at different locations along the seaside path, and anyone can freely play on it. I got to watch this awesome lady playing and you can actually see a crowd forming already.

My second bike ride yesterday, I took a different route – towards the Langara golf course. Nice route too. I still hate uphills though (who doesn’t?).

This weekend, I’m planning to go ride further out to Stanley Park this time. A lot of cycling routes available so it should be a good and safe ride too.

Now, the next project I have to sell off my aunt’s old bike, that is if it still has some value. Who knows, maybe we can still get some money out of it.

Running

Summer’s here and my friend Ally has convinced me, for two consecutive weeks, to go running out about in Vancouver.

Last weekend, we went running around Stanley Park. I was there way too early and while waiting for her, ended up talking to a Romanian veteran. He had so much to tell me that he can actually write a book about it and I think it’ll sell. But I’ll save that for another post.

Anyway, I haven’t been to Stanley Park for two++ years and I haven’t ran that long for a while, so I was feeling uneasy about running an 8-10km run path. But anyhow, I prevailed, and here’s the result:

 

I didn’t like my run during this time because I was wearing my jacket, which was heavy, and during the middle of the run, the sun showed up all of a sudden. Needless to say, it was very very warm the second half of the run. Plus the fact that I didn’t put any sunblock, so there you go, I was dark right after the run.

On the other hand though, who would not enjoy running when this is the view that you see:

It was a rather tiring yet fulfilling run. I was dead tired the last 2 km, but right after I got to the finish line, and started walking instead of running, I felt better once again. Of course it helped that I gobbled up a nice breakfast of two scrambled eggs plus two toasts after! Think about it, by 9 AM, I’ve done my morning exercise and breakfast. I’m guessing on a Saturday morning, majority of Vancouver are still in bed!

It seems like I want to torture myself because this Saturday morning, once again, Ally invited me to run and I said yes once again. But this time, instead of Stanley Park, we ran via False Creek area. I think the running path of Stanley Park is much better because the path is paved. As for the False Creek path, there are some that are stone and gravel paths. Still pretty nice.

Ok, here are my results:

Compared to the previous run, it looks like I’ve improved my pace quite a bit. Not much though. I still can’t run the 10k under 1 hour. That’s my target for this year.

As usual, the view is magnificent. But the best part? Eating at Terra Breads Cafe right after. I don’t think I was just swayed by the fact that I was tired and hungry after the long run, but really, I had one of the best sandwich paninis and hot chocolate by a long mile compared to other stores. I would definitely go back here. Maybe next week again?

 

For some reason, I still ask myself why I want to run. I run during the weekdays (1-3 times) and then now on the weekends as well!

And so I’ve thought and thought about it recently, and here are some of the answers I have:

1. Running is an exercise, and exercise is something I always crave for. I feel lousy when I haven’t gone exercising for a long time.

2. Running allows me to see different places from a different view.

3. I am inspired to run more whenever I see a senior citizen still running, or a family who is running with the dad or mom pushing the baby cart (with their kid in it). When I get to have a family of my own, I’d like to bring my kids with my on my runs and exploration (even if they don’t do the running and I do the pushing).

4. Running makes me feel free. It makes me forget a lot of problems, sadness, and it makes me feel happier!

5. Whenever I get to improve my time, or maybe finish a 5 or 10 km, I feel really accomplished. And the fact that you, on your own, worked hard for it. It feels great.

6. And best of all, you look forward to reward after the run!

Maybe I’ll find more reasons next time. But for now, I still enjoy torturing myself. :)

* By the way, I am using Runkeeper app and it is fabulous. I love love the data it’s able to save, and most importantly for me, is the map and the pace (splits).

Establishing a Morning Routine

One of the good things about being back to working from 9-5 is that I have the whole morning to be able to do what I’ve wanted to start doing even when I was back in Manila – create a nice morning routine.

They say that habits are hard to break, but it’s the same the other way around, habits are hard to establish too. And since I’ve been here, I have attempted to start an exercise habit for myself.

Beginning last week, I started running for around 20-30 minutes in the morning. Every Monday, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, I wake up at around 5:45 AM, and then go out the streets to run around. The weather’s been pretty supportive so I’ve had no problem dragging myself out of bed and enjoying the run outside. I still wear three layers (including jacket), unlike other runners I see, who wears one layer of shirt only. After a few minutes of running anyway, your body heats up and you won’t feel the cold anymore.

Afterwards, I walk around a bit more to cool down, and then go back home to get ready for work.

I try to change up what I do on Saturday. Since this is a non work day, I decided to explore something new.

Last Saturday, to make things a little different, I went for a 1.5 hour walk around Queen Elizabeth Park instead of running. It was quite the walk too. Based on my pedometer, I had 9000+ steps done! And the walk wasn’t that bad either. The weather was cool, and the scenery was very pretty.

 

This is as much of the sun that I saw that morning 

Next week, apparently the Grouse Grind is now open so I might just do that (if I don’t get lazy as I need to take the bus to get there). I’d prefer to doing it on my own first (no pressure from other friends who are way faster than me!). I haven’t done this for two years so hopefully, I can still do good. Or maybe I might go for a bike ride, who knows.

Tomorrow is the start of another week and I' hope I can continue this routine. I read somewhere that if I can do this for 4-6 weeks, then that I’ve probably succeeded in making it a habit and I might just find it hard to break this “good habit” by then. That’s one of my mini goals anyway. Once I’ve established this, then that’s when I’ll incorporate an additional activity and then establish a new habit once again. I’ll take it one step at a time.

Essentially, the overall goal is to be able to keep healthy when I am here.

walking and reading

walking

This is where I walk by every day going to work.

 

Via this route, I can take the bus, but since it’s only a kilometer, I usually walk, and then take another bus to work. That’s what I enjoy here, you can walk anywhere and feel quite safe and peaceful.

Of course, only if the weather is good. If the weather is freezing cold, I don’t think I’d feel happy walking around!

And since I take the bus now, I also get to read more now!

reading

And thanks to Rhys – I finally have it:

I’ve been delaying buying one for the longest time, and I finally have it! Paperwhite!  And it is the best. You can now read at night! That was one of the main problems of the kindle before, you need a night lamp to assist you with reading in the dark.

I already gave up my samsung tablet to my parents and sister in Manila and so far, kindle and my smartphone has totally replaced the tablet (which means, I am not missing it).

What I found amusing with Amazon is how easy it is to purchase books, and to load books into your kindle. You can do your shopping either via the amazon website, or via kindle’s store itself. For my first book, I bought “Silver Linigs Playbook”. I’ll talk more about this on another post.

Another thing that made me love kindle even more is how easy it is to load files into it. It can be as simple as sending a file via your "kindle” email, which loads it into your online repository (via its cloud) and then automatically syncs to your kindle! Managing your books online is good too.

My bus rides and bus waits have been made more interesting by my kindle. I’m currently reading “The Girls With The Dragon Tattoo”. Funny thing is, I’ve read the second and third book already! Haha

run and walk

I dragged myself out of bed around 11 AM to go for a jog outside.

I got a new nike armband so I wanted to test it out as well. It’s quite small, but can easily fit my keys, my bus pass, and some money. Unfortunately, my galaxy cellphone won’t fit. Too bad, I wanted to take pictures of where I end up running. Maybe next time when I just take a walk.

Since it was quite cold outside, I wore three layers of clothing, my shirt, a long sleeves shirt, plus my jacket (when I was on my way home, I saw another running, wearing only shorts and a shirt! LOL). After running a kilometer on an uphill slope, I was dead tired, breathing heavily and my lungs had some trouble adjusting with the cold weather for some reason. I was planning to head off to a farther shopper’s drug mart to purchase my bus pass, but I ended up retreating and instead went to a nearby shopper’s drug mart instead.

And while walking around for a bit, I just realized how different the place is from 2 years ago (that last time I came here). Along this main street, I see a lot of new shops, cafes, and even a new yoga place. I saw this one European cafe that sells fresh European breads. I don’t know what are European breads but I will try it out a little later. It’s just around a 5 minute walk away.

Walking or running out and about is a good way to explore the city. Although I’ve only started exploring this part of the city, maybe as the weeks come by, and with the weather getting warmer, I might be able to explore and discover nice little places and shops further out of the area I’m living at. Hopefully next week, I’d find some time to walk around downtown, or maybe go running again near False Creek area too.

I wish I could’ve done something like this in Manila. I just think our city back home is not pedestrian friendly. Maybe the weather limits us too, or the places are too crowded. Or maybe I’m just lazy when I’m back home. But I’d like to envision something like this in the Philippines, where we have parks in every area, or maybe where it’s a quiet place and people can freely walk around to relax (not only in villages and subdivisions, but all around the city). I think slowly we’re getting to this mindset too. I remember walking around in MOA area by the bay, that’s a pretty good place to walk around. And Ayala Triangle’s a nice start – where there’s a park in the middle of a bustling city. Nuvali’s supposed to be developed with eco in mind. One can only hope for the best.

And hopefully next time, I can run a bit longer than just 1.5 km. Haha

Exercise

I’ve stopped going to the gym for around 2 months already. It’s hard to bring that habit back, and so here I am, starting December, I will be back to my old ways. Going to the gym, and exercising. I’ve attempted to replace my lack of exercise with badminton games every MWF, unfortunately, for the past two weeks, it hasn’t been a regular activity. If my parents don’t play, I don’t go.

I realized that an exercise regimen should be self surviving. I don’t have to be dependent on someone else for my exercise needs. In the case of badminton games, I’ll just consider them fun activities I do with my parents and sister, instead of my actual exercise regimen. As for going to the gym, or even going back to running, that will be solely up to me. No more lazy days watching tv series and being a couch potato.

And I write this post to remind myself that I will go back to the gym and make it a habit once again.

Hike at Mt. Batulao

I have never hiked in the Philippines so when a friend invited me on a hiking trip, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. Unfortunately, due to my impulsive nature of saying “yes”, I didn’t even think of how long the hike will be and how the trail will look like.

I only had a look at it a day or two before the actual hike and I was surprised that the hike would take around 4-6 hours and the trail was open! No trees whatsoever to block the sun! I wanted to back out but since I committed already to the trip, I went on with it.

So with a heavy heart, I woke up 4 am the next day, and we went on our way.

Mt. Batulao is located just near Caleruega. It’s just around 1.5 to 2 hours from Manila.

The hike was long and arduous. The heat was terrible. Good thing I brought sun block because I would’ve been cooked up there. But as it turns out, hard work usually pays off because at the end of the day, the view you get to see from the top is amazing.

Not sure if you can see it in the picture above, but there are actually people hiking here. They’re already on their way back at this point!

My companion was not as prepared as me, so we ended up taking a break (even before we reached the peak) for almost 40 minutes! Technically, the hike would’ve been just 3-4 hours, but we finished it in 5 or 6 hours. We reached the peak at around 11:30 AM, and we got back to the car around 3:00 PM already.

All in all, for a first time hike, it wasn’t that bad. I sure hope that the sun was cooperating with us, but then again, I wouldn’t mind doing the hike again but definitely minus the scorching heat of the sun. I would highly recommend this to first time hikers. It’s not as hard and the view up there is very pretty and is worth the hard work.

Until next time!

For more info, you may visit this website: PinoyMountaineer

5k Run

I think I did pretty good this time around. I felt good running, didn’t feel as tired. Seems like all the badminton training, circuit training is paying off!

Next 5k run in a month’s time. Will try to get it done below the 30 minute mark.

Garibaldi Lake

Today was spent hiking on Garibaldi Park in Squamish, British Columbia. This is about 30 minutes further north of Stawamus Chief, which we hiked a couple of weeks back. This hike took us approximately 7-8 hours, covering a distance of 25km. Elevation's hard to determine. Our ultimate goal to doing the hike is to get to the beautiful Garibaldi Lake, situated right smack in the middle of mountains, which is why, the only way to get there is to hike, or if you’re rich, perhaps, use a helicopter.

Here’s the picture of the trail map around the Garibaldi Provincial Park. This picture is from VanLiving.Net.

Our trek started from the Rubble Creek parking lot, going up to the junction (roughly around 6-7 km hike). From the junction, we decided to take the longer route so that we can pass by Taylor Meadows. Taylor Meadows is supposed to be a very pretty place at this point in time, but look what we encountered halfway up there:

(Left) from dry path to (Right) wet snow!

Hiking in snow is no fun at all. It’s slippery, it’s soft, and worst of all, it’s wet. Most of the effort was trying to be balanced. As my friend told me, the experience of hiking and walking through snow is like one who’s walking on a tight rope, trying to keep the balance, and the rope just keeps on wobbling. A couple of times I almost twisted my bad ankle.

And another thing I realized with hiking in the snow is the illusion that it is packed snow, but when you step on it, your whole leg submerges down! I think It happened to me a couple of times, which I hate more because if you don’t have any balance, you might just break your leg.

And what’s worst, I had my runners on! Which is not a good idea at all. If you hike, better use proper hiking shoes.

Continuing on with the hike, from Taylor Meadows, we somehow lost track of the markers and got lost for around 40 minutes, just wandering around the snow until we found the markers again. The good thing about my friend, he had his Garmin GPS so that we somehow had an idea where we were wandering to.

At this point, we’ve been hiking for roughly 3 hours already. And according to my pedometer, I’ve been walking 12000 steps already! Talk about being tired and then, worst – being lost! But somehow we managed to find the markers again (thank goodness!) and continue our way to Garibaldi Lake. By the way. I somehow managed to snap picture of the Black Tusk! Awesome isn’t it?

Even though we’ve been trekking for a while now, I still have energy left to continue the hike. But with a view of the lake (see below), I don’t think you’ll be tired at all! It’s well worth it after all.

 

Garibaldi Lake is amazing! It’s also extra special because there were still snow around, and we have to admit, even if snow is very hard to work with, it still looks beautiful with nature. And can you believe it, snow in the middle of Summer! Weather here is really absurd these days.

We stopped here for a quick snack and to enjoy the view for a moment. My other friend let me taste this Korean rice cake or something. It wasn’t bad, but… after eating the whole slice, my stomach suddenly felt really really absurd. Ang sakit! It was tolerable, but it didn’t help at all with the trek back. Of course, I didn’t tell her that. That’ll be too rude as she offered that to me anyway.

Our trek going back is to go via Barrier Lake path instead of the Taylor Meadow trail. That’s roughly another 10km back to the parking lot. Hiking down is as hard as hiking up. Going down, your ankle, knee, calves take all the weight. While going down, my legs and ankles are about to just give up. So in order to lessen the stress, I tried running down (after we got past all the snowy area, which was almost an hour later). Running down definitely lessened the pain. In fact, it was really fun running down the hills. You just have to be careful though. There were rocks all over the trails and some of them are protruding and they were as sharp as a knife.

Finally, around 3 PM, we finally made it back to the parking lot. We started around 7:30, if I’m not mistaken. What a day! Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to track my overall steps via my pedometer because my iPod Nano died an hour before we got to the end zone. But according to my friend’s GPS, he said we trekked a total of roughly 25 km. Not bad at all.

This is definitely something I wouldn’t mind doing again, but not just in the next few weeks. Perhaps next year again!

Grouse Grind So Far

As part of my fitness theme for this year’s Canada “work/vacation”, I’ve been challenging myself to do the grouse grind, not just do it, but improve on my time. Back in 2009, I bought myself the grind timer so that I can keep track of my hikes. Last year though, I went home to Manila before the grouse grind opened, so I didn’t have any hikes under my belt last year.

But this time, since I am extended here for another month, I’ve set a goal for myself to do the grind every week. It’s a good calorie burning exercise, and endurance training as well. So far, I’ve done three grouse grinds this season, with time improvements compared to two years ago:

Last night’s grind was my personal best so far. I’m trying to crack the one hour mark, so hopefully, in the next few weeks, I’ll be able to do so. And it only means one thing, more training in the gym! In fact, I did go to the gym earlier and got a 30 minute run as well (but I barely hit the 5km mark!), and did some nice circuit training too.

I thought I was going to make the one hour mark last night, but my time in the 3rd quarter wasn’t good. Took me a good 20 minutes there, which ideally should’ve been just 15 minutes. The change I did this time was to slower my pace the first quarter. In my second grind, it took me 15 minutes to reach the first quarter mark, but I was so tired afterwards, thus the 1:10 result. Last night, my first quarter was 20 minutes, but I had more energy all throughout.

What I really want to improve on are my legs and my heart. Some times, I just have to stop because my heart’s beating like crazy already. And at times, my heart’s ok, but my legs are just giving up. More training needed!

Longest Day Race

Aside from the Hike we did last Sunday, we also ran the "Longest Day Race" last Friday night. It's an annual even held during the spring/summer season here in Vancouver - in UBC to be exact.

For some reason, this picture keeps on rotating. I'll leave this in this position for now.

This is my second time joining this race. The first time was two years ago, and I joined the 5km. Now I can do 10km! I was with a couple of friends and all of us ran the 10km. I didn't run for the time though. I was there to motivate my other friend, who's running his first 10km. He did pretty well! 1 hour 14 minutes. Not bad!

The nice thing about this run is the after party - BBQ!!! A ton of food, burger, fruits, cookies, chips, you name it! We got to stash a lot of free stuff for ourselves as well. Some of which, I used for the hiking trip the following Sunday.

I like how things are going these days, I've really become more into fitness. In fact, we have a couple of things up and coming. Later this afternoon, we're joining this stretching class in the fitness center, and then this coming Saturday, our first Grouse Grind! Then next week, we're thinking of doing another hike.

My only concern is that I hope, I can continue this fitness craze when I get back to Manila. Let's wait and see.

I Conquered The Chief!

A friend of ours from office invited us for a hiking trip to Stawamus Chief in Squamish, British Columbia, not knowing what was in store for us! According to him, the hiking trip would take around 4 hours. Ok, that's not so bad. But that was under the assumption that the hike wouldn't be that hard!!

I was under the impression that the hike will just have sloping paths, zigzagging its way around the mountain, but I was mistaken. The first part of the climb reminded me so much of the Grouse Grind! It was like walking up endlessly in a staircase with no end in sight, add to the fact that you're climbing and stepping on rocks and roots instead! Total madness. Took us around 1 hour something just to go to our first stop, the rock, which isn't even halfway up!

But swaying away from the topic for a moment - I didn't expect my legs to hold on that well. Seems like my gym time is paying off!

Anyway, back to the chief. After reaching the end of the "Staircase", we reach this point where you need to grab on to a set of chains just so you can climb up! Scary portion of the climb, but very exciting. Unfortunately, I don't have hiking boots so I had to stick with my running shoes, which wasn't a good idea. Climbing through slippery rocks was very scary and my running shoes aren't providing me with the grip necessary to climb up there. I was scared like shit at one point, because I was holding on to dear life and my feet kept on slipping while I attempt to cross this huge boulder. I have no idea how I got to the other side, but what I do know is that I got a little bit of scratch mark in my legs after that portion.

Of course, anything you work hard for, always pays off after. Thus, reaching peak #2 was amazing! Unfortunately, it was foggy so we didn't see much of a view from up there, but we were given a different perspective with all the fog up there. It actually feels a bit more scary with all the fog around you, and you cannot even see the end of the cliff (just like my picture from up there)!

So all in all, it took us 6 hours to climb up, go to peak 1, 2 and 3, then climb down back to the parking lot. I find that going down is as hard as going up. Going down is terrible on the knees and ankles. Our friend Ronald, could hardly go down anymore. His knees were killing him. As for me, when I woke up this morning, I was expecting my legs to be sore, but it's not (I ran 10km last Friday night, so the soreness was still there). But I'm surprised that my shoulders and my back are pretty sore! Argh! I will need to rest for the next few days for sure or else I might aggravate the pain in my back. No gym

But then again, this is one activity I won't forget for a long time. I probably won't do this activity again next week, but perhaps, I'll do it again when I'm back in Canada some time in the future.

gym, work

I missed yesterday and today's gym sessions. :( I'm so disappointed.
Missed it yesterday because I went to watch a movie instead, and I missed tonight because I was too tired from my stupid work these days. I need to do my circuit training tomorrow! And this coming Friday, I have a 10km run! Can't wait!

On the other hand, my work these days have been terrible, terrible. I hate it! I hate the shitty reporting work that for some reason, always goes back to me. I'm hoping for a miracle that everything will just go away, and that I can just go back to doing coding, and that's it. Perhaps, I ought to pray about it tonight.

Theme of the week: Gym and Shopping

Last week's theme was shopping and gym.
Those are the two things I "majored" on last week.

Gym

Went to the gym 4 times (actually three times only, the fourth was going on a 5k run in Central Park). I don't know why my friend and I just suddenly became so obsessed about losing weight. Perhaps it's because history tells us that we gain so much when we're here. Case in point. This is my fifth time over here in Canada and 4 out of 5 times (5th is right now), I gained a few pounds of weight when I went back to Manila. So this time around, we're focusing of killing off that pattern, and go the other way, be more fit and ready when we get back to Manila.

For the past weeks, we've been religiously going to the gym 3-4 times a week. My friend and I were both frustrated because we are killing our butts off in the gym, but we feel like there's no weight difference. But as I was reading through some articles off from the web, one article I read mentioned that we need to stop thinking about losing weight, but focus on fitness instead.

Yes, now that I think about it. I have better sleep these days. I don't get tired as much, and I'm not as cranky as I usually am especially with work being stressful these days. I'm attributing this better "mood" and lifestyle to having better fitness. And as long as I fit into those pants I love wearing, then I'd just have to maintain my fitness. No more worrying about numbers, instead worry about overall body feeling/state.

Workout

Last Saturday, I did a full body workout, following the exercise plan my trainer from Manila gave me. And holy cow it worked so well, specific areas in my body which I really worked on for that day ached! But that's aching in a good way. On weekday workouts, I usually just hop on the treadmill for 30 minutes, and then depending on the day, I focus on one area at a time. The only area that gets exercise regularly are my abs.

And now I'm up to this state wherein I'm adding exercise as part of my lifestyle already. I think a lot of people gave up on exercise because they didn't look at it as part of a lifestyle, but instead, looked at it as extra work that needs to be done. I am hoping that when I get back to Manila, I will be able to maintain this lifestyle.

Shopping

I've been making excuses of the need to go on a shopping spree because I left of couple of items back in the east coast - a couple of shirts, pant, etc. That's a good excuse to go buy new things right?

So in line with yet, another tradition that my friend and I do every time we're here, is that we go to the Roots outlet store in Grandview to buy ourselves some new stock of clothes. Well, at least I just ended up buying three shirts - two for me and one for my nephew. And spent a total of around 40$ all in all. Not bad if you compare it to Ronald, who spent almost a 100 dollars during that 1.5 hour window of shopping.

And that was last Thursday.

Last Saturday, we went to an outlet store area in Queensborough for one reason - to go to a Best Buy store to get Ronald's laptop fixed. Since we had to wait for an hour or two before he gets it back, we decided to walk around and see the goods out there. Of course, I couldn't resist and I ended up buying something else again.

Now yesterday, Sunday, we went to Costco and Walmart to stock up on some items that we'd like to send back to the Philippines. This time around, I did spend more that what I was planning to spend. But the difference is that, most of these things aren't for me. They're for my family back home. I bought chocolates, pistachios that my Dad loves and my mom's annual supply of Dove soap!

All in all, in a span of 4 days (Thursday to Sunday), I've spent close to two to three month's worth of my budget for miscellaneous expenses. But you know what, it's so much fun to do so! It's about time I reward myself with items I can really use (although I just did reward myself with a vacation last end of April). After all the shopping spree (though I feel like I want to do more!), the next few weeks will probably be slower paced weeks for us, meaning, less shopping for us.

As my mom always says, you need to enjoy the fruits of your labor, and I just did that last week, and I won't mind doing it again and again and again. :)

Active living

I've signed up again for another set of sessions with my personal trainer last Monday. I have to do this. If I don't sign up for a PT, I'm pretty sure I won't be going to the gym anymore. At least this way I'm forced to do my sets! I did four sets of the whole routine Sir Jon showed me. We're supposed to do 8-10 sets of the whole routine, but I only did 4. Puyat eh! Haha couldn't do anymore. The triceps exercise was painful!

Boxing
Rach has been inviting me to join her and her friend Nikki to go boxing on either Wednesday or Thursday night at Elorde gym near Shaw boulevard. So finally, I did try it out earlier. Slept whole afternoon, drove to Shangrila first to buy my own hand wraps (boxers wear this for added padding I think, before you wear the actual gloves). Generic brand hand wraps were supposed to cost around 200 pesos, but in Toby's Shang, they only had the branded one, which will cost me 495 pesos!! Unfortunately, Shangrila only had Toby's. They didn't have any other sports store, and I didn't want to borrow some used hand wraps from the boxing gym, so I ended up buying them.

I tried a one session for beginners. And my arms and shoulders are already aching. I'm pretty sure it'll ache more tomorrow. It was fun though. You have a trainer, who's your sparring mate as well, and you get to punch the hell out of everything you can hit on. Very good stress reliever indeed. And now I know how to do jab, straight, hook. Medyo nalilito pa, pero masasanay din. I'm thinking of going back next week.

And the best thing about boxing, right after boxing, I had one of the best bbqs there is. It's a eatery called Ihawan ni Speed. Reminds me of La Salle days when we used to eat at those small eatery cheapy place. Yummy.

Badminton
I've also been trying to kick start playing badminton again. My parents play every Wednesday and Friday nights so I try joining them at least during Fridays. I play a couple of games only since I need to wake up around 4 am for work (ugh!).

Running
Of course, running! I've been into running since last year, when I was in Canada and some friends from Canada persuaded me to try and run a 5km race. And then next thing I know, I was running a 10 km race around Stanley Park, under tremendous heat (hindi na bumalik yung kulay ko pagkatapos ng run na yun)!

After finishing last week's 5km run - roughly around 35 minutes, I have two more runs to look forward to this coming October. The Pink Run on the weekend of October 17, which I'll be running with my hs friends, and which I'm probably not going to take as seriously as I want to. And the Adidas King of the Road run the following weekend, which I will attempt to get to < 30 minutes time for my 5km. Disadvantaged ata ako, ang liit ko, smaller strides! haha  

Being Active
Initially this gym thing started out because #1 I didn't feel good about myself and #2 I had to find some distraction. But now, it's more of getting fit now and what I realized was, when I started going to the gym, I'd thought I'd be more tired for the day, but in fact, I actually have more energy now. Compared to before when I needed to sleep for almost 10 hours just to get me through the day (night shift work). Now, I can manage my time and do a lot more, and not feeling tired all day long. Good effects! And I even lost weight and gained some muscle. Not bad at all!

The running, boxing and badminton are really good sports to play every now and then. It's different from the usual routine in gym, which is good! These activities are something to add energy to my life. It makes me happy and energized. You get to interact with different people and have fun at the same time! It beats having to just sleep the rest of the day away or bum and do nothing right?

Hope my friends start living the active lifestyle too! And I hope this isn't just a phase for me. I hope to continue it as much as I can.

A lot of things to be thankful for

I've been slowly realizing the extent of blessings I've received the past couple of weeks. God is really good. I have been saying "Hay buhay" a lot of times during those dark days. But I shouldn't have been doing that. What I should have been saying was "Thank you Lord for the blessings". I was blinded by the bad things that happened to me (ok, the one major bad thing that happened), which overshadowed the good things that I actually have. And now I have a clearer view to those things. And I'll list them down as a show of gratitude.

1. Family
I am very blessed to have a family who cares so much for me. My mom, especially who even went to HK with me just to help me unwind. Who texted me "gisingin mo lang ako kapag kailangan mo ng kausap". My sister who told me bluntly to "Move on! ano ka ba!". LOL!

2. Friends
I really don't know how my friends ( you know who you are ) put up with me during the dark days. Kahit paulit ulit na at sirang plaka na sinasabi ko, at sinasabi nila, they're still there! I can't believe how much they cared! The nice thing about all these is that I've rekindled so many friendships over the past weeks. I now have weekly get together with the bruhas, and now I even revived my friendship with my high school buddies and made me feel extra special again. For the past years, my life revolved around work, home, and him. And I've missed out so much! And now, I'm loving this life!

3. Finances
Ok, so I have to admit that one of my outlets was to spend spend spend. And now that I think about it, I've very thankful that God has provided me with so much, if not, I wouldn't have been able to sustain my spending spree! And not just that, I've recently got some nice winnings in the stock market, and not to mention that I have some new investments that's giving me a pretty reasonable return every month. Not bad at all! So let's continue to spend! haha

4. Gym
The gym has been my haven for the past couple of weeks. So maybe my attendance to the gym has slowed down a bit, but definitely the gym has helped me get through a lot of things. When I'm feeling sad, I just go to the gym, workout, and I'm fine after wards. Not only was it a good outlet, but it made me more confident about myself! Hitting two birds with one stone!

5. Work
I hated work so bad. I regretted accepting this job, going to Canada, you name it. Everything about it I hated. I wanted to bring back time if I could. I always thought, things would've been different. But you know what, it may have been different, but I wouldn't have experienced and grown as much had I not experienced what I experienced with this job. Unfortunately, a major part of us got lost somewhere during the process but we're already here now, it happened, and we cannot turn back the time. I was going to change things, I told him that, he knew that, but I guess he didn't want to risk any longer. So here I am, took me a while to love what I'm doing again, but I'm slowly getting there.

How can you not be thankful for this job? When I was down in the dumps, I asked for some time off. Talked to my team lead, she told me to go on vacation the following week at once, for two weeks. Then talked to my manager and told me to go, fix up whatever the personal issue was, and then if I need another week or so, let him know. How can you not be thankful for this job?

And after wards, around end of July, they made me team lead. Well it's a admin job, but it's still experience! How can you leave this job now?? Everything tells me to stay put!

So much things to be thankful for... everyday. I learned to appreciate so much in life.

This diagram pretty much simplifies what I felt the past weeks.


I think I'm towards the bottom already. Happy emotions na ako these days eh. :)

gym, eat

I went back to the gym this morning after 5 days of not going. Tried the same routine, could only finish 4 sets. And after going home, I finished up the ruffle chips I bought yesterday. Yikes!