First outdoor ride of the season!

(well, other than a couple times I basically just went around the block or tried to ride when it was still too icy out).

Unlike last year when it was quite warm (almost 20C IIRC), it was only about 7C and cloudy - would have been better to ride yesterday when it was sunny and marginally warmer, but we were both too tired from having woken up at 5 am in order to watch the Ronde Van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) live.

And unlike last year when I crashed at the end of my first outdoor ride of the year and needed stitches in my knee, no crashes this time. Though lots of gravel, puddles, and the trail we thought about taking from Laurier Park to Hawreluk Park was still covered in snow and ice.

Below, you can see Ed in his fine form as we did a bit of hill training - though the hill doesn't really look all that impressive in the pic (it curves around out of the photo and keeps going, 1.5 km total to where I time myself). I'm doing reasonably well considering we were on mountain bikes today.

RONA MS Bike Tour

Ed and I have signed up to do this Bike Tour June 9-10, from Leduc to Camrose and back (approx. 180 km total), as part of our preparation for our trip to France - and also to raise money for the MS Society of Canada. If you'd like to donate to help me reach my fundraising goal, you can do so online here.

Thanks!

Strange plants ...

Well, considering we got more snow just recently I suppose it isn't strange - but with our two "Christmas" plants that now appear to be blooming at Easter, not sure what's going on. I've read that to get poinsettias to bloom again you have to strictly regulate the light, expose them to sunlight only from 8 am to 4 pm daily for a period of a month or more - nothing like that going on, just random sunshine in the corner of our great room. And our Christmas cactus has always bloomed somewhat randomly ...

Suggestion to drop Super G from the World Cup circuit

Personally, I think FIS is silly to even consider this - North Americans like the speed events, so to eliminate the Super G and only leave the Downhill in terms of speed events means you're losing a lot of North American fans most likely - but then again, maybe they don't really care about the North Americans... anyway, glad to see that Alpine Canada also opposes the move.

End to the Battle of Alberta in the future?

Interesting article in the National Post yesterday, about the Edmonton to Calgary corridor:

Whatever you call it, yesterday's census figures make a strong case that the stretch of people and prosperity along Alberta's Highway 2, running from Edmonton, via Red Deer to Calgary, is Canada's most dynamic region of growth.

And at the rate things are going, the area, some say, might morph into a virtually contiguous supercity. "It could happen in the future," said Frank Trovato, a University of Alberta demography professor. "These cities are already connected in more ways than just physical space. Communications, for example, commerce ... the cities are interconnected."

Trip blog

Check this out - http://guidemd.blogspot.com - updates from our trip to the Tour of California!

Training in the basement

We invited our friend Alan over to do some indoor training (since we had an extra trainer), and he took some photos of us and our setup - so now you can see our lovely unfinished basement.

More films

During the Christmas holidays, my husband and I had a "movie day" when we went to see 2 movies in one day (different theatres) with dinner in between.

We first saw Casino Royale (2006), the latest James Bond film with Daniel Craig new to the Bond role - I thought he did a great job as Bond, and really enjoyed that the film was more reliant on acting and actual drama rather than flashy car-chases/crashes and gimmicky gadgets. (My mother-in-law told us ahead of time that she didn't like the film, now I know it was probably because it was too real and not enough gimmicky/flashy action scenes).

Then, after dinner to the Garneau Theatre for Volver (2006), a Spanish film by director Pedro Almodóvar. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as the reviews I had read were somewhat vague and it almost seemed like just a character study from the reviews - but in seeing the film, I realized that if they had given more details about the plot it would have given away all the surprises (plus, when we thought about it afterwards we realized that the plot was certainly not typical Hollywood fare, so to write about the plot details could come across as really silly and unbelievable - and yet the film was not at all like that). I really enjoyed it, and my husband did too - I had convinced him to go with the mention of Penelope Cruz (and somehow he claims I didn't tell him it was in Spanish with English subtitles, though I'm sure I had).

(Interesting that this year I actually saw 3 films that were nominated by their countries for best foreign-language film Oscar - Volver, Water, and Ten Canoes; Volver and Water have made the shortlist so far and I think the actual nominations are announced in a couple of weeks).

And then there was my Jane Austen guilty pleasure romantic film that I recorded from TV and finally watched a couple of weeks ago, Mansfield Park (1999). I'm not sure whether I enjoyed this or last year's version of Pride and Prejudice the best of the Jane Austen film versions I've seen - needless to say, my husband didn't watch with me (not his kind of film). I didn't realize until just now that the actor playing Sir Thomas Bertram was Harold Pinter, the 2005 Nobel Laureate for Literature who attacked US foreign policy during his acceptance speech.

Cyclocross

Via an online friend in Belgium and the Daily Peloton Forums, I've become interested in cyclocross, a discipline of cycling not as well-known (at least in Canada) as road cycling or mountain biking. From Wikipedia:

Races take place typically in the autumn and winter (the international or "World Cup" season is September-January), and consists of many laps of a short (2–3 km or 1–2 mile) course featuring pavement, wooded trails, grass, steep hills and obstacles requiring the rider to quickly dismount, carry the bike whilst navigating the obstruction and remount in one graceful motion...The sight of competitors struggling up a muddy slope with bicycles on their shoulders is the classic image of the sport, although unrideable sections are generally a very small fraction of the race distance.

Seeing as I'm really tired of hearing cycling fans argue over and over again whether or not Landis or guilty (and now whether or not Pereiro is truly asthmatic), and there's not any road racing going on except in Australia, I've been watching video highlights and reading blogs about cyclocross instead - the World Championships are next weekend. Since it is not an Olympic sport, there is no government or cycling association funding for Canadian competitors who have qualified to attend the Worlds - a group started a fund-raising drive here to help them out. And there was a good article in the Edmonton Examiner (community paper) about local U23 'crosser Shaun Adamson and his trip to Belgium for some races including the World Championships. I've also been reading the blogs of Canadian elite mens' champ Greg Reain and Canadian U23 champ Kyle Douglas.


As for my own cycling - well, all indoors on the trainer for now, as we got more snow last week so all the previously cleared roads now have a nice snowpack base again, with lots of icy sections. But at least I think I'm regaining some of my fitness such that I'm not so discouraged about how I'm going to do in France in July anymore, just have to get back at the running and swimming again as well if I plan to do any triathlons this summer. Remind me never again to get so lazy through the fall and early winter as I did this year ... (though I suppose the transition to a new job, recovering from injury, and being sick in November are all explanations as well for my laziness through the fall, but still not an excuse).

2 on the podium in Val D'Isere

First time since 1994 there were 2 Canadian men on the podium at an alpine skiing World Cup race - today at Val d'Isere Eric Guay was 2nd and Manuel Osborne-Paradis was 3rd in the Downhill. Way to go! (Canadian Alpine skiing team generally having a good season, right from the first races at Lake Louise in December - Eric Guay hadn't been having such a good season until now, so hopefully he's back on track).

But, of course right after we subscribe to Country Canada so we could record and watch the Kitzbuehel downhill next weekend right when we wake up (rather than waiting for CBC to show it in the afternoon), it's been cancelled due to poor weather :( .

Counting Down ...

48 days to go to the start of the Tour of California
180 days to go to the start of the Tour de France

...and we'll be going to both! (2007 = travel year)

Violence in New Orleans

This story moved from page B8 of yesterday's paper to the front page of the Edmonton Journal today (as well as stories on CBC, New York Times, Halifax Chronicle-Herald, and various other American media):

The shooting of an Edmonton-raised doctor in New Orleans and the murder of his filmmaker wife has sickened even those residents numbed to the violence of the city.

I went to junior high school with Paul Gailiunas (for 6 months, after moving to Edmonton, and before going to different high schools), so it seems just entirely bizarre and incredibly sad that someone I knew, even for such a short time, has had such a tragedy occur in their life. I wouldn't know what to say to someone in such a situation - "I'm so sorry this happened, take care" doesn't really seem like it would mean much. (and to make it even closer to home, apparently my parents' long-time neighbour had actually recently been staying with Paul's mother in Vancouver).

(Of interest's sake, in our Grade 9 class there were 4 of us who went on to become physicians that I know about - 3 of us who actually went to the same high school, the same university for undergrad science, the same medical school and the same family medicine residency program. I think I was too shell-shocked from moving and trying to catch up on all the schoolwork, thanks to the different provincial curriculums, as I don't remember a lot about those 6 months in junior high school in Edmonton - hopefully I didn't come across as stuck-up when in fact I was simply shy and terrified, oh well...)

Though-provoking quote ...

A quote from the November 20, 2006, issue of Macleans, by Giller winning author Vincent Lam (who is also an emergency physician), when asked "Has your medical training helped you as a writer, beyond providing subject matter?":

Medicine has taught me that it really doesn't matter how well you've performed. Someone will always be dissatisfied or unhappy, either for a reason you couldn't do much about, or for a reason that's simply untrue. And you just have to move on to the next patient. Or the next book.

(I just need to always remember that ...)

Still working on categories...

just a note that I have not yet finished going through all my previous posts to add categories, so if you're looking at those category lists they're in no way completed ;-)

An Important Realization

I had an important realization about Guiding a few weeks ago - like the stereotypical light bulb going on above one's head in a cartoon.

I had been feeling quite guilty at various times that I'm not more active in Guiding at the moment, but I just haven't had much motivation or desire to get more active. Sure, I've made a few attempts to contact people about possible ways I could help (that went nowhere), but it really hasn't been a pressing issue for me.

I've been on medical leave from Training for 2 years now. If anyone reading knows me from Guiding, they might be wondering what exactly the medical issue is - if only there was just one, it's a bit more complex than that. Shortly before I started my leave of absence, I had an ectopic pregnancy, one which required ongoing monitoring for several months to ensure everything was back to "normal" (whatever that is). I thought I was fine, and agreed to do a training session for my Area - unfortunately I hadn't recognized how incredibly stressed I was over the entire pregnancy issue, and probably shouldn't have been doing any "extra" stuff at that point. That and with the "new" (not so new now) Leadership Development Program you can end up with Guiders who only have a few months' experience taking a Stage 2 training, whereas my interests in training involve trying to get Guiders to look more in-depth at their experiences and the Guiding movement in general - that doesn't work for Stage 2 anymore :-( . Oh, and I didn't push to get an LCD projector but went with overheads as I thought the overhead projector was readily available - after I spilled all my overheads on the floor during the session I was leading, I had a panic attack (not quite sure how I got through the session actually, guess lots of practice at feeling panicky at times through medical school helped).

Since then, while I've managed quite well to deal with my anxiety issues regarding work and infertility and life in general (and it basically is no problem at all for the vast majority of the time), even the thought of doing a training for Guiding still causes major anxiety for me. And, actually, the thought of calling some of the people involved in Training (or to become otherwise involved in Guiding) causes me major anxiety - so I e-mail instead (too bad some people aren't as devoted to e-mail...).

That had been puzzling me quite a bit (and making me feel somewhat guilty, as I mentioned above) - I'd been able to figure out it wasn't the training aspect, as I did computer training at my previous clinic without problems. And it isn't the idea of phoning people - I do that all the time at work. And it wasn't necessarily Guiding in general, because I've had encounters /e-mails/ calls with other friends from Guiding without any issues (plus I read the various newsletters and websites to stay up to date). So what was it that caused all this anxiety about doing something in Guiding?

So that was the realization (revelation if you will, but that sounds way too presumptuous and important) I had a few weeks ago. It occurred to me that the idea of working with other people's kids (or even just working in an organization supporting other people's kids) is just too painful for me at this time, when I have not been able to start my own family, and have been coming to terms with the fact that it might not ever happen. Still hopeful of course, but we realized that maybe it's better to go on with life and enjoy life for a while without worrying about all the fertility stuff - and delaying means I'm getting older and potentially less chance then of getting pregnant... Suddenly when I realized this, it all made total sense - and I felt so much better. I can now accept (and not feel guilty) that I'm only a member-at-large of Guiding at the moment, and hopefully at some point in the future things will change and I can do more, but it isn't right now and I don't know when it will be.

(and I felt that by posting all that here, it would seem more real and concrete, and I can remind myself of it because it's in writing :-) ).

But that doesn't mean I don't like to hear from friends in Guiding - if any are reading please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment or e-mail me at guidemd at hotmail dot com - I'd love to hear from you :-) .