It appears I was a happy camper

Or maybe I just like to have my picture taken. I promise you that where you see me running, and smiling on the out side...my insides are crying. Can't wait for next year! Adventure Cam to come soon...and a race report.

Last Friday - night of extremes

Hey everyone!

Joan is back! I've been a bit MIA with posting here - my excuse is that I've been busy with back to school and now, school. I am starting my first year in UBC Pharmacy, and it is a bit overwhelming now, but it is all very interesting and I'm sure I will adapt to it all very soon. Tonight I finally have a bit of down time, and seeing that Malcolm hasn't posted about last shift, I will do the honours!

On volunteer shift that night were me, Malcolm, Santos, and new peer volunteer, Amanda! Jen, the receptionist-family hybrid volunteer was also back at reception after a long break to take care of her dog and summer holidays. Welcome back, Jen! Kids in the house included Nina, Nina's brother Doug (I forgot what name he wanted!), Isaac, Elvis, Patrick, and Christina.

The entire night can be effectively described by one word : extreme.

After dinner, we all gravitated towards the Sun room. We turned on Barney to keep Nina happy, plugged Elvis into his celtic and campfire songs on his CD player, and the rest of us sat on our bums and just talked. With Barney's and the singing children's soothing voices, as well as the room's dim lighting, all of us started getting sleepy. We seriously could have just lay our heads down on the sofa and taken a nap - but no! That's not what good volunteers do!

After awhile, a burst of energy came by and Santos, Malcolm, and Doug started having an intense matches of air hockey. And I mean INTENSE. Play was accompanied by frequent yells of joy and frustration, so loud that we had to turn Barney on to almost full volume to keep Nina satisfied. Anyways, the boys finished their matches all tired and sweaty, and I believe Santos was the ultimate winner. =)

And of course...I had my friday-nightly toast and half-a-toasted-bagel with nothing on it.

psych!

I woke up to a $9000 donation today! my mind raced!
long story short: do you own donations online...and make sure you check what you have submitted!!!
$9000 has been refunded. $900 coming our way!

$220 000

thats a big number. that is what 120 of us adventurers have collected for saturday's race. wow!
congratulations everyone. good luck on saturday!

www.adventurechallenge.ca

Training

Here are a couple of training videos I put a lot of thought into in preparation for the big race on Saturday:
The first:


And the Second:

to be here soon!


I will leave you to decide which is best. I can tell you how I felt after the pancakes.

Looking forward to the race next weekend. As out of conditioning as I feel it will still be a fantastic day. Have you seen the totals for funds raised? I am over $2600 (thanks to Justin) and the Challenge is at $201 000! Hot Dawg! Thank you everyone!

Short term vs long term planning...

well....the race with the trailrider may be on hold as a result of this short term, getting too excited planning philosophy i ascribe to, but that is ok! I understand the limitations that short term planning has to offer and what this leads to is planned, organised, all areas covered, long term planning....which is good.....right?

Some of our ideas might come to fruition this year. I believe that ALL of our ideas (and more) will make it for next years race.

Sweet news in the DONATIONS box this week. Remember my student Justin? He emailed me with some news on a donation that was to be made by his family with thanks to his Aunt. Unfortunately his Aunt is ill. She made available some money to be donated in Justin's sisters name (Tamryn) to a charity. Justin's family has been a part of the Canuck Place family for a number of years. Tamryn passed away at the house after living her short life with Tay-Sachs.

Thank you to the Fishman family for the $900 donation.

trailrider

ok...check this out. it could really happen.
Nicole (another house family volunteer) and I (and mike) have suggested and hope to run the 10km trail run of the Canuck Place Adventure Challenge with Luke. Why the challenge? Luke is young kid who spends his time in a pretty skookum wheelchair. The wheelchair, although pretty hefty and solid, is not built for the rocks, boulders, creeks and bridges that the trail offers.
go here: www.bcmos.org
and check out the trailrider. A chair that was the brainchild of former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan and friends.

Now we just need to make it happen!

something is brewing for the race....

..so Leanne says, "Malcolm can you PLEASE help us on Friday for the Trailrider session at Jericho?!?!"

little did she know what thoughts might run through my brain (and similar thoughts through Nicole's brain) as we wheelbarrowed around jericho park and along the beach (past topless woman I might add) that day.

I look to Nicole at the end of our little walk about and say, "are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

fast forward 3 weeks later and Nicole goes for a run on the course and reports that it is (with some help) something that we can do....with somebody light!

I have been toying with the idea of somebody doing the kayak with me...but nothing ever came to fruition.

"hello Mrs Galvani. My name is Malcolm Chrystal. I am a volunteer at Canuck Place. We met at the Adventure Challenge last year....."

Ladies and gentlemen, it appears we have an epic sherpa event happening on the run in this year's adventure challenge!

Gill...are you able to help Nicole, Luke and I set up a visit with BCMOS sometime before the race so we can see how the chair and luke fit together?

I am away (selling seashells to hawaiians) until the 7th.

Yea!

Go team go!

malcolm

$20 to Canuck Place from Lip Balm Sales

ok....it is not $1000's, but I am proud to donate $20 to Canuck Place for some sales of our Organic Island Shell Lip Balm. Five dollars from peer volunteer extaordinaire Joan and $15 from the Jericho Oceanman event a couple of weeks ago.

A week after...

I am still recovering a little from friday night! Actually I am recovering from a week of camping...the last night complete with 18 hours of full on RAIN. Packing up early in the morning in full rain storm at 0700.

Back to Friday. Great night all 'round. Dinner was awesome. Right off the bat after dinner I was targeted by a couple of brothers who were looking for a bit of rough action. I was their man!

Martin was in for Santos and he brought his wife in so she could help sign with one of the girls in the house. She has a vocabulary of over a 1000 words and it is awesome that Liz was in to hang out with her. Joan and Holl-y (or is that Holl-y?) were in and we were all ready for the night.

The brothers: a couple of rambunctious boys (one in Grage 8 and the other in Grade 12) that I will call J1 and J2, wanted to wrestle. Problem was wrestling in their minds is the WWF variety. All good and fun to watch on TV...but not the best for everyday folk. I set my mind to teach them how to wrestle the good old fashion amateur/collegiate style! We had tons of fun and J1 the elder was the eventual winner for the night! I think I broke my nose. It still hurts. J2, in some stupendous escape rolled up over my chest and face...smashing the cartilage. OW!

We wrestled for about 75 minutes! Inside for a break. After a little bit Holl-y (or -i) came down with the rest of the crew who wanted to go outside again. Out we go and just hung for a while until we started a game of hide and seek.

J2 eventually had the accident I was warning of him all night.

J2 laughs. Like K-Don laughs...full belly laughs that are exhausting and hard on your bladder. I kept warning him, "you are going to pee your pants if you keep laughing like that!".
J2 and I were hiding in the garden in a little cement nook. He is under the table...laughing (not good hiding strategy as that was how we were found in the bushes by his brother. All of a sudden somebody (not me) lets one rip and it reverberates against the concrete. Guess what? THAT IS FUNNY! J2 laughs even more....and then he squeals, "I peed my pants!!!!", which causes us to lose it completely! (it wasn't a gamestopper...just a little bit!)

Words of wisdom for the night:
When possible everybody should laugh so hard that you pee your pants. SOmetimes there is a good reason for everything!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=1190187032567&ref=mf

Public service announcement from global TV. Little Normie is in this video!

Pokemon...

Hi, it's Joan!

Last night was pretty quiet. All the kids were pretty tired from all the sailing and fun at Jericho beach for the Summer in the City event! Malcolm was there helping out - too bad I couldn't go because I had lab volunteering!

Anyways, so there was me, Holly, Tony, and an on-call peer Sumeda. Kids in the house included Kelly, Mitch, Trent, Bradley, Reg, and baby Kate.

After dinner, Kelly went right to bed as she was exhausted from the long and exciting day.

Bradley kept on playing Pokemon Platinum on his Nintendo DS. This was when Holly and I launched into a nerdy nostalgic conversation about the oldest pokemon games on the old game boy colour we used to play. We talked about how Pikachu was useless wherease Squirtle was clearly superior...how Metapod was so annoying because all it could do was "harden"...oh it was delightful! But hey, we're not too old to play these games...I got a new DS lite recently, and I've been playing Pokemon Platinum on it too...=)

Afterwards, most of us went upstairs to the school room, except for Sumedha, who spent her night downstairs with baby Kate. Kate is soooo cute! She's only 11 months old, but she's pretty big, and her arms are so chubby. I was quite envious of Sumedha for getting to cuddle her.

For us in the school room, Trent and Mitch spent the night playing PS3 and watching videos on the computer, Bradley played computer games, and Tony brought Reg to the Snoezelen room and the piano to have some musical entertainment. While watching some Ghost Hunters with Trent, I was also catching up on some Harry Potter...

then it came to bath time! Trent and Mitch both had to take a bath...but neither of them wanted to go first. In the end, Trent got to go after Mitch because he won the polite contest (Mitch was getting quite angry and started being a bit rude).

And...that was it! Malcolm, I can't wait to see the lip balm samples!

BCMOS and the TrailRider

http://www.bcmos.org/index.php

yesterday we had the opportunity to go bushwhacking with some kids from the house with a very cool stroller/wheelchair/all terrain vehicle. it is called the TrailRider.
BCMOS is a group that makes the outsdoors accessible to people stuck in chairs.
They offer opportunities to go in gliders and work with these guys: DSA
They are the Disabled Sailing Association of BC. The kids got to go out in specialised Martin 16 sailboats.
Former Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan (himself chair bound) appears to be the driving force/inspiration behind both of these organisations.

Nicole (who did the Challenge last year) and I had a thought: Could we haul a kid on our run portion of the challenge? hhmmmmmmmm!!!!

Return of the K-Dog and the Adventure Cam

What a blast last night (Friday)!
In the House we had K-Don, K-Dog, K-Rod, K-Dahl, K-Dahl's big sister K-Sian, and K-Lux. K-Santos, K-Joan, and K-Mal, and new peer volunteer K-Hol (who remembers me from subbing at West Van High!)

K-dog...aka keith...aka c'mon daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaavvvvvvvvvvvve. i love this guy. he gets everything. he is one of those guys when you say something to the room...he is the one who gets the humour attached to it. I am a wee bit upset that he is on his way out of the house. The bugger is getting too old.
With respect to being too old...a great guy...and a dirty minded SOB is on his way out of the house is going to be missed. Robert has been part of the house for a long time. When I first met him I nearly kicked him in the face with my feet while one of us was on the swing...it was caught on video!
I know this is not the last I will see of him. We can visit by proxy with his little, albeit tougher and sassier, sister.

We had fun tonight. Highlight? Adventure Cam II!

It is a 5 minute video. I thought it was funny! Make sure the volume is up. The K-Don is funny.

K-Dog is going to be tired this week...he did not stop laughing all night...pure, unadulterated, deep and meaningful belly laughs. He laughed so much he was sweating. I was sending zingers his way all night...but he mostly laughed when I wasn't saying anything at all!

Sponsorship - Tongue in Cheek

I understand that amateur athletes and professional athletes are always on the hunt for sponsorship. It is like sales: you have to knock on every door and give your sales pitch.

The difference between me and people who do athletics full time is the 'time' part. Nonetheless I believe I want a sponsorship...two of them!

The first would be a new ride. For those new to the blog I didn't own a bike 4 years ago and borrowed my big brother's bike: a skookum Brodie Enduro. The second year I borrowed it it was unceremoniously stolen from the back of my car the day of the race. Long story short: I ended up buying an old, too small, and scary condition bike on the corner of Hastings and Carroll (the Mecca of stolen goods in Vancouver...I was looking to see if my brother's had made it down yet) at 8am and began the race at 9am. (Long story long--click here!)

The second sponsorship would be a kilt. I own a Utilikilt (from Seattle) and as a joke told them of my intention to do the race in my kilt...but didn't want to ruin the one I own. They didn't respond to my joke.
I also sent a message to BiltKilt.com with same request. They are a canadian company so I am hoping for some homegrown hospitality!

I just though of a third sposorship I need: an Adventure Cam. Last year I mounted my camera on the bars of my bike and took pictures like this:

This year I am looking for a helmet mounted video camera that will take longer shots than one minute!

So there you have it. My three simple sponsorship dreams!

Somebody: Make it so.

Back to the House tonight. It has been a long time since I have been up there. Looking forward to it.

Oceanman 2009 - August 8

Mark the date. This is the one and only time I get to train for the paddle section of the Adventure Challenge each year: www.oceanman.ca
This takes place at Jericho Beach and is a 1k swim, 6k paddle, and a 10k run. My friends Blair and Carol will make up a team for the 3rd year in a row.
We are the volunteers extraordinaire team: in between set up and tear down of the event we do the race. Blair and I share the swim (500m each), tandem kayak (i need better songs to sing this year), and since the run is two parts Carol and I split the run.

It has the best athletic interludes ever. after the swim there was a tire carry, after the paddle there is a stand up paddle, somewhere on the first run is a croquet challenge. Who knows what will happen this year??

A great run

Well, a great run/walk! It was a smoking 29C (my favourite running weather) so I took my sore hamstring and gave it a little wake up.

Adventure Challenge Looms

So the countdown is on. Less than 2 months to go and I can tell by the way my body feels that I am woefully unprepared. I am hamstrung by a hamstring and I refuse to go for a run so I can take the time to stretch it out. School is out and my bike riding distances have dropped from 75k per week to zero. Despite being off for the summer my business quotient has risen through the roof.

My alternative "exercise for pay" options have slowed (this is the program where I do hard labour for you at $25 per hour. I love working hard in the sun hauling dirt, chopping wood, cutting lawns, cleaning roofs. you name it and I will do it!)

What is an adventure racer to do?

I need to be inspired. What would inspire me is if I can pass the $2000 mark in fundraising.
That, and geting on track with my alternative "exercise for pay", would be inspiring.
N'est ce pa?

Back to the house on the 24th. It has been ages since I was there. When you miss a shift...you miss a month. That sucks.

Friday July 3rd

Hey everyone, it's Joan!

Last night's shift was very quiet indeed.

When I stepped into the house, I noticed that the green lamp was on. Leanne later filled me in that a teenager, new to the hospice, had come in for end-of-life care. She warned me that it might be a bit chaotic as extended family members would be coming in later that night. All this meant that us volunteers had to be extra sensitive and quiet with the kids.

Interestingly, there was no-one that we needed to keep quiet that night - no little people! In the house, there were only teens : Kirsten (new to the hospice), good-natured Alan, Stan, and Christina. Kirsten, Alan, and Stan spent time with their family and caretakers, so we only had to look after Christina.

Volunteers that night were me, Martin (subbing for Tony) and Hilary - a new peer volunteer and also my highschool/university buddy! So there were three volunteers, and all our attention was to Christina. What a lucky girl! (her hair is getting ever so long, and her nails were painted yellow with white flowers!)

The first part of the night, us three went outside with Christina for a walk around the house and to enjoy the last few rays of sunshine. Later, we let Martin go home, and Hilary, Christina, and I sat in the alcove to watch "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone." So entertaining to see the actors all young and cute!

And..that was it! Til next time...

I'm here!

Hey everyone, it's Joan. I'm back! Surprised?
I've finished summer school, passed my road test, done my pharmacy interview...now I'm just waiting...and beginning to enjoy summer! Hooray!

Tonight's shift was pretty cool - me, Steve, and Joanna, who is a new peer volunteer! (Martin came in for dinner, but went home soon after because there weren't many kids in the house that needed 4 volunteers!)

After dinner, Steve, Joanna, and I brought Eliza, Nina, Stan, and baby Maria (Lucas and Gloria's baby sister!) outside to take a stroll around the house. Then we just hung out by the swings in the warm sunshine. Maria quite stole the whole show there - she is the cutest baby ever, and what's cool about her is : she has 6 fingers on each hand, and 6 toes on her left foot! And she has so much baby fat her arms look like they have 3 sections. She seemed to enjoy all the attention and was thoroughly content in her stroller and white hat.
When we didn't do something for a long period of time, Nina would start making crying noises; that indicated to us to go around the hospice again.
Finally we went inside!
Steve took Stan, and little Normie (who just finished dinner) downstairs for Rockband.
Joanna and I stayed with the girls on the 2nd floor and watch Cinderella! Eliza loves princess movies, and she was engrossed in the film completely.
Then Normie came upstairs to get his meds while sitting on my lap. He is the cutest thing ever! He pretends to be shy with a new nurse, but really he's so quirky and has such an energetic and fun personality - no wonder her mum is always so tired out by him!
Then little Katy (who is baby Shanna's sister) came back from what she called "Jang-jang", which I still do not understand, and watched some TV with us.
I think the highlight of the night was...when Normie bid us good night, and he went over to Katy and gave her a hug and kissed her shoulder, then her forehead. It was the cutest thing everrrrr! Joanna and I were like " awwwwww" SO CUTE. Malcolm too bad you missed it!!!!
After Normie went to bed, we finished Cinderella, and even watched a bit of Beauty and the Beast before we had to go.
Overall, it was a very relaxing and calm night. =)