Back on the Bike

Work has been overly busy lately, almost draining, as I’m in high season for maintenance.  With very little new work, it’s long been my challenge to keep motivated when switching from “hunter” to “farmer” mode.

Personally, we’ve had a rough streak as a family, too, having to endure now 12 funerals in the last nine months. This is one of the realities you have to face when you and your spouse have a close family, counting a combined (whopping) total of over 100 blood relatives, nearly all of which are older than you.  It’s been a sad couple of seasons at home.

Sweat to the Rescue

I have always found that getting my heart going helps to clear my mind.  I grew up being fairly active playing varsity high school sports and spent six years as a competitive swimmer.  I have cycled from Montreal to Banff on a national relay team benefitting Juvenile Diabetes and have put in over 7,000kms on the bike in the last three years.  But none in this calendar year.

I have always found that getting a bit of time to work the muscles and think through problems can help me make great strides.  In fact, I would argue that some of my best coding – or at least, solving some of my hardest programming challenges – has been away from the keyboard.

100kms and Counting

I’m no longer an ideal candidate for the swim team, nor did I fully grow to a size that any self-respecting volleyball team would give me anything other than bench time, but I do still have my road bike.  Technically, I still have my speedos too, but I’m not getting into those anytime soon!

So my wife and I have reciprocally committed to exercise time and appropriate support for each other.  After supper, she heads out for a good brisk walk while the kids and I clean up supper.  When the kids head off to bed and she’s putting the baby down I’ve been jumping on my bike. 

In the last 4 days I’ve been increasing my kms and decreasing my time.  Last night I posted just over 26kms in a cool 54 minutes riding through the city, an average speed of about 29km/hr (18mph).

Today at work I started with more energy, cleaned off some outstanding maintenance issues and was rewarded by getting to spike out a new project out in WCF and WP7.

It’s amazing what a little exercise can do for you.