Cyril O

Apr

2012

Royal Tea in Brooks, Alberta

I’ve been drinking coffee for years and have been trying to do without it for years. I actually quit for some time about 14 years ago. I’m not sure what else I was doing or not doing at the time but but some back pain that had been giving me trouble for years completely went away. Needing that morning hot drink, I gradually went back to it. I started with Decaf but after a while just went back to regular coffee and espresso. Although I do like espresso, I tried to stop a couple of times since. I would get very tired for a few days and be fine after that but always would go back to it.

I working in Brooks, Alberta recently for a few days and while I was there planned to pick up some tea from Angela at Era Wellness. She makes and sells all her own teas. All natural. I had purchased some a year ago and thought they were wonderful so I made sure that I got a years supply this time. As I was drinking the tea over the weekend I realized that what I really needed was a replacement for my morning coffee. I like that warm cup as I go to the computer in the morning.

Angela suggested one of her black teas (one that I had already purchased). Add a bit of honey and a dollop of milk and for some that just isn’t coffee but for me is perfect. Tastes wonderful, is warm and much healthier than coffee. She suggests two cups will have the caffeine of one cup of coffee. So, far I’m doing pretty well with no coffee.

Angela will have a website up or at least a way to order her wonderful tea later in the summer. We’ll keep you posted. That will be the subject of another post.

Apr

2012

The Art of Writing Letters

I profess no great skill in the art of letter writing. I’m speaking here not of business letters but personal letters to friends and relatives. My mother had this down cold. As a child and a teen I would watch her sit every evening and while the rest of world was watching television she was writing letters – likely one per evening – to friends and relatives across the world.

Her letters were a joy to receive – they were full of news of her life. Mom moved to Denmark and lived there for 20 years. In that time I felt that I knew personally her friends and new family. Over time I learned who was related to who(or whom) and had a pretty good estimate as to how far everyone lived from one another. Likes and dislikes etc. Her letters were long and newsy.

Through Facebook and Twitter I feel like I have become a voyeur. So, lacking paper, pen and stamps I’ve moved one step back and have started working my rusty letter writing skills into emails. “We went here” “We went there” “We visited Aunt Hannah” “We had to fix a flat tire”.

The thing with getting a real letter or newsy email, you know that the person who wrote it did so because they minimally like you or more likely cherish you as a friend. It is such a great feeling to send or receive a great newsy letter (or in my case, email).

So, pick someone and start telling them as an individual the boring and not so boring parts of your life. Personally, I would love to get a letter from any of my kids with a photo and some news of how they sat around all day Sunday with Bob, Jim, Andrea and Andy watching the football game without any nachos because Andy thought Andrea was going to pick them up.

One thing me mum said regarding this was “NEVER wait for the other person to communicate”. Always start and if they don’t reply, send another one. One day they will write or call or something. Know that they love getting your emails. I know this as I used to send newsy mail blasts about family stuff and after 5-6 years one of my friends that I had pretty much never heard from told me in an email that it was one of the highlights of his year getting my news.

So, try it. Write a letter(or an email) of some length to a friend or relative and see what happens.

Mar

2012

Swimming – glide or no glide

I wish I had an underwater camera and someone to wield it. About a year ago I started studying the Total Immersion style of swimming and adapted much of it to my stroke. More recently I started reading Swim Smooth’s newsletter and studying their philosophy of how to swim freestyle. I’m 60 years old so I’m more interested in going long at a good steady pace. I do some sprints but although I did a 32 second 50 meters recently it puts too much pressure on my old shoulders so I think, in future, I’ll stay away from those short races. I warm up with 800 meters – at about 13 minutes which puts me in the top 5 or 10 for my age group depending on the year. I glide. Just a little bit. But that is where I would love to be videoed. I have kind of developed my own stroke that moves me along pretty quickly. (Probably closer to Total Immersion than Swim Smooth)

That said this is a pretty good article on the amount one should glide: http://www.feelforthewater.com/2012/03/overgliding-inefficiency-and.html

The Total Immersion style is pretty heavily promoted for Tri-athletes and I think works for us ‘older’ guys. But I would advise studying both and seeing what works for you.

Jan

2012

Swimming Stuff

Me and My Swimming

I've been swimming ever since I can remember. I took lessons from the time I put my toe in the water. Swam competitively in high school, took a few years off and from about the age 28 or so have been on average about 6 months out of 12. In the last couple of years my schedule has allowed me to be more consistent and thus I have been doing more research to try to improve my stroke. For 30 years or so I would do 40 lengths or so and sometime squeeze it up to 60. Now 60 (a kilometer and a half - about a mile) is my minimum.
I've read a number of books over the last year or so and watched dozens of videos on YouTube and other places. I had a fairly good stroke, smooth and all but I wanted to reduce my number of strokes per length and generally make my freestyle more efficient. I'm of the philosophy that one has to duplicate something to understand it before one can have judgement. Actually, this sounds pretty logical but most don't really get it. So, what I did was take the Total Immersion technique and just robotically went about learning it. Once I had it and understood how my body moved through the water using this system, I was able to take what I needed and make it work for me and what I wanted to achieve with my swimming.

As I mentioned there are numerous videos on Total Immersion Swimming - I did also get a copy of the book on the subject by Terry Laughlin which has a lot more useful information and more depth that one would get in a video.

Another book that I have found very useful is called 'Shape Up!' by Blythe Lucero. Excellent information and great workouts. She has written several books but this was the one that I found the best for my level of swimming. It has a lot of great drills that are part of the workouts. I find that if I actually do them it improves my stroke. This, along with other aspects of learning some new techniques at my age was a bit tough at first as I often tend to think I already know things and that is a definite barrier to learning. I'm read some other books - some good some bad.

One of the thing that I have found most important in training is to really take gradients. Especially at my age. When I first increased the length of my workouts I did too much too quickly and overworked my shoulders. I had to take a break. I took it back and increase very gradually. Also, pretty much every book and blog recommends recovery time. This goes for any sport and for me 3-4 times a week is plenty and gives my shoulders a rest. I sometimes would love to do more and if I really feel the need, I go and do a few miles on the bicycle.

I have also searched out some different blogs, by no means, I'm sure, all of the good ones. Some just have some good workouts and some websites have lots of marvelous, useful stroke information as well as good workouts.

For me the book Total Immersion was quite useful. It got me thinking about my freestyle and although I had a pretty smooth stroke, with this I was able to lengthen it and adjust a few things that made my stroke a whole lot more efficient.

There are a couple of different philosophies regarding what the 'best' stroke is. I try to take what works for me. For example I learned the 'Total Immersion' technique so that I knew how it felt. I'm better at distance swimming and this worked for me. Even then, once I had learned the techniques for freestyle from this Total Immersion Swimming method I then took from that what worked best for me. I do find that I have a different style for sprinting as to what I use for distance. I am using about 25% fewer strokes and for 400 or 800 meters I am doing the same or better time.

Some good references:
- this is a marvelous site. Full of all kinds of information with interactive tests and an excellent forum: http://www.swimsmooth.com
The information from this site definitely helped my stroke: http://www.totalimmersion.net/. Tons of great videos here and on YouTube.

If you like to change up your workouts this blog has different swim workouts for different levels posted most days. For me this is great - keeps it interesting. If you email you can also get questions answered:
NTC: Nation Training Center - a blog kept by Sara McLarty

Everyone is different and we are all shapes and sizes. Some techniques will work better for one person than others. As I said though, if I learn a technique - really duplicate it and then understand how it works for me - then I can have some judgement. Once I have learned that technique fully I can then take what works best for me and apply.

The websites for Canada Master Swimming and USA Masters Swimming also have a lot of useful information including times so that one can compare how they are doing to other master swimmers.

Dec

2011

I love the blues

ronnie earl, ray bonneville, jj cale, chris rea, eric clapton, koko taylor, canned heat, joan armatrading, tab benoit, buddy guy, allman brothers, abert collins, angela strehli, janiva magness, roxanne potvin, bb king, big joe turner, bob dylan, van morrison, junior wells, mofro, john fahey, ella fitzgerald, billie holiday, elmore james, phoebe snow, rolling stones, etta james, fats waller, gary buford, bonnie raitt, james belushi, keb mo’, john mayall, larry mccoy, luther allison, mighty blues kings, otis rush, ry cooder, susan tedeschi, taj mahal, stevie ray vaghn, robert cray

to name but just a few