Jonathan R. Schmidt » Fitness & Sports

Commuting to work: the sustainable way 2010

jschmidty — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:23:11 +0000

Here’s 2010 – sustainable ways to get to and from work.

Lost Soul Ultra

jschmidty — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 19:06:50 +0000

Well, I finally got off the waiting list for the Lost Soul Ultra 50k. So on September 11, 2010 I’ll be attempting to race through the coulees and enjoy the beautiful rugged prairie river valley in the city that I’m currently living in. Lethbridge is a beautiful city, but it’s beauty is not always appreciated or even seen by most people. There are great manmade parks (Henderson and Nicholas Sheran) and amazing natural parks in the river valley. Running through 50k of trails in the river valley should be pretty neat, as it’s one of the few races that I can literally run to.

July biking

jschmidty — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 03:39:34 +0000

In July I calculated that I biked 375 km. I don’t have a bike computer, so this is an estimate based on online mapping.I biked a total of 16 days out of a possible of 19. Only three days I drove due to rain or other circumstances – overall a great month for biking!

It’s been interesting to note that my fastest times have dropped substantially. My ‘to work’ time has dropped from about 30 minutes to a record of about 25 minutes and averages between 25-30 minutes. My ‘from work’ time has dropped from around 35-40 minutes to a record of just under30 minutes, with averages in the low 30s. A big result of the dropped times is my increased fitness and skill tackling the ‘Lethbridge coulee’. Formerly I was taking about 10min to get up coulee on the westside, while now I have it down to around 5 min or under. It’s pretty exciting to feel so strong on the bike, although the bike ride isn’t long enough to test my real endurance, just mostly speed. I also find that my time to and from work can vary widely based on how I hit the stop lights. There’s a potential to wait about 5 minutes at all the stop lights, so it’s tough to really set a record speed unless I hit all the lights green.

Other interesting things to note

-I can now recognize most of the ‘regulars’ who walk, bike or run from the west side of Lethbridge each day
-I’ve talked about 5 different commuters at various times, sometimes for awhile, sometimes just to say hi. This is something I enjoy about biking that never happens in a car.
-Biking in the rain ain’t so bad as it seems and can be overcome, something that I thought was a major barrier to cycling
-Putting my canoe ‘dry bag’ into my pannier was an easy way to ‘waterproof’ my pannier
-My bike work remains one of the highlights of my daily work routine

pedaling off…

Biking to work

jschmidty — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:09:28 +0000

With the start of my new job in Lethbridge I’ve had the opportunity to bike to work. Since most of the other jobs that I’ve had were relatively close to where I lived this is the first time I’ve had to bike commute farther than a couple of kilometres. The total distance from our house to work is about 11km – not too far really. The only major obstacle is the massive coulee in Lethbridge, since we live on the westside of town, thus an eleven kilometre bike ride feels more like fifteen.

Here are some interesting things I’ve discovered during my rides to and from work:

-you are at the mercy of the weather, if it’s nice in the morning you still worry all day that it’s going to pour on the way home. Nature is much closer to you.

-Stop lights are at times a nice breather and other times a painful hindrance to a nice continuous bike ride.

-Some people are good drivers and some are not (but we all knew that before, didn’t we?)

-The bike infrastructure in Lethbridge is lacking (surprise surprise), although I wouldn’t be commuting to work without the Whoop-Up pedestrian bridge..props for that.

-When the wind isn’t blowing I can keep up with most vehicles in downtown Lethbridge

-Getting 22k of riding in during my regular routine feels great

-More people should bike. The majority of people at my workplace live less than 5k from work. Their excuses for not biking are quite weak (and they even admit it)

-It’s fun. Get on your bike.

Stats for May (for the Bighams out there):

Trips in May: 25

Total Possible trips: 40

Approx distance for each trip: 11k

Approx total distance for May: 275k

Approx. avg. time to work: 30 min

Approx. avg. time to home: 40 min (hill is bigger and wind stronger)

Approx. total carbon emissions saved if I used our Yaris (6.2L/100k): 39kg

Carbon emissions if I drove an H3 4×4 hummer (14L/100k): 83kg

Total carbon emissions to fly from Calgary to Toronto: 365kg

Carbon emissions remaining to offset upcoming flight: 320kg (wow, that’s a lot!)

Running across Canada

jschmidty — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:30:48 +0000

Recently some CBC producers went on my website www.trailrunner.ca and uploaded a unique running opportunity in the forum section. The producers are seeking 12 runners who will re-trace the steps of Terry Fox (at the same rate as Terry) in the summer of 2009. It’s a 4 month commitment and you have to submit a video to apply for a spot. A while back I began to compose a list of people who have run across Canada, here’s what I have so far:

There was Kevin in 2000 who crossed Canada in 222 days covering 8078km
http://www.runninginto2000.com
There was Anne Keane who currently has the Guiness Record for crossing Canada in 143 days over 7831km
http://www.powerofpeoplerun.com/

Google Maps recent ‘walking speed’ addition seems to think that it would take only 55 days walking to get from Vancouver to Halifax – that’s fast – guess it doesn’t count on you sleeping

Parkour..you say what?

jschmidty — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:26:20 +0000

So apparently I’ve missed an entire underground running movement, perhaps that’s because I do all of my running ‘aboveground’. But I was interested in an article that came across my email about ‘parkour’ a new running ‘style’ where people basically navigate around our urban jungles jumping off of buildings, concrete walls and whatever else gets in their way. While I’ve seen some youtube videos about what I would call ‘urban gymnastics’ and I was very impressed – I don’t really understand parkour. The online news article describes parkour as a unique running style, but I think it’s still more like gymnastics or skateboarding without a skateboard. There are a few very huge issues here raised in the article – this ‘sport’ may make sense as a small underground movement, but can we really have hundreds of people running around the city jumping off of buildings and concrete walls? I think some people need to know their limits and keep unique underground movements for the exclusive few who truly exhibit the character of the activity. If average folks want to do something like this then follow Toronto and build a facility for it or better yet – try trail running – a sport that I love and that allows people to run, jump over logs and brush, climb trees (if you’re bored with running), fall down hills, cross creeks and all sorts of other diversions if you choose, such as doing chin-ups on low-hanging branches. Do you really want to spend more time in the concrete jungle?

Rudy and the Republicans

jschmidty — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 17:51:42 +0000

CBC television has been showing brief clips from the Republican National Convention and every time they show a clip the background music from the Republican Convention is from the movie “Rudy“. If you can’t remember, the movie Rudy is based on a true story about a small guy from a small town who has a dream to play for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team. All in all it’s probably one of the most inspiring movies I’ve ever watched. To top if all off the music is incredible and also, most inspiring. Have a listen to just a clip of one of the songs. rudy2.mp3. The score is by Jerry Goldsmith, a well-known composer who also did the scores for other famous movies. As a lover of soundtracks this one is great, though I don’t know about the recent attachment to the Republican party – oh well – at least they know how to choose good music. Have a listen and tell me it doesn’t give you goose bumps and make you want to go outside and run a marathon or sprint the length of a football field. The full album is only available through iTunes. If you want a little story about the movie you can watch a two-part special starting with this Part I.

On a related note the Notre Dame football team has a modern day “Rudy” playing for them this season. A walk-on’ player turned starter his story is every bit as good as the one from the movie Rudy. Read about here.

Changing seasons

jschmidty — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 18:36:47 +0000

The seasons are changing and I thought I should add some updates here.

Family: Our family is expanding – that is, we are expecting a new baby in the new year. This is very exciting and there’s some pics from the ultrasound at www.jonanddarlene.schmidty.ca. I can’t believe what a miracle this is! There’s definitely some change in the air for our household.

School: Yes, I feel like I’ve been in school my whole life. Which isn’t far from the truth actually. I think the longest time I have not been in school was between zero and 5 yrs of age. Five straight years without school and I probably learned everything important in life, or least that’s what some book once said, or was that kindergarten? I got a black eye in kindergarten and don’t remember much else, so refer to earlier comment. Anyway, I’m hoping finish my Masters of Environmental Design – Planning degree by the end of 08. I hope it works out. My thesis is about historical land use change in the MD of Foothills. If I had a minute of your time I’d explain more.

Running: I used to never think of myself as a runner, but the last few years I’ve gravitated closer to that label. Being away from grebel ultimate groupies and other team sports I enjoy, running has become my exercise. I’ve been going through physiotherapy for about half a year and finally can begin running again. Physio is over and I’m up to 34 minutes of running with breaks. Hopefully by the summer of ’09 I’ll be back in marathon shape or something close to compete in a few 10k, half-marathon or trail races.

How far is your commute? 90km bicycle commuter in Manitoba

jschmidty — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 14:32:11 +0000

I just got finished reading a CBC article about a man who commutes 90km one way by bicycle! Lacking free time to increase his bicycling training he began considering cycling the 90km from Portage la Prairie to his work in Winnipeg. The article states that he began doing this last year once a week and now has bumped it up to twice a week now. This is outstanding! I wonder if he’s calculated how much gas and car emissions he’s saved already. Though one obvious question for this guy would be why he lives so far away from his workplace. It seems that the environment isn’t his first concern if he’s been living that far away from his work for so long. Then again he’s a social worker and perhaps requires the many miles between him and his work.

The story does beg a good question for those people who train long hours in either running or cycling and maintain a day job: ‘Why drive 10-30km back and forth from work and then go for a 30-40km training session when you get home from work? Last summer I was doing some heavy duty running training and I’d wake up at 6am – go out for a 10km run and then jump in my car at 7:30am and drive 35km to work. Granted the distances aren’t the same, but a 35km bike ride is about the training equivalent of 10km run in terms of conditioning. If I woke up and just cycled to work immediately I would’ve been there at the same time and saved the car. The only catch was that I would’ve had to do it again in the evening or catch a car pool to transit and leave my bike at work. In short, bicycles are extremely efficient machines and if our workplaces continue to develop facilities for bike commuters the issue of distance really isn’t the problem. The greater problem with bike commuting is weather and traffic. The man in the article, Mike Caslor, states that once he hits the city he becomes much more weary of traffic because bikes and cars simply don’t get along very well in the city. Someday we will all have to get along, but until then cyclists will rarely trust motorists and motorists will still wonder why someone would get sweaty peddling a bike when you can drive a car.

Swim across Ontario

jschmidty — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:50:27 +0000

Since I’m fairly impressed with athletic feats I thought it would be good to highlight the recent efforts of Jay Serdula. He recently swam across Lake Ontario to raise money for Asperger Syndrome research. I have no idea how far it is, but his website says that his total time was 41 hours! That’s 41 hours of swimming without a break! Pretty incredible. Runners can walk, cyclists can coast, but swimmers – they are either treading water, swimming or sinking. Jay attends the same church as my sister and brother-in-law, who told me about this story. It’s definitely worth a read and I’ll add it to the list of things I could never possibly do. Congratulations Jay.