Tag: #ultra520K

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The unstoppable Matt Hill

Fitspeek 111 is a podcast of three firsts! It’s the first time we have ever had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on the podcast. It’s the first time a guest has ever said, “My agent.” And it’s also the first time we have had a guest on the show who has run around the perimeter of the USA (and then some).

Vancouver’s Matt Hill is as much of a lead actor as a supporting cast member. He is as much of a voice as a face. He has legs of iron and a heart of platinum. In addition to being known globally as Raphael on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and many other television and radio roles, he is an accomplished ultra distance athlete and co-founder of the Run For One Planet initiative.

On Fitspeek 111, we spend 45 minutes with Matt, a man who moves at the speed of life, encouraging and inspiring others wherever he goes.

Also on the show, Mikey Ross, the head coach from the Abbotsford Triathlon Club is back for a top five list. Mikey goes deep as he offers us the first of his two part series on fostering and maintaining personal relationships. Here it all now by pressing play right here.

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Opinion Piece for a Summer Morning: Carpe Aestes

Chris found victory over the wall on that sunny Saturday morning.

Sorry VR racing, it’s not you, it’s me. Well, it’s really the weather.

Here I am, it’s 7 in the morning, and the Okanagan sun has already been blazing for over an hour. It’s Sunday and I’m working on my second cup of dark roast, pondering the possibilities of the day.

No races on the schedule. No pressure. No expectations.

I’m really liking it!

Yesterday was a great day of riding with a friend and an impromptu 2 K swim in the lake, just because it felt so good. And boy, did it ever.

No pace clock. No lane ropes. No stroke correction.

Just the stern chiding of a female mallard, if I got too close.

In his last edition of Triathlon Magazine Canada, editor Kevin McKinnon queried, “can there be triathletes, without triathlons.” I don’t know. Over the past eight glorious weeks of this all too short Canadian summer, all I know is that if the sun is out, be damned if I am going to be in a basement or gymnasium doing some prescribed torture session, however well-intentioned it may be. (I have to say that because I am a coach and this is what I do).

All of that writing, just to get to the main point. During the sun-drenched days, weeks, and months that we have been enjoying up here in the Great White North, doing a virtual reality race has zero appeal. Doing a VR event when it’s sunny and 25 out would be the same as choosing Velveeta over a big slab of Gouda.

Having been in this sport for 30 summers, I find it liberating NOT to be tied to the orthodoxy of a training schedule that traditionally ends up in tears and shattered dreams that is the run segment of an Ironman.

And I STILL feel like a triathlete.

Once the leaves turn to red and the skies to grey, that whole VR world might seem like the greener side of the fence. But that’s not today.