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Fantastic Venue for Sprint and Novice Triathletes!

July 07th, 2008 Comments(0)

July 1, 2008

Qualicum Beach Triathlon is a fantastic sprint and first timers triathlon. The location is beautiful, the short 400 metre swim takes place in an indoor pool, the 18 km bike is a fast four-looped course and the 5 km run takes you through two loops of a wooded chip trail. The weather was fantastic for the race! I was thrilled with my results even though I was 5 minutes slower than the last time I raced there. (By the way, that was five years ago). As many will say, it is because it is five years later and I am five years older. I have met enough athletes to know that it has more to do with amount of time training and the kind of training that is done rather than age. In those five years I have been focusing my energy on other things such as earning a Masters Degree at University, developing a business, raising kids, and athletically, I have moved into longer race distances (two marathons and two half-ironman triathlons). Had I decided to dwell on my slower race result even though I had been putting more time in training, I would probably have become very discouraged. However, it is very common for people to become frustrated when they work hard and don’t get the results they had expected. This is relevant in all aspects of life whether we are working on relationships, careers, business development etc. Sometimes people will respond with working even harder but not necessarily doing the right things. If I had done that, I would have ended up injured. It is important when you set your goals to take the right action steps to work effectively toward them. It doesn’t mean longer or harder hours, it means doing the right things to reach that goal. In my case, if I want to perform better as a sprinter, I need to put more time into strength training, and working longer at anaerobic and aerobic paces rather than long and slow which is required in longer distance training.
Getting back into the shorter courses is exciting. It is a much quicker pace and more power is required. I was so energized from this race, I decided to sign up for another short course the following week. I’ll talk more about inspiration in my next entry.
Belinda Kissack works as a Clinical Counsellor in the Cowichan Valley and trains for running races and triathlons in her spare time.

Different Perspectives

June 13th, 2008 Comments(0)

June 13, 2008

I was reminded yesterday, how important it is to attempt to see things from someone else’s perspective even when it isn’t at first obvious. While I was riding my bike yesterday a couple of small dogs started to chase me. I wasn’t all that concerned as they were very little dogs and they were not really keeping up with me. However, they ended up in the middle of a fairly quiet secondary road. Within seconds of my passing the small dogs, a driver came from behind and one in front of me. My first instinct was to worry about the small dogs with the two cars coming toward them. So, using hand gestures, I waved to the driver to slow down. Sometimes drivers are not all that curteous to bikers but I hoped that the driver would trust that I requested her to slow down for a good reason and not because I thought she was driving down the country road too quickly. I watched behind me and noticed both cars slowed down for the two dogs to safely get back home.

Sometimes when we`re out on country roads people can become angry with cyclists and sometimes, cyclists with motorists. I wondered how different the scenario would have been if the motorist had thought that I was telling her to slow down because she was going too fast – which I don’t think she was. Or if I had given the message to someone else who would have interpreted it negatively. Would they have gotten annoyed, sped up and accidently run into one of the dogs? I am grateful that the driver whom I came across yesterday saw my ’slow down’ message and the dogs.

I wonder in life how often we hear messages that are intended to protect other people, animals, or things and are interpreted negatively. When the messages are misread or misinterpreted we can end up straining our relationships and harming those we set out to protect. It’s worth considering when we hear a message, to ask ourselves what the positive intention of the message might be rather than becoming defensive toward the message.  I am happy that the driver considered my perspective and slowed down. Now I just have to ride past the dogs about five more times before my upcoming qualicum triathlon.

Belinda Kissack, M.A. is a Registered Clinical Counsellor working in the Cowichan Valley and in her free time trains for running races and triathlons.

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