I’m not going to get on a political junket here, but I am going to say something that affects us as athletes, and that is the condition of our air, water and food… Now, low and behold you would never imagine an outdoor enthusiast to be an environmentally “conscious”, so to speak, would you?
So, without further adding to the science and everything, I’ll just say this… I have asthma. It comes out mostly in spring and fall when the pollens are strongest, but I do get a sense of it on bad days of smog and pollution and, let me say this, I do not believe I should have asthma… I think it is absolutely pig headed for people not to see what we are doing to our air quality. I used to make jokes about the fact that the reason we have such beautiful sunsets is because of the light from the sun refracting off the smog on the horizon. I still think that’s funny, but I definitely see that there is a greater problem at work here. It’s not just me, but people around me have asthma in horrendous numbers these days. I remember as a kid there were, like, 2 or 3 kids who had bad allergies. Now we all are allergic to something.
This doesn’t seem right. My asthma can get so bad that I lose my voice, and I know that it has cause some lung damage do to excessive coughing during some 3-4 week stretches. I take an inhaler with steroids during those times, just to make sure I can still talk at the end of an evening. It’s that bad.
Again, I don’t think this is right. These pollutants and chemicals that we are taking in are causing increased cancer risk, disease and respiratory issues. As someone who intends to basically spend the rest of my life doing outdoor activity, I almost put myself at more risk being outside and active than sitting in a sterilized room all day. That I definitely don’t think is right. The fact that my asthma gets worse and worse each year is simply unacceptable to me.
Not to be political again, but I’m starting to see Al Gore’s point about becoming “environmentally neutral”, in that making sure you are carbon-neutral and not adding more pollutants to the atmosphere without taking at least an equal portion out.
As an athlete and someone who wants to participate in Ironmans until I am at a ripe old age without having to deal with lung problems or skin cancer or what-not just because I am outdoors, I’m just saying we all have a duty to leave no footprints and take only pictures…
Jumping OFF the soap box (I guess I shouldn’t view this as Speaker’s Corner), I’m having to plan out my week a little differently, since I will be heading up to the interior on Saturday to do some trout lake fishing – actually, I really rarely catch any trout but it’s fun to go out on a quiet lake and look at birds and occasionally see a moose or something – until Tuesday. So, I’m in a debate (with myself) about trying to ride 100km on Friday morning before work…. That would mean getting out at around 5am at the latest, and more likely getting out at 4:30am… The bottom line is that I need to get the ride in, and this looks like the best way. What time does the sun come up again?
I’m going to bring my bike and indoor trainer up with me. I figure I have a cabin anyway and I mind as well not let my training go completely off course while trying to get some R&R. Call it a little “altitude training experiment”.
When I come back on Tuesday, I have one more day until I get my head shaved and polished to raise money for the Canadian Cancer Society… At this point, I’ve let my hair grow for 2 months and I really am getting sick of it, and with the temperature getting up into the 20’s more consistently I’m finding my exercising to be quite overheated with the insulation on top of my head… Then again, what danger lurks beneath the surface?
Still, having a clean scalp will mean I stay cooler and don’t have to worry about a haircut until probably September. It also means polishing my head with sunscreen now daily, since 32 years of natural sunblock will now be gone…
It’s just another side story in this Ironman journey of mine. I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for the Cops for Cancer Ironman Team, which was one of my inspirational reasons for signing up to do the Ironman this year. Now it seems that both the Ironcops and the Ironman itself are joined at the hip. Most of the other guys who shaved their heads raised some good money for the charity, and I am hoping to net around $1000 or so out of it (actually I already have about $250 in donations or pledges). When I sum up the year in review, being a part of the Ironcops team will be one of the inspirations that has kept me working hard when times were tough. I think we all like to feel that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves and, while we can take the training and long hours by ourselves as our own personal missions, when it is possible to match personal and charitable missions together, I find that I feel I truly can have it all. As the Blazeman said, “whatever big thing you do, make sure you get it on film”… I’ll at least have some good pictures to prove “I was present in 2006”…
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