Holy crap. 
Holy crap 5km of swimming is not the same as running 5km. 
Holy crap!
Okay so this week was a crazy awesome week. It is the first week in a while that i felt like i had a handle on my diet, i put out a supplement question on facebook and got a ton of feedback and things to consider ( I will update in the future about some of the things I am finding out), started a 'learn to run 5km' group at work, and of course the first race of the summer for me the 5km Epic Dartmouth swim.
Leading up to this week my workouts went a little like this:
Monday: 2500m swim
Tuesday: 1st day Learn to Run 5km session
Wednesday: 3000m swim + L2R 5km session
Thursday: 2500m swim in wetsuit + L2R 5km session
Friday: off
Saturday: 5km swim in Lake Banook
Sunday: recovery day
So a few intense swimming workouts this week leading up to the race on Saturday, but I was feeling really good. The wetsuit thing is a little constricting around the neck and because i was using a dive hood and part of an old dive wetsuit I had, I knew i was going to have to be careful not to over heat. But I was just too cheap to buy a new triathlon wetsuit without trying this a couple of times this summer to know if this is something I am going to use for races over the next couple of years.
Friday night I was feeling good, had a big pasta dinner, some good protein, lots of water, and in bed at a decent hour. But do you think i could get to sleep, ah nope. I was so excited about doing the race that my mind wouldnt stop going. I tried breathing exercises and changing sleeping positions, but nothing was working. I am not sure when I finally fell asleep, but I can tell you when I woke up. About 4am one of our dogs, the only dog we actually allow to sleep in our room on the floor, had a major malfunction and violent diarrhea.
My wife sprung into action, my offers to help were shot down, so I tried to get the covers over my head, breath through my mouth, think of a happy place, but the odour was invasive and overpowering. So despite my ' wishing to be a bird, and fly far far away' rocking in the fetal position there was not much to do but lay there and take the olfactory abuse.
As the birds chirped a welcome good morning, I got out of bed and began getting my bag packed and things collected for the trip to Dartmouth. After about 2 attempts at leaving and having to turn around and come back to the house I was ready to get on the road.
Being alone in the car I was able to blast my hard rock anthems with the windows down and sing at the top of my lungs. Just the way I likes it. Sorry to that family traveling from Florida in the camper as they passed me with windows open just as I was yelling to on one:   " FUCK YOU I WONT DO WHAT YOU TELL ME" ....oopsies.
After a brief stop at my friends place, some chats with the fam, we were packing up and heading down to the lake. At this point i think my nerves were kicking in a little as my belly was doing flippity flops.
A little walk from where we parked and we are there.
Now I dont know if you can tell in the picture above but I included it to give you some idea of the distance. 
5km sounds small when you are thinking about it or even talking about it, partly because you are thinking of running. Most people have done a walk or run at the 5km distance. You dont really notice how far it actually is because those events are over areas that have things in the way of seeing the entire route start to finish. This was not like that. There are no hills, buildings or houses in the way. It is just you and lake.
Okay so in the picture you will notice red, orange and green floats.
The red one closest to shore and its mate ( just out of frame to the left) denote the start line. The green one closest in the frame is the one you swim to first. Now if you look waaaaaaay down on the right had side close to the bridge you will see another green dot to the right. Then another green dot on the left. So that is half of the rectangle then you swim back to another green floaty out of frame to the left of the green one that is in frame, close to the beach. Once you do a full rectangle, congratulations that is 2km. Yup only 2km. You have to then swim that again. Then you will notice orange floaties about half way to the green ones, that is your final rectangle and then swim to shore.
After the first rectangle, I was starting to question my decision making. Maybe we should tap out at 2km, that would be okay right? 2km is pretty good. But one look at the glee on my swim partners face and I was like okay eff that, lets do this. I already swam the rectangle once, we can do it again. 
I dont know what our time on the first rectangle was, but we killed the second one. We had struggled to get in sync the first lap, but were now swimming in sync on the second one and before I knew it we were starting the third. The third, even though it was half distance, it was a grind. You become very aware of all the little aches that were not present a few minutes ago. You become aware of your body temperature in the wet suit, the constraining of your neck and breathing by the wetsuit and have to manage the fight or flight adrenalin and keep control of your pace. It was def the hardest lap for me mentally. So I started to sing songs in my head. Not my typical hard guitar tunes, no startled Florida families, but things like 'Sweet Caroline' and 'Mr. Jones' and 'Island in the Sun' and i started to get my breathing back under control. Before I knew it we were rounding the last green floaty and heading for the beach.
Total time 1 hour and 53 minutes. 
We were pumped. We were not far off of our pool time, and even though Dave could have swam faster he was an upstanding partner and stayed with me right until the end. 
I have to give him huge props, not only for doing this with me, but navigating us the whole time. You dont really understand until you do something like this, how much extra energy it takes physically and mentally to be the person navigating. He was a champ to take on all the navigating and it is so appreciated.
After we staggered our way out the water, couple high fives, a few bananas and a quick change we were done.
The only thing i was a little disappointed about was there were no medals for completing the 5km. It is totally not about the medal, ever, but it is nice to have as a reminder.
We popped back in the car and back to Dave's for celebratory cigars and a snack and to chat about our accomplishment. 
I have always loved the water and this experience really solidified that for me, I am very proud of the both of us for taking on this challenge and completing it, and couldnt think of anyone that I would have wanted more to have out there with me. I was very lucky to meet Dave on my first day of orientation week in Dennis House at Acadia over 20 years ago, and along with the rest of our crew from those days, blessed to still have the opportunity to do things like this together from time to time. 
I dont think this is our last time doing this event, or possibly others like it - cough, cough - Big Swim - cough, cough - in the future haha.
Sean " BigBoyRunning" Ryan

So I have been off the blogging the last couple of weeks for some pretty good reasons, all have to do with family, both for good reasons and some awful reasons. Most of you may have seem my last post about the sudden death of a close friend and relative, like most of his family, I am still dealing with that, some days are better then others, but I am going to keep trying to find the humor in life and in this journey for fitness, because one of the things we shared was humor and commenting on the weird and the wonderful things in life. 
On the good side of recent events I was able to take my family on a workcation ( some work for me, some vacation for them) to Toronto for a few days last week. We decided to drive from the Nish to Toronto and back, 'why in the name of baby jesus would you do that?' some of you may ask. As a kid I went on this trip many many times every second summer from Ontario to NS and I didnt want to deprive my children of the same opportunity. To be honest, I loved it. It was a great chance for us to spend some time together without internet, play some traditional travel games, have a lot of laughs and enjoy each others company. It was great to see them experience some of what Canada looks like outside of Nova Scotia, from the amazing agriculture rich NB and Quebec, to the large cities of Montreal and Toronto.
Knowing that I was again going into conference mode and that there was not a pool in sight at any of our hotels the week before i did a swim heavy week:
Monday: 5km run 
Tuesday: 2500km swim + 12mile bike
Wednesday: 2x750m swims
Thursday: 3000km swim
Friday: 5km run + 20min bike
Saturday: travel
Sunday: travel
I was focusing on these longer distances because this Sunday is the 5km swim. So this coming week will be another strong swimming weeks leading up to that swim.
So that week earned a #cigarSunday - knowing that I was going to be on the road I planned to have that cigar in Milton ON.
This week, well I put in a good effort but sadly no #cigarSunday this week.  Not even for fathers day? Nope, rules is rules.
This past week went something like this:
Monday: 6km run + 13mile bike
Tuesday: 13km bike
Wednesday: 6km run
Thursday: 5-6km walk while pushing a wheel chair around Canada's Wonderland ( I sweat a ton, it was a workout)
Friday: travel
Saturday: travel
Sunday: 5.5km run
I have been slowly moving my pace up on the treadmill feeling comfortable at 4.6 and 4.7 to doing some of my run at 5.0. While that might not be as lightning fast as some of youse, I am pretty pumped. I really need to get some outside workouts in so hopefully the weather will cooperate the next couple weeks as July 12th is getting reeeeeaaaalllly close.
At the conference we were lucky enough to have a session with Joanne McLeod and Hal Johnston from Body Break. The room went crazy when they came in and they were awesome. Yes we totally started with a body break led by Joanne!! So cool!! They talked alot about how bodybreak came to be, how they prepared for the Amazing Race Canada and the trials and tribulations of being in an intense competition like that was for them. As well they talked a little about nutrition. One line that really stuck with me was ' you cannot out run your food'. While this is so simple and makes so much sense I think it sums up how i have been looking at nutrition.
I have caught myself so many times going well I can eat these chips, or second helping of mashed potatoes or pasta, or sugary treat because I am going to workout tomorrow or I worked out twice today. They explained that so many people fall under the delusion that if they work out they can eat whatever they want. 
It was so simple but something that I will be carrying with me over the next little while to try and help me make better choices.
I started this post talking about the recent loss of a friend. But on this fathers day I also wanted to mention another loss, that of my father.
I miss my dad everyday, and days that remind me he is gone are the worst. Christmas, Birthdays, Fathers Day, Superbowl and countless other days. While we didnt always see eye to eye on things he was a tremendous influence in my life and it sucks to not have him around still for my kids and my brothers kids.
He is always in the back of my head when I challenge myself with these races and nevermore so then the ones that are coming up over the next month. To all the dads out there, and those that have to step in for dads no longer with us, i hope you have a fantastic fathers day today.
Until next week
Sean "BigBoyRunning" Ryan

Hello True Believers! 
So for the 4 of you that are regular followers of this blog you will have noticed a bit of a hiatus in the last couple of weeks. A) I suck and 2. Towards the end of my week of workouts on my birthday week ( May 22nd) which blended into a work commitment to attend a conference in London Ont. last week.
The week leading into my conference was a great week for training, one of my best.
It went like this:
Monday: 2500m swim
Tuesday: 6k run ( outdoors) + 12mile ride
Wednesday: 2x750m swims
Thursday: 5k run + 13mile ride
Friday: 5km run
Saturday: Off ( 5km walk looking for liquor store in London Ontario)
Sunday: 7km run outside
Finally was able to start to move my running outside, something i hope to continue over the next 6 weeks until the first triathlon in July.
The conference I attended was great. The information sessions and networking opportunities with my peers and colleagues across the country was second to none. I have been lucky enough to attend 5 of these conferences in my time and sit on the Board of Directors now as the Eastern Regional Rep. This one was the best one yet. The organizers did a fantastic job on all aspects of the conference and should be really proud of themselves on the execution of such a large event. 
The only draw back for me personally was the hotel gym and pool ( pool for training only, for fun it was awesome!).
I should have taken a picture of the gym, it had 2 treadmills, a recumbent bike and one weight work out station. I am not sure how a hotel can actually call that a gym, if there were hotel gym police, they would be sited for misuse of space and failure to comply with appropriate equipment. 
The pool was designed to be an ultimate play place for children ( and adults) traveling or hosting birthday parties, but not so much for the swimming lengths. There is also a waterfall, waterslide and hot tub in the pool area. So as i said, awesome spot to hang out after a long day of learning, but not so much for the triathlon swim training.
The hot tub, may have been heated by an underground lava pit, the jury is still out on that one. I loved it though, I felt like a lobster in a warm pool of butter.
Luckily the hotel was across the street from a welcome center that had trails all around some ponds and was attached to a few little used roads behind a hospital. I had the chance to get a few runs in around there and aside from a 'coyote has been spotted on these trails sign' it was a great place to run. There were wooden bridges that would look out over the ponds and some really cool old buildings that had nothing left but the fire places. 
The late nights and early mornings of a conference do not always lend themselves well to training but the week went like this:
Monday: 30min swim ( no way to tell distance)
Tuesday: 6k run in the park
Wednesday: 5.5km run in the park
Thursday: 45min swim
Friday: Travel Day
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off
So needless to say there was no #cigarSunday this past Sunday. 
But to be honest i was not really feeling it after the week away.
The biggest thing for me over the next couple of weeks will be nutrition. No seriously. Okay stop laughing.
I tried my wetsuit on.
It fit.
Barely.
I had to stuff myself into it like a sweater into a juice box.
It scared my children, and if the zipper ever let go I would def take out whoever was standing in front of me with the whiplash of the neoprene. 
So I am going to start to get on a better eating plan. I will let youse all know how that goes next week.
To all youse out there thinking about getting active, seriously if I can do these things you can too. 
Got the chance to talk to a long time friend from highschool while in London. She has done her first 5k and was wondering about working up to a 10k. 
The first thing i say to anyone looking to start running or change distances is - you can do it.
If I can do it you can too. It is not about being first, or running super fast, it is about wanting to set a goal and achieve that goal, and figuring out the steps to achieve that goal with the pace that is appropriate for you.
I am crazy slow. Anyone that wants to run with me or bike or swim, I am always up front, if you are looking to me to set the pace, look somewhere else. I do not do these races to prove anything to anyone else. I do these things for me. It helps me mentally and physically, it is me doing my part to make sure I am around for my wife and children and maybe one day, grandchildren. 
I think everyday about how late in life my dad found his passion/enthusiasm for long distance pedal biking and how, despite his best efforts to make change in his life, he wasnt able to reverse time and passed away, way to young.
Those are reasons to do 530am runs, 9pm gym sessions. 
I am sure that any of you thinking about doing a run or increasing your distances all have a feeling, thought, or story like that to tell, to keep you motivated. Just commit to it and get at it already.
Dont be 'inspired' by me, go be inspired by yourself.

Okay that is my cheerleader moment for this week.
Until next time
Sean "BigBoyRunning" Ryan