Neil Yan Dot Com

Sunday turned out to be a perfect day for the Scotiabank Marathon. It was a cool 15 degrees at 7AM with overcast skies..and no rain. My 3rd half marathon race should be a good one. This year the route has changed slightly with the start/finish line located at Nathan-Phillip Square (normally it’s at Metro Square next to Roy Thompson Hall). It’s perfect for me because we just live 2 blocks north of the starting line! Roll out of bed and hop to the race…

This year, there were 10,000 participants in the race (including 5K, 10K, 1/2 and full marathoners). With a personal finish goal of 2 hours, I set off at 7:33AM…it took me 3 mins to cross the start line since there were several thousand people ahead of me. If you’ve never been to a marathon before (even as a spectator), the rush is exhilarating! You’re surrounded by thousands of people who are just as psyched as you are to get started. The energy is intense!

The route snaked down Bay St, west onto Wellington Ave (weird, since it’s a one way street going east…I almost didn’t recognize the street), south onto Parliament St, and then west onto Lakeshore Blvd for the grueling 10K stretch, before circling back at Windemere Ave back to city hall. All was well for the first 14K. I was feeling great, energy was high, and the pace was a little slower than my usual pace, but today’s goal was just to finish uninjured.

Then at 18K (of the total 21.2Km), my left calf muscle started to talk to me. It was like it just woke up and said, “Hey, what the hell are you doing? It’s sunday! Why are you making me do all this work?”. It started twitching ever so slightly; so, I had to pace even slower. All I kept saying to myself was “take it easy, we’re almost done”. So with my 2 hour finish goal out of reach, I just took it easy. But, my legs had other ideas for me!  My hamstring started to tighten up with 2K left. “Com’on man, it’s only 2K! YOU CAN DO IT!!” Well, with the finish line in sight…actually at the 300m mark, my legs gave up!! My left calf muscle seized up!! !@#$%!! If you’ve ever had your calf muscle tense up, you’ll know what I mean..

In the end, with thousand of people cheering me on (well, they’re not really cheering for me…they’re cheering for the other more deserving participants passing me), I hobbled across the finish line. I MADE IT…slightly injured, but finished none the less. Amidst the thousands of spectators, Ben and Sheila were there! Somewhere! Maybe. Let’s hope.

Finish time: 2:11:45. Not my best time, but I could have done worst.

Here are my stats:

Ben got a taste of race day. One day, dad and son will run this race together!

There is an election going on in Canada, but you wouldn’t know if from the television coverage. We can thank CBC for keeping us informed of this not-so-exciting, unnecessary, “a complete waste of our tax dollars” election. Who really cares that our stiff PM Steven Harper is in Winterpeg or that Jack is Windsor talking to union workers. In my opinion, we’re going to get another ineffective minority government. The only remote excitement in this election is whether Liz May is going to win a seat in Parliament….and that’s really remote (both the excitement and the win).

But, if you look across the border, the election there is a little crazy. You have the first ever black man nominated for a candidate for president. Also, you have the first ever woman running as vice-president for the Republicans. What’s even more exciting is that if Barrack Obama wins, you have the first black president ever. If John McCain (a.k.a Elmer Fud) wins, you have a woman one heart-attack away from being president (McCain is 72 years old).

So, what does this have to do with Ben? Nothing. I just finished watching the US Presidential Debate and felt it necessary to talk about elections. Regardless of whether you like politics or not, GO VOTE! It’s our right! It’s a privilege that many billions of people in this world don’t have (and many risks their lives to fight for the right).

Here’s a tip, if you don’t like any of the candidates in your riding, you can do one of the following:

1) SPOIL YOUR BALLOT by checking more than one candidate. By doing this, you are showing that you don’t like any of the candidates/parties. BUT YOUR VOTE WILL COUNT! It just shows up as “spoiled”. You have exercised your right to vote

2) VOTE FOR THE GREEN PARTY (or any party that is on the ballot that isn’t one of the major parties). By doing this, you help give the party $3.25 for your vote. All parties (Liberal, PC, or whatever) get $3.25 for every vote they get in the election. To help the small guys, GIVE THEM YOUR VOTE! Again, you’ve exercised your right to vote.

Again, BEN isn’t old enough to vote, but he would if he could.

Here’s a funny clip from Saturday Night Live 2 weekends ago. Enjoy. By the way, Ben’s doing awesome!!

And so there it is. This past weekend, Sheila’s parents finally met my family. What I didn’t know, and now have learned, is that there is some hidden ritual where the first meeting should have taken place in a mutually exclusive place (like a restaurant) instead of my house. I was brought to my attention that by having Sheila’s parents over at my house for the initial meeting, I (and ultimately we) had the upper advantage. We were in our place of comfort, and they were not only meeting new faces for the first time, but also in an unfamiliar location.

Who knew that this event would be so tramatic to some people. I happened to mention it to some friends the week prior, and some of them had horror stories. Most didn’t. But all had a bit of stress over the ordeal. I, myself, thought it was just going to be dinner at my house, like all the other dinners at my house. One thing that made this meeting different was that it fell on my mother’s birthday. She was the one that actually set the date…you can say she sort of organized her own party. But that wasn’t the intent. She knew that everyone on our side (my siblings and their better halves) would be available. And Sheila’s younger brother and his wife had agreed it was a good weekend already. So, there it was. My 2 sisters, mom, brother-in-law and I vs. Sheila’s parents, her younger brother and his family. Also, the usual suspects (3 family friends, and the neighbors) added to the chaos in my tiny house.

What was suppose to be an outdoor bar-b-q turned into a tight knit cozy indoor feast (it didn’t rain, but the bugs were out). What ultimately help ease the tension amoungst the “folks” were Sheila’s two young nieces (1.5 year and 3 years old). Ah…kids can have that effect on adults.

When it was all said and done, I can proclaim, “Mission Accomplished”. Next time, we’ll go out for dinner in a neutral setting. But this beats meeting for the first time at the delivery room!!

So, what I’ve learned is our glands control our hormones, which ultimately control our energy, metabolism, reproduction, etc. (see http://www.hormone.org/public/endocrinologist.cfm). When Sheila was showing signs of tiredness, Dr S. took no chances. Off to Dr. Endo!!

After a battery of tests (well, not really…just a donation of half her blood), and the result was…she’s tired because she’s pregnant. Thank you very much…that’ll be $650 billed to OHIP!

In the end we are glad everything is fine.

The real plus is that I can spell “endocrinologist”!