The other day I got there a few minutes early like I normally do, and I noticed my trainer shuffling a deck of playing cards at the personal trainer desk area. At first I’m thinking he might have some free time or something been clients. So after my 15 minute warm up on the stair climber. He met up with me afterwards to mention what we were gonna do for that day.

As he explains instead of doing four sets of 15 reps per exercise, I’d be doing whatever number he pulled from the deck of cards so anything from 1-5 was 11-15 reps and 6 to King was 6 to 12 reps though if he pulled a Jack of spades it was the wildcard and it meant I had to do 20 minutes on the stair climber with the increase the speed by 5.

It seems like its gonna be a simple workout, you think as it’s just four things with so many reps etc.. But the non-stop movement between doing crushes and hamstring curls with the exercise ball, step ups on a plyo box and a few chest presses on the machine. I felt like I had the wind kicked out of me, I mean I barely had time to breathe before I was back doing step ups again or doing crunches against the wall. But thankfully I only had to do the “wildcard” once and it was near the end of the session. But at the time I was back on the stair climber I was cursing at myself because I warmed up on the stair climber. Do have to say he kicked my butt hard!

But what doesn’t make you weaker makes you stronger!

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Anyways, Back in June/July I heard that my best friend and her family were planning on heading back down to South Africa to spend Christmas with some family. Since my friends brothers girlfriend and I’ve never been, we were invited to tag along as well. Some days I wish all my flights, I book were direct flights this way I wouldn’t have to deal with long layovers but of course it doesn’t happen that way. We had about a 4 hour layover which wasn’t that bad since there was 6 of us. We always had someone to talk to/look after our bags if we had to head to the washrooms etc. Plus free booze on long flights is a bonus.

Once we landed in Johannesburg, a family friend came by and picked us all up and gave us a quick tour of the city and dropped our gear off at my friend’s aunts place as we were staying there. That afternoon we went to a amusement park and took the mining tour. Trying to stay awake for that was hard but it was nice to walk around and getting all the joints moving again.

Check out my flickr account if you’d like to see more pictures

Once we got back into Johannesburg, the next day we spent time at one of the local museums, like with all museums there are parts you just skip pass and other parts you could just look at all the articles/artwork all day. Even with 2012 just around the corner there you can still find that racism is still around, may not be as noticeable as it once was globally but it’s still around and with that once you get your ticket to enter into the building you are either white or non-white and gave us kids (who didn’t grow up with the whole colour divide a view of what life was like).

The flight to Cape Town is about two hours, which wasn’t that long but it was long enough that we given a real meal, none of this pay $5 by a credit card for a few slices of cheese and crackers crap that all North American airlines do to save a couple of bucks. Once we landed in Cape Town, we were surprised by my friends cousin who met us at the airport. Once we got our two rental cars we drove did a quick tour of Cape Town as we were heading to my friends Grandma’s place.

The next day or so, we (7 of us) packed up again and road tripped it across South Africa to the town where the Grandma grew up in. It was really neat but creepy that we were staying in the house that she grew up in. I only say it’s creepy as it’s now a hunting lodge and since none of us hunt, we were just grossed out by the animal skins all over the place. Traveling with 4 vegetarians can be interesting at times.

While we were there we (the four kids) went tubing and I re-flamed my shoulder/arm up again… Stupid move I know.. On the way back we did a cave tour, did a lot of swimming at all the local beaches, another highlight was the paragliding (I didn’t go), hiked up Cape Point, did some winery tours, saw some wild penguins and went to the local aquarium.

Managed to see some dragonboats while I was in Cape Town which made my day, sure they were just at the dock but I didn’t care as we were at the wharf mid afternoon when we spotted them (to early for teams to be practicing).

If I ever do go down there again, I’d bring two suitcases one for my clothes and another one for all my purchases.

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PGN written in the sand

Near the end of the trip, we did find ourselves at a different beach almost every day. It was really nice to be able to enjoy the summer like weather by doing something other then being stuck in a building sightseeing and or drive from point A to B to C all the time. Since I wasn’t really keeping up with my dryland training (crunches,jogging etc) I just used going to the beach to be my dryland training with some swimming, I also mixed it up a bit by doing some body surfing when I wasn’t able to rent a bodyboard.

Some of the beaches we went to were jammed packed with people and others had barely anyone on them which was quite nice as your not always dealing with huge crowds. We did a lot of our swimming when we were traveling along the Eastern coastline/Indian Ocean. I do have to say it was really nice to be swimming in a warm ocean for once. Having brought my Chawel towel with me on trip, I found that changing on crowd beaches a lot easier then having to wait to use a change room.

My Best Friend and I, after a few hours of swimming

An afternoon of Body Boarding

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My trip to South Africa was just amazing and even the 6 hours I spent walking around London, England between flights was incredible. It doesn’t seem surreal that I was just in both countries less then a few days ago (got back on the 23rd). I’m currently going thru over 3000 pictures, I’ll write more about the trip soon …. I promise.

Since I’ve been back, it’s been jammed pack busy, on the 24th my family and I meet up to visit my Nana at her care home for a family lunch-in. It was great seeing her even thought she doesn’t recall who we all are anymore. And since I was in London had I had to get her cookies from , Christmas Morning was at my Mom’s and tonight my Aunt is hosting Christmas dinner and then on the 30th, we are going to another family dinner.

Didn’t really have had a problem with jet lag since I’ve been back, well my sleeping pattern has been weird since I normally work night shift/early morning. But I’m glad to be back home

Thank you to all of you who sent me Christmas cards this year. You all rock!!

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There wasn’t much of a culture shock when I first arrived like I thought there might be. Johannesburg just reminded me of Home (Vancouver) and a bit of Calgary and Seattle mixed all together, just from the buildings to the landscape and how green everything is and how friendly/polite everyone is.

I do have to say I’m having a blast and I’d love to come back here one day to do more sightseeing.

How are you doing?

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I’m currently at the airport bored out of my skull. My best friend are heading to South Africa for a 3 week vacation and I’m really looking forward to it. Not just because of the warmer weather (it’s their summer right now) but it’s something different then the same old routine. Will try and update as much as I can on here and on my flickr account.

Hope everyone is well.

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It’s been a week since the game and people are still buzzing about it.

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Some of the highlights of the night were:
- Everyone who walked along my street all stopped and looked at my yard display (yay)
- A tot who came to the door with his older sister (who was maybe 5yo), the tot could only say “tricker or tricker” and the sister was no it’s “trick or treat”. It was cute!
- Over hearing some of the kids mention to their parents after coming to the door was “She has purple hair (insert mommy or daddy)”

There are more pictures on my flickr account.

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The last time I ventured to the Oval was for a paddling clinic before the 2010 Olympics and on Sunday I was given a chance to take part in a BC bobsleigh/skeleton talent camp.

Right around the mid paddling season point, I came up with this goal/fitness challenge of taking part in a talent camp, if I made it sweet if not I was able to make it that far. The original goal was to enter one next year but after a few bobsledders I know egged me on to do it this year. Do have to say that it was a great learning curve and now I know what I need to work which would also help with my paddling.

It was really nice to be part of a small group of 8 (12 people signed up though) people instead of a huge group of 30+, this way you aren’t waiting around to long. Being the only female who took part did suck as I wasn’t really able to gauge myself against my own gender and all the guys having true track backgrounds which also didn’t help but at least they didn’t laugh at me.

Now the waiting game begins as I wait for my results.

How was your long weekend?

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So the waiting game is finally over. Just shy of 6 years but it was well worth the wait. Before anyone asks….. I dye my bangs (and or tips) as part of a silly superstition before Vancouver’s main festival. I’ve been doing this since 1996 (when we held worlds) and for the years I wasn’t able to colour my hair (thanks to work) we didn’t medal.. so I colour my hair.

Hmm, the watermark didn’t look so bad in the editor but now it does grr!… oh well..

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