“Don’t abandon others… or yourself,”. I read a lesson most days from Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic. This book is a collection of short teachings from Stoicism, one for each day of the year. Taken from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, the “Don’t abandon others…” lesson stood out to me. Holiday implores that when you are making positive life changes, you should try to bring family and friends along with you. As an ultra-runner, I’m constantly working on improving my fitness and I spend a lot of time training on my own. Our recent family vacation helped me realize the pleasure of training with family.
I ran along the old roads near my family cottage on Manitoulin Island. My grandparents built our cottage in the early 1970s and I’ve been coming to Manitoulin most summers since I was a kid. It was easy to feel nostalgic as I took in the sites, the sun setting on the blue lake, five deer bounding across a field, two majestic sandhill cranes squawking. I thought about how much I loved riding my bike on these roads when I was a kid. So why was I not sharing this with my kids?
We were early on in our vacation and I decided that I would ask my 10 year old daughter Norah and my 7 year old son James to accompany me on my runs. I learned that we had kids’ bikes in our garage that they could use. I was surprised when Norah agreed to bike with me on my next run. I had offered before when we were at home and Norah usually wasn’t interested. I ran at my normal training pace while Norah set out ahead on her bike. I pointed out different landmarks as we went. There’s a good spot to catch frogs, there’s the creek that you can follow in a boat all the way to Bridal Veil Falls. We chatted and made steady progress, neither of us exerting ourselves too hard. We reached the turn around point, 30 minutes into our outing. Norah asked me about how I met her mom, Lindsay. I realized that I had never told Norah the story. I explained how I met Lindsay in highschool but that we didn’t start dating until university through a chance meeting in Guelph, Ontario. In the end, I passed on some family lore to Norah and we covered 10km. Norah was proud to have biked that far and I was glad for the great interaction.
James accompanied me on my run a couple of days later and we had a similar, deep conversation. James wanted to know what I was like when I was a kid, what were my grandparents like and could we get a convertible? James and I covered 13km, his longest ride ever. James’ face beamed with pride.
I swam across our lake, Lake Kagawong when I was around 10 years old. My dad came with me on our little boat to make sure that I was okay. It was a very memorable and positive experience and I often talk about it with my parents when we’re up at the cottage. I decided to swim across the lake again last year since I had been doing quite a bit of pool training. The lake is a little under 2km across and it took me longer than an hour to swim over and back. Without any prompting, Norah asked if she could swim across the lake with me this year. She’s on our local swim team and practices three times per week. I was excited to do the swim with Norah and we gave ourselves a few days to get ready. We left our shore at 9am on the third last day of our trip – we had calm waters and an overcast sky. My Aunt Vicki (who’s an amazing musician) accompanied us in a kayak and towed another kayak for Norah to take on the way back. I planned on swimming back. We swam at an easy pace, mostly doing breaststroke. Norah swam with my inflatable swim buoy fastened to her waist. She swam for a good 30 minutes before taking her first sizable break, floating on top of the buoy for a rest. We were both excited about our progress and it was serene out in the middle of the lake. We pushed on for another 10 minutes and reached our final destination at the far shore. Aunt Vicki took a celebratory picture and then I hoisted Norah into her kayak. I was energized by Norah’s accomplishment and felt great on my swim back across the lake.
I could tell that both Norah and James felt great about their training sessions during our vacation. There’s a special sense of accomplishment from completing long runs, bikes and swims. I was really happy to help Norah and James experience the great feelings that come with prolonged exercise. Sure, it took an extra 10 minutes or so to get the kids organized before training but it was well worth the time. I’ll never force the kids to train with me but I’ll certainly continue to offer. Training on my own is great but helping my kids train is next level rewarding.
