Just another day at the club
March 2, 2011
We had another club meet hosted by Capital Weightlifting Club in Ottawa on Saturday, February 26, 2011. I had some technical things to work on that got red flagged, but overall I felt strong. At least it gives me some things to work on before Provincials.
Here’s at least one good lift from the meet:
Toronto Winterlift 2011
February 9, 2011
This past weekend I traveled to Toronto as the only Capital Weightlifting Club member to participate in the Toronto Winterlift weightlifting meet. This was a drug tested meet, which meant that I could qualify for Nationals if I made the required total of 190kg for the 62kg class.
The morning of the meet I got off to a great start as I for some reason had assumed that the meet would be at a different school that I had lifted at twice before. Well, I arrived at the school in time for my weigh-in just before 7:30am. However, the parking lot was pretty much empty and the doors were locked! Luckily I was able to pull up the competition entry form on my iPhone, which had the correct address on it. I then plugged the address into my GPS app and took off down the street!
Well, I arrived at the proper school for weigh in at around 8am, so only a little bit late. I weighed in at 61.4kg, then had something to drink, as well as some food, and tried to relax until the lifting started. Warm up went well and I made my opening snatch at 79 easily. Next I was able to make 83 and decided to jump up to 87 for my last attempt. I got it up ok, but caught it a little behind me and missed it. I didn’t time my clean and jerk warm-up as well, and I missed my opener at 102. I then made 102 on my second attempt. However, right after I made 102, my quads locked up on me and started cramping terribly. I was left with an attempt at 107 to make the National total while desperately trying to get my legs to ease up in the time I had between attempts. A little flustered, I took to the platform not quite as relaxed or focused as I should have been. I cleaned the weight and stood up with a bit of a grunt. I dipped for the jerk and felt it slip forward and that was the end of it.
On the positive side, my total was easily enough to qualify for Provincials as I hadn’t actually lifted at 62kg yet this season. This will give me another shot at making the National total at the end of March in Mississauga. I know I’ve got it in me, I just have to do it in competition. Also, I’ll make sure to double check the address this time and maybe eat a banana to avoid the cramping!
BW: 61.4kg
SN: 79, 83, 87x
CJ: 102x, 102, 107x
Total: 185 (1kg less than last week!)
Sinclair: 267.74 (slightly better than last week!)
Olympic Lifting in Ottawa
January 30, 2011
Yesterday (January 29, 2011) I participated in an Olympic Weightlifting meet hosted by Capital Weightlifting Club in Ottawa. This was a bit of a tune up meet for me, as I will be going to Toronto next week for Winterlift.
The meet was held at the Merivale YMCA in Ottawa. This was a last minute change as it was supposed to be at our club, but there was a plumbing incident the night before that complicated the situation!
I weighed in at 62.4kg, close to where I need to be next week to compete as a 62kg lifter. My lifts were as follows:
Snatch – 80, 83, 86
C&J – 100x, 100x, 100
Total: 186
Sinclair: 266.14
This was my best competition Sinclair score so far. The snatch tied my PR which was done at a heavier bodyweight. A bit disappointed with the C&J’s, as I’ve been doing more in training and making 100 consistently. Oh well, I should be able to do a lot more next weekend!
Spare Change
June 2, 2010
Just thought I would list a few highlights from the eternity since my last post. The biggest change was that I started a new job in North Bay back in November. The company is called Nasittuq and they are tasked with operating and maintaining the North Warning System radars, which means I get to tell my niece and nephews that I help track Santa Claus. I moved the same weekend of a weightlifting club meet held in Lachute, QC, where I lifted a competition best in the Clean & Jerk (105kg).
I’ve adjusted well to North Bay so far. I was able to keep up with my weightlifting at the local YMCA with the North Bay Norseman/Valkaryies. I’ve been travelling back and forth between Ottawa most weekends to see Laura, and getting in to lift with the Capital Weightlifting Club most Saturdays.
I took a nice break over Christmas to fly home and see the family. Laura flew from Ottawa and we were able to meet up in Fredericton. I played in the Dwayne Williams Memorial hockey game once again and had a great time seeing everybody.
Laura and I celebrated our 6th anniversary with a day at Spa Nordik in Old Chelsea. It was a real treat, and one of the more relaxing experiences that I’ve had.
Capital Weightlifting had a small club meet in Ottawa in February, which I lifted as a 62kg for the first time and posted a provincial qualifying total. I had to eat a little healthier after “enjoying” myself over the Christmas holidays (that box of Toffifee disappeared pretty fast…) to get down in weight, but I made it with a pound to spare.
Snatching at the club meet in Ottawa
Since I fared ok as a 62kg at the club meet, I decided to lift as a 62kg at the Ontario Senior Provincial Championships at the end of March. I was hoping to qualify for Nationals. Alas, it wasn’t in the cards this year. I needed to make my final attempt at a Clean and Jerk of 110kg to make the qualifying total. I was able to rack the clean, but just couldn’t stand up straight with it. I still managed to finish first in the province in the 62kg category, so now I can say I’m a provincial champion! Next year however, I won’t be satisfied with anything less than a National total.
For the second time in less than half a year, I moved right after a weightlifting meet. After provincials, I moved in with some mutual friends from my 1 bedroom apartment. It was a pretty easy move though, as I don’t have much stuff with me here, and the place I moved to was just a few blocks down the road. I think I increased my drive to work by about 30 seconds.
In a few short weeks, I’ll be moving again. The people I moved in with bought a new house. They weren’t planning on it when we initially made arrangements for me to stay with them, but the right opportunity came up and they jumped on it. I had a couple other friends that bought houses in this time. They all got to become a part of the statistic of those buying houses while interest rates were at record lows.
Lucky for me though, they’re letting me move with them, so I didn’t have to try and find a new place. Staying mobile has its advantages. I’ve managed to cut down on some of my stuff to try and simplify my life. Of course, after getting rid of some things to de-clutter, I did manage to get an iPad, but that’s another story…
“The iPad went on sale this week, ushering in a new era of thousands of people buying something just to find out what it does.” - Seth Meyers, SNL
CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting w/ Coach Mike Burgener – Ottawa
October 12, 2009
This past weekend I attended the CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Certification with Coach Mike Burgener. The cert was hosted by CrossFit Ottawa, and held at the local Notre Dame High School. Unfortunately the weekend got off to a rough start as one of the instructors, former Olympian Fred Lowe, was denied entry into Canada. The sport of Olympic Weightlifting in this country still suffers from a lack of exposure and the thought that someone would come to Canada just to instruct it for the weekend seemed rather foreign to the border officers. Our own Pierre Auge stepped up to fill the void for the smaller breakout sessions, joining Matt DeMinico, Debbie Hudson, and Melissa Cvjeticanin.
The weekend was full of great instruction on technique and progressions for training the elusive snatch and clean & jerk. I picked up plenty of great coaching cues and “drills to develop the skills” that I believe will help me teach the lifts to a greater variety of groups and individuals.
Myself, Coach Mike Burgener, and Janine Daigle (CrossFit Bathurst) at the CrossFit Olympic Weightlifting Cert in Ottawa
Coach B joked that he was going to take me back to California with him, along with a few others. He was impressed with my size, as short people with my lever lengths do have an advantage in this sport! Then there was Janine, who was given a lot of “tough love”, all in good fun though.
We also had Hani Kanama of Toronto Weightlifting on hand to show off some of his equipment, most notably the weightlifting shoes that he’s developed. The majority of the lifters in our club are using them now. Many of the weekend’s participants quickly discovered how much of a difference a good pair of weightlifting shoes with a solid raised heel makes regarding overall stability and positioning.
A few personalities emerged over the weekend, kettlebell trainer “The Iron Angel”, who exhibited some great flexibility, and David, who made the trip from Iqaluit, Nunavut. At 64 years young, he is just one year older than Coach B. David was then affectionately referred to as “Dad” by Coach B, and showed that you’re never too old to learn new tricks and have fun.
Overall, Coach B. is an engaging instructor and commands an attentive audience. There’s nothing like having strong “motivational consequences” to ensure everyone’s paying attention. YAY BURPEES!*
*You’ll have to go and find out yourself what this means!
CrossFit Level 1 Certification – Toronto
September 1, 2009
This past weekend I was in Toronto for the CrossFit Level 1 Certification seminar. For those unfamiliar with CrossFit, it is a “broad, general, and inclusive core strength and conditioning program based on constantly varied functional movement performed at high intensity”. The goal of the program is the pursuit of general fitness. I won’t go into too much detail here, but let’s just say it’s what the “I just want to get in shape and be healthy” crowd should be doing rather than 3 sets of 10 on the weight machines + 30 min on the treadmill at your “target” heart rate.
The certification seminar was two full days of instruction, lectures, demonstrations, and workouts at the Moss Park Armoury downtown. The armoury is a great facility with plenty of space inside, although the pullup bar is a little higher and thicker than I prefer!
Group photos from crossfit.com
Since I first heard of CrossFit in late 2007, I’ve pretty much devoured and immersed myself in the program and all the great resources available on CrossFit.com, as well as everything I’ve learned from training at CrossFit Fredericton and CrossFit Ottawa. At this point I was very familiar with the material, methodology, and movements presented, so I was much more focused on individual coaching and presentation styles, basically how to make myself a better coach. Taking this approach, I was able to get a lot more out of this seminar than if I sat back and simply said, “I already know this stuff”. I was able to come back with a lot of skills that will help me as a coach, as well as some help on my piss poor rowing technique.
Jon Gilson, Again Faster, cleaned up my rowing
Overall, the presentations were professional, engaging, and with enough comic relief to ease those “Fran jitters”. I met a lot of great people over the weekend and it’s always great to hear success stories from those that are passionate about fitness. I met one guy who said he started at ~300lbs and he’s lost 75+ so far!
This guy obviously put in the hard work and dedication inside and outside the gym. THAT folks, IMHO, is doing CrossFit as Rx’d.
Blue Mountain Open 2009
August 24, 2009
This past weekend, I travelled to Collingwood, ON with a few members of the Gas Hut/CrossFit Ottawa Weightlifting Club for our first meet of the season. There were three other lifters from our club competing. For all of them, this was their first meet. It’s been less than a year since my first meet, but I have a few meets under my belt now, so I was the seasoned veteran among them. I did my best to offer advice from my experiences so far.
Since this was the first meet of the weightlifting season, the goal wasn’t to put too much emphasis on the amount of weight lifted, especially since I’m just getting back into it after dropping almost a whole weight class since provincials in March, mostly due to a bad case of food poisoning. I’ve managed to put some weight back on, but not all of it. I was more concerned with making my lifts and just getting more meet experience.
Here’s the skinny:
bw: 64.9 kg (lightest I’ve weighed in at so far)
Snatch – 75, 78, 84
Clean & Jerk – 92x, 92, 95
Total – 179 (3rd Place)
Video:
I pretty much power snatched my first two attempts, so Pierre decided to move me up to 84, which is just 2 kilo’s under my PR. It felt good to make that, as it’s been a while since I’ve gone that heavy.
I was a bit disappointed to miss my first clean, since it shouldn’t have been hard, I just got a bit too far back on my heels. I managed to recover and make my next two attempts. I kind of wanted to go for 100, which would have been a competition PR (and would have moved me up to 2nd place), but fatigue was starting to set in. The ~7 hr drive up and not enough food were probably the main contributing factors. I’ve decided I need to eat more during the break between Snatch and Clean & Jerk.
Overall though, I was very happy with how this meet went for myself. I managed to sleep much better the night before and I didn’t have the nervous shakes when I went out onto the platform. This was probably more what I was looking to get out of this meet; building confidence and being comfortable enough that I can perform my best.
One final note, I have to congratulate the other lifters from our club. They all did very well in their first meets, especially Rob (94 kg) who went 6 for 6 and hit PR’s in both the snatch (101) and clean & jerk (125). The way things are going, he has a legitimate shot at qualifying for nationals this year. Christa and Liz also had strong showings going 5 for 6, and 4 for 6 respectively and lifting close to their training PR’s in a competition environment.
The next meet is scheduled for North Bay on October 17. Hopefully we get a few more lifters from our club out for that one!
Joomla!
March 27, 2009
So I’ve managed to jump on a Joomla! project in the local community on a volunteer basis as part of a website redesign for the Ottawa Talent Initiative, an organization that I’ve joined to help me in my current job search. As I mentioned before, I’ve built a lot of bad websites in my day, so here’s a chance to be part of a team that might actually make a nice one.
What exactly is Joomla!? Joomla! is a content management system for building websites and developing online applications. It’s open source, fully extendable, and has a lot of people out there using it. This means there’s a lot of fully functional extensions already written that you can just download, install, activate, and see on your page in minutes.
When I first joined up on the project, I was hoping to brush up on some of my php and MySQL skills, getting right in and doing some coding. After playing around with Joomla!, it looks like the power of the extensions makes a lot of that unnecessary. It’s going to be much more of an exercise in the software development process. Coding afterall, is just one piece of the puzzle, an ends to a mean, a set of instructions to get something to do what you want it to do.
RRRoll up the Rim, Canada’s Economic Stimulus Package
March 20, 2009
Tim Horton’s annual “RRRoll up the Rim to Win” campaign is certainly something that all Canadians can relate and look forward to. It combines the cheap thrill of caffeine and gambling. Cheap is certainly what a lot of us are looking for these days.
One of the more common “penny pinching” tips is to examine your monthly double espresso soy non-fat venti frappa cappa latte budget from your local Globo-Indie-Organic-Fair-Trade-Save-The-Whales coffee shop. While I certainly appreciate a good cup of coffee, I’m not above shelling out for a regular Timmy’s with pocket change rather than running up my credit card, especially when there’s a chance to win a new car, or you know, a doughnut. It could be a leftover piece of lettuce from the sandwich bar, I just want to win something!
My prediction is that Tim’s is having a banner year with their campaign in spite of the current R-word. I know for some people, it becomes a game of seeing how your odds stack up against the rest. Whether you brag that you’re 0 for 32, or the lucky one beating the odds batting 5 for 5, there’s plenty of people out there throwing down a loonie and change hoping to score the ultimate: the free coffee, which gets you more caffeine AND another rim to roll.
First Post
March 13, 2009
For years I’ve left random bits of myself scattered around the web, whether it was choosing horrible colour schemes and graphics on my first GeoCities website (remember those?), tracking my hockey team’s stats on the old NBnet personal space, playing around with some stuff on UNB’s people pages, some half baked ideas done in Dreamweaver, neglected blogs on msn spaces and blogger, and the general public/privacy debate with Facebook. I decided it was finally time to attempt to bring together something more professional and permanent.
I’ve been impressed by what people have managed to create within the context of wordpress without it degenerating into some awful mess like myspace, so I figure I’ll park my name here for at least a little while. Anyway, it’s about time I bought up my own personal domain. I have a pretty unique name, so there wasn’t much threat of it being claimed by someone else, but you never know. Cybersquatters are a pain. So there you have it. The humble beginnings of ianhaya.com.
