Social Climber: Redemption on the Grouse Grind

As I hit the quarter mark of Vancouver’s infamous Grouse Grind, my hamstrings were on fire. My quads trembled as I tried to catch my breath. I used my shirt to mop the flowing river of sweat off my forehand.

“Oh Fuck,” I thought. Here we go again.

It was less than a week after I had failed to reach the summit of Mt. Finlayson in Victoria. Sure, I could use the excuse that I was sick then. But not here. Not now.

I had had almost a week to recover and reset my focus on climbing to the top of Grouse Mountain for the first time in my life – a 2.9 kilometre trail that rises 853 vertical metres. In other words, it is damn steep, which explains why it is often dubbed “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster.” (Note: The official website states that the climb is an approximate 56 per cent slope or 30°)

• SIGN UP NOW to join me for a #KiliHikeTO
• DONATE NOW to support the #Climb4Cord

I was hiking with Tanya. She’s the Medical Director for the Canadian Blood Services’ National Public Cord Blood Bank. We had met in person for the first time about 20 minutes earlier in the parking lot at Grouse Mountain. However, we’d been chatting over email and Facebook for a few weeks as both of us will be on the expedition team climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in August.

Tanya and I have an additional connection. My late father, whom I am climbing for on this trip, was one of her mentors when she was in medical school. She also cared for him when he was sick. I was really looking forward to meeting her and hiking ‘The Grind’ on this Friday morning.

Tanya flew up the grind with ease and was patient enough to wait for me as I slowly navigated my way along the route.

The setting was unreal – beautiful old growth forest with sounds of running water and birds chirping. I even saw a real grouse shouting out mating calls with its ruffled feathers displayed for courtship.

The average hiker is supposed to take an hour and a half to reach the top. Novice hikers generally take two hours. By the three-quarter mark, Tanya and I had to split. I was slowing her down and she had to take off to get to a meeting.

I was physically spent at this point, but there’s no turning around on The Grind. The only way to go is up. So I took some time to catch my breath and refocus. I would have taken a sip of water, but my bottle was empty.

Ever so slowly, step by step, I forced myself up the final quarter of the trail. It was a mental battle. But one I needed to endure.

The elation I felt when I emerged from the trees and saw the lodge at the top of the hill is indescribable. A huge smile came across my face and the weight of the world fell from my shoulders. I had slayed my mental beast and it only took me 1 hour and 57 minutes.

This climb provided some additional valuable information for my training. It exposed some additional weaknesses – namely my fitness and the muscles in my legs.

I have now put a renewed focus on my physical conditioning. I was out on the bike earlier this week before work and will continue to create time in my schedule to ride and also run hills. So be forewarned, if I tell you I can’t hang out until September, this is why (unless you want to ride a bike or run a hill with me).

To address the issue of my muscles, I called up an old friend, Erin, who is an athletic therapist. She and I started working together this week.

Erin informed me that my glutes aren’t firing, which is causing my hamstrings and quads to fatigue quickly. I also have super tight hip flexors, which is why I was at a standing desk at work for most of today instead of sitting. The next few months will be about making little adjustments in my life to ensure I’m as ready as I can be when August arrives.

I want to make absolutely sure that I take charge of all the factors that I can control.

This Sunday, I continued my weekly hikes back on my home course in the Don Valley. Only 12 hours after returning home from Vancouver, I met up with Kristyna at the Brickworks.

Often times when you meet someone in person for the first time after only knowing them from Twitter, they aren’t quite as you’d expect them to be. Fortunately, Kristyna’s online and offline personality is a perfect match of energy, intelligence and sass. She’s also the ideal person to get you in a great mood on a Sunday morning (and not only because she brought me a vanilla latte from Starbucks).

We have some similarities, like experience working in professional sports. We also have some differences when it comes to hockey. She likes the Calgary Flames; I’m a Vancouver Canucks fan. Thankfully, we didn’t come to blows on the trail. Likely, it was because both our teams are already golfing.

We also share a passion for social media and connecting with people and we traded stories of online experiences with brands – both positive and negative. I’m always interested to hear from other people about which companies they like and which companies they could do without when it comes to social media practices.

We started our hike in the sun, but by the time we reached the top of the ridge overlooking the Brickworks, a wicked hail storm howled across the horizon. We had nowhere to take cover, so we kept walking. Hail in May – you just gotta roll with it!

I received a package from Arc’teryx on Tuesday, which made my day. I had sent my jacket in for repairs a few weeks ago and now it is fixed. It is my lime green jacket that will be accompanying me on the climb and it is nice to have it back and in my care. Through all these training hikes, I’ve become quite particular about my gear. Again, I don’t want any surprises on the mountain.

On the fundraising front, I hit another major milestone on May 8th when I passed the $15,000 mark. It is hard to put into words how much the support – financial or otherwise – from friends, family and strangers means to me. So thank you for playing a part in this journey.

Don’t forget to sign up for a hike. The weeks are filling up fast and I’d like to hike with as many people as possible before I go.

–

The #Climb4Cord features a group of business leaders who will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in August 2013 with the hopes of raising $750,000 for the campaign For All Canadians, which is dedicated to building Canada’s new national public cord blood bank. Click here to donate to my personal page or for more information on the campaign please visit: http://campaignforcanadians.ca/

Social Climber: You need to fail before you succeed

Sometimes you need to fail before you succeed.

Sunday’s climb up Mt. Finlayson near Victoria, B.C. was a good lesson that nothing in life comes easy.

I had been in a pretty good groove with my training over the past couple of months. I felt like I was rounding into good shape to summit Mt. Kilimanjaro in August.

Many friends and acquaintances have been telling me that they felt I could climb Kilimanjaro tomorrow, if I were forced to leave early. I let that get to my head.

On Sunday, Mt. Finlayson kicked the shit out of me. I failed to make it to the top.

I tried, several times, to catch my breath, regain the strength in my legs and disregard the aches and pains in my muscles and joints. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be.

I started worrying about Sunday’s hike on Saturday afternoon following my regular workout with Marshall. I made it through our session, but I was feeling lackluster and was not my energetic self. My body was present, but my mind was elsewhere.

I came home and tried to recover before my five-hour flight to Victoria. I hydrated. I ate nutritious food. I stretched. Nothing seemed to eliminate the aches and pain in my body that was now spreading to my head. My stomach was in knots. I was exhausted.

I started the week suffering from allergies – an annual occurrence for me. But this wave of sickness wasn’t allergies. It was much stronger.

I slept for a majority of the flight to Victoria, hopeful that the west coast air might breathe some new life into me when I landed. It didn’t.

I decided that sleep would be the cure. I went to bed at 10pm and slept until 8am. This marked the most cumulative hours of sleep I have had in months.

I felt refreshed when I woke up, but still weak. I went downstairs for breakfast where I tried to fuel up to ensure I could make it to the summit of this 419m high peak.

Mt. Finlayson isn’t a long hike – it’s only 4km round trip – but it is a steep hike with lots of rugged terrain like tree roots and bare rock. The footing is challenging for most of the hike while the final ascent involves scrambling up a rock face.

I’m visiting Victoria to speak at Social Media Camp – a gathering of about 600 social media professionals. The plans had been in the works for weeks to climb Mt. Finlayson. Chris Burdge, who runs Social Media Camp, was kind enough to help me continue my streak of Sunday morning hikes to train for the #Climb4Cord. He put out a call to other attendees of the conference to join us.

We couldn’t have picked a nicer day for a hike. The sun was out. The sky was blue. Temperatures were in the low 20s. And the breeze off the ocean was magnificent.

The setting for the hike was ideal. Mt. Finlayson is located in Goldstream Provincial Park, which is a 25 minute drive northwest of Victoria. It is set amid old-growth temperate rain forest.

The hike commences at the bottom of a steep set of stairs. The shade is nice as your body instantly heats up from the exertion of ascending quickly. At the top of the stairs, glimmers of sunshine dot the trail, which becomes a mixture of dirt, rocks and tree roots.

Chris and I ended up veering off course early on because we missed the tiny sign leading up to the top. Thankfully, one of the many friendly hikers along the way guided us back to the correct trail.

One especially beautiful part of the lower mountain is what some locals call “nature’s ladder” – it is a maze of tree roots leading up a hill. We experienced this feature a couple of times on some early hills.

Soon the dirt and roots gave way to loose rocks and the grades became steeper. Before we knew it, we were out of the trees and on a rock face. This was the final part of the trail and it required us to scramble across and up the rocks to reach the summit.

The trail was marked by tiny orange flags, but it became abundantly clear why hikers are strongly dissuaded from heading up this trail close to dusk or in the rain. Even on a dry day, some of the rock faces were slippery as we made our way up.

Chris was patient enough to wait for me each time I needed to try and regain my energy, which became more frequent on this part of the hike. Finally, I had to stop and sit on a rock and simply take in the breathtaking views.

You could see several snowcapped mountain ranges off in the distance. Large birds stalked prey from above the treetops. And it was quiet. It was so peaceful.

I sat there and contemplated my situation for a few minutes. Should I let my competitive spirit take over and drive myself to summit the mountain, despite the exhaustion and pain? Or do I do the smart thing and head down, recognizing that the decent was going to be equally taxing on my body.

I decided to keep going for the top. I hiked another minute or so and saw the final ascent. It was long. It was steep. It was rocky. I took a deep breath and realized that that it wasn’t meant to be. I simply didn’t have the energy to push for the top. Whatever illness that had invaded my body was going to win the day.

Part of me wanted to know what failure felt like so that I could bottle up that feeling and store it in the back for my mind in case I found myself in a similar situation on Kilimanjaro. I wanted to ensure I knew what the bitter taste of defeat tasted like, so that I would never have to taste it again – let alone on the actual climb in August.

So while my attempt to reach the summit of Mt. Finlayson was a failure, the overall hike was a success thanks to the lessons I learned.

I have a second challenging hike coming up this week on Friday in Vancouver (as long as I’m recovered from whatever is making me sick). The plan is to climb the Grouse Grind with some of the Vancouver based climbers from our #Climb4Cord team. Then I’m back in Toronto on Saturday and have a local hike planned for Sunday. The sign-up sheet is located here.

Fundraising continues to go well. I’m within $200 of reaching $15,000 raised. The support from family and friends has been outstanding and I’m thankful to everyone who continues to support me along the way.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.

–

The #Climb4Cord features a group of business leaders who will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in August 2013 with the hopes of raising $750,000 for the campaign For All Canadians, which is dedicated to building Canada’s new national public cord blood bank. Click here to donate to my personal page or for more information on the campaign please visit: http://campaignforcanadians.ca/

Social Climber: Blue Balls & Rouge Trails

Heidi set out to make this week’s #KiliHikeTO the best hike on the entire calendar. That’s how she rolls.

Throughout the week leading up to the hike, Heidi was planning all sorts of ideas to create content that we could share on social media before, during and after the hike. I think we landed on producing a bunch of Vines (a social video service), but in the end, our creative minds wandered elsewhere.

Allow me to present to you the Hadouken:

For those of you struggling to find the cultural relevance, Hadouken comes from the video game Street Fighter II. It was a move performed by the characters Ryu and Ken.

What does this have to do with hiking and training to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro?

Nothing.

But it looks cool!

• SIGN UP NOW to join me for a #KiliHikeTO
• DONATE NOW to support the #Climb4Cord

I’ve known Heidi since 2010 when I met her at ING DIRECT’s first-ever TweetUp in Toronto. She was working for the bank while I was just a wannabe social media nerd trying to hang out at cool events.

We started interacting on Twitter following that night and stayed in touch until I joined ING DIRECT in 2012 and we started working together in the Marketing department.

Despite driving this week’s agenda – including location – I discovered just how directionally challenged Heidi is. I thought her round-about way of getting to the Rouge Park was special until she turned a 22km drive home into a 35km adventure that practically went half-way across the city. I’m thankful that she is great company.

Heidi and I carpooled over to the Rouge Watershed with Maarten. He and I work together at ING DIRECT. Maarten heads up our sustainability program.

Maarten is originally from the Netherlands, which was clear from the moment he arrived on his three-speed bike wearing jeans and soccer-style kicks for our hike. He was also sporting a messenger bag and was later caught sipping coffee out of the small cup that came with his thermos.

As a reminder that looks can be deceiving, we’d later find ourselves chasing Maarten up and down the hills.

Maarten came to Canada a few years back and landed a job working in our ING DIRECT Vancouver Café. I find it ironic that he left the Netherlands to come to Canada only to work for a Dutch bank.

Maarten’s story is interesting because he created his current opportunity with the bank. There was no official sustainability program at ING DIRECT, but he made a strong case for why the bank should have this as an official role and now he owns it.

Often, I hear people say that no opportunities exist or they sit and wait for someone to recognize them and hand them an opportunity. Opportunities are rarely handed out. People who are successful, like Maarten, create their own opportunities. He took a leap of faith and delivered a 90-second elevator pitch to our CEO one afternoon by the coffee machines at the Café. That led to a chance to present his case to the executives of the bank. The rest is history.

There are tons of people in every company with great ideas, but most of them likely think, “The CEO is too busy to listen to me, so why even try.” The fact that many people behave this way increases your odds for success when pitching the CEO (or other senior leaders).

Heidi also brought along her buddy Joel on Saturday. I’m glad she did because I learned a lot during three hours of hiking with the social media whiz kid who is also known as @schnitzelboy. He’s very in tune with social media and relationship building and he left me with a lot to think about as we huffed and puffed our way up hills and trails full of slop.

One thing that stuck with me was his model for social media engagement. Essentially, Joel argues that to create social conversation, you need to create content where the audience will passionately agree or passionately disagree with what you have shared. It is a simple idea in theory, but in practice, so many people occupy the mushy middle and bore their audience with mundane updates.

A second discussion we had focused on our LinkedIn networks. Joel protects his network with vigor. He’s very selective on who he lets into his inner circle. I, on the other hand, am much more liberal with my LinkedIn network.

Early on, I used to accept just about anyone who sent me a request to connect. In the past year or so, I’ve scaled back on who I will accept. Generally, if we have never met in person, I won’t accept you unless you write a compelling note on why it would be valuable for us to connect.

My new plan is to actually go through my LinkedIn connections in the near future and cull the list so that it only features people whom I know or have done business with.

Too often, I’ve accepted someone because they are friends of a friend only to realize that said friend accepted them because they were friends of another friend. Next thing you know, these network imposters become friends with all of your friends because everyone just accepts them based on their prior connections within the shared network.

I’d be interested to read in the comments section below how you feel about LinkedIn and connecting with people.

Sunday’s hike was another good physical and mental test. After coming off such a great week last week, I had to leave work early on Monday with a fever. I think it was a combination of my recent travel schedule and general workload that led me to burn out a little bit. I missed training with Marshall on Monday night and spent Tuesday and Wednesday home sick. By Thursday, I was back at work, but even standing up for a few moments caused my legs to tremble.

I was a bit worried about this week’s hike when I woke up on Saturday morning with the headache that had been plaguing me since Monday. But once we were out on the trails and in the wonderful sunshine, I started to feel better.

The Rouge Park provided a lot of up and down trails that were covered with rocks, logs and mud. This marks two weeks in a row where I’ve had the opportunity to test myself on more challenging terrain. I found myself sucking for oxygen on one of the steep hills, but overall, I felt good as we grinded out 11 kilometers in a little less than three hours.

To put the icing on the cake, I went downtown to train with Marshall following the hike. Generally, I hike on Sundays, but this week I made an exception so that I could accommodate Heidi’s schedule. Even with three hours of hiking logged, I managed to get through the usual Saturday training session, minus a few pounds and reps on the leg press.

I’m off to Victoria this Saturday to speak at Social Media Camp later in the week. Chris, who runs Social Media Camp, has arranged a hike up Mt. Finlayson on Sunday morning so that I can continue my routine and hike for the 14th consecutive week. The change of scenery will be nice and I’m looking forward to the challenge of hiking up a real mountain.

Speaking of hiking, it isn’t too late to sign up for a hike. There are some pretty cool hikes planned over the next month and a bit including Collingwood, Thornton Bales King Trail, Rattlesnake Point and more. If one of them is in your neck of the woods, throw your name down on the list or pick a week that hasn’t been claimed yet and name your location.

Fundraising continues to go well. Some generous donations this week have pushed my total funds raised to almost $14,000. This has wildly exceeded my expectations and I’m thankful for the support from family and friends. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so here.

–

The #Climb4Cord features a group of business leaders who will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in August 2013 with the hopes of raising $750,000 for the campaign For All Canadians, which is dedicated to building Canada’s new national public cord blood bank. Click here to donate to my personal page or for more information on the campaign please visit: http://campaignforcanadians.ca/

Social Climber: Mountains and mental discipline

The goal this week was to keep the positive momentum going, despite a trip across the county to Vancouver and back that had me away for only 51 hours.

I’m proud to say that I succeeded.

In the past, travel for work was my undoing. From odd hours to poor meals to a lack of time to work out, it was always a struggle to stay healthy and in shape.

This trip was different, by design.

I decided to stay at my mom’s house instead of at a hotel. She provided me with a well-stocked fridge of healthy food and snacks so I could continue to eat how I do when I’m at home. She also provided tons of seafood, which is not only my favourite type food to eat, but it’s good for you!

I also had the benefit of using my old gym, which has been upgraded with state of the art equipment.

I made it a priority to get in a workout the morning after arriving and it was the best decision I made all week. In addition to putting in 30 minutes on an elliptical machine for cardio, I was able to grind out an hour-long round of weights that included a new personal best on the leg press (630 lbs. + 118 lbs. rack for 20 reps).

• SIGN UP NOW to join me for a #KiliHikeTO
• DONATE NOW to support the #Climb4Cord

I landed in Toronto late on Friday night so that I could be back in the gym on Saturday afternoon to hit the weights with Marshall. I was firing at about 75 per cent, but still managed to knock out a solid workout. As Marshall likes to say, “We’re not breaking any records today.”

The good news is that a 75 per cent effort day today is 10 times better than what a 100 per cent day was three months ago. That’s progress.

I was really looking forward to Sunday morning’s #KiliHikeTO because my quartet of hiking partners selected the Caledon Ski Club for our location. It is always nice to get out of the city and experience an area of Ontario where I have never been. It was an extra bonus that Caledon presented the most challenging terrain to date.

Today’s crew featured Aaron, Lauren, Cobi and Cosi. I have to applaud them because they were some of the earliest friends to sign up for a hike – almost three months ago. I’m sure when they signed up they assumed it would be spring by now and not another week of old man winter rearing his ugly head.

I rolled up to Cobi’s chalet just after 9 o’clock in the morning. Cobi and I met through Aaron. Aaron and I studied together at Rotman for a couple of years, but he was in the full time program so he graduated a year ahead of me. Also joining us was Cosi, who is Cobi’s girlfriend (imagine our names on a wedding invitation, she joked) and Lauren, who is engaged to Aaron.

We had no set route, except to go up and down the run at the Caledon Ski Club and dart in and out of the trees when the snow became too deep to navigate. This made for some challenging ascents and descents. Many times on the way down, we had to hang onto trees to stay on our feet.

The excitement built on the second lap as we elected to go straight uphill on a couple of the snow covered runs. My legs were burning from Thursday and Saturday’s workouts and I was feeling dehydrated from flying. But these were the exact physical and mental challenges that I needed to test myself for Kilimanjaro. From all accounts, the final day of the climb will be mostly mental and any adversity that I can face now will help down the road.

You can see our zigzagging route through the eyes of my Delorme inReach satellite tracker.

The satellite tracker was a big hit with Aaron and Cobi who are also big tech geeks. They were equally excited about my ability to stay connected to the world from a remote mountain in Tanzania. Aaron and Cobi build mobile apps and I always find it fascinating to learn about the new services that talented people are creating.

Cosi and I also have a lot in common. She works as a Community Manager at TAXIGUY and we know many of the same people, yet this was the first time that we had met. We discussed several aspects of community management, but the one topic that stuck out to me was the importance of responding to people quickly on Twitter and engaging with them ‘in the moment’.

This topic will be part of a presentation that I’m delivering in a couple of weeks at Social Media Camp in Victoria. By the way, you can use ‘STEIN’ as a discount code if you want to register for the conference.

Lauren is an engineer. I never really knew any engineers until I started studying at Rotman. I’m always impressed by engineers because of their ability to create things. Lauren is a land development project manager, which is obviously a big deal in a region like the GTA that is constantly under development.

Sunday’s hike was by far the most challenging during my training. We covered 10.6 km and were out on the trails for more than three hours. For the first time, I really felt hungry and craved energy during the hike. Overall, I’m feeling great on my weekly hikes and my body is adjusting to the physical demands – especially in areas like my feet, lower back and shoulders.

The next couple of hikes are exciting. I’m off to the Rouge Watershed on Saturday (yes, I’m making an exception for my dear friend Heidi) and the following week I will be climbing Mt. Finlayson near Victoria with Chris Burdge and some other attendees from Social Media Camp.

This week I will pass the 100-days-to-go mark until I depart for Tanzania. As a result, I’m planning on making another fundraising push. I have been able to raise over $13,000, but I would love to reach my new goal of $15,000. If you haven’t donated yet, you can do so right here.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and for supporting me on the road towards the #Climb4Cord.

–

The #Climb4Cord features a group of business leaders who will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in August 2013 with the hopes of raising $750,000 for the campaign For All Canadians, which is dedicated to building Canada’s new national public cord blood bank. Click here to donate to my personal page or for more information on the campaign please visit: http://campaignforcanadians.ca/

Social Climber: Connecting the group of seven

Like the old childhood cartoon where the snowball gathers momentum as it tumbles down a hill, this week’s hiking group formed with the same level of intensity.

Some might credit the media coverage from Inside Toronto this past week for the surge in interest, but it was likely the weather that led to an increase in attendance.

Originally, only Caron and I were scheduled for a #KiliHikeTO on Sunday – the 11th straight week on my hiking program. When all was said and done, seven of us navigated in a circular route that originated at the Don Valley Brickworks.

“How does everyone know each other?” asked David, the co-chair of the campaign For All Canadians, and the lone non-social media user in the group.

The answer to his question is what makes this week so interesting.

• SIGN UP NOW to join me for a #KiliHikeTO
• DONATE NOW to support the #Climb4Cord

Aside from David and Erin, I initially met each hiker through social media.

Caron and I met for the first time at Jugnoo’s Social Mix conference this past July at the Fairmont Hotel in Toronto. We started Tweeting at each other and ended up connecting face-to-face during one of the breaks. We discovered that we had a lot in common – namely a Ryerson Journalism connection – and we kept in touch on Twitter after our initial meeting.

I like Caron’s attitude when it comes to social media. She has no issues approaching people and engaging with them, be it online or offline. She’s also well known for her epic Movember awareness campaign.

A consultant for Jugnoo at the time of said conference, Andrew and I first connected online a few years back when he was mentoring a classmate of mine from The Rotman School.

Andrew is a social media O.G. – he’s been in the game for a lot longer than most people I know and he’s able to discuss social media at a very complex level. As we plodded along the trails, I often found myself listening intently to his thoughts as if I were the really keen student in the front row of a first-year lecture.

Let’s jump back to the Ryerson angle of this intricate web, where we will find Erin. She and I worked together when I served as the President of the Ryerson Journalism Alumni Association. Erin represented Ryerson Alumni Relations at the time and frequently supported our group and its activities.

We have stayed in touch over the years – mostly through Twitter where her tone is refreshing. I have grown fond of her frequent updates about Ryerson and her ability to connect with young alumni.

Caron and Erin (say that out loud, it’s fun) also participated in #BeerHikeTO last weekend and are quickly entrenching themselves as leading members of the #Climb4Cord All-Star Support Crew.

Speaking of all-star supporters, Rachel and her son returned to the #KiliHikeTO trails for a repeat visit. You may recall them from my Week 6 hike. They officially become the first two-time hikers on this journey. I met Rachel in 2010 at a social media conference in Toronto and we’ve continued to cross paths ever since.

Her son delivered the line of the hike when he asked David, “What team is that?” as he gestured towards his Montreal Expos hat. David, a proud Montrealer, knew right away that a 12-year-old would have no reason to know who the Expos were. The rest of us simply felt all that much older as a result of the query.

So how does David fit into this mix aside from his association to the campaign For All Canadians?

David and I have supported Canadian Blood Services together since 2006. Initially, we helped build awareness for bone marrow donations by contributing to the rebranding efforts of One Match. Now we are linked in our quest to build a national public umbilical cord blood bank.

David has served as a mentor and friend for nearly seven years and has provided heaps of invaluable advice along the way. He was also a strong influence on my decision to return to school in 2008 to earn an MBA.

We also share a strong connection to this campaign. I lost my father to leukemia in 2006 while David nearly lost his daughter to chronic myelogenous leukemia when she was 10-years-old. Fortunately, she received a bone marrow transplant and as a result continues to enjoy a happy and healthy life.

When the day started, I was unsure of how this eclectic group would interact on a long hike through Toronto’s ravine system. At the start, everyone paired off with a familiar partner. But once we got moving, new groups would connect and disperse as each person had a chance to interact with one another over 2.5 hours and 8+ km.

We couldn’t have asked for a nicer morning to hike. The glorious sunshine was energizing and the muddy trails presented a welcome change from the snow and ice of winter, which continues to show its ugly face as we creep towards May.

One of the positive signs from Sunday’s hike is that I was energized and ready to go another 8 km when we returned to the start of our route. This is a testament to the training regimen that Marshall has designed for me.

My legs and core continue to get stronger and I’m starting to lean out. I still have a lot of fat to shed before I get to the point where I will be ready for the climb, but as long as we are making progress, I’m happy.

I’m also looking forward to the warmer weather where I can get outside in the evenings and start running some sprints in the local park after the kids go to bed. That being said, time management continues to be a challenge. I’m often asked how I juggle my schedule. Honestly, some days even I’m not sure how I do it. For example, I’m off to Vancouver on Wednesday night for a work trip, returning Friday night.

I’m also trying to be very conscious of my health. In the past, I have ended up sick from overextending myself. So I’m taking extra care of my body by doing little things that will hopefully make a difference. I’m trying to go to sleep 30 minutes earlier each night and I’m setting my alarm clock 15-20 minutes later to sneak in some additional rest in the morning.

I’m also paying closer attention to nutrition. Additional fruits and vegetables have been added to my diet to try stave off illness. I’m also reducing my alcohol intake, as much as it pains me to explore less craft beer over the short term.

Lastly, and likely the most difficult challenge, is avoiding people who are sick. Unfortunately, my youngest son is battling a cold right now and it takes all my willpower not to snuggle my face right next to his. The ability of kids to breed germs and spread them is astonishing, but taking a few steps of extra care can mean the difference between staying healthy and ending up in bed for a week. Trust me; this happened multiple times when my older son was an infant.

It has been 79 days since I started training for the #Climb4Cord and I’m 109 days away from departing for Tanzania. Each day, it starts to feel more real. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I was a bit apprehensive about the climb. I wonder if I will make it to the top; if I will get sick along the way; or suffer from any number of issues that could prevent me from summiting.

Ultimately, when the going gets tough during training, I think of my dad. That’s enough to get me over the mental hump and back on the road to success. I’m also very thankful for the support that I have received from family and friends. It motivates me more than you’ll ever know. Thank you.

–

The #Climb4Cord features a group of business leaders who will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in August 2013 with the hopes of raising $750,000 for the campaign For All Canadians, which is dedicated to building Canada’s new national public cord blood bank. Click here to donate to my personal page or for more information on the campaign please visit: http://campaignforcanadians.ca/

Social Climber: Smoothies, beer and a soy latte!

“I have a small smoothie for you,” announced the text that arrived from Laurie as I made my way across town to our meeting point near The Beach.

It was the sort of text you would receive from a best friend or family member. But here’s the catch; I had only met Laurie once prior to our #KiliHikeTO engagement. In fact, the meeting was so brief that neither of us could recall at which conference we met.

We share a mutual friend, Heidi, who is one of the more remarkable people you will encounter. Heidi sung high praise of Laurie, so I was eager for our walk through the Glen Stewart Ravine and along the boardwalk of Beaches Park.

• SIGN UP NOW to join me for a #KiliHikeTO
• DONATE NOW to support the #Climb4Cord

Laurie is a bit of a social media rock star (she’ll never admit it) who can actually provide thoughts of substance in a field that adds self proclaimed ninjas at an exponential rate. As a result of our shared passion, the conversation flowed smoothly.

It is always nice to have a long, drawn out conversation with someone who gets social media. You don’t have to expend all your energy explaining why Twitter isn’t a place to talk about what you ate for breakfast. Even novices know Instagram is where food discussions belong! But I digress.

We chatted about social strategy and bounced complex issues off each other as if we’d been friends for decades. Our often scattered conversation leapt from topic to topic like a frog on a lily pad. It reflected the boundless energy that we both possess – even at 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning, pre double-tall soy latte.

Laurie asked plenty of questions about the #Climb4Cord. She was most fascinated by my Delorme inReach device which was tracking our every move and allowing me to send Tweets and Facebook posts via satellite. This will be useful for sharing updates from the remote locations on the trail up Mt. Kilimanjaro.

We also talked about the weather. Ah yes, every Canadian’s favourite topic. Only in our case, it took from KM 5 to KM 8 to finish the story because of our inability to stay focused for more than a couple of seconds.

The route itself was wonderful. I had hiked a similar route with Megan during the first week of March. Only this time it was about 20 degrees warmer. And we stopped for a coffee – a #KiliHikeTO first – but honestly, it was nice to find a bathroom on one of these hikes. Staying hydrated has its consequences.

Laurie was kind enough to take me on an off trail excursion as we ascended Glen Stewart Ravine to conclude our hike. After an up-down-up series on the 100+ stairs, we playfully navigated the ravine walls to wrap up the day.

This special route was technically against the rules posted by the City of Toronto, but as I’m sure you’ve guessed, neither Laurie nor I are ones for rules. In fact, this was a great opportunity to test out my new hiking boots on steep and unstable terrain. They passed the test.

#BeerHikeTO

What I failed to mention about Sunday’s hike is that I accomplished 10.14 km on less than six hours of sleep. Why? Because #BeerHikeTO was on Saturday night. You’d think that we would have planned that out a bit better!

Roughly 30 people made an appearance at one or more of the five bars on the #BeerHikeTO route that was meticulously curated by Chris Grimely. Many of the bars welcomed us with open arms. Special thanks to Beerbistro for the complimentary (and delicious) frites and to Joe at WVRST who provided safe passage to our group, despite the massive line.

In addition to catching up with tons of old friends and meeting some great new peeps, we were treated to some outstanding beer selections along the way. For you craft beer nuts, here was my roster of beers for the night. The beer list is courtesy of an app called Untappd:

• Al’s Cask Ale by C’est What
• Nut Brown Ale by Black Oak Brewing Company
• Pompous Ass EPA by Great Lakes Brewery
• Aphrodisiaque by Brasserie Dieu du Ciel
• Hennepin Farmhouse Saison by Brewery Ommegang
• Barn Raiser by Niagara Oast House Brewery
• Legendary Oddity by Muskoka Brewery
• 25th Anniversary Bourbon Barrel-Aged Russian Imperial Stout by Great Lakes Brewery

For a more complete recap of #BeerHikeTO, make sure to check out the official Storify.

From a campaign standpoint, I continue to creep closer to my fundraising goal of $15,000. To date, I have been able to raise $12,624 thanks to the generosity of family, friends and strangers. Every dollar counts and takes us one step closer to realizing our goal of a national public umbilical cord blood bank.

Thanks for taking the time to read my latest update. As the weather warms up, consider joining me for a hike. I promise it will be the best thing you do before noon on a Sunday!

–

The #Climb4Cord features a group of business leaders who will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in August 2013 with the hopes of raising $750,000 for the campaign For All Canadians, which is dedicated to building Canada’s new national public cord blood bank. Click here to donate to my personal page or for more information on the campaign please visit: http://campaignforcanadians.ca/

Social Climber: Prioritizing the priorities

Figuring out where to meet Sarah was by far the biggest challenge for my Week 9 #KiliHikeTO.

Sarah and I went back and forth over Email all week long trying to find a rendezvous point for the Lower Don Recreational Trail – the official name for the path than runs north from Toronto’s waterfront alongside the Don Valley Parkway.

We settled on the Queen Street Bridge which spans the Don River and serves as the gateway to social media savvy Leslieville. In case you want to do this hike, there are stairs on the bridge that lead down to the trail.

The forecast for Sunday morning was rain, but we lucked out and experienced a perfect day for a 15km hike through a surprisingly picturesque valley. As a non-native Torontonian, I’m constantly amazed by the inner-city beauty that Toronto possesses. Unfortunately, these trails and ravines are not heavily promoted by the City and they can often be a challenge to find.

Sarah and I have interacted on Twitter for a while. We are both recovering journalists turned social media pros. I use the term “pro” loosely, but we both collect a paycheque for executing social media for large brands so I feel that it is an appropriate term.

I should add that we both work in industries that are generally frowned upon by the general public. This made for some interesting chatter during our three hour hike. Unfortunately for you, dear reader, what is said on the trail stays on the trail!

I must applaud Sarah for joining me on Easter Sunday morning. Not only did she wake up at the crack of dawn, but she traversed the city for nearly an hour via streetcar for our adventure. That takes commitment.

As I promised Sarah on Twitter that morning, by 12pm she’d be thankful that she started her day with some moderate physical activity. Turned out, I was right. There’s nothing quite like spending three hours outside, walking, talking and steering clear of digital distractions (for the most part). As self-described social media nerds, we did post the odd Tweet or Instagram photo.

My only regret, is that I forgot to shoot the obligatory photo of me and my hiking partner. Sorry Sarah!

• SIGN UP NOW to join me for a #KiliHikeTO
• DONATE NOW to support the #Climb4Cord

I also had the chance to try out my inReach satellite device for the first time. Thanks to the folks at Roadpost, I’ve been able to test drive this fantastic gadget in advance for our climb.

The inReach allowed me to send Tweets and Facebook posts with geo-location tagging. This will allow our troupe to provide updates to friends and family while on Kilimanjaro.

The interactive map with breadcrumbs worked well. This will be useful for people following the #Climb4Cord. They’ll be able to see our position, which will be updated on the map every 10 minutes as the device pings the satellite.

Followers will be able to send us messages from these points. The messages are delivered to the climbers via iPhone as the inReach pairs with a smartphone device via Bluetooth.

As I start to get the physical preparation for the climb under control, the biggest challenge I’m facing for the #Climb4Cord is time management.

I’m finding that I have increasingly more demands on my time and it is hard to manage everyone’s expectations. I’m also guilty because I like to take part in every opportunity that presents itself, but I have to continue to remind myself of what is important.

To play off of former Canadian Cabinet minister David Dingwall’s “I’m entitled to my entitlements” rant, I need to remind myself that I have to prioritize my priorities.

Fortunately, I have an extremely supportive family and the best wife in the world who does the little things to help me out each day.

For example, Jess prepared a healthy lunch for me late Monday night while I was off at the gym working on endurance training with Marshall Tully. It is these little things that often go unnoticed, yet matter the most.

FULL BLAST PERSONAL TRAINING

Speaking of training, I’ve started to increase my training sessions with Marshall. In addition to strength sessions on Saturday morning, we’ve added a Monday night endurance session.

This past Monday, we tested out some new exercises in a very aggressive session. Since I have received some questions about how I am training, I have included Monday night’s session here:

A. BOXING

• Set 1: Boxing on focus pads, aprx. 90 seconds –> 10 knees to pads, per side
• Set 2: Boxing on focus pads, aprx. 90 seconds –> 10 squats/punching combination
• Set 3: Boxing on focus pads, aprx. 90 seconds –> 10 high kicks to pads, per leg

Rest about 45-60 seconds between rounds

B. TABATA INTERVAL KETTLEBELL SWINGS:

• Sets 1-5: 20 seconds of work with 10 seconds of rest between sets

C. BARBELL THRUSTERS (squat into overhead press)

• Sets 1-3: 10 reps followed by brisk walk on treadmill, 60 seconds

Rest about 20 seconds between rounds

D. BULGARIAN TRAINING BAG SPINS / MEDICINE BALL TOSS

• Sets 1-3: 12 spins per side (Video Example)
• Sets 1-3: 12 medicine ball tosses

Rest about 30 seconds between rounds

E. 5-STOREY STAIR CLIMB

• Three times up and down 72 stairs while wearing a 40 lbs. weighted vest with no rest between sets

F. SINGLE ARM BARBELL CHEST PRESS

• Sets 1-3: 10 reps per set, increasing weight each set

Rest about 30 seconds between rounds

G. RUBBER TUBING PULL-APARTS / LEG CIRCLES ON EQUALIZER BARS

• Sets 1-3: 12 reps for rotator cuff rehab
• Sets 1-3: 10 reps leg circles on equalizer bars

Rest about 30 seconds between rounds

H. COOL DOWN/STRETCHING

• Approximately 10 minutes

UP NEXT?

There’s no rest for the wicked these days as I was back in the gym on Tuesday with my colleague, Erik. His youthful enthusiasm is infectious and he pushed me through some challenging leg workouts even thought I was exhausted from Monday night.

The rest of this week is pretty normal, but the weekend is ramping up to be a ton of fun. Chris Grimley and I are running #BeerHikeTO on Saturday night. The full schedule has now been posted. We’ll hit up five bars, starting at C’est What? at 5pm. Shout out to WVRST, our final destination, for being especially helpful during our planning.

Don’t forget to sign up and join me for a hike. Just because someone is already signed up, don’t let it deter you from joining us to make a larger group.

Finally, I’m pleased and proud to announce that thanks to your help, I’ve been able to reach my goal of $12,000 raised for the #Climb4Cord. Since nearly 180 days still remain until our climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro, I’m setting a new goal of $15,000. Thanks to everyone who has donated so far!

–

The #Climb4Cord features a group of business leaders who will be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in August 2013 with the hopes of raising $750,000 for the campaign For All Canadians, which is dedicated to building Canada’s new national public cord blood bank. Click here to donate to my personal page or for more information on the campaign please visit: http://campaignforcanadians.ca/