ING OTTAWA

While I took a good lesson in how much I'll have to train for the Fall - last weekend's ING Ottawa Half Marathon was a great start to the '08 running season. A gorgeous route, perfect weather, and the energy of the thousands made for an unforgettable race that will certainly be marked on next year's calendar.

Of particular coolness were all the friends and fam who were around – it really felt like a home away from home during those few days! BIG CONGRATS to Cousin Eva on an outstanding 1st half marathon; to Regina's Dirty Dozen for continuing to inspire; to Kei & Elaine who were the greatest photographer-spectators ever; and to the whole Arcola Private crew for hosting an all-round great weekend.

The biggest shout out of all is reserved for 'lil D, who successfully completed this half marathon at the age of 12!! I WAS a runner at that age, and distance running meant 3000 metres – a fraction of the 21Km he logged last Sunday. It may take him a few years to fully appreciate what he accomplished in Ottawa – but rest assured he'll have a chorus of reminders until he does=)

For all interested - here's a link to some race day photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2194691&l=fb0e4&id=72614809

Honouring the Past, Shaping the future

This past week I was delighted to attend the 25th anniversary celebration of Ontario’s Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office (PPAO). Downtown Toronto’s Delta Chelsea played host to the gathering of consumer survivors, policymakers, human rights leaders, mental health advocates, and friends old and new to honour the service of an agency who has been at the forefront of patients’ rights for the past quarter century.

In addition to the history of progress and vision statements presented, one of the big highlights of the event was the launch of what will likely be remembered as a groundbreaking report titled “Honouring the Past, Shaping the Future: 25 years of progress in mental health advocacy and rights protection”.

It’ll take me a little while to get through it all, but this collection of over 100 insightful articles from consumers, advocates, political figures, physicians and lawyers already appears to be an important read for anybody with an interest in understanding recovery from mental illness and in shaping the systemic changes of tomorrow.

The report can be downloaded from the PPAO’s website, at: http://www.ppao.gov.on.ca/

A committee for the future

A recent issue of NOW Magazine had an article describing one of David Suzuki’s long held desires for Canada – to establish a super-ministry of the biosphere, with a mandate and enough inter-jurisdictional clout to ensure green progress is a part of what all the other ministries are doing.

I’m not sold on the super-ministry idea as is, but the concept of a body dedicated to vetting new laws and policies against long term interests could be interesting. For it to work it would have to go beyond the biosphere and consider all interests from economic to health, education, and reducing social inequalities. In 1992, the Finnish Parliament had a similar thought when they established the brilliantly named “Committee for the Future,” tasked with the overarching goal of keeping Finland on a path for meeting its long term development goals. It’s hard to say how transferable their model is or even if it’s as holistic as we’d need – but in Canada where governments have term limits and reelection providing incentive for “short term” successes, having an independent public body keeping their eye on the bigger picture might be worth giving some thought to.

What not to do ...

With all the travels of the past month, the training has kinda been on hiatus for a while. Today was supposed to mark my comeback with a slow 21K prep for next week's ING Ottawa race. Boy was it painful! Not that that wasn't my own fault or anything ...

It didn't help that yesterday flew by without me really eating (brunch being the lone meal of the day).

It didn't help going out last night - good times were had, but we didn't exactly "take it easy" as was planned=)

It didn't help starting the 21 dehydrated, not to mention still running on yesterday's brunch and whatever drink calories added up to.

And the rain and wind made it all the more wonderful!

As the running season officially begins, I think I broke just about every pre long run rule in the book. Big shout outs to Kei and Nelson for putting up with my pace this morning - next week I'll be in FAR better form!

Now for the nap of all naps.