Homework

This weekend I am taking my NCCP Community Coaching Clinic in Edmonton. As part of the course, the facilitator sent out a pre-work assignment to get a sense of the participants coaching background and what you expect to get out of the course. There was one other question that I found interesting which was, "Tell me why you think people participate in sports?" Simple enough question, or so it seemed, until I really thought about the phases of why we participate in sport.
If you think of the first organized sport you engaged in as a kid, you probably did it because someone else in the family participated. For most Canadian boys, hockey is the first organized sport you join and it is generally because you have an older brother, father or uncle who played and you wanted to be just like them. Once you joined you found out that you either liked it our didn't and if you liked it you wanted to get better. And as you got better you wanted to learn more about the skills and improve upon them. All the while you were having fun!
Fast forward to an adult and things change. We usually participate in sports as a means of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Some of us end up not really liking what we do, but we do it to keep off weight and keep our blood pressure. However, somewhere in amongst those masses of adult athletes are the ones who find a way to have fun with it again. That is where I think I have landed again. I went through a competitive phase in my late twenties and early thirties, but that didn't last that long. After a short while I found my way back to the fun and I have been there ever since. My successes are measured much differently then when I was younger and they are usually in terms of how much fun I had. I won't lie and say every work out is the funnest thing I have ever done, but by and large I have fun. Part of it is the fact that I am pretty unstructured when it comes to my work out plans. There is a vague framework with a lot of opportunity for mixing and matching and working with how I feel on a given day.
Somehow I think I digressed from the question but I think the reason I still participate in sport is because it is fun. Others do it for the social aspects which is a great reason as well. I envy reading about people who have groups that will go out with them for runs and rides. Unfortunately I am a bit of a solitary creature, and I also live in an area where I would be able to find a group to go ATVing with a lot faster than someone to go cycling with.
My homework is complete and as long the dog doesn't eat it I should be good to go this weekend.
Monday's workout was a quick swim, 1,750 metres in 37:14 and then a brisk evening run covering 6.5 miles in 45 minutes even.
Have a great week!