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Sports

Midlife Crisis: Big Changes

August 3, 2014 by robertforto Leave a Comment

A lot of men make a change or two when they reach the half way mark in the journey we call life. Some buy red sports cars and pursue online dating services for the younger gal. Others all the sudden start saving for retirement that they have neglected to think about for the first twenty years of their working lives, that is if they have a decent job and are not wearing a headset at a fast food joint wearing a polyester pull over.

For me it was time to get into shape and get healthy. A good mushing friend told me a couple years ago that a dog team will move much faster down the trail if they are carrying much less weight. Of course that was coming from a guy that weighed a buck fifty in all of his winter gear.

This spring I started to take things seriously. I have never had a health problem accept for a nasty allergy fit or two every week in the summer. My heart ticks good. My cholesterol is in check even though I hate oatmeal, and my blood pressure only is high when I watch stupid reality TV shows about Alaska.

We re-up’d our membership at a health club in town, one that will make you about a hundred bucks poorer each month, and I started going three nights a week. I started off pretty slow, mainly concentrating on cardio. There is no need for huge muscles where I am going and I’m pretty strong when it comes to lifting what needs lifted.

My goal was to finish a triathlon this summer. But before that my daughter and I competed in the Mud Factor event in Anchorage. It was a 5K with a mud pit or two and a bunch of obstacles. It was a blast.

The first triathlon was the Why-Not-Tri in Wasilla the second week of June. They call them sprint triathlons but for my first one it felt a lot longer than a sprint! We had to swim 900 meters in the pool (up and back eight times), a 10K bike ride and a 5K run. I finished ninth in my age group. Not bad but I was not prepared for the swim at all. I should have warmed up, but me being me, I didn’t and I had a cramp the first lap.

The second triathlon started on June 26th. It was called the Midnight Sun Lazyman’s Triathlon. This is the one that I actually turned the corner in my fitness goals and probably the biggest reason for the changes that come forward of my mid-life crisis.  In this event we had to record (on the honor system) that we swim 2.2 miles, bike 112 miles and run 26.2 miles. I have never cheated at anything and I meticulously recorded every step using my Ambit 2 watch.

Over the next six weeks I was at the gym or on the trails at least four days a week. I became a monster in making sure I reached this goal. I did and went over in every category by several miles. All for a t-shirt and medal.

Until right up to fall training with the sled dogs I will be competing (to me that means finishing) several more of these t-shirt events including a 5k run in Wasilla and then driving six hours to Soldotna to compete in another triathlon the next morning in September.

But all of this is not the biggest change in my mid life crisis life.

In May I decided I was going to stay on the trend of fitness and I enrolled in college (again!). I decided to enroll in a bachelors of science in physical education with a focus in outdoor leadership. Why may you say? I don’t know. Just because? No, I’ll show you, keep reading…

Over the coming weeks I immersed myself in becoming a college student again. I filled out paperwork for financial aid, took placement tests and had my previous college transcripts sent to U.A.A. To my dismay, only two of my courses counted toward the core classes and I have about 40 credits that are worthless but are showing up as electives. The reason? Most of my credits were on the quarter system versus the semester system at U.A.A. No problem, who remembers college algebra from 20 years ago anyhow?

In June I found out that almost all of my educational funding will come by way of the Pell Grant, which means I don’t have to pay it back! I guess there was a reason I paid my way through college the first time working the night shift at 7-11.

In less that three weeks I will be back on a college campus. Most with people half my age. Well, not really, most of my classes are online. I didn’t have that option in the 90s.

How is all of this related to fitness? Well, it is a physical fitness degree, hello! No, really, many of the courses require four season back packing, sea kayaking, ice climbing, swim tests and more. The end goal, in less than four years, for me to get a job teaching. What for? To save up for retirement like that guy I talked about in paragraph one.

So to come full circle: one has to be in good physical shape in order to work in a tough career for more than the next twenty five years (I will be 67 at that time) so that I can have enough in retirement so that Michele and I can rent and RV to that condo on the beach.

See its not a crisis at all. It is a well thought out plan with an end goal in mind. Isn’t that what life is all about anyhow?

Gotta run, I have a cord of wood that needs stacked and its not getting done by itself…

Filed Under: Alaska, Daily Post, Midlife in College Tagged With: alaska, Mile run, Pell Grant, Sports, Triathlon

NaBloPoMo: What is the last game you played?

May 22, 2012 by robertforto Leave a Comment

Nicole

I am participating in the NaBloPoMo challenge for May. It should be a fun one. It is titled: Play.

Todays topic is: what is the last game you played?

I haven’t had the privilege, or the curse depending on how you look at it, for the last couple weeks of hanging out with another human being. I am up in Tok, Alaska watching my friends pack of Iditarod sled dogs while he is on a school tour on the east coast.

I am just glad my name is not Jack because it has been all work and no play. You know what that means?

Jack can be a dull boy!

So in the sprit of the theme, I guess the last game I played was catch with my daughter, Nicole, a couple weeks ago.

As I have said in previous posts, Nicole is turning out to be a pretty good little catcher on her high school softball team. She starts for the junior varsity team and is the back-up catcher on the varsity team. As a freshman!

Back to the game of catch. It had been a while since we have played catch together. Several years in fact. She took a two year hiatus from softball to play lacrosse–I taught her how to play that too.

But as soon as we started throwing the ball around she started talking about the way you used to play catch.

“Don’t let anything by you, Nicole!” she said. And,

“Catch the ball Nicole or you are walking home!”

I may have mentioned that I am very competitive and it has rubbed off on my kids. I am sure some of you are saying–man, what is up with this guy? Give you kids a break, dude.

To the contrary. Nicole is glad I forced her to try her best. She is glad I was hard on her in sports.

Why? Because she is playing varsity softball. As a freshman.

Enough said. 

______________________

Robert Forto is mushin’ down a dream in the wilds of Alaska. He and is wife are raising two teenagers at Forto’s Fort.

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Filed Under: Daily Post, NaBloPoMo Tagged With: alaska, Board game, dailypost, Houston High School, Monopoly, NaBloPoMo, Nicole, nicole forto, Sled dog, Softball, Sports

NaBloPoMo: What do you do to celebrate a win?

May 9, 2012 by robertforto Leave a Comment

I am participating in the NaBloPoMo challenge for May. It should be a fun one. It is titled: Play.

Today’s topic is: What do you do to celebrate a win?

For the past seven years or so we have played Forto’s Fantasy Football.

In early August we gear up for the draft and peruse over a multitude of stats books and prowl the Internet looking for players to fill our rosters.

Talk about competition! On any given year anyone in my family has a chance to win. For the last several years, my daughter, Nicole has held strong with her dad giving me a run for my money down the stretch.

After each season we award the winning team with the coveted Forto’s Fantasy Football trophy with an engraved plaque with the winner’s name.

The winner gets to keep the trophy for the year until it is claimed by the winner the following season.

The winner is also treated to a dinner, paid for by the losing teams, at a place of his, or her, choosing.

Even though I have won for the last three years in a row I still look forward to playing each year. Last year my son Tyler and I were in Alaska and my wife Michele, and Nicole were in Colorado. We conducted our draft over Skype. It was a blast!

I believe this little tradition is one of the things that keeps our family strong and teaching my kids what competition is all about. Sure it is fantasy football, but the camaraderie and passion each of us has is a good way to stick together.

What do you do to celebrate a win?

______________________

Robert Forto is mushin’ down a dream in the wilds of Alaska. He and is wife are raising two teenagers at Forto’s Fort. 

Related articles
  • NaBloPoMo: How did you feel as a child when you lost a game? (robertforto.wordpress.com)
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Filed Under: Daily Post, NaBloPoMo Tagged With: alaska, Colorado, dailypost, Fantasy football (American), forto, NaBloPoMo, robert forto, skype, Sports

Serum Run Boot Camp 2012: Hot to Trot. Part 1

February 13, 2012 by robertforto 5 Comments

If one phase can sum up the 2012 Serum Run Boot Camp it would have to be:

Too Hot to Trot

It was unseasonably warm this past weekend and it played havoc on our plans for the serum run boot camp. Well not really. We all had a great time. The organizers will be the first to tell you that an event like this prides itself on being very fluid in their plans.

Raegan and Piglet

We were and we made it work.

After submitting our applications way back around Christmas and being selected in mid-January, I was ready for this weekend, no matter what it entailed.

We had a great group of participants: six dog teams and seven snowmachiners. This small group of mostly veterans of past serum runs was the perfect mix for a weekend on the rivers of South Central, Alaska. Being a rookie I was looking forward to listening and learning from the folks that have done this before.

Running the River

I have run the river on several occasions but mostly just up to Yentna Station and back without much planning or preparation. This is the same route that we did this weekend but with a bit more logistics. I had no idea just how much gear it took to just run 35 miles.

It all started on Thursday evening with us packing and preparing for the weekend. I know I packed like a rookie in  terms of food and drink but I packed a little too light on things that mattered. I forgot my shovel and enough trash bags and I should have brought at least one extra snack for the dogs.

Friday evening we all met at Eagelquest Lodge in Willow and had a dinner or ham and potatoes, baked beans, rolls and M&M cookies. My wife, Michele and daughter, Nicole, came along to support me in this adventure. It was why we moved to Alaska for goodness sake.

After dinner we had a meeting about the next day’s event’s, the trail, and our itneniary before retiring to our cabins for the evening.

The little cabin slept 5 and I took one of the twin beds upstairs. We stayed up late talking and telling mushing stories. I slept well sans the blaring night light. We had a meeting at 8:30 back at the lodge so we had to be ready to go by 10 am.

On Saturday morning it was pretty warm. About 28 degrees or so when we dropped the dogs from the dog trucks and gave them a quick meal.

After a nice breakfast of cinnamon rolls and juice we decided that the first teams would be out at 11:00 and we headed out to pack our gear.

I was third to go out and the run from Eaglequest to Luce’s lodge was a bevy of passing and playing “tag” with Joe’s Screaming Huskies team. I finally pulled ahead after Joe stopped for a few minutes.

At about mile 20 I stopped to snack the dogs with fish and noticed that Marble, my six year old Siberian, refused to eat it. She laid down and started dipping snow. Being the thickest coated dog on the team I could tell she was hot. We rested for a few and trudged on the the sugary, sometimes very deep snow, on the Yentna River.

In this part of Alaska they have had at least five feet of snow and the river is virtually a highway for the people that live along the banks and the 100s of snow machines training and racing along the river a break neck speeds.

At Luce’s lodge Marble quit on me and didn’t want to have any part of this game any longer. I loaded her up in the sled bag and away we went. Our snow machines carry all of our gear as well as a dog crate to carry a dog should they become injured, sick or otherwise quit.

Marble, my co-pilot

Being so close to Yentna Station I didn’t see any snow machine support and rather than wait I decided to make Marble comfortable in the bag. I secured her with a neckline and left he flap open so she could stick her head out and enjoy the ride.

By the time I got going again I could see two other teams about 1/4 to 1/2 mile behind me so I knew if I had to stop again they would be there to help if I needed it.

The Serum Run and the boot camp is not a race. We are out there to help each other. That is the beauty of this type of an event.

We arrived at Yentna Station in 3 hours 40 minutes. Not bad in the warm weather and punchy conditions. I have done this run in as long as five hours so, not a bad run at all.

The “trail breaker” snow machines were already there and had already set up places for us to camp our dogs. Being first in I would be first out in the morning.

I immediately started my chores.

Dogs first in mushing. That’s just how we roll.

More to come…

Related articles
  • Serum Run Boot Camp: Dogs (robertforto.com)
  • Team Ineka at the Sled Dog Stampede (robertforto.com)
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Filed Under: Alaska, Mushing, Serum Run, Team Ineka Tagged With: alaska, broken runner, dog, dogs, Eaglequest lodge, erin mclarnon, huskies, Iditarod, mushing, paul mclarnon, pets, Serum Run, serum run 25 expedition, siberian huskies, siberians, sled dogs, Sports, Team Ineka, Yentna River, yentna station

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