Tri – Harder | Jason Forbes on Training and Triathlons

Author: jason-forbes posted in: Our Community + Our Lawyers

This series of blog posts aims to shine a light on the people behind our law practice. For KMSC Partner Jason Forbes, ultra distance running and triathlons keep him moving…a long ways:

Finding Your Fitness

I have always enjoyed sports.  Growing-up I played hockey, volleyball, basketball, and I also enjoyed wrestling competitively, tae kwon do and track and field.  However, after playing a year of volleyball in college, I stopped competing in sports, other than the occasional league game of basketball or volleyball.  That is not to say that I did not stay active.  I have always enjoyed biking (both road biking and mountain biking), hiking, running, swimming and lifting weights.  When my mid-thirties hit, I found myself searching for something new to keep me motivated to workout and stay fit, but also something that would feed my competitive side.  Given my interests in swimming, biking and jogging, triathlon seemed like a natural fit.  Little did I know that I was not as good at any of those three disciplines as I thought I was.  It was quite a learning curve before I felt confident enough to get out there and enter my first race.

Time to Move

I think the secret to finding time to exercise and train for any sport boils down to discipline and consistency.  For me, that means scheduling a two hour window in every workday to either go to the gym and lift weights, go to yoga, run, bike, swim, or to do some other fun activity.  My window is between 12:00pm and 2:00pm and it is rare for me to miss a day.  I enjoy it so much and I find that it reinvigorates me for the rest of the day.  It is like being back in junior high and getting a break in the middle of the day to go out to play with my friends and have some fun.

Faster, Longer, Fitter

I also enjoy racing in team ultra-distance races.  I have competed in Grande Cache’s Death Race seven times now and I plan on returning again next year.  I have also competed in several other races across the province.  As much as I enjoy training for these races and competing in them, I find that triathlons provide me with more of a balance in my exercising.  Trail running is all about running.  Of course you should do exercises and activities that train the rest of your body as well, but the main focus is definitely just getting outside and running.  With triathlons I get to mix it up.  Two or three times a week I am running, but two or three times a week I am also swimming and biking.  That usually means that I am not running quite as far or as often as when I am training for a trail race, which is okay with me.  I like the variety and I like the total body workout.  I also like gadgets and there are way more cool gadgets for triathlons than for trail racing!