How I Gamified my Kids’ Physical & Mental Health (so that I could spend more quality time with them)

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Covid has been tough for parents but even tougher for kids. Everyday interactions that we took for granted have disappeared. Even the most imaginative and creative parents eventually acquiesced to the ‘mother’s little helper‘ of the digital age – the electronic device.

The mental strain of Covid on children is well documented. Extra murals and regular play dates with friends have been replaced by Netflix binges and online gaming with friends. For children, the house became a prison and parents the wardens. The inmates grew increasingly reluctant to leave the confines of their bedrooms and, as wardens, my wife and I found it increasingly difficult to get our kids outside for a daily dose of Vitamin D. Exercise in any form was shunned and their fitness gear got less use than the indicators on a BMW. Continue reading “How I Gamified my Kids’ Physical & Mental Health (so that I could spend more quality time with them)”

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Kaapsehoop Marathon (The Sub-3 Quest)

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[Marathon #78 / 8 November 2008]

Anyone who has ever had the (mis)fortune of running with me for any period of time will know that my primary running goal has always been to run a sub-3 hour marathon on an unassisted course. With my biological clock ticking away – the baby is due on 1 January, which I understand will result in some drastic lifestyle changes – there was a certain sense of urgency in achieving this goal before the year was out.

Picking a fast marathon towards the end of the year is quite challenging, as most of the “easy courses” are packed into the first four months of the year to entice Two Oceans and Comrades participants to use them as seeding qualifiers. Although there are some great marathons in the second half of the year, there are very few that scream out “PB,” so I would really have preferred to find an unassisted, circular course, but it turned out that the only option was a point-to-point downhill flyer in the form of the Kaapsehoop Marathon.

Continue reading “Kaapsehoop Marathon (The Sub-3 Quest)”

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