Category: Sport

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Kayaking Down The Belly River – My Jeep is Dirty

The Milner cousins and I went kayaking down the Belly River again this weekend. The water has settled at a bearable temperature and the weather couldn’t have cooperated with us better today.

As we were floating down the river we saw a gaggle of 5 teenage girls gathered around the river bank, but all looking at something and all of them oblivious to our presence. Corry said, “Hi.” And they all jumped individually as they spun around and saw us drifting by. We chatted with them for a minute. The girls were visiting their grandparents for the holiday weekend. It turns out they were inspecting a cow’s skull they had found in the mud.

When I got back to my jeep I discovered bird droppings inside my car. How improbable is that? I’m guessing that when I left the door open to get my gear together that a bird let one fall at such an angle to precisely miss my seat and hit the arm rest. If they could only bomb that accurately in Iraq…

The video Aaron took of me last time is online. The water was higher today, but the video gives you a pretty good idea of what it was like today.

Jeff Kayaking Belly River June 2004 (3mb QT Mov)

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Kayaking Down The Belly River – My head hurts

The picture below was not from today, but it was taken on the same river I was kayaking down today.

Jeff Milner kayaking Belly River

The water was cold, ice cold. The kind of cold that hurts your hands when you put them even near the ice cold iciness that is the Belly River. It makes sense that the water is chilly because it’s coming directly from the melting snow up in the Rocky Mountains about a half hour drive from where we put in.

The water level wasn’t as high as it could have been, but there were still plenty of good features. On about the third really big hole I got stuck for a moment while the water thrashed me about like a rag doll. The water is tricky like that, it pulled me in gently then whipped me around quickly wrapping my head on the large rocks below. This is the first time I’ve ever had my helmet save me from serious head injury but, oh my, I certainly felt happy to have it. I came away with a small headache. The helmet came away with its shiny yellow finish marred in several places with large white scratches.

The incident wasn’t actually that much of an incident and we had a great time the rest of the afternoon. We just cruised down that cold, cold river, playing in the waves, and having a blast. My cousin made some short movie clips of us on his digital camera. I’ll post them when I get them.

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Canada West Swimming

It was a fast meet. There were a lot of “meet” and “team” records set; one girl even set a world record! Two more of the swimmers on my team are going to CI’s. Too bad I’m not one of them.

I set a new personal best in 50 fly putting me in 27th place squeaking in just under the 30 second mark with a time of 29.89. My 50 free wasn’t as good as I would have liked it to be, but I did place 16th with a time of 25.97. Oh and not to forget my DFL in 100 Free with a time of 58.56.

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My Swimming on the Weekend

This weekend at the meet in Medicine Hat I swam a 1:21 200m Free, a 25.01 50m Free and I did my 100m Free in 57.6 (or so). So three personal best times and a pretty good weekend. I also saw the movie “Brother Bear”. It’s a good Disney movie – so if you like Disney movies then I recommend it.

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Medicine Hat Swim Meet

There is a swim meet in Medicine Hat today. It starts at 1:45 at the Family Leisure Centre. I’ll be swimming in the 200m free, 100m free, and 50m free. I’m hoping for a new personal best time.

I leave at 10:00 this morning. I better get some sleep.

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Calgary Swim Meet

Tomorrow is my swim meet at the University of Calgary. Gary and I are still not speaking so I doubt he’ll show up to watch, even though I imagine he needs photos of the meet for the Gauntlet. Maybe he will send one of his assistants to do it.

Anyway I’m hoping for a best time tomorrow. We’ll see what happens.

Most likely Friday night we will go to see Doug’s play, “Not About Hero’s” at the Pumphouse Theatres. Anna is leaving for Edmonton to go on tour for three weeks and then down to Utah for another two. It will be a long month.

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Swimming in the River Near Indian Battle Park

Instead of going to Waterton on Sunday, Anna-Maria, Zee, Sophie (Anna’s dog), and I went down to Indian Battle Park. We had a fire and swam in the river. Afterwards we roasted smokies and marshmallows over the fire. It was a really good day – even though it did start to rain. Even when it rained, it wasn’t that cold – for me at least, and then when the rain stopped it got nice and hot out. I also decided that I want to take Anna-Maria kayaking down the river and get out in Coaldale. I just need to find someone to pick us up. Maybe Dad will bring his truck sometime and we can meet-up at the Nolan Bridge outside of Coaldale.

Animated Gif of Zee Juke, Anna-Maria LeMaistre, and Jeff Milner in the river

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Jeff Milner the Swim Coach

All I can say about coaching yesterday was that it was Easy – Capital E. Lisa prepared a lesson plan for me and as my luck would have it, only two kids showed up. I was teaching 8 year olds, and the other girl that was supposed to coach the 7 year olds left because nobody from her class showed up on time but one girl did come late and I took her into my class. I should try and get a job coaching all the time.

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Swimming

Yesterday I swam two kilometers. After practice I was asked by one of the girls on the team to substitute for her on Friday coaching some younger kids on the LASC team. They are pretty little kids, eight and under I think, but she said she would have a lesson plan made up for me so hopefully things go smoothly.