Richard Gibney's 365 Days of Fitness: Day 175

Day 175 Holy cow I'm exhausted. After two days of ripping out dry wall and moving furniture out of soggy basements, I'm spent. That being said I've had the luxury of going home when I want, having a shower and sleeping in my bed, something my friends affected by the flooding have not had. In fact I know some of them have not slept for two days.

I tried to organize a group to get together today to help with the clean up. I had a small group show up. Initially I was a little disappointed that I didn't have more but I quickly came to realize that every one of them had gone out on their own to help their friends and neighbors, which in the end was what I was hoping for.

I said yesterday that it was amazing to see so many people rallying together. Today was no different. I heard that a a group trying to organize volunteers to meet at the football stadium was hoping to get around 500 and ended up with 7000. Just amazing. My group and I walked around the community looking to see who we could help. Many houses were thrilled to have us offer help but told us they had plenty of help already.

We found one family, the Saftons, that we knew from the Glencoe and helped them for quite a while with their basement. It was at their house that I'm claiming the bulk of my workout for the day. I'm pretty good at moving heavy things. I have a low centre of gravity and I'm pretty strong. My task with Mr Safton was pulling their washer and dryer out of the basement. This was not easy. It's one thing to move something heavy, it's another to move something heavy that's covered in mud and water. My job basically was to dead-lift the machines up the stairs while Mr Safton helped push and guide things. It was tough but we got them out.

After spending a good while at the Saftons, Nicole and I left for a little bit to grab a bite to eat. When went back to help out but decided to go to a different neighborhood, Rideau Park, which is on the other side of the river. As we were walking there this young 15 yr old kid I train named Byron decided to join us. When we got across the bridge we came across a woman who was directing volunteers to houses that needed a little more assistance. She mentioned this Asian couple who didn't speak much english and knew very few people that really needed some help. All of our friends in Rideau seemed to have plenty of help, so we headed over to the couple's house and spent the next few hrs there.

Up to this point I had known pretty much everyone I was working with during the clean-up. At this couples house most of the volunteers that had shown up had come from the football stadium. With the exception of Byron, Nicole, and I, we were all strangers to each other, yet there was still an amazing sense of comradery. We even took a group picture.

Byron was a champ. Dressed in his badminton clothes he put all his youthful energy to use and got straight to work. I was a little worried he would get hurt amongst all the hammers and crowbars and falling dry wall, but he listened well, stayed safe and was a huge help. I'm pretty proud of that kid.

We left the couples house a little bit before before dinner. I dropped Byron off at home, good and muddy. I wouldn't have been surprised if his Dad hosed him off in the back yard before letting him in the house. It was a long day, but very rewarding. My work is still out of commission, so I'll probably put the boots on again and see if I can help out some more.

Just before posting this I decided I needed a tiny bit more exercise, just so It was little different than yesterday. I knocked off a quick 100 push-ups then called it a night.