Sleep, Don't Blog!

Here's a shot I took Friday night at the Toronto Criterium. Lots of exciting moments, I was surprised by how many friends I ran into there. There was a bit of rain during the Pro race and things got a bit slippery.

Today I had an easy club ride up in Newmarket, which I followed with a short run. The skies looked threatening on the way up, but the ride was actually fantastic. I had to talk myself out of heading off for the far horizon... Tomorrow is my first triathlon of the season, I can't wait to hit the (freezing) water!

But I have to get the Club's membership cards printed before I can sleep.

Listening to: Ready Steady Go by Paul Oakenfold from Bunkka.

Two Sides to Every Story

I had a TV audition this morning; "husband and wife having a romantic evening." No dialog, we each had a separate back story to have in mind as we pretended to cook together.

My back story: Still madly in love with my wife, not feeling well lately. Got some bad medical test results but not going to tell her just yet.

My audition partner's back story, which I learned after the audition when we compared notes: She's having an affair that he doesn't know about, but tonight's romance convinces her to give him a chance to win her heart back.

Just one word - Yike!

In more mundane news, some of my last running clinic students took me out for a beer last night, immediately after the new class had their first session. Nice to kick back with some new friends... Spacco is a massive single's scene though!

Tonight Sheryl and I are going to try to catch my friend Andy racing in the Toronto Criterium cycling race downtown, on Sunday morning I'll be starting my own racing season in the Milton Triathon. I am just itching to get going!

Listening to: Apologize by OneRepublic from Dreaming Out Loud.

Epic Ride

This morning I set out for another "long ride", expecting to go about 130K in about 4 1/2 hours. I managed to swallow a bug within a block of starting... As usual I headed north on Leslie shortly before 8:00 AM. Unusually, at the Club's group ride meeting point, 30K up the road, there were people! I rode 50K with three women from the Club. I took it pretty easy as I was planning on doing a second shorter loop after they were done. We've had amazing weather the last few weeks, mostly in the high 20's, so the riding has been good. Same thing today, warm and muggy. Felt more like August.

Things got more interesting on the second loop, which I did alone. I had to endure over an hour of torrential downpours! Nasty. Good thing it was warm, although my legs did start to stiffen up a little. Still I felt strong and was finding techniques to take the pressure off my aching butt. I got a bit off-route riding back into town which extended my ride further than I expected. I glanced down at my odometer and realised that I was going to be close to the magic "century" distance (100 miles). When I finally got back into my 'hood I decided to add a short little extension on some residential streets. Did it! I'd done 161K in 5:38. I did feel a little wobbly getting off my bike...

I changed my soaking cycling socks, which had gone from white to dark gray, and head back out the door for a short run. As I reached the end of my run it started to rain a bit again, so I nipped into Enduro Sport, where I get a lot of my triathlon gear, to pick up the street bike I'd bought on sale. The rain set in again, another half our of torrential downpour. I hung out at the store until the rain stopped and I could ride my new bike, a replacement for the mountain bike that was stolen during the Toronto International Film Festival, home without a repeat soaking. Bike design has come a long way since my last mountain bike. This bike, a Devinci St-Tropez, is set up for riding city streets rather than dirt trails. And it has a nice big heavy Kryptonite lock.

I'm pretty tired, but this ride gives me a lot of confidence about my Ironman in December. The cycling leg will only be 20K longer than this ride and will be a lot flatter. Next weekend I'll be doing my first full marathon, so I'll have a test run of that leg of the race under my belt too.

Listening to: Ahead by a Century by The Tragically Hip from Trouble at the Henhouse.

A Sore-ass, but with an Excuse...

It's been a busy weekend for me on my new triathlon bike. Yesterday I joined a group of triathletes for a group ride in Milton, near the Niagara Escarpment. I only planned to do about 20 or 30 km, but I got ambitious and did 68 km... There were some pretty big hills along the way too! Coming down the steepest I hit 72 km/h, and my cycling helmet was lifting off my head from the air flow. My average speed, according to my $10 bike computer, was almost 29 km/h.

The Saturday forecast I'd seen said "showers", so I dressed for dry-ish conditions, and it was dry except for a few short... showers. Everyone else believed that it was going to rain, so they started in rain gear but soon stuffed their slickers away. It did rain, but only while I was driving home. A steady downpour that would have been hell to cycle through.

Today I was up at 6:00 AM to take part on the Heart & Stroke Ride for Heart fund-raising charity ride. Again the forecast was for showers, again I defied the forecast (although I did bring along clothes that would stay warm if it turned wet). The Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway were closed off for the morning, so the ride was a chance to do some uninterrupted cycling on nice smooth roads. It worked out well, although the first few km were clogged with recreational cyclists. There were thousands of participants. Between the 50 K I did on the course and the 11 K ride each way to the starting point I ended up cycling even further than yesterday.

So yes, my ass is sore.

Listening to: Shit On The Radio (Remember the Days) by Nelly Furtado from Whoa, Nelly!

Ride or die

I was up at 6:30 AM today to walk Sheryl's dog (whom I'm babysitting while she's in New York for the weekend) and then go on my first serious group ride. The triathlon club met at the intersection of Elgin Mills and Woodbine, way up in Richmond Hill, for an 8:00 AM start. I packed my mountain bike into my trunk and tied it down, getting there just in time for the start.

It was a cold, windy morning. I was well dressed for the conditions as it turned out, other than wishing I had full finger cycling gloves. I kept up pretty well with the experienced riders for about the first 10 km but the remaining 50 km were gruelling, especially in the gusting winds. It seemed that we were riding into a head wind the whole way, even though we did a large loop! There's no way around it, if I want to get a fair return on my exertion I'll have to get a 'real' bike.

Listening to: You Showed Me by The Lightning Seeds from Dizzy Heights.

Oh, my aching legs

Yesterday afternoon I went for a 12 km run before taking Chris out for a little celebration dinner (he brought home two perfect test results). My legs were feeling pretty heavy walking to the restaurant. Immediately afterward I met Sheryl for a mini-date in Yorkville to go see Art School Confidental.

This morning I rode my mountain bike 10 km down to the Leslie Street Spit to join up for the first time with some of the Toronto Triathlon Club members for a "group ride." We did just over 30 km together then I rode home, this time travelling 20 km because I decided to take a detour through Tommy Thompson Park a 5 km man-made spit that extends into Lake Ontario from the east side of the harbour. Now my legs are really killing me!

Art School Confidential was an interesting film. It felt like 95% Animal House (although perhaps Van Wilder would be a closer match) and 5% Girl with a Pearl Earring. Lots of crude college humour and reprehensible characters (all of them, really) but every now and then the naive yet ambitious Jerome (played a bit flatly by Max Minghella) paints the unobtainable Audrey (Sophia Myles). Jim Broadbent and John Malkovich have well turned supporting roles and Anjelica Huston has a nice cameo. Overall an entertaining film even though it seemed to run out of steam half way though.

The group ride was a bit odd as only two other riders showed up. Some group! The others had gone to Lake Wilcox, north of town, for a more serious country-side ride. I felt self-conscious on my clunker mountain bike, but I was easily able to keep up with Carolyn and Sue on their fancy "aero" triathlon bikes. The route we rode, which matches the Toronto Triathlon course this July, was a rectangle that passed a lot of nasty industrial sites and garbage depots. Yuck! We did five laps.

Ironically our starting point was right at the foot of the Leslie Street Spit, which although still being built on reclaimed land is a significant bird sanctuary. Parts are wetlands and woods, parts are rubble. Lots of interesting birds, beaver lodges, etc. Overall much nicer than the industrial wasteland we rode through together.

Listening to: In Your Eyes by Leslie Spit Treeo from Book of Rejection.