TGIF

This week did not feel like a shortened one. It was long. And grueling. I'm tired. I'm glad it's the weekend. Short weeks are hard. They always are. You have to cram 5 days of work into 4. Not fair. Such is life.

So - cool thing: one of the chicks that I cycled with in France last year decided to do a tour of Canada. She's from Dublin, Ireland. And she's in town this weekend. In fact, I picked her up in Kingston and brought her to O-town with me yesterday. The planner she is, she'd asked me my schedule and I gave it to her and suggested that if she wanted to see Kingston she could meet me there since I'd be there this week. So she took the train from T-dot and toured Kingston for a day while I was working. So I'll be hosting her this weekend. In between riding, of course. Tomorrow a good sized group of us will be riding out to Pakenham. Should be a nice ride. We often head east because some of our riders know good roads out there. And we always have a good time no matter where we ride. It's always nice to learn new routes though. Sunday I'll be cheering on a bunch of my friends who are running the half-marathon. And they think riding 100K is nuts!??? ;) Kidding. I think it's great. Which is why I'll be cheering for them.

I want another 4-day, ride my butt off weekend. That rocked! I'll have to plan some this summer.

Photo of the baby racoon we found up at the cottage I visited last weekend.

Rejuvenated

Wow. I can't remember ever having a weekend that left me feeling the way this last one has. I took Friday off work - although, I have to admit, since I didn't have my computer the whole week and just got it back Thursday late-day, I did catch up on a few emails Friday morning... BUT after that, I headed out to Gatineau Park and did a loop with Ruth. Then I came home, packed up and cleaned up a little, and then headed down to Kingston. I had a fun evening with Shannon and her hubby. Next morning Shannon and I got up and rode to their family cottage with her brother. Her husband drove the car out later with our stuff. It was a really great ride from the edge of Kingston out to Otter Lake. The weather was great. We stopped a couple of times and took some photos. It was all rolling hills, so my legs felt it after doing the hills the previous day, but in the end it still felt really good. We did a few less km's than I'd anticipated, and none of us minded. Next day after a little work around the cottage (we found a baby racoon) and a trip into Newboro, I headed home and had dinner with friends and went out to one of the local clubs - although it was pretty quiet on Sunday night. Monday I did another really great ride with 4 other friends from the regular crew. The wind was crazy and I was happy to have our two strongest pulling into the headwind - although I think the crosswind was the worst. Despite some asthma (allergy season is upon us) on the hills early in the ride, the last 20K felt really good. Even the headwind at the end was a challenge, but felt good. When I got home I spent the rest of my day cleaning like a mad-woman. One of the people I cycled with last year in France is doing a tour of Canada (she's from Dublin!) and is meeting me in Kingston this week and driving back to O-town with me. So I had to clean my place! It was the motivation I needed to do it.

So, with all of the riding and fresh air, and cleaning my place I finished the weekend feeling really great. I didn't touch my computer. As a result, this morning I woke up at 6 AM and got up without any problem! Wow! And I didn't go to bed early either. So, what's the trick? I don't know, but I need to figure it out. I want to become more of a morning person and this morning gave me hope that I might be able to do it. Maybe I just need to have 4 day weekends all the time. Wishful thinking?

Ahhhhh!

So far such an amazing long weekend...

Friday I took the day off and did a loop of Gatineau Park with one of my friends. Then I packed up and headed down to Kingston. Went out for a great dinner with my friend and her hubby. Next morning my friend, her brother, and I biked to their cottage near Smiths Falls and the rest of the day we just relaxed in the amazing weather. It was a really amazing ride. The weather was as close as you might ever get to perfect. Her family welcomed me in to the cottage and we had such a fun time. We even had blueberry pancakes this morning for bf. Today we drove into the little town we went through on our way there, Newboro, and had a fun time at the little shop they had there. We spent a half an hour in their massage chairs. lol! Now I'm back in O-town and plan to ride tomorrow, although the route has yet TBD. I happened to have chosen the best days to ride, as right now it's cold and raining, but tomorrow is looking sunny and warm! Woo-hoo! Still one more day left! :)

Happy Long Weekend!!

MTL, Cycling - you know, the usual

This weekend I went on a quick road trip with my sister! We've never done that before. Our destination: MTL. Our purpose: Cirque du Soleil and shopping. And we did a good job of it! We hit H&M on our way in (my first H&M experience was in Milan with Cookies a few years ago). This was my sister's first visit, and I do not think she was disappointed. Needless to say, we left with a heavy bag each. Then we headed downtown for a bit more serious shopping - Simon's, shoe shopping, Zara, Mango, and BCBG. I got a dress for Stef's wedding at the last one. I haven't bought a 'real' dress, maybe ever (high school grad perhaps?). That place was insane! I came away with the dress and while the saleswoman was really nice and extremely attentive, I wasn't buying the $250 shoes. Then Cirque du Soleil... I counted, this was my fourth show. It's a brand new one called Kooza and I have to say - the BEST one I've seen yet!! WOW! We were on the edges of our seats for many of the acts. My sister said her hands were sweating. The stuff they did left your jaw on the ground. If you haven't seen a show, do it - it's always worth the money.

Then Monday night, a last minute offer to ride with a couple of the strongest riders in our group. I haven't ridden with them yet. We did about 50k and it was really great. I pulled for quite a while in the wind and was strong. And Frank noted that I kept up with them on the hills - I'm stronger than last year. :) Today I stuck to my promise to Jessica that I would cross train and I went to the gym (easier to do when it's raining). And with an offer to get to the park on Friday afternoon, I decided to take the day off! Extra long weekend - woo-hoo!!!

Boyz

So, last night I was dressed in my cycling gear, had just finished pumping up my tires, and was almost out the door when the phone rang. It was MizB.

She said, "Do you want to go to Poncho Villa for a drink?" - uh, oh.

I asked, "What's going on?"

"Oh, nothing. Jen and I are going there, do you want to come?"

So, I said I was just about to head out on my bike, but I could meet up with her and Jen later, depending on how long they intended on being out.

She said,"OK. I think he's going to move", referring to the most recent bf. Uh-oh.

So, I changed back into my 'street clothes' (the ones I wear when I'm not hitting the pavement at 30kph - ha, ha!) and got picked up and we had margaritas and daiquiris on the patio. I'm such a cheap drunk, I had one and my legs felt funny (it's the tequila - we all know someone who isn't allowed to have it anymore - right Weakley??). The girlz were laughing at me - it was 'mucho grande' though. Then we got this idea and the three of us headed down to the market to have our palms read! I've never done that or anything like that before. It was fun! The lady wrote all of the stuff on our hands. She wasn't too far off on quite a few things too. Actually she was bang on for a few things for each of us. I think it cheered MizB up, but the news is: the boy is moving. Sigh. Too bad.

Altruism

I'm into finding different words instead of always using the same ones, so there you have the title of this post. When I worked as a student at Nortel in the summers we used to do the newspaper crossword at lunch and on Monday we'd pick one of the words and use it all week. Yeah, we were geeks, but it was fun anyway. In fact, it often meant a lot of laughter over the course of the week. But I digress, as that's not the purpose of my post...

Funny. The other day I was talking to a physician I call on about traveling (he travels a lot and is always interested in hearing about my plans). I told him about the idea of a trip where I can give back. Something about the poverty in Panama put that idea in my head I guess. He cautioned me about crime and disease with a couple of stories of other physicians who have traveled to really crazy places to help. I said that I guess in some ways I'm still pretty idealistic. I'm often conflicted with being pretty jaded, having had some tough experiences in life, and still being a little on the idealistic side deep down. I wanted to share something with whomever reads here, because it touched my soft side. It reminds us that when you do nice things, it does make the world a better place because people are reminded of the fact that we are all human. These days people frequently forget that. Like aggressive drivers, and bad cyclists (I had to add that - don't worry, I'm not holding on to it - I'm laughing as I write that part).

So check this out, and be sure to read the post on the Breakfast Fairy and the follow up post.

Content

I'm surprised how quickly I was able to think of another adjective starting with the letter 'c'. That's me right now. I'm going to have an epsom salts bath and do some serious stretching. This morning I did strength training with Jessica and even though she knew I was going to go climb hills this afternoon, we still did squats with a kick (no weight at least) and hamstrings. Yikes! When I got to Fortune Lake hill my quads were burning before I even started. But I made it!! Luckily that hill has a few flat spots where you can recover a bit and I actually recovered really well on those parts. I have this funny thing about riding, where I seem to be strongest in the last leg of a ride. So after Fortune Lake I seemed to be able to stand up and climb fast on the short hills. Weird. There is this nice, quick, moderately steep climb right before you get back to the Gamelin parking lot and Ruth and I climbed it standing doing 30kph!!! I was shocked when I looked down. The descent right before didn't hurt to get our speed up. And one more thing about today's ride was that Pink Lake, while still very challenging for me (granny gear territory), didn't seem as bad as my imagination leads me to believe. I think after a summer of Gat Loops I'm going to crush that f-ing hill! The wind was something fierce today too. We did not go as fast as usual on the big descents for fear of being blown over. Seriously. And there were trilliums everywhere in the forest. I don't think I've seen them like that before - the whole forest floor covered in them. Very pretty.
So, as you can tell, my bike is back in working order. A very nice bike fairy fixed a broken spoke for me. :) Tomorrow - Tour Nortel.

Crusty

No longer a description for my leg, arm, and right hand. The last of the wounds seem to be healed. It's my mood that I'm describing this evening. After spending two long and very busy days in Kingston I was happy to have received a phone call during my drive home to get out to the Gats and climb some hills. I got home and changed and prepared my bike as quickly as I could and then got out the door equally as fast. On my way out I noticed my back wheel was rubbing against the brake pad. In fact, I couldn't move the bike forward. I fiddled with it a bit and figured I could quickly fix it when I got there (while in the back of my head I was also thinking something might be wrong because I couldn't easily fix it at home by loosening the skewer and realigning the tire). So, I battled the traffic and got to the park. Upon meeting up with my friends I asked them to look at the wheel and tell me what they thought - at this point I'd been frigging around with it and was considering loosening the brake pads (even though I had that little voice in my head saying: "don't be a dumbass"). As I described to another person later: 'after much deliberation and expert discussion from 3 only-semi-mechanically-literate cycling chicks', we decided I should not be descending hills at high speeds with a warped tire. And hopefully it's just the tire. So I came home and sulked. And then I got to responding to some work emails that really pissed me off. So I had to save them and look at them again later when I was in less of a crusty mood to be sure I wasn't being unreasonably bitchy. Yeah. At least I have the sense not to whip off the types of responses I'd like to sometimes. That and earlier today I even thought of a very witty and equally nasty response to a voicemail I received. Where do days like these come from? I'm just glad I don't have them often. You know, getting knocked off my bike the other week, I was calm (in shock, mind you), and unreasonably nice to the person who did it to me. Then some days, you just want to tell people like that to piss right off. Yep. Crusty day. Crusty Bex. What else can I say? At least I have friends who then pick me up for dinner and encourage my unusual decision to have a margarita. Tomorrow is a new day. I'll find a new adjective then.