Century Ride

I did it!! I actually crossed off a fitness/adventure goal that I had made for myself. I seem to rarely follow through with my plans, so when I am able to actually achieve what I dreamed I might one day do.... well I feel great!

Yesterday my buddy Salman and I set out to Point Pelee (approx 70km away) at 05:00.

We decided that since I had to be back at 4pm we should leave before our originally scheduled time (7am) to give us an extra couple of hours for breaks, sight-seeing, emergencies, etc. It was dark and COLD when we set off, and we made a lot of wrong turns trying to find the Chrysler Greenway. Once we finally, FINALLY found it, it was too dark to risk biking along a pitch black route that we were unfamiliar with. We found a place to grab breakfast and I had some coffee and toast. The coffee definitely helped warm up the hands and freezing noses.

Once it got brighter outside, we set out to find the trail again. It was easy, and it was right there. And once we were on it, we realised how lucky we were, because it was a beautiful 40km straight trail that was shielded from cars, horns, pollution, and noise and would take us over half the way there without us even thinking about directions. We had no problems at this point, and we were merrily counting bunnies and pedestrians that we spotted on our way.

We knew we were getting closer as we'd hit the important bends in the Greenway and certain landmarks on the map. I was getting antsy, and each time my buddy would check the GPS I'd update facebook, in case we were lost or in trouble. Finally it was time to turn off the Greenway and onto the streets of Leamington, following the signs heading to the national park!

We could feel ourselves getting closer and closer, and it was awesome to think that we'd finally made it, and we were half-way home! We passed a lot of restaurants advertising fresh fish that were closed, because it was only around 11am at this point. We paid the $7.50 and toured the National Park a little until it was lunch time. We were able to get right to the top of Pelee Point, which is the South-most part of Canada.

We'd lucked out with a perfectly blue sky, cool temps and few clouds. There were stars when we set out, and we caught the moon rising on our way back. I love that I've managed perfect weather for my 3 longer rides:)

The way back had us take little breaks every half hour. We'd stop to drink some water, hunt around in our backpacks for stray food, and stretch/lie down to relax. It was tough because we knew how far we had until we got back, but we also knew we HAD TO KEEP GOING or we wouldn't get home to more food, water, hot showers, naps :D

We made a final last stop at a Tim's to grab bagels and cookies and then we set off on the last 40 minutes of our ride through town to get to our area. We were exhausted and got into some fights with a couple of drivers, as one almost hit my buddy (turning right on a red-light, failed to even LOOK to his right). We hit our area before my Garmin said 100, so we toured our block a few times (too many times...) to push the mileage to this beautiful number:

And we were done! I grabbed some pizza, soaked in a hot tub and went to bed at around 10pm. I slept like a log and awoke to surprisingly find that I could walk with almost no limp, and my legs weren't as sore as I thought they'd be. I'm so proud of myself, I can't stop bragging and reading about centuries online.
I have another (easier?) goal coming up next weekend, 100km. It'll be an organised ride, my first, so I'm still excited! I need to remember a few things from this ride to help improve my next one, and I'll be set for a great time :)

Belle River Bike

My last big cycling post had my longest bike being 36 miles (58km) in almost 3 hours.
I'd like to update that number to 38miles (61km)  in 3h15.
I had a few free hours yesterday and the weather was cloudy, cool, and perfect for a long ride. I gathered up some snacks, packed spare clothes and headed out, telling my room-mates I'd be back in 4 hours.
While it did take 4 hours total, I only rode for 3 of those hours. I meant to bike from Windsor - Belle River (19mi/30km according to Google) but made it to about 6km away before I decided I couldn't make it. I was stuck at a left-hand turn for about 10 minutes, waiting for a break in traffic. I never found one, and looking at the highway, I couldn't even see a safe space to cycle on. So I turned back to a restaurant I'd seen on my way there, and had a huge lovely salad for dinner.
The ride was great, and I managed to pick up some cherries and blueberries at a place off the side of the road to enjoy as a reward for making it back. It did rain the whole first half of the ride, and changing into dry clothes at the restaurant felt great. Everyone there was suitably impressed that I'd biked all the way from Windsor, which was obviously awesome :)

My bum hurts a bit today, but my legs feel great! This is the previous list I had made up of my cycling goals:

• Bike from Windsor-Point Pelee-Windsor, ~150km roundtrip, but I'd like to camp for a night there.
• (Metric) Century Ride, September 29th, 2012.
• Bike from Windsor-London (suburbs), 198km (~10hours)

It looks like I'll be on track to do the Pelee ride soon. I bought a 'back roads' map of Ontario and I'm hoping to have the time and energy! to map out a longer ride soon. The very best thing is that 38ish miles burns close to 2000 calories (according to dailymile), and I can't stop thinking of the awesome snacks I could bring on a ride! And all the awesome things I'll see! I'll leave you with a couple of pictures from my ride yesterday - I managed to find two really gorgeous places.

This is where I had my granola-bar lunch

Those houses must have THE BEST views ever

My bike's view while riding :)

Cycling

Hey everyone that still reads this space!
It looks like my last post was over a month ago and I'm sorry about that. The truth is that I haven't been running too much and I haven't made it a priority to come into this space for a while. I do miss some of the lovely bloggers that I read regularly - and I will catch up with you all tomorrow.

What's been going on lately? Calvin was working in Windsor for a whole week, and then had a week's vacation so that accounted for half the time. We usually spend our time watching TV, going for walks, running errands, playing pool and fighting over which movies to watch on Netflix (documentaries often win, as well as not-too-dumb comedies).

 Looking back through my posts I've noticed that HM training only reached week 4. While it has almost definitely ended (for now) it's hard to pinpoint why. I guess my dumb speed challenge side-tracked it as my knee had a rough time after it. And then it became clear that I wouldn't be in town for the race weekend of the race I'd chosen. I might start again for a September race if I feel like it, but don't hold your breath :)

I've been keeping active by cycling though, as I bike to almost everywhere I have to go. I've run out of bus tickets and biking sure beats paying $2.50 each time I jump on the bus. As I spend about 20-40minutes cycling everywhere everyday, I decided that I wanted to do a long ride with a friend. This is the same friend I went to Malden with another time and fell and hurt my hip a little and acquired a massive bruise on my thigh. Anyway, we've done a couple of trail rides together and we've been waiting for HIS hip to heal from a fall he had ages ago. We decided to head out at some point this week to say we rode to Amherstburg. We had to settle on Thursday, as Ramadan starts on Friday (tomorrow).

I woke up at 0530 and we headed out at 6am. It was a perfect day with clouds overhead and a few showers as we reached each destination. There wasn't really anything to see in Amherstburg at 07:30 in the morning, so after a stop at Tim's we headed back. We managed 36miles (58km) in just under 3 hours, which is just as good a starting point as any. My bum quite hurts, but I'm pleased to say that most things worked out. For next time, I would try to remember that Gatorade doesn't sit well in my tummy after an hour and that I'd like to bring sunglasses if it was sunny outside.

I have been waiting to see how this ride goes (I should really wait to see how my legs feel tomorrow morning) to set down some goals, and here they are! They make up a list of goals I'd like to see accomplished on the bike, but I am setting no order (other than logic, shorter/easiest first) or time limit on them (perhaps before snow falls?).

• Bike from Windsor-Point Pelee-Windsor, ~150km roundtrip, but I'd like to camp for a night there.
• (Metric) Century Ride, September 29th, 2012.
• Bike from Windsor-Lambeth, 198km (~10hours)

I would like to buy a pair of padded shorts soon, as my bum HURTS after 3 hours on the bike. I'd also love to have a new bike, preferably one who's front tyre doesn't wobble and with brakes that work perfectly. While this bike is in good enough condition that I feel confident cycling with it for 50km, I feel that a road bike would be infinitely smoother and a little faster :)

I don't suppose anyone has a road bike they don't use sitting in their basement, and be willing to ship it to me?

Speed

Hi everyone!
I hope your weeks are going well.
My first week back from Reading Week (spring break) is chugging along, we're already more than half-way to the weekend!

My plans for the weekend include:
working on my Social Policy research paper.
going on an outside run if the weather is nice (there is supposed to be warmer temps with rain this weekend!)
Catching up on my reading at Coffee Exchange downtown :)


This week has been great, exercise-wise!
Monday : Ran for close to an hour through icy puddles with my Vibrams
Wednesday: 17mile cycle at the gym in 70 mins.


I am currently #3 on the leaderboard for total weekly mileage!  I am super excited and may do another cycle this week to stay up there, hehe.


I will post something more meaningful this weekend - hopefully some pictures!