August 2012

As we step into August, new and exciting things are happening!
I received an unexpected surprise in the mail today: my work permit! I was hoping to hear back via email, but this is so much better. Bright and shiny, it's mine for 3 years. Meaning a job is next, as are adult responsabilities. Which leads to signing a new lease in September. We found a neat 2-bedroom apartment for a decent price, and we're moving at the end of the summer. Perhaps pictures will follow, maybe not.

I participated in a volleyball fundraiser yesterday. It was a lovely, sunny Sunday and 5 beautiful people were able to dedicate their day to being on my team. Together we raised about $200 for the cause and we came 5th of 8 teams. Considering some of the team members hadn't ever met before, I think our team worked extremely well together and everyone reports to have had fun, which is all the matters!
There was a raffle draw, and I split my tickets between a 1hr massage, a gym membership and a printer (because Calvin really wanted it). I won the printer! And was able to make Calvin happy by handing it to him. Then I won two of the one-month memberships, which is kind of silly, so they drew again. But I was allowed to keep a one-month $100 value membership to a local gym. While it doesn't have a swimming pool, it does have amazing machines, NO STUDENT CROWDS, and lots of group fitness classes. I signed up this morning and left with the schedule - I'm allowed to be in AS MANY of the classes as I want for 4 whole weeks. Of course, I plan to go everyday. There's 3 or 4 different kinds of yoga that they have (flow, hatha, power, and an all-ages beginner one). I want to try circuit training and MAYBE pilates. I want to try a spin class, although I'm worried about not being able to spin fast enough and the music being too loud.

I'm super excited! The place is about 6km away from me, which is great for cycling, and maybe even possible for running. It's my August goal to make the most of this prize as possible, and I hope to be able to update you after trying everything!
Oh and I also have ONE personal training session which I don't know what to do with! Weights? Core exercises? I've been thinking about this all day: what are my fitness goals? I kind of just have cycling goals right now; I'd like to get faster at swimming? I'm taking an unofficial break from running just to let me knee chill out.

I'll keep thinking. Thanks for reading my rambles, haha.

Swimming!

This isn't really going to be a post about swimming goals, but it IS an attempt to record a delicious swim I experienced this afternoon.

So swimming at my university gym is scheduled and they have the STUPIDEST times. Noon-2pm on some days, with lane swimming on 3 days in the evening 7:30-8pm and 'normal' swimming most afternoons 8-9:30pm. A swim last week proved that the evening sessions were getting too intense and violent for me, when I left after 8 minutes in the pool and being kicked, unintentionally groped and scratched on the face. NOT HAVING IT! I was tempted to angrily scream at some kids at the front desk and demand my money back, but we pay through tuition and having worked there, I'm pretty sure we don't give money back. The whole system is geared to steal money from students - most don't even know that some of their tuition money goes to paying for a 12-month membership EVERY single year they attend school, even if they're part-time.

Anyway. I decided to try out the after-noon swim, as I was free and what the hell.
It was awesome! I mean, it started out uncertain - I jumped into a seemingly free lane, only to have a kid stare at me and his dad rudely say that his kid was swimming there. Umm... nope. That lane was completely free until I stepped in and they decided to take it over. I even waited a couple minutes and they weren't SWIMMING, they were talking about swimming. So I looked around for another free lane, but it looked like most people were actually swimming laps, and I didn't want to take that away.

Until this elderly gentleman (anyone that is polite and helpful earns that title) yelled at me that the person in his lane would be leaving soon, and I should join their lane. Fantastic! The pool is split into 3 big sections, with 3 swimming lanes each. In real life, each of the sections can have 4 people swimming nicely next to each other. Apparently this guy goes swimming so often that he knows everyone's schedule. Sure enough, that person left and I took over his lane!!

I did a couple laps in great time (around 50 seconds per 50m) and noticed a (somewhat) fatty looking for a space. I offered to share my lane with him, and everything worked out beautifully. He was a FAST swimmer, and was really mindful of keeping in a straight line. Let's just say that everything worked out, my face isn't scratched, I had the best swim I've had in a while and all is right with the world. My love for swimming hasn't been smooshed, and I will go back.

1600m (1mile); 34mins.

Might as well try to screw back the gym and go everyday... twice a day? Get my money's worth?

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?

Lots of bugs

June in Canada is when all the bugs come out. There's flies that come in through open windows, mosquitoes on the porch, may flies that get stuck in noses, and apparently moths that try to kill people as well.

I convinced my boyfriend to go for a relaxed bike ride with me along the riverside last night. I thought we'd be out about a half-hour, but we ran into friends and enjoyed some time catching up. We all decided to head home once everyone had had enough of the mosquitoes (special note: I usually have no problem with them - my blood must be special - and I was NOT bitten last night :) ).

Biking along in the right direction to my house, I suddenly hear Calvin stop talking to me and start coughing. He swerves his bike (we were going side-by-side) and I turn to see if he's okay. But he smashed right into my bike and we both fall over. There were a couple guys behind us (walking) that must have started laughing were worried about us and gave us a hand straightening ourselves up. What had happened was that a moth had flown into Calvin's mouth. He felt it crawl around right before his gag reflex made him swallow it. And while he was being freaked out because this was going on, he forgot to keep steering his bike and he crashed into me.

While the scraped knee I am now a proud owner of is not life-threatening, it was annoying to keep turning in my sleep and touching the sheets - it stung!

It may be a while before Calvin comes with me again, as he is traumatized from being attacked my nature.


In other news, I have a degree! And my mum is visiting me in Canada so I have to show her around and let her clean all my dishes and make all my food. I'm kidding, but it's been great having her here! I'll leave you to a picture before I head off to make more plans for the day.

Have a great Sunday! :)

Sore Throat

... it always happens at the best of times, eh? Once the weather gets nicer, you get sick. When exams start adding pressure and stress to your life, your body gives in and allows a sore throat to take over. I've been known to get stuck in bed with a fever on holiday.

And now my mum's visiting (for my approaching graduation) and I'm feeling a sore throat starting. Actually, it's already started and been there for a couple of days. I'm going to add garlic to everything I eat tomorrow (garlic cereal, anyone?!) and hope for the best. Perhaps I'll squeeze in a nap if my mum's jet-lagged and drink tea after tea.

Maybe the excitement of my mum being here did it. Or the fact that I didn't sleep for a whole two days. Or that I was trapped in a bus/airport with loads of other people and germs. Anyway, time to deal with it.

But we walked in the rain today, saw a rainbow, and made plans to see friends in a couple weeks. Good times ahead!

I've been eating a lot of asparagus

I've turned 22 since the last time I posted. I'm in London this week because it's Calvin's birthday on Friday!
Of course, I've been conducting myself as a proper adult should:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seatbelts, always

We've been having campfires - burning marshmallows, melting chocolate and singing crackers to make s'mores. I had an awesome dinner of grilled asparagus, onions, peppers and broccoli last night. My pee smells funny now.

We haven't wasted the sunshine - I spent yesterday's afternoon at the beach in Port Stanley and got a dollar pressed to remember it. I learned that sunblock is actually very effective and if you don't spread it properly you may end the day finding weird sun-burn patterns on your back. (Haha, sorry no pictures!)

We've also been spending time outdoors between all the TV I watch. We went geocaching a few days ago. We didn't find the two we went after... we were using the free app and it wasn't 100% accurate, and I think the ones we picked were quite old and someone might have removed them.

We really just posed as the rest of our group searched.

We did find a volleyball net in the field - it's a bit off to the right of the picture if I remember well. The future includes a trip to the store to buy a ball and a trip to that net to play a wicked game with friends.


Anyone know why asparagus makes your pee smell? I'll look it up eventually....

Kincardine

Hey everyone!
I'm back from Kincardine and am a little sad about it. It was the polar opposite of my Reading week there a couple months ago. Instead of being shut in the hotel room for 23.75 hours of the day like last time, studying, watching TV and wishing exams would be over, this time I was able to explore the crazy awesome trails,

get lost inside a lovely maze-garden,

read The Hunger Games at the beach

and peak into people's gardens as I walked around enjoying the sunshine :)

It was a lovely, relaxing (and cheap!) week topped off by a friendly poker night with friends on Friday, a viewing of the Hunger Games movie on Saturday, and a surprise visit on Sunday, from both a bunch of cold-inducing germs (I am constantly sneezing now and have a runny nose :( ) and a friendly couchsurfer!

Monday has brought cooler weather, a huge to-do list and a slap back to reality. I wouldn't have it any other way :)