Back on the Lakeshore (45km)

Fun lady + I did another 45km go of Tommy Thomson Park + Lakeshore today.

It's great to get out on a road you can just go flat out on without having to worry about traffic lights and car obstacles. I wish there were more places like that to ride in the city.

Still seeking out some motivation for this riding stuff. Hopefully a good long training ride this weekend will bring it back.

I have surpassed my goal of $2000 for PWA!
Please keep donating though as every dollar counts.

Quick & Dirty (32km)

Yup. You read it here first. Tonight was one quick and dirty ride, all 32km of it.

Feels good to be back on the bike again. Short ride but lots of sprints to try and get the cardio up. Made a good push on that mini hill on Lakeshore. Getting back into it. Pushing into the wind a bit.

Biking along Lakeshore today made me wonder what the other riders were out there cruising around for? Training? Fun? Hmmmm.

I realize that I'm not really pushing myself until I hit at least 21km/hr. Looking forward to the open roads to Montreal.

Tommy Thompson Park (30km)

Wow, almost 4 weeks to go! Time is flying! Summer is so distracting and there are so many things I want to do, and I don't have the time to do it :-)

Quick 30km ride around Tommy Thompson Park this evening. It was way too hot to do anything else during the day. I'm worrying more about the heat than I am about the mileage on this bike ride. I imagine it gets cooler as you head out of the city though.... but this summer looks like it might be a little brutal.

I know my blogging's becoming dull and I still haven't uploaded pics yet. One of these days....

Personal Training

I started the Can Fit Pro Personal Training course last night. It lasts the whole weekend.
INSANITY!!!!!!!!!!

Lots of anatomy learning yesterday and I think I'm starting to understand why I've had difficulty working out and actually building something sustainable. I mean I know the human body is complicated, but in a 2 hour span late in the evening, it's way more complicated than I can reasonably take in.

I'm mainly taking the course to train myself and take the last many steps to building a sustainable frame for the amount of activity I'd like to incorporate into my life. I know I will be using it in my future somehow, just not sure what shape that will take on just yet (a-har-har-har).

One thing's for sure, using my brain makes me hungry. I need to bring a small picnic with me tonight.

Around the City in an Afternoon (30km)

All leisure biking today. 30kms around the city. Picking us this and that. Eating food. Chilling on the beach. I'm losing desire for getting on the subway and heading off on a ride. It seems so regimented. I want to travel through the forest, roll in the dirt, get off the roads and away from scary SUVs.

I'm looking forward to travelling to Montreal. The structure and rules rules rules of this ride is really getting me down. I thought it would be more fun than it is. I just feel like a cash cow not a volunteer who's devoting her whole summer to this cause. I'm trying to keep it on the positive but I have my days where I just wish this thing was over.

Today's biking should lift my spirits so I'll blog again about it later.

Oakville - Bronte (30km)

Yesterday I did my own loop through Oakville & Bronte.
I was hoping to make it out to Burlington but alas I ran out of time.
Bronte's a cute little town just west of Oakville.
The 'downtown core' has a lot of boarded up or overly expensive stores.
Great streets for biking on due to their width and really nice gardens to check out.
Oakville is very biker friendly. You can ride on the sidewalk/biker's path almost the whole way along Lakeshore.

I'm trying to get out of the city more for rides, way out of the city since urban biking can be a huge pain in the butt.

Fundraising Party Sat June 9th

A quick woo-hoo to all the people who came out to my party or couldn't make it but donated anyways. We managed to raise over $300 from that party alone!

Thank you all for supporting PWA + my ride to Montreal. It means a whole lot to me. More than my Bloggers Block can express.

Finch-Aurora-Don Trail (90km)

I'm going through Bloggers Block so here's the quick and dirty on this ride:

I did this ride in reverse heading up through Keele first. Langstaff had construction on it so I ended up heading through the nasty cookie cutter-ville up there. It's unbelievably hot in places where they've removed all the trees to make room for 'MapleLeaf Drive'. Huh? It's very sad to see what's happening with York Region farmland. Suburban sprawl. Eek!

Keele Street has lots of steep hills especially from 15th to 17th Sideroad. The hill up to 17th is by far the hardest. I got to ride behind a smelly garbage truck. Hurray for me.

Bonus: Wicked trees on Leslie to keep you shaded

The falcon on Leslie that pushed me up a hill

B&R ice cream

Took it real slow, lots of snacking along the way

AVG Speed: 21.1km

MAX Speed: 52.2km

TIME: 4hrs16mins

TEMP: Really freakin' hot!

Talk to the Universe... It Does Talk Back, Sometimes

The last few days I have been losing steam, losing interest, getting frustrated, just plain plateaued out of the uphill battle. With? Well let's face it, most things in my life are an uphill battle right now.

Today things just seem to be going right. Some of those eternal questions are getting answered and it seems like the tide just might be floating me (finally) in a right direction of sorts.

I'm thankful for a lot of things today. Mostly I just want to say thanks to all those awesome people who are supporting my ride. Every new donation helps keep me inspired. And I also want to thank Grassroots for having free yummy dark organic coffee for me this morning as I biked by. What a gem in the haystack. It was a great feeling convening with biker's on my way to starting my day.

Belt Line Trail: Don't Bother

With a rainy crappy day before us, a west end girl and an east end girl met up for a whee ride. Through the beautiful Don Valley + Brickworks we flew in search of the infamous 'BeltLine Trail'. We went through the beautiful Mount Pleasant Cemetary.

Then we found the 'Trail'. It stopped at a busy street. And then it went for another couple of minutes. And then it stopped at a busy street. It was more fun biking around the slopping streets of Forest Hill.

Big thanks for the uber-dark coffee and pasta deluxe! Now I am flying high on caffeine. Looking forward to Hardcore Conditioning for dancers tonight!

Ride Summary: 25km ride of slow meandering fun in the rain with great coffee, an urban tale

8th Training Ride: Musselman Lake (95km)

TTC doesn't run early on Sundays so my training partner + I headed out on the GO Train just after 7am up to Scarborough. We were not keen on doing the Pickering route again. Sometimes I like just biking solo or with one other person. Less complicated. It can drive you nuts having to focus on signalling every little bump in the road among other things.

It was a really beautiful ride, mostly through country rides (although suburbia is fast encroaching in many places). Today was all about the push and I'm glad that I have someone who I'm able to ride with and see when they need a boost and they see when I need a boost, etc. It was threatening to rain on us all morning. It only spit lightly heading back down Midland towards the subway. It was kind of nice to wash away the sweat a little and cool us down.

Musselman's Lake was just as beautiful as I remembered it. I had some very-bad-for-you french toast with table syrup and that kept my spirits up most of the ride back.

Something I'm learning about myself is that I definitely enjoy being on a bike. I'm not a fan of all this rush rush to get to the end stuff though. I wish I had more time to stop and explore and enjoy on the way. York Region has so many beautiful forest trails and it would be far better than spending a few hours on Kennedy and Warden. I enjoy boosting. There are times when we're just going dead flat for long periods of time and it can be hard to stay motivated.

Biking is definitely a meditative space for me though.

AVG Speed: 23.7km/hr

Fastest AVG: 25km/hr (1st 20kms)

Biking Time: 4hrs!

Best Stop: Sketchy Bar/restaurant near Musselman's Lake