Some Milestones

Last week on Thursday I swam my first 3000 meter/3 kilometer straight swim set. Most weeks my swim is made up of shorter intervals with varying amounts of rest and I will swim a total of 2500-3200 meters in a session. But every couple of weeks I get a straight swim set. The 3000 was my longest yet and is about 800 meters less than what the full Ironman swim will be. It took me exactly one hour to swim the 3 kilometers, which was just about as long as I thought it would take.

This weekend I came very close to riding my first every century (100 miles) ride. I ended up being about half a mile short! But, close enough. I went from downtown Toronto north into Inglewood and close to Forks of the Credit. It was a nice ride, scenery was great and as I get more North I get to practice some hill climbing. This coming weekend I will try and do a similar route.

Taking the rest day...

Today's schedule had an option: rest day or a swim. I decided to take the rest day. I haven't been sleeping well (waking up often in the night) and just felt so crappy on my ride yesterday that I decided some time off would be appropriate.

So I slept in. Walked leisurely to work. Hopefully tonight I can tidy the house a bit. Run this weekend is short and my ride is a bit shorter as well. So looking forward to some time to myself.

City Blues

This morning was the day that I officially felt like I was just plain sick of riding in the city. Since I ride early in the morning, traffic isn't really an issue. It is mostly that I am sick of the state that the city is in. As a cyclist (both commuting and training) I am disgusted at the state of our roads. I blame the surge in condos, especially along King St. The heavy machinery required to build them sags the ashphalt and the roads never get repaved. The result is a pretty teeth jarring ride on your bike, especially a road bike.

Even the good news of the Waterfront Trail revitalisation project isn't really good news right now. The majority of the work was supposed to be done by the end of April. It is now mid June and various sections of the trail have been closed off for all kinds of different construction. Places left open for trail access are dangerous with gravel sections often appearing quickly and with no warning. Alternate routes are the sidewalk or Lakeshore Blvd. Neither of which are very appealing.

So this morning I did a Run/Bike/Run combination. A run for about 20 minutes, then 50 minutes riding and then a 15 minute run after the ride. In the middle of the ride I just wanted to lay the bike down on the grass and be done with it. Not because I was tired, but just because I was fed up with riding in the city being such a hassle.

Oh well, home tonight to melt into the couch for the evening.

Alive and well...

I disappeared (virtually) at least for a while there. Life got busy. What has been happening in the past little while? Same old, same old pretty much. Some highlights, in no particular order:

• rides have been getting steadily longer. I'm up to about 140K (~86 miles).
• runs are also getting longer. Longest so far has been 24K (~15 miles)
• I had a horrible race at the Ottawa Half Marathon. It was HOT. People were dropping by the side of the road.
• I bought a Power Meter for my bike which I am really enjoying so far.
• I rode with an online friend last weekend. Someone that I had never met in person. She was great company and a perfect match pace wise (or at least she didn't complain about me being too slow!).

World Cup Fever has truly hit our neighbourhood no. No sleeping for us for a while. Where I live we are surrounded by a Portuguese neighbourhood, the area they call 'Little Italy' and a very healthy and vibrant Brazilian community. So we are really in trouble no matter what happens! So last night when I went out to run they had one block of the street closed down as the Brazilians were out blowing whistles and having a party. Thankfully by the time I went to bed things seemed to have quieted down. This weekend both Portugal and Italy play. Should be interesting.