150km challange

so it's friday night. i need to go to bed, but wanted to post about my big challenge. tomorrow i'm biking up to my parents place in oro. it's around 150km. which is a fair bit more than i'm used to but we'll see. i've got everything (meaning food and a few clean clothes) packed and my map all marked up. and my parents on call to come rescue me if i get stuck. my goal is to make it to barrie (120km) and then decide from there if my butt can take another 30.  then i'll hang out at my parents for a day then bike back on monday. woot! here's to taking chances and getting messy!

100km! all in one day!

so i met the mark. i cycled 100km in one day. and actually it wasn't that bad. i did it in 3 chunks. a selected two routes. one route that was "flat", (yes those scare quotes are neccissary) and one that was "hilly" (also neccissary scare quotes. i went on wednesday. it was nice out. not to much of a breeze, not too hot. i started at 10am. bikes the first 34km "flat" loop. a fancy new one that i made up to avoid biking down victoria, as victoria in sections is incredibally dangerous for cyclists. like really bad. so i have a new route that takes me out to arkell and back instead. and uses the nice bike lanes on clair and gordon. so first 34km. which i guessed was "flat" didn't end up being so "flat" just didn't have the extreme hills of whitelaw rd. so it went well. i came home. ate some oatmeal, cleaned the bathroom, then went out again. next trip 32km "hilly" which wasn't bad at all except whitelaw which is very hilly, but pretty. it goes past the bird sactuary in the south of guelph. i heard a common yellowthroat. i know pretty common bird,  but i really love thier 'whichity-whitchity-which' song. it was a nice ride. i keep thinking to myself "this is not a race, this is not a race" and it's not. i'll make it there. i don't need to go 30km/hour or even 20km/hour. i just need to keep biking. that's it.
i should also mention i got a bike fitting on tuesday night, that changed the position of my handlebars. now it's super comfy and i got these fancy ergonomic side grip things for my handlebars. also very nice and saves my wrists big time. i also got some pointers from the lovely folks at bits and bikes an long haul biking technique. very helpful. turns out i been paddling wrong...ops. well i got time to fix it now. so yes "hilly" ride went great. came home ate some more carbs, vaccumed and scared the cats at the same time, checked my email then went out again. for the lsat "flat" 34km. it was getting hot by this time in the afternoon. but my legs hung in there. and my butt was only kinda sore. mostly in these 2 spots that rub when my legs are moving past my seat. i hear you're supposed to put cream on to help with this kind of thing. another good thing about this ride is that i figured out a handy way for my camelback (fancy waterbottle thing) to stay on my bike and have the hose accessable. it's been bugging me for a bit so it was nice to figure it out.  so there. 100km. who woulda thought.  like any big task broken into small chunks and with bouts of cleaning/organising in between it all becomes quite managable.

Fundraising at With the Grain

On saturday June 25th With the Grain Bakery and Cafe will be generously donating thier in house coffee sales to support my fundraising efforts. I'll be set up outside on my trainer biking away and collecting cash donations, and answering questions. So if you're looking for a great place for a great saturday morning, or afternoon (organic, fairly traded, loally roasted) coffee  stop by, say hi, and feel good about your coffee drinking habit.

Market Madness!

Yesterday morning, Christine and I woke up at 5:30am gathered all our posters, flyers, fancy dontation buckets, and my bike trainer loaded it onto my bike trailer (found on the side of the road last year by a good freind, in the process of being fixed up by me) and went to market. the weather forcast had made a drastic change form the night before (surprise surpise) so rain was not expected but all our stuff was already waterproofed because our booth was outside. Our booth was right between the lovely folks at Drumlin Organic Farm, and The Dairy Boards promotional booth (complete with fake milkable cow for the kids!). It was a little out of the way but still had lots of traffic by it. So there we set me up on the bike trainer, christine as my lovely assistant. and there i biked. and biked. and biked. i started biking at 7 and kept going untill market was over, stopping only for the odd pee break and leg stretch/bum rest. people came up and asked questions, commented on how i was going "nowhere fast" (oh haha hadn't heard that one before!),  many a bewhildered child stopped to try and figure out why  wasn't moving, and people reached into thier pockets and droped some coins in our buckets. freinds came up to talk, strangers wished my luck on my ride and told me i was doing a great thing. it was amazing and inspiring. the ability of people to open thier hearts and open thier wallets to a cause inspires me to keep fundraising and keep biking.  By the end of the day, my bum was sore and i was tired but still smiling. And over the course of that 5 hours i raised just over $280. Amazing!

back in the saddle!

so i've been sick. for 4 days. and not a good sick either. the sick that makes you not want to eat anything, casue everything turns your stomache.  after breakfast last monday i felt a little wierd. but kept on with my day thinking i had something wierd and that it would work it's way out, and it did untill the next morning. i ate 1/2 my breakfast then crashed on the couch, and there i remained for the next 4 days. surviving on sports drink and the odd cracker and honey. what a kick to the training. doing all the biking requires lots of eating, around 2300 calories a day, for someone of my size and activity level. and when for 4 days i have less than 200 a day. not so good. my brain function was way down, balance and coordination where almost non-exisitant. aweful. but then friday afternoon it was like someone flipped a switch. i felt like eating. christine wnet and got me some squishy bread for toast (bless her) and i made some toast and didn't feel gross looking at it. i ate it then made another one. i havn't stopped eating since. so today i takle 90km. i'll be doing about 25 just in errands i need to run but will do another 65 for fun.  i've broken it into 2 loops a hilly and a (hopefully) flat route. so off we go!

bike safe everyone. wear your f'n helmut.

Hills and saving turtles

So i wanted to go for a 85km ride on monday, but i picked out a new 43km route that avoids the narrow scarey carness of victoria rd. i really should have checked the elevation profile cause goah damn that was one hilly ride, and i was suppsed to do it twice, after having already rode 120km in the past 2 days. so i only did it once. i was tired. it was hot and my legs were tired. but on my route i saved 2 turtles from getting smucked. one adult painted turtle who seemed quite upset when i moved it from the centre of the road. it calmed down when i put it in the reeds next to the pond nearby. the other turtle i saved was a baby sanpping turtle. i swear it was only a little bit bigger than a toonie, and super cute. it all tucked into its shell when i picked it up. it  looked cuddley, or at least as cuddley as something with rough skin and a hard shell can look. it was a good ride. and a beautiful night.