Increasing cycling mileage = tired legs

I cycled a hefty 193 km this week, from Sunday to Saturday and have not yet recuperated. Serves me right to increase my mileage that much. What helped was that my play rehearsals have moved into a warehouse west of downtown where a stage has been built to simulate the stage we will be performing on.

So with that said, here's my week in review.

Monday
- cycled 45 km, swam 1500 m

Tuesday
- cycled 55 km, including a long break at GB's for a fantastic steak supper and work on Operation Triumph stuff

Wednesday
- only 25 km cycling to my rehearsal ... it was a busy day what with the encore presentation of Jonathan Clark's fantastic slide show presentation Soul Travel, India!

Thursday
- day off, yay!

Friday
- more cycling, 45 km, including up and over our mountain via Camilien Houde again

Saturday
- short 6km run ... my knee hurt a bit, maybe because of all the cycling!

There's something about being uber-busy that makes it just way too easy to distract myself away from proper training. Sigh.

Visiting Mom

When it FINALLY hit me that I would lose my mother to an incurable cancer, my heart and soul cried out in anguish and that "little girl" inside of me, with insecure, selfish, little girl needs of love and affection, awakened and wailed.

I realised how much I still needed my mother. And though it will be difficult, I know that the inevitability is that I will have to let go, ready or not.

So, for every day that I still have my mother, I will love her as deeply and tenderly as I can. Some people have bitterness and resentment towards their parents during their adult life. I feel none of this towards my mother and realise that life is too short for blame. Could haves, would haves, should haves. None of this means anything in the face of death. No point in ruminating over what wasn't perfect, for the Universe knows I was far from it.

And so, I was very happy to visit my mother in Toronto. Thank you Jonathan Clark for taking this beautiful series of shots.

Thursday, May 1

No training for this little girl today. It was a travelling day. Besides, after Jonathan's Soul Travel, India show, I had too many loose ends to take care of which resulted in another night of almost no sleep. I opted for some zzz's in the car. It's nice having a second driver!

My mom was really excited about my visit, and upon my arrival, I promptly took her out for supper at a Chinese buffet she hadn't visited for a long while. Lots of choice, maybe too much ... we happily ate like PIGS! For dessert, I had a green tea rice ball, mango jello, almond jello, and some red bean soup.



Friday, May 2

Pissy rain day. Popped by my cousin's house to visit her newborn fraternal twins ... a little boy and a little girl ... how adorable! Good thing Grandma, her mother, is there to help!



Then I took my mom out for our ritual dim sum and afterwards ran around with her grocery shopping, a luxury for her since she can't get out on her own.

I slipped out after supper for a quick swim. Toronto is renown for the distances between places, and the available pool was no exception. It took me almost half an hour to get there! Was it worth it for the measly 1000 m that I swam before the pool closed? You betcha! Felt good to train again ...

Saturday, May 3

Another pissy rain day, but today, I had committed to cycling.

It was miserable, cold and very wet, at times even torrential, but I really wanted to cycle some of the rollers just outside Toronto. I gave up looking for a place to relieve myself in the thick of the rain and while adjusting my aerobars at some intersection, I promptly went there, where I was standing, happily knowing that the rain would hide my, ahem, urgency.

I arrived home after cycling 55 km to a wonderful plate of my mom's fried rice. This has got to be one of my #1 comfort foods and I could have eaten unlimited plates of it!

The afternoon brought more shopping, including this really cool Chinese herb place.

Sunday, May 4

What I had in rain yesterday, I had in wind today. I headed out again to the rollers to do some more cycling. At one point, while going downhill, I could only hit 22km/h. Pretty dismal headwind. Needless to say I was pretty spent and very happy to finally make it back home after a 45 km cycle.

I came home to my mom's pork bone and tofu leaf soup. Another favourite comfort food.

That evening, we gathered up the relatives and had a BBQ feast at my cousin's ... My mom and I were happy to see everyone all together, it had been so long for both of us.

Monday, May 5

Travel day back to Montreal, no time to train.

Jonathan met up with us in the morning and we visited ZS (pics above), a friend of my mother's who had shared a hospital room with her for a few months during her recovery from the fall she had had before Christmas.

ZS, you are a beautiful woman, inside and out. Thank you for being so kind to my mother. My mother was thrilled to be reunited with you.

Oh Mom ... It's always so hard to say good-bye ...

The food, don't forget the food ...

The ridiculously busy periods of my life seem to get longer and more intense, giving me very little time to stop and breathe and just do nothing.

Recently, it's been one of those times ... and since I don't follow a training schedule yet or keep a formal log, it's quite tough trying to remember what I did when. I try my best to remember, but who knows, maybe I did diddly-squat and just want to believe that I'd been a good little triathlete girl and actually trained for the day.

Today, the day that I am writing this, which you don't really know since I can change the publish date of a post on Blogger, I am sure of only two things and neither have to do with training.

1) The spicy minced pork eggplant dish with broccoli and jasmine-scented rice that I made the other day was incredibly tasty and I could for sure eat it again now. I have fallen in love with melt-in-your mouth eggplant, especially the eggplant and basil at my favourite Thai restaurant, Phaya Thai. (Shh, their secret is to deep fry it first!)


2) Jonathan Clark presented yet another fantastic photo expostion - Soul Travel, India - the third in a spectacular slide show series hosted by Operation Triumph. Check it out to see more pics.

Week in review ...

Let's go backwards ...

First of all, after a good half hour of creative blogging, what I thought was saved wasn't and my orginal post is lost in cyberspace. Oh well, such is life ...

I have a headache and nausea right now. Is this the start of a cold or am I just feeling the effects of a super busy week and ugly damp cold weather? I think I'm going to go lie down and relax in front of the television.

Friday
Slipped in a 1200 m swim but felt really tired so decided to call it early.

Thursday
Sandwiched a short swim inbetween my run. Felt strong slicing through the water ... YAY!

Run = 6 km
Swim = 1200 m

Wednesday
Had lots to do to get ready for Soul Travel, Burning Man, which was a huge success, by the way. Check it out here.



I managed to slip in a short but strong swim followed by my first bike ride outside. I've been hesitant to get out onto real road because of the potholes and other crap leftover from winter. No way I was going to do this with Freida, my road bike, but figured I'd be safe with my trusty Rocky Raleigh mountain bike.

Or so I thought.

WHOOOOOSH!

At first, I thought it was the brake pad rubbing. I braked and released. Nope. Then I got off my bike and thought, "Oh no, the tire valve must be broken!" since the sound was loud and fast. Nope. And then I saw it. A huge honking piece of glass jutted out from my tire.

DAMN!

"I'll just change the tube! I might not be fast, but I'll be riding in no time."

Doh!

Reality check when I remembered what I'd remarked just a few minutes earlier. I suppose it was an omen when I looked at my water bottle thirstily and noticed I'd forgotten to transfer my pump from my road bike. I started walking but after 15 minutes, I realised that I wasn't getting anywhere fast. I was 8 km from home.

I've never hitch-hiked before and deliberated for many minutes before I courageously stuck out my thumb as a minivan approached. The vehicle stopped ... YAY! I was saved!

Donald, an elderly gentleman with white hair and a friendly smile, told me that he cycles too and that the same thing might happen to him one day. He kindly drove me to my door. This was his second good deed of the day since he had actually been on his way home from giving blood when he stopped for me. We were both very happy that he could help.

Tuesday
I went and picked up JC during my run. He doesn't have my endurance nor speed (yes, there are worse runners than I) but it's always cool to run with a friend. Longest run of the year so far and I was surprised I could tough it because of my tight hamstrings from all the recent stair-climbing. JC elbowed me hard in the upper arm accidentally at one point ... OUCH! Not a good thing 'cause I was so soooore from my previous days' cross-training.

Run = 13k for me, 7k for JC

Sunday and Monday
Five hours of cross-training. Had to empty the flooded cellar so I could get the bikes out from storage. Not fun repeatedly climbing steep stairs, trudging through the backyard, then hoisting heavy buckets of water over the fence to empty into the sewer drain. The right side of my upper body had to do all the heavy work since I'm still too weak on my left side to even lift 5 lbs. because of my car accident.

RN told me that it was good upper body training and it'd help my swim. Maybe he's got a point but I wish he didn't. The melting snow has flooded my cellar again. Back to square one.

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Tonight, I think I'll take it a little easier and just cycle a bit ... try out my new saddles. A cheap one and an expensive one ... guess which one cost triple the price? I don't care about the cost difference. I just hope and pray that one of them is more comfortable than what I've got now. I've already tried three other ones to no avail.