Sunny 10k

What a beautiful day today. I slipped out of bed early (well, early for me ;) and put on my brand new Saucony shoes and headed out for a test run. I didn't feel like I needed to push myself too much after biking over 150km this week so I went pretty easy. It felt good even if it got a bit warm by the end of the run. The shoes are pretty good but I need to adjust my lacing next time, my small toe was a bit numb by the middle point of the run.

Thankfully, MotionBased is working for me today so I can share some nice stats:
This is a pretty convenient route for me with just a few traffic lights. The knee is a bit sore but nothing too crazy. I plan to bike to work tomorrow and hopefully at least 2 other times again this week depending on my schedule.

I'm not too sure if I am training right for the triathlon. I defintively think that the area I can improve the most is the biking so I've been putting most of my efforts towards that, but I feel that I'm pushing that one so hard that my swimming and running are taking a back seat. The re-opening of the pool near my work in 2 weeks should help with getting a more regular swim training.

Xenomorph's deliciously dark and gloomy Qlippoth in the mix to contrast the cloudless sunny skies.

Wet and windy

This morning's commute was pretty good. I was a bit damp from the light rain but nothing major. The commute home however was spent battling 15-20km/h winds and for the last leg with a pretty heavy rainfall. I didn't want to risk the high speed roads with the rain and the wind so I took Gladstone to Wellington and then headed West until I got home. I was pretty wet when I got home.
Unfortunately, I don't have any more wet pet pictures after this one of our dog Amy after her bath. I hope that this means that it won't rain on me anymore this year.

I'm having problems with my stats because the web site I usually use has been replaced by a supposedly better and newer version. However my friendly fitness device company, Garmin, messed it up and gave me a new site that only has half the features of the old one. Morning commute was 59m43s, evening one 68m30s. Sorry, no moving time and average speed anymore either :(

I wanted to go swimming tonight but I don't feel like it anymore so I'm using one of my guilt free skip a training card. I think I've been quite a trooper this week already. Hopefully I can get a run in tomorrow or Sunday, I haven't run in over a week!

In the mix today we had Sugar's dreamy and floaty Bionic Wonderland and Freeform's summery Taste of Freeform 4.

House always win + Rant!

Just like when you are playing the crazy odds at the casino, the house always end up winning eventually no matter how long you can keep a winning streak going. Today, I dared the weather again and it didn't respond on my way to work, but on the commute home, it decided to rain a bit on me. It wasn't bad really, a bit of a refreshing drizzle is a better description. It wasn't even for the whole commute, maybe about 10 minutes. My shirt was dry by the time I got home. I'm taking it as a sign of things to come tomorrow.
I thought I was pretty fast this morning, but I guess I didn't break the average 30km/h mark, coming a bit short at 29.5. Still, that's nothing to complain about. I could definitively try to game the system by choosing where I stop my watch to get better results but I'm pretty happy with a 55 minute commute. The ride home was pretty much the same.

Now, something happened to me today that warrants a rant. Skip to the end if you don't want to hear it. On my way to work, one of the friendly motorist rolled down his window, slowed down and yelled a very inspired "GET OFF THE ROAD" at me. He sped up in time to catch the red light at which point I stopped by his car and listened as he told me I was slowing down traffic and I should get off the road. I tried to remind him about the laws in Ontario allowing me to use the road just as much as a motorized vehicle but his answer was that I should be using the "bike paths". The setting wasn't conducive to a real exchange as he sped up when the light turned green, but if he had time to listen to me, I would have explained that in Ottawa, the "bike paths" are not really bike paths at all. Most of what people refer to as "bike paths" are really NCC owned multi-use pathways. These pathways are regulated by a set of rules to ensure everyone's safety. I agree wholeheartedly with those rules that will ensure the safety of all, including grandma with her walker, the kids on their tricycles and little Trisha walking her down with a retractable leash. Unfortunately, the multi-use nature of the pathways ensure that bikers get only left overs. We don't get priority, having to yield for just about anything bigger than a squirrel and we have to respect the 20km/h speed limit. This is why I do not use the "bike paths".

Now, everyone I sat down with and explained my reasoning for using the road eventually comes around and understands that I am not crazy, I am not using the roads to be in the ways of cars and I do not have a deathwish. Please, friendly motorists, consider this when you pass me on the road. I always stay as close to the edge of the road as I safely can and on days like today, unfortunately, the road is not wide enough to pass since they are doing some roadwork. Rest assured that I will try to find an alternate route to work, but unfortunately, all the routes I know seem to share the same fate with regards to narrowing because of constructions, you can blame the economic stimulus package if you wish.

Thank you!

Oh, and today, the day after Canada's birthday, the playlist included only Canadian (Quebec-based even) artists: Arianne Moffat with her beautiful Aquanaute and Synthesthesia with a driven Akathisia.

Dry Again!

Tuesday's commute saw me get lucky again. Despite a threatening forecast of 70% chance of showers with total precipitations expected at 10mm and dark clouds looming on the horizon, I didn't get more than a few drops in the morning.

The commute was especially hard this time around after a weekend of stuffing myself silly and a fantastic evening with my friend from FoodiePrints at Ottawa's l'Atelier. You'll be able to read about it over at FoodiePrints very soon I am told. So the fantastic meal at l'Atelier saw me going to bed much later than usual and waking up with a higher concentration of alcohol in my blood than I am regularly used to :) That glass of vidal icewine I had at the end of the 12 course tasting menu was to die for, it was completely worth the small pain I suffered in the commute.

I took the Carling route since I didn't want to risk being caught on the Parkway in the middle of heavy winds or even a thunderstorm.
Seems like I caught a lot of red lights with almost 5 minutes of non-moving time. I left for home heading into a dark gray cloud. Lucky for me, the winds were cooperating and by the time I got home, the cloud had moved just enough for me to escape the rains.

Let's hope my luck defying the weather continues as I plan to ride in to work for the remainder of the week (today is a holiday, Happy Canada Day!). The current forecast for tomorrow and Friday is 70% and 80% chances of shower with 5-10mm of expected precipitations for each day.

Take that weather gypsies!

The weather gypsies didn't win today. I woke up to find a beautiful blue sky so I decided to bike in. When I got to work, I was informed by my colleagues that our planned patio lunch may be inconvenienced by a 70% risk of thunderstorms (there was actually a severe thunderstorm watch on, d'Oh!). Putting my rose colored glasses on, I still managed to drag them along and we had a good lunch even if we had to rush inside with our half finished plates when the rain started to pour. On the ride home, I won again, getting home as heavy gray clouds gathered. It still hasn't rained, about an hour after I got here, so maybe it's just all bark and no bite today.

I followed somewhat Lily's advice and took the parkway. I say somewhat because I'm too far south to hit Carling at March road, that would be a severe detour. But I did hit the parkway at Woodroofe and it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Maybe the buses are getting used to the bikes so they don't come so close anymore.
I did a pretty decent time with a 30.1 km/h (woot!!!) moving average speed. I think the unreal goal of a 45 minute commute is within reach if I keep working hard on it. I'm especially proud of my the 9 kilometeres under 2 minutes and the (drum roll please) 2 back to back kms at 1:20 and 1:26.

The way home was quite windy and there was a lot of traffic downtown (took me 6 minutes for my first kilometer) so I didn't do such a good showing with a time of 1:04, still, it's Friday, I didn't feel like killing myself before the weekend.

Which brings me to my next point. There will likely be no training this weekend. Alex's big 30 party tomorrow will take all my attention and tonight is an all you can eat sushi feast. Sunday's a late brunch with some friends of ours (I'm hoping I can wake up early for a short run if I'm not too hungover from Saturday, but I know it's not very realistic). The celebrations will spill into Monday with FoodiePrints' field trip at l'Atelier, a very avant-garde tasting menu for the curious and adventurous. Video and instructions on how to join us available here.

In the mix today, we had some heavy tunage from Shiva Space Japan's Force and Hypnotic's Sonic Electromation.

Hot and Humid run

It was a hot day today with a humidex of 37 degrees at noon in Ottawa. Some of my colleagues were going out for a run as well so it made me feel extra guilty about skipping my swim yesterday so I decided to go running in the oven.

I settled on a route alongside the canal which is very scenic. My goal was somewhere between 5 and 10km since I wanted to be well in under an hour. My colleagues were going on an easier run so I went out on my own and decided to improvise and possibly turn around Bank street for what was in my head about 6km. Turns out it was quite further than expected with a total of 8.75km without counting the distance between the building and the path. The new work location is not directly on the running paths so it takes about 4-5 minutes to go through the ~500m required before getting to the start point of this run.
I don't have all my running gear yet in my new office so I thought little of going out without a water bottle, especially since there are water fountains across the route. However, by the time I reached the first water fountain, I was parched. I drank way more than should be required because I didn't know how close the next one would be. Turns out that's the only functional fountain I found. The other one I spotted was still all wrapped up for the winter!! Needless to say I was very thirsty when all was finally said and done.

I think I did pretty well considering the weather. Tomorrow I will try to brave the elements and ride to work if the rain doesn't look too crazy since I've been itching to try the parkway route and see how fast that can be.

Two in a row - updated

Phew. Just a quick note to share with you that I rode my bike to work two days in a row Monday and Tuesday. Not bad, 100km in 36 hours (4 rides of 25km!). Even in the 30+ humidex temperature, my time was still under 1h. I even broke 50km/h yesterday (yes, on a downhill slope ;)

I have been wrestling with alternate routes since there is so much construction probably regular maintenance and also the economic stimulus package. Most of my best routes are either getting redone or too dangerous to ride so I tried Carling on Tuesday. While it felt faster since I had to compete with the cars that are going 80km/h, I stopped at more lights and that road has lots of hills, I didn't know Ottawa could be so hilly. I may retry my luck with the parkway on Friday (my next scheduled bike in) and see how it merges into downtown. Here are the routes I took this week:
And here are the stats for each leg:
As you can see, I just keep getting faster everyday, hopefully that trend continues. I'm still quite proud of my 50+ km/h. It felt really awesome to be going that fast even if it was just for a few seconds. The time for that km is 1m20s, probably my fastest ever. Yay. The Garmin told me to slow down twice, I'm not sure why. I don't think it's ever done that before and I don't remember programming it that way. Maybe the engineers thought there was a hard limit at which it would always complain?

Summer is here for sure in Ottawa with these crazy hot temperatures. I remember hitting all the red lights on Carling and thinking that it was so much wasted time. Once I got on Richmond and then Robertson, I was hoping for red lights for a bit of a break!! I may have to bring out my extra water bottle as the one I carried this week was empty by km 15.

I am certainly feeling it in my muscles today. Hopefully I can find time for a swim tonight. The knee is not bothering me very much, I anticipated much worse. I can feel that I pushed it hard, but I wouldn't call it sensitivity, just awareness of what the limitations are.