Workin’ Out

Marion over at Affection For Fitness was posting some workout pictures the other day and I mentioned that I have not really done that.  She said “Why not?” I figured yeah, why not.  So here are some pictures from last night.  The lighting is not all that great as it was a bit of a dreary day and there are, as of yet, not overhead lights in the garage.

The gym itself, the floor needs a bit of a wash I think now.

Bench Press, I only have about 130 pounds on it, but that’s probably actually better for me than the 160 I was lifting at the gym since I can come all the way down to my chest with this weight, and do 5 sets of 15.

Pull ups on the rails of the garage door, a little blurry.

The squat part of the bear complex

Bent over row, I could use a bit more weight, but it’s simply for convenience really so I don’t have to change weights all over the place and I can just do the work out.

Maybe I’ll have to get a few more that aren’t in motion, but these were a bit more authentic since they aren’t posed for or whatever.

Running On A Full Tummy

I am still getting over being sick I think.  This is evidenced by the fact that even though I felt ok I still had a nap after work last night.  My face is still getting used to the feeling of air in my sinuses instead of snot which is a strange feeling at the moment.

I came home and pondered running, it was a bit hot today and so i decided that I would hold off and run a bit later.  Amber was not supposed to be home until after 8 and I felt that was a good plan.  I watched a PVRed episode of Mythbusters and promptly passed out for about half an hour.

I had dinner when I woke up and then attempted to wait a bit before heading out.  Amber came home and that kind of pushed my schedule forward a bit as I wanted to be able to spend time with her in the evening.

I got my shorts on and started running.  Running on a full tummy is a BAD idea.  I felt like I was going to hurl most of the time as I could feel my dinner bouncing up and down. 

Taking the advice of Marion I have a few workout pictures to share, but those won’t come till tomorrow.

Friend Making Monday–Summer Fun

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here and over at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

Summer Fun

1.  What is your favourite summer fruit? 

Strawberries – I make my own jam and they are great when they are fresh.

2.  Do you know how to swim? 

I know how to swim yes, but for me it takes a lot of effort.  I don’t float very well.

3.  Do you prefer sun or snow? 

As a kid I used to like winter way better, building forts and snowball fights and sledding.  Now as I grow older I like the spring and fall best.  Moderate temperatures where I can do all sorts of activities.  The summer will never be my favourite because I’m not a fan of the heat.

4.  What temperature do you like most inside your home? 

I like it to be room temperature, 68F

5.  Is it humid where you live? 

Not typically, there are a few week in the summer where I nearly die of humidity, but as a rule, it is not too bad.

6. What is your favourite food to put on the grill? 

Anything.  Meat is always better when cooked over fire. 

7. Do you prefer to wear a one-piece  or two-piece swim suit? 

I just wear trunks.

8.  What is your favourite summer drink? 

Don’t have one… I like a slushy now and then I guess though, if I can get it with sugar free pop.

9.  Do you prefer the pool or the ocean? 

Pool, hands down.  Here it would be pool or lake though.  I like clear water and no weeds or fish!

10.  What are you looking forward to most over the summer?

Simply being able to be outside and enjoy the area I live in, there are lots of trails and back roads to ride my bike on and run on and that will be great!  Hopefully it is not as hot as last summer!

 

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions.  Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments!  Happy Monday, friends!

Achievement Unlocked: Top Speed

It’s been about a month since I ran my 1/2 marathon and finally I am able to run again with a minimum of pain.  I think it’s actually a bit more perceived now than actually being pain.  The chiropractor figured I probably have a bit of tendonitis in my Achilles on my left leg and that it will probably take about six weeks to go away fully.

I think it’s sped up a bit due to the fact I have also been sick for that same month, going from a chest cold to some serious sinus problems.  Never has one person been so full of snot for so long and headachy and all that to go along with it.  I have not taken this many naps since I was unemployed!

All that said I managed to accomplish two things this week.  I have ridden my bike a lot with this ankle/tendon injury since it seems to hurt way less and on the holiday Monday I went for a long bike ride with my dad, he of the super expensive road bikes.  We went over 42 kilometres.  Then later in the week Amber, her friend Jenn and I rode almost the same route as my 1/2 marathon adding 19k and yesterday I rode from here to Peterborough, down to Lakefield and then home adding over 35 kilometres to my weekly total.  I also managed to run 2k earlier in the week and 5k today.  The total – 103.76k for the week!  Nice!

But that’s not the title.  I actually hit a new top speed and if I was in a car it was actually in an area I could have gotten a ticket for it!  Early on my bike ride yesterday I was going down a bit of a hill and got up to just over 60 km/h! (37mph)  Yeah on a pedal, mountain bike!  Pretty cool huh?

Now I have spent most of my afternoon passed out on the couch with the cat.

I’m *still* not 100%, I’m sure all this activity isn’t helping too much with ‘being rested’ and getting better.  But I can’t just sit and do nothing.

Motivational Speaker

Today I had the chance at an experience that I never really saw myself doing.  One of the schools that Amber teaches at asked me, way back in the fall, to come in and speak to about half the school about running.

Even right up until I got the request I wouldn’t have figured that would be something I would ever do, or even be asked to do.  Apparently people find me and my story motivational, who am I to argue really?

I spent the last couple of weekend setting aside some time to come up with a script of what I was going to talk about.  I had to fill about 50 minutes, and so I knew I just couldn’t get up there in front of about 70 kids (it’s a small school) and say “Running is great” and call it a day.

I started off just talking about how I used to be out of shape, and what my motivation was to get into shape, my journey through karate, and the valuable lessons I have learned there.  I moved into how I got into shape, and what it took to do that and then outlined some of the races I have done like Mudnewton, Warrior Dash, Run For Your Lives, and KMs For Care.

I was pretty nervous at first, I’m used to talking to a room full of 3-5 year olds at daycare, or 30 some people at karate, but 60-70 people was a lot of people to talk to!  I got over it pretty quick and settled in and eventually I was hopping around with my shoe off describing my experience at Warrior Dash, and monkey walking showing how I went through the mud pits.

It was really great, and I was humbled to see all these kids looking at me and my experiences in awe and wonder.  the biggest compliment for sure after was learning that one of the kids who usually doesn’t participate in things went and signed up for their run club right there on the spot after I was done speaking.  What fantastic news!  I couldn’t have imagined anything better than that, actually motivating and inspiring someone to get out there and run and get fit!

(If you want to see the whole text of my talk just let me know)

Friend Making Monday–Getting To Know You

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here and over at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

Getting To Know You

1.  Have you ever been skinny dipping? 

Yep, I used to have a pool in my backyard, and did that couple of times.

2.  If you could choose an exotic vacation destination today, where would you go? 

Today? Somewhere where they have a cure for a cold!  Failing that I’d go to the Caribbean and get something spicy to eat.

3.  Do you prefer to live in the city or the suburbs?

Neither!  The country, I’d classify where I live now as ‘the country’ even if it is a town of maybe 5000(?)  I have loads of space and privacy but still access to all the necessities within a couple minutes, and it’s only a 15 minute drive into town for all the rest.

4.  If you could paint, draw or illustrate any masterpiece in the world, what would it be? 

Like a landscape painting?  I’d probably head out west and do something with the forests of British Columbia and the Rockies in it.

5.  What is your favourite dish to cook when you’re cooking for one?

Now that we have a pizza stone again I think it would be pizza!

6.  Who has recently influenced you in a spectacular way? 

I don’t know if I would call it spectacular, but I’d say Phil Robertson, Amber knows why.

7.  Have you ever considered dating a person who’s younger than you?  If so, how young would you go?

Yes, four out of five of my relationships that have been longer than a few months have been with younger girls.  Most of them only a couple years.  One was when I was 28 and she was 21, that was the biggest gap.

The rules for the gap are, half your age, plus seven.  So now the youngest I should go is 33/2+7=23.  Of course that point is moot since I have Amber.

8.  What do you typically wear when you’re at home with no plans to go out? 

Depends on the temperature, but usually pj pants and a t-shirt or sweater.

9.  Do you prefer a shower or a bath? 

Shower, what I need though is to have more than one shower head so that I can be warm on the front and the back at the same time.  I used to have one of those.

10.  When you meet strangers are you outgoing or more introverted? 

I am outgoing if it is one or two people and introverted if it a larger group, or I get the sense that they are not my type of people.

 

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions.  Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments!  Say hi to someone new this week, and have a happy Monday!

Budget Cuts

Owning a house is an expensive endeavour!  This is a fact I have learned many times over but no lesson has been as harsh as getting a new furnace and having to trench around the house to fix the basement!  We are talking into the teens of thousands of dollars here!  What does that mean?  I means that our somewhat ‘decadent’ life style has to change a bit. 

Really it should have changed a while ago, but up until now we have been making steady progress with finances, albeit slow steady progress.  It is amazing though how much you can cut out of the budget when all of a sudden you need to save nearly $800 a month.  The good news about all this is that it will go a long way into teaching us what we need and what we don’t.  The bad part is, some of the things that were once deemed necessary have to fall on the cutting room floor.

And so, for the first time since 2010 I have no gym membership.  Can’t afford it.  That might seem horrible!  But honestly, the plan for the summer was to suspend the membership due to the home gym I have put in place anyways.  And I have been using that home gym for over a month now with no adverse effects.  Thanks to running and biking for cardio, and the heaps of workouts I have stored up from all my time spent in sessions with Jodi workout ideas are not a problem.

In the nice weather.

I’m kind of dreading the winter, freezing in my garage lifting weights, having no choice but to run in the cold.  It will be character building if nothing else.  Or I’ll simply have to find a way to make $50 a month and get back to the gym come December.

Money is not all gone, don’t feel sorry for me or anything, I still get my ‘allowance’. Everything I want, or want to do has to come from it now though.  For example I am going rock climbing today, planned before the budget cuts.  Originally I would have gone, paid for the actual climbing out of my allowance but got lunch on the way there at subway or something and then gone to dinner with the people after just with the bank card.  Now I’m paying for the climbing, bringing a lunch and trying to keep dinner under $10 as well since that will also be from my allowance, and I need to have the cash to renew my Batman subscription!

I’m hoping to approach this whole finances thing the same way I did getting in shape.  I know Amber would like it if I was able to that’s for sure.  Though I make no apologies for how I spend my allowance.

Touring The Blogs

I think this blends nicely into this bit.  This morning I clicked a couple of links and found a blog that is ‘critical’ of a couple of the other blogs I read.  I think critical is putting it nicely.  I’m not going to give the name or a link because I don’t want to drive traffic there and I think reading things laced with as much hate as there seems to be is not good for the soul.

Basically the blogs read like this.  “Hey did you read what *this person* wrote on their expletive blog?  They say they want to lose weight, but then blog about eating 5 expletive cupcakes! What a lying expletive expletive expletiver”  Of course the commenters jump on board for the most part.

My ‘I make no apologies for how I spend my allowance’ line there makes me think of this.  Some high and mighty financial blogger might read this and be like, “Hey look at Chris over here, he says he wants to pay off debt but then goes rock climbing and reading comic books!”  And to that I say, I’m going to still live my life!  I’m not cutting out every expense in order to do this, I still have to enjoy things.  Maybe someone else would live with no heat, hydro, and internet to get this bit done, but I am not that guy.

It makes me think of when I was losing weight.  I was that guy in that regard, I ate about 1400 calories, which is nothing for a guy, and I was at the gym every day.  When my friends asked if they could come to the gym with me did I scoff at them?  Did I attempt to use my fitness as a way to make them feel bad?  No.  I encourage them, or try to though sometimes it comes across wrong.  I’m trying to build people up, not tear them down.

Is having a cupcake when you are losing weight really all that bad? And even if it is, does it effect you (you in this case being a person separate from the person losing weight and eating a cupcake)? 

I’m all for tips and advice, I’m all for motivation and being honest with people about workouts and weight and all that.  I’m all for calling a spade a spade and constructive criticism. But you don’t have to be a jerk about it!

I recognize that it is not our mistakes that define us, but the efforts made to correct them.  Or I really hope so at least for my own sake.

Play Ball!

Amber found a mixed 3-pitch league for us to join and I was happy to be in on this for a couple of reasons.  A) We would be playing together and B) I figured that 3-pitch would be more fun than the slo-pitch that I played a couple of summers ago.

Amber mentions in her blog the concerns I had about our team when the captain arrived, more than half in the bag, and probably a little baked.  Our scorekeeper, her boyfriend, was also hammered and while the rest of us were able to keep batting orders straight and such it was a bit annoying for him to be perpetually confused.  It was also kind of fun though.  I only have one other team experience to compare this all to in my adult years though, hockey, and Todd runs a pretty smooth ship at hockey and all the guys that are on our team are generally my kind of people, so it was a bit to get used to.

Amber got a hit her first at bat, I was proud but not surprised as in 3-pitch you pitch to your own team.  I got up and ended up striking out my first at bat, Amber will agree it was because the pitches were terrible – this made me a bit surprised that she got a hit!

The game continued, hits, catches all that stuff.  My next at bat the bases were loaded, and we had a different guy pitching.  He put it right in my wheelhouse and I really tagged it! Over the fence! Grandslam! I haven’t hit a ball over the fence in like 21 years! (of course in those 21 year I have only played a dozen games of baseball, and the last time I did it, the rule was that you were out!)  Either way it was awesome!  My other at bat of note I hit it to the fence at center field and got a triple, then sprinted home on the next batter.  I was 2/4 at the plate.

At the usual time for the game to be over it was 13-13 and we all decided to play one more inning and we ended up winning.  I said to Amber ‘See isn’t it more fun to win?’  She disagrees, she was just happy to play, I was too honestly.  I find baseball to be a sport were you just do your best and hope for a good outcome, when I am playing hockey though you are actively competing for the object you need to score with, and so it’s more competitive for me.  Ball is a good sport then for Amber and I to play together as no matter the score last night, I had a good time and would not have been bent out of shape if we had lost (she seems to think otherwise).

It was a good night, and I hope future weeks are even better!  Next week we might ride bikes over since we play the 6:30 game that would be fun too, and a good warm up to not pull muscles when running!

Finally, I Can Run Again!

So two and a half weeks ago you might recall that i ran a half marathon.  In doing so I hurt my left Achilles badly enough that I was limping for about a week and in quite a bit of pain any time I had to stretch the back part of my leg.  The second week of that injury it was just sore to stretch it. 

Sunday I set out to run 5k and only made it 3 before I put the brakes on that endeavour due to the fact I felt the tightness in my leg.  I stretched some at home and decided that what I really need to do was stretch my leg a bit every day until it permanently loosens up.  It turns out that doing push ups and the position that your foot goes in while doing so is the *perfect* way to stretch out my Achilles, or seems to be to me at least.  So I’ve been back on the push ups and at the same time helping out my leg.  Nice.

Last night after work I did a few errands(which turned out fruitless – you can’t just get a couple cheques at the bank any more, and my new shirt was not ready yet), and then came home and ran.  I thought about stopping at 3k again, my leg did hurt a little bit.  Then typical me thought, no, I can do this, I can’t let this injury rule me.  So I went further, passing by the house again and completing my 5k run.  Has it happens, it was my fastest pace since the 5k Kms For Care race, and I finished in 22:55!  Any time I am over 13km/h I would consider that success!

This morning my leg is a little bit tight, but I don’t think any worse than if I had stopped at 3k.  Was it my smartest idea to just go all out and test my leg like that?  Probably not, but hey, I’ve got to build character somehow.

Friend Making Monday–Questions & Answers

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here and over at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

 

1. Do you use coupons? 

Very rarely, usually for things like tickets to the movies

2. How often do you weigh yourself? 

I used to weigh myself every single day, for like two and a half years!  Now it’s just once a week.

3. What was your favourite TV show as a kid? 

Depends on what age you asked me that, the list goes like this:

• He-man
• Ghostbusters
• Ninja Turtles
• G.I. Joe
• Batman: The Animated Series

4. How often do you drink alcohol?

I don’t.  I only have maybe four or five times and each thing I tried I have thought was gross

5. Have you ever met a celebrity or public figure that you really admire?

Yeah, Guy Carrbonneau, at the time coach of the Montreal Canadiens

6.  If you had to choose between only your cell phone or only your laptop all week which would you choose? 

Laptop, I can do more with it.

7. What is your favourite brand of detergent? 

Tide.  my mom tried other brands a couple times when I was a kid and it made me all itchy.

8. If there was a movie about your life, who would play the role? 

Young Harrison Ford?  There was an FMM a while ago that asked a similar question and Amber thought it should be Chris Evans

9.  What book are you currently reading? 

Not reading anything at the moment.  Waiting for Volume 2 of Action Comics, and Superman at the moment.

10.  If you could spend one day on vacation anywhere in the world, which place would you choose? 

New Zealand, in the hobbit village they have there now.

 

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions.  Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments, and say hi to someone new!  Happy Monday!

Dealing With Adversity

I read All The Weigh pretty often, and this post here made me wonder at the time if I was glad I started my blog after I was done losing weight.  Simply because if I blogged during the time I was losing I would have had to mull around and address these types of self doubt and self-worth feelings of is it worth it?  Is it ever going to get better?  Why should I even care? in my head.  Instead, I had a glass of water and went to sleep exhausted.

I think that the people around me looked on at what I was doing and figured, there is no self doubt there, just drive.  Believe me there were moments where I wondered why I was practically starving myself and working like a dog!

I was noticing in myself, through, reading that post, that Kenlie and I have very different ways of dealing with adversity, or self doubt or whatever you want to call it.  Kenlie was there addressing it, in her own mind and then out in the public as well.  I hid it, I just tucked it away and gave it the finger.  I do that a lot, with a whole bunch of things, why air things out when you can just squirrel it away until it's fixed, and then work like an insane person to fix it.

Kenlie’s is probably a much healthier way to deal with things like that.

Part of my comment to the post is “To the point though, I wonder if you look at the whole thing not as dieting, not as making yourself workout, but as an integral change.  When I was on the losing weight route, I made the gym the #1 thing to do for the day.  Not that I did it first, but that I sacrificed whatever it took to get there, sorry can't do this other thing, I need and hour and a bit for the gym.  Once that became ingrained in me after a couple weeks, it wasn't even an effort anymore, it was just what I did.  I was a crappy friend and a non-existent fiancée for the whole time I was dropping the pounds because the gym was first, screw everything else.”

Just this week we have had to switch from oil to natural gas for heating the house, it’ll be a process that costs about $4000.  Problem is we don’t have that cash and like so many other people we live pretty much to the dollar.  Or Did, would be more accurate I guess.  Amber is the one that generally looks after the budgeting in our house and I just like a general idea of where I am at.  But the other night we sat down together and simply had to apply my thinking above to our budget.  It was not my idea in the start of it all.  I like the very comfortable lifestyle we have had for the last few years, but if this furnace is going to get paid for, and other things are going to get better money-wise then, it’s got to be ‘Manage money well and screw everything else!’

One of the things that means for me is no more gym membership, which in the non-winter months is not an issue anymore, I have weights here at home, I have roads to run and bike on.  From November to March it might be tricky, but it has to be done.  And if I have learned anything about myself in the last three years, it’s that if something really has to get done, I (or we in this case) will make it happen.

The point of the matter is, whether it’s about training or money, or something else, I think everyone from time to time feels like 'What is the point?'  or  'Why am I not getting where I want?' or 'How do I make this work?' It's how you respond to those personal questions that decides if you will succeed.  Are you making a band-aide repair to treat the symptoms , or changing things at a more basic level to solve the cause of the problem?

Two Weeks

That is how long it has been since I have run anywhere.  That half marathon that I was told by so many that I could just up and do put me on the shelf for two whole weeks.  Now to be fair I still rode my bike and worked out and all that, but I couldn’t run.

There is an important lesson in here somewhere, and I think that lesson for me is, if I am going to do something that ridiculous again, I need to train for it better.  The other lesson is ‘know your limitations’.  If running a long way really sucks for you, why endeavour to do it? I like running 5k or 10k, every time I would get over the 12k mark or so my enjoyment dropped like a stone, and it was more of a ‘how much pain can I endure?’ type of thing. 

My mind was willing, my heart and lungs were willing, my joints and ligaments were what was fighting me.  The good thing now is that I can say I have done it, in under two hours at that, and I never have to do it again!

So how have I recovered?  I followed some advice from my RMT and iced it during the first week, then I got a massage the following Saturday, that helped a lot.  I went to the chiropractor just Monday past and she stripped my calf and soleus muscle.  I have never willingly been put through that much pain!  Am I healed 100%?  Hmmm I’d say maybe 95%, the muscles and tendons are a bit stiff and need to be stretched and there is some pain involved in that, but it’s getting there.

I’m going to run today, just 5k and see how it responds.  I am hoping favourably so that I can resume my usual workout schedule, though only being able to ride my bike has been pretty great too!

Friend Making Monday–A Little About Me

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here  and over at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

A Little About Me

1. Have you ever experienced love at first sight? 

No, I don’t think so really. Lust at first sight yes!!

2. What channel is your TV on most?

It’s probably a toss up between A&E (Duck Dynasty and Storage Wars) or Discovery (Mythbusters and a few other shows)

3. Share one quality that you’re proud to have. 

Perseverance, I don’t like to give up on things even when they are difficult!

4.  Describe your idea of a great evening. 

Any evening that includes some sort of workout (running, biking or weights) and spending time with my wife, Amber, is a great evening!

5. If your friends were asked to describe you in three words, which words would they choose? 

Um, mature, thoughtful, and down to earth.  Right?  No, probably more like, immature, funny and a little bit eccentric.

6. What is your favourite holiday? 

Christmas for sure, I like giving things and I like getting things and I like visiting family!

7. If you could change one thing that would make your life easier instantly, what would it be? 

My pay cheque, I need MORE!

8. What is one healthy food that you crave? 

I don’t actually crave food that much anymore, not in a meta sense at least.  Sometimes I’ll get it in my head I want jerk chicken, or shawarma or something and crave that until I get it, but no overriding cravings.

9. Do you wear socks when you sleep?

Sometimes in the winter I will, I keep the house pretty chilly and once in a while I just want warm feet!

10. Share at least three things for which you are thankful. 

I’m thankful for a loving wife, a fantastic group of people to work with and that I discovered fitness!

 

Now it’s your turn to answer this week’s questions!  Don’t forget to come back and link up in the comments.  Happy Monday!

Last Day For The WCP International Race weekend!

We’ve had five people race so far, I think that is all but one that said they would take part.  It’s a small group, but quality over quantity!

I’m just happy that people got involved and got outside and ran somewhere.  It’s something that here in my new life as Chris 3.4 (I just made that up) I think is really important.  I know a few of the people chose goals that they had never achieved before and that really excites me.  How can you know yourself if you don’t test the limits of what you can do?

Here are people’s times!

Chris 1/2 Marathon

Phil 5k

Sarah 5k

Satu-Maria 15k
(Read About It)

Tara (a bit over) 10k

Still lots of time to get in one this, all day today, just run a distance and send me the picture!

Out For A Ride

With my ankle still sore from the Sunday half marathon I decided today that I would ride my bike after work, as long as it didn’t hurt too much.  It turns out that it didn’t hurt at all and so I would saw I had my first real bike ride of the year.  I wasn’t wearing gloves, or earmuffs, no hoodies or track pants either.  Just shorts and a shirt.  It was great.

I had an hour to ride because I had to be back in time to eat dinner eat a reasonable time.  It was great, the wind was a bit against me on the way out from my place heading toward Peterborough, but that was ok since I knew it would be at my back on the way home.

Riding a real bike outside is so, So, SO much better than riding a stationary bike, you see lots of interesting things and hear the birdies, the terrain changes and you have to adjust your gears and cadence.  Much more of an interactive experience than peddling away watching the seconds tick by and hoping something interesting will be on the TV at the gym.

I love that my top speed is over 40 Km/h!!  My fastest kilometre was done in 1:43! Woo!

Healing

I’m still healing up from my run on Sunday, my Achilles on my left foot is still very tight. I was limping around a bit on Monday and now I’m just sort of being careful not to stretch it too far.  I took my RMTs advice yesterday and got some ice on it to calm down the inflammation last night.

I’m annoyed that I hurt myself running, especially running that long distance that I didn’t even enjoy!

Of course I also worked out last night, actually with Sarah, in the garage, doing my usual (current) mid week workout, Bear Complex, Thrusters, Squats, Pull ups, Dips, Bench Press, Curls and 200 Abs!  It was a great, quick workout.  I’m hoping that I can run again by next week and we can take a trip up to the school yard and work out on the monkey bars and stuff too, that would be cool!

I’ve also been nominated for another Blogger award!

Wonderful Team Member Readership Award

I’m supposed to put up here My finish to the sentence A Wonderful reader is:

A wonderful reader is…  Someone who interacts!

I really like when people comment on here or on Facebook, or on my twitter, I think the comments can make for just as good reading as the actual blog!

I’m short on time at the moment – have to get to work, But I’ll send out a few nominations later on today or tomorrow!