Ride Your Bike To Work Day

May 31, 2010

as part of bike month here in toronto, today is Ride Your Bike To Work Day. to celebrate i wanted to share a pic from yesterday's crit race at st. lawrence market. happy riding!

also, a shout out to my friend suzanne who won yesterday's toronto women's only half marathon. awesome race, z!

a day i'd sooner forget

this is the beginning of only my third season as a serious multisport athlete. with such little experience comes rookie mistakes and firsts for the ups and downs of racing. today was one of those firsts. today was my first bad race.

victoria's lead up

in the last few days leading up to victoria's duathlon i spent some time with a friend taking some pics of my bike all pimped out with its new racing wheels. here are a few shots from the photo sesh:

i'm not feeling 100% in the lead up to this race... something's definitely off. i had a disastrous race simulation workout last sunday that ended with me giving up half way through. that workout came at the end of a very heavy build week and everything caught up with me that morning. i was physically and emotionally drained and haven't felt like myself since, but i'm making my way through it. i've been feeling better as this week's wore on, and i hope to be re-energized with a few days of rest and a trip to the cottage this long weekend.

and speaking of racing this weekend, my good friend and training buddy tara norton is competing at ironman lanzarote on saturday. good luck out there, tara, and have fun!

duathlon nationals

richmond is one of america's most obese cities, with 1 in 4 of its population being overweight. and it's no wonder. the only dining options that i could find were fast food chains with menus that consisted entirely of deep fried and battered garbage. if salad was an option it was smothered in ranch dressing or bacon. even the breakfast at my hotel was terrible. the only non-fried option was some fresh fruit. the whole weekend i struggled to eat well and turned to chowhound to try to find some local restaurants that offered lighter, healthier options, but every place that i drove to was either closed or boarded up. richmond was rocked by the recession and a lot of businesses shut down, and downtown was completely deserted. anyways, the only reason that i mention all of this is because food became a real factor for me. i'd packed everything that i needed for race day, but my stomach was turning the entire weekend leading up to the race because i don't ever eat the food that i had to eat this weekend. i was on the lookout for a grocery store saturday afternoon because i wanted to get something healthy and light that i could make for myself. i had to ask a local for some advice and it turned out i had to get on the freeway and drive 30 minutes outside of town to get to a whole foods market. i was like a kid in a candy store and i picked up some healthy food to get me through the rest of the day and sunday's drive home.