Last weekend we took Heart for a walk at Island View beach. It was a nice day, and the kids and the dog had a great time. Sue and I even got to sit and relax a bit while the kids played.
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Physio Knee
Today I went to a new physio. Over the winter I tried to get my road bike on the trainer, but it always left me with knee pain. Worse, the pain never went away.
It is in the back of my knee, and is not a constant pain, but I feel it every day. Mostly when I am sitting, or kneeling for a while, then get up.
The new physio spent some time talking to me to figure out what the issue is, and how it became an issue. In the end it may come down to my back. Back issues have caused my grief in the past, but this is new. My glutes are supposed to be doing the hard work of cycling, but the physio thinks something has happened in the past to make my ham strings to compensate. This then puts extra pressure on the back of the knee.
In some ways this was good news as I didn’t have a serious knee issue. This is fixable, and in a 6-8 week timeframe.
When I heard that I immediately though about the Tour de Victoria training. Yikes. Starting my training in June might not be enough if I want to get in good enough shape to finish in sub 5 hours. Maybe it is do-able. I’ll have to make sure it is.
First step in recovery is to loosen up the knee area with some stretching, and to bring down the inflammation with ice. There are some strengthening exercises to do as well.
Next week the fun begins though. Active release therapy, acupuncture, and more exercises. Thankfully he did recommend to do some riding, but to stay off the trainer. The riding I should do, needs to involve lots of saddle position changes, including standing and pedalling. Maybe that will help me in the long run 🙂
Years Great
Happy Birthday Amy! 5 years old and starting kindergarten in the fall. Wow. You are growing up to be such an active, imaginative girl. I hope you have a great birthday.
Duallies Loop
Last weekend I hooked up with a couple internet friend to riding in Duncan up at Tzouhalem. That mountain is pretty fun. Long climbs, rewarded by super fun descents. Lots of work has been done up there in recent years and it shows.
Though the ride was a little shorter than I would have liked, I still had a great time. I got a little beat up on the descents though. Hardtails are great for riding, but you sure feel every little bump, rock, root, and rut when you are chasing a couple duallies down a hill.
View Tzouhalem 10/03/2013 11:04am in a larger map
Total distance: 6.69 km (4.2 mi)
Total time: 1:18:44
Moving time: 56:11
Average speed: 5.10 km/h (3.2 mi/h)
Average moving speed: 7.15 km/h (4.4 mi/h)
Max speed: 35.35 km/h (22.0 mi/h)
Average pace: 11.77 min/km (18.9 min/mi)
Average moving pace: 8.40 min/km (13.5 min/mi)
Fastest pace: 1.70 min/km (2.7 min/mile)
Max elevation: 458 m (1503 ft)
Min elevation: 203 m (665 ft)
Elevation gain: 384 m (1261 ft)
Max grade: 18 %
Min grade: -56 %
This past weekend I took Heart out for a ride at the dump. I wanted to climb, so I figured I should head to the far side, climb up the back side of the park, hit Trillium, then Who’s Yer Daddy. It was a great loop, with lots of climbing in it. The hardtail was a good choice for this loop, until I got to Who’s Yer Daddy. This trail is in flux right now, and is getting smoother, so pretty soon this will be the perfect loop.
View Dump Ride 16/03/2013 in a larger map
Total distance: 10.83 km (6.7 mi)
Total time: 1:54:11
Moving time: 1:34:37
Average speed: 5.69 km/h (3.5 mi/h)
Average moving speed: 6.87 km/h (4.3 mi/h)
Max speed: 29.72 km/h (18.5 mi/h)
Average pace: 10.54 min/km (17.0 min/mi)
Average moving pace: 8.73 min/km (14.1 min/mi)
Fastest pace: 2.02 min/km (3.2 min/mile)
Max elevation: 313 m (1028 ft)
Min elevation: 111 m (365 ft)
Elevation gain: 497 m (1631 ft)
Max grade: 11 %
Min grade: -19 %
Pinged Rusty
A couple weekends ago a buddy pinged me and wanted to know if I was up for a snowboarding day trip to Mt Washington. The weather was looking a little sketchy, but the morning of we decided to go for it.
What a great decision. The day was pretty good. The weather was decent, and although there wasn’t much new snow, what they did have was plentiful, and pretty soft. The temp was just below 0, which was good for my buddy since he forgot his jacket, and had to borrow a fleece jacket of mine.
My first ride of the day is always an eye opening experience. Riding the lift up I feel rusty,and am sure I won’t be able to turn very well. As soon as I start heading downhill, my muscle memory kicks in and I just go. We rode pretty hard in the morning, then hit the pub for lunch.
After lunch we did a bunch more runs until my buddy ran out of juice. I did another 4 or 5 runs to round out my day before heading back to the car.
It was a long day going up from Victoria and back, but it was fun. A quick stop in Nanaimo for coffee on the way home was good too. Crappy thing was that at 5:15 the Serious Coffee in the north end was closed? Really? That is very odd.
Just for fun, I had my phone record my tracks while boarding. Pretty funny looking. The stats are interesting too. From my experience they are pretty accurate, but I still find it hard to believe I hit close to 60KM/H on a board.
View Mt Washington 23/02/2013 in a larger map
Total distance: 39.43 km (24.5 mi)
Total time: 3:59:27
Moving time: 3:21:45
Average speed: 9.88 km/h (6.1 mi/h)
Average moving speed: 11.73 km/h (7.3 mi/h)
Max speed: 58.55 km/h (36.4 mi/h)
Average pace: 6.07 min/km (9.8 min/mi)
Average moving pace: 5.12 min/km (8.2 min/mi)
Fastest pace: 1.02 min/km (1.6 min/mile)
Max elevation: 1594 m (5230 ft)
Min elevation: 1073 m (3521 ft)
Elevation gain: 4732 m (15525 ft)
Max grade: 118 %
Min grade: -67 %
Winterlude Skate
A couple weeks ago we went to Ottawa for Winterlude. We’ve done this for a few years in a row now, and every year it gets more and more fun, and easier.
The trip was not without its bumps though. We were supposed to leave on a Saturday, but unfortunately our flight was cancelled for maintenance reasons. Weird. The best option for us was to fly the next day, so we lost a whole day of our vacation.
Once we got going the next day though it was great.
Monday we sort of lounged around the house and got used to being in Ottawa. Right away the kids played with their cousin and had a great time. I think we went sledding for a bit that day though.
Tuesday was the day that we went out for a skate. I had warned Elliot that the ice was going to be different than a hockey rink, and not nearly as smooth. I realized 30 seconds into our skate that I had nothing to worry about. He took off like a rocket and never looked back. I am still very surprised at how much his skating has improved since he started hockey. While skating we took turns pulling Amy in the sled. We stopped for a Beavertail and hot chocolate, then headed home.
Wednesday Sue and Amy went to Montreal for a day trip, which left Elliot and I with loads of spare time. We decided to take in the Museum of Nature. Since we didn’t rent a car this trip out, Elliot and I decided to skate there! Very cool experience. We skated down the canal, got off, walked a couple blocks to the museum. We toured the museum for a long time. I let Elliot pick where he wanted to go and we stayed as long as he wanted to. Well, I need to correct that. I started getting tired, cranky, and hungry. I even got whiny. It was time to find lunch. We settled on the Elgin St Diner which was really good. After lunch we walked back tot he canal for the skate home. We had promised Elliot that he could have his own Beavertail, but he was so full he told me he just wanted to split one with me 😉
Thursday myself, Sue, the kids, Sue’s dad, and her brother in law all headed to the Museum of Civilization. The kids burned around the childrens museum portion before we took in an IMAX movie. It was a movie about the reefs of the world and how they are dieing. About 15 minutes into the movie, which was narrated, Amy turned to Sue and asked “when is he going to stop talking?”. Pretty funny. A little later I felt Amy rest her head on my shoulder. It wasn’t too long after that she fell asleep 🙂 Elliot very much enjoyed the movie though.
Friday we went to try out the ice slides, but unfortunately most of them were closed as the weather was too warm. Big bummer.
Saturday we did another family skate, though it was much colder. The wind picked up a bit, and Elliot just was not into it. Poor guy. Still, her persevered enough to get some hot chocolate.
Sue and her family did their ski to a cabin for dinner event again. The kids and I stayed at the house for a movie and popcorn night.
I got another couple skates in before we had to leave. All in all quite a busy trip really.
Coming home was a bit of a gong show too. Sue was flying to Toronto for work, and I was flying back to Victoria with the kids. When we checked in, we learned that our three seats were scattered about the plane. Apparently WestJet couldn’t do age math and figure out the kids were too young. After working through the problem we finally got the kids seats together, and mine across the aisle and up a row, for the first two legs. The final leg we were all together. I just talked to the person next to the kids, and they gladly switched with me.
In Calgary, after we had some dinner, Amy was on the moving sidewalk which is a favorite novelty in that airport. Well, her shoelace got caught in the machinery when she got to the end, and down she went, hard! She smacked her elbow and knee pretty bad. I ran to help her, and that was when I saw her lace. My first instinct was to pull on it, but it wasn’t budging. Next I tried to hit the stop button. Meanwhile 3 WestJet employees came running to help. One person pulled off her show, then I remembered that that is the correct course of action. At that moment I managed to hit the stop button. We got her show back on, and the WestJetters made sure she was fine and asked if I wanted to have her checked out. She was ok, but a little upset by all the attention. Since we were on our way to Tim Hortons for a donut, we go that, and all was right with the world.
The final incident was on the flight from Calgary to Victoria. There was a medical emergency. Someone was having a seizure. I really hoped we weren’t going to have to divert, and in the end we didn’t have to. Phew. We landed at 8:15 Victoria time, but that was 11:15 Ottawa time. Late night for the kids.
All in all it was a great trip. We got to play in the snow quite a bit. Relaxed a lot, visited with family. Sue and I even got to go skating by ourselves on the last day.
Spectacular Service
OK, so I don’t expect much from some restaurants. I certainly didn’t expect anything spectacular from the Molson Brewhouse in the Calgary airport. Turned out it was pretty spectacular though.
We had to wait in line to get a table. This was odd since the restaurant wasn’t that busy, and there were a few empty tables. Weird for sure. Then the hostess, you know the person that is supposed to greet guests, talk to them, be the face for the establishment, motioned for us to follow her, without saying a word. Odd. As she sat us down she mentioned they were a little short on menus, then walked away. We had no menu at all. Not even one for the table.
The waitress came and took our drink order, and again we sat with no menu. I spied one across the way on a table next to a woman who was waiting for her bill. Sue went over and asked her if we could use it. Problem solved.
Our drinks came and they were fine. Sue and I had beer, the kids ordered chocolate milk. Normally, a kids drink isn’t that big, but these milks were in a beer sleeve. Seriously? We are in an airport waiting for a flight, and my kids were just served a huuuuge glass of chocolate milk. Of course their eyes went wide with excitement.
We placed our order. For the kids we only wanted a plain hamburger and fries, but there was no plain burger on the menu . The closest thing they had was a $16 bacon cheddar burger. No deals were offered. Sue then noted that the BBQ burger was $15 and got the waitress to order that instead, and skip everything on it. Wow. Pretty bad service so far.
When the food came, they brought the wrong dishes. My burger had fries, when I had ordered a salad. Sue’s wasn’t right either. The food server (not our waitress) disappeared and shortly came back with the right food. That was a little suspicious.
Now we had three plates of food, but absolutely no cutlery. We had to ask for at least one set to cut the kids’ burger. The waitress came by so we asked for another plate and cutlery/napkins for all of us.
The waitress then disappeared for a while and never checked in on us. Now we weren’t tight on time, but I just wanted to eat and get out of there. Sadly for me, my burger was very “meh”. The patty was barely warm, yet somehow the cheese on top was melted??? The onion rings on it were crispy, but cold??? The BBQ sauce was dribbled on top and lacked any real flavour, and definitely had not been cooked at all. All in all it was bad.
I should have said something to the waitress, but again, I just wanted out. At this point I started thinking about the absurdity of it all. I looked around, and out of the 50+ tables, I only saw two menus. I saw the hostess again motioning for people to follow her, without speaking a word. I saw the lineup of about 8 groups, yet at least 10 tables free. I saw the same hostess seating people at dirty tables, then half cleaning things up after the people were seated.
I saw the wait staff rushing around looking busy, but really not doing anything useful. Someone outside the restaurant wouldn’t make any sense of this, but me being on the inside, experiencing it became quite funny.
I snagged the waitress and asked for the bill. When we got it, we saw it was $65 and change. Holy shit! That is crazy. Three burgers and two beer. Sue and I discussed the quickest, easiest, and least friendly way we could get out of the restaurant. We managed to find enough cash and left $67 on the table. Sorry, no real tip for this place. They definitely got what they deserved.
Next time we will hit the food court for Subway where we will get the same crappy service, semi-ok food, for 1/3 the price. Granted, we couldn’t get a beer at Subway, but really, the beer wasn’t worth the price of admission.
Trillium Ridge
I had a interesting ride today. My goal was to ride Trillium, but do it the “correct” direction. Each time I have ridden it, I went up the trail instead of down.
I started off from the parking lot, and went up Skull. It was a little chilly and a little foggy out. My tires were sliding around on everything. I think I had pumped them up too much, so I let a little air out of both of them. That seemed to solve the problem, so I kept going.
At the top of skull I headed up the fire road all the way to Trillium. At one point Heart stopped following me, and deked off into the bush. I couldn’t see her for a minute, and she didn’t come when I called her. Odd when I have cookies in my pocket. I figured she found a bone that a crow had carried off from the dump, so I went back to get her. Sure enough she had something in her mouth. I grabbed it, and as I was tossing it further into the bush I saw that it was a plastic food covering that had some pastey, liquidy, white goo in it, and good god did it ever smell awful. And I got it all over my right glove. And my glove has holes in the fingers, so I got some on me! I wiped it off as best I could, but I could still smell it. I ended up having to take off my gloves and ride bare handed. Not ideal.
The ascent up the fire road to Trillium took me a lot less time than I thought it was going to, so I didn’t even take a break at the top. The descent down Trillium was fun, but a couple times I felt my tire bottom out. I would have to be careful I didn’t pinch flat.
After Trillium I headed up Sidewinder, then along North Ridge. While heading up North Ridge I could see a few sun rays beaming through the mist. Very, very cool. After North Ridge I wanted to hit Snakes and Ladders. I also wanted to do Who’s Yer Daddy, since I saw some new trail work there that I wanted to try. What to do?
I chose to do both. I rode to the top of Snakes and Ladders. At the rest break at the top, the sun was out and it was beautiful. The clouds were still hanging out down below, which meant I couldn’t see the parking lot. I love when that happens. I did a quick descent of Snakes and Ladders, then went back up the fire road a second time to catch Who’s Yer Daddy. Good call. The climbing was doing me some good.
The new sections were pretty good, and I even caught a bit of air. Sure enough though, two thirds of the way down my back tire felt a little squishy, and when I stopped I could hear the air hissing out. Damn. I unpacked my tools and set about changing the tube. It didn’t take me that long, but I did discover that one of my tire levers was broken.
After WYD, I ended with the trail that drops in to the TTA. All in all a gorgeous ride. Back at the truck the dog was pooped, and I was feeling the post ride afterglow.
View Dump Ride 02/02/2013 in a larger map
Spectacular Lot
I got out for a wonderful ride yesterday. The conditions were spectacular. It was a little chilly out, but not very cold. Basically if I stopped for too long I got a chill. I just tried to keep moving. There was very little mud, no running water on the trails, and traction galore. Just lovely.
Heart and I took Shock Treatment to the far side of the park, then started climbing up the back all the way to the top. From the top we came down Snakes and Ladders, then hit a couple more short trails to take us back to the parking lot.
The only bummer on the ride happened at the top of Snakes and Ladders. I was taking a breather when another guy and his dog came up Snake and Ladders. I noticed his dog had a muzzle on, and that got me to wondering. Sure enough, the dog saw Heart and started advancing. Once the guy saw this he called his dog who then rocketed off at Heart and jumped on her snarling. Thank goodness for the muzzle, but I just can’t help but wonder why he was bringing this dog out in public if this is how it behaves.
View Dump Ride 20/01/2013 in a larger map
Hilly Breathtaking
Saturday was a gorgeous day. We decided to take the kids for a hike at Thetis Lake. Once there we gave them the choice of the hike with a nice viewpoint and lots of hills, or around the lower lake. Surprisingly they took the hilly route.
Must say that it was a great time for all of us, including Heart. The kids did great on the walk, even though we were out there for close to two hours. At one point we were up high looking out over the lake and Elliot says in a hushed voice that the view was “breathtaking”. 🙂
