I was in the air whether I wanted to ride today or not. I looked at the weather report before going to bed last night and it said thunderstorms. I figured I'd make a judgment call in the morning, and I was glad I did. It was a gorgeous sunny morning.

My phone said the departure time was 7:40, and I figured I'd ride to Kipling station to get a few extra k in. I was there a little after 8, so I just started the ride on my own, figuring I'd catch up to everybody like I usually do.

About a half hour in I got a tweet about the transit strike. Makes sense why nobody would be out riding, since most of the riders come in by subway. Instead of chasing everybody else, I concentrated on chasing myself from the ride last year. My GPS was showing how far ahead of myself I was the last time on the ride.

By the time I got to around 35k I had a flashback to the same ride last year. I was having a conversation with someone about how hungover I was and how that ride was almost unbearably hard. And I thought I was still drunk. Maybe I'm not in that much better shape than last year. Haha.

Here's the ride:

To top it off when I got home I checked my google calendar and it said the ride started an hour later. Apparently my synch between calendars is off by an hour.

It was a win though... 74 km total. I'm happy with that.

Kottke shows no love what would have been my dream DJ tool. This would have eliminated the unbearably long wait every Thursday at Play de Record to... uh... play the record you grabbed off the shelf.

Quick post. Orthotics ruled my world today. Even though I'm still in pain from yesterday, I threw my old shoes on with my orthotics in them last night. That totally eliminated my ankle pain instantly. Feeling bold (maybe a little stupid too), I woke up today and did the same run as yesterday. Exact same distance. It took me exactly the same amount of time. My heart rate was exactly the same—in fact if you lay my HR graph from this morning over yesterdays, they are nearly identical. I've never seen such consistency. As I hit the front door of the building, my GPS "virtual partner" finished too. The difference this time was there was no pain.

I'm so sick to death of all these issues. Ankle hurts. I'm going to try my orthotics again. Stupid body. I hate it. But on the positive side, while it was working I managed to coax it into a 4k outdoor run this morning. I woke up with this crazy urge to run outside. My first. Yay. Hurts though. Stupid.



If you're reading this on facebook, click through and you can see my route through Rosedale. It's mornings like this that make me really really happy for where I live.

I'm thinking about it, but I don't know if I can do it. A year-long challenge to see if I can live without owning a car. I've been obsessed with cars since I picked up my first issue of Car and Driver in May 1987. 21 years ago!?! Wow.

The past couple years have almost completely killed off any joy I've had with cars. Problem after issue after money sucking problem. Plus traffic has become ridiculous. Try getting anywhere on a Saturday afternoon without traffic. It's insane. Not to mention that people seem to keep getting stupider. The past couple weeks I've noticed a huge increase in people driving like retards—myself included.

The lease on the S2000 is up next spring. At the very least it looks like some very interesting cars will be coming out between next spring and the one after. Taking a break would either make me really miss driving and cars again or it will further cement my discontent.

I don't have a very transit-friendly lifestyle right now. I reverse commute from midtown to an area in Scarborough that was intended to be serviced by an expansion of the SRT. It's nearly a dead zone on the transit map. It takes an hour to get to Scarborough Town Centre, but a half hour by bus to go the last 3 km to work. Alternatively I can take the Yonge line to the Sheppard subway, but the bus across Sheppard is smelly and slow. It takes less time, even after the factored walking time.

Cycling to work is a great option when it's nice out. I haven't finalized my route yet, but it's somewhere in the area of 25 km each way. It took 45 minutes when I lived on Davisville, so it should still take less time than transit. Showering at work isn't bad, since I'd still have to do that at home anyway.

On top of that I work in Newmarket once a week and one weekend a month. I would have to be pretty serious about successfully working at that from home. I could cut down some trips up there, but not all. Which reminds me... stop writing and get back to work!

...on morbidity
When it's my time just throw me in a burlap sack and bury me under the closest tree. Use the money saved to get everyone together, have a party, and forge meaningful relationships. Hah. Seriously though. I'll make a podcast or something. At least in death I can guilt the captive audience into actually listening to my music for once. ;) Or distribute my iTunes library to anyone interested. Or writings, blogs, posts, emails... I dunno. Whatever. Open source me. That'd be pretty cool. I hoard way too much data, might as well let it loose.

...on running
I should have kept quiet in my last post about being confident that I will be able to run without hurting myself. The next run I got some serious ankle pain and clicking noises on rotation. Similar to what my shoulder felt like. It got better a week later, but it's not fully healed yet. Sucks. Maybe I should start using orthotics again. I'm very disappointed, but at least it's pretty much cycling season now. Hopefully it'll get better sooner rather than later. Maybe I'll take it easier next time. Maybe no marathon for me this year. Boo.

...on cycling
I'm not sure if I'll be able to do the ride this year. In fact I'm pretty sure I won't. Considering I personally paid half the money I needed to fundraise last year, that's a pretty big expense. I don't have the time, energy and resources to put in a proper fundraising effort either. So I've decided to spend the time off work and the money on something that seemed more worthwhile to me this year. I really enjoyed last year's ride, and would love to do another... it was not an easy decision.

On the positive side after reading Tanya's last post on riding with the Randonneurs I think that might be a good fit for me. I know when riding to Montreal last year I was wishing we could cover more ground in a day. Maybe twice as much? Check out Randonneurs Ontario for more info. They start off with nice 120k single-day rides, through 27 hour 400k rides, up to 75 hour 1200k rides! Just crazy enough for me.

...on swimming
Still haven't done it yet. The pool in Columbus was too small, and I've been way too busy catching up from consecutive weekends out of town. I'm hoping that in two weeks Kristine might be able to give me some pointers while she sips mojitos by the pool. [nudge nudge]

...on Columbus and soccer
Columbus is a really nice small city. Not what I expected from a midwestern rust belt city. The actual soccer game was disappointing, but the smoke bombs thrown on the field and segregated seating gave me an idea of what it must have been like in England years ago. I got a kick out of the light hearted insults after the game:

You guys aren't singing anymore... EHHH?

Yeah, well we've got universal health care!

I'm undecided as to whether that sounds more European or less.

...on Quebec City and French
We didn't start the fire—it was always burning. It certainly answered the question of why upon arrival the city smelled like a barbeque. Chantel and I watched a video in a museum about the history of Quebec and Canada, which went on to discuss the future of Quebec in a predominantly anglophone North America. Picture Celine Dion singing to a backdrop of some high-tech transportation being built by Bombardier. Brutal. The tone was alarmist, as if the English language was threatening their lives, their culture, and their economy. I can understand how some people might take that and jump to the conclusion that anyone who speaks English is a threat. It seemed to echo how many Canadians stereotype and antagonize Americans.

...on Kim and Giles' wedding in Cuba
I didn't think I would be able to go. A combination money and timing pretty much killed any hope. It was a pleasant surprise when Sue found a vacation package that saved us 25% over what it would have cost. Even more surprising was that it was cheap enough that Chantel decided to come too! I didn't want to sacrifice the ride, but I'm happy. I would rather support my friends... not to mention it's a pretty sweet vacation to get out of it! I haven't been anywhere south of Florida since I was three. It'll be awesome to have so many friends on my first trip south.

If I get to the point where I'm counting down days/minutes/hours until we leave on twitter and facebook just shoot me... then throw me in a burlap sack. :)