I’m pretty sure I’ve posted before about Sara’s occasional night-terrors, aka parasomnia. She even went to an over night clinic thing where they wired her up to machines that after some careful analysis, told her she did, indeed, sleep poorly.

I’ve been meaning to blog each occurrence as they almost always wake me up, and a good percentage involve my unwilling participation. I’ll try and be more faithful to that process in the future, and perhaps even add some events from the past.

Lately however, Sara has been waking up and staring in terror (sometimes followed by a panicked flailing) at the faint outline of a pipe in our bedroom wall. You can see the offending plumbing in the above photo. Look close….. by the curtains… yes, it is that tiny, innocuous thing. At some point some must have though it would have been handy to have water in that room of the house, which is why that wee nubbin exists.

After the most recent (my) slumber shredding incident I decided to take matters into my own hands and render that pipe-end into the most friendly, harmless and pleasant thing i could.

With one elastic and the fattest, softest stuffed animal ever made, I give you, Pat the terror pipe bunny.

I last raced in ‘97 i think, i didn’t take it very seriously, and i didn’t enjoy it an awful lot. I tried a few O-cup races and the vibe was far more competitive than what i was looking for. So i stopped racing, and even riding much for the next couple of years. In university i was introduced to the Don Valley trails, where I’ve been cycling frequently since about ‘02.

So i lost twenty pounds this spring and my cardio got a whole lot better, so i found riding even more enjoyable this year. I put on over a thousand km of almost exclusively off-road trails this summer, despite losing 5 weeks to do a fractured collarbone (also done cycling, but probably worth its own post). A colleague who also does a lot of cycling mentioned he was thinking of doing “Paul’s Dirty Enduro” a few weeks ago as a lead up to the Epic 8 Hour race at Hardwood Hills. I checked it out, and it looked like a perfect way to get back into racing. A fun, community-minded event, with an emphasis on having a good time, and less on time.

Paul’s Enduro has 4 different race lengths: 15, 30, 60 and 100km. When i ride in the Don, my standard length is about 30km, i can crank it up to about 45km, but anything beyond that requires doing laps of the same trails, which is not a ton of fun so i don’t do that a lot. As such, I knew i could do the 30km race at Paul’s, but, as i thought I’d like a challenge, i should do the 60km. Keeping in mind, 60km would probably be the longest ride I’ve ever done, let alone 60km of single track, cross country mayhem.

I did a few long-ish 40-45km rides in the weeks leading up to Paul’s, and feeling reasonably fit i was pretty confident I’d be OK. Now, i’m not retarded, i know 60km of trail is a lot, and would take a lot out of me – i read up a bit on nutrition and hydration for long races and made sure i would have the supplies for that. I also now that much of the trails in the Don are considerably harder and more technical than you would find on race course of this nature. The Don has lots of steep, punchy climbs, and extremely narrow, technical single track. Most race courses for enduro’s are longer, easier climbs, and more friendly single track trails, and it turns out that one is not really good training for the other.

There were about 125 riders doing the 60km, and it didn’t take long for us to spread out after the start. The first 6km were kind of unpleasant as i warmed up and found a pace that suited me. I was find my tires a bit hard so at the first feed station i let some air out of my back tire to help get more traction on the sand, and make riding my hard tail a bit more comfy.

6km to about 35km was amazing. The trails were a TON of fun, i was mostly alone and riding my own pace, feeling great and having a blast. Shortly after the 2nd feed station at around 35km there trail was a brand new cut in the woods, this means that it is very loose dirt, and very, very bumpy.

As mentioned, i ride a hard tail bike, so while i have shocks on my front fork, i don’t on the back. I figure the ration of full suspensions to hard tails at this race was 15 to 1. Everyone knew better than I. This new cut of trail was such carnage that i basically couldn’t sit for 2km. By the time i got out of it i was panting hard and my legs were really beginning to ache. It was the beginning of my downfall, it took a ton out of me. Prior to that section at about the halfway point i was on track for a 4hour finish. As the trail continued on, i was beginning to really feel my legs, not coincidentally, this about the same distance as my usual ride in the Don. My legs were very adamant this was how far they wanted to go, and they were done now, thank you very much.

I kept soldiering on, and made it to the last feed station at 15km remaining. I had nothing by this point, I’d been operating on fumes for the past 5 or so km and i was empty. I took some time at the station to stretch, eat and hydrate, hoping i could get a bit of my strength back. My lungs and cardio were feeling fine, i just had nothing in my legs. I hopped back on my bike and tried my best to keep going.

My average speed dropped through the floor, and if you look at the route elevation, the last 15km have a TON of climbing. By the 50km mark i was hurting pretty bad. My legs would cramp up on the more strenuous climbs, forcing me to walk. Through the woods i could hear other riders screaming. Some from cramps, others from frustration at yet another long, sandy climb. I receded into myself and just kept pedaling, counting down the km.

After what seemed like forever i eventually emerged at the finish, by my clock after about 4:43 of riding. I’d dropped 43mins off my pace from the first half.

I was ( and kinda still am) totally cooked. I was just not prepared for what that took out of me.

It was, despite the pain, a lot of fun. The organization that ran the event, and the mood of all the other riders was great. Super friendly, and everyone was more interested in just finishing, not posting their best time. I would do it again next year, provided i can get some longer training rides in, and that i have a full suspension under me.

You can play through my race here: http://connect.garmin.com/player/13610202 Note that as i am using an googlephone as my gps, it doesn’t have the grain to capture the full distance, so it says its about 8km shorter than it is. As well, that speed spike near the end is an anomaly, i for sure didn’t hit 60km/h.

Sara’s all back into blogging again these days so I feel compelled to follow suit.

Of course, I don’t have anything at the moment to write about.

I’m sure something will come up.

For the moment, you can enjoy pics of Kurt and Bethany’s lovely wedding.

I discovered the other day that the creation date for my hotmail address can be found within my account settings. My dear old punkaroo (embarrassing, i know) address has been around since October 20th, 1997. I’m pretty sure that was my first personal email account, and it served as my primary until I started at U of T, so at least 2 years, probably 3.

Hotmail at the time wasn’t owned by Microsoft, and I seem to recall was the coolest of all free email providers. I absolutely had to get my own account, as having personal email (you know, the 3 messages a month i received at that time) shared with my parents in our idirect.ca address provided with our 33.6 dial-up account was just not good at all. 17 Year old me demanded privacy.

It must stop. Please, really, stop. I’m not saying everything out of your mouth and/or keyboard needs to be made of the purest wisdom, but can we at least try for a hint of something worthwhile? Not just these verbal ticks that add and offer nothing.

I took this while over at K-smeats place playin with his new puppy. He’s got this awesome exposed brick wall in his kitchen, and i found the dog toy’s expression hilarious. As such, i was compelled to take a silly photo of a swimsuit wearing rubber chicken chillin.

After a few tasteless and combative emails were thrown around we came up with a set of rules and a list of participants.

We’ve got 12 people in, at $50 each for a grand prize of $600, winner take all. The person who has lost the greatest percentage by the end of 8 weeks wins. It doesn’t matter how you get there.

We had our official first weigh in yesterday at noon. Our 12 members tip the scales at a combines 2267.8 lbs. The highest approx BMI in the group was 30.8, so while no one is grotesquely obese, there’s lots of weight to be lost. I’ll be sure to update on our progress.

As for my porky self, I figure i’ve got about 20-25lbs to lose. Shocking, i know, but too much warcraft and computers and cadbury mini-eggs have made me chubbsy. Sara and I are trying to be pretty hardcore for the next 8 weeks so that we can then relax into a holding pattern. No sweets, pop, fat or flavour and lots of working out. Now that its light in the morning its less arduous and painful to get up for a pre-work sweat-fest, so we’ll see how this goes.

Oh, and we’ve also done the before photos, so we’ll see what i can get out of the after ones in 2 long, effort filled months.

Allen Gardens really is lovely. I do prefer it remains unpopular so that my visits are untarnished by the slavering hordes with their constant demand for more beautiful foliage.

I took a wander in the lovely spring sun today around Cabbagetown to play with my Camera. I took in some lovely scenes at Allen Gardens, Riverdale Farm and the Toronto Necropolis.

Young families were all over the first two of those stops, keeping the day bright and loud. The Necropolis certainly gets less traffic and kids, but its a fascinating place to wander around.

Lots of fascinating graves, intensely ornate and reaching for the sky. Conversely, there are many like in the photo above. Quiet, unassuming and largely forgotten. Which we’ll all be one day. Mooooorbid. On that note, more than one grave made note that life is short and that time will always take its toll. Wise words me thinks.

I did run across the grave of Cpl. Dyers, a young man who was killed with the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan. It was clearly well visited. But i thought i’d leave it alone with my camera.

There were many gravestones i noticed that had two names but only one set of dates. Where one spouse has died and they had the headstone made for both of them. Knowing there’s a grave out there with your name on it, waiting for someone to carve those last few characters in is intensely freaky to me.

I should not post at night after spending the day alone in a graveyard.