Sep
12th

Last weekend’s ride around Vancouver:

Beautiful people / packed beaches / sun / good eats / I ♥ Vancouver!

Approximately 63km in about 3hrs (but the entire ride took us about 6 hours with our stops at the beach and for food). This route seemed a lot longer than last weekend’s yet it was about the same. I wanted to do a 70km ride but by the time we got back to Burnaby, I realized how tired I was so we just went home where I passed out in front of the AC, then woke up 3 hours later and went back to Richmond to stuff ourselves with late-night Chinese food (“da lang”).

Sep
6th

Added over 100km on the bikes this weekend! Next weekend we are doing another ride downtown to meet up with my friends on the Sea Wall again but we might start in Richmond this time. Other ride plans are to Maple Ridge (need to get my bike serviced there anyway), White Rock and a trip to Estrella’s in Langley (gotta have a rewarding destination at the end, right?). The only problem is that we only have a couple weeks to do all this before summer is completely over.

I recently fell in love with cycling and it’s definitely the best way to travel and see everything Vancouver has to offer. The commute may have doubled in time but it seriously feels like it was faster than driving because time passes by so fast! PLUS you get a great workout.

Sunday (50km+). This ride took about 4 hours including a long stop at Deep Cove for donuts and pictures and downtown, for hot dogs and poutines. It only felt like 2 hours though. We drive up to the Deep Cove area once a week in the summer and cycling up there seemed way faster than driving. The hill that I was always freaked out about but have always wanted to try going up wasn’t as bad as I thought either.

Monday (60km+). Tackled some hills and broke a bit of sweat on the way downtown but met up with a bunch of people at Waterfront for a slow and leisurely ride around the Sea Wall on one of the nicest and hottest days this summer. The one thing I may have regretted was all that food we scarfed down at Granville Island… I wanted to puke donuts and yam fries when we made the wrong turn and went up this crazy hill on the way back.

Monday Seawall Group

This was definitely a weekend where I did NOT hesitate to pig out.

Aug
11th

The Warriors!

Last Saturday’s Warrior Dash BC timelime:

• Stomach flips when I see the hills while going up to the course on gondola.
• Needs to pee really bad. Almost suffocates in outhouse.
• Talks to people who went in previous waves who’ve already finished the race; advised us to walk up the first hill and be sure to have good shoes for the steep downhills. Starts worrying.
• Almost dies from extreme nervousness at start line while looking up the 2km hill we had to run up.
• Whistle blows… guys shoot past me.
• I go, “f**k this.” So much for trying to keep up with them.
• Manages to jog up half of the hill but only to turn the bend and sees more hills … and more hills. Totally demoralizing.
• Thighs burning, heart about to give out. Tempted to crawl up the rest of the way.
• Wants to shoot self.
• Keeps on saying to myself, “I’M NOT A F**KING WARRIOR!!“
• 2km later, somehow managed to push myself to the top without stopping.
• Sees Boyfriend waiting at top for me. He had to forfeit racing with the guys because he knew I was going to have a lot of trouble going downhill because of my bad knees. ♥
• Climbs over walls and under barbed wire, up cargo nets, over a plank, more hills (but not as bad)… the rest of the course was okay (except for the downhills) but I took it real easy.
• Kicks mud in boyfriend’s eyes while passing him in the mud pit. NOT ON PURPOSE, I SWEAR.
• Crosses finish line… before Boyfriend (while he was momentarily blinded by mud). Hyukhyukhyuk.
• Secretly satisfied because I never beat Boyfriend in anything (but I knew if he actually tried, he would’ve been at least 10 minutes ahead of me).

People did this race for fun but I wanted to see how far I could push myself.

I was disappointed.

I was NOT ready for this. I went into this with no research, not knowing how long it was (5km) and not expecting that many hills. I just thought, “OOH WARRIOR DASH! SOUNDS FUN!“ I haven’t been doing ANY long distance cardio training for over a month; I’ve been doing Crossfit, plyometrics, sprints and basically anything and everything that trains my fast twitch muscles but nothing where I had to test my endurance for a long period of time.

I wasn’t my usual self and could not push myself hard enough to move faster. I knew I could’ve achieved a much better time but I had to slowly walk all the downhill parts because of my bad knees so the fact that I knew I wouldn’t get a good time didn’t help either, otherwise I knew I would’ve pushed myself ten times harder! I also only had a piece of toast and couple eggs for breakfast so I wish I fueled up more.

Results:

• My time was 38:24.90
• Placed 60th in my age group
• 1313/3913 overall =(

Despite not being prepared for it, I had so much fun and can’t wait to do it again next year!

The Course

Did I mention I ate poutine almost everyday that weekend? Almost. I had to gather up some major willpower to walk past it on Saturday night. I swear, I ate more pasta that weekend than I usually do in a year though.

Jul
25th

Last weekend we biked from my house to the other side of the city where we had a nice seafood dinner on the docks and lots of frozen yoghurt before biking home. We were all stuffed and bloated but it only took us about 30-40 minutes each way. Not long enough!

Our next cycling adventure is on the long weekend: biking from Vancouver to Grouse Mountain, do the Grouse Grind before biking back home. The boys will be hiking down the Grind as well but my bad knees and I will be taking the gondola. We have a wedding the night before so hopefully we aren’t too hungover but I am sooo looking forward to this! Hills galore… and I can’t wait to eat afterwards!! The best meals are always after a great workout.

In August, we’re planning a ride from Burnaby to Deep Cove, then go kayaking with the family and perhaps play some “tennis” with the kids (it always ends up turning into tag or letting the 3-year-olds run around with the racquets) and then ending the day with loads of lemon grass chicken wings.

Jul
16th

We conquered The Chief once again last weekend! We only went up to the first peak because I went with some hungover guys but I’m not sure if this hike is worth the pain going down anymore because I’d rather do a trail I haven’t done yet. I have bad knees, so I’m always the first one up but the last one down.

I didn’t take too many pictures because I’m usually too busy catching my breath but I got a picture of the slowpokes down there while one of the guys and I waited for them! Heh heh heh. Since we decided to somewhat stick together and we wanted a good workout, we did sprints up the trails until we were literally dying then wait until one of our friends came into sight and then sprinted again. It wasn’t really HIIT because sometimes we couldn’t sprint past hikers on narrower parts of the trail but nevertheless, interval training = best fat burning exercise ever. My boyfriend and I sprinted up the rock face at the end, to the top and I thought my heart was doing to give up— I’ve never felt that tired before but reaching the top in that state was an awesome feeling.

From personal experience, doing physical activity is an instant cure for hangovers, mild sickness, congestion and allergies. One of the guys was severely hungover from an entire week of partying and felt like crap during the first 15 minutes of the hike. He almost gave up but we pushed him because he just had to get over that initial bump where he thought he couldn’t go on anymore and once he started moving again, the hangover went away. Exercise works!!

I don’t do yoga, okay.
Although I’m going to attend my first session soon!!
Now my yoga pants can finally be worn for what they were really made for.