Jay Brown Goes Down. Ethiopian Dinner. The Dream in High Park.

I really need a way to build more rest into my regimen. Since I've started teaching two kickboxing classes a week, it leaves only one or two rest days if I am training inline a minimum of three days a week. and often I will want to do something on those days as well. I don't know if it's better to load some of the extra workouts on one day and then have the next day completely off. Yoga helps the recovery, but I think I would be recovering quicker from the 106km this weekend if I didn't push myself as hard on the other activities immediately following something like that. So many people have different opinions on rest... I guess it comes down to what works for you and knowing your limits and what your body can endure (and we know that the mind leads the body!).

Given the intensity of the previous days practice for me, I pushed through the morning kickboxing class at Victoria Park with relative ease given the fatigue. I had told Kevin and Jay that I would hook up with them for a skate on the MGT West immediately afterwards

I got myself a Strawberry/Mango Smoothie with a Ginseng boost and headed out to meet up with them. As we started out, I began feeling the cumulative impact from the week as I struggled to move my legs on our warm-up lap! I pressed through because I knew we had planned to do the hill intervals that we missed on Saturday and maybe even some of the 30/30 intervals that everyone was saying is so good for you. It genearlly takes me quite a long time to warm up, and just as I was finally getting into the groove and really focusing on matching rythm with Kevin in front of me, disaster once again struck!

In front of the Pizza Pizza stand on the way back from Ontario place on what was just our warm-up lap, Kevin gave out a yelp in from of me. I was tucked in pretty low and tight behind him and I just barely managed to hop over a propane house from a propane truck that was strung out across the trail into the Pizza Pizza stand. Behind me I heard Jay going down and I also caught the sound of his helmet hitting pavement. I turned around to see him sprawled down and not moving. Kevin and I quickly slowed down enough to turn around to see if Jay was okay. We were generally very good as a group at calling out all the obstacles, but in this case, I can understand why Kevin had not really seen it until the very last minue... for one it had not been there a few minutes perviously when we skated by on the way out to Ontario Place, and as we approached it he apparently thought it was just a road-snake. I know he was feeling really badly about Jay's spill.

I know that spills are in inevitable part of inline skating, but I have to admit that I'm also overly squeamish in these kinds of situations, and his fore-arm had road rash and looked like it had started swelling pretty badly and in my mind I was thinking it might have been broken. From the state of his TISC jersey it also looked like his shoulder had taken some impact as well. We determined he was well enough to get him to move off of the train, and a quick look at the front of the helmet showed he had taken enough of an impact to crack it. Jay was a bit upset at the fact that he now had to throw away his relatively new $200 helmet, but upon reflection, we all agreed that it was $200 well spent if you were to put a price on avoiding having your skull cracked versus the helmet. We skated back to his car and I offered to drive to the clinic/hospital, but Jay told me he was well enough to drive. Kevin and I finished off our lap out to the lighthouse and decided we were pretty much done after the second mishap on the MGT this week and that we were better off going to get a couple of Turkey Burgers at Lick's. Something tells me that these hill intervals are just not meant to be this week.

Jay called me later to let me know he was okay and nothing was broken. I was releived. There seems to be an unusualy high amount of spills this year compared to other years. This one just reinforces the fact that you should ALWAYS WEAR YOUR HELMET.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Nature's Path Synergy and Rebound Cereal. Sour Gummies. Mango/Strawberry Smoothie with Ginseng. Banana. Apple. Nectarine. Lick's Gobbler with all the fixin's. Booster Juice with Warrior. Ethiopian flat bread, spicy lentils, green salad with tomato, beans and carrots, turnips, cabbage, beats, and other vegetarian delicacies from Ethiopia. Mango Juice. Ethiopian Coffee with lots of sugar. Creamsicle. Reese Peanut Butter cups.