Saturday: Stardust, Parties, and Carolyn versus The Fence

I only got about three hours sleep, but managed to drag myself out of bed just before Kevin arrived at my place around 9:00ish. I quickly scarfed down my breakfast and we headed down to pick up Carolyn. Luckily I remembered to call her enroute... I was greeted with a sleepy voice. All three of us aren't really morning people, and this is a late start compared to the ungodly hours we get up for certain events or group skates.

We parked out at the Etobicoke Bridge and headed out to the Lighthouse as the start of our warm-up. Carolyn had to do six-on and one-off (x6) @ 10% above Marathon pace. Kevin and I were there to push her a little harder than she would normally go when she's solo. My main goal today was to do the hill intervals that Morgan was suggesting, so that I could be better prepared for the climb that everyone is talking about at the New York 100.

The good thing about skating with someone slower than you is that instead of constantly chasing and losing form, I could try and think about technique as opposed to trying to hang on. Kevin once again pointed out that I need to focus more on glide recovery. He suggested I touch my knee to my calf as an excercise. I tried to focus on not bobbing up and down, as well as not toeing out on my recovery.

As we were just finishing off the sixth six-on/one-off, disaster struck. We reached Ontario Place and the end of the new smooth asphalt on the West Portion of the MGT, and I performed the move that I had been doing previously... scootching through the grassy divide which slowed me down a bit before taking the 180 degree sharp turn. This time around, Carolyn was following directly behind me. I realized I was taking the corner a bit too sharply and did an extra crossover to avoid a cement base... I heard a crash behind me as Carolyn slid into the big metal fencing. I turned to see her with her skate stuck underneath the fence and she had also suffered a bit of road rash on the knee. She had to remove her foot from her boot and Kevin managed to pull the skate free. Unfortunately, she soon discovered that the collision (or getting the skate out from under the fence) had loosened her frame, and we did not have the proper skate-tool on us to fix it. As she started to scooter back with us, we asked a few people if they had a skate-tool. Fortunately one pair did... Unfortunately by this time we discovered the frame bolt had fallen off of her boot! I thought it was going to be an impossible task, however after searching up and down the path, Kevin somehow managed to find it closer to the crash site. As Kevin set to work on the frame, I decided it was time for something cold in this sweltering heat and quickly stumbled across the Dicky Dee guy cycling nearby and got us some creamsicles and some paper napkins to help clean out Carolyn's road rash.

It turns out that even with the bolt, the tool the friendly rec-skaters supplied us was also the incorrect one. At that point Morgan and Sarah skated by us. They did not have any skate tool either. So we set about scootering all the way back to the car. I worked on my glide-recovery a little bit more.

We passed Morgan and Sarah again as they were bombing up and down the hill that led to the pedestrian bridge... it turned out that Morgan's suggestion wasn't to do the regular hill leading up to the Tennis Courts, but that crazy-ass hill that has you bombing down into a merge with the MGT. I think I'll bring my kneepads when we go try this next time. Carolyn's run-in with the fence was enough adventure for today and we had to get her back home in time for her lunch-date.

I stopped to get a Slushie and was really enjoying it when Morgan and Sarah whizzed by me once again at what looked to be a pretty reasonable pace. I decided to latch on and enjoyed the ride back to the car with them, although I'm hoping I was not spilling my Slushie all over Sarah's legs as I was tucked in behind them.

Today's lesson #1:
Slow down for those 180 degree turns.

Today's lesson #2:
Always bring the proper skate-tool.

Today's lesson #3:
Always make sure you have some Looneys and Tooneys with you in case the Ice Cream guy rides past you.

It ended up being a pretty casual skate for me, although it was probably good that I didn't wear out my legs too much given our tentative plans for 84km the next day. Hopefully I can get some proper hill work in this week.

With a birthday party and a house-warming that evening, I made the mistake again of overeating at night before I was going to go to sleep. Despite the fact that we were having a pretty good time at the parties, I'm glad Jen got us out of there and into bed snuggly by 11:00pm given the 5:45 wake-up to get me to my rendezvous with Jay in Etobicoke, out to Joel's and then off the our adventure exploring the Wellend Canal Trail.

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Strawberries and Omega 3 Yogurt. Vector and Power Cereal in Soy Milk. Burger King French Fries and hamburger. Ice tea. 1/2 flask of Strawberry, Banana and Orange Juice. Rosti with Sausage. Salmon Fillet with rice pilaf. peach and tomato brusheta, strawberries. Sushi.