Mississauga marathon weekend - race and volunteer report

So I had quite the weekend! And I've written approximately 1 million words about it because I don't know how to edit, and I'm sure the internet cares about all the tiny details.

When I realized back in the fall that I wouldn't be running the half or full marathon at Mississauga, I was sad. It's a race all my best Daily Mile running buddies usually do, and I didn't want to be the only one stuck at home. So I decided to volunteer (I try and volunteer for at least one race a year), and when I saw that bike marshal was an option on the volunteer form, you know I had to pick that one! I ended up assigned to the 3rd place male in the marathon, and I was pretty excited to be able to see the race from the perspective of the leaders.

But before that, a little road race!

Saturday - 10k race

My husband and I decided to do the 10k on the Saturday evening as a date, because if we are going to ditch the kids with a sitter and spend a bunch of money, we might as well get medals and a bag of swag.

The Mississauga race kits are always stuffed. Love that. However... The shirt is very very very very very very very bright. Two of the things in the kit contain mango (I'm allergic), my husband is allergic to the tuna, I think we still have last year's bottle of Special K drink in the back of the cupboard... But the reusable Starbucks cups are awfully nice!

The race plan: there kind of wasn't one. I was sure I was in shape to PB (my 10k PB heading into the race was 51:56, but was set over 18 months ago, so it was kind of out of date). I wasn't really sure what to aim for, though, because I've pretty much been a slacker runner for the last month while I recovered from ATB and kicked my bike training back up a notch.

I also knew that the time of day would be an issue - evening races are not my favourite, since it's so hard to get the fueling right during the day and not wind up on the start line starving or overstuffed. Strike 1!

And Saturday turned out to be a fairly warm day. After the winter we had, I am NOT acclimated to warm weather running at all. Strike 2!

And the Mississauga 10k course includes a couple of hills and a lot of winding around paths/corners, neither of which are great for holding a pace. Strike 3!

So I was going in with a vague idea of starting at a 5:08/km pace, because I did a few 8k tempo runs at that pace over the winter, and then I figured I'd see what happened after a few km. But that was as far as I planned, and I wasn't entirely sure what time that pace would translate to. Obviously taking things super seriously.

When we got to the race site we had a lot of time to kill because we're dumb and always arrive places stupidly early. Lots of porta potties and a big park where I lay on the grass and sort of zoned out for a while, eavesdropped on conversations (nothing interesting, alas), and counted the number of lululemon skirts I could see (at least 20).

Runners waiting for the race start

And it was then I realized there was yet another strike against this race going well - there's a student relay component where students run the 10k in teams of 4 (tagging off roughly every 2.5km). Experienced runners know that kids are the worst, with their fresh legs and enthusiasm and not being old enough to know how much racing hurts. The relay format meant that the entire race would have a continuous supply of fresh legged youth to sprint past me and be all demoralizing. Also, the younger ones have no clue on race etiquette and think nothing of stopping suddenly or making unexpected random moves sideways when you least expect it.

Had a lot of time to kill, so took a lot of random pictures like this. #classy

(Note: I'm not knocking the relay as an event - I think it's fantastic that they got 150 teams of local kids to participate and hopefully get them on the path to being runners too. Once the race started I found dodging the kids more amusing than anything else, other than the kid who suddenly stopped dead 2 feet in front of me and almost caused a big pile up. It would be nice if they gave them a little more direction in seeding themselves properly in the start corral - but in fairness an awful lot of adults could use more direction there too, yes I'm talking about you walking lady starting at the front)

Finally it was time to warm up and we got strike #...5? 6? This metaphor isn't working anymore. Anyway, I got a massive side stitch about 300m into the warm up. What. The. Fuck. Pushed through for a bit, since typically I need to find the right breathing pattern to get rid of the stitch, did some ABCs to loosen up, and some strides. The stitch seemed to fade, but I wasn't sure it was really gone.

Pre-race selfie

Then we were off to the start line!

A significant proportion of these people are way too close to the start line.

Rod Black (!) did the start line announcements (I'm told he's there every year? Random.) and then we were off. I don't really have that much to say about the race itself - the 5:08 thing was out immediately, as I looked at my watch a few hundred meters in and was running something like 4:48/km. I dialed it back but settled in pretty comfortably in the 5:02 range (maybe - I don't really trust the numbers my watch showed because it ended up measuring short, and I don't think the course was short because it's been certified for approximately forever. So I don't really trust the splits my watch gave me).

I felt great - working hard, but within my abilities - until the sixth km, when I started to slow down. At 7k I stopped at the waterstation to gulp some Gatorade and that really helped. I got back down into the low 5s with ease after the shot of sugar.

At one point a guy in jeans and flip flops went blazing past me like I was standing still. That's a good sign, right? It turned out he was supervising some relay runners, not racing, though, so I guess I can deal with being outsprinted there. Flip flops, sheesh.

The side stitch started showing up again in the last km, but I was able to push hard for the finish line. I yelled something about hating myself when I saw Sam and Nicole just before the finish (I always vow to never race again during the last few km of races), and crossed the line in a new PB by almost 90 seconds!

Chip time: 50:29.3
Gun time: 50:52.8
Overall place: 129/1063
Gender place: 29/571
Age group place (F30-39): 6/193 !!!!! That's insane. Also insane is that 4 people from my age group all finished around the same time - I was only 13 seconds back of 3rd place! This is why running races should really put the age groups on the backs of people's legs like in triathlons.

Post race! Medals! Not yet starving! That happened at 3 am when I was trying to sleep!

So yeah! That exceeded my expectations in pretty much every way. Even with a lot of factors working against me. I think it shows what a great training block I did from January through March. I really can't say enough good things about the combo of Trainerroad and Run Less Run Faster! Of course, I plugged that result into the Run Less Run Faster app and my training paces for the summer just got harder. I'm never quite sure how to feel about that...

Sunset over the finish area

After wrapping up the post rest festivities and getting a ride back to our car with Nicole and Sam (thanks so much for coming out to cheer, guys!), it was time to switch gears (heh) to Sunday's activity - leading the marathon on the bike. I got all my cycling crap organized and tried to get some sleep.

Sunday: Lead cyclist for the Marathon (3rd place male)

So not pro. My socks don't match.

Up early to get to the start line (plus I couldn't sleep anyway) - I was driving one of my Iron Canuck teammates who'd be running her first marathon, and we wanted to make sure she was there in plenty of time, so we left fairly early. Everything went smoothly and soon I was picking up my sign and meeting up with some of the Daily Mile crew for pre-race hellos.

With Amy, Robin, Jana, and Patty

Then back to the start to join the rest of the lead cyclists while we waited for the runners to swarm towards us. An interesting perspective!

Most of the leads do it every year. Nice group who clearly really enjoy this job.

The first few km we all stayed in front of the pack, and then things thinned out enough that those of us assigned to the full could locate the marathoners in among the half marathoners. The top 4 for the marathon were fairly close together through about 12k, but then started to spread out. Once we hit the split from the half at Indian Rd we were up to a few hundred meters between the leaders (and kind of lonely without the half marathoners!), although I could see at least two people behind 3rd who seemed to be closing the gap. There were quite a few lead changes as the early race leader fell back, and some runners who probably paced the early miles more conservatively caught up. Each time the positions changed I reminded myself to follow the place, not the runner.

I successfully followed the course (although I was glad I'd run the 10k the night before and the route through the waterfront trail was fresh in my mind!), did a lot of yelling to clear the trail for my runner when we reached the point where the half and full courses merged, and ate a lot of those nasty spring bugs we get by the lake. The funniest thing was probably how when we'd approach a water station late in the race, all 15+ water station volunteers would be eagerly holding out cups of water and Gatorade to me and my solo runner. It was adorable.

My highlight was around 35k. The guy who was in third was slowing, and 4th closed in and made the pass. Then the new 3rd place realized I was a lead cyclist and yelled 'NO WAY!'. I confirmed he'd moved into third and he said something like 'this is a special day'. I really enjoyed leading him through the last 7k, because although he was clearly hurting, he was also determined and I don't think his pace fell off at all - we're supposed to stay far enough ahead that the runner doesn't get any sort of drafting advantage, and a few times he was definitely moving faster than I thought!

Leading the eventual third place finisher late in the race. Almost felt bad for how much I was enjoying myself, because the runners at this point were suffering hard! Thanks to Kim for the picture!

Overall I had such a good time. Not many people get to see the whole race at the front from start to finish. I would be a lead cyclist again absolutely no question. The only real drawback is that despite riding 42k, it wasn't really a workout - even a fast marathon run pace is pretty leisurely on the bike. But sometimes you just have to do something because you enjoy it (and given that my legs were a tad cranky from the 10k race the night before, the long slow ride probably helped them more than anything else would have).

Next up, an easy few days before I start the 8 Days in California Trainerroad challenge, and then the MEC Burlington 5k. It seems a bit silly to do a trainer challenge when the weather is so nice for outdoor riding right now, but I think it will be beneficial to my bike training in a lot of ways. And there are many many many outdoor ride days ahead! The MEC race is going to fall towards the end of the 8DC challenge, so I think a PB there is really unlikely, but maybe it'll be a good experience in running on tired legs. My next run plan doesn't start until May 25th, so I have a few more weeks of flexible 'run what I feel like' before I have to get back to the pain.

Race report: Subaru Guelph Lake II Sprint Duathlon 2014

So, my multi sport debut!

I had two goals going into this:

1) See if I like multi sport racing
2) Don't embarrass myself

On point two, I was mostly worried about transition, and doing something like setting out on the run course through the wrong exit or while still wearing bike shoes or knocking over a rack of bikes or something. I mean, the reason I don't do team sports is my complete lack of coordination, so transition seemed ripe with opportunities to screw things up, Mr. Bean style.

Transition, registration, etc. Very pretty conservation area setting.

After an easy drive to Guelph (and I didn't even have to leave that early!), I arrived at the race site with plenty of time to pick up my kit, get my body marking, set up my transition area, and visit the bathroom.

First race, no idea what I'm doing, so I copied what the person next to me had done. #cheater I must have looked the part, though, because later on two people asked me how to put the stickers on their bikes/helmets and if they'd set up correctly. Sure, why not.

Met up with Sam, saw Jana, but somehow the hour before the race just vanished and it was time to do a quick check of my transition area and then warm up. In my infinite wisdom I decided to re-tie my ponytail, and of course my ponytail elastic chose that moment to break. PANIC! I managed to tie the elastic ends together and jam my hair into the now far too tight elastic, so it worked out. Not what I needed a few minutes before heading out to warm up, though!

Waiting in the porta potty line, watching the triathletes in their super hero suits.

I took a caffeinated gel as pre-race fuel and did a quick 1k run to warm up my legs. The duathlon had a wave start, with men under 50 going first and the rest of us going 3 minutes later, starting about 10 minutes after the first wave of triathletes got into the water. It all seemed very well organized, and I assume is designed to spread everyone out before they hit the bike course.

The horn sounded, and off I went on my first ever multi sport race!

Run 1 - 2k
Time: 9:57
Average pace: 4:59
5/15 for age group

Since the first run was 2k, my strategy was to just run. Not max effort, but a solid fast pace. It felt like no time before we were running down into transition to get on our bikes.

Transition 1 - 1:16

I did this very deliberately, like I'd rehearsed in my head and in my garage a few times. Kick shoes off, pick up helmet, get helmet on, bike shoes on. But of course during this process my sunglasses fell off my face onto the grass, the guy next to me was all over the place (I seriously thought he was going to drop his bike on me at one point), and I initially tried to put my helmet on over my run hat. Yeah, I am awesome. Still, I got out of there reasonably quickly. Ran my bike up the steep hill in transition (foreshadowing!) to the mount line, which seemed awfully far away. Made it over the line and onto my bike without falling over. Success! And I passed at least one person in my age group in transition that I saw. Amazing how those age group numbers on people's legs fire up the competitive juices.

Not entirely sure why the body marking guy wrote mine on the side of my leg. But you get the idea.

Bike - 30k
Time: 1:01:20
Average speed: 29.3 km/hr
2/15 for age group

Ah, the bike. So the first km, getting out of the conservation area, was a bit of a clusterfuck. Lots of people riding very slowly, on a narrow road so not easy to pass while making sure I didn't cross the centre. Plus every so often a Hardcore Tri Dude would come blowing past screaming LEFT on a fancy tri bike. It was all a bit overwhelming and it took me about 5 minutes to really start to feel comfortable.

I have no idea where this photographer was. Too focused to pay attention to that sort of thing!

Once we were out onto the roads I was able to settle in and start hammering. Since I knew going in my bike was likely to be stronger than my run, my strategy was to go all out and get it done as fast as possible. The second run is only 7k, how bad could it be?

The bike route was pretty much perfection as far as playing to my strengths. Lots of rolling hills and oh my god is it ever good times to blow past people on an uphill! I need to work on my cadence, though, and improve my speed on the flats and downhill grades, because that's where people would catch me. There were a couple of girls racing the tri I must have played leapfrog with a half dozen times over the course of the 30k - I'd pass them on the uphills, they'd catch me again a few minutes later on the downside. Overall I felt like I passed more people than passed me (I definitely passed more women than passed me back), and that felt amazing. In running I'm usually the pass-ee, so it was quite fun to be the one doing the passing!

On a turn at some point? I think?

One lesson learned: practice hairpin turns before doing an out and back bike course. About 10 seconds before I reached the turn around I realized I had no idea how to execute a hairpin turn and I ended up going too wide onto the gravel on the opposite shoulder. Whoops. That's got to be a great place to be the volunteer, watching newbies fuck up the turn over and over and over again.

Yes I paid for all the pictures so I'm using them. This one is clearly near the end because I look really tense through the shoulders.

I loved the bike. I'd been wondering going in if I had a shot at finishing 30k in an hour, and I got pretty close to that. Considering I've owned the bike for all of two months and my training has consisted mostly of riding what I feel like riding when I have time, I'm thinking I've got plenty of room for improvement. And I'm really excited about that!

Transition 2 - 1:32

I'm really surprised this was only 1:32. It felt a lot longer. I got off my bike before the dismount line, like the very enthusiastic volunteer was screaming, and started to run it into transition. Remember how to get out of transition I had to push my bike up a steep hill? Well, now I had to run down that hill, in my bike shoes, with my legs screaming OH HELL NO at me. Plus the duathlon racks were the closest to the run exit, so we had the farthest distance to travel from the bike entrance. I ended up walking because running wasn't happening. Racked my bike, took off my helmet, put on my hat and changed my shoes, and took a few seconds to drink some water. I was in no rush to start running, because I knew it was going to suck.

Run 2 - 7k
Time: 38:59
Average pace: 5:35
6/15 for age group

I had joked before the race to Sam that she would know I'd overcooked it on the bike if she saw me curled up on the side of the road during the run.

That joke was suddenly seeming a lot less funny. The run started with an uphill and it was not good. Not the noodle legs I've felt doing brick workouts, more like every part of my body screaming THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA. I forced myself to get moving, just one step at a time. The course kept going uphill. Fuck.

(the course wasn't, objectively speaking, particularly hilly, but after a fast 30k on the bike the gradual inclines felt like mountains)

In addition to the fact that the flat conservation area had suddenly turned into a Himalayan mountain range, the sun was now out in full force. There's a reason I don't like to run at 10:30 in the morning in the summer! Especially with very little shade! It's horrible!

I made a deal with myself that if I kept running, I could walk the water stations. At the first station I grabbed Gatorade for a quick shot of carbs, and a cup of water to dump over my head. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. Bliss for about 4 seconds until I realized I was going to have to start running again.

I started mentally reminding myself #dontfuckitup (motivation stolen from Sam and Mari. Hey, it works!). 7k! That's nothing! Piece of cake! You've run a damn marathon, 7k isn't going to defeat you! And I continued on like that, pretty much talking myself into every step forward. Somehow, my pace wasn't as terrible as it felt. Just after the second water station a woman heading back toward the finish yelled encouragement at me, and I really wanted to trip her. I'm sorry, encouraging lady! I'm a horrible person when in the midst of a rough run!

Eventually I hit the turnaround and things felt a bit easier. My legs were more cooperative, I think there was more downhill (although it all felt uphill), and I wasn't being passed quite as often. I was keeping an eye on the age group markings of the people who did pass me, but it was almost all guys, very few women. I wasn't expecting to age group place in this race, but based on previous year's results I was hoping a strong bike would put me in the top 5 or 6. So I was glad to see that other than one woman who passed me very early in the run, I didn't see anyone else who was my age group competition.

Spotted Sam going the other way and told her I was death marching. It was just a really rough run. Lots of telling myself to suck it up and checking my watch every 500 meters to see how much distance was left (the answer was always 'too much').

The finish chute seemed to go on forever. So long.

Finally, less than a km to go - and this section was familiar because we'd run the initial out and back on this km way back in the first run. Also, finally, blessedly, downhill to the lake. Across the finish! Sweet jesus thank you it's over!

Too tired to smile, but at least I managed to do something.

Total time: 1:53:03.2
Overall place: 57/129
Gender place: 10/41
Age group place (women 30-39): 3/15

After crossing the finish and grabbing some water, I wandered around a bit to stretch my legs. There was a huge crowd around the board where the results were posted that I didn't feel like fighting through, so while I waited for Sam to finish, I pulled up Sportstats on my phone to check my finish time, and then almost fainted when I saw my age group place. I think my grin must have been a mile wide! My overall finish time was a lot faster than I had expected (I was thinking I'd be around 2 hours, as I was expecting the bike to take longer), and to be top three for age group was a huge surprise.

Post race people everywhere!

Sam finished the triathlon (way to go Sam! First sprint tri done!), and we hung out waiting for the awards. No way was I missing out on that, although I wasn't sure how they would do the duathlon awards (only medals for #1? 3 deep? 5 deep?). If there was any chance I was getting a medal, I was going to wait for it!

Post race with Sam

I did get a medal!

And got to stand behind a sign!

It would be weird to wear it everywhere, right? Damn.

So that kind of wiped out all the run awfulness, and I'm pretty much in love with this multisport stuff. But I will have to learn how to pace myself! There's a lot more multi sport races in my future next year, although whether they will be dus or tris is a whole different question. But no decisions right now. First I have to get through the rest of my fall race season.

In terms of the race organization, I have no complaints, and will consider doing more of the Subaru series next year. Very well organized, the price was reasonable, and the shirt is really nice. Thumbs up!

Very nice tech material on this t shirt.

I've definitely started my fall race season on a high note - will it continue? Next race is the MEC 15k, so I won't have to wait long to find out. Although I rather wish that race included a bike component...

Fall 2014: Week whatever the hell this is

How is it August already? Aiiiiiiiieeeeeeee.

Getting ready to ride.

Monday: Group bike ride! Zindine wanted to come ride in Burlington, and somehow that morphed into me creating a route for a group ride with a bunch of Daily Mile peeps. Holy pressure, batman. I love my roads, but I'm still pretty new at this road biking thing, so creating a route that would be fun, scenic, and not full of climbing in the back half was kind of stressing me out (but in a good, fun-stress kind of way).

Badass bikers.

We did 55k of some of my favourite local stuff, and it turned out fantastic! I front loaded the route with climbing to make sure when we finished it would be on a downhill and everyone would leave happy and not wanting to kill me. No one wants to end a ride with a climb!

Zindine gave me some good hill climbing tips (even when I hated him for not letting me downshift, the jerk), Sam conquered a hill that defeated her on our last ride and didn't try and kick my ass for making her ride it again, Richard jumped in with both feet on his new road bike and did phenomenally well (I feel like maybe I should apologize to his wife for encouraging him in this new hobby?), Nicole rocked the #mumbike (she is going to be SO GOOD when she gets on a road bike), and Irina did some excellent coaching and picture taking (all the group ride pics are from her). Seriously, just so fun.

Bakery stop! I would really like to steal Irina's socks.

Tuesday: Set out for what was supposed to be either an interval or tempo run, but my legs were all:

So I downgraded to 8k easy. By the end my legs were less cranky, but it wasn't a great feeling run. I later realized I hadn't had a rest day for 8 days, which explained an awful lot.

The sunrise is getting later. Do not like.

Wednesday: Scrapped the plan to bike to work and replaced it with a much needed rest day.

Thursday: After a rest day, tempo. Warm up, then a 4k set and a 2k set of tempo (the goal here is to add on to that second set and work up to two 4k sets). First set was 5:14, 506, 5:05, 5:06, so even a touch fast. Second was 5:12, 5:11, so a hair slow. I'll take it.

Biked to work, 22k. The bike to work is fun because downhill. Also the roads are pretty empty at 7 am.

Biked home after work, 24k. The bike home is much less fun because uphill and CRAZY ASSHOLE DRIVERS EVERYWHERE. I'm starting to understand why cyclists turn into stop sign/red light running jerks. Because we take a lot of bullshit from cars and start to think fuck it, if y'all are going to try and kill me anyway, I may as well at least get where I'm going faster. The highlight was the carload of teenagers who pulled to a stop in front of me and threw open the passenger side door to block my way, then drove away laughing. Nice. City riding sucks.

But, that said, I ended this ride by climbing Kerns Rd for the first time,which is a legit difficult climb for this area and I DID IT. I didn't even have to go full on granny gear until the very steep bit at the end. So that made the whole thing worthwhile. Although I'm going to pass on biking to work again for a while.

For anyone who has done Around the Bay but not Kerns Rd, the above elevation profile gives an idea of how the Kerns climb compares...

I have to think a bit about what I'm doing here with this cycling stuff. The rush of conquering that hill was amazing, and I want to do it again! But I wasn't really planning on serious bike training this summer, since I'm still allegedly targeting a fall half marathon PB. The bike stuff was supposed to be for fun and cross training, at least until I get that half marathon PB. But I'm starting to get intrigued by things like cadence (I noticed on Monday, riding with Zindine, that my cadence is really low compared to his, which he later confirmed). If someone would like to buy me a Garmin 310xt and cadence sensor, you'd make me ever so happy.

Friday: Recovery 8k run. Felt good to shake the legs out.

Watch/selfie/compression socks. Did I miss anything?

Saturday: 20k long run with Patty. Best I've felt on a long run in a while, and the first one in ages where I've felt like I could easily have run more. Maybe it was the new route, that always helps!

Sunday: Duathlon simulation. Got up early, banged out a quick 1.5k run to warm up, then hopped on the bike and headed up over the escarpment. Might as well finish up the last hard week of this block of training with some multi-sport action!

45k on the bike, pushing myself a bit through the first 35 or so. Not as hard as possible, but definitely not a leisurely ride. As per usual for North Burlington, plenty of hills to keep things interesting, too. The last big one, the Zimmerman hill on 2nd sideroad, was horrible. It's not even that bad a hill, my legs were just pretty fried by that point and I didn't have the mental energy to push through it. So now, naturally, I need to try and get back over there this week and hammer that sucker. I need redemption!

That 'trucks use lower gear' sign signals fun stuff ahead! And by fun I mean a terrifying drop into a sharp curve.

Got back, did my transition practice in the garage, and then a 5k run to wrap things up. The run was weird. I felt like I was running molasses slow, but my watch was flashing 5:20/km at me at one point, so clearly the bike totally screws up my sense of pacing. I don't have any real goals for the duathlon other than to have a good time, but it would be nice if I could hold something in that 5:10/5:20 range for the 7 km (granted, I have no idea what the course is like, so if it's mad hilly, to hell with THAT plan. Hills on the bike are generally fun. Hills running just suck).

Weekly summary
Run: 56.4 km
Bike: 147.2 km
Total: 203.6 km in 11 hours, 23 minutes

A little shy on the run mileage, thanks to that awful Tuesday run that I had to shorten up a bit. But overall, a good peak week and I'm looking forward to this week's cut back on the run, with all easy stuff. Time to recover a bit before moving into the last hard block of training!

On bikes and enemies

As I find myself increasingly 'getting it' with cycling, I've been reading more about bikes and biking and such. And man do I ever want a road bike. Not in the budget at the moment, but someday...

At some point I stumbled across this very amusing video:

(check out some of their other videos, too - the Road Vs. Mountain bike rap battle is hysterical)

Unfortunately there's no How to be a Runner video in their series, because the road bike one got me thinking about who would be on the runner enemy list.

So far I have:
Walkers (especially the ones who line up at the front at races)
Nordic Walkers (why do they always stare like they've never seen a runner before?)
Pelotons (because of the one that almost ran me off the road on Northshore that one time)
Dogs (both the off-leash variety for being terrifying, and the on-leash variety whose owners don't clean up after them)
"You are going to ruin your knees" people (because shut up)

Who is on your enemy list?

Ride for Heart 2014

The Ride for Heart is a bit of a family tradition - my mom and brother have done it a few times, and then last year I joined them. I'm not hugely into cycling - running is definitely my first love - but it can be awfully fun to hop on a bike and cover 40, 50k in the time it would take to run just 20. It makes the Daily Mile weekly total much more impressive looking, anyway. Especially when one is recovering from a marathon and only running about 12k a week.

Oh, just a quick 40k on the bike, as one does.

Last year I made a major mistake with this ride. I assumed my body would react to long distance cycling the same way it does to long distance running. I do most of my morning runs fasted - I don't eat beforehand, because my stomach hates food first thing in the morning, and running kills my appetite anyway. I use gels on longer runs for quick hits of energy, but I almost never feel hungry while running, and usually for 2-3 hours after a long run my appetite is minimal.

So going into last year's 75k bike ride, I assumed I should approach it the same way. Long distance run is pretty much the same as a long distance ride, right?

(the faint sound of laughter you hear is probably the triathletes)

An hour into the 75k, I was STARVING. Ready to gnaw my own arm off. The Ride for Heart does have aid stations:

But absolutely everything at the stations is pure carbs. Apples, bananas, and fruit leather. I would have given $100 for a bacon and egg McMuffin, I swear. I wanted protein.

At any rate I survived the ride (with a bit of a headache and a desperate need for REAL FOOD by the end), but clearly my nutrition strategy was WAY WRONG. So this year I had a cheese bagel with cream cheese (CHEESE!) for breakfast, and brought along a few extra snacks to supplement the inevitable aid station fruit (I brought a protein bar and a handful of almonds - didn't end up eating the almonds, but the protein bar was very welcome).

(the above was mostly written for Nicole, who is also a runner cheating experimenting with cycling. Don't be like me, Nicole! Figure out how your body reacts to nutrition on the bike before your 80k granfondo!)

So, the ride itself. After figuring out how to get my bike into my car (not as hard as I was expecting, now that the kids are old enough I'm not working around carseats), I got my stuff organized and prepared to get up stupid early to drive to downtown Toronto and be ready to go for our 6 am start time. Even races don't start at flippin' 6 am. Endurance sports are so stupid.

I thought I had everything, then remembered I still needed my sunglasses, GPS watch, snacks, money for parking, etc. Cycling requires too much damn stuff.

But it was worth it, of course. A few photos I took along the way:

Once I finally figured out how to get the front wheel back on my bike (I don't use the quick release thing that often, OK?), it was time to head to the start.

Waiting at the start line, which is waaaaaaay off in the distance. Nothing but spandex and padded butts as far as you can see. Also, I find it hysterically funny for some reason to listen to the clunk-clunk-clunk of everyone clipping into their pedals.

Aid station

Heading back onto the DVP.

Photo break at the York Mills turn around

Now it's getting serious - the arm warmers are off. No idea what that dude in the background is doing, the sun was in my eyes and I couldn't see shit while I was taking this selfie.

Pic via twitter. I was really tempted to take a pic of this too, glad someone else did! How dare they call us slow!

Cyclists coming across the finish. The finish is always a bit of a clusterfuck for some reason, but the rest of the ride is so awesome I forgive them.

Bike traffic jam waiting to get the hell out of the finish area. They do need to figure out a better system for this.

My brother was smart enough to take off his helmet before this picture was taken. I still look like a mushroom. Cycling is SO DORKY.

One the greatest feelings in the world is taking off your cycling shoes. Or possibly that's just me, since I'm pretty sure my shoes are slightly too small. Basically this moment felt so good I had to document it.

I have three favourite parts of this ride:

1) The very beginning, where you are all HOLY SHIT I'M RIDING MY BIKE ON THE GARDINER!!! It's just flat out cool. Plus this year it was a clear day so we could see the CN tower, Skydome, etc (last year it was fogged in completely until later in the morning).

2) The DVP after the York Mills turnaround. The downhills are outrageously fun. There is one nasty climb, but the downhills totally make up for that.

3) The extra 8k or so the 75k riders get to do on the Gardiner, after the 50 and 25k riders have turned into Exhibition Place. You get the road largely to yourself, it's pretty flat, and you can just cruise along.

For anyone planning to do it, there are two problematic points (three if you count the finish). The first is the York Mills turn around aid station, which is always a bit of a disaster in terms of too many bikes in too small a space. But it's not as bad as the Bayview extension portion, which can be super crowded with very slow 25k riders. Especially the short steep climb to get back onto the DVP - the on ramp is really narrow, a lot of people struggle with the uphill, and two people almost stopped dead right in front of me and it was a bit of a hassle. I am - surprisingly - somewhat good at climbing hills on the bike, so having people creeeeeeeeep up the hills in front of me and being unable to pass them is really annoying.

But those are minor issues in what is otherwise a wonderful experience. If I do it again next year, I may just have to sneak in a third loop on the DVP, just to stretch out the experience a little longer...