Fighting Back, 100km At A Time

I could not take it anymore, on Monday I got up at 6am, only to cancel out on my friend Jen's offer of an A.M. road bike ride. On Tuesday I was up at 5am and cancelled out on our weekly morning ski tour. I hadn't move in two days and felt like I was in a self enforced prison while fighting this cold. When I got up this morning and was peering out at the nicest day of the entire year I ignored all the coughing, sniffling and aching that I'd been suffering from and just went for it!

The sun was shining bright and you could see steam rising from every angle as things were finally starting to thaw out. It felt like the first day of spring! I grabbed my mountain bike n Roxy and was off on a solid 1.5hr 25k ride. The trails were still holding quite a bit of snow and ice, but I'm happy to say that I 'cleaned' the entire route and loved every second of it. By the time I returned home Roxy was ready for a nap, but the day had only gotten nicer. It felt like it was up around 10 degrees or more in the sunshine so I grabbed my road bike and decided to see how I'd feel if I continued on riding.

One hour, became two hours, became two and a half hours, and before I knew it I had covered 75k of road and was sitting at 100k for the day. The sun was starting to crest the horizon and I was heading home to warm up in the shower. It had been an incredible day, the kind of day that makes you truly love life, no matter what your circumstances might be.

I don't feel too bad, all things considered, and think that the fresh air...along with the five litres of sweat, spit and snot that I ejected, actually helped me...at least I hope it did! I guess I'll know for sure when I get up in the morning. Hoping to hit up the road bike again and then some Nordic skiing at night.


On another note, you may be asking yourself why I seem to have this free time mid-week? Well, for anyone not local to Squamish you would obviously not have heard that North Shore Athletics Squamish officially closed it's doors on Monday. This was not an easy thing to take, kinda a dream job for me that is all of a sudden gone. Only one week ago I was looking at possibly buying into this store, then on Saturday I found out that it was over and done with, we were packing it up on Monday! Nine hours later and I hardly even recognized the space that I had spent the greater portion of my days inside during the last fourteen months. It truly is a shame and I know that at least a small portion of locals will be sad to see it go. I am currently weighing out my options for employment, but I know it'll all work out in the end, somehow. Who knows, maybe someone will even take a stab at a new running store in Squamish sooner rather than later. On a smaller scale it just might work, time will tell I guess. In the meantime, a moment of silence if you will. I will miss you dearly NSA Squamish, almost as much as Roxy will. If anyone needs a store mascot please let me know, she's going through withdrawl from all the social interaction already!



GR