April 28, 2009

Weekend Quickcap, Mission Accomplished

(Departing North Vancouver on an absolutely perfect April morning!)

It's late, I'm tired, there are stories to tell and you're gonna have to figure them out via the pics I post cause I'm off to la la land here very shortly. The short version,
-Bike 100km to Port Alberni Sat afternoon
-Meet up with Aunts, Uncles, Cousins. My one cousin just graduated U.Vic and is off to teach in Nepal for four months!
-Eat, drink, be merry, drink, get drunk, eat, up late, eat, drink some more, pass out
-Sunday morning lay in sun counting down to dreaded departure back to North Van
-Back onto road bike, ride 100km home. 80k on Van Island, 20k on the mainland. Expecting there to be a 6pm ferry, there is not. 7pm is delayed, off ferry at 9pm, have to cycle home in the dark. Thankfully I never leave home without my Princeton Tec Eos Bike Light and Swerve Bike Light...a life saver on this night for sure! Arrive home 10pm

-Up 6am, Vanier Park for City T.V. Big Chop Paddle Race news spot
-9.30am-12.30, run 30k with teammate Lisa. P
-2pm-4pm Grab all you can eat sushi lunch with a friend in Vancouver.
-5pm-11pm Home, couch, hockey, bed...back to work this morning...booo work...ahh, I love it at NSA, just wish I could get paid to travel instead...hmmm, something to try to figure out for sure...

(Quick story worth telling, I used to work with 'Pana' at The Chateau Whistler in 2004. At the time he spoke of wanting to open a barber shop and leave the hotel. I talked about wanting to get into running and adventure racing...and leave the hotel. He currently owns two Barber Shops, one being 'The Village Barber' in Lynn Valley, on top of that he now has three houses in Canada, four in India, and is officially 'retired'. Although I am nowhere near retirement, the running and adventure racing has come a long ways for me. It was really cool to randomly run into Pana, having not seen him in four years, and to realize that we had both accomplished so many of the goals we had laid out for ourselves just five short years ago!)

(Don't ask cause I just don't know...)

(300-800 year old trees)

(Stopping off to appreciate the old growth forest)

(And the games begin...)

(I forgot to get a pic WITH Shane, but my friend is the FnB Manager at this resort in Parksville, so I stopped off and begged for some free caffeine to help with the ride home!)

(Proudly rocking the spandex on the ferry ride home!)

(Beautiful end to a great two day weekend on the island)

(Kayak on the water for our 'City T.V.' morning news spot for 'The Big Chop' paddle series)

(Me trying to look cool)

(This new device is INSANE! It's called a Gull Wing and attaches to a surf ski to give it lateral stability like nobodies business. This guy called it 'surf skiing for dummies'!)

(Towards the end of a 30km run with Montrail Teammate Lisa Polizzi...this of course being Roxy and not Lisa!)

(Typical beautiful Vancouver. Mountain, ocean, and some cherry blossoms)

(I caught up with my friend Amber for some all you can eat Sushi to officially cap off my three days away from work. All you can eat lunch for ten bucks...yup, ten freakin dollars and it's got all the good stuff including sashimi, nigiri, tempura, etc, etc, etc!)

An awesome three days off for sure! Training last week. Bike 250km. Run 50km (the 30k with Lisa goes on this week, which will hopefully be a big one)

That's it, I'm already asleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

5 comments:

Jeremy Hopwood said...

Sweet weekend, it was a good weekend for monster training.

Nicola Gildersleeve said...

I wish I could get paid to run/travel. Pete ran into a friend of his who he used to go to school with yesterday. She has been trying to make a living downhill mountain biking in Europe. Its finally happened for her and she can earn enough now to make a living at it and live in Europe...IDEAL! There's gotta be a way gary...there's gotta be a way.

garobbins said...

-Thanks Jeremy, looks like you took full advantage as well!
-Gilder, I'm on it...who knows if the plan will work, but I'm on it...it involves becoming a pirate, but I hear it pays really well these days!

HEATHERRUNS said...

What a great weekend. Its weekends like that where I actually look forward to Mondays... so I can go to work to RELAX!!

garobbins said...

HAHA, yeah, work is the easy part of my weeks:)
GR