It was another Father's day and another summer solstice concert.
I remember once that this concert was in August but I could be wrong.
Kieran's was the first of the more advanced solos.
This is a new milestone since he's now a Book 1 Graduate. And he's not wearing the same outfit that he wore the last few times, cuz he's outgrown it finally. I usually have recorded more of the solos, but this time I sat and enjoyed listening to them. It is amazing how far the kids have come. One student plays a viola and it sounds different. Slightly lower, but beautiful.
Too bad that one kid never sticks around to listen to the other kids play. I won't say who it is, but it's the pirate shirt kid. They did this last year. He does his pieces and then they split. I think it's disrespectful to the teacher, and the rest of the students. But the other thing is that you miss out on seeing and hearing where you could be in a year or two or three.
And they always sit in the front row. So you can't miss them packing up and leaving and meanwhile there's more kids doing solos. It's sad that a parent would teach this behaviour to kids. If you aren't really interested in enjoying the concert then don't come at all. It left a bad taste in my mouth. The only upside was that it cleared the front row. So less heads in my photos!
But fortunately it's the Taste of Little Italy on College west of Bathurst. We have been here for a few years now and this is our first time going. And it was kinda
hot and humid today, but luckily we found an mediterranean place amongst the restaurants on College St.
We hit an ice cream place for a mini cone and another place for a big freezee for Kieran. Cuz it was hot and he needed something cool as we were trying to decide. It's tough when you are hungry to not go for the first place you see. Because when you are hungry you'll eat bad food because you have no filter. But some people like bad food. Bad food just makes you feel crappy afterwards.
So we walked. Almost bought a pizza. Thank God Tereza said we should keep going for another block before we decide. Then we stumbled on Ghazale. I didn't feel like pulled pork sliders or some M&M meat skewers. We got a veggie platter with a samosa and shared it. Then we picked up a pizza slice for Kieran on the way home. And he was good.
Awesome music, great weather, and good food = a really nice Father's day.
It was the 24 Hours of Summer Solstice Race at Albion Hills. This is the largest 24 hour relay mtb race in N.America. And coming into the park it was amazing. Seeing families, kids everywhere camping out. The atmosphere reminded of when we used to take part in dragon boat race festival. Except way less asians, and less asians hawking whatever free stuff there was, even if they didn't need it. The point was, it was FREE.
I've known about this race now for years. But this is my first time ever participating in the event. Got an invite from Raoul if I could do a lap. 17km doesn't seem like much but on a mountain bike it's 1hr of hammering on single and double track.
My energy levels had been low recently and usually for me that means a low CBC or something related to my blood condition. And I had gone out that morning on my road bike to do a ride. But the fatigue got to me and I headed home. Figured I'd better head home to rest. My body was telling me something.
Then I got a BBM. "Hey do you want to do a lap for our team for the 24HR Summer Solstice Race?"
"When is it?"
"umm, today."
I completely forgot it was the Summer Solstice. I should have clued in, since the Junction Summer Solstice Festival is on. Duh.
I wasn't feeling great, but the weather was awesome and I've always wanted to do this race. I think I mentioned to Raoul that if he needed a rider, I would do it. So I said "OK"... after I asked Tresa if it was okay with her. And she let me. So that's when I said "OKAY!"
My energy levels seemed to go up from there. I think because I was excited. Or it could have been from the swedish berries candy I got from Shoppers when I picked up a box of Reactine for Kieran, since it was on sale.
So I had to make sure I had eaten, Cut the Cheese was closed yesterday for a private function and because of that I promised to take Kieran today. And finding parking was a challenge. I remember last year this was a problem, but just south of Annette I managed to get a spot.
And this is when we saw the juggler (video), and the chalk artist as we made our way to Cut the Cheese.
I would have liked to have walked up and down the street, but I needed to rest up, just knowing how my body was feeling currently.
I've ridden Albion many times before with Raoul and his co-workers and some team riders. And so I knew what to expect. And it usually takes me around 90 mins of huffing and puffing and struggling to keep up with them on the single track and seeing which fork they took and watching them bomb down the double track at high speed.
This is the last 100m of the course and the finish side.
At first I was to be scheduled for my lap at 9pm. Which meant the sun would be setting on my lap. Which would make it challenging. But then I got a new message if I could come earlier. Woo hoo! I get to ride in day light.
But then I find out it'd be around 7-8pm. So the sun will be close to setting when I finished and in the woods it darkens sooner. And my eyes are getting worse in low light. Getting old sucks, btw.
I waited for Raoul to go so I knew better when to expect him. 6:51pm. He'd arrive just under 59mins later. It was 7:50pm when I finally got on my bike and headed out.
Beforehand, I had the guys check out my tire pressure and they recommended to let some air out. 32psi rear - 27 psi front. It made a difference.
I started out and was already feeling fatigued and still had a 15km to go. I knew I had to pace myself or else I'd be done. Especially on the hills. Blow up and there's no recovery.
I had to have a helmet light and a tail light. I didn't turn them on right away since it was still day light, but as I made my way 1/2 way through the course I turned it on since it was getting tough for me to see the bumps in the track.
The Norco team guys are so nice. They told me that this wasn't an intense thing. But to do my best, and enjoy the ride. Also their tent is super close to the start/finish and next to the Expo. It's a sponsor perk. They also have amazing gear. The helmet light I had was 1000 lumens. It lit up the track like it was daylight. Didn't help me though when I went endo coming out of a rock garden. Luckily I landed in some bushes and not trees. I was fine, just a scrape on my right ankle. After that I always took the easy route on the right and left the hard route to the experts. I tried my best to lay off the brake and let the bike ride down the track. But my single track skills stink. So I used the brake, but when I saw some others, I wasn't too bad.
I got passed by a 6 or so riders, but I also passed about 5 or 6 riders. So I felt pretty good, I passed most riders on the uphills. My road riding fitness definitely helps here. I did get passed by 2 fat bikes. You can just hear them banging along the trail. And there were 2 young teens that passed me. Wow. And I did pass this one fellow who I asked if he was a solo rider to which he replied "no not solo..i'm just sloowww."
This is Fallsview Waterpark. Where we spent our morning on the RTCC 2015. Not as big as Great Wolf Lodge, but it's not as packed and still lots of fun. There's no lazy river, but that's ok. There is a wave pool and it was pretty fun. If you are small you can ride the waves all the way back to the beach.
I did a video of me going down the Yellow slide there and it seemed longer than what the video shows. It just proves that TIME is relative.
But this slide is nothing compared to the ones we went down at Atlantis. The Abyss was straight down in the dark. And the other one you barely touch the slide until you hit the bottom. All that mattered was the landing.
The Sky Screamer isn't really reflect the name. It's dark and twisty and no drop at all. You get thrown from side to side a lot. It should be called Chocolate Twist.
This bike is really getting ridden this year. More kms on it in the past few months than in the past 10 years. And all for a good cause.
The Ride To Conquer Cancer ride is this weekend.
Wasn't sure if Tresa would be up to riding 100km, let alone 200km over 2 days. But I watched ride her bike on the indoor trainer for a few hours when it was still below 0 deg C. And then when it got warm enough, she took it to the streets of TO.
And we did a couple of rides to Oakville, the first one being 74km and another that was 101km just this past weekend. I made sure she hit the 100km mark to give her a sense of accomplishment that she could do a century ride.
It isn't her legs that hurt, but it's the shoulders and back that ache from being in a stationary position for several hours. But once you get used to it. It goes away. But it takes a while. She'll feel it in her shoulders and back after this weekend.
We all rode down to the start point (Humber College Lakeshore) which was at Lakeshore and Kipling. We got there about 7:30am. Glad we didn't get there any earlier. Otherwise we would have been standing around a lot longer waiting to get going. There's only so many muffins I can eat you know. Those are my Oakley's she's wearing. They look pretty good. And they block the wind. A few years ago in the TdF they wore those in the individual TT.
Departure time was after the 8:00am - kick off which included a national anthem and speeches. Nearly 5000 riders, and $19.5M raised for this year. That's pretty impressive. One team alone raised over $800,000.00. Wow. Makes 2500.00 seem so little. But we hit the goal with 32 days remaining which allowed Tresa (and me) not stress about it and she can focus on riding.
Glad we rode down, although we were a little concerned for Kieran. He said he could do it. And he made it back. 24km round trip. The return was a slight upward slope. So his little legs were tired.
5000 riders raise 19.5M dollars for Cancer Research
There was not a lot of cars on the road so it felt safer with Kieran in tow. But still on Lakeshore, cars are going way too fast and coming close when they didn't need to. The trucks were actually okay. Too many people in a hurry to get to there next destination for no reason. It's Saturday. C'mon slow down.
The Gold Helmets signify a level of donations raised.
It was slow start, but I just got a call and it's 11:45am and Tresa's at 53.5km Lunch pit stop location. There's no more pit stops until Hamilton from here. It's after this point that the number of riders begins to thin out. Or bunch up, depending on how you look at it I suppose.
It was a Metric Century.
Pretty impressive. From our house all the way to the Burlington Skyway Bridge and in and around Oakville, while doing some multi-million dollar home sight seeing.
This is all in preparation for the Ride To Conquer Cancer that will happen next weekend. It isn't the first 100km that will be hard, it's the 100km on the 2nd day that will be hard. But doing back to back rides helps prepare the body to recover for the next day's ride and get used to multi-day rides.
Hopefully the weather is good.
Better than the Ride for Heart.
Rain sucks.
It was Xander's 11th birthday and because Sava had his birthday at Sgt Splatter. They had lots of fun, so one thing led to another and here we are at Paintball City.
And celebrating like we all just went through military training together and ready to receive our badges of honour.
I had seen the welts that Jinn got at Sava's party, so I had fabricated some body armour out of cardboard and old shoelaces that were pretty good. Not restrictive at all. I was pretty impressed with myself for the work. But here is Jinn convincing me that I do not need the armour and it's all part of the fun of paintball.
I wore it in the first game. I don't think I got shot cuz I didn't feel a thing. The next few games I got shot in the hand, front shoulder, and ribs. My armour would have prevented those badges of honour.
It isn't getting hit, it's the fear of getting hit that is scary. And it was Bohdan that seemed to be picking me off. He's so tall, but I had a hard time seeing where he was. Here are the rules.
If you get shot in the body, head or gun, you are out. And you put up your hands so you let everyone know you are out.
Bhared happened to not hear that rule.
I must have shot him 4 or 5 times in 1 game. I saw him flinch, so I thought maybe I missed him. So I tried to get him again. And again. I'm sure I got him in the chest, legs and arms. He was like Al Pacino in Scarface, he would not die. Any ways it was more fun having in the game since he was such a fun target to hit.
Here are the boys showing their badges of honour. You should see the one I gave Sava in a later paintball game on his knee. If you are going to play, don't wear shorts under the coveralls they give you.
One thing that 10 and 11 year olds do in this game. Most of them hide. And if one moves, another moves. It's like follow the leader that hides.
So all you have to do is look for 1 kid, and there'll be a bunch of them huddled together chatting about something. And that's how I picked off Saba. One of my 11 year old scouts told me they were around the next corner, So they send the only adult on their team to go after them.
As I rounded the corner, I was so surprised to see them sitting there, under the window that I pulled off like 4 or 5 shots while running away and screaming in surprise. And I could hear them screaming too. It makes me laugh thinking about it. Ha ha. I'm a coward.
I was surprised to find out I only got 1 kid. But I took him out good. I made sure his badge of honour would stick around for a while. Maybe scar up.
One of the last games we played was Capture the Flag. There was 1 flag right in the middle of the game area and you need to get it and take it to your enemy's side and touch the wall.
In one of the games I had my kids give me cover while I ran and picked up the flag. I tossed it to Joshua so I can send him to enemy territory.
Some kids were so afraid of getting shot that they literally peed their pants because it was so much fun getting pinned down by an adult. Not saying who. But his mom knows who it is, cuz she did his laundry.
If you wanna know what helps make getting hit not hurt so much. It's this. Eat enough and you'll pack enough protection all over. It was good of Song to bring me a box to consume.
Too bad that one kid never sticks around to listen to the other kids play. I won't say who it is, but it's the pirate shirt kid. They did this last year. He does his pieces and then they split. I think it's disrespectful to the teacher, and the rest of the students. But the other thing is that you miss out on seeing and hearing where you could be in a year or two or three.
But fortunately it's the Taste of Little Italy on College west of Bathurst. We have been here for a few years now and this is our first time going. And it was kinda 
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