Lisa Stokes

Awesome Autumn

It was an awesome autumn day for a ride in the country. I headed up Torbram Road only to encounter a road closure that sent me across Countryside Road to Airport Road and then back across Mayfield Road to Torbram. Riding on Mayfield is not for the faint of heart. One SUV passed me with inches to spare.

My friend Gail drove to Algonquin Park yesterday where the fall colours are at 90%. The first few pictures she has shared are glorious. In Caledon it is probably more like 20% autumn colours. I found a few quite pretty places, though.

Approaching Walker Road where I turn to go into Caledon East. There are no shoulders on Torbram Road, but there is very little traffic and those that do come along tend to give me the whole lane when passing.

I stopped in at Gabe’s Country Bake shop for a coffee and date square. There are a couple locust trees in front of Gabes and they were at their prettiest, with enough fallen leaves to create a beautiful carpet of colour, but sufficient still on the tree, to provide lovely golden light. I was surprised how long it took me to get there. I haven’t been in the habit of stopping for a lot of pictures while training this year, but the colours were too pretty not to stop. After a quick break, I headed home to meet Owen for lunch. My ride was 41km. My legs started out tired from jumping rope yesterday and running on Saturday, but warmed up and I enjoyed the ride.

After Owen went back to school I cycled my old bike to Fortinos for a few groceries. I have gotten used to the posture on the road bike now and find the old one, which I rode for nine years, feels odd.

Megan and Alun had the dentist after school. Megan has been grinding her teeth and needs to start wearing a night guard. She had molds made today and goes back next week for the fitting.

I forgot when I rode so far this morning that we train for the CN Tower on Monday nights. Jason completed 17 times up and down as usual; Ryan finished 17 times for the first time this year. Trystan did 15 as his ankle was hurting from turning it at school today. Owen did 12 and I gave up after eight with legs too tired to carry on. Michael joined us for four times up and down and enjoyed walking around the top of the parking garage the rest of the time. He doesn’t plan to join us at the tower, though.

Book of Mormon

What a perfect autumn day it was today. I started out with a quick bike ride in the cool of a perfectly still, sunny morning. The trees were changing colour at the Mayfield Golf Club.

Upon my return home, I had a quick shower, then Lara and Joe picked up Michael and me and we headed to Toronto. Lara and Joe kindly treated us to the musical The Book of Mormon at the Princess of Wales Theatre for Joe’s 50th birthday.

I have seen a number of live shows in the last year. Last September, when Michael and I were in Chicago, we saw Evita. Last November Michael and I took Alun to see Les Miserables. Alun loves musical threatre. The other children weren’t really interested and given the price of live theatre we didn’t try very hard to coax them into coming. The children gave Michael a ticket to see Queen in concert for his 50th birthday on July 28th and asked me to buy myself a ticket to accompany him. We gave Alun a ticket to Wicked for his birthday, which we attended earlier this month.

The Gardner Expressway was closed this weekend so Lara exited the highway at The Queensway. It made for a longer, but more interesting drive than usual. Fortunately, it took just over an hour. We parked under the theatre, picked up the tickets at the box office and looked for somewhere to eat. I suggested the canteen at TIFF, but there was a wait for a table there. We tried Fred’s Not Here, but it wasn’t open for lunch. We ended up at Crabby’s which has a very nice patio and lots of choices on the menu.

Shortly after sitting down, the sun came out and we had a relaxing lunch which felt more like summer than early fall.

After a short walk back to the theatre, a trip to the bathroom, orders placed for drinks and snacks at the interval and a few pictures we took our seats.

The show was very funny with good music and excellent performances. I highly recommend it if you are not offended by expletives and religious mockery.

I would not recommend parking under the theatre. It took about 20 minutes to get out of the parking lot. Given the Gardner closure, we headed north, very slowly, to the Allan and 401 to get home.

Thanks Lara for driving and thanks to you both for a very enjoyable day.

Busy Saturday

Patti and I met this morning to exercise for the first time in about a month. She was away on vacation the past two Saturdays and the one before that had an appointment. Prior to that we rode our bikes on the trail, as my knee was too swollen from falling off my bike to run, but riding didn’t cause me too much pain. I finally got back to running today after a six week break. My physiotherapist suggested a few reps of 30 seconds running, followed by 30 seconds walking, but I hate starting slowly and building at the recommended 10-15% per week. So, we decided on one minute running, one walking. After 15 reps my knee had not started hurting or swelling, but I decided not to push my luck any further and we walked the rest of the way back to Second Cup for refreshment.

I had to leave by 10:15 to get home and pick up Trystan, Owen and Michael. Trystan and Owen had skating lessons at 11 at Jim Archdekin. This was the second week. Last week I was very rushed because I mistakenly went to Terry Miller. This week, although I knew I wouldn’t make the same mistake, I left myself more time.

Last winter, I volunteered to build and maintain a community ice rink in the park next to my house. I had a blast and was out every day for a month for hours working on it and skating on it. My neighbours helped out and it made for very social winter evenings until I fell on the rink and broke my wrist. Even then, I took about three weeks off, and then started going out again in the evening to help with the scraping. Phil, one of my neighbours who helped with the rink, was a former skating instructor for the city. He gave Trystan and Owen some lessons, however, I thought it would be good to give them a session this fall to get their skills honed before we built the rink this winter.

If you are reading this and live in my neighbourhood start thinking about helping out when the weather gets cold. It was great fun and the kids had a blast having a local outdoor rink.

After the skating lessons we headed to the Farmers’ Market for a quick bite to eat and to pick up a few things. Trystan and I had souvlaki. Owen had a frozen chai and pumpkin spice cookie from T by Daniel. Daniel was giving out samples and is quite the character. I highly recommend a visit to his shop. Michael had something from the Pie Guyz. We bought some pears, pork scratchings and perogies for dinner.

Then we rushed back north to Loafer’s Lake recreation centre so Trystan, and my nephew Jason, could take a swimming lesson. It turned out it was too easy for them, so we withdrew them from the session.

For dinner I made a simple tomato sauce, with tomatoes and basil that Michael had grown in our garden, to accompany the perogies. It was lovely.

Tour De Mississauga (#tourdemississauga)

What an awesome day I had today. I have had the goal of riding the 100 kilometre route in the Tour de Mississauga today, since I rode the 60 kilometre route a year ago. On July 1, I cycled 50 kilometres on my hybrid bike and was on track with my training programme. However, as I increased my distance I was finding myself yearning for a road bike so on August 12 I bought a used one. On August 14 at the end of my first ride with clipped in shoes on my new road bike I fell and bruised my tibia. I ended up with a very swollen knee and huge hematoma. I had to stop riding for days and then ride only short distances. The swelling subsided somewhat, but I still have a hard, swollen lump under my knee today.

I have a confession to make. I fell again last Tuesday. That was fall number five. I sure hope its the last. I was very careful with the wet roads and paying attention to clipping out as I approached stops today and successfully rode the 100K without falling. The bruise on my ankle from my fall last Tuesday became much more pronounced on the ride today.

All week the weather forecast for today looked iffy. It was looking quite bad last night and the Mississauga Cycle Advisory Committee (MCAC), the group that ran the ride, put out the following statement.

We know that many riders are concerned about the weather for Sunday’s Tour, and our organizing committee is actively monitoring the evolving forecast. Here is our present statement as of 6:00 pm Saturday, and we will update again at 10:00 pm.

Like virtually all large organized rides, we have no Rain Date. Our policy is that the Tour goes Rain or Shine.

Our current position is that all (5) rides should be able to START at their scheduled times on Sunday, and probably without rain. As always, riders must exercise their own caution and judgement as to whether they ride, and whether they turn back at any point on a ride. Riders should plan to carry some rain protection with them. Reviewing your route map ahead of time is helpful should a quick return to the Square prove advisable, or if you need to take shelter at the nearest community centre or other destination (e.g. a plaza, coffee shop, etc).

The Free BBQ will proceed in any event and we have the use of the Great Hall (ground floor of City Hall) in which to gather and eat and view the exhibits. The BBQ unit can be sheltered outside near the building.

In regard to our volunteer Tour Marshals out on the routes, they are prepared for rainy conditions. Marshals can point out short back turns. We will stay in communication with the Marshals, and all riders may wish follow the @BikeMississauga twitter feed for the latest updates or to provide information from their locations.

We will not begin a ride during a thundershower or storm, and may delay the start of a ride if the weather looks to be clearing up in the near term. There will be safety messaging at the start of each ride, as the weather in evidence develops. Further decisions will be made as necessary.

Two weeks ago a woman riding in the charity event Ride the Rideau was struck and killed by a garbage truck in the south end suburb of Manotick. The weather might have been a factor. It was raining heavily. Given that tragic occurrence I thought the MCAC might cancel the ride.

Later they updated their page with this information.

11:30 update: The MCAC and City Staff will be meeting at Celebration Square at 5:30 am on Sunday morning as planned. At this point the Tour is still moving ahead on the ‘Rain or Shine’ basis, pending further evidence of the thunderstorm risk as predicted for the morning hours. We will provide later updates on our Twitter feed.

I set my alarm for 6am and went to sleep. When I got up, there had been no rain overnight as predicted and it was warm and humid. There was no update from MCAC so I proceeded as planned. As I left the house at 7am it started to rain. I almost didn’t leave, but I knew I would regret it if the weather improved. As I drove down the 410 it began to pour.

There were over 3300 riders registered by the end of day yesterday with the following breakdown:

120k — 440
100k — 525
60k – 1000
30k – 870
15k — 550

The 120K riders were scheduled to leave at 7am and the 100K riders at 8 am. When I arrived at 7:30 I was still unsure whether or not to ride. Many cyclists were ready to go, but sheltering in the garage or under the roof by check-in.

I parked under City Hall and left everything in the car. As I began walking towards the stairs another rider called out to me that she was unsure about riding, what was I going to do? We decided to walk up together and listen to the announcements. MCAC had decided to delay the 120K riders until 8am, then send out the 120K and 100K riders together. About 7:45 the rain tailed off to a light sprinkle. Sandy (my new friend) and I decided to grab our stuff and ride.

I got up to the starting area with enough time to take a selfie and we were off.

Within a kilometre my socks were already soaked inside my shoes. It started pouring again. Within minutes I was completely soaked through. I was a little nervous going down hills. I rarely ride on wet roads and had never done so with such narrow tires as I have on my road bike. I braked gently on the hills and took the corners carefully. Sandy is a better rider than I and I soon fell behind. Just over 100 riders left at 8am, only about a ninth of those registered, however, for most of the ride there was someone to ride near, to chat with or just to follow for help with navigation.

There were very few marshals out and the markings on the road were hard to see. I had planned to stop every 20 kilometres to rest and eat. However, I caught up with Sandy at about 17 kilometres into the ride and we started riding together. I was getting more confident on the wet roads and feeling pretty good. We didn’t end up taking a break until we had gone 35 kilometres. I’ve never gone that far without a break before, but I felt good. We picked the Tim’s in Port Credit and pulled in. Turns out they don’t have any indoor tables. It was still raining hard.

I put my bike under an umbrella at a patio table and removed my trunk bag from my rack. I had put the rain cover on, but the spray had got up under the cover and everything was wet – extra shirt, snacks, iPad and Blackberry. I grabbed some napkins and dried things off as best I could. I went to the bathroom, grabbed a coffee and headed outside to see blue sky! The rain had stopped and there were small patches of blue. Sandy didn’t want to stop for long. Had I been on my own I probably would have headed to Second Cup or Starbucks and sat in a comfy chair for half an hour, but I was enjoying riding with Sandy, so after we took each other’s pictures, and I quickly finished my coffee and a hard boiled egg I had brought along, we were off.

Shortly thereafter, the sun came out and eventually the roads dried up. To my surprise we made it all the way to the rest stop at 60 kilometres before taking another break. There was a very steep hill at the foot of Winston Churchhill, but it was manageable after my ride up the Escarpment last weekend. I had drafted behind Sandy on Lakeshore and she drafted behind me on Winston Churchhill.

At the rest stop I wolfed down one of Megan’s homemade cinnamon rolls and re-filled my water bottle. I did some stretches and we were off, again.

At 80 kilometres I had to stop for another rest. I told Sandy I would see her at the end, then laid down under a tree for ten minutes.

In the end I rode 101.89 kilometres in 4:39 hours of riding time over 5:45 hours of elapsed time. It only took me 15 minutes longer to ride the route today than it took me to ride 71 kilometres last Sunday.

There was an announcer waiting at the finish ride who asked me a few questions and then announced to the whole of Celebration Square that “Lisa has just completed the 100K ride, the longest ride of her life”. He then took my picture in front of the finish line.

I grabbed some lunch and found Sandy and my friend Elaine, who rode her bike across Canada last year, and who is on the MCAC. We enjoyed lunch together in the warm sun before I headed home to sit in a cold bath for half and hour.

Finally I collapsed on the couch with a coffee and TWO more cinnamon buns. After all, its not that often that I burn 2572 calories in one day!

Friday September 19 – Ontario University Fair Day

Today, Megan, Alun and I went to Toronto for the Ontario University Fair. Megan has decided to apply to college, but needs to have two visits to these types of events for her Specialist High Skills Major designation on her high school diploma. Alun is still a couple years away from needing to attend, but accompanied us anyway for the fun. Also, it doesn’t hurt to start thinking about tertiary education early.

We decided to go in on the GO Train since it worked well for Alun and me a few weeks ago when we went to the AGO. I was concerned about finding parking and consulted both GO and Michael, who uses the Malton station when he goes downtown. Both told me parking might be a problem at Bramalea, so we decided to try Malton. Last night Alun informed us that he had to hand something in on Friday so he couldn’t accompany us. We accommodated him by driving to his school first to drop off the paper and then onto the GO station. As we drove past Bramalea, Megan noticed there was lots of parking so we pulled in, as that is my preferred station. It’s closer to home.

I think this is the first time I have entered Union Station on a train.

Union Station is undergoing a major renovation and has been since 2011. It is expected to be completed next year.

We used the Skywalk to get to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) where the Fair was being held.

There were booths set up in the Skywalk by the colleges and Megan was able to collect a number of brochures. There was also a huge line to get through security. I had never seen a security line to get into the MTCC before.

I had a couple items to return to MEC, so I left Megan and Alun in the line and walked to MEC about ten minutes away. On my way back I dropped into Tim’s for a coffee and found that they were selling Smile Cookies, a favourite in our household. I purchased three.

This is the John Street bridge over the rail lines. It’s beautifully done up in the summer with hanging baskets and planters.

I liked the lines in this view of John Street with a new condo on the left and the CBC building on the right with the red crosses on the windows.

When I got back the security line was much smaller. While waiting I asked if this was a new policy for MTCC or just for this event. It was just for the event. They were searching for weapons. I had to put my backpack on a table for inspection while I walked through a metal detector. Once through I stood waiting for my backpack to be searched. After a moment the security guard told me to take my bag. He hadn’t touched it and it was full with my MEC purchase and my jacket on top blocking the view of everything else. I looked at him and said, “I guess I don’t fit the profile”. He just smiled and I moved on.

I met Megan and Alun who had browsed the booths and collected all the brochures they wanted. They had decided to go to the Waterloo presentation at noon and McMaster at 1pm. We decided to eat the cookies to tide us over until we finished up and could head out for lunch.

The Waterloo presentation was interesting to me as Waterloo is my alma mater. I chose Waterloo because of their co-op program. Apparently, they are still the preeminent co-op university in Canada. They told us that it will cost $18-$31K to attend for one year beginning in 2015. Wow! And I just heard a news report recently that fees are expected to rise by 13% in the next three years. As a parent of four it makes me feel ill when I think about it for too long.

They also told us that students earn $37-$77K over the course of their studies when they are in the co-op program. That amount surprised me. That would go a long way to paying for university.

When I returned home I pulled out my tax returns from 1985-1988, the years I was in the co-op program, and found that I had earned $33K. That’s almost $60K in today’s dollars which made me feel pretty comfortable about the range they were advertising. I recall that the Engineering and Computer Studies students made more that the Arts students. I was in the Faculty of Arts.

During the slideshow they showed some pictures of dorm rooms. One of the pictures was taken at St. Paul’s College where I lived for three terms. I was amused to see that the room was unchanged!

After the Waterloo presentation they decided they didn’t want to go to the McMaster one so we sat in on the OCAD University presentation instead.

Afterwards we headed to Boston Pizza for lunch. We were so hungry I forgot to take pictures of the food before we ate.

We then took a walk around the CBC building where we visited their museum. Megan was amused to see the old versions of the equipment she uses at Rogers when she volunteers. I engaged in a little nostalgia when I saw the Friendly Giant and Mr. Dressup sets.

I love the atrium at the CBC.

I also love this view of Roy Thompson Hall from the PATH system.

We headed to Union and grabbed refreshments and caught the 4:15 train.

Alun was completely worn out.

Sunday September 14 – Riding Up The Escarpment

Next Sunday I am signed up to ride the 100 kilometre route in the Tour de Mississauga. Last year I did the 60 kilometre route on my hybrid bike. This year I have a road bike, but fell off it and hurt my knee on my first ride with clipped in shoes. I bruised the bone and it still has not recovered more than a month later. Fortunately, I can still ride but I had to take several weeks off and it messed up my training schedule. Yesterday I decided to do 70 kilometres as my last long training ride. I also decided to ride up the Niagara Escarpment as there will be nothing that difficult in Mississauga.

I rode for 16 kilometres before stopping to stretch which is the longest I have gone on my road bike before a stretch. That put me at the bottom of what I though was a 4 kilometre long climb, but turned out to be six kilometre climb up onto the Escarpment.

I stopped to catch my breath and take a picture at the top of the first hill.

While the ride is generally up hill, for every hill I crested there was another hill to ride down again giving back some of the gain before riding up hill once more.

At the beginning of the second or third hill I accidentally shifted up when I should have shifted down and I lost my chain. With some fiddling I got it back on, but ended up with fingers covered in chain grease. I cleaned the grease off my hands as well as I could but I needed to eat before I got to soap and water.

This is looking south where I just came from. I thought, as I rode up to where this picture was taken that I would be done when I crested the hill.

Turns out I still had this hill to go.

There was a lovely row of trees bordering a farm on the Escarpment where I stopped to have a snack.

I had planned to cycle 1.5 kilometres along Highway 9 to the Tim Hortons on Airport Road, but when I got a look at Highway 9 I decided it looked too dangerous. Fortunately, I took some snacks with me in case I needed them.

I saw this pretty scene just south of Highway 9.

Coming back down the Escarpment I hit the highest speed I have ever gone on a bike – 56 KPH. I headed back south to Caledon East for lunch at Subway where I treated myself to chips and half a litre of chocolate milk in addition to a sandwich as I had burned 1100 calories at that point. Since I hadn’t had my coffee in the morning, I did a 10 kilometre roundtrip east of Caledon East then came back to Gabe’s Country Bakeshop for coffee and a cookie. The ride back home is mostly downhill and put me just over 71 kilometres for the day for my longest ride this year. It was also the second longest ride I have ever done. Back in 2008 Patti and I rode from Cataract to Elora and back over the course of a day. It was 93 kilometres on aggregate and I was never so glad to get back to the car as I was that day.

I am still not sure that I will be able to ride the 100 kilometres next week, but I am going to try my best.

School Construction, Ice Storm Comparison and Climbing

The walls are finally going up at my children’s school this week. Yesterday I counted twelve construction works on the site. There might have been twelve visible on the site all summer if all the daily sightings were added together!

Here are two pictures of the hardest hit street in my neighbourhood during the ice storm. There are almost no trees left.

Owen felt he needed a bit of extra climbing without his cousins tonight. He went up and down six times. I only did three as my knee was a bit swollen from last night’s climbing.

Here’s the view from the top of the stairs looking north.

When we go outside onto the top deck of the parking lot we can actually see the CN Tower where we will be climbing on October 18.

Wednesday September 10 – Carpool to the Climb

Tonight Trystan, Owen and I picked up my nephews, Jason and Ryan, and we had our third stair climbing training session at the hospital. Before we got out of the car I took an usie (group selfie) to submit to this month’s Let Your Green Show contest for the carpool action. Jason climbed up and down 19 times (108 steps each time), Trystan 17 times, Owen 11 times, Ryan 3 times (he slipped on the wet floor and hurt his arm which dampened his climbing enthusiasm) and I climbed 9 times.

Tuesday September 9 – Michael is off to the Old Country

Today Michael flew to the UK to visit his mom for her 80th birthday. He is flying to Birmingham, renting a car and driving to Bristol.

Friday September 5 – Ice Storm Update

Ice storm clean-up continues in Brampton. Many damaged trees have yet to be cut down, let alone having their roots removed. Who know when re-planting will begin. We were fortunate as we have no ash trees which were the most damaged trees due to being compromised by the emerald ash borer. Most of those trees would have had to have been removed over the next few years anyway. We had only relatively minor damage to our maple, oak and locust trees.