Bricks

Have been reading this book on triathlon training and find it super motivating and interesting. And after chatting with my brother Nick over the weekend about the race, training, etc. I decided I'd get my first brick workout in before dragon boat practice last night.

I probably should have picked a cooler day. I probably should have been more aware of what I'd eaten earlier in the day and what I had to eat later. I should definitely have been better hydrated. I should have worn a hat. Lots of coulda, woulda, shoulda.

In the end I biked from home to the Olympic Basin - 10k, then dropped my stuff off as quickly as possible (hello transition!), did a 3k run and had enough time for a 1k cool down walk. But a normal person probably would've stopped there. Not me. I ate a quick 100 calorie granola bar, drank some water and jumped into the dragon boat for an hour of paddling practice. (Our first competition of the summer season is this Saturday!) After that, because I still wasn't finished ... I had an apple and went and did a short 30 minute intense weight training session in the gym with the team. And finally, biked another 10k home again. Boy, the shower I had after all of that was great!

In all I burned roughly 2000 calories last night. That sort of freaked me out. So I drank 500ml of chocolate milk, and was still thirsty, so drank some water and a bit of leftover protein shake, today's pre- and post-workout breakfast snack.

Am going to have to pay better attention to what I eat and drink. And the temperature.

But back to the main point. I did a brick workout! Bike and run. And I lived. The first kilometre of the run was rough. My heart rate was still elevated from biking. I ran a little slower than I normally do because of that but the upside is that my shins didn't bother me at all and they still feel good today. Originally I thought I might do a 4k run but the F1 put a stop to that and it was probably just as well. The temporary stables around the track/basin are up now in preparation for the race in June so I couldn't do a full circle of the basin. That alone is probably what saved me from puking during DB practice - but it was close!

Did a very light workout this morning at the gym. Tried to keep my heart rate between 130-140 but it still went up to 150 on a couple of the intervals. Oh well. I'm taking it easy tonight.

Survived my first brick workout. Yeah, me!

Pictures!

Right, so the pictures from my trip to New Brunswick are up here.

And, as an added bonus, here are a few pictures from Nick, Sue, Darcy & Wesley's visit this weekend.

Oh yes, I'm home

Arrived back home on Friday night. Saturday had practice, then had to run a few errands. Spent most of Sunday fiddling around with my not-so-new laptop, transferring files and not getting the wireless to work. So although I've downloaded the picture off my camera, I haven't gone through them yet and that means I haven't put them up on flickr yet. But I'll get there.

Acadian Shore

Shediac is about 20 minutes from where I'm staying and was really easy to get to. Arrived there by 9:30am and enjoyed an hour walking up and down Parlee Beach before the rain started.

Tried to find a couple of places that looked interesting in the guide book, but of course, they weren't open yet for the season. One of the places even looked to have burned down during the winter, or was undergoing some kind of renovation. By 11:30 I had made my way to Chez Léo's Fried Clams and ordered a lobster roll. It was great! A bit mayonnaise-y for my taste and I was surprised that the lobster meat was cold - but it was delicious! I should maybe have ordered another one ...

From there I headed back east along the Acadian Shore toward Cap-Pelé and found another great little scenic road to drive along. At Cape Jourimain, I nearly ended up on the bridge to PEI! (Must pay more attention to road signs.) I followed the scenic road most of the way until Upper Cape (now into the Tantramar Region) and stopped a number of times to take a quick picture by the roadside. It was so beautiful. By this time it had been raining on and off since I'd left Parlee Beach and I had had about enough so I headed back to Moncton.

After a late lunch at Cora's, I returned the rental car to the airport and caught the shuttle bus back to the hotel. Feeling a little tired out. Probably from all this fresh sea air! Going to relax for a bit and probably head down to the pool in a little bit.

Had a great weekend! Looking forward to another busy week at work in the Dieppe office and then will be very happy to get back home.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! Sorry I couldn't be there. Hopefully Dad is treating you to something special.

Fundy Coastal Drive

Got off to a great sunny, if cool, start this morning. Made it to my first stop, Hopewell Rocks, by 9am. As I sort of expected, the place was closed. Apparently tourist season here doesn't start until May 17. There was a sign stating that the place was closed and if you entered, it was at your own risk. Sooo ... I entered! And boy, am I glad I did! I spent the next 90 minutes in stunningly beautiful landscape, hiking from look-out point to look-out point and enjoyed the warmest and sunniest part of the day there. I even walked on the ocean floor! Although having the entire place to myself was at first a bit on the creepy side, I got out of my head and started really listening to the ocean, the birds, the leaves rustling in the trees. What an incredible morning! By the time I got back to the entrance there were three other cars pulling up and getting to go do the same thing I'd just done. I was glad I didn't have to share the place with other people (and I'll thank you, Mother, for keeping your remarks to yourself.)

Next I headed to Cape Enrage. Is that the best name ever or what?! Somehow I was driving too fast and missed the exit for it, so ended up heading straight to Fundy National Park and figured I'd stop back there on my way back, which I did.

First of all, Fundy National Park is huge. I only stopped at a couple of the hiking stops. Apparently there's something like 50k of hiking trails! I only hiked about 6k of them. But 6k of rugged and beautiful trails. It was very windy there, clouds had covered the sky and the temperature had dropped. I was glad to have 4 layers of clothing. And still I wasn't quite warm enough. Where did I stop? Hmmm ... let me check my map. I stopped at the Covered Bridge and took a bunch of pictures there. Then on to Plage Point Wolfe Beach, which was just over 1k, there and back. Then on to Matthews Head (4.5k loop), which provided some spectacular views of the Bay of Fundy. And finally on to Herring Cove, which was another short 1k there and back. By this time, the wind had really picked up and I had both my sweat shirt hood and my rain jacket hood pulled tight around my head. I could've used a pair of gloves too!

Finally back on the road, I headed to Cape Enrage, caught the exit this time and made my way up this crazy half paved road. Of course, this place was still closed too. I wanted to walk over to the lighthouse but was so cold by this time that I just couldn't do it. I only took a few pictures from the look-out point and then jumped quickly back into the car. But I can see that it would've been fun to stick around for a little while on a warmer day.

Arrived back in Dieppe just before 5pm starving. During my hike at Matthews Head, I had lunch on the go because there was no food to buy inside the park. After dropping off my bag, camera, etc., I decided I needed pasta. Headed to a fun little restaurant called Graffiti and had a delicious lemon dill linguine with scallops. When I got back to the hotel I finally took advantage of the hotel pool and hot tub. Even better - I had it all to myself. There wasn't a single person there.

Have pretty much decided I'll head to Shediac and that area tomorrow. It's raining now but am hoping it will only be cloudy tomorrow, and maybe just a little warmer, please?

First Week Done

What a week. As excited as I am to go out and explore New Brunswick tomorrow, right now all I have energy for is sitting in my hotel room eating pizza that I ordered in.

It's been a good week at work. We got all kinds of stuff done and I think I finalised a record breaking 100+ invoices to clients in the last 2 days. Insanity. But am proud of everything we did and feel we accomplished a lot this week. Next week should be a little less stressful and I hope to spend less time in the office and more time out in the evening doing stuff.

Pizza's here ...

Moncton, here I come!

The last thing I was thinking about yesterday morning when I got up was where my next trip would be. I worried about the weather, if I needed my umbrella, etc. Nice banal stuff.

By the time I got to work and started reading through my emails, that had changed. All of a sudden I was wondering if I'd like to try working at another of my firm's offices for two weeks. With a "nothing to lose" attitude, I put my name forward, got my team's approval and somehow, by mid-afternoon, I was the lucky winner of two weeks hard work in Moncton!

In all honesty, with the work that's going on right now in our department and our current staffing problem, I never thought they'd choose me. I know other people applied to go (one in fact, was the guy who works next to me). Why did they choose me? I can think of these reasons: they want someone to get work out? That's me. They want someone who knows her way around the billing system, the time reporting system, the expense reporting system, the client network? That's me. They want somebody bilingual? That's me. They want somebody who works efficiently? That's me. They want quality work? That's me. But that's a lot of other people in my office too, so in the end, I'm still not sure why I got so lucky.

Anyway, ticket is booked, hotel is confirmed and I'll be on my way Sunday afternoon. I had the choice to come home on the weekend but have chosen to stay out there and do some exploring. There are already a couple of things on my "must-see" list: Bay of Fundy (want to see if I can walk on the Ocean floor) and Magnetic Hill (have your car roll up the hill all by itself!). This list will surely get added to while I'm there.

Better make sure to charge my camera batteries. You know I'll take lots of pictures.

I wonder if there's a dragon boat team I could paddle with ...