Happy Canada Day!

I’m drinking coffee, knitting a little (very little) on a sock, and watching a storm roll in. The sky is grey, the wind is blowing, and there’s a warning that severe storms are approaching the GTA.  (That’s the Greater Toronto Area.) It’s also incredibly hot. It’s only 8am and it’s already 32 degrees outside with the humidex, and it’s only going to get hotter.  All of this would just be interesting if I wasn’t sitting here knitting a sock and drinking coffee with my riding shoes on, because I’m about to leave on the second 100km ride of my back-to-backs.

Back-to-backs are a training requirement of the rally. Sometime before this Sunday, everyone has to do two 100m rides, on two consecutive days.  This seems reasonable to me, considering that the rally itself is six 100km consecutive rides, and proving you can do two seems totally legitimate – or it least it did until Jen and I realized that due to responsibilities related to being grownups, yesterday and today are the only days that we can do them – and do them we must, regardless of the weather.  (It is taking every shred of maturity I have not to fake appendicitis right now.)  We got it done yesterday, despite a flat, and the fact that it was so hot out that it was like riding through Satan’s armpit for five hours.  If I cop out today then yesterday was for nothing, and by wool, yesterday cannot be for nothing.  It was just too hard not to count.

So, Canada Day on the road it is, and you’ll have to wait for a missive about my lovely country this year, although if you like, you can go back and read what I’ve said in the past.  I swear they’re fun.  2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. 2013.

Wish me luck.