called into action

"you want me to what? Haven't I done enough?" say my legs.

"why, yes, you really have, but let's rediscover some of the muscles that have taken a break and make them work -- it'll give some of you a break.  Sound good?  Great"

Picked up my road bike yesterday from getting some maintenance done. I also decided to change the seat from the bulky padded women's seat that came standard with the bike. While I had done a proper bike fitting last fall, I still found the seat to be uncomfortable, finding myself rolling left to right when extending my leg.  Not a lot, but enough to be annoying.

Got my ass sit bones measured (don't worry, no one touched my bum -- just had to sit on a board, which left a nice multi-colored imprint; the color determines the size of seat I'd need). **I'm already regretting writing this...lol.**   

With that information, I found what I was looking for; also a women's designed seat, but sleeker -- not quite as much of a 'comfort seat'. It's per-ty on my bike :)  Picked up the bike yesterday, and have been itching to ride.

Once dinner was done, I headed out for a quick 15k ride this evening before the sun set.  It felt so great to be back out, some speed again.  Muscles burned that haven't been used in a while... it was a great feeling. 

I'm looking forward to doing some longer rides this summer, and had planned a B&B cycling trip in Quebec this summer, but need to put that on hold. With moving, and my unexpected trip to California, and another major trip planned for February, and vacation timing, it's not going to happen this year. I'm bummed, but mark my words, it will happen... just a bit later.

Yesterday being Earth Day, I thought this was pretty interesting.  My next race is Sporting Life 10k, on May 3rd.  It's a fantastic race, straight down the heart of downtown Toronto, lots of entertainment along the route, and fairly downhill. I will be taking this one super easy, as it is the week before the marathon -- thankfully I'm only out there to have fun anyway :).  

Got an race newsletter today via email, which showed the following:

New 'Single-Use' Timing Chips

In 2008, we had 8600 finishers in this event at a peak rate of 300 finishers/minute. This led to 30-minute waits in the finish chute and dangerous levels of crowding, especially for those that required medical attention in the finish area (which is where 90% of medical issues occur on race morning). With 13,000 participants expected to take part in this year's event, we had no choice but to move to single use chips. The single use chips are recyclable and bins will be placed at the end of the finishing chute for those that don't choose to keep them. Also, by using single use chips we have eliminated the need for 50 volunteers at the finish line as well as the 30+ litres of diesel fuel required to transport them to/from by bus (not to mention the gas required to get students to/from the designated pickup area). Also, you may remember that the reusable chips were fastened to your shoe with cable ties that were cut off and disposed of. These new chips do not need a cable tie to be fastened to your shoe. Furthermore, we've cut the number of paper items in our race kits in half which will save nearly an entire cube truck of waste. This, in combination with the above items, more than offsets the 20 shoeboxes worth of recyclable chips needed to ensure a safe finish line for those involved. Hope the above demonstrates that we put a lot of thought into the impact of Canada Running Series events on the environment.

Well done, I love it! Not only for the impact on the environment, but I have a scrapbook where I keep all my race bibs etc, something else that I can now add! Is this common for other races out there?  I got to keep the timing chip from the 30k race as well because it was a commemorative chip, but think this will become the new trend?