In a World of Pain

My body's only just starting to recover from a painful last few days. Sunday morning was the Becel Ride for Heart along the Gardiner and DVP. Christian and I woke up at 6:45am and biked down to the CNE to meet with his corporate team. We had a small breakfast then hit the Gardiner at 9:15 and reached the halfway point of the 25km route at 10. We rested for 30 min waiting for the rest of the team and took a bunch of group pictures before turning around to head back to the CNE. Thank goodness I didn't do the 50km this year; even though the 25 route doesn't have the massive rolling hills like the 50, I was still getting a bit grumpy. I did not want to repeat my miserable mood from last year's 50k- I don't think I even looked at my bike for a month afterwards. This time was a bit better- a week break from my bike shall suffice :) We finished the ride at around 11am and rested and ate while waiting for the rest of the team. A few of us later biked to Old York restaurant for a filling brunch where I had some french toast covered in apple compote with fresh fruit.

As if we weren't already exhausted enough, Chris and I headed over to Queen/Sherbourne for a double dragonboat practice- one hour pool training and one hour dry training. In the pool we were taught proper paddling technique. I had no idea how strenuous it is to paddle... there's no way I can do a whole race! My back and shoulders were killing me after that. Dry training was even worse: 2 laps around the soccer field, 5 laps around the gym, situps, push-ups, 2 minute plank, then a game of tag and dodgeball. In the evening our whole team had a BBQ at one of the captain's backyard, so that was a nice relaxing break to end the day.

The next morning, I kept waking up from my sleep every time my body moved because it HURT SO MUCH every time I moved an inch. Can we say itai!!! I literally had to roll out of bed since I could not bend anything in my body. I had a dodgeball game that night and I was so pumped to play even though I was aching all over, but come the afternoon exhaustion and a headache had set in. I really should have just gone home, but the crazy person in me still told me to play. And I did play, just not that hard :P The upside was that playing made my headache go away... or maybe I was just so much more sore that I forgot about the headache o_O

Needless to say, my initial plan to play badminton on last night was scrapped. And Eyal had actually wanted to bike downtown to work with me this morning, but I was like helllllllll nooooo. This girl's gotta rest. ZZZzzzz...