Back from Toronto

I returned from spending the week in Toronto.
After not being there for 9 months it was weird for it to be so familiar and for so many people to remember us at the Hotel etc.
Here are some pictures, keep in mind we did get a lot of work done.

Tried some weird Halloween soda:

Found some candy Tom would like:

Settled in for a night of Horse Racing at Woodbine:

3 of the 6 of us bet on this winning Horse with winning ticket shown:

View from dinner at Niagara 775ft up. Mike is the one who suggested this place to me last year, now we all love it. But at over $100 per person I did have to do some prework to get approval for us to go:

Then the 4 of us took the leftovers of our Canadian money to the Niagara Casino. We had $35 in total after pooling all of our change etc together, and after a few hands of blackjack I turned it into $105 and we cashed out. At the cage, they asked if I wanted large or small bills, I said large because I had never seen a Canadian $100. My coworker has a picture of us outside where we talked the doorman into letting us take some pictures with a big limo outside as if we were rolling away in that with our winnings.

We took the winnings to a sports bar where I was able to watch the Red Sox game. They had a good local live band who played everything from the Doors to Stone Temple Pilots.

My First Triathlon!

In June Meghan's family ran in the Little Miami Triathlon.
Tom caught the bug and started training with Molly who was the only returning entrant from the June race.
I was interested but too busy to start training regularly (that's my story).
On Tuesday my divorce became final, and on a whim I decided to just try it for fun. At the time it didn't seem as crazy of a decision as doing 3-2-1-Flight at King's Island. Something else I had never considered doing before.
How hard could a triathlon be without any training?



Without a partner I had to enter the Single Kayak division, which was nice because kayaks have to start before everyone else. So, I got a nice early start time despite my late entry (bib #1205 out of ~1240).
Here I am 10 mins before the start, literally my first time in a single kayak. I say it's never too late to start training. It was also the first time in a kayak for 3 of the 14 people in my start time. It was early enough in the day that I was in the mood to talk to those around me.



Kayaking 6 miles in ~1 hr 10 mins
This was a bit harder than I thought so I did coast a bit in some of the moving currents. I thought the canoes were starting at 9am so my goal was to not get passed by any canoes. A male/female team in a canoe passed me at 4.5 miles out. As they passed I told them I didn't want to get passed, but now that I had I could take a break and drink. Then they told me their start time was 8:44 so I didn't feel bad that it took them 4.5 miles to close 6 minutes on me.

Running 5.5 miles in ~1 hr 15 mins
Since this was all for fun and my goal was just to finish I said I would walk as much as needed on this part. My goal was to feel physically good after each stage. It was a very nice scenic trail with farms etc, really relaxing. I ended up running less than a mile, but am a pretty fast walker.

Biking 18 miles in ~1:25
I did not think this was going to be as bad, I thought maybe even the easiest part. This was the hardest part. It seemed to be uphill a bit which was ok at first but miles 11-14 were terrible. Even when you got a flat stretch there was a lot of head wind that seemed to be always right at me. And any stretch where you could see the road ahead seemed to always have a big hill which is demotivating.
But somehow, I powered through and miles 16-18 were relatively downhill so it made it a lot easier. I have no memory of miles 14-16, so I must have been struggling.

I came in at 3 hr and 53 mins which I thought was great for going in Ice Cold. But really I just wanted to finish and feel good after I did.
It was a lot of fun, and so many people helped me to borrow bikes and come out it support me.
Overall a great day.