The Winterman2011 recap was getting excessively long so I decided to create a separate special post for the Rideau Canal part of the trip. This was a second bucket list item checked off in one weekend (the other being the half marathon completion with NO WALKING). We definitely got lucky for race day. It was about -12 celcius for the race but the next day it was a brilliant sunny day with a "feels like" -26 celcius. Oh did it ever. We wanted photos but it was nearly impossible to have mittens off more than 30seconds with significant pain. By the time I got back to my accomodations around lunch (after being on the canal for over an hour and then a short walk back) I could no longer move my pinky finger. It would jut out on its own and I couldn't seem to transmit enough signals to the muscles to reign it back in. I could put the change I borrowed from RipVan into my pocket.
The Ottawa friend joined us at a local grocer and escorted us to the Rideau canal. We all donned our skates and took off like....a herd of turtles (thanks for that saying mom). None of us would really be considered skilled skaters and 3 participants had skates borrowed from their hostel. We skated around blood patches and bumps and made our way 3km down the canal to the final hut of sugary goodness. Here are a few highlights from the trip:
The family chocolate milk business.
Babo enjoying the scenery.
The gang getting outfitted. RipVan, Hi-C, Babo (Hi-C's Chilean common-law hubs), The Ottawa Friend.
Determination.
Hi-C smelling the sweet, sweet maple syrup.
Outside the sugar shack.
Babo also smelling the sweet sweet nectar.
The gloriousness of frozen maple syrup on a stick. A first for both these lovely humans. You can barely see Hi-C through her coyote.
The beautiful canal with the picturesque Parliament and bridges....and giant concrete slab of an office building/apartment complex.
A maneuver to get my glove. Careful. Steady.....
The best part of the story is my sore bum. I wasn't sore after the run (my ankle did twinge a bit and I felt like I needed to stretch all day but no muscle pain.....likely meaning I didn't try hard enough lol). But I still came home in pain. About halfway through our skate some kid plows right into the back of my legs. No warning. I went straight down since my balance is precarious on skates even without waist-high safety hazards. All the force was planted nicely on my sacrum. Not the tail bone itself but the flatter part just above. I was fairly stunned for a minute and needed to lay there before getting up. The family kindly came over to see if I was ok. I assured them I was but they pointed out my trembling lower extremities. I didn't bother to point out that I had just run a half marathon and then put quite a bit of effort into staying upright for the last half hour which likely caused the resting tremor. After a short rest on the bench I was good to go and we completed the skate. Sitting down, stairs and walking fast are all fairly painful parts of my day now, though. Oh, memories.
2 comments:
You ran the Ottawa half-marathon?! Wow, awesome!
Apart from how freezing cold it was -- how was the experience?
It was a great experience! By great I mean it really was a test of sanity to keep running that long. And it was cold. That must be mentioned.
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