Cold numbers...

I knew it was going to be a long day before it started. I was busy all day in meetings and I wasn't going to be able to leave early. I needed to get on the road by 4:30 pm if I was going to have a chance of getting back from my ride before dark.

The good news is that I got the ride in. The bad news is that I didn't finish before dark. Sundown was around 6:30 pm and I got back at 7:30 pm. It turned out I actually felt safer riding in the dark because of the flashing red light on the back of my jersey. I noticed that in the dark, the cars give me much more room than normal. Most go into the other lane.

My ride started cool and ended cold, around -1 C. It was a good thing I brought and extra set of gloves, about 50 minutes into the ride I put on the second pair. About 2 hours into the ride my feet were really cold, near frozen. It reminded me of when I lived in Winnipeg and as a kid would skate outdoors for too long. Even though I was in my shorts, my legs weren't cold, but my feet and butt were.

When I got home I got the chills. I had to change my clothes and wrap myself in a blanket as I ate my dinner. It took about an hour for me to warm up. Before I started my run I decided to update the Podcasts on my iPhone and next thing I knew it was uploading new system software that took about 25 minutes to install. I was ready to run, but after 25 minutes of waiting I was getting tired and unmotivated.

It finally finished the download. I put on running sweats and a toque for the first time this year. I pushed myself out the door and listened to IM Talk as they interviewed the finishers at Kona. As I was finishing the run, I noticed a REALLY FAT cat up in the distance. It was in the area where retired people live. I was thinking that some old granny had overfed her cat. As I got closer I realized it wasn't a cat in my path, it was a big raccoon.

I got within 10 feet and it wasn't moving and was looking at me. I was trying to think if raccoons were dangerous. All I could think of was "rabies" and that they have that dark stripes over their eyes like a mask and that can't mean their friendly. They look like robbers. I yelled out at it, hoping it would run away. It didn't. It just looked at me. Then I decided to run around it and kept talking at it. It did move slowly, as if it was going to climb a small tree, but it didn't take it's eyes off me. I ended up getting by it, but kept looking back to see if it was coming after me. I didn't get the impression that it was scared of me.

My parents left back to Winnipeg today. Yesterday my Dad took it upon his self to fix our main toilet. The toilet has been broken for close to a year. When you flushed it, you'd have to lift the tank top in order to jiggle the handle to make the rubber valve close. If you didn't, the water kept running. My Dad told me it was an easy fix.

He went to home depot, and ONLY $35 and 6 HOURS later it was fixed. It now works better than it did originally. But the most amazing thing is that I didn't hear my Dad yell or curse once. I must say, him fixing that toilet was one of the best gifts we've ever gotten. It was becoming such a pain to lift the tank lid every time you went to the washroom. Not to mention having to do it for Reid every time he went to the washroom, which was a lot. He drinks lots of soft drinks.

I noticed some key numbers today. First off, it's only 30 days till Clearwater. Then I noticed I surpassed the 6100 km of riding this year and finally, I exceeded 18,500 visits to my blog. I thought those were some cool numbers.

Mod Bike - 2:23:15 / 71.50 km / 29.9 kph / 130 avg hr

Mod Run - 1:11:10 / 8.30 miles / 8:34 pace / 135 avg hr

I included a video of today's ride. You can see the leaves on the trees turning color and falling.