THE TEAM 990 SHOW HOST BLOGS

As some of you know if you are regular listeners, I am doing a bike ride for charity in August from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto to Montreal Children’s Hospital to benefit the Sarah Cook Fund of the Cedars Cancer Institute for Children.  It is a cause that is very dear to me and so many others who have been touched by Cancer. We lost my uncle to brain cancer a few years ago and my cousin Jeff is a proud survivor of breast cancer. There are 2 sides to this race- the cause, which is obviously the most important, then the training. The latter is what I will chronicle in this blog. With of course the occasional comments on whatever sports stories pique my interest.

SO- I started really training last week which started with basically biking everywhere I need to go and getting in 1 long ride (min 2 hours) on the weekend. The ride is spread out over 3 days. Day 1 clocks in at 188 km,  day 2 is the one that scares me at 255km and day 3 a mere 133 km for a total of 576 km. You can see why training is necessary.

I had done a few 1-2 hour rides by the time I met up with my charity liaison last week- a wonderful gal I know from growing up on the west island-Nancy Theberge. She had a care package that included REAL bike shorts. I'm talking anatomically correct padding and so tiny I though the waistband was actually a leg hole. Needless to say getting into these shorts was a bigger task than any biking I had done till this point. I have, shall we say, a bit of a booty and it is certainly testing the structural integrity of the super spandex used in these shorts. They are however supposed to boost performance and I need all the help I can get.

Last Saturday my goal was to bike to Lachine and back. I thought it would take 2 hours. Instead I reached Lachine in under 45 minutes so decided to continue on to Dorval. I made the mistake of stopping to get off my bike at one point and getting back n what the only time I felt some real fatigue. Ride number 1 I would consider a success. I was home in just over 2 hours and with the exception of a sore ass was feeling pretty chipper.

This brings us pretty much up to today, May 26, 2010. Last night I did a ride out to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve to chart out my plan for this weekend. I did one circle around the track, (I think it is a bout 5k) swallowed about 100 bugs and am pretty sure one worked its way into my system through my eye, but other than that it was a good little 1 hour ride.

ALSO- and this one is for the ladies- I don’t fluctuate in weight. With the exception of when I was rowing for Concordia and was a brawny 145 pounds, I have weighed 135 since I was about 20. I have dropped 5 pounds so far since the biking took over my life. Woo Hoo!

Stay tuned for more updates and links to my fundraising page that details my motivation to do this ride.

A

http://www.401bikechallenge.ca/bio/bennett.html