Bulk Barn, and extreme cycling
The new(-ish) Bulk Barn store at Yonge and Carlton is DANGEROUS. I went in there yesterday thinking I'd just check it out, maybe get one or two things I'm out of. Walked out with 19 different things, having spent about 6x as much money as I'd intended to. Too much awesomeness in one place!
On the bright side, my cupboards are probably now well-enough stocked with bulk staples to survive any coming apocalypse(s). With the possible exception of a zombie apocalypse, because I suspect you can't really fight zombies with whole-wheat couscous and hazelnuts. Except maybe by scattering them on the ground so that the zombies slip and fall, and that would be a tragic waste of hazelnuts.
In other accomplishments yesterday, I rode about 22km on my bike, including riding all the way downtown from an appointment at Don Mills and Lawrence (for non-locals: that is a not-exactly-downtown sort of location, and accounted for about 12km of that distance all on its own).
That portion of the ride was an... interesting experience, to say the least. And my second instance of "Ride the City, what the HELL were you thinking?" The route it mapped out for me had the first 3.5 km being on Don Mills Road, even though it was set on the "Safer" setting, which is supposed to prioritize quieter/safer streets. I was a bit edgy about this, but relieved to find that the upper part of Don Mills Road, at least, had a reserved lane at the side for bikes, taxis and buses, so that part was actually OK despite it being a 6-7-lane wide monstrosity. But that lane disappeared somewhere south of Eglinton, and things began to get seriously nerve-wracking there. But I stuck it out (mainly for lack of any obvious alternative) and made it successfully to the point where I was supposed to turn off onto the Lower Don Trail, which promised to be much more enjoyable.
Except for the fact that said turnoff involved having to turn LEFT off of Don Mills onto a little side road. Yes, RTC wanted me to turn left across what was basically a 6-lane highway, full of cars traveling at high speed, with no traffic lights or any other way of getting across the road safely anywhere within sight. And it was nearly rush-hour, so gaps in traffic were few, far between, and very short-lived. Plus, as I discovered when I did finally attempt to make the crossing, the fact that I'd been riding downhill and thus had my bike in 5th gear (second highest, at least on the middle gear which is the only one I ever really use), which meant that starting up was slower than I'd anticipated, meaning that I almost didn't make it in time. My life didn't exactly flash before my eyes, but I was seriously shaky afterwards.
Note to self: never take that route again. Ever. Ever ever ever. NO.
Ironically, when I entered my start and finish points into Google Maps just now in order to get an estimate of the distance I covered, THAT gave me a route that looked much more reasonable: zig-zagging south west through several side streets to a different, much further north access point to the Lower Don Trail, and never coming anywhere near Don Mills Road at all. It did involve a short stint on Leslie, which would probably be similarly un-fun. Especially since I checked the street view and there's no light where you have to make a left onto Leslie, though at least when you turn off of Leslie it's right, not left. And it's only four lanes instead of six. So if it's possible to make it across Leslie safely at that one point, the rest of the route seems much better and safer.
So yes, I'll try Google's route next time. Because trying to turn left across six lanes of rush-hour traffic makes cycling into MUCH more of an extreme sport than I've ever wanted it to be.
Hmm, what else? I finally contacted my local community centre to get the info on their membership rates, fitness facilities, etc. so that I can, hopefully, start working out again without spending as much as I was at Goodlife. It's $63.50 for three months, which covers access to their weight room, swimming pool, and cardio classes - and not just there, but at any community/recreation centre across the city. So even if I end up moving, it will still be useful.
The hours of access are a lot more limited than they were at the gym, though. But if I stay self-employed, or even get a part-time job, I could work with those hours. It would be hard for anyone with a 9-5 job, though, unless they were comfortable getting up at 5am or something. But on the plus side, they have a swimming pool! On the not-so-plus side, the hours of general access to swimming and to the weight room are separated by several hours of access to nothing, at least on weekdays. So no working out with weights and then swimming, like I used to do at the Y once upon a time, except on weekends.
Also, I forgot to ask what kind of equipment is in the weight room - whether it's weight machines or free weights or both. I'm a lot more used to weight machines, though everyone says free weights are better for you. I'm just afraid that with free weights I'd either (a) forget what I'm supposed to be doing, (b) spend twice as much time getting a workout in because half of it would have to be spent wrestling weights on and off of bars, and/or (c) injure myself.
With weight machines, you don't have to think too much about what you're doing, because the machines are all lined up in a particular order that's designed to work well, cover all the major muscle groups if you go through the whole set of them, and come with handy little instruction stickers showing you the proper form, plus you can adjust the weights just by sticking a little pin into the stack at the point you want. So you can whip through a routine quickly, without having to remember exactly what you're supposed to be doing in what order and what the correct form for each exercise is in order to not damage yourself. So it's basically weight training designed for people with ADD. I have very little faith in my ability to remember all the stuff I'd need to for working out with free weights - I'd have to go in there with an instruction book or something. It's not like I can afford a personal trainer...
But still - it's close by, affordable, and even if I can only do swimming or weights on any given day rather than both, that's pretty good. I just have to find out what equipment they have, and if it turns out to be only free weights, figure out if there's some way I can actually manage to work with those.
Those of you actually do work with free weights, how do you do it? Do you actually try to keep all that info in your head, or do you bring in some kind of cheat sheet? And how much longer does it take than using weight machines - i.e. how much time do you have to take organizing each activity, putting weights onto and off of things, etc.? I've heard some people talk about taking 2 hours to do a workout with free weights, but I don't know if that's because they're doing a lot more than I used to with the weight machines, or if it really does take that much longer than working with weight machines... I used to spend about 30-45 minutes going through the whole series of 18 machines.
On the bright side, my cupboards are probably now well-enough stocked with bulk staples to survive any coming apocalypse(s). With the possible exception of a zombie apocalypse, because I suspect you can't really fight zombies with whole-wheat couscous and hazelnuts. Except maybe by scattering them on the ground so that the zombies slip and fall, and that would be a tragic waste of hazelnuts.
In other accomplishments yesterday, I rode about 22km on my bike, including riding all the way downtown from an appointment at Don Mills and Lawrence (for non-locals: that is a not-exactly-downtown sort of location, and accounted for about 12km of that distance all on its own).
That portion of the ride was an... interesting experience, to say the least. And my second instance of "Ride the City, what the HELL were you thinking?" The route it mapped out for me had the first 3.5 km being on Don Mills Road, even though it was set on the "Safer" setting, which is supposed to prioritize quieter/safer streets. I was a bit edgy about this, but relieved to find that the upper part of Don Mills Road, at least, had a reserved lane at the side for bikes, taxis and buses, so that part was actually OK despite it being a 6-7-lane wide monstrosity. But that lane disappeared somewhere south of Eglinton, and things began to get seriously nerve-wracking there. But I stuck it out (mainly for lack of any obvious alternative) and made it successfully to the point where I was supposed to turn off onto the Lower Don Trail, which promised to be much more enjoyable.
Except for the fact that said turnoff involved having to turn LEFT off of Don Mills onto a little side road. Yes, RTC wanted me to turn left across what was basically a 6-lane highway, full of cars traveling at high speed, with no traffic lights or any other way of getting across the road safely anywhere within sight. And it was nearly rush-hour, so gaps in traffic were few, far between, and very short-lived. Plus, as I discovered when I did finally attempt to make the crossing, the fact that I'd been riding downhill and thus had my bike in 5th gear (second highest, at least on the middle gear which is the only one I ever really use), which meant that starting up was slower than I'd anticipated, meaning that I almost didn't make it in time. My life didn't exactly flash before my eyes, but I was seriously shaky afterwards.
Note to self: never take that route again. Ever. Ever ever ever. NO.
Ironically, when I entered my start and finish points into Google Maps just now in order to get an estimate of the distance I covered, THAT gave me a route that looked much more reasonable: zig-zagging south west through several side streets to a different, much further north access point to the Lower Don Trail, and never coming anywhere near Don Mills Road at all. It did involve a short stint on Leslie, which would probably be similarly un-fun. Especially since I checked the street view and there's no light where you have to make a left onto Leslie, though at least when you turn off of Leslie it's right, not left. And it's only four lanes instead of six. So if it's possible to make it across Leslie safely at that one point, the rest of the route seems much better and safer.
So yes, I'll try Google's route next time. Because trying to turn left across six lanes of rush-hour traffic makes cycling into MUCH more of an extreme sport than I've ever wanted it to be.
Hmm, what else? I finally contacted my local community centre to get the info on their membership rates, fitness facilities, etc. so that I can, hopefully, start working out again without spending as much as I was at Goodlife. It's $63.50 for three months, which covers access to their weight room, swimming pool, and cardio classes - and not just there, but at any community/recreation centre across the city. So even if I end up moving, it will still be useful.
The hours of access are a lot more limited than they were at the gym, though. But if I stay self-employed, or even get a part-time job, I could work with those hours. It would be hard for anyone with a 9-5 job, though, unless they were comfortable getting up at 5am or something. But on the plus side, they have a swimming pool! On the not-so-plus side, the hours of general access to swimming and to the weight room are separated by several hours of access to nothing, at least on weekdays. So no working out with weights and then swimming, like I used to do at the Y once upon a time, except on weekends.
Also, I forgot to ask what kind of equipment is in the weight room - whether it's weight machines or free weights or both. I'm a lot more used to weight machines, though everyone says free weights are better for you. I'm just afraid that with free weights I'd either (a) forget what I'm supposed to be doing, (b) spend twice as much time getting a workout in because half of it would have to be spent wrestling weights on and off of bars, and/or (c) injure myself.
With weight machines, you don't have to think too much about what you're doing, because the machines are all lined up in a particular order that's designed to work well, cover all the major muscle groups if you go through the whole set of them, and come with handy little instruction stickers showing you the proper form, plus you can adjust the weights just by sticking a little pin into the stack at the point you want. So you can whip through a routine quickly, without having to remember exactly what you're supposed to be doing in what order and what the correct form for each exercise is in order to not damage yourself. So it's basically weight training designed for people with ADD. I have very little faith in my ability to remember all the stuff I'd need to for working out with free weights - I'd have to go in there with an instruction book or something. It's not like I can afford a personal trainer...
But still - it's close by, affordable, and even if I can only do swimming or weights on any given day rather than both, that's pretty good. I just have to find out what equipment they have, and if it turns out to be only free weights, figure out if there's some way I can actually manage to work with those.
Those of you actually do work with free weights, how do you do it? Do you actually try to keep all that info in your head, or do you bring in some kind of cheat sheet? And how much longer does it take than using weight machines - i.e. how much time do you have to take organizing each activity, putting weights onto and off of things, etc.? I've heard some people talk about taking 2 hours to do a workout with free weights, but I don't know if that's because they're doing a lot more than I used to with the weight machines, or if it really does take that much longer than working with weight machines... I used to spend about 30-45 minutes going through the whole series of 18 machines.