Learning, "Lazy," and Lucky Loop #13!

Starting the ride under ominous skies....

Joy here...My friend, SK, coined the term "Team Sunday," but she and some of the other "sisterhood" who make up that group sometimes get out mid-week too.  You see, now that my running has seemingly been folded into my riding, I'm trying to do two loops of the park per week and even sneak in another flat-ish ride as well if possible, for a total of around 180kms of riding/week (if I can).  And then I like to mix a couple of short, 10-minute, barefoot runs in there too.  I figure this won't necessarily give me the targeted fitness for a fall marathon (a goal that I've said good-bye to, sniff sniff), but hopefully it will give me some all-around fitness as a solid base upon which I can build some future goals.

...the start of the big climb...

That said, not everyone is able to get out mid-week to go for a long bike ride.  Luckily for me, I am now self-employed after leaving the wonderful world of academia, so my schedule is flexible.  Cili Padi is retired, so she can ride whenever she wants, and her husband (Superdave) is a music teacher and also works for the government, and he has fixed hours often in the late afternoon/evening, which allows him to ride a lot during the days; the professor and the trainer also have pretty flexible schedules right now, because the professor isn't teaching again until September, and the trainer is able to keep her Fridays clear of clients to take it as a day for herself; The Man, like the professor, doesn't start teaching again until September, so he's got some flexibility; and Power Penna's schedule is a little tighter, because she's a letter carrier, so her mornings are usually full, but sometimes she can sneak out in the afternoon.

...All the way up in the clouds!

All of us with jobs that allow us to ride our bikes and enjoy the summer sun leaves only SK with a traditional "office job" where she's supposed to show up and sit at her desk to do her work during regular working hours.

However, this Thursday, she decided to tell her office that she'd be "working from home," and came out for an early morning bike ride with Cili Padi, the professor, and me for loop #13 of the season through the park.

...stopping by the lake on the ride down...

In order for her and the rest of us to feel good about her sneaking in a few hours on the bike before starting her work day from home, we decided to make sure that she was able to do some double-duty...i.e. we wanted her to work while she rode!

One of the things that is required of her job is bilingualism.  As a Canadian federal government employee, she needs to be able to function in both English and French.  And lucky for her, Cili Padi is French Canadian.  Her langue maternal (mother tongue) is French.  As well, the professor works at a bilingual university that requires English and French of its tenured and tenure-track professors.  And while my French is rusty, it's locked there in the back of my mind somewhere (and usually comes out once I've had a glass or two of wine to loosen my tongue).  So as we turned our pedals under the darkening sky that threatened rain the whole time we were out there and blew cold winds over us, giving us goosebumps (chair de poule), we tried to make French the theme of the day!

...Success!  Now we can begin the (mostly) flat ride home.

So as we rolled into the Champlain Lookout, high above the Ottawa Valley and the start of the great Canadian Shield, SK proudly announced that on her way up, she learned the French word for lazy, "paresseux."  And I, for one, think that's a job well done, and a good morning's worth of work.

Nous ne sommes pas des femmes paresseuses.

Over and out,

Joy