Treetop Trekking Long Weekend Date

Since Daniel had the day off on Monday for Victoria Day (a holiday in Canada), we made it our mission to do our activity of the month that day. Daniel surprised me and took me to Treetop Trekking (the Brampton location), which was about a half hour drive from our house. For those of you who don’t know what treetop trekking is, it’s essentially what it sounds like; you spend most of your time trekking up trees in a variety of different ways with a zip line component sandwiched in there somewhere. The courses can vary in difficulty but no matter what, you’re always harnessed in.

A brief snippet of what Treetop Trekking looked like…the photo doesn’t do it justice!

Our day began with pulling up to the Heart Lake Conservation Area gates and receiving directions as to where to go. Parking was plentiful and there weren’t really any stressors there. The rates were really affordable, and the bonus here is that there are student rates. Yay for having a valid student card! After going to a tiny welcome desk, we signed some waivers, got a wristband with our start time on it, and then made our way over to the equipment.

Daniel after he got all suited-up.

The guy who helped us get into our equipment turned out to be one of the guides that were floating around the course. He was pretty thorough with explaining how to put stuff on, however since Daniel and I have both been rock climbing recently, it was more of a refresher than anything. Suited up in our harnesses and helmets, we made our way to the start of the course, which was in the forest and more removed from the waiting area. Here, our guide taught us how to safely lip ourselves to the trees, and how to safely zipline. After that, we were free to climb!

I’m not one that’s afraid of heights, but some of these obstacles were pretty high! They tested not only my balance, but they tested my teamwork with Daniel as well. Since Daniel went first through every obstacle, he would yell back to me what he did and if he thought it worked or not. Due to Daniel blazing the trail, I didn’t fall! The most challenging course was probably Kingfisher, which is advertised by the guides as “higher, harder, longer”. Boy were they spot on with that. You even have to sign an additional waiver which says that you as a climber acknowledge that it’s a harder course than the rest of the courses. The ladders seemed harder to climb on this course and the landing platforms could barely fit two people. So challenging, but so rewarding. The icing on the cake is that for an extra $17, could take a final zipline across Heart Lake at the end of Kingfisher and take in some pretty nice views.

I LOVED this date. It was amazing and challenging and super hard all at the same time. I will 100% be going back…especially since I won two VIP passes for taking the best photo that week.

The winning selfie!

 

-Running Fast, Lifting Heavy

Week 3 of Physio

I’m pretty sure I talk about this in pretty much every blog post, but I tore my meniscus two weeks before the Mississauga Half Marathon, (yes I’m bitter about it, haha), and have since began physio. After having to research different physio clinics based on some recommendations from my doctor and from you guys, I settled on Athlete’s Care which has different locations all over the Greater Toronto Area as well as Ottawa. Out of respect for the other patients I couldn’t take any photos in the clinic, but I’m going to give you an in-depth review of my experience thus far. FYI, I’ve had three sessions so far and my physiotherapist thinks I’ll need 4-6 more.

Logistics of the Clinic

The clinic itself is a little confusing to get to. I Google Mapped how to get there but since I live close by, I had a rough idea of where I was going. Google Maps told me I had to walk down a certain street that would later feed into the street that Athlete’s Care is on, however you literally cannot walk down this street; it only goes north and not south, (the direction I need). LUCKLY I know Scarborough well enough that I could get my bearings, but for someone who isn’t familiar with my neighbourhood, this could be troublesome.

The clinic is located on the ground floor of an office building so it has a very clean appearance. The only thing missing is the fact that AC seems to be at a minimum in the clinic. I find this odd since people are moving around and generating heat. I also am always running behind, so by the time I get to the clinic I’m sweating and that really doesn’t make for a great combo.

I had a little hiccup with my insurance on the first visit. I have two insurances, (one through my dad’s work and one through my school, both of which cover physio WITHOUT a referral), however when I informed the front desk of this, they immediately told me that they don’t bill directly to my dad’s insurance company and my school insurance wasn’t going through. This kind of irritated me, because I went from thinking that I wasn’t going to have to pay for anything that visit to having to pay almost $100. I always have issues submitting claims to my dad’s insurance myself, so I was hoping that it could be done for me. I guess not. I was also able to submit the claim to my school’s insurance without any issues so I guess that’s the route I’ll be going.

The treatment area is a giant room with hospital-like beds and curtains that can be drawn around them. I’ve never been there when it’s been super busy, but I’d imagine that it would kind of suck – after all, I almost hit someone with a tennis ball as I was doing an exercise.

The Physiotherapist

Uma! I have nothing but good things to say about her. She’s super sweet, attentive, and listens to all my concerns. She always asks how I’m progressing and what’s normal vs. what isn’t. She also cracks some jokes with me during those somewhat painful massages which is nice.

The Treatments

Uma has me doing a variety of exercises that strengthen my knee, surrounding areas, and test my balance. She’s really through when describing what to do, and gave me a new set of exercises to do in addition to what my doctor prescribed to me.

 

How am I Progressing?

I told Uma this, but I feel like my progress has kind of plateaued. I made huge progress the week following the tear, and then somewhere after my first physio session is when it stopped. Uma said that in her experience, she finds this is common since the meniscus gets such poor blood supply. If I haven’t progressed further than where I’m at right now, I’m supposed to get an MRI and we’ll go from there. I don’t think this will be necessary though, seeing as I went for a short run yesterday with no pain. I was advised though to ice my knee post-run regardless of if I felt any pain, which seemed to do the trick.

Got to roll out the glutes! Check out my my review on this roller here:

What kind of experience have you guys had with physio? Anything else I should be doing additionally that you guys found beneficial to speed up the healing process?

 

-Running Fast, Lifting Heavy

Chicopee Ski & Summer Resort

 

On Sunday, Daniel and I went to Chicopee Ski and Summer Resort in Kitchener, (about an hour and a half southwest of Toronto). Like I’ve said before, Daniel and I like to pick a different activity each month that we wouldn’t normally do. They don’t necessarily have to be something active, but it just turns out that way. We actually settled on Chicopee because Daniel did his bachelor degree 15 minutes away and it’s fairly close to home. Skiing is one of those things that I wish I did more often, but time never seems to permit.

The Weather

The weather was perfect for skiing, (-12⁰C/10⁰F). There hasn’t been a huge snowfall recently so there wasn’t any fresh powder, but the hills were still in great condition. Daniel and I both over-layered which worked to our detriment during the day, but to our benefit at night when the sun went down.

Parking

The parking lot was virtually empty which came in handy since I had to take some layers off in the car as the weather warmed up. My only complaint about parking is that there weren’t any lines to define the spots, so you just have to park accordingly. It wasn’t a huge deal on Sunday since it wasn’t crazy busy, but I could imagine it would be a problem on a holiday or something like that. Parking was also free which is always nice.

Lift Tickets/Rentals

This area is where costs can add up when you’re skiing/snowboarding. An all access lift ticket, (which gets you access to all lifts, runs and terrain park), was $70+tax for the two of us, and rentals were only $66+tax for the two of us! Amazing! At different hills that we’ve been to, a full ski rental tends to cost more since there’s more pieces to rent relative to a full snowboard rental. The efficiency of the rental shop was great as well! The employees were super friendly and even helped me strap my boots up when they saw I was having a little trouble.

The Hill Itself

I guess there are a few aspects to this portion of the post, so I’ll start with the individual runs. There are 12 runs (if you include the terrain park), so it’s a fairly moderate sized hill. The green circle hills seemed to be geared towards families with younger children and there weren’t very many of these hills. For that reason, I’d say that Chicopee is probably for skiers of intermediate-advanced ability.

Each run was relatively wide, however there was one in particular that I found to be pretty narrow despite it being next to trees and also being a black diamond. That being said, it was probably my favourite since it has a fairly steep drop in the beginning and then merges with a blue square.

This run was the narrow one that I was talking about. Still a blast though!

This run was my favourite…I loved being able to weave around the chairlift.

Grub

The chalet/cafeteria area is actually really quant! There’s a little terrace that you can enjoy hot/cold beverages on which gets a really nice view of the hill. The menu is mainly hot dogs/burgers/fries…that kind of thing, however there is a restaurant with a full-fledge menu and alcoholic beverages. I got the poutine and a Cherry Slush Puppy, and Daniel got chicken fingers, a burger, and chilli. All were pretty good.

Overall, I had a great time. Affordable, food tastes good, and close to home! Win, win, win! Thanks Chicopee for a great time! We’ll definitely be back.

Pursuit OCR

It’s November 1^st now!! Does this mean that we can take down the Halloween decorations and put up Christmas ones? Speaking of Halloween, Daniel and I decided to spend the day at Pursuit OCR in the Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto. If you’re ever in the city, I would highly recommend checking it out. Think obstacle course meets cross fit gym. I’ll give you a debrief of our evening there, including specific details, price, and all the juicy stuff.

Daniel and I have a thing where we do one activity a month. We don’t necessarily have guidelines as to what’s considered, “an activity”, but we try to make it something fun and something that we wouldn’t normally do. A friend of ours always finds these cool places around the city to have fun, and this was a recent find of his.

$20 a ticket gets you access to the whole facility, (except if there is a class in a certain area), and in/out privileges for the day. Upon arrival, I produced my proof-of-purchase on my phone and the guy behind the counter gave us a quick tour of the grounds. Aside from one other person, we were the only people there until the last 10 minutes of our stay in which a boot camp-style class started in the free weight area. Daniel and I decided to start at a 10 foot half-pipe, which was trickier than I thought it would be!

After trying the half-pipe and climbing up the floor-to-ceiling rope, Daniel and I decided to race through the obstacle course. The employee that gave us a tour also gave us a walk through in terms of the ordering of the obstacles. At first glance, the direction in which you should go can seem confusing since obstacles are so close together, so this is really beneficial. Here are some pictures of some of the obstacles:

 

Both Daniel and I have done mud runs before, and I can honestly say that this is harder. Having the obstacles so close together eliminates the running aspect and creates a full body-cross fit workout instead.

To finish off the evening, we played around on the bars for bit. After working up a sweat, (and a couple calluses), I was thankful for the chalk that was nearby. Most gyms that I’ve been to aren’t fans of chalk, so this was really refreshing. Upon being tuckered out, we grabbed some Vitamin Water from their drink area and sat down for a bit before stretching.

Would I go back again? 100%. It was worth the money, I had a lot of fun, AND I had a good workout!

 

Running Fast, Lifting Heavy Approved: Yes

 

-Running Fast, Lifting Heavy

Massage Recovery

 

Remember how I said I was going for a massage and I was going to report back to you on how it went? Well, today’s the day and I feel absolutely fabulous. I went to a place called Massage Addict in the Beaches neighbourhood of Toronto. I frantically ran in because I was a few minutes late and still had to fill in the new patient forms, but my anxiety dissipated as soon as I walked into the door. The calm music mixed with the friendly receptionist was just what I needed to shift from stressed to relaxed.

My massage therapist’s name was Leslie and she pretty much had the hands of God. I told her about my run coming up, how much mileage I rack up in a week and the strength training exercises I do. Based on that, she was able to identify the tight areas of my body, (apparently my soleus in both calves are in rough shape), and then work her magic. I think what made it so great was that she really customized the massage to me. Rather than just doing a full body massage, (which I did get), she really focused on the areas that I said I have trouble stretching. Did I mention that she also played Kanye’s Graduation album during my massage? I think it’s pretty spectacular that she asked what kind of music I was into and had a playlist ready to go.

After the massage was done, Leslie showed me some stretches that can help with my tight soleus muscles. It’s crazy to think that in my couple years of running/weight lifting, I’ve never stretched that particular muscle. Kind of embarrassing. She also gave me a recommendation for a yoga app since I was talking about how I hadn’t done it in a while. Overall, it was an amazing experience!

 

Running Fast, Lifting Heavy Approved: Yes

 

-Running Fast, Lifting Heavy