This past weekend was one of the most challenging for me, because I decided to squeeze in so many events in one day. But I attended all of them and fared pretty well in each.

First Stop: Enbridge CN Tower Stair Climb for United Way
I’m not a morning person, so waking up at 5am was a challenge enough as it is. I didn’t have a lot of time to make myself a decent breakfast before I was supposed to meet my friends downtown for 7am to register for the climb, so I decided to grab some McDonald’s. That was my first mistake. But I would rather have a sausage and egg McMuffin in my belly, then climb up 1,776 steps on an empty stomach. I made it up the the tower in 25:02 minutes… Exactly 3 minutes off from my very first climb back in April.
Now I can blame the McDonald’s I ate, the lack of training, or even my old age, but I’m still proud of myself for getting up those steps without taking a single break for a breather! By the time I got my t-shirt and stuff from coat check it was just after 8:30am.

Second Stop: National Women’s Show
I’m a devout fan of this annual exhibit for women. This is truly the ultimate girls day out. The show started at 10am. since it was in the same vicinity as the stair climb I was able to get there early enough to secure my free goodie bag. I had wrangled up 10 of my girl friends to accompany me and we had a blast. Got some great deals and freebies on food, fashion and wellness. Even got to see Peter Bergman (Jack Abbott from The Young and the Restless). My shoulders were aching by the end of our visit because off all the bags-o-stuff, but it was worth it. Left there at about 3:30pm, because I needed to get home, clean up and change for the Bachata Social later that evening.

Last stop: Kings of Bachata “Love & Hate” Dance Social
Hosted by The Bachata Club.com and Toronto Latin Dance.ca I was super excited for this social dance event. Bachata is definitely my favourite dance since I’ve started Latin dancing. To have a wide array of instructors under one roof helped display social comradery among the salsa scene in Toronto. I got there around 7pm and several DJs played a nice selection of bachata and salsa. I even got a good kizomba lesson during one of the workshops.
What I was looking forward to was the Jack and Jill Freeze Competition. The object of the competition/game is to dance to randomly selected bachata songs, with randomly selected dance partners. The “freeze” addition to the game has the music stop, and the last person to freeze their bachata pose gets booted from the competition until one couple remains. As the competition went on, the remaining couple’s dance technique became just as important as their “freezability”, and I’m happy to say that my partner and I won the competition! It was great getting cheered on by my salsa friends. I am now the lucky owner of a Sony Reader (now I can start reading books again).

What an eventful Saturday!