Getting Down to Business!

This past week was my first official week of training for the New York marathon on Nov. 7th. Because my foot has been a problem for so long, i've never been able to get into any kind of routine with running and I wasn't getting in more than around 10km for most runs. Lately though, it's been good....real good. I'm hoping that last week was the start of some good training to come.

I was dreading my "long" run of 16km on Sunday morning as I feared that i'd get to about the 10km point and then the foot pain would start and i'd be limping home for the last 6km. It always seemed to be good until around 10km so i haven't attempted anything longer in ages. I was relieved that it all went well yesterday and I was walking around perfectly fine after without pain and again had zero pain when getting out of bed this morning, wahoo! Since one of the causes of Plantar Fasciitis is tight calves, i've been stretching and rolling the S**T out of them, as well as wearing compression socks more often (like all day yesterday after my run!). I think this is a big reason why my foot has been doing so well lately.

Hopefully this is the beginning of a good solid 4 months of training for this marathon. I really miss training and miss running fast. I feel like I have a lot more speed in me and after a great season last year, i'm hoping I can continue to improve from here on out! I've heard the course for New York is pretty tough and not to expect any PBs...I think they say something like, take your marathon PB and add on at least 10 mins to get your projected time. Ah well...getting PBs aren't going to happen all the time and it's not like I need one to have a great race...but hey...they also told me I couldn't PB in Boston and look what happened there ;-) So who knows right? I'm not going to lie and say it isn't a goal of mine!

I'm taking today off but am looking forward to tomorrow already as i'm itching to get out for a run! I'm also already pumped for next Sunday's long run and where I might go.

Summer Fun

What has a slack ass blogger like me been up to lately? Time for a little update I suppose! Since my last post, my weekends have been pretty busy...not really with a whole lot of running...but definitely a whole lot of fun! A couple of weeks ago I drove out to Vernon to visit my brother, sis in law, and niece Julia and cheer on my brother in his first 50 miler...Scorched Sole. He did awesome and it was a long day out there for me...about 30km of running and 3000 ft of elevation...my biggest run since last summer I guess. I achieved my main goal of dropping water bottles off for him at two different aid stations but somehow managed to screw up and miss seeing him run by where I had been waiting for a while to cheer him on. I got bored and started off on a little hike and took a wrong turn off the race course and therefore missed him. I was soooo pissed! Anyways, it was still a good day and a fun weekend.

The following weekend was the long Canada Day weekend and Andrew and I had a wedding to go to in the little town of Taber, Alberta. Taber is where the fabulous corn comes from out here but unfortunately it's not ready till August and that's when they have a big corn fest! Yum!!! It's a pretty little town and many of the guests camped in tents or trailers as it's about 3 hours away from Calgary. Andrew's friend was kind enough to lend us his tent trailer for the weekend so we took full advantage and headed down to Waterton for a little camping and hiking for a couple of days before the wedding. The weather wasn't the best but we had a blast and managed to get out on a fun hike, had some campfires, and even took in a movie down in the village of Waterton. We brought the kayaks but Waterton Lake was whitecapping pretty huge out there the whole time with crazy wind...but as far as I know, Waterton is ALWAYS windy as all hell so that's nothing new!

Saturday we drove to Taber and it was a beautiful day for an outside wedding! I forgot my camera but here are a couple of pictures I took with my iphone of us hanging out by the trailer in between the wedding and the reception.

Andrew and Conrad

Conrad deciding he wanted to test out our kayaks :)

This weekend past, both my friend Leanne and I had friday off. Because the Calgary Stampede started on friday and that day is parade day...usually most offices are closed downtown that day. We decided it was a perfect day to take our dogs and go hiking! We decided on Buller Pass which was a little over 15km and had some awesome scenery! There was still a nice amount of snow around and the dogs loved it as you can see below!