Wednesday, April 27, 2011

First race of 2011...plus lots more to come!

I don't know if anyone still follows this blog as i'm kind of lame with how often I post...but the blog still lives...and with the amount of races I continue to sign up for this summer, I guess i'll have lots more blogging to do!

For some reason, in the last couple of weeks, I went bananas and signed up for a bunch more races. It's definitely helping with my motivation and i'm getting quite excited. My race schedule is a bit ridiculous with a couple of races back to back on saturday/sunday...but a lot of them are training runs or just out for the fun of it runs...and i'm not really worried about trying to kill it out there! I did miss my entire season last year due to injury afterall and i want to really enjoy this season. I can't wait! Plus if i'm actually going to do my first 50 miler in August then i've got to get some distance in. Today i registered for my first 50km in 2 years....and it's only 2 short months away. Yikes. I've got lots of work to do!

I joined my brother and his family in Canmore for the weekend. After the Easter egg hunting was finished with the kiddies, Steve and I went on an awesome 23km run all around town on Sunday. It was great and much faster than I usually do long runs...but I was able to keep up without dying. Totally surprised myself! I think that was just what i needed to get my head back in the game. It was fun to do a longer run together again...reminding me of our Transrockies days...and potentially our TransAlpine days to come (2012). We're thinking about it!

This saturday is my first 10km race in a few years...should be interesting. I have no idea what i can do for that distance and i haven't exactly been doing specific speedwork to get ready....just been running fast when i feel like it! These 10km races will be my speedwork for the longer stuff! This is going to be a rolling race with a giant hill involved known as "Blood N Guts"...so i definitely don't expect a PB but who knows.

That's it for now...will be back with a race report on Sunday! :)

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

the long run blues

Easter is upon us...which means a short week of work for most of us with Good Friday off. It's been quite a while since i've had a long weekend off so i'm pretty pumped! I'm hoping our weather is starting to sort itself out...smarten up...and realize it's Spring damn it! The weekend's forecast looks outstanding and I can't wait to spend some quality time outside.

As everyone knows, Monday was the Boston Marathon! It didn't bother me so much last year that I wasn't partaking but this year I didn't even get to think about if I would register or not before it was sold out in 8 short hours. I followed the people I knew running it all day from behind my computer and cheered them on while impatiently waiting for the next 5km update. It definitely helped me with my low motivation lately for running. It really made me want to get back at it already and quit whining and complaining at myself every Sunday about having to do a long run. I go through this routine...ok i'll eat breakfast, let it settle for an hour and then get out there...ok, i'm being a little lazy on this Sunday morning...1 more hour and i'll get out there...oh look at Logan, he really needs to get to the dog park, poor guy...i'll take him there and then get out for a run...all of a sudden it's late afternoon...too late to get there now...and just skip it all together!

When I used to train with the running room it'd be easy as they left on their long run every sunday morning at 8:30. I need to get back to a good routine again...get up early, get the long run over with first thing and then have the rest of my day to do what i want. Makes sense. Stop being such a wimp Deb. Geezus.

Anyway, this weekend my brother and fam are staying in Canmore (a short hour drive from Calgary) with friends so i'm going to have some fun out there. The plan is for some good warm spring skiing at Sunshine on saturday and then a run on sunday with my bro. The run could either be pleasant or not...he's a lot faster and i'm a lot slower than our Transrockies days. Maybe he'll be nice to me.

Happy Easter everyone!

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Snowy Spring Weekend

Springtime in Calgary is ridiculous...i don't know why after almost 5 years of living here I still get surprised by our weather. April tends to go like this...warm temps of 5-10 degrees C and snow melting all week long. The weekend comes and BAM...snowstorm. I remember a couple of years ago when training for a marathon we had 3 weekends in a row of snowstorms in April.

This past weekend the snow began around 10pm on friday night. We were supposed to go backcountry skiing on the weekend but when we woke up on saturday morning at 5am I decided there was no way i was driving on the highways in it. I'm sure if I hadn't said anything the others would have gone anyway but when we checked the road reports and the roads were red and described as treacherous for don't be a dumbass and drive on this....i'm pretty sure everyone realized that i made a good call (whether they wanted to admit it or not!!).

After hibernating for the morning and mid-afternoon while it puked snow all day long, i finally decided to strap on my snowshoes and take Logan out on a big walk. It's fun to watch him play in the snow. He loves it! I wish I had a before and after shot but just picture all of these photos with no snow in them and that's what it was like the day before when i walked along there. I would say we got about 30 cm that day.

Snowy Downtown Calgary


On Sunday we decided on a day at the hill and were off to ski at Sunshine in Banff. It was a beauiful warm sunny day with lots of pow to test out my new touring skis. Check em out...


My beautiful Icelantic Shamans...love them!