Pine Line Runner

Calgary 1/2 Marathon Race Report

2011-05-30T11:19:00.001-07:00

Whew...I don't remember half marathons being so hard! It's been 3 years since i've raced one so maybe i've forgotten? Or maybe in the past i've gone out easier and tried to have something left in the tank for the end? That didn't happen yesterday. I pretty much went balls out from the beginning...it's almost like i've forgotten how to race since i missed last season...it's like i don't know what i'm doing...or maybe i'm trying something new to go all out from the start to see what will happen? I dunno, but if i do something stupid like that during the next marathon i run, i'm pretty sure i'll be walking it in across the finish line. Luckily the half marathon is shorter where you can kind of experiment and get away with it to a certain point.

Anyways, here's the break down of yesterday morning. I live very close to the start of the race so I left my house around 6:30am to jog the 10 mins to the start and had a little time to line up for the porta-potty. After that it was time to line up and pretty much get ready to go for the 7am start. It was a beautiful morning...sunny, chilly though at 1 degree C but definitely my favorite temperature for racing!

The gun went off and everyone went nuts as per usual and I spent a bit of time dodging around people. Even though I started close to the front I still had a lot of dodging to do. My first couple of km went by quick and I felt great...then I got to 3 or 4km in and thought, I feel like crap already...i had a terrible sleep of maybe 4 hours total (but not consecutive) and I was tired...and i wasn't sure if i even wanted to do this anymore. All of these doubts started entering my head. I don't know what my problem was but it wouldn't stop! I remember thinking, wow, i would really love to step off to the side right now and stop altogether. I almost feel like the only reason i kept going then was because I'd have to walk or jog back the same distance to get to the start which would suck! Also, i thought, it's going to be so lame if I stop during a half for no real reason other than i feel like crap and i don't feel like racing at this pace...if anything, just slow down and keep running!

Yeah, i had serious negativity going on for at least the first half of the race. I forced myself to keep at it and to try and focus on smaller goals like just getting to the next km marker instead of thinking about the finish and the pain i've still got to go through to get there.

Once the race got off 14th street and turned west onto Memorial I knew we'd start seeing the leaders of the half on their way back. I started counting the women that were infront of me...there were 9 that passed and then 2 just right infront of me so that meant i was sitting in 12th. I was catching the 2 infront and I really wanted to make the top 10. The girl right infront of me was relatively easy to pass once i did, and i never saw her again. The next girl was tougher...i'd pass her, she'd pass me, then we'd run next to each other for a while.

Finally I think the last gel i consumed started working and my legs picked it up and took off. I didn't see her again but i did look over my shoulders quite a few times to see if she was sneaking up on me. Funny, i realized that it's the exact same girl i caught up to and passed towards the end of my 10km a few weeks ago. I wonder if she knew it was me?

I was good then till about 1km to go when the 10km racers that started a half hour after us and had been running in a different lane on the road than us, all joined in with us for the last km as we rolled through the streets of Bridgeland till the finish. It was not fun. Trying to dodge this insane crowd of 10km'ers in my last km when I literally had nothing left sucked and definitely took more out of me than i wanted. There was a tiny "hill" on the way in that i felt like i could barely make up after that. I turned my last corner and finally saw the finish. The clock had just rolled over the 1:30 mark and I hoped that my chip time would get me under but no such luck. I was still pumped with my finish at 1:30:07...a huge PB of 7 mins...and good enough for 10th female overall. Not too shabby.

I've definitely started off this season with a bang and i'm pretty pumped for what's left to come. I have a lot of work to do to get faster...and definitely need to do real speedwork training for these road races. It's been virtually nil so far. Aside from the K-100 relay coming up at the end of this month, i'll be on the trail for the rest of the summer which i'm happy for. It's much easier on the body, there's great scenery, and it's just a lot more fun! I'm still thinking about doing the Victoria Marathon in the fall but will make that decision later on.

Hopefully it won't take me too long to recover...the 50km is just 4 weeks away!!

May Long Running

2011-05-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

Team Pine Line was back together again this past long weekend for some fun trail running. I left Calgary after work on Friday and made the long drive out to Vernon. I didn't get there till about 11pm BC time and had to be up at 6am to get ready for a big morning of running with Steve. I'm not a morning runner anyway so having to get up early plus a long night of driving before didn't help!

It was not pretty. I haven't been on any trails yet this year (quite a bit of snow out there in the mountains) and haven't been doing a ton of hills or anything either. The only advantage I have was living at a higher altitude than my brother so it was nice to have something going for me. He still kicked my butt though. I was impressed with my skills going uphill...but downhill pretty much shredded my quads and i've been sore ever since!! That day we ended up doing around 26km with 3800 ft of climbing. I didn't go home and crash on the couch like i fully expected...managed to go out for a bit and take Logan to the dog park.

Sunday I woke up pretty much unable to move easily...i couldn't get down the stairs without holding on to the rail...same goes with trying to sit on the toilet...needed a wall or something to help me down. I don't remember the last time i was that sore!!! But, we had a 2 hour run to do and it was pretty much all uphill from the time we left the house till we got to the top of "Vernon Mountain" (actually it has no name apparently but a few people call it this). I have no idea how much climbing we did but i was thrilled with this run...i didn't walk anything...just kept on trotting up to the top. Felt great. Next came the downhills which i could barely get down in anything faster than a snails pace...Steve would take off and would have to stop and wait for me. It was sooo painful....and probably equally as painful for him having to wait for me! Clearly my uphill skills aren't too shabby but i've got to do some work running downhills so I can get some Iron Legs for that 50 miler in August!!

After Sundays run my legs toast...I took 2 days off and then ran the past 2 days on the treadmill to try and loosen them up. Today is the first day i could sit on the toilet without help so i think that's a good sign lol :) Hopefully this means i'll be ok for Sunday's half marathon? Yikes. I have a goal of breaking 1:30 but i'm not sure i'm there yet...i'll definitely be happy with anything under 1:33 though. Wish me luck!

10 km Gone Right!

2011-05-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

After my first 10km of the season being a bit of a gong show...I started to become less thrilled about the upcoming Mothers Day 10km as last week progressed. 10 kms hurt...and now I have to endure another one! I'm not a speedster...i don't know how to race these things! Regardless, I really wanted to do well and start off my 2011 racing season on a good note and prove to myself that while I missed all of 2010 due to injury, I can come back and be better than I was in 2009! It's a lot of work to get back to where you were...and I'm still not there in terms of endurance...but my speed is definitely coming back...

Even though I had the 10km race on Sunday of this past weekend, I didn't want it to cause me to miss out on a longer run. So I met my friend Charlie on saturday morning for a 22km run on the very rolling pathways of Bowmont. It was a beautiful morning for it and was happy to get out as I knew it was supposed to rain in the afternoon and most/all of Sunday. By the end, my legs were feeling heavy and sore...i don't think they were completely recovered from the previous weekends "race". After some good stretching, I put on my compression socks and wore them for the rest of the day. They definitely helped!

Sunday morning came and I woke up as I do on most race mornings...cranky (wait, that's every morning) and thinking how much I don't want to race today. I'm not a morning person people...my body might wake me up early everyday, but it doesn't mean i have to like it! Breakfast always makes me feel better and helps to wake me up so I started to feel better after that and finally start to get pumped up for the race. Andrew got out of bed and told me he was coming to the race (even though it was cold and rainy out) which made me happy. I didn't expect him to come on such a gross day! He proved to be the ultimate boyfriend supporter :)

The race starts out in front of the Chinook mall and they had opened it early so we could all wait inside. That was sweet and the mall was packed with runners. I did some stretching, said good-bye to Andrew around 15 mins before the start and went outside to warm up in the rain. I just ran around trying to look like I know what i'm doing to warm up...but I don't. When I try to mimic what some people are doing in warm ups I end up looking like an idiot so i've learned in the past to just do my own thing.

Anyways...the race got underway and of course I went out fast...it's hard to hang back and try and do your 1st km slower than you'd like and of course i didn't...i went out guns a blazin and just tried to stay relaxed yet fast. It worked...for about 4 km i was thinking, yeah i could keep this up..i might come really close to 40 mins for this sucker! Then I got to about 5km and I thought...oh no, i think i'm running out of steam. Shit. It started to rain harder which I didn't notice too much until I realized my feet were completely soaked...they were actually sloshing around in my shoes. It didn't really bother me...just an observation.

There were a few hills in there that I didn't expect (but that's what happens when you don't check to see what the route is beforehand! lol). And while the hills sucked and I felt like i was starting to suck...i realized that is where i kept passing people...on the hills. Damn skippy! I got through them...enjoyed the downhills when they came...focused on speedy quick leg turnover and concentrated on getting to each kilometre mark. Finally there was 1km to go so I tried to pick it up as best I could. I knew I wouldn't come close to 40 mins but I wanted to get as close to 41 mins as possible...I crossed the line in 41:20...a new PB by 1 min and 17 seconds. Woop Woop! Andrew was there at the end to cheer me in and had a yummy hot Starbucks beverage waiting for me...what a guy :)

So yeah, great race...it hurt a lot...and while I'm going to continue to work on my speedwork this season...i think i'm done racing any more 10kms until maybe the fall. Maybe then i'll be ready to break 40 mins? Next up...the Calgary half marathon in 2.5 weeks. I'm a little worried...not sure if I can go fast for that distance yet but I guess i'll quickly find out!

10 km gone wrong

2011-05-02T18:21:00.000-07:00

While chatting at the end of Saturday's "10 km" race, one guy put it best when he said "well that was a 10 km gone wrong!"

I won't go into long annoying details but the gist of it is this...after about 200m or something from the start...one of the volunteers was standing in the wrong spot and therefore pointed us in the wrong direction. She was in fact supposed to be a little further down the route before pointing us where to go.

Now before you start thinking...well, you should know the route and where to go anyways...yes, yes this is true. THere are 2 points regarding this... 1.She was standing in the middle of the road we were supposed to go straight on and pointed for us to go left. 2.My friend Garrath who was running it with me knew we were going the wrong way right off the bat. But what are we to do when the leaders are just up ahead and i looked behind and the entire race was following us. Where do we go?

Eventually we did turn around and ended up back at the start after completing 4km. Then we started again. Blah. By this point i had lost all steam and just wanted to stop. 10kms are hard...and while i could have been half way through by now...i was starting again. I had no desire to run the whole route but Garrath ended up convincing me to just go with it and have a good training run.

So that's what we did...14km later I was finished. I don't know how they have decided how to determine who came first and all that or if they will. I'm definitely happy that in the end i forced myself to do the 14km and go with it. But boy did i hurt. Why the heck was i so silly to register for a 10km anyway...and two in a row in fact? Now i've got to do this all over again on Sunday! Lucky for me this should be a relatively flat and easier course. So we'll see what happens!

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

2011-04-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

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! :)

the long run blues

2011-04-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

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!

Snowy Spring Weekend

2011-04-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

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!

March Madness

2011-03-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

Oops. Somehow February flew by and I only blogged once during that month. I can't believe it's March already! Come on Spring! As running continues to go well for me i'm getting more and more excited for Spring and Summer. It's gonna be awesome! Yesterday I ran my longest run in....well...probably since i got injured 16 months ago! I ran 20 km! It was glorious! :D

Actually, while i was running it didn't feel that way...after an hour went by it started to feel long and my legs started to get tighter and more and more stiff. Remember when 20km used to be a nice "short" run? Ah...can't wait for those days again! Part of the reason i found it hard was likely the fact that i added some serious hillage to it throughout. Gotta work on those hills so I don't suck out in the mountains!

Skiing has been fun too...a week ago we were at WhiteFish in Montana for a little ski trip...what a great place! It was my first time skiing there and it was awesome! I almost didn't get to go as I realized the morning of the trip that I needed a passport...and when i went to go look for it...i couldn't find it!! I tore the house apart for a good 1.5 hours until I gave up and went to work. It has always been in the same place but when i moved a few months ago it got thrown in a random backpack...glad i eventually found it when i got home from work!!

This weekend we're off to Fernie for 3 days for some more great skiing...they've been getting tons of snow! Hopefully i'll have some pictures after this trip...i've been
sooo lazy on ski trips with my camera. I do like to take pics of me and Logan though :)

I gotta feeling...

2011-02-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

I feel like a runner again! I have been running regularly for the past 3 weeks now and things are great. I'm slowly building up some longer runs again with doing a 13km and a 15km the last two Sundays. Man, these used to be short runs, it's crazy. I can't wait until it feels that way again! For now i'm just building up for the Calgary half marathon on May 29th. I registered for it yesterday and i'm excited. I haven't raced a half marathon in a few years now so i'm pumped...and it's a nice shorter race to break me back into the racing scene. Then it'll be all trail all the time all summer long! :) I'm stating right now a goal to break 1:30...let's see what happens shall we?!

Yesterday we got a huge dump of snow that covered a lot of ice we had and it was slippppery (i.e. fell down while walking Logan!). So last night I headed to the gym and the treadmill...which i'm actually not minding as much as I used to. I played with the incline throughout my run for some hill work and then ran my last mile as fast as my little legs could go...they've still got a pretty quick turnover and i think i'd like to see that on camera cuz sometimes it feels like they could fly right off. But yeah, a quick turnover is gooood...so i'm going to appreciate my short legs a little more for that reason :) Now I just gotta turn them into IRON baby!

Gotta get me some Iron Legs!

2011-01-24T11:44:00.001-08:00

So...I decided it's about time to lay down a goal...and it's a big one...I just registered for my first 50 miler baby!! The Iron Legs 50 miler! It's close to home...about 45 mins from Calgary...and I think it'll be just the 3rd running of this race but I do believe I have run part of the course in the Powderface 42 I raced in 2009...recap here. That was a tough race so I can't imagine what the 50 mile might be like in that location!! Yikes! It's not until mid August so I think with all the trailrunning I do in Kananaskis in the spring/summer I should be good to go by then I hope!

I'm also hoping to get in a 50km sometime before that...maybe in June. I might go back and do the Scorched Sole 50km I raced back in 2009...recap here and pics here. I've heard this year they have a new course in a new location so that sounds good. And I think my bro is potentially doing the Scorched Sole 50 miler again this year so it'll be cool to be out racing at the same time!

Now that I have a real goal set down, i'm pretty excited!

Daydreams

2011-01-19T19:39:00.000-08:00

I like to read running blogs...they inspire me...i like to know what's going on in the trailrunning world...but i definitely hate being on the sidelines...and not really making any race plans. It's frustrating. There was a time when I used to spend a lot of time daydreaming about this race or that race and if i could fit this race in etc...now I daydream about the training I wish i could do...and running 30km for fun again...and when my next race might be and if i'll be in shape like I was before my injury first appeared 16 months ago. Dang I hope so...there are so many cool races and trail runs i want to do...i've just scratched the surface...1 season of trailrunning/racing under my belt...what a tease!

Running is coming along...albeit slowly...what used to be an "easy" or moderate pace is now hard...a 10 km run is long for me...i miss the days when a short run was like 20km! All my runs have been feeling pretty slow and puttering along and last night I was fed up with it. I decided to pick up the pace and see what these legs/feet could do! I have to say, it was the best i've felt running in a long long time...almost felt like the good ol days...almost...like i might finally be starting to get back to what I feel is normal for me!

Seems like everyone out there is posting their big fancy race plans for the upcoming season...and i'm still deciding what my first race might be...

Barefoot Beginnings

2011-01-11T07:51:00.000-08:00

Ok so I know it's only Tuesday and I said on Sunday I was going to try and be more positive about this cold weather but it's proving to be really hard right now. It's soooo hard to get out of bed when it's dark and -25 C...I was the biggest crank-ass in the world when I woke up. Good thing Andrew wasn't home to enjoy it :)

It's looking like all of my running will be at the gym this week! It wasn't as bad when I used to run at lunch as it's usually sunny out there which compensates for the cold temps. But since I started my new job I usually run after work so being dark and that cold is not my idea of a good time!

Last night I ran 5 miles on the treadmill and then followed it up with some weights and core work. I was stretching after my workout and started thinking about The Barefoot Book I read some reviews on yesterday....and it inspired me to give it the old college try. I've heard it's best when starting out to keep it slow and short...so i jogged around the track at my gym for 5 mins barefoot!

It felt kinda cool...it's interesting, like you automatically run differently and it seems natural to not land heel first (which seems normal in running shoes). I like the idea of doing it to help strengthen my feet. If i'm at the gym i think i might try doing it for 5 mins a couple of times a week after a workout and maybe one day working my way up to longer periods of time. Who knows. I look forward to trying it out in the summer on some nice soft grass though. For now, maybe the treadmill will feel softer than the track?

Until next time...

D-dot

C-C-C-Cold in Calgary

2011-01-09T19:18:00.001-08:00

This weekend marked the beginning of another cold spell in Calgary and it only continues to get colder as our week progresses. I think today was a high of -16 C with a windchill of -28 C. Ugh. Anyhow, we have a long winter ahead of us so i'm trying not to dwell on the weather too too much. Best to just bundle up and get out there anyhow.

I decided to not have a workout or run today and took it easy...especially after surviving my first day back on the weights yesterday and waking up pretty dang sore. It's weird as i find when i get out of the habit of lifting weights i don't miss them at all...and once i start doing them again i always wonder why i stopped. It's nice to feel strong so i'm going to work hard at getting that back.

After having an unplanned afternoon nap I woke around 3:30 and decided to bundle up and take Logan out for a nice long walk. I put on my biggest down jacket and my ski pants, made myself a yummy latte and off we went! I love that I don't have a wussy dog when it comes to winter. Logan had a blast!

Standing on McHugh Bluff with a wintery downtown Calgary in the distance

All the ski hills around here received a bunch of snow this week/end and I really really wanted to go but Andrew has been sick since before New Years Eve and just can't shake this cold/flu. It probably would have been damn cold on the hill today anyhow so lets hope for next weekend!

2011...off to a great start!!

2011-01-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

So, I don't want to get too excited but...I just ran my 3rd run of January...and of the year...I just finished a run making it my 3rd day in a row of running! Man does it ever feel good. Yes they were short runs (6.5 km, 7.5 km and 8 km) and yes they were slow runs...but I was running each day! I'm going to take a break now and do some other things for the next couple of days and try another run later this week. Wahoo!

This year is off to a good start and i'm already getting excited about the months to come! I'm going to continue to keep them short and easy for now and see how things go!

Good-Bye 2010!!

2010-12-31T16:14:00.000-08:00

Alrighty...it's the last day of 2010...time to put all of this being injured business behind me and welcome in a new year and hopefully a fabulous year of running ahead of me. I'm excited for the year to come and for what might lay ahead. I don't really have any set plans...just playing it by ear really. For the last month i've been running on the treadmill 2-4 times a week, along with other workouts...and Christmas Day was my first run outside in ages...it felt amazing!

I hope that run was the first of many and it'll be nice to start thinking about racing again in the not so distant future. My plan right now is to see how my foot likes to run throughout January and if all is good i might start training for the Calgary Marathon at the end of May. I'm not signing up for any races until i know i can run them uninjured...i'm just going to see how things go and enjoy running whenever i can!

Happy New Year and hopefully i'll see you out on the trails soon!!

It's been a while...

2010-11-12T07:28:00.000-08:00

So...it would appear that I just up and abandoned my blog altogether hey? Anyone out there miss me?! Yeah, i pretty much gave up on it as I remained on the injured list. I guess originally this was intended to be a running blog and since I wasn't really able to run anymore then I didn't feel like just getting on here to complain about being injured and how much i miss running!

Well being injured wasn't really the only reason i haven't been blogging...i guess i've just been busy with life in general and took a brief hiatus. Since i wrote last, here are a few things that have kept me busy...I took a trip to Newfoundland, I moved house, I quit a boring job and started a great job. Life is good right now...and once I get past this running problem then it'll be even better!

My last post in July would make you believe that things were good and i was getting ready for a good 4 months of marathon training for NYC last weekend. Sadly that race didn't happen for me as you may have suspected. I'm not "depressed" about my running situation anymore...i do get bummed now and then but i've kind of accepted that taking real time off is needed and that's just what i've been doing. Now that i've had this foot problem for over a year and missed a great running season...and sat on the sidelines and watched my brother and friends have a blast in so many races and on great training runs...i've realized that i really don't want to miss another running season. My focus is getting healed and ready to go for next season!

I'll try to start blogging more regularly again as I do miss it! And now that winter is upon us, you can expect lots and lots of ski stories and pics that's for sure! Andrew recently purchased a VW Westfalia and you can definitely expect some adventures in that on blogs to come :) I'm friggin pumped!

Not sure how Logan feels about it yet :)

Getting Down to Business!

2010-07-19T11:30:00.000-07:00

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

2010-07-12T08:39:00.000-07:00

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!

K-100 Race Report

2010-06-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

Saturday was my first race of the season...exciting yet depressing at the same time...I can't believe it...i'm so late starting this year because of my foot. But guess what...the race turned out great and I had zero pain whatsoever during the run and even afterwards it was just a little stiff but no big deal at all. I'm so happy and relieved, what a great day! This means there are definitely more races in my future this summer, wahoo!!

Ok, on to the good stuff. I arrived at the start of Leg 7 way early because last year I arrived a bit late to the start of my Leg and didn't want a repeat of that. I barely had enough time to use the bathroom before my teammate had arrived and it was time for me to go! I do like arriving early but saturday was a bit too early...if I had known, I would have brought a book! There's no cell service where I was either so I occupied my time with a few games on my iphone. I was feeling sleepy and even dozed for a bit. Finally more and more people arrived so I figured it was time I get my running gear on and get psyched! The sun was out and it was starting to get hot. I was feeling pretty anxious waiting around and wondering when our runner would come along!

I was feeling nervous as I haven't raced since October and have been injured ever since so I have had majorly inconsistant "training" until recently. When Tanya arrived (our Leg 6 runner), I took off fast...way too fast...what was I thinking? I couldn't help it though! I felt great and it was a rediculous downhill for the first 4-5 km so I took full advantage! It felt effortless to hit 4 min/km and I was loving every minute of it! At about 5km was the start of a hill, which seemed to go on forever...it was only 2km but it felt like forever to me! I was impressed that I flew up the first part of it feeling good...then it flattened and turned into a bigger hill. That was where the suck happened...I was still feeling strong initially but all of a sudden it started raining and I was running into a gross headwind. I immediately felt like ass. I cursed myself for going out too fast...rookie mistake!...and just allowed myself to slow down...and then finally I crested the hill and it was flat once again.

Up to about the 11km mark it rained and was super cold...my arms and legs started to go numb but I actually felt pretty good. I was relieved it wasn't hot out there and preferred these conditions anyday! My teammates in the support vehicle brought out a longsleeve for me but I decided i'd rather keep going as is. Even though the weather was kind of gross for part of my leg...I soaked up the amazing scenery out there...wow, Kananaskis is so beautiful. I ran into Blaine (another fellow Newfie and ran Transrockies last year as well) before the start of my leg and he had said he thought Leg 7 was the most scenic of them all. I think he was right! I just wish I had some pictures to show!

Anyhow, I took a gel at about 11km and it gave me a huge kick in the ass...suddenly I felt great again and my last 5km flew by. I kept surprising myself with the pace I was able to hold...and really relieved that I wasn't going to let my team (or myself) down. The last 2km had a lovely downhill to lead me into the finish and I just let my legs go. I was hurting but it felt great! I ended up finishing the 16.5km in 1:15:29. Not too bad. Bring on some real training again and speedwork. I can't wait! Man I love to race!

Our team did awesome! And I can't wait to do it again next year! We finished 3rd out of 28 in the Mixed category and 21st out of 164 teams overall.

First (and hopefully not last) Race of the Season!

2010-06-18T08:02:00.000-07:00

A year has flown by since I ran in the K-100 relay last year and i'm back to do it again tomorrow! Because I was training for a ton of trail stuff last year, including Transrockies, I had opted to do Leg 5 which is the hardest leg of the relay so I could work on my hill training! It was pretty tough indeed and I happily refrained from volunteering for that leg this year! Here is my race report from last year in case you missed it!

I wasn't sure for a long time that I'd be able to run it this year because my foot has been giving me problems for such a long time. But i'm happy to say it's doing quite well lately and although my fitness is nowhere near where it was last year, my team still wants me so I said that the best I could do would probably be 5 min/km (~ 8 min/mile) for the 16.5km that is Leg 7...one reason is because of my inconsistant running/"training"...and the other reason is because I don't want to kill myself racing and risk hurting my foot...and screw up my chances of running the rest of the summer and training for the NYC marathon in the fall.

Here are the stats of the leg below and while the profile pretty much makes it look like a piece of cake since it's all downhill, i'm not so sure. With any luck I will find it fairly easy and maybe all the downhill will help me run a faster time...guess you'll just have to wait for my race report next week! Wish me luck!

LEG SEVEN
START: Roadside turnout 860m past the service road at the top of a small hill.
DISTANCE: 16.5 km
DIFFICULTY RATING: 5 - 6
FASTEST RECORDED TIME IN 2006: 1:02.27
PACE: 6:06 per mile
DESCRIPTION: The drop from the Highwood Pass continues through the first 5 km with a 170m loss of elevation. The last 11.5 km are moderately hilly with a further overall elevation loss of 90m. The course has now entered the Kananaskis Valley. The surface is older asphalt.

Beautiful K-Country!

2010-06-15T19:27:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, Andrew and I went camping with some of his friends down in K-Country in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. While everyone had plans to go fishing on Saturday...Logan and I had other plans...we were going trail running, wahoo! I decided since it was a bit of a warm day for a husky (18 degrees) that we would run around Upper Kananaskis Lake (16km) which is pretty flat and we can pretty easily go down to the lake for him (us) to cool off!

Unfortunately Logan doesn't know how to pace himself as he likes to take off and go balls out for as long as he can. By about the halfway point he was getting tired and I realized this run was going to take a lot longer than I had intended! We stopped lots to take pics and for him to cool off a bunch. I was pretty happy when we saw Andrew at the parking lot when we were just over 14km as Logan was so beat that I had already decided we were going to walk the last 2km to where the guys were fishing. Turns out fishing had not been so good and everyone else had gone back a half hour or so earlier and Andrew had to wait for me.

I had an awesome day out there though and vow from now on to not put my dog through torture like that again...only if it's a cool and a non-sunny day! I think he prefers hiking anyway :) Here are some of pretty pics from our run around Upper Kananaskis Lake!

I heart Yosemite!

2010-06-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

Over 2 weeks ago now, Andrew and I took a short trip down to San Francisco...with most of our time spent on a little road trip from there to Yosemite for a few days of camping...with a stop in Santa Cruz along the way. Upon arriving to SF, we discovered it was Memorial Day long weekend in the States...oops. I always thought our May long weekends happened at the same time...dang. It definitely made things difficult...especially when we hadn't reserved any places to camp etc...but we lucked out a few times. Fewf! Since it was a while ago now, I feel like just having a photo blog of our trip so enjoy!

Care for some Rice-A-Roni?

2010-05-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

Why haven't I been blogging? It's not cuz I don't have fun stuff going on to talk about...just haven't felt like writing much I guess. But today I feel like writing...i'm in a great mood and I feel like sharing! I'll give you a little hint...if I blurted out "Rice-A-Roni" in conversation...would anything come to mind?

If you continued on by singing "...the San Francisco treat!" then you've guessed it! In 48 hours from now, Andrew and I are going to be on a plane...heading to San Francisco for a mini vacation! I'm pretty sure there won't be any eating of Rice-A-Roni on this trip however :)

I don't think i've been on a vacation since running Transrockies in Colorado last August so it's definitely about time! I've never been to SF but our time there will be brief as what we're mainly going to do on this trip is hike and camp (with maybe a little run in there somewhere :) in Yosemite!!!

I'm freakin pumped to be going there...only wish we could stay longer but i'm sure we will make the most of every minute there! We booked our flight in early January and finally the trip is here! Andrew and I spent the day yesterday getting all of our gear ready for the trip and also spending a little money at MEC on some things we needed.

I'll be back next Tuesday and promise to update soon after with a good blog post and some sweet pics of our trip! :)

Wanted: A new sport to love

2010-05-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

I haven't really been the best blogger lately...sorry about that. That tends to happen when running isn't going so well for me. There's that saying that comes to mind..."if you don't have anything nice to say..." yada yada yada, you know the rest :)

So i'll save you all the depressing talk about my foot as i'm not sure what happened...it went from what seemed like almost better, to really hurting again. And I didn't make any changes in distance or anything to my runs. Oh well. Back to square one.

After a brief session of extreme annoyance and anger, i've since calmed down and just decided I will have to mix it up and do a bunch of other things while I anxiously wait, hope, pray for my foot to get better. I need it to heal within the next 2 months so there is still a hope of me to start training for the NY marathon that is in November. I've already pretty much realized that all of my other racing goals for the summer are likely to be thrown out the window. So just let me be able to start 4 months of marathon training beginning July 1st on a happy foot...and i'll be a happy gal.

My friend had borrowed my road bike last fall for a test ride and that's where it remained over at her place for the winter. So tonight i'm getting it back and have decided i'm going to try and learn to love the bike. Is it possible for me to love something else as much as I love to run? Skiing has come pretty darn close this winter...maybe i'll feel the same way about cycling, who knows. Might as well get in some good crosstraining eh? Winter has made an extra long appearance in Calgary the past couple of weeks so if it's too cold to ride outside I guess i'll just suck it up and put the bike on my trainer and do that for a bit.

This weekend i'm also going to head back to the pool for my first swim since I think the fall. Sometimes I just don't know how I grew up as a swimmer as I find the endless laps boring...even when I mix it up with sets. I dunno but once I manage to get through a session I do always feel much better. It is a great workout and I love how loose all my muscles feel after! Plus there is an added bonus of a nice hot tub sesh at the end!

Oh and one other thing that I finally decided I needed to get back into is weights and core training. I did my first workout on tuesday and I can still barely move today...it's kind of that good pain, but a little bit more intense...ok a lot more.

So that's it...that's what's going on with me and running. The future is unknown! Everything else is going well though. A little extra winter made for a great day of skiing at Sunshine last sunday! I'm pretty sure that will be my last day of skiing this year, though I bet it would still be great this weekend too. My friends are heading to Europe on vacation tomorrow and i'm taking care of their little westie for the weekend...he just happens to be Logan's best friend too. It should be interesting as I don't have a fenced in backyard so it'll likely be madness at the house.

Have a great weekend!

Oh, Hello Winter...back so soon?

2010-04-28T07:44:00.000-07:00

Sigh....

Winter storm warning for
City of Calgary issued

Intermittent rain changing to snow by Thursday morning. Snowfall amounts of 10 to 20 centimetres by Thursday evening in most localities.

Oh my...why did all of us Calgarians think we were in the clear after the last couple of months of fabulous springlike weather? Winter always comes back to bite us in the ass...when will we ever learn?!

lovely view from my office window

Wednesday has begun with cold weather and pouring rain...and then I guess it'll change to snow later and into tomorrow. I'll take another pic tomorrow to see if we really did get what they called for. At any rate, i've got a date with the treadmill again at lunch. Fun times.

This weather likely changes any running plans I may have had for the weekend...but perhaps in a good way. If we're going to be getting this snow in Calgary, we'd better be getting a load of it in Banff so I can get one final and fabulous ski day in this year. Then I promise to do a longish run on Sunday! I've got to get out of this 10-12km safe zone i've been running in and test my foot out on some longer stuff...otherwise maybe i'll be resorting to only 5 or 10km races all summer!

Less than a month to go and i'm heading to San Francisco with Andrew for a little vacay. Most of it will be spent in Yosemite camping and hiking, wahoo!! I'm sure we can fit in a little trailrunning as well :)

Banff Weekend Adventures!

2010-04-18T17:42:00.000-07:00

I love Banff. Yup, I need to move to a mountain town...that's all there is to it! It was hard to leave today after a fun weekend in the mountains! Thank goodness I live only an hour away so it's easy to enjoy an adventure whenever I like!

Earlier in the week I had emailed Leslie's husband Keith...friends I met at Transrockies last year...and asked him if I could join them on a trail run this weekend if they weren't doing anything too intense. Leslie is training for a 100 miler in June so she had a 7 hour run planned on saturday, while Keith is training for Transrockies Bike AND Transrockies Run again (with Leslie as his partner) that are both in August. Whoa that sounds pretty intense eh? Anyhow, he said Sunday was a good day for a run with them...i'm not up to their level of training so I was hoping for something at the max of 2 hours.

What was originally just to be just a trail run on sunday...turned out to me being invited to ski tour with Keith on saturday, stay for dinner and the night at their place that night, and then go running on sunday! How sweet is that? I love Leslie and Keith...they're good people...my kind of people!

I met Keith at Sunshine resort at 8:30 where he told me we were going to be in fact resort skiing today instead of ski touring. He had brought the wrong skis and while he could really go home and get them pretty easily decided the avalanche danger was pretty crazy anyway! Apparently the report literally said "a good day to stay home and garden". Ha! I didn't mind either way, just happy to be out there and going skiing! Keith has been skiing for 30 years and lucky for me used to be a certified ski instructor. It was pretty much his mission to teach me how to ski properly...my own private instructor, wahoo!! It was great and by the end of the day he had me doing stuff I've been trying to do or having trouble with all season! I don't know if I stopped smiling the whole day! :)

Another beautiful day at Sunshine!

By lunchtime it was getting super warm...probably 15 degrees on the hill I'd say. The snow was changing to soft slushy stuff and we quickly began sticking on and slowing down almost instantly even on steeper stuff. It was frustrating and I was getting annoyed. Keither had an idea to take his lip balm and rub it into the bottom of his skis with a papertowel. I was surprised when it worked like a charm! It allowed us to get in maybe another 4 or 5 runs!

Lip balming the skis!

Lip balm ski wax magic!

After our day of skiing Keith and I went back to their place to eat our "1st dinner" around 4pm while we waited for Leslie to get back from her running adventure. After "2nd dinner", we decided to go for a walk up Tunnel Mountain. I've never been and it was awesome! It was only about 20 mins to walk there from their doorstep and another 30 mins to the top.

Check out 3 pairs of sweet sweet Saloman shoes!

After a great day all around and a nice evening hike, we decided to reward ourselves with some mini eggs and Ben & Jerry's before bed. Hello Cherry Garcia! Why have I never had that before? OMG! What a great day! Needless to say I slept like a rock last night!

This morning after a little sleep in and a great breakfast, Leslie took me trailrunning! My first trail run of the season...sigh...it was fabulous! I can't believe I haven't been trailrunning since October. I briefly felt like a newbie again but that quickly changed and we were rolling along some fun trails!

Johnson Lake

Leslie - really...the girl ran 7 hours yesterday...you'd never know it!

Care for a swing?

So yeah, this was a great weekend....sad that it was potentially my last ski day of the season (yet ending it on a really great note)...but super pumped for my first trailrun of the season!!! Huge thanks to Les and Keith for showing me an awesome time!

it's amazing what a little run can do!

2010-04-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny how going for a run can completely turn your whole day around? I was having a pretty awful morning and didn't get a great sleep last night either so I wasn't sure how i'd feel at lunch on my run. I checked the weather before I left to change...9 degrees and sunny! You know what that means...shorts! We haven't had sun in what feels like a week...winter made a brief appearance the past week and all of a sudden I had been covering up the pasty whites again.

As soon as I stepped outside I already felt energized and right away I could tell this would probably be a fast run as my warm up was unusually faster than I normally run it. What feels like all of a sudden, i'm flying down along the Bow river...and of course I couldn't resist checking to see what my pace was...under 4:20min/kms! Clearly I had some venting to do after my morning and decided to take it out on my run! I'm glad I did cuz it felt great and i'm feeling pretty darn happy and relaxed right now!

Ahhh...it feels good...and I'm starting to remember what it feels like to run fast again...instead of what has been feeling like slow jogs for a long time now. Anyhow...the run felt great...my foot didn't complain...and my hamstring cooperated.... How do I feel now? Fantastic! The weekend is almost here and i've got some fun plans in the mountains with my two favorite Banffites...Sunshine Girl and her hubby! Stay tuned :)

Have a great weekend!

Spring skiing at its finest!

2010-04-12T13:43:00.000-07:00

About a month ago a few of us at work planned on Saturday as being the best day for us all to get together to go skiing at Sunshine! And we couldn't have picked a better day! After the hill getting a ton of snow this week, I knew it was going to be a good day for skiing...and it just happened to be blue bird skies to boot! Here are a few pics I managed to get with my iphone...

Maria, Scott, Miro, John

Me...thinking i'm taking a pic of everyone but only getting myself lol

I think this is at the top of Goat's Eye Mountain

Maria and Miro at lunch chillin on the patio

After a long day of skiing I was pretty tired and spent a nice evening watching movies and cuddling with Logan on the couch! I wrestled with the idea of running on Sunday but after getting 4 good consecutive days of running in last week, I decided to take a day off. I slept in....enjoyed some fun girl time over a late breakfast and a little shopping...and then the rest of my afternoon with this guy...

Logan on the bridge to Edworthy Park, overlooking the Bow River

On the mend...

2010-04-08T14:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't been the best blogger lately and I think part of it is that I'd rather not write sometimes than having this turn into me just being negative all the time about running. I've just been very frustrated lately and it seems like my progress will be moving along nicely and then bam! something else happens and I feel like i'm back at square one again. Everything else has been great lately...it's just this running stuff. Argh.

I think the last time I wrote, I was talking about my migraines and neck/back issues. It eventually went away after a straight week of them...funny, this is exactly what happened to me for about a week last summer while training for Transrockies. Anyhow...because of all the pain I was in I didn't run for 9 days which is not really a big deal. So then last week I managed to get 2 easy runs in and another cardio day but I was having serious issues with my left hamstring that i pulled/tweaked over a month ago during hill repeats. It was so bad/tight/sore last week that I couldn't jog across the street to get the bus! After that I was just fed up and took another 4 or 5 days off from running.

Easter Sunday rolled around and Andrew and I got up at 4:30am...with maybe 3.5 hours sleep...and left Calgary by 5:30 for a day ski trip to Revelstoke...yup, you heard me correctly...for. the. day. For those of you that don't know...Revy is a 4 hour drive from Calgary (and yeah, it was actually worth it!!). We had wanted to camp or stay with a friend of his that lives there but there was the issue of putting Logan somewhere. If you don't plan things well in advance, there's no way you'll get a vacancy at a kennel on a long weekend! We actually ended up getting there about an hour early because we forgot about the time change. Anyhow, it was a really fun day and we found some amazing powder in the back bowls. I of course, had no idea what I was doing and took quite a few spills in the fluffy stuff! I'm not used to skiing in quite so much powder and not being able to see your skis at all lol. Plus Andrew tells me i'm not going fast enough to get through it which is another huge problem of mine...going fast...freaks me out. But what can I say...i'm still 10x a better skier than I was at the start of the season so at least i'm improving!

After enjoying some beer on the patio at the end of the day with Andrew's friend, we left around 4:30 for the long drive home. The worst part about driving back is the time difference makes you get home even later than you'd like. We were back to Calgary by 9:30pm and in bed within the hour. Poor Andrew had to get up and go to work the next day while I did not. I'm not really sure what the deal is with "Easter Monday" anyway but i'll take the holiday!

Needless to say...monday I was exhausted. When I got up, I actually looked like I had gotten punched...both eyes were puffy as heck and I just looked all around like crap! I ended up eating breakfast, walking Logan, and then back to bed till noon. By then I looked a lot more like myself. The rest of the day was spent relaxing with Logan and catching up on mounds of laundry, chores etc.

That brings us to the rest of my week...and back to some kind of running routine...finally. I have run the past 3 days in a row...easy runs of course...with each day feeling a little better than the next. My body actually feels like it's forgotten what it's like to run so much...even though "so much" is really not that much compared to what i've gotten used to over the past year. My hamstring was super duper tight and sore on tuesday but i've just allowed myself to stop and stretch every couple of kms which helps and then stretch and roll it after the run. Today I only had to stop and stretch it once and it finally feels like it's getting better.

And you know what's the best part? My foot is turning out to be a rockstar. I think all of this other rediculous time off i've had to take has helped and all of a sudden i'm running 3 x 9-10km runs in a row with zero foot pain...and virtually no pain after the run. Today as I was running along I kept thinking...wow, I had actually forgot what it felt like to run on two good feet...freaking awesome is what it was.

I'm sad to say that I won't be doing the Police half marathon in a few weeks...but as long as i'm running pain free then i'm just happy to get out there for a run no matter how long or short or fast or slow it is. The Seattle marathon will also be iffy so we'll see over the next month how I feel about still doing that. Again, i won't mind bailing on that race either if it means I can trail run and hike all summer long!

Anyhow, that's about it for me! I have another long weekend this weekend which i'm pumped about. Lucky Andrew is headed off on a cruise on saturday for a friend's wedding...while I'm headed off to Sunshine for a day of skiing with some work friends. It will likely be my last day of skiing this season so i'm going to soak it up!

Have a great weekend!

9 Days ago...

2010-03-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

That's how long it's been since my last run...and boy do I hate being forced to take time off. I woke up last week with a brutal headache that came with neck, upper and lower back pain that ran all the way down my spine. Each step that I took I could feel it radiating down through my spine...so forget about running if I can feel it walking! That was the start of a week of migraines that hasn't really stopped yet. Originally I was getting them every 4 hours...then I graduated to 8...and now finally i'm around 10 hours in between. How bizarre.

I don't know where the back and neck issues came from but eventually decided I needed a massage to see if that would help. I received a pretty awesome massage in that area from this woman that specializes in cranial massage and sees a lot of people that have headache/migraine issues. Apparently the whole right side - neck, back, shoulders - is extremely tight and she did loosen it up a great deal. Maybe it's part of the reason why i'm now down to 10 hours in between headaches. To anyone who has had a migraine before you know nausea often comes with it from the pain which i've been experiencing a lot of. Ugh.

My most recent migraine was at 3:30 this morning and after managing to get rid of it and going back to sleep, I came to work feeling pretty good. I decided i've had enough and today I would try running again! I was a little worried about the back stuff I had going on recently even though it's been feeling better. However, the run turned out to be pretty great...did I ever miss running the last week and a half! It was a beautiful 14 degree day and I love every opportunity I get this time of year to wear shorts! Felt great. I figured it would be a pretty slow and easy run...yet my easy pace was still pretty quick according to my garmin so that was good!! I'm happy to report that it's been 10.5 hours since my last headache and it's not back yet. I've been doing a lot of stretching of my neck and back so hopefully it's working!

Anyhow, aside from those issues that I have, I had a fun weekend...a great meal on friday night with some girlfriends at this awesome vegetarian restaurant the coup....Andrew and I went out to a bbq on saturday night with a bunch of my Newfie friends that I grew up with and then off to the yardhouse for drinks later (non alcoholic for me as it often sets off a migraine) to celebrate Andrew's friend's birthday...as well as some dog park visits this weekend.

Sunday was a pretty lazy day for Andrew and I which I definitely love now and then. We ended the night with one of our favorite things to make....home made pizzas :) Here's a picture of Andrew's on the top rack and mine on the bottom. Yum!

Hopefully i'll have everything straighted out soon and back to a regular running routine again. I don't want to push it too soon so tomorrow i'll probably do some other type of cardio at the gym and run again on wednesday.

"the Episode"

2010-03-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

Today was a beautiful day...and spring skiing up at Lake Louise! I had a feeling it was going to be icy as we haven't had any new snow out there in a week...but didn't know just how icy! The front side is always the worst for it and I immediately tense up and it's like I forget how to ski all of a sudden! I just hate the feeling of trying to slow down but hitting an icy patch! Ugh!

One particular part of the day found me on a mogul section that had giant moguls close together with ice all around them and in a pretty steep area. I was not a happy camper. I've actually started to really like moguls lately and have fun in there but not today. At one point I psyched myself out and completely froze on the spot all freaked out. Poor Andrew had skied down and stood there watching me and very patiently waiting while I eventually forced myself to move along. Later this would be known as "the episode" as he so lovingly called it lol. It's true...and when I got down from that section I was stressed and angry by it! I've been trying so hard to get better and have been...but ice is what I hate more than anything!! Plus I always get frustrated and feel bad when I'm skiing with someone who is so good! Like I said...he's very patient and thank goodness for that :)

The backside of the mountain was a lot more fun for me for sure! And I managed to get to ski in some much more fun mogul spots that weren't so intense! They ended up being one of my favorite runs of the day! Andrew and I got there early and got in a full day of skiing along with a little time out on the patio in the afternoon enjoying a beer. It got soooo warm. I started the day pretty comfortable with what I had on for -11...then when we left at the end of the day it was +8 and I just wanted to strip down!

Anyhow, as much as my lower body is completely aching from being so tense on the hill today and putting my legs through hell...i'm on my way out to celebrate a friend's 30th birthday! She's one of the last to join the rest of us in the dirty 30s! :)

I'm going to aim for no hangover so I can get in my long run tomorrow! It's supposed to be 12 degrees, wahoo!

Edworthy Park

2010-03-16T08:30:00.001-07:00

What a beautiful evening in Calgary last night! I want this warm weather to stay...it makes me so happy!! March is usually Calgary's snowiest month so i'm just wondering when exactly that might happen...and when I have to break out the winter running gear again...cuz you know it will!

Anyhow, I'm taking full advantage of all this nice weather! Here are a few pics I took last night of me and Logan on our walk to and around the dog park!

At the top of Edworthy Park with the Foothills Hospital in the background

Yup, he's pretty happy!

Today promises to be another beautiful one...simply can not wait to get a run in at lunch and then more dog time outside after work! It is supposed to hit a record high of 19 degrees...beating a 100 year old record if it does. Needless to say i'll be running in shorts...and getting an early start of getting some colour into these pasty white legs! :)

Winter in the Mountains + Spring in the City = Happy Deb!

2010-03-15T13:24:00.000-07:00

It seems that the mountains haven't gotten any new snow in FOREVER. So when Sunshine got 20cm of new snow last monday, I knew I was definitely going skiing on friday! Friday just happened to be my day off as well as my friend Leanne's and she definitely didn't need convincing to go skiing either! As soon as we entered Banff National Park....we had literally driven into a winter wonder land. It was like night and day...it was now snowing and it had been for a while that morning...and continued to do so all day as a matter of fact. I was like a kid on Christmas morning when we parked and got our ski gear ready. I was trembling with excitement...a powder day!! And it did not disappoint...I think it was the best ski day for me all year...i had soooo much fun. I never get to ski in powder...sigh. Here are a couple of pics from our day...

Leanne, not falling...but just deciding she needed to give her legs a break and have a little lie down

Happy skiers!

Me...enjoying some snow angel time!

Back in Calgary, a chinook had blown in and we came back to 14 degrees C!! What a difference! The rest of the weekend was quite nice but pretty windy and not as warm as Calgary has been used to lately. I still managed to get in some pretty good runs...a 14km on Saturday and a 22km on Sunday...although it felt like no matter what direction I ran, I was always fighting with the wind.

Running has been going well and my foot seems to be dealing well with the added mileage...last week I ran 49km total which is the most i've been able to do in a really long time. So i've been pretty happy about that...especially as my long runs will continue to get longer and longer from here on in. Did I mention that I signed up for the Rock n' Roll Seattle Marathon on June 26th? It's official! I'm excited and i'm really looking forward to it. I've never been to Seattle either and have always wanted to go!

Aside from the running and skiing lately, i've been spending some good quality time with my dawg. We've been going on some pretty massive walks after work and hopefully going on many more dog park visits too at night now that it'll stay lighter longer in the evenings!

Seattle?

2010-03-08T12:14:00.000-08:00

For some reason I find myself dreaming of road races lately...mainly the marathon. I really don't know why...because everyday that I run, I dream about running on the trails again soon and all the kick ass runs I want to do in the mountains....as our weather becomes more and more springlike. Strange, I know. I guess I'm not a huge of fan of training on the road...but do love a good, fast road race and improving my times.

So for those of you who are strictly trailrunners and pretty much shun the road running scene...I apologize for this post...maybe you should move along and come back another day! My brother is one of those people...likes to jokingly call me a road runner as he's definitely not a fan and is all about trail for sure...but who got him hooked on trail running last summer? Yeah, that's right! Me! :D It's pretty wicked actually...he has several ultras lined up for this summer and even informed me that maybe we should do Transrockies again sometime. Whoa! After his sick summer of trail racing he's got coming up...I might end up out of his league as a partner for that race, but who knows.

And why the heck am I thinking about road races right now? I dunno...I guess i'm not really mainly a road runner or a trail runner...but am liking to do both. And right now I'm really wanting to run a marathon...and not just run it just to do it...but to run a fast one. I've had mild success in both trail and road races so far...with most of it all happening last season....and after the Okanagan marathon last fall with my fastest time yet, I find myself really wanting to keep improving my marathon time and get even faster. Not sure how possible that is and when I'll possibly stop setting PBs in the marathon but I really hope it isn't anytime soon. I'd really love to one day break the 3 hour mark...and even though i'm "only" 12 mins off...I think that's probably pretty significant and not sure if there's any possibility of me doing that! Who knows?!

On that note, i'm starting to think about doing the Seattle Marathon on June 26th. I'm already well into training for it as i've been training for the Police half marathon that's at the end of next month. I definitely plan on doing a significant amount of trail running this summer and have some good races lined up...but not sure if there will be any ultras in there...that might have to wait another year. Seattle is not a definite thing yet but i'm giving it some serious thought. I guess it depends on how well my foot progresses over the next while and how it feels during and after the Police half. It's doing well so far and allowing me to get in some good mileage lately.

K, that's it for now!

Ghost Runner

2010-02-24T13:38:00.001-08:00

What a gong show it was trying to register this morning for Melissa's 22km Road Race in Banff this September. Registration opened at 7am and I knew it would fill up quick so when I got to work at 7:30 I tried to sign up...no dice. The website was giving me errors and I was having all kinds of issues. I assumed it was because of the volume of people also trying to get into this ever so popular race that caps out at about 1500 I believe.

Anyhow, since it wasn't working on my work computer, I figured I'd try through my iphone...and it worked! This is to be Andrew's first ever half marathon so I decided to sign him up first in case there was an issue. Well i'm glad I did as after I signed him up, I had all kinds of trouble again and then eventually it ended up saying "Race Sold Out"!! Argh.

Anyhow, I've decided this is a good thing afterall as now i'll just ghost run it alongside of him as he rocks out his first ever half marathon, wahoo! That is of course, providing he doesn't turn out to be some insanely fast runner and I can't keep up...in which case he'll be on his own!! lol. Don't worry, I won't plan on crossing the finish line at the end since I won't officially be in the race...I've never run a race without a bib but I came across this story which I think is pretty insane...

"I got up Saturday and ran the Thomas Wolfe 8k. I love the fact that the race takes you through serene Riverside Cemetery. But the most startling action occurred at the end of the race, when organizers spotted a "bandit," an unregistered runner who ran the course and came across the finish line. The main race organizer angrily shouted at the man, who sort of shrugged it off. Another organizer came up from behind the runner, ripped the guys iPod ear buds out of his ears, bumped his chest, then shouted at him and threatened to have him arrested if he ever did that again."

Extra long weekend!

2010-02-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was the Family Day holiday weekend in Alberta...a made up day to give us a holiday in february I guess. Hey, no complaints, I'll take it! Aside from it already being a long weekend, I had my scheduled friday off as well! Sweet! Andrew and I joined about 12 of his friends on a ski trip in Golden, BC at Kicking Horse Resort. For some reason I didn't take any pictures on this trip but here's a picture I found of the house we stayed in right on the hill...sigh, so beautiful...it's for sale and can be yours for only 1.2 million dollars...eeek!!!

We left Calgary on thursday afternoon for the fairly short 2.5 hour drive to Golden. It was a beautiful warm day in Calgary...perfect for a road trip! :) The drive flew by and we were there in no time. It wasn't long after we arrived that I started on my first beer of the evening...and then another...and another...uh oh...yeah, I think everyone was pretty excited on the first evening there and we all had a wee bit too much to drink! That and spending some extended time in the hot tub with 12 of your new best friends might have something to do with it :) Needless to say...I was not feeling too hot on the gondola the next morning. On a good day a gondola often makes me feel queasy...so being hungover on top of that was not a good thing!

On friday night after a good day of skiing off the hangovers, a feast was prepared. Andrew just happens to have a turkey deep fryer and he brought it along. So there was turkey, stuffing, carrots, yams, and more. Delicious!!! That and an earlier bed time with minimal drinks had me waking up early and ready to go at 9 for ski day number 2! After skiing was more of the same...some hot tubbing, some drinks, some great food and company....

Sunday we woke up and started on the long clean up process as we had to be out by 11 that morning. Once that was done we all headed to the diner in Golden before heading back to Calgary. When we got home I was pretty happy to see Logan. My good friends Leanne and Jason were kind enough to take care of him all weekend. Stupid me never though that the kennels would be booked up over the long weekend! Apparently Logan behaved very well and I'm pretty sure he didn't want to leave! His best friend Charlie the Westie lives there and i'm sure they played all weekend. Here's a pic of Logan on his last night there actually jamming himself in Charlie's bed where he apparently slept the entire night! Too funny.

On "family day" Monday I managed to fit a 19km run into my busy day of watching the Olympics. I think watching that before my run got me all fired up and it ended up being quite a speedy one. I loved it! Other than that, it was a very relaxing day with much of this....

Sunshine at Sunshine!!

2010-02-08T09:24:00.000-08:00

I never thought I'd ever ever hear myself say this...but i'm actually starting to fall in love with skiing...OMG!! :) What the heck happened to me? I've always liked to ski...key word being *liked*...but I was just ok at it...I could manage to get down some blue runs without killing myself and that was that. I never cared too much to buy ski gear as I never thought I'd go often enough and because I wasn't that great at it I didn't really see the point. So far this year I've gone skiing more than I ever have in a season...and winter's not even close to being over! Every time I go skiing I see big improvements whether it be in my technique, being more relaxed as I ski, or in my confidence to try harder stuff...and saturday was no exception!

I couldn't find anyone to go skiing with this weekend but I really really wanted to go. The more I thought about it the more I realized...why not go by yourself?! Great idea! I woke up bright and early at 6am on saturday initially thinking...ugh, I had such a crappy sleep...maybe i should just roll over and go tomorrow? After about 15 mins I finally got up to get ready and started to get excited! I decided to head to Sunshine for the day as they've had the most snow in the last week compared to Lake Louise...also if Lake Louise doesn't get any snow they seem to be super icy which I hate!

I wasn't sure what the weather was supposed to be like at the hill...and as I left a cloudy foggy Calgary that morning I thought Banff would be the same...And when I got to the hill it did look the same! But as I took the lift up to the very top, we broke through the fog and it was amazing up there! You can get an idea of what I mean with the fog situation in some of these pics I took. Eventually it all burned off and it was an awesome warm bluebird day!!

Sigh...St.John's...my home...soooo far away!

You can just barely make out one of the ski lifts breaking out of the fog...

Svelte :)

Some extremely hungover Aussies I met at the top

Looky Looky...no blue runs for this girl!!! :)

Surprisingly skiing by myself was actually pretty great...I got to bypass the massive gondola line up when I first got there as I went into the singles line and passed everybody...the same thing happened all day long in the lift line-ups...just got into the single line which was usually empty and passed everyone! I don't know if I've ever continuously skied so much in one day! My legs were exhausted by the end...and it didn't help that I had a really tough leg workout at the gym on friday!!

On sunday I had planned to get up early and run with the group to get my long run out of the way nice and early. But I was exhausted from skiing all day and then going to a late movie on saturday night that I decided to sleep in. I only had to do 15km...but for me not running more than 8 or 10 km in the past few months, it felt like an eternity...well, I think mostly because it was pretty cold out there! Usually -9 doesn't feel bad at all but there was windchill and Calgary has had this ice fog for a few days now...makes it feel sooo much colder. At the end of the run my legs felt super numb as if I'd been running in -30! Anyways, I was just happy to get the run in and not wimp out because of the weather!

I had promised Logan all day that we were still in fact going to the dog park that day. And after I had a hot hot shower and got warmed up, I took him up to Edworthy park to get his run in! He had a blast and met a lot of dogs to chase and be chased!

Less than 3 months....

2010-02-04T08:32:00.001-08:00

Ok ok...I KNOW I'm jumping the gun here and getting a little too excited by my foot's progress...and perhaps even jinxing myself but....

Deb Russell is now Registered for Calgary Police Half-Marathon

I can't help it! This is one of the races I've been planning on doing for a while and I haven't raced it since 2007. Oh my...i've got less than 3 months to prepare...the race is April 25th! I highly doubt there will be any PBs going on so I should just settle on being happy to race again eh?

Registration opened on saturday and this race sells out FAST...and I briefly thought about signing up that day and then said nah...no point in doing a race so soon. I decided to check today if there were any spots left and there were so I said screw it! If something happens and I can't run it then it's no big deal as it's a very easy race to sell your bib for!

This is going to be kind of interesting for me as I've never really trained for a half marathon...or the shorter stuff! Usually i'm in the middle of marathon training or something and just decide on a whim to do a half marathon or 10km as part of training. I guess I'll try and approach this race differently!

I think partially the reason for deciding to sign up afterall is the great runs i've been having...i'm so pleased with my foot!! Sunday was my longest run so far...11km and I felt great! Tuesday I ran 9km with half of it at tempo pace...then last night I joined the group for a 10km tempo run which was fun! I miss running with a group...it was me and about 10 guys...it definitely suits me best to be running with a faster crowd as I definitely push myself harder!

Wahoo, i'm officially training for a race again!!

Barefoot running anyone?

2010-01-27T16:03:00.001-08:00

While on my run at lunch today (second run this week by the way...and still without foot pain!) I was passed by a guy, wearing these funny looking shoes that immediately made me think...another one of those runners trying to get into the barefoot running trend. Now i'm not knocking the whole barefoot running thing or Vibrams 5 finger shoes (even though I think they look ridiculous)...and I do understand the concept and why it might work for some etc but I have to admit i'm definitely not convinced...

Towards the end of my run I caught up to him and passed him but could hear him not close behind. As he caught up to me he asked "how was Boston" since I was wearing my Boston jacket...I almost cringe when I wear that jacket and get that question on the path...because it's always by a smirking guy...as he's passing me...and then for some reason I feel like I need to prove myself or something. Dumb. I know. But I digress...

He started chatting to me about running...marathons...how he's doing ironman this year...and somehow started talking about the book Born to Run (which I own and have still yet to read...it's next in line though after my current book) which led to the conversation of barefoot running. Today he was wearing water shoes...or aqua socks if you may...to allow him to not heel strike and strike more mid sole etc etc. He actually got quite into it and even stopped mid stride and started jumping up and down to show foot strike etc while other runners passed us and looked at us as if we were nuts...while in my head I was shouting, I don't even know this guy!!! lol Just kidding...kind of...but it was pretty funny and it did make for an interesting lunch time run :)

Anyway...while he further enlightened me on barefoot running today...I'm still more than sure that I really do love my nice comfy runners and have absolutely no desire to ever run barefoot...

NYC update!

2010-01-26T14:57:00.000-08:00

Since writing my earlier post today about the NYC marathon I just decided to check my online status for this race...i'm happy to say it's now changed from "in lottery" to "....

Marathon registration status: Accepted

Yay! I'm super pumped!!

NYC Marathon?

2010-01-26T11:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I submitted my entry for the NYC Marathon on November 7th. For women under 39 to qualify for guaranteed entry and skip the lottery process you need to have a marathon time of 3:23. You would think that means I'm automatically in but the form is silly...you apply on the same lottery form as everyone else and it has a little spot that says if you're applying for guaranteed entry then put in your marathon time and which race you qualified in. I've heard of people still getting rejected even though they "qualified" as they had just been thrown into the regular lottery.

After applying my status says "in lottery" and it was suggested to me to email them about it, which I did. I'm impressed that they wrote me back so quickly and said to give them a few days to verify my time and if I don't see a change in my online status in about 10 days to let them know. Soooo...i'm hoping that means it won't be a problem and i'll be in! If for some reason I get rejected them i'm going to look at running Chicago on Oct.10th, Seattle on Nov. 28th, or Vegas on Dec. 5th.

While I thought that I was getting sick of road races after all the fun trail running and racing I did last year, I'm actually looking forward to another road marathon in the future. I have a pretty hefty time goal I'd like to achieve and I definitely think I can do it (am gonna keep that time goal to myself for a while though sorry! :). I still plan on doing tons of trail running this summer and a few trail races i'll be focusing on once i'm back full on running again!

In the mean time, i'm still working on getting rid of the plantar fasciitis. I took 2 full weeks off and since then I ran 2 short runs last week completely without pain. I've been waking up every morning with virtually zero pain which is amazing...I think i've gone the last year with always some form of pain in my heel in the morning! I'm itching to get out there on long runs again but i'm holding back and will stick to the shorter runs for now. I'm actually a bit scared to increase the distance and have the pain come back so i'm going to settle on just being happy to get out there and run pain free...no matter how short the run is!

I LOVE my new skis!!

2010-01-18T09:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Andrew and I went skiing up at Sunshine and I got to test out my new skis!

They had about 30 cm of new snow in the last week so I was excited! My skis are wicked and it was definitely one of my best purchases to date :) I've never owned a pair and the thought of not having to rent anymore either makes me super happy!

Aren't they beautiful?

Anyways, i've already skied more this winter than I think all of last winter and I can tell that i'm already getting better. Hopefully that means at this rate I should be significantly better by the end of the season...then on my way to some sweet backcountry skiing next winter :)

We had a great day yesterday and I even skied some shorter black diamonds...I know, retarded right? I'm usually terrified of the harder stuff but it always looks easier to me when there's lots of powder...i.e. softer landing if(when) I fall...and the powder slows you down which is nice since I get a little freaked with speed sometimes! I just hate feeling out of control!

We had the gondola all to ourselves on the way up!

I like skiing with Andrew...he's a really good skier and I find i'm more likely to get out of my comfort zone and try some harder stuff when I go with him (lucky for him he grew up close to Marble Mountain on the west coast of Newfoundland, and some pretty good skiing.)

I'm super pumped as this is my week with friday off (I work a compressed work schedule to get every second friday off) and a bunch of us are heading to Lake Louise for some skiing :) It's great when you get to go during the week as there should be hardly any lift line ups! My friend Leanne only gets one friday off a month with her work so it's sweet that we're both off at the same time this month!

On the running scene...my foot is feeling better and I've been able to go the whole day walking around without pain like I used to get. I've been waking up many mornings now with little to no pain in my foot which is shocking as usually it's at its worst for the first steps after getting out of bed! I bought the Strassburg Sock last year when I went through plantar fasciitis and while it's kind of a pain in the ass to wear when you're sleeping, i've been making myself do it each night. Seems to be helping! It's a weird little thing but the theory behind it makes sense...pulls up on your toes in order to keep your foot flexed all night and therefore lengthening out your fascia...

Anyhow, that's about it in news for now! 3 more days of work till another ski day :) Then I have tickets to the Banff Mountain Film Fest on friday night...saweet! Have a great week!

Good-Bye...

2010-01-11T13:36:00.000-08:00

...to cable! Will I miss you? Nope! What a waste of money for me...i've been hardly watching tv at all...and while I've been thinking about getting rid of it for a long long time, I finally took the plunge today! I love the idea of not having it or being tempted by it and can think of so many other things I'd rather be doing with my evenings. Hopefully that means i'll be a guitar playing superstar in no time! Well...maybe not...but I plan on spending a lot of my free time learning! I started last week :D

My first week of no running and recovery has gone pretty well...I did a bunch of crosstraining and am getting back into a regular weights program again. I'm loving doing legs again and I plan on doing lots of good leg workouts so when I get back into trail running i'll be able to climb some serious mountains!! My knee is feeling much better...now I just have to get that foot under control before I start easing back into the running again!

On Saturday I acquired some new skis from kijiji...well, they are "used" but only twice!! They're freakin sweet and I can't wait to get out and use them...along with the skis I think i've also acquired a new obsession...wanting to head to the hill for a ski every weekend :)

Andrew and I went snowshoeing yesterday at Ribbon Creek in Kananaskis...did around 20km. It was a great day and super warm out there...above zero! Logan had a blast as usual and no doubt did double what we did with all his racing around. He came home and crashed pretty quick, as did we...after we made some delicious home made pizza...mmmm.

Have a great week! I know i'll be enjoying the spring like weather in Calgary...10 degrees today!!

Change of Plans...

2010-01-06T09:38:00.001-08:00

So...remember all those times when I said my foot is getting better yada yada yada? Well, it's not. It is better than what it was...but it still hurts...and still hurts like a mofo at times. Guess what else hurts? My knee...on the same leg as the bad foot. I have hardly been running...maybe 3 times a week and very rarely anything longer than an hour...and haven't had knee issues in like 10 years...so i'm pretty sure my knee hurts because i'm compensating and running and walking differently due to my foot (especially in the morning when my foot hurts most and I end up walking on the side of my foot). Awesome.

So instead of writing you guys and saying, i'm definitely taking a month off and then changing my mind a day later like last time...well, I really am taking time off...and to be honest, I don't even mind. I've been having fun doing lots of other things when I haven't been running...I've been doing more downhill skiing and plan on doing lots more...I'm going to be taking Logan out on some awesome showshoeing adventures...and a bunch of my friends all have xc skis and I haven't taken advantage of using mine as much as I should. I feel like the last week i've had this revelation that it's not a big deal if I can't run...my body clearly needs a serious break from it. If I don't get to race the races I wanted to this summer then i've realized i'm really ok with that as i've already got lots of other adventures wheeling around in my head that I'd like to do. It's not a tragedy if I can't race this season...and I think i've finally realized that.

It's funny that my last post I talked about still wanting to do the Death Race and then when registration opened on New Years Day and I thought more about it and sat down to potentially register...I started thinking that maybe I really didn't want to train for a 125km race this summer. I don't think I want my whole summer to be about training for races. Even if my knee/foot gets better and I can run tons, I think I just want to go out on running adventures like I did before...but not because I have to because there is a race coming up. Last year was an anomaly for me as I've never raced so much in a season. I basically just used all of those races to help train for Transrockies.

So i'm not signing up for any more races anytime soon until I feel like i'm an uninjured and pain free runner...and that I know I really really want to do a certain race. I've only signed up for one so far in July...the Powderface 42. Since i've qualified for the New York marathon which is next november, i'm pretty sure i'm going to do that one as well. New York would be a pretty sweet trip and I do love a fall marathon. So that's it for me at the moment. I'm surprisingly not bummed or unhappy that i'm injured and have to take time off...i've been doing lots of other things and having a blast. Currently i'm trying to work on my downhill skiing skillz which I severely lack...so hopefully i'll be able to join my boyfriend on some sweet backcountry skiing adventures in the future...

Here's what i'm definitely going to do this summer...my brother signed up for the Death Race on August 1st weekend so i'm going to be heading out to Grande Cache, Alberta and help crew him. I'm super pumped for him as he'll do awesome for sure. Kira, my mountainbiking superstar sister-in-law is doing the Transrockies Bike this summer which is freakin WICKED! That is a 7 day/stage race going from Fernie, BC to Canmore, AB...pretty much in my backyard! So i'll definitely be heading out to cheer her on somewhere along the way!

I don't intend to ignore my blog so no worries about that...I just might be blogging a lot about my non-running adventures!

Happy New Year!!

Thanks for a great year 2009!

2009-12-31T13:23:00.001-08:00

Well well well...here we are on the last day of 2009...is it just me or did this year go ridiculously fast? It would appear I fell off the blogging bandwagon for the month of December...I had many posts planned and lots to talk about...and all kinds of good intentions to blog...but I was quite busy as most are this time of year. December flew by and the holidays were awesome! The past couple of days i've found myself planning out my racing season for 2010...I plan on sharing it with you guys very early in the new year...tomorrow is the opening of registration for the Death Race and whether or not I do it determines a ton of other races I'm looking into. I'll let you know tomorrow whether I signed up! :)

Anyway...I've had a really amazing year and lots to be thankful for and happy about. Work is going well...I had a fabulous year of racing...I met a really awesome guy...I got to see my family a lot more...I met a whole new group of running friends...not to forget the amazing friends I already have....what more can I ask for? More of the same...more happiness, more laughter, more adventures...I'm really excited for 2010 and I have lots to celebrate tonight! :)

Unfortunately I don't get to ring in the New Year with Andrew as he's on a ski trip in Utah...but I do get to ring it in with some really great friends of mine...looks like it's going to be a Newfie party tonight :) I'm getting ready to head out on my last run of 2009...so i'll leave you with a few pics of what i've been up to over the last few weeks...

My dad and I...after a bitterly cold run in -27 (-36 windchill)...during a week long cold snap in Calgary

Andrew and I having lunch while skiing at Lake Louise

My fabulous Christmas present from Andrew!!!

Kira and Julia on Christmas morning

Dad, opening his stocking

Steve, stuffing the turkey!

Me and Dad skiing at Silverstar in Vernon on Boxing Day

Hope you all have a very Happy New Year...stay tuned as I get back to a regular blogging routine in 2010 :)

Welcome to Winter!

2009-12-08T07:51:00.000-08:00

Well, if you looked outside right now (or woke up to -26 C this morning) you'd think we were in the middle of February...but nope, it is classic December in Calgary...we got a massive massive dump of snow last weekend (I had a pretty intense shovelling workout on saturday!) and we're in the middle of a lovely cold snap. Ugh.

Generally i'm anti-treadmill and run all winter long regardless of the temperature...but i've still been enduring some brutal treadmill runs these past few weeks as I try to get my foot all healed up. Progress is slow but it's definitely getting better! I've been running 3 or 4 times a week with usually at least 2 of them outside so I haven't been going completely crazy with all my time in the gym.

I've also started doing leg weights again which will hopefully make me a better climber once I start running and racing trails again in the spring. I just realized last night when dreaming of all the races I want to do next spring/summer that my first one is a 50 miler on May 30th...which is less than 6 months away! That might seem like a long time but I feel like i've got lots and lots of work to do before then to be able to run that distance...and i'm pretty excited :)

So things are definitely looking up as my foot continues to get better. Saturday I ran my coldest run so far this winter and it was only -10 with a -19 windchill...ugh. And that's nothing compared to what it will be like this winter! I think wind is the one thing I hate the most and I would be fine doing any activity in super cold temps as long as wind wasn't involved! But I find that once i've made myself get out there it's not so bad! And i'm always super satisfied after the run.

As most of you know, my dad is a runner (and that's where Steve and I were lucky to get our running genes from :)...and my parents are coming up from Newfoundland for a visit on thursday. I was hoping to get in some runs with my dad while he's here so hopefully the cold temps forecasted while they're here doesn't deter him (or me) from getting out there....even for just a short one.

I hope you're ready to welcome winter cuz it's definitely here to stay for a while!

Waterton + Winter + Camping = Awesome!

2009-12-02T14:40:00.001-08:00

Almost 2 weeks ago now I went to Waterton for some hiking and camping with Andrew and his friend Jim, as well as Logan and Andrew's dog Duke. I love winter camping and I had also never been to Waterton before but have heard a lot of awesome things about it!

We didn't end up hiking as much as we had intended but it still turned out to be a great trip! We backpacked in our stuff a short 1.5km to Crandell Lake where we set up camp. Here are some pics that I took as well as Jim (who is quite the photographer so I won't take credit for those nice scenic shots!!)

At the Trailhead

Crandell Lake
(Jim's pic)

Getting caught giving Andrew a smack!

(Jim's pic)

I'd love to know what was so funny...
(Jim's pic)

Testing out the foot...pain free yet?

oh I miss trail running...

(Jim's pic)

Crandell Lake

(Jim's Pic)

Duke checking things out near the water...

it's cold and he's loving Andrew's scarf!! (Jim's pic)

Cooking area near Crandell Lake (Jim's pic)

Andrew and Jim enjoying some "Hot Toddy's"...we had no lemon

but we put in some oranges instead...not bad at all!

Hanging up the food bag!

(and yup, the Warden told us there were still bears out in the area at this time!)

Getting cozy with the dogs in the tent :)

Good morning! It snowed while we were sleeping!

Breakfast time! Andrew cooking up Backpackers omelettes
from the bag...actually SUPER tasty! (Jim's pic)

Logan keeping an eye on breakfast!

Andrew and the dogs hiking back out to the truck.

Andrew and Duke overlooking Upper Waterton Lake (Jim's pic)

Bizarre...

2009-11-19T13:46:00.000-08:00

Monday I ran a fairly relaxed 8km at lunch...for the first 4 km the pain was annoying but not too bad...for the second half it was really quite painful and I was cringing with each step. I came back to work after lunch pretty bummed and I could barely walk for the rest of the day/evening.

After all of the advice I received from my previous post and from others, I decided it really was ok if I took a full month off from running (and a really good idea) to see if that would be enough to heal it. When I thought about it longer I realized a month off is really not that bad. When I went to Thailand 2 years ago I was off from running for a full month and came back and started back up training for a marathon the next week...albeit I started slow with shorter runs...but it wasn't really a big deal. So that made me happy and I was then fine with the decision to take my month off.

Then tuesday I decided it would be my first day at the gym doing other cardio...I did a half hour of elliptical and my foot felt great. Then I thought I wonder if I just go on the treadmill for a little bit how will my foot feel? I ran for a half hour...absolutely pain free! I was going at a pretty slow pace but had no pain! WTF? I know, just retarded right? The pain often comes after I stop running and is quite bad in the evening and the next morning but it didn't even come back that night or next morning. I'm excited and maybe the treadmill will be the way to go for a while as I try to heal this. I'm sure the nice soft surface is definitely a big help!

Monday night I had slept in my compression socks and spent a good hour with high heat from my heating pad on my calf so that must have been a big help as well for sure. I know a big cause of PF is due to tight calves and I guess that's definitely a big issue for me although I never feel like they're particularly tight! That was definitely the problem last winter though when I had PF for 6 months before Boston...but I did manage to get rid of it with lots of stretching and heating of the calves and wearing compression socks.

Anyhow, I took yesterday off and i'm going to try some elliptical after work to warm up and then try some more running on the treadmill tonite to see how I do. If I experience any pain then I'll immediately stop...I promise :) I was pretty pumped though after tuesday's little run! Wish me luck!

Tomorrow I'm heading off to Waterton with Andrew, his friend and the 2 dogs for a weekend of hiking and camping...i'm pretty pumped! Hopefully i'll come back with some sweet pics to show you next week! Have a great weekend!!

deb

Holy F(rustration)!!

2009-11-12T14:30:00.000-08:00

Hmm...i thought after my last post I'd get better with my blog again not worse...geez. Guess I don't have a lot of stuff going on...well, I do...just not running related I suppose. Aside from running, life is pretty great these days.

I'm kind of depressed about running right now...my foot is not cooperating at all...the thing is, it hurts less while i'm running than after the run and on my days off. I took today and yesterday off from running and my heel just continues to throb while walking around....and by the end of the day it aches so bad I can barely stand on it. It's super frustrating. I've read some other blogs lately of a couple of people also having to deal with plantar fasciitis...and they're managing 100 mile weeks...while I would be happy with a 50km week! Anyways, they've been talking about taping it which seems to help and i've read about the proper taping techinque for plantar fasciistis so I may try that this weekend for my long run.

So far this week I've only done 2 runs...a 20km on sunday where I felt pretty minimal pain for the first 10km and then the last 10 kind of sucked with foot pain. I impulse registered for a 10km race in December...not sure what I was thinking since i'm injured but who knows...maybe it'll be better by then? Anyways, after registering I then decided at lunch to go out and run a fast 10km...managed to do it in 45 mins which boosted my confidence. I also didn't experience much pain at all...not sure if it's because the quicker I run the less time my foot is on the ground? Makes sense. My PB is 42 so I'd love to get closer to 40...although my brother seems to think I could easily break 40 mins...but I don't agree...especially if i'm having troubles training because of my foot. Guess we'll see.

Ok, now I promise to try and blog more...

The running blues...

2009-10-27T14:10:00.001-07:00

Yes....I realize i've been a lazy blogger lately...thanks to many of you for pointing it out! I didn't realize it was that big a deal but apparently some of you actually enjoy reading this so I'll try to get back on the blogging bandwagon already! :)

I guess I just haven't had a lot going on since the marathon...nothing I thought would be interesting to blog about anyway! I took 9 days off from running and any form of activity really after the marathon (unless you count drinking? ;-) which was kind of nice but kind of annoying as well. The other thing I hate to do almost as much as I hate tapering...is recovering after a race. In my experience it always takes me quite a long time to recover after a big road race in comparison to a trail race...just another one of many many reasons why I prefer the trail to the road!

Anyhow...while my legs have felt decent since I started running again last week, my heel has not. Plantar fasciitis is proving to be the biggest pain in the ass yet. I haven't really been able to enjoy my runs as it's just a constant pain with every heel strike...bummer. I did a short trail run on the weekend in Kananaskis...around 15km or so and it really wasn't good...I feel out of shape trail running wise which sucks...but I guess that's what happens when you haven't been on the trails in 4 weeks and have been running on flat pavement...argh! No worries, I plan on rectifying that pretty quick!

The week is looking up as I'm looking forward to seeing the Flames vs. Avalanche hockey game tomorrow night...as well as some trail running on the weekend. Yeah I know...probably shouldn't complain about my heel so much if I refuse to take time off and keep running eh? I ran with this issue last winter while training for a marathon and I did manage to get rid of it...so i'm assuming i'll manage to do that again without taking time off :) Yes i'm stubborn.

Oh yeah...Banff winterstart 5 miler is in a week and a half...not sure how much speed my legs have left in them but it should be fun. Nothing better than running a night race with 1000 other runners and glowsticks....and then partying the night away in Banff after wha?

deb

Okanagan Marathon Race Report

2009-10-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

My brother Steve lives in Vernon, BC which is about 40 mins or so from Kelowna, where the Okanagan marathon took place last Sunday! Since the race started at 7am we had to get up at 4:45am so we could eat breakfast and be ready to leave by 5:30. Several things screwed us up from leaving on time...I didn't change my watch back 1 hour for BC time so when I set my watch for 4:45am it woke me up at 3:45 which sucked! So then when I fixed it, I either did it wrong or I slept through the alarm and ended up waking up around 4:55am. Apparently Steve knocked on my door but I didn't hear it.

It was a cold morning and I was slow getting ready and we left the house a few mins late. Then after driving a couple of mins I realized I forgot my hand bottle and we had to go back and get it...and so by the time we left a second time it was 5:45...woops. I thought it only took a half hour to get there but that's to the outskirts of Kelowna. After getting every freakin light possible on the way we ended up getting there at 6:40ish, parked in some residential area, peed in the bushes, stripped down to our racing clothes, and ran to the start as our warmup. It was -10 C in Kelowna...holy F! Of course there were some crazies in their singlets and short shorts...I was in 3/4 tights, long sleeve, vest, baseball hat and gloves...turned out to be the perfect amount of clothes for me!

There were too many people to get through as the half marathoners were starting at the same time so we climbed the fence to get into the coral and started right up front. The gun went off and as I watched Steve take off I thought, ok well that's the last i'll see of him! I had intended to do a slower first km to warm up a bit but when I looked at my watch it was at a 4:15 min/km pace and for some reason I just couldn't make myself slow down! So I said what the heck and I just went with it...figured I may as well experiment and see how long I can keep this pace up...might work well or I might die a slow and painful death!

Even though I had a quick pace going on the first 5km seemed to take FOREVER...and because of the cold I couldn't feel my legs for probably the first 10km...they felt so numb and my stride felt super awkward. When I got to the 10km marker I was a little shocked to see my time was 44 mins...only 2 mins slower than my 10km PB! That kind of freaked me out and then I was definitely worried I went out too fast! But, I still felt good so just went with it.

As the sun finally started to come up, I finally began to warm up a bit! My friend Paddy caught up to me around 13km and we would end up running together off and on for the next 20km or so which was nice. At the 16km there is the first timing mat and here we part ways with the half marathoners. I crossed at 1:09 and was pretty pleased with that time! The last time I ran a 10 mile race my time was a heck of a lot slower than that!

Anyways, I was pumped that all the girls that had been around me were all going to the right for the half marathon as I went on to the left. Soon after that an aid station came and people were cheering at me and kept telling me I was the first woman through in the marathon. Instantly, I was like oh no, really? I don't really like to be told that...kind of feels like they're jinxing me...then I end up running scared for the rest of the race and am always just waiting for a woman to pass me!! I would continue to hear I was the first woman for the rest of the race from volunteers as well as spectators along the way.

Around 18 or 19km we bagan the lone hill in the race...it was actually a pretty long gradual hill but it wasn't a big deal...I passed a lot of people going up this hill which I liked. Up ahead I saw the leader in the marathon round a corner and continue on down the hill. I was like sweet, I'm gonna see Steve in here! Two more guys come out and then Steve pops out shortly after...I was so pumped for him being in 4th place! We were both yelling at each other and cheering and as a result my heart rate instantly skyrocketed, as did my pace since I was so excited! I thought, Shit Deb, take it down a notch, you're going to die before the halfway point! I reached the half marathon point at around 1:32-1:33...4 mins faster than my half PB! Of course then you start thinking, wow I wish I could double that and run the same time for the next half...I'd get a 3:06 or something!

I knew that wasn't going to happen when I hit the 30km mark and almost instantly felt like hell. The road was taking it's toll on my legs huge...they hurt so much, as did my left foot with the whole plantar fasciitis garbage i've got going on. I looked at my watch and was not happy with what I saw...my pace slowed huge! With 10km to go Paddy kept talking me through it and giving me words of encouragement before leaving me to suffer on my own! The next 8km were pretty much a blur and I don't know how I got through it without stopping. My pace was still decent but just not where I wished it would be!

Then the 40km mark came and I hear 2 people behind me...I look to my left as a guy goes by...then I see a shadow ahead of me as the next person starts to pass...all i think is shit, that's definitely a girl...and I look over and i'm BUMMED! Getting passed with 2 km to go and zero energy to go with her, sucks!!!! She didn't get any farther ahead for a while so I thought maybe she'll die or i'll have enough energy at the end to pass her. I have to mention here that these last few kms were a friggin gong show...it was super confusing and there weren't any volunteers around pointing you where to go as we ran through these last few subdivisions. So a bunch of us (and later I would find out, a huge number of marathoners) took this little 500m or so loop that was meant for half marathoners only! We get to the end and it says half marathon turn around point. A few of us stopped dead and were like WTF? Did we go the wrong way? There was nobody around to tell us anything so we had no idea if that had been right.

Anyways, blah blah blah that was annoying, got over it, finished the race and that's that. I couldn't catch the girl that passed me, nor did I care in the least at that point...and I placed second in 3:12:07....taking over 7 mins off my best marathon time. Not too shabby!

The results were posted and they have me and the 1st place woman in 2nd and 3rd and we're like WTF? There's no way...who is this woman that they say ran a 3:03 chip time/3:07 gun time? And if she really does exist, why would she start 4 mins back from the start of the race if you're going to likely win...why did she not pick up any of her awards at the end...why did she cross the 16km timing mat in 2:19 (a full hour and 10 mins after me) and not cross any other timing mats? Despite all of this and chatting with the race director about it...he was a total ass and it was obvious he didn't believe us but told us he would look into it. I decided to email him about it on tuesday and just got a response saying "it's under review". Today I noticed the results have finally been changed and she has been removed from the first place spot! I have a feeling perhaps she was a marathon runner or walker that decided to only do the half and the results got screwed up and they placed her first. Anyway, here is the link to the results...and check out who took 2nd place overall in the marathon...Steve!! Mister mountain runner decided kind of last minute to run his first road marathon and he killed it...2:54!

Oh wait, update...just noticed they have already adjusted the times for those doing the extra loop and they've got me down as running a 3:09...too funny. Weird. I wonder if I mentioned it to the race director when I was talking to him after the race and that's why he changed it? I'm pretty sure without the extra 500m loop or whatever it is they're saying it was that I didn't run a 3:09! That's crazy. I'm sticking with my 3:12 thank you very much. I don't like all of this adjusting times business...until I run a marathon where it says 3:09 when I cross the line then I ran a 3:12. They adjusted one of the guys that placed behind Steve and he has ended up infront of him now and pushing him to 3rd. Whatevs. Like I said this race was a bit of a gong show! And what about the people that will say they did the extra loop when they didn't, just so they could have their times adjusted? You know there's definitely people out there that will do it. I'm sorry but if that's what you have to do to qualify for Boston...well that's just about the lamest thing I've heard.

Ok that's it, that's all i've got on the topic. I'm still recovering this week and haven't done a bloody thing! I drove home on monday and celebrated the end of my racing season that night with a friend and we each drank a bottle of red wine. So good! :) My legs still hate me and i'm not sure when i'm going to attempt my first run but i'm planning on enjoying some hiking and camping this weekend in Fernie! Woot!!

deb

#5

2009-10-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

Sunday will be my 5th marathon (on the road)...and I don't know how I feel about it. I'm still relatively inexperienced when it comes to racing...especially marathons...so I never really go into it with a game plan and still feel like I have no idea what i'm doing. And I keep going through waves of excitement and dread. On the one hand, I'm excited to run a road race again as I haven't done one since Boston way back in April...and after a summer of hard training and trail racing I feel like i'm stronger, fitter and faster.

However. this has been a long 2 weeks of taper for me and I just hate tapering more than anything...it starts to play mind games with you...making you doubt yourself and feel like you're not ready and that you should be doing more...even though it has always proved to be a good thing in the end. Then I get more and more nervous and anxious and want the damn race to get here already so I can calm down. I don't get this nervous for trail races and I think it's because I've never really paid attention to the clock and where I should be at certain points along the way. With road races I always have big goals for a certain time that I want to achieve and i'm never quite sure if they're unrealistic or not. Right now i'll keep that goal to myself and let you know next week if I achieved it or not!!

As of today, i'm feeling excited again and looking forward to getting out there and rockin it. I do best in cold temps and it's going to be a chilly start at 7am with a high of 8 for the day...sounds pretty great to me. I think as I get closer and closer to Sunday i'll continue to feel more and more excited and the feelings of doubt will go away.

Tomorrow is my friday off so i'll just wake up whenever I wake up...pack up Logan and my stuff and head off to Vernon. I'm excited to see Steve, Kira and my niece Julia again...especially for Thanksgiving!! Plus my brother is really really good at getting me pumped for races...he's always so stoked and optimistic. I'm still waiting to hear if he's decided to run it or not...it's going to be a last minute decision on his part I guess.

That's it for now.....oh and good luck to Trevor who'll also be in Kelowna racing it, to Cam rockin the marathon in Victoria, and to Kelly racing the Chicago marathon!

Fall is my favorite season!!

2009-10-05T18:58:00.000-07:00

It was winter in Calgary this weekend...seriously...not cool. It was snowing on Sunday...blech...so not ready for winter yet! Funny in a week and a half it went from 33 degrees to below 0. It's sad for me that Fall is my favorite season as it is soooo ridiculously short in Calgary.

Now that the colder weather is here, I think literally every single person around me is or has been sick...i've been fighting if off as best I can with Cold FX, Vit C, Echinachea etc...and it seems to be working well for the most part...except this weekend I did feel like complete ass. So while I had some runs planned I ended up bailing on them and doing zero exercise.

I think hopefully it'll be for the best as I have the Okanagan marathon in less than a week now...frig...that came quick didn't it? Wasn't I just running at Transrockies? Damn! Anyways, i've been quite excited for the marathon for a while but after feeling under the weather for a week i'm getting a little nervous. Plus the stupid taper always makes me feel out of shape and doubt myself...should be interesting to see how the whole thing plays out though!

Anyhow, since this weekend pretty much sucked for me...let us reflect on last weekend...which was AWESOME. I got out to the mountains both days and enjoyed Fall in all it's glory!!

On Saturday my friend Jason and I went for a 25km run...an out and back along Jumpingpound to Cox Hill trail. It was a beautiful day despite the insane wind going on.

Jason freaking out the infamous Kananaskis "killer" cows!

Deb the Dork!

Cox Hill

Pumped to be at the top!

Woop woop!!

Jason rockin the downhill

On Sunday I joined some friends to hike Burstall Pass in Kananaskis. Again...another beautiful fall day....

Tara, Steph, Leanne, Ash, Jeanette

Dogs: Charlie and Logan

Ninja?! Nope...just dorky deb again! :)

My friend the Larch!

me and my boy!

Logan appreciates a good view too!

Last trail race of the season...and some Skoki fun!

2009-09-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

So now that i've taken almost a month to get out the full Transrockies Report...what else have I been doing with my time since the finish of TR?

Two weeks after Transrockies ended, I took part in my first 5 peaks race in Canmore! I've been signing up for some of these races each year and every year something comes up that prevents me from running them! Finally I was about to do one...the Canmore 5 Peaks half marathon, wahoo! I was a little worried that racing so soon after TR would be a bad idea but my legs felt pretty good and this was to be the shortest race i've done all summer! Couldn't be that bad!?

I got to Canmore about an hour early so I could chill and get ready. I always like to be to the start of races early so I can get a good warmup and stretch in, as well as a little socializing or nervous chatter in. I had a bunch of friends doing the 14km race but since it started an hour after me, none of them were there yet. I did run into a few people who were running the half that had also run TR...Phil Villaneuve and Blaine Penny. And I was so pumped to see Leslie from Banff was there also!!! I love this girl and she makes me smile everytime I see her and I'm instantly cheerful...she is awesome! She was volunteering and an awesome cheerleader the couple of times I passed her during the race! Also a huge shout out to her as she runs her first 100 miler in Utah this weekend!!! Check out the Bear 100 and they update the live race results!

I'd never run in Canmore on the trails of the Nordic Centre before so it was a real treat! I'm not going to go into the details of the entire race but it was fun! I can't wait to run out there more often! It was a super rolling course with some wicked steep steep steep technical downhills that were awesome. Surprisingly I ran pretty quick down those and made up time on people which was shocking as we are all beginning to learn how I am on technical downhills! Apparently I just might be getting better than when I started this year :) I battled it out with some talented ladies and ended up placing as the 2nd female overall. Good times! It hurt though and my legs hated me....helllllo? Wasn't Transrockies enough pain for the summer? Sorry legs, not quite done yet!

Here's a pic Leslie nabbed of me on my way out for a second loop at around the 14km mark I believe.

So yeah, it was an all around great day...and got to enjoy some great weather, great running, and some awesome friends! What could be better?! After the race I was hanging out with a bunch of friends from Calgary that also ran and we were all chatting away and stuffing our faces. We had moved away from the food as there was a serious wasp situation going on and after my wasp incident this summer I did not want to get stung again! I take a bite into my bagel, I feel pain and take out the bagel while something is stuck to my tongue. I reach in and pull out a wasp while my tongue continues to throb in pain. Frig, are you kidding me?!?

Last time I got stung my hand swelled up like a balloon and I had visions of that happening with my tongue. I went to the medic and all they could do for me was give me ice for it....which I was initially annoyed about since they couldn't give me drugs...but the ice actually did make it feel better. Then I remembered I carried around reactine in my bag and went to the car to get some. I'm happy to report that my tongue did not swell up like a balloon and I got to enjoy the rest of my afternoon on the patio of the Grizzly Paw in Canmore drinking beers with some friends. Great day!!

So I've been reading Leslie's blog for a while now and remember reading about her adventures in the past to Skoki Lodge. So when my friend Jason suggested that for a run last weekend I was all over it!

It's about a 2 hour drive to Lake Louise so we left Calgary around 7:30 and were off and running before 10am. It started off as such a beautiful day but the forecasts called for some not so good weather in the afternoon. Luckily we got most of our pictures in when it was sunny and awesome outside. Before I let you enjoy the pics we took along the way, can I say one thing...HOLY LARCH!!! I've never seen anything like them in the fall. Beautiful!

I LOVE larch!!

Ptarmigan Lake

Running up Deception Pass

On Deception pass before making our way down to Skoki Lodge

Skoki Lodge!!

Cleanest and nicest outhouse I've ever used!

Perhaps this is why?

Transrockies - Stage 6 - the Grand Finale!

2009-09-20T17:44:00.000-07:00

Stage 6 - Vail to Beaver Creek
Distance: 21.2 miles (34.1 km)
Total Elevation Gain: 4,623 feet

I woke up the morning of Stage 6 pretty relieved this was the last day. Man I was sore and was pretty excited for this evening with my first night in almost 2 weeks sleeping in a real bed! Oh and I was going to really enjoy some well deserved beer later. I only had to get through 34km of running with 4,623 feet of total elevation gain first! Sigh...

I was surprised and relieved to find my heel not so bad this morning. I could still feel all of the vaseline the medic put on there and it was wrapped up really good so I just left it alone. I was hobbling around a bit trying not to put any pressure on it all morning until I had to start running!

Remember when Steve said I could walk all of stage 6 if we got on the podium yesterday in Stage 5? Clearly he wasn't serious but we didn't plan on killing ourselves today. We were currently sitting in 3rd place in the GC with 20 mins on the 4th place team and about 40 mins or so on the 5th place team. All we wanted to do today was keep our 3rd place and not let those 2 teams get in any time on us.

Now that's not to say that I planned on taking it easy and not racing...I had every intention to race. My body however had different ideas. Remember how Steve felt on Day 1? Well I didn't feel quite that bad...well probably not even as close to feeling that bad...but boy did I feel like ass. And my legs were done from the start. They had a mind of their own and basically told me to screw off and that 5 days of racing was enough. I kept waiting for that feeling to go away like it had done after a few km every other day but it never happened. My head got frustrated with the rest of me and I felt emotional. There were mixed teams passing us in the beginning that never passed us before and it was playing tricks with my head.

I don't know if I felt good once the entire day. I hurt so much that I didn't even get to enjoy the beautiful scenery around me and there really was some fabulous single track that ran through the forest for something like the first 10 miles or so. I almost wish I could go back and run it again as a fun training run and get to enjoy that part.

I kept telling myself it's ok, as long as we keep our lead over the Spanish team - Team Helly Hansen who were 20 mins behind us overall, then I would be happy. Well once we finished the first big climb of the race, we turned and began the downhill which was probably the worst part of the entire 6 stages for me. It was mostly overgrown singletrack trail with most of it running through tall grass up to your waist. You could barely see the ground and there were big rocks everywhere to trip you up...I don't even know how I didn't bail in there. For whatever reason I decide to look back and see if anyone was there and of course it was Helly Hansen coming out of nowhere. These two are good at descending and they caught me pretty quick, passed and were gone before I knew it. Shit!!! Now I was worried. If they were having a really good day could they put in 20 mins on us now in the 8 or so miles we had left? There was no way I was about to let that happen so it definitely did cause me to start running a lot faster so I could catch them.

I think Steve was a little frustrated with my shitty slow running but if he was I definitely didn't know it. He still remained super optimistic and kept telling me that they weren't too far ahead and we'd catch them on the next climb we had to do. Finally we got down to the town of Avon and had some flat running to do on the streets through there and to the next aid station that was right before the last big climb. I stopped to fuel up and pour a ton of water on my head..it was mid day and super hot out there. While stopped at the aid station Helly Hansen was not too far away so I started to relax a bit. We had just under 5 miles to go with a really gross 1000 ft climb looming ahead but I knew we were the better climbers.

We caught them pretty quick and I ran whatever I could but there was a great deal of walking in here for me. This climb was gross, I can't even describe how much I hated it. I wouldn't have thought twice about using a tow rope that day if we had one and would have welcomed Steve as my own "personal sherpa"! As someone said recently...he's a friggin mountain goat...and the dude literally pushed me and power hiked my ass all the way up the climb (not to mention the many other times throughout the day).

Finally finally finally we were done with climbing and had 2 miles of single track left to go taking us down into Beaver Creek. We crossed the line in 5th place for the day in 3:57:05 and managed to keep our 3rd place overall. Fewf. What a battle.

Steve and I finishing up Stage 6 in Beaver Creek!

Four Newfs finish Transrockies! (Steve, me, Gary Robbins, Blaine Penny)

Top 5 Mixed teams on the podium ( From Left to Right....2nd Place - Team Nike/Gore-Tex, Peter Courogen Julie and Leasure, 3rd Place - Team Pine Line!!, 4th Place - Team Helly Hansen, Francisco Perez and Eva Braa, 1st Place - Team Montrail NSA, Tamsin Anstey and Gary Robbins, 5th Place - Crasian, Don Sims and Erika Mastny)

To recap the whole experience, here is my Post Transrockies report once again. It was an awesome event and I would recommend it to everyone! Will I do it again? For sure! Just probably not next year...i've got a lot of other things planned for next season.

Transrockies - Stage 5 - and a podium finish :)

2009-09-17T14:08:00.000-07:00

Stage 5: Red Cliff to Vail

Distance: 23.4 miles (37.6 km)

Total elevation gain: 4,407 ft

The past four stages of racing was starting to take it's toll and I was getting tired. Each day I woke up feeling the same soreness and it never really got any worse. We would do a brief warm up before each stage and think holy crap, my body is sore...how the heck can I get through another day of this? Yet when it was go time, somehow I would just ignore it all and think of the task at hand. I was impressed with what my body was able to do.

At dinner after Stage 4 there was lots of talk about the two stages that remained. They were both super long with the most elevation gain. I found that throughout the race the best thing to do was to just think of the next stage that we had to do and try not to worry about the stages that remained. It definitely helped! So...Stage 5 was to be a big day...the second longest stage and the second highest in elevation gain. Whew...I was a little worried but excited. Generally, I tend to do better with the longer stuff...especially since it takes me so long to get going...so I was looking forward to another day similar to Stage 3.

We took a short shuttle ride back to Red Cliff where we ended Stage 4. It was so cold that morning...I think 28 Fahrenheit they said when we woke up and when we got back to Red Cliff we still had an hour until race start. Luckily Mango's Mountain Grill (known for their world famous fish tacos) had opened it's doors for us runners to hang out in and keep warm for the hour. Steve and I sat on stools at the bar and I was tired. I didn't want to move. I didn't want to think about what we had to do today. I didn't want to go outside and warm up in the freezing cold. Ugh. I was cranky and sore and not looking forward to the day.

I was feeling a little better after warm up and once the race started I went through my usual routine of struggling to breath for 20 mins or so before finally settling into the start of the 10 miles of running uphill that we had to do out of Red Cliff. The day was taking us "up and through the legendary back bowls of Vail Mountain and then down into the village itself". I've heard a lot about Vail and was excited to hang out and spend the day/night there after the stage! We got into a good rhythm and started passing teams and quickly seemed to move into 3rd place for mixed. I was thinking, holy shit, this hasn't happened before...do not get excited...it's so early in the day and you're in 3rd already? We had passed Dean and Helen (Team North Face) early on and I assumed that I would see them again shortly.

The first 8 miles on dirt road seemed to go on forever... and we were both getting cranky and just wanted to get to the first aid station already to fuel and take a bit of a break. Finally we arrived...ate, drank, took some salt pills and were on our way for the remaining 2+ miles of the first big climb on single track and summited Bowman's shortcut trail!! Wahoo! Then we got to enjoy some fun, technical downhill for a while and i started to feel good again.

I knew we had another big climb ahead of us after the downhill ended. Two Elk Pass had a lot of long switch backs and luckily they were mostly all runnable. It was pretty sunny though and I was feeling the heat on the way up. I looked up and was happy to see the second place team...Nike/Gore-Tex not far ahead...I couldn't believe how close they were! That helped to boost my spirits and before we knew it we were at Benchmark summit which was the second aid station...and we were standing there fueling up with Team Nike/Gore-Tex. I was stoked and we had 10 miles to go...all downhill!!

The girl (Julie) from that team left before us and we quickly followed but the guy (Peter) left a little after. Eventually she stopped to wait for him and we continued on...and now were in 2nd place. Steve was running balls out and I couldn't keep up with him but he wasn't getting too far ahead either so I just concentrated on what I was doing and making sure I didn't trip and fall. We were pulling farther ahead from Nike/Gore-Tex and even though we were in 2nd, I would not let myself get excited that we might podium that night. There was still a lot of running to do! I was getting more and more tired and Steve promised me that if we podiumed today that I could walk the whole Stage 6 tomorrow if I wanted. I've gotta say...that was a pretty good incentive! :)

The last aid station came and went and they had caught up to us there. Damn it! We left before them and they did not spend much time there before following us. There was a little over 5 miles to go. I don't think I've ever run so fast or hard in my life as I did during the last 5 miles of this race. They were on our ass and we couldn't shake them. I felt sick and hot and crappy and wasn't sure how much longer I could keep this up.

I would say with about 2 miles to go as we're rounding a turn I hear Julie yell out as she slips on the loose rock and falls. I couldn't help but be relieved because I was really getting tired of them chasing us and didn't think I could hold them off. I didn't dare look back though as I knew it would be the time that I would trip and fall as well. They seemed to start catching up to me again pretty quick and finally we had a little bit of single track to run down to get into Vail. I'm completely out of control and don't know how I didn't wipe out. Steve was already down through it waiting for me and I was all over the trail and just running scared from these guys. I guess this tactic worked as I ended up pulling farther away from them. Steve was waiting for me as I busted out of the single track and he said they were no where in site. We didn't have far to go and we flew through the finish line in 2nd place in 3:59:10...with Team Nike/Gore-Tex crossing about a minute after! It was the most stressful day of racing i've ever experienced and it was AWESOME!!

On a side note...I had also been running almost the entire day scared from Team North Face...Dean Karnazes and Helen Cospolich....always afraid that they were going to catch up to us any second and pass us. That night we found out that they actually had to drop out of the race at the second aid station that day. Dean had fallen in Stage 3 and had cracked a rib. WTF? Guess he finally decided he needed to go to the hospital! I don't know how he managed to still race as much as he did after that but hats off too him.

My attempt at getting in to soak my legs....it's frigging cold...I think I managed to get in just past my knees. Yes i'm a wimp.

On the podium!! 3rd place - Team Nike/Gore-Tex (Julie Leasure, Peter Courogen), 1st place - Team Montrail - NSA (Tamsin Anstey, Gary Robbins) , 2nd place - Team Pine Line!

Tent City set up in Vail - ours is at the top of the second R :)

After the crazy downhills of Stage 4, I ended up with a giant blister covering my heel. The awesome guys in the medic tent fixed me by draining it, pumping some zinc oxide in there and bandaging it up. After today's Stage 5 with 10 miles of downhill at the end...the blister was enormous covering my entire heel pad. It was a giant flap of skin that the medic had to completely cut off and told me he'd never seen anything like this. The only thing he could do for me was put on tons of vaseline and wrapped up the whole thing. He literally told me it would hurt like a bitch tomorrow and wished me luck on Stage 6. How nice :)

Transrockies - Stage 4

2009-09-16T12:08:00.000-07:00

Stage 4: Nova Guides to Red Cliff

Distance: 14.2 miles (22.8km)

Total Elevation Gain: 3,009 ft

Stage 4 was to be another day very similar to Stage 2...a shorter day with one big climb and one big descent! I was actually looking forward to the shorter day and had so much fun on Stage 2 that I thought it would be great...so I didn't really have any nerves going into this stage.

With our wake up being generally by 6am it was damn cold in the mornings and I would try to get dressed for the run in my sleeping bag and then pile on as much clothes as possible to walk over to the breakfast tent. The sun started to peak out over the mountains by 7-7:30 and I would wait as long as possible before discarding my clothes and doing a little warm up before the 8am start.

Finally some sun starting to peak over the mountains...with the race clock counting down in the distance

Steve looking a little chilly after breakfast

Stage 4 started with a gradual uphill on a dirt road that we had come down at the end of Stage 3 to the finish. I was starting to get used to the same issues I would have at the start of every stage. I always felt like garbage! It took me such a long time to get into it...usually about 4 or 5 km till I would finally start to feel better. Come to think about it...I think I start every race i've ever done pretty much feeling the same way...it always takes me a while to warm up and get going so the first 20 mins or so are usually rough. I think it was worse at Transrockies though as I could really feel the cold air on my lungs at the start of each day making it harder to breath as well as the altitude.

Anyhow, finally I started to feel better and got into a pretty good rhythm as the route turned from road to trail and we started to go up. I was surprised and thankful to find it was mostly runable stuff with limited walking and not like Stage 2 where we immediately started fast hiking. Each day we continued to find ourselves running with the same teams around us and it was fun to chat with some of them along the way.

At one point we were running with Dean Karnazes and his partner Helen Cospolich (another top ultrarunner) from Team North Face. As we finished so close to them the previous day and were not far back from them in the overall standings, I really wanted to stick with them or beat them today! Dean seemed to be struggling a bit and was farther back with me while Helen is simply a powerhouse and was running up farther ahead with my brother. I'm running along minding my own business and slowing down over this steeper section when Dean comes along and puts his hand on my back and pushes me up over this hump. I laughed and said thanks I needed that! Steve turns around laughs and says "oh no, does that mean I have to reciprocate?" and then does the same thing to Helen. It was pretty funny and helped take my mind off of the task at hand!

Dean dropped back farther and I continued on while Helen slowed to wait for him. I'm pretty happy we're making some time up on them when after a while I turn back and see that she has strapped the tow rope on him and is towing him up the hill...and is gaining on us. WTF?! She is a machine! Even if Steve was feeling like crap there is no way I would ever have been able to tow him! They tow on past us while Dean happily comments "it's like I have my own personal sherpa!". While many teams used the towing system...I really didn't want to go there and told Steve I wanted to do this thing on my own as much as I can. Maybe if we were in contention to win the whole thing then I would have thought about it more.

The last couple of miles to the top became STEEP....straight up...and I was bent far forward pushing off my knees with my hands trying to "power hike" up this thing. Steve helped in the really tough spots and would push me from behind to get my legs moving quicker and I was thankful as I was starting to slow down. The crazy thing was that this was some type of dirt 4 wheel drive road but have no idea how anything could drive up here and why they would have ever made it this way! A little further up we actually passed one of the jeeps from Nova Guides with aid station supplies in an interesting position...not sure if it was stuck or maybe the drivers didn't want to attempt to drive it any further up.

Finally we bust out at the top of this climb and get to run along an amazing ridge for a while with absolutely spectacular views. In a race I have a habit of not taking the time to check out the view around me...plus i've been known to fall and am always looking down so I don't trip over stuff. I look up all around me and immediately get a boost in spirits as it's pretty breathtaking up on this ridge as we run along at around 11,500 ft. We got to see several 14,000+ foot mountains including Mount of the Holy Cross, Mount Elbert and Mount Massive. We get to Hornsilver Summit and I feel relief as I know the rest of the run is entirely downhill...awesome!

Running for a long long period downhill is not as easy as it sounds though...especially when your legs are cooked from previous days of running with lots of descending. Steve and I could feel it in our quads pretty quick and my legs were getting more and more tired as I tried to keep up with his fast ass flying down. I knew towards the end there was to be a few river crossings which I generally hate as often they lead to blisters for me or make existing blisters worse with having wet feet.

We managed to avoid the first one by running up the embankment and around but then I came to the next one which was kind of unavoidable. I should have just said screw it and run right through it but decided I would try and keep my feet dry as long as I could as I had a pretty giant heel blister going on and really wasn't keen on getting it wet. So I tried to step on the bigger rocks that were sticking out of the water. I step up on the last one to climb up out of the river but it's wet and I slip off and go down HARD on my hip. Instantly I yelled out in pain (with a few choice words) and Steve stopped, asked if I was ok and was freaked as he thought I had hurt my knee pretty bad. I didn't even realize I had hit my knee even though it was bleeding as my hip hurt so much. I started trotting a bit with frequent cursing and finally the pain started to go away. That or the fact that I had to run down a river bed for the next half a mile took my mind off the pain. I was taking it pretty slow because I really didn't want to fall again on all of these wet rocks and the pain from the cold water on my feet hurt so bad. Eventually I couldn't feel my feet and when we were back on the dry path it was pretty painful running with them so numb.

At this point i'm really wanting this day to end as i'm pretty tired and am feeling beat up. We have about 5km to go downhill on a dirt road which I like as I don't have to think or pay attention to my footing so much. We pick up the pace and end up passing two mens teams during this time and really don't want them to catch us or any other mixed team to pop up out of nowhere and pass us at the end so we keep increasing the pace. Just like the previous stage we end the last couple of miles at a pretty sick pace close to 6 min/miles and are both left wondering where the heck this energy is coming from. We cruise in to beautiful Red Cliff satisfied with our 4th place finish in a time of 2:30:56.

Steve and I finishing up Stage 4!

Transrockies - Stage 3

2009-09-14T12:15:00.000-07:00

Stage 3: Leadville to Nova Guides

Distance: 24.2 miles (38.8 km)
Total elevation gain: 2,930 ft

We spent the night of Stage 2 in Leadville at 10,000 feet! (where the famous Leadville Trail 100 takes place) Tent city was set up on the soccer field of a school in town. I had a pretty great sleep that night and was happy to not wake once to use the bathroom. My quads were feeling pretty sore after the previous day's long descent but after a little warm up before Stage 3 began they were actually feeling pretty good and ready to go! This was to be the longest stage of the race and I had no idea of how long it might take and had hoped for nothing over 4 hours.

The race started through Leadville with a couple of miles on paved roads and a really long hill down that seemed to last forever. Steve and I were going at a fairly good clip yet teams were bombing down this hill and passing us right from the start. We thought this was kind of strange as we knew as soon as we turned off onto trail at the bottom and it started to climb we would pass them again...and we did.

Stage 3 was quite rolling and it was my favorite type of trail running. The weather was very cool that day and we felt like we were back at home on one of our training runs. We both felt fantastic and enjoyed the entire day. There was this one climb I remember that lasted a while and we both got into this awesome groove and were passing teams on the way up including this Spanish team we soon found ourselves competing with each day for overall placing.

I think our favorite part of the day was when we found ourselves on the Colorado Trail which was a combination of some really beautiful single and double track trail. We felt so good that we couldn't help but run fast through there and it felt pretty effortless. We kept thinking..man it feels like we're back home in the Canadian Rockies...this is awesome! Towards the end of our run we caught up to and passed some mens teams as we continued our descent out of the trees and down along a giant meadow. Eventually we came out from the meadow and had a few km or so to go on a dirt road.

We started to pick up the pace as we didn't want the teams we just passed to pass us again...and then Steve sees the team down the road that's a couple of minutes ahead of us and says that's Dean (Karnazes). I knew we had made up time on them in the GC yesterday as we finished ahead of them and I really wanted to catch them today! We decided to giv'r and kept saying...we're totally going to regret this tomorrow!...but decided that we felt so good that what the heck let's go for it!! We gave it all we had and at one point were running close to a 6 minute mile but in the end finished just over a minute behind them. We were super pumped with our 4th place finish on the day with a time of 3:59:01.

At the end of the race Dean congratulated us on a good race, was chatting away to me (yes I was super excited lol) and asked where we were from. When he found out we were from Canada, he started talking about the Death Race that he had done in Grand Cache, Alberta only a few weeks prior! He went on to tell me how tough that race was and how he couldn't even believe he managed to come second! I mentioned that I had already planned on doing that race next year and was super excited about it! :) So yeah it was awesome to chat with him...what a really nice guy!

I then decided I really needed to go soak my legs in the creek nearby or I wouldn't be walking tomorrow...boy did it ever feel good! There's definitely something to be said for an ice bath or a good cold water soak after a long, hard run! We then spent the afternoon hanging out at the Nova Guides campground in historic Camp Hale, happy with our finish and happy to find ourselves moving up in the overall standings!

Chillin out at the Salomon Relaxation Station

Steve and Julia also enjoying some relaxation!

Happy Birthday! And welcome to Stage 2 of TR!

2009-09-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

Stage 2 - Vicksburg to Twin Lakes

Distance: 10 miles (16 km)

Total elevation gain: 3098 ft

I had an awful sleep after Stage 1 and our first night in the tent city. A cold front blew in overnight and the winds were pretty intense. The noise from a billion tents flapping in the wind was crazy...not to mention the several times when i did manage to fall back to sleep I would roll over on my side and then get woken up with a smack in the face from my wind blown tent. Lovely.

With maybe 4 hours of sleep that night, I woke up on the morning of Stage 2 and welcomed myself into my 30s :) Today was to be a fabulous day as I was doing the coolest thing I've ever done on my birthday...I get to run up to 12,600 ft today in a kick ass race!

Today we had to be up and ready to leave on the bus by 7:30 as it was about a half hour drive to the start in Vicksburg and we wanted some time to warm up. Unfortunately the bus ride was a bit of a pain in the ass for me as I get motion sickness fairly easily. So the whole school bus on a super bumpy dirt road got old pretty quick. I've never been on anything so bumpy and it was so bad that it actually made my head hurt...I felt like my brain was shaking around in there. Seriously. Aside from that, the bus driver missed the drop off for us and took us an additional couple of kilometres on this road before realizing and turning around. Ugh, I just wanted to get the hell off this thing. I remember saying to Steve...there's got to be other runners in the past that have puked on this drive to the race start...then I had flashbacks of myself as a kid in Florida throwing up on the metrobus...nice. Finally we got there with about 15 mins till race start.

It was a really cold morning and with asthma I find it really tough to breath when the air is cold so I wanted a good warm up first. Obviously this did not happen since we arrived so late to the start. Steve and I did a quick warm up run and then headed to the start.

Due to our late arrival and time spent warming up etc we ended up being stuck pretty far back at the start. So when the race started we spent the first 2 miles of flat road passing teams and trying to get ourselves in a good spot for when it became single track. I could tell right away Steve was feeling amazing today as he took off pretty quick from the line while I spent the first 2 miles struggling with my breathing. Finally we hit the single track and it got pretty steep pretty quick and most people had started some fast hiking. I have never been a good fast/power hiker but I still managed to pass some teams here and tried my best to keep up with Steve. He is a machine and could definitely hike that faster than I could run up it. This 2+ mile section of fast hiking up to the top of Hope Pass was quite comparable to scrambling in the Canadian rockies back home.

Finally we reach the top of Hope Pass...spend a brief few seconds at 12,600 ft to take in the view and grab a gel...then drop over the other side for some super fun and fast single track running all the way back down! I have yet to become super speedy on technical downhills but i'm definitely getting better. I was just loving this day and Steve and I were having a blast all the way down. We were so pumped at how good we were feeling and pretty much loved every second of the descent. Nicola and Pete passed us with a few km to go and while Steve was well ahead of me and could have likely kept up with them, I just did not have the speed on that technical stuff to keep up. Those NorthShore runners from Vancouver have got some serious skills...way to go guys!!

My quads definitely took a pounding on that long descent and when we hit the flats with a couple of km to go I just lost steam and instantly felt like crap. I ended up slowing right down but started to feel a little better after a couple of river crossings at the end. We finished pretty strong and were happy with our 5th place in a time of 2:07:06

Steve and I nearing the finish

PUMPED after today's awesome race!

Transrockies - Stage 1

2009-09-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

Stage 1 - Buena Vista to Railroad Bridge
Distance: 20.8 miles (33.5km)
Total Elevation Gain: 2,721 ft

Race morning arrives and I wake up thinking the same things I think every race morning...I'm tired, I don't want to do this, maybe i'll bail? Ok well I didn't exactly have thoughts on bailing for this race but was definitely thinking uh oh, what have I gotten myself into. I always wake up so cranky on race morning...it never fails. But when I finally drag myself out of bed and get dressed things start to get better.

Steve and I drove into Buena Vista back to the school where breakfast was provided for us. There was tons of food...cereal, fruit, bagels, bacon, eggs, pancakes, you name it! I don't know about you but there's not a whole lot I can stomach on race morning so I stuck with my usual...bagel w/ PB and a banana. It's always done me well in the past so why mess with a good thing? I was in awe of the runners that had gigantic breakfasts with bacon & eggs...all the good stuff! It made me a little queasy just thinking about eating that before a race. If I did it would definitely come back later to haunt me for sure!

We drove back to the campground to get ready, pick up Kira & Julia, and then head back downtown for the late 10am race start. We cranked the tunes on the way to get us pumped...my favorite pre-race song being "There's an Arc" by Hey Rosetta...it starts off slow but it picks up pretty quick and is total kick ass! If you ever get to see them live DO IT...you will not be disappointed...i've seen them twice now and they're freakin phenomenal. But...I digress. I'm not sure why the race started so late the first day and was dreading it as the clouds slowly moved away and the sun came out in full glory about 20 mins before the race was to start. Damn! It had been mid 80s all week and I was not looking forward to this. Generally I don't run well in heat but Steve was training in high heat all summer in the Okanagan so it didn't worry him at all.

While we waited for the start, we ran into some Albertans I knew. I met Doone and Tim Watson at Powderface 42 a couple of months ago. It was great to see some friendly familiar faces! And they were with Leslie & Keith from Banff! I was so pumped to finally meet them and have been reading Leslie's blog forever! They know all the best spots to run with the mountains literally in their backyard...I can't wait to come visit them in Banff and run!!

Here's a pic I borrowed from Doone of all of us before Stage 1!

(Doone, me, Steve, Leslie, Keith, Tim)

That picture was taken very shortly before the race started. We quickly seeded ourselves around midpack I guess and got ready to go! The race started with a quick jaunt down one of the streets leading us across the Arkansas River and immediately onto some single track trail that climbed for a couple of kilometres. Unknowingly, Steve and I had actually run part of this same trail on thursday. He guessed that this was where Stage 1 was going to go and he was right! So the first little bit of it was pretty familiar to me.

Unfortunately I pretty quickly started to feel like garbage. I'm not a fan of starting a race with immediate climbing and it takes me a while to get used to it. The heat and altitude was not helping and I quickly found myself breathing super heavily. I kept forcing myself to drink nuun more than I ordinarily might and I finally started to feel better about 4 or 5km in. Steve was feeling like a rockstar and I had to tell him to hold back a bit so I could get my heart rate down some...it had skyrocketed pretty quick.

Once that was under control we were running along pretty good till around the 10km mark. What seemed like all of a sudden to me...Steve says he's not feeling well and that he was having stomach issues. I had a feeling he was dehydrated as well as he hadn't been drinking as much as I had in the beginning. I was actually shocked when Steve said he needed to stop and walk for a bit...this is something he never does. I figured once we got to aid station 1 and pumped him full of saltstick, fruit, water etc things would be good again. It seemed to help a bit but he had a hard time getting stuff down. He would go through big waves of feeling awful and feeling shitty as the day went on...i don't know which was better? And I felt bad cuz I was actually feeling pretty decent and didn't know what to do for him. I was fine with slowing our pace or walking or whatever we had to do to get this bloody day overwith. It felt like we were running the entire day. What ran through my mind was oh shit...this is supposed to be the easiest of the 6 stages.

The day didn't get any better with our mix of running flats and downhills and having to walk up even the easiest hills. It was disappointing for us both as we knew normally we could run the entire thing without any walking. I was hot but always left the aid station feeling like a star after dumping water on my head and eating some banana and watermelon. It was definitely a combination of altitude, hot dry heat with little wind, and some dehydration that plagued Steve all day and he was unable to recover and get his heartrate to go back down.

We knew that the route eventually went back down to the river towards the end and Steve said to me if he sees the river soon he might have to stop and go for a dip to cool down his core. I kind of just wanted the day to end at this point but knew he was hurting huge so I agreed it would be a good idea. I would say with about 7 or so km to go I see Steve veer off sharply to the left out of the corner of my eye. I was like ohhhh shit, he's passing out and is going down!! I was wrong! I look over and he's running down this little enbankment to this stream and dunks his head and hat in. I have no idea how he saw it...but I almost laughed in relief and went down to dunk my hat as well.

Steve seemed to feel better after this and soon we were at the last checkpoint with about 6 km to go on a flat road. While we're stopped here and getting some food, a ton of mixed teams come out of nowhere, stop quickly at the station and then pass us. I'm bummed, where the heck did they all come from? We leave and follow them down to the road. I'm pretty happy that the rest of the race is completely flat for 6km and just concentrate on getting this thing overwith. Steve is not doing well and we have to walk run walk run the entire way. I felt sooo bad.

The funny thing is that the road to the finish was so long and straight that you could see all the teams infront of you doing the same thing. Clearly we were not the only ones feeling this way and I guess the heat and altitude really affected a lot of teams that day. When we were actually running we managed to go at a fairly good pace and passed a bunch of mixed teams at the end so I was pretty happy about that. We ended with a time of 3:44:14 and in 9th spot in our division. Despite such an awful day for us I was surprised and pleased that we still managed to be in the top 10.

Transrockies Pre-Race

2009-09-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

So yes, I know I know...i've been really procrastinating with the whole Transrockies race report. I feel like i'm back in university and I've been putting off the start of some ridiculous historical geography paper as long as I can...although I would like to think my blog and my race report would be far more interesting than historical geography...ack! I guess because it wasn't just a 1 day race that i'm finding it hard to remember things from 6 whole days of racing....and also the fact the whole experience was incredible and much better than I had anticipated....I don't want to leave anything out...but i'm sure I will. At the ripe old age of 30...my memory is not what it once was.... ;-) Anyhow, I'll do my best to try and keep you entertained.

After arriving in Buena Vista 5 days in advance...getting a couple of runs in as well as a couple of hikes in at around 12,000 ft, Steve and I felt good to go. Our first run that week had worried me a bit as we were running on the flats and struggling pretty huge to breath. We both have asthma as well and I was wondering if it was worse because of this or is this what it feels like to run at altitude? After talking with everyone else who had run prior to the race starting I realized that yup, this is pretty much what everyone is feeling...well I guess except for the teams coming from Colorado, Arizona etc. Anyhow, each day that we spent running or hiking after that leading up to the race we started feeling much better and were getting used to altitude. I was just so thankful we showed up 5 days in advance!

Steve had randomly picked this campground for us to stay at for 5 nights prior to the race called the Arrowhead Point Resort. After arriving and chatting to the couple that run the place we discovered that this was actually where they set up the tent city for us to stay after Stage 1 of the race. That was kind of a weird coincidence. Anyhow, I brought my tent along and camped there for the 5 nights before the race while Steve, Kira and their 6 week old Julia stayed in an RV that the owners rent out. The RV was pretty sweet and nice to hang out in the evenings before the race started.

The race started on Sunday...and by friday before the race we were getting super antsy and excited and really just wanted the race to finally get started and have those pre-race nerves out of the way. I woke up on Saturday feeling pretty stoked as things were finally starting to get underway. We drove to downtown Buena Vista to registration and gigantic race package pickup. Here we picked up our race bibs, course maps, timing chips and big duffle bags that would hold all of our gear for the 6 days of racing and camping! All I can say is good thing they gave us those duffle bags there because it was needed to haul away all the other crazy gear they gave us. We left with a TR shirt, Windstopper jacket, Timex Watch, hats, waterbottles, socks, Salomon recovery shoes, visors, food...and i'm sure there's more that i'm missing. It was insane. Aside from that there was other free swag given away each day. I've definitely never experienced anything like that at any race i've done before!

Steve and I at registration

The rest of Saturday we pretty much just chilled out and enjoyed the day. That evening we were at a local school for the opening ceremonies and dinner. It was strange that I recognized so many people but didn't actually know any of them! I finally met Gary Robbins (fellow Newfie!!) after chatting with him through the blog and facebook world the past few months...as well as Aaron Heidt...another fast runner that actually lives in Vernon like Steve & Kira.

I was pretty much starstruck with some other faces I recognized and yes I got made fun of when I got a little excited at dinner and said...hey isn't that Dean Karnazes?!? I've been reading one of his books! Aaron proceeded to ask me if I wanted him to go get his autograph for me...come on...I know i'm a geek but please, i'm not that bad! If I wanted his autograph...I'd just go get it myself haha :) And no, I didn't. What the heck am I going to do with an autograph? I actually didn't realize that so many top ultra runners would be there...Nikki Kimball, Anita Ortiz, Hal Koerner (Mr. Western States!!) to name a few. I was loving it...this is what I do and I get to spend the next 6 days hanging out and running with all these people who love it as much as I do? Sigh...

After the ceremonies/dinner was over we headed back to the campground and I decided to spend the night in the RV so I could get one last night of really good sleep before spending the next 5 nights in tent city.

My Stage 1 Report will be coming along shortly...here is an exciting preview of what's to come as quoted directly from my brother... "Steve sucked and hurt so bad, he nearly crawled over on the side of the trail to die" LOL. I guess yeah it was something along those lines...

Post Transrockies

2009-09-01T08:42:00.000-07:00

Transrockies...what can I say? I had an absolutely fantastic experience and I think it's definitely one of the coolest things I've done to date. This running season has been nothing but spectacular for me and what better way to end it than with an epic 6 day, 113 miles of trail running in the Colorado Rockies. The icing on the (birthday) cake was that I had a kick ass partner...my brother Steve. There is nobody I would rather have run it with! One of my favorite days was Stage 2 (yup, my birthday!). I can't think of anything better I would have rather done to celebrate the big 3-0 than do a tough run up to 12,600 ft at Hope Pass...take in some great views...and then enjoy a fabulous fast descent on some fun single track all the way down the other side!!

I'm going to get around to some kind of real race report on the whole 6 days eventually...hopefully while my memory is still fresh from the whole experience. Once I get some pictures organized I promise to fire off a report. I will say that Steve and I managed to claim 3rd place overall in the Mixed Division and that was more than I could have asked for. I had no idea what to expect and went in thinking I would be thrilled with top 10. Here are the final results showing the 5 divisions...80+ Men (when the 2 partners ages add up to over 80), 80+ Women, Open Mixed, Open Men, and Open Women.

I just wanted to comment on what an awesome and well organized race this is and I would highly recommend it to anyone that loves to trail run! This summer was my first introduction into trail running and i'm definitely hooked more than ever...and already working out my race schedule for 2010! Steve seems to be pretty hooked as well and I look forward to seeing him kick some butt out there in the future.

I was a little afraid that after this race I would be tired and ready to take a long break and not run or race for a while. If anything the opposite has happened...I can't wait to get back out there. Our last Stage was friday...4 days ago and i'm itching to get out for a run. The only thing holding me back at the moment is the giant blister I received on stage 4 on the bottom of my heel. It got so bad that they eventually had to literally cut off all of the skin from the bottom of my heel...yeah it looks pretty awesome, and feels even better! Luckily I didn't have any major issues with it for the remaining stages. Stage 6 probably gave it the worst beating but at that point I was just happy we were finishing up the last day!

While I consider Transrockies to be the official end of the season for me, i've still got 3 more races to go...all within the next 6 weeks. Then I promise I'm taking a real break :) I've got the Canmore 5 Peaks coming up on Sept.12...i'm supposed to be doing the Enduro distance 12km but I'm trying to upgrade to the half marathon. I prefer the longer stuff and am not much of a sprinter. Then I have 2 road races after that. Melissa's 22km in Banff is coming up on Sept.26th and then the Okanagan Marathon on Oct.11. It looks like some fun weeks ahead!

That's it for now! Thanks for all the kind words everyone and putting up with my Transrockies babble all summer! My race report is still to come!

Deb

Podium Tonight!!

2009-08-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

Stage 5 of 6 is complete at Transrockies and i'm tired! Don't worry, there's going to be a full report on it all when i get back to Calgary and can get a look at some pictures I have from the whole experience. I just wanted to comment on our best day so far...today!! We've been doing really well all along finishing usually in 4th or 5th each day... but today we finally managed to nab 2nd place in the mixed division and we'll be on the podium tonight! I'm so excited :)

It was a long exhausting day...especially when we've already completed 4 tough days previous! Today was the second longest stage at 37.7km but it was also the stage with the second most elevation gain...4400 ft!! It was a super tough day but a great one! Only one more stage left to go and i'm kind of relieved it's finally here. My body is hating me!! And my feet definitely hate me...the downhills have been pretty sick and gives me issues with my right heel which has turned into one big giant blister. Luckily the sports medicine guys have been fixing me up and pumping it with zinc oxide...it's magic I tell ya!

Well that's it for now, 1 more big day of running to go tomorrow...21 miles and 4600 ft of elevation gain...the most in the whole race. They definitely don't want to make Stage 6 easy on us. Yikes.

Gotta go stretch out these legs!
Deb

Welcome to Buena Vista, Colorado!

2009-08-19T20:28:00.000-07:00

We made it! We're hanging out at 8000 ft in Buena Vista, Colorado...the start of Stage 1 of Transrockies in 3 days from now! Steve and I went for an easy 10km last night and i'm not going to lie...we definitely noticed the altitude and had a bit of a tight chest at first. Luckily that didn't last too long and we felt pretty good after a few km in. Fewf! The weather has been pretty good so far...sunny and fairly warm but windy as hell...windier than Newfoundland and that's saying something! :)

Today we decided to do a little 10km hike...Cottonwood Pass which starts at just over 12,000 ft.

Steve and my 5 week old niece, Julia, at 12,500ft :)

Family photo :) Steve, baby Julia, me, and Kira

Tomorrow Steve and I are going for a short, easy run in the morning and then in the afternoon we're going to check out the town of Leadville. This is where Lance Armstrong won the 100 mile mountain bike race last weekend and where the 100 mile ultramarathon event takes place this saturday!

Well that's it for now. I'm off to my tent for a good night's sleep! It was a fun day and i'm tired! I'm happy to report that my extra thick thermarest is working out very nicely :)

Deb

It's Show Time!!

2009-08-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

Guess i've been a lazy blogger laterly...sorry about that! But i've been a busy girl :) A couple of days after my last post I went on our annual work "team building" trip. It was great! This year we went to Vancouver Island and it was beautiful. I haven't been there in a lonnnng time and really don't remember a whole lot.

It was a pretty awesome trip...definitely didn't feel like a typical work trip or anything like that...just got to hang out with a bunch of great people and do lots of fun things! We went to the beach...got to go see some huge huge trees in Cathedral Grove...went on a whale tour (and saw hump backs and gray whales!!)...ate some fabulous food every day and had an evening of wine tasting! Does that sound like work to you? Heck no!! Here are a couple of pics from the trip...there are definitely better ones floating around at work but this is all I have right now!

Playing at the beach - Tribune Bay

Loving the starfish! :)

Big ass trees!

This is a little blurry but you get the idea of how big this tree is!! It was beautiful at Cathedral Grove!!

At Hot Springs Cove...HOT HOT HOT Springs!!! I did some pretty big runs while I was on the Island so it felt pretty damn good to get in!

My good friend Beth and I on the zodiac for the whale tour!! Yup, we had to wear survival suits...it was pretty chilly out there so I didn't mind...kept us nice and warm!

So that's a quick recap of my trip to Vancouver Island. We were gone for 5 days and it flew by! It was nice to come back and only have to work 2 more days till the weekend though! I had a really fun weekend and got in 2 great trail runs in the mountains with some friends. I'm pretty happy as my legs are feeling awesome and I guess this tapering thing really works haha. I can't wait to get down there and start racing. I'm also really excited that I get to do this with my brother as my partner and it's going to make the whole experience even better.

Steve, Kira and my 5 week old niece Julia left on saturday for the drive to Colorado. They should be in Denver by tonight and I'm going to fly in tomorrow morning and meet up with them for the 2ish hour drive to Buena Vista...where Stage 1 begins! I'm incredibly excited and can't wait to get going! I'll do my best to keep you guys updated but not sure how easy it'll be for me to do that. You might have to wait until the race is over so I can post a full report! I think they might be posting updates at the end of each Stage on how everyone is doing so you can probably follow Team Pine Line somewhere on here!

I'm on my way out for some delicious sushi and then home for some last minute power packing...I know...it's no surprise that it's the night before I leave and I still have packing to do. Ok that's it for now...wish us luck! The fun all begins at Stage 1 on Sunday, August 23rd! :)

Deb

I've been inspired!

2009-08-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

I have decided i'm going to do the Canadian Death Race next year!! I am pumped! Isn't it funny how you can already be so excited for something a year away? A girl I know from the Trail Trash group I run with did it this year and rocked it. She has totally inspired me!! And since i've been hooked since my first and only ultra so far this year...the Scorched Sole 50km...i've been busy planning next year's season of ultras already! This has been such a great summer! I can't wait for Transrockies! Only 12 days till I leave for Colorado and 17 till race day!

Oh...one more thing...anyone out there looking for a pacer for Lost Soul let me know!

Great Training Weekend!

2009-08-04T17:09:00.000-07:00

What a great weekend of training for Transrockies! I managed to get 3 good days in...I'm feeling pretty great and thinking I could do another good one tonight but I'm going to take the day off instead. I have some plantar fasciitis acting up again but nothing major....just feeling like I need a day off and then get some more good runs in the rest of the week. Unfortunately there won't be any mountain running this weekend as I'm off to Vancouver Island on saturday for a work "team building" trip for 5 days. How fab is that?! I'm still going to be doing lots of running however, don't you worry about that :) Not a bad way to start my taper though!!

Saturday I teamed up with Alan and Mark for a 3okm run from Upper Kananaskis Lake to Turbine Canyon. It was a beautiful day! It's a bit of a drive so we didn't end up getting started till about 9:45. By then it was already warming up pretty quick and was 30C by the time we were finished. Here are some pics the guys took along the way :)

Jumping Turbine Canyon! Doesn't look like much here...but check out the next couple of pics to see what I jumped over :)

Overlooking Turbine Canyon...it's a long way down!

Following this run was a nice little dip in the lake, a mini tailgate in the parking lot with some food we brought along...then stopped at the store out there for some chocolate milk for recovery, and a "single" scoop of ice cream...which apparently means 3 scoops (but i'm not complaining!) before driving back to Calgary...

Sunday was another hot one and I had a bit of a lighter day with only 20km but it was on Moose Mountain so definitely a good workout! That night an insane cold front blew into Calgary with the craziest thunder and lightening storm I've ever witnessed. It woke me up about an hour after I had fallen asleep and lasted for a good hour. I had the window open because my house was a sauna but the wind blew over my lamp and slammed my bedroom door. I was a little worried one of the trees out there was going to slam through my bedroom window. I got up looking for Logan, opened the bedroom door and he was just standing there looking freaked! Poor guy! I let him come on the bed after that!

Monday was a holiday here for us so I had planned on a pretty big run. I woke up to a cool day...around 12C I think for most of the day and got 35km in on some trails around Calgary. Damn I forgot how much I love to run in cooler weather...I felt like a star! I was super happy though that my legs felt in great shape and ready to go after my 2 previous days. That's a relief...but I still can't get over the fact that i've got 6 days in a row to do at Transrockies....I'm excited though! Bring. It. On.

Is it taper time yet?

2009-07-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

Whoa...3 weeks from today I leave for Colorado. That's sick. Where did all of my training time go...it's almost time for a taper of some sorts...nuts! I'm getting pretty excited but still feel like I have lots of training left to do. Training is going really well but i'm starting to feel a little out of my league with my brother as a partner...damn guy is a machine and keeps pumping out these sick days of running. I really hope I can keep up!! I am getting pretty tired though and am definitely looking forward to the taper. I'm also getting more and more mentally exhausted and it feels like i'm turning into a bit of a dumb ass as a result....especially on mondays after a long weekend of training...some of the stuff I do on monday blows my mind. Dumb. Ass.

I'm also starting to go a little crazy doing so many long runs by myself and am trying to hit up anyone I can find to go on some long trail runs with me! Things are looking up for this weekend as I think i've found people to run with for at least 1 of my 3 long days. I have to admit that after this ridiculous summer, getting back to training for a normal marathon again is starting to look better and better. I mean don't get me wrong...it's still tough and hard but training for this multi day mountain stuff is a bit intense. I look forward to a bit of a "break" after this summer and getting back to my one long run a week (not multiple) as I train for the Okanagan marathon in October and Boston again next year (oh and Vegas? maybe in December).

Last night I was feeling pretty decent when I got home so decided to go on a 20km trail run. There's not many places you can do this in Calgary so I decided to run through the Douglas Fir trail 4 times....it's close to my house and it has some hills and lots of stairs. It was tough but I felt pretty good. At about the halfway point I was running down a hill and this wasp flies into my hand and gets stuck under the strap of my handheld water bottle. I didn't realize it had happened until I started to feel pain and then more pain...and had to rip the bottle off my hand to get it outta there. It stung me right between the fingers and my hand is actually sore and a little fat in that spot today. I'm glad nobody was around as I let off a few choice words! Ok, yeah if you know me then maybe more than just a few. What?...it hurt damn it! Good thing i'm not allergic or that could have been an interesting turn of events for my evening :)

Anyhow, aside from that...things are good, training is good, life is good. I'm a happy girl :)
deb

I've got my horseshoe for Transrockies :)

2009-07-21T07:24:00.000-07:00

Transrockies is approaching fast and i'm getting pretty excited! Sunday past marked 5 weeks till Stage 1 of the race. I just booked my flight last night to Denver and i'm leaving nice and early...i'll be there about 5 days in advance before the race so hopefully I can get somewhat acclimatized in that period. It should be interesting to see how my body feels. I do remember what it was like to move from Ottawa to Calgary and run for the first time...I felt slow, winded, and out of shape...and that was only an increase in about 3000ft. The race starts in Buena Vista, CO which sits at just under 8000ft...4500ft more than Calgary (that's not even to mention how high we get during some of the stages)! So yeah...this is why i'm heading down 5 days in advance!

I managed to get in some pretty decent running this weekend. Friday I got in 25km and unfortunately Saturday was a weak day for me and I only managed 14km...it was damn hot, I was damn tired, and just felt like hell. So I cut it short and headed home to sit in a cold bath...felt mighty nice on my legs! I made out better on Sunday and joined the Trail Trash group for 45km out in Kananaskis starting at the Little Elbow Campground. It was a long day and I hadn't anticipated how long we'd be out so I ran out of the 2L of nuun I brought...luckily a bunch of people had those water bottles with them with the built in filter so you could fill it up anywhere...they saved my butt for sure! Much of our run was on a horse trail and there was some crazy deep mud and I almost lost my shoe a couple of times...the same thing must have happened to one of the horses as I picked up a horseshoe along the way and brought it home with me!! That's gotta be some kinda good luck for Transrockies no?

It was a beautiful day and there was nothing I would have rather done! I felt guilty spending my entire day in the mountains and not having my best friend Logan to join me! He wouldn't have made it past 15km...those huskies get HOT quick! So I made it up to him later by taking him on a good trip to the park!

Here are some pics of our run...some were taken by Alan with my camera, some by Hugh....

At the start - Little Elbow Campground in Kananaskis

Took me about 5 mins to get warmed up and shed the long sleeve!

1st of maybe 15 river crossings!!...wet feet for about 30 of 45km!

And another...

Are you kidding me?! Argh!!

She'll be comin' round the mountain when she comes!

This is more like it!

Our view from the top of Paradise Pass - at 8300 ft

Me and Adrian

I got worked at Powderface

2009-07-11T18:05:00.000-07:00

Holy Hannah...what a day what a day! I knew going in that this was going to be a tough race and it did not disappoint!

I left my house at 6am for the 45 min drive to Kananaskis Country where the race started at the Station Flats parking lot. I run into my friend Alan on arrival and hang out and chat in the parking lot for a while and get introduced to some people and some other people that are also doing Transrockies this year. Good times. It's probably 40 mins before race start and there's already people all ready to go and i'm sitting there yawning my face off and waiting till the last possible moment to get changed and ready. It's not that cold...around 10 degrees...but when I wake up in the morning i'm always freezing no matter what the temp and it takes me a while to get over it! While I'm in line for the bathroom a guy turns around and asks me "Are you Deb?" I'm like, yeah! (that's never happened to me before haha). Anyways, he knows a friend of mine and also ended up finding and reading my blog! Cool beans! It was great meeting you today Jason, great race! :)

About 10 mins before race start we have a pre race meeting and are told that due to a wildlife incident our route is going to be detoured about halfway through the race...we have to go off the trail and down to the dirt road to run on for about 3km to the midpoint aid station. Hmm...interesting...bear siting? I dunno what it was...but we're told later :)

So...the race...what to say...I don't know a lot about the details of elevation other than the start of the race was at 1410m, the highest point of the race was at 2025m, and we had a total elevation gain for the day of 1858m. What can I say...the first 10km was hard! I had a feeling there was 3 girls in total ahead of me and I had been following behind 1 of them for the first 5 km. At about 5km came aid station #1 and I ended up leaving it quicker that her. She had been running really well and I was actually thinking she would come back and pass me pretty quick but this didn't happen. The next 5km was pretty fun and had a lot of fun downhill leading to aid station #2 at about the 10km mark.

This is where I met the guy just infront of me - Jeremy - and we left the aid station together. It was especially nice to have the company as the second 10km was harder and mentally exhausting as well. It helped take my mind off of how I was feeling. There was a lot of steep climbing that we walked and he chatted away and I cursed to myself how easy he was talking while I gasped for air with my responses. Damn you lol! This is where I really was not feeling well at all...I was not happy that I was already feeling this way at about 13km in! These hills were tough!! I expected Jeremy to quickly move on but he was content to stick with the pace we were going. Finally we got to some great downhills again and he was a superstar while I'm still learning to go fast on them. I was actually super impressed with myself on the downhill sections today as I'm trying to get used to just letting myself go and stop holding back all the time. There were many crazy sketchy spots where I could have seen myself tripping and flying in the air halfway down the hill.

At about 18km or so we break out onto the dirt road for the detour and reach aid station #3 at about 22km. We hear that we're 12th and 13th overall and I am infact the 3rd female. Cool stuff. We leave that aid station and after having some banana and orange slices...i'm feeling like a rockstar! Fewf! The trail is nice and rolling and we fly along chatting away. At about 26km I notice 3 guys come out of nowhere from up ahead just standing there...huh? As we approach I realize it's my running friends Al, Garrath, and Erich and they high five me and cheer me on. It was awesome seeing them and it definitely brought a huge smile to my fast and gave me a boost!I had no idea they would be out there today!!

The rest of the run up to aid station #4 around the 32km mark was fun and I felt really good. I knew there was still some tough stuff to come but didn't want to think about it and just enjoyed the run! We start catching up to half marathoners at this point as they were doing an out and back route. I didn't expect to see so many at this point as it should have been pretty late into their race...they were supposed to start 2 hours after us...but apparently they started about 40 mins late as there was a bear on the trail. Aid station 4 is a bit of craziness as we're coming in and half marathoners are everywhere. Leaving the station it climbs up and we run the same route back that we did on the way out for the last 10km. As we're climbing up on this rocky section I don't know if I should be moving out of the way for the people going downhill or if they should move for me?...mostly they moved but I felt bad and the first time I tried to move...i kind of step off the edge of the trail and stumble somehow and total wipe out...so yeah I end up screwing up the people coming down and the people going up...very nice Deb, nice work. Come on though...did you doubt this would happen? Every trail race i've run so far this year i've totally bailed on.

Anyways, from about 8km on my long 22km run with Jeremy ended as I was feeling pretty good and I guess he wasn't and slowed down a bit...however, his longest run in preparation for this event was 26km up to this point so he was doing a pretty kick ass job! I kept going and fully expected him to appear out of nowhere. 8km left and I felt awesome!!! I come to this weird section that looks like it used to be a river with big round rocks...I should have slowed and walked over them but did I? No. I tried to run through it and ended up falling HARD onto both knees and getting a bit of a nasty gash on one of them. Oh my. What a surprise...Deb falls again...shocking I know. It definitely didn't feel good but I was more angry than anything for being such a dumb ass!

Anyhow, I continue on and began to realize that we had come down some crazy downhills a few hours ago to get to that last aid station...which means there's some fun climbing to come...damn! All i'm going to say was that the next 4km were tough...tough! And while i'm cursing the hills I look back and see these 2 guys catching me pretty quick...shit balls! Relief hits when I see by their bib that they're half marathoners...saweet. But I also notice this girl farther back down the trail power hiking and moving pretty quick...to me she looks like the girl I passed over 25km ago! That instantly gets me moving quicker and finally i'm into the last 4 km which is pretty much flat or downhill...running scared! I can't get caught when I have 4 km to go!!

And I didn't...yay! I finished a long day in 4:39 and managed to get 3rd place overall female. Unfortunately I heard throughout the second half of the run that I was only 2 mins behind the 2nd place woman but i never saw her! I had trouble believing that but it's true...first place was Doone Watson (also heading to Transrockies) with about 3 mins on me and the second place lady was about 2 mins on me. Honestly, I couldn't have given anymore and was pleased with my finish! And it turns out that it was a half marathon female that I had been running scared from so I should say thanks to her for motivating me to pick up the pace!

After the race, my friend Alan (who also finished about 3-4 mins ahead of me) and I drove a few mins down the road to get to the glorious river to soak our legs...damn that glacier fed stuff is cooold. I could only manage to get in just passed my knees...i'm kind of a wimp that way! We spend the next couple of hours waiting around for the awards and chatting with everyone about the race. I was happy to discover a lot of people had also bailed and looked worse off than me with their cuts and scrapes :) However one guy that ran the half marathon ended up falling and having a stick go completely through his hand...poor guy was rushed off to the hospital!

For my third place finish I got a sweet ass SmartWool long sleeve zip merino wool shirt...it fits perfect! Great prize! Oh and remember the "wildlife incident" that caused the detour and the race being a bit shorter finishing at about 41.3km? Apparently there was a cougar kill on the trail that a grizzly was now enjoying. Yikes. Pffft...and Alan called me a rookie for running with bear spray...whatevs, if it wasn't for Jeremy i would have spent almost the whole day by myself and it's Kananaskis Country...bear country people. I feel safer with it...bears freak me out!

So yeah, this was definitely the hardest race I've ever done and I'm damn sore! I wore my skins in the race and i think they really helped a lot and now i'm recovering in my zoots which are a bit tighter...feels great. I'm actually thinking about buying a pair of compression tights for Transrockies for recovery each night. My quads and hamstrings are super sore and if they feel like that after each stage then I'll definitely want them!!

It'll be interesting to see how I make out on my run tomorrow. Tonight i'm chilling and watching more of le Tour...can't get enough :)

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!
Deb

Powderface 42...tomorrow!

2009-07-10T09:07:00.000-07:00

This time tomorrow i'll be almost 3 hours into the race....seems like i've been talking about it for weeks and now it's finally here! Powderface42!! The forecast looks good and I'm thankful it's not going to be a crazy hot day like it has been out there in the past! Looks like they're calling for sun/cloud and a high of 23 with showers in the afternoon. It takes a while to warm up out there too so I expect i'll be finished long before it even reaches that temperature. It's going to be ideal for me!

The entire race, including the half marathon, is capped at 150 people. I have no real idea who'll be there and how many people are actually doing the marathon. Usually there's tons more doing the half. I know one other guy doing the 42 and two from the blogging world I look forward to meeting...Mike from Banff...and Phil from Canmore (who's also doing Transrockies!).

I have absolutely no idea how long it's going to take me or what to expect...i've never run these trails before...although that seems to be the case in every trail race i've done this year! In a way I kind of like not knowing what to expect! From the profile, it looks like it's going to be harder than the Scorched Sole 50km I did a month ago with a lot more ups and downs and it might even take me a bit longer. I'm not sure but it's going to be an interesting day! I never really seem to have a race plan going into any race that I'm doing...regardless if it's on the road or trail...I kind of just go with the flow and how i'm feeling and see what happens from there.

For the past couple of weeks i've been having issues with one of my toes...the one that's next to my big toe. I keep getting a blister on the side and top of the toe after each run but I have no idea what's causing it...it's not even my longest toe! As a result I finally lost the toenail this week - now it matches my other foot as I lost the same toenail on my other foot about a month ago which was a result of running Boston way back. Bizarre. Anyhow, the toe is still annoying me and I could feel it last night during an easy 8km run that I did to loosen up. I'm not sure if I should tape it for tomorrow or just rub bodyglide all around it and hope for the best. Other than that, my legs are feeling pretty good and I seem to be recovered from last weekend's insanity

Yesterday was our stampede team building party with work and since I wasn't drinking it was a pretty funny perspective to sit there as my co-workers got increasingly drunk around me. Some of them made it to work today...some did not lol. It's funny the pressure you get from your co-workers to drink...how many times did I get asked why I wasn't drinking? They know I run and when I say I have a race then they're cool with that...guess that's a good enough excuse around here! Wahoo!

So that's all I got. I'm feeling ready and I'll let you know how it goes :) It's going to be a fun day!

Deb

I missed the memo...

2009-07-06T10:20:00.000-07:00

...for some reason after 3 years of living here I still haven't clued into the fact that Stampede week in Calgary also means dress like a cowboy/Daisy Duke at work (and this is no conservative Daisy Duke look either people)...seriously, this is no joke...people are nuts in this city...wellll woopity doo! I don't do that. Bah Humbug! I'm actually shocked at the amount of people living here that actually own cowboy boots. By the amount I saw today on the streets I'd say 1 in 2 people in this city own em! Here's what I will do to celebrate Stampede...I will take advantage of not having to dress up for work this week and I will wear jeans each day...but that is as far as it goes!

And now onto more important things...

This was a tough weekend of running for me...both mentally and physically. I'm glad I got through it as they say that kind of stuff makes you stronger...but really...who are "they"?...and does it really? I dunno but I hope so...i'm completely bagged from this weekend.

The weatherman forecasted heat for Vernon this weekend...and that's what we got. It was a blazin hot one from the moment I arrived on thursday evening till the time I left yesterday afternoon.

Friday's run was to be an evening run as my brother was working and then had a friend visiting in the afternoon. We had a fun afternoon with a walk to the beach for a swim. Logan must have been pretty hot as I've never seen him swim so far out from shore before.

By the time we started our run in Kal Park it was almost 7pm. It was still 30 degrees and I could feel it, despite the shade we were in during much of the run. I didn't feel good from the very beginning...my legs just felt like lead and I could not lift them for the life of me. On one particularly hard climb we were on I finally had to stop for a break and I got swarmed by mosquitoes...and when I get bit, they turn into giant welts...my arms and back probably have at least 30 bites...not cool at all.

I finally started to feel a little better once the really tough climbs were over and we got to do some fun downhill singletrack stuff! We get to about 1km to go and stop dead in our tracks as a rattle snake is on the side of the trail rattling and hissing away...and looking pretty pissed. He wouldn't even budge when Steve started throwing stuff at it. Steve ended up just trotting by which it didn't look to happy with and I followed suit wondering how far those things can lunge at you? Luckily it was all talk and no action :) That was my first time seeing a rattler!

We finished 17km with some pretty sore muscles. I'm not used to feeling sore after a shorter run like that but the heat definitely messed with me for sure. All I have to say is how much I love my compression socks lately. My legs feel like a million bucks putting those on after a run!

Saturday started with 2+ hours infront of the tv watching the first day of the Tour de France. Damn is that ever addicting. We wanted to leave for our run by 10am but Day 1 was close to finishing so we ended up delaying our run till around 11am. It was already 25C degrees by this point...our own fault but hey, you've gotta get used to running in heat too...you never know what race day will be like right?

The first half of this run again started out really tough for me yet my brother was a rockstar...i am not used to running in heat and the climbing in the beginning was so tough. I felt guilty that I was having such a hard day and kept apologizing but i've got to learn to stop doing that. We're both going to have tough days at Transrockies and have just got to deal with it and not let it get you down mentally as well. He's very good at keeping optimistic and motivating me along though when i'm having a tough time which i'm pretty thankful for.

We knew there was a lake up there that we were going to cool off in and when I needed it most is when it showed up at around the 18km mark. Wahoo! It was fabulous and we felt frigging amazing after that! The rest of the run up to the 32km mark was pretty decent and there was a river that flowed all the way down so we got to stop lots to dunk our heads. I was pretty thankful for that!

At 32km we were out of the trees and back down to the road for the rest of the way home. Steve had used up all of his 3L of nuun he brought with him so we made a stop at Esso and asked if they had a sink we could use to fill up our hydration bladder. After having to explain what we needed it for the lady agreed! I thought it was fairly obvious why we needed water but apparently not!

Back out on the road...not fun...it was 35 degrees in the shade...but we had no shade! Ugh! According to Google Earth we measured that it would be 10km to get home from here...this was not the case. A little bit further and we see a sign that says "Vernon 13km"...I was like WTF?!? That's going to be over 50km!! Finally at about 36km we decided to call Kira to come get us and she arrived when we were getting close to 40km. I'd had it...that was enough for sure!! This was a long hard day and a blizzard has never tasted so good to me as the one I had that night :)

Sunday was a relaxing morning of watching Day 2 of the Tour, cherry picking in the backyard, and the end of a super exciting Wimbledon final!! I was also happy to get to go to Kira's babyshower before the long drive back to Calgary...i'll be Aunt Deb in less than a month! :)

The rest of the week will be fairly easy running as I do a mini taper before race day on saturday! Wish me luck!

Deb

Canada Day Atop the Moose

2009-07-02T08:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I decided to finally join the Trail Trash runners for a group run up Moose Mountain. For whatever reason I've never been able to make any of the trail runs till now so it was a nice change! When I awoke at 6am to find a beautiful sunny day out there, my immediate thoughts of rolling over and going back to sleep disappeared. Plus I promised Logan the night before we were going on a fun trail run where a bunch of other dogs would be too!! We met at the carpool lot in Calgary at 7:30am for the drive out to Kananaskis and met some others at Moose Mountain trailhead to find 12 people and 5 other dogs. Awesome!

A little info on Moose Mountain....it is the most easterly Rocky Mountain near Calgary...and it takes its name from its profile on the horizon that looks like a moose resting. It's an out and back route...15km round trip...7.5km to the top at 7995 ft where there is a fire lookout and helicopter landing pad. I'm still pretty lame when it comes to stopping and taking pictures on a run so here are some that Hugh took yesterday!

Beautiful morning!!

This is where we came from....

Here's some steeper stuff on the way up...look closely and you can see my white hat towards the top left...in close pursuit are Alan in red and one of the dogs (Logan by the way left me in the beginning to run with the 2 fast guys in the group! He prefers boys :) He would have gotten to the top before me but I had to call him back and put him onleash...it's quite dangerous up there and on leash dog signs are everywhere as you approach the fire lookout.)

Me and Logan chilling out on the Heli pad and having a snack :)

Me, Karen and Logan on our way back down with Moose in the distance.

Me and Charlie on the way back...Logan is tired and is falling behind!

Besides the great company, an added bonus to running with this group is that everyone brings some kind of awesome treat to have back at the trailhead for a little tailgate party :) Now that's my kind of run and a great incentive for me to run with these guys more often! haha :) When we got back home Logan and I enjoyed a huge nap and then got ready to head over to a friend's house for a BBQ.

Unfortunately Logan was suffering majorly bad gas for the entire evening and totally stunk out James' apartment. I tried to explain this is what happens to him (and sometimes myself haha) after (or during) a run. Honestly, it was the worst gas that has ever come from him and it was pretty much flowing in 10 min intervals...Logan totally knows how to clear a room...even James' dog Chance left a couple of times lol.

Anyways, that was my Canada Day...it was a gooder! I'm on my way to Vernon again this afternoon for the weekend for some running with Steve. Can't wait! It's going to be tougher this weekend because it'll be my first experience this year running in some much hotter temps than i'm used to...forecast says 33C.

Have a great weekend!

Deb

What? Last day of June?

2009-06-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

Seriously, where did June go? This summer is flying by and I feel like I've still got a lot of work to do before Transrockies! Training is coming along very nicely though and after this weekend past I'm definitely starting to feel more confident and more excited for Transrockies. I think I was a little worried that my hill climbing skillz were going to be pathetic and overall I wouldn't be able to keep up with my rockstar partner. Luckily this wasn't the case and I really surprised myself!

Steve and I got in 3 good long and semi-long trail runs on the weekend that all included some pretty tough climbs. I have to say I definitely left Vernon feeling stronger than when I got there! I'm heading back out to Vernon on thursday for another weekend of training runs and then i'll do somewhat of a taper next week before Powderface 42 the following Saturday. I'm getting super pumped for that race! The race is sold out but Steve is looking for a bib for it so if anyone knows of one for sale for the 42 let me know!

I'm a little beat out from the weekend and the long drive back home so I decided to take yesterday and today completely off. It's hard to make yourself do that sometimes but I'm definitely starting to get better at listening to my body. Tomorrow is Canada Day and I'm trying to figure out what i'd like to do on my day off from work!! I'd like to sleep in a bit...unfortunately for me, sleeping in means till about 7am! I'm so not a morning person yet I still wake up super early on days off...argh! I'd love to get a big hike in somewhere...haven't been out hiking in a couple of weeks.

I left my camera in Calgary this weekend so didn't get any trail running pics...but i'll leave you with this pic...check out the black bear trying to look in the windows of my parents trailer when they were in a campground in Eastport, Newfoundland. Pretty funny :)

Running is my multivitamin

2009-06-26T09:50:00.000-07:00

I borrowed the title of my post from Kelly Roe's blog...thanks Kelly...it's a great one and definitely applies to me huge :) Kelly and her boyfriend are also teaming up for Transrockies and I'm super excited to meet them as well!!

I'm currently at my brother's place in Vernon. I love it here, what a great town! I left Calgary yesterday a little after 4 and got here a little after 10 Calgary time (9 BC time)...it takes pretty much exactly 6 hours. I'm pretty excited to be getting in some good running with my brother...my TR partner. Steve and Kira are both at work today so i'm going to just chill out and wander around Vernon.

Oh and guess who now lives in Vernon...and who my brother and wife had over for dinner a short while ago...Aaron Heidt! This guy came 3rd OVERALL in the Vancouver Marathon in a sick time...something like 2:36 I believe? He's a top Canadian ultrarunner and is on Team Montrail Canada! And of course...also competing in Transrockies. Holy crap...there are going to be some fast ass people at this race in 2 short months. Clearly they are not our competition...I mean we just want to have fun and finish the bloody thing. I am so excited to be going to a race where I get to meet these people, run "with" them and hang out with them for 6 days. It's going to be incredible.

This spring/summer so far has been the most exciting and fun racing season I've ever had...and it only gets better from here on! Running at Boston was amazing and I will be back next year and any year after that if I continue to requalify. I still love road racing and I don't think that experience at Boston will ever get old for me. But trail running/racing is still very new to me and boy am I hooked. After my first 50km 3 weeks ago I said to myself I can not picture running anything longer than that...and already I'm looking for 50 mile and 100km races I can do next year. Funny how that happens...I ran my first marathon in 2005 thinking at the end that I didn't know if I'd ever do that again...and now I can't seem to get enough! :)

Gary Robbins (from Newfoundland I might proudly add - living in Vancouver) is also one of the top Canadian ultrarunners and is racing in the very impressive Western States 100 mile race tomorrow...100 miles people!! That is so exciting and I find him and his blog super inspiring and motivating. I just know he's going to rock it!

Good luck to everybody racing this weekend. I'll be training my butt off as I get ready for Powderface 42 in 2 very short weeks. Surprisingly I'm feeling nervous for this one...but very excited. I love what I do :) For those of us training...work hard and enjoy it...we've so lucky to get to do what we love every day!

K-100 Race Report

2009-06-22T12:38:00.000-07:00

Well this was my first year participating in the K-100 and I must say that it was a blast! My team was so much fun and I can't wait to do it again next year! The official results aren't in so I'm not sure how we did overall or how I did overall for my leg but i'll let you know soon enough!

We all had to predict how long we thought it would take us to do each leg so we'd know when to be at each leg to meet our runner coming in. The first 2 guys ran well under their predicted time so by the time Leg 5 came around I ended up starting 20 mins earlier than planned. Luckily I was ready to go...a bunch of kind runners had let me infront of them at the portaloo cuz in casual conversation I was like "yeah i'm gonna seriously bust if I don't pee soon" LOL. I wasn't lying...I drank tons on the drive to Kananaskis!!

This one guy infront of me in line gives me this look up and down and then he's like "so you're doing leg 5?" and i'm like 'YUP'! He proceeds to ask me if i've ever done it before and I give an enthusiastic 'NOPE' and he continues with yeah...there's so many hills, then it flattens, then there's another crazy hill and then at the very end it goes on forever up this one hill blah blah blah...the whole time i'm giving him this fake grin and ask that's cool, how many times have you done Leg 5? ohhhh 6 or 7 he says. I'm like that's awesome, way to go...giving him the pat on the back he feels he deserves I guess...as much as I loved our conversation it's my turn to pee (jackass)....later!

Anyhow, shortly after I meet up with our team leader Garrath and he says Jen (our leg 4) has just passed the 1 mile to go mark and is getting close! I cross the highway to get in the shoot to meet her. She gets there waaay quicker than I anticipated, gives me a high 5 and then i'm off!

I started out feeling very good and sticking with 5 min kms...I didn't want to go out too hard and then die when I hit the hills. I have to say I didn't find the first 10km to be too bad at all...i thought, wow this is it? This is nothing! Although really I think it was hilly and I was just feeling good from training hills lately! My biggest mistake in the entire race was taking the gatorade that was given to me early on. Our crew had water or gatorade every couple of kms...and while I only ever drink nuun...I wanted something other than water...I take the gatorade and it immediately gives me the worst stomach cramping i've ever had...I thought to myself...you idiot, this is why they say don't try anything new on race day. But i've never ever had this problem from anything i've drank or eaten so I was shocked.

Regardless of that, our crew was kick ass...they showed up every couple of kilometres...would slow down as they drove past to yell at me and blast some sweet tunes to pump me up. I couldn't help laughing everytime they drove by! Here's me giving Garrath my half smile/half this sucks face...i'm hurting, i can't fake that i'm not for the camera :) That sweet VW van in the background is our crew/team supporting us the whole way!

My stomach was in such pain that I couldn't even think about eating the gel I brought with me that I wanted around the 9km mark. Finally by 12km I was fading and forced down a gel that i'm still holding onto in this pic...sometimes it takes me a while to get through a whole gel!

Luckily it helped huge. The hills were getting worse too! Finally I get to I think about 2km to go...this is the bitch of all hills and as I saw the cars off in the distance still going up this endless hill I just thought uh oh...this could be trouble!

I see this guy in the distance...spandex clad...it looks like a triathlete to me...you know, they love their spandex (and no I'm not making fun...they do!!)...I begin to wonder if it's my new friend Trevor...I just started reading his blog through Cam's blog and found out we were both doing Leg 5! I'd never met him in person but kind of knew what he looked like and decided I wanted to try and catch up and see if it was him!!! I get closer and yup, it was definitely a triathlete (again...spandex, hello!)...I start to pass him on the left...look over and say...

"is that Trevor?"

"Yup"

"Hey, it's Deb!"

He laughs and responds with "see I knew you were going to kick my ass!" LOL. I tell him i'm dying...which in fact was true! I actually stopped on this hill twice to catch my breath and the second time I stopped I looked back as I had visions of him just blowing by me at this point. He's close so I start going again as my garmin tells me the end is near! Finally I get to the top of the hill...there's a little bit of a flat and a downhill and then I can see the finish! I gunned it, high fived our Leg 6 runner Laura, and finished with my garmin reading 17.6km at 1:28:37. I was super happy with that and my 5:03 min/km average.

Trevor and I caught up at the end of our leg...very cool to meet someone in person from the blogging world! I've also been told that the next time I pass him in a race (which I seriously doubt will happen again - this dude is a faaaasst runner/ironman)...i'm allowed to slap him on the butt as I go by just like Cam does :)

So yeah it was a super fun day...even moreso after my leg was finished and I got to cheer on everyone else for the rest of the day and enjoy some beer! Beer has never tasted so good to me as it did shortly after that race! Yum! There was a bbq after the entire race was over...and while I have to admit they weren't the best burgers I've ever had...kind of McDonald's like but worse...I thoroughly enjoyed it. I will pretty much eat anything put infront of me after a race! Here's a pic at the post-race bbq of Laura (Leg 6), Carmello (Leg 5 on another team), and me enjoying our beer :) and waiting in line for our dirty burgers!

What's on the schedule next? My next 2 weekends in a row are long ones...so i'm off to Vernon for both of them to train with my brother...multi lonnnng hilly days in preps for Transrockies. This will also help huge in my preparation for the Powderface trail marathon in 3 weeks! Wahoo!

Hope you guys are having a great monday! I wasn't sore at all from saturday's race but was wiped out yesterday and decided against my long run. I needed some extra rest and enjoyed a very lazy sunday indeed! My body was pretty happy with me :) Today's 10km at lunch felt great and it actually turned into a Tempo run! I love those days! :)

K-100 tomorrow

2009-06-19T13:28:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is my first road race since Boston 2 months ago. I've been busy enjoying the trail running/racing way too much! :) Anyhow, it's the K-100 - Kananaskis 100 mile relay. It should be fun as i've wanted to do this since I moved to Calgary 3 years ago but never found a team! Friends I've met through the running room, including the guys I went to Boston with this year asked me if i'd like to join them as they had 9 confirmed people and needed one more person to make up the 10 legs of the race. We're sponsored by the running room so our team name is plain and simple - Eau Claire Running Room :)

I quickly jumped onboard and asked if it was possible to do the leg that was hilliest (just because I need to train train train on hills to help me with my other races this summer!). Ha...like I had to fight with anyone for that leg...i think they were pumped that I was the only one jumping at the chance to do Leg 5! The description specifically says "this is the toughest leg of the relay"...hmm...maybe i should have actually looked at the legs in advance before asking for this? Ha ha. Nah, it'll be fine :)

Here are the stats of my leg...looks pretty fun no?

LEG FIVE
START: 0.5 km south of Mist Creek at the Pickle Jar Recreation Area
DISTANCE: 17.6 km
DIFFICULTY RATING: 10
FASTEST RECORDED TIME IN 2006: 1:04.07
PACE: 5:52 per mile
DESCRIPTION: This is the toughest leg of the relay. It's hilly with a number of segments at a 7% grade. The runner will gain 450m over the length of this route; 250m are packed into 6.8 km. The runner will be truly tested on Canada's highest engineered road. The road peaks at Highwood pass, 2206m above sea level. The surface is new asphalt. Watch for wildlife.

Anyhow, all the running i've been doing for transrockies has made me feel pretty strong so I feel prepared but I'm also hoping this profile is just exaggerated and it really isn't as bad as it looks!

I've also forgotton how hard road running is on your body as i've been mostly doing the trail thing. So while I keep saying I'm not going to kill myself in this relay so it doesn't take me a couple of weeks to recover (as Powderface 42 is in 3 weeks from tomorrow)...i'm super competitive and i'm sure i'll give it everything I have. I really need to get in the planned 32km run on sunday with the Trail Trash group from Calgary so i'm hoping i'm good to go for that too!

So I think I left you last night saying I was heading to Nose Hill for a run with Logan. We got in 9.5km...fun and uneventful till about the last km. I decided to run down this little valley so I could come back up and get a good hill in at the end of my run. We turn around to go up and Logan sees something and runs up this little enbankment into the trees...I hear a racket and turn around to him and a coyote getting into it. Damn those effin coyotes do they ever piss me off. I ran back towards him and yell for Logan to come and he actually listens to me right away which shocked me as if there is other wildlife around he usually ends up following/chasing it and completely ignoring me. I don't think he really knew what it was...some kind of crazy wild dog maybe?

Anyhow, he ran up to me and I quickly nabbed him on the leash and we took off. That coyote followed us all the way back up out of the valley to the top of Nose Hill. I've heard of this happening at Nose Hill before but often there are multiple coyotes ganging up on the dog. Or they'll send out a scout and it ends up bringing the dog back and that's when they all pounce!

I'm greatful that Logan is a big boy at 85lbs as this wasn't a scrawny little thing like most people thing they are. Over the winter we were up there and saw 3 giant ones staring at us from the distance...they were huge (and needless to say I got freaked and we took off back to the car then too haha).

So that was my little adventure...funny how all I ever worry about are bears and I go for a run in the park within Calgary and I've got to worry about those little buggers.

K well that's it! I'm going to relax tonight and get ready for tomorrow! Wish me and my team luck and i'll let you know how it goes :)

Deb

A Night with Coldplay!

2009-06-18T16:37:00.000-07:00

Last night I was lucky enough to see my favorite band for the second time...Coldplay!! Here I am with my best friend Leanne sitting in what turned out to be some kick ass seats!!! (thanks to Leanne's sister Allison for coming through with the tickets...my attempts failed! damn Ticketmaster!)

Me, Leanne, her sis Allison, Justine

We're anxiously awaiting Coldplay to come onstage! Snow Patrol opened up for them and are also seriously awesome!! I definitely recommend checking out their music!

It's a full house at the Saddledome!!

Well that's it for pics from last night as actual concert photos never come out! I took a ton of great videos though that came out well! Coldplay was absolutely fantastic and did in no way disappoint...I couldn't have asked for anything more! Here's a little clip of them singing "Yellow"...Enjoy :)

I was home and in bed by midnight and decided to give myself an extra half hour of sleep before getting up this morning...yeah, I slept in till 6am...so lucky wha? I could seriously pass out on the couch right now but I promised Logan we'd go up to Nose Hill for a run! We've got some crazy thunderstorms going on in Calgary this afternoon/evening and as the latest one just passed I think i'd best get ready to get out there quick!

Have a great evening everyone! It's almost the weekend, woot!!

Deb

My quads are on firah!

2009-06-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

Well this weekend certainly flew by...damn...June is half over, how did that happen?! Anyway, I accomplished everything I set out to do this weekend (except for cleaning...oops...but I did sweep up Logan's shedding extravaganza...holy husky shedding machine!!)

Before my friend's stagette on friday night I managed to get my butt out the door for an 11km trailrun along the Douglas Fir Trail. Here's a pic showing my nemesis...the stairs...it doesn't look like much in this pic, but these stairs are endless...especially when you're standing at the very bottom looking up! (I try not to ever do that when I get to them!)

The run didn't go as well as I had hoped...I was just feeling off...tired, sluggish and really not into it! It clouded over and started to rain a bit while I was in there...I took off my glasses as a result and counted at least 5 of those little white flies go directly in my eye. I swallowed quite a few too...ugh! Needless to say, I was happy when the run ended and I could get ready for my friend's stagette!

I pigged out like a champ...the drink not going down as well at first but my body warmed up to it eventually :) I'm not a shot type of girl but I did manage quite a few shots of Sour Puss...I know, most people hate that stuff but it's one of the few that I can get down without gagging! The doorbell rings at 10pm and I open it to see an old guy - Jim - with long gray hair and a cowboy hat on. Nope, he wasn't the stripper lol...there wasn't one which I have to admit I was happy about...i'm really not a fan and I think it's just super awkward for everybody lol. Anyway, Jim was the driver of the party bus!

We piled our drunkselves in and drove around Calgary for 2 hours and taking stops at some scenic places for pics and pee breaks. At midnight we get dropped off at the one club i've managed to avoid in the 3 years I've lived here...bloody Tantra! Ugh...Tantra is brutal...I'm 29 and was definitely 10 years older than everyone there. I don't think i've ever felt so old in my life! While I do love to dance...this was not my type of place. Give me a beer at a pub any day and i'm a happy happy girl! Anyhow, I have to say, the night was uneventful for me after that point and I was home in bed by 2 am.

I woke up to a bit of fuzziness but no hangover, wahoo! My friend James, Leanne and I planned to go hiking that day and by the time Leanne and I got our act together and were all ready to leave...it was almost 2pm. Whoops. Luckily the hike we were doing would take less than 3 hours. We drove to Canmore and did Ha Ling Peak...also known as Chinaman's Peak. It was awesome but tough...a straight uphll battle from the get go. Damn, hiking makes me feel so out of shape sometimes! Here are some pics of our great day!!

Leanne, James, our dogs Logan (husky), Chance (Australian Shepherd), & Charlie (Westie)

Leanne and I at the top...Logan is pretty pooped lol

After chilling out at the top for a bit and having a snack we saw some nasty looking clouds rolling our way. It was time to jet! We pretty much ran all the way down...especially when we heard thunder! Anyhow....all of that downhill wreaked havoc on my quads...holy burn city! It's the good kind of pain though...like after a sweet leg workout with a gazillion lunges! Anyhow, we made it down and back to the car just in time as the rain started.

Sunday I woke up not too happy about the 30km trail run I needed to do. It was a late start and I didn't leave my house till around noon to drive to Moose Mountain in Kananaskis about 45 mins away. The actual hike is about 15km in total which starts at the top of a pretty long and steep 7.5km dirt road. To make this a 30km run I decided to park at the bottom and run up the hill...NOT pleasant...I think it took me over an hour to get to the start of the trail...gross! Moose Mountain is also a super popular spot for downhill mountain bikers. Trucks and trucks of them passed me on my way up the road and would leave me eating dirt...literally. Ugh. I get to the top and a few guys are like, hey, nice work on the run. I was like, thanks, that was pretty awful! They proceeded to tell me I looked good everytime they drove back up the hill and I proceeded to tell them that's probably because everytime I heard a car coming I made sure I was running so I didn't look like a lame ass!! :)

Anyhow, I didn't nab any pics but it was a pretty tough run for me and my quads hated me on the way to the top and on the way back with all of that downhill to the car. Hopefully my legs will eventually start to get used to this. In total it took me about 3 .5 hours of running/power hiking...not too bad I guess.

Yesterday after work I wanted to get in another semi-long run to get used to multi days of long runs. I was pretty tired after work and just wanted to get it over with so I just ran 16km from the house instead of finding some trails. My muscles were darn sore from the weekend but they got used to the run pretty quick.

Today i'm enjoying a complete day off from any exercise and i'm loving it :) Early to bed tonight as tomorrow night i'll be up a little late...I get to see my most favorite band...Coldplay! I can't freakin wait!!!

deb

I Heart Friday

2009-06-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

Ahhh...Friday again...I don't even mind being at work on Fridays! There's always the excitement of the upcoming weekend and all the plans you've made! Wahoo! I felt like this week totally dragged during the days but really now that the weekend is here it kind of seems like it flew by! I've got some fun things planned this weekend and while I should spend some time doing some housework, mowing the lawn, and all that garbage...i'm pretty sure all of a sudden it'll be sunday night again, i'll be vegging on the couch after a tiring but fun weekend, and will have accomplished nothing in the way of housework. It's funny cuz i'm usually so crazy about that stuff and love to have such a clean, spic n span place but once summer comes it's a whole different story. I feel like I tend to give it a really good cleaning only when I know I have visitors coming! I know I'm not the only one...there must be some other athletes out there that are too busy enjoying life, training, and sleeping to fit in that stuff?!

Anyhow, this has been a great week and I have recovered quite well from my 50km. I can't believe how 2 days after the race I was walking around with no pain and running 3 days after...man that is nothing like after a marathon. Running on the bloody road kills ya! So I was really happy to get in a good trail run on wednesday night with Logan up at Nose Hill Park as my first run since the race. We ran for 8km and I figured that was enough for my first run back...and Logan was a panting drooling mess but he had lots of fun. I meant to bring my camera but forgot sorry! Here's a pic I found online showing some of the park...

Yesterday I went for another 8km run at lunch along the Bow River pathway. I was feeling pretty good and it ended up being quite a fast paced run...whoops. I didn't intend to do anything like that the week after a race but I felt good so I went with it. My friend Nancy and I (and Logan of course) went back up to Nose Hill last night on our mountain bikes. I haven't been on my mountain bike in 2 years I think! I forgot how much I loved it. I've got to start doing that more often...good crosstraining for running too!! Unfortunately I'm a little timid (i.e. lame) when it comes to going downhill and because my brakes are effed at the moment, they squeal huge everytime I use them...so i'm sure the whole park could hear what a wimp I was on every downhill I did lol. Other than that it was a super fun night! Again...Logan was completely wiped out after this! Poor huskies...I can't imagine running around in a fur coat! :)

As for today...i'm going to do the Douglas Fir trail after work...I find it a pretty tough run and it's a good one you don't have to travel out of the city to do...it starts about 2km from my doorstep! It involves a ridiculous amount of stairs which I'm not very good at yet...hopefully by the end of the summer I will have mastered them?! I'm going to work it pretty hard and then feel ultimately satisfied and enjoy my evening of eating and boozing at my friend's stagette...apparently there's also a party bus involved...could be interesting. I'll try to nab some good pics :) Hopefully I can keep it under control because I'm not keen on running or hiking tomorrow with a hangover. I think depending on how I feel when I wake up tomorrow will decide if it's a hiking or running in the mountains day :)

Have a great weekend everybody!

deb

Scorched Sole Race Photos

2009-06-09T18:21:00.001-07:00

The start of the 50km - me on the far right in the red hat.

Me again with my red hat :)

Kicking up some dust!

Rockin the compression socks! :)

Yeah!!!

A close finish for me behind this guy!

My buddy in blue (the ironman) who ran much of the race with me! (and waited for me when I bailed lol). If any of you triathletes know this Ironman from Vancouver, tell him I said hi!

My brother Steve and I (Team Pine Line!!)

Good start for Team Pine Line!

Start of the 25km Race - Steve is center with red hat

Go time!

Looking pretty relaxed!

On his way to a 3rd place overall finish!

Top 3 finishers in the 25km!

Showing off my winnings with the race directors :)

Family photo - me, my brother Steve and awesome wife Kira

Scorched Sole 50km Ultra

2009-06-08T10:33:00.000-07:00

What a great weekend I had in Vernon/Kelowna! It's such a beautiful spot and the weather is awesome this time of year. I was very lucky to escape the cold and snow that Calgary had this weekend. One word sums that up...Retarded.

After work on Thursday I packed up my dog Logan and my gear and headed out on the long drive. I'm usually not great at driving for long distances as I often get extremely sleepy. I thought it might be worse going out after work but I was pretty excited for the weekend and didn't have much of a problem. It was a 6 hour drive and I made one stop in Golden which is about halfway in between. One really great thing about driving to BC after work is the 1 hour time change in your favour so while it was 10:30 in Calgary when I got there, it was only 9:30 in Vernon and still nice and light out!

My brother Steve and Kira (his wife) were both working on friday so I had the day to myself to relax and of course do a little shopping! I know, it's weird that i'm going to a small place like Vernon to shop but they have some great stores there as well as a great gear store that my brother manages...Valhalla Pure Outfitters! Of course I spent a huge amount of time (and money) there as I get a family deal through him! I also bought a super thick kick ass thermarest that is going to be amazing for Transrockies. It's definitely not one you'd bring on a backpacking trip as it weighs a ton but it'll be perfect for Transrockies!

Friday night Steve whipped up an awesome pasta meal and we followed that up with some ice cream which made me very happy :) I was like hey...i'm running 50km tomorrow, i'm going to eat whatever I want leading up to it...and I did!

Anyhow, we had an early rise as my race started at 7am, Steve's at 7:30 and it would be around 45 mins to get there. I slept quite well until my alarm went off at 4:45am...my first thoughts when that happens on race day is always "I do not want to do this today!" It's what happens to me every single race day...I never wake up stoked...not even at Boston! I'm just not a morning person and I don't feel good to go until I get to the race and see all of the other excited runner buzz going on! Plus I was also starting to realize that uh oh..50km is a long way and who knows how long it'll take me to do! I've never run longer than 4hours in my life and that's on the road which is much quicker!

Steve and I pulled into the parking lot and I started to get more excited as I saw runners around. The 50 miler runners had already left at 6am for their long day! It was about 6:30 and I had time to pick up my bib, pee, slap on sunscreen and all that fun stuff. Here are a couple of pics of my brother and me before the race.

Unfortunately the picture of me doesn't show my legs and what i'm wearing...my skins! I decided today was the day I was going to try running in compression socks! I know a bunch of people that have done it and saw tons of people doing it at Boston and the Calgary marathon last weekend. I have to say, I thought they were great!!! There's a bunch more pics that'll be posted on the race website and hopefully I can show em off he he. I got a lot of funny looks from others and some questions but I thought what the hell, if this is going to make me feel better running 50km then why not!

I didn't get a chance to warm up much before the race aside from a little stretching. When the horn blew at 7am and the race started I was not too pleased at the steady climbing that began immediately...even though I did read a previous race report that the first 11km was uphill...ugh...and it was! After a couple of kilometres I felt much better as I was finally warmed up. Starting a race uphill really sucks! The whole time I was thinking to myself...I really hope my brother doesn't catch up to me before our courses separate. He started a half hour after me and we shared the same course for the first 12km. He's a super quick runner and wasn't planning on holding anything back! And guess what...he didn't catch me, wahoo! My course went off on another direction for some more hill climbing that I wasn't starting to mind quite so much. The first 25km of this race was quite tough as there was 3500 ft of elevation to gain, yikes. I met an awesome "ironman" that I ran about 12km with in the first half and we chatted about everything and after finding out he did ironman the last 3 years in a row of course I had to pick his brain :) I got a little tired and he took off just before we reached the midway point of the race.

After the first 2 aid stations the volunteers knew who I was from then on which was pretty cool. THey'd see me coming and say hey Deb...you're the girl that woke up this morning and decided to switch from 25km to 50km lol (the race director didn't change my registration as promised so everyone thought it was a last minute thing). And everyone I met from then on would say "You're the first 50km woman through" which still continued to surprise me the more I heard it!

As I pass the midway point of any race I do, I get happier and happier from then on as you don't have this overwhelming amount of mileage left to do. I started to feel great after 25km...plus most of the hills were overwith and there were some great flats to cover! I felt great and was running quite fast which really surprised me at this point...after all of that climbing I could still do sub 5 min kilometres! Sweet! I caught up to the guy I had spent a long time running with at around the 38 km mark. He was super surprised when he saw me and told me he took off too early and he was starting to fade. We stuck together for a while and passed some of the 50 milers we caught up to...they were so funny and yelled out to me "way to go, you're the first 50km woman to go by". All of this cheering definitely helped to push me along!

At about 39km the trail took a sharp right down into the trees for some fast and steep single track. I'm not good with those type of downhills but the guy I was with insisted I go first. I was good for about 4km and then there was an aid station at the marathon point. It was a good sight to see and I downed some orange slices (my new favorite thing while trail running!) and dumped some water on my head. It was starting to get warm! My buddy was like, ok let's go! And we took off again. I told him to go first and he was a rockstar on the downhills and after about a kilometre I totally bailed! Haha...god, are you surprised after last weeks result? Too funny. At least I made it to 43km before crashing. This time I skinned my left knee pretty bad but all was good. He stopped for me and asked if I was ok and I told him to keep going but he totally waited. God I wish I had gotten his name! Funny how you can spend so much time running with someone in a race and chatting about your entire lives and you forget to introduce yourselves and never see them again!

Anyway, he pulled away as it was pretty much all downhill from here on out and I was left by myself for the last 5km. It was pretty cool to think to myself that every step from here on in was the furthest I had ever run before. It was so satisfying! With about 500m or so to go there are people on the course hiking or riding their bikes. I'm running behind this couple and their dog and I think, I hope they turn around and let me pass before I have to yell out to them. THey turn around as I approach and it's Steve and Kira! We all look at each other in surprise and they're like holy shit, way to go and start yelling and cheering out for me all the way down. It was sooo awesome and I actually think it was cooler seeing them at that point than it would be if they were at the finish line! Based on my time from the 25km last week and what I thought I could do, they did not think I would finish the race so early...yeah I broke 5 hours...I finished my first 50km in 4:50!! That's way off from the 6 hour time I predicted hahaha. And I was indeed the first woman to cross the line :) Here is a link to the results...my brother kicked butt and came 3rd overall in his 25km race. Not a bad start to training for Transrockies by Team Pine Line!!!

What did I get for my hard work besides total satisfaction and sense of accomplishment in my first 50km?! I got a pretty cool plaque for my age group win...and for my overall win I got a bottle of red wine from one of the local wineries in the Okanagan as well as free entry into next years race! Not too shabby :) I'll post some race pics when they show up on the race website.

After the race there was a bbq which I thoroughly enjoyed. Nothing better than a big burger after something like that! We drove back to Vernon and took the dogs to pet beach...what an awesome spot! The water wasn't too bad for wading either. If only it had been there at the end of the race. I would have jumped right in! My hip was quite sore yesterday and I was stiff and moving a little slow but today i'm feeling pretty great. I can't believe how incredible I feel in comparison to 2 days after Boston. Trail running really is a gazillion times better on the body than road running. I'm not sure when I'll run this week as I still want to rest. But i'm super happy how good i'm feeling 2 days later!

Well that's it for now! Sorry about the super long post :)
Deb