Oh, Hello Winter...back so soon?

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!

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!

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!

Ghost Runner

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."