the long run blues

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

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

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

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

Happy Easter everyone!

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!

On the mend...

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!

"the Episode"

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!

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

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!

Sunshine at Sunshine!!

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!

I LOVE my new skis!!

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!