Never, say never....

I’ve been running for almost 3 years now. I’ve done a couple of 5K races, a couple of 10K races, 5 half marathons, a 25K trail race and a 30K road race…

I always said that I had no; I repeat NO interest in running a marathon. 42.2K is a long bloody way to run. I always vowed that I’d complete a half Iron Man before I ever thought about running a marathon.

Back around early February, I got up one sunny, snowy morning with an ear-to-ear grin. I had awoken from a wonderful dream that morning. A dream of crossing the finish line of my first marathon. That thought stuck with me for the entire day, and the next, and another day…

What was happening to me? Should I go see my Doctor? Book an appointment with a Psychiatrist perhaps? I was seriously thinking about this. Then I started looking at on-line training plans, Galloway, Higdon, Stanton… I pulled out my running books, Shorter, Stanton… This was going way too far, so I decided to tell a couple of friends about my dilemma… I think I told the wrong friends, because they actually encouraged me to pursue this dream, and that they would even help me by doing long runs together…
(My friends all seem to be enablers). Then we started discussing when/where this event would take place, even going so far as to book a B & B for the weekend of this “event”. Then I found a couple more friends who wanted to train for a fall marathon. What kind of giant can of worms have I opened! I’ve tweaked, massaged and edited a 26 week schedule. While I understand that most marathon training schedules are 4 months long, this one really appeals to me as it ramps up slowly with a cut-back every 3rd week. That’s my kind of training. It’s also 3 runs a week with lots of cross training. Perfect for a “dark-sider” like me and also great because my body really isn’t keen on back-to-back running days.

Ironically on April 1, 2007 – I hit “submit” and registered for my very first marathon. I hope to take advantage of every single one of the one million-plus spectators that will be lining the streets that Sunday.

Look out Chicago… hope that you are “my kinda town” after all….

I RAN 30 FREAKING KM!

(that's 18.641 miles for the south of the border types!)

It still has not sunk in, and I'm still grinning ear to ear!

I ran the "oldest road race in North America" a week ago Sunday. Older than Boston (and the closest I'll ever be to it unless I go down to watch one day) Around the Bay in Hamilton/Burlington. It starts in downtown Hamilton, and literally goes around the bay through Burlington & back to Hamilton to a really interesting finish line in Copp's Collesium (sort of like an IronMan finish actually!)

I did take a few things away from Sunday, that I'll remember:

• 30 kilometers is a long way...
• I didn't take it as seriously as I should have...
• I slacked off on specific hill training, not the best thing for this race...
• WHO ON EARTH puts hills (and nasty ones) at KM 22-27 of a 30K route!
• I absolutely LOVED all of it, even with the hard lessons...

Will I be back next year...

WITH A VENGANCE!

Big thanks to one of the best pacers in the world.... while we didn't get to run the whole thing together - those 11K at the beginning gave me the ability to get to the end... You know who you are... ;)

What a difference.......

One year

12 Months

52 Weeks

365 Days

8,760 Hours

525,600 Minutes

You get the rest… ;)

One year ago today, my life – or what I thought was my perfect little life, came crashing down around me. I truly felt as if my beating heart had been ripped right out through my throat. Over the following 48 hours I couldn’t fathom another tear being produced by my body. I also struggled through my longest run ever that weekend 19KM, if it hadn’t been for a friend, I never would have made it past 5K that day.

One year later, here I stand – happy, healthy and in a better mental state than I have been, in many years, if not the best mental state of my entire 42 (and a bit) years. I’ve run a 25K, am about to run a 30K event in a week, and bigger things loom on my horizon.

It’s funny how that period of time can either fly by, or crawl along at a less than a snails pace. If someone had asked me on March 17, 2006 where I expected to be one year later - this is certainly not the answer that I would have come up with, that I know for sure.

One year to reflect, review, pay homage to the things I’ve done and gone through for both the right and wrong reasons. Sometimes wondering why I gave up so much of myself, while at other times kicking myself for not giving more. But in the end I have to be satisfied in knowing that I gave what I could and in the end there was no more that I could give, especially when the recipient wanted nothing to do with what I was offering up.

I no longer take that personally, which was a long tough ride at times, the feeling that I was the failure, forgetting that it takes two to tango, and that a marriage is comprised of equals, not 90% from one person and 10% from the other. No wonder I was tired, run down and constantly feeling like I was drowning.

Tonight, I will celebrate, well in sort of secret anyhow. I am going to the birthday dinner of an amazing woman, who next to my own mom is one of the coolest 60 year olds on the planet. I am also spending that dinner with one of the many people who helped me learn about myself – a person who helped me realize the power I have inside and how I am in control of my destiny, and not to rely on someone else for that control.

It is after all… MY LIFE.

I also want to thank my many friends, both close & far including an amazing crew of runners, strong women and people I look up to and respect... My own personal "village" has been a pillar of strength to me... and I thank all of you...

And I thought our City Council sucked wind...

GTAers, is this guy your City Councilor? Lucky you:

City councilors on the budget:

"I can't support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day."

–Rob Ford

Fuming does not even begin to explain what reading this does to me... Considering the volume of people in London who were involved in cycle/auto collisions in 2006, I can't even imagine what the statistics in Toronto were during the same period... and this guy has the gall and the balls to say this...

But, after seeing a few of his other "gems"

http://www.eye.net/eye/issue/issue_07.27.06/features/feature.php

It honestly makes me look at our own city council in a slightly brighter light... At least we began to put some cycling lanes in this past fall. Well, 200 meters here, abrupt stop of the lane, to be continued a couple of blocks later, then another 200 meters... you get the idea...

But it's a start at least ;)

Things that are AWESOME

I need to get back to doing things like this, especially with all that I have that I want to do.. great way of putting the demons to rest!

Things that are awesome about today:
The sun is shining brightly
There is a little bit of fresh white snow covering the dirt/gunk
I’m going to see Serena Ryder tonight with an awesome person

Things that are awesome about work:
I make my own schedule and I’m not necessarily tied to a desk all day long
I get to help people (really, I do!)
People are afraid of me, but after meeting me, realize that they don’t have to be… lol

Things that are awesome about my home:
It’s MINE (as in, I have it just the way I want right now)
I have awesome facilities – full gym, whirlpool, sauna, pool, underground parking, great building management & super
It’s close to everything I need, walk to work, to the parks….
Ragsthecat lives there with me!

Things that are awesome about me:
I’m learning to accept and understand my own “awesomeness”
My tenacity and strong will
My “super hero calves” (I’m borrowing this from Vicki)
I am healthy and happy

Things that are awesome that are coming up:
Around the Bay, really – it will be awesome when I am done! ; )
My trip to meet the Western “family” in May
The summer of 2007 in general!

Things that are just, in general awesome:
MY FRIENDS! (both on-line & in-person)
The direction I see my life going in now that I am in control of it
MY FRIENDS… can’t emphasize that one enough…

So, am I a fraud or what?

This is what an hour and a half drive with plenty of time to do some “self talk” will do to you I guess.

Driving home from the Chilly Half yesterday, I had quite the debate going. Honestly, it had started in my head about a week earlier, but I had been pretty much ignoring the little buggger of a voice within, waiting until it was the right time to give it some uninterrupted time to sort out my thoughts, and yesterday was that time.

I often laugh at myself when people who both run & don’t run, ask me what I’m doing on the weekend of a race. While I say that I’m doing xx race or yy race, in my head I’m saying

“don’t freaking say you are racing, you don’t race, you don’t leave it all out there on the pavement, you don’t even properly train for a lot of these things… how on earth can you possibly say that you are racing!”

While I do go into these “things” with some sort of a goal, it’s not often time oriented, it’s most often to finish, feeling comfortable, or help to pace someone else to their time goal or first event at that distance.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love seeing the look on someone’s face when they finish their first half marathon within their own time goal. I take such pride in their accomplishment, and the fact that they let me share in this with them.

Is this selfish of me?
Does this simply make me a nurturer of the “running family” that I’m so blessed to be a part of?

I just don’t know. Perhaps it takes the pressure off of me to perform better myself? Do I use it as an excuse to slag off on my own runs sometimes? Or am I afraid of pushing myself to the limit, actually training for something properly and with an ultimate goal at the end of the road… A lot of things for me to think about over the next couple of months I guess…

I have a “duplicate” medal from ATB last year as we originally got the wrong medals for completing the relay. I tucked it in with my other medals for some reason, but it came to me last night. I’m going to flip it around and hang it backwards on my bathroom mirror…

Then I can put a sticky-note on it with a real, honest to goodness GOAL (for me) for sometime in 2007….

More to come on that goal in the next 5 weeks or so, stay tuned! =)

Look at me... 2 posts in a month ;)

Here I am again... trying to post at least once every couple of weeks, just to update "stuff"...

Need to get track with my body reno... I need to start tracking my food better, and have begun to stock the fridge with more fruits & veggies, and need to get cooking again. That will resolve the panic dinners. I'm down a couple of pounds over the past 2 weeks, so that's a good place to start.

Running has been going OK, but the weather sucks - ran 7K into 30-40KM wind gusts yesterday, that was nasteee, which ended up cutting a planned 25K down to 16. But I'd done a wicked 90 minute spin & 30 minute pre-post warm up/cool down the night before, so that kind of makes up the difference, doesn't it ;)

Chilly Half-marathon is coming up this weekend, then Around the Bay a few weeks later... 30K - that will be my longest distance to date, 2 1/2 years of running to get to this point... we'll see where I go from there ;)

As for "life" stuff - wrapping up the last final things with "T"... he's moved out of his sister's place finally only to be living a block away from me...while this whole thing has been extremely amicable & has gone very well - he could have moved somewhere, well - not so freaking close!

Cest la-vie... I'll survive, he'll survive.. live will go on...

T-out!

I am sorry my poor little blog...

Sorry for neglecting you for so long...

I am a bad, bad blogger... lol

I've decided that I need to get things in my "house" back in order...that includes my eating, which has gotten completely out of control, my lack of motivation for running (too many events looming ever so close on the calendar) reading more: http://www.bookcloseouts.com/?N=0&rid=cvs this is a great site, with FANTASTIC prices & very reasonable shipping charges... and getting back to journalling, which in turn means getting some of that stuff on my blog, not all of course.. a girl has to have a secret or two, or three ;)

I realized today that I haven't run since January 28.. It doesn't seem like it's been that long, but sadly it has, our extra cold weather has been a pretty lame excuse seeing as I have a treadmill available in my building.

So today I made a deal, a couple of friends were running 18K in the Toronto area, so I went out around the same time as they did... sort of virtual running buddies you may say. That helped give me the boost I needed to get my @ss in gear. I decided to do my run on the treadmill, as I'm also breaking in a second pair of shoes. This enabled me to switch out shoes if I needed to...

While I went to the gym with a towel, loaded up MP3 player, water bottle & a couple of gels. What I neglected to remember was body glide... My planned 11.2 mile/18K, was cut short about 90 minutes into the planned 2:15. Getting in the shower was, well - not very fun :(

Lesson learned, and I'm going to try this again on Monday or Tuesday after work.

Swimming is going very well. That, I have been keeping up with, and I've had a couple of real break-through pool sessions so far this year.

And the hunt for a sports-specific Registered Dietitian starts on Monday... this is the final key to the puzzle I hope...

So, my poor little blog, I vow not to ignore you or neglect you unnecessarily...

HONEST... :)