The Hills are Aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiive......

...with the sound of gasping for breath....yep, today was our first hill training in the Tacklebox, and while I was dreading it for the last few days, hills this morning was actually not bad at all! I met Linz at 525 this morning and after a 5 minute warmup, we ran up the hill at 10th Street for 5 X 90 second intervals with recovery jogs between them. Sure, it sucked to be up that early, but it means we are still sticking to the program and getting it done! Plus then I spent most of the day shadow boxing Rocky-style, totally proud of how awesome I felt!

Couldn't have been a better day for feeling awesome about hills either...the random draw for the Nike Woman's Half Marathon in San Fran opened this week! I entered the draw for the fifth time in a row, fingers crossed that this time I get in! Yes, San Fran would be a scary hilly course, but this is the one where finishers get a specially designed Tiffany necklace instead of a medal. FROM A FIREMAN! If that doesn't motivate a girl to want to run up 21K of hills, I don't know what will!



Brave AND bearing gifts in blue boxes, it doesn't get much better!

 This weekend is a 13K run and some more yoga....then next week we find out if that we got into San Fran, which will certainly motivate us on the hills!

Already got the wheezing part...

Check out our Progress! We've registered for the Lululemon Seawheeze, a half marathon in Vancouver that's only 95 days away. It does sound like fun and the route looks like it will be gorgeous. And while it's not an exclusively woman's race, I'm guessing it will be slightly geared towards the ladies, which is the kind of race I prefer….even the most unathletic of boys will probably pass me forever at some point. Plus the swag includes shorty shorts instead of a shirt! We registered too late to get the shorts ahead of time, but I understand they look like this:

Pretty sure I have undies with more coverage.

Yeah, short and white pretty much guarantees I will never wear these out of my house, but I have to admit they are totally cute and I would wear them if I had 32 inch hips. Pajama bottoms if I can even squeeze into the biggest size, I guess?

For the Stampede Half in a couple of weeks, I’m pretty sure our only goal is to finish the race upright (and then eat as many pancakes as possible), but I decided my goal for this race is to try to be 2:20 or under. I think because it won’t have quite as many photo ops as a Disney run and the race is in a sea level city, that this goal is tough, but possible.


Of course, this means I'm not only have to get my butt training, but I'll have to knock about 30 seconds off my typical per km pace in a half marathon. This doesn’t seem like much until you realize just how fast you have to go without breaks…and the breaks you do get have to be SHORT. Sounds like I'm really going to have to bump up the hill training and speedwork! We have had a couple of shriekworthy training runs where I think this pace could be possible…in fact, we did one 7K last week where if we could have maintained that pace, we would have come in UNDER 2 HOURS for a half…yes, it’s unlikely we could have maintained that speed for any longer than we did, but it gave us a good idea of what our pace should be like to set a new PR. I can already feel my legs getting sore....

Winter Cross training, eh?

Last week after a huge dump of snow, we decided to go snowshoeing for my friend's birthday. As we go closer and closer to Saturday, those darn Chinooks came in and gobbled up our snow. Fearful of having to mudshoe, we waited until the last minute to rent and then headed way out of town to Kananaskis. After nearly an hour of driving on dry pavement past brown grass towards what looked like snowless mountains, we finally saw the white stuff...

We did a 4.5K loop of Hogwarts in the Peter Lougheed Provincial Park and it was glorious! The sun was shining, it was warm enough to skip jackets and there was about 4 feet of snow to tromp around in.

I'm not kidding about the 4 feet of snow

So far so good...most of us go the shoes on...

Climbing this hill = exhausting

Jumping in showshoes is way harder than in regular shoes

Total success! We stayed on the correct path (a first), met a lot of fun snowshoers and dogs, got in a great workout, and ate a LOT of Butterfinger easter eggs. I didn't realize how much work it was until we were done and I realized how sore I already was...it took a couple of days to recover, but I can't wait to go again sometime!

How to break a seamstress's brain

We have two weeks to go from today!  So yesterday was our last run...we ran around the reservoir to get our 16K in. Gotta say, it sure felt a lot easier than the last time we did it! Not only did we chirp along letting our mouths run the whole time, but when we were done we felt great instead of like curling up in a ball and dying like in January. True, it was 25C warmer and no snow to navigate over, but I think the "less is more" approach we tried this time around actually worked! (that's right, it wasn't laziness, it was a technique!) Plus, when we got to the hill at the very end and were about to give up on our chugging up the hill, a group of strangers we passed starting cheering for us..."eyes on the horizon, head up, chest out ladies, keep that form up, YOU CAN DO IT!!!!!" Sure enough, we could! Plus at the end, we thought another 5k would be no problem.

We headed to Christi's for quick showers, then over to the alterationist who would turn our child's size 6 dresses into Awesome Minnie Running Outfits. We thought it would be simple enough...chop the skirt off to make a tutu, and remove the puffy sleeves to make new ruffled sleeves on our black running tanks, an effect that would keep us cool, look awesome and not be too pricey.

As it turns out, we know nothing about sewing. Our Lady fretted and clucked as she stretched what she had to work with and measured our adult Canadian bodies. She was worried the dress would be too short and the top would be too tight, and we were having trouble conveying what we wanted done. At one point, she was going to build us elastic blouses to wear over our tanks, and we started getting nervous about how much this was going to cost. We kept insisting we just wanted to basically baste the sleeves onto our tanks for a one-time wear in a warmer climate and she kept insisting it wouldn't work.

She kept getting more and more agitating as we kept trying to explain they just needed to be worn for 3 hours as we sweated all over them, saying it wasn't going to look good. Now, she knows her stuff and we trust her implicitly, but I think she was trying to make us sturdy lifetime garments instead of cobbling a dress into an adult skirt and sleeves like we wanted. Eventually, after 45 minutes in the shop, we ended up taking the sleeves ourselves and leaving her with just the skirts to make. This afternoon, I'm going to take the sleeves and hand stitch them to the tanks and see if it works like I hope it does...like I said, it doesn't have to be fancy or permanent, just hold up for 3-4 hours around Anaheim!

Merry Christmas!

OK, Merry Day after Christmas, but I was too busy eating turkey and mashed potatoes yesterday.  So, it's Sunday night and I should be writing about my 16K run today...or anytime in the past 3 days. But, I'll be honest, I didn't do it...yet.  I haven't given up, I'm hoping I can squeeze it in the next 2 or 3 days, but there just wasn't a chance to do it over Christmas weekend.  I was out in the mountains in BC, and I did bring out my cold running gear, but I didn't see anywhere I could do it. The last few times I've been out there, I was dropped off in Golden and started running back on the highway, which worked just fine in the fall, but the plows hadn't left much of a shoulder and the roads were pretty icy, so I just didn't think it was safe.

Now, please don't think I was being totally lazy. Yes, I spent most of the last 3 days sitting around in pajamas eating cookies and drinking beer (and that was just breakfast), but I did get a LOT of winter sports in too.  My dad had set up a ramp in the driveway that made for some killer tobogganing.  I spent at least 2 hours a day zipping headfirst down the driveway on my belly and I ran back up as many times as I could. Sometimes I was hauling 40lbs back up the hill, and sometimes 80lbs depending on how tired my niece and nephew were getting.  My legs are KILLING me today.  Who knew cross training could be so fun?  I also went snowshoeing and cross country skiing while I was there, the cabin was a great place for both cross training AND carb loading!  Thanks Genny and Kappy!

Not really anything to do with running, but...

After New York last week, we went to Philadelphia. What's about the most famous thing to come out of Philly besides cheesesteaks (and yes, I had one...OK, two... shut up) in the past century?  That's right, Rocky!!!!  So, even though we had a very limited time in the city, we made a special trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum and I ran up the stairs just like Rocky.  It took me 24 seconds, and after several viewings of that part of the film, I still can't tell if that's a good time or not.  Now, I don't think I'm as fit as a 30 year old boxer from Philly, but I was still pretty proud of myself.  Two years ago I couldn't walk up the single flight of stairs from the laundry room without gasping through chest pains, and I was able to sprint all the way up just like Rocky did AFTER the Gonna Fly Now montage!  YAY ME!!!

Anyway, I may be fitter than I was then, but it turns out I'm still a huge nerd, because I had Bryan film me running up the stairs and behold: Here it the link to the better version for y'all to enjoy over and over...or the original video below.  Sorry I wasn't able to be more authentic with gray hoodie tragically tucked into gray sweatpants, but even nerds have their limits. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETCzYN4G1UQ 

C'mon get Physical!

So, we've been at this for almost a month without any sort of concrete plan...sure, we've registered for the race and started running, but other than that...have just been avoiding falcons and eating pasta, both great ideas to be sure, but maybe not getting us towards our goal of running 21K in roughly 6 months.

Well, today that all changes. Behold, our training schedule!

Now, I know you're thinking "WTF? That's a 10K schedule, those big liars aren't running a half marathon at all!"  Well, after careful consideration, we decided that since we have lots of time to get ready for this, we would start with a 10K for practice...this way we start a bit smaller without being overwhelmed and work our way up to 10K first, have a practice race under our belts and get some race experience before the big shebang in February...oh, and go to Phoenix for a weekend to do it!  Yes, we've decided on the Phoenix 10K race on November 7 because it's in 10 weeks, will be good weather, AND is in a city with a Target and a Jack in the Box. We'll have time to sneak in a hockey game too, yehaw!

Got right on track this morning with 30 minutes of cross training.  Hopped on the elliptical machine at the gym and watched sports highlights. One day down, 68 to go! I've added this schedule below as well so it stays on this page.

Ursula's revenge?

In the interest of cross training, I went deep water running tonight.  Like the name implies, it involves "running" around in the deep pool at my local swimmin' hole. It's supposed to be good for your joints as well as increase your range of motion and offers resistance from all sides in the water which gets all your muscles working.  I used to go pretty regularly and figured it would be a good chance to channel our favorite water princess Ariel!

The class is an hour long and in addition to jogging, you do jumping jacks, bicycle kicks, skiing and so on to boost cardio.  I like that it doesn't feel too hard, yet I find myself gasping for breath throughout the class and so exhausted at the end, I can barely drive home. 

The only thing I don't like about DWR is that you really need to wear a one piece exercise swimsuit.  Since I have a long torso, this makes me look like some kind of water beast, no matter what kind of vertical stripes , plus I always feel all hunched over and sad. I did try a 2 piece at my first class, and found...things....kept... popping out....a lot. North and South. When I'm kicking my arms and flailing about underwater, this is pretty much the unsexiest thing you can imagine (wait! Now imagine it's the dead of winter and my skin is pasty and my legs aren't shaved! Hey, it COULD get unsexier!)  Either way, I'm glad it's all underwater, because I feel like this:

In this class, the teacher kept yelling at me when I was doing things wrong...which may have happened a lot but geez lady, you were kinda hard to hear over the dance remixes of Kid Rock.  I kept a smile on my face throughout the class (especially when those long pink noodles came out, hee hee) and kept picturing the end of the Little Mermaid when Ursula gets her comeuppance.  That helped tide me over (tide! Get it? Sea theme!! hahaha!)

Soaked in the hot tub too before heading home. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh....