NWT = A OK!

Week 3 is now underway, and I’m very proud to report that we are all still on track with the training program!  We have done sprints, hills, maintenance runs and everything, but the one struggle I am finding is trying to schedule my long runs. The schedule says to do them on Saturday, but I find I almost never have the time to do them Saturdays and end up switching them for Sunday instead. This makes Sunday a great day of Run. Laundry. Nap. Eat Everything. I’m still DOING them, don’t you worry, but I find that with summer around the corner my weekends are filling up and I am having to plan well ahead of time to get in the vital loooooooong runs to build up the stamina for race day.

 

For example, last weekend I was in Yellowknife because it was the week before the equinox.  The last 2 times I was in the Territories were in the winter and the sun came up for an hour a day and it was colder than all heck so I wanted to see what it was like at the other end of the spectrum so off we went.

For the record, it is MUCH nicer there in June than in February. And it is darn right UNSETTLING to have the sun still shining at midnight. But we drank $14 bottles of beer, ate some (unexpectedly) delicious food and I got in both the scheduled weekend runs. And I’m happy to report that while I was a poky little puppy for both the short run and the long, the scenery was great, the temperature was just about perfect, I didn’t get too many bug bites and I didn’t get lost.

 

See how pretty?!  The view, not the sweaty rumpled princess. FYI, 2 minutes
 after this I took a "nature break" in those trees....and got caught by a local out walking their dog.

The only downside was that I was expecting it to be easy breathing since I was 3000 feet closer to sea level than usual, but I ended up gasping along and walking more than I wanted to. Am pretty lazy when I'm by myself. Plus I was one Sweaty Betty, I didn’t realize how humid it was there! I also forgot to bring some carb chews, so I had to eat a granola bar at the halfway mark…tasty but not the best feeling to be choking down sawdust halfway through a 14K run. Will have to remember to pack some for the next few weekends when I am away.

The NWT Legislature! Sadly closed on Sundays or I could have used
 their bathrooms. I mean, taken a tour and learned about the government process.

 

Tomorrow is our first Official Trio Seawheeze Training Run, and it will be 50 minutes of Fartlek training. Which pretty much guarantees I will be struggling for breath for 49 minutes as I laugh childishly.

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!

Week One

We are four days in and feeling great! After a solid week of rain in YYC, we've had gorgeous blue skies and warmer weather, which means it's been pretty easy to get up early and knock out the day's running schedule. Even if the schedule is for a 50 minute run with 6 intervals of one minute sprints. That made for 360 seconds of me muttering words my father doesn't know I know followed by a day of SUPER sore legs.  But we are all feeling great for sticking with it and I'm sure I'll have a good sleep tonight! Plus tomorrow is the best day of the week...REST DAY! That's right...no run, no cardio, no crosstrain, just give my tired legs a day to rest and repair and get ready for this weekend's long run...but frankly 11K actually sounds better than those repeats from this morning.

Also...you know those days when you drag your sad tired fat carcass out of bed early the week after vacation and blearily dress and head out for a run, cursing the day you ever registered for a race involving the hateful activity that gobbles up so much of your TV watching time? Well, sometimes you get a reward so awesome that even 2 days afterward it makes the smile stay on your face?  Well, this is what temporarily halted our run on Tuesday morning....

How goose-stepping got its name!

Pretty much the cutest interruption ever, the morning skies rang with our shrieks of delight! So even though it was a rough start, it reminded me just how much I like getting up and running first thing in the morning.

Get Ready, Get Sweaty!

Some of the worst things about getting back from a week long vacation include:

-the insane credit card bill that even when I go over it closely proves was all me.
-buying/drinking whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. More eyeliner and beer for breakfast? Sure thing!
-trying to reduce calories down from the high school linebacker-style consumption I managed last week. Seriously, one day I hit daily calorific intake before I finished breakfast.
-getting back into a running schedule after a week off...feels like starting over.

But you know what helps offset the post-vacation blues? Coming home to this!!!

Sooooo much better than a bill!

HURRAY! My snappy Lululemon shorts had arrived while I was away!  And how cool is the shipping paper??

When I eagerly tore that off, there was ANOTHER cool pattern underneath on a zippered thing resembling a giant pencil crayon case.

Not sure what to use it for yet, but trust me, it'll be something cool.

OMG so much better than white.

When I opened that, the shorts were revealed in all their stripy glory. Hurray! They look just as good in real life as they did online.  Plus, they fit great!!!

No point of reference, but trust me here, they are TINY.

Wait...let me clarify. They are not too tight or too baggy, and they are comfy as heck. But, let me be clear, they have a TWO INCH INSEAM. You know what that means? Like, what it means with regard to PANTS? Well, the tag for the pants hangs 3 inches below the hem of the shorts. They are so short they require built in underpants. They are so short the underwear I was wearing when I tried them on was actually clearly visible above and below the shorts. I'm no seamstress, but I bet less than half a meter of fabric was used in their construction. And I can assure you they will NEVER see the light of day outside in Calgary. But I AM pretty excited to wear them on runs in other countries...I will be in Jamaica next month, so they won't have to wait too long to see the light of day.

Just in time too...Happy June 3......the Seawheeze Training Program kicks off today! And while I don't have a snappy iphone that I can download their awesome app onto, I am still able to follow along oldskool on the web!  

Day 1 started out with Vancouver-style rain at 5am which seemed fitting since the race will be there too. Undeterred, Princess Chris and I met at 530am and did the 50 minute run on the schedule and cheered as we checked it off on the app. Kind of rough after a few weeks off, plus the rain didn't make it easy to get up and out of the house, but it still beats the treadmill!

Yoga tomorrow...hurray!

Caution- Extreme Grossness Below!

So, did you guess?

Well, here it is in pictures. After the Princess Half Marathon, my left big toe started hurting. Nothing crazy, and I could still run, but I was aware that it was there and not feeling great. A few weeks after that when I was changing polish, I noticed my toe now looked like this:



Thaaaaaat's....not a good thing?

Feeling the first inklings of concern, I did the only thing sensible and painted my toes with OPI's lovely shade of Black Cherry Chutney. Yep, just like turning up the radio to block out the funny noise my car makes, I opted to cover up the problem and pretend it didn't exist. Plus, my toes looked great and were right in line with the end-of-winter colors.




Problem SOLVED! And it looks way awesome too.

I kept this up for a few weeks, working through all my darkest shades, and feeling all happy about my pretty toes as the discomfort in my toe slowly increased. Still not to the point of horrible pain, but I was now having trouble running long distances without it really REALLY hurting.

A few weeks ago, I went deep water running. During some of the flutter kicks, my toe started feeling WEIRD. As in, it hurt a LOT and was starting to feel...well....FLAPPY, is the best I can think of to describe it. Relaxing in the hot tub after DWR, I examined it a bit further, relieved to see foot was still intact (and horrified at thought of nail coming off in public pool?), but something definitely wasn't right.

When I got home, I armed self with some antiseptic and bright lights, and braced myself for the worst. Gave it a little wiggle to see how it looked.



Sure doesn't look like the other toe.

Wouldn't you know it, the whole thing just swung away from the toe bed. Trying not to vomit, I tugged a bit, terrified it was going to hurt, but the whole thing wouldn't quite come off. No pain though. I was able to cut the whole nail off.



No No No No No NO NO NOOOOO!!!!!



It looks like a giant beetle. It was
prettier on my foot than in my hand :(



It actually looks even worse now too.

I spent the next few minutes staring at the nail and fighting off waves of horror. And nausea. And rage that this had happened just as open toe shoe season was starting. And just the teeniest sense of pride...only Very Real And Serious Runners lose toenails. But mostly horror. But hey, toe felt fantastic after that, no pain at all!

You can't fake the horror in my eyes.

I've had a few weeks to try to get used to it as the new nail slowly grows in (seriously, this means closed toed shoes ALL SUMMER) , but I am still totally grossed out by self. And I just can't muster up the courage to book my first pedicure of the summer....maybe I can get a 10% discount??

Tomorrow is my long run day and I'm going to run around the reservoir. That means a fresh self pedi afterwards, which feels great after a long run. Am sticking to pale pinks only these days so as not to draw attention to feet!