Bluenose Race Day!

Today was the day that I have been planning for since I began running in February.  With great anticipation I donned the fuchsia run skirt I have been saving for this very day, along with a run singlet and sneakers and headed to the race course.  Unfortunately, I headed there as a spectator as I am still sidelined by my running injury, but that did not mean I could not look like a runner!  Because of this, my running partner had to tackle this solo, so I wanted to ensure I was there to cheer him on.  This was the first race I had ever attended as a spectator and I was surprised to see how many people were running.  I was worried I would not be able to see him, but luckily was able to cheer as he hit 2k and then later on we high-fived as he ran past at about the 8k mark.  

To be completely honest, I was a little teary on the sidelines under my sunglasses.  This race represented a lot of hard work and dedication, not being able to run was upsetting, frustrating and disappointing, especially considering that this was my first race, the goal that had jump-started my entry into this sport.  I quickly forgot my own feelings as my partner ran by, he was fulfilling his goal and I was extremely proud of him for doing so.  I also saw some of my other friends and running partners along the course and was able to enjoy being a spectator even if I could not participate. 

The day could not have been nicer; it was already hot at 8:30 when I left for the race.  It was inspiring to see people of all levels and abilities being active out in the fresh air on such a beautiful day.  I was extremely impressed to see parents running as they pushed a stroller, I only hope that I can be that hard-core if I ever become a mother.  

In terms of my own running, watching the race definitely left me with a desire to start running again as soon as possible.  Television is getting a little old; I cannot understand how people choose to lead sedentary lifestyles.  I am getting cabin fever; I could not do this long-term.  Walking more than 1k at this point (without pain) would be a real treat.  My exercise consists of bridges, ¼ one legged squats, some push-ups, other upper body exercises and additional homework from my physiotherapist.  If I want to go really wild I am allowed to ride the recumbent bike for 15 minutes on a low resistance setting. 

One advantage, and possibly disadvantage, to not being able to run is that I do not have to meticulously plan my eating around the running.  I cannot really do any cardio that would give me the runs, so, I can go a little crazy with the food!  For example, tonight, we are making my mother-in-law’s baked been recipe.  This is extremely exciting.  I never eat beans, and honestly, I may not live to tell this tale, they may just ravage me from the inside out.  But, it is a long-weekend, worst case scenario, we have one very “musical” evening and I spend tomorrow in the bathroom with several magazines.  If it really ends up being a shit-show, I pop a lot of Imodium on Tuesday before I head to work.  So, with that, I leave you for a feast of beans.  Remember, “run hard, be strong, think big”!  Congrats to all of those who ran the Bluenose today in Halifax!  

What a pain in the ... bursa?

In recent weeks I have come to regard my 10k race as achievable, it is still extremely daunting, but I have acknowledged that I will be able to accomplish this.  A week or so ago I was able to fulfil my training requirements, exceed my own expectations, push through some plateaus and then bring my triumph to a screeching halt.  After two rest days it began to dawn on me that the pain I had been feeling was not, in fact, “the burn” that I attribute to exercising.  Instead, it is the pain of a premature geriatric.  You have all seen it, the hip swagger that is more of a stagger, the tentative shuffle, and … the waddle.  I injured my hip, and as a result, I no longer have the graceful run of a gazelle; I am full-on penguin.  It appears as though I have a case of bursitis, so I have been icing, stretching, and pill popping for over a week.  I can put in a valiant effort on a decent walk and I can suffer through some yoga, but I cannot run.  Yesterday I plunged into the pool for a long-overdue swim with the vain hope that it would help to calm things down, but, alas, it was not to be.  My 3.3k walk home probably did not help, and I am now wondering if the 60 flights of stairs I heaved myself up today were a bad idea.  So, as I write this I am covered in ice with pain pulsing from areas I did not know existed.  I believe this is where I make my bi-monthly emergency phone call to both my chiropractor and my massage therapist.  Every time I see my massage therapist she says “what did you do this time” and then “how did you manage to do that”.  I really have no idea.  She says I am overzealous, I say that I am trying not to wimp out; her recommendation is to strive to be about a notch below wimp so I can save myself some money.  Whenever I take up a new activity some sort of injury follows:

• pole dancing = lower back issues and bruised rib;
• running = shin splints and bursitis,
• ballroom dancing = stuck neck;
• yoga = muscle spasms;
• strawberry picking = muscle spasms in low back; and
• skiing = rotator cuff. 

Following all of these injuries my husband comes up with a new term of endearment for my injured body part, all of which appear to come from the menu at McDonald’s and/or KFC:  McRib, Chicken Wing (rotator cuff), Hoof (foot), and Drumstick (hip).  In conclusion, if you notice a lack of running-related commentary, it means I really did it this time; I finally injured my Biggie Fry. 

That Forum magic...

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Forum for Young Canadians, a program aimed at academically-inclined students, aged 15-19.  Students had the opportunity to go to Ottawa for a week to learn about government and politics through elections and cabinet simulations, policy group discussions and through a series of speakers  ranging from The Honourable, Andrew Scheer, M.P. Speaker of the House of Commons, to Peter Stoffer, M.P. for Sackville-Eastern Shore, to parliamentary pages.  We toured Rideau Hall and had the opportunity to briefly meet the Governor General of Canada, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, and we also had tours of Parliament, the House of Commons and the Senate.  What was my role in all of this?  Unfortunately, I am well past the age of being able to attend as a student, but, I got to do the next best thing.  I was a group leader!  I was primarily responsible for a group of 12 students, we were Group #6, (out of 144 students total) and it was my job to guide the students through their simulations, chaperone on the various tours, translate between French and English and help the students in any other way that was required.  So, in honour of last week, I would like to take a bit of time to recap my thoughts on the experience as well as how my IBS was affected for the duration. 

Let me start off by saying that I had the most amazing time ever.  I found out last minute that I was attending, as there were more students than originally anticipated, so more group leaders were required.  I left for Ottawa on Friday afternoon, straight from work to catch my plane.  On Saturday all the group leaders met for the first time for our training session.  We were a mixture of Francophones and Anglophones from coast to coast, but all of us are bilingual.  It was a jam-packed day that ended with a slight feeling of information-overload; I felt a strong desire to brush up and study before the arrival of the students. 

Students began to arrive on Sunday, therefore, our day was devoted to travelling back and forth to the airport via school bus to greet the students.  We were there as they descended into the baggage claim area, all of us apprehensive about the week ahead and excited that it was finally beginning.  I probably introduced myself to half the airport that day, welcoming travelers to Ottawa, only to find out that many of them were not Forum participants.  But, as with everything else last week, I quickly learned to go with the flow and not get hung up on slight glitches.  Sunday evening the students found out who was in their group and we had our first group meeting.  My group consisted of 11 Anglophones, two of whom were bilingual, and one Francophone, who did not speak English.  To say that I was intimidated about the week ahead is an understatement.  How was I going to create a comfortable group dynamic when everyone could not communicate with each other?  The answer?  Translation.  One of my most important jobs for the week became the creation of an atmosphere conducive to discussion and camaraderie.  It was my desire to ensure that everyone felt comfortable, that everyone knew what was going on and most importantly that everyone could learn from this experience as they had all intended to.  I did not want my student to be at a disadvantage because he only spoke French.  In the same token, I did not want any Anglophones to be at a disadvantage because they only spoke English.  In conclusion, this was the perfect opportunity to exercise my second language skills!  And oddly enough, it worked out great!  My Francophone student wrote me a note to thank me for the translation throughout the week and even mentioned that he now has the desire to learn English as a result of this experience.  I consider this to be a great success, I emphasized all week how important second language acquisition was and how helpful it could be in their future. 

In terms of how the rest of the week went, well, it flew by, there is really no other way to describe it and I am shocked and saddened that it has already come to an end.  I met so many amazing people at Forum, but the most important of those are my 12 kids, we had a great group dynamic and we really stuck together and got along throughout the week.  Thank goodness for this, otherwise, the week would have been excruciating.  I cannot even begin to describe how busy the week was; breakfast began at 7am and the group leaders had a meeting right after curfew, this normally lasted until 12:00am or 12:30am.  The students had virtually no downtime; we had back-to-back activities scheduled each day.  But, they were all troopers, they were able to handle it and I think eventually everyone just got used to functioning on no sleep. 

I learned a lot this week, and I am quite certain the kids did as well, but the group leaders likely learned as much as the students.  The biggest eye opener for me was how intelligent and driven these kids are.  I met one student who is hell-bent on becoming Prime Minister, he has it all planned out, down to his party platform.  When I think about myself at the age of 16 I am pretty certain my deepest thoughts consisted of giving cute boys nicknames so that we could talk about them in the hall at school.  I certainly read a lot, but more along the lines of Jane Eyre rather than pieces of legislation.  He asked if I ever wanted to be Prime Minister, I said no, never, and I never will, but I would keep an eye out for him as he comes up the ranks.  In all seriousness though, some of our country’s future leaders were definitely in attendance at Forum.  They had a keen interest in politics and government and were both inquisitive and opinionated.  They were certainly not afraid to share their opinions or question others.  I was also impressed by the support that they showed for one-another as well as to us as group leaders.  By the end of the week I was crying on the phone with my husband at the thought of leaving the kids, and then I cried when I told the students that I would miss them.  And then I cried when they said that they would miss me too.  And then I cried when they wrote me sweet notes.  And then I cried when they took pictures of me ugly crying.  And then I cried when they had to leave.  And then I cried when I had to leave.  And then I had a glass of white wine on the plane… and then a few more when I got home. It was like my wedding day all over again.  I was mentally, physically and emotionally drained.  Did I mention we had to take the stairs the whole time we were there?  My room was on the fourth floor, my meeting room with the students was on the eighth floor, and the meeting room for staff was on the twelfth floor.  My mantra for the week was: buns of steel, buns of steel.  So, in response to the burning question: no, I did not go running this week.  There was a run scheduled the first morning at 6:00am, ha! good joke.  I am not a morning person, nor could I ever have dragged myself out of bed any earlier than I did last week, so instead, I kept walking, and sometimes running, up those stairs.  So today, as a tribute to Forum, I made my way up the seven flights of stairs to my office, and then back down at the end of the day. 

I guess the other question about this week would be, how did I do with my IBS?  Fantastic.  Shock of my life!  I visited the loo as many times last week as I did today.  Why is this?  I would love to know, because then I would replicate it and live happily ever after.  The really crazy part about this result is that my eating habits were weird, and I mean, really bizarre.  I was a bit afraid to eat the food served at lunch and breakfast as I did not want to have to run out of the House of Commons in a panic.  So, I usually ate a yogurt for breakfast and possibly some fruit depending on the look of it.  For lunch I normally had a Special K bar (we were not allowed to eat nuts all week due to some allergies) and a fruit leather thing.  For dinner I normally had some plain lettuce.  As a result, full on starvation.  So, when we went up to the staff room at 11:30 at night I would have a pear from the stash of fruit and some candy or some chippies.  I know this sounds completely and utterly disgusting and bizarre, but I would not touch the deli meat, and I could only eat so many pears or apples given the fibre content.  I felt fairly confident eating such food at that hour because I knew that I would have enough time to digest before our day really got started, this was also why I was tentative about eating throughout the day, as we were so busy that I was paranoid I would be faced with an awkward situation.  No one could have ever prepared me for a full week free of IBS symptoms, especially given when and how I ate.  So today, as I had a Shakeology for breakfast, chicken, broccoli and potatoes for lunch, I cursed healthy food as I made trip after trip after trip after trip…. to the bathroom.  

As much as I miss my students, I am relieved to be home with my husband again, and to be sleeping in my own bed.  I was also happy to return to the land of peanut butter, one of the greatest things on this earth.  I have also been hydrating myself, which I did not have an opportunity to do while away.  I will, however, always carry with me very fond memories of this last week with some really wonderful Canadians, both young and old(er).  I hope to stay in touch and follow the lives of these students as they bridge the gap between youth and adulthood, and maybe, just maybe, if that student really does run for Prime Minister, I will be able to say, “I met him at Forum”.  Thank goodness for that Forum magic!

Above is a Youtube video from our Forum experience titled: "Stuff Forum Kids Say".

My new love interest...

I think I might have fallen in love; his name is … Nike+ sensor.  What an amazing little invention!  In a matter of a few days, I think my world has been turned upside down.  I had heard of Nike+, seen the app on my ipod, but I never quite knew what it was and how I could benefit from it.  It all started after our last run.  I decided to take advantage of a session with my chiropractor, who is also a serious runner.  Little did she know that I would ambush her with many running-related questions about how to train, to interval or not to interval, how often, when does it become enjoyable, etc.  Among many other tips and words of encouragement, she highly recommended that I pick up the sensor, it only cost $40.00 total, and this includes the sensor, the “holster” and tax.  I have never before felt so excited to go for a walk, not even after I got my pedometer (broken) or my heart rate monitor.  The day after purchase I took the opportunity to walk home from work, I had a rough idea of the distance, but found out that in fact it is 3.26 km from work to home.  

Glamour shot of my Nike+ sensor (while stretching).

In terms of my running, tonight was only my second run of the week, this has been for several reasons, one of which is that my IBS has again been bothering me, so much so that I had to come home and lie down for an hour or so because I could no longer sit on my bum.  Again, I seriously contemplated whether or not I was up for a run; I did not relish the thought of more burning-bum syndrome.  Sometimes the IBS just sidelines me and makes me want to avoid any activity or social engagements, but most of all it just makes me want to lie on my side in bed so it does not hurt quite so much.  But, I pushed myself, I made myself get out of bed, and quite honestly, I just wanted to take my sensor out for a spin.  Let’s be clear, the desire was to test drive the sensor, not me, but, as I could not do one without the other, I had to go along as well.  Tonight’s performance was not what I would call stellar, I did more walking than I had planned on, and the distance was less than I had envisioned, but, I ran.  I also did not poop my pants; I consider this to be the mark of a successful run.  More importantly, I have analyzed the information from my run on the online Nike database thingy.  I discovered that I travelled 4.19 km – by travelled I mean a combination of walk/run.  I figure that I probably actually ran about 2.75 km and the rest was walking; I determined this by assessing the fabulous online graph which also informed me that I burned 294 calories, that my average pace was 7’0”/km, and the fastest pace I had was 5’47”/km.  Who knew that such a wealth of untapped information was out there?  I suddenly find myself feeling informed, but, not only that, the online “coach” has given me a schedule that will prepare me for the 10k in 12 weeks!  

In terms of the stair climb challenge I mentioned in my previous post, I have not yet subjected myself to round two, mostly because I am trying to teach my legs how to walk again after the brutal beating they took on Monday.  My husband has coined the term “penguin waddle”, a loving description of the new gait I have acquired as a result of my insanity.  I did not think that challenge through, why I did it on a run day I will never know, but it was obviously a sub-conscious effort to punish myself.  Not even an epsom salt bath was able to cure me of this pain – it is highly embarrassing to have to shuffle sideways down the stairwell at work, and crossing your legs should not be something you psych yourself up for.  I will try this again when I am back in the office on Tuesday, when my legs are nicely rested and ready for torture. 

No regrets

I just got back from a very rewarding run, we exceeded our own expectations and I think we managed to push ourselves more than we have in the past.  I certainly was not expecting tonight’s run to be overly successful – we had an extremely poor performance yesterday, we lasted only about 3:40.  Unfortunately, you read that right.  What was supposed to be a run turned into a walk, and we have chalked it up to being a case of the Sundays.  We have such a poor performance record for Sunday runs that we have sworn off any future Sunday training days, it just never ends well. 

Today at work, when lunch rolled around I decided to avoid the cold weather by doing some stairs in my office tower.  After several weeks of running I expected myself to be half decent, but, boy, was I surprised.  It was a staggeringly awful performance.  I only managed to complete 2 x 8 up and 2 x 8 down, for a total of 32 flights. I started off rather ambitiously trying to at least jog up the stairs, but after only two sets of stairs I thought I might just tumble backwards to my death.  With that, I walked the rest of the way.  I found it so difficult that I had to run back to my desk for a water bottle after the first set.  Then, I repeated it all again, and as my jello-legs carried me back down to my floor, I decided I had had enough.  This is the truly shocking part – all of this only took about 4:30.  How embarrassing.  So, as I headed back to my desk, beet red, I grabbed my yoga mat and an empty office and stretched out.  Never before have I seen my legs shake that much doing a down dog or a sun salutation.  Today’s lesson: I must do more stair training.  Never have I been so fearful of meeting someone in a stairwell, I must do better, if only to repair my bruised ego. 

Given my lunch-time experiment, you can see why I was not looking forward to the run, the stairs had taken the wind out of my sails, or at the very least, out of my lungs, and I did not relish the thought of moving in a way that resembled speedy, if at all.  My husband called to check in while he was at work; I told him I was going for a run, but that I did not want to go, that I thought I would only be able to last about two minutes.  He very wisely told me that I should go, because at no point in time will I regret going for a run.  As much as I hate to admit it when he is right, he was right.  And now I have it permanently recorded in the black hole that is the internet…   So, with this advice in mind, I met up with my running partner and we decided to try something new – just run and see what happened and how long we lasted.  What a brainwave!  The first round we lasted approximately 11:24, followed by a bathroom interlude where he so kindly wandered around the neighbourhood until I could rejoin him.  For round two I believe we lasted an impressive 13:43, followed by no bathroom break!  We capped it off with one last kick at the can and clocked in at 9:25.  So we were pretty close to our six sets of six, and we covered somewhere in the region of 5-6k. It was much more enjoyable because we weren’t waiting longingly for the sound we covet so much – the alarm ringing in break-time.  I was anticipating an extremely cold temperature given the windchill, but it was actually quite nice, so much so that my visit to the bathroom provided the perfect opportunity to shed both my gloves and my scarf.  It even started to snow and lightly coat the ground, it looked almost magical.  So, there you have it, I do not in any way regret the run, and my husband was right for the first time in our marriage.  

Here is a shot from our Sunday run...

It appears as though there might be an issue in this area of the city.

You can barely tell, but it is just starting to snow.

I felt exactly like this shopping cart by the end of our excursion.