sticking to a plan

I have always been a planner,whether it is a three week holiday across states, a road trip to Disneyland or a day trip to the park I enjoy the preparation for the event just as much as the event itself. I have found with my running that I enjoy the planning too, although I seem to procrastinate in the choosing of minor details. Once I choose the main goals everything else seems to flow. I have chosen Victoria as
my goal marathon and with that October deadline ahead
 I can start hammering out the details. I like to look forward on my schedule and see
when the long runs will be coming in the summertime. I'm hoping to get
one long Oregon beach run in again this year if it works out.
I love the portability of my chosen sport. No added apparatus required. No special equipment needed. Every road is a treadmill with a view. This is one place
where I don't plan. I love the long run. I run for time and I run without a planned route. My feet take me where I need to go and for as long as I need to travel.....happy trails!

I spent some time debating which marathon I would tackle next.  In fact I spent so much time debating I stopped running long enough to put on a few extra pounds.I am back with a vengeance and having seen the garment that will be bestowed on all marathon finishers at the Royal Victoria Marathon this year I believe I will stick with my old friend Victoria and head over in October for my fourth marathon.

I started my actual marathon training this week and I am following the "Quest for Improvement" Marathon program on the marathon website.  I had success with this program in the past and last year I shaved 11 minutes off my personal best.  I have always been a slow and steady marathoner having a PR of 4:18.  I would love to break four hours but this year I am going to just see where my training takes me.  I plan on sticking to the program verbatim .  This means I will be hitting the track every Saturday to do that much loved speedwork.

A fun twist on speedwork is the new app for iphone "Zombie Run".  I have only used it for one run so far but it is quite hilarious as you basically are chased by zombies while running.  I am hearing impaired so had a hard time with the british accents narrating the story but it is a really neat idea to add some zing to your workouts.   I wonder what I looked like as I ran in and out of  people on sixth street, dodging every virtual zombie in my path.  Next time I will try it at Burnaby Lake where the shadows on the trails and the ripples in the lake will make my heart race just a little bit faster.

I have missed blogging so I am going to try to blog every Tuesday and see how that works for me.  I am juggling a few balls at the moment as I am volunteering, just signed up for a few online fitness courses and of course working and then there are those kids and their sports and my son is graduating this year, the garden is calling and I`m enjoying planting, and of course that work thing.....

Yesterday my sister texted me and asked me to come join her and her husband for a pint at the Dublin Castle...I was so tempted.   I had had a hectic but enjoyable day with the kids that included running around, getting out in the yard, housecleaning, visiting.  I was due for a 2 1/2 hour run if I was to keep to my Vancouver Marathon training schedule and it was a day that was made for runners.  Crisp and cool and breathtakingly beautiful.
So can you believe I texted my sister back and said I was going to opt for fitness.  As iphones have a tendency to do it autocorrected my misspelled fitness and replaced it with the word finesse.  I was opting for finesse. 
Now if we were to analyse this statement I really couldn't have said it any better.   I mean finesse is "to do something skillfully or slyly, especially something that requires delicacy".  Well!!!
Lol!  I have to say that running long requires a great deal of finesse. 
So yes Rachel I know you are proud of me when I say I opted for finesse.

I know

Seriously I know....I mean it has been a long while..I am just going to apologize and move on. Yesterday was the death anniversary of my brother Christopher. He would have been 55. He died when I was 8 years old. He was only 19 years young at the time. I can remember moments from the day he died as clear as crystal. I was in grade 2 and it was donut day at Our Lady of Mercy School. All the kids were just getting their donuts. I hadn't ordered mine for whatever reason, mom forgot, I forgot, no change that day for myself and my two other siblings still in grade school. Not sure why but there was a reason. I knew I hadn't ordered a donut so wasn't expecting one. As the donuts were being handed out, Mrs Thomas, the loveliest grade two teacher you could ever meet, called my name and said my Dad was here to see me. Once already that school year my dad had shown up on a hot lunch day with homemade hamburgers for my grade school siblings and I so I was excited by his appearance. What treat was he bringing today? I didn't run out of the classroom because I wasn't a rule breaker but I practically skipped to the door. I didn't notice that Mrs Thomas looked sad or that the principal was whispering to the Nuns in the hall. All I saw was my Daddy with his arms reaching out to me. I noticed my sister and my brother almost simultaneously coming out of their classrooms down the hall. When I got to my Dad I noticed the tears on his face. I don't think I had ever seen him cry before. He looked shocked as he said your brother Chris died today... I can only remember feeling overwhelmed by the situation. I wanted to cry but couldn't. I didn't know how to act. I didn't know what to feel. I didn't understand what was going on. As the days went by and sorrow blanketed our house like a winter storm, the grief of my siblings and my parents overwhelmed me. I would walk into a room and they would be sobbing. I thought there was something really wrong with me because I couldn't cry. Hadn't I loved my brother too? It wasn't until his casket was brought to the house for the wake and the open casket sat  in the hall that I was finally able to cry. I think back now to the feelings of an 8 year old child trying to understand the death of her brother. Trying to understand that she would never get to see him do those amazing handstands that went on for a lifetime or until his face turned blue. One thing I was truly reminded of yesterday is the importance of keeping my brothers memory alive. I told a few stories to my children yesterday about their uncle and we visited his grave site. We are all thinking of you Chris and what a wonderful gentleman you were and wishing we had had more time with you.  - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Fun Hill

Just coming off my first full week of work after vacation and it feels like forever ago already.  But I haven't taken a vacation from my running and since I have been back I have diligently returned to the gym.  I have had a few epic runs (one which included a run over Pattulo Bridge) and this weekends training run route is still up in the air but I definitely plan to challenge myself.
Speaking of challenges I went for a run last night and headed down towards the Quay forgetting that my training run was supposed to be "rolling hills".  Now anyone who knows their way around New Westminster knows that once you head down to the river the only "rolling hills" you will find are those of the large roll size and probably not what my training plan had in mind. 

When we were little kids we would beg our Dad to take us down "fun hill", a gut dropper of a hill at the end of Queens Avenue in New Westminster that goes down really steep and then (God bless those road engineers - but what were they thinking?) has a colossul dip that then continues in a steep descent.  I can remember being in the blue Valiant when it actually "caught air" before we rocketed back to the ground.  Serious gut dropping fun better than any roller coaster or Zipper ride that Playland has to offer.  My little ladies now scream for the "fun hill" experience and my little Mazda likes the thrill too, although my shocks..not so much.

But screaming was exactly what my calves and quads and glutes were doing as I did a reverse up fun hill last night and declare it to be not so fun hill when you aren't in a vehicle.  In fact I would even go so far as to say tortourous, especially as I had already ran about 8km and my legs just weren't in the mood for a hill.

Lucky for me the best song to run hills to came on, Seven Nation Army by White Stripes and I was able to dig really deep and charge up the hill and home.

Road-tripping

The last day of our road-trip ended with a little stress as I struggled to find a hotel late in the night. Not quite finished our shopping and wanting to take advantage of the duty free limits we were one more night on the road. Driving with the camper, I am never tempted to speed the way I do in my little Mazda zoom zoom zoom car, but when the cop with lights flashing came up in my rearview mirror,  I instinctively checked my speedometer and started to pull over. He flew by. I wasn't his prey. Something far ahead had sent him gunning. As I watched him drive away I was awarded a memory from a road-trip long ago. I'm pretty sure it was the Summer of 1979. I was the same age as the ladies are now, just going into Grade 6. Mom, Dad, my brother Miles and my sister Hilary, all heading across Canada to soak up the sites. And we did. There wasn't a museum, parliament building or Catholic Church that we didn't tour, visit or photograph. Province to province across the TransCanada Highway, experiencing what my father felt every Canadian child should - our land from sea to shining sea.
When we hit Port Elgin, New Brunswick we were starting to feel the stress of the cramped van and the long days of driving. My father did all the driving and it must have been exhausting to not get a break. My mother had just as hard a time as passenger. The stress of navigating your way across Canada weighs pretty heavy.
It was late in the night on that stretch of the highway when the RCMP officer pulled as over. I can remember Mom giving Dad heck for speeding and my dad saying he wasn't. The police officer came to the side of the car and asked my father if he knew why he was being pulled over. My father, always the gentleman, said, " I don't believe I was speeding sir." And the officer said, " I see you are from out of town. What brings you all this way? Do you have friends in town?"  Dad replied, "No we were just passing through, enjoying the sites along the way."   The officer informed Dad that the annual parade was the following day and as was the history of the parade, an out of town guest was appointed Grand Marshal and given the key to the City. We were to be the Grand Marshal Family. For my father who spent his life trying to give us moments, this must have felt like quite a coup. The ultimate Canadiana experience. It didn't get much better than this. We obviously accepted and were given a police escort into town where we were treated to a lobster dinner maritime style. The next day it was all business as we had to judge the parade after riding front and center on the Grand Marshal float ( which I believe was horse and cart?). We totally flubbed it up and ended up picking people who had never won before. I am sure the town still talks about the year those coast folk came and sent everything topsy turvy. But what a memory. As was the way of my Dad, he got to know the locals, and even had the local realtor showing him houses and had us dreaming of the maritime life.
 When we got home there was mail from Port Elgin, New Brunswick ,
A Certificate making us honorary citizens of the town and a copy of the local paper with a write up on the parade. I'm not sure what happened to that paperwork but I'm making a note to send an email off and find out if I can get a copy of that newspaper article. Canadiana.

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Winding Down

My five mile run this morning ended on a sandy beach, roar of the ocean in my ears and sand between my toes. I couldn't wait to wake the ladies for a bit of beachcombing. I could only get Gracie up but she was a willing assistant. We found some lovely agates (she says) that she has promised to polish and transform into some type of wearable art. Rachel soon straggled down to the beach and the three of us frolicked for a bit before heading up to camp.

Not only did my early morning exercise afford me one more opportunity to fill my lungs with fresh sea air it also allowed me to splurge on the calories at breakfast. We stopped in at the Newport Cafe this morning and while Dad enjoyed a seafood scramble that was loaded with crab and scallops and shrimp, I indulged in eggs and grilled calamari. I checked first just to be sure it was calamari done the right way (one big slab of calamari, like a piece of fish) and of course it was. Very yummy!
The girls gobbled up all their French toast and we were off. Turns out that Astoria sounds a lot like Albany to members of our party who have full use of their ears ;), so we are headed back to the I5 and to Albany, Oregon to meet up with John and Vicki before shopping and stopping in Portland. Then homeward.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone