Brrrrrr. It’s cold outside.

Mother Nature has sure had a bee in her bonnet about something this winter hasn’t she? I went to sleep last night with my fingers crossed for a “snow day” (aka a day where the roads were “too dangerous” to make the 20 minute drive into work), but woke up to a wet, slushy mess and 2 degree temperatures. The inner child in me was devastated. No snow day.

Anyways, despite getting off to a slow, sleepy start this morning, I’m determined it’s going to be a productive one. With less than 4 days to go until the Chilly Half Marathon, it’s all systems go for getting some last minute running in, hydrating like a crazy person, eating really well and getting 8 hours of sleep. Or, you know, as close to 8 as can reasonably be expected anyways. My plan is to be in bed on Friday and Saturday night well before 10pm.

When Matt and I flew out to Winnipeg for my last half marathon (and Matt’s full marathon), I seriously don’t think I’ve ever slept so much or so well in my entire life. I got 10 hours of sleep both Friday and Saturday night, and also napped for a couple of hours during the days?! It was like I had reverted back to an infant or something, it was freakin’ fantastic. I woke up at 5am for the race start on Sunday morning bright eyed and bushy-tailed chirping about how “I didn’t know why I felt so awake so early in the morning!” The rest of Matt’s family was somewhat amused by that.

That half marathon in Manitoba was by far the best race I’ve ever run from a time perspective, a recovery perspective and also just from a pure enjoyment perspective. I was really happy the whole race, didn’t really suffer at all, had my head up and was taking in the scene as I ran….it was a good race for me. I don’t really know if all that sleep had anything to do with it, but some of Matt’s weird, neurotic goalie tendencies are creeping into me a bit (somebody help me) and I kind of feel like I should repeat all actions I took before the last race to help my chances!!!

So…in bed before 10pm both Friday and Saturday night. Done deal.

I got in a really great treadmill run this past Sunday morning and ran 9.3 miles (or 15km) in 95 minutes. There is a new love in my life. And his name is “my treadmill”. Oh baby, this thing is the greatest. I bought the Livestrong LS8T treadmill when it was on sale for 75% off just before Lance Armstrong’s big confession on Oprah, and my oh my, Lance may be a doper, but damn the man makes good treadmills.

First of all, the treadmill is heavy as HELL, it’s really super sturdy. Moment to appreciate my dad, Matt and my brother Andrew for lifting that sucker and carrying it down a very twisty turny flight of stairs and setting it up for me!!! I felt like I was running on a treadmill at the gym compared to the typical lighter and a bit more flimsy treadmills that are sold for home use.

Second of all, it has this awesome feature where you can actually adjust the firmness of the terrain that you run on to “Firm”, “Neutral” or “Soft”. God bless you Lance. You understand the woes of knee injuries. I flipped the dial all the way to “Soft” which increased the bounciness of the treadmill a bit (although not too drastically). I know that it might be more advisable to actually use a firmer setting to better simulate and prepare my body for the road, but as I’m just coming off a pretty serious injury, my goal right now is to make it to the START line of the race. And that means being nice to my joints as much as possible.

Thirdly, the treadmill comes with this handy dandy little cord that you can attach to your iPod and actually play the music through two speakers on the treadmill!!! LOVE!!! A total music addict, I find it really tough to exercise without music, BUT it’s a total pain in the butt to hold onto your iPod while you run (and don’t even get me started on those arm band things – they never stay put, and you can’t change the song!!). I freakin’ LOVED that you could play the music through the treadmill itself and run with free hands!! Also I’m sure it’s better for your ears to not have loud music blaring in them for 95 minutes, and this way you can sing along to the songs without feeling like a total idiot. Yes, I do that.

Last of all (I know right, I’m STILL talking about how much I love this treadmill), the treadmill is super smart. There’s an interface screen where you can plug in a USB and it will automatically log and save your workouts, and then challenge you to do better next time with messages encouraging you to go for your personal best, or increase the speed to beat your previous time. When we discovered this last weekend, Matt’s little brother Scott says “Woah, it’s like a video game!” I concur. The screen also “knows” that maybe you need some extra encouragement at the end of your run, and with 2 miles left to go, I got a message across the screen saying “YOU CAN DO IT!!” and the volume on the music speakers increased a little bit!!

So long story short – I love my treadmill. Although I got it for basically nothing, I would pay full price for it in a HEART BEAT if I had to. It’s well worth the money.

I’m planning to do an easy 5km run tonight before my Pump class, and then a really short 3km run on Friday afternoon, and that will about do it before the race on Sunday.

Matt’s brother Neil and his girlfriend Jess are going to be in town this weekend for the race as well and it should be a fun weekend!! I’m really excited for it, there’s nothing better than the atmosphere of a race weekend. Now it just needs to hurry up and get here already!!

Do you know anyone running the Chilly Half Marathon or the Frosty 5K in Burlington this weekend?! If so, good luck to them (or maybe it’s you?!). 🙂

Hello Everyone!

I hope you’ve all had a restful and energizing weekend. It was my 24th birthday on Saturday and I had a wonderful day, spent with the people that mean the most to me. It was a great weekend 🙂

Today I want to pick up on Matt’s Road to Boston and share Part 2 with you all. Where we last left off, Matt had completed his very first marathon (bloody feet, new socks and all) and had set the aggressive goal to qualify for the Boston Marathon, essentially shaving 50 minutes off of his current time.

How’s that for a BHAG?

As the world tuned in to the Lance Armstrong/Oprah interview this past week, there is really no better time to tell the second part of this story. It was the summer of 2004 and Lance Armstrong was going after his record breaking 6th Tour de France win. He was seemingly “unbeatable”, the ultimate competitor and the face of victory. Matt was given Lance’s first book “Its not about the Bike” and was amazed by his incredible journey back to life, health and competition. As Matt tuned in to watch the Tour de France for the first time ever, he set the goal to complete the Toronto Scotia WaterFront Marathon for his very first Boston Qualifying attempt.

The Tour de France played a huge role in Matt’s training. In Lance Armstrong’s book “It’s Not About the Bike”, he speaks about his training philosophy. According to Lance, the very best time to go out and train hard is when the weather is terrible, when things aren’t convenient, when your competitors aren’t willing to go out. Champions are built on days when everyone else is at home with their feet up. Matt took this philosophy and ran with it, literally. Every rainy day he was out, soaking wet. Every blistering hot day, he was out pouring sweat. Twice that very summer, on 2 different training runs he had people pull over on the highway and ask if he wanted a ride home because the rain was so blinding and so thick. He said no and ran harder the rest of the way home.

Lance Armstrong was Matt’s hero. His incredible story of determination and competition made Matt a better person and runner, and for that, he will always be grateful. In light of the information that has come out over the past couple of weeks, it’s become evident that Lance has really taken a chunk out of a lot of people’s lives to preserve his own reputation. Matt and I are both of the opinion that he needs to make it right with all of these people, and then do his part to clean up the cycling industry. Doping doesn’t make Lance Armstrong evil. In the greater scheme of things, he was just another straw in the haystack when it comes to that. But the deception and the malicious intent of some of his actions is what he needs to work on setting right. At least in our humble opinion 🙂 🙂

Enough about Lance, time to get back to the Toronto Water front Marathon. Matt flew to Toronto alone and stayed with his uncle. He was feeling good, had trained hard and was ready to get his first attempt to qualify under way. The race started out terrific, and by the 10km he was on pace to qualify and feeling great. By 21.1km, he was still on pace and looking good. Just after the half way mark of the race, he saw his uncle who had come to watch his race. Seeing his uncle gave him energy, and he knew that he was still on pace to qualify. Things were going exactly according to plan.

Shortly after the half way mark, Matt fell victim to a demon that goes by the name of dehydration. There’s really no use in me describing suffering from dehydration to you unless you’ve felt it yourself. It was like he had been shot. He felt incredibly sick and disoriented and knew that something was going seriously wrong.

By the time he had made it to the 25km marker, there was a green area just off to the side of the course, where there was a tree and some tall grass. He was sick. And I mean…both ways that a person can be sick.

I have Matt’s approval to post all of this – don’t you worry 😉

As poor Matt was puking his guts out on the side of the road, some wise cracking runner ran by and yelled out “Let it all out buddy!!”. And that he did.

He started running again but he was very dehydrated, disoriented and confused. He didn’t know what was happening to his body, this was all brand new to him. It wasn’t long before, for the second marathon in a row he began to walk. With his head down in shame made it to 32km and then somewhere after that, the first aid staff strongly suggested he get in their car and he did. The pain of the dehydration was nothing compared to the pain of the DNF. Poor Matt was devastated, but being the type of person he is, he grit his teeth, picked himself up, and set the goal for the next qualifying attempt. Walking and quitting weren’t an option. Period.

Its been said that something is only a mistake if you do not learn from it. Dehydration was a new beast to learn about and he needed to find a way to conquer the demon. After playing water stops over and over in his head he realized he wasn’t very good at drinking from a cup while running. He went out and set up paper cups on his car trunk and ran loops and after every loop try and grab a cup and try a new to drink from it at speed. He learned a pinch technique that to this day he uses.

It had now been a full year since his first marathon back in Manitoba. He knew that his second attempt to qualify for the Boston Marathon would be in Manitoba 2005. He was prepared, trained better and had some fight in him. He even had a Mohawk.

He he he.

Would Matt’s second Boston qualifying attempt be the one? Or would dehydration get the best of him again? What other demons lay out on the 42.2km stretch of road that he had not yet even encountered?

You’ll have to tune in for The Road to Boston Part 3 to find out!! 🙂

Before you go – did you have a “hero” growing up? What are your thoughts on Lance Armstrong and the state of the cycling industry?

Have a terrific week everyone!!

-Sara

Hi Everyone!

It’s the most beautiful day where I am, cool and crisp with the sun shining. I hope it’s just as beautiful where you are today.

I’m scheduled to do a 5km run tonight before my BodyPump class, but the top of my foot is pretty sore this morning. I may have to modify the goal to at least get a “run” of some sort in before Pump, even if it’s just 15 minutes.

Today I wanted to chat a bit about nutrition, and share a really great recipe with you all!

Food has always been a total mystery to me. Without getting into too much detail, let’s just leave it at “I’ve had a strained relationship with food my entire life”. If we were a celebrity couple, I would be Taylor Swift, and food would be the rotating guy that she’s constantly dating and then getting pissed off with and writing songs about.

No dis-respect T-Swift; I still love ya.

Back when I first stumbled into working out and group fitness, I got serious about losing weight and cut a lot of crap out of my diet. I used to eat at fast food restaurants 3 times a week, sometimes even more. I bought chocolate bars out of vending machines, drank soda and ate straight out of the bag of chips. When I started working out and seeing some positive changes, it motivated me to cut out all of that stuff. And I mean ALL of that stuff.

I must have been one seriously possessed girl, because I quit completely cold turkey. From about Grade 11 until I went off to University, I had the willpower of a silent monk. I feared sugar and saturated fats like they were poison. I never slipped up. Ever.

Once I got to University, made friends and realized that people there weren’t cruel like they were in high school, I relaxed a lot, and started eating the way I still do today. Not great, but not terrible either.

Ok, ok, sometimes I’m terrible 😉

Over the last month or so, I’ve felt a big paradigm shift in the way I look at food.

Although I’m a terrible cook, I love to read food blogs online. I totally love how inspired and passionate the authors are about eating, and how much FUN they seem to have with it! Some of my favourites are here:

http://www.onetipforthefuture.com

http://www.eat-spin-run-repeat.com

http://www.ohsheglows.com

I’ve never really understood the whole “fun” part of eating, because to me it’s always been associated with some sort of guilt or fear or resentment. Over the last month or so, I’ve kind of made it my mission to get EXCITED about what I’m eating the same way that the girls in the blogs above do! When I started thinking like this, it became so much clearer that it’s a lot easier to get excited about food with beautiful, whole, rich colours and flavours and textures then the one-dimensional food I typically eat like wilted iceberg lettuce and frozen chicken.

I’ve been reading a lot of different food blogs for inspiration, googling recipes and making it my mission to get excited about each meal. I’ve been having a great time with it, and even better, I feel like a freakin’ rockstar in the gym!

A friend of mine once shared her strategy with me, and said that she tried her best to eat more wholesome and healthy foods during the week, and then she cut herself a little slack on the weekends and enjoyed some of her favourites; whatever they might be. I liked her approach a lot because it feels more “normal”, and it eliminates that whole guilt factor that comes with eating foods that we love but that don’t love us in return (pizza, chocolate….I’m lookin’ at you two).

I thought I would leave you all with a recipe that I made up last night for “Breakfast Grab ‘n Go’s”! They are super delicious, healthy and great for a quick breakfast or snack on the go! I got up to my elbows in sticky batter making them last night and the work that went into them made them taste even better when they were done!!

(Side Note: I take ZERO credit for this recipe; I got it from a friend who got it from CityLine. If you’re looking for an original recipe, you’re on the wrong blog!!!!!)

Dry ingredients:
11/2 cups (375 mL) oat bran

1 1/2 cups (375 mL) large flake oats

1 cup (250 mL) whole wheat flour

3/4 cup (175 mL) ground flaxseed

1/2 cup (125 mL) Scottish, Irish or steel-cut oats

2 tbsp (30 mL) wheat germ

2 tbsp (30 mL) cinnamon

1 tsp (5 mL) baking soda

1 cup (250 mL) dried cranberries or blueberries

1/4 cup (60 mL) at least 60% cocoa mass chocolate chips

1/2 cup (125 mL) walnuts, chopped coarsely

Wet ingredients:
2 Omega-3 eggs

1/4 cup (60 mL) canola oil – measure accurately

3/4 cup (175 mL) dark brown sugar, packed

One – 4.5 oz. (128 mL) jar baby food strained prunes

1 tbsp (15 mL) pure vanilla extract

1. Make sure the oven rack is in the middle of your oven.

2. Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper, two if you have them.

3. In a large bowl mix together the dry ingredients: oat bran, oat flakes, whole wheat flour, flaxseed, steel-cut oats, wheat germ, cinnamon, and baking soda using a rubber spatula or a large spoon.

4. Add dried cranberries or blueberries, chocolate chips, and walnuts and stir well.

5. In a medium bowl whisk together the wet ingredients: eggs, oil, brown sugar, baby food prunes and pure vanilla extract until well blended.

6. Add this to the dry ingredients and stir until it’s really well combined. The dough is sticky.

7. You want to make eighteen Grab and Goes, so eyeball an amount that’s bigger than a golf ball and smaller than a tennis ball. Scoop out the batter and then press down so they are 3/4 -inch (2 cm) thick and about 3.5-inches (9 cm) wide. If you have a 1/4 cup (60 mL) ice cream scoop that has a release button, this is a perfect time to get it out of your junk drawer.

8. The batter is sticky; either lightly press down with the back of a metal tablespoon or dampen hands and then lightly press down. I use my hands.

9. Bake for 13-15 minutes. Remove cookies from oven and let sit on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes to set. Gently remove to a cooling rack. Let cool completely and then store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks, or freeze up to 3 months.

Makes 18

Each Grab-and-Go contains:

256 Calories, 10.4 g Total Fat, 1.7 g Sat Fat, 0 g Trans Fat, 81 mg Sodium, 37.8 g Carbs, 5 g Fibre, 1.3 g Soluble Fibre, 14.7 g Sugar, 7 g Protein.

Have a great day – and HAVE FUN with whatever you are eating!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂

I’ve never been much of a co-dependent or “group” type of person. When it comes to important stuff, I’ve always kind of preferred to do my own thing.

Indecision and inefficiency drive me absolutely crazy, and I sometimes find that when I’m with other people or in a group trying to get something done, I’m just way less efficient then I would be on my own.

Case in point: I very, very, very rarely studied with anyone else in University, group projects and group meetings drove me absolutely up the wall and around the corner, shopping for an important dress or for something specific that I really needed with someone else in tow rarely ever worked out…..you get the picture.

Don’t get me wrong; I like to think I’m a pretty social being when it comes time to relax and have fun, but there’s definitely a bit of “lone wolf” in me as well.

That lone wolf comes out big time when it comes to running. I am very, very uncomfortable running with other people.

If you asked me why, I would probably give you a couple of reasons related to people running at different paces, trying to fill the space by making small talk, the flexibility to start/end the run when you want to…and the list goes on. The real reason is probably something to do with the fact that I’m not at all confident in my running ability, and if I go out with somebody and feel like I need to stop or slow down or shorten my route or whatever else, then they’ll think “what a fat, pathetic, out of shape loser she is”.

In reality – I know (or seriously hope!) that nobody that I would be out running with would ever think that about me, so it’s a totally silly concern, but hey, what can you do.

On Friday night, I was scheduled to do my first “official” long run of Half Marathon training, which was 10km. I was looking forward to it all week, and felt raring to go on Friday. Around 3:30pm I got a text from Matt asking when I was planning to go out running, and I replied as soon as I was done work around 5:30. He then asked if he could come with me since he was looking for a recovery run himself.

As I look back at our texting back and forth, the conversation is too funny to not post it verbatim, so here you go, a typical conversation between Matt and I via text message at 3:30pm on a Friday afternoon:

Matt: I can go with you? I’m looking for an 8-10….

Sara: Well I’m doing 10….but slow….

Matt: I need a recovery run, your call though

Sara: Okay, but no talking

Matt: How about….talking but no iPod?

Sara: No. Absolutely not.

Matt: Haha, okay fine, I can be quiet.

Now that is true love right there.

Anyways, all said and done we did head out for our run together (after eating a couple of slices of pizza before hitting the road – what the heck is with me and pizza surrounding my long runs?!).

In case I haven’t been abundantly clear in previous posts, Matt is a special breed of human when it comes to running. I’m pretty sure he could have walked along beside me at the pace I was running, but bless his heart he never complained about my glacial pace.

We did a loop of 6km, stopped back at my house for a quick washroom break, and then jumped right back out to finish off the remaining 4km. I was totally amazed to find myself making comments about things along the road (you know, like the guy that was hiding behind the telephone pole and scared the bajesus out of me when I ran past him because I didn’t see him there) and actually chatting a bit as we ran!

Side note: I’d love to say that I’m making good progress in weaning myself off of my iPod in preparation for Around the Bay, but that would be a filthy lie. I think I’m leaning more towards the game plan of doing all of my training with my iPod and then just giving ‘er without it for the first time on race day and seeing if I crash and burn. Just to keep things interesting.

The last couple of kilometres kind of sucked because that nagging foot pain that I’ve had kind of off and on ever since the November Quarterly workshop really flared up and my foot was kind of numb and very sore for the last little bit. I would have certainly stopped if I was on my own and walked the rest of the way home, but I was glad to have Matt there to keep me going.

Overall, I really enjoyed having a running buddy! Who knew! Maybe there’s a bit of “pack runner” in me after all!

I wonder if I could trick Matt into doing some more of my longer runs with me! And on that topic, this week I’ve got a 5K run scheduled for Wednesday and a 12km run scheduled for Friday night! I’ve got a huge week coming up at the gym next week with it being new release week (stay tuned for a full rundown of release week and what it’s all about coming up later this week), and I really need to be taking extra good care of my body this week.

I guess I’ll also need to reintroduce my bum to a bike seat at some point. Sigh.

What does your week look like?? Do you have any big workouts planned out??

Have a great Monday afternoon!

Hi Everyone!

Hope you are all settling back into your routines well now that the kids are back in school. I don’t have any kids of my own, but it never “officially” feels like the new year has started until everyone is back in school!

The gym has been a little bit busier than usual, but not NEARLY as busy as it usually is in the month of January! I hope that all of those Debbie Downer newscasters that keep encouraging people to “start small” with their resolutions and take a walk around the block instead of joining the gym haven’t scared people away….I’m all for realistic goals (he he), but sometimes you really just need to dive in head first and go for it!! If you’re on the fence, I couldn’t possibly say enough good things about the gym – I really encourage you to be brave and go for it!!!

So I am finally back into my full teaching schedule for the new year (and the new Group Exercise schedule period that runs from January – April!), but I have yet to get back into my “full” triathlon training schedule. I’ve been running regularly, but my bum hasn’t been anywhere near a bike seat since December 23rd, and I haven’t been in the pool since before I got really sick back in early December.

Sigh 😦

Truth be told – I’m so totally freaked out about going back in the pool because I had this sneaking suspicion that I got that awful flu from the pool!!! Every time I think about going in, my skin just crawls!!!

The way I’ve set up my training year, I’ve kind of front-loaded it with running. I have the Chilly Half Marathon coming up in early March, and then the Around the Bay 30K Road Race in late March….and that kind of takes me right into bike season. I’ve elected Matt’s brother Neil to be my “crisis alert” and tell me when the absolute “drop dead date” is for getting my butt onto a REAL bike and getting on the road.

He says March…but I’m sure that’s a “soft” March…I’m sure April would be fine…….:)

Anyways, I’ve been trying to get myself organized with my running, and actually follow some sort of a training plan (I know, crazy right? Who is this girl?), which is actually hard because I feel like running most days and I have to be really strict with myself to only run on my designated days so I don’t over-do it with the high impact stuff.

I was reading John Stanton’s “Running” book, and looking at the training plans that they recommend for Half Marathons and for full Marathons as well. I got myself all worked up into a tizzy because they insist that you need to follow a 5 day a week running plan, including hills, speed work, intervals, and long slow distance runs (or LSD, which I think is also some sort of crazy-ass halucinogen drug….on a side note). I started diligently doing up an Excel spreadsheet which had me running 5 days a week and doing hill workouts and speed workouts and LSD’s (he he), but then ran into a bit of a brick wall when I realized that my plan was totally and completely bat-shit crazy, and had me working out for 3+ hours just about every single day.

I know 3 hours may be peanuts for some people, but keeping in mind that my only goal for the Ironman is to not die, it’s too much for me. Sorry.

I found myself falling into the old trap again where I pitt my classes against my running, instead of trying to get them to work together.

So I stopped the madness, and went back to the drawing board, remembering the golden rule that is kind of the backbone of my entire triathlon training year: an hour in the studio is NOT an hour wasted. An hour in the studio is a step closer towards the end goal (you know, not dieing).

See, working together is a beautiful thing.

I figure I need to get two runs per week in, religiously, every single week, from now until the Chilly Half Marathon. One short run, and one long run. So my plan is to do just that, one 5km run every week, and one increasingly long run every weekend. I’ve been doing my 5K’s on Wednesday nights before my BodyPump class and the plan is to do my long runs on Friday night after work.

My first “long” run is going to be this Friday night, and I’m scheduled to do 10K. 12K the following Friday, and so on until I get to 18K in 4 weeks. Once I get to 18, the plan is to see how I’m feeling, maintain the 18, or reduce the mileage slightly leading up to the race, and give myself one week to kind of “cool it” or “taper” as the fancy running folk say!! 🙂

I know what you’re thinking.

THAT’S IT?! That’s the “big, fancy” training plan that took you two weeks to come up with??

And the answer is a big, resounding, YES! This is it! And it feels good, it feels sane, and maintainable, and I’m actually excited about it, not dreading it! I’ll keep you posted, but so far this has been working really well for me, so I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to keep it up all the way to the end of Around the May in late March.

So tell me – how is YOUR training going??? What does your training plan look like for your big events?? Are you a believer in cross-training, or are you all sport specific??? Talk to me Goose!

Have a great evening everyone 🙂

Happy New Year Everyone!!

2013 is finally here, and it promises to be an absolutely huge, massive, challenging year. I am so excited to get started on some of the huge goals that I have set for this year.

I’m not a big believer in New Years resolutions. Year after year of teaching in the Group Exercise studio gives me a front row seat to the ebbs and flows of traffic to the gym, and although it makes me very sad, usually the gym is back to normal traffic by February. That being said, I am a HUGE believer in goal setting, and I think that January is an absolutely terrific time to think about setting larger mind-set “goals” for the upcoming year!

Some of my goals for this year include:

1. Complete the Around the Bay 30K Road Race with a smile on my face
2. Complete the Muskoka Half Ironman with a smile on my face
3. Take control of my finances and create a personal budget
4. Re-evaluate my eating and make smarter choices to fuel my body during training

On the topic of huge goals, life changing goals, today I want to kick off a brand new mini-series that I’ve been thinking about writing for a long time. This is a story about an elusive BHAG, one that took eight years to achieve. One that was set by a gutsy, plucky 18 year old with a ponytail that wasn’t scared of anything, even when maybe they should have been.

But this isn’t my story at all. It’s Matt’s.

The Road to Boston Mini-Series – Part 1

The Boston Marathon is the Everest of all marathons. It is the world’s oldest and most respected marathon, with the first running taking place in 1897. Entry to the race is protected by the iron barriers of time. Before you can even think about registering for Boston, you need to first run another marathon under the qualifying time for your gender and age category.

Here is the Qualifying Standards chart for the 2013 race (and in case you’re not familiar with marathon times and paces, I’ll make it simple: these are damn fast times!!!):

Boston Marathon Qualifying Standards (effective for 2013 race)
Age	Men	Women
18–34	3hrs 5min	3 hrs 35min
35–39	3hrs 10min	3 hrs 40min
40–44	3hrs 15min	3 hrs 45min
45–49	3hrs 25min	3 hrs 55min
50–54	3hrs 30min	4 hrs 0min
55–59	3hrs 40min	4 hrs 10min
60–64	3hrs 55min	4 hrs 25min
65–69	4hrs 10min	4 hrs 40min
70–74	4hrs 25min	4 hrs 55min
75–79	4hrs 40min	5 hrs 10min
80+	4hrs 55min	5 hrs 25min

In my very first blog post, I first mentioned that my boyfriend Matt qualified for the 2013 Boston Marathon in June of 2012. Far from being a short-sighted goal, it took Matt 8 years of hard work and dedication to accomplish his goal. I wanted to take you back to the beginning of his road to the Boston Marathon as we all set out on missions to accomplish BHAGs of our own, with the hopes that maybe like me, you too will find some inspiration and drive to go after your own “Boston” over the coming year, or longer if that’s what it takes.

In 2004 Matt was in Grade 12, and one of his (very brave) high school teachers was taking a bus-load of high school kids to Winnipeg, Manitoba to run as relay teams in the Manitoba Marathon. The thought was that kids would run the marathon or the half marathon in teams of 4 or 5 and each do no more then 10K or so to complete the race as a team. Matt had other ideas, and my plucky boyfriend took the paper pamphlet and promptly checked the box saying he intended to do the full marathon all by himself at the age of 18 after never really running more than 10 consecutive kilometres.

This poor, unsuspecting high school teacher needed some chaperones, and so Matt’s dad volunteered to come along, and to do the half marathon race as well!

Poor Matt had absolutely no idea what he had signed up for. Over the next couple of months he did a couple of short training runs, and one 30km run on a Saturday morning “long run party” with all of the runners going to Manitoba. He started out his 30km training run fast and leading the way, but struggled at the end. It took him 3 hours but he completed the run and was en route to Manitoba with his dad on the bus, and the rest of his family in the family van behind them. He set the goal to complete his first marathon in under 4 hours, with only one “serious” training run under his belt.

For my first half marathon in 2010, I had Matt and his family to tell me what to do and what not to do. Silly little things like, pin on your race bib the night before, make sure you’re in the right starting corral so you don’t get bowled over by people when the race starts, make sure your drinking more then usual in the days leading up to the race, and so many more. This being the first distance event for Matt’s entire family, they didn’t have anyone to really give them any words of advice! Matt’s dad gave him a brand new pair of anti-blister socks as a present the night before the race, and the next morning, didn’t eager Matt decide that he was going to wear them for the race.

*Shudder* oh the horror.

The next morning when the gun went off, Matt was out of the gate like a shot, passing people left, right and centre. He was feeling terrific until about the 30km mark, the magic “wall” that marathon runners hit where (so I’ve heard) everything just starts to hurt. I’ve read stories where marathon runners insist that the webbing between their fingers was on fire. Don’t ask me what it is about the “wall” or what the mechanics are behind it, but ask any marathon runner and they’ll tell you all about it!

In any case, Matt struggled from the 30km mark onwards, and had to walk a little bit. He had never walked in a race before in his life, and found that it hurt his body even more to run after he had walked. (Side note: I totally find this too!!). He looked at his watch and figured at a certain point that he couldn’t walk anymore if he had any hope of making his four hour goal. As he got closer, he could hear the noises from the stadium drawing closer and closer.

There are fewer things more motivating for a runner then the sound of that stadium as you draw closer and closer to the finish line. No matter how tired or beat down you are, once you hear the first sounds of that crowd in the stadium, you just forget about everything except getting to that line, and NOW!!

With one lap of the stadium between him and the four hour mark, his watch read 3:57. He had three minutes to run 400 metres. He sprinted the whole way and made it to the line just after 3:58!

They realized that the brand new anti-blister socks were soaked red with blood! What had seemed like such a great idea before the race had turned out to be a hard lesson: never, ever, ever wear new socks for a distance race!!!!!

2 weeks later, when the blisters had healed, the blood had dried and the pain had faded, Matt was talking about his next marathon already. He received a silver medal in the mail for being second in his under 19 age category. The very day he received his medal, he went online to look up the Boston Qualifying times. At this time, the qualifying times were 5 minutes slower then they are now (in the chart above). He needed to shave 50 minutes off of his time to achieve the 3:10 necessary to qualify for Boston, and the goal was born.

It wasn’t for another month before the first Boston Qualifying attempt training began.  It was to be yet another adventure filled with excitement, rookie lessons and heart break, which you will get to hear all about in the Road to Boston Part 2.

Have a great evening and HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!!

Hi Everyone and Merry Christmas!!

I hope you’ve all had a terrific holidays full of all of the best things in life (you know, sleep, chocolate, family, friends, presents and stuffing; in no particular order). I’ve been off work since December 19^th, and it’s been an amazing break.

I spent December 20^th – 25^th at home with Matt and my family getting ready for Christmas, doing last minute Christmas shopping, wrapping, baking and eating an otherwise totally unacceptable amount of chocolate. We drove 8 hours to Sault Ste. Marie to visit with my grandparents from December 26^th – 29^th and got home late last night to the sad, sad realization that we only have 3 days left of vacation until we’re back at work for another year. That being said, there’s so many huge events and milestones coming up in 2013 that I’m definitely starting to get excited to ring in the New Year tomorrow night!!

I’ll admit that I may have been a bit tough to buy for this year. Usually I’m pretty vocal about wanting this, that or the other thing (not just at Christmas, I’m talking all the time), but this year I just didn’t really have many ideas when people asked what I wanted for Christmas. Given that I’ve taken on this totally insane goal Half Ironman next September, I guess it was only fitting that I got a whole bunch of triathlon gear from various people for Christmas!

I’m starting to realize that holy crap is there ever a lot of gear that goes along with doing triathlons. It’s not a cheap sport. I got stuff for Christmas that I never even knew existed, but that I totally need, and it got me thinking about what other stuff I may need and not even know about!

Garmin Forerunner 410 GPS Watch (in pink!!)

For my outdoor runs I’ve been doing the totally old school thing and driving my car out to map out a route that’s the length that I wanted to do. Thankfully Matt stopped the madness and got me a GPS watch for Christmas so I can just put on the sneaks and GO! And bonus, it’s pink. Bless his soul.

Oakley Sunglasses (also in pink!!)

The equivalent of Tiffanys for runner girls. I’ll admit that there’s no way on earth that I’m cool enough to wear Oakley sunglasses when I run, but maybe I’ll get there eventually. These were also a gift from Matt, they are absolutely wonderful for cutting the winter glare off the snow (yes, we actually have snow in Southern Ontario!) and will be great for the summer months too. I’m hoping mine fare better then Matt’s, the day after he bought his pair back in the summer, he opened the door of my car right into his face and took a huge chip out of the lens. The optimistic view: that lens could have been his eye ball! Now we call them the most expensive safety glasses that he’s ever owned.

Squirt Water Bottle and Bike Water Bottle Holder

Me being the total bike rookie that I am, I thought that bikes came with water bottle holders on them. Turns out that thousands of dollars and you still have to buy the dang thing separately!!!  Matt’s parents bought me the bottle and the holder (and tons of other gear as well), and the bottle has been a God send so far. Ever tried to do a spin class with a screw-off top water bottle? After pouring nearly the entire bottle down my chest in one of the first RPM classes I did back in October, I quickly learned that it was going to be squirt bottle or nothing.

Race Bib Band

I wasn’t 100% sure what this was when I first opened it, I originally thought that it was some sort of water bottle belt or gel belt or something to be worn during races to carry stuff for you, but it turns out that it’s actually a band that you can clip your race bib to so that you don’t have to poke holes in your clothing. Also, for races like triathlons where you’re going to be changing clothes lots or winter races where you may not be exactly sure if you’re going to be running in your over-layer or not until you’re outside at the start line you don’t have to worry about re-pinning your bib to different clothes, you can just clip the band off and put it on again!

Bike Lubricant

One of those things that you would NEVER ever think about, until the chain on your bike sticks when you’re in the middle of a 90km bike ride. It scares me to death to think of all of the other bike maintenance things that I don’t know/haven’t even thought of!!! I’m in desperate need of “Bike Maintenance 101”.

There were lots of other things in my stocking like socks, running hats, lip balm, Lululemon pants, so I’m out of excuses – 2013 is training year!!

I did manage to get in some classes and a couple of triathlon workouts over the holidays as well, so all in all I don’t think my training has fallen too far behind. The Chilly Half Marathon is coming up in about 2 months, and I’ve got a lot of work to do to get ready. I’ll be posting a training plan for this specifically on my Training Logs page, and I’m going to do my absolute darndest to stick to it.

No really, I swear 😉

Happy New Year all!!! Here’s to an incredible year full of sweat, hard work, laughter and fun!! Before you leave, tell me, did Santa leave any triathlon or running gear in your stocking this year!? What are your plans for New Years Eve 2012?!

Hi Everyone (if you’re still out there?!),

I left off many eons ago (okay, last Monday) talking about how last week I was going to get back on track with my Training Log updates, and use all of that motivation from the successful Eggnog Jog to get myself firmly back on that wagon, and buckled in for the long haul.

Little did I know that my body had other plans.

Monday and Tuesday of last week were hectic, hectic days, I was running around like a maniac, trying to cram about 30 tasks more then I should have into tiny little 40 minute windows, neglecting my diet (or forgetting to eat altogether, which NEVER happens with me – I like my food!!) and not getting even close to enough sleep.

You might remember that I came down with a nasty cold shortly after we bought the house about 4 weeks ago. I had finally shaken the cold a couple of days before the Eggnog Jog. I could tell on the Monday after the race that it was starting to come back, but instead of heeding the warning signs, I pumped myself with as many vitamins as I could, and kept powering on.

Tuesday, I woke up feeling quite dizzy and disoriented. The cough that I had had ever since I got my cold had really flared up and I could hardly get a deep breath. More warning signs. I took some more vitamins, and kept on going.

Wednesday, I had finally pushed my body too far, and it had had enough of me. Everything shut down completely. I’m not talking about “feeling kind of lousy”, I’m talking about, “can’t lift your head off the pillow without the whole world spinning, pouring sweat, chest pain, ragged coughing, sinus congestion, wish you were dead lousy”.

I somehow managed to get myself to the doctor, who told me that it looked like I had come down with a nasty case of Bronchitis (I always think of a dinosaur when I see that word), gave me some antibiotics and told me that I needed to rest or I would be flirting with pneumonia.

From Wednesday until Saturday morning, I literally didn’t move from my bed or the couch, not because I didn’t want to, because I physically wasn’t able to. On top of the whole bronchitis and sinus infection that I was battling, my original cold came back in full force and I was right back to the sneezing, congested wreck that I was before the whole mess even began!

Let’s just say it was not pretty. I think Matt was wondering if his girlfriend had been eaten by a sasquatch or something.

6 days into the antibiotic cycle and about 1,000 hours of sleep later, I’m feeling better, but still not quite back to normal 100%.

Now that my brain is somewhat working again, I wanted to do a post about gratitude and about health.

Do you ever notice that often it takes something really gut-wrenchingly awful happening to make you truly, truly grateful for what you have?

How many parents around the world do you think desperately held onto their children and thanked God last Friday night, even when that very morning they had wanted to just smack them for talking back or doing something bad?

I find that our health is no exception. We carry on from one day to the next, wishing that we were thinner, or had better skin, or were taller, or maybe were stronger or faster. We take for granted that each day we will wake up, get out of bed and get moving at all.

I was reminded last week that good health is NOT a given and it can be taken away from you at a moment’s notice with no explanation and no apology.

So, now that I am feeling more like myself, I wanted to stop and acknowledge how thankful I am for the miracle of good health. I’ve learned my lesson, and I got the message loud and clear. One of my goals over the upcoming year is going to be to learn to listen to my body when it tells me it needs a break, and I’m not just talking about muscles and joints.

Call it the holiday spirit, but I’ve been feeling very grateful for a lot of things lately, and I thought it would be nice to document them to look back on during those inevitable days when you feel like the whole world is against you and you just can’t catch a break.

I am grateful for….

1.   My good health

2.   The good health of my family and friends

3.   My best friend and partner in crime Matt

4.   My kitty Blake (who I love a weird amount)

5.    My secure job (and lots of vacation time!!)

6.   The fact that I’ve found my passion in teaching, and I get to do it almost every day!

7.   My wonderful “non-instructor” friends who put up with me over-scheduling my days and not having as much time to see them as I would like

8.    Matt putting up with me being a basket case 98% of the time and not leaving me

9.   Having the passion and the drive to go after challenging goals that inspire me

10.  My incredible “instructor” friends that totally “get” my obsession (and share it with me!) without me having to apologize or explain

11.  My family being close knit and connected

12.  Lululemon. Without it, we’d all be working out in soaking wet cotton t-shirts.

13. Living in a peaceful and safe part of the world and enjoying basic freedoms that so many around the world do not

14.  Lindor Chocolate Truffles. Because I just ate about 9 of them, and they are so damn delicious.

15.  All of you reading this, for spending a few minutes of your very busy days with me!! 🙂

Today marks my last work day of 2012 before I am off until the New Year on Christmas holidays. It’s been a year of challenge and change as I moved from my comfortable role in advertising into a very uncomfortable role in budgeting. I would be lieing if I said that there hadn’t been ups and downs, but I made it, and I feel very good about moving into 2013 in my new role.

I know Christmas is just around the corner, but I do plan on getting back on the training horse by doing some running, some swimming and maybe even fitting in an RPM class or two over the coming weeks. My Training Logs page has been updated, and I am officially back on the wagon.

Stay tuned for a continuation of my (not forgotten!) Les Mills International Series and some goal-setting tips for the New Year! Enjoy the holiday season!

Now, where were we…

Ah yes, race day! Thankfully the Georgetown Running Group that put this race together set the race start time for 10:30am, so we didn’t have to get up at an ungodly hour. We were out the door by 9am and on our way.

It was kind of funny that we ended up pulling into the conservation area right behind Matt, Neil and Jess although we were leaving from different places at different times. We got to see Matt get yelled at by a parking marshall because he went the wrong way into the lot (he he he), although in Matt’s defence, the parking marshall was wearing a santa suit and seemed a bit confused about what he was doing waving a Canada flag. But I digress.

Anyways, when we finally stepped outside, we realized quickly that it was damn cold. When we had left our house it was about 1 degree, but now the thermometer was reading -3 and the wind had picked up a bit. I hadn’t dressed warmly enough for sure, I was absolutely freezing standing around.

Lesson learned – for winter races, you need to bring extra warm clothes to wear BEFORE the race gets started (and then have a plan to either give them to someone right before you start or stash them in your car or somewhere else).

Thankfully I WAS smart enough to bring a warmer quilted vest to wear, so at least I wouldn’t be cold out on the run. Matt and Neil were smarter and brought some extra clothes to wear before hand. Here we are before the race inside the (heated, thankfully) pavillion:

I had mentioned before that it was my mom’s very first 10K race, and she was a little nervous on race day morning. It made me reminisce about my first half marathon and the sheer terror that I was going through standing around before the race. When you’ve never done something like this before, you really wonder what the hell is going to happen to you out there?! What if your legs just stop moving? What if you have to go to the bathroom? What if you just don’t want to do it anymore? What if you trip and fall and hurt yourself? And the most crippling fear of all:

What if I’m the very last, lone person out there on the course????

I’m sure all of this (and much, much more) was going through her head, but she sure doesn’t show it does she?!

We finally headed down to the starting area, handed over all of our paraphernalia to Jess (HUGE shout out to Jessica for being the pack mule for the day – often the two of us are pack mules together, but she was rockin’ it solo today and was a huge part of the race!!! It makes life SO much easier on the runners to have somebody to help them with all of that stuff so they can just focus on the race!!!)

Matt and Neil made their way up to start right on the line (they were hoping for 45 minutes or less for Matt and 50 minutes or less for Neil) and my mom and I stayed put near the back. We were hoping for more modest times (about 1:10 for me, and my mom just wanted to finish and not be last…….).

We started off, and I knew from driving the course yesterday that the first 3km of the race were all down hill. It was like this sick, false sense of security, but I wasn’t biting, and I held WAY back on the down hill. I knew that I would need my legs later in the race, and just let them coast. I saw a lot of people CRUISING down for the first 3K (including Matt and Neil, who told me later that they ran the fastest 3K of their life in about 7 minutes for Matt and 8 something for Neil!!!), but knew that I needed to hold off if I wanted to make it the whole way.

Something very weird happened just before the 1km marker. A lady running in front of me committed the ULTIMATE race sin. She stopped dead in her tracks right on the course. I nearly ran RIGHT into her, but I managed to stop and put my hands on her back to avoid bowling her right over. She apologized, and then limped off the course. I called out to her asking if she was okay, and she said she was, so I continued on. Much later in the morning, I saw her with a splint wrapped around her leg, walking on crutches. It was a harsh reminder that sometimes it doesn’t take much, and just to be grateful that you finished the race in one piece sometimes.

So back on the course, my mom was AHEAD OF ME for the first 3km?! That sand bagger. I did end up passing her around the 3km marker when she stopped to tie her shoes, and never saw her again, but she definitely had a strong start to the race.

Around 3km, things started getting interesting. Remember that elevation graph I showed you? Take another look if you missed it in my last post:

It was pretty much straight up hill from the 3km mark onwards. I was mentally ready for that because we had driven it the day before, but those hills still kicked my ass totally. Between about the 3.5 and the 4.5km, my breathing got totally out of control and I was falling into that “gasping” trap. I got myself back on track by focusing on the word “in” for some reason. Not sure where these little voodoo things come from, but they just kind of appear naturally, and I found myself internally repeating “innnnnn”, “innnnn”, maybe in an attempt to get myself to focus on the “in” portion of breathing rather then the out? Whatever voodoo magic it was, it worked, because by the time we were at the 4km hill, my breathing had regulated, I wasn’t gasping anymore and I was feeling great.

Until we hit the 5km hill.

Again – I knew from the previous day that there was an absolute beast of a hill at the 5km marker. They had thankfully put a water station just at the bottom of what they deemd “the big hill”, so I grabbed a quick sip of water, told myself that I was going to run up that entire hill or die trying, and started up.

I very nearly died trying, but I made it.

At the top I was absolutely spent. It was about 3 minutes of just straight vertical running, I passed about a million people walking up the hill, and then they all blew past me on the down hill that followed because I was so exhausted my legs could barely support me anymore. God damnit. I am really really proud of myself for keeping on running at that point anyways. That was a little bit of what I like to call “Matt Crazy” that took over. It’s contagious. I think I missed the whole point of the “conserve up the hill and ATTACK on the downhill”. I ATTACKED up the hill and then DIED on the way down instead 😉

After that hill, everything else kind of paled in comparison. You want me to run up that little speed bump? Sure! No problem! How about I do it twice?! The kilometers started disappearing, and I knew I was getting close to the end.

Around the 8k mark, my shoulder developed a pretty nasty cramp. I’ve gotten them before in races, and I’m really not sure exactly what they are. I need to keep an eye on this and try to get to the bottom of what it may be. The cramp disappeared after about a kilometer, but it was a really really painful, and very long kilometer.

The last kilometer of the race was pretty much all downhill again, and I turned on the jets at that point (or “let the horses out of the barn as Matt’s family says) and finished in 1:07. A little slower time, but I knew it was going to be tough to stay on a normal pace given the hills out there. I was happy.

Matt, Neil and Jess were right there at the finish, and Jess had taken some great pictures of the boys finishing as well!!

Matt absolutely crushed his goal and finished in 42 minutes (coming 7th place overall out of 600 runners and 1st in his age category!) and Neil ALSO totally schooled his goal and came in at 50 minutes right on the dot (coming in 3rd place in his age category!).

Neil had some pretty good race stories about sprinting to the end with some guy ahead of him. Sounds like the guy ahead of him was “conserving” while Neil was “attacking”, and then the guy took off at the very end to just beat him…oh the things that take place at the finish line of a race!!!

My very last race story (I promise, I know this is getting to be long winded), was my mom, who we thought was still out on the course at 1:30. After I came in, we went back to the tent, got some warm soup and some drinks, and came back out to the course, only to hear that only 4 runners were left out there.

I was horrified. I thought my mom was one of them.

A very nice race marshall drove me out in his car to check the course, and I was so relieved to see that she wasn’t one of the 4. She was already in, and we had missed her!! We went back to the tent, and found my mom sipping some coffee, asking where the heck we all had been. She had finished in 1:23!!! Way to go mama!!!

It was an amazing weekend overall, and we got to bask in the “after-race all day glow” for the rest of the day on Sunday. Looking forward to the next one already!!!

Have a terrific week everyone!!