Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Today was the Sun Run, so it seems like a good day to do an update on my running. Now, for the record, I did not do the Sun Run¹ (but many congrats to all the people who did do it – Heather, Raj, Alicia & Paul – I’m looking at you!!). In fact, I have *never* done the Sun Run. Every year I think “I should do the Sun Run.” And then I remember that 60,000 other people have this exact same thought and the idea of trying to run through a crowd of that many people makes me claustrophobic, so I decide to skip it.

Instead, I chose to run this week’s long run – a 10 km, just like the Sun Run – yesterday. I happened to be in Vancouver to see my accountant and my investment person², so I brought along my running gear so that I could run along one of my old Vancouver routes – the seaside route from about Oak to Kits beach. Running in Vancouver is SO MUCH BETTER than running in Surrey. And I’m not sure if it was the sunshine or the being next to water that inspired me, but I had a spectacular run. Like, I ran 30 seconds per km *faster* than last week’s long run! And it didn’t even feel like I was pushing myself too hard. It just felt good. Craziness! I don’t expect I’ll be able to maintain that speed as the long runs over the next few weeks increase by 2 km per week, but it sure was nice!

Look at me being a good girl and actually doing my stretches after my long run!
Oh yes, I suppose I should mention that when I’m talking about “the long runs,” I’m referring to my training plan for the Scotiabank half marathon, which I’ll be doing in June. I’ve officially registered for both that and the 8 km at the BMO Vancouver International Marathon. w00t diddly w00t!

1. I was actually asleep until after the run was over! [↩]
2. I was feeling particularly grown up seeing financial professionals and when I mentioned this to my investment lady, she laughed, paused, and then said, “So, the braces are new, eh?” Pwned! [↩]

I was sure that I started writing this blog posting last week and I totally remember embedding the videos and everything. Yet just now when I came to finish and post it – it was completely gone from my Drafts. Weird!

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to blog about the music I’ve been listening to lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve been doing a lot of driving lately or maybe it’s because I’ve resumed my half marathon training – two situations in which I need my music – but I feel like the iPod of my iPhone has been getting a lot of use lately!

My running playlist has a lot of dance music on it – I’ve added a lot of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Adam Lambert, Cascada, Rihanna, and Ke$ha to my running playlist, which already contained a fair bit of Groove Coverage, Dresdan Dolls, and Madonna.

But I’ve also realized that three of my fav artists right now are female Canadian singers.

First up, Stef Lang from Vancouver¹. Her songs Mr. Immature…

….and Slave2Love were both on the radio…

… and I really liked them so I bought her album and it turns out that I also really like her song Closet Freak²:

Second, Fefe Dobson from Scarborough, ON. Her songs Ghost…

…. and Stuttering³…

…had been on the radio, and since I liked them, I bought a couple of her albums. I particularly like The Initiator⁴:

And third, I’ve listened to a lot of Metric at a friend’s place recently:

And, coincidentally, here’s my cousin Samantha⁵ covering Metric’s Gimme Sympathy:

You should totally go to this site and “like” her video!

1. Originally from Ladysmith on Vancouver Island [↩]
2. This probably comes as no surprise to some and as much surprise to others. Such is the nature of my closeted freakiness. [↩]
3. Embarrassingly, Stuttering brought me to tears one day in my kitchen. I wasn’t having a particularly good day and it just hit me in a sore spot that I didn’t think I still had. [↩]
4. Which I’m sure will come as a surprise to no one who has ever met me. [↩]
5. Technically she’s my cousin-once-removed, as she’s my cousin Sheila’s daughter. Sheila and her daughters are all very talented singers/musicians. Because they clearly received all the musical talent genes in my family, as anyone who has ever been to karaoke or played Rock Band with me can attest. [↩]

My recent executive decision to run the Scotiabank half marathon (in late June) instead of the BMO half marathon (in early May) has given me the chance for a do-over of my half marathon training, which wasn’t going well because of my aversion to winter weather. Well, I’ve decided to embrace this chance for a reset and have re-started my half marathon training in earnest¹!

After my last few (relatively short) runs ended with achy feet, I came to the conclusion that it was time for a new pair of running shoes²! Since the fabulous Sarah & Dave gave me a gift card to the Running Room to put towards a new pair of running shoes for Christmas, it was off to the Running Room I went!

Now, all the shoes that I’ve worn since I started running have been Asics, so I went into the store with the full intention of buying yet another pair of Asics Cumulus/Nimbus/[enter the name of cloud type here]. As per usual with the Running Room, the salesguy³ had me take off my shoes and walk around the store and then said, “Your gait is totally neutral. No pronation or supination! And, yup, the wear on your old shoes is totally even – neutral for sure!”⁴. But! They didn’t have the Asics Cumulus or Nimbus in my size! The horror, the horror!!  So he brought out some other shoes⁵: New Balance. Adidas. Saucony.

The Adidas ones were hideously ugly – bright freaking yellow – and extremely not comfortable. They had zero cushioning, though the salespeople told me this was to make them lightweight – a full 2 oz lighter than a normal pair. Seeing as I’ve never had trouble with my shoes feeling too heavy and I don’t envision enjoying running on what feels like rock, this pair was out of the running⁶ immediately.  The New Balance pair were OK, but they were nothing compared to the Saucony. The Saucony pair, in fact, reminded me of when I first met my first pair of Asics – so cushiony, hugging my feet like they were made for them! And that, my friends, is the story of how I decided to cheat on my running shoe brand and jumped into the figurative arms of a pair of Saucony Progrid Ride 3:

1. I’ve also registered for the race! [↩]
2. I did have my old shoes through the lion share of my Royal Victoria half marathon last year, plus that race, plus all my running since then. And need I remind you that I blew away my personal best at that race? Clearly, all that speed and distance must take a toll on one’s shoes [↩]
3. This was, for the record, the same salesguy who laughed at me when I showed up at the Running Room dressed in my running gear. He didn’t appear to recognize me in my street clothes. [↩]
4. Is it odd that I take pride in have this “neutral” gait? I mean, it isn’t actually something that I’ve done anything to make happen, yet I feel superior because of it [↩]
5. I suppose I could have gone to another Running Room store, but I was already at this one and figured I may as will give these ones a try before insisting on Asics [↩]
6. Bad running pun, FTW!! [↩]

So, I was planning to run the Vancouver BMO half marathon in May. But I’ve made the executive decision that I’m so not going to be ready to run a respectable half by May 1st, what with the lack of training due to subzero temps and torrential rainstorms.

Instead, I’ve convinced my friend Kim that we should run the Scotiabank half marathon, which happens a full two months later than the BMO, meaning that we get to essentially push to “restart” button on our training and thus, instead of missing my last three long runs, I don’t need to do them until several weeks from now. Go me!

The side bonus of this is that we can now run the 8 km at the Vancouver BMO marathon, which is the only 8 km race I know of where you get a finisher medal. Ostensibly, I’ve suggested the 8 km as Kim has never run in a race before so I think that she should get some race exposure before her first half marathon, but in truth it’s all about my desire for medals.

Kim’s husband may run the BMO half, as is Dr. Dan, so I figure Kim and I can run the 8km and then cheer on Lance & Dan as they run the half. And then we will laugh at them for running 21.1 km to get a medal that is virtually identical to the one we’ll have received much earleir for only running a measly 8 km. It’s called “efficiency.”

I have a whole bunch of things to say, but nothing that’s worth an entire blog posting. Hence, I give you this bulleted list¹:

• I went out for a run after work for the first time in about a gajillion years. Seeing as I’m claiming that I’m going to run a half marathon in May, actually running is a pretty good idea.
• Related: I bought a new pair of Sugoi running pants, courtesy of a Groupon for Forerunners:

• The factory where my friend Kim works making freaking delicious fake meat products was on City TV. Check out the “tenders” (i.e., fake chicken fingers) that they are making in that video. So. Freaking. Delish.
• I went for my consultation with the dating headhunter on Monday evening and they called yesterday afternoon with info on my two matches. They told me some info about each of them and took info on my availability – the next step is for them to find a time that I can go out for drinks after work with each of them and then they’ll send me the date/time/place and a photo so I know who I’m looking for. Oh yeah, and my prize includes a session with their dating coach, so that will get set up soon too. I’ll keep you posted.
• I was Facetiming with Dr. Dan last night and, at the exact same time, my friend Patrice called on my cell and my sister & Jeff called me from Vegas on Google Voice. I hardly ever get phone calls² and somehow I got three at the *exact same time.*
• I totally want to make a Baked Alaska.
• I’m contemplating playing hockey for 10 days straight in late August/early September.

1. who doesn’t love a bulleted list? Hitler, that’s who [↩]
2. in part because my cell phone doesn’t get much reception at home and in part because people never talk on the phone anymore [↩]

I had such grand plans to go for a run today after giving my guest lecture. My lecture went just smashingly¹ and since I had a few hours to kill while Rachel taught for the rest of the afternoon, I figured I’d use that time to go for a run. I brought all my running gear to campus. I changed into said running gear. I plotted out a route around Westwood Lake² and checked Google Maps to find out how to get there. Now, it was raining out. And, generally, I enjoy running in the rain. What I do not enjoy, however, is running in a torrential downpour – like the kind where you end up with every bit of your clothes soaked straight through and your running shoes full to the brim with water. So when I went out to Rachel’s car to drive to the lake, I was a wee bit dismayed by the, you guessed it, torrential downpour. But I thought to myself, “Stop being a wimp!” and off I drove to lake. Or so I thought. I have to say that Nanaimo is the most confusing place to drive in the history of motorized vehicles. Few of the roads are straight and those that are straight are not perpendicular to the other straight roads, so all the intersections are at really weird angles! Gah! Basically there is no direct route to anything here³. Even with my Google Maps my iPhone, I still had to do 27 U-turns along the way, because I kept inexplicably ending up on the wrong road or going the wrong direction on the right road⁴. When I finally got there, I discovered that if you tell Google Maps that you want to go to Westwood Lake, it assumes you want to go to the trailer park there. Which, in fact, I did not. Anyway, I somehow managed to find a place to park near a trail and at that point, I realized that going for a run would be a terrible, terrible idea. The trail was SOAKED. There was even a sign warning that the trail might be flooded⁵. And the few steps I took on said trail made my feet feel very wet. And I thought, “10 km of this? I don’t think so!” And I promptly got back in the car and asked Google Maps to find me a coffee shop.

So I made a quick detour (on which I only had to do one U-turn) to Serious Coffee:

Serious Coffee is a Vancouver Island coffee chain and I when I’m on the Island I like to go there, mostly because I like to say, “I’ll have a Sirius Black coffee.” True story.

And now I’m sitting in Rachel’s office, where it is warm and dry and I have a delicious caffeinated beverage. Running will just have to wait for another day!

1. Rachel’s students = tres awesome. I’ve already asked to come back and give this guest lecture again next year! [↩]
2. because running next to a body of water is the best. thing. ever. [↩]
3. Rachel had told me this last night on the way to her place from the ferry, but I *really* saw what she meant when I tried to find my way the mere 5 km to the lake! [↩]
4. I’m sure my DTD added to this! [↩]
5. though there was also a sign warning of thin ice and given that it is currently 7 degrees C out, these signs are probably all just let up all year round [↩]

So, remember how I was aiming for 2 hr 15 mins half marathon?  I finished today’s half marathon in 2:07:23!!

My previous best time was 2:19:03, which means I managed to shave off 12 minutes and 20 seconds from my best time (and 16 minutes and 30 seconds off the time of the half marathon I ran just three months ago). A-mazing!  And it was a most enjoyable run too – I was in the zone for much of the run and while I was vaguely aware of the fact that my body was getting tired, I was in such a positive mood and knew that I could keep up the extra fast pace I was running, even though my body was telling me otherwise. I usually run my long runs around a 6:30-7:00 mins per km, and I ran this race at a 6:03 mins per km pace, so by the time I got about 12 km, my body was saying “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up!” and my brain said, “Shut up, body! No one asked you! We can do this!!”  When I hit the 1/2 way mark, I checked my watch and I’d only been running for 1 hr and 2 minutes, and I was totally shocked! I mean, I was aiming for a 2:15 finish and here I was on pace for a 2:04! I knew I was pushing it and there was a stretch near the end where you were running by the water and there was a very strong headwind that was tough, but I kept telling myself, “I know you can do this!!” When I’ve run half marathons in the past, where I’ve not been trying to achieve a certain time, I’ve always had some fuel left in the tank and managed to speed up for the last 1-2 km. This time, it took everything I had to keep up the pace I was running, until I was a few hundred metres from the finish line, and once I saw that word “FINISH” in big white letters, I dug down and found the energy to make a final sprint to the end!  And it felt sooo good!  Also really good, the chocolate milk that we grabbed at the food tent. Best. Chocolate Milk. Ever!

Alicia and I after the Victoria Half Marathon! We are teh awesome!

Special props to my running buddy, Alicia! She also ran a personal best today, obliterating her previous record as well.  She’s the one who suggested we challenge ourselves with a goal this time and she inspired me to push to my limit! This is her second half marathon since her baby was born and her baby is only eight months old! You rock, Alicia!

Thanks also to Simmi & Rummi, who drove us from the ferry to Victoria, put us up at their house last night, and then drove us to the race this morning! You guys are awesome!  Also, props to my parents, my sister, and Kalev who all watched the live stream of the race hoping to see me cross the finish line. I’m sorry that they kept moving the camera so that all your watching was for naught! But it’s the thought that counts and I very much appreciate it!

And thanks to Danielle, who came out to cheer us on, picked us up after the race, let us use her shower, drove us to the ferry, joined us for the ferry ride and with whom I then spent an enjoyable afternoon hanging out in the sunshine at the ferry terminal until she headed back on the ferry with another friend who was doing some holiday weekend traveling. You are an amazing friend, Dani!

Want to see me finish my half marathon in Victoria on Sunday? Well, you can do so from the comfort of your own home because it’s being live streamed via Ustream! w00t!

The race starts at 7:30 a.m. and my last two half marathon times have been in the 2 hr 23 min range, which would put me finishing at around a bit before 10 a.m. However, since I’ve been training to run a faster pace, you may just want to start watching it around 9:45 a.m., just in case I manage to pull off a personal best!

I’m embedding the video here for your viewing pleasure:

At least, this should be the live video during the race. However, if, for some reason, it doesn’t work, I won’t be around to fix it since I’ll be, you know, running 21.1 km at the time. So here’s the link to the Ustream channel and to the marathon homepage, which is also supposed to have the video.

I’ll try to remember to smile for the camera when I get to the finish line!

So I’ve finally resurfaced from beneath the grant application I was working on this week¹.  The nice thing about working on grants on contract, as opposed to actually being responsible for the grant, is that you can set your contract to say “I’m going to give you deliverable X by date Y to level of quality Z” and then you do that. And in this case, it was my job to deliver a solid draft of the grant, but not the final product². So while the grant isn’t due ’til October 1st, my piece of it is done. The person for whom I was working on this asked if I’d like to take on a second contract to do the next round of revisions, but I declined, because I’m just too freaking burnt out and I need my life back!  I am, you may recall, scheduled to run a half marathon in two weeks, but I didn’t do a single run this past week. Not a single run! I played hockey on Sunday and Wednesday, but hockey is a different type of exercise, and I really needed to get back to running.

But when I tried to go for a run yesterday, my calf muscles totally cramped up. Like to the point that I had to stop running and turn around and limp back the 2 km I’d just run. Not impressed. My calves had been giving me trouble lately – the morning after my first hockey game I woke up with a wicked charley horse, but I chalked it up to dehydration.  A few days later, another charley horse, though this time I hadn’t been playing hockey. Then, over this past week, where I had been doing no running and lots of sitting, my calves were being really twitchy. Not charley horses, but little involuntary muscular contractions which ranged from annoying to ouchy. I chalked this up to going from lots of running to no running – my muscles were clearly staging a revolt! I figured that going for a run last night after work would work out the twitchiness out. Clearly, I was mistaken. Immediately upon arriving at home from my aborted run, I booked a massage therapy appointment. My main massage therapist is always booked up³, so I tried my back up massage therapist, but she’s away at a seminar today. So

I Googled to find someone who could take me and managed to get an appointment for 8:30 this morning at a sports massage therapy clinic. As it turns out, the guy who worked my muscles today also works the muscles of the BC Lions and, starting next season, the Vancouver White Caps⁴.  After my massage, my calves felt so much better it was ridiculous. I went out for a nice run – not too fast, ‘cuz I didn’t want to push it, but not that slow – and my calves felt fine!  Hooray!

Also, the massage therapist seems to think that the problem probably resulted from my lack of stretching after hockey and insufficient stretching after running. Because I totally suck at stretching. My thought process is usually “I’ve just spent 2 hours running, I need to get on with my life!”  Or I am so exhausted that I want to do is have a “post-run shavasana” and then, when I have enough energy to pick myself up off the floor, hit the shower. Granted, my main massage therapist, my back up massage therapist and my chiropractor have all, at various points, noted the importance of stretching post-running. But, you know, I’m not very good at doing what I’m told. Now that I’ve seen the repercussions of my lackadaisicality regrading post-exercise stretching⁵, however, I think I will actually do what I’m told this time. Also, this massage therapist suggested that soaking in hot baths (with epsom salt) is also good for hardworking muscles. And he suggested that one can multitask by soaking in a hot bath with a glass of wine. Multitasking FTW.

1. seriously, the amount of work that it ended up being was far more than I could have anticipated. There were nights this week that I came home from work at ~4 p.m. then worked until 1 a.m.  Not cool. [↩]
2. though we did negotiate a bit of extra revisions during that process, as it was a type of grant neither of us had written before, proposing  the use of a fairly new technique as well. That’s the other cool thing about doing this type of work – in addition to making some extra moolah, I also get to learn new stuff! [↩]
3. in fact, I can only get an appointment with her by being on her cancellation list – she just books me in when someone cancels, because her schedule is perma-booked [↩]
4. And I have to say that having someone who regularly rubs the muscles of pro athletes tell you that you are fit while he’s rubbing your muscles is a nice ego boost! [↩]
5. lackadaisical - adjective – lacking enthusiasm and determination; carelessly lazy. See also: flossing [↩]

I think for tomorrow’s long run¹, I’m going to try Crescent Beach. Now, we all know how my run in White Rock went, but since I now know that Crescent Beach is in Surrey, not WR, I’m willing to give it a try.

I actually went to Crescent Beach on Thursday, just to check out what it was like. Parking there was free (as opposed to the outrageous price in WR) and it seemed fairly pretty. Plus they had delicious gelato. Or, as the sign said, “Italian gelato.” Like, seriously, is there any other kind of gelato? Isn’t all gelato Italian?

As you can see from the photo, the beach at Crescent Beach is actually a bunch of rocks instead of sand, but people were still hanging out on the beach, swimming and playing, as if it were a real beach. Weird.  Anyway, that’s neither here nor there for me as I’ll just be running on the streets.  I’ll let y’all know how it goes!

I’m also going to Langley tomorrow because Kalev wants to go to that fine establishment of white trash dining, The Olive Garden. Oh, Langley. Hopefully this time I don’t get mistaken for a prostitute!

1. which is only 12 km, thank the FSM [↩]