Weekend In Banff

Before leaving for Banff on Saturday morning I had a spinning workout to get in.  It was a 68 – 90 minute workout with 3 x 8:00 zone 4 intervals and some standing sprints.  I ran to Walmart early in the morning to pick up a few last minute items that I needed for the trip, plus I wanted to pick up Twilight on DVD.  I threw the DVD in and started in on the spin.  Those zone 4 intervals were tough…  I know I don’t get my heart rate up as high on my at home spins than I do at Angie’s class so this was good incentive.  Unfortunately I was running late so I had to shorten the workout.  I did all of my zone 4 intervals, but I had to shorten the number of standing sprints and my cool down.  I took a quick shower, threw my stuff in the car, and drove out to Banff.

My friend DGB was there for a hockey tournament and this was my first chance to catch one of her games.  It was great to see the ladies play and it made me wish that I knew how to skate.  It would certainly be fun to play!  DGB’s team won 3-0.

After the game a few of us headed out for a late lunch at the Magpie & Stump Mexican Cantina.  After some margaritas (or Dos Equis Amber), and some enchiladas we hit the town center for a bit of shopping.  We stopped in at lululemon and I would have to say, trying on stretchy, fitted yoga clothes when you feel like you are growing a food baby after Mexican food…not the best idea!  It was a beautiful day out – 15C and sunny out.  There were quite a few people out and about wearing shorts!

After that it was time to get ready for our cougar night on the town!  I have to admit, I did a terrible job dressing up as a cougar.  Probably because I didn’t have any animal print to wear.  Some of the ladies went all out though!  I’m not sure if we really came off as cougars or as something else…  Walking down the street we heard:

• Lots of honking.
• A mom telling her little 3 of 4 year old kid not to look at us.
• Folks assuming that we were part of a stagette (aka backelorette) party.

The night was an absolute blast!  We went for dinner at Melissa’s, stopped by the Legion for the hosting hockey team’s social, then went for drinks at Wild Bill’s Saloon.  I even got a ribbon that said that I was a welcomed guest of the Legion!

The girls had the next game in their tourney at 9:30 am so it was reasonably easy to call it a semi-early night.  Because…you know…I had an 11 mile run to get through the next day.  Sometime in the early morning a snow storm blew threw.  Luckily I came prepared with some warm running clothes and my Yak Trax.  I had a quick breakfast then headed out as the girls went off to their game.  It wasn’t too cold out, but there sure was a lot of snow.  I ran through downtown and for the first time I noticed the bus stops in town.  I think it is great that they have signs that give you an idea of how many minutes away your bus is.

I ran through town, then made a turn to run towards the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel.  Bits and pieces of sidewalk had been cleared, but for the most part it was quite the slog.  At one point I saw these guys ahead of me:

There were four of them that ran across the road in front of me.  The Banff Springs hotel is gorgeous.  There were a ton of folks heading out from the hotel to go skiing at different mountains.  I hit the main parking lot just past the hotel and turned around.

I was planning on running part of the Melissa’s half marathon route.  A big part of the run is along Glen Avenue, but as I started running along the road it felt pretty desolate out.  I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to head down that way too far.  And my legs were getting pretty tired from slogging through all of this snow.  Let’s not even talk about how slow my pace was…

I headed back into town and decided to run up and down the main drag, past the shops and the hotels and back.I knew there was going to be no way that I’d get 11 miles in.  My legs were just way too tired and I would have had to run up and down the main drag way too many times.  So I called it quits somewhere around 6.6 miles.  I changed into some dry clothes, stopped in at Starbucks for a warm beverage, then got on the road.

I decided to stop in Canmore for lunch at the Grizzly Paw in Canmore.  You can tell that Banff has a much bigger snow removal budget than Canmore…  The off ramp from the highway hadn’t been plowed yet (although I did see a wolf just as I was exiting which was pretty neat).   Lunch was great, then it was back to Calgary to pick up the kids from the kennel.

By the time we got home my yard hadn’t been plowed yet and both Maggie and I underestimated how much snow there was in the yard.  She jumped off the step and landed in snow that came up past her armpits!  She was a bit shocked at first, but then she caught her bearings and started to eat the snow.  Finlay, being the little Texan dog that he is just took one look outside and ran back inside!