What’s your pH?

I remember when I was younger I was fascinated by the Dove commercial where they compared the pH levels of different soaps.  And me being the science nerd that I am I used to love playing around with litmus and universal indicator paper to read pH back in high school chemistry class.  pH, pOH…I still find it fascinating.  Anyhow…this morning I actually got out of the house on time and made it down to the Y just as the doors were opening at 5:30 am.  I wanted to knock my swim out asap so I could hurry into work.  I was the second person on the pool deck, but the lifeguard wasn’t letting anyone in the water just yet because the pH had just tested high on the water.  Apparently the pH was at 7.8 and ideally it should be around 7.5.  7.8 or above and the pool has to be closed.

At this point in time an older gentleman who had already put his earplugs in wanders onto the pool deck and starts getting in the water.  The lifeguard tries to stop him but he seems pretty nonplussed about the high pH.  When the first lady on the deck sees him get in she gets antsy and asks what the detriment of swimming in high pH water would be.  Apparently really bad skin irritation is the side effect and that wasn’t enough to scare her off.  I chose to wait around until they got their second test back…where the results came in that it was still a high pH, but that we could swim.  I was just advised to shower really well.  Hmm, excellent.

So much for getting to the pool early, but at least I still got my swim in!  My workout was a good one.  Just what I needed to reinforce body position and technique in the water.  Lots of fingertip drag, some flipper work, concentrating on decreasing stroke count.  It was good!

And hey, guess what I did tonight?  I carved my first ever pumpkin!  Pam and I picked up pumpkins a couple of weeks ago at the Farmer’s Market.  We got together this evening for some yummy Indian food and to create our works of art.  Sadly my pumpkin was a little overripe and the inside was a bit liquidy.  The pumpkin was still good to go for carving though!

Pam’s is the one in the middle.  You can tell this wasn’t her first pumpkin.  She even free styled her carving!  Mine is the one on the right.  He has shifty eyes, uneven ears and some wonky teeth.  Plus he’s rotten, but he’s mine anyway!

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and a great Halloween!!!!

Bringing back the lunch run

It has been a good week so far, and a really busy one at that!  I felt like a little old lady on Monday as I was super stiff and sore from Sunday’s hike.  A recovery run ought to do the trick, right?  Reminder to self, do not attempt to gather running clothes together prior to 5:30 am before rushing out the door for work.  I gathered what I thought were running capris, a long sleeve and a short sleeve tech top.  In reality I accidently grabbed winter running tights from the laundry hamper instead of capris.  I realized my error just before leaving on my run so I had two options: wear the tights and be overheated…or I had a pair of blue Adidas soccer shorts that I keep in my filing cabinet for physio.  I opted for the shorts.  And just in case you were wondering, Jergens original scent body lotion is an acceptable substitution for Body Glide on short runs.  Who knew?

I met up with Kelly over lunch for a great 30 minute run.  Our paces are different, but I wanted to take it easy so we wound up running together.  It worked out really well as I got a recovery run and Kelly got a tempo run in, plus the company was great!

Tuesday night was our second spin session out at Bow.  It was high cadence night…not normally my most favourite thing, but I actually really enjoyed the workout.  Being around the team and chatting with friends, some of whom I haven’t seen in ages, really set the stage for a great time on the bike.  This was my second time trying out my cadence sensor indoors on the bike.  I turned off the GPS function so that it would calculate my speed based off of the sensor instead…and I have no idea what went wrong but it figured I was averaging 4.2 mph???  I know my wheel size has been calibrated within the Forerunner so I’m a bit stumped as to why my speed and distance calcs are so off.  Hmmm…. 

Kelly and I met up today for another run over lunch.  We both had 45 minutes on the schedule so we decided to do an out and back so we could start and finish together.  We wished each other good luck and I took off.  My legs were tired from last night’s spin but a little speed was feeling pretty good.  I ran west along the river and almost made it to Tri-It before I had to turn around.  On my way back there was a girl up ahead in a black and white lululemon jacket and I made it my mission to pass her.  Nothing like finding a little incentive out there!  I caught up with Kelly right at the 46 minute mark.  Another excellent run in the books!

On tap for tomorrow is a swim on my own at the Y.  I feel like I’ve been learning a lot from Richelle and Angie at swim class in Cochrane on Monday nights.  I really need to make sure I get my second swim of the week in, otherwise I feel like I take one step forward and two steps back as it takes me awhile to remember all the little tweaks I have to keep in mind.  After all, this is the time to be working on technique, right?

I hope everyone had a great Wednesday!!

Hiking Mount Allen

On Sunday I joined some friends for a fall hike up Mount Allen in Kananaskis.  I didn’t have a chance to hike nearly enough this year so a late season hike sounded pretty exciting.  It might have snowed on Saturday morning but it was actually pretty nice for the rest of the day so i was hopeful that conditions would be good.  It was a bit chilly out at times, depending on whether the wind was blowing at you or not, but overall not too bad.

From the get go you are just climbing up.  And up and up.  I picked up some hiking poles for the trek and I was really glad to have them.  It definitely helped me feel more sure footed!  The first part of the hike you are walking through trees.  There would be a break every once in awhile and you could catch a glimpse of an amazing view.  

After awhile you break out of the trees and it is just open…and up.  As we climbed up my friend Jason crested a hill ahead of me, then the rest of the group was behind us.  All of a sudden I see him come back and the words out of his mouth took a moment to penetrate my brain.

“Guys, there is a grizzly up ahead!”

I’ve talked about bears on here before.  I certainly don’t want to meet a bear, but I figured that statistically my chances of ever encountering one would be pretty small.  I joked with my sister-in-law on Friday night that I was hiking with a bunch of speedsters on Sunday and that I’d likely wind up as bear bait.

And here was a bear.  I’ll be honest, the first though that went through my mind was, “Oh…cool…I want to see!”  And then a millisecond later my next thought was “Oh crap, no I don’t!!”

Jason turned around and scrambled down the hill and passed me and all of a sudden I was in the back!!!!!  We regrouped and watched as the bear walked away from us.  It might just look like a black blob in this picture, but trust me, that’s a bear right in the centre!

After we saw the bear walk away we figured it would be safe to continue on since his route was different from where we would be going.  Shortly after this point there was snow all around and the wind was whipping up.  We found a sheltered spot to grab a snack, and then continued on.  The snow got to be quite deep and myself and another girl were pretty well ready to slowly make our way back down.  I still had a long ways to go till the summit, but it really was a fun hike!  All in all 5.64 mi with 3233 feet of climbing (total hike would be 10.2 mi).  Today I was sore all over from this hike – legs, butt, abs, triceps..??  After our hike we all went out for pizza at a local restaurant – Mitillini’s.  So good!!  Despite our wildlife encounter I loved this fall hike.  It was a great way to mix things up.  I think I’d really love to give snow shoeing a whirl this winter too!!

Halloween Howl 10K – Race Report

Holy smokes, it was a busy weekend!  Let’s start at the beginning!  I was signed up to race the Halloween Howl 10K on Saturday morning.  When I woke up it was about 4C and raining.  The temperatures were supposed to climb so I kept checking wx.ca.  Imagine my surprise when I saw that the temperatures kept dropping.  I looked out the window and all of a sudden the rain had given way to SNOW!!  I decided to go out on a limb and dress in capris, a long sleeve and a half zip top.  Plus I brought a vest just in case.

The roads driving out to the race were nasty!  If I didn’t have Tara’s and Pam’s race packets then I might have considered not racing.  And thanks to the nasty roads I wound up getting to the race start just a few minutes before go time.  Stress!!  After passing the race packets off and saying hi to friends I stepped outside in the snow to let my Garmin catch a signal.  As people started pouring outside Garmin was being finicky and wouldn’t locate the satellites.  Okay, so now it was mushy and gross out and Garmin wouldn’t cooperate?  Ugh.

We were counted down and off we went.  A few steps in Garmin asked it I was indoors.  Guess I wouldn’t be running with numbers today!  The pathway was just icky.  Normally when snow falls here it is really dry and blows around.  This was wet and thick and challenging to run through.  I wasn’t having fun and without a doubt I took off faster than I should have.  We headed out from Eau Claire and west along the Bow River.  As we followed the pathway alongside Memorial Drive cars were driving past us and splashing us with water.  On the plus side I heard cheering while I was out there as we ran past Tri-It and it was Richelle!!

After the turn around I ran along a bit further.  I looked behind me and there was Pam.  I held up for her and told her I was having a rough day.  We ran along in silence for a bit.  I started to drop back a bit and at first she pulled away but then she stopped and said that we were finishing this run together.  After plodding along I looked at my watch and I realized I’d need to boot it if there was any chance of coming in under an hour.  It wasn’t to be though and we crossed the line in 1:01:16.

Sure, it wasn’t an ideal race…and it definitely wasn’t under ideal conditions so I’m not going to beat myself up about it.  I owe Pam for pulling me through the the finish line though!  I ran into Making Waves at the race and it was good to catch up.  After changing into some dry clothes Tara and I caught up over breakfast, then I had to jet!  I had to quickly gather gear for my Sunday expedition, then head out to Airdrie for my friend Susanne’s stagette (also known as a bachelorette or a hen party depending on what part of the world you are in).

Stay tuned for my Sunday adventures.  It is pretty exciting!!

A Big Thanks to the Athletic Gods

I owe a huge thanks to the athletic gods for helping to turn my early week slump right around.  In reality though those athletic gods probably go by the names Tara, Kelly and Angie!  Tara got me to spin class smiling on Tuesday and things have gone up from there.

Kelly and I met up for a run over lunch on Wednesday afternoon.  She had a 45 minute run on her schedule and I had 8K with some intervals in the middle.  Although our paces are different we figured we could start together and finish together.  At least we’d have motivation to get the run done if we had to meet!  It looked a bit nasty out when we got started but clouds quickly burned off and I was way overdressed.  The run went well and it was fun to meet up with Kelly.

Since I missed Monday’s swim class I promised Richelle that I would go to Angie’s class on Wednesday.  The focus of the workout was going to be speed…but shortly into the set Angie stopped me to give me some pointers.  She had me do a variation on the finger tip drill.  Hold a board out front with one hand, stroke and finger tip drill with the other hand, then swap hands holding the board.  Make sense?  The idea was to focus on rotation, keeping my arm close to my body, then high elbows on the way back.  To top it all off my hands have been entering the water poorly.  My fingers are pointed upwards and I need to focus on fingers entering in a “spear the fish” kind of motion.  So lots of things to think about, but as I rolled through and the changes felt more natural I was feeling more efficient in the water.

So it has been a good week!  Another race is in store on Saturday…the Halloween Howl!  It looks like it is going to be a fun weekend!!

How to ramp up the mojo for winter training

This week did not get off to a good start.  My brain hurts and I’m feeling a little overstretched.  Work stuff…absolutely nothing to do with training.  I think my brain is only capable of handling so many things and it did not feel like handling training.  I fixed my flat on Monday night and knew my heart was not up for a swim.  So I called it a night early, woke up early and got cracking at the office by 6:30 am.  By the end of the day I was starting to wonder where my mojo was for our first indoor trainer session at Bow Cycle.

I have the best teammates and friends.  I e-mailed Tara and told her that I needed a kick in the pants.  She told me that I needed to show up so that I could show her my spiffy new aero bars and so that she could show me her new hair.  Her e-mail cracked me up and if nothing else I knew I was looking forward to catching up with her.

I rolled into Bow and set my bike up.  As my friends came in they all congratulated me on my shiny new PR at the Thanksgiving 10K.  Thanks guys!  I haven’t seen a lot of these folks since the Ironman Canada weekend and just seeing their smiling faces was starting to bring the mojo back.

And then I talked to my friend Kelly…and she signed up for Ironman Canada, as did our friend Mike!  I’m super excited that these two are racing IMC next year too.  I can’t wait to get in some bike training with Kelly as we prepare for our first Ironman!

As for the workout?  It was pretty good.  My butt needs to toughen up to the saddle again I think.  Painful!!  Oh well, an hour and a half done on the trainer, plus some core…and a rejuvenated spirit.  Then home for some hot chocolate with marshmallows.  Now off to bed!!

Aimless…

Last week life conspired in my ability to get workouts in.  Thanks to a holiday, a course, and a trip to the field I had one day in the office last week.  By the time Friday rolled around I had gotten in two…whole…workouts.  A half hour swim and a 30 minute trainer ride.  I got back from the field on Friday evening to find out that the temperatures had warmed up and the snow was melting.  I still had some daylight so I threw on some running shorts and a long sleeve top and managed 3 nice and speedy miles around the neighbourhood.  Only in Calgary does the weather change so quickly that you can run amongst melting snow in shorts at 6 pm!

Saturday morning I decided to look at the Last Chance Half Marathon website.  When I signed up for all of my 10K races I didn’t sign up for this one.  I wasn’t sure if I would race it, but I’ve put the idea of the Austin 3M Half on the back burner.  I thought I’d better look into it the Last Chance…and sadly learned that it is all sold out.  I’ve put my name on the waiting list…but I’m not too hopeful that I’ll get in.  I’ll still train for it regardless, but I feel a bit aimless without some bigger goal to train for.  Maybe more speed work and some track workouts will be in order??

On the plus side, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing.  Work has really picked up as I am prepping for an exciting project to start in January and all the work on reserves will be starting up very soon.  I’m also working hard to finish off decluttering, painting, and I’ll be replacing the flooring in my living room.  Crazy, eh?  Here’s the flooring I ordered…

And just for your enjoyment, here’s a picture from the Wine Festival this weekend.  I think I tasted more beer than wine.  Perhaps the size of the pour might indicate why…  Sure was a fun night!

Gorilla Run Relay – Race Report

Yesterday I raced my first relay run ever!  The Gorilla Run is a pretty neat race.  You can either race the whole thing solo, which is about 16.5K, or you can race as part of a three person relay team.  The race starts and ends at the Calgary Zoo and funds are raised for endangered primates and other endangered animals.

My friend D was getting a relay team together, but unfortunately her husband was going to be out of town so she was going to be short a runner.  I figured I could help out…but…I was going to the Rocky Mountain Food & Wine Festival the night before so how well I could help out would be up in the air!  D’s in-laws were also forming another relay team, so there may have been a little competition going on.  D told me as I was leaving the office on Thursday, “Leana, if you need to puke in order to beat my brother-in-law, then I want you to puke.”  Ha!!

Race morning arrived and I was actually feeling pretty good after the festivities from the night before.  I made my way towards the zoo in the dark.  Race start was a somewhat unusual 8 am, but I guess they wanted as minimal impact to zoo visitors as possible, so the race started an hour before the zoo opened.  I found my teammates, D and another friend of ours, T, who also raced the Leduc Women’s Sprint.  T took leg #1, D was leg #2 and I took the third leg.  We got our timing chip and figured out a strategy for how we were going to get to the exchange points and back.  None of the hand offs were close to each other and there were no buses, so it was a bit of a logistical nightmare.  To top things off, as announcements were being made before the start of the race we were told that leg 1 had been shortened from 5.3K to about 3.5K.  D and I realized that we had a pretty short window of time to get her to the start of the second leg so we booted it from the zoo as quickly as possible.

I made my way to the hand off for leg #3 with D’s brother-in-law.  We figured our paces would be neck and neck, so the race really came down to what happened in the first two legs.  There were a bunch of relay teams and we were all milling around…no one sure exactly when to expect their runner.  All of a sudden I saw D round the corner, racing to the timing mat.  She scanned it, I leapt out in front of her and grabbed the chip from her hand, and I was off!

Without a doubt I started way too fast.  That’s race day adrenalin for you, eh?  I had no idea how much of a time cushion I’d have over the other team so the mission was to just stay out in front and hope I didn’t get passed!  A few minutes into the run my stomach started to feel like a rock sitting in my gut.  Ugh.  The route was a pretty straightforward route along the river back towards the zoo, 5.9K.    Every time I’d hear a person come up behind me I’d look over my shoulder.  Was it my competition?  No, not yet!  Must not get passed!!  The pathway we were running along sort of ended, and we had to run along this gravel road to get to the finish line.  It just killed my legs!  I don’t even know if I put a sprint together for the finish line.  As I approached volunteers were yelling to remind us that our chip needed to touch the timing mat…which was on the ground.  I leaned over to touch the mat as I crossed for what will likely make the most awkward finishing photo ever!  I had done it though, I had managed to hold off the other team!

We regrouped at the finish line, then made our way into the zoo for some food.  Race entry includes your zoo entry, plus 5 zoo bucks to spend at the cafeteria for food.  I grabbed a grilled cheese sandwich and some coffee, we all hung out and chatted, then started to head out.  They had just posted the results and after a lot of scanning we finally found them…  Except they weren’t our results!  I had crossed the finish line around 1:26, but our time was pegged at 1:45??  After looking over the results online at home the best I can figure out is we raced with another team’s chip.  I already e-mailed the race director and she’s going to change the results for us though, so thanks!!!

We wandered over to check out the gorillas at the zoo, then called it a day.  It was definitely fun to race with friends, and I loved doing a relay with them!

Leg #3 – 5.9K
Time: 34:00 (9:15/mi pace) – 80 out of 116 for leg #3
Total Time: 1:26:26 – 43rd overall out of 116 teams, and 13 out of 37 for women’s teams

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Denial…Not Just a River in Africa!

It has been blizzarding here these last two days!  Time to face the facts and set the trainer up in the garage!  As soon as I got home I pumped up the tires (boy these have lost a lot of pressure in the last few weeks..??), got together a new playlist on my iPod, changed and got going.  My goal was to ride for 30 minutes.  I tested out the new aero bars and cranked the music.  Yup, the trainer hasn’t gotten any more interesting in the few months that I’ve been away from it.  All of a sudden around 29 minutes in it felt like I was losing resistance on the pedals.  I tried shifting into a tougher gear and no go.  What?  I got off the bike at 29:44 and took a look at the back tire.  Flat!  Oh well, close enough.

New Stuff!

You may have already heard about this from a few folks already.  Gu has come out with some new flavours – pineapple Roctane and Vanilla Gingerbread for the holiday season!  I stopped in at Tri-It today to pick some up.  While the pineapple was in stock the Vanilla Gingerbread hasn’t come in yet.  So Richelle gave me one of her packs that she got at Interbike on the condition that I blog about it!  So be sure to keep your eyes open for Vanilla Gingerbread this holiday season!  (Seriously, who wouldn’t love to get a few of those in their stocking this Christmas??)  I can’t wait to give it a shot.  Thank you Richelle!!  You rock!

And for those of you who love Chocolate Mint Gu, I’ve heard that this flavour is going be available year round after this holiday season!  Excellent, that is my favourite flavour!!!

And an aside…

I skyped with my parents this evening.  Finlay was showing off his new hair cut and looking super cute on the camera.  I miss my little fur ball!

Catch Up!

Ah, let’s catch up, shall we?  We had a three day weekend up here in Canada as Monday was Thanksgiving.  I had a lot going on!

Saturday:

Off to the hairdresser for a teeny tiny change up in the morning, then back home to paint my master bedroom!  I had the Kona feed playing on my computer as I painted and I managed to finish up the first coat in time to see Craig Alexander cross the finish line.  Here’s what the room looked like before…after I had already started moving furniture around to paint:

Finlay is an interesting dog.  He always runs upstairs with toys and hides under the bed with them.  So when I moved the bed I could finally access them all.  All 13 of them (or 14 if you consider that the giraffe body and the head are two separate toys now): 

Sunday:

Up early to race!  Then back home for coat #2 in the master.  As soon as I was done painting it was time to quickly shower and change, then head over to my brother and sister-in-law’s for turkey dinner!  Everything was so yummy!

Monday:

It was time to start putting my master bedroom back together!  I took a long break in the afternoon to get together with friends for another turkey dinner.  It was so good, but after all that food I felt like I needed to be rolled home!!  Good thing I had furniture to move around to help burn off some of the turkey and pie I consumed.  But here we go, here’s the completed room.  From “builder’s beige” to “sparkling spring.”  

And for those of you wondering what I’ve done with my medals…

Conspicuously missing from the wall are my Goofy Challenge medals from 2008.  I’ve been procrastinating for awhile since I’d like to put together something nice complete with pictures and all.  I just have to get around to it!

Tuesday:

Up early and off to the pool!  Well, not quite as early as I would have liked so I had to cut my workout down from 2000m to 1000m.  Oops…  What I didn’t realize when I left the house was that it was blizzarding out!  The great thing about leaving early to go to the pool was that I missed the traffic snarls from all of the snow.  This probably would have been a good day to bring out my winter boots for the first time, but too bad I left them at home!

In the evening I got a welcome surprise!  A couple of weeks ago I bid on a “new to me” pair of aero bars on eBay and they arrived today!  My old aero bars were okay, but they don’t accommodate a drink bottle so this was something I wanted to switch out.  I got my new Profile Design T2s installed but didn’t have a chance to try them out on the trainer since I had a few other things going on this evening.  One of these days I’m going to have to face reality and set the bike up on the trainer!

Thanksgiving Memory 10K

I distinctly remember saying at one point that after I finished the Melissa’s 10K this fall that this would be it for racing for me for the rest of the year.  How quickly things change since I’ve got three races on the go in October alone!  I’ve been told that racing 10Ks will help me to get faster…so…we’ll see how that goes!

Today was the Investor’s Group Thanksgiving Memory 10K.  I woke up to temperatures of –8C and threats of snow.  This week has felt downright winterish in Calgary, which is in pretty stark contrast to the record high temperatures we were having at the end of September.  Crazy stuff!  This morning wound up being a total gong show.  As I sat in the car I realized that the play/pause button is no longer working on my iPod.  Hmmm.  Then as I was driving down the highway towards downtown I was attempting to take the top off my water bottle.  As I finally got the cap unscrewed water wound up coming out over top spilling in my lap and now it felt like I just peed my pants.  Oops!  Thank goodness for moisture wicking fabric because I was nice and dry well before start time!

I parked my car, picked up my race packet and my timing chip, downed a gel 30 minutes before go time, then found my friend Pam.  We stuck around indoors for as long as we could, but finally we made our way outside and I ran into Making Waves at the start line.  It was great to see that despite the cold temperatures and dreary day that quite a few people showed up for the 10K run and 5K walk. 

September was just a dismal month for running.  During a lot of my training runs I was struggling to hold sub 11:00 miles and any form of speed work just totally wiped me out.  Then October hit and I really lucked out and had a very solid week of running leading up to the race.  I had no idea where things would line out for today but I was really hoping my good running streak would continue.  As we took off from the start line I wished Pam good luck and started in.  I wanted to hold a pace I thought was somewhere in the gray area between comfortable and uncomfortable.  The route was a familiar one as we ran the pathway along the Bow River west away from downtown, where I do most of my lunch time runs.  It was a pretty straightforward out and back route. 

Every time I would glance down at my Garmin I noticed that I was holding a pretty steady pace.  I was feeling really strong and like I could keep this up for the entire race.  I hit the 5K mark around 28:21.  If I was going to PR today though, I’d need to hustle a bit and go for a negative split.  I realized as I turned around that there was a good chance that I was in the first half of the pack.  That never happens for me on a 10K!  I worked to apply a bit more pressure and slowly but surely speed up.  I wanted to push things but I didn’t want to push so hard that I blew up.  Somewhere around the 4 mile mark I realized that my left shoe was feeling a bit loose.  A glance down confirmed it, my shoe lace was coming undone so I had to step over and retie it.  Doh, 9 seconds lost!  The brief stop messed with my momentum slightly and the push was hurting just a wee bit more.  As I raced toward the finish line I realized that a PR would be tight, but if I could just keep this up I would have it.  I was running in with another guy and he and I were both breathing so loudly, just pushing to get to the end.  And there it was!  According to the Garmin my final time was 56:21, good enough for a PR by 11 seconds!!!  Despite being chip timed the final results only show gun time, but here are the stats:

Females 30-39: 11 out of 46 (although, really out of 47 because Pam was missing her chip)
Females Overall: 30 out of 131
Overall: 90 out of 251 (well, really out of 252)

Garmin Time: 56:21.94
Gun Time: 56:34.8

Once the race was over Pam and I grabbed our lunch which was included (a personal Papa John’s pizza, cinnamon bun, and a juice) and went indoors to eat and catch up.  Not a bad way to end the race!

Overall I am really happy with my race – I progressively got faster (with the exception for the mile split where I had to stop and tie my shoe), I hit a negative split, and I PR’d.  And I think I could have kicked it up maybe another half a notch.  We’ll see…I have a 10K rematch in two weeks at the Halloween Howl!

The secret to my success

Speed work was on tap for today!  A 45 to 50 minute run with 8 x 1:00 hard/1:00 easy in the middle.  The weather for my run today?  Wasn’t looking so ideal.  I checked wx.ca just before getting ready to head out over lunch and it was a whopping 0.1 deg C out there.  Brr!!  Despite the chilly temperatures I dressed in capris, a short sleeve tech tee and a long sleeve top.  I’d rather be slightly underdressed than overdressed.

I took off on my warm up around the river and I was feeling really good.  Maybe…just maybe…those good runs in Kelowna weren’t a fluke??  I ran into my teammate Kelly and we caught up quickly before we cooled down too much, then took off in opposite directions.  As I continued on I could see little itty bitty flecks of white floating around in the air.  Snow!  While it was cool out I felt really comfortable.  Maybe the cooler weather isn’t such a bad thing?

My intervals were amazing.  I felt strong through all of them, each of them very close in pace.  During my one minute easy bits I just slowed my run down, where as a few weeks ago I had to walk.  Wow, it was amazing to have another really good run under my belt!  In fact, my pace was the fastest it has been in a LONG time.  So apparently the key to a successful run for me is inclement weather since my interval runs in the rain and the snow have gone so well.

And apparently I just needed an evening to relax last night.  This evening I picked up paint, grocery shopped, made dinner and moved furniture around (with my brother’s help) to get my master bedroom ready for painting this weekend.  Productive!!

Wonderful Pomegranate

A little while ago the wonderful folks at POM Wonderful sent me some coupons to try out their pomegranate juice.  This stuff is chock full of antioxidants…so it is really good for you.  Besides all the benefits though, this stuff tastes amazing!  More tart and more taste than cranberry juice.  I picked up a bottle of cherry pomegranate juice to sip on this evening while making dinner.  Yummy stuff.  If the juice is too strong for you to drink straight then I highly recommend mixing with sparkling water.

Now sure, you can buy this stuff to drink, but you can also cook with it.  I’ve turned juice into pomegranate molasses before and cooked up an amazing Iraqi Lamb and Eggplant Stew.  Tonight I whipped up some molasses to cook up turkey in a walnut and pomegranate sauce.  The original recipe calls for chicken, but given that Thanksgiving is right around the corner (Monday to be specific) I was in the mood for turkey.  Boneless skinless thighs but I’m sure turkey breast would work well too.  I doubled the amount of pomegranate molasses that the recipe called for, but otherwise followed it pretty well as written.  I served it with a brown and wild rice combo and some cauliflower on the side (that I also drizzled with pomegranate molasses).

While the dish might not be much to look at the flavour was amazing!  Using pomegranate juice in cooking tends to give everything a really interesting and complex flavour.  In case you are looking for a little inspiration in the kitchen with POM Wonderful, then check out all of their recipes.

Zonked!

Monday I took advantage of my last few hours in Kelowna by heading out to the Mission Creek Greenway for my long run.  The run was all about options.  Run on Sunday or Monday.  Run for 1:15 to 1:30, whatever felt good.  I started from the parking lot of the H2O Adventure Center and made my way along the greenway.  I figured that 8 miles seemed like a pretty good distance to aim for.  I was chugging along at a pace I was pretty happy with…something that has been eluding me lately despite the speed work I’ve been doing.  Just to make sure I could keep it up I took short walk breaks at the end of every mile.  I hit my halfway point…conveniently right around the bathrooms and a chance to refill my water bottle.  All in all, it was a successful run and the 8 miles felt really good.  Fingers crossed that this can translate into a great 10K race this Sunday!

After my run it was time to shower, pack, have some lunch and then jet off to the airport.  Sadly I went home minus one piece of checked luggage.  Finlay stuck around with my mom and dad. :(  My house seems so quiet without him now, but I’m sure he will be spoiled with plenty of treats and fun walks with Maggie.

This morning I was up early to knock out 2000 m at the pool.  The swim went really well, and I was amazed that I actually made it to the pool on time.  Gotta love those days when you feel fluid and efficient in the water, eh?

As for this evening?  Wow, I’m tired and not quite sure why!  Original plans for this evening?  Grocery shopping, picking up paint from Home Depot, pick up Snow White on DVD since it is on sale today…  Accomplished?  I ate dinner and took care of a few things on my computer.  Oops!  I’ll blame my lack of motivation on the crazy wind gusts of 50-60 km/h that were happening when I got home.  Who would want to go out in that?  Oh well, think it is time to finally call it a night!

Hello October!

Wow…it is really hard to believe that October is here.  Where is the year going?  October in Calgary generally means that the snow will start flying, and luckily this year I left town just before the first snow fall of the year.  This weekend I flew off to Kelowna, BC for the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival! 

The first order of business on Saturday morning was knocking off a couple of workouts.  I had 8 x 2:00 intervals on tap.  I took off to one of my favourite places to run in Kelowna, the Mission Creek Greenway.  The greenway is nice and flat, and it is so quiet and beautiful out there.  Immediately when I started running I knew this was going to be a great run.  Maybe the change in elevation from 3900 feet to 1100 feet had something to do with it?  The intervals were great.  I was pushing but they still felt really good.  It was drizzling out and it just felt really nice and fresh.  A great 6 mile interval run, done!

Once the run was up it was time to get on to the next order of business…a swim!  I still wanted to get in Thursday’s swim workout so I decided to check out the new H2O Adventure Centre.  While the facility is a part of the YMCA it is one of the few ones where you can’t use a membership from another facility to gain entry.  I paid my drop in fee though since I was keen to check this place out.  The pool is huge!  It is a 50 m pool that has moving bulkheads so they can section the pool off for different activities.  Plus there are water slides, a hot tub and all kinds of play areas for the kids.  The middle of the pool was sectioned off for 25 m lane swim.  I knocked out the workout which included a lot of drills and that was about it.  The swim was neither great nor bad, but the pool was definitely worth checking out.  I would have liked to get a trip down the water slide in, but I was running late so I had to hurry up and get out of there!

After that is was down south to Oliver for a the Tinhorn Creek Crush Club wine pick up party……then a wee bit of tasting at a few other wineries and a winemaker’s dinner at Sumac Ridge.Sunday was the See Ya Later Ranch pig roast…which was amazing!  (My apologies to my vegetarian friends…)

In the evening we went to an event at Cabana Grille called Gourmet and Grapes.  It was a pretty neat event where 6 different restaurants had food stations with little tasting bites, plus different wineries were pouring wines to complement the food.  In the mean time there was a bit of an Iron Chef style showdown happening between two chefs as they whipped up a few dishes centered around the secret ingredient, matsutake mushrooms.  Once the competition was over there were a few plates that were passed around so if you were lucky you may get a little taste.

The best part of the evening was probably the food station from El Dorado…the tastiest meatball ever, some lamb, and some seared tuna on risotto with a papaya salsa.

The weekend isn’t quite over yet…time to get out there for a long run.  Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Over the top!

Teacherwoman over at Dare to Tri says that my blog is over the top!  Thanks TW!  I’ve been following and reading her blog for quite some time.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her that she is able to figure out what is wrong with her knee soon!  So..in order to accept the award I have to answer these questions with one word answers...

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse.
2. Your hair? Blonde.
3. Your mother? Enthusiastic.
4. Your father? Best.
5. Your favourite food? Sushi.
6. Your dream last night? Unremarkable.
7. Your favourite drink? Beer.
8. Your dream/goal? Ironman.
9. What room are you in? Living.
10. Your hobby? Triathlon.
11. Your fear? Crashing.
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Happy.
13. Where were you last night? Towa.
14. Something you aren't? Hungry.
15. Muffins? Yum.
16. Wish list item? Bike.
17. Where did you grow up? Everywhere.
18. Last thing you did? Ate.
19. What are you wearing? Hoodie.
20. Your TV? On.
21. Your pets? Finlay.
22. Your friends? Supportive.
23. Your life? Full.
24. Your mood? Happy.
25. Missing someone? Yes.
26. Vehicle? Subaru.
27. Something you're not wearing? Hat.
28. Your favourite store? Express.
29. Your favourite color? Purple.
30. When was the last time you laughed? Earlier.
31. Last time you cried? Tuesday.
32. Your best friend? Far.
33. One place that I go over and over? Work.
34. One person who emails me regularly? Coach.
35. Favourite place to eat? Chipotle.

Just for the record, Biggest Loser had me bawling on Tuesday!!  I’m supposed to pass this along to 6 of my favourite bloggers.  I really hate to play favourites so this is going to be hard!

Worth a Tri – I am super excited to see this girl start to make her way into the triathlon world!
Julie over at Running with Dogs – She’s getting faster and faster and even though I’m fairly new to her blog she feels like an old friend.
Molly at Muppets on Parade – She has the most adorable beardies, plus she’s kicking some serious behind on training for Ironman Arizona.
Marit and Charisa – These girls are off to Kona!!  Best of luck ladies!
And finally Shirley over at Humble Triathlete – cuz I think she is hard core for doing two Iron distance triathlons two weeks apart!

And on a final note…falling asleep on the couch and waking up at 1 am to Star Trek – The Next Generation…then attempting to wake up at 4:30 for a swim?  Not happening.  And as much as I’d like to go this evening I need to pack for a weekend away.  Hmm, maybe tomorrow morning, but I have one busy day at work and I’d probably be better off going in early.  Yup, crazy busy work time has begun!!  Have a great weekend all!