Who doesn’t love a photo card?

Do you send out Christmas cards to your family and friends?  I love getting photo cards in the mail (my aunt sends one every year) and I’ve sent a few myself out in the past.  In fact, this was our card last year, courtesy of Shutterfly.The quality of the card is amazing.  The picture is vivid and bright and the cardstock is thick and great quality.  As someone who spent a lot of time thinking about paper quality for wedding projects I know what I’m talking about.

With so many gorgeous wedding pictures to use, how about sending a gorgeous holiday card like this to our family and friends?Or this one, that shows our first look in frame by frame detail?Or how about this card that has a few more pictures to show what else the Husband and I have been up to this year besides getting married?Or maybe my mom and dad would love an awesome picture mug to drink their coffee out of every morning?  (Because seriously, how cute is my niece, aka their granddaughter?)So if you are looking for some fun and unique holiday cards, Christmas cards, gifts or even calendars go check out Shutterfly!

If you are a blogger and you’d like a chance at 25 holiday cards courtesy of Shutterfly, then go here to register by November 11th.

Halloween Howl 10K–Race Report

For the purposes of telling my story (and in the interest of full disclosure) I probably ought to fess up on what my race times have been like lately.  Since…you know…I casually forgot to leave that out of my Melissa’s race report.

Back on September 24th I finished Melissa’s in 1:16:57.  Now granted, there was a huge hill to climb in the middle of the race and it was my first race in awhile so I’m not disappointed.  That was the fastest I could run that day and Kelly and Pam were amazing company on the race course.  I don’t think I would have wanted to race without them.  Quite honestly I was about ready to bail on doing the race until Kelly asked me to run it with her for fun.

Three weeks later on November 9th I toed the line for the Thanksgiving Memory 10K run in Calgary.Given that this course was a lot flatter than Melissa’s I just really wanted to do better than that time.  I didn’t really have a plan for how to race it but I knew there would be walk breaks in there.  Starting out I was in with a big shmozzle of people.  There was someone who had evidently set up some kind of a workout or goal in their Garmin (be it following pace or heart rate).  Whatever they were doing, they weren’t doing what they were supposed to do and their Garmin yelled at them about every 30 seconds to either speed up or slow down.  Boy that was annoying to listen to!

Anyhow, the route was a straight forward out and back.  I felt pretty good on the way out but I definitely slowed down and had to walk more on the way back.  I finished in 1:12:02, a definite improvement over Melissa’s three weeks ago.

Two weeks later it was back to the line to race the Halloween Howl 10K.  The route would be almost exactly the same as the Thanksgiving race, except this time I had some friends for company.Once again I didn’t start out with much of a plan, just goals.  Pam and I figured we’d hang out together and I figured I’d see if maybe I could keep up with Kelly.  Kelly planned on running 9:1s with her husband Mitch helping to pace her.I got a bit caught up in the excitement and the crowd and started a bit fast, but Pam reigned me in.  Soon we settled in behind Kelly and Mitch.  The pace was a bit faster than two weeks ago so I made it my mission to just hang with her and not focus on much else.  I felt strong on the way out but I was still a bit worried.  I fell apart a bit on the second half of my previous race and I really wanted to run the entire thing as consistently as possible.

At the turnaround Pam decided it was time to aim for a negative split so she took off with our friend Danny.  Kelly, Mitch and I hung with them for a bit but then we decided to settle back in to our previous pace.  I think Kelly and I were both a bit worried about blowing up.  Pam and Danny were strong all the way through the second half of the race.Kelly has been super supportive and encouraging and we’ve been running a lot together recently.  She thinks I’m back to my old speedier self although I’m not quite convinced that I’m entirely there yet.  As she started to struggle on the way back I wanted to stick with her and to try and encourage her as much as possible.  I tried to focus on remembering the great runs we’ve had lately and to try and emulate that same feeling.  I was hoping that she’d hang with me on the final sprint to the finish but unfortunately I think I took off a bit too much.When it was all said and done I was really happy with my race.  I felt a lot better on this race than two weeks ago…plus I beat my time!  I finished in 1:07:54 which was a definite improvement from the Thanksgiving race.  I owe many thanks to my friends who kept me company along the way. 

Next up is the Banff Winterstart 5 Miler next weekend!

*PS – If you are reading this post in Google Reader I have finally updated my header and blog layout ever so slightly.  Have a look and let me know what you think!  Here’s the old header, so not too different….

Testing the Waters

This week was a bit of a trial.  I wanted to see how my legs and body would respond to the training schedule I laid out for myself.  Here’s how the week went down:

Monday: I met Kelly for an easy 45 min run at lunch, running 4:1 intervals.

Tuesday: I started the day off with a 45 min strength/body sculpting class that felt great.  In the evening it was back to Tuesday night spins with my old triathlon coach at Bow Cycle.  These workouts are never easy!  I was glad that I had been back on the bike a couple of times before this class.  Overall I felt pretty great on the bike and it was great to see my old teammates again.

Wednesday: Kelly talked me into joining her for her run workout.  It was a 10 minute warm up followed by 5 x (3:00 @ 10K race pace/2:00 recovery), followed by cool down.  I thought my legs would be zonked after a big day on Tuesday but I actually felt really strong on this run.  Our five intervals were all really consistent too.  Good stuff!

Thursday: Another early morning body sculpting class followed by a short spin at home.

Friday: A well deserved rest day!

Saturday: A 70 minute spin.

Sunday: The Halloween Howl 10K!  I hoped to do better than when I raced the Thanksgiving Memory 10K two weeks ago.  I’ve been feeling great and more like my old self these past two weeks so I figured that would be a good sign.  How did I do?  You’ll just have to wait for the race report!  (…although if you follow me on twitter you probably already know how it went…)

All in all I felt great this week.  The only change I plan on making is taking out a brick run after my weekend spin.  It is just too chilly around here these days that I’m not feeling that motivated to bundle up and run outside after a spin.

Run: 2:36:10
Spin: 3:29:35
Strength: 1:30:00
TOTAL: 7:35:44

Time for new shoes!

My poor ol’ cycling shoes are a little worse for wear.  Way back in July 2010 I was at my Ironman Canada training camp on a ride from Penticton, up Richter Pass and Yellow Lake.  There was some construction happening on the highway we were riding on and we had to ride through a massive mud puddle.  I was covered in mud, there was mud on my helmet and my shoes were all dirtied up.

Most importantly I also came to the realization that my cycling shoes are also a size too small.  They fit fine initially but as my feet swell I can tell that they aren’t as roomy as I’d like.  It is time for some new cycling shoes!

I ordered the updated Shimano WT-52s from Superfly Cycles.  Luckily they arrived just in time for our first spin class at Bow Cycle this Tuesday!  Aren’t they pretty?They felt great at spin class and on the bike last night.

Are you looking for some new cycling shoes?  Superfly Cycles has all of their 2011 styles on for 20% off right now.  And if you are in Canada the shipping is super easy and pretty inexpensive.

Happy Friday all!

Spin Studio: Resurrected

Ages ago I had set up a little spin studio in my garage.  I had a TV in there, a DVD player, a small player to plug an iPod into…  It was pretty sweet.When the husband moved in the spin studio disappeared as his moving boxes needed a place to reside.  When we had a garage sale a few months ago we took the opportunity to get rid of the TV and DVD player since I didn’t actually like watching TV while spinning.  Eventually all of our bikes just lined up on the side of the garage…the tires going flat from disuse (*tear*).I’ve still got my Ironman Canada number on the bike.What on earth is in this bottle?  I’m afraid to find out given how long it has been in there (luckily it was just water).My old spin studio.  Time to clean up!I found my old gear check back from Ironman, with my bike helmet, gloves, CO2 cartridges, deodorant, Body Glide…I swapped the rear tire out with my trainer tire.  I forgot how hard it was to do this!Finally the bike had been cleaned up, set up and ready to go.  I picked a short but sweet workout and I had forgotten how good it felt to be on the bike.  All done!It is almost hard to believe that fall is here and spin classes at Bow Cycle start up this week.  Bring it on!

A Goal Has Been Set!

I haven’t had a lot of time to blog this week but I have so many things to catch you up on.  I set my spin studio up again!  I raced a 10K last weekend!  But first and foremost, I’ve been working on a goal and a plan to reach that goal.

If you’ve followed my blog for awhile you’ll know that I need to have something tangible to work towards.  That carrot on the stick for me?

Image via Disney Sports News

The 2012 Disney World Half Marathon.  My mom is racing the Goofy Challenge next year so I figured it would be fun to tag along for the Disney Half.  The husband has never been to Disney World before so this should be fun for the both of us!  I wanted to keep my goal tangible and achievable…hence running the Half.  I’ll just cheer my mom on at the full.

I needed to come up with a plan to get me to the start line.  I spent quite a bit of time looking over my old programs where I was building to a half marathon under my old coach.  I followed a similar build in activity to my old programs.  I set it all up in Training Peaks.

I planned to take September and October getting used to running and if everything felt okay I figured I’d be good to go for signing up for the race.  I then created a plan with three days a week of running (plus one brick run).  Two mid-week runs and building long runs on the weekend.  Three spins per week (including Team Tri Life’s Tuesday night spin class that starts next week).  Two strength sessions.

As another motivator I signed up for Amanda of Run to Finish’s Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge.  If you are looking for something to keep you on track during the holiday season then maybe you should check out the challenge too!

Cursing the Fitness Ball

Back in August the husband and I had a garage sale to make an attempt to clear out some of the clutter.  In the sale pile was my fitness ball that I hadn’t used in ages and couldn’t figure out how to pump up.  I sold my fitness ball that day for a whopping $0.50 along with a set of wine charms to a couple who assumed the wine charms were jewellery and not for alcoholic beverages (since they asked me what the heck they were after they paid me for them).  I’ll be honest, I’m kind of sad that ball is gone now even though it was flatter than heck.

I really want to incorporate strength training on a regular basis as I get back to things.  In fact, strength training is taking the place of where I probably would have fit swimming in.  I have a membership to the gym in the basement of my office and they have a 45 minute 6:30 am strength class on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I have been to three classes so far and it has been a different instructor every time.  This Tuesday the regular instructor was back to teaching.

She has this signature workout that involves using a stability ball.

image via duraBall

You start off nice and easy, sitting on the ball.  Then you start bouncing on the ball.  Bounce, stand up.  Bounce, stand up.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Fast.  15 seconds in and my legs are on fire.  Where has all of my leg strength gone?  This bouncing – reverse squat routine goes on for the entire duration of a Lady Gaga song.  The instructor is grinning and bouncing on her ball and I just want to sit on my ball and whimper.  I left class feeling a little dejected, like I hadn’t given my workout my all because of this whole bouncy ball routine.

I have made it my goal to get this.  I know this is good for me!  And given that if I reach any kind of uphill on a run outside and my legs just die I know I need to get my leg strength back.  Between regular strength training classes and getting back on the bike I’ll get there.

Oh, and speaking of this running/spinning/strength training plan thing I’m working on, I decided to check out Training Peaks for the first time.  I lost my entire online log when the Buckeye Outdoors server went down sometime in the past year so it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to try a new log out now.  Did you know that you can a 3 month premium membership via Trinero for $24 ($49 value) right now?  There is a freebie option for Training Peaks, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to see what going premium gets you.  As for what this training plan is or is for…you’ll just have to wait for that one!

Melissa’s 10K Road Race–Race Report

Can you believe it – I have a race report for you!  I have run Melissa’s every year since 2007 so it feels like a bit of a tradition.  I signed up way back in February and almost forgot about the race last weekend.  Truth be told, I also contemplated not running it this year.  I was almost ready to bail when my friend Kelly asked if I would run the 10K with her as a fun run.  Who can say no to that?

My friend Pam was swayed by the idea of a fun run and my mom also snagged a bib at the last minute.  It was a gorgeous day in Banff – definitely the warmest I’ve ever seen at the start of the race.  We met all of our friends at the start and grabbed a quick picture between trips to the porta-potties.  Kelly was awesome.  To keep things fun she brought Pam and I baggies of gummy candies as little rewards for each kilometer finished.Soon it was time to line up for the start!  We had agreed to run 3:1 intervals and to walk the big hill.  Gotta keep it fun!  We were on our first walk break when I spied my dad with the camera so we picked it up to run for the photo op.The route was different from previous years with a different climb up Tunnel Mountain.  No matter how you slice it, the hike up Tunnel Mountain is a long one!  We agreed to run the downhill and to keep our minds occupied we started playing a game.  We all went through the alphabet, coming up with different foods we wanted to eat once we crossed the finish line.  Apples…burgers…quesadillas….x-tra crispy fried chicken!

Before I knew it we were down the hill and I spotted my husband and my dad.We had a short out and back section left to go, then it would be on the the finish line.  I was fading here.  How long has it been since I ran 10K??  A long time.The girls were awesome and we stuck together.  We would cross that finish line together!!After we were done we managed to find the rest of our friends, plus we found the beer line too…While I may be a long ways away from my 55:10 10K PR pace it felt great to race again.  In fact, I went home and signed up for a couple more 10Ks in October!

Thanks again for making this race fun Kelly and Pam!  I really appreciated the company and motivation along the way!