My Canada Day

Tuesday evening I checked the weather out my front door.  It was sunny and hot.  I left for our group ride in shorts and a short sleeve jersey.  As I drove towards Cochrane I noticed that I was driving towards storm clouds.  And the wind was picking up…  Angie gave us our workout – 3 x 8 min intervals with 8 min of rest in between.  As I started riding I felt like I was going nowhere and this was supposed to be the warm up?  The wind was intense and it was really cooling off.  A group of super strong cyclists up ahead of me pulled off the road and we all debated whether we should be riding in this or not.  We decided to keep going for a bit but it wasn’t long before we turned around and called it a day.  What took 7 minutes riding out in, took 4 minutes to come back in.  That is how much of a difference the wind was playing.  The wind was gusting up to 40 km/h (25 mph) and the temperature had dropped 6C (11F) within an hour.  That just doesn’t make for a fun ride…

Since I had Wednesday off of work to celebrate Canada Day I figured I would make up my bike workout Wednesday morning.  Angie wanted us to cut the workout a bit short since we were that much closer to Great White North.  I went out for a 45 minute ride with 4 x 4 min intervals.  The intervals went really well on the way out, but once I turned around I was riding back into the wind.  Not nearly as strong as yesterday…but I just rode the hills hard and didn’t concentrate on the intervals that much.  After I dropped my bike off back at home I went out for a quick brick run.  I felt good on the run but didn’t have a ton of speed.  Oh well!

I had planned on going to the pool later but I much preferred doing a few things around the house and relaxing.  Pretty soon it was time to head to my brother and sister-in-law’s place for some Canada Day BBQ.  Dave had picked up some wood chips that were made from old oak barrels that were used to age Jack Daniels.  Just sniffing the bag of chips was enough to make you feel like you had just downed a stiff drink!  Dave smoked a pork shoulder that was amazing!
We devoured some pulled pork sandwiches with some sweet and spicy BBQ sauce and coleslaw on a cheese bun.  So good!  A Thirsty Beaver was just the thing to wash it down.
After dinner I headed off to Ranchman’s to get a head start on the Calgary Stampede at Bull Bustin’.  This is an up close and personal invitational bull riding event.  I’ve been to bull riding events before but I’ve normally been way far away so this was completely different!  It also gave me a chance to try out my sport continuous shoot mode on my new camera: It was one fun night, that’s for sure!  I’ll be looking forward to Stampeding when I’m back from Great White North!
Happy birthday to my Dad on Friday, and I hope all of my American friends have a great 4th of July!!

Happy Canada Day!!

Happy Canada Day to all of my fellow Canadians out there! Hopefully you are having a great day!

Canada Day - 2007

Yesterday was Canada Day, and not to mention, the 140th one to boot! I decided to celebrate by volunteering at the HBC Run for Canada. Proceeds from the race go towards bursaries for our athletes training for Olympic events. The event includes a 10K run, 3K walk and a 1K kids event. Runners all get a personalized race shirt with their bib number printed on it which is pretty neat! The event started and finished at Fort Calgary, and I got there by 6:30 am to check in as a volunteer. We were given these really snazzy tech shirts to wear, just for volunteering! I met my water station captain and we waited until about 7:30 when we were driven out to our water station - the first one at the Calgary Zoo around the 3.5K mark. When we got to our stop there were these two suspicious looking guys in suits hanging around the water table. Turns out they were a jazz duo that were getting ready to play as part of the on course entertainment...! We got our station ready, and about 5 minutes after the race had started the first runners started to arrive. They were really moving! The first several runners didn't stop for water at all, then the first guy to take his cup only wanted it to splash over his head. Believe it or not there is a definite technique with regards to handing out water. Things were crazy for about 10 minutes when all of the runners started to arrive, but then it was over as quickly as it began. We were picked up and driven back to Fort Calgary, and I headed to the finish line to cheer in the runners. There were several athletes taking part in the event, and they all had special shirts on to designate them. Many had their name and sport printed on the front which was really neat. I noticed mostly skeletoners and speed skaters. They were waiting at the finish line to give all the finishers their medals. I cheered on all the little kids at the 1K run as well, and saw Catriona Le May Doan (Canadian Olympic Gold medalist) running with her daughter. What a great way to get kids excited about exercise and being active! I loved the event and thought it was really well done. I had a blast volunteering, but next year I think I'd really like to run this one!

5 sunny miles, and a volunteer position

Last night I got out for my 5 miler at Shouldice. It was nice and sunny out, a little bit warm, but overall not too bad. The run felt really good, and I was surprised at how speedy my final miles were. Tomorrow I think I'm going to hit the hills again. Tonight I am procrastinating on some weight lifting, but hopefully I'll get to that soon!

I decided to volunteer for the HBC Run for Canada on Canada Day this Sunday. I walked this one with three friends last year at their event in Vancouver. (It was a walk instead of a run since I found out just a few days earlier that I had developed a stress fracture in my right ankle....oops.) I really enjoyed the event and would have loved to participate again this year, but with a 10 miler planned for the weekend, and my half marathon next weekend I wasn't sure that this was the best time to go all out and do a 10K, plus tack on the extra mileage. And I'm sure I would go all out, regardless! So instead I volunteered, because I have certainly appreciated the volunteers on all of my races, and I thought it would be great to give that energy back. I'll be working one of the water stops. And check out the volunteer shirts we get....pretty neat, eh? I figure it is a great way to kick off Canada Day.