IMC Prep Camp – Day 2

Day 2 dawned on our IMC prep camp.  I hadn’t swum since my race the weekend before so I was keen to hit up the pool.  I also had a 90 minute run on the schedule.  Originally I would have like to run part of the IMC run course.  We had ridden part of the run course on Friday and the shoulders disappear as you run along the lake.  Given that we were getting honked at on our bikes a run didn’t seem like a great idea.

I suggested running along the Mission Creek Greenway instead in Kelowna.It is one of my favourite routes to run there!  We wanted to knock out our swim first though, so our first stop was H2O Aquatics.  H2O is an amazing facility.  It has a 50m pool that is divided into 25m at points in the day, has a hot tub, wave runner, floating river, wave pool and three water slides and gym facilities.  We paid a daily drop in fee and knocked out a swim.  I ran through 2000m while the pool was open for 50m, most of it just with a pull buoy as I didn’t want to tucker my legs out too much.  We showered, changed, then ran to the green way.  My legs were pooped and after the first mile I let Ally go on.  I thought I would run one mile and walk for a minute, then repeat.  At 45 min I prepared to turn around, but I saw this guy: He was pretty big, so I think it may be a beaver?  I also downed my first Jet Blackberry Gu and it was pretty tasty!  When I turned around the legs perked up and my speed started dropping.  I was feeling great!  I wound up running for a total of 9 miles back to the H2O. 

After the run was done we met up with the boyfriend for a little cross training fun at the pool.  Water slides!!  Seriously, I wonder if I can count those hours as cross training?  For a long weekend the facility was fairly quiet and we had a great time testing out the water slides, floating down the river with a noodle and jumping off diving boards.  Afterward?  I was completely zonked!  There were initial talks of driving the rest of the IMC bike course and going for an open water swim but no one was too keen to go anywhere.  Instead we took it easy at my parents’ place, plotting our big ride for tomorrow and getting our nutrition sorted out.  Sunday it would be time to do a little more IMC bike course exploring!

Okanagan Spring Wine Festival - Saturday

I flew in to Kelowna on Friday evening and arrived just in time for dinner. We went off to The Keg in town here, which is a really great steak restaurant. Except I have broken up with beef! So what is a girl to do? Order crab!! This Dungeness crab was amazing!!

On Saturday morning I decided to head out to the Mission Creek Greenway for a quick run. I love this trail - it is flat, quiet, and the scenery is amazing! Since Wednesday's run was so painful I figured flat would be just what I needed for a run. Since triathlon season is starting I swapped my regular laces out for Yankz, and this was my first run with them in these shoes.

The shoes felt awesome - not too snug, not too loose. It was a gorgeous day out there. I decided 4 miles seemed like the right amount to run today. Everything felt great - no shin pain, no knee issues...nothing. Yay for recovery!! As I was heading back to my car there was a lady running with a little dog and I made it my mission to catch up to her and pass her. Just as I was coming into the final stretch I finally caught up with her and took off in front! Every once in awhile you need to have those little things to motivate you.

After the run it was time to head home, shower up, and head down south towards Oliver to start celebrating the Spring Wine Festival! We had lunch planned at Burrowing Owl Estate Winery, which just happens to be on the bike course for the WCOC Olympic triathlon that I'll be racing in a few weeks. We drove a ways on the bike course and I was able to check out all of the hills, the condition of the pavement, and any obstacles along the way (like the two cattle guards that advise cyclists to dismount and walk their bikes across...that should be interesting...). Lunch at Burrowing Owl was amazing. I had a baked Sockeye salmon sandwich on a homemade croissant. Good stuff!

After lunch it was back to driving the bike course and visiting a few other wineries! The scenery along the bike route is just amazing. It should be a fantastic race!!

We also stopped by Tuc-el-Nuit Lake, where the swim is going to be. Once we were done tasting and checking out the course it was on to a special Seafood & Chardonnay Winemaker's dinner at Sumac Ridge. We started off with a sparkling wine reception...

...and we were then treated to some amazing food and wine. My favourite by far were the fish and chips. I also sat next to a really interesting couple who enjoy cycling. They were telling me about a bike tour company that they took a trip with to bike through Provence. Now that sounds like an amazing vacation!!

Anyhow, on to more winefesting today!! Hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!!

Be Careful What You Wish For

What did I say in my last post? That it was too bad that I only got one run in at the Mission Creek Greenway while on vacation in Kelowna? That Saturday's run was to be my final run in Kelowna? Apparently somewhere I forgot to knock on wood... I had the final flight to Calgary with Air Canada booked for Sunday evening. As we were driving to the airport snow was falling. Massive fluffy flakes of snow. I got to Air Canada's line up and the fellow in front of me flagged down an employee to find out if there was a priority check in line.

.AC employee: "Oh well, all flights are cancelled so it doesn't matter."
Me: Huh? Everything was on time when I checked before leaving for the airport...
AC employee: "Except the flight to Calgary, but the runway in Vancouver is shut down so everything else is canceled."
Me: Phew...

I handed my luggage over and sat around with my folks for a bit before heading through security. We knew the inbound flight was delayed coming out of Calgary, but it was pretty disconcerting to see all of the delays and canceled flights on the status boards. It was just one big mess. Finally I headed through security, confident that since my plane was in the air and weather in Calgary was okay that I'd be on my way home. That was not to be the case. Just as the airplane approached Kelowna they closed the runway. The plane had enough fuel to circle for about half an hour, in which case if things hadn't improved the plane would be heading back to Calgary. And the bad news was that the direct flights to Calgary were so booked up that they couldn't get you a seat out of Kelowna until 8 pm on Tuesday.

By that time my folks were home and there were rumours of available seats out on West Jet on Monday, so I had my dad do some digging for me. When they cancelled the flight and diverted the airline back to Calgary I had my dad pull the trigger on getting me a West Jet ticket. At least this way I'd be back home Monday night instead of waiting at the airport all day, hoping for a standby seat with Air Canada. I got my refund, collected my suitcases and my parents came back to the airport to drive me home.

On the plus side of things, since my flight didn't leave until 5:15 pm that gave me plenty of time to get my run in on Monday morning. I had a 49 minute run with 6 x 1:00 hard, 3:00 easy intervals on the schedule. So I headed back out to the Greenway. Only a small loop around Mission Creek had been plowed so I ran a few circles around the creek. I ran 15 minutes at a warm up pace then started in on the intervals. I didn't feel like I was pushing hard enough on the first three. Maybe I was tired, or not quite into it. Finally on my fourth interval something clicked and I was on. I was speedy! I don't normally mention pace too much around here, but I thought it was worthwhile throwing up the graph of my heart rate and pace from this run.You can definitely tell from my heart rate where my easy and hard intervals were. Most importantly, you can see the dramatic improvement in pace between #3 and #4, and that I kept improving. After that I cooled down for 10 minutes, then headed home.

I spent the rest of the afternoon working up my marathon plan for my coach. It really helped me to focus on the upcoming race and think about what I need to do over the next few days to ensure I am ready. Then it was on to the airport where there was a whole lot less drama... The winter storm had passed through and things were running pretty smoothly so I made it back to Calgary without any issues.

Running In A Winter Wonderland

Saturday morning arrived and it was supposed to be the day of my last long run before the Disney marathon. It would also be my final run in Kelowna. When I woke up it said it was -20C out there. Brr! I was tired of feeling like a wuss for avoiding these really cold temperatures so I got dressed and headed out. It was a happy surprise that it wasn't nearly as cold as I thought - only -11C!

My final run was supposed to be somewhere just over an hour and would have 3 x 8:00 Zone 3 intervals. If I could pop up into Zone 4 and hold it then that would be fine too. Because I needed to run according to heart rate zone I wanted to avoid the hills in the neighborhood and figured I'd head out to the Mission Creek Greenway where it would be a bit flatter. I ran out here a couple of times this summer and it was beautiful. I wasn't sure what to expect with all of the snow, but I found out they plow the trail so you wind up running on packed snow. With my Yak Trax on traction wasn't an issue and I could try to be speedy on my intervals.
There was the odd runner out and I saw a couple of cross country skiers. Otherwise it was pretty quiet on the trail. I started off on my warm up and the cold weather must have given me some incentive to go faster but since my heart rate was low I just went with it. The intervals went really well. I was able to hold it in a high Zone 3 and into Zone 4 for all of them. Afterwards I ran for a cool down to stretch the run out into an 1:10. The temperature was pretty comfortable the whole time, although my behind was a wee bit cold towards the end.
It was so beautiful out that it is too bad that I only managed one run at the greenway on this trip. There are definitely some amazing places to run out here in Kelowna! Tonight it is back to Calgary...tomorrow back to work!

Mission Creek 16 Miler

Despite having an absolutely atrocious 15 mile run out at Mission Creek on Monday I was keen to go back out there for my 16 miler on Saturday. The long runs were maybe a bit close together, but I didn't want to leave the 16 miler for Sunday, I wanted this out of the way before I left Kelowna.

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All I can say is...wow...what a difference a few degrees and a couple of clouds in the sky can make. Things felt so much more comfortable out there. Don't get me wrong, it was still warm and muggy, but it felt a million times better out there. I parked my car at the start of the Mission Creek Greenway this time, and right by the Starbucks, so that I would be able to get my hands on that iced latte as soon as I was done running. It was about 6:30 am and there was barely anyone out there. Things were feeling really good too - no weird hip pain this time around. I was just going to do a straight out and back on the greenway. On Monday I had only run through Phase 1 of the greenway - where the trail is nice and flat and wide. This time I'd make it through to Phase 2 where the trail narrows, gets a bit hillier and goes through more forested areas. I arrived at Phase 2 about 6.5 miles in. There was a nice uphill, then past some picnic tables and a garbage can. A bear proof garbage can that warns you to throw all of your garbage away to protect the bears. Seriously...I have no desire to meet a bear while running and any mention of them thoroughly freaks me out. The trail continued to be really quiet, and when I finally saw some people out for a walk I wanted to slow down just to have some company in case a bear did venture out this way. Despite my bear fear this was probably the prettiest part of the whole run as you wound through trees, and across beautiful bridges over the creek. At 7.5 miles in the trail really narrowed and went steeply up a hill and turned into more of a hiking trail. I decided this was a good time to turn around and that I would just make that half mile up later. Apparently I shouldn't ask my brain to do complex math while running. And by complex I mean simple addition and subtraction. When I hit 8 miles I decided to turn around to make that half a mile up, except by that point I'd forgotten it was a half mile and thought it was only a quarter mile. I was then really perplexed as to why the kilometer markings weren't jiving with where I thought I should be mileage wise and I was always off by 0.3 miles. I thought maybe it was my ability to convert between miles and kilometers. Nope, it was my inability to add and subtract. When I reached the bathrooms on the way back I knew it was exactly 4 miles back to the start so I realized the error of my ways and corrected it.

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This run felt infinitely better than the 15 miler. My pace picked up on the back half of my run and I truly felt like I could have kept running longer. Except I was back at Starbucks, just out of water, and ready for that latte so I decided I'd just keep it at 16 miles.

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As proof that my 15 miler was terrible, and that my 16 miler was amazing:

Time to run 15 miles: 2:57:30

Time to run 16 miles: 2:56:23

One more mile, but over one minute less on my feet.

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I will say though, that after running 16 miles a 7.5 hour car ride home is painful. There wasn't enough room to push my seat all the way back (something about the 30 bottles of wine I was hauling home taking up so much space)...plus my dog was really sensitive to the high elevation at some points through the Rockies on the way home so he would nervously push his way forward, then spin around and shake like a leaf on my lap. That run was awesome though and well worth it. I feel mentally ready to tackle the rest of my long runs up to Quebec City next month.

Mission Creek 15 Miler

Well...I attempted to wake up at 4:30 today... It was already light out, but couple a few early mornings in a row together along with some serious wine tasting and 4:30 was just not doable... In fact, I even woke up with a slight hangover... I was up just after 5:00 though, I got ready, enjoyed some breakfast and hit the bathroom twice before heading out for Kelowna. For some reason my bladder was just in overdrive this morning. I headed out to the start of my route, parked the car, and realized that I had to hit the bathroom...again... I didn't really know what was around my route, but there was a Burger King near where I was parked so I headed over in that direction first. I realized when I got to the door that the place didn't open until 7:00 and it was 6:30. The guy cleaning the floors was nice enough to let me borrow their bathroom though. Phew! It was about 22 deg C (72 deg F) out already and it was feeling pretty warm...

I had printed off a map and directions to a 14.26 mile route starting and ending at the Running Room in Kelowna. The directions seemed simple enough. Turn left on Springfield...turn left on Leckie...follow the Mission Creek Pathway to Hall Road... I arrived at Leckie and Mission Creek Park but all of a sudden things weren't so clear. And a mile and a half in my bladder was acting up...again! Thank goodness for the bathroom at the park... Mission Creek Park is a place with quite a few hiking and bike trails and there was no main trail that seemed obvious that would take me to Hall Road. But there was the Mission Creek Greenway - a super nice, wide gravel path that followed Mission Creek a good ways in both directions. I made a half hearted attempt to find the way out to Hall Road, wound up at the end of a trail at a private residence and so I decided to make my way back to the greenway. Change of plans. I threw the Running Room route out the window and decided to follow the path through the greenway instead. It was mostly tree covered, and running along such a nice, rapidly flowing body of water made things feel slightly cooler. My pace picked up and I was forgetting to check my watch for walk breaks so I kept missing them. When my watch beeped at 5 miles I swallowed an orange Hammer Gel. The taste...wasn't incredibly orange-like...but it wasn't altogether unpleasant and it didn't taste as salty as the Clif Shots. My tongue liked these a lot better.
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The first 5 miles: 55:43
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At around 6.5 miles in I hit the end of the greenway at Lakeshore Drive. I decided to run a ways up Lakeshore and turn around to make for a pretty simple out and back route. There was no sidewalk on Lakeshore for the most part, but there was a bike lane and a really large sandy shoulder. If I ran on the shoulder I felt far enough away from traffic so I was feeling pretty okay about continuing along the road. I ran past a Starbucks...good to note for later! Things started to change once I started down Lakeshore. It was pretty out in the open and the sun was beating down quite strongly even though it was so early in the morning still. My walk breaks grew more frequent. I turned around and headed back and my overactive bladder was acting up again so this time it was off to Starbucks for a pit stop. I was soaked like I had spent most of my morning in a pool...yuck... I realized at this point that I was nearly out of Gatorade so I used the opportunity to pick up some water and top my Camelbak up. Finally it was back on the pathway in the shade, but the heat was taking its toll. I was slowing down. I swallowed a chocolate Hammer Gel at mile 10. It was probably 30 deg C (86 deg F) out by now.
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The second 5 miles: 57:34
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Something in my left hip started to act up. It wasn't really intense pain, but there was some uncomfortableness in my hip joint for sure. Coupled with the heat my brain was having a hard time overcoming the thought that I still had another 5 miles to go. I'd keep running along and then my legs would spontaneously decide it was time to walk. There really was no timing or reason to the walk breaks. I was hurting and I wanted to be doing anything but not running anymore. At one point a lady that I had leapfrogged with a few times passed me for the final time and she must have known I was having a tough go. "It is rough out here today, eh?" she said to me. I felt like I needed to qualify my slowness so I responded that yup, it sure was, and that I'd been out for 2 - 1/2 hours already. She asked what I was training for, then she bounded off. I started to tell myself that if I didn't have 15 miles in me today it was okay...14 would be okay... But I knew that I didn't want 15 miles to become some big mental block for me so I really wanted to keep plugging. I didn't care how slow I was running, I just wanted to keep going and get it done. I was craving some Starbucks now by this point in time. I kept chanting "venti iced non-fat latte" over and over in time to my feet hitting the pavement. I needed that coffee and I needed it soon and it was the incentive I needed to keep running. Finally I was back at my car...15 miles over and done with. It took me a bit of time to find a convenient Starbucks on the drive home but that coffee never tasted so good. I felt kind of bad for the folks directly in front of me and behind me in the line up. I was pretty gross...
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Third 5 miles: 1:04:11
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As a positive note, I took my Kayano 14s out for another spin...no blisters! No shin pain either, or bad gait, just this weird hip pain. I think it may have been thanks to running on the gravel and sandy surfaces, so we'll see what happens the next time I go out for a run.