The science behind lunch hour runs

Yesterday was another 4 mile run over lunch. This run felt pretty good as well. It was only a few seconds slower than the day before so I'll take it. I often get asked about this whole running over my lunch hour thing. There are showers in our building at work, however the caveat is that you have to have a gym membership to the place in the basement to use them. I am definitely not much of a gym girl anymore so the money would be a waste. I prefer to be running outside instead of hitting a treadmill or elliptical machine over lunch. So yeah...what do you do if you go out and run and work up a sweat? Honestly, if I have a partner meeting after lunch I'll bail on a run and chalk it up to a good business decision. Otherwise, what one of my running buddies termed a "hooker bath" (making good use of a wash cloth) and an ample amount of deodorant will do in a pinch. Thank goodness I work in a place with offices instead of cubes so I can retreat into relative seclusion...

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In other news...it is official...I'm a quitter. I have bailed on my curling league (sorry Dad). Between now and Christmas is probably one of the craziest times of the year for reservoir engineers in the oil industry as we have to analyze all of our properties and calculate all of our oil and gas reserves. I look after three sizeable properties and this is my first year calculating reserves. Doing the math I figure I will be in the office about 7 days a week to get this all done so unfortunately that doesn't leave much time for anything else. Also, considering that I'm running every Saturday and Sunday, with my Sunday runs all being between 2 and 4 hours....I'm feeling overwhelmed. So unfortunately curling has to fall by the wayside since running, sleep, and saying hi to my dogs for a few hours of the day are all non-negotiable. I hate quitting though.

Hi, I'm a clutz!

Friday night dinner went pretty well. Nothing too exciting happened at the "introduce the parents to the BF" dinner and the food and beverages were very good that night.

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Saturday morning I drove up to Airdrie for the final run with the San Francisco ladies. We planned on an hour total run, with socializing and breakfast afterwards. We took off on one of the pathways around town and it was a really pretty run. It is always nice to see some new scenery. There was some good chatting, and we finished up with 5.04 miles in just under and hour. When we got back to our starting point, Cheryl's house, there was french toast and fruit salad waiting for us. I hung out for a bit, but then had to boot it back to town for my niece's party that was happening at my house. Avery was introduced to friends and family where she obliged by napping peacefully as people were taking turns holding her and we chowed down on ridiculous amounts of food. As soon as the house was empty my parents, brother, sister-in-law and the BF hurried downtown for the Rocky Mountain Food and Wine Festival. Now here was another good reason to get my long runs in on Friday and Saturday and leave my Sunday relatively free... $20 admission and as many tasting tickets as you want to buy gives you the opportunity to taste all kinds of wines, beers, bevvies, scotches and ports. Oh, and there is food to taste as well... I stuck with my sister-in-law since our focus was wine and a few high lights included the Jackson Triggs Chardonnay being made exclusively for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, the Rancho Zabaco Zinfandel, a nifty wine called House Red, and a shiraz from Jacob's Creek. After some late night food to offset all that wine it was time to call it a night.

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Sunday was cross training via curling if you want to call it that! My biggest worry was slipping on the ice and damaging something right before my crazy race schedule coming up. Since I'm a newbie I get to throw lead rocks and after awhile I got the hang of the weight I needed to get the rocks into the house, but not past it. After throwing rocks you get to sweep your teammates' rocks down the ice and here's where I started to get a bit nervous. I made it almost to the end with no incident, until the final rock of the final end of the game. The rock I was sweeping was almost in the house when I slipped and fell flat on my back. I took out all the rocks that were still in play on my way down... We gave a point to the other team and had to play another end to even things out. Luckily I wasn't too much the worse for wear after the fall although my rear end is kinda sore for taking the brunt of the landing. Yeah....I'm a clutz...

I'm going to need a vacation after this weekend...

This morning saw me stressing over all the things that are happening this weekend. Luckily my SLR of 4.2 mi over lunch helped to calm me down a bit, but that doesn't change the fact that this is one busy weekend. The run went well, and was essentially inconsequential. I saw lots of squirrels, marvelled at all the leaves on the ground and felt some sunshine on my face. It was pretty quiet out on the pathway. Tonight is "introduce the parents to the BF" night. I mentioned to my mom last night that I hoped she would like him and her response was, "I'll reserve judgement until I meet him." He may not be nervous, but I'm now nervous for him ;) I kid, I'm sure it will go just fine. Tomorrow is my final long run with the San Francisco ladies. One of the gals is hosting us - so we are starting the run from her house - an hour total run - and then we come back to breakfast and socializing. It will be a quick socialize for me though because I have to head home and get things ready for my niece's grand introduction to Calgary society at the "Meet Avery" party. It is happening at my house....how everyone will quite fit in my place I'm still not sure... Sunday is my first curling game of the season. Apparently I've been matched with some superstar curlers....oh dear. I'll throw lead rocks, but I sure hope I remember how I'm supposed to do that. At some point I still need to fit some studying in for this ethics exam I'm writing on Monday. Thank goodness I have a vacation coming up because I'm going to need it...

Group Hills....and a potential gong show

Tonight I met up with some of the ladies in the running group to run around Cardel Place on the northeast side of town. Originally it was looking like it was just going to be Stacey (the bringer of the birthday cake a couple of weeks ago) and I, but three other gals showed up as well. I was running a couple of minutes late as our group at work had gone out for drinks to say farewell to our co-op intern who is going back to finish off his last year of school. Except while my coworkers enjoyed some Guinness, or a Chambord martini, or an Alexander Keiths...I had water. Because I thought beers before hills might make for a bad combo. Anyhow....I made it to Cardel just in time to start our hilly run. The first mile and a half was essentially all uphill, but then we had an amazing decent overlooking Country Hills Golf Course. Then it was back uphill a bit more, and a pace pick up all the way back to the start. I really enjoyed running with the group - it sorted of took your mind of the hills a bit, and I definitely pushed the pace in the last 2 miles more than I would have on my own, but felt comfortable doing so. I don't normally post my mile splits, but they look interesting to me today, so: 11:31/11:08/11:04/9:54/9:04. Afterwards a couple of us went to Booster Juice for a smoothie before calling it a night.
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OK...seriously, what have I done..?? On my way home I got a call from a lady who noticed that I had curled in a Greenhorn (beginners) league last year. She organizes a rec league of her own and she was recruiting new players. Now let me tell you - last year was my first attempt at curling and it was quite the gong show. Ice and I are not friends balance-wise and I'm surprised I didn't lose a tooth from falling forwards and nearly hitting a rock. Gong show or not, curling was fun... I'm debating in my head...going over my crazy Excel spreadsheet of all my training runs and trips...but at the end of the day I couldn't pass up the chance to curl in an actual league. Games run October through March on Sundays. This should be interesting... The games are in the mornings, which should leave my afternoons clear for my long runs, which would probably happen in the afternoons anyway since I'll want to wait until it warms up. And I've made sure that there is a sub list in place since I know there will be weekends in October, December and January when I won't be able to play.