Police Half Recovery

After the hilly Police Half it was time to head home and take care of recovery! First things first, I stopped off at Tim Hortons to grab a little sustenance. Then it was time to hop on the bike for a 30 minute recovery spin. I grabbed a stool to set up near the bike so I could have easy access to my Tim's coffee.
I strapped on the new Shimano shoes to test them out.Spinning and hot coffee, with double milk. Yummy!After the nice and easy recovery spin was done I went upstairs to scarf down my lunch from Tim's - a turkey bacon club on whole wheat.After I was done eating I ran through some stretches and spent some quality time with my foam roller. That thing still makes me cry...!!

After that I knew my legs would thank me later if I took an ice bath. One of the benefits of living here is you don't actually need ice for an ice bath. The cold water that comes out of my tap is absolutely freezing! I set up some music for a little distraction...Plus a little light reading...***By the way ladies...Philosophy body washes are amazing! You can find them at Sephora. They smell so much like the real deal and come in some fantastic scents related to desserts and beverages.***

After spending some quality time in some chilly water I pulled on the Zoot compression socks and some super comfy Lululemon sweats.There we go folks, there is my recovery from the Police half in pictures!

I Love New Things

It was a ridiculous -25C this morning. Seriously, I am so over this cold weather... I had no desire to go outside at all so I bucked up $25 to park in the parkade across the street from my office building that is connected by a pedway. If I couldn't even walk a couple of blocks from my car to the office in the cold there was no way my 30 minute run was going to happen outside today. So to the Y and on the treadmill it was.

I had a couple new gizmos to try out on this treadmill run which gave me something to look forward to. I was looking at the mileage on my couple pairs of Asics Kayano 14s and I figured it might be time to break out my brand new Kayano 15s that I picked up at the WDW marathon expo. What isn't readily apparent on the picture is that they have changed up the lacing system on the shoe. The bottom of the laces are offset, so rather than centred over the toe box it is closer to the big toe. I'm not sure how this will work out when I swap out the regular laces for my Yankz, but it is an interesting concept. I guess it is supposed to help relieve pressure from...somewhere..?? I can't remember what the shoe salesman told me. Anyhow, they felt pretty comfortable so the Kayano still remains my absolute favourite shoe.

Second up, I had a brand new playlist on my iPod to listen to. And new music is definitely a good way to get fired up for the treadmill:

• Flo Rida - Right Round (I blame this song choice on this America's Best Dance Crew routine)
• Franz Ferdinand - No You Girls
• V Factory - Love Struck (I have no good excuse for this song, other than it is rather catchy. But it sounds so boy band...)
• Pitbull - I Know You Want Me (this song reminds me of when I lived in Laredo, TX for some reason)
• Kevin Rudolph - Welcome to the World

The Kevin Rudolph song is the BEST workout song ever! This got me running so quickly that I had to keep bumping the speed up to avoid running into the front of the treadmill. And yeah...I was totally lip syncing along. So if you were at one of the Y's in Calgary and saw some girl on the treadmill lip syncing like a nut and wearing gray shorts and a pink top...that was me. 3.21 miles done in 30 minutes, and it felt like I could have kept going and going...

I had another cool gizmo I was trying out, but I'll tell you about that later once I've played with it more.

After the run was done I ran through some abs, foam rolling and stretching. I think the foam in the rollers at the gym have lost a little bit of structural integrity. I'm guessing this is the case because I didn't want to whimper like a little puppy while I was rolling my IT band tonight and I'm sure it hasn't gotten that much better.

Alright, time for me to head to bed since I have a 4:30 wake up and a 5:30 date at the pool in the morning!