Posted by: Karen | May 24, 2009

Run Walk and Roll 10k

Yesterday I raced my first 10k road race in quite a while. I didn’t feel ready for it. I’ve felt slow and achy and sluggish on training runs. I haven’t done speed work since February. I haven’t run any longer than an hour for several months. Still, Melody, the leader of the Start Line, and I had agreed that the RWR 5k would be the goal race for our budding new runners. And hey, since I was going anyway, I might as well do the 10k as a baseline for triathlon training this summer.

The fact that I had to talk myself into it seems kind of silly now, since I really enjoyed the whole thing after all.

The Run Walk & Roll 5 & 10k race is kind of like the end of the year school picnic for Foothills Academy. It’s a very well organized race, and they always have the best party to go with it. Little Runner and I showed up early, picked up my race bib, and chatted with friends as they arrived. Little runner bounced in the air castle, worked her way up the climbing wall near the playground, and hugged mascots.

We chatted with Ronald McDonald, who was “just walking the 5k today”, but is looking forward to the Rock the House race later in the summer. The Stampede Stage band played up beat tunes and I danced along to warm up. Dawn took a video of me and posted it on facebook later. The sun was shining, but it was still chilly out at 8 am.

I set some goals for myself as I recognized local athletes in the crowd. I wanted to beat Nessie, a woman about 20 years my senior, who’d beaten me the last time I did this race 4 years ago. I wanted to beat the two fast race walkers I’d seen training at the Oval this winter. I hoped I could still run it under 65 minutes. If everything fell apart I still wanted sub 7o minutes. If I made it in 62 minutes I’d be very very surprised.

I would use the same strategy I’ve always tried to use in 10ks:
– Easy in the first third. Nothing should hurt.
– Work harder in the second third. Start picking your targets ahead.
– Give’r in the last third. Reel ’em in one by one and kick the finish.

The race began with a gentle downhill – gotta love that. I found a nice sustainable cadence and strove to keep it going no matter what. The two race walkers surged around me in the first 4k, but I pulled away from them when we hit the potholey road near Shouldice. I knew they would be worthy competitors, and cheered them on as I met them shortly after turning back.

I ran the entire 10k, only stopping briefly for a sip of water to whet my whistle at the half way point. I wasn’t looking forward to the 8th and 9th kms, but I started reeling in people ahead of me dragged a couple of them along with some very limited conversation.

I felt good. I felt strong, and my stride cadence held. I turned up towards the finish (damn downhill start) and kicked into 400m repeat mode. A coach had jogged back to coach some marathon trainees just behind me and she had some great tips. They pulled ahead. I put her tips to work  – cool, I surged back in front!

I hit the finish line with a loud YEEEEHA! and stopped my clock at 1:03. I was thrilled to bits.

Little Runner was waiting for me at the finish chute, with a volunteer’s vest on. She shed her vest and led me to the food tent for ice cream, apples, granola bars and chips. There were hot dogs, too. I ate the apple first – it was the best apple I’ve ever tasted.

Our Start Line newbies were all smiles after their experience and we talked about next steps. We celebrated some more, helped take down some of the finish line (the Roadrunners provided race timing), and hung around to see if we won any door prizes. One of my former running buddies – one I credit for starting my blog – showed up for a hug. It was so nice to see her.

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Posted in Calgary, Road Races, Running, Running Friends

Posted by: Karen | May 24, 2009

0 for 2 on the Bike

Last weekend and this one my bike experience has been disappointingly flat. Or flatly disappointing, however you want to put it.

Last weekend the weather was finally warming up (yay!) and it was a long weekend here in Calgary (yay!) and I set out on my bike on Sunday morning. I rode up out of my neighbourhood and up up through Arbour Lake, one neighbourhood over. 15 minutes into the ride and at the top of the biggest climb, I noticed my front tire was flat.

I didn’t have any gear to change the tire, because I still hadn’t fixed the carrier under my seat. I didn’t own any cartridges or a portable hand pump to inflate it anyway. Hubby was working – no ride home available.

I commenced a slow jog home in my bike cleats. Even running down hills, running in my bike shoes is like running in reverse high heels. My calves screamed at me after only 500 meters, so I strapped the shoes to the handlebars and went barefoot most of the way back.

Oh yeah, I felt REAL smart, all dressed up in my bike clothes and helmet, running through Arbour Lake in bare feet next to my bike. Lucky for me, Arbour Lake is a very nice, clean neighbourhood with a nice big group of grassy soccer fields on my route home.

15 minutes uphill & out on the bike, 40 minutes downhill to home.

Fast forward to one week later:  This afternoon Little Runner’s neighbourhood buddies and their dad were heading down to Bowness Park on bikes, and could she ride along? Well, of course! Could I come?

There was the little matter of fixing my bike tire still (I like riding, hate maintenance). My neighbour helped me with replacing the tube, and we all headed waaaaaaay down Nose Hill Drive to the park.

We dipped our toes in cold, shallow river water and rode from playground to playground. We weren’t in that park for more than 45 minutes when I noticed my front tire was flat aGAIN! Sigh.

I called my husband to come get me and my bike. Little Runner rode back home with her buddies and their dad.

I have to figure out what is wrong with this wheel.

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Posted in Bike, Cross Training | Tags: ,

Posted by: Karen | May 12, 2009

Four Days in a Row

I almost forgot to tell you I rode my bike outside Sunday morning! It was a little chilly, so I wore my bright red mitts over my cycling gloves for most of the ride.

Finally, there is a route between my house and the edge of the city without road construction. Hooray! I still have to ride a stretch of Country Hills Boulevard on an overpass to cross Stoney Trail, but that’s about as close to a freeway as I got. I enjoyed pedaling on the gloriously smooth, clean and quiet  paved roads of Meadow and Aspen Drives. My only obstacles were one mangled hubcap and a couple of stubborn waterfowl.

I rode for a glorious 75 minutes. I could easily have rode longer, but my family had promised me blueberry pancakes at 10 a.m. and I didn’t want to be late. Can’t wait to do it again.

Today I ran with the Start Line group as it began to rain. The program said to bump up from 10 minutes of running at a time to 25 minutes straight. We modified it somewhat to run 12 minutes twice, with a one minute break in the middle. It didn’t rain really hard while we ran together, but as we made our way back to our offices it came down harder. To those who showed up and stuck it out, WAY TO GO! Hopefully you’ll have better weather Thursday.

This makes 4 days of exercise in a row for me – cool. Adding on one bike and one swim per week to my 3 runs/week  increased my weekly exercise session count by 2/3 without much trouble. I like it.

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Posted in Bike, Cross Training, Running | Tags: , , , , , , ,

Posted by: Karen | May 12, 2009

Swam Again

Last night I swam for the third Monday night in a row. Every week my breathing feels a little more natural in the pool.

Last night I concentrated on swimming for 10 – 15 minutes at a time between breaks. After a 10 minute warm up of breast stroke and some freestyle, I mostly swam freestyle the rest of the hour.

I alternated lengths of breathing to the right with breathing bilaterally. Occasionally I tried breathing to the left for a whole length. While I didn’t enjoy it much, I didn’t choke as much as I sometimes do when breathing on that side.

Liesbeth thinks I am swimming faster and better than I did last summer. She said my “dog paddle” is gone 🙂 I haven’t actually counted laps to find out my pace to prove her encouragement, but I do feel strong in the water for longer periods of time so far this spring. Next week I will count laps to get an idea of my pool pace.

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Posted in Cross Training, Swimming, Uncategorized | Tags: ,

Posted by: Karen | May 9, 2009

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!

Mom and Her Mom, June 2008

Mom and Her Mom, June 2008

You’re probably missing Grandma today. Know that we’re wishing you great memories and lots of love.  XOXOXOXO

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Posted in Uncategorized

Posted by: Karen | May 9, 2009

Weekend Run Done

This morning after toodling around online and chatting a long time on the phone, I donned running gear. Little Runner had been out riding her new bike in the crescent and asked where I would be running. Around home, I told her. “Can I come on my bike?” she immediately asked. Well, of course!

We dipsy-doodled all over our neighbourhood for about 45 minutes. Whenever we got to an intersection, whoever got there first got to decide whether we’d go right, left or straight. It was hard keeping up with her – she’s getting very comfortable on that bike. She actually went out of her way to go over bumps. I think she’s going to make a very good mountain biker.

We went through gravel alleys, on paved and dirt pathways, over hills, on streets and sidewalks, and found passages I hadn’t known about after almost 4 years of running here. We saw whole hillsides of wild crocuses. Some were fading to brown, but I saw some bright yellow buttercups, dandelions and buffalo beans budding out to keep the flower cheer going.

It was overcast out and we felt a few raindrops, but didn’t get wet.

Towards the end we stopped by the 7 11 and LR picked out a few gummies before we finished the last km to home.

I’m looking forward to a bike ride later this weekend.

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Posted in Running

Posted by: Karen | May 8, 2009

Active Week

Monday night I swam.

Tuesday at lunch Dawn and I ran with The Start Line group. We ran 5 minutes, walked 3, ran 8 minutes, walked 3, then ran for 5 minutes again. These were long stretches of running for some of the new runners – they’d only run up to 4 minutes in a row up until then. Nobody died, and I saw a lot of smiles at the end, especially when Dawn raced one of the faster ones for the last 30 seconds.

Wednesday night Little Runner and I went orienteering. We had a lot of fun, even though I told her this was serious business and that “Fun is not allowed” (ha, little inside joke of ours). When we first looked at the map it was like we’d forgotten every symbol we’d learned last year, but it came back as we hiked along.

“I’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends,
and so on, and so on, and so on…”

In a funny twist of events, a couple of acquaintances of mine actually tried orienteering too, in part because I had raved about it. I had no idea these two knew each other, and it was very funny when they saw each other at orienteering and mentioned that maybe their friend “Karen” would be here too. Huh, they wondered if it was the same person, it’s a very common name…  yup, it was me! Here’s a photo of the three of us. Go read Andra’s side of the story. Cool beans.

Calgary's big, but it's a small world

Calgary's big, but it's a small world

Thursday I actually managed to show up on time with the CRR 10k group at Edworthy. I was rewarded with friendly smiles and faster runners who looped back and waited for me at key points as we ran up and up past the Alberta Children’s Hospital and the U of C.

I celebrated making it UP the hill by joyfully bounding dow-ow-own past the Foothills Hospital. Wheeee! Nobody had to wait for me on the way down. Karin stayed and chatted with me through the hardest part, the last flat couple of km before we got back to the cars. I haven’t put in that much consistent effort for 5 miles in a long time. Thanks 10k’ers!

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Posted in Cross Training, Orienteering, Running, Running Friends | Tags: , , , , , ,

Posted by: Karen | May 4, 2009

Every time I start over…

… I get a little better at it, especially when the start-overs happen closer and closer together.

Swim:
Last week I got back in the pool to do some laps and this week I did it again. Last Monday I joined Liesbeth and swam for about 40 minutes, off and on. tonight I was in the pool for an hour, with a few breaks of up to 5 minutes each.

I estimate the swim portion of the triathlon I’d like to do this summer might take me over an hour, so I’m working up to that kind of swim stamina by August.

I’m starting to feel more comfortable doing the crawl than the breast stroke, which is a cool thing. Tonight I was able to do some laps breathing bilaterally, another cool thing.

Sunday mornings I’ve been taking Little Runner to the pool too. Little by little, she is relaxing and starting to trust her own buoyancy in the water.

Bike:
Yesterday I  changed the back tire on Stretch all by myself. Well, mostly. When I got stuck at one point I looked up a how-to on Youtube and then went and finished it. I got bike grease all over my hands and elbows (I don’t know how it got on my elbows – elbow grease?), but tonight’s swim took care of the stuff I couldn’t scrub off.

I haven’t actually ridden outside yet this year. Looking forward to that.

Run:
I have been running lately, although I’m feeling slow and heavy more than I’d like. I took way too much time off this winter in between XC races. Tuesdays at lunch I’ve been getting to know the Start Line group. It’s fun keeping them company and they are improving steadily every week. Thursdays I’m starting to show up in the vicinity of the 10k group. I say “in the vicinity”, because I’m having a hard time getting there by 6:30 and besides, I’m not keeping up with them very well. It keeps me humble, eh.

I haven’t been doing much weekend running. I should make a “no Youtube or social media until the weekend run is done” rule. That might help.

Knitting v.s. Twitting:
I’m still on the same stripey mitten I started knitting a couple of weekends ago, mostly because I recently signed on to twitter and have been finding tweeters to follow, like Mike Massimo and Canada Cool. Twittering is fun, but it doesn’t produce handmade gifts and I can’t wear the results in cold weather. I’ll finish the mittens eventually.

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Posted in Bike, Cross Training, Knitting, Running, Swimming, Triathlon

Posted by: Karen | May 2, 2009

Tri-Shopping

I started this afternoon off by going to Gord’s, my favourite running store, but they were swamped with customers and Gord was no where to be seen, so I didn’t buy shoes this time. I’ll go back again some other day.

I popped into Tri It, my favourite triathlon gear store, because I thought they might have bike tires for my little tri bike, but they didn’t. I did get an enthusiastic hug from Richelle Love. She is such a sweetheart! They didn’t have my shoes there either, but it was definitely worth popping in for the hug. I might have to try some Zoot shoes someday.

A few blocks down from Tri It, Little Runner and I got sucked into Lics Ice Cream shop and spent half an hour choosing and consuming ice cream. She had Cotton Candy flavour. I had Chocolate Brownie Meltdown. We ate outside in the sunshine.

We carried on westward to Bow Cycle, one of Calgary’s biggest cycling stores. Little Runner was in awe as we walked in and she saw two floors full of bikes and parts. “MOM! Look at all the BIKES!” She found herself a butterfly bike bell and wouldn’t part with it. I got a Canada flag one. Yes, the store had Kenda tires in my unusual bike’s size. No blue ones, but I can ride on black just as well. And bonus, it was on sale for $29 instead of $49!

Now I just have to install them.

Now I just have to install them.

Last weekend I bought a swim suit on sale. This weekend my bike tire was on sale. Somewhere, next weekend, my shoes will be on sale. Must find them.

Now I just have to figure out how to put the bike tire on my back rim. I told Hubby he could help me as long as he doesn’t touch anything. I want to learn how to do it myself.

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Posted in Bike, Triathlon

Posted by: Karen | April 13, 2009

Easter Run

My daughter’s new bike got me out the door yesterday. My ears and sinuses had been aching for a couple of days, and I was feeling lazy, but knew I needed to run.

On Saturday Hubby bought her a new mountain bike with money she’d saved from Nana’s gift last Christmas. She’s really enjoying riding it in the bumpy gravel back alley and in the crescent out front.

Yesterday afternoon I got dressed in running clothes, but just told myself I’d go out for a walk, and if running happened and I enjoyed it, that would be a bonus. I asked Little Runner along and suggested she bring her bike, and voila, running happened.

I ran more than I walked for more than 45 minutes and at one point we stopped to look at some wild crocuses up on a hill. We stopped to buy a jug of milk on the way home, which meant walking the last 1km, but it was a nice day for it.

My ears bothered me out on the run (I kept them covered with a buff), but within a couple of hours the ache went away. I guess they were just waiting for me to do something healthy.

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Posted in Life in General, Running | Tags: ,

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