All Downhill From Here

I am convinced that take-home science fair assignments for Grade 5 students are designed as torture sessions for parents. I back this up with the highly deficient set of instructions for constructing your own flashlight, sent home with my child. The instructions which state in the required materials, a homemade “battery pad (see page 8 )”. We did not receive page 8. The project is due Tuesday. I asked 3 days ago in Katie’s notebook to the teachers: Can we please have page 8? What is a battery pad?

No answer from the teachers, who initialled my note.

I/we made one anyway. The fiddliness of the lightbulb that won’t stay in place is driving me insane, but at least I have a picture that it did, at one point, work.

Now that my our homework is done, I can shower and go off to the Tech Shop to pick up my race package for tomorrow.

In case you have nothing else to do and happen to like cats, I started a new blog today.

Monday night I curled up in a hoodie, a fleece blanket and a lawn chair, and shivered while I watched my son referee a soccer game for his very first time. He did very well at not laughing at the U10 girls, and only had to call one handball. I felt totally wiped after that, and my ears ached from the chilly wind which had been whipping through my head.

I’ve been kind of tired this week, which is good in a way, because I’m kind of tapering for the Police Half this Sunday, and am able to rest. It’s not good in another way, because I feel like I’m fighting something, and I don’t want to be sick for the race! So I’m sucking on zinc/echinacea/C lozenges and hitting the sack early. Heck, I haven’t even stayed up to see the end of the Flames play-off games!

I did get in a solid, hilly run with Krista on Tuesday night. We ran east from Gord’s on 8th Avenue, down into Bridgeland and then up up up back out of it. We ran pretty much the whole incline up, and then towards the end did a block or so of fartlek-type speed. My legs didn’t hurt or anything, but I just felt tired and out of breath during the whole run. My tummy wasn’t really thrilled with me either, so I was glad we kept the run short, to under 40 minutes.

I should be out running tonight, too, but I’ll do that tomorrow, instead. I’m only at home right now because we haven’t been able to find Soccer Boy’s first game of the spring season. I’m hoping that the other team members were able to find the field, because we couldn’t!

The more I train, the smaller my hills become.

I’ve been making such a big deal about the hill on next weekend’s Police Half route, and it was starting to intimidate me. My memory of the hill bugged me so much that yesterday I drove down to see it. You know what? It’s not as bad as I remember. I don’t think it’s much worse than the Curling Club hill that I stuck in the middle of my recent 21k long run.

This picture shows the valley I’ll go through at the west end of the Glenmore Reservoir. See that bridge down there in the middle?

Here’s the view of the ridge on which I took the first picture, from that bridge.

The Police Half hill comes a little later in the course at the 16th kilometer, but I think I can confidently commit to running up the darn thing. I might take walk breaks before and after, but I’ll run up it. It will give me something to look forward to/dread during the first 3/4 of the race, and be a conquest to savour as I cover the last, less scenic 5 km.

Before I get busy and forget, today is my wonderful Husband’s birthday, and we’re going 10-pin bowling later to celebrate. I’m cooking him up a roast beef with yorkshire pudding and spuds, and making chocolate mousse for dessert. I think I’ll use this recipe, it looks interesting.

Earlier this week the weather was summery, but this morning I faced flurries as I headed out the door. I had planned to meet Sylvie for a nice short run this morning downtown at 8 a.m., and I’m not one to let a little fluffy moisture stop me. Since we would be running for less than an hour (easy peasy!) I didn’t even bother with breakfast or anti-chafing measures. I just bandaged my bubblefoot and away I went. According to Sylvie’s pedometer we went somewhere between 7 and 8 km and according to my watch I ran for 55 minutes.

We had a great chat while we ran, yet I don’t feel like we were going slowly. We talked about family, work, consistency in running, bla bla bla. It was kind of wet out down by the river, but not unbearable by any means. My glasses got all wet, because even though I wore a hat, the wind blew snowflakes onto my face. You can’t even see the snow much in this snap I took of the Curling Club Stairs (which I did not travel today).

Later when I was driving home, the weather got much wetter the further north and west I went. The snow was beginning to accumulate.

Here is a photo of our neighbour’s Calgary Flames tribute. It was lit up last night in honour of the first playoff game. Go Flames Go!

I made it home just as Hubby and Son were emerging from bed (Little Mermaid was up before I left).

I got a silly blister last Friday on my long run. It’s right at the top of the inside of my arch on my right foot. Since I run about every other day, the bubble flattens out on the days I don’t run and by time I’m ready to run again it looks like it’s all healed up. It’s not, because it bubbles back up again when I run. Last night I put a bandage on it, even though it looked FINE, and lo and behold, it bubbled up again anyway. At least it didn’t bubble up as much as when I don’t bandage it. I’m not popping it – it isn’t infected or painful. It has lots of time to heal before my next long run (the Police Half is in 9 sleeps, people!).

Last night I donned my Calgary Roadrunner shorts under a Catch the Elves cotton t-shirt and headed out to my 2-minute hill, which is about a mile away. It was kind of warm for cotton, about 20C/68F, but I know that if I do some sweating in the sunshine now, I’ll do better later on when it gets warmer.

I ran my hill 6 times and experimented with different efforts/speeds. I ascended the first 3 times with a fairly hard effort on the sidewalk, arms a-pumping, careful attention to which muscles I was using to propel myself. I felt my breath becoming more laboured towards the top each time. I descended the hill as fast as I could on the grass beside the sidewalk as much as possible to minimize impact, and also to keep my trail training up (no looking away from the course!). On the fourth ascent I ran up on the grass too, because the more I think about trails, the more I like ’em.

I did the 5th and 6th ascents on the sidewalk again, because the Police Half hill is paved, and I felt I needed to work on hard-surface ascent form. I did the 6th one painstakingly slowly, not because I was tired (I was, but I could have gone faster), but because I anticipate going pretty darn slowly up the Weaselhead hill on April 30th, and I wondered if I could run up slowly without stopping. Hills are all about mind games, eh?

Do I want to run all the way up the big hill in my Half without walking? Should I? Will running up the hill mess me up for the rest of my race/marathon training? I don’t know if it’s a reasonable goal to set for this race or not. Maybe I should go visit the hill this weekend and think about it some more.

I made it back in under 52 minutes, just in time to watch Survivor: Exile Island. It was kind of a sad show, with Bruce having to be taken out for medical reasons, but it sets the stage for an awesome power struggle next week. Will Shane and Courtney develop a bitter bond over their experience with Bruce, and being rejected by Cirie? Will they EVER vote Shane off? Will Terry make it to the final 4? 3? 2? Maybe Shane will win the car in the final five reward challenge and be cursed by it…

Definitely go visit the Blogfather for more details on the Running Skirt Challenge! What a hoot!

I’ve been kind of hoping I could get Aaron and Markto run the Camrose-Wetaskiwin relay with me (maybe even with one of them in a skirt), but Aaron’s triathlon is that day, and Mark’s already committed to being there with him. It has also come to attention that my buddy and coach Dianne is also competing in her first triathlon of the season that day, in a town on my way home from up north.

Since I’m up in the area that weekend and still need to get in a 20 km run, I’m torn as to what to do:
a) Keep looking for relay racers to join me in running the relay on Sunday
b) Run Saturday and cheer Aaron on Sunday (I’ve never met Aaron – that would be neat)
d) Run nearby short loops while cheering on Aaron (multitasking; timing could be tricky)
c) Run Saturday and cheer Dianne on Sunday (no running nearby there, the kids would be with me then)
d) Oh for Pete’s sake, just run where/when I can, go to the wedding, visit with Mom, and come home.

ORN: Last night Krista and I got out for a run along the river towards the zoo. I was feeling absolutely amazing, but Krista got a persistent stitch towards the turnaround and we took it a little slower.

If we had been west of Centre street I might have done some 60/60s and looped back, but the park near the zoo and the pathway past the “Homeless Hilton” (east of Centre) where we were was not a place where women should be running alone. It was a lovely, sunny evening at about 10C/50F, so there were lots of folks out and about. Krista’s stitch went away when she walked and hurt when she ran, yet she still managed to bravely keep running when we went past groups of interesting characters.

Once we got back to Centre Street I ran all the way up it and Krista wasn’t far behind. It was actually a good thing that we hadn’t pushed the workout so much, as my recurring arch blister (which always seems healed? but apparently isn’t) came back yet again. I’ll be bandaging it for my Thursday run, I guess.

12 Days until the Police Half!

I’ve always thought runners are just a little bit crazy. When I became a runner and then a running blogger, all of my suspicions were confirmed. But now, NOW I know that there is a special brand of crazy in our Running Blog Family. As if that wasn’t daring enough, check out how daring Dawn is, in response. Careful, people, the edge is very, very near!

Mark, I gotta respect the lengths to which you might go just to see more skirts. Everybody else, go over and support Mark’s generous fundraising event!

Early this morning Hubby was in the shower, and I was trying to catch a few more winks by having Little Runner snuggle in with me. Nothing doing – she knew there was chocolate to be had and squirmed too much. I told her to calm down, to relax. She joyfully insisted “I AM RELAXED!” and the egg hunt was on.

Maybe it was that pint of strawberries I had for supper last night, or it could have been the two cups of coffee I had with stolen shards of Kindersurprise and a hot cross bun this morning. Who knows, but by noon today I was most definitely ready to run! I did a couple of 5k loops around the neighbourhood in shorts and a long sleeved t-shirt. At 10C/50F it was borderline shorts/leggings weather, but I decided the sunshine justified the shorts. There was a chilly breeze that made me wonder at first if I should’ve gone for the leggings, but once I warmed up I was fine.

The blister on the inside of my right instep seemed pretty much gone when I took away the bandaid this morning, so I left uncovered for the run. Halfway into the second loop I realized that it wasn’t fine, and stuck on a bandaid I’d stashed in the key pocket of my shorts. Lovely. Now I have two nickel-sized blisters together. They don’t hurt. I hardly feel them, except for a tightness of skin. If they don’t become red or painful I’ll probably leave them as they are.

We went to the in-laws for lamb and that salad I made yesterday turned out pretty good. I came home with an extra slice of poppy seed cake. Good thing I got in my run today!