All Downhill From Here

Jeff’s not the only one who raves on and on about the track, I’ve decided like track workouts way better than running hills. Tonight I showed up with the Calgary Roadrunners and we did a workout similar to the first one we did in January, called 1200m Down. That first time I was just recovering from a cold, so I took it easy. This time I did almost all but the 1200m distance, so I guess you could call my workout tonight “1000 Down”.

Here’s my numbers, for anyone who cares:
1000m – 5:26 (Glad that’s done. I didn’t lose sight of Sylvie this time)
2 minute rest
800m – 4:02 (Respectable 800 time for me)
It took me 3 minutes to drink and walk to the 600m mark.
600m – 3:0something (Dang it, can’t remember how to recall the splits on my watch.)
2 minute rest
400m – 1:54 (Woohoo! Not bad after those first 3 distances)
Another 3 minutes to get to the 200m mark
200m – 55 seconds (Is this fun or what!)
2 minute break, as we located the 100m marker
100m – 22 seconds (Wheeeeeeeeee!)

Between the warm-up and cool-down it took us 30 minutes of speed work. It was FUN running harder and harder, knowing that I only needed to do it for shorter and shorter distances. My legs really didn’t want to do the cool-down. They’d been so excited about pumping all that adrenaline to do the fast stuff, that running slow just wasn’t fun anymore. My brain told my legs to shut up and run so they did it anyway.

On a totally different note, and as reward for making it this far in my track-raving, I encourage you to go visit Check Point Zero and read about one of my favourite Roadrunners, Mike Melnick and the Alberta Adventure Racing Team, who just scooped second in the Patagonia Expedition Race. Way to go, Mike!

Yesterday was Family Day in Alberta, a holiday. Hubby works in retail and is short staffed at the moment, so had to work anyway. I took the kiddos to one of my favourite places lately, the Olympic Oval. In celebration of Family Day, admission was a food bank donation (how did those boxes of macaroni and cheese get in our bag?) and there was a big fair going on.

There were exhibits and games for the kids to play, but first, we put on our skates. I liked it that the skate tying area had a clear view of the women’s Gold Medal Olympic hockey game playing on a big screen. The score was 2-0 for Canada as we tied up our skates, just in time to wait for the Zambonis to go by. Oh good, I got to watch more of the game, and Little Runner was amused by the ice cleaners.

There was a mascot race, and even a demonstration of real speedskaters doing their thing. Little Runner went around the whole ice track once, pretty fast for her, with a little metal frame that helps hold new skaters up. The second time around she handed it off to someone else who looked like they needed it, and she made her way around on her own. It took a looooong time, but with a lot of hugs and encouragement, she did it with only one fall towards the end. Soccer Boy skates much better, and he enjoyed lapping us several times, checking in with me when he wanted to.

The score was 4-0 by the time the kids decided we needed pizza. The eating area was also very conveniently set up to watch the game, and we watched the entire 3rd period from there. Nothing like a well-timed lunch.

As the last few minutes of the game played out, the journalists moved in. Cameras were focused on our crowd, and we cheered on our girls. The Swedes put up a good fight, but they just were no match for our team. We counted down the last 10 seconds with gusto, and hooted and hollered as the team jumped for joy when they won. I even talked to a reporter for the Calgary Herald, who wanted to know what I thought about our hockey team being a role model for Little Runner. I was not very articulate at all, being still very excited, and at the same time seeing Little Runner skip off through the crowd back to the ice. I needed to not lose her in the crowd, so I kept it short.

After all that excitement we moved on to the other exhibits/games. Little Runner enjoyed putting on skis and shooting a suction cup dart at some frisbee targets, to simulate biathlon. She was inspired by the hockey team and waited a looooong time in line to practice her slapshot.

The University’s Science department had set up a fun mind game where you wear electrodes on your head and try to empty your mind of all thought to get a little ball on the table to move to your opponent’s side. I won the first match with Soccer Boy. Not sure I should brag about that! I guess when a mom like me decides she needs to relax, she can do it fast, anywhere, anytime. Soccer Boy actually enjoyed the game so much he stayed behind and took on challengers afterwards. Not sure I should brag about that, either!

I’ll be back at the Oval again tonight for a nice, quiet track workout with the Roadrunners.

I never did get my long run in. Hubby worked on Saturday and I did stuff around the house and took Little Runner grocery shopping. I had hoped to run after Hubby got off his early shift, but had developed a nasty headache by then, and opted for a nap instead.

Sunday we drove out to the mountains for a couple of hours of snowshoeing and it was beautiful out. It was a little colder this time than last time, but there was more snow. The deep snow was well packed and it was sugary on top, so it was great for bushwacking. We didn’t find a log to sit on for our snack break, so I laid back in the snow, put up my feet, and enjoyed the view.

We meandered through the trees quite a bit at first and only followed beside the groomed cross country ski trails on the way back in.

We met up with a couple who were snowshoeing ON the groomed ski tracks and tried to tell them how they were ruining the tracks for the skiers. How do you say that nicely? “Good afternoon! Isn’t the sunshine wonderful today? Do you know you’re wrecking the ski trails? and giving us snowshoers a bad name? Well, have a lovely day!” They stayed on the ski trail and continued to ruin it. Please, if you go snowshoeing? Stay off the ski trails.

Wow! My February Challenge stalk-ee won GOLD today! I can’t wait to see it on T.V. tonight. Congratulations as well to Jeff Pain who got Silver, Paul Boehm who got 4th, and Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards, who won Bronze in the women’s Skeleton race yesterday.

Duff also announced his retirement from the Skeleton, after breaking the world record for being the oldest winter games individual gold medal winner in history. He wanted to go out on top, and you just don’t get any topper than that, eh.

Hey, if he’s not training for Skeleton anymore, maybe we can get him to come out to a cross country race or two, hm?

Last night I took Little Runner to the Olympic Oval for me to do laps and stairs and for her to hang out. I remember being a “rink rat” when my dad and brothers used to play hockey and maybe hanging out at the Oval will make some interesting childhood memories for my daughter, too. I got there a little early, to install her in the bleachers with some toys and snacks, and lo and behold, other children her age were there, too. She had lots of fun playing with a couple of girls and high-fiving runners over the railings as they went by.

There weren’t many runners out last night, which I thought was kind of odd. The only other Roadrunner I recognized was Ed Bickley, and he’s never been more than merely polite towards me. He was obviously there to train with some fast runners. I did remember later that the Roadrunners’ club night at the Key West restaurant was tonight, but shook my head. No way would I have gone to run outside in -20sC over being able to run inside. I also figured that maybe some folks just didn’t want to go outside long enough to even come to the Oval. Oh well, I know how to train on my own.

I started my 4 lap warm up, high-fiving Little Runner after each lap, and then proceeded to do 5 sets of stairs. On the second time I barely had the presence of mind to count them. Counting only the stairs I went UP, I did 215 per set. These were not 215 stairs in a row, thankfully. These stairs were in the cement bleachers, and started out in small groups of 5 and at the highest parts in the middle rose to 22 in a row. I got to share the stairs with a ski conditioning group, who were doing them sideways, hopping on two feet and going up backwards at various times, so that made it interesting. Sometimes I just went around some slower ones, stepping up 2 at a time using the bleacher seats beside them.

Little Runner thought it was very fun that I was going up and down the stairs, and joined me like a little puppy in her section, clapping and cheering me on. It was quite cute when I had to shoo her back to her seat to start another set on the other side.

By 7:45 I’d finished my 5th set and after a long drink at the water fountain and some tending to Little Runner, I did a 4 lap cool down. By now the little girls were running back and forth on the open track stretch near the lockers. They were doing some follow the leader stuff and having a ball.

After I stretched, we both bundled up and headed home. It was so cold out that two cars were blaring their car alarms, making the parking lot very noisy.

I bet my firefighter and Olympic Skeleton Racer, Duff Gibson does stairs. I bet he even does them when it’s -20 somthing outside. Duff’s buddy Jeff Pain thinks the Canadian men are going to sweep the Skelton podium today in Turin. Now wouldn’t that be cool! Go Duff, Jeff & Paul!

A couple my friends have been tossing around comments on how much they like or absolutely detest macaroni and cheese, and how healthy or unhealthy it might be for our kids to eat it frequently. This lead to some research, where my friend Carlene found this article about a herculean athlete, who regularly consumes the food in question.

If you have a minute, go and read it. It will help the rest of my post make much more sense.

I’ll wait.

Did you get the same vibe from the description of this pasta and dairy junkie that I did?

As admirable as Austrian Alpine skier Hermann Maier sounds in the first couple of paragraphs, where he heroically recovers from a crushed leg, trains smartly and diligently and then goes on to win World Cups and Olympic medals, I don’t think we should look to him as a good reason to feed our kids macaroni and cheese on a frequent basis.

This man, who regularly demands mac n’ cheese after a hard day’s work out is an anti-social training machine who scares children and repeatedly subscribes to risky behaviour. He has no life aside from Mr. Bean episodes and Stallone-type movies. Doesn’t go out to dinner, listen to music, read books or even ski for fun with his girlfriend. Not only that, he refuses to marry someone who seems to be a wonderful, supportive woman with the patience of a kindergarten teacher.

He did, however, have the presence of mind to literally lift a finger to reassure his mom (who no doubt covered her eyes when he crashed spectacularly down a mountain while on international t.v.) that he’s “fine”.

This is not someone I need to shadow for my February Challenge. I wonder how different macaroni and cheese is in Austria than it is here in North America? Does he eat hot dogs or ketchup with it?

Oh wait, I did a little more hunting on our buddy Hermann – apparently in this more recent bio he has developed some hobbies after all – apparently he goes shark diving, and he has adopted an 8000 pound rhinocerous.

That’s it. I need to make a donation to the food bank. Pronto.

Well, some snow finally found us. The temps dropped Tuesday night, the wind howled mightily and blew us a few drifty kisses. Normally I pride myself on getting out in miserable winter weather just so I can write about it here and shame everyone else in warmer climes out of weather-whines, but tonight? I’m heading to the Oval to run stairs indoors. I can, so I will.

I will meet up with some of my fireflies and we’ll do some stairs together. 🙂

I roasted up a chicken last Sunday afternoon, made a tiara with Little Runner, baked some heart-shaped sugar cookies, and made sure everyone felt very loved in advance, so hopefully they wouldn’t mind me going out to run last night. Sunday I also went out shopping for a few favourite Valentine goodies, and very generously saved my husband the trouble of buying stuff for me, by buying it for myself.

“By the way, Honey, you got me some of my favourite bath stuff (it was on sale), some chocolate marshmallow hearts, and some Bernard Callebaut creams. You’re a real sweetie, you know that?” He laughed when I told him.

So yesterday after work I started 4 loaves of bread, stuck tuna casserole in the oven, put on my running clothes, did all the dishes, shaped the bread for a second rising, ate supper with the kids, gave bread-baking instructions to Soccer Boy, and headed out the door a few minutes before Hubby got home.

About maybe a third of our usual Roadrunner’s group was at the Oval, probably due to the missing members’ loved ones needing their undivided attention. Tanya and a couple of new girls were there from last week though, and we all warmed up together before doing 18 minutes of 30:30s. Tanya didn’t have her watch with her, so she bravely stuck with me. Last time Tanya and I did 30:30s together, I lost her after about 5 or 6 minutes. This time I knew she’d do better, and she lasted 13 minutes before deciding to walk and catch her breath. More than a 100% improvement. Go Tanya! She will be leaving me in the dust by next month.

We did not have the breath to talk during the 30:30s, but enjoyed a very pleasant chat during our 4 lap cooldown and post-run stretching. As we left for our cars I pointed out the lighted Olympic torch to Tanya (she’s new to Calgary). It is only lighted on special occasions (like during Olympics), and it was a cool reminder to us that we had been training at a former Olympic venue.

When I got home, Hubby greeted me with a beautiful card that had a spoon tucked into it. He then presented me with a yummy tub of triple chocolate Haagen-Daz ice cream. Oh, he knows how to make me smile. After a nice, warm bubble bath, I caught up on the day’s Olympic highlights while lightening the tub of H-D.

Ha. For once I’m pinker than Dawn is. All of the below is pretty much true, but for the record? My lucky first date with my husband started out as a game of co-ed football. I’ve been falling for him ever since…

Your Heart Is Pink

In relationships, you like to play innocent – even though you aren’t. Each time you fall in love, it’s like falling for the first time. Your flirting style: Coy Your lucky first date: Picnic in the park Your dream lover: Is both caring and dominant What you bring to relationships: Romance