All Downhill From Here

… I ran in circles and had some birthday cake.

Last night some of us Penguins showed up to run with the Calgary Roadrunners on the indoor track at the Olympic Oval again. It was actually pretty nice outside, but we’re trying out this speedwork thing, so we stayed in for our structured workout. It was Dawn’s birthday yesterday, and I got there just in time to give her a little present and a hug before it was time to start.

Linda and I did the 4 lap warm up together at a fair clip. It seemed like we were going a little faster than a normal warm-up, but we were still talking, so it couldn’t have been that fast.

Linda and Sylvie did 800m repeats, and Dawn and I did 600m ones. The goal was mostly to keep the time of effort to between 3 and 4 minutes, 5 times in a row, and I know I don’t do 800 m repeats in under 4 minutes. I managed to keep my times to within 10 seconds of each other, but in the last 200m of each repeat it was quite an effort to keep the pace steady.

Every now and then between the repeats I would be greeted by other Roadrunners, and in turn I let them all know to say “Happy Birthday” to Dawn if they saw her. I love it when Dawn’s birthdays coincide with our running days!

I did one lap of cool down with Dawn and then three more on my own. Dawn carried on a tradition we learned from running with Gord’s Store, of bringing along cake for everyone to celebrate. She had found some darling little packaged heart shaped cakes. One of the Roadrunners “caught” me eating one and jokingly scolded me that I should have brought enough for everyone. We had quite the laugh when Dawn explained to him that yes, she HAD brought enough for everyone, and what flavour would he prefer!

Frostbite Falls 67.8 km so far, and only one week left to get there. Where’s that short-cut Dawn’s talking about?

Attack #1:
Remember back at the beginning of the month, when B & N made me sick and delayed my start towards Frostbite Falls? Well, they left a time bomb behind.

Unbeknownst to me, as I struggled to recover from my cold, set myself back on the indoor, rubberized track and hilly course to FBF, the little time bomb ticked away. Tick tick tick…

Last week on our local Penguin e-mail list, we planned out a weekend group run. I don’t usually get to run with the girls on weekends when Hubby works (like this one), but this time he wasn’t scheduled to work until 11:45, so I could still go run and be back to be with the kiddos before he had to leave.

Sylvie, Linda, Krista and I committed to showing up at 8 o’clock downtown Saturday morning to run 10 km along the river. Linda and I even agreed to car-pool. I awoke at 6 a.m. Saturday, dressed in cold weather running clothes, breakfasted and was just checking over my running belt contents when the phone rang. It was Hubby’s boss, wondering why he wasn’t opening the store.

Oh no.

(can you hear the deafeningly silent explosion as the time bomb went off?)

MY calendar says he works late. And I transcribed it with my own hand from the computer chart way back at the beginning of the month . . . when I was congested totally out of my mind. I had transcribed it wrong. I quickly headed sleepyhead Hubby to the shower, called Linda to tell her I couldn’t come after all, and made Hubby coffee and lunch. Sigh.

I didn’t let the time bomb hold me back, though. Sure I couldn’t go running with the girls, but once the kiddos were up and happily amused in front of their “electronic babysitters”? I went out in the sunshine for my 10 km anyway. They didn’t kill each other while I was out, and I got 10 km closer to FBF, so there.

It wasn’t a pretty run, as I couldn’t find a happy rhythm, and the hills in my neighbourhood didn’t help either. I wore my Yaktrax, which I needed about half the time, due to unshovelled walks and the snow that fell Friday night. It took me a whopping 80 frustrating minutes to get the distance in, but I was happy I’d foiled the villains.

Attack #2:
Dawn and I had planned to go to the Calgary Roadrunner’s Beer n’ Pizza night. Little Runner was going to go and play with Dawn’s granddaughter for the evening (since Hubby was working late), and I was going to treat Soccer Boy to a short run and pizza (yes, folks that’s 2 runs in 1 day, but there was pizza involved, see?).

Cutie-pie Dawn’s granddaughter came down with pink-eye (a Boris and Natasha casualty – they stoop so low!), and I decided that Little Runner already had enough complications in her life to add that to the list, so LR got to come along to BnP anyway. Thanks to Dianne, super-coach and friend, however, Soccer Boy and I still got in 3 decent kilometres while she hied Little Runner out with her younger boys to scale hills, gaze at stars, and make snow angels. The run was gentle and good, the pizza was delicious and the beer was juuust right.

Take THAT, Boris and Natasha, I’m on my way to Frostbite Falls anyway. 59.7 km down, 46.3 to go!

Attack #1:
Remember back at the beginning of the month, when B & N made me sick and delayed my start towards Frostbite Falls? Well, they left a time bomb behind.

Unbeknownst to me, as I struggled to recover from my cold, set myself back on the indoor, rubberized track and hilly course to FBF, the little time bomb ticked away. Tick tick tick…

Last week on our local Penguin e-mail list, we planned out a weekend group run. I don’t usually get to run with the girls on weekends when Hubby works (like this one), but this time he wasn’t scheduled to work until 11:45, so I could still go run and be back to be with the kiddos before he had to leave.

Sylvie, Linda, Krista and I committed to showing up at 8 o’clock downtown Saturday morning to run 10 km along the river. Linda and I even agreed to car-pool. I awoke at 6 a.m. Saturday, dressed in cold weather running clothes, breakfasted and was just checking over my running belt contents when the phone rang. It was Hubby’s boss, wondering why he wasn’t opening the store.

Oh no.

(can you hear the deafeningly silent explosion as the time bomb went off?)

MY calendar says he works late. And I transcribed it with my own hand from the computer chart way back at the beginning of the month . . . when I was congested totally out of my mind. I had transcribed it wrong. I quickly headed sleepyhead Hubby to the shower, called Linda to tell her I couldn’t come after all, and made Hubby coffee and lunch. Sigh.

I didn’t let the time bomb hold me back, though. Sure I couldn’t go running with the girls, but once the kiddos were up and happily amused in front of their “electronic babysitters”? I went out in the sunshine for my 10 km anyway. They didn’t kill each other while I was out, and I got 10 km closer to FBF, so there.

It wasn’t a pretty run, as I couldn’t find a happy rhythm, and the hills in my neighbourhood didn’t help either. I wore my Yaktrax, which I needed about half the time, due to unshovelled walks and the snow that fell Friday night. It took me a whopping 80 frustrating minutes to get the distance in, but I was happy I’d foiled the villains.

Attack #2:
Dawn and I had planned to go to the Calgary Roadrunner’s Beer n’ Pizza night. Little Runner was going to go and play with Dawn’s granddaughter for the evening (since Hubby was working late), and I was going to treat Soccer Boy to a short run and pizza (yes, folks that’s 2 runs in 1 day, but there was pizza involved, see?).

Cutie-pie Dawn’s granddaughter came down with pink-eye (a Boris and Natasha casualty – they stoop so low!), and I decided that Little Runner already had enough complications in her life to add that to the list, so LR got to come along to BnP anyway. Thanks to Dianne, super-coach and friend, however, Soccer Boy and I still got in 3 decent kilometres while she hied Little Runner out with her younger boys to scale hills, gaze at stars, and make snow angels. The run was gentle and good, the pizza was delicious and the beer was juuust right.

Take THAT, Boris and Natasha, I’m on my way to Frostbite Falls anyway. 59.7 km down, 46.3 to go!

I was so tired after supper last night, and even though I LIKE running, it was hard to leave the warm coccoon of my cozy couch and quilt. My marathon isn’t until JULY, right? Hubby called from the home improvement store where he was out picking up something and asked if there was anything else I’d like him to pick up. I asked him if they had any runs in stock.

“Honey, can you buy me a run? It should be about 50 minutes to an hour long, and have, oh, about six 2-minute hills in it. I think they had them on sale, somewhere over in the seasonal section.”

Hah. They must have been sold out. I had my running clothes on when he got home, and he booted me out the door with a “You’ll enjoy it once you’re out there – just like you always do.”

He was right. I wasn’t even half-way to my hill when I felt this huge grin spread across my face. I couldn’t control it, it just stretched out from ear to ear. It felt wonderful.

Otherwise, this week’s hill session was pretty much like last week’s; just subtract 3 Celsius degrees, add on about 15 seconds per hill, and one extra one. I was slower this week, but then I did six hills, as we don’t have a XC coming up on the weekend. I was worried that there might be ice on the hill this week from the snow we had last weekend, but the hill where I run is in front of several apartments and townhomes, the sidewalks of which are very well cleaned (no excuses).

On the way home I hummed a little ditty about an ant and a rubber tree plant. It felt good to have knocked over another one. After the run I curled back up the couch with the quilt and turned on the 3rd period of the Flames/Canadiens hockey game. I was still freezing after 5 minutes, so ran a warm tub, turned up the game and listened to the Flames win from my nice warm bath. Ah, this is the life…

FBF mileage: 46.7km so far. 59.3 to go – I might have to find a short-cut!