All Downhill From Here

Krista, Yolanda, Karen, Linda, Dawn, Janna, Tim.

Oh look! Let’s get Sylvie and Dianne in there, too.

… I just forgot to post that I did. It was a quick half hour around the neighbourhood, between supper and Survivor. I probably could have gotten out for a run last night too, but Hubby looked exhausted so I took Soccer Boy to practice instead.

Today I’m helping Hubby clean out the basement. WAY too many unpacked boxes down there…

I got out to run with Krista and Yolanda last night. The designated route was a really boring and flat one out to Tom Campbell’s Hill, but we jazzed it up with some hills along the escarpment on the way back. Thankfully there was nice, paved path through one park where there wasn’t much light. At least we didn’t have to worry about our footing. The rest of the time we ran down and up streets with some BIG hills. The run took us a bit longer than the flat way would have, but it was good training for the next XC race coming up this Sunday.

Our next Cross Country race is a 3 x 4 km relay, and is always a blast. Our Penguin group should be able to field 3 teams this year, and the weather is looking pretty good. Last year we ran on a couple of inches of snow, and the course was changed to have us run over a bridge instead of through the creek.

Hopefully the race will be warm enough to include this:

instead of this:

I hope to do some splashing again, and then run under the clock like this:

Yay!

Yes, I’m very warped. I WANT to run up and down hills, splash with both feet through a muddy, deeper than ankle deep creek and get my feet all squishy for the finishing sprint. XC has totally warped my sense of fun. And I LIKE it 🙂

I got out to run with Krista and Yolanda last night. The designated route was a really boring and flat one out to Tom Campbell’s Hill, but we jazzed it up with some hills along the escarpment on the way back. Thankfully there was nice, paved path through one park where there wasn’t much light. At least we didn’t have to worry about our footing. The rest of the time we ran down and up streets with some BIG hills. The run took us a bit longer than the flat way would have, but it was good training for the next XC race coming up this Sunday.

Our next Cross Country race is a 3 x 4 km relay, and is always a blast. Our Penguin group should be able to field 3 teams this year, and the weather is looking pretty good. Last year we ran on a couple of inches of snow, and the course was changed to have us run over a bridge instead of through the creek.

Hopefully the race will be warm enough to include this:

instead of this:

I hope to do some splashing again, and then run under the clock like this:

Yay!

Yes, I’m very warped. I WANT to run up and down hills, splash with both feet through a muddy, deeper than ankle deep creek and get my feet all squishy for the finishing sprint. XC has totally warped my sense of fun. And I LIKE it 🙂

Lucky me, have an extra day off work today. I was 3-hours away to the North visiting family for my parent’s 25th wedding anniversary (Mom’s 2nd marriage) and Thanksgiving, so am now enjoying catching up on a lot of recent posts.

I did a couple of loops yesterday afternoon, after returning home from Mom’s. The weather was JUST RIGHT – 18C/64F and partially cloudy with a teeny breeze.

I managed to get in 15 km in just short of 2 hours. I was doing that distance faster last summer, but yesterday’s route involved more hills than the usual. I’m going to have to get the bike odometer battery changed and check out how far that route really is. I don’t trust the satellite maps when hills are involved. Maybe the hills just slow me down – whatever.

I had a hard time putting my left foot down properly – it seemed to want to slam down too hard and too far back on the foot. Later in the cool tub I noticed my left arch was stiffer than the right. Last year I worked on strengthening and stretching the right arch to alleviate the PF in that foot – I guess now I need to work on the left side too. There is always something to tweak in one’s form, isn’t there?

I enjoyed most of the run. Ran 10 minutes, walked 1, and sometimes the walk breaks stretched to 2 or 3 minutes. Took a Chocolate Powergel (love ’em) at 1:05 and stopped at home for a 4 minute bathroom break (stopped the watch for this) and a cookie at 1:30.

Shooping through crunchy leaves gave me smiles at low points.

It’s pretty amazing the things we never thought we’d do before we became athletes! Bari posted to our Penguin Athletes list on this topic and I couldn’t resist posting my thoughts in response.

I never thought I’d enthusiastically pay more for a new pair of running shoes every 6-8 months than anything else in my wardrobe.

I never thought I’d be fitter than my husband.

I never thought I’d PAY to run in conditions I wouldn’t voluntarily go for a hike in (see some of my extreme-weather race reports from recent winters). I also never would have believed that I’d MISS those crazy XC races in between seasons.

I never thought I would look forward to being able to run for more than ONE hour, much less 2 or 3 or 5…

I never thought I would discuss such intimate personal details about my body (digestive, toenail, chafing related, for examples) with anyone other than my immediate family or doctor.

I’ve always enjoyed reading about personal experiences and writing letters and such, but I really never would have conceived that running slowly would give me such inspiration to write and read even more.

I never thought I’d have so much fun with so many friends in so many places around the world, without even physically going there.

One of the things I’m thankful for is my running, and all the richness and great people it’s brought into my life. What did YOU never think you’d be doing, before you began your quest for fitness?

The problem with making home made bread on a regular basis is that nothing else will do. Brit makes her own bread, too, and I’m sure she understands.

Thursday right after work I started two batches of bread. I put them in the oven just before going on my run later, and Soccer Boy pulled them out when the timer went. He also mixed up a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough (my FAVOURITE) and I baked them up during the commercials as I watched Survivor.

I will have my love handles forever, or as long as my mixer works. If I didn’t run I would be a total blob!

ORN: Around the 5.2ish route in the dark. Shooped through tons of leaves. The muscles never really warmed up, and complained lazily through the whole thing. I think they were still miffed at all the work I put them through at the XC race last weekend.

Anyhoo, it’s Thanksgiving weekend here. We’re off to visit relatives and celebrate a big anniversary. Time to pack and get outta town. I WILL get in a run or two, in between turkey dinners.

Jeremy is doing the Carnival of Runners this week and graciously mentioned Dawn and me. How nice! He groups us in a paragraph with Brent and Ellie, who just completed a marathon and an Ironman triathlon, respectively. We’re not worthy! 🙂

Welcome to blogland, Jeremy. And congratulations to Brent and Ellie!

Obligatory Running Note:
I had a nice run with the Gord’s group last night. We all chose the short option, as some of us were recovering and others are still returning from a hiatus. Towards the end my legs were getting tired, but somehow I wanted to go faster, instead of slower. I thought maybe going faster would be showing off so I held back a bit and we all finished pretty much together.

I promised pictures in my race report. Dawn has some fantastic shots of the race on her blog, and Kathy Taerum took some very good photos of racers, which are now up on the Calgary Roadrunners photo album.

In the first Calgary Roadrunners photo you can just barely see my pink hat towards the back of the crowd, which, according to the results, is about where I stayed the rest of the race. I’m not in any more of the photos posted this time, but if you go look, you’ll see a) some great shots of the varied terrain on the course, and b) I am not the only crazy nut that really enjoyed this race. Those sticks bridging one of the streams that the skinny-fasts are skipping over were VERY slippery.

I handed my son the camera a photo at the beginning of the race, and he got this shot of me just as the 8k racers started. I’m in the pink hat and shorts, and there really are folks behind me, just not in this shot 🙂

Before the race I was chatting with Philippa, a friend from the Gord’s Store running group (Gord’s donated copious amounts of door prizes to this race ). She shattered her ankle last year in a bicycle accident and spent last year volunteering and recuperating instead of racing. She is not only in my age group, we will also change age groups together next year. When I noticed that she was dressed to race, I sagely advised her to take it easy on this rough terrain. You know, so she wouldn’t re-injure herself. And that if she was ahead of me, maybe she would be going too fast (wink, wink). She didn’t take my advice, but we had a good laugh together.