Kingston......again

We arrived in Kingston after yet another long drive. I had a work meeting from 7:30-8:30 this morning, so Chris dropped off the puppies at the pet hotel and came back to get me. Then we went to Chicoutimi to pick up our rental car. After all the miles we've put on our Aveo this summer, we decided to take advantage of the option to rent a car instead. We got a Toyota Matrix and I must say, I love this car! We've started talking about what our next car will be (though it'll probably be a couple years away) and the Matrix is definitely at the top of my list. For dinner, we had some delicious Indian food from Curry Original and now we're just relaxing before going to see Crazy, Stupid Love at the theatre.
As far as my running, I've decided to take a few days off to give my hip/knee a chance to recover before my next races. My hip seems to be much better but my knee, not so much. It's quite sore if I stand up after sitting for a while and stairs are a bit of a challenge as well. If it's not better by the time we get back to B-Ville, then I might see about getting a doctor's appt or going to the clinic. On a related note, they've posted the pictures from the Quebec City race and for once, there's actually a good picture of me (I'm even thinking about ordering it!).

Marathon des Deux Rives Half-Marathon - race report

So, the race went better than expected but overall, not that great. I didn't sleep much last night, mostly due to the extremely lumpy pillow at the hotel. I woke up with a minor headache (probably caused by the damn pillow), so I took two Advil and I also aggressively Voltaren-ed my hip and knee. For breakfast, I strayed a bit from my usual pre-race routine (oatmeal and tea) and instead had a couple croissants from the grocery store. This would later come back to bite me in the butt. I checked the weather just before we left and according to the forecast, the rain was supposed to hold off unti about 11am. Given the temperature and conditions, I decided to wear the long-sleeved technical shirt I got at the Magog triathlon with my Lululemon crops.
Chris drove me to the start and I had about an hour to kill before the gun. I spent a good chunk of that time waiting in line for the port-o-potty and the rest of it stretching my legs, especially my hip flexors. The starting gun was actually some piece of artillery (don't ask me the specifics) and there was a group from Valcartier there to operate it. The first 8 or so kilometres of the race flew by. There were a couple minor hills, but overall the course seemed quite flat. Looking at the elevation profile afterwards, however, there was a gradual incline between kms 2 and 9 that I didn't even notice. My hip didn't bother me at all and I was keeping a great pace. My only complaint up to this point was that I felt like I was going to puke the whole time. Everything was going great until we turned onto the Pont du Quebec. It was like wind tunnel and we got the full force of the wind coming at us sideways. To give you an idea, girls' ponytails were being blown out at a 90 degree angle.
After we exited (we actually took a real exit) the bridge, that's when everything started to go downhill (figuratively, not literally). For the last 11-12kms, we were facing directly into the ex-hurricane winds. At that point, I was so happy that I had decided to wear long-sleeves and crops because the wind was really cold. I have no idea how strong it actually was, but my feet were moving and I wasn't. Okay, that's not exactly true but that's how it felt. My pace dropped by 1-1.5min/km. My hopes of finishing in under 2:15 were out the window. And to make my life just a little bit more miserable, my stomach revolted and I had to make an emergency pit-stop at a port-o-potty at one of the aid stations.
From that point on, I just plugged along, ignoring the annoying beeps from my Garmin telling me to speed up. I had to make a second pit-stop around km17 and that cost me even more time. I think it's because I didn't have my usual cup of tea (aids digestion and all). Finally, around the 19km mark, our route took us into the city so we were more protected from the wind. All of a sudden, I was actually able to run again (and my Garmin stopped beeping at me!). I finished in 2:26:24, which is actually worse that my time from the Jonquiere race in June (the one in the rain). I'm not pleased with it, but all things considered - weather, hip, stomach - it's not the end of the world. At the end, I got a really funky medal that lights up!

Really nervous...

I'm really nervous about my race tomorrow. Right now, I'm sitting in a hotel room in St-Nicholas, frantically checking the weather and icing my leg. Here are the (potential) problems:
1. Hurricane Irene. Quebec City is presently under a rainfall warning AND a wind warning. They're calling for 30+km/h winds during the time when I'll be doing my race. Yay. They've already cancelled the marathon because of the weather, so I'll be checking the website before we head out tomorrow.
2. My hip really hurts. It hasn't gotten any better over the last couple days and now I can really feel it in my knee. The ice is making it feel a little better, but it's going to be a rough day tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Hip pain

Dear hip pain,
Please go away soon. Preferably today. If not, then tomorrow. But, certainly by Sunday. Because that's my race. That is all.

Migraine :(

Today got off to a rather rough start when I woke up this morning with an intense migraine. I used to get them almost daily back in university, but my doctor gave me something to take everyday to help prevent them and it's done a damn good job. Unfortunately, sometimes one sneaks through and today was one of those days. I have been lucky - it's been months since the last one, so I guess I was due. And of course, this morning, the phone was ringing off the hook with students returning my calls and the alarm wouldn't stop going off. And they launched 6 (yes, 6!) jets this morning and I don't know why (cloud cover, different runway?) but they were especially loud this morning. And to top it off, the guys came to drop off the new furnace bright and early and a half hour before they were supposed to. Not a good start to the day. I ended up cancelling my morning class (with one of my private students), taking a few Advil and going back to bed.
I got up around lunchtime because I had a bazillion calls to return plus new ones to make and it couldn't really wait any longer. The worst of the migraine had subsided and it remained as a sharp ache in the side of my head, which is something I'm used to functioning with. The rest of the afternoon flew by in a flurry of spreadsheets, phone calls and emails but I'm impressed with the amount of work I accomplished.
For dinner tonight, I made buffalo chicken wraps. It's a meal that requires minimal effort but packs quite a bit of taste. I should mention that last night I made an awesome sausage risotto. It was super delicious! I also made a cold cucumber soup (at Chris' request) but honestly, I didn't really like it. I don't think it was quite what Chris had in mind, either. I'll have to talk to his mom to see how she makes hers.
For my run tonight, I just did a quick 5km. I didn't want to push it because my head was (and is) still hurting, but I finished in under 30 minutes, so yay for me. Tomorrow, I have a 10km run scheduled and it'll be my last before the Quebec City half marathon on Sunday!

Brrrr...

Last night, I had a rather rude awakening. Miss Mika, who was sleeping on the bed with us, got sick all over the comforter. I was up for most of the night because the vomit managed to soak through the duvet cover, into the duvet, into the flat sheet, into the fitted sheet and finally stopped with the mattress cover. Thankfully, the mattress was okay but that's a lot of laundry. I wanted to get it washed as soon as possible a) so it wouldn't stain, and b) because it was the most disgusting smell you could possibly imagine. I'm not normally bothered by disgusting stuff but this actually made me (and Chris) gag. Not fun.
I got another little administrative project from my boss to work on this week. For this one, I'm putting together the schedule for the CRA telephone classes, which means contacting the students and slotting them in according to the teachers' availabilities. It involves a lot of complicated spreadsheets but it's quite fun, almost like a puzzle.
For dinner, I made chicken piccata linguine. Basically, it's linguine with chicken cooked with chicken broth and lemon juice, with capers, parsley and parmesan cheese added. It was really good and it actually looked like the picture! Plus, it only took about 20 minutes to make. This is definitely on my "to make again" list.
Later in the evening, I went for the run I was supposed to do yesterday (8km, 6x3min speed intervals). Man is it starting to get cold already. It's August and I was outside running in crops and a long-sleeved shirt and I was still cold! I'm going to have see about getting some gloves because my hands were freezing by the end. All in all, it was a good run and I definitely appreciated the hot shower afterwards.
There's something I forgot to mention yesterday. When I was at Walmart in the afternoon, I parked between two cars - one who was parked correctly (on the right) and one who was slightly over the line (on the left). Given that I have a very small car, fitting between the two of them (and between the lines) was not an issue for me. The way I see it, by parking between the lines, it ensures that the parking problem is not perpetuated indefinitely. However, apparently not in the Saguenay because when I got back to my car, there was a note on my window:


That's what you get for parking between the lines people!

Quinoa attempt #2

For dinner tonight, I made a quinoa and veggie salad with a spicy tomato soup. It turned out quite well, though I am still getting used to the unique flavour of the quinoa. Plus, it didn't look like vomit this time! I think the salad would have tasted just a bit better if I had remembered to buy fresh mint, though. It was a lot of work prepping all the vegetables (carrots, celery, cucumbers, radishes, green onions, two kinds of tomatoes and I can't remember the rest) but in the end it was worth it plus we've got lots of leftovers.
After dinner, just before I was planning to leave for my interval run tonight, I started to feel really dizzy even though I was sitting down. It happened a few times, so I decided to play it safe and forgo the run. I'll make it up tomorrow at the gym while Chris is at his physio session. Instead, we watched tonight's episode of Hell's Kitchen. I can't wait until Elise gets sent home - gah, I just want to punch her in the face!
On another note, I got my new glasses in the mail today! Yay!

Back into the swing of things

After looking at my training calendar, with four blank days in a row, I decided it was time to go running. I've been feeling really guilty about not getting out there and to compensate, somehow I managed to get in 30km in a 24-hour period. First, on Friday night, I did a 8km tempo run. Then Saturday afternoon, I went on a 5km easy run with Kona. Unfortunately, she got tired after 4km and she decided she wasn't going any further. She just sat her 85-pound butt down and refused to move. Then she rolled around on her back on the grass for a while, demanding a belly rub and it's hard to say no to such a cute face.
I was planning on doing this week's long run (18km) on Sunday (today), but after consulting the weather forecast, it looked like I would have to do it inside because of the thunderstorms they were calling for. However, after we got home from Saturday night's movie, I had a sudden burst of energy and motivation and decided to do it right then and there. I left the house around 10:15pm, following a 3km loop around the PMQs. It was pretty boring, so I amused myself by listening to a podcast about marathon training; it also kept me motivated to continue because every time I passed the house, I had an (almost) unresistable urge to quit and go home. But somehow I finished it. Because of the spontaneity of my run, I didn't really plan my pre-run nutrition very well (as in Smarties and Skittles at the movie theatre) and I ended up paying for it big time when I got home. However, 22km in one day - not bad.
Next week is the half-marathon in Quebec City. I wish I had known this before I registered, but apparently you have to pick up your race packet the day before (prior to 6pm). This means that we have to go down the Saturday afternoon and stay overnight, which also means boarding the dogs. Originally, our plan was to leave the house at 5am, as we have with my other Quebec City races this year. Hopefully Chris can get us into the Citadelle otherwise we're going to have to stay in St-Apollonaire because hotels in Quebec City are insanely expensive.
This week, I've gotten good news on the job front. It looks like I'll be teaching 4 mornings a week at CRA (12 hours total), plus 2 afternoons per week on the base (4 hours). I've also been offered some telephone classes, but I haven't received the exact details on those yet. Hopefully, that'll be another 4-6 hours; plus, with my private students, it looks like I'll be quite busy.
The past couple weeks, I've been reading a book on teaching pronunciation and it has been really interesting. I've just finished the section on consonants and I learned about several little things that I didn't even realize existed. What I'm hoping to do this year, especially with my advanced students, is focus on accent reduction. For the moment, their pronunciation is fairly accurate but I want to teach them all the little things that will make them sound more natural.
I also got a library card this week, so I was able to borrow the third book in the Millennium trilogy. I was surprised by the selection of English books at the library in La Baie and they seem to carry the most popular bestsellers. Also, if a book is only available at another branch of the library (ie. Jonquiere), they can have it sent to your local library. I thought that was pretty awesome. They also TV shows on DVD that you can borrow; I haven't checked out the full selection but I'm kicking myself for not getting a card sooner.

Lame

Lame - it has a bit of a double meaning here.
First, I am slightly gimp as the result of two nail-less toes. The first one has been MIA since April-ish and I'm in the process of losing another, thanks to the Barrie Half-Marathon. I'll spare you the gruesome details, but it hurts like hell.
Second, this is a pretty lame excuse for not running all week. I know there are some seriously hard-core people out there who would call me a wuss and would continue running, but honestly, it's painful just to walk. Somehow, I don't really see me cranking out 18km this weekend. Also, I'm exhausted. Again, it's lame but I just haven't had any energy and therefore motivation to run. All I've thought of this past week has been when I can fit in my next nap. So my mileage for this week is a big fat zero. Hopefully that'll change come tomorrow, but who knows.

Barrie Waterfront Half-Marathon - Race Report

It's been a busy few days as we went from Kingston to Barrie to Ottawa and finally home today. I did mange to find a pair of shoes before we left Kingston and I got in a 10km run on Friday to break them in a bit before the race. The race itself took place on Sunday (the 14th) at the waterfront in Barrie and it was the city's first half-marathon. Unfortunately, it showed - the race was an organizational disaster. Like I said, it was the first one so I'll give them a pass this time, but here are some of the things that went wrong:

1) Race kit pick-up took FOREVER! There were only 4 people in line in front of me and it took more than 20 minutes.

2) No bag check. Most running-only races have a spot where you can check your stuff during the race (ie. a jacket, purse, etc), especially if you walked/got dropped off at the race and don't have a car to put it in.

3) Port-a-potties. 4 for 600 participants (plus a large number of volunteers) is not a good ratio. Especially when participants from the Caribfest down the way decided to hijack them the night before. One of the port-a-potties had crap on the seat so it became urinal-only. And there was no toilet paper to speak of.

4) Cup shortage. At the last water station (~18km), they ran out of cups; they had water, so if you had your own bottle, you were okay but if not, no water for you. I would have liked to have had some, but I figured I would wait until the end and save the precious seconds. But when I got to the finish area, they had no cups either. And trust me, after finishing a 21.1km race in mid-August, you need water - it's not a question of want. Chris' aunt managed to bum a used water bottle off someone in the parking lot, so I filled that up and that was enough to get me home.

5) The final stretch along the waterfront path was not kept clear for participants - you had to dodge pedestrians for the last 1/2km or so.

Aside from the frustrations caused by the above-mentioned issues, the race went quite well. I finished in 2:16:58 (chip time), which is a personal best (of 2 races, mind you). And I didn't finish last! The course was fairly flat and quite scenic, consisting of 2 out-and-back routes along the waterfront (first along the south shore, then the north). The volunteers and other participants were all very encouraging and it was definitely a fun race. Chris, his parents and his aunt were there at the finish line to cheer me on and they got some great pictures. Because it was the inaugural race, they gave out really fancy medals to all the finishers and the race T-shirt is nice too. Here's a picture of me crossing the finish line (the time on the clock is the gun time, not my actual chip time):

Kingston (again)

Well, our plan to leave at 8am didn't exactly work out as we had hoped. Somehow I slept through the alarm and ended up getting up at 8:30 instead. I still hadn't packed (which I was planning to do when my alarm went off at 7:00am) so I threw everything in my bag and off we went. We dropped off the dogs and cat at the vet and we were on the road a little past 9:30am. But by the time we got to l'Etape (the half-way point of the park), I was so tired that we stopped to take a 20-minute power nap. The rest of the drive took forever with lots of construction and traffic delays, but we did eventually make it in one piece.
It wasn't until we were waiting to be seated at The Keg for dinner (so stuffed afterwards!) that I realized I had forgotten something: my running shoes. Considering I'm signed up to do a half-marathon on Sunday, I kinda need my shoes. My only choice is to go tomorrow morning to the Running Room and see if I can find a new pair. I have two more training runs to do before the race, so hopefully that'll be enough to break them in. Otherwise, it'll be a fairly painful 21.1km.

Broken bike....

So as it turns out, my bike did not escape from Saturday's incident unscathed. I did a quick inspection immediately after the fact, but I was mostly concerned with my own well-being at that time, and as a result, I somehow managed to miss the fact that my front rim is completely bent. It's actually unrideable in its present state, which I discovered when I went for my Gazelles ride this evening. I ended up just coming home because there was nothing else for me to do. Unfortunately, we leave tomorrow for Kingston/Barrie and I don't know when I'll have the chance to get it fixed since all the bike shops here open at 9:30am (we're leaving at 8am) and close at 5:30 (so I couldn't take it after Gazelles). I guess it'll have to wait until next Tuesday when we get back and hopefully they can fix it in time for my Tuesday night ride.

Long run

On the schedule today was an 18km long run. This is a really important run because I have the Barrie Half-Marathon on Sunday and aside from the 14km run I did last week, I haven't been doing a lot of long distances. I've started listening to a new podcast, Marathon Training Academy, and it's got a lot of good tips plus it's really motivating while I'm running. Unfortunately, it was ridiculously humid today and I didn't quite get in the full distance before calling it quits. After what happened yesterday, I wasn't taking any chances and after 13km, I was done. To make it up, I decided to finish those last 5km after we got home from the movie tonight. Because it had cooled off significantly, it also gave me a chance to try out my new Lululemon crops that I bought last time we were in Kingston. The verdict: they make my legs look awesome and I love them!

Triathlon Promutuel du Fjord - Race Report

There's no sugar-coating it - this race went terribly. And the post-race was even worse. Here's the break-down:

Swim
Surprisingly, the swim was the best part of this race for me - 19:22 for 750m, which is actually a swim personal best. The course was fairly straight-forward, a 3-sided rectangle (out, across and back) but it was extremely shallow for the first half. As in, I could reach down and touch the bottom. As a matter of fact, I almost bashed my hand off big rocks several times. I probably could have walked most of the course, but they specifically banned that at the beginning. For the second race in a row, I wasn't last out of the water, beating 2 people (out of 42). If I had known what was to come, I would have gladly done the swim 3 times instead.

T1
Nothing special to report here. Because I wore my long-sleeved wetsuit, it took a little longer to get off and I took the time to make sure I didn't accidentally rip off my timing chip in the process (it's been known to happen). Maybe it was because of the wetsuit or because I spent less time in the water than I normally do, but my legs were not as frozen and jelly-like as they often are coming out of the water.

Bike
Oh, the bike. The bike is normally my strongest leg but today it kicked my butt. Well, first the last minute course change didn't help. According to the course published on the website, it was a 9.9km loop (to be done twice) that involved a fairly substantial climb up to the Ecole Polyvalente de La Baie (those of you from the region know the hill I'm talking about) and then the rest was mostly downhill. At the pre-race meeting, suddenly it was announced that the course had changed and the loop was now ~7km and we would have to do it 3 times for a total of 22km instead. Which meant going up that cursed hill thrice instead of twice. When the race organizer announced this, I actually thought some people might strangle him - there were definitely hints of a mutiny in the making.
And it turned out to be just as bad as I thought it would be. I actually saw people getting off their bikes and walking up parts of the hill (it's steep!). The descent was a lot more fun, obviously, and it gave me legs a chance to recover. I tried to maximize my speed by being brave and not braking (normally, I'm a big fat chicken going down hills) which backfired when I reached an unannounced left turn. I got to the intersection and I thought I was going straight. Turns out, I actually had to go left. Now, do you know what happens when you suddenly slam on your brakes on a road bike that's going ~40km/h? Your back tire starts to slide out from under you and I nearly went down. How I recovered is beyond me but that was the end of me being brave - my bike time probably could have a been a little bit better, but I wasn't risking a major crash.
By the third loop, I was completely beat. I have no idea how the half-Ironman competitors did it - they had to do the loop 8 or 9 times to get to their 90km bike distance. At the top of the hill, at the school, they had a water station so on the last one, I decided to grab a bottle and promptly drank half of it. Bad idea. I threw up (while biking, mind you) no less than 3 times on the way down and generally felt like crap for the rest of the race because of it. Total bike time (including both transitions): 1:05:21. Not good at all.

T2
Again, nothing special here. I walked my bike into transition instead of running. At this point, I was so thankful to be done that I didn't really care about my time anymore. I ate two Shot Blocks and shuffled my way out onto the run course.

Run
The run course was a 2.5km loop on the bike path down by the waterfront. About half of it is flat and the rest is a fairly long hill as you go over a bridge and a descent coming down. Because you do the loop twice, you get to go over this bridge 4 times, which means 4 fairly long hills. My first km off the bike was atrocious - I think it took me almost 8 minutes. My legs were so shot because of the bike, it was all I could do to just keep my legs moving forward. I was also having some stomach cramps because of the water I drank earlier. My pace picked up on the second lap, mostly because I knew that the faster I ran, the faster I finished and the faster I got to go home. In the end, my time was 38:06 but I did beat one person. Yay!?
Total race time: 2:02:48

Post-race
Now here's my day gets really interesting. Because I had parked the car a few streets over from the race site, I decided to ride my bike there (very slowly, mind you). It seemed like a good idea at the time. That is, until I crashed. I was about 6 feet from the car when the bag I was carrying on my shoulder slipped down my arm, got caught in the front wheel and up over the handlebars I went. I'm sure it would have made a great America's Funniest Home Video. It's a good thing I was wearing my helmet because I hit the ground hard. First, my elbow hit (presently quite bruised with minor scrapes), then my hip (still waiting for the bruise to emerge but man does it hurt like hell) and finally my head. I lay on the ground for a few seconds while I tried to figure out what had happened and in the meantime, a couple cars had stopped and several people rushed over to see if I was okay. At the time, I thought I was - turns out, I was wrong. I was pretty sure I had a minor concussion so I went into the nearest store and asked to use their phone. I called Chris to see if he could call somebody to come pick me up (seeing as we only have the one car) because I wasn't sure I should drive home. Turns out, none of our friends were home. So then, it was decided that Chris would call a cab, get to La Baie and drive me home. But the cab took forever (of course). I think I waited out front of this men's clothing store for close to a half hour. I just kept feeling worse and worse. Nauseous, dizzy, fuzzy, stomach cramps, headache - you name it. At one point, the stomach pains got so bad that I decided I needed to find a washroom and fast. So I got up and walked down the street to the cafe to use their facilities but I didn't even make it in the door and I knew something was terribly wrong. I suddenly got so dizzy that I thought I was going to fall over. My vision went all blurry with bright splotches of light and I thought I was going to be sick. I made my way back to the clothing store, since I'd already explained the situation to the man there. When I walked in the door, I must have looked afright because he immediately said to call an ambulance. Eventually, the paramedics got there and started taking my vitals and whatnot. I tried desperately to explain in French what happened but my mind was so fuzzy that it was difficult to put together sentences. Which of course they took as another symptom, but hey. The paramedics (who were really hot, btw - just saying) advised me that I should go to the hospital, so off we went in the ambulance. Before we left, I gave my car keys to the man at the shop and he said he would wait for Chris and tell him what happened (on that note, I should call him tomorrow and thank him again). We got to the hospital and long story short, it was either a minor concussion or heatstroke or possibly both. The paramedics said one thing, the nurses said another and the doctor said something else. Once Chris got to the hospital, they let me go home with instructions on symptoms to watch for. As soon as I got back to the house, it was shower, food then bed. I'm still feeling like crap and every time I stand up, I get really dizzy but hopefully my headache'll be gone by tomorrow. See, I told you this race sucked!

Kitchen Adventures

I didn't manage to get in a workout today because I wasn't feeling very well, but I did spend a fair bit of time in the kitchen. After watching Masterchef last week, where one of their pressure tests was to cook a cheese soufflé, I was inspired. As it happens, in my vegetarian cookbook, there is a recipe for goat cheese soufflé with roasted cherry tomatoes. I was a little nervous but I think it turned out okay. I took care to follow the directions to a T and I checked on the internet to make sure my egg whites had formed stiff peaks. I've never actually had a soufflé before so I was using what I learned from Masterchef to judge it. My only complaint is that it lacked flavour but that's more an issue with the recipe than anything. Next time, I'll try using more aggressive seasoning and a bolder cheese. The roasted cherry tomatoes were a nice side and I let the juice soak into the soufflé to give a little extra flavour. For dessert, I made a batch of chocolate fudge because Chris' leg was really hurting and he was miserable. Turns out, a piece of my fudge (1/36th of the recipe) has approximately 72 calories - not as bad as I was expecting. I think you can guess where all my leftover calories for the day went....

Doubles

The last two days have been double workout days. Yesterday, I went to the lunch hour swim on the base and covered 1950 yards. After my warm-up, I did some 100-yard time trial tests to figure out my "T-1 pace" (which turned out to be 2:11). This will be used a lot in later workouts to help me with my speed and maintaining a good pace throughout the workout. After the tests, I did a combination of speedwork and drills for the rest of the hour and averaged 2:49/100 yards over the workout.
Last night was another Gazelles ride but only 6 ladies showed up out of the entire group. There were 5 of us who normally frequent the 26km/h group and then the president of the group, who is usually in the 30+km/h group. We did a tough 45km ride into the park and back. The president was very helpful in talking us through the hills, giving lots of tips and techniques as we went. It was a good challenge and lots of fun - it's the furthest I've ever been into the park. What I've discovered is that the beginning of the park is all uphill; once we turned around, it was smooth sailing except for one last climb just the park entrance.
For dinner, I made a fancy pizza using the artichoke pesto from last week instead of tomato sauce and topping it with chicken, broccoli and tomatoes. The pesto substitute was a last minute decision because I forgot to buy pizza sauce but I think it turned out better this way. I also made a salad using diced cucumbers tossed with balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. A nice summer meal.
Today, I dropped Chris off at his physio appointment on base and went to the pool for the lunch swim again. Turns out, the lane swim was cancelled so I had to go at 4 instead. This time, I covered 2200 yards (2:38/100 yards), consisting mostly of pull drills to increase arm strength with some quick speedwork thrown in to spice it up. At the end, after 1200 pull yards, my arms felt like jelly (in a good way, of course). The book I'm using for my swim workouts is awesome because it has waterproof pages. No more memorizing lengthy, complicated workouts or writing them down on a piece of paper that quickly gets soaked and becomes illegible. It's genius!
Tonight I didn't really feel much like cooking so I made toasted tomato sandwiches with a carrot salad on the side. For the salad, I was trying to imitate the carrot salad we had at the Amadeus a couple weeks ago in Kingston and I found a recipe that sounded like it might work. The dressing included oil, vinegar, honey, orange juice, dill, salt and pepper. I thought it turned out okay, though I think I'll add more carrots and less honey next time. Also, the recipe called for white vinegar but I used red wine vinegar instead, so that may have contributed to it being overly sweet. Live and learn.
After dinner, I went for my fartlek run - 6km with 6x2min intervals. Using the advanced workout feature on my Garmin, I programmed a workout with a 6min warm-up, 6x(2min hard, 2min easy) intervals, and a 6min cooldown, figuring that would get me about 6km. In the end, I managed to get 6.3km in 36 minutes, thanks to some super speedy intervals. I was quite surprised to see that my 5th one was actually my fastest, as normally you would expect your earlier intervals to be faster. The only problem with my run tonight was my back, which started spasming as I was walking home. I put some ice on it as soon as I got in the door and that seemed to help, but I'm going to have to keep an eye on it and maybe try to get in to see the chiropractor this week.
Last but not least, yesterday I registered for the Barrie Waterfront Half-Marathon on Aug. 14! Wahoo!

I hate the park!!!

After driving through the Parc des Laurentides six times in approximately one week, I can officially say I hate this damned park. 200km of nothing but trees, lakes and construction. After following a house (yes, a house on a truck, which repeatedly knocked over the orange construction cones and sent them flying in front of my car) through a construction zone for 30km, I am 100% sure that I do not like this park.