Around the Bay 30k Race Report (long)

What a weekend! I'll start right at the beginning. (For details on the race itself, skip down to Sunday.)

Friday
We dropped the dogs off at the pet hotel and left Chicoutimi around 8am Friday morning. Normally to Barrie, it takes a good 11 hours; unfortunately, we had to make a stop in Quebec City and that cost us about an hour. After a relatively uneventful drive, we arrived in Barrie around 8pm, tired and hungry. As luck would have it, we managed to meet up with some friends for dinner. We finally made it back to Chris' parents' house around 11 and were in bed by midnight or so.

Saturday
5:30am. Alarm goes off. Ugh. I'm not a fan of early mornings. We dragged our butts out of bed and after a stop at Tim Horton's for some caffeine/breakfast, we were off to Burlington. I dropped Chris off at his coaching clinic for 7:30 and then I had some time to kill before picking up my race kit (the expo opened at 10am). I had a flash of brilliance and decided to go to the Ikea in Burlington. Except.....it doesn't open til 9am on Saturdays. What did I do? I pulled into a parking spot and took a nap in the car. Real classy, I know.

Thankfully, the restaurant opens at 8:30 so I was able to get inside a bit sooner. After some chocolate milk and a cinnamon bun, I wandered the showroom, imagining what my house would look like if I had a million dollars. I really wanted to get some new dishes since ours are a mismatched mess, but decided against it in the end.

According to Google Maps, going from Ikea Burlington to Copps Coliseum in Hamilton should take less than 20 minutes. I had only the vaguest directions since Chris has the phone with him, but I figured it couldn't be that hard to find a stadium once I got downtown. Wrong. I was expecting to see signs, directing you to this local landmark, but alas there were none. On top of that, Hamilton's entire downtown is composed of one-way streets. Loads of fun. (On the plus side, I did get to turn left on red once as a result.) After an hour of driving and having asked 4 different people, I finally arrived at the expo.

I hate expos. To me, they seem like a giant money grab. This particular event was set up in the concourse around Copps Coliseum. You could only go in one direction and of course the bag pick-up was at the end. So you had to navigate through all the booths as people forced brochures on you, dodging slow people the whole way. I was in no mood to buy anything after all the driving around I had done - I just wanted to get in, get out and go home. I finally got to the end and picked up my kit, which included a nice purple and black long-sleeved technical shirt. And then I had to walk all the way back through the expo to get out because they blocked off the exit near the packet pick-up.

Finally, after all that, I went to my grandmother's house since she lives about 10 minutes outside Hamilton. I spent the afternoon there and we did our usual crocheting and working on crosswords. For dinner, we went to East Side Mario's. I had spaghetti bolognese - perfect pre-race carbo-loading meal. After dinner, I said good-bye and went to pick up Chris after his coaching clinic before heading back to Barrie. Chris was hungry so we stopped to get some delicious pizza (more carbs - I promise I only had one piece....and some crusts) and then it was off to bed.

Sunday
5:30. Alarm goes off. Again. I wanted to leave extra early so I would have time to navigate downtown Hamilton. I did not want to repeat Saturday's experience and I had no idea where I would park either. For breakfast, I had my leftover spaghetti which was a fabulous way to start the day. Seriously. I love pasta for breakfast.

After dropping Chris off at his conference, I was on my way to the race. I was having some serious doubts about what I should wear for the race because the weather seemed so iffy. It looked like it might rain at any second yet they were calling for a high of 15*C/59*F. Jacket or no jacket? I managed to find parking with relative ease and I got to Copps Coliseum about an hour before the start of the race. That gave me time to check my bag and hit the bathoom (a couple times). One advantage to using the stadium as the race HQ - no porta-potties!!! Real bathrooms!

About 15 minutes before the race started, I made my way to the race start a couple blocks from the stadium. In total, there were about 7000 people participating in the race, either running, walking or relaying, so it was a big start. I found a spot towards the back, slightly behind the 3:15 pace bunny. I had finally settled on wearing crops, a T-shirt, arm sleeves and gloves, but as I was walking to the start, I wasn't sure I had made the right decision. It was cold!!!

Finally, the gun sounded and we were off. Well, the leaders were off anyways - it took a good 5 minutes for me to cross the start line. The first mile (11:00) was a bit tricky, trying to navigate around all the people and get a good pace going. It was interesting for me to be working in miles while the course was marked in kilometres. I don't really have a mile-by-mile replay for you, but here are some of the highlights that I remember (in no particular order):

- Each km marker had a funny/inspirational quote on it. My favourite was "Not all runners have what it takes to go the distance. The polite term for them is sprinters."
- I got high-fived by someone wearing a Notre Dame jacket.
- Someone set up a bacon stand at the end of their driveway. Sadly, by the time I got there, they were packing up but it was still a cool idea.
- There was a choir outside a church that we passed and you could hear the organ music from inside.
- We passed a lot of cemeteries. At least 3 or 4, I think. The last one has some signs warning "Dying Runners Ahead"and things like that. There was a plastic skeleton dressed in running clothes on the side of the road, and two people dressed as the Grim Reaper were there giving high-fives.
- I passed 3 military members in combats with their ruck-sacks on.
- There was a guy dressed like Elvis.
- T-shirts with funny quotes on the back. "My pace or yours?" "If you can read this, it means I'm not in last place."

The first 20km of the race were fairly flat and uneventful. The last 10km, however, were a challenge. I could feel my energy lagging and I wish I had started taking Gatorade from the aide stations sooner, rather than relying only on my hydration belt. The rolling hills weren't too bad, just tiring, and it was starting to get quite hot at that point. I was a little concerned about the last big hill everyone warned me about around km26-27, but I have to say - I killed it! I ran the whole way up, passing people left, right and centre. And when I got to the top, I actually thought to myself, "That's it?"

After the last big hill, it was an easy 3km to the finish. I tried to push myself as much as I could but I was getting tired and I knew my goal of 3:15 was slipping away. Once I got Copps Coliseum in my sights though, it got a lot easier (the downhill to the finish also helped). The finish line was inside the stadium and they projected all the finishes on the Jumbotron. The second I saw the word "Finish", I just gave it everything I had and sprinted to the end. I blew past at least 5 people in the last 20m. I hope they post the finish videos- I felt like I was going so fast!

And now what you've all been waiting for. Final time: 3:18:26


I got my finishing medal:

And.....I ran into my friend KirstenH9 who also ran the race and posted a great time. I don't have any pictures from the actual race because there was no one there take any but I'm waiting on the official race photos.
Unfortunately, almost immediately after the race, I had to go pick up Chris from his conference. I spent a good half an hour stuck in traffic trying to get out of downtown Hamilton. I finally got to the school where the football conference was, changed in the car in the far corner of the parking lot, and soon we were on our way to Montreal. We stopped at a couple service stations along the way so I could stretch my legs a bit and each time, I saw people from the race (they were wearing the race shirt). It was crazy!

I think that's about it. For those of you that are still with me and care, here's my Garmin data from the race. Thanks for reading!

Crappy couple of days

The last couple of days I have been really run down. Tuesday morning I woke up with a slight fever, chills, headache, nausea and dizziness. Sounds fun, eh? Same deal today. So it's been no work (and no running) for me for the last couple days.
One thing I really don't like about my job in the number of people I come into contact with in a given week. On average, I see about 70 students and some of them more than once per week. All my classes are given in small rooms (because we have small groups) so there's no escaping the sickies. I kinda wish people would stay home a little more often rather than infect all the people around them. Most of my students work in an office at a computer, so I guess for them they can suffer through - they can feel miserable at their desk, hack all over the keyboard and no one is worse off. Sadly, that doesn't work for me when I'm at the front of the class. I have to be on all the time, especially with adults. If I don't feel I can give at least 75%, I stay home because I'm doing no one any good at that point. Ideally, I'd just not get sick in the first place but that doesn't seem to be working.

Fantastic run!!!

I had the best run today! I think it may go down as one of the best runs ever. After being in a deep freeze all winter, we finally had some warm, sunny weather. And thank goodness, too, because today I had 13 miles on the schedule. For this run, I decided to do a point-to-point run - I'd run from my house to my friend V's house in Chicoutimi-Nord. This was the first time I'd ever done a "destination run" and it made such a difference in my motivation.

Initially, I had decided to wear a jacket with a long-sleeved shirt. Then, as I was waiting outside for my Garmin to warm up, I realized I was going to be way too warm. So I changed my long-sleeved shirt for a short-sleeved  one. Still too hot. I ended up running in crops and a T-shirt with arm warmers. It was perfect!

I didn't realize it at the time, but the route to my friend's house had a very gradual downhill for the first 7or so miles from the base to downtown Chicoutimi. Maybe that's why it seemed so easy! After that, there was a quad-killing 14%-grade hill down into the river valley. Along the waterfront, it was windy and chilly but not unbearable. The hardest part was dodging the puddles and pedestrians. Speaking of pedestrians, you almost never see people walking here, yet today they were EVERYWHERE. For the most part, it wasn't too bad but there were a couple people that refused to move over (even though they could have) and as a result, I was forced into a snowbank or puddle. Thanks guys. I now have cuts on my calves from the icy snowbanks.

After I crossed the river, that's when the fun began. It was mile 12 and I had to climb back out of the river valley. I knew the hills were coming (2 short and steep, 1 long and slow), but they ended up not being as bad as I envisioned. I told myself, "You are strong. You can do this!" And I did!

After 13.1 miles and 2 hours, 24 minutes, I arrived at my friend's house. The best part was that I felt like I could have kept going - I was tired but not dead. This bodes extremely well for my 30k race next weekend! I hung out at V's house for a bit before calling my husband to come pick me up; she didn't seem to mind that I was gross and stinky. She even lent me a pair of socks because mine were all wet and muddy. She's awesome!
You can see my splits for this run here.
Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

What a day yesterday was....

Yesterday seemed like the longest day ever - I was going from the second the alarm went off til the second my head hit the pillow 20 hours later. Here's a recap.

(BACK STORY: Wednesday night, Chris found an escaped husky in La Baie on his way home from practice. Since it was late at night, he brought the dog home. She had a collar and a municipal license, but no name tag unfortunately. We got in touch with the shelter and they said they would come at 6:30 the next morning to pick her up. I'll post a picture at the end. We named her NoName - an inside joke for us Canadians.)

5:30am - Alarm goes off after only 4 hours sleep total. Great. I drag my sorry butt out of bed and get ready to go to the gym.
6:15-7:30 - 7-mile run at the gym including 5 tempo miles. It was definitely the hardest workout I've done in a long time. I struggled to finish but I managed.
7:35 - I arrive home to find NoName still at our house (and my husband in bed - he's supposed to start at 7:30!). Turns out, the alarm didn't go off or he slept through it or something, but anyways, he missed them when they came to pick up the dog. Which meant I had to drop her off on my way to work.
7:40-7:50 - Shower, get dressed, pack my bag for work.
8:00 - Drop NoName off at the shelter on my way to class. I had a few spare minutes to stop at McDonald's to get a smoothie because I was STARVING.
8:30-10:30 - Class downtown Chicoutimi.
11:00-11:30 - Return home, lunch, prep for afternoon classes.
11:45am-1:15pm - Class in La Baie.
1:15 - Stop at the base to pick up a key from my husband and give said key to my boss at the community centre.
1:25 - Go home and pick up Kona to take her to the vet for her annual check-up and shots.
1:40-2:10 - Vet appointment. No problems to report - she's a happy, healthy dog.
2:20-2:40 - Deal with a crisis involving one of my students. Turns out, the American airline she booked her vacation with went under and she needed help understanding the email they sent her. Thankfully, she was able to rebook with another airline so her vacation has been saved.
3:00-3:30 - Class on base with a 5-year-old girl. They're moving to Alabama in a couple months, so she'll be going to school in English. She's a good kid but she was a bit difficult during our class. Apparently, I have unlimited patience.
4:00 - Drive Chris to his football practice, then deposit cheques and make photocopies.
5:00-6:30 - Kill time at the public library (free wifi!) while waiting for my evening class to start. (It's not really worth driving all the way home.)
6:30-10:00 - Class at the naval reserve unit.
10:15-11:30 - Dinner/drinks at the sports bar where Chris decided to wait for me after his practice finished.
12:00-1:30am - Stuff?? I don't even remember what I did. Shower maybe? I finally made it to bed around 1:30 and man was I exhausted!

Here's a picture of NoName. She was a very calm, well-behaved dog. I hope she made it home to her owners.

I must have jinxed it

Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful spring day. The sky was blue, the sun was shining and the temperature was actually warm. I even had the audacity to blog about how wonderful it was. Apparently, the weather gods heard me and today blessed us with mankind's absolute favourite precipitation: freezing rain. Lots of it. And they threw in 50km/h winds for fun too. As a result, I decided not to go to spinning class (even though it was Latino night) because I had no desire to spin off the road and die. Instead, I stayed home, napped, and made spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce for dinner. And for dessert, I made cookies.
However, after sitting on the couch for a while, I decided I had been lazy long enough and opted to do a workout from Zuzana (of Bodyrock.tv fame). For those of you who don't know her, essentially she puts together boot-camp style workouts that seriously kick your butt. She is crazy-intense and you will almost certainly be sore afterwards. This is the video I did tonight. Including a few pauses to check the video and deal with some hip cramping, it took me 21:20. My butt is going to be sore tomorrow!

Spring???

Oh my goodness! It was 5*C/41*F! That's downright tropical compared to what we've had this winter. I got in a nice 4 mile run this afternoon and it was awesome!
This past weekend, however, was a bit of a disaster. Where do I even start? We went to Montreal this weekend for my grandmother-in-law's 70th birthday party, which was essentially a family reunion. It was great to see everyone and we had a good time, but have you ever seen the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding? Well, that's my in-laws, except they're Portuguese, not Greek. Don't get me wrong - they're great people, but it can be a bit overwhelming at times, especially with all the kids. On top of that, I barely slept all weekend, I got sick Friday night, I hit my head off the trunk Saturday morning before we left and got a wicked headache, then I spent most of Sunday nauseous. Sounds fun, eh? It seemed like everything went wrong. And of course, one of the victims of this disaster was my 15 mile run. I'm disappointed that I couldn't get it in but given how things turned out, I can't really blame myself too much. Here's to a new week!

Whew...

I've (almost) survived another week! It's been busy! I only have one hour of class tomorrow morning, so I think I can make it. I've worked out almost every day too. Here's what I've done:

Sunday
Hill workout - 6 miles, with 4 miles of hills. The marathon in Ottawa is fairly flat but the 30k race in 2 weeks has some rolling hills in the last 10k, so I want to be prepared. I just followed the treadmill's hill program and that seemed to do the trick. I think I'll up the level next time though.
Monday
4 mile easy run plus a yoga class in the evening. I was the only one there, so the instructor was able to teach me some great stretches to help with my quad tightness.
Tuesday
Spinning! I missed the last two weeks so it was nice to get back at it. We did a LOT of hill climbing! Thankfully, there was no wall-sit.
Wednesday
Rest day, though unintentional. After work, I had an appointment at the chiropractor and I was planning to go to the gym afterwards. However, I didn't feel great when I got home and I actually went to bed around 8pm. (I ended up getting up around 10pm to make some food because I was hungry - couscous salad. Yumm! Then I went back to bed.)
Thursday
Double day! Believe it or not, I actually got up at 5:30am to go to the gym!!! It doesn't happen very often, but I got in 7 miles before my morning class. In the afternoon, Chris and I went to the weight room for an upper body workout. I'm very pleased with the progress I've made in the last couple weeks! I was pretty beat afterwards.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be back at the gym bright and early to get in a 4 mile speed workout. Then Saturday'll be another distance PR for me - 15 miles!


NRR - Tonight, I played Quelf with my class at the naval reserve. So much fun!!!

My legs hate me

Today was the first morning in a long time where I could sleep in if I wanted to. And I fully intended to. However, do you want to know what time I woke up at instead? 6:45am!!! The time I would normally get up at if I were going to work. Figures. I ended up staying in bed for a while cuddling with my doggies and I may have dozed off for a bit, but either way I was still a little annoyed that I couldn't sleep in.
In the afternoon, I dragged myself over the gym for an upper-body workout and a recovery run. I'm very pleased with my progress in the weight room. I easily completed 3x12 reps of 15lbs/arm for my biceps curls, which means I can move up to the next weight. I'm a little hesitant though because the next dumbbell up is 20lbs and I'm not sure how many reps I can manage with that. I'm also up to 3x10 reps of 70lbs on the bench press! Wahoo!!! In my entire history of strength-training, this is the most I've been able to do on the bench - 3x10@70. Hopefully, next week I'll be able to break through that and get to 3x12 reps.
After a half hour or so of upper body work, I did 4 miles of recovery on the treadmill. My legs have been sore all day, but as soon as I started running, they were fine. Once I stopped though, they were back to being sore in spite of my aggressive foam-rolling. The rest of the day was spent lazing around the house and playing with the doggies.
Here's a picture of Kona (left) and Mika (right) cuddling together on the dog bed at the top of the stairs:

Side note to all you bloggers out there. Any suggestions on how I can improve the look of my blog?

New distance PR!!!

Tonight was my longest run ever! Up until now, the longest I had run was a half-marathon (13.1) but this evening I made it to 14! Wahoo! Too bad it had to be done on the treadmill at the gym. To make it less painful, I watched The Help on my phone and that made the time pass a little faster. (The last hour was still pretty brutal and I really had to push myself to keep going.) I quite enjoyed the movie, though there was one really disgusting part where I actually gagged out loud. Figures, that was the only time throughout the entire evening when there were other people in the cardio room; they probably thought I was some kind of freak.
As soon as I got home, I foam-rolled so hopefully I'll be able to move tomorrow. Thankfully, I really have nothing on the agenda for the weekend so if I want to stay in bed all Saturday, I can. I asked my husband to make dinner tonight since in addition to my run I had to work all day (he didn't), so I'm sitting on the couch waiting for some delicious pork slider burgers!

Wordle!

Thanks to Christy@My Dirt Road Anthem for this:

14 miles on the TM? Ugh!

It's been a loooooong week and it doesn't look like the weekend's going to be any easier. Number one on my agenda is getting in my long run (14 miles). My problem: I have nowhere to run. I don't know if it's the weather here or the general lack of pedestrians, but sidewalk plowing is a seriously low priority in the Saguenay region. And given the number of terrible drivers here, I'm not taking my chances on the roads. So until the snow melts and I can be reasonably guaranteed of having a clear sidewalk to run on, I guess I'll be sticking to the treadmill. Friday night it'll be a long 14, then Saturday an easy 4, followed by a hilly 6 on Sunday. Yay! I haven't been able to squeeze in any miles so far this week because things have been going a mile a minute (see below). Can I count that towards my weekly mileage?

NRR -  I'm really enjoying teaching the class at the naval reserve unit. Despite the fact that I teach them til 10pm Thursday nights and Saturday mornings (and sometimes Sunday mornings too), it's the class I most look forward to. Tonight's class didn't even feel like work! It was awesome! And it was just what I needed after running around all day. I started in the morning with a class in downtown Chicoutimi, then I had one at the hospital. After stopping at home for about 20 minutes to get lunch, I continued on to La Baie for my next class (home was on the way, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered). Then it was back to the base for another class before driving Chris to his football practice in Chicoutimi. Follow that with some errands and finally finish with the naval reserve class downtown Chicoutimi (where I started my day, interestingly enough). Whew!