Race Day Prep

This week's post for Running & Reading Long is about what we need to do to prepare for race day.  Since my race is a 5K, it's not too complicated in terms of fueling.  However, I did learn a couple things from my first race that I need to keep in mind this time.

1. Have all the clothes out the night before, including water bottles and snacks for after the race.  This was really helpful the morning of my first race as I wasn't in my own home, and it will be the same this time.
2. Don't eat "junk food" the night before the race!  With my first race I went to the drive-in the night before and ate things I wouldn't normally eat like nachos and cheese.
3. Drink lots of water the day before the race.  Refer to #2, nachos and cheese plus other salty foods and not a lot of water the day before the race meant I ended up with a stitch in my side.  I'm guessing that this is what caused the stitch and that by following #2 and #3 I can avoid it (or at least minimize it) this time around
4. Take your heart rate monitor and watch.  I want to pace myself this time, as my goal is to complete the race in under 30 minutes.

I think those are the key things for me this time around.  Of course, I expect I'll learn something new this time and will just keep adding to my growing "running" knowledge.

My focus this week and next is running.  I've put my cross-training on hold, and I'm really trying to get out for my runs.  Which is a bit tough with dates and work getting in the way and/or making me very, very tired.  At least the heat is breaking a bit today, so that will help with my run tonight.  And with these runs I'm trying to extend the time spent running, and walking less frequently.  I think this will help build my endurance for August 5th!

This race is going to be fun, and I'm a bit nervous as I'm not 100% sure I'll make it in under 30 minutes and my Mom is planning on coming to watch too.

Vacations

I love being on vacation - getting away from work, and away from my normal surroundings.  Last week I was on vacation and had a fantastic week.
Started off on Saturday in Burlington at the Country, Blues and BBQ.  Not a fan of country music, so was a bit disappointed there weren't more Blues bands.  However, the company was great.  My good friend Elizabeth, her husband Keith and their daughter Daisy (10 months old and super sweet!).  And the boy joined us as well.  Yes, he is still around, and I'm feeling more certain and a little less uncertain as the weeks have been going by.
Sunday I packed up and headed to my parent's place.  Always enjoy my time there.  Swimming, kayaking, hiking, day trips to Peterborough and North Bay.  Saturday I went in to Peterborough to meet the boy and one of his friends for dinner/drinks, and a movie (Dark Knight Rising - which was good and I understood what was going on inspite of not seeing the two movies before it).  Sunday we met his friend for a very late breakfast (or in my case lunch as I had a burger and fries), and checked out the Peterborough zoo.

A zoo that's free!  Not huge, but they have a splash pad for the kids and regular play equipment, lots of park area to hang out in, plus animals of course.  We were there in lots of time to see the otter feeding which was fun, and inspite of the heat the animals were out.  I'd definitely recommend the zoo as a great outing for a family.  It's small enough that no one gets bored or too tired, and lots of space for kids to run around.

Back to work this week (boo!), but looking forward to an extra long, long weekend at the beginning of August.

A Life Changer

This week's post for Running and Reading Long, is about overcoming big challenges, life changing challenges.  I'm not sure what to write about.  I've had a couple major challenges in my life, or at least ones I felt were challenges, but I'm not 100% sure that I actually want to share either of them.
Big, deep, breath - here we go:

One of my biggest challenges came in the middle of high school.  I was overweight (by a lot), unhappy, and the people I thought were my friends really weren't.  I was so unhappy that I seriously considered what life would be like for my family if I just wasn't around anymore.  Luckily, I think a lot before I do anything and like to gather lots of information too.  And as a typical teenager I watched a lot of television.
One day I was unhappy, and bumming around on the couch watching talk shows.  I can't remember which talk show it was, but they were talking about "Choice Theory".  The basic premise of which is that everything is a choice, even if the circumstances are out of your control you can still choose how you react to them and deal with them (or not!).
From that moment on "Choice Theory" has played a huge role in my life.  I started being conscious of the choices I was making on a daily basis, big and small.  I started to try and make choices that I thought would make me happy.  Some were small, like choosing what to listen to or wear, to big things like telling my "friends" that if they didn't want me around I wasn't going to bother with them anymore.

Since that day, I've looked at everything as a choice, and I strongly believe that my choices should be things that make me happy, or at least make me less unhappy.  This has led to some incredible experiences like travelling to Manila, Philippines for work three times, weight training with an amazing trainer and loosing almost 100 lbs, going to lovely warm weather destinations with girl friends and having a blast.  Dating is a bit tougher, as I can choose which guys I want to date, but I don't have as much control there :)  But I do my best to control my reactions to what they decide to do/not do, and so far I've been relatively happy with those choices.
I can't think of any choice I've made since that fateful day that I've regretted.  It's amazing to live a life knowing that I'm capable of making choices that I won't regret, and that make my life that much better.  I still have those sad moments, and do give in to not great choices at those times (usually sugar/chocolate related), but they are few and far between.

We finished reading Matt Long's Long Run this week, and I would definitely recommend this book to everyone!  My favourite part matches my belief in choice theory, and I found it so inspiring.  The day he finally decided to stop moping around, and took control of how he was reacting to his injuries and recovery.  I felt so great for him when I read that section of the book.  He proved that how I live my life can be applied to even the most devastating/tough circumstances.

As for my running - the heat has finally broken, and I'm back on track to be able to run the 5K in under 30 minutes the first weekend in August.  Although I've come to the realization of the past three weeks that hot weather plus dating does not equal great nights of sleep.  And lack of sleep means I'm not willing to get up for the early morning workouts.  So this week my schedule has changes to after work workouts followed by a late and very light dinner.

Hope everyone else enjoyed Matt's book and the running is going really well!

Pre-Birthday Day post

I've been debating all day - do I write a birthday post and admit I'm getting older.  I'm tempted to re-cap all the things that have gone on in my 33rd year, but then I realized that some of those things are really part of my New Years goals.
So in honour of my 34th birthday tomorrow, I've decided to post a condensed (I have a lot of goals) New Year's goals update.  Hopefully I've made some progress!

Financial - Without getting in to too much detail the goal is to pay off debts.  I'm doing okay at this goal.  The most exciting part is that I've already arranged things for my mortgage renewal date of August 1st.  I'm switching to a Manulife One account, which is going to save me a ton of interest (over $20,000), and if I stick to my current budget, can have my debt totally paid off by the time I'm 40!  (As long as I don't go on too many trips, or find a guy who wants to stick around!)

Family Relationships - This one is basically a bunch of goals that include connecting with family members each week.  And I'm doing a good job of this.  I've even managed to visit my Grandmother a couple times, which has been really good as she hasn't been feeling 100% (doctor is playing with her blood pressure medication).  The biggest goal in this category was to attend my sister's wedding in England and then travel to Marrakech with my parents, brother, and (his now ex) girlfriend).  This one was a lot of fun and has been completed since February.  This goal also included riding a camel (did it in the Sahara) and visiting the markets (did this several times).


Mom and her girls

Friend Relationships - This one is very similar to the family goal, to connect with my friends on a regular basis.  I'm doing well on the e-mails and texts, and not too badly on the in-person.  Want to do the in-person a bit more, but that's subject to their schedules with husbands/kids.

Boyfriend Relationships - Do I post this?  Bleh, sure why not:)  I've been doing the on-line dating thing, and my goal was to send messages/winks which I've been doing.  Plus I wanted to average 2 dates per month.  This was definitely a stretch goal for me, and I'm surprising myself with how well I'm actually doing.  While I'm not actually at the 2 per month average, I'm not far off, and if things go well in the next few months I could actually reach this goal.  I have never dated a lot, so with the dates I've been on I'm a lot closer than I was a year ago.
Part of this goal was to try one new activity/event each month to get myself out of the house.  This has been good, and I've combined it a bit with seeing friends, as well as volunteer work.  So I feel really good about the progress on this one.
Oh yeah - I'm still single!  But the point of this goal was to date, and have fun, not to put pressure on myself to be in a serious relationship (that would just be a bonus).

Professional/Personal Development - I've fallen a bit flat on this one.  I'm suppose to figuring out what I want to do next professionally, but haven't done any of the things on my list.  Personally I've started a blog, and am almost averaging my one post a week goal.  And I'm definitely well on my way to having read 40 books by the end of the year (helps that I don't have cable!)

Physical - I've run my first 5K (yeah!), but other than that I haven't reached my other goals.  I am still making progress though.  I'm much stronger than I was at the beginning of the year, and I'm working out consistently.

There we go - my almost mid-year, sort of birthday update on my New Year's goals for 2012.  I have definitely made some progress on a few of them, and looking forward to the rest of the year to see what happens.  Happy 34th Birthday to me!

Up and running again!

My internet has been down (fried modum) since last Wednesday!  Very hard to blog from a Blackberry and definitely not something I want to start doing while at work.  Since I don't have a personal laptop going to a cafe wasn't an option.

So I missed out on last week's Running and Reading Long post, but am going to take part this week!

We have been reading Second Wind by Cami Ostman.  I'm going to admit right away that this isn't my favourite book of the ones we've been asked to read.  In fact, it might just be the one I liked the least.  It's definitely an interesting book, but I found I couldn't relate to it as much as the other books.  It felt very self reflective, and since I haven't experienced the break up of a marriage and that kind of struggle I found it hard to get through.  With that said, I would like to move on to what we are suppose to talk about this week for this book and think about all the great places Cami travelled!

For each marathon she participates in we're to talk about the big take-away for her (or us).  So here's my list:

Europe - Sometimes mistakes are made, but the achievement still counts!

Australia - This was her first official marathon and turned in to a challenge as she faced herself, her own thoughts, past, and current situation.  We need to take time for ourselves, to grow and develop, even when we are in the midst of a relationship or anything else life throws our way.

North America - I felt this chapter for me was about facing fears and dealing with them, rather than letting the fear dictate your actions (in this case running the same "safe" route all the time).

Asia - This was the chapter I liked the best, but I think that's because I've been to Japan and visited Mount Fuji.  It made me want to visit again, although I have lots of new places to visit before I revisit places I've been.  I felt this chapter was about remembering good times, recognizing growth in yourself (the Warrior Woman).

Africa - Besides running a marathon when she was sick, I think this chapter was more about recognizing our human history.  Including our biases, and our racism (past and current).

South America - Be comfortable with yourself and specifically your body.  We are often too critical of what our bodies do (or don't) and how they look (or don't).

Antartica - No matter what the obstacles in your way you can achieve your goals, even if the goal is slightly modified from your original plan.

Training Update:
Things are going slowly.  I'm having more fun with my weight training than I am with my running.  I took a few days off from runnning due to a sore leg, but feeling better now.  The good news is my heart is getting more and more efficient all the time.  I train with a heart rate monitor and it's getting tougher and tougher during weight training and spin classes to get my heart rate up to the 80-90% max.  This also caused some concern at my physical when my resting heart rate was 44 bpm (sound really good, but part of it is hereditary.  Even when I was 260 lbs, my resting heart rate was 52 bpm).
So this coming week, my goal is to increase my speed to see if I can run 5K in less than 30 minutes by July 15th.  If I can do that, then I should be able to do that at my race on the August long weekend.

Pacing your Running

Wow!  When I chose "pacing" as a topic to explore for Running & Reading Long I didn't think it would be as tough as it has been to find basic information.  What I was looking for was how to figure out my pace as I'm running without using any fancy GPS watches.  What I found was:

• Lots of reviews of GPS watches
• Suggestions to be aware of your breathing and how your muscles feel and adjust your pace according to that
• A lot of suggestions for how to pace the various race distances to maximize your energy and get the best results

While interesting, none of these things really help me figure out what pace I need to aim for to run my 5K in under 30 minutes in August.

Based on the information I did read, and what I've figured out on my own.  My understanding is that pacing is really about how fast (or slow) you run each kilometer during your run.  And a "split" is the time at each kilometer mark.  Or if your in the US - for each mile.  I did find a very neat calculator, that I have found useful for calculating splits at Cool Running.

Calculating splits for a tempo run is pretty straight forward, and easy to manually monitor if you use a stop watch, your heart rate monitor, or the clock while on the treadmill.  During a race, you can manually monitor your splits as long as there are kilometer markers.

Things get trickier if you're running on your own outside.  This takes a bit more thought and preparation.  I haven't tried this yet, but I think I'd have to plan my run and then use a mapping program to figure out where each kilometer mark would be.
Running on a track would help alleviate this issue, but I barely like running the same route twice let alone in circles on a track!

So for my 5K in under 30 minutes, if I run at the same speed for the entire race my splits would have to look like this:

        Kilometer 1 - 6:00

        Kilometer 2 - 12:00

        Kilometer 3 - 18:00

        Kilometer 4 - 24:00

        Kilometer 5 - 30:00

My goal for next week's runs, will obviously be to try and reach these splits for one of my runs.  First I need to actually track where I'm starting!
Closer to the actual race I'll have to figure out a plan - should I go out slower and speed up, or go out faster in case I slow down at the end?

Running Update

How is my running going?

Well, I've stuck to my plan with the tempo runs.  This week I have one hill run and one Fartlek run to complete, which I'm sure I will.

I ran outside on Sunday again, which I've discovered I really enjoy.  However, I defnitely can't run the same path twice.  I wear my Ipod and check out the scenery, but it's not as distracting as being able to read the latest issue of Women's Health and look up at the TVs.

Even with the warmer weather, the outside runs have been great.  Luckily I live in a city with a lot of community trails and parks that make great running destinations.

Next week I start the 5K training plan, which will definitely help me focus on getting my running in under the 30 minutes.

Taking Little Chances

I was in my Google Reader today, and one of the blogs mentioned doing things that are out of character, and suggested that doing this makes you grow as a person.  This wasn't really the point of the post, but it's what stuck with me and got me thinking about how I live my life.

I have two main "beliefs" when it comes to how I live my life.

1. Life is about choices, and the choices you make should make you happy.  Even things you can't control (like illness, or other people) still have an element of choice because you choose how you deal (or don't) with the situation or person.
2. Life is about experiences, not the things we own.  Whether it's an experience you have by yourself (like reading a great book, wandering around a market, or travelling), or with your family or friends.  Experiences are the things you remember at the end of the day/month/year/life.

I think these two things go hand-in-hand.  We definitely choose what experiences we have, and the decisions we make every moment, every day have an impact on our happiness.  This is part of the reason I feel so strongly about supporting organizations like Children's Wish Foundation, and supporting my friend's in everything they choose to do in their life (as long as it doesn't harm them or others).

So far, the choices I've made and the experiences I've had have generally been pretty safe.  Things that I was comfortable doing and didn't push me too much out of my comfort zone.  I decided that this year that had to change a bit, and my new years resolutions reflect this.  I'm not one of the people that make resolutions, and a month later forget about them.  I didn't concsiously set out to add resolutions that would force me to do things that were out of character, and make me grow as a person, but that has been the result.

Two of my resolutions definitely fit in to the doing things that are out of character and my life is more interesting because of it.

The first is to be open to every date invitation, whether it's a guy from an on-line dating site, a guy I meet somewhere, or a set up by a friend.  (There was on caveat to this - If I had the "gut feel" that the guy was a creep or dangerous I would definitely say no).  So far being open to all date requests has gone well.  I'm still single, but I've met a few good guys this way, and did enjoy the time I dated the "heart guy".  I've definitely learned a couple things about what I like/don't like/want/don't want.  And new things about myself as well.

The second is to try at least one new thing every month that gets me out of the house.  This is the "doing something out of character" a bit more than accepting all date offers.  This one requires a bit more thought and planning, and I've managed to do a couple things on my bucket list too.  By doing things I wouldn't normally do, like riding a camel in the Sahara, and going to see the Harlem Globetrotters on my own, training and running in a 5K, I've had some great experiences.  I've become more comfortable with doing things that I never thought I'd do, and more comfortable with doing things on my own.  I've also picked up new hobbies (Hello Running!). 

A side benefit to doing new things every month, is that it helps with dating.  Not that I've met any guys doing any of these things, but I have a few new stories to share on dates.  Plus, I'm always excited about the next thing I'm going to do and I think that comes across in conversations with guys, my friends, and family.

I would highly recommend trying small things, taking little chances, every month.  It makes life a little more exciting.

I like doing something out of character once a month.  It isn't too often that I'm uncomfortable all the time, but it's often enough that I feel like I am growing as a person and my life is richer because of it.