Liebster Blog Award

A few weeks ago Darlene from My first 5K & more nominated me for a Liebster Blog Award. Darlene's was the first blog that I started reading when I began running and one that I have stayed loyal to over time. She always has amazing pictures included and I like her posts a lot. Unfortunately she is injured AGAIN right now! Get well soon Darlene! Any way, since life has been super busy lately and today is a rainy do nothing type of day I am finally able to post about it. This award is a way for bloggers with less than 200 followers who deserve some recognition and support to keep on blogging.The rules are as follows:

11 THINGS ABOUT MYSELF
1) I was born in Chessington Surrey England and moved to Canada when I was 4.

2) I became a Canadian citizen when I was 19 and gave up my British citizenship.

3) I love hockey and I am a Buffalo Sabres fan. It's way cheaper to be a Sabres fan than a Leafs fan and they also get into the playoffs way more. :oP

4) I don't put up with crap and I don't sugar coat much. I think people call that 'being an asshole'. LOL I always stick up for the little guy and what I believe in. I am a bully's bully. :oP

5) I have a schnoodle named Gordie who my husband says I love more than him. Some days that may be true.

6) I like to laugh and try to find the humour in most situations. I'm very sarcastic and have a dry sense of humour. A lot of people don't get it.

7) I'll read anything, but I like corny Highland love novels the best. Put a kilt on the front cover and I'm sold. I try to read these on my kindle so that my family doesn't know because they would tease me.

8) I've never met a dessert that I don't like.

9) I've worked in the restaurant industry for 20+ years. I rarely go out to dinner. It's kind of like the carpenter who has a house that's falling down.

10) I never have more than 3 drinks when I'm out. I like beer but not hangovers.

11) I'm a picky eater. Like, the worst! Don't invite me over for dinner because I'll probably turn my nose up at what you serve. LOL

ANSWERS TO DARLENE'S 11 QUESTIONS

1. Running, Biking, Swimming or Other? ..... I like to do all 3 but running is what I like best.
2. Dog or Cats? ....... I am a dog person. I don't like cats much at all. They tend to give off that superiority vibe.
3. Favorite Racing Distance? ........ Half marathons are my favourite.
4. One Goal for 2012 that you have accomplished? ........ My goal race for 2012 was the Midsummer Night's Run 30k which I completed in August.
5. Favorite Ice Cream Flavor?........ Being lactose intolerant takes ice cream out of my life, but I liked Laura Secords French Crisp the best when I could eat it.
6. Favorite Race? ....... To date it is the Mississauga Half Marathon. It was my very first half and I have nothing but good memories from it.
7. Marathon: Done It, Someday or Never? ........ In the spring, baby!
8. Favorite Book?........ I have no retention of the thousands of books that I have read over the years. Seriously, a week later and it's gone.
9. Favorite Movie?........ see above
10. If you won the lottery, what would you buy first? I'd probably take a trip to Lulu Lemon and get everything on my wish list. It's pretty big.
11. Worst Fear? ....... probably the same as every parent; something happening to my kids.

11 QUESTIONS THAT MY NOMINEES NEED TO ANSWER

1) Are you a folder or a crumpler? (This is always a funny conversation in my house. Oddly it comes up often)
2) What is your favourite type of fiction?
3) What is your favourite thing for dinner, either at home or when you go out to eat?
4) Have you ever gone to the bathroom in the bushes on a run?
5) Coffee or tea
6) What month do you wish it was all year round?
7) Do you dress up at Halloween?
8) Do you cross train?
9) Do you still live in the same city as where you were born?
10) What did you want to be when you 'grew up'?
11) What is your fav brand of running gear?

BLOGS THAT I AM NOMINATING FOR A LIEBSTER AWARD

1) I've always been a joiner
2) Yo Mama Runs
3) Perpetually Moving Target
4) Laura - Running, Living, Laughing
5) It's life Max it out
6) Robin's Blog
7) Slow is the New Fast
8) Third Time's a Charm Runner
9) Paul Radcliff
10) Half Marathoner Sarah
11) Anyone else that wants to

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon recap

Toronto ON

BIB # 9740

Chip Time 1:56:24

Official Time 2:02:28

Pace 5:32
10K split 53:50

Corral #2 - Yellow

Place 3008/9690

Gender Place 931/5088

Category Place 123/620

 

 

Sometimes when I'm racing I think "This is awesome. I love this". Other times I think "This sucks. What the F**k am I even doing out here?". Unfortunately STWM was the latter.

On Friday Sarah and I drove out to the "free" race expo (with $14 parking!) to pick up our kits. Thankfully we got there early and it wasn't overly busy. We got to meet John Stanton (founder of the Running Room) in all his botox glory and hear him speak.

I don't even know what is going on with my head here. Or why John Stanton
looks like one of those carboard cut outs!

He gave a lot of good tips so I'm happy that we sat through his segment. We also sat in on Lanni Marchant & Krista DuChene speak about womens marathon running. It was boring, I've read their same statements in various running magazine articles. Boo. Then we sat in on Reid Coolsaet, Eric Gillis, and two other past marathoners. Sorry dudes, I'm like a kid of today who loves hockey. I'm all about the Sidney Crosby's not the Lanni MacDonald's. I think we lasted about 5 mins here. It was also boring and we were hungry. Sorry Reid, you'll have to meet me another day.

Myself, Sarah, Maggie & Sharon.
Yellow bibs=half Blue = full

Sunday morning rolled around and I woke with a start. At 4am. Guess my mind didn't want me sleeping in again? I lay in bed solving the worlds problems until close to 5am and then got up and got myself together. I took the dog for a walk at about 5:30am and it was very mild out. No rain. No wind. Yay! Suck it weatherman! I guess constantly checking the Weather Network app on my phone this last week finally brought me the weather that I wanted! Things are looking good! At 6:15 I left to go and meet the girls (Sarah, Maggie & Sharon). It was pouring out. *sigh* The rain stayed fairly heavy the whole drive into Toronto. We found a parking garage right by the start and got ourselves together. The girls put on their sexy garbage bags to stay dry. I selected not to put one on. Not sure why but I figured that my throw away sweater (You're welcome homeless person who now owns my old wet stained white Lulu Remix hoodie) would keep me dry enough and would also help me look way better than the bag ladies. On the way to the bag check we popped into a hotel and hit the bathroom. Poor Sarah had the unfortunate luck to get a stall where someone had just had a very stinky BM. I honestly wish that I had a photo of her face as she was closing the door. LOL Eventually we made our way down to University Ave and scoped out where our corrals were ( I was in yellow, the girls in purple) and went and tried to meet some Daily Mile friends in the pouring rain. Unfortunately the only one we were able to find was Richard. He was super nice, or as Maggie described him "lovely". I guess everyone else was hiding from the rain like we were. Before I knew it, it was time to make our way down to the corrals. I gave the girls a hug, wished them luck and slowly made my way to the start all while trying to make sure that I didn't get any umbrellas in the face. My plan was to find the 1:50 pacer and stay with him for as long as I could. To do this I was going to have to sneak into the red corral. Good thing that I had on my trusty white stained throw away hoodie because about 5 different people checked me for a bib! I just unzipped a little to show my number, but not enough to show my corral. Ha. I'm so sneaky. I found the pacer fairly easily, but he wasn't the same person that Scotia had on their website. I never actually spoke to this guy so I have no idea who he was. The gun for our corral finally went off as the man on the loud speaker shouted "Good luck yellow corral!". WTF?! Yellow corral?! I went through all that sneaking around to end up in the yellow corral?!?! Talk about karma! The rain was still going for about 5 minutes into the run but thankfully let up after that! The streets were lined with spectators cheering us on which made things much more fun! The buildings in the downtown area really reaped havoc on my Garmin during the first part of the run. It kept auto pausing which kind of sucked because when I eventually lost the pacer around 8km and was pacing myself (with the pace band that I couldn't read while running ARG) I thought that I was good for time. It never even dawned on me until I saw my chip time versus my Garmin Connect time that the auto pause screwed me. Mental note to self, turn off auto pause next time I race in Toronto! My main goal coming into this race was to get my 1:52 that Oakville's long course burned me for, but I quickly realized that this wasn't going to happen. My arch began hurting right at the start (which has never happened before) and I was wet from the rain and feeling like garbage, so I turned to my second goal; sub 1:55. As we turned onto Lakeshore the elites ran by (obviously going the other way) and we all cheered them on. Of course the usual "where's the white guy" jokes were spoken. Har har. I kept an eye out for Reid Coolsaet to go by and wasn't left waiting long. For some reason I don't think that he saw me though. Too bad Reid. Your loss. Again. As we made our way down Lakeshore I was starting to feel a bit tired and my foot was really starting to bother me so I took a couple of quick walk breaks. Not something that I usually do in a race but I didn't care. I wasn't in the mood to fight with my body and I was ok for time. Along the way I passed some bands which was a nice distraction. I think that I heard someone with a microphone say "Go Sammy" at one of them so I gave a wave and kept going. I gave a "what what" to the guys that were asking for them on a bridge over Lakeshore and stared at the girl running in front of me's VPL for awhile. I don't know how many times I have to say this. Don't wear underwear with yoga/running pants. They have a gusset for a reason! At 18K I heard a girl yelling encouragement to everyone and realized that it was Nicole from DM. I yelled out to her and waved and kept at it. I was frickin exhausted at this point and my foot was screaming and there were just no more distractions to find. I just wanted to finish up. Or sit down for a few minutes. Or cry.  Whichever. It was just me and my mind against my body now. Just three more kilometers, come on you can do it! Don't stop for anything. You're tough, no more walking! Ok, two more kilometers. Don't look at the crowd. The struggle on your face has to be so obvious, you'll only see those same looks of pity on their faces as you saw on that guy in the labour & delivery ward after you gave birth drug free. Shit. Still one more kilometer. Can't stop now. Not in front of all of these people lining the streets cheering everyone on. Just keep it up, don't worry that people are passing you. Just. Keep. Moving. Great. A photographer. Smile. Crap. That was a grimace wasn't it? Oh, what does that sign say? 800 meters to go? Is that supposed to be motivating. I don't want to go another 8 steps let alone 800 meters. Oh great, that one says ONLY another 600 meters to go.. Oh? What's that? 400 meters to go? Who's big idea were these signs? They are as helpful as that person who yelled out "ONLY 1.5 KM TO GO". Shut up! That is not an ONLY. Sure in the grand scheme of things it's an only but I'm tired and my foot is really hurting. I don't even know where I found the energy to pull out my fastest km out of the last 13 but I picked it up and made it to the finish in one piece. I went through the motions of going through the finish area and getting my medal & food and could feel tears threatening. I'm not quite sure why other than I was sore, tired and disappointed (and about to get my period LOL). It wasn't that I didn't meet my goal, they can't all be personal best times and really 1:56 is an awesome time, but I did not enjoy my experience. The course was great, except for that one little hill towards the end. The spectators were amazing, except for the stoners who yelled "Get a life, people" out of their above a store apartment window. The event was well organized, except for the bag check that was too far away for my sore foot at the end. I can't give you a definite reason, just I didn't have much fun. I didn't even want my picture taken with my medal at the end! I think that I will have to come back next year and run this again just so that I can have a better memory. I'm just glad that Sarah & Maggie had a better day with their full marathons! Way to go girls! I'm super proud of you. :o)

I was so tired my face was melting! EEK!

The guy beside me makes me laugh. And feel like maybe my
pain wasn't near that bad.....

Race week & Race controversy

Looks like I've grown an inch!!

This Sunday is my final race of the year (boohoo), the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon. Obviously I've been watching the weather like a hawk. Not looking good. *sigh* My real life DM friends Sarah & Maggie will be running their very first full marathons at this event. I'm so pumped for them!! Good luck girls! If anyone reading this is also attending, please hook up with us for the prerace meet up!

Seeing as I've already reached my goal time for qualifying for a corral at Around the Bay in March I wasn't really going to go into this with any real goals. That was until the Oakville Half Marathon decided to have their course remeasured after all of the bitching that they're received (yes, I was one of the bitchers! LOL) It would appear that the bitchers were correct and this course was long. My real 21.1 time was 1:52:06, but it will forever read 1:54:13 on Sportstats. I've been totally gyped and obviously I'm looking for redemption. I want a 1:52 time on Sportstats for real or someone belonging to the Oakville Half is going to get a throat punch! So now I'm looking to Charley Moses to bring me my 1:52! Come on Charley, we can do it, those 35km/hr winds be damned!

Happy 17th birthday Caramilk Cake! Yum!

No photographic evidence that I was on this hayride please!

Happy October!

Buh bye September

Yay fall is here! I'm a lover of all things autumn. The smell in the air, the shorter days, the weather, the colourful landscapes, thanksgiving, Kyle's birthday. You name it, I love it. Just looking at the mums and pumpkins all lined up outside of the grocery store gets me happy, and I'm not easily impressed. Just ask my husband or the guys in the kitchen at work! On Friday the boys and I will take our annual trip up to Springridge Farm to get our pumpkins and play on the haystacks(..........yes my kids are teenagers.........you got something to say?) and I will pull out all of my gardens and put out our Halloween decorations.

Last year at Springridge. I'm pretty sure that it's pretty safe to assume that Kyle was
trying to push Noah off here.....

But in order to welcome my favourite month, October with open arms I need to say goodbye to September. Goodbye first day of school, 6am sunrise, the 203km that I ran and the Oakville half marathon where I ran my new personal best. Goodbye university fair, although I'm afraid that won't be the last that I see of you as Kyle gets ready to fill out his university applications and starts to dream of days where he doesn't have to listen to me tell him to pick up his socks and get to bed. Goodbye 27km run in sideways rain. Probably you I won't miss so much. And saddest of all.......goodbye tank tops. I love each and every one of you. Until we meet again next spring. Now bring on the long sleeves, hockey games and morning runs in the dark! And the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon too!