Boxing Day 10 Miler

Hamilton ON

BIB # 275

Chip Time 1:30:20

Official Time 1:30:43

Pace 5:34/km

Place 373/726

Gender Place 97/310

Category Place 27/47

 



So I won't lie. The whole reason that I wanted to run this race is because I think that they have cute medals. If this is wrong I don't wanna be right! The only thing that was holding me back from registering was 1) I love shopping on Boxing Day and 2) Boxing Day is our Christmas at my dads. But then I realized that 1) the race didn't start until noon so I could fit it in along with shopping and my dads and 2) Patty was willing to run it with me. Merry Christmas! Sign me up!

Then came the weather report. Snowstorm. Christmas Balls!

I woke up Boxing Day feeling a little bit less than perfect. Busy shifts at work, a big Christmas dinner, sweets, booze and lack of sleep the past few days & nights were not perfect prerace form. I sent a text out to Sarah on my way to the Boxing Day sales that sh*tting my pants just may be in the cards during the race. Ah the good ol' race fear of mine; crapping my pants.

My shopping goal this day was to get to Factory Shoe's 50% off sale early enough for them to still have my size in Uggs. I thought that they opened at 9am so I was a little shocked when I arrived at 8:50 to find the place buzzing. Turns out they opened the doors at 7:20! Thankfully my wishes were granted and they did have my Uggs. Yay! I scooped those up along with 2 pairs of New Balance shoes size 7.5D AKA Flintstone Feet and did my best to find the end of the lineup to pay. One hour and 3 minutes later I was finally at the cash register. Yikes! Time was ticking away and I'd just spent over and hour on my feet. I had just enough time to head home, change and pick Patty up. Thankfully the predicted snow had not started yet but the crazy 45km winds had. And they were cold! What to wear? What to wear? I settled for my Lulu running pants, Smartwool socks, my long sleeved Lulu Swiftly and my Lulu Define jacket. You're welcome Lulu shareholders. I also brought along a water bottle that fits into my jacket pocket because Beth said that in the past she'd seen people filling up cups at the water stations with hoses from peoples yards! I didn't need creepy water adding to the crap my pants factor!

Patty & I arrived at about 11am and found some fairly close parking to the start/finish area. We walked over to the YMCA to pick up our race kits (a toque that I probably bitched about being too masculine far more than Patty wanted to hear, our bibs & a very small sized Cliff bar). Kind of lame but the registration fee was fairly low so I can't expect complete awesomeness. We hit the usual long bathroom line and snapped a quick picture.

Say Cheese!

I'm not quite sure what was up with this Y only having two bathroom stalls in the change room. Even my gym has about 10 and it's a fraction of the size of this Y. That smelled. Frickin terrible! Ah, the good ol' Hammer. We went back to the car, threw our manly hats into the back, gelled up and put on our gloves. I was starving at this point and feeling a bit of a tummy ache coming on. Not the way you want to feel right before a 16k run. We then made our way to the start line where we saw Paul & Mari, two daily mile friends. And then, quite uneventfully the race started. We hadn't even hit the start line yet when some dude who in my mind I named 'Gunther' decided he needed to elbow past me. RUDE! IT'S CHRISTMAS! We passed him a couple of minutes later. Good thing that you got ahead of me just so that you could run slowly in front of me! Wiener! There was a lot of congestion until we got to Bayshore Park but we were still able to keep the 5:30/km pace that we were aiming for. The goal of this race was sub 1:30. At Bayshore the wind really let its presence be known and it sucked! I think that out of all the directions that the wind was coming at us during the race, the sideways wind was the worst. Patty & I didn't talk much except to let out a 'certain letter bomb' every time a wind gust came up. As we were coming out of the park I noticed a guy come barreling out of the lone porta potty that was on the course and immediately was reminded that I just may crap my pants. Stupid porta potty! If you hadn't been there I would never have thought about it. Thankfully a nice long hill soon came up to take my mind off of things. We huffed our way up silently thanking the Gods for not sending us into a headwind at this point. Time was going by fairly quickly for me and I was recognizing a lot of points along the route from when we ran it as a long run a few weeks earlier. It's nice to know where you are on the route rather than just blindly running along I think. Shortly after 10k Patty felt that she couldn't keep up with the 5:30 pace that I was trying to keep us to (at some points she'd yell at me for going too fast...sorry!) so I went on ahead. I was still feeling pretty good, but soon the Chedoke Hill came along and I wasn't feeling so great any longer. I got about halfway up the hill and I stopped and walked and drank some of my fresh from home water. I made my way to the top, ran to the water station and took a Gatorade (see Kyle, longer races DO have it). Two sips and I was ready to get back at it. Now we were running on a muddy trail and the footing wasn't the best. Neither was the headwind. Once off the trail there was a nice downhill which I took advantage of WEEEEEEEEEEEEE. After this things kind of sucked. No matter what direction I ran from the point of the trail on it seemed that the wind was in my face. My legs were also getting tired and the stupid elf that I had been trailing for most of the race was getting away from me. A couple of cars had also somehow gotten onto the closed side street that we were running along and one kept trying to pass me. Seriously? Thankfully a turn came up and I was able to get away from him. And then couple of turns later I was passing my car! It was kind of bittersweet because while I knew that I was close to the finish I was also longing to just be finished and sitting inside of it. Soon enough I was crossing the finish line and receiving my coveted snowman medal! About a minute later Patty came through and we decided to just go straight home rather than going back into the stinky Y and getting some soup. On the way to the car I spotted Gunther taking a picture of an older couple who I assume were maybe his parents. If I didn't resemble the Joker with my red sweaty face and purple lips I'd have photobombed that guy! Elbow me will ya? We also saw a guy run by in a Christmas tree costume. At least someone had some Christmas spirit, unlike me & Gunther. All in all I had a fun time despite the nasty wind, and at least it waited until that evening to snow! And I didn't crap my pants! Yay!

Secret Santa's

What do you mean it's 6am on Christmas morning and my family won't be up for hours?! Being the only early riser in the house truly sucks some days. Oh well, it'll give me the chance to post something witty and meaningful here. Ok, it'll give me a chance to put some words up and make me feel better about my lack of blogging lately. With hockey season in full swing I still have no spare time to get on here, and when I can someone else is on the computer. You would think that with two laptops and two PC's in the house there would be enough for everyone but for some strange reason the computer in the living room is the only one people want to use around here. Not that you really care about that, but hey, it's 6am I'm allowed to ramble.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I took part in two online Secret Santa's this Christmas. I just missed signing up for Courtney's Sock Swap last year so I was happy to get in on that this year. I also did the Daily Mile Secret Santa. Hopefully both of the people who I played Santa to have received their gifts in time! With the price that I paid for postage that stuff should have arrived the next day! Yikes! I bought for Hannah for the sock swap and Leana bought for me. I received a really cute pair of Christmas socks, a Lulu headband, some soap, Gu and Nuun. Yay! Totally awesome gifts, thanks so much Leana! I'm hoping to wear the socks tomorrow at the Boxing Day 10 miler but they're calling for snow so I may have to stick with my Drymax wool socks. Thankfully every time I check, the forecasted accumulation goes down. First it said 30-40cm, then 20cm, then 15cm and now it says up to 10cm. Keep it up weather man!

From my Daily Mile Santa I received a really cool box of tea from David's Tea. I've never heard of this store but a lot of people commented on how great it was when I posted a photo of it on DM. I haven't tried any yet, but I will.

Merry Christmas to you all! I hope that you have a wonderful holiday and all the best for 2013!

Santa 5K



Burlington ON

BIB # 1179

Chip Time 28:11

Official Time 30:10

Pace 5:39

Place 553/2806

Gender Place 220/1757

Category Place 12/197

 



The Burlington Santa 5K is advertised as 'Canada's Largest All Santa Race'. There were 3500 people registered to run this event, all in a stinky Santa suit made entirely of felt in the backroom of a sweat shop somewhere. A few months ago I told my son Kyle that I had registered us for this event just to see what he'd say. "Ok" was his response. 'Really?!?! Right on! Retribution for the Warrior Dash'! er I mean 'Yay! A nice mother son activity' I thought. Over the weeks I gave him plenty of opportunity to back out, waiting until November 30 to register us and constantly asking him if he still wanted to do the run. He answered me 'Yes' every time with the typical exasperation of a 17 year old. Of course two nights before the race he told me that he had a hockey party to go to on the Friday night but not to worry, he'd still be running on Saturday morning with me. Perfect, I had also just checked the weather and they were calling for 90% chance of rain..... what better way to spend a Saturday morning then running in a felt suit with a hungover teenager in the rain with 3498 other people?!?! "Don't worry, babe" I told him. "We're just doing this for fun, it's not a race, we'll go at your pace".........

Don't worry, if we get split up I'll be able to find you......

Race day arrived with the rain that was promised. I had a hard time trying to figure out what to wear underneath the suit seeing as it wasn't going to breath at all. After a quick facebook chat with Patty I went with a tshirt + crops. Kyle wore his Under Armour pants (tights) that he wears under his hockey equipment and his Warrior Dash tshirt. I made us a breakfast of oatmeal and tea and gave Kyle an Advil chaser. He said that he felt fine, and although I noticed a little bit of a stink coming off of him from the night before it was nowhere near the one that his dad had going on so I figured we were good to go! (Without Kyle's headphones which he couldn't find. "Geez. That's too bad. I guess you'll just have to talk to me now.") So off we went, in the rain, to the race. "Don't worry buddy. I'm sure that these suits are pretty water resistant" I said. "Ugh! They're going to weigh 100lbs and I'm going to get sick and won't be able to go to Michigan next weekend for hockey!". "You'll be fine, it's a little rain. It's not even cold. And besides, at least now we don't have to worry about anyone lighting a match around us!!". *crickets* We arrived downtown with 15 minutes to spare.

You can almost see the stink coming off of these suits.....

I knew that with so many people participating in the event we should get as close to the start line as possible. Unfortunately that was not going to happen and we ended up pretty far back in the crowd. Right behind a lady with a jogging stroller and a 5 year old. Awesome!

I asked a guy standing behind us to take our picture. He made me ask the lady with him instead. What a douche!

I had brought along a bottle of water for Kyle to drink at the start line but he decided that he would like me to carry it for the whole race just in case. Oooookaaaaay, well at least I wasn't wearing my belt with 4 bottles full of water like some people. The gun eventually went off and two minutes later we were through the start. The course was so congested we were weaving and running up the back of people like crazy. I made Kyle go ahead of me just so that I didn't have to worry about losing him in the sea of red suits. As we got to the bottom of Brant St people started walking. Really? It's not even been 500 meters and you're walking? ARG! Kyle said that I was being a 'running snob' but come on. 500 meters?  As we were running along Lakeshore I started barking at Kyle to pass people. "What happened to 'Don't worry, babe. We're not going to race'?" "We're not racing, now pass these people would ya, they're going to slow?!?!". We turned up Maple and disaster struck. The string that was holding Kyle's pants up broke. Darn sweat shops! He tried running while holding his pants up but with only 1km or so behind us that wasn't going to work so I told him to get up on the sidewalk and I'd see if I could fix them. I quickly tried tying them back up and wrapping the string around a bit but after running another 200m we realized that wasn't going to work either. Back up onto the sidewalk we went. I suggested that he just take the pants off but with only his Under Armour pants (tights) underneath this was not a welcomed plan, so I just took off the highly flammable belt from my jacket and tied it around his waist over the pants. Thankfully this did the trick! Crisis averted!

I was really impressed with Kyle's ability to keep a 5:30/km pace and told him so numerous times. We were cruising along as best we could while weaving in and out of the people, chatting away commenting on the massive calves on one guy and laughing at the ripped pants of more than a few others. It was honestly a really great time. I kept asking him if he needed to walk and he kept saying no. We came to the water table and I spied Gatorade cups. "Gatorade will be at the front, water at the back" I told him. He took a cup of 'Gatorade' and drank it down. "Uh, yeah. That was water." Oops. Sorry buddy. I'm used to longer races I guess. I didn't take any water as I hadn't really been putting a lot of effort in at this point. We continued along the course, which was the exact same as The Moon in June, so we were able to hit the tangents pretty well seeing as I had a good memory of the loop course. At one point we came to a group of teenage marshalls obviously out for volunteer hours warning people to a curb. "Hey Jackman!" "Watch your step, Jackman!". Just what Kyle wanted to see this morning while out for a run in the rain with his mom wearing a Santa suit I'm sure. Oh well, it could have been worse. He could have been without pants! Count your blessings Kyle! Shortly after this he asked me how far we'd gone. I checked my Garmin and told him that we had another mile to go. "If we speed up a little bit we can get a decent time even with the stops we made with your pants, but don't speed up too much. We want to save some for the end so that we can pass any little kids ahead of us". I noticed that the guy running beside Kyle was listening to my advice. Smart! No one wants to get shown up by the 10 year olds on course, trust me! Kyle picked up the pace a bit here and then as soon as my watch beeped the 4th km he took off. What the hell? Where was this when I was bitching at him to get around the slow people?!?! I kept up for maybe 200m and then had to fall back. I saw him look over his shoulder at me and I waved him on. "Just go. If you can beat me then beat me". That was the last that I saw of him until I crossed the finish line. Gone were my visions of the finisher photos of us crossing the line together holding hands with big smiles on our faces. Instead I was left with the realization that a 17 year old boy with a high level of fitness but who never runs was outrunning me. Here I was saying that we'd be running at his pace when really we needed to be running at mine. But who cares? I was proud of him for being that amazing! After we got home (and Kyle went back to bed) I looked at my Garmin splits. I ran that last km in 4:20. Kyle beat me by 30 seconds which means that he ran that final km in 3:50. Holy crap! I don't think that I could ever run a km that fast. Damn youth! Once we met up at the finish line I proudly told him that I beat a little kid. "So did I" he said. Atta boy!

Where's your mom, kid?

Here she is carrying your stinkin' water! (That boy on my right belongs to a family
who comes in regularly to the restaurant. I can't wait to tell him that I beat him! AFTER
they tip of course!! LOL) 

First the worst........

Second the best

 PS....in case you're wondering, Noah has no interest in running a 5K any longer which is why he didn't join us. Considering he'll dog a 400m track tryout just so that he doesn't get selected to run it I'm surprised that he ever even considered it.

HBBC Weeks 1 & 2

So you'd think that with Kyle gone to Ottawa for a high school hockey tournament for the first half of last week that I would have had plenty of extra time to post about the first week of HBBC..... Please, I barely had time to go to the bathroom. I just don't know how my life gets so busy what with two jobs, two kids, a husband (who could also be included in the kid count), two nephews who's lives I try to play a large part in, and a dog. Any way work is fairly quiet this morning, so here's a run down of my last two weeks including workouts and life stories.

Monday Nov 19 - Day 1! Yes! I'm getting up and running 10k for sure! Unfortunately my bed felt too good this morning and that run did not happen. I did get in two dog walks for a total of 1.5miles, ate all my fruit & veggies & did the FB thang.

Tuesday Nov 20 - Ran for 4 miles with Patty around the Mountainside area and went to the gym with my lovely personal trainer Shira for an hour. Also took Gordo out for a total of 1.9 miles, did the F&V and FB.

Wednesday Nov 21 - Finally got that 10k run in and walked 1.5 miles. FB & F&V bitches!

Thursday Nov 22- Ran 5 miles with Patty that included the Kerns Rd hills (or what Patty refers to as the 'double bitch') and then up Cedar Springs hill. This was a hilly workout but I enjoyed it. I walked 1.5 miles, did the F&V & FB thing and took advantage of the Thanksgiving bonus points even though the real Thanksgiving was a month ago. :)

Friday Nov 23 - Did the WOW and walked 1.5 miles. Fruits & veggies were not my friends this day but FB was.

Saturday Nov 24 - Ran 17k out on part of the ATB route. Love that Valley Inn Rd hill! Jokes! LOL Patty calls this route the cemetery 8 as the usual route is 8 miles and you run past 5 cemeteries. This is one of my fav routes, very hilly and scenic. Obviously we added onto it by running down York Rd a bit. It was pretty cold & windy out and there were some tricky ice spots. I saved Patty's life by catching her as she fell once! Ok, maybe I didn't save her life but I saved her a fall. After that I walked Gordie for 2 miles ate my fruit & veggies & posted on the FB group.

Sunday Nov 25 - (hubby's bday today). I walked the dog for half a mile in the morning and then went and worked another lovely Sunday breakfast shift. Facebook was the only other point I got this day.

TOTAL : 44.1 points + 10 bonus points + 3 bonus points for tweeting and adding the challenge to my blog.

Monday Nov 26 - My Achilles was bothering me a bit from the two hilly routes so I took this day off to rest. I did the WOW, walked 1.5 miles, ate my fruit & veggies and posted in the FB group.

Tuesday Nov 27 - Ran 5 miles with Patty around my neighbourhood, walked .5 mile, ate my F&V & did the FB thing. This day also included my nephew's football championship game at the Rogers Centre in Toronto! This was the Ram's game to lose and unfortunately that is what they did. By one point with 10 seconds to go. Heartbreaking is an understatement. I can only imagine how badly these boys felt but they did amazing just to get to that game. MM Robinson has never made it to the Metro Bowl so that's a huge accomplishment. Also, Kyle's hockey team made it to the gold medal game at the Scotiabank Centre (where the Ottawa Senators play) this day. Unfortunately they lost also. It was a day for losing in my family I guess. LOL After all of this I attended a funeral visitation for a guy who played on one of our sponsored hockey teams (God bless you Ty) and went into work. LONGEST DAY EVER!

Wednesday Nov 28- Ran 5 miles around my neighbourhood, walked 1.5 miles with Gordo, spent an hour at the gym with Shira, ate my fruit & vegetables and posted on FB.

Thursday Nov 29 - Ran for time with Patty on Lakeshore. Our goal was 1 hour. At that point we were still a fair ways away from our cars so we ran for 10k instead. I also walked 1.5 miles, ate my F&V & posted on FB.

Friday Nov 30- I walked for a total of 1 mile, did some upper body weights for 30 min at home and posted on FB. Fruit & veg were a fail for me this day.

Saturday Dec 1 - It had snowed the night before and was pretty cold. I met up with Patty & Beth and ran the Boxing Day 10 miler route (or a modified version). The ice was crazy on this run so I had to spend most of my time watching the ground. It's too bad because this is a nice route. The Chedoke hill wasn't the greatest, but I got through it. Probably Patty & I are going to run this event this year. I covet the medal. Afterwards I walked the dog and spent the afternoon walking around the mall with my family. Too bad that there were no bonus points for this!

Sunday Dec 2 - The usual half mile walk summed up my day. Half a lousy point. How sad.

TOTAL: 45 points + 6 bonus

SQUAT CHALLENGE------ I saw this posted on Run With Jess FB page and thought I'd take a crack at it because I loves me some squats. Probably 100 on boxing day is not going to happen.

 



13 IN 13 --------- I'm also going to give this a go. Run 13 races in 2013. Varying distances. Thirteen medals?! Yes please!