July recap

Holy crow! Where have I been? This blog is collecting dust like the desk in my office! (We have no cleaning service) The summer is flying by yet I feel like I've not accomplished a whole lot. The story of my life I suppose. I'm already into week 7 of my fall training plan and the days are ticking closer to Kyle's departure to university. I try not to think about that too much though because it makes me sad! Wah!

I won't bore you with mundane details regarding every single run that I've had the last four weeks (besides, more than likely you are my friend on Daily Mile and already know every run I've had the last four weeks!), but I will let you know that for a time it was hot as balls and making things more difficult. Right now we are having amazing temps that more than make up for the heat. If every morning was 15* I would be a very happy running girl! I had to resort to doing some of my speed sessions on the treadmill at the gym because it was just too hot for me outside. I was born in England, my body was not created for 40*+ temps!!

This week our training paces have increased by 6 seconds. I'm really curious to see what my 5K time could be by the end of this training cycle. I've been feeling very strong the last week or so, I honestly think that I can crush beat my current 5K PB, 23:whatever the heck it is. :oP Yesterday I ran my 14K tempo run with 2x10min at Tpace (4:46) and hit 10K around the 52 minute mark. Seeing as my 10K PB is 51:somethinsomethin I think that I also need to see if I can improve on that!

With my final run of July completed this morning, I'm taking the time to look back and notice that this month is my second highest mileage month EVER, only 2K behind my marathon peak month in April. My weekdays runs have been a lot longer this cycle, averaging about 10K so I think that this has been what has pushed me over. I've been picking up shifts here and there at work lately to make some extra money for the university money pit so I've been feeling a bit stretched thin with going to bed late and getting up early, but you've gotta do what you've gotta do. One day Kyle will thank me for it. If he knows what's good for him any way. ;o)

So time to bring on August, with faster paces and the Midsummer Night's Run 15K where I will see how I am looking for my fall1:45 half time goal. All the perks, half the suck because that's how I roll......

 

JULY IN PICTURES



Who hasn't seen a million baby bunnies on their runs this summer?



More babies were hatched on our coach light.

 

 

Canada Day 5K AG winners!

 Canada Day bar losers. I'm talking about me having to work this snoozefest not the Lone Wolf
at the bar.

Noah & his friend Adam on the way to board the plane to St John's. I miss him but it's nice to get to use the computer!

 Sunrise at the corner of Burloak and Lakeshore. Getting up super early has a few advantages.

The view of Bronte Creek from the bridge on Rebacca St. This is the same place that Patty and
I found the frozen dildo this past winter. I still look down everytime I run on this bridge!

Bronte Harbour. What do you mean you can't see the boats in my photo taken
with my high-tech HTC Desire phone's camera?!

That says Cudmores which is the name of the nursery. Plant art amuses me.

This picture makes me laugh. Not even sure what I'm trying to do here. Me in front
of Shell Park. Yes THE Shell Park. Obvs I'm not by the bathrooms though. Please note last nights makeup.

This isn't July related, it's from the Moon in June but Patty found it on the Burlington Lulu's facebook

page last week so it sort of counts. See if you can find me, :o)

Canada Day 5K

Burlington ON

Bib # 1212

Chip time: 23:57

Official time 23:49

Pace 4:45

Place 75/274

Gender Place 17/?

Category Place 2/25

 

 

I'll be honest. The entire reason that I ran this race was because I had the perfect outfit for it (red Scotia half shirt, white Lulu Pace Setter skirt & red and white stripped socks that Leana gave me in Courtney's sock swap at Christmas) and I really wanted the Canada Flag medal. 5K's are the work of the devil and after running one a few short weeks ago I was not really into racing another one quite so soon. TBH I was perfectly ok with running it easy, just for fun. Then Nicole told me that if I raced it I wouldn't have to do speed work during the week this week. Sold! My main goal going into this was to run sub 25 minutes.

 

I arrived downtown shortly after 7:45am and was easily able to find free parking. Plus! I then made my way to the race kit pickup area. There were two lines with no real direction as to which one we were supposed to be in so I took my chances in the first one and waited. A little while later a lady came up and said that the line that I was in was for last names A-H. Really?!?! Is it that hard to post a sign? *sigh* I then went to the back of the other line and stewed and waited. I saw Amy & Nicole while I waited in line and eventually got to the front where I got my bib and then timing chip along with a couple of garbage bag twist ties to attach it to my shoe with. Fail! After making a man in his Team Canada Tri Onsie show me what was in the swag bag I decided against taking that and the tshirt. I hate to take things that I will never use and the shirts were over sized and ugly and we have more than enough shoe bags and race pamphlets. I'm actually surprised that all of this was included with a medal and post race food for such a cheap price! Plus! Could have been an A+ if the shirts were decent VRPro! ;o)

 

Nicole and I strolled down to the start line (making a bathroom stop along the way) and met up with Amy, Emma & Patty (Patty wasn't racing but her son was doing the kids 1K). We chatted for a little bit and then Amy and I went for a quick warm up along the 1K route. Coming back we realized that there was a headwind that wouldn't be that great at the end of the race. Boo. The kids 1K race started and we cheered for all the children as they raced. We saw Bella's daughter come in second overall (atta girl!) and Patty's son finish with a look of utter confusion on his face. It was pretty darned cute! After the final child crossed the finish line we were called to the start. I still had no real plan at this point and I was really not looking forward to racing. Too late now I thought as the gun went off. The beginning was pretty congested and some people (like usual) didn't heed the rules to not start at the front if you are slower. Or walking!!!! After almost taking some old girl out who was out for a stroll I was able to finally move up and around people. I lost all of the girls fairly quickly and wondered through most of the first half of the race how far they were behind me. I made an effort to not let myself go faster than 4:30/km, really just to see how it would help me feel at the end. Usually my first km in a 5K is around 4:15-4:20/km and I'm dead at the end so I was hoping that if I went slower I'd have more gas in the tank for the finish. Guess what. It makes no difference. Balls to the wall from now on it is! LOL We followed the waterfront trail out of Spencer Smith and onto the beach strip and I was feeling pretty good. There was a man pushing a woman in a suped up racing wheelchair that was covered in running stickers. The 26.2 one caught my eye and I wondered if he actually pushed this lady through a marathon?! I felt bad for him when the sandy part of the course came along. For as many times as I've run this route in the past I have never paid attention to how long the sand trail is until trying to run a race in it. Yowza that sucked! Good on him though, he kept pace and we pretty much ran side by side until I decided to stop for water at the turn around. As I was drinking the water I saw Nicole and gave her a wave. Shortly after I saw Amy & Emma. They looked to all be having great races. The 2.5k back was pretty uneventful. It was as it is in every 5K, just trying to convince your legs to keep moving. The faces of the runners coming the other way kept me occupied for a little while until I passed by the last runner but by then I just had about a 1.5km to go. Thankfully I didn't sound as terrible as the man who was trying to pass me did and I knew that while I wouldn't be getting a new PB I would be hitting my sub 25 min goal so I was happy with how things were going. Coming back through Spencer Smith a young boy ran past and a lady yelled out to me "You're not going to let a kid beat you are you?!?!". Pfft. Obviously this woman has never tried to outrun a child. Frickin' right I was going to let that kid beat me! As I was coming down the home stretch I saw Patty and her family cheering everyone on..... If you can consider yelling out to me "Puke. Puke. Puke." cheering. LOL I turned the corner to see that the clock had not turned to 24 minutes yet so I turned on the jets and got in just under. Yay! Not long after Nicole, Emma & Amy crossed the finish line, all 3 of them getting new Personal Best's! Awesome! We got our medals and posed for a picture then went and checked out the results. I had come second in my age group winning a free dinner for two and Nicole came third in her age group winning her a Running Room hat. Yay us!

Emma, Me, Nicole & Amy. Too bad you can't see my socks.

 

 

 

 

 

Week 2 Fall Training

As I try to write this (shhhh, at work) the man installing new cameras keeps coming in and out of my office and it's really annoying. Hopefully he's not focusing anything onto my computer monitor. EEK! Week 2 of the training plan went well and even with 2 graduations and a university orientation day I was able to fit all five runs in. No gym time though, but I'm going to go today so hopefully I can stick with it now. *Fingers crossed*


Monday - 10K easy. It was super muggy out this day. Blah.
Tuesday - 10.15k run with 4x4 min Tpace (4:52) w/ 3 min recoveries. I did the same thing as last week because it worked really well for me. Run to the gym, bang out my intervals on the treadmill and then run home. This was also Noah's graduation day from grade 8. No more elementary school students for our family. *sniff*
Wednesday -  8.05 easy peasy lemon squeezy. This was Kyle's graduation day from grade 12. He graduated as an Ontario Scholar, earning honours every year that he attended.
Thursday -9.5K easy pace with Patty. Was supposed to be 8K but I had the bright idea to turn the route into a loop after we misjudged our out & back route. Oh well, what's 1.5K between friends?
Friday - rest. We spent the day in London at Western University where Kyle will be attending in the fall for an orientation day. They really do so much to get the kids ready nowadays. It's reassuring to see for us.
Saturday - 20K run with Nicole & Phil. This was our first week with tempo included in the long run. We did 20 min easy and then 20 min at 4:52 tempo pace. The last few minutes were pretty sucky but we got through it and the rest of the run was a breeze.
Sunday - rest

Hope you all had a great Canada Day yesterday! And happy 4th of July for anyone else reading this. I love being Canadian!

Mother son dance at the graduation. Noah feels that he looks like the tallest man in the world next to me.

High school graduates!

Me & my Ontario Scholar