My Life As You Know It

I hope you never get to know "that feeling."  The feeling when someone you love tells you that they have a disease that you have never heard of and that disease will eventually kill them.  We don't know when, but sometime in the future that disease will take hold and that person you love will have to go into treatment probably involving them getting pumped full of chemicals and having key parts of their anatomy replaced.  You know that this process will mean that they will be sick and in pain and despite this all that this treatment will do is give them time.  Time, not a cure.  There is no cure. What you do at this point varies.  Some cry, some get up and walk away and if you're me you sit there while every memory, every fight, every moment with them flashes through your mind, and every single thing you thought they'd be there to see becomes uncertain.  You tell yourself not to cry because you don't want them to see your tears. You spend the next ...

If you would have asked me a year ago if I would ever run a half-marathon I would have looked at you like you were crazy and said "I could NEVER do that!" Now I am running 18k and feeling great, so I started to ask myself what other things I could "never" do.  Was there anything I could "never" do?  I mean sure I will never be an Olympic gymnast, but I mean how many times do I tell myself that I can't do something?  (Hint: A LOT)  So I have decided this.  From now on I will set a goal and blog about it until I achieve it.  I plan on spending 2012 challenging myself to do something "I could NEVER" do.  I truly believe that changing the way I think and breaking these challenges down into small achievable landmarks will help me put that thought out of my mind. Do you want to join me?  What could you "never" do?  Let's do this together!  We can be accountabilabuddies! Seriously.  Join me!

"Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it." -Oprah Winfrey This week I am back on the horse, sort of.  I am still having pain issues, which is resulting in some difficulty. I sat for an hour with the phone number of the physiotherapist on my phone terrified to press send.  Well now I have a goal for next week. As running becomes part of my routine it is still tough and some days I really need a boost, hence the fact that I have decided to dedicate this post to inspirational quotes.  Besides that great quote from Lady O, here are a few more of my favorites: "Running is a big question mark that's there each and every day. It asks you, 'Are you going to be a wimp or are you going to be strong today?'"  - Peter Maher, Canadian marathon runner "The miracle isn't that I finished.  The miracle is that I had the courage to start." -John Bingham "Remember that the feeling that yo...

So I know that I have been all pumped over the last 8 weeks talking about how great things are going and they have.  This week however I am going to talk a little bit about the hard parts. So first there's the pain.  I have CRAZY bad pain in my left knee, which I am pretty sure is largely due to the fact that I have a flat foot because I broke my ankle when I was 16 and I have a screw in there to this day.  Basically when my foot flattened it put my whole left side out of alignment and now I get really bad knee and hip pain.  I have to start going to physio to deal with this, but I am afraid to call because I hate having to speak French on the phone. The next pain is the lovely muscle pain.  After running (well running for 10 mins and walking for 1) for two and a half hours one is not just going to stretch and be good to go.  It hurts and I can't walk up and down stairs.  The muscle fatigue lasts for a few days and that is not much fun either. Cr...

So the running is going well, surprisingly.  I did my second 16k run yesterday in just over 2 hours.  I am happy to say that with that I am on track to do the full 21.1k in 2 hours 45, which is my goal.  This is VERY slow, but I never had any allusions about being fast!  To be perfectly honest I am pretty sure that I could run the full 21kms right now at this slow pace and that to me is insane!  I am not a runner, but I am now running for 2 hours and feel amazing afterwards! If someone would have told me a year ago that I would be doing this, I would have told them they were nuts.  I never would have thought that I would have the motivation and drive to get this done, but now I am doing it and truth be told I am actually enjoying seeing how hard I can push myself. This week's runs look a little something like this: Tuesday - Tempo 6k Thursday - Hills  (Boo!) Saturday - Steady 6k Sunday Long slow 18k (yay another 2k!) The fundraising is going ...

So I am still in training for my half-marathon and it's going.  Not going great, just going.  I have been having really bad knee pain that has been completely destroying my ability to train.  To combat that I am going to start going to physio and we have bought a treadmill, which is really helping to take the impact off my knee.  So I am keeping at it. I am still waiting for the weight to start to come off, as I am feeling a little gross.  I can attribute that to the amount of baking I have been doing and the fact that I have not been making a lot of dinners and buying a lot of  meals on the go. On the plus side we just had a conference call with a nutritionist (one of the many benefits of the Team in Training Program! :)) and we found out that we're doing a lot right!  She spoke a bit about mineral content in foods and how organic food tends to be grown in more mineral-rich soil, which means that it isn't as mineral depleted as a lot of ...

So I am in the thick of things and running 4 times a week to help the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  It is hard and I am not going to lie I am struggling a bit, as I have a bad knee and it keeps acting up, but I will keep at it.  I NEED to keep at it for my sanity! Lots of people ask me what my training schedule it like, so I thought I would share a snapshot of what's up this week: Monday - off Tuesday - Tempo 6k (Meaning I run it a little faster than my race pace, so for me it is like turtle pace instead of snail pace ha ha ha) Wednesday - X-train (YOGA!) Thursday - Hills (run 800m up hill 7 times, plus a 2k warm up and 1k cool down.  I am not going to lie I hate Thursdays!) Friday - off (This is my only real off day as I ride and/or play softball all the other days) Saturday - Steady 6k Sunday - Long Slow 14k (I also hate Sundays) So that's what my running week looks like.  I have started to listen to audiobooks as I run instead of music in hopes that I...