Week 6 - Last Flight for 2018

This was a bittersweet week as it was my last week of work for the year. It was also the last week of school for the kids and the week before Christmas. So, it was pretty much a gong show.

Monday morning after the kiddies went to school, it was off to my buddies place to work on some speed.  We decided to change it up a little bit and instead of doing full laps around there school, we settled on running 400m with a 400m walk back to where we started. In the end we ran 5x400m. I was not thrilled with my time, but just glad that it was over. I complain every week we do speed work. I am hoping that one day I will just embrace it.

I was up extra early on Tuesday because my parents were going to come on my flight to Hong Kong and I was their ride to the airport.  I had bid this flight to Hong Kong with my friends so that we could celebrate Christmas together, so I knew that there may not be any exercise or running to be done on this layover. This was also going to be my last flight for the year.

Hostess with the Mostess

Your Friendly HK Crew

This was the first time I had my parents on a flight where I was working.  They sat in my section and I was able to serve my mom and dad and they were able to see me at work.

Besides a lot of eating and not a lot of sleeping, it was a great layover. I was able to celebrate with my buddies and also meet up with my parents for breakfast and a little bit of shopping before heading home to Toronto.

Shopping with Mom and Dad

Friday was long run number 1 in the trails. We decided to try for 5 hours in the trails.  It had rained while I was away in Hong Kong and then a cold front had moved in, so it was super ICY.  There was not much running for the first few hours of our run as we were just trying to not wipe out and manoeuvre our way through the trails.  The weather was just warming up so it was misty and a bit rainy. 

The Bell Tower

I finally got to see the "Bell Tower". I had heard  many of my friends speak of this Bell Tower and in my head I was imagining actually bells like the ones in the Notre Dame.  But, sadly it was fondly called the Bell Tower after Bell Canada, the telecommunications company

C holding on for deal Life

Our Buddy Karen Joined us for a Bit

Saturday was another early morning in the trails with my buddy Cindy.  We did a number a hill repeats while waiting for the sunrise, but it was much colder than the day before -9 with the wind chill and 44km/hour North West winds. We did 6 hill repeats and decided we had enough of the wind whipping against our faces and bodies. We headed into the Seaton Trail to finish up 18km of running for the day.

I had family visiting from California for the Christmas holidays as we were finally able to spend some time with them over the weekend.  My kids were so happy to see all my cousins and just goof around. We ate lots and stayed up plenty gearing up for Christmas Day

Cousins

I'm looking forward to Christmas, are you? I still have to run around and get gifts. I have become THAT person. The one who will be running around the malls on Christmas Eve, hunting down for the perfect present.

Have a great week. Merry Christmas to you and I leave you with a short video clip from my flight home from Hong Kong to Toronto.

Back to Work and into Week 5 Antelope Canyon Training Cycle

After two weeks off, it was back to work for me. I was looking forward to escaping the cold Canadian winter, but not the long flight there and back.  My trips to Hong Kong are usually 3 days in length, two of those days are spent in the airplane.

Monday was another speed session. This week we did 4 laps of just under 1 kilometre around the school.  I have a love hate relationship with speed work because it hurts so much, just like hill training. This week was not my best performance, but happy to have 3 out of the 4 laps under 5 minutes per kilometre. I am still chasing down the rest of the group and always wanted to throw up at the end of each loop. 

I had set my alarm to wake up early to try to get in a short run on the treadmill before my flight to Hong Kong, but I ended up snoozing and only getting in some stretching and strengthening work in before it was time to head out for the morning flight to Hong Kong.

When I arrived in Hong Kong on Wednesday, I knew that there was no way I would be able to do any kind of exercise. The flight to Hong Kong was exhausting.  Maybe it was because it was the two weeks off from flying. I ended up sleeping from the moment I got into my hotel room to until the next day. It was the first time that I had slept so much on a layover.

I woke up early Thursday morning in Hong Kong and headed out to do my usual Lion Rock Hill trail run/climb.  Hong Kong has an extensive trail system that is easily accessible by public transit and for people of all ages and athletic abilities.  Lion Rock Hill is a mountain that is about a half hour train ride from the hotel.  Lion Rock is the 52nd highest mountain in Hong Kong standing at 495 metres high.  I was pretty tired from the get go, but always try to do the hike from one side of the mountain to the other in 2 hours.  The trail is usually quiet in the early mornings, but can get busy as day goes on. This morning was quiet. The first section of the trail is fairly flat and is near apartments, so there is usually quite a number of seniors out for their morning walks.  I start at Ma On Shan Country Park.

My Strava Stats

I will write another post on this hike as it deserves it's own post.  I eventually end up at the start of Lion Rock Country Park and this is where the climbing starts.  This is a fairly quick but quite painful climb. I like to call it nature's stair climber. I do my best to keep moving. I run the flats as much as I can and crawl up the steep climbs. 

As this is the wild, there are animals that can be seen along the trails. It's usually monkeys, but on this run, I ran into a wild boar. I was coming along the side of the mountain in a flat section and could hear rustling in the bush.  It sounded louder and heavier than usual and sure enough the boar popped out onto the side of the trail and I stopped in my tracks. I was all alone and was frozen. I decided to step back and give the boar some space, but the only say to continue on the trail would be to pass the boar.  I didn't want to go back as it would only bring me back down the mountain, so I stood back and waited until I heard the rustling and snorting get further away.  I dashed across the trail and continued to climb the mountain.  I wish I had my phone out to snap a photo, but was I was freaked and in shock.  

Endless Mountains 

Taking a quick Break

Once I made it to the top out of breath and exhausted, I took a moment to take in the spectacular views. It was a pretty clear day as there had been cold front that had come through Hong Kong that week. Winds were from the north which was chilly for locals, but for this Canadian gal, I was loving the "warm" temperature. 

More Views

It always amazes me how they built this city in between all these massive mountains.  When I first starting flying to Hong Kong 14 years ago, I never knew that there was such an extensive trail system. I always just thought of Hong Kong as a big metropolis.  

After a quick water break, I headed back down the mountain to get back to the hotel to get ready for my flight home.

It was SO HARD getting up on Friday. We had decided to do one of our long runs this week on the road. We were supposed to run 32 kilometres , but it was pouring rain for the entire run. We ended up with 27 kilometres. I was completely exhausted and many thanks to my run buddies who kept me company and moving for the entire time. I'm sure they would have finished much earlier as they are much faster runners, but they stayed with me and encouraged me to finish.  We were all soaked to the core after 3 hours in the rain.  Everything was numb.  I headed home to a hot shower and a quick nap before picking up the kids from school. Mom life is never ending.

Smiling because I'm DONE!

The alarm went off at 5 am Saturday morning for another long run. My buddy picked me up and we headed out to pick up another buddy to run some road and trails. 

Dawn

I am very fortunate to live close to some trails. There are paved sections that lead into the woods. I was hurting from the previous runs.  I'm glad I had friends who showed up at my door and dragged me out. Once I started moving it wasn't so bad. Thankfully there was no rain and it had warmed it a little bit. The rain had washed away most of the snow.  It was nice to be back in the trails.

I was elated to finish this week of training. Three days of hard running had be completely bagged. My legs were sore and my body was tired.  I was ready to take Sunday off.   I was off to more mom duties before a night to celebrate a friend's birthday and another week of training done.

My Clan 

How was your week? Anyone race? Are you ready for the Christmas Holidays?

Week 4 Antelope Canyon Training, bring on the Christmas Parties

I can't believe that we have been training for 4 weeks now. But, my body is definitely starting to feel it.  I had enjoyed the week at home the week before and was looking forward to this week as well. There was also a sense of urgency as I knew it was my last week off before heading back to work. I was trying to make sure I had everything done for the holidays and the family before flying out for the next two weeks.

Training has been coming along. I actually ran every day this week except for Sunday

Monday speed session was awful and that's just me being honest. I don't like speed work. I always want to die and I know that you should push yourself hard, but many times I give up before I even start.  Feeling like you want to drop dead and puke at the end of every lap is not what I enjoy any more.  I am hoping that I will embrace it again. We met up at my friend's place to run laps around the school. We did one warm up lap and then 4 laps around the school. We ran one of our friends home and finished with another lap and a cool down.

Laps are just under 1km

Tuesday was pretty much a write off. Husband bought us a new t.v on the Black Friday weekend and delivery was scheduled for today, but the window was ridiculous, 9-5. Seriously,  who sits around the entire day waiting for a delivery. I was rather disappointed as he had bought the television from Costco and I would expect better service.  I decided to use this day as a catchup day and rest. However, I got restless and ended up running for an hour slowly on the treadmill while watching Netflix. The delivery ended up being a complete mess and we would never recommend Costco for this service again.

Wednesday was a gorgeous day..

Sunrise

My buddy was free for a run so we met up for a quick easy run on road and trails of Milne Park

Rouge River

Milne Park

It was quite wet and soggy as the trails did not have a lot of traffic in parts. We ended up forging our way off the trails for part of our run.

We also discovered bike repair/aid stations that the City of Markham had placed at certain trail heads entering the paved parts of the trails. The stations had tools as well as a bicycle pump for anyone to use free of charge.

Fixit Station

Thursday was to be an easy day but I just had to take advantage of having the week off, so I was able to convince a buddy of mine to meet up with me for an easy 10km.  Have I mentioned that this awesome run buddy is a grandma in her 60's and can run the pants off of me. I was struggling to keep pace with her. I would have considered this my tempo run :)

Friday was long run 1 of 2. The training plan calls for 15 miles. We had decided that it would equate to about 3-3.5 hours in the trails. We headed back up to Durham Forest to explore the trails. As we were running through the trails, we commented on how lucky we were to actually live so close (20 minutes drive) to some of these trails that we run in.

It was the coldest day of the week on Friday and I was not sure how to dress as it was the first super cold day of this training cycle.  

Felt much Colder

The trails were covered in snow, but there were bike tracks that we were able to follow along to the section markers.  My toes were frozen and all I could think about was whether or not to tell my friends. I figure they were just as cold as I was and since they didn't say anything.  All I could think about was what would happen if my toes froze... would I have to amputate them?  Thank goodness after 4 km's of running before I could start feeling my toes again.  The trails were quiet and we only bumped into 1 cyclist.

Fat Bike Treads

We found new trails that we had not run in before and ended up a the base of a local ski resort. If you look closely at the map, you can make out 2 ski resorts on the right side. The ski resorts had their snow making machines working hard to get ready for a weekend of skiing.  Tough run and was exhausted when we finally finished.

That evening the run squad had our Christmas get together. We got to just chill and relax. I've been so blessed to have met these ladies. We have spent many miles pounding the pavement and exploring trails. I am lucky to call them my friends.  It was so nice to be able just to catch up and chat since most of the times I'm trying to keep up with them and barely able to speak because I'm so out of breath.

Missing a few Ladies

Saturday, I was up nice and early to get in long run number 2; 11 miles.  My buddy picked me up at 5:30 and we were off to start in the dark. It was actually a bit warmer than Friday's run, but not by much. The light snow was pretty, but my legs didn't want to move at all. My buddy and I usually run the road which is a pretty big hill for about an hour to kill some time while the sun comes up.

Rouge River

Fresh Snow

Hair is frozen

Are we done yet???

Sunrise and Stairs

This run was actually really nice with the fresh snowfall. Even though my legs were toast, my buddy was nice enough to keep the pace and keep me moving. The whole idea of having the 2 back to back long runs is to run on tired legs and I was definitely feeling it today. All I wanted to do was to walk, but we both had to be home at 8:30 to get to our mom duties, so I had to get moving.

After a day of driving the kids to all their weekend activities, we headed out to Rockwood to another Christmas party.  I was so happy to be done with Week 4 of this training cycle that I just ended up passing out by 9pm. Thank goodness for sleepover parties where you can just eat, drink and fall asleep.

Kids and Ugly Sweaters

Mom's 

Dad's

Finished week 4 with 72.86 km, 2 Christmas parties and a full belly. Vacation is now done and back to work next week. Mileage will go down as I will be flying for 2 days out of the week.

How was your week? Do you run in cold weather? Do you like it? Anyone racing this week?

Thanks for reading... :)

Vacation /Week 3 Antelope Canyon Training

This past week was the first of my 2 weeks of vacation.  We didn't actually go away on a holiday, but I was looking forward to being home. I was excited to get ready for the Christmas Holidays and to be able to train everyday at home and not skip out on workouts because I would be on the airplane and jet lagged.

Monday, was pouring rain. I was hoping that it would let up for our speed workout, but that DID NOT happen.  We all showed up and ran loops around my buddy's home. The distance is just short of 1 kilometre.  We did a lap warm up and ran 4 loops and 1 lap for cool down. We were all soaked to the core. It was just short of 37 minutes, but we were all done. Finished off with 5.82 km.

Tuesday could have been a lazy day, but I called up a buddy who is always willing to run and thank goodness I did. She got me out and was able to squeeze 10km out of me. We were still jumping puddles from the rainfall the day before.  It was a nice and comfortable run. I've gotten so used to running slow that I must remind myself to push again and embrace the pain. Having a quick run let me spend some quality time with my mama the rest of the day.

Wednesday was back in the trails for some hills. We decided to go into the Rouge National Urban Park.  I just learned recently that it is the largest urban park in North America and it is literally in my backyard. There are many trails through the park and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting the Toronto area.  It is easily accessible by public transportation and also has parking and visitor centres.  There are also guided walks that you can get more information about from the link above.

This trail offers many lookouts of the city and surrounding areas. I was happy that it was cold enough for it to snow instead of rain. There are many different route options when in this park. My buddies opted for routes with hills which are good in the long run, but I still whine and complain.  One of the many highlights is the climb up what used to be a ski hill.....

Truth be told, I only was able to run part way up the hill and spent most of time huffing and puffing way up.

We decided that Thursday would be a day off so that we could rest up for our long run planned for Friday. I was thrilled to have the day off.  We decorated the house and the tree. The kids were thrilled and I was happy that the kids have finally figure out the step ladder and are tall enough to get the decorations somewhat evenly spread out on the tree. 

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Friday was going to be the longest run for this training cycle. 20 miles was planned, but we decided that we would try to do at least one of our two long runs in the trails since our race would be in the trails. 20 miles on trails is very different from road. We decided to just try to average out the amount of time it would take us to run 20 miles on the road and spend that amount of time in the trails. So, 4 hours was what we agreed upon. We went 20 minutes just north of us to Durham Forest. I couldn't believe how much snow they had. 

Trail Map

Snowy Trails

After 4 hours in the trails, my watch told me that we had only covered 23 km. I was so deflated and sad. I couldn't believe that we only covered so little distance, but it did put things into perspective.  I am going to have to push harder. I am usually the last one trying to catch up to my buddies. It's always hard for me to know how hard I should be working because I want to make sure that I can keep up for the duration of the run. It is something I am still learning. Pacing myself to have enough energy to keep going, but also to work at my highest potential. The weather was quite ideal. There was not much wind and the snow on the ground was more like packing snow, so it had grip for our shoes. I'm sure we were sweating under all our layers, but we were not uncomfortable.  We all had our packs with enough nutrition for the time spent. I had two 10 ounce bottles of Hammer Perpetuem. My friends had Hammer Sustain and Skratch.  We had some gel bites and other goodies packed away.

I was quite tired after the run and made it home just in time to pick up the kids from the bus stop still in my run outfit. I had spent most of the day in the trails. Thank goodness for time off.  

Saturday was back in the trails bright and early.  Since it is now much darker in the early mornings, my friend and I do some hill repeats on the main road into the trail head to kill some time before the sunrise so that we can get some mileage in. I have to be back home fairly early take take my kids to their weekend activities. 

Headlamp is a must

With our headlamps and flashlights we ran almost 7 km of hill repeats before heading into the trails

Still Dark

I've run this trail quite often and have taken the kids in here, so I feel quite comfortable on this trail. I still often have no idea how far I've gotten or how much further I need to go.

When light finally Appears

I am constantly checking my watch to try to figure out when we need to turn back as this is an out and back run for us.

I'm sure there was Something chasing Me

My friends like to to out further than I would like to, so that I will push harder to rush back to make it back to the car.  I'm happy to know that they believe in me, but I always want to cry when I'm pushing as hard as I can to make it back. I imagine bears chasing me down so that I can catch up to my friends.

Thankfully I made it back to the car for 8:29 and rushed home to bring my little to basketball for 9. The kids greeted me with excitement as they woke up to find our elf.  She was back with Advent calendars for them to help them with the countdown to Christmas. I had spent the better part of the week trying to remember where I had hidden her. Thankfully, I found her the night before. 

Sunday is family day for us. We head to church and took the kids to the mall to see Santa. The kids are getting older, but they still seem to want to believe and visit him.  Thankfully, it has been the same Santa for the past 6 years. 

Mall Santa

Hope you all had a great week. We ended our week with a beautiful concert performance by Heritage at our church, performing classic Christmas carols.  Here's a short clip.  

How was your week? What are you Christmas traditions? Are you training for anything or on a rest period?

Thanks for reading