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

Slow Solo Long Run - Week 2 Antelope Canyon 50 Miler Training Cycle

This week flew by.... literally.  It was another week of flying to Hong Kong for me with a PA Day tacked onto Friday which means that the kids are off of school which equals NO LONG run on Friday.

The way my friends and I had worked out our training plan was that we would do our back to back long runs on Fridays and Saturdays. This is largely because I tend to be out of the country Tuesdays through Thursdays.  Ultra marathon training is different from regular marathon training cycles in that there are two high mileage runs back to back on consecutive days.

With the PA Day scheduled for the Friday, my friends and I realized that we would have to do one of our long runs on another day.  I had no choice but to do mine in Hong Kong while I was on my layover.

Monday - Speed Workout. I had to squeeze this workout in early as I had promised to take my father to a doctors appointment. He was recently diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and has since had a number or appointments.  I pulled up and speed workout that I had done a few years back while training for my marathon.

Work out is Warm up for 15 minutes, then 4x400 with decreasing rest times repeated 4 times followed by at 15 minute cool down.

I hadn't done a speed workout in ages and I've realized how much I dislike them. I love that they are somewhat short and sweet but I always feel like my heart is going to explode and that I will vomit at the end of the sprints. However, when it is all over I feel amazing.

Tuesday morning was back to work for mommy. Quick lunch prep in the morning and off to the airport I go. I used to wake up at 4:30 to squeeze in a quick treadmill run before making lunches and heading to work, but I found that rest is way more beneficial. The flight to Hong Kong is 15 hours on a good day and I need every moment of shut eye to look my best :) , I mean be nice to the passengers.

Wednesday afternoon I arrived in Hong Kong. I was lucky to be working with a good friend and when that happens, I usually abandon the workout for that day and we catchup. My girlfriend loves Thai food and we found a trendy well recommended spot online and headed out straight after working our 15 hour flight.  If you're ever looking for an authentic Thai spot Chachawan is a great spot to check out. Their food is from the Issan Region in northeast Thailand. My girlfriend chose this spot because there was Larp on their menu. I had never tried Larp before. It is essentially a lettuce wrap with delicious ground meats and Thai spices.

I had decided that I would attempt to complete my first of the two long runs in Hong Kong. Thursday was the only day I had left to run the 17 miles required. I would have loved to have done it in the trails, but that would have required the whole day. I only had a few hours as my flight back to Toronto was later that day.

Views from the Promenade

I headed out to Shatin bright and early.  Shatin is a city along the Shing Mun River with an extensive promenade for runners/walkers and bicycles.  There is no road traffic, so there are no traffic lights or cars to battle. The battle with me with these long runs are that I have gotten spoiled by my running buddies. They keep me company and motivate me to keep on moving. I didn't pack my music as I haven't listened to any music for the past few years.  I know that a lot of the struggle for me is in my head. I kept reminding myself that was only 17 miles and it was 18 degrees. I was running in shorts and a t shirt while my friends had to run in snow and negative temperatures.  I eventually got it done with some pretty bad chaffing to prove it.

I made it back in time to the hotel for a quick shower and back onto the bus to take us to the airport for the 15 hour flight back home.

Friday was PA Day. When I am home, it's fully mom mode for me.  Kids and I had hoped to sleep in, but that did not happen. We had scheduled parent teacher interviews for the kids for this day bright and early at 8 am. I dragged myself and the kids out of bed and we headed out to meet their teachers. I'm relieved to say that they went well, but I had also scheduled a bunch of other appointments for the kiddies.  It was also BLACK FRIDAY!!!!!

New Shoes

The kids and I thought about heading out to a mall, but decided against it when we drove by a few and saw the parking lots.  We settled for Chapters/Indigo and got some goodies for all.  My son hates shopping so to make life better for my daughter and I, we dropped him off at grandmas and headed back out. We were lucky to have some time to have a quick visit with friends visiting from out of town for liquid nitrogen infused cheese curls at Cool N2.  Kids had more activities before rushing out and having a lovely sushi filled girls night out.

Saturday - Long run part 2.  9 miles through the trails with my buddy.  We met up early, but it was a bit too dark to head into the trails so we decided to run some hills at the trail head before heading into the darkness of the woods. It had snowed earlier in the week, but the trail had been used. Some parts were quite slippery, but we were able to get in our 9 miles before we both had to head home to our mom duties. Because I tend to work weekdays, we try to jam all of our kids activities on weekends. We ended up being uber drivers on weekends to all their different activities. Luckily, we had dinner plans with friends at the end of the day, which was incentive for us to power through.

Full Moon to Start the Run

My friend from Rochester was visiting this weekend and was able to bring all our running shoes that my run buddies and I had ordered a few weeks ago. I am so thankful to have my buddy living in the USA so that I can ship many of my purchases to her. I go through so many pairs of running shoes that it gets quite expensive. I was thrill to try out my new pair of Saucony KOA trail shoes that I had ordered on my Saturday trail run. I will write another post on my thoughts on these shoes in another post. 

Sunday - Rest day. Wonderful sermon at church to reboot my soul.  Hubs and I decided to treat the kids to one of their favourite places to eat.... Jolibee. Jolibee opened up its first location in Toronto here earlier this year, but we had not gone due to the ridiculous line ups.  People were lining up for hours when it first opened up. We were lucky to have had it in August when we were in Winnipeg.  I think I ate all my calories back and more over this weekend.

Sushi Feast

How was your week? Anyone race?

Wet Start to Ultra Training Cycle

I was surprised that training was starting this week. I thought that I had a few more weeks to slack off and take it easy, but here we are.  My friends and I have been running  trails leading up to this week. After training and racing two ultras with me, they are helping me through another training cycle.  They are doing what they can to help me succeed at the Antelope Canyon 50 Miler.  I am lucky to have my friends to train with me an race this with me in the Spring os 2019.

My job takes me away to foreign destinations where I have to adjust my training.  My friends try to accommodate my schedule if possible so that we can do our long runs together.  

This week I was flying to Hong Kong which meant that I would be away for 3 days out of the week.

Monday, I was able to run with 10 km with my friends L and K. K had just returned from racing the Chicago Marathon a few weeks ago so it was nice to catch up with her.  Did I mention that she's in her 60's and an Ironman Finisher. 

Tuesday morning I head out bright and early to the airport after helping hubs get the kids ready for school. This week, I was off to  Hong Kong, which means I usually get no running/activity completed for the day as the flight is 15 hours and with the time change, I am landing in Hong Kong Wednesday afternoon the next day.

Wednesday late afternoon I get into my hotel room after the 15 hour flight and pass out. I had set my alarm to wake up and head to the track for some speed work or the gym, but neither happened.  When I finally got up, the guilt set in from in activity. I have some workout videos saved on my iPad and I did a quick 30 minute Insanity session in my room and then was out for the count.

Thursday morning I wake up and head out to Lion Rock Country Park for a trail run. Hong Kong has an extensive trail system that I discovered last year as I was training for the 100km race. I was thrilled to find out about all the trails. I have been flying to Hong Kong for over 15 years and had never gone into the trails. Hong Kong is very lush and surrounded by mountain. With the help of the Internet, I was able to discover many routes.

The Lion Rock hike is the closest to my hotel and is easy to get to. It takes me about 30 minutes on public transportation to get there.  The trail section I do is about 8 km and 469 m in elevation.  When I first did this route, it took me over 2 hours to complete. Every time I go there now, I try to beat my previous time.  This trail has A LOT of stairs.  The first time on the trail, I was with a fellow crew member and we saw wild boars. This time, I had to wait for 2 monkeys to get off the path and let me  pass. Weather was nice but still got my sweat on. Then head back to the hotel, shower and get back on the plane home to Toronto.

We landed in Toronto Thursday night to Toronto's first big snow storm for this season.  The captain had said "a little dusting of snow", but he was wrong.  By Friday morning, the Toronto area had accumulated 11 cm of snow.

Snow on the Plane Parked Beside Us.

Friday morning, I picked up my friend K to the mechanic to drop off my car to have the winter tires installed. We dropped the car off and went for a run. I had to run 25 km and she was going to keep me company for 15 km of it.  The weather was terrible. It was still snowing from the night before. The snow was wet and heavy, perfect for making snowmen, but not ideal for running.  Not all the roads or sidewalks had been plowed.   We ran on both the sidewalks and the road hoping to avoid all the wet, slushy snow.  Some of the sidewalks were light plowed and some parts were snow covered. It was like running in quick sand. When we went onto the roads, it was wet. The snow had either melted or was driven over so much that it was all slush and with every passing car or bus we were getting soaked.  Within the first 10km, both of our feet and shoes were soaked. I ran K home at 15 km and finished a l0 km loop to the mechanic to pick up my car finishing at 25 km. It worked out quick well.

Saturday morning , the crew came out for 15 km run. The roads were finally dry after snowy day the day before. It was nice to run with dry feet and the gang to keep the conversations going.

I was treated to a girls night out Saturday evening.  We went to the theatre to watch Ain't to Proud, a musical about the life of The Tempations and the music of Motown. It was a great show and the performance were spectacular.

Sunday - Rest day

Total mileage -  61.7 km

How was your week?  Do you have any races you're training for?

DNF’s and Moving Forward

I finally decided to re visit my blog. It has been a long time since I have written anything. I look back to when I first started writing and realize that I started blogging November 2012, 6 years ago after the birth of my son. I was very passionate about running and wanted to share my experiences and love of running to whomever would listen. I used to follow many other bloggers who would motivate me and made me want to be a better runner. I had hoped to do the same, but feel like I have failed. As the years progressed, I wrote less and less.  But I would like to give it a try again.

Life has gotten busy, but lets be real who's isn't? So where do I start ? It seems like I have tried to re start blogging many times. Blogging was therapeutic for me, like running is.  My last post was about my first ultra marathon, the Monument Valley 50 miler. It was a wonderful experience and I decided to sign up for a 100K race the following year. 

I have since run a few more marathons, finished a sprint triathlon and DNF'ed (Did Not Finish) my attempt at a 100K this past May. I had gone into the 100K race with so much hope and had hoped to at least finish so the DNF was a huge blow to me and my pride. I had always heard about people not finishing races because of different circumstances, but I never thought it would be me.

I was able to go to Boston this past April to cheer my friends at one of the coldest and wettest Boston Marathons in history.  I was inspired by so many and have not given up hope to maybe .... one day I will run it myself.

I decided to take the summer off to recharge. I have enjoyed the past few months running for pleasure and when I wanted to without following any training plans. I enjoyed training for my first triathalon. I spent more time on my bike and swam a little. The triathalon was something that I had always wanted to do and it was a good distraction for me. It allowed me to continue training but at a lower intensity.

O

It was the first time in a long time where I was not obsessing about following a training plan and making sure I was out everyday pounding the pavement. I spent the summer riding and running trails with friends.

We took a family trip with friends to Lisbon in August and a few weeks later I did a mother daughter trip to Madrid with my daughter and a friend. Both these trips sidelined any running that I had planned to do. But I had an amazing time exploring new places with family. Seeing their faces light up from all the new things they were seeing and experiencing.

After, my DNF in May my friends decided that we should to another ultra next year. I really wanted to do it but the fear of letting them down was always at the back of my mind. I was having a bit of a pity party but in the end, we signed up for the Antelope Canyon 50 Miler in March 2019.   I am lucky to have friends who believe in me and are willing to drag me through the desert again. Come and follow me on my journey. 

I am going to try to post once a week, if not once a month to keep the readers updated on this next training cycle.  Honestly, I am not looking forward to the many miles that I will be logging the next few weeks leading up to the 50 miler, but I know I will be so thankful and overwhelmed when I am running in the desert in March.   I enjoy the friendships that I have made over the past few years through running, riding, and all the activities we do.