Am I a runner now

Oh. I have so much catching up to do. I have race report, training report, And recipes.

But this is just a quick note for posterity, 'cus if I don't post it now I'll forget.

I was out for my long run last night. (Thursday, June 14) 18km. I started out and I felt great. It had been a few weeks since I had a good run. The Bluenose race was a good run.

I was so light on my feet, I had the tunes going ( I actually don't like listening to music usually) I was feeling fantastic.

I got to about the 3k mark and came across a lady walking her two shelties. I saw the dogs. The dogs saw me. The lady saw nothing. As I was making my way out to the road, the dogs started charging and pulled their lead right out of butthead's hand. One of them landed a good chomp in my leg.

I was severely pissed. That dog had just cost me 1100 calories. I was really looking forward to eating them.

The lady was appropriately upset and I walked the 2.5 km home.

Called 811 for advice and then headed for the walk in clinic.

1 tetanus shot, some horse pills and I was home in less than an hour. Still pissed off about the 1100 calories.

I actually went out and finished my run. The beers the next night were awesome.

My collage from the run.




And the bite the next day.




Am I a runner now?

Apple Walnut Salad

About 400 calories of filling yummy goodness.




4 oz of cooked diced chicken breast
2 cups romaine lettuce
1/2 medium apple
1/8 cup walnut pieces
1/8 cup craisins
1 tbsp blue cheese
1 tbsp of fruit vinaigrette ( I use either raspberry or the compliments blackberry Sauvignon )

Shrimp Chow Mein

400 calories and easy on the thighs.





50 g of chow Mein noodles
15 no name 56-65 size shrimp
1 cup of bean sprouts
1 cup of Kirkland stir fry veggies
2 tbsp blue menu peanut sauce

I usually put the noodles in a bowl of hot water while I'm heating everything else up. Then throw the noodles in last with the sauce.

Importing a traing plan to Calendar

This was a huge exercise to figure out. But it is done now and I know that I'm going to forget how to do it again come October. It's now a blog post for posterity.

1. Get a plan from Runnersworld in km. Copy it to excel. Change preferences to miles. Copy that plan to excel. I do this so that outside I can use km and if I need to be on the treadmill I have the corresponding information in mph as well.

2. Set Excel to have the following columns. Subject, StartDate, Alldayevent, description.

3. Use the concatenate function to join the two mileage cells and enclose the cell in quotation marks. Alldayevent should be FALSE.

4. Save this as a .csv file

5. In Google Calendar, click on other calendars. Import Calendar. Choose your file and click import.

Hopefully this will work. Haha.

For anyone else that's reading and wants more columns or to set reminders etc, I exported an outlook calendar to an .xls file. Copied the information to this file. Save it as a .csv file and then import it into Google Calendar.

Boston April 2012

This is a fully loaded Picture Post!

Vacation is either before camping season or after. So basically April or November. This year it was April.

We decided this year to head the the US to visit my brother and his family. During my planning sessions, I realized that he only lived three hours from Boston. I further realized that the week of our vacation coincided with the Boston Marathon.

Without further ado. Pictures.




My nephew Ryan was so excited that his Uncle Luc Skywalker was coming for a visit. Luc didn't have his light saber because the bother guards confiscated it. But Ryan had one Luc could use.




The campground we stayed at outside of Boston. No. Our rig is not one of those.







Seriously! Check out those swag bags. They're packing' some serious swag.





We missed a lot of what was going on at the finish line. We missed the first train into Boston and had to wait another hour. Then we got stuck on the train for an extra 45 minutes because of a brush fire.




A panorama of the beach, walking distance from the campground.




We even managed to get to a Red Sox game. They lost something crazy like 437 to 3.




A big family pic at Sunday River.




And a pic of Paul Bunyon for kicks and giggles.

That was our trip. It was so much fun, we'll probably do it again next year. With some minor changes, now that we have the experience.

I did manage to get in a couple runs while we were away. You get to see so much when you're running around the neighborhoods.

Race Report - Bluenose Half Marathon

20+ weeks of training all came down to this.
Let me start off by saying Thank You to all the organizers, volunteers and spectators for a wonderful race. There are so many people that put so much time and effort into making this a great event. It was wonderful.
Secondly I want to say what a super wonderful husband I have. I love him SOOOOO MUCH!!!! After being up half the night making sure all was settled in the campground, he had to get up a mere 4 hours later to drive a half hour to swap cars with me, and change the blow out I had in my tire. Yep. You read that right, I can't make this stuff up. At 6:30 am this morning, on my way to race day that I have trained for 20+ weeks, I got a flat tire.
I also want to say Thanks to the 4 cars that pulled over to check to see if I needed assistance or a ride.

I managed to make the race with about 10 minutes to spare, but I was a little frazzled and forgot a couple things in the car. I managed to get to a bathroom and meet up with a couple people and was ready to go.

My next running purchase us going to be a belt that I can put a few gu gels in. My coat around my waist sucks.

It was a pretty warm day at the start and it only got warmer. I tried to take advantage of any shade I could find along the course. Even along the water in Point Pleasant Park was warm. No ocean breeze at all.

The first few km's were crowded but good running wise. I started out with the 2:30 pace bunny, but I quickly figured out that was too fast, so I dropped back.

I was starting to get a little frustrated with people passing me. But in the end I realized that I had paced myself better because at the end of the race, I was actually passing them and strongly. I think this was my favorite part of the whole race. I did things right and I finished strong. I was able to encourage others when they were struggling.

The signs that the spectators had were fun and encouraging.

Don't poop your pants.
Pain is temporary, pride is forever.
If you can read this, your going to slow.
Run, random stranger! Run!

I finished the race in 2:47:42

I had a lot of fun, considering and I'm looking forward to the next one.

It's taken me a week to get around to finishing this post, so things are not so fresh in my mind.

Awesome Salad

Went to Brewdebakers today for a business lunch and had an awesome salad. It was the Brewhouse Salad.
Lettuce, mushrooms, green pepper, carrots, cucumber,
craisins, spiced pecans, smoked cheddar cheese, with a balsamic vinaigrette.
It was yummy.
Had it not been a business lynch, I SO would have snapped a pic.