Maritime Race Weekend

It looks like I've been pretty MIA for the last few months. June 25th was my last entry.

I didn't get a whole lot of training in over the summer. My "healthy" lifestyle took a little bit of a nose dive. It was just so hot and so humid, all you could do was be lazy. I couldn't even enjoy the gym because it wasn't air conditioned "enough". As an aside, I'm hyperthyroid, so I'm really heat sensitive. The temperature has been turned down a good 10 degrees, so I'm looking forward to getting back on track.

I did manage to get 68 kilometres run in July, 49 in August as as of this writing, I'm already 63 for September. My longest runs in July and August were a 12.7k and a 15k. 

With the Maritime Race looming, I knew I had to get my butt in gear. I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to finish the 21 kilometres with the little training that I did have. I had to run a 21 before my race to know that I could still run it. I ran it on September 6th. 3 hours and 10 minutes I think. So I was going to be ok for the race. But I did manage to hurt my IT band on the left side. And it seems I had pinched a nerve in my right foot that was hurting my middle toe. That's an odd injury. So I iced and stretched my IT band and I heated and iced my foot. 

The days leading up to the race, I managed 2 5k's and a 10k. I was feeling pretty good.

Physically, I was still having some ITB issues and that pinched nerve actually only really bothered me if I hit a rock the wrong way. I did a lot of RICEing. And stretching and taping.

Nutritionally, I kept my fiber and fat content really low for the two days prior to the race. I think that actually helped with the stomach issues.

Emotionally, it was a terrible week. I wasn't sleeping well, I had a family emergency on Thursday. Friday night I had less than 4 hours sleep and had a full out mental breakdown at 4 am. Not pretty at all.

But Race day came and I hit the road about 6:30am. It was a nice day. Some clouds. A little cool. Perfect for a run.

Lots of people around.





When I got there I headed for the mile long line for the porta potties. ( they definitely need more of these next year)

About 2 minutes before the gun I decided to take my chances, and headed for the start line.

I was actually surprised at how fast we got out of the gate.

The first 5k was actually pretty rough. My foot started hurting pretty bad. After that though, I guess my foot went numb.

The next 11 km went really well. Haha! I scared a runner with my heavy breathing at the bottom of that crazy hill at about 11 k. I was actually passing people through these 11 km, that kept me pretty motivated.

The last 4 were also kinda crappy. That's when my ITB started acting up. My pace got way slower and I started getting passed. It was pretty painful. A lot of walking. However I did manage the last 2.5 k pretty well. I pushed and passed the two ladies again and managed to catch one more. And even though I was in pain I actually finished it running. And I had absolutely ZERO tummy troubles. ZERO! At one point I thought I was going to but I switched from the Gatorade back to water and didn't eat anymore gu.

And oh boy did it ever get hot by the time I finished. I started the race in my swag long sleeved tshirt and ended in my sports bra. Really sexy. NOT!

Oh yea. And then I proceeded to change my clothes under a towel. I think I only flashed a little. *eyeroll*

All in all it was a good race.

A couple of disappointments. I mentioned the lack of enough ports potties. Also the drivers in the Passage were way too fast. And had zero patience for the event that was happening in their community.

I was also really disappointed in the huge disproportion of goodies in the swag bags between events. I know it's not just about the swag, but it was kind of insulting, if you ONLY ran a half or a full marathon.

Gotta add some good. The organizers and volunteers did a great job. Every water station had at least one person that called you by name. That is huge. For a premier event there were quite a few spectators along the route. The route itself was really nice. I'm glad I live close enough to run it again.

I think I've posted enough of this race.

Start.




Finish.

Slow cooker chicken salsa

I threw this stuff together over the weekend in the slow cooker. Not bad. Not something I'd drool over, but it's good. High in protein. I had it on some rice over the weekend. But today's lunch is just the stew. I just thought about it right now, but a dollop of Greek yogurt would be awesome.

I cooked the chicken in the slow cooker with a couple of cups of water. When it was cooked I drained it and shredded it and threw it back in the crock with the rest of the ingredients. I threw 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar on top of each bowl and then froze them.

I got 8 servings at 317 per serving and 32 grams of protein.





600 grams of boneless skinless chicken
1 can of black beans, drained and rinced.
1 can corn niblets
1 large jar of salsa
1 cup each Onions, mushrooms, red pepper, and green pepper

Lead legs

Training
Well this was an interesting week for training. I was up. I was down.
Monday night was a typical post weekend, drag my ass out for 5k. I guess it was a good run. It was as good as could be expected.
Tuesday was my 10k tempo run. I must say, that was an incredible run. It's these runs of perfection that keeps runners running.
Wednesday night was a strength training workout. I did the P90X shoulders and arms workout. I like that workout. It's probably my favorite of all the discs.
Thursday night was a disaster. What a brutal run that was. If you can call it that. I walked most of it. My pace came in at over 9 minutes per km. brutal. I was supposed to do 18km, I managed to do 14.5, but if there had been anyone I could have called to come and get me I would have been done in less than 10.

I did find this cool trail through Portland Estates though. I'll have to hit it again sometime when I am not fighting to get home.




Nutrition
I don't think I ate very well this week. I had a lot of sodium that made me feel pretty bloated. It showed up as a 2 lb gain this week. I know my calories on the weekends are not good but I usually make up for it during the week.
Gear
I don't have anything gear related to post this week. Oh maybe a little blurb about my vibrams. I can't run in them because I'm just too much of a heel striker. I did have them on kijiji to sell, but I've now started wearing them during my P90X workouts.

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.