This week in running

There's a lot going on this week for me in the running realm. So much so that I can't focus exactly what to blog on, so you are going to get a smorgasbord of stuff. Ready?

Olympic Dreams:

When I first started running and bought my first Canadian Running magazine I read about a woman named Krista Duchene who was attempting to appeal to make Olympic standards and was not successful. At this point, as a new runner I couldn't name a single runner. Wow how things have changed. I would now acknowledge Krista as my "running hero", as a woman I deeply respect and look up to for her speed, dedication, hard work, balance and love of the Lord. Krista proves that with hard work and dedication anyone can achieve great things! She is a working mother of 3 who is a real person. She's endured her fair share of trials and tribulations but just recently ran a super fast marathon and just this week the Olympic standards were posted and she's in! Krista is the first female to make the near impossible Olympic marathon standards in 20 years! I feel like I am just as happy as she is. Read more about it here:

Injuries:

All runners ignore pain and hope it goes away. I've been having foot pain and general tightness in my whole left leg resulting in consistent pinpoint pain and when I run this pain is amplified and my toes go numb then hurt. On my last serious run I kept telling myself, you need to call your physiotherapist. I am afraid of 2 things: that I will be told I need to take a rest from running and that it's going to cost a lot as I do not currently have benefits. I finally booked an appointment for next Monday. Pray for good results (aka cheap therapy and quick solutions that allow me to still run :))

I am currently icing it and decided it was a good time to write a blog post as it would keep me sedentary for more than 10 minutes :)

Life as a Race Director:

I knew organizing a race would be a lot of work but I've gained a new respect for race directors as I've worked with some colleagues to plan out and organize a fundraising run for our school. You see, I work at a private Christian school that aims to teach those students that couldn't be taught properly in the public school system. I love that we have the opportunity as a Christian school to be open about faith and teach the kids how much the Lord loves them. We keep our tuition low and do what it takes to give the kids the education they need. What that means is we rely largely on fundraising efforts. So, since I love my job, my kids and running I decided a fundraising run would be a great opportunity to get the community involved in a fun, active way. Plus we live in a super beautiful area with Blue Mountain close by and Georgian Bay. The run follows the trail systems of the Wasaga Beach provincial parks. Wasaga is the world's longest freshwater beach. To say the views are breathtaking is an understatement.

So I've been trying my best and giving my all to make this race the most successful event it can be. It truly has been draining me as I've seen my fair share of high moments (we have received so many awesome donations for our bib raffle, lots of people have signed up and I've truly realized how blessed I am to have some supportive friends and family) and low moments (costly insurance, facilities, lack of help, last minute course changes etc). Last week was incredibly stressful for me and I wasn't myself. I prayed for peace and had a friend pray as well and this week I have felt a peace that could only come from God. This week has just been draining as it has meant long hours spent in preparation, sorting and organizing shirts, signage and race kits.

We are 2 days away from race day and I am very excited for it. I will be thankful when it is over. To learn more about the run visit the race roster page here or the facebook page here. We are still happy to receive donations :)   Stay tuned for a race recap!

StrideBox Ambassador perks:

I received this fun package in the mail today.

I was so pleased to be chosen to represent such a fun company. I've loved receiving my monthly StrideBox. It is a box of an assortment of fun running items like chews, gels, hydration mixes, hard goods and other fun things. I feel like I get to be a product tester without having to do the research or having to go out and find these new products on my own. StrideBox is like the wise running friend that introduces you to products you will love for life. StrideBox has introduced me to SkratchLabs, JTree and Picky Bars, all companies I would have never known about before and swear by now. Thank you StrideBox for the fun new socks. I plan to be able to wear them as I run the charity race I planned this Saturday!

To learn more about StrideBox visit their website here. BONUS: If you want to give them a try sign up today with the code "aal2508" before May 8th to receive $10 off your first box!

25 Signs You're Hooked on Running:

I just came across THIS post today and had a good giggle as I can agree with mostly all of them.

Speaking of hooked on running, last weekend I got my second tattoo. I knew I wanted something running related and decided on the symbol of the Goodlife Marathon. I decided on this because the image is neat as it is a runner and a canadian flag but also because this was my second half marathon (so my first one where I knew what I was doing). It is also similar to symbol of the sister race, our local half marathon, the Collingwood half-marathon. Also, the Goodlife full marathon is on my bucket list for sure. I got it on my quad because these quads were made from running and it will be visible when I run in shorts.

Fun fact: my other tattoo is Ecclesiastes 3:4 on my back in memory of my Papa Jack.

Try Something New: April 

It's on hold for the time being due to illness and because both of us have been exceptionally busy this month it seems. So May will be 2 in one! We will do Heather's pick for April and then my pick for May. I already have it picked- stay tuned!

Rememberrun 5k/8k Race Review

Background:
Saturday November 8th was the 6th Annual Remember Run. This race is a part of the Waterloo Run Series  and has a Remembrance Day theme. I had wanted to run one of the races in the Waterloo Run series since hearing about it as I love the Kitchener/Waterloo area and miss it all the time. I spent 5 years in Waterloo while attending Wilfrid Laurier University for my B.A. and even did my practicums for Teacher's College in the Waterloo region despite going to Western University for my B.Ed.

Signing Up: 
When toying with ideas for a November girls weekend in Waterloo to visit my pregnant friend for the last time before baby (eeeee!!) I (selfishly) suggested November 8-9 so I could run the Remember Run and since my three best friends are awesome, they agreed.
I didn't know what the expect even though I've been running for about 2 years now and have completed over 30 races. Each race is different and can surprise you in good and bad ways.

Packet Pick up:
I always want to do packet pick up in advance of race day, when possible. It was easy to do as the pick up Friday night was at the local running store in a central location. Pick up was easy, I mentioned my name, got my shirt and my bib with a chip timer. The bib was very pretty! The bib # was quite small which I loved as the focus is clearly on the theme of the run, Remembrance Day. Also love the opportunity to personalize the bib. War has affected us all and I am so thankful for the sacrifice my great uncle Duncan made on D-Day. I am also incredibly thankful my Papa did not go to war. Though he was of eligible age, his father had been injured in a farming accident and as a result my Papa had to stay home to take care of the family and the farm. Til the day he died he was angry about being unable to attend. War affects us all.

The technical shirt was a great size! I never know to pick small or medium as some smalls I've got have been super tiny (and who wants to run in a shirt that shows all jiggles- eek!) and I've got some mediums that are giant. So long story short I chose a small and it fits beautifully! I love it. It is a beautiful shirt with fantastic details.
There wasn't any special additional goodies in the bag but pick up was easy and painless which was great because then I got to start my girls weekend with the besties.

Race Day:
a 10:02 start time was glorious as I'm sure you can imagine catching up with my girls took awhile :) We got to "sleep in" until 7:30 and had a leisure morning with a great breakfast. We took the 20 minute drive to the race location which was the Preston legion. It was a busy place! So many runners in a sea of red everywhere. I started to get quite nervous, to which my friends made fun of me and assured me I had no reason to be nervous.

I wore:
It was chilly, about 4 degrees with a windchill. I had no idea what to wear. I wore long pants and a long sleeved tech shirt. I would have wore the race shirt had it been long sleeved. Also I haven't worn a tshirt over a long sleeve shirt since I was in grade 9 and thought it was cool to wear name brand t-shirts over long sleeve white shirts. The embarrassment haunts me to this day so I won't do it with tech shirts. I then remembered I had nowhere to put my phone and none of my long pants have pockets (curses!!). So I also decided to wear my running jacket so I had somewhere to put my phone. (Seriously, I cannot run without music and mapmyrun. I CANNOT! Well, I can if I have to but I would rather listen to Willie Nelson than my laboured breathing.) I also wore thin red gloves because without them I'd be head to toe black and my fingers would freeze as my extremities always freeze. Always.

Pre Race:
The opening ceremonies were great, bagpipes, O Canada and a moment of silence. I am emotional to start with at races, just the nervousness leading up, the enormity of what we are doing and the group mentality of seeing all these people being active and pushing themselves gets me choked up. So add in thinking of the veterans, my relatives, my country and the recent loses...yeah. But, to lighten the mood a train came through so we had to delay the start a little longer. I was alright with that as I love trains and their symbolism- a different story for a different day).

I should also mention I was tickled pink as about a week previous to the race I read on Krista Duchene's blog that she would be running her first race to get the rust off post femur fracture and that it would be a local 8k. This made me super excited because I am so in awe of Krista's strength, dedication and love of the Lord. The fact that I got to run a race a small race with her was too exciting. She was running the 8k and I was running the 5k so I assumed we'd finish about the same time as one another :). So seeing her line up near the front in shorts and a tank top added to my excitement. I try to line up front-ish. Not front-front where the people do those crazy super fast long "warm ups" (I'd be too tired) but front enough that if the course thinned out to single file I wouldn't feel I had to weave through people, also when I come across the finish line I want my chip and gun time to be fairly similar.

The race:
Off we went and I waved to my three besties, happy to see them cheering me on. I have the best support crew at races.

We made some quick turns and ran down the "main street" of Preston past the cenotaph and the Tim Horton's. We then ran into the local park which was pretty...but the roads weren't in the best shape which made my steps a little more cautious. It was neat to have such a broad view of the runners ahead of me. Our run then weaved down a muddy, thin, grassy trail. This moment annoyed me at first as I knew it would slow my time, but then I looked around and enjoyed the beauty of the run. But, then we ran onto boardwalk which was somewhat slippery due to the weather and fallen leaves. Regardless, it was pretty as well. As we came up a slight incline on the boardwalk an awesome volunteer holding a clear sign indicated the 8k group turned left and the 5k group turned right. I secretly praised myself for choosing the 5k rather than the 8k. It was neat the see the people split into their different race distances as it's hard to tell what people are running elsewise.

I secretly was thankful it was a 5k as I hit the pain train hard at about km 1. I know in shorter races (5 and 10ks) that it's more cardiovascular than legs. I'm not sure why but the pain was real and challenging right off the hop. My splits were nowhere near where I wanted them to be, other than my first but I knew I  couldn't maintain. I'd just have to be happy whatever the outcome.
My thoughts on why I wasn't where I wanted to be split wise:
-I had McDonalds for dinner the night before (don't judge me)
-I had bacon for breakfast the morning of (I said don't judge me)
-I haven't really been running any speed work for awhile
-I wore too much. This seems to be a recurring theme
-Difficult terrain
lessons learned

Came into the finish and was happy to see my three best friends cheering me in. We hurried off for lunch and some shopping so I wasn't around for the "after show" but I hear there were lots to eat and it's nice to have an indoor facility to escape into especially in less than favourable weather.

The bling:
This is a race that doesn't have finisher medals but rather medals for top 3 in each of the 5 year span age categories. Upon researching past years' finishing times I assumed I could place for Women aged 25-29. So once I finished I scurried over to the chiptime trailer and asked my stats. She let me know I had finished second in my age category which I was pleased with. A medal, yes! The awards were at 12 and it was about 10:30 so we decided to go for lunch and shopping and then swing by again to pick up the medal.

Overall:
Free race photos! <<<< this is so exciting!
Great volunteers
Great course marshalling
Pretty course
Chip timing
Pretty Bibs
Nice bling
Great shirt
Great opening ceremonies
Not too expensive

I'd do the race again.
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