Event week + being sick = missed race

It was a crazy busy week for me this week.  As a special events officer for the Alzheimer Society of B.C. it is my job to plan and execute fundraising events. This week was event week for us for A Breakfast To Remember. A fundraising breakfast with two guest speakers and about 200 people in attendance.

Event weeks are busy and on Sunday after my long run, I planned out my week, meals, activity and runs. The only thing I hadn't counted on, was getting sick!  

I woke up during the night on Sunday-Monday with a tickle in my throat, by the time I left for work just after 6am I had a headache, by 1:30 I was feeling horrible and texted my car pool partner to see if she could leave early. My throat was killing me and the headache hadn't stopped all day. I was in bed before 7:30 which is super early for me. Tuesday I wasn't much better, my throat was sore and I was a little worried. I had to get through the event on Thursday and there was still stuff to be done.   I had no energy, no appetite and when I got home from work I fell onto the couch and stayed there. No Tuesday 8K run for me!

Wednesday I wasn't any better. I had no voice and my co-worker and I were heading to the venue to set up.  My co-worker managed to get us into the venue early for set up, which was fabulous!  We were able to start setting up at 4:30 pm instead of 6, which meant I was able to go to the hotel, and be in bed before 8pm. 5am was still going to come early but it was good to be finished a good 2 hours ahead of schedule. 

The room was set up, the tables were set with programs, the displays were set up and the name tags were laid out.

Doing all of this the night before meant that we wouldn't have to be there until 6ish instead of 4:30 am on event day. 

I had set my phone alarm for 5 am and fell asleep around 1130pm. I kept going through the run of morning in my head double checking details. I was sound asleep when the hotel phone rang at 3:30 in the morning!!  I guess the previous guests had an early flight to catch or something.  None the less, that was me wide awake and ready for the day. I finally gave up on getting any more sleep, got ready for the day and headed to the venue.  I was there by 5:20am!  Oh well. 

I made it through the day pretty well with most of my voice. I was exhausted by the time I got home and I knew that although I had planned to go to Run clinic it wasn't physically possible. Instead I headed to bed. 

I woke up Friday morning feeling as though I had been run over by a truck. I had no voice again and it hurt to swallow.   I called my doctors office and was extremely grateful that they could squeeze me in.  While there I told my doctor about my 10k race on Sunday. He just smiled the way he does and told me the only place I was going was to bed!  He gave me a prescription that is starting to work and I headed home. 

My wonderful husband took my doctors orders to heart!  I haven't been allowed to go anywhere or do anything for the past 2 days. Instead of being at a race today this is what I've been doing. 

Sipping tea and reading a new book. Hopefully I'll be feeling better by the time I go over to Victoria on Monday to help with their A Breakfast to Remember.  Even more so, I hope to be back to running my 8K on Tuesday. 

Sunday Run

Happy Sunday!  It was a beautiful day today a balmy 12 degrees with a clear blue sky. Perfect day for a training run.  I did mostly 3:1 and 4:1's and felt really good for the most part. 

About a kilometer into the run

Heading towards the 5K Mark

The School is down at the end of this road

I had originally planned to do 11 Km's today. I went to Costco with my husband and then planned in running home through a round about route. I was almost 7km's in when I texted my husband to meet me with some water.  It was much windier and warmer than I thought and my leg started cramping.

I asked him to meet me at a school with some water and I planned to finish my run. However after drinking my water my knee was really aching. I decided to take the 7km as today's training run and hitch a ride home. I was really happy when I saw my splits after downloading my garmin.  The first kilometer was so long as I was waiting for traffic lights and walked part of the distance to get off of the main road.

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
Summary	1:24:16.0	7.22	11:46
1	13:55.3	1.00	13:55
2	10:55.1	1.00	10:55
3	11:10.0	1.00	11:10
4	11:33.6	1.00	11:34
5	11:07.8	1.00	11:08
6	11:02.5	1.00	11:03
7	13:55.0	1.00	13:55
8	3:36.7	0.22	16:27

At the School, glad to be out of the wind.

It was a good run and a great weekend

Hard run clinic

Thursday was the first day of my new run clinic. The other run clinics I have done have been for learning to run or new runners. As I have a half marathon coming up on May 3rd, I joined a half marathon clinic which also has marathon runners in it. 

I was a little concerned because the email that was sent out said that runners should be able to run for 40 minutes comfortably. I've never run more than 18 minutes at a time and then I only did that a couple of times. 

When I arrived at Run clinic I immediately felt out of place. There were people there that I had seen running at races and I knew that they were fast. Very fast which is a little intimidating when you're the turtle. 

When clinic started Phil told us that we would be doing hill repeats. We were to run a warm up along the same path I took with my last clinic. 

We started out as a group walking up to the top of the road and then across the street. We started running right away and I immediately fell way behind. By the time I reached the end of the arena the group had rounded the far corner and were out of sight. 

As I know the area I cut through a parking lot and headed up to the intersection where I knew they would go past to where we were going to do the hill repeats. When I got there the last of the group were already crossing the intersection. A couple of people called to me as we headed down the hill. 

I already knew I was probably in over my head. Once I joined everyone we started doing drills. I hadn't done these drills before and I didn't know them. The two people leading the group were great at explaining them. 

When it was time to start the hill repeats there were three starting points. One for the fast runners (the furthest distance) one for the regular runners and the there was my starting point. 

I appreciate that the leader was taking my speed into consideration but even with a huge head start, I was still far behind the others.  I hate knowing that everyone else was waiting for me to finish. I don't want to make people wait for me, I don't like it at all. 

Run clinic was a humbling experience. I had in my head that I was doing well with my running but this was a wake up call. 

I went home feeling disappointed with myself, with the fact that I'm not doing nearly as well as I thought I was doing. 

I still feel that I'm in over my head with this clinic. However, I'm going to try again next week. If I still feel out of my element I'll see if I can switch over to the 10K clinic but I'll follow the distance plan for long runs. 

New shoes, a busy week and a short run.

It's been a busy week. It's amazing how quickly time flies!  It was BC family day on Monday so I had the day off work. After doing some running around I found myself at Peninsula Runners to exchange the new shoes that weren't fitting right. Janet was there and she found a pair of shoes that felt pretty good. She also noticed when she was watching me walking around that my right foot seems to be pronating slightly. She thought that could be the reason my knee is giving me issues. She suggested I go to have it seen about, so I have an appointment on Saturday.

Shiny new shoes ready for their first run

I ended up working a 12 hour day on Tuesday so I didn't manage to get my run  in. After work today, although it was the last thing I wanted to do I headed up to the gym to get in a short run with my new shoes.  It was extremely busy but I managed to snag a treadmill. 

I varied my running speed and managed to run a few minutes at 4.1mph. I was so happy to hit that goal today. Not once but twice while running 2:1's. (2min running 1 minute walking). For the first time since I started using the treadmill I managed to run a mile in under 18 minutes!

I loved hitting that speed goal!  I now know that I can hit that 18 minute mile threshold for the BMO Vancouver Marathon on May 3rd.  I have 80 days to go before the half marathon. I know I can go the distance, I just have to work my way up to it. 

Today's run has given me the confidence boost I needed!

Great support

The one thing I have learned in my weight loss and healthiness journey is how important it is to have a great support system. 

I am extremely lucky as my family has been supportive of my weight loss journey and my husband is amazing. When I went from walking to trying to run, he gave me a run clinic for part of my birthday present. He drives me to every race and is always there just before the finish line cheering me on. 

When I told him I wanted to do a half marathon, he didn't even bat an eyelash at the thought that this was something I wanted to do. 

Last week he booked us a hotel room for the night before the half marathon in May.   He thought it would be great if I didn't have to get up at 3 in the morning to drive into Vancouver. 

We were talking the other day about how I was feeling about the half marathon. I mentioned that I was nervous as I don't know if the route is hilly or not and I'm not sure if I'm doing enough to get ready for it. 

After my run today, the sun was shining for the first time in a week so  we headed into Vancouver just so that we could drive the half marathon route. I feel so much better after following the turn by turn directions. There are some hills on the route but I'm feeling comfortable with them. I'm very glad I've been doing the hill repeats I've been doing.  

I honestly don't know if I could do this without the support of my husband, family and friends. 

Today's run 6K, on the road and in the sun.  So happy to be able to run outside without getting soaked to the bone!  Very glad to have run 72.4 kilometres since January 1st!

Making the right decision

Wednesday night I was getting ready for my day on Thursday. My lunch for work was made.  My knitting for my knitting group at lunch was in my work bag. Most importantly my running bag was packed. 

I packed my socks, my pants, my long sleeved shirt, my short sleeved shirt, my hat, my waterproof jacket and my runners.   I was ready for my day!

Thursday morning 6am and I was ready for work. My friend that I carpool with texted she was on her way and my day started.  The first day to anticipate run clinic. I was excited and a little nervous. I received the email with our instructions for run clinic. Meet at Penninsula Runners it's tempo run day. I was so excited!

Around 10am a headache started, it got worse as the day went on and my trusted way of getting rid of it wasn't working. 

I could feel my head pounding harder and harder as the day wore on. Before heading out the door for the drive home, I took a couple more pills hoping to get rid of the headache. 

It wasn't meant to be. Instead of going to the Run Clinic that I was so excited about, I ended up laying on the couch trying to will the headache away. I could barely concentrate enough to carry on a basic "how was your day" conversation with my wonderful husband. 

I knew that trying to run would be pointless. Besides not being able to concentrate, I knew that running would make the headache worse and perhaps trigger a migraine. 

I wasn't willing to risk it. Several doses of pills throughout the night and a couple of hours sleep and I'm feeling better this morning. 

It was a hard decision to make not going to run clinic. Am I disappointed for missing it?  Of course. However, I know that for last night,  I made the right decision. 

Getting the right runners

I remember the first time I bought a pair of runners from a running store. It was a totally new concept to me and one I've repeated a couple of times since then. I love the fact that they know what they are doing. It's more than whether or not your foot fits in the shoe. It's HOW it fits. 

My current favorite brand of shoe has been New Balance 840's. The pair I've been using for runs only are hanging in there but I've been racking up the miles and I know I'll need new ones soon. 

Awesome husband picked me up from my bad run on Saturday and we went up to Penninsula Runners to get new shoes. 

Jason brought out a variety of shoes for me to try and fitted me with a new brand. My preferred shoes won't be released until September so with the choices we had, we found a pair of shoes but in trying the on Jason was a little concerned they weren't fitting quite right. 

Jason told me to wear them indoors only and try them on the treadmill. That's exactly  what I did tonight. I put the shoes on when I got to the gym and started on the treadmill. I was about 8 minutes into my run when I could feel the shoe rubbing on my toes. I stopped the treadmill took the shoes off, put them back on and started out again.  Within a few minutes I could feel the shoe really rubbing my toes and it started to hurt.  I took them off again, adjusted my socks and the laces put them back on and  started out for a third time. 10 minutes later both shoes were hurting both feet. I decided to switch over to he ABT machine to finish off my run thinking that perhaps it was the banging of my feet I he treadmill that was moving the shoe and rubbing it on my toes. 

The shoes still hurt and I decided by the end of my run that they will sadly have to go back and I'll try some others out. 

The thing I like best about Penninsula Runners is the people and service. I mentioned on facebook tonight the issue with my shoes and Janet from the store contacted me.  I love dealing with the store and the people and I'm really excited to start Run Clinic on Thursday !