Run Clinic Started today!

I did it! Today was the first day of my learning to run clinic! My awesome hubby gave me a certificate for our local running store to join a learn to run clinic in order to get me ready for the BMO 8K in May that I signed up for. I was excited about the clinic last night when I get my bag all packed and ready to go. I was so excited that I had a hard time falling asleep.

The last time I remember looking at the clock it was almost 1am and I kept thinking, you need to get to sleep, you need to get to sleep. Needless to say, when the alarm went off at 445am, I wasn't really all that excited to be getting up at that ungodly hour of the morning! But up I got, dressed and on the train an hour earlier than normal, so that I could be at work an hour earlier, so I could leave work an hour earlier, so I could make it to run clinic on time.

 As my day went on, I started to get that nervous little knot in my stomach, you know, the one you used to get before the first day of school. I don't know anyone in the run clinic. I have no point of reference for the clinic. I was a little scared as the time to leave work got closer and closer. I was a bundle of nerves while I was sitting on the train headed back home. I was so nervous, and I don't really know why. Was it because I was going outside of my comfort zone? Perhaps, it was because I'm generally a shy person. (stop laughing, I truly am!) Perhaps it's because of my own expectations. My own pre-conceived ideas.

 When I arrived at the running store I was still really nervous. There is about 14 of us all together, and most of them know each other. They are a group of friends supporting one another as they learn to run. The age range is quite wide. I'm by far the heaviest in the group, but I'm not going to let that distract me. When we were accounted for and ready to go, off we went, we had a warm up walk and then did interval walking, 1 minute of normal walk, 1 minute of brisk walk and then back to 1 minute of normal. We went around the area twice, which was good. I did bring up the rear, you know me, I'm as slow as a herd of turtles but I did it. I enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to next week!

New Job, New Challenges.

I started my new job this week,  I've been interviewing for different positions since my contract ended back in August and this week I started my new job with the Alzheimer's Society of B.C.   It's a little further out from my old job so the one thing that I do have to do is hustle.  Depending on when my train gets into the waterfront station, I have 20 minutes to make the trip to my new office.  I have to grab the Canada Line Skytrain, go 4 exits and then get off, come above ground walk one block down and then 5 blocks across.  Getting to work is all right.  I'm not really concerned if I end up being a minute or two late every now and then.  However, when I'm heading home at night, I only have that 20 minute window.  If I end up missing my regular train, I have to wait almost an hour for the next one, which will suck.

I was proud of my self today, when I left the office, I decided to walk a block and run a block, alternating until I reached the street where the sky train station is located.  Yes, I ran!  This time last year I wasn't walking the few blocks to my office because of the effort, and today I ran!  What a difference 11 months and almost 75 pounds make! 

Although I'm now working back in Vancouver, my new office is too far away from my old meeting place.  I also can no longer go to the Friday morning meetings in Abbotsford.  I've really enjoyed the people and the leader at those meetings and I'm going to miss them.  There may be the occasional Friday that I can drop in on, but it looks as though I'll now be attending Saturday morning meetings.

I'll be going to my first Saturday morning weigh in tomorrow, however I can't stay for the meeting.  My husband and I are participating in the Santa Shuffle 5k walk/run to support the Salvation Army.

When we registered for the race, our only hope was that it not be raining as hard as it was last year.  Last year it was so wet, and raining so hard that we both decided to stay home.  Turns out that rain isn't going to be a problem for us this year.  It's supposed to be a clear beautiful day, with only one little hiccup.  The temperature.  We've had an arctic cold front move down into the lower mainland in the past 24 hours and the temperature tomorrow morning without the wind chill is supposed to be around -6.  I realize for some people, that's not cold, but for us, that is frigging freezing! 

I'm a little nervous about doing the 5k in this cold temperatures.  I don't really have any cold weather gear, and considering how cold I was at the Boundary Bay 5K back in November when it was a good 15 degrees warmer, I may be in trouble.

I'm sure I'll get it figured out in the morning, and maybe, just maybe (all right I'm dreaming)  the pineapple express will make a sudden three hour appearance and warm everything up in time for the race!

Travelling on Plan

I missed my weigh in on Friday, I had a business trip I was taking and it wasn't possible for me to make my regular weigh in place, a meeting near my home and there weren't any meetings available that work while I was away.  I did weigh myself at home before I left on Friday but I don't know how accurate my home scale is.  I always weigh more on it than I do at my actual meeting, so after fussing and worrying about the number on the scale I decided to just call this week an even week, no gain and no loss and we'll truly see how I did when I weigh in on Friday.

Now my only concern with this coming weigh in is I will be on two planes within 24 hours, which for me is not a good thing.  Flying makes me retain water like no one else I know.  Even though my flight is only an hour long, it will still cause me to retain water, so I am preparing myself for a gain because of that.

I was away from home Friday and Saturday doing training and orientations over on Vancouver Island and since I was driving, I decided to try to help myself as much as possible and I packed snacks and lunch for myself to have while I was on the ferry going over.  I did really well with my eating on Friday and even though I went out for dinner to a restaurant I stayed within  my daily points target.  I also got me some exercise.  I arrived to the ferry terminal just after 9am thinking that there was a 10am ferry...oops...no 10 am ferry, just an 11am ferry.  So what's a girl to do when she's got over an hour to kill when she realizes that there isn't going to be a 10 am ferry?  She gets out of the car and does laps of the parking area!

I managed to get 20 minutes of activity in by pacing up and down the "Dog Walk" area.  I only stopped because it wasn't that long of a stretch and more and more people were bringing their dogs over for a potty before the ferry departed.  I love animals but I don't want to be dodging doggy bombs while trying to kill time and it simply wasn't safe to be walking the parking lot as cars came in to catch the ferry.  Still, I managed to get in almost 10,000 steps on Friday despite being on a ferry, in an office training for 3.5 hours and then driving up island for over 2 hours.   I had planned to use the hotel gym when I got there but after the 2 hour drive and dealing with the Friday weekend construction traffic.  I was just too tired.

I did get out first thing on Saturday morning at 6am to get a good walk in.  I did 2.5km's in 30minutes so that made me happy.  If I'm able to keep that pace going on in two weeks, I'll be able to finish my 5km walk in under the hour that I'm shooting for :)   My food choices on Saturday weren't exactly stellar but I did all right.  I had some fruit for breakfast and when I got to the ferry to come home I was starving.  I went into the ferry terminal cafe and they had veggie trays and wraps.  I got a veggie tray without the dip, and ordered their turkey wrap.   I deconstructed the wrap, throwing out half of the tortilla so that it would be lower in points.  When I got home, my husband had roast chicken and rice ready for dinner and we at right away.  A couple of hours later, we decided to go for a drive and get a treat as I still had a whole bunch of points left.  I ended up spending 14points on a small blizzard.   I don't know what I was thinking, I could have gotten a mini for less points and I honestly didn't even eat the whole small one, it was too sweet and I felt sick after eating it, but what's done is done.  I managed to stay within my daily points and even had a couple left over at the end of the day.   Total steps for Saturday 13, 270 = 5.65 miles.

Lot's of walking going on!

It was a great weekend at work.  We had regional Run Director Training for our fabulous Run Directors who volunteer to organize and host the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure.  We hosted them in our office in Vancouver.  We started out on Thursday evening with a welcome buffet dinner at the hotel they were staying at, followed by training in our offices on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I was a little concerned about the weekend as I knew that we were having catered Breakfast,  and Lunch and then dinner out each night.  I knew that I wouldn't be able to control what I was being served so I put an action plan into place and for the most part I stuck to it.

When we went into work on Thursday we drove in so I didn't feel like a dork being on the train with a grocery bag full of food.  I took my breakfast and lunch for the three days with me so that I had options.  I am very glad I did.  Each morning I had my toasted english muffin with some peanut butter and a banana.  It really did help as I wasn't tempted to partake of the bacon, eggs, sausages and potato's on Friday, on Saturday we brought in breakfast wraps and Sunday was quiche.  All of those would have been high in points so I was able to stick to my plan and it helped.

I did eat my cabbage salad for lunch on Friday instead of the huge sandwiches that were brought in, but I didn't exactly stick to plan on Saturday.  The smell of the lasagna was just too much so I let myself have a small piece of it along with my cabbage salad.  Sunday was great as I had my salad and half of a veggie sandwich.  I took the cookie and the pasta salad out of my lunch and left it on the table for someone else to partake of.

Dinners in the evening were a bit challenging though.  Thursday night buffet was good, I chose to have a chicken breast and the steamed veggies, I stayed away from the deserts and I think I did all right that way.  Friday was a different story.  We decided as Staff to have dinner together as part of our Run Team works over on Vancouver Island and this would probably be our only chance to have diner together.  We went to a tapas restaurant in Gastown called Judas Goat.  It's a tiny hole in the wall type restaurant in a back alley that only seats 28 people.   As we were a group we decided to do the chef's menu which is a menu that they bring out single serving sizes of different menu items.  I had no idea how to count the points for what we had so I just took the 20 points I had left after breakfast and lunch.  Saturday night was better for knowing what points I needed and I thoroughly enjoyed my meal at Irish Heather,  another Gastown Restaurant.  I did bypass desert though and felt good about it!

Part of my plan for the weekend was to walk from the hotel to the office and do as much walking around the office as I could manage.  It turns out I did pretty darned good! 

Steps on Thursday, 18,696.  That included walking from the car parkade to the office, my regular lunch time walk, helping set up for RD Training and walking to the hotel for dinner.

Steps on Friday, 16,653. Walking from the hotel to the office, refilling water jugs, helping to set up and tear down breakfast and lunch, doing my presentation, walking back to the hotel the long way (the walk takes 15 minutes to get to the hotel, I added on another 15min's)  walking to and from dinner which was about 1.5km's each way.

Steps on Saturday - 25,780!!! I knocked that out of the ball park!  I started off by walking from the hotel to the office the long way again to get some extra steps in.  I was also in search of a Tim Horton's that was open to get one of the prizes from my presentation the morning before.  Turns out in downtown Vancouver the Tim Horton's aren't open early!  Who knew!  Later in the morning I had to go in search of a store that was open that would carry a specific item as well as get the gift card I hadn't been able to get in the morning.  I also walked back to the hotel and then to dinner and back.  I was amazed at the steps I managed to get in and I was very excited, so excited I actually posted a picture of me holding my pedometer to show the steps on facebook, I was so proud of how far I had walked.

Steps on Sunday 20,033.  That included again walking from the hotel to the office the long way, setting up our Run day simulation, taking it down, helping to set up and take down breakfast and lunch, cleaning up the office and then walking back to the hotel when we had wrapped up.

It was a busy weekend but a great one and I'm very happy with how I stuck to my plan (for the most part) for the weekend.

How's it going?

Hi Everyone,
I know I haven't been the best at keeping my blog up to date, but life has been difficult the past few months. I'm finally organized and happy and back on the fitness and exercise plan so all is good.

I've had a hard time with work the past few months, I just haven't been happy and work has, well it's been work. My mom always said that when work become work, it's time to find new work. I wasn't exactly looking for work, but it just so happens that a tremendous opportunity came up. After a lot of consideration, a lot of conversation with my awesome husband, and the advice of a couple of people I made the decision.

After 18 years of working in the Travel Industry, 15 of it with the same company, I've taken a new job. Not just any new job, something entirely different.

Now any of you who have been hanging with me for any length of time, know about my passion for the battle against breast cancer. I've walked the 60k's in 2 days a couple of times. I've been a team captain for several years for the CBCF CIBC Run for the cure. I've volunteered for them for a few years and I have been the volunteer run director for a couple of years.

Well, as of April 18th, I will be joining the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation for a 14 month contract as their Manager of Volunteer Development. I am so excited about my new role!!!

I'll be working in Vancouver, and thanks to the West Coast Express, I'll be having a great daily opportunity to get in daily exercise. The train station is about 15 blocks from my new office. Almost 2km's in each direction, I'll be walking (quickly) as I'll only have 20 minutes from train arrival to start time to make it in on time. As well, from what I've been told taking your Lunch break is required and there's a ladies only gym just 2 blocks from my office so I should be able to fit in a minimum of a half hour work out each day.

I'm so excited about having this built in daily exercise. I can hardly wait.

I promise I'll update more often, as I'm back to my old self, happy and healthy. Take care....Katie