Oppps

If you follow me on Twitter or Dailymile you'd see that today I ran 4 hills. My plan had me at 10k Tempo and I had got myself ready for an hour of pushing myself to keep a steady pace rather than go out too fast and burn out at the end. Well I got to the store and met up with everyone and snuck a look at the board where all the clinic post the night's plan.

Marathon: 4 happier hills.

Oops!
I had totally forgotten that the clinic group that I run with sometimes is the training clinic for the Toronto Waterfront Marathon. Which is on October 20th. Two weeks before my race. So they are two weeks ahead of me. And it meant that tonight was the start of hill training.

We got a total of 7.75k in and ended up doing the hill behind the water plant down at the lake. I didn't even know there was a path/road behind it. It worked out really well because we managed to get a bit of a talk about hills and I don't get to go to the talks since I work the day they do those. There was some nice talk about posture and even a trick for doing your laces that work well for hills. It's called the Butterfly. I tried looking for pictures about it and am coming up short. In any case I'm guessing it helped since I didn't even register my shoes while powering up the hills.

The only other big question I guess would be how to handle my training for hills and such. Since in training we start at 4 hills and go to 10 hill and then move on to speedwork. I'll have to think about whether I want to stay with my plan more or make some changes.

Sadly we had to say Goodbye

I haven't been posting much this month.

The main reason is that we had to put a lot of KMs on our car as we drove down to visit Dad(Hub's dad). This past winter he was diagnosed with Gastric Cancer and it was in the later stages when we finally knew what it was. We were taking every chance we could to drive down and visit with him and Mom. He was admitted to Hospice in mid May and he passed away July 16th at 63 years.

Him and Hubs at our wedding

I knew him since high school. Dad was a teacher there, so I've known him for half my life. Actually when dating Hubs it took me almost a year to stop calling him Sir all the time. :)

Mema and Grandad with the Grandchild just before it started.

He was a truly wonderful man who clearly loved his family and his life. He taught us a lot about being a good parent and role model. I just hope to continue to make him proud.

Tiring

And its only week 2 of training.

I have another 18 weeks to go. I've always had lots of admiration for those that train for marathon in general. I mean its tiring and you're hungry a lot. and adding in training on top of a full time job. I mean that's why for my first Marathon I chose to do it before I went back into work. And now I'm doing it too.

I'm sure the heat isn't helping but man I'm tired. This whole working full time on my feet then add the running and the family stuff....whew.. Its enough to make me want to crawl back into bed.

Actually one of my biggest challenges is that since I'm feeling tired and run down a bit is that I first reach for a coffee. I need to make sure I'm grabbing a big cup of water first then the coffee because I notice that its really easy to miss out on getting enough water. Thankfully the work schedule is going to change a bit and I'll be doing more middle shifts where I won't be by myself for long stretches so it means I won't have to worry about having to close the store to hit the bathroom.

Now if I could just get my chocolate addiction under wraps a bit....

Officially starting to Train

So this week was the official start to my New York training. 

Monday-rest!

Tuesday- 6k Tempo

Wednesday-10k Tempo

Thursday- 6k Steady

Friday- Rest!(It's also delivery day at work so I count it as cross training)

Saturday- 6k Steady

Sunday -10k LSD

So far I'm doing good. Both my Tempo runs have me hitting my targets. Thought starting this week as well I'll be back at the Running Room with the Marathon clinic for Wednesdays and Sundays. I went tonight and it was great. I realized how much I missed everyone.  I actually ran most of the route on my own, but I figured Sundays will be the day to be social during the runs and Wednesday its more for keeping on target. It kinda sucks how my schedule doesn't allow for me to do the full clinic with everyone but I did sign up for the online version and will bug the heck out of my instructor Steve. I'm pretty sure come November he'll be happy that the clinic and my questions will end. 

It was really hot and sadly not the hottest I've run in. I actually got panicked for a bit while running when I realized I wasn't sweaty as much as I had been earlier in the run. Of course I was running INTO the bit of wind at this point and as soon as I stopped at a light I felt it all come back but now I'm loading up on water and a bit of Gatorade just to make sure I'm hydrated enough. Don't want any bonking during tomorrow's run. It'll probably be a bit slow since I've been pushing it at the Tempo paces this round. 

P.S I have a new vintage of an awesome red to try this weekend!

Who said they could grow up?

Bug had his First Communion two weeks ago. Things got busy(and distracted by some race) and I totally forgot to post about it here. Bad Mama. The church was a little crazy since 64 kids were partaking. But here are some pics of the day. 

But really? Who told him he was allowed to grow looking so handsome? (clearly takes after his mother LOL)

The Nice Family Pic

And the silly one!

with Grandpa and cousin added in for fun.

Getting in the mood

for running a marathon.

Training hasn't even officially started(That'll come June 30) and I'm a bunch of nerves. I know I can complete the race. But I have heard that New York is hilly and definitely not PR course.

Granted I've also heard its a once in a lifetime experience for some. I really needed to hear more about that side of it. So off I went looking for blog posts about it. In my searching I found out that Liz Robbins wrote a book about the 2007 NYC Marathon.

The library near work even had a copy so I went and got it.
You know what? Two thumbs up. It covers a lot of the background stuff that I would have had no clue on, but it also covered the journey on race day of a couple people. Of course it covers the top elites who placed 1st, 2nd, 3rd in that year's race.

I loved how it covered parts of the race by chapter. Would you be surprise to learn there is 26 chapters in the book? It goes over the course mile by mile and the different parts of each mile. Like how in the 8th mile the Emmanuel Baptist Church comes out and sings because parishioners weren't making it to mass on Marathon Sunday? So they brought it to the race that passed by their church?
Or in Mile 20 Pat Duffy snuck onto the Willis Avenue Bridge(spectators are not allowed on  bridges) with his bagpipes to play starting in 2002 since he knew this is where it got hard?

Definitely a recommended read. We all know how much of a sap I am and I was getting teary-eyed at points, and cheering on people in others. Never mind that this particular race was 6 years ago.

I'm already getting excited for my chance to be on those streets and to experience the crowds and support from whole city because this book showed how amazing it is when the whole city embraces such an event.

Dude! Go read it!

Weekend Wine

Inniskillin Pinot Grigio

As I mentioned before I picked up this new wine that my store now carries.

It a 2012 wine from the Niagara Region here in Ontario. What makes this Pinot special is that the Winemaker left the skins on before pressing allowing the colour of the skins to be in the final product. 

Ever seen what Pinot Grigio grapes look like? Most would assume that the grapes would be yellow or green like the grapes in the grocery store and they'd be wrong. This is the Pinot Grigio grape

Source http://www.lodiwine.com

So it makes perfect sense to see that there is a slightly pink-ish ting to the wine. 

Now this wine is said to be dry but I found it more off dry and it was nice and fruity and had a fantastic finish. Nice and crisp with a more tropical fruit taste. I was really worried with the dry rating and crisp description that it would be leaning towards a sauvignon blanc kind of taste but it wasn't and that made me incredibly happy.

This one definitely it  in my top picks from Inniskillin right now. Beating out even my beloved Late Autumn Riesling.