Soup-er Sunday

The first thing that was super about today is that it was Sunday Runday!  Lori and I met and ran 20 km’s.  It was much cooler today than yesterday, but just -9 C, so not too bad.  The pathways around the reservoir were in fairly good shape, but we ran up to, and into Fish Creek for just a km or so before we turned around, and it was a skating rink!  We were very glad to have our spikes with us as we put them on our shoes so that we could get down the hill without falling.  My major goal today was to NOT fall, and I’m happy to say GOAL REACHED!

Blog Lovin…

I wanted to sum up a bunch of great blogs that I’ve found lately, and put them all into one place.  I’m going to post this, and then pin it as a menu page at the top, so if you’re ever looking for some awesome running blogs, stop by and see what I have listed.  I’m giving a bit of extra love to my fellow Canadian bloggers, well, because we’re awesome!  I’ll admit, I haven’t read them all (YET!), but I’m hoping that by pulling them all together, I’ll get some time to check them all out, and I hope you do too.

Me … Only Faster, So Far

I thought I’d do an update post on where I am in my current training cycle.  If you remember in my 2014 Goals and ramblings post, Lori and I are following a plan from the Greg McMillan book, You Only Faster.  We are currently in the middle of a 4 week Speed module.    It’s been 2 years (before I was pregnant with my daughter Olivia) since I’ve done any real speed work, so this has been a bit of a shocker for my body!  Here’s a quick summary of what kind of workouts I’ve done in the lasts 3 weeks:

Knuckle lights review

Lori and I showing off our new Calgary Marathon ‘In Training’ Toques!

Wednesday night Lori and I got to hang out at Eau Claire helping out with the route reveal for the Calgary Marathon.  We were handing out free toques and gloves to anyone who had already registered for any of the races.  It was super fun to get to meet and see all sorts of people who were running races.  Some were racing the 50k Ultra, while others were signing up for their very first race.  Some had time goals such as completing the half in under 2 hours, other’s just wanted to finish with a smile on their face.  It was pretty cool to see the gamut of people who run, all different sizes, ages, and types of people.  

My 2014 Race Calendar is UP!!

AAAAAANNNNNNDDDDDD it’s pretty empty 🙂

So far I’ve got 3 races that I’m for sure in for.  They are The Police Half Marathon, The Calgary Marathon, and the Calgary Underwear Affair 10k.  I will for sure be doing more races, but I’m holding off committing until after the Calgary Marathon.  This is mostly because I’m seriously considering a fall / late summer marathon, but want to wait until after Calgary to decide for sure.  Part of me doesn’t even like writing this incase I jinx myself and because it is ‘THE thing’ in the running world, but I want to see if BQ’ing sometime in the near future is something I could/should/would aim for.  My Seattle time is about 20 minutes off my BQ time… so it’s a serious jump to get to BQ from where I am.  I want to see where we land in Calgary and go from there.

What I’ve learned so far: Injury Edition

One of my greatest victories of 2013 was making it through *mostly* injury free.  (I did have a slight tweak in my left Achilles/calf just before the marathon, that caused me to cut my taper mileage and see my chiro).  In the past, anytime that I’ve gotten my mileage up, I’ve ended up injured.  When I look back on those injuries, I think to myself – “DUH… no wonder I got injured”.  When I think back to when I first started running, it’s actually comical, how little I knew.  Now, please do not interpret that as me laughing, or making light of anyone with less experience.  I do hope though, that maybe by sharing some of the hard lessons I’ve learned, maybe I can save a few people from learning things the hard way, from the sidelines.

Meet the ForeRunners!

Are you sick of me yet?  Well today is my last week day off before I’m back at work next week, so I thought I should make it count.  I thought I should take a moment to introduce all the other Forerunners, and link in their info so that you can follow them too!

So here they are:

2014 Goals and ramblings…

I’ve sorta been putting this post off, and I don’t really know why.  2013 was a great year, and I think I’m a little nervous about setting ambitious goals for 2014 and having it not measure up.  I put a lot of pressure on myself and need to relax a bit (ok maybe a lot!).  For now, I’m just going to make this post about the next 5 months, that’s where I have my sights right now anyway.

That was a bit of a downer opener, wasn’t it?  Sorry… I don’t want this to be a downer post, because I’m not feeling down about anything at all.  SO I’ll switch things over right here and now,