Running in 2009

This year’s running season is coming close to a close. Well, at least the stream of races is… the running will continue all year long.

I believe that the past year has been my busiest running year yet.

In December 2008 I ran my first half marathon. The race was in Las Vegas and it was fantastic. I finished in 2:00:37. Training for this race was a great way to be sure I’d have my mileage up for the start of 2009.

2009 consisted of the usual RunWaterloo series, as well as the Mudpuppy 10K, the Ottawa Half Marathon, a highland games 8K, Muskoka Rocks 10K, and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Virginia Beach 1/2 Marathon.

Virginia Beach 1/2 was a great race! It was a bit hotter than I was used to since we had such a cool summer this year, but it was a good time. I had a great opportunity to wear a nice new summer running outfit that I purchased from RunningSkirts this summer.

Ending a race on the beach, getting a free beer, and then running into the ocean to play in the waves is a great way to spend part of Labour Day Weekend. It didn’t hurt that the rest of the weekend was also filled with concerts. Ryan and I got to see Boyz II Men, and Lonestar, and the Black Crowes, but we missed Heart because dinner took a long time with everyone in town trying to get pasta for dinner the night before the big race. It was a good weekend and I’d definitely like to do it again.

I did not quite achieve my goal time for the race, but I still achieved a personal best, which is great. I’m looking forward to competing in many more.

So as I was saying, the 2009 race season is coming to an end. I only have one more race that I’m registered for this year. I have a 5K next Sunday: the first ever REMEMBERrun 5K. I may still sign up for a winter Boxing Day 10 miler, but that has yet to be determined.

Happy Running!

Excuse me.... what day is it today?

This was the question directed to me from across the street on my morning walk to work today.
I paused for a moment,
my head responded with "why, it's Christmas Day!"
But alas, my mouth spoke the truth.. "Thursday"
not near as fun a response, but at least I had a Charles Dickens moment in my head.

Camping

Just a quick note about the camping trip - I'll make a better post later with some pictures and some lessons learned on the trip.

It was Ryan and I's first interior camping trip together.
Algonquin was great, but....
It rained.
It rained
It rained some more.

There were some sunny breaks, but they were few and far between.
We still had a good week, but definitely need a good weekend of nice weather to redeem camping for the summer.

More to come later.

Getting Excited!

It’s just about camping season and we’re almost ready for our excursion into Algonquin Park.

Ryan and I are going to be going on a camping trip in the near future and will be enjoying both some camping and canoe camping. We’ll be doing a 4-day 3-night canoe trip in addition to a long weekend of camping with my family at one of the Hwy 60 Corridor campgrounds.

In preparation for this trip we needed to purchase some new gear seeing as we haven’t really done any canoe/backpacking camping at all since we’ve known each other.

Seeing as I’m a girl, finding a comfortable pack can be a bit of a trying task. First stop was MEC, where I tried on a couple of different women’s packs, one of which I thought I liked, but they didn’t have it in the right size, so couldn’t tell for sure. Made a mental note of the name and size of pack. Second stop was Adventure Guide, where I was pleasantly surprised to see a variety of women-specific packs, but trying them all one, none were very comfortable for me. I tried on some regular men’s packs as well, but with no luck.

When in Ottawa on our May vacation, we went to Bushtakah, Trail Head, and back to MEC (different location than the first MEC, but the same store, of course). This MEC store had the Deva pack in size small. Success! With weight in it, it was still quite comfortable. I found the pack for me!

The gear gathering continues as this weekend, we will make another trip to the store for various small items and possibly a new stove.

Yay for camping!
And double Yay for most of these expenses being more or less a one time thing. Next year camping will be MUCH cheaper.

Updates (again)

Seeing as I’ve been negligent once again with the blog, I’m writing another update post.

The exam: I passed! Yay!

Running: I ran the Kitchener Downtown Mudpuppy Chase (10K) at the beginning of the month and also the Ottawa Half Marathon last weekend. The weather was nice and sunny for both races – barely a cloud in sight!

Vacation! - Ryan and I took a week off work between Victoria Day weekend and Ottawa Race weekend. We went to Ottawa the first weekend for the end of the Tulip Festival, went to Alexandria Bay, NY for a few days where we stayed in a hotel room with a direct view of Boldt Castle on Heart Island.

 

We spent plenty of time admiring the river view while enjoying some beverages on our balcony. We spent one warm, sunny day on a Thousand Islands boat tour and exploring the castle and we got to eat our dinners on patios right on the water (dock and floating restaurant). It was great to get away for a while.

Raising funds for KidsAbility Centre for Child Development

On May 3rd, I am running a 10 km road race, raising funds for KidsAbility and Rotary Children's Charities.

To donate, please visit the link below:
https://www.onlineregistrations.ca/mudppledges/searchconfirm.php?lname=Zandbergen&fname=Vicki

KidsAbility aims to help children and young adults with developmental, physical and communication disabilities. The Centre provides services to children from birth to eighteen years of age. Services may be provided in homes, childcare agencies, schools and community settings.

KidsAbility is committed to playing a significant role within the children's services system. As we influence, and are influenced by, this children's services system, we vigorously pursue the our mission to empower children and youth with special needs to realize their full potential.

I’m a Busy, Busy Girl

I’ve recently realized just how busy I’ve become. My life has become a very scheduled calendar full of studying, working, running, exercise classes, photography, and a few minutes to sit, try to relax, and actually spend time with my husband and my cat.

Studying: I am writing an exam on April 21st. That is only 2 weeks and 3 days from today. It is a work-related course and is not the lightest read. I’m getting up early Monday – Thursday mornings to study before I get ready for work.

Running: I am currently training for the Ottawa Half Marathon on May 24th. This is my second half and I’m looking forward to it. I run with Runner’s Choice 2 days a week as part of their Marathon/Half Marathon training program. I also have my own training schedule that I made through Runner's World's Smart Coach, which keeps me busy with running 4 or 5 times a week.

Exercise Classes: I’ve recently discovered the BodyFlow class at GoodLife. I never thought I’d enjoy a Yoga/Pilates class, but I love it! I started doing it so that I could get some good stretching to prevent running injuries (I’ve been out of the game a couple times due to knee/hip issues). I try to get to this class 3 times a week.

So, that’s my busyness in a nutshell. And a pretty boring little blog post to boot.

Lots of progress, but not quite complete

The room has been painted. It is "Bramble Tan."
The table is assembled. It is shorter than we thought, but still looks good.
The bar stuff is back in the room.

The fabric for curtains?
Well.. I went to Fabricland (Fabricland!) and looked through every single aisle of fabric. I looked at the pre-made curtains, the drapery fabric, the clothing fabric, even the vinyl, but found absolutely nothing that I wanted to make curtains out of.
I left, discouraged, and went to the paint store to pick out paint.
It took me a while to find the colour that I thought would work well.. something that had some sort of colour to it, but was still neutral enough to not cast any colour onto our computer monitors when we are editing photos (speaking of photos, I'll mention something at the end of this post). I also figured if the paint was fairly neutral, finding fabric to go in the room wouldn't be too difficult.

I brought the paint home to Ryan who was priming while I was gone. He asked me about the ceiling. Crap. I forgot to pick up white paint for the ceiling. So... he went off to the store to get that and I went off to do more shopping in the hopes of finding something to use for curtains.

I went to Zellers, Zehrs, Canadian Tire, and Walmart, but didn't find any curtains to go in that room. Nothing seemed to work. Nothing was fun. I even looked at shower curtains, tablecloths, and plain fabric at those stores. I returned home, frustrated with my lack of progress.

Ryan had painted the room when I was gone and it looked good! Furniture was also started to be assembled. As I said earlier, the table was shorter, but that's okay. It's still taller than the table in the kitchen, but shorter than one would expect a bar table.

Off to the mall on Sunday. Checked various stores then went into Zellers to see what they had (different Zellers than Saturday). Found nothing of interest in the curtains section or the sheet section, so off to the tablecloth section we went. Finally, we found some good striped tablecloths that I think will work.

So. No pictures of the before and after yet, but once I make the curtains and we finish putting the room together, I will post that. Hopefully it will be within the next week.

** the photo portion I was going to mention. I started a new blog for my photography. So far there is only one post, but I plan to add to it regularly. Vic's Pics

Have a good weekend, everyone!

sprucing up the ol' homestead

This weekend Ryan and I are going to make the computer room/bar look nicer. We already purchased a nice bar-height table and stools that will be going in there and Ryan got a new laptop, so we will no longer have a need for an actual desk to house a desktop computer. The new table will be our workspace for our laptops and also entertainment/eating/drinking space for other times. We will be changing the colour of the walls in there since they are currently some peachy pinkish colour that they've been since I moved in here in late 2005. Other room colours changed at that time, but I didn't know what to do with the little room.

In preparation for the update, Ryan got to work taking the ugly chair rail off and pealing what we thought was wallpaper off the bottom half of the walls. Turns out it was burlap and apparently this was the in thing to put on walls back in the day. So now the burlap and chair rail is gone and we have normal-ish walls to work with.

Tomorrow I am on paint and fabric duty. I must go to the store and find some good paint for the walls and I still don't know what colour to use in there. We need something neutral because we'll be doing a lot of photo editing in that room. Our furniture is dark brown, so I will probably go for a taupe or a grey. We'll see what jumps out at me when I get to the store. The fabric is for curtains, which I will make. Maybe I'll just go to the fabric store first and find some fun fabric, then go to the paint store and find something to go with the fabric.... could be a plan.

I'll have to see if I can find a picture of that room for a "before" shot and then do a nice photo of the improved room after the weekend.

Random Updates

Seeing as my last post was the first in almost a year, I thought I'd do a short random update post today.

So.. here are some highlights of the past year.

Ryan and I got married June 21, 2008



We went to Cuba for our honeymoon



Ryan and I went to Las Vegas at the beginning of December where I ran the half marathon. Here are two photos taken by Ryan.

My goal for the race was to finish in under 2 hours, but I did it in 2:00:37. Bah! Still not bad for a first half marathon. I'll have to beat that time in my next half, which will be in Ottawa on May 24th.

My next post will be more interesting. I promise.

Oh what a beautiful morning.....

I walk to work.

This morning, it was raining, so I brought my umbrella.
It wasn't the first time I'd walked to work in the rain... no big deal.
I stepped outside and noticed that my left knee felt odd. Not stiff.. not really sore... but almost felt like it was going to get "stuck."
I figured it would work itself out quickly and if it still felt strange when I got to the bus stop, I would take the bus today.

I walked along in the rain, umbrella blowing in the wind, flipping up occasionally as umbrellas like to do.

I got to the bus stop and my knee didn't feel too bad, so I continued to walk.
I walked a few blocks and my umbrella whacked me in the face, scratching my ear.
This happened a couple more times on my way to work (minus the scratching of the ear).

As I continued the walk, my jeans were feeling heavier and heavier, sticking to my legs a little more with each step. They won't get too wet, I thought... but that was before I met up with some oncoming traffic and puddles.

Allofasudden everything was in slow motion. A car was coming, the puddle was big. I moved my umbrella pointing it toward the puddle in an attempt to block the tsunami of water from hitting me. I may have stopped it from getting my hands wet. Maybe.

I arrived at work after coming into another wave situation, not as bad as the first. I entered the building, climbed the stairs and made it to my desk looking like a drowned rat. My hair all scraggly, my jeans wet and now what appears to be skin-tight, my shoes and socks drenched.

Now who's laughing at me for having 3 pairs of shoes under my desk and a spare pair of socks in my bag?