The rest of the April road trip

I dropped the ball on continuing with the posts in a timely manor. So, instead of trying to write anything decent, I'll pretty much just make this a post of unedited cell phone photos with very minimal writing. Once I actually work on the SLR photos, I'll put them up on flickr.

Boston, Massachusetts 

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

The day after the Boston Marathon, my friends & teammates were heading out of Boston, so I was now on my solo vacation. I had no actual plans at this point. I had to be out of my hotel by 11 or noon or whatever checkout time was and didn't know if I was going to stay in Boston or travel elsewhere, but was leaning toward elsewhere. I had just spent a few days in Boston, it was time to explore some more.

In the morning, I went out for a run with my phone in hand, to take a few photos along the way.

It was the perfect morning for a run. It was cool and there was no humidity... why couldn't it have been like this the day before? Oh well.. 

I took one more photo on this run, in the middle of the above photos. I somehow caught this out of the corner of my eye while running. I'm not sure how or why I saw it, but I'm glad I did. 

No more hurting people. #peace #seenonmyrun #bostonstrong

A post shared by Vicki Zandbergen (@vickizandbergen) on Apr 18, 2017 at 6:19pm PDT

After my run, I packed up and checked out, put my stuff in my car, which was booked to stay in the garage all day, so I set out to wander and explore. And.... it got cold... cloudy... windy. 

I checked out Faneuil Hall. 

Then headed out for more wandering/exploring.

I considered getting a cannoli from Mike's since it's apparently the thing to do.... then I saw this line:

I guess it IS the thing to do... but I didn't want to wait.

So... I went to Boston Public Market, where I got a coffee and a delicious vanilla bean donut,

sat and contemplated where to go next.

I decided on heading to the White Mountains. Checked for some options of places to stay, figured out a rough game plan, and then did some beer shopping (also in the market).

** ok.. interjecting here with something sort of funny that just happened. The mail just came, so I went to get it out of the box and in it was this:

That makes me feel slightly better about taking so long to finish up writing about April! haha **

New Hampshire

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

I arrived in Lincoln, NH at some point late afternoon or early evening. Checked into the Holiday Inn Express, was upgraded to a larger room since there weren't many people staying during the off season. Brought my stuff to my room, and walked to Woodstock Inn Station & Brewery to get some dinner and beer. 

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

This was a day of hiking at Greely Ponds Trail and Hancock Notch (with a bit of post-holing... post-holing to mid-thigh!) and just enjoying being outdoors.. until it started raining. At that point, I headed to a One Love Brewery for some food (and a beer) and then called it a day. 

In a shop window.

Wednesday, April 20, 2017

I went out for a short little run from the hotel around Lincoln in the morning and took a few photos. It was such a pretty morning!

My plan for this day was pretty loose. I would most likely cross into Canada at some point, but planned to stop several places on the way to do more exploring.

First stop: Franconia Ridge, Falling Waters Trail.

2nd stop: Littleton (for no real reason, just wanted to wander around a town with my camera)

3rd Stop: a lake in Vermont that looked pretty from the road. 

4th and final stop before Canada: Newport, VT.

I walked around by the beach for a bit and then to the East Side Restaurant for some food, since I hadn't had anything since breakfast. After this, it was time to head to my parents' house where I would stay for the night before driving back home to Kitchener. Actually, I think I stayed two nights. 

So there you have it. I can now get back to more recent/current posts... just in time for ENDURrun to start this weekend, the one time of year when I consistently blog. :)

The Rest of March (and first 2 days of April)

In an effort to write more regular posts, I've decided to throw something together about what's happened since the Chilly Half. Nothing exciting has happened, so this may be really boring, but it will be something... and something is better than nothing, right?

I'm not going to bore you with too many details, so I'll just summarize each week and make note of anything that stood out for that particular week.

March 6 - 12: The week when I finally ran a 20+ mile run
The week after Chilly. I didn't do any structured workouts this week, but I did run with the Wednesday Night Tempo group at Runners' Choice. I had no idea what they were actually going to be doing, whether it was a longish tempo run or tempo intervals, so I just planned on following along and doing whatever they were doing. If they started to run hard, I ran hard. If they ran easy, I ran easy. It was good to mix things up a little and was fun to run with different people.

On the Saturday of this week, there was some more mixing up of things. This was the day of the "Pop-up run" where Run Waterloo and H+P planned a long run together on the ENDURrun Stage 1 course. The course is a 13ish km loop followed by an 8ish km loop (it's a half marathon). I ran the big loop, then the small loop, as one would normally run it, but then another big loop so that we (myself, Trevor, and Brian) got a decent long run in. It was my first 20+ mile run since the fall, so I was very happy to finally get one in. It was bugging me that I hadn't run any yet this year. It was also great that it went well! The average pace for the whole run was 8:18 min/mile on snow-covered roads, so I was happy with that.

March 13 - 19: The week when I finally ran 60+ miles
Last week included my first 20+ mile run in what felt like forever, and this week, my total mileage was finally over 60 miles. The week consisted Tuesday and Thursday workouts. One went well, one not so much. The Tuesday workout (4x 1 mile), I did on the treadmill and I just wasn't overly into it, so it was a struggle. The Thursday workout went so much better. I was back outdoors and I ran it with Steve, which made it feel so much easier! Thursday's workout was 2 miles warm up and cool down with 6 miles at half marathon pace. It was a nice confidence boost for this one to go well. On the weekend, snow surprisingly showed up on Saturday morning and made for some crappy wet snow and slush situations. I ran 18 miles with Gillian and we were slushed by vehicles several times. The following day, the weather was so much nicer! I got together with Trevor and Payton and ran a very enjoyable 11.7 miles.

March 20 - 26: The week when I caught a cold.
It was a solid week otherwise. I did a couple of workouts and I got in another 20+ mile long run.... I just felt a little more tired than usual doing them. I lucked out in that I only had a head cold, no chest involvement.

March 27 - April 2: The week of extra Toronto
I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I work for a company in Toronto. I work from home three days per week and I go into the office two. Well, that's my normal week. This week was different because there were a couple of events going on. We were hosting a client party at the office on Tuesday evening and I had a conference to attend on the Wednesday. Due to these events, I stayed in a hotel Tuesday and Wednesday nights and returned home Thursday night after work. I had great intentions of getting some solid runs in while I was in Toronto, but with the cold and with the time spent at the events, it didn't quite happen. I still ran, but not as much as I had hoped. It was probably for the best, though. I really did need to get over the cold.

My Tuesday evening workout became a short 3 mile progression, which went well. I squeezed this one into the limited time between the end of my work day and the party. I was glad I got something in.

The party was fun. Good food & drink, good people, music, and even caricature artists!

Versions of Me. #Caricatures from our client event earlier this week #freedom2picasso

A post shared by Vicki Zandbergen (@vickizandbergen) on Mar 30, 2017 at 9:45am PDT

After a late night a morning run was not going to happen before heading to the convention, which officially started at 8:30am, with breakfast starting at 7:30. I arrived shortly after 8. After getting back to my hotel at the end of the day, around 6:30pm, I was going to meet up with the Toronto contingent of H+P, but decided that a short easy run and early bed would be best. I ran a little over 4 miles.

On Thursday morning, my alarm went off and I decided that I was not going to run. I re-set it and got some more rest before heading into the office. I ended up taking a zero day this day and I was perfectly happy doing so. Friday was an easy 5 or 6 mile run after being back to working from home.

On the weekend, I had a really good run on Saturday. I did 16 miles, which included 12K at marathon pace and 2x 1K around half marathon pace. I ran all of the tempo portions with Emily, and the easy parts with both Gillian and Emily (Gill was ahead for the tempos). All three of us (as well as several others) are running Boston in a couple of weeks, so it was great to do this with them. My average pace on the whole run was slightly quicker than the pace of my current marathon PR, so I was definitely happy with how the run went.

Sunday, I had a two part run, as it involved running to watch my niece play volleyball. I ran there, and then ran home afterwards. I got in a little over 10 miles total.

All in all, it was a decent month of training and now I have just 2 weeks until race day. Getting sick was an inconvenience, but the timing was actually pretty decent. If I had to get sick, three weeks out from race day certainly is not the worst time. I only missed one workout, and ended up with a fairly minimal reduction in mileage in a week that ended with very solid long run workout.

So there you have it. I seem to have rambled a bit more than I expected to... :)

Late 2016 & Early 2017: playing catch-up

I've been slacking in the blog department again. The fall races had come and gone, I wrote about them... then came winter... and I stopped.. writing, that is, not running.

Let's see if I can remember what's happened since the last post. It's a good thing that I have Strava to remind me.

December:
I did actually have a race in December, but it's one that I don't really think much about. It's a novelty race... but at least only in the fact that a Santa suit is worn. It's still a regular race if you disregard the outfits, which are made of felt, by he way. I hear felt is the new technical fabric for running clothes!

The race is called the Santa Pur-Suit and is put on the main running organization in the area, Run Waterloo.

Photo by Julie Schmidt

My mom has also run this race every year since it starts, which is the main reason that I also run it. It's become a family tradition. My parents were also nice enough to pick up the race kits before arriving at my house on the Friday evening: one less thing to do race morning!

We went out for dinner somewhere.... (I can't be expected to remember THAT much about that day... although now that I said that, I think we went to B. Hmm... I will consult Untappd to find out.... Yep.. we did!), then back to my house.

Saturday morning, we headed to the race, which starts and finishes at the YMCA in Waterloo. It has nice spacious indoor facilities where people can stay warm if it's a cold day. I don't believe it was overly cold that morning, but it had snowed the night before, just as it had each and every year of this race.

I ran started a warm-up solo, then joined some of my Health & Performance (H+P) teammates on theirs. The not-so-cold temperatures made some of the snow turn into slush, which wasn't fun, but hey.. everyone was going to be dealing with the same crap on the roads.

We headed back to the start area and got ready to race. My only real goal for this race was to run it quicker than I had in the past, and hopefully finally be under 22 minutes. I was not hoping for anything close to a real 5K PR, just a Santa Suit PR.

My past times in this race:
2012 - 24:21
2013 - 22:36
2014 - 22:15
2015 - 22:08

The race itself was fairly uneventful... some slippery and slushy spots, but overall, the course was in pretty decent shape. I finished in 21:56. Finally, I've run sub-22 in a Santa Suit. I finished 7th female, and my team, comprised of one guy and a bunch of women, won the team competition.

H+P Dashers minus Larry (L-R: Erin, Emily, myself, Anne) - photo taken at our club Christmas party

Speaking of the Christmas party (see caption above), H+P unveiled the Club Standards that night: new time goals to target, based on gender and age (open vs master). This goes hand-in-hand with our team rankings site, which has been in place for a while now (a year or two? I'm not sure anymore). It's fun to have some friendly rivalries within the club. It is so inspiring to see so many race times drop lower and lower within the club.

January:
I didn't have a single race in January, it was a month of training. I can't think of anything worth mentioning from that month... on to February!

February:
The return to racing happened in February, with interesting conditions. As I'm sure a lot of people had this year, February was warm this year. It was much warmer than usual, and there was no snow for the bulk of the month. This sounds like it would be a good thing for running, and it was for the most part... I got in great training runs with solid footing, but, I had registered for a snowshoe race. I was starting to think that it was going to turn into a trail race, but there was snow the week before the race and it was announced that the conditions were good for snowshoes on the course.

Race #1 - Snowshoes on little snow
The morning of February 4th, I drove to Shades Mills Conservation Area for the inaugural Dion Winter Goose Chase, which was also my very first snowshoe race.

I arrived nice and early, picked up my number, chatted with a few other runners, and then headed out to do a warm-up on the course in my trail shoes. The course was supposed to be a 3 km loop, run twice, so I figured I would just run it once as well as the little bit from and back to the building for around a 4 km warm-up. I ran around a bit and found the start, went through, and started following the flags. After a while, I start to wonder why I don't feel like I'm heading back toward the start/finish area. I looked at my watch and saw that I had already been running more than 2 miles... and I have no idea where I am. I was still following the flags, so I was clearly on the course, but I had run a distance of more than a full loop... and couldn't see anything that I recognized. I looked around a bit, trying to figure out a way to take a shortcut back, but nothing looked familiar. I started running again and calling out "Hello?" hoping that marshals were out on the course and could direct me back. Time was passing and it was getting closer and closer to start time. I needed to get back to the building, take off a layer and get my snowshoes! I was stressing for a moment, but then just found it funny that I managed to get myself lost. I was only planning on running this race for fun anyway, no goals, just a first attempt at running hard in snowshoes. If I missed the start... I missed the start... not the end of the world.

I finally found my way out and got myself to the building with only 7 or 8 minutes until race start. Got myself to the start and got my SS on just in time, while they were making announcements. Turns out the course had been changed and was now a single 4 mile loop. No wonder I was confused on my warm-up!

I lined up, and the girl beside me took off with the gun, but slowed a little after a km or so. I passed her and she stuck on my heels, until she passed me back around 1.5 miles (yes, I realize I keep switching between km and miles... that's just how I roll). I didn't react to her passing me. I just didn't have my head in race mode and just kept plugging away and let her go. Unfortunately, this put me in no man's land. I ended up slowing down a bit and then had to remind myself that even though I wasn't that into it.. I was still in a race and needed to at least run somewhat hard! So... I picked it up and could see people through some of the trees ahead, so I had some sort of target, something to focus on to get myself to pick up the pace and try to close the gap at least a bit.  I was gaining on the girl a bit, but then a hill showed up.. one that I somehow managed to miss on the warm-up, so I had no idea it was there! I was not expecting this large climb just before the end of the race. I did not handle that climb well... so there was no further closing of any gap. I got myself to the top, ran down as quick as I could and finished the race 56 seconds back from her. Not close at all. But... still 2nd female (8th overall) in my first snowshoe race, so all in all, not a bad day.

Just before the unknown-to-me hill. Photo from Spafford Health and Adventure.

The conditions... there was not much snow at all, but it was still nice that the race remained a snowshoe race. I had registered for a SS race two years ago that had been cancelled due to too much snow! (the roads hadn't been plowed yet and nobody could make it to the park).
Race results and recap can be found here.

Race #2 - Trail shoes on snowy and slushy roads
On Sunday, February 12th, I woke up and looked out the window.... what the crap? Snow... and lots of it. It was completely clear out there the night before. In fact, it was really warm the day before! This was less than ideal.... but it's February... what can you really expect?

I arrived at RIM Park with lots of time to spare before the start of the Re-Fridgee-Eighter, the first Run Waterloo event of the year. I met up with teammates and the conditions were on everyone's minds... what shoes to wear? I brought three different pairs because I wanted to see what the roads were like around that part of town. As I drove in, they were just starting to plow, but first round plowing doesn't generally get down to the pavement, so it was iffy.. plus, that was the main road.. what would the smaller roads be like? The answer, as it turns out, would be very very snowy.

I ended up putting on trail shoes, went out for a warm-up with Val and decided that the trail shoes would stay on for the race. A road race in trail shoes..... didn't seem right.... but in the end, I was very glad I made this choice.

In the race itself, I don't think there was a single section of clear road. It was either a thin layer of slush and snow, thick slush, or thick snow. During the race, it snowed, and there was also some freezing rain. I guess it is supposed to be a winter race.... .and it certainly was!

I ran most of the race around what I considered to be half marathon pace, and that's because I couldn't go any faster in those conditions. I felt like I ran it well, that I raced well. I ran the 8 mile distance in 58:22, which I would not have been happy with on clear roads, but in this... I was quite happy with it, especially when compared to last year, when this race was the first indication that there was something wrong with me. It took 2 more races last year before I knew I was anemic, but this was the first race that felt crappy. OK... back to this year. I placed 6th for females.

The best footing on the course. Photo by Julie Schmidt.

After the race, which was the first of any of his races that Lloyd Schmidt has missed since becoming RD back in 1987, a group of runners brought the race to the hospital, where he was recovering from cancer surgery. Lloyd means a lot to everyone in the running community (as well as to many outside of the running community); he is constantly giving and is one of the most selfless people I know. A short video about Lloyd and the event can be found here.

I think that's a good place to end this post. I'll write about last weekend's race in a separate post.

September

Here we are.... the last day of September 2016 and I've written zero blog posts all month. There is a reason for this.... I haven't raced. I know I don't have to race to write, but, it certainly makes it easier to think of something to write about! :)

After ENDURrun was over, I didn't really have any concrete race plans for the fall. My initial plan at the beginning of the year was to focus on a spring marathon, then the ENDURrun, and then a fall 50 miler.

With the anemia fun in the spring, I scrapped the marathon, which lead me to wonder if a fall ultra would even be a good idea. I decided to not make any decisions until late August, when I knew how my body had handled (and recovered from) a week of racing.

I took a very easy, low mileage week and then a week of more normal mileage, but no workouts, just easy running. Everything seemed to be going well, so I registered for JFK. From then until now, I've just been training (and working and regular life stuff, of course). There will be some races coming up, so there should be some blog posts coming as well... and they just might be slightly more interesting than this one.

I raced! (Guelph Lake 5K)

Post-Race, post-awards.

Yesterday, I decided to test out the ol' body at the Guelph Lake 5K. It was my first race in months and, more importantly, my first race since starting iron supplements and starting to turn this lovely anemia around. I'm likely not quite fully recovered yet, since it's only been 2 months, but I feel good; I must be very close.

So, back to yesterday. I raced. I raced a 5K and it didn't go badly! It was perfect temperature, but it was windy. I'll take that over hot and humid weather! The course is a loop of rolling hills through Guelph Lake Conservation Area (campground), starting and finishing near the main beach.

I was happy to see my final result of 21:28, which is actually my second fastest 5K, and to see that I finished 3rd place female. It's nice to know that I can run like myself again.

Now to keep working hard to prepare for ENDURrun, which starts in less than 2 months (a very scary thought right now)!

It's been a while...

My last post was back in August... ENDURrun time... and I had an injured foot.
Since that time, my foot got better, training resumed, and racing happened. I was going to write a post about the time from then until now, but it turns out that's 10 weeks! So... I will break up this update post into two or three posts. Today's post will cover the weeks between ENDURrun and The County Marathon.

August 17 - 23
Total distance: 15 miles
The foot needed to get better and I needed to let it. This became very clear when I attempted to run on the Monday. I started running, it started hurting, I headed home. I ran one mile that day and I didn't run again until Friday. Those rest days were very good to my foot; I ran a pain free 7+ miles with Craig and Val on the Friday morning! Saturday and Sunday, I was camping with my family at Silver Lake Provincial Park so I kept the runs short (3.1 & 3.5 miles), but also did some paddling on both Silver Lake and Black Lake.

View from my SUP: Silver Lake

View from my SUP: Black Lake

August 24 - 30
Total distance: 61.3 miles
This week, I got back into training. I did a couple of workouts with Health and Performance, had some solid longer runs at decent paces, and was back to running every day. It felt great to be able to get back into training and not have pain.
M: 7.7 miles total including 3x (5 min half marathon effort, 5 min 10K effort, 3 min recovery) and some strides
T: 5.1 miles solo
W: Track Workout - 9.2 miles total including 2x (1 mile at half marathon pace, 400m recovery), 1 mile 10K pace, 400m recovery, 1 mile 5K pac
T: 7.7 miles with Craig
F: 4.2 miles solo
S: 10 miles with H+P
S: 17.3 miles with Lumi from Runners' Choice

August 31 - September 6
Total distance: 54.3 miles
I did one track workout (Yasso 800s) on the Thursday and it went quite well. On the Saturday, I had to drag myself through my 18 mile long run on a hot day. The rest of the week was relatively uneventful: just regular runs. I took one day off this week.

September 7 - 13
Total distance: 73.1 miles
Solid week with a midweek workout alternating marathon and half marathon pace and a Saturday long run of a little over 20 miles.

September 14 - 20
Total distance: 59.2 miles
M: 7.5 miles including 20 min half marathon effort, 4 min recovery, 6x 1 min on/off.
T: 8 miles
W: 6 miles including 10x 1 min on/off
T: 3.5 miles
F: 5 miles
S: 20.4 miles including 13.1 miles at slightly over marathon pace at Harvest Half
S: 8.6 miles

Finishing the Harvest Half - photo by Kailey Haddock

September 21 -27
Total distance: 46.4 miles
Taper time. Runs were a bit shorter, but included two H+P workouts a progression run on the weekend at the Laurier Loop 10k.

September 28 - October 4
Total distance: 49.9 miles
Marathon week! Shorter runs, a wee workout of 1 mile marathon pace into 1/2 mile (ish) half marathon pace, then 5x 1 min on/off, a day off on the Friday and a super short run on Saturday morning before hopping in my car and sitting in it for way longer than expected due to a highway closure... but I still arrived in Picton in time to grab my race number and to meet up with friends for lunch. I will go into this weekend in more detail in my post about The County Marathon, which I will write in the next few days.

So there you have it... somewhat of an update. Really, just a boring list of runs... but at least there were a couple of photos! 

Happy New Year!

Since it's New Year's Day and I haven't posted anything at all since August, it's a good time to post a bit of a year in review of 2014.

After a successful 2013 (I started to be more consistent in training and achieved PRs in 5K, 8K, 10K, and half marathon) I had high hopes and bigger goals for 2014. Number one on my list at the start of the year was a big marathon PR, but I wanted to keep the training momentum going and most of all, I wanted to be consistent in my training, keep my mileage up, do more workouts, etc.

Quick highlights and running accomplishments from 2014:
- First full year of training with Health and Performance - I've absolutely loved being part of this team/club.
- PBs in every distance (or time) that I raced: 5K (twice), 8K (twice), 10K, 15K, 10 mile, half marathon, 25K, 30K, marathon, 50K, and 6 hour ultra.
- Some podium finishes and my very first win.

• 3rd female at the Frosty Trail 6 hour, the Great Canadian Trail Run 10K, the ENDURrun, Mudpuppy Trail 12K, and the Santa PurSuit 5K.
• 2nd female at the Creemore Vertical Challenge 25K just behind H+P teammate Jessica, and the following day I placed second at the Dirty Dash 8K.
• 1st female (and 3rd overall including the males) at the Horror Trail 6 hour ultra.

 All in all, I'd say it was a pretty great (and fun!) year. I will work just as hard (or harder) this year and will make 2015 just as great (or greater)!

The Start of Spring Racing

So far this spring, I’ve run 2 races: Around the Bay 30K and the 5K race of the ENDURrace series.

March 30th - Around the Bay:

I was strangely nervous before ATB this year. It’s the 4th time I’ve run this race, but this year was different. This year I had a plan for my race and this year I had goals for the rest of the season. I started to wonder how things would pan out and if they didn’t go as planned, how that might affect my race season. I was worrying about silly things, even my wardrobe… I kept checking the weather and putting out options to wear… and well.. it ended up being fantastic weather. I wore capris and a thin long sleeve shirt, but my sleeves were shoved up past my elbows pretty quick.

OK.. I didn’t come in here to write about clothes… although I could… nah… I’ll get back to running.

My plan for this race was to run it at my goal marathon pace and finish in a time of two hours and thirty minutes. Here’s how it went:

I was happy that it was a slow start with so many people in this race. It gave a bit of time while it thinned out and I could settle into pace. I hit the first km right around 5 minutes. Perfect. I just needed to maintain a steady pace. I started chatting with a couple of runners near me and they had the same goal of 2:30, so I stuck with them until the first real incline – an overpass. I ran up and over and I guess I pulled ahead a bit because I noticed that I didn’t see them anywhere… and I never saw them again.

A few minutes later, I spotted a couple of familiar runners up ahead (Joanne B and Jack K), so I picked it up slightly to catch up to them. said hi, and then ran with them for a few km until Joanne went ahead.

Jack and I stuck together until just after 21K where I had a bit of a mini-bonk… I got some sugar in me and got back on pace, but I didn’t catch up to Jack. At this point, the hills start. For some reason, I thought there was one more hill than there actually was, so I was pleasantly surprised when I hit the 27K mark and knew there were no more hills in this race. I felt good and I felt strong, a glance at my watch told me I was still on pace, so I was happy. As I crossed the the finish line, I saw the clock at 2:29:24, which meant I would get a silver medal instead of the bronze that I had received in years past. I thanked the volunteer who handed me my medal, walked around the corner and there was Jack!

My chip time was 2:28:18, which was 2 seconds shy of a 14 minute improvement over last year. I had stuck to my plan, it went well, and I had new confidence for the marathon in May.


April 12 – ENDURrace 5K:

After a good race at ATB and after training with Health and Performance for a bit, I had high hopes for this race… perhaps a little too high. I somehow let race excitement get the better of me and lost any ability to run smart. Here’s the race in a nutshell: I started too fast and then pretty much died.

Now for the full version: run like an idiot to the first corner, notice that I’m running the same pace as people who are way faster than me, drop it back slightly, but still keep running too fast to the first km mark where they were calling out the times… I hear a 3… crap. I should not be running under 4 min Ks… 3:54 was my first km… it went downhill from there… not the elevation… just me. I got slower and slower. It did not feel good. I just wanted to stop. I didn’t, of course, but I wanted to.

I finished the 5K in 22:13, which was a PB for me, so I am happy about that, but I’m disappointed in the way I ran. I know better… and had I run like I know I should have, I most likely would have ended up with a faster time. Lesson learned, I guess. Or at least I hope I’ve learned my lesson!


Up next is a double race weekend, a little mini-ENDURrun if you will… well.. not really. Saturday evening is the 8K portion of the ENDURrace and then Sunday morning is the Waterloo Marathon (the half for me). I WILL run smarter this time.

A late first post of 2014

It’s a good thing I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions… If I did, more regular blogging might have been one of them and I would have failed miserably!

Since it’s been a while, this will serve mostly as a brief summary/update of the past few months with a wee bit of what’s coming up.

A Change:

After running with the Runners’ Choice marathon group for the past several years, I decided a change was in order. I definitely enjoyed my time with that group and am appreciative of everything I got out of it, but it was time for something new.

In the fall, I started sporadically showing up for Health and Performance training runs, but I became an official member of H+P in December 2013.

Races Past (what’s happened over the winter):

• Santa Pur-Suit 5K – I don’t remember a lot of the details of this race since it was back in early December, but I do know that the weather was good. I ran it in 22:36, which is my 2nd best 5K time so far. Not too shabby for running in a Santa Suit!
• Frosty Trail 6 hour – The very tough conditions this year caused everyone to cover significantly less distance than previous years.
  I ran 40.1 km, which placed me 4th overall (male and female), with only 2 runners completing more than a marathon in the 6 hours.
• Re-Fridgee-Eighter 8K – The first race in the 2014 Waterloo Running Series and also the first in the brand new Battle of Waterloo.
  I didn’t expect much from myself in this race, since it was my first one coming back from a lower leg/ankle injury, but I surprised myself with a new 8K PB of 36:09!

Races Future (upcoming spring races):

• Around the Bay 30K
• ENDURrace 5K & 8K series
• Buffalo Marathon

So there you have it… a brief update. Now, bring on spring with clear roads and sunshine!

A Super Quick Update

It appears I've been slacking in the blogging department again, so I thought I'd throw something together super quick as a bit of an update from the last post in October to now.

I've only run 2 races since my last post and both were short races in the Waterloo Running Series.

October 20, 2013 - Oktoberfest 5K
There are both 5K and 10K options for this race and I would normally choose the longer distance when given those options, but since the Oktoberfest 5K was my very first race ever back in 2006, I always run the 5K at this one.

This race went relatively well... the end result was good (a new PR), but the race itself didn't go that well. I went out too fast and had an absolutely miserable 4th km. Luckily, I was able to pick it up a bit again in the final km and finish in a chip time of 22:22.

December 7, 2013 - Santa Pur-Suit 5K
This was the 2nd annual Santa Pur-Suit, which was a fun event where my mom, sister, niece, and nephew also took part. All participants must wear the entire suit of pants, jacket, belt, beard, and hat. In looking at the photos, I was one of the few who kept their beard on properly for the duration of the race. Actually, my whole family did, so I guess we were raised to play by the rules!

This race went pretty well for me. I went out too fast again (or... I didn't keep up that pace like I should have... I will try to work on that) and slowed a bit later on, but finished in a time of 22:40 (chip 22:36), which was my second fastest 5K and was good enough for 4th place woman overall and a default 1st in my category (2 out of the top 3 female were also 30-34).

Other Running: This past Sunday was the annual Run to St Jacobs, which is organized by Runners' Choice in Waterloo. It snowed a lot from Friday right up to Sunday morning, and the roads were not cleared well, so it was more difficult terrain than usual. I was running the 19K route (which turned out to be just about 20K) after running 4km from my house to the store. Let me tell you, it felt more like 34km than it did 24km. The run was completed at Stone Crock in St Jacobs, where we had a well deserved buffet brunch. It was a great morning with lots of good running friends.

Views from the Run

I’ve taken some photos recently while running and I haven’t written a blog post in a while, so here are some photos from my phone.

The first was taken last Thursday evening at Columbia Lake and the last 3 were taken yesterday along the Grand River.

 

ENDURrun 2013 – Pre-race meeting

It’s that time of year again… time for the ENDURrun! The 7 stage event officially starts tomorrow morning at 8am, but unofficially started tonight, with the pre-race meeting.

As usual, the race was held at the race director’s home in Conestogo. This year, to be sure the meeting began on time, it was suggested to come early if you wanted to socialize. I arrived a half hour before the meeting start time, which allowed a bit of time to catch of with some people that I had not seen in a year, some that I had seen last month, some a few days ago, and some I had never met before.

In talking to various people, I discovered rather quickly that I’m not the only person who feels that they have not adequately trained (or trained specifically at all) for this event. It made me feel a bit better about my readiness (or lack thereof) and I’m interested to see how the week plays out.

We picked up our bags containing our numbers and some other goodies and headed to chairs for the meeting. The official meeting included an introduction to the volunteers/race crew, some announcements, and some general information about the week to come.

After the meeting was over, I noticed a few more people that I hadn’t had a chance to talk to yet, so more catching up was done before heading home to eat and get ready for tomorrow.

Now that I have filled up my tummy, I should get my race stuff ready for the morning.  Have a great evening, and good luck to everyone at the start line in the morning!