Running on my Ottawa mini-vacation

It’s Monday afternoon and I have just returned from my extended weekend in Ottawa.
This isn’t going to be much of a blog post, but I took some photos with my phone while running that I thought I would share on here.

Friday morning – Ran to Mud Lake, then in the trails at Mud Lake, and then back to my sister’s house. Total distance: just under 9.5 miles (just over 15 km)

Mud Lake

Saturday morning – I rode my nephew’s bike to some cross country ski trails in Nepean. The ride was 5.6 miles there, then a 5 mile run, then 6.1 mile ride back (took a couple wrong turns :P)

Ottawa River
 

 

Sunday morning – I ran from my sister’s house to the local Running Room where I had asked the day before how far their groups would be going. I was told 19km, so I thought this would be okay with a bit of a run before and after.

The group run was similar to what I was planning to run on my own, except they had a loop planned and I had an out and back. My route would have been Ottawa River to Rideau Canal to Dows lake and back, but what we did was ran over to Dows Lake, then along the canal to the river, and followed the river back to Westboro.

The total distance I covered that morning was 16.5 miles (26.5 km) and I also got a 20ish minute swim in. I love swimming after running. In this case it was a swim between runs… it was a bit difficult to get going again after being in the water, but I managed to get back to my sister’s house. :)

Inukshuks on the Ottawa River
 

Westboro Beach (where I swam) – It was actually sunnyish when I was in the water, but then clouded over soon after.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these photos.

Re-Fridgee-Eighter and More Photos :)

Yesterday was the 16th annual Re-Fridgee-Eighter 8 km and 8 mile race. It was quite cold out, but it was clear and dry and was not windy. The conditions were quite good for a race in February. The race was well organized as always and the post race food was tasty. I had a slice of chicken club pizza which was very good.

I ran the 8 mile distance and was happy with my race. I came in over 3 minutes faster than my previous best time. The course was different this year and I talked to several others who had PBs today, but a PB is a PB and I’ll take it. :) I ran the race in 1:03:32, placing 8th female (out of 65 entrants) and second in my age group. Since the 3rd overall female was in my age group, I walked away with the first place medal for female ages 30-34.

-------

Since I had previously been updating with photos, I will continue that in the second half of this post. I finished up December last time, so now I will jump into January 2013, which should bring us up to date with the photos.

January 1st – Walter Bean Trail, Kitchener

Obstacle on the trail

January 5
Fun bridge in the trails just off the Walter Bean trail near Ottawa St.

January 6

Snowy Sunday morning run with Runners’ Choice 

January 12

A bit of an odd day weather-wise for the middle of January. As you can see below, I’m wearing a short sleeved shirt and by the look on my face you can tell that I am not cold. I was actually over dressed (I wore long pants.. should’ve done shorts or at the most, capris). I ran along the Grand River by Freeport. The river was misty at one point, so I took a few photos and included one below.

Misty River

January 19 – Frosty Trail 6 hour Ultra

I ran my very first ultra this day. It went better than I could’ve imagined. I had some fantastic encouragement along the way (very helpful and appreciated) followed by good conversation after the race. I ran 51 km during the 6 hours and placed 4th female. It was a good first ultra experience. I’m pretty sure I’m not done.

The trails got a bit muddy…

I was proud of myself after this race.

January 27

The sun started to set as I was finishing my my run near the Grand River this day. The colours looked much prettier in person, but it’s still nice in the photo, so I will include it.

Now that I have included photos up to the end of January, I think I am caught up and will go back to regular blogging as I finish any runs where photos have been taken. I hope you’ve enjoyed the bulk updates.

Photo Update continued: December 16-31

I have a bit of time this morning, so I decided to throw together the 2nd of 3 photo update posts. I hope you enjoy the photos.

December 16 – Homer Watson Park, Kitchener

 

December 20: Where I grew up (Eastern Ontario) 

 
This is the park where I used to play. The playground is not visible in this photo.

Brinston General Store

What used to be Watson’s General Store. I bought my fake Cabbage Patch Kid doll here when I was little. I didn’t even have enough money but Barb let me have it anyway. :)

December 22: Still out my parents’ way – cold and snowy

I had to cut this run short because I was actually in pain from the cold.

December 30: around Downtown Kitchener

I have no idea why there are hats on this window sill.

I will have one more photo update post in the next couple days, which will bring the blog up to date. :) I may also include something about today’s race, the Re-Fridgee-Eighter, which is part of the Waterloo Running Series.

The group run that didn’t happen

This morning I got up shortly before 7, had some coffee, ate some toast with peanut butter and banana, and got ready to meet up with the folks from meetup.com at the Saturday Trail Run that I had organized.

The first challenge of the day was actually getting out of the little lane beside the house. Luckily, Ryan got the car out for me while I finished up getting my stuff together. I hopped in the car and headed toward the trail. The roads were mediocre at best. I arrived just 2 minutes after the time I said I would be there, so I didn’t do too badly time wise, but I was disappointed to see that the parking lot where we were to meet was completely inaccessible.

I drove past the lot and looked for a place to park nearby, but did not have any luck. I drove around to another street and parked near Chicopee. After parking, I ran back to the meet up location to see if anyone else had shown up, but there were no signs of other runners. I trudged through the snow and discovered that there was no way we could run on this trail today. I waited a few minutes to be sure nobody was coming and then headed back out to do a short run on my own.

I discovered later that another runner had been driving around the area looking for me (and others), but unfortunately, we did not cross paths.

My tracks in the deep snow

Not the deepest spot, but still shows the type of ground cover today :)

The trail under the bridge was full of large chunks of ice from the river.

I ran back to where the car was parked and then found some short trails that had been travelled by somebody, so I could actually get through them. I ran around this area briefly and then crossed the road to have some fun running through some deep snow in a playground.

I took some photos while out on my own to share.

Snow covered trees next to where I parked.

I could get through this trail :)

And it connected to this one.

Hi

Total distance covered today was only 5 km, but with the amount of snow, I’d say it counts for more. I could’ve definitely used some snowshoes today.

A photo update

***
It is now February 8th and I wrote a good chunk of the below last week. Instead of changing it, I thought I’d just add this wee blurb to the top so you know why the actual post starts out with info that is no longer true since I posted something yesterday.

Today is essentially a snow day due to the piles and piles of snow we received overnight and are still getting now as I type. I am working from home today, but there are some system issues due to the number of people on VPN. I doubt I’ll run later, but it could be kinda fun in the snow… who knows. I am planning on a trail run tomorrow morning with some people through meetup.com. It could be interesting with all of the snow.

Instead of this post being an update all the way up to now, I think I’ll do it in chunks. Today will be December only. Next time, I will include January and the first weekend of February.

I will try to update the blog on a much more regular basis going forward. Life got crazy and the blogging got pushed aside. Life isn’t exactly “normal” now, but I will blog. :)
*** 

I realize that it’s been quite a while since I last published a blog post. So… instead of trying to think of a bunch of things to write about, I will post a bunch of photos that I took on the runs between my last blog post and now. I will include short blurbs about the runs along with the pictures so that you know what they are about and when they were taking. This should bring you up to speed on my running. I will try to be better at posting from here on in.

December 1st: The Santa Pur-Suit:
As you may recall, I ran in the santa suit with Jordan previously, to promote the event. On actual race day, I got to see my friend Paul and also my mom, who both ran the race as well.

 

December 8th: Saturday morning run with Ron (Runners’ Choice)
I met up with Ron and some other runners in Cambridge. After the group was finished their run, I went back out for another out and back and took some photos on the way.

 

December 15th: Kissing Bridge Trailway, West Montrose. This is a very well marked flat rail trail.

     

I was going to keep going with December, but there are a bunch more photos that I want to share and this post is already crammed full of photos, so I will stop here and start at December 16th in the next post.

I hope you’ve enjoyed some views from the run, even though they are old.