Friday Five: Thoughts Before the Blue Nose

by rozalita

Two sleeps until I lace up and head down to Sackville Street (heee) for my third annual attempt at the Blue Nose Half Marathon.  You may remember that in 2011 it was my first ever half ever.  I hit it again in 2012 and was amazed by what cross-continent communications can achieve.  This year I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to run it, but since the course is the same as 2012 I’ll take another crack at it.  I guess.

In the spirit of Friday Five here are five Blue Nose related things bouncing around in my head right meow.

  1. Will I get bib 1030 bring good change?  I was #1021 for the last two years running and I feel like I should go find those nine people with last names starting with A and get mad at them for ruining the numbering.  But!  I shall wait until after the race so I can see how 1021 does and how I do.  The race starts at 8:45 so if 10:30 was my finish time that’d be cool!
  2. Are the meteorologists just keeping the forecast nice so the runners don’t panic?  Because the current forecast of “Sunny. Low plus 1. High 11.” seems like it might be too good to be true, yannow?
  3. Will I hate cherry lime Roctane?  I have a random assortment of gels sitting in a bowl.  One packet each of espresso love Gu, vanilla PowerBar and cherry lime Roctane.  I know I like the first two, so do I eat the Roctane before the run and save the good ones for when I am on the course or do I carry the cherry lime and take it in case the fuel on course is gross (read: orange vanilla flavour) or non-existent?  I know the easy answer is to man up, walk the 400 steps from my house to the Running Room and go buy something that isn’t gross, but where’s the fun in that?
  4. Why is it Blue Nose and not Bluenose?
  5. Will I meet my goals?  I really like how Skye had A and B goals for the BMO Vancouver Full and I have three goals.  Yes, it seems like indecision and “everyone’s a winner!” not keeping sore bullshit, but it’s my race and my goals so I can do what I want!  My minimum hope is to go below 2h04m02s, my BN best from last year.  My next level is sub-2 hour.  My current (and not entirely unrealistic, but definitely a stretch) wish upon a star goal is 1h55.

I have a BBQ to attend tonight and a wedding to attend tomorrow, so … yeah, that all sounds exhausting.  I can’t wait for 50ish hours from now when I cross the finish line and can then go directly to beer, bbq and some comfy baggy ass sweatpants and then an epic do-nothing Monday.

What’ve you got on tap for the long weekend?

It’s that time again!

by Kathryn

Hello there! I’m back, mostly..kind of! I have a whole bunch of posts from Australia but frankly I’m jet lagged, crazy at work and I have no interest in editing them.

Today I thought I’d give you the heads up that I’ve registered for the Victoria Half Marathon. A race?! Yes a race. I’m injured with a long heal time, I haven’t trained for anything for months and I’m a little off races for the moment. BUT I had to do this one, guys. Even if I don’t meet my goal of sub–2, even if I don’t run most of it I want to go.

I love the Victoria Marathon events and have been a participant for the last couple years now. The shirts are always great, the race is beautifully run, the organisers are top notch and all my friends are always there. That’s right most of my run friends tend to show up for our local event, the big one. It’s in my city and surrounded by my city. As much as I’d like to skip this race because it’s a big race and costs money, meow, meow, meow. The fact is that it’s the homer and I get way too excited about it.

The best part of this year is that Skye is hanging up her marathon hat for the moment (after killing her latest full) and we plan to hopefully become sub–2hr half marathoners together. Skye and Kathryn training tooogeeethher again and it feels so good!

I have a training buddy, I have expectations of fun if all else fails and a bum hip. Lets do this thing, it’s going to be a fun summer.

How many of you Victorians are doing an event this October? How many of you non-Victorians are training for a fall race. Come on, I know you’re planning it already, confession time! Leave a comment!

Tuesday Shoesday!

by rozalita

You guys!  I bought new shoes!  I was ultra hungover on Saturday but I knew that was the only time I had enough time to go get fitted and make a purchase before the Blue Nose so I choked down a few pieces of french toast and headed down to Aerobics First to get set up.

My favourite shoe guy (who moonlights as a ski technician in the winter) measured my feet and watched me walk around and came out with three pairs of shoes.

Saucony Ride 5Bachelor #1: Saucony Ride 5.  The Rides were so incredibly comfy and squishy and what some people might call a little snug but I was a fan as soon as I put them on.  After my too big Nexus’ and my too floppy for distance Frees it felt nice to be back in traditional shoes.  The squishy support felt good when I went and ran up and down the block and I knew they’d be a contender.

new-balance-w880Bachelor #2: New Balance … WR880?  I honestly can’t entirely remember because I put the right shoe on for about 17 seconds and that was plenty.  Yes, my initial reaction at being offered a pair of NBs was disgust.  I was willing to put that aside and give ‘em a go because their offerings seem a little more serious lately, but the structure in the heel felt weird and off center the moment I stood up in the shoe so I didn’t even bother seeing if it felt any better with the left one on.

Mizuno Elixir 8Bachelor #3: Mizuno Elixir 8.  If you’ve been in a shoe store lately you know the ones I’m talking about.  They’re guaranteed to catch your eye as they’re mostly pink and there’s some black and white and the logo is bright green.  They’re light and have an all mesh upper that feels really bizarre while standing but as soon as I got outside?  It felt great.  The Frees have gotten me into liking a lighter shoe which these provide but with more sole-structure.

So I went with #3.  I took them for a 4k pre-gym spin on Saturday and had no complaints. They got another try yesterday for my speedwork (5x2min) and they were great!  I felt light and fast and I can’t wait to see how they are for 21.1 on Sunday.

Scapula 2: Electric Boogaloo

by rozalita

It’s been a while since I talked about my shoulder so I thought I’d bring you guys an update!  Kat’s away which leaves me a lot more words to puke out into this keyboard and luckily (wait, did I just use lucky in reference to an injury?) I have some rehab to talk about.

ScapulaI saw the physio for a second time and got some massages.  The first was last Friday and it was pretty good.  It was what you’d expect from a massage: it left me feeling nice but not entirely worked over.  Enjoyable, but not what I was shopping for.

Last week I went on my runs and continued to hit the gym and found that the pain was starting to come back and didn’t feel improved.  So I stretched more and did my physio exercises and put tiger balm on before bed and didn’t really notice anything improving until Friday when I had my second massage.  Holy shit, it was amazing.

It was a session of myofascial release which feels kind of like a really long drawn out Indian burn.  That section of my back still feels a little weird now, three days later.  But I think it’s working because what pain was returning seems to be subsiding.  The massage ended with the RMT recommending “meat and heat” and to return to the gym to work out at 75% intensity to help bring movement to the area and get it acting like normal again.

I have another physio session this week and hopefully she thinks that there’s some improvement and the plan is to probably do one more massage session before the race.  My RMT guy volunteers for post-race massages so I may try and run fast enough to wind up in line for his chair on Sunday.

Aaaaand none of you win a prize for guessing what “Oh Scapula! My Scapula” was in reference to.  You should probably be okay with that.  In one season of Full House, Jesse goes back to night classes to get his GED and ends up having to recite “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walt Whitman.  I can’t find a clip of that on YouTube, so Merry Christmas.