Sun Run Results

Sorry for the delay on the blog post with the Sun Run results. Been busy with work and had people over after the Sun Run itself, so I have been spending more time cleaning, eating, sleeping, and working and haven't had much time for blogging.



I asked you to assume that I would run it in 58 minutes. In fact, I did NOT run the 10 km in 58 minutes. Instead I did it in just over 55 minutes. I am incredibly pleased with my results. I didn't make my idealistic goal of 48 minutes, but I did get to my initial goal of running it in less than an hour.



Lance ran it in just under 1 h 3 minutes, beating his time from last year. Our friends Gareth and Debbie did pretty well . . . Gareth ran in just under 1 h 9 minutes and Debbie power-walked (bad knee) in about an hour and a half (I don't have the paper with the results in front of me, so I'm guessing).



My sister, mom and step-dad did awesome! I'm very proud of all of them. They walked it in under 2 hours. Kim came in a little bit faster than mom and Howie did.



Here is my last graph for the Sun Run.

I've already found my next fitness challenge.  It's the Women's Health Ultimate Fitness Plan '07. It is designed to develop cardio, flexibility, strength, balance, and reflexes. I may graph the results from that as well. You test your progress every four weeks or so, which makes it very measurable.



The Sun Run was the first major goal for 2007 that I've accomplished. The next one that I'm going to focus on is passing my CAIB 4 exam, which is scheduled for July. I'm actually going to try to study a bit for that tonight before bed.

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Sun Run Weather Forecast - Today!

Variable cloudiness. 5 degrees Sunday morning with highs in the afternoon reading 11. 20% probability of precipitation.



Well, the big day is here! I realized one flaw with these weather forecasts is the predicted high usually isn't reached until sometime in the afternoon. But, that's ok.  Our garage is usually around 5-7 degrees when we run on the treadmill. It was really the rain I was more concerned about, because I'm a big wimp!





I'm a bit nervous, but my primary goal today is just to go out and have fun. I'm already all dressed and just need to assemble our drinks, brush my teeth, and hop in the car. Hopefully I'll have a chance to post after the run to let you know my time. Until then, assume that I ran it in 58 minutes ;)

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Sun Run Weather Forecast - April 14th

Variable cloudiness. High of 12; low of 4. Twenty percent probability of precipitation. Perfect weather for a run. Remember to wear sunscreen people! It'll keep you cooler. I hope to update on how the weather actually was after the run but I may not do that right away since Lance has a hockey practice and then we're having some friends over to watch Canucks face-off against Dallas for Game 3 of the series.

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Sun Run Weather Forecast - April 9th

Today's forecast for Sunday is calling for cloudy periods, high of 9, low of 4 with a 10% chance of precipitation. :)

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Sun Run Weather Forecast- April 8th

Rain. Highs of about 7 degrees. :(

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Sun Run Weather Forecast - April 7th

Mostly cloudy. High of about 8 degrees.

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Sun Run Training - Week 12

Here's the week 12 graph. I'm slowly creeping up to the target line. Next week is the last week of training and there are only 2 more running sessions scheduled before the actual run on Sunday.

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Sun Run Weather Forecast - April 4th

So, the weather forecast looks like sunshine with scattered clouds now, but the temperature is around 8 degrees. It's getting better and better!

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Sun Run Weather Forecast - April 3rd

So, today the forecast has been changed to just cloudy with no rain.  There's rain the day before and rain the day after, but none on the 15th.  And, it looks like the expected temperature is just below 10 degrees.  That I can handle.  Chances are, you'll be seeing more updates like this one.

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Sun Run Training - Week 10

This week I can see a bit of progress on my overall speed. I also ran for 65 minutes on Saturday and managed to do just a little over 10 km in that time. It was about a minute faster than my actual Sun Run time last year. I'm kind of disappointed because I'd like to be faster than my time last year. But, I also still have 3 more weeks left to train (man did the time fly by!). Plus, last year I thought my time would be about 10 minutes slower than it actually was. So, I'm hopeful that I'll still be able to shave off a few minutes and reach my basic goal of running it in under an hour.

I'm feeling pretty good overall about my fitness level. Kick boxing is awesome! Our friends Gareth and Debbie have signed up for the boxing class that runs a little later in the afternoon with the same instructor. We might sign up for that one too and then we'll have friends in class.

I've spent most of today doing some general housework and applying a grout sealer to the various grouted surfaces of the house. Lance is going to help me move some kitchen furniture this evening so we can tackle that area. The only real tough part about the kitchen is moving everything off the floor. I really wasn't looking forward to that. Hopefully we'll get the whole area a bit more organized though so things will look generally neater in there when we're done.

Sun Run Training - Week 8 or 9

So, when I got back on track with the Sun Run training, I actually started out a week behind where I should have. I realized that this week and combined the training sessions of Week 8, which was a rest week, and Week 9, which was a normal training week. Next week I'll be doing Week 10, which is really getting into longer runs (40-65 minutes). I was startled by that big jump from Tuesday of this week. Hopefully, that'll be my performance on Sun Run day!

Sun Run Training - Week 7

Well, we've passed the halfway point and I've finally managed to get another good training week in.





You can see the gap between reported sessions on the graph and I'm happy that my time off didn't seem to have a major impact. I didn't gain any, but I didn't lose any either. You'll also notice that I lowered that goal of mine to just 10 kph. It looks a lot closer to where I'm currently at. I've been at a bit of a plateau lately but hopefully I'll be able to see a bit more improvement in the last 5 weeks of training.

Gong Hey Fat Choy

So, I'm really not sure if I spelled that right or not, but I guess it's the spirit that counts.

Today the mall I work at had a bunch of Chinese New Year festivities going on. I'm pretty sure it was brought about largely due to TnT Supermarket. They had a bunch of different things including a traditional Lion Dance.

A few weeks ago they sent around a memo explaining what would happen and giving the mall merchants a chance to sign up and receive a blessing from the Lion. One of my co-workers, Yvonne, is Chinese and enjoys these types of things, so she asked the boss if it would be ok. He readily agreed and even said we could use office money for the lucky money envelope that the Lion eats.

So, today the Lion came and blessed our office. We hung up some lettuce and a lucky red envelope and the Lion came up and ate it. He spat out the lettuce at us, which is supposed to be good luck.

Kim was here for a Saturday visit and she and Yvonne took some pictures with their camera phones, so hopefully I'll have some pictures to post soon. In the meantime, even though the caption says dragon, this is pretty much what it looked like.

Lent Begins

Several years ago, I started observing the season of Lent. I won't go into the all the religious significance of the holiday, but the gist of it is that you give something up or deprive yourself of something in recognition of Christ's suffering and deprivation before his crucifixion and resurrection at Easter. I'm sure those more religious than I am can explain it a bit better than that, so if you have more to add, please feel free to comment.

This year, I'd already decided that I would again observe Lent by depriving myself. Some people get confused that I do this since I don't go to church regularly (although regular church attendance does not necessarily correspond to devout belief) and many who do go to church no longer deprive themselves. I can't remember anymore exactly what I gave up . . . either soda or chocolate, but it doesn't really matter what I gave up, just that I decided to give up something that would be significant. When I first decided to give something up, my motivation was twofold. First, I had never observed Lent and wanted to try it out and actually observe something. The United Church has always been quite "laid back" about their observances and formalities so I'd never felt as though I should or I had to. But, I wanted to see what it was like, and if I could use it to focus my spiritual side more. My second reasoning was so I could purify myself of the "junk." It's always been difficult for me to ween myself off things, so going cold turkey seemed like a good method to try. I found that once I had it completely out of my system, I didn't really miss it that much, and was much less likely to indulge even after Lent was over.

My husband, who is not religious, but is spiritual, decided last year (or the year before - I forget) to also join me in my observation of Lent. He was quite impressed with the will power I show over the season and wanted to flex his will power. Plus, he enjoys the health benefits of cutting out bad foods for a time.

This year, we both decided we would again give something up for Lent. The way I always do it, is if I do have an occasional slip, instead of feeling incredibly guilty or anything like that, I "Buy a Bit of BC Goodness." What I'm referring to is a $2 contribution to the food bank that you can make at most grocery store cashiers, by simply tearing off the little coupon and adding it to your order. Anyway, this year we're both giving up alcohol and I'm also giving up chocolate, cake, 'junk' etc. It'll probably be a great move for our fitness training!

Now, there are certain things that I'm putting on my allowed list from the beginning . . .

1) fizzy o.j. - this is a treat Lance and I sometimes have that involves mixing orange juice with some seven-up. It's much healthier than straight pop is and since we don't drink pop and are giving up alcohol, it will be our indulgent beverage.

2) popcorn - the air popped kind made at home. I'll probably try it without butter and with less salt added.

3)chocolate protein shake - this is part of the training program we follow and I'm not going to spend $40 on a different flavour.

4)chocolate covered protein bars - same kinda deal as above. Besides, I don't think I've ever seen a protein bar that doesn't have some kind of chocolate flavouring/coating.

Since Easter Sunday is the week before we're supposed to run the Sun Run, I don't anticipate any giant binge that week. Maybe a glass of wine with Easter dinner and a small slice of dessert. But, other than that, we'll probably ease the foods back in.

Ok, I could go on a bit more, but I am still at work, so I should get back to it now!

Sun Run Training - Week 5

Well, you'll notice that there isn't any fancy chart for this week, and my update isn't even on time. I hit a bit of a bump in my training last week. The whole time I've been running, I've been noticing that my legs feel fatigued quite easily. This week I guess I hit my limit because during one of the training sessions, my right foot started to hurt quite badly, right in the middle of the foot in the centre of the arch. So, I slowed it down. The next time I tried running, I had major shin splints. I slowed it down to a walk and it took almost the whole session of walking for my legs to feel ok.

After doing a bit of online research on it (which I'm too lazy to look up and link to right now), it looks like I my be starting to get falling arches. I'm guessing it's probably because of the high-impact kickboxing activity combined with runners that are definitely due for retirement.

I've still been training, although I've dialed it back majorly so I avoid aggravating my feet/ankles/shins any more. I've also started doing some strengthening exercises on alternating days. This morning I went for a short run and they felt ok. I think new shoes will definitely help.

So, I'll still be training, but I'll probably be aiming to complete the race in just under an hour instead of the original 49 minutes I had hoped for. That's ok though since the 49 minutes was my secondary goal. I figured I might as well aim for something a bit more impressive than a 5 minute improvement on last year's time.

My new shoes probably won't be purchased until March, since I don't have enough February allowance left-over right now for shoes (I do have allowance left over to get myself a new MAC eyeshadow though).

Sun Run Training - Week 4

This week was a bit of a rest week and I was very glad since I've had a bit of a cold. I'm not making as much progress as I'd like. However, looking at the numbers, my kph has increased by about a whole kilometer from about 8.3 to 9.3. Hopefully I'll be able to increase that to at least 10 kilometers per hour by April 15th.

Sun Run Training - Week 3

So in this week's graph it looks like I've plateaued a bit. This week in general was just a bit of a wash for me. I want a do-over! I did a bit of weight training this week and my legs were so tired that I didn't do my full run today. My km/hr is a bit higher, but in general the run felt terrible. Plus, I still have kickboxing to do today! Hopefully I'll feel better after that!

P.S. Sorry about lack of posts this week. Just haven't felt much like blogging. But, I probably should since I think it keeps me slightly more sane in the long-run.

Sun Run Training - Week 2

Well, I've just finished my third session for week 2 and I thought I'd better update before I lose momentum. I've made a little bit of progress and I am getting faster. However, I still have a long way to go. I'll probably re-evaluate my target in a few weeks and see if I can realistically improve as much as I'd like to by the Sun Run.

Sun Run Training - Week 1

Well, my finger injury did not stand in the way of my Sun Run Training the way it did for my strength training. So far I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm running at about 3/4 of the speed I did the Sun Run in last year, so hopefully the next few months will improve upon that. Here's a graph I created with ">bellygraph to track my progress . . .





The little blue line represents how fast I've run during this week. The dashed line represents my goal run. It's actually a little scary right now having it put down in numbers and seeing it in a graphic form like that. But, having a very clear goal in mind is one of the best ways to actually achieve your goals.

Old Apartment

Edit: My sister went by and it looks like it was the building we were in. The complex has a total of three buildings and I wasn't sure initially if it was the one we happened to rent a unit from.

Until Spring of this year, I lived in a crappy apartment building. It was a building that was old, had subsidization available, and was 'known' to the social workers in the area. It was crappy, but it was the kind of place that you can only live in while you are young. Plus, the rent was cheap and we were considered star tenants just by paying the bills on time and not outright pissing people off.

Well, it turns out that the apartment building just about burned right down yesterday. I managed to find a news article that gives a little picture of it. If I had the time, I'd try to zip down there and snap a few pictures with my own camera, but I don't have time right now.

It wasn't really surprising that this happened. The people in the building aren't necessarily the most responsible and I know that there are many 'questionable activities' that occur there that would tend to increase the risk of a fire happening. What surprised me the most was that more people weren't injured. During the numerous fire alarms while we lived there, we were always among the few residents that actually left the building. Perhaps the fact that it wasn't the dead of night made people take this one seriously. The really sad part is that I know most of these tenants probably don't have insurance coverage at all. So, not only are all their belongings gone, they now need to find another place to stay. The people who live in those apartments were probably there because they didn't have a lot of money to begin with. I could see a set-back like this being the reason some people live on the streets.