Day 2 - The 30 in 30 Run Challenge

A better run today - 5.5km; a very consistant 10 in 1. Incremental speed and with no sign of breathlessness!

I'm at 11.5/48.2km (23.8%)

Day 1 - The 30 in 30 Run Challenge

Day 1

Skipped out on breakfast (had 3 clemintines instead) and headed to Goodlife (for the first time in months! Makes me cringe when I think about my idle membership there.

Did a little bit of stretching, and hopped on to the treadmill.

Things I forgot was to bring a bottled water (drank from fountain instead). No watch. Phone ran out of battery. Good thing for my iTouch :)

First 10 minutes was pretty tough, and it only got tougher after that. 10 and 1 intervals became 10 and 2. Followed by 10 and 3.

After an hour of struggling to keep a steady set interval run I ended my workout at 6km.

I'm at 6/48.2km (12%)

Thinking some need for speed and consistancy is in order.

Until my next workout... :)

The 30 in 30 Run Challenge

It's been nearly 3 1/2 months I have been rather in-active - the last time I did a run was in fact on my cruise trip last October. And that wasn't much of a run from what I recall (the ship was rocking so badly, I had to grip on to the treadmill to keep steady).

As if a reminder of my lack of activity, today I discovered in my email a little reminder from MapMyRun. Curiosity got me and I clicked it open to find a nice challenge presented to me: 30 miles (48.28032 km) in 30 days. Incentives? Some small prizes if you meet it by Feb. 18th. Given today is the 5th, that roughly gives me about 13 days to make the deadline.

I think I'm up for the challenge. It's about high time I started to get back into my routine (said that many times, but first time in writing!). If I don't make the goal (being realistic...) it still will serve as a benefit by jumpstarting me back into running again. Win Win; I like the sound of that.

Wish me luck!

Final running event of year completed!

Last week, I completed my last running event for the year, the Scotiabank Waterfront full marathon (Sunday Sept. 26, 2010). I was nervous I will admit - having to do it alone with no coaches or a team to run with and also having cut my training almost by half. I think I have learned that training alone has its pros and cons - pro being a great way to just have time to do reflection, con because sometimes its also nice to talk to someone as you do those long 15km + runs. I guess I got accustomed to the training through TNT to talking to my teammates :) I miss that.

Although I was running the marathon alone, my friend susan had decided to join me this year to do her first half-marathon. We hadn't the chance to train together (only in hiking), I had given her pretty much the marathon training 101 that I had learned through experience. Including the 10 in 1 interval part, in hopes that if she did decide that was the type of pacing she wanted to do, we could run together for the first half of our course on race day.

The weekend kicked off with a great start - celebration of my friend Cecilia's birthday. High tea followed by a massage at Elmwood Spas! Way too relaxing for what I was about to put my poor body through!













We finished off the evening with a carbs feast at Epicure Cafe. DELICIOUS food. If I wasn't pressed for eating only carbs, I would definitely have ordered a whole lot of other stuff! :D

Susan and I checked back into our hotel (Super 8) at around 10:00pm, and set up our gear, bibs, and laced up our race chip. Air con troubles (it failed to turn on because we had set it below 70 degree F) caused us to extend our bed time... but thankfully we were able to sleep by 12am.

We were up at 5:45am, and having breakfast by 6:30am. My breakfast was so pathetic: half a muffin and some apple juice. My friend at least managed to have some cereal + a drink and an apple (not sure if she ate the apple though...)

We had made our way to catch the 506 street car, but just missed it by a minute. we ended up flagging down a cab and arrived at the Sheraton hotel (across from Nathan Phillips Square) to do our baggage check; it was about 7:05am. Baggaged checked, both of us headed down to the start line which was at University St. and we tried to make our way through to get to our correct corals.

Failed attempt.

It was too packed and there was no way we could make it to our corals before the race started. As we waited I remember wishing we could sit lol. My coach last year gave a really great tip about sitting before doing a race - but sadly, there wasn't even time to sit and relax before the race. We should have booked a closer hotel I guess. lol. Ah the sacrifices to save $$.

7:30am, the anthem started, and there was a cheer as the race began.

Calm and steady we ran together; and I remember at the 5km mark, Susan turned to me and said in a rather sad and disappointed voice, it's only 5km?? I smiled and nodded. Yep. 5km in!

8km in, I was starting to get really hot. The morning had been really cool - as a precautionary measure I had worn a sweatshirt that I was going going to donate/throw away anyway. I told my friend that I was going to stop and toss my sweater away... and that was the last I saw of her. lol So happens very often in races; I didn't see her again until after my race.

15-17km in, I saw two of my clients standing in the sidelines. Sid Ikeda and Yoko Matsuno - they were going to be doing their 5km run at 10am. Seeing them really helped me, and added more power in my strides.

21km, I was still feeling strong in my run. I had improved my time vs my Midsummer night run, at 2.33 (minus time to get to start line).

29km, my poor hip started to bother me. It started as a little twinge of pain, but eventually uncomfortable to the point where I had to walk it off. Ironic that my ipod started playing "OMG" by Usher.

29-38km, I did shorter intervals of running, a slight cramp on my right thigh area - at this point I busted out my emergency trailmix and started popping peanuts, cashews, and almonds into my mouth. Quite delicious considering I had been chewing primarily on electrolyte packed jube jubes and downing gatorade :)
Also did some self-reflection (life, goals, etc) and also to whom this race was dedicated towards.

38-40km, I had a slight mental wall, weariness tugged at me, my legs hurt, my thighs hurt, my feet hurt, AND my hip hurt!

40km-finish, sucked it up (realized I was running short on time), and made my fastest ever recovery run as I blazed towards finishing the marathon.

Happiest feeling ever crossing that finish line. It meant SITTING, MASSAGE, and FOOD. lol and yes, in that order. They slipped the medal on me, and gave me an emergency blanket (so that as our body cools down from all the running, we wouldn't be cold) and I made my way to the closest seat.

As I sat down, I remember having the urge to pull off my shoes to ensure that all my toe nails were still there! Yes, both sad and gross I know! But no. I didn't pull them off there...I did that only after I got my baggaged checked out to slip into my sandals. It took me nearly 10 minutes to get across the street to the hotel, up the stairs and claim my backpack. I bloody wished I hadn't packed so much though. Truly an overkill on my part. Picture my poor exhausted feet and hefting a backpack that weighs like there's a 17" laptop in it + a textbook or two!

I contacted susan and madeline, and set to meet with them; first with mad since I found her literally as I was going to meet with Susan. I left Madeline at Eaton's Indigo bookstore and utilized the Goodlife facilities (finally, my membership there for good use!!). All clean and exhausted, susan and I booked for a foot massage back at the super 8 hotel. Mad held the remote control and we watched a movie on the women's network to which we had no idea what the movie title was... (After some googling, was actually "In her Shoes").

After foot Massage, we ended the evening with sushi buffet dinner. Carbs galore. Never felt less guilty eating so much rice :)

So that ends my recollection of my most anticipated event of the year (right next to the Oxfam hike!). Thank you again to everyone who has sponsored me for all the different events I have participated in this year! Thank you for helping make a difference :)

Uncover the Cure!

Yet again, lol, a post long past due... This post takes place a week after my Midsummer nights run (so that Makes it.. Aug 28th), and I have a 10k run with a team I joined (The Butt-erflies - Rafeeza, Aleisha, Yuki, Yuka, Kristen and I) in raising funds for cancers below the waist. Aside from the anxiety of not making my minimum (but thankfully I have some really awesome friends + team members who pulled through for me in the end!), I was a little sore and thought maybe it would be good to take it easy and do the 5km walk instead.

I arrived at the woodbine park early and picked up my race kit, switched over to do the walk and observed at the multitude of different costumes all the participants around me had on. The theme of the race was to wear things that bring cancers below the waist to mind; some of the costumes ranged from bras + patterned thongs to neon green unitards!





When my teammates arrived they brought the remaining bits of costume, a set butterfly wings! This was all handcrafted by one of my team members, Kristen. Oh, and there was also the garter with butterflies hanging off the tail of it. Fancy workmanship!

After we had secured our race chip to our shoe and saftey pinned our bib numbers to our shirts, we watched as the presenters on stage called out the top fundraisers onstage. There was also a best costume contest... one of the ones I thought was great was the sumo one. lol She even did the sumo pose for us!

The race started for the runners at 6:30pm, and the one runner from our group - Aleisha, spirited off to complete the 10k. For us walkers, we started - give our take around 7pm, and due to the large number of participants, rather than the power walk I expected, we ended up doing an easy stroll. Not that I was complaining! hehe. It was a pleasant and leisure walk, chatting with my team mates and finishing together!






Once we crossed the finish line, not more than a few minutes passed before we saw Aleisha cross over as well. The team was together again! We went to pick up our handbags, souvineer tshirt, and had some drinks offered by some of the tents at the Expo. An event with an awesome and refreshing finish:

Cheers! :)

Some prep work... Midsummer Nights 30km Run

This year, I was fortunate enough that my camping weekend did not land on the Midsummer Nights Run event (August 21, 2010) . I've been wanting to participate in this event for the last 2 years simply because I've never had the chance to do a night time run :) Just the idea of running in the dark with headlights on made me curious enough to register for it.

I got more than I asked for!

The race started, and chilled as I was from the constant sprinkle of rain, I had a sweat shirt on as I ran. The first time having been a part of a race without team members, I kept reminding myself in my head to keep my own pace, nice and steady, like my previous coaches have always said: don't be affected by others pacing. Nice and steady... or not.

Somehow, I pushed myself to match up to a much quicker pace than my usual. I stayed on that pacing for nearly 3km in... a terrible idea. I started to run out of breath, and needed more time for recovery. Soon enough others that were behind me caught up and went ahead. I wasn't deterred from that, but I was pretty frustrated that I let myself fall into the pacing trap.

Accepting that I'd already messed things up a little bit, I controlled my pacing more carefully. There was a point where I was running alongside this other woman, who like me, was doing a shorter interval than the usual 10 minutes. One moment I was ahead of her and as I stopped to take my interval break, she would run ahead of me. After she stopped, my rest period ended and I ran head of her. We continued on this pattern for a few kilometres until finally I felt the perfect pacing, and I kept on this for the remainding 18km, doing between 9/10 minute intervals. I lost sight of her after that.

It was around 9pm when the rain really started to pour. In fact, it was like the sky just opened up and decided to flood the streets of Toronto with water. This made my last half-hour of running a pure running hell. I had slipped on my sweatshirt again after the sun had gone down, and I could feel the chill in the air again. But even with my sweatshirt I could do little to deal with the crazy downpour. As I ran on the street, there was no way to avoid the puddles. I just stepped right into them, feeling the water soak into my running shoes. I had a cap on, my music on low, my cramp in my left leg throbbing slightly, sweaty, drenched, tired...

At long last, I made it to the finish line, Like a beacon it glowed in the night. I ran towards it, they gave me a waterbottle and hung something around my neck. At first I didn't even register any of it. I was just glad to be done and have someone put an umbrella over my head.

I checked out my time on the finish line; not too bad (considering that my training had gone downhill after coming back from my hiking event), could have been better: 4.26 minutes :)

I guess next on my list would be get back into training more consistantly. Wish me luck on that :P

Oxfam Trailwalker 2010 - Hike 100km in 48 Hours

To start, this was a much overdue post meant to be up a month ago. But as things go, I got swamped with life's never-ending stream of "things to do" and the post never stood a chance on my list of priorities. Until now of course. My first completely and utterly free Sunday afternoon. No where I want to go, no where I need to go either. Good time to just veg.

In thinking back, the 100k hike in 48 hours for Oxfam was an immensely challenging ordeal for my team and I; the sheer distance and time limit, the extra burden of a hydration pack, and the endurance required for such an event. I've chatted with a client (Sandy - the amazing individual who introduced me to this event) she mentioned how she was doing these long hikes, both daylight ones and night ones, up to 50k + at times. I was seriously impressed. Although our team did do our training bit, we as a team nor as an individual even, hiked as far as 33km! I swear, it must have some bloody miracle we survived the event as we did :P

I could say it was all miracles and such, but it also had a lot with real people -- my donors/supporters -- that made the difference. The sponsors for my event: Anna, Hoanh, Hue, Jeffrey, Joyce, Kimberly, Kai, Laura A, Laura O, Liana, Lynette, Manh, Mark, Michael, Muoi, Phuc, Phung, Richard, Seyed/Diana, Thu, Vinh-The, Yoko. My supporters, Bill Petruck who surprised me with cake and pizza! on the day before the hike at work, my co-workers who supported me, and of course, the support crew (more on them later! ;) ) - Mr. and Mrs. Tsang, Maggie, Gabe, Janet. Together as a team, we managed to raise $2,714! 108% of our original goal. None of this could have been done without the people listed above. I just wanted to say... thank you to all of you again! :)

The tale of our journey begins on Thursday, July 22nd while I sitting at work coding a new feature for an web application. I was to get off earlier, get picked up and dropped off at my friends house (I had the gatorade to distribute to my team + luggage and everything as all packed up but too heavy to bring with me).

As I'm work away, my mind drifts off to thinking about the hike,... will we survive this? Did we train enough?

Lunch time rolls around, and I'm surprised with: 1. Cake and pizza from my boss to wish us luck on completing the event! :P 2. A visit by J and his wife Meg and their little bundle of joy :) We enjoy a bit of chit chat, watch my boss as he made some funny face for the kid to giggle at :P and touched on the hike topic. Apparently Meg had a pair of colleagues who participated in the event and mentioned that it was very intense. lol Great, more to add to the anxiety!

I receive a phone call from my mom shortly after lunch. She tells me that they're getting ready to leave the house and asks me if there's anything else that I needed besides my luggage and the gatorade. I say, nope, that's it. Just the luggage and the gatorade. Nothing else.

There was a pause on the phone. I can hear her shuffling and ready to hang-up as she's heading towards the doorway (the rumbling of the shoes being shifted :)). And then she says, "I see a pair of shoes here ... didn't you always go walking with them?"

I was about to answer to her, "no I've got everythi-- ". Oh crap. lol I look down at my feet. I see sandals. lol. "no wait wait!" I remember clearly saying, "bring them, bring them. Are they.. gray and pink? yes, yes, please bring them". I didn't know at that time whether to laugh or feel miserable stupid... maybe both. I, of all the things I could have forgotten... forgot my hiking shoes. Such an embarrassing and definitely devastating moment. I was for sure not to even notice that I didn't have them till... probably when I was in Barrie already!

I felt a huge sigh of relief. In all the excitement in the morning, I was intending to wear the hiking shoes to work.. but thought it last minute that I'd rather be more comfortable wearing sandals. Unfortunately, I did not think to pack the shoes away. Silly me. Just have to say, thank goodness for Moms! lol

My parents arrive, I catch the ride, and I knock on my friends house. She invites me in, and we wait for my other two friends to arrive. When the do, we pack our luggage into her car.. as we do, I relate to my friends the tale of the forgotten hiking shoes. We all laugh at it... except one friend. Her eyes are wide. And she looks at the rest of us. "Umm.. oh no. I think I forgot it." We look at her, thinking she was kidding. She wasn't.





We drove to her house and picked up the missing hiking boots. On our way up we discovered that it was a good thing we didn't go straight away on our venture, the 401 highway was clogged up. Alls well that starts poorly lol is that they say. Or I say.

To Barrie we go.

We check in first at the Oxfam Trailwalker meeting point to pick up our bibs and our sourvineer t-shirt. Next we check in at the Days Inn, and at a whole lot of pasta at East Side Marios. This probably would be the last time we will have hot tastey food ... in the next two days.

After some reorganization and unpacking, we go to sleep.

Day #1 - 6:41 AM











To end off, although it was only 48 hours...(40 for us actually), it felt like 2 weeks had gone by. During the hike we went through many things, injuries, dehydration, moments of sheer exhaustion and frustration. We each learned things about ourselves, each other, and as a team. And that its a good thing Man invented cars! lol. The weather was also on our side; forecast was wrong for two days in a row. Apparently back in Toronto, it was just pure rains and thunderstorms. Lucky lucky. I don't think we would have made it otherwise!