After taking nearly 3 weeks off running to recover from knee strain injury, I returned back into training yesterday. I decided to go easier on myself and instead of outdoor running, I did an easy run indoors on a treadmill at my local gym.

I have to admit, as I first stepped on that treadmill, I was worried. Although I had felt no pain at all for a while, I was worried that doing any running would set my knee back ... but, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was able to do an easy 4km (in 22min!) smoothly and rather comfortably. My cardio level appeared unaffected by the break -- thank goodness -- but most importantly, my left knee didn't complain at all. *happy dance happy dance!!*

With that said, I can officially say, I will be returning to the TNT regular training sessions this week! 29km here I come!! :P Yay!

Before I log off tonight, I would like to say a special thanks to all my sponsors to date!

Barb Sauder, Christine Takasaki, David Matsumoto, Don Martyn, Gary Suessman, James Heron, James Ko, John Hui, John Ko, Kai Liang, Kathy Tazumi, Laura Oda, Lynette Le, Michael Kim, Milton Reynolds, Muoi Thai and my amazing cousins, Richard Tran, Rossan, Sally Kumagawa, Sandy Chan, Toshiko Yamashita, Yukiko Hipsh!

To my most recent sponsors: Susan Jong, Anna Do, Hui Wing Yang, Gordon Chan, Liana Li, Yoko Matsuno, and Angela Fung. Thank you all!

And of course I have to thank my avid blog readers as well as potential donors =) For those who are wondering when the deadline for me to reach my fundraising goal, it's September 12th :)

Donations aside, as of tomorrow, it will be 1 month before the big run!

Recovery time

Last everyone heard (on this blog) was me looking forward to doing my 29km the following saturday ... and then no word since. No worries, I survived it :) Just that I didn't quite make the milage that I was aiming for.

To start at the beginning: For the past few weeks during my training runs, I had been feeling a slight twinge of pain on my left knee. At first it was only after the run, when I sat down, rested a bit and felt the odd twist in my knee. I admit, I pretty much brushed it aside ... it didn't hurt when I ran ...

Then it started to hurt a bit when I ran. For my 29km run, it was very painful all of a sudden. I think I was around my 14/15km when I felt the sharp jolt of pain. I attempted to do a bit of a trot, but even that didn't help. I ended up walking 8km, until I returned back to the gym. Good thing I had such great team mates (JH, KS, CW ,TT); those 8km would have been heck of a long walk otherwise :)

After the run, I decided I would take minimum two weeks rest from running -- I do have time to spare between now and Sept. 27. Do some yoga and some low level cross training, ease up on the heavy training and strain on my knees. Less running on concrete to relieve the stress on my knees. I have considered perhaps training on my own with a friend on running the beltline for the next few weeks - lower impace on the knee. Or I could always do 10 times back and forth along the beaches boardwalk to get in my 30km. It is 3km each way ... Something I may consider.

So far, in this second week of rest, my knee feels a lot better. I'm missing running a lot though ...but patience, one more week, and I can go back into training again! Lookin' forward to it.

By the way, I think I'm considered an official runner! I've got my first knee injury! woohoo! lol Now lets hope it's my last .... (hopefully) and that its temporary!

Special thanks to JS and LA for wondering about the updates! =)

19km ... next up 29km

I completed my 19 km this saturday that just passed -- happily, made it through shy of 2.5 hours (2hr 28min according to my coach) =) I consider that fair considering I slept about 5 hours; having watched a late movie the night before and having only 1/2 a banana for breakfast. Note to self: Thumbs down on that move.

The night before I watched "The Ugly Truth" (was aiming for the Orphan, but wasn't playing at the theatre I was at -- was being spontaneous!). Turned out to be a great movie though; got home about 12am, began to pack my running gear and hit the bed by 1:30am.

Then.

The sun rises.

I didn't hear my alarm.

It's 6:20am. I'm suppose be at the meeting place by 7:00am. mmm. I had to freshen up and eat breakfast first. Eating was key. But what to eat that I could digest in 30min? And run without stomach pains?

Half a banana appearently.

Tick tock, gotta move it! I got on the bus by 6:45am. When I finally arrived, I was fortunate enough to find my team still there. Phew! :P

For the run itself, this week was not quite as exciting as the weekend run where it started to storm (lightning, thunder and all that jazz). I had it from good sources it wasn't suppose to rain until late afternoon. Not a cloud in sight. Just a bit of wind...

Oh. yes. About the wind. For most runners it is a blessing (and it still is by all means) when there is a soft breeze hitting your face as you run steadily along your running route. It is however not so great when it carries with it the 'delightful' stench of a month old garbage.

Our running route passes through Mount Hope Cementary and then eventually leads into Sunny brook park. The park itself is beautiful to run in - before the garbage strike. About a month ago an 'emergency waste drop-off area' was set up in one of the parking lots inside the park. The first week we ran past the dumpyard, it was only filled up at one small corner of the lot. This week...it was 2/3rds full, stacked at least 30 feet. Mountains of garbage. ek. I could smell the garbage a kilometer away. Had to hold my breath to get through it.

I dread to have to pass through that next week. Garbage will be 5 weeks old. Wonder what kind of toxins it will be releasing then??

After the 19km run, I dashed off to my friend's bridal shower! I was very fortunate she chose a spa day for the shower! I had myself a facial and did some lounging in the pool area.

Following the spa, I attended a dinner with the same group of friends and a Jack and Jill party afterwards. We ended fairly late, well into the next morning actually. But it was an amazing evening! I couldn't have wished to be anywhere else then seeing how happy my friend was with her soon to be husband =) Congrats again AF and EL!

Back to running...:P
Next week I'm off to do a 29km run!
For training this week, I'm hoping to some water running ;)

Back in training ... easy 7km run

Today, I'm back in training again! To explain what I mean by that, I'll have to backtrack to some events that happened last Saturday, where I was suppose to do my 26km run. During the week I had not been able to do my regular runs due to work and well, my social life got in the way a little :) I admit, I sacrificed a night of running to watch Harry Potter ;) I did manage however to get in one yoga session during the week, so I could be redeemed a little.

Despite my weak training that week, I was still confident to do my 26km run -- I actually prepared myself on the friday - eating more carbs than usual (lol, two dinners! 2 pizzas and fries). The next morning, however, when I woke up and was readying up to head out, I noticed my foot was hurting a bit. In fact, it was cramped up. Unusual. Especially since I hadn't done anything exertive the past few days. It was only 5:30am at this point, so I was able to spare sometime to do some googling. Mind you, it's amazing with the things you can find with just typing keywords of "pain" and "foot". So, after doing some reading, I decided - heh, maybe I shouldn't run today. The fact of just shifting my weight hurt it spoke volumes about not running. Sad moment. But. One thing I learned from the coaches: always listen to your body. Back to bed for me it was :)

That afternoon I went with my friends for an overnight trip at a resort up in Barrie. It wasn't until I got my rest (3 hours of restful sleep), amazingly, my foot 'healed' itself. It was painfree after that. So it wasn't the same case as some of the things I read from my google search :P I was extremely relieved mind you. Still am. That means: I can continue training! :)

After a restful week of no running, I resumed training on the Monday, doing a calm easy cross-training exercise (yoga). Today, I did my easy 7km run at my local Goodlife fitness gym followed by some 20 odd situps (I recall one of the coaches mentioning building abs to being a good help in conserving calorie burn rate). Hurray!!! I got one of my runs in this week. Tomorrow I'm off for an eye doctor's appointment so no gym for me. Hopefully my perscription doesn't change.... :P

Current cravings of food right now:

(French Onion Soup!)


(Eggs benedict!) - might have this on saturday!

Rain or shine -- the training must go on!

Greetings fellow readers of the 'run wendy run' blog =) After some kind encouragement from a friend (thanks LA!) I am finally making my first post since I registered for this blog space.

To begin, let me start with a brief W5 for this blog.

The Who: This blog is not really about me, it's more about my journey in training for a full marathon (42.2km) and fundraising for my charity; The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada. My goal is to raise the minimum amount of $1750.

The What: The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (www.lls.org) is the world's largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding blood cancer research, education and patient services. The Society's mission is to cure leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma, and to improve the quality of life of patients and their families.

The When: My marathon date is September 27th, 2009

The Where: The Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon @ 7am. Information about the route click here.


The Why: I run because I have always wanted to be a part of team that is contributing to the betterment of society. And I think I am; just one km at a time, I hope that the money that I raise will one day result in victorious finding of a cure for blood cancer. Lend me your support to help me cross the finish line =) Online donation link: http://tinyurl.com/runwendyrun/. My thanks to all supporters in advance.

Now that I have given you the quick summary of the blog's purpose; the update on my training:

To date, I have run a total of 172 km in my training for the event. The Saturday that just passed, 7/11/2009, I did a 23km run =)

On the night before the long practice run, the weather forecast listed extreme thunderstorm warnings. I had hope though: what if I could finish my run in 3 hours, before the thunderstorming happened? Hope in place, I went to bed. 5am, I'm up the next day, eating my little breakfast and gearing myself up (watch, waterbelt, my crocs --heavenly footwear, etc.). I took a peek out through my bedroom blinds, and was pleasantly surprised to see not a dark cloud rolling in the horizon. My Wendy happy moment. Yes, the run could still be done. Out the door I went.

I arrived and met with my team -- which was now a much smaller group than it usually was; appearantly most people were not crazy like me who thought they could out-run the storm (but there were some, so I was not nuts alone! :P)

The run began, nice and easy. I was running with my coach at one point, and we were chatting about the weather, could we make it before the rainfall? There were no dark clouds, weather was still fairly nice ... was this like the calm before the storm? My coach then told me a story about her run last spring, where the weather was similar to this day, warning of some storm coming, but with no visible signs ... and out of the blue wind and hail (yes, you read correctly, hail - chunks of ice) started pittering and pattering downwards. She hoped this wouldn't be the case.

Not quite, but minus the hail, everything was as she said it was. deja vu!

I was 17km into my run when swoosh, the rain came down. We were fortunate to be near a washroom shelter (locked by the way due to the strike) nearby, and didn't completely get drenched. We chatted with some other runners/cyclists who took shelter there and waited until the lightning subsided. If there had not been lightning, we would have proceeded running through -- but since there was a whole lot of that going on, I did not want to be that exception to the case on the headlines - "runner struck by lightning in park". Besides, it didn't help that I read recently on the news a woman being struck by lightning in her home ( read story here: Boy Saves Mom After Lightning Strike).

Once the coast was clear (though still raining quite a bit), we continued to finish the last 6km =)

The sweet finish reward was a nice pina colada protein drink (tasty) to replenish lost nutrients in my system.

That was my training run story of the week. Next week... running 26km! As much as I enjoyed the 'adventure' this week with the running, I do hope next Saturday's run date is nice and sunny. Though really in the end, it doesn't matter, rain or shine -- the training must go on! :P Support me by making an onine donation at: http://tinyurl.com/runwendyrun/. Thanks everyone for taking the time to read my post!

~Wendy