Whitby Race 2011 - Canada Runs for Japan

On this past weekend, I completed my first running event during the November Month. A deliberate test of how it feels to be running in the cold... I was fortunate that the weather also chose to cooperate, it was forecasted to rain, but there was not a hint of it in the air that afternoon.

I left Toronto on Saturday evening (19th of November), met up with my friend Madeline in Scarboro and we headed up together to our friend, Cecilia's house up in Whitby. We had a little debauckle with where to get off... Sistine, Dixon, Thickson... lol, but we managed to meet up in the end.

Cecilia's parents cooked an amazing meal for us to feast on at dinner time, full of carbs, and homemade tomato sauce (that had a little kick!). The main course served with the spaghetti was a mouth-watering chicken casserole. The chicken was grilled to perfection, with such attention to balance of the spices (also from scratch!). A delightful miso soup starter, sprinkled with toasted seaweed. Yum!

After the delicious meal (and great technology through the times dinner talk - yep, we talked about the days where computers had 16MB harddrives...!), we made our way down to the basement lounge area and watched the Food TV network. :P Who would have thought "Dinner: Impossible" could be so addictive. There was some irony that the previous week we had also watched Robert Irvine sadly losing his spot to be America's next Iron Chef. Good chef though, and he really tried to help the restaurant owner get up to par with proper pricing as well as proper cooking of food. 33% Margin. There's something I learned.

Following that we watched a bit of "Chopped". Which was pretty intense because one of the competitors spilled boiling hot water over herself... ai! Potatoes and hot water. Then.. after that... it was Cup Cake Wars. By then I had showered and was ready for bed --- 10 miler (16km) challenge the next day!!

My alarm went off promptly at 8:00am, got up, freshened up, and had breakfast with my friends:
1 Banana, Water, Oatmeal Raisin Cereal. Yum. I was easy on the milk - even at 1%, my body never took too well with milk.




I geared up with my outdoor running gear: 260 Icebreaker layer, T-shirt on top of it, wool socks, icebreaker 200 tights, lululemon brisk running gloves, and my favorite white running cap. Made sure I had my iphone on me as well and some emergency electrolytes (a few raspberry bursts leftover from the scotiabank race).

We left Cecilia's house around 10:00am, and headed to the Whitby Yacht Club, by the waterfront. After parking on a side street, we went straight to the registration area, upstairs in a cottage-like building. I picked up my racekit there: A T-shirt and a Bib (timing chip was attached to the bib). I looked around to see where I could find a course map, but was unable to find one.. But as we neared the stairs to go back downstairs, we saw a hand drawn map.

we sat around and kinda of lounged a bit while waiting for the race to start (at 11am - unusually late time to start). The race actually started a bit later than 11am since we had to wait for the 1km to return from their race (a category for kids). It was quite cold since we waited nearly 15 minutes.

When the start horn finally sounded, all of us 5/10/16km runners couldn't wait to get started - it was so cold waiting around.

This however changed after the first km. I started to warm up, and at one point, I took off my gloves and tucked it away. The scenery on route was really nice, coupled with the cool air, (and no rain), it was not an unpleasant experience at all. I had feared the weather to be like the one we had at the Scotiabank Marathon that happened in the past month. Rainy, Cold, and Windy. It was cold and windy, but no clouds in the sky. Yay!

Near the end of the run, I had a little 'competition' with a more seasoned elder runner :P We were literally passing each other back and forth for over the span of 7km. Neither of us wanted to be defeated, although in the end, with some stored up energy, I did manage to pass the finish line first. Not soon after, when I returned to the cottage to find my friends, I was thanked by him personally for helping him keep going :D I returned the thanks as well, because he too, helped me push myself more.

I then texted my awesome support team Cecilia and Madeline to come find me back at the cottage. There was free chili upstairs, but I really just wanted to go back to the house and shower.

After showering and resting a bit (and more food TV and... the mummy 3), we headed out to have Wild Wings at Kennedy Commons. Yum, wings galore!

It was a fun event. Awesome company, good food, and a great race course. I would definitely do it again next year!

Running Outdoors in the Fall

In my last post I mentioned how I dreaded having to do my runs on a treadmill, and my indecisiveness of to run outdoors or to switch memberships to a gym that had an indoor track. This past weekend, I made my decision - I will run outdoors until its too cold/icy to do it.

I consulted with my virtual coach who offered me excellent advice about what I should wear and where I could get my gear from. It happened though, instead of landing in the Running Room as I thought I would be doing most of my shopping at, I was at Eatons, browsing Lululemon.

No, I unfortunately didn't end up buying lulu, but instead headed to Sports Chek, and got some tights, a long-sleeve base layer, a merino wool cap and a pair of wool socks. I also bought my brother a really nice gift... which we might be returning, but .. they are so nice Quiet Comfort 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling headphones by Bose. I tried these on at Best Buy, and they were amazing. Hands down. But. Pricey :P The package remains unopened (for now!) and may go back, only to re materialize again come boxing day or something. We shall see.

Anyway, back on topic.. now that I've got my "winter" running gear, I shouldn't have any problem braving the cold (or so the people at sportschek told me). If anything I might a bit hot running in it, unless I am the type to get cold easily. Which, I am, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Today, I put the gear to the test. I left work a bit later than I expected, so the sun was already setting, I had very little time to change and rush outside. I admit, once I got home, I really felt the laziness kick in. I was home. tired. and hungry. And it was chilly outside. The house felt so warm and cozy. I could smell dinner brewing in the kitchen...

But no. I'm dedicated to training for the Goofy run. Not to mention I had one coming up in 2 weeks (Whitby 10 miler race). I had to keep up my cardio. After falling sick for nearly 2 weeks, it was only on the Saturday I managed to do a 10km run at the gym.


Oh. Yes, btw that felt like the longest 10km I ever had to run. I chose a treadmill that was closest to a tv view of the food network, but found that it was out of service. The only other one was facing a structural beam. So I would need to turn my head to watch my cooking shows. So not cool. And not fun. Time ticked by very slowly. I ended at about 10km, and made my way home. It was after this treadmill run tipped the scale in my decision to get outdoor running gear.

I rationalize now, (also then), the clothing invested for running can be cross-functional to my other winter sports that I do sometimes (snowboarding/skiing). Maybe we could even do some winter hikes... The possibilities were endless.

After taking a few quick sips of water, plugging in to my music, I finally left the house, and made my way to the park and did laps. Eventually I will need a better place to run, but it was the first route that came to mind. It grew dark quickly, so I tried to stay in the lit areas of the paths. It was such a beautiful evening. The air was nice and crisp. There was a slight chill, I could see my breath when I breathed out. Only a little though. Wasn't cold enough to see a full winters breath. Best part was that I was comfortably warm while running. It was pitch black when I finished my run so I was glad that I stayed just in the park area.

During my run, as I mentioned, I was comfortably warm. Everything was at a controlled warmth; the base layer did as it promised: kept me warm and at the same time, kept me dry and not sweaty. I had on 3 layers, a regular long-sleeve technical shirt, my merino wool base layer on top, and a simply sweatshirt over top of it all. I should have gotten a windbreaker too, maybe this weekend. The hat was great. my head felt warm and toasty. The socks, WOW. Loved them. When I first put them on, greatest feeling ever. They were..feeling rather fluffy. lol. I used the same gloves I purchased for my scotiabank marathon (the Lululemon ones).

Overall, I'm happy with the gears that I got. Now I have to be sure I'm on track with the training. As well as the fundraising! :)



Speaking of fundraising, my next post, I will tell you more about my partnership with a local artist, Tomori Nagamoto, in helping raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada. Please visit http://tinyurl.com/runforthecurewendy if you want to make a donation today!

Tomori Nagamoto is not only an extremely talented artist (see above portraits for sample artwork) and musician, but a fellow runner who has a philanthropic mindset as well.