Holy Tuckers Hill!

Training for a half marathon is hard! I know I can run the distance but my body hurts after. I feel good but still hurt, if that makes sense. I ran my longest run yesterday with Shelley. A full 18 km’s!! Seriously. My longest run ever, my Garmin even said so! There was a group of us running yesterday, a couple different distances and a couple different start times but it all worked out because we all pretty much finished around the same time.

I have wanted to do this run for EVER! After 3 years of missing out I was able to do it! I didn’t do it before because either I wasn’t ready to run that distance or I had family commitments. So yesterday I got up nice and early and picked up Shelley and made our way to Coffee Matters in Paradise. While we were getting ready to start our run we noticed Chris Cox in his vehicle. Apparently he didn’t get the memo that his group was running at 7:30 am not 7:00 am. So we carried on, ran around the back of Neil’s Pond. On the way in I told Shelley that I was not in the mood to see a moose, I don’t think I could out run a moose. Actually. I know I can’t outrun a moose.

When we were finished with Neil’s Pond I asked if we were done. Only another 16 KM to go. That is the Tely 10 all over again. Dear Lord. I did feel pretty good, planning in my head when to eat my Swedish fish! I was so happy when I found Halloween candy at Sobeys in Paradise on Friday! It is the perfect serving size and small packages that fit in my fuel belt.

5 km into the run we stopped (my request) so I could chow down on some candy and Shelley could eat some Rice Krispies. We walked a bit just because the road was horrible with lots of gravel.  We kept going, I still felt pretty good. I knew that St. Thomas Line was long but holy crap, it is much longer when you are running it. Along the way, Shelley saw a whale (no she was not hallucinating, we were by the ocean) and we saw a Bald Eagle. We finally got to the end of St. Thomas Line! Finally! But if you have done this run before you know what is to the left! Tuckers hill! This is a huge hill. I had to stop a couple times but Shelley KILLED it! She will be so ready for the Cape 2 Cabot! I was scopping out the woods to see if I could find a place to pee but now a days there are too many hidden cameras and I don’t want my parts on the internet.

After getting up over that hill there are a couple of "rolling hills" until you get to the Bell Island Ferry wharf. I had to stop a couple more times and I ran out of water but I still felt good. I ate more candy along the way which certainly helped. I finished that run with a huge smile on my face! This is the run I have always wanted to do, even before I wanted to do a half marathon.  

I feel good about the half Marathon now that I have this run done.  Only a couple more weeks of training! 

We killed the Dime!

So we killed the Dime. Well more like we butchered it! After my last blog Tara Philpot mentioned that she would run with me today. I sent her a message to arrange a time and distance. She said 11 am and I said 10 KM. (For the record she thought I was going to say 4 km.) As I pulled up to Peter Barry Duff parking lot I was thinking, “Who picks 11 O’Clock in the summer to run 10 km??”  It was 26 degrees out! 26!! Well. Tara did. Haha.

So the plan was to run the Dime of the 5 and Dime road race. (If you want to register, you can do so here http://www.paradiserunningclub.com/Five_Dime.html)  But don’t do this route!

We started off good, went right to the guard rail. Good start, right!? Did I mention it was 26 degrees out? On the way down the road we were trying to figure out where the turnaround was for the 10k because it is not marked yet. Get on that will ya Marc? We couldn’t find it. 

On goes our brilliant ideas. As we were running we made so many plans to run up a couple Cul de sacs or run around the pond again. I don’t think we ever did make it up one of them, the thought was there though!

As we were running, I thought, “If we run the dime route we STILL have to run up the big hill again to get to our cars. Who wants to do that?” Not us! Remember, it was hot out! I am still suffering from a cold and sometimes it hurt to breathe. Just sayin! 

We turned up Buckingham and all of a sudden we started talking about Diane Coffin. At that same time we got goose bumps just thinking about her. We ended up talking to her and asked her to help us get through this run and up the freakin hill. On comes the big gust of wind that was non-existent the whole run.  

We carried on with our run and went around the pond. At this point, I didn’t care if we had 3 km in, I was done. But I wasn’t. I dipped my hands in the pond to cool off and we carried on.  We were walking for a bit. It was hot out. We noticed just up a head there were three garbage buckets on the side of the road.

Tara: Ok we will run when we get to the first bucket.

Me: How about the second one?

Tara: Ok

Me: umm how about the third one? (Mind you these were all pretty close to each other)

We keep walking.

Tara: Ahh we just passed ALL THREE buckets.

Me: Shit! Let’s run.

So you can imagine what our run was like. We had good conversations and a few laughs. We ended up trying to figure out where the 10 k turn around was again so we onto Three Island Pond Road again.

Me: Ok. We will run down to the yellow car and turn around.

Tara: Ok.

So we run

Tara: How about the grey car? (This was further down the road.)

Me: Seriously?

We keep running.

Me: Let’s run down to the third light pole.

Tara: What?

We kept running. I was hot. It was hot out.

We turn around at the light pole and head back to the car. For some strange reason our watches were off by a full KM! Seriously! We were side by side the whole time. For the record we are going by her watch, which made us run further. On my watch we ran 8.73 but on Tara’s watch it was 9.73.

On goes the run and we are on Buckingham again and yet again Diane’s name appears. And again the wind picks up. Of course it was in the wrong direction and in our face up the hill but she was there with us again.

The run was fun but we agreed the next time we run during the day it won’t be at that time.

I still ended up running tonight. Hard core Lori ran on with Batman and did about a billion hill repeats while Coach Molly, Shelley and I took it easy and got a couple hill repeats in and did 5 k.

Only 1 month 5 days until my first Half Marathon.

Diabetes sucks!

Ok. So that run was brutal! I woke up Sunday morning with a sore throat and a head cold but I didn’t feel anything until later that night. Yea Happy Anniversary to me! LOL Monday Morning I could hardly lift my head. I woke up and helped get the girls ready for daycare and then went to the couch. I couldn’t get back to sleep for like 2 hours. I was thinking, “If I am not asleep by 9:30 am I am going to get up and go for a run!” So next thing I knew it, it was 11:30 am and I was just waking up from a little snooze.

I hate being sick and I hate complaining about being sick or hurt. I am sick and tired of being and sick! And being a diabetic I will always feel this way. Some people will never understand.  I am not giving up though!  I have learned so much about what I can do and what I can be pushed to do.  I had a Dr’s appointment today and he asked me why I run. I said, “I have to. I see results.” That was a good enough reason for him.  As I was leaving my appointment at the Health Science Centre I was looking for Sue Rideout because it seems like after every appointment I see her and give an update! She must have been off today! hahaha

I went running tonight thinking I could push through all the sickness and I did pretty good for a while. I had to stop on the trail before the boat house and walk. I walked for about a km but I just kept thinking, “at least I attempted it and still going and not curled up under a bench by the water.”  I took a short cut and walked across the old Acan Windows parking lot and back to my car at the Community Centre parking lot.  Something in me though made me start running up the hill when I got to the cross walk. THAT. WAS. HARD. My chest hurt and my breathing was bad. But I did it. I didn’t give up.

I really have to suck it up though! We have about five weeks until the Maritime Weekend and I feel like I am falling behind. Between this week being sick and just life events I am finding it hard to get the runs in. I am going to try and get 10 km in on Thursday during the day so if you want to push me through it let me know.  

That Tely 10 was hard!

New day, new month. There are so many changes that are going to happen.  I am going to train harder for the half marathon in September. I even said I would do the Cape 2 Cabot training runs with Crazy Shelley and Hard Core Lori. If Paula’s knee holds up she will join us too. I am going eat better by tracking all my food in My Fitness Pal. And I am going to look for another job since I quit my job on Monday. Sometimes you just have to do what feels right and when you have 100% support from your family you know it was right decision.

So back to running, I ran the Tely 10 for the 3^rd time this past July and it was by far the hardest run I have ever done.  The day before a race that Marc and I both run we try and get the girls to sleep over to their grandparents or drop them off in the morning. So this race my parents took my kids camping with them and to my kids surprise they took my niece as well. So I called my brother to figure out who was bringing back the kids when we got on the topic of running the tely. Robert was asking me what I wanted to run it in.  I told him my goal this year was to get in under 2 hours but if it was hot out I just wanted to beat my time from last year which was around 2:06. 

Robert is much faster than me and I didn’t want to slow him down but he insisted he would run with me and we would get my predicted Tely time of 1:50. This means I would probably die and not live to tell the story. Did I mention Robert is an ironman? Ya seriously. A few years ago when he was training, he started at the finish line than ran to Tely start line THEN ran the Tely. Something. I . would. Not. Do.

The conversation ended when Robert said, “If I see you at the start line I will run with you.”  I was thinking sure by! You will find me in 5000 people.  Well  people, he found me.  We had a chat. Joked around about me getting under 2 hours. I laughed and said noooo that means I need to keep a steady pace of 6:30! That is nuts. I don’t run like that!

So we started running, it was good. Nothing to it. Then it rained. Rained a lot. Then it stopped raining. Then it got hot. Then it got hotter. Then I felt like stopping. Then it got hotter. Robert was giving a play by play on what our time was and what kind of buffer we had.  We were “ok” until the last few km’s. I was done. I had nothing left in me. Nothing. Robert was ahead of me for a bit trying to get me to run faster. Ya that didn’t happen. I didn't get under 2 hours but I did get a personal best of 2:02:31, I am happy with that.

I had some toe issues (again) after the run so my first run was tonight with Shelley and Lori. It was a much slower pace but I didn’t stop and I felt pretty good going around Octagon Pond and I normally hate running around that pond.

Until next time…