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…

The magical world of Disney…running!

I am a recreational runner.  For those of you who know me, you’ll know that I run for exercise, I run for health but mostly I run for fun.  I’ve never been one to aim for faster and faster paces or bigger and bigger hills…I like to run comfortably without over-exerting myself, minimizing my risk of injury and enjoying myself while I’m at it (well most days anyways!).  Although a personal best is always a great accomplishment, it's not a priority for me and never my main goal going into a race.

2014 WDW Marathon Medals

Enter Disney races…an opportunity to run a 5k, 10k, half marathon or full marathon (or any combination of these on certain race weekends!) in the most magical place on earth with likeminded runners.  Disney races draw huge crowds year after year with upwards of 40,000 runners on some race weekends and the hefty race fee (up to $200 US) doesn’t seem to deter people from registering.  Two hundred dollars to run a half marathon!?!?!  You must be crazy, many of you are now thinking in your heads…yes I think it’s crazy too but then there’s a part of me that feels like this is such a unique opportunity with such amazing race support that it’s worth every American penny.  So what’s the draw?  Let me share some highlights of my Disney race experiences...not the least of which is the incredible finish line bling.

 

For Disney fans, running a race through a Disney park is the ultimate experience (and I am a huge Disney fan!).  You get to run through the parks when they are closed to the public, along backstage roads and see Disney in a completely different light. Multitudes of characters and entertainment along the course route provide a welcome distraction and motivation. The generous time limits and huge numbers of short interval runners, like myself, make it a really comfortable experience (well as comfortable as running 13 or 26 miles can be!) with no judgement for your slower pace or your walk breaks.  There is a large proportion of Disney runners that follow the Jeff Galloway walk-run-walk program who are walking every 1-5 minutes.  Don’t get me wrong…there are still plenty of runners who do longer intervals or run straight through but it certainly doesn't seem to be the majority.  Disney commonly sees runners who are too intimidated, scared or embarrassed by their slower pace to sign up for local distance races that draw the faster and more experienced runner.  In discussion with others, I commonly describe it as the perfect race for someone who doesn’t think they can run a half or full marathon. I guarantee you I would never have been able or motivated to run a full marathon had it not been for the Run Disney series.

Disney's Fit for a Princess Health & Fitness Expo,

2012 Princess Half Marathon Weekend

The Disney race experience begins with the Health and Fitness Expo doubling as race kit pick-up.  Hundreds of vendors, both smaller local and larger national companies, display and sell their products, offering up free samples and the ability to try and compare the latest fitness apparel, nutrition products and running gadgets.  A speaker series with celebrity and expert guests offers up seminars on training, nutrition and wellness.  The expo lasts several days and is an event in and of itself not to be missed!

https://tootallfritz.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/marathon-start_rundisney.jpg

The most common question I get from people who ask about running at Disney is ‘don’t you find it hot running in Florida?’  Well, the majority of Disney races take place during the winter months and they all start in the wee wee hours of the morning to avoid the sun and heat.  Following a 3am wake-up call and a 4am bus ride to the start line, runners assemble in the starting corrals by 5am for a 5:30 start.  Starting corrals are lettered A through to however many corrals are needed for a particular race…in my largest race, the corrals went to the letter P with between 500 and 3000 runners per corral.  There’s music and entertainment at the start line with special appearances by Disney characters.  The atmosphere is energizing and electric and when it’s time to start (because it’s Disney!) each corral gets their own countdown and a fireworks send-off to start the race.

The first several miles are in the dark and along a stretch of highway but just 3 miles in you’ll pass through the gates of the Magic Kingdom.  The view of Cinderella’s castle as you turn the corner on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom (and if you’re fast enough, catching the castle lights at dawn) is absolutely magical.  In the 5 times I’ve run that particular race route, I’ve yet to make it down Main Street without tears streaming down my face (yes I truly am a Disney geek!).  And running through the castle…seriously amazing.  Although there are long stretches of highway between the parks (only about a quarter of a Disney race route is actually run in the parks) the bits in the park are so much fun that you don’t mind the stretches of highway.  Every ¼ of a mile there is something to distract or entertain you from Disney characters to marching bands to acrobats on trampolines.  This has to be one of the only races where it is perfectly acceptable (and encouraged!) to stop running in the middle of a race to line up for a photo with your favorite Disney characters…I waited 25 minutes for the most coveted photo of all…Mickey and Minnie at Cinderella’s castle. 

My one regret however from my 2014 marathon experience (and one of the main reasons I’m going again this coming January) is that I didn’t take the time to ride the Expedition Everest roller coaster in Animal Kingdom during the race.  Yes, you read correctly…stop and ride a roller coaster during the marathon! The Animal Kingdom park is at the half-way point in the marathon route and is open by the time most runners reach it.  Given that you run right past the ride entrance anyways and they let marathon runners skip the line…why wouldn’t you?  I won’t be skipping it this time.  Another highlight for many runners is stopping at the Mexican pavilion in Epcot, less than a mile from the end, to pick up a celebratory margarita to cross the finish line with…perhaps I’ll try that this time around too!

Running at Disney is certainly not everyone's cup of tea but if you're looking for a destination race where the focus is less about pace and more about having fun this is a great series to consider.  Half marathons at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida take you through 2 parks…usually Magic Kingdom and Epcot.  Want the full Disney running experience?  You’ll have to aim for the full marathon which takes you through all 4 Disney parks and the ESPN Wide World of Sports and is held just once a year in January.  Never run a marathon before?  Don’t think you could do it?  Trust me, if it’s on your bucket list to someday run a full marathon this is the one to do.  Yes it’s 26.2 miles (42 km) but it’s by far the most entertaining miles you will ever run.  Interested? Check out www.rundisney.com, there’s still space available and time to join me in training for the 2017 Disney Marathon.

Short Interval Running…not just for beginners?

I’ve been trying to be a runner for a very long time.  And by a long time I mean decades.  As a young twenty-something, I tried running as a strategy to lose weight and quickly discovered that it was hard.  Really hard.  I tried over and over again through my twenties and my thirties and each time I failed.  I tried various learn to run programs, each with the same result…every time I attempted to run for longer than  7 or 8 minutes I would fail.  My lungs would fail, my legs would fail and worst of all, my spirit would fail.  Fortunately, my stubbornness would win out and each time I would tell myself that there was no good reason for my failure…I just needed to try harder.  I had a few good years that I successfully managed a 10 and 1 run/walk interval but for those years the result was a lot of injuries and very few of those ‘good’ runs that you hear the ‘real’ runners talking about.

Fast forward to 2011 when a friend and I spontaneously signed up for the Walt Disney World Princess Half Marathon.  I had run the Tely Ten a few times, several years earlier, but a half marathon was completely new territory.  I was drawn into the excitement, the bling, the tiaras and the tutus and decided that I needed to find a way to run successfully, without getting injured, and feel good about it.  Having not learned from my previous mistakes, I again registered for a traditional Learn to Run program with a local running group…according to the schedule I would be able to run 10 minute intervals with a one minute walk break by the end of the 10 weeks.  If you’ve been following along I’m sure you can guess what the outcome was…again I struggled and didn’t complete the program. 

Luckily, my running partner had done some research for the Princess race and discovered the training programs on the RunDisney website.  As a retired Olympic marathoner and the official trainer for the RunDisney race series, Jeff Galloway recommended trying his run-walk-run method: short running intervals – no more than a 5 minute run before taking a short walk.  He claimed that anyone could run a half marathon (or even a full marathon) using this method.  We restarted our training, using a 3:1 run/walk interval and found ourselves running longer and longer distances…without exhaustion, without injury and best of all with energy to spare.  Four months later we successfully completed our first half marathon - injury free, feeling great, proudly sporting our tiaras and medals at the finish line.

The theory behind the shorter intervals is to rest before your running muscles get fatigued.  This is where my mistake has always been in the past (and where many others fail I suspect)…waiting until you are tired before you take a break.  Because the muscles responsible for running are slightly different from those for walking, resting them early allows for longer periods of activity overall and less stress on those muscles that are more prone to injury when overworked or fatigued.  Because you are not ‘tired’ when you take your walk breaks, you move faster overall and recovery is much quicker than if you wait, allowing you to run (and walk) faster for each interval.  In many cases (myself included) short interval runners end up with faster finishing times than those at a similar level that run continuously or only take walk breaks as they feel necessary.

Along this journey I’ve discovered so many others just like me…desperately wanting to run but never successfully making it past that magical 7 or 8 minute interval.  The high rate of drop-outs in Learn to Run programs after week 5 supports the notion that longer interval/continuous running just might not be for everyone. 

Do I feel like I’m not a ‘real’ runner because I stop every 3 minutes for a short walk? Yes, sometimes I do, especially at the start of a race when others look at your walking break at 3 minutes in as a sign of fatigue.  But the problem is that I’ve learned that I can’t successfully run for longer periods without exhausting myself (or worse, injuring myself).  I like to run fast (well fast for my books anyways) and I can’t do that for the longer intervals.  So the choice becomes easy: run shorter intervals with more frequent walk breaks or not run at all.  In the end, a mile is a mile is a mile…run it however makes you feel good.  For me the shorter intervals mean feeling better and finishing faster and that equals a great run in my books any day.

Sugar to the rescue

Training for the Tely and Maritime race weekend has officially started, with weekly increased distance runs, hill repeats and our long runs during the weekends.  Boy was I ever in for a treat when training started.  I admit hill repeats were not as bad as I thought and I kind of like them, that's kind of, not totally there yet.  So yesterday myself, Shelley, Lori and Renee started out on our long run of 11k planned by the boss herself Shelley.  I'm convinced she was secretly trying to kill me but half way during our run she pulled out a bag of rice krispies so I knew she was trying to keep me alive.  The route took us in back of  Neils pond over to octagon pond up topsail road to paradise road ... and yes I said paradise road.  Well when I reached paradise road I thought to myself she cant honestly expect me to run THAT.  That hill is huge and when your running it, it feels like its never ending. So picture this ..... your at the bottom its 20 degrees heat and you slowly start your run up, and by slowly I mean your feet are barely moving.  I get to the middle and its like the hill got longer, that's when I gave into the hill and started to walk.  BUT by the time this summer is over I will conquer that hill, it ain't over yet between us.  The walk felt long but I made it, and I saw the girls stopped, waiting for me I assumed and then it happened ....... the hates to heaven opened, angels sang wonderful songs, harps played and sugar was there.  I could swear at one point he looked similar to Jesus but that may have been the heat and the hill getting to me by then.  Sugar Had his truck parked with the tail gate down .... there was ice, Gatorade, and even little baggies with wet cold paper towel in them.  It was like heaven, we made a quick pit stop and was on our way again with maybe 2k left.  That pit stop was just what I needed to get me through the last few kilometres.  Thanks sugar, we will be sure to send you our routes for the remainder of our long runs !!
I'm sure as time goes on ill get stronger and be able to take on the hills, with the help of Shelley, Renee and Lori I'm pretty sure the tely and maritime race weekend is gonna be 2 races ill never forget and have the most fun doing no matter the distance when your running with your best friends and a few rice krispies anything is possible.

Its amazing what a little guilt, peer pressure, and a monkey will do for ones mojo.  I was beginning to wonder if I was ever gonna get back on track again.  I guess your wondering what in the name of god I am talking about when I say monkey.....well let me introduce you to the newest member of my family, my Garmin monkey Hoe and yes its pronounced hoe.  See I was debating for a long time if I should get a running watch or not.  I mean if I did, that would mean I'm actually serious about all this running stuff.  Renee had a pretty cool one, and hers came with a pet monkey and the more exercise she did the more bananas he got and stayed happy and alive, his name was Todd.  Did I want to be responsible for killing a pet monkey?? not on your life.  BINGO challenge was on.  I debated long enough, and besides Lori also bought the watch and I didn't want to feel left out.  Shelly bought a new one as well but I don't think she's good with pets as she went with the Fitbit.  '
so the time came, I went online at Costco and ordered my brand spanking new Garmin Vivoactive and it would be scheduled to be delivered on the 21st, you guessed it, a day after the big storm.  So my watch was delayed and my monkey would be overdue.  So Friday comes and still no watch, Renee, Lori, Shelley and myself decided to go to jungle Jim's for supper.  I kept checking my email but no such luck on delivery.  Suppers over and still no email, we decide to go to tims next to jungle jims for tea, we had just sat down when the email came, BOOM, my pet monkey (watch) was delivered and waiting on my door step.  I told the girls about the email and they suggested we go and finish our tea at the house, knowing I've waited all week for this.  So we all left and I debated turning on the emergency lights but Renee didn't want to explain to a police officer if we had gotten pulled over that we were on our way cause I was gonna deliver a monkey.
We got to the house and there it was......the little box containing the most precious cargo.




Renee being the most eager just to find out the  name of my monkey decided to set my watch up .... and that's when we learned I would be running with a HOE from now on.  Hoe didn't actually come out of his box till this morning on the coffee run, at the same time I met my cute little hoe, Todd (Renee's monkey) had died ...... so now she has a new one, Liza !! where they come up with these names ill never know. 
But ya know I think this watch was just what I needed to get back on track, I had no intention on running this morning till the girls reminded me that hoe wouldn't come out of the box till I exercised.  This watch also connects to my fitness pal and map my run, so I've started again today tracking my calories, and making sure I've gotten my steps in.  Its all mind over matter you see,  I'm not gonna be the one to say I've killed my monkey, Renee and Marc already killed theirs so I want to be the one to keep mine alive.  The weight loss continues and the running just gets better. 
RIP Todd and welcome Liza and hoe
Thanks girls for being a part of the delivery !!
Paula and her hoe !!

For the new runners in LTR

So, I have done it all!!

Circuit training, kickboxing, the gym, Zumba, you name it I have done it! So last September I thought outside the box and tried something I've always assumed I couldn't do.... Attempt to learn to run or as runners call  it the LTR!!!

Okay, the hard part is over... I have just signed up to PRC online by myself no friends to run with, just me myself  and I.  You can do this Shelly!! All 240lbs of you, holy shit, I just joined a running club!! All 240lbs of me!!!!

First is first, I need to know someone, I'll post on PRC Facebook site "I'm a brand new runner and am looking for someone to run with" that should work, but wait what if I attract a fast runner or someone who I can't keep up with, oh a notification already!!! From Lori Dalton, "I'm new to PRC and will run with you!" Yay!! Someone to run with!!

Of course I creeped her Facebook! If you don't know who Lori is when I creeped her fb she is a fit woman and she had bright red hair, I knew right away she was going to be alot faster then me and she was!

The LTR hadn't started yet and I had never run a day in my life! So that night I ended up running with Lori and Shelley, and I sucked!! I was out of breath, couldn't run the length of myself and thought I wasn't going to make it, I thought I was dying!! They were so nice and kept encouraging me and said that they didn't mind pretty much walking their 5K, which is what happened 😊

So after a few weeks of dying, my LTR started, I was so scared!! I wanted to be one of those runners you see gracefully running down the road, instead I was like a new born calf, no gracefulness here!!


But as hard as it was running up and down Neil's pond every Tuesday and Thursday evening and every Saturday morning it finally got easier and easier! There was one point where I was in front and it felt amazing!! But all the other nights I was either in the middle or the back! My huge lesson from my LTR is to go at my own pace!

So, this vlog  is directed towards the new runners of the PRC! The beginning of your LTR is going to be hard, your going to hurt, there are nights you'll be in the back middle and front! Go at your own pace and do your own thing! And a huge peice of advice, the people you are running with now, will be your running buddies, hold them close because these people have huge potential and are your motivation to get to your goals and to just have fun, because once the fun is gone out of it you will loose interest!

I may not be an elite runner, and I may not run marathons, and I know that I don't look like that gracefull runner and still look like a baby calf walking for the first time but I'm having so much fun doing it, and with my best friends from my LTR!

Good luck to you all, I can't wait to run with you again next week 😘