It was POURING rain...which I can't really complain about because I've been so lucky with the weather all summer and it was more pleasant than being too warm. I couldn't have been more sopping wet by the end if I'd jumped into the drink - but it's all good. The iPod and Garmin survived as well. Rain or no rain, you can't beat running around the Stanley Park seawall on a Sunday morning. At least it wasn't crowded...
Current Marathon Training Playlist:
The route is very scenic and interesting. There's a fair amount of agriculture in the area...
...and plenty of big hills! I did notice most of the big ones were during the first half of the course. There was one in particular around mile 4 which was about a mile long. Another important hill occurs around mile 8 and is very steep but short.
It was very nice to run alongside the ocean at Patricia Bay and feel the breeze.
I think the gorgeous surroundings will make the race more fun even though the hills present a bit of a challenge.
After an hour and a half with me my Dad changed places with my boyfriend Ian, who drove by to meet us.
I didn't take any pictures of the biggest hills, I guess I was too busy just trying to either make it up or run down as fast as I could!
A few notes about this first really long run:
-total time: 3:02:19 -Ate a lot of pizza the night before (veggie) & 2 packages of instant oatmeal 3 hours before the run -I drank a total of 2 litres of water mixed with gatorade (1/2 a scoop per 500 mL) and ate 3 Clif Shot Bloks during the run -I did not run out of energy, but my legs , feet, & hip joints became very sore and tired by around mile 13 -No stomach issues during the run -I TOTALLY crashed (mentally) about 2-3 hours after the run and needed to eat a date square to get myself functioning again -I had some GI issues later in the day
Oh, yeah, we also did some outdoor activities like running, golfing (Ian, not me), mountain biking (again, Ian, not me), barbequing, hiking, and our new fun activitiy - looking for Geocaches.
The highlight was our "big" hike - 4 miles at the peak of Whistler. If you look closely at the picture of my handy-dandy GPS Garmin thing-a-ma-bob you can see the elevation reading of 6024 feet. The terrain was not super easy, but interesting. We were walking around on the black diamond ski runs (for non-skiers that means Advanced).
Funny to see those familiar slopes in the summer. We did not find any lost gloves, goggles or ski poles. We did however, see a grand total of 4 brown bears (from the safety of the gondola thank goodness).
I think our dog Freddie had a nice vacation. He likes to hang around and be lazy (kind of like us), here's a clip of him doing just that on our deck.
Wrapped up the week with a 5K race back in Greater Vancouver (Ladner to be precise, which is part of Delta I think). I was fighting a head cold so I almost flaked out - Ian stayed home and slept in even though he was registered.
Happily all the 5K finishers got medals. I came in 11th overall and 5th among the ladies. My official chip time was 27:25. First time I had the Garmin for a race, big help to see real time info on pace. I think I can still improve, but I need to do more speed training. Back to the track on Tuesday I think....
Just a little housekeeping...I seem to have lost track of my weeks at some point so I have gone from Week 7 to Week 9. Think I'm on track now.
