Divine Intervention (of the Sisterly Sort)

I'm going to go for a run today. I told myself. Right after work. Boom! Done.

I sat down on the couch.

I'm going to go for a run...after I eat...and digest...

A short time later...

I'm going to go for a run. By 6.30pm I will definitely be on my way out the door. Or if not then, by 7pm. Yep, 7pm at the latest I will be out on my run.

I cracked open some chocolate.

And then the phone rang. It was my sister, surprisingly enough.
"What are you up to right tonight?" She asked.
I sighed and confessed: "I'm sitting on the couch eating chocolate and trying to motivate myself to go for a run."
"Oh, because I was just calling to see if you wanted to join me for a run. I thought you'd be busy, but I really wanted to run with you so phoned on a whim."

Cha-ching!

And out we went.

The Stitch Came Back, The Very Next Day...

The Stitch came back!
I'd hoped it was a gonner but
The Stitch came back.
It just couldn't stay away...

My little pup Brizzy can no longer use the excuse as being a puppy to avoid running with me...or is that the other way around?
I finally came to the decision that I could safely start taking him for runs with me without risk to injury...so long as I approached it gently!
And what better day than on a morning where I woke up...and could still feel That Darn Stitch.

Off we went for a very easy jog. I kept the pace below Stitch-level, which was quite slow. We did 2x 10 minutes with a 1 minute walking break in the middle. He did really well.
There was a bit of leash yanking when he saw rabbits, and towards the end where he felt that sniff was more exciting than keeping up with me.
There was a bit of shoelace chomping and leg jumping at the beginning when he felt this was a great game of chase he could play and - Tag! I was "It"!
But for the most part, he kept up just fine. Maybe he will be a great running companion.

Philosophy of Life

Three years - almost to the day - I ran the Whitsunday Trail Race. Officially "28 to 29k" of creeks, rocks, roots, and hills. I ran it with my most awesome trail running mentor, Barry, who pushed me through the whole race until the last few kms where he got a stitch so bad that he could still feel it the next day. Of course, he self-sacrificially encouraged me to go ahead. But how could I leave him? We started together, we ran together, and we finished together, which was what mattered most.

I've had many a stitch before (mostly during races! Siiigh...), but not many could compare with the pain Barry went to on that race day. However, I think this one may have come close!
I started out with good intentions. I really, really did!
The goal: run 10k, in a pattern of 2k warm-up, 5k tempo, 3k cool down.
But less than 4 minutes into my [very slow] warm-up, I had to stop when a sharp pain in my side made breathing difficult and moving less than desirable.
I tried to shake it over the next 15 minutes...I'd walk until the pain stopped, then run a few steps before I felt it slice back into me.
This was rather disappointing! I know I haven't been running very much this summer, but still.
Fortunately, I found that sprints weren't so bad on me. That is, I could run my little heart out for a good 20 seconds and then recover without seeming to Wake the Stitch.
Sprint training it was! I was in a more rural area and used driveways or street lamps as my markers. Run one, walk one, run one, walk one...And on and on and on for the next 30 minutes.

In the end, the run ended up being a little bit like my life philosophy: I had made a plan I was looking forward to, and something changed. It wasn't my ideal situation, but I made the best of it.

As my friend Steph would say, I achieved a B+.

Of Friends and Dogs

I met up with a high school friend (whom I don't believe I've actually seen since High School, but thanks to social media we'd kept in touch). We thought, what better way to catch up than over a run? Because isn't that what most people think, after all?

I took my dog, which was a great excuse to not push too hard. We met at Eau Claire - familiar ground for me now! - and did a pretty little 5.5k(ish) loop around the river over some bridges.
The goal was 5min run, 5min walk all along. This had the double benefit of giving Brizzy the chance to sniff and my friend and I more chance to hang out. Although who were we kidding? We weren't going to let a run stop us from talking! There is a different purpose to a training run vs a social run, and this was definitely of the latter variety.

Just A Little Bit More

I went for a "5k tempo" run the other day. I was feeling a bit time crunched so I told myself I'd just go for 4k. But somehow I got out there with the group and felt the groove of the run set over me. I told myself...just a little bit more.
I ended up doing the full 5.5k loop.
The downside was coming home and getting a rather unfortunate asthma attack (if coughing incessantly classifies as an asthma attack), of which the after-effects lingered well after.
I guess sometimes it's great to do that little bit more. Other times, it's important to be realistic with your body and take it easy to avoid suffering the consequences of your over-exuberance. It is a balance that I'm still learning! The big take-home message for me is: girl, you gotta get out and do some more running!!! The will power to run frequently faces off with my will power to be lazy. This year, it appears that Lazy has been much better fed. Hmmm.

We Love to Hate Hills

Ah, hills! You gotta love to hate them. Nothing makes you feel more unfit or out of breath as a good 1 minute running (or "running") up a hill.
A while back a friend and I ran up a hill. It took me 1.40min to get to the top. I made the ambitious goal of running up the hill three times.

3 x 1.40min = ~5 minutes of exercise, with lots of rest in between.

Forget 2 hour or 3 hour runs. I love hills because they are so short and punchy. And you feel pretty kick-ass AWESOME at the end! (After you've caught your breath and your heart stops pounding...)

How Fast Can You Run?

[I've been convinced to digress from a running blog to discuss a recent event that resulted in a different sort of cardio. If you are here to read about running...skip this! If you are here to be entertained, I hope you find this entertaining.]

The fastest human on the planet is not considered that fast in the animal kingdom.

We're not bad. We're just not good at running. Now, I'm no Usain Bolt so I know I have a disadvantage compared to the above chart.

Last week I was out canoe camping with Russell, my boyfriend. Canoe camping is where you pack everything into a canoe, paddle out to a remote-ish campsite, and spend the night(s) there.

 View from our campsite. Across the lake on the left point is where two guided groups were camped (this is important for later in the story).

 Another view from our campsite

We settled into the tent around 11pm and within 5 minutes after that I heard the distinctive crunch, crunch, crunch of footsteps walking directly past our tent. Since there were no humans in the vicinity, my first thought was BEAR!

We heard the animal climbing the tree towards our food. Now, let me just paint the picture a bit more for you a little bit here:

 Kitchen area with the two barrels and tarp. The big tree is where we hung both barrels off one of the high limbs coming off to the left. The bottom of our tarp is tied to the canoe to protect us from the wind. Behind the tree in the bush is where we set up our tent...it's far enough back that it's not in sight.

Get the picture?

When we heard the animal climbing the tree, Russell jumped out of the tent to yell at it and scare it off. Only...that didn't work so well. Instead, we could hear the animal emitting loud hissing from the tree.

I threw on my shoes and scrambled out of the tent to stand with Russell. When a predator gets aggressive towards you, it's best not to be seen looking all small crouched down in a tent! So together we stood to face off with the hissing creature (I was terrified! If I hadn't just gone to the washroom less than 10 minutes before I think I would have peed my pants).

Because of the hissing, Russell voiced my thoughts: "I think it's a cat." And when we say cat, we don't mean...

                                                                          But rather...

We started yelling for help, but it was hard to imagine others would be awake to hear us, let alone get up in the middle of the night in the rain to paddle across the black lake to our aid.

After a few minutes of hissing and green, glaring eyes, we saw that it was not a cat, but...

Yep, a bear. A mean little black bear was hissing, huffing, and posturing at us. I felt only slightly better that it wasn't a cougar. Cougars are terrifying. Black bears are less so...usually! This one was quite the exception. About 175lbs of pure nasty.

We backed slowly away from the tent until we reached the end of the clearing. Remember that lovely set-up we had done? This meant that the barrels of food the bear was trying to get was set up directly over the canoe and between us and our only escape route. Never again will I put any food between myself and an easy escape!

After we backed off, the bear returned it's attention to the food barrel. About 15 minutes after I had first gotten out of the tent, the bear managed to retrieve his prize and dart into the woods. At which point Russell and I grabbed our rain gear (at my insistence...it was raining quite steadily and I just had on my pyjamas. Adrenaline only keeps me warm for so long) and quickly dashed to the canoe and out onto the water.

Once there, we came across two guides who were paddling towards us on a rescue mission. It turns out the group across the lake was doing a guided tour. When the two guides had heard us yelling they decided to come and help (although, as neither Russell nor I wanted to sound panicked when facing off with a grumpy bear, the guides had mistakenly presumed our calls for help were non-urgent, and finished off such important tasks as brushing their teeth before coming to our aid).

As a group of four, we returned to our camp to quickly stuff the rest of our gear - one barrel and the tent - into the two canoes and set out back across the lake to join the other group's camp. We learned later that the bear had run off with our food barrel (rather than our barrel of cooking equipment, lifejackets, and other miscellaneous items), so we were grateful for the offer of breakfast the next morning. We got to the guides' camp around midnight, one short hour after the entire ordeal had started.

And yes, I did fall asleep that night. I felt much safer surrounded by a large group of other campers and once the adrenaline had eased out of my system it was easier to let fatigue win. If we had taken the time to pick out a nice flat tent site rather than one that sloped horribly and caused one to constantly slide down the hill, I think I would have slept even better. But that being said, sloped campsite was right next to the fire surrounded by lots of other campers, so it felt safe.

After our refugee breakfast, Russell and I headed back to our campsite to see what we could find. Due to Russell's fantastic tracking ability, we were able to find the remnants of the barrel about 200m into the brush.

Every scrap of food was gone. The area reeked of rotted meat and bear. I had my camera, but we didn't linger to take photos (just in case Mr Bear was feeling a bit possessive of his food cache and returned to chase us off) but stuffed everything into the barrel and brought it back to the main campsite for a salvage report.

Salvage report:

Barrel - punctured with teeth. But not completely wrecked, as the bear worked out how to open it. Still, it's no longer water proof and ergo ruined.

Food - gone. Except for some vegetables and fruit, and one bag of what appeared to be untouched Cup of Soup. We threw it all out.

Sandals - intact!

Tarp - intact! But woof, did it stink!

Sunscreen - intact! I believe the bear meant to eat it, but the bug spray can was in the same bag and it looks like he mistakenly bit into that instead. Heh heh heh.

Medications - intact! Mostly.

Toilet paper - intact! But the bag was punctured and we decided to chuck it anyway. Eau de Bear on my butt? I think I'll pass, thanks.

Day pack and water bottle - ripped and punctured, respectively.

Question: How fast can I run?

Answer: Not faster than a bear. Thank goodness I didn't have to put that to the test!