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Wordish Wednesday: I’m A Sucker…

The only picture we have from the night we got engaged.  It was too dark to take more and we didn’t want to waste film (yes, prior to the wonders of digital!).  What you don’t see is that Colin set one tea light for each month we’d been together (43) into the sand around our picnic blanket – I had to swear not to peek while he set up and lit them all.  Neither one of us can remember what he said, but it made me cry.  



Staged reaction to proposal taken by Colin the next day.  It’s at Spanish Banks Beach Park in Vancouver in case you wondered.

Posted by  |  July 13, 2011 | Categories: engagiversary, Wordish Wednesday | 5 Comments

Team Nuun Tuesday

Big news on the Team Nuun front!  Okay, so it’s big news if you’re on the team…  Team #1 has decided on a name!

Melody was both kind and pro-active enough to put together a survey of all the names we’d brainstormed and tally the votes.  While we’re definitely a creative bunch the favourite name won by a landslide.  It was actually the first name suggested, which may or may not have been the reason we loved it.  Henceforth (my big word for the day) we shall no longer be known as Team Nuun #1, but 

After-NUUN Delight

with the cheeky tag line: 

We do it morning, NUUN and night {running, that is…}

It turns out that we weren’t the only ones to think of it either.  Team #2 (name as yet unannounced) also thought of it, but we beat them to the punch.

More fun stuff; again, if you are on the team (or living vicariously through us):

Team Outfits:

Kelly and Carrie are on Team #1 and have graciously said that they will provide us with Team Sparkle skirts.  Of course, it helps that they own the company!   We’re going to go with different colours for each runner and they’ll each represent a Nuun flavour.  

How freaking cute are these?!?

Nuun is providing shirts for us and we can customize them as we see fit once we get them.

Contests:

Nuun’s been thinking up contests to run between teams 1 and 2 during the relay.  They totally sound like fun, but I’m not going to share them quite yet since there hasn’t been complete confirmation.  Let’s just say that the ladies on Team #1 are going to try their hardest to win any prizes that are up for grabs…

“Back to School”:

I’m going to need to memorize some facts!  Since we are essentially Nuun reps for the weekend it’s kind of important that I know what I’m talking about.  

Posted by  |  July 12, 2011 | Categories: Hood To Coast, Team Nuun | 4 Comments

If You’re Looking Out For Fozzie, Make Sure You Don’t Step On Kermit!

When Colin came home from his run last night he told me that he had come up with a great title for a post (see above).  I said, “Ew, you stepped on a frog!?!!?”  He then told me about his eventful run:

While running along a local path in the rain and dark he came across what he thought was a good sized leaf.  Turns out it was a freakishly large frog (well, actually a toad) that had come up from the river because the ground was so wet.  Apparently they scared the crap out of each other and both jumped about the same height in the air!  At least he took the time to “shoo” it off the path – with a blackberry bramble, but he didn’t poke it with the thorny bit – before it got itself squished by a person or bike.  When I asked him how big it was he held up his hands in a circle the size of a side plate.  Yuck!  

Have a great weekend!  Watch out for toads, frogs and amphibians in general…

Posted by  |  July 8, 2011 | Categories: Colin, toad | 3 Comments

T³

1.  Where the heck is summer around here?  Mother Nature is waffling.  It’s like she’s saying to herself, “Hmm, I really did enjoy spring this year.  Maybe it shouldn’t be summer even though it says so on the calendar.”  The last few days were beautiful: sunny, hot, verging on being just this side of unpleasant.  Today we get this:

2.  My first ever 2-a-day went so well!  I took Spud out for a 7.5km steady hour long jog in the morning on Tuesday.  It was a little later than I should have been out simply because I was a hot, beet red, sweaty mess by the end of it.  I completed my second run (a tempo) with my clinic, going 3.2km in 19:46.  That’s about a 6:10/km average.  I was good until about 2km and then ran with a friend who I know is faster for the last bit.  I was about ready to die, but I blame that mostly on the earlier run.  My legs felt heavy, but I was super pleased.  Best thing of all was that I felt fine the next morning.

3.  I didn’t mention it in my post on Tuesday because things were still being decided, but here are my teammates for Hood To Coast.  Make sure you check them all out – they are an amazing bunch of women and I’m so excited to meet them all!

Van #1:
           Leg #1: Me
           Leg #2: Dorothy @ Mile Posts
           Leg #3: Nuun Staffer
           Leg #4: Jocelyn @ Enthusiastic Runner
           Leg #5: Emily @ Sweat Once A Day
           Leg #6: Lauren @ Health On The Run

Van #2:
           Leg #7: Nuun Staffer
           Leg #8: Carrie @ This Mama Makes Stuff
           Leg #9: Mel @ Tall Mom On The Run
           Leg #10: Melody @ I Run Like A Girl
           Leg #11: Kelly @ According To Kelly
           Leg #12: Megan @ Watch MeGo Run      
  

Posted by  |  July 7, 2011 | Categories: 2-a-days, Hood To Coast, rain, Summer, Team Nuun | 2 Comments

Wordless Wednesday: Happy 4th Birthday, Spud!

We love you!  From Mummy and Daddy.

Posted by  |  July 6, 2011 | Categories: 4th Birthday, Spud | 4 Comments

Team Nuun Tuesday

Welcome to my new Tuesday feature where I discuss all things relating to my Hood To Coast adventure with Team Nuun.

“Team Nuun Tuesday” has a nice ring to it so I thought that I could condense all of my ramblings and thoughts into one post a week rather than have a smattering about it here and there.  It puts it all together nicely and, if you are sick to death of reading about HTC, then you can just avoid my blog on Tuesdays until the end of August!

Fun and exciting things that happened this week:

* We received our leg assignments!  Drum roll please and hip, hip, hooray: I’m running Leg #1 (13 and 25)!!!  This was my first choice and I am extremely excited to have gotten it.  It’s listed as the least difficult and has the lowest mileage, but that isn’t why I chose it.  I wanted to do it because leg #1 runs down the side of Mt. Hood.  Literally.  It’s a steep road and there is a 2000ft elevation LOSS in 5.64mi/9km.

                                                                     Images are © Hood To Coast

* One of the reasons I’m happy with my assignment is that I can train for it.  All I need now is to find one or two of my real life friends who are willing to help me out.  If anyone wants to run down Mt. Seymour Parkway with me or at least drop me off 9km up the road let me know!  I’m not joking.  

* I came home from work on Friday to find not only 2 emails from Nuun regarding placements, but 21 other messages from teammates!  We are all apparently very proactive.  So far we’re brainstorming team names and slogans to write on our vans.

* I found out my teammates and couldn’t be happier!  Lots of amazing women and I’ll get to know the ones who aren’t in my van in the time before and after the race.

  
* Google Street View is great.  I looked up all of my routes so I at least have some sort of idea of where I’ll be running.  The only problem is that the view for Leg #1 was shot in the winter.  I’m not going to be running with 15ft of snow plowed to the side of the road.

* Today marks my first ever 2-a-day!  Like many things running, if you’d asked me 2 years ago if I thought that it was a good idea to run twice in one day I would have looked at you like you were nuts.  I ran a steady and slow 7.5km in about an hour this morning with Spud and will do a 3km tempo run with my half clinic this evening.   

Posted by  |  July 5, 2011 | Categories: Hood To Coast, Nuun, Team Nuun | 4 Comments

Monday Musings

→ Happy long weekend to those of you (Americans) who are still enjoying one!  I hope you get to spend quality time with your loved ones.

→ Although I had to work all Canada Day weekend (by choice, we need the money) we were able to take Spud out to see fireworks on Friday night.  I worked until 6:30pm and, after getting home and getting Spud fed, we eventually left our house just after 9pm.  We decided to walk to the site rather than try to street park with everyone else.  The weather was perfect and Spud ended up falling asleep about 10 minutes before we got there, which was great.  We found some friends to sit with and let Spud get a bit of a rest until it was time to start.  Since we haven’t been to the local fireworks before we were pleasantly surprised how good it was.  It’s put on by the local fire department and for a community event it was pretty big.  I’d definitely come back.  The only issue we had was that Spud found it a little loud and we had left his “ear puffs” at home since he said he didn’t want them.  

Not my picture, but it is from our fireworks display.

By the time we got home Spud was out like a light and all 3 of us went straight to bed.  All the fresh air and exercise had gotten to us.  I had thought that the walk there and back was about 5km/3mi.  Turns out it was just under 9km/5½mi and the elevation looked like this:

Yup, that’s in feet.

No wonder we were tired!

→ Knock on wood, but it seems like summer may have finally decided to show up and stick around in Vancouver!  

→ The only problem with getting a lot of sun here is, like Vancouverites forgetting how to drive when there’s snow, we forget how to deal with it.  Colin took Spud to the beach on Friday and did a great job of getting him sunscreened and protected.  He took the same precautions with his own skin.  Unfortunately he forget to get his upper arms when he rolled up his sleeves.  Result?  A wicked red burn that looks super-painful.  Thank goodness we have a huge bottle of aloe, but it looks like it might be time to stock up on Solarcaine too.

→ How do you explain to a 4 year old that he can’t scratch his bug bite?  Spud was bitten by something – he thinks mosquito, Colin suspects an insect with eight legs – while sticking his fingers under the door jamb playing on the patio.  It is right between his thumb and index finger so I get that it is uncomfortable, but it’s not bad and he doesn’t seem to get that if he continually touches it it won’t get better.  Calamine lotion will just rub off (and he might freak if we do it because he doesn’t even like band-aids).  I don’t dare try After Bite because if he popped the top off of the bite it’ll sting like crazy.  Any suggestions?  Other than duct taping a mitten to his hand?  

Posted by  |  July 4, 2011 | Categories: Summer | 2 Comments

Happy Canada Day!

Source
I’m pretty sure my copy of this comic is in my parents’ basement!  I loved the “Veronica in…” series!

Posted by  |  July 1, 2011 | Categories: Canada Day, comics | 1 Comment

Three Things Thursday

1.  Where in the world is summer?  I just want a few consecutive days of sun…

2.  Happy long weekend both north and south of the border!  We’ll be taking Spud to see the local fireworks display on Friday night to celebrate Canada Day.  Other than that I have the good fortune (note sarcasm) to work all three days…  Sucks that I don’t get to spend time with my boys, but we need me to be working so I’ll take all the hours I can get.

3.  For any of you who are interested in seeing what I’ll be doing this summer, and simply because I like talking about it and Colin’s sick of hearing about it every day, Hood & Portland To Coast Relay has created their own YouTube channel.  You can check out the trailer for the documentary that came out earlier this year as well as lots of participant videos.  Pretty sure I’m going to need to bring a Costco-sized pack of batteries and multiple memory cards for my camera! 

Posted by  |  June 30, 2011 | Categories: Canada Day, Hood To Coast, Summer | 2 Comments

A Belated Virtual Race Report – SYTO 5K

I have a terrible time committing to races.  Generally I don’t race a lot because they’re pretty expensive around here.  As much as I’d love to do a 5k event every weekend I’m not willing to fork over $25 for the pleasure of being out for less than an hour.  So you would think that I’d be better at committing to a virtual race.  Yeah, not so.  Mainly because I haven’t got a monetary loss to think about. 

This weekend was the Sweat Your Thorns Off 5K Virtual Race hosted by Adam at I Am Boring. Now, I signed up because a) I wanted to make sure I ran this weekend and b) I felt kind of bad about banditing his Freeze Your Thorns Off 5K back in the fall.  

Gotta say that I am a terrible race participant.  Here are the reasons I didn’t run on the day of the race:

  • I worked from 10:30am – 7pm.
  • I don’t run in the mornings by myself so wasn’t going out before work.  I also like to sleep in.
  • I wasn’t going to run by myself after work.  By the time we got home and got Spud to bed, Colin decided to go to a friend’s place and all I wanted to do was sit on my rear and watch Bridget Jones’ Diary again some crappy TV.  
So I ran on Sunday after work.  Now, I did not race myself for 5km.  I could have.  But I had a 7km long run scheduled and I knew I was going to run longer than that.  All in all I did about 11km.  Not sure, though, because my GPS battery crapped out at 8-ish.  I turned it back on and it promptly told me I’d gone a kilometre in 3:41.  

I’ve counted my first 5km from Sunday’s run as my official race time.  Given that it was part of a long run, I take a planned 1 minute walk break for every 20 minutes of running, and I had a whole bunch of traffic lights to contend with, I’m pretty happy with my performance.

37:09.8

Posted by  |  June 28, 2011 | Categories: Sweat Your Thorns Off 5K Virtual Race, Virtual Race | 5 Comments