Yoga Wear for Charity!

Exciting new opportunity!  If you click on the below link and purchase any Naturals Apparel yoga wear the owner of the company Ken Auty will donate 15% of all sales generated to my fundraiser! Take a look at the line, it is small, canadian and great quality.  Ask me if you'd like to see any pieces or if you'd like to hold a yoga wear party! 

http://affiliates.naturalsapparel.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=119

Pain in the Neck

Literally.  The car accident on Sept. 29th, 2008 is causing me grief.  I woke up on the morning of Dec. 31st, 2008 with a very sore neck.  I assumed I had slept on it funny, pinched a nerve and perhaps the pain would go away in a day or two.  Wrong.  The pain has been building and building.  My  chiropractor is not sure what is wrong and continues to adjust me.  I feel better when I leave her office, but by the next day the pain is back full force.  I finally got in to see my fabulous massage therapist yesterday.  That man works wonders!  All day I felt so amazing.  Late last night I was reading my new book (Secrets of Supplements) and realized...no pain!  I woke up this morning....hello pain in the neck.  Morning is always when it feels a bit worse so I know as I go through out my day it was ease up a wee bit.  I am confident working with my massage therapist will continue to ease the pain.  The first week or so I ran through the pain.  This week I did my long run on Sunday, attempted one run on Thursday and that's it.  I need to rest my body and assist it with healing.  I will do my long run again this Sunday and hope for the best.  I have been walking between 5 and 15km a day to keep exercising.  Praying for this pain in my neck to leave my body....

"The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you.  If you do that, you are in control of your life.  If you don't, life controls you." Anthony Robbins

The Treadmill Experience

I woke up Sunday morning with severe neck pain (see pain in the neck entry) and decided I was not able to do my long run.  I was disappointed but knew I needed to listen to my body.  As the day went on I started to feel a little better.  I was on my way to Vancouver for work, always exciting!  I was feeling ambitious and took the 5pm ferry so I could get to my hotel early and check out the gym in the hotel.  In the past packing for any trip has never included an entire bag of workout gear - running clothes, water bottle, watch, shoes, socks, heart rate monitor, pedometer - I have used a treadmill once in my life and found myself quite dizzy as a result of my ear problems.  I am the person that always laughs at the people toughing it out on a treadmill when they could so easily run outside surrounded by nature and fresh air.  I never understood it.  Well who would be more surprised then ME when I hopped on that treadmill for 7km!!!  I laughed my way through an episode of Family Guy and the end of Scary Movie 2.  What a great way to be distracted.  I fell in love with that treadmill.  Instantly I was rearranging furniture in my house to accommodate a new piece of equipment - good bye dining room table!  I am looking forward to my next date with a lovely treadmill!

"Running is like mouthwash; if you can feel the burn, it's working." Brian Tackett

Prairie Inn Pioneer 8 km - January 11th, 2009 -

What an amazing day!  This event was so well organized and executed!  Kelly and I arrived fairly early to find parking and pick up our race numbers and timing chips (so exciting!).  The running community is truly one of the kindest, happiest, most supportive groups of people I have ever had the pleasure to spend time with.  The energy was so positive and everyone there was excited for the race.  There were people of all ages, sizes and fitness levels.  I finished the course in one hour.  We really took our time and enjoyed the experience and were careful to listen to twinges of pain in the body which required several longer walk breaks, but that's ok.  For me it's all about going the distance, not so much how long it takes me to do it.  We had a wonderful impromptu picnic of bagels and cream cheese, oranges, cookies, veggies, Gatorade and hot chocolate kindly provided by Thrifty Foods.  On our way home we went to a fabulous Health and Wellness fair in Sidney put on by www.siwc.org.  It was a great way to end the day.  It's now 4pm and I am out of my epsom salt bath and into my penguin pajamas for a wee bit of a nap :)

"When people ask me why I run, there's not really a reason, its just the adrenalin when you start, and the feeling when you cross that finish line, and know that you are a winner no matter what place you got." - Courtney Parsons

First official week of training is complete!

Welcome to my blog!  I have created this as a way to keep all my loved ones in the loop on all the nitty gritty details of my training for the European 1/2 Marathon which I will be running May 3rd, 2009 in Trieste, Italy.  I think it will also be a great training tool for me to review when I am in need of inspiration, motivation or a little bit of clarity.  Let the journey begin!

My first week has been great!  I eased back into running after three weeks off due to the snow and battling a major flu.  It feels good to be getting back on track.  The start of my official program seems quite easy, thankfully.  I ran a total of 10.37 km's this week.   I signed Kelly and I up for the Prairie Inn Pioneer 8 km tomorrow morning (you're welcome Kelly!)  We are both quite excited about the first race of the year.  Slow and steady is the plan.  I am currently running 6 minutes and walking 1 minute.  Tonight's run felt good, aside from the torrential downpour.  I think I will run this coming week at the same pace and increase it to 7 minutes running, 1 minute walking the following week. 

Thank you to all of my friends and family who have donated money to the Arthritis Society to help me reach my fundraising goal.  My goal is $6700 and we are currently at $1820.  I have faith we will be able to reach our goal.  I am picking up bottles for my bottle drive from several generous people tomorrow and Monday and will post totals as soon as I have them.  I am also organizing another second hand clothing sale with Jen for February 15th, 2009.  It is going to be amazing!!! Filled with lots of great treasures.  Let me know if you need details.  

I am off to bed to get some well needed rest for the big day tomorrow.  Ciao!

"I tell our runners to divide the race into thirds.  Run the first part with your head, the middle part with your personality, and the last part with your heart." - Mike Fanelli - club coach