Run, Wendy, Run!

City Chase 2017

2017-08-24T00:49:00.000-04:00

Winning a bet is pretty awesome sometimes :) My friend, Lynette, bless her good heart, lost a bet to me and she had to choose from my list of what the 'payment' was... : City Chase. lol Years ago, I had roped her into doing it once with me, she had since then declined my invitation to do it each year, until this year when she lost a bet to me. What a great win for me is all I've got to say haha.

Having dreaded the event since its humble beginnings, Lynette still booked the day off so that she could participate in the event; like it or not, she was going through with it. I had repeatedly told her, however, that it wasn't that bad, but only received the not so subtle glare from her. Alas the day of reckoning finally arrived on June 24th, the first of two city chases happening in Toronto.

Lynette arrived bright and early at my place at 8am and we walked over to the distillery district, taking our time to make pitstops at both Starbucks and Shoppers.

We arrived just in time, leaving perhaps 10 minutes to spare before the race was to commence. There was a good crowd there, so while they were warming up, Lynette and I started to set up our bibs and our raceshirts.

Once the race started, I attempted to run and retrieve the cluesheet, but unfortunately wasn't able to get it on the first try. All those who couldn't get the cluesheet on the first try were told to go eastward 500 meters (just around the corner) to get it. I guess they do this to reduce congestion? I'm not sure if it was all that effective because there were a lot of people there as well.

We got the cluesheet! My friend and I spent perhaps about half an hour just standing where we were to figure out the locations, this way we could map out where we needed to go as well as to figure out the mandatory locations.

Finally we figured out at least 8 of the clues, the remaining we would work on as we travelled.

Taking our time, we walked to our very first stop: It was by the Regent Park Recreation Centre. I was a bit nervous as I saw it was one of those stations where you had to eat something. That was never a good thing lol.

It turned out, however, the first station wasn't so bad!

#Station 1
One partner had to eat a jellybean, but the other partner had a choice of eating: hot pepper, pickled ginger, or kimchi.

Considering that I eat all of them on a daily basis, it wasn't a real challenge for me. I chose the kimchi lol, while my friend ate a jellybean.

After we had done this, we moved on to the next one. Before getting there, we stopped by yonge and dundas to grab some coffee from Starbucks. While my friend stood in line to get our iced drinks, I worked on a sudoku puzzle on the clue sheet. By the time she had come back with the drinks, I had managed to finish it; now we had 9 locations uncovered! As we walked towards our mapped destination (my friend is a wiz with it! She is a walking GPS!), we again made a stop over; for a cheese tart at Uncle Tetu's. I had never had it before, but it was really good! Very satisfying :D You can tell that this wasn't quite the city chase, more along the lines of a city stroll, but as long as we were having fun, that was the most important thing.

We walked for a bit, but couldn't find the next location. Bumping into another team of city chasers, we traded information and ironically, the place were were looking for was literally in front of us; a Goodlife!

Thanking the two participants, we entered the building to meet our next challenge.

#Station 2
For this station, we had to pick a healthy food item from the board and then guess the number of calories it contained. If we got it wrong, then we would have to do 20 jumping jacks and 20 sit-ups. I picked a vegetable barley rice soup.... and I guessed the calories incorrectly. Mind you, you had only a leeway of being 50 calories off. lol so we were punished to do the exercises.

#Station 3
Feeling a bit tired after doing the exercises, we slowly made our way to our third location, this one was near OCAD. When we arrived, I couldn't help but grin ear to ear. It was absolutely a delight, well, for me more than for my friend. I saw Rickshaws being pulled by other city chasers, with one partner sitting, the other one pulling it all around the block.

I had always wanted to ride in one or even pull one. My friend, however, insisted on pulling it since she didn't have that much confidence in my strength to pull it (lol she's not wrong on that - I have been known to have notoriously weak in upper arm strength).

As we went around the block, I felt bad for my friend, but at the same time, I was loving the fact I was finally trying out a rickshaw. I asked several times if she wanted to trade (it was a long block), but she resisted, and told me just chill, she'll pull me this time and reiterated that she was definitely stronger than me haha. We finished the challenge, I got the hole punch on my bib and we were off to the next one. My poor friend was exhausted. But she was right, if I had to pull, I think it may have taken longer since I would have needed more breaks in between.

#Station 4
The next station was a difficult one - this one you had a choice to eat a worm, cricket or to wear goggles and hairnet and lie under a apparatus where crickets would cover sit on top of the goggles. You need to remain with these crickets in close proximity for 45 seconds.

I could never imagine 45 seconds of being so close to bugs... so eating a bug was the way to go LOL. It was pretty gross, but honestly, the act of eating it wasn't as bad as I thought. It went down easily, though I downed a lot of water afterwards. Like a lot. hahaha.

#Station 5
The next one we had to travel a bit for it (and we got completely lost wandering around). When we finally found it, we took a picture with the Inukshuk at the park before going to our challenge.

The task at hand was that one partner was to shoot a (blunted) arrow and the other partner had to catch it. My friend immediately volunteered to shoot it! hahaha She said she always wanted to shoot one, so I didn't mind doing the catching.

It took a while, lol sometimes the arrow would fly too far or not far at all. But after perhaps 10 tries, I finally got it. Victory!!

#Station 6
We wandered lost for a while to find this place, but it was also at an open field area. This one we had to wear a bubble suit and score a goal against an opposing city chase team. The loser would need to do 20 burpies! My friend and I worked hard at this one, and I had never seen her as motivated as she was then to win. Suffice to say, after one very good kick from me towards the opposing team's goal post, my friend did the rest. Playing soccer could have been her second career hahaha. We won, so no burpies for us.

#Station 7
This one was interesting, where we had to fill an 1 litre sodapop container half way with water and then use a bike pump to shoot it up through the air. One partner would do the pumping of the air, and the other would catch it. After we finished this station we went off to find the location of the "longitude and lattitude" coordinates. This one I had no idea where we were headed and it was only by inference that it was a coordinate... and it turned out we were right!

#Station 8
We arrived at the designated coordinates and there were these two elder ladies there and a bunch of items on the ground. There was a spinning wheel where we were told to spin and then whatever it landed on, we had to guess the price of it - Marshall's price. My friend spun it, and it landed on a pair of shoes. Right off the bat, my friend called it for $50, and it was right on the dot. The ladies were shocked, as I was too, but I shouldn't have been. Lynette was a pro when it came to shopping hahaha. With that station done, we only had 2 more to go!

#Station 9
This location was interesting, one partner had to be an anchor while the other partner fetched five balls from a circle about 3 meters away, in order to form the colours of the rainbow. The two partners were attached with a rubber band that allowed some leeway to stretch. The funny thing about this challenge was that only one of us had to do it, but we didn't realize it, and we both did the challenge lol. Oh well, more calories burned!

#Station 10
This location was our last one, and it was probably the easiest one, but it was fun still. Each partner dressed up in a gladiator suit and knocked the hat off of the other partner and vice versa. Once my friend and I finished this, we made our way back to the distillery district to the finish line.

Afterwards, we walked again, and this time all the way to Little India to have indian food :D We did about 45,000 steps that day :) We deserved good food!

After finishing our food, we parted ways, exhaustedly, but thoroughly entertained. Lynette admitted it was pretty fun, but she still said she wouldn't do it again, haha, simply because it wasn't her type of thing to do for enjoyment. I understood her viewpoint, but I told her, yeah, no more bets. Because if she loses another one, this city chase was back on the table :D

Mmmmm good food after a long day!

Sporting Life 10K 2017

2017-08-20T11:06:00.002-04:00

Wow, time flies! It's already past mid 2017 already! The past year had been a true trial for me, very difficult and with lots of anxiety, fear, and sleepless nights. But its over now, and I am feeling blessed that everything has blown over.

Because of all the craziness and stress going on with my the past year, I hadn't done much training or many events. So I'd have to say, most of 2016 was a blur for me, but things did slow down to a good pace, and by May, I saw light at the end of a very dark tunnel :) Thusly, with renewed energy, I was able to yet again participate in my annual Sporting Life 10K run.

First race of the season is the annual Sporting Life 10K run.

Day before Race
I met up with my friend Susan in the morning to hangout, and perhaps toss in a practice 3k run with her to prep for the race the next day. The run didn't happen lol, but we did hangout around the beaches / Leslieville neighbourhood. We wandered a bit before deciding to go for brunch in the area, but on the way to the restaurant, we were led away from it by the delicious smell of bacon. It took us to a place called "Rashers". Goodness if there was ever a good BLT sandwich, this is the place to have it! After ordering our respective BLTs, mine was the plain one and my friend a specialty one, we set out to eat it on some stools within the place. The sandwiches were fantastic :)

After having our fill of high quality BLT sandwiches, we headed uptown to my friend's place, picked up a few items to cook. Mind you, the cooking didn't seem like such a great feat, but somehow we ended up cooking for a long time.... so what leisure time we had intended to have was pretty much taken up by the cooking. Still, the food was fantastic - Roast Chicken, Shish Kabob, Cobb Salad, and Lemon Zest Spaghetti.

After eating and cleaning up, we had perhaps an hour to unwind; so we ended up watching buzzfeed videos about food - i.e. $2 egg vs $95 egg. It was quite fun and a great way to just relax.

Race Day

We woke up, my friend did the pickup rounds with everyone, her boyfriend and her younger brother and we headed down to the startline of the race. It wasn't all that smooth as we had thought, when we arrived and had parked, I'd not looked up to when the baggage check was done.... so appearantly it was over by the time we had arrived. I had to go back to the car, drop off the stuff and then go back to the startline. It was a stressful time, the running back and forth, but finally we stood ready at the startline, although we were one or two waves behind what we had intended.

Our wave started, and zoom, we all went at our own pace :) The race went as I expected, and I averaged around the same time as I usually did - lol not the Flash by any means, but it was a solid finish, no injuries or mishaps. After the race, I met up with Susan and the others and we took our time getting free samples and just chilling in the area as we ate our complimentary banana and bagel. We texted to two other friends who hadn't travelled with us to the startline (they were at a different wave), and discovered that they had gone home! lol We had started too late, and they had finished much too early, perhaps about 2 hours before us. It was too cold and tiring for them to wait around, so they had dispersed and gone home.

As for us, since we had finished the race, we were also quite famished. My friend's boyfriend looked up some potential restaurants, and we decided to try a place called "The Beast". It wasn't too far of a walk from where we were, so the decision was easily made. When we arrived, there was a 30min wait, but it was worth it! The food that we ordered tasted marvellous :)

After a delicious meal, I bid farewell to my friends, as I needed to be somewhere later in the afternoon. I skipped off first to Goodlife to freshen up before meeting up with another friend for dinner. It wasn't until a full 5 hours later until I got home.

Dinner!

Once I got home, I rested perhaps for half an hour before going over to another friend's place to check up on her cat. lol. I was the designated cat sitter for her while she was away on vacation.

Meow!

The cat was happy to see me, her food had run out! So it was good that I had come to see her. I filled her food bowl, replaced her water, cleaned her litter, and played with her; I didn't leave until an hour later. Overall, it was a very packed but fun day :) Am looking forward to next years race already.

Past Hikes in South Korea: Bukhansan (Baegundae Peak) and Hallasan mountain

2016-06-09T17:18:00.001-04:00

Turning on the time machine, we're going to take a trip back to March of 2015 when my friends and I did two hikes in South Korea: Bukhansan (in Seoul) and Hallasan (in Jeju Island).

Bukhansan Mountain is situated quite accessibly via a simple bus ride within Seoul city. Bukhansan has several different peaks to choose from when hiking the mountain and our destination was to reach the Baegundae peak, which is the highest peak of Bukhansan mountain, elevation at 836m.

Seems not so bad compared to our Inca trail, but mind you at least for the Inca trail we practiced a few hikes throughout the year. Since this trip was early in the year, and Winter lasts forever in Toronto, suffice to say we went in with whatever cardio training we had from the previous year - which isn't much to talk about haha.

Delicious street food - sweet savoury omelet sandwich

We left our guesthouse at 7:00am, taking the subway and a bus to get to the national park. But along the way, we also picked up some breakfast and snacks for the hike. Our breakfast pre-hike was quite delicious, something that I haven't tried before, A sweet savoury omelet sandwhich. It was such a blend of flavours, and I thought in my head: I must make this when I'm back in Toronto! It was also only 2000 won. We got three of them and we ate them earnestly on the bus ride to the park.

Other snacks that we purchased were kimbap, 4 rice balls, fruit, korean eggs (cooked) and something else that I didn't know what it was called, but it looked good. We weren't sure if we needed more food so we when we saw that there were stands just before reaching the park, we thought to purchase more snacks. Unfortunately the owners weren't there, so we had to make do with what we had.

Bukhansan National Park

Once at the park we learned that we were too early; the Information booth did not open until 10:30am. There was a large map though that was posted by the Information booth and we tried to gage how to hike it. Of course, all of this was written in Korean, so we had no idea which was which. This was not good. But then like a stroke of luck, a Ranger passed by and she came and helped us out by giving us a map and also giving directions and a route for us. Yay! We were ready to go.

Ranger mapping out our route for us

We thanked the woman ranger and began our journey up the mountain. It was a long and arduous journey. Up hill a lot of the way. But it was also quite the view. Lovely landscape, nature at its finest. I wished we had a mountain in Toronto we could just hike up on any random day. But to get to one we'd have to travel far to get to one - i.e. Mount Tremblant or Blue Mountain. As we neared the peak, we had ropes where we had to pull ourselves up. Thank god for those body combat classes at Goodlife, otherwise I would not have made it.

Eating Rice ball while resting

There were some areas where I had to walk on what looked like limestone? on the mountain, it was like a 45 degree angle. For obvious reasons, I had no pictures of that, but I'm sure plenty can be found on the web via an easy google search :P

The slanted angle and my fear of heights, didn't mingle too well. At one point it had gotten even steeper and at that point, my friends asked if I wanted to stay back here, keeping in consideration of my heights fear.

Friends being silly on the hike :)

However, I was determined to go on. You’re not on the peak unless you’re up on the peak. I would conquer this.

Finally, we reached the top (well, a good 2 meters from there, as this was the first lookout point before the peak), with legs shaking and heart pounding, we sat there, finally able to rest. Here we busted out our food and ate it… it wasn’t much haha. Compared to all the Koreans who literally brought real food, even hotwater for ramen along with a sitting mat! we looked pretty ill prepared, eating our kimbap and taking in the sights. I think someone even asked us if that was all we brought. LOL. We must have looked very sad with our little snacks.

A temple resting area along the hike

One thing that was noticeable was that I had so much water still! I had a 2 L filled in my hydration pack, and going all the way up here, I still had 1.5L. Well, at least I'll have water going back down, though according to the ranger it shouldn't take more than 2.5 hours? Give or take. There was a fork in the path to which would lead us to an information centre and a road that had a bus station. Good, I had thought then. That didn't sound too bad.

Playing match the symbols - where are we?

My back was tired, and I hadn't been the only one. Looking at my friends, they too had that look of weariness. We had hiked for about 5 hours, so it was natural to feel tired. Now... the descent.. well, after going to the peak first!

That's where we're headed! (still no where near the peak yet)

We ate our food and then climbed to the peak, took some pictures and then we made our way down the mountain.

We walked and walked, and if I had thought going up was tough, going down was just as bad. It was very rocky. My legs were like jelly at some point. We all had to grip the ropes heading down too. My poor hands (I didn’t have gloves) were scraped pretty raw. It didn't help that there were some really fast descenders - did I mention Koreans hikers are very quick on their feet? lol I almost got jabbed in the hand by hiking sticks.

Rest stop (and Observation point) just before the Baegundae Peak

It took a long time - much longer than what we remembered the ranger telling us it would take - but we finally reached an information centre. And it was there that we found out we had gone the wrong way. We had literally taken a wrong turn somewhere and walked completely the opposite direction.... The woman at the information centre told us that if we wanted to walk our original route, we would have to walk another 2 hours the other direction.

Rockface near the Baegundae Peak

My friends and I looked at each other for a moment and shook our heads. No, it was too far of a distance. And the sun was starting to set. Was there an alternate route to follow?

The woman nodded and said there was another one. If we continue along this path we were on, we would get to a bus station within a half hour.

Well then. Obvious choice.

We followed the new route and within a half hour, we reached a bus station and civilization as well! Once we arrived back at our guesthouse, we showered and rested until it was 9:30pm when my friend Madeline woke me and my other friend Susan up to go get dinner.

Exhausted we left the guest house, and found a Korean bbq place in the Myeongdong area to eat. The food was alright, not as good as I imagined it, but it was likely because it was just a random place chosen instead of one that was known for its food. At any rate, we were all so tired it didn’t matter. As long as we were full, it was all good.

We walked a bit around the Myeongdong area again afterwards, and then finally headed back to our guesthouse. We freshened up and then went to sleep pretty quickly.

All in all, the hike on Bukhansan was an amazing experience. It was tough, really tough at some points, but when you reach the top, it feels as if everything you worked for to get there was well worth it :)

Hallasan Mountain is the highest mountain in South Korea (elevation of 1950m), and it is situated on an island called Jeju.

To begin the retelling of the story of our hike up Hallasan mountain, I'd have to backtrack a few days before the actual hike.

After our Bukhansan hike, the next day we had taken a flight to go to Jeju island.

Yakcheonsa Temple

On Jejus island, we picked up our rental car and drove to Yakcheonsa Temple, where we were planning to stay overnight to experience what a templestay would be like. Along the way to Yakcheonsa Temple, we stopped by a restaurant for a snack by ordering pancakes; a seafood one and the other a mugwort pancake.

After we had finished the snack, we picked some honey roasted peanuts and 2 bags of chips for the

road (and for hiking!). We arrived at the temple and met with the monk. The monk said that he had been expecting us an hour ago! But Susan was sure that he had said 5pm, but he had been expecting us to arrive around 4pm.

At any rate, he told us to quickly eat something since we hadn’t had a dinner dinner and to come to do the evening ceremony at 6:30pm. He also gave us a schedule we were to follow.

Sleeping quarters at the Temple

He quickly showed us where we would be sleeping (it was a nice spacious quarters, although our bed was really a mat and blanket along with a wooden block for a pillow). Then he told us to go eat (the kitchen was just a walk away from our sleeping quarters) and that we should change into these traditional temple clothing. The clothing included pants, a vest and a long jacket.

Dinner at the temple! Yum!

We ate dinner but while we ate there were some really nice elder Korean ladies (50s I would guess) that took the time to befriend us and told us what we needed to do – basically wash our own dishes haha. They were also nice enough to give us rice cakes (mugwort rice cakes), and also carve us a pear!

Our schedule at the Temple

We thanked them for their graciousness and then quickly finished our food, changed into our clothes and went to do the ceremony.

In our panic, or at least in my case, lol, my clothing was all the wrong size!

We were running late, and it was so funny, imagine seeing three girls in pink traditional temple clothing rushing up the steps to the temple to a ceremony, and there was a group of people there (students perhaps), trying to take a picture.

Once we entered the temple, the monk showed us how to bow at the service and then he moved to the front podium where the other monks were while we stayed where we were. From that point on, we would follow another lead monk – monkey see, monkey do!

The service – just the bowing part was done and our monk took us out and brought us to his office and we chatted over gaoshan (a Taiwan tea) for at least an hour.

Inside the Temple

We learned that our monk studied buddishm in Korea as well as the Univeristy of British Columbia. He travelled quite a bit as well, to Burma, Quebec, New York and Toronto! His English was pretty good as well. The monk also gave us some pretty important information in regards to our hike up mount Hallasan (something we originally planned to do on our day 3 on Jeju island). He said that there was a lot of snow up the mountain at this time of year and that we should buy Eisens (ice climbing shoes). These were basically ice-climbing grips that you attach to your hiking shoes so they give you grip as you are hiking on top of ice. We were surprised to hear that there would still be snow and ice up the mountain, but we trusted the monks words. He told us to head to e-mart to buy our eisens. We said we would the next day when we leave the temple to our airbnb place.

Finally, the monk called it a night and then said that we had to be up at 4:30am to do another ceremony.

Pretty exciting, but also we knew it would be tiring all the same lol.

We headed back to our quarters and freshioned up and went to bed. Note: The floors to our quarters were heated!

Day 2 on Jeju Island

3am. OMG. We were so tired. We went to do the ceremony at 4:30am. It was so cold. Dreadfully cold. I kept thinking that I should have grabbed my jacket. The pink temple clothing was not offering much warmth. I looked over to Susan and Madeline, and they too were freezing. But we knelt there, did our bows no less, and after perhaps an hour and half service, we finally returned back to our quarters.

At 6:30AM, we got up again and went for breakfast. It was about 6:45am when we finally sat down to just start our breakfast when our monk came by and told us to meet him at the front at 7am for our morning hike.

Never did we eat so fast. When we finished we went to look for him, but didn’t see him, so we wandered around the temple and took pictures. Finally after hearing my suggestion, we went to check to see if he was at his office.

We decided to take a picture of susan by the bell and then suddenly he popped out. He asked if we were ready. We nodded.

Off we went on our hike.

The hike was nice and scenic, we got to the coast and saw the water, took a few pictures and then started to head back. Our monk had to abandon us at a 3rd of the way because he had to rush to a meeting (and because we were too slow hahaha).

We got back to the temple and wandered around taking pictures, and had to keep in mind we had to meet up with him at 9:30am.

At 9:30am, we went to his office where he showed us how to bead a Buddhist necklace. It had to have 108 beads – the significance of this number is because there are 6 organs, and because of the sins of the 6 organs, we need to multiply them to 36; and because there is past present and future, it is 36 x 3, which is 108.

Once we finished beading we did a little meditation.

We had to end it early because our monk was meeting someone. But it was really funny because then we realized how the cultural barrier was; our monk who spoke so reservedly towards us in English, but when he spoke in Korean, it was completely different! He was very happy and enthusiastic and quite loud spoken. It was very funny and surprising.

Our monk told us then to come back around 11:20am, and to wander around the temples in the meantime.

We wandered, took pictures and then returned there at 11:20am but saw he had company. We returned again around 11:30am, and still it was the same, he still had company. Finally, we saw him at 11:40am and then he said we should grab lunch, that we wouldn’t have too much time for meditation.

We went to eat again, had the bimbimbap food, and also in addition a new white sugar snack.

Eisens!

We thanked the head chef lady and then thanked the monk as well before we headed out. As we headed towards our new place to stay in Jeju Island, we also took a stop at the World Cup Stadium centre to go to the e-mart that the monk mentioned. There we picked up our Eisens. We drove to our airbnb guesthouse stay and left our luggage there as we went to see our sights of the day.

We drove out and saw two waterfalls, - Cheonjiyeon Falls, Cheonjeyeon Falls/Seonimgyo Bridge, and Jusangjeolli Cliffs. Finally we went to also try the black pig for dinner; it was a Korean bbq! It was so good, delicious!!!!

After dinner, we headed back to our airbnb stay.

Black Pig - a delicacy on Jeju Island

We showered, brushed teeth and got ready for bed; tomorrow as going to be an early day – 6am wakeup! And climbing another mountain, mount Hallasan!

Day 3 on Jeju Island

Ginseng shots at a restaurant

We woke up at 6am (more like cracked our eyes open) and heard and saw that it was thunderstorming. Sigh. No mountain climbing today. We went back to sleep. We were up again at 8:30am. It was still thunderstorming. We discussed and mourned the fact that our day’s itinerary was now ruined! Boo. Susan cries out that it was her fault, she said that the weather so far had been so good! She had jinxed it. We checked the weather forecast for the next day and saw that it was going to rain too tomorrow, but not as heavily, more like a drizzle. For me I was thinking and regretting about not having my raincoat on me. Oh well. I have garbage bags.. I will have to make do!

Ginseng Chicken

The day’s itinerary had to be changed, and so we decided to do indoor things, i.e. visit the alive museum and also the Seogwipo Olle market. Before heading to the market, we took out our dirty laundry and threw them into the washing machine at our airbnb place (“where the wind dwells”). We

left it in the washing machine, went to eat our lunch at this delicious ginseng chicken place. The food was amazing! We ordered two ginseng soups, and each had a whole Cornish hen in it. The soups were different as well. One was traditional chinese medicinal ginseng while the other was Korean ginseng. The Cornish hens in the soup were also stuffed with special jeju rice! Side dishes as well as a complimentary alcoholic ginseng drink was given to us. I thought the drink was too strong and only had a sip.

Seogwipo Olle Market

After lunch, we headed back to our airbnb place and took out our laundry to dry inside the house (we found some drying racks).

We then went to the Seogwipo Olle market first since we wanted to buy all the food for the “tentative” hike up hallasan mountain the next day. I bought there two rain ponchos (since I didn’t bring my raincoat), and madeline and susan bought two ponchos as well.

We bought lots of items! Jeju oranges, tangerines from the previous day, bread, etc. The place reminded us of the st. Lawrence market place, full of fish, fresh vegetables, bread, eggs, ramen, and chocolate.

Alive Museum!

After the market we headed to the alive museum which turned out so much entertaining than we all had anticipated. We ended up spending nearly 4 hours there!

Instead of going to the “Carbon dioxide Spring” spa we had intended originally, we ended up just going home, but not before picking up mcdonald’s bulgogi burgers and also a fresh batch of fried chicken!

We ate the food and then prepared to head to bed; the next day was going to be a long day.

Day 4 on Jeju Island - The Hike is on!

Hallasan we go!

Hallasan mountain was a go! I wore my rain poncho, as did Susan and Madeline, just in case it started raining.

The hike up was pretty tough. At first when we first encountered the ice, we thought we could just bear through it, I mean we all live in Canada, and the bloody weather is terrible. 70% of the time we walk on ice/snow anyway. But of course, the ice/snow was on even ground, not a slope. Eventually we gave in and strapped on our Eisens, and wow, it made a huge difference! The grip was much better. We should have put them on earlier lol. While the grip was better, the climb itself was still very tiring. Already exhausted from our last hike (Bukansan mountain), this one was also a difficult one because of its slow incline. The gradual incline was exhausting. My ankle was also in a lot of pain, and I had to take a few advils throughout the hike. Madeline’s right knee was causing her a lot of pain as well. Susan’s whole body just hurt (in her words “broken”). At one point, I thought about just not proceeding ahead because there was also a cutoff point that we had to reach a checkpoint in order to get to the summit. We started the hike at 9:00am. We had to reach the checkpoint by 12:30pm. From the starting point to the shelter was 7.3 km uphill! With my ankle in pain, I didn’t know if I would be able to keep pace. I told the others to just go ahead, and if I bump into them great, but if not, then we would just meet at the parking lot (at the beginning of the trail). I took my time, watching my own pace, no rushing. I could turn back at any time since there was only one path up and one path down. This of course meant that there were a lot of hikers on the trail. Lol Lots of traffic.

I proceeded the best I could and somehow I ended up catching up with the others. My ankle still hurt, but I think after a while the ankle’s pain became a bit more manageable. As long as I kept a certain pace, it didn’t hurt as much.

We all made it to the shelter, ate some of the food that we had packaged (left over fried chicken, -- I know, so ghetto! Tangerines and oranges, water) with a few minutes to spare! It was 12:24pm when we crossed the shelter and proceeded to the summit. Phew. 6 minutes to spare. Wow. Cutting things close. As we crossed the checkpoint, we were told by the gate watcher that we needed to reach the summit by 2:00pm. We nodded and proceeded.

The rest of the hike was just exhausting.

We hiked and we all successfully reached the summit; at 1:56pm. Wow. 4 minutes to spare. Cutting things close again. We were told then that we needed to start making our way down by a service worker there. So we ate our bread that we had brought up and took some quick pictures and started to make our way down (the same path we came up from – what goes up, must come down!).

The trek down was both fun and painful. At somepoint of the hike down, we started sliding down the path using our ponchos as the sled. Hahaha. We really know how to entertain ourselves. We played some music on our ipods as well.

The hike down although it was a lot easier than the hike up, it was still very hard on the knees. There were many rocky areas that we didn’t even notice when we hiked up. But going down, every rocky area felt like an eternity of pain. Everyone was tired; surprisingly, I was faring a lot better going down than going up. The pain in my ankle was still there, but I found my footing so much better on the way down than up. I guess I don’t like ascending :D.

When we finally reached the checkpoint (shelter). Madeline had to go to the restroom, so Susan and I sat there to rest and eat some tangerines. As we were eating, a service person told us that we should start going down now, they were closing up the checkpoint. Ai! It was 4:00pm. We told them that we were waiting for our friend in the restroom and so he let us wait there. While waiting, I ate another tangerine. Ha.

When Madeline came out, we started to head down again. The walk felt like a continuous path of rocks. I was still doing quite well, throbbing ankle aside. Madeline and Susan were in a lot of pain. I felt for them, but unfortunately there was nothing I could really do. Except maybe offer words of encouragement of “we’re almost there!”.

Finally, we reached the bottom of the mountain!

It took us nearly 9.5 hours to hike a 19.2 km (to and back) trail up the mount Hallasan.

We ended the day with going to the carbon dioxide spring that we had wanted to visit yesterday but didn’t have time for.

On our way there, it was quite scary as we encountered a terrible fog. We barely could see the line that separated the two lanes from oncoming traffic! Thank god when we finally did a turn, the fog was gone.

The carbon dioxide spring was amazing. It relaxed our muscles a lot from the long hike and the fizziness of it was a new experience.

The drive home thank goodness wasn’t so bad, no terrifying fog encounter. We got back to our place and then had to pack. Susan by this point was feeling a bit unwell. The cough that she had at the beginning of the trip took a turn for the worse. She kept coughing and she had started to run a fever. We told her to rest and she did; though she would sporadically wake up to talk to us in the middle of our conversations (between Madeline and I). It was weird.

Descending Hallasan mountain... Are we there yet? (Madeline and Susan in the pic)

Anyway, Mad and I packed our bags, and folded most of Susan’s cloths for her (except for the ones that were damp still). We were all so exhausted. So much that we didn’t even eat dinner.

I was suppose to help mad put the dirty clothes from the days hike to dry but I too fell asleep. Good old mad, ended up hanging them to dry while we slept.

Overall, our Hallasan mountain hike was amazing. The view when were near the top, was breathtaking. It was like we were on top of clouds. Such a beautiful sight. All the hardwork to reach the top, again, was worth every sweat and pain. lol.

50K Becel Ride for Heart 2016

2016-06-07T21:07:00.001-04:00

On Sunday June 5th, I joined 20,000 people who participated in the Becel Ride for Heart 2016 :)

It had been nearly 4 years since I did the last Ride, and 2 years since I last rode a bike, so to do the Ride again, I was a bit nervous. It didn't help that forecast said rain either. But rain or shine, the ride would go on - though my preference would be no rain obviously. Though I didn't train for it, I knew it to be a more leisure sort of event vs competitive. Basically stay to your right if you're a slow bike rider; the faster riders would be on the left.

Since my bike had been in storage for so long, I had to make sure it was still in good riding condition. I pumped up the tires and oiled the gears and took it out for a short ride on the Friday along the Martin Goodman trail. Everything went well, I was relieved. My bike good to go; lol as was I. Muscle memory did not fail me.

The Saturday night, I was out late with friends, having gone to the Stratford festival to watch Chorus Line. Following a little pitstop at the Halton Hills Outlet mall, and then we had birthday celebration (my friend Susans' birthday) at a

Chorus Line Musical @ Stratford Festival

korean restaurant which ended late. Lots of fun, but by the time I returned home, it was nearly 1am. Not good at all since I had to get up in... 4 hours? haha After freshening up, it was 1:30am. Now it was 3.5 hours. Sleep did not come easily as I was worried I'd oversleep and miss the checkin time - latest was 8:30am for the 50K riders. I wanted to get there for the earliest possible one, 6:30am since I knew I wasn't a strong rider, I would need all the time I could get. So I was up by 5am (though I had woken up at least a dozen times, 3am, 4am, 4:50am, lol. I'm not even sure if I slept at all!). At any rate, adrenaline helped me a lot, along with a blend of both excitement and anxiety.

I geared up with my new adventure hydration pack (one that I had purchased for my Northface Race), packing extra clothes and socks in case they got wet in the rain. For the past few nights I had been checking with the weather network on the weather, just to see if there were any changes. However, it kept saying it was going to rain AND thunderstorm eventually. I checked hourly time as well - it wasn't looking good. Either way, to be safe, I had worn a long sleeve technical shirt, along with a light sweater and a raincoat. I really didn't want to catch a cold.

I ate quickly, making a open-faced peanut butter sandwich and made another non-open faced one to go; just in case I got hungry and needed energy. I put that in the pocket of my rain jacket for easy access. LOL literally, food in my pocket. Packed away in my pack I also had cliff block gummies for electrolytes, and extra water (and a Chinese rice crispy, for that sugar rush if needed).

Flat tire on my hybrid bike!

I was out the door and I rode to the Martin Goodman trail. Just as I arrived there, I heard this strange screeching sound. I dismounted from my bike and then inspected my bike. Oh my. The back tire, it was completely deflated! I was sure that I had pumped it up on the Friday. I checked if it was because the cap was loose, maybe I could just return home and re-pump the tires. But it was tightly capped on the tire. This meant that my tire must have had a flat somewhere. Nooooo. I was no expert with fixing flats, so I pulled the bike along and walked back to my house.

I didn't want to give up though. After dropping off my bike at my house, I took transit to reach my workplace which had some spare bikes available. I had asked previously if I could borrow one for the ride (as my bike at the time hadn't been tuned up yet), so it was really a backup. Who would have known that the backup would be my main option. I was thankful for the mountain bike though.

I picked up the bike and then rode it to the Martin Goodman trail and then to the Exhibition place. I had never rode there on my own before so I was little worried I'd get lost. But with the ever so helpful google maps and also seeing a lot of people with the heart and stroke helmet cap, I was able to follow and get to the startline without incident.

After riding there, I had already done 10km. I was tired. LOL. And the race hadn't started yet. It was 8am. I checked my phone to see if my friend (Susan) had arrived. There was nothing, but I assumed she must have started already and had no time to message since she was doing it with family.

I texted her anyway, telling her that I had arrived and wished her luck with the ride. Just as I was about to get on my bike to start the ride, I looked over and saw Howard adjusting his bike. I kinda did a double take of course, what were really the chances of that? We greeted each other, laughing at the oddity of it all and I asked where Susan was and she literally just walked up to me, not too far behind the rest of her family members doing the ride. Talk about a morning of coincidences though!

Anthony, Me, Howard (behind me), Susan @ the Ride for heart start line

We took a quick picture together and we set off. While I only had to ride on my own bike and carry my own weight, she took on the task of alternating with her cousin in pulling her nephew along for the ride. I could imagine it was no easy task. We rode at first together, and then I rode ahead for a little bit, stopping occassionally to wait for them to catch up.

There was a yellow school bus, however, that followed close behind us, like a constant reminder that we had to keep pedalling lol. There was one point where I waited a while and found that I couldn't see them. I rode on ahead, thinking I would eventually see them down the line, not that I was biking all that fast, lol I was starting to feel some discomfort on my saddle.

Finally, I reached the 25km - 50km split mark. I had a choice then... I hadn't seen Susan for a while, so I wasn't sure if she opted to do the 25km (with the family) or continued the 50K. Aside from that, everyone biked at their own pace, just like in running.
In terms of my weariness, I was pretty tired at this point, the 25K seemed like the easier way out. But then... when did I ever choose that ;) I had no reason to quit. I signed up for the 50K. It wasn't raining. My legs were doing fine (just the soreness from the saddle bothered me. I could do this. I should do it). And so I rode on.

I rode on my own for a bit and then I bumped into Howard. He updated me on what happened to Susan, flat tire on the bikes. Oh boy, I've had my share of it, so I understood.

Howard and I continued to ride on for a bit, I struggled quite a bit with the uphills. Like struggled struggled. lol the 'walk of shame' (walking up the hills!) even happened, though I tried my best to avoid it. At one point though, I told him to go on, since he was on a road bike and technically speaking, I was totally slowing him down. Besides, they had plans afterwards, not like my plan: to bike home straight afterwards. You see, I didn't have a bike lock lol.

After he rode off, I took my time on the hills, some walking, others I pedalled to the metal allowing the momentum of a down hill help me go up. All the while, I kept noticing the dark storm clouds looming above me. I would glance every so often at my watch, remembering that the forecast said it was going to storm in the afternoon. Hurry. Hurry! Must stay ahead of the storm clouds! lol.

Toronto - Cityscape

I finally saw the Toronto cityscape. Very nice, I had thought at that moment, at the same time, it also indicated that it was almost done. lol.

Keep pedalling.. just a little while longer. But I made sure not to over do it, I still had to reserve energy to bike home. From that stretch until the Exhibition place, it seemed like forever. I kept reading the signs on the highway, when I finally saw, "Next Exit: Exhibition Place", I had expected to see the Exhibition place... but it was no where in sight. Where was it? Why was it so far? lol. At this point, my discomfort on my saddle had intensified, I could feel every little bump. I took a little more rest (dismount walk 2 minute, back on bike). I didn't want to spend too much time out here, as I still feared for the storm to break out at any moment. I was so close also.

Finally, I saw it. The Exhibition place. I was so happy. So so happy. I was even happier when I passed another finish checkpoint where it indicated that we all had to dismount our bikes and walk from that point on. Yes. Gladly.

I dismounted and walked a few meters and then saw lots of food being housed in front of me. Bagels (three choices! plain, blueberry, and raisin!), with becel butter. They had apples, bananas, and oranges I think. And Eskin water. I was just happy to see a bagel. The bagel came with a fork. Awesome. I picked the raisin one and started eating it ferociously. lol! You'd think I never had a bagel in my life! But after 60K (including my morning biking), that bagel was delicious.

I ate my bagel, chewing it with such relief as well, I walked passed where they were giving out the medals. One of the attendants was going to give it to me, but my hands were full (water, bagel and bike lol), and he had to put it around my neck. It was quite the feat since I hadn't taken off my helmet yet. We had a good laugh at that. After that I made my way to an empty picnic bench and plopped down happily. Ouch. It hurt, but it felt so much better than being on a bike.

I kept chewing on my bagel. Mmm... so good. I checked my phone then and saw I had messages. Susan apparently had finished a 15 minutes ago. She had done the 25K with her cousin and filled in the gap of what had happened after the flat had happened. Volunteers had aided them in fixing their tires so they were able to continue their ride, though the bike Susan had to ride on couldn't completely be fixed. Her bike no longer had the gliding capability, so in order to keep moving, she had to keep pedalling. Wow, that must have been tough I thought. But silver lining, great exercise? haha.

She said she and Howard were in the parking lot putting away the bikes, and asked if I wanted to get a ride back home. I was actually okay riding home (reserved energy for it already), but the offer... the temptation of just sitting in a soft cushiony car instead of on the bike again... lol I couldn't reject it. I was game for the ride, though it was a matter of whether my bike would fit on the bike rack.

Sushi Burrito

They tried several times, but nearly gave up on putting my bike on there. However, luckily on the last try, it clipped properly on the bike rack. Yay! Now it was a matter of fitting me in the backseat. There was another bike on the other side of the backseat so I had to squish into the back. But all was good. I wasn't complaining. lol.

Susan and Howard went to wash their hands and then I got a call from Susan saying they saw a Sushi Burrito truck; did I want something?

Given how much I loved that bagel, and sushi = more carbs in my system, I was happy to jump at the proposition. We got the softshell crab burrito and the spicy salmon one. They were delicious!

Mac and Cheese Festival 2016

After engulfing the sushi within probably 5 minutes? we ended up deciding to go to the Mac and Cheese festival which was just at Ontario place.

We walked over, purchased 15 food tickets and wandered around. We tried samples, got free coconut water, and also purchased on mac and cheese to share (it was a mac and cheese ball). After we ate it we all realized that we were too full to really enjoy the food, so we used up the rest of the tickets to get takeout instead.

Mac and Cheese (deepfried)

It was just as well because as we just as we bought our last takeout item, the skies had suddenly gotten really dark. Yep. The storm was coming, and it was coming very quickly. We swiftly made our way back to Susan's car and just as we neared the BMO field building, it started to rain. We made a mad dash and got into the car before it really started to pour. The rain was like an accumulation of weeks with no rain, it crashed down like a waterfall. Driving in it was no walk in the park either.

Rain rain rain...

Thankfully by the time we reached my place, it had stopped - perhaps the clouds didn't extend all the way to my area ;) who knows... I wasn't complaining and so weren't my friends who still had to help me get the bike off the rack in the back. Once I got home, I thanked my friends, and rolled both the mountain bike and hybrid bike to storage. I freshened up and then just relaxed by watching some television. It was nice just to sit. haha.

All in all, I made it. The Ride was a lot of fun, and it could be an annual thing now :) Once I fix that flat in my hybrid bike, I'll try to do more bike trails so that next year it would be easier. Many thanks to the wonderful supporters who sponsored me for the ride: Lynette, Madeline, Cecilia, and Kai! For those that are still interested in making a contribution, I believe they are still accepting donations: Heart & Stroke Ride for Heart Donation webpage

Unionville and Sporting Life 10K - First Races of the year

2016-06-06T12:31:00.002-04:00

The two races that I opted in doing this year were the Unionville race, one in which my friend Susan and I participated in last year, and the Sporting Life 10K (one that we had missed the previous year since we were away for our friend's cruise wedding). Both were usually a week apart from each other, but for some reason this year, they were back to back, one on the Saturday and the other on the Sunday.

Yikes indeed. 10k's back to back as the first run of the season? It sounded pretty tough. In reality, it was seriously tough - especially combined with something women experience on a monthly basis (the infamous period). Sigh. Timing! It's all about timing. Initially I was quite mortified that of all the weekends, it had to be this one? Couldn't it have waited 2 more days? But as with it is in life, you can't will things to go your way, but you can adjust and deal with it :P

Unionville Race - 10K

Woofles and Cream

I stayed over at my friend Susan's parents' place that night since the race was close to their home - one of the main reasons why we chose to do this particular race (and the swag bag + food!). Our friend Madeline came to join us for dinner, and we had pasta and lobster lol. What a combination, but it worked. You really couldn't say no to lobster. At least not for me. Later we grabbed dessert at "Woofles and Cream", which was quite the delight. We got savoury Hong Kong style egg waffles with soft serve icecream. The selections were all appetizing, but in the end we went with Susan's recommendation: "Lap Cheung" waffle with greentea icecream. So good. MMmmmmm.

But of course it took time to prepare it (15 minutes), so we walked around the small plaza and ended up getting a second dessert. Yes, how wisely we use our time haha.

After the double dessert, we headed back to Susan's parents' place and Madeline headed home. We freshened up and spent the rest of the time prepping for the race (pinning bibs, clothing, etc).

Pasta dinner - night before race #1

Morning came about, 6:00am my alarm rang. I was up before it, having not slept too well. My back felt kinda tense, like I pulled a muscle. I did a bit of stretching, but it still ached. Oh well. Nothing I could do about it at this point. I showered and dressed, and once Susan was freshened up as well, we ate a peanut butter sandwich and a banana before heading out.

Parking wasn't too difficult to find despite our worries that we were running late. Yes, despite having gotten up at 6:00am, somehow we had lingered too long and were in a rush. But it was okay, it seemed that there were a lot of street parking available.

The morning weather wasn't too cold which was good for us. We walked around and took some pictures, put some stamps on our hands (lol, mine was an epic fail), and drank sample coconut water. The swag bags we could see were there, but they were to be given at the end of the race.

There was an announcement that since there were so many 5ks, they would have another wave for them, so that meant our race was pushed later. Which was alright, gave us more time to just chill and rest.

I had to admit, I was sort of out of it in the morning. My insides were cramping and uncomfortable and despite having done training (lol yes, I have been training properly! In fact, I went up to 20km a few weekends ago). I was also really low on energy. Usually the first two days for ladies time are the absolute worst for me, and this was day 1 and I was going to attempt to do a 10k. I was dreading it. Though I told myself if it does get too tiring or bad, I would just stop and take things easy. Afterall, lol I wasn't planning to win a race or anything - this was something that should be enjoyable. I was functional, and as long as I remained so, I'd try to finish the race; walking it was always an option.

And that was what I did - powerwalk. There was no way to run I decided after trying a few times. I had told Susan that we'd just meet at the end (we always run at our own pace anyway), but this time, it was going to be at a much slower pace.

Surprisingly, however, there were in fact quite a few walkers! I didn't feel so alone. I was worried that I'd be the only one - after all, it had been listed as a 10k run.

I walked for about 4K on my own and then it was during this one section where I lost sight of the person in front of me and thought I had taken a wrong turn that I met Lilitha. She turned out to be an avid walker that powerwalked a lot of races.

We chatted from that point on until the finish line on a variety of somewhat random but intriguing topics - societal issues, races, environment, running gear, etc. It was very enjoyable and made the time pass by very quickly.

Finally when we reached the finish line, we got a picture taken together before I met up with Susan. As I walked around with her, I couldn't help but ask: where was the food? Maybe I had taken too long walking..., but Susan told me that in fact when she finished, there wasn't any of the fancy bagels and such either (the ones we really liked last year). The 5k'rs... they must eaten it all!! hahaha.

Look how full of energy I am? haha (Post race)

Aw boo. Oh well. I was ok. We decided we would just grab some kind of breakfast then.

But the fancy bagels! I had been looking forward to them. Sigh. I went to pick up my swag bag and life bag as well. So many goodies in it!!

We walked around the area a little bit still trying to decide what to eat, dim sum? dumplings? korean? Finally though we settled on having western breakfast in the area. I ordered Nachos and Susan ordered a breakfast meal; both of which we split half and half.

When we finished eating, we were off to wholefoods to buy ingredients for a meal she wanted to prepare for the evening. She had some of the groceries already, but not all of it. We got steak, lemon, and fresh scallops and headed to her place - it would be my first time seeing it since she bought it over a year ago! It was really quite nice, cozy and a good size for easy maintenance -- though I can't say much for the many bathrooms ;) that would be tough to clean. But I guess just don't use all the bathrooms, it should be fine.

First on the agenda was tackling the fruitcake she wanted to make for Howard. While Susan worked on the fruit cake, I began preparing the pasta and also slicing beets and sweet potato.

The hours passed by quickly, but I had to admit I was really tired. While 10ks didn't usually drain me, the cramping and twisting my body was pretty much screaming for me to stop moving. lol, what a delicate body indeed. Also at this point, that pulled muscle pain that I had felt in the morning when I woke up pre-race, had escalated to actual pain pain. Sigh. Not my day at all.

The fruit cake was completed, and it looked wonderful - we even had chocolate dipped strawberries! We put it in the fridge as a surprise...

Howard arrived shortly after the steaks were ready. He got to watch as Susan finished frying the scallops. And then we started to put things away, and Susan told Howard to put the cheese in the fridge -- at this point I was on the otherside of the room, tired and ready to just vegg...but the alarm bells went off when he moved to open the fridge. I didn't think I had it in me to move so fast, but I managed to get there before he could turn his head to look into the fridge.

"no no, let me do it." He had a preplexed look on his face, but he went with it. phew. 'surprise' saved... I couldn't help but give susan a look, haha, she had that shocked look on her face as well - she had simply forgotten about it for that moment. LOL. Let's say, it wasn't really just that one moment. It was many many many times. Poor chocolate covered strawberries... its all I can say...

The table was finally set as the scallops were plated with the steaks.

Mmmm yummy!

The meal was delicious and healthy. And then it came to the final surprise, calling over Susan's cousin, husband and kids.

A birthday was celebrated, everyone was happy lol. Good food never fails!

Now to tackle the next race...

Sporting Life 10K

This year the Sporting Life 10K race had an additional 2 waves. This meant that people were slated to start with earlier start times compared to previous years. Wehad to yet again, be up by 6am, but this time we really couldn't linger too long since were were up in Stouffville.

We got up for 6:30am and things ran late again, though this time it was worrisome because Sporting Life 10K had one of the most race participants in Toronto. Parking was going to be a pain.

It was a race for time as we still needed time to pickup Howard from his house and we were already late. Luckily, we managed to secure some parking by a school. Ironically Gordon, who was also doing the race, had finished running before we had even arrived - he was in the earlier wave.

When we got there to the race start line, the end of the blue wave had been called. I had just picked a modest wave to start, and so I had no idea what my friends had picked. As I tried to get started in the same wave as them, there was a race volunteer that literally held out her hand to disallow me to join the race. "Not you," were her words to me. I was surprised since really, my wave was next anyway... and we were at the tail end of the the blue... what the heck?

But whatever. It wasn't like I was going to be running with my friends in my state anyway. So I stayed back as Susan and Howard started their run.

About 15 minutes later, I started with my wave. I started with a little trot, just to test the waters. Then stopped. Hmm.. maybe not a good idea. I tried a few times but at one point I realized the longer I stayed on the course, the worse I was feeling. Fine, I decided then: Get it over with, and just take as many pitstops as needed. By this time, a lot of coffeeshops had opened along yonge street, so I had safety nets. This had not been the case in the race the day before, where we were running through trails.

I finished it running vs powerwalking, which I was really glad. It wasn't fast, but it was definitely faster than walking it. I met with my friends and took some pics before heading down to Spadina to our usual food place after the Sporting Life 10K, "Asian Legend"!

We ordered a lot of food, but it was so delicious, so no complaints!

Spring Onion Pancakes

Dumplings

Peking Duck

Deep fried tofu

After all the food, we headed back to our respective homes. Though I had wanted to do more activities since the weather was so nice, my body had other plans - just sitting down was good haha.

Now for the next race... Blue Mountain here I come! Crossing my fingers I make it through that one :D

Niagara Falls Half Marathon 2015

2016-03-30T14:27:00.002-04:00

Wow, how fast a year just flies by! Recapping the Niagara Falls 2015 race brings back some nice memories - mostly of my friends and I eating huge feasts, both before and after the half-marathon. Note that before part probably was definitely something that I regretted on race day lol. Hard lessons tend to need repeat exposure it seems (recalling my Midsummer Nights' Race a few years back).

Last year I did the Niagara Falls Marathon, and boy did it hurt. Zero training = lots and lots of pain afterwards (plus loss of two toenails.. but we'll not get into that). This year, although I didn't train extensively for the half, I did do several shorter races throughout the year; Unionville, Sunset, Longboat, and Island Girl. So prep wise, I was in a good place, not great, but good. Expectations for the race was just to enjoy the scenery and to hangout with my friends afterwards :) Oh and of course, EAT! lol.

Pre-race Day - The Saturday
We arrived at Niagara and went to the Expo to pickup our race package. This year, thankfully, they had improved the racekit pickup process. Instead of having it hosted at a mall with ambiguous directions as to where to assemble our racekits, everything was in one big convention hall (the Scotiabank Convention Center) with the standard pickup process in place. The usual: get our bib numbers, activate our tracking chip, and then line up to add on goodies to racekit bag. Phew, much much better than last year!

After we picked up our racekit, we headed to our hotel and checked in. We rested for a bit and then we headed to have dinner a bit earlier so we would have time to digest (which was probably a very good idea). We went to East Side Marios and we ordered enough to feed 10 people. Mind you, there was only 5 people. And only 4 of us were running. LOL.

Look at that food (see above picture). We ordered about 4 pastas, a pizza, 2 soups, and 2 salads. Oh, and before our orders even came, we each ate a stick of bread on our own. Craziness. The one person that wasn't running was looking at us like we were kinda overdoing it, and tried to talk some sense into us. Sorry Mad we didn't listen to you! But of course, noone was more sorry than our poor stomachs the next day. Well, at least for mine :P

After dinner we didn't do too much, just walked around the Falls area and headed back a bit earlier to rest up for race day.

Day of the Race

There were different start times for 10k and halfs, so the three of us, Susan J, Susan C. and I had to get up a bit earlier to head out. Gordon, lucky guy, got to sleep in a bit more. Just a tad. The bonus to getting out early, though meant we would catch our hotel's continental breakfast too.

Too bad I was still so full from the night before. I still ate something, just to keep my energy up. I got myself a slice of bread and peanut butter and jam.

Once we finished breakfast, my friends and I made our way to the Crown Plaza Hotel to catch the school buses that would take us to the start line. Along the way to the Crown Plaza, I couldn't help but admire the beauty of the Fall leaves. Quite breathtaking.

The early sun, catching on the tree leaves.

The sun peaking out just behind the Falls.

We didn't have to wait too long to get on a bus to the startline. There we huddled together in a Warming tent until the race started.

The Race

The race itself was quite enjoyable -- though this is of course talking about it almost 6 months afterwards. This is why recaps should be closer to the date it was done. One thing I can say, though, is that the Niagara race is very scenic and is easily one of my favorites. It is also a race that you don't really get hot in; I had to wear my jacket the whole time. To be honest, I'd rather it be cool vs being hot.

After the Race

Lots and lots of food hahaha. We went to Shoeless Joes (I think) for lunch. We again ate enough to feed 8-10 people. LOL. But I'd say we kinda deserved it? ;)

Post race shot of the runners and our support!

Our delicious post race meal:

After feasting, we decided to go Niagara on the Lake winery hopping :) Bought a few ice wines and late harvest wines!

Overall, it was a good way to end the last race for the year. Until next year!

Island Girl Relay Race 2015

2015-09-25T12:19:00.001-04:00

After a week of rest since my last run, the island girl relay race had finally come up. My friend Susan and I had signed up earlier in the year for this. Like the previous year, the run would start with Susan running the first leg, and me running the second.

Unfortunately, as they say, the best laid plans, oft goes awry!

The night before the race, susan called and told me she wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be able to do the race. lol but she said I could totally do her leg too if I wanted to, and I completely balked at the idea. The year before I had "winged" a full marathon, and it was one of the toughest things to go through. lol I wasn't planning on just waking up and doing a half marathon.

I told her to rest up, and that I too was considering of not going too. Ironically about 5 minutes before she had called, I had just fallen while going up on an escalator. The result was bruising on my shins, and some scraping of the skin too. Eck. Not a good way to prepare for a race the next day.

At any rate, I did still want to see if I could do it, since there was no pain (at least noticeable), when I put weight on my right leg. I figured that if anything, I would just go to the island and if my leg did hurt, I would just walk around and skip the race.

I set my alarm, one for 6am and one for 6:30am as backup. If anything, one of them should wake me up since I had planned to catch either the 6:00am or the 7:30am ferry.

Race Day

I missed my 6am alarm. And my 6:30am alarm. It was 6:50am when I got up, and so like a mad woman, I raced to put on my gear and thankfully the night before I had set that all up.

Freshening up and all geared up (plus a jacket!), I was out the door and waiting for the street car by 7:05am. This was really cutting things close. The ferry would definitely leave promptly at 7:30am.. would I even make it?

I got to the ferry docks at 7:34am. Lol totally missed the boat.

Fortunately, it seemed I wasn't the only there for the race. There were in fact race crew people there, with their wagon of stuff as well. There was an 8:00am ferry to Centre Island. Phew.

While waiting, I laced up my timing chip and also discovered that there were no safety pins in my race kit envelop. No worries, I knew that the baggage check-in area always had safety pins available.

The ferry ride was quite uneventful, though I saw a super cut dog on it with his owner. I so wanted to pet him (or her).

Arriving on the island I had about 20 minutes to spare since my race didn't start till 8:40am. I checked in my baggage and got my safety pins to attach my bib to my running shirt. Sadly this year, Island girl package didn't include a free tshirt, but instead sandals. Liked the sandals, super cute, but the shirt would have been more of a practical use for me in the long run.

Once I had checked in the bag I realized then that I hadn't eaten for the morning. Sigh. How could I have forgotten such an obvious thing? Worse was also I had forgotten to bring my bottle of water!

Great.

lol. I would just have to make do, I knew there were a few water stations along the way. Just had to last until I got to them. Hunger.. well, I would deal with that later. It was too late to eat, the race was starting in a few minutes!

I took this time to speak with the race crew on what I should do since I was doing the relay solo. I was told by them that I would just do the first leg and then just head to finish line afterwards.

That sounded just fine by me lol as long as there was no expectation of me running both legs haha. Though honestly the chance of that happening was quite impossible.

Race Start

8:40am finally came and off I went. I seemed to enjoy the morning run a bit more, something about the time of doing the runs make quite the difference. The race route interestingly also went through the boardwalk section, just like the previous week, except I was going the opposite way.

As I was running along the route, I saw the km signs for the half marathoners and I couldn't help but think about what I was up for in October. The 10.5 k was already quite a feat for me, lol I had dropped in cardio after not consistantly running.

Once my allergies subsides more, I would start more outside training. It would be good to get some fresh air as well.

I crossed the relay transfer point, did a virtual tag to my missing partner and then made my way to the finish line.

I left the island not too long after that, got a hair cut :P and then went boating - ironically, right back on the harbourfront again!

Island girl relay, until next year as well!

Longboat Run 2015

2015-09-24T12:45:00.002-04:00

The Longboat Run was a race that I decidedly joined because there was a discount for it after doing a run earlier in August. It was also probably not my wisest choice either, lol considering that I had a wedding to attend the night before - that lasted till 2am in the morning! Thankfully the wedding took place at a boutique hotel and a room was booked for our stay. I recall asking my friend susan if she wanted to do the run with me, and she had skyped me "LOL", and declined saying that we would be up too late into the night before.

At any rate, she was right.

I didn't get to bed till 4:15am in the morning, and was up by 8:30am. The race thankfully was later in the afternoon at 11am, so I had some time to relax when I got there.

I was out the door of the hotel room by 9:15am and managed to grab some breakfast at... McDonalds. lol Oh the choices we make. The night before I didn't have my pasta (delicious steak instead!), so I thought to substitute it with eating bread and .. potatoes. lol At any rate, I thought eating hashbrowns would be helpful... I have to admit, it was a pretty bad idea. Although normally I love McDonald's hashbrowns, it felt more heavy and greasy then I expected. No time to regret though, once I ate it, I just had to live with it lol - flash back to french fries eaten hours before a race a few years ago.

I got to the island with probably about 40 minutes to spare, so I put on my Bib and checked in my heavy luggage (overnight clothes and dresses for the reception). In some ways, I had hoped to get there pretty much with less time to spare since it was so chilly.

Race Start

The 5ks were the first to run at 11:00am sharp. 10 minute later, we finally started the run. In one hand I held a bottled water and in the other I held on to my phone. I know, really not the most stylish, I should get some sort of armband for the phone, but I hadn't had time to go shopping for one that would fit my new android phone. I had one previously for my iPhone, though even for that one, I rarely used it. I would just tuck into my running water belt since it was small enough to fit it. I wouldn't dream of trying that my android phone lol, likely burst the seams of my water belt.

The run started off well, I kept up with a good group of people, but I was really tired. I guess sleeping for 4 hours doesn't really make good for race day. The cool air, which I had complained much about earlier, though actually aided me. It was really refreshing. It reminded me of my training in the winter time (when I had a goofy race to do in January). Although those training days made my face freeze up ("I can't feel my face when I'm with you"...), this was more of a consistent cool breeze.

The course for the race was rather nice. I didn't have a chance to look at it, so I didn't expect a section to be grassy nor a section where we would run on the boardwalk. It was really pleasant. Well, the grass part anyway. The boardwalk was not quite as fun as I imagined it since it had rained the day before, making the wood a little slippery. There were two runners in front of me, one had slipped twice. Ouch. I felt very bad for her, but good on her she kept on going.

Near the end of the boardwalk, there were a few walkers, including myself, since it was pretty slippery. I had nearly slipped, and started walk-jog, slowing down the pace.

It was kind of funny; near the end of the boardwalk path, there was an Asian volunteer standing who saw us, and he started to mock run to encourage us. LMAO. Sort of a "You can do it!! Your almost there!" with no words required. It was quite funny actually, totally put a smile on my face.

I jogged just a little faster, and then once I hit the drier pavement, I kicked it up a notch. And then I got distracted by a cat. I think I got a strange look from one or two volunteers. lol. Oh well. It was a really cute cat. Worth the stop.

Back to running, I kept my pace on and off for the duration to the finish line. I had a twinge of regret that I should have done more training (like any at all), but my allergies had been bothering me so much lately, I felt completely drained by the end of the day at work.

Finally, the finish line came to view and with a final sprint, I crossed it. Yay, another race completed. lol Until the next one... next weekend.

The best part to the Longboat run, was that there was food involved at the end of the race. lol There was a BBQ involved, and you had a choice of hamburger or hotdog, with also a small bag of chips and a drink (apple juice or peach).

I will be back again, longboat run, next year :D

Run for Women: Unionville 10k

2015-05-01T00:24:00.004-04:00

This weekend past, I did a 10k run for the "Run for Women: Unionville" with my friend Susan. The charity that the race was supporting was the Women’s Mental Health programs. With the small band of runners, they raised approximately $30,000. Considering that they have this race in multiple cities, the accumulation of the funds would make for a good fundraising grand total.

7:00PM Night before the Race

After work, I headed to my friend's house to do some wedding favour assembly line work :D While we were doing that, two of my other friends made spaghetti - it was time to carb up! All the while, we snacked on some samosas that Cecilia brought over.

I had two huge plates of spaghetti - and normally I eat only one big plate of it before a marathon! So we definitely overate :D Oh well, haha, it tasted good never the less.

6:30AM Morning of Race

The morning of the race, I had intended to just layer my t-shirt with another long sleeved one and a raincoat just to keep myself warm. At least that was what I thought I would only need. It turned out it was -3 degrees! So, I ended up having to borrow my friend's U of T sweatshirt. And still even with it on, with my two layers AND a raincoat, it was still cold. Yikes. I checked my iphone and it said by the time we started the race it should be around -1 degrees (around 9am). Yes. 2 degrees warmer, yet still in the negatives! haha.

We freshened up, ate breakfast (her parents were awesome to make bacon and eggs for us!), and got there by 7:30am. Parking took a bit of time since the public parking that was right by the race was full, but looked like the lot could handle one more car (namely ours!), but wasn't meant to be and we had to find parking elsewhere.

Once we parked, we walked to the where the race startline was; Unionville Curling Club, it was right by a museum! Too bad it wasn't open, I would have loved to just wander in there instead of outside in the cold.

We looked around to get some freebies - and we did! shopper's drug mart 20x points option as well as some travel sized Listerine.

We wandered around and then wanted to head back to the car so that we could put away our goodies bag. We returned again and walked around... we had a lot of time to kill.

Susan in the meantime debated maybe 4 to 5 times whether she wanted to lose the vest she was wearing on top of the three layers she was already wearing; however upon walking towards the car, it became cold and then warm, then cold again. In the ended, the vest stayed on haha, we had about a week before our trip, so it was better to be too hot while running than too cold.

Race Time!

The first runners that started were actually the little kids; they ran with their parents for 1km; it was very cute.

Following them, were the rest of us, 5ks and 10ks mixed together.

The route that we ran along was nice, not many uphills, some nice scenery and well marked path along with helpful officers diverting traffic and cheering volunteers.

You really couldn't ask for more from a race :)

Since I was running based off a 1k, I broke it down in my head that it was really just 10 1ks, perfectly doable. With new running tunes on my iphone, I picked some really nice upbeat ones to keep my running at a rhythm. I was really worried in the back of my mind that my left thigh would "spaz" out as it did during my niagara marathon. It had hurt a lot, so I took it very slow and steady on my first 1k. Not that I could really run that fast since my muscles felt so cold that it needed time to warm up.

When I reached the 5k mark, as I usually do, I felt a twinge of regret: "I should have signed up for the 5km!", haha. But I moved on, since I felt alright after 5k, the last 5k shouldn't be so bad.

It wasn't until I nearly reached my 9th kilometer that disaster struck - my earphones went partially out of commission. It wasn't entirely unusable, but it wasn't working a 100% either; more like 50% since only the left earphone worked...

I decided to go the last km without music, and also decided that the raincoat at this point needed to come off. The weather had improved dramatically in the course of the hour... either that or I was warmed up by the race - likely both.

Finally I reached the finish line, the timing just right as I had also just finished the last drop of my water.

As I crossed the finish line I was very pleased to have been given another water and also a surprise bracelet for running the race.

The best and biggest surprise was how good the post-race food was. lol. Usually the food isn't too much to talk about; plain bagels, muffins and banana, etc.

But at this race, I was impressed to get fancy bagels! There were onion, cheese, sesame, even a cinnamon crunch like bagel. Butter and plastic knives were also available along with protein shakes and other granola bars. One could get used to this type of post-race food!

Yummy. Suffice to say, we enjoyed our food there. And we also decided we would definitely comeback to this race next year!

We left the curling club and headed back to my friend's house where we freshened up and then met up with another one of friends for dim sum. Like all our post race routines, we pigged out there :P You would have thought we had run a marathon or something, but we told ourselves still, regardless, we deserved it :D

Niagara Falls International Marathon 2014

2015-02-02T13:07:00.002-05:00

Ha. Almost 3 months later I'm putting up this post. But I guess better late than never.

The Niagara Falls International Marathon (Niagara Falls, ON. Sunday, October 26, 2014), one of the races that I really wanted to do, was determined to do, was stubborn enough to try to do it without proper training, turned out thankfully to be an injure-free race. In retrospect, it could easily have turned out otherwise.

Picture the chance moment you wake up and decide one day, I wonder how it would feel like to do a marathon without training at all? Well, I did and suffice to say, it was not wise. While most races my PB may never have been great, the recovery from the race was always much faster. After the marathon, lol, my legs felt like logs for a few days. They were sore to the point of touch. My toes even hurt! ~~Thankfully, no loss toenails this time around : )~~ [I was wrong about this, my big toe was injured, going to lose the nail!]

I was very thankful this time also for a wonderful support team that came up to Niagara with me. Made the journey much less lonely and fun! Thanks Madeline, Gordon, Mildred and Isaac for coming out.

Pre-race day - The Saturday

Saturday morning I was up early and I met up with my friend Gordon at the Coach Terminal to catch the mega bus up to Niagara Falls. The trip took about 2.5 hours, which was alright since time passed quickly with just chatting. When we arrived at Niagara, we tried to checkin to our hotel, but found it was still too early - it was only 1pm. I was told we could check in at 3pm. So we decided to eat something since all we both had in the morning was a Starbucks drink.

We ended up going to Shoeless Joes, which was practically down the street from the hotel. We ordered quite a bit of a feast, but I was hungry enough to eat it all haha. Nachos, Wings and Lobster sandwich. After we ate the food the food, timing was good that it was almost 3pm. We returned to the hotel and checked in finally.

Now it was time to pick up my race kit. Leaving Gordon to his own devices - there were some amenities at the hotel, I grabbed a cab to go to the Niagara Square to pick up my racekit. The cab ride was expensive! Bah, $20 (with tip in). At any rate, I was happy to just arrive at the location. The cabbie was interesting - we chatted about Ebola and how women should cook for their husbands... Funny topics eh?

Once I entered the Niagara Square, I was at a loss of where I should go. It looked like an expo, but it was a mall. So... I kept on walking. And walking. And still was unsure of where I was suppose to go. Finally I just asked someone and she looked pretty frustrated. She explained that it was a series of steps, go straight down until you see a glassed area, and go inside there to pick up your bib number. After that you need to go back out and get a map, go left again to pick up your race shirt. And the last stop was here at the front where you pick up your goodies (free sample) bags.

I thanked her and followed her direction and found for the most part of what she described to be the process of assembling your own racekit. Although I could understand what they were trying to do, 'disperse' the racekit so there wouldn't be such a flood of people, still, it would have been much more helpful to perhaps even merge some pickup pieces together, i.e. tshirt, goodie bag.

At any rate, I was just happy to have made it in time to pickup my racekit. On my way out, I wanted to find a bus route haha. I was not going to pay another $20 to get back to my hotel. I asked a coordinator who described me how to drive back... which of course wasn't what I was looking for.. but she was kind enough to direct me to the information booth to where I found out from a security guard that there was in fact a shuttle that would bring me back to the scotiabank convention centre.

Once I was back to familiar territory, I followed the iHop landmark to get back to my hotel. Surprisingly, Gordon was already back from using the amenities and so we just took our time relaxing while waiting for our other friends to arrive. I reorganized all the things I was going to wear for race day and then we headed out to clifton hills to walk around; and also to visit the Hershey's Chocolate Factory!

The air was chilly, the wind was strong, but it wasn't raining. That was a good sign. Weather forecast also said it wasn't going to rain on the Sunday. Thank the gods. I hate running in the rain.

We walked for a bit and then my friends texted me and we all met up, walked to the falls at an easy pace.

It was kind of neat seeing the lights that were used on the falls, looked like a tunnel of mist. Suffice to say, we all got a bit wet from it. Felt like rain, but it wasn't. After about an hour of walking, our group split up, 2 went to check out the casinos and 2 accompanied me to grab dinner to carb up for the next day's race. We initially wanted to go to East Side Marios, but when we arrived, they said it would be an hours wait. lol way too long. I had no intention of eating at 9:30 in the night! So we ended up going to "My cousin Vinney's" which turned out to be pretty good.

We ordered two pastas, one with a creme sauce and one just the regular bolognese spaghetti sauce. They were really quite yummy.

After eating, we strolled around for a little bit and also went on a hunt to get me some nailclippers. haha. I was a little worried about losing my toenails. I ended up buying a $4 'souvineer' nailclipper. I think I would be using this for a long long long time. haha. Make my use of it.

We saw our other friends again that had gone to the casino and then headed back to our hotel rooms for the night... tomorrow was going to be a long day! Well. At least for me! haha. They were planning to go on to Niagara on the Lake.

I watched a few tv shows while waiting for the showers; namely monstrous sea creatures, flipping houses, and some pop icon quiz show. Entertaining haha. At any rate, they helped pass the time :)

Race Day - The Sunday

I woke up promptly at 6:30AM, feeling kind of excited but also at the same time butterflies in my stomach. Having not really trained for this marathon, I knew I was going in for a very very tough run. Tough... was in fact an understatement.

I readied up with my gear and headed out to catch my marathon bus at the Crown Plaza hotel (right by the Hershey Factory).

The wait wasn't too long once I got there, there were already buses lined up. Since I was one of the full marathoners, we were all loaded on to the buses first.

The drive there was perhaps about 15-20 minutes. Give or take. I didn't really keep track of time, I was admittantly very sleepy :P

We arrived at the border crossing where we all had to pass our passports to the front, where a person was to verify our crossing over to the States side.

The wait was perhaps another 10 minutes.

And then off we went; thankfully no hitches; as we were all warned: If anyone forgot or didn't bring their passports, the bus had to turn back.

We arrived at Albright-Knox in Buffalo, NY where I waited for perhaps another hour before the race was to start.

The waiting was alright, thought it was a bit chilly. I was glad I wore the right gear.

And We're Off to the Races!

Minutes before we started there was an elderly gentleman handing out bottles of water. There was a moment when I hesitated, wondering if I would need it, since I had planned to do the marathon with just going to water stations.

Thank god I decided to take it since clearly with the weak and non existent training, the water was a lifesaver.

Usually I have quite a bit of things to to say about how I 'feel' during a race, but to be honest, this particular race, there was only really pain. lol. Well, not all the way through out, just everything past the 16km mark.

I was doing fairly well up until then before I had my first cramp in my leg and that travelled all the way up to my thigh. It was a on and off sort of pain though, depending how much pressure or how fast I decided to go. At one point it got so bad, I had to speed walk it off - and the irony of that was I probably speed walked faster than I ran since I couldn't run too long before my left leg would seize up. It also didn't help too much that I was coughing a little as well, I guess my recovery from my cold was not a 100% yet.

Poor poor leg I remember thinking to myself.

By the time I finished the marathon, I adamantly decided: Never again. Next time, train or defer, no winging it :)

In terms of the marathon route, it was really nice and the scenery was beautiful. I would definitely do this race again; perhaps this year.

And it is 2015 now. I should just start training when the weather gets better, not like the snow day we're having today!

Island Girl Half-marathon Relay 2014

2014-09-22T17:26:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I participated in my first half-marathon relay with my friend Susan, where we both did a 10.5k run each. Signing up for the race apparently was the easy part, as it always is :-) training for it, was another story all together.

Both my friend and I officially signed up in June, and both mutually felt that it was a mangeable race. In fact, my friend wanted to do the half-marathon, but I eventually roped her in to do the relay with me since that was what I wanted to do :D (After this race, she was thankful she did not sign up for the half).

The last race we had completed was the Sporting life in May, this island girl race was in September. Plenty of time to train for it.

So we thought.

Things got busy and neither of us did any training, only some on and off running when we could put in the time. And to add more to measure, I caught a terrible cold about a week and half before the race. Thankfully I 'mostly' recovered by the day of the race. I dislike getting sick before my races, but often I find it unavoidable.

I picked up the race kit for my friend and I on the Saturday and I was quite pleased to find in my race pack a free hand cream from Jergens! I needed one and hadn't had the time to get a replacement for the one that I had run out of previously.

I also got free gummie vitamins. Yes. haha, I like freebies.

While there I also saw a woman asking to switch from a half-marathon to a relay, as her friend and her had not enough time to train for it. I unfortunately didn't get to hear if they allowed it or not, but I felt for her too. I wished we could switch from a relay to a 5k!

I called my friend as I left the pickup area and gave her the headsup on the ferry time that we needed to catch, I was advised with great emphasis to catch the 7:00AM ferry.

Ok. 7am Ferry. Got it. I passed this message to my friend who had to drive down the next day, do a pick up at my house, and then get ready at the island.

Done. Meeting time was for 6:00AM. We both got up around the same time having made the rule the night before that we text each other when we're up, if the other does not respond, then call until the person responds lol. Good thing this time around we both were up at the same time, 5:30am.

My friend arrived around 6:15AM and we made our way to the harbour front to board the ferry. We made it in time to catch the 7:00AM ferry to which was emphasized.

We arrived at the island and had literally an hour and a half to kill before the race. The weather report had shown that it was suppose to rain... it didn't appear it was going to. But we counted on our luck too soon, because as it neared towards race time, it started to rain, and then pour!

When the 5k runners started (at 8:30AM), it literately was pouring rain. I felt so bad for them while at the same time was worried that it was going to keep raining when we started. Finally, it was time for us to race. Thankfully, the rain had dissipated slightly. My partner wanted to run first so I would take over after her. I wished her luck and off she went in the light rain.

I met another runner as I walked towards the transition area where we would do the change in running, and we both pretty much prayed that the rain would let up soon.

Nope. Rain didn't let up, at least not completely. It rained off and on again for a while, but no where as hard as it did when the 5k started.

Until of course, around the time I had to start... While waiting for my partner to come to the transition area, it literally started to pour again. As I high fived my relay partner to start the second half of the run, against the rain, I started running like the wind, well...I tried to :) I still had a bit of residual cough -- yes yes, in retrospect definitely not a good idea -- so I took it really easy. Some walk breaks and water breaks when I needed.

The funny thing was yesterday, I also wore my new runners for the first time. Normally I would say: never wear new shoes to a race, break them in first! But. My current pair was really not a good pair, I had suffered a series of blisters from using them. And wearing those old runners on race day guaranteed blisters...

I took a calculated risk. And it luckily worked out for me, though I know that wouldn't always be the case. The new shoes were comfy and so wet after the race.

The race itself was quite nice, it was an easy loop around, the directions were pretty easy to follow:

During the race, I did see the woman I saw that wanted to switch from a half to a relay; sad to say, she was still doing the half-marathon. I guess it didn't work out for her because it was too late to change over. Good on her to try, though hopefully she doesn't sustain any injury.

No matter the distances in my run, my mind tends to do a lot of.. thinking. Music becomes background music while my mind kind of reels through everything that's going on in my life. This time, my thoughts went out to Isabelle, a fellow runner that had passed away on Friday. I had met her during my Canada Flex Team in Training back in 2012. She was a lovely woman that I wished I could have gotten to know better. She was kind and had the brightest outlook to life despite how tough things were due to her diagnosis. She was a fighter and her love for running was a great inspiration. We lost a bright star, but she will always remain in our hearts and in our memories. Rest in peace, Isabelle. This run was for you.

I met with my relay partner after crossing the finish line, suffice to say, 10.5k felt like a long time. Afterwards, we headed off to change, and then went to the ferry docks to head back to the main land. At the harbour while waiting for the ferry, I was surprised by the call of my name. I was greeted by an old teammate from Team in Training; Janine! I had met her when I was training for my first full marathon, and she and 3 other teammates had gotten really close after running and training together for 4 months.

We caught up quickly and it turned out she had done the island girl half marathon. Good on her :) Amazing to have completed it. I was pretty happy with making through with a 10k. Maybe in the future sometime we could get the whole team together for a little reunion. Though it would be difficult since everyone is very scattered (one in HK, one in NFL, one in Ireland... just the two of us in TO :))

After we parted ways, my friend and I stopped by Starbucks to just relax a bit, warm up and basically veg for a bit before getting some real food. We were both pretty exhausted - hence the reason for training for races!

We debated for a while whether for Korean food or for mediterranean food.. finally the latter won out. We went and got some really delicious food at Green Eggplant, had lobster spinach artichoke dip with tortilla chips, and we split a chicken shish kabob dinner. We walked for a little to kinda stretch out our legs and then we headed home and rested.

I was happy and pleased to have completed my 2nd race of the season though. There were so many that I wanted to do, but I wasn't able to make them happen. Now... for the next race, run for the cure in October! And then... the last one. Niagara Marathon, right now you are scaring me. Ai.

Pre-race selfie, waiting at the ferry docks at 7am!

Until next year, island girl!

Sporting Life 10K - First Race of the Year

2014-05-12T12:33:00.000-04:00

This year, my training has been on and off, but mostly off. I could blame it on the long winter, on getting really sick that I had a hearing impairment (gone now though, yay!), or on feeling a bit lazy, but in truth, it probably was a combination of all three.

Despite this, I still went and did that 10k run I signed up back in Feb before falling ill, and surprised myself with managing to finish it within I guess I could say reasonable time given zero training, but also with the gift of two blisters. All I can say for myself is, when new shoes are needed, new shoes are needed :) I feel so sorry for my feet sometimes. I put them through hell, be it forcing them to hike 100k within 40 hours, running through marathons, and most recently my peru excursion 4 days of long trekking up the mountains of the inca trail.

Next stop for me: The Running Room for a new pair of runners. Especially if I am planning for the Niagara race.

Day before 10K Race

What was suppose to be a relaxing day of boardgames, turned out to be fairly busy. I met with my friend Susan who was doing the race with me, to meet with a few of her friends for boardgames. Plans suddenly changed from boardgames to the Driving Range, which I managed one putt, and then afterwards, two games of basketball. Basketball. I've really never played it before, at least not with a team. Needless to say, it was not the most pleasant experience. But an experience no less lol.

After basketball, we headed back to my friend Maggie's house and we played a game of Telestrations. I discovered how interesting everyone interpreted pictures. We went from "Sand Dollar" to "Explosive Beach", or in one other case, "Hair Stylist" to "Blow Dryer"

After 3 rounds of it, my friend and I headed to one of my friend's babies 1st birthday. Suffice to say, by the time we arrived there, it was already pretty late into the evening. Instead of having our usual pasta dinner, we were invited to eat the amazing food my friend and her sisters had prepared for the birthday party. So delicious. After eating, we stayed for a bit and played with my friends baby girl Aleyah (so adorable!) and eventually had to call it a night since we had an early day next day.

We arrived at my friends house around 9:45pm, and freshened up, prepared clothing for next day, setting alarms and music playlists on our phones.

I ended up sleeping around 1:30am, although I had intended to sleep by 12am.

Race Day - May 12th, 2014 - Mother's Day

Morning came quickly, I woke up at 5:30am, and woke my friend up to get ready. Quickly we got dressed, ate our breakfast, which consisted of a piece of toast, peanut butter and half a banana.

We left my friends house around 6:20am, and arrived at the Sporting Life 10k baggage check in area around 7ish. Parked the car and walked down yonge street to the starting line. We waited for our friend, Gordon, to arrive.

Time was ticking and he still had not. My friend started to give him a play by play as the baggage check-in trucks started to leave. Quite funny :)

Gordon had been waiting for his bus, but somehow there was a diversion of the buses, so he had to take a cab. There was apparently a lot of people waiting when he left.

He arrived in time to check in his bag in the last truck. We headed then to the blue corals and waited for the race to start. It would be about a 20 minute wait.

Finally the blaring start signal sounded and we started the run. A quick wish of good luck and off we went on our separate ways. Our meeting place at the end of the race was at the baggage area.

The race itself was a bit tough for me. With no training and I an agitated knee, it wasn't the best way to start.

But I guess what took me down another notch was the fact I had no water on me. Normally I have some water on me, but I thought I would try without, two water stations at the 4.5 mark and the 6.5 mark I think was noted, and so as long as I got there for my water, I would have my hydration.

However, not true. I needed more water than I anticipated. By the 3 km mark, I was parched. So I couldn't wait till I got to the next water station.

After that, it was just a battle to make it to the next station. It didn't help that I kept thinking I should have brought my waterbelt. lol. Crying over spilt milk really doesn't help.

Finally, I reached the finished line, and I was so relieved because that meant: water! lol

It was quite the spiral to get to the gathering area where we would receive our medals and then, water and food (banana's and bagels).

Once I got it, I met up with my friends. We chatted for a bit and then we decided we should go grab our lunch since we all had to go home for mothers day.

We decided for korean at Ka-chi in China town, and so we made our slow walk there. By the time we got there, we changed our minds and went to Asian Legend instead.

We had such a feast there! To think we only did a 10k together. Imagine if we did a marathon haha. The food was delicious though :) Peking Duck, Tofu, Xiao Long Bao, Chive Dumplings, onion pancakes and duck soup. Yum!

Inca Trail 2013

2014-01-06T12:02:00.000-05:00

Last year October, I completed an adventure of a lifetime: The Inca Trail. When I first signed up for it (a few months beforehand) with my friends, I had already some doubts in managing it and even had a little thought of backing out. First it was my runners knees acting up, and then once that was better, I somehow pulled a ligament in my knee that left me pretty out of commission for a good 3 weeks of training. Aside from the slight injuries that scattered throughout my training timeline, there was the trouble with heights. A nagging thought of being too petrified to move forward somewhere along the inca trail after looking down at the mountain side troubled me a bit. And of course this concern only increased the closer the trip date became. Despite it all I was still very excited.

My last real adventure trip was a few years back when I hiked 9 hours, from one small town (Paleochora) to another (Sougia) on the small Greek island Crete (The E4 trail - Sougia - Lissos - Paleochora). If you ask why it would take us 9 hours to hike 13 km, I really couldn't tell you except that we really took our time at the beginning not realizing we would get a little lost along the way. Granted, it was along the coastline, and the worse that could happen is having to backtrack the same way we came. Same idea with the Inca Trail :) Worse case, if one couldn't do it, just hike back the same way you came.

Overview of the amazon forest as we fly overhead

Our lodge at Rufugio Amazonas, the sign

We started the trip first by flying to Lima, then taking domestic flight to Puerto Maldonado. From there we were greeted by our guide, Oscar, took a bus and a boat to get to our first lodge in the Amazon forest; Rufugio Amazonas.

We arrived there for the evening, were treated to refreshments as we were told of the facilities and rules (mainly don't touch the gas lamps) at the lodge. We were given our room numbers and told that dinner was promptly at 7. Dinner was buffet style, the food was very good there and for the first time in a while I felt really at peace. The place was very serene. The sounds of the forest all around you and the air smelled kinda nice.

A popular palm tree drink

Fermented purple corn pudding dessert

That evening we packed our bags in preparation to leave to our next lodge, the Tampobata reserve. The next morning, we went on our first hike, donning our raingear and boots that they provided for us, we headed out for a short hike before we were leaving.

the Cicada bug

dining area of the lodge

the Cicada nest

me in my hiking boots provided by them

hallucinogenic mushrooms

Watson bird

On our hike we were shown many interesting things, particular ones that interested me are shown in the above: The Cicada. Apparently they live 17 years underground and come up only one year after that to mate. Interesting thing here is that that 17 year cycle is ending soon, so there are going to be a lot of Cicada's popping up soon... *shudder*. The nest looks like a little tower. The Hallucigenitic muschrooms. When the guide pressed on it, it actually puffed out white powdery smoke. The Watson bird, very rare, and also known as the "stinky" bird.

On the boat, on our way to the Tampobata reserve lodge

(a short stop at the claylick to see the macaws)

After we returned from our short hike, we went back to the lodge, changed to our own hiking shoes and made our way to the boat port. There we spent pretty much most of the day travelling. In between it, we stopped by the claylick and saw beautiful macaws. Finally, we boarded back on the boat and after an hour later, we arrived finally at our destination: The Tampobata Reserve.

(Quick tour of the Tampobata Reserve Lodge: dining area, bar, hall, resting lounge area, giftshop, rooms, staff area up ahead, bathrooms)

When we arrived there, we were given a quick tour of the facilities, and then also the rules; hours of electricity, lights out, wearing long sleeves in the late afternoon (deadly mosquitos), usage of their shampoo and soap, etc.

After that, we were given some free time to relax We spent that time relaxing on hammocks, chatting and freshening up before heading out for a short evening hike.

The next few days at the amazon rainforest were pretty much like the first day; free time to relax, hikes throughout the day. We saw a few wild animals, the Howling Monkeys, Spider Monkeys, frogs, spiders, ants, moths, vultures, different species of birds, wild pigs, macaws, caimans, the world's largest rodent (Capybara), and the bird eating spider.

When time came to packing our bags, I was sad to leave. The place was so nice, I would have liked to stay longer.

Our next destination was the flight to Cusco, Peru. The night before, while still at the rainforest lodge I had started to take my Diamox to help me acclimatize for the higher altitude.

When we arrived in Cusco, a driver - Caeser - from our hotel picked us up. We were very thankful that he was kind enough to wait for us because our flight was actually delayed. We drove through the downtown part of Cusco and as we neared where we would be staying, I saw how everything started to become more narrow and more cobblestoned. We later learned it was because in the past, the area we were staying in had the cobblestones so that it was easier for horses to travel on. A more slated implementation on some of the roads was added so that it would be easier for pedestrians to walk on.
Our driver guided us to our hotel and we had to walk up a few steps (about 55 I think). I remember realizing that the air was quite different. I felt it already when I arrived at the airport, but only after walking, I saw that I was a bit out of breath. Of course at that point, I chalked it up to more along the lines of being tired from the travelling.

(Our hotel that we stayed in while we were in Cusco: La Morada Hotel)

Complimentary cocoa tea

Map of Cusco provided for us by the hotel

Room 1

Room 2

Washroom

Once we entered the hotel, we were given the keys to our room. Cocoa tea (to help with acclimatizing to the altitude) was also given to us. The view from our room was spectacular. So very pretty. Though even from the distance we could see that it looked like rain was coming. We drank the cocoa tea, all happy and smiley because we also saw we had now a place with electricity and could also use our own shampoos and conditioners :) The small things in life that bring us joy!
We all quickly took turns to shower and freshen up and then we went to dinner at Pacha Papas, a local restaurant that was recommended by our driver.

Pacha Papas restaurant meal (pizza, rice, soup, meats)

Once we returned, it was dark. While some of us stayed in, two volunteered to go out to stroll around the area and pick up some more bottled water.

The next morning, we woke up early so that we could catch continental breakfast. The view was very nice, the food was standard :) but we all really liked the bananas and the fact that we could order eggs done to our choice (scrambled, easy over, sunny side, omelette)

We wandered around the town and searched out the Starbucks (yes, we like familiarity).

(view taken from the starbucks patio)

Along the way we also purchased a few souvenirs, to which we brought back and arranged it as a little city of Llamas :P We used the starbucks bag and the logo as a "sun god" emblem.

We rested back at the hotel for a little bit and then headed out to grab lunch... at McDonald's! Our first night, we felt we overspent on our dinner, so we decided to budget down a little :)

Regretfully we all thought that the food was a little too greasy and though it was quite a good deal for the cost (underneath that mound of french fries are 10 giant pieces of chicken), it was too much.
We finished as much as we could and decided to save the rest for dinner - the plan was instant noodles and chicken.
We wandered about and finally found the supermarket (via the map from the hotel). Pleased, there we bought the fruits that we wanted to try. And also the instant noodles.

We also found San Pedro market place! This immediately brought to mind the St. Lawrence Market here we have in Toronto.

(Inside San Pedro market place)

After browsing through the San Pedro market, we made our way back to our hotel, narrowly missing the hail storm that hit us suddenly.

This same time, we also got back our laundry!! Yay, fresh clean clothes!!

That night, as planned, we had instant noodles with our leftover mcdonald's chicken from lunch.

The next day, we had booked to have a private tour to see the sacred valley, Pisac, and Ollantaytambo.

Pisac

We had the chance to do some photo taking with a lady and her alpaca and llama (tips required!) and then later we to Pisac, hiking it to the ruins. Had a little adventure returning from the hike ... (took the wrong route).

After Pisac, we had a buffet lunch before heading to Ollantaytambo.

Ollantaytambo

(Ollantaytambo - Ollantaytambo is a town and an Incaarchaeological site in southern Perusome 60 kilometers northwest of the city of Cusco. It is located at an altitude of 2,792 meters (9,160 feet) above sea level in the district of Ollantaytambo,province of Urubamba, Cusco region. During the Inca Empire, Ollantaytambo was the royal estate of EmperorPachacuti who conquered the region, built the town and a ceremonial center. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Peru it served as a stronghold for Manco Inca Yupanqui, leader of the Inca resistance. source: wikipedia)

It was during these small tours to Pisac and Ollantaytambo that I saw that I was a bit affected by heights. I was starting to get very worried that the Inca Trail would be just as hard, but 4 days worth.
I, thankfully, was not the only one. Cecilia, too, was worried. But we both told ourselves that we would just try it, and if anything, the height got too bad, we would head back...

(what a beautiful sight, the ice capped mountains at the top!)

Our last stop was Chinchero, a quaint little town where I did a lot of souvineer shopping.

After buying some souvineers, we headed to see a church,

After the church visit, we headed back to Cusco, to our hotel. On the way, we placed a pickup order at a restaurant near our hotel (sad to say, it was not very good pizza). We learned from our private tour guide that the church at the square would be open that night because it was a celebration (I think it's a Light Celebration?). So we wanted to freshen up quickly and head out for the night. We went inside the church for a little bit and then as we walked further down, we stumbled upon a parade! It was so very festive and we watched it for a while until we got a bit too cold standing outside in the rain.

After we left the parade, did some quick shopping for hats, we returned to our hotel. Two of our friends went to pick up the pizzas while the rest of us freshened up. That night we had pizza, mangos and sour sop from the marketplace.

It was also that night, I discovered haha my stomach was not keen on the cheese used on the pizza.

The next day was our last day in Cusco before we were going to set out on our Inca Trail adventure. It was time to shop!

After shopping, it was time to eat; we decided to have mexican food this time around.

The food was really good. After eating, we walked around again and dropped by Starbucks for coffee and then headed to the Alpca Expeditions for our briefing.

There we met our guide Sabino, and the remaining three members of our hiking group: Minnie, Poorab, and Norman (really wonderful people). We did some quick introductions, our guide cracked some jokes to break the ice (one of them was about Pumas eating hearts - and he couldn't stop laughing about it lol), and we signed the waivers. Now it was set. We were really going to do it. There was no turning back!

That evening we went and had Italian food; we had to load up on carbs! It was unfortunate to say, but the spaghetti was not very good.

We returned to our hotel and we started packing. We were given a green duffle bag and told to keep it within 5kg (keeping in mind that the porters had to carry the sleeping bag/airmatress which was about 3kg already). We set up our hydration packs as well, packed our electrolytes and protein bars and IT bands if needed.

DAY 1 - INCA TRAIL

Morning came around. It was still so dark outside. And cold too. We were dressed warmly, in multiple layers.

Morning of day 1 - Inca Trail

We quickly entered the van and we picked up the remaining three from the group and off we went to Ollantaytambo, to our start of the inca trail: km82 (82 kilometeres along th erailway from Cusco to Aguas Calientes). Before arriving to that point, we had breakfast (for champions) outside.

Llactapata Ruins

We hiked for a bit and we took a brief historical break as we reached the ruins of Llactapata, a site that was thought to have been used primarily for crop production. Here at this ruin we also can see the three symbols of peru: The snake, puma and condor.

We then hiked for a little bit, and eventually set up camp for our lunch. This was also as I would call it: my last full appetite lunch for the next two days.

My last real meal

It was after this lunch hour when I started to feel symptoms of altitude sickness :-( By evening, I was terribly out of breath, tired, and nauseous. I couldn't even stomach the smell of food. I vaguely remember saying that I wanted to skip dinner and just rest. My guide was very quick to get me settled in, drink some medicine (I think it was a combination of diamox and something else?) and I literally crashed to sleep.

DAY 2 - INCA TRAIL

The next morning, I was feeling a bit better, but my appetite had not returned at all. I did manage to eat a quarter of an omelette. I was worried though, since Day 2 was the most challenging of the entire trail: we were hiking up dead woman's pass; aptly named looking back. Endless uphill. Okie dokie! *grin* If I was feeling that poorly on the first day, I was concerned that this 9 hour day hike would take me down; especially since I had little to no food in my system. Stubborn me, I still went on. My guide though, concerned, stayed along side me. At this point, of course, I did not realize how serious altitude sickness could be. Despite it all, I was still very awed at the beauty of the landscape.

Map

That's where we're going! Dead woman's pass...

Finally, we all reached the top, dead woman's pass. Still alive :) And still no appetite :( We eventually made camp, and at this dinner, I did go to it, I didn't want to rest like the day before. I think my body wouldn't have minded the rest, because at dinner time, I was not exactly eager to eat either. But I wanted to be there. I managed to have a few bites of dinner and settled to just have a lot of cocoa tea and hot water. I even passed on chocolate pudding! Very sad. The chef and the assistant made amazing good food, especially in all considerations we were on top of a mountain.

Like I

DAY 3 - INCA TRAIL

We were doing a lot more descending on this day and although it was harder on the knees (the hiking sticks really helped), it was a relief because that meant the altitude was also going to go lower. My guide promised me at this point that everything was going to get better once we reach our camp for the evening.

He was right on the mark.

Descending

First real meal in 2.5 days

Lunch time, I was able to eat a bit more, however, I still took it easy because I was worried too much food at once would upset me.

Winaywayna Ruins

That evening we also went to visit the ruins (Wiñaywayna); stunning to look at

Dinner time, we were all surprised to have a cake for dessert! How they managed to bake a cake on top of a mountain was a surprise. It was quite delicious too :)

The impressive "green machine" (the porters) team!

Cake..baked atop a mountain - wow!

Dinner

DAY 4 - INCA TRAIL

For our last day of our hike we had to wake up for 2:30am and make a mad hike to the entry point to machu picchu. There we had wait for it to open. If we arrived late, we would have no seat. Little did we know were a bit late, but because there were a set of really nice people in front of us willing to let us have seat, we were able to rest. Once the gate was open for us, we started hiking at a very good pace. I was actually with the group again, and how much I liked having normal air again. It felt good to not need to rest every 5 or so steps! No more waves of nauseousness. It was like regular hiking back home.

Hello Machu Picchu! I hiked 4 days to get to you - and you did not disappoint; simply breathtaking to behold!

The amazing group of people that I hiked with

My friends and our awesome guide Sabino!

Finally, we made it to the city of Machu Picchu. There, our guide took us on a tour and gave us some historical background on the city.
It was also after this, we had to part with our new friends, Minnie, Poorab and Norman. Minnie and Poorab though, some amazing coincidence, were also flying to lima and staying at the exact same hotel (the Hilton) as we were! So we had an opportunity to meet up again. Norman was still going to be in around Peru for a bit, so we would not have the chance to meet with him.
At the end of this trek, however, it was not exactly the end. We had actually booked to do another hike up a mountain; specifically: Huayna Picchu. Cecilia and I opted out, whilest our three friends and Norman went for it.

Finally, when they returned down from the mountain, we all boarded a bus to take us down from the mountain and to where we could get to the train station that would take us back to Cusco. We were fortunate that our guide decided to stay with us and guide us all the way back.

Finally, we settled in at the train station, we had complimentary drinks and snacks.

Complimentary free plantain chips

Complimentary free Inka Cola (tastes like creme soda!)

On the train (yaayyyy! My feet love me)

Once we arrived at the Cusco trainstation, we were picked up by our guide and a bus took us back to our hotel. Along the way we talked about what to have for dinner... and it was decided on having KFC and instant noodles :P Comfort food.

The next day, we were packed and ready to leave Cusco to Lima. We had a quick breakfast and were headed to the airport. With the song "hotel california" ringing in the background as we left behind the beautiful quaint town of Cusco, I despite how much I loved my stay, was looking forward to Lima, where the altitude was not so high. Already once I returned to Cusco, I felt the change and weariness had crept over me. Fortunately, I still could eat :) Only couldn't rush things, and could only "stroll" along.

And then... we didn't leave. Our flight was cancelled due to weather conditions. Mind you, there was not a spec of rain in Cusco, and nor was the weather in Lima poor. But it may have been because the way Taka Airlines was just not built to fly under certain conditions? We weren't sure. All that we were told was, our flight was cancelled.
For the next few hours we fought to get a flight out of Cusco to Lima. Finally, 6 hours later, we got a flight: the next day early morning.

We called back to our hotel and booked for another day and also for a taxi to return there. That evening, we decided to have Pacha Papa's again as our last dinner; it would be more memorable than KFC and instant noodles :)

The next day, thankfully, our flight to Lima was not cancelled. It was not the smoothest however since suddenly as we were checking in, two of our friends were not confirmed for the flight despite that we had booked it all together. After some discussions with the clerk, that issue was resolved.
We didn't want to count our luck until we were literally on the plane and had landed in Lima.

Arrival at Lima was smooth. Approximately an hour or so flight. We had a taxi take us to the hilton hotel. And we couldn't all help but chuckle how out of place the five of us were. Still in our hiking gear, we looked terribly grungy stepping into such a high end hotel.
Once we had checked in, the first thing we did was to freshen up and then prepare for lunch. Susan had a place that a colleague of hers recommended.

The food turned out to be delicious; the seafood was all very fresh. After lunch we walked towards the huge shopping center and did a lot of browsing.
Finally, we decided to head back to the hotel and try out the facilities. We went up to the top floor, took our sweet time using the Jacuzzi and then later, headed out to dinner at a local fast food place in Peru.
That last evening, the five of us chatted about how great the trip was, how glad we all had made it, and also how great it was that we had hiked with such a nice group of people. Everything had worked out really well. 10982 stairs! Craziness. And all of us made it; that was what really mattered. No one gave up (actually my guide had been concerned about my health - as was I - at one point. Note to readers, be aware that altitude sickness is a serious thing. Always alert your guide or those you are hiking with, if you are not feeling well - they will help determine the necessary steps needed ~ descend or continue).
Overall, all of us were sitting there, and in one piece. No injuries, just a bit sore. I felt very fortunate, to have hiked with such a wonderful group, have had such a great guide (Sabino from Alpaca Expeditions), and for mother nature in giving us very pleasant weather conditions to walk in. Excluding any of those three would have made the journey more difficult; and really, the journey is the destination.

With the Inca Trail done, it was one more thing to cross of our adventures list! :) Though, also at this dinner we agreed, the next trip we planned, we would be taking things easier; city tours or an all-inclusive!

The next day, we were flying out from Lima to home. Back to good old Toronto, where it was very cold but very humbly speaking, home sweet home :)

Goodlife Race 2013

2013-09-22T19:04:00.000-04:00

This post took a while to go up, since this race was done back in May.

This year, I took some downtime from running due to personal reasons, but I am happy to report that I managed one short one, the Goodlife half-marathon. I haven't done a half marathon on its own (The Goofy one I wouldn't count so much because that was a combination of a full and half together), so it was rather nice to do a short one.

The race itself was as expected, lots of downhills and quite refreshing. The only problem, however, was for the past week and even the night before, I was having some stomach pains. Thankfully by the time that I arrived at the race, I was feeling much better (much thanks to my two friends who made me hot ginger water!). I really enjoyed this race course, and I am thinking for next year if I do a race, this would be the one to do again.

Playing Blog Catch-up for 2012 Races

2013-05-07T20:13:00.000-04:00

2012 was a rough year for me, ups and lots of downs, and I have to admit, I never looked forward to a new year as I had for 2013. In the midst of everything, I found solace in doing some small races to keep myself occupied from all the less than happy stuff happening. So.. hurray for the new year! :) And now... let's backtrack to the events of 2012...

City Chase 2012

I was invited to join "Team Bunz" for City Chase (June 29, 2012), since Jeff thought it might be something different from my usual running gig. Turned out he was right! Much like the Amazing Race, City Chase Toronto was the local version of it. My partner in crime was Grumpy, to whom I coaxed into joining with me. The race started out with a sheet of paper filled with clues to where we needed to go to reach our "checkpoints". When we reach the checkpoints, we would have to do the task at hand and then once completed, we would get a hole punched on on our bibs.

Sad to say, but we had a tough time with figuring out the checkpoints. Thankfully we merged up with another group and traded off some of our answers for ones we couldn't figure out. After that, it was just a matter of getting to the locations in the most optimal route. My friend, "Grumpy", was amazing for that. Despite complaining about the reasons why we were doing this and that.., she was an amazing navigator. A walking GPS so to speak. Yay for me, since I'm terrible with directions :)

The most memorable checkpoint that I encountered during the race, was the firehouse checkpoint. The task there started out with each of us having to strap on a fire extinguisher (empty one!), and one of us had to carry the fire hose (mind you, it wasn't even attached to anything, just the head of the hose), run up 3 flights of stairs and rescue a baby. Grumpy offered to carry it. That was a good call since she was the stronger one of the two of us.

At the top of the stairs a person directed us to put on this mask, that pretty much simulated what it would be like for someone running inside a burning building: zero visibility.

Our mission, we were told, was to go inside this room, and find the baby. Both us had to enter, but one of us always had to be touching the wall, and we had to be a finger's length reach of each other. Makes sense because you wouldn't want to lose your partner inside a burning building. I stuck to the wall, and felt around the room for the baby. The person giving us the instructions suddenly couldn't hold back a laugh, because it seemed like I was more focused on searching for the baby on the wall, vs. on the ground, where most people would be looking quite embarrassing Guess not a fireman career for me! After that hint that baby would be on the ground (duh!), we found it right in the corner of the room.

Yay baby rescued! Now we had to head back down to the main floor, unstrap the extinguishers, and had to lift a dummy from one end of the room to the other. This dummy weighed about 200 pounds. Mind you also, we live in a country where people weigh far more than just 200, we're looking at 250-290! It was heavy. As dead weight, the dummy felt so much heavier; but the two of us managed it in the end. 1+ respect for these men and woman who are in this profession.

We ended the final round of tasks with having to hammer something, I really don't remember what the purpose of it was, but I'm guessing it was to simulate breaking down a door or the like.

Although we didn't win (since we didn't complete the required amount of checkpoints), it was still a wonderful experience. The best part of it was of course, being able to hang out with my friend, and just sort of touring the city with her. However, if you ask her, she will give a completely different story (Grumpy: Wendy, we could have just walked around the city instead!!). haha. Thankfully, this is my blog and not hers :)

After finishing off the City Chase event, Team Bunz and us (Team Happy and Grumpy) went for some Greek food on the danforth and had a delicious souvlaki dinner.

Next event...Spartan Race (June 30, 2012)...the day after City Chase. To say I wasn't a little tired from yesterday's event would be fibbing a bit. I met up again with Team Bunz and we drove down to Barrie, to Horseshoe Valley Resort where the event was taking place. I was both excited and nervous since this was my first actual physically tiring event after surgery. But I was "prepared", as I had on me some snowboarding goggles. Yes, yes, its a strange thing to bring for a race, but I was determined to protect my eyes above all else.

The past week I had been checking the Spart Race website, hoping to see or get an idea of what obstacles I would be undertaking. I knew for a fact that there definitely would be a muddy area with barbed wire, and some walls, but how many of these I didn't know.

When we arrived at the location, we gave them our bib numbers and our signed waivers (yep, another one of those that save event organizers from liabilities!). Our bib number was written on our foreheads, and ironically, when I mentioned to to person writing on my forehead that I had a meeting the next day and it would be best not to have it smaller in print, she actually wrote it bigger! haha, joke was on me for that one.

[Anyway, after checking in our baggage, we had some time to chill, so we just checked out what we could see of the course; haystacks? rowing machines? Hmmm.. strange to see rowing machines.. ]

After the 9:00am Heat started, we lined up and the first thing we encountered as we were running was an artificially induced smokey fog. Down came those goggles (boy did I look ridiculous in them!). Mind you, this was the only time in the ENTIRE race did I use them. For the rest of the way, they sat nestled comfortably on my head, and with occasional comments from runners and organizers on how "cool" (er, not cool?) ;) those goggles were.

Obstacle 1: Smoke

Obstacle 2: crawl through a dark pipe

Obstacle 3: Climb up cargo net

Obstacle 4: Climb up rope ladder (girls), climb up rope (boys)

Obstacle 5: pull up weights to top

Obstacle 6: crawl under barbed wire in mud x 2

Obstacle 7: walk through mud pit

Obstacle 8: carry heavy bean bag and run a short course

Obstacle 9: Thrown wooden javelin at a post (if missed, 30 burpees, 1 try only)

Obstacle 10: Climb over wall

Obstacle 11: Crawl under large wooden cover

Obstacle 12: Climb over tall wall

Obstacle 13: roll weights attached to string up and down twice

Obstacle 14: Push wheel barrow with heavy bags of weight on both sides

Obstacle 15: Balance on zigzag beam

Obstacle 16: Run through tires

Obstacle 17: Leap over fire

Obstacle 18: Do 20 reps of rowing machine

Obstacle 19: Crawl under ice with barbed wire

Obstacle 20: Climb over hay stacks

Obstacle 21: Run through and avoid gladiators!

Obstacle 22: Climb up tall ramp - wall

Spartan Race 2012

I had some memorable portions of the race, namely the mudpit (gravity as my worse enemy!) and the final obstacle course where you would think going up a ramp would be easy, but it was hard to get through this one. If I hadn't been tired out from the rest of the race already, the final one took me out :) Thankfully I had met two friends (shout out to the care bears team :D) who tried to act as my stepping stones to get through it... though in the end, I did end up doing the burpies :P This of course, was a last resort - there is only x number of times you can slip and slide back down a ramp before bruises starts to form on your elbows and knees.

[Overall, it was an amazing experience, and lots of lessons learned: TRAIN!! At least a minimum amount. The next one would be... not to do it so soon after surgery. lol With my vision still adjusting, it felt like my depth perception was still a bit off. Bringing kneepads would be helpful. Do not wear cotton shirts, they will weigh you down. Just some things off the top of my head that I can remember thinking after the race. Oh the memories :)]

Would I do it again? Maybe ... wayyyy down the line. At least until I build up some upperstrength. Until then, probably will stick to my running.

Starting off the year of races was the Toronto Zoo Run (September 22, 2012). It had been one of the runs that I had been looking into trying out for a while. The morning of the run, I had a little debacle in terms of being dropped off at the wrong startline (at the 5k start) - epic fail on my part. Fortunately, I had enough time and in the dark I ventured over to the 10k startline. Sitting there and waiting for the start of the race was fairly uneventful...although I did see a mommy runner tell her kids not to pick up animal waste... Once the race started it was pretty quiet - more quiet than I expected since I wanted to see the animals. When I neared the end of my race, I finally did see some zebras milling about behind a fence. Once I crossed the finish line, I spent sometime observing a hippo drinking water. It was quite an amazing feat. Never knew a hippo could open its mouth THAT wide. As a nice bonus after the race, I was given a bag of free candy, wrethers! So yummy. What a delightful surprise.

CIBC Run for the Cure 2012

Next on the list of races was the CIBC Run for the Cure (September 30, 2012). It was a nice follow-up race since I really warmed up with the Toronto Zoo one the week before. This one I ran with my friends and it was really enjoyable. The weather was remarkably nice too. Not as muddy and icky as the previous year. I had my face painted up as a proud supporter for the cause. The crowd that day was quite large, and as usual, there was a funnelling that occurred at the beginning of the race and then again at the end of the race. After the race, the four of us headed for dimsum at Spadina - what a treat :) Overall experience was very inspiring, and having run with friends to support such a meaningful cause, made it more worth while. I must humbly acknowledge my wonderful supporters for the run, raising a total of $150: (Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy), Grumpy, Kaibar the Lost, Sarah, and Madeline! Thanks again you guys!

My annual race of the year, this year I went for the 5k distance - and my first "official" 5k race. The race was pleasant. Rainy as usual in the morning, but it wasn't too cold. But as a precaution, I wore my wool (alpaca?) running gear and my t-shirt overhead. They re-organized this year to having waves go out, so I was quite happy with this since it really reduced the funnelling effect. The race seemed over very quickly, but it was probably one of the more relaxing runs I've done for scotiabank. Also my last one for the year! The race was very enjoyable, and before I knew it, I was at the finish line. Hurray!

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon 2012

Disney's Goofy Race and a Half - 39.3 Miles! (63.2km)

2012-01-12T00:12:00.001-05:00

Goofy Race Medals January, 7th/8th, 2012

I have never thought at any point in my life that I would attempt to run both a half-marathon and a full-marathon back to back, and to do it while fighting a cold, a nearly impossible idea.

Nearly impossible, but however improbably, the impossible became probable on the weekend of January 7th/8th at the Wonderful World of Disney :-)

I signed up for the Goofy Run for the challenge of trying to do something new. The past year, I had done several new events, Ride for Heart - 50km bike ride, Warrior Dash - 5km Obstacle course, and my first Duathlon at the Toronto Islands. The "Goofy Race and a Half" was part of that phase of trying something new and challenging... I think after the minute that I clicked on the confirmation, it hit me that I was committing myself to a winter training as well as a summer one. No more lazy hibernation period after the Scotiabank marathon in October!

Training progressed at an even pace - some weeks weaker than others, but overall, I did 6 races throughout the year: Warrior Dash 5km, Midsummer Run 30km, Toronto Island Duathlon 9km run, CIBC Run for the Cure 5km, Scotiabank Marathon 42.2km, Whitby Race 16km. This was all a prelude and training for probably one of the biggest run I have ever done in my life: 63.2km.

Exciting. Yes. Very. And nerve wrecking too. Not only was I nervous about the challenge itself, but there was also the fundraising portion that I decided to participate in again with Team in Training. I figured if I was going to go that far away to do a run, I should also do it on behalf of a charity. Fundraising this time around, I was pretty lucky in having some really generous friends (and friends of friends) in sponsoring me to do the event. [whispers: fyi, I'm still collecting sponsorship $$ for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada! It's not too late to donate: http://tinyurl.com/runforthecurewendy ].

Christmas holidays came and heavy hearted I was feeling, I desired to the run more than anything. A series of unhappy events all melded together, and running for me has always been a calming agent. Come boxing week, I caught a surprise cold. That morphed into a bigger cold. By New Years, I was seriously not doing well. Unfortunately doctor's offices were not open. I took some Tylenol, tried to get some rest (though sleep had evaded me for the most part of the holiday), and finally went in on the Tuesday. This was January 3rd. I was flying out on the morning of the 5th (7am flight!). Not even 2 days away. My cough had gotten worse by this point, I was starting to scare myself via Googling: "should you run if you are sick", "should you run a marathon if you have a cough", etc. Let's just say, many variations of the answers came as to "yes", "no", "maybe". But the best choice really was to see my doctor. I certainly wasn't going to take anyone's word on a random forum that it was ok to run in my condition.

It's time to visit the docs...

So off I went to see the docs. Got myself checked out. And I had a cold but I could still run. However, he did say to take it easy. Ha. That was definitely what I was going to do. My doctors said really, I didn't need any medicine, just drink lots of water and get lots of rest. I asked him, however, for over-the-counter meds so I could stop disturbing everyone's sleep with my cough. I took the advice of one of my colleagues and asked for Buckley's and Neo Citron. Checked out with the Pharmicists that this was a good safe combo to take and for the next day I lived and breathed with those two meds.

And Halls too.

Work turned out to be really busy on the 4th, so I worked until nearly 1am. I had to get up for 4am (taxi was coming to pick me up), so I had very little sleep... I addressed my lack of sleep by literally passing out once I was seated on my flight. I did not wake up until I reached the Orlando airport. I also missed my in-flight meal. lol

Jan 5th 2012 - Orlando Florida; 12:05pm.

Coronado Springs Resort, Orlando Florida

We landed, I met with my teammates Canada TNT Flex team, and we took the Disney Magical Express shuttle to get to our resort: Coronado Springs Resort. Once we arrived there, I checked in, found out that I sadly was placed in a separate unit from the rest of my teammates - all the way in the 7B building while they were in building 5. Mind you, it doesn't sound far, but the 7B building was quite the distance to and from the main lobby building. At any rate, I parted with my teammates and went to look for my hotel room... got lost for a good 10-15 minutes (apparently I can't follow signs... I later found out I was not alone in my misguidance since my roommate encountered the same problem).

EXPO, picking up racekit

I met up with my team again, talked to my coach about my cold and what the doctor had said. She was a little concerned (ok, very concerned, since I was coughing, stuffy nose and looked pretty pale). She said to take it easy on the day of the course, just to see how I felt. I completely agreed with her on that.

We made our way to take the shuttle to the ESPN expo to pick up our racekits. We found out that the racekits were separated into two sections: #1 You had to pick up your bib separately from your goodies bag. They were in separate buildings.

Lunch outdoors on picnic table

Once we had picked up our individual kits, I parted ways again with my team, and decided to grab some lunch. It was nearly 3pm now, I was famished. I bought myself a nice "healthy" lunch, grilled chicken burger basket. And popcorn. It was really expensive is all I got to say. Disney = expensive. This meal [see to left], cost $11 USD. That's not including the $2.50 water.

As I ate my lunch quietly outdoors on a picnic table. I felt chilled, yet when I looked around me, an elderly couple in their mid-60s in tshirts, kids running around in tshirt and shorts... I figured that there was definitely something not so hot going on inside me. I chewed on my no-frills chicken burger thoughtfully as I calculated how many hours I had left to recover to be well enough to at least run the half. God I couldn't even imagine doing the full marathon at this point. Chew chew, drink drink, mmm popcorn.. cough - not a good idea popcorn. It was also a little stale. French fries were good though.

Working on laptop in hotel room

After the meal, I made my way back to my hotel room. On the way back to my resort, I of course, had to get lost again. I boarded the wrong bus, ended up at another resort and had to double back. This took time away from the stuff I needed to finish from work before I could head off for dinner with my Canada Flex Team. Eventually, I did manage to turn on my laptop and work away....

I also decided I needed some "company" (my roommate had arrived but had left to pick up her racekit before I came back to my room), so I turned on the tv and watched introductions to all the different themeparks in Disney world.

Ideally, this should have been my day to go to the themeparks, but I was so low on energy that I couldn't bring myself to do anything.

Dinner with Canada Flex Team

5pm came around, and I left to meet my team for dinner at the Maya Grill. Food at the place was ok.. I did not like what I got, some sort of fish called the Mahi Machi. Dessert was good, Strawberry Cheesecake. While I was at dinner, I had actually gotten a refillable souvineer cup and put some NeoCitran in it. I was getting verrry sleepy during dinner time. lol. One of my teammates who sat beside me looked at me with concern: Are you ok?? I had to grin sheepishly that I was kind of drowsey from medicine. Made me a terrible conversationalist. Although I always find myself usually very warm and welcoming, with a cold, and struggling to cough + being terribly drowsy, I must have given everyone the impression at the dinner table that I was very standoffish. They were all there to run a good race - I didn't want to give them my cold too.

After dinner, I went back to my hotel immediately and there I met my roommate, Terri for the first time. Best roommate ever :-) We got along really well, and honestly, she made my experience at the run so much more fun and we hung out together all through out the 4 days we were there.

Terri was not only doing the Goofy Race and a half, but she was also doing an additional 5km run on the 6th. So, 5km, 21km, 42.2km. Craziness. But amaaaazing. She had to turn in early, since she had to wake up for 2am to catch a shuttle in the morning to get to the startline of her 5km run. I too decide to turn in early, I wanted to catch breakfast with the entire Flex team.

Jan 6th 2012 - Orlando Florida; 9am.
I skipped the morning team in training flex group run and just joined them for the breakfast. The food at breakfast was sadly lackluster. We got muffins, coffee, bagel and fruit salad. Mind you, to join this Meet and Greet breakfast was $36 I think. Ouch. I already met my team... I could have slept in. lol

After breakfast I headed back to the room, changed to something more comfortable, asked Terri about picking up my themepark tickets. I had purchased them online (via a special group discount form), and it had said something about "Call Window" pickup. She suggested maybe see the Concierge about it or maybe I would be able to pick it up at the themepark itself. I decided it made more sense to be at the Themepark, so I headed to Epcot and ha! there it was in a big sign "Call Window". I went there, showed them my ID and got my parkhopping ticket. As I entered the park, I swiped my ticket and then got "fingerprinted" by the entry machine.

Epcot!!

Yay. Epcot. Amazing. I had always dreamed of Disney world as a kid. Despite the heavy heartedness I'd felt all through the holidays, something about Disney World did lift a bit of the cloud away, maybe just tucked it away for a little bit, further away into the back of my mind; even for a moment. I wandered around aimlessly, just drinking everything in. I finally ventured into the "GLOBE" (spaceship Earth) and did some 'time travelling'. It was a cool ride. No screaming required :-) Not like I had much of a voice to scream with!

I ended up doing two more "rides", one was flight simulator, and another was a storm weatherer one (4-D) - this one I got sprayed with water. Sad to say, the flight simulator one kind of made me nauseous... motion sickness from a simulator! goodbye dream of being an astronaut. haha. And then...somehow I found myself drawn to the gift shop at Epcot. Here I bought my mini-ears :-) to run with during my race and my little souvineers.

Pretzel and Cheese sauce

It was almost 4pm before I realized I hadn't eaten anything all day except for a muffin at breakfast. So, I bought a giant pretzel and some cheese sauce on the side. I realized about 2 bites into the pretzel that cheese probably wasn't the best idea since I was planning on racing tomorrow. So had to toss it. :-(

The pretzel was ok. Not as big as the ones we got in NYC, but it did its job, filled my stomach with some food until the "Inspirational dinner" at 5pm. I walked around a little bit more and finally at a quarter past 4pm decided to head back to the resort. I wanted to see the other themeparks, but there really wasn't enough time. And tomorrow was the half-marathon, I didn't want to tire myself out.

Ethan Zohn (from survivor) talks about his Leukemia

The inspirational dinner had some pretty amazing speakers: Ethan Zohn (from Survivor and the Amazing Race), Bruce Cleland (founder of Team in Training), and the infamous John "The Penguin" Bingham. All were very touching speeches. The hall we dined in was huge. There were 902 people, and all of us together raised 3.1million dollars. That is an astounding amount of money to fundraise. There were of course people who went way beyond their fundraising goals, one person raised $30,000+. lol. No, that person wasn't me! (wishful thinking though...)

Me and my mini mouse ears

After I returned to my room, I decided to tryout my "outfit" for the next days half-marathon. I attached my bib, shoe tag to my shoe, put on my team in training jersey, filled up my water bottles, packed my electrolytes to my water belt and readied up my body glide, IT bands, and my cap for the next days race.

As a finishing touch, I put on my mouse ears... oh they were so adorable!! And fuzzy hehe.

My roommate came in not long after my crazy self-photoshoot ;-) only putting one of the many crazy shots I took of myself in full gear! we chatted a bit and discussed what time we should get up for... and we determined it to be 1:45am

OMG. that was so early. My roommate was so dilligent in making her honouree/in memory ribbons and attaching it to her jersey. I lent a hand in the end, seeing that time was running short. We went to bed at around 10:30ish. There really wasn't much time to sleep! We both set our alarms. mine was set to go off at 1:30am, hers to 1:45am.

We both took a picture together as pre-half-marathon:

2:30am January 7th, 2012 - Terri and I pre-race (for half-marathon)

US Flex Team

And dear god, the most horrible thing happened... my calendar reminder alarm went off at 11:55am. It jolted both of us awake. Luckily we were able to both go back to "sleep", and promptly woke for the 1:45am alarm. We freshened up and we were ready to leave our hotel by quarter before 3am. Because I was situated so far away from my Canadian Flex Team, I was suggested by my coach to go with the US Flex team since it would be easier. So I ended up taking my team photo with the US Flex team :) at the lobby before taking the shuttle out to the startline area.

For every marathon I have done, I have always worn something extra that would toss away during the actual run. This was no different, despite it being in Florida and supposedly quite warm. It was bloody cold! So cold, I could see my breath.

Tony Horton, P90X guy telling us to ways to stretch

We were sitting at the checkin baggage area for about an hour or so. While sitting there with Terri, we heard an announcer on stage say that Mr. Tony Horton, P90X guy was there! Wow, famous people anyone?? He was calling out stretches, and people were hopping to it. I was just too cold, tired, and miserable to move.

Finally we checked in our baggage (which I put my sweatshirt, extra water, and my ballerina shoes for post-race comfort shoes). Once we checked in the luggage, we were funneled through as we walked for who knows how long... 15minutes? to our respective corals. After the first wave (Coral A) started off, it was at least a half an hour wait before it got to our coral. I later found out that there were about 22,000 half-marathoners!! Crazy!

running during half-marathon

The run turned out to be not as difficult as I predicted. With my cold, I ate some halls, took it really easy and took my time, taking pictures whenever I could, but always made sure that I watched the time - since there were sweepers (people who come to pick you up if you don't get to certain mileage points).

Terri and I ran into each other at one point, took some pictures as we ran through the Magic Kingdom. So amazing. It was scenic, very entertaining, lots of characters were out there for us to pose with. I got a picture with Launch Pad :) And donald and daisey duck. One in front of the magic Kingdom, etc.

In general, the route was by far more interesting than any other route I had ever run in the past 5 years.

I finished the race feeling very strong and although still coughing a bit, the rest of me felt good; legs were not sore at all.

I crossed the finish line, got a medal, emergency blanket, and food and water to last me the next day :)

That evening, my roommate was kind enough to invite me to join her Indiana teammates for a pasta dinner. The restaurant was located in downtown Disney, so it was a first time for me in going down there and I was excited to see what it was like.

It had a LEGO store!! woooo!! unfortunately, no time to go in it... we went to this restaurant called TREX. It was very atmospheric let's just say... lots of dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures... that roared and moved. Surprisingly good food, however, when I tried their salmon dinner with rice. I had originally wanted to order pasta, but all the items had cheese and extra cheese with different types of cheese. No need to upset my stomach anymore than it was already.

Dinner at Trex, day before full marathon

Salmon was DE-LIC-IOUS! so so good, I was just shocked how yummy it was. After finishing dinner, we headed back to our rooms. Terri and I were determined to sleep earlier. 1:45am, again, we awoke. We headed to the lobby again after freshening up and gearing up for the run to take our team picture.

2:30am January 8th, 2012 - Terri and I pre-race (for full-marathon)

US Flex team

The marathon was a bit tougher. Although my legs weren't all that sore, my cold was still pretty persistant. I managed through, halls and pretzels and some banana's they gave us as fuel along the way. Unlike the half-marathon, marathon day wasn't as cool, but it was still very cold while we sat there waiting. I was fortunate to meet a person that gave me heat packs to grip on to :) Lifesaver indeed.

Despite how cold it was while sitting around waiting, as soon as we started running, it warmed up quickly. I dumped my giant sweater (you can't miss it in the picture), not even 3 miles in. I did hold on to the heat packs until well into mile 16.

There was a few amusing moments through the race, and some tough ones. Amusing was trying to outdo "Mr. Incredible". He was a very consistant paced person, but in the end, I ran passed him. Great costume though.

Again, took lots of pictures. I got very teary eyed at one point of my race. Got through it. Rewarded with a free chocolate lol. Ate 3 bananas. Finished off all my pretzels in my pouch. Finished 2 rows of cliff blok jellies. and nearly ate all my stash of HALLS.

When I finally crossed the finish line, 2 medals on me, I was both relieved and quite astounded I made it through. I remembered to check in at the TNT tent (that way my coach wouldn't hate me and have to look for me through all the 42.2km). After that, I headed straight back to the hotel, showered and slept like a log until the Victory dinner. So much for themepark hopping!

Photo taken in the dining hall with Chip N' Dale

The Victory dinner was really quite entertaining. I sat with Terri and took pictures of my food (surprise surprise), and of the people around. There were a lot of thanks going around, a lot of dancing on the stage, and both Terri and I agreed that the Black Eyed Pea's song "Tonight's gonna be a good night" should be the themesong for the entire weekend. It was constantly played throughout the 4 days I was there.

I decided to turn in early since I had an early flight the next day (8am), and according to the Magical Express, pickup would be at 4am. So yet again, I had to get up far too early for anyone on "vacation". I noticed though as I left the dinner that my wallet was missing. Trying not to panic, I returned to my room and found that it was not there.... it was time to panic. My roommate helped me look around the room, and I decided to head back to the dining hall to retrace my steps.

Thank god. I found it under the table in the dining hall. I went back to the lobby and did some gift shopping and finally returned to my room. It was bed time alright.

At 3am I was up and I rolled my luggage out and all the way to lobby, checked out, and to the magical express. As I waited for the bus to arrive, I met another friend I had huddled with in the cold, Kaylee. She was an inspiration to talk to, being in the airforce and all :) I was super impressed. She could fly a helicopter! Wow.

Breakfast at Orlando Airport

We talked for a while, and finally we arrived at Terminal A. Kaylee was at Terminal B. We parted ways. Once inside, I was so hungry. I got myself a croissant sandwich from Burger Kings.

Customs went smoothly, and while waiting for my flight, I finalized some things for work. Was able to send it off, just before my flight arrived. TO, here I come!

Again, I was fast asleep on the plane. With neocitran in my system now. When we arrived in Pearson, I realized what real cold was. with my parka zipped up, extra hat, and runners, I jetted to get a taxi to go home.

What an adventure to Disney. Most interesting course I had run in my life. My legs felt fine though, a tiny bit sore, but nothing compared to how I felt at the Scotiabank marathon. I guess it means my body is in good shape despite the cold? :)

Hurray!!

Until the next race :P this would conclude the mileage of the year (until I get my next pair of runners :-) )!

Thank you again to all my wonderful sponsors: Jeffrey Lam, Kaibar, Lucy Wong, Liana Li, Anna Do, Stephen Lavoie, Richard Tanha, Joyce Quan, Vina Ly, Lynette, Cousins, Michell Wong, Mildred Avendano, Susan Jong, Madeline Avendano, Cecilia Tsang, Kathy Tazumi, and Rafeeza Khan.

Without you guys, I would not have been able to do the race and in turn, help save lives with the funds. So a big thanks to all of you!! And to those who wanted to support me, but wasn't able to do so financially, thank you, I know your thoughts were with me as I ran my final mileage on the race course. I also of course have to thank my Coach, Theresa, and TNT organizer Cheryl for making it a smooth transition to and from the Disney race and matching me up with an amazing roommate, Terri. To my Canada Flex Team, you're awesome, great accomplishments everyone. Hopefully we will all get a chance to meet again in another run in the future :-)

[edit] Adding the course maps :-)

Disney Half Marathon Course (21km)

Disney Full Marathon Race Course (42.2km)

** Note: I didn't lose any toenails! :-)

Holidays are here!

2011-12-10T13:59:00.003-05:00

After seemingly a very long week at work, and a heart breaking Friday afternoon, I woke up this morning strangely motivated to run - despite the temperature being below zero.

I think I almost ran faster just to take my mind off things.

I didn't end up setting up my usual gear for the 12km run (water belt and electrolytes), and instead opted for a simple water bottle in hand, no breakfast, running gloves, and a regular toque (could not find my merino one).

At the start of the run, it didn't seem too bad, although I could see my breath in front of me, in terms of level of chill, it wasn't half bad. On the way back home from the run was a different story. I could feel the wind slicing through my sweatshirt (yes, I never really got that windbreaker I needed). Luckily with my 260 icebreaker base layer, I was still nice and toasty. I definitely don't regret getting a warmer one.

During the course of the run, I saw a few runners, and most unexpectantly, I saw some people decorate trees that were lined along the boardwalk. Maybe it's because I used to rarely (if ever) go to the beaches in the winter time, but it was the first time I saw this and I thought it was really rather sweet.

Imagine walking down the boardwalk in the evening, and all the trees were nicely lit up. Not all of the trees had the special treatment, but I assume it's because it's a work in progress? There's still a good two weeks before Christmas.

As I headed home, I saw the blue French Fries truck. It almost like a sign. If anything can make me feel better, it's french fries from the best french fries truck in Toronto :)

Whitby Race 2011 - Canada Runs for Japan

2011-11-21T23:37:00.007-05:00

On this past weekend, I completed my first running event during the November Month. A deliberate test of how it feels to be running in the cold... I was fortunate that the weather also chose to cooperate, it was forecasted to rain, but there was not a hint of it in the air that afternoon.

I left Toronto on Saturday evening (19th of November), met up with my friend Madeline in Scarboro and we headed up together to our friend, Cecilia's house up in Whitby. We had a little debauckle with where to get off... Sistine, Dixon, Thickson... lol, but we managed to meet up in the end.

Cecilia's parents cooked an amazing meal for us to feast on at dinner time, full of carbs, and homemade tomato sauce (that had a little kick!). The main course served with the spaghetti was a mouth-watering chicken casserole. The chicken was grilled to perfection, with such attention to balance of the spices (also from scratch!). A delightful miso soup starter, sprinkled with toasted seaweed. Yum!

After the delicious meal (and great technology through the times dinner talk - yep, we talked about the days where computers had 16MB harddrives...!), we made our way down to the basement lounge area and watched the Food TV network. :P Who would have thought "Dinner: Impossible" could be so addictive. There was some irony that the previous week we had also watched Robert Irvine sadly losing his spot to be America's next Iron Chef. Good chef though, and he really tried to help the restaurant owner get up to par with proper pricing as well as proper cooking of food. 33% Margin. There's something I learned.

Following that we watched a bit of "Chopped". Which was pretty intense because one of the competitors spilled boiling hot water over herself... ai! Potatoes and hot water. Then.. after that... it was Cup Cake Wars. By then I had showered and was ready for bed --- 10 miler (16km) challenge the next day!!

My alarm went off promptly at 8:00am, got up, freshened up, and had breakfast with my friends:
1 Banana, Water, Oatmeal Raisin Cereal. Yum. I was easy on the milk - even at 1%, my body never took too well with milk.

I geared up with my outdoor running gear: 260 Icebreaker layer, T-shirt on top of it, wool socks, icebreaker 200 tights, lululemon brisk running gloves, and my favorite white running cap. Made sure I had my iphone on me as well and some emergency electrolytes (a few raspberry bursts leftover from the scotiabank race).

We left Cecilia's house around 10:00am, and headed to the Whitby Yacht Club, by the waterfront. After parking on a side street, we went straight to the registration area, upstairs in a cottage-like building. I picked up my racekit there: A T-shirt and a Bib (timing chip was attached to the bib). I looked around to see where I could find a course map, but was unable to find one.. But as we neared the stairs to go back downstairs, we saw a hand drawn map.

we sat around and kinda of lounged a bit while waiting for the race to start (at 11am - unusually late time to start). The race actually started a bit later than 11am since we had to wait for the 1km to return from their race (a category for kids). It was quite cold since we waited nearly 15 minutes.

When the start horn finally sounded, all of us 5/10/16km runners couldn't wait to get started - it was so cold waiting around.

This however changed after the first km. I started to warm up, and at one point, I took off my gloves and tucked it away. The scenery on route was really nice, coupled with the cool air, (and no rain), it was not an unpleasant experience at all. I had feared the weather to be like the one we had at the Scotiabank Marathon that happened in the past month. Rainy, Cold, and Windy. It was cold and windy, but no clouds in the sky. Yay!

Near the end of the run, I had a little 'competition' with a more seasoned elder runner :P We were literally passing each other back and forth for over the span of 7km. Neither of us wanted to be defeated, although in the end, with some stored up energy, I did manage to pass the finish line first. Not soon after, when I returned to the cottage to find my friends, I was thanked by him personally for helping him keep going :D I returned the thanks as well, because he too, helped me push myself more.

I then texted my awesome support team Cecilia and Madeline to come find me back at the cottage. There was free chili upstairs, but I really just wanted to go back to the house and shower.

After showering and resting a bit (and more food TV and... the mummy 3), we headed out to have Wild Wings at Kennedy Commons. Yum, wings galore!

It was a fun event. Awesome company, good food, and a great race course. I would definitely do it again next year!

Running Outdoors in the Fall

2011-11-01T22:40:00.015-04:00

In my last post I mentioned how I dreaded having to do my runs on a treadmill, and my indecisiveness of to run outdoors or to switch memberships to a gym that had an indoor track. This past weekend, I made my decision - I will run outdoors until its too cold/icy to do it.

I consulted with my virtual coach who offered me excellent advice about what I should wear and where I could get my gear from. It happened though, instead of landing in the Running Room as I thought I would be doing most of my shopping at, I was at Eatons, browsing Lululemon.

No, I unfortunately didn't end up buying lulu, but instead headed to Sports Chek, and got some tights, a long-sleeve base layer, a merino wool cap and a pair of wool socks. I also bought my brother a really nice gift... which we might be returning, but .. they are so nice Quiet Comfort 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling headphones by Bose. I tried these on at Best Buy, and they were amazing. Hands down. But. Pricey :P The package remains unopened (for now!) and may go back, only to re materialize again come boxing day or something. We shall see.

Anyway, back on topic.. now that I've got my "winter" running gear, I shouldn't have any problem braving the cold (or so the people at sportschek told me). If anything I might a bit hot running in it, unless I am the type to get cold easily. Which, I am, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Today, I put the gear to the test. I left work a bit later than I expected, so the sun was already setting, I had very little time to change and rush outside. I admit, once I got home, I really felt the laziness kick in. I was home. tired. and hungry. And it was chilly outside. The house felt so warm and cozy. I could smell dinner brewing in the kitchen...

But no. I'm dedicated to training for the Goofy run. Not to mention I had one coming up in 2 weeks (Whitby 10 miler race). I had to keep up my cardio. After falling sick for nearly 2 weeks, it was only on the Saturday I managed to do a 10km run at the gym.

Oh. Yes, btw that felt like the longest 10km I ever had to run. I chose a treadmill that was closest to a tv view of the food network, but found that it was out of service. The only other one was facing a structural beam. So I would need to turn my head to watch my cooking shows. So not cool. And not fun. Time ticked by very slowly. I ended at about 10km, and made my way home. It was after this treadmill run tipped the scale in my decision to get outdoor running gear.

I rationalize now, (also then), the clothing invested for running can be cross-functional to my other winter sports that I do sometimes (snowboarding/skiing). Maybe we could even do some winter hikes... The possibilities were endless.

After taking a few quick sips of water, plugging in to my music, I finally left the house, and made my way to the park and did laps. Eventually I will need a better place to run, but it was the first route that came to mind. It grew dark quickly, so I tried to stay in the lit areas of the paths. It was such a beautiful evening. The air was nice and crisp. There was a slight chill, I could see my breath when I breathed out. Only a little though. Wasn't cold enough to see a full winters breath. Best part was that I was comfortably warm while running. It was pitch black when I finished my run so I was glad that I stayed just in the park area.

During my run, as I mentioned, I was comfortably warm. Everything was at a controlled warmth; the base layer did as it promised: kept me warm and at the same time, kept me dry and not sweaty. I had on 3 layers, a regular long-sleeve technical shirt, my merino wool base layer on top, and a simply sweatshirt over top of it all. I should have gotten a windbreaker too, maybe this weekend. The hat was great. my head felt warm and toasty. The socks, WOW. Loved them. When I first put them on, greatest feeling ever. They were..feeling rather fluffy. lol. I used the same gloves I purchased for my scotiabank marathon (the Lululemon ones).

Overall, I'm happy with the gears that I got. Now I have to be sure I'm on track with the training. As well as the fundraising! :)

Speaking of fundraising, my next post, I will tell you more about my partnership with a local artist, Tomori Nagamoto, in helping raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada. Please visit http://tinyurl.com/runforthecurewendy if you want to make a donation today!

Tomori Nagamoto is not only an extremely talented artist (see above portraits for sample artwork) and musician, but a fellow runner who has a philanthropic mindset as well.

Niagara Falls Marathon - Canada Runs for Japan ... No Go

2011-10-23T23:38:00.005-04:00

I was so excited to do this run at Niagara Falls this weekend. It's the only one in the world that you start your run in one country and end it in another (States side!). Unfortunately, the cold that I caught from last weekend's run persisted, and I had to cancel this one. But while I didn't end up going, my team (Canada Runs for Japan) went. I hope they all got through it well!

I am hoping by mid this week I'll be well enough to start running again.

The weather from what I can tell is terrible - rain for tomorrow, rain for tuesday, and rain for wednesday. I might have to consider the treadmill. I don't look forward to it. Once you get used to running outdoors, running indoors becomes excessively... boring. The air isn't as nice either (smell of sweat!). On the brighter note, I can get back to watching my foodnetwork stuff. I'm just not too sure what to do with my long runs for the weekends.

My training schedule tells me I should be doing 28km... but doing that on a treadmill? That will be brutal. A friend suggested maybe switching to the Athletic Centre at U of T (Alumni, maybe a better deal?). They have track there. And then of course there is always Hart House (also a track). But then.. that would lock me into one location. I like that Goodlife gives me options.. not that I always use it, but it has perks (last weekend post-run shower!).

Alternatively, I can always consider running outdoors. Until at least till it starts snowing. I have about a month! And some. I can't believe October is ending soon. Hallowe'en is just around the corner.

Speaking of which, with $3650 to raise still for Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada (Goofy Race 2012!), I will be selling "Red Velvet Mini Cupcakes", with a hallowe'en theme to them. Get 12 mini red velvet cupcakes for only $10! 100% of proceeds go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada.

Special thanks go to the amazing sponsors so far to date: Jeffrey Lam, Kaibar, Lucy Wong, Liana Li, Anna Do, Stephen Lavoie, Richard Tanha, Joyce Quan, Vina Ly, Lynette Le, Cousins, Michelle Wong, Mildred Avendano, and Susan Jong!

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Heart & Stroke Foundation

2011-10-17T23:25:00.008-04:00

On Sunday, October 16th, 2011, I completed my 3rd full marathon!! Hurray! This year, over 22,000 runners from all around the world were participating in the marathon/half-marathon/5k event :)

The night before (Saturday) I was battling the onset of a cold (and possibly fever). I had woken up Saturday morning very achey, and tingly, warm, throat kind of scratchy. This was not from taking the flu-shot. I was under council by my boss and a colleague on Friday that it would be a bad idea. And my doctor agreed when I asked him. Yay, no sore arm. Usually when I get my flu-shot I have a 50/50

chance of either getting really sick the next day or completely fine. Did I want to risk it, when my run was 2 days away? Not really. Not with all the training so far.

Yet somehow, I still get sick. So on Sat evening, with my friend Mad on our way to eat my pasta dinner (fuel, I need fuel!),

I picked up a bottle of Extra Strength Cold Fx. I popped a pill right after buying it (and one before I went to bed).

Race day. Awake at 5:30am, I freshened up, filled my water bottles and packed them away. I debated on whether to take Cold Fx again, but decided that I would ride it out. Never know what pills can do when you're doing a long endurance run. And I was feeling a little better, although not 100%. Maybe at 65%. Better than nothing :)

Double checked that I had my clif blok jellies in my water belt. Made sure I had some salty chips/peanuts in case of cramps (around the 30km mark!). Packed my extra change of clothes, deodorant, body glide, towel for the showers at goodlife (see, membership does come in handy!), keys, phone, earphones, hat, extra water, snacks for post-run (protein bar, cookies, and a juice), money (for real food for post-race). I pinned my bib number to the front of my tshirt. Attached my timing chip to my shoe. With everything packed and ready, I set out to make myself a little breakfast: peanut butter and banana sandwich. A surprisingly delicious combination!

I looked at my race route and printed the map to the baggage check in. The location was different from last year, it was at the Armoury..., at University Ave. and Armoury. Also added the list of road closures, in case the Taxi driver needed that information. I really wanted to minimalize the cost if I could :)

My taxi arrived at 7am sharp. Sweet, no worries about having to order another one or complaining to the taxi company. Last time I had a bad experience with one company, and I had to get to the airport to not miss my flight...

I arrived promptly at my destination. My little road closure map helped :) Cost me $20, tips included. Way cheaper than booking a hotel downtown!

I walked up to Armoury St. and University and was completely at a loss to where the baggage area was. No signs. Nothing. A guy walked up to me seeing that I looked lost, and asked what I was looking for - turned out to be the same thing he was looking for too. We kept walking along university until we saw a group of volunteers who told us we were in the right place: this WAS the baggage area. Out here. In the middle of the street. In the cold.

We waited, and it wasn't until 7:45-8:00am, before they set up the tables and parked these moving trucks. Split into 3 sections, based on bib numbers, I just happened to line up at the WRONG one. I was so disappointed when they made me go line up at another section - I was there so early! lol To BEAT the lineup. Good thing though was I pre-paid for it, so I got on the 'express' line.

Once baggage was checked, it was all a waiting game. The race started at 9am. I found myself a little cozy spot by a stair case and tried to keep myself warm. There were two really annoying guys who were also sitting near me, who were mocking people who didn't "look" like runners. It was too bad they didn't stay long, because I really wanted to tell them off. Really, who are you to judge if someone can run it or not? And everyone at the race were there to run for their own reasons, some for charities, some for loved ones, some for competition, and some for fun. Believe it or not, a good physique does not always equate to be being a good runner. Nor does age. Last year, a man that was probably close to 70 beat out both me and this early 20's kid. Kind of sad, but it is true. Don't let appearances fool you. These people really train for the event.

Speaking of age.. this year, a 100-year-old Fauja Singh was a participant. That is amazing. God, I hope I can still run when I'm a 100.

9am, and I'm with the crowd, in my coral, and waiting for 9:05am (2nd wave). There's a cry and a cheer. And I walk a bit, then jog, and then finally start running to the startline. It's always like that, a bottleneck effect. Although, I admit, the new wave system helped it a bit. Normally we all kinda walk to the start line.

The first 10k, I think I did fairly strongly, about an 1:10 minutes. I saw a lot of gloves and sweat shirts along the way. The runners were warmed up. I was getting warm too. I had already tossed away a purple sweatshirt. Never liked it. I still can't believe I brought it on my Taiwan trip earlier this year. Did not look flattering in pictures. No sad goodbyes there :) My gloves were a different story. Newly bought Lululemon ones. Not throwing these babies away. I did pocket them (and double checked every other kilometer if they were still there.

The 21 km split came around, and I could barely believe that the half way point had arrived.

I think the trouble started once I past the 31km mark... I started to feel the "wall" coming. It was like an oncoming storm of walls. At 34km, I was trying not to even look at the distance indicators, yet, my eyes still searched for the red and white numbered flags. 35km, my back started to get sore and bother me. Once in a while, I would put my hand behind my back and give it a little back stretch. Surprisingly, at this point, I hadn't experienced any cramps. Well, at least leg cramps... Around 37/38km, it started to lightly rain again. With the wind and the cool air, I could feel the goosebumps start to rise on my skin. Gloves on. My throat was starting to bother me. My head hurt. But the mantra that kept going in my mind was to keep on going, I was close. Almost there. Near a water station, I saw a girl with a banner: "Go random stranger, go!". That put a smile on my face, took my mind off the pain, my cold, and the wet weather for a second. And then it was back.

39km, I saw an older woman running, I picked up my pace, and then saw what was up a head, a slight hill. Really, in reality, it wasn't really even a hill. A little upward slope. But it was a steady one. I could see a number of runners just walking it up. Was I going to run it? If you think I said hell ya, then I gotta confess: hell no! lol. Everything by that time started to hurt. And I remembered how I felt at the Midsummer nights run. I did a little walk run trot up. I chatted with her a little, but I think she was quite focused with her energy on finishing. Given that I was really just easing my way up the "hill" I decided to take a picture of the 40 flag. hehe.

Then I put away my iphone, and pushed the rest of the way through. 41km. Front Street. There were people there, someone congratulates me, you're almost there! It's just 800m! 600m! 400m! 300m!, 1k - I'm at 42km. 200m! I'm pushing myself to go faster, 100m! No breaks, just keep on running... and I see the finish line. With the last of my reserve energy I make one last sprint to the finish line.

42.2km. Done. :) This one is for my two uncles, both who have been touched by strokes. Love you both and my hope to both of you on a swift recovery.

After I crossed the finish line, they hung a medal on me, draped me in an emergency blanket, and surprise surprise, I found that my baggage was located not too far ahead of me! They had transported the baggage to the finish line. Sweet! No more trekking to pick it up. I texted my friends to let them know that I was done. Mad was kind enough to come down to congratulate me - talk about support :) And of course to my texters, you know who you are :) Virtual supporters rock too!

I met with her and then took off a little bit to Goodlife (dundas location) and put my membership to good use :P Showered and feeling refreshed, I met with Madeline again and we headed off to eat.

We ate at Kenzo's, a japanese restaurant near college introduced to us by our friend Susan. I had the Ra-men (their specialty) and the gyoza (Japanese dumplings). Delicious. I think I was so hungry, I didn't even take a photo of the food. :P Aside from feeling physically sore, I knew the battle with my impending cold was not doing too well. I guess running in the cold and rainy weather isn't the best way to keep it at bay ;)

This morning, sadly, the cold won out. I woke up a little dizzy and throat was sore and 'warm' to the touch. Rest day for me. Better by the evening and right now, feeling much better. I hope it stays that way!

Scotiabank Waterfront Course Map 2011

CIBC Run for the Cure

2011-10-02T14:50:00.010-04:00

This morning I was "up" at 5:00am. I could hear the pitter-patter of raindrops against my window in my bedroom. There was nearly no light streaming in. It was also really chilly. I did NOT want to get up. I instead rolled my head to to face the side of night stand and checked my phone for any texts from my friend to see if he had finally answered my texts from the night before (see if he remembered the run at all! :P). I sent him a quick good morning text seeing there was a response. My text was returned at 5:35am. But I had already gone back to sleep :)
At 6am, I actually got up out of my bed and started to freshen up and gear myself for the cancer run. I slipped on my midsummer night's shirt (only synthetic shirt I had that was long sleeved), long pants, and of course, the CIBC cancer tshirt.

They were not kidding when they said x-large was big. I had figured the day before that I would have to wear layers, so x-large would leave room for a jacket as well. Had coffee and half a (buttered) bagel. Yum. Met up with my friend on the Queen street car, and headed towards the U of T campus, Kings College Circle. Kinda nice walking around my old campus, except for the unappealing mud that I tried not to sink into. We checked our bags in (it was free!!), and we killed time while waiting for the start of the 5km run to begin. Our route wasn't too bad, a nice circuit that closed back to our starting line.

The wait was quite long, cold, and rainy. We had gotten there earlier, around 8:45am, the race didn't start until 10am. We took some pictures, checked out the Aeroplan tent (signed up for one too!), and got a free orange skin peeler. They also gave free oranges (obviously so we could use the peeler). My friend actually used his. I just pocketed it (too much trouble checking it into my bag).
Sad to report, the orange peeler was tossed during the run...

Finally, it was 10 to 10am (no pun intended). I nudged my friend and we headed towards the start line. As we walked to it, we passed by the startline for survivors of breast cancer. A huge crowd had gathered there. As we moved further down Wellesly Street, I saw the immense amount of people ahead of me and around me.

For a moment as I stared at all these people, old and young, all out here, together, hoping for a change, hoping for a cure, hoping for someone they loved to get better, and some, in loving memory of someone lost. I thought about those who lost, my friend who lost her mom when she was only just starting University, my friend's aunt who lost the battle only a few months ago. Each year I join this run, each year I see the numbers grow. I'm glad I'm part of something that will make a difference.

10am, and the countdown started. My hands by this time were freezing. I regretted not wearing gloves. Mitts. Anything. Some people had the right idea, toques, scarfs, and winter mitts. I just had a long sleeve wicking shirt with the CIBC tshirt on top. Not much insulation at all. Countdown hit zero, and my friend high-fived me, just as the race begun...

And we were at a stand still. Well, we were still walking. It was very congested. Makes sense since there were lots of people. Same thing happens at all marathons too. We walked for at least 3 minutes before we arrived at the startline. And even as we crossed it, we were still walking. Things started to spread out a little as we hit the 2km mark. My friend and I got separated at one point. I also tossed that orange peeler too. I also discovered that carrying keys in my (specifically) track pants, was not the greatest idea...

I ran down from Wellesly Street to University Avenue, looped around back on University and up Queen's Park Crescent. All the while, I could hear the cheering (even through my ipod). Heading west on Bloor St., I rounded south onto St. George Street. Ah. What fond memories as I passed by some of the Lecture Buildings of my Uni days. I snapped some pictures, one particular of Sid Smith. I kinda wished they had the hot dog stand there too.. at this point, my half a bagel pretty much digested. When we hit College, I turned east on College, knowing that the finish line was just around the corner. It was, but just a little backed up. There was a huge crowd, all of them walking towards the finish line.

After crossing the finish line, I met with my friend. By this point, the weather decided that it was time to really bring on the rain instead of sprinklings of here and there. As we waited to check our bags out, we ... ok, not we, it was more of an "I" thing going on, thought about what to eat afterwards. There were many choices, Mexican, Korean, Burgers, Dumplings (Chinese), or Vietnamese. After much debate, although, we agreed that Vietnamese Pho would be the best thing to have to powerup after our run.

We made our way to Pho Hung (Spadina Avenue and St Andrew Street); right across the street from the Bright Pearl Dimsum Restaurant (that's allegedly said to be haunted...).

Pho @ Pho Hung was amazing! Soup was super tastey, not too greasy. We ordered a set of their summer rolls too. A perfect way to end a satisfying run.

Now for the next run... Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon. Why does that worry me? Maybe because I haven't hit my 30km mark yet.. at least not since the Midsummer Night's Run in August! I really thought that since the organizers had moved the STWM to October, I would have more time to train... lol I guess it didn't work for me. Some longer distances this week might help. I just hope it doesn't rain too much!

Last weekend before race madness

2011-09-25T21:40:00.005-04:00

I've been trying so hard to keep with my schedule the past few weeks, but it's been more difficult than I had anticipated. Sleeping late bears a big factor in it :) Kind of like a cycle that just develops, you sleep late, you feel too tired in the morning to do the run. I did manage one run at least. Though, I definitely think it's affected my lsd on the weekends.

Today, I left the house late, wasn't able to sleep last night after witnessing a fight break out in the subway. Although thankfully this time I wasn't actually an injured party of it. What luck though. Out of maybe 7 compartments, I end up in one that has a dispute on it. I do hope they start transitioning the new subways [http://www.blogto.com/city/2010/10/ttc_unveils_new_rocket_subway_trains/] soon.

At any rate, I still managed to push myself to gear up and head out. No slacking, the month of race madness is literally around the corner. Next week, first race up is the CIBC breast cancer run for the cure. I've been consecutively for the past 5 years been a participant and contributor to this cause. Gotta love the pink that shows up on race day! Each year I notice the growing number of participants, and it really is amazing. A mix of breast cancer survivors, people running for loved ones, it is truely inspiring to among such a wonderful group of people.

CIBC Run for the Cure - October 2, 2011 (5km Run)

And then the marathon madness. I should really check in and see if I've simply gone insane or am just overly ambitious. Or both. And plus some (as one of friends may add). hahaha. She is not far from the truth there... :D

After gearing up, grabbed a quick bite of bagel (I actually ended up eating a whole bagel! lots of butter on top... how healthy is that?! lol My dad gave a nice commentary: most people put butter on one side, just because I'm running, I give my excuse that I could put butter on both sides! But hey, at least I eat the slices separately. Double buttered as one bagel doesn't feel right to me...).

My run started nice and steady, yawned a couple times :P, but by the time I was in my 5th km, I was in my groove. The weather was actually quite nice. According to the forecast, it was suppose to rain all weekend (last I checked anyhow). Instead, a pleasant surprise of cool and perfect running weather was presented. I couldn't believe my luck...especially given the fact I started my run at 9am! Goodness, that was usually around the time I started to taper off on my lsd and head home. Give or take my distance. Oh well, I guess consistancy has been going out the door the past weeks, why not this too? hehe.

There were a lot of runners today, definitely weather related. Not as many bikers as I expected though. As I ran, I noticed some pretty random things. I saw this guy, well built, runner like, biking towards me. Normally it would escape my notice, but lol he had little basket in front of his bike and there inside was the cutest little dog ever! I think it was a shitzu. hehe. I really couldn't help but let that distrupt my running rhythm. Another woman walking by also looked at me with a slight smirk on her face. Nothing wrong with a guy with a dog.. but on a bike with it in a little basket... hehehe. too cute.

I kept my pacing up pretty well for the first 10km, but I started really to fade as I got into my 15-18km. By the time 20km came around, the sun was becoming a little unbearable, despite the cool wind in the air. I never much liked the beaming of sun on my face. Even with a cap. I kept thinking that I should have brought sunblock. By 21 km, I grudgingly had to cut the lsd short and start running off my route and heading home. I went on my cooldown at 23.5km.

Maybe for next saturday I could do a long run pre cibc run day :)

Toronto Island Duathlon 2011 - My first Duathlon

2011-08-28T19:39:00.014-04:00

A Duathlon - run, bike, run. Yes, not a biathlon as one would have thought it be called. I signed up for the race some time ago, likely in June is my guess, thinking that it would be a good way to transition into triathlons. Kind of like testing the waters before leaping in (even though, I fully intend on diving in!).

Today, at the Toronto Islands, I got a good taste of what it would feel like. The race course for my event was 4.5km run, followed by a 30km bike ride, and finishing off with a 4.5km run. The route didn't seem very difficult, but then again, I was also still on my recovery week from last weekends 30km run, and on a terrible note, I hadn't touched my bike since my "fall" a few weeks ago. The bike (and helmet) was in fact still in my friends garage today...

In preparation for the event, last night I made some pasta for dinner (I have to say, I do make a mean spaghetti!). I also rummaged up my hydration pack, tossed in an emergency blanket, iPhone, some food (almonds, e-discs, cliff bloks), and an extra set of clothes for changing after the race. And of course, a long sleeve shirt/sweatshirt for after/pre race.

I aimed to for a good nights sleep, but instead slept at 1am somehow. Not good since I had to wake up in 4 hours...

@5:00am today, I was up.
@5:30am, I was dressed and ready to go, drank some water to hydrate myself.
@6:00am, my friend (great support, unfortunate that he couldn't do the race this year) picked me up. The bike securely attached to his car, with helmet and some extra Gatorade he thought I might need. need to say, I did *shudder* about the Gatorade. Last weeks experience still lingering)

@6:30am, we were at the Ferry area to the Toronto Islands. I went to pick up my bib# and ferry ticket. There I met a girl named Angela. She was doing the Duathlon Relay. Part of me kinda wished I did too :P
@7:00ish (?) My friend and I parted ways then, wishing me luck as I stood in line to get on the Ferry. I was now solo. As I waited, I looked around me, and I could see road bikes, triathlon bikes (you know, the ones that look fast while standing still...), but not many hybrids or mountain bikes even. I chatted with a woman and her husband in front of me, and found out that she was doing the triathlon. Her bike looked cool, not a tri bike, but still, compared to mine, much more awesome. It was a really windy and cool day, I couldn't imagine going into open water and swimming 750m. I later found out when we finally got on the ferry that she was going to be doing the Ottawa Triathlon next weekend. This event was going to be nothing compared to that; she was going to use this as a practice for the swim section. Very impressed. I wished I could do what she was doing, but I guess I am moving towards that. Just need to put in more practice with my weaker areas (biking and swimming!).

Once we arrived on the island, we made our way to "Transition Area", close by starting line area. There I parted ways with Karman, and went to my bike rack section (in accordance to my bib#). There, I met two ladies that were also like me - doing their first duathlon. I chatted with them a little and then went to pick up my the latter part of my race kit - this included the free participation tshirt, a race bag full of goodies (granola bars, chewys..etc) + a magazine, and my race chip (which was actually a strap on to my ankle!).

I decided then, that I would just run without the hydration pack. I didn't need it. And the worry that my stuff would be taken or anything like that without it being locked up (yes, a little paranoid...), was put to rest. Everyone there were athletes, and the place was kinda closed off to the general public. I put my hydration bag to the side, close to where my bike sat on the rack, pinned up my bib#, put the sticker of my bib# on my helmet (not sure if it was rights side up? since it was a rushed job), and strapped on my chip timer.

It was also during this time that I found out that running with music were not allowed. I had brought my armband too. In hindsight, I could have just worn the armband with my iPhone just to tell the time... I didn't have a watch..

@7:50am, I stood with my two new friends Roxxanne and Patricia as we waited for the race to start. I also bumped into Angela too.
@8:00am, the starting horn sounded, and we were off to the races!

Note that I didn't have a watch, so the rest will have no time reference :P

I completed the 4.5km pretty strong. The course looped around so that we ended back into the transition area, so we could pick up our bikes. I quickly took a quick drink of the Gatorade situated conveniently on my bike, put on my helmet, and started the next part of the event - 30km bike ride.

Here is where I heard a lot of "On your left!", "To your Left", "Left", "Careful, on your left!", "Sorry, on your left".. I think I may dream about those words tonight. I held a steady pace, but compared to the pro athletes in the event (quite a lot of them), I looked like a recreational biker lol. I could hear them zip by me as I rode my bike.

Words of great wisdom: Keep calm, and Carry on.

Once I finished the 30km ride, which we also looped back into the transition area, I took another few sips of my Gatorade, donned my favourite white cap, and started my last section: run 4.5km. As I started to run, I could feel the tension in my legs, they felt so rubbery. I was warned about this by the new friends I met. They all said it would feel like that right after the bike to run transition, and you just have to ease into it for the first 5-10 minutes. They were right.

I finished the race, got a free Hero Burger (yum), and a 1% Milk. Both girls that I ran with were really nice, offering Chinese buns and a delicious coconut drink while we waited in line for the burger.

All in all, it was yet another successful event! I met new friends, tried something new, and discovered a new found favourite - Hero burgers!

After leaving the island, I couraged up and biked all the way home, a good 7km on top of the 30km. :P A good start to pushing myself a little.

Next event... going to be a little quiet until October, but it will definitely give me time to train :)

Midsummer Nights Run 2011

2011-08-22T23:51:00.004-04:00

My run is for Canada Runs for Japan. This is a local group of runners in Toronto area who decided to do something special to help the victims of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. In order to raise awareness about relief efforts in Japan, this group that I have joined, are doing various runs throughout the year. When I first heard of this team, I was moved by how they are trying to help. So far from their last event, the Toronto Marathon, they have raised about $12,518.69 CDN. Proceeds from T-shirt Sales (see my wicking shirt on left image) and donations ($7,308.69 CDN) go directly to relief efforts in Japan through the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund organized through the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre (JCCC) . The remaining 4,210.00 CDN in entry fees paid to the Toronto Marathon Office will go to supporting future marathons which have generously supported the Canada Runs for Japan project and other charitable organizations over the years. Read more about Canada Runs for Japan, and an upcoming run @ the Montreal Marathon.

In preparation for this years run, I aimed to have it turn out differently than the last one - loss of two precious toenails (happy to report though, they have grown back now), and not to be heaving and nauseous in the middle of the night post-race.

Knowing my mistakes from last year, toenails were definitely well-trimmed a few days before hand and a full meal of delicious pasta was ingested at 11am in the morning. In hindsight, perhaps for the latter precaution I should have done the night before - the full plate of pasta that I had required more than a mere 6 hours to digest apparently :-(

@11:00am I ventured to a local restaurant on the Beaches - Tulips. I was at this same restaurant the night before my race for the rideforheart, a biking event that I completed earlier this year. I remember the pasta being really good and hearty. Just what I needed to fuel me up for the 30km.

Plus a side of mashed potatoes.

I honestly think I over-did myself on the food this time around. lol. I paid dearly for it. The unfortunate thing was it didn't end there. I broke a cardinal rule in all the training I had done in the past 3 years: never ever experiment on drinks on the day of the race. You do this while training, find out what works with your body while you're running and what makes you sick after drinking it. If there was ever a 'failed blog' moment, this was it. I bought myself 2 bottles of Gatorade - Extreme Grape.

I love grape juice. I like grapes. I like most grape flavoured stuff, candies, lollipops, raisins.. lol. So why not, extreme grape? Sounds so good! No. no. not good at all... it tasted ok the first few sips. But by 5km in, I was desperate to unload the Gatorade and replace it with just water.

Now that I have stated what went wrong, I'll just start from the beginning in what went remarkably right for an amazing night run.

@10:45am, I left my house with all gear in my backpack, and headed to Tulips for my fill of spaghetti (and side of mashed potatoes). I arrived at the restaurant and seated myself in one of the booths. Humming to myself quietly, I quickly selected out my meal and sipped on a glass of ice cold water while waiting for my order to arrive. I needed to keep hydrated :) I could hear the bustling around the restaurant - even at such an early hour, it was already getting so busy. I could smell the bacon and eggs, the butter, and the toast... It almost made me sad that I had to limit myself to just carbs. Not that I didn't like spaghetti... but I love breakfast food a lot.
When my pasta arrived, I took a quick picture of it, before digging in. Delicious. Mashed potatoes too disappeared quickly. I think I was the only one in the restaurant who was eating a pasta meal during brunch hours :)

After the meal, I had to head back home because I realized that I had forgotten my headlights. These headlights are lifesavers. Last year I needed them, and that was when I was a much stronger runner. This year, I had a feeling that if I didn't bring headlights, I'd be lost in the dark and tripping over my feet. I stayed home until around 2pm, which was when I had to go pick up my race kit.

@ 2:30pm, I arrived at McLeary Park, picked up my race kit. It contained my bib (and chip attached to the bib), and a nice midsummer nights run shirt. I had my option of black or white. I stuck around the park a little bit, checked out a marathon running stand. Like the Expo's, it had a whole bunch of marathon pamphlets. I couldn't resist but pick some up.

I realized I had a lot of time to kill. Time to go buy those water bottles I'd been stingy on! I headed off to the running room. Bought my 4 waterbottles set, some e-disks (just in case), and bodyglide. I also got my friend a waterbelt too.

I took my time there, and didn't start to head back to the park until around 4:30pm. As I got on the shuttle bus (by lakeshore and connaught area), I bumped into an old teammate (Janine) from Team in Training! We chatted a bit as the bus took us to McLeary. Turned out that she and her cousin were going to do the 15km. This was the first of many brief moments when I thought that 15km may have been a better distance for me.

Its about 5ish, and I'm mentally preparing myself for the run. I'm nervous. Definitely nervous. My longest run for the year had been a mere 20km. That was no where near the distance I was at the previous years. This was going to be a challenge, whether I liked it or not.

@5:30, I'm at the starting line and I hear a cheer, and we're off. I start off strong (adrenaline pumping), and its around the 5km margin, when I start feeling not so great. Not even a quarter of the way through, how was I suppose to maintain?! Panic was not helping. Stomach was doing sommersaults, cramps at the side, slight nauseous (gatorade culprit)... I kept on going. at 10km, I was struggling still, worse off than before. I saw my friend who came by while biking. It was a source of encouragement. This lasted me a while... until my back started to bother me. I kept on going, but by the 21km mark, I was starting to doubt I was going to make the cut-off point.

I remember the split. Just beyond the 21 km, the left one was for the 15km, and the right for the 30km. My heart pounding, and wondering if I was making the right decision, I veered to the right, and continued. My alarms on my iPhone had gone off, indicators that cut-off time was near miss... and then I met Michelle and her friend (who had super bright headlights) and Lorraine. Thank god I met these ladies. We really helped each other through. Lorraine and I stuck together, chatting as we ran. By the 26km point, the two of us were starting to turn into the Beaches, the place I do most of my runs. Familiar territory.. except it was in the pitch black. I had at this point turned on my headlights and was keen on not tripping over any bumps or cracks in the cement.. or the boardwalk :P

Lorraine and I kept on chatting as we cleared 1km after another, pushing to get to that 30km. I swear, 4km never seemed so far! It felt like an endless run, especially in the dark. It was however, very peaceful, serene. And then it started to spit again. I was getting tense, because last year, around the last few km was when the downpour came, and I was drenched from head to toe.

At last we cleared out of the Beaches, I was starting to count km as they came. My back was killing me at this point. I couldn't wait till I reached the finish line. At last we were at the 29km mark, I was so close! My pace steadied. My face determined. And when I crossed that finish line, my face broke into an exuberant smile: We'd done it. It was done. 30km! They hung a medal over our heads and we each gave each other hugs for our accomplishment.

When Lorraine and I parted ways, I called my friend Jeff who had been really supportive all evening in cheering me on, to pick me up. lol I had no energy to walk home this time around. The evening was a true success! Despite how sore I was feeling, it was so much fun. Meeting of old friends, and meeting of new friends, and of course, finishing the race!

Next race up... Duathlon? At the Toronto Islands. Oh Boy...