Epic Races of summer of 2013

Amazing summer of 2 epic races!

July - Sinister 7 - 92 mile race, I finished 6th for females!
August - Trans Rockies Run - not sure where we placed but we had a wicked awesome time!

Ready to Start an Epic Adventure

So first of all I really should not be blogging at this very moment.....

I should be in bed, getting a lot of sleep for my drive to Nelson tomorrow.....

Tomorrow I slowly start heading east to where my race is on Saturday in the Crowsnest Pass. I am spending the night in Nelson and then my parents, sister and I will pack up the vehicle (like old times but less fighting with my sister! haha) on Friday and drive to Blairmore where the start is. I am wide awake from packing up...playing with.... and organizing all of my gear, I even went for a wander in the forest tonight to test out a new headlamp! and now have been motivated to blog about it...perhaps this will put me to sleep :)

Food, Medical Bag, Therapy Supplies and Running Gear for race day!

 Below is the list of what I have packed (or will buy) so far for the race

Medical	Clothing	Food	Accessories	Misc
Advil	2 shorts	Ginger Chews	Shoe horn	Chair
Tylenol	Compression shorts	Nutella	3 garmin	Sleeping bag
Tums	2 compression socks	Pizza	Watch	tent
Imodium	Compression sleeves	Trail mix	HR monitor	2 towels
Pepto	Arm sleeves	Chicken soup	2 cool bands	3 face clothes
2nd skin	4 socks	Salt tabs	Hat	Hand towel
Leuko tape	4 shoes	Alete	Visor	2 water bladders
Hypafix	sandals	Petreum	2 tube bands	Running pack
Tuff skin	mitts	Vega	Oakleys	Hand held bottle
Duct tape	2xRunning tights	Instant coffee	Sunscreen	4 mini bottles
Skin lube	3xT3	Choc exp beans	Bug spray	thermos
Body glide	3x tank	50 gels/candies	Water filter	Zip locks
Vaseline	3x shirt	White bread	2x headlamps	Racers guide
File	jacket	dates	Extra batteries	Leg info
Nail clippers	Toque	Bananas	matches	Crew checklist
Foam		Peanut butter	Bear bell	pace plan
K tape			Bear spray	Waiver
Bandaids			rolling pin	Speakers/headphones
tapes			cupping set	Ipod
Emergency blanket			foam roller	whistle
afterbite				camera
tensors				Iphone charger

I am excited to say that I feel that I have done all that I could in terms of physical prep, mental prep, setting a race plan and organizing all of my equipment. its a great feeling going into the race this way as I know that no matter what the outcome, I am proud of myself and the effort I have put into my training. Most importantly a huge kudos to my body, it has had a rough year and it has really taken to the training in the last three months. Now is its time to shine for adapting to all of the training I have put it through and I know its itching to get going!

Also a big thanks to my family, Keish, friends and co workers during this past training season, I would have never of been able to train as hard and often as I did if it were not for them and their support.

Nicole, Graham and I after our 28 km Tenderfoot Boogie race at the end of June

Girls run up Lynn Valley

I am so excited for this race, what I will see, feel and learn. Saturday will not come fast enough! My support crew will be doing updates through my race on twitter, if you are interested you can follow at @atperspective!

Crunch Time!

24 days to go...does that make it an official count down now that I have put an exact number to it? I have to admit I have been steadily getting nervous and I haven't felt this way in a long time, I think since I raced BMO to qualify for Boston.....this one is much scarier though!

I have been hitting training at all angles - nutrition, mobility, sleep, running, stairs and fun! Perhaps a little too much weekend nighttime fun in May but it was worth it! I had a birthday and a somewhat class reunion at a conference.

Epic training runs so far? Definitely! Ones to remember:

• Running from downtown Toronto to Port Credit - 45km on the water front - bad armpit chaffing and ran out of water due to the public water fountains not being turned on! It was good mental practice.
• Running 5.5 hours up/down/around Burnaby Mountain - jumping out of the bush at the 3.5 hr mark to run into the grocery store to grab food and jump back in the bush resulted in many funny looks.
• Running 55km in 8:49 just a few days ago where I discovered just how much feeling tired is a mental thing. I was able to change around the way I was feeling in a matter of minutes by changing what i was thinking about - AWESOME! This will come in handy. 
• Hitting a new level of endurance athlete - I went out for a "quick run", it was a 20km road run and the thought that I may need food or water during it didn't cross my mind until half way through.

My goal for the next few weeks is to amp up my sleeping, especially since I still have a 60km, a 70 km run and a 50 km race before my big day. I have been taking naps instead of lunch breaks (most amazing thing ever!!) at work and spending more time vegging out at home with Keisha. Yes this does mean my house is in somewhat of an awful state right now (mostly migrating fur balls as I hate clutter) but it is worth it,  maybe one will even turn in to a puppy haha.

I am starting to put together my gear bags for the transition zones and my support crew is slowly growing, so happy that I will be having my parents, sister and best friend there!!

Let the count down begin.............

Freshly 32 and hitting the ground running…..literally

Another year has gone by and I now find myself being 32, funny how time flies! I also feel that it just wouldn’t be right if I didn’t do my yearly re-cap!

As life continues to prove, each year gets better. There were some major highs….some major lows but most of all major growing this past year. Yes I think I will look at 31 as being the year of self-growth.

•    31 started with a bang when the VPD renamed my position to Athletic Therapist at which I have been continuing on being a pioneer on therapy in policing. I have been extremely lucky to have my dept support my vision for where I want to see it to go and we are slowly progressing forward. Though slow it is still ahead of my planned schedule!

•    I ran a marathon in Greenland, though not my best time, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I cannot wait until I can go back. Its vastness I find calming and embracing and would love to do some sort of adventure trip throughout the country

•    I spent August in Japan with our National U20 Soccer Team for the World Cup. The culture there is by far the most amazing culture that I have been exposed to so far. The respect they give to everyone and their professionalism will be hard to top!

•    I started working with the Woman’s Olympic Soccer Team again and went to China, France and England. It was great to be re-acquainted with many of the players and to see some of my U20 players take the big step up. I feel like such a proud parent! The staff of the senior and U20 teams are the best I have worked with yet, truly inspirational.

•    I discovered the strength of my commitment and my limit as to how far I will sacrifice my health and well-being for someone or something. Though this can be taken a few different ways, I look at the fact that I pushed myself to and beyond my limit as a positive one as I learned a tremendous amount from it and have grown from it. Through this my body showed me just how resilient it truly is. Less then 6 months ago the accumulation of stress over several months took its big toll on me and my body, to the point that day to day functioning was a challenge. However, giving my body  time to recover, switching to a vegan (95% of the time) diet and focusing on fun has allowed my body to bounce back much more rapidly then I could have ever imagined and right now I am on track for running my biggest ultra yet!

Why do I like to write this out? Its all about perspective. It can be easy to lose track or undervalue all of the amazing things we do. Sometimes when looking back, things that didn’t seem amazing to us at the time are actually truly amazing and you are given a chance to appreciate them with this reflection.