My love for training

What can I say, I love my body, I love to push it to its limits and it is hard....very hard for me to take some time off for my body! Perhaps that means that part of my drive for my training is a mental aspect, its for my mind.

I am one of those lucky people...???.. that has a very active mind, to the point that it can race with so many ideas that if I do not surround myself with outside distractions I can not focus on one certain thing too well. For example, when I was in university I got my most effective studying done while sitting in a loud, high traffic study area while listening to punk music! Or watch me during a conference lecture and you will most likely see me trying to write out something unrelated or at bare minimum twirling my pen around my fingers.

Anyways, running and training helps to provide me with productive thinking time, especially those 4+ hour runs! When I take time off it seems everything can become unbalanced and maybe its because my head gets to full!

As of this week I have started training for my marathon in October...did I mention it is in Greenland! Also I am running a half marathon the weekend before it in San Fransisco, I can't wait! I have started to get out on my runs after taking a month off of consistent training after my 50 miler in May. I guess I should say running not training as I have been doing more and more CrossFit, a new love in my life.

Going to Crossfit allowed me to cut a significant amount of mileage out of y training schedule but still leave me confident for my ultras. For my 50 miler i never ran more then 20 km (minus my 1 weekly long run). I'm converted!

Bring on another training season!!

Weekend of Wedding Fun with Crys!

Well to start off there is no hidden meaning behind this picture! I just thought it was fun! Perhaps it made me wonder how our wedding day will go... love you hun ;)

My sister, Crystal, came to town this weekend, 7 months pregnant from Calgary so she could be a part of the fun wedding stuff, like finding a dress. And we found it!! All I can say about it, in case Rob were to look at this posting, is that its two main features are ones then I never even considered, really the two things I would have avoided. Who knew that they would make the perfect dress! I ended up buying it at a store in New West and they were great. They allowed us to take pictures and even offered us to use their tablet so we could get my mom on Skype to see some of the dresses.

To finish off the weekend, Crys helped me finish off my invitations. The majority of the invites were via email but not everyone has an email so we headed to Michaels, picked up supplies and crafted our own paper invites. Now my to do list is done until the end of summer, how great is that!

5 Days into 31 and its been a big BANG!

I have always been one to believe that life just keeps getting better, I met an amazing lady a few years ago that also confirmed my belief. She was a new client and I was asking the regular intake questions, for example "and your age?..92...PARDON?! I honestly would have guessed 75ish! She looked amazing and showed no signs of being any older then what I had though, but sure enough she was in her 90's, unbelievable! As I was working with her I will never forget when she said "if I have to say anything about growing older, it would have to be each year just gets better, never be afraid of growing old!"
Though I was never afraid of growing old or worried about the wrinkles I would have from loving to smile so much, her telling this to me just helped to strengthen my belief.

Each year after my birthday I have been able to look back and take so many positive things from the year, although I was pretty convinced that being 29 was some form of cruel initiation to have the chance to turn 30, there were many great things that happend when I was 29.  I ran my first ultra marathon, I landed my an amazing job, I ran a marathon in Rome and yes in there were many lessons learned that push me and challenged me more then I thought they could, but I stepped up to these life challenges and came out on top.

Being 30 was about using these new lessons and to continue to grow with them, learn more about myself and just how much I could handle (I also ran a 120 mile run over 6 days and ran my first 50 miler right before turning 31!). I must have been successful for showing I could handle more of a challenge when I was 30 because here I am 5 days into being 31 and HUGE changes have already come about!

1. I am no longer the Fitness Coordinator for the Vancouver Police Dept.........my position has officially been changed to ATHLETIC THERAPIST for the VPD. This is beyond huge and therapists out there would understand this best. VPD is setting a precedent in North America by recognizing a need to have an in house therapist on staff. Yes I was doing therapy before but it was when I had extra time, now it is officially part of my job description! Yeay for us Athletic Therapists! and Yeay to VPD for being so incredibly progressive!

2. As of tonight I have added another venture to ActivFit Sports Therapy. I am now a part of the USANA family. I will be selling some amazing nutritional supplements that I am beyond excited about. Though there are many great things about them, when sparked my interest so much about the products are A. the vitamins are top notch for being bio available and B. they have a million dollar guarantee to athletes that there are NO banned substances in their products. All I can say is how many other companies are so confident in their products that they are comfortable making this claim?!? Working with high level teams and having many times searched through stores for products I was comfortable giving my players knowing they may be drug tested soon, this is a big relief!

If this first week is setting the tone for good old year 31, I cannot wait to see what is in store for me!

Winning the Job Lottery

I must say that I feel extremely lucky to be able to say day in and day out that I feel as though I have won the job lottery. Actually I should add to that, the career lottery as well. Everyday, no matter how crazy, stressful, chaotic it is I always seem to stop and laugh and think WOW I love this. I had an position interview a few weeks ago and the person interviewing me was asking what would happen to my position if I won the lottery and left my job. I just stared at her and responded well I wouldn't be leaving me job! I love it too much! And that is the 100% honest truth.

When I was six all I wanted was a broken leg, then as chance would have it I broke my leg that year on April Fools day (it took x-rays to convince my parents it was broken as I was known to be quite the injury faker). At 6 years old while skiing I had somehow managed to fracture and dislocate my knee cap. I spent 6 weeks in an ankle to hip cast that had to be replaced 4 times due to me using it as chalk on the driveway. After it was off all I would play with were my crutches, casts and tensor bandages. I remember crying when my parents made me throw away my stinky old casts, I loved them so much!

Through my childhood it would vary from ski doctor, ski police, doctor, physio and in high school I learned about people who work with teams and that taped ankles and knew that is exactly where I wanted to head! I headed to UBC for Human Kinetics and found out about the Athletic Therapy profession while in my 3rd year of the program and from that point on I focused on getting into a school for it.  Another early sign that I was destined to work with injuries was when I was 20 I fractured my right forearm so bad it was bent at close to a 45 degree angle, did I cry? No, I told my friend to go get her camera as this is not something we see every day! I still have the x-ray!!

Every step in school and every step after that I have taken in my career path has made me fall deeper and deeper in love with what I do. Whether its taping people (love love love), figuring out faulty biomechanics on someone, learning new conditioning methods, testing out methods and theories on my self, I know that without a doubt I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. Yes it is not all daisies and smiley faces all the time, its not an easy go, but I chose to enjoy the stressful moments rather then to let them push me down. They are what make me grow and keep striving to know more, understand more and to keep challenging myself.

Why write about this you may ask? Well today was one of those days that it just plain looked rough from the get go, and then out of no where I have found out that some of my hard work has paid off, sooner then expected I cannot say what yet, no it is not a new job and yes I know I am going to push myself harder and strive for more now, but isn't that how this cycle should play out?

For those looking for their dream job, keep looking, it does exist. It may even be something that you have never considered but keep your eyes and mind open. Don't settle for mediocre or something that pays the bills, go for what make your truly happy!