Aly, walk with me in my dreams / All through the night
Happy March! (And, uh, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb, while I'm at it...)
I've been a lot more active on Twitter recently than LJ. Oops.
At least this way I've spared LJ of several months' worth of OMG Teh Dramaz, that I just can't seem to not talk about. Sigh.
One of the side effects of waiting so long to write is that there is a lot one could include - whether one should is of course a different story.
We've gone through a few staff members at work recently. When I first started composing this post, the next sentence read: Hopefully we've settled on one now? Sadly, I have in the meantime received a rejoinder to that question mark. I just learned this afternoon that I've lost the third co-worker in the last 6 months. I could cry. Tempted to go out and get hammered, except: too many calories. Blargh.
Not that I can particularly blame them. A couple weeks back, I had one of those same kinds of chats with my boss. I was apparently not as determined as the aforementioned coworkers: Turns out she's a lot better
than Dr. Incomprehensible was at convincing me not to quit.
But I am close to the end of my rope. Am regularly trying to convince myself I can tough it out until my 2016 departure for Russia.
ANYway. Where did we last
leave off?
Oh right! I was threatening to go to Victoria.
The marathon in Victoria went... ho-hum. I had been out in the wilderness for a very long day immediately prior to my Calgary departure, doing research. By the time I got into Victoria, picked up my race package, and so on I was so tired I pretty much crashed into bed without so much as getting anything to eat.
Nevertheless, I still started the race really strong - TOO strong, as it turned out. At the halfway mark I was well ahead of pace (insert warning bells here); still happy with how I was doing at 30k, then with about 10k left just ran out of steam (shades of the 2011 run in Regina - apparently I don't do well in cities named after queens?). It was also pretty sunny and sweltery at this point, so I kind of staggered the last 5k especially. Kept thinking about trying to push myself, but knew I was doing the Toronto marathon the following weekend too, and didn't want to destroy my legs in the meantime.
The
Toronto Waterfront Marathon the next weekend went a lot better. I made sure to eat the day before
and the weather was better. It was fairly cool, overcast and rainy - except the rain stopped 5 minutes before the starting gun, then held off all day. Pretty much perfect running weather, in other words (a lot like Kelowna in 2011). I also wasn't saving myself for anything, so just kept pushing and pushing through. And hey, only a week later, my legs were already thinking about forgiving me!
So. No personal best in Toronto either, but am nevertheless pretty happy. Beat my Victoria time by almost 10 minutes, and had a much more even pacing.
And that's it for last fall's running. Stay tuned for 2013!
Russia fund? Currently at $19,000. Ahead of the game by about $2,000. (But as we shall see in upcoming posts, this coming year may be an expensive one. So: hmm.)
3 years and 1 month to go!
(So. Lots more upcoming stuff to talk about; insha'Allah you can expect a couple more posts in the next few days, assuming I can stay off my duff.)
I've been a lot more active on Twitter recently than LJ. Oops.
At least this way I've spared LJ of several months' worth of OMG Teh Dramaz, that I just can't seem to not talk about. Sigh.
One of the side effects of waiting so long to write is that there is a lot one could include - whether one should is of course a different story.
We've gone through a few staff members at work recently. When I first started composing this post, the next sentence read: Hopefully we've settled on one now? Sadly, I have in the meantime received a rejoinder to that question mark. I just learned this afternoon that I've lost the third co-worker in the last 6 months. I could cry. Tempted to go out and get hammered, except: too many calories. Blargh.
Not that I can particularly blame them. A couple weeks back, I had one of those same kinds of chats with my boss. I was apparently not as determined as the aforementioned coworkers: Turns out she's a lot better
than Dr. Incomprehensible was at convincing me not to quit.
But I am close to the end of my rope. Am regularly trying to convince myself I can tough it out until my 2016 departure for Russia.
ANYway. Where did we last
leave off?
Oh right! I was threatening to go to Victoria.
The marathon in Victoria went... ho-hum. I had been out in the wilderness for a very long day immediately prior to my Calgary departure, doing research. By the time I got into Victoria, picked up my race package, and so on I was so tired I pretty much crashed into bed without so much as getting anything to eat.
Nevertheless, I still started the race really strong - TOO strong, as it turned out. At the halfway mark I was well ahead of pace (insert warning bells here); still happy with how I was doing at 30k, then with about 10k left just ran out of steam (shades of the 2011 run in Regina - apparently I don't do well in cities named after queens?). It was also pretty sunny and sweltery at this point, so I kind of staggered the last 5k especially. Kept thinking about trying to push myself, but knew I was doing the Toronto marathon the following weekend too, and didn't want to destroy my legs in the meantime.
- Arrival in Victoria and the Strait of Georgia. Pretty waterscape is pretty.
- Parliament. The marathon started and ended in front of this lawn. QC Marathon in Regina did similarly.
- Faces.
- At about the marathon's 7km mark (so roughly 9:30 AM), the course led us to crest Beacon Hill right here. Seeing the sun rising over the ocean and mountains of western Washington was probably my favourite moment of any marathon I've ever run so far. It was gorgeous!
- Relevant to my post-marathon interests!!
- Victoria wildlife.
- Touristy things for me include visiting various Mile 0 markers. What can I say? I'm a roadgeek! Had actually been to this one before, but shrug. I know I've referenced my fondness for the Trans-Canada highway
before. (It is interesting that - as is the case with all other similar roads - both ends of the TCH have a Mile 0 marker. There is no Mile 4,990 marker...)
- The end.
- Made some more conventional tourist stops as well. The Emily Carr house was closed this holiday Sunday.
- Yup. BC.
- Heading back. I'm on a boat!
- The prairies are pretty too, tho' often in a very different way. Sunset over AB-519 east of Granum.
The
Toronto Waterfront Marathon the next weekend went a lot better. I made sure to eat the day before
and the weather was better. It was fairly cool, overcast and rainy - except the rain stopped 5 minutes before the starting gun, then held off all day. Pretty much perfect running weather, in other words (a lot like Kelowna in 2011). I also wasn't saving myself for anything, so just kept pushing and pushing through. And hey, only a week later, my legs were already thinking about forgiving me!
So. No personal best in Toronto either, but am nevertheless pretty happy. Beat my Victoria time by almost 10 minutes, and had a much more even pacing.
- I didn't take many photos or do much touristy stuff in Toronto. Considered getting some free poutine here, but the lineups were long, and yeah.
And that's it for last fall's running. Stay tuned for 2013!
Russia fund? Currently at $19,000. Ahead of the game by about $2,000. (But as we shall see in upcoming posts, this coming year may be an expensive one. So: hmm.)
3 years and 1 month to go!
(So. Lots more upcoming stuff to talk about; insha'Allah you can expect a couple more posts in the next few days, assuming I can stay off my duff.)