Tag Archives: coaching

Mar14

London Training…and everything else

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I had the best intentions to try to do an update on training every week or too. But, of course, it sure isn’t as easy to find the time to do that compared to when I first started this blog in 2014. I was very dedicated in updating this page with my Dopey Challenge updates, my races, my fundraising in memory of my dad….I really wish I could add 5 more hours in each of my days and maybe, just maybe, I’d then have enough time to do this every week.

This isn’t complaining. Life is great right now. But holy shit, everything just piled on at the same time it feels…guess that’s how it always happens. So I have this training happening, which I want to note is going GREAT. Honestly, not sarcastically. I have stuck to my coach’s training plans pretty dead-on since we began just before January 1st, 2025. It has been going awesome. I am nailing the paces and the distances. It has been great to be feeling so great while doing this. This is huge, as when I did my last full marathon in 2022 I was not in the same shape. I am feeling like my old self, and pretty damn proud of doing this while 40 years old.

My coach hard at work making training plans and multitasking

I have only had some pain in my hamstring, and this is a bit frustrating. I noticed it back in November, actually, its always just been kind of ‘there.’ I have had massage done, I have foam-rolled, stretched, etc…but it is always just lingering. I am just crossing my fingers that it doesn’t progress to anything that leans towards the injury realm.

Tomorrow, I bribed our son to go to the weekly Park Run 5km in preparation for the annual Moonlight Run, which is the following weekend. Andy will be running the 6km at Moonlight with dad, while I attempt to race balls-to-the-wall in the 10km and see what my old self has in me. The bribe for doing the free 5km tomorrow is that Andy gets to choose where we go to dinner. He chose Original Joes, which we aren’t mad about. At least he didn’t pick Boston Pizza. If he doesn’t finish Park Run, however, I need to follow through and cancel the reservation and maybe I’ll just be sludge and get Taco Bell for myself for dinner. I do plan to do a nice little recap after this race weekend comes, as I always have. If you search Moonlight Run on my page, you will find TONS of posts. I really love this local evet because it always seems to be the kickoff to the race year.

Dan has been getting into his own training schedule too, with a focus on the Red Deer Half this May (already registered for) and toying with the idea of a fall full marathon (TBD). My workouts for London take precedent, but we have been balancing with him also running 3 times a week. Along with Andy’s basketball, swim, indoor soccer (season just finished, phew), hosting a Japanese exchange student, having parent council duties as Treasurer, trying to help out with Lethbridge Trail Alliance, work turbulence and uncertainties, day-to-day life, making meals that aren’t absolute shit, and trying to just balance life….we are busy.

Going on the runs take a lot of time out of each week. When I had a ‘high mileage week’ recently, I logged around 44miles and had tons of hours of workouts completed. Tracey, my coach and one of my closest friends, uses this great program Training Peaks where she uploads the workouts onto the program, then they get loaded to my watch…then my results get put back on the program. You et it. It’s great. Below are some visuals that I can see in the training plans. You definitely have to plan ahead, schedule wise, when trying to do this type of training along with all the other things in your daily life.

Training Peaks Data

At almost halfway through March, I know the rest of the month will probably fly by. When April hits, that when shit gets real. The Marathon Month. Like, holy shit…I get to go to Europe with my best friend for a week and get to run the largest marathon in the world. My 5th Abbott World Major. Wow. This doesn’t really feel real yet, but I know as the countdown keeps ticking away, the more excited and amped up I am going to get. Until then, I am too busy with everything else to think too much about it!

Thumbs Up…so far!
Oct18

Disneyland 10km Recap (Better late than never…)

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I’m sitting in the basement at 8:30 pm aimlessly switching between HGTV and the Sunday Night Football game. This is a first since August. School has been so busy that I have fallen behind on my posts. I ran the Disneyland Half Marathon and 10km back over Labour Day weekend…yes, first week in September…and haven’t written the recap yet. Well, it won’t be as long and glamorous of a recap as usual, but I’m getting it done tonight!

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I went out to California Labour Day weekend of 2015, much as I had the year prior. I was going to do the RunDisney DumboDouble Dare Challenge. My BFF lives in Redondo Beach, so accommodations are easy! I booked the direct flight from Calgary on Thursday evening of the weekend knowing I’d be back before work started again on Thursday….but, oops. Misread the school calendar. While I knew I’d be taking a day off of teaching on the Friday, I thought it was just a work day (year prior classes hadn’t started yet). But I would miss a teaching day. And I hate missing teaching days. Especially since we only would have had one regular class day before I bailed. But I had the days planned to use, so it was what it was, and I went on my way.

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Now, as a RunDisney veteran (so to speak) I knew what to expect with this weekend. I knew the lay of the land. But this weekend was different as my goal was to place in my age group in the 10km, beat my personal best of 41:30 in the race, and help my BFF crush her half marathon personal best.

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Summer training went alright…but I was burnt out. I spoke in previous posts that I was feeling the burn and needed to rest. But with this 10km goal I didn’t want to stop. 10km race day came and I was anxious. And warm. It was by no means hot in Anaheim this particular weekend but the air is just different than Alberta and I was feeling clammy. I also had just had a sub par performance at a local Lethbridge half the weekend prior, that while placing and winning prize money, I had felt like garbage with stomach issues. I was nervous this would happen again.

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Racing Disney races with a goal time in mind is so different than just doing them for fun. If you do them for a goal with the first corral you are in the DARK the whole race. I mean, it starts at 5:30 AM after all. I began with a dead on split at mile one of 6:31. If I held this I could well beat my goal. But my legs were already feeling a bit woozy and my body warm, so as I entered California Adventure I slowed to a 6:48 for mile 2.

imageNow, note…I am writing this recap a month and a half after the fact. I cannot remember the details but I knew I was counting women in front of me from the very start and trying to peg if they were my 30-34 age group. I just wanted to be top 3 in that.  

Between mile 3 and 4 I was still trucking along but slowing. A lot. And I was getting frustrated. I had been at an extreme level for myself in April when I ran my 41:30 and felt like I should be able to match that here…low elevation, happiest place on earth….but as I ran down Main Street, through Tomorrowland, around Small World and through the back stage, I slowed to a 6:51 and 7:00. Damnit. What is going on? I had had mile repeat workouts at 6 am this summer that were fastest than this. I was running at “my happy place” but not happy.


I knew I was still in an OK position to hopefully place in my age group. I pushed on what I could for the last two miles. I got really scared as one woman passed me with about 800 left because she looked my age and I wasn’t sure how that would make the results look. Miles 5 and 6 were 7:23 and 7:18. I finished with an official time of 43:28. I was mad. Frustrated. I felt like I was better than this.  

image image imageIn the end, this was good enough for 3rd out of 1046 in my age group. Yeah, I realize how that sounds, and now it looks like I’m looking for a pity party….but while I reached my goal of placing in a RunDisney event, I didn’t do it to the caliber I know I am capable of. Maybe I have now set myself into a bad spot, as I spent the first six months of 2015 breaking my own personal bests and thus, maybe I think I can keep up with that?

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Second week of October I received the email from RunDisney verifying my address and where to send my age group award. And this weekend I just finished coaching five amazing grade 12 runners at Alberta Cross Country Provincials. These things put it in perspective. 1.) I did reach a goal. I set a goal to place in my age group at a RunDisney event. And I did. 2.) All weekend I told my girls to go out and run the best race they could. That every day is different. That every course is different. And that just because they ran a certain time on a 4km course in Medicine Hat, Alberta, didn’t mean they could get that or beat that, or beat the same girls for that matter, while running on a new course in Grand Prairie, Alberta.

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Every race is different. Some don’t turn out exactly how you hope, but that’s why I just keep running. After being around all these amazing young athletes this weekend, I realize how stupid I was to get mad that I didn’t get my time goal. Getting a personal best isn’t going to happen every race you run; I realize that. But I had a convoluted idea in my mind that while in Disneyland, anything can happen. I’ll just have to set that time goal off to the side burner for now, with the heat on simmer, and I’ll stir it occasionally until it’s time to taste it.  

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Feb9

I have the WCHS treadmill “friend-zoned”…

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I strongly dislike running on treadmills. Always have. I’d rather be out on the roads. Most distance runners seem to agree. I wrote about how in December I caved and bought a pass at the U of L so I could use the indoor track during my Dopey training. It was so ridiculously cold out for many days that if I wanted to get my runs in, I just had too. Some of the days I got stuck on the treadmill instead of the track because of U of L track practice.

December and Dopey came and went, my pass expired, and so did my time using the treadmill……WRONG. It again is stupidly cold outside, and since my training for my spring races is in gear, I can’t skip runs. I need to get them in…so I have hit the last resort….

…Use the treadmill at my schools’ fitness centre.

Now….you may be wondering why I didn’t just do this in December, as I have access to the WCHS fitness centre for free, since I teach there. I have found out there are a variety of reasons why I didn’t…however, now I am finding myself there a few times a week. What have been some issues or interesting tidbits since doing this?

Well….timing is one. After a day of teaching, if I want to get in the fitness centre right away, it’s packed with students….which is great because they are working out! But not great for me, because honestly I’d rather be running without the kids I teach all day surrounding me (sorry guys. You probably have the same feeling towards me!)

If I wait late and go in after the kids get kicked out at 4:30, I run into the potential issue of not getting the good treadmill.Which is the “good one?” Well…it’s definitely not the one that doesn’t even turn on. Or the one that seemingly only let’s you run 20 minutes before ending your course, thus having to restart. So the “good one” is the treadmill in the far corner next to the stereo. Omar and I seem to always now get in there around the same time and have to beat the other person to this treadmill. If he is on that treadmill when I go in there, I just pivot on out and head back to my classroom and find something to mark, or find something to avoid marking…

Now. The U of L was full of clowns in their fitness room, but it was a decently temperature-controlled room. And the treadmills were conveniently located near a big old fan. I liked that. The WCHS fitness centre reminds me of the House of Corrections gym circa 1992, as it smells like sweaty armpit and feels like a sauna. I honestly want to bring an outdoor thermometer in there and see how warm that room gets…has to be at least 80 degrees. There is a big box fan, and on Friday when I had to do 6 miles, I thought I was all smart and jimmy-rigged it in the corner near the “good one.” Too bad it didn’t even blow any air. I looked like a tomato after that run.

So, yeah. I’m complaining. I’m whining. And it sounds like I’m talking trash about where I work. But trust me…even with all this moaning and groaning…this fitness centre now has a special place in my heart. The heat—-it actually is going to help me. I know I get crabby when I run in the warm weather, so this humid cave will actually prepare me for my summer races. And today when I went to Runners Soul Marathon Club at 7:45 am, and my car said -14 Fahrenheit….I swore a little to myself.

Do I miss the indoor track at U of L?—-yes, but I didn’t push myself on that. On the “good one” I can set my speed to the pace I want to reach and it forces me to stay on it. My interval days have been outstanding…and that 6 miler on Friday was a range of 6.5-8.0 mph, finishing in 52:39. I couldn’t have done that on the snowy sidewalks of Lethbridge.

And running in my own private bubble? While it isn’t always guaranteed at the fitness centre, if I have to be surrounded by other people working out, I’d rather it be those kids I teach during the day than the whack jobs at the gym. It is great as a teacher to see the kids outside of the classroom pursuing their personal interests and hobbies, and seeing so many of them getting hooked on an active lifestyle is great. And it is great for us teachers to show the kids that we are active ourselves!

So is the “good one” ideal? No, of course not. But she will have to do for now. I will make the most of her during this training! And who knows…even when the weather warms up, I may still end up using the “good one” for those speed workouts….or I may just have to do sprints with our track & field athletes!