Limpy

So apparently you really are supposed to train for a half marathon.

Yes, once upon a time, I registered to run the half at the Royal Victoria Marathon under the mistaken assumptions that:

(a) registering and (b) announcing to the blogosphere that I have registered should be sufficient motivation to get me up off my butt and back into running.

Note to self: the above assumptions are incorrect. Two weddings (and all the associated events), a softball league, wisdom teeth extraction and my general delinquency this summer all combined to give me sufficient excuses to not train adequately. And by "adequately" I mean "at all." But I registered, dammit, and I was going to run come hell or high water.

Another incorrect assumption was my belief that carrying one's CareCard with them during events in which they have the potential to become injured will protect them from injury. As it turns out, carrying one's CareCard only prevents injuries of the severity that require use of said CareCard. Injuries that don't quite require medical attention are fair game.

Also, when someone says something like "If you injure a foot, Beth, make sure it's the left one. I've injured my right foot, so if you injure your left, we can drive Lauren's car together - you on the gas and me on the clutch - if Lauren happens to injure herself" is just tempting fate.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First things first. I should tell you about how we were 15 minutes late starting the race. There were 6 of us staying at my old roommie¹ Dani's new place in Victoria. Another lesson learned on this trip: 30 minutes is not nearly enough time to get 6 people up, dressed, fed and out the door for a race. But the time we arrived, the start line looked like this:

Just a few volunteers standing around. The thousands of people running the half marathon - long gone.

Figuring "thank goodness for chip time!" we took a quick photo and headed out:

Jo, Dani, Sheila, me, Lauren & Tim.

Well, Dani and I headed out. Tim went in search of the bag check to leave his jacket before he started, Jo and Sheila, who were going to run the 8K² rather than the half marathon went in search of its start line and Lauren, who ran the full marathon which didn't start for another 45 minutes, went with J & S. We ran 3 km before we caught up with the slowest of the half marathon walkers, that's how far behind we were. And we were reported by the cops... as we ran past one of the cops stationed along the route to control traffic we heard him say into his walkie-talkie "10-4, I've got two runners coming along here." I said to Dani, "They are onto us! Quick, run!" Hee hee.. running humour.

Around about the time we caught up with the walkers, I told Dani to go on ahead of me. I'm not nearly as fast as her and knew if I continued to try to keep up with her, it would spell trouble, so she went off on her way and I continued to run at my slower pace. The route was very pretty, going through Beacon Hill and then out at a road along the water. My body started to realized that I was really, truly going to make it keep running and, for a while, seemed OK with this decision. Then a pain showed up in my left foot, but it decided to try out my right foot to see if it preferred that location, and next transferred itself to both my knees simultaneously, followed by my lower back. A slight headache showed up, but I'm pretty sure that was because they had very poorly spaced water stations and I was getting a bit dehydrated. I grabbed two cups of water at the next water station, and then found there there was another water station very soon after. Weird. Finally, the pain decided it liked my left foot best out of all the places it had tried out and took up permanent residence there. At first I figured it would go away as it had before and kept running. When it firmly stood its ground, I decided that perhaps a 2 minute walk (instead of my usual 1 min walk for every 10 minutes of running) would help. It did not. Finally, around about the 15 km mark I asked myself, "Is it worth continuing to run on this foot that is clearly unhappy about being run on and risking a more serious injury that could put you out of hockey?" Once I phrased it that way, I knew what I had to do. I had to walk, or rather limp, the last 6 km of the race. After all, any form of exercise that isn't hockey is just off-ice conditioning, in my opinion. And so I limped. And limped. And limped. I limped so much that my right hip and ankle started to hurt from overcompensation. And yet I continued to limp. Because really, what else are you going to do? I certainly wasn't injured enough to stop at the medical stop (although I did think about it) and I had to get to the finish line, where my friends would be waiting for me.

As I continued on my way, I started to resent the volunteers who were positive, cheering on the runners and walkers with a "good job!" When I ran the Vancouver half, I found these cheers to be really motivating, but as I limped along, berating myself for not having trained more, all I could think is "You people are so insincere! I'm not doing a good job! I'm doing a terrible job!!" A few volunteers along the way did seem to notice my limp and the grimace that I'm sure was on my face and gave me a sympathetic smile and that was muchly appreciated.

In the end, I hobbled over the finish line, got my medal and, surprisingly, found my friends who had finished a half hour before me. And that was the end of the race I never should have run!

My plan now, as I sit here icing my feet⁴, is to take a small break from running. I may do the occasional run if the mood strikes me once my feet are healed, but winter is time to focus on hockey and skiing. Come the new year, I'll start thinking about the Scotiabank half marathon, which happens in June. But I'm going to train for it. No really, I've learned my lesson!

¹Firefox's spellcheck tells me that "roommie" is not a word, but suggests that I actually mean "commie" here.
²I say "were going to" because they didn't, in the end, get to run. As it turns out, the start line for the 8K (which started at the same time as the half) was already taken down by this point.
⁴I'm icing my left foot, which was the main injury, and my right ankle, which feels strained from having limped on it for 6 km, as well as everywhere else I've had to walk since then. My feet are the thermostat to my body however, so making them cold is making the rest of me cold too, despite being in my warm bed with two blankets and a warm laptop on top of me!

What Happens In Seattle When I Avoid the 1511

4 intrepid young women.

Drive 230 km.

To buy 7 pairs of shoes.

50 points to the first person who correctly identifies which 2 of these are mine.

¹for a recounting of what happens in Seattle when I don't avoid the 151, see here.

In my continuing efforts to disparage all things Calgarian*, I would like to point out one of their many grammatical errors:

I would love to stay and chat, but there is playoff hockey to go and watch! Don't wait up!

*I would also like to point out that the Blogger spellchecker's suggestion for Calgarian was "Vulgarian."

The Badlands

Yesterday, we went to the Badlands. They were wickedly cool. They also have the richest museum EVER!

Here is a picture of the Albertasaurus:


Like most Albertans, it's a carnivore and kind of an a-hole.

This one is of another dinosaur, I think it's called a Vancouversaurus.



It's a tree hugger.

Weekend in the Mountains

Since every Calgarian that we have asked, "hey, what's good to do around here?" has told us (a) "you should come here during Stampede in July!", or (b) "um, leave Calgary", we decided to take them up on option (b) and spent the last two days in the mountains. We visited a number of places, including Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise in Alberta and Field & Golden in BC.

This is the view outside the hostel we slept at last night, in Field, BC:










































And this was a stop sign we saw in Golden, BC:

Comedy of Errors, Calgary-style

So, yesterday I was supposed to have a teleconference for work^*. After re-confirming 16 times that Pacific Time is one hour behind Mountain Time, not after it^**, and sorting out the whole issue that Justin doesn't actually have a landline (i.e., borrowing his cell phone instead and being very apologetic for using up all his minutes), I skipped out at the end of lunch just before 4 pm^*** (the scheduled time of the call), leaving Sarah, Dave and Justin in the restaurant to go sit in Justin's car with the cell phone to make my call. There was only one slight problem with this plan - the car was gone. Apparently we had parked at ~3 pm on a street where there is no parking between 3:30-6:30 pm. We'd parked at a meter and none of us had noticed the sign informing us of this salient fact. So I go running back up the street to tell S, D & J that the car is gone and that I would be across the street in the coffee shop doing my teleconference. I managed to call into the conference line and, fortunately, despite calling in at 4:02 pm, no one else was yet there^****. When the first person logs in, she informs me that the cell phone is totally breaking up and that I should really get on a landline. I inform her that the person I'm staying with doesn't have one, but I could go outside to the pay phone. Yes, outside in the -10 degree weather for what could potentially be an hour long conference call. So outside I go, forced to abandon the $2 coffee I'd just bought so that I could stay in the coffee shop^*****. However, by the time I got outside and across the road, we discovered that half the people on the call didn't, for various reasons, have the materials I'd couriered to them before I left, so we need to re-schedule the meeting for next week. Of course, I was secretly glad for this, because I really didn't relish the idea of staying outside on a payphone for an hour in the freakin' snow (!), although it does mean that I'll have to do some emailing to re-arrange the meeting. But at least I will be able to call in from the comfort of my own office, where it is warm and toasty and I have a view of the beautiful mountains and there is no snow^******. By the time I got off the call, Justin had confirmed that his car had, in fact, been towed and he and Dave were going to make the trek to the impound lot, while Sarah and I would trek back to Justin's apartment. I, without my touque, which I had left in the now impounded car, was not terribly happy about this development. However, we made it back, and Justin got his car out of impound^******* and then all was right with the world. And later on in the night, at a bar on the Red Mile, we watched the Flames lose to the San Jose Sharks and all was even more right with the world. Except for the lack of hot boys in this city. Every second girl you see in this city looks like a model, every guy appears to be 5 ft 1 or shorter. I did see one hot boy at The Mynt^******** last night, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't from here.

Also, check out Dave's blog to learn "More Things You Didn't Know About Calgary"

^*Yes, I'm working on my vacation. I'm *that* dedicated. Wait, I'm taking vacation one month into my new job... OK, maybe not so dedicated after all.

^**On the plane ride her, I switched my watch back an hour instead of forward an hour and couldn't figure out why it was so dark at 7:30 p.m. when we were landing.

^***Yes, we have lunch at 3 pm. So?

^****Since I was the one coordinating the meeting, I didn't want to be late.

^*****As I'd left my travel mug in the now towed car, I'd got my coffee in a to-stay mug and didn't think they'd appreciate if I took it out of the shop.

^******in my office. There will probably still be snow on the mountains.

^********Not to be mistaken for Gay Mynt Belfast, starring Titti von Tramp. Because I'm pretty sure that's illegal here in Cal-gary.

The Land That Vegetables Forgot

Start of our second full day in Calgary. Yes, we start our day at 11:35 am - do you have a problem with that? Actually, we've been up for a little while, feeding our Facebook addictions* and drinking tea and eating brekkie.

Oh ya, so Calgary has totally turned me into an environment-destroying monster. Yesterday when Dave and Justin went out to get us coffee, I forgot to give them my travel mug, so I used my first paper cup of the Roll Up the Rim to Win season**. And today I used the oven (as in the real, full-sized oven) to toast my English muffin. Before you know it I will be driving a stretch SUV.

As for the title of this post, I think you can guess what this means. It's not called Cowtown for nothing, folks. But it's OK, we went to Safeway and bought a bunch o' food. Here's a pic of the fridge when we'd been to the liquor store, but not yet the grocery store. See if you can spot the food in this fridge***:

Also, be sure to check out Dave's list of "things you didn't know about Cowtown" - I'm sure you will find it insightful and informative. Especially the stuff about the boot stores.

*Except Justin, who thinks that all this computer stuff is anti-social and why aren't we all just using messenger pigeons for communication and listening to records?

**For the record, I Rolled Up the Rim to Not Win.

***It's sort of like "Where's Waldo".

Cowtown

We our now in Calgary! I'm typing this on stolen wireless - there are about 15 unsecured wireless networks that I can detected in the friend's place where we are staying! Go "default"!

When Sarah and I got to the airport, we were both pretty hungry, but the Timmy Ho's before you pass security didn't appear to make sandwiches, so we figured we'd go to the Timmy Ho's that we know is past security instead. Which turned out to not be open. It was like 6 pm. 'cuz no one goes to the airport after 6 pm, right? Our dinner instead: half a bag of jalapeno chips and a king-sized peanut butter cup each. I'm pretty sure that fits nicely into the food guide, right?

Our flight was uneventful, except for the fact that once we got here, our plane had to sit on the tarmac for about 20 minutes because our ground crew was de-icing some other plane. And we both really, really had to pee, but we were supposed to "remained seated with your seat belt fastened." Sarah finally gave up waiting and went to the bathroom on the plane... and that's when the plane finally drove the 2 ft to the gate.

When we finally got off the plane, we discovered (a) Dave's plane was delayed, so he wouldn't be there for another an hour and a half, (b) they have temperatures in the minus here and (c) you don't actually have to pay for parking at the airport. Apparently there are lots of things you don't have to pay for in Calgary... parking at the airport, taking transit within the downtown core, cable TV. They have so much freaking money in this province, they don't know what to do with it. They do not, however, appear to have any vegetables here.

Calgary-bound

Tomorrow, we leave for Calgary. We've spent a chillaxed few days in Vancity, doing such things as drinking Dirty Girl beer and getting our hair cut. I know, party animals, right?

We also patronized the following establishments: The Naam*, The Fringe Cafe, The Reef, Cactus Club**, The Eatery (where we got to have my favourite, Fat Elvi***), Bo Kong, Bellagio's Gelato and probably a bunch of other places that I've forgotten.

I have to go to work tomorrow and scramble around all day to get stuff done that needs to get done before I leave. I had to go in early today to do this extremely boring orientation****, so I can go home early tomorrow, which will make it a little less rushed to get to the airport for our evening flight to Cowtown. My luggage is pretty much all packed, except for a few things that I need to use in the morning (like my hair drier). Our instructions for Calgary are to bring "winter boots and bathing suits. Both for use on the same day." Should be good times.

Don't wait up.

*The only place Sarah has been on all of her trips to Vancouver.
**That was more about the company at dinner than about the restaurant. Although the $6 double margaritas and the cute waiter were also nice.
***Elvi, of course, being the plural of Elvis.
****Thank god they had free coffee - I couldn't possibly have stayed awake otherwise. On the plus side, I now know what to do in case of a fire alarm, because surely after 11 years of postsecondary education, I'm not qualified to react to a freaking fire alarm.

Western Canadian Hijinks

As I write this, Sarah is in a cab on her way here from YVR. We spend now until Tuesday in Vancouver (I have to work on Monday & Tuesday, but I have tomorrow, Sat & Sun to goof off), and then on Tuesday night we fly to Calgary, where our plan will land within minutes of Dave's flight from Ottawa, and then our friend Justin will whisk us all away to stay for a week at his downtown abode. I am told by pretty much everyone I know that has lived in, or ever even been to, Calgary that we need to go to Cowboys.

I'll keep y'all posted.

Oh ya, and big props to my boys, you have clinched a playoff spot. I can practically taste the Cup.

Update: SARAH is here!!! (Apparently I'm a slow typist!) And you'll never guess who was on her plane! David. Freaking. Emerson!!! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!

Five Somewhat Related Things

1. I did my 16K run on Tuesday, because I really didn't feel up to it on Sunday, and I had a late work day, followed by a dinner meeting, on Monday. I have been ravenously hungry since Tuesday. I feel like I've done nothing but eat since then.
2. Speaking of eating, a friend of Danielle's came over last night and made us the most delicious dal for dinner. So. Freaking. Delicious.
3. Speaking of delicious, a new Tim Horton's has been built that is even closer to my place than the one on Broadway. They build those things ridiculously fast... on Saturday when I went by there, there were construction workers inside building the place, and it was open by Monday. It has been open since Monday and, would you believe, I haven't been there yet? And did I mention that it is right next to the liquor store*?? But that's OK, I'm pretty sure that I'll get there soon because...
4. ... it's only 7 more sleeps until Sarah gets here!
5. Then it's only 5 more sleeps until we go to Calgary. Dave is meeting us there. We are staying with Justin. I am assured that hijinks will ensue.

*i.e., one stop shopping

Surfin' in Tofino

Cast of Characters (in alphabetical order):

Alicia: friend of mine through school and through science outreach work.
Beth: um, this is me. But you knew that!
Danielle: my awesome roommate and former hockey team captain!
Jasmine & Jesse: Danielle's friends. It was Jesse's birthday too, so they have a bunch of friends coming on this adventure too.
Kalev: friend of mine through school, sort of. We worked together on a project once, ended up in San Fran together and the rest is history.
Kim: friend of mine through my and Danielle's hockey team.
Kyle: Kalev's boyfriend. He's a physicist.
Sheila: friend of mine through Danielle. We all play ultimate together.
Bunch'o'people, most of whose names I did not catch: Jasmine & Jesse's friends... I didn't catch most of their names, other than Brice who drove us around.

Locations:
Vancouver --> Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal in West Van --> Departure Bay ferry terminal in Nanaimo --> Tofino!!!

Action:
Saturday, January 13, 2007. At 6:25 am on a normal day, you are far more likely to find Beth just going to bed than you are to find her up and ready to go for the day. But there she is, showered, fed, full of coffee and on her way up the icy hill to catch the 6:35 am bus that will take her downtown to catch another bus to the ferry. And she only had to set three alarms and be slightly panicked that she wouldn't wake up in time in order to achieve this. Danielle is already over on the island and Sheila is taking another bus downtown, but everyone else gets on Beth's bus and make it downtown without incident. Alicia informs Beth, to her delight, that her birthday present is that they will be taking a pole dancing lesson! Sweet! Meeting up with Sheila downtown, they all hop on the bus to the ferry terminal, taking over the back of the bus and being rather rowdy for such an early hour. Their rowdiness continues into the ferry waiting area and the annoyance of the other early morning travellers (and their relief that we aren't getting on the same ferry as them) is palpable. Once on the ferry, someone inadvertently flips Sheila's off switch. The group soon (OK, two hours later) arrives and Beth declares that getting them to Departure Bay was the end of her responsibility insofar as knowing where they are going is concerned. She also declares that Departure Bay is inappropriately named, seeing as they have just arrived. Beth likes to declare things.

Danielle, Jasmine, Jesse and crew arrive to whisk the group to Tofino. That's "Tofino," not "casino" as Beth's, Kim's and Kyle's mothers all thought they were saying when they said "I'm going to Tofino this weekend!". "Whisking" involves a 3-hour drive, a Tim Horton's lunch break and much pondering on the snowiness of the surroundings, given that the group is on a surfing trip. As they near Tofino, Kalev declares that we should not pick up the hitchhiker, because he is "not nearly hot enough." The group scopes out the beach, checks into the cabin (Beth's crew) and suite (J&J's crew) and then heads to the surf rental shop. They discover that they are too late in the day to do a 4-hour rental and have to do a 24-hour rental instead. Seeing as it is only $5 more and it means they get to surf on Sunday morning in addition to Saturday afternoon, everyone is happy with that. Wetsuits are struggled into, and, at the end of it, they all look like Navy Seals. Kalev & Kyle have elected to stay at the cabin and Alicia and Kim have elected to act as official photographers and surf support team. Surf support team duties include picking up the surfers's food & booze & extra towels (because the surfers use up all the towels!) while they shower and struggle out of their wetsuits. Oh ya, and on Sunday morning it involved combing Beth's hair for her. Seriously, I'm not making that up.

Off to Chesterman Beach they go, for skimboarding, boogie boarding and surfing in the most spectacular sunset they've ever seen. Everyone marvels at the beauty surrounding them, thrills at the fun of diving through waves to get our far enough to then try to catch a big one and, with any luck, actually make it to some sort of standing-like position for falling off. Despite the cold weather, the wetsuits are so good that the surfers are warmer in the water than the surf support team is on the beach. Beth is thrilled that she actually managed to get up to her knees and catch a bit of wave... not too bad for a first time surfer! Beth decides that this is officially the best birthday EVER!

Once the sun is set, the crew returns to the cabin and the surfers shower and get out of the wetsuits while the surf support team performs their aforementioned food & booze retrieval duties. Cabin activities include, but are not limited to, watching the Canucks kick some Leafs butt (w00t!); calling Beth's dad to taunt over said Canucks victory; eating a communal dinner of chips, more chips, other snacks, various meal-like items, cookies and so forth; a variety of games; the eating of the birthday cupcakes. In a strange twist, Beth declines to consume alcohol, deciding that she consumed sufficient quantities on her actual birthday.

Sunday, January 14 , 2007. Sunday morning involves getting into the still-wet wetsuits for more surfing. All those things that were said about "wow, it's not even cold surfing in the winter!" are taken back. As is Beth's early morning comment of "how could you forget to duck & cover when you fall off your board?" Beth proceeds to blame her "head injury" (sometimes cited as a "brain injury") every time she says or does something stupid for the rest of the trip. Fortunately, Beth is relatively unharmed, making her mother's predictions that she get hurt while surfing and end up in a watery grave unfulfilled. However, ever the trooper, Beth continues to surf and actually does manage to get up to a standing-like pose on the board for at least a half a second before falling off. As a result, she contemplates a career as a pro surfer. After surfing to the point just shy of hypothermia, they group piles back into the vans to race back to the cabin to try to shower and pack before check-out time.

Beth learns that she shouldn't offer to take the last shower in a cabin of 7 people, as this results in the water going cold before she's even out of her wetsuit. This, combined with the fact that she got the crappy surfing gloves that morning and her hands were frozen to the point of nonfunctionality and that she didn't get to dry her hair as the group was already running late, resulted in her being freezing cold for the remainder of the trip.

The drive back to the now appropriately named Departure Bay ferry terminal at Nanaimo was fairly uneventful, mostly because Beth slept so as to escape sensation that she was freezing to death. She did wake up long enough to take a picture of the cool clouds by the mountain through the car window. Hitting *five* red lights in the home stretch to the ferry terminal leads the group to be 3 minutes too late to buy ferry tickets. Despite the fact that they could have easily run up the ramp to the ferry before it left, the ticket seller refuses and they are force to wait *two hours* until the next ferry. But such is the temperament of our intrepid group that they enjoyed their unexpected two-hour delay by meandering through a grocery store, consuming Timmy Ho or Quizno sandwiches, pretending to be sad about their delay, and taking a nice brisk walk back to the ferry after their food gathering adventures.

And after a two-hour ferry ride (during which they try, but never succeed, at throwing a chocolate covered raisin into Danielle's mouth), a very, very, very full bus ride and another bus ride, they were home again!!

And a good time was had by all. And not just a good time. An wickedly, amazingly, fantastically awesome time in fact. I wanted to do something exciting, something memorable, surrounded by great friends to embrace my 30th birthday and to start to make 2007 the fantastic year that I know it will be. That I will make it be, if it kills me! Life is, after all, what you make it.

So mark your calendars (and start saving your pennies) for January 11th, 2007 - my 40th birthday. The plan (subject to change over the next decade) is to go surfing in Australia or Hawaii. I'll keep you posted as plans develop ;-)

Note: The complete set of photos (all 200+ of them!) from the weekend, in their out-of-order splendor, can be seen on my Flickr.