Running as Therapy

So part of my blog is keeping it real life, this is a life post.  I had a crappy week at work, probably top five worst week in 29 years of work.  On Monday when it all went down, I went for a run. I was running away from my problems, running is my therapy and I now run instead of eating my feelings. As usual my run helped me clear my mind and start making plans and by Tuesday on the bus I was making lists of things I needed to do.  I had a list for work and a list for athletics and I was ready for my call with my business/life coach at 8am.  As usual she cut through the bullshit and helped me realize that while I was ready to settle, the Universe would not let me and this was my smack upside the head.

You have to love the Universe, as I always say it gives you what you need when you need it and as the week unfolded the I had a clear message and direction and running and triathlon where a leading the way.  A lot of people have asked me if I was going to start coaching since I have my Triathlon Ontario Community Coaching qualification but I know I am not ready for that yet.  I am ready to lead a few run clinics and I will be leading the 10K clinic to May race weekend and then the half marathon clinic to the Army run and I am thrilled to get the chance.  I have had so many great clinic leaders that I wanted to give back and now I get the chance.  I love inspiring and motivating others to follow their dreams, to dream big and to successful.  My coach had given me an assignment to find my life purpose and while I have not figured it out yet, I know this is part of it.

As much as I love helping others with their dreams, I need to have my own dreams as well and this week I set a few new ones.  I had been lost since Ironman, not sure where to focus my energies but now I have a few new things for 2016:
- break 2 hours for a half marathon (at the Army run hopefully),
- finish my Olympic triathlon with a new PR (hopefully by 15 mins or more),
- to start a book on my triathlon journey (I even have a title)

My long term my goal is to register for IMMT again in 2018 so in 2017 I will do 70.3 Tremblant and 70.3 Barrelman and I hope to do the Dopey in Jan 2017 as well.

I had a great run yesterday and as I ran, the stress of the week completely melted away, I felt re-energized and ready to take on my new goals.  As for my work, I have made plans there as well and as I work on them, athletics will help keep me balanced and happy.  One of my work goals for my Company ( not the one I co-own ) is to get my coaching certificate so I can add business coaching to my business and maybe this will help me decide if athletic coaching is something I want to do...who knows, I have learned to never say never.

Team Awesome

So I am excited to announce that I am part of Team Awesome for Ottawa Race weekend in May.  

What is Team Awesome?

Team Awesome is a group of enthusiastic runners (and social media fanatics) who are participating in the 2016 Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend (TORW) and want to share updates about their training and race weekend information, as well as support other runners along the way.

This year I am running the 10k for the first time and I am looking forward to it.  This is my 10th time participating in the Ottawa Race Weekend and the 7th consecutive time since 2010 when I walked my first half marathon.  Since then I have run 3-5k races and 2 half marathons so I thought I would try a new distance this time.  10k is a challenging distance for me, it is not a sprint and it's not a slow steady build like the half marathon is, this takes a lot of planning and work.  To run the perfect 10k you need to run fast enough at the beginning to get your legs warmed up and ready to sprint but no too fast that you run out of gas before the end, those last 2k can be terrible if you start out too fast.  

I have not done a lot of speed work in the last few years so I am adding it to my training plan now and adding race pace segments to some of my long runs to help with my ability to build the speed durnig the 55 mins I hope it takes me to run the 10K. My PB is 56:20 so I am aiming for sub 55 mins this May.

I look forward to keeping you up to date with my training for his race and my half marathon on May 1, we are headed back to Mississauga for the second year in a row as Neale really likes this course and hopes to get his BQ there this May.  

Winter running..or not

I'm back!  I did not blog last month for probably the same reason I only ran once, I needed a break.  I was tired and did not feel inspired to run or blog.  I was not sure the would happen to the blog but I found I missed it so I will keep on blogging and maybe it will help someone else start or stick with their fitness plan.

So I did not run in January but I did do a few new fun things, I went snowshoe running, which is really hard and I am learning too XC ski, again really hard.  I wanted to embrace winter but we are not really having much of a winter, We have had unusually warm temperatures and little to no snow, event the Winterlude Triathlon was turned into a duathlon as the canal was closed for skating.

I started running again this week, the week started out great but than I got a cold and it has really knocked me back.  I have done nothing since Wednesday and am just starting to fell better, still tired but better. I hope to make it to swim practice tomorrow and then I fly to Edmonton for work. The forecast calls for +8C on Tuesday so I have packed my outdoor running gear in hopes of heading out before my afternoon of site visits starts.  I am on the go all day Wednesday and fly home Thursday so I am really hoping I get out on Tuesday.

The one run I did get out for this week was great, an 8k tempo run and I was happy to see I had not lost any of my speed :-)

Anyway, I will keep moving forward, one step at a time as I have set some nice goals for 2016 and a few opportunities have been presented to me and I can't wait to share them with you...just as soon as I can.