Ode to Kale!

O Kale, how I do love thee? Let me count the ways
I love thee to the depth due to your nutritional might
My eyes will search for thee, when you are hiding out of sight
Somewhere in the crisper drawer or maybe behind the soy.
I always search for thee, if I cannot find thee I will start to pester the boy

I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by smoothie or by chip
I love thee purely, when eating you I do not require dip;
I love thee freely, as does the boy he says

I love it when my blender is put to use
With kale and banana and yummy fruits about to be pulverized in a drink
Yet I also love thee dried in the oven with garlic powder and nutritional yeast I think
With all of your antioxidants and vitamin profile,
I do not mind the little green bits stuck in my beguiling smile
I shall but love thee better there is no denial

Yum, three cheers for kale! I've been on a big time kale kick lately.

There have been green smoothies:


This was a blueberry + banana + kale green smoothie: 1 glass of water, 1 banana, a generous handful of kale, splash of pineapple juice and a handful of blueberries. I left it on the counter while I was doing a few other things in the kitchen and it completely seperated! I probably didn't blend it for long enough. I stirred it up before drinking and it was yums. Kale is probably my favourite green for green smoothies. I just really like the flavour and texture it brings to the drink.

There have also been lots of kale chips. John and I ate an entire bunch of kale in less than 24 hours. Crappy picture of one of the batches, but it was major yummy time:


This was super easy to make. The only trick is to watch out for burning at the end, crispy kale is delicious, burned kale is not so much. To make yummy kale chips: I just ripped the kale leaves into pieces (no stems), washed + dried them. Put them onto a parchment covered baking sheet and tossed them with olive oil, lemon juice, salt + pepper, garlic powder, nutritional yeast and a bit of chili powder. Then baked them in the oven at 350F for 10 minutes, flipped them around and then continued baking for another 7-10 minutes. THEY WERE SO GOOD. I wish I was eating them right now!!!!

My running is slowly getting back on track. I've been doing more running just for the sake of running and it's been feeling pretty good. I'm starting to get the itch to go after another half-marathon. It might be kinda fun to travel somewhere and run half-marathon, as I've only ever run in local events. But we'll see...I am a creature of habit, so travelling somewhere and NOT being able to engage in my usual pre-race activities is a bit intimidating!

Update time

Wow, almost 3 months since my last post?!? My poor neglected blog!

Life became very hectic this summer, between working crazy hours during the day plus coaching during the evening and weekends - I didn't have much time for anything else. Well, that's all changed now - coaching is finished for now and summer hours at work has come to an end. No more summer hours means no more Fridays off, but I also no longer have to work 1.0 to 1.5 hours of overtime each day to get that day off. Due to massive burnout, I ended up taking the last 3 weeks off to recover and enjoy the rest of the summer. Here is a small list of things that I fully intend on, but may not actually end up posting about:

- Dragon boating
- Coaching
- My first 5 km race in 2 years
- Road trip to the East Coast!

I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't run at all since my 5 km race in August :( I just needed to take a little break from running. With training for two back-to-back half-marathons, coaching and the ankle injury, running stopped being fun and had become a bit of a chore. But I do miss it, so for now I'll just run for a bit just for the sake of running...and run whenever I want, for distances that I want and at a pace that I want, instead of feeling obligated to run on scheduled days for x kms at a set pace.

As for what to do next, I have a couple of plans that I've been mulling about in my head. Perhaps I will share them once they start their metamorphosis from caterpillar of thoughts into butterfly of actions.

Post race wrap-up and what to do next

Oops, sorry for the long break! I've been distracted with the rapture and the ending of the world and haven't gotten around to posting my post race wrap-up yet. It's very time consuming to prepare for the apocalypse ;)

Race review

The race organizers were a bit more generous this year with the race kit. Last year, my race kit consisted of a t-shirt, a sample pack of 2 Advil, 1 chapstick and a couple of one-use heating pads. This year, behold the bounty:

The package of chocolate Werther's originals did not survive the week.

I was a little leery of the weather - as this was my view for most of the day before. Ah, it was so delightfully dreary!
On race day itself, the weather was a little chilly and it rained off and on for the entire race. This was just fine for me, since I have a tendency to overheat when I'm running and I actually enjoy running in the rain. I brought along a hoodie for the walk over to the starting line, but ended up tying it around my waist while I was waiting in the crowd for the race to start because I was already starting to get a bit warm. I'm proud to say that I did NOT cry at the end. I did get a little misty eyed at the starting line though. Especially after the the national anthem was sung and the crowd started to cheer for us when we all started the race. Argh, I do not know what's happening to my icy cold heart of steel!!

The course was beautiful - we ran down around the Credit Valley area, UTM campus, Mississauga Road - the posh neighbourhood with the million dollar homes and down along the lakeshore. Despite the rain and gloom, the trees were so green and pretty and the waves crashing hard along the lakeshore were quite cool.

For the first bit of the race, I was following the 4:15 marathon pace bunny. I ended up losing them somewhere around the 8 km marker. I think they stopped for water at one of the aid stations and I lost them in the crowd. Then I started to follow this one lady who was dressed in a black and white polka dot tank top and a white running skirt. Wearing white during a rainstorm - how scandalous!! The black and white polka dot tank top looked like Lulu's Power Y tank top, but I've never seen a polka dotted tank at Lulu (and let me tell you, I've been online stalking them for years). Ever the creepy stalker, I kept on (unsuccessfully) trying to catch up with her to confirm its authenticity. (Ah, the strange little games one likes to play to keep the mind occupied for 21 kms.) But I ended up losing her when she turned off to continue on the marathon course. Around this time, I started to run with the two sets of 2:15 half-marathon pace bunnies (dammit!). I passed one of the 2:15 pace bunnies, then the other one passed me, then the one from behind passed me, then I passed the other one...it was all very confusing. I ended up finishing around 2:15 without any pace bunnies...I don't know where they disappeared to, as I started to space out a bit around 20 km. My time was still off from my personal best, I think I could (and should) have done better, since I was killing all of my old times at the 5 km and 10 km markers - however, I did SO much better than my personal worst at the Chilly half, so I'll take it as a victory!!

Where do we go from here?

After my race was finished and my celebratory sushi lunch was digested, I started to suffer from a bit of post-race depression. For the last 6 months, I've had half-marathons on my mind and I've had plans/schedules which were centred around my goal races. I had rolled my ankle back in March just before the Chilly half and since then I've been getting random flare-ups of pain - so I didn't want to train for another half-marathon this year and thought that I should probably back off a bit from the distances. For the first time in months, I found myself without a challenge to work towards. So, I sulked around for a week and quietly pondered what I should do next. I didn't have to wonder for too long - since I can always count on the Running Room to welcome me back into their world of dry-fit technical running clothes and 8AM weekend training practices. Starting on Monday, I'm excited to announce that I'll be coaching the Learn to Run clinic! I'm a little nervous, but mostly looking forward to this new experience. I've had a lot of support over the years from my previous coaches and fellow runners - I'm excited to be able to pass along the things that I've learned to my new group of runners and introduce them to the exciting world of running :)

Different ways to run

Lately, I've been getting a little bored with my training schedule. It seems like every week is pretty much the same as the week before, except sometimes I'll add an extra hill repeat or an extra km of speed work. To help spice up my intervals, last Wednesday I had a little help from John. What did we do? Well, we went out and found a nice quiet pathway with a slight incline. John was on his rollerblades and I had brought along an old (large) shawl that I had picked up from my trip to Peru. We used it as a tether, so that the shawl was around my hips and John was holding onto the ends, and then I pulled him around on his roller blades. This is the John's eye view of the ordeal.

OMG, it was SO hard - we were going an incline and I could feel every single muscle burning. After awhile, I got a little tired of dragging him up hills, so we decided to try out running on a flat surface, which was easier, but still tiring. After one of the pulls, I was standing off to the side of the path trying to catch my breath, I heard a pack of runners coming and a "hi Michelle!" - I had forgotten that Wednesday nights are also run club nights. How embarrassing - I'm pretty sure we looked a little ridiculous!

On Sunday, I went back to my parent's place for Mother's Day. They've been watching a highly spirited cocker spaniel named Caesar for the last few months. I've been really wanting to take him out for a run since he seems to have an endless amounts of energy and finally did so on Sunday. We started off at a good pace, but then there was a lot of this on the way to the park:

and then there was more of this when we were at the park:



Then he lay down for awhile. Since I didn't have the heart to drag him around, we went back home and then there was a lot of this:



Poor little guy, I think I tired him out, he was actually quiet for the rest of the night!

21.34 km + I am soooooo S-M-R-T

First of all, a thought or two related to the election. I'd just like to say that based on my observations during my long distance weekend runs, I predicted that the Liberals were in trouble a month ago in this very blog. I am soooo S-M-R-T! Lets just see if I can predict what's going to happen in the provincial election in the fall [that is, if I'm still doing long distance runs]...stay tuned...

This past weekend was my last long run before my half-marathon. Since being prepared is not just for boy scouts anymore, I decided to try out the half-marathon route with the stuff I was hoping to use on race day. The good news is that my cute black capri tights worked out well - I should not have worried as the spandex was strong enough to keep the butt bounce under control, yet stretchy enough to let the girls (my freakishly muscular calves) have free reign to bulge all over the place. The bad news is that my favourite running hat is on the verge of dying - the velcro is pretty much worn out and the sweat stains are getting really gross. *sniffle* I've had that hat for almost 4 years!

The sun was super hot on Saturday and I ended up getting a nasty sunburn on my back, shoulders and arms -- in the shape of my racerback tank top (ugh!). The route is very scenic and I was finished my run before I knew it. John was nice enough to meet me at the end, so that I wasn't stranded many km's away from home. I couldn't sit down for awhile after my run because my legs would cramp up, so we strolled along the lakeshore for a bit and then went to a pub for lunch. I was going to get wild and have 1 beer to celebrate, but ended up just having water because I was feeling a bit sick. I caught way too much sun on Saturday and felt kinda heat-stroked for the rest of the day.

I have one more week of training and then its my favourite part of training - taper week!

Schedule:
Tuesday - Cross-training: kettle-bell workout and cardio circuit training
Wednesday - Speeds: 5 k
Thursday - Cross-training: cardio/weight interval training + yoga classes
Friday - Rest
Weekend - 6-7 k

21.06 km + not much else is going on

Wow, it's been almost two weeks since my last post. Its sad to say, but there's really nothing very exciting to report, as I've slipped into a routine with all of my training activities - and they are all just kind of ongoing. Not to worry my faithful readers, that will not stop me from rambling on in detail :)

The green smoothie challenge is still going. We've started making double batches at night and saving the extra batch for breakfast in the morning. Combinations that we've enjoyed for the past week have included: baby spinach or red leaf lettuce plus an assortment of bananas, ananas (pineapple), kiwis, apples and/or pears. I've also been adding some fresh ginger into the smoothies lately and I've been finding it tres delicieux. I tried making a smoothie with grapes, but sadly my little 700W blender had a hard time with the grape skins, thus the texture of the smoothie was very fibrous. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you're supposed to be able to chew your smoothies?

I ran out of chews for my runs, so I picked up a couple of packs of GU Chomps and Clif Shot Bloks from the Running Room. Since I had a gift certificate and a store discount, I also picked up a cute little pair of black capri tights and a black racerback tank top with fluorescent pink trim. I loooove the capris, but I'm not sure if I can wear them on long runs, the spandex might not be powerful enough to rein in all of the jiggle :(

My training is chugging along - I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping up with all of the different cross-training activities (i.e., weights, biking, step + yoga classes) and also going out and doing different types of runs (i.e., hill +/or speed intervals, steady +/or slow runs). I had rolled my ankle back in February just before the Chilly half and thought that I might have re-injured it during my long run this past weekend, since it was throbbing in PAIN on Sunday and Monday. But I've been taking it easy for the past 3-4 days and it's feeling a lot better. Possible injury aside, my long runs have also become rather uneventful, my mind has been a lot quieter on these runs and I've just been enjoying the nice weather/scenery and the way I've been feeling.

Random thoughts from my 21.06 km:
- Hot and sour soup, coffee and chocolate Easter eggs (that's right I said EASTER EGGS, not spring spheres) are bad pre-run foods. I was feeling dehydrated for most of the run
- Donald Trump should shut up and go away. He's such an idiot.
- Why do politicians think we want to see their pictures on their campaign signs? It's not like we're going to suddenly be like: "Wow, you look like an upstanding citizen, I think I will vote for you after all". The same goes for real estate agents. I'm bringing a sharpie marker on my next long run and drawing mustachios on everybody!! (LOL, OK probably not...I know I'll be too lazy to hold a pen on my run and it'll totally mess up my time.)

I'll be winding down the workouts soon, since my half-marathon is about two weeks away! So I'll probably stop blogging about training and start blogging about fascinating topics such as: "What to wear" and/or "Music for my ipod" :)

10.0 km plus a few other things

Not so random thoughts.

Sunday:
- I love running in the rain, but not in thunderstorms. I cut it short since the thunder and lightning scared me. On the plus side, that was probably the fastest 10k I've run in awhile (possibly ever)
- I wore my Lululemon capris for the first time (I bought them on-sale last year just before it got really cold). They are a much tighter fit than my other capris. I glanced at my reflection in a bus shelter when I was speeding by...my freakishly muscular calves are getting even more freakish :'(
- After the storm cleared out, it was the nicest day ever!
- Had a lovely workout in the park with Jamette & Katherine. 6k run + "breaks" for drills = good times :)
- Pushing a jogging stroller while running is harder than I thought. My arms + shoulders were killing me the next day.
- All workouts should end with a smoothie run!

Green smoothies:
- I finished reading Green for Life last night. The book was very interesting and made some good points regarding nutrition and healthy eating. Plus, there are tons of yummy green smoothie recipes at the end! However, I remain skeptical about the last 1/3 of the book which was filled with stories about people being miraculously cured of various ailments (including cancer) from drinking green smoothies. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed the book and I'm now onto reading the Green Smoothie Revolution
- John and I are on Day 4 of the Green Smoothie Challenge (30 days of smoothies). The first few days were interesting... Without getting too graphic, I had to skip hills yesterday because my poor little stomach was feeling WRONG. But today I'm finally feeling back to normal and did my hill repeats (9!) and took a yoga class.
- So far we've enjoyed: strawberry/kale, salad mix/blueberries/mangoes, red leaf lettuce/celery/bananas/mangoes, baby greens/blueberries/strawberries/banana

Schedule for the upcoming week:
Weekend - 20+ km run
Monday - Steady run and/or Cardio-weight training class
Tuesday - Rest! (Rush concert!)
Wednesday - 10 hill repeats. Last week of hills
Thursday - Cardio-weight training and/or yoga
Friday - Rest
Weekend - 20+ km run

20.12 km

Thoughts from my long run on Saturday morning:
- I've been running in the winter for so long, I forgot that running in 10C weather on dry sidewalks is so much nicer than running in -20C and sliding around on the ice and snow
- It's getting too warm for a jacket, therefore I need to figure out a better way to carry my itouch on runs
- I'm done with gels, I should have known that I'd prefer chews aka the more candy-like option
- Listening to a mix of rap/hip-hop, musicals and classical music - and I've started to break out into song periodically on my runs. That damn Wicked soundtrack, why is it so catchy?
- Excluding my 20k walk, I've been beating my Chilly time consistently by at least 15 minutes, hopefully I can keep it up
- So many traffic lights in the city, they keep messing up my groove, man
- I ran through two ridings on Saturday, if the signs are to be believed, it looks like these 2 liberal strongholds might be in trouble - there was at least a 50/50 split in liberal/conservative lawn signs

I've noticed a subtle shift in my longer runs over the past month. Previously, near the end of any 16+ km distance, my body would feel like its had enough. As in, I'd feel pretty much like I was running on empty. My legs would feel like lead and refuse to keep going and my mind would feel completely exhausted. When I finally get to the end of my route, I'd stop and think "OMG, I'm finally finished, I could NOT go any further than that" and I felt completely and totally spent. Lately, at the end of my runs, I've been feeling different. The tail end of my runs haven't been as exhausting as usual. Not to say that I'm not getting tired/sore, but I'm just not feeling as drained and exhausted as I used to, since I still feel somewhat energetic and upbeat. Not sure how this happened (is it because my body is getting used to the longer distances? gels and chews? cross-training? Wicked soundtrack?) but its a good feeling :)

Schedule for this week:
Monday - 6k run (oops...I mean rest)
Tuesday - Cross-training (Bosu bootcamp - my muscles are still burning)
Wednesday - 8 hill repeats
Thursday - Cross-training + Yoga
Friday - Rest
Saturday or Sunday - 20-22k run + Rest on the other day

7 weeks left to go!

There are 7 weeks left before my next half-marathon! .... Umm, should I be worried that "slacking off" is my blog tag with the most entries?

This week, I've somewhat stayed on schedule:

Tuesday - Cross-training (reverse workout): completed! I kept my hand weights at 5 lbs each and resistance tube at medium and increased my body bar weight to 12lbs. I only felt a little bit like puking + passing out this time around.

Wednesday - 2.5km light run to warm-up + 7 hill repeats: completed! I always feel like I'm not going to make it when I approach the top 1/3 of the hill, but by the time I make it to the top and then head back down for my next repeat, I am fine again. My arms and shoulders are usually sore after doing hills, when the lower body starts to get fatigued, my upper body tends to pick up the slack. Ahhh, teamwork at its finest.

I spotted my dear friend Robin(s) on my Wednesday run. Yes, those little tiny blobs are robins. :) Yeay, spring is finally here!


Thursday - Cross-training: ... Skipped my work-outs and my eating plan was derailed, due to baby celebrations. I ended up having spicy salmon rolls + salmon pizza for lunch, a huge piece of delicious tuxedo cake (marble cake with chocolate/vanilla mousse and cream cheese frosting covered with tiny delicious dark/milk/white chocolate curls...omg, just thinking about it is activating my salivary glands) and then out for lovely dinner with the girls. I was feeling a bit guilty about not eating any fruits/veggies all day, so I had a greek salad + garlic bread. Hey! Life is all about balance - a girl can't just workout all of the time.

Friday - Rest + more sushi tonight :)

Notes: I wasn't feeling as sore on Wednesday as I did last week. I think my body is starting to adapt to weight training again. Unlike last weekend, where I was just not in the mood to run, this weekend I'm actually looking forward to my 2ok. I have 1 tiny pack of chews and 1 random gel kicking around, so I'll be seeing how the gel/chew combo works for me.

20.01 km

LOL - map my run is very accurate with their mapping!

My 20k run this weekend turned into more of a 10k run + 10k walk. I'm not sure what happened, I think my heart just wasn't into it, which lead to my brain telling my body to stop running. Once my brain starts working against me, it's usually game over. Although it was tempting to hop on one of the many buses that passed me or to just take a shortcut home, I still did the full distance anyway. The weird thing is that my time was only a little bit slower than my chilly half marathon time...I find it a little disturbing since I was running for most of the race. So either I was running a very fast 10k and just couldn't hold my pace or I only run slightly faster than I walk. My first 5k was about 5 minutes faster than usual, but I'm not sure what time I passed the 10k mark. I'm not going to panic too much about having a crappy run, there are still 6 weeks left before my half-marathon. Next weekend there will be a fresh new run for me to enjoy.

I gave gels another try this past weekend - I had GU Strawberry Banana. I didn't really understand what people meant when they said that they didn't like the feeling of all the gels sloshing around in their stomach during their runs - I thought, well, how different can it possibly be than having water on your runs? I was fine for the first gel, but after the second one, I could really feel everything moving around in there. It felt really weird - almost like my stomach was a waterbed! Also, I don't like the banana flavour very much, it reminds me too much of banana-flavoured antibiotics from my childhood. (Actually I thought that I had picked up the regular strawberry gels at the store - so it was my own fault for buying the wrong flavour.) I'm out of gels for now, so I'm going back to chews next weekend.

19.02 km

I've been off track with blogging but more or less on track with my running schedule for the week.

Running:
I was a little worried about my long distance run on the weekend, since I was out pretty late on Saturday night watching John's band be awesome at their show. I was trying to be good and avoiding the alcohol, but somehow ended up having 2 beers + 1 vodka/water - it doesn't seem like very much, but I pretty much have zero alcohol tolerance these days. I stopped drinking when I was training for my first half marathon around this time last year and since then I have not been really been able to have more than a drink or two. Anyway, back to the running...

By the time I pulled myself together on Sunday morning, I wasn't out the door for my run untill 10:30AM! 10:30 is SO late - I usually am almost finished my run by 10:30. I hate going out for later runs, because I really hate having to deal with the braindead general population. Dodging cars, bikes and people really throws me out of my running groove - its amazing how most people have little to no awareness of their surroundings. I just love having to jump out of the way of cars/bikes when *I* am the one on the sidewalk. I'm usually a good girl, I stay on the sidewalks, rarely jaywalk and always look both ways before crossing the street, yet pretty much everytime I'm out for a run I'm almost run over by some douchebag in a vehicle. Argh, and the pedestrians - they don't look where they are going, can't seem to walk in a straight line - drifting back and forth across the sidewalk. By the way, if you see somebody else coming towards you, turning your body slightly to the side to try to "share" the width of the sidewalk does not do anything. You are still taking up just as much space. I'm getting off track again...

Despite leaving a little later than usual and having a bit of a headache in the morning, I had an amazing run on Sunday morning. The weather was beautiful and it was the first time all year I've been able to run without a jacket on. My mind was clear and my body was just moving smoothly without feeling any exertion at all. I just had this really great groove going on and it reminded me why I enjoy running so much in the first place. The Clif shot bloks were so yummy. I ate half of the package around 0:45 and had the last half around 1:20. My stomach tolerated them well and I felt fairly energetic throughout the run. I ended up doing 19.02 km in about 2 hrs on Sunday, my legs were a little sore but I was feeling great at the end of the run. Yeay, I'm feeling like I'm back on track! All I have to do is squeeze in an extra 2 km into the same amount of time...

Yoga is hard

A couple of training updates from the last few days:

Cross-training:
Cross-training is coming along - I did a cardio/weight training interval class followed by a yoga class at the gym. There was actually another lady wearing ballet flats in the cardio/weight class - I wonder if this is becoming a new "thing"? Maybe I've just been spending too much time at the Running Room and I've become out of touch with the latest gym trends and fashions.

The yoga class was my first one in almost 5 years. I've been meaning to give it another try since yoga is supposed to be good for runners. Yoga is HARD. I'm used to high-impact, high-intensity cardio workouts and I found the slow, gentle and controlled movements to be quite difficult. It was still a great workout and I will do it again. I kinda want to get my own yoga mat, since rolling around on the communal mats grosses me out a bit.

Running:
On schedule for this weekend is an 18k run. I'm going to do it tomorrow since I'm still feeling sore from all of the warrior poses at yoga. I have an issue with hitting the wall at 16k, so I've been told that taking gels/chews on my long runs might help. I'll be experimenting with different gels/chews over the next few months to see what works for me and what doesn't. I took my first eload gel on my long run last week, it was green apple flavoured, the taste was inoffensive and my stomach tolerated it pretty well. I feel like it helped, since I didn't get that tired/hopeless feeling I usually start to get at 15k. My only problem was that I just couldn't get the technique down. I tore off the top and then squeezed...and got nothing. I squeezed a bit harder...and still nothing! I had to squish it slowly up, the way you try to get the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube. Everyone else in my running group just tears off the top and slurps it down in less than a minute. Anyway, it seems like this is going to have to take a bit of practice. This week I'm taking a break from the gels and I'll try a chew - cliff shot bloks (strawberry).