Weekend Update and Vancouver

Hello from Vancouver!

This past weekend was jam-packed.  Saturday morning I got myself up early to go for a long run.  My knee was still sore, so I decided to drive to the 5.2 km River Walk loop, so that if my knee wasn't feeling too hot, I would never be too far from home/the car.  I knew it would be boring running around it 3 times, but I wanted to play it safe as I didn't have time for a 6 km walk like last weekend.

My knee didn't feel too hot at first, but about 15 minutes in, it felt like it was loosening up.  There's one decent hill around the 4km mark and on the downhill, I really felt the pain in my knee, so I thought I might have to quit after one loop.  Frustrated, I stopped, stretched, had some water, and regrouped.  After last week's failed attempt at a long run, I wanted to get a good distance in this week.  I also had bought my first ever gel, and I wanted to try it out.  A little choco-flavour is good enough motivation for me any time!

I decided to run from the loop trail to THE HILL, then walk back down the hill rather than run it, then back to the loop and around the rest of the way, about 9.5 km, for a total of about 15 km.  I could feel my knee the whole time, but wasn't in pain unless I tried to run down a hill.  I'm going to look pretty funny walking down hills in the race on Sunday, but it might come to that!

I decided that I'm not going to bother with gels for the race.  I'd never used them before, and my stomach felt funny afterwards, so rather than try a different one, I'm just going to stick with water and gatorade.  I also bought a handheld water bottle last week and tried it out on Saturday's run.  I didn't mind having the water bottle along for the run, but I didn't really feel comfortable with it.  I will use it for long runs from now on to keep from getting dehydrated, and will hopefully get more used to it, but for this race, I'm going to rely on water stops.

Saturday afternoon I was at a funeral for a woman I had met this past year in Williams Lake who had opened her home to me when I visit there for work.  Myra was part of a group of 6 girlfriends that have known each other since grade 1, and the other 5 women spoke at the funeral.  I've been thinking a lot about my friendships and connections between women since then.  She was a special lady.

Saturday evening friends were over for dinner and board games, then I had to pack for the Vancouver trip - an exhausting day!

I flew to Vancouver on Sunday for some on-going training for work Monday and Tuesday of this week, and am going to work from here for the rest of the week in order to stay in town for the half marathon on Sunday.  It was kinda tough packing for a race a week away, so I ended up coming to Vancouver for a week with more clothes than I had backpacking for 6 months, but I think I thought of everything.  (Right now the forecast is sunny and 18*C (64* F)).

I used the treadmill at the hotel to run 5km this morning.  Once again, I could feel my knee, but no real pain.  Sitting in training all day today, it was stiff every time I got up from sitting, but there's no pain.  I'm optimistic that it will be feeling better by Sunday, but am trying to be realistic about the fact that I might have to take walk breaks on the downhills (I'm not ready to think about not running at all).

I tried to upload some pictures but can't seem to figure it out on my laptop and it's late, so I'll sort it out tomorrow and finally get a few photos on this blog!