On The Run...

Okay...it's official...life has been busy!! Now that Steve and I have had two straight weekends of sleeping in, it quickly occured to me just how busy we've really been. Between our canoe trip, my trip to TO and our FABULOUS visit with Colin & Sandra in Port Elgin, we really have been going a mile a minute!!

It's not over yet though!!! I suddenly realized this weekend that I have a mere four weeks until we are off to Toronto again for the Toronto International Marathon. For anyone that really knows me, you know that I just love running and even more so, I love racing! In my four years of running, I've never hesitated to say that I'm not a very fast runner... I've always been more like the tortoise than the hare!!

Generally speaking, I tend to do most of my intense training during the winter months leading up to the National Capital Race Weekend. Truth be told, I've always been a much better runner in the winter than I've ever been in the summer due to the fact that it's much easier to regulate your body temperature in the winter. This year though, I decided to take a little break from training (for the first time in four years) and give my body a little bit of time to recover. I won't say that it was an easy decision to make...it broke my heart actually but, work, life and running were becoming a bit much at the time and my health required that I take a bit of a step back and give myself a rest.

This summer though, I realized that I couldn't take it anymore and I absolutely had to get back into my running shoes!!! So after four months of rest, I laced up my shoes again and decided to make my big comeback!!! So Toronto it is!! There are many reasons why I chose to do the half-marathon instead of the full distance:

1.) I adore my husband too much to spend all that training time away from him...he's just too cute!!
2.) Given that I generally don't run much in the summer, I thought that I would take summer running in baby steps.
3.) Regardless of how much I've trained...I'm seldom smiling after 42.2 kilometres!!!
4.) Half Marathon training is a great opportunity to work on speed instead of distance.

Toronto also provides a great new route (apparently a fairly flat route too!), lots of family and friends in town to cheer me on and a terrific reason to eat as much as I can bear over Thanksgiving weekend!!

So far, my best time for a half-marathon is 2:35:47 and I've been hurting at the finish line!! However, this past Friday, I ran one of my fastest times yet...18km in 1:50:06!! Yeah for me and yeah for the Double Latte Power Gel with 50mg. of caffeine that I tried for the first time!! Though I was still quite sore at the end (my calves are still screaming at me), I still maintained my speed throughout most of my run and kept a good pace. All in all, a great start to the weekend!!

All this to say...watch out Toronto...I'm back...and with caffeine induced power gels in tow!!