Happy Thanksgiving!

To all my American readers ... Hope you had a fantastic day celebrating with friends and family ...

I *wish* I could have joined some of you for a delicious turkey supper with all the fixings! No training yet today, just a dance class, but I'm hoping to end the evening off with a short run in the rain ...

Excuses, excuses ...

Well, last week, I thought I was off to a good restart at training again. Finally off the atrocious meds for my neck and back and feeling better (yes, ESPECIALLY since I'm off those nasty meds! Sometimes the side effects outweigh the benefits ... sigh.)

Then last weekend, I went off to Cape Cod for a swing dance convention. Drove 16 hours. Danced 18. Slept ... too little.

Came back feeling a little run down, which is quite normal after an intense dance weekend. But after a good night's sleep, I didn't feel any better, actually worse, and my usual velvet voice wasn't so velvet anymore.

I've got LARYNGITIS! Arrgh!

Thought about going to the pool but my blocked ears nixed that idea. Thought about running but the cold air going down my throat nixed that idea too.

Today, I felt a bit better and even entertained the idea of running, but being invited to the premiere of "Quantum of Solace" nixed that idea quickly :-) It's cool to have connections in the industry ... Thanks CG!


Tomorrow, I receive my official Mime Clowns Unite! membership card.

Slow creeping start, but hey!

I've been trying to work training back into my life, now that I've gotten through two weeks of working at a totally insane frenetic pace. Took two nights to recuperate and started with a reacquaintance with Mr. SB. For those who don't know who he is (i.e. those who haven't been following the blog since the beginning), here he is ... Mr. Stationary Bike.

He's really hard to ride, not the most comfortable position, and I'm sure the adjustment mechanism is entirely off ... Even at it's lowest setting, this magnetic resistance bike is HARD to pedal. I figure it's a good introduction to cycling again. Big padded seat and I figure the resistance would be good to build some strength. I've done a bunch of 25 min. sets in the past week. Woohoo! Will have to get onto my road bike and trainer soon so I can do some spinning ... but that's still daunting to me since it's closer to the real thing and the skinny seat will take some ... um, adjustment ...

I've also fit in two 1000m swims before work, including this morning, so that's a good kick start to the day ... I don't think my shoulders could handle more distance at this point, but I'll be able to work up to more soon when I start to swim at least 4x/week. Right now, I'm just happy that I'm not drowning. I'm super proud of myself this morning ... got up only a few minutes after my two alarms sounded, didn't take advantage of the snooze function and then said, "I think I'll go for a swim" and was out the door 15 min. later.

Last sport to restart, after early January's training hiatus, is running. But it's so cold and dark outside still ... brrrr ... I know though that once I get out there, I'll be fine. I can't believe I've run so marathons when I can't even motivate myself to get out there and run for half an hour. I used to love winter running. But then, I probably wasn't as distracted by cycling and swimming and ...

... dancing. Yes, instead of running tonight, I went dancing ... Jive, Lindy Hop, West Coast Swing, and Blues ... What a great evening! And I met a cyclist who will hopefully help to motivate me when it'll be time to take to the road again once this snow clears up ... Yay!

Guilt-free and loving it!

I have the utmost admiration for athletes who juggle work, family, friends and disciplined training.

HOW DO THEY DO IT?

I can't seem to figure it out ... I haven't been doing more than the odd short, and I mean short, run or quick half hour swim. Mind you, I've taken on a second play project and I've had more dancing than usual recently with a Jive dance event (like sprinting with no finish line in sight) and a West Coast Swing workshop last weekend. Check me out with teachers Larry and Heidi Mongeau who are exceptional dancers!

Maybe I do too much ... Funny, I've already realised that my comfort zone lies in my being busy, in making plans and executing them ... It's not what kind of plate I can spin in the air, it's how many different coloured ones I can spin all at the same time ...

But like everyone else, sometimes I just have to ... STOP.

Last Wednesday, instead of doing my planned swim, I chatted with a girlfriend without multi-tasking at the same time, and then watched a WHOLE HOUR of television ... and you know what?

It felt good and I feel absolutely no guilt. :-)

Not that hard to figure out ...

One night, coming home from rehearsal, it suddenly dawned on me why I wasn't training.

That particular day, I had worked 9 hours non-stop at my day job and then rushed off to a 5-hour play rehearsal in which I landed one of the leads. Throw in almost two hours travelling time and I come up with a grand total of 16 hours. Then throw in time needed to shower and get ready and eat and look over my lines and I'm already running a major sleep deficit. Yes, it's been intense with rehearsals since we had a public reading recently ... sorry I didn't have time to invite you all ... just too busy to BLOG!

Who has time to train?

So that's what my past two weeks have been like ... busy, busy, busy. Lots of dancing too, since I went off to Cape Cod for "Swingin' New England", a West Coast Swing dance convention. Nothing like visiting the ocean, which was right behind the hotel. Incredibly serene ... lovely.

Some have said to me that I've taken too much on my plate and I totally agree. But hey, that's how life is sometimes and it's difficult to pass up interesting opportunities.

I did take the opportunity to go for a short dip in the pool yesterday though I couldn't swim lengths since it was family time and I was playing with my kiddies. There's something to be said though for staying familiar with the movement of water around you, and also for movement IN water. You have to "feel the water", my trainer friend, Dirk, always says.

Happy Mother's Day!!

My sons and I ate this scrumptious but oh-so-bad-for-you lunch to celebrate this special day ... Montreal's famous smoked meat sandwiches!

It was supposed to be a reward for a long run but somewhere between Norah Jones' exquisite concert last night and the kids this morning, I only managed to squeeze in ...

Ottawa Marathon Training: W7, Day #1

Planned Run: 32 km
Actual Distance: 4.5 km

Oooh!

I've just got to go run a quick errand!

Thursday: Ottawa Marathon Training - W6, Day #3
Planned distance: 21 km
Actual distance: 20 Km

Well, it was actually a little over 20 km, but I had a few walk breaks in there ... needed them desperately. It was 29C outside and the sun was blazing.I had ran downtown to a doctor's appointment and then ran back via "the mountain". Montreal is definitely not a flat city.

Friday: Swim training

5 x 200 m = various drills: kick, pull-buoy, one-arm crawl, swimming on side

5 x 200 m = front crawl

20 sec. rest inbetween sets

Total swim = 2 km

Followed by an evening of three hours of super fun swing dancing!


Saturday: Ottawa Marathon Training - W6, Day #4
Planned distance: extra day of running to try to make up for my lazy bones
Actual distance: 4.5 km

I ran to go pick up my car at the garage after they failed to change my winter tires since they had broken my mag lock key ... the LAST time I'd gotten serviced by them!! The mechanic had failed to tell me this, obviously to cover his total incompetence at stripping both the mag lock AND the key.

Ottawa Marathon Training Summary: Week #6
Planned Mileage: 59 km
Actual Mileage: 35.5 km

Not what I should have run, but still a 29.1% increase from last week's total of 27.5 km.


I went to watch my Coolrunning friends do an early evening race, the "Défi du printemps" or "Spring Challenge". It was strange to be at a race and not be in race gear, but heck, I was on my way to a Norah Jones concert!

It was a nice race course through one of Montreal's main parks, starting and ending at the Olympic Stadium. Here's KZ doing a 10k!


Special kudos to LA for her first ever, a 5k! She's bib #1310.

It was interesting to finally be on the spectator side of a race ... I screamed words of encouragement to as many runners as I could as I passed them on the park paths on the way back to the car ... their smiles and eyes said it all, and I only wish that more spectators had turned up.

So for those who have ever volunteered at a race or gone out to cheer us athletes on ... THANK YOU!!

What a strange feeling!

I've been up since 5:42 am, something that has not happened since I don't remember when. I suppose this is to be expected given the circumstances of the previous day.

Feeling quite ill and exhausted, I slept ALL DAY yesterday and basically only woke up to eat and check e-mail. Funny, but not funny ... I got up around 4:30 pm to finally eat a late lunch and lay down to rest for a few seconds while it was heating up. Woke up three hours later. Reheated my food, ate and went promptly back to sleep.

Now you understand what 5:42 am is about?

***********

So I thought I would have a more productive day today but still felt tired, so thought I would just rest for a few minutes before I really got the day under way.

I fell back asleep before 7 am and didn't crawl out of bed until 11 am when the phone woke me up. Yup, still quite sick and feeling LOUSY. Can't believe I've slept this many hours since my return late Sunday night from The Boston Tea Party where I had a blast with my friends, CM, ST, and David Fein, who's sandwiched happily between us two girls. Saturday night had record attendance ... 1400 dancers!

It's about 4 am in the morning in these pics and we are very very tired. Does it show? Ugh ... Let's just say that dance convention weekends are not known for sleeping ...

Fun news!

I'm going to the Boston Tea Party! YAY!!

Also, my head is finally making it's way out of the jar! Double YAY!! Maybe I won't need to fill that antibiotic prescription ...

www.newagesensitiveman.com

I went to a little social gathering at JC's recently and, being the fantastic photographer that he is, of course whipped out his camera ...

JC: "Give her a little kiss."

So lo and behold, here we have it ... Flirtation abounds!



JC gave me a good chuckle on the phone today ... I was complaining about the lack of interesting, exciting, intelligent men to date.

JC: "Go check out www.newagesensitiveman.com."

So I did ... and found nothing. Absolutely nada. Sort of symbolic of what the real dating scene is all about ...

Like, why can't I find a guy who makes me swoon in his arms when he dances with me and who can also do triathlons ... I mean, is it too much to ask that he attempt at least a sprint triathlon, or failing that, how about just a measly marathon if he's not interested in all three sports?

And picking up dancing can't be too difficult ... I organize workshops, he can get in for free ... I can even teach him myself!

SHEESH!!

Got back from a fun dance event this evening in fact. My miserable cold is still holding on tenaciously and blatantly ignoring my pleas for it to leave me alone. No training today obviously, but do I get points for all this dancing? Hey, it's cross-training!

I'm on youtube!

I got this e-mail from Dance Conmigo this morning. Didn't have time to look at the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf27148ntcw until later tonight when I took some time to clean up my e-mail and realized ...



... it was me and my friend RG dancing in the video! How fun! How exciting! How embarrassing! There we were, dancing improvisationally to a song I really like, Tracy Chapman's "Give Me One Reason". We were giving a demo of West Coast Swing, my favourite social dance ... and one of my other passions, besides triathlon.

Positive comments only please ... :-)

Oh yeah, managed to slip in a half hour of swimming again today. I told myself that I would only do flip turns at the ends of each lane, no touch turns, and I worked on improving my catch (or grab) and press.

Girl's Night Out

Yesterday, I got in an intense half hour swim but today, I somehow got sidetracked and ran out of time to train before my friend, and guinea pig west coast swing dance partner (I'm learning how to lead), CM, came by. For a while now, we'd talked about "drinking and dancing", so lo and behold, we decided to throw in a little gourmet feast as well.

Tonight's menu:

Appetizers:
- fresh baguette
- 3 types of olives
- baba ganoush
- 5 types of cheeses: old cheddar, havarti, smoked gouda, jarlsberg, and oka
- cherry tomatoes on the vine
- wine: 2005 Wolf Blass Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon (Australia)

Main Course:
- pork filet marinated in a teriaki-like homemade sauce
- sauteed zucchini with garlic
- halved new potatoes sauteed with green onions and some sort of special mixed spice given to me by my running friend Grommit (hey, G, what's in that mix?)
- wine: 2005 Minervois Chateau de Gourgazaud (France)

Dessert
(upon our return from social dancing):
- whole wheat banana bread - simply delicious
- I had offered it "a la mode" but we were simply too full

We finally got to toast the New Year ... I hadn't seen CM since my charity birthday party last December.

Here we are ... two girls ready to go out for some fun social dancing at Dance Conmigo. I love that ballroom stuff ... and I even got to try out the nifty Argentine tango steps that another dancer PB taught me just last night! PB sure worked me hard, but it was worth it!

Late night again for me ... time for tea and wine and "Sex in the City" until I fell asleep on the couch ... Girls' night out ... a total blast!

How cool is this?

My photographer friend, Jonathan Clark, sent me this pic of his newly decorated living room. He's finally put up some of his fantastic photos, like in a studio. Check it out and let me know what you think.


And here's my living room:




Not as grand, but I've got a little tiny apartment. I think I could actually fit my whole apartment into Jonathan's living room. My apartment is so small that if you walk too quickly in the front door, you'll find yourself in the backyard.

One day, I will have my loft space where I can hang a mirror ball in the living room, dim the lights, and dance to Barry White, Marvin Gaye, Anastacia, and so many other cool artists. I have a little disco ball that I use in my living room right now ... my kids and friends think it's cool. One Christmas, I actually gave out a whole bunch of disco balls to my friends ... the gift beckoned. Now I just need to get a lava lamp but that'll be for when I get my huge loft space.

I wanted to go for a swim tonight but I've been working solidly from about 8:15 pm. Well, actually even before that ... Had to take a break. Had a major glitch. Any techno geeks out there? Well, basically, my DVD drive wouldn't read the DVD-R that was couried to me and neither would Jonathan's DVD drive. Lo and behold, Mac comes out and saves the day AND my ar$e, we transfer my TIFF files to a CD-R and here I am now.

So all I got in was a lousy little run, only about a half hour in -10C weather, which is warm for right now but cold enough to make my chin want to fall off. Scarf, use a scarf, Bonnie ...

By the way, Mr. David Fein, gentleman and fantastic dancer ... I hope you're going to go to The Boston Tea Party !!