got my run on

Please forgive the bad grammar in the title. I just couldn't help it.

Last week Dan bought me new running shoes. I think they are the first pair of running shoes actually purchased in a running store, not from a shoe store. Today I broke them in.

I forgot when we were shoe shopping that I wear an orthotic in my running shoe. I don't wear the orthotics in the rest of my shoes, so never thought to bring it with me when we were at the store. I pulled them out of my old shoes and slipped them into the new ones today. The fit was slightly different but not in a bad way.

As luck would have it, I went out for my run before the torrential rains began today. I haven't run in two and a half weeks (between moving, travel, spending time with Dan, and resettling in a temporary location) but instead of doing an easier run, I continued on the plan with the Couch to 10k app on my iPhone.

I don't recall if I have mentioned this program before. I did it years ago (before there was such a thing as iPhones) when I was training for my first 10k race in 1999 or 2000. I'm up to week 6 day 1 today, which after the 5-minute warm-up has me running 3min walking 2min 13 times. I was working my way through this program when I was at my sister's house, on the treadmill. What a difference to be outside!
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I ran through the Ross Bay Cemetery, then turned around and headed back south on Dallas Road. Near Ogden point I turned in to the streets, ran through James Bay and Beacon Hill Park before heading back. I logged 5.47 miles with my Runmeter app.

I'm seeing Victoria through new eyes. When we left the area (living in East Sooke) a year and a half ago, we were desperate to leave. After living in two quite different rural and remote locations since then, I have a new appreciate for the city. Everything is within walking distance. I can ride my bike. There are still flowers in October. Gourmet and Asian food.

As I ran by the peacock in Beacon Hill Park, I resisted the urge to say hello "haawOOOw!" (I can do a mean peacock impersonation) and it reminded me of Spilly Jane. (Why? I think she mentioned something about peacock coloured nail polish on Twitter sometime this summer).

In slightly unrelated news, yesterday I was invited to and attended a Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's family's home. I keep forgetting how different I looked when we moved away. I was 30 pounds heaver and had brown hair. I sure don't get tired of the compliments. :-) However, I have remained at the same weight for about three months now. I've gone up and down a pound or two, but I haven't really been logging with my LoseIt! app (what got my whole weight loss started in the first place). So in one sense, it's good that I haven't gained any weight back. But I still have 20-30 pounds to go until I'm where I want to be.

So I'm training for a marathon. Victoria is a great place to get going on that because there is TONS of support. I have people here I can run with. Kinston, when I get there someday, is also full of runners. I don't know which marathon I'll end up running but I am determined to do it before I turn 39. 

Couch to 10k

I've told you before about my iPhone and how much I love it. It's my camera, my phone, my messaging device, my weight loss tool, my connection to the Internet (esp when I break my laptop), my Twitterer, etc.

One of the apps I have on my phone is called Couch to 10k. They have other ones, for 5k and 25k, but it's basically a training program to help you get from the couch to running a certain distance. You start the program, get your music going, and the voice will tell you what to do. "Start Walk Now" or "Start Run Now". It is similar to a running clinic I took years ago, where we would start out by walking for 4 1/2 minutes, walk for 30 seconds, and repeat until we hit an hour. Do that three times a week, and each week increase the run segment by 30 seconds until you are running for the whole hour by the end of it. It's good. I have run two 10k races from that sort of training.

I think I mentioned before I'm on the relay team for Knits by the Sea in the Edge to Edge Marathon in June. The track starts in Tofino and ends in Ucluelet, a few hundred meters from our house. I don't know yet which leg I'll be doing, 8k or 10k, or if my segment will be hilly or flat, but I'll be training around here (which means hills). I'm actually pretty excited about this. The last time I raced was ten years ago, and on the same day I took a softball in the face, requiring 12 stitches in my upper lip. Not that running is dangerous, but I was on a softball team and half our team ran the 10k and then went to play our weekly game.

Okay okay I'll tell you what happened. I was playing first base. There was a girl up to bat, she hit the ball not very far, and the pitcher caught it. He threw it to me and, for some reason, my glove didn't get there in time. The next thing I knew I was on the ground facing the other direction, blood spattering from my face. The Ump was there in seconds with his first aid kit and put the big gauze pad on my face. I felt my teeth - my teeth were fine. I felt my nose - my nose wasn't broken. It was then that I realized my upper lip was split wide open. I needed stitches. One of my team mates whisked me to the nearest walk-in clinic a few blocks away (knowing that a trip to emerg would result in hours of waiting), and I had stitches in my face within 45 minutes. I swelled up with bruising later, and it was really hard to eat for the following week, but I was back at playing ball two weeks later.

Anyway, that was a side story. I had a crooked smile before I got whacked in the face. There is a faint scar on my upper lip now, and a very prominent seam on the inside of my lip. It's gross, but if you really want to see it, I'll show you. Only in person though, I am totally not going to take a picture.

Where was I... right, running. I love running. I haven't really done it in a while. I had a few incapacitating surgeries years ago, and then I was living in a place where it was neither safe nor fun to go running, so I just hiked the regional park. Since we've been here in Ucluelet, I have made a few half-assed attempts at starting to run again, but it didn't take because I was too heavy.

No excuse anymore, I've lost 20 pounds now and I'm stoked. There are so many great places around here to run, so many trails. If I can steel myself against pelting weather, I can do this. I can train for this marathon and get a cool T-shirt. 2011 is turning out to be a great year.

iPhone update fail

Every so often, there is an update to my iTunes program. iTunes is where all my music, podcast, and iPhone apps are stored. Apparently during a rather large update in November, I was mucking around on my computer doing other things not realizing this was A Problem, and as a result, I've had this error message show up on my screen extremely often ever since. Sometimes the phone would be laying there and this error message would pop up. Sometimes I would go to use the phone of my iPhone and this error message would come up. It's frustrating as hell and you'd think after  more than two months they would have fixed this. Simon Pegg, a comedy actor from the UK, told all his Twitter followers that he was having this fixed (since he has an iPhone too) for the rest of us, but it still hasn't happened yet. It's irritating to say the least. Dan's phone didn't suffer this fate - apparently something like 10-20% of iPhones got hit with this particular problem after this update.

I love my iPhone, don't get me wrong. It has become my main source of communication, entertainment, organization, and social media. When my computer Blue Screened the other day, I still had access to the Internet. I just wish I didn't have to deal with this message anymore.