Tag: Running

The sky’s the limit

Hey chickadees.

I cannot believe that it is already Friday. The mind boggles.

I took this snap of the sunrise yesterday morning:

I seem to have developed a rather large obsession with the sky, in all of its variations, which has manifested itself in an insatiable need to take dozens and dozens of photos of everything from mid-day cloud cover, to startlingly brilliant sunsets.

But in all honesty, my favourite will always be the sorbet coloured striations that divide up the early morning, and patch together the early evening skies.

Always.

Fry-Up Time!

Tom Hanks.

So I watched Sleepless in Seattle for the first time the other night and I have to say it wasn’t half bad.

Despite never really warming to Meg Ryan, I’ve always loved Tom Hanks – in particular 1980s/1990s Tom Hanks.

Sure, I haven’t been that a big fan of his work post-Y2K scare, but nothing will ever take away from the majesty of his early stuff.

(Except of course, for Joe vs. the Volcano. What broke acip trip was responsible for that hot mess?)

Erm, right. So what I’m trying to say here is that while I don’t go to see any of his newer stuff, I certainly do love to dip my toes in his more seasoned pool of material.

For instance, I always, always laugh my face off while watching The Burbs. Yes, I understand that this movie is completely daft and terrible, but nothing will ever stop me from falling over during the scene when the weirdo neighbours drive their garbage to the bottom of the driveway and anytime Mr. Hanks goes absolutely bonkers.

(Which is pretty much the entire film. See the below video for details.)

I will never stop laughing at pretty much every scene in Splash, I LOVE That Thing you Do (and still know every single word to that song), and A League of Their Own is, well, in a league of its own.

Remember kids: Avoid the clap.

It’s sound advice!

Anyways, I was thinking about ole’ Tom as the end credits to Sleepless were rolling, and I was trying to figure out what it is about this actor that I like so much.

M put forward the hypothesis that so many women (and dudes too) love Tom Hanks because he’s a normal human being. He’s not stereotypically “hot”; he’s not ripped, or suave, or an Adonis in human form.

He’s attainable.

Women (and men) can actually see themselves with him.

Men (and women) can see themselves being friends with him.

While I’ve never thought about Mr. Hanks this way, I can see his point.

However in my case, what really does it for me, is the fact that Tom is the absolute master of the hilarious angry yell.

Even when he’s pissed off, he’s bloody entertaining as heck. Seriously, check it out:

Ohhhhh, I die.

Next!

Elevated discourse.

So it’s no big surprise around here that I am massively in love with my cat and will pretty much do anything for her because of how nuts I am about her.

However, of late I’ve really started to notice just how barmy I sound when I talk to her.

(And just how barmy I sound even typing out those words.)

But it’s true. I’ll be walking around my house, jabbering on like a monkey in a tree, regaling Nymeria with details of my day, when I’ll just start telling her over and over again how beautiful she is.

Eventually I’ll transition to complimenting her on how good of a job she is doing of cleaning her paws, how awesome that last yawn of hers was, or how impressed I am that she jumped up on the windowsill with such grace and agility.

Sometimes I’ll just pick her up and do nothing save mutter “beauty cat” over and over and over again. (Sometimes for variation, I’ll make those words into some sort of three syllable nursery song.)

I’m seriously waiting for the day when she’ll turn, look at me and say, “Look lady, is it possible for you to stop talking to me like I’m some kind of simpleton?”

But until that day…

Ten kilometers go!

So I made the executive decision to sign up for the Fall Classic 10k race.

It’s on November 19th, so it’s bound to be raining, and freezing – but I think I have managed to coerce a number of my amazing pals to also run, so I am really looking forward to a massive post-race hang-out fest.

(Hopefully somewhere warm, and dry, where people won’t be turned off by our non-stop laughter.)

When I signed up to race, I had to enter my estimated finish time, as the two individuals with the closest guesses will win a New Balance prize pack.

I submitted a conservative forty-two minutes, but I’m hoping to run it faster than that. However, I don’t know how the rain or cold will affect my race, so I figured I would rather be safe than sorry.

My comedic genius of a friend Alannah just entered: I’m done when I’m done.

Brilliant.

Also, I think she may have made herself an automatic shoe-in for the prize!

Humour and brains, folks.

Humour and brains.

(If I was a zombie, this is what I would put as my “ideal match” in the zombie classified ads.

…

So that’s all she wrote folks.

A very merry weekend to all of you fab chaps!

I hope it’s absolutely smashing.

Making an effort to stretch myself

Hey gang.

I have a dirty, horrible secret that I need to get off my chest.

(Urg, that conjures up some truly horrific imagery doesn’t it? It makes me think of a putrid, gelatinous squid laying waste to my body, its tentacles wedged into the crooks of my neck and the dip of my bellybutton.)

[pauses]

Gaaaaaaaaaah!

Why would I even write that? Now that I’ve conjured up that visual nightmare, I’ve only made this whole thing even worse.

Enough of this pseudo-Alien bullshazzle Ethel. Pull yourself together woman!

Okay.

My secret doesn’t have anything to do with my sci-fi film proclivities, nor does it have anything to do with seafood (although you can bet your bottom dollar I’m not going to be ordering a plate of calamari anytime soon.)

My dark globule of shame is thus:

I’VE STARTED DOING YOGA.

[pauses]

Gaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I should have just stuck with being eaten alive by a blood thirsty extra-terrestrial octopus.

And yet, alas, it is true.

To paraphrase Katy Perry: I did yoga and I liked it. (I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it.)

Jeeze Louise, I am losing all the cool points today, aren’t I?

GOOD GRIEF.

So how did this all come about you might ask? (Or maybe just, you know, can you get to the point Ethel because you’re rambling like a rambling thing?)

It all started with the rain.

You see, here in Beautiful British Columbia© it rains like the absolute dickens. The relentless deluge we west coasters suffer through betwixt the months of October to April (and sometimes later) is of such magnitude that there is a good chance we will grow moss all over our bodies if we do not exercise constant vigilance.

This is fact.

So. As the drizzle has now descended upon our fair city, coupled by the fact that the days are growing ever shorter (and ever darker), I am trying my darndest not to reenlist at the gym, because a.) I’m trying to save money and b.) GYMS ARE THE WORST.

But it’s hard. Who wants to arrive home from work and go running outside in the pitch-dark pouring rain?

The absolute wettest I have EVER been on a run. Taken this past weekend.

That is bleak, bleak sauce.

However, I figure if I work really hard at it, a gym-free solution is doable.

For instance, because I am currently taking a break from my half-marathon training schedule, I have the option of going for much shorter, faster runs.

For instance, yesterday I burned through a 5 km while practicing my sprints/hill running.

I also have to admit that running in the rain isn’t always as dreadful as it sounds. Sometimes it’s actually pretty empowering and deliciously badass. Plus, it’s definitely manageable if you’re only doing it for 20-30 minutes at a time.

Further, no one is saying that should we get the odd nice weekend here and there I can’t take advantage and bang out a sweet 10-15k just to make sure I don’t backtrack in terms of my distance training.

The second part of of my gym-free workout plan is to do a crap load of resistance work, which means push-ups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, burpees, wall sits, planks – you name it.

And the plus side of all of this is that I can do all of these things in the comfort of my own home.

Okay, okay, I know what you’re all thinking: “WHAT ABOUT THE BLOODY YOGA!?”

I’m getting there, I promise.

Seeing as though I’ve been told that I should be practicing my downward dog and sun salutation for something like the past two-hundred years, last Sunday I finally thought to myself, “Enough of this bollocks. I might as well give it a go.”

Now, don’t get any crazy ideas that I actually went out a bought a mat and paid for a class or anything.

After a brutal session of burpees, jump squats, pull-ups, and hip raises, a twenty-minute beginners yoga class via Youtube (that I could do complete on the carpet in my bedroom) was looking pretty good.

And it was!

It was good.

It was so good in fact, that I’ve done the same video every night since, as well as an extra session of stretching.

The only fly in the ointment being that whenever I am doing my poses M walks around the house muttering “HANI PASHA” to himself, which completely ruins my concentration and sends me into uncontrollable giggle fits.

But I’ll take it.

In the end, I guess a leopard really can change her spots, as I have long ridiculed yoga and its disciples (living in Lotus Land it’s pretty hard not to, what with the city’s collection obsession with Lululemon and its competitors.)

So that’s it folks; that is my slimy, salacious secret.

I am a budding, neophyte yogi.

And I blame it on the rain.

A year of ranting and rolling

Can you believe it?

One hundred and eighty-odd posts later and here we are – looking back on a year of blogging.

I started Rant and Roll because I love to write and because I am easily destroyed by issues that either break my heart or force steam out of my ears.

My amazing friend Sherie encouraged me to write down my rants, mostly due to the fact that she would absolutely kill herself laughing any time I was on the warpath, orating and gesticulating widely (like the modern day – severely pissed off – Pericles that I can be.)

And so I did.

At first all of my posts really were rants – calling out injustices, lamenting social ills, and waxing long on my huge beef with institutionalized sexism.

Pfft. If it’s not cutting at least 50 lbs, I can’t even be bothered.

But then, little, by little, my small corner of the internet began to evolve.

Sure, I still wrote about issues near and dear to my heart (I don’t think I could stop even if I tried.)

However, I also started to write about other things – my relationship with the brilliant man whom I share my heart and home; our kitty cat who rules the roost; and my travels both near and far, new and old.

Ms. Nymeria cuddling with Mr. M.

I began sharing pieces of fiction and poems.

My tricky relationship with the fashion industry has been well documented (as have the very good and very bad pieces I’ve stumbled across whilst playing dress-up on my lunch breaks.)

I’ve written about my past struggles with eating disorders and an experience from my youth that has left me scarred, but not broken.

I’ve written about my rocky relationship with hockey and my slow-building courtship with soccer.

CONCACAF action.

In April I was Freshly Pressed and it was pretty much the COOLEST THING EVER.

There were days that I was so tired coming home from work that I cried.

But I also drooled on the metro.

I made pea soup and I cooked breakfast for dinner.

I hiked a mountain in California, and came third in my third ever half-marathon.

Beautiful Haystack Mt.

I was a Tough Mudder.

All that mud covered a crap load of bruises and cuts!

I took on the “I don’t watch TV” crowd.

I laughed a lot.

It has been simply smashing.

So what have I learned from this brilliant experience? What do I take away from three hundred and sixty-five days of blogging?

Well, the first thing is that I am darn proud of my little R&R.

On day one I swore to myself that I would write three times a week, no excuses.

At first it was hard – I wanted each piece to be INTELLIGENT, and THOUGHT PROVOKING.

High brow or die! FIRE AT WILL COMMANDER.

But then I just started to sit back and let it flow. I made sure not to force any one post into being something that it wasn’t – that it couldn’t be.

Looking back, there were some weeks where I wrote four, even five posts – not because I felt like I had to, but because I was inspired, and passionate, and excited, and so so happy to feel my fingers a-tap-tapping, flying across the keyboard, just trying to keep up to the pace of my frantic thoughts that were just spilling out of my head, onto the desk, and all over the floor.

I’ve learned that pictures and media are a good way of adding colour to your blog (no pun intended).

Palm trees at night, a visual delight.

(Or just to drive home the point of how truly bonkers you really are.)

I’ve learned that spam bots will leave comments that leave me breathless from laughter, and that real life people will leave comments that melt my heart into a puddle of mush.

(This is a good thing.)

But it the end, what I first and foremost take away from this crazy year of blogging is the opportunity to make my way through the remarkable WordPress community, read some outstanding blogs, and get to know some truly phenomenal people.

To all of my brilliant and beautiful blog friends, I wouldn’t want to do this without you.

You make me laugh at your fantastic wit.

You make me cry with your profound prose.

You make me fall in love with your children and your pets.

You make me jealous of all your amazing fashion pieces, and your delicate eyes for mixing and patching different patterns and palates.

You make me run faster, and work out harder.

You make me marvel at your art, your photography, your writing.

You make me want to be a better blogger.

You make me want to be better.

So thank you. Thank you all.

Here’s to another year of blogging.

Till next time champs!

So everyone buckle up – here come the terrible twos.

I just felt like running (a half marathon)

Yesterday I ran the best race of my life.

I took part in the Surrey International Music (Half) Marathon and finished the course in 1:32:40. Not quite the sub-1:30 I had originally hoped for, but a solid six minutes off of my previous fastest time.

To say that I was (and continue to be) super stoked is an understatement.

This is something that I am really, very proud of. I trained hard, rested up, ate well (look Ma, no junk food!), and watched Chariots of Fire the night before running (CLASSIC).

And when the time came to kick some ass?

I KICKED IT HARD.

Oh and even crazier still?

I placed third overall out of all the women competitors and thirty-first overall. Like, out of all the runners!

How nuts is that? I mean, we’re talking mixed, salted, 60% peanuts here.

NUTS.

On Saturday, M and I walked down to the River Market here in New West for a sunshine filled brunch, and also so I could pick up the foods I like to eat the night before I run (butternut squash ravioli with pesto, rye bread, and dessert – vanilla ice cream.)

Later that night, as previously mentioned, Mr. M and I snuggled up in bed and watched Chariots of Fire for some last-minute inspiration.

It’s ridiculous how much I love that movie.

(I also have mad love for – and a bit of a crush on – the character of Lord Lindsay. He’s just such a foppish privileged prick. The scene where he practices hurdling over the hurdles with the champagne? Love it.)

This morning I woke up to an absolutely stunning sunrise.

There is something insanely calming about eating a banana with peanut butter, sipping on a steaming hot mug of coffee, next to your little cat, staring at a creamsicle coloured sky.

Soon enough, it was time to wake up the mister, and get our butts out the door.

We skytrained it to Surrey Central and upon our arrival took in more of the sunrise inside SFU’s main atrium. There were a ton of runners about, stretching, gabbing, just generally getting their game faces on.

You could definitely feel that there was a buzz in the air.

As the minutes ticked down to the start of the race, we wandered over to the start line chatting with a few of the participants, taking some photos, including this one of my race day nails:

Is it weird that I am almost as proud of these as I am the outcome of the race? Because goodness knows I have a hard time painting my nails as it is, and I just love this combination of colours.

With about eight minutes to go, M bid me farewell, wanting to get to a different part of the course in order to take photos and cheer me on.

When the gun went off, I was very close to the start of pack. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t go out too fast, but I was feeling really good so I figured I would push myself from the start, focusing on keeping my strides long and breathing consistent.

There weren’t a ton of spectators lining the route, but M met me at the 7km and 18km markers; my brilliant and beautiful friend Stamata met me at two different stops along the way (the 8km and 10km I believe?), dressed in her amazing-as-all-heck pajama pants, hoodie and chucks (!); and M’s parents met just before the 12km mark.

I cannot begin to say enough about how important it is to have people cheer for you along the course. It really, REALLY pumps you up.

When my hips started to feel it like mad (sometime around the 19km mark) it was the support of the crowd that really helped me solider on.

Speaking of that blasted 19th kilomenter, I finally experienced something similar to what I imagine “the wall” is like (let’s call it a “mini wall”).

It was brutal!

The only thing that kept me going was the thought of just getting myself to the 20km marker. That and a TON of self-talk.

(I should also take this opportunity to stress the importance of shortening your stride during these testing episodes.)

On the whole I knew that I was running a good race, but didn’t know exactly where I was in terms of positioning, especially in relation to other women out on the course.

Having started so close to the start line when the gun went off I knew that my chip time would be very, very close to whatever was going to be displayed on the clock at the finish line.

As I neared the end of the race, I saw 2:01 on the clock (the marathoners having begun thirty minutes before us halfers) and I just gave it everything I had – pumping my arms, lengthening my stride –and WHOOSH!

Before you could say tight hip joints – it was over.

I heard the emcee announce my name, and something about me being the third woman to cross the finish line.

Third!

I was so shocked and exhausted, that when the woman handed me my medal, I automatically went to shake her hand, and she was all “What the eff?”

So I kind of just shook her hand without her shaking mine back.

AWKWARD.

But oh, how I laughed and laughed.

And then I celebrated! I drank some sweet, sweet chocolate milk, got a free massage at the athletes expo, listened to some of the entertainment, and stretched.

Speaking of which, I could probably stand to stretch some more. I’m not going to lie – I’m a little more than stiff.

So there you have it friends – another life milestone achieved.

Until the next time!

Things I think about when I run

Do you talk to yourself when you exercise?

Because goodness knows I do.

These are the things I thought about over the course of my 6km training run:

Holy frick, I FEEL AMAZING.

My strides are suuuuper. Suuuuper strides.

Hmmm. If I have a particularly saucy dream about someone, could they possibly be having the same dream? URG, stop thinking about this at once.

Okay. How do people go down staircases two steps at a time and not kill themselves?

I don’t actually like pesto as much as I think I do. It’s just SO oily.

I wonder why I also put that extra “s” into obsessive. It’s rather an obsession. OMG I AM SO WITTY.

Stop that.

I am going to cook the crap out of dinner tonight.

Man, what is UP with Canadian politics at the moment? And is Justin Trudeau really going to run for Liberal leadership? He could call his campaign “Just In Time.” And play that album by Justin Timberlake.

Actually, that will probably guarantee his total defeat at the polls.

Don’t do that Justin.

This route is so beautiful and the weather is pretty much perfect. Even if it’s getting cooler every day. The sunrise this morning was so striking it took my breath away.

Not enough people take the time to pause and just let this beauty pour over them. Through them.

Okay Hallmark, get a grip.

Good grief – that lady is just out smoking her joint! And she’s totally, totally a proper OLD. Between her and the dude outside of Douglas College, my day has been chock-a-block full of smoker sightings.

So, like, do people just smoke weed out in the open these days? Is this a thing now?

If I was forced to take a drug test at the end of this run I would have to claim a Ross Rebagliati .

What ever happened to that guy?

Also, someone really needs to bankroll my entirely new wardrobe from Club Monaco.

Jeeze, does anyone even like Banana Republic? AND SERIOUSLY I HATE THEIR NAME SO MUCH – WHY DOESN’T ANYONE EVER TALK ABOUT THIS? I am going to open a competitor clothier and call it “Uneven economic development and social stratification R US”

That may require an acronym.

Oh yeah baby, not even breaking a sweat! Do it do it do it.

That outhouse should probably be cleaned.

Darn it. M has strata tonight which means an empty house for most of the evening.

On the plus side ALL THE DROP DEAD DIVA IS BELONG TO ME.

I own quite a few dresses. I really am going to do that project where I wear all of them and take photos in the exact same post with the exact same backdrop because of course everyone wants to see that.

Mostly I just want to wear all the pretty dresses.

I will call the project “Playing Dress-Up” OR OR OR “Dressing on the Side.”

Hah, I AM witty.

Get out of here.

NO I’M WISE.

Looklooklook that that dog it is wearing a sweater! With little ears on the hood! CUTECUTECUTE. Thooouuggghh…he probably hates his life.

Yep, in total agony fo sho.

K, that driver totally didn’t stop for me at the crosswalk. I hope he gets crabs in the bath.

Too much?

Either way – HOME.

Should I stretch?

Do you ever?

Touché, good lady. Touché. 

Fin.