Training to Live

today was remembrance day in canada. a day to commemorate all the amazing people who have made sacrifices for our country during wars since WWI. two of jon’s grandparents were involved in the war efforts in WWII (though both are still living!) and i have several childhood friends who in the past few years decided to join the forces and fight for their country (some to afghanistan, some to iraq). every day i am thankful to be living in canada, and i know we owe a lot of the freedom and safety to those who were brave enough to put their lives on the line.

although i was unable to make it to any official services today, and my lack of cable means i couldn’t watch anything on tv, i found some youtube videos and i observed my own personal moments of silence while someone played last post on a bugle.

the bbc has posted some rules about wearing and not wearing poppies.

here is my handsome boy in a suit (!), sporting his poppy. according to the bbc, we are to stop wearing them tomorrow, but people in canada seem to leave them on for the rest of the month.

this poem, “in flanders fields”, by john mcrae, is usually read at remembrance day services here and always gives me chills. it is beautiful.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.

- John McCrae

I had planned to watch Passchendaele this evening, which is an excellent canadian movie about canadian soldiers in world war one (“in love, there is only one rule: don’t die”), but we decided instead to watch up, which was also excellent (and a roller coaster for my emotions). i give it two happy/sad thumbs up.

i had the day off from work, and i planned to get lots of stuff done. unfortunately almost none of it happened. i did go for a super slow run; i guess that is something. i also made a really tasty shepherd’s pie for supper and did some laundry. there is always tomorrow!

two months ago, i read a really awesome book called outcasts united that tells the amazing story of a bunch of kids who have been through more than most people endure in their whole lives and one woman who has made it her mission to make their present and future better. it is inspiring and sad and happy and heart warming. you should go read it. it will make you happy.

i’ve been feeling a little blah lately – due to a large number of things like the cold weather, the rain, the dark + dreariness, work stress, the end of my running season, etc etc etc. i try to keep reminding myself that i have things really good. that i have no reason to be sad about stuff (well. i guess i do, see above). maybe what it actually is is that i should be making those little things bring the rest of me down. i stumbled on a blog (can’t remember how, but it’s a valuable part of my google reader now!) called: The Happiness Project – full of tips on how to be happier and create your own happiness. i love it. the author has personal commandments (starting with: “Be Gretchen” and ending with “There is only one love.” with “Do what ought to be done” somewhere in the middle. These are good commandments. It’s a religion I could really get on board with). There are four splendid truths and many inspirational quotes.

although i don’t agree with everything she writes, i have learned some really great, useful things. the post that seems to have stuck with me the most this week (from my perusal of the archives) is the 5 happiness boosters that do more harm than good:

1) comforting yourself with a treat. often the treats aren’t good for us. the pleasure lasts a minute but the feelings of guilt, loss of control and other negative consequences just deepen the lousiness of the day.

(i say comfort yourself with some yoga. or a bubble bath)

2) letting yourself of the hook. when you’re trying to create good habits, occassionally you’ll have a bad day – like “i don’t feel like going for a run tonight, so i’ll stay in and watch tv instead.” or, “i can fold the laundry tomorrow night instead” (this one is real). gretchen says: sticking to a resolution will boost your sense of self-esteem and self-control. So NOT letting yourself off the hook might do more to boost your happiness.

i will go fold my laundry when i am done the post.

3) turning off your phone. we all have those days when we don’t really want to talk to anyone, but though it can be tempting to isolate yourself when you’re feeling crappy, you are better off making plans with friends and family.

4) expressing your negative emotions.

Many people believe in the “catharsis hypothesis” and think that expressing anger is healthy-minded and relieves their feelings. Not so. Studies show that expressing anger only aggravates it; as Plutarch observed, “Anger, while in its beginning, often can be ended by silence, or neglect.” I’ve certainly found this to be true; once I get going, I can whip myself into a fury. It’s better to stay calm.

i find this is totally how i make myself feel more sad and upset when i am a little bit sad or upset. i will think about some little thing to tell someone about and then as i keep expanding on it and adding to it, my situation becomes worse. i will try to stay calm more often and focus more on things that make me happy. puppies and sunshine and lollypops.

5) staying in your pyjamas all day. although it can be fun to lounge around all day in your jammies, if you are feeling lethargic, powerless or directionless, not getting dressed will only make it worse!

so true! right? so i’m working on my own happiness project. i’ll share more as it grows. the first part is a resolution chart that i got from gretchen who created a year’s worth of month by month resolutions. (you can email her if you want to see them – the information is at the bottom of every post on her blog). each month had a theme, an inspirational quote to go with the theme and several resolutions for the month. her january (“Clear my closets”) was a perfect model for my november, so i created my very first month.

my plan is that at the end of the month, if i have at least 150 X, i will do something special, just for me. i will also be able to judge, at the end of the month, whether this method works for me. i am hoping that it will help me change and create some new, good habits because god knows, i need to watch less tv, do more yoga, and get better about keeping my house in order.

how are you going to make yourself happier?

it’s hard to believe that it was just a week ago that i was at logan airport, waiting for my flight. here i am, another sunday, wearing my HLS tshirt & enjoying the last few hours of rest. but let’s start backwards.

last sunday started the way many of my weekend mornings start: with a nice, long run. the difference is that usually, i am solo, and this time, i was joined by some 20+ other lovely ladies. how refreshing to be around so many other people just like me. i think that was one of my favorite things about the summit – the company of so many people that do the things that I do that most of my real-life friends think i’m crazy for (like 10 mile runs on a saturday morning or baking my own bread etc).

(picture courtesy of Tina)

we split into two groups: a 3 mile group and a 6 mile group and we took the boston river-front by storm. i joined the 6 mile group, as i have a half marathon coming up and need to start kicking up my long runs into high gear again. the 6 mile group further split into a faster bunch and a slower bunch. i really really should have gone with the slower group as i was *hurting* by the end of the 5 . something miles. i was proud of myself for keeping up with the super fast girls for so long but after 4 miles, i needed to slow it down a bit.

after some stretching in the park with kath and one of the most refreshing showers ever, we gathered for breakfast at finagle a bagel on the grass in the boston commons. picnic breakfast! it was really nice to just chill out. my bagel (i got the french toast bagel, which was SOOOOO YUMMY and probably the most dessert-like bagel they’ve got) was perfect with a packet of swag barney butter squeezed on top. around noon, we had to split to either check out of the hotel or hit up TJ for a restock of goodies.

i found another farmer’s market, this one near harvard square. i got “lunch” (a white peach and half a pint of giant raspberries)

    

i walked around harvard and then took the T to the MIT stop where i would either catch the shuttle to the galleria mall or just walk

since the weather was so nice and the water looked lovely, i opted for the walk, map carefully in hand.

ta da! i made it without getting lost. yay map skills. going to the mall with a gift card in hand was lots of fun. it was like christmas!

so the gift card i won in the operation beautiful draw at the summit was for athleta, but it was also good at any of the gap family of stores. the card indicated that it was only valid for use in the US, and reading carefully on the athleta/GAP/etc websites, i discovered that they will not ship to canada. i hoped to find an athleta store in the boston area to go to, but it seems as though they are pretty much just online. i decided not to make myself wait/go through the hassle of ordering stuff and having them shipped to someone else and then have them shipped to me, i decided to just go ahead and check out the other, non-athleta stores, like Banana Republic and GAP. as it were, the workout wear section of my wardrobe really is the most well stocked part! what i really need is more grown-up type nice clothes to wear to work, instead of the threadless tshirts that i have that say things like: “stupid raisins, stay out of my cookies” or “stop destroying our planet, it’s where i keep all my stuff” (although both of these are good conversation pieces).

BR was great. I’ve never really shopped there much before (although now I know I should, especially since I have a grown up job and I probably can afford it). GAP also had nice stuff (I got new jeans!). My only complaint is that most of their clothes are made in 3rd world countries (like bangladesh and vietnam). Being able to get all the things I wanted without thinking about the price too much was like setting a kid loose in a candy store. I left some operation beautiful notes in the dressing rooms, though I totally forgot to take pictures of them!

The loot:

As you can see, I got some boy stuff too. my boy always reminds me about my inner and outer beauty. he has also taught me to be less judgmental of others (everyone is beautiful!) and to love myself as i am. besides, it was a good excuse to sneak in some argyle into his life the tshirt is the softest one BR makes. I’m sure I’ll be stealing it from time to time

Shopping was great. the cambridge galleria is bigger than any of the malls around here, and although i don’t usually enjoy going to malls, it was nice to just focus on me for a bit (instead of crazy running around doing errands, getting watch batteries and buying socks). thanks again, athleta and operation beautiful for making my day!

back to boston for a quick supper and getting the train/bus back to the airport.

Dessert first, in the park, from cheesecake factory. Holy whipped cream! I could only eat half of that.

A picture of me next to a monument, near the hotel, which sadly got completely chopped off.

My delicious cup of legal seafood clam chowder. A boston favorite, every time I visit.

The T ride back to the airport was smooth. I ran into a fellow summit attendee who confirmed by transportation instructions (thanks!). although I thought my flight was 40 minutes later than it actually was, there were no lines and I got to my gate in plenty of time. i changed into comfier flying clothes and chatted with my dad on gchat as i waited for take off.

Once again, my plane was super empty. Apparently no one flies from toronto to boston on the weekends. Who knew!

although i had an absolutely fantastic, fun-jammed weekend, it felt good to be landing at home. the toronto airport experience was super quick. i whizzed through customs and came down the escalator to the baggage belt, to see my luggage right there! i picked it up, waited 10 minutes for the next bus home and made to bed in no time. actually getting to *sleep* was a little harder because it was so hot (i had to turn the AC on!) and because i was still wired and excited. early morning work on monday was a whole other pile of fun

so yes. as you can see from above, parts I and II of my boston experience, the summit was a huge success. i had a great time being in boston, getting to meet so many cool people and enjoying a city that is not my own. i can’t wait till HLS 2010 and will do whatever it takes to get there. big thanks to all the people who worked so hard to put everything together. i loved it.

it’s a bad idea to watch episodes of Lost right before you’re going on a plane trip.

i went for a tempo/longish run the other day, because i have a 10km race coming up (aug 29) and i really need to get in gear, since i took a few weeks off. anyway, i had my hrm on and it was giving me really weird readouts. i could not get it to go above 100 even though i was running really hard! i was getting readouts between 60 and 80. first i thought maybe it was broken. then maybe there was a digit that was just not showing up. finally, about 5 miles in, i realized i had accidentally changed the setting to % of max instead of hr. silly!

i’m super super looking forward to boston. when registration opened up back in june, i didn’t allow myself to get to excited up because there was a pretty high chance that i wouldn’t get to go. even after i managed to get an entry ticket, plane tickets were still kind of ridiculous, so it wasn’t looking too likely. it wasn’t until air canada sent me an email with a seat sale that it really became a reality. then i made my hotel bookings and things seemed much more concrete. now that the day is almost here, it seems kind of crazy to be going on a weekend plane trip, by myself, to hang out with 120+ “strangers” but i can’t wait! i love exploring new cities, and even though boston isn’t new to me, i’ve never been there on my own. i’m almost all packed. still have a load of last minute (well. not that last minute i guess! i’m not leaving till early friday morning) laundry. all my lists are made. i even have a tentative itinerary for activities to do pre and post summit. you can follow me on twitter for all the excitement. i promise loads of pictures and potentially many silly stories. if you’re going to be at the summit, well, i’ll see you there!!

camping today! stories to come. it’s supposed to rain a little bit where we’re going, but hopefully things don’t get too muddy! the sunshine is out now.

i do have bill bryson’s a walk in the woods to keep me occupied while the boys preride tomorrow’s race course. seemed appropriate.

so. it’s july!! who knew? june flew by in a blur of crazy. but i’m back, baby.

quick summary: colorado trip (what a beautiful state!), an out of town wedding, parents visiting, strawberry picking, jammin’ v. 2009 (so far i’ve got strhubarberry vanilla, strawberry balsamic black pepper preserves, strawberry lemon basil jam, and black raspbarberry). i got a ticket to the healthy living summit, which i am super excited about. i haven’t been to boston in ages!

my running hasn’t been totally solid (mostly due to silly weather and also busy-ness) but i’m getting back in the game. i did a speed workout today which was combined with a bike ride, brick style. i may have been roped into a 10km race in august. i generally hate 10km races but we’ll see how it goes. it’s supposedly downhill.

blogging has been pretty poor lately (no post in over two weeks? WEAK! i should have my license taken away) but i’ve been busy. quick photo recap, more stories to come.

a week and a half ago, i ran the first half marathon of the season, in ottawa. it was ok. the first 2/3 were awesome and i was fast! and then the sun started to make me wilt and i couldn’t drink enough fluids. the last 5km were brutal and i didn’t make my goal or even beat my last year’s time. i am fine with that – this wasn’t an important race for me, it was more of just a “get things started” kind of day and a test to see where i’m at and what i need to work on more. that would be: running in heat, drinking and eating more while i run (somehow when i get to the last few miles, the thought of anything other than cold water is repulsive to me. this is not healthy) and hills. i was a lot better prepared for the hills after last year’s battle on this course. the race is marketed as “flat and fast” but since the majority of the run is along a canal with a big set of locks, there is quite a bit of steady incline as well as a few steeper hills sprinkled around. i ran through everything, which i am happy about, and i beat my last year first split time by over 3 minutes. my whole race was 3-4 minutes slower, which gives you an idea of how much slower my second half was! 14 weeks till my next race. you can bet there will be a lot of speedwork and a lot of hills between now and then!

after a quick week of work, jon and i got on a plane to colorado. the mountains are breath-taking. so far we have hiked, gone white water rafting (!), and explored golden. i have also gotten to visit several nearby former mining towns, gone on 3 glorious runs, had a fabulous lunch at a super upscale hotel in denver and played tourist.

at the top of our hike on table mountain. behind us is the town of golden, home to Coors.

the raging creek we rafted in. class V rapids = scary and fun! i didn’t get thrown off the raft, luckily. i did have to pull a big guy that did go overboard back in.

some of the beautiful colorado flowers. i have seed packets to take home, hopefully i am not hassled at the airport

off to shop for a few souvenirs before our big day in denver!

i was almost relieved that monday came after crazy weekend #3. i need a weekend from my weekends and although work is as far from relaxing as possible, it was a welcome change.

the boy and our houseguest arrived really late on friday night after going to see a fellow cyclists’ band play (i sadly had to miss this because i was in the wrong city). i woke up early for my weekly long run. 16km was the plan. the forecast said it wouldn’t start raining until “late morning.” i left the house at 7:30 and figured i’d be safe. i briefly considered taking my cellphone and decided against it.

8km in, at the halfway point, the sky opened up! i did my turn around and RAN. like the wind. i was seriously flying. and getting seriously wet. there’s nothing like thunder and lightening to kick your ass and make you faster. at the 13km mark, 3km away from home, i saw a familiar car pull over and stop for me. even though i didn’t really tell him where i was going to be, jon came and found me. i felt warm and fuzzy inside, even though i was cold and wet on the outside. it was a really good run anyway though. i’m almost sad i didn’t get the last 3km in (but not sad enough to not take my shining armour rescue). my ipod wasn’t as happy, though. i thought that after her first encounter with the h2o last fall (after an accidental trip through the washer that she miraculously survived) that maybe skye (or robin) liked being wet! i hoped for another miracle, but…no deal. i did manage somehow to get my run synced to the nike+ website though, which i am quite pleased at. replacement nano is in the mail, currently on a whirlwind vacation (started off the morning in lantau island, going to disney and checking out the pink dolphins and is currently in anchorage alaska, probably doing some dog sledding. i’m not sure what will be next!) we should be reunited by friday. apparently i manage to epically kill my ipods (first one went through the washer and dryer, then died. second one went swimming in the rain. i should take bets on how this next one will meet its end)

sunday morning was another early one, as we had to leave the house before 7 for jon’s 9:30 am race. someone miscalculated driving distances or maybe just forgot to account for the fact that 7am traffic on sunday morning does not exist, but we got to the conservation park at 7:40. it was chilly! by 10ish, it started to warm up and i enjoyed hanging out in the feedzone in my camping chair, giving jon fresh bottles and cheering him on. even though the course was pretty wet and muddy, he still managed to do awesomely in the single speed category, coming in 2nd out of 21.

that’s my boy! i was sad he took off his sweet jersey before the award ceremony. hopefully he’ll get some more podium action later this summer.

jon and i spent the rest of the morning/early afternoon chilling out in the sunshine, watching our friend race (and feeding him) and playing with our other friends’ adorable new puppy. we came home and bbqed, drank beer and ate some homemade ice cream. that’s what good days are made of. i did send my mother an email, but besides that we didn’t really do anything special for mother’s day, since both of our moms were far away. (i have gifts for my mom when she’s here next month). i cut myself a nice bouquet of tulips and other wild flowers from the garden because even though i’m not a mom, i do a lot of mom-like things and i like flowers.

just when i thought work couldn’t get any busier, BAM! insane doesn’t even begin to describe it! plus one of my coworkers is going on his early honeymoon for the next week and a half and my supervisor has been ordered by her doctor to only work from home (she has kind of a high risk pregnancy and the next few weeks are supposedly critical). i have a bunch of new responsibilities and the opportunity to shine. keep your fingers crossed that things don’t go the other way.

it’s in the mail, i’ll be wearing it shortly