PiccolaPineCone

Why does moving suck

2012-02-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

If there exists an award for the overstatement and over-analyzing of the obvious, then please, members of the esteemed selection committee, I would like to nominate myself. Seriously... a post on why moving sucks, surely as ground breaking as "Why root canals are unpleasant" or "Why child birth might sting a little" (which is apparently only because of the expectation of pain that society instills in women which triggers fear and anxiety therefore causing pain as a reflection of the fear according to a recent theory to which i do not subscribe on child birth... oh PUH-LEASE! can't we just say it hurts because one is pushing a HEAD out of her wohoo and leave it at that???).

But yes, moving sucks. Need I write 500 words about why? Well, I am finding, mid-move, that it is actually the subtler aspects of moving that come and slap one in the face. Yes, there are the obvious things. The chaos. The mess. The expense. The feeling of being uprooted. The unfamiliarity. Not knowing how to even turn on the lights or the heat in one's new place. Being overly friendly with a new neighbour and realizing 2 minutes into the conversation, after hearing about her divorce, search for the right man, eagerness to have children (and do I happen to know how old a woman can be and still conceive?), the negative energy in her old 'hood, failed career as an accountant, re-discovering herself as an artist, that perhaps friendly reserve would have been the better strategy. The long hours cleaning. The long hours unpacking. Not knowing where anything is and worse, once it is found, where it actually belongs. The treadmill dis-assembled sadly waiting for the technician to come. Moving while 8.5 months pregnant, working full-time, in FEBRUARY... it all sucks. And I have to take a moment to acknowledge the fact that we had some amazing help in this endeavor. Family and friends taking on la cocotte so we could unpack etc. We even had a family member drive in from a distant city this week-end to cocotte sit so we can continue our efforts so... I have no right to complain; we are very fortunate... but it all still sucks.

As I said, it's the subtle things. It's the act of packing one's life away in boxes and realizing with each cupboard emptied how many dreams and goals one had that never came to fruition. The small things... the knitting project never completed, not only was the project itself forgotten but it has been so long that I have actually forgotten how to knit. The vegetarian cookbook from the month where I realized I was no longer ethically comfortable with eating meat and had to make a change... and then didn't. A few elegant pieces of clothing and some make-up from the period where I decided I really needed to put more effort into personal grooming... and then didn't. Learning a new programming language - fail. Growing my own vegetables - fail (though to be fair until 10 days ago I did live on the fourth floor in a downtown condo). Learning Italian so we could live abroad for a year - okay that one I did, Auguri! But all of these projects, admittedly not terribly important, begun so earnestly, cast aside and completely forgotten. It is painful to have them trotted out one by one from the bookshelves, cupboards and drawers... each one whispering fail fail fail.

Then the endless decisions of unpacking. Every item needing to be categorized, prioritized and ultimately placed. Each of the thousand items removed from boxes triggering a decision. I am a slow thinker and generally dislike making decisions. To the point that when the movers were moving things into our new place and repeatedly asking "Where does this go?", I found myself repeatedly thinking"You should really ask someone who lives here!" (when I wasn't thinking "hmmm, not sure... what IS that??") but honestly I was mostly wishing they wouldn't ask me and just decide and then I could use their judgement to "decide" where things should go. I hate decisions. Exhibit A: our new spice drawer - it's configured such that while there is ample room for all of our spices, only a few spices can be easily reached. Therefore unpacking the spices necessitated a string of decisions - do I use cloves or carraway seed more often (both tied at "almost never"). Which of these three containers of cayenne pepper should I consolidate the others into? It sounds ridiculous (because it is) but each decision was seemingly endless.

We splurged and paid people to pack for us (not sure if this counts as splurging when both partners are working full-time, one is 8 months pregnant and there is a toddler in the picture, may just count as survival regardless definitely in the category of Best Money Ever Spent). 3 packers arrived at our place the day before the move at 8 am and essentially stormed the castle. As I watched them I realized that perhaps the most important service they were providing was emotional distance from the objects being packed. There was no pausing over every item wondering where did I get it? Should I keep it? When did I last use it? What is it used for anyway? In the box it went... running shoes, opened bags of lentils, chipped dishes and garbage alike were packed with equal un-hesitation. At first I tried to stay ahead of them and go through closets and drawers throwing things away (which clearly I should have been doing in the weeks before the move) but it was like trying to stay ahead of a tsunami. Every time I turned around another closet had been emptied. At one point I panicked wondering where la cocotte might be and was ready to start tearing open their boxes until I remembered she had been dropped at daycare.

Then there are the ghosts. I have been back to our old apartment since we moved out and it was actually physically painful walking and seeing it laid bare, filled with ghosts... the ghost of me visiting hubby there on our early dates, the ghosts of us packing up our lives on two separate occasions to move to foreign countries... once for my career, once for his, the ghost of us bringing home la cocotte and, of course, the ghost of la cocotte... growing and learning and loving and screaming and laughing... hard. Hard to leave the first home we brought her to.

Finally, I think with every move a couple makes, there is inevitably going to be one member of the couple who is move eager to make it than the other. In this case that would be the member of this couple who is almost nine months pregnant and wanting to nest a little before hatching another. I am, despite the evidence in the paragraphs above, much happier to make this move than hubby and so there is guilt... guilt that he is leaving the first home he ever purchased that he adored... guilt that he only finds our new place acceptable, rather than loving it.

Big-busted, anorexic, blond-haired bimbo

2012-01-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

She made her appearance in our lives this week. Since the birth of la cocotte I had been protecting my family and mostly my impressionable child against her poisonous presence but this week I came home from work and there she was... the big-busted, anorexic, blond-haired bimbo. There are lots of reasons to hate her but let's start with: she was in my house when I had made it clear she is NOT welcome. Hubby did not think it was a big deal and la cocotte was immediately enchanted by her making it impossible to throw her out. So after 2 years and 6 months of successful avoidance, she is here, seemingly permanently, driving a wedge in my marriage and poisoning my child. Normally I respect people's privacy and only give personal details about myself and la cocotte... I wouldn't even normally give hubby's reaction to an event on this blog but I am so steamed my all of this that I am posting her picture. Here she is... the big busted, anorexic, blond haired bimbo who has moved in:

Why do I hate Barbie? There are so many compelling reasons to chose from. But I'll start by saying that I have now witnessed first hand how immediate and encompassing her appeal is to little girls. By the time I got home (too late) la cocotte was wandering around Barbie clutched in her arms saying "mon princess, mon princess". She insisted on sleeping with Barbie, going to daycare with Barbie and last night we (la cocotte and I) attended a track meet (as spectators) with freakin Barbie. When I pry Barbie out of her arms at night so that she's not the first thing la cocotte sees when she wakes up, la cocotte immediately wakes up and demands her back. So clearly this Barbie is adored by my toddler (and toddlers and children everywhere from what I understand). So why hate Barbie? Let's start with the fact (thanks Wikipedia):

1. One of the most common criticisms of Barbie is that she promotes an unrealistic idea of body image for a young woman, leading to a risk that girls who attempt to emulate her will become anorexic. A standard Barbie doll is 11.5 inches tall, giving a height of 5 feet 9 inches at 1/6 scale. Barbie's vital statistics have been estimated at 36 inches (chest), 18 inches (waist) and 33 inches (hips). At 5'9" tall and weighing 110 lbs, Barbie would have a BMI of 16.24 and fit the weight criteria for anorexia. According to research by the University Central Hospital in Helsinki, Finland, she would lack the 17 to 22 percent body fat required for a woman to menstruate.[14] In 1963, the outfit "Barbie Baby-Sits" came with a book entitled How to Lose Weight which advised: "Don't eat!."[15] The same book was included in another ensemble called "Slumber Party" in 1965 along with a pink bathroom scale permanently set at 110 lbs.,[15] which would be around 35 lbs. underweight for a woman 5 feet 9 inches tall.[16]

2. In 1997, Barbie's body mold was redesigned and given a wider waist, with Mattel saying that this would make the doll better suited to contemporary fashion designs.[17][18] However, the Silkstone Barbie line introduced in 2000 as well as the Model Muse Barbie body mold introduced in 2004 feature Barbie dolls with dimensions similar to those Barbies manufactured prior to 1997. The Model Muse Barbie has a very small waist, defined abs, a collarbone, defined ankles and even cleavage. The fashion of Barbies created before 1997 will fit both Silkstone dolls and the Model Muse body sculpt, but fashions created after 1997 do not fit either of these Barbie types.

3. In July 1992, Mattel released Teen Talk Barbie, which spoke a number of phrases including "Will we ever have enough clothes?", "I love shopping!", and "Wanna have a pizza party?" Each doll was programmed to say four out of 270 possible phrases, so that no two dolls were likely to be the same. One of these 270 phrases was "Math class is tough!" (often misquoted as "Math is hard"). Although only about 1.5% of all the dolls sold said the phrase, it led to criticism from the American Association of University Women. In October 1992 Mattel announced that Teen Talk Barbie would no longer say the phrase, and offered a swap to anyone who owned a doll that did.[22]

Okay, so I guess I have to let the shit that happened in 1963 go... it was almost half a century ago BUT I cannot forgive or accept the unhealthy and unrealistic proportions of even today's Barbie nor do I feel at ease with my toddler worshiping a scantily clad, heavily made up girl-women. And maybe I am over-thinking or being too sensitive but I hear the unspoken message to my toddler at 2.5 years of age - THIS is beauty, THIS is what you should be. Give me 100 Dora dolls in their clashing outfits, annoying back-packs and constant repetition but their healthy child-like proportions with even a hint of baby belly any day over plastic Barbie.

I know some of this is personal and has to do with my own history. Of COURSE I struggled with body issues and unhealthy eating patterns/weight loss... honestly if there is a woman who ran collegiate track & field who has been consistently healthy in her body, body image & eating habits, please introduce me to her! Still to this day I spend an alarming amount of energy worrying about my weight and body fat (as this blog shows) and I want freedom from all of that superficial and sometimes dangerous crap for my daughter!

Then of course there is what Barbie represents... as much as she tells my daughter about beauty and what a woman should be - she heartlessly tells me that ultimately I have very little control over my daughter`s environment and influence; she is gleeful in her assertion that she & her message WILL weasel her way into my daughter's conscious despite my preferences and efforts (quite an impressive message for a $19.95 hunk of plastic eh?).

So I know that maybe I am making too big of a deal out of this. I don't blame hubby for allowing Barbie into the house. She came as a gift from an acquaintance who barely knows us and who is from a different time. As much as I LOATHE what she chose, I do recognize the intended kindness of this woman who only wanted to make la cocotte happy. By the time the gift was opened, it was too late to do anything about it; it was love at first sight. And I know that if it hadn't been now with Barbie than it would have been something else and soon. I know that next week she will lie forgotten at the bottom of the toy box if I play my cards right. But I am upset. I`m upset because I feel that my concerns are being disregarded. I`m upset because I of all the crap I did not want in our lives Barbie was probably number 1. And I am dismayed by how taken la cocotte is with this ideal of beauty.

Summit

2012-01-21T13:15:00.000-08:00

Nightswimming deserves a quiet night.
I'm not sure all these people understand.
It's not like years ago,
The fear of getting caught,
Of recklessness and water.
They cannot see me naked.
These things, they go away,
Replaced by everyday.

So go the lyrics to REM's Nightswimming. Generally I tend to be a moron when it comes to, well most things actually, but particularly understanding lyrics and poetry. In fact, while I am on the topic, if anyone out there has a few hours to spare and would like to explain the lyrics of my favorite Bob Dylan song to me: "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" I would be grateful. I love that song, not just for the gravel of Dylan's voice as he barely sings it, it's simple melody, it's sheer length but because I know, KNOW it is packed with meaning and allegory even if the meaning and allegory escape me ("she was thinking about her father whom she very rarely saw" ... what does that MEAN?).

All that aside, I am pretty sure I know what the lyrics in Nightswimming are getting at. It's a song about how a moment can be so wondrous when we are young, but as we age, repetition of experience and world weariness scour away the brilliance of discovery in mundane moments and rob them of their former magic. Sadly, all too many happenings that were once anticipated with wide-eyed excitement have lost their glow for me... writing on blank loose-leak with a freshly sharpened pencil on an early September morning, the first hint of colour in the trees or autumnal crispness in the air, the first snowfall, Christmas Day, air travel ... having children, of course, brings back the magic of many of these things, I get the observe the joy in la cocotte as she breathes in these experiences and in some ways that is even sweeter. But this post in not about having children. It is about running.

Running is the one thing that still fills me with the same excited giddiness as it did when I first strapped a pair of spikes to my feet and stepped out onto 8 lanes of rubber track to compete in an 800 m race. I still feel a catch in my breath when I overfly an unfamiliar cityscape and spy the un-mistakeable orange scar of track. I still have that cherry-blossoms against the full moon of a summer night sky feeling when I am rested and tapered and ready to run a long anticipated marathon. When I manage to carve out a precious 70-80 minutes to exert my body, now more than ever due to scarcity of free-time in my life, my excitement in the run parallels that of my youth. The joy is made even more profound by the inevitable, accompanying gratitude which, in my youth, I wasn't wise enough to have. Gratitude that I am healthy enough to run and I have been granted this swatch of time in which to do so.

Likewise, after living in Montreal for the bulk of my life (I've moved back to Montreal fully five times now) there are still certain routes and loops that are so strongly associated with running fit and fast, with training arduously towards a major goal that I literally cannot go there without getting excited and, without running well. Summit is one of those places. It is a loop of road at the top of Westmount which is the rich anglophone community in Montreal; Outremont (literally "Other Mountain") is the rich francophone community in Montreal. There are the expected wonderful views of the island, and on a clear day, the Adirondaks, the Green Mountains and the Laurentians. There are laughably big houses that seem to be in frozen competition with each other for sheer ridiculousness of size and pretentiousness of trimmings (the one with the two lions on either side of the front walk wins hands down in my opinion). There are surprisingly cracked and pot-holed roads proving that suspension- destroying asphalt knows no economic boundaries in our crumbling city. There is a bird sanctuary in the middle of the loop which is as pretty as one might expect from a bird sanctuary in the middle of the city. In short, it is the attractive neighbourhood as one would expect that affluence and good positioning can produce.

For me, and many other runners in Montreal it is a wondrous place where the presence of effort and exertion and ghosts of fast runs past is palpable. I have prepared for all three of my sub-3 hour marathons there. My longest run up there was 38 km which required covering the 2.4 km loop, fully 16 times. When I am fit and running long, I tick off the loops between 10:15 and 11:00. My record summit loop is 8:11. On my last run there, which was last week, I was comfortably running between 12:45 - 13:30. I have run up there in 30 degree heat when the humidex pushed perceived temperature to just over 40 deg C; I drank from bottles I stashed in the bird sanctuary. I have run up there in -20 deg C with the windchill making me feel the bite of -30 deg C particularly when I lowered my multiple layers to relieve myself (also in the bird sanctuary). I simply cannot have a bad run up there. Maybe it's because when I run there I am chasing the ghosts of myself who are in turn chasing various PBs and records. Maybe it's simply because it is such a pain in the ass to get to - particularly when one is 34 weeks pregnant, doesn't own a car, it's January and there has been freezing rain. Indeed, perhaps it is nothing more complicated than the sheer effort of getting there means that I only do get there when I am motivated to run well.

I think and hope it is more than that though. I think Summit is sacred to me. Not through anything external and certainly having nothing to do with Montreal's famous Saint Joseph's Oratory which sits imposingly on Summit's shoulder. I think Summit has been made sacred by the exertion and effort I have poured into her roads; made sacred by the memories of pain and pride; made sacred by great races which have come as a result of paying my dues at summit. The result is that even if I am just passing through on an errand or running there completely exhausted on a recovery day, deep inside me is the throb of Christmas Eve anticipating and the overwhelming feeling of simply being somewhere special and wondrous. So finally, as an adult, it seems that repetition of experience in this case has not dulled the brilliance of Summit but rather waxed and polished it. I have found my thing that does not go away, replaced by every day.

Time Trial...

2012-01-15T18:08:00.000-08:00

Buoyed by my ultrasound results (lots of amniotic fluid, baby in the 40th percentile for weight, no sign of dilation or effacement) and by watching the US Olympic Marathon trials start to finish yesterday (who wouldn't be inspired by this image??)

I decided to do a 5 km treadmill time trial today. Because there's no time like being 33 weeks pregnant to do a 5 km treadmill time trial. Normally time trial means finishing on my knees, retching into the nearest garbage can and wheezing like a cow in heat; at 33 weeks pregnant time trial means how fast can I run without getting my heart rate over 155, without chafing my inner thighs until they bleed and without peeing all over the treadmill (sorry tmi).

4 km warm-up: 22:06.
5 km: 25:54 (5:11 per km)
6 minutes easy
3 X 1 km: 5:13, 5:12, 5:05
15 minutes cool-down.

In total - 16.2 km in 1 hour 30 minutes.

Heart rate: never above 152
Fluid loss: about 1 pound
Weird looks: none (I swear working out while pregnant has gone mainstream since my last pregnancy)
Chafing: oh... so... terrible

This big baby thing is such a relief. With la cocotte she was tracking always in the 10th percentile or lower and I felt some guilt & anxiety about exercising despite reassurances from my ob that everything was fine. Towards the middle of my third trimester I started having cream on my morning cereal in an attempt to cram in more calories. La cocotte did turn out perfectly healthy and of course had I been living in France (for example) her fetal growth rate and birth weight (6 lbs 7 oz) would not have raised any eyebrows; we just seem to make big babies here in Canada I myself weighed less than 6 pounds at birth, apparently there is an important genetic component in birth weight. But nonetheless, having a "big baby" inside me is a bonus in many ways. I feel much freer to continue exercising and I hate to sound like body image obsessed person (that I am) of course it means less weight for me to lose afterwards (yuck, I can't believe I admitted that). On the other hand, according to la cocotte I am carrying "deux filles, deux garcons, et un crocodile et un monkey" so, if that's the case, the baby(ies) are not actually that big after all.

On your marks

2012-01-12T18:01:00.000-08:00

That was what immediately popped into my head today when my OB, wand in hand, told me that the General was in the head down position facing my spinal cord. He or she is in the on-your-marks position. In fact all systems are go for a VBAC. Baby is much bigger than la cocotte (estimated 4.5 lbs at 33 weeks good for the 40th percentile) which means that it is unlikely my doc will want to "bail out" (as she puts it) early by c-section or induction (in fact we have agreed that any bailing will be done by C not by induction as I do not NOT want a repeat of the induction experience). I have a good amount of fluid. I am not dilated at all (huh... guess all the running doesn't cause premature dilation and labor). So, yes, the stars are lining up for a VBAC attempt. I still cannot imagine actually push a baby out. I really just cannot fathom it. It's this weird mixture of arrogance and lack of self-confidence. I waffle between... "pushing is for other woman, I am exempt" (I know... isn't that completely obnoxious) and thinking I am simply NOT capable of enduring labor and child birth (equally terrible but more in keeping with my personality).

I really do not want to turn this blog into a blow-by-blow of pregnancy, child birth and child rearing but I do find myself overly navel gazing these days (hard not to... the navel is now unavoidable). So, if I can indulge a bit more, this not knowing the gender thing is easier than I thought it would be. Between appointments I find myself not even really curious. Under the wand it is harder to resist asking and even harder to avoid interpreting EVERY minor comment my OB makes. For instance, today she told me to come into her office so we could compare the measurements to those of "my daughter" and somehow that convinced me that this one is a son. But when the wand passed in "the region" I took a good look and did not see anything resembling a penis... then again I don't really see anything resembling a human at any of my ultrasounds. I am still convinced she is showing me images of her son's project on reptiles (though today I saw and FELT a kick at the same time so that was kind of convincing that we were looking at the contents of my uterus).

Speaking of on your marks, no more intervals for me... I figured at 33 weeks it is probably time to give them a rest. Instead I am rekindling my love of the long, slow run. Time management wise I can only get out to exercise 4 (sometimes if I am lucky 5) times per week so I am trying longer (80-100 minutes), slower runs and loving it.

Exit Strategy Conclusion

2012-01-08T11:42:00.000-08:00

I've decided to push. I say this realizing that it is not necessarily my decision to make BUT I have decided to line things up to try for a VBAC. I will still schedule a c-section for several days after my due date - essentially the longest delay that my OB thinks is safe, or, more practically the first day she is on call after my due date. The hope though is that I go into labor on my own beforehand and go for it! Ultimately in the swirl of pros and cons, I decided that if possible I would like to spare my family the 4-6 weeks of being essentially not being very functional. La cocotte will necessarily be getting less attention after her sibling arrives, if possible I would like to avoid not being able to pick her up or hold her. Hubby will necessarily be getting less sleep and be more stressed after la cocotte's sibling arrives, I would like if possible to participate in the "workload" as much as possible. Very noble sentiments. Almost laughable in their implication that i have some control over what happens. But I can try. What I sense will happen is that I will go into labor on my own, NOT progress and then NOT have the "convenience" of a previously scheduled c-section during the day where my OB does the surgery and we can pre-arrange for care for la cocotte and will ALSO wind up with the inconvenience of the 4-6 week recovery period. But, it's worth a shot.

Exit Strategy Revisited

2012-01-05T17:15:00.000-08:00

After 32.5 weeks of being pregnant, it hit me like a Montreal car driver running a very yellow light... 2012 is leap year and I am DUE on March 3, 3 days after February 29 a.k.a. Leap Day. I could exercise my option to have a scheduled cesarean (hope being able to spell it is not a prerequisite for scheduling it) and have a Leap Baby! Seriously how unlikely is it that I would have been due within spitting distance of leap day (I would add how unlikely is it that I ever would have been due again...). We could have a Leap Baby and name him Frederic and apprentice him to pirates until his 21st birthday (or call her Ruth if she's a girl... because Mabel was such a suck).

Ok, so it is probably a wee bit indulgent to schedule a cesarean to have a cool birth date and kiddo would probably HATE having a birthday every four years for the first 20 years of his/her life (but on the flip side would likely grow to appreciate it).

I'm not really going to do it. For one thing I think my ob only does cesareans on Fridays (leap day is Wednesday), hubby is kind of opposed and I am not entirely convinced I want to schedule a c (still looking for that no pushing AND no surgery option).

A perfect run

2012-01-03T18:02:00.000-08:00

Truly this morning's run was perfect, in all ways. Let's start with la cocotte who woke me up at 3.49 am because she had lost her nounou a.k.a. nuk a.k.a. pacifier. After dealing with that situation, I realized I actually felt wide awake and rested. I had planned on waking up at 5 am to run but I figured if I went immediately I could actually, for the first time in months, go for a run where the length of the run was dictated entirely by my desire. It was my first opportunity since the birth of Sierra to go for a run without any time limits. Perfect.

I slid out of bed and into my running clothes (which I leave in a pile by the front door the night before so as not to disturb my sleeping household). I drank a cold shot of espresso (prepared the night before hence cold) and I was on the road by 4.14 am. Although it was cold (-17 C or 1.4 F) it was utterly wind still and in a rare fit of insight, the outfit I had chosen was optimally suited to the conditions, the result being that I was completely comfortable. Not too sweaty from overheating, not too icy from, well, running in Montreal in January before sunrise. Perfect.

The Tim Horton's that I regularly pass 12 minutes into my run just as my bladder always seems to wake up was open and crowded so I was able to slip unnoticed into their toilet (honestly I don't think they really care but I always feel badly peeing without buying despite the fact that I have spent enough at Timmy's in my life to finance a franchise). Although I am not taking walking breaks during my runs this time around, I do seem to be on a 15 minute run, 10 second pee schedule. Every time I got to the point where I was altering my stride to avoid peeing my pants, I seemed to pass another park or dark, secluded corner (granted dark secluded corners are not hard to find at 4 am). Perfect.

I bought new shoes yesterday. Normally I try on at least 4 if not 5 pairs when I buy shoes and do a fair amount of running in each of them to compare. Yesterday I had la cocotte with me and she was having none of it. I tried on my first pair, they fit, felt very neutral, lightweight but at the same time well cushioned and were on sale. I started to say "I like these but what else do you have" but as la cocotte moved one from trying on all the swim goggles, to un-hangering a display of running bras to trying to climb the mannequin in their window, I found myself saying "I'll take them." Despite the fact that they were new, relatively untested shoes, I didn't even notice them on my feet on their maiden voyage this morning (a higher endorsement of a running shoe, there is not!) and my (still) injured foot did not hurt at all. Perfect.

Best of all I was really able to relax and enjoy. I found a pace that was comfortable, easy but made me work suitably hard (suitably for being 32 weeks pregnant). I got to a place where I was able to enjoy again the visceral sensation of running. I was also empowered by the secret knowledge of early morning in my city that I gather as I run around the darkened streets of a sleeping city. I love observing the early morning hours in cross section of my hometown. The van that drives slowly by in residential neighborhoods as newspapers fly out in tangent from the window always hitting their mark on the correct doorstep. The youngsters on their way home from their night of revelry; we tend to stare at each other in mutual disbelief and awe. The office buildings downtown with the random light still on and a slumped figure in silhouette slumped in exhaustion over a computer presumably after an all-nighter. The drivers brazenly running red lights, driving the wrong way down one-way streets without any consequences. The odoriferous tail-end offerings of a greasy spoon. The pungent delight of the first pot of coffee of the day being brewed in the neighborhood coffee shop. It`s nothing spectacular. Nothing out of the ordinary but I adore bearing witness to it and revel in the knowledge that, but for me, many of these snippets of life would go unwitnessed.

An hour and thirty-six minutes and 17 kilometers later I was done. Truth be told, I was over-done but it was delicious to be finishing a run because I was simply out of desire not time. Best of all, when I arrived home around 6 am, the household was still asleep so I had missed nothing. Zero guilt factor. Truly, a perfect run.

Two pregnancies and life in general

2011-12-27T13:12:00.000-08:00

No one who reads my blog quasi-regularly will be surprised to learn that I weigh myself every day when pregnant and plot my weight gain. I even confess to trying to fit a model to the weight gain data in order to predict my total gain at 40 weeks. But my gain is so flat in the first 8 weeks and in the last 6-8 weeks that it is hard to predict.

Knowing how much time I spent googling weight gain, pregnancy, athlete, distance runner during my first pregnancy, I thought I would put my stats out there for fellow quantitatively-obsessed, pregnant, athletic googlers:

I seem to be following the same pattern of weight gain with The General (#2) as I did with The Governor (#1) a.k.a. la cocotte, though the General is tracking consistently 2-3 pounds lighter (this may be due in part to la cocotte who, as I have gotten visibly and heavily pregnant, has conveniently forgotten how to walk and demandsto be carried everywhere especially up the three flights of stair to our apartment). I also note that (n=1) I really don't gain much weight after 32 weeks but between 10 and 32 weeks, weight gain is fairly steady and linear at about 0.9 pounds per week. It took 51 days post birth to come back down to my pre-pregnancy weight though the last 5 pounds took 30 of those days.

I have exercised and run appreciably less during this pregnancy, due to life stress (running after toddler, buying new house, selling current house) and dealing with injury. The plot below shows kilometers per week where some of those kilometers per week are REM (running equivalent mileage i.e. 5 minutes elliptical = 1 km, even though my running pace is far slower than 5 minutes per km now):

The biggest difference in my exercise though is probably in the intensity. I am being less conservative this time and am doing work-outs in which I go to a track and alternate between running faster and waddling. I am still doing km and mile repeats at 30 weeks but my pace has dropped from 3:30/5:50 (when I was in the best shape of my entire life) to 5:00/8:12 (30 weeks pregnant). My easy running pace is now 5:50 per km.

Finally, to save me typing a thousand more words, here are the two respective pregnancies at 30 weeks:

I think what this picture illustrates probably best is that I am less focused this time and have even messier hair but other than that, 30 weeks the second time around looks awfully like 30 weeks the first time around.

And other than running... how does it all feel? Well besides welling up in tears all the time for moments joyful, melancholy and mundane... it all feels very familiar and happy. Having la cocotte around, visibly excited about the baby is very moving and makes me feel incredibly fortunate. She is beyond excited about these babies.

Babies. Yes, for some reason she is convinced there are two, a girl and a boy. I hope this isn't one of those weirdo phenomenon like dogs sensing when there is going to be an earthquake... toddlers sensing that there will be twins. I do feel very, very rich and blessed but I don't think I am ready to be that blessed! Lately though there is a tinge of territoriality entering her manor. Lots of declarations of: "c'est MON papa.", "c'est MON maman" (yes her possessive pronouns to not yet agree with the noun), "c'est MON cadeau.", "c'est MON maison." I think that last one is more related to our impending move and the hordes of potential buyers who have been trampling through our current home. I have tried to explain to her that we are moving and why it will be a good thing, our conversation went something like this (sorry only work in french):

maman: Cocotte, sais tu qu'on a acheter une nouvelle maison?

la cocotte: Une autre maison?

maman: Oui, on vas quitter cette maison.

la cocotte: C'est MON maison.

maman: oui, pour l'instant, mais on déménage dans une autre maison.

la cocotte: on peut nager dans l'autre maison?

maman (to herself): oh, crap.

maman: no, pas nager. mais l'autre maison a une balancoir.

la cocotte: balançoir?

maman: oui!

la cocotte: pour la cocotte?

maman: oui.

la cocotte: seulement pour la cocotte?

maman: oui.

la cocotte: balançoir qui ne dort pas pendant l'hiver?

maman: oui.

So, I think we have brokered a deal with her wherein we can move on the condition that there is a balancoir present in the new house for her exclusive use that does not go to sleep during the winter (like the swings in the city parks tend to).

Finally here was one of the sweeter moments from our Christmas holiday. I, of course, was crying too much to take a decent picture but Santa's photographer was more than happy to oblige:

Joyeux Fêtes et Bonne Année!

Exit strategy

2011-12-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

My circle of friends includes a surprising number of women who have given birth naturally without any pain relief whatsoever. Surprising especially when I consider that statistically 95% women who deliver where I delivered la cocotte and will deliver cocotte's sibling opt for an epidural. Perhaps I know so many drug-free laboring women because my circle of friends is dominated by runners... runners have high pain thresholds, good endurance, good musculature, make smaller babies, so the thinking goes and are therefore more likely to tolerate a drug-free delivery.

I have listened to my friends describe the experience of drug-free birthing in complete astonishment. Having had a c-section the first time around, a drug-free birth was not really an option. (Even the mentally toughest of runners generally does not submit to being cut through multiple layers of tissue without some form of anesthesia.) One of my friends described the contractions as pain equal to bones being broken separated by complete, glorious numbness. She told me about pushing and the ring of fire. She said she felt connected to the generations of women before her who had given birth in pain and that it had been so important to her to have that experience and to feel every sensation from start to finish. The way she described it was moving and poetic. I am so happy for her that she had that experience. That being said, I cannot think of anything I would ever want LESS for myself.

All around me women seem intent on de-medicalizing the birthing process. Women seem united in their desire to give birth at home, naturally, with a midwife. And to those women I say, in all sincerity, you go girls! I don't understand their desire but do admire their courage and ability to endure. As for me? I want bright lights, stainless steel, white, institutionalized sheets, bad food, hissing, aging radiators and pipes, a cramped room, a harried, overwrought nurse and everything that else that reassures me that I am in a hospital with a wide array of glorious, glorious drugs at hand. If I had my choice, I would start the epidural in the parking lot. But before I started the epidural in the parking lot I would get a hit of something else to make the epidural ITSELF less painful.

I am probably biased by my first birthing experience. Without going into the gories... I was late (41 weeks), la cocotte's growth had slowed, I was not even slightly dilated, la cocotte was nowhere near the "set" position but it was decided that an induction was the best course of action. The first 6 hours were fine, drug-free (except for the pitocin of course). Felt nothing. Then a pinch, a stronger pinch, I asked a doctor for a tylenol... I told him a tylenol would be enough for the amount of pain I was experiencing. I had this brief fantasy that maybe I was one of those remarkable women for whom labor was simply not painful or... even better, that this level of pain was what other women described as unbearable and I was just some sort of superwoman with an insanely high pain threshold. My water broke. 10 minutes later I was puking and screaming for an epidural (which due to logistics I had to wait about 2 hours for... I know, not long compared to some). There was no gradual build-up of pain. No acclimatization. It was zero to 10 on the someone-kill-me scale in ten minutes. Far worse, there was no respite between contractions, there was no wonderful lack-of-sensation to slip into, there was simply a valley of pain (and not a very deep valley either) between towering peaks of pain. Got the Epiural. Bliss. Many more hours passed. No progress. La cocotte's heart rate was dropping with every contraction. C-section decided on. La cocotte born with an apgar of 10 (and no, I am not mis-remembering that. It was 10 immediately after birth and 10 ten minutes later. It is written in her health booklet so I am not romanticizing after the fact. And while I know it is totally obnoxious to brag about one's offpring's apgar score, I do so only to counter the notion that epidurals are bad for baby. Though yes, I realize la cocotte is only an n=1).

So here I am, 2 years and 4 months later,almost 7 months pregnant. I need to decide on an exit strategy at some point in the near(ish) future. My ob is essentially leaving it totally up to me until such time as a given strategy is clearly medically indicated. So I weigh the paths in front of me: VBAC, scheduled c-section, trial of labor following by either VBAC or unscheduled c-section and wonder what to do... what to do. Ideally I would like to NOT push out a baby but also NOT have to recover from surgery. My research so far indicates that this is not currently medically possible. There's not really a ton of choice when one gets down to it. Simply put, there really aren't many exits to choose from. I remain undecided. I still have time to ponder but only a finite amount.

Early Conversations

2011-12-03T03:20:00.001-08:00

At two years and 4 months of age, la cocotte is really coming into her own conversationally. Now that she can express her thoughts verbally, it's fascinating (to her adoring parents anyway) to see what it is that she invests in expressing. Actually even biased parent factor aside, it is an inherently fascinating thing to watch what it is that a new speaker decides to express of the her internal world and the world around her. It turns out to be mostly observational, instructional and re-iterative.

She loves to observe and report the facts of her little world. She will proudly tell her daycare no teacher: "Maman bebe la bedaine. No bebe baba." (Mama baby in belly. No baby baba [daddy]). Almost everyday we get a count of how many lulus (ponytails) she and everyone else she sees has. Daddy has a constant count of zero.

She will constantly re-iterate the facts of her world. "No souliers [dans la] maison!" (no shoes [in the] house). "Nounou pas dans la bouche, seulement la main." (No pacifier in the mouth, only in the hand). This one stems from one of our very few rules. We have weaned her down to having the pacifier only in bed, in the stroller and the car seat. At other times she can hold it in her hand but not put it in her mouth; at which point she carries it around constantly looking at it, bringing it near her mouth or will sometimes turn away from us for a moment so her face is hidden and avidly suck away since we can't see her and therefore ostensibly don't know what she is doing. It is very reminiscent of a smoker craving for and sneaking a fix; an obvious but discomfitting analogy.

She will instruct. Given that she is surrounded by order-issuing adults all day long it is not surprising that she likes to issue her own. In fact one of her first complete(ish) sentences was an order. On our way back from the park one day, she clearly stated "Maison la cocotte jouer avec baba. Seulement Baba. No maman." ([At the] house la cocotte [will] play with baba. Only baba. No mama.) Ouch. But honest. Not intended to hurt. Just an honest statement of preference. And yes, she does call herself la cocotte. Direct article and all.

There is not yet any discussion of feelings. Feelings are expressed directly i.e showing visible fear when Swiper appears during her Dora the Explorer video. Crying when displeased. Smiling and hugging when happy or affectionate. There is also no interpretation. It's all: just the facts ma'am. In other words there is are none of the constructs that muddy the waters of adult conversation. No manipulations, no subterfuge, no subtlety. She just tells it like it is. To converse with her is to drink ice cold, pure, unfiltered spring water after a long run on a humid day. Pure refreshment. Total satisfaction. Uncomplicated.

This is getting a little ridiculous

2011-11-28T19:22:00.001-08:00

I have never been much of a crier. I cry for personal griefs and misfortunes, hurt feelings, the pain of loved ones, great societal injustices, yes, I cry. But heart tugging long distance telephone commercials, movies, tears of joy... never my thing. These pregnancy hormones are driving me crazy. I distinctly remember watching the Su.sa.n Boy.le audition on youtube (which for anyone living under a rock as I was until a close friend made me aware of it about a year after it surfaced, you can see it here) before getting knocked up and thinking, 'cool, underdog makes good! You go girl!' But that was about it. Now I cannot watch the sucker without full-on tear tracks and runny nose. But it gets even worse... I cannot read the poem below without crying... it's not even sad... or even that moving...

Bed in Summer
Robert Louis Stevenson

IN winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

Yes, I know... I KNOW!! Nothing to cry over. I cried just now copying and pasting the sucker. I suppose it makes me think of la cocotte. How little she is in contrast to how big her toddler tragedies feel to her. How the little injustices she feels now will pale in comparison to hardships and bumps along the road she will inevitably encounter. How she will grow up so quickly and however much I try to drink in all the time I can with her now, I will inevitably wish I had held her more tightly, snuggled more often, buried my nose in her hair, stayed awake to watch her sleep, protected her more fiercely and though it feels impossible somehow loved her better.

A fair share of exercise

2011-11-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

I read the phrase, "fair share of exercise" in mapp's blog this week, more precisely she wrote:

"it is not that often we get to meet people who do as much sports as us, and even less often (bordering on : never) that we meet parents of young children still getting their fair share of exercising (although, if you ask us, we're far from getting a share we would describe as "fair")"

The phraseology and the whole concept of a "fair share of exercise" really stuck in my brain. What is, indeed, a fair share of exercise? Is there a point at which exercising becomes selfish? What is a reasonable amount of time for a person on whom multiple people depend to devote to sweating? Finally, how do people work exercise into their lives in a manageable way.

Let me start at the end. How do I work exercise into my day without it becoming too burdensome on my family? Let's take this past week as an example though because I cannot run-commute right now since that necessitates running on pavement which my foot will not tolerate, this week is somewhat anomlaous. Anyway the point is not to examine the work-outs I did, but rather at how they fit into the day:

Monday - off (that was easy)
Tuesday - got up at 5.45 am, out the door at 6 am for a 70 minute run, back at 7.10 am to shower, take over parenting duties from hubby and get la cocotte ready for daycare, out the door by 8 am.
Wednesday - asked hubby if I could work late and was genuinely planning to but got kicked out of office at 6 pm and so ran 20 minutes to the gym and did 50 minutes elliptical rather than heading home to help out with dinner and parenting. Got home by 7.30 pm, early enough to help with bedtime.
Thursday - Went to the gym after la cocotte had gone to bed. Completely exhausted. Only managed 32 minutes on the elliptical. Almost fell asleep on the locker room bench while trying to change.
Friday - Had a 9 am pre-natal appointment, Dropped la cocotte at daycare earlier than usual (7.45 am) and went for 75 minute run before appointment.
Saturday - as described in previous post, exceptionally went to a gym with daycare, did 40 minute spin class.
Sunday - got up at 5.45, ran to track, did mile repeats, ran home. Was home by 8 am to help out with parenting/breakfast etc.

Other ways I routinely get runs in - lunchtime runs (how cool is it that I have a) a gravel path that starts 50 m from my office and b) a shower at work??), run commuting, run-everywhere - to doctor's appointments, to grandmother's house, baby jogging during la cocotte's nap, running without la cocotte during her nap (therefore burden free for hubby).

So, looking just at this week, three of my six days of exercise this week placed burden on hubby (Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday) and five of them placed burden on la cocotte (if you can call my absence a burden, most people call it a delight). And I realize as I write this that mostly I manage to get my exercise in by getting up early which means it is either at the expense of sleep or else at the expense of adult conversation after la cocotte goes to bed at 8 pm because I, completely exhausted, usually go to bed not long after. Though much of my exercise also comes at the expense of leaving hubby alone to get la cocotte ready for the day in the morning which he is totally capable of doing (more on this below), I don't mean to imply that without my presence things fall apart but it is certainly the case that in the morning chaos, a 2:1 adult to toddler ratio is more favorable than a 1:1, even if it does mean that there are two people competing for the bathroom instead of one (not being toilet trained yet, la cocotte doesn't enter the bathroom fray except as a friendly observer).

[As an aside: nothing leaves me more speechless than when people ask me if hubby "helps out" a lot at home. I truly don't know how to answer this question. Hubby does approximately 50% of the housework and child rearing. Is that "helping out"? I find the phrase super irritating and offensive to both me and him. Offensive because it implies that home making and child rearing is my responsibility but if I am lucky hubby will sometimes lend a hand. Offensive to him because, well actually for pretty much the same reasons.]

The amount of "burden" imposed by this week's worth of exercise seems to be at the limit of what is palatable for our family. To get anymore exercise than this really means more working out after la cocotte's bedtime which is the only time that is burden free or getting up obscenely early.

How do I feel about this amount of exercise? Actually, having worked out 6 times this week for a total of close to 80 kilometers of running equivalent kilometers feels probably like a bit more than my "fair share" of exercise. It is less than I would ideally like to train but given the givens, and the givens are: two parents with demanding jobs working full-time outside the home, currently spending massive amounts of time house hunting, 2 year old attention demanding toddler (wonderful but attention demanding) and oh yes, being six months pregnant, 80 kilometers per week over 6 days does seem somewhat, um, greedy for lack of a better word. Though it must be said that this week has been my best week for a long time, I have hardly broken 70 km per week throughout this pregnancy so I am trying not to feel too guilty about this week's indulgence.

What is fair? I guess it depends partially on what one's partner and offspring (if any) will tolerate in the way of absence. Exercise is draining on the couple not only for the actual time it takes but for constant fatigue it engenders. [Another aside, I have never really understood people who say that exercise gives them so much energy. Huh? No really... HUH?? It generally leaves me exhausted and mostly comatose I guess it's all a matter of dose]. The burden is probably even greater in a couple where one partner is not an athlete, as is our case. Most weeks, when I am not injured, I get in about 65-75 km of running - much of this is done in the form of run-commuting, the ultimate burden-free way to get exercise in. It is less than I want but I think a good compromise between my desires and being present (and not completely flaked out) for my family.
I know things will only get more difficult to manage when the second cocotte is born (note to self: need to figure out girl name, boy name AND nickname for number two).

Writing all of this I know I am extremely fortunate. I have a happy, healthy toddler. An amazing, affordable daycare. A demanding but fulfilling job so I really don't mean this as a whinge-session. But I am really curious to know how other people manage exercise and, well, life. Has anyone found an extra 3-4 hours in a day that I don't know about? Seriously... are there tricks I am missing?

Working out in the lap of luxury

2011-11-19T17:45:00.000-08:00

The gym is called The Sa.nctua.ry. The name itself probably suffices to convey this health club's poshness inherent. Smiling staff, understated decor, soft jazz tones playing throughout (except in the spinning studio but I'll come to that... will I EVER come to that), flattering lighting, row upon row of gleaming equipment ostensibly never having been sweat upon despite the impossibly-thin, spandex clad bodies gyrating upon them proving otherwise. Indoor track (255 m), endless, fluffy towels, restaurant with complicated menu, daycare with reams of toys, large showers with ample hot water and amazing water pressure and a selection of hair and skin care products... quintessential lap of work-out luxury. I was invited for the day by a friend who is a member (who also kindly gave me a two week pass), I didn't looking into pricing, let's just say that my vague and unresearched understanding is that there is a 3-figure fee just to sign up, then the obscene monthly fee plus one's left kidney if you break your contract early. I didn't bother to ask because I know I am not willing to pay.

I have worked out in probably upwards of 30 work-out facilities in my 25+ years as a quasi-serious athlete. This was a totally novel experience. This place is so posh, I am surprised you cannot hire someone to go and do your work-out for you! Let's start with spin class, novel experience heaped upon novel experience. My first spin class ever. The pounding music and flashing lights could not have contrasted anymore with the zen-like feeling of the rest of "The Sanc.tua.ry". How do I describe it? Let's start with, and I realize that the following says way more about me and my self-absorption than it does about the gym but here we go, I was the fattest person in the room. My ego is SO not used to that. I am not talking fat as in my 6 months of pregnant belly fat... I am talking PPC not pregnant still would have been the fattest person in the room. I am not fat. When not pregnant I weight btwn 125-130 lbs (5'8"). I have some arm flab, a little roll on my tummy and yes, cellulite and sure, I would prefer that cellulite to not be there but that cellulite was along for the ride on a 2:54 Boston Marathon, that cellulite clung to my thighs as they ran 17:30 for 5 km. It's pretty functional cellulite. The bodies in that spin room were... perfect. Male bodies, female bodies, teenage bodies, not-so-teenage bodies... all uniformly lean, toned and beautiful. Like I say, I am not used to being the fattest person in the room, it was a little strange and yes, I hate to admit it, ego bruising. Then the clothes and the gear... oh the gear... I was definitely the only luddite actually checking their pulse using something as dated as the index-finger-to-the-carotoid method. And somehow I managed to be under-dressed... in a spin class. I am trying to figure out how that is even possible.

The work-out itself. Wow. I have not worked that hard on a bike since... ever. I have never worked that hard on a bike before. I think the ambiance of the room is precisely designed to cut one off from all biofeedback (perhaps that is why everyone around me has heart rate measuring capabilities) the pounding music made it impossible to hear the sound of my own breathing, the dark, cool, small room combined with the night club flashing lighting somehow divorced my nervous system from the sensation of exertion. Every time I checked my pulse I was shocked to find it over 160. Definitely over my comfort zone for 6 months pregnant but I felt somehow blind and deaf to my own efforts. An effective technique for getting people to work harder though probably not ideal for the pregnant woman. The enthusiastic instructor with the booming voice who said things like "Climb this hill for 10 seconds more... 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 3.... 3.... 3... 2... 2... 2... etc. etc" and the quasi-tribal yells just did nothing for me. I can see how it create a groove for a good work-out but after too many years of being yelled at by and trying to respond to many an over zealous coach I have reached the point where I self-motivate. It`s always nice to have people cheering for me at races or maybe the occasional work-out but generally I am either working as hard as I can or should be and yelling has no no discernible impact on the outcome. I guess I am not meant for fitness classes.

So definitely an amazing treat. Truly a work-out in the lap of luxury. La cocotte seemed to have a good time in the daycare. She had a whale of a time on the track afterwards (255 m in 2:45... (PPC did NOT time her daughter's lap around the track did she??? Oh yes,she did!) and an even better time in the swimming pool. Inspired by the sight of my friend's 1 year old cheerfully dunking her head under water, la cocotte was willing to go "en dessous l'eau" for the first time ever and even asked repeatedly for "encore... encore" afterwards - a real breakthrough. As I say, the whole experience was a real treat... how can one not love a gym with a 255 m banked indoor track?? The surprisingly affordable daycare makes working out possible for harried parents which is fabulous. However, even with the daycare convenience and without the presumably steep price tag, I will still take the gravel trail on Mount Royal, the sound of my increasingly heavy footsteps and ragged breathing and my scratchy towels after a quick, piss poor shower at work over the Sa.nct.uary any day.

My stew fest

2011-11-08T18:37:00.000-08:00

Yes, I am still stewing... I guess that's an improvement over steaming. Fast Bastard asked for an update on the slap-in-the-face situation which I hadn't really planned on blogging any more about. Any meaningful update takes me into territory that is over the boundary of things I am willing to blog about. Leaving out details becomes so abstract that it is uninteresting and impossible to follow (yes, I know, uninteresting and impossible to follow is kind of par for the course on my blog).

So here is what I can offer. Since la incident, I have spent one night awake crying, one night awake wondering if what X said was true and a few days as a walking sleep-deprived zombie. Then I called Mother Risk to ask about the safety of diphen.hydra.mine during pregnancy (the active ingredient in most over the counter sleeping pills) and found out that unlike almost all other drugs, it has actually been extremely well studied during pregnancy and approved for use. So I bought myself some Sle.ep-ez.e and got two excellent nights of sleep. So I guess the update there is that I am literally no longer losing sleep over the incident but only thanks to modern chemistry not to any kind of closure.

I did tell X what I heard. X apologized. I told X that there was no need to apologize for feeling that I am [insult omitted]. Heck, if that's how X feels, it's how X feels. It hurts like hell but I have to accept that those are the feelings. I have the responsibility to figure out what part of [insult omitted] is really true of me and what part comes from X and the filter through which X sees the world. I need to change what I decide I can and should and let the rest of it go.

However I did also tell X is that I found it completely reprehensible that these feelings were shared with another person in my life with whom I am close and have an excellent relationship and whom, as far as I know, enjoys a mutual high regard with me (this was the person in the room X was talking to I alluded to last time). That part was pretty shitty. Well the whole thing was shitty but as I keep saying I can't blame X for feeling these feelings (though I am hurt and confused by it) but I certainly do blame X for back-stabbing me.

Blah blah blah... just writing about this is making me tired. I am ready to move onto something else, stop being a drama queen, get some real sleep. Perhaps instead of taking more Sl.ee.p-E.ze, I`ll just go re-read some of my blog, that oughta do it.

That be my update.
This be me moving on.

My slap in the face

2011-11-01T19:48:00.000-07:00

Emotional pain is when someone close and important in your life leaves you a voicemail, "hangs up", only they don't hang up completely... they continue to talk to someone in the room. About you. Saying gut-wrenchingly, ugly things.

EMBARASSMENT is... when the above happens AT WORK causing you to BURST INTO TEARS at your desk and then have to return each and every one your colleagues cheery "Good Mornings" as they file past your desk one by one.

HUMILIATION is when trembling, flustered fingers cause you to FORWARD it to a distribution group that goes to 8 people while you are trying to delete it.

I wish I was one of those self possessed people who could just laugh it off and say "oh X is a critical person who finds fault with everyone." but because I am me, I have to evaluate every statement for the truth and because I am me and so freakin eager to always find fault in myself, I find myself agreeing.

Sometimes I really have a really low opinion of myself. And after today, I know X does also.

Race Report: 5 km @ 20 weeks

2011-10-27T17:52:00.000-07:00

Goals (in order of importance):

1. To be guilt and worry free afterwards regarding the effort I exerted and possible negative effects on baby.
2. Place top 10 in the 20-30 category (which would assure me second place overall in the series and win a great prize).
3. Get in 18 km of running for the day.
4. Run a pregnancy PB (faster than 21:03).

The Numbers
-Number of kilometers: 5
-Fastest km: 3:59 (downhill back to the wind)
-Slowest km: 4:26 (uphill face into the wind)
-Total time: 20:55
-Overall place: 146
-Place among women: 19
-Place in 20-39 category: 12

So, goal #1 achieved, zero guilt and worry afterwards, effort felt very moderate and sustainable throughout.
Goal # 2 FAIL. On the other hand, 20-39 is a HUGE age category... and ten of the women who beat me were in their twenties.... I was the second thirty-something across the line. Darn those quick legged twenty year olds! But I subsequently found out I tied for second place in the series and therefore get my very cool prize (free entries into 6 races next year!).
Goal # 3 - 18.6 km for the day baby! On the other hand I also managed to re-injure my foot. And then... rather than backing off immediately as 25 years of experience as a runner SHOULD have taught me to do, I kept going, now it hurts to stand or to shuffle to the bathroom. Why am I so dumb??
Goal # 4 - done.

Do you want a girl or a boy?

2011-10-20T18:11:00.000-07:00

It is the inevitable question posed to those who are visibly pregnant by close friends and random strangers alike. The pregnant woman smiles beatifically and, almost invariably answers, (say it with me) "all I care about is having a healthy baby." Awwww. Such is the politically correct veneer we swathe over the true answer to a question that would perhaps be better unasked. The truth, as is the case with almost all human truths, lies in our actions not our words. The real truth, that rings out from all four corners of the globe is: boy please!

I came across this recently while perusing the ultimate source of ALL truths - wikipedia:

My naive little brain was floored on several fronts. First, globally, whenever there is a gender preference it is for males. There is, apparently, NO COUNTRY ON THE PLANET that prefers female offspring. Second, do you SEE the colour of Canada on this map? Apparently we are practicing gender selection here at significant enough levels to result in abnormal childhood sex ratios.

How do people go about choosing the gender of their offspring? There are various ways and inevitably they are unreliable OR of questionable ethics AND/OR illegal AND/OR just plain wrong. There are various theories on timing intercourse. The Shettles method, for example, relies on the fact that Y-bearing sperm swim faster and X-bearing sperm live longer to suggest that a couple can increase the odds of a female baby by having intercourse several days before ovulation and then abstaining while intercourse very near ovulation can increase the odds of a male baby. According to studies I have read, this method barely has a measurable effect. In the category of more effective but ethically questionable - the rise of fertility clinics has lead to more possibilities for pre-conception gender screening. As I understand it, sperm which is being used for inseminations or for IVF procedures can be sorted by molecular weight in order to select X or Y-bearing sperm. As I said, ethically questionable ( to say the very least) and, illegal in Canada. Then we get to the really ugly... selective abortion after early gender determination. This is clearly a problem in Canada, so much so that it is actually illegal to reveal gender in an ultrasound until AFTER the legal cut-off time for an abortion in the province of British Columbia (contrast Quebec where I nervously told my OB at least three times during my 20 week ultrasound today that I did NOT want to know the gender as she was more than willing, and legally able, to tell me). This law has not stopped people however as mail order kits from various companies are easily available which can be used to provide a maternal blood sample from which they can somehow determine fetal gender. The means of gender selection get even uglier than there...

Why do people care? I mean apart from a whimsical desire to have one of each gender in the mistaken belief that boys and girls are really so different... why do people care? I would argue that people who REALLY care about gender, and by really care, I don't mean a slight preference, curiosity, whimsical desire, I mean people who care enough to take ugly actions are probably having children for the wrong reasons. Or is it simply that my socio-economic reality is so far removed from needing to have a child of a certain gender that I have the luxury not to care?? What are the reasons? Ability to inherit? Desire to carry on the family name? Desire for an offspring with good earning potential? Not having to pay a dowry? I suppose in certain societies the gender of one's offspring can have HUGE bearing on one's well-being and quality of life. But I would hope that Canada is not one of those societies. Why are people in Canada practicing gender selection?

And speaking of differences between girls and boys, do they really exist? Ok, obviously they do. But everyone and their cousin seems to have their own pet theory regarding whether boys or girls are easier to raise. These theories are usually based on one or two difficult children of a given gender that the theorist happens to know. Given individual variability, are the between-gender differences in behaviour and personality really large enough to be significant in the face of within-gender variability? I question whether it is really possible to state definitively whether one gender is "easier" to raise than the other. In fact, I feel certain it is not. As I stood on the sidewalk in the cold, October rain earlier this week watching la cocotte rolling on the ground, pulling off her shoes and coat screaming "No manteau! No manteau! No manteau!" (translation: la cocotte did not wish to wear her coat on that cold, rainy day) I was sure of several two things - this had nothing to do with her being a her and everything to do with her being la cocotte at 2 years of age.

Race Report: Eaaasy there 5km

2011-09-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to finish off this local series I have been participating in all year before my belly explodes. I was on track to place very well in the series prior to my foot injury. Now I am on track to, well, waddle on over the finish line. But today, at 16 weeks pregnant, I thought I might have a reasonable 5 km in me.

The night before I decided to brush up on the "rules" for exerting oneself while pregnant by re-reading portions of the bible "Exercising through your pregnancy" by James Clapp. Actually first I did the obligatory googling of "running 5 km" "pregnant", "racing 5 km" " second trimester", "road racing" "pregnant" and got a ton of hits... from my own blog and the blogs that are on my blog roll. So I turned back to Dr. Clapp who, as far as my limited research has taken me, seems to have done the most exhaustive (pun intended) research on exertion in human pregnancy. And I promptly remembered how frustrating I found his book at times during my first pregnancy. All I want are simply, clear rules regarding the maximum possible amount of exertion I can safely undertake during pregnancy. Is that so unreasonable? Um yes, human physiology just does not work that way. The book is full of "it depends", "generally" and vague qualitative statements about what is and is not safe. In fact in the entire book he only gives two, heavily couched, quantitative guidelines: 1) thermal shifts of up to 1.6 deg C during work-outs are not associated with negative pregnancy outcomes, heating more than this should be avoided 2) the pregnant woman should not lose more than 3 pounds in sweat during a work-out. The latter is interesting - this is pretty basic physiology which I had forgotten or never knew in the first place, but as we lose fluid throughout a work-out our heart rates accelerate to compensate for the greater difficulty the dehydration causes in circulating the blood - apparently this effect is called creep and is to be avoided in the pregnant woman.

So, being the quantitative beast that I am, I greatly appreciated those two guidelines but I wanted more. Specifically, I wanted: do not let your heart rate go above X bpm (where X is hopefully a number >= 180). I know... I know... it is inaccurate to set a safe limit on heart rate in any circumstance because resting heart rate and effect of exercise on heart rate is significantly affected by genetics, in others words my 150 could easily be someone else of equal fitness' 180. So this is where I go off onto one of my Patent Pending Piccola Pinecone sPiels in which I over think something to death and come to a very mundane and obvious conclusion.

{*Begin sPiel*} It occurred to me as I was re-reading Clapp and getting frustrated by the lack of cut and dried rules that ultimately what I wanted was to not have to think for myself and just be given the answer by a leading expert on the topic. In my work, I often have to advise researchers on acceptance criterion for data and the truth is that there is no cut and dried rule, there are guidelines and there are factors to be considered of which I can make them aware however ultimately careful, informed judgement must be applied. But that is not what they want to hear; they want simple rules to follow. I think this is how people want to operate. They want to leave the expertise to the experts and just be told what to do. Or, to be more generous, they want to be expert in their chosen field of interest but in other areas, they just want to be told what to do. But... as we become experts in something one of the first things of which we become aware is that things are rarely straightforward and linear. Typically outcomes are multi-factorial, non-linear, dynamic chaos influenced by many, interconnected factors and careful, informed, critical thought is involved to chose the appropriate course of action. Thomas Edison said something to the effect of there are seemingly no limits to which man will go to avoid the labour of thinking. I know this is often true of me. I think it is probably true of most people. {*/sPiel*}

Anyway as I realized the above, I stopped being annoyed with Clapp. The man is a hero. He pioneered research into exercise in pregnant women and showed us that not only can it be safe but there are benefits to the woman and benefits to the fetus, the infant, the toddler and the child - (aside: in his book he actually claims that his research shows that the 5 year old children of women who exercised during pregnancy perform significantly better on general intelligent tests and on oral language skills (he claims to have controlled for amount of exercise done after pregnancy so he is really looking only at the effect of exercise DURING pregnancy, parental education level, socio-economic status, birth order, parental weight & height, working outside the home, general health, breast feeding etc. etc. etc)). But surprising and difficult to believe research findings aside, the message of Clapp's book is: we don't exactly know how much exercise is safe but we can be sure that some degree of exercise is safe and probably a good deal more than previously thought, enough in fact that a woman can actually improve her level of fitness during pregnancy. However the woman should be followed closely, monitored and pay attention to her body cues and use common sense. Thus ends my little plug for the Clapp book which I re-skimmed right before bed the night before my race.

The race itself was fairly uneventful. My mantra was eaaassssy there. I ignored the fact that I needed a good age group placing in order to maintain my standing in the series and focussed instead on my level of exertion and kept it reasonable. So reasonable in fact that I ran a 4:29 first km. Followed by a 4:12, 4:01, 4:15, 4:06 good for 21:03 overall. I made sure I could always sing throughout the race - I figure if I can sing, I am not overdoing it. I kept my HR below 160 as that is what it usually is at when I warm up for work-outs when not pregnant. I steadfastly ignored ALL the other women on the course. I was not tired afterwards. My urine was clear before and immediately following the race. I feel good about the level of exertion. Comfortable with the effort. My biggest fear going in was that I would not be able to dampen my competitive nature and would get carried away but as it is I have no regrets. About this race. Now onto the regrets...

Today la cocotte made her debut as a road racer in the children's 1 km event. I had no idea if she would take to the idea or not. In the end I think the disaster that was her road race debut was largely due to the fact that we were at the race site for three hours prior to her race and during that time she had spent a hard core hour in the playground, a good long while dancing to the finish line music and run probably a mile or so around the grassy fields and parking lot. Let's say by the time I got her to the start line of her race, she had pretty much done the impossible and exhausted the near bottomless toddler energy pack. I was very eager not to soccer-mom her into the race (oops, I mean hockey mom her) but I just wanted her to start... just start and if she didn't like it, we'd stop (that's how hockey moms start isn't it?). So the gun went off and she instinctively knew what to do, okay, I guess it's not really instinct given that 200 kids and toddlers in front of us started running. Anyway she was doing great for about 150 m and then she saw baba (a.k.a. hubby) on the sidelines taking pictures and stopped for a little chat. We got her moving again but at that point the race actually passes by its own finish line which she was bound and determined to cross but the officials were determined to funnel her into the "passing through" lane and not over the finish line. Why? Because the toddler's 1 km was being CHIP TIMED! Yup. Chip timing. For kids and toddlers. Hockey mom indeed. Anyway not being allowed to cross the finish line caused a little temper tantrum which only grew more fierce when the winner of the 1 km who had by this time lapped us crossed the finish line. NOT FAIR! (is what I am sure la cocotte was thinking). So I was ready to call it a day at that point and started moving her towards the car to leave and the temper tantrum grew more fierce. It appeared she wanted to finish the race. So on we went. Some toddling. Lots of carrying. Lots of her yelling "down!" and then "up!" as soon as she had been put down (we were so far beyond nap time at this point it had all but disappeared in the temporal rear-view mirror). We carried her around the course. Our goal at this point was to get her over the finish line before they started the boys' 1 km so she and we would not get trampled. Finally, in sight of the finish line she had so desperately wanted to cross 12 minutes earlier, I put her down thinking for sure she would sprint towards it. Nothing. I carried her 10 feet closer. This time she let her legs go floppy in a ploy I call "broken landing gear" so it is impossible to put her down. It seemed ridiculous not to cross the finish line at this point especially with all the cheering of the patient crowd. I got her to within 5 feet of the finish line and put her down. She sat down. and stayed put. The announcer and photographer had a field day. I dragged her over the finish line feeling exactly like the hockey mom I had been so afraid of being and we got her whopping big finisher's medal. And suddenly everything was all right in the world again.

100 m in, looking good!

Found the rhythm.

Just a little bit of illegal outside assistance.

Toddler says: "No finish line! No! No!"

Mom says: "You MUST cross the finish line so I can re-live my glory days through you" (oh please no!)

Reward!

Even better reward.

I channeled all of you

2011-09-05T05:17:00.000-07:00

Thanks everyone so much for your lovely comments and congratulations on my pregnancy. I am thrilled to be pregnant (understatement) and I promised myself that if I got pregnant again, I would not complain about the inevitable side effects of growing a person. So, question: does it constitute complaining if one just states facts without emotion? Example, this pregnancy is causing me to be exhausted all the time. That's not a complaint right? Just a statement of fact. On the other hand: I am so exhausted that I want to sleep 18 hours a day but only have time for 7 and that leaves me too exhausted and nauseated to focus on work done which is piling up in a stomach-churning-stress-headache-inducing way, I don't have energy to play with la cocotte and am running so little that the neighbour's obese cat who is large enough to be Thanksgiving turkey is probably accumulating more mileage than me and, not coincidentally, I am looking more and more like that cat everyday. If I were to utter something that self-indulgent and whiny, THAT would be a complaint.

Long preamble just to say, despite the fact my foot is getting better, my running has been lackluster due to fatigue and compounded by hubby being out of town for 10 days. Essentially my running options were, get myself and la cocotte out the door for daycare 45 minutes early, go for a run with her in the jogger, drop her at daycare and run another 25-40 minutes to work or else run on the treadmill at night after she had gone to sleep; both seemed overwhelming. One morning I got us out the door early and just... could... not... run. So we went to the park instead and then after dropping her at daycare I stood outside for a long while wondering whether I was actually going to walk to the subway in my running clothes and pay $3 to take the subway to work when work is just 5 km from the daycare. Usually I tack on extra kms on Mount Royal, 5 km being just way too short for a run but that day even a lousy, piddling 5 km seemed overwhelming. I started walking slowly to the subway completely discouraged. I turned and started running towards work which begins as a steep uphill. Exhausted I stopped and started walking again towards the subway. I stopped. Stood for another long while telling myself it was 12.5 lousy laps of the track. I mentally screamed at myself to just MAKE A FRICKEN DECISION. Sometimes the indecisive waffling is far more exhausting than the actual run.

I decided. I channeled all of you. I thought of how Mmmonyka would just do the run period. Without thinking about whether she wanted to. Without all the mental anguish. She would just go out and execute the job because it had been assigned to her and would bring her closer to her goals. I thought about how Cherelli would do it and find a thousand subtle ways to enjoy it - the pre-autumnal cool on the mountain, the deepening of the green in the leaves before the burst of colour arrives, the gentle changes in smell of the forest's exhalations at the end of summer that foreshadow autumn. How she would find beauty on a micro and macro scale and run to partake in that. Sea Legs Girl, of course, would get it done. But it would just be her warm-up before running another 16 km as tempo or intervals and whatever else she could fit in before and after nursing her newborn, working on her thesis, raising money for her latest humanitarian project and organizing a race. Mapp too of course would get it done. Probably more than 5 km, straight uphill, starting at 7,000 feet (or more) ending at 10,000 feet. ("Mount" Royal indeed....). Marathon Mom would get it done between baking fabulous food, grad school, working, being a mommy and coaching. Sugarbloggy would laugh at what we call "Mount Royal" and would get it done in the tough, brutally hot hills around Trieste in between her million commitments. Barefoot Angie Bee is an incredibly accomplished barefoot runner who would get the run done without batting an eye and there are many inspirational things about her. However I have to admit it was not her running I was thinking of in drawing inspiration from her. She is a mother of four... who has sex with her partner every day! To reiterate: 4 kids. Sex every day. In terms of accomplishment, that is a 2:30 marathon RIGHT THERE! If she has energy to raise 4 kids and have sex every day, surely I could eek out 5 km. BAB if you are reading this, I hope you are not offended that I re-posted that info. I was just truly, truly impressed and inspired by that post. Xapis, soon to be mother of two, would be grateful for the chance to run injury free and wouldn't even think about fatigue, being pregnant, lack of sleep, she would just go and revel in the chance to run unfettered rather than grinding diligently away on the elliptical and bicycle... while raising her son and getting her nursing degree. Fast Bastard would do squeeze it in after his daily commute halfway across Denmark, at 3:30/km pace probably similarly to Mmmonyka without thinking about whether he wanted to. Just get it done. And SteveQ. Well SteveQ would do it on the hottest day of the year, with a broken tibia and an infected lung, on the day his car (and his stashed water) was stolen and he broke up with his girlfriend. And relish the challenge.

So I channeled all of that. It was not unlike getting an iv infusion of red bull and espresso. Pure energy and inspiration. And I got it done. 14 km including a hilly 5 km tempo in 21:00. I was very late for work. But god, it felt amazing.

How I got pregnant

2011-08-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

If you googled your way over here in the hopes of reading about heaving bosoms and throbbing members and glistening whatever... you're in for massive dissapointment. How did I get pregnant? In the usual way. Which might not sound like it's worth writing about, particularly in the absence of any entertaining details. What makes it worth writing about (I think) is that last time I did not get pregnant in the usual way. Last time, after approximately 18 months of failed attempts, we sought help from medical technology. We were never diagnosed with anything particular but were told that after 18 months of no success, our chances of conceiving on our own were less than 1%. We did a few of rounds of assisted reproduction and on the third attempt it took.

This time, for various reasons, we did not want to go that route. With "less than 1%" echoing in my head, I figured the chances of a sibling for la cocotte were slimmer than an ultramarathon runner. And for 10 months... nothing. Less than 1 % seemed about right. Meanwhile I continued my habitual reading of infertility blogs and came across one women`s story of conception. No diagnosis but no success in reproducing until... she came across a trick. Her writing came across as quite embarassed to have even tried it and definitely she did not attribute her success to this particular trick however she did say that for two years she had no success and the month she tried this trick it worked. Possibly coincidence. Probably coincidence. But she was putting it out there just in case it could help others.

So, on my 11th try, I used her trick. And I`m pregnant. Possible coincidence. Probable coincidence. But I wasn`t pregnant and, well, now I am. And I too am a little bit embarassed and sheepish to advocate this as a "sure fire fertility booster". I really do think it was dumb coincidence BUT if you send me $19.95 in a self addressed envelope, I will mail you back.... ok, totally kidding. Talk about bad karma. Here is the dumb secret that probably did NOT do the trick but now is reponsible for two "documented" pregnancies after months of lack of success... I am still embarassed to actually type this but here goes. Bicycle legs after sex. Legs in the air, supporting the hips from underneath the hipbones so that most of your weight is on your shoulder blades and upper back and bicycle your legs for a few minutes.

You read it on the internet. It MUST be true.

THE question

2011-08-26T03:33:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about we.ig.ht wa.tch.er's for awhile. It didn't take. I got derailed by vacation - who wants to be doing we.i.ght wa.tcher's when backpacking carrying 30 lbs at 8000 feet while climbing another 1000 feet? Who NEEDS to be doing we.i.ght wa.tcher's under those conditions??? Then when we got home, I was side tracked by other things. Despite the fact that I am running, it is less than normal because I am slowly coming back from my foot injury and cycling is just not the same. Not surprisingly lately my little belly has sprouted back into place.

The other day I got asked THE question for the first time in my life. One of the other daycare mom's looked VERY pointedly at my midsection and asked: "Are you expecting?". I was stunned. No one is supposed to ask that question... EVER... Doesn't she know the rule? UNLESS YOU ACTUALLY SEE THE HEAD EMERGING FROM BETWEEN HER LEGS - Don't ask a woman if she's pregnant!! ARE YOU CRAZY??? I sat there in stunned silence while she backtracked as much as possible - "oh, well, it's because you're normally thin and..."

But it's okay. It's all okay. One, because this woman is really goodness personified without a mean bone or bad intention in her body. Two, because, I am pregnant. 13 weeks. 13 weeks of secrecy. But I figured if an acquaintance was asking me then it was probably time to come out of the closet.

Scenes from a backpacking/camping vacation with a toddler

2011-08-16T18:26:00.000-07:00

Death Valley. July. 118 deg F. By chance we drove through there 2 or 3 days after the Badwater Ultramarathoners passed though - race goes from Badwater -282 feet BELOW sea level (lowest point in North America) to Mount Whitney summit 14,497 feet (highest point in the lower 48 states). 135 miles with total elevation gain of 19,000 feet in (see above) temperatures that can exceed 118 deg F. I felt over exerted just walking 100 m out of the car to take this picture!

At the Cottonwood Lakes trailhead at the start of our first backpacking adventure. La cocotte lasted about 10 minutes in the backpack and thereafter spent about 90% of the time on the trail in my arms.

Streamside at our campsite. La cocotte has apparently no nerve endings in her feet. The water could not have been more than about 4 deg C tunneling as it was through a nearby snow pack.

Nestled under our ultralight tarp (no tent to save weight!) amidst our messy gear.

View from campsite - well worth carrying toddler and gear 5 miles in and 2000 feet up.

Noe in Yosemite National Park - Yosemite falls (?) I think...

Campsite at Cathedral Lakes right before la cocotte strongly indicated her preference for being NOT there and we packed up and raced the waning daylight 5 miles back to the car (yup, we carried 40 pounds of gear for essentially a day hike)

Car camping at Tuolumne Meadows (~8500 feet which explains the down jacket - it's cold at 8500 feet, even in July)

If you go to Yosemite it is essentially mandatory to photograph Half Dome from Olmstead Point.

Spent the last night in Las Vegas before catching out flight out - always a nice jolt to the nervous system to go from the beauty of the Sierra Nevada, to the starkness of Death Valley to Las Vegas - the epitomy of everything wrong in the North American culture of excess (um, let's start with the concept of building a city where there is NO WATER!)

Just to end on a slightly more positive and instructive note - don't forget to brush kids!

If you're not sure how, ask your local toddler to help!

Bike revisited

2011-08-15T18:11:00.000-07:00

It happened! I exhausted myself on the bike this morning. It... was... amazing! I figured out a huge part of the reason I couldn't get my heart rate up on previous work-outs. It's all about the surface. Montreal has a dearth of smooth, bicycle friendly surfaces, which is strange because we have a huge network on bike paths. But even on the bike paths there are inevitably huge cracks and bumps and construction zones and I was forever braking, swerving or standing on the pedals and coasting to avoid punishing me lady bits on a huge pothole. This morning I headed out to Montreal's Formula 1/Nascar racing track, the Gilles Villeneuve Circut, which is doubles as a training ground for cyclists and roller bladers on Ile Notre Dame in the Saint Laurent River off the island of Montreal. Heaven! Bliss! Smooth as a single malt scotch. 4.38 km of sheer cardio heaven. No bumps, no cracks, no fear for the lady bits.

As I pumped away, turning over as fast as possible I had this strange sensation, like something was wrong with me - I just didn't feel like I normally do on the bike, I felt wonky and uncoordinated and then it hit me - it was the feeling of having gone out too fast and not been able to sustain the pace and slowly bonking. I was exhausting myself ON THE BIKE! Sweating like a pig, heart rate in the high 150s, work-out induced nausea, shaky tired legs, taste of exertion in my mouth, HEAVEN! I managed 5 laps - 9:03, 8:44, 9:10, 8:26, 8:43. Averaged JUST shy of 30 km/hour (29.8 km/hour). Which I have to admit the quantitative beast in me was disappointed in, with all the exertion and effort I thought/hoped maybe I was averaging maybe 32/33 kph but WHATEVER I EXHAUSTED myself on the bike. Yippee!

The track I was riding on is also the site of more races I have run than I can even clearly remember and PiccolaPineCone-on-the-bike also entertained herself by chasing down and squashing the myriad of ghosts of running PPC. Speed is fun. Out of shape PPC on the bike still destroys running PPC. The other wonderful thing about cycling, which I`ve mentioned before, is the sheer range of access it provides to strangely beautiful places I don`t otherwise often get to. Not mountains in California beautiful but urban beautiful and all to myself at 5.30-7.00 am, definitely a unique experience:

Montreal from Ile Jean Drapeau (island next to the island with the track)

Montreal skyline from Ile Notre Dame

Site of expo `67 against Montreal skyline (obviously not taken this morning as indeed none of these were, nor were they taken by me!)

Green scene on Ile Jean Drapeau

Notes from a backpacking and camping vacation with a toddler

2011-07-31T17:45:00.000-07:00

When we decided to take la cocotte on a backpacking, camping vacation, we knew that we were not exactly signing up for a relaxing vacation at Club Med. But backpacking has been an integral part of our couple hood and we were eager to share this particular area of the world with la cocotte. She is, after all, named after an important natural entity in that part of the world. Which, as an aside, made for a strange experience. La cocotte's name is not exactly common. It is not unheard of, people recognize the name when they hear it but there will (hopefully) never be multiple children sharing her name in any of her classes. So although predictable, it was still somewhat of a shock to be in that part of the world - Yosemite and surroundings - and see her name EVERYWHERE. _______Lane, Old _______Highway, The _______Laundromat, _______Inn, Ye Old _______Fish and Tackle Shop, _______ Beer & Booze. In neon lights, fading highway billboards, faux western signs, tourist shops, grocery stores, her name was omnipresent. I also felt embarrassingly cheesy when answering the inevitable "what is her name?" question. I guess it's not so cheesy name a child _______ when you live 5,000 km from _______ but it felt cheesy there. Yes, I realize I am inviting guesses and that's ok. But if I have told you la cocotte's real name in a private e-mail or if you've met her in person, that doesn't count as a guess!

But back to backpacking. We attempted two separate, two night backpacking trips. There are several challenges when backpacking with a toddler most of which we were very much aware of in theory while planning the trip. Hubby and I usually try to go light to ultra light when backpacking. We usually do 7-10 day, 80-130 mile trips and try to keep our packs to 28 lbs or under, this weight includes the 4 pound bear canisters the National Park Service obliged backpackers in Yosemite to carry. To stay light, everything we carry has a purpose if not two or three and nothing we carry is unused (except for some emergency gear - we skimp on comfort but not safety). Toddlers are, from the ultralight backpacking perspective, complete disaster! They require tons of extra gear some of which is actually heavier & more voluminous on the way OUT than on the way IN (used diapers must be packed out). Not only do they necessitate extra weight, they don't even often carry their OWN weight. We carried one backpack and one baby backpack which meant that one of us carried the lion's share of all gear and the other carried baby. And baby's baby because, oh yes, toddlers travel with baby dolls. Talk about insult to the ultralight backpacking aesthetic, we actually carried in her baby doll (which you can see here). Note the eNORmous plastic head which weighs about a pound and complete lack of practical purpose (practical in the backpacking context... clearly it baby had a crucial emotional purpose).

Did I say toddlers travel? I use that term loosely. Which brings us to the next challenge. Toddlers actually do not travel very far or very linearly and rarely in the direction that leads one to the destination for that evening. One of the books we read prior to leaving said that when hiking with toddlers, to forget about miles per hour and think instead in terms of HOURS per MILE. So, so, so true. And hard for an anal, time-obsessed competitive runner, former serious backpacker to do. So our typical session of "hiking" went something like this:
~coax la cocotte into baby backpack
~walk 10 minutes
~la cocotte starts repeatedly calling "down! down!"
~coax her for another 5 minutes
~realize this is her vacation too and put her down
~complete standstill as she plays with a rock/anthill/leak/horse poop for 10 minutes
~pick her up in my arms and carry her for 100 meters ignoring "down! down!"
~repeat previous 5 steps
~repeat previous 8 steps
~la cocotte falls alseep - walk hike as quickly as possible during her nap not bothering to look at scenery, not stopping to pee, eat, drink etc.

But it was good, mostly good. Once I purged myself of all time and distance goals and realized how much fun the JOURNEY can be, I relaxed and let go. Letting go of past obsessions was probably a healthy exercise for me. And we did, of course, realize ahead of time that "hiking" would proceed very much as described above.

What we were not prepared for was the crying fit when we got to our destination for the night, a pretty lake in a rocky bowl about 5 miles from the trail head. La cocotte would not settle and every time I put her down she made a beeline for her baby carrier and frantically tried to climb in. By this time it was 6 pm and hubby and I were quite exhausted and had barely managed to do all the chores - tarp pitching, water fetching etc.. It was starting to feel a little like the plot of a Hollywood B horror movie: terrified toddler sensing that something wicked this way comes tries to convince exhausted, unpersuaded parents to leave... LEAVE NOW! We were really unsure what to do. It seemed we were trading off the dangers of hiking out, exhausted, in fading daylight against possibly having a terrified toddler on our hands all night. We decided to question her further.

Now normally, when it comes to giving information, our not-quite-yet-two year old toddler is about as reliable as a magic 8 ball (yes! no! maybe! ask again later!). This time though she was quite consistent:
-Do you want to stay? shake.
-Do you want to go back to the car? nod.
-Do you want to sleep here? shake.
-Do you want to sleep in a bed? nod.
-Where is the car? points in the correct direction.

Hmmmmm. Exhausted parents. Fading daylight. Terrified toddler. Hmmmmmm.
Ultimately we decided that there are certain things that she, as a two year old, must do with no negotiation - brush her teeth, share, take her vitamin D, go to daycare. But backpacking is simply not on that list. We decided to not risk scarring our child's psyche and destroying the tranquility of anyone within a mile radius and bust a move out there.

We broke camp in 21 minutes ( a record) and hiked the 5 miles out in 1 hour 33 minutes (downhill, but a record nonetheless). La cocotte, somehow sensing the need for speed, calmly sat in the baby backpack the entire time and did not request down once. We made it back to the car exhausted but with about 20 minutes to spare before complete darkness.

Other than that we did lots of throwing of rocks into streams, lots of playing on logs and watching of deer. We did small scale activities in a large scale place. Meaning that while Yosemite is a place of grand cliffs, imposing waterfalls, impressive mountains, enormous trees, we would spend hours sitting on a sedge hump in a meadow playing with gravel or just letting la cocotte go in and out of the door of our tent for ages. In the end the scenery and the grandeur of the park was largely lost on her which we mostly expected. But we knew we were there and that she had seen it on some level.

I have to say it was a bit of an achingly uncomfortable situation for me to be in my favorite spot in the world and not be able to take it in physically. Xapis wrote a post awhile back about how running makes her feel connected to a place and I could really relate to that sentiment. Yosemite is overwhelming in her beauty, angles, shadows, spaces, plays of light... it is impossible to take it in. One of the rangers was once asked by a visitor - "what would you see in the park if you only had half a day?" and he answered "if I only had half a day in Yosemite I would go out into that meadow and cry." But running allows me to become intimate with the microscale of one small piece of it. I cannot absorb the whole park but I know, for example, that there is a downed lodgepole pine tree along the Lyle Canyon trail that is home to a Picket Pin and lupines ring the decaying edges of its home. That sort of secret knowledge makes me feel like I have truly experienced something. Not being able to really run or indeed hike very far on this vacation almost made me feel isolated from the park as if I were not truly there. So that took some adjustment but of course the trade off is well, well worth it.

The other thing noteworthy about this vacation was the simple fact of spending 24 hours a day, day after day with la cocotte. It really drove home how much development we miss by being working parents. It happened time after time that she said or did something seemingly out of the blue that we could only guess came from the daycare experience. It was a fascinating yet somehow melancholy sensation to see all these sides of her, or, her bag of tricks so to speak that we just don't get to bear witness to by only spending 4-5 waking hours with her on week-days. Though she learned some new tricks on this trip as well - she learned to nuzzle up to hubby's chest and say, very hopefully, "lait de papa?" (milk from daddy?). She also clearly thinks that hubby and I control the world. Maybe not the world but the wind, rain, wildlife.... time and time again she would see a deer and say "chevreuil!" and then look at us and demand "encore chevreuil!", "encore écureuil", "encore bateau!" or whatever else had captured her fancy. It was pretty hilarious to me that she thought we could control all these entities when we couldn't even successfully get her to wear her hat.

I think ultimately we chose the exactly wrong developmental stage to attempt back packing and hiking. La cocotte is HYPER mobile and therefore resistance to being carried and ANY sort of device but her wonderful little brain is still largely reptilian and impossible to reason, rationalize or negotiate with. Actually she is a GREAT negotiator. Everything gets done her way! All in all it was a wonderful though exhausting vacation. I think, I hope la cocotte had a wonderful time too. Certainly there were moments of swimming, dirt digging, door slamming, rock throwing that were pure pleasure for her. The fact that these moments all could have happened in the park around the corner is perhaps neither here nor there.

Tired in a different way

2011-07-11T18:55:00.000-07:00

I tried the bike again this morning. Meaning not just to get me to work but actually for a breathing-hard, sweaty work-out. It was... odd. I was pushing as hard as I could (I think) and managed to cover just over 30 km in an hour on a very flat bicycle path which I think is decent(ish)?? I really don't know. My runner's brain was certainly boggling at seeing the kilometers click by in 2 minutes apiece! But it was odd. It took me awhile to figure out what wasn't sitting well (other than my lady bits which, ouch, anyway, enough about that) finally it hit me. My legs were straining and hurting. I was sweating up a storm. But I wasn't breathing hard. At all. Just to make sure I tried an old pregnancy trick of mine - when I was running pregnant I used to try singing sometimes as I was running to make sure that I was not working too hard. I figured if I could sing out loud, I was keeping the effort reasonable. So I belted out the Hallelujah chorus right there on the bicycle which takes more lung power than any other piece I know how to sing and sure enough not breathing hard. I even did both the alto and soprano parts.

So I am really not sure what that means. I know for a FACT it does not mean that I am SUCH a kick ass cyclist that I don't even breathe hard and I really don't mean to imply that. My guess is either - it's just normal, cycling is more of a muscular work-out than an aerobic work-out or else I just don't have good enough technique to make myself breathe hard. I did do one nasty 700 foot climb and that definitely got me breathing hard but I just could not get that aerobic effect on the flat. I got off the bike after covering about 48 kilometers total. As I was swinging my leg over the seat I was thinking that it was disappointing that I just couldn't get that dead-tired running feeling. Then suddenly I wasn`t thinking that anymore. Instead I was thinking about how hard the sidewalk was when it hit my ass. Yup my legs just GAVE out when I got off the bike. What a strange, strange sensation. They were tired for the rest of the day. So weird... not breathing hard but so muscularly tired.

It`s not the instant gratification of the high heart rate, out-of-breath-working-hard feeling that I have gotten used to with running. But I appreciate the work-out that it is. What else do I appreciate about cycling? I enjoy how much more I get to see just by virtue of the sheer amount of ground I can cover cycling as opposed to the same time spent running. I got to the end of this (formerly) running (now) cycling path that I have never had to the time to get to on foot. I appreciate all the extra protein I got as 500,000 flies flew directly into my cakehole which I eventually learned to shut. It was fun washing all the dead flies off of me that found their way into my sports bra. I appreciate the fine sensation of NOT having my lady bits pulverized with every bump in the road once I got OFF the bike. Hmm.

Dear Foot,
Get well soon. Please.
Yours,
Rest of Body

Relativism

2011-06-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

Last week-end la cocotte and I were doing some shopping at a baby accessory store. Well she was more shoplifting than shopping. As we were leaving I noticed she had lifted one of the ugly baby dolls that was being used to demonstrate the change table. La cocotte toddled full speed towards the exit as if she would be home free if she could just get out the door with her baby. I caught her, "convinced" her to give up the baby and hustled her out the door. She wailed. And wailed. And wailed. It was clear that her little cocotte heart was breaking. At first I was impatient and annoyed with and by the fuss. Then it occurred to me that relatively speaking, the abrupt withdrawal of her baby was probably as painful to her as it would be to me if someone 5 times my size plucked la cocotte out of my arms with an abrupt: "sorry, you'll have to leave this behind."

This concept of the relativeness of experience is something I have been wrestling with for awhile. Do people experience their disappointments, pain and grief on a relative scale or are they experienced in absolute terms? Let me put this into more concrete terms... imagine a person who leads an extremely charmed and fortunate life in terms of health, wealth, circumstances etc.. This person, who has never experienced what most people would consider to be true hardship, might experience an event like breaking an arm as a true tragedy because in their framework i.e. relative to their daily experience, it is. Now think of a person is heartbreaking circumstances, let me use an example from a poignant book I have been reading lately about NGOs in Afghanistan, picture a women who has been thrown in jail for having "committed the crime" of being raped. Not only is she put in jail, but her children are put in jail with her and held, for years, without any kind of recourse. Could it be that the pain in these two cases is actually experienced in the same way due to the relative circumstances of the two people?

Relativism is a theme that comes up in many discussions. Cultural relativity is often used to make the [ridiculous] argument that certain actions, although reprehensible and heinous by our cultutal standards, are acceptable in other cultures and they should be judged within the cultural context in which they occur. So that although in our culture it is unacceptable to perform female castration or throw women in jail with their children because they were raped, within the cultural context in which they occur these are acceptable and behaviors and practices cannot be viewed in absolute terms. Bullshit I say. There are certain things that can be deemed to be absolutely morally WRONG regardless of the cultural context in which they occur.

But back to the relativity of human pain. How do people experience pain? Is it with an awareness of the absolute range of human experience or is it strictly within the context of what they themselves have experienced? I guess I struggle with this because I often get frustrated even angry with myself for being upset by the small things that go awry in my life when overall I really do have a charmed and fortunate existence. Like, for example, how can I allow myself to be so sad when every month I am NOT pregnant when I have an amazing, happy, healthy toddler whom I love and so many other things that enrich my life? How can I sometimes lose myself in this pain? I am so incredibly lucky and there are so many people who are truly in pain, it feels almost shameful to allow myself room for this pain. But I guess it is human... it is human to allow the pain in but perhaps healthy to always try to maintain a sense of perspective or in other words some kind of balance between the absolute and the relative.

I started reading blogs in the infertility community i.e. the blogs of women who were struggling with fertility issues as they tried to conceive. I read those blogs back when we were struggling to conceive la cocotte. I was often amazed by the warmth, support and humanity I found in the network of these blogs... on the other hand there was also somewhat an element of: no one is allowed to complain but us. I came across many bitter tirades against co-workers, family members, friends etc. of these women who would make the unforgiveable mistake of complaining about how exhausted they were as a result of caring for their children and the message I often found was loud and clear - no one who has conceived has the right to complain about their children or pregnancies after all the hardship I have been through. Which is kind of silly... just because I am having trouble conceiving doesn't make my colleague who has three children any less exhausted after being up for many hours at night with his children... it doesn't make my colleague who recently announced she is pregnant after trying exactly ONCE have any less morning sickness and, besides, all of these problems... not being able to conceive, exhaustion, nausea pale in comparison to the suffering of most.

But I don't mean to make this about infertility or conception, those are just examples. Where am I going with all of this? Not really sure. Just stuff I have been chewing on for awhile. I guess ultimately I think it is human to feel. Human to lose oneself a little in one's own experience and emotions relative to the context of one's own life. It is healthier and perhaps wiser to try to put one's pain in a larger context.

Holy Mother of OUCH!

2011-06-27T17:55:00.000-07:00

Let me sum up this morning's outing on my bicycle as follows: the pain in my ass that I now have makes the pain in my foot, which precipitated the ride in the first place, feel like an utter joy in comparison. If running is akin to making love on a summer's night in a grassy field, under the moonlight with one's life partner, long and sweet, climaxing in simultaneous orgasm, than bicycling is a nervous, awkward, unskilled groping session in the backseat of a 1999 Honda Civic with fast food wrappers strewn all around and a foul stench in the air. Though, to continue the painful analogy, there is no passion between cycling and I. Zero interest in a long term relationship. I am just using the bike to breathe hard and sweat. There are no plans for the future, dreams or hopes so perhaps it wasn't realistic to hope for the satisfaction I get from a long, hard, um... run.

Also not realistic was the expectation that I could take my bicycle out after five years of use and actually have it work. Although the tires held pressure very nicely and the brakes functioned well, I had my "choice" of exactly one gear. A very, very easy, tensionless, legs spinning ineffectively gear. I realized the plan of going long and flat would not pan out and so decided instead to climb Montreal's famous Mount Royal along the route used by the World Cup cyclists when that event comes to town: a 400 foot climb over one mile. I did it three times, 9 minutes each, and that worked very well as a work-out. I was definitely breathing and sweating. A humbling new experience to absolutely the slowest person out there. I'm not kidding. I got passed by everyone. Professional looking cyclists in sweet looking gear but also her:

and her:

I did pass one person when I finished my work-out and I was haplessly spinning in first gear along the flat road to work, but she was wearing high heels and a skirt.

So on the way home I took the bike into a shop for a tune up, I'll have it back in four days but honestly... I think I may be trading a broken foot for a broken ass. I really don't know if I can get back on the saddle again. When I road from work to the bike store I had to stand up the whole way because my hiney was too sore to sit down. I'm hoping that it is an adjustment issue and when I pick up the bike they will help me adjust it properly for me, all I know is that the seat and handlebars theoretically CAN be adjusted but I don't know what the goal in adjusting them should be. Other than that - cushier seat? Padded bikeshorts?

After 11 days on We.ig.ht Wa.tc.her's

2011-06-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

First, thanks again for the comments that were left after my first post on this topic. I expected either a) nothing or b) scathing comments (echoing those in my head) along the lines of "stop being such a whiny obsessive jerk". So thanks. Several people commented that they didn't think W.ei.ght Wa.tc.her's was designed with athletes in mind. My feeling? Yes and no. The program is points based not calories based. Based on my weight and (fake) height, I am allocated 29 points per day. In addition there are 49 extra bopnus points which can be used throughout the week. Just to give an idea, a typical frozen meal (yes, I eat them, terrible I know!!) is 6 points. A frozen waffle (again, terrible, I know) is 2. An egg is 2 points. Or, for the more quantitatively inclined, 10 g of carbs or protein are each 1 point and 10 g of fat is 3 points. There is a place to enter one's activity and under running, one can select anywhere from 5(!) to 10 miles per hour... so clearly they are aware that people can and do run 5 miles an hour so there is definitely allowance for athletes. On the other hand I typically wind up earning 15 extra points through exercise or 50% of my baseline allocation and I am not sure if they really intended people to increase their allocation to that extent - they advise that everyone try to do enough activity per day to earn 2 points (20 minute of slow walking) so I guess the program does account of all kinds of people and activity levels.

After 11 days how do I feel? Well, first I have to admit that I have cheated substantially on 4 of those days (oops). However overall I essentially feel like I am buying willpower and accountability (even if only to the money that I spent). I now feel an awareness of what I am eating and am better able to monitor whether I am really hungry or eating for the wrong reasons. Yes, ideally I should have been able to do this on my own but I haven't been and now I seem to be able to so well worth the money spent. In terms of quantitative results, I am down 3.5 pounds... of course some of this is water fluctuation and noise but my clothes are feeling better and I *was* feeling better on my runs until...

[segue to different topic]

My car broke down. And by car I mean my 1974 Piccola Pine Cone with 80,000 kilometers on it and brand new Nike tires. I have this weird foot pain going on that I have never felt before. It is sharp feeling on impact now both running and walking, it feels like it is at the base of the 3rd or 4th metatarsal sort of under the ball of my foot. So painful... and hard to be gentle with since even walking is painful. I was feeling really bummed for awhile because not being able to run essentially meant (I thought) not being able to work out since I use my commute to work-out for efficiency. If I have to set aside extra time in the day to work out well... there simply is no extra time for that. Even if I had the time to go to the gym everyday, it only opens at 6.30 am. if it opened at 5 am I could probably go to the gym but that's not an option. Then it hit me.... DUH.... BICYCLE! I HAVE a bicycle. I haven't ridden it in many years but riding bicycle is a lot like (wait for it) riding a bicycle! No one forgets how to ride a bicycle. This will allow me to continue to use my commute as a place to train. I pulled it out. Pumped up the tired, waited, they held. Tested the brakes, they held. Then I ran out of things that I know how to check on a bicycle (stop laughing Mmmmonyka). Anyway tomorrow is the maiden voyage. I'm kind of excited because I know NOTHING about times or routes on my bicycle, I have no idea what is fast or not or what I can do. I have no idea if my bicycle is good or not. I know I have toe clips instead of those scary shoes that latch to the pedal that make me panic. I also have no computer on my bike so I won't be able to get all anal about it. Ignorance really is feel like bliss. Tomorrow morning early I take the bicycle out to the very flat bicycle path along the canal and let her rip. I'm more excited that I thought I could be given that I cannot run.

What's the deal with the sucking?

2011-06-18T16:51:00.000-07:00

I know that newborns & infants are programmed to suck. I get it. It's an evolutionary drive. Suck. Eat. Grow. Live. Flourish. But what is the deal with the continuing obsession with sucking as la cocotte nears her 2nd birthday? In a move that was traumatic to all three of us, we recently weaned her from her nuk (a.k.a. dummy, paci, soother, suss) though she still gets it in the stroller, the car and in bed. That's the deal we negotiated (negotiating with a two year old is like negotiating with the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company... not tons of wiggle room and prone to interpreting things favorably in their direction). But when she needs that nuk, she NEEDS it. I see her in her crib sometimes when it falls out and she (in her sleep) frantically opens and closes her mouth like a baby bird and will almost suck on the air. She is still nursing and I don't see her (actually to be honest, either of us) giving up that habit anytime soon. Heck is any of my random body parts get close to her mouth she will suck on them - recently my forearm strayed near her baby bird mouth while she was sleeping and sure enough, she latched. I'm not complaining, just puzzled. What is the deal with the non-nutritive sucking??

Race Report: Fatter, Slower, Weaker

2011-06-14T18:39:00.000-07:00

I promise this won't be a totally, self-indulgent, whining post, I just couldn't resist using that as a title. Who needs to go higher, faster, stronger when fatter, slower, weaker is just oh, so much easier??
So, yes, I raced this week-end [ed: now last week-end because it has taken me this long to post this post] and it was oh... so.... slow. I seriously would have sworn the course was long had it not had a certification number. I thought, FOR SURE, I was in shape for a 38:30 and, though I didn't admit it to, well, me, I actually felt like I might surprise myself with my first sub-38 of 2011. Well the gun went off and my body sure felt like it was running goal pace, somewhere between 3:48-3:51 per km. Only problem was I would hit 3:48, look up, and the kilometer marker would still be many meters distant. Ugly, just ugly. One bright spot is that I scored high in my age category. Normally I don't care about placing but this race is part of a series that I would really like to win because the prize is - free entry into all of next year's races. Sweet. The other bright spot is that la cocotte totally NAILED the monkey bars in the minutes prior to the race.

So yes, I am getting slower - a 39:01 10 km is definitely worse than an 18:29 5 km. I am getting fatter - clothing does not fit well, numbers on the scale are marching ever upwards and I could literally feel that with every foot strike propels me less far as my beer belly drags me persistently to the ground (oh wait, I promised no self indulgent whining). I am getting weaker - I can feel everything wobbling every which way as my core strength dwindles away. Here's the part I don't get - why is all of this happening when I am slacking off on training, not doing intervals, overeating, drinking too much beer? Why am I NOT immune to the fundamental laws of physiology and, perhaps, physics? Ok, seriously, here's the part I REALLY don't get. WHY am I overeating, drinking too much beer, not training hard etc. THAT the is the part I need to figure out.

This week-end in desperation I browsed over to the Canadian We.ig.ht Wa.tche.r's site. I figured a program from them might provide the structure and discipline I am lacking. I also figured that actually paying money might incentivize me to stick to a plan. Their homepage asks for weight, height, gender and birth date. After plugging in my info, I was told that their online programs are not suitable for me because of my height and weight - read: I am not above their minimum healthy weight. I was told to eat some more ice cream, drink some more beer and get back to them. (no, not really).

What to do... only eat when I am hungry? Drink lots of water? Exercise? Eat high fibre foods, lots of vegetables and lean protein? That's just crazy talk! So, of course I instead, went BACK to the W.eigh.t Wat.cher's site and LIED about my height and presto bingo they took my money. I am now the proud owner of a fictitious 5'4" body. Ok, I realize this makes me sound absolutely a) crazy b) annoying to be whining about my weight when I am not even above the WW minimum c) annoying to be whining about ANYTHING related to my body when I have a happy, healthy body that generally lets me do whatever I want.... BUT... okay, I have no but (I have an ever widening butT but that's another story). No, wait, I DO have a but. BUT my goals require a lean, athletic body and this is something for whatever reason I am having a hard time maintaining. I feel like this is the beginning of a slippery slope. If I let these 7 pounds linger, 7 will become 10, 10 will become 15... It's a slippery slope I tell you! Not unlike using bad cliches like "slippery slope" in one's writing or words like "incentivize" that don't actually exist - eventually one's writing disintegrates into a jumble of incoherent, boring nonsense.

Bottom line - I am signed up with Wei.g.h.t Wat.che.r's. I am not crazy. I just want to get back to my fighting weight. A weight where my clothing fits. A weight where I feel strong and light while running.

You run in the rain?

2011-05-28T06:06:00.000-07:00

My co-worker asked me as I arrived at work on a rainy day, dripping wet, in my running clothes. So hard not to be sarcastic sometimes... It was asked with such incredulity & disbelief that if I just listened to the tone and ignored the content, he may well have been asking: You let your toddler drink out of the toilet?

I know this is a common runner's experience, the disbelief we elicit in other when despite the [rain, wind, cold, sweltering heat, hail, tornadoes, tsunamis] we go out and do our run anyway. I am actually constantly surprised at their surprise because let's face it, if I only ran when it was not precipitating and between 5 - 20 deg C (which seem to be the only conditions under which people are not surprised that I am running) I would only run about 50 days a year. I AM self aware enough to know that I do somewhat enjoy the reactions to my running in less than unusual circumstances [to the airport backpack on back to catch a flight with colleagues, at lunchtime instead of eating, at 2 am to get home after working late on a pressing deadline, when 9 months pregnant]. I also know that of the few people who read this blog, few if anyone will find any of that strange (what is a few of a few anyway?).

But incredulity at running in the rain? Really? Has our society gotten that soft? I don't mean that in an arrogant sort of way because I know that I have gotten soft. I buy convenience foods & take out instead of cooking, heck I buy food instead of growing it! I spend $3 riding the bus when I could easily walk or run. I HIRE someone else to clean my home once every two weeks. The North American lifestyle has gotten so work-obsessed, convenience-driven and so avoidant of any adverse conditions that even running in the rain now seems like an inconceivable hardship.My grandmother lived to be almost 100 and, as any person who lives that long, saw tremendous changes in her lifetime. I think she happened to live through a period of incredible transformation in the daily life. Also, like all people who lived through the depression, raised children during the depression, she was shocked and appalled and the waste and excess she saw later in her life. I know everyone's grandparents have stories of walking 10 miles to school, uphill, both ways, in the snow (well actually my Grandmother did not, she was not fortunate enough to attend school after grade 5 as she was needed on the farm). Ultimately I know the generations that came before are always dismayed by the change, waste, excess, lack of seriousness, softness of the people who come after. But if running in the rain evokes such strong reactions of surprise & shock... this is indicative of a larger problem. My grandmother never found it surprising when I rain in the rain.

In which la cocotte & I meet Mmmonyka

2011-05-21T19:31:00.000-07:00

When I started my blog I figured it was just a matter of time before I met someone, in the flesh, as a result of being a blogger and last week-end, it happened! I was truly honoured that Mmmonyka used some of her precious vacation time to come to Montreal, check out the city and stay with me and la cocotte. And truly dismayed by how onerous her trip home was. But let's focus on the positive...

What a treat to meet Mmmonyka after learning about her solely through her blog and e-mail exchanges. It's weird meeting interweb people in real life isn't it? Because in my case, no one I actually know in real life reads my blog (with apologies to Karoline and Marko if they are reading, whom I DO know in real life but they were from my fantasy year in Trieste which I am still not entirely sure I did not actually dream). Anyway point being, as far as I know Marko & Karoline are the only two people whom I know in real life (oh, right, and now Mmmonyka) who know about my blog. And while I have not reached the level of honest introspection that I had hoped for here, I do (occasionally) write things I simply would not tell people I actually know. It's kind of my private space... you know private in a visible-to-the-1.9-billion-people-on-the-interweb kind of way. But since I intuit that 99.999999% of these 1.9 billion people have not found my little space; it feels private. So yeah, suddenly there, on my couch was someone whom I had never actually met who knew things about me that some people I have known my entire life do not. Which was weird. Or, by all rights it should have been weird. But it wasn't. Why? Partially, I think, because Mmmonyka was exactly who I was expecting based on her blog. It DID feel like I already knew her, there was no jolting feeling as I tried to harmonize whom I thought she would be with whom she actually turned out to be. Ok, her accent was more exotic, her legs a bit longer than in my head but the stuff of substance was very much as presented on her blog - determined, self sufficient, hard working, serious, debrouillard. And, as a total bonus, a natural with toddlers. After 30 minutes of shyness, la cocotte was all over her.

This visit also made me reflect on trust. I tend to be a ridiculously trusting person and it rarely occurs to me that a situation could be dangerous due to the bad intentions of humans. I give rides to hitch hikers, walk alone late at night in strange cities and if they ever offered I would definitely take candy from strangers. I also, as it turns out, not only offer to let people I have never met in the flesh stay at my apartment but also I give them the keys BEFORE I have actually met them so they can come and go as they please. Now those of you who know Mmmonyka through her blog are probably thinking "oh please, it's Mmmonyka, of COURSE she is exactly as she seems" and clearly I agree... so let me make this absolutely clear that this NOT about Mmmonyka (whom I hope I am really not offending) this is about trust in strangers in general. I think it is okay to be blindly trusting of everyone when my actions only affect me. If I did invite an interweb person to stay in my apartment who wound up doing horror-movie type things to me then well live (or not) and learn. My hubby would be out a wife (and let's face it with the burping and farting and smelly running clothes and constant fatigue supressing my sex drive some might consider this to be no big loss) and he (hubby) might have to get blood stains out of the carpet. But with la cocotte on the scene maybe it is time to be less blindly trusting.

Again... this is not about Mmmonyka but rather about my unrelenting belief that the world is safe and people can be trusted. We (Mmmonyka and I) had a conversation while she was here about how neither of us ever really conceive that there could be danger from other humans in a situation. Seeing the world through trusting eyes has definite benefits. I get to meet interweb people and have fun with them and I get to run in strange cities without fear when I travel for work and theoretically eat the yummy candy from strangers... in other words it is a positive and happy way to perceive one's world. But maybe now as a mommy, it's time to get the guard up a little and instill some healthy distrust both in la cocotte and in me. There's still time. La cocotte isn't going anywhere alone anytime soon. Yet I find myself pondering to what extent I have to change my happy vision of the world to be a responsible parent.

Anyway Mmmonkya, thank you for being exactly who you appear to be on your blog. Thanks for taking the time to visit and entertaining la cocotte. She thought you were cool. Me too.

Mmmonyka, la cocotte and ugly naked doll

What a difference an hour makes

2011-04-28T19:15:00.000-07:00

5.15 pm: finished my warm-up, stretching before a 5 km tempo run. This woman wanders by, does a triple take, and finally says: "Jessica, is that you?". She looked so happy and excited that I actually felt guilty about disappointing her. Without thinking, I blurted out: "No, I'm sorry. I'm not her." Yup. Literally apologizing for being myself and not someone else (you know you might be an over-apologizer when...)

6.15 pm: Endless series of chores with la cocotte. Foolishly decided not to bring the stroller. Carrying 24 pounds of sheer squirm around in my aching arms on very tired legs. Dehydrated (me). Hungry (la cocotte). Smelly (me and la cocotte). I dropped off a perscription at the pharmacy and went to the post office while they were filling it. The guy in front me was doing the most complicated transaction ever that seemed to involve sending something requiring a lot of paperwork to Ghana. Got back to the pharmacy. The line that had formed to drop off perscriptions had now moved to the other end for prescription pick up. Went to grocery store. back to pharmacy. Long line. Went to bank machine. Back to pharmacy. Long line. Went to photo store. Back to pharmacy. Long line. Cocotte now screaming and trying to launch herself from my arms by kicking off my ribs. Tongue stuck to roof of mouth with dehydration. Cannot stand my own stench. CUT THE ENTIRE LINE and asked for my prescription. I don't think I was entitled because I had a baby. I think I was just having an asshole moment. And I did feel guilty as I left (though I am sure everyone was glad to see us go for oh so many reasons).

Yup, from apologizing for being me to cutting in front of 5 people. What a difference 60 minutes (a work-out, a screaming, hungry cocotte with a dirty diaper and dehydration makes).

Here's a happier cocotte:

Race Report: In which I make a VERY STOOOPID MISTAKE

2011-04-17T11:15:00.000-07:00

So stupid was this mistake that it does not deserve the benefit of a correctly spelled adjective to qualify it. STOOOOPID. VERY STOOOOPID. But let me back up. Race morning dawned bright and beautiful. No wait, that's right, race morning bit the BIG one. I would describe it as windy but that would put in mind white caps on the Saint Lawrence River, umbrellas being blown inside out, babies being blown down the road in their strollers... this was Something Else Entirely. This was runners being blown off the course, not being able to run in a straight line.... the kind of wind that is ferocious that it is difficult to breathe because either the air is whipping by as a cross wind and it is difficult to sample air that is passing one's cake hole at 10,000 kph (yes, the wind was blowing at 10,000 kph, no post-race rationalization-induced exaggeration, I swear) or else when it was blowing straight in my face, I was afraid to open my mouth for fear of getting more than I could process into my cake hole. Yup, it was the kind of wind where you turn your head deliberately to the side and try to sip the air. It was the kind of wind that makes a runner hit their calf with their opposite heel on every step. Ok, it was windy, you get it.

So there I am at 10 km, feeling not too bad thank you very much for asking, a little off my target pace of 4:06/km, splitting the 10 km at 41:25 instead of 41:00 but really, whatever. At this point the course leaves the formula 1 race track (yes, as in the fast car Grand Prix racing thingy - cool eh?) and comes to the Olympic basin which is a long and skinny rectangle of water for rowing-type activities. When I say long, its sides are over 2 km long. In fact I once ran a 5 km race whose entire course was essentially to run around the basin. Somewhere in the back of my reptilian brain, I registered that the runners leading the race were directly across the basin from me, heading back in the other direction. I also definitely registered the VERY strong tailwind that had just pushed me to an effortless 3:52 km. And when I say effortless, I mean that wind basically picked me up at 10 km and tossed me to 11 km without my feet ever touching the ground. There was a little pack of runners about 20 m ahead of me, otherwise I am all alone. La la la la. We come to the end of the basin and turn the corner to run the short side of the basin, la la la la la la. Suddenly it all clicks in my little reptilian brain. Windy muchy, me aloney, much work. So I sprint desperately to catch the little pack but by this time we have turned face into the wind and I am so cannot catch them. Get even more exhausted trying. Now must run 2 km into headwind after fruitless 100 m sprint. Talk about one of THE CLASSIC blunders: "Never start a land war in Asia", "Never get involved with a Sicilian when death is on the line" but only slightly less known is "When it's windy put face in ass of runner in front of you and hold on like a dog with a bone".

So those 2 km totally broke me. Then these 6 tall & wide runners appeared, as if out of nowhere and said "hey, you looked pooped. Hows about we run 3 feet in front of you in a perfect line? Then, when we're done here maybe we can go to your place and do 5 loads of laundry, buy some groceries and cook some meals for the week." Fantasies are fun. I adjusted the effort and the pace obliging scaled linearly to 4:25 per km. I tried to be patient and calm but with about 500 m to go (500 m on this particular stretch that is, there were still another 7 kms of windy goodness to come afterwards), there was a huge gust of wind. The kind that feels like it is coming after me personally. Then I got frustrated and even angry. I think I actually said out loud: "This is f**cking ridiculous". I may have even shook my fist. And it hit me, as things do when travelling 14 kph on foot, that I was actually getting angry at the wind. I was angry... at the WIND. What a fabulous metaphor. There are so many things in all of our lives that cause us frustration. The way to stay sane and happy is to sort them into those which we can and cannot control. Though it is, admittedly, a bit of a trick to sort things into what is and is not in our sphere of influence - that's what I pay my therapist good money for. Getting angry at things truly out of our control is like getting mad at the wind. A useless, energy draining waste of time. It sounds so obvious now but I rode the crap out of the metaphor until I got to the 15 km marker and some shelter.

Even buoyed by this newfound, albeit totally hackneyed and obvious, bit of wisdom, I was pretty pooped for the last 6 km. In fact I was all kinds of tired. Seriously, I discovered a new way of being tired. It wasn't heaving out of breath tired or muscular fatigure... more of a tingly, I'm on drugs and no longer really inside my body tired. Actually it was not unpleasant. But it was really hard to care whether I ran 1:27 or 1:30 at this point. Hard... to.... care.

At 20 km, I passed the guy from last week who told me about using this race as a qualifier for NYC in the first place. I screamed at him: "Go! Go! Go! Think New York! New York! New York!" before realizing that he, being a he, would have to run the BOY time of 1:24 and it said 1:23:30 on my watch and we will had 1.1 km to go. Then I felt like an ass. So I ran faster. Then my feelings of asshole-ish-ness were drowned out by the unexpected and mostly unwelcome refrain of "Dinosaur Train!", "Dinosaur Train!". And then the race ended in 1 hour 28 minutes and 11 seconds.

Dinosaur Train

2011-04-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

Two and a half hours until the start of the 1/2 Marathon.

1. It is PISS POURING rain. And that is the GOOD news b/c it is barely above zero, so it's lucky it isn't something more solid than rain coming down, though rain right around zero is probably actually hypothermia-making than snow right around zero.

2. I forgot to taper yesterday. Well, I didn't forget but I didn't realize that I am so out of shape that 16 km very easy while pushing la cocotte in the BBJ would wind up being a work-out. It was. Now I am oh, so sore.

3. We watched the PBS show Dinosaur Train this morning and I have the song stuck in my head. Not the whole song, just the two words of it I know. Yes, those two words would be: Dinosaur and Train. So I am looking forward to 21.1 km to the rhythym of Dinosaur Train! Dinosaur Train! Or occassionally for variety - DinoSaur! Train!

Yes, thank you, I WOULD like some cheese with my whine.
Whatever.

I am looking forward to a good, hard run. Truly. The advantage of being under-trained and under-tapered is having low expectations and zero nerves.

DINOSAUR TRAIN!

Popular kids in high school, above average drivers and assholes

2011-04-12T19:03:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about social angst amongst high school kids this morning. Thinking about bullying, cliques, social outcasting and the various miseries that seem to increasingly be part and parcel of the high school experience. It seems to me that there have been a number of Hollywood movies villainizing the so called "cool kids" in high school who, let's face it, are usually the source of the aforementioned miseries. Off the top of my head I can think of "The Heathers" and more recently "Mean Girls" and I know there must be more. Also the TV show "Glee" jumps to mind. I admit, I have never seen an episode (far too busy watching The Office) but from what I understand from the bits and pieces I have caught, Glee also villainizes the "cool kids" and makes heroes of the social outcasts. The problem is that whenever "cool kids" are villainized in popular culture, they are portrayed in such an exaggerated, over-the-top way, really more of a caricature than anything else so no one winds up identifying with them. I wonder how effective it would be to make a Hollywood movie about bullying or social outcasting by the "cool kids" where the "cool kids" were displayed in a realistic, believable manner. Portrayed in such a way that actual, real-life tween, and teens who are in the popular crowd might actually identify with the characters and see similarities to themselves. Then if the movie was intelligently written and had decent plot and character development and if the pain felt by the less cool victims was sensitively portrayed - perhaps this would be more effective in preventing high school miseries than public service announcements and after school specials etc. etc. It's probably not that simple is it?

Anyhow that train of thought (which was moving at about 13 km/hour this morning - great run this morning!) got me thinking that as adults, no one ever ADMITS to having been in with the popular crowd in high school. The standard comment I always hear when the topic comes up is along the lines of: I hated those kids, they were idiots, I was totally uncool, I was an outcast - the inference being "and I succeded, I turned out great! suck on that!". As an adult no one ever identifies with having been in the popular crowd. Could it be that no one wants to admit it? Maybe. But I wonder if what is really going on is that the popular kids never existed in the first place. In the sense that, maybe no one really ever felt like a popular kid. Maybe everyone felt anxious and insecure and always on the verge of being publicly humiliated or outcast so that even individuals whom the majority of the class would agree were popular, didn't actually experience it that way.

I don't know if this is coherent or not but let me try to approach it from a different angle. Just like I have never met an adult who, once upon a time, was a popular kid in high school, I have never met a person who will admit to being an average or below average driver. Everyone and their cousin all rate themselves as above average drivers! Yet daily experience on the road clearly indicates otherwise. Not to mention, of course, it is mathematically impossible for the vast majority of people in the population to be an above average driver. Unless, I suppose, there are HUGE outliers at the "bad driving" end of the scale. So no one thinks they are a below average driver yet we constantly see examples of egregiously bad driving on the road, where is the disconnect? No one identifies with being a bad driver because amidst the backdrop of all the chaotically bad driving out there people do not perceive their driving gaffs to be particularly significant. The omnipresent bad driving in almost every North American city is the sum of infrequent mistakes on the part of most drivers, moments of inattention, lack of consideration or impatience on the part of most drivers. And so in making a little mistake, accidentally cutting someone off once, not letting someone in once, following too closely (by far the most common BAD DRIVING), a person becomes, de-facto, average or below.

Which leads me to assholes. I don't believe that assholes exist. Or, at the very least, I don`t believe that they are as common as most people believe. Let's take me as an example. I would very much like to believe I am not an asshole. In fact, let me go so far as to state straight out that I am not an asshole. Yet, last Saturday morning found me waiting for the bus. It was early in the morning and there was hardly anyone out and about. My calves were cripplingly tight and I managed to get into a deep, almost orgasmic stretch against a bus shelter. I was occupying most of the sidewalk but like I said, almost no one was around. Then along comes this man down the sidewalk. I did not want to break my stretch because it felt oh... so.... good. So I half assumed/half hoped without checking that there was still room for him to get by me or secretly I hoped he would step into the street to go around me. Instead, he stopped next to me and said, itchy with sarcasm, "I hope I'm not bothering you too much?". At which point I broke the pose and made room for him to get by. Again, I'm not an asshole... but it was kind of an asshole thing of me to do... So given that that is the sum total experience that that random stranger ever had of me, from his perspective, I am an asshole. But I'm not an asshole, really. I am a mostly good person who was having a lazy/selfish/inconsiderate moment. My point is that I think most of the jerky/assholesque behaviour that is perpetrated in society (barring extremes of course) is not perpetrated by assholes... rather it is perpetrated by average, mostly good people who are having careless/selfish/thoughtless moment. But there are a lot of us out there, which sadly makes for a lot of careless/selfish/thoughtless moments which then, of course, leads to the impression of there being a lot of assholes. But humans are quick to jump and label aren't we? I guess from the individualistic point of view it makes sense - all that man will ever know of me is that I am an asshole, he has no further knowledge. But isn't it just exhausting and depressing to think that the world is full of assholes? Isn't it just so much more uplifting to think it is full of people who had social anxiety in high school, are average to below average drivers and who, very occasionally, behave like assholes?

Back in the Zone

2011-04-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

5 km race today, I am back in the zone, albeit at the very tail end of it but I managed to run only one minute slower than my lifetime PB and only 45 seconds slower than last fall - 18:37.4. So I am really pleased to have broken 19 minutes which was the goal. I am a bit less pleased to be in a state of fitness in which I am pleased about breaking 19 minutes. Ok, did I really just say I am not pleased about being pleased? Oh Piccola shut up and go read your "Now is that moment post" already.

It was an interesting race. I only had one gear. I ran a 3:45 first km and that felt really hard but then I never really got more tired throughout the race. Again, I seem to be limited by my body just not remembering how to run fast. My kilometer splits were amazingly even which is consistent with only having one gear: 3:45, 3:42, 3:44, 3:45, 3:39. In the last 400 m I was battling with this guy, both of us running step for step and suddenly it hit me... "oh yeah, at the end of a race we're supposed to kick." So I did. So did he. I took it up another notch. So did he. He nipped me by 0.3 seconds; he deserved it. But I thought it was a good lesson in how there is almost always something left in the tank but sometimes it takes a challenge by another person to bring it. True in running. True in intellectual pursuits, true in many aspects of life: it is the challenge that makes us empty the tank.

Speaking of other people bringing out the fire in us... on my way to the race I bumped into a guy I have run against often. He mentioned that he was going easy today in order to save it for the Montreal 1/2 Marathon next week-end which, incidentally is also the venue for Ca.na.dian 1/2 M.arat.hon Ch.ampio.nships. He mentioned that next week's half marathon is two days before the deadline to apply for guaranteed entry to the New York City Marathon based on performance. He was gunning for a 1:23 half next week-end to get the guaranteed bib for NYC. That got me thinking a few things:

1. I have always wanted to do NYC.
2. If the men's standard is 1:23, the women's has to be significantly slower - I subsequently looked it up, it's 1:37.
3. I don't have any particular plans for next week-end.

So, I went home and registered for the Montreal Half. Surely I can run a 1:37 and likely 10-12 minutes faster than that. That would guarantee me a spot in NYC provided I apply immediately afterwards and cough up what I am sure is an exorbitant entry fee. I'm an options open kind of woman, why not? So, looks like I am running a 1/2 Marathon next week-end. I am sure that once I start doing the math, figuring out what it will cost for the transportation, room, entry fee etc. etc. for NYC Marathon, I will bail but in the meantime, I am one step closer to running NYC.

Too tired to post

2011-04-07T19:15:00.000-07:00

But I wanted to share these:

Body Blah

2011-03-29T18:11:00.000-07:00

While I continue to maintain the positive outlook I described in my last post, I do at the same time feel very yucky in my body. I seem to have developed a severe carbohydrate and refined sugar ADDICTION. This has the result of giving me the constant blahs... falling asleep in afternoon meetings, yucky tummy translating into yucky (or missed) runs. But it hit me today (pardon the obviousness of it all) I actually have a CHOICE about what I put into my mouth. I don't have to eat the cookies just because they are there (though I think this is a distinctly female trait, guys seem to be able to eat one cookie and forget about the rest of the package).

I feel so much more cognitively functional and athletic when I drop the processed food, fill up on fruits & veggies, protein and properly hydrate with liquids other than diet soda and coffee. Again, pardon the obviousness of it all. But it really hit me today as I walked passed a plate of chocolate, chocolate chip cookies left over from a potluck at work yesterday and automatically grabbed one that, yes, I ultimately have control over what I put in my mouth. Hardly revolutionary I know, but I so often eat on auto-pilot and therefore when I am not hungry. I guess many people do. There is this primordial brain reflex that kicks in: COOKIE, EAT!

So, here is my goal... for one week I will:
~think before eating ANYTHING and evaluate whether I am really hungry
~eat 5 servings of vegetables per day
~drink large quantities of good old fashioned plain water, I am after all living in one of the most water-rich countries in the world!
~not eat junk food. I know that is a very lose definition, I won't bore you all anymore than I already am, with my definition.
~NOT exceed the Canadian Food Guide's recommended 6-7 servings of grains (and I will respect the serving size)

That's probably enough. Need to keep it simple for my little brain.
The goal is not to lose weight but rather to feel more energetic and more fluid on my runs.

One week.

Go.

Now IS that moment

2011-03-27T18:51:00.000-07:00

Remember the movie "While you were sleeping"? It's a true chick flick from start to finish which means, despite the fact that it was not exactly cinematic genius, it is one of my favorites. The plot of the movie is irrelevant to this post but there is this one great scene in the movie, which I believe is genius. The patriarch of the family around which the movie centered is sitting at the kitchen table eating doughnuts and talking with his son. His son, played by Bill Pullman (one of the times he played the nice guy who doesn't finish last) is trying to work up the gumption to tell his father that he does not want to take over his father's business as had been his father's lifelong plan for him. Anyway the father is talking about family and life. He says something to the effect of (very loosely paraphrased) ~ there are so many worries in life, so much illness and strife and fighting and conflict, but sometimes, just for a brief moment everything is fine. Everyone you love is okay. No one is ill. No one is fighting. Just for a moment. To which Bill Pullman's character replies "this is not that moment dad" (and goes on to tell him that his lifelong dream of his son taking over the family business will not come to fruition).

Well, for me, this IS that moment. The clouds of the past few months have lifted. I have learned a ton and figured out some very important things. I am functioning so, so much better. No one in my circle is ill. No one in my circle is in conflict with each other. Of course there are worries for me and mine but they are not consuming and, let's face it, on the global scale of worries, they are minuscule. Now IS that magical moment that the father figure in "While you were sleeping" described. I feel so fortunate first to be living it but also, and just as important, to realize while I am still in the moment, how sweet it is. No looking back and saying "remember how great it was when", life is great right here and now.

In the category of not-so-great was the 10 km race I ran today. Though in the Pollyanna spirit of this post I will mention that it was wonderful to be out on a (winterish) spring day in bright sunshine busting a lung running. It has been 5 weeks since this race and I truly thought I would shave close to a minute off my time at that race. Instead, I added 15 seconds. Hmmm. I ran 39:22 - 70 seconds slower than I feel I am in shape to run. I ran the first km in 3:54 and thought "okay, don't get nervous, that was just a warm-up km... it'll probably be the slowest km of the race." Nope! 3:54, 4:01, 3:58, 3:45, 3:56, 3:55, 4:08 (into a ridiculously strong wind), 3:40, 4:10 (wind), 3:52.

It was so strange because I could speak to my friends who were on the sidelines in a normal tone of voice, I was not out of breath at all but I could not turn over my legs. It was almost as if my central nervous system wasn't firing. At one point I could hear someone coming up behind me and I thought, okay, let them pass... and it was as if I literally had to remind myself that I could run faster, that I could increase my turn-over. Like the proverbial dream where one is being chased and one cannot run. So I am not sure WHAT that means I am lacking. I feel like I am lacking a bit of everything actually - endurance, aerobic fitness, speed, technique, self control when it comes to not eating refined sugar and white-flour based products :) Working on all of these things would probably be beneficial but how do I train my central nervous system to fire faster? How do I remind my body that it can run fast? Drills? Core work? Running into traffic?

The gift of nothing

2011-03-26T15:18:00.000-07:00

This is what I want for my next birthday, Christmas, Valentine's Day, La Cocotte's birthday, Mother's Day etc. etc. The gift of, absolu-and-I-really-mean-zip-zilch-the-big-doughnut-hole-tely nothing. I am drowning in stuff. Clothing, used running shoes, books, CDs, cassette tapes(!), prizes from road races, crap upon crap upon junk upon stuff and it feels so oppressive. The feeling of getting rid of stuff, of simplifying life, of actually making it possible to clean our apartment is SO empowering! I seriously think I have enough clothing for the rest of my life now. I don't want to buy, receive or acquire in any other fashion anything else ever. As an aside, I am also getting rid of ALL of my maternity clothing and nursing bras because I figure if I do, I will definitely get pregnant this month.

So... in the spirit of lightening, making space, getting rid of the piles, I am thinning my running wardrobe which, after being sponsored for 4 years, is considerable. I am getting rid of quality stuff, half tights, micro fibre t-shirts, wind jacket, stuff that is used but still very serviceable. I could just put it into the Salvation Army bin, which I will do with my other stuff, but I like the thought of this running stuff to which I have grown attached, being used by another passionate runner. So, if you are female and in need of some pretty decent running gear, I will be happy to pay the cost of mailing it to you - there are about 15 pieces of clothing. I am 5'8" and weigh 125-130 pounds so if you are anywhere around that zone, this stuff will fit you. It is mostly tops with some tights.

Leave me a comment or shoot me an e-mail piccolapinecone-at-gmail-dot-com and I will happily send it off to you. As I said, I really like the thought of another runner using it.

Spring Training Camp in Oregon

2011-03-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

Just back from a week long spring training camp in C.oo.s B.ay, Or.e.gon. Distance aficionadoes will understand the significance of doing a distance training camp in that particular town. In fact, there was no training camp per sey, I brought La Cocotte to visit some family who happen to live there. I used the warmer, wetter weather as an opportunity to jump start my training. I got a decent week of running in:

Thursday- 15 hour endurance event - 3 flights with a 19 month old toddler. Let me tell you, even flying with the world's most angelic toddler (a.k.a. La Cocotte) was very wearing after 15 hours.

Friday- first work-out in ages, also first time doing a work-out with the baby jogger (and of course La Cocotte inside it).
6.2 km warm-up
2 X 2 km: 8:00, 8:01 (400 m easy jog btwn)
2 X 1.6 km 6:05, 6:28
4.2 km cool-down - 19.6 km total

Saturday- 18 km in 1 hour 25 minutes with La Cocotte

Sunday- sans training partner. 6 km warm-up. 6 X 1 km: 3:41, 3:48, 3:41, 3:48, 3:41, 3:48 (one direction was into the wind)
4.1 km cool-down. 18 km total.

Monday - 16.4 km in 1 hour 24 minutes with La Cocotte

Tuesday - sans training partner. 6.6 km warm-up. 5 X 1 mile: 5:55, 6:03, 6:41 (uphill, into the wind), 6:07, 5:54
3 km cool-down 17.7 km total

Wednesday - 11 hour endurance event, 3 flights with toddler - this time the prevailing westerlies were in our favour

Thursday - on 5 hours sleep and severely jet-lagged. am: 7.5 km. pm: 13 km. all with la Cocotte.

It appears I have established some kind of momentum which is great with spring road race season right around the corner. Time to think about what my non-reproductive goals look like for this year.

Meanwhile:

One of these mammals outweighs the other by 3 pounds. Guesses?

My training partner and I focusing before our run.

Toddler says "up!"

I'm tired of pretending I'm not special.

2011-03-07T15:07:00.001-08:00

Me too Charlie, me too.

9 small, medium and large things (with thanks to FastBastard for presumably tolerating the plagiarism)

2011-02-26T09:43:00.000-08:00

1. Small: I am fat and out shape. But I am aware enough to realize my fatness and out of shapeness exists only on the runner scale. On the general population scale I am nicely average. My first clue that I have packed on some pounds is always that my hubby finds me attractive. Given my primary mission right now, getting knocked up, being fat & out of shape on the runner scale is probably where I want to be. So it's okay. One weird thing I have noticed in my post-pardum body: i used to gain weight on my thighs and butt but keep a flat stomach. Now I have the thighs I always wanted but a nicely burgeoning pot belly. What's up with that? Hormonal changes after pregnancy? Aging affecting fat storage? Why have I morphed from pear to apple?

2. Small: I did not know of Justin Beaver's existence until last week. Then I spent a week thinking he was Justin Beaver. I have since been educated and now know that his name is, in fact, Justin Bieber. I am strangely proud of this.

3. Medium (but very disturbing): I cannot name, without googling it, all of the countries in North Africa & the Middle East in which there are protests and revolutions occurring. Although I realize that change is sweeping through this region and that this series of uprisings is and will be of great historical importance. I only have the vaguest idea of what is going on. I am deeply ashamed of my ignorance.

4. Medium: 95% of my caloric intake these past few weeks has been from simple carbs and refined sugar. This no doubt explains, in part, #1. I realize this is far from ideal but I did not realize how far off track I had gotten until I read SteveQ's post about his diet. Waaaaaaay off track.

5. Medium: I am hiring. I recently had to chose between excellent grades and excellent interviewing skills. I chose the former. My decision was deeply impacted by recent happenings at work. On a different day or in a different context, I might have chosen the latter. Important outcomes are so often influenced by hidden factors, factors far beyond the control of the person seeking the outcome. It is so important not to get discouraged by a "no" because it very often has only peripheral bearing on the person being told no.

6. Off-the-scale-huge: I continue to wrestle with terrible emotional angst and conflict. This journey has been life altering, painful (in so many ways). It is far from over. I am somewhat wiser. I am trying to get to where I need to be. But if I ever arrive, I realize that my piece is only half the puzzle. I have no control over the other half. I didn't really realize until I wrote this that this is very much related to #5.

7. Small: I did a kick ass work-out today (despite #1). 10 miles with a downwards ladder of intervals: 2.4 km (@3:57 per km), 2 km (@3:53 per km), 1.6 km (@3:47 per km), 1.2 km (@3:47 per km), 0.8km (@3:45 per km).

8. Large: La cocotte's vocabulary has exploded. She does not speak much but she can readily identify many household objects and pictures in her books. It is so strange that suddenly, when I ask her where her nose is, she knows! She understands! There has been processing going on in that adorable pumpkin head of hers. I mean, of course there has been processing, but here is irrefutable evidence that she gets it. Also frightening because if she understands when I ask her where her or my nose is, maybe she also understands when I let lose a string of curses when I drop a bag of groceries on the floor. Other newly acquired skills include,
* disposing of her own diaper in the diaper pail after diaper change time (cute but problematic bc she wants to do it IMMEDIATELY after the dirty diaper comes off which often results in my chasing my bare bummed toddler around the house trying to diaper her before she lets loose!).
* bringing daddy his glasses and watch and putting both on him in the morning (this no doubt means "Up! Up! get UP! and play with me").
*signing more for more juice
* completing puzzles (those wooden cut-out type puzzles)
* opening doors (she has been able to close them for a long time)

9. Large: I really, really want to get pregnant this month. Statistically I will not. Did you know that humans are one of the least fertile mammalian species? I am trying to work on being okay if I never have another child. I have so many things to be thankful for, it seems almost selfish to ask for the gift of another child. I have so many other areas in my life that could desperately use some of my time and energy. Yet the yearning remains.

Baby Vomit

2011-02-21T19:25:00.000-08:00

Prediction: this post sets a new record low for least amount of reads... even on this scarcely read blog.
What is it about a toddler that allows them to be merrily toddling along, haphazardly pulling the entire 200 kleenix from a box or, say, testing gravity (yet again) with the box of cheerios one moment. The very next moment, they casually lean over and vomit an improbably large volume of fluid (larger than one would have thought could be contained in the toddler belly) and, without missing a beat, return immediately and cheerfully to the task at hand (removing the next hundred kleenix from the box for example).

I rarely puke. La cocotte very rarely pukes (three times only in her wee life - she gets it from me) yet strangely we have both puked in the past week. I saw strangely because what I had (bad chestnuts) was not catching. The adult vomiting experience is all shaking and moaning and profuse sweating, so far removed from the casual toddler experience. Also the adult experience smells just so, so much worse regardless of how much time has passed since whatever is coming out went in. Along those lines, ever notice that babies and toddlers don't have morning breath? It is all baby goodness all the time. Also how is it possible that the toddler can have a fever of 40 degrees and still have the energy for bookcase climbing and garbage emptying and laptop stealing, whereas a fever of 40 degrees sees me passed out in bed for days? It's almost like the toddler is a super hero, impervious to puke and fever and bad breath.

Race Report: The I'm-not-pregnant-again-1/2-Marathon-turned-10km

2011-02-20T13:40:00.000-08:00

No one is ever going to hire me to brand their races... I come up with such terrible names. I discovered on Friday that I was not expecting. I had been expecting not to be expecting but hoping to be expecting nonetheless. Anyhow once it was clear I was not to have any expectations on the baby front this month, I began searching for racing possibilities for the week-end and came across the Hypothermic Half Marathon. I ran this in 2009 as a consolation for not being pregnant and wanted to do so again. But it was sold out. My training partner encouraged me to call up the race director and talk my way in as an "elite" athlete. Ah... the misplaced enthusiasm of training partners... I decided to bury my pride and make the call which went something like this:

me: "Hi, I understand the Hypothermic Half marathon is sold out for this week-end but I was wondering if you had any room for elite athletes. Well, not elite per say but somewhat fast. Ok I'm not super fast right now but I feel confident that I would place in the top 5. [Long, uncomfortable silence, which prompted me to continue blathering]. I ran this race in 2009 and was second, I think I could really, probably place in the top 5... or top 10... almost certainly."

disinterested employee: "yeah, sorry, we're sold out."

So, onwards I looked for other racing possibilities and found the first race of the local circuit at which I used to be a regular was this week-end. I signed up for the 10 km.

I am out of shape. Let's just say that I have been training about as much as I have been writing about training. Since the New Year I have had the occasional, oddball 50 mile week but most of my weeks have been around 30 miles (and those 30 miles are usually run between Friday and Sunday with not much else the rest of the week). I am following the trying-to-get-pregnant training plan i.e. train hard between day 1-11 of cycle (and not even so hard then) and then nothing but easy running (or nothing at all) until the end of the cycle. I was expecting to run somewhere between 39 and 40 minutes... and that's exactly what I did, 39:06 to be exact. I split the 5 km in 19:37 and managed to come back with a solid negative split of 19:29. Slowest km was 4:18 - uphill into the wind, fastest km was 3:33 (same km run in reverse).

All in all, it was fun to exert myself even in the -18 deg C temperatures. It was good to get back out there and run a competitive race. Exciting to be passed and try to hang on and to pass and try to break away. I had forgotten about that good old racing vibe. Also it's nice to know where I am at i.e. what kind of times I can run on bare bones basic training. Makes me think if I can be a bit more consistent, actually do some work-outs, I can get back down to sub-38 again in time for the spring road race season. If I get even fitter than that, and really ready to race hard, than undoubtedly I will get pregnant and forfeit my spring road racing season... and I would have ZERO complaints about that trade-off :)

p.s. while it is never really fair to play the game of "where would I have placed had I run this race, in looking at the results I think it is safe to say I would have been almost definitely in the top 5. Certainly it probably would have been maybe likely :)

The slowdown factor

2011-02-15T12:44:00.000-08:00

Every runner who has toed the line over any distance is all too familiar with the inverse relationship between the distance of the race and the speed of the runner. In other words, inevitably the longer the race, the slower the runner's speed. But how does this relationship play out among the pros? I have been meaning for awhile to plot velocity versus race distance for the world records, male and female in the various road and track distances. Today I am home with food poisoning and unable to concentrate on much between trips to the bathroom (rancid horse chestnuts... ohhhhhhhh) so I thought I would finally get to this post.

Here is the big picture:

A couple of things I find interesting, first the long held belief that the performance gap narrows between the genders at longer distances appears to be absolutely true. It would be nice to have some data points between the marathon and the 100 km to see the progressive narrowing but it is already evident at the marathon distance and even more so at the 100 km distance. As an aside, I thought it was strange that wiki did not post records beyond 100 km - I guess the longer ultras are not IAAF events? Incidentally, at the oddball distances of 15 km, 20 km, 25 km 30 km I could chose from the track or the road record and I thought it was really interesting that the road record was always faster, by a lot! Often more than a minute faster... this is probably due to how rarely these distances are raced on the track versus the road. The 20 km world record road performances were, for both genders, the split on the way to the half marathon world record.

There is also a popularity effect evident in this plot. The marathon data point is out of line with its less glamorous cousins (30 km, 25 km, 20 km, 15 km) to the left. Clearly being a premiere event that is often raced by the fastest of the fast has an important effect on the world record. This effect is also evident in the shorter distances, if we zoom in on the women's data we see that the velocity for the 3 km world record (6.17 m/s) is actually higher than the velocity for the 2 km world record (6.14 m/s) which, even given the huge differences in how frequently these two events are run, is pretty amazing. After all, the 3 km is 1.5 X longer than the 2 km and also at these distances we are on the steep part of the velocity curve:

We also see that the effect of distance is equal between the two genders. Let's get rid of the 100 km data point and look at the two genders together again:

In both cases the big drop off in velocity occurs after the mile, I guess this bend in the curve represents the transition from one metabolic system to another... anaerobic to aerobic? It has been forever since I read about the physiology of running... Also the effect of race distance is very predictive of velocity for both genders. For the men, 95% of the variance is accounted for by the equation 7.991x power -0.103 whereas for women 93% of the variance is accounted for the by the equation 7.1545x power -0.105. Or, for those not familiar with modelling, in plainer terms, say you wanted to know at what velocity the world record would likely be run for some random distance like 18 km for women, you could plug 18 into the above equation which yields 5.28 m/s (NB it would take 56:48 to run 18 km at 5.28 m/s). 93-95% of the variance explained is pretty darn good (at least compared to the data I am normally work with), I guess this means the effect of distance on velocity is governed by very rigid physiological principles. Or something like that.

Finally, for my own entertainment:

Yup, I seem to be governed by a similar yet slower equation.

Biofeedback

2011-01-25T15:37:00.000-08:00

I ran with headphones in listening to music this week. For the first time, ever. 26 years of running, I have never run while listening to music save the occasional band or stereo system playing at a race or radio station blasting at the gym. It was bizarre. I never realized how much the sound of my breathing determines my level of perceived effort. As soon as I put in those headphones and cranked that music I felt completely cut off from myself. It was as if I no longer had any way of knowing how tired I was. I was doing a tempo run at what passes for a reasonably hard pace these days. Occasionally there would be a pause between songs and I would hear the familiar god-awful, gaspy wheeze that is the very un-sexy sound of me working hard and then, and only then, I would suddenly feel exhausted and realize what an effort I was putting in. Then the next song would come on and my breathing would become inaudible and the perception of fatigue would be gone. So weird. I can see this being a really effective training and even racing tool. If, in the absence of my own bio-feedback I don't feel fatigue, perhaps I can push harder (or just wind up falling off the back of the treadmill). I have to say though that the next day I went for a run outside without headphones and I could never give up the musicality of the squeak of freshly fallen snow underfoot.

The other bio-feedback I have been interested in as of late is temperature. I alluded to the fact that I am trying for baby #2 in a previous post. Towards that goal I am making adjustments in my training based on the small amount of research I have done. Essentially for the first half of my cycle I do whatever I want, from ovulation onwards I train in such a way as to prevent over-heating. This, as far as I can tell from my reading, is the only compromise that needs to be made in training while trying to conceive assuming that one's menstrual cycle is regular and the woman is ovulating. According to the bible i.e. Clapp's Exercising Through Pregnancy, the motility of s*p*e*r*m is reduced above 38.8 deg C, in addition, heat can be problematic for the embryo/fetus in very early pregnancy hence the need to stay cool. I am surprised by how easily my body seems to heat up, here are some stats:

-running on treadmill at a very easy pace - 38.6 deg C
-running on treadmill at tempo pace in front of wide open window - 38.8 deg C
-hard, hilly run at fast pace outside in -18 deg C weather - 39 deg C (WTF??)

So essentially I am training hard for two weeks and then running easy for two weeks. Occasionally I try to do a tempo run during the latter two weeks of my cycle by running outside and really under-dressing for the weather or else by running in the gym with ice packs in my bra and shorts. Neither option is super comfortable... then again neither is trying to take my temperature while running on a treadmill.

Theory of Mind

2011-01-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

La Cocotte made her first contribution to science today. She participated in a study at a local university the goal of which is to evaluate whether babies and toddlers can perceive that other people may have desires and motivations that are different than their own and what is done with this information. There were a series of fun activities in which she participated. My favorite was the snack activity. She was offered two bowls - one containing cauliflower and one containing goldfish (i.e. the cheese flavoured crackers, not the best selling piscine pet from the local pet store). She was allowed to pick which snack she wanted and eat as much as she wanted. I was surprised that she went for the goldfish as she is a huge fan of cauliflower but she has never had or seen goldfish before so maybe the novelty won out. Anyway the researcher then took the bowls back and proceeded to taste a piece from each bowl. The researcher tried the goldfish and made a very sour face and exclaimed that it was bad and yucky! She then tried the cauliflower and smiled and pronounced it very tasty indeed. La cocotte was then given the bowls back and asked to offer the researcher a snack (the bowls were placed equi-distant from her). The idea is - does she realize the researcher's preference for cauliflower and therefore offer the researcher the snack of her choice or does she (la cocotte) offer a snack based on her own preference. The exercise was repeated several times to control for hand preference i.e. make sure she wasn't just offering the snack closest to her right hand. It was also repeated with green beans and cheerios. In all cases* la cocotte offered the researcher the snack for which the researcher had shown the preference despite it clashing with la cocotte's preference (no one will be shocked that she preferred cheerios over green beans I suppose).

*Ok, in one case she offered no snacks and just kept eating the cheerios herself.

So... on one hand we could say I have a very empathetic baby who grasps theory of mind i.e. she understands that different people have different desires and she tries to fulfill those desires. On the other hand, maybe she was just thinking "Sucker... you get the green beans, that leaves more cheerios for me!".

But then the exercise was repeated with the researcher having a preference for the same snack as la cocotte and sure enough... la cocotte ponied up the cheerios and goldfish so there you have it, empathy and sharing in the toddler set! Which wasn't a huge surprise, la cocotte has been sharing tons of things with me since about the time she hit one year of age. Sometimes it is a coveted blueberry, even when the supply is scarce, she'll still reach out and pop one into my mouth. Other times it is something slightly less desirable, usually something pre-chewed, but it still counts as sharing in my book.

It's a fascinating sometimes frustrating stage in her development. Her verbal comprehension has clearly exploded in the past few months. We can ask her to do small tasks and she obliges (if she's in the mood, which is fair enough) but she still does not have much language yet. So we know there's a ton going on behind those big, blue eyes but we're still missing the rosetta stone to allow us to interpret. We get by with the pointing and grunting, but oh what I'd give to know what is going on in that pumpkin head of hers. I sometimes feel so ill equipped to understand and interpret her needs, desires and motivations. Other moms seem to KNOW every grunt, half-formed word, cry, squeal their child makes and attribute a specific meaning to it. Do they really know or is it mostly projection?

Her pre-verbal days will soon come to an end and with them so will end some of the wonderful, frustrating mystery. While I look forward in great anticipation to being able to have a conversation with her, I know I will also feel nostalgia for these mysterious times.

In the silence of Wisconsin

2010-12-24T07:06:00.000-08:00

I spent this fall in a silent scream. The past two months have been the most emotionally painful of my entire life. These months starred soul-destroying conflict with supporting performances by terror, grief and more hours and dollars than was really reasonable spent on therapy. In the face of all of this, it felt very false to be blogging about amusing baby anecdotes, or the challenges of being a working mother, or a particularly satisfying work-out ... my usual fare. Also, to be honest, I just did not have the energy. I've occasionally felt down in the dumps, but I have never experienced mind-altering depression like these past months. I think in the face of conflict it is important for to examine one's own behavior, actions, ideas... let's say one's own ugly self. I have spent large swaths of time doing so these past few months, an exercise which, if done honestly and diligently, can be very draining and depressing.

A painful by-product of these past few months was the loss of precious time with la cocotte. During the last two months I was completely numb, moving in slow motion under 100 feet of water. Suddenly I have a toddler in front of me who is lively and active, has opinions and WORDS (bateau, soulier, nounou, bebe) and I have no idea how we got from here to there. It is as if someone hit fast forward and I missed witnessing two months of development. It is time I will never get back, and I mourn deeply that lost time. I think I am turning the corner due to various events and thanks in part to my amazing therapist and, also, to give credit where credit is due... to the very hard mental work I have been doing. Things are still very broken in my little world and I don't know the way forward but my moments of clarity are becoming slightly more frequent. And when I focus on la cocotte, I feel something that is perhaps a distant cousin to peace.

So, things are not where I want them to be but regardless I must function again. I have an amazing toddler who needs and deserves my affection and attention. I have a challenging job that taxes my little brain even when it (my little brain) is functioning optimally. My life is happening around me and I need and want to be present for it. I guess this post is largely an exercise in returning to me. To function again. Even if things are far from okay in some very important aspects of my life. I must be present. Now.

There have been some finite, good moments this fall. Now and then, at the end of a hard ten mile run on a crisp wintery day I could feel some of the old normal. La cocotte, as much as I feel I missed out on a ton, has been a source of goodness and sanity. How much do I love watching her accomplish a new task and then turn to me and ask for a round of applause or give me a high five. Mmmmonyka's huge 5 km PB was a very bright spot this fall; helping someone else run fast is a great anodyne to failing to do so oneself. It gave me huge pleasure to read about and be able to follow SLG's pregnancy. Reading about the birth of Karoline's first child. Speaking of pregnancy and children, I decided this fall definitively my own thoughts on having a second child. The thought is: yes, please. I don't know if it is in the cards or not given the difficulties we had the first time around however even if it does not happen, the end of indecision is a wonderful stabilizing force.

This isn't the cheery pre-Christmas post I would have hoped to write. It's an honest reflection of where I am at. But perhaps, in a nod to the season, I can leave off with a photo of Santa claus and Cindy Lou Who Who is not more than two:

Autumn in Images

2010-11-02T18:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, an apple was harmed in taking this picture (harmed and stolen in fact!).

The owners of this produce stand were very, very patient.

Tired mom after 5 km, energetic toddler.

Our toddler's obsession with brooms made our choice of hallowe'en costumes very obvious.

Though of course on the actual night we had to canadianize (i.e. accessorize in canadian fashion) the costume with winter hat, polar fleece etc.

Race Report: Provincial Cross Country Championships

2010-10-30T19:29:00.000-07:00

Today was XC Provincial Championships. This is actually the 3rd XC Championship race I run this year if I count the two I did in Italy in February. Kind of ironic for a runner who dislikes XC. But today was a special event. Every year, satellite, erstwhile members of my running club band together and form senior women's team. This team consists of working women in their 30s and 40s with children. Lots of children. Today, the 7 of us toeing the start line on my team, had 8 children among us, We have been doing this for almost a decade, though I cannot claim to have participated in nearly that many. We rarely see each other all together outside of this race so there is truly a feeling of reunion and comradeship surrounding this event.

This is also an occasion for me to catch up with various people who have been in my running life for upwards of 20 years now. In particular one of my first coaches was there (in all, six of my former coaches were there). I had a really wonderful chat with him. I think he must be pushing 80 but just as enthusiastic if slightly less energetic than he used to be. He was lamenting how much thinner the fields are than they used to be among the young'ins. In the cadet boys category, a team consists of only three runners, the federation had to limit it to 3 in order to have a reasonable number of teams in the field. Where have all the young'ins gone? If they are off playing soccer or hockey or just out playing in the streets and parks instead of running, that`s fine but I suspect that is probably not the case. And I find that sad...

This race also acts as Quebec University Championships. As I jogged along the course to warm up, the university teams in their brightly coloured warm-ups, face paint and hair ribbons were unmistakeable. I was once one of those brightly coloured people too. Filled with nervous energy and lost in the importance of the moment. Now, as I warm-up chatting about working and children and life with my cohorts, it strikes me how very liberating it is to be in the situation where truly no one really cares about my performance but me. Also to have a whole three hours to go to a cross country meet is a rare treat and it makes me appreciate the occasion whereas in the past the delight of the event might have been lost in the nervousness of the moment.

My goals for today were somewhat arbitrary. But isn't that cross country in a nutshell: somewhat arbitrary? My goals were to first, to not finish lower than 3rd on any of the university teams in other words I did not want more than 2 members of a single team ahead of me. Second, brace yourself for the extreme cheesiness of it all, to have fun. I have been emotionally struggling with something enormous over the past few weeks and I wanted 5 kilometers of mud, sweat, heavy breathing, golden leaves and flying spikes as an outlet.

In pursuit of the second goal, I decided to go our very conservatively since fun = passing dozens of girls in the last 2. km, conversely fun does not = dying 3 km into a 5 km race. About 75 m into the race I remembered why going out conservatively is not an optimum strategy in XC - 100 spike-wearing women converging onto a 6 foot wide course. So it went that I found myself in the last 15% of the pack about 500 m into the race with limited opportunities for passing. I told myself to be patient, that opportunities would present themselves to move up.

The course was fairly tough, an honest XC course with long, gradual uphills that inevitably bring a runner to her knees followed by very short, very steep downhills. The kind of downhills that are too steep to use as recovery. The kind of downhills that I descend with windmilling arms and the mantra "stay upright or be trampled" running through my head.

By the end of the first loop I had moved up into the top 40% (ish) of the field but I was also no longer feeling like I had really gone out all that conservatively after all. The second lap consisted of slowly picking off women one by one. With 1 km to go I was in extremis. My 15 minute timer went off to remind me that there was less than 5 minutes of running left and that I needed to find more bodies to pass... but instead all i could think was "don't let more than 5 people pass you between now and the finish." Ugh. Not the most uplifting end-race thought. But in fact I'm proud to day that after about the 2 km mark no one passed me. Despite the fact that I was barely going backwards over the last km, no one went by me. I got through it in 100 m sections, looking up finding a landmark to run to and just concentrating on getting to that landmark and thinking of nothing else. It was ugly. I am sure I got no points for style but no one passed me. I also tried to remind myself that this was normal hurt and everyone else was hurting as well.

I had no kick, no grace, not much of anything in the finishing shute. I came home in 19:09. 7th woman in the non-university category and since 5 university women finished ahead of me I finished 12th overall. I feel that both of my pre-race goals were achieved. Lots of wonderful people to catch up with. The smell and sound of autumn leaves crunching under my spikes... a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Race Report: The out of the blue 5 km

2010-10-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

So I spent a week not eating much, running too much, not sleeping much and being extremely stressed.
I had a 5 km race planned, which I had done a prediction work-out for (predicted 17:44), but could not wrap my mind around running it. I jogged 5 minutes towards the start line and then walked home.
Then I spent a week not running, eating some more, trying to be less panicked. Out of nowhere I decided to pop off a 5 km off and see what this situation (which looked somewhat like a large taper) would produce. 17:50.
I don't recommend this type of lead up to a race and plan never to repeat it however I am very pleased with the race itself and the time. I was incredibly mentally focussed which I absolutely did not expect. My marathon legs could not go out too fast as I usually do in a 5 km and as a result my first 2 km were actually the slowest (3:36, 3:40) then I actually ran 10:35 for the last 3 km. I had set my timer to go off 15 minutes into the race and I told myself that when the timer went off I would have less than 3 minutes to run and I needed to leave everything on the road. It worked. It really worked. I have never worked so hard in the last 500 m of a race. I want to feel that feeling again.

My little space

2010-10-23T04:50:00.001-07:00

I plan to make this blog private either for awhile or permanently. I believe blogger allows me to invite 100 readers. That is probably about 20 X the number of invites I'll need :)
If you would like an invite please either leave me a comment here with the appropriate e-mail address or if you prefer e-mail me at PiccolaPineCone-at-gmail-dot-com. Those of you who already asked, no need to ask again as soon as I make it private again, you'll get your invite.

Involuntary Experiment

2010-10-16T09:04:00.000-07:00

First off, SteveQ, if you're reading - I really did not intend to plagiarize your last blog post, I just happen to be experiencing the same symptom at the same time. I lost 6 pounds this week. Unlike SteveQ, I know why I lost them but the "why" is not germane here.
All that to say, on Monday had I run a 5 km I definitely would have broken 18 minutes 17:45-17:55 I think. Now I am 6 pounds lighter, have not run since my prediction work-out on Monday (involuntarily but not related to injury) so here I am, light, tapered and pretty much in shape (at least I was 5 days ago) so - what effect does rapid weight loss have on race performance? Tomorrow I find out.

How did that prediction work-out work out?

2010-10-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

No one is going to believe that I am as uber busy as I keep whining about if I continue to post this often. But I wanted to write about my prediction work-out because truly I am almost more curious to see how well this works as a prediction work-out than to see how fast I can run 5 km this upcoming Sunday. Here are the figures:

5.5 km warm-up easy
4 km tempo in 15:40, felt very controlled
5 X 1 km: 3:30, 3:33, 3:34, 3:35, 3:31

Total of 5 km times predicts a 17:43 5 km +/- 10 seconds, or so claims my off-the-top-of-my-head "formula".
I wouldn't have thought I was in sub-18 shape right now. I do tend to train better than I race unfortunately. I could believe 18:10, 17:43 seems faster than I can run right now. Interested to see which is correct, my gut or my not-so-scientific prediction work-out.

To have not

2010-10-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

I can think of several compelling reasons not to reproduce again. Let’s start with our quality of life. I have commented here before about how incredibly busy I am these days. Some of the craziness is due to a rather intense deadline at work; I was warned before I came back that I would be returning to an intense, high pressure environment. Yup. True. So one could argue that the crazy pace at work is only temporary and that soon the speed on the treadmill of life will be lowered, but we all know it never really works out that way. Life is busy and when one project stops hogging all the time, something else slips in to replace it. Right now everything fits. Barely. I can work my demanding job, hubby can work his demanding job, I can run 80 km per week and write my blog, hubby can pursue his hobbies, we both get to spend quality time with la cocotte though often not together. It fits. Just Barely. It fits though the result is we have little sleep, a messy home, are living on take-out and frozen pizza, have laundry in various stages of doneness scattered constantly… you get the picture. I cannot see how another child fits in that picture without something having to go. Something big. Like running. I know other people manage. Heck I have friends with four and five children who are runners and triathletes. But to borrow and slightly modify a phrase from any baby owner’s manual worth its salt: “All [parents] are different and develop in their own way.” I don’t know that I could make it work.

Then there’s the fact of me as a mommy. I think I am an okay mommy. I absolutely love the job and sometimes I do it fabulously and sometimes I could be more engaged, more patient, more imaginative, a better problem solver. I had an easy baby who turned into an easy toddler. I just don’t know how I would be with a more difficult baby. Perhaps I have been spoiled by this one. Yes, I had huge doubts about my ability to parent before la cocotte. I thought they would disappear with the appearance of the baby and yet, as I contemplate numero due I find myself with the same doubts and concerns about the role of mommy. But I wouldn’t be Piccola Pine Cone if I didn’t have grave self-doubts peppered with bout of low self esteem. Oh come on, who doesn’t?

Then there’s the exhaustion. I am still breast feeding 1-3 times per night. Last night it was four. I get up at 5.30 am to run. I’m exhausted. Constantly. I know it would only be worse with numero due on board and I don’t honestly know if I could hack it.

Now we come to the part that has nothing to do with me. No, not hubby. Yes, of course he has thoughts and feelings on this too but true to the occasionally bendable rules of this blog, I try not discuss personal stuff about others. No… I am talking about the bigger picture. There are many problems facing our society. Among the biggest – the looming energy crisis a.k.a. peak oil, the looming fresh water crisis particularly in areas dependent upon ground water which is being depleted at rates measures in tens of meters per year in some area, global warming, depletion of rare earth minerals. There’s many terms in which one can think of the problems facing humanity. Many lists of our biggest problems one could make. But here, really, is our biggest problem. Overpopulation. Overpopulation is essentially our only problem. All other problems can be thought of as symptoms of this larger issue. In the face of this, it just doesn’t feel responsible to me to have more children.

So that’s where I am. Perched between the yearning I spoke of previously and the gut feeling that having a second child just does not feel like the right decision.

Prediction Work-out & Fall Race Schedule

2010-10-10T12:01:00.000-07:00

I have figured out my fall racing schedule and it goes something like this:

Oct. 10th - 4 km cross country
Oct. 17th - 5 km road race
Oct. 30th - 5 km cross country provincial championships
Nov. 13th - 10 km cross country
Nov. 27th - indoor track race either 1500 m or 3000 m
Dec. 11th - indoor track race either 1500 m or 3000 m

Wow, that's a whole lot of cross country for a woman who professes to hate cross country. I was asked by the president of my former club to run on their team again this year. They (we) have won the women's senior title for a gizillion years in a row or something like that. Although the level of competition in senior women's club level XC running is not what one could honestly call cut-throat, in my mind this is an impressive accomplishment because the women who have made this happen are career women in their 30s and 40s with one, two, three, in one case four and in another case five children... who still manage to don our club's singlet, get into shape and run XC provincials. So yeah, I hate cross country, but this team is a pretty special thing to be a part of and I very much appreciate being asked. Since I made that commitment I decided I better get my cross country legs on by doing one race ahead of time on Oct. 10th. Oh, that was today. Ok, that part didn't happen. Give me a moment to give this another spin... Whatever. So provincials will be my first XC race of the season. Running is running no matter what surface it happens on.

The two indoor track races I included simply because the track is literally 1 block from our apartment. In fact I once timed myself from lying on our bed to being at the start line of the track in 3 minutes and 27 seconds (lots of stairs up to the track). So convenient so why not? Also I am morbidly curious to see if I can still break 5:00 for 1500 m. Me thinks the answer is not so much. Track is a young person's sport in Montreal and for the past decade I have felt distinctly out of place when I have toed the line against other females younger than the ketchup in my fridge and so I have done so less and less. But given the busy, disorganized state of my life, convenience now rules so I cannot give up the chance to race less than a block from home.

Which brings us to the 5km on the roads next week-end. The start line is a mere 3 km from our apartment. This race I am quite excited about because it is flat(ish) and fast(ish) and over a standard distance unlike many of the races I ran in Italy. So I am curious to see where I am at fitness-wise. I am also curious to see if the prediction work-out I designed will accurately my 5 km time. I will accept +/- 5 seconds as an accurate prediction. Here's the work-out:

Proper warm-up, followed by 4 km tempo (half marathon pace), 3 minutes easy jog. 5 X 1 km with 90-120 seconds easy jog between. The sum of the 1 km repeats should predict my 5 km race time.

The elephant in the room (part 1)

2010-10-03T18:45:00.000-07:00

My road to reproduction was not straight forward. For many years (10?) I was completely undecided as to whether I wanted children. For as long as I could remember I felt that far too many people reproduced simply because they could not imagine doing otherwise, a reflexive act or even worse simply because it was expected. I was very ambivalent on the whole topic of having children. But then again it didn't really matter because I was a student, then I was single, then I was a single student... but as time passed I wasn't a student anymore and as more time passed I had a sense of financial security. More time went by and I wasn't single anymore but still I struggled with trying to figure out how I honestly felt about having children. I remained ambivalent and completely frustrated by my ambivalence; I felt that I should have a feeling one way or another.

For 3 years I involuntarily spent time each and every single day trying to figure out if I wanted children; my mind would inevitably wander over to this puzzle and try to reason it out. This decision seemed so obvious to others and yet I could not figure out how I truly felt. Then things shifted, subtly... now when I probed my feelings I realized that I wanted to want to have children. More months passed and I realized that now my want was no longer once removed. I wanted children BUT I couldn't figure out why. And that bothered me. I felt that I should do something as monumental as reproducing unless I had a clear sense of why. I felt I should be able to finish the sentence: 'I want children because..." More time went by. I realized I wanted children in a visceral and instinctual way that could not be boiled down to clear and rational reasons. My "reasons" were mushiness and goo and deep yearning and finally, finally I realized that was OK. Perhaps after all, this huge, life changing decision did not have to be level headed, analyzed and understood... perhaps I could go with the mush and emotion.

So we started trying and started failing. As an aside, it was at this time that I actually read my first blog - an infertility blog. Just as there is a vibrant, supportive community of runners, mommies and running mommies out here in blogosphere, there is an amazing network of infertile people who cheer each other on,commiserate, exchange information and offer virtual hugs. I was truly touched by some of the aching humanity I observed as I lurked on this network of blogs. Back to my own story, eventually with a little help from medical technology, we got pregnant and the result was, of course, La Cocotte.

I've previously declined to write about what a joy and wonderful life change La Cocotte has been because I truly feel it is beyond my limited gift as a writer. While I don't mind not doing justice to a marathon race report or a description of a great running route, it bothers me to fail so miserably to express the fullness in my heart that is La Cocotte. Having her is so very much more wonderful than I ever imagined it would be. My one English nickname for her is Goodness because I look at her and that is exactly how I feel. She is pure, untainted goodness and I will never, ever be finished being grateful for her existence.

The end.

Or is it?

Slowly I can feel the old obsessiveness and indecision creeping back in as I ponder the inevitable question - do we make another? In the past year I have found myself mulling this over. Now that I am fertile again (took 13 months!!) there is a new layer of perceived urgency to the question. And there is urgency on other fronts as well. There are many factors in my life and philosophical outlook that speak both for and against. I will have to leave this unfinished post here for now - unintentionally symbolic of my current thinking on the topic: unfinished. I'll be back to mull this over more.

A day in the life

2010-09-25T17:53:00.000-07:00

So, granted I have chosen to chronicle a tougher than average day-in-the-life, but for what it's worth, here was my Wednesday last week... this is a follow up to my last post in which I figured I could make it work.

5:00 am: alarm goes off, went to bed at 9 pm the night before but only slept about 6 hours total b/c of sick baby
5:15 am: out the door for my run, 14 km later wind up at work
6:25 am: shower, eat breakfast, change (yes, at work)
6:45 am: at my desk working
6:45 am - 4:15 pm: work
4:15 pm - leave work. decide to stick to my "body as car" philosophy and "drive" my 1974 PiccolaPineCone home, the PiccolaPineCone has 80,000 kilometers on her but she has brand new Reebok tires so the ride is pretty smooth.
4:35 pm - arrive home to relieve hubby who has been home all day with sick baby and has yet to do any work.
4:35 - 8:30 pm- play, fix dinner, feed baby, play some more, bath time, pajama time.
8:30 pm - return to work. contemplate "driving" again but am feeling pretty bagged so I take the bus.
8:50 pm - 11:10 pm - work.
11: 10 pm - take the bus home. don't even think about "driving".

Hours worked: 12 (compensating for the days I got almost no work done while taking care of sick baby)
Kilometers ran: 18.4 km
Waking hours spent with la cocotte: 4

The take home message is that as busy as things are when la cocotte is in daycare and we are both working, they are much more so when she is home sick, though it does give us more time with her which is nice in a weird way.

This was in sharp contrast to Thursday when it was my turn to take care of la cocotte. She came with me to work, attended a departmental meeting where she sat in my lap and hid her face for the first third, played near me for the second third and started toddling around for the final portion. After the meeting I took her to a nearby park until she was ready to nap and then we went back to work and she napped in a conference room for an hour while I worked. When she woke, we both went home and I had a great day with her (which included a blissful two hour nap together in the afternoon, necessitated no doubt by the endeavors of the day before - is there any guilty pleasure greater than a daytime nap on a weekday???). I feel a bit guilty for liking it when my baby is sick b/c I get more time with her... but it's not like she's miserable, just too sick to be admitted to daycare.

So, yes, I am figuring out how to be a working, running mom, figuring out the routine all the while recognizing that there is no such thing as a routine really with a baby on board. I am trying not to stress out about things not getting done - I'm doing the best I can and things will fall where they do (literally and figuratively).

It's all good.

2010-09-18T14:21:00.000-07:00

No Cheese Chase for me today. La Cocotte was up much of the night with frighteningly high fever. We spent much of the night nursing, so much so that I was tempted to volunteer myself at the milking competition that is part of Cheese Festival we are attending. Instead of the race, I went for a tempo run on the Badger State Trail which is an oasis of FLAT, soft ground in a rural sea of staggeringly hilly, asphalt roads. Is anyplace more beautiful than Wisconsin in the early fall? This trails cuts a linear swath through rolling farm land with gorgeous wild flowers and dramatic cloudscapes. Sure maybe some places are more stunning, like the in-your-face gorgeous Sierra Nevadas but Wisconsin has a quiet, modest beauty that moves me.

Anyhoo I took advantage of the tranquility to figure out how this next chapter of my life is going to work:

Running - I have to stop thinking of running as a way to burn off all the excess calories I don't need to be consuming in the first place. Sure I ran high mileage (for me) last year because I was preparing for a marathon but it also supported my terrible habit of eating WAY more than I need to. I was a stay-at-home mom, around amazing Italian food ALL the time and I picked up some horrible habits. Time to eat what I need. Eat when I am hungry and kick the food addiction habit. I am nursing far less. I will be sitting at a desk 8-10 hours a day and running waaayyyy less mileage. My daily calorie requirement is going to fall. I have to be cognizant of that and act accordingly.

I also have to consider my running goals. No marathon on the horizon. I want to run a sub-17:30 5 km and a sub-36:30 10 km in the next year. I don't need to run 100 km per week to accomplish this. I need to stop thinking of a 75 km week as a failure and consider it the new normal. Focussed, quality running is my new mantra. Also, "body as car". I simply don't have the luxury to just up and go for a run anymore. I need to use my body as a car to get to work, daycare, etc. that is how I will get my easy mileage in without sacrificing too much time.

Family life - no more crappy TV. I got into the habit of not watching TV in Italy because it was too much work. I need to maintain that habit and reclaim the pointless hours otherwise spent rotting in front of the TV. I only have 3-4 waking hours a day with la cocotte during the week (god that is so depressing to think about). Every single one of them has to count.

Work - New role. Have to wrap my head around it. The only way forward is with confidence. I don't have confidence so, time to fake it. People with self confidence and an authoritative manner succeed (provided of course they have genuine talent and ability to back it up). In the absence of confidence, I just have to fake it until I make it. Sounds like the slogan on a cheesy poster that hangs over a coffee pot containing foul-smelling, burnt coffee in the office kitchen (you know right next to the poster with the cat hanging from a bar by one paw with "Hang in there" written above). But kitschy though "fake it 'till you make it" may be, there is a great deal of wisdom therein.

So, to sum up: food as fuel, not as entertainment. quality, focussed running. 75 km as the new normal. no hours spent rotting in front of the TV, realize how precious every hour of family time is. fake confidence and the rest will follow.

Seemed much more insightful against the backdrop of the Badger Trail.

Hello Wisconsin

2010-09-17T13:26:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere recently that women tend to seek experiential blogs; that women love to read their story being re-told by another who is essentially living the same story. This works because let's face it, at their essential most people's lives are terribly common. This makes me think about the story I have been telling, initially it was new running mom discovering the wonders of her new baby and clawing her way back into pre-pregnancy fitness. Sure it was with the twist that I was also living in a new country that happens to be a country that seems to capture the romantic imagination of people around the world... but at its heart it was new mom loves and baby and tries to get back into shape.

Now my story has changed. Now it goes something like this: mother of one year old baby adjusts to the new reality of her life as a working mom at an incredibly demanding job while baby tries to adjust to daycare (and oh yeah whole family adjusts to being back in North America and mommy continues to try to run...). Ho hum... does anyone really need to hear this particular story being told AGAIN? Are any of the following truths/sentiments at all unique and worth re-telling: my baby is sick with daycare colds all the time, I have almost zero time to myself, I have no idea when I am going to fit in running, my husband and I have no quality time together, I feel like I am doing a crappy job at EVERYTHING. Should I even take the time to blog about all this when it is clear there are so, so many other things I should/need/want to be doing? (emphasis on the should and need). Well, I think telling the story keeps me sane. Not as sane as a ten mile run, but really is there anything more mind-clearing than a 10 mile? Ok. Maybe an 11 mile run.

I am still figuring out the experience that is my new life. Absolutely everything in my little world has changed. I feel myself, my reactions, my person shifting and squirming and trying to adjust. I am frantically trying to figure out how not to suck at all the various things I am trying to accomplish and be. I think I will get there. Where is there? Somewhere probably not too far from here but where I feel slightly more comfortably in my own skin. And where I do a better job at... my various jobs, even if only a slightly better job.

But, to end a rather heavy post on a more light hearted note, now all I am thinking about is - should I run the Cheese Chase 10 km tomorrow? I am in Wisconsin to visit family and attend a cheese festival and only found out today (after a very hard & hilly 11.5 mile run) that there is a 10 km run tomorrow. The entry fee is a little steep $30 - nothing small town about that price! On the other hand it goes towards youth hockey, as a Canadian I am essentially obliged to support them. Plus after coming to this town for the past many years, it would be kind of neat to actually a run race here. And the prizes, of course, are very cheesy.

Guess what we bought today.

2010-09-11T11:49:00.000-07:00

Baby's first running shoes. My marathon flats are included just for scale.

Everybody all together now: "Awwwwwwwwwwww"

Race Report: What happened?

2010-09-05T14:41:00.000-07:00

Well first let me correct some misinformation. There are rumors circulating that I finished 4th and 2nd Canadian. Actually the "live" (now dead?) results are incomplete. I ran 3:08:14 which netted me 6th woman overall and 3rd Canadian. I am sure sportstats.ca will have the full & final results up soon.

I'm honestly not quite sure what happened. I felt okay for the first 14 km. I never felt awesome. I never had the feeling I normally get in the first 1/3 of a marathon where I have to consciously slow myself down. At 15 km I realized I felt far too tired for only 15 km. I was still hanging in at the 1/2 way point (1:27:28) and then things started to unravel. I took my first walking break at the 23 km mark and realized that a 2:55 and even possibly a 3:00 were not looking likely. I had a brief conference with, well, me. I tabled the proposition that we close up shop for the day and look for another marathon in a month when perhaps I would have a better day. This proposition was unanimously rejected. There is no way I will have time to train & travel to another marathon this month. I am coming off a 3 week taper and therefore fitness is declining not increasing. But mostly, it felt very important to me to finish this marathon. Even if it took 3:20 which was kind of the worst case scenario I was calculating at that point.
Decision made I soldiered on. La cocotte was waiting with hubby, parents and a friend at 26 km. Seeing them was a HUGE boost. I took the time for a quick chat and to kiss la cocotte. I figured 30 seconds was not going to be meaningful at the finish line at this point.

From 26 km - 37 km I had a hell of a time. I tried to only take walking breaks every 2 km. Sometimes I could go 4 km and sometimes I could only go a few minutes. I felt like an ass walking past the elite table at the 30 km mark and picking up my special bottle which had been so carefully transported there. To underscore the situation, mine was the last, sad elite bottle left. All the others has been long since picked up. All in all I walked 8 times for a total, I would guess, of about 12 minutes of walking. Eek. The thought of seeing la cocotte & family at km 37 kept me going. And they did not dissapoint! No easy task navigating from km 26 to km 37 on the Montreal subway with a sleeping baby!

I again felt like an ass at the 40 km aid station as the amazing volunteers scrambled to get me my special bottle when they saw bib #13 moving towards them at geologic pace. They couldn't find the bottle to their great consternation and I heartily reassured them it was okay. I was beyond the help of flat coca cola and gummy bears by this point. I did motivate myself a little with the thought that even if it took me 12 minutes to finish I could still break 3:10. Sigh.

The finish of the Montreal Marathon is a real treat as the last km is a huge downhill (4:15 - fastest one since the 1/2 way point) and then the last 200 m are run in the 1976 Olympic Stadium with HUGE crowd support. I managed to put on a show and run a 48 second last 200 m despite my calves which were cramping with every footfall.

So... what the heck happened? SLG suggests it was the move through 7 time zones. Steveq suggests that the nursing and also the move should be factored in. What do I think? Mostly I think I could really go for some take-out thai food but I would hate to disappoint Fast Bastard by not overanalyzing this.

Some possibilities:

1. Started out too fast - I went through 10 km in 41:00 which is 2:53 pace. It's quicker than realistic pace for me but not, I would have thought, egregiously so. I really feel that I did not do anything overtly stupid today so... REJECTED.

2. Hyped this up too much and therefore chocked - REJECTED out of the gate. I was relaxed and calm and really having a ball for the first 14 km. It wasn't nerves.

3. Weather - the temperature dropped 15 degrees between Friday and race day. Furthermore with the collision of two fronts, it was pretty darn windy out there (40 kph). And I was mostly alone, there being a dearth of 3:00 marathoners at this race. Maybe this might have caused a few minutes but others ran stellar races despite, perhaps they were more sheltered in the pack... I'll blame the weather, particularly the wind, partially.

4. Stomach issues leading up the race - the heat & humidity in the days before the race gave me absorption issues. My weight actually hit close to an all-time adult low a few days before the race. I was eating and drink loads to compensate but clearly much of it was passing through unabsorbed. But if this had been the problem I would have expected to feel low blood sugar and drained. This was not the case. I felt tight, tired and like everything was more effort than it should be. Similar but subtly different. Maybe this factor is partially to blame.

5. Training - Yup. It was all SteveQ's fault.
Ok. Obviously I don't feel that way. I was given a brilliant training program that was, as per my request, extremely flexible. Meaning that the work-outs were smart but there were loads to chose from and the execution of the training program was left up to me. Here are the mistakes I made: 1. too much mileage too soon, I think I was in better shape at the end of June than I was today. 2. Deficity of long, long runs. My longest were 36, 36 and 34 and two of these were done a little early in the progression. My weakness as a runner is endurance. I am naturally speedy but not endurant and I did not pay enough heed to that. 3. Not enough mileage overall. 4. Not enough running at marathon pace. SteveQ emphasized this both in his e-mails to me and on his blog and I did not pay enough attention to getting it done.

I'm done with the marathon for awhile. It is clearly not my strength, even disregarding today, my marathon performances are simply not as good as my 5 km - 1/2 marathon. The investment to prepare is too demanding given my current situation. I am thinking about what is coming next but it likely boils down to a massive reduction in mileage (maybe as low at 65 km per week) and seeing if I can run a sub-17:30 5km and a sub-36:30 10 km.

The strange thing is, I am not actually that dissapointed. More curious than dissapointed. I have very few marathons under my belt; today was #7. This is few enough that finishing still feels like an accomplisment.

So thank you everyone. I really appreciate your support & comments. And thanks SteveQ for the training program. I should have executed it better.

42.2 km is a long way to self-propel.

The field

2010-09-04T05:59:00.000-07:00

There are five women in the elite field tomorrow of which I am one, which makes me want to put quotation marks around the word elite but I'll save the self-effasiveness for someday which is NOT the day before a goal race. Toe-ing the line are:

1. Irene Cherop, Kenya - last year's winner in 2:39:31. She is will no doubt be motivated by the $10 G for first place, $2 G for a new course record, $500 for fastest split at the half marathon and (this is my favorite) $20 PER SECOND under the current course record. Cool! Even if she runs one second faster than last year, she is potentially looking at a purse of $12,520. Not bad for a Canadian marathon. And I love the quasi-infinite cash potential of the $20/second bonus. It's a risky prize, 5 minutes translates to $6 G.

but she does not necessarily have it locked up as also returning is

2. Abrha Serkalem, Ethiopia - third place last year in 2:43:07.

3. Myriam Grenon - my former teammate from when I ran for a local club in Montreal. She is the super speedy local runner who beat me at the last 5 km I ran. She has a marathon PR of 2:48 run in May and was 5th last year at the Montreal Marathon in 2:53. She has set PRs in every distance between 5 km and the marathon over the last year including a sub-1:20 half and a sub-36 10 km. Oh, did I mention she has FOUR children? Yeah, she's a bit of a hero and inspiration to me. I don't think beating her is in the cards but it will be fun to run near her for a few kms.

4. Mystery runner who I cannot track down.

5. Moi

Now, here's the fun part. According to rumor, one of the international elites was "lost in transit". What does that even mean? How does that happen? I am not sure which of the 3 runners who are not Myriam and myself is lost.

In addition, Irene Cherop does not actually appear in the confirmed list of runners right now but the local paper claimed she was back SO this means that other fast people from last year could be back and they are just not officially listed yet. Anyway it doesn't matter *that* much to me, I just think it is interesting, adds an element of suspense.

Thanks everyone for your support and cheering. I will tie my shoes tightly, drink lots of fluids today, try to be intelligent (always a struggle when moving over 14 kph) and have a little fun along the way.

All systems reporting GO.

2010-09-03T05:08:00.000-07:00

My legs are heavy.
My hamstrings are tight.
I am exhausted, drained, totally low energy.
My stomach is upset.
I have what feels like constant ovulation pain.

Sounds just about right for the final week before a marathon when the massive reduction in volume makes me sluggish, irritable and prone to obsessive self-monitoring. Honestly if I felt energetic, had springy legs and was raring to go, I would be concerned.

The temperature is still predicted to drop by 11 degrees from today's daytime high of 31 to tomorrow which will give me two nights of sleeping in cool temperatures before the marathon on Sunday. All systems are reporting GO.

Scenes from a transatlantic move with baby

2010-09-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

Standing at the check-in counter of Swiss airlines in the Venice airport in front of incredibly patient and kind airlines employees with our 108 kg of checked baggage divided into 6 pieces, our 4 carry on pieces which clearly exceed weight limits and our carry-on stroller. No, not a dainty umbrella stroller that collapses with a flick of the wrist. The Bob. To add to the mountain of baggage and chaos, we brought the Bob as our gate checked stroller. I wanted to affix a sign to the top of our mountain, actually mountains because 11 pieces of luggage do not fit onto one luggage cart, stating "moving home after one year abroad" lest people think this is how we pack for a 2-3 week vacation.

Walking the aisle of the Swiss airbus 320-300 over and over with la cocotte who, not surprisingly, did not want to spend 8 hours on mommy and daddy's laps. Watching the same aisle-dwelling people, patiently and repeatedly moving their legs, elbows and drinks out of tripping, poking and swiping range of la cocotte.

Feeling dumbfounded when the Canadian Customs guy asked us what we were bringing back from our "trip". How does one sum up a year's worth of acquisitions in 10 seconds as the rest of the airplane waits behind us (because baby privilege dictated that despite being last off the plane, we were moved to the front of the line - LOVE the baby privilege). Chocolate, coffee, some books, a car seat and 14 extra pounds of baby made of the finest Italian food.

Not remembering how to say the address of our apartment in french to the taxi driver.

Walking into our tidy but dusty apartment and feeling oddly disoriented. 24 hours later seeing same apartment with aforementioned 10 suitcases spewing their contents from various frantic searches everywhere.

Realizing just how incredibly un-baby proof our apartment is.

Heart attack at the grocery store when we saw the cost of food. Seriously I felt like I was in one of those time-travel Hollywood movies where the heroine wakes up and 15 years have gone by because $50/kg for cheese? Really? Not even yummy cheese, the cheese I buy because it normally doesn't require taking out a second mortgage on the house. All the lovely, affordable food that la cocotte has grown to love in Italy is, well, less lovely and way less affordable.

Not having every person on the sidewalk stop and admire our toddler. Those who do, seem strangely shocked when I engage in conversation with them, almost as if they are thinking "I was talking to HER not you lady, I don't KNOW you.".

Melting in the 32 deg C heat (40 deg with the humidex everyone LOVES to proudly add as if it is some kind of accomplishment) of a late summer Montreal heat wave.

8 visits to see different daycares. 3 trips to IKEA. 1 trip to Babies 'R Us. 2 trips to Beau Bebe.

Living surrounded by university students and the inevitable noise. Seriously, what are these people thinking making god awful noise at .... oh.... 8:30 pm. I guess expecting pin-drop silence in the student ghetto at 8:30 pm is setting the bar a little high. Somehow though the evening bark on our street in Trieste was more palatable.

Arrivederci

2010-08-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say, rather I have volumes to say but not the time nor coherency of thought to get it out in a comprehensible way. However we are about to pack up our modem, one of the last items to go into a box. We get on a plane in 26 hours. I wanted to have one last post, even if only token, from Italia.

Arrivederci Trieste! Mi Mancherai.

Running the numbers

2010-08-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

A very quick post (since I am supposed to be packing up to move across the ocean) which will be almost entirely numbers (since I am a quantitative freak). The work-out I have done most often since coming back from pregnancy is 5-6 X 1600 m with one minute rest. I thought I would take a quick look at my progression on this work-out over the past year as a way of assessing (again) my fitness for the marathon:

Oct. 13 - averaged 6:21 (6 repeats)
Oct. 16 - averaged 6:14 ( only did 5)
Nov. 11 - averaged 6:10 (only did 5, last big work-out before running a 1:23:50 1/2 marathon)
Jan. 24 - averaged 6:07 (only did 4)
Jan. 28 - averaged 6:04 (only did 5, last big work-out before running another 1:23:50 1/2 marathon)
Mar. 27 - averaged 6:05 (only did 5, sick with head cold)
Apr. 21 - averaged 5:53 (hello! did 6. last big work-out before running a 1:20:49 1/2 marathon)
July 8 - averaged 6:10 (did 6, heat wave - 35 deg C. ugh)
Aug. 19 - averaged 5:55 (did 6)

Wow, that must all be staggeringly dull for anyone who isn't, say, me. But what I glean from these numbers is that first, I most often did 5 repeats, bummer I thought I usually did 6. There was predictably steady, consistent improvement after the pregnancy until April where I hit my peak fitness. The blip in July was caused by the heat wave and can be disregarded, in fact may be an even better work-out than the one previous. But, most important, I have more or less achieved the same fitness as I had in April, the difference between 5:53 average and 5:55 average is within the noise of the signal itself I think. Does 6 X 1600 m predict well for a marathon. No. But it predicts well for a 1/2 marathon I think. So I think I am in about 1:22:45 1/2 marathon shape (adding 2 minutes to the 1/2 I ran in April to compensate for the huge downhill). That predicts a 2:54:36 marathon BUT, one more caveat, I am a better runner over 10 km/half than I am over a full marathon. Why bother to predict if I am going to throw in all these if ands buts and caveats? To procrastinate from packing of course. But it's good food for thought.

Montreal Marathon Preview: A Risk Management Approach

2010-08-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

I did my last pre-marathon long run today. For me this is the moment to pause, introspect and puzzle out my marathon fitness. Here are the basic stats from today's long run:

Distance: 36.4 km

Time: 2:38:47

Pace: 4:21.7 (3:04:02 marathon pace)

Optimistically speaking:

-This run was done at "altitude" 3,412 feet, okay, it's not that high but considering I am a sea-level dwelling creature I think the altitude definitely had an impact. Certainly I felt the altitude on the easy runs I did in the days before this long run.

-I was not completely ruined after the run. I was able to go on an easy hike (okay stroll) with hubby and la cocotte and play a round of mini golf in the hours following. This is far more than I can manage after running a full 'thon all out, so this was definitely not an all-out effort.

On the other hand:

-I took some breaks. I took 60 seconds at 19 km to drink, a 6 minute break (mostly due to logistics) after 24 km, a two minute break after 34 km to drink. I also took a one minute walking break in the 33rd and 34th kilometers because I was hitting the wall and then some however the walking breaks and the 34 km coca cola stop revived me enough to finish in style. Also, as a point of interest, those one minute long walking breaks only slowed my per km time by 30 seconds.

-I took the day before this run off and did ZERO work-outs this week (though 100 km of running, just no quality).

Now is the moment to be painfully honest with myself, disregard any fantasies and figure out in an emotionless, calculating manner what I am capable of running on Sept. 5th.

Marathoning is all about risk management. One must weigh the risk of going out too fast against the risk of not running to one's potential. My feeling is that things can go horribly wrong in a marathon, to wit, I have gone from running 6:30 per mile to 12:00 per mile within 3 miles one time when I went out too fast. However, it rarely happens the other way. With the exception of one's first marathon, athletes rarely run FAR faster than expected. If that does happen inevitably it is because the runner was either deliberately setting low expectations or didn't know their body very well. To figure out how to maximize performance and manage risk, the runner must realistically assess how fast she can run on race day. Also the runner must figure out what her true goals are in undertaking the distance to determine how risk-friendly or risk-adverse her approach should be.

When I ran my two fastest marathon times (2:54:37 Boston 2006, 2:54:11 Chicago 2006) I was feeling risk friendly. I had already broken 3 hours once (2:59:16 Chicago 2005) and so the mystique of the 3 hour marathon was gone. I was interested to see how fast my body could possibly go. I felt that I had a 25% chance of breaking 2:50 based on a 1:20:50 half marathon in the build-up to each and I was willing to risk blowing up for the chance of running sub-2:50. In each case I went through the half marathon in 1:25 and slowed by 4 minutes in the second half. It was a great outcome, I gave myself the opportunity to run a sub-2:50 but still scored a 5 minute PB.

This brings me to my motivations for Montreal. I am not in PB shape and certainly not in PB shape on the Montreal course which is a toughy. Here is the kind of shape I think I am in - the estimates below all assume no injury, no adverse weather conditions and no adverse stupidity on my part. I can with:

-100% certainty run sub-3:07

-95% certainty run sub-3:05

-85% certainty run sub-3:02

-80% certainty run sub-3:00

-70% certainty run sub-2:58

-50% certainty run sub-2:56

So, a PB is not in the cards. Though I would of course like to run as fast as my fitness allows, it is more important to me NOT to blow up than it is to maximize performance. In other words, I am feeling rather risk adverse. Risk adverse - it is certainly not an exciting or glamorous approach. It's not "go hard or go home" mentality or "second place is the first loser" or "pain is only temporary, pride is forever" or any of that obnoxious commercial drivel. It is, however, how I am honestly feeling. I think I can accept going out on a pace that I can, with 80% certainty handle and therefore 3 hour pace it is. So if I can manage to not be stupid on race day, let's put that at an 85% likelihood :), sub-3 hour it is.

Wings

2010-08-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday la cocotte and I went for an airplane ride. This in itself is not unusual. In her short life, la cocotte has done her more than her fair share of cruising at 37,000 feet. What was noteworthy about this flight was that our pilot was none other than hubby! La cocotte and I were his first passengers with him as the pilot in command - to be clear he has flown other people whilst still a student with the instructor present however this flight was all him. Hubby has been working on his pilot's license on and off for close to two years, he got sort-of close before we left Montreal and then there was a bit of lag time while we were finding our bearings here, didn't have a car and he slowly searched for a new flight school. Long story short, he has been working on his license out of a small airport in Divaca, Slovenia and about two weeks ago, he got his wings.

It's a strange thing when someone close in one's life makes an important life change, be it a positive, negative, obvious or subtle change. It can take awhile for those close to the change-maker to intellectually absorb and accept the change. So even though hubby has been coming home 1-2 times per week with stories of his flying lessons, studying flight manuals and taking online courses for the past almost two years, I still had not quite absorbed the change. As we backtracked down the runway to get into position for takeoff, hubby in the pilot seat, me behind him and la cocotte looking utterly non-plussed in her car-turned-airplane seat next to me, I was hit by a very brief but very strong moment of panic where it suddenly occurred to me that we had left the pilot behind. It was utterly surreal to only be the three of us in an airplane that was about to be airborne.

But as the wheels left the ground and hubby continued to do all the pilotey things that one says and does while climbing to 3000 feet, the panic subsided very quickly and I found myself being amazed and proud that hubby had learnt to fly a plane, learnt it so well in fact that the officiating body in Slovenia (Transport Slovenia? that can't be right) had given him the legal right to do so. I was impressed that he was even able to act as a tour guide pointing out various sights of interest as he tooled us around the sky.

The flight was short by design. Hubby's instructor suggested that a short flight was in order to see how well la cocotte and I took to being flown by him. La cocotte had a good doze and I had an incredibly gorgeous scenic flight over a beautiful country, flown by my husband, the pilot.

Despite the short flight, there was a beverage service.

Stop reading the user manual and fly the plane! Fly the plane!

Gorgeous, green countryside of Slovenia.

Striking sinkhole in the landscape caused by underground cavities (caves) that sometimes collapse when they are close to the surface.

Walled, hillside city (don't know the name), despite the lack of perspective you can tell it is on a steep hill by the shape of the road leading up to it in the bottom of the picture.

Under wing mountain.

Our handsome pilot.

Our blasé baby.

Gorging on the scenery

2010-08-11T01:36:00.000-07:00

This is a long winded and winding post. If you don't make it through the whole thing I would ask you just to scroll down to the last paragraph where I have a question for any runner reading. If you have a thought, please leave it in the comments. Grazie!

My last two long runs have been spectacular thanks to my new friend M whom I met through my less new friend K (also K). M takes joy, fortunately for me, in showing Trieste newbies around this gorgeous part of the world that he calls home. Yesterday I was fortunate to see some gorgeous sights on the carso (the uplifted area above Trieste) on a near perfect day that, dare I say, made me realize autumn is just around the corner. It's still hiding to be sure but it occasionally peeks its shy head out and breathes a puff of air before scurrying back.

So we started out along the gravel road that connect Baso Vizza, Italy to Sezana, Slovenia. This road, for me, is quintessential carso with stone lined fences and rolling terrain. It is not in-your-face gorgeous like the Alps but there is a subtlety to its beauty that speaks to the Canadian in me.

As we ran along I learned that M has a blog about energy conservation and peak oil related issues. I learned that it currently costs one barrel of oil to extract 70. M defines peak oil as the time when it costs one barrel of oil to extract one barrel of oil. Perhaps I misunderstood (moving, as I was, at about 13 kph), to me 1 barrel per 1 barrel would have to be well beyond the point of peak oil. Peak oil, as I understand it, is the moment at which we are extracting the greatest rate of extraction and beyond this point the price irrevocably rises. I also learned during this stretch of the run that when insulating one's home, it is best when the option is available, to insulate the outside rather than the inside otherwise there can be problems with mold and heating/cooling cycles.

This road crosses the Italian/Slovenian border without any ceremony whatsoever. There are very few souvenirs of the time when Slovenia was not part of the EU let alone the time when Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia and I did not actually realize when we had crossed the border.

Then we turned left onto a paved road into the Slovenian town of Orlek which is a tiny, picturesque place where I believe I managed to take the least flattering picture possible in the history of picture-taking in Orlek but I include it anyway as proof of having passed through.

I believe it was somewhere around here that M applied the second law of thermodynamics to strategies for efficient energy use. As I understand it, it is most efficient to use primary sources of energy i.e. use the energy source directly do not first transform it into something else. So, for example, one should heat one's home or power one's oven with gas. Heating via electricity is inherently inefficient because to do so one must transform a higher quality energy, electricity, into a lower quality energy, heat. I guess this scenario is even worse if one's source of electricity is coal based as then one burns coal to produce electricity to produce heat and with each transformation, particularly from a low quality energy like heat to a high quality energy like electricity there is great loss. Or something like that.

This makes me wonder about Quebec though. In my home province we have an abundance of hydroelectric to the point that electricity is so cheap it is the most method of heating homes (not a trivial thing in Quebec) and cooking. In this case is it still best to heat using a primary energy source? And I guess the answer depends on one's goal. If one desires to save money, probably yes. However if one is thinking in energy conservation terms, then no. This also makes me wonder, on a more abstract level, if one of the consequences of peak oil and the energy crisis will be to bring individual goals more in line with what is best for society and the environment? As a side note, by environment I mean the environment for use by humans... b/c let's face it when people talk about "protecting to the environment" what they typically mean is "protecting the environment for human use".

After passing through Orlek, we headed back towards the Slovenian/Italijian border; in the above picture I am running towards the border on an asphalt path that felt surprisingly cushioned. Below is all that remains of the border. To appreciate the picture below you have to realize that Trieste was formerly right on the edge of Iron Curtain, or as Churchill put it: "From Stettin in the north to Trieste in the south, an iron curtain has descended over Europe." The "border" seen below was part of THE border during the cold war.

Back in Italija, or I guess Italia, we crossed the highway and commenced what, on paper should have been a gruesome climb up to Opicina but in reality felt awesome. I have noticed throughout my training program that I tend to feel best after about 75-80 minutes of running. I believe this bodes well for Sept. 5th. Below is a shot of me disappearing into the woods to start the climb:

In Opicina we climbed some more in order to reach a ridge which afforded amazing views over the Gulf of Trieste. I used my steep hill running over mountain bike advantage to take this shot of Marko working the hill:

Why can't I justify these photos properly? Hmmm... I'm not going to stress about it and just keep going otherwise I will never get this posted. Below is a shot over the Gulf of Trieste:

And one of the hilliness of the ridge trail we were on though much like the camera adds 10 pounds (though in my case it seems to also re-arrange the pounds :) ) the camera also seems to flatten hills, this looked far more imposing in real life:

We also got very slightly lost:

Which allowed me to take this picture - talk about a home with a view:

Finally we did the last 7 km along a rocky road with a precipitous drop on one side which M's grandmother used to use to transport milk to her family. She would carry 5 liters in each hand and 5 liters on her head. Not bad for a photo taken WHILE running:

This made me think, as almost everything does these days, about what a cooshy lifestyle I lead (as do most people in many parts of the world). My life is so cooshy that I actually have to invent artifical forms of exercise. I ran 31.5 km on this run but I wound up exactly where I started, I transported nothing, there was no practical purpose to this run and think of all the greenhouse gases I exhaled and all the extra food I ate to fuel the run. Total inefficiency!! Far worse I DROVE to the starting point (something I rarely do because it makes me feel too guilty). I am somewhat joking about the inefficiency of my run. I do think though that the lifestyle changes that inevitably occur over the next decade as the price of oil irrevocably rises will include the rebirth of functional exercise i.e. exercise that serves a purpose over and above burning fat, training VO2 etc. etc.

Finally, a question for any runner reading, you don't have to have read the post to answer. Say you were on vacation in a new town and had no idea where to run. How much would you pay for a guide who would plan a running route to your EXACT specifications (length, climb, surface, scenery), would accompany you on a bike giving you your splits, altitude, any data you wanted, carry your water & food, take pictures of you and provide you with interesting historical and contemporary information about the area? How much, per hour, would that be worth to you? Granted it is not something most of us could afford on a regular basis but imagine you are on vacation and want to treat yourself - what do you think that service would be worth?

Some years ago today...

2010-08-06T05:04:00.001-07:00

SteveQ was born! Happy Birthday Coach! Buon Compleano!

To the familiar tune of Happy Birthday:

Tante auguri a te!
Tante auguri a te!
Tante auguri, Tante auguri,
Tante auguri a te!

Leaving Trieste

2010-08-03T01:30:00.000-07:00

Unfamiliar cities in foreign countries are daunting. They are filled with streets with unpronouncable names, odd angles and a feeling of timelessness. Last year as I navigated the streets of Trieste, my eyes were automatically drawn to certain aspects of the city to help me find my way. The height of buildings, the colours of the walls, the location of the bus stops. As I pounded the pavement of the-not-so numerous streets here a half dozen, a dozen, hundreds of times, the city around me shifted and I noticed its more subtle treats. The spill of afternoon light on the leaves of its numerous sycamore trees, the way a mess of vines spills forth from a loosely bricked wall, the amazing cloudscapes in the sky. As I take in the more subtle details, the city changes character before my eyes; streets have become familiar and appear completely transformed from when I first walked along them.

There are so many aspects of living in Trieste I will miss: the variety of different architectural styles whose names I never bothered to learn, being completely and utterly surrounded by glorious nature. I will miss all the amazing running trails I never got to know. I will miss the Italian adoration of babies. I will miss the seemingly random and hilariously translated snatches of English that can be seen in and around town "For opening door, press button and pull handle contemporarily." Above all, I will miss long, lazy days in the park playing with la cocotte. I will miss the alps and living within a 3 hour drive of 3 different countries; where I come from one can literally drive for a day and a half and still be in the province next door - (for any Canadians reading, sing it with me: "A place to stand. A place to grow. Ontari-ari-ari-o."). I will also miss the person that this year has allowed me to become. Moving away means, to some degree, having the opportunity to re-invent oneself, letting go of unhealthy patterns and making room for healthier ones. I hope I can carry some of that home with me.

I went for a run last week-end with some of the runners I have met here. As we ran along, the talk was about a half-marathon coming up in the fall in Palmanova. This was the first race I ran after my pregnancy last year. It was so strange to hear them talking about a race I have already run; every month here, every race, every happening so far has been new to me. As they chatted about who was going to Palmanova I thought to myself: "Oh, this is where I got on, we're at my stop, the end of this crazy, wonderful ride. Time to get off."

Cloudscape over Trieste from Castello San Giusto

View of Trieste through window in castle wall

Delightful view from our house.

Roman ruins outside of Castello San Giusto

Piazza Unita' in a driving rain storm, the covered area we were standing in was flooded shortly after this photo was taken. I wish we had taken the photo in FRONT of the garbage can so that the emphasis was on the piazza, not the garbage can but we did not want to get closer to the rain with our camera. Take a second to click on the photo to appreciate just how intense the rain was. In the far distance, probably not visible, is the Adriatic.

Same piazza taken 3 ours later after the rain from the other end. The first photo was taken under the clock tower one can see in the background. I love the indigo colour that was chosen for the lights in the piazza.

Go Packers!

2010-08-02T01:18:00.000-07:00

"The thing about birthday parties is that the first birthday party you have and the last birthday party you have are actually quite similar. You know, you just kinda sit there... you're the least excited person at the party. You don't even really realize that there is a party. You don't know what's goin' on. Both birthday parties, people have to kinda help you blow out the candles, you don't even know why you're doing it. It's also the only two birthday parties where other people have to gather your friends together for you. Sometimes they're not even your friends. They make the judgement. They bring 'em in, they sit 'em down, and they tell you - 'these are your friends!"

I have to hand it to Jerry Seinfeld, he nailed the first birthday party experience. We had about 25 people over to celebrate la cocotte's birthday but six of those people were other cocottes so it felt more like 50. La cocotte of course had no idea what was going on, I think her largest impression of the day was that there was suddenly a plethora of sippy cups from which to drink in colours far more exicting than her own.

We got very few gifts as people were under very strict instructions (in four different languages) NOT to bring anything as we are try to reduce, reduce, reduce at the moment given our impending trans-continental move. However one of hubby's colleagues originally from the midwest did send us an incredibly creative birthday present. What does one get a one year old cocotte who already has everything?

A cheesehead! As seen on TV!

Go PACKERS!

We will actually be attending a cheese festival in Wisconsin in September and I imagine this hat will figure prominently.

One year ago today

2010-08-01T02:07:00.000-07:00

One year ago today la cocotte came screaming into our lives. I often mentally replay the memory of lying on the OR table under the bright lights, shivering uncontrollably from the anesthesia. It seemed like there was a platoon of nurses and doctors on the other side of the curtain that was carefully blocking mine and hubby's view of the proceedings. I remember the murmurings of the surgical team as they carefully counted every sponge, clip and surgical gadget they placed inside me. There was a feeling of intense pressure followed by a long moment of silence which was broken by the calm, measured voice of my obstetrician: "Well... hello there." This was followed by the wail we had waited 41.5 weeks to hear. My hubby whispered "somebody's here" and indeed she was. A life altering second, not parents one moment, parents the next. There was not enough room in my chest for my heart. There was simply no way of expressing the overwhelming emotion. I remember crying.

It is beyond my gift as a writer to describe how being a mom has affected me never mind how in love and enchanted I am with with baby. I do not want to reduce my experience with hackneyed cliches so I will simply say - Bonne Anniversaire ma cocotte toute douce. Je t'aime forte and je t'embrasse.

How we feel before has nothing to do with during

2010-07-16T00:41:00.000-07:00

It is hot. Ridiculously hot. Day after day after day hot. Forecast unerringly predicting an endless string of 30-35 deg C days. I am almost taking the heat personally at this point; I am overwhelmed by a paranoid delusion that it is out to get me. It is claustrophobic, there is simply nowhere to hide.

I know when people think of Canada, if indeed they think of Canada at all, the iconic vision of igloos and permafrost comes to mind. It does, however, get extremely hot in most Canadian cities. In my city, we will have 35 deg C days with a humidex of 40. But it ENDS! After a week or so there is respite. And there is almost daily respite in the form of a welcome thundershower. Here it is just bloody sunny hot day after sunny hot day. Ok, I'm grumpy and whiny.

So I thought this post was going to be about how lousy my training has been going in the heat. Which it has. But today out of nowhere I had a fabulous work-out despite it being 29 deg C at 5.45 am when I left the house. I expected another abandoned work-out in favour of a slow trudge because my legs were feeling incredibly heavy, stomach incredibly upset - complete and utter lethargy. As I neared the point where I would normally start my 5 X 1 km I decided just to jog, easy and go home. But as I hit the start line my body, unbidden, just started running the first 1 km repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until all five were done and very fast at that (3:32, 3:36, 3:29, 3:25 (WTF?), 3:31). This is faster than I have averaged for 5 since giving birth. Amazing how transforming a good work-out can be. Suddenly I feel hopeful and on track again.

This episode reminds me of a very important rule, one I always tell the runners I coach but often forget myself. Here it is: the way a runner feels immediately before a work-out or race has very little effect on the outcome. This obviously does not include extreme situations, if a runner is feeling the pain of say a compound fracture (cough, Steve) beforehand, than that might have a little effect on outcome. But lethargy, tightness, heavy legs, upset stomach, etc. etc. these little annoyances often vanish with the crack of the starter's gun so... the next time I am feeling terrible before a race I will remember this work-out and be confident.

A slacker and an overachiever

2010-07-10T23:39:00.000-07:00

I have two guidelines when it comes to what I blog about. One, I don't share personal information about anyone other than myself and la cocotte. We have had a ton of family & friends come to visit us over the past 2 months which has resulted in many fun, interesting, wonderful memories and situations which I was tempted to write about but I feel I cannot discuss the other people in my life in a public forum, even for the sake of sharing and remembering good times. Eventually I will stop talking about la cocotte also. Two, I don't share anything personal that I would not comfortably announce to a stranger on the street - because essentially that is that a blog is - an announcement to strangers.

I have been wanting to write this post for awhile in the hopes of garnering some wisdom from other breastfeeding moms however it involves divulging stuff that is a bit more personal than I normally share. I wonder how many current or former breastfeeding moms already know what I am talking about from the title of this post. So, yup... right from the beginning of my breastfeeding "career" I have had one slacker and one over-achiever. Initially the difference was not so pronounced but over time la cocotte and I have come to depend on the over-achiever and come to expect nothing from the slacker and now, like any self-fulfilling prophecy, the difference has become quite pronounced. At this point I essentially have one A or even A-minus and one C which looks strange but whatever... I can live with the lopsidedness while breastfeeding. I guess I just want to know that this is not a permanent condition, that symmetry will be restored once I wean la cocotte.

My other issue is that between marathon training and the 30-35 deg C heat we are having here, I am drying up in general. I always thought that as long as I replaced the fluid lost through sweat and ate enough calories (I definitely do) that I would not compromise my milk supply however production is definitely at an all-time low. I had hoped to breast feed up to 18 months or so to help transition la cocotte into daycare and mitigate some of the daycare colds but I think this might not be feasible. Is there anything I can do to increase production? I am definitely drinking enough as judged by quantity and clarity of urine output. So.... any thoughts appreciated.

Runners, yeah we're different

2010-07-08T02:09:00.000-07:00

Does anyone else remember that Adidas add campaign from the late nineties that features a series of normal runners doing normal runner-type things while being watched by non-runners who clearly found the scene very odd. If not, you can see many of them here. I loved that campaign because my reaction, and the reaction of most of my running friends, was along the lines of "I don't get it, why is that funny?" which was, of course, EXACTLY the point.

I was thinking recently about my own "runners, yeah we're different moment." My job used to entail a lot of travelling for work. One of my running ethics was that I would not miss a run because of work. Family stuff, friends stuff, personal stuff... sure. But missing running because of work really bothered me. This unwritten rule was made challenging to follow by the fact that my days sometimes looked like this:

4.30 am - wake-up.
6.15 am - flight to nearby one of many American cities
8.00 am - arrive in American city
9.00 am - arrive at client site
9-6.00 pm - work with client
8.30 pm - catch flight home
11.00 pm - climb into bed totally exhausted

Hard to find a slot to fit a run in unless I was willing to wake up at 3.00 am. I was not. So when my business trips followed a schedule like that I would often bring a backpack instead of a briefcase. I would hide the backpack as much as possible from the people I was working with so i would walk into the conference room with my laptop already out and immediately tuck the backpack under the conference room table. I would wear the lightest business clothing possible (cardigan instead of suit jacket etc.) and the flimsiest business shoes possible (black ballet slippers instead of heels). After saying good-bye to the client and politely but firmly declining their offer to call me a cab, I would go to the nearest washroom and change, superman style, from business attire into the stash of running clothing I had jammed into my backpack. I would cushion my laptop between the layers of the business clothing and I would be off... running along my pre-mapquested route to the airport, or, in some cases to the subway stop closest to the airport. This worked well in cities like Boston, less well in other cities like Philadelphia where I would just go for a run somewhere nice and finish up at a place where I knew I could grab a cab. I would arrive at the airport sweaty and disheveled. Stretch in line all sweaty while waiting to check in. Get my boarding pass. Find a public washroom, clean up the best possible (this became better once I achieved frequent flyer status and could use the lounges) and change lethargic-Superman style back into my business clothes.

I feel confident that no one reading this blog finds this particularly odd or even extreme. Neither did I. However one time after I had done the superman clothing change in the public washroom of the university I had been visiting, I bumped into the client I had been working with all day wearing short shorts, flimsy tank top and running shoes. It was this incredibly awkward encounter... almost like bumping into someone you know from another context naked in the gym locker room. I also had this feeling that this was somehow stripping myself of my professional veneer. He was completely confused about what I was doing, where my laptop was, the fact that I had a flight to catch. I felt like I had been caught in the act, doing something inappropriate, bizarreness all around. But as I recall, it was a great 10 mile run.

This whole episode also falls well within the realm of normal of other things I have done to make sure I get my run in (running back and forth in the underground concourse at O'Hare come to mind...).

I'd love to hear other people's "runners, yeah we're different" moments.

Right, I'd forgotten

2010-06-29T08:07:00.000-07:00

How terribly wheezy and generally out of control my asthma gets as the summer heats up. This is why I rarely race in July and August. My training is going sharply downhill as the summer wheeze sets in. Last week I ran a 38:38 10 km tempo in training without too much hardship. Today I couldn't even manage 3 X 3 km @ 3:55 pace. But it's all due to summer wheeze. So, I guess I have to not get frustrated with my times and liken it to altitude training i.e. even though I might be running slower, because I am doing it with less oxygen, it still has the same training effect. Right? I hope anyway.

Race Report: 3000 m on marathon training

2010-06-27T03:21:00.000-07:00

I thought I would take small break from being D&G PPC (Doom & Gloom Piccola Pine Cone) by writing up a quicky race report.

In 2006 when I was training for the Chicago Marathon, which takes places in October every year, I ran an 800 m race in July just for giggles. As it turned out, I wound up running a 2:16.05 which was/still is my 5th fastest time ever. I'm not saying that to brag... okay, truth? I'm TOTALLY saying that to brag because I think running a 2:16.05 800 m on marathon training is probably my favorite running accomplishment EVER - even better than my actual 800 m PB or the Chicago Marathon that came after it. So, bragging aside, I was hoping to pull off the same thing today at a local 3000 m track race.

I have not, of course, been training for short distances. I have been working my butt off to get ready for the Montreal Marathon but I am naturally better suited to 1500-5 km than I am to anything longer so I hoped to pull off a 10:10 or so... During a run this week I threw in 1 km in 3:22 that felt awesome and easy and I figured, maybe even sub-10:10 for the 3 km.

Then the heat sheets came out, or, as they are called here "battle sheets". First, the women and men were being run separately. Argh! Why? Why? This isn't national championships or even regional championships, it's just a local fun 3 km on the track, why not organize people by speed instead of gender. Anyway my seed time of 10:30 was the fastest in my heat by 50 seconds. There were three women between 11-12 and everyone else was over 12 minutes. Did this make me feel like a super speedy runner? No! Not at all. It made me feel like this race just didn't happen to attract women around my time and that the organizers should have mixed the heats especially since the first men's heat had a fastest seed time of 10 minutes and a slowest time of 12:30!!

Okay, grumbling aside, I did find it very interesting that this 3000 m race attracted 3 heats worth of women with 15 women in each heat with an average age of about 40! Talk about cultural differences, in Quebec it is rare to find athletes over the age of 18-20 running middle distance. A typical women's 3000 m race will have fewer than 5 athletes in it or will be cancelled altogether due to lack of participation. Given that Trieste (yes, I live in Trieste) has 1/10 the population of Montreal, this is a startling difference.

So, on the the race itself. I felt great during my warm-up, I had to hold myself back from running too fast. It felt fabulous to be on a flat, softish surface again. It has been 4 years since my last track race! I went out in what I thought was a conservative 3:29 first km (I had thought my self chosen seed time of 10:30 was probably a good bit slower than I could run). By the end of the first km I was already lapping women, not a great experience for me or them. I tried to pick things up in my second km but only managed a 3:30. Then the asthma took hold in full force and I remembered why I had put aside middle distance for longer distances. However I was able not to panic or give up - I really have become mentally tougher this year. I told myself to "float" for 600 m and then try to kick. I ran the 600 m float section in 2:11 (or 3:38 km pace) but was feeling far from fiesty at the bell lap. Nevertheless I managed to bring it home in 82 seconds for the last lap, 3:34 last km, 10:34 total time.

What can I say. Eh. A so so race, 37 seconds slower than my personal best. I am not training for 3 km of course, I did not taper for this race and I did have breathing issues. Yet, I am still dissapointed, I was hoping to pull a great one out of the bag. Oh well.

[Update] The race was chip timed and I just noticed that there are splits on the website:

200 m: :42
600 m: 2:07 (85)
1000 m: 3:30 (83)
1400 m: 4:53 (83)
1800 m: 6:18 (85)
2200 m: 7:44 (86)
2600 m: 9:12 (88)
3000 m: 10:34.48 (82)

Here's a photo of me looking awfully tired for being only 100 m into the race :)

800 m to go, feeling bad

Are we really running out?

2010-06-25T01:45:00.000-07:00

As I continue to read and learn about the specter of peak oil, my first step is figuring out what are the fundamental questions to ask about this situation. It seems to me that they are as follows:

1. How many years are we from peak oil or are we indeed past it?
2. Are there feasible energy alternatives and if so, how close are they to coming online?
3. What can we as individuals do the alleviate the situation?
4. What will life in a post-oil society be like?
5. What can we as individuals do to prepare for living in a post-oil society?

Ideally I would like to answer all of these questions in a series of posts through my reading for my own ~~peace of mind~~, scratch that because I don't think there is any peace of mind to be had on this topic. I would like to find answers to these questions for my own mental health but some of them, I fear, are unanswerable.

The first question, which I would like to deal with in this post, addresses a comment that mmmonyka left for me yesterday essentially asking if she was the only one who thinks our oil reserves are underestimated. So I thought I would start with that.

The question of how much economically viable oil remains is a difficult one to answer mostly because any given country's oil reserves are essentially considered a state secret of that country. There are published oil reserves from the major oil producing countries however one must bear in mind that there is heavy incentive to exaggerate one's reserves because greater oil reserves = greater power for the country. Saudi Arabia, which is by far the most important oil producing country in the world with approximately 1/4 of readily extractable reserves, has not published any data on their reserves since 1982. This, of course, has raised concerns that their wells are past peak. I cannot think of any incentive for them to hide the fact that they have far MORE oil than the global community thinks they do. A study done by an energy investment banking firm concluded that Saudi Arabia's production likely peaked in in 2004. In addition, there have been no major discoveries of giants fields in that country since the 1970s. Those three facts together i.e. that Saudi Arabia has 1/4 of the world's proven oil reserves, that they likely peaked 6 years ago and have had no new discoveries in 40 years are enough to convince me that no... the world's oil reserves are not underestimated, quite the opposite.

Here is a widely cited figure which I swiped along with the analysis from here that is disturbing on a few levels:

As you can see there is a step increase in reported oil reserves in all the countries around the mid-eighties. This happened despite there being NO major discoveries during this time. In addition, the reserves plateau after 1988 or increase... despite the fact that the world is drinking up 85 million barrels per day - nowhere on these graphs is any depletion shown! How can we trust data that does not reflect the depletion of oil caused by consumption in the absence of new oil discoveries?? These numbers are largely based on figures from oil companies and oil producing countries both of whom have strong incentives to bloat their figures. Again, no, I don't think the world's oil supply is underestimated.

So that is my reading on the proven, economically viable reserves of traditional reserves. There are tons of peak oil debunkers who optimistically allude to various rosy scenarios such as abiotic oil (oil that originates from reactions in the earth's crust, not from organic decay) and the Bakken formation in the western US with its 3 trillion barrels of untapped oil (more than the rest of the world combined). Unfortunately these are essentially bedtime fairy tales being told to reassure the human psyche which is programmed to reject bad news. The Bakken formation is far from the dream solution that people want to believe in. The very best case scenario is that if it can be fully exploited, it would reduce US imports of oil for one year (source). As for abiotic oil, this seems to be complete and utter nonsense though I have to admit I have not read on this topic yet.

In a sense it is a little ridiculous to talk about how much we have left. For one thing, it is not the amount left that impacts our life as much as the timing of peak production, as I stated last time, once production peaks prices go up, economic downturn and all its accompanying hardships results on some time course yet to be determined. For another thing, we know that we have finite oil left, 5 years worth, 10 years worth, 50 years worth... yes it makes a difference from the selfish perspective, essentially is this going to be a problem in our particular lifetimes or not. But it is going to be a problem for some people sometime in the not too distant future. Yes, if we have more time rather than less it gives us time to conserve and adjust and find new solutions. I guess I am just not optimistic about people's abilities to make changes especially to solve a problem of which most people are ignorant or deluded. I am especially not optimistic about the abilities of politicians to legislate to address an issue that may occur outside of the time frame of their term in office. I am just not optimistic. Not about this.

Peaking

2010-06-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

This deliberately, deceptively titled post is not about peaking for optimal race performance. This has nothing to do with running, babies or Canadians far from home. In fact, the original title of this post was going to be "Terrified and Depressed". Cheery. Anyone still reading?

The peaking in the title of this post refers to peak oil theory. Previously I thought that the largest problems facing humanity were dwindling clean water and global warming. However, I have recently started reading about peak oil. I haven't been living in a cave, I did know that our fossil fuel dependent society was destined to run out of its primary currency sometime before the end of this century depending on which source you trust. What I had never understood was the concept of "peak oil" and its potentially devastating impacts.

What I have read over the past few days has completely floored me. I always thought that... well actually never mind what I always thought about peak oil and global energy; I was ignorant and naive. In case I am not the last person on the planet over the age of 18 who was/is uninformed about peak oil theory here it is in a nutshell: Peak oil is defined as the moment at which the maximum rate of petroleum extraction is reached after which point oil production enters terminal decline (from wikipedia). Once oil production starts to fall, prices continue to go up until oil becomes unaffordable and, to be blunt, the world as we know it is completely altered.

The global economy is frighteningly dependent on cheap oil. This is not just a matter of paying a few extra bucks at the pump. The food we eat is produced using oil, the fertilizers - oil based, the energy to run the farm equipment -oil based, the energy to transform the raw components of food into more refined food - oil based, its transportation from producer to market - oil based. A little factoid, the average piece of food is transported 1500 miles from producer to consumer in the US and 5000 miles from producer to consumer in Canada. We need oil to eat, move, clothe ourselves, have access to clean water, build infrastructure, power cities, hospitals. We use oil in almost every mundane aspect of our lives. Most of our high tech gadgets like the laptop I am writing on are produced using oil. This morning on my run I was imagining the world around me and trying to imagine how many of the little scenes unfolding before would be affected by a lack of oil - the truck delivering food to the supermarket, the cars driving by, the woman drinking clean water out of the community water fountain. It's staggering.

Of course this oil dependence means that not just the individual person will be affected. Companies will go bust as the cost of acquiring the resources they need to produce their product drives them out of business. This could lead to global recession and depression. Ultimately all of this will lead to a massive re-organizing of society. Our globalized economy is notoriously sensitive to small fluctuations in supply - I don`t remember the oil crisis in the 70s but apparently oil prices tripled. We have no way of knowing how precipitously the oil supply will drop after peak oil but some geologists are suggesting annual declines in production grave enough to send the economy into a tailspin.

So of course there are alternative energy sources, the infamous oil sands in Canada, biofuels, wind, solar etc. etc. The problem with these, as I have been reading, is that their EROI (energy returned on investment) is far lower than traditional oil and some of them, depending on how you do the math, actually have negative EROIs, in other words the energy invested into them is greater than the energy extracted. In addition, we currently do not have the major infrastructure needed to generate, store and transport energy from these sources. We could build this infrastructure but that requires, you guessed it, energy. If we don't start making the switch to other viable sources of energy soon we are going to run out of the oil needed to do so.

There is a lot of speculation regarding WHEN peak oil will occur and some people speculate that we are already past it. The "peakers" seem to think we passed it in 2005 while others talk about 2020 or 2030. Regardless of whether this happened 5 years ago or is happening now or will happen in 15-20 years, this seems to me to be an intractable problem because its solution will require people to think ahead something humans are notoriously bad at and somehow overcome the classic tragedy of the commons dilemma (I don't think we've ever managed to do this in the past). Meaning is EVERYONE pitched in and drove less, switched to diesel cars (one aspect of European life I really appreciate), switched to LEDs for lighting etc. etc. we could conserve enough energy to perhaps buy us time to implement solutions (this sounds very vague partly b/c I am still reading and learning) but to be blunt this requires humans to act in a way that history shows is not very human.

Some of the descriptions I have read of a post-oil world are straight out of a hollywood, block buster movie about armageddon. Famines, fresh water shortages, wars, desperate people in desperate situations... I have no idea how sensationalistic some of the scenarios are but there can be no doubt that there will be suffering and a massive lowering of everyone`s standard of living.

There is no shortage of well-written, well-researched information on this topic available on the web. I highly recommend Matt Savinar's well researched, well written summary can be found here. For a think-tank summary look here, there are also various articles on the topic from this network of European scientists to name just a few. It would not be an understatement to say that these readings have fundamentally altered my outlook on life and in all honesty I have spent the past few days in a state of dazed and stunned disbelief. I am still reading and learning about this topic so I apologize if I have done a piss poor job of summarizing the issue.

Yup, I'm depressed. Scared. And avidly reading on this topic.

Here at St. Clouds

2010-06-16T07:28:00.000-07:00

Our time here is dwindling. In ten weeks we fly home. I am closing up shop: packing, shipping, throwing out, giving away (treadmill anyone?). I have spent much of this year pondering the bottomless question: how is life different on this side of the pond? It is hard to know exactly what I am trying to compare as my life changes were so confounded. North America to Europe? Canada to Italy? Quebec to Trieste? Big city to small city? Professional woman to stay-at-home mom?

I guess I feel I know enough of North American culture, having lived in 4 provinces, 1 state and visited over 30 states for work, to make a comparison between North America and the small piece of Italy in which we happen to live. I don't know how well the generalizations I have made about la vie quotidienne here port to other parts of Italy let alone other parts of Europe.

I find the pace of life here very slow. Whether this is a function of being in a small town (250,000), being a stay at home mom or a function of being in Italy or Europe, who knows? I don't have the frazzled sense that I had in Montreal, which FYI I miss!, nor do I have the sense that I need to be efficient and quick when dealing with people because otherwise I am wasting their precious time. How can one be efficient and quick when most interactions start with 3-5 minutes of baby admiration, followed by half a dozen questions about the baby before actually turning to the business at hand? The rhythm of the days has been hard to get used to with the 3-4 hour siesta in the middle of the day and on Sundays (and often Mondays) things just don't happen. Period.

Work-life balance actually seems to exist here. People do not define themselves by what they do. The perennial North American question "what do you do for a living?" rarely comes up here. Family time is precious. Precious to the point that people are rarely invited to the family home, it is a bit of a sacred place. People seem to socialize in restaurants, piazzas, bars, but invitations to dinner at home are rare and extended mostly to the extended family and very close friends.

Opportunity, on the whole, seems to be less. I do NOT have the sense that if you work hard enough you can be/do anything you want. I have the sense that if your family is important, and you know the right people and you work very hard you can rise to the level to which you were expected to rise. The economy seems to be much more service-based than in North America so there are simply fewer jobs available in high tech fields or innovation or research and development. I have met far more people here who work in bars, restaurants, hotels, stores, factories than anything else and I think that is simply a function of these jobs being the most numerous, by far.

Doing things right: in seeming contrast to the slower pace of life is the notion of doing things right. Hobbies are not undertaken casually here. There is a society for almost every pursuit no matter how esoteric and the sense that if one undertakes an activity it should be done rigorously. I have certainly seen this in the bureaucracy and ceremony surrounding even the most local of road race around here.

Money is not spent frivolously here and my impression is that consumer debt is low. I have, on numerous occasions, been told by a sales or service person that the option/object/service I am considering is too expensive without even being told the price. On these occasions I did not interpret this as the salesperson thinking I was too shabbily dressed to possibly be able to afford the item in question but rather that no reasonable person of normal income would be irresponsible to enough to spend that shocking amount of money on that item. People do not tend to carry a balance on their credit card and typically loans are taken out only for the purchase of a home.

Leaving the nest: children do not leave the nest until quite late in Italy. The concept of going to a different city/province/region for university is largely unheard of due to the cost of housing and living. This tends to happen only if pursuing the education of one's choice is not possible in one's home town. Perhaps North Americans are so entrained to the idea of taking on debt for education that the additional burden of food and housing is not considered a barrier. Regardless the result is that Italians live at home typically until at least their mid-twenties often moving out when they get married. This, I feel, is quite different from the typical North American dorm/university apartment experience.

The stereotype that Italians love babies is absolutely true. As far as I can tell, the social hierarchy here is: newborns, infants, toddlers, dogs, primary school children, all other children, all other people. I will certainly miss having my baby fawned over. When I walk into a restaurant/bus/other public place, I can see the anticipation on people's faces as they hope the baby will sit near them. In Montreal I see the dread on people's faces as they hope the baby will just go away.

After almost a year here I have grown to love and appreciate many aspects of life here. I have made far more friends than I expected to and feel fortunate that they were all so welcoming to me. I have achieved a higher level of Italian than I expected to (though it is still definitely cringe-worthy). Ultimately though I am a new-worlder at heart. I am sure I will miss our time here and look back on it with great nostalgia. I do wish we had more than 10 weeks left as there are so many beautiful places we have not explored but I will be ready to cross the pond and go home.

Marathon Training Week 4: Two long runs, coca cola & gummy bears

2010-06-13T01:48:00.000-07:00

Monday: 18.4 km 87 minutes with baby jogger (and baby)

Tuesday: Long run # 1 - 27.4 km in 2 hours 5 minutes with last 8 km @ marathon pace, averaged 4:11/km. More importantly, ran at 5 pm, temperature 33 deg C. Good heat training. Did not feel as horrid as I feared.

Wednesday: Off.

Thursday: 16.8 km in 81 minutes.

Friday: 6.3 km in 30 minutes (logistical difficulties interrupted what was going to be a 14 km run)

Saturday: 17 km in 85 minutes.

Sunday: Long run #2 brought to me by flat, warm coca cola (my favorite long run fuel) and gummy bears. 18 km @ 4:35/km followed by 12 km @ 4:05 per km. Followed by 4 km @ 5:00 per km (uphill to get home). Good, solid run. Marathon pace felt very manageable. 34 km total in 2 hours 35 minutes 26 seconds.

Total: 119.9 km
Total quality: 20 km.

Why two long runs in one week? The first "belonged" to last week which was cut short by my fall down the stairs (see previous post). Maybe not strategically the smartest thing to do but in my mind the long run work-out is the back bone of the program so I didn't want to miss one. That coca cola was the finest tasting thing ever at 18 km and then 28 km. Am I the only one who uses coca cola instead of sports drink? It's got water, sugar, salt, caffeine, what more could a thirsty distance runner ask for?

I have to say I am feeling pretty strong. My body is handling the long runs and the heat far better than expected.

12 weeks to go.

Marathon Training Week 3: XVth century convent and a fall down the stairs

2010-06-13T01:21:00.000-07:00

This post is a week late (I actually just finished week 4's training about an hour ago). Have been having wrist problem so will keep this brief... but, for my own personal record, here we go:

Monday - off

Tuesday - 15 km 71 minutes. felt good for 2 days after 32 km.

Wednesday - off, fighting cold.

Thursday - yasso 800m: 2:52, 50, 50, 47, 48, 49, 49, 51, 50, 50. hard but not egriously so. 18 km total.

Friday - am:16.2 km, 84 minutes. tired, very!.

pm: fall down staircase at 15th century convent. develop severe bruising on ass & tailbone.

Sat - off, ass hurt too much to run.

Sun - ditto.

Yes, we were staying at a gorgeous XVth century convent during a conference. I fell down a flight of stone stairs on my first night with... horror.. la cocotte strapped to my chest. Falling while marsupialing la cocotte has been one of my biggest fears (and I never even contemplated it happening down a flight of stairs). Very, very luckily for me, only my ass, tailbone and shoulder blade were bruised. La cocotte, whose comment on the event was "gayga!" was completely unharmed. It took me about 5 minutes to stand up. I tried to call for help but was drowned out by a horny peacock who was repeatedly crowing, and it was night so no one could see me at the bottom of the staircase. I got back to our room, handed hubby la cocotte and, for the second time EVER in 35 years of life, fainted. I consider myself very lucky and lesson learned.

Oh dear

2010-06-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

I think I have been doing too much hanging out on the blogs of ultrarunners because this is starting to look tempting. It is a 6 (or 12) hour race that is run around a 2.25 km loop that is a 20 minute jog from my home in Montreal, in fact it is a loop I often use for intervals. It is run in January typically on snow and in the freezing cold. Not surprisingly it is called the Frozen Ass run. I find myself strangely intrigued.

My record to date for 6 hours is 46.6 kilometers. This consisted of jogging 2 km to warm-up, running the Chicago Marathon, walking 1.6 km to the nearest Irish Pub for lunch and finally walking 800 m back to our parked car. It all hapenned within 6 hours so does that count?

Marathon Training Week 2: Getting in my own way

2010-05-30T08:58:00.000-07:00

This week was a little unbalanced as I had two days where I only ran 8 km which I almost never do. I vaguely recall reading that Christy Turlington once said that she wouldn't get out of bed for less than 10K/day. Well PiccolaPineCone does not normally get out of bed for less 15 k. Yes Christy's figure is in dollars whereas mine is in kilometers. My rationale is that if I am not going to log at least 15 km then I would rather get more sleep and pile the mileage on another day. My criticisms of my training this week are that I screwed up my long run a little and did not get enough marathon pace work in. Week in review:

Monday: off.

Tuesday: 8 km in 37:20 (too fast)

Wednesday: 6 km warm-up. 3 X 3 km w 1st km @ marathon pace, 2nd @ 1/2 marathon pace, 3rd @ 10 km pace, 500 m jog btwn. Those paces were the intention anyway but I wound up running 1é2 marathon pace, 10 km pace, 5 km pace instead which then caused me to have to take unscheduled rest breaks and the last 3 km was disaster. 3 km cool-down.

Thursday: 8.2 km in 41 minutes.

Friday: 7.5 km warm-up. 7.7 km @ 1/2 marathon pace (3:56 per km) 1.8 km cool-down.

Saturday: 14.6 km in 1 hour 14 minutes.

Sunday: Long Run. Goal was to do 30 km in 2 hours 30 minutes i.e. 5 min/km. I did the first part of the run on a route I don't know so I ran at what I thought was 5 min/km. I got to my stashed powerade bottle after 1 hr 40 min by which time I felt woozy and very thirsty. I don't think I even drank it, I think it was drawn into my parched pores directly by osmosis. Regardless I consumed it in about 10 seconds flat and felt fabulous after. At that point on I was running where I normally run which is on a road that is marked every kilometer. I kept the same pace I had been running earlier and realized I was running 4:35-4:40 per km. I deliberately tried to put on the brakes but had a really hard time doing so; I was just so pace-locked at that point it felt nearly impossible to switch gears. The good news is I never really crashed. I always felt reasonably good except for briefly puking at about 29 km. Anyway the upshot is that I did run 2 hours 30 minutes but actually covered 32.3 km in that time (gmapped it when I got home) so an average of 4:38. The moral of the story for me is that I need to start my long runs on a measured course so I start off at the right pace. On the other hand I felt good immediately following my run and still feel good now, several hours later so it doesn't seem like it was too taxing.

Total = 100 km.
Total Quality = 16.7 km

I have my training plan now (thanks coach! - i would link to your blog but a) don`t know if you want more people bugging you for training plans and b) I think most people who read this found me through you or SLG in the first place) and am psyched about it. It is a plan I really believe in, it makes sense and I can see myself actually executing (today's lack of adherence to it notwithstanding). So if I can stop getting in my own way by running too hard when I don`t have to then I think I can lay down the training for a pretty decent fall marathon.

Profound Fatigue

2010-05-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

For the past many months, at the end of every day, I am fried. Completely and utterly exhausted. I feel silly even writing about this because I know that I have it really easy. I have one, single baby, who sleeps 10 hours a night with only two wakenings and naps during the day. One dishwasher. One washing machine. Hubby who helps out a ton at home. Year long maternity leave. I am super fortunate in many ways so I hope this post does no sound like a complaint. Rather I am interested in figuring out why I am so completely exhausted not only at the end of each day but, to be honest, most of the time.

Let me start with... it's NOT the running. Ok, yes, the running contributes but the running is no more intense than it has been for the ten years so I can't blame the increased exhaustion on it.

What has really changed, of course, is the fact that I am living in a different country, am a mommy, a housewife and am not working outside the home. All this makes me wonder how do the demands of ME being a stay-at-home mom compare to the demands of ME working in my previous job. Note the capital ME... I am in no way trying to generalize and enter the age-old, and in my mind pointless, debate about who works harder, stay at home moms or moms who work outside the home. In all sincerity I take my hat off to both groups of parents, both paths are challenging and exhausting.

In BC (before cocotte) times I worked 45-65 hours per week depending on whether I was travelling for work or staying in the office. While that would be a shockingly high number around here, it is about average for North America... though I am only counting concentrated work hours at my desk, in meetings, visiting customers or on the road travelling. I don't count lunch breaks or even coffee breaks so to put in 45-65 hours means I was at the office/on the road 55-75 hours per week which starts to sound considerable. Especially since I would often leave home at 4 am to catch a flight, work all day, go for a run, catch a flight home and climb into bed at oh... maybe 1.30 am! On top of that I probably did about 10 hours of domestic work per week (we has a messy house and ate a lot of convenience food!).

In contrast, now in taking care of the house & baby I work [aside for the math: groceries: 3.2, cooking: 5.25, laundry: 3, baby food making: 1.5, cleaning: 7, cleaning baby: 2, nursing: 8, feeding baby: 5.25, dressing & changing baby: 3.5] 38.7 hours per week. This of course does not count what I spend most of my time doing which is playing with la cocotte b/c that's not work! Far, far fewer working hours. So why the fatigue?

Here are my theories... although my previous and soon future job is quite intellectually demanding (at least relative to my level of intellect :)) it is less demanding in the sense that it did not require constant vigilance. I have come to realize it is not only sleep deprivation that makes parenting exhausting. It is also the constant vigilance that is required to take care of a being who has no concept of mortality, danger, injury, harm. All day long la cocotte is literally inches from danger and injury and it is my job to keep her from it which means that even going for a poop (me, not her) becomes an excursion requiring strategy and thought. Tiring!

Worrying. I have tried not to be a crazy, neurotic, worrying mom and generally have achieved this goal. I am actually a pretty chill mom. But it is impossible and probably careless to completely avoid worry. Here, in the past week alone, are some of the worries I have had: she's-eating-too-much-sugar, she's-eating-too-little-in-general, omigod-where-is-that-sock-she-was-sucking-on-did-she-actually-swallow-it?, why-isn't-the-bruise-on-her-face-healing?, why-is-her-poop-yellow, will-i-find-an-amazing-daycare?, will-i-find-a-daycare-period, she's-sleeping-too-little, she's-sleeping-too-much, we-re-spoiling-her, we-re-not-paying-enough-attention-to-her. Wow, did I say I am a chill mom? Hmmm... I guess we can add lack of self-awareness to my long list of flaws. Anyway, worrying=exhausting!

Uninterrupted sleep. I know I am super fortunate that she only wakes up two and sometimes only one time per night. However I think I actually wake up about 20 minutes before her 4am feeding in anticipation of it and it usually takes me about 20 minutes to get back to sleep afterwards. Since I usually go to bed at 10 pm, this means I get one 6 hour block of sleep and 1.5 hour block of sleep which I guess is not actually that much. Yesterday as an experiment I went to bed immediately after la cocotte (8.45 pm) and did not get up early to run and yes, that made a HUGE difference.

I continue to wonder what my life will look like as a mom who works outside the home. I truly can't imagine being any more exhausted than I currently am at about 8 pm each evening so something will have to give. Ultimately I guess someone else will be doing the cocotte watching during the day. We'll definitely eat more convenience foods than we are now. I plan on cutting my running down to 5 times a week with 70-80 km total (no marathons after Montreal for me for awhile!). I know it can be done because I know a lot of women who do it and do it with more than one child. I am just having trouble seeing it.

Marathon Training Week 1: Smart week in training

2010-05-23T02:39:00.000-07:00

This has been a smart week in training in the sense that I felt like every run/work-out was very focussed on my goal of a September marathon. I felt like there was nothing extra thrown in and nothing important left out. I have not been this satisfied with the week's work in awhile! When I ran my marathon PB I was training extremely hard but I was not training as intelligently as possible. I basically trained for a 10 km/half marathon and threw in the long runs needed to run a marathon. I ran a ton of mileage (for me anyway) and all that netted me a low-2:54 with which I was thrilled.

However, in chatting with my shiny new coach and thinking about things in retrospect, I know there were two things I could have done differently:

1. I tend to run my easy days way too fast and although it feels good at the time, it affects my work-out days. I am now making a conscious effort to not go faster than 5:00/km on my easy days. I am aided in this effort by the presence of la cocotte who is now joining me in the Bob on my easy runs. I am still not thrilled with baby jogging but it maes life easier on a number of levels and it has the added bonus of keeping me honest on my easy days.

2. I did virtually no marathon pace work. Not sure how or why I left something that fundamental out of my plan.

I still maintain that my goal this autumn is not to PB because the course will be hilly (net uphill in fact) and the day will be hot and humid and I don't plan to put in as much mileage as I did for my last marathon due to the fact that my body feels like it is about to bust apart at the seams. However I do wonder if by training smarter I will be able to run faster than I think with less work. Wouldn't that be lovely?

So here is my first week of marathon training:

Monday - 18 km with 12 km @ marathon pace (2:55:50 pace i.e. 4:10 per km).
Tuesday - 14 km with baby jogger 1 hour 10 minutes.
Wednesday - 16.7 km with baby jogger 1 hour 19 minutes (too fast)
Thursday - 15.4 km with 3 X 1500 m: 5:30, 5:16, 5:20.
Friday - off.
Saturday - 16 km with baby jogger 1 hour 23 minutes.
Sunday - 28 km with 14 km @ marathon pace (2:55:25 i.e. 4:09 per km)

Total 108 km - 30.5 of them quality.
I'm pleased.

Blogging on blogging

2010-05-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

I began reading blogs long before I gathered the momentum to start my own. In the beginning I did not understand the unwritten rules of blogging and commenting. I thought that commenting on a blog was akin to asking a question in the middle of a university lecture i.e. something one should only do if they have read all of the material and in general come to class prepared, otherwise it is a waste of everyone's time. Then I began to realize that comments were generally welcome and did not necessarily have to be earthshatteringly insightful.

I started my own blog without completely understanding why I was doing so. Since then I have pondered why people blog and, indeed, why I myself have started. I think it boils down to the following-

Sharing the wealth
I think some people genuinely feel they have a wealth of knowledge to share and some genuinely do. Blogging to them is a form of sharing this wealth among their readers.

Seeking and offering support
The first blogs I read were those of people struggling with infertility. The network of support among these bloggers was amazing to me. Clearly these people (mostly women) draw strength from each other and blogging is a form of cheap therapy. I imagine this is the case for many other communities of people struggling with various issues.

Seeking community
There is something fundamentally human in seeking others who share common experience. People out there in the void who can, in some way, relate to our path in this life. I guess I was seeking and have found a community of runners, mommies and running mommies.

A soapbox
In the real world one must so often shout to be heard, a blog gives one a soapbox on which to preach one's deeepest held beliefs without interruption. In one's blog, one is master of the castle, one gets the first and last word. There is something very powerful about that.

Exercising the literary muscles
I have the feeling that deep down inside EVERYBODY supposes they'll eventually write a book someday. I have a friend here whose job it is to screen unsolicited manuscripts that are sent into her publishing company and she assures me that the VAST majority of people should NOT. Regardless blogging is a great way to flex the creative muscles and practice a very basic form of self expression; something that most people don't do once they are out of formal schooling.

Quest for accountability
Many people seem to start blogs when they are attempting to make an overwhelming, positive change in their life - losing weight, training for a marathon, quiting bad habit X, Y and Z. I think blogging about it gives them a feeling of accountability to the unknown audience and helps to keep them on track.

Recording one's history
Certainly a huge part of blogging has to be recording the passing of one's days. What did I do? Why was it important? What did I learn? What do I look forward to? What do I regret? A blog is basically a diary to may people, a way of making sure that what has passed will not be forgotten. But of course if the major motivation were simply to record one's history, there would be no need to broadcast it to the world which leads me to the last, and most primal reason for blogging...

I'm alive
I think fundamentally many people blog as a way to shout to a vast and largely indifferent universe: I'M ALIVE! What I do matters! I was here and I did something with my life... Call it narcissistic, call it self-absorbed. I think it is deeply and fundamentally human.

Race Report: Some Pig.

2010-05-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

I raced a local 8 km this week-end. 4 km uphill, 4 km downhill - more or less. Strangely the race itself was run in a loop around large petroleum storage tanks, the kind that are so big that you notice them at 40,000 feet when overflying in an airplane. Yet, the roads were winding and narrow, lined with greenery and vineyards and the coourse was actually quite beautiful. Only in Italy could a loop around petroleum tanks wind up being attractive.

This was a good race for me to recitfy last week's going-out-too-fast blunder since the climb came at the beginning of the race. I was quite pleased that none of my uphill kms went over 4 minutes: 3:51, 3:49, 3:52, 3:57. I passed through 4 km in 15:30 and then proceeded downhill: 3:38, 3:35, 3:37, 3:34. I did a better job this week of not getting demoralized when people passed me. With each passing person I tried to calmly evaluate whether I should try to stay with them or keep on doing what I was doing. I am getting better, in general, at thinking and analyzing while racing and not just giving into blind fatigue. I was pleased to dip under 30 minutes for the 8 km - 29:55. This is a much slower performance than my half marathon a few weeks ago but that was really the focus of the season and I have just been jogging or doing nothing really since then. I have essentially been coasting off the fitness I gathered for that race. I am out of momentum now though, if I don't start training again (which I did, this morning) I will definitely see a precipitous drop in fitness soon.

My major issue during this race is that this song got stuck in my head starting at 3 km. Il coccodrillo come fa is the only song in Italian I sing to la cocotte and it's cute, fun, melodious but not 5 km worth of cute, fun and melodious. At one point I actually physically shook my head as if I could dislodge it that way prompting the guy next to me to comment "dai, dai, scendiamo subito" (go! go! we'll be going downhill soon). I guess he thought I was shaking my head in resignation at the hill.

The most astounding part of the day were the prizes and give aways. This really requires pictures in order to be believed. First, came the participation prize - this was given to everyone who finished the race, as in "thanks for coming out, here is your pig":

Participation Pig! (yes that is la cocotte's hand attempting to slide some of it out of the picture).

Then I won the women's race overall; my prize was a duffel bag which was full of... pig! As in "You won the women's race! Congratulations! Here is your pig!".

Overall woman pig! Again you can see the lurking cocotte in the lower left hand corner.

But, as they say in the late-night informercials, wait! There's more! I also won my age category. Normally they don't do cummulative prizes, which I think is more equitable, but in this case they did. "Congratulations! you won your age category! Here is your (everybody all together now) PIG!".

Age category pig! This time I was not quick enough with the camera and la cocotte did succeed in dragging one package of prosciuto almost out of the frame but you can see it in the lower left hand corner.

All in all, 3 Kg of pig including 2 roasts. That's a lot of pig. I'm not complaining. The sponsor was obviously very generous, especially with the participation prizes which must have cost them a bundle. The timing is just odd because I have been thinking for the past two months of dastically reducing my meat consumption or going back to being a lacto-ovo vegetarian. But that's a topic for a different post (coming very soon).

In the meantime, if anyone who reads this blog lives in my city (hint, hint) and enjoys pork, it would be my very great pleasure to share some of this. Particularly say if there was someone whose nutritional needs were perhaps augmented right now (hint hint hint).

Running song of the day: Il coccodrillo come fa.