This is Actually an Exercise Blog

To kick off the summer, and also to give myself something to do (besides the Internet/TV), I've decided to actually exercise. Aka, not bask in my marathon glory but continue to work on my running and on yoga.

So Monday, I dropped off my mother at work and I hit up the dyke for an easy 5k - basically a shakeout run to test my bones after the marathon hurt. Well ... it was creaky. My muscles were stiff-ish and my pace was not great, but it was sunny and beautiful and obviously I was happy I did it. Because duh, you never regret a workout.

Look at that beauty!

Now since I couldn't rope anyone into taking a photo of me, I had to play around with the self-timer. About ... umm ... 20 photos later, I got this gem.

I must've looked a little crazy running around a picnic table in circles, but this self-timer stuff is pretty tricky. It says the picture will be taken in 2 seconds, but that's a total lie, unless the camera is doing 1-supercalifrogaliciousexpialadocious-2-supercalifrogaliciousexpialadocious. Anyways, I wanted a picture and what Anna wants, Anna gets.

Now I WAS planning on running every day and being all super-runner like @SkinnyRunner but I was still feeling creaky so instead I hit up a Yoga for Core class at Steve Nash. I haven't done regular yoga in YEARS (because I always do hot yoga) and I have to say that I did miss the muscle-relaxation and stretching-power that a heated room gives but I still felt really good afterwards.

Really good, but not totally worked out, so I also hit the treadmill and some weights for a bit. I was no Arnold Schwarznegger, but I bossed those 8lb weights, haha. And then I proceeded to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day. The end.

Of the Oft Forgotten Holiday

In our household, we don't really celebrate Mother's Day or Father's Day. Because we emigrated from a country that has similar-ish holidays on completely different days ('Father's Day' would be end of February and 'Mother's Day' would be March 8th), we somehow just stopped celebrating any of these days. That blows of course, because I am a huge fan of celebrating and presents and all that jazz, but with just the 3 of us, it's not as fun anyways.

But this Sunday, Vancouver has continued to bust out its beautiful SUNny streak, so I knew we had to do something special. It just so happened that we were hungry when this idea came around (haha, when am I not hungry?), so brunch it was.

That might not have been the smartest idea, what with us not booking anything in advance and going at 12:30, which is prime brunching territory, but you gotta give us credit for trying.

My absolute favorite place in Montreal to have brunch is Chez Cora. So you can understand my enthusiasm when I found out they opened a branch basically in my own backyard! SO much excitement. Because brunch is hands down the BEST meal of the day.

And yes, those are my own captions. No, they don't put 'drool' on their logo. But they should. Just look at the pretty menu.

I'll be the first to say that I'm a visual person. A lot of the time at restaurants, I just want to sneak a peak at what the dish will look like before I order it, but people tend to take it the wrong way if I start looking over their shoulders while they're eating. So obviously this menu is my idea of heaven.

The giganto pile of fruit with the panini-crepe

This crepe was about 2-forks long. Because hey, if the English can measure in feet (based on some long-dead British monarch), I can measure in forks!

Now everytime I go to Cora's, I swear I'm going to get the pancakes, but when it's actually time to order, somehow I always end up getting something else. This time ... same thing. I split a panini-crepe (imagine ham+egg+cheesy goodness ... but rolled in a crepe and toasted. O.M.G.) and the 'April 89' fruit+custard-stuffed crepe. The food was delish ... the only downside was that because it was Mother's Day, the place was packed and so we had to wait forever for our food. Which meant that by the time it arrived, I wished that I had ALSO ordered the pancakes because I was starving. STARVING. I am not a pretty starving person either. I get these tension headaches and I can't think (haha, except when is that not the case?) and all I can do is stare moodily at the other people who are eating. Thankfully, they had those little game-mats that they give to kids, so I could distract myself for a while at the 'Spot the 5 Differences' game. Then I spent the rest of the time trying to convince my dad that one of the differences was between the grey circles in one picture and the blue circles in another, but apparently my dad is colourblind.

My momma busted out a smile once the food came, but the wait was a tense tense moment. We were basically waiting for Jack Bauer to come diffuse the tension-bomb. Because we were 3 hungry bears.

So the wait sucked. But that meant that despite devouring the equivalent to a whole-days worth of calories, I was at the perfect amount of fullness - aka ready to have a latte and a cookie on our way to the beach! (Side note - I am ALWAYS ready for coffee.)

Since we didn't have any plans for the day, we went to Whytecliff, which is this awesome little picnic/beach area that is usually not as full as all of the popular Vancouver beaches. Unfortunately, it's so awesome that people keep telling their friends and they keep coming so it's usually quite hard/impossible to find parking. My dad recounted his harrowing tale of parking between two trees and 3 cars. Thankfully my mom and I are brats and we told him to just drop us off at the prime picnic/lawn spot before he drove off on his parking adventure, so we didn't have to experience those funtimes.


Can I just say how beautiful it is there?

GORGEOUS.

 Haha. Oh, you wanted to see the scenery? Well I guess that was gorgeous too ...

Of the Great While Whale, aka the Marathon

Guys guys guys I can’t believe it! I did it! The night before I spent wondering if I could even go the distance, because here’s what my training looked like.

That is evidence of … not a lot of training. My longest run was a 10k in March. Yup. March. So, let’s just say my confidence wasn’t the highest.

But I woke up in the morning and watched part 8/10 of Spirit of the Marathon on Youtube and got SUPER pumped up. I was still pumped when I was dropped off near the start. Although … there was a bit of a scary moment when I was using a porta potty before the race and it kept tilting …. and tilting … and I honestly thought I would fall in and not get to run. But whew, crisis averted.

The atmosphere at the start was electric and I have to say, I didn’t believe the people who said it before, but it’s true - I made so many new friends on the course and I think that’s what made it all the better.

I was also thinking about how to pace myself, but I know I made the right choice by sticking with a pace group. Having a constant group of people to chat with and laugh with made it so much more fun, and with the 10/1 run walk method the pacers used, I never had to think about having to push myself or holding back. A+ for the Running Room pacing bunnies!

Also … the course. Guys, the course.





And this is just the last part! Needless to say, if they still have the same route next year (and I’m not sure, because they did have to do a lot of road closures because the first 10k cut straight across all the major roads in the city), I’m THERE!

Water wise, I took a cup at every station up until the half way mark, and then I took 2 cups and usually dumped a third cup on my head, because it was getting hot. Also, if my gel-intake happened away from a water station and during the pace-group walk-break, I would drink from my fuel belt, but I had to refill those bottles at least twice. And towards the end, the water stations were quite sparse and running really low on water. So next year, I’ll have to either get a bigger fuel belt or have someone on the course hand me a water bottle for the last 15km.

Nutrition wise, I had a gel every 20ish minutes starting at the 40 minute mark (so at 40 mins, 1:05hr, 1:30 and 1:50) and then a random mini clif bar that they were handing out at 2:08, right before the half-way mark (crossed the mat at 2:10, which is only 8 minutes slower than my half marathon time last year, and yet I felt SO much better!). Then Honey Stinger Waffles at 2:30 which were amazeballs. sooooooo good. They are going to be my fuel of choice FOR SURE.

My mother was spectating a bit further on (and I have to say, this is where the course got just a tad boring - after the rush of running down from UBC and the gorgeous views of the bay, running in the sun and heat and flatness was not as fun …. but you still had a view of the beach so that’s good!). She managed to get me half an orange, some Gu chomps and my iPod. The hand-off was really awkward because I had to hoof it to her on the side and she was wearing heels but she ran alongside for a bit trying to stuff the orange slices in my face, so I ended up with a face-ful of sticky orange goo. We defs need to work on our relay skills, that's for sure.

I don’t think I had any trouble until around the 3:00 mark. By that point, we were about 12 km out? I dunno. I know that once we got to the 32km mark, I let the 4:30 pace group go and ended up going at a slower jog. But I dunno, I felt good. That is, my fueling was going well, and so yes, my legs were a bit leaden, but I felt positive and happy and I was definitely smiling. At that point, I kind of switched to run/walking whenever I felt like it and taking chomps when needed. Everything was going swell until the last 5km.

I hit 23 miles and my legs starting cramping. Like my quads would seize and so I would stop and try to walk it out and it would help for a bit. Sometimes I had to sit down. But it was just SO frustrating. Because here I was, full of energy and positive-ness and my body just kept giving out on me! I power-walked basically from mile 25 to 26, even through all the spectators at the finish, but I ran it in, and I have to say, it was a pretty heady feeling of running through a crowd that’s shouting your name.

So all in all, I was extremely happy with this race and it was an amazing experience. And obviously, I’m going to be doing more and more of these in the future :)




(Finish time: 4:44:52. Feeling: AMAZING.)

Of NYC: Part III

My last full day in NYC was supposed to be filled with tours of the city. Of course, that's the one day it was miserably drizzling all day.

Nah, it wasn't that bad (what with me being a Vancouverite, a.k.a. I've spent the majority of my life in a drizzle very much like this one). In fact, I decided to be all tourist-y and check out Central Park before breakfast.

On the way, I happened to pass the completely and utterly majestic St. John the Divine Cathedral, which made me feel as if I were back in Europe. I had the opportunity to sing in Winchester Cathedral in England a couple of years back, and I know that Winchester has the longest nave in the world, but this cathedral seemed equally grandiose. Oh man, oh man, you know I love me some cathedrals. I would spend the whole summer just touring cathedrals in France and England if I could (except for the whole money issue ...) - but I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with the offerings of NYC.

By the time I made it to Central Park, it was 8ish and the runners were out in full force.

And I mean, holy crap, the runners were out in full force. I don't think I've ever seen that many people running (together, separately, in a group/pack/herd) outside of a race. This made me very excited, because obviously, I'll be joining these lovely people come September, and I do love some company (aka, I'm a scaredy cat); at the time, it also made me a little bit jumpy, because I was nearly run over by a running group, one of those little tractor thingies that the park rangers (?) use, and another running herd.

I know you'll be happy to note that I survived (although the emotional therapy will cost millions, millions I tell you!) by walking on the non-paved path by the reservoir.

Isn't it magical? Like an enchanted forest.

 One thing that did strike me (and thankfully it wasn't the tractor or the runners!) is how different it all was from what I imagined. I thought Central Park would be like a flat ... well, park. You know, with a mowed lawn and some paths and some pruned trees, much like the parks in Vancouver. But, really, it was a forest. And the hills! Man, for some unknown reason, I always thought that New York was flat, but that was absolutely NOT the case. Good thing I found out now and not during some sort of road race.

But back to the reservoir. The cherry blossoms were out in full force, so it was gorgeous (aside from the whole rain/mist/general dreariness thing).

All in all, it was very magical. Of course it also made me want to live on like Central Park West or something (?) so now I have to somehow become famous/rich enough to buy a place doing mah thing (how about a reality TV show about a computer scientist ... who doesn't know how to hack into anything just yet ... or do the weird hardware stuff where you make a router out of a paperclip, a magnet and some pennies? I'm sure if I dress up provocatively enough, we can make it work!).

I also spent the majority of the time in Central Park looking for that bridge that's in all the movies, but I seriously could NOT find it! I pride myself on my map-navigating skills (caveat: but if I have not seen a map of a place before, don't expect me to be able to tell left from right), but it just was not to be. So I got some unlucky tourist to take multiple photos of me at the closest bridge I could find.

I feel like carbs make my face puff up ... oh wait, they do! Probably not the best idea to ravage an Italian restaurant's menu the night before a photo shoot.

The poor thing had to stand there and take at least 15 photos while I worked on my pose. Lesson learned - pose at home in front of the mirror, perfect the pose, and then whip it out in public to diminish the time spent embarrassing self and strangers.

Anyway, somewhere in the middle of all the Central Park wandering, I met up with a group of other prospies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We had 1.5 hours there, and I think I managed to cover 1 collection (and yet somehow, I expected to be able to cover all of it ... I think all my fast running has gone to my head). So European Masters were conquered, and then I had to run and meet up with a friend at Columbus Circle. She was nice enough to show me around, and we hit up a ton of places (all of which happened to be food related ... I think by the end of the night, I was in the ninth month of my food baby pregnancy). First up was Epicerie Boulud (across from Met Opera), where we imbibed elderflower sparkling water and grilled cheese sandwiches with some fancy greens in them. I definitely felt fancy and all gourmet-like, and so did my wallet. And by fancy, I mean my wallet felt empty. And then we walked around the Upper West Side for a bit and stopped by Melissa's Bakery for mini cupcakes. Oh and then we stopped for coffee at some other cute cafe.

Of course then we had to exercise off all of this delicious food, so we had a nice 2-block sprint for the bus. And by blocks, I don't mean those tiny hey-the-next-cross-street-is-10-feet-away kind of blocks, I mean the kind where you can't even see the next crossstreet; in any case, it was extremely epic, and would've been more so if I wasn't carrying a cup of hot tea that tended to splash around. A lot. I think after that sprint, I realized that the whole carb-loading thing doesn't work unless you also practice running a lot, because man, oh, man, my throat was burning and my legs were unhappy and my arms were WAY too exhausted from carrying my cup of tea.

Thus fatigued, we arrived on the Upper East Side, home of all sorts of fancy stores. We strolled past Oscar de la Renta, actually went into Ralph Lauren, and gazed with sadness and desire at the huge lineup at Laduree Macarons. I love you macarons, but I will not wait in a 30 person lineup for you. By that time, I realized that I had to be back in the Times Square area, so we walked into some station at Lexington and 52nd (?), where I was hoping to take the F train downtown. But thanks to the construction and other NYC train related mishaps, I did not quite end up there.

Yup, I ended up having to take the F-train way WAY far into Queens, just to be able to take the F train downtown. Let's just say, I never want to go to Queens again. Ever. It is a far far away place, like Narnia, except you want to go to Narnia and it's way easier to get to Narnia.

I think I was 1.5 hours late for the dinner thing (it was at Joe's Pizzeria) but it was buffet style, so I managed to snag me some pizza and some ricotta stuffed bread.

O. M.G.
The ricotta stuffed bread. I ... I can't even talk. It was like amazingness melting in my mouth. I'm pretty sure I had the entire load (which probably contained about a pound of cheese). Not. Even. Sorry. (But the pizza was meh). Thus ended my fabulous trip to NYC. Actually, no, it ended back in Montreal on Sunday night after 12 HOURS of travel (thank you 'fogginess and cloudiness' in Philly, where I had a connection, thank you US Airways for having that stupid connection in the first place - I mean, I had to go SOUTH to Philly, just to fly up NORTH to Montreal, thank you missed connection, thank you rebooked flight 2-hours-later where a floorboard was broken, no wait thank you for the broken FLOOR, thank you changed gate and delayed flight and thank you huge taxi line at the Montreal airport which made me take the bus shuttle downtown). Actually the last one wasn't half bad, but it did take longer. I think I came home ready to just die.

Now I have to say, I've been told horror stories about New York (muggings, dirtyness, unkind people), and .... I found it all to be wrong. The whole people walking fast and not slowing down thing? THANK GOD. I hate slow walking people. I am walking to GET SOMEWHERE and if you're walking slow, I now have to speedwalk on the street just to pass you. So I totally feel ya, New Yorkers. The whole not paying attention to you? Well duh, I'm walking fast. Also sometimes I have heels and shades and music on, so I'm just strutting down the street and I'm not looking for people to throw off my stride. The dirtyness? Well, I confess, the Times Square area was a little bit, but otherwise, uptown was quite nice (up until Harlem. Harlem is scary and dirty and I refuse to go there). And thankfully, I avoided muggings even though my first night in NYC, I ended up taking the wrong train and had to walk 7 blocks in weird alleys in the dark before I caved and got a taxi. Turns out, I was about 2 blocks from my hotel at that point, but I was out of my wits.

Also, cabs are fabulous. Mine had TVs IN THE BACK SEAT. So exciting. Definitely most exciting part of NYC, hands down.

Of NYC: Part II

My first full day in NYC, I woke up to a beautiful sun-filled day. Actually, I was woken up periodically by giant trucks going up the hill right beside my window all night, but I stoically ignored them. So anyways, the day was beautiful, which meant that of course I forgot my camera battery in the charger and had to take photos with my iPod the entire day. The next day, when I did bring the battery, it was rainy and wet. Of course.

Now I always get qutie nervous before these visits/interviews - although by now, I should know that it's basically them trying to sell you the place, and not you trying to sell yourself to them. But I was nervous. That was partially put to rest by the giant spread of muffins and bagels they had for us for breakfast. Ya know how carbs are just the solution to everything? Yup, I really tested that out that weekend.

It was beautiful though and the campus tour left me satisfied that this is a place I would like to inhabit for the next (oh god!) five years. The interviews ... well, they're always exhausting. There's the constant on-edge feeling because you have to have a topic for conversation, and there's the smiling and the mad scrambling when everyone inevitably asks you 'do you have any questions?' and you've already asked them all when talking to the previous group of people. I'm not an extrovert either, so I can't spend endless unbroken hours talking with other people - I need my space and some quiet time, and that was obviously not going to happen.

In between the interviews and the dinner, I did however manage to sneak in some me-time in Morningside Park, of which I was well-pleased.

So with my exercise for the day done (whoo, 20 minutes of walking! Go me!), I headed back to carb-load at the official department dinner. It was at an Italian restaurant and I would wager that about 100% of our food was carb-y in some way. But oh so delicious. Plus the wine was flowing (and you know me, I can't say no to free wine) ... which meant I had to be extra vigilant about what was coming out of my mouth. Very difficult situation when on one side of me sat a cute French guy and on the other side, my potential research supervisor. Uh oh.

Of NYC: Part I

I was going to think of a witty title for a post about this trip, but I feel like New York deserves the respect of a decently-descriptive heading.

I was visiting the city for another university tour (and I'll save you the suspense and tell you that yes, I have decided to move there next year!), and I had a pretty amazing time. Of course, all we ate the entire weekend were carbs (literally - they gave us bagels and danishes for breakfast and more bagels and muffins for lunch and then all you can eat pizza and deliciously mouth-gasmic ricotta stuffed bread for dinner. That is all.) - and we all know that carbs are like a happy-drug for this one. So I was pretty pleased. But it was also amazing in many other ways - I finally felt like I belonged. All of the cities that I've visited or lived in so far (Moscow, Amsterdam, London, Paris, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago) have missed the mark in some way. Well, except London and Chicago - those were pretty great. But when I left my room in the morning before all the meetings and I strolled down the streets of New York, I felt like I was at home.

Finally, the streets were wide enough, and the buildings pretty enough, and there were trees and hills and Central Park was an oasis unlike anything I expected, and everything was just a little bit more European than Canada but still modern enough for Starbucks and free WiFi on every corner.

But back to day 1. I flew in on a Thursday (effectively missing all of my classes ... whoops. I did not plan it that way. Well, maybe just a bit). I, as usual, got to the airport WAY too early (think 3 hours waiting at the gate), but at least I had peace of mind. I actually managed to get in on an earlier flight (2 hours earlier ... a flight that I was also early for; so you can guess how early I was for my original flight). That meant that I actually had time to explore when I landed.

Times Square! It was quite ... bright and loud, I have to say. But I was a little out of it, so I wasn't overly impressed. My first impression of New York was big crowds and dirty alleys and cracked sidewalks (a.k.a. it was NOT a good start).

Of course, my yucky mood was partially lifted with cheering sights like this:

That would be in the environs of 10 policemen who were 'questioning' a rickshaw driver. I think they had him drive back and forth at least 5 times. Because obviously you need the extra manpower to overcome a man pedalling a wheelbarrow like contraption.