Category Archives: Fitness

Fitness Friday – Ottawa Race Weekend 5K

June 6, 2014Fitness, RunningRacingChelle

I travelled to my hometown of Ottawa to do a 5K race with my dad who decided he also wanted to jump on the racing bandwagon I was already on. Unfortunately, I had a pretty terrible race, but he did really well!

I took the train to Ottawa the night before the race and stayed overnight at my parents. Unfortunately, the race wasn’t until 4 pm on Saturday so I had a lotttt of time to kill on Saturday. Most of which I spent it stressing out over the race. I wish the race had been early in the morning!

This disembodied bib shot seems to have become a tradition amongst my racing posts

The 5K route would take us through part of Ottawa’s downtown core, down the canal, and then back up the other side of the canal with the finish line somewhere near city hall. The start of the race had a pretty sharp incline at the beginning, but it levelled off and was going to be pretty flat after that. I was hoping for a race time between 25-26 minutes. I knew this would mean that I would really have to push myself since my previous personal best was 27:25 and even taking a minute off that time was going to be strenuous. I was in the 25-30 minute corral, while my dad was one behind me with an expected timeslot of 30-35 for completion.

Unfortunately, things turned sour right off the bat. As the gun went off for the first corral to take off (the <25 minute group), they ushered the second group (mine) right after them with zero break between the two groups. This resulted in a crushing wave of people that FORCED us to walk for the first two and a half minutes of the race right after we crossed the start line (which is when all our chip timers started). A 5K is not particularly long, and 2.5 minutes is a HUGE loss of time on such a short race. We were so jammed together that it was absolutely impossible to run past anyone. I felt completely helpless and I knew that my chances at getting a good time were quickly dwindling.

Completely frustrated, when we finally got moving, I tried to move fast enough to make up for lost time but as soon as I got up to a decent pace, I noticed two things:

One, it was kind of hot out.
Two, I was completely dehydrated.

I had completely forgotten to drink anything in the two hours prior to the race and my throat was PARCHED. And it was hotter than anything I had run in throughout the current season.

Just great. This wasn’t going to end well.

When I try to smile for the camera during a race… I make what I call the “frog face”.

Just to give you an idea as to how horrible I was feeling; I almost stopped three times throughout the race. My throat was dry to the point where I couldn’t even spit any of the gunk that was forming itself in my Sahara-like throat. And I really and truly… I just wanted to keel over. There was no water station in sight kilometer after kilometer. And there were also no kilometer markers anywhere, which my dad also complained about at the end. Thankfully, I had my Garmin so I had an idea of how far I had gone, but he decided not to wear any kind of tracker and had to guess as to how far along he was.

The shots above were taken in the last kilometer of the race, before reaching any kind of water station. You can’t really tell, but my eyes were closed. I was actually try to stave off the nausea by closing my eyes while running. In a race. /cringe

Unfortunately for me, there wasn’t a single water stand until 800 meters before the finish line. Why this was set up this way, I’ll never know. I’ve never been one to grab for water on a 5K since it’s a pretty short distance, but since I had set myself up so poorly for this race, I really would’ve appreciated one much, much earlier in the race.

By the time I got to the last 500 meters, I honestly thought I was going to throw up. 200 meters before the finish line I was holding up my hand to my mouth because I really thought I was going to retch at the finish line. I was feeling woozy and completely out of my head. I don’t know if it was lack of water, heat exhaustion (it was hot, but not THAT hot out there!) or what the heck it was, but I knew I didn’t feel good and I was terrified I was going to throw up in front of the throngs of people at the finish line. (My aunt and uncle apparently saw me cross the finish line and said I looked just fine to them, so hell if I know what was going on!)

As I crossed the finish line, I came to a dead stop. I was convinced I was going to pass out, but I knew that if I sat down, I’d just make it worse. So I kept moving along, knowing that after the Gatorade stands, there would finally be some water. As soon as I got some proper water in my system, I started to feel better.

After it was all said and done, I didn’t have one of those moments where I was angry at myself for not doing better. I mean, fundamentally I was pissed off with my finish time (which was somewhere around the 28 minute mark) but I knew how awful I had felt throughout the entire run and I realized there was zero chance I could’ve pushed myself harder throughout the run without either throwing up, or passing out.

When I look back on my Garmin’s information regarding the race, I can see that my average heart rate was 189 beats per minute, which, for my age (31), is 100% of max. I even peaked around 196 beats per minute, which is practically through the roof. (Most races I’m in the high 170s.) I have no idea what caused me to feel this horrible throughout my run, but it happened and I guess I just have to move on from it.

I finished in the top 10% out of all the women and out of my age group, and top 20% overall. So it’s not like I totally bombed out of the race, but I’m really displeased with just how crappy I felt. Oh well, I guess you can’t just keep getting personal bests every time you run!

My dad, on the other hand, completed his first 5K with a time of 32:36 which he was dead pleased with! He’d like to run the 10K next year during Ottawa Race Weekend. And while I’m definitely amped about racing, I have to say I am not impressed with the organization of the start zone of Ottawa’s Race Weekend. I had two friends who ran in the half-marathon the following day and they said that the first four kilometers were so jammed with people that they were essentially walking it. There really needs to be much larger time gaps between corrals. For example, the Sporting Life 10K that I did two weekends prior to this race had more than double the number of people running (twenty-two thousand in that race versus the ten thousand in this one) and yet there was zero clusterfucks at the start zone.

As a side note, I saw both my friend and his girlfriend around the 10K marker during their half-marathon the day after my race (I had planted myself on a street corner and warned them well in advance as to where I would be) and I was soooo happy to have seen them out there racing! Since I’m eventually working my way up to a half-marathon, I find them both very inspirational!

5K Race Summary

Finish Time: 28:07 (personal worst!)
Pace: 5:37 per kilometer
Overall placement: 1829/9995
Age group placement (Female, 30-34): 52/582
Gender placement (F): 589/5931

Fitness Friday: Finally Getting Back to Weightlifting

May 23, 2014Fitness, WeightliftingChelle

If you’ve been reading my blog since I first started (not that long ago), you’ll know that in December I got nailed with a really bad shoulder injury. I’m not really sure as to the source of the injury, but I was doing gymnastics, weightlifting, kickboxing while playing soccer and still continually running (not that either soccer or running has a huge impact on my shoulders) and I think the combined pressure from all of those exercises eventually caused me problems. I ended up with a cyst in my rotator cuff region and tendinitis in my upper bicep. It was excruciating, and several months of physiotherapy was not only expensive, but also very frustrating because it just wasn’t getting much better.

Shoulder Injury – Photo from December 2013

I eventually had to give up physiotherapy when my benefits at work ran out, and only recently went back when my benefits had renewed (as well for another problem with my piriformis). The therapist re-tested my bicep and shoulder, couldn’t find any weak spots and said I could go back to lifting in the upper body but to leave the legs alone for now as we tried to figure out what my new leg problem was. HOORAY! Finally! 5 freaking months later I can finally go back! My whole upper body area had been starting to get extra wobbly and I was getting really fed up of not being able to lift. (Cuz frankly… it’s really darn fun!)

I was told to start out slow, so I’m roughly halving the weight in all my exercises so that I don’t overdo it and end up right back where I started. I also need to focus on keeping my shoulders back during my day to day life (and while exercising) to ensure that I’m keeping proper form. (And as I write that, I find myself correcting my posture.)

So here’s a before and after shot.

The shot above was taken this past November, shortly before I had to stop lifting. I remember being frustrated at the time because I didn’t think I had a whole lot of definition in my arms and shoulders. But I’m kicking myself for thinking that because this is what I look like now:

Jeebus. The first thing that comes to mind is “doughy”. Yikes. The lighting may be a bit different, but you can definitely see there is a lot less smoothness and definition to my arms and back in the shot above compared to the one from November. It’s also worth noting that I’m exactly the same weight in both pictures (151 pounds). As much as I dislike the current picture, it’s nice to know that I definitely had something better going on before!

So here ‘s my current list of weightlifting sets. Anything that is marked as dumbbell is obviously the weight one hand is using. If it’s a barbell exercise, then it includes the weight of the barbell (45 lbs.).

Day 1
Exercise	Old Sets x Reps	Weight	New Sets x Reps	New Weight
Bench Press (Barbell)	3 x 4	75 lbs.	3 x 10	50 lbs.
Squat (Barbell)	3 x 10	125 lbs.	Sidelined for now 🙁
Bicycle Crunches	1 x 36	N/A	1 x 20	N/A
Two Arm Seated Dumbbell Extension	3 x 7	40 lbs.	3 x 8	20 lbs.
Dumbbell Row, One-Arm, Bent Over	3 x 7	40 lbs.	3 x 8	20 lbs.
Standing Dumbbell Curls	3 x 4	22.5 lbs.	3 x 8	15 lbs.
Lateral Raise, Dumbbell	3 x 8	12.5 lbs.	3x 10	10 lbs.
Day 2
Deadlifts (Barbell)	3 x 8	115 lbs.	Sidelined
Push Ups	3 x 8	N/A	3 x 5	N/A
Abdominal Leg Raise	3 x 12	N/A	3 x 8	N/A
Dumbbell Step Up	3 x 12	70 lbs.	Sidelined
Standing One Leg Dumbbell Calf Raise	3 x 12	45 lbs.	3 x 10	35 lbs.
Seated Dumbbell Press	3 x 7	22.5 lbs.	3 x 10	12.5 lbs.
Day 3
Lunge (Barbell)	3 x 12	95 lbs.	Sidelined
Chin Ups, Assisted Weight	3 x 4	80 pounds assisted	3 x 4	110 lbs. assisted
Standing Hammer Curl	3 x 3	22.5 lbs.	3 x 8	15 lbs.
Lying Dumbbell Extension	3 x 5	17.5 lbs.	3 x 8	10 lbs.
Flat Dumbbell Fly	3 x 12	15 lbs.	3 x 10	10 lbs.
Dumbbell Side Bends	3 x 13	45 lbs.	3 x 10	35 lbs.

It’s a massive step down in almost all areas compared to what I was previously doing, but I really don’t want to encounter the same problem as before so I need to start back from scratch and build up slowly. Frankly, I’m just really happy to be getting back into it. My first day back lifting I was really, really happy to be back in the weight room at the gym. I had definitely missed it being a part of my regular routine. (And holy hell was I ever hurting after the first day back… so many underused upper body muscles… all screaming in agony!)

For the most part, my favourite moves encompass all the barbell ones (something I had shied away from when I first started until a friend pointed out there was only so much I was going to be able to grip dumbbell-wise before I had to step up to a barbell) and unfortunately I can’t do the larger leg movements for the moment (squats, deadlifts and lunges) but I’m happy enough with bench press for now. There’s something about doing a bench press that makes me feel like a badass. Even if I’m only hoisting 50-75 pounds. (Goal of 100 pounds by the end of the year though!)

The plan at this point is to just keep increasing weight in all areas until I’m satisfied. I’m not sure how much that’ll be, or when it’ll happen, but I’ll keep you posted along the way!

Fitness Friday: Sporting Life 10K Race

May 16, 2014Fitness, RunningRaceChelle

My second 10K race and one I also felt ill prepared for. The week and a half prior to the race I was like “hang on, you only ran TWICE last month and you think you’re doing a 10K race in 9 days? Are you crazy? Or just stupid?” Seeing that I’d only run two days in the previous month was slightly shocking. I knew I’d pulled out of running a lot since I was playing a lot of sports (soccer and frisbee were both ramping up and down at that point), but I didn’t realize I’d scaled back on my running THAT much. So the week and a half prior to the race I was running almost every day in an attempt to cram for the run (something you’re told NOT to do…).

The timing on everything that happened in the nine days prior to the race was just awful. Not only was I suddenly trying to bust out faster paces and longer runs, but I’d also had a wart frozen off one of my toes (nothing big, I just wanted it gone) at the same time. What an idiot. Two days prior to the race, I could barely even walk. I was out with a friend and the amount of hobbling I did to get home that Friday night was not only embarrassing, but it was so bad that I had to pull out of my soccer plans for the rest of the weekend in the hopes that I could ice and elevate my swollen toe enough to be able to even stand on it come Sunday morning, let alone run.

Anyway, on to the actual race!

Sporting Life 10K – Somewhat close to the start line

The start time for our corral was 8:40 a.m., and I knew I needed to eat something prior to run lest I feel like absolute death without some kind of fuel in my system. I woke up at about 6:30 that Sunday morning and it was absolutely beautiful outside – no wind, sunny, and about 14C degrees. I had half a small bowl of Quaker oatmeal mix and a bit of water, but not too much as I didn’t want to risk having a full bladder throughout my run.

Of course, race jitters kicked in and I must’ve gone to the bathroom about four times before I even left the apartment. I met up with my friend at 8 a.m., and took a cab up to the starting area around Yonge and Eglinton since the subway doesn’t run until 9 a.m. on Sundays. It was PACKED. We watched the corral before us take off (8:20 a.m. – Blue) and even though I had some friends running that group, I could’t see them at all because there must’ve been about seven thousand people taking off in that group! We lined up for our time slot (Green Corral) relatively close to the front and waited for the start time.

My previous 10K time was 59:37 from my race in New York City back in March, so I knew I wanted to beat that but I wasn’t really sure if I’d be any quicker since I felt slightly more out of shape than last time. I’d also been having a lot of late nights lately and was definitely running a sleeping deficit. Thankfully, and perhaps this is somewhat of a cheap move, but the bulk of this course is very much downhill down Toronto’s Yonge Street so that gave me, and everyone else in this run, a very decent step up. My friend didn’t think he’d finish in under an hour, but he’s fairly fit so I was pretty certain he’d do better than he expected.

The race started and we went our separate ways after we finally broke free from the crowd – and it was certainly busy since there was about 22,000 people running this! I was pretty certain I was ahead of him, but I didn’t see him for a very, very long time and figured I’d gotten way too far ahead.

Two kilometers into the race I suddenly got that feeling (ladies, you know what I’m talking about) that I had gotten my period. I was NOT prepared for it. Another half a kilometer later, the cramps kicked in. All I’m picturing at this point is getting to the finish line soaked in blood and looking like a damn idiot. There wasn’t even any point in stopping at a porta potty because it’s not like I was carrying a tampon with me. Praying I was wrong, I did my best to try to forget about it, ignore the ever increasing cramps and keep going. (I don’t care if that’s TMI for some people, the reality is that this could happen to anyone.)

The cramps eventually did dissipate somewhere around the 4 km marker and body-wise it was pretty smooth sailing from thereon in. Nothing felt tight or cramped, my legs felt loose and everything else felt in tip-top shape.

Running down Yonge is pretty interesting. You can see how far off everything is and you really wonder how the heck you’ll ever make it there. Seeing the tall Bay tower on Bloor Street far off in the distance and realizing that’s not even the halfway marker is pretty bracing. As it’s a course I don’t often run (I’ve only ever gone up Yonge Street since I live south of Bloor) it made for an interesting route. When I run, have a habit of staring at my feet, or directly in front of me, since I’m usually looking out for potholes or people to pass, but with this run, since it was on a downhill slope, there was a lot more opportunity to look up and off into the distance. It was really neat to take in more of the surroundings than normal. Once again I wish I’d had a camera with me so I could take in the sights and post them on this blog, but ultimately my racing time matters more to me and carrying a camera while taking pictures would’ve cut into my time.

As I hit Bloor Street and moved closer into the downtown core, I started to pick up my pace. I started checking my Garmin to make sure I was on track since I definitely didn’t want to run slower than my previous race. I was fairly certain I was on track for a 56-57 minute finish, but I didn’t want to suddenly falter and drop down to 58 or 59 minutes. It’s funny to think that a few minutes means so much, but shaving off time in running always feels important, even if the numbers are small. At least then you know you’ve accomplished something and done better than you did last time.

I actually ran into my friend around kilometer 7 and was shocked to find him ahead of me! I thought I’d left him far behind! I was pleased that he was keeping pace rather well (this was his first 10K) and clapped him on the shoulder to let him know I was there and gave him a big thumbs up and a smile. That being said, I got annoyed with myself for thinking I was in the lead (not that it was a race between us, but clearly I got cocky) and put on the burners. You can see my sudden pace increase between the 7th and 8th kilometers.

You can see the speed increase in the second half of the race (be aware that my Nike+ tracker is off significantly for speed and distance when compared to my Garmin)

The final kilometer was hard. It was one of those moments when you’re like “why am I even doing this? You can just walk the rest of the way and it won’t matter.” But I persisted. Physically, at the time, I’m pretty sure my body was telling me I couldn’t up my pace to finish a little bit faster, but when I look back on my speed grids at the end, I was definitely increasing my pace in the last kilometer. So I suppose I was pushing it, but at the time I felt completely lethargic. I also didn’t feel like I could suddenly sprint to the finish line either, which is something I had always felt in my other races (and was kind of an indication that I hadn’t been pushing steadily enough throughout those races). I mean, if you can bust into a full sprint at the end, you clearly weren’t utilizing the last 9.5 kilometers appropriately for pace.

I crossed the finish line and then headed off to the right hand side to look for my friend. I wasn’t sure if he was ahead or behind me at this point, and I kept getting ushered towards the awards area. In the end, he came in two minutes behind me and he was soooo happy with his finishing time. I clocked in at 56:23 and he was about two minutes later than that. Since he hadn’t expected to finish in even under an hour he was very visibly excited about his time! As for me, I was dead pleased with mine. With a race time of 56:23, I had managed to shave off 3:14 from my previous 10K!

It wasn’t until the very end that I realized that my foot problem hadn’t even remotely bothered me and that I definitely had not gotten my period (eeesh… thank heavens for that – although I’d love to know what the heck those cramps were because they were definitely time of the month cramps).

It was an awesome day and I’m really pleased with my finishing time. Now to work my way towards a 50 minute 10K!

10K Race Summary

Finish Time: 56:23 (new personal best)
Pace: 5:39 per kilometer
Overall placement: 7901/21751
Age group placement (Female, 30-34): 557/2102
Gender placement (F): 3166/12739

Next up is a 5K in Ottawa during Ottawa’s Race Weekend!

Fitness Friday: Garmin 220 Review

April 25, 2014FitnessGarminChelle

For about four years, I’ve been using a Nike+ foot pod and sensor in my iPod to track my runs. However, when I discovered a friend was using a Garmin to track their improvements and distance during runs I started to get very curious about picking one up for myself. I loved that the Garmin could display your heart rate, speed, estimated calories burned and a map of where you’d run. I had been using my Nike+ foot pod for years and was concerned that it was inaccurate since my race times were turning out to be significantly different from my estimated pace via the Nike+ application. The only thing that was holding me back from buying one was the fact that the Garmin models didn’t seem to have an indoor mode -something to monitor your pace while you’re indoors and can’t connect to a satellite.

So when Garmin introduced their 220 model which had a built in accelerometer for indoor usage, I knew I had to pick it up. It’s not a cheap piece of equipment – it ran me $314.99 (the watch and the heart rate strap) before tax, but oh man is it ever worth it.

Garmin watch on the left (waiting to get a satellite signal) and the Nike+ receiver on the right plugged into my iPod

One of the first things I wanted to test was distance comparison between my Nike+ foot pod and the Garmin. The Nike+ foot pod is a little disk that is inserted into a hole in the sole of your shoe (there’s a space under all shoe linings now) and it measures the distance you run by connecting to a receiver that connects to your iPod. It estimates your distance based on the acceleration (it has an accelerometer in the bit that goes under your sole) and your weight. The Garmin, however, uses satellites to calculate your distance.

Surprisingly, the difference between the two is not that extreme. Outdoors, the Nike+ will tend to undercalculate about 500 meters on a 7 kilometer run. So, where the Garmin will tell me I’ve done 7k, the Nike+ app will tell me I’ve only done 6.5k. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge difference, but it can be annoying enough not knowing how far you’re actually running and what pace you’re doing it at! Indoors, the difference between the Nike+ and the Garmin is negligible, but slightly worse than outdoors. They both undercalculate by about 100m for every kilometer run which really isn’t that bad.

So while I did pay a rather large price tag to find out my Nike+ foot pod isn’t that bad of a distance calculator, I have to say having the Garmin is supremely nice with all its extra bells and whistles. It’s incredibly motivational for getting me to run outside versus indoors on a track – if only so I can see the little map as to where I’ve run! The heart rate and speed estimations are really neat to look at, although I’ve not noticed any particular decrease in my heart rate over my continued distance training.

One of the best things is that the Garmin doesn’t have to be used just for running. I’ve used it for rollerblading, cross country skiing, snowboarding, playing soccer and even just flat out walking.

201404_ff_garmin2201

The heart rate monitor strap does take some getting used to. I’ve been using it for almost five months now and I still don’t really know how I like to wear it. The left shot you can see it sitting firmly below my sportsbra, but it really doesn’t sit comfortably there. On the right, it sits tucked inside my bra, barely peeking out at the front. This seems to be the best method for me, but during my 10K race in New York City, the darn thing rode up too high and ended up chaffing the underside of my breasts – which of course then hurt for a darn week as it scabbed up and healed. Has anyone out there figured out how to wear these things comfortably?!

The only negatives I can think of, aside from the HRM strap riding up a bit (I’d blame user error for that though) is that if you live in a downtown area like I do and have a lot of tall building near you, you’ll often find that the signal on the map printout will often bounce around a lot as it searches for where the heck you actually are. This can lead to some hilarious maps where it looks like I’ve actually run through a building or two, but obviously it causes some inaccuracies.

For me, the best part of the Garmin is all the extras. I love the maps, the charts and everything that gets recorded as you run. I can see where I struggled on inclines as my heart rate increases significantly or how hard I worked during a soccer game. None of this is necessary, of course, as I’m hardly a professional athlete, but it is very, very fun to use and the motivation to get outside and do something active is a huge incentive. So if you were interested in picking up a GPS/HRM system, I’d definitely encourage you to check out the Garmin.

Fitness Friday – Spring Run

April 11, 2014Fitness, RunningGarmin, Nike+Chelle

FINALLY! After a horrifically long winter that is still sort of hanging around, we have *finally* had some decent weather in Toronto. The very last day in March was beautiful, so I yanked on my running gear and headed out.

Awkward attempt to show you what I was wearing… suddenly made better by Nemo coming in the room and then running away as I tried to snag him!

So it was about 6 degrees, sunny, and I had some vague idea that I was going to head down the Don River Trail. This was a mid-distance run day, so I had to get in about 7 kilometers.

Waiting for my Garmin to connect to a satellite

With all my devices connected (Garmin, iPod with Nike+), I was ready to go!

I first headed out through Cabbagetown since the area is really pretty and the houses are quite beautiful.

Made it down to Riverdale Park West…

Riverdale Park almost flooded and completely muddy

…where it turned out to be totally soaked. I couldn’t take the path to the left because it was flooded and the baseball pitch was equally muddy and soaked. That little plank in the bottom right shot? Total saviour for getting across to the dry-ish pitch. Then I had to climb through the soaked dug-out to get to the other side and up to the bridge. Eesh. I’ll be avoiding this park until this city is a lot dryer.

Down the bridge and onto the Lower Don Trail

Off the bridge and onto the trail, where hopefully it’d be smooth sailing for a long while. Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad, but there were some flooded areas that caused a few problems.

I think this section is right before the trail loops back to the downtown core. There were a decent number of runners and cyclists out on the trail as well. I love running past other runners as they come towards me – there’s always the mutual recognition of “hey you, you’re doing a good job out there exercising!” – whether it’s a nod of the head, a wave, or a full blown smile, it’s always nice and super encouraging!

Yep, that’s the CN Tower, and yep, that’s snow on the left side of the path!

My favourite part of this trail is where it crosses the train tracks and then runs parallel to them. I used to rollerblade on this trail to work every day when I worked in the Beaches and there were a few times when the train would cut you off and you couldn’t cross. OR, the fun times where you’d race the train and try to beat it to the crossing! This sounds more dangerous than it actually was… because this is so close to downtown, the train was barely crawling along the tracks. Still fun though.

Finishing up along the trail alongside the Gardiner Expressway.

And headed right into the heart of downtown to run back to the apartment.

Job done = 7.3k completed.

I spoke about tea the last time I blogged about a run so you’re going to think I do this every time, but I really don’t. That being said, I recently tried out Peaches and Cream from David’s Tea and it’s by far the best flavour I have by them. I could go on and on about it, but really… just go get some. It’s delicious and helps to rehydrate after my run.

I’m hoping the weather stays good in Toronto and doesn’t drop into the negatives again. The bright sunshine was really, really nice on this run.