Author name: Katie

Now that the birthday has come and gone, a new countdown is on the brain: 17 days until Marathon Training! Eek! To start off the countdown, I went for a run tonight with my New Zealand girlfriend Hilary (love her accent!) who just happens to be a crazy (yes, I said crazy) Ironman chickie. But not just any Ironman, oh no, she’s like an Ironstar! In her last race, the New Zealand Ironman in March, she placed first in her age category (25-29) and finished the race in 10 hours and 41 minutes, and had shaved off an hour from the first Ironman she did in 2008. And get this, she only just learned how to swim at 21! You’d think that after a race like that, she’d take a bit of a breather. But no, she qualified for the Kona Ironman in Hawaii, and was headhunted by Team New […]

Well now, how’s this for a great start to a great year: I figured out the carb count on last night’s birthday ice cream cake to perfection AND I figured out the carb count for this morning’s breakfast waffles, which I have struggled with since getting the pump six months ago – and I love waffles! Exactly one year ago, on my birthday, Mario and I were touring Barcelona, checking out the so-called “world’s largest aquarium,” which was a bit of a letdown (but honestly, I haven’t found an aquarium that can stack up against Vancouver’s aquarium, which, in a word, is amazing) and getting swarmed by butterflies in Montjuic, and drooling over the footprint of Rafael Nadal … ok maybe that was just me 🙂 This year’s birthday was a bit more low-key (you can’t go to Barcelona every year!) but it was amazing nonetheless. The phone started ringing at

HAPPY ALMOST BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! I love birthdays! And not just because my amazing husband spoils me pretty (right from the get-go, he’s known how to win this princess’s heart) and not just because I get to tear into wrapping paper, which is always a great time, and not just because I get showered in love, which I do so love. Nope, there’s more to it than that. When I was a kid, post-diabetes, my birthday was the one time of the year where I was allowed to indulge in a sweet treat, and by golly that sweet treat became my all-time favourite birthday sweet treat: Ice Cream Cake from none other than Dairy Queen! When I was diagnosed with diabetes 23 years ago, which when you think about it, really isn’t that long ago, diabetic doctors were like nazis when it came to sugar. They gave me a big,

Today is one of my most favourite days of the year – and it’s not even my birthday. But it is my big brother Matt’s, which means mine is just three days away! Let the countdown begin! I LOVE MY BIRTHDAY!!! June was a pretty busy month for my mom, with three of her four kids all having birthdays within 13 days of each other, starting with Matt’s, then mine, then my oldest brother Cory’s. Matt is exactly two years and three days older than me, and for the first several years of our lives, we shared birthday parties, which to this day, I have no idea how my mom managed with that many kids terrorizing her house. There were a few years – the sleepover years – when we had our own parties, but once we grew out of those, we were back to sharing our birthday cakes and our birthday get

This runner’s recovery remedies: Hot-cold baths, bath salts, leafy greens, and oodles of comfort chocolate! For the past two days, pretty much from the second I lifted myself out of bed yesterday morning, my body has been at war with me. I walk, it hurts. I laugh, it hurts. I lift the freaking water jug out of the fridge, it hurts! A good hurt, a fatigued, holy crap you pushed us well beyond our limits kind of hurt, the best kind of hurt, but hurt nonetheless. Apparently, my “oh-so-fragile” body doesn’t like that I jumped into a race with hardly any training at all. And for those of you who don’t think you need to train for a 10k, or run more regularly than I was running the last few weeks, think again. My calves are so tight, they’ve lost their jiggle factor; my abs are so clenched, it’s a