I was pretty excited for my run tonight. It’s been a week since I last ran with my girls, and I was in desperate need of some good girly running chatter. The iPod just doesn’t always cut it. And I was also excited because one of my favourite gals (we’ll just call her Bianchi Girl … jealous!) returned to the pavement after what seemed like centuries of her being away, but was in all actuality just 10 days. I LOVE REUNIONS! And I love freebies! The Running Room held its annual 20-minute challenge, a free event that is meant to encourage people to get off their arses and into a more physically fit state of mind. And what better way to get people out than freebies, right. All participants were given a free, technical running hat – which I was in desperate need of. I missed last year’s challenge as I […]

I know I’ve said it before, but it doesn’t matter how many times I do it, I am always filled with shaking-of-the-head thoughts on how it’s just not normal for people to get up as early as Mario and I have been the last few weeks … granted, I’ve only been doing it one day of the week, whereas he’s been putting in five to seven days of god-awful early mornings. And when I say early, I’m talking about 3:30 and 4:30 early! Not normal, nope, not at all. Mario had already been up for an hour watching the mountainous stage of the Tour when I managed to drag myself out of bed at 4:30. Hello early morning run day, I really haven’t missed you. I was pretty groggy leaving the condo, hardly able to manage even so much as a wave to Mario … hey, it was still dark

Whooah, we’re halfway there, Whoa-oh livin’ on a prayer, Take my hand, we’ll make it I swear, Whoa-oh, livin’ on a prayer … ~ Livin’ on a Prayer, Jon Bon Jovi I grew up listening to my big sister blast this song from our bedroom every morning as she squeezed into her skin tight jeans and teased her hair to lengths that no hair should ever go. And somewhere along the line, long after my sis had grown out of the jeans and had let her hair fall naturally and had switched her musical tastes from the New Jersey boys to the Lenon-esque English classics, I kept listening. Livin’ on a Prayer has long been the anthem playing around in my head. I’ve sung it while climbing the Grouse Grind, running up hills in hill training, halfway through a race, and even during rough times while working a contract at

After four days of late nights and early mornings, and a plane ride home first thing this morning, the last thing I wanted to do was run. From the moment I woke up (at 5:30 a.m.!!!) I was thinking up every excuse in the book as to why I shouldn’t run: I’m tired. I’ve got a headache. It’s hot. I didn’t have a good fuel dinner last night. I don’t like running after lunch. Etc. Etc. But no matter how much I yawned, and no matter how much my eyes fought to stay open, that niggling, (possibly evil) little alter ego of mine would not let me crawl into bed. Sunday runs are not like the recovery run I missed on Thursday, the little devil told me, or the get-loose-and-limber run I missed on Saturday, they’re long distance runs, they build up my endurance. Mess with these runs, she said,

If they didn’t know it before, they damn well better know it now. I am a cyclist, start waving! In case you didn’t catch it, that last sentence had a note of bitterness tinging it, and rightfully so. Ever since I started cycling three years ago (after being off the bike for like 15 years) I have been working towards cycling respect, but have yet to fully gain it by way of the wave. According to Mario cyclists have a code (check out his blog on it here) and I have been trying to crack that code from day one. My first bike was a Dahon fold-up bike that, while it didn’t look like a road bike, it had all the necessary accoutrements that road bikes had – 24 gears and all. That bike took me all over the country roads, city roads and even 80 km out to Horseshoe