Chilly.. brrrrrr

The weekend started off great.  Friday after work I met some friends at our favourite Thai restaurant, Salad King.  I am happy to report the food is as delicious as ever!  As you can see from my plate I ate all of it.

On Saturday our IronCanucks team had our first indoor endurance ride but unfortunately I couldn't make it, I had to get my hair done.  A girl has priorities.  What this meant was that I ended up having to do my ride solo after I got home and it was a loooong painful 80 minutes but I got it done.  I was not surprised that my butt was hurting so much when I got off the bike and realized I was wearing tri shorts, not my extra padded cycling pants.  Dumb!

I was up bright and early this morning to meet my coach and the team at the water/eload stop sponsored by Second Wind Conditioning.  I have never volunteered before but I do remember how grateful I was to the volunteers passing out water at my tri and was excited to return the favour and do some cheering.  I love our team and we all had as many giggles as you can have while loading up eload and water for the racers to come.  We were 6kms in for the half marathoners and were on the route for the 5km racers as well.

We were ready for them however when I heard there were over 4500 runners I was sure we didn't have nearly enough.  Turns out we had more than we needed.  Some cup grabs were super smooth, the runner would point at me and they would take the cup and off then went, but more often than not it was a grab or worse grab and drop.  One runner was already drinking water and asked if I had eload which I did so she threw down her water to grab the cup in my hand but unfortunately when she threw the water down it came right back up, in my face!!!  Nice.  Alot of the water was starting to freeze, some runners came by chomping ice.  As time passed and we cheered everyone on JP and I started to get cheeky and instead of yelling 'eload, this is eload!' we were yelling, 'shot of brandy?!  rye and coke anyone!!'.  We had some giggles with many of the runners.  Many many many of them took the time to say thanks for volunteering.

I was waiting to see Rodney, see his race report here, but as I was running back up to the table to get more eload I heard someone yelling my name and saying something harassing and sure enough, it was him.  He was looking really strong so early into the run.  My fellow mommie in motion Linda who was doing her first half looked great when she came by!  I didn't see Daryl until the end and he was looking really fresh and beating the 1:30 pace bunny.  He is legendary in our group, they say he runs like a gazelle and it's true, that guy is FAST!!

I didn't get to my run today, the miss was 'coach approved' because of the weather but I did walk 4km to and from the water stop, I parked way too far away but I enjoyed the walk. Add that to my 6km of walking on Friday around Toronto and I'm not unhappy with my weekend.  Home to do laundry and make chicken pot pie (sans crust) for my lunches this week.

When I opened my volunteer kit and was reading through some of the materials I came across a 5km run/walk in memory of my swim coach Meredith who died in a tragic cycling accident last spring.  Her friends and family have set up a foundation in her memory and they are running a 5km run/walk in Campbellville on June 25.  I'm definitely adding this race to my calendar and I would love to have any of you join me for this one. I only knew her briefly but I will never forget her.  I read an entry on her blog once and I saved it, it was so Meredith..

"Its a perfect day to...get outside, go for a run, walk to the coffee shop, read a book, write a letter to a friend, smile, play with your kids, call your parents, laugh with friends, share a quiet moment with someone, dance, buy a new pair of shoes, go spinning, take a long shower, tell someone how much you love them, skip, watch an old movie, do a hot yoga class, paint your toes, listen to music really loud..and sing, share, give something away, do a cartwheel, write in your journal, take a wee nap, stretch, do what makes you happy and enjoy every moment of the day.Be Phat!"

Here is a link to a video of Meredith that I just found via the foundation website.  

This has turned into a much longer post than I originally anticipated, hope you all had a great weekend!

that's all I got...