Monthly Archives: August 2012

other people, elsewhere, being much more productive

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I just returned from a vacation that perfectly ended my summer. It was full of family, friends, cottages, runs on the beach and excessive amounts of reading for pleasure. Perfection. Of course it didn’t hurt that upon my return, I discovered that I have passed all my classes and am headed to university graduate-land!

What better people to close the summer with than these amazing ladies?

Some of my best friends from university escaped to a cottage in Sauble and spend some sun-soaked days on the beach, catching up on our lives since the winter classes. We are so excited to be graduating together this fall!

There’s a time and a place for everything, and it’s called college. – South Park
Love these ladies and the stories we have created – they are truly forever friends. (Rebecca was missed in this shot – check out the curly haired beauty in the first shot).

 On Sunday, we parted ways and I reunited with my family and lovely boy friend and we went to the CUTEST cottage in Red Lake for a few days full of rock climbing, hiking and wind surfing. It was the first family vacation that Jesse has taken with us and one night he said in bewilderment – “I cannot believe the speed at which this family moves in “relaxation mode”.

I’d say he did just fine.

We unpacked and listened to an opera on tape and danced around the cottage. (Well, I did anyways).

Apparently there were other people, elsewhere, being much more productive. . .

We ate incredible food

Celebrated my mother’s birthday

She is a beauty

And spent time relaxing.

And of course we went hiking and rock climbing, with hilarious conversation.

I absolutely adore these people.

I also stroked something off my bucket list, my dad spent the weekend teaching some of us to wind surf. Perfect conditions and lovely company.

Now I am back, rejuvenated to start back into a crazy fall full of crisp leaves, writing assignments and trail running!

Injured?

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I have been getting some emails lately regarding injury, especially related to running. It is unavoidable if you are engaged in a sport, especially if you are just starting out or are increasing your training volume or intensity.

But there is a bright side to injury. After last cross country season, I had an IT band injury that left me unable to compete or even run for that matter. Taking that time off and visiting experts was the single most beneficial thing in helping me listen to my body and learn preventative measures. This is what I have learned:

1. Listen to your body. If it is an unusual or sharp pain, it is better safe than sorry.

Sorry Nike. I cannot agree with you on this one and I think this is a wretched form of advertising. Pushing through my injury amplified the problem and made my recovery much, much longer. When I feel pain now, I often finish my run which I don’t recommend, but I know that most runners will. Afterwards, I focus my attention on that area with stretching and ice to stop inflammation. After 24 hours, I try to go into the hot tub to help sooth the muscles.

2. Stretch and Foam Roll! The other night I went to the gym after hours and shot a couple of photos of me doing my favourite and most effective stretches.

Quads are such an important muscle to stretch because they are one of the largest sets of muscles in your legs. Be sure to stretch your hamstrings at the back of your legs as well. This can help with IT band and knee related pain.

 

I could also name this the “I have no idea what it is called” stretch. All I know is that it feels great and it works the hip flexors and helps with the IT band.

Foam Rolling is THE BEST. It hurts beyond your wildest imagination but it is like giving a deep tissue massage to yourself. It gets right in there and loosens up tight muscles. I highly recommend if you are a runner to get a foam roller or…

The stick is advertised as a “toothbrush for your muscles”. Sound painful? It is. But it works. It works really well on areas that the foam roller is kinder to, in this case, my calves which are very painful from all the hills I have been doing on the trails. I am also suffering from some Achilles pain which I stretch by going against the wall in a simple calf stretch and then bending the knee a bit – oy!

3. Ice: It took me a while to learn this, but a hot shower is NOT what you follow up a hard run with. I don’t care if it is an ice bath (ew) or you sit around in sweaty clothes with ice packs wrapped in towels all over your hips, butt, and legs (my FAVOURITE…), ice that body to prevent inflammation!

4. Get a massage: But not a hot stone one. I am talking a deep tissue, almost-crying-on-the-table massage to get the fascia loosened and the muscles in their proper places. I would recommend this short term to get over a pesky or intensive injury and then follow step 5 for long term prevention. Send me an email and I can refer you to one of two ladies in this area – one is a ripped farm girl who is not afraid to make you cry and the other one is a cross fit coach who teaches bootcamp for fun. Perfect.

5. Get muscle restoration coaching – I am not sure if that is the right thing to call it, but I have been seeing an amazing health coach from our gym who tailors stretches, treatment, and a nutrition and supplement plan just for me to prevent any future injuries. Working with a stride analysis, he helps my alignment and form so I can reach my running potential injury free! Here is his information.

To state the extreme obvious, I am not a professional and there are a zillion other ways out there to prevent injury, these are just things that have worked and are working for me.

And to those of you who have never ran yet, if this won’t want to make you want to launch yourself into the world of running, I have no idea what will!

 

 

 

I’m a FitKit Ambassador!

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It’s not that I don’t love vacations – I just hate the week BEFORE vacations.

I have been playing a desperate game of catch up trying to button down all my loose ends before I head to a remote cottage in the far north. I am planning on doing very little besides sitting on the beach with a book in my hand and taking long runs in a new place.

This week has been riddled with misadventures and the cherry on top was last night’s event. I was driving home from spending some time with friends and suddenly my muffler went..or fell off..or whatever mufflers do when they don’t work any more. (My car mechanic lingo may as well be in the negatives). Regardless, I am car-less for a few days and coupled with the manic rush to get everything done before I leave, I have reduced to putting ridiculous amounts of kilometres on my bike. So if you see me arriving a hot sweaty mess to an event this week, you know why.

The beautiful thing about life is that it is balanced. For every frustrating thing that happens, there is often an amazing thing that happens somewhere else and this week has proven that for me! I have been chosen to be an Ambassador for FitKit, hence the redesign…so I can show off my button! (Honestly, sometimes blogging reminds me of those days in primary school where we would gather around at recess to trade pogs or fuzzy stickers. If you have been born since the ’90′s, just google it although I cannot promise you will understand…)

So I have beautiful new badge and I am very excited to be blogging for them. I did my first post for them this week and it is all about nutrition for athletes. I shared my favourite ingredients, the avocado and the sweet potato, in a new recipe! Check it out, although I am no Julia Child.

Before I leave, I have to ask…how many of you played with pogs? 

Foolish enough to change the world

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Sometimes it is easy to become comfortable with doing safe and every day things that are full of first world problems – Starbucks runs out of lactose free milk, you are afraid you failed your last exam of university or your favourite book is back ordered on Amazon for a week. A week!

I get caught up the network of only slightly meaningful problems and capitalize on them and forget. Forget about the fact that while I am screeching that the water is too hot in the shower that there are people that need to walk 5 miles just to drink water. Or when I am suffering from “gluten belly”, the inevitable ache that comes with eating wheat, that there are children all over the world aching with hunger. And when I remember, I feel helpless.

It is unfair that I get to be born here and they were born there. I want to help, but I am often at a loss to know what is the best thing.

Sometimes I really believe there is nothing I can do. What would they be able to do with a overzealous, americanized white female that is foolish enough to think she can help change the world? I have come to the conclusion that they don’t necessarily need my presence, they just need resources to do what they are capable of doing. Women In Action is a beautiful example of this. According to the website:

Women in Action are an association of 1,200 indigenous Maya women in Guatemala.  It was founded in the mid 1980’s by Filipia Xico and twelve community leaders who had a vision of improving the lives of their families and neighbours.  

Women in Action help rural women and men earn higher incomes, protect the environment, promote local democracy through micro-loans, training, and reforestation and community organizing programs.  This year Women in Action began an Agricultural Renewal Program.

Jesse and I are joining World Accord, one of the partners of Women in Action who has provided 161 loans to families so they can farm or run a small business, trained 300 women leaders in community development, reforested 60 farm parcels, and provided emergency assistance families affected by storms. We are participating in the Cycle for Sustainability, a 33 km bike race, on September 30 and would love for you to join us. If you are not able, we would love to take donations for this organization to help support and improve the lives of others.

Because we can all be foolish enough to think we help save the world.

Smoothies, Farmers and Liebster Award

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I am a list person. My day planner is broken down into to do lists and categories, I review information to people in a list and I cannot even have a day off without creating a schedule in my head. So naturally, I would want to blog in a list form. Except no one wants to read bullet points and I would just be a sad little person writing about myself online (which is what blogging tends to be anyways).

I digress; today’s blog post is about me embracing the inner list maker and wearing the organized nerd badge with pride.

So without further ado…

1. One of the most asked questions I get from blog readers is about my smoothie. I have one almost every morning and I have mentioned it a couple of times before but I will give you the treat of hearing about it again. Another one of the main questions I get is what I do for my gym job. Well, consider it two birds with one stone:

2. I wrote about farmers and rain for the Waterloo Food System Roundtable: http://www.wrfoodsystem.ca/blog/2012/08/10/eat-local

3. I received a sweet email from reader, Alana, who nominated me for the Liebster award! It is just a cool way to draw recognition to some of your favourite blogs. The way it works is: Name 5 up-and-coming blogs you love, they need to answer 5 things about themselves and answer the questions you leave. You don’t have to participate if you are named, but it is a cool way to share the blog love!

5 Things about me…

1. The three most important things in my life are my relationship with God, my friends and family and travel.
2. I have an unnatural obsession with all natural peanut butter.
3. I have always wanted to try kite boarding and surfing.
4. I have a goal to run the Boston Marathon by the time I am 30.
5.  Despite being raised Mennonite and in Perth County, horse and buggies TERRIFY me. I will cower behind the person I am walking with or run on the opposite side of the road, certain that the horse will lunge at any moment.

Questions from Alana:
1. What is your favourite summer activity? Long trail runs at the hydro cut!
2. What is your guilty pleasure? The tv shows I watch. I read rich and thought provoking literature, but when it comes to my tv, I favour Gossip Girl.
3. Do you have a favourite book? A few. But trying to single out my favourite book is like asking a mother to chose her favourite child. But this week is it anything in the Stieg Larsson series. Yum.
4. What is your favourite topic to blog about?  I blog about those moments that you feel like you failed the world in some way if they weren’t written about. So I really do not have one sole topic I focus on. I do adore talking about running…but most of my readership are actually NOT runners so I don’t want to bore them all to tears.
5. Coffee or tea? Coffee in the morning, green tea in the afternoon and fresh mint tea at night.
6. What decade do you identify with the most? Present day, past decade? Most likely present day. I would have been useless in any other decade. I would love to see a Pioneer or Victorian woman declare they were taking up long distance running for pleasure.
7. Where do you feel most at home? Beside a body of water or in the middle of a city.
8. What do you do when you’re having a bad day? Surround myself with friends or family.
9. Have you met blogging friends in real life? For sure! I met Nancy, Angela, Callie and Heena for brunch at Cora’s one morning. Awesome ladies and talented writers.


10. What’s your favourite way to relax? A movie with Jesse and my dog while sharing a big bowl of popcorn.

So I nominate…
Plastic Free Life because what they are doing is AWESOME.
Lindsey because if I could write like anyone in the world, I would choose her,
Kaitlyn because she is a real live super star and I have been reading (and laughing) at her witty writing since I could blog,
Shelley as she is pure wit and laughs,
Delaney because she is living my dream,
and Marina because she is pure honesty.

I know I chose 6, but what can I say? My friends are amazing writers and rules are to be broken.

So I want to know:

1. Where would you live if you could?

2. What is your weakness?

3. What was the best day of your life so far?

4. What would your last meal on earth be?

5. If you became independently wealthy, what 3 things would you buy first?

Feel free to answer these in the comments even if your blog wasn’t listed. I love hearing about you guys!

Kind of beautiful and very typical

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Whew! Well, I am glad that is over!

I am hopefully  done with my studies and emerging blinking and pasty skinned to the real world. (At least I hope, the last exam was a monster and if I passed, it will be by the skin of my teeth.)

What does the real world mean now that I am done school?

I am working as a technical writer for an invention company, which means I spend a lot of time sitting in my pajama’s and editing things like all natural shampoo advertisements and barbecue manuals. (I have always loved ruthless editing and I get the crème de la crème as I am working with engineers.)
I also am working at an environmental journal where I am in charge of event planning, business and marketing and will be writing a panel for them beginning next year. I will put it up here as soon as it is launched!
I am doing fitness instruction, running clinics and marketing at a local gym.
I am tutoring students who will have difficulty passing high school in English, history, geography and science.

So basically, graduating from school as not slowed me down. I feel so blessed to do everything I love that makes my life full.

I was able to squeeze in some fun while I was cramming for those horrid finals.

I was able to go to the Amish auction in Perth County. Absolutely nothing like it, ever. It was ever flavour of Mennonite out in search of a deal. Kind of beautiful and very typical. I cannot even begin to describe it. So I won’t.

HILLSIDE MUSIC FESTIVAL

A weekend of folk music, healthy food, fun coworkers and my favourite man in the world. Could not have been better. Plus, I made my own tooth paste!

 

Beautiful graduation flowers from my family.

After the last exam, and I sullenly walked to Jesse’s vehicle (terrified about that grade..). My family and boy friend treated me to flowers, a beautiful dinner at Borealis and an amazing evening with their company.

TRAIL RUNNING!

Got myself a new pair of trail shoes. Saucony of course. Lately I have been exploring the trails with this guy..

And that is why I have been in hiding. I will try and keep popping up here on a regular basis because it is good for my soul. If you excuse me, I am off to explore time management options…

Have a beautiful week.