Goodlife Victoria Half Marathon - Week 10 Recap

Sigh...what a lovely, lovely long weekend!  Weather here in Victoria was great and it was all Hubs and me, all the time, just hanging out.  Got lots of stuff done this weekend and cleared off my to do list, including some backbreaking garden work today...a few years ago we had a retaining wall built in our backyard and I put in a fairly large flower bed.  This year I looked at it with a really critical eye...some stuff either was not doing well or didn't look great where I'd planted it, so today I tilled the whole garden, mixed in multiple bags of sea soil, moved plants around and planted a bunch of new stuff that I thought would do better.   Phew!  I was going to work out after doing that, but after four hours of high intensity shoveling, I figured I'd done enough physical activity that I could skip a workout today.  So there.

Oh...and good news!  I've finally guilted Hubs into running the Goodlife Half marathon too.  Hee hee!  It's become kind of a tradition now...every year we run the race, and then we feel completely guilt free in indulging in turkey dinner with all the trimmings.  Hubs was reticent to commit to running the race...but finally he relented so I'm signing him up for the half quick before he changes his mind.

Sunday: rest day
Huh.  I guess I didn't work out.  Ha! I can't think of why I didn't...I guess I must have been tired from my long run the day before.  Or just lazy. 

Monday: bootcamp

Tuesday: rest day

Wednesday: bootcamp in a.m./clinic in p.m.
Hurray!  Back at my double Jay days.

Thursday: Mindful Strides clinic

Friday: bootcamp
Whoa, this was totally hill week at bootcamp I tell ya...we did hills all three classes.  I can really feel the hill and speed sessions in my legs too, they're feeling tired and sore this week.

Saturday: Mindful Strides run
Sooooo....Hubs and I were gonna do our long run on Saturday, but we were both zonked and just couldn't get up...plus we wanted to go to the Mindful Strides run at Elk Lake and didn't want to be too tired to be able to do the drills and strides properly.  We met up with the group and did a lot of drills...and afterwards I totally regretted not coming to these sooner!  We did a lot more "running" (even though we only ran maybe 100 feet at most) and we did a few drills that I'd never done before that really helped with my pulls. 

After the session, a few of the group were chatting with Marilyn and she mentioned that she was racing that night at the final race for the Q100.3 Track Series.  We've never seen her race before, so we decided to  head out to the UVic track to cheer her on and get a chance to watch her in action.  Thank goodness we had a blanket in the car...it had been a warm day but the night was very cool and windy...I had a t-shirt, two sweatshirts and a blanket and I was still freezing my butt off!  Anyways, it was cool to see Marilyn race...after a little bit of confusion on the laps she was on, she came in second overall and the first woman master with a 34:20 10K time and a new personal best.  I know, 34:20...crazy fast!  There weren't a lot of people in the stands watching, but she had a pretty good contingent of supporters and we heard lots of "go Marilyn!!!" in the last few laps.  Seeing her race totally inspired me to really put my nose to the grindstone and train hard for the half.  Five more weeks to go to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear...yikes!