A long awaited breakthrough in the pool!

Today was a crappy day. I am sleep-deprived from all the excitement from the house and the stress at work, and last night, I had a bad night of sleep. I woke up very grumpy and impatient this morning. I had to force myself to go running because I simply didn't feel like it. I was out at 8:30, and I went for 8K. I was surprised that I managed to do 8K this morning, because I didn't run all of last week, and only twice the week before. I have to admit that my 8K took longer than it should have, but I did it. I was soaking wet and freezing when I got home, but I felt like I had evacuated a lot of stress and frustration.

Tonight was my first of 8 adult swimming lessons. I signed up for lessons offered by the city. The session I signed for is twice/week for 4 weeks. I signed up for level 1 (of 3). I think i'm really going to like this class. It's like semi-private lessons! The instructor asked everyone what their level and goals were, and she offered each of us individual coaching. I like that she gives me some tips and stuff to practice, and I get to practice 5 minutes before I see her again. This is a great formula!

The instructor watched me swim and decided that I would graduate to the level 2 right away. :-) I couldn't dream of something better: I'm the BEST in my class!! I'm always surrounded by people who are so much better than I am, but this time, i'm the one who's best! This is great and just what I needed! 2 people in the class came to me and told me I was very good. I don't think I've ever heard this before from someone refering to my swimming! It's great to be a model for others.

The breakthrough happened at the end of the lesson, when the instructor explained the basics of breathing to 2 of my classmates (she said it was too basic for me, can you believe it?). She was telling them how their hips should remain parralel to the bottom of the pool and that only the upper body should twist when breathing while swimming. I tried that, using a floatation board, and miracle: I could breathe like I was supposed to! I didn't try it without the board tonight. We'll see on Wednesday if I can do it without it!

My day was crappy, but it ends so well! :-) Now that I have spent all my energy, I hope I get a good night's sleep. I need it desperately!

Enfin notre maison!

Aujourd'hui, nous avons pris possession de notre première maison. Nous sommes passé chez le notaire ce matin pour finaliser la vente et obtenir les clés. Heureusement, les vendeurs nous avaient invités à voir la maison hier soir, alors j'ai eu hier soir la déception habituelle que j'ai lorsque je vois ma nouvelle demeure non-meublée. Aujourd'hui, j'étais plutôt excitée! Nous avons déjà commencé à arracher des choses que nous n'aimons pas: des miroirs, des barres à serviettes, une petite armoire dans la salle de bains... Des vrais petits rénovateurs!

On a commencé à nettoyer et à faire des plans. Les 3 prochaines semaines devraient être plutôt occupées: entre nos emplois, la maison, notre entraînement et notre appartement, on ne va pas chômer.

Je trouve encore difficile à croire que je suis maintenant co-propriétaire d'une maison. C'est un étrange sentiment qui me rend un peu anxieuse. Bien évidemment, mes émotions sont plus positives que négatives, mais elles m'affectent néanmoins et je dors mal, je digère mal et je suis moins jasante. Je suis heureuse d'avoir 3 semaines pour me faire à ma future vie!

First Outside Bike Ride of the Season!

It's beautiful outside today! Rather than to go to the gym this morning, I decided to go for my first bike ride of the season. The weather was perfect, sunny and somewhere between 15 and 20 degrees. I took it slowly and did 8.42K in 31:28.

If I compare this first ride outside to my first ride of 2006, I see many differences. The most important one is that my butt isn't as sore as it was last year! :p

That was much more fun than to be stuck inside at the gym. Tomorrow will be my first outside run in shorts (or should I say skirt!). Yay for Summer!

Monday is a very important day for JF and I: we're getting the keys to our first house! This is very exciting, so much that I am losing sleep because of the excitement. It was to be expected, but the constant hangover feeling isn't fun at all. I'm sure I can survive this! ;-)

“I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself”

Those of you who know me well, know that I love music. Music accompanies me on every day of my life and helps me express my emotions. I ran a 5K PB yesterday at Run 4 Reach, and one line from a Dashboard Confidential song comes to my mind when I think of the past week and the huge support that I received from my friends: “I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself”. They said it all along that I had it in me to overcome my struggles, and my friends were right, I now see it!

We all doubt our capacities to tackle life’s challenges sometimes. When my turn comes, once every 3-4 months, I usually turn to my friends for support. When my doubts are related to my running, I turn to my Running Mania friends. These guys have a way of making you realize how far you’ve come and how much potential you have. When I shut up the voice of my inner critic and listen to what the rest of the world thinks of me, I find my balance and strive to push past my limits.

After hours of back and forth posting about by self-doubts on Thursday, I went out and ran a sub-40min 5K. This was only the third time in my life that I achieved this, the first time in training, and I was very proud of myself. All of a sudden, I started wondering if it would be possible for me to PB at Run for Reach. I told JF: "I want a PB". My former PB was set at the Rattle me Bones 5K, in October 2006. That day, I had run a 0:38:23 PB. The other time I had run a sub-40min 5K was in August 2005 in Quebec City, and I had run about 0:38:38.

My friend Nancy and I have been planning to run together for many, many months now and never got around to it. Yesterday was the day. Nancy told me we'd run at my pace, and that she would stick with me until the end. Knowing that Nancy is faster than I am, I included her in my plan for a PB without telling her!

All Friday and Saturday, I blocked the negative thoughts from my mind and only let room for the positive stuff. PBs were allowed, PWs weren’t. On Sunday morning, I didn’t feel up to the challenge and a tiny little voice in me started telling me that a sub-40min would be good enough. I did everything I could to ignore this little voice and think harder of a possible PB.

After the Halfers and 10Kers were off, I had about 90 minutes to spend before waiting for JF at the finish line and then it would be time for me to go. I decided to go back home, to keep warm, eat breakfast, repeat my positive mantras and just remain positive and excited about the race. When I went back to the race course, it was raining and it was cold. I waited for JF to cross the finish line and PB, which he did by over 4 minutes!!! It was unbelievable how great he looked when he finished. He was so happy!

We started our own race and the first kilometre mark came fast: under 6 minutes! I really tried to slow us down a little, but I just couldn’t pace myself. We ended up running the first 10 minutes, and then 5 minutes here, 3 minutes there, depending on how I felt. We took walk breaks when I needed them, and Nancy followed me without complaining about my lack of pacing skills! ;-)

The 4^th kilometre was the toughest one and I had to dig deep to make myself run just a little longer than what I thought I could do. I repeated “I can, I can, I can” non-stop at the rhythm of my footsteps until we reached the 4K mark. Sometime after 4K, Nancy told me that no matter what happened, I was PBing today! This made me so excited that I started running way too fast, hoping to smash that PB! And I did, by over 1 minute. We finished 5.11K in 37:08.

The best things about yesterday were:

1) Nancy sticking with me and pushing me to run outside of my comfort zone (thank you so much!)
2) JF yelling PB, PB, PB as we approached the finish line
3) Maniacs lining the course and cheering for us - I felt like a hero!
4) A great meet n' greet at the Striders - thanks so much for inviting us!

When you have great friends who empower you to believe in yourself, PBs happen.

Thank you my dear friends!

********

The picture was taken by a very talented photographer, who's also a Running Mania member. You can visit his company's website at www.zoomphoto.ca . Thanks Joe for the wonderful pictures!

Feeling Inadequate...

I'm feeling down about my running today, and I know writing usually helps me get the bad feelings out.

I know I am reacting to everyone's success in their running/triathlon training and wondering why is it that I can't be as good as everyone else seems to be. I keep reading things like "I started running a few months ago, and I am now training for my first Half" or "A year ago, I was training for my first 5K, and a year later, i'm training for my first Marathon", etc. I started running 2.5 years ago and I'm training for my first 10K. This doesn't sound glorious to me at all...

What's wrong with me? What is it that I do wrong? How come I can't go from 5K to Half in a year, like most people? It's not that I don't want it, I do. I feel that I have been training hard in the past year, but even though I feel like I'm getting stronger, I'm not any faster or more endurant.

I feel like other people find clinics that are just fine for them, where they find their place, but the few times I tried running with others, I felt so inadequate compared to them that now, I just refuse to run with people, unless they pressure me. When I'm alone, I only compare myself with myself and I'm generally happy. Make me run with someone, and I'll try to follow them, only to realize that I don't have the same capacity as they do. Then, when I'm done and I'm alone, I beat myself up for not being good enough.

People sometimes tell me that I inspire them, but I don't know how I can do that: no one wants to be inspired to be mediocre or to come in last place! Or, I inspire people to start doing something, and then they're so much better than I can ever be and I hate that. It doesn't do me any good to inspire others - it gives me more people to compare myself to and bring myself down with my lack of success compared to them. Come on, how can I feel good about my stupid little try-a-tri when many people who tell me I inspired them jump right into a Sprint Tri and succeed?

I really wonder what I'm doing so wrong that after 2.5 years of running, 10K is still a challenge for me. I've tried to find a single person who had the same slow progression around me, and I don't find any. Some people will tell me that at least, I keep running despite the fact that I have no natural talent for it, but this is not comforting to me.

After 2.5 years, I should be much tougher than I am, but I am not. I wish I knew why, so that I could make up an action plan to get better and be as good as I can be.

I think the bottom line is that I'm sick of comparing myself to others and that I should stop saying "yes" when someone asks me to run with them. Now, that would be a solution. How to say no to someone who only wants to show you their support by offering to run with you? They're being nice to me, after all... (sigh)...

Any ideas on what I can do to get better are welcome. Ideas on how to say "no" to running with people without hurting their feelings are welcome too...

50K... 100K... 9.2K... Not a new type of triathlon!

It's been a while since I updated my Blog and a lot happened... First of all, I ran 50K in one month for the first time ever in March!!! It took me 7:15:50 to cover the distance: I ran 5:09:00 and walked 2:06:50. In the process, I burned 3,993 calories! :-)

In March, I also walked over 100K (1,595 minutes!!!).

Last Sunday, I planned to run 8K in a different way: run to the gym, run on the TM and then run back home. From our apartment to the gym, there's 2.8K and so I knew I would have done 5.6K just for my commute to the gym. While I was on the TM, I decided to run an extra kilometer on the TM, and to run my first ever 9K that day! I did it! :-) It was very painful at the end, and I was very tired, but I toughed it out.

I was very happy that I decided to run 9K while I was doing it. This way, I didn't have time to apprehend it and be scared. I really liked running to the gym, and then on the TM, and then back outside again - it made the 9.2K go faster. I will now need to rest my legs a little because I feel an injury slowly creeping in.

I'm ready for my 10K, and I decided that my longest training run would be around 9.75K, so that my first 10K is at NCM! :-)

I believed... and ran 8K!

After my terrible PMS last week, I got back into a more positive attitude over the weekend. I was very nerveous about my first 8K run, which was planned for Sunday morning, but I decided to try to be positive about it and to look forward to it. To me, 8K was a very important milestone, because 8K is closer to 10K than it is to 5K...

On Sunday morning, I felt good. I would even say I felt calm. I had all sorts of positive thoughts in my mind, such as "You can do it", "Take it one KM at a time" and "Enjoy the journey". However, right at the beginning of my run, I started to visualize the word "BELIEVE" written in big bold letters on the window in front of the treadmill. I said it in my head many times, and it helped make the run less difficult. This 7-letter word turned something difficult into something wonderful. :-)

I believe.

I'm done

I am having a terrible day today, which involves a lot of crying... thinking and more crying. I have never wanted to reach my objectives to feel good about myself, I wanted to reach them in order to get recognition from people from whom I should not be expecting any. Why is it that as you grow older, your parents care less and less about you and you care more and more about them? I am reconsidering the reasons why I want to run and do triathlons, and until I come up with something better than "to get some recognition from others", I decided to put my plans on hold.

I will continue to train for my first 10K, but I'm not so sure about my other plans. Stay tuned.

My first outside run of 2007

Tonight, I took my running outside, after almost 4 months of treadmill running. Since I took up running 2 years ago, my first outside run in the Spring always took place in Vancouver because I travelled there for work. I always had a wonderful experience when doing this run - nature was blooming, the air smelt fresh, the sun was warm...

With all these memories in mind, I put on my running shoes today, expecting nothing less than pure bliss. I didn't get this. I was tired from a long day at work, nothing is blooming and the air smelt of exhaust because the only place I could run was on the side of the road. So much for a wonderful invigorating run!

I was so nerveous about this run. I had doubts I could run for 10 minutes outside, like I can on the treadmill. Determined to run for 10 minutes, I headed out and toughed the longest 10 minutes ever. Then I crashed, and ran 2 minutes, walked, then ran 5 minutes and then walked back home. I had calves cramps during the whole thing, which could have been caused by uneven pavement or the small incline on the road. I was also running too fast, although I felt like I was slowing myself down the whole time.

To borrow one of The Killer's lines from their song This River is Wild: tonight, I didn't like the line I walked (or should I say, ran).

I'm trying to focus on the upside, and the upside is that I was able to run for 10 minutes straight and that the first run outside is now behind me. It can only get better from here! Right?

The hardest thing I have ever done

Training for my first 10K is the hardest thing I have ever done. It is so difficult mentally to do all my runs and complete my distances that I really wonder how some people can run longer distances. This week is a cut-back week, so my long run today was only 5K. It should not have been hard, but it took everything I had to tough it out. I was thinking about how hard this was during my run and I was overwhelmed by a feeling of sadness and self-doubt.

I feel like every time I go out for a run, a swim, a ride, a walk, a strenght training session, that I am fighting against my non-athletic genes. I can't help wanting to be a runner, just like everyone else. I want it easy, just like other people, who start running and run a Half- or a Full-Marathon a year later. I feel like such an imposter, sometimes, pretending to be a runner or even a triathlete.

Of course I can be a runner, of course I can complete a triathlon, but how can I ever be a Marathoner when I struggle so much through my 10K training? What if what I want the most is out of my reach? What if i'm never good enough in my own eyes? Why can't I just be satisfied with what I can do? Why must I push myself out of my comfort zone all the time? Why, oh why, am I being so demanding towards myself?

People tell me that I will appreciate it more when I reach my goal, and I hope it's true. This training is very hard mentally and I hope it pays off.

On a brighter note, I bought myself (another) running skirt today: the Brooks Motion skort. I already have the 2006 model and I love it. When I saw there was a turquoise one this year, I had to get it. Good news: they had it at the Running Room and I fit into a Medium! :-) Last year, I got the Large because the Medium wouldn't fit. Despite the lack of movement on the scale, I'm losing inches! Yay!

72% done!

Today, I ran 7K for the first time! :-)

Well, it was 7.21K, because I wanted to be running when I reached 7K and then I needed to cool down a little. The first 5K were OK, but the last 2... Oh. My. God... It was very difficult, both physically and mentally. The girl I was a year ago would have stopped after 5K and thought she was not ready for 7K, but the new me pushed it and succeeded!

I was very clever to create a new playlist on my iPod with all the songs that I love to run to. It helped me tough it out and run a little faster than usual. Overall, I ran a little over 48 minutes and walked about 16. This is pretty good for me, the highest number of minutes I've ever run in one run!

After my run, I was SO tired.. I just couldn't read or think or talk. My digestive system was upset, and I wasn't sure if I would vomit or not. (I didn't, in case anyone wonders...) I tried to take a nap this afternoon, but I couldn't fall asleep, so I just relaxed. Something tells me i'm going to sleep very well tonight!

The best part of my run was not related to running: a week before my laser eye surgery, I was running on the TM at the gym with my glasses on and I decided to notice everything I could in order to be able to compare the difference in my vision after the surgery. Conveniently, the TM at the gym face the street, and businesses have signs with different text sizes. Anyway, everything was mostly blurry since my surgery, I could read it, but it was never clear. Well, this morning, during my run, I noticed that one of the signs across the street was VERY clear and it was one of the most difficult to read a few weeks ago. When I blinked, I lost the clarity, but at least I had it for a few seconds!!! After all, there may be hope that I get 20/20 vision once this long healing process is over!!

I'm 72% done reaching my 10K goal. Next milestone will be 8K on March 18th.

Swimming 100m, another first!

Tonight was another first: I swam 100m non-stop! :-)

It wasn't beautiful to see, but I did it once, then I did it again. I'm very tired right now from all this swimming, but mentally, I feel great! I guess I can do this...

Many Firsts to Celebrate!

Ever since I decided to try a 2 weeks hard/1 week easy training schedule, I feel like I have wings! I didn't miss a single run in the past 2 weeks, even though I had mentally-challenging runs. Last Sunday, I had the most awful run: 6K of talking myself through it the whole time. But I did it, in fact I did 6.3K, and I was very proud! It was the first time I ever run more than 6K. :-)

Tonight, I had a wonderful run. I almost felt no pain at all while running and my cardio was excellent. I ran for 16 minutes in a row for the first time ever! I could have kept going, but my 30-minutes limit on the treadmill was up.

On Sunday, I'll get into my "easy" week, where I'll run a shorter run on Sunday, see Duane the miracle-maker chiro on Monday, go to my first ever spinning class on Tuesday, to the pool on Wednesday, rest on Thursday and Friday and do some strenght training at the gym on Saturday. This will bring me to another big day: Sunday the 25th when I'll run 7K for the first time!

How far I've come...

I had some difficult moments in the past 2 weeks. They were mostly related to my difficulties in learning to swim and the discouragement that followed. I'm still not 100% comfortable in the water, and therefore, it's very difficult for me to go from point A to point B in the pool without swallowing water or having difficulties breathing. I decided to postpone my first triathlon, which was planned for the weekend after JF and I move into our new house. There's going to be so much stress involved during this period of my life that I thought it would be best to postpone to August or September.

I started having calf pain again when running and this contributed to my discouragement. I thought there was no way I could ever run 10K... But then, I gave myself a week off, and I came back to running well-rested and ran 6K for the first time ever last Sunday! :-) I was very proud of me for toughing this run, because I had pain all over and was very tired.

After many trials and errors, I think I found the magic recipe for me: 2 weeks hard training, 1 week cross-training or little running. This has worked in the past in keeping me injury-free and I'm ready to give this a try by planning those cut-out weeks.

When I posted about being discouraged about my non-existing athletic capacities, someone on Running Mania asked me to stop and look back at how far I've come. Here's how far i've come:

* 3 years ago, I weighed 25lbs more than I weigh now;
* 28 months ago, I couldn't run more than 30 seconds at a time and needed 4 minutes to recover;
* 2 years ago, I didn't have much self-confidence in both my running and my life in general;
* a year ago, I didn't have as many runners as friends;
* 6 months ago, I couldn't swim at all;
* 4 months ago, I wasn't mentally tough enough to run 10 minutes non-stop;
* 2 weeks ago, I wasn't strong enough to face some adversity in the pool.

Ian was right, I have come a long way and I should focus on that! :-)

JF and I bought a house!

JF and I have been saving and planning to buy our first house for about 2 years. We decided that we would start to get serious about it this January. Our plan was to get pre-approval on a mortgage from different banks and then visit houses and eventually, make an offer on a house. Well, things went much faster than we anticipated and we made an offer on the 5th house we visited, on our 2nd day of intensive visits.

The past 2 weeks feel like they lasted 2 months. One day, we were visiting houses, the day after we were making an offer, and then waiting to hear back from the sellers, and finally accepting their counter-offer. All the while, we were having appointments with banks to discuss mortgages, finding a trustworthy house inspector and notary. It was all worth it, because on Monday, January 22nd, we became future home owners!!!

Of course, this proved to be quite challenging for our training and eating habits, but we didn't do too bad. This week, I got back into running and I ran about 12K (3 runs). Pretty good for someone who was off from running for almost one full month! I'm back to doing 10:1s. Some are easier than others, but I think that the more I "force" myself to complete the 10 minutes of running, the easier they will become.

I haven't gone back to the pool yet to try on my "new eyes", but it's in the books for next week.

My eyes are pretty much stable... I can't say that I saw much improvement this week. Yesterday, I received a bottle of eye drops in the mail. The eye doctor I saw 2 weeks ago had forgotten to give me stronger drops to put into my right eye 4 times a day. D'oh! I was pretty anxious about it, afraid this would ruin my recovery, but the nurse I spoke to said not to worry and that if I took the drops diligently for the next 2 weeks, I would be OK. I may call them back on Monday and ask for another follow-up appointment, just to make sure the damage isn't too bad...

Day 29 after PRK... my astigmatism is gone!

Today is Day 29 after my laser eye surgery and I noticed for the first time that my astigmatism is almost all gone!!! When I try hard to notice it, I can still see a little bit of astigmatism (my computer keyboard looks twisted), but in general, I don't notice it any more!!! :-)

Last Monday, on Day 25, it was raining and I got rain in my eyes. What a wonderful feeling!

Today, I went for my one month follow-up appointment and was very happy because I was told that my capacity to see details has increased a lot and that I could stop using the steroid drops in my right eye and reduce the drops regimen to 2 times a day for the next 2 weeks for my left eye.
I really hate those drops, they give me an awful taste in my mouth.

Back at the gym!

Day 23 after my laser eye surgery. My vision has improved a lot this week. It is still very blurry, but I have moments (seconds) where I see clearly! I still get headaches before my eyes need to work so hard, but I'm expecting the headaches will leave once I get rid of my cold and my vision improves.

Today, I went back to the gym, after more than 3 weeks of absence. Needless to say, it was very tough. I was expecting to have lost a lot of strenght during this time off, but I didn't. I can still do the same exercises, but they feel more difficult. I biked for 20 minutes and it went well, but then I almost fainted at the end of my strenght training. I decided to call it a day and went home to rest. Tomorrow, I'm going for a run! :-)


JF and I got pre-approved for a mortgage today. We're starting serious house hunting in the coming weeks!

Day 18 after PRK... I can focus!

Today is Day 18 after my laser eye surgery and I had a pleasant surprise while taking a shower: my ability to focus is back! When I put shampoo in my hand, I could see my hand clearly and the shower wall was a blur behind my hand. Woohoo!

I find that my recovery takes forever, which is normal for PRK surgeries according to the optometrist I saw last Thursday. Sometimes, I wonder why I chose to have PRK or laser eye surgery at all because I get so frustrated at not seeing much improvement day after day. Today was a very small thing, but it gave me hope that things will improve. Really. It's not just the optometrist trying to reassure me.

And when this long recovery is over, I know I'll be happy I was patient and kept my eye on the prize...

2006… The year of new beginnings

I started the year of 2006 unsatisfied with my life. I loved JF and the cats very much, I had a good job, but I was missing a social life. I decided to let go of some old friendships and to look for new ones. I knew this would require me to step out of my comfort zone, but I also knew I had to do it or something would always be missing. Making new friends was my resolution for 2006.

There are a lot of things that happened which I didn’t anticipate. Some were pleasant surprises: many new friendships, a new job, my laser eye surgery and new training goals. Others were less pleasant: the cancellation of the program I worked for and the uncertainty and frustration it brought, the multiple injuries and the necessity to reconsider my goals for 2006. Overall, 2006 was a good year where I decided what kind of life I wanted to live, with whom I wanted to share it and what goals I wanted to pursue.

2006 was the year of patience and work, and I hope that 2007 will bring some of the results of this hard work. My resolution for 2007 is to work at being more patient and I know this is going to be a big challenge, but I’m ready for it.

I wish you all a wonderful year, a healthy one where you will find happiness in the smallest things of life.

It's 9:27... My PRK Experience

This Fall, I made the decision of getting laser eye surgery, after trying on contact lenses without success. One day when I went to the optometrist to be told that the contacts that I had were my best option to go swimming, I was so discouraged that I knew I had to choose to either let go of my dream of learning to swim or get laser eye surgery. I thought about it a lot before I made an appointment with the Focus Eye Centre Clinic in Ottawa.

I had my PRK surgery on December 15th, 2006. I was very nerveous and it seemed that the Valium didn't help at all. The procedure gave me a lot of anxiety, but I did it. When I was done, the nurse asked me to look at the clock on the wall, and I could tell it was 9:27! Before surgery, all I saw was a big white round object on the wall and 10 minutes later, I could tell what time it was! :-)

2 weeks later, my eyes are healing alright, although my vision is far from perfect and I still have a way to go before I get to 20/20 vision. During my recovery, I had to learn to be patient and to deal with boreness. I listened to audiobooks, and to so much music that my iPod doesn't appeal to me anymore.