Duxford Girl

There was a time that I would not look forward to going for a run but tonight was a scheduled run and I thought about how great that run was going to be all day:

http://www.shape.com/fitness/sports/training_triathlon_week_1_tuesday

As explained on Shape's site, this plan is to get a person up to speed for a Sprint Tri so I should be in great shape for an even smaller length race. Because I've been running for awhile now, I didn't bother to do the walking portions. I warmed up, ran my 25 minutes and cooled down.

The good news is that because of my two-week tussle with the flu I've lost all of my post-vacation booze weight. The bad news is that I've also lost two weeks of training. Hence, my first triathlon has been moved to mid-July instead of the end of May. I'm disappointed but I'd be way more disappointed if I got a DNF in my first tri.

I'm competing in the Coral Springs “Tri-It” on July 18th, www.coralspringstriathlon.com. It includes an open-water swim which the original tri I was signed up did not have. The event is short; 350 m swim, 10 km bike and 2.5 km run. If it goes well, I'm going to move on to Sprint length with the end goal of competing in Olympic length triathlons. I've yet to get the Ironman bug but I won't rule it out. If my years of weigh loss have taught me anything, it's that anything is possible if you set your mind on it.

Somehow a shut out makes that Women's Hockey gold medal all the better.

The good news about being on mat leave during the Olympics is that I've been able to watch a great deal of the coverage live, including both Canada's gold medals (thus far). CTV is doing a bang-up job and there seems to be a great deal of fun interjected into their broadcasts; particularly with their morning show team. Quite a lot of mirth, actually.

So here are a few of my thoughts about the games.

Every fibre in my being is screaming out to buy a pair of Oakley goggles just like Alexandre Bilodeau's right now.

Let's keep in mind that I don't even have a Facebook account because I'm too neurotic. Here's some You Tube footage.

Me receiving the flame and looking like a total nerd when I start to run:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb12maNYmXk&feature=related

Me handing off the flame:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUnuu8RLDBk

I'm not sure that it really hit me until the moment I was standing with my fellow torchbearers and one of the organizers handed me my torch. Judging from the reactions of everybody else in the room, it was a very real moment for everyone involved.

My torchbearer uniform arrived today and I thankfully estimated my size at this point correctly. I had to tell the torch committee my size sometime in the summer when I was about nine months pregnant so I was a bit worried but I made the right choice. I only plan to wear it for my run and then save it. Maybe in 22 years the Winter Olympics will return to Canada and I can be like the '88 torchbearers who have turned out in their tracksuits.

I knew that the pregnancy weight would probably take as long to get off as it did to put on but that doesn't make me feel any better about the situation. I'm two months post-pardum now and I've lost just over 30 lbs. That should make me happy but instead all I can think about is what I weighed this time last year and how thrilled I was with that.

At any rate, not to be daunted by the task ahead of me, two weeks ago I abandoned my child (read: dropped him off in Red Deer with his doting grandparents) and headed for the hills.

Sometime in June I found out that I had been chosen as one of the CPR Olympic Torch Bearers. I was excited, not just because running in the Torch Relay is cool but because it's rare that I win anything. I'm glad that I submitted my name instead of taking my usual “what's the point” attitude. It just goes to prove that you don't know until you try. Out of several thousand employees only about 1500 applied.

I didn't blog about it right away because once chosen for any Olympic activity a person has to be cleared by VANOC through a process of applications, etc. As it happened, final confirmation of my position was emailed on September 17th. Pretty much a good day all around, I'd say.