Day 210: still so cold

For some reason I just couldn't sleep much.  In the end I decided I may as well get up and have breakfast instead of just rushing out to run club.  I made myself some chocolate porridge (using Starbucks mocha) as a treat.  It looked to be around -20C this morning according to my phone so I dressed accordingly and headed up to the store, even remembering to put sun cream on and pick up a gel.  The route today was 23k and a lot of it was along the top of the river valley where it was particularly windy and I was very glad to have my buff pulled up over my face.  As the route went really close to Linda's house, our little group did a detour so people could top up their water bottles, pop to the loo, or just generally thaw out a bit.
We went over the bridge just south of home and ran up ("up" is right!) the keillor road that I run along a lot, coming out at the top right near my road.  I wasn't tempted to just cut short and go home though, Linda wanted to do a longer run as her marathon is a week earlier than everybody else's and I had agreed to keep her company.  Once we got back to the store, me and Linda carried on along Saskatchewan drive, then zigzagged through Strathcona for a bit until we had gone far enough to turn around and head back.  Her Garmin total at the end was 29K so I probably ran a similar distance to last week.  Next week she will do 32k, then the following week the rest of the group will do 32k so I should be able to do 20ish mile runs each sunday for four weeks in a row. 


I was glad of the extra 3 or 4 miles, but I was also very grateful for a ride home, missing out on a potential extra 1.5miles.  The ride home also meant I could pick up my free shoes and purchases and take them home with me. 

Here is a picture I took of all my freebies to date.  Most are from work but the bottom left are race freebies.  I forgot about a pair of Hilly socks I got so there may be other things I have forgotten too.

After stretching and showering, I made myself a nice omelette, then settled down to do my Nike homework.  I had been planning to meet up with Cecily and get a few things I needed in the shops, but she was unexpectedly busy and I was pretty tired anyway so we postponed til next weekend.  I also made some Angel Delight, bought from the British store before it closed down!  The Nike training made me feel quite sleepy, so I decided to actually lie down under my covers and snooze for a bit, but then Oscar walked over me and I changed my mind.

Once I finished all the Nike training (and emailed so that I will get paid for it), I got myself ready for run number two.  Daniel had been told that Terwillegar Park was really nice so we drove south to check it out.  It is in a curve of the river and there was a bit flat snowy plain in front of us to start with.  We headed across to the river then ran along various tracks, where there were lots of new friends for Jimmy, keeping the river on our right.  Despite it initially appearing so flat, we found plenty of bumpy bits to run up and this definitely kept us warm.  I think we misjudged the size of the park and somehow we ended up getting to some houses and got stuck inside a gated community.  This meant we had to either double back or go through a wooded area with no trail.  We picked the woods.  It was like Narnia or something and was the softest, deepest snow I have seen in ages.  Only disturbed by small animals and no humans.  This did mean it was very slow going, with lots of sinking suddenly in a deep snow drift or getting tangled in branches, but eventually we made it through to a road and then back to the car park.  Slowing down that much did mean I got quite cold though so I called it a day after just over 4 miles.

It took me quite a while to warm up again in the shower, then I managed to get a few chores done so I could go to bed relatively early.

Day 209: Birthday party

This morning the ground had a thin layer of snow... disguising a thin layer of slippery ice.  The first half of my day at the Running Room went quite slowly, then I was stuck helping a customer with shoes and was an hour late going on my lunch break and the second half of the day went much quicker.  there was a steady stream of customers call day and by close the manager was very impressed with our sales figures.  I finally stopped faffing about and bought myself a sunhat, sunglasses and headlamp (using my gift cards so I didn't actually pay a penny).  I figured that, as I hate all of the hats and glasses, I may as well just pick one and be done with it.  Then I realised today was a bad day to buy stuff as I wasn't going home after work, but I put my purchases in the shoebox with my recent free shoes and will take everything home on Monday instead.  I had been wearing my free shoes at work today and they are a little bit tight for me but not too bad, they will probably become my exercise class shoes.

Today is Natalia's birthday party (she is now 23) so I decided that I would go straight from work to the pre-drinks at Steve's house, but miss the going out dancing bit.  So i'm still half being good, saving money and getting home early for run club tomorrow.  It was now a really nice day out, so I ate my sandwiches and walked down to the bank to get some cash, then headed south towards Steve's house... and bumped into Steve and a couchsurfer from Banff.  They were just wandering up to Whyte ave to pick up some dinner they had ordered so I hung out with them.  When we got back to Steve's house at about 7:15, several people had already arrived for the party and were waiting on the steps.  I had some wine, snack food and birthday cake.  We chatted and played board games, then I stuck to my plan and got a ride back home when everybody headed out to the bars.

Day 208: Two-runs Friday

Hopefully this will become a habit.  I met Daniel at about 8:30 (although I was a bit late).  The temperature was somewhere in the minus teens but it was a beautiful morning.  I needed to be back by 9:30 to get ready for work so we headed north along the trails to see how the route round Hawrelak Park was.  The snow was mostly nice and compressed and there was nothing too icy so we could keep up what felt like a pretty good pace most of the time.  We came back via the roads instead as I felt it would be faster and didn't want to be too late.  Daniel now has an app on his phone, which means that occasionally there was a nice lady's voice coming from his back pocket telling us how far we had run.  This is slightly disturbing!  At the end of the run the "butt Lady" told us that we had run nearly 4.5 miles at just over 10 min/mile.  I was a bit disappointed by this as I felt like we were going quite fast, but I guess the snow and hills slowed us down, plus waiting for Jimmy a couple of times or stopping to decide which way to go.   It was good to know the exact distance though rather than guessing.

I decided to have a boiled egg for breakfast and I also used some mocha syrup as chocolate spread on another piece of toast.  Then I had to shower and get ready for work.  As my black trousers were ruined by yesterday's slushy snow I would have to wear a black dress today, which I was almost pleased about and hoped the new manager would be there to see it and get annoyed at me for.

It was quiet at Starbucks today too, or at least it was for most of the first half of the shift with just a couple of random busy patches when lots of people came out of the same class.  One of the supervisors did mention that I still wasn't wearing a shirt and I explained that I hadn't had time to get to the shops but that, with only a few weeks left to go, it was quite annoying.  I was quite tired from all my recent exercise and now quite grumpy too so I decided to have a bit of caffeine to cheer me up, even though I really should be avoiding it.  On my lunch break I asked a few facebook friends if they have a shirt I can borrow instead of buying one.  The caffeine perked me up a bit and I quite enjoyed the rest of my shift.  Juno had an exam in the middle of her shift today so she literally used her lunchbreak to go to the exam and back.  That's pretty hardcore!  I probably would have taken the day off. 
It is always inexplicably busy just before we close but we still managed to get everything done by about 5:30.  I needed to get milk on my way home and I also bought a cookie as I was a bit peckish and thought it would help soak up some of the coffee.

when I got in, I felt exhausted and crashed for a little bit.  Oscar was keen on getting some attention so I sat on the floor and rubbed his tummy and stroked him, but he refused to return the favour.  He did head butt me a few times and licked me and purred a lot so maybe that's kinda the same.  it was good to hang out with him but I knew I needed to muster up the energy to change into my running kit and head out for run number two.

It was warmer by now so I only wore a base layer, t-shirt and jacket and one pair of tights.  I even took off one of my pairs of gloves after not very long.  For this run I stuck to the roads instead of trails and adapted a suggested route from someone at the Running Room.  I went down Groat hill, over the bridge to the north side of the river, and all the way up the Victoria Park hill.  Then turned around (Garmin said 3miles at this point), back over the bridge and up Emily Murphy hill.  Shorter but steeper and I have the unavoidable impulse to sprint up thanks to all our hill training here. Lots of nice views to enjoy too.  Back down Emily, then back up Groat Hill and just over a mile on the flat to get home for 6.5 miles in total.  I was glad to notice that my pace was much faster on the pavement, but it was still just over 8:30 min/mile on average (admittedly with some pretty monstrous hills).  Ideally I need to be running my whole marathon at 8:30 in a month.

It was around 8pm when I got home, I washed my hair and stole some food from Tim for my dinner as he won't eat things after they have been in the fridge a few days.  it was black bean soup which i'd never heard of before but it was perfect for post-run dinner.  I also set some laundry off, sorted out everything I need for tomorrow and straightened my hair.  Mostly while listening to music so it felt more chilled out and less like chores.

Day 207: cake and mixed emotions

I have a big list of jobs to do at the moment and its stressing me out as i'm not getting very much done.  Today I spent most of the morning doing housework and cooking and a little bit of time doing some more of my Nike homework, then I headed out to bootcamp.
It was fun as usual and I picked up a copy of the spring/summer program to peruse as next week is the last week, although I won't be able to sign up to anything until I know what sort of hours I will be working then.
My plan was to shower on campus and change into Starbucks clothes then meet Anderson for cakes (after failing to go with Fabio on Sunday).  I haven't seen him since before Christmas so there was quite a lot to catch up on.  He had a slice of apple pie and I tried the orange and lavender cake.  Its made with ground almonds so really moist and delicious, but took a long time to get to us.  service was not great today!  I wanted more cake so I tried a butterscotch cheesecake too, which was very sweet and not quite as good as my first cake.  It was nice to spend a bit of time doing something social and relaxing.  Next I was off to Starbucks.

Today Starbucks made me very grumpy.
Kate showed me a text that the new manager had sent her saying to remind everybody that they need to wear a shirt with a collar, "especially Amy as I have seen her three times wearing the wrong thing".  She  has never even as much as introduced herself to me, let alone addressed this directly.  The first I heard about this "shirt" rule was last Friday.  Before I started this job back in January I went through what the dress code was in great detail with Susana (the previous manager) and have been following her guidelines since.  Last Friday was also when I asked, and was told, that I would be out of a job in a few weeks (today I got the official notification).  So now I am expected to buy a shirt even though I only have a month left of work.  I knew all this already from Friday and won't have time to get to the shops until Sunday, but that text message made me quite angry.  As far as I'm concerned I wasn't wearing the wrong thing at all and judging me like that having never even spoken to me is hurtful.  Luckily it was a fairly quiet shift, as I would have been sulky if it was busy.

When I got home, I found a letter from Lisa!  It was adorable and added to my mix of homesickness and knowing I will miss Edmonton when I go and feeling like i'm not making the most of my time here.  I promised to write to people and have totally failed, but getting letters is wonderful.  That was a lovely end to the day.

Day 206: Snow

I managed to just about get to work on time today, but it had clearly been snowing a bit overnight and there was a fresh layer of snow on top of the dead grass that had been briefly revealed.  It does make everything pretty but I am wondering if it will ever stop.  I had a message from a friend in Brazil saying it was quite chilly there at 25C, while we get a slightly warmer day at -8C.  Colder again today though.
The time flew at work as there were heaps of new Nike stuff to put out, with occasional breaks to help a customer (I think I had three all day) and there were quite a few of us working so we could generally chat and mess about. I also did some shovelling again.  I ended up helping one guy with shoes for a while, which meant I didn't go for my lunch break until 2:30.  My manager was a bit upset with me as I didn't wave back to him when he waved to me in the street yesterday evening... while I was working at Starbucks and therefore not out running on the street, that made me laugh.  Also my free shoes I have been waiting for finally arrived!  They are not the nice blue colour I was expecting, but they still look OK, and they are FREE! My job has perks.  I had bought my free Brooks trail shoes with me for run club as I thought I might need trail shoes on the snow but turns out they have cleared Emily Murphy road so we get to do our TEN hills on the sidewalk for a change.  TEN!  These hills are about 500m long.
I had forgotten to pack my buff, but luckily Robyn had a spare with her, and i'm glad she did as it was colder than last week and I did need it.  It was too cold for people to wait around after their ten were done, and I really missed the high fives at the end.  next week we switch to speed work.

It was fairly late by the time I got home so I showered and just had a salad, a yoghurt, and some toast for dinner as it was far too late to be cooking. When Salim got home I discovered that the "family funeral" he had been to recently was actually his father's.  He had a heart attack in the night.  Salim has been left to sort out his father's business and try to sell it and look after his grieving mother.  Yikes.  I've been so busy and wrapped up in my own things I had no idea.


I forgot to mention that on yesterday's run, we saw ducks and what looked like Canada Geese on a bit of the river that wasn't frozen over.  Possibly my first Canada Geese since arriving here.  Today, I saw a snow hare that looked like it was getting a bit of colour in its coat... maybe signs of spring??

Day 205: language lessons

I woke up this morning... and then didn't get out of bed for an hour after my alarm.  This meant I had time to make myself a nice cooked breakfast of French toast, tomatoes and mushrooms,  and time to make many many sandwiches for the week, but no time to do the Nike training we have been asked to do by the Running Room (I will get paid for my time and if everybody completes it by the end of March we all get a free pair of shoes).

I met Daniel at about 11am and we set out into the river valley, then decided we would make it a bit of a longer run and head further south and over to the other side of the river.  We ended up on a few trails that just stopped suddenly, so we had to hunt around for a way through to the road before we could carry on - better than doubling back!  eventually, we ended up on familiar territory and made it back to our side of the river.  In the sunshine or the shelter of the trails it was fairly warm, but the wind was icy whenever we hit the roads.  I think it was about -8C. 
The whole run was about an hour and a half in the end so I postponed my plans to cook and had a quick lunch instead while running some laundry and starting the Nike homework.  i'll have to cook another day and finish off the training.

Starbucks was reasonably quiet and we got some more free stuff to eat from the Tim Horton's lady.  Today's music included Bob Marley and Queen and we practiced saying a few things in Spanish and Chinese.  I wonder if I will remember anything for next week!  It had been snowing lightly through the shift so everything was covered with a thin layer of snow when I left at 10:15pm.  It looks like "second winter" will last another week maybe.

Day 204: MRI

When I woke this morning, the first thing I learnt was that I now have a new baby cousin, Daniel Ashton Coulthard.  This was a pretty special way to start the day, and lifted my mood as I hadn't slept well and had lots on my mind.  Mostly just general halfway-through-holiday blues and training schedule worries.
This morning I had my appointment for an MRI of my brain as a volunteer.   I met Rawle in the hospital reception and he took me to the secret basement, got me kitted out in sexy hospital scrubs and introduced me to Peter.  They both explained what was going to happen, then I got given ear plugs and headphones, lay down and was pulled into the machine.  There was a little mirror so you could see them sitting in their room which was more interesting than staring at the walls.  The whole thing took 40 minutes or so but was broken into short sections, so you could fidget a bit in between. Some of them I had to have my eyes closed and there were different kinds of buzzing noises each time.  One set reminded me of the Flaming Lips for some reason.  The last set also made the whole bed shake a bit so that was the scariest, but they had warned me in advance and it was mostly just a bit dull.  I will have one more MRI and two more sessions of cognitive tests as part of this study.

On my way home I went via Sobey's for some groceries and just decided to buy a hot sandwich there for my lunch instead, then I had to get ready and head to the Running Room.  Halfway there I realised I had forgotten my shoes so I had to spend my shift "trying on" shoes from the sale room, swapping every couple of hours so they don't get too worn.  It was mostly quiet and a nice shift, with the last of my Christmas leftovers soup for dinner and some cute photos of baby Daniel.  There was a new "learn to run" group starting and they seemed like a nice group.  I did get a bit of a stomach ache but decided to blame it on lack of sleep and anxiety rather than anything I ate.  I had to pick up a few more things from Safeways that I couldn't carry yesterday and while I was there I decided a good cure for my stomach ache would be to buy two enormous doughnuts and eat them on the way home.  oops.

Day 203: Long run day

I got out of bed a little bit too late and ended up with no time to make my recovery shake, forgetting to pick up an energy gel, and having to sprint up to the shop.  I made it on time though and headed out for a 32k run, the longest i've done for a while.  It was still cold enough for three layers and a hat, but I didn't wear my buff very much.
I think I set out a bit too fast and ended up running with some different folks from usual, this was good though as it turns out I was running with a group of ultrarunners who do lots of the Alberta races.  After chatting to one guy for a few minutes, I thought I picked up an accent I recognised, and I was right, he was a Geordie!  Although he came to Canada with his parents in 1981 when he was 15 and he was surprised I guessed it, but its one of the few accents I know well enough.  The route was supposed to be an out-and-back but someone suggested we keep going instead and have a bit of an adventure rather than going back the same way.  This meant I got to explore another new bit of the river valley and I really wish I had a camera with me.  We were quite high up with spectacular views at one point and the trail was really pretty.  We crossed over the fort Edmonton park footbridge, which I haven't been over before, then went to another set of new trails called Grandview Heights before emerging near the university south campus and heading back round saskachewan drive.  I was offered some wine gums by the Geordie and another guy gave me a vanilla waffle, and I've been wanting to try those for ages so that was good.  I think the snack donations gave me enough energy to finish the run so I was very grateful.
As we were running past my road I decided not to go all the way back to the store, but I still ran a bit further to make sure I did the same miles as everyone else before doubling back.

It felt like a good run, so I made my recovery shake and remembered to do some stretches before showering and making myself some cheese on toast quickly.  There was supposed to be a girl coming to view the flat at 1pm, but it turns out she was delayed.
I met up with Fabio for a catch up at 2pm, I had wanted to go to the café opposite the running room to try their amazing looking cakes, but they are closed on Sunday!  I was pretty gutted.  Instead we went to a different café and I had some soup and a slice of banana loaf while we chatted.  Then I had to get back home and get ready for run number two with Daniel and Jimmy.

I was kinda slow on the second run, but I explained the new places we had run that morning and took Daniel to the Grandview trails.  He managed to find us a different way back home and we were gone for a little less than an hour, so not a really long run, but enough to take my weekly mileage into the high 40s.  I also realised I had forgotten to put sun cream on again, but at least only some of my face is exposed.

I hadn't eaten very much today so I cooked some pasta and had it with some of my beef in Guinness from the freezer.  It was a huge bowl of food but well needed.

Day 202: Saturday cinema fail

Now that my watch battery has died and i'm wearing my sports watch instead (giving me another thing to figure out as I don't know where to go for fixing watches here) I was a couple of minutes late for work.  I have now reset it to be a couple of minutes ahead of the real time.
There were quiet and busy times today, so time passed a bit slowly, but there were also lots of new things in the store to check out.  must resist the urge to buy more stuff.
My plan for after work was to walk down to whyte ave and meet Lee to see a film.  The film was at 6:50, giving me twenty minutes to get there.  However, I started helping someone with shoes just before 6pm and it ended up taking a little while.  At some point Ed decided to step in, I don't know if he thought he would speed things up but actually it slowed things down and he ended up chatting to them for ages.  She finally bought her shoes at about 6:30 so it was 6:40 before I left.  On Lee's side there were other issues as there was a really long line of people waiting to buy tickets so it didn't look like he would be able to get them.  I didn't realise it was a film that was just released.  Instead we decided to just get some food so I took the opportunity to try a fast food place I haven't been to before as I didn't want to spend more than I would have on a cinema ticket.

We went to Fatburgers, where the staff were ridiculously cheerful with odd bouts of singing and the food was actually pretty good.  I had a California burger and we shared some nacho fries (i.e. fries with chilli, cheese, jalapenos, guacamole and sour cream.  We then decided to share a bag of mini doughnuts and a milkshake too.
I was still pretty tired from my cold and all the dust has been getting in my eyes and driving me insane so I was kinda glad of the early-ish night, although upstairs were playing loud music.  Luckily I think I was tired enough to sleep regardless.

I should also mention that I have been doing a fair amount of miles over the last couple of weeks, which is tiring me out a bit.  Quite a few weeks have been over 30 miles.  This is less than I should be doing according to some online 100mile training plans and i'm doing almost no cross training like I would be doing back home, but its more than I was doing before Christmas for sure.  I've gotta keep increasing!

Day 201:Winter running again

So, I managed to get up bright and early-ish.  I texted Daniel to say I would be a bit late, but then on my way out he called to say he'd forgotten that I'd moved and gone to the wrong house so he would be late now too.  I decided I'd run around for a bit to keep warm, so I did one small loop down the slope and back up the long flight of steps, then down and back up the slope again, and that just about filled in the time and warmed me up.  We then ran for about an hour, mostly on the other side of the river where Jimmy made lots of friends as this is clearly the time everybody walks their dogs.  I'm still going to call it 10k.

I then had a bit of a rush to get some laundry done (so that I'll have enough clean winter running clothes) and get ready for work.  I made myself some chocolate cherry porridge using the mocha syrup from work and that seemed like a brilliant breakfast!
Work was reasonably busy and slightly less shambolic than it usually is, we even had enough of each kind of milk rather than enforcing diets on all the customers without telling them.  The supervisor told us all that we have to be wearing black shirts with collars, not just t-shirts, and we would have to buy our own.  As this is in the same week that I find out I'll be out of a job at the end of April, I'm not too keen on that.  I guess if I get a job in another Starbucks it will still be handy.  It was a fairly fun shift though and I got an oat fudge bar.

Once I got home my plan was to do a second run but I thought i'd give my stomach a bit of time to digest the frappuccino I'd had first,  so I pootled about doing some housework and internet faffing, then pulled on my second set of winter running gear and headed out of the door (I didn't want it to end up getting too late, I wanted to beat the sunset).This time I wore my Garmin to give me an idea of how much I have been overestimating the distances by.  I ran a route I have done a few times before: south to Fort Edmonton Park, over the bridge then north to the bridge into Hawrelak park, then back home via the stairs.  Garmin kept telling me my pace was pretty slow, which was a bit upsetting, but I blame a lot of that on the terrain and only a tiny bit on my lack of training.  the pace was faster on nice flat sidewalk, but I was mostly on uneven, snowy, icy trails.  The total distance turned out to be a bit more than 5 miles.  so not the six miles I've been logging but at least its not too far out.

I set my dinner to cook while I showered and washed my hair, then ate and rushed around doing housework.  Salim has found a friend of a friend to come and look at the flat on Sunday and potentially take over my contract so I can move before the end of April.  This may be the last chance I get to tidy and clean before Sunday.  I hadn't even unpacked my bag from my stay at Michael's house!
I did get a bit sidetracked by straightening my hair, and cuddling Oscar, but I got some cleaning and tidying done at least.  Although it still meant not getting to bed until midnight.

In many ways, I'm glad I got to use my winter clothes again.  Its all stuff that's especially for Canada and probably won't ever be used again.  I will miss it.  In a strange way, as I will also be glad to see some slightly warmer weather and it will save a lot of time and effort.

Day 200: Two Hundred!! First day of spring...

...according to google, but the forecast told me temperatures have plummeted again to -15C or so and we were back to "second winter".
I decided to have a lie in this morning hoping the sleep would help me recover from this little cold, so no running but I still have bootcamp... until I left it too late.  I left the house really late, but thought i'd catch a train, then I saw the train while I was still a block away.  All that, coupled with the snow storm happening around me and I just turned around and headed back home.

I did do a little bit of exercise at home to make up for it, just a few sit-ups and squats, and I am poorly. excuses excuses.
I finally heard back from Knoxville's and there was a chance i'd be able to get my coat in the afternoon rather than going at 10:30pm after work, so I arranged my plans to be downtown before going to Starbucks.
I was let in to Knoxville's at about 2pm and found my coat, hooray! with my keys in the pocket, double hooray! then headed up the road to meet Amie in Remedy.  The snow had finally stopped by now and the sun had come out.

I had a medicinal herbal tea and a nice catch up with Amie (at some point I should get all three Amys in one place at the same time) before catching the LRT back over the river for work.
It seems my watch has lost five minutes somehow but is still ticking, so I was a little bit late to work and not sure whether I was late back from my break or not.  I had a few hot lemonade and honey drinks to help with my cold and there were some cake pops expiring that no one else wanted so I got to have them!  Today's freebie from Tim Horton's was a giant bag of breadcrumb coated chicken, of which I ate quite a few.  Maybe I should stop bothering to bring sandwiches.
I had arranged to run tomorrow morning bright and early so tried to get home and to bed as quickly as I could.

Day199: 9 hills

I was a bit of a struggle in the morning, although I was amused watching Oscar pouncing on bits of rubbish in my room that he had pulled out, and I ended up catching the bus to make sure I wouldn't be late for work.  I felt a bit full of cold, but not too bad, just a bit of a fuzzled brainand some snot.  There was some more new stock arriving and old stock going on sale, so I managed to keep myself busy and even spoke to a few different English folk.  I even helped a lady set up her pedometer, which I also did last week as well.  I know so little about any of the gadgets we sell so it made me feel helpful.
One thing I've been doing a lot for the last couple of weeks is constantly thinking I see people I know from back home.  I think if I wasn't so busy all the time, which distracts me, I'd probably be missing everybody terribly.

After work it was run club, of course, and I decided to keep two layers on because of my cold.  This week was nine hills (I like the symmetry with my 199 days).  There is one more week of hills then we will switch to speed work.
Right at the end of the session, Fabio and Viomar walked passed!  That was a nice surprise and led to sweaty hugs and apologies for not joining them on Monday night.
Once back at the running room, I decided to actually join everybody stretching rather than just listening to my stomach and going home.  my calves had been complaining a bit today after yesterday's stairs and I know I should be stretching more in general so it will be a good habit to get into.  It did mean that when I stopped in safeway to buy lemons I also bought a pizza as I figured it was easier and quicker than cooking.
Once home I shoved the pizza in the oven, showered, then ate and made myself some hot lemon and honey.  hopefully tonight's run has been helpful and this cold will disappear quickly.

Day 198: cold coming

I had set my alarm intending to run bright and early and have lots of time to Get Stuff Done, but when I woke up I felt like crap: sneezy, snotty, and run down, so I stayed in my PJs (Christmas onesie) and faffed about at home for a few hours.  I realised I had bought the wrong cereal yesterday, it was not fortified with iron so I will need to remember to take supplements instead.
Eventually I took a couple of cold pills, got my running kit on and headed out.  I thought I would run through the trails to the stairs but it was really icy on the slope, so I just turned around again and ran round the roads instead.  I did three sets of stairs but my head was too full of cold to count them.  There was a guy doing three sets walking at the same time as me and he wasn't any slower at all.  I clearly need to improve.  Then Daniel and Jimmy joined me and we went off for a bit of a run, although we didn't get far before it was quite icy and we had to turn back.  My cold was making me feel fairly unsteady on my feet so I didn't want to risk slipping and hurting myself.  Next time I will wear my spikes.  We went back and did three more sets of stairs, although Daniel did four, then went on a bit of a run again along Saskatchewan drive to cool down.  He was wearing his race t-shirt from sunday and seemed to enjoy the stairs so I think he is fully converted as a runner now.

My next job was to get to the post office (inside the drug store) and see if I could get a blank tax form.  I have it filled out online but I can't submit it online (annoyingly) so I either need to print it out or copy it out by hand.  They did not have any in stock so I just bought a few toiletries that I needed and headed off to work empty-handed. That's not entirely true... I had received a letter and put it in my bag to read on my dinner break, it was from Stas and made my day.
I was on the till at work, which was a bit of a challenge with a muddled head cold but it was only busy for a few hours and then only in waves.  I made myself a hot lemonade with honey to help me feel better.  The new guy from Peru was working right til the end today so it was good to have another non-Chinese person.  things were a bit more sociable than normal, we even rocked out to some different music including Bon Jovi.  I did find out that I will probably be out of a job there at the end of April, but that will hopefully tie in with "summer jobs" starting to hire. If my Tuesday shifts will continue being this set of four people it should be much more fun too.

Day 197: Housemoving disaster

I got up early enough to pack all my things up and get ready for a run, but then Daniel was running late so by the time we had thrown my bags in his truck we were running out of time to run.  we got to my flat and I suddenly realised that my house keys are in my coat pocket... in Knoxville's bar.  If I had moved yesterday like I was supposed to, there would be people in so it wouldn't have been a problem.  Michael doesn't lock his doors ever so I'd forgotten about needing a key.  I thought I was going to have to just move back to Michael's again but Daniel suggested trying the windows, the kitchen window wasn't locked, so I slid down, back up the stairs and opened the front door.  hooray!
All this faffing didn't leave us any time for a run so I just changed back out of my run kit, sorted out all my stuff and headed out to work.

At work, Rachel was complaining that she was really tired as she had done a long run that morning and she doesn't usually.  I realised that I am usually quite tired at work on a Monday for that exact reason but today I actually had lots of energy having missed my run.  We had lots of new shoes and new bras to put out but it was quiet enough that we could get everything done.

As it is actually St. Patrick's Day today, I was hoping that Knoxville's would be open and I could go and get my coat, but there was no reply to my email and no evidence on the internet that they would be open.  I had some friends downtown that I had said I would join for a drink as I needed to go that way for my coat but with no hope of getting my coat, and with it being a bit chilly, I just decided to go home instead. (via Safeway for some groceries)
I had let Tim and Salim know about my stupid lack of keys so they had left the door unlocked for me.

Day 196: St. Patrick's Day 10k Trail Run

I managed to get up on time, get ready, eat some cereal and meet Daniel to drive over for the saint patrick's day trail run. I decided to wear a tshirt and ¾ length tights. I would have worn my trail shoes but I only had one pair of running shoes with me at michael's house. A lot of the trail was clear, but some bits were really icy and it was very difficult to run. As I expected, Daniel was very fast and disappeared but then I started catching up with him. Whenever I was nearly caught up though, there would be an icy patch and i'd have to drop back again. It was a fairly hilly and twisty course and lots of fun despite the hangover. I finally caught Daniel near the halfway point, then for a while we were leapfrogging as he'd overtake me on downhilly or icy areas and i'd overtake on clearer trails but I realised that I have been overestimating the distances we run together and he was getting tired. I finished in around 53 minutes and a bit and hadn't been expecting to finish before Daniel so hung around to wait at the finish line. I found Doug from Running Room to chat to and Daniel was only a couple of minutes behind. I headed inside to get my breakfast while he went to put Jimmy in the car – Jimmy had also run the race!

The breakfast was served in a conference room with a fabulous view. We all sat round tables and food was brought to us. It was sausages and french toast so disappointing compared to the all-you-can-eat hypo half brunch but lovely. I even stole a yoghurt and some jam.

It was around 1pm by the time I got home and I was feeling pretty tired and slow. I managed to leave the house to go and pick up my shoes that I had left at work yesterday and met up with one of the guys from the bar crawl for a coffee as he was nearby (or rather a decaf chai tea and slice of cake). Luckily for me, its a gorgeous day so I was fine in just a fleece and no coat. Then I had to get ready for my second run of the day, this time with a different couchsurfer. My plan was to run to fort edmonton park, meet him there for a loop, then run back home. However, I think it was too soon after my slice of cake and I was suffering so I begged for a lift back home instead. It didn't help that some of my route to the park was icy and treacherous and some was just really wet. The loop we ran was still snowy but not compacted so really hard to run through. And it was another run with someone who claimed he would be terrible but was actually faster than me. Humpf. So I didn't run as many miles as I should have today, but some of them were very fast miles in a race and some were really tough footing so I think its still OK.

Once home and showered again, I made some fried rice using up some leftovers and contemplated the packing I should have been doing. I was just too tired so changed my plan slightly to go back home on monday instead of sunday. This meant I got to be in when Michael and Bianca came home from Jasper and see some of their snowboarding pictures.

Day 195: Early St. Patrick's Day

I like the walk to the Running Room from Michael's house. I walk along saskachewan drive and get the view across the river valley, although its always a challenge negotiating the icy slushy sidewalks.

The day went quite quickly as it was pretty busy, and I picked up the race packs for tomorrow's 10k. Luckily it was fairly quiet after 5:30 so we could get all of the closing jobs done fairly quickly and I could finish work early. I was supposed to finish at 6:30 and be in a bar on whyte ave at 7pm, so the extra time was really appreciated. It meant I could get changed and do my makeup at work, and be ready by 6:30. Natalia was supposed to be picking me up, but she was running late so I walked to whyte ave instead, found the bar, bought some dinner (using my Tim Horton's gift card), then found her and left my bag in her car. I was a bit annoyed as I thought I had to be at the bar by 7pm or i'd miss the bus, but actually they only opened the bar at 7pm and the bus didn't leave until 8:30, so I could have had time to go home.

I was meeting up with the couchsurfers for an organised st patrick's day bar crawl. The done thing is to wear lots of green and I had a few things of my own and borrowed a few more. It was kinda surreal as we all headed straight to the dance floor and were dancing around like crazy, but it was still only 7:30pm. They announced that the bus was leaving while a couple of people in our group were in the washroom so we hung back as long as we could to make sure they caught us, then Waleed led everybody on our bus (a yellow school bus) in a singalong.

The bus took us downtown to a country bar on jasper ave. after a whole day listening to country at work, and knowing our route finished in a country music club too, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by it, but luckily they were playing a whole mix of music. We danced a lot in this bar too, including Marc giving me a quick lesson in two step dancing for the country songs. As per usual with the couchsurfers, we did a fair amount of salsa dancing! This time, the bus was leaving while I was in the washroom. I didn't hear any announcement, but when I came out of the washroom the place was deserted. I rushed around trying to work out which way they had gone. As I opened the exit door, the last bus was pulling away, so I flagged it down and jumped on. I'd left my coat behind but I would have missed the bus otherwise. Luckily its pretty warm at the moment so I didn't really mind. I got to speak to the guy who owns the bar crawl company and he even gave me a voucher for a free drink in the last place on the route.

The third bar was showing a boxing match so had no music for ages, then two songs and we were leaving again. Somehow Natalia missed the bus and got a taxi instead but then couldn't get into the club. I had a really good time dancing to ridiculous music with crazy foreigners. The bar crawl was a bit of a shambles, so i'm not bothered about doing another one but glad I went. Not the most sensible pre-race activities, but ah well.

Day 194: Pi Day!

Got up early to meet Natalia at 9am for a run. We headed over to the mill creek ravine, but it was just solid ice so we decided to stick to the pavement instead. I think I may have to start a couchsurfers running group or something as michael was saying maybe he should try running with me as well. I saw another cafe that might be nice to try and me and Natalia tried to plan our Saturday night.

When I got home, I ate breakfast, then Bianca and Michael got up and started making eggs and bacon for their breakfast and planning their trip to Jasper. I had to rush out to work but managed a hot chocolate before I left.

My Starbucks shift started off busy, but then was mostly fairly quiet, although there was a bit of a rush just before closing for some reason. Its still really hot so I had quite a few frappuccinos to keep me going.

It was nice to have the place to myself in the evening and get all my kit ready for tomorrow. A couchsurfer was supposed to be arriving at 11pm, but still hadn't arrived by 11:30, so I gave up and went to bed. I felt bad for not waiting up to greet her but I would have had to wait til 12:30 as that's when I heard her arriving.

Day 193: Thursday

I gave myself a little bit of a lie in, but still had to get up with enough time to do laundry. I got a bit distracted by chatting to Bianca and faffing on the internet so ended up running late. Luckily, Bianca was happy to give me a ride over to campus so I could make it on time to my bootcamp. After missing a week it was a bit of a struggle, and not many people showed up, but we did get to do some hula hooping!

I then met Daniel by the campus bus stops and we drove to Emily Murphy Park for a run. We didn't get very far before we realised it was crazily icy and I wasn't coping without my spikes. We found some stairs up to the road and ran back round to the car, attached spikes, then set out in the other direction but this time with more running and less walking/scrabbling. I had underestimated how warm it was and was a bit overdressed with a base layer and t-shirt. Daniel even ended up taking his shirt off!

I got dropped off at the sports centre, showered and wandered across to Starbucks EARLY.

I always feel slightly hard done by during my Tuesday and Thursday shifts when the other girls are all chatting away in chinese. There were some nice customers to chat to though and it was busy enough for time to pass. We also got some free iced cappuccinos from Tim Horton's again, although I probably shouldn't have drunk it! It was good to have yummy leftovers for my lunch too.

I had a few things to sort out when I got home so I was still up when Michael and Bianca came home from the Couchsurf meeting. As neither of them needed to get up early tomorrow, they wanted to stay up and chat and listen to music so Michael suggested I move to the bedroom downstairs for the night so that they don't keep me awake. This was a very good idea and I couldn't hear them at all there, although I still struggled to sleep. Stupid free caffeine!

Day 192: Springtime!

I was feeling much better today after a reasonably sensible night's sleep and made it to work in plenty of time. I spent a lot of the day folding shirts in the special Nike way of folding and went out for lunch in the cafe across the road as I hadn't had time to make anything. I had a nice spinach quiche and some herbal tea, then decided to have a muffin too! It is starting to get busier in the store as people are now wanting to run outside in the warmth but its so much harder to run now its icier and slushier. Two of the guys even turned up to work in shorts today, I can't believe i'm at a stage where single digit positive numbers count as “warm”.

For run club, we were doing eight hills and I was very indecisive about what to wear. I hadn't bought any separate run kit, just a sports bra and watch, and I was planning on running in my work clothes. First time i've ever been able to do that! I kept seeing people arriving in shorts and t-shirts, so eventually decided to ditch my base layer and gloves and just run in a t-shirt. Imagine! There were even a couple of brave girls in vests. It was a great session, and I chatted to a couple of folks about Death Race and marathons. On the last hill rep, I could hear someone catching up with me, then Darcy overtook me. As it was the last one, I decided I wasn't going to allow that, shouted “bring it!” and sprinted past him to the end! … then both of us doubled over in a wheezing heap. It was fun though!

When I got home, Bianca was cooking, so I showered and just helped set the table and clear up. We had potatoes with cheesy/bacony/spinach topping, salmon, and some of my Moroccan chicken. Michael even gave me some chocolate icecream for pudding.

Day 191: Cognitive testing while sleep deprived

Today I had my first volunteer appointment as part of the ageing study at the university hospital.  I was pretty grumpy and tired when I left home though, and ended up slipping over on the ice and grazing my hand, which made me even grumpier.  This was the point I decided some caffeine might be a good idea as I wasn't with it at all, even though i'm supposed to be avoiding it.  I bought myself a cup of tea and was served by the guy from Milton Keynes I had spoken to before.  I also used their washroom to clean my bleeding hand.  I was still at the hospital in plenty of time so nosed around some of the stalls there, then met Fraser who would be doing the cognitive testing on me.
The tests took around 2.5 hours and were a whole variety of things, some mental health type questions, some vocabulary testing, pattern finding IQ style tests, mental arithmetic, all sorts.  The fun bit was a smell test: I had to wear a blindfold and smell lots of different pens.  firstly to detect the same smell at smaller concentrations, then to recognise which smell out of three was different, then finally with no blindfold I had to pick what a smell was out of a choice of four options.  There are several more bits of this, but ultimately there will be some monetary compensation for my time, which will be nice!

next I was planning to go back home and pick up a few more things I needed and do some housework.  I could still feel how sleepy I was so decided to stop en route and get a latte.  This helped give me the energy to Get Things Done, although it also made me a bit jittery.  I stole some more chilli from Tim for my lunch and put some more into Tupperware to take as my dinner too.  I had been assuming I'd have to buy lunch on the way to work and get enough to have for dinner too so I was very glad for the money-saving option of thievery.

I don't remember if anything particularly exciting happened during my work shift, I just remember that I was very tired by the end of it and I really didn't want to be angry at Michael and ruin my chances of staying with him.  When I got home, I just said that I was really tired and really needed to catch up on sleep.  I whinged a bit about it and mentioned that I had fallen over that morning too but tried not to talk too much in case I said something I would regret.  I got myself to bed as quickly as possible, claiming I would be more sociable tomorrow once I'd caught up on sleep.

Day 190: more exploring - "holiday home"

My first run from Strathcona instead of Belgravia and we headed straight over the two blocks to Mill Creek Ravine, but ran through different trails than those that Run Club take.  Daniel showed me a really good lookout point where he takes Jimmy sometimes and watches the sunset.  Even though he lives round here, he still wanted to explore places he hadn't been so we ended up running near the ski slope by the pyramids, then along the river.  I recognised some bits from sunday runs but we crossed over via a bridge I've never been over before, and another new bridge to get back again.  I had taken my bank card with me and we decided to go to the nearby diner for breakfast after our run.  As i'm in a new place living out of a back pack, I feel like i'm on holiday again and want to try all the local places.  As we had a dog with us we had to sit outside to eat, but with the sun on us it wasn't too cold.
I then popped into the shop to get some milk and we walked back from there.

Monday night in the Running Room was quiet as usual, but there is new stock coming in, including exciting new colours of shoes, so there were still things to do.  I'm writing this quite late after with the excuse that I couldn't get the website to work for ages so I don't really remember anything.  I just remember that I was really tired when I got home and looking forward to catching up on sleep, but then Michael was listening to the radio for most of the night so I got kept awake.  It made me really unhappy about the idea of living here, but I can't afford to stay where I am.  I don't mind missing out on sleep for fun reasons, but when I really need to catch up and can't its pretty miserable.

Day 189: Clocks!

The clocks "sprung" forward overnight and I had already reset the time on my alarm clock and sports watch.  Run club is usually a pretty early start, but the extra hour earlier was a little bit of a struggle.  The sun hadn't come up yet while I was getting ready so it felt even earlier.  It was a bit of a sprint up to the shop, but so much warmer that I wasn't wearing a jacket and only one pair of tights.  I felt so much less restricted it was lovely.  I was also testing out my free Brooks Cascadia shoes on a long run to see how they treat me.  The marathon group were doing 29K this week, my longest run in ages (it should be the shortest long run I do based on any training plans I've seen for 100k events, but never mind, marathon first).
The group I usually run with were running much slower than usual, which did mean I got to speak to Helen, who is from Sheffield and works at one of the other stores, and I felt like I could actually look around more than I usually do.  Mill Creek Ravine is lovely and I even saw Daniel taking Jimmy for a walk.  But it also meant that 29K took many many hours.  At the end of the route, it was reasonably close to home, so I decided to detour instead of going back to the shop then home.
I don't know whether I'm being overly optimistic, but maybe spring is here and winter is actually over!  Northbrook folk seem to be complaining of the heat back home, whereas I'm happy to be able to wear my UK winter clothes!

Today my plan was to pack up a backpack with a week's worth of stuff and move across to Michael's house.  If we get along OK, I could then hand in my notice here and live in his place for less rent.  However, I was so tired I kept doing just about anything (or nothing) to put off the packing, including going for an Indian buffet lunch with Lee.  After a really long run, it seemed the perfect time to make the most of a buffet and it was really nice!  They had all sorts of starters that I had never seen before and about a dozen different main dishes, the best ones were probably the daal and the fish curry, and they also had desserts.  I taught him how to use the rice as a divider between each dish so that the sauces don't mix and I definitely felt like we got our money's worth.
Instead of moving in the early afternoon, then going for my second run of the day, I ended up heading out to catch a bus at about 7pm.

I knew I would need to socialise for a bit when I arrived but was hoping I could still get to bed relatively early and catch up on well-needed rest.  Michael's couchsurfer, a French girl, was planning to make sushi for dinner for us and she hadn't realised the clocks had changed.  I wasn't exactly hungry after the huge lunch, but it was fun learning how to make sushi and I still ate some of them, then Michael got to pack up the rest to take in to work tomorrow as a really exciting packed lunch.  We didn't eat dinner until gone 10:00, so it was still pretty late when I finally said I would have to go to bed and I was planning on meeting Daniel at 8:30 for our usual Monday run.  I guess I'll catch up on sleep another night.

Day 188: Drag show disappointment

Cecily had suggested going to a drag show tonight, put on by the UofA as the finale to Pride Week.  It was at the Starlight Lounge, that I want to go to after hearing about it yesterday, but cost $20.  I was still keen though, as it sounded fun and I'd get to catch up with Cecily.
I rushed home from work and started getting ready, it was looking like I wouldn't get there early enough to get my money's worth and I hadn't heard back from Cecily.  I didn't want to just turn up on my own, pay, and then find out they weren't there so I changed my plans to meet some couchsurfers for a drink instead.  That was when I heard back from Cecily.  They had been in a workshop that had just finished.  As the show had already started they weren't going to go any more.  Good thing I hadn't just gone on my own!

Couchsurfers took me to a swanky cocktail bar and we got there just before they started charging an entry fee and just before the half price cocktails offer ended, so I was happy to be spending less money than I would have at the drag show!  I also got a wear a dress as its actually warm enough not to need to wrap up. 
As I was offered a ride home, I stayed out later than I would have if I had to catch the LRT home, but it wasn't too late and included a stop in a nice bar for some poutine. Running tomorrow shouldn't be a problem even though it will be a much earlier start than I'm used to.

Day 187: Reykjavik calling

I was woken up this morning by my housemate watching comedy on TV, so panicked and thought I must've overslept, got confused when I checked my watch and eventually realised he had woken me up at 6:30am.  Bah! In the end I got up and decided I may as well make the best of the extra time, put my running kit on and headed up the road.

First I ran up and down a hill, alternating between some steps and a slope a few times, then I headed through the river valley to the much longer flight of steps further to the north.  There is no way I can run up the whole flight at the moment, but I tried as best I could.  I did the whole flight twice, pausing to take some photos, and tried to count the steps but got a different number each time (174 or 175).  I'll keep practicing until I get really good!


view from the bottom

view down from the top

I'm writing this a few days late as I couldn't get it to work for some reason, so I don't remember if there was anything exciting during my shift at Starbucks, but at the end of the shift we had arranged to go for dinner in a spicy Chinese restaurant downtown.  We shared four dishes, one at each spice level, which Mackensie (from Beijing) chose for us, and they were all really delicious.  A ate tripe for the second time in my life, but this time it was really nice.  There was a hot pot that had a variety of things in it including some great fish and "blood tofu", which reminded me a bit of liver.  We also had some chilli chicken and were tricked into eating a bit of the chilli, which nearly killed us, and some eggplant, which was especially good.  Hopefully we will arrange some more meals as a team, maybe one for each nationality.

After the meal, the other three wanted to go for ice cream but they dropped me off on the way as I was going to an Icelandic night, put on for free to celebrate Iceland Air introducing cheap flights to Edmonton.  I bumped into some of my couchsurfer friends in the line so snuck in with them.  I even saw someone else I had met via Ian, which was nice.  It seemed like a really nice venue, possibly more "alternative" than anywhere else I have been so far, and the bands were all great.  Some from Iceland and some from Edmonton, they did a few songs together as well.

Day 186: Croissants of confusion

so it seems I was so sleepy yesterday, I forgot to set my alarm.  I woke up past 9am and was supposed to be meeting Daniel for a run at 9:30.  given all the other things I needed to do, I cancelled the run... then fell asleep again!  ooops.
finally I got up, set my laundry off, ate breakfast and showered (for the first time since yesterday's run club - gross Amy), then realised it was nearly 11:30 and I wouldn't make it to my exercise class.  oh dear, nothing going well so far.  I went to the nearby store to get some essential groceries, made packed lunches, then got ready for work.

I was working the till at Starbucks today, which meant talking a lot and saying the same things a lot so I kept a drink handy as it was giving me a bit of a sore throat.  It was non stop for the first 3 or 4 hours, then started slowing down a bit finally.  I read some articles about ultra-running on my lunch break, because I'm a geek, and drunk a free iced cappuccino from Tim Hortons.  It seemed much sweeter than our coffee frappuccino and I probably shouldn't have drunk it as it probably has caffeine in, but it would be rude to turn down freebies!
Later on I got confused by what someone was asking for, I would say "you mean the croissant?", "no", "the cinnamon roll?", "no", etc. and had to get her to go and point at it.  Then it all became clear, she had been trying to say croissant after all but had no idea how to pronounce it and was trying to say the word from memory after looking at it.  it made me smile, especially when another customer did exactly the same thing five minutes later.
Again, I drunk so many milky drinks during my shift that I was really full up, but just think how much calcium I'll be getting. No osteoporosis for me.

Day 185: Supper at Michael's

I made it to work on time and it didn't seem quite as cold today.  "only" -18C or something.  It feels like it will be winter forever, this is just how it is and will continue to be.  Spring may come as a shock!
I managed to mostly avoid talking to customers all day as there were lots of marked-down prices to change and some new stock to put out, although there were lots of toddlers in the store today, which was fun, and one guy who has done the Sinister7 race before and is doing it this year who I asked for advice.  With no Brent we were listening to country music all day, but Michael is going away to LA tomorrow as he won a RR contest so he gets all-expenses-paid entry to the marathon.  hopefully this will mean a week off country music.  It was nice to hear about Kelsie's holiday and to compare different Canadian fast-food places too.

Run club were doing seven hills tonight and again the half marathon group were there too doing five hills, so there was lots of cheering each other on.  The snow on the ground makes it harder as your feet slip backwards, like in cartoons, so you have to run twice as far.  Apparently we will keep going up to ten hills.  we tried mapping the hill at work to see how long it is and googlemaps suggested it was 400m, but Garmin watches will say around 500m or 600m so google must just be measuring the flat distance, not the hypotenuse, and that's how much difference the hill makes. ten will be a killer!

I was being picked up from work by Michael, so I changed quickly and hoped I wasn't too smelly.  He had cooked some roast chicken with potatoes and peas for dinner (he says supper), which was really nice, and we talked about whether I might be able to rent a room from him to try and save a bit more money.  There are pros and cons but I'm really grateful to have the option.  He also gave me a lift back home, by which time I was quite sleepy and decided not to bother showering until the morning.

Day 184: Pancake Day!

One of my favouritest days of the year!  This is the first year in a long time that I haven't made my own pancakes or done anything extravagant/overboard, but I had arranged to meet Cecily for lunch in De Dutch as its near her work and does pancakes.
As usual, I snoozed a bit when my alarm went off, didn't get quite as much done in the morning as I wanted, and still ended up running late to meet Cecily.  Although she was running even later so it all worked out.

It was great having a catch up and comparing notes on the merits of going to a new country where you don't know anyone and the opportunities and freedom this gives you.  The way you look at everything differently.
I chose a "Canadian" pancake in the Dutch café.  which meant it involved bacon and maple syrup, with poached eggs and tomatoes too.  Cecily was a bit poorly and got half of hers packaged up for later, whereas I went for another half pancake for dessert.  This time with cranberries and pears mixed into the pancake and cinnamony apples on top, with honey AND maple syrup to drizzle AND icing sugar for as many different sugars as possible.

After a nice leisurely lunch, I hadn't quite killed enough time to avoid doing exercise altogether.  Next stop university to run around the track, which turned out to be closed, so I had to join the crazies running up and down the stairs instead.  Compared to the Emily Murphy hill, this didn't seem like much of a workout.  it was only one flight of stairs each time and in half an hour I had done all the flights of stairs twice, but it's still running and it all counts.
I ended up being a couple of minutes late for work as I underestimated the faffing time to layer up for the journey from the sports pavilion to Starbucks.

It was really busy for the first few hours of the shift.  I had a bit of a fight with the mix packet for the mocha sauce and ended up covered in chocolate powder and one of the machines was broken, so we had to try and make everything on just one machine.  it was fun!
there is a new drink, so I thought I should try it and see what all the fuss is about.  I made it decaf and hope any small amounts of caffeine left won't be too bad.  I don't think I buy into macchiatos, once you get through the syrup it just becomes a less sweet vanilla latte, the iced version kept the layers a bit better for a while but I don't think its worth the effort.  maybe I'm just not a coffee snob so I don't get it.
It was nice to have more of my leftover beef in Guinness for dinner (would it have been good wrapped in a pancake?), but combined with all the hot milk I drunk during my shift, I was very full up.  I also got to try the little madeleine cakes which were not bad at all.

After work, I had a brief couchsurfing catch up with one beer in the sugar bowl, then home for a little bit of sleep before my "day shift" at the Running Room.  I also had to deal with all the kit I'd been carrying around all day, and sort out the next day's kit so chances are I'll be sleepy tomorrow, but hopefully cutting out caffeine will improve things.

Day 183: Six months-iversary

I am half way through my time in Canada and did nothing special to celebrate this monumental occasion.  I may have mentioned it a few time though... like to everybody I spoke to.

My day started with an 8:30am run with Daniel and Jimmy.  We headed south and all the way round the outside of Fort Edmonton Park.  I kinda regretted not going north as the trails that way are more sheltered, rather than the wide trails, exposed to the wind, that we ran along.  It looks like this cold spell is set to last a while longer.

I got home, ate breakfast, showered and got some housework done, then boiled some potatoes to go with Tim's chilli as a packed dinner and I ate another portion of the chilli with some bread as lunch.  He made a ton of it for a chilli cook-off at his work, which he won, but he is very wasteful of food and was just going to throw it all out.  I suggested he donate it to the poor (me) instead.  It had all sorts of ingredients in it: coffee, Guinness, chocolate, for example.  I think chilli gets better with age, I hate seeing food go to waste, and it was pretty yum.  I guess I'll be eating a lot of chilli this week, and I'll start keeping an eye on what Tim cooks so I can pinch more food.

I went to the bank on the way to work, which meant being outside in the cold quite a while, which I really felt on my face whenever the wind blew.  The first ATM I tried didn't like my UK bank card, so I had to find another one and faff about a bit more but all sorted so now I have some money in my Canadian account to pay my phone bill and I was still on time to work.

There were some deliveries to hang up and then I got to hide in the back room and count shoes for the inventory check, which was nice and meant the first half of my shift went quite quickly.  Michael gave me my tax form and briefly explained what should happen for my Canadian tax return.  It may lead to a rebate for me, which would be nice!
For the second half of my shift, none of us really felt like doing much work.  Once Michael left for the day, Robyn changed the radio away from the country music station - I think the "she thinks my tractor's sexy" song was the last straw for her, although I thought that one was pretty funny!  We tried on a few pairs of shoes and talked to the ladies who came for the clinic and once it got to 8pm, we started on all the cleaning etc. for closing, determined to get away early again. 
I also got a lift home from Robyn again, so my housemates were still up when I got back and I could have a hot chocolate and a chat and look at my tax form from Lazia which had arrived in the post, although they were mostly talking about their much more complicated tax returns due to them being considerably richer than me.

In summary, I spent some of my time running in the cold and sunny river valley, some working at the running room, and some eating yummy free food.  That kinda sums up my time in Cananda I guess.  Six months to go!

Day 182: lazy(ish) Sunday

My alarm was set for run club as usual, but I found it a real struggle getting up, then I faffed about a lot and decided that it was just too late and I may as well go back to bed.  The caffeine has messed with my sleeping and the sudden increase in exercise has messed with my energy.  I will quit caffeine.
I had already pressed "go" on the slow cooker assuming I would be going running so it would be due to finish at 4pm now.  I checked my messages while lying in bed, but eventually gave up the pretence and snoozed a bit, then looked at my watch and thought "I should get up now", then snoozed a bit more.  When Tim started hoovering I decided to muster up the energy to get up.  I also texted Daniel to see if he was interested in a Sunday afternoon run again so I would at least get some miles in.
I made myself an omelette and followed it up with some ice cream before getting ready to go running. 

Daniel had suggested going exploring again so we drove quite far south to the far end of the ravine we were in last week.  We parked in a newly constructed posh housing estate, which was eerie and deserted but had good paths into the ravine.  The creek was very meandering so the paths looped around a lot.  We ran to where two ravines join up, and as we were still feeling OK and not too cold we carried on a bit further, including a stretch of running along the creek itself.  The sounds you hear with each footfall made me quite nervous, but in some places you could see how thick the ice was and from all the other footprints it was clearly perfectly safe, but difficult to get my head around.  I got more used to it the further we went, and it was certainly beautiful, but I was still keen to find another path.  We eventually got onto a path and then went scrabbling through the trees, heading generally in the direction of where we came from, I'm still a lot slower than Daniel, hopefully with practice I'll get better and less nervous, but exploring is lots of fun.  We climbed a hill for some incredible views, but also a biting wind.  Soon after that, we were back to the convergence of the two creeks but I was starting to get cold and unhappy so we headed back along the same path instead of more exploring along the other ravine.  I really needed a long run, but we had probably already been out in the cold longer than we should have.
Before we started running, I had been most worried about my feet as I only had one pair of thin socks on, but my feet were fine.  My fingers were a bit cold sometimes but I could ball them up inside my mitts.  My eyelashes had filled up with ice again though, just like last weekend's race, so I was struggling to see properly, especially when I had the sun in my eyes too.  Once we got back to the housing I started speeding up, keen to get back to the car and warm up, but there were a lot more corners than I remembered and the car never seemed to be around the next one.  My trusty blue sweater had been over my face for most of the run but had now started to get too icy as well.  Finally we made it back to the car and I felt warmer instantly.  Then I think I realised how cold I was and felt cold again.  The cold had taken a lot out of both of us. 
To make matters worse, when I was dropped home I couldn't get my key to work in the door.  It was turning but I couldn't get in and I could feel myself getting colder again by the second.  No one was answering the doorbell either and I didn't think I'd be capable of using my phone even if there wasn't a chance of it just not working due to the cold.  I went to the main door, and luckily one of the girls answered and let me go through their flat and down to ours.  I was feeling pretty hypothermic by this stage, so I microwaved my recovery shake and drunk it warm before having a really hot shower and getting myself wrapped up in PJs and fleece.

I got home at about 4:30, so added some barley to my stew to try and absorb some of the liquid and switched it back on again.  By the time I had showered and set off my laundry, it was probably nearly ready so I boiled and mashed a few extra potatoes to help mop up the sauce, then dished up my dinner:  I like how beef goes after 8 hours in a slow cooker, and it was just the right sort of food for after a wintery run.  Curse my runner friends back home posting pictures of snowdrops and crocuses and runners in shorts, spring won't get here for a while yet!  Saying that, I still love the "winter wonderland" really.

With my current financial situation, staying in is the new going out, so one of my couchsurfer friends came round with dessert to watch a movie and hopefully this will still give me enough time to catch up on sleep before tomorrow morning's run.

Thoughts about running playing on my mind today:
Last week a guy came into the store and was talking about his running experience.  He did his first marathon in 1976 in 3hours 15 minutes... and was second to last.  Running has become so much more inclusive instead of just athletics for the elite.  I love the running community.
This week I was helping a guy with shoes (one of Murray's clinic members but I don't think I'd seen or spoken to him much before) and he was looking for lighter shoes on the advice of a physio, who had told him that lighter shoes could make as much as 12 minutes difference over a marathon.  12 minutes is a lot and I was thinking about the difference this would make for me.  It also occurred to me that if this is based on fractions of ounces in your shoes, eating less cake might be a much more effective way to gain time.  But I like cake.

Day 181: Astronauts with free cookies

IT WAS COLD walking to work this morning, and I had a lot of layers on.  Mostly I was fine but my face was bright red by the time I arrived.  Jillian, the Brookes rep, was here for the launch of a new shoe and she had bought many treats with her and a bright orange astronaut jump suit.  We all got free t-shirts to wear and there were goodies in the staff room to eat at lunchtime, plus a tray of cookies for customers.  She also had freeze-dried ice cream that astronauts eat apparently.  Its kinda strange, like the dried marshmallows you get in cereal, but if you let it melt in your mouth it's much more icecreamy.

During the day I came up with a plan.  It seems like Warwick Uni are still paying me, which is strange but will be handy.  I thought it was back-dated pay rises at first, but there has been something each month.  I also remembered that my Canadian phone bill will be due.  I will go and take out some cash using my UK credit card, then deposit it in my Canadian bank account.  Not the best solution but it will work.

The cold definitely put some people off coming to the store, but it was still busy enough, and the customers were all good fun.  I found plenty of time to eat lots of cakes and cookies but avoided the free coffee as clearly it's not doing me any favours at the moment.  it's always just a temporary fix to feeling tired and worse in the long run when I don't sleep and carry on being tired.  I was quite glad to have no plans for the evening so I can try and catch up on sleep.

I went home via the supermarket, which broke up the journey just enough to not feel quite as cold as the walk in.  I bought ingredients to make beef in Guinness and prepared everything once I got home so that I could set off the slow cooker in the morning.

Day 180: Brazilian carnival!

When I looked at the forecasted temperatures this morning, it was pretty shocking.  The wind chill factor temperatures are generally in the -40C's and even without wind chill its in the -30's.  I wore a lot of layers before leaving the house.
I quite like working at Starbucks on a Friday.  11:30 seems like a sensible start time after getting home really late on a Thursday and 5:30 finish time means I get Friday nights free, rather than working til 9:30 at the Running Room.  The team working are a mix of nationalities so mostly people speak English to each other and they are a very friendly bunch.  For the last few hours, there were four of us who all spoke different first languages: Spanish, Korean, Chinese and English.  I find there are regulars that I recognise now and know their drinks.  At the end of the shift I made myself a large mocha and we all agreed that next week we would go for food after our shift in a Chinese place downtown that serves spicy food.

When I got home, I made some of the Chinese dumplings from Christmas for dinner, and there are still some left!  Then I got changed and ready for going out.  Natalia came round at about 8pm for some pre-drinks, then we got a taxi downtown to avoid the cold.  To get cheaper entry tickets, we needed to meet up with a Brazilian guy Natalia had been in touch with, so we ended up waiting inside the bank for him to call and say he had arrived, then we went to the club.
Tequila was the drink on offer, so that was what we drunk and we danced samba whenever the music would allow, although Natalia was annoyed at the lack of Brazilian music (they played Sash at one point, which was funny).

At around midnight, there was a display of capoeira dancing and samba carnival dancing, which was pretty cool.  Mardi Gras at -40C is an experience.

After a chat with the dancers, and some more dancing ourselves, we went to a nearby food place and shared a tray of poutine as Natalia had never had it before, then caught a taxi back to my place for Natalia to pick up her car again.  We had left it plugged into the mains via a really long cable as she was worried it wouldn't start in the cold.  It was nice to actually go out instead of people's houses, although with just getting paid today and having to pay rent, I will not be left with much money.
Thanks to all the caffeine I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked and was awake long before my alarm went off for work.  Still, it was a fun night out, as demonstrated by this photo:

Day 179: yet more cake

So I was back to my "normal" Thursday routine this week.  Morning housework, then bootcamp, then grocery shopping, then Starbucks.  I altered slightly and went to Tim Horton's after bootcamp to use up the gift cards I had.  I got a tub of chilli as a meal deal so it came with a coffee (mocha) and a raspberry muffin.  I saved the muffin and the bread and just ate the chilli, which wasn't too bad - probably a lot better than Warwick Uni's library café chilli.  This helped me to not buy too much at the shop but meant I had less time to get ready for starbucks.

I don't remember anything interesting happening, obviously I ate a lot of cake but I don't remember now as I started writing this ages ago.  It still confuses me that anyone reads all this boring stuff I write.  Temperatures are due to plummet over the next couple of days so it will be fun getting around and avoiding frostbite.