Day 259: Toronto Island silliness

So, after spending the whole trip so far making excuses not to run, despite bringing several sets of kit with me filling half my bag, today is Sunday Run Club Day and a Running Room store is very close.
i went down to get my breakfast at 7am sharp, holding a ticket with today's date telling me the restaurant would be serving from 7am, only to find the restaurant closed.  when i knocked the staff told me they don't open til later because its sunday, but i showed them my ticket and explained that i couldn't come later and they agreed to put some toast and a croissant in a box for me and give me a bottle of juice.  phew.
this meant i could eat the toast and save the croissant for after running so even better.

The store wasn't on the same road as i thought it was so i got a little lost, but still made it in time to the tiny little store and found a group planning to run around 15k.  There weren't many people there.  Apparently there are usually twice as many but people have probably gone away for the long weekend.  I set out with my group and very quickly realised that they were quite speedy.  One of the girls mentioned that she had just qualified for Boston.  after a while, one of the other guys dropped back a little and then wanted a walk break so i was quite relieved to pull the pace back a bit.  It was quite warm out, surprisingly, and i was slightly overheating, but i took the fast pace as a punishment for not running yet on this trip.  We were running up the downtown Toronto equivalent of the Edmonton river valley and it was definitely inferior.  Turns out the guy i was running with was from Edmonton!
At the turnaround point the other three were waiting for us, then we set off back the way we came.  The other guy also started dropping back with us too, leaving the speedy ladies disappearing into the distance, but we were still hitting about 5 minute kilometers!  We went back a slightly different way and went right past the distillery district.  i hung about a bit to stretch and chat and then jogged back to the hotel.
I had been trying out my arm pocket phone holder and, although it felt odd at first, i got used to it and stopped noticing it was there after a while.  i no longer need to run without my enormous phone.  Safety bonus points!

Soph had gone to explore the mall nearby while i did my run, so i had time to eat my croissant, shower and change, then we wandered down to the water front to catch a ferry over to Toronto Island.
The sun came out sometimes but sometimes it was cold and a little rainy.

On the island there was an amusement park and a farm.  We wandered over to the far side as well to find the beach.

 i was really keen to go on some of the kids rides, but we kept getting caught by rain and ended up spending our money on a meal in the carousel cafe just to get out of the rain.  It was a really nice lazy afternoon, including swings! and we made it back to the mainland just before the rain started really coming down!

we took shelter in a coffee shop til it eased off, then went to a nearby free contemporary art gallery. I actually really liked this one.  The artist was a fan of travelling and climbing and his friend had recently died while climbing.  The art all showed recently abandoned places.  one installation was a display of his friend's possessions, then a slide show of images of the Rockies, there were no people in the pictures and all of them had a pile of rocks of some kind that were an abandoned campsite or fire.  it made me quite sad.

i really can't remember what else we did this day.

Day 258: market day

We started by wandering down to St Lawrence Market, supposedly one of the best farmers markets in the world. I spent a fair amount of money trying various cakes and pastries and also nibbled on some freebies including some ridiculously hot salsa. I tried some “raw food” cakes made of fig, avocado and cashew nuts and bought a big beetroot bread loaf to make some sandwiches with. It was pretty crowded though, which is always a bit of a struggle. 

Next we walked further east to the distillery district. Which is a very hipstery area full of art galleries and boutiques but they also don’t allow any big chains, which is nice. As it was the long weekend, they also had a whole bunch of extra stalls everywhere so there was plenty to wander round and look at. We went to a chocolatier where I spent a fair amount of money, then a microbrewery.

With all of the wandering around galleries and antique shops and all the ice creams to try, we spent a lot of time here.  However, there was still time to get to the Hockey Hall of Fame for a good hour before closing.  They had lots of interactive bits, so we watched a small girl beat a computer simulated hockey goalie for example.  It was interesting to see how often the Oilers got a mention and which teams had won the Stanley Cup throughout its history.  It also turns out that the United Kingdom won the hockey at the winter Olympics  .... once .... in the 1930s.

The only hockey player I can name

After that, we got the train to the far side of china town and wandered along until we found a sushi place for dinner.  I hardly ever eat sushi but it was really nice and pretty cheap too.  We were very close to the area called Kensington Market, so we took a wander through.
It is a multicultural part of town, with lots of small shops selling hippy tat, so my kind of place!  It reminded me a bit of Camden, but mostly it seemed to be people's houses with shops set up in front of them so it was a bit strange.  Mostly everything was closing at that time, but it was good to wander through.

One thing I have enjoyed about being in Toronto with Soph is watching her fail to be understood when she talks to any Canadians.  It's reassuring, as it's clearly not just me.  They are just bad at following any other accents.

Day 257: Museums

Friday was museum day, starting with the Royal Ontario Museum.

This is a huge museum, so once we got the map we could decide which bits to visit. Soph wanted to see the Canadian history section, especially the first nations stuff. This makes sense as lots of other museums have Egyptian/Roman/geology/fossils stuff. There was even a European history section. Having seen the museum in Vancouver, I felt reasonably knowledgeable about some of the things featured and they had a similar “ongoing culture” element to their displays, rather than portraying things just as history.

 Next I wanted to go to the biodiversity section, because I always like natural history museums. I found not one but two cormorants to photograph, but no babirussa. They had lots of strange animals and messages about biodiversity and extinction and protection of the world's ecosystems, they also had a bat cave, oooh.

 We went to the cafe after this and had some coffee and a cake to wake up a bit, then headed out, but got sidetracked by the gift shop and both ended up buying things!

Museum two was the Bata shoe museum. We ate our caramel apples on the way there and didn't think it would take very long. It turned out to be a lovely museum and really interesting so we spent ages there. The bottom level was a history of footwear through all time, clearly some of the shoes were not designed for walking at all but it was all quite fascinating. It was originally men who wore high heels, any high shoes before that had been platforms. At the end of this section they had some shoes donated by famous people, including Elton John (Watford, woo), Marilyn Munroe and James Stuart.

Section two was all about native Canadian shoes, mostly moccasins and section three was about Mrs Bata herself and her mission to learn about shoes all over the world. They have a team of researchers who go to exotic places and learn about shoe manufacture, history and fashion and they had displays of some of the places they have been showing the traditional processes for making shoes, in particular warm shoes were on display at this time. I love the idea of having a purpose for every place you go.

Section four was all about sneakers. It had one display along the wall showing how sports shoes started out, including rubber track spikes but mostly it had glass cases with very extravagantly designed basketball shoes from fashion designers. There was quite a bit about converse, nike and adidas and it seemed to be mostly focussed on the cross over between sports shoes and fashion.

 I think the first and third were my favourite sections.

Next we had planned to go to Casa Loma, which is an extravagantly grand house. It was a fair walk there but a lovely day (finally) and good to see different areas of the city. Once we got there, Soph suggested not bothering to go in as it was a bit pricey.

 There was a place opposite called Spadina House, which had cheaper tours or you could wander round the gardens for free. We opted for the free stuff given the nice weather. The gardens were actually practical as well, with an orchard and vegetable section but all interspersed with tulips and wild flowers.

We looked up how to get from there to the Duke of York pub as we had a voucher on our Bata museum receipt for 10% off food and i'd noticed that couchsurfers meet there so figured it can't be too expensive.

It was reasonably nice food and we had a couple of cocktails as well and stayed for quite a while enjoying the patio and chatting, before finally heading out again for more tourism, catching the train down to the CN tower. 

 This was more expensive than we had anticipated so we were quite glad we hadn't paid for Casa Loma, but you can't go to Toronto and NOT go up the CN tower, so we had to pay. We then had to queue with a bunch of noisy Quebecois students, which was quite annoying, and there was a weird security scanner machine that just seemed to puff air at you and can't possibly have actually been scanning for anything. Eventually we got to the elevator with glass windows and a window in the floor. As we exited the elevator at the top, I was actually shocked by how green the Toronto sprawl was. The city stretched as far as the eye could see, but it wasn't just all skyscrapers and bricks, there were lots of trees. We wandered around looking at the view while the sun got lower and lower, including walking through the posh restaurant and building up the guts to stand on the glass floor. It really does make your legs wobbly, especially if someone decides to jump up and down. I only had my camera phone with me so Soph took much better pictures.  Here are some of mine anyway:

Day 256: Niagara

Because we had fallen asleep really early, I woke up at about 11:30pm thinking it was 11:30am and we had missed our trip, then realised and went back to sleep again.  We both woke up pretty early and eventually went down to check out the hotel breakfast.  Soph doesn't eat wheat and the continental breakfast was toast and a croissant, so we asked and we can swap our breakfast vouchers for $3 credit for anything else on the menu. 
At 9am we were collected from the hotel lobby by Vanessa, who told us that everybody else booked for that day had cancelled (probably due to the weather forecast) so it would just be us in a people carrier.  This is great news as we get a private tour and can tailor the day around what we want to do.  I don't think it needs to be a sunny day to see Niagara falls, and rain is such a novelty to me right now.
First we drove right past the falls and the crazy touristy stuff in town to see the really pretty park upstream of the falls and the vast rapids including the boat that has been stuck there.  As spring hasn't quite reached Edmonton yet, its lovely to see so much green and blossoms and flowers, even if it is a grey day. 

Vanessa told us various stories about the falls as well as chatting about her own life and her work as a tour guide.
We went on the "journey behind the falls", which takes you down an elevator to a viewing platform halfway down the falls and includes a lovely yellow poncho.  That was pretty incredible as we were so close to the water.  We could see the boats heading into the mist as well.  There was also a tunnel with two lookouts from behind the falls, but this was just really noisy and didn't give you much of an idea of the scale like the platform did.

I like to read the information boards and we also stopped outside at the top to take photos so we ended up being a bit late back to the van.  I felt pretty guilty about this as Vanessa had tried to pre-book some tickets on the boat for us and now we were late.

Apparently today is the first day the boat has started again and it is a different company so everything has changed.  She gave us our next meeting point and then we hurried down to the boat.  We were issued with our ponchos (red this time - tourists on the American side were being given blue ponchos) but there were so many people waiting that we couldn't all get on the boat and we had to wait for the next one.  This meant we were at the front of the queue and could decide where we wanted to stand but we didn't actually leave until an hour after we were originally supposed to.  It was raining by this point, but hey, we're going to get wet anyway.
The boat ride was actually better than I was expecting and it was utterly insane close to the falls, it was really hard to keep my eyes open with the driving rain of "mist" being blown around us.  It was kinda funny, and why anyone would purposefully want to throw themselves over the falls is a mystery to me.
We didn't have long before we needed to meet Vanessa, so no time for any of the ridiculous touristy gimmicky stuff, just time to grab a hot chocolate to warm ourselves up, then on to the next point.  We were heading a bit further downstream to the white water walk.  She had never taken anyone to this before and afterwards I advised that it wasn't really worth it, but I'm glad I got to do it anyway so that I know that rather than regretting it and thinking I'd missed out on something amazing.  Basically we paid to go along a board walk for a few hundred metres and back again.  The rapids were pretty impressive and you would not have been able to appreciate that from the top of the gorge.  The noise alone was incredible but the waves were immense.

I bought a frozen chocolate covered banana from the gift shop and we met Vanessa's tour guide mentor as she had met him for a coffee while we were walking.  Next stop was another kilometer downstream - the whirlpool aerocar.  This is a cable car from Victorian times or something like that, but we figured the view was good enough just from the top and we didn't need to go across the river.

We followed the Niagara Parkway all the way from this point.  it is supposed to be one of the most beautiful sunday drives in the world and I had been considering bringing my running kit to run it but then we wouldn't have been able to fit everything into one day.  We stopped to see the powerstation, which has an American half and Canadian half, like a lot of things along the boarder, but actually looks quite nice rather than like a big grimy power station.  Then there was the floral clock, then Queenston Heights where Vanessa told us about the monuments there (purposefully designed to be bigger than Nelson's column) and we had a bit of a run around in the woods to see a cannon.  I'm glad we did all this as an organised tour, it was nice to just chill out.

After a lovely drive we arrived at one of the many many vineyards for our winetasting where we had one red, one white and one icewine included, but decided to try another ice wine and a few others as well for a small amount extra.  We had a chilled red wine, which neither of us knew was a thing you could do, we both thought red wine was "supposed" to be room temperature.  Apparently chilling it brings out the fruitiness.  Learning new things!  I'm glad we got to try ice wine as I feel like I have to get Soph to try as many "Canadian" things as possible this week. 

The last stop for the day was the town of Niagara-on-the-lake, which is supposed to be quaint and English and I guess it did kinda remind me of touristy English places, maybe like Bourton-on-the-water or something.  I bought an icecream from a place voted the best in Canada and we got some caramel apples to eat tomorrow, but there wasn't that much to do and we were glad to be heading back again.
As it was fairly late when we got back, we decided to use a voucher we had for the pub across the road and have dinner there.  I made Soph get a Caesar, but she wasn't very impressed and I ended up drinking most of it.

Day 255: Toronto

At the designated time (4:15am) I called for a taxi to take me to the Century Park transit centre and had a lovely chat with the taxi driver, which kept me awake.  My plan was to get the $5 airport bus but no busses were running that early to take me to the transit.  The hotel/airport shuttle would have worked out cheaper, but arrived at the airport later and worryingly close to my flight time.  In the end I'm glad I went with this route as there was a fair amount of faffing at the airport which was heightened by the caffeine and lack of sleep into a mini-panic.
basically, when I went to check in I couldn't use the machines, then the man at the desk told me I was booked onto a flight an hour earlier than my itinerary said.  according to him, the flight centre had changed the booking but they hadn't told me this.  luckily, he was a very nice man and he fudged things on his system to get me on the flight I should be on without charging me any extra.  this was a great relief to me!  I think he probably did me quite a huge favour as the flight was completely full.  my seat had a sign on it saying it was reserved for crew!
The man sat next to me was going to Toronto to see his son and daughter graduate and he was very friendly, but both of us slept for most of the flight.
My flight arrived slightly early and Sophia's was delayed, so we ended up arriving at about the same time.  This meant when I got off the plane I bought some chocolatey snacks for us both on the way to baggage claim and met her on the platform of the airport shuttle.  I felt like I was probably just as jet lagged as her due to the sleep deprivation, but it was fun feeling like more of a local.
We managed to successfully navigate the public transport system, although we were slightly concerned on the subway without a ticket, but when we asked we were told we didn't need a ticket.  For me, its really nice staying in a hotel as I don't usually.  We checked in and then wandered out to the tourist information office.  We decided to book a tour to Niagara Falls for the next day so that we didn't have to think about making plans for another day.  We were both feeling like we just needed to relax, catch up on sleep and not think too much!
A little bit further up the road was china town and we found somewhere good and cheap for dinner.  We had a set menu in a Thai place that involved several courses for only $10.  In England it was pretty late-o-clock, so dinner was at about 4:30pm and afterwards we just went for a bit of a wander to get the hang of the area (in the rain!) then back to the hotel to sleep.

Day 254: no sleep til Toronto

I set my alarm for 8am, woke up earlier than that as it was bright outside, but then didn't manage to get out of bed until 8:30.  I had a lot of things to do in the morning and failed to do most of them.  I realised that I was going to have to end up packing for holiday (after unpacking into my new room) AFTER work.  I also failed to get to the library to update this blog, which doesn't seem to work in my new place.  A few of my “avid readers” have been messaging me demanding updates and I guess you will all be able to binge read about the mundane things I have been up to as soon as I can get to an internet cafe!  Today I mostly feel like my life sucks and I am more relieved than excited about going on holiday.  It didn't help that while I was frantically running back and forth trying to organise myself, my housemates were sleeping in late, laying about watching TV, and generally lazing.

I wore the new tshirt i'd bought yesterday for work, and spent most of the first half of my shift hiding in the back room unpacking boxes of sale clothes.  On my dinner break I went to macdonalds to start the caffeination process that would help me unpack/pack late at night and I also bought a mcflurry.  I tested out and bought an arm pocket for carrying my monster-sized phone on runs.  I figured I would really need to take a phone with me when I run in Toronto in case I get lost.

Unfortunately the rest of my shift was really busy as people were coming sale shopping in the nice weather and there were also three clinics on and not all that many staff working.  Someone I know from couchsurfing popped in on his way past and that cheered me up, especially when he offered to bring me an iced coffee!

There were lots of lovely customers, which was nice but meant we couldn't start closing until way past 9pm, and there were less of us to bring all the sale stuff inside than usual.  Once it got to 10pm, I abandoned everybody else and left.  I just wanted to start getting everything done as soon as possible.

First stop macD's again for a large iced mocha and I also impulse-bought some poutine as comfort food, which wasn't the brightest of ideas as they were cold by the time I got home.  I had to go via the bank to get some holiday money and I had also drunk all of my drink, which was supposed to last me through my packing.  Once I got home I made the first of several cups of tea to keep me going and started emptying bags and moving the last of my things into my new room.  I was very slow at sorting everything out as I was pretty tired but it still took less time than I thought.  With all the caffeine in me, I didn't think it was worth trying to sleep and risking missing my flight, so I stayed awake until it was time to call a taxi and make my way to the airport.  Due to the awkward time of my flight, several transport options were rules out but getting back should be OK hopefully.

It was nice getting facebook updates about Sophia's journey while I was packing.

Day 253: 5am!! yuk!

This week I had to go to my early morning boot camp so my alarm went off at 5am, even though I really didn't want to be doing anything that early in the morning.  I was cursing myself for signing up to this class.  I think I didn't connect the fact that I was moving house and thought it would be fine because its only ten minutes from my old house.  From Michael's place its half an hour's run and there are no busses at the right time to get there.  My legs felt like lead the whole run, and I had for some reason decided not to wear gloves so my hands were frozen.  When I arrived I couldn't see anyone and didn't know where to go so I felt a bit grumpy and started thinking i'd just have to give up and go home.  I found some doors to a reception but they were locked so I wondered around the outside of the building feeling pretty defeated, then I saw some people doing exercise and almost wished I hadn't found them.

We did a few different sets of circuits and I admit I didn't push it too much as I was still quite sleepy, but i'm sure I will get used to it and even appreciate the early start to the day... eventually.  At the end of the class I did not have enough energy to even contemplate running home again so I walked round to the bus transit centre and found a perfectly timed number 4 bus!  I probably should have taken the time to stretch though as I think I seized up a bit sat on the bus and could barely get my legs to work to jog home from the bus stop.  It was about 7:45 and Michael passed me in his car on his way out to work!

Once I was breakfasted and clean and warm again, I spent the next couple of hours trying to Get Stuff Done, including moving some of my belongings upstairs into the bigger room.  Irene fed me coffee, which I supplemented with a few cups of tea and this helped keep me moving.

I headed out the door with a big bag of kit for my next exercise class, followed by work, and had just about enough time to pop by Starbucks and collect my pay slips and my tip money (and return my aprons as I don't want them).

This week I managed to do everything in the class with no problems and quite enjoyed it, although I did decide to stop for another coffee on the way to work as I was worn out.  I was eating my packed lunch at the same time so it didn't make me go too crazy, although it did make me a bit late.

There have been a few of us who have ended up doing really long shifts and I think Michael is now in trouble about this as I got a grilling about it from Ed (the area manager) as soon as I arrived, then I heard him asking for a “quick chat” with Garrit, who I know worked 11 hours at the weekend.

For the first half of my shift I lazed around unpacking boxes at the front of the store, then I went to Badass Jacks for dinner and got to work outside for the rest of the evening, which was lovely.  Even though its sale time, Mondays is still pretty quiet and nice.  This also meant we got to be super efficient and get everything done really quickly at the end of the shift.  I got a couple of fingers trapped in the tents while we were putting them down, and added to my collection of bruises while carrying tables, but we were done half an hour early and I was home by 10pm.

Luckily, I don't have to work til the afternoon tomorrow, no shift at the garden centre beforehand (I think Shelley was just too disorganised) so I should (hopefully) have time to sort out all my packing for Toronto!  I'm so ready for a holiday right now!

Day 252: back to running again

I was early to run club as I forgot I live closer now. Within five minutes I was regretting not wearing gloves, but sure it will warm up.  I did wear my sun glasses for the first time and was pretty happy with them.  They kept the dust out of my eyes and didn't bounce around or anything.  Someone shouted at us from their car “stop running from your problems”, which made me laugh.  The scheduled run was 13k as this is a new clinic now, but I wanted to run a bit longer and just get home in time to go to work again so I stayed with the group through mill creek ravine, including a bit I haven't seen before, then carried on when they turned back to the store.  I crossed over the river, along and back over further up.  My legs were feeling pretty tired, especially while trying to run up Emily Murphy hill at the end, but I got home at about 11:15, which gave me plenty of time to eat, shower and get to work.

I'm not a fan of working on a sunday, but it was only a five hour shift and it was quite busy so the time went.  One of the guys I met t the race yesterday came into the store, having just won another race this morning!

Once home again, I changed and headed straight back out for run two, despite being hungry.  I met Daniel in mill creek ravine, this time he had two dogs with him as his new housemate has a dog too, although Bear is not as well trained as Jimmy.  Today Dan was running barefoot so we tried to stick to grass and avoid gravel.  When the dogs were “playing” they managed to run into me from behind and bowl me over!  It really hurt!  I will have a massive bruise on my bum now.  In total, I was out for over an hour and got to see some new bits of Mill Creek that I haven't been to before. 

Luckily, there was some leftover food from my housemates' dinner, so I could have a quick shower, eat and do laundry.

Day 251: 5peaks race 1 - Terwillegar park 16k

I somehow managed to get up and out of the house with all my kit and got picked up from the car park by Gloria at 6:30am, eating my porridge in the car.  I think I made the right decision as I was glad of the nice simple journey and Gloria was really friendly and chatty.  I had quite a stomach ache so just sat down for a while once we got to Terwillegar Park.  I bumped into a lady from the marathon group and chatted to her for a bit, then went to lie down on the grass to try and stretch my stomach out.  This did help make me feel better, but it also made me very cold so I had to get up again and go and bask in the sun.  I was milling about watching the crowds arrive when Allison (who I met at Iron Horse) spotted me and I chatted to her and her friends and got offered a ride home too.  It was a lovely sunny morning but the wind was very cold, so I kept my coat on for as long as possible and regretted just wearing my Northbrook vest.  I put on my sleeves and gloves, then eventually had to strip off and go to the start line shivering a bit.

The race route was lovely and I wish I could have enjoyed the scenery a bit more instead of mostly looking a metre in front of me.  The photos would have been amazing if I had a camera.  It was a very technical course to say the least, so probably really good training for my ultra-races.  For a while I had to go really slowly as it was single file, and I was quite grateful for this really.  It was very dry so not at all like XC running back home.  There were some pretty terrifying steep downhill sections, with drop offs down to the river on one side.  I spent a lot of time on my toes, dancing around tree roots or trying to pull myself up a slope so my calves were suffering a bit.  While we were in the woods and sheltered from the wind I warmed up really quickly and pulled off my gloves at the first water station and my sleeves at the next.  Gloria was now dressed up as a tiger! (presumably to keep warm) There was one hill that just seemed to go on forever.  Someone had put up a sign saying “pain will pass, pride will last” which made me smile, but I also thought that was near the top of the hill, which just kept going!  Eventually we got to the top of the hill, then ducked into the woods again and had more steepish downhill with tree roots to negotiate.  (Every time I went down a steep hill, it was really difficult to stop my nose from snotting everywhere.  As if going down the hills wasn't difficult enough!  Gravity was not my friend today, clearly.)  There is obviously a knack to trail running that I don't have yet and it slows me down quite a lot.  I started thinking “I have to do TWO laps, why did I think that was a good idea??!!”, but once i'd recovered from the hill, that changed to “awesome, I get to do two laps!!”

It was a lovely race and I really enjoyed it, high fiving a small child while heading to the finish line.  Allison introduced me to a few people, and it turned out her husband had got second place, so we waited around (getting cold) for the medal presentations.  The food was a mix of cake, cookies and fruit and I filled my plate a couple of times.  I was really glad that I had found some familiar people to hang out with and very grateful of the ride home instead of attempting to navigate the transit after only two hours sleep, but I then had very little time to get showered and ready.  Luckily Bianca offered me a lift so I was on time to my massage appointment.  I always forget all acheyness really quickly, but once she found somewhere really painful the memories came back!

I then walked to work eating my sandwich and bought a latte on the way to help keep me awake.

 I would rather have not been at work, but it was really busy so I could see that it was necessary and the extra money will help.  I made one of my customer's laugh and chatted silly nonsense a lot while working at the till.  Then I managed to avoid carrying any tables at the end of the day and did lots of the other random jobs instead.

After work, I was planning on going to a barbeque party at Pamela's house, which had mostly been changed to an indoor party as it is still pretty cold and even snowed a little bit, but I didn't get home until 7:45 and decided I was too tired and would only end up being there for a couple of hours anyway before getting the last bus home so I would just stay in and try to catch up on things instead.

Day 250: party!

I am spending too much time at the Running Room but hopefully I can go back to part-time again next month.  Thankfully I got to spend a lot of my shift today putting out new stock in the back room and at the front of the store, so I could take my time and zone out.  Michael (manager) was very grateful for my help on wednesday and insisted on buying me lunch as a thank you even though I said the overtime pay was gratitude enough.  In the end he couldn't leave the store so he gave me $20 and I went and ate lunch on my own.

A day shift meant I could get home and then go for a run.  I was a little bit late and Daniel had run most of the way to my place by the time I met him but I got to try out my new sale shoes and its the first run i've done since marathon (finally) so it was good to be moving again.  Daniel was wearing his toe shoes as its warmer now, but they were rubbing so he ended up taking them off and carrying them.  We were running for about an hour as I didn't want to get home too late, I was already quite hungry.

I ate a quick dinner and got ready as it was Michael's birthday party and Bianca's leaving party that evening.  They had got some helium balloons, hooray! And Michael's new tent was up in the garden.

I knew I had to be up really early in the morning, but I always get carried away and never want to leave a party.  I had a plan to catch two busses, leaving home at 7am for a race starting at 9am, but I had posted a plea for a lift on facebook and got a reply from one of the volunteers offering me a ride  at 6:30am.  I asked a few people's opinions and chose the easier option of a lift even though it was half an hour's less sleep.  I didn't go to bed til maybe 4am, but I still think I made the right decision as negotiating public transit while that tired would have been challenging.

We made costumes from the packaging that the tent came with and I also made some poi out of socks and messed about with it in the garden, attempting to teach a couple of people how to do it.  It was a great party!

(photos will be added later)

Day 249: Goodbye Natalia

Back to Home Depot again today, although I still don't have a staff t-shirt.  The weather has improved again so I was OK without a jacket on when I was working hard.  We managed to empty lots of delivery carts and arrange all the plants on the racks so everything looked much better.  Customers ask me questions sometimes and I never have a clue what the answers are.  I found a picnic bench in the car park for my break today, with a fabulous view of the car park and a busy road, but this is a vast improvement on sitting on a empty rack like I did last week, and I even remembered to reapply my sunscreen.

On my way home I went via the Army Navy store to buy some cheap new pants to replace my missing ones so I don't have to keep doing laundry every couple of days.  I ended up shopping for quite a while and buying a tshirt and some jeans as well.  The jeans are a bit too small but they were $4 so I couldn't really resist.

I had made plans to meet up with Daniel for a run, then eat dinner and go to the couchsurfing meetup downtown.  Natalia is leaving tomorrow to move to Calgary so I wanted to say goodbye.  Then I got a text from her asking if I could get downtown earlier for dinner.  I thought about it for a bit, wavered indecisively, then decided to skip running, go for dinner, and get home earlier instead.  It took me nearly an hour to get downtown on the bus.  En route it occurred to me I could probably have walked there faster but I always see the river as an insurmountable obstacle, even though I regularly run there.  I miss living by the LRT, it made things much easier.  I even thought I could've put my running kit on instead and run there.  I might look strange in the restaurant but I would have got my run in and got there sooner.  It was a bit of a trendy place, so slightly pricey and I just ordered one of the cheapest things on the menu and drunk tap water.  It was good to hang out with some girls and have a catch up as I never have much time to socialise when I keep working late shifts.  Because I was tired, and i've been eating cake and chocolates all week, I decided to order dessert as well!

Once we'd finished, we headed down the road for the CS meeting.  I was really sleepy and didn't join in with any of the salsa dancing but just sat and chatted instead and slowly drunk one drink.  It was nice but I probably should have just gone home after dinner.  I left at about 10pm and got teased for leaving so early, but I knew it would take forever to get home again.  Unfortunately, as I was tired, I managed to get on a train going the wrong direction and didn't even notice for two stops!  This significantly added to the journey time.  Once I finally got home, I got myself to bed as quickly as I could manage with minimal socialising with my housemates.

 

Day 248: crazy overtime!

The plan for today was to work at the store 8:30-5:30, then see how my legs cope with run club at 6pm, then get home at a sensible time, eat, do laundry, wash my hair and hang out with my housemates before getting a nice early night.

What actually happened was a bit different.

In the morning I was a bit cold, so snuck out of work to go to MacDonalds and get a large cup of tea to keep me warm, I got away with this because I asked Robyn if she wanted anything too, so I bought her a hot chocolate and I bought a slice of charity cake for the manager as well.  The trip to MacD's was actually a bit of a fiasco so it killed quite a bit of time.  Shortly after this, Michael was going round asking each of us if we would be able to change our shift a bit today as he had messed up the schedule, leaving nobody experienced in the store all evening.  Initially, he asked if I could go home at 1:30, then come back at 5pm, which would mean I miss run club but still do the same number of hours.  It would mean I could do my laundry, get some shopping done and go for a run by myself so it seemed OK to me, but then he re-looked at the schedule and asked if I would just like to do lots of overtime and stay on til 8pm instead.  This still seemed feasible and the money will be good so I agreed.  I also agreed to do some hours over the weekend instead of having the whole weekend free for a change.  I don't know when I will have much free time now, I was kind of hoping the Rainbow people would cancel my shift again, but instead I got a text to confirm if I could come in 7am-3pm tomorrow, financially good news, but ergh. 

I had spent the whole day wearing my medal today because Heidi was wearing hers from Vancouver, but after so many hours it was starting to get annoying.  When it got to run club time, I also put on my far-too-big race t-shirt, but it was surprisingly busy in the store so I didn't really get to speak to any of the marathon group much, it seemed like people who had been aiming at under 4 hours had managed it, and the Vancouver t-shirt looked good, but I felt like I missed out.

I barely got to leave the till at any point that evening, and there was usually a line.  I managed to go and grab some food from my bag for a few minutes at about 7:30 during a brief quiet bit.  When it got to 8pm and I was supposed to be leaving, I was halfway through a few jobs I was doing, there was a line at the other till that Michael was dealing with, and he was asking me to do a few other things for him as well as he couldn't leave.  There was just the two of us in the store and a bunch of newbies helping with the sidewalk sale outside.  I realised I couldn't really leave or it would be a disaster so I thought i'd finish everything that needed doing and leave at 8:30 instead.  Then it was still busy and there were too many things that the new people wouldn't be able to do so I ended up staying til 9pm.  It would have been cruel to leave, and I will get heaps of overtime, but that did mean I had to stay up a bit later than I intended just waiting for my laundry, and that's another day passing without a run and Blackfoot 100k only two weeks away.

Luckily my housemates had cooked again, so I got to have some lovely leftovers for my dinner instead of just toast, and there was still some cake left, so we each had a slice of chocolate cake and a slice of apple tart, because after a 12.5hour shift I needed some cake!

I hope this doesn't all sound like whingeing.  I was in a pretty good mood all day, even dancing to the radio with Robyn, and I got to be a bit smug about my marathon without having to show off as other people kept boasting for me.  Time didn't go too slowly as it was quite busy and everybody was in a good mood and enjoying the sunshine and bargain hunting.  One of the customers was actually the guy who came second in the marathon, so that was kinda cool.  He got $200 gift cards as his prize!

Day 247: sleepy

So, with my first shift cancelled I had a small amount of lie in, before heading out to the shops.  It took me a while as new supermarkets often do, plus it was fairly chilly and there was snow in the air.  I also bought quite a few reduced Easter chocolates, which I mostly ate as soon as I got home.

After making a big pile of sandwiches, and combining some leftovers together for my lunch, I headed out for my shift at the running room.

I don't know whether the tables of shoes are getting lighter or i'm getting stronger, or just getting the knack, but carrying the tables does seem to be getting easier, although I did drop out halfway through and switched to cleaning the bathrooms, emptying garbage and hoovering instead.

It was Michael's birthday today, so when I got home I joined them for dessert (a french apple pie that Irene had made, plus some more of yesterday's chocolate cake) and a glass of wine.  Bianca is making her plans to leave and road trip across Canada.  I'll be sad to see her go, but i'm keen to move into a bigger room and unpack!

 

Day 246: post-race acheyness

Today was when the exercise classes I had signed up for were due to start, but I decided not to go to the 6:15am boot camp today and take the lie in instead.  I still wanted to go to the second class at 12pm, but just go through the motions and join in properly next week.  I was fairly achey, obviously, and quite tired but in a good way.  The exercise class just made me laugh as I really couldn't even attempt squats.  I didn't have time for a shower afterwards so it was probably good I couldn't join in properly and get sweaty.  I changed into work clothes and sprayed lots of deodorant then headed to work, although I did pop into a shop to buy an ice cream as well.

I was glad to be working mostly inside today and not out as it was cold and windy and kept occasionally snowing or raining.  The guys kept running inside with all the rails of sale clothes to keep them dry, then wheeling them back out again when it stopped. 

On my break I found a text message from Shelley at the garden centre telling me I didn't need to work tomorrow due to the bad weather, which I was pretty relieved about really, more change to sleep and it would be hard work on achey legs.  Eventually the manager decided to just pack everything outside up early as nobody wanted to shop outside in that weather anyway.  This made me very happy and I got to get home significantly earlier, hooray!

 

Day 245: Run Wild Marathon

I actually woke up before my alarm went off and spent the extra time checking for race updates on facebook as there are events in England today.  It also meant I had enough time to eat my porridge before my lift arrived instead of eating it in the car.  Looking outside, its unbelievable but the ground has a thin layer of snow covering it.  The sun was just starting to come up when I got in the car but the streetlights were still on and the Edmonton skyline across the river looked pretty amazing.

We parked near the finish line and walked over to the start where I could finally get my race number and t-shirt, although they had no small sizes left.  There weren't many runners around but it was nice being able to wait inside as people gradually arrived.  There was quite a group of us from 109 street, but when we got called out to the start line it was definitely the smallest marathon I have been part of, maybe 80 people.

I tried to start off fairly slowly to avoid shin splints and ran with Darcy for a little while.  The route took us through some nice trails, although very uppy downy.  It all looked very pretty in the snow.  After a mile or so, I sped up a bit but I was on my own with a little group just ahead of me so I decided to try and catch them up.  I started chatting to a lady who works at NAIT university and then the guy running in front of us recognised me as I’d sold him his shoes.  He looked completely different as he'd come into the shop in a suit but I did recognise the shoes.  The three of us ran together for quite a while, including along one open stretch of road where the wind was really biting.  The half marathon route was slightly different so we started overtaking and “well done”-ing the runners/walkers at the back.  It really helps distract from the pain to have people to chat to, but by around 18K or so, I was feeling pretty strong and sped up for a few miles.  At an aid station I passed a couple of 109 street half marathon folks who were stopping and stretching, I hoped it wasn't anything serious.

After that I was mostly running by myself, with the occasional “hello, hows it going?”.  It was lovely to see a cluster of 109 street supporters complete with cowbells at one point!  The route was a clover leaf shape, so we passed back by the start line a couple of times and after the half marathoners split off to the finish, we followed part of the 5k/10k route for a while.  All the marshals were wonderful and cheered as you went past despite the cold, sleet and snow.  They were all bundled up but very cheerful.  Last year was 26C for this race, which would have been worse for running but better for supporting.

There were some pretty nasty uphill stretches, especially for tired legs, but also some lovely trails through woods, ravines and along rivers.  My poor hands were freezing despite my gloves and I kept shaking them to try and keep the blood flowing but other than that I was warm enough, I could feel my legs getting heavier and my brain starting to shut down, but tried to keep pushing as much as I could and keep my average pace below 8:30min/mile... until my Garmin broke and had no idea where I was anymore, then I just had to keep pushing anyway with no real idea of whether I was going fast or slow, just waiting for the next Km marker and counting them down.  I like Km markers, they come around quicker than mile markers.

With only 3Km left, I caught up with a guy who said his knee had given out at about 20miles, but I assured him we would get to the finish now, it wasn't too far, the next guy I caught up to turned out to be a Geordie and he was very impressed with Sunderland's latest result against Man Utd, there was only a Km to go now and we could even hear the music and cheers from the finish, then we turned into the field where it was all happening and it felt amazing! Instantly to be dashed as we were turned to the right AWAY from the finish for a last out-and-back section where I really started to feel like I couldn't keep going any longer, the geordie bounced away ahead of me cheering and as we reached the turning point I realised we had been running up an incline so that must be why I felt so broken, now it was just downhill to the finish line!  The clock said 3:40, which is a new and unexpected PB for me so I was very happy, almost (but not quite) forgetting to stop my own watch.  Then a guy marshalling the finish told me I was third and should go talk to someone at the stage as there is prize money (!!).  I was sure he must've made a mistake, but it is a small local race, and prize money would certainly come in handy!

I asked at the information desk and they didn't know, but gave me the rest of my race pack, I collected my bag and put my coat and hat on, then went to ask at the stage.  They told me the presentation was fairly soon but couldn't tell me much else, so I went to get my free food from the tent.  It was a little disappointing compared to some of the post-race meals I’ve had in Canada, but there was cake, cookies, crisps, fruit and juice.  Someone promised me hot chocolate further along, but it turned out the only hot drink was coffee.  I was really cold so coffee would have to do.  There was also a freezer full of ice cream!  I hate turning down ice cream, so I took one but kept it in the bag as I certainly couldn't face eating it.  I headed to the beer tent to eat as it was covered, so protected from the snow.  In MAY! Seriously!  My hands were still really cold and I tried stretching a bit and drinking my recovery shake, then eventually went to claim my free beer, which included some more freebies to add to my bag.  My next plan was to go for a quick wander and see if any of the stalls were selling mittens (no luck) but make sure I was still nearby for the prize announcements.  I would have rather gone to stand at the finish line, cheer people in, and wait for people I know.  Being really cold and all by myself was a bit sucky.

Turns out it wasn't a mistake and my name was the first called out for a prize, so I walked up to the corner of the stage and was given ANOTHER medal and an envelope with my name and $100 written on it!  The envelope contained gift cards for Fast Trax, so I guess i'll be going shopping sometime.  The 2^nd and 1^st ladies were significantly faster than me.  Hooray for small races!  I got somebody to take a picture with my medals, then wandered towards the finish line to wait for people.  I bumped into Murray and Jana from the store and it was lovely to finally see a familiar face!  They told me about a building we could go into to warm up, so as much as I was really glad to finally have company, I left them to it and went inside.

Once i'd been inside for a couple of minutes I was warm enough to go and change, but decided I needed a bit more indoors time still before I could go back out in the cold again, I could also finally eat my ice cream which was delicious!  James came inside to change, and it was good to hear that he had got a PB too.  I chatted to one of the volunteers for a bit, then eventually decided to face going outside.

I left just in time and managed to see Cassandra and Sherry running to the finish line, including a sprint finish from Cassandra, who had the biggest grin on her face!  I was so happy for her!  There was a small gathering of 109 street folks and it was lovely.  Cassandra thought Kim had dropped out but then checked her phone and saw that she had kept going after all and was near the finish so we all hobbled over to cheer her in!

While they got their post-race food, I got my picture taken with the race mascot.  Cassandra decided to get a ride back with her parents instead as they had come to meet her at the finish, so eventually me and Kim walked back to the car.  She has two weeks until her next marathon, then another two weeks to the Calgary marathon so she is crazy hardcore!  On the drive back we stopped and rolled the window down to speak to one of her training buddies who was out for a 36km run by himself that morning.

As soon as I got in the front door, I was greeted by my housemates who had made blueberry pancakes!  How awesome are they!  Pancakes, maple syrup and spray cream, yum yum yum.  I only had a couple of hours before I had to be at work, so I ran myself a bath, got ready and ate some hummus before leaving a little bit early to buy some victory shoes from the sale – less than $40!

I showed off my medal, then helped with some shoe sales for a bit before helping to carry tables back inside and pull down tents.  This was especially fun today as lots of water had pooled on top of the tents from all the snow and sleet.

I walked home via the liquor store and found some Kopparberg so I could have some lovely Swedish cider with my dinner (again, made by my housemates) of fried perogies, sausage and vegetables.  To make things even better, Michael had baked a really chocolatey cake for dessert!  We watched a movie (Paul) and that was a pretty good end to a Sunday.

 

Day 244: pre-race

I had to work all day as per usual on a saturday, but because of the sidewalk sale I started an hour earlier to get everything set up, and finished an hour earlier so I didn't have to do all the closing jobs, which was nice.  This time we carried the heavier tables in threes or fours instead of pairs, which was much easier.  With it being sale time, and a saturday it was really busy and exciting.

My dinner was a combination of various leftovers from my housemates' dinners this week.  They were not eating  until late as more people were coming over and I wanted to get to bed at a nice sensible time, so again I didn't get to have dinner with them.

I got everything ready for the morning, including several changes of mind about what to wear (I can't believe that on Wednesday I was worried about it being too hot on race day!) and set my alarm for 5am.

 

Day 243: ...and back to winter again

Back to a day shift at the Running Room today, but very quickly I realised the weather had changed and I was not dressed appropriately at all.  When I first arrived, we had to set up all the sale tables and tents and I was warm enough doing that, although the tables were pretty heavy and my arms and shoulders were aching, but I was mostly working outside and just standing around got quite cold.  Its MAY now, come on!  This time I really did think summer had started.

I finished work at 5:30 and went straight to Chianti's restaurant on Whyte ave in my running clothes and work t-shirt.  The marathon group were having a pre-race meal booked for 5pm.  I had been worried about turning up so late, but I wasn't the last to arrive.  Everybody else's food was arriving at the table as I was ordering but then the latecomers' food was very quick so we were sort of eating at the same time.  It was strange seeing all the other guys in work clothes instead of running gear, but I was still wearing exactly what they are used to seeing me wearing! 

Cassandra had tried to get my race kit for me but they would not let her without the form I had forgotten to sign.  I was a bit worried as I had an email saying there was no race day kit collection, but she had spoken to them and been assured I could get it at the start line before the race.

Day 242: cooking fail = diner

It was my 2^nd day at the Home Depot, and an early start at 8am!  Although I got a text from Shelley in the morning asking me to get there at 8:30 instead and I was quite glad of the extra faffing time as it takes me a lot longer to find anything at the moment.  There was another new girl starting today called Jocelyn and she has over an hour's commute via multiple busses to get there.  We were mostly rearranging indoor plants today and moving some of the outdoor plants onto rolling carts so that they can be bought indoors at night as its still too cold out for them.

I was planning on “cooking” for my housemates that evening (i.e. defrosting stuff i've previously cooked and adding some vegetables) but also wanted to do one last little run before the marathon.  I bumped into Irene on my way out and she had been to the Muttard today and a walk in the sunshine.  I was running sleeveless again and it felt good!  I only ran for about half an hour up and down the mill creek a bit exploring some of the trails, but when I got back and showered, Michael was already home from work and starving.  My first promise to cook for everybody had failed and instead the three of us went out to the diner up the road (Bianca had gone out on an errand).  It was a good dinner though, I had a yummy burger with fries and gravy and tried some Canadian pickle too.  Bianca was annoyed that we had gone to the diner without her, but then we headed out to Cha Island for the weekly couchsurfing meet up.

I found a loophole to my “one beer” policy – my first beer was half what I normally pay for a beer there, and rum was on special.  There were people there I had met at the party at the weekend, so that was nice, and I got to chat to Alanna about the job I had stolen from her.  She has found a new job now luckily. It was really good to have people to walk home with and to live so close, instead of half an hour's walk or trying to steal a lift.