Long overdue!!!

Well, I've been told a few times lately that we haven't updated our blog lately. I'm sorry for that. We have been so busy these last couple of months. And now all of a sudden it is 3 more sleeps till we leave on our trip and 6 days until the actual marathon. We will be away for almost 23 days!! Can't believe it. We have raised just over $25,000 over the past 2 years. Thank you to all of you who have been able to donate to us and help out this important cause. If you wanted to donate, and just haven't had a chance yet, we are still able to collect donations for 2 months after the event, so it's not too late. And if you donate before the end of December, you'll get a tax receipt good for 2007 tax year.

I just finished teaching my second walking clinic for the Poco Running Room. It was a smaller group this time around, but still very rewarding. It was great to see all my participants meet their goal. One of my members completed her first Full Marathon on Oct 7th in Kelowna. It was her goal to complete one at age 60; and she did it! Way to go Carol. Brenda walked her 2nd Half Marathon (ever and in just over a month apart) in Bellingham that same day and beat her first Half Marathon time by almost 10 minutes. Way to go Brenda!! Neil completed his first Half Marathon in Victoria and had a great walk and finished in great time. Way to go speedy.

I walked the Victoria Half Marathon with Sue (Mike's mom) and we had a good time. Mike ran the same event and managed to cross the finish line before the rain really started. Sue & I weren't quite so lucky, but we didn't let the rain dampen our spirits. We finished with smiles on our faces! It was a good walk and I used it as a training day for Dublin, so did Mike. And we even got a nice medal each for our efforts.

Well, our household has been busy with me going to various doctors appointments -- I'm currently 4 months pregnant!! We are so thrilled....we are going to be parents in April. We sold our condo (in 1 1/2 days) and a week later found a house and bought it. We are moving from Burnaby to Poco and are looking forward to our new home. It is almost a 40 yr old house, but has been recently updated and nicely done--so it feels very new to us! When we get home from our trip, we have 10 days to pack up our condo and get ready to move.

Lots of exciting things going on with us. Big Trip; Marathon, travelling around amazing places (Ireland, Scotland, London & Paris); moving into a house; having our first baby!!! 2007 sure has been an amazing year, starting off with getting married!! Life has been pretty amazing though since I met Mike!!

Well that's it for today's post. I went to answer the phone and got tangled up in some cords under the desk here, and tripped on my way out of the den. My knee is sore and I think maybe I should go put some ice on it! What a klutz....at least I protected my belly during the fall!

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the fall and getting ready for halloween.
Take care and we'll try to update a bit while we are on our trip.

Cheers,
Waleah (momma to be)

only 2 1/2 more months to go & $2500 more to raise!

Wow!! I cannot believe how long it's been since our last entry!!
Life just flies by when you are busy and having fun. Since Mike's Scotia Half, we have just been busy training and connecting with friends and family. We are getting back on track with our fundraising. I just received almost $600 in donations in the last 2 weeks. Mike received close to $400. We still need aprox $2500 more to go to hit our target!!! So please got to www.teamdiabetes.ca and click on pledge a participant -- type in either Waleah Blais or Michael Blais & Burnaby and make a donation!! You will help support a good cause and receive a tax receipt for your donation. No donation is too big or small!!

We recently got certified as Open Water Scuba Divers. Also just did our Advanced course too. It's a lot of fun!! We are having a blast diving together and have a couple of other friends who dive too. It's a whole different world down there and so much to see!! It's beautiful and amazing!!

Okay, I just got off the phone with Mike's step-brother who is going to Dublin to do the marathon with us and according to the Dublin Marathon web page, it is only 80 days away!! Oh my!! We better get busy on our fundraising!

This weekend we have Brent (our best man) and Bless' wedding. Should be a great time on Saturday. I hope the day goes smoothly for them and they have as much fun on their special day as we had on ours. Sunday we have a big training day. 29km!! Whew...that makes me tired just thinking about it.

I'm still instructing the walking clinic at the Poco Running Room. I have a great group of walkers -- some training for a Half Marathon in the fall and one currently training for a Full Marathon in the fall. It is fun to have some people to train with. Helps those long walks go by faster!! Mike is heading downtown on Sunday to meet his running group for a field trip for their long run! I hope it's a good one for them. Stephen, their instructor, has been coming up with some hard and challenging routes for them! I think he's determined to make them all better & stronger runners!

Well, I'm going to sign off for now. We'll try harder to keep these posts happening now. :)

Hope you are enjoying your summer.

Mike & the Scotia Half Marathon

Today started off really early as Mike's alarm went off at 5:20am!! Ugh....it's our day off and we are waking at the crack of dawn....what is that about...oh yes, my hubby is running his first half marathon today....and I am giving him and his friend Tamara a lift to the start line and sending them off with a big "good luck you guys, you'll do great!", before I have to jump in the car and head back to Port Coquitlam to lead my walking clinic. We make it out to UBC nice and early for Mike & Tamara this morning and get them organized. I see them off at the start line just as it's drizzling slightly. Wish them both a great run and tell them I know they'll do great. I take a quick photo on my phone to record it for prosperity. I'm about to walk away and figure I have a few minutes, so I pop up to the start line and get a photo of Mike crossing the start line of his First Half Marathon. I'm very proud of him. He's done so well since we embarked on him learning to run last spring. He's accomplished his first Full Marathon, his first 8km race, and now his first Half Marathon...he's a bit backwards though and started with the biggest distance first....but that's my guy...."go big or go home"!!

I got the phone call while I was trudging through my 13km walk in the pouring rain this morning that both Mike & Tamara finished their race and were doing great. Mike finished in 2:14:57 and Tamara in 2:18. Way to go guys. You both rock and I'm really proud of you. Its tough to do a race in the rain.

Mike's goal today was 2:10 to 2:15, and he totally made it!! That's so awesome. I'm glad he had such a good run and was able to meet his goal that he set out for himself.

My training walk was good today, all be it very wet!! 2 1/2 hours in the pouring rain. I swear they said that summer started this past week, but apparently not really yet! :)

Well Mike just finished soaking his muscles in the tub, and now it's my turn! I think after I'm done I'll join him for an afternoon snooze before we go out for dinner with Grandpa.

It's too bad tomorrow is Monday already....these weekends just seem to fly by at lightening speed.

Well until next time.....
take care.
Waleah

Training has officially begun......

Well, we've been busy since I completed the Vancouver International Marathon and there never seems to be a dull moment. I've enjoyed a break from training and Mike is getting ready to run the Scotia Half on June 24th.

This past week has found both of us starting our Marathon clinics. I'm teaching the Half & Full Marathon Walking clinic for the Poco Running Room once again. Should be fun. So far I have a good group of people signed up. Mike has started his Full Marathon Clinic at the Poco Running Room too this week. Although he was sick earlier this week so he was off to a slow start. Today he did a 20km run and even though it was raining, he had a good run. I think he's ready for his event in 2 weeks. This week is week 2 of training, Mike has ball and I'm hoping to do some stuff around home while he's at ball. Today we went and watched our friend's daughter, Charrissa at her dance recital. It was a lot of fun and a great way to spend our Sunday afternoon. She was adorable and probably had one of THE biggest smiles on stage. :)

We'll be starting to do more fundraising soon.....so be prepared...we'll be asking you for a donation over the next while for the Canadian Diabetes Association....remember that all donations will receive a tax receipt. It's a great cause and funds raised go to help further research and educate people on the disease.

Well, I'm a little under the weather...think I'm catching that cold that's been going around...so I'm signing off for now. Sorry this is such a short post...but I realized it's been a while since either of us has put on one here.

Take care and keep checking in on us to see how we are progressing.

Waleah

Inspiration

Last Sunday Waleah did the Vancouver Marathon (see her post below) and my parents and I were waiting at the finish line for our friend Kari to cheer her across the line. At the same time as this the full marathoners were also starting to finish. These were the people who are natural runners who are running a full marathon in less than 3.5 hours which is pretty amazing. We came back a couple of hours later to wait for Waleah and had a chance to watch the "regular" people finish, though many of these people were far from regular. Anybody who can commit to the training and completion of the marathon has my respect but some people just wowed me.

A 75 year old man was completing his 403rd marathon (this sentence is NOT a typo).

Tsutomu Shimabukuro, a japanese man with 2 prosthetic legs finished in 8:03:49

A man with a white shirt with BRAIN TUMOUR SURVIVOR written across the front

A 15! year old kid (who also did it last year)

and many more.
Watching these people do something that challenges even the most fit person in truly inspiring. I would recommend if you want to see amazing people do an amazing thing, show up at a marathon finish line at the 4:30 hour mark, listen to the announcer and cheer these people on, because they deserve it.

Completed 2nd Full Marathon - VIM

Hello....it's been a while since I've written a post. Life has been very busy.

The past few months I've been leading a walking clinic for the Poco Running Room. It has been a great experience and I had a great group of people out. I led 2 clinics simultaneously--the Half Marathon clinic and the Full Marathon clinic. I started out with 11 people (lost 2 to injuries early on and a 3rd to physical limitations in the later half). I had 8 people in total who walked either the Half or the Full on Sunday besides myself. Awesome!! 6 of my participants successfully completed the Half Marathon. All did so in under 4 hours and all were happy with their time and their achievement. I had 2 participants successfully complete the Full Marathon. I know one would have liked to finish quicker, but I think was still happy with her success. Way to go you guys. I finished in 7:05:13. I have some pretty bad blisters happening with all the rain...and some sore muscles still...but feeling pretty good. Happy about the accomplishment and enjoyed the experience. It was great to have people to walk with on this marathon and I had some supporters come out as well at different points along the route, as did my 2 gals. So it helped pass our time. My loving husband saw us twice on the route and gave me a kiss and encouragement to us 3 ladies at about 7km and 19km. A friend from work, Tracy and her daughter, came out and walked with me for a few minutes around the 35km mark and my good friend Christy & her boyfriend, Darwin came and walked with me for a bit at about 37km. It was so great to see everyone and they were an awesome pick me up. Mike came and met me about 300 metres out before the finish line and walked with me in. It was so awesome to see him at that point. I was sore and tired and my feet were done. I even had a pebble in my shoe at the end, and I had no energy to remove it, so it stayed till after I crossed the finish line.

My friend Kari did the Half that day and I'm so proud of her. She did a great job and this was her first event. She had so much fun, she's willing to do another one. Yeah!! Mike's mom & step dad came out to cheer Kari on to the finish line and to also cheer me on to the finish line. It was good. Mike and myself met up with Sue & Graham and Grandpa for dinner that night at our favourite burger joint in New West....Burger Heaven!! It was an awesome victory dinner and I enjoyed absolutely every bite of it!!!

Well I'll take a few weeks off of the distance walking till my blisters heal and I recoup. Mid June I will be leading my second walking clinic for the Poco Running Room. I'm looking forward to that. I hope to have some of my participants back out to join me again. This clinic will not only allow me the opportunity of helping other people achieve their goal again, but also help me train for my next big event....Dublin, Ireland --- Full Marathon on October 29, 2007. This is our next Team Diabetes event. After that it will be walking just for fun and fitness for a while. We are enjoying being part of Team Diabetes, but fundraising and training is hard work and takes a lot of time and commitment and we have so many other things we'd like to accomplish in life...so 2008 will hopefully bring some other new exciting things our way.

I'm going to enjoy the break before the next clinic, reconnect with some friends I haven't seen much of, and also get ready to re-write my exam in the next month or so. Studying recently was tough. I plan to take a bit more time to prep for my next exam but still want to get it out of the way before we get into the full swing of summer.

I think this month or next, Mike & I will get away for a weekend for some R & R. Mike has been so great about my ignoring him between my clinic and my studying that I need to reconnect with my sweetie and let him know how awesome he is and how much I appreciate his support and encouragement. We are thinking maybe a weekend escape the Victoria and play tourist for a weekend.

Well, got to go for now. We'll try to update this more regularly. Next accomplishment on our list is for Mike to do the Scotia Half in June and me to pass my darn course!! We'll keep you posted on our challenges and our victories.

Cheers,
Waleah

Vancouver Internation Marathon Weekend!!!!

Again a long delay between updates. Waleah will be participation in the Vancouver International Marathon on Sunday. Since January she has been the group leader at the Running Room in Poco for both the Full and Half-Marathon walking groups. Finally the end is here (until June when we start training for Dublin), and it is likely that she will be the group leader again. I know she has had a good time with it and it's so much easier to walk with a group as opposed to alone (like last year).

I will be cheering Waleah and the rest of the Poco groups on, I have had a hell of a time getting into a routine, I am aiming to do the Scotia Half Marathon but I am having a rough time motivating myself right now, I am supposed to do 16k this Sunday but so far my longest run has been only 10 (I've missed a couple of weeks of running). We'll see how it goes since Sunday I'll be seeing Waleah off at 6:30 for the Full Marathon and then Kari and the rest for the Half @ 7:00am. I'll do my best to get a run in and be back in time to cheer them on at the finish line.


We also had our 2nd Annual Boardgaming for Diabetes last weekend and it was another success! We raised approx $1200 dollars and even though there we about 10 people less than last year we still had a blast. Thank you to all who came and we will be doing it again next year even though we will not be doing another Team D marathon (we need to take a break :) )

That's it for now, I promise Waleah will post how the Marathon went.

Mike

.......

Ok, so I did get some flack for the miserable day/wedding photo but that's why you read what I write right?

As usual life is busy, Waleah is studying hard for her insurance exam that is coming up, unfortunately she's been forced to take a break from the walking clinic, somehow she injured her foot and those long 20km+ walks are not a great thing. I am in the middle of curling playoffs and so far we are still on the winning side of the 'A' draw.

I am also in the midst of organizing our first fundraiser for 2007, the 2nd Annual Boardgaming for Diabetes Weekend. April 28th & 29th at the Marpole Curling Club. For tickets and more info please e-mail me. Once again the local game stores are coming through with their support of donations and helping to spread the word. We are truly lucky here in the lower mainland to really have Friendly Local Game Stores that help support our hobby.

Not much else to report, I have a bonspiel the Easter weekend which should be a blast and then a bit of rest before the marathon training and softball start up again for me.

Cheers!
Mike

Miserable Day!!!!

What a horrible day to train in, as I write this Waleah is finishing her 29km workout this morning. The rain is torrential here and pretty miserable. While Waleah is doing her long distance I had a leisurely 8km run. Our friend Lia works for Hugo Boss and entered a team into the Harry's Spring Run Off for Prostate Cancer. Very wet but fun, it was interesting for me to run my first race where I had a time goal. My goal was under 1:00 but I managed just under 52 minutes! A nice boost to my confidence that I can push myself to run faster!

Here are our honeymoon photos!

We received our wedding photos last week and they turned out awesome! Thanks Ellen and Lance!!!! The snow really made for some nice shots as well as the inside of the Burnaby Art Gallery. Now that we have our photos we'll be able to send out our thank you cards.

Time to go and run a hot bath for myself before Waleah gets home.

Cheers!
Mike

Stayin Alive!!!

Helloooo everybody,
The reports of our demise have been greatly exaggerated. We're sorry for not checking in sooner, married life has been hectic, not that that's any different than our pre-married life, so here's a recap of the last month.
The wedding was AWESOME, even the breaking down of the limo provided some great memories (and only a little stress), Waleah was just absolutely beautiful, you'll get to see for yourselves once we finally get our wedding pictures and we post a few. Our photographers Lance and Ellen were also great and took a few more photos than they normally do so they are still sorting through them.
Again, Wedding = Awesome
Off to our honeymoon in Canmore Alberta, Sunday morning we left and stopped in Kamloops for the night where we just dropped in to the Sheraton and managed to get the honeymoon suite. A nice big jacuzzi tub waited for us to relax and play in :). Off to Canmore the next day where we stayed at Aunt Barb's place (THANK YOU!) it was amazing, the view from the kitchen/living/dining room looked out a huge window that almost perfectly framed a mountain. The weather for the week was clear and cold; perfect. We did a couple of ice hikes, snowshoeing, and a helicopter tour through the Rockies. Photos to come. :) Unfortunately the honeymoon had to end so we headed home to continue our pretty busy life.
Honeymoon = Awesome
Waleah and I have had a bunch of firsts since we have met. The Marathon, learning to curl, buying a home, Waleah's first roller coaster and trip to Disneyland and since we have been married we have already; gone on our first helicopter ride, our first curling bonspiel and scuba diving.
Once we got back from the honeymoon, Waleah started instructing the half/full marathon walking clinic for the running room, we entered our first bonspiel with Janet and Martin (friends from our friday night curling league) in which I skipped for the first time (and we won 2 games!), and we have started our scuba diving lessons (which finish tomorrow), so as you can see life is busy!
Married Life = Awesome (and did I say busy?)
Gotta go, updates will come more regularly (we promise), our first fundraiser of the year is scheduled for April 28&29th which will be the 2nd Annual Boardgaming for Diabetes weekend.
Thanks for continuing to check in with us,
Mike & Waleah

Only 2 more to go.....

Tonight was the rehearsal & dinner and gifts to our bridal party. A busy and fun night. Was good to have everyone together and getting pumped for the big day. Yesterday I took some time out of wedding preparations and spent a relaxing day with my mom at the Fairmont Airport Spa and then a really yummy dinner at the Fairmont's dinning room "Global @ YVR". Great meal and a great visit with mom. This morning was busy greeting some of our out of towners and a quick breakfast with Auntie Leona, Janet, Brian & Monique. Also got to see my step-sister, Lori at the airport and get a few hugs. Rest of the day was running around, phone calls a dozen and working on wedding favours. Tomorrow will be another busy and full day and my girls will be over late in the day to work on the flowers (centre pieces, bouquets, boutinieres & coursages). Hopefully they turn out!!

Well it's time for bed as it's a full day ahead and then it will be one more sleep till a really full day!! The day I marry by best friend and soul mate. I can't wait!

Waleah

5 more sleeps till we say "I Do"

A really quick post for today. It's been a week since I last put one on here.

Only 5 more sleeps till we are wed. The weekend was busy with last minute preparations and little details. I have a few things to take care of this week but everything is falling into place quite nicely.

We are both very excited about our big day. We are looking forward to sharing it with our family & friends and having a big celebration with them. Should be fun. And I think the day is supposed to be sunny & cloudy and hopefully not too cold.

We will post another entry when we are back from our honeymoon in Canmore, Alberta where we hope to ski/snow board & snowshoe, relax and spend quality time together. We'll also be sure to post some of our photos for you to see once we are back and settled into our routine.

Have a great week and send sunny thoughts our way for Saturday, please!

Waleah