Let it rain, let it rain.....

Well okay, I really only mean that figuratively. (more like Donations and Prizes for our Fundraisers---I'd like to see those keep raining on in!).

Training is going fairly well. We've even had some rain free sessions. Mike's back is holding up really well. We are both really happy about that and to Mike's surprise the other day he turns to me while we are working on a 3 min run and 1 min walk interval, and says "you know, I'm actually really starting to enjoy this!" I was thrilled to hear him say it! He's a big sports guy who has always run for a purpose...you know...to reach someone to tackle them, get ball to the goal line, round the bases to score a run; or out the back field to catch a pop fly and get someone out....not to run for distance and a good cause. In my experience most sports athletes tend to only like running if it's on a field chasing a ball! I think the fact that we are doing this together is helping Mike to enjoy it. I'm certainly enjoying having him by my side while we train and work our way up. Some days it's more of a challenge for me than others (physically), depending on how my body is doing adapting to the pounding of running again. I'm still struggling with the foot apparel, but pressing on. This week we decided to skip the "easy recovery" week on our program and press forward to the following week (to try to catch up a bit). It is the same running time but our walk(rest) time is getting shorter. We were both pleased with how well we did on Monday nights training. We did 9 intervals of 3 min/1 min (run/walk). The first 3 intervals seemed to be a challenge but then as we got going the last 6 went well and I think we both felt we could do a couple more. This is good progress. Running together helps us keep that good easy pace that we can keep talking. Nice way to catch up on the day's activities

Next week we jumpt to 5/1 splits, and hopefully that will go the same as this week...get easier as we go along. Sunday I had a bit of a set back and we had to postpone our training to Monday...my legs and feet were a little cranky. Monday I felt more up to the training. I appreciated Mike's ability to roll with it and be so open to us just switching the days we trained this week. I get frustrated when I can't do what I set out to do. By the end of Monday evening's training I was feeling stronger and my recovery time for the muscles was good.

Tomorrow night we train after work and then home to eat, and then as a reward we are off to Boone County to watch our friend Marco sing in a country singing contest....Country Idol, here he comes.

Boardgaming For Diabetes weekend May 13th & 14th

Drexoll Games has graciously donated a copy of The 10th Anniversary Settlers of Catan 3-D Special Edition Treasure Chest Set (yes it's a long name but, what a beautiful looking game). Some lucky gamer will be walking away with this the weekend of May 13 & 14th. Yes, there will be other prizes for the not so lucky :)

What:
Settlers of Catan Tournament.
Ticket to Ride Tournament.
Ingenious Tournament.
Open Gaming all weekend, try a new game!
Scheduled times for games available (never have enough players and time for your favourite 7-8 player game, now you do!)
Tournament and Door Prizes.
50/50 Draw.

When: Saturday May 13th 10am to Midnight
Sunday May 14th 10am to 6:00pm

Where: Marpole Curling Club
8730 Heather Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada
V6P 3S8

How Much? Pre-Register by April 30th
$25 for the weekend
$40 Couples

After May 1
$30 Weekend
$50 Couples
$15 Single Day

We hope to see you there, if you've never played or even heard of these games come on out, they are easy to learn and great fun! If you are from out of town (or want a weekend away from home), you can stay at the Coast Vancouver Airport Hotel Rate: $69 per night (plus taxes) for up to four in a room, the Hotel is a 5 minute walk from the curling club.

To Register e-mail
mjblais@gmail.com

Lesson Learned

It gets even harder to keep your balance while curling after you've done a run a couple hours earlier.
'nuff said

New Shoes...

I consider myself pretty lucky. I haven't ever really run and I was able to pick out a pair of shoes that fit me pretty well and that I am happy with off the bat. Waleah didn't have so much luck this time. Her new shoes were causing a lot of pain last night so training was cut short during our warm up. It didn't click in to either of us that she should have brought her old shoes in case. So we brought our gear tonight for an afterwork run with her old shoes.
We also picked up a new toy this week, we purchased the Forerunner GPS from the running room, it's pretty cool since it gives us our interval times automatically and tracks our distance for the run. I can't wait to play around with it some more and see what else it can do.

I'm a little worried, the on-line training begins April 28th and we need to have a base run of 10k by that time. I trust Waleah when she says that won't be a problem by then, our first test will be the Vancouver Sun Run in 8 weeks, it makes it easier to train for something only a couple months away, August is still a loooong ways away.

Back at it....

We've been a little lax on the training after our vacation.
We've decided to start our training using the Vancouver Sun Run training as a base.
Today ended up being just over 5 kilometers mixing 2 minutes walking and 2 running. I'm a little suprised at how easy it was since it has been over a year since I've been in any sort of running shape and I've never been a runner (I've always done my fitness from team sports..football, hockey etc.)
I'm very glad to have Waleah as a training partner since she's been through training for a marathon and she can keep me paced so I don't die within 5 minutes of starting our run. It had made running that much more enjoyable to have someone with experience to reign me in.

Our current fundraising total is at $2847! A lot of money but we still have a long ways to go ($9153!).

My dad is currently organizing a Golf/Texas Hold'em Tournament in the spring. Stay tuned for more info.

Let the Fun and Hard Work begin....

Well, tomorrow my cast comes off and I'll be able to start sending out my emails/letters to all I know to start asking for your support and help in Mike & I reaching our goals. Already we have started to raise funds towards our goals and everyone who we have spoken to so far, have been very supportive. We really appreciate that. We started to do the walk to run program to get slowly going and that was going well till we went on vacation. Where we skipped the walk/runs due to heat and vacation....however, we are confident that we probably walked 42km on vacation if not close to it! (we did the Living Desert in Palm Desert, and Disneyland and California Adventure Park for the last part of our vacation). I think my legs have just recovered from all the walking. What a great trip though. I think Sunday we will be back on schedule for our training sessions. Looking forward to it. Keep checking back as we keep you posted on how our training is going; more info about the gaming weekend and how we are making out reaching our financial goals for the CDA. We are both getting close to the first fincial goal set out for us for Mid March, but still have a long way to go. We'll keep building up to running slowly and steadily over the next month and a half and then Mid April the really hard physical work will start as our distances get longer in preparation for Augst's big event. Stay tuned......

May 13th & 14th

We have booked the venue for our first fundraiser.
On May 13th and 14th we have rented out the Marpole Curling Club and will be having a weekend of Boardgaming. The weekend will have a Settlers of Catan and a Ticket to Ride tournament. There will be a 3rd main one but the game is still TBD, alongside the main tournaments there will be smaller side ones and open gaming. More information will be coming as the plans all come together.