Best Wishes for our Wooo Hooo friend

Today is the first day of chemo for one of the Wooo Hooo's. Our Nancy has Lupus and this disease of a thousand faces has struck again.

Four years ago we almost lost Nancy to Lupus when it decided to turn her ordinary cold into a nightmare. Within hours she was unable to breath and was rushed to the hospital where an emergency tracheotomy was performed. It was during this time in hospital that the doctor's discovered that Lupus was also attacking her kidney's.

Previous medications were just not keeping up with the way Lupus was affecting her system and Lupus found a way around the medications being prescribed.

So today a more aggressive drug will be introduced to try to keep this horrible disease at bay for a long, long time.

Nancy, we are all thinking of you! We love you girlfriend, there are many, many prayers being sent your way....you WILL complete your half marathon in May and we ARE going to party it up on the Rideau Lakes Bike Tour in June!

Life's fun if you don't weaken,

Lily

Canada Army Run debriefing...

For being an inaugural race, it was fantastic!

Knowing there would be a crush of people, we arrived at the Armories very early on Saturday morning to pick up our race kits.

Although the "swag bag" was sparse, it was okay because it really wasn't about that, this race was for the families of the men and women serving in our armed forces and the injured and disabled military personnel. The technical shirt is awesome....

I was disappointed that red technical shirts were not available to purchase at the expo, in my brain I had fully expected some sort of red shirt with "Support our Troops" on the back of it. So, me being me, wrote to the founder of the Running Room with my sentiment and believe it or not, I received an email back from John Stanton within the hour! Even after he had been announcing the runners coming across the finish for over eleven hours. He is taking my idea to the recap meeting today, Monday, so I'll let you know if I hear anything from that in the future.


Sunday morning the Wooo Hooo's met at my place and we headed downtown to meet up with a couple more by 8 a.m. We were very lucky to be able to congregate indoors at Ottawa's City Hall, it was pretty cool out in the early morning. We stationed ourselves near the doors to see the happenings outside at Confederation Square, yet near enough to the washrooms...

The cannon went off at exactly 09:00 and off we went! I actually ran into the fellow I met at the Ottawa Marathon in May...during that race we stuck together for the last 5 or 6 Km's and it was nice to start off with him for this race!

As always the Wooo Hooo's start off the race together, but run our own races and meet up at the end. Jen and I stuck together at a nice even pace throughout the race. It was a little slower than what I had originally thought about doing, but since I have the Half in Toronto on Sunday I didn't want to leave a lung in Ottawa!


There were so many people we know out running it was awesome. Blogger Nat from See Nat Run had emailed me her bib number earlier in the week so I was on the lookout for her, even though we had never met before! Unbelievably, as we were running a loop portion of the race I ran up behind a woman and for some reason, I turned and checked out her bib number, it was Nat...I looked at her and said Nat? She was plugged into her music so I leaned into her face and yelled NAT! Thank god it was her otherwise I would have been charged I'm sure!!! How great is that to meet a fellow Blogger. I even had the pleasure to meet "the Man" and "the Boy" in the recovery area....it's a fantastic feeling! The world just keeps getting smaller!

The weather was perfect, a little overcast, cool and pleasant. Later in the run the sun came out and a breeze picked up...it was the perfect fall day!

Downtown Ottawa is always busy along the canal, it is truly an "outdoor city" no matter what the weather. Yesterday was no exception. I could not believe the numbers that were out to support and cheer on the runners! There were people walking, strolling with dogs and kids in tow, there were roller bladers, cyclists (I looked for you Sprocketboy), other runners and there was even a bi-plane cruising along following the crowd for a little while.

The race itself was broken into four events, 5K disabled run, 5K, Half Marathon disabled run, Half Marathon. Trust me there is NOTHING disabled about any of our injured war veterans, they are just so inspirational to be out there running with the rest of us. True courage, strong hearts and self determination, amazing. Thank you for the sacrifice's you have made to keep our country strong and free!!!

I could go on and on, but truly this was one of the best races I've done to date and I'm really looking forward to the Canada Army Run 2009.

What a great way to spend an amazing fall day!

Next week, Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon....look out, I feel a party coming on!

Life's fun if you don't weaken,

Lily

Gone to Utica!

Three More Sleeps!

Utica Boilermaker in three more sleeps. I wasn't getting too inspired until this morning when:

• an excerpt from Jeff Galloway’s Marathon You Can Do It! (Shelter Publications, 2002), hit me in the face.


• last years pictures, I went through them in a slide show ~ too cool.


• there are only three more sleeps!!

Unbeknown to me, I was still suffering from post race let down!!

Who'd have thunk it!! It's been six weeks since the marathon and I've been running as a pace person for a Half Marathon clinic, but I have to admit, I was going through the motions and not "feeling the love". The feeling I was experiencing is exactly what was described in Jeff Galloway's excerpt I was reading...whew, I'm NORMAL, well, as normal as I get!

The pictures from last year are great and even though some of the Wooo Hooo's aren't going to be with us this year due to other commitments....we will be thinking of them, especially during the race.

Who could forget....

The Sports Expo....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the port-a-potties

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

having lunch at Elwood's....

(which unfortunately burned down in December)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE HILL.....

and








~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

the PARTY at the end!

Okay, now I'm getting excited!

Three more sleeps....

Life's fun if you don't weaken,
Lily

ps, I intentionally left out some exciting photo's of the race so I wouldn't spoil it for any Utica newbies!!!

Reality Bites....

After great angst, I finally had to make myself sit down and re-cap the year so far, concerning my running expenses.

1. January ~ Phoenix ~ for the weekend!!


2. February ~ start marathon training : more winter running clothes, ran through three pair of Saucony's, not to mention gels, bars, groceries (yes, I gained weight, oink) and sports drinks.


3. March ~ Trip to Hamilton for the 30K Around the Bay.


4. April ~ Chiropractor visits and massage therapy....


5. May ~ more chiropractor visits and new running clothes for warmer weather. Oh yes, another pair of Saucony's.

Would you care for a little cheese with that whine Lily...????

So, here we are in June and I want to start training for my first Try-a-Tri. Well, this is where reality fits in, dang, I really hate reality....because I bring it upon myself....

1. July ~ Utica 15K Boilermaker, wooo hooo!


2. September ~ The first ever, Army Run Half Marathon.
   
3. September ~ Toronto Half Marathon, meeting up with Vickie and Tiger!

So, the Tri ~ It's not going to happen this year!

1. Don't have a proper bike, need to get one,
2. Get a bathing suit, goggles, cap etc....
3. Entry fees,
4. Getting a bike rack to get me there,
5. More groceries, hahahaha
6. Kaching....!!!!

However, being the proactive type of person I am....I'm bringing the mountain to Mohamed!!

Yes, we are going to have the Very First Ever Duathlon with the Woooo Hoooo Girl Friends in August at my place with our Mountain Bikes!


We might even throw in a swim which would in fact turn it into a Tri! How great is that?

I feel a party coming on!

Nothing better than the Wooo Hooo's, running, biking, swimming and a Pot Luck Barbecue afterwards!

I love summer!

Life's fun if you don't weaken!

Lily

Wild Weather, Wild Weekend and even Wilder Friends!

Don't know what the heck is going on with the weather this past week, but we have been having Wicked Thunderstorms! Yesterday afternoon we had one heck of a storm that lasted for hours, houses were hit and destroyed, trees branches were down and we even had power outages.

Monday afternoon was no exception, so I'm trying to post this early Tuesday morning...hey, where did my coffee go?

Luckily we had planned for our girls day on Saturday even though the weather forecast was calling for rain. We were so lucky, nary a rain drop fell. We even had hazy sun for most of the afternoon.

Once we unpacked all the food and beverages, raspberry vodka and pineapple juice was poured, we headed for the dock and some rays.

Glenda, Nancy, Barb and Anne

Our little group of friends have been through it all, as life goes. Happiness, sadness, loss of friends, family members and jobs, health issues, elderly parents, but through it all we have had much laughter, actually, laughter until we've cried. We have shared many experiences, travels, training and races but most of all we have made fabulous memories together.

We were missing one of our Wooo Hooo friends, Brenda, due to an emergency appendectomy earlier in the week! We missed you Brenda....get better soon!

Because of our busy schedules with family, jobs and training for events, we try to get together to just chill'x a couple of times a year, this being one of them. It's always pot luck and everyone converges with some sort of cocktail recipe to boot.

Normally the food venue is very organised and this causes us to bring the same sort of salad time after time. However, this time I said, well if we all bring Caesar salad so be it. In my subliminal mind this would make us to come up with something quite different.

It worked!! We had an amazing assortment of different salads and snacks, along with an assortment of meat for the barbecue. (Although we did forget about dessert, sorry Barb).

Some of us, who shall remain nameless were adventurous enough to go swimming! The water was beautiful, cool and refreshing!

After our swim and much laughter we headed back up to the house to try out Anne's new Martini recipe!

Cheers!!!

Nancy, Anne, Glenda, guess who and Jen

It was one of those days were we all just kicked backed, laughed, told stories of past races and shared fears and hopes for up coming events. They were even trying to talk me into an Olympic distance instead of a Try-a-Tri, girls, give it up, I don't have a proper bike for that!!!

The day flew by, what with the stories, a few more and various cocktails, we headed back up to the deck to fire up the barbecue. Chicken marinated in a fantastic sauce, salmon with peppercorns and onion, potatoes and of course a wonderful selection of salads.

We were so lucky with the weather, it was warm and pleasant and we had no bugs! Our meal was out on the deck over looking the water, WOW!!

Our day concluded with a final visit to the dock to watch the sunset, while the fishermen were out in their boats for the last catch of the day.

End of the day on the dock, we left a space between Glenda and I for Brenda,

Nancy and Anne with Minnie

It was one of those "you had to be there" days, hard to explain but we had a GREAT time.

Thanks everyone, you are truly the best friends I could have ever met.

June Sunset

Life's fun if you don't weaken,

Lily

p.s. My personal favourite cocktail of the day was one I stole from Carly

Recipe for Beer Margaritas (oh, let's think up a name for this)

1 Cup Tequila

4 Beers

1 Can of limeade

lots of ice!!

Mix and serve cold.

thanks Carly!!

Woooo Hoooo Saturday!

Due to the extreme weather system that went through our area yesterday I could not post about our Saturday get together. Pictures and stories to follow later today!!

Woooo Hoooo

Life's fun if you don't weaken,

Lily