Tag Archives: fun

I’m a Marythoner

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This year I’ve decided to kick my running up a notch by raising cash for the Mount St. Mary’s Hospital foundation. I’m running on the “Marythoners” team for the 8k division of the Victoria Marathon Oct 10.

As you know I run for my health and fitness (although running marathons goes way beyond just keeping healthy, but that’s a topic for another day), but I don’t want it to be all about me. One of my run leaders, Mandy, works at the Mount St. Mary’s foundation and she is passionate about her work and about Mount St. Mary’s.

I know your donation will stay right here in Victoria providing long term care for those who need it most. It will also help me take my running outside myself and into helping my community – that way we all benefit!

Please take a moment right now to pledge me online, then come out and cheer on the Marythoners!

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Coming clean

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{I made this post sticky for a couple of days because it is featured in Schmutzie’s Five Star Friday for May 7}

I lay sobbing in my bath tonight. I had just returned home from a business trip, running on fumes and three hours’ sleep. I was soooo looking forward to soaking in a hot bath and crawling into an early bed.
Instead my bath was — lukewarm.
I’m a longtime advice column junkie (don’t ask, it’s a guilty pleasure), so it occurred to me I should communicate my wants and needs better. So I just came out with my feelings, sobbing and everything. Here is the gist of our somewhat one-sided conversation:

Oh bathtub you were lukewarm! Why?

I don’t really ask anything of you. I like you just the way you are: our relationship is just perfect. I see you once a week – maybe once every two or three weeks if I’m really busy. I just want a special bath once in a while: just me and my bathtub and that special time we share.

Bathing is something very intimate and special for me – I can tell it is for both of us, dear bathtub – but the thing is, I realize now that I’m developing feelings for you. I can’t handle the casualness of this relationship.

It’s not that I want anything to really change mind you. I don’t really want to bathe more often, or visit the factory where you were made, or delve into the history of who you cleaned before I came along.

It’s just that I’ve realized that, having gone this far, if I found out you were cleansing someone else, some stranger, I would be really hurt. Then where would we be? I have to live – and work – in this apartment with you!

I would want to scrub you with bleach to within an inch of your life before I could stand going near you again. Our relationship would never be the same, and we could never go back to that easy casual shower routine we had before the bathing thing came along.

I know, I know, I’m gone to Vancouver a lot, and I sometimes must stay in a hotel with another bathtub. Quite frankly, since you came along I don’t bathe in those other tubs – I only shower.

Even though I’m not ready for anything approaching real commitment – I must admit I really do want another bathtub all my own someday. I’ve been renting for a while now since selling my last condo, and I don’t want to remain a renter forever. When that day comes – I have no idea yet whether you will be The One I take out a mortgage with. Maybe I’ll want a deeper, longer tub, with jacuzzi jets. Who knows? Anything could happen, but we’ve shared some really nice hot baths up until now and I gotta admit you’re on my mind a lot.

Dear bathtub – it’s not like I want to pick out a new shower curtain with you or anything. I just want to know if maybe you are perhaps thinking the same thing: that our relationship is fine the way it is, and neither of use will go screwing up any future considerations by indiscriminately bathing elsewhere?

I would like to know if you consider me a candidate – in the future – down the road – as a possible One and Only bathing beauty.

If not, then maybe we could go back to our friendly day-to-day showers, before it’s too late and one of us (i.e. me) gets left in the cold.

Roman Bath photo by MarkHillary

Rubber Duckie photo by meg@n!!

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Sport sponsorship for the rest of us?

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Here’s an idea – please tell me if it’s been done before: why don’t more sports companies sponsor individual run-of-the-mill non-elite average athletes?

I don’t mean picking someone with talent and paying them to do their sport full-time, with a phalanx of coaches, physiotherapists and sport psychologists.

I mean picking somebody who is passionate and committed – but otherwise ordinary – and providing them with more resources to achieve their goals in return for some participation in a marketing campaign.

For instance: a completely average weekend warrior, consistent 10a or 10b climber with a job and a mortgage and maybe a coupla kids – gets a rope and some pieces of pro and some shoes and a new harness and the marketing campaign (including broadcast, print, social and earned media) follows them on their way to their objective for the year – whether it’s sending a 10c lead in Joshua Tree or a multi-day technical scramble in the Rockies.

Another example: a mid- or back-of-the-pack runner gets shoes, gear, entry fees, clinics paid for the duration of the contract in return for their story and for the occasional shill for the manufacturer.

This would be different from your run-of-the-mill “send us your story and we’ll draw from a hat” contest – it would be a complete sponsorship with pretty much all that entails – contracts and all. Not that I really know all that sponsorship of this type entails, I’m just blue-skying here.

The selling hook is not that these athletes will ever be able to set a world record at the Kona Ironman, or bag a first ascent of and epic climb – or even that they would qualify for Boston Marathon. The selling proposition is the sport equivalent of the Joe-the-Plumber phenomenon without the politics.

The selling hook is – these people are you and I. They have family and jobs and set modest (to some) stretch goals. They get blisters and they give up parties on nights before long runs and they sometimes leave their families to train, then are too tired to haul out the BBQ when they get home. They know they’ll never be Lynn Hill or Lori Bowden (and I’m not for a moment suggesting sports companies should not sponsor these athletes!) – but they are inspiring nevertheless.

The little guys can sell sports gear too you know.

04.12.09

Photo by zingersb

And just in case anyone at Mammut, FiveTen, Sugoi, New Balance, Patagonia, Mountain Hard Wear, Kelty, or Lululemon is really interested in this idea, I’m – er – available – ahem! Just email me here.

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Best. Run. Ever.

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Shadow Runners

Originally uploaded by thelastminute

Good Friday 2009 – on the training schedule was a 2:10 run including a 45-minute pickup at race pace. Because of my not-quite-healed foot injury, I decided to take it slow with no pick-ups, just 20 kms of running easy.

Everyone else in our running group had the same idea; so we set off from Frontrunners on the clear morning to run the Galloping Goose Trail for an hour and five minutes, and then turn back.

With the pressure of speed off, the good weather, the right fuel and hydration, we all relaxed into the run. It was 2 hours of talking, laughing, sharing stories – it was perfect. Everyone had a good run – even slightly hung over C., who is young and resilient and thus can fake it really well.

I’ve never felt so good on a run that long! My foot felt fine (besides the blisters, of which I’ve already written), my SI joint was perfectly OK (that would be my ass/tailbone radiating down my left leg for those who don’t know), I did not start getting tight after an hour and a half like I usually do.

At breakfast afterwards – at Floyd’s in downtown Victoria the camaraderie continued. If you’re REALLY hungry but can stand in line for a few minutes – that’s the place you want to be – plates are HUGE. I had the “lumberjack” which includes every breakfast food imaginable: pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, and hashbrowns. I had fruit instead of hashbrowns.

I’ve decided to get a fabric-paint pen and have all my new running buddies sign my Frontrunner’s shirt.

Even if for some reason I couldn’t run the race on May 3, I will know I’ve reached my true running goal already.

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