Running into new territory...

Tomorrow will be the longest run I have done thus far in my life! Up until now the longest distance I have run is 21.1km, also known as the half marathon.

I have a 23km (14-and-a-bit miles) training run in the morning and am super-psyched about it. I'm pretty sure that if you'd told me last year that I'd say that now I would have laughed my head off. Really, when I started running last year just getting up to "run 10 minutes/walk 1 minute" was a pipe-dream.

It's going to be a fairly easy route - just straight, rolling hills for the most part - and the online weather powers-that-be tell me it will be a beautiful, sunny, 24° C (75° F). The only hard part about it is that we're taking M with us, but we're planning on switching off half way through as long as I pass by Colin's faster pace group at the right time; otherwise, I'm pushing the whole way.

What's on your agenda for this weekend?

REGISTERED!

In 80 days, I will be the recipient of this medal!

I'm choosing to ignore that it kind of looks like a belt buckle.

Neurosis of a SAHM of 3 Virtual "Half & Half" Race/Run Pictorial Recap

Seeing as it's my 7th anniversary today and we got home from vacation after midnight last night this will be a pictures mostly recap! I'll come back and add words in a couple of days.

21.1km - Long Beach, Pacific Rim National Park, Tofino, British Columbia

We decided not to run on the road...

...the emergency lanes were between 1 and 2 feet wide...

... and we didn't particularly want to meet up

with a tourist driven motor-home

(you don't need lessons to drive one)!

So optimistic at the start.

Can you see the turn around at 10km?

Neither could we (this shows up to about 3km).

This "river" was a good 4 inches deep in the middle

and that was the shallowest part we could find.

We spent about 20 minutes (off the clock) looking.

And, yes, I got soaked both on the way and back -

the second time was above my shoe...

Climbed some rocks (those little fogged in ones on my left),

but thankfully found a path on the way back.

10km turnaround shot!

There are no "after" shots as we were too tired and way behind schedule!

Final run time: 2:39:00

(7:30/km pace - just over my target training pace)

Total run time: +3hrs

Where To Run, Where To Run...?

We're off to Tofino, British Columbia this weekend for vacation! Yay! I've been doing this with my family for the last 18 years - Colin joined in once we got married and now M comes too. It's a week of doing nothing but eat, read, walk on the beach, sleep and, now, run.

I have a dilemma. We need to do 2 long runs while we are there and I can't decide where we should run them.

Do we run on the beach?

Typical foggy weather

I haven't run on hard-packed sand before, but Long Beach in Pacific Rim National Park is the perfect length for our second run (19km + 2.1 to make up the distance for the virtual run I'm participating in).

Or do we run on the pedestrian path/road?

That's not me above - it's actually a shot from the Edge to Edge Marathon (next year's dream race if I want to do it again after October) - but I might be running like her this weekend. If we decide to run on the pavement for 16km we'll run out of bike path so road it will be.

I have a feeling we'll do one of each, but what do you think?

Official Race Photos

Here are our official photos* from last weekend's half marathon! These two are our favourites.

These are the rest of the shots. As you can see, Colin was better able to get in front of a photographer! I'll have to work on that next time... I always seemed to be one step too close.

Colin thinks that he looks like a bodyguard for the guy in red... very reminiscent of the Olympic torch relay...

* photos were taken by Action Sports International.