Saturday, June 25, 2011

Anyone Curious About My Injury Status?

I haven't really addressed the subject of running lately and that is because I didn't want to jump the gun and jinx myself. After nearly 2.5 months of cross training, followed by 1 month of absolutely no workouts (well, I cheated and did about 2 weeks of nothing and then 2 weeks of hikes), I began to trial running again. I think my first run back was 6 weeks ago for a total of 15 minutes and was the most painful thing ever. I was disappointed and frustrated, so I emailed my doctor to let him know.... that was back on May 13th. I only JUST heard back from this doctor yesterday (June 24th). Wow, and people wonder why I say doctors suck. 

The doc basically wanted to know how it was going and whether I had heard anything from St.Paul's hospital yet with regards to my 2nd MRI and Ultrasound. I debated not even answering him as I was less than impressed with his lack of response for 5 weeks; however, I responded and gave him a brief rundown and told him I had not heard a word from the hospital yet. He responded quite quick saying that he would email the hospital. I left it at that. 

Back to running. I started back 6 weeks ago on May 13th. I completed a week of 15 minute runs, also supplemented with elliptical. Let's just say 4 weeks off of no real workouts or cardio makes for a really unfit me! 30 minutes of elliptical nearly killed me. It was hard to believe I would be on the machine for much longer than that! But day by day it got easier and easier. 

The second week I moved up to 20 minute runs. Things felt okay, but not perfect. It was nice to run again, but I felt like death. 20 minutes never felt so hard. I moved up to 30 minutes and then 40 minutes. My long run each week is now at 60 minutes starting this week. Even though I am running, I must say that I am not completely healthy. My injury is still somewhat there; however, it is MUCH better than it was before this whole ordeal. I get aches here and there, but no major pains. I don't have a lot of substance to my training yet. My actual workouts are still done by cross training (bike lately) so its just a lot of easy and steady running. I will take it for now. 

Races have gone by and it is really hard to sit by and watch. I am happy for all my friends who are running new PB's and I find it very motivating; however, that small part of me is jealous and itchy to get out there and race. I should clear up that I am not jealous of their performance, but more so jealous that they are out competing and challenging themselves, while I sit back and watch. I know I will be back though and am using all the spectacular race results to fuel my motivation, so thank you very much to all you healthy racers as you are playing a part in my recovery as well! 

So where do I go from here? Well I continue to take it day by day. I have no idea what a few weeks from now will hold, but I hope to continue building on where I am now. I hope to continue running and to have the aches go away. I monitor myself and adjust my runs as needed. If I hear from St.Paul's I still plan to have the MRI and Ultrasound. Why you might ask, considering I am running again? Well the way I see it is that maybe the next set of tests will reveal either the injury itself or some healing for the injury. Maybe it will shed light as to what exactly happened and what I was dealing with. I still have no idea. People ask all the time "what was your injury" and my answer is "I still have no idea, no one could tell me, no test has reveal answers yet." 

Will I get an answer? I would like to hope so, but if I can get back to training and racing like before without any of these issues, I will take that over getting an answer. I just want to race. I don't want to get left behind, I want to be up there with all my competitors and friends celebrating our successes! In the meantime...... I must be patient. The biggest lesson of this whole injury. I used to stress over the little things and I have learned how insignificant those "issues" were. Patience is the key. Trust your training and go with it. So I will continue to be patient. Good luck to everyone in their upcoming races! I may be envious that you are out there racing, but I am still cheering like crazy for you all!

Monday, June 20, 2011

Game 7

Oh man.... the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs were insane!! All season long I had said that Vancouver was going to be in the finals. Let's just say that I live with my bf who ALWAYS cheers for the other team. It doesn't matter who Vancouver is playing, he will cheer for the other team as he gets annoyed that everyone thinks that Vancouver is the best. He also does it to annoy me as he knows it works! This creates an interesting atmosphere throughout the season and even more so during the playoffs. 

Before the playoffs started, I told him that I was going to buy playoff tickets. He responded by telling me that I could not get tickets because it was a waste of money and that Vancouver would be out in Round 1 or 2 max. I said fine and told him that I will just wait and buy tickets when they get to the finals then. He agreed as he was 100% sure that Vancouver would not make it that far. Little did he know.

So Round 1 began with Vancouver vs Chicago. This was the team that ousted Vancouver in Game 6 Round 2 for the last 2 years. They were our nemesis. I hated Chicago and Toews. The Canucks NEVER take the easy route, so I was not surprised when we were up in the series and then lost a few games 5-0 and 7-2. Try being in a house with someone who downloaded the Chicago goal song and played it each time Chicago scored. Yes, those 5-0 games were NOT fun in this house. But we made it by Chicago in OT of Game 7! THAT game was our Stanley Cup final!

Onto Round 2, which was boring compared to Round 1. This time we took on Nashville. Again, Canucks didn't make things easy and gave fans a few heart attacks, but took the series in Game 6. No goal songs downloaded this time. 


Round 3, which put me against Miss Molly! It was a good series, though I am surprised the Canucks got through this one in 5 games. I had been rooting for San Jose just for Molly up until this point, but once our teams faced one another, I was all Canucks. 

Round 4, Stanley Cup Finals vs Boston. We had not been to the cup finals since 1994 when we faced the New York Rangers. I wasn't really a hockey fan back then so I do not remember a whole lot about it. I do remember that I was in Grade 7 and was 12 years old. All I remember is that game 7 took place on the day of our grade 7 graduation BBQ at a local park. I remember that all the parents and teachers brought generators and tv's so that they could follow the game as us kids were running around the park and swimming in the pool. The Canucks lost this game and Vancouver rioted. 


That brings us to this year. The Canucks started out well and took the first 2 home games. Then things turned ugly in Boston and we lost 2 horrible games. I was so close to buying Game 5 tickets; however, my coworker wouldn't confirm that she would go in on tickets with me until it was too late. Right when she confirmed, the guy was meeting someone else who wanted to buy them. She says I should have bought them anyways, but I found that too risky as I didn't want to be stuck with tickets if I couldn't find someone to take them! I was kicking myself later though as Game 5 was a sweet game!

Then after the sweet game which left the series 3-2 Canucks, we went back to Boston and lost horribly again to make it 3-3. That brought the series home for Game 7 (last time it was in New York). I told myself that I was going to Vancouver no matter what and would attempt to get tickets. So that is what I did. Last Wed June 15th, I headed over to Vancouver on the 10:15 ferry and was in for an interesting experience. 


Bring it on!!!

Helicopter at the Lighthouse. Love that the one guy on the left is wearing his Canuck jersey!

Change of water colours! 
Looking back towards Nanaimo.
 
 Go Canucks Go!

When the ferry arrived, we all rushed out to the buses and climbed on. Then we had to wait over 45 minutes for the Victoria ferry to arrive. What a waste of time; however, the other people on the bus were pretty amusing considering they were already drunk (this was at about 12:30pm). 


I arrived downtown and got off the skytrain just as I heard a lot of honking. Turns out some of the Canucks were driving by! Thank goodness they got stuck in traffic so I had time to pull out my camera! 


Wicked!

Wanna pose with the Sedin's?!

GM Pla... ahem I mean Rogers Arena!
 


Lou!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A quick nod to fans as he drove by with his coffee

Boo Bruins!!! ahaha. They got a lot of boo's when they walked by but they were the better team on the night so congrats Boston.


Another Canuck, but the windows were too tinted for me to see who! 

Enough said!

DJ's getting the crowd excited! 

Fin with his playoff beard!

So after I arrived at the arena, I walked around and took some photos and waited for a guy named Randy to show up. We were going to attempt to find tickets together. In the end, it didn't work out. Scalpers wouldn't drop their prices fast enough because too many people were milling about waiting for them to do so. In the end, the lowest I heard any tickets go for was $1400 and that was for the upper levels. That was also after the 1st period when it was 1-0 Bruins. 

After the 1st period, Randy went and met up with his friends and I headed back up to find the big screens to check it out. At that point, I was getting tired from standing all day and my back and feet hurt, but I didn't want to leave without seeing how the game would progress. It didn't look good considering the team that scored first in each game all series, won that game. So since it was 1-0 Bruins, as much as I hoped Canucks would come back, it didn't look good.  

BC Place construction to make a retractable roof

Mobs!

Dummies

More idiots

Top of the Canada Post building. This is where the first car was burnt later in the evening.

Choppers keeping an eye on everything.

Cops on the top of the Canada Post building videotaping the crowd

I went down and planted myself in the middle of the crowd outside the Canada post building. There were 2 screens that I could see from this location. Here is one.

There is the other. I didn't last long here. The smoke (cigarette and pot) plus all the dummies around me got on my nerves, so I went back and planted myself near the back for a bit. 

People watching wherever they could (this was near the back of the crowd)


At this point it was the end of the 2nd period and it was 3-0. I had a feeling that this was going to turn bad, not to mention I was tired, sore and hungry, so I decided to head out of downtown and find the Whole Foods Grocery store. I had always wanted to go there as we do not have one on the island (yes I am weird). I was in the grocery store when the game ended 4-0 and the Boston Bruins won the 2011 Stanley Cup. 

I got back on the skytrain to take me to the bus for the ferry. At that point I started getting BBM's and text messages asking if I was still downtown and that people hoped I wasn't. It was then, I learned that people had started burning cars. That turned into a full blown riot by a few 1000 idiots. Why the heck would you ruin your own city you morons? It turns out that the people who started it had planned to riot win or lose. I was embarrassed of these people as the whole world was going to see it and think that Vancouver in whole is sad for rioting over a hockey game. Vancouver is a great city and these freak rioters do NOT speak for the general public and the majority of Canuck fans. Thankfully, due to the millions of photo and video evidence, people are being outed left right and center so hopefully the court system will punish them accordingly. 

While the Canucks lost and even though the riot took place, I am still glad I went over to Vancouver. Let's just hope its not another 17 years before the Canucks make the finals again! 

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

And that's a wrap!!

Over the past few months I have been busy assisting with the local high school track and field team. We had our biggest team yet with a whole bunch of new grade 8 kids. Months of training boiled down to the last few weeks. First came the North Island Championships on April 30th and May 1st in Port Alberni. This was our qualification meet for our grade 8 and 9's. The senior kids (grade 10-12) just had to make an appearance in one event. This was a new rule this year and honestly a stupid one. For instance, our racewalker who is top in BC had a 10km race that weekend in which she was focusing on; however, sine she had to do an event at North Islands, she opted to run a 200m. A waste of her time and energy for sure! Each of our athletes qualified to move on from this meet.

That takes us to May 18th and 19th where we were off to Victoria for the Island Championships. It was a beautiful 2 days, though the wind was a bit chilly at times. We had a lot of awesome performances and in the end I think we had 12 kids qualify for the next and final state, which was the BC Championships. 

So June 3rd and 4th we were over in Burnaby for those championships. We had Brock and Forrest (mens 1500 and 3000), Rebecca (womens 1500 and 3000), Carly (women's 1500, 3000 and 1500 steeple), Katelynn (womens 1500 racewalk), Leigh (womens high jump), Miryam (grade 8-9 800 and 1500), Tkia and Abigail (grade 8-9 1500 and 3000), Abbey (grade 8-9) 400 and 800. Then we also had Casey and April over as part of the grade 8-9 4 x 100m team. Though our team dealt with some sickness and injury prior to the meet, each kid gave their best on the day and that is all I can ask for. I even got to see D (I'll provide her link... not that she EVER blogs) again, even though it was a brief chat as she was busy with meet organization! 


With that, high school track has now ended, though I still continue to help out some of the kids who compete in club or simply just want to continue to train. At least a majority of the meets are done now though, so that will free up some of my own time again. I love helping the kids, but I also like having my weekends free! 


We lose a few kids next year as they are graduating and I will miss those kids as they were pretty awesome; however, hopefully we will pick up some new grade 8's in order to fill the void!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Biggs Park/Jack Point

The last of my hikes was done at Biggs Park/Jack Point. It was a gorgeous day which made the hike perfect. This hike was located not far from home out in Cedar. Specifically, its located right near the Duke Point Ferry Terminal so it gives some gorgeous views of downtown Nanaimo. 

Welcome!

To begin the hike you go through a tunnel that takes you under the highway to the ferry. 
 

I had to take a photo to show how close the ferry terminal actually is

I love self portraits! =)

Looking towards downtown Nanaimo

So the hike itself states its a 5km walk. Not sure if that includes the 1km loop at the end or if that loop is separate! 

Heading along the trail
Big tree! 

Need some info?
 
Some weird statue?

Beautiful boardwalk/stairs along the way


Why not take another photo?

The first part of the walk is kind of noisy due to a mill right across the street. 

Trail gets a bit narrower and less open.


Hello Nanaimo!

The tides have carved out some weird holes in the rocks. This one reminded me of some type of animal!

More photo fun!


Gabriola Ferry from afar!

Sick of the photos yet?

Duke Point Ferry in the background!
 

Yoga anyone? I have only done Yoga about 3 times in my life, so this was me trying to "pose" as someone who knows what they were doing!


More sights


My favorite photo. I just love the colours in it! Turned out well considering I took it with a timer. Me pretending to be a runner while injured. 

I met a friend on the trail on the way back.
 


I was on this hike for a few hours. Very flat trail, not challenging, but I stopped a lot to take photos. In all... I think approximate total hiking time was around 75' but definitely not exact. After I finished my hike... I decided that since 4 weeks of rest finished the following day that I would trial a run. BAD idea. That simple 15 minute run was painful and it made work for the rest of the night painful. 4 weeks off and this run hurt. I sent an email to Dr. Green not long after stating that I had seen no improvements.

**Thank goodness that finishes the hikes. I have more to post, but 3 posts in one night is enough! Stayed tuned for the injury update!