I'm Getting Too Old For This Sh*t

Great line, great movie...

I used to be able to indulge in more than a few drinks, stay up all night, get up early, snowboard all day, then do it all over again. Ah, to be young and stupid. Well, in some ways I suppose I still am...

This weekend, we went out to our place in Fernie, BC for the annual weekend with our friends. It's a great little spot that we're very, very lucky to have, and we're even more lucky to have great friends to come with us! This is the fifth year we've gone with more or less the same crowd-- sometimes we ski/ride, sometimes we do more socializing than snowsports.

Since we would miss our 20km LSD training run, I had every intention of going out on my cross-country skis for a workout. But Saturday looked far too wet from inside the condo. So we watched movies, played cards, caught up, compared iPhone apps, talked about triathlons and how crazy we are for doing them... and drank. The road into town was closed for part of the day, so we didn't even visit the brewery or the waterslides, but we still had a blast. After a great meal, we hit the hot tub, sang some songs, and played Cranium. I was a wreck!

...but based on how much snow was falling all day, I knew Sunday would be epic. Usually the plan is to leave at a reasonable time on Sunday, but I was determined to break out my board first thing. So of course, I had to wax it. At midnight. After *ahem* a few drinks. I was very impressed with myself-- I didn't cut myself as I sharpened the edges, and I didn't burn myself or the board with the iron!

I've never had (and I'm sure I WILL never have) any problems getting up for powder. Because I know that if I just get out there, all the aches, pains, and hangovers will just vanish. Sure enough, this is what I was rewarded with:

Blue skies and powder!!

 I was too worried about dropping my iPhone and never finding it again to take many photos, but trust me, the powder was fantastic. There were a few runs where every other turn was a faceshot (ie the turn kicks up a big cloud of snow that smacks you in the face as you ride through it!)

These were on my favorite run (shh, it's a secret!), on the last run of the day at 1:00. We had to get home, and I was feeling so good at this point, that I thought I'd set up the spin trainer, ride for an hour, then dreadmill for an hour. Well. By the time I got back to the condo to Nicole, packed, and drove for thirty minutes (of a three and a half hour drive), I remembered that I was really hungover, and really tired! Thus the title of this blog.

So I missed the 20k run. And I was really looking forward to it!

Three Things Thursday (or Strawberry Beer is A Great Dessert)

Sometimes it's hard to post without repeating my DW Haute Runner... we do pretty much everything together!

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS COPIOUS FOOD REFERENCES!! IT STARTS WITH POSTRUN PIZZA AND BEER AND ENDS WITH A RESTAURANT  REVIEW...


1. Wednesday Hills - The weather outside was frightful, the fire was so delightful (sorry Keith, like I told you this morning, I'm not Christmas-ed out yet)... but we still went running. Hills, no less. The plan called for 7 repeats, family requested our presence for pizza and beer, and since pizza and beer only help you run faster as a post-run reward, we ran early. As much as I thought postrun pizza and beer would motivate me, the cold my poor layering choices and the lack of competition running buddies made it a tough slog.

2. I  SWAM again today!!! Since getting rear-ended at the beginning of November, I've been in a whiplash-induced swimbattical. I haven't been too happy about that. But I asked Dr. Dan last week, and he said go for it, so I WENT TO THE POOL THIS MORNING! Nothing crazy, just decided to do a bit of a pyramid to build up some mileage: 100m, 200m, 300m, 400m, 500m, cooldown, all nice and easy, about a minute rest in between. The f200m set, or maybe the 300m was actually the most difficult! After that, I worked out enough of yesterday's snow shoveling to get back into my rhythm. And, I got to chat with Keith.

Not us, but we were there!

3. FANTASTIC dinner tonight. In my books, the perfect meal involves great friends, great wine, and great food, bonus if the food is local/ organic/ or both, but fresh and skillfully prepared is a must. Good service (attentive, but not overbearing) is also a bonus. We have some great friends in town from San Francisco, and we went to Farm with them and a mutual friend from here in Calgary. Amazing charcuterie, great cheeses (the owner also owns Calgary's premier fine cheese store) and the menu is an haute-cuisine take on rustic home cooking. Fine ingredients and refined touches to simple, right-sized dishes, everything obviously made in-house, from scratch. After the shared charcuterie selection, I had what could be described as a perfectly-dressed house salad with canola seeds on it (very nice touch), and a braised wild boar shoulder with carmelized cabbage that was perfectly seasoned and melt-in-your-mouth tender. The berry crumble and a taste of strawberry beer finished me off though! Highly recommended for any foodie-- bit on the pricey side, but worth it.

PS In case you were wondering, pizza and beer hard apple cider is not good postrun food. But we had to let our friends properly thank us for the move.


PPS "Pizza and beer" - the phrase always reminds me of Econ 101... for some reason, every supply-and-demand example was pizza and beer. Which was always confusing to me, because there's rarely just one slice of 'za, and beer comes in sixpacks. Whatever.

PPPS I thought I'd posted about the rear-ender, but I guess I didn't. We got hit at a red light coming home from running, and have been in chiro/ massage/ physio for the past two months. And I was told NOT to swim. :(


PPPPS I realize that the past few posts make me sound like a hedonist/ alcoholic/ foodie, but I swear I usually eat pretty well, and I don't actually drink that often... I'm usually pretty good.... besides, it's the holiday season. (enough justification for you?)

10k PR

.... But it wasn't mine. I'm pretty happy with how (consistently) fast I've been running lately. That and the fact I was a little hungover :P was incentive to help someone else push themselves a little today. One of the ladies in the group has been pretty much on our heels for the past few weeks- and we've been bugging her to run with us. Today, she did, and even thought we were doing 10-and-1's, she kept up, and clocked her first sub-hour 10k! We'll find out Tuesday how sore she is...

Speaking of sore- this week has been pretty light on training, but heavy on the whiplash treatments. Monday and Wednesday were Chiro, Tuesday massage, and Thursday was physio, featuring about 6 needles for muscle release. It was great, I feel awesome now, but if I go back for another treatment, it will be late afternoon instead of mid-day. Even though he taped my back, it sucked to work another 7 hours after! Have you ever tried needling or acupuncture? what did you think? What's the best/worst treatment you've ever done?

Hopefully I won't be working as many long hours this week... We got most of the month-end agility sorted out now, so this week will be catching up on everything else- especially workouts!

PS I Think most of you read her blog anyway, but check out wifey's blog for a more detailed update!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone (Or at least I thought I did... until I checked it and it didn't actually post!!!! boooo....)

Spin Saturday and Cold Run Sunday

... and a special bonus - kitty hopped up on honeysuckle. He likes it better than catnip!

Yesterday, I dragged my butt a little bit, but I did go downstairs to the spin trainer for an hour and a half  workout on the Keremeos and out and back sections of the Penticton Half-Ironman course. Of course, I live no where near there, but I've got a great DVD called Real Rides. It's a great workout.
If only my spin trainer would give me enough resistance. It's a cheap one, and it seems sometimes that it does pretty well, at others, it's like it doesn't have much to it.

Post-run frosties! A few eyecicles

This morning was fun... couldn't drag wifey out of bed for our 8:30 group run, so I was a little late too. I bundled up (toque, tech shirt, fleece hoodie, light running jacket, gloves, my Sugoi compression running socks, tights, windbreaker pants, and my Salomon trail runners) and zipped over to the Running room. I was late, so I headed out down Harvest Hills looking for the group... and I found them, running the other way. A quick chat, and I found out the planned route, then caught up with them again partway around the second loop!