A visitor and an update on the marathon training

This past week we had a visitor! It turned out that my brother was in our neck of the woods! He was in Boston to attend a wedding, and the weekend prior to the wedding, they had decided to plan a bachelor's party in Montreal, of all places... But it worked out well, since he was able to come and visit us for a bit!

Gijsbert (aka Max) arrived on Sunday afternoon, and was slightly tired from a fun weekend in Montreal. This was actually a really good thing, since both Nolan and I were somewhat tired as well from our long run that morning (more about that later on...). We took it easy, and just chatted and caught up. I took Monday off, which was spent mainly around the house and running some errands (including a visit to the dentist...). Tuesday we had to go to work, and Max went to visit the National Art Gallery. I was able to leave work a bit early, and we ended up in a pub chatting about anything and everything, which was great! We continued the conversation with Nolan over dinner that night. Of course, with another beer...
Nolan and I both took Wednesday off, and it was a beautiful day, albeit a bit chilly. We decided to spend the day in the Gatineau's and hiked the Wolf Trail, an 8 k loop that was somewhat difficult (or at least according to the map). It turned out to be a great day, lots of blue skies and very few people. The way we like it! Both Max and Nolan engaged in some photography during our hike:

The last picture is of a pileated woodpecker :) They are just amazing birds. We actually saw another one on our run today!

After our long walk on Wednesday, we took it easy that evening, and simply at ate home, and played games. Good times!

Max had to catch an early bus the next morning, heading back to Boston, so Nolan dropped him at the bus station off, before dropping me off at work. And then life was pretty much back to normal.

We're in the height of our marathon training, and I have to admit it comes with its ups and downs. Last weekend's long run was a bit of a disaster. We were scheduled to run 32 km, but I started to crash only 12km in. Not a good thing. I managed to get up to 25, but at that point the tank was absolutely empty, and I just could not go any further. I walked home, while Nolan finished the 32km. I was mad, disappointed, but also worried. How am I supposed to run a marathon, if I can't even get up to 30km? We had run 29km the two previous weeks, so I knew I could do something. It might have been that I didn't eat enough for breakfast, who knows... We didn't run much the rest of the week. Partly because Gijsbert was here, but both Nolan and I also had some (hopefully minor) injuries. Nolan fell during a trail run about a week and a half ago and hurt his hip. It's a nice purple, still! It didn't bother him too much during the 32 km run, but it definitely felt tight during the week. I've had some nagging pain in my left knee, which just doesn't feel great. We managed to get a 8km run in on Thursday, but when we wanted to go out on Friday, but knee just didn't feel good, and we decided to skip that run. Maybe some rest was the right thing to do, because our run this morning felt much better. I also made sure I had a good breakfast! We were supposed to do 23km, but felt good, and I needed to confidence, so we decided on a 26km run. However, by the time we were close to home, I still had some energy left, and added another 6km, to make up for the 32km run that I missed last week. I'm a little sore now, and my knees are not too happy, but I'm glad I did it. We ran in the Greenbelt, and it's so much easier on the legs, that I'm a little worried about running the marathon on pavement only...

And now Nolan is off to Waterloo for a conference, so it's extra quiet at home, and it's just me vegging on the couch, getting ready for another week at work, with apparently SNOW on the way. Not sure what to think of that. Well, I do know what to think of that, but it's not to be repeated on this blog.

Have a great week!

Just an update

Not sure what to write about, or what to update about.
One thing is for sure, the weather is back to normal. Summer weather is over, and we're back to normal with real March weather!
This morning we had a 29k run to complete, which we did so in the snow and rain! It's definitely been a while since we rain in either snow or rain. We made sure we kept a comfortable pace, and it paid off: we had a good run and felt strong until the end. Good news after a so-so week of running.
Work has also been busy and challenging at times, but I also finished a large project last Friday which felt really good. And I still really like what I do! On Tuesday, we had an hour long meeting while walking in the woods. How can you complain about that?!

On other news, the Ontario Woodlot Association had their Annual General Meeting last week, and I got re-elected to the Provincial Board of directors (I'm still on the executive committee as well; new members for the exec will elected at the next meeting). So that was good news.
We also went to the Ottawa Auto Show last week, where we tried to get an idea for a new vehicle. Well we did. Some of the cars that we thought would be a good fit, turned out to be not so great at all. And then some others were better than we thought they would be. The bonus of the auto show is that we don't have to visit several dealers. We now narrowed it down to a couple, and hopefully we can go for a test drive soon!

And that's pretty much it for us. Not much to tell. We're busy with work, running, our house, and just enjoying our lives in general!

Something is just not right here

And with that, I am referring to the weather conditions we are currently experiencing here in Ottawa. Average high for this time of year is +3. The record for March 19 (yesterday) was +14.6. We reached a high of 25.8.  Today, while I'm typing this at 5 pm, it's 26.6 degrees. Did I mention that it is March?? In Ottawa??  We've had 20 + degreed weather since Sunday, and will have at least one more day of it tomorrow. Pretty much a heat wave in the middle of March...
Something is just not right indeed. And it's not that I'm complaining; I love the heat, but there is a time and place for everything, and this just does not seem the right time, nor the right place!

The snow melted in record time (not that we had much, about a third of what Ottawa would get in a typical year), and maple syrup season started three weeks early. And then it stopped four weeks early, if not more. Ideal conditions for collecting sap is below zero at night, and above zero during the day. That results in maximum run of sap, and it tastes good. Higher temperatures reduces sap flow, and it starts tasting pretty bad. This is the second year in a row that the maple syrup producers are experiencing a poor year, but this year is extremely bad.

Within a week, crocuses started to bloom, tulips came up, and spring peepers (frogs) are out their and living up to their name (i.e. making tonnes of noise). Other plants are starting to sprout, trees are budding and all the birds seem to have returned by now.
Our office is not ready for this weather; the heating system is still in place, which results in boiling offices by the end of the day. We're scheduling our runs around the weather, so either run in the morning, or later in the evening. Definite bonus: the trails are no snow-free, so we can run in the woods again!!

Here some pictures:

The crocuses in our backyard

You can see the tulips in the background

Even the squirrels need a break in the shade...

It really is warm!

Another beneficiary of the beautiful weather! My Orchid blooming for the fifth (!) time

In other news: not too much. Work is busy (what's new?), but since we're approaching year-end (our fiscal year runs April 1- March 31) as much as possible needs to be done within the next two weeks, plus planning is in full gear for next year. 

We're keeping busy with our running. Last weekend was our 26 km run, which went well (for the most part), and we continue to increase our distance during the week as well. So really, our lives consist of work, running and house chores!

Talking about house chores, we bought a washer-dryer set on Monday, to be delivered in a couple of weeks, so soon our clothes will be really clean! Not a bad thing since we're sweating a lot with all that running, especially in this weather!

Marathon update

No photos this time... I know, I promised more, and hopefully I'll be able to post a few more next time.

A marathon update this time. We signed up to run the Ottawa marathon on May 27th, and really got serious about our training when we came back from our trip to the Netherlands, and it's starting to pay off. This past week, we ran a total of 43 km, and we're slowly increasing our distance. One long run, and then two or more tempo and interval runs during the week. We loosely follow a schedule, but mainly to guide us on our long runs. We are trying to make our runs during the week a bit longer, to make sure we get our distance in. But that is mainly because we can't always put more than 3 runs in per week, simply because life gets in the way! But in general it's going quite well. The increase in distance doesn't seem to bother us too much, and our bodies tend to cooperate. We added a strength component to the regime as well, to make sure we are well rounded. Probably sounds more rigid than it really is, but the main point is that we're having fun. And so far, we're having a lot of fun! The weather is cooperating nicely with spring-like temperatures, and the snow is melting at a pretty good pace. Hopefully the trails will be accessible soon! I can't wait to get out there again and run in the woods. The best place to run! But that shouldn't come as a surprise...

As promised... Some photos

As mentioned in my previous post, I am planning on adding more photos to my blog, trying to keep it more fun.

Probably a good thing. I just got back from a day-long meeting in Pointe Claire, (which was really good, but wouldn't make interesting photos), that wiped me out, so whatever text I would compose right now would't make much sense anyway.

Not bad to be a cat...

Nolan with his new glasses. This photo was taken early Sunday morning before our run, hence the bad hair...

Fertile has a really thick coat, as you can see. She seems very content. 

Our amaryllis grew out of control, and now it's produced seeds. Not sure what to do with them. I guess seed them next year? 

Squirrels benefiting from our bird feeders.

And my orchid is coming back alive!

Murphy discovered the benefits of sleeping underneath chairs... 

And a couple more squirrel pictures. Just for fun. 

That's it. More photos will follow. Soon. I promise. And maybe I'll include more interesting photos as well, since cats and squirrels seem to be a recurring theme. Maybe I'll add a photo of myself. Who knows!

Photos of the Dutchland

In an effort to make my blog more fun, I decided to add more photos. So I consciously started taking more pictures (well, I started today) that people will hopefully enjoy. When I uploaded the photos to my laptop, I realized that I never posted our pictures from the Netherlands! So here you go:

My mom always dresses like this:

And my dad looks like this. Note the barcode at the front of his hat.

Without joking, the above photos were taken during their annual mutual birthday party, that attracts a lot of friends (around 40 this year, I believe). It was fun to actually participate this year.

We managed to show during the one week of cold weather the Dutch had this year. Well, at least we didn't have to acclimatize, and it made for some great photos. This is the oh so famous castle of Amerongen (above).

And cold weather is synonym to skating. People go nuts when it comes to skating, and I can't recall the number of times people asked us if we'd brought our skates. Uhm, no, we left those at home. We have a canal we can skate on as well. For a whole 28 days this year...

Here is Willem looking up to Sien, who is above him. Hiding.

Sien is evil, as you can see.

On our last day in Amerongen, we went for a nice long walk in the forest around Amerongen, and visited the Lonely Oak. We almost got lost as well. I guess I don't know the area as well as I used to.

Next up, more photos from our lives, including our cats, and our new snow blower! Yes, what a time to get a snowblower delivered. We were almost thinking winter was over, but were proven very wrong when we were treated to another snowstorm on Friday. Except for the fact that I had to miss the UofT field tour at the PRF on Saturday due to poor road conditions, we don't really mind this weather! We even managed to get a 17.5km run in this morning, despite cold wind and snowy sidewalks. The sun made up for it; we both came home with our faces covered by freckles. Time to get the sunscreen out!

Without downs, you have no ups...

It's been a week now since we returned from the Netherlands, and in some ways, we were hoping for an uneventful few weeks to come. Well, it was not to be, and perhaps we brought it on ourselves?

Early this week, I was checking the humane society website, as I do often, to see if they had any dogs available for adoption that would fit into our household. And low and behold, there was a 9-yr old lab mix, friendly and playful, up for adoption. On paper, she looked like the perfect dog for us. Since Nolan did not grow up with dogs, we wanted to be sure that the dog was friendly without any aggression. We went to see April on Tuesday, and indeed, she was a sweetheart, and we decided to pick her up on Thursday (she had a vet appointment that day, since she needed some additional medical care due to an amputated tail). When we picked April up on Thursday, it was decided we would foster her for a few days, and if all would go well, we'd finalize the adoption later this week.
We brought April home, and as soon as we got home, the cats went into hiding. It wasn't fun to see them stressed out, especially Muprhy was quite upset, but we also figured it would need some time. She was a great dog in the house, wouldn't leave your side, and slept through the night no problem.
The next day, when we tried to introduce the cats to her, it just didn't go well.  April reacted quite strongly to them, and the cats did not like her at all. Long story short, we have always said that the cats come first, and perhaps they would have gotten used to each other over time, but we did not quite trust her in the beginning. We also had some issues with Murphy about two years ago, and the last thing we wanted is him peeing all over the house again.
And the truth is that we are away during the day, and April is a total people dog! I would trust her with a baby! She loves everyone and like the attention, another reason that we thought she is better of in a family with kids, no cats, where she gets lots of attention. So sadly, we decided to bring her back to the humane society, before we would get too attached to her.

Needless to say I was heartbroken. I wish we could have kept her, and provided her with a good home, but having her around did not make me happy either. I was worried about the cats, and they mean a lot to us as well. We brought her back on Saturday morning, after taking her for a long walk in the Greenbelt. I was quite upset bringing her back, but she was happy to go back, and they were very understanding at the humane society as well. They promised they'd find her another good home (it's a no-kill shelter!!), and I believe they will. When we walked by April on the way out, she didn't even really look up to us; she was focussed on everything else going on. In a way hard to see, but I'm also happy she wasn't too attached to us, because that would only have made it so much harder.  Another reason I'm glad we brought her back soon, because the longer we waited, the harder it would be, for both her and us.

It was hard, but it was good to see the cats completely back to normal as soon as we got home Saturday afternoon. I already miss not going for walks, but who knows if and when we get a new dog, and Nolan has offered to take him for a walk, so maybe I should start doing that...

I guess it was another blow after some roller-coaster weeks, and on top of that, I tripped and fell at the end of my run on Wednesday. Right in front of my office building, very embarrassing! My knee is all bruised and was completely swollen, my left wrist is bruised and my shoulder was sore, but it all feels better now, and besides a badly bruised knee, I'm pretty much back to normal. I even managed to have a great 16k run yesterday morning! The footing was so much better, temperatures were bearable (only -8 when we started) and with the sun out it was just a gorgeous morning! My knee was a bit sore at the end, but nothing too crazy. I guess I needed a good run to clear my head and reset my body. Hopefully I was able to do that.

So for the next few weeks, no more big decisions, no major (self-inflicted) changes, and just focus on us and enjoy life!

Oh, and one other, last news-worthy (at least Nolan thinks!) item, we had our eyes tested on Friday, and soon you'll see Nolan wearing glasses! For now only when he needs to read far away (presentations, etc), and when driving at night. We picked up a pair, and I'm not sure I love them, but then, Nolan with glasses is just weird... Hopefully I get used to them :)