Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The sickness - read at your own risk!

I became atrociously ill this weekend. After skiing all day I was enjoying (and winning) a game of Simpsons Monopoly when my stomach started feeling bad. I went to use the facilities and realized suddenly that I felt like I was going to throw up.

And throw up I did. This was about 8 o'clock at night and the next 12 hours involved sleeping in 1-hour intervals interrupted by trips to the toilet (thank God for ensuites!) and alternating chills and sweats. My body was obviously purging and after about 5 hours my upper GI tract was empty. That was some serious vomiting. By the end, it was just the water I was drinking that was coming up, so I stopped drinking and started wetting my mouth and spitting the water out to try and get some relief but to avoid any more hurling. Then the dry heaving, oh my.

I didn't quite realize it until Monday when I went for a walk outside and the cold air made me cough, but the muscles all around and between my ribs and around my whole torso and up into my neck were spent. Tired and sore from the most intense retching I've ever experienced. My throat hurt, but not in the scratchy kind of way. My reverse peristalsis muscles had obviously been overworked.

The rest of the night was spent ridding my lower GI tract of anything and everything. Enough said.

The next morning I started drinking mouthfuls of water every 10 minutes or so and gradually started feeling better. My lower back was pretty achy, but other than that, and the fatigue and dizziness I felt if I moved too quickly I was feeling ok. By dinner time I drank a glass of juice. Before going back to bed I had some soup. By Monday morning, everything was mostly back to normal.

I weighed myself when we got home and I lost nearly 5 lbs over the course of the weekend. I joked that I had finally gotten around to doing that cleanse I keep meaning to do. My system was clean!

I'm a bit concerned that my hands will swell up and blister since they have a tendency to do that after I experience any kind of nausea, but so far so good. Maybe my immune system will decide to give me a break this time. My stomach is still a bit sensitive and I'm still pretty easily fatigued, but I'm ok with spending a couple days reading and resting.

I'm so glad I did my long run last week. I'm not really concerned about missing any training days this week. I'll probably run on Thursday or Friday and I'm sure I'll be fine for our "short" 13-miler on Sunday.

I don't know what it was that I ate but apparently there's no such thing as a "24-hour flu" so I'm left blaming some anonymous mystery food and trying to ignore the fact that there was likely some fecal-oral contamination involved, as that is likely and usually the origin of such unpleasant afflictions. Ick.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

Thursday long run

We're heading up to Big White tomorrow for the weekend so Nicole and I did our long run tonight. 16 miles - the longest so far! We left my house and ran around Stanley Park, then around False Creek and back home. Took 2hrs and 40min. Went for a delicious pasta dinner after at Anton's to celebrate Nicole's 30th birthday! What a girl!! Would you run 16 miles on your 30th? :)

We didn't stop nearly as often as we normally do during our long runs (usually every 20-30 minutes for a few minutes at a time). We didn't really think to stop aside from the two times we took our gels plus a couple other times when we started getting tired. It was too cold to stop for long without getting a chill. I didn't have any specific pains today, instead towards the end it was more of an ache all over. It was mostly my feet that were sore - the same way they felt coming down from our Garibaldi hike this summer after hiking 30km in a day. My legs are tired now and a bit stiff, particularly my left calf. I have a bit of a headache, so I'm trying to drink lots of water and will soon head off to bed.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Tuesday run!

Met Beth and Nicole at the Y downtown and ran around Stanley Park on the seawall. Ended up being 9 miles which took an hour and a half. It was cold and dark but felt great.

Sunday, January 20, 2008

I love Vancouver because....

The scenery is so beautiful - snow-capped mountains, ocean, beaches. The city sparkles and shines on days like today.

The people are friendly and active - there were so many people out this morning on the seawall and so often when we'd pass another group of runners they would all say hello. Runners, walkers, people with dogs, people with kids, people rowing, people kayaking, even people waiting for the bus with snowshoes and snowboards. How can you not go outside on a day like today??

Anyway, we ran 13 miles today. Out to the anchor and back - same route as a couple weeks ago when it rained/snowed/hailed. Sure was different weather today! I was distracted the whole way by the mountains that looked so beautiful with fresh snow and the sun shining down. From the Tantalus mountains in Howe Sound all the way east past Seymour... so gorgeous! Makes me very eager to get back out there to do some hiking and take some photos which might be sooner rather than later now that I've got some fancy crampons!

I was tired today and I felt slow and my legs felt heavy. I got better towards the end of the run, but the beginning was tough. I just couldn't find the rhythm. I took a gel about 40 minutes in and then half a gel about 40 minutes later and I really noticed the effect. Not sure if I was dehydrated, whether it was the Afghani food we had for dinner last night or the fact that I hadn't run all week until yesterday when I went out for 3 miles.

I have a bit of a headache now and I think it's from not drinking enough water today. Have to get better at drinking more water. Anyway, a good run overall - they are always good once they are over and done with. :) Looking forward to a week of sunshine... hope you get to enjoy it too!

Friday, January 18, 2008

The Perfect Morning

5:45am - alarm goes off and I get out of bed right away feeling rested (mostly)
6:15am - leave my apartment for the yoga studio only 2 blocks away
6:30 to 8:15am - led Ashtanga Primary series class (ekam, inhale!)
8:15 to 8:45am - chanting (today 7 of us sat in a circle, sang in sanskrit and chanted the yoga sutras while drinking hot tea)
9:00am - arrive home, drink lots of water, snuggle cat, eat a particularly delicious grapefruit
9:15 - search on the web for flights to Florida and try to come up with a scheme to go the the Ashtanga workshop there in March (anyone want to share accommodations with me??)
9:30 - LUSHious creamy bath with avo bomb and floating island (my favourite!) and a good book

Monday, January 14, 2008

Say no to injuries

I had a sore foot on Saturday on the bottom of my right foot between my arch and my heel. Felt like a cramp or a pulled muscle. I nearly didn't run on Sunday because I didn't want to make it worse. To test it out, I decided to run down to the Y. If it was bad, I'd just head home. But it seemed the more I ran the less it hurt so I decided to join the group continue on. Now, I thought that last week our leader said we were going to be running in the Kitsilano/Kerrisdale direction so running down to the Y would be perfect because instead of heading back downtown at the end of the run I could just come home.

We start running and we're heading east out of downtown so I ask "where are we running today?" The answer: "Central Park." Yes, the Burnaby Central Park - totally the opposite direction. Oh well. We followed the skytrain line the whole way - there's a nice path underneath for most of the way. It's all uphill though and my legs were burning and getting very tired - good hill training! At least my foot was fine though, and coming home was all downhill. This run wasn't as fun without Nicole. It was just me and 5 guys in the 40-70 year age group. :) When we got to the Main St station at Science World I left the group to head home along the south side of the False Creek seawall.

Downtown to Central Park and back downtown again is 14 miles (the schedule had us doing 13-15). My extra run down to the Y added on 2 miles so I was already at 14 miles when we got to Science World. I ran another 10 minutes to make it 15 miles and walked the rest of the way home to cool down. Actually worked out pretty well because I'm not stiff at all today and I think the walking helped stretch out my legs. So 15 miles, 2hrs 30min - the longest run so far! And no rain!! I was very tired and very hungry when I got home. Had a wonderful hot shower and a delicious breakfast and then a fantastic nap.

I think my foot was maybe sore because I did too much last week. I'm going to try to take it a bit easier this week. My IT band was a bit sore at times too so I'm going to get that worked on this week. Ouch! The treatment is often more painful than the injury itself!

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Rain and more rain

Ran to my dentist appointment yesterday morning. Round trip was about 3 miles, took 30 minutes.

Tonight met Beth and Nicole and ran twice around False Creek - 12-13 miles, 2hrs 10min. I wouldn't normally run that far on a weekday/night but Nicole is away this weekend and will miss the long run and so she wanted to fit one in before leaving.

It didn't seem to be raining hard when we left but by my feet were pretty wet after the first lap. I rarely get cold while running once I've been at it for a while but I got a bit chilled tonight and knew that if we stopped I'd get cold really fast. Stopped trying to avoid the puddles near the end after running through one that was ankle deep. My clothes were completely soaked through and I squeezed out about a cup of water from my jacket when I got home. Once you're out there and in the rain it's not so bad - refreshing even. It's the process of going from dry to wet that isn't so much fun. I never used to run with a hat and only started doing so in the past few weeks but I was really happy to have it tonight to keep the rain out of my face.

Took a gel at about 45 minutes and felt really good for the whole run. My aerobic fitness is really good and I think that is partly due to all the hiking (yay Grouse Grind!) we did this year. Aside from the odd hill, we can chat the whole way and not feel out of breath. I think I'm probably in the best shape I've ever been right now, which is kind of funny because Luke feels as though he's in the worst shape of his life at the moment. I feel really good and I'm quite pleased with that. :)

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Wild weather

~12 miles today. "Only" ran 1hr 50min. We left the Y downtown in the rain, ran over the Burrard Bridge and along the sea wall out to Spanish Banks. There's a giant anchor along the path and that was our turn-around point. I felt like we were running fast today, but we've got 2 guys with fancy gadgets that measure pace that said we were right on.

Running along Cornwall on our way out we had rain, wind, snow and sleet. We discovered as we turned around at the anchor that we'd had the wind at our backs the whole way out. It was blustery and cold by the water. We were all soaked and glad to be heading back. My feet had been squishing in my shoes since early in the run. I was happy to be warm even though my clothes were pretty soaked. On the way back I commented that at least it hadn't hailed! It couldn't have been 10 minutes later that the hail started. Running along Cornwall with the wind blowing hail in our faces was quite an experience. The ridiculousness of the situation was distracting and soon enough we were coming back over the bridge into downtown.

I felt pretty strong going back over the bridge and thought it may have been because I took two gels today. I usually only take one after about an hour or so. Today I took one after 40 minutes, then another one 40 minutes later.

I only ran once last week so I was happy with how the run today went. Have to get better at these weekday runs. My legs are tired now, but not sore. Knees feel good too. We went snowshoeing yesterday and I was a bit worried I would be tired today, but everything was good!

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Raw


I got a few new cookbooks over the holidays, one of them being "Ani's raw food kitchen". I tried a few things for dinner the other night with mixed success. I found the two dinner dishes to be too salty and the soup too garlicky. The pie tasted good, but was just very different in texture than a regular pie. The dishes were all incredibly healthy, relying on fresh, vitamin and mineral packed vegetables and supplied more that enough omega-3 and 6 essential fatty acids in the form of nuts and flax.

The following day for breakfast I made the coconut breakfast cakes, vanilla syrup and coconut butter. The first few bites were delicious, but there was a strange, lingering aftertaste I wasn't too fond of and the texture was a bit overwhelming.

I'm interested in incorporating more raw food into my diet and am keen to learn more ways to do it than just plain old salad. I got my cookbook, thought about incorporating raw food into my New Year's cleanse and then Steve Pavlina's 30-day raw food trial came up in my feed reader - I always find it interesting when the universe brings seemingly separate but nonetheless connected events and ideas together. I think this whole raw food thing very interesting and know a couple other people who have switched to it and swear by it. I'm not convinced that people are "meant to eat" only raw food, but I can see that the health benefits could be significant, if only because this type of diet completely excludes the processed prepackaged foods that contribute to most health problems and emphasizes the fresh, organic, antioxidant, vitamin and mineral rich fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds.

The food was easy and quick to prepare. No cooking means dinner is on the table a fair bit faster. My little Cuisinart mini prep food processor didn't quite have the guts I needed to chop and puree without separating things into several batches (add Kitchenaid 12 cup food processor to wishlist...) and I found the nut based recipes quite expensive, but I'm still looking forward to experimenting with the ideas and combinations in this cookbook and with raw food in general.