Banana Protein Pancakes

Carb loading is fun.
I don't usually carb load for my half marathons but for this full I am.
This morning I busted out the grill and we had Banana Protein Pancakes Thanks to Peanut Butter Fingers

 We had it with spinach and egg whites. I mad a Honey, Cinnamon yogurt sauce to do with.....(and of course some natural PB and sugar free jam).....

So effin good.
Amazing!

Juicen'

I don't feel like eating my raw veggies today so I said "Juice"!!!!
Yumm
Started with a pile of fresh veggies

 Started with the ginger and parsley

 Some spinach

 Green pepper

Celery

 And a cucumber to flush it all through....

 Made almost 4 cups so I have 2 servings...........

 Yummmm.....Gives me so much energy.......

Now whats for supper!

I can't be trusted.......

.........To run a slow 5 km run that is.....
Damn

I tried. I really did.
I even talked to bossy boots before I left and told her not to yell at me to go faster.......

Bitch didn't listen ....
 I did my first 3 km around a 5 min 59 sec pace. Then bossy yelled and I said fine then and did the next 2.5 km (did a 5.5km) at 4 min 55 sec km and that felt better. Didn't wanna push too much.....Just in case, since the marathon is only 4 DAYS AWAY!
It started to rain6 a bit part way though.....Not too bad though.

 God I need a tan!

No more running for me until race day on Sunday and to be honest I am freaking out.
The usual questions
Did I train enough?
Will it rain or be freezing?
Can I actually run 42.2 km.....26.2 effing miles!
How will I feel during and after?
OMG-
I need some gear for this run.
I already bough my gummy bears and my dad got me salt pills.
I think I want a Spi Belt.....Are they worth is?

I need a Lulu shirt but Kelly and I are gonna wait until Saturday to see what the weather will like for sure.
Yeah Lulu!
I am thinking something like
This

and maybe one of
These

Anything else I need?
Any advice?

Marathon is only a week away!

The marathon is next Sunday! OMG.....
I will be doing a 15K today, maybe a short run tomorrow and one short slow run on Wednesday....That's it.....
WOW....42km what am I thinking!
So nervous, scared, anxious, excited, and about a million other things.
I really hope I trained enough.
So much more to say and I hope I can write about it soon, but not yet.
I've been doing a lot of cooking and baking lately....

 Stuffed crust jerk chicken pizza.....all from scratch......was really good......

Pumpkin Cheesecake.....This was my reward meal after my last 36km run....Loved the Cheesecake.....

We also had a bake sale at work again. This one was to raise money for a co-worker who has just been diagnosed with cancer. He has 2 young kids and is the money maker of the family.
I did 2 Pumping Cheesecakes, 4 Pumpkin Pie and 1 Lemon Meringue Pie.....

We made $800 in 3 hours! Amazing......
We are also having a HUGE fundraiser next weekend kind of stag and doe style and the support on that has been crazy. I think we will make a few thousand when all is said and done. Because Mark is a casual he has no benefits or paid sick leave. He is starting Chemo and will need the money so he can concentrate on fighting this not paying the bills......
I know we are all praying for him.

36kms to hell

Yesterday I had my last long run before the Marathon. And since I got rained out last week for my 35 km run and ended up doing it on the Treadmill I was determined to get on the road for this 36km.
I had a delish pre-run meal

Sugar free jam, Natural PB, Hazelnut spread, Chia seed, Toast and a banana......(I swear I only do long runs so I can eat this meal)........So good!
 It wasn't looking good but I waited it out and around 130 there was a break in the weather and I got my but out the door.

 My fuel for the run. A clif bar, nuun tabs, salt stix and big foots.........I love Clif bars but at km 20 when I trie to eat it it pretty much made me throw up in my mouth......Guess I am sticking with the banana for the marathon......It made me a bit crampy though but I have to eat something.

I had to bring directions just in case, so I put everything in baggies cause it still looked like it may rain. Learned my lesson and put my phone in a baggie too since I wrecked my last one running in the rain.
I listened to my dad

He is running the marathon as well (This was us at the half marathon in May in Ottawa that we ran together).....He has done way more research and know a lot of people who do full marathons. He has followed his training plan to the T so I took his advice and SLOWED it down. He says I should be running approximately a minute slower per km then race pace.....hmmm......ok......Doing 6:15-6:30km Sucks......But I did it for the first 10km then I speed up to do 5:55-6:05 kms till about km 27...Then I turned into and the wind punched me in the face for the rest of the run......I slowed back to 6:20-6:30 until the last km then somehow pulled out a 5:25 km.
Now I honestly don't think I could have done 6 more freaking kms!...
UGH......
Final time for the 36km-3hr 39min......
ASS.....

Long run on the Treadmill

I hydrated for 2 days.....Carb loaded and everything....Only to wake up to a cold and pouring rain day.....Damn it....
Well I was not about to go do this long run in the rain and get sick (if it rains the day of the marathon there isn't much I can do about that but today it wasn't happening).
I couldn't put it off until tomorrow or Sunday I have way to much going on this weekend, so there was only one option......The gym.......Treadmill....Damn
So I laced up and hit the hamster wheel.
My first hour I did

 My second hour......

 I had a banana and filled up my water after 2 hours.........This is my third hour....Sped up a bit

 and my last 2.25 miles.....sooooooo

 21.5 Miles or 35 Km is 3 Hours and 18 Minutes.......Not to bad on the stupid treadmill

Aww.....my poor feet....I have the most disgusting feet in the whole world......
One more long run on Thursday then taper time....Thank Goodness.....Marathon is in 23 EFFIN DAYS.......

33k

Its been so crazy lately. So much to tell. Living alone is weird I don't mind it though, gives me lots of time to concentrate on training. Here is my pre-run meal. I get excited for my long run days just cause I get to have this for breakfast! Delish!

I probably shouldn't of had that second coffee....Had a bit of heart burn from it, but it was short lived......
I did a 33k on Saturday. It went well. Its kind of hard to hold back on these training runs and not go as fast as want to but on the advice of more experienced runners I am doing it. I did the 33k in 3hr 25 min.Seams sooooo slow. On the plus side am still doing negative splits on my long runs so guess that means I have more in me.......AND my shin splints seam to be gone!!!! Yeah....they were killing me for the first 5 kms of all my runs for the last month or so. Don't know where they came from , but I am glad they are gone! My friend Julie ran the first 16 k with me, it was nice to have company.  At the half way point my stomach was growling and I knew I knew I would never made it with out some fuel. So did something I have never did before. I ran into a gas station ad grabbed a power bar.

I ate while I ran. My stomach hates solids  before a run so I was nervous about what would happen. But oddly enough, it was ok for the most part. I got a small stitch for about 2k but it went away and I finished strong. I may try to bring a banana this week.
I had a nice COLD ice bath when I got in.....There were way more ice cubes when I first got in just forgot to get the picture until after. I was making ice for 2 days to prep for this ice bath.....It helped a lot!

My thighs were pretty tight for about 2 days after the run so I will do one more 33k this week and then a 36k next week. I can't believe the marathon is in 4 and a half weeks! OMG! I am kinda scared. Any advice to get over these jitters? I know a lot of you all have marathons coming up too! I did go out he other night on a whim with my friend Heather. I felt so old at the bar! But we had good time. Just had a couple glasses of wine and danced up a storm! Should be fun, but gotta get my long run in before do. Does anyone else have trouble finding a place to do these super long runs? Its hard to find places, I don't wanna run in circles. Would rather do one huge loop or a straight line. On the plus side it has helped me to learn my new city very well already!                  
            

New Pad

I am pretty much all settled in to the new place! Lovin it, but I need a few more things (TV stand, pictures ect....) Here are a few pics of the place!

So I am off to the gym. I have a 33 km run tomorrow morning!!!!!

The big move

Well I am all moved into my new place. Thanks to my Dad and a few big guys from work I didn't even have to lift a finger.....I am way better at telling people where to put stuff anyways.
Once everything was all moved in my Dad and I went to The Brick and I got a beautiful new leather Living Room set. Love it, and a kitchen table. After he left I went shopping and got a bit excited and spent way too much money on things for the house.
The first night in my place alone was great. Besides the fact that I was tripping over everything. When I took a closer look I saw that they didn't do a very good job of cleaning this place......actually it was gross. So glad my Mom and Step-Dad were coming down the next day to help me. I had to work Friday-Sunday 12 hour days, so My Mom and Kevin got here around 10am and started the process of storing all my things out. First off my Mom is the best cleaner in the world, so when she offered to set me up I was excited. Now Kevin is a handy man and also an electrician so I knew that they were gonna get me in order.
I got home Friday night only to hear that there were so problems with the new place. I'll short list it here for you, Mice......I had Mice.....gross.....So they set traps and I think we are ok. No shelves in the linen closet....wtf....So they went and got some cut at Home Depot. The light in the bathroom over the vanity was shorted out and a fire hazard cause it wasn't installed properly. Kevin bought and installed a new one. The back yard was full of garbage and just gross over all. Mom took out a full garbage bag of crap from the back yard. The windows were disgusting as were the baseboards. The toilet seat had to be replaced......The stove top took two hours to clean from all the baked on gunk.
Now don't get me wrong, this place is so cute and in a great area, the landlords just didn't do a proper cleaning before handing me the keys. So the landlord is coming tonight since I called to tell them what was going on. I have about $250 in receipts that she needs to pay back.
By Saturday when I came home Mom and Kevin were gone, but my place was completely unpacked and CLEAN!!!! So exciting.
Yesterday and Today are my days off and yesterday EVERYTHING was closed because of Labor Day. Ugh....I need stuff! Julie came over for a 8km run with me and then I went to Johan's to watch Bachelor Pad (Since I don't have a TV.....Don't worry I am getting one today!).
This morning I am drinking coffee and waiting for Julie to run again (10km) Then we are off to shop! I will take some pictures very soon of the new place.....It is so adorable and I am in love with it. Living alone is ok so far, I can see how it can get lonely for sure.
Now that I have a home base again I can get back to normal, which means cooking, baking, seeing friends, and of course Blogging! I have missed it sooooo much. I managed to keep up with my running for the most. I did my 30 km run in the blazing heat last week, and have a 33km scheduled for this weekend! The marathon is coming up quick! Only 6 more weeks!
Other then that I am pretty boring.....I am now ``the single friend`weird......
I don`t wanna date right now....I hate the whole dating process in general....
Besides where am I even going to meet someone? Not at work.....so WHERE????
Anyways I don't need to worry about that right now!

Work Golf Tournament

Kelly and I were asked to volunteer at the 2 annual work golf tournament.
Friday morning I went for a quick 10 km run and then got ready to drive the hour to the golf course.
We got there a bit late (about 15 minutes) but no one was surprised we were late. We stopped at Marks (one of the organizers of the tournament) to pick up some people.
To give you an idea of the people we work with....here is Mark!

We litterly crammed 3 other people into Kelly's car and I drove us to the course.
Once we got there we unloaded all the prizes from Roops car (well the boys did anyways).
We set up all the prizes, there was a lot of great prizes! See

There were a few different groups of volunteers.
 There was Nikki and Mel

 Nikki in the white

Here is Mel
They ran the Grey Goose Hole
Then we had JD and Some girl we work with

They ran the longest drive hole.
There was another group for the straightest drive hole but I missed them somehow.
Then there was me and Kelly. They gave us the 50/50 and the water/Gatorade girl job. I think they knew we couldn't sit still long enough to man a hole for 5 hours. So we booted about in our golf cart, selling tickets for the 50/50, giving out the water and taking drink orders.....We are helpful like that.

We may have had a drink or two while performing our duties!
Here is the wining team from last year...interesting attire choice boys

Here is Marty and Jay....The did an overnight the night before and had a shot of tequila for breakfast....enough said........That poor poor donkey......(not their real hair)...lol....they also had a super soaker in there that Kelly and I had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting....ugh.....boys never grow up....

And this was the winning team this year!

As the day went on things got a bit crazy......here is some excerpts from the day......