race day

**UPDATE** I RAN and finished my half marathon (21 km/13 miles) in 2:39 hours. I am so excited - my first race ever!!

Do you have a list? You know.... the LIST of things you want to do before you die. It seems that the LIST is very trendy right now, there is even a reality show about it - check it out here. I have many things on my list some of which are achievable and others, well, perhaps not. But one can dream :) 

One of my dreams and number one of my list, as some of you may know, is to run a marathon. I have been training for a year now and it has not been easy. Several bad injuries caused interruptions and have made training hard. A busy job and travel schedule have also impacted training.  But, I am determined and this Sunday I am running my very first race - a half marathon. I am only 14 weeks past injury, so I have strict orders on the acceptable method to run the race from my physiotherapist. My goal is to just finish - I don't care about time, pace and all of the other things so important to runners. If I can finish, then I can finish the next race one month from now and then maybe the full marathon I want to run in October. It will be cold Sunday - the forecast is for snow, a high of 3C and 30 km/h winds - it will be a slog. Cross your fingers and toes for me.

One more thing; I am going to be gone for a few weeks. Time away to rest, enjoy life away from work, experience some warmth and have time to just ponder the greatness of being alive. So I will be missing from this space for two weeks or so. See you all soon.

friday night dinner

Some people love going out for dinner and drinks on Fridays after work. I am not one of those people. Come Friday afternoon, I want downtown and the latest oil and gas prices to be erased from my memory and all I yearn for is my house, my sofa, and a very quick home-made meal. I usually make a huge healthy salad, fish in a packet and nibble on olives. A glass of good wine is also somewhere in the vicinity and essential to the perfect Friday night at home. 

Both the Babe and I are surfers - Internet surfers that is. We hunker down, open up our laptops and surf away to the anonymous hum of the television. He scoping out all the latest climbing gossip and me browsing through all the blogs I no longer have time to read during the week. I am so looking forward to the end of May, when my work finally slows down and I can focus on life. At the same time, living in the moment - specifically on a Friday night - is not a bad thing either.

Friday night salad

1 1/2 cups sliced cherry tomatoes

1/2 cup olives (kalamata of course - nothing else will do!)

1/2 cup sliced red onion

1 cup sliced orange or red sweet bell pepper

1 cup torn bocconcini

some torn basil (to taste - there are no rules here)

Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons of the best quality olive oil you can afford

1 tablespoon of excellent balsamic vinegar

a bit of kosher salt

ground pepper

Whip it all together with a fork so it is nice and emulsified and pour over the salad ingredients. ENJOY - pour yourself a glass of something.

 

cycles

There are many lessons to be learned from nature.  I pondered this thought as I sat in my gloriously sunny backyard today - this Good Friday. I could not help but be excited at the tiny, first signs of spring that are manifesting themselves in my flower beds. It truly brings home the concept that our seasons are cycles - they come and go in the perfect rhythms supplied by the beat of the drum of our planet. This is a perfect lesson to take home when you consider the state of our global economy. Economic cycles come and go, and each time we are experiencing an economic version of an icy cold winter, we sometimes forget that spring will actually come back to give us relief from the chill.

I am excited and looking forward to browsing through my gardening magazines and books, gleefully anticipating the additions I will make to my flower beds. I carefully scrutinized today what most likely did not make it through the winter, and rejoiced at the hardy plants that survived and which will provide their beautiful blooms for me to enjoy this summer.

Happy spring everyone.

wishful thinking

I am trying to pretend that it is spring. We have been inundated with snow and my backyard is still coated in white stuff. This morning it was -11. I am in firm denial and have created my own spring with a most cheerful bunch of $3.99 tulips from Safeway.   I was digging through my stash looking for color inspiration when I also found a beautiful sock yarn that matched my tulips. So out of my denial came these juicy photos that make me very happy.

The other reason for these colorful photos is that my leg that has been injured from running is now healed and I have worked up my distance to a serious level again and am still planning to run a half marathon at the end of May. I have been a work-out machine running four days a week, swimming laps three days a week and faithfully doing strength training - all this cross-training to minimize further injury. It is a lot of working out hence knitting has been relegated to second place for now because between work and training there is not much time left.

All these colors are inspiring me to keep active and sun and warm temps are promised this weekend - how good is that!!