I have an announcement to make

I just got a verbal job offer for GA so there is a good chance that I'll be joining Keely and Blythe working for that company. Wahoo!

The End is Nigh!

Of school that is, not life in general, so it is a happy though, not a sad one :)

I'm booking my seminar tomorrow for 3:30 on Friday, April 13th. Good thing I'm not superstitious. I hope to have my thesis in either that week or the week after which should be manageable. Most of my chapters are approved with only two not. Chapter 4 was submitted in draft form to my supervisor yesterday and he'll have 5 (conclusions and recommendations) and the abstract before the end of the day tomorrow. Wahoo. this is a good feeling :)

In other news, well, lack there off. No news on the job front. Hopefully will hear back from one of the companies soon. If I don't hear today, I think I'll call tomorrow (they said they would call by monday - as in the 26th, so I feel justified calling them). I am also going to apply for a couple more companies that have been asking my supervisor if he has anyone finishing up soon. Hopefully I'll have a job soon and I can start work in May!

Okay, here they are

pictures

Grrr

:( I just 30 minutes posting pictures from vancouver, but I messed up, and I can't post them.

I'm going to put them on my flickr account and put a link to it here... it'll be easier.

I'm baaaack

So my vacation. In a word - perfect!

Monday night we got into Vancouver late.

Tuesday we went for a hike in one of the canyons, and went downtown to MEC and took a walk in my old running grounds - stanley park. The park got badly hit in the wind storms this year and a LOT of trees are down. probably close to 2/3s in some places, it was pretty crazy!

Wednesday we headed up to whistler for two days of skiing. I overheard people saying that they were the two best days all year. fresh powder on Wednesday and clear clear clear both days which is a rarity for whistler. You are often skiing there in the clouds so it was nice to have a great view at the top and excellent conditions.

Thursday on our way back from whistler we went to my aunts place on the Sunshine Coast which is a 40 minute ferry ride from Vancouver. It is on the BC mainland, but the coast has tonnes of big inlets, fjords and sounds that are silly to build bridges across. They all have Ferries instead, since it would take a good couple of hours to drive around.

Friday it was back to Vancouver (after a good 7.5 km run- in shorts! - on the sunshine coast) and we spent friday night and saturday visiting with friends from undergrad and gradschool that have found their way out to BC (it was Kelly's 30th b-day, saw QC&RL, and CyndyD from undergrad). It was nice to see them all again. QC just moved out there at the end of January and she seems to be settling well and has a fabulous apartment in kits.

On Sunday we went for a long hike in snowshoes up one of the local mountains in Vancouver. It is crazy the change in conditions over a relatively short elevation gain. At the bottom of the mountain (very bottom) sea level, there is no snow and they would barely ever get any (maximum a couple of inches but it melts after a few days). the top was at 1200-1300 m and there would have been at least 2 m of snow on the ground! craziness.

Monday was back to Ontario. we had to get up at 4:45 for our flight which probably made getting up yesterday morning a little easier. Today was a little bit easier again, so hopefully I'm mostly back on Ontario time.

Pictures will follow, but I don't have them all amalgamated. some are on my laptop, some still on my camera, and some on arash's camera. I'll try to post them tonight or tomorrow though.

Chilly Half marathon

The short version:
I've been fighting this sore throat for 2 weeks now, at first it was just there, and hinting about coming on strong, but after 1.5 weeks, I figured it wouldn't get bad. nuh-uh. Thursday it was bad, friday much worse, saturday marginally better, today similar to yesterday.

I think I had a well paced run, mile markers were NOT accurate, finished in 2:00:47 which is a 4:13 PR, I know I would have gotten <2:00:00 (my goal) had the markers been accurate. Throat didn't end up being a big issue, I did have a few coughing fits, but I doubt it slowed me down any. I came 3rd in the Athena <40 category, not sure how many were registered as I haven't checked the results online.

The long version:
Training for this run has been tough. I was going to kind of wing it and sign up at the last minute if the conditions were good and my training went well. A friend called me in a frenzy one day in late january letting me know that the race was almost full so if I was going to sign up, i had to do it then. I decided to sign up and dedicate myself to my training. 2 days after I signed up the race was full.

Training for a half at the beginning of March in Ontario. Not the smartest idea. 2 of my 18 km long runs ended up being on the treadmill at my gym in the early morning. 18 km on a treadmill Not cool. The treadmill running did help me with my pace though, I knew what pace I needed to run, and I did several tempo runs of up to 5 miles at my half marathon pace, and I had the pace in my legs. I know I could do it next time.

So I woke up yesterday morning and drove the 1 hour down to burlington ontario to pick up my race kit. I had a minor heart attack when I got there and saw the size of the line. It ended up moving fast and I was through the line in around 20 minutes. Enough time to get back to my car, drop off my belongings, go to the bathroom twice, and make my way to the start line.

The startline was a mess, and the pace bunnies were all over the place. the 1:40 was directly in front of the 2:30 I could see the 2:05 and the 2:10 back a ways, the 2:00 guy was WAY back. So, I kind of lined up halfway between the 2:30 and the 2:05 guy hoping that the people around me would be the same pace. Ended up being pretty okay. well before the 1st km marker, I was on pace.

My splits (I needed an average of 5:41 to make my goal of 2:00)
1 km 5:45
2 km 5:30
3 km 5:27
4 km 5:58 (i commented to others around me that I thought this one was long - HRM says 1.19 km)
5 km 5:04 (Short - I picked it up, but not that much!)
6 km 6:44 (long much??? again, commented that this was long, others agreed, HRM says 1.39 km)
7 km 5:11
8 km 5:47
9 km 5:26
10 km 5:48
11 km 5:25
12 km 5:15
13 km 5:39
14 km 5:24
15 km 5:29
16 km 5:40
17 km 5:40
18 km 5:49 (okay, I need to pick it up here!)
19 km 5:30 (that's better - at the 19 km mark I was at 1:46:33 - I have 13:27 to run 2.1 km. < 2:00 is in the bag)
okay, where's 20??? 20? Where are you??
20 km 8:55 And there she is folks. stupid km markers. This km was AT LEAST 1.5 km long. nice spacing on the markers assholes! (note, I didn't slow down, I actually picked up the pace here - HRM says 1.61 km)
21.1 km 5:17. I'm booting it, knowing there is very little chance I'll make under 2 now with that stupid 19-20 km boondoggle.

Final time 2:00:47. which has me both happy as it is a 4:17 PR but also has me a little upset because I missed my goal. I'm positive though that with a course with more accurate km markers I would have had <2:00 in the bag. I should note that I have the polar RS200 sd that calculates speed and distance, based on one of those foot pod things (measures foot acceleration, is supposedly more accurate than a GPS). Anywho, it had the total distance at 22.5 km, so the course may have been really wrong, either that, or I need to calibrate the thing (I've never before thought that it over estimates distance though).

So I made my way back to the hotel where we picked up our race kits, and checked the results. 3rd athena < 40, I got a medal and apparently a gym bag will be mailed to me me :)I guess that is it from me.

I know I have a < 2 hour time in me now, I just need to have a race with even km markers. Now i just have to decide it I want to do one this spring or wait until next year. (I'm officially switching focus to tris as of now, until July). I could do Waterloo, Missisauga, or Ottawa all before the end of May. Decisions, decisions.