Wednesday marked the first Franks XC race of the year. I have talked about these before but the short of the long is that they are a series of XC races that run for ~5 weeks in fall then spring all between 4-8km and I have been doing them for about 5 years now.

It was miserable out. I mean its mid-April and still snowing. They had to change the course to paved trail instead of XC track it was so bad. Fml

It was freezing my legs have been super tight and my stomach factory has been working over or under time depending on its mood – not making the situation better. My specialist thinks I have “lazy bowels” my response to him was well what happens when they are not lazy and I almost poo in my pants. Hmmm?

Alas I decided to run anyways because that’s what I do and it was only 5.25 km. About 1 km in my whole body kinda cramped basically it was telling me “Teagan you are so SO dumb. We hate you” and my right hamstring started to hurt. I wanted to drop out but I kept running slower and slower then walking then built energy run pass people then walk etc etc. I fully admit I am not close to front pack but I am defiantly a mid to high pack runner on good days in my age category. I knew a shit ton of people passing me are people I usually beat just hurting my “ego”. As the race went on my hamstring totally cramped so I would walk then build enough strength to pass people then it would cramp again so I gave up and turtled to the finish 29 minutes and 50 seconds. On the way home I am sure (I know I was) I was a sassy cat to Jesse who ran a good race 25 min or so and he is nice enough to put up with my relentless antics and analysis of every race we run.

Got home hobbling around stretching everywhere magically wishing the mild nagging pain will just disappear and waiting to check the results. Refresh – refresh – refresh. During this time I talked to my mother and father who BOTH told me not to run COMPLETELY separate I mean the people are divorced haha. And the inevitable response from them to their 25 year old daughter that is “mature” enough to own a house was;

Mother – “Well told you so. It’s a good thing you are only doing a 5km race when you go to Hawaii tomorrow not the marathon you were going to do”

Father – “What did I tell you yesterday. Not to run. Don’t you race again in like four days. You never listen to your parents you turkey”

Haha after these kind and true words I laughed because Jesse reads me the riot act about over training and not listening to my body. So although I feel defeated for running poorly in an amazingly insignificant race I finally learned a valuable lesson about myself that has taken me 6 years of competitive running and more than one injury.

Take time to stretch, listen to your body, recognize some races don’t really matter hell most don’t they are just races, and last but should be first listen to your family they know you best.

So how did it end? I ran 5.25km in 29.50 came in 26th out of 39 in my age category. And in the end it doesn’t really matter haha but I made a mountain out of a molehill and FINALLY learned a lesson. Emburrrassssing (yes that is suppose to be spelt wrong)

In the words of my coach one of my favourite people on the planet.

“You won’t get fat or slower for taking a week or two off”

Currently I am on a plane to Hawaii with a cramping hamstring that is suppose to race on Sunday and I am the only one to blame.

Ps – Family I love you all of you crazy animals.

My training schedule right now is….

Monday – Bike 30-60 minutes
Tuesday – Swim 2 or 2.5 km and Run 4-8Km
Wednesday – Bike 30-60 minutes
Thursday – Swim 2 or 2.5Km and Run 5-8Km
Friday – Bike 60 minutes and Run 5-6Km
Saturday – REST DAY!
Sunday – Bike 90 minutes and run 7-15Km

I have set some parameters around my run training the minimum I am running 4Km and maximum 15Km until march 1st. Then March 1st my heavy training schedule starts to start building for half iron and a few ultras I am doing this year.

Set 2013 race schedule

April

• Wed night races

May

• 5 Peaks terwillegar
• Blackfoot Ultra
• Wed night races

June

• No races just traininggggggg

July

• Sinister 7
• Sylvan lake half ironman

August

• 5 Peaks chickacoo
• MAYBE Edmonton marathon

September

• Coaching starts for OOKs
• 5 peaks Devon

Well that’s it that’s all for now. It has been pretty chilly here and super slippery so lots of my longer runs have been moved on to the deadmill. Party rock. NAWT.

Mine and little pups feet going for a winter zoom

Just bike training away – sweating bullets

For the month of August I only raced 5 peaks Chickacoo. This is one of my favorite of the 5 peaks series; this year not so much because I had bronchitis. In pure Teagan style I told Jesse I wasn’t going to race and would just come support him; as we are driving down the little road in to the park I said fuck it. I can’t let you race and me sit there. SO I ate an Aleve, Tylenol day cold and sinus and used tigerbalm as Vicks on my neck to help me breathe. This concoction of drugs made my race a bit wonky noodles I thought my head was going to explode pounding down some of the hills but I finished dead lungs and all!

There I am dying at the top of the huge hill.

September started along with the Wednesday night series my personal fav. I couldn’t race the whole season this year due to a compressed disc in my back. Some days are good days and some are bad days so that went along with racing. My back acted up for all of September and in to October when I was supposed to run the Grizzly Ultra 50K. Looking back I shouldn’t have tried to race at all but I am stubborn and have a hard time taking no for an answer.

So October came and we headed down to Canmore to race; I was ready to go had a bunch of Aleve in my hydration pack and said its go time. Deep down I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it my back just couldn’t take 50K of trail pounding. I started the race and felt good my first 10K were stellar I was right on pace for my projected 6 hour finish and things were good to go. Then at about 11k things started to fall apart I felt my low back start to swell and my knee seize from pinched nerves. I started to walk the hills and had an internal mind fight about if I should continue or not. I realized I just couldn’t put my body in the position of further pain. I decided to take it easy for the last 3K in and enjoy myself. I came through transition and went to our gear tent to grab some race food and my poles. I knew I shouldn’t keep going but I started to head out on leg two – as I started to head out I stopped and turned around and came back in. Probably one of the smartest and hardest decisions I have ever made I HATE to quit. I went to our gear tent dropped my pack, and poles and realized I had to turn over my timing chip and pull. That was hard to say out-loud that I couldn’t go any further because I was hurt. All in all it was a great experience and a well run race. It taught me a lesson or two also.

Grizzly Ultra 50K

After Grizzly I came back and finished off the Wednesday night races; I usually was in the top 10 in my age category which isn’t too bad for being hurt. Now racing season is over it is time to reset and ease off the distance for a while and keep up the solid and effective workouts. I am spending more time on my road bike and in the pool. Next year I will be doing Ironman Calgary 70.3 on top of my usual trail and ultra races! Pretty dang pumped.
Well that is all for now!

For the last few weeks I have been running 30km/week and a minimum of 30-50km on my bike! I even had a 35km road bike business meeting; it was awesome minus the fact I couldn’t clip out fast enough at one spot and ate poo during a meeting so embarrassing. On the long weekends Jesse and I always go to Jasper so of course we were there August long! We hiked/ran Whistlers with Chocolate his first big hike and did all the normal stuff. I got a few good runs in while we were there and our puppy thinks camping in the bomb diggity because the tent is a giant snooze pillow and he thinks deer should be his best friend.

Snoozing in the tent.

On our hike. Someone is more interested in the birds.

So pretty. Whistlers.

Things are finally back to normal this weekend we are going to the cabin, next weekend we race 5 Peaks Chickacoo one of our favorites minus Devon which is the BEST ONE EVER; and then we will be back in Jasper for September long with our best friends and their new puppy. Him and Chocolate are becoming the best of friends.

Then from there we are back to September, which for me is the busiest time of my life; because I work in a post secondary and I start coaching cross country again. I have tailored my training to cross country specific now, last week was my first week back training specific XC and it was awesome. My fastest 5km time was 24 minutes so I am very pleased and my 30×1 w/ 1 intervals went really well. I will be training XC specific with a mix of ultra training thrown in there (Sunday LONG runs) because on October long I will be soloing the Grizzly Ultra 50km with Jesse and our best friends will be there to cheer us on and help with our pup. Love them AND we get to have a big thanksgiving together.

Anyways back to zooming; MY FAVORITE race series of all time starts in a few weeks the Frank McNamara Wednesday night races – fall races are much harder than spring but they are awesome because all the post secondary teams run them so there its lots of people and I get to run with my team! This will be my 5th year of Franks races between all the members in my family including Josie we have a bizillon franks shirts!

I was looking in to doing Canada Pentiction Ironman next year but it is just too much money right now because we want to buy a house and on top of our normal warm holidays registration alone for the full iron = one week in Mexico; so I am thinking of doing Canada Calgary Half Ironman and my dad and I are doing the 175km Tour de’l Alberta 175km together because he road bikes also!

That is all for now and remember to eat healthy because;

hahahaha too funny I had too!

Sinister this year was awesome the race directors never fail to amaze me; they put on such a great well-organized event and find the worlds best volunteers ever. I mean ever mad kudos to all the volunteers and especially the ones at the water station on leg two that kept refilling my water cup and feeding me gummy bears. On top of this group of amazing people the transitions and course were full of amazing people from the running community.

I am dead serious trail running people are the nicest, coolest, and most helpful humans on this planet. I had the great fortune to run with some soloists and other team runners on the legs I did. I also got to see grand acts of kindness in action. One of the coolest things I saw was a man coming in from leg three absolutely destroyed he couldn’t walk anymore and two other people carried/dragged him across the field to the transition line to chip in so his next team runner could go out. Now people say running isn’t a team sport well let me tell you ultra running is and people will literally kill themselves for their team. I saw it happen more than once.

My team was made up of incredible people I could not have asked for a better group of individuals to run sin this year in the blistering heat.

I ran legs one and two. It was super sweet; I would do it again any day. The first leg was fast the beginning 10km were flat and fast then from there it was a steady easy climb up a giant hill in to the trail system. I had a great run for the first 12km then had to poo REALLY bad so I throttled back and walked a bit to the transition; I would have gone in the trees but it was super exposed and pooping in the open is awkward for others. Really really awkward. I came in to transition 1 and had a quick bathroom break and a glass of water then headed out for leg two. This is when it started to get hot; I had a grand hike/slow jog for a while that eventually turned in to some great flat and down hill running. From there I had another giant climb then it was downhill the whole way home. There was a longggg downhill section of single-track mud which was SUPER fun to run. The only minus of the whole run was I got a small tear in my new compression sleeves and I ran slower than I wanted too. But it was hot and I finished fairly strong so I am very pleased with that 32 km.

Legs 1&2 of Sinister 7

Something pretty funny/kinda scary for my sister who ran leg 6 (the leg I did last year). Right before she went out for her first night and ultra/ mountain run ever one of the volunteers announced a cougar was actually on her leg. I seriously thought she was going to vomit in her camelbak. Then she went out and threw down like Bobby Flay. After she was like crazy high on adrenaline and I thought she was ready to like go to war. However; this was actually positive. Everyone on the team ran well and I think (HOPE) everyone had a good time!

This year of Sinister was hard for a lot of people and I give mad kudos to any soloist that finished. You people are my heroes; Sinister is damn hard and in the blistering heat it is even harder. I read all the posts on the Sinister 7 Facebook group and they make me smile all the time; I love hearing all the stories and knowing I get to be apart of such a great event every year! I will run Sinister for ever; seriously so fun and I encourage everyone to do something this cool.

At the pre-race meeting the MC said that it is amazing all of us (runners) decide to put ourselves through hardship when we live in a society that could live hardship free. I think that was a really powerful thing to say and its true because if anyone tells you it’s easy they are lying. I promise.

Start line.

Post 32km. Munching oranges.

That is all on Sinister 2012 for now. I will post more when I get more photos and such. My computer is also going to die and I left my charger at work so I am out of time!

Mister Chocolate

However, he is still a puppy and is learning to walk on the leash nicely and not get so distracted. We are only running between 4-5km together right now until he builds up to running further.

10 steps of our runs

1. Start running
2. 2 minutes later poop
3. I have to pick up poop and re-direct route to find garbage can (running with dog poo is hard)
4. Keep running and he pulls for 500M or so
5. Stops to pee
6. Then we run again
7. After about 1km things settle down and he gets in to the groove (stops pulling)
8. At about 4km he gets tired -I tell him we are almost home – he speeds up
9. We arrive home at either 4-5km
10. If I am not done training I drop him off and keep going – if I am done we drink water together and lay around

It has been quite the enjoyable experience, not so easy to train puppies but rewarding! Right now he is on running lock down because he got neutered for his 6 month birthday so I am running solo until he can run again in 9 days! As consolation he does have a snazzy soft cone that makes him look like a flower.

Mr.Daisy

In other news I was deadly sore from the blackfoot ultra a few weeks ago but am now back in the normal training groove. This Saturday I race the Fast Trax Ultra 30km the race course is BRUTAL 3 – 10km loops. Lots and lots of ups. Minor positive I have run portions of this course many times over because it is the ACAC Edmonton cross country track so it won’t be a surprise. It might have been better if it were a surprise so I wouldn’t know going in to it how hard it will be.

Then the Tuesday after the race I am off to Vegas where it will be HAWT HAWT HAWT and I will tan,run,tan,gamble,tan,snooze.

HAWT

It was a great day about 20 degrees and the perfect mix of heat/breeze/shade. I was really hoping for a solid race but about 5km in my stomach decided to go on strike and gave me hell for the next 20km. So in the end it took me just over 3 hours not 2:45 which, is what I was hoping for. Josie passed me at one point and was like “what is wrong with you” and I barely replied because I wanted to die. After the race when Josie and I were chatting he said he could instantly tell that something was wrong. This generally is a good thing so if I were to be SUPER slow he might have known I was probs dead in the trees . I took in water, and shot-blocks during the race and heed at the aid stations. Must say I missed my NUUN! #1 thing I love about shot-blocks is that they do not further upset my stomach!

This race awarded me a few fun souvenirs;

1. An awesome hoody
2. Dilly bars
3. Diet cola
4. 2 huge chaffing areas on my back from my “fly away scapula’s” thanks camelbak!
5. Satisfaction

This is the elevation map! Lots of ups. Personally I like downs.

Blackfoot Ultra Elevation Map

Here is a fun phot Joise snapped of me dying on my way in from the BFU!

Done and Done

Also in other news, a few weeks ago I ran the 5 Peaks Terwillegar sport. Fun, hard, and hills as per usual! And not just back to training I am swimming at least once a week and biking at least twice along with normal running!

Next Race : Fast Trax Ultra 30km

Training has been going really well; last week I was in Jasper with work and I got in some great training (in my favorite place super shocker I know). I didn’t take any photos which, was totally my fault but I did hill intervals at Old Fort Point with the sheeps and ran with the elks almost everyday. It’s May so they are out in full force. My interval day I did up Pyramid lake road they were 9 – 3 minute intervals w/ 1 min walk 1min jog. This is my little fancy chart thing from the run to spice this post up.

Interval training day. Woot.

I did a few two-a-days; they are hard but I noticed a difference in my performance when I did an am run before a Wednesday night race. I felt really strong and ready to go. Now that we are in May I have started back training in the pool and on my awesome possum bike because Tri season will start for me in August. I sport my swim cap and one piece bathing suit – I am sexy and I know it. Then I go back to work looking like a drowned rat because I swim on my lunch break once per week. Sew tutes. Back to running training; I have started running more in my 5 fingers so like once a week instead of once every 2 or 3 or 5 weeks. I truly love them but usually just wear them on hiking, adventures, and in the gym. It has been a nice change they are so comfs. (comfy if you didn’t catch my personal abbreviation).

This Saturday will be the first 5 Peaks race of the year! Party on! Can’t wait hopefully I race it much better than last year because I got the shit kicked out of me. No lie but I still had fun because they are that awesome. Then I am gone to Ontario for work for Cystic Fibrosis Canada Shinerama! My people! Then the weekend after that is the Blackfoot Ultra, I will be doing the 25km baby ultra. See there is my training schedule and motivation notes. Nerd nerd nerd nerd. Also the  picture will not rotate you can do some neck stretches to look at it if you wish.

The picture will not rotate I do not know why.

That is all.

For now.

• My family is freaking awesome even though they are all total crazies. Rather than explaining them I shall just post photos as evidence. Luff you all and you are welcome for me sharing these photos with the world. I can not find any funny photos of my parents so I can just say they are the coolest people in the world. Ever.

• I have been racing the spring Wednesday night cross country races. I have been beating my times from last year by a lot. Great success. Training is paying off.

• I am going back to Vegas in June. I am so so so so so excited we are staying at the MGM signature and it is so fancy and so much nicer than where I stayed last time. I am going to get my serious tan on and shop.

Oh HAI Vegas.

In other news

Life is pretty dandy. My job is amazing and the weather is finally stabilizing in poo hole Edmonton. I have been training 30km plus a week. Last week had a bit of well A) a really shitty week and B) my body felt decrepit. Everything was sore all the time and I did not even want to move. So I only ran 20km and took three days off. I had a minor heart attack because I wasn’t making mileage and thought I was going to get fat and die. WELL none of those things happened and that taught me a very important lesson. Take time to rest and listen to your body. 3 years ago I tore my right quad really badly. I was out quite awhile, arguably I came back from training too soon but it all worked out. That was the crappiest thing ever because I couldn’t run at all. So last week I just kept telling myself, rest or injury? Obviously rest was the best thing for me this week I am back in full swing and my training times are banging fast. This week of training looks like this,

• MONDAY 5km TUESDAY 5km WEDNESDAY 4.5 xc race THURSDAY lift FRIDAY 8km SATURDAY 5.4 xc race prerun SUNDAY 10km 30×1 w/1 intervals = 37.9 km

Well that is all for now

BYEBYEBYEBYEBYEBYE

In the last year that watch and I have adventured in 3 countries, many provinces, through mountains, on beaches, and here at home. Classic classic.

Here is the report from the last year of Garmin runs, this includes everything except 30 or so treadmill runs last winter when its was minus 7905739025 and 905739 feet of snow!

I am very fortunate that running brings a lot of happy in to my life even when sometimes it doesn’t seem fun. I also love to nerd out to my Garmin I think it is just the coolest invention ever. Besides grape flavored nuun tabs my new love in the electrolyte drink department. IT MAKES WATER TASTE LIKE GRAPE POP! Invest.

In honor of Garmins 1st birthday we went on a SOLID interval run fueled strictly by chocolate because it is Easter after all. Did you know Ferraro Roche makes FULL chocolate bunnies. Invest. Todays workout was 30 x 1 minute intervals with 30 sec walk 30 sec jog recovery. My splits were awesome regardless of knee pain! I wanted to put my behemoth chart of my splits here but it is giant and looks stupid. So a quick summary 80% of my intervals were sub 5 min km; the slowest I ever got was 5:15 km. Overall 9.3km. It was a great run and I am very pleased. Runners high all over here.

In bigger news I am washing my running clothing that has not seen a washing machine for awhile….a long while… and the Frank McNamara Wednesday night races start this week. I went and pre-ran the course with Josie yesterday to see how the trails are and they are MUDDY. It should be a fun run this will be my 3rd time racing it!

And that is all. For now.