The Rural Runner

Yesterday I had a great run - 25km on Christmas Day! (ask me a year ago if I would have thought that was possible.. Haha no.)

This was my longest distance to date!

Now I am aiming for a new goal.. 30km, then 35, then 40, and the big goal - 50 km on my birthday (the end of June!). After all.. If you wanna be an ultra runner.. You've gotta train like one.

The weather was surprisingly warm for December (12 degrees!) .. And for the fact that I live in Canada. I ran all the way to a marsh trail. I didn't know about until my step sis mentioned it and said I would like the view. She was right.. The trail was beautiful and I will definitely be back!

Also.. Please note the beautiful camelbak my amazing boyfriend got me for Christmas!! I've been talking about getting one for ever, he's so thoughtful. It's fully insulated and holds 2L. I feel so safe running long distances now without worrying about getting dehydrated, and it's got a pocket that fits my phone and snacks perfectly.

Also.. Dad got me a hilarious pin that I stuck on my pack..

Hehe that little broccoli is so cute!

This Christmas was extra special to me because I got to spend it with Kirk. Our first Christmas together, and many more to come. We sat around the tree watching Christmas movies with my family eating tons of food and having some wonderful drinks that my step mom created, called Jack Frost.

Loved the red and gold theme we had going.

Judy's delicious drinks! I may have had a couple too many.. But it's the holidays ;)

Our gorgeous stuffed chicken. I don't eat meat anymore due to health problems, but I hear it was great! My sis Keshia raises them with her hubby.

We had so much leftover food holy moly.

Quinoa is the shit! Super good in salads too.. Just sayin.

I made this stuffing for everyone, and it's delicious! But takes like an hour to cook.. So never again. Also.. Yes I was drinking and cooking haha. I don't drink often, but holiday flavoured stuff is my weakness!

#whitegirlSolutions

I've eaten so much food this week.. I believe that Runger (running+hunger) is a thing.. And that's what I blame my appetite on. You run that far for training and can't help but be hungry after burning basically thousands of calories.

Seriously.. Keep your carbs away from me, cause I'll eat them.

It's like whenever I get home from a long run, I instantly turn into a bottomless pit. I ate an entire box of triscuits by myself haha. The Runger is real.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with family and friends, and hopefully you were able to stay active as well!

The Rural Runner

The past week I've been spending time with Kirk and his family in Cape Breton. There's no better way to spend the holidays than with family. I baked some vegan cookies before I left to bring with me, since I hate showing up empty handed if I'm staying for a bit.

I found an awesome vegan eggnog spice cookie recipe and decided to give it a try. Original recipe here. I love it when websites offer vegetarian alternatives!

They didn't spread out as well as I thought.. Opps. Had to flatten them with a fork.

Kinda look like timbits, YUM!

The finished product was a hit!

I stayed with Kirk and his family for a few days and had an amazing time as always. I love Cape Breton and plan on living there eventually.

Of course while I was visiting, Kirk and myself went for a couple runs.

Our first run was 8km on the Ceildh Trail. It's old an old train track trail that runs for hundreds of kilometres along the Western Coast of Cape Breton that's well maintained and (for the most part) sheltered by trees. It's also pretty flat, so it made for a good run.

Zoom, zoom!

Of course we also found some obstacles to play on.

Some day, I plan to climb across this entire thing.. Ninja warrior training!

The next day we did a quick 5k up the mountain and back down, which really made me realize how much I need to start adding hill training to my workouts!

It was a much more difficult trail than I normally train on.. With a couple technical climbs and some rivers to cross. We go until we reach a hunters cabin hidden in the woods, then turn around as our half way point.

It was a great week away and I love spending it with Kirk and his family.

This week we're planning on spending time in the valley with my family over Christmas, and fitting in our long run tomorrow on Xmas eve! My longest distance ever - 24 km (cause we're all festive and shit). Stay tuned for a recap.

Merry Christmas friends,

The Rural Runner

Now that Ive been home a bit and life has calmed down, I figured it was time for a race recap.

Kirk and I arrived in Fort Lauderdale after a long day of flights and being at 4 different airports. We picked up our rental car (note to self.. Book this in advance next time. Airport car rentals are a nightmare.. And Canadian debit cards are apparently useless in America.)

We finally got everything sorted and headed straight to Whole Foods.

Seriously, there needs to be a whole foods in Nova Scotia.

We got all carbed up and ready for a weekend of racing.

The race venue was pretty flooded, and it was raining hard on and off.. But that didn't rain on our parade, duh we are Spartans! Aroo!

The race went very well, I only ended up doing Burpees for the Hercules hoist (this seriously weighed more than I did and lifted me off the ground) and the rig (opps, need to practice my monkey bars). I'll get you one day, burpee free race!!

Heres the pictures from Saturday's race

Who's this happy during a bucket carry?? Me apparently.. Lol like I said, we were in Miami, it was warm, can't rain on my parade!

The only obstacle that is easier when you're a shorty.. Also, man buns and barbed wire don't get along.

Mmmm doesn't that water look delish.

Pretty excited because I passed a dude! #spartanchicked

Kirk was waiting for me at the finish line with a big hug :)

Ps - you get a free Shock Top at American races.. Now that's what I'm talking about!

I placed 33rd in my elite heat for females, and 5th age group, which makes me super happy because I thought I would be near the bottom of the group! A goal for me had been to place top 50 of elite females so to do this at my first elite race was pretty exciting!

New goal: top 10 female.

Kirk placed 3rd in elite and made it to the podium! He has been training his ass off and deserves a big win like this!

Look at that smile! :)

Holy moly am I ever a proud girlfriend, I literally bragged to anyone who would listen to me that weekend about him winning! Well deserved. Someday, I'll be up there with him :)

The next day I was far too bruised and beat up (8 foot wall probs) to race elite again so I had the wonderful opportunity to cheer on Kirk instead. Watching him race is amazing, he's so fast and focused and when he goes through obstacles he makes it look effortless. I've never been so proud! He came in at 4th place in a very close finish! That man never fails to impress me.

Later on that day, we met up with our friend Juan and ran in the open heat (less competitive). It was super fun completing the race with friends and getting some awesome pictures along the way.

Romantic date idea.. Bucket carry through a swamp, haha😂

Again, man buns and barbed wire don't mix.

We decided to do a sexy hair flip dunk wall photo.. But I forgot.. Hahaha still the best picture ever.

Dunk wall photos are beautiful.

Note to self.. Don't wear a strappy sports bra at Spartan races. Also, say hi to my awesome friend Juan! :)

Overall it was SUCH a amazing weekend. I made a bunch of new friends, completed some goals and had fun racing. For now, it's technically Spartan race off season, but we're training for our upcoming race, the hypothermic half marathon. Back to the cold in Nova Scotia!

After that race, the workouts will be getting very intense as we have decided to compete in the Montreal ultra beast (45+km) July 31.

Ps - we made the 3 hour drive to Orlando to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and it was literally the BEST DAY EVER!

Cheers,

The Rural Runner

Finally, finally, finally!!

Tomorrow morning I'm flying out of cold and wet Nova Scotia and heading toward hopefully sunny and warm Florida! Im emphasizing this because I just put my snow tires on Tuesday and am in denial that it's almost winter.

Although it's always fun playing in the snow with your puppy!

Anyway, I've had this trip planned with Kirk for quite a while now and we're super excited to go!

We arrive in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow around 6 and will be staying close by, as our race is in Davie. We're also hoping to get an early sneak peak at some of the obstacles tomorrow once we land!

Goal: keep Burpees to a minimum.. Aka don't fail any obstacles!!

We are racing in the elite heats both days and then probably doing an extra lap just for fun!

After the races were hoping to go out with some friends for food and post race celebrations. We're going to be super close to Miami beach so we are going to rent bicycles and go exploring as well! It's going to be a very active vacation.. Just the way we like it!

After the weekend race weekend is all over, we are also planning on heading up to Orlando for a day to go to Universal Studios.. And more specifically The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!! I'm full on fan girling, this is basically my life dream.. Finally going to Hogwarts!

I'm gonna be that adult that's more excited about this than most children there... Yup.

It should be a great week and I'm counting down the hours until we leave! I'll definitely be posting race recaps as well, so stay tuned.

The Rural Runner

After Saturday's near death experience and what I felt was a very crappy run (okay, obviously if you almost die, it was a shitty run).. I was looking forward to getting back out there and making things right. What some might call "get back on the horse" haha, well actually more like getting back on the trail.

As I was telling my boyfriend Kirk earlier, I have a theory that every bad run always precedes a great one. He completely agrees, it's like whenever you're having what seems like the worst run ever, getting back out there for another go is the best thing you can do. It's like redemption.. So hang in there, better days are coming.

Today I went out for a 10k run, just like any other normal day, except this run felt different than Saturday's. My legs weren't tired, I felt very energized and easily maintained my pace at under 6.00/km. This alone is great news for me because only a month ago my average pace was around 7.00/km.. So huge improvements in speed!

It was a little chilly and there was some snow on the ground, but overall it was a great, clear day for a run.

I finished the run in around 58 minutes.. A new PR for me! I was so excited because last week when I PR'ed my 10k in under an hour for the first time ever.. I was struggling hard. Literally pushing it with everything I had. Where as today it felt easy and natural for me. I happened to look down at my gps watch and was like "woah really.. Was that my time!?" Seriously.. Big improvements because last week I was panting like a dying animal.

Hahaha this was me last week.

2 cat pictures in one post.. I swear I'm not a crazy cat lady..

Anyway, I was also super excited today because I finally reached one of my newest goals.. To run 160km in one month!

Oh yeah baby, finally a member of the platinum club!

It's been a busy month with a lot of training for me and I'm really noticing the improvements I've made by sticking to my training plan. This half marathon in a January should be a piece of cake!

So remember, embrace the shitty runs, because more than likely something great is coming along right after!

Cheers friends,

The Rural Runner

Yesterday I was due for my long run of the week (these always seem to fall on a Saturday). The run was scheduled for 19.3km. This is the same run as last weekend, except this one was intended to be a time trial to estimate my finish time for the half marathon coming up in January. I was struggling to find the motivation to head out for this run, but after watching the video "Rise and Shine: Welcome to the Grind" I was determined to get out there and get it done.

This video is amazing and literally gets me out of bed some mornings.

Heading out onto the trail, my body seemed slow and tired, like I was running but my legs weren't moving. My pace was slower than normal (averaged at 6.30/km, which is normally around 6.00/km for me now) and I got an abdominal cramp at only 3km in, which slowed me to a walk.

I couldn't understand what was going on, after I had done the exact same run last week in almost identical weather and was fine.

By identical weather.. I'm talking about the cold temperature and rain.

Reflecting back now, I'm guessing it was all the early Christmas celebrations and unhealthy food that probably caused my drop in pace (nutrition and fuelling your body properly for runs is so important.. lesson learned).

Carrying on, I started to feel somewhat normal again around 6k, and the run started to go much more smoothly. I stopped at around 10km to eat some energy bloks (strawberry.. My fave!). And to also take a bridge selfie.. Duh.

Luckily the rain had slowed down.

I continued on, but this time decided to do a loop, instead of turning around and retracing my steps to home (first mistake).

Shortly past the bridge, the sidewalk stopped and I was forced to run on the shoulder for about 2km (second mistake).

The road I was on is also known to be bad for people driving way too fast (okay yeahhh, red flags, third mistake).

Luckily I was running toward traffic so I could see oncoming cars. Btw, it was broad daylight during this run..

At about 13 km in, I happened to look up just in time to see a red car swerving toward me, on the shoulder, spinning and throwing gravel everywhere. I somehow quickly jumped out of the way into the ditch (God bless adrenaline). The car noticed me (I think) last second and quickly over corrected and flew back onto the road. It all happened so quickly I'm not sure what kind of car it was, or who was driving, but I can only assume they were not paying attention to the road. Talk about wrong place at the wrong time.

After landing in the ditch, I sat there crying (seriously, almost died I was pretty shaken up), over the fact that life could have ended so quickly and so suddenly, and how much I would have missed out on. There's so much in life that I have planned to do.. The car didn't even stop. Who knows if they even would have if I had of been hit? I might have died in that ditch.

As scary as it was, it really opened up my eyes to what's important, and all of the things in life I should be grateful for.

It made me think about a few things:

If someone is important to you, tell them. Tell them, tell them, tell them!!

Don't take life for granted.

Say I love you.

Smile more.

Be grateful for your health.

Life's too short to be afraid of living.

And please, pay attention when you're driving - for walkers, runners, bikers, everyone. That could have ended differently.

This was one of those runs where it literally takes everything you have to not sit on the side of the road crying, and to keep going.

It's just forward.

Stay safe friends,

The Rural Runner

Ps.. I finished my run only 7 minutes slower than last week so I guess I wasn't doing all that bad after all!

For the longest time, I've wanted a gps watch so that I can accurately track my runs without carrying around my chunky phone the entire time (seriously why are all phones basically the size of iPads now?!).

I also really wanted it to be waterproof so I could wear it in obstacle course races, black so it matches everything, and round shaped but not too chunky. Okay I'm a little picky.. Haha.

Recently, I was given a refurbished Garmin forerunner 610, which covered everything on my gps watch wish list and more! It's a tad big in size, but is practically weightless so it's not as noticeable. At first it felt awkward on my wrist because I'm used to smaller watches (aka the cheap Walmart one I wore everyday), but eventually I got used to the feel and the strap doesn't bother me at all.

Okay it looks big for my little arm.. But it's super comfy, I swear!

Using it for the first time was fairly easy and straightforward with the manual, however I found the first time I turned the gps on I had to wait for what felt like 20 minutes for it to locate a satellite and was getting worried that it wouldn't work. However, since then I haven't had any difficulties syncing, and it only takes about 60 seconds now.

The main screens are customizable which I really liked too, because I edited it to show my total distance, total time and average pace overall, plus after every km it tells me the average pace for that lap (there's tons more options than this, but this is all I like to know when I'm running). I also really like the back light at the push of a button and the long battery life (should last all week even with an hour of tracking your run every day).

I was super excited to test this baby out, so I decided to head out for some interval training on the old railway tracks.

I started off with a 1km warm up run then moved onto sprints.

The workout was intervals of 30 seconds each, at around a 3.30 minute km pace, followed by a 2 minute slower pace between 7-7.30 minute km. I completed 8 of these intervals total, and literally thought I was going to puke or faint.. One of the two.

After that I had a nice and slow run back home, for a total of 6.75km.

After the run, I posted on Instagram like I normally do, and recieved a funny offer through direct message shortly after..

Declined!

I'm literally bundled up in this picture with 2 jackets and showing absolutely no boob.. How does this request even happen?? Haha. Gave me a good giggle though. Maybe someday if I ever get engaged I would do it as a gift to my fiancé.. but even then it wouldn't be for anyone else to see.

I may be poor.. But not that desperate haha.

Anyways, in other exciting news, I've completely packed for Miami (okay, I may have finished packing like 2 weeks ago, but that's besides the point).

Here's what I'm bringing to Miami

I also packed fancy clothes for going out (we're going to Liv night club!) and sports bras/shorts/running shoes for the races Saturday and Sunday.

I may have also packed an entire box of oatmeal.. Don't judge me, I said I'm poor!

Less than a week now until I'm in the sunshine and I'm getting very excited!

The races should be fun and so warm as opposed to Nova Scotia weather. Hoping to finish the 8ish km course in under an hour.. Especially considering there's no mountains like there was in the Halifax Spartan race! We will see how it goes.

Cheers friends,

The Rural Runner

This week on Tuesday (the 24th) my family got together to celebrate Christmas. We decided to do it early for a few reasons.. My mom is doing clinicals for Med school and will be gone November 25 - sometime in February, my sister and brother in law will be in Quebec for Christmas, and I'll more than likely be working. We all wrapped our presents early and got together for a wonderful evening of pizza, drinks and conversation.. Plus a little gift giving. We even had made decorations in advance.

My homemade candy cane wreath

Moms homemade decorative blok

My homemade decorative blok

Our decorative bowl that smells like cinnamon hearts, yum.

Making homemade decorations while listening to Christmas music was a lot of fun! Plus we ate a turtle cheese ball with crackers. Holidays and getting fat basically run hand in hand right?

I was over the moon with how thoughtful the gifts were, and received a gorgeous pair of black under armour leggings from my sister as well as a bright green workout shirt (she knows me so well), as well as the same pair of leggings in pink from my mom! (Great minds must think alike.. I can't wait to wear them on a run!). I also got my fave.. Bath and body works - Lotion, a candle and hand soap, you can never have too much of it :) and a chocolate orange.. Which is a tradition in our family to be included in stockings.

Also, my grandma knitted me an amazing winter hat.. Which I know all of the grandchildren look forward to receiving every year! It will definitely get plenty of use. I also got some blistex (mom knows this stuff is like crack to me) and a pair of socks (new socks are one of my favourite things!! So comfy!) and.. an adorable little Olaf ornament! I also sometimes like to close my eyes and imagine what it will be like when summer comes, Olaf ;)

Srsly Olaf is my fave, I'm gonna have to watch frozen again now.

My mom also surprised me with a pair of 2XU compression calve sleeves that I'm currently wearing as we speak.. And are ridiculously comfy! Going to take them for a test run today to see how they work. Hopefully no calf cramps or tired little leggies with these babies!

I will forever unintentionally pose like a bikini girl.

If only I could wear the shorts outside right now too. Tell that to the -10 degree weather and the snow tho.

Also.. It's hard to take selfies when you have a cat.

Thanks Sadie for ruining the picture. You're lucky you're cute cat.

As for all you Americans out there.. Happy thanksgiving!

And the rest of us Canadians.. Happy.. Thursday?

And a very (early) Merry Christmas friends,

The Rural Runner

The Rural Runner

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