Speed Trials

I went out on Sunday to get a few staples, and ended up driving to the mall (to use up a gift certificate from Christmas) and bought some “serious” running shoes. I’ve been running for the past 3 1/2 years on the same pair of $30 sneakers from Zellers. Now, I ain’t saying anything against Zellers, because I love that Canadian Discount Store, and it is a testament to the shoes that they’re still fairing sort of well even after all these years. However, I knew they weren’t the best for running. I knew my heels were taking a bit of a pounding as I ran, but I don’t think I was quite prepared for the size of the gap in comfort between my old standbys and “real” “serious” running shoes.

I bought these:

And I lined them with these:

And when I put them on, I couldn’t help but flash these:

Oh my. What a difference! I wasn’t even planning on going out for a run on Sunday (the 10k training program starts on Monday) but I just couldn’t wait to try out these shoes. I don’t think I have EVER gone on a spur-of-the-moment run. NEVER. I just haven’t been into it enough. And now I know why. Because I wasn’t running in these shoes.

I took my camera with me on my run, as I was just going out for fun, and didn’t feel so bad about stopping to take some pics.

I jogged up to Carling ave. and passed the Civic Hospital. It stands facing Carling, a busy 6 lane thruway, and it has a helicopter landing pad just on the other side of it. The hospital actually has to send an ambulance across the street to pick up anyone who’s flown in by helicopter. Yes, Ottawa’s City Planner’s are a rare breed indeed!

A little further down Carling, I stumbled upon the Tulip Festival Carnival. For you non-Canadians, Holland LOVES Canada, and shows it by giving us Tulips, and so every spring Ottawa hosts a Tulip Festival that attracts tourists who take thousands of photographs of our planted Tulips in the greenspace around the city. It’s big time.

Ah, The Big Wheel…

Ah, The Carnie Trucks…

My next stop was the Bike Polo Court, and hung out with the gang for a bit.

Came home and made a great soup: Chickpea with dumplings…

The dumplings were the best part, for sure. I’ve made them before for another soup, and they were great. The recipe is from “Homestyle Vegetarian“, and here, for you, is the recipe for the dumplings:

1 cup self raising flour (I just used a cup of whole wheat flour with a tsp of both baking soda and baking powder)
1 oz butter (fyi, that’s 2 tbsp butter)
2 tbsps grated parmesan (I used nutritional yeast)
2 tbsps mixed herbs, chopped (I used dried oregano, thyme, and savory – because it’s what I had)
3 tbsps milk (I used soymilk)

Sift the flour inot a bowl and add the chopped butter. Rub together with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Stir the parmesan and herbs. Make a well in the centre, add the milk and mix until just combined. Bring together into a rough ball, divide into eight portions and roll into small balls.

Add the dumplings to the soup, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

Don’t worry about how dinky they look when you roll them, they expand BIG TIME. Just make sure you’ve got that BS and BP in there! The soup was way good too. Don’t worry, there were lots of chickpeas in there; they’re just down at the bottom…

Victoria Day Monday

Today is the first day of an 11-week training program for a 10k I’ll be running on August 1. I woke up at 6am (I ALWAYS wake up at 6am) and I was tired and groggy. I laid around for quite a while, reading GWTW, and was in no mood to run. Angelo and I went to the Parkdale Market, open now for the season, and got our starter plants for the garden.

We were warned not to plant anything before Wednesday, on account of the chance of frost tonight… but we headed up to the garden just for fun.

On the way, we stopped at BG’s where Ange got an impromptu haircut:

And Brandon showed off his mad just-got-my-training-wheels-taken-off skills:

Once at the garden, we decided to plant our bean and pea seeds:

Beans

Peas

Angelo put a layer of leaves on the whole thing to smother any weeds that may have the audacious idea of popping up.

We came back home and I ran 4.8km as per my training program. The run was excellent. Yes, because of my new running shoes, but also because I ran at a slower, steady pace today. I consciously kept the speed down, and the heart rate rarely popped over 150 bpm. I burned just as many calories as I usually do on ~5k runs, and it was so pleasant, because I wasn’t rushing to get to the end. I was just enjoying the run. It was also super sunny outside, and I was eager to let my mind wander as I basked in the spring sunshine. Here are some stats:

Length: 4.8km
Calories: 182
Average HR: 145
Max. HR: 157
Time: 27:36

For my strength, I’m going to do my FIRST day of the twohundredpushups.com challenge. It looks like a great program, and Angelo’s doing it with me!! I’ll keep you posted how it goes.