Speed Trials

Ange and I are both hockey fans. And we’re big NHL fans, too. We watch Hockey Night In Canada every Saturday, and I even turned Nico into my favourite hockey player for his first Halloween.

So when the NHL 2012 All Star game was to be held in Ottawa, we were stoked. Though we didn’t get tickets to the actual game or anything, it was enough having that hockey fever in the air.

On Saturday, we took Nico to the Fan Fair at the new Convention Centre. It was pretty crowded, but lots of fun. Nico wore his Sens sleeper and knitted skates, and was a huge hit! We walked around and looked at the memorabilia, and then we got in line to see the Stanley Cup.

The line was pretty long, and it took us about 2 1/2 hours to get to the front. There was a lovely couple with a two-month-old in front of us, and we chatted as we waited. Both couples had the same question: Will they let us put our kid in the cup??? When it was their turn, they asked the white-gloved official, who answered: “It’s been done, you can do it.” Gotta love that!

So Nico got to sit in the Stanley Cup!! Haha. Totally worth the wait!

And then, to top it off, our passes ended up being “winners” and we got an amazing Senators jersey signed by Chris Phillips! We never win anything like that!! Of course Angelo wore it to play hockey at the outdoor rink the next day…

So kudos to Ottawa for hosting a pretty fun Fan Fair.

I’m feeling a lot better today than I did on Tuesday. And thanks to Crystal for her lovely comment on my last post – I guess I must remember that we’re all trying our best!!

This morning was truly idyllic – I was enjoying my morning coffee with Angelo, we were reading the paper while Nico nursed and slept in my lap. For a brief moment I was completely at peace with everything – no nagging anxiety about dishes or dustbunnies, no needless worrying about diapers or lack of sleep. It was just lovely to hang out as a family (yes, Enzo was there too). And then I looked out the window…

It was very sunny out, but the kind of winter sun where you just KNOW it’s frigid out there!! Across the street I could see a neighbour scrapping her car of ice, and she was NOT making any headway. “I really should go for a run” escaped my lips, and immediately the stress of adhering to my training plan crept back into my neck. After all, I didn’t go for my 5k run yesterday because of the snowstorm, but today’s conditions are no better since there’s a dusting of snow over VERY icy roads.

I looked down at my beautiful sleeping boy, and I decided it was now or never. He was napping, Angelo was home, I could lace up my shoes and be back in 30min.

The run was neither easy nor challenging – I was working to keep a good pace, but the effort wasn’t herculean.  And all at once I felt that same peace as I had over breakfast. And for the first time in 4 months, I felt good being completely alone. Sure I thought about my baby while on the run, but I certainly enjoyed the scenery and the solitude, too.

And hey, despite icy conditions and strong winds, I managed a 5k in under 30min. Added bonus: Nico was still asleep by the time I got home!

Now that I’m 3 weeks into my “serious” (haha) training, I’m starting to see a bit of improvement in my speed. Whereas before it was enough for me to just “get out the door”, now I’m actually feeling like I can push myself on my runs, and that it’s okay to feel a bit uncomfortable.

Tuesday’s 4k was definitely a challenging uphill run. My km splits were as follows:

1 – 5:29
2 – 6: 18 <- uphill/traffic lights
3 – 5:22
4 – 5:26

It was tough to keep up that 5:30 pace, but I was really proud of the run. And I really wanted to “front load” my week, so I wouldn’t be scrambling to get my runs in before Sunday.

But then Winter in Ottawa happened!! Thursday and Friday saw an accumulation of 15 cm of wet snow. The streets were a mess, slippery with low visibility. Not ideal for running. I ended up doing an exercise video on Friday just to get a sweat session in.

The snowstorm gave way to really cold temperatures on Saturday, but I got my courage up and headed out the door anyway for an “easy” 3k. This is what I looked like:

Wind resistant tights, legwarmers, three layers on top, a neck warmer, toque and mittens. What a production!

I was a bit slower on this run, mainly because I was navigating big snow banks and half-plowed sidewalks. Good practice for possible race conditions next month, though!

Saturday’s Splits:

1 – 5:38
2 -6:35 <- big traffic light
3 – 5:32

And then my final long run was 6k this morning. And this is what I looked like:

haha, what a difference. I went to the gym for a run on the treadmill. My gym is dead-zo on the weekends, so it was nice to have quiet time all to myself. No traffic to negotiate, no wind. It was nice… Though I’m afraid I didn’t really push myself: I ran 6k in 37:26 min. That’s an average pace of 6:20/km. But, it was great to log in that “time on my feet”. As I was getting closer to the end of the run, I realized that 10k doesn’t seem so preposterous after all!!

One of the main reasons I made it out the door to run 4k in the snow today was because I really wanted to snap this picture:

That’s right, Angelo have jumped back into the real estate game and bought a house!!! And let me tell ya, the process was a lot more grueling this time around.  When we bought our first house (in 2007) we were younger, more impetuous and we certainly didn’t have any dependents (not even our low-maintenance cat, Enzo!). We knew we weren’t looking for our “forever” home (heck, at that point we didn’t even know if the relationship would last!!) so we were a lot more loose about our wants and needs. We looked at exactly TWO houses before putting in an offer. And we got the house we wanted with little negotiation from the seller or hassles from the bank. All it took was a matter of weeks before Angelo and I gave up our respective apartments and moved in to our first place.

This time around things were very different. For starters, our budget was bigger, but our expectations were higher too. We wanted a mid-to-long-term home, and our tastes had grown more refined. We started looking over a year ago, in late 2010, and we actually put our first offer on a house on Christmas Eve 2010.  It was a real fixer-upper and we put in a low-ball offer. We weren’t surprised when the deal simply went dead.

Then in February 2011 we found a really nice home that was turn-key, and priced to sell! Actually, it was priced for a bidding war, and our second offer was part of a multiple offer situation. We were outbid by $5,000, which bummed us out pretty badly – getting so close to getting a house, and then walking away with nothing.

After that, we got majorly turned off by the housing market in our dream neighbourhood. We didn’t want to settle, either on location or on the size of the home. With baby on the way, we knew we had to solve our living situation quickly (our apartment was not conducive for a baby. Here’s why) and so instead of rushing into home-ownership, we simply found a better rental apartment where we could raise the kid while we waited for the right home to come along.

For most of the summer we resigned ourselves to keep on renting for the time being, but Angelo never stopped trolling MLS. Then a few weeks after Nico was born, we got an email from our Agent saying she had the perfect house for us. She woke us up out of our house-hunting stupor, and even though that house was totally NOT what we wanted, it did re-ignite our desire for a home.

But how could we afford a house, while Angelo was at school and I was on Maternity leave??? Turns out the bank was eager to give us a mortgage anyway, since our credit rating is excellent, and we have a 20% down-payment in cash (from the sale of our first home). So once we knew what our new price ceiling was, we started looking again in earnest. We found a beautifully remodeled semi-detached really close to our ideal location, and put in a third offer. It was the highest priced house we’d seen, and we got really nervous about it. So nervous that we secretly prayed the sellers wouldn’t accept it and we could walk away. Luckily, another buyer came along and offered more, so our deal was off the table.

While we were relieved, once again house-hunting had left a bad taste in our mouths. Would we EVER find a home?? Throughout this whole ordeal, there was one house that remained on MLS, taunting us. There was something about this house that really drew us in, but the asking price was WAY above our maximum. Finally, after contemplating this house for months, Angelo resolved to go knock on their door. He needed to know why there was no movement on this property, which seemed so great to us. Without going into too many details, that face-to-face encounter when we knocked on their door changed the game for us. We placed our fourth and final offer with their agent, had a little negotiating back and forth, and we settled on a price that was suitable to both us as buyers and them as sellers. Basically, the perfect deal.

Obviously we’re beyond excited, and we know this is the house for us because we have none of the worries or anxieties about this deal that had accompanied all our other offers. We’re so happy that the other deals fell through, because this is the house for us, a house we can grow into, and the house Nico will always remember as “home”.

This just happened: (time span? About 18 seconds!!)