Random

So many things to blog about, so little time!

Between the flu, that very important someone leaving for Algeria, my personal trainer course (its official- I WILL be official), my real job and teacher's convention, my posts have become less frequent. For this I apologize. While my blogging has been lacking, my running has not. Well, except for the turn I had with the flu...which as I learned wasn't really flu as the stomach flu simply doesn't exist. What I seemed to contract (thank-you, Shannon) was what the world wide web informed me was some sort of gastrointestinal virus. ANYHOW- you can't run while you're barfing and laying in bed with a fever and very intense bone aches. Rest assured, I am BACK...and I have lots to say.

First of all, a bit of disappointment. Sadly, I will NOT be running the Vancouver marathon this year. It seems my alter ego committed to presenting at a conference in Kananaskis that same weekend and declined to inform me of this commitment. In the sad face of reality I decided that since running is not my career that I should follow through with my conference commitment even though my lovely colleague Christine did offer to present on her own without me so I could run in Vancouver. What a woman! Anyhow teaching is my job and running is my hobby (I do have to remind myself of this every so often) so I made the executive decision that I will be running Calgary on the 31st of May instead of Vancouver. I am saddened that I will not be at the finish line to see the lovelies complete the half but I will be with them in spirit and will be excited to have some people to hang out at the starting line with this year!

Next. This past Thursday and Friday was teacher's convention. I had the very fortunate opportunity to see Mr. Stephen Lewis speak at the conference on the topic of character education. For those of you who know me well, you will know that I heart Stephen Lewis. Not in the same way that I heart running or Tim Riggins, but the man truly is a humanitarian in every sense of the word...he makes me proud to be a Canadian. Of the many, many topics that Mr. Lewis covered in his speech, his passion regarding gender inequality that persists in the world today particularly struck a chord with me. He spoke of the women in sub-Saharan Africa that are raped, mutilated and enslaved in the various armed conflicts occurring in this region and how he cannot understand how, in this day in age, that the world allows such atrocities to continue. He also spoke of the fact that a whole new branch of medical science is being created in and around "vaginal reconstruction" to deal with the "vaginal destruction" that woman in sub-Saharan Africa are suffering from as a result of being brutally raped, gang-raped, raped with object such as guns (often which are fired while inside the woman during the rape) and sodomized. We are fortunate ladies, to be living in Canada...where, by the way, women are still paid 73 cents for every dollar a man makes for the same job. Something that seems small and insignificant when you consider what the women in sub-Saharan Africa face on a daily basis, I suppose, but it still made me angry. He also spoke in disbelief of the current economic situation in which our neighbours to the south in 48 hours could find $400 billion dollars to bail out their financial institutions but since the commitment to the millennium development goals by the G8 countries in 2005 the world cannot seem to come up with $25 billion dollars to forgive the debt of African countries. Curious indeed. Anyhow, Stephen Lewis is simply an amazing speaker who is passionate about a variety of causes...if you ever get the chance to see him speak, DO go...and to think he owes his very first UN posting to Brian Mulroney. The world works in strange ways, I tell you!

As for running (which does seem trivial at times in light of certain situations in the world) I did my first long run back after the flu on Friday. And I did it at the track. Yuck. Boring. But the ice and snow did scare me a bit after I had a major wipeout on Tuesday and I made the executive decision to bring it inside. So, I tried something a bit different...I downloaded a book to listen to whilst pounding around the track. And I surprised myself by enjoying it! It was great to focus on something besides the track and the boredom! I downloaded Diablo Cody's book- Candy Girl which essentially chronicles a year in her life as a stripper. While crass...VERY CRASS...the book is interesting and held my attention for the whole 2 hours and 6 minutes that I was on the track. I highly recommend the book download for anyone that is wondering how they will get through the boredom of their long training runs!

Anyhow- this post is long and random...I'll blame the rambling on my post flu brain. OOOHHH- but I am very excited to share some of my new found training knowledge and how it applies to the long distance running training in the very near future!