A few more pics.

Here are a few more pics from the Whistler half.

Now since this endeavor has a second part to it - namely get a dissertation written I thought I should provide a short update on that front.
My work office is officially cleaned up and ready for my replacement to take over. That means I'm working from home or SFU from now on.
I am three weeks into a directed readings course and so far so good, 15 articles down, 35 (or more) to go. 2 funding and fellowship applications complete, next up is shrink the research proposal and finish off the literature search on Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework. So now it's off to find somewhere comfortable to read, read and read some more.

2 down - 10 to go

2 down - 10 to go!
The second official event is now history! I'm very happy to have PB'd on the first one in May, because now I don't need to worry about my times :)
Saturday, June 4th was the inaugural Whistler Half Marathon and what a day it was. Our horrible Spring disappeared for a while leaving us with an absolutely glorious day, sunshine all the way.
Friday was a busy pre-race day, accompanied Michael's class on their big grade 5 field trip to Victoria, MP and I opted out of the parliament building tour in order to catch the 5:00 ferry to Tsawwassen and then make the trek to Whistler. Dave had gone up earlier in the afternoon so he could pick up our race packages. It was a beautiful drive with a total of 4 bears spotted on route.
Saturday morning came awfully early but the sun was out and there was a good crowd of Alma runners at the start line:

I had taken what I thought was a pretty good look at the route for the race but apparently I didn't look close enough, while I though we headed out to Rainbow park on the first part of the race we actually headed up Blueberry Hill. Blueberry is far too unassuming a name for that hill, it went on and on and on. I knew the Valley trail alongside the golf course was hilly but the road was even worse, thank goodness for the down hill stretch that followed. From the summit of Blueberry Hill we sailed down to Wayside park, good directing Jacquie, then some more up as we looped around and came back to Blueberry Hill this time to take the golf course route down. Now we headed off to Rainbow Park and the turn around point, another loop around a residential area then back to the golf course to run alongside the front nine. Along the way we saw lots of evidence of bears, the poop exhibit at the museum in Victoria on Friday proved useful to identify the piles o'poop at the side of the trail. Luckily we didn't see any of the poop depositors, although it sounds like some of the later runners and walkers did encounter at least one bear on the trail. From the golf course we crossed under the highway, took a jaunt through the Village, past the cheering throngs (Newton), and off to the Upper Village (at least I think that's where we went), a few more dipsy doodles and it was back to the Olympic plaza and the finish line.

It truly was a spectacular course and a spectacular day. Many thanks to Nicole for sticking with me through a not very energetic run, I really appreciated the company. Congratulations to those that managed to achieve PB's on a very challenging course; I know for sure that Dave and Christine did, and congrats to all the Alma runners that finished: Andy, Liz, Sebastien, Emma, Nicole, Bob, Phil, Anna, Lina, Susan, Andrew, Tony, and any one else that I may have missed :)
The course organization was wonderful, the volunteers were great and the spectators who came out along the route were fantastic, there was incredible community support for this inaugural race. The only thing missing was a medal for finishing, although the original print is lovely I'm not sure how I'll display it with my 11 other medals :)

The afternoon was spent scouring the Village for the best calamari in town (Carumba wins) and the sickest backpack we could find for Michael.

Then it was the Garibaldi Lift Company in time for the big game - Go Canucks Go!

What a goal Burrows, now that's the way to end an overtime period!

All in all a wonderful weekend!
Next up.....get some work done on that darn degree, get back into a good running routine, I have learned that I cannot run a good half marathon on one run a week, and prepare for the next event - Fueled by Fine Wine in Dundee, Oregon, anyone care to join us??????

Half-Corked

What could be better than a beautiful sunny morning and an 18.3 km run with 9 wineries along the way?
Hmmmm, I can't think of anything can you?

This past Sunday was the second annual Oliver Half Corked Marathon organized by the Oliver and Osoyoos Winery Association (formerly SOWA south okanagan winery association). Team Greased Lightening consisting of Danny, Kinnecki, Rizzo, Jan, Frenchie, Cookie, Marty and Sandy (bad version) was ready to go and fueled up with some Gerhinger Bros wines at 8:00 am.

Following the costume parade and judging we were off, with a quick stop to drop off the ghetto blaster (don't know why Ken didn't want to carry it the whole 18.3 km). After a short downhill jog and onto the farm roads we were in the midst of Tinhorn Creek vineyards - once again Tinhorn served up some lovely Sangria, white this year, and refreshing watermelon. If you are interested in the sangria recipe Tinhorn has posted it on their website - beware it serves 144, you may want to scale things down a little. Another short trek along the farm roads took us to Iniskillan but wait, there was Dave but what happened to Greased Lightening? Apparently it must have been a Ford for it was "found on roadside dead" - a fautly seatbelt bolt prevented Dave from carrying our transportation for the whole race. Erica did a great job at ensuring our beautiful vehicle made it's way to one of the support shuttles so it we could retrieve it at the end of the run. From there the wineries kept coming fast and furious, Road 13 and Rustico Cellars were up next - at this rate we were going to run out of wineries well before we ran out of distance. From Rustico we went down into the valley, crossed the highway and travelled along the canal, being careful to avoid the "drowning machine" and started our trek up the other side of the Golden Mile with a visit to Silver Sage - a beautiful setting, this is where the race ended last year, with some interesting wines. After Silver Sage there were some hills to climb to reach Church and State, followed by Stoneboat and Oliver Twist. Stoneboat wins for the most refreshing presentation of a wine, they turned their white blend, Chorus, into a delicous granita with grapefruit, lemon, lime and orange juices. Leah assures me we can easily make this treat. Leaving Oliver Twist we left the vineyards and continued our journey on Black Sage Road. If you've been counting you will notice we are already at 9 wineries, and the distance at this point was only around 12 km, the next 6 km were not looking too good. We had been warned so the rather long hill at 13 km was not a surprise but I think all would agree it was very long and some of that Tinhorn sangria would have been very welcome half way up. While there was no sangria to be had, there were apple fritters and fizzy fruit drinks to be had at the top, and then a short jaunt down the hill to La Quinta Ferria for the last winery stop, and then it was all downhill to the Oliver Community Centre.
Most of our group stuck together, finishing in just under 3:00, not the speediest of times but possible one of the funest times.
The finish line provided a lovely lunch, and guess what else? More wine, the association wineries that were not part of the route were present at the finish line to offer their selections.
Finally the morning finished off with presentations of awards, our hard work on costumes paid off and Greased Lightening won the best group costume award - a 3.0 L magnum of limited edition Half Corked Red wine. Every participant received a bottle of this wine in their race packages, a blend of reds from all 23 participating wineries. Team Greased Lightening thouroughly enjoyed their winnings that evening.

Here are a few pics of our day :)

And next up.....the Whistler half in one and a half days - stay tuned.

What's next

This week the realization sunk in - I have to do 11 more of these!!!! What was I thinking......

And then I realized that for my next event, I actually have 2 within 7 days, now I really wonder what I was thinking.

Coming up at the end of May is the second annual Half Corked Marathon, last year this event was 17 km long, and this year's course has yet to be made public, the race organizers are saying something between 17 and 21. Organized by Jack Wessel and sponsored by SOWA (South Okanagan Wineries Association) this event if the Okanagan's answer to Medoc. The inaugural event last year had about 250 participants run 17 km through the Golden Mile area of Oliver, through vineyards and finishing up at a winery for a fantastic gourmet lunch. The registration good bag included a bottle of wine from one of the sponsoring wineries, the pasta dinner included wine tasting, as did the course itself. On course we were able to sample wine from Oliver Twist, Stone Boat, Tinhorn Creek, Burrowing Owl, Dessert Hills and finally Black Sage vineyards - now that is a half marathon. Many of the participants last year got into the spirit and ran in costume (including Bacchus and his bevy of Greek Goddesses). If you are interested in participating in this event you will have to wait for next year, registration sold out within a matter of days.

While the event itself doesn't have an associated charity, a charity of note in the area is the Burrowing Owl Conservation Society, check out their web page for the burrow cam and more.

A mere six days after the half corked is the inaugural Whistler Half Marathon. The course winds through the Whistler Valley, it promises to be scenic and challenging, the altitude difference between Vancouver and Whistler can be noticeable. Unlike many events, this one is being held on a Saturday, leaving the rest of the weekend to relax and enjoy the surroundings.

The Whistler half have chosen the Chrohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada as their fund-raising partner, $5 from every registration will be heading to the foundation.

This event is also sold out, but if you want to participate they are still looking for volunteers :)

1 down 11 to go

Well the first one is done! Eugene half marathon, May 1st, 2011 with a PB to boot, 2:12:50 (previous PB was 2:14:03)

The weekend was great, we headed down to Eugene on Friday, spent Saturday at the run expo and exploring the Eugene market, next time we will definitely stay downtown. The downtown area seemed to have just a little more character than the burbs did - although the mall across the parking lot was very convenient.
Saturday evening was a lovely dinner at Ambrosia restaurant with our Alma running room friends, I think we had a total of 20 people there although at four different tables. Then back to our hotel to see the Canucks not quite win game 2 against Nashville. You can't say we weren't prepared though, the Pearce family had their jerseys on towel at the ready.

Sunday morning came early, at 5:45 we were all outside to catch our very convenient shuttle to the start line. We got to the start line in no time, had a chance to check our bags, and were very thankful for the U of Oregon opening up the law building to keep us warm while we waited. The sun was out but it was a little chilly out there. Shortly after 7:00 off we went. The half and full marathoners started together and followed the same course for the first 10 miles. Karen Walker and I were the only half marathoners in the group, we started just behind the 4:30 marathon pace leader and stuck together for the entire race. The first 8 miles of the race have a few ups and downs, we were anticipating a major hill around 4:00 miles, which was much less than expected and followed by a wonderful downhill stretch, the second major hill was just around 8 miles, this is were we caught and passed the 4:30 bunny. Around 10 miles the half course split from the full, and we finished off our last three miles without the marathoners. I was very happy to finish off with a PB of 2:12:50, and to finish before the first marathoner came in :) Even happier that my foot was fine for the race and after, and the PB was not expected at all, perhaps it was a combination of perfect weather, a beautiful course, great spectators, and finishing in Hayward field.

Karen and I then had the pleasure of sitting in the stands and cheering in all of our marathoners, Michael made it to the stadium in time to see Dave come in. Thanks so much to Suzana and Angie for hanging out with Michael and getting him out to see his Dad run his first marathon. Dave finished in a great time of 4:09:56, I'm very proud of him for successfully completing his first marathon of what I'm sure will be many more.

Sunday afternoon was a pretty lazy event, and Monday morning we were headed home, but not without a couple stops: the Bread and Ink Cafe in Portland for a wonderful brunch, and then Moonstruck truffles for some beautiful and yummy critter truffles.

Next up is the Oliver Half Corked on May 29th and the Whistler half on June 4th, a new challenge, two half's in seven days.... eeek......stay tuned.

Oops almost forgot - as far as the Ed.D. goes, my registration has been completed for the directed readings course, time to get going on annotating those 50 articles, that's 5 a week for the next 10 weeks, sigh....

Number 1

With just three weeks until the first event it's time to get this going!

The first official run of 12 in 12 is the Eugene Half Marathon, May 1st in Eugene Oregon (where else would the Eugene half marathon be?). A good group from the Alma Running Room is heading to Eugene this year, most to run the marathon (including my husband, Dave, who is running his first marathon). A few of us will be running the half and then cheering on the marathoners as they finish at historic Hayward Field. The Eugene marathon has a number of associated charities, the main one being the American Cancer Society. Keeping things closer to home April is daffodil month and you can wear a daffodil pin in support of the Canadian Cancer Society.

Training is going well for this event, after a minor set back with a misdiagnosed stress fracture in my foot I am back on the road and was quite happy with being able to complete the Fool's run a week ago. This weekend is an 18 km run, circumnavigating North Delta, which I'll be doing on my own on Saturday so that I can support the marathoners, with a water/treat station, on their 35 km run from 4th and Alma to Deep Cove on Sunday.

On the Ed.D. front the last required course is complete and I am currently working on developing a reading list for a directed readings course this summer. I'm going to spend my summer becoming an expert on advocacy coalition theory and on  issues surrounding tenure, rank and promotion.

Here we go....

Classes are over, final exams are next week and then I won't be back in the classroom until September 2012. I'm taking an educational leave for the next year to get a good chunk of my dissertation written and thought it might be "fun" to set a physical challenge to go with the the intellectual challenge - run 12 half marathons in 12 months.

When I mentioned this idea someone suggested tying in some fund-raising with this, so I'll try to promote the designated charities for the events I do.

I'm happy to have company, I'll post the events I plan on doing as I identify them, and would love to hear about your favorite races. Here's what I have so far:

#0 - April 3rd, 2011 Fool's Run Gibsons to Davis Bay, BC - this was the warm up or prequel run.
#1 - May 1st, 2011 Eugene Half Marathon
#1.5 - May 29th, Half Corked Marathon, Olivir, BC
#2 - June 4th, 2011 Whistler inaugural half marathon

#3 - July 10th, 2011 Fueled by Fine Wine, Dundee Oregon
#4 - August ???
#5 - September ???
#6 - October either Victoria, BC or San Francisco Nike Women's
#7 - November, Boundary Bay half marathon
#8 - December 4th, 2011 - Las Vegas Rock n Roll half marathon - run the strip at night!
#9 - January 2012???
#10 - February 2012 - Vancouver 1st half (if I can conquer the registration system)
#11 - March 2012 - ???
#12 - April 2012 finish where I started with the Fool's run in Gibsons, BC