Motivate to Move - Podcast

I had the opportunity to be on a podcast with one of my marathon buddies who I met at the 2017 Ottawa Marathon.

We were both struggling and we both struck a conversation on that hot day and we commiserated about our experiences and both finished. Probably the worst marathon for us both, but needless to say we struck a friendship that took us to Twitter and Instagram.

Have a listen to see our conversations expand to running, training for my Ultra marathon, my AFib diagnosis, recovery, "Michelle", race weekend and supporting other runners. Oh and a new lease on life and getting back more time with my family and friends.

I'm sure either of the links work, but I gave a few options.

Spreaker

Listen Notes

Apple Podcasts

Google Podcasts

Canada Day Road Race - Redemption Run

2019 Canada Day Road Race

Race Report

As most of you know this race was somewhat of a milestone for me. A year ago amidst a heat and humidex advisory and a fresh diagnosis of Atrial Fibrillation I had to ask the doctors to let me walk the 5K. It was a humbling experience and it's hard to imagine that the journey I went on from that point to where I am today.

I'm grateful to those that have supported me along the way and it's been tough some days, but the one constant is my motivation to move forward and keeping plugging away.

Also the day before the race I volunteered with Run Ottawa at the Stittsville Bushtukah to hand out bibs. Shona, Helen, Ron, Arij and myself had the pleasure of greeting runners. I think there were more kids running than adults. 😄

A break in the race kit pickup for a group selfie

I dragged my oldest ML to take photos as the usual official/unofficial photographer was running and wondering if I could take some, but it seemed we were both in the 10K so I said let me see if I can convince someone to do some photos. 😉😉 and she did great. She took 90% of the photos and I took over for the tot trot and the 1K.

Photos I took are here

So for 2019 not only did I want to run I also wanted to go for the 10K. Doing 5K is fine, but I was on a mission...redemption as I call it as I had something to prove. I know I'm no longer fast as I'm still not really allowed to push my heart beyond my current threshold. For now I'm in turtle mode and treated the 10K as an LSD (Long Slow Distance) pace. Mind you my first km was a bit speedy. I was at a 6:31/km pace in the first bit and my Garmin was screaming at me. So it took another 2K before I settled into my groove. It was my first time back in the old course. From what I told we ran it backwards so it was nice to tour around Kanata Lakes as there was plenty of shade and the organizers had misters out which was helpful at certain stages.

I ran with an older gentleman and as we were approaching the 2Kish mark we can hear the heavy panting of the 5K folks making their move to place in the top 3. They were flying! We both joked that there wasn't anyone our age that was running at our pace in the lead group.

Once we hit the split where the 10K went straight and the 5K turned the corner we went up towards Kanata Avenue where we hit some elevation here and there. 

For the most part my Garmin was pretty quiet and I stayed within my Z3 threshold for HR. Pace wise I was pretty conservative in the first 5K, but then I started picking up my pace again in the 2nd half. Since I had not run this course before the last 1K was tricky as it was getting to the point where there was one final hill that surprised a lot of us since it was the first time. I got a video from an IG follower whose wife was filming and just happen to hear my name so she caught a clip of me finishing.

Thanks Marie (IG:marielosesit_again) and Sara for the video.

It was a great race and well organized. It's a Canada Day tradition so far. I've done this 3 years in a row now.

Blinged

10K done 1:10

Eagle's Nest Lookout

So what does one do when you finish a 10K race? Well you drag your voluntold photographer out to Calabogie for a hike.

It was a pretty simple hike unlike Luskville Falls, but enjoyable. Also very humid. Lucky for us there was shade, but as well we managed to get in just over 4K of hiking and some elevation which was not bad at all. 

1.5k from the highway and to the sacred grounds.

Eagle's Nest Lookout

this frogger was looking for some snacks

ML checking out the views

Done!

Framing skills

A great day and of course we stopped in Arnprior for some Wes' Chips!

The rest of Canada Day was a lot of RnR! Hope you had a good one!

2019 Ottawa Race Weekend

Race Weekend Timeline

Thursday

I decided to book off the Friday of Race Weekend and I had thought about going to pick up my race kit on the Thursday (which I probably should have) and get in on all the goodies, but seeing as though I carpool and had to go all the way to Stittsvegas and then I would have to fight rush hour traffic to get back. Anyhow I opted out and decided to put my feet up and do nothing. So I get home and was ready to watch the telly and then I see the phone ring. It's the Heart Institute. It's Guy-Anne! She has my stress test results. (Heart goes flutter in anticpation) She told me that the report isn't up on the system yet, but she managed to get a copy from them and wanted to share the news since she knew I was running in the race weekend.

Guy-Anne reviewed the results and said that everything looked normal. I was in normal sinus rhythm and there didn't see any signs of the Ventricular Tachycardia that was present. So during exercise when I had the Holter may have been a blip, but I was on the treadmill for 12 minutes and there were signs of PVC's but that was normal during recovery as she said they expect that after a workout. My fitness improved from 9 METS to 10 as well during the test my HR peaked at 179 and was steady. She was happy which made me ecstatic.

So she gave me some leeway in case I wanted to "race" this weekend so she upped my steady pace HR to max 160 and for interval to target between 150-170ish, but I need to recover back down to 125 which could be tricky when it comes to speedwork, but definitely will look at this as a positive recovery milestone.

We chatted some more as we always do and I mentioned that one of my gym rat buddies saw a photo I had posted and she said that they worked together. Small world. So Mina (?) was another PT that works with Guy-Anne so as always we got off topic. So basically I went into euphoria and was happy to hear the good news and literally running into the weekend.

Note: I'll be just cutting and pasting from my FB post since it's just as long on race weekend. I will add some stuff I didn't post on FB. (We shall see how if you actually read this ha!)

Friday

I took the Friday off to "rest", but I ended up running a bunch of errands. I went to Service Ontario with Kiera to finally transfer over the SUV (Plates) to my name and then I get a call from the DD15 that she needs a ride home so I had to head out to the high school to pick her up. I attended the President’s reception and met several of my Team Awesome teammates that could make the trip on Friday. We enjoyed chatting, drinks and snacks. On my way out of the Shaw Centre I somehow crossed the road, made my way up the spiral staircase and tripped on my own clown feet and bashed my knee. Perfect! Just right before race day. 😡 In any event I iced it and applied some Voltaren that night and all day Friday ( morning and pre/post race).

Team Awesome

Team this is why we're awesome

 

Race Kit

Flat Dan

Official 2019 Race Gear by Surge Activewear 

Social Media Champions

Dan Pak Fan Club 😄

Team Heart, but Shirt was too small 😞

Saturday

I met up with Team Nuun at Noon and met other ambassadors. Learned about when some products may or may not make it up from the states all depends on Health Canada. 
Then Jennifer Tuthill and I hung out as she was taking over the IG for Ottawa Marathon. Also ML was my usual valet/Sherpa/Pak Mule to hold my gear. 
ML and I went to the Rideau Centre and had lunch. So of course I had Asian. 😉🤪
Then we went back and found Jenn and relaxed while we waited for the 5K to start so we could head to the VIP area and cheer on the speedy 5K folks. 
Then I went off to stretch with Team Heart and loosen up for the 10K. Then it was off to the yellow corral where two of my teammates Chantal and Sonia found me. We all started together but soon Sonia peeled away. 
The highlight was the RCAF flybys. Definitely deafening and awesome. Thebrain held off until about 3K and then it rained. I never saw Sonia but did find Leanne and ran with her until her walk break. I continued and saw Jamie and Rebecca and gave them 👋🏼. The next cheer section was the OCRC gang and they were loud and saw Suzanne and Brianna I had a comfortable 1st 5K and then I increased my speed along the way for the back half thanks to the community of support and finished in a respectable 1:08 for my 5th race of 2019. Oh and thanks Éveric for the finish line vid merci beaucoup! Tu es formidable! 
We finished off the evening by cheering on the last of the 10K runners still on the course. 

Nuun at Noon

The dreaded spiral staircase to the start corral of the new course

Yellow Corral

My TA crew

RCAF fighter flyby

10 K race - 5th Road race of 2019

Negative split

Earned the bling

Sunday 

I traded my Team Awesome shirt for Xtra Mile Crew Ottawa as well I went downtown early with my fellow 37K crew members Cathy and Deena and we wanted to see the elites as they went by. We all went to the 37K point and saw the lead groups again and then just began cheering all the runners of different paces. 
I saw several run friends (too many to tag) but definitely inspired by your perseverance in the drastic weather that is HOttawa aka Race Weekend. I ran with several runners and ran at least two in all the way. Oh and thanksNicole for the water 💧 One was Mei Ling who I saw as I dropped off someone at the medic table and then who I found later on just past Rideau and ran her all the way in but had to make a stop with the Bad Ass lady gang where she did a burpee 😂
We stuck together and then I went back out to help others. 
One of which was my GP who had a hunch and sent me on my journey with the Heart Institute. So we chatted and I left him to walk himself to the end. It was his 30 something straight Ottawa Marathon streak. 😲 
I have to say wearing the Orange shirt was an honour. There are runners afraid to ask for help but definitely some that just said run with me. Very gratifying. 
When the last of the remaining Marathoners were coming in the rest of the crew all ran together to the finish and we posed for a group photo. It was definitely an amazing weekend. Congratulations to everyone that had many firsts and for running in temperatures that we have not seen very often. Wear that bling proud! You’ve earned it. 
🏅🙌🏼🍻

Ready to cheer on the marathon crew at 37K

A few more showed up

Choose wisely

Cathy and I

 

Deena and I

Cam

Peggy

It's a tad hot on this stretch

Found Mei and brought her to the Bad Assery

Bad Ass Lady Gang

Not having any fun at all

Best finish line run in

Run/Walk the equivalent of a 1/2 marathon and some

That's it for us!

Finish line group photo

Race Photos

So I wasn't going to buy the photos, but I did anyways as I wanted to show the Cardiac Athletes gear and of course the weather and how quick it changed. Thanks Marathon-Photos!

April Awakenings

Training

RunCoach

If you have signed up for Ottawa Race Weekend you may have seen an option for Run Coach. Run Coach is an online coaching app that helps you build a training plan to achieve your goals. In the past I've signed up for the Running Room Clinics and I've also dabbled in the Peak Performance Training. I'm taking a look at this app as 1) it was free with registration 2) it's about accountability when I felt I didn't want to be with an actual program that I couldn't adjust as if I'm at a clinic or with another plan it would have been tricky as my recovery/rehab has taken priority. With that being said I've been slowly returning and using the RunCoach to lay out my progress. What the app does it syncs to my Garmin data and calculates with its algorithm to develop a plan for you. 

Campus RUNch

Selfie outside my building

So I'm giving it a try and will keep you updated. It's about 35 days to Ottawa Race Weekend and I'll be ready for my 10K. So we shall see if I'm ready for my goal, but realistically I'm running it for Team Heart and spreading the word of awareness for the Heart Institute.

RunCoach Online Dashboard

Cardiac Athlete Meeting

I got a chance to meet with a fellow CA in Montreal when we went to bring Lia to a concert of one of her favourite artists Conan Gray. So we had a chance to chat over coffee.

She is an amazing athlete and overall amazing person that has overcome a lot since her cardiac arrest.

Nicole and I by McGill and Mont Royal

Run to Beer - Pint Series

On April 7th I participated in the 2019 Run To Beer - Pint Series and it featured my teammates from Team Awesome. It was great to meet fellow ambassadors IRL, It was nice to get out to run. I had registered for the 10K, but knew that I needed to keep it low mileage so I started out at the back of the 10K crew and decided to go and see if I can turn around at some point and head back. It was a great day and a great run to head out for a run with the crew. I found a great place to turn around by the giant steps on Colonel By and headed back around Echo drive and did a Bank Street loop.

Run To Beer - Dan's modified route

If there's beer you may find my teammate Jenn aka OmmMama

Warm up with Yoga on Tap Ashley

Jenn was doing an IG takeover of Ottawa Marathon.

Post photo of the Team Awesome crew

Q/A with the crew

Road Race #2

Rather than regurgitate the post I did on Facebook. I will link it up here to show and post some extended photos. I made it public so you can read the race recap I did.

https://www.facebook.com/dan.pak.904/posts/10156088443906766?sfnsw=cl

The route!

Equipe formidable/Team Awesome

Team Awesome/equipe formidable

Bib

Flat Dan

Team Nuun represent

10K mass start

The turnaround

Joelle caught up with me!

Cheer Becky in the distance

She's da best!

All MEC races end with a banana reward

Post Race Selfie

Maxime

Ian

David from the Bushtukah Trail Runners

Gesine

Christophe

Julie

Jenn

It's been a busy month already and I'm ready to take on the next set of challenges. Look out Turtle mode.