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!

March Out like a Lion

Update

It's been awhile since my last post so I may/will be doubling up as I've been quite busy with activities, planning trips and just all the things.

I gave in my Holter on the 20th of March and now I wait for my appointment to meet with my cardiologist/electrophysiologist.

In the meantime, when I registered for Ottawa Race Weekend there was an offer to use an online coach for "free" and when I say free it means you have to register and link up your stats from Garmin and/or Strava or whatever fitness app you use.

Choose your app wisely 😄

So I decided to give this a whirl and input/sync my data. It takes in all your activities (if you've synced" asks you a bunch of questions on your goals and fitness and it spits out a training plan. Pretty easy.

I'll be honest with my moderate pacing and desire to run is pretty high I have to take this schedule with a grain of salt until I get the all clear. So far my review is positive that it was easy to configure, but I don't really have access to a physical "coach" and if I want to talk to the virtual coach then guess what it is extra. Surprise!

For now I will let this play out for race weekend and give a proper review as so far it's relatively easy and I don't see any issue with using it, but you have to be more religious with following the plan. It is something different for me.

Snowboarding/Smuggler's Notch

I went out I can tell you when I was wearing my Holter on my 1st outing of the 2019 season it was at Calabogie. Of course I went with my snowboarding wife Eunice.

Top of Calabogie overview of the lake

Then of course once the Holter came off I was off to our annual trip with the ski club to Vermont and to shred three mountains. We pretty much go every year and some disappointment and some stellar shredding. You can never rely on mother nature and old man winter to agree on what will happen in March so this year we decided to go early for peak season access and we were not disappointed as a Nor'easter headed up the coast with about 58cm of snow that fell Friday and well into Saturday. There was a lot of snow. In fact my SUV got stuck in the parking lot and the girls had to push me out.

The following morning after arrival

So Much Snow

Lia and I waiting for the lift

Snowy

Follow the leader

Mix of Rain and snow over 48 hours

After the Nor'Easter

The winds were wicked

Snow Shower

Sun came out

Girls and I dug the SUV out

SUV has been freed

Cardiac Rehab Follow Up

It had been almost six weeks that I had met with Guy-Anne to go over my exercise routine to see how I would adapt to the exercise program. Unfortunately I was WAY too eager and from what my Garmin stats showed she was not happy that she saw some of my max HR numbers were hitting beyond the agreed to levels. So I will head back to 😡 turtle mode to make sure I let the ♥ heal.

Random News and No April Fool

On April 1 I had to do my civic duty and head down to the Ontario court house to serve as a potential member for the jury. IF you have never done this before you bring the Summons with you (filled out the bottom portion as I forgot) and register with the clerk. You are herded into a waiting area for all the potential jurors. Once you register with their little white cards with your juror number you take a seat once they verify the information on your form. Once all 185 potential jurors have been screened into the waiting area you get to watch a video on becoming a juror and how great it is. That's not the official title, but it was a 10 minute video explaining the process and what to expect. It was ok, but it was a little over the top. They tried to make it more personable which to me made it even more "fromage" so I took it with a grain of salt and awaited to be called en masse to enter into the court room.

Usually the court sessions start at about 10a, but it was started a bit late. So once the judge was ready we all proceeded into the court through a side door and we all sat in the gallery and awaited for the judage. So just like in all the movies and tv shows it is a very formal proceeding and we all rose and sat when told to. The judge apologized for the delay and eventually told us that a last minute resolution was reached prior to the call and that our services were no longer required. As a result everyone was dismissed, BUT apparently we are all to return the following Monday to start the process again, but on a different case. Almost all of us were a bit perplexed, but now I get to go through this again.

Dental Cleaning

So also the next day my visit to the dentist office was the most obscure. I arrived to a construction zone of the office and I didn't realize until I arrived and had to enter through a side door. In any event I found where I had to go and eventually I made it to my hygienist's chair. I've been at this office for years and this is a new hygienist that put me through the gears. I had xrays, a 20 question on my meds and then let her know I had heart procedure in December which ensued a whole other line of questioning and of course Dr. Google. Long story shorty they did everything but clean my teeth so I had to call my cardiologist office just in case something happened and bacteria could get into my blood stream and infect my heart. Yep! But I appreciate the due diligence and the fear of erring on the side of caution. BUT the story doesn't stop as the cardiologist asked for a fax of the dental hygienist concerns and of course I call the dental office back and they don't have a fax machine. So yep you guessed it snail mail request...
 Tune in for that follow on these two events and much, much more 😞

Three Months Post Ablation

Holter Monitor

March 6, 2019 - I picked up my Holter Monitor from the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.

I get to wear "Ticker" for two weeks.

Pasties

"Ticker"

I had a Holter before, but it was during the summer months and I'm finding the pasties are irritating my skin this time around, but I only have a few more days and then it's back to the Heart Institute until the six month anniversary. 

It's hard to believe that it's been three months already, but at the same time I'm feeling good and getting back to my OTF and did some running, but if you live in Ottawa it's been a bit tricky to get around streets with the whacky weather so limiting my running at the moment to the indoor treadmill with my OTF and the occasional social run.

Hopefully I'll see this in my stats the report as I'm curious to know if I'm in normal sinus rhythm. That is the goal!

As part of my three month anniversary I also started a Stress Management workshop.

Workbook

This is a six week course that will help my 💓 manage stress. So far Week 2 and it's been an interesting group of patients.

Most of them have had heart attacks so I feel a bit odd with an arrhythmia condition; however, this is part of my cardiac rehab and it was suggested I take it. So every Wednesday evening I'll be doing some meditation and defining the stressors in this forum.

Team Heart

Also I finally saw the group photo of "Team Heart" look for me running with some of these amazing heart patients at Race Weekend.

2019 Team Heart

March Break, Team Nuun Gear & Snowboarding Oh my!

I took March Break off to have some me time and I did a few things. One of which was to hang my medal hangar and hit the slopes on the snowboard and head to the border to pick up my Team Nuun Gear . It was a fun week to be off and the weather was just fabulous.

Here are a few photos from the week.

10 Runs at Calabogie with Eunice

Dad's Medals (50th bday gift from the girls)

Top of Calabogie and view of the Lake

Team Nuun Gear, Singlet, Vest & Jersey

 

Eunice and I at the top of Calabogie