A good week!

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Week two included a 16km long run and a total of 44km. Today, week three began with another 16km long run. I'm feeling good and figuring out some interesting things. 

For example, for the last year, I ran three days a week and my long runs were much shorter. It's true that it did not affect my pace and I still manage a 30 second PR on my last half-marathon. However, although my pace remained stable, there was very little improvement. Also, my long runs were by time and not number of kms, therefore quite short, yet I remember often finding myself looking forward to finishing. They rarely felt easy.

Now, about six weeks ago, as I've already mentioned, I started running more often and my long runs are longer. Here's what I find very interesting. Although I run longer, the fact is, I'm not as anxious to get to the end of my run, I feel stronger and better able to handle the long runs. They feel easier! Hmmmm so I guess that's one thing I hadn't figured...doing more makes me stronger, being stronger, makes the task easier to deal with. It's only been a while, but I'll see if the trend continues :)

Another thing I did this week is join the gym after being away for two years. I want to make sure I have access to a treadmill when I want one, I want to work on my core and it'll get done if I follow a program, I also want to try Zumba, and do some spinning and power yoga classes (all free). So, I'll try and go two days a week at least (the days when my run is only 45 minutes)...that's the plan for now.

Yesterday was the Santa Shuffle on Mont Royal...I participated with my Super SIL and my amazing niece. 

We had a blast!

There's one more thing I wanted to show you. When I stopped blogging last year, I decided to turn my blog into a book of my journey to 42.2 as a souvenir for myself and for my children. I used Blurb (blog to book) and was really pleased with the result, so I thought I'd share. Here is a glimpse :)

 This is the Front cover (I chose soft-cover)

 A glimpse at the inside (very good quality paper)

The back cover, with a message to my kids :)

This book has over 200 pages and lots of photos, so my copies ended up costing a little over $50 each (CDN), even with a discount, but to me they were worth every penny! I just wanted to mention this to you in case you were hoping to find a way to keep a souvenir of your own journey. You can cut it down to as few pages as you want. It took me a couple of weeks of working many hours every evening to edit and decide what to keep and where to put the pictures on the pages. So, it's a lot of work, but again, totally worth it!

Have a good week everyone!

Cheers!

P.s. Can someone please explain the +1 that appears next to my blog posts? It says I need to join Google and then add these friends to my "circle", but I'm not sure what the difference is. Thanks :)