A very significant day!

Yesterday was a very significant day in my life.  First, some context.

The year is 2004.  I have just finished my undergraduate degree in Anthropology, with a minor in Environmental Studies.  My university career ended differently than I expected, and it turned out to be a great time. 

I did my first year at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario.  I enrolled in a program called Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism.  We were affectionately called "Reccers" and there was a traditional rivalry between us and the engineers.  We had songs about how they did lots of homework, and we went camping.  I was going to get a degree in playing in the outdoors!  And get a job too!  And those engineers, working much harder, for no real gain!  We had songs we were made to sing during Frosh Week too:

"I'd rather be a Reccer than a f*ck*ng engineer,
We never do our homework because we're always drinking beer.
Our underwear is dirty and we don't care, *something about tent pegs in eyes, but I can't remember now*."

Halfway through the first semester though, I realized the program wasn't what I wanted to take and that Thunder Bay was not the city for me.  During reading break, Dad and I met in BC and explored the big three schools here.  First, we looked at Simon Fraser, but it didn't fit.  Then, UBC.  It was a whole city, and was too big.  Dad suggested we go across the water and see UVic, and that's when I realized I had found my future school!  The idea was to get a "real" degree, and still do the fun outdoors things I wanted in my spare time.

At UVic, I could bike all year long, run through the winter, and live by the ocean.  I applied to transfer, and was happily accepted.  I moved to Victoria with a hockey bag and a bike box, graduating three years later with an extra bike box, and a few more clothes.

When I graduated, I needed to find something to do.  I was a bit tired of school, and decided to pursue my dream of opening a bike shop.  I started this by working at a shop in Whistler, so I could ride all summer and break into the bike community there.  I moved into a house with a tarp on the roof, and yoghurt containers on the floor to catch leaks.  I paid $450/month.

Just look at that tarp, flapping away in the breeze.

Turns out I liked Whistler, but didn't make a career at the bike shop.  I got lots of biking and snowboarding in, and enjoyed the outdoor lifestyle.

Helibike trip on Rainbow Mountain, across the valley from Whistler and Blackcomb.

A River Runs Through It, Whistler.

I put 66 days on the mountain that year, my highest total.

Erik and I at the top of Whistler.

I left Whistler after two years, finding myself in Winnipeg, Ontario, and China, and Bali, Indonesia.

A bright, sunny winter day in Ontario.  I wish Vancouver had those.

The Settlers of Catan Canadian Championships.  I made it to the final day!

Planting seeds with my Chinese kindergarten class.  I wonder if they remember me.  That's Lilly (I think!)

Me and Bruce in Hong Kong.

Carol waiting...

Carol preparing...

Carol running!

Suffocation seems imminent.  Good thing they only let you be out there for a couple minutes.

My friends on the beach.  I rented a surfboard from them every day, and shared their shade.

Best shape of my life.

I found myself in Whistler again, once I was back from China.  Almost everything was the same; same people, same job, same expensive lift tickets.  One thing was different though, and that was Carmella!  We knew eachother the first time I lived in Whistler, but really started to enjoy our time together in 2009, and got engaged last October.

Carmella gets the radio controlled airplane stuck in her hair.  This was our first real hangout time.

I'm still in my work uniform. 

Stocking Stuffers!

We got engaged on the beach!

So, back to the significance of  yesterday.  There's one background activity that I've been begrudgingly doing during the time all these pictures were taken.

Since graduation in 2004, Whistler v1.0 until 2006, Ontario in 2007, Asia in 2008, Whistler v2.0 in 2009, and now in Vancouver in 2011, I've been paying off my bank student loan.  Yesterday, I completed the last payment over the phone, and stopped the regular automatic payments.


It's been a tough slog in some places, but it's done!


It took 7 years.  I remember thinking, in 2004, that I'd likely be 30 by the time I had it paid off.  How futuristic!  Now I'm 30, and I do have it paid off.  When I started, the interest accounted for 1/3 of the payment.  In the last few months, the interest totaled less than $10.  Now, there is no interest, and no more payments to the bank.  Celebration!

 

 

This guy shares my name.

When I get self-absorbed and google myself, I occasionally come across someone who shares my name.  I've never found a picture of him before though, so I was surprised.  I thought he'd be 9 years old.

Here he is.  He has dark hair and looks to be fairly tall.  He runs (I'm faster though, at least for now) and attended a Christian school.  At least he lives in Georgia and probably has an interesting drawl.  I think my individuality is safe!

A sunny April day

Here are a couple pictures from today, a rare sunny day.  It's April, and still it rains.  I think the moniker Rain City is more appropriate for this town than Van City, which seems to get thrown around a lot more often.  I've seen a bike shop called Rain City, and a tradesman's truck with Rain City Cement or something similar on it.  I guess Van City is more neutral, while Rain City could be seen as negative, but only if happen to feel that continuous and unrelenting grey, cloudy, rainy weather is negative.

Today was sunny and great, and therefore could be seen as positive!  The tide was out at Locarno Beach, and the actual ocean was further away than I'd ever seen it, which was exciting for me.  Carmella says that it happens all the time though, and wasn't sure why I was so impressed.  In the summer, people buy skim boards and shred the puddles and little rivers that a receding tide leaves behind.  Maybe I'll buy one and get into it!

Next up is a picture of a BBQ we went to.  It was put on by an Aussie friend of Carmella's, and it was fun.  It was still quite cold, but sunny.  We sat around and chatted, enjoying the sun. 

It's been a busy weekend!  I had a too-long Sunday nap, and still find myself awake and it's now Monday morning.  Time to go to bed!

Oh, we are taking weekly swing dance classes, and our first one was on Saturday night.  For me, it was successful as I wasn't the worst in the class, and left knowing the steps we were supposed to know.  We'll see if I can continue to keep up!  We're taking the classes from Rhythm City Productions, who I bet will re-name themselves Rain City Productions soon.

April Fool's Half Marathon, Gibsons to Sechelt

On Sunday I ran the April Fool's Run on the Sunshine Coast, a 30 minute ferry ride from Vancouver.  It's a rural area, with lots of friendly people and a ferry to keep people from the city away.

It was a good race.  I ran the same race last year, and was hoping to better my time this year.  I ran it off the couch last year, but had a few weeks of training this year, so I was feeling confident.

It's great to be running again; if only I can make the time to train as much as I want to!  The last time I felt racing fitness was in China when I raced in Hong Kong.  My training was rewarded back then, as I felt strong in the races and had some good results.

Carmella came along for the trip, and she wished she could be involved in the race, instead of "just" cheering.  But I was happy to have her waiting at a few points along the course to keep me going.

The race is a tough one.  The first 5K or so are fairly flat.  The next 9K are flat to downhill.  Then, from 14K to about 18K, it's insanely uphill.  This course gives me a false sense of speed until 14K, then make me feel like I'm running through wet concrete. Training more would cure that I think!  Here's an elevation profile, from RunningAHEAD:

Last year I finished in 1:36:00ish, and was looking to better that this year.  My ultimate goal for a half marathon is sub 1:30:00, so in the back of my mind I was hoping for that.  Again, training regularly would help with that!

The day was overcast and a bit cold, so I decided to run in my tights and a long-sleeve shirt under my lucky yellow race shirt.  I got pretty warm around the 5K mark, and tossed my long sleeve shirt to Carmella who was cheering on the side.  With my temperature better regulated, I was ready to race!

Here are some pictures from the event, taken by SiPhotography. They had a photographer take shots at various spots along the course, and then they publish their photos online in the hopes that you buy them.

I didn't even know the photographer was there!

It was an easy part of the race, as it was mostly flat and there was a water station, and Carmella was there to catch my shirt and cheer me on.

The next photos come from the 15K mark or so.  Here I am going up a lonely hill, with a bunch of hills behind, and many hills ahead.  I'm in pain!

When looking at the pictures, I'm happy to see that I've improved one aspect of my form, even if others have fallen by the wayside.  I used to flap my hands around, cupping them like I was swimming or something.  Now, I've got neutral hands, so that's positive.

My core isn't as stong as I'd like it to be, so I want to work on that.  That will help me keep my shoulders up and back.  This was on a hill though, so there was a bit of necessary forward lean.

Because I ran this race last year, I knew to expect these hills so they didn't feel as terrible as they did last year.  They ended my race just like they did last year though!  Once things flattened out with 2 or 3K to go, I just couldn't keep my pace up, and got passed by everyone.  Last year at the same point in the race I got passed by a guy wearing a Darth Vader costume, so happily that didn't happen this time around!

I finished in 1:34:40ish, which is about two minutes faster than last year, and only two minutes slower than a  half marathon I raced in 2004, when I was a bit faster, and running more.  So that's positive!  I'll be able to break 1:30:00 this year if I can keep running and training.

The most positive aspect of the race is that I didn't feel any knee pain for the whole 21.1K.  I switched shoes, and that seems to be the solution.

Carmella is thinking about running the Sun Run in Vancouver, and that race is touted as the biggest 10K in North America, or something like that.  It's big because they get big corporate turn-out, with many teams entering.  People say it's not a race you run to get a good time, but a race you run for the experience.  So many people run the race that apparently you never get any space to yourself.  We'll see how it goes!  I may register for that race, and see what all the fuss is about.

Now it's time for bed.  Work wakes me up early, and I have to wake up even earlier to bring Shiffy into Midas, to get a new muffler.  It fell off yesterday.  I'll be bringing it in before work, and picking it up after.

Keep training everyone!

My great meal I just made

I just made a great meal!

Carmella is cooking on Monday and Wednesday, and I'm Tuesday and Thursday.  We're very progressive.

I wanted to make something fun, and I found a recipe that looked pretty easy and had a high rating on allrecipes.com .

It was going to be rack of lamb! 

I went to Safeway to get the meat, knowing that I only needed some breadcrumbs because we had everything else already.  They didn't have any lamb at all, so I walked a few blocks up to another grocery store, who only had frozen racks.  I needed to make a quality meal, and frozen just wouldn't do.

I then went to Choices, a Canadian chain of organic stores.  They had what I was looking for!  I purchased a rack, and brought it home.  Carmella was working out at the gym, and would be home at 8.  I started cooking and preparing around 7pm.

I seared the lamb in olive oil first, then coated it in a bread crumb mixture that had rosemary and garlic in it.  I put a layer of dijon mustard on the meat to get the bread crumbs to stick.

It was excellent!  I was very happy it was successful, and Carmella really enjoyed it too.  Our oven is gas powered, and it's hard to get an accurate reading on the temperature because the knob is all scratched off.  But, we have an oven thermometer and I used that, and preheated the oven to 450F.

Here it is!  The meat was so tender and great, and I think it's one of the best meals I've made.  I used a new steamer insert we got to steam the asparagi.  The meat may look pink, but that's the way it's supposed to be.

Yum!

An excellent pizza cutter, and other pictures.

It's Saturday night, and I'm sitting in a Blenz Coffee on Broadway and Bayswater, in Vancouver.  I'm two thirds of my way through an over-priced hot chocolate ($4.50!  For a small!) that comes in an underwhelming glass mug.

As Carmella is doing bridesmaid things and our house doesn't have internet yet, I figured it'd be a good idea to come here, log on and post.  Possibly I can win back some readers that I have lost recently, due to my sporadic posting.

It's been quite a long time since I posted anything, so I think I'll just post some pictures from the last little while.

Here are three from a few weeks ago in Whistler.  The lines were pretty long, because there was lots of snow, and it was a Saturday.  Carmella and I enjoyed the Blackcomb Glacier, and then some glades.

The next day, Carmella and I drove up to Pemberton to investigate some wedding details.  It turned out to be the last day of the Pemberton Winter Festival, and the annual Polar Bear Dip was the marquee event of the day.  The kids got to go timidly first, before the attention-seeking adults were allowed to show off.

Last, Carmella stands facing the dipping pool, with her back to the rest of the very-frozen lake.  The lake is a shortcut for residents, a hockey rink, and xc skiing circuit.

Next, it was on to wedding research.  We tried to visit our caterers, but they were skiing for the day.  We were successful in visiting the church.  It's full of character, and surprisingly we are the first couple to want to get married in it!  I guess all the other couples were nervous it would collapse on them mid-ceremony.  Where was their sense of adventure?  It's so small and quaint.  We'll dress up the outside somehow, with flowers likely.  It even has a wedding bell, which we hope to ring a lot.

Flashback to New Year's at Capilano Suspension Bridge!  They had it all lit up with special lights, and activities for kids.  Carmella and I asked if we could get in on the gingerbread men decorating, and we were accepted. Carmella was very proud of her gingerwoman, and the scarf she added.

Late Christmas present from Carolyn!  Mom tried to bring a deluxe pizza cutter onto the plane with her (at Carol's suggestion) when travelling from Australia back to Canada, and it ended up being confiscated.  It was later replaced with a Canadian model, which preforms most excellently.  It has a great handle and removable circular blade, which allow easy cutting and simple cleaning. 

Today was the St Patrick's Day 5K in Stanley Park.  This is the third year I've run it, and the third year that I've been disappointed with my time.  This is also the third year I've run it Off The Couch, so that could be a major factor in my disappointment.  Carmella came to watch, and we met some friends (well, our friend Jenn (on the right) and two of hers) near the start.  I'm quite a bit bigger than them!  I wear my trusty racing shirt.  It's polyester and is probably 7 years old, and I'm glad it's not showing signs of slowing down!

The race was a motivator, and I have pledged to get out the door and run more often.  I've struggled with knee problems this year, but was happy to find that I didn't feel anything after the first kilometer of this run.  I think I'm on my way back.

My probable race calendar has me running a half-marathon on April 3rd, and then possibly the Vancouver Marathon on May 1st.  It's $100 to enter the Marathon, which is silly.  It's not only houses that are expensive in this town!

I'll try and post more often, but we'll see.  The internet man is coming to hook us up next Saturday, so until then I still have an excuse!