An outcome of my blogging is that a couple of friends and my mom are thinking about starting their own blogs. Once my mom returns from her trip to the Yukon, I will help her get started.

HTO Park - Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - 6:40 a.m.

I woke at 4:01 a.m. today and timed my 7 mile run to coincide with the sunrise on the lake. The time change has wrought great changes on the morning run. I ran west along the lake, hoping for a fabulous sunrise shot, however the position of the sunrise changes and sadly, this morning sunrise was hidden behind the Island airport terminal.

Lake Ontario, Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - 6:50 a.m.

After work, I met a friend for dinner. We went to the Oliver and Bonancini restaurant in the Bell Lightbox. My friend lives very close by and was amazed at the enormity of the Bell Lightbox complex. We went for a short tour after dinner to check out the Blackberry cafe and pick up the film schedule. Fritz Lang’s metropolis was playing and the place was quite populated. Toronto, a great city for film aficionados.

My friend is planning to start a blog, the debut to be timed to coincide with an adventure that appears certain to happen fairly soon. He is a wonderful photographer and a great person with lots of interests, so I think blogging will come quite naturally to him.

He is just back from New York, having run the marathon. Having set out to run what he considered, his last marathon effort. The disappointment of a less-than-hoped for time due to leg cramps has him planning for another run at a personal best time. In spite of this, he fully appreciated the legendary enthusiasm of New Yorkers for the marathon runners.

It turns out that he stayed at the same hotel I did a few years ago. A Marriot Hotel across from Bryant Park, which is highly recommended by Trip Advisor. This hotel is very close to a favourite New York city store, a Japanese bookstore called Kinokuniya Bookstore. I love this place. It has three stories with a take-out cafe on the top floor, a stationary department in the basement and much more.

Blogger-to-be in marathon recovery mode

Over the years, the photographs of this friend have become treasured memories for many. The photo on the EXERTION tab of my blog was taken by him. I thank him for that along with many others.

Sweet dreams to all, especially those recovering from marathons!

Secret to dancing the night away, after a 21 miler

I was concerned about how well I would hold up to the festivities on Saturday night.  I attempted to take a nap but in spite of waking at 5 a.m. unnecessarily and running 21 miles the best I could manage was lying very still for an hour or so.  When I heard that dinner would not be served until 8 p.m. I anticipated leaving shortly after the dinner portion of the evening.

We arrived just after 7 p.m. and found ourselves delighted by the perfect ambience created by the pre-dinner jazz trio.  It was a surprise to learn that all the songs were based on traditional Ethiopian songs.

Rich, spicy Ethiopian vegetable and meat stews on offer

Dinner was buffet style and we enjoyed a selection of spicy, stew-like, meat and vegetable dishes meant to be scooped up with injera a crepe like flatbread made of fermented teff. Utensils not required!

Buffet offerings

Remaining on the agenda was entertainment, speakers and finally dancing but . . . wait, I can’t finish this story tonight because I ran twice today and am now feeling the effects of the time change, very tired.  So, stay tuned.

Night all!

On the eve of the New York City marathon, and at the largest community fundraising dinner held by Ethiopians in Toronto, not a word about marathons is to be heard.  Haile Gebrselassie, the Ethiopian marathon world-record is poised to run the New York City marathon but only his wife’s name is mentioned, in passing, with a  reference to an orphanage she is involved with.

There are over 1 millions Aid-HIV orphaned children in Ethiopia, a country about the size of Ontario and population of 80 million.  And, in Toronto there is a committed group of expatriates who are volunteering much time and money to increase from 150 the number of orphans they sponsor to 500.

People to People AID Canada dinner

My husband and I attended this dinner, to find out more about People to People AID Organization Canada as we are planning a gala event to raise funds to help them get closer to their goal of sponsoring 500 orphans.

It was a wonderful evening of entertainment, information and dancing!  We were shocked to find ourselves rolling into bed at 1:30 a.m., thirty minutes before the hour time gain, lucky for us.

There are more photos but I’ll have to post them tomorrow as the late night yesterday, has caught up with me, as well as the 70 miles, I ran this week.

More tomorrow!

As promised, more on a popular topic. It has been a busy week of work and I have to say I am pretty tired. Tomorrow, I’m planning to do 21 miles again for a 70 mile week. We had dinner at our mainstay, the Bloor Street Diner, Eggs Benny, again and two glasses of sparkling wine.  I had lunch at Auberge du Pommier with the principal from my son’s former high school.  I highly recommend their Paillairde de Nicoise.

Paillarde de Nicoise

Last year when we were in Barcelona we had some extraordinary hot chocolate at Cacao Sampako.

Was that ever good!

While in Germany this fall we enjoyed some pretty good hot chocolate although I don’t remember the name of this cafe in Frankfurt.

Hot chocolate in Frankfurt

During the summer, I had a superb cacao cookie at a chocolate stand at the Art Barn farmer’s market.  Unfortunately, they seem to have packed up shop since my husband has been shopping there.

Chocolate sales, art barn

Once again, sweet dreams!

Coffee maker set for 4:55 a.m.

Alarm goes off 5 a.m.

Get up pretty soon after alarm

Make lunch

Leave for 30 minute run at 6:30 a.m.

Stop at CIBC bank machine, (PC Financial cardholders can use all CIBC ATM’s for free)

Run into neighbour on College street

Chat briefly about her injury troubles

Leave for work 8:15 a.m.

Travel by subway

Check email and Blackberry Messenger when the subway is above ground, near Rosedale station and Davisville

Send message to son, asking if he will be home this weekend

My wonderful son with his wonderful girlfriend

Sprint up two long flights of stairs at York Mills subway station

Arrive at office at 9:00 a.m. on the dot

Eat lunch at desk then leave office at 12:50 p.m.

Receive Blackberry mesage from son saying he will not be home for the weekend, the first time since he moved.  Feel surprised at my disappointment

Travel by subway to Mel Lastman Square

Buy 5 metres of fabric at Fabricland (on sale for $4.00 a metre)

Buy triple-venti-vanilla-whole-milk-latte at Starbuck’s

Take subway back to work

Circulate box of chocolates in workplace

Change into running gear at 5 p.m.

Run 8 miles home with sections of 90 seconds to 4 minutes at a hard pace for a total of 20 minutes of hard running.

Listen to MUSE while running fast

Film the view from the stairs by Casa Loma

Fry some Italian sausage and add to bottled pasta sauce along with yellow tomatoes

Husband home, we catch up while he eats

Enjoy post dinner glass of wine

Blog and relax

Bedtime soon

Good night all!

Hey everyone, I’m proud to say that I’ve figure out how to convert video formats, sign on to YouTube and thus premiere my first self-produced blog video. Please excuse the downward pan to my feet at the end of the short show. There’s more information on the Night of Dread on my Sunday post.

On Halloween night, a parent yelled out that our pumpkin was “awesome” so once again, here is a photo of Jack Skellington. I would like to credit my husband with doing the grunt work of hollowing out the pumpkin for me.

Happy, happy!

At the moment, it’s more about what I would like to be reading.  On the floor by my bedside was this collection which I thought was fairly representative of what I read (or would like to read).  I seem to prefer non-fiction and as I have mentioned before on my post about Dave Allen’s book, Getting Things Done, am a student of time-management.

The paperback with no cover is the last 160 pages of Dombey and Son by Dickens which took me four months to finish.  I began to make more headway when I cut the book in half, after finishing the first 500 pages of the nearly 1000 page book.  The only book I am seriously reading, and extremely slowly at that, is The Road From Ruin, which is part of my personal plan for financial literacy.

Books, I'm skimming or would like to read.

I would go into more detail about these books but I have to write a short speech for tomorrow evening. I will be saying a few words at my son’s old high school, to grade 8 students and their parents, who are attending the school’s open house, as they go about the business of selecting a high school.

I ran 3 miles this morning, and then another fabulous running-from work adventure for an additional 8 miles. The days are just too short.

Bon soir!

p.s. The largest selection in the book pile was poetry. If you haven’t yet checked out the WORDS & HEART tab of my blog, you’ll find some poetry there.

Trick-or-treating triplets

So here in our neighbourhood, there is always a special parade, complete with police escort. Lucky for us, it passes right in front of our house and we are often home for this frightfully, cheerfully, dreadful pre-Halloween event.  Suggested attire is black and white.

The parade is the work of the Bread and Puppet Theater, with the start and finish in that happening-park, Dufferin Grove.

I’ve spent a good part of the day learning a few new things including, how to convert movie files, how to edit movie files and signing up with Vimeo, a Youtube-like web service, where I can house my videos. Once the video is uploaded there is a delay, in accessibility as the video has to go through the approval process.

I’m pleased with the footage I got of the parade but I think this delay means, that its debut will have to wait until tomorrow.

On the training front, I ran 7 miles, mid-afternoon, a leisurely day, with a 2 1/2 hour sleep-in to 7:30 a.m.  My total mileage for the week, 67 miles.

As for Halloween, we were on the ball this year, with pumpkin and candy bought well in advance. Last year, we spent Halloween afternoon sorting through various rotting pumpkins and finally shopping at Walmart for a plastic pumpkin. Anyone who has been to Walmart at Dufferin mall on a Saturday, knows it is the last place in Toronto you want to be any Saturday, let alone Halloween Saturday.

I was pleased with my pumpkin creation, a salute to the very happy memories our family has of Tim Burton’s classic animated feature, The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Jack Skellington, my hero

And finally, everything worked out just fine.
Christmas was saved, though there wasn’t much time.
But after that night, things were never the same—
Each holiday now knew the other ones’ name.
And though that one Christmas things got out of hand,
I’m still rather fond of that skeleton man.
So many years later I thought I’d drop in,
and there was old Jack still looking quite thin,
with four or five skeleton children at hand
playing strange little tunes in their xylophone band.
And I asked old Jack, “Do you remember the night
when the sky was so dark and the moon shone so bright?
When a million small children pretending to sleep
nearly didn’t have Christmas at all, so to speak?”
And would you, if you could, turn that mighty clock back
to that long, fateful night, now think carefully, Jack.
Would you do the whole thing all over again,
knowing what you know now, knowing what you knew then?”
And he smiled, like the old Pumpkin King that I knew,
then turned and asked softly of me, “Wouldn’t you?”

Closing, Nightmare Before Christmas

Last week due to the absence of B, whose home we often meet at, we converged at the washrooms of the Art Barn on Christie, just as the Farmer’s market was getting set up.   My husband ended his run there and enjoyed some novel, although expensive grocery shopping. This week he drove to B’s and ran a few miles with us before heading back.

Farmers Market at the Art Barn

Beta carotene, nutritious and colourful

As described yesterday, the plan for today was to meet at B’s. We headed to the Kay Gardiner beltline, then to the cemetery. I did a triple pass of the beltline and a second foray into the cemetery, exiting on Yonge, with a pit stop at Tim Horton’s.

I purposely ran down Poplar Plains road, to see how the quads would hold up to the downhill pounding. Not bad, feeling stronger, fitter and toughened up to 3 hours plus of pounding. I ran down Huron to Harbord and picked up the pace for the last mile and half. Great to finish feeling strong.

Fabulous fatty latty

As soon as I entered the house, my husband handed me my fatty latty, A.K.A. my triple-venti-whole milk-vanilla-latte. This is my regular Starbuck’s drink although lately I sometimes order a triple-venti-half-sweet-pumpkin spice latte with no whipped cream.

Farmer's market cauliflower, just another variety

He reported on what he had been doing while I was running for 3 hours and 20 minutes. He bought vegies and bread at the farmer’s market, meat at the Grace street meat market and brunch was about to be served.

Farmer's market potatoes, beef breakfast strips and scrambled eggs

This warm welcome home was the highlight of my long run – thank you darling!

Friday, the day before the  long run. I’m hoping to run about 20 miles, which I have not done for about 2 1/2 years. Starting on Thursday, an email thread is launched to organize departure time and route.  There was a time when we met at the same time, same place every week but there is a new regime of inclusiveness and this means we are flexible.

So the plan is that I run to R’s, and then we run to B’s where we will meet D and B and J.  My husband P, will drive to B’s as he is not running nearly as far as most of us.  Some of the constraints are that D, cannot run downhill because of a bad knee.  P, has bad knees but his approach to becoming injury free is to very gradually increase the distance of his longest run, which is why he drives to B’s.

L’s agenda is to maximize the amount of time that she has company, as the longest that others will run is 90 minutes.  L is expecting to be on the road for close to 3 1/2 hours.

By some standards the group has gotten very lax in that it will actually adapt to B’s expected late Friday night outing.  The most important constraint has always been the demands of family life.  Getting back in time for family activities is a high priority on the planning agenda.

Corner table at Bloor Street Diner

As for us, with the temporary empty nest, we usually celebrate the end of the work week by eating out.  Most often at the Bloor street diner in the Manulife centre.  On Friday, I often have two glasses of sparkling wine, which I sometimes regret as I ready myself for the run the next morning.  We both had eggs Benedict and I fueled up with a mascaparone lemon meringue cake.

Friday carbo-load

Hoping for good weather tomorrow morning, a deer sighting in Mt. Pleasant and wishing all a relaxing evening!