Mind, Motion & Matter

Running, Essentially . . .


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Seen On & After the Run

I was eager to run to the lake to see the effect of warm temperatures on the ice.  The ice formations yesterday had an eerily, compelling, euw quality, similar to photos of blood platelets.

Blood doping platelets

I imagined that the ice would have an even more pronounced, rounded circular appearance. However today’s ice was not as dramatically shaped as I expected.

In the final mile of my 7 mile run, I stopped in at LIT Espresso Bar to pick up some Bolivian Buenavista coffee. I told the baristas that I have mentioned Stumptown coffee and LIT on my blog and gave them my blog address.  One of the baristas is a musician who runs.  We chatted briefly about running in snow with Yak Trax and what type of coffee my cafe owner-architect brother uses at the Baked Cafe in Whitehorse.

Stumptown Coffee from LIT Espresso Bar

It was a busy day as I had to prepare and print two photos for my photography class and demonstrate the use of various  Adobe Photoshop techniques.  Before my class I stopped at a long-time favourite concession stand, Sakura in Village By the Grange which serves homestyle Japanese cooking.  I had a large bowl of Japanese chicken noodle soup for $4.00, tax included.

Heart with a bell

Afterward, I dropped into the gift shop at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and picked up a belated Valentine’s gift for my husband and little something for my father-in-law who will turn 95 on February 24th.  A very long line-up was forming outside the gallery as the doors were about to open for the AGO’s free night.

I was a bit early for my class so I had a quick look at the student exhibit of human figure art. All this activity left me feeling somewhat young at heart, like the art student I was, several decades past, rather than the middle-aged mom, marathon runner of the present.

Check out the sampling of some of the Ontario College of Art (OCAD) student work below. I’ve tried to keep loosely to the running theme, which was not that difficult given the subject is the human body.


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Seen While Running

Ice or Art?

Temperature drops nearly 20C from one day to the other. Welcome to mid-February and the mid-point of winter! It seems to me that the contrasting temperature must explain the striking ice formations, lily-pad like, I saw while running along Lake Ontario this morning.

The colour of cold!

Another unusual sight greeted me when I approached Trinity Bellwoods Park — trees laden with hand-printed hearts. Ah, Valentine’s Day! As we age, the gift of running seems ever more precious as does a special day to celebrate love in our (hopefully) deepening wisdom.

Someone's heart's afire!

In spite of a recent diagnosis of a torn meniscus, I had never seen my husband in finer form on the dance floor this Saturday past. The highlight of the evening was Van Morrison’s, Have I Told You Lately to which I shed a tear or two.

Tell your loved ones that you love them, again and again and again, every day of the year!  Belated Valentine’s Day wishes.

With love,
Lynn

Love Poems of Rumi

A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the verandah,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden’s beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.


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Winter Running on the Martin Goodman Trail

This morning I was feeling a little out-of-the-loop, due to learning  today, that since the winter of 2009, the city has been clearing the Toronto’s Martin Goodman Trail. I have been running through the Canadian National Exhibition grounds, over the bridge to Ontario Place and then east along the old path by the lake which is partially a parking lot ending with an uncleared section of ice and snow.  Noticing that there seemed to be runners emerging near Strachan with regularity, I googled the question, “Is the Martin Goodman Trail being cleared in the winter?” and found an article in the Globe and Mail called, How clear was my running trail by Christopher Shulgan to finally be in the know, that indeed snow clearing is being done on a priority basis.

Here is an excerpt from the article . . .

Winter running tends to be full of such (bad) moments. It’s bad enough that the activity forces men to wear tights. When these are paired with the bright hues that grace the jackets manufactured by Nike and New Balance, even the most masculine runner resembles a medieval harlequin – whose feet slide out from under him at icy corners, whose shoes get soaked in frozen puddles . . . READ MORE

For someone who has spent decades running east from Strachan through condo city, in the winter months, the option to run along the lake west of Strachan is big news.  So I enjoyed a groundbreaking run, out to High Park and then down Colborne Lodge drive to the lake.  I saw a number of other runners, walkers and cyclists enjoying the trail.

View of Sunnyside Beach from Martin Goodman Trail

My workout was an invigorating 9.5 miles with 40 minutes of tempo running.  Aware of the strong west wind, I ran west through the city and High Park, relying on buildings and trees to take the bite out of the wind, hitting the wide open of the lakefront to head east, with a strong tailwind.  Nothing beats tempo running with a tailwind.  The sun peeped out while I ran along the most scenic lake view sections so I stopped to take a few photos.

Sky meets ice in Marilyn Bell Park

Thank you City of Toronto for a wonderful winter running experience.  I hope (gulp) that MGT snow-clearing is here to stay.  Better write a thank you letter to City Hall!


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Highlights of an Easy Week of Running

Sunday is when I tally up my total miles run for the week. When building towards a marathon, I take easy weeks on average, every three weeks. My total for this week is 40 miles. Prior to this I had run 52, 60 and 60 mile weeks. After taking an easy week, in addition to the physical break to rebuild, I find I am mentally recharged as while I look forward to the break, it doesn’t take much easing off before I begin to feel like a slacker.

Here are some of the things I did or did not do that lead to feeling this way.

  • Missed a weight work session
  • Missed a tempo run session
  • Ran 2 miles on a day I had planned to run 5 miles
  • Ran 10 miles instead of 12 miles on Saturday
  • Doubled my typical caloric intake for one day with three large meals while visiting Ottawa

SO that is the point of the easy week, paradoxical though it may be, easing off  and experiencing a bit of remorse for not having made more spartan choices, makes me look forward to the next round of training .  Ultimately, I love the results of being a super-fit, 55 year old and after one week of relative ease I am chomping at the bit to “get with the program”.

Skipping the tempo run and weight workout had a lot to do with being in a rush to visit the National Art Gallery which was a 10 minute walk from the hotel.  I had a thoroughly relaxing time there and visited a number of shows, including It Is What It Is:  Recent Acquisitions of New Canadian Art

Exotic Woman by Shuvinai Ashoona

CLICK HERE FOR MORE work by Shuvinai Ashoona.

One of the most memorable pieces was a very large pencil crayon drawing by Cape Dorset artist Shuvinai Ashoona. I’m happy to know that the National Art Gallery (NAG) has purchased that drawing for their permanent collection. I was unable to find a photo of the drawing in question but did find this example of Ashoona’s work.

The gallery has recently bought and installed a stunning sculpture, One Hundred Foot Line by Roxy Paine. I stepped out onto a terrace with a “Beware of Falling Ice” warning to take the photo below. And did I mention that I set off an alarm when I tried to step out to take another photo.

New Installation-Sculpture

In case you wonder what I consider overeating, my big day started with a large portion of eggs benedict with home fries and croissant at 7 a.m. followed by a lunch at the National Art Gallery of soup and a sandwich, then a three-course dinner with two glasses of Proseco ending with a fancy apple cake dessert.

National Art Gallery Cafeteria Lunch

Some may laugh at what I consider excess however the work of the easy week is done. I’m eager to run 60-65 miles this week, skip desserts and opt for less rich food, that is, until the next easy week.

Spring marathon . . . here I come!

Apple Cake, All Dressed Up


This Dinner View Demands a Toast


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Ottawa Marathon, Some Memories

I had planned to tie in my afternoon as a tourist in Ottawa with the Ottawa marathon race route. However we are making a mad dash out to Scarborough this afternoon to check into a hotel, using Aeroplan points, close to the location of a Valentine’s dinner we are attending. The dinner is hosted by the marriage enrichment group that we are a part of. Last year we attended with my parents, as they attended a retreat organized by this same group, a few decades ago.  Perhaps “the boys” will have a party in our absence. The boys being our son who is home most weekends, and his friend, Alain who lives with us 24/7.

I have run the Ottawa marathon four times. It is tied with the Boston marathon for repeat outings.My first running of this marathon was in 1982 and I was wearing a t-shirt that read, No Nukes are Good Nukes. Those were the days. Here are my Ottawa marathon times.

# Ottawa Marathon, May 1982 — 3:37
# Ottawa Marathon, May 2002 — 3:07:02 (personal best, age 46)
# Ottawa Marathon, May 2003 — 3:11
# Ottawa Marathon, May 2004 –3:10

Speaking at Ottawa Marathon Race Expo

In 2005 I was a co-presenter at the Ottawa marathon race expo with Steve Boyd. Steve holds umpteen Canadian masters records and also has a doctorate, I think it is in the history of political thought from Queen’s University. Shortly after, I wrote an article on Steve Boyd which is somewhere on the hard drive of an old computer. I hope to retrieve this one day (so many things to do, so little time) and post it on my blog. I’ve added some award-ceremony photos and a bit about Steve Boyd to my post on Dylan Wykes the winner of the California International Marathon, as Steve is Dylan Wyke’s mentor-coach.

Have a wonderful evening all!


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Winter Runs in Ottawa, The Real Thing

Canal, river & parliament buildings converge for this fabulous view from my hotel room.

I’ve returned from my slightly-less-than-two-day-getaway in Ottawa, having missed a second day of posting for 2011. My from-the-airport post was pretty meagre, so I decided against a second thin offering yesterday.

Breakfast With a View

I started my mini-holiday with a 7 a.m. breakfast with a friend, in the hotel cafe. This friend has recently moved here from Toronto and it turns out that he is living in the Lebreton Flats neighbourhood, about one block from where we lived for some of of the five years we called Ottawa home.  We became friends while part of a running club at the University of Toronto, a group that was spearheaded by incomparable coach,  Zeba Crook, then grad-student, now professor in the Religion and Philosophy department at Ottawa’s Carelton University. Unfortunately, a get together with Zeb was not to be, as he is in that very busy phase, family life with two working parents and two young kids.

Our First Ottawa Home, a Heritage House on James Street in Centretown

After having a look at the basement fitness facility in the hotel, I resolved to run outdoors as the day was especially bright and I planned a route which encompassed our two Ottawa homes, two favourite parks and the YMCA-YWCA where I used to leave my son with the babysitting service while working out, until he graduated to the nursery school.

Our second home on Elm Street was our first home purchase.

I’ve written about my winter runs in Toronto but I had forgotten how much a slog winter running in Ottawa is because of the rarely-bare sidewalks. I’ve heard a lot about Yak Trax a unique coil system that clips onto shoes and gives you traction on ice and packed now and I’ll be buying a pair of these, the next time I visit Ottawa in the winter. I was slipping and sliding all over the place. Over my abbreviated run of 5 miles, there was one measly block of clear sidewalk. I had planned to do some speedwork but had no choice but to abandon this plan.

Ran into my old friend Oscar Peterson.

During my Ottawa days there was no such thing as a treadmill at the YMCA and there was no indoor track so it was very tough to run through the winter. I remember running along the canal in -40C weather, when I was stopped by a television camera crew, waiting to interview runners brave enough (or foolish enough) to run in the cold. So there you have it, my 15 seconds of Ottawa television fame.

Dundonald Park in Centretown. Many happy times spent playing here.

As I returned to the center of town I checked out some of the Winterlude displays awaiting the weekend action. I think Winterlude now takes place over three weekends, rather than the former ten day stretch. I once took part in a Winterlude tradition, a Skate, Ski and Run Triathlon. In spite of the bad footing I enjoyed my little trip down memory lane and returned refreshed and eager to play tourist in the afternoon.

Winterlude Weekend around the corner.


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2011 Tally – Blogging versus Running

Island Airport, Home to Porter Airlines

Ran 5 miles down to the lake and took this photo of the ice by the Island airport early in the day. And now, I’m frantically trying to keep up with my PostADay2011 program here in the terminal of that same airport, waiting for a flight to Ottawa. I’m here on my own, so the blurry photo was taken by setting the camera on auto and balancing it on top of a small bottle of apple juice. I dashed to airport from my photography class and feeling quite weary, took good advantage of the Porter amenities, downing three coffees and four shortbread cookies.

Tripod of the Day, Bottle of Apple Juice

Running versus Blogging Tally

40 days running

39 days blogging


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Power Packed Protein for Parents, Kids & Athletes

In the past couple of months I scoured the internet for the recipe for a high-protein drink that was a daily fixture of my pregnancy diet.  My weight just before pregnancy was 102 pounds.  I was vegetarian at the time, and I had a very difficult time gaining weight on my diet of tempeh, tofu and bean diet verging at times on veganism.  At my early check-ups my doctor, worried about my vegetarianism, once said that I was taking a risk that my baby would be in the lowest weight percentile.

Häagen-Dazs ice cream was part of my prescription for weight gain and I ate it often.  So much so that I remember telling people that I never thought that I would consider eating ice cream (one of my favourite foods) a chore.  Just goes to show you what a MUST will do to make something normally pleasurable, seem less so.  Funnily enough, my son just loves Häagen-Dazs ice cream and stocks up on it when it goes on sale at Sobey’s, which seems to happen fairly regularly.

Last Saturday at a 50th birthday party for a friend, I noticed a copy of Laurel’s Kitchen, the very book from whence the recipe for the high-protein drink came. My copy had disappeared in my years of living in co-op houses.  The birthday girl agreed to lend me the book.  I don’t think the newer version has this recipe. So,  ta-da . . . straight from a very yellowed copy of Laurel’s Kitchen, A Handbook for Vegetarian Cookery and Nutrition is my memory lane recipe.

High-Protein Blender Drink

  • 3 tbsp. whole soy powder
  • 3 tbsp. non-instant skim milk powder
  • 1/2 ripe banana
  • 1 heaping tablespoon peanut butter
  • 1 cup fresh skim milk
  • 1 tbsp. toasted wheat germ
  • 1/2 teaspoon torula (I use brewer’s yeast)
  • 1/2 teaspoon carob powder

Authors, Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders and Bronwen Godfrey

Before I knew I was pregnant, I developed an aversion to coffee.  I view this as an example of the laws of the body taking hold.  Near the end of the second trimester I began craving meat.  It was quite a shock to my meat-eating husband when I nibbled on some Italian sausage he was frying.  From there, I never looked back and to be honest, I get sick far less than when I was a vegetarian.  To each his own, I’m convinced, is the way with diet.  For me, blood sugar stability seems to work better on a high protein meat diet.

I gained about 23 pounds, my son was 7 pounds 10 ounces and it took three months to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight.  Due to the heavy demands of breastfeeding, I went under my pre-pregnancy weight by 4 pounds to a very skinny 98 pounds in year one of motherhood.

My son was never keen on bananas except when served in a quickie-kid version of the high-protein drink.  I used to make this for him when he insisted that he did not want breakfast.

Power Drink

  • 1 banana
  • 1 tablespoon chocolate milk powder
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 tablespoons peanut butter

When he was a teen he wanted to weigh more than could reasonably be expected of the son of two very lean parents.  I used to supplement his drink with skim milk powder.  I can’t remember why, but I did not tell him this, and he never noticed.

Proving my doctor’s fears were unfounded, my one-and-only has grown to be over 6 feet tall, nearly a foot taller than his mom and a couple of inches taller than his dad.

Voila! I give you the mostly-vegetarian baby at 23 years.

Product of High-Protein Power Drink


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Runner’s World Rookie Marathon Training Plan

A young American woman, 22 years old is training for her first marathon in Italy.  She is using a plan which is very similar to what both my husband and I used to run our first marathons.  You can find the 16 week plan at Rookie Marathon Training Plan

My husband started running in his early twenties and ran his first marathon a few years later, using a Runner’s World, Three-Months to a Marathon plan.  I was in my mid-twenties and had been running a few weeks, when I decided to train for a marathon using the same plan which Runner’s World recycles yearly.  So I feel some nostalgia in reading about this woman’s ambition to run a marathon when she returns to the U.S.  She is calling it the SkinnyItaly Project. Go, go, young one, you CAN do it.  YES, you can.

I enjoyed reading about her reasons for running and her determination as shown below:

  • It’s FREE
  • Relieves Stress
  • Pushes your mental and physical strength
  • You can do it ANYWHERE
  • Again, it’s FREE
  • Achieve a lean, mean, STRONG physique

I’m going to be MADE. Into a Marathoner.  My coach will be my own stubbornness and muscle tension from my daily lifestyle in Italy.  Running a marathon has been on my BUCKET LIST (aka life goals), along with building orphanages in Uganda.

You can check out the full story of the SkinnyItaly project HERE.

I’m inspired by the marvelous energy and enthusiasm of the young.  It is easy as one ages to view youth as a phase we passed through and thought better of it.   I like to think that we can distill the essence of youth and reinvent ourselves as youth-full in spirit as we age, or at the very least, appreciate it vicariously.   Although, like George Sheehan I’ve often thought that running has been, and still is my fountain of youth.  Vigour is definitely a good foundation for optimism.

Dostoevsky said that “The second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.”   However sobering this gloomy outlook  may be, know truly that it is never too late to start exercising regularly, or too early.


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Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer

Since football is in the air, I thought to recall the book Instant Reply which I read when I was 13.  I have never been a football fan and just found out two minutes ago that that the Green Bay Packers are contesting the Super Bowl this year when my husband called me upstairs to view the half-time show.   I was however an avid baseball and hockey fan and loved (and still love) to read biographies and autobiographies.

Around this time I was a weekly volunteer at the local library and I began to read my way through the biography section, which included, Fire Wagon Hockey:The Story of the Montreal Canadiens, biographies of Sandy Koufax, Roger Crozier and Bobby Hull, and Ball Four a controversial book which came to be “considered one of the most important sports books ever written.” according to Wikipedia.  Other bios I remember reading then were of Ghandi, Martin Luther, Madame Curie, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Louis Pasteur & Joan of Arc.  This reading predilection fits with my Meyers-Briggs, people-person personality type.

Here is a description of Instant Replay from Amazon.com

“In 1967, when Jerry Kramer was a thirty-one-year-old Green Bay Packers offensive lineman, in his tenth year with the team, he decided to keep a diary of the season. “Perhaps, by setting down my daily thoughts and observations,” he wrote, “I’ll be able to understand precisely what it is that draws me back to professional football.” Little did Kramer know that the 1967 season would be one of the most remarkable in the history of pro football, culminating with the legendary championship game against Dallas now known as the “Ice Bowl,” in which Kramer would play a central role . Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, calls it “to this day, the best inside account of pro football, indeed the best book ever written about that sport and that league.”

This groundbreaking look inside the world of professional football is one of the first books ever to take readers into the locker room and reveal the inner workings of a professional sports franchise. He also offers a rare and insightful view of the team’s storied leader, Coach Vince Lombardi.

Bringing the book back into print for the first time in more than a decade, this new edition of Instant Replay retains the classic look of the original and includes a foreword by Jonathan Yardley and additional rarely seen photos from the celebrated “Lombardi era.”

Gee, this sounds compelling (well for a sports book at least) maybe I should reread and perhaps this is a good Valentine’s gift for a football fan?   As for runner biographies, I would recommend Running with the Legends:  Training and Racing Insights from 21 Great Runners by Michael Sandrock, the book is as described and will not disappoint.  Complete with sample training schedules, the most important insight gained will be that there is no formula.  This panorama of athletic experience will convince you that, once you have a solid understanding of the basic physiology of training, trusting your own instincts, is what it is all about.  Your own way, also involves the self-knowledge to determine psychological fit with workout types. More generally applied, self-knowledge will also enable you to determine what sport or fitness activity suits your physiological and psychological profile.

As for my love of biographies, these days I’m more likely to be reading about writers and political figures although I did enjoy Lance Armstrong’s, Every Second Counts a few years ago.  At the moment I’m reading a short biography of Lord Byron written by Edna O’Brien.  More out of interest in the biographer, than the subject.  Edna O’Brien has written an excellent biography of James Joyce which both my husband and I read after a trip to Ireland.

A couple of all-time favourites are  Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela and Maggie Siggon’s, Louis Riel, A Life of Revolution.

“There is properly no history; only biography” Ralph Waldo Emerson