game of life run!

I participated in my first 5km race of the year! My sister Nikki and I ran the Game of Life race this morning at the beautiful point pleasant park. The event supported Commonwealth Games Canada's grassroots sports programs in Africa and the Caribbean.  This program uses sports as a means for social development of people in these countries. When I was younger I played basketball and soccer in city leagues and in school, and also coached a basketball team of boys aged 9-10. I believe that participating in sports gives children confidence and team work skills that can extend to multiple areas of their lives. SO of course I thought this was an awesome cause!


I love that the event was held at Point Pleasant Park. The route followed the perimeter of the park which is a wide trail with great views of the ocean. Thankfully it was bright out (cloudy) and not too windy. A breeze off the ocean can be mighty cold, so I was glad it wasn't too bad today! They had tons of volunteers that were helpful in guiding the way. It was a simple out and back, with the first half being up hill. This made the second half of the race a treat! Knowing the last half was downhill was definitely something I looked forward to.

A few negatives were that the 10km race was an out and back, TWICE. Maybe some people don't care as much as I do, but I think that would be extremely boring. I think they could have taken advantage of all the trails in the park and made it a loop or something. This would have meant more volunteers though, which maybe wasn't possible. My only other negative were the other people at the park. Since the race was small (I would estimate 100 participants in the 5 and 10 combined) they did not close the park. The park is notorious for people bringing their dogs, and some areas are off-leash. I believe these people had every right to be in the park; however I wish some people had shown a little more consideration and tried to move their dogs out of the way of the runners. Nothing that could have been controlled by the race coordinators though!

Overall it was a great start to run season, and I'm happy with the result. Nikki and I ran together (except for the final sprint). The clock time when running through the finish said 31:47, yet my chip time was 31:55 or something. This doesn't really make since to me as usually the chip time is lower? Either way I'm happy with that time!

Now I just need to get my butt in gear as I decided I'll be doing the 10km in the Bluenose! IN ONE MONTH! Ack. Stay tuned for my procrastinator training plan.

p.s. I returned the sneakers I posted about earlier. Still on the hunt for ones I like...

holiday runs

So I went on a few runs while I was home over the holidays. It was wonderful to run with my family again, it's been awhile!

I did a 5km run at the KC Irving Centre in Bathurst. It's an indoor track that surrounds a hockey rink:

It's a great place to run. It cost $2 (or you can buy a pass), and since it's beside the rink it stays pretty cool around 14C. And if you're lucky there may be people playing hockey which provides some free entertainment! Another plus is that you go the opposite direction of the walkers, therefore you don't have to be continually passing people. I went to this track and had an awesome run! I ended up running 5km in about 29 minutes.

A few days later I went on an 8km run with my dad, sister Nikki and brother in law Ray. It was super warm out so we decided to run around town. We were faced with some melting snow which lead to some wet feet, but it was warm enough that we didn't mind. Afterwards we took some photos:

MS run!

Phew, long time no see! I would like to use being busy as an excuse for my lack of posting but that isn't really it. I kept meaning to post and then ended up getting sidetracked and not coming back to it.

Regardless, you need to be caught up on my recent runs! As I mentioned before, I ran a 5k on September 29th with some girls (and a husband) from my grad program at school. The run was to support research for Multiple Sclerosis, and was in Brewer, Maine.

The previous week had been super rainy, so I was hoping the rain would hold off for the race. It was overcast (yay!) with heavy drizzle (boo). The biggest problem I faced during this race was GLASSES. Ole four eyes over here had to stop and clean her glasses. They were fogging up and just covered in droplets. I have worn contacts in the past, but went back to glasses a few years ago. This is an indication of why running with glasses sucks!

The race had a small participation number of 31! I didn't realize this prior to the race but this was the first year they had runners as it's traditionally a walk for MS research. So that explains the small numbers.

My final time was 32:08 and I placed 18/31. Happy with this considering the weather!

Team Each Step Counts prior to the race

Stay tuned as soon I will update about the 10k I did this weekend!

i did it!

I ran my races last weekend!! Really happy with my results and that I felt good during both of my races. My stuffy nose seemed to magically go away while I was running, which was amazing. The races took place in Fisherman's Cove, Nova Scotia. The routes were along the water and provided BEAUTIFUL scenery. So many times I wanted to stop and take photos!

I finished the 5km run with a time of 31:21, which is a mile pace of 10:05. We ran the 5km at 7pm, and had gorgeous weather and a beautiful sunset:

Source: http://www.facebook.com/sylvie.theriault.77

The 10km took place the next morning, at 7:30am. I finished with a time of 1:09, which is a mile pace of 11:06. My goal was to finish in less than 1:20, so I am very happy with my time! I'll be interested to see what my finish time is for my next 10km when I haven't ran a 5km the night before!

Some more photos from the event:

Prior to the 5km race with one of my supporters, my bro-in-law, Ray.

Happy while running the 5km!

Runners in the 5km race, you can see me in purple!

ARRRR!!! Me and some pirates

The Tartan Twosome medals. Anyone who ran in 2 events (5km + another) received one!

I will post more pictures soon of the 10km race, and when the official photos are released. I also have some new exciting race and exercise plans that I will share with you soon!

Are you taking part in any fall races? Tell me about it!