Half Marathon Adventure!

Check out the Arthkickers.com blog to read about my half marathon this past weekend!

Half Marathon-Sunday Morning!

Tonight I did my last 6km (run for 1min/walk for 1min). This week I joined John our Joints in Motion Trainer, his wife Joy and the rest of the crew for 2 training runs on Tues and Thurs. They were short quick 6km runs and I felt really good during and after. (Thank god otherwise I would be really worried about doing this half if I felt like crap after only 6k..lol) It was nice to be out with a group. I always enjoy chatting and sharing my story with the other runners. The more people I have cheering me on the easier it is for me to keep going and finish. John set up my running watch for me to do 1/1 intervals so it will beep after each minute and now I don't have to keep looking at my watch wondering if the minute is up yet...lol! It set it up for 99 reps which is 3 hours and 20minutes, so that is my goal. :-) The last time I did this race I finished it in 3 hours and 37 minutes and that was walking the entire race. So let's see what I can do this weekend. It really is just a practise run for my run/walk training so I can see where I am in order to finish the full marathon in Oct doing a run/walk. My team mate Heather will running it as well, the great news is she's faster and will finish before me and will be there to cheer me over the finish line with my family. :-)
Saturday night my 2 youngest kids are registered to do the Kids' run and my oldest son and sister Crystal will do the 5km. I love that my kids want to be so involved and do what I'm doing. Every race I have done this year they have participated in the 5km category!! (Although my 7 year old says she's only doing 5km cause she doesn't want her toenails to fall off...LOL)
Thanks John and the crew tonight at the run for all the good luck wishes, those are what push me to get through the race! :-)
Stay tuned for Sunday night's post to hear how it went!! :-)
I'm only $595 away from my fundraising goal and I have 2 weeks to raise that, so please support my half marathon on Sunday by donating to my page. How about $1 for every KM... $21. :-)

What's New????

I posted an update on our website so please go there to read my latest blog entry.  Arth-Kickers.com Blog.

Thank you for following my journey.

5km "run" with my 10 year old

Well it’s back to regular walks/runs. Since the Calgary half marathon I have been training more to do a run(jog in my world)/walk for the upcoming Marathon in October. It’s been been going pretty good, I’ve been doing mostly 5 and 7km training runs right now just to build up my walk/running. Sunday I did 7km in 1hour and 6min, and for me that was awesome. School is out and it’s difficult to get to the gym during the day and most of my training is being done in the evening which I find challenging as I’m tired. But I have been pursuing through and staying focused. So today I decide that I will go and do 5km and my kids can either job beside or ride their bikes. So my younger 2 opt for the bike riding and my oldest (10) wants to job with me. He has down running club at school and he’s on a mission to complete a half marathon in the near future…lol! We set out to do 5km, and holy it’s hot already. After the first km I’m already dying of heat but onwards we go. I have to say this was probably the most entertaining 5km I’ve done and it was a serious blow to my “training self esteem”…LOL!! We start our first 5 minutes of jogging and my son says “this is how fast you go? This isn’t running mom” … I just kinda of laugh to myself. We continue on and the whole time he’s chattering away about this that and the other thing and then he says to me “mom you’re already huffing and puffing and you don’t answer me back.” Next I have my youngest who is on her bike and she’s riding back and forth and around me and rides up beside me and says, as she pedals slowly “this is how I do a jog riding my bike” and then speeds off ahead and says “this is how I do running on my bike”!

We finish our first 5min and now walk for 2minutes and he says “we are walking already” … I seriously can’t help but laugh to myself and wonder what my training really does look like to anyone watching…LOL! (good thing I don’t really care..lol) The next 5km is all about him and his nice little comments and his indirect way of saying “mom you suck at this..lol” Towards the end of the 5km I am so hot, ready to get out of the heat and sweating buckets..lol and I look at him and it’s like he hasn’t done a thing…LOL! His last comment to me is “I don’t know how you did a full marathon in Greece it must have taken you all day!” As a matter of fact it did…LOL!! It was a painfully hot 5km and it was fun having the kids do it with me but I think I will stick to the lonely 5k’s where I tell myself I’m doing a great job..LOL!!

It’s only 101 days until the marathon and I feel a bit of panic!! On the bright side of things all my training is paying off as I have lost 35lbs since Feb. I am officially back to the weight I was when I did my first marathon in 2010 and I still have 3 months before the one in October so I’m confident I will definitely weigh less to do my 2nd marathon!

I have some pictures from our past fundraising events that I will be posting! Thank you to everyone who has supported us, it is greatly appreciated. We are getting closer to our fundraising goal !!

Walk to Fight Arthritis today

It was a gloomy cloudy day but we escaped the rain for the "Walk to Fight Arthritis".  We were dressed for rain and cold but it turned out not to be too bad.  Over 470 people turned out to support the Arthritis Society even with the rain looming overhead.  Me, my kids and Grandma walked the 5km through Fish Creek park. The kids love being a part of my journey whenever they can, so they were pretty excited to join in for the walk. In the last few months both my 6 year old daughter and my sister have been diagnosed with some form of Arthritis so today I was walking for them.  I'm still nursing a sore knee so it was alittle tough but I got through it.  I did 5km last Sunday as well but I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to do much more than at, at one time.  I've gone back to the gym to do weight training and the eliptical seems to be okay so that's my cardio of choice these days.  Onward I will push and hopefully get some answers with my knee and figure out my training is going to look like.

Thank you to everyone that supported our walk today! You can help too by donating to my fundraising page in support of the Arthritis Society.  This journey is not just about me anymore, it's about my daughter and my sister too!
http://arthritis.akaraisin.com/alberta/teamjordan

We did it...half marathon completed!!

Happy to say that Tracy and I both completed the half marathon on Sunday! Together we crossed the finish line in 4:03:36!! The day started out at 4:15am to get ready for a 7:00am start time! Of course it's hard to sleep the night before so how is it possible for one to be completely rested?? 4:15 seemed to come sooner than it should have..lol!! We did it though, up, fed and ready to go, ride on the c-train to the Stampede grounds, bags checked and at the start line with 20 minutes to spare!There were people everywhere!!! The line ups to the porta potties was insane and people pushing their way to get to the front to start the race. As a walker it's kind of scary at the start line, cause you gotta stay way over to the side or you risk getting mowed over..lol! And even over to the side people still running past you on both sides, kind of makes you feel like you're standing still..lol! The first 10km went pretty fast and we were on track to finish in 3 or 3.5 hours. We were never at the back, there was always someone behind us so it was good motivation to keep up our pace. Things started to go down hill around the 12km mark when I had to pee. The problem with stopping to pee when I'm doing a race ?? ... is my arthritis... stopping for anything , tends to stiffen me up right away and it's very difficult to get things going at the same pace they were before! Note to self, maybe not drink so much pre-race so I can make through an entire half without stopping. :-)

The last 6 or 7km were alittle slower for us, getting my pace back up after stopping for a pee never really happened and we were both having pain in one spot or another..lol!! Through the entire route, anytime I had to go down a hill of any kind, I had to do a slow jog. The pressure on my knee going downhill was very painful but if I jogged it was in a slightly bent position and didn't hurt as much. The last hill at the 18km mark was a tough one, I didn't really have the energy to jog but I knew that my knee would never hold up having to extend it fully in the walking position. Somewhere I managed to get myself into a slow jog and the strangest thing happened ... I couldn't stop. The pain was less in my knee because it was slightly bent jogging and so I just kept jogging so it didn't hurt so much. Who knew I could find it in me to actually jog the last 3km and across the finish line! :-) Tracy was great, she was having pain but she just jogged along beside me, well and she's got longer legs then I do so her walking could actually keep up to my VERY slow jog...LOL!!! The last 5km was pretty quiet as we pushed through being tired and in pain. But we did it, we finished and Tracy can now say she has completed her first half marathon!

Thank you to everyone that donated towards my fundraising this past weekend in support of the half marathon, your donations are greatly appreciated! My next fundraising walk is June 10th. Stay tuned for those details.  Visit our website www.arthkickers.com and subscribe there to follow our journey and get all the up to date details on events and fundraising!

Help me Reach $500 this weekend!

Less than 24hrs to go and we will be standing at the start line ready to walk the half marathon. :-)

The Arthritis Society is one of the charities of choice for the Calgary Marathon so please donate to my fundraising page in support of this event! My goal is to raise $500 this weekend towards my fundraising.  So please help me by clicking here and making a donation in support of my half marathon tomorrow. Any amount is greatly appreciated, all the $5.00 and $10.00 add up! Grab a group of friends or co workers and make a group donation.

I truly appreciate any support you can give and thank you for supporting me in my personal fight with Arthritis, as well as my daughter and my sister who are very dear to me and are also fighting this disease.

Thank you again for any support you can give! :-)