6.4km...

in 50 minutes. 8.3min/km or 12.5min/mile... not bad for starting out again. I'll need to do better for September. That pace would be almost 3 hours to do the half marathon.

A few observations... breathing was okay after I got into a rhythm... legs were good until the last 2km... they started to feel heavy... stride was good, a little small at times and the ankles held up okay, just a little hard in the last 2km as well... tried to keep the form good... biggest thing that contributed to fatigue in the legs and ankles was not paying attention to how my feet were striking the ground - i.e. when I hit harder, the effects were felt fairly immediately but when I made sure I was striking heel first and rolling through the step, everything felt better.

Marie had a good weekend overall. She's going it alone this morning and her mom is coming in for the afternoon/evening until I get home. That meant that I was later leaving since I had to get the boys out and get our youngest "set up" for the morning (food, drink, etc). I hope it goes well today 'cause I think it'll go a long way for Marie psychologically. She's going crazy "just sittin' around" as she put it. I told that she wasn't just sittin' around, she was resting and getting better but that's easy for me to say, right? She's such an active person normally so I know it's driving her nuts. (more so that I normally do...lol) I have to admit that it's been hard at times... I'm wiped out and busy taking care of keeping things running all the while needing to be Marie's cheerleader and keep her spirits up... I've felt like I'm running on empty a lot.

I just got a call from another neurologist that we wanted to see to get a second opinion on a few things. This guy specializes in epilepsy and we're hoping that he can give us some feedback/advice/recommendations on things like the drug and dosage, the pregnancy (any special things we should be doing, etc).

Anyway, I gotta get some more work done here (and my chat with Jim keeps taking me away from this) so, have a good one!

g.

Link to Autostitch software...

Thanks GeWilli for the link.

Well, we're adjusting...

It takes time to adjust to such big changes in the routine. Marie's parents have been great through all this. They've been coming over every day during the week to be with Marie and take care of our youngest. The support from family, friends and neighbours has been overwhelming. I've got a bunch of meals in our freezer from everyone which has made it easier on me. By the time I get home (given my commute of about 1.5 hours) it can be a little late and the boys are hungry so throwing something in the microwave that is not full of all the crap that "instant" meals are made with.

This whole thing is a rollercoaster of a ride though... one minute you're feelin' confident in the choices you're makin' and the next you're doubting yourself and gettin' all worked up. We've decided to try and get in to see another neurologist and we're still waiting to hear back from the AVM Clinic at Toronto Western Hospital on a time and date to consult with a neurosurgeon.

I keep tellin' Marie not to read stuff on the internet about her condition... you never know the quality of some of this stuff. She ended up gettin' a google hit on the document put out by Novartis (the manufacturer of the AED she's on) and it freaked her out. It freaked me out too but after I took the time to read the entire document, I wasn't so freaked out. They talked about some scary side effects that occurred in animals but when you look at the dosage they're talkin' about, it's many times the dose Marie is on. The risk percentage is pretty low, I'd prefer zero but that's not gonna happen so I'll settle for the course of action we're takin' right now. We can't forget the risks to Marie if she doesn't manage the seizures.

Man, am I tired of thinkin' about this stuff... I finally got a better sleep last night. Sleep really helps to keep things in perspective.

I feel guilty posting about anything other than the shit Marie is going through but I think I'll talk a bit more about Jim and my trip to Algonquin. We're gonna assume that it's still on until the time we're supposed to leave... in other words, we know that the trip is at risk for being cancelled but we're not giving up until the last possible minute.

Jim picked up a Coleman latern at a garage sale for $5! It looks brand new! Man, that guy has horseshoes up his a$$. LOL!

He also picked up a compass and a watch that has GPS. This will allow us to log out waypoints and map it all out when we get back. We (and by we I mean Jim) plan to put up a site about our trips and do a daily summary of how things went. We're toying with the idea of giving our trip to Algonquin a name... it kind of solidifies it as an annual event. I want to get t-shirts made but Jim is hesitating on the idea... he thinks we'll look funny. I say, people will be jealous and we'll be constantly asked, "Hey man, where can I get one of those cool t-shirts?"

I'm planning on snapping a lot of pictures of our trip. I want to experiment with the camera, trying things like longer exposures to see what kind of neat scenes I can capture. This will complement the trip log that we'll do (again, by we'll I mean Jim). Don't get all Hey-dude,-don't-leave-all-the-work-to-Jim on me now... he's far better at the writing than I am. I mean, it's not like I'll not be contributing in some ways ("gee Jim, that's paragraph sounds really good to me"). GeWilli has played around with photography quite a bit and in one of his (friggin' long) posts, he mentioned a piece of software that will stitch together multiple images to make a panorama shot. I may play around with that although, I should try it out before the trip so that I know what I'm doing when I'm up there taking the shots (how much overlay between images, etc). (Hey GeWilli, if you're readin' this, I searched through your archives and can't find the reference. Do you remember what the software was?)

Well, I gotta get back to work. I'm taking the day off tomorrow to have some down time. It'll give the in-laws a break and I can spend some time with Marie and play with our little guy (by the way, those who every meet our "little" guy will know that he's quite the opposite). I bought a basketball hoop earlier this week so I imagine that I'll be spending some time shootin' hoops with the boys this weekend.

Have a great long weekend everyone!

g.

A week later...

I don't really feel like posting but I thought I should at least do an update about Marie.

Marie is doing well and we saw the neurologist last night and it was a very positive experience. We now understand the situation and options a lot better and we're more comfortable with how things are goin' to play out over the next year or so. I don't feel right posting too much about Marie's situation but I may post general tidbits as I feel inclined and that might be of interest to a wider audience.

A big thanks to all the friends and family, near and far that prayed for Marie and kept her in your thoughts. It was very touching to experience such care and compassion from all directions. We ask that you continue to keep us in your prayers as we move forward. Again, for Marie's privacy and mine I won't post details. (sorry to be so cryptic)

Well, I'll call it quits for today but again, thanks everyone for bein' there for us.

g.

Where to start?

Well, it's been an interesting few days. I was at work on Thursday and I got a call from the kids' school... My wife was there with our youngest and she had apparently had/was having a seizure episode and the ambulance was taking her to the hospital right now. Shit... that was out of nowhere. I said I was on my way and hung up the phone. Then it hit me, what about our youngest? Where was he. I called back but there was no answer. I figured I'd call from the car.

I ripped my laptop out of the docking station and heading for the elevators and down to my car in the garage. As I backed out of my spot, it felt like I had a flat. I stopped, jumped out and holy shit, I had a flat! I popped the trunk and started to get the spare out. I couldn't see the lug wrench so I began tearing through the trunk to find it. It was no where to be seen. I put the car back in the spot and called up to my boss 'cause he has the same make as me. He met me at his car and we looked for the lug wrench. It's in a different location and we couldn't see it. After about 2 minutes he said "Fuck it - get in!" and he drove me all the way to the hospital. Thank God for a great person for a friend who also happens to be my boss.

At the hospital they assessed my wife and decided to send her to the next hospital west of us to have an MRI. This was opted for because she's recently pregnant with our fourth so that ruled out a CAT scan. I'll cut to Thursday night when she was admitted to the hospital... she has a condition called AVM and it is the trigger for the seizure. There are several options that may be available to her for treatment but we are waiting to meet with the specialists to learn what the best course of action is.

We've had an extremely positive response from family and friends offering support. It's amazing the impact my wife has had on our community since we moved here 6 years ago. She has a lot of friends that really care about her and that's helped make some of this bearable.

I can't imagine that I'll feel much like posting up here so the updates will be slow. Needless to say, all extra stuff in our lives is on hold for now, especially since I don't feel comfortable leaving Marie at home alone for any length of time. The specialist should be able to help me understand what the limitations are. I'm gonna request alternate work arrangements so that I can work from home a couple of days a week that way I can be around and not push my mother-in-law too much by relying on her for all the extra work. I'm also gonna get a cleaning service in to help keep things in order since I'm gonna be working, playin' Dad as usual and now playin' Mom too all on top of the extra work for caring for Marie. This is not a pity party, just an assessment of what I have to deal with and a realization that there's only so many hours in the day and so many things I can do in those hours. Pardon the stream on consciousness here, but that's part of why I started doin' this blog thing. Besides, if GeWilli can do it, I'm allowed to open the mind's floodgates and let 'er rip! Ya gotta laugh at times like this, it helps me cope with this kind of thing.

Anyway, please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we navigate through all this schtuff.

g.

My usual impatience rears it head again...

Okay, so today is the day two of my training program to get up to a 5km run. It was supposed to be a repeat of day one - run one minute, walk two minutes. Well unlike the my first run, I was doing this at 04:30 instead of 05:15 which makes a difference in the amount of daylight available. I started out with my walk to warm up the muscles and I noticed that I couldn't see the second hand on my watch so I wasn't gonna be able to see when a minute was up to change pace. I continued walking and thought about how I would handle the run. I thought about counting but you know how that gets when you're running, you end up counting you steps instead on seconds and I thought I might not run for long enough. Then I thought, maybe I could go back and get my small flashlight but that would be very awkward. I finally had a thought that I figured I would either regret and amaze myself... why not run for as long as I could and then I'd be able to see how far I could get at my current fitness level. By this time I was at the point where I planned to start running so I began. I felt good starting out, before I new it I was a few streets over and I began to have thoughts that I could get to what I was figuring was just short of my half-way point, so I decided, GO FOR IT!

Well the point I had in mind was just over the crest of a long gradual hill so I began to thing, "Maybe I won't get to the point I had in mind, but I *hafta* try" so I pushed on as I started ascending the hill. As I crested the hill and started down a short incline to the stop sign I was gonna stop at, I noticed that my legs were feeling good as I went downhill and I thought, "Okay, that went well. Maybe I'll try and make it to the next stop sign... it's a flat stretch and it's not too far" and so I pushed on.

At the next stop sign I made an instant decision to push on 'round the corner so I did and started to go up the long gradual hill going back into town from the west and figured, "I'll stop when I get to the top if I'm really winded but if I'm okay, I'll go down the steep hill and maybe my legs will recover again like before." Well I made it about half way down the hill and it's at that point that I allowed a thought that had been lingering in the back of my head to come to the forefront of my thoughts and that was "I'm goin' ALL THE WAY!"

The absolute sweetest moment was when I slowed to a walk just as I passed my driveway and I did my cooldown walk around the block. Wow... I actually did it!

When I got to work this morning, I started MS Streets and Trips and plotted the route I ran. I actually ran 3.7km! I know I could've continued to make the 5km mark if I had more time. This is exciting news for me! I'm in a better place than I thought. I was able to recover quite quickly from the run and wasn't gasping for air like I thought I would be. This is FANTASTIC news! (at least to me)

Awsome. Just awesome. I'm gonna repeat the run on Saturday morning and see if I can do it again. The only issue I have to work out is that Patrick wants to come with me. Maybe I'll do my run and then take him on a short run of run/walk like I did on Tuesday.

Well, that was a long story but I just *had* to share it 'cause I'm so pumped about the results.

I may write more later or perhaps just save it for tomorrow. My first highschool reunion is coming up and I'm not currently goin' but I'm thinking that I may regret it if I don't go. Gotta think about it.

Have a GREAT day everyone, I know I will!

g.

Birthday wishes and more on the run...

First off, it's my son Patrick's birthday today - Happy Birthday Patrick!

I can't believe I have a nine year old... holy schmokes time has flown by. I know people said it would when we started our family but wow, I have days that I feel like I'm still seventeen! So Patrick wants a gameboy game for his birthday and I guess I'm good with that. Marie (since she's at home with them more than me) is good at limiting their time with video games. She's also good at makin' sure that they aren't playing games that promote stuff we don't want to them to experience (blood and guts, agressive behaviour). He also wants pizza from the new pizza place in town, Free Topping Pizza. It's really good pizza considering it's mass produced. I spoke to one of the owners on a recent visit and he said it all came down to the sauce. This was something I already knew after makin' a whole lot of pizzas with GeWilli a few years ago. GeWilli gave me his secret recipe for a fantastic sauce and let me tell you, when I made it for family, they were raving about it. I think I'll have to do another pizza night soon 'cause now I'm craving that pizza. I need to get a good recipe for whole wheat pizza crust though since I want to try that.

Okay, I wanted to write more about my first run experience but I was out of the office all day and by the time I got the kids into bed last night, I was wiped out.

So, a couple of observations... it wasn't as hard as I expected it to be, not that it was too easy, just not as hard as I expected. I see this as a good sign. Second, I kept in mind my buddy GeWilli's observation about joggers he sees and how they don't pay attention to form. I managed to keep my form right up to the end. I see why it's important - bad form could make it *harder* to reach the end as you may end up working against your momentum. Muscle ache... my shin muscles hurt yesterday afternoon and this morning. My quads feel it a bit but I mark this up to the fact that I was working my quads more recently in the gym. I should say that the ache is that good ache knowing that you've exercised a muscle that needed it.

My training program called for repeating the run 1 minute, walk 2 minutes thing six times. I ended up doing it eight times because my route was a little longer than it should have been. Hey, I was guessing at how far I needed to go before I turned back towards home. I ended up doing a circuit of Newcastle which was really nice, especially at 05:15 when the town is still sleeping for the most part. I was going to go out this morning despite the program calling for running every other day but decided against it until I get the muscles conditioned a little more. My reasoning for this was that I need to be ready to run 21.1km on September 9th and the program I'm following is eight weeks to get to 5km. I'll see how this week goes and if I'm feelin' good on the weekend, I may try an extra day or two next week. I have to mindful to allow my body to rest and repair the muscles but I think doing five days a week shouldn't be too bad.

My son Patrick wants to run with me. I will prolly do a run on Saturday mornings so that he can join me since I'm anticipating my weekday runs to start at 04:30 so I can keep my workday at 06:30-15:00. He is a *very* active child so I'm not worried about him needing more physical activity, if anything, I'm worried I won't be able to keep up with him!

Well, after spending yesterday volunteering at an event for school kids (RCMP Racing Against Drugs), I've got a whole lot of work to do. I've also been very unmotivated lately and find that I've slipped into a bad place here at work. I've gotta shift gears and get focused on my deliverable and get some good quality work done so that I can have a few work from home days over the summer.

Have a good day everyone!

g.

I did it!

I went for a run this morning! I'm following a training plan that gets me to the point that I will be running 5km in 8 weeks. Day one is run 1 minute, walk 2 minutes. I know it sounds easy but for someone who's been sittin' behind a keyboard and monitor for too long, this was an accomplishment. The next session will be the same and the third day will be run 1 minute, walk 1 minute.

Well, I'm completely wiped out after today so I'm gonna stop here. I still can't believe I got up and ran this morning. The journey has begun!

Have a good one!

g.

hydration pack...

Here's the one I was lookin at. $12 seems reasonable although, that's prolly for the 1.5L version. Still, it's $9 for the 1L nalgene... decisions, decisions, eh?

Here's one that looks like it may connect to the water filter directly to make fill-ups easier.

...

Dammit! I just found a nalgene bottle for $10.50 that's 1.4L. I didn't see that one on our visit to MEC earlier this year. Great, another possibility to consider... who am I kiddin'? I like doing this kind of comparision decision making schtuff.

93 days 7 hours and 39 minutes...

Okay, time is tickin' by real fast and that a good thing! Jim put the count-down timer on his blog and it's countin' down the time 'til we leave for our Algonquin canoe trip. I know I haven't posted anything about the trip really... I guess that's 'cause Jim's been doin' all his posts and I keep readin' them and don't want to duplicate his posts.

Anyway, after all the - what I assume is good natured - ribbing about doing a "mock pack up", I still haven't done it. Life got kinda busy and I just haven't had chance to sit down and do it. Jim and I assembled as the gear over at his place to take stock of what we have and what we made need to get. It looks like the only gear we have left to get is a couple of nalgene bottles each. We had no-name brands but they don't fit ont he bottom of the water filter and I figured that I don't want to be wrestling with the water filter to fill up the bottles. This is important to me 'cause I'll have a headache in no time with the heat and strain of the portages if I don't keep hydrated. I was thinking about getting a a hydration pack but I've never used on so I'm not sure of the benefits/drawbacks to having the hydration pack versus bottles.

...

Okay, I did a little research and this hydration pack thing is lookin' more appealing. Perhaps one bottle and the pack would be the way to go. The benefit I think is that it is compact and can be big. (1.5, 2 and 3 litre sizes) The bottle I was gonna take is 1 litre so there's less filling up with the 3L version. The drawbacks I've thought of are: my body heat may heat up the pack since it's in my backpack on my back (although the backpack won't be on all the time), I can't easily fill up the pack while we're on the water (I'd have to wrestle it out of my pack to connect it to the filter but that might not be that hard to do) , it may add unwanted weight and finally, I wouldn't have something that I can carry around the campsite easily when we're camped out. Hmmm... lots to think about. Right now I'm still thinkin' perhaps one bottle and the hydration pack. I think a visit to MEC is in order. Jim and I will have to arrange a "pass" from our wives for one day soon. Perhaps we'll have to compromise and do it on a weeknight after work. I can take the train in to work (longer trip than drivin) but then Jim and I can meet down at MEC and take the train home together. We'll see.

Well, another post done at work... I find that the thoughts flow freely here at work whereas the time at home is taken with spending time with the kids. My management wouldn't agree with this but I think it's better to take time from work (work through break or something) than to take time from the kids and Marie to sit in front of this machine.

Have a good one everybody!

g.