Day 11 – The fitness test, revisited

When I began training for a marathon in March I did a fitness test to find out what my fitness level was like at the beginning of this whole journey. I blogged the results of that first test in my post You have to start somewhere. My goal was to establish a baseline I could compare myself to as I progressed through the program, and now is the time to do that comparison.

Once again Ashley Fox, marathon training program co-ordinator, personal trainer and general physical literacy expert, conducted the test for me.

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Day 12 – Running for a cause

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Today I participated in Terry’s Cause on Campus, a nation-wide event held at post-secondary institutions across the country. Terry Fox was a first-year kinesiology student at Simon Fraser University when he was diagnosed with bone cancer. It was during his final year at SFU that he ran the Marathon of Hope, so it is only fitting that university students and staff take some time to honour his legacy and continue to raise money for the Terry Fox Foundation.

It has been a long time since I last ran a Terry Fox run but when I heard one was being held on campus I was happy to sign up. A few of my Banff-Jasper Relay teammates formed a team that I was able to join. We ran just over 6km around campus during our lunch hour, a pretty good way to spend it, I would say.

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Day 13 – Q&A with Kirsten Holte

Over the last few months I’ve spent a lot of time writing about my own marathon training journey and while it has been a great experience, it has also been really hard. I’ve come to realize it’s a lot more difficult to write about myself than I thought it would be.  As a journalist I’ve always found myself much more interested in telling other people’s stories than my own, so this week I want to take some time to do that.

With more than 60 current members, the UofC Marathon Training Program is a hugely diverse group of people, each with their own inspiring tales to tell. Some of them have been running marathons longer than I’ve been alive, some picked up running later in life. Some are competitive and are training for big races like the Boston Marathon and some run for the community and for fun.

I plan on telling some of the amazing stories of the group’s more experienced runners over the winter break, but for now, there are several other first-time marathoners with the UofC program whom I am so excited to introduce you to.

I have gotten to know each of these people pretty well after training together over the last few months. We have taken each scary, exciting, painful and triumphant step together since March and over the next few days I am going to be featuring each of them while finding out what made them want to take on this crazy challenge.

I am thrilled to be able to introduce you to Kirsten. She’s the youngest person on the team right now but can hold her own in a conversation with any of us. Kirsten is a sweetheart with a big smile and a contagious laugh. Her hidden talent is being able to spontaneously forget what time our Monday and Saturday runs are and then texting me to ask. They’re at 6:30 p.m. and 8 a.m. Kirsten… yes, always.

KirstenProfileName: Kirsten Holte

Age: 21

Occupation: Third-year Kinesiology Student, Therapy Assistant

Goal race: Victoria Marathon

 

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Day 14 – Q&A with Abhishek Batwara

Over the last few months I’ve spent a lot of time writing about my own marathon training journey and while it has been a great experience, it has also been really hard. I’ve come to realize it’s a lot more difficult to write about myself than I thought it would be.  As a journalist I’ve always found myself much more interested in telling other people’s stories than my own, so this week I want to take some time to do that.

With more than 60 current members, the UofC Marathon Training Program is a hugely diverse group of people, each with their own inspiring tales to tell. Some of them have been running marathons longer than I’ve been alive, some picked up running later in life. Some are competitive and are training for big races like the Boston Marathon and some run for the community and for fun.

I plan on telling some of the amazing stories of the group’s more experienced runners over the winter break, but for now, there are several other first-time marathoners with the UofC program whom I am so excited to introduce you to.

I have gotten to know each of these people pretty well after training together over the last few months. We have taken each scary, exciting, painful and triumphant step together since March and over the next few days I am going to be featuring each of them while finding out what made them want to take on this crazy challenge.

The first person I would like to introduce you to is Abhi. He recently graduated with his Masters in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Calgary. He’s a joker, a deep-thinker and joy to run with. His secret talent is being able to complete a four-hour run in the rain after fuelling up with the largest piece of cheesecake you’ve ever seen.

Abhi_001Name: Abhishek Batwara

Age: 27

Occupation: Petroleum Engineer

Goal race: Victoria Marathon

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Day 15 – It’s all downhill from here

This is going to be a super short post today because I am busy preparing a whole bunch of other great posts for next week.

Today we completed our last long run before the marathon! Our three hour, 24.5 km run marked the end of the hard training which means… it’s taper time!

As one of our coaches pointed out today, we’ve made it. I have been so focused on the actual race that I hadn’t really thought about it like that. We’ve been working our butts off for almost eight months and seeing where we are now compared to where we started is shocking . Today we did a three hour run like it was no big deal and that’s not something to take for granted.

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