We are the tent peasants.

 We are the tent peasants and we love camping with our friends...even if all of them now have trailers/campers. In the shadow of their trailers, there is room for our humble tent...

 

Tenting is actually pretty awesome, especially at Thousand Trails... it's glamping at it's best. There's plug in electrical so we can plug in the griddle and make pancakes for breakfast. Last year I even brought my milk frother so I could make steamed milk for the perfect London Fog. 

We were concerned that with all the rain forecasted, we would be spending wet nights in our tent but thank goodness our canopy fit (almost) over the tent and we stayed dry despite the rain at night.

During the day, the sun came out so we could still enjoy the pool.

And we went golfing and we had fun taking pictures on the green and pretending to know what we were doing...

It's was lovely cooking and eating meals together. After two years of restrictions, just sharing a meal together with friends is such a blessing. 

There's also a candy store at Thousand Trails, we all gave the kids $5 and they were delighted to go to the candy store on their own and agonize over what candy choice was the best...

The weather stayed dry up till the evening so we were able to have a campfire because it's not a real camping trip until you have s'mores

And when all the moms shop at Costco and all get the same laser tag guns, you get to end the day with an epic game of laser tag with glow sticks in the forest. 

Such a fun weekend, can't wait til next year!

BMO Half marathon : Older, Faster, Stronger.

 4:50 am - alarm goes off. Question choices in my life to voluntarily wake up before 5:00 am for a run.

5:51 am - all aboard the shuttle bus to take us to the start line.

6:17 am - oligatory photo at the start line

6:30 am - breakfast of champions - energy gels.

6:55 am - ditch the old sweater I had brought to keep me warmer before the race starts.

6:59 am - 1 minute until race starts. Heart is racing. Garmin confirms that my HR is going way too fast.

7:00 am - race is supposed to start but they announce there is some sort of police incident and there's a delay. Later I find out that there was a package that looked “sus” and they had to bring in the bomb squad so we didn’t have a repeat of the Boston marathon. 

7:15 am - shivering and freezing standing in the corral waiting to run.

7:20 am - Why are we still not running? Goosebumps. Shivering. Go back and find the sweater I had ditched. Success! Found sweater and try to stay warm standing still when it's only 8 degrees.

7:45 am - there are SO many people peeing in the bushes beside the race corrals for the past hour. This is our pre-race entertainment ?!

7:55 am -  They announce that race will start in 5 minutes. Everyone cheers. I am so cold I can't feel my arms or my legs.

8:03 am - FINALLY cross the start line over an hour pasts the scheduled start time. Trying to get the blood flowing to my numb arms and legs.

8:56 am - 10 km in and I am finally in the zone. Loving the energy and the cheering fans.

9:20 am - Girl dressed in all pink beside me passes me and then I pass her and then she passes me again. This is getting annoying. There's also a guy wearing a shirt that says Team Dead Legs and we keep going back and forth. I need to not see either of them again. Muster up all my energy to will my legs to go faster and pick up the pace. See ya pinky girl and dead legs guy. 

9:30 am - Signs at races at the best. "Remember you paid to do this?" "Run like your mom just called you by your full name" "Run Faster I just farted" "Huh? Where is everyone going?" and my favourite "Pain is temporary - Strava stats are forever". That one kept me going strong. 

9:58 am - I can see the finish line. Why is there uphill now? That's just mean. 

10:00 am - DONE. Hallelujah. Turn around to look at my watch: 1:55:42. YAAAAAAAS. I did it. I finally ran the BMO in less than 2 hours. In 2018, I finished in 2:02 and in 2019, I finished in 2:00:13 second. The sub-2 half has been taunting me until now. FINALLY. Slayed it and finished in 1:55!

10:05 am - Adrenaline is still pumping and I am surprisingly able to find both Simon and my friend Annie among the masses of people. Husband  doesn't look so good. He says he has destroyed his knee. Hopefully nothing that ibuprofen and a roller can't fix?!

Feeling pretty proud of this race. Proud that all the training paid off and proof that you can be almost 40 and still be slaying your own personal records. 

Also the first time in a decade of racing against my super fit husband that I actually beat him. This has never happened ever. He finished in 1:59. That’s still pretty amazing for a guy that never runs and his longest practice run was only 7km. It does feel good to finally just for once beat him at something. 

10:15 - got our medals and freebies. This really is a lot of work for a free banana 

10:35 - Freezing again. That has been the theme of today. Superstar husband wraps me in a foil blanket. 

We find a Macdonalds and I have never been so happy to have a hot hashbrown and a cup of tea. Ok time to go home and stretch and hopefully be able to walk tomorrow. But hey, pain is temporary and stats last forever right?

Sun Run recap: 10 km of smiles and sunshine.

Practice does pay off. After months of running circles around the backfield at school and laps around Central park, these kids crushed the Sun Run this morning.

Some practice runs were brutal...like literally dragging my 8 year old to keep going.

Last Friday, we had our last practice and the kids complained of cramps, being cold, being hot, being hungry and being tired...I was slightly concerned.

When we first got downtown, the kids were a bit overwhelmed at first seeing all the people. Can't blame them, since covid everyone has been chanting socially distancing which is very different than a crowd like this...

But with the sunshine and miraculously being able to find out friends among the sea of runners, they were excited and ready to race

I strategically kept them on a steady candy sugar rush and had a carefully curated playlist of the kid's favourite songs - the live bands and cheering bystanders added to the fun adrenaline rush too. 

Around 8km, Noah saw his best friend up ahead and once they found each other, it was like Sonic getting hit by lightening and the two of them took off.  The two of them together were unstoppable. They got lots of cheers from people surprised to get passed by two little boys. I think that just fueled them to keep going faster. I was sprinting to make sure I didn't lose them in the crowd.

Noah and his bestie finished at 1:06 with Super Dad and Nallie finishing 4 minutes behind. 

Couldn't of asked for a better first 10 km race for these kids. Felt so proud cheering for them.

Stay tuned...next week is the BMO half-marathon and these kids will be cheering for us...