Category: Running

CITS, Pemberton, Running, Whistler

Chicks in the Sticks

Christine Cogger

The idea for Chicks in the Sticks came about on one of our many runs together. We’ve been talking for years about all the runs around us that we’d like to do, but it always ends up being October by the time we realize we’ve once again run out of time and are staring down another winter. This summer, rather than scour the internet for races near and far, we decided that perhaps it was finally time to take advantage of what our own backyard has to offer – for free! Hence the creation of our own series: Chicks in the Sticks. The purpose is to run our favourite trails, to run new trails, to catch up with one another and to talk, talk, talk. There are no rules, you don’t even technically need to be a chick, so long as you can keep up your end of the conversation.

Have I mentioned how thankful I am to have friends to do these silly things with? Especially friends who will just as happily sit down and have a glass of wine as they will run up the side of a mountain on any given Sunday.

V1 of our series was the Mosquito Lake Trail run, a tradition of sorts in Pemberton that ends with popsicle-stick timing and homemade treats. Proof that we participated on what was a pretty miserable day, courtesy Dave Steers.

Internal dialogue:

Jen: “It’s pouring rain and I have to run home after we finish this silly run. What am I thinking?!

Carlee: “Why did I let them talk me into this when I paid to get my hair done yesterday?”

Christine: “Yep. That 3rd glass of wine last night was a bad idea.”

We pretty much came last and I, for one, did not shut up the entire time. Someone passed us near the finish line and we all started to surge to pass her and then all consciously slowed down and let her go. This, for me anyway, was a new experience and really kind of fun!

V2 was kind of impromptu, a run on the new Sea-to-Sky trail from our homes to Nairn Falls and back. It was a gorgeous sunny day and not a single picture was taken.

Clown feet

I’m still recovering from V3. Carlee taught dance for 1203947 hours on Saturday so had to bow out but Jen and Lizzie joined the fun… and by fun I mean “let’s run to the paraglide launch at the top of that mountain!” fun. What goes up, must come down… Ow.

Stay tuned for V4. All are welcome to join… the more the merrier. That way, there’s more bait to distract the cougars and bears.

As an aside, can we talk about my terrible, do-I-or-don’t-I grow it out hair for a second? Help.

Help.

Racing, Running, Whistler

Team Red… FTW!

Christine Cogger

Last night at dinner, the conversation turned to this morning’s race.  I was explaining to the kids that as I had to be in Whistler super early, Uncle Pete was coming over to make pancakes and turn on cartoons.  After a few seconds of pondering, Will says: “Mum, how come you never bring home any trophies from your races?”

Hmm.

“Well, it’s because I don’t win, sweets.”

(…)

To which he and Rory concur that “Mum, all you have to do is run faster, ‘kay?”

Thanks, mini-coaches.  I’ll bear that in mind next time I enter a half-marathon with little to no real training.  Moving on!

The goals for this weekend’s race were simple:

  1. Make it to the start line.
  2. If I accomplish “1”, make it to the finish line.
  3. Enjoy wearing matching shirts.  People were so stoked to cheer for Team Red!
  4. Keep pace with Yenny and Lizzie.
Mission accomplished, and I got to drink chocolate milk at the finish.  
Did I set a PR?  No.  Did I feel good?  Not particularly.  Did I get a blister?  Yes.  Did I enjoy it and smile and did it go by fast?  Yes, yes and yes.
So thankful to have good girlfriends to do this with.  It wouldn’t be the same without you ladies!
And of course, a big thank you to Pete and Kevin for handling the breakfast rush…


Day-to-day life, Family, Kids, Pemberton, Racing, Running, Skiing, Travel, Triathlon

10.

Christine Cogger

Oh!  Right!  I have a blog.

Where was I??  It’s been *crickets* around here lately, haven’t been very inspired to write.  Fell off the training wagon (that big THUD you heard a few weeks back).  Trying to claw my way back on, but it keeps rolling about 3 feet away like that annoying big brother would do when you were trying to open the car door to get in and all the cool kids were watching.

Anyway, moving on.  I was thinking about something to write and figured that if the expression”a picture is worth a thousand words” is still true, then I’ll do a photo post and be miles ahead.

Ever wonder if you can define your life in photos?  In 10 photos or less?  I pretty much can, I think these sum up my day-to-day nicely these days.  What about you?

Edited to add:  I wrote this post on Thursday of last week… On Monday I started a new job.  So!  Add a shot of a different deskin an actual office with humans and a water cooler and a boardroom and a shot of an alarm going off at 5:30am and there you have it.  My life.

Doha, Racing, Running

Race day in Doha

Christine Cogger

One of my producers here had the bright idea (with perhaps some slight coercion on my part) to sign us up for an Aquathon, behind held at the Aspire Zone this past Friday.  The race was the first in a series of 5, part of their winter race series.  Team BesterCogger pulled it together for a respectable finish!  Rocky led us out with a solid 500m swim, I brought it home with the 5K run.

For the bargain price of 50 Riyals (about $15), we were treated to a safe and super well organized event that included photos, official timing, a full spread of food, medals and a goodie bag stuffed with swag.  WTC, take note…

The swim was held in one of 4 (!) pools at the venue and the run went around the outer edges of the Aspire Zone.  This was a great way for me to see the venue!  Because we go there early enough, I also got to check out several of the indoor venue sites for the upcoming Games, including boxing, fencing and gymnastics.  It’s all coming together.

The Aspire Zone is Doha’s version of Whistler’s Meadow Park.  The major difference, besides the incredible facilities themselves, obviously, is that they are virtually empty.  No one uses them… a shame really.  What we wouldn’t do to have such an incredible facility at our fingertips!

 

Racing, Random, Running, Travel

New York!

Christine Cogger

It’s hard to figure out where to start to describe this race and this experience! I can safely say that EVERY ONE of my runner friends should put this race on their “must do” list. It was fun, hard, eye-opening, humbling and exciting. There’s nothing quite like running by 2.5 million people to make you feel like some kind of hero!Jay flew to the East Coast a few days ahead of me and met me in New York. I landed in the evening so after checking in, we had to walk around and see some sights. We had yummy Chinese (not readily available in Pemberton…) and went to Times Square to check it out. Even at 11:30pm it was crawling with people.

Country folk in the big city

I broke every “pre-marathon” rule I could think of: stay off your feet, don’t eat anything new, rest, hydrate… didn’t matter though. It was NYC, I had to plans to spend the day in a hotel room watching Oprah! Friday we walked around, did some shopping (first stop: F.A.O Schwartz!) and ate a hot dog. We had dinner with some friends and met up with Erin who was in town to run, too. Her first marathon!

Big Piano at FAO Schwartz

Yummy

Scoping out the course on Friday. It didn’t look anything like this on Sunday.

Couldn’t do this Sunday!

This looked a little different on Sunday, too…

Sub-Elite and me.

Times Square

Saturday was reserved for marathon stuff. We went to pick up our packages at the Javitz Center (our plans to get there first thing were slightly foiled by more shopping…) The closer we got the more the sidewalks got clogged with runners. I couldn’t believe how huge the center was and there were big line-ups to get to registration. Amazingly, we blew through there in about 15 minutes: you can tell the organizers had done this before! After a quick tour through the expo it was a bit more sightseeing then back to the room for some rest and race prep.
The international flavour of this marathon is undeniable. Our hotel was filled with Italians, Germans, Andalusians (!) and others, all there to run the marathon. Every official kiosk had translators available. It certainly makes it feel like a big race.

registration!

Race day! We had a 4:30am wake up call for a race that started at 9:40am. Slightly bleary-eyed we made our way to the lobby (as Jay rolled over and went back to sleep – smart man) which was teeming with people. Grabbed a coffee and headed to the subway which took us to the ferry to Staten Island. It was dark and raining and the best part was that there were as many people coming home from Hallowe’en parties as there were marathoners headed to the start.

Sub-Elite E and me. See that behind us? That would be DARKNESS.

Statue of Liberty in the dark

Verrazano Narrows bridge, the first part of the race
Getting off the bus to Fort Wadsworth. I had to pee and had my pick of locations…

A fraction of the UPS (“oopays” in spanish, apparently) which carried our gear to the finish

Again, lots more line-ups but everything went amazingly smoothly. Erin and I settled in for a long wait when we got to Fort Wadsworth. Drank some water, read the paper, people watched. We had over 2 hours to kill till start time. The funniest part was when 2 Italian ladies sat next to us, opened up their coffees and lit their cigarettes. Runners!

Elite women headed to the start
Everybody else headed to the start

Erin and I parted ways about 40 minutes before the start – she was classified as “sub-elite” and I was a lowly “local competitor” (a source of endless comedy for us), so we were in different corrals. I dumped my bag at the UPS truck that would deliver it to the finish line and amazingly, met up with Mel Day – another Whistler runner. I couldn’t quite believe that amongst 47, 000 runners we found each other! More standing around until finally the national anthem played and the canon sounded and we were off!

Me and Mel

Minutes before the start

Course map (click to enlarge)

The first thing we do is run up and over the Verrazano Narrows bridge. The first mile is uphill, the 2nd downhill. During the downhill people went sprinting by me. Needless to say, I caught them about 3 miles later as they started cramping! As soon as we turned into Brooklyn we ran down the main boulevard and the crowds started, it was truly amazing. Loud, boisterous, encouraging… People in their jammies, kids, babies, people “cheersing” us with Champagne, music.

Brooklyn!

1st ave. That’s Jay over there on the left in black.

The race itself is a bit of a blur. I felt really great until about mile 20, when the wheels promptly and rather painfully came off the bus. I was very conservative with my pace (I am afflicted with a condition commonly referred to as “pregnancy” and as such had to keep my heart rate, body temp and such things in check). It also probably didn’t really help that I think I had done a grand total of 4 long runs leading up to this race. I grabbed a 4:10 pace bad and was well on track until Mile 20 when I started having to walk a bit more than I would have chosen. It didn’t matter though – I knew I wasn’t in this race to set any records, I was there to enjoy it.

Amazingly, I was able to see Jay and Bobby on the course twice. I had arranged to see them around mile 17 so that Jay could give me some real food and again 2 miles before the finish. When you come off the last bridge down into Manhattan and run onto 1st ave the crowds seemed to swell, to the point that spectators were anywhere from 2 to 6 deep behind the barricades. I was able to spot Bobby and Jay right away and grabbed my food. Smiled, kept going. When I saw them again at mile 22 I was walking but still smiling! Everything hurt at that point and I was looking for a piggy back to the finish! I saw the best sign at that point: “stopping is not a fucking option” – ain’t that the truth!

In the last mile, there are signs that countdown the yards… 800, 400, 300, 200, 100… literally the longest mile of my LIFE. The crowds were truly deafening and it was amazing to run by them. In true “me” fashion, I had to jump across the finish line, haha!

Finally!

This is what finishing the NYC marathon sounds like!

This was the first time I finished a race like this that I felt truly great once it was over – no stomach issues, legs and feet were tired and sore but I was able to walk around, head to the subway, eat, etc… a novelty for me, really. Back at the hotel I had my ice batch, some chips and watched Oceans 11 in bed!! Same thing as my last marathon! I think this is a fantastic tradition to try to maintain.

I was actually looking forward to this.

I can’t say enough about how well run this race is run. Even though there were always crowds around, I never felt crowded, everything went so smoothly. Kuddos to New York Road Runners.

Monday was spent forcing Jay and Erin to get up early so we could go buy some finisher souvenirs , then I met up with Karl for lunch and spent the rest of the day walking and, as promised, shoe shopping!

And how did Erin do in her first marathon? Oh you know, a 3:30. Amazing!

Time to get on the plane home, more pics and details to come as I can think of them!
Day-to-day life, Kids, Pemberton, Running
Christine Cogger
Lack of posting means life has been busy! Don’t aske me what we’ve been doing, I just know that I get up in the mornings and the next thing I know, it’s time for bed… Summer is rolling along at warp speed! Hard to believe it’s almost September.

The boys are good, active and cheeky. I’ve been running (not enough to call it marathon training, but I’ll get there – I hope) and getting re-acquainted with my mountain bike. My road bike still sports the race number from the sprint I did I July!

A few photos as there’s not much else to report… for now.

Faux -Hawk.


I am officially a SOCCER MOM.

Family, Kids, Running

Weight training

Christine Cogger
Since Jay is away and I needed to get a run in, it was time to load up the kiddos and push out the door.
Wow. They have GROWN since the last time I did that! Combined, the boys weigh 55 pounds (at least). Add to that the stroller and various kid paraphenalia in the stroller PLUS the fact that I can’t run by a single hill without Will piping up with “Mooooooooooom! Let’s go THAT way!” Oh, and the fact that the stroller pulls dramatically to one side…
I. Can’t. Feel. My. Arms.

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