More sights and sounds

I ran my 5K recovery run last night. I decided to run near the Museum of Civilization, a beautiful national museum on the Ottawa river. There's a great path leading to it... it hugs the water's edge and goes through a beautiful forest. There's also a ridiculous hill at the beginning of said path...

Anyhow, I saw all kinds of chipmunks and squirrels. Staff at the Museum have installed some sort of falconry sounds that are insanely loud at timed intervals, presumably to keep the seagulls and Canada geese away.

After passing by the main plaza of the Museum, I caught a glimpse of this guy:













A belted kingfisher! That's not my photo and he flew away before I could pull out my phone to snap a pic. But he's by far my rarest sight on a run so far... he landed on a railing by the water's edge, not 50 feet from where I was standing. So cool.

Take a Raincheck

So much for yoga class. So much for my run.

As most of you in the Ottawa-area know, we had a pretty big earthquake on Wednesday afternoon. And yes, it affected my run. How you ask?

Well, we were evacuated from our building. Which meant walking down 22 flights of stairs. Then I, along with all thousands of public servants in the nearby buildings, were told to go home. I couldn't get a bus, so I walked.

I'm still sore. I knew I would be... this is third time I've done those stairs this year and I've been sore every time. So I abandoned my run yesterday and walked around downtown doing errands instead.

And after all the excitement on Wednesday, I didn't feel like going anywhere. Not to mention that the media was reporting that the power was out in the area where the yoga studio is located.

I'm so ready for the weekend!

Leaving the iPod at Home

I used to be religious when it came to running with my iPod. I swore by it. I rarely ran without it. I loved compiling my playlists and finding new music to run to.

But I've broken my habit.

Since returning to running 3 weeks ago, I haven't run with my iPod once. And to tell you the truth, I don't really miss it. I initially left it at home so that I would listen to my body instead of the tunes. This was especially important in those first few runs, as I needed to pay special attention to any complaints my body was making as I forced it through its rebirth into running.

Running without the iPod is liberating. I don't feel like the bionic woman with a fuelbelt, garmin and iPod strapped to various parts of my body. I feel much more in tune with my muscles and what it's telling me throughout the run. I pay attention to my breathing and get fewer side stitches. I'm also much more aware of my surroundings, whether it's the bikes whizzing by me on the bike path or the crowd of screaming seagulls in the middle of the river.

Best of all, I'm much more absorbed in the act of running itself and enjoying it, instead of zoning out and trying to suffer through it.

I'm hoping that this change will mean that I'll be quicker to notice any nagging injuries early on, instead of when they're so bad that I'm sidelined for months on end.

All together now

Aww...

I saw this cute family of Canada geese while out running late Saturday afternoon. There were 20 chicks and it looked like two families, given that some were a bit bigger than others. Normally I'm not a fan of Canada geese as I've been chased by them a couple of times. But these little guys are just so darn cute and fuzzy!