Profiles in Awesomeness #3: Jim Cronen

Jim and his beautiful wife Robin, who is equally awesome.

I have a picture of Jim Cronen from 1999 or thereabouts where he is wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey shirt, and has donned a long flowing brunette wig, a la Fabio, and is posing coyly for the camera, bottle of Saranac Black & Tan in hand.

I also can't find that picture ANYWHERE. Which, I suppose, fills Jim with a lot of relief.

Jim is a physicist (check out his oh so awesome blog), tenor, plays 50 thousand instruments, writes software code so beautiful it will make you cry, will run you down and leave scorched roller blade marks across your chest if you DARE to play roller hockey with him, and pretty much excels at everything he does. Jim is a renaissance guy in the true sense of the word. No dilletante he - when Jim is interested in something, he will learn and study it down to the microbial level. His brain is rich in depth and humor. This is a guy you want in your bunker when the zombies attack, because he'll a) know how to kill them and b)will play endless games of Risk with you to keep boredom at bay.

Jim has also spent this spring training for a half marathon - the Ottawa Half Marathon, which he ran in 2:15:23 this past weekend. So very very impressive. We've been keeping up with each other's progress on facebook and twitter, and every single one of his good natured, optimistic and inspirational training updates keeps me focused and motivated. Jim's awesomeness knows no bounds.


watch out zombies. Jim will eff you up.

UPDATE!!!
You have GOT to read Jim's write up of his experiences in Ottawa here. Truly inspirational!! I love this quote, "This is what running means to me — bettering myself by achieving goals that seemed so distant a few years ago." Rock on, Jim!!

Profiles in Awesomeness #2: Lauren Spencer

Yeah. You're jealous. Cuz that's Lauren and freaking PEARL JAM!!!

Lauren knows a few things. Lauren knows a few people. Lauren has written a few words. Perhaps you've read them. In places like Spin Magazine, Self, and Jane. Because she's pretty much the coolest writer ever. Check out her blog, you'll see what I mean. I love reading her views on life. So much of what she so eloquently writes resonates with me. She has a real knack for expressing those universal truths we all know, but aren't good at articulating.

Lauren is also a runner - she's done 1/2 marathons, marathons - and she's a dancer as well. This is a girl who knows her body. And she's really generous about sharing the wisdom learned from years of rigorous discipline. For that, I'm really grateful.

Throughout this training process, Lauren has been sharing wonderful snippets of articles that really are helping me with my mental game. Especially this one here about what goes through a runner's mind while running a marathon. It's FANTASTIC. You have to read it. I will quiz you on it later.

Lauren's voice is the voice I'm gonna hear in my head when I'm at mile 11 and I want to lie down and die. Lauren's smile is the smile I'm gonna picture when I shout "eff you muscles, I'm still running!!" at mile 11.5.

She, like Lisa, will be in my heart on race day.


Never has kick-ass come in so friendly-looking a package

Profiles In Awesomeness #1: Lisa Bruno

Lisa rocks the TNT triathalon wetsuit!

Here's the quick bullet points about Lisa:
- she will kick your ass in Word Twist
- I am secretly envious of her hair
- actually, now I'm publicly envious
- she takes awesome pictures
- she's an amazing inspiration

I met Lisa through our mutual friend Mark. I already liked her wit, sass and charm when I happened to see on her facebook page that she was training for the New Jersey Devilman Half Iron Man Lite triathalon to benefit the LLS. I thought to myself, "who could be cooler? No one." And a girl-crush was born!

Lisa's the best. She's open, she's honest, and she is sooooo generous with her advice. Which, of course, I totally pestered her for. No matter how busy she was, she was always available to answer my whiny pleas for guidance. She talked me down out of many a training anxiety tree.

The thing I love about Lisa's approach to training (aside from her kick-ass dedication to the LLS) is her focus on the transformative process. How we can challenge ourselves, and be pleasantly surprised and nourished by the outcomes.

Lisa toppled her fundraising goals, KICKED ASS all over the triathalon course,
finished 3rd in her division, and earned my utmost admiration and respect. She's the best team mate I've never competed with!

I'll be carrying her in my heart, along with my heroes on race day.


I'm publicly envying the quads too

WTH Have I Been????!!!

WHERE THE HELL HAVE I BEEN??

I'VE GOT A LOT OF NERVE, SAUNTERING IN HERE AND UPDATING THE BLOG LIKE I HAVEN'T BEEN MISSING IN ACTION FOR TWO WEEKS!!!

~hangs head in shame~

I hate it when I yell at myself. Well, no. Not really. I come up with some pretty creative insults for myself.

But enough of this petty schizophrenic bickering!

I'm here! I'm still running! Race day is in 19 days!!! I'm still training! And aside from a temporary setback last week, I'm on track!

Let's see - last time I posted was May 4th. Since then, I've run a 9 miler, walked a 10 miler and jogged/walked an 11 miler. And ran a ton of little (heh, I remember when 3 miles wasn't so little) 3 and 4 mile runs. The 9 miler felt FANTASTIC. That was an excellent run, and I wanted to turn right around and run it again. The 10 and 11 milers were problematic, as I came down with a strep infection on the 14th, and haven't TOTALLY recovered from it yet. So the 10 miles on the 15th was walked. And I skipped all the little runs the week of the 17th. I got back on track on the 22nd and jogged/walked the scheduled 11 miles, which was more than I thought I could do.

Tonight, I've got 3 miles scheduled, and I can't WAIT to get to it, seeing as how this will be the first run in over a week when I can breathe through my nose.

YAY FOR NOSE BREATHING!!

In fact I'm so happy to be feeling better, I'm working my way through a bag of Twizzlers to reward my immune system.

What? It's fuel. Shut up.

I promise to be better about updating the blog. Life and job and craziness and family (sometimes crazy family) intervened. Mea culpa. Like I said, race day is 19 days away, so there will be lots of opportunities to bore you with my progress.

Aside from last week's strep setback, I've been feeling incredibly lucky to experience this process of training and challenging myself. As I was discussing with my friend Lauren, each inch, each mile I run digs the well of my potential that much deeper, and each nickel I raise helps find a cure, and supports blood cancer patients and their families. It's a pretty fantastic feeling.
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Update:
3 miles in 33 minutes! not bad for the first short run after being sick for a week!

Yeah, I Really Need To Change My Route

Yesterday was a rest day, but I was feeling SO good about Sunday, I decided to give the 8 miles another go. I knew in the back of my head that I probably wouldn't get all eight in before the sun went down, but I wanted to get out there and enjoy the beautiful sunshine and fantastic breezes. So I suited up in the lycra, and last year's Freihofer singlet.

I'm not sure I should wear that singlet again. It has a habit of riding up, and no one wants to see me run in a belly shirt. Trust me.

I set out at 7pm, along my regular route. I run in a development that has a 4 mile loop, a 2 mile loop and a 1 mile loop. Any combination of those loops will get me the mileage I want. Thing is, when you run it pretty much every day, things get familiar, and your mind wanders.

I had a great run - about 6 miles in 1:10. But my mind was wandering "oh look so and so got a new car", "that house is for sale again?" "is it the law that only volvos and bmw's are allowed on this street?"

I had a feeling that if I were focused, my time might have been better.

Nevertheless, it was a great run, and the weather totally made up for it's poor showing on Sunday!