Delta Waterfowl Banquet

Saturday, Jeremy went off to another hockey game for the tournament he signed up for. His team ended up loosing both games Friday night and Saturday. It also turned out the tournament was for people 35 years and older. Ops. I guess the guy at work that asked if he wanted to play thinks he's older than he really is! He missed the last game Saturday night so we could drive to Arnprior to go to a hunting banquet.

This was for the Delta Waterfowl association. We had met and talked to the guy in charge of the group in Arnprior at the show in Ottawa on Thursday and he suggested we go to this. Jeremy had never been to a banquet like this before, but his brother has and seemed to always have a good time at them. It can be quite costly if you want join in all the raffles and auctions. Jeremy got a bunch of tickets for the simple raffles, but we didn't come away with anything. The proceeds go back to the associate. It was interesting to attend and maybe if there's a banquet closer and he ends up meeting more hunters, it'd be a bit more exciting. They were expecting a lot more people and we ended up sitting at a table by ourselves and didn't get to mingle more.

We kept things low key on Sunday. I got out for 13 miles and took Hayde with me for the first 6. It was rather brisk at only a few degrees above 0F, but it was sunny and in the beginning, there wasn't much wind. By the end, the wind had picked up, but it wasn't too bad unless I was heading straight into it. I tried the virtual partner on my heart rate/gps monitor and that was kinda fun. I could see if I was ahead or behind where I wanted to be and it told me how much time/distance I had left to go so I didn't have to try to calculate it in my head. All in all, it ended up going pretty well. I can definitely feel those last couple of miles I haven't yet reached, but that's the whole point to my training - to get my muscles and mind prepared to hit those last 4-6 miles of the marathon that you never reach in training. I always feel good afterwards for accomplishing these long runs and am never quite sure how I keep managing to do this. I am now heading into my toughest 6-8 weeks of training and into my half marathon and over every week (minus next weekend) until the last three weeks prior to the race. I sincerely hope it starts warming up as these longer and longer runs are going to get harder and harder to do in such cold (10F) and snowy weather!

We've had such a hard time getting above zero (windchill wise) and above 10F air temp for a while now. But, it's appearing we're headed for some warmer weather and maybe above 0C in the next couple days (maybe for the next 4-5 days at least)? I'm crossing my fingers. I just want to see sidewalk to have decent footing and be able to breath in some warmer air and not have to bundle myself up so I can barely move when I run! I'm beginning to think I may have to rethink my marathon goal and just finish as best I can rather than really try to hit my qualifying time since it's so hard to train as well as I want thru these winters. Maybe I'll have to look for a fall marathon and I could easily to a half in the spring to get a good base going before moving out to train for a full in the fall when the weather is much warmer.

In the meantime, Hayde's had a blast playing with Dolly outside whenever we both happen to be home and have the two out. I haven't yet gotten a picture of the two, but will post it when I get it. Dolly is so cute and they'll be great companions come summer when Dolly gets bigger and they can play in the yard as long as they want. We did meet another 4 mo old lab the other day that lives two blocks away. Somehow, it must have a recessive gene since it's a black lab with some orange, yellow coloring. It's dad is a black lab and the mom is a chocolate lab. The two had fun playing on a snowbank for 30-45 minutes.