T.O.

This week I've been getting all my ducks in a row to go to Toronto, Ontario for a meeting. I guess I'm kind of a sadist, because I repeatedly submit more than one abstract for all the meetings I go to. So, I had to prepare both a poster and a 15 minute oral presentation for this one (which actually isn't that bad, considering I had two oral presentations when I went to New Orleans last year). Anyway, the presentation is done, and the poster was printed this morning, so I'm set to go!

I'm looking forward to the trip and the meeting. A bunch of my very best girlfriends from U of S are going to be there, and we have much shopping planned. There is also a MEC a few blocks from my hotel. The meeting should be really interesting this year, since there is a brand new reptiles and amphibians session (Herpetologists Unite!). I'm actually going to this meeting to start looking for a postdoc position...so yeah.

Since Toronto is relatively close to Michigan, I decided to stay after the meeting for a long weekend with the family. I did just see most of them in August, but I always miss them terribly. Also, I haven't been back to MI any time other than Christmas since I moved to SK. Fall is one of my favorite times too. We don't have many trees here, and the ones we have only turn yellow and brown. And the leaves blow off 2 hours after they turn. So, I'm looking forward to some bright red sugar maples. And maybe some apples from the orchard. And cider. And donuts.

As an added bonus, the weather here has been GORGEOUS for the past week and is supposed to stay that way until I fly out on Sunday. Maybe I'll actually get out on my new road bike frame before I go.

Melissa's Road Race 2010

Even though I have been to Banff National Park before, I never really had the chance to stay there until E and I made the trip for Melissa's Road Race this past weekend. Love Banff. LOVE IT!

E and I left Saskatoon Friday morning to make the 8 hour drive across Saskatchewan and Alberta. We have driven across the prairie enough times now to know it's going to suck, so it actually wasn't too bad in a way. We arrived in Banff with plenty of time to check into our hotel, pick up our race bibs at Melissa's Restaurant, and grab some pre-race dinner at a Greek place right on Banff Ave. The calamari was excellent, as was the mountain view from our window table.

Now, the people at Melissa's Restaurant have devised a pretty great strategy for hosting a race. This event is mostly for fun. Start time is 10:30AM. Sure, there are some fast people who run it, but there was no 'pro' component to this race that I could tell. All the profits from the race are donated to charity. The race is capped at about 6000 people for the 10 and 22K events combined. Support on the course was minimal, but the race swag was pretty awesome (full suspension mountain bike!!!). Plus, there was a sweet afterparty at Melissa's Restaurant afterward. More on that later.

E and I wandered from our hotel over to the race site at about 10AM on Saturday morning. Since the 10 and 22K courses are completely different, the 10Kers lined up to start first.

All the crazies lined up for the 10K

I ran the 10K, so E took some pictures of me as I lined up since he was waiting for the 22K start. It was a self-seeded start. I really didn't have any goals for this race, since I haven't been training due to some motivation and IT band issues and I'm not used to running hills or at altitude. I basically wanted to keep it under a 12 minute mile just to keep myself honest (i.e. no walking). I mention this only because I couldn't figure out for the life of me why the self-seeding ended at 11 minutes. As such, I went to the back of the pack. I figured out later that this is Canada and we were seeding by km, not miles. At least I got to pass a lot of people.

Lining up for the start

The 10K course was mostly flat with one GIANT hill. I ran all but the very steepest portion of this mile plus climb, so I was pretty happy with my performance. After coming back down the hill (fun!), we were at about the 5K mark. Half way! I felt much better than I thought I was going to for the rest of the race. My only problem was hot spots on my feet from forgetting to lube them with Body Glide. Seems like I would have learned by now.

I crossed the finish line at 1 hour 11 minutes and change (11:41 min/mile pace). I hung around the finish line after that to wait for E to finish his 22K run. I tried to take pics of him finishing, but that is much easier said than done. He came in at 1:48:42 (7:54 minute/mile pace) which put him in the top 25% of his age group. Go E!

E's back as he finishes the 22K

After the race, we got our goodies, which were some of the most extensive I've ever gotten for a race (fruit, doughnuts, yogurt, granola bars, vitamin water, juice, slushies, beer!). We hung around the race venue to watch the age group awards and race swag giveaways. We didn't win any prizes, but there were some great ones, including 12 pairs of asics shoes and a Giant full suspension mountain bike.

As I mentioned earlier, Melissa's, the sponsor of the race, is a restaurant/bar in Banff. They hosted an afterparty in their bar aimed mostly at race patrons (we got the chance to win more free stuff). Since Eric and I had no other plans for the night, we went out to Mel's to watch the Riders' game and try to win some door prizes. Those of you that know me know I'm not a big bar goer, so you may be surprised to hear that I had a great time at Mel's. The Riders' won, the atmosphere was great, and the band was really good too! I'd probably go out a lot more if there were someplace similar in Saskatoon.

Lead singer of the Hot Tamales
dancing on the counter

One of the best parts of the afterparty was that fact that pretty much everyone who came out and stayed late won a prize of some sort. E got a $25 gift certificate to an Indian restaurant in Banff, and I won a free night's stay in a Banff hotel! We are already plotting our return to Banff to use our prizes :)

After packing up Sunday morning, we headed to the Banff Upper Hot Springs to soak away some of our DOMS in the mineral pool. I would love to say that the 29C water made me feel better, but my quads were pretty much trashed (still are).

With much regret, we left the park to head back to Saskatoon, but we have agreed that we would both love to run Melissa's Road Race again next year!

Banff...

More on Melissa's Road Race later.

Go Thundercats Go

My department is notorious for a lack of participation in extracurricular activities. Our graduate students are always too busy to show up for beer nights, steak nights, social events, or recreational sports teams. We finally had to create a trifecta with the veterinary med and biology students to get enough people to even make events worthwhile.

Surprisingly, we were able to put together a women's soccer team for the fall season. Our first game was tonight. We're called the Toxicology Thundercats. We had enough people show up that we even had a sub. Huzzah!

Even though it's been 10+ years since I played soccer (and I wasn't very good at it then!), I volunteered to play midfield. I run half marathons, so a 50 minute game shouldn't be too bad, right? Wrong! I forgot how much sprinting sucks. The worst part is that I didn't even end up running the whole game since I volunteered to take a turn in goal the second half. Playing in goal was great since I never even touched the ball, though.

The Thundercats dominated possession for most of the game, had a bunch of shots on goal, and finally scored late in the game to win 1-0!

This soccer deal was something I did as part of my 'putting myself out there' plan. I have to admit that I had a lot of fun, and I'm really glad I did it. Blogging has already had a positive influence on me ;)

PANP Half Ironman Support Report

Since I didn't actually participate in the triathlon, I can't comment too much on how that went. E says it was mostly ok, but there were definitely parts where he wondered what the heck he was thinking when he decided to do a half ironman. I wonder too!

We waited until 10AM to start the swim because it has been pretty cold here lately. In fact, the high temperature for the whole day would only be 12.6C (about 55F). I rented a kayak so that I could paddle along while E was swimming. I was in charge of staying on course, running the GPS for distance, and emergency rescue. Those of you that know me and my paddling skills know that E probably would have been SOL if he had needed a rescue, luckily he did not. (Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the swim because I didn't trust myself with a camera in the kayak!)

Water temperature was 14C (57F), which is REALLY cold, but conditions were otherwise perfect for an open water swim. Sunny and absolutely calm. Outside of a few calf cramps at about 1 mile, E had a good swim. He finished the 1.2 mile swim in 52 minutes, then spent about 7 minutes transitioning to the bike. I think the transition would have been faster had the water been a little warmer.

I turned my kayak back towards the marina just as the stupid wind decided to pick up. My paddling skills are pretty much nonexistent, and kayaks scare the crap out of me, so I started to panic about paddling across the open water with chop. It only took me about 23 minutes to make it back across the lake, but the waves were white-capping by then. I was in a stable recreational kayak, but I didn't have a spray skirt and was not a happy camper when the whitecaps started slopping into my cockpit. Anyway, I made it back to the marina without tipping over or having a panic attack, so I guess it was a success or something.

At the marina, I met up with the two German students that are visiting our lab right now. (They came on the trip with us because they wanted to visit the park and were going to canoe the whole day, but the wind/waves turned them off too.) We made out way back to the transition to pick up the wetsuit and other swim stuff. Then, we tracked Eric down to make sure he was ok for nutrition and clothing. We met him at about 19 miles. We then drove further down the bike route where I dropped the German girls at a trail head for a hike and set up an aid station right at the trail head.



From that point on, I basically leap-frogged him and set up aid stations so that he could get more sports drink, gels, or Clif bars when he needed them. At the 56 mile point, I set up a transition to the run. E came in at 3 hours, 27 minutes. He was only in transition for 3 minutes before he set off for the half marathon.


The run route was part of the bike route backwards, so I leap-frogged E back up the road offering aid every 3-4 miles. I picked up the German girls about 4 miles from the finish, and we all went to the 13.1 mile mark to wait for E to come in. I actually undershot the distance by about 0.05 miles, so E had to run by us to actually finish, but I guess it's the thought that counts. Run time was 1 hour, 59 minutes. As an aside, I would LOVE to be able to run a half sub-2 hours, and here E does it after swimming 1.2 miles and biking 56 miles. Not fair.


Total time: 6 hours, 27 minutes, 10 seconds, which was under his goal time of 6.5 hours by 3 minutes. Great job E!

Prince Albert National Park: Where the Wild Things Are

10 point whitetail buck

5x5 bull elk (he's only about half the size of the giant bull we saw when we didn't have the camera!)

A fox in his little hidey-hole

Waskesiu Lake at sunset

The wild things were out in full force in Prince Albert National Park during the past couple of days! Since the park animals are so habituated to people, it feels almost like cheating compared to animal viewing elsewhere.

Totals for the trip:
At least 5 bull elk, including one that charged the car and chased us
A herd of 22 cow and calf elk (along with their massive bull) on the golf course
4 whitetail bucks and a bunch of does and fawns
2 foxes
1 black bear

Northern Insanity

1.2 mile swim. 56 mile bike. 13.1 mile run. That's a half iron distance triathlon.

E finished in 6 hours, 27 minutes, and 10 seconds. He's still alive and functioning rather well. Pictures and full details to come...

The Great Saskatchewan Half Ironman

E has been training for a half iron distance triathlon since March. He was originally supposed to do one in Michigan with his brother, but plans for that fell through. In lieu of spending $1000+ dollars, driving 17 hours to Washington state, and taking 4 days off work, he decided to take me up on my offer to be race director and support person for an unofficial Half Ironman in northern Saskatchewan. We are all packed and ready to head to Candle Lake in the morning. This should be interesting!

Taking Charge of Your Fertility

Instead of the post I had originally planned about the delicious Farmer's Market dinner I cooked last night, I decided to talk a little about the book I just finished reading.

The first edition of 'Taking Charge of Your Fertility' (Toni Weschler) was published 10 years ago. I never thought it would be something that I was interested in because it seemed like the fodder of hippies and people who are actively trying to conceive a baby. Now, I may sort of be a hippie, but I have never, ever fallen into that second category. And that alone was enough to scare me away. Now that I've reached the age where my declining fertility has finally blipped onto my radar, I decided it couldn't hurt to learn a little more about how to Take Charge of My Fertility.

This book was, in a word, fascinating. I will probably never be a devotee of using the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) detailed in the book as contraception (I have a little copper friend that takes care of that for me.), but the sheer number of things you can learn about your body by taking your temperature once a day and keeping track of your cervical fluid is pretty amazing. I think it really appeals to me because I already think endocrinology is pretty awesome, and this is an easy way to get familiar with my own particular endocrine system.

I think most women (and men!) could benefit from at least reading this book.

Can't Have It All

It's the plight of just about every career woman I know - you just can't have it all. Of the women I know in academia and science, many are single (by choice or chance, I don't always know) or childless (again, not sure if it's by choice or chance). I can't speak for them, but I know that, as a woman considering a career in the academic realm, I struggle with balancing my career goals with having a life outside academia.

Here's the painful truth: I will be 30 before I finish my PhD. Before I can consider applying for a university position, I have to do 1-2 years of post-doc. If I can get an academic job by some stroke of luck, I have another 5-7 years to wait before I can apply for tenure. So, if I'm really lucky, I may get tenure before I'm 40.

Here's the painful biological truth: My fertility is already slowly declining, and it will only get worse the further past 30 I get. By the time I'm 40, I would be really lucky to conceive without reproductive assistance. If I have undiagnosed fertility problems, I might have problems conceiving even if I tried today.

I'm still not sure if I even want kids. Looking at the facts, though, I've realized that it's something I really need to think about right now. Especially since my doctor makes sure to remind me that my fertility will plummet when I hit 30 every time I see her (well, maybe she doesn't say that, but it's sure what I hear!).

Any way I look at it, there is just no easy answer.

None of this even covers the question of who exactly I'll be having these imaginary children with, but I think I'll save that discussion for another day.

Labor Day Long Weekend?

I guess it wasn't really a long weekend for me since I worked today, but I had an enjoyable holiday weekend nonetheless. After a BBQ with some work friends on Friday night, I got up bright and early Saturday morning to ride my bike to the Farmer's Market, which is definitely in full swing this time of year. It seems that I learned nothing from my peach experience last weekend, since I was thisclose to buying a giant head of cabbage when my friend E called me to finalize some weekend plans. She reminded me of the peaches, and I went home cabbage-less.

I stopped at the photo shop on my way home to pick up my new camera. I won't say a lot about it now, since I'm still figuring out how to use it. It's pretty awesome though. I'm not sure whether it's the novelty or what, but I've been having a grand time taking videos when I was pretty sure I would never use the video function. I'm having fun with it anyway.

The beach (Picture taken with my fancy, new camera)

I spent the rest of the weekend at the beach, fixing the car, cooking, and actually sitting down to watch a movie. (Napolean Dynamite if you want to know. Contrary to the opinions of those that recommended it to me, I didn't think it was that funny.)

All in all, a good weekend. I still wish I could have been with friends and family for the Trufant Jubliee, though!

Local is better, right?

I try to support local businesses as much as I can on a graduate student's stipend. However, I end up at Wal-Mart/Future Shop/Canadian Tire/etc. much more often than I'd like because of expense and convenience. (Plus, even though this is totally rationalization, Wal-Mart reminds me of the US, and I like to go there when I'm homesick.)

So, I bought a new camera today. I just bought a digital SLR last year, but I realized on my recent vacation that it's not a good only-camera for me. During my 10 days in Virginia and Maryland, I took a grand total of about 20 pictures. All of them were of the same sunrise. I was too paranoid to take my expensive camera on the boat (saltwater!) or to the beach (sand!) and too lazy to dig it out the rest of the time. I guess it doesn't really matter how nice the camera is if you don't take pictures with it. I do like the SLR, I just decided that I wanted a compact point-and-shoot for those times when the SLR isn't convenient. I was on the fence about actually buying it until E offered to share the cost and the camera.

After looking around online at what was available, I decided that a compact camera with a decent zoom was what I wanted. I found a 12 megapixel Panasonic with a 12x zoom that got good reviews across the board and was on sale at every Canadian retailer I could find. I knew that was my camera!

I headed to the local/regional camera shop to make my purchase. They don't even stock that model in the store. I was able to order one from one of their shops in Manitoba, but I have to wait 2-3 business days for it to get here. Now, even though I know they can't stock every camera and that it's best to support a local business if I can, I have to admit that I thought about going to Future Shop or Best Buy where I knew I could get my camera RIGHT NOW!

At least I get to be excited about my new camera getting here for the next couple of days.