eau

Vacation stop in Telegraph harbour

I've more or less been in or around water my whole life. Growing up in BC, my parents had a 26 foot cabin cruiser that we spent most vacations on, cruising from island to island. I guess that's where both my love & respect for the water started. It seems almost natural that from there I got into competitive swimming. I swam for years. & I don't regret a minute of those countless hours I spent swimming back & forth. It seems only natural that from there I went on to swim varsity, which eventually lead to coaching & now teaching swimming lessons as well. It seems I just can't stay away from the water. I'll be the first to admit that most water related activities come much easier to me than those one land - I aced my scuba diving tests despite sleeping through long periods of the class for example. & stick me on a wakeboard & I'll impress you far more than I ever could with it's snowier counterpart. I'm awkward on land, to say the least & anyone who knows me well will undoubtedly agree. I can point out at least 2 bruises from a land related activity on my person right this second, in fact.

Lake Okanagan

Skuba diving in Thailand

So it comes as a bit of a surprise that I've taken up running. I've always been a pretty active person & I do venture away from water sports from time to time to take in a hike or a bike or to eat my way through a city. & I didn't used to be a terrible runner. In fact, I used to be a really strong runner. I'm going to have to blame 10+ years of swimming on my more recent failed running attempts. So when I recently decided I was tired of hitting the pool or the gym every time I wanted to work out, I turned back to running. Don't get me wrong, I do love a good swim but everything about it is time consuming & time isn't something I often have a lot of during the school year. So running was calling my name.

Shuswap Lake

In the past I've never run much more than the occasional 1 or 2km to get warmed up for whatever I was doing next. & I struggled through those short distances. But this spring, I decided to give it an honest shot & started running a few times a week. It was fairly slow & painful & I rarely got in much more than 3km, but it was happening. Then the boyfriend came to visit. Unfortunately for me, the boy is a natural runner. Unfortunately for my poor body, I am an extremely competitive person. Every time we ran this spring, he hopped & jogged along - barely breaking a sweat. Despite the fact that I was running at least twice a week & he rarely ran, I just couldn't keep up. & honestly, I probably still can't. But I have a goal now & between the drive to keep up with him & the sheer boredom of living on my own this summer, I've made a pretty huge improvement. I went from barely being able to make it over 3km (& moving at a snails pace) to running over 5km for the first time last week. & then over 6km a few days later. & today, one of those sticky, disgusting Montréal summer days, I did a whole 7km. & despite the fact that it was 40c & I decided to run uphill for half a km out of the blue at around 3km, I actually made it. So I have to say I'm pretty proud of myself.

Wakeboarding this summer

Maybe by next summer, my tan won't be decorated with black & blue bruises...or at least perhaps not as often....