Since last November I was preparing to move to Halifax, Nova Scotia, this coming summer. Not only was I lucky to hear so early where I was going but I received my official paperwork in mid-February; almost a month early. The job was a great opportunity and something that I've hoped for many years. About a month ago I started with the phone calls and e-mails to see what I could be doing to prepare for my new job: reading, courses, training, conferences, etc. As a result of these inquires I started to learn that my position near Halifax was not as stable as originally thought. The fallout of these inquires resulted in my move to Halifax being cancelled as the qualifications for the position had been increased. We has already scheduled our house hunting trip to Halifax.
About a week after Halifax fell through, I received word that I was heading out to Corner Brook, Newfoundland. This position was definitely a change from my previous job experiences but was still a great opportunity. While working/living on "The Rock" would certainly be a big change from mainland living, the whole family was looking forward to experiencing the well-known Newfoundland hospitality. No sooner than I received the official paperwork to start preparing for the move and had started discussions with the guy that I was slated to replace, I heard that I was being pulled from the job. It seems that, while the position is considered distinctive, there was a good chance that I could soon be over-qualified for the job and forced to relocated.
So Corner Brook didn't work out. While not-official, I then heard that Greenwood, Nova Scotia, could be my next home. The job offered was again distinctive but provided enough flexibility for me to not get caught being over-qualified within the first year. Luckily I had an old friend and co-worker that had previously held this same job. I contacted him pretty quick to get as much info as possible about the job. It seems that Greenwood was not meant to be either. A few days later I heard that my prospective boss would not accept my relocation to their location due to potential conflict with a subordinate that would have had more seniority than I. By this time I was being to think that I would never find a job.
No Halifax... No Corner Brook... No Greenwood... so where now? After a weekend to let me stew, I finally got an official message that I'm headed to Ottawa. The job is great but again very different from what I am used to doing. I guess that I will spend the next six to nine months in "training mode."
We did receive one more scare late on Friday afternoon. Our relocation agent was about to book our flights for housing hunting trip when somehow she received a cancelation message for our move. Luckily I managed to get ahold of my Career Manager and confirmed that nothing has changed and this can only be a paperwork error as a result of the many changes in our plans. We still need to work through the "paperwork error" but at least we know that we're still moving to Ottawa.
My wife and I have spent the entire weekend searching MLS, sending messages to our real estate agent, telling our other three agents that we're not coming, and generally preparing for our house hunting trip to Ottawa starting late this coming week. Moving to Ottawa, vice the other places we were looking to move to, is very different due to it's metropolitan nature and since I could probably be employed in the NCR for many many years if I wanted. Luckily we have lots of friends that have lived or are currently living in the general Ottawa area; they are providing lots of helpful advice.
Let's hope that I am not forced to update this post again ;-)
My newest gadget was delivered on Friday and I'm having a ball playing around with it; it's my new Garmin Nuvi 260.
It took much investigation and deliberation to choose the Nuvi 260. I will admit that I already prefer Garmin for GPS devices but my research seemed to lean towards the Nuvi's as the preferred automotive GPS devices for use in North America.
I chose the 260 model as it was the most basic model that provided maps of the entire North America and Text to Speech (TTS). Seeing that were moving back to Canada in the next few months, having maps of the Great White North are pretty important for a GPS device. The TTS feature comes highly recommended both from friends and from reviews all over the internet. The 300 and 700 series are also very good but we really do not need all the bells and whistles that they provide (mp3 support, multiple destination routing, bluetooth, etc.). We already have iPods linked into our car stereos and we do not own bluetooth capable cellphones.
I also picked the Garmin friction mount so that we can use the Nuvi in both of our vehicles without dealing with attached mounts. Thus far the mount has worked flawlessly.
My two boys seem to love the fact that we can change the icon used for our vehicle. Linz and I like the Radio Flyer-like wagon icon but the boys are more interested in the various service vehicles (police, ambulance, etc.).
While I haven't really had enough time to fully test the device, I do find it a bit weird that the device cannot be charged via USB without some tom-foolery. I shouldn't be too surprised as Garmin certainly like to keep things proprietary in order to sell more accessories or device specific software. I will probably post a comprehensive review of the unit after my trip up north.
One piece of advice to folks looking to purchase Nuvi's in the future... do not buy a Nuvi at your local Big Box store without checking Amazon first. The prices at Amazon for Nuvi's are much better than any prices I've seen in stores.
I am sure that this device will be a great help in our upcoming house hunting trip and drive back to Canada.
It's been three week now since I last blogged about my running... or anything for that matter. Things have been pretty wacked-out around my household lately but I have kept on running:
- 7-13 Apr - 32 miles for the week. A generally good week of running despite missing a run on Friday. I had a great 4 X 1 mile interval workout.
- 14-20 Apr - 43 miles for the week. This was a really good week with a fairly good negative-split workout and a fantastic 14 miler to close out the week.
- 21-27 Apr - 27 miles this past week. This was a recovery week and I missed out on one of my workouts. I decided against speed-work this week as my body is feeling pretty worn down. Not over-training worn down but "life is really stressful" worn down.
I received word officially this past week that I was selected to run in the ING Ottawa Half Marathon. Yah! I really looking forward to this all-expenses-paid trip up to Ottawa for the race. I would much rather be running the full Mary but the qualifying time is a bit to fast for me at this point. With only a month now before the race, I'm sure glad that I've been preparing; all this speed-work better be worth it.
Later this coming week I'm going up north for our house hunting trip. While our hotel is smack downtown, luckily there are a number of good trails/routes to choose from in the immediate area. I'm guessing that the biggest challenge will be finding time to run between home viewings.
This was a recovery week; I ran 25 miles total:
- Monday, 31 Mar - Ran a simple six miler "around the block" from home.
- Tuesday, 1 Apr - This was supposed to be five mile tempo run (plus some warm-up/cool-down miles). When I got to the tempo portion of the workout, I could not keep the pace in the zone even in the first mile. Eventually I scrapped the tempo and just turned the rest of the run into a nice easy seven mile run.
- Wednesday, 2 Apr - Ran a six miler in very foggy conditions.
- Thursday, 3 Apr - No run today but I did play some soccer with the guys from work.
- Friday, 4 Apr - Tried a new route in order to change things up a bit... as a result I ran a five miler. My legs felt slightly sore/tight. I figure this had something to do with Thursday's soccer game.
Show us a tattoo.
My Celtic Cross tattoo.
Ran about 38 miles this past week and did not miss a single workout. This is a significant improvement over the last few weeks.
- Monday, 24 Mar - An easy six miler in cool and windy conditions
- Tuesday, 25 Mar - a gut-buster four mile tempo run (plus an addition two miles of warm-up/cool-down). Keeping up the pace was bad enough but about a mile of the course forced me to run directly into a stiff wind... aghh. This wind slowed down my overall pace but I still felt that I had a good speedier run.
- Wednesday, 26 Mar - Six easy miles on a beautiful morning.
- Thursday, 27 Mar - A six mile course mostly run on the beach. This runs beautiful and navigating the waves from the incoming tide was pretty fun. I just wished I had enough time to squeeze out the additional two miles I had scheduled.
- Friday, 28 Mar - Has a great 12 mile long run. I started running in a good fog but this quickly burned off. I even managed to keep a really good pace up throughout the entire run.
Next week is a recovery week, although I do have another tempo run scheduled.
For a more detailed log of my runs >>> Dave's TrailRunner Log
It's been a pretty traumatic week around this household. The month of March was already proving to be a hard month but this week helped turn the stress level way up...
On Tuesday I found out that my dream job in Halifax, to start this summer, may not happen. My Career Manager is working on some other "good" jobs for me if this one falls through but in reality all the good jobs have already been distributed for this coming summer. I'm only three weeks from going on a house hunting trip and I don't really know where I am going to find a house :-(
Later in the week my father-in-law started to experience some pain associated with his heart. He had a heart valve replacement last year so he's pretty careful regarding his health these days. After a few tests, he's been admitted to the hospital pending some additional tests early next week. We are all waiting for the outcome of the next set of tests.
On Saturday we found out that my wife is now allergic to penicillin. We initially thought is was a reaction from some type of insect bite or maybe a seafood reaction after a lunch out. The walk-in doctor was quick to let her know it was her penicillin prescription that was at fault (which she was eight days into). We thought we had everything under control following her visit to the clinic on Saturday morning but we ended up leaving early from a party we were at to get my wife into the ER. After a few more shots and another new prescription she was back at home for the night. We almost ended up in the ER again this morning but luckily the new drugs kicked in. We're off to an allergist sometime next week.
All this and I've got a final exam to prepare for on Tuesday and a paper due in a week, which I haven't started yet. Luckily the boys are doing okay.
This was the first week of running with sunglasses. I always run with a hat but finally I got around to picking up a decent pair of Rx running/sports sunglasses. I've been looking around for a recent pair for quite some time but, when you prescription is a bit stronger than most, it can be difficult to find sports shades. My Rx is strong enough that regular Rx lenses sports lenses are no good; the curvature is just too extreme. This leaves me with running with clip-ons on my regular glasses or Rx lens inserts for regular sports sunglasses that are compatible. I ended up going with the Adidas' Gazelles w/ a Rx insert.
I'm pretty happy with these Gazelles. They are deal with the sun and reflections really well, they are light, they fit very well (during the run and with lots of sweat on the nose and arms), they work with my headphones, and have some good fitting adjustments with the nose/arms. They do look a bit funny with the Rx insert on the inside but that's better than my continued squinting at the sun.
Not that great of a running week. I missed two workouts (see upcoming lousy week post for details why) and only managed 25 miles overall:
- Monday, 17 Mar - Just a simple six miler. Nothing special.
- Thursday, 20 Mar - I ran this eight miler in the afternoon as a work meeting was cancelled unexpectedly which gave me some time. I was just glad to get back out onto the road this week.
- Friday, 21 Mar - Managed a pretty good morning 10 miler in good although slightly windy conditions. Ran around a 9 min/mile pace.
I've spent the last two weeks recovering from my Half Mary. The first week I just ran 12 miles.
- Tuesday, 4 Mar - My legs felt my better after this 4 mile recovery run.
- Wednesday, 5 Mar - Just an easy 4 mile recovery run.
- Friday, 7 Mar - Just a short 3.5 mile run. There were some good rains the previous night so the various roads I run on were very wet or flooded.
26 miles for my second recovery week. I felt sluggish for much of the week but started feeling better when I started pushing the pace a little bit more.
- Tuesday, 11 Mar - Easy 6 miler... feeling sluggish.
- Wednesday, 12 Mar - Another easy 6 mile recovery run; I was still feeling sluggish. I've started wearing a new pair of Asics 1130s that are a half size larger than I'm used to. It has been a long time since I've had a blister so when I got one after this run I'm thinking it has something to do with the new shoes.
- Thursday, 13 Mar - Just an easy 6 mile run. The run started like many of my recent runs; sluggish. I decided to push the pace a bit and everything felt much better.
- Friday, 14 Mar - There was a good thunderstorm on the way but I decided to hit the roads anyways for a 6 miler (I always prefer the road to the treadmill). I didn't even get wet on the run. This was the first run in a long time where I left the iPod behind... in order to keep it out of the rain.
Just a handful of race photos of me at the recent Seaside Half. The first three are at the finish line while the other two at various points out on the course.
