Christmas is coming - not sure how I feel about that

Let me start by saying my PayPal issue was resolved, they ruled in my favor and confirmed my account was compromised. That made me happy and now I will close that account. I was sort of impressed that it only took 3 days to sort out and I was fearing it would take months.

Went to WI today and I was down .2, I weighed myself at home before I left and it was -.5 alas it's a loss.

I wasn't so keen on the meeting itself as we talked about Christmas dinner and how that can turn into up to 70pts just for dinner.

Now this is my first Christmas without my Dad and I was fearing this season the most. This is why I decided to go to Tokyo. In terms of Christmas dinner no idea what I'm having. Plus we have always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve so no turkey or stuffing. I only had that if invited over to friend's houses.

I do find myself feeling a wee Christmasy which sort of surprised me as I really want to decorate my cubicle. I even got myself an advent calendar. Right now I'm planning to check out Tokyo Disneyland on Christmas Day. I've come to the realization that I will most likely travel on Christmas for now on. Who knows what the future brings but it's just an inkling.

Dad's birthday is December 7th and I will be doing the Santa Shuffle 5K and then off to dinner theater to ironically celebrate my friend's husband's birthday. I figured it was a good night to be around people.

Now down 2 lbs since I rejoined meetings. It's definitely slow and steady progress but I'm not complaining. I have been playing fast and loose with points. I finished last week in the hole for points.

No the NSW of last week was where I revisited the evil treadmill and figured out my pace in kilometers as these treadmills do KM. Which is kind of funny, Canada is metric but since the Tinkerbell Half 2 years ago I've trained in miles to fool myself into thinking 13.1 doesn't feel so daunting as 21.

The weather has warmed up thanks to chinook, and it's currently +9c, earlier this week it waffled around -27C, yup a 30 degree difference in a week.

I felt for my friends in Fort McMurray, yesterday it was -41c with the windchill.

Now that I'm embracing a whole lot of winter training well lately my long runs have suffered due to the weather between blizzards and dumps of snow every freaking weekend. I know that needs to change and today I saw an article in Canadian Running magazine on the 2014 winter running shoes.

Now I've trained in multiple winters but that's when I ran in Mizunos, I have switched to Nike Lunarglides as I found the Mizunos were making my feet hurt. I talked to someone at the Running Room about that and they said Mizunos can actually improve your gait. I ran with them for years before I overpronated and now I don't do that as badly as I used to. I've run/ walked a few Halfs with Lunarglides and I really like them. My feet don't hurt and I've never lost a toe nail. I didn't in the Mizunos either actually.

I wouldn't describe the Lunarglides as a winter shoe though, from the fact that they really don't have any grip and not exactly warm so after reading this article I'm eyeing these:

The Nike Wildhorse, the specs say not ideal for slushy but to be honest I most likely would not be going outside in slush, I more concerned with packed snow and ice or more specifically neighbours who don't shovel their sidewalk. What I like about these is apparently they transition well to dry pavement. I have spikes for crazy icy but spikes on dry pavement or sidewalk not so great. Now they're described as a more minimal shoe but reviews don't say anything bad about that and some reviewers also overpronate. 

According the training plan I was supposed to do a 4 mile walk today and tomorrow do 9.5 miles. Today I walked to weigh in but discovered my fabulous Ugg winter boots were scraping the heck out of the back of my right foot. I go through this every winter, I wear the winter boots with ankle socks to work and back as the distance is short no problem, today it was 12 blocks had I just worn higher socks it would have been fine.

I wound up taking the bus home as I was limping, then this afternoon I had a nap so no 4 miles. The 9.5 for tomorrow well the longest before winter caused me issues was 6 miles. So my goal for tomorrow is to go further then 6 miles and see how it goes. It doesn't help that I also had a cold last weekend but my run on the treadmill felt really good so I'm focusing on the positive. 

Heck I did Dumbo without one single run for 6 weeks beforehand because after my Dad died training wasn't top of mind. I did that race purely on will.  I just want to be better prepared for Tink and even better prepared for the Princess Half. Oh yes I signed up for the 5K at Princess, so that will be a 5K on the Friday, 10K on Saturday and 21K on Sunday. Yikes but I figure why the heck not plus it won't be stupid hot and humid like Dumbo. 

So that's all I got for now, this week I have a whole lot of social activities that should be quite fun. 

Hugs!!