Ottawa Bound

This past weekend Iyla and I dropped off Kaiser dog at a friends to make a road trip to Ottawa. We went to go watch my husband coach his women's soccer team, Ryerson  in their final regular-season games.

Ottawa is a city I'm not very familiar with, having only traveled there once for figure skating many years ago. I've always heard that it's a must city to run in because of all it's trails. I figured I l'd catch some soccer games and do my second last LSD run before the marathon there.

Iyla was a good sport on the way there, continuously chatting away between her many beauty sleep naps. Once at the hotel I set up her play yard and ordered some pasta dinner for delivery (sticking to my Saturday night pasta ritual). On that Saturday night we watched the game from the hotel, actually I watched and iyla went to bed. I used this quiet time to figure out my route and what I would wear since the weather was going to be pretty close to freezing.

All those reviews about running in Ottawa were spot on. On mapmyrun I couldn't even figure out where I would go because there was so many options. Thanks to Twitter and a friend who lives in Ottawa I had a run route that would let me explore a little bit of the best trails. 

I got up at 6:30 feeling sleep deprived after an evening of laughing at Iyla talking in her sleep (now that she's in her crib it was the first time I've heard her do this). Weather was at 3'C So I wore crops, compression sleeves on my legs, gloves, ear warmer and a long sleeve swiftly. With 16 miles ahead of me I was out the door.  

Within the first 2 miles I was on Ottawa River and had many pictures under my belt.  I decided to put my focus back on the run. 

WOW!!! I couldn't have chosen a better place to do my 16 miles. Not only was the scenery beautiful, I was surrounded by so many athletes from runners to cyclists. I hardly see a living soul on my long runs! It was such a pleasure to be able to wave to other runners and have them respond back with a smile or gesture. Having other runners en route also gave me a focal point of a person I wanted to catch as if I was racing against them. My pace flowed effortlessly at a 8:12 min/mile average. 

I kept trying to slow myself down to an 830 minute mile but my body just naturally wanted to run faster. I think this was due to the flatter course and the energy from all the runners around me.

I completed this run feeling confident and excited for Road2Hope race day. I can't believe that it's less than two weeks away. 

Once back to the hotel I quickly showered, fed Iyla, bundled her up and out the door we went to go watch Ryerson Rams play Ottawa. 

Not surprisingly she slept the whole game!

Unfortunately Ryerson loss that day despite a much improved season over last. 

Ottawa not only won the game but won my heart as a top Canadian run site! I can't wait to go back, but next time It will be for a week instead of one night and Ryerson will walk away with a win!