9 Days until Victoria/Wolfville

Hello All

We're in the final weeks of our 2011 race calendar with races in Victoria and Wolfville just 9 Days away.  As always, please refer to the race sites to ensure that you are familiar with the race schedule for the weekend.

Race kit pick-ups:

Victoria does not permit raceday kit pick up unless you are from out of town:
Standard Kit Pick-up is as follows:
Victoria Conference Centre, 720 Douglas Street
October 7-9, 2011

• Expo Hours of Operation:
  
  • Friday, October 7, 3:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
  • Saturday, October 8, 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Wolfville is pretty straight forward as you can pick up your race kits on the Saturday before the race, but also any time after 6:30am on race day:

Wolfville Kit Pick-Up

Acadia University Athletics Complex, Acadia Main Gym
Saturday, 8 October 12:00pm to 7:00pm
Sunday, 9 October 6:30am to 8:15am

Hear the World / Special Olympics - Athens 2011

During the Special Olympics in Athens this past July, athletes underwent a thorough health screening program, including an in depth hearing screening. The results revealed that 22.6 percent of all the athletes tested were affected by hearing loss. The Hear the World Foundation gave a total of 344 high-quality hearing instruments to the participating athletes with treatable cases of hearing loss, and is arranging free follow-up care.

 http://www.hear-the-world.com/en/press/current-press-releases/detail/back/1091/read/freida-pinto-strikes-the-hear-the-world-pose.html

Army Run Report

6:30am, alarm goes off, race day begins.  Inventory time…running shoes…check, race#...check.  Quick stop at Timmy’s for a bagel and some caffeine and then I’m off to watch the 5km race start.  The air is cool but it’s sunny as the thousands of runners make their way through the start line.  It takes over 10 minutes to get everyone on their way.  It’s quite the spectacle seeing that many people heading out at once.  As this is a race organized by the Canadian Army there was an awesome presence of soldiers in full gear, including this maniac who opted to run the 5km wearing full chemical gear (gas mask included).

3 more sleeps.....

....until the Ottawa Army race.  I hope at this point you've all logged some miles, or at a minimum have gone out to buy a pair of running shoes (you know who you are).  You might have noticed that it's been a little chilly out the past few days, please prepare for that.  For those running an event like this for the first time you're often required to line-up a little while before the gun goes off so make sure you're dressed appropriately.

For those running the half for the first time, if it's really cold I would recommend having a "junk-layer", something over your race shirt that you can dispose of at one of the aid stations along the way.

I already mentioned meeting up for a photo in an earlier post so I hope to see you all there.  For those of you that I haven't met I'll be the guy in the white running visor looking slightly nervous about a lack of recent mileage.  Please introduce yourself.

Okay, that's it for updates, make sure you throw a high-five or a "Go CanHEAR" when you see your teammates out on the course...see you Sunday.



Our Coolest Ambassador yet....



Move over Mick Jagger, I'd like to take a moment to introduce Ayden Marie Vargas.  Okay, I know there are a lot of Stones fans out there (I'm one of them), but as this is a blog entitled "FitwithPhonak", I'm rating the coolness factor based on an entirely different set of criteria than that by which rock legends are measured.  As far as I know Mick has never run a marathon...and I'd be willing to bet good money that Keith Richards hasn't either (and I'm pretty sure he never will). 

Ayden on the other hand is not only a runner, Hear the World ambassador, and all around cool individual, but she has unique understanding of what it is like to experience the sudden onset of hearing-loss.  More importantly, she's a great example of why living with a hearing-loss should never prevent you from living life to the fullest...

Read Ayden's story here...

Better idea....

Make that 8:45 on the steps of City Hall at 110 Laurier (just north of the drill hall and across the street from the park where the race ends).  Thanks for the suggestion Debbie, apparently the finish line is going to be nuts!!!!

Low of 5 degrees forecasted, brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Army Run Update - Group shot

Hi Team

For those of you that haven't looked at your race times yet, I strongly recommend that you take a look at the race schedule for the weekend.  As I mentioned, I would love to have a group photo...

The 5km race starts at 8:00, so I'll be floating around to take a few pics.  It would be great if you could head to the corner of Elgin and Queen after your race to swap stories and high-fives. As the half marathon crew will be heading off at 9:00 this will likely be our best chance to get a group shot with everybody.

So there it is, Elgin and Queen at approx 8:40 for a post/pre run photo.
Looking forward to seeing you all.  Rest up.

Army Run - 11 Days and counting

Hey Ottawa team, everyone should have received their shirts by now, if you  have not please drop me a line.  Race kit pick-up is available on Friday and Saturday, please familiarize yourself with the weekend schedule.  We'll be arranging a spot to meet before the race for a few team photos, looking forward to seeing you all.  More details to follow.....

http://www.armyrun.ca/race-info/race-kit-pick-up/

Adam.