Kathy's Diary: Oct 6-13, 2003

Well, this is an extremely tough task – to summarize my long diary entries into a weekly format! There is just so much to say but I guess I will just save the juicy stuff for each weekly update! The week started off well with work on Monday and a day off on Tuesday in lieu of working Wednesday teaching a workshop. Tuesday was spent in a complete writer's block, I tried to focus on the workshop materials but kept getting sidetracked with other emails and the AADAC project. Of course they sent me the information to update and I had told them that if their revisions were sent to me by the weekend I wouldn't be able to get to them until Wednesday night. So there they were on Tuesday and I had booked Tuesday to do my workshop prep and Wednesday to do the workshop. Needless to say I ended up taking a peek and working on it a bit. By noon I re-focused and started on the workshop.

Then the kids came home and I was delightfully distracted till Brownies! Tim was at work so the boys came with Haley and I to Brownies. They love it – it so funny to see them there with all the girls – they play all the games and like to do the crafts! Of course they end up wrestling somewhere and some how but I was saved by my friend Monika who was there with her son Ethan – she took the boys out to play at the park at the community centre. Back at home I had to hit the computer. I ended up working till 3 am and getting up 6:30 to go to my school and copy things before the workshop.

Things went well – it was my first time doing a workshop on ESL to a group outside university or the staff at my school. It was quite exciting but of course I over planned and only got through half the stuff! I guess I could have gotten to bed 2 or 3 hours earlier and saved myself the prep time! All in all the lack of sleep was worth it because now I have enough material for a full day seminar.
In the afternoon I went to an ESL Benchmarks committee meeting because we are participating in piloting the assessment tool that we worked on last year with the ESL Team. On the way home I was overcome by nausea and threw up as soon as I got home. The kids and Tim had all had this ruthless 24 hour bug – and I had finally succumbed to it too! I spent the remainder of Wednesday and most of Thursday violently retching. I had got a substitute teacher for Thursday. I ended up missing University and I was supposed to present my workshop to the class. Friday I still felt gross but had to go to school and teach for the day. I some how made it through the day and had chance to prepare for Tuesday for the Korean teachers arrival. But as soon as the bell rang I headed home because we were driving to Vancouver through the night. The kids were great for the trip – we watched three dvd's on my laptop balanced on the two front seats. We got to Bonnie's by 2 am and fell exhausted into bed. The next day the kids were happy to see their cousins Caylin, Jacqueline and Evan. We all headed out by 10 am to board the ferry to Victoria. The seas were rough and still recovering from my illness and lifelong motion sickness – I weathered the journey with a bowed head and pale complexion and an achy gut. The kids played with their cousins and had a blast! At Victoria Tim headed off with our three kids and Jacqueline and Evan to Pender Island. Caylin, Bonnie and I headed into Victoria to pick up our race kits, check into the hotel and relax. I was supposed to call Mary from the forum but I left her phone number in the van with Tim. I had to wait until Tim got off of his ferry and to his mom's so he could look up her email on my computer. By the time I called her it was too late to meet her so we had a great chat on the phone and decided to hook up after the race. Then we went out for dinner to a nice restaurant for some very expensive salads! We crashed early in prep for the big day ahead.

Sunday was drizzly and as Bonnie and I braved the start line it started to rain! She was running the marathon and I was doing the half and so she started ahead at her pace. After the week I had I just wanted to finish so I just set my sights on a 6 minute kilometer and walk breaks as I needed them. My heart rate stayed pretty low and I was able to keep my pace but my legs just wouldn't go – they felt tired. So I just kept putting one foot in front of the other until 21 kilometers passed under foot. I finished in 2:08:38 – so I was happy. I quickly cooled off and could not find Caylin at the finish line, so after a half hour of frantic cold searching I hobbled back to the hotel where I begged them to let me into my room – I had no ID or anything. Thankfully I was let in and grabbed my coat and put some warm clothes in my back pack for Bonnie. I headed back to the finish line and found Caylin a couple hundred meters up poised with the camera waiting to take a picture of me passing by. She was thinking I would be so disappointed with my time – given that nearly 3 hours had passed by – by this time. She was shivering so we went for a little walk to warm and then headed to the meeting place to meet Mary.

She was pretty cool – she finished in a personal best time of 2:11. Mary is a pretty inspirational story, she has a journey all her own that she started just over a year ago which has includes many self-discoveries that has led to significant changes in her life as well as 90 lbs of weight loss. She is just his incredibly friendly and enthusiastic person with a big heart. Mary is a role model with her running and encouraged several friends to start a running and some ran in the 8km race! I was truly impressed with her accomplishments and her love of life! It was great to meet you Mary.

After our little interlude – Caylin and I went to find Bonnie at the finish line! She had injured her knee slightly during her final training for the marathon but it flared up during the first 8 km of the race. But she was determined to finish the run and she ran right through the pain for 36 km and made it through the finish with tears of pain and frustration in her eyes. I could totally relate to having a great training only to have something hinder your performance on race day. Anyways she still had a very respectable time!

We quickly limped to our hotel – my legs were stiffening up too! We showered and drove to the ferry to Pender Island. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Tim's mom Pat, her boyfriend Garth, his uncle Doug, cousins Jocelyn and Travis, Bonnier, her kids and of course us -the Farstad Five! The next day we woke up at 6:30 to catch the ferry and made it back home by 10 pm – it was a long day but it was a great family time and the kids handled the journey in stride!