Le Scandinave Spa: Blue Mountain. One of my favourite places on Earth has donated passes to their scandinavian baths to the Team Diabetes auction! The Scandinavian Baths are renowned for their ability to cleanse the skin and provide a sense of well-being. You can try the Finnish Sauna, Norwegian Steam Bath, Thermal & Nordic Waterfalls, as well as Hot Baths & Cold Plunges. Coming up for bid September 1st 2009.

I am in the midst of preparing an online charity auction for Team Diabetes that will run for the month of September. Momentum for item donation picked up today as I recieved three more items. The nicest conversation I had was with Russ at Rusty Cellars which is a make your own wine establishment. Russ has generously donated one of his Showcase Collection.

Keep your eyes open for more info on the auction. Hopefully there will be some great deals!

Last week I went to the foot doctor to see about orthotics. The running stores always tell me that one foot pronates more than the other (sometimes they ask me if I've broken my ankle before!). I believe that this imbalance explains why my sore ankle changes sides with different shoes (different levels of support).

So it turns out the running store people are not full of it and all they said was true. Apparently I have excessive overpronation. This means that my foot rolls inward too much, the foot and ankle have problems stabilizing the body, and shock isn't absorbed as efficiently.

So I have ordered some orthotics and they should be in in a couple of weeks. I'm excited to try them out but a little worried that its going to hurt and take a while to adjust.

Thanks Google! Here are some things I found on Running and Nausea:

Nausea during or after a run can happen for a few different reasons. If you ate less than an hour before your run, that's too close to your workout. It's OK to eat a light snack about 90 minutes before your run. If you eat something that takes longer to digest, like fatty or fried foods, you should give yourself at least two hours. So this accounts for Run #2. But dinner was so good!! Maybe too good so I may have eaten a little too much here...

You might also feel nauseous during or after a run because you're dehydrated. Nausea is an early symptom of dehydration . To avoid dehydration, the general rule of thumb is that you should take in 6 to 8 ounces of fluid every 20 minutes during your runs. During longer workouts (90 mins +), some of your fluid intake should include a sports drink to replace lost sodium and other minerals. And don't forget to rehydrate with water or a sports drink after your run. I Run with a fuel belt which is more or less a glorified fanny-pack with water bottles attached. I have two 8oz water bottles on mine which I downed during today's ~2 hour run. So technically I should have had 36-48 ounces of fluid and I only had 16. That seems like an awful lot of water....what do you drink during your runs?

Another possible cause of nausea during or after running is that you simply ran too hard and overexerted yourself. One way to avoid this problem is to make sure you are warmed-up before starting an intense run and to run at a pace that you're ready for. So this might be it, but I don't think so. While training for the half-marathon last year I did many 10km+ runs and felt fine. I am a lot more prepared and in better shape than during last year's training. Plus I have had other runs under similar conditions this year and felt fine.

Conclusion: I will try to hydrate better before and during next week's long run.

14.5km Long Run. Today I finished another 'longest training run to date' with a scenic tour of the south end of Sudbury. Check out the loop-de-loops. The run felt pretty good. My lungs were doing good for the most part. My legs started to feel heavy towards the end. And I got nauseous once again but this time it only happened once the run was over. I really have to get this nauseous thing under control. The first time I thought it was because I was just really really hungry. The second time I thought it was because I had a huge dinner the hour before and it wasn't agreeing with me. This time though I was hungry (I finished at 5pm) so maybe I should look into some gels or schedule my long runs so that they don't end at dinnertime. Suggestions?

100 Kilometers Total. Check it out! I have reached a total training distance of 100km! It's kind of insane when you think that some people run further this distance in a single race (ultra-marathons).

I'm happy to report that today's run was back to normal. Which is great considering that my legs are a little tight from yesterday's horribleness. I did a 15min run section at my regular pace, a walk break followed by another 12min run section and a walk break.

Worst-Run-Ever. Last night I set out on my longest training run this year - 13km. It occurred to me that my long runs were about to be true long runs from here on out. I will be running minimum 10km weekend runs from now until the marathon. This made me a little sad because basically long runs really screw up your weekend, which is one of the reasons I was doing my long run on Tuesday since I was out of town Fri-Sun. Mentally I wasn't in the best of places. I was running this run because I had to. I've been slacking lately and I found a new resolve lately to keep at the running/dieting so this meant I really did need to run no matter how much I just wasn't in the mood. All of this thinking may have contributed to the worst-run-of-my-life. I have no idea why but I just couldn't run for more than 5mins at a time even from the beginning. I have been running 10-15min run stretches lately with walking breaks in between. In fact last Friday I increased my pace while maintaining my normal run/walk ratio. So it was odd when I had to scale back the speed 0.2mph and struggled to make 5min stretches. I have never watched the clock on the treadmill so much in my life! I would say that I walked half, perhaps more than half of this training run. Towards the end I began to feel nauseous. I stopped and ate an apple because I thought it would boost my sugar or something. Basically I thought eating would help. I didn't. I finished up my 13km and lay on the floor for a bit. I had to take a break showering because I felt too nauseous. I also had to take a break after toweling and changing. I felt worse than I did after the Rio Half Marathon! But I finished it - it is done. I am in 'recovery week' so it will be 2 weeks before my 14.5km run. Hopefully that one will go better.