Running on Caramel ~ A candid lifestyle blog by a 30-something working Mom who loves to run…and eat caramel.

7 Tips to Help You Get Motivated for a Virtual Race

October 20, 2020

COVID-19 has certainly made 2020 an interesting year hasn’t it? Before COVID, I had signed up for a 10K, a 15K and two half marathons. All four cancelled, and two of them went virtual. How do you get motivated for a virtual race?

As a gymnast growing up, I loved competing! I loved the adrenaline rush of people watching, and lived for that moment of “sticking” my routine. My heart would beat so fast but I just couldn’t get enough! Although I coached for many years, it never brought me the same joy as being out there on the floor.

I feel the same way about races. I love being squished in the corals with all the other racers and seeing what they are doing to get psyched for the race. Hearing “O Canada” and the gun going off to signify the start of the race gets my adrenaline pumping. I love running by all the people clapping and cheering and filming as you run by. And of course, I love the feeling of accomplishment I get when I cross that finish line. It’s part of my “Why” that keeps me going!

All those things motivate me when I’m training for a race! I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to prepare for a virtual race, when so much was missing. When I started training for my first half marathon this year, COVID has just started to hit Edmonton and I was worried there was a chance it would be cancelled. I decided to train anyways and hope for the best! When the race got cancelled and went virtual, I decided to continue. I won’t lie, it was hard. But I found the following 7 tips helped me get motivated for all the virtual races I did this year.

Pick a virtual race that gives you some swag

Confession: I am motivated by medals. Maybe it’s my gymnastics competition background, but I love receiving a medal at the end of each race. I once ran a half marathon where I didn’t get a medal at the end and it felt so wrong. Now I make sure any race I sign up for has a medal!

One of my races that turned virtual still offered the race shirt and some perks for running the virtual race. I also found a couple other virtual to sign up for as the year went on! They may not send out your medal/swag until after the official race date so you can submit your proof of time, but it sure feels good to get something for all of your hard work!

A few of the virtual race medals I’ve earned this year.

Share your goal with others

Who doesn’t love moral support? Tell others about your race so they can help you get psyched for it! For both races my husband and my kids set up a makeshift finish line on our driveway. After I ran across the “finish line” they awarded me my medal, gave me a piece of fruit and a bottle of water! And of course all of the hugs. After my second race, some of my coworkers made me a video telling me how proud they were of me! It really made me feel good after running all those kilometres.

Find a training plan and stick to it

There are many free and paid training plans out there to help you reach your running goals. I found it nice to have a training plan to log all of my runs as it helps you to see your progress! Most of the time, I have used the training programs through the Nike Running app. They are fully customizable – you put in how many days a week you can train, how many kilometres you generally run in a week, and what your average pace is and it caters the plan to you. I just completed the half marathon plan in June, and started the marathon one in August before my marathon in January got cancelled. I also adjust the long runs depending on how I’m feeling that week (sometimes, I go longer or shorter than the plan suggests).

You can also check out RunDisney, Another Mother Runner, and Run To the Finish for other training programs!

Prepare like you would for a live race

Just because you are doing a virtual race, doesn’t mean you should prepare differently. Before both of my virtual half marathons, I put my clothes out the night before, woke up an hour before I had to go to eat my usual race day breakfast, and made sure my playlist was set & downloaded before I left. I didn’t eat anything new the few days before race day, and I didn’t wear anything new – similar to if I was running an in-person race. Doing these things really helped my motivation level!

Plan your route in advance

For most of my weekly runs I wing it. I have a few trusted routes that I know well and I alter them a little bit depending on how far I need to go that week. But for my half marathon, I wanted to make sure that I had a good route! So a few days before the race I took my bike out and biked the route so I could mentally prepare where to go. It really helped, and now I know I can expand from there when I need to go longer for marathon training runs.

Finding a beautiful path just makes me feel good as I run through it! Picture was taken in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Have a good playlist

Since you’ll be missing the crowd, the pump-up groups and the noise of an in-person race, make sure you have a good playlist! I often change up my playlist every few months. Plan to have a long enough list to cover your expected time with an extra 10-15 minutes worth of songs just in case! I usually take a bunch of songs from my old playlists that I like, and then add tunes that I’ve heard on the radio lately (I use Shazam to save them on my phone), or search for artists I like and go through their discography to find new tunes. I also put out the ask on social media for ideas from my friends!

Stay positive

Living in the midst of a pandemic can definitely bring some negative thoughts every once and awhile. It’s hard to see the positive when we’ve gone through so much these last six months. I view running as my escape fro the real world – when I go out there I daydream, brainstorm, and enjoy the fresh air while listening to my favourite tunes. I smile or wave to every runner I run by and most of the time they do the same back. Rarely do I come home from a run not feeling in a good mood. Keeping that positivity will definitely help you get through a virtual race, and all the runs in between!

Running virtual races challenge your mental toughness, but should give you the same kind of sense of accomplishment as in-person races. One day we’ll get back to those in-person races but for the time being, we may as well enjoy what we do have. Although not the same, virtual races have filled some of the void that was missing this year with no in-person races. Fingers crossed we can get back to those in 2021!

What about you? Do you get motivated by virtual races or do you prefer in-person? Would love to hear from you!

What it’s Really Like to Work from Home with Young Kids

May 17, 2020

If you would have told me there was going to be a global pandemic in January I probably wouldn’t have believed you.

66 days ago, most of the major sports leagues all decided to suspend play, which directly affected my job. 64 days ago our government opted to close daycares as cases of COVID-19 in our province slowly started to rise. 63 days ago I began the journey of working at home with our two young kids.

While it seems everyone on social media without kids is taking up new hobbies, deep cleaning their houses, and binge-watching everything on Netflix; I’m here looking at my disaster of a house and wondering how the heck I’m going to keep up. I do appreciate all the extra time with my kids, but man I have never been more exhausted!

Let me give you a glimpse into life right now, and what it’s really like to work from home with young kids…

Days are long

My husband and I are fortunate that we both still have jobs. They are allowing us to be flexible to work around our kids which is really great. My first day working from home while my husband was still at the office did not go well. Every time I needed to take a conference call, the kids acted out. My youngest child didn’t nap well and I got nothing done because one or both of them were stuck to me. My husband came home and I cried. I had no idea how I was going to do this!

Letterboard with the words "Parenting during a pandemic kind of means less time to get more done.

We ended up settling on splitting the days in half – one of us work in the mornings and the other works in the afternoon. Then we spend half the day with the kids. The person who’s with the kids in the afternoon decides on dinner for the evening and prepares it. We all eat dinner together and when we put the kids to bed, we both go back to work. It makes for a long day, but we’ve found our groove and it’s working for us!

The house is a constant disaster

My kids literally empty their toy bins every single day. Even though the living room is littered with toys, there seems to be only one that they fight over. When the kids were at daycare, they wasn’t enough time before breakfast or after dinner to make a big mess. After dinner I’d straighten out the house and make the living room look presentable for the next day. Now that everyone is home 24/7, I rarely have the energy to pick up and put everything away. Yes, I know the kids should be putting it away and sometimes they do! But they take so long that sometimes I feel like it’s easier to just do it myself…but then get too tired to actually do it.

It’s harder to find time for self care

In January I wrote a blog post about a working mom’s guide to work/life balance. Since working from home, I have been finding it a little harder to take my own advice! I was very busy at work between January and March, so I didn’t take any vacation days for me. Now that I’m at home, it’s pretty much impossible to get much alone time. I am having trouble figuring out my priorities and deciding what to get done!

Macbook and planner sitting on a bed — There are many times I bring my laptop and planner into bed with the goal of getting some work done but I just don’t have the energy to do it.

On the weekends, my husband and I have started to discuss what we each want to accomplish, and then give each other the time to do so. This has definitely helped!

The kids are acting out more

It must be hard being a kid during this pandemic. You leave daycare on a Friday and don’t go back. There’s no hugging grandma, your friends, or getting to spend time with anyone other than Mom and Dad. You want to play every second of the day but Mom and Dad are exhausted and/or working and may not be able to always give you one on one attention. And you don’t understand why you can’t go to the playground, the swimming pool, or why your last hockey practice was cancelled.

Thankfully our five year old seems to have a basic understanding. Our two year old however definitely doesn’t understand social distancing. The kids are getting a little stir-crazy and there have been more tantrums than normal. It is mentally draining! My husband and I have really had to focus on the fact that they don’t know how to express our emotions like we do. There are times we want to be grumpy too!

Screen time has gone up

I can’t help it, screen time has gone up. My kids rarely get the iPad but the TV is on cartoons all day. Thank goodness our television provider is letting us go over our internet because we’ve been watching a ton of Netflix and Disney+! My 5 year old also gets an hour or so of video games a week which allows my husband to get his work done and me to have an hour here and there in peace and quiet while my two year old naps. At least the kids like some educational shows like Superwhy!

There is a silver lining…

Don’t worry, there are good things that have come out of being at home more often!

We are still following our routine (mostly)

Our 2 year old still (mostly) naps at the same time as he would normally, and the kids are still going to bed around the same time. We let them sleep as long as they want in the mornings, but they are still usually up before 7. We eat all of our meals together and the kids get a snack between meals like they do at daycare.

We’ve come up with some fun new family activities

Every night we have a dance party in my five year old’s room, and we rotate who gets to pick the song. We’ve even created our own dance moves! On Sundays the kids wear pj’s all day, and we’ve had some movie afternoons complete with popcorn! On Easter Sunday, since we couldn’t get together with family we made a fancy dinner and all wore onesies!

We’ve upped our meal planning/meal prepping game

Before the pandemic happened, we had been doing many small grocery shops to grab stuff for dinners. We had a deep freeze full of items that we weren’t taking a look at because dinners were so rushed. Now that we are trying not to go out when we don’t have to, we keep lists on the fridge for all the places we usually shop, and mark down things we need as we need them. We only go to the grocery store when the list gets full. Daily, we now go into the freezer and take out something for dinner and use what we already have in our fridge. Our kids are trying new dinners (which sometimes goes over well and sometimes doesn’t) and it is easier to go longer without going to the grocery store.

Taco night spread with guacamole, veggies, pico di gallo and ground beef — Taco night is always a hit at our house. The kids always eat a ton of tacos!

We love seeing our kids grow

Our two year old’s vocabulary was always pretty good, but we’ve really seen it flourish in the last couple months. The kid talks non-stop! Our five year old is also a pretty smart cookie. He has a fantastic imagination and he’s definitely getting better at negotiating when he wants something…ha!

Of course, this is only my experience and I can’t speak for everyone. In the end, it’s definitely a challenge but there are some positives to take out of the last two months. Spending more time with our kids is a blessing and they make us laugh every day. Not to mention if you asked them if they were having fun with Mom and Dad, I think they’d say yes! I give major props to teachers, daycare staff and stay at home parents – you guys are all awesome!

If you know a parent that’s been home with their kids for two months, make sure you check in on them! Or drop off some wine at their door, or come over for a social distanced visit when the kids go to bed. I can almost guarantee you they’ll appreciate it! And maybe try not to mention that you’re bored… 🙂

Have you had to work from home with young kids since the pandemic started? How are you managing? Would love to hear your tips for getting through this! We’re all in this together.

A Working Mom’s Guide to Life/Work Balance

January 24, 2020

Life/work balance is so important, but not made a priority by many working Mom’s. Being a Mommy is the best, but having a successful career and being a working Mom is also important to me! Trying to find a balance can be tough sometimes!

I went back to work just under a year after I had my oldest son. As Canadians, we are fortunate to get so much time paid time off after having a baby! Although it started off tough, I did ok. My son’s daycare had a webcam, so I was able to check in on him anytime I wanted during the day. I also got promoted to a new job that was just starting out, so the first few months I was able to ease back in.

The second time around I came back after just over a year, and during a really busy time so the first few months were a bit of a struggle. Trying to get both kids out of the house can be a little stressful and both were usually tired and/or grumpy by the time we got home. I was stressed, gained weight and I didn’t take enough “Me Time“.

Never has “Me Time” become so important until I became a Mom. Some days I’m still all over the place, but I feel like I’m in a much better place than I was after the first few months after maternity leave! So I wanted to provide some tips on what’s kept me sane and what’s allowed me to find some balance! Here’s my idea of a working Mom’s guide to life/work balance:

Make a plan!

With our first, we did a lot of “go with the flow”. He slept through the night early, and we adjusted his bed time the longer he slept in the morning. I’ve found with two, it’s much harder to be like that! Our second is on much more of a routine when it comes to naps and bed time, so I’ve found it’s easiest to follow suit.

My favourite thing to do is to spend some time on Sunday evening when the kids go to bed to do some weekly planning. I also spend my Monday lunch-hour doing the same thing! I take out my calendar in my planner, take a look at the week ahead and plan out my lunch hours at work, lunches & dinners for the week, and when I’m going to work out.

A Working Mom's Guide to Life/Work Balance — Planning 2020 with my Plum Paper Planner!

We do the grocery shopping based on the week’s needs, which helps us not overspend on things we don’t use very often. Sometimes, we save the shopping for Customer Appreciation Day or Blue Friday at Sobeys, as we’re all about collecting those Air Miles! We also do a monthly trip to Costco for our staple items! This helps us eat healthier & avoid stress over food during the week!

Stock your fridge with healthy options

This is a big one for me. I stress eat and eat when I’m bored by habit, and it’s terrible! If I don’t meal prep the night before, I find myself stressed on what we’re going to eat for dinner. I find if I stock my fridge and my pantry with healthy options, I am less likely to eat badly! If I do keep things like chips in the house, I portion out exactly one serving to have as my snack. This way, I’m still indulging but not eating the whole bag. I buy things with less salt & less fat when I can, so I can still enjoy a slightly healthier version of my treats!

Find something you love!

Since I went back to work and stopped breastfeeding, I have been struggling with my body image & weight. Some of the baby weight I lost ended up sneaking back on and it was making me feel uncomfortable. It was also slowing down my running pace, which was leaving me quite frustrated. I don’t like to run in the winter, so I needed a winter sport! So I decided to make a change and joined a CrossFit gym, Black Tusk Athletics, last summer! Their owners are great and I found enjoyment in a sport that 10 years ago had really turned me off. I bought a 10-class pass so I don’t feel stressed about going a specific amount of days per month.

I also bought a 10 class pass for barre at Studio B Fitness YEG after really enjoying it when I went to a free class last year. During the spring, summer and fall months I’ll still be focusing on my running, but I’m adding in Crossfit and barre when it’s too cold outside.

Do yoga

This year I went to get back into doing yoga 2-3 times a month. There are two types of yoga that I absolutely love – hot Metta Yoga and yoga nidra. I have passes for Metta Yoga that don’t expire! They even offer kids classes so my oldest can do yoga with other kids while I take my class! Yoga is so good for you mind and your skin, so this is a win-win situation for me.

Take some alone time

As much as I love doing work out classes and yoga, I also really enjoy my alone time. This means time completely alone, where I can do what I want, when I want. I have a lot of vacation days at work, so I often use days every month to take a staycation. I clean the house, do errands, check things off my to do list, get my nails done, take a bath, or seriously do nothing and relax on the couch and watch TV. This is my time to de-stress and de-compress and enjoy the silence and peacefulness of my alone time.

When my kids get older and start sleeping in a little longer, my plan is to get up an hour early to get in some “Me Time” before the the day begins. On the weekend, my husband and I also chat about what’s going on and who’s taking the kids to their activities – and then we plan out some time for our priorities and make sure that we can work everything in.

Take a mom-cation

I cannot recommend this enough! Taking a mom-cation either by yourself or with girlfriends is something that I make a priority every year. Last year we went to Vegas! This year we’re going to Banff (and I’m going to run the Banff Half Marathon). It is so great to get that time to reconnect with your friends and enjoy a stress free little vacation while you’re at it!

It’s important to note that although this is ideal, it doesn’t happen all the time. Life happens! But I DO know that I feel less stressed and much better when I follow these steps! So I do my best to do them often!

What things do you do to give yourself life/work balance? Feel free to share your comments below! I’d love to read them.

Tips & Tricks on Collecting More Air Miles for that Dream Vacation!

August 13, 2019

Pinterest photo with the blog title and an airplane flying overhead in the background

I LOVE Travelling! My bank account doesn’t always love it…but I do! I also love travelling for less money, don’t you?

Despite being a nervous flyer, I live to travel. I love exploring other cities almost as much as I love living in Edmonton – and that’s a lot!

Now with two kids, it’s going to start getting more expensive to travel. I definitely still want to keep travelling in the budget! It’s so important for the growing mind, and I want my kids to experience as many different places as they can!

It All Starts with a Goal

Disney medal with running bib from the 2012 Tinkerbell Half Marathon — Medal and race bib from my second ever Disney race – the Tinkerbell Half Marathon in 2012 in Disneyland.

One of my long term running goals is to complete a marathon before I’m 40.

I figured I should pick somewhere fun for the big moment – and I decided on DISNEYWORLD! A trip like this can get a bit costly for a family of four, especially when the Canadian dollar isn’t very strong. This is where Air Miles come into the picture. I posted on my Instagram story that I had over 20,000 points, and got an influx of questions on how I’ve been able to collect that many! I thought I’d share some of my best tips to collect Air Miles and help save for that next vacation!

Sign Up for an Air Miles Card

Obviously, to start collecting Air Miles you need to sign up for the card! You can do this on Airmiles.ca.

Get a Second (or Third) Card

If you have a significant other, make sure to get them a card too under your account. My husband didn’t have an Air Miles card so I ordered him one so we could start collecting to the same account! This way we could start collecting Air Miles faster because we’d both be able to collect on purchases! You may as well order an extra card or two as well. When we were aiming for Onyx status my Mom offered to take a card and helped us collect some Air Miles at the end of the year so we could hit our goal!

Do Your Grocery Shopping at Sobeys or Safeway

This is honestly the biggest reason we’ve been able to collect as many Air Miles as we have. Start being strategic with your grocery shopping and meal planning at the start of each week! We try to plan our big grocery shopping trips on Customer Appreciation Day (20x the Air Miles if you spend at least $50) or Blue Friday (mega Air Miles deals all over the store and a spend $100 get 100 Air Miles coupon is always included in the flyer). If you download the Sobeys App, you also get weekly Air Miles offers loaded onto your card! These aren’t advertised in store, and I believe they use your purchase history as most weeks there are items on there that I buy regularly already! I also suggest monitoring the weekly flyer! There are often “spend $100 get 100 Air Miles” coupons that pop up on weekends!

Apply for an Air Miles Credit Card

I just recently signed up for the BMO World Elite Air Miles Mastercard, and wish I would have done it sooner! 1000 bonus Air Miles when you make your first purchase, the chance to get another 2000 bonus Air Miles in the first few months of having the card, and you earn 1 Air Mile for every $10 you spend! Including the bonuses, I’ve almost earned 4000 Air Miles within the first month!

Airplane flying through the air — An airplane flying over our heads on the beach in St. Maarten.

Use Air Miles Shops to Buy from your Favourite Retailers!

Did you know you can collect Air Miles just by shopping on Amazon? Well, you can! By using Air Miles Shops, you can shop through a special link and collect Air Miles on your purchase, even if the store isn’t somewhere that you would normally collect Air Miles! Some of the shops I frequently use through here are Sephora, Old Navy, the Gap, and Etsy! Air Miles Shops also has promotions throughout the year (Christmas in July, Black Friday, Boxing Day, etc) where you’ll earn 5-20x the points on your favourite stores so keep your eyes open for good deals.

Sign up for Emails

I get it, we all hate being on email lists. I do too, but usually I’m too lazy to unsubscribe and just hit delete instead because of FOMO (fear of missing out). You never want to miss a good deal! Find the partners you shop at most (for us it’s Sobey’s and Shell) and sign up for their Air Miles emails. Scroll through them when you receive them to see if anything catches your eye! They also often send out coupons and good deals with all of their partners.

Check Your Status!

I recently found out that you can book vacations using Air Miles on redtag.ca. When you log into the Air Miles portion of the website, you’ll see your points in the top left corner. Below it will be the equivalent in travel rewards, and it’s a great way to gage where you’re at and figure out how many points you’ll need for your dream vacation!

We still have a ways to go but I’m aiming to get to Disneyworld in January 2021. My goal is to have our flights and accommodations paid for by Air Miles. Will we get there? Only time will tell!

What’s your favourite way to earn travel points? Are there any tips that I’ve missed? Would love to hear your thoughts!

How Having Kids Turned Me into a bit of an Introvert

November 8, 2018

When you look up the word “introvert” in the Urban Dictionary you find the following line:

An introvert prefers to spend time alone in order to recharge their inner being.

All my life, I’ve never considered myself an introvert. If you ask anyone who knows me they probably wouldn’t consider me one either. I’m very social and I love to talk (probably too much). I love to host, I love to plan parties, and I love to travel. I can’t pinpoint when it happened, but I think it was around the time when my oldest son Kendrick was about 11 months old that I started feeling like I needed more time for me.

In college and university, I was never one to have many down days. I had multiple promotions jobs, did gymnastics, socialized with friends, and went to the bar. Sick days were brutal as I’d get so incredibly bored at home (of course this was way before Netflix was a thing). Even as I got older and started my full time career, I still worked part time at two other places until about six years ago. Then when I quit, I found myself feeling like I was missing something (and the extra cash) so wanting to save up for more travelling I joined Stella & Dot. I guess you could say I liked being busy.

Even now, there is rarely a day where I stay home with the kids during the week. My preschooler is a busy bee who doesn’t nap anymore (except for rare occasions where happen to be driving after a long day) and my busy infant is constantly crawling or cruising around furniture, so we get out of the house at least once a day so we don’t all go stir crazy.

Maybe I’ve Always Been One and Didn’t Know It

I’ve done a little bit of travelling on my own and truth be told, I love it. My first trip on my own was just over 10 years ago when I headed to Seattle for a weekend. I was down in the dumps after a tough break up and still had flight benefits at my old job at the airport, so I planned a little trip to get away from it all. It was awesome! I love being able to wake up when I want, and deciding what I want to do on the fly. Life can be so organized and planned that it’s nice to do something different. I’d explore all day, then pick up food and head back to my hotel before dark and chill out and watch TV. No alarms to set, no expectations, and no concrete plans – it was heaven!

This also might be why I enjoy running so much! Although I don’t mind running with a friend every once and awhile, I mostly enjoy running on my own. I love outdoor running and I hate running on the treadmill. I love exploring my neighbourhood, running in downtown Edmonton, and running races in other cities!

A few months ago I headed to Vancouver for the weekend to run the 2018 Seawheeze Half Marathon. I started reading a book (for the first time in I can’t even remember how long), did some stretching and yoga with a couple hundred other runners. After the race I took a bath, and relaxed in my room watching football. It was glorious!

Love My Alone Time

When I was pregnant with my second son Easton, I found the combination of working full time, being a Mom, being pregnant and trying to fit in a social life was very exhausting. I was feeling very overwhelmed. I am fortunate that my office has a giant lunch room with sunlights and lots of bright, welcoming, white space. Before my second maternity leave I’d spend some of my free lunch hours cozying myself up in one of the booths with my laptop, day-timer, and a ton of coloured pens and markers, doodling, planning, budgeting and making lists. I enjoyed the solitude and the quiet time as well as catching up on the day’s current events with the good ol’ fashioned news on in the background.

When Daddy takes the kids out for a few hours so I can have some “Me Time“, sometimes I just end up sitting on the couch and watching Netflix. I enjoy the peace and quiet of an empty house during the day. I’m not sure what is about solitude, or why it’s been so important for me in the last couple years, but I feel I really need it to recharge once and awhile.

On occasion, I find being more introverted also leads to sometimes being a little anti-social. Sometimes I turn down activities with friends that maybe I wouldn’t have done before kids. I certainly don’t mean to be rude or offensive – I love spending time with my friends and I love hosting them! But sometimes I’d just prefer to be alone.

Sometimes You Need to be a Little Selfish

In the last couple years I’ve become very aware of my mental health. I don’t just want alone time “just because”, I NEED it. I need it to be a better Mom, a better wife, a better friend, a better coworker, and overall a better person. Honestly, a few hours here and there makes a huge difference.

Do you feel this way? What do you do during your alone time?

Would love to hear your thoughts.