Imagine my surprise when I wandered into David’s Tea and saw this! So pleased to see my work on an excellent design and quality product like this. Would love to work with the company in the future, wondering about collaboration possibilities…

Just a screen capture to prove that I had the Featured Illustration on istockphoto.com this past week. I would’ve posted it sooner, but well, I am lame. And this past week was a bit ridiculous. The image that was featured can be seen in its full glory here.

Since this was the first time I’ve run this race, I thought I’d post a little breakdown of how the race went.

The Weather: After pretty much an entire winter of beautiful weather- very little snow and Sunday runs that ranged in temperature from -5 to +5 degrees- the weather decided to take a miserable turn for the worse on race day. The temperature with the windchill was about -22 degrees with a 30kph NE wind. It had also snowed most of the week prior and also the night before, so despite the organizers’ valiant grooming attempts, slippery, powdery snow had blown and drifted all over the course making it really hard to keep your footing. A friend of mine wiped out in Assiniboine Park, luckily I was wearing my YakTrax so I had a little extra grip.

The Course: This would be a pretty beautiful course were I able to see most of it through all the snow. Could’ve done without the hills, they weren’t huge, but there was one that you covered both ways and you hit it the second time after about 11.5 miles. Ouch. But on a nicer day, it would be almost an ideal course to run. I see that the distance wasn’t certified, but according to my Garmin (which measured over-distance, as usual), I’d guess it was pretty dead-on.

A mile-by-mile breakdown of the race comes after the jump!

The Start: You get to wait inside (thank God) before the start. There were people from the earlier waves who had already finished and started eating. I was immediately jealous of them. Jerks. We went to lineup outside about 2 minutes before the start and it wasn’t as bad standing around out there as I thought it would be. When the bullhorn went off, it took about 10 seconds to cross the start line as it was a relatively small wave (about 165 people).

Mile One: Already sort of regretting this. Hit the parking lot and got blasted by the wind. Most of this mile was isolated in the trees. Saw some neat tipis on the grounds. Climbed a smallish hill and passed a woman who appeared to be wearing a full snowsuit. How she was running in ski pants, I have no idea.

Mile Two: Grargh! Why is this in an open prairie field? It looked endless. I ran this mile too fast in an effort to get out of the wind. I spend some time during this the mile cursing my friend Dana for convincing me to do this.

Mile Three: What’s up with this giant hill? We live in Winnipeg, dammit! Why didn’t they just route the course around it, it wouldn’t have been hard to do that? A pacer passes me and tells me to keep my shoulders down, they’ve already been riding up high and tense from the cold. His advice helps me relax a bit though.

Mile Four: A fairly uneventful mile through the trees. One small hill and quite a few twists and turns. Pretty. Until…

Miles Four & Five: Grant Avenue. Oh. My. God. This was a almost a 1/2 mile up one side of the street, than crossing and running back up the other side. Which meant ice pellets whipping one side of your face, then ice pellets whipping the other side of your face. At this point I almost said “Fuck this,” and wandered off the course to somewhere warm, but I didn’t have any money, so I was kind of stuck finishing this damn race.

Mile Six: Back in the trees and onto Assiniboine Park. Not so bad. Not feeling like I want to end it all, the way I did a mile ago. At this point, I notice that my lips are numb, like ‘At the Dentist’ numb and hope I don’t have frostbite on my face. Start holding my gloved hands up to my cheek and mouth every couple minutes.

Mile Seven: Fairly uneventful. Felt reasonably strong here and passed someone. A race photographer told me he liked my jacket. I amused myself by thinking about how much my friend Shannon would hate this race (so cold!).

Mile Eight: Part of this ran through the Park parking lot, which was pretty covered in snow. I ended up running off the beaten path here a bit, as the fresh snow gripped better than the mushed up snow from previous runners.

Mile Nine: I forgo yet another aid station (didn’t stop at all this race) in order to keep up my speed. Choose to instead draw sustenance from the snot that’s dripping directly from my nose into my mouth. Snot is the body’s own Gatorade apparently.

Mile Ten: I get back on Grant Avenue here (it’s mainly an out-and-back course) and so much snow has drifted onto the sidewalk in the last hour or so that I say, “Screw it,” and walk about 30 seconds to give my legs a rest. Then I run the rest of the mile because I want to get out of the heinous wind as fast as possible.

Mile Eleven: Uneventful. Getting majorly fatigued, but other than a short walk I managed to keep up the pace here.

Mile Twelve: That stupid hill again! Ended up walking up it and just burning up the trail on the way down to make up the time. After which I once again faced The Endless Field of Endlessness. Managed to pour it on a bit, surprisingly.

Mile Thirteen + Point One: Back in the forest, feeling a bit better after a quick walk. I walked only to conserve my energy for the final hill, only to realize that the last part of the race actually routes around it. Wasted time, dang! At some point, the 2:15 pacer sprints past me and I think, “Aww, I’ve blown it again,” (as this happened at the end of the Vegas Half as well). I notice there’s no one with him though and it looks like the rest of his group dropped off so he decided to just gun it to the finish. I decide to follow his lead and manage to get myself a 2:14 for my troubles.

So all in all, a 2:14 in those conditions ain’t half bad! It’s a 7 minute personal best and improvement from December’s half marathon in Vegas. In better weather, I think I could’ve dropped another few minutes, but my legs were really tired and my mental state was… not so great. My ambitious goal is to get really close to 2 hours in the Police Half in May. It’s on my home turf, so hopefully that will present an advantage!

This illustration was inspired by a couple of friends who had to have heart surgery in the last few months. It was a surprising thing, as both are around my age (under 30), however luckily both of them are on the mend with no serious repercussions (I believe!). At any rate, everything can be fixed. The image is meant as both a literal and metaphorical interpretation of mending one’s heart.

RUNNING GOALS

So most of my goals this year are running related. I think it’s easier for me to post these since they’re a bit more quantifiable than other life goals.

1. Run more consistently
Trying to build up my base mileage to a bare minimum of 20 miles per week, preferring to be closer to 30 miles per week. I was at around 25mpw before the half marathon last year, but that was short-lived. Currently I tend to do about 60 miles a month, which isn’t really enough to show improvement.

2. Run 1000 miles this year
This is simple enough and relates to the previous goal. If I can make the previous goal, then this one pretty much comes with the package.

3. Run FASTER
I’m already working on this one by mixing in some tempo, interval and 5k pace workouts. I’ve already chopped about 0.5mph off my pace time and I’m hoping to get to an average 6.5mph speed by the end of the year. Which leads me to…

4. Run a less-sucky half marathon
Yeah, I already ran one. And I enjoyed it. But man, I find my time so embarrassing that I’m hesitant to even talk about it with people. There were a number of reasons, most of them probably based on the fact that this was my first race. So this year, whether it’s the Manitoba Half or an alternate one, I want to get a better time. Even if I decide not to race, I plan to at least run the distance at a much faster pace.

LIFE GOALS

1. Have more fun
I feel like this is a constant goal for me. I always have a good time when I go out, but lately things have been holding me back. I let other people’s moods affect me too much, which in turn affect my social priorities. Me staying home and being miserable won’t make the other person feel any worse or have any sympathy for me (obviously), so why make myself upset? Life is so short, wasting my time sitting around sulking when I could be having fun is stupid.

2. Stop over-thinking everything
A big contributor to my unhappiness is the massive analysis I seem to HAVE to do for every event, every word, every action. I feel I’m able to shrug off some things, but I really spend way too much time worrying about people’s emotions and feelings. I’m not vowing to be insensitive, just vowing to spend less time thinking about other people’s motivations.

WORK GOALS

1. Draw more
Just want to submit a bit more to iStockphoto and work on more custom illustration projects (though some of that is up to chance).

2. Just get things done
I put stuff off mostly because I worry about doing the best possible job on things. I think the key is to, as Nike so eloquently put it, “Just Do It”. I have enough talent that I’m probably not going to disappoint people even if I don’t feel it’s my best work. And most clients would probably rather have their stuff done faster anyway.

3. Improve my web skills
This is kind of a given. Despite my reluctance to do them, I still continue to get web design jobs, so I might as well have an easier time doing them.

4. Be more responsive to emails/requests
Whenever I have a new client contact me, I almost always seem to sit on it for a few days. Why? Do I have some kind of problem with making money?

I feel like I may be forgetting some goals, so I may update this post or add a new one somewhere along the line. Honestly, 2010 really sucked the butt as far as personal achievement or growth goes, so let’s hope 2011 works out better! What are your 2011 goals? Feel free to post them in the comments!

Got a tree or garland to decorate but short on cash? Or maybe you’re just looking for something a little different? Consider filling a tree with these origami sparrows! Pattern and more, after the jump.

Sure, a lot of us have seen (and love) those porcelain origami crane ornaments, but who’s got $15 (or more) to spend on them, especially if, like me, you’d want an entire flock of them? Hence my simple solution to make your own. You can place a few here and there for a modern, handmade touch or fill a whole tree with them for impact. Grab a pdf for the design HERE and print away!

The pattern for this type of bird is very simple and I’ve included the pattern with a set of two small folding sheets for you to cut out. The detailed toile-esque sparrow pattern on these sheets is an original Sam Posnick creation and you’re welcome to use it for your own personal Christmas ornaments.

Merry Christmas and happy folding!

More of my illustrations can be seen and purchased at iStockphoto.

Boyfriend Nik & Friends (and myself) have plans to attend the Wine Festival on Saturday. If I can keep my wits about me that day, I’ll gladly come back with a review.

Caught this over on Geekologie and had to post it here and give props to the artist, iri5 on Flickr. It’s part of the Ghost in the Machine series, which also features Bob Dylan, Ian Curtis, and Jim Morrison. Just thought this was rather clever and a cool way to use old cassette tapes, provided they don’t contain Journey’s Greatest Hits (destroying those would be sacrilege). Nice work!

This blog will be an outlet for me to post about my favourite things, least favourite things, and stuff I find neat and interesting, as well as updates on what I’m doing. I’ll be more seriously blogging in the weeks to come.  I’m just posting this as a note to warn those of you who have stumbled upon the site now that it is still seriously under construction (insert little construction/man shoveling animated gif here), but it will be completed soon. Mind you, I think it will always be a work in progress.

In the meantime, feel free to browse the site and use the contact form to get in touch with me if you have any questions or comments!