Liebster Blog Award

As the days are passing by and I am getting lazier and squishier with each and every one of them, eating candy and chocolate to keep my stress level afloat, it comes in handy that I was nominated by Sam from "Breaking my Runners In" (thank you!) for the Liebster Blog Award so I don't have to give my brain too much of a workout in writing a post. Don't worry, I am not in the race to win anything, but it's a way of spreading the love forward amongst us underdog fitness bloggers. This award is for bloggers with less than 200 followers (hiya, all 5 of you!) who deserve some recognition and support to keep on blogging (that's me, whee!). The rules are as following:

So here we go:

1. POST 11 FACTS ABOUT YOURSELF (I used to have 100 of those when I first started blogging 10 years ago, where are they when I need them?)

• I am an only child
• I was born in Romania where I lived for 15 years, then moved with my parents to France after the fall of the communist regime, where I lived for another 10 years. In 2000 I moved to Canada with my hubbs and so far, I don't have any plans for moving again. :-)
• I can solve the Rubik's cube in about 90 sec, I learned when I was 12, but I am getting rusty and need to practice regularly so I don't forget.
• I practiced volleyball and taekwon-do competitively when I was younger and more agile. I can also play a mean ping-pong.
• I wear a fancy title at work, but I am still a goof at heart and I fight for being taken seriously.
• My blood type is B+, so is my hubbs'. I keep on wondering what my kids' blood types are.
I would like to donate blood, but nobody wants it because I lived in France and I am a potential mad cow disease carrier.
• I saw Guns'n Roses, Supertramp, Paul Mc Cartney,  Madonna, Shania Twain, Vanesa Paradis and U2 in concert.
• My favorite still cartoon characters are Calvin and Hobbes, my favorite cartoon character is Wyle E. Coyote.
• I knitted a sweater for my teddy bear when I was 12
• When I was 8 months pregnant with my first child I was selected for a French TV show where I had to guess 6 people's hobbies/jobs. The show's name was "Qui est Qui?" (Who's Who?). I was the winner of the show and took home 20,000 Francs and a Carribean vacation that I couldn't go to, for being pregnant at the time. I still haven't been to a Carribean vacation, ever.
• I would like to learn how to juggle, but I know there are some things that I will never be good  at, such as juggling, or playing a musical instrument. I am totally fine with it.
• I hate vanilla scent. I also discovered in the past 2 years that I was allergic to perfume and fumes and I get asthma attacks because of it. No perfume around me please, not even scented candles.

2. ANSWER 11 QUESTIONS FROM YOUR NOMINATOR

• Are you a folder or a crumpler? 
I only fold my fitness clothes and PJs because they go in a drawer. The rest of my wardrobe is on hangers, so the question does not apply. I also fold my towels and sheets, but I don't care about fitted sheets, which can be crumpled at will.
• What is your favourite type of fiction?
I like crime/mystery stories and not-too-far-in-the-future sci-fi. For those who are familiar with French literature, I own every single one of Rene Barjavel's books.
• What is your favourite thing for dinner, either at home or when you go out to eat?
At home, hubbs' lasagna, the best I've ever had. I am not very fond of restaurant food, but I find Boston Pizza's salmon and spinach salad very tasty. I can hardly say no to a good steak, but if I go to the Keg, I usually have that with shrimp and steamed vegetables.
• Have you ever gone to the bathroom in the bushes on a run?
Yes, I do it all the time, last time was during the Toronto Marathon, you can notice it on my Runkeeper GPS trace around km 30. I have no shame.
• Coffee or tea
Coffee in the morning (with milk and sugar) and herbal mint tea after 3pm.
• What month do you wish it was all year round?
I am pretty fond of September. Perfect temperature, pretty colors, my birthday.
• Do you dress up at Halloween?
It depends on the mood. I seems that every 3-4 years I feel like dressing up and I get pretty involved in the process. One time, I was a very ugly witch complete with prosthetic nose and plaster and makeup all over my face (nobody recognized me), another time a punk rocker with a mohawk and a mean attitude and just yesterday, a funny/creepy clown with full makeup and polkadots and rainbows everywhere.

Hope you are not scared of clowns

• Do you cross train?
I love Yoga, so for a triathlete who already does swimming and biking regularly, that probably qualifies as cross training. I prefer hot and sweaty yoga to the zen and mellow kind. I also do some strength training exercises with dumbbells and body weight stuff, plus planks/crunches when I feel motivated enough.
• Do you still live in the same city as where you were born?
Nope, see the 11 facts about me above.
• What did you want to be when you 'grew up'?
When I was not yet a grown up, I wanted to be a biologist, but since I grew up, I also considered becoming a professional photographer and a police officer. Nope, I am not any of these.
• What is your favourite brand of running gear?
I am not loyal to any brand in particular because I am rather thrifty and many times I would just pick up from a thrift store what fits me. I have been quite impressed with the fabrics from Nike, the shoes from Adidas and New Balance, the bottoms from Sugoi and the bras from Champion (almost no chaffing, yay!). 

3. NOMINATE 11 OTHER BLOGS WITH UNDER 200 FOLLOWERS AND ASK THEM 11 QUESTIONS (in no particular order)

• Read.Write.Run.Mom
• 21 Days
• Project Iron
• Carol Levesque's Blog
• just a jaunt around the block...
• Cavegirl on the run
• A whole lot of soles
• Run.Write.Race

May have more than 200 followers, but highly recommended:

• run this amazing day
• Sub-three
• Mission to a(nother) marathon
• Ann's running commentary

11 QUESTIONS TO MY NOMINEES

• What is your favorite distance to run, swim, bike, or all three, and why?
• What inspired you to include fitness in your lifestyle?
• What movie made you cry, if any?
• What gets you going in the morning?
• What is your favorite pair of running shoes?
• What is the most daring thing you've ever done?
• Do you have a life goal that you're still chasing?
• Favorite ice cream flavour?
• Do you have a favorite pre-race breakfast?
• Who is your biggest fan?
• If you were to motivate someone to get off the couch and start exercising, what would you tell them?

Perpetually Moving Target

Where did Riri run to? Well, somewhere in the archives of the intertubes I suppose... it was time to retire this Riri ever since Rihanna took over the nickname and everything that pops out of the archives when it comes to running is her running away from BF Chris Brown, the days when she's not back with him for more anyway.

See, when I decided to return to blogging, the first thing Blogger asked me you to do was to choose a blog name. I was in the middle of a major brain fart and technically I wanted to keep the same blog address I had before so I moved a few things around and simply renamed my old blog "Riri's Brain Dump" into "Run Riri Run". Not very original, I know, but fact is, "Run Lola Run" is one of my most favorite movies ever and after all, this blog was going to be about my running, so what the fart!

But now, since I'm in full triathlon mode and it's no longer just about my or Rihanna's running around, I figured that I needed to upgrade. I thought about making it "Swim Bike Run Riri Swim Bike Run", but that seemed a bit over the top, so I went looking for an answer in my geeky brain instead. My neurons lit up at the idea of "Perpetuum Mobile" thanks to my new life motto - "keep moving", but since Wikipedia puts more emphasis on the musical term than the physical concept, I was left with the disambiguated "Perpetual Motion" translation to work with.

A perpetual motion machine (PMM) is a device based on mechanical, chemical, electrical or other physical processes which, when started, will remain in operation forever and provide additional work as well. Only the natural wear of the components will eventually stop its operation.

A machine made of Iron, maybe?

Most of the days, I feel that I am running after a life goal in the hope that it will make me a better person. Something that as soon as I get to touch, becomes something else. A moving target, a game of tag, you're it! And I, too, become a moving target in the process. A perpetually moving target, that is.

QED

The happiest I've ever been

Today. For no particular reason. That is all.

Step Ahead Podcast Guest and a few Salty Facts

A few weeks ago I was invited by Chris Luckhardt and Carol Levesque to be their first guest on the Step Ahead podcast. It was a great experience and to my surprise I managed to contain my nervousness and not screw up too many English words. Overall it looked like I was on drugs as I was giggling uncontrollably, but to tell you the truth, I was really excited and happy to talk about running (which makes me happy to begin with). There is video too!!

Most memorable brain slips : "neutral" vs "natural", "forfeit" (do you even say that for a marathon race?), "running" vs "run" (not quite sure when to use which), "well..." (at some point in time it seemed that I was starting all sentences with it), getting my Adidas shoes models backwards (the most recent being the adiSTAR Ride 3 and the older one, most comfortable, the Supernova Glide 2).

Last but not least, you may have wondered : "running better because of the salt"?? What in hell is she talking about? Did she really say that? Well... (hehe) I dunno. I was thinking that maybe the salt in the air was helping increase performance as there must be a highest concentration of it along the ocean. After all, salt is good for runners, right? I remember when I was a kid, growing up in Romania, I visited this salt mine that was a few hundred meters underground and that had a running track. Many of the Romanian athletes were going there to train because of... the salt? The naturally purified air? I have to find proof that works, if it's not more than an old belief. But given the large number of world records established by Romanian athletes when I was a kid, maybe there is some truth to that. Or steroids. Nah, that can't be it. Where is my Romanian pride, dammit?

There you go, found an article about the salt mine Salina Veche (Unirea) in Wikipedia:

After 1970, the mine becomes a touristic objective, offering exceptional natural conditions as a result of its microclimate rich in aerosols, which proved its well known efficiency in treating the respiratory diseases. The air-conditioning of the mine is natural, with a constant temperature during the whole year of 12 °C, an atmospheric pressure of 730 mmHg and a humidity with an average of 10% lower than the surface average.

[...] Some of the mine chambers were transformed in sport courts where athletes perform their trainings.