Every morning I wake up before the sun for a run, I’m reminded how lucky I am to be blessed with self-motivation and physically able to waddle about for an hour or so.  Every night I come home in a disheveled state and dinner is cooking, I’m full of gratitude that the man I get to spend my precious life with cares about wholesome living too.

And when a massage is pre-booked. On a Thursday night. For no reason. I fall head-over-heels, madly-in-love all over again …bursting with bliss, drunk on great, FULLness.

My life is good. My man is great. There clearly is no better day than today. xx

I’m heading up to Penticton this year already giddy with joy to watch so many awesome athletes I know rip it up! HUGE mention goes to my very bestest SusieE who has diligently worked her patoot off all year under the direction of her German-Cycling-Machine husband/coach. I can smell the aloha on her already!

My agenda on the other hand is really quite civilized:

Friday:
Leaving work early with SusieG to try to beat the traffic outta town!

Saturday:
8AM – Meeting to ride the course (or at least 160km of the course!). I’m goin’ with the mantra of “you cannot lose that which is divinely yours“. These thighs road the course last year several times and they can ride it again this year! I fully intend on stopping for lunch (or at least water refills!) en route.

4PM – Mandatory Tickleberry’s visit!

5PM – Perhaps a quick visit to Summerland. My friend Trevor (Linden!) recently tweeted about his favorite winery: Silk Scarves – did you catch that? Some Summerland produce (hello canning peaches!) and a box of wine wouldn’t be a bad Saturday night at all!

Sunday:
6:30AM – Thigh deep in the water, front row, BEAMING fan!
7:54AM – Suz will exit with a grin and the rest of the day on land will begin…
8:30AM – SuzG has a 20km speed run…I’ll try to hang on.
10:30AM – On the bike, en route to the top of Yellow Lake for CheerFest 2010!
… followed by a bike ride to spectate the marathon, in all the glory, pain and pride that will inevitable exist out there.

eeeeeeeeek…I cannot wait. Best of luck to everyone racing….may the wind be at your back and the smoke out of your eyes! This is the stuff dreams are made of!

ALOHA!

1. They grow wild. Things that grow wild don’t show up under google maps with location of bushes. Riiiight – i had to suss ‘em out. (There’s no app for that!)
2. When you try to google “blackberry bushes” you get results of blackberry devices now known as PDA’s – not the fruit!
3. Those lil berries are quite complex – far more interesting in texture and flavor than blueberries – and much more difficult to pick!
4. Harder to pluck, jucier the berry!
5. Patience in the summer sun will reaps delicious purple berries on oatmeal in the cold, rainy, winter. #worthit

Laughing, Loving, Living. Husband + Wife!

She married the man of her dreams – the man who waited at the end of the Boston Marathon for her, who loves his family as much as she loves her family and who is addicted to the high of running/namaste of yoga equally.

TeamFab totally honoured to make the guest list!

Honoured because truthfully, I’ve been a crappy, totally removed friend. GUnit has a loyalty, a dedication, a true love of friendship that astounds me. She cares, you know it, she shows it. Always. I’m a self-proclaimed/rehabilitating jerk, with a huge heart of love for the new Mr. & Mrs. Bernard. And clearly, a new sense of what it really means to be a friend!

Happily ever after…go forth and multiply, XO!

In our house we have cash-in-jars (aka ‘cash diet’) -  dropping cash always feels mo’real than swiping plastic.  I took my cash for the week and divided it randomly into 5 different envelops along with an intention card. The envelopes were 5 different colours, they were sealed shut and brought to the office Friday morning for each person on my team.

The instructions were simple: you must leave the office Friday at noon. The envelope was not to be opened until you left the building. The only request was that you go and make someone’s day, with a story to share on Tuesday.

One rockstar chased icecream trucks around town to donate her dollars to ensure the next couple of kids who came for icecream didn’t have to spend their allowance. (Her ad-or-able lil guy was in tow to ensure she didn’t appear crazy – but come on, how awesome!)

Another rockstar took the envelope home for his two year old to open and then proclaimed it was time to go to the Zoo! Other than falling into the lemur tank, the lions took the cake of awesomeness for his lil guy…video to follow!

A sweet sweet soul brought flowers home to her Mama, icecream treats to her buddies working construction under the hot hot sun followed by a brunch date the next morning on her. Unexpected delights always generate smiles.

An islander decided that the Victoria lululemon store could use some love and dropped by with a box of coffee and hours of laughs!

And the lovely one on vacation, insisted on getting an envelope before her plane took off to a family reunion in Northern Ontario where she proceeded to donate her money to her lovely Grandma-in-law. Evidence of awesomeness found here.

Tuesday morning stories had never been sweeter. Because a small dent in one person’s life is all we need to make a bigger dent in the universe… Namaste.

So successfully that he was offered a good chunk of change for his invention:
Sixty million dollars is an outrageous amount of money for a guy who started a company with $1,000 of his own money. I couldn’t fathom it. Just ten years before, I was 33, living in a garage with no bathroom and no heat, bringing home less than $10,000 a year. Now I could be wealthier than anyone I knew. …

That he walked away from, to keep Clif Bar exactly the company he set out to create:
It’s about defining moments. About making the choice to live with passion, guts, integrity, and values.

And shares his awesome story about the power of bike rides:
I ride my bike because I love to be on my bike. I don’t ride just to get to the finish line; what happens on the bike makes the experience…I thrill at the high mountain peaks, the feel of the pedals and gears, the picture-esque villages, the shared loaves of bread, the physical challenges, the being in a space where I can think clearly and to my heart.

It’s a terrific summer read that will get you on your bike, eating Clif Bars, dreamin’ up dreams beyond your wildest imagination!

Three REAL IronLadies! Remarkable athletes, awesome human beings!

That being said, let me be very clear with just how excited I am to head to Penticton for IMC to cheer my chubby bum right off! I plan to ride the bike course on Saturday, eat tickleberry’s icecream and spend a solid 11hrs all over the course on Sunday. If Calgary 70.3 is any indication of the speed in TeamS, they will kill it!

So let me tell you what happens when one isn’t training…

Convince Bro that a hike would be fun? He is the easiest person to enroll in a any adventure!

But a hike would not be complete without several yoga poses along the way. It feels so fitting to both be at lululemon now:)

Yogi Bro + Baby Elephant Sis try to be dancers!

And we all know who the real dancer is! (That was a wobbly tree over very chilly waters!)

Three lakes later and a wonderful short jaunt through the trees, we arrive at the final glacier:

Joffre Lakes...stunning.

Two hours out of town, into the trail where random campers trotted down from a night in a tent and eager beavers (like us!) charged in. Bro and I laughed, caught up, took pictures and solved world problems like only we know how. I adore our proximity in both geography and desire-for-greatness!

To keep the trend of the good life, we met up with other real-good-people for a camping adventure and berry farm pit-stop.:

Sturdy's Farm - where the berries grow wild and the swings generate smiles - in Pemberton, BC.

And we learned to never sleep tooo close to the washroom. But regardless, to always bring Willy! He’d love to think he’s a guard dog – he’ deaf, blind and 100 years old. What he really is is a camping chump – he loves sleeping in a tent and exploring the campsite like he owns it!

Willy on guard - not ready to go home yet!

Armed with amazing new tunes, sun-kissed skin, a relaxed heart rate and happy memories, we made our way back home to complete yet another weekend of adventurous bliss!

Are you sure you really wanna read about this?

…..

You can turn around now…..

……

Just sayin’: you were warned!

Hydro-Colonoscopy! CHANGED! MY! LIFE! (or in the very least, my insides!)
Did you know your colon is FIVE feet long? It is one of the largest internal organs and is closely linked to our brains. It doesn’t get a very good cleaning and typically houses the crap, no pun intended, that our bodies cannot use. Well, let me tell you – 18L of water later, I felt like a different human being.

Tony the great Robbins often speaks about cleansing your mind, body and soul and kick starting that with a colon cleanse. While I appreciated the idea of what he was getting to, lying on a table to allow someone else to perform said-procedure just felt a lil wrong. And two years after searching for just the right experience in Vancouver, one of the coolest people i know (this is where hyperlinking is not appropriate!) exclaimed with JOY that she had her poop shoot cleaned!

So picture this: you are lying on a surf board with a hole large enough for your patoot that sits directly above the toilet. A wee perforated tube (about the diameter of a straw) gets inserted and proceeds to pump 18L of warm water through all 5feet of colon muscle. All water and excess debris exits the body in approximately 30minutes and you stand up feeling like you just finished the Wild Rose Cleanse or did a month of abs.

I left with a new appreciation for everything that I consume and how it either feeds my body or sticks to my colon. I also left with a mind free of food cravings of any nature. In fact, all I fancied was cucumber water and a handful of spinach. This is what was most fascinating to me: to learn how food molecules breakdown and stick to our colons…our brain remembers the pattern in which those molecules (good or bad) attach themselves and then requests that the pattern be repeated. For example: eat a simply carbohydrate, follow it with a simple sugar, both are bad…and then repeat. GACK.

Anyway. I could go on. But I won’t. In my glee of excitement going back for water-party-poop-shoot #2, this crazy story came up at my Bro’s house warming party – in the kitchen of course – and I promised I would blog about it. So ladies, this is for you:)

Teri is your gal! She can be reached via phone 604-732-4101 or email info@highersource.ca
ENJOY;)

Day3: Sombrio Beach to Botanical Beach – 48km + 2km into town

Gooood Morning Day3 - it's SO nice to meet you!

After a walk on the rocks, we found the cliff-to-climb to get back to the trail...(this picture does not do it justice!)

Mid-Climb; Mid-Smile!

Seriously....the waves, the ocean, the rocks...un-believable!

50km later, The End.

I realize these pictures hardly do it justice. The peace, the beauty, the hikes up the hills…it’s a hike worth doing!

Day two started with delicious bowls of oatmeal, americanos and tent collapsing. With a much shorter day on the horizon, we were keen to keep it relaxed.

Day 2: Chin Beach to Sombrio – 8km (HA!) The goal was to get 14km, but at 8km it simply looked far too nice to carry on:)

Morning smiles!

First river crossing of the day - can you see Hawaii in the distance?

Trekking on the very edge of the west coast with the most beautiful beach (Sombrio) in the near distance!

Love this Man! Love this backdrop!

Love my life!

Loved the beach even more than the view of the beach and decided what’s 4km between friends – Sombrio for the night was where we were pitchin’ the tent! 1pm and the day of hiking was over! Yipppeeeeeeeee!

I proceeded to practice savasana for the afternoon on a bed of rocks...

...while Doug made fires!

We marked our territory! Watched the SUPers in action, ate dinner on the beach and watched the sun set on a day of total relaxed, unplugged, BLiSS!

It felt like the most perfect Saturday, in the most beautiful place on earth. Only downside to Sombrio Beach is that it is very accessible by locals, so it was not the most secluded beach we came across on the journey, but that’s okay!

Rested and recovered, we had 20km to go on Day3…