ottawa 2014 (aka doing all of my favorite things, but in canada!)

Ladies & gentlemen, I have, at last, a shiny brand new MacBook (my first mac!) to replace my poor old Sony, which is definitely in the twilight of its lifetime (I'm pretty sure you can hear the death rattle when it kicks on, these days).  Part of my bargain with myself when I handed over the paltry $2000 sum was that I would get back to all of the things I used to use my old beloved computer for - namely blogging.

Scarf Head & Pouty Helmet Face on the Canal.

Last weekend I took a little mini-vacation out to Ottawa to visit my friend Deiss & her husband, skate on the Rideau Canal, eat lots and lots of pancakes (and drink lots of beer), and also get in a little bridge run (she's much more of a runner than I am, so she was an amazing running buddy!).  Admittedly I've been a little bit lax with my fitness over the holidays, so it was awesome to have a vacation so full of activity (I like to think it did at least a LITTLE bit to balance out all the beer we drank and pancakes we ate).

Friday morning we went for a 15.6k skate up and down the entire length of the canal (the full distance you can skate when the entire thing is open is 7.8k) - it was the absolute most perfect day, and it didn't even feel like we were working out!  It snowed the entire time (hence my super attractive head scarf, meant to keep the snow from melting all over my hair, as I am a big vain jerk sometimes), which made it even prettier.  We ended up going back on Sunday as well, for a quick 5k skating jaunt.  The coolest part of it was seeing people skating by with backpacks & briefcases, using the canal as a means to get to school and work - I would LOVE to be able to skate to work every morning!! Mega jealous. Having Deiss as a tour guide was awesome too - she taught me all about the history and the maintenance of the canal & was able to point out all the coolest attractions.  Ever since coming home I've been absolutely craving putting my skates back on, even just at an indoor rink.  Skating that much worked up a huge appetite, so we headed out to the Pancake Shack, which is my new very favorite thing - a food truck that cooks up amazing breakfast sandwiches between two buttermilk pancakes.  I highly recommend Babe the Blue Ox & The Campfire, for any Ottawa locals who may have found their way here!  Shout out to my Pancake Shack buddies, from your biggest Detroit fan :)

Heading into Downtown Ottawa, about 2.4k up the canal from here. An absolute perfect day for skating!

Ottawa did not come without beer, either - after breakfast, Deiss and Pav took me across the water to the Quebec side to hit up Brasseur du Temps (where I tried every high gravity beer they had - go figure - and especially and surprisingly loved Grande Riviere, a Belgian style cranberry blonde), and then back to Ontario to Beyond the Pale, where literally EVERY beer was a new delicious sort of hop explosion in my mouth.  It was also really cool to see a smaller, newer brewery's setup (I got to walk through the back and take a little tour of the operations) - with any luck, someday I'll have one of my own!!  After all that beer we went back to the homestead where Pav cooked us the best Indian meal I've ever eaten in my life (you had me at oysters & horseradish, but that fish curry, though...), and we all stuffed ourselves full of more beer and more food that I thought could actually fit in me, and then went to bed early to prepare for our Saturday adventure!

Beautiful view from the bridge on our Sunday run!

Deiss is a big runner (much more so than I am!), and one of the reasons I think I'm so disinclined to become a true "runner" myself is because I get bored with it.  Maybe I just haven't found my inner running zen yet, but one of the reasons I was so excited about this trip is because I knew I'd get to go running with a runner buddy!  Not only that, but she had a beautiful route planned out for us - an early morning ~4k bridge run!  Part of me thinks I would love running a whole lot more if I had beautiful scenery like this to keep me going - Michigan is beautiful, no doubt, but where I live is so suburban any route you could run is basically trees...cars...more trees...

We clocked in at about 34 minutes for those 4k, but we stopped to take pictures on the bridge, again at the end of it, and again at the giant spider statue on the way back, so I think our average pace was pretty much in line with my usual 5ks!

Neither of us look our finest, but we're both thrilled at our morning run opportunity!

After the run I felt great - we came home to shower and then headed out to take in an Ottawa Senators game (the home team lost, as per usual, and I neglected to proclaim MINE ALL MINE in front of their giant Daniel Alfredsson tribute on the concourse...but we did get free Hockey Day in Canada hats, so all was not lost!  The evening took us to Brothers Beer Bistro, which was just incredible - from the beer flight, to the charcuterie & carpaccio appetizers, to the duck & octopus entree, to the peanut butter chocolate dessert, some of the absolute best prepared food & service I've ever experienced.

WILL RUN FOR PANCAKES!

Overall the whole trip went off without one single hitch - Pav had made us a perfect weekend agenda and everything could not have been smoother.  I hadn't seen Deiss in over 6 years, so it was SO awesome to catch up and see how much we'd both changed (and how oddly - but awesomely - similar we'd become!!).  I couldn't have asked for a better 4 days & I want to thank my wonderful hosts again for having me and treating me to all kinds of amazing things.  Your hospitality was absolutely incredible.

We of course also made plans to meet up again soon - namely in June, to run Spartan Race together in Ottawa, hit up some Montreal breweries (DIEU DU CIEL!!!!!!!), and enjoy some awesome Canada Day home cooking on their Tandoor grill.  (And, of course..........more pancakes.)

Now of course I'm back home & realizing how the results of all of my extravagant indulgences the past few weeks...it's back to fruits & veggies & the gym for this girl.  Time to give all those pancakes & beer a rest!

Up next.....my current batch of beer, & a tentative 2014 race schedule!

QUESTION OF THE DAY: What are your go-to vacation indulgences?  Do you try to balance them out by squeezing in some travel fitness, or do you consider a vacation a free pass to indulge?