Oiselle #birdcamp2015

I had the opportunity to attend Oiselle‘s 2015 edition of #birdcamp in Leavenworth, Washington.  It was such a special weekend and I’ve struggled with how to recap it!

Friday

I flew into Seattle early on Friday morning.  I met up with some fellow teammates at the airport and once everyone had arrived we hopped on a bus and made our way to University Village to visit Oiselle‘s brand new flagship store.

photo via Oiselle

We didn’t have a ton of time so I wanted to take the opportunity to try on a few items to get a feel for sizing.  FYI, I used to wear a large in the Distance shorts, now the 8 is a perfect fit.  Sadly the new Verra and Bra-Zen bras are a no go for my 34Ds.  I grabbed some Stance socks and some Picky Bars, some lunch from Evolution Fresh, and then we were on our way to Leavenworth.

photo via Thomas and Velo Photography

Once we made our way to the Sleeping Lady Resort it was time to check in and collect some amazing swag from some wonderful sponsors.

Many thanks to nuun, Wild Friends, Run Gum, Picky Bars and Stance socks for all of the goodies!  I can’t wait to share my thoughts on these products later!

There was some light stretching from Jasyoga to help loosen us up after being cramped in airline, car and bus seats all day.

photo via Thomas and Velo Photography

After dinner at the resort we were introduced to the Haute Volée athletes with us at camp and broke up into small groups to talk a bit about our goals for this year.  I can’t wait to share more thoughts on this later!

Friday

I started the morning off with some meditation courtesy of Jasyoga.  As I work on my mental toughness and confidence going into next season I would like to incorporate mediation into my life a bit more.  I also had a chance to touch base with the awesome Kristin Metcalf and Canada’s own Haute Volée, Catherine Watkins.

photo via Thomas and Velo Photography

It has been great to see how much the Oiselle team has grown up in Canada in the last few years.  When I joined the team two years ago it was just myself and one other person representing Canada.  We’ve now grown to about 40 people over all of Canada so that is really exciting!

We had the opportunity to listen to Jay Dicharry, a physiotherapist and author of Anatomy for Runners, how to be strong and train our body to be durable for running.  He introduced us all to the lacrosse ball, one of the best tools to help unstick things and improve our mobility.

photo via Thomas and Velo Photography

On Saturday evening we ran a team 5K near the resort.  We had the option to predict our time and run without a watch if we wanted.  I chose to wear the watch because I love data!  It is easy to get intimidated when you line up with a bunch of your super speedy teammates but ultimately the goal was to have fun no matter what your speed!

photo via Thomas and Velo Photography

I kept the pace for the 5K comfortably hard and wound up running much of the race with my teammate Laura.

photo via Thomas and Velo Photography

Apparently I even ran past a bear just off the race course but I never even noticed it!

photo via Thomas and Velo Photography

I finished in 29:42 and felt pretty happy with my effort.  It was so fun!

Sunday

This was long run day!  Luckily there were a few other ladies around the same pace who wanted to run a similar distance so Andrea, Beth, Alicia, Laura and I took off in search of our run location together.  We struggled to figure out where we were supposed to park and start our run so we did what anyone on social media would probably do.  We stopped the car, got out and took a selfie to commemorate the moment!

We finally figured things out and started our run which was going right up a big mountain!

At the turn around it was time for a jumping shot!

Plus a shot with my Winona tank twinsie Andrea.

We turned around and ran down the mountain and made our way into the town of Leavenworth.

We were starved from our endeavour so we found a plus that served waffles and coffee for breakfast.  It was just what we needed!  I had so much fun running with these ladies and I wish that we all lived closer.  They would make great training friends!

In the afternoon my teammate Allie and I made our way to the outdoor pool for a quick swim.

The smoke was rolling in so the air quality was deteriorating.  It was also a pretty short window for lane swimming but it felt really good to be in the water again.  You can’t beat a beautiful outdoor pool!  Plus Roka X1 goggles are awesome!

The rest of Sunday was spent tubing down the river…

photo via Thomas and Velo Photography

And socializing with friends…

photo via Thomas and Velo Photography

photo via Thomas and Velo Photography

Coming up next…a beautiful hike in the Pacific Northwest!