Going Long

I'm kind of struck this morning at the congruence between mind and body.

Wednesday AM:  Body feeling amazing!  Mind soaring!  Newly paved Annette St on fire from Rob's running shoes!  6k in 32 minutes!

Sunday AM:  Body feeling like crap!  Mind fading!  Hanging on to the ropes in the 5th round of a 12-round heavyweight fight!  29k in 3 hours 16 minutes!

Is this really the way that training is supposed to be?

I'd like to change my nickname from the current Rock Star Rob (RSR) to the more apt Positive Split Rob (PSR).  And someday, after getting through an entire training schedule without a crummy run, I will graduate to Negative Split Rob (NSR).

Here's hoping . . .

Hills tonight, 7 repeats plus 1/2 of the loop beginning the route back to the store. 

It was a bit cold and windy, but once we got under way I forgot all about the weather.

Ate those hills for breakfast.  Mmmmmm.

Let's keep it going Friday (10k), Saturday (6k), Sunday (29k) . . .

Nice run home on Friday afternoon.  I'm really enjoying this time each week.  Leaving downtown and work behind, on the trail pretty much by myself the whole way back.

Twilight looking out over the Western Beaches is quite beautiful, accentuated by the blinking of headlights and tail lights along Lakeshore Blvd and the Gardiner.  There are soooo many people trying to pile out of the City at once on a Friday at 5:15 pm.  I feel very lucky to be doing it on foot!

Special bonus today . . . Christine appeared at the daycare with the car at 5:55 pm.  A very audible sigh of relief on my part.  The running part is so easy on Friday.  The snowsuits, boots, stuffies, artwork, diapers and kidlets and walking home is the tough part. :-)

First 20-miler.  On a hell of a morning.  Temp -10C by the thermometer outside our kitchen window.  Winds gusting to 70 km/h.  Wind chill in the -16C range.  That's about -2F if you're keeping score in Utah.

I had a really hard time on the out- part of the out-and-back route.  After getting out of the treed residential areas of central Etobicoke, it was really really cold.  Not one stick of a wind break along Eglinton Ave W or on Matheson Blvd up by Hwy 401.   Low rise industrial zones don't to much to keep the wind off.  I guess it's a saving grace that I wasn't running downtown.  Wind tunnel effect would have put me airborne.

This was a scouting trip for the first 1/3 of the RSR marathon and relay on January 18.  I'll be hoping for a calm day.  I knew the route would be desolate - up through Mississauga and Brampton - to my parent's house for a well deserved breakfast.  I'm not sure my pacers have any idea of the pain that they may be in for.  Oh well, I'm thinking they'll each do 1/4 of the route while I'll have to do the whole thing.  Makes me think that I am the one who doesn't realize the pain I'm in for.  :-)

Today was a good dry run.  Dressed well.  Fully hydrated.  Nearly broke some teeth trying to bite into my Luna bars.  They were frozen solid. 

If you can believe it, the toughest part was right near the end near home, on a little side street that had not been plowed overnight.  Only about three blocks, but really slippery and felt like I was not getting any grip and momentum going forward.  I cruised through a stop sign and these young guys rolled down their window and said I'd missed it!  I said, "If I had stopped, I would have never started up again."  They laughed at the crazy runner out on the coldest, snowiest day of the year so far . . .

The french toast for breakfast makes me think of the cold quite a bit less!

Slippy, slidy, crunchy, snowy.  And that was all in the first three strides I made this morning!

Ah, the joys of winter running in Canada.  Makes me realize why I don't do any trail running in the summer.  They say that the effort you put out for trail running is about 1.5 times the effort of road running.  I think that algorithm works pretty well for road running in the snow and ice.  So, I feel like I ran 15k instead of the 10k distance I actually did this morning.

To really avoid the rough stuff on the sidewalk, I'll need to stay on the edges of the roadway more.  That means earlier rising, so I can run when there is no traffic on the road.  Today I was up at 6:05 am, out the door at 6:25, but did the bulk of my run after 7 am.  Way too many commuters around for my taste.

Good to get out this morning, though.  Just didn't have it in me to go in the rain last night.  I seem to be missing some of my practice runs lately.  I'll have to be more diligent and stick to the program a bit more closely. 

May all your winter miles be sunny and dry.

Another great night on the switchback loop.  8 repeats and then one more half loop to begin the cool down run toward the store.  I felt so good I picked it up a bit on the way back. 

The road was dry and traffic on the loop was light.  The faster runners in the clinic were great pacers.  I was losing a small amount of distance to them for the first three or four repeats, maybe four strides per trip.  Then I noticed that they were slowing down, while I was remaining steady at just under 5 minutes per loop.

I nearly caught them on the last go-around, but thought it might be bad form to zip past them on the last repeat.  Kept a respectful, but close distance behind them, and enjoyed the fact that I had a great night.

Got back to the store and found a few of my peeps for a cool down at Starbucks.  Talked details about the first RSR Marthon and Relay coming up in January.  Sounds like they are excited, I just *HOPE* it is a nice day for a run!  Weather is unpredictable in January.  Dee assures me it will be sunny, warm and calm.  Who am I to argue??  :-)

Got out very late this evening - after 9:30 pm.  Managed to put in my scheduled 10k and had a pretty good run.  Everything is feeling suspiciously easy the last few days, don't know if I've moved beyond some physical or mental barrier into a plateau of "everything clicking".  My race is still six weeks away, lots of runs between now and then.  I never count on anything being easy, so "we'll see"(tm).

OK run this morning.  The weather (mostly) held off, only a few raindrops and ice pellets near the end of the run.

A rather blah route - all the way down Queen St from Parkdale through West Queen West, Queen West, Downtown then Queen East.  Down Parliament St and all the way back on King St.

The office towers blocked out my GPS signal for a few kms in the heart of the city, so I really wasn't sure what my meterage and pace were really like.  I had a feel that I hadn't done enough when I got back to High Park, so I extended by 3km up Windermere and finally returning to the store by Bloor St.  Still 1km short according to MapMyRun, which I just input my run on.

23k was a bit of a respite today.  Back up toward 32k in the next couple of weekends.  Only a few weeks after that will be the RSR Marathon & Relay.  Stay tuned . . .

I've missed several Tuesday mornings in a row, so it was good to get out there and do a Tempo run early in the week.

After the rain, snow, ice that's been around for most of the past three weeks, it was kind of eerie to be out on completely dry streets!  We had a bit of a thaw on the weekend (9C/50F) so it was very sure footing, even in the darkness of 6 am.

Alas, the outlook is for 5-10cm of snow tonight, so I may need to break out the YakTrax tomorrow morning. 

I see only four more weeks of full running on my schedule, followed by a week of tapering before race day.  Doesn't seem possible how fast the last three months have flown by.

A rare Wednesday night appearance for me at the Running Room.  The snow was a bit much this morning, and so I figured I'd get out in the evening when the roads were mostly wet, vs mostly slippy!

Had a great run with Neb and Paul.  Neb has such a great cadence, pace and outlook on "the running thing".  I like talking with him a lot.  Paul is on the mend from chickenpox, so he's still we'll below 100%. 

It was great to sit with Victoria, then Dee and Scott and just catch up.  One of the problems of running without my peeps is not following what everyone is doing.  That should change when the next clinic starts up at the end of January.

Hills tomorrow.  Yip yip yip!

The last clinic night for a couple of weeks, as there will be no meeting on Christmas night or New Year's night.  It's making me realize that I'll have to go out of my way to make sure that I get out for my runs over the holidays.  It shouldn't be a problem, as I have most of the next two weeks off work . . . but lethargy DOES set in.

So, I said goodbye to hills for another couple of months tonight.  Did 8.5 loops of my hill routine, and maintained an even pace throughout.  Just me and Serena tonight, the rest of the group have done an "extended-bail" until after the holidays.   I think they live far from the store, and it's hard for them to get there for practice.  I hope they're doing homework on their own . . .

Saw EG for a minute at Starbucks this evening.  She's talking about coming back regularly in the new year.   A promotion at work put her MIA since September.  She signed up for Around the Bay already, so she'll have to get it together to complete the 30k at the end of March.

Dee was talking about the Sporting Life 10k tonight.  I'm a bit queasy about putting a 10k run in during the marathon schedule when I'll be at much higher long run distances.  I guess it might break up the monotony, but then again, it could be an injury-inducing mistake.  I have to think on that a bit.

15-25cm of snow on the way, beginning in the AM and lasting all day.  I need to put 10k in sometime tomorrow, and I'm wondering when will be a good time.  We'll see how things look in the morning.

29k

-15C windchill

Mucky muck

:-(

:-)

Wet and slushy 6k on Christmas Eve morning.

Wanted to quit it at 5k due to the ugly footing and even uglier time, but kept going because I've never quit a run when I wasn't injured.

Clarification: I haven't quit a run in good health since I started up this "bout" of running in August 2007. 

I have a lingering memory of heading out with a very speedy group of 10k'rs out on a long run after slacking on my homework for weeks.  Ended up quitting running altogether that morning on Colbeck.  I think it was c. summer of 2002(?)

Started again in Spring 2005 with a great group of peeps, but that slice of the sport ended with a heel injury peparing for the Ottawa Half in May 2006.

Tried picking it up again in October 2006, only to postpone my comeback with Jamie's birth in November 2006.

Finally made it back (this time for keeps) [crossing fingers] in August 2007.

I'm sure I will quit and start again at some point in the future . . . Life is Life.

Brisk 10k on Christmas night in the suburbs. Had to adjust my route as the walking/biking trails were glazed over with chunky ice from the freeze-thaw cycle during the day. Highlight was the 1 1/2 laps of the Bramalea City Centre. Deserted malls leave wide and dry roads to run on.

We're visiting Ottawa for the holidays, and managed to get out for my final long run of this training sched. Overcast to start the morning, but windy and rainy for the last four clicks. Side streets were skating rinks, so I had to stay on the main roads. Traffic was pretty light on Sunday morning. Good run, but I'm not sure if I'll be out Tuesday. Only brought one set of running clothes, and the are still nasty from the run. No easy access to a washer/dryer while we are away.

Ccccccoooold this evening, but it put me through the fastest tempo run of the past few months.

Avg pace was 5:08 per km! Awesome.

Must have been the new undergarments I picked up today. New Goretex socks (yes!), new wind shorts, new compression jersey.

See what happens without vacation access to washer & dryer! Especially after a the bitter drenching I took on Sunday morning.