Project 365 – Day 118

Friday April 29, 2011

Run 115

Ah good thing I ran outside yesterday morning. I looked out my office window at 11:00 and was greeted by the sight of fluffy white snow flakes falling to the ground.

And the snow kept coming, by the time I got home This was the view.

Then the weather broke and there was a melt but by 9:00 PM it started again and continued with heavy snow through the night. This is the price that you pay for living close to the mountains.

Bottom line it was a treadmill morning.  I was downstairs in the basement at 6:00 watching hockey highlights and starting a very easy recovery run.  The problem was that the 9:00 min miles that I planned were a little slow. So after about 3 min I picked up the pace to 8:00 min miles and ran for a while, then picked up the pace to 7:30 and finally ran the last 3:10 at sub 7:00.

All in all a good 20 minute run: 20:10, 2.5 Miles.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 117

Thursday April 28, 2011

Run 114.

Today was my last chance to get a high quality outside run in until a week from Sunday.  Single parenting begins today, and society seems to frown upon abandoning your kids to get a goof run in.  Next year I will be able to leave the oldest in charge but alas for the next week it is find a sitter (tough at 5:30 AM) or hit the treadmill (more likely).

I was in bed early (before 10:00 PM) and woke at 4:30 (not so nice), when 5:00 rolled around and I was not getting more sleep I donned the running kit and hit the road.  The plan was to do a nice easy 3 mile run to give some recovery time from yesterdays hard run. I ended up running the same route I ran yesterday but in the reverse direction. It still meant starting out running up hill into a head wind.

I was thinking that when I would be running east at the end of the run and if I tied it right I just might be running into a glorious sunrise.  That did not happen.

Anyway the run was about 3.85 Miles and I finished in 32:30 which is about 2 min slower than yesterday. It was slow enough that I did not feel tired or wheezy at any point in the run all in all a good effort.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 116

Wednesday April 27, 2011

Run 113.

It was a tough call this morning (treadmill or outside) I love running outside but it is the Stanley Cup playoffs and the treadmill offers last nights highlights.

I had an excellent sleep and woke up just before the blaring rappish music came pounding out of the alarm clock. I paused and procrastinated for a while and then decided that maybe an outside run was called for. It was 4 C and the dawn was breaking and it was sort of light outside and running outside feels so damn good.

Given the time constraints in the morning I decided to run a slightly longer route but stick to the roads. It is a cool route with a slight uphill grade for the first half of the run and then a cruise home.

The problem with the low light and my poor and failing eyes is that I can not read my garmin during the run to figure out pace and distance. I was quite surprised to find that I had clocked almost 4 miles in under 30 minutes.  Very nice surprise 3.82 miles – 29:30 A very good run.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 115

Tuesday April 26, 2011

Run 112

Wow, kinda sorta thought that maybe today would be a good day to push a fast run in. I got on the treadmill and cranked out 10 minutes of 8 minute miles. I then started to speed up by .1 mph (10 sec / mile) every minute. I managed to do this until I got into sub 7s then held that for 2 minutes and collapsed.

I was really sucking wind at the end of the 20 minutes but it felt really good to push that effort thru. I did cover more distance (2.6 Miles) in the 20 minutes than I have in a long time.

Woo hooo a good day.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 114

Monday April 25, 2011.

Run 111.

I woke to the sound of the alarm clock buzzing, not the normal mellow music I am used to waking to. My legs were feeling a little sore from the Longish, Hardish run yesterday. I considered kitting up to run outside but thought that my legs might enjoy the softer impact of the treadmill. So down to the basement.

I did a relatively slow start running 9 min miles for the first 10 minutes then cranked it up for the second 10, then cooled down at 9’s for the last minute.

Great Run, covered 2.45 miles in 21:00 minutes, Not bad for an old man.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 113

Sunday April 24, 2011.

Run 110.

Another outside run, this time a group run at the Running Room.  It was Easter Sunday so not a huge turnout.  I was already tired as the girl though 4:45 AM was the appropriate time for the annual Easter egg hunt.

The plan was to run about 12 km (8 Miles), which is what we ran even though I got lost.

At the end of the run we were supposed to run along the bottom of Battalion Park, somehow we ended up running along the top of the park. This means that we climbed a big hill to get to the top but the view was worth it.

The mountains looked really nice with the fresh white snow providing a contrast.  Actually they probably would have looked just as nice from the bottom of the hill.

It was a good run and a hard run for an LSD 8 miles and a bit in 1:07 Not bad.

Plod on.

Project 365 – Day 112

Saturday April 23, 2011.

Run 109.

Two outside running days in a row, wow it really must be spring. I waited for the sun to heat our little portion of the world and then headed out for nice run down to the River and back.  The route is very pretty however in the trees it is still snowy and the footing was downright non existent.

I headed out along the path at the top of the escarpment on the first trail leg of the run. As you can see there is still packed snow and ice on the path thru the trees.

The view of the city is unbelievable especially in the dark. The trail that I had to run is visible running right to left diagonally in the bottom part of the next picture.

This is just a pretty shot of the ice breaking up on the River, nothing says spring like open water. You can see the path running on the opposite side of the river, this is where I was 15 minutes later.

Finally one of my favourite shots of the day.

The pathway runs up the River on the top of the bank at the right.  I crossed the bridge (top of picture) and then ran up the escarpment to this view point.  It was a real challenging run to get here, I had to cross and iced over stream (ice not thick enough = wet feet) then had to haul myself up the path using guardrails as the trail was so ice there was no traction.  There were a couple of dicey moments though.

All in all a very memorable run and a reasonable time. About 5.5 Miles in 54:09 including stops and falls and all.

Plod On.

Project 365 –Day 111

Friday April 22, 2011

Run 108

I finally managed to squeeze a run in an outside run today.  It is Good Friday today, a day off work and and right at 8:00 AM the housekeeper showed up.  We hurriedly packed the kids and headed out for breakfast, (Humpties ugh). Then dropped the girls off at the Science center and headed out Guitar Shopping with the boy.

Problem – Good Friday, stores are not open regular hours, in fact most music stores were not open at all, except guitarworks.  After much driving we figured that out.  So we took the dog for a quick walk and then headed back to Guitarworks when they opened. We were successful, a guitar was bought, and a boy was very happy, and noisy for the rest of the day.

But what this meant was a delay in my run. I finally got out and did a 3.5 mile street run late in the afternoon.  It felt OK, but just to remind me that it was still winterish I came across this on the path.

Pretty but not amusing.  It was an Ok run and nice to run outside in shorts.

Plod On

Project 365 – Day 110

Thursday April 21, 2011.

RUN 107.

I finally woke up feeling normal again, now the question is “Is it the old normal or has normal shifted?”. I like to think it is the old normal. I must be starting to recover from the Migraine, I was still in bed at 9:30 last night but woke up just after 5:00 feeling refreshed and ready to go.

I found the treadmill and started out at a pretty fast pace, then picked it up at the five and 10 minute marks, then threw on a spurt to the finish at 18 min.  Finished 2.5 miles in 20:30 and it felt pretty good although I was struggling to maintain the pace at the very end. Great run and great feeling after.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 109

Wednesday April 20, 2011

RUN 106.

Feeling even better this morning.  Sleep is returning to normal although I did hit the hay earlier than usual around 9:30. The problem with that is that I woke up at 12:30 completely refreshed and ready to face the day and had to force myself to go back to sleep.  I did sleep right thru to the alarms so disruptive but not bad.

I went down to tje treadmill and warmed up at a fast jog, then progressively picked up the pace until I was running sub 7 min miles (for 1:30). still ZI ran well and felt good and did 2.3 miles in the 20 minutes.

Maybe I will get to the point where I will be able to start at a reasonable pace soon.

All in all a good run.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 108

Tuesday April 19, 2011

RUN 105.

Feeling better this morning, although winter temps (-11C) are still in effect.  I ran on the treadmill with a slow jog to start, and then slowly worked my way up to an acceptable pace for the last part of the run.

Overall a good run but stumbled a few times and did not feel on balance.  After the run I felt off balance for a while.

A good effort 2.2 mi / 20 min.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 107

Monday April 18, 2011

RUN 104.

I made it to the treadmill at the usual time and did a walk run thing as I did not have the energy to run for 20 minutes.

I managed to do 1.5 miles in 20 minutes and other than being off balance and really tired it felt good.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 106

Sunday April 17, 2011

No run today, I did break down and drive out in the SNOWFUCKINGSTORM to see a Doctor and he prescribed a super anti-inflammatory to fix the problem.

I took the pill, lazed around and actually started to feel human again.  But not human enough to run, and certainly 5 days of no appetite killed my energy reserves. Was in bed before the kids, again.

A better day.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 105

Saturday April 16, 2011.

No Run today, just could not do it.  I did manage to get in the car and drive to the tech shop and pick up a police half race package for a friend.

I then went home and laid on the couch and let the battle continue.

Another tough day

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 104

Friday April 15, 2011.

No run today, the migraine got the best of me. I left work at 1:00 and went home and laid in the dark until it was bed time, battling light, noise, fever and nausea.

I have to decide now if the streak ended or whether it is OK to do catch up runs later on.

Tough Day

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 103

Thursday April 14, 2011

I waited for the migraine to pass and when it did not I headed down to the treadmill for an easy run.  There is something reminiscent of my university  days when I run late at night.  This run was a slow easy jog just to do the time and get the run in the books. Funny how the migraine is held at bay when exercising.

2.0 Miles, 20 min a generous run.

Plod On.

Project 365 – Day 102

Wednesday April 13, 2011.

It was not a good scene this morning, I have been fighting a migraine since yesterday afternoon and have a kink in my back.  Drugs are not working, the headache woke me up at 3:30 and between the exploding head and the inability to find a comfortable position for my back I kind of faded in and out of sleep for the rest of the night.

I seriously considered totally abandoning the run this morning but felt that if things got worse I would not get one in today so I went for a 20 minute run on the treadmill.

I started slow and worked my way up to 9 minute miles and just stayed there for the run. No Hockey on sportscenter so ended up watching a belly dancing show “shimmy”.

I think the break was good for my knee, not pushing too hard gave them a little break and hopefully will allow them to recover a bit.

20 minutes 2 Miles – just a run.

Plod On

Project 365 – Day 101

Tuesday April 12, 2011

I went to bed very early last night and consequently was up very early this morning. This gave me the opportunity to update all the missing blog entries and edit the photos for inclusion.

I have been feeling a tenderness in my left knee kind of like bursitis where the Sartorius stops.  It is tender when I move walking but was not noticeable through the run this morning. Weird eh?

I planned to do a 3 mile run and let the knee dictate the pace. I started off slow and then worked the pace up until I started to feel it.  I finished the run with a couple of sprints in the sub 7 arena.

Will ice the knee tonight and continue with the ibuprofen as required.

Great Run, Great Fun – 3.2 Miles / 25:50 min

Plod On

Project 365 – Day 100

Monday April 11, 2011.

OMG, OMG, OMG if I had only known, I would have tired harder or thrown a party or something  or fireworks!

It is just plain wrong when you hit one of these big milestones (triple digits) and do not even know it happened until you go to blog about it the next day. The F word is on the tip of my tongue right now.

Anyway the run, up late legs tired and sore from previous day, recovery run scheduled and a recovery run is what I ran. I walked and tweeted to warm up, then started to run 9s, then picked up the pace to 8:30s and finished off with a few minutes at 8:00s just so I would not really bag it and not break 2 miles in the 20 minute run.

nuff said 20 minutes, 2.1 miles.  And in the 100 days of running I have accumulated 342.5 miles, most of it on a treadmill.  Papa needs a new pair of shoes!

Plod On

Project 365 – Day 99

Sunday April 10, 2011.

Funny how things work out, I woke up with tired legs, did the breakfast thing and headed to the running room for a group run.  Turns out the plan was to run exactly the same route that we ran last Sunday when there was a foot of fresh snow on the ground.

It also turned out to be the first day that the groups left the store on time or a little early, which caused us to have to pound out a quick mile right off the bat just to catch up.

I attempted to capture the difference between the conditions between the two Sundays in pictures. I think I got relatively close to taking pictures from the same spots as last week.

I love this run, the views are always great no matter the conditions.  This week we get the bald ass prairie look.

I did not quite get the spot right on the first one. I think this one is in the right spot just zoomed in too much.

And the final one is cropped to get a similar picture.  Sure is a notable difference eh.

All in all it was a great run and we knocked over nine minutes off the last weeks time (i know it is an LSD and I should not be counting). All in all a very enjoyable morning.

Plod On

Project 365 – Day 98

Saturday April 9, 2011.

This was a funny day, it was chilly in the morning and we had some errands to run so I put off the run until the afternoon.  About 11:00, after a series of phone calls the boys decided that they wanted to go snowboarding at COP (last weekend it is open). So I was volunteered to supervise their afternoons activity. More procrastination.

The weather was perfect when I got home (+12 C) but I could not seem to muster the motivation to actually get out and run. SO we netflixed (did I just invent a verb) a movie and chilled. Then after the kids went to bed it was do or die time, I had to decide if I wanted to have a beer or wanted to run and then have a beer. The only thing that got me downstairs to the treadmill was the 97 days that I have invested in this folly.

I ran for 2.75 miles in 24 minutes at 11:00 at night. A Run.

Plod On

Project 365 – Day 97

Friday April 8, 2011.

Went to bed early and woke up early and headed for the treadmill. I did a really interesting run which was a combination of long progressions followed by short progressions.  With 15 minutes left in the work out I started to increase the pace by 0.1 mph every minute. I know it does not sound like much but over the course of 15 minutes it adds up and turns a hard effort into a very hard effort super fast. 

All in all I ended up running 3.5 miles in 30 minutes, not a bad effort

Plod On.

Project 365–Day 96

Thursday April 7, 2011.

I guess I am getting kind of used to my morning runs on the treadmill.  Now that spring is here, sort of, I should be thinking about running outside, but I guess it is still dark before 6:00 AM so I am content on the treadmill. I finally got a good nights sleep when I forced myself to bed at 10:00. I actually woke before the alarm and headed downstairs.

This morning I planned to run 3 miles, I took a longer slower warm up and then got right into the guts, I seem to be favouring progression runs now, started at 9 min miles, ramped to 8:30 and finished at 8:00.

Had a good run and felt good when it was done. 3.2 miles – 26:10 min.

Plod On

Project 365–Day 95

Wednesday April 6, 2011.

I was up late again last night, there is no excuse just playing on the computer watching TV. This directly translates into difficulty pulling myself out of bed at 5:30 AM and getting to the treadmill. Stupid eh?

I jumped right into the run though, short warm up then 9 min miles for 10 minutes, then 8 minute miles to the end of the run.  21:15 2.5 Miles a very reasonable effort considering my right calf is still feeling the Sunday Run.

Plod On

Project 365–Day 94

Tuesday April 5, 2011.

Another funny day in this city, yesterday it was +7 and everything was melting, this morning it is –3 and the streets are a sheet of wet ice. Treadmill time.

I was still feeling the impact of the uneven surfaces in my lower legs (ankles and up) and I was feeling a little twinge under my left knee cap, so another recovery run.

I started out at a slow jog, 12 min mile, then ramped up to 10 for the first 10 minutes, then 9 for the next 10 and finished off with 5 minutes at 8.30.  It felt good at the end and I was glad I turned it down.

25 minutes 2.75 miles.

Plod On

Project 365 – Day 93

Ouch, may ankles, calves and hips are killing me. I guess the uneven footing and icy conditions worked my stability muscles a little more than I would have liked. I was up late playing on the computer and slept a little late. Then tried to drag myself down to the treadmill after finding all my running stuff in the laundry.  Yes it is a Monday morning!

I decided that I would try a  very easy recovery run and just try to loosen things up a bit. I started off at 15 min miles (walk), then 12 min miles then 9 Min miles, and finished at 8:30 min miles. Kind of a regressive progression run in that the start point was so slow.

But a run is a run and this one was OK. 21:13 min, 2.25 miles.

Plod on

Project 365 – Day 92

Sunday April 3, 2011.

It is the morning after the spring storm that dumped about 12” of snow on out beautiful city. I got up and headed to the Westhills Running Room for a Sunday group run.  This is my first outside run since I left for Alaska and I was really excited about it. I needed to run about 12 K to hit 310 miles in 2011 so that was the goal.

I got to the store and the half marathon group was going to run 16 so why not a little farther than I wanted but at a slower pace than I usually run with walk breaks so it should be OK.

We ran down to the Reservoir and then paralleled it for a while then back on 66 ave to 37 street to Richmond road.

The path was ploughed around the reservoir but this left a skim of ice on the path that made for interesting footing.

The views were great. It is always a very pretty run, but when buried under a foot of the fresh white stuff it is even more breathtaking.

As we hit the turn around point the sun had come out and the snow was starting to melt and the streets were starting to get sloppy.

I ended up running ahead of the group for the last few miles and woke up this morning with sore legs from (calves and hips) from all the uneven footing I guess a good thing.

A very fun run with great people

Plod On.

Project 365–Day 91

Saturday April 2, 2011.

Woke up to snow, not a little snow, a lot of snow, by supper time we had almost a foot of fresh snow on the ground. I put off running as long as I could, then I got a hankering for a beer and knew that if I did not run before I had a beer I would miss today. So game #1 ended VCU lost to Butler, and there was a pause before game #2(Kentucky/UConn), so I went to the treadmill and did a quick little 30 minute run. Did a run walk thing with progressive faster splits and ended up running 3.5 miles in31 minutes, a good day.

Plod On

Project 365–Day 90

Friday April 1, 2011.

Looked at the stats this morning, exactly 3 months into this streak thing. I have run 299.2 miles in roughly 47 hours.  That is almost 2 full days of running so far in 2011. The disappointing stat is the 299.2, if I would have run just a few more seconds in every run it would have been 300 miles. If I had known this morning when I fired up the treadmill I would have run for another 6 minutes and made the 300. Not that 299.2 is bad, I am just drawn to round numbers.

Had an ok run this morning 3 miles in 27 minutes.

Plod On.