Wonderful Wednesday

Runner’s World Summer Streak - Day 37

Time : 26:52 Minutes
Distance : 3.3 Miles 
This Week: 8.55 Miles

Total: 157.42 Miles

My legs are still getting used to my evening bike ride. This morning when I hit the road my stride felt short and tight at both the landing and the kickoff.  After a few hundred meters it seemed to lengthen out ok.  Maybe I need to try a brick this weekend and see how that feels.  It was another beautiful morning, again it cooled off over night making it perfect to run. I am either getting up a little earlier or the sun is getting up later as I caught the end of the sunrise this morning.

The plan for today was to crank out a quick 3 or so miles. I started out on the usual uphill route and then found a cutoff home at the right point.  This route contains one mile that I really don’t like.  It is a really nice downhill stretch but is straight and you can see from one end to the other.

I find it demotivating to run these straight stretches as the end seems so far away. I much prefer windy roads where the visibility is restricted to a few hundred meters. I find it easier to stay motivated and set intermediate targets, it just works for me.

It was a really good run and I was happy with the splits. I had three splits in under 5:00 min / km which is fast for me. And even the uphill section was not that slow after the warm up.

The evening saw day 5 of “le tour challenge”. I rode 10 km  in 29:32 minutes at 8:30 PM. The route crossed Bow Trail and headed through Strathcona and then back on 26th Ave. It started out with some significant uphills and a major major street crossing.

An active day.

Plod On

Turdy Tuesday

Runner’s World Summer Streak - Day 36

Time : 17:06 Minutes
Distance : 2.0 Miles 
This Week: 5.25 Miles

Total: 154.12 Miles

The day started out great, it cooled off overnight and there was a layer of fog pouring out over the edge of the river valley.

It made for a great start to my run and reminded me of a scene from the movie “The Big Chill” where the guys are running on the foggy streets of the town.

I started to run the 3 mile ridge route from my house. I got about 1/4 of a mile in and started to feel the need for a biological break.  I decided to continue on.  This was not a good choice.

It made me feel like this.  I tried to hold off the inevitable (which made running difficult) but at around a mile and a half  into the run there was the opportunity to cut off and head for home so I did. In fact I sprinted all the way to the toilet, and so ended my morning run.

It was the hottest day of the year so far, the mercury tipped over 35 C outside my kitchen window. I was so glad that I made the effort to run early.

I finished off with day 4 of “le tour challenge”. I rode 8.5 km  in 23:08 minutes at 9:30 PM. It had started to cool off which made the ride nice, but I was not even close to the team time trials on the real tour today.

An OK day after an aborted start.

Plod On

Freaky Friday

Streak to the beach - Day 75

Time : 34:29 Minutes
Distance : 4.2 Miles 
This Week: 18.75 Miles

Total: 242.05 Miles

Runner’s World Summer Streak - Day 19

Week 3: 18.75 Miles  
Total: 80.30Miles

Friday is typically an errand day, we usually spend the morning avoiding the cleaning lady. Today was a weird day today, one minute it was sunny and the next it was thunder, lightening and pouring rain. I took the opportunity in between the evening  deluges to get my run in.

I chose a route that is relatively flat, with a gradual uphill for the first 2.5 km and then mainly down hill for the rest. I planned a fairly easy run, more or less junk miles to keep the streak alive. It turned out a little different the down hill section blazed by with some good striding. 

I don’t know why but the police were out in force in the area, I saw three patrol cars one with people pulled over and the cops with hands on guns, it made me a little nervous.

This was taken on the down hill showing a beautiful tree lined street in the sunshine.

Then a few minutes later looking across the valley at the football stadium (the lights GO STAMPS) it was cloudy and rainy. Time to head home.

A good day, I’m happy with the time and pace.

Plod On.

Wild Wednesday

Streak to the beach - Day 73

Time : 41:47 Minutes
Distance : 5.25 Miles 
This Week: 11.25 Miles

Total: 234.50 Miles

Runner’s World Summer Streak - Day 17

Week 3: 11.25 Miles  
Total: 72.75 Miles

A perfect day for a run 21 degrees and mainly sunny. I decided not to head for the running and to run in a flatter area on even surfaces to destress my knee.

It was meant to be a recovery run, but it turned out more like a tempo. I wanted a long slow run on a flatish course to give my knee a little break. I thought it started out that way I was running a slight down hill (as the river flows) at a very comfortable pace. But the splits were coming out at 5;10 /km.  I made the turnaround point and started the hard part of the run and still was getting decent splits had a vary strong finish and a very decent run.

I took this picture to provide a comparison to the last time I ran this course in April.

The picture from my Run for Boston Run was taken in a location close to this spot and shows quite a contrast.  6 weeks makes a big difference.

Perfect day, almost perfect run.

Plod On

Weigh In Wednesday

Wednesday Weigh In – Week 5

This week: 2 Pounds
Total: 13 pounds

Streak to the beach - Day 38

Time : 45:08  Minutes
Distance : 5.1 Miles 
This Week: 12.4 Miles

Total: 141.5 Miles

Running is all about gumption, tonight it was getting together the gumption to strap on a pair of shoes, drive to a group run and them end up running alone.

I picked a fun route not really knowing the distance (somewhere between 7 & 10K) that runs thru Griffith woods and then thru a natural wetlands and back to the store.

The route to Grffith Woods is the same but when I got into the park I turned left instead of right, this takes us through some open areas with good views of the river.

Then some open trail on less than even conditions but a very fun stretch to run; flat, straight and through the trees.

And finally up a honking hard hill before running through the wetlands with great sounds from the birds and frogs before looping back on the highway to the store.

Why is it that hills never look as hard in pictures as they do when you are running?

All in all I averaged a 5:28 min /km pace (8:45 min/mile). So a good strong run.

Plod On

Wednesday Weigh In

Wednesday Weigh In – Week 3

This week: 4 Pounds
Total: 11 pounds

Streak to the beach - Day 24

Time : 40:04 Minutes
Distance : 4.50 Miles 
This Week: 11.65Miles

Total: 84.08

Double up day. I did a fairly hard run this morning in the freezing cold (-5) then did the evening run with the running room in spring like condition +12 and windy.  Quite the change in conditions in 15 hours.

We ran the lower Springbank -  Batallion park 7.25 route.  The route is one of my favorites from the Running Room store.

The run starts out with a downhill then a long straight flat for 2.5 km. Usually this is a fairly easy section of the run but tonight was very hard because it was into a strong head wind. The next 2.5 km is intermittent uphill sections and is usually a hard run.  The rest of the run is a slight downhill and tonight with a great tail wind and was very fast.

I was surprised that the run went so well given the 4 Miles this morning. I felt great throughout and even was holding back for the last section. 

A great running day.

Plod On.

Sunset River Run

Distance : 7.0 mi
Time 57:45

The day started early.  I woke up about an hour before I needed to and took advantage of the extra time to fit in a core and upper body strength workout.  This is not usually part of my morning routine.

After work I decided to rush out and get in a good run before dark.  I ended up leaving the parking lot at Edworthy park just as the sun was starting to set.

I headed towards downtown and ended up crossing the river at the 14th street bridge and turning around. I was hoping to catch the view of the setting sun off the buildings downtown but was a little late.

My intention was to get out and run, probably about 8 or 9 km and work out some of the residual lactic acid from the speed session on Tuesday.  Somewhere in the first km the easy run turned into a slowish tempo run.  I made the stupid mistake of running on the snow covered icy path right by the river instead of on the cleared path. Just after the turn around point I was starting to lag and was passed by black clad brunette with a pony tail and was inspired to keep the pace.  (No I was not being too macho and yes she still left me in the dust).

I am still having trouble finding my stride with the ham string injury.  I am finding that it limits my pace both in speed work and tempo runs. I am trying to up my mileage to see if that helps with the healing.

All in all a good run and a lot of fun.

Plod on.

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