Floating Friday

Streak to the beach - Day 68

Time : 26:20 Minutes
Distance : 3.1 Miles 
This Week: 17.2 Miles

Total: 222.15 Miles

Another beautiful day in cow town but it almost ended with summer thunderstorms.  It started to cloud over late in the afternoon and the thunderheads started to build. I guess just not quite hot enough to spark the big storms. I was up early working in front of the computer, then went for lunch and had a beer or two which made it easy to have an afternoon nap. It also lead to a 10 PM run on the treadmill.

This is the view that I see when I run on the treadmill. Tonight I went downstairs without a plan and actually thinking that I might just do the minimum and run one very slow mile.  I ended up doing a progression run for 3.1 miles (5 km).  It started with a short warm up and then ran at a 9:30 pace. I bumped the pace every 5 minutes and finished at a 7:30 pace.

My knee is still hurting when I bend it or kneel on it. I feel it for the first few minutes of a run and then is seems to settle in. Still hoping I can run through it.

Day 12 of the Runner’s World Summer Streak is in the books and it was a fun run.

Plod On

Takeabreak Thursday

Streak to the beach - Day 67

Time : 23:40 Minutes
Distance : 2.5 Miles 
This Week: 14.1 Miles

Total: 219.05 Miles

What a beautiful busy day.  The sun was shining, the temperatures were perfect and I was stuck in my dungeon in front of a computer (I did take a minute to eat my lunch outside). Then after work rushed to the soccer pitch to watch my son play, then home to eat and rush to the school for Jr./Sr. High awards night. All this got me home and on the treadmill at 9:30 PM.

It was a keep the streak(s) alive kind of day.  I set the treadmill at a 0.5% incline and 6.5 mph and strided out 2.5 junk miles. On the down side I am feeling some pain in my right knee and it is increasing in intensity. It  looks like my runner’s knee is coming back, which means some research and some exercises.

And that was Day 11 of the Runner’s World Summer Streak.

Plod On.

Whimsical Wednesday

Streak to the beach - Day 66

Time : 37:12 Minutes
Distance : 4.2 Miles 
This Week: 11.6 Miles

Total: 215.55 Miles

Today was sunny, cloudy, sunny, cloudy well it really could not decide. At least it was not raining. For national running day I laced up and headed to Edworthy park and ran along the almost flooding river.

I wanted to do a nice flat slow 5K run after yesterdays hard hill run.  The red line looks like it was a hilly course but the total gain was only about 10 m.

It was not a tough run and the pace was a little quicker than I planned but I did not push the pace and was comfortable for most of the run. The route is an out and back that terminates at one of the oldest bridges in town.

The bridge is a steel framed with a wood deck and is in service as a pedestrian bridge across the river. A modern concrete bridge was built right beside if for cars. I love the Bridge.

It was a good run on a cool nigh and a change from my regular routes.

Happy National Running Day to our southern neighbours.

Plod on.

Tanning Tuesday

Streak to the beach - Day 65

Time : 40:41 Minutes
Distance : 4.3 Miles 
This Week: 7.4 Miles

Total: 211.35 Miles

What to say about today. I woke up this morning to the sight of the sunshine streaming in through the morning fog. It seems that all that rain was evaporating and turning to fog in the cool morning air.

The sunshine stuck around for most of the day. I enjoyed lunch outside sitting in the sun working on my tan. In the afternoon there were errands to run. And then a window of opportunity for a run while my son played soccer. Bonus, it was an opportunity to run a route that I had never done before.

As you can see from the red line at the bottom of the chart this route is the opposite of Sunday’s.  It goes down tidley down down and then up tidley up up.

The run was great but the sun was gone and the clouds rolled in.  At least it was cool enough that we did not get any thunderstorms.

It is so cloudy that you can’t even see the mountains in the distance. 

The run was challenging,  The start was up a hill and then I cut through a gated community that I once almost built a home in and ran down a very aggressive hill then started back up. It was a very hard finish, but was timed just right, I arrived back at the soccer pitch right as the game ended.

Nice to be running outside again.

Plod On.

Monsoon Monday

Streak to the beach - Day 64

Time : 27:15 Minutes
Distance : 3.1 Miles 
This Week: 3.1 Miles

Total: 207.05 Miles

And the heavy rains continued, then let up for a while, then came back with a vengeance. It has been so grey and damp for so long that depression is starting to set in. If it does not break soon I will be playing a lot of Leonard Cohen. However in a period of light rains tonight I snuck a dog walk in and this is the view to the west.

Hang on, is that streak of light on the horizon sunshine, coming in my direction?  One can only hope. 

I ended up running late again tonight because of the kids commitments and on the treadmill because I like dry feet.

My plan was to head down and do an easy run for 10 or 15 minutes of junk miles just to keep the streak alive. I got 5 minutes in and increased the pace, then got 15 minutes in and decided to go for 20 minutes, got 20 minutes in and decided to run 2.5 miles. Hit the 2.5 mile mark and decided to run 25 minutes. Hit 25 minutes and decided to run 3.0 miles and finally finished 3.1 miles in just over 27 minutes.

Not a bad run compared to the plan.

Plod On.

Sleepy Sunday

Streak to the beach - Day 63

Time : 40 Minutes
Distance : 4.5 Miles 
This Week: 32.7 Miles

Total: 203.95 Miles

The day started out slow with a sleepy Sunday morning followed by a feed of pancakes and bacon. It was cool (12C) and raining like crazy outside all day, heavy consistent pounding rain. The kind of rain that rarely happens here was happening here today. It was not a good thing, but it gave me the chance to catch up on some inside projects do the laundry ...

The highlight of the day was a trip to the cineplex to watch a movie with the boy. He picked “after earth” and if you have any option about viewing this my recommendation is don’t. Anything has to be better.

Seeing as there was unrelenting rain and I have the option to not run in it I chose not to.  It was treadmill time. And simple treadmill time, I set the speed for 9:00 min miles and just grooved out to the women’s concert on cable for 40 minutes. And that was it.  Not really junk miles just unremarkable miles. BTW a milestone day, crossed the 200 mile mark in this streak woo hoo corks popping, fireworks etc.

A wet day, a dry run. 

Plod On.

Strenuous Saturday

Streak to the beach - Day 62

Time : 1:01:59 Minutes
Distance : 6.6 Miles 
This Week: 28.2 Miles

Total: 199.45 Miles

It was a slow start to Saturday, spending a few extra minutes lazing in bed, running errands, mowing the lawn and then watching the Prefontaine Classic track meet on TV. Cam Levin ran a great race almost breaking the Canadian 5K record. After watching all those world class runners strut their stuff on the track I laced up my runners and headed out for my Day 6 of the Runner’s World summer streak.

Today’s was the “Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines” route. It went up tiddley up up then it went down tiddley down down. Seriously it was a 10.6 km route the first 6 km were all up hill with some very serious sections, then the next 5 km were all down hill.

Most of the run was on city streets with little or no scenery but there was a section with a great view of downtown across the river valley.

Overall I was pleased with the effort, there were two very long pauses for traffic lights and some very grinding uphill sections and I still turned in a decent time.

Another day in the books and the streak is still alive.

Plod On.