20 miles of fun and good times

For those of you keeping score at home, I started my 10 miler at 16:15 on Friday. I ran (1:54:22), I ate, I partied (well, it was a somewhat lame attempt at partying as I emptied the Brita pitcher by knocking back all kinds of water, then left early in an attempt to get a few hours of sleep before getting up to run...again...).

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On Friday I e-mailed Angry to ask his opinion about my planned 20 miler. I had a group I could run half the distance with on Saturday morning. Would I be doing myself a disservice and not getting my full money's worth if I split my 20 miles up into two runs, separated by a 30 min drive or so? In his opinion, if anything, it might make it tougher as I would risk stiffening up during the break. He advised me to go for it, and so I now had a plan. The group was meeting at 8:30 am and since I wanted their support on the back half of the run, it was going to be an early start for me.

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My alarm went off at 5 am on Saturday....I got up, washed my face, ate half a bagel and drank a mug of tea, then was out the door and running by 6 am. Since it was so dark and so early I plotted a 10 mile run around my neighborhood since it would be well lit, clear of snow, and reasonably safe (I hoped). My pace was a bit slower than on Friday night so I realized that getting a full 10 miles in before having to leave for downtown was going to be tough. The other kicker was the blister on the arch of my right foot. This baby formed on my 17 mile run a few weeks ago. I took care of it and it hadn't bothered me until Friday's run when some of the skin decided to come off and rub to form an adjoining blister. I bandaged it up with one of those Band-Aid funky blister bandages but after about 1.5 miles I could tell it wasn't working. As I was running uphill towards 12 Mile Coulee Road I knew I was cutting it close for time so I turned around and finished up with 9 miles (1:49:24). I stopped in at home, tended to my blister, grabbed my bagel and more tea and raced downtown.

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I was about 5 minutes late, but luckily the group hadn't left yet. I hadn't run with any of these folks before, and after a combined total of 20 miles in just over 16 hours these folks were all a little too fast for me. I kept up with the back packers, but when they mentioned that they would be turning around at the 3 mile mark I heaved a sigh of relief. Phew...I'd be able to slow down... We were running along the Bow River pathway, and when we reached the pedestrian underpass at Crowchild Trail we continued on the south side of the river - on the pathway that isn't cleared of snow. Our feet were crunching in the snow and one of my running mates comments on how much stronger running in the snow will make my legs, but that snow is zapping the energy out of them and I still have several more miles to go. We hit three miles, my running mates turn around and I run on for a bit, but then opt for a nice long walk break. I can see the front runners up ahead have turned around and are running back towards me. The rest of the group is all turning around save for Instructor S's husband, Kevin, who is running a full 10 miles today. He slows his pace down and we run together and chat. We come across some icy patches on the pathway where you have to hold on to the fence to avoid slipping and falling down. Suddenly we are at Edworthy Park and we turn around back towards Eau Claire. If you turn around at Edworthy it puts you a bit short on the mileage, so Kevin's solution is to run up the hill at the Curling Club to McHugh Bluff, run down to Center Street, across the bridge, then back to Eau Claire. McHugh Bluff is where I did a bunch of my hill training - you gain 152 feet in elevation gain over 0.3 mi. Yowza, that is a way to finish off a run! As we keep going I realize I'm not going to be able to keep up with Kevin's run/walk intervals and my legs are starting to drag. A friend of his runs up to us, they chat, and Kevin asks for permission to run ahead for a bit. Phew...another sigh of relief as I can now slow down a bit more and walk when I need to. Every time I walk it gets harder and harder to get started back up again. My legs are moving not because they want to, but because my brain is ordering them to that they have no choice. I feel like I'm going to slow that I'm almost going backwards (although in reality it isn't that bad...) Somewhere between mile 17 and 18 I fall into the "Bite Me Zone." I'm tired and wondering what on earth I'm doing...this is so hard. I walk for a few minutes, then tell myself that the pity party is over. Time to start running again, so I keep it up all the way to the hill at the Curling Club. There is no possibility of running up this thing unless I want to roll back down so I give myself permission to walk up. When I hit the top I look at the view and realize how close I am. As soon as I reach the Center Street bridge I have 1 mile left to go. A group of runners in front of me are walking and I yell - "on your right!" (as the right side had more room). As I run past them I apologise and tell them that I can't stop now or else I won't get started back up again. I'm back on the pathway and on the home stretch....finishing those 20 miles felt so good!!! I attempted to stretch but my legs were having none of that as they refused to bend that much. I gave up, walked over to Good Earth and grabbed a tea and scone and sat down. I wasn't sure if I would be able to stand up. Luckily the blister didn't cause too much trouble on run #2, but I now have a 4 cm x 3 cm affected zone on my right arch.

11 miles done in 2:16:57.

Or 20 miles in 4:06:21.

Or 30 miles over a 19 hour time period in 6:00:43.

My quads are still slightly sore, but overall my recovery has been better than I expected. That's it for the really long runs now folks, on to taper time!

Friday's run amongst the Christmas lights redux

Friday was part one of my longest mileage weekend ever - 10 miles. I finished up work and decided to run near downtown. I picked out a route that stayed mostly to busy areas since it was going to be getting dark while I was out there. I hit the Bow River pathway, crossed over to the north side of the river, and ran up the hill at the Calgary Curling Club to McHugh Bluff. I caught this amazing view of downtown at the top of the bluff. I decided to run along Crescent Road - a swanky neighborhood with houses that all have this terrific view to downtown and the mountains. Apparently this is a good area for Christmas lights so I was looking forward to the back part of my run when it would be dark.

I passed this monster house here - you should see it on Google Earth....room for five cars in the garage. I think the fellow that lives here used to complain about the Bikini Boot Camp classes that would be held at the park right next door. Maybe because none of us were working out in bikinis?

I decided to run from Crescent Road up to Confederation Park - the site of the Lions Festival of Lights. I couldn't find anything on the internet about what time the lights actually turned on at, but I assumed the lights would be on when it got dark. Imagine my disappointment when I run past the park and see the sign that the lights are on daily from 7 pm to midnight (I think). These were the only lights I did see on....

Confederation Park was my turnaround point so it was time to head back towards downtown. The run was going by pretty quickly and it was feeling pretty easy...

There were some nice lights on around Crescent Road. I almost think I enjoyed just looking at the houses more, but it was really pretty out there.

After the 10 miles were done it was time to grab some food, head home and shower, then head off to a Christmas party. 20 miles coming up on Saturday morning...

My apologies

My apologies on having nothing new to report. Okay, I went to Fit Ball on Monday, but otherwise I don't have any running activity to report. And I don't even have anything that great that is non-running to talk about. My life is work right now, so despite the fact that I have my running gear sitting in a bag underneath my desk I highly doubt that I will get any running in until this weekend. Saturday I have a running date at Glenmore Park (in the daylight this time, thank goodness) so that will be the site of my 8 on the 8th run. Sunday I'm still aiming for 7 miles on my own before running to catch as many elves as I possibly can at the Catch the Elves 10K.

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Okay, break time over....back to work...

Weekend Wrap-Up

I got my 8 mile run in over lunch on Friday, thereby avoiding the terrible weather that was forecasted to blow in overnight. The breeze was definitely chilly out, but the sunshine was nice. I was much happier on my way back when I had the wind at my back instead of running into it. I felt pretty good for day two of my back to back runs, mind you the distance was quite a bit shorter. I do have to say that an 8 miler over lunch is kind of a long run. I was mentally wiped afterwards, although it is hard to say if it was just due to the run, or if the overtime I had put in over the week had caught up with me and my brain was starting to rebel. Otherwise I have no activity to report for the rest of the weekend. I stuffed myself with fish and chips and beer on Friday night - since I wasn't running the next day I figured I could justify a greasy meal washed down with one or two delicious Trads. Saturday was a trip out to the Middle of Nowhere, Alberta to meet more of Neil's family. (I was told that I could officially call it the Middle of Nowhere.) Back to town for more work on Sunday, capped off with a night of tree trimming, rum and eggnog and a Terry's Chocolate Orange. The holiday season has officially begun...!

What would you do?

I ran on Tuesday - 4 miles over lunch in -9 deg C (15 deg F) weather. To be perfectly honest...it sounds cold...but once I got moving it wasn't that bad. I had tights, a long sleeve top, a long sleeve midweight layer, a jacket, a tuque and gloves on. 10 minutes in I had to zip the arms off the jacket because it wound up being too much. It was a nice run, and I was happy to see many other crazy runners braving the elements on the pathway over lunch.

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Yesterday I had an invite to join Instructor S and her TNT group for a hill run at 6 pm. I took a look at the upcoming forecast and decided I needed to tweak my schedule a bit though. Highs of -18 dec C (-0.4 deg F) on Saturday and Sunday..?? I took yesterday as a rest day and I'm going to run 4 miles today, 8 miles tomorrow. I'll aim to do something indoors this weekend instead. Check out the weather for Monday though - it looks like a chinook is blowing in - +10 deg!!

17 miles + pedicure = bad idea??

So...today I had my 17 miles on tap and after my rather successful 8.6 miler yesterday I was feeling pretty good about it. In an effort to keep things interesting I brought my camera along for the ride so I could share some of the things that I get to see along the way. Unfortunately when you are running 17 miles you really want to get that 3.5 hours of running over as quickly as possible so didn't take nearly as many pictures as I could have.
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I started a couple of blocks to my office, hit the Bow River pathway and turned towards Eau Claire. The bridge to Prince's Island Park is just visible through the trees. I turn and cross over the bridge to run a short path through the park.

Here's a view just before you exit the park and join up with the pathway again. Tons of condos in the distance.
I follow the pathway along the river and shortly arrive at the 10th Street pedestrian bridge. You walk underneath the C-Train tracks. I love how this bridge looks. You'll probably see a bunch of bridge pictures from me as I really love how some of these bridges look. That is the civil engineer coming out in me I guess!I cross the river along the 14th street bridge which you can see behind me in the distance here. At this point the bike and pedestrian paths split, and the pedestrian path is really narrow.
Continuing further west along the pathway. I kept playing leapfrog with this group of runners out with their dogs for quite awhile.
The pathway is now approaching Edworthy park. I ran here a bunch over the summer and this is where the Calgary Roadrunners come to run their speedwork until they get chased indoors to the Olympic Oval by lack of light and cold weather.

This is one of my least favourite parts along the route - the section between Edworthy and Shouldice. The pathway ends and you run along a poorly kept road for a short distance.After passing through Shouldice you cross the Bow River along the John Hextall bridge. This is one of my favourite parts of the run. Up until a few years ago this bridge was actually used for car traffic until they built a wider bridge that you can see in the left of the picture.

After crossing the bridge the bike path follows this pretty uneven road for a ways. This was tough on the ol' feet and legs and I started to wonder why I didn't turn back and follow the paved pathway along the north side of the river. I only had 1.5 miles to run down it, and at the time it didn't seem like that long of a distance. Until I ran it.

8.5 miles - time to turn around!

Coming back somewhere around Edworthy you can see the effects of the cooler temperatures already.

A first glimpse of downtown off in the distance. I'm getting closer to the end!!

Crowchild Bridge, with the pedestrian pathway below. Now I'm getting really close. I told you there were a lot of pictures of bridges!

From this point up until 17 miles the camera didn't come out until I was all done. My legs were really starting to feel the mileage. It was like they were on autopilot - they kept moving although I didn't feel like I had a lot of control over them. Mentally I felt strong, but I was worried about stopping to walk as I feared my legs wouldn't get moving again. I had a final loop I had to run through Prince's Island Park and that was the longest mile of my life....ever!

This run was tough on another level from some of my other recent runs. Mentally I was there the whole time, ready and raring to finish those 17 miles. On other runs that qualified as stonkers I just wasn't feeling it that day. But this was exhausting and my legs were pooped by the time I was done. To top it off I got some wicked blisters - a large one on the arch of my right foot and another big one on the inside of my left heel. The one thing I can think of is I may have attempted too new of a shoe on such a long run. I'll need to get some more short mileage on my Kayanos before breaking them out for my 20 mi run to see if the problem continues. So much for my pedicure...my feet are slightly less pretty now...

In Retrospect

I've been getting a little bored with running the pathways downtown lately, and since I'll be running 17 miles out there tomorrow I knew I needed to head somewhere else. Feeling a bit stumped I checked out MapMyRun and found a rather suitable looking 8.4 mile route. Perfect. The run started out at the University of Calgary, wound through Varsity, and up into Silver Springs. At this point I was supposed to meet up with the bike path, but the map I had with me wasn't exactly the most detailed so I wasn't sure if I'd passed this point or not. Rather than waste a bunch of time getting lost I turned it into an out and back route and skipped the section on the bike path. While it was reasonably cool out it was sunny the entire time and it felt pretty nice. My hat and gloves never came off though. I took the run really slow in an attempt to leave some energy in my legs for tomorrow's 17 mile run. Afterwards it was time to head out to Crave Cookies and Cupcakes to pick up some of the contenders for tomorrow's Grey Cup-Cake Off, then back home to take Finlay to the vet for his annual check up. Poor guy has seen more of the vet in the past week than he ever cared for. Afterwards I was off to the spa to make use of a gift certificate I got for Christmas last year - a facial, manicure and pedicure - 3 hours of me time. Now I have exceptionally pretty hands and feet (and lucky me - I still have all my toenails to paint).

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I've been going through some of my old clothes and some old pictures on my computer. I'm not sure if this adequately shows some of the progress I've made thanks to training, but here are a couple of shots of me circa May and July 2006. (Any pictures that really, really adequately showed things I wasn't so sure I was quite willing to post on the net....)

And here's me in October in San Francisco. Yay for running!

My weekend wrap up - what not to do with Halloween candy

My weekend in review... Things started off fairly well on track on Saturday. I got up and went down to Eau Claire for my 6 mi run. I ran into Instructor S and her TNT group but started out on my own, running 3 mi west down the river pathway and returning back. I ran my 5.5 mi in memory of Ryan Shay, hit the lap button, and picked the pace up for my last 0.5 mi. Plan for Saturday completed - 6 mi done.

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That afternoon I headed out to run errands, attempt some Christmas shopping and met up with my sister-in-law for dinner. We chit chatted, then attempted to meet up with my brother for a movie. We got to the theatre way too late so opted to hit Moxies for a quick beverage instead. They took off for the 9 pm showing of the movie they were interested in, and I took off for home with hopes of getting a good night's sleep so I could knock my 12 mi out early, then head into the office. I got home to a veritable mess....Halloween candy wrappers all over the living room floor - Aero, Twix, Crunch, Rockets, Sweet Tarts, Starburst.... holy smokes. I count up the chocolate wrappers and initially see about 10. I look at Maggie (my Scottie dog) and she is looking fat and guilty. Finlay (my Westie) is his usual hyperactive self. Without thinking I open my front door to let them into the yard while I further survey the mayhem in the living room. After a few minutes I look outside and the front gate is open and they are gone. Crap! Maggie hadn't gotten too far but Finlay was enjoying his newfound freedom. I scoop Maggie up and deposit her indoors, but then have to chase Finlay around the neighborhood a bit. Finally he stops to water one of my neighbor's lawns so I scoop him up and go back home. I call the emergency vet and they recommend taking my pups in to induce vomiting since it looks like they have ingested enough chocolate to do some damage. Maggie - the little alpha female/canine hoover that she is - wound up being the only one that actually did the eating it turns out. Finlay came home that night - a little pissed off at his vet encounter, and with a black face from the charcoal slurry they tried to get down his throat that he wasn't too happy about. Maggie stayed overnight for further observation, but got to come home at 8 am on Sunday. Needless to say I was not feeling like following the schedule I had originally planned on for Sunday. I picked up Maggie, then opted to hit the grocery store, then got my run in a little later on in the afternoon. It was pretty windy out and I couldn't really wrap my head around the run so I decided to end at about 3.14 miles so that I could go home and fix dinner and relax a bit.

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This weekend is a big one - 8.5 miles on Saturday and 17 miles on Sunday so hopefully I'm able to eek all of that mileage out. These last two weeks I have had trouble getting around the run on day 2 (although really I can see that I may be entitled to a buy this week). Maybe I'm running too fast on Saturdays so that I'm too drained by Sunday? Maybe life is catching up with me? Hopefully I can pull it out this weekend though!

Banff Winterstart 5 Miler Race Report

My third race in a two week period, not to mention back to back nighttime races... I think I have learned a few things from these past few weeks! First, and most important point - I'm not sure I like nighttime races! I find the whole nutrition thing a bit tricky... Anyhow, time for a race report. N and I met up with DGB and her husband at the Old Spaghetti Factory for a late lunch. The food tasted good at the time, but it would come back to haunt me later. We finished lunch, walked around town (brrr, it was cool), then headed back to the hotel to get ready for the race. The start was at the Banff Caribou Lodge and Spa, just a couple of hotels down from where we were staying. As soon as we got there kids were handing out glow sticks. We warmed up a bit and were ready and raring to go for the 7 pm start. It was really dark out, and probably just around freezing.... This race was not chip timed and it wasn't really clear where the start was. I picked a spot and started the Garmin, but I was never really able to look at it over the course of the race since I couldn't see too much. D and I got caught in the shmozzle of people so we were pretty well forced to run with the group as there wasn't a lot of opportunity to weave in and out. We decided to try and stick together and have fun. Pretty soon in my stomach started giving me grief over my lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory which made for a pretty uncomfortable race... The first 1.5 miles was all flat, but then it was up, up, up to the turnaround point, then back the way we came. There were no water stops along the course, but in the dark I really don't know how you could have managed it (not to mention the hazard of running over discarded paper cups, going downhill, in the dark, in quickly cooling weather). D wanted to sprint to the finish at the end, but I wasn't sure I could keep up with her sprint so I told her I'd meet her at the end. After taking a few strides D changed her mind and we crossed the finish line together. The Garmin told me 5.05 mi in 51:30. A bunch of runners came in at the same time so there was quite the line up to hand in our tear tags off our bib. My official time reads 52:17 which I know isn't right... Afterwards there was a post race party in the garage of the Caribou Lodge. I skipped the line up for food because it wasn't moving at all, instead opting to use my two free beer tickets that came with my race entry to get a couple of Big Rock Grasshoppers. We hung out at the party for a bit - I won a door prize of a t-shirt - then headed back to our hotel where Chili's was running a special for the runners. Two Presidente Margaritas and some chips and salsa or queso for a good price. A couple of margaritas later it was time to call it a night...

I liked the logo on the shirts - looks like this except in blue and green:

You can check out the artist's blog page here - some very cool stuff up there.

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By the way, I did run my LLR of 15 miles yesterday. I could probably write the most interesting blog post ever about it, but... Let's just say I learned a lot of things to not do on a run from now on. Like - don't start running too late, don't run in wooded areas in the dark, things to do when you see a bear warning sign and you are 2 miles from your car... Suffice it to say I got my 15 miles in the bag (I think it actually came out to somewhere around 15.37 miles).

Firsts and lead balloons

Last night I wanted to get back on schedule and I had a 5 miler on tap. So...for the first time ever I had back to back runs. I went back out to Baker Park - check out the view from the pathway in the pic above. Let me tell you, it wasn't pretty, but I got 'er done. I don't think it would have been so bad if I had thought a little bit more about the whole dinner thing before I went out. When I get home at 5 pm, I'm hungry. I picked up this really fantastic "souvlaki for two" kit from 2 Greek Gals at the Calgary Farmer's Market this weekend (you get 4 chicken souvlaki, 4 pita bread and a small container of tzatziki). Let me tell you, it was yummy. I figured chicken, bread, some veggies, that can't be that bad. I ate, watched The Two Coreys that I had PVR'ed on A&E the night before, and gave myself about an hour before heading out. (By the way, that show, what a debacle... I used to have such a crush on them in their "License to Drive" days, but wow, this makes you think twice about having a crush on that teeny bopper, Tiger Beat star. The best thing about it was realizing that Corey Feldman lives in Vancouver and I could recognize places they were going.) Anyhow, that dinner felt like a lead balloon in my stomach almost the entire run. Oh well, at least the miles are in the bag.

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So I'm curious how to handle this whole nutrition thing. When I run in the evening I generally wait until later right now, so that I can beat the heat. But eating a full meal beforehand is now obviously not a good idea, but I don't want to eat too late after the run either. And while a PB&J works great for morning runs, I'm not sure that I want to be eating that for dinner too many times (considering I have one for breakfast every morning). Any advice?