Boom!

Almost as soon as I hit the "Publish Post" button on Saturday the lactic acid gods decided that I shouldn't be so pain free after running 21 miles. Over the evening my quads definitely tightened up. Sunday morning I crawled out of bed and hopped into the car for a three hour drive to Edmonton. I met up with an old friend for lunch at a fantastic Indian restaurant. We gabbed for ages since it had been a couple of years since we had seen each other last. Finally it was time to head off to the Telus World of Science for my 4:15 ticket to Bodyworlds. I have to admit, I was a bit nervous about entering a room full of dead bodies, but it was an amazing exhibit. I also stuck around to watch an IMAX movie on the Tour de France which was fantastic. I didn't watch the tour this year, but next year I'm going to have to start paying attention. I was so stiff by the time the movie was over that I was pretty embarrassed by my pathetic attempts to hobble down the stairs and out of the theatre. Then back in the car for a three hour drive home...

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Since it had been a late night on Sunday I slept in on Monday, then went out for a nice easy recovery run around the neighborhood late in the morning. Despite some still sore quads the run actually felt really good. I had grand plans for a 30 mile ride out on some rural highways in the afternoon but that didn't pan out. When I went to pump up my rear tire I discovered a flat. I changed it out with a spare tube and it looked like everything was in order. When I started pumping it up I went slow, checked the tire out and didn't notice a thing. Then when I hit 80 psi the tube went *boom*! Yeah...so no ride for me.

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Otherwise, I got in 1250m at the pool this morning. The Y pool is closed for the rest of this week thanks to a random act of vandalism so I went back to the public pool to get the laps in. Boot camp is on for tonight...

Well that sucked...

Only one word can possibly describe today's run over lunch - terrible. Well, maybe you could throw awful, stupendous or miserable out there as well. Things looked promising at the beginning - the weather was reasonably warm and sunny and I was raring to go. I was raring for about the first 0.1 miles though. After that my shins started to ache. I've been having some shin splints for the last couple of weeks and I know it isn't my shoes because I've swapped around a few pairs with varying amounts of mileage on them and it hasn't made a difference. The kicker was about 0.25 miles in when I developed some sort of weird cramp or stitch in my abdomen that only hurt when I ran, not when I walked. So I wound up running 2-4 minutes, walking for 1....it was such a disaster until the final 0.2 miles and then it felt almost half decent. I guess that is what I get for taking a couple days off...from mojo to pure suckage in the space of a few days. Can I tell you guys that I'm a bit nervous about my 10K next weekend?

Another long weekend?

This past weekend was another long one for me as it was Family Day on Monday. I fully appreciated having three days to relax at home. It was also a movie bonanza weekend. Here's what I saw:

• Oceans 13: Not as good as 11, but oh so much better than 12. It made me miss Las Vegas from last weekend.
• The Namesake: An interesting movie, but I suspect this is one of those cases where the book is much better than the film.
• The Spiderwick Chronicles: I saw this one on the IMAX screen and it was pretty cool. Not as good as the Golden Compass, but definitely cool effects.
• Jumper: Never have I heard so many people complain how bad a movie was after exiting the theatre. Too many tangents on the story line and the leads were not great...

Apart from that Neil and I made a fabulous dinner on Monday night. We made lamb shanks, polenta (strong enough to hold a wooden spoon upright) with gorgonzola cheese in it and sticky toffee pudding.

There may have been some wine consumed...
Voila, the finished result.

A busy week

Four days off at home was all I was able to handle, but the good news is I do feel better. I managed to keep myself pretty busy while I was at home. I:

• Watched the Wedding Date.
• Watched the first DVD for Pride and Prejudice.
• Watched Catch and Release.
• Watched a lot of the Food Network.
• Watched a lot of Friends. In Calgary you can watch Friends from 6 pm through to at least 9 pm, and sometimes through till 10 pm on weeknights.
• Deconstructed the January through September 2006 issues of Food and Wine magazine and filed all of the recipes and wine reviews into a binder.
• Broke my programmable thermostat when I got up from my couch that has a ridiculous static charge on it (that's what you get when you live in such a dry climate) and attempted to change the temperature on the thermostat. I zapped it when I touched it, the screen went blank, came back on and was unresponsive.
• Replaced the broken programmable thermostat.
• Estimated the cost to replace the carpet in my living room with laminate flooring.
• Made Asian Chicken Noodle soup and Split Pea soup.
• Planned the themed food with my big bro for the Superbowl Party this weekend. New York, New England and Arizona will all be represented well.
• Spent some air miles to book a flight to Orlando for the Minnie Marathon.
• Saw Atonement, an absolutely amazing movie.
• Put my training schedule for the entire year into an Excel spreadsheet. Training for the Minnie starts Feb 11 and as soon as that is done I start training for Quebec City. After Quebec I get two weeks off and then I start training for the Mickey. It is going to be a busy year, but thanks to Hal Higdon I know what direction I'm going in.