Can’t even post on Coolrunning as I’m more than sure it’s going to sound demented! ….. So I’m in Ottawa doing my thing … can’t focus, can’t have conversation…. certainly can’t type, I’ve corrected abot 6 typo’s in 2 line….. the brains gone to mush…. totally!
If somebody said… OK the race starts right now! I’d take that option…. ’cause honestly I’m loosing it….. and I’ve still got three days to go FFS.
I’m trying to cast my tiny mind back to the 1st marathon or the 1st 5o miler …. or the first anything for that matter…. but we’re coming up blanks! I’m screwed…. can’t find a place/space that bears any relevance.
I’ve gone through the taper withdrawal before, but not to this degree….. Oh this is so special!!……I keep reminding myself that the training went well, no injuries, the weather forecast is even perfect…. good people backing me up…… but if I could just find that tiny grain of whatever that sets it all in motion….
I ‘m gonna order some room-service and see if that helps….
It’s really hard for me to imagine, but….. this time next week I’ll have just finished a round of golf with my boss and a client. We’ll be out for supper….. total real world mundane crud … my golf swing [I used to do this] might just have lack a little flexibility but I know I’ll sound sick if I try to explain exactly why. The 2007 VT100 will be behind me…. seems strange…. the internal build up seems so crucial to me, but all the folk around me they’ll never notice…. but this would be the norm I guess …. ultra-running being such a microscopic sub-sub-culture in the running(real) world
and then again this is all in my head……but….. when we all get to that big changing room in the sky maybe I’ll have something interesting to talk about….. but then again maybe not.
“Go my sons, burn your books, Buy yourself stout shoes. Get away to the mountains, the deserts and the deepest recesses of the earth. In this way and no other will you gain a true knowledge of things and of their properties. -Seter Severinus, 1571 A.D.”
So we’re in Mexico City airport with a few hours to kill between connections so…. grab a cab and head for the old part of the city, get lunch & have a nose around for a while. Sounds like a plan! What didn’t know was there was a couple of hundred mexican farmers protesting againt the xpropriation of their land and the corrupt de-nationalization of industry. In true Mexican fiesta style they really caught everyone’s attention by doing it naked outside the senate.The fountain outside the Palazio del Bellas Artes was full of naked farmer’s wives…. not a pretty sight! Nice tans but a tad too much flesh for my taste. Fox reported this. The nun with blue habit wasn’t phased in the slightest ….. looked like she was on a mission to me! Couldn’t resist the Kodak moment…
Lunch was superb, Mexico City was smoggy and incredbly busy…. bodies everywhere. Noisey and very alive!
Our flight was very uneventful…. So no run on Saturaday… and the late night and general lack of steam today stole my planned workout today…. I’ll get up a reasonable time tomorrow and deal with some hot hills.
Friday evening and I’ve still go a pile of work a waitin’ and a “to do” list as long as your arm…. but waitin’ is what they’s gonna do! it’ll be Monday soon enough. Seem like forever since I’ve had a vacation…. never seem to get all my training in….. never seem to clear my desk of even the important stuff, never mind the small stuff that I’m not supposed to be sweating. So we’ll turn up the Goo Goo Dolls, dance around a bit and then go out for supper.
So where are we on the VT 100 training ? I hear you ask. We’ll we had a great weekend last week we manage d to get in a fairly good brick of 4:20 on saturday covering about 22 miles & then another 2 :15 on sunday at at a slightly faster pace for about 12 miles. Absulutely no problems and fininshed feeling pretty fresh….. lots of dog walking and a reasonable amount of sleep. Monday was a rest day and tuesday I went to the fizzio. Well at the fizzio I was pulled & pushed and stretched and pummeled and left feeling the need to take another day off….. wednesday came and went and Thursday was just one of those work encrusted days that never ended with another visit to the fizzio just for good measure. Cut a long story short didn’t get to run until this morning and then only for half an hour. I’m trying not to get too frustrated with this training which just hasn’t had any real rythym since march… or was it february. Ho Humm.
Anyway as I said at the top it’s the weekend ad I’m looking forward to a couple of good solid long runs and a couple of nice meals and maybe even a nap in the afternoon.
Fast forward to Sturday evening and I now have a little free time to finish this and maybe indulge in some serious time wasting before I get an early night.
Last night’s restaurant “Pintxo” was truely sublime, one of the nicest meals I’ve had in a long while….. wonderful people, great flavours & a superb atmosphere. My warped sense of humour was reminded of Anthony Hopkins as I ate my tiny foie gras with lentils and sipped a very subtle Rioja.
So this morning’s run was a great success, pretty much the same as last weeks 4 + hours but with what seemed like a lot less effort, which was suprising given the late night and the 4 1/2 hours sleep… We’ll see how tomorrow’s scheduled 5 hours goes. On the whole I’m feeling pretty positive about my condition as I get closer to July’s event…. famous last words
ho humm….. how many times have I complained on my little piece of the www that “life gets in the way”. Again, that’s the case. I should be working as we speak but in fact I am staring out the window of my office and lamenting the fact that I am falling behind on what started out as a fairly good game plan, got slowed down by the achilles thing and the the out-of-town work factor kicked in.
My particular industry just loves to party. Entertaining is an artform… and in fact our bread & butter, and we’re good at it! However for the past few years I have made a point of dodging all late nights, any excess and have a reputation for my boring/clean living lifestyle. This past weeks trip to Halifax has put that one to rest. Not that I went totally overboard as is the norm, but I did cut loose a couple of times, stayed up late, discovered Propellor Extra Special Bitter and missed a bunch of training.
And…. as normal I can rationalise anything. I had felt a bit of a twinge of ache deep in my right glute… and self-diagnosed it as some sort of periformis thing…. the rest seems to have done the trick ………it’s all but disappeared. Q. have I found the cure for Periformis Syndrome?……. Cheers!
So how’s that VT100 thing going?, I hear you all wondering…. not so bad, I guess. Well, the month of February was pretty good as I averaged 40 plus hard miles/week for a total of 173,5 miles for the month. However, the combination of last years sprained ankle, new ski boots, too much skiing… and maybe too much running in the snow gave me a spot of tendonitis in my right achilles…. nothing too radical just a little swelling and that glowing warmth that only tendonitis gives… So I did the right thing for a change and gat myself some physio before things got any worse and at this point everything seems to be back in order.
I’m sort of proud of myself for showing just a modicum of smarts, this time I actually went to the physio before the injury screams for attention and then regretting not getting it looked at sooner…. I intend to get to the start line uninjured and well trained (or even slightly under-trained) as against injured and over-trained.
As for the rest of my life at the moment…. Everything is pretty much as it should be, although work is a pain! Gomez is adorable, the children are well and K remains my rock!
Wow what an amazing weekend of running in fresh powder! There is absolutely nothing like it… well maybe that soft sandy beach at sunrise in Mazanillo, Mexico. I had a bit of a wimpy running week in that I went to the gym once for the intervals thing and watched an episode of “Dead like Me” from the comfort of the eliptical trainer…. and that was it! Well I made up for it with about 18 mile yesterday and about 12.5 today, all on the trails in deep snow which adds about 30% effort to the workout… IMHO anyway. If I was smart I would have dug out my gaiters that I used to use when I was into cross-country skiing, but that would be too smart. And anyway I sort of like the look on people’s faces as you appear from a gap in the bushes on to the regular trail covered in snow from the waist down. They sort of cringe and look at me as if I’m demented.
And today I actually remembered to take the camera… and then the batteries…. but here’s a few photos…..
on a totally different note, I was chatting with my Dad this morning about the fact that I’ve sent the application for the VT100…. and he very nonchalantly says, “oh, I did one of them once, …..on a bike of course” so it comes to pass that as a young man he rode in a 100 mile road race… and did pretty well at that! “four hours & fifty something minutes” he claims! and I would be inclined to believe the God-fearing retired bank manager. I had to ask how old he was at the time… a mere 18 or 19! Now if he’s 77 now… born in 1931, one has to wonder what the bikes were like in 1949 post war London. Pretty basic & probably just a little heavier than today. So maybe I got my Dad’s legs !! shame I didn’t get his brains
Well it seems like forever since I wrote here, although I’ve been pretty good logging the VT100 page which is where I’m keeping the details. I’ve installed a “widget” on my mac that keeps a countdown until the start of the race, and as I type this it tells me I have 165 day, 11 hours and 25 minutes to go until the start of the race…. a handy tool to remind what the goal is.
I had a few days last week where if I had put my mind to it and if I hadn’t been such a wimp I could’ve got out the door to run…. but the weathers bad, but I’m tired, but I’ve just eaten, but I’ve got work to do…. blahblahblah….. the list of excuses is endless, there is always a very good valid reason not to get out there and do it …but I just have to ignore the logical route to the sofa/tv/computer/fridge. Anyway, it was one of those evenings when I had resigned myself to missing yet another workout (excuse #1: work related) and I wasn’t to chuffed with myself for being such a wimp …. and a some point the question popped into my little head…. “How much do you want it?” It being the race. From then on the train of thought went along the lines of “Why?” and “If you want it that much, why don’t you just put your sneakers on and get out there?” ……. but at that moment it was passed my bedtime and I needed the sleep…. which is also a big part of the training process, he rationalised. Anyway, I have spent the last few days asking myself how much do I want it, and coming to the conclusion… enough to work around the obstacles that get in way of training.
So as I was running yesterday, “the question” was still wandering around under my touque and I started to apply the same logic/test to a few of the other areas of my life that are also prone to the procrastination virus. It was surprising how few stood up to the question as well as the running did. Work for example, didn’t fare so well. The rewards didn’t seem to warrant the stuff that one has to give up… conclusion: keep some balance, don’t let it take over. Family, Gomez, Mexico all fared well….. just the work seemed out of whack! Note to self: work less run more
I should find a Gomez photo to stick in here……
so my puppy is turning into the most wonderful companion, not just for me but for the whole family. With no formal training he seemed to have mastered all the basics and is really no bother at all. Without a doubt the easiest dog ever!
….. and lastly, I would like to nominate Samual L. Jackson for an Oscar for this line….
