fiddling with my blog……

yeah like I’ve got nothing better to do…. hey try this! click here and maybe you’ll get a bit of favourite all time 70’s social statement poet…. go JCC!
did we run today…. yep! very mild weather…. a very tired and bloated couple of hours up and down the mountain some with some buddies…. Ok, could of used a little more sleep and a lot less desert

finally I get to run…..

It’s friday evening again and I’m home alone… well me & gomez that is…. listening to radioparadise sitting on the big fat sofa in my flannel pj’s & all in the world is alright with me, gomez thinks otherwise because he can’t get on this sofa…. “a dog’s life indeed!” says he.
So, finally I got to go for a bit of a run, about 6,35miles round the block at a nice steady pace 50:50 which is a couple of minutes slower than I would usually do this but I didn’t feel any urgency just a beautiful clear cool evening with my ipod….
For some reason I felt the urge to invite all my running pals over supper tomorrow… that’ll be fun. I think I’ll get up early and hit Jean-Talon Market and indulge in a few of my favourite foods…. after I’ve been for a run of course. No danger of sleeping in these days gomez gets me out of bed about 4:30am which makes for a long day but sleep is over-rarted if you ask me….. anyway if the folk weren’t coming over tomorrow I would probably have gone to the movies, well sort of anyway. There is a free screening of “The Vice Guide To Travel” at some film festival in town and the subject matter sort of appealed…. a DVD documentary on the last places on the planet you’d want to go to…. now where’s that puppy I’m sure his up to no good…. I fear for my sneakers!

A very, very tough zero milage week….. didn’t run an inch

It’s now tuesday night and I started writing this last friday, the weekend came and went and nothing got done and my my sneakers just sort of sneered at me every time I passed them… any way this post is a bit upside down

….. so finally it’s Friday and it’s a long time since I’ve felt so drained purely from work, well…..it was probably this time last year… it’s always the same, I shouldn’t winge & whine …. and I wouldn’t, only it seriously gets in the way of the important things. I didn’t get to see my kids all week and when I finally did… I’m just all wound up from dealing with other peoples crap and probably not the dad I like to be…. Ho Humm!
So tomorrow’s the day Gomez comes home…. I’m so excited, it’s like being a kid all over again, which probably happens more frequently with me than most old geezers.. and i’m OK with that. It’s going to be a little strange having a dog around again it’s been about 7 years since Charlotte my Golden Retriever was donated to a buddy of mine….. the ex who wasn’t the ex at that point, announced one day ” either that effin dog goes or I do!” ….. I wish I’d kept the dog! …. I wonder if she reads this and if she does I hope she realizes that if she had’ve left me with the dog… life might have been a little smoother a little sooner.
….And so for the running or lack thereof…. just wasn’t any time anywhere in the week that I could’ve squeezed some in, so 5 days rest should do me some good although all those un-burnt calories feel a bit stodgy around the middle guess I’ll find some time, this weekend ….although I fear I won’t get any serious distance/time, what with the new arrival and all!….. We’ll take it as it comes and look forward to the following weekend….

And Gomez has now been here for 3 days and has pretty much got the hang of the basic things… food/sleep/walkies. And if there is any one thing that stands out it is the speed with which he understands what’s going on… he’s making the smart golden retriever look like a dumb blond… and she was no thickie. Anyway he’s adorable and now keeps me company as I go about my business. I will take a gazillion photos just as soon as I get a bit better organised. Promise.

On the running front, I totally wrote off last week’s training to work/gomez, and the begininng of this week for that matter and I’m Ok with that. i now understand that nothing is really lost in just one week and that sometimes the rest will freshen up my mind as much as the old corpse, making it all new again. But man am I ever looking forward to a clear, bright & cold 4 hour workout that takes my battery all the way down to zero and leaves my legs in that mushy spent state that make soaking in a hot bath feel like heaven… is it the weekend yet? Talking of which, it’s going to be strange…. I will be alone with just gomez. The kids are with the ex’s and and K is away on business for a week…. hmmmm I could get into all sorts of mischief

pining for mexico…..

So Sunday workout was an easy hour with some friends up & down Mont-Royal [cool/light rain] followed by pushing harder and sneaking off into the woods for another 1:10…. probably covered about 15 miles which made for a fairly good weekend, compensating for a frustrating [work] sort of week. Total for the week about 50 miles tues/sat/sun…. all in the rain.
So Sunday afternoon was spent surfing the net and dreaming of races in warmer parts…. came across these two donkeys on the side of the Copper Canyon, mexico…. and have now chosen this as my lifetime goal race….. sounds like a plan! Now just have to work out the details.

…… Monday, Arghh!! won’t get to run until wednesday….. if I’m lucky. Merde!!!

so much for my trying to stick to a schedule….

Last weeks training was pretty good, work behaved and didn’t interfere. Not so this week though. Tuesdays run in Ottawa was pretty satisfying and I had planned to do the recovery thing on wednesday but by the time I got on top of the other stuff it was bedtime and I just didn’t have any energy left. Thursday evening had a client opening a new store so that was Thursday’s run postponed… to Friday. I had planned to run Friday afternoon but work got in the way… and last night we went to see the Hip ….. and no, the Kids dont get it! Great concert in a great intimate venue…. my old ears buzzed for the rest of the evening. I love rock concerts, the smell of weed, sweaty bodies and fainting girls. Man I hate to get old!! … but hang on a minute Gord Downie’s gotta be my age… nearly. They’ve been on the road since the late eighties!…. so if he started at say 25…
Back to the running thing…. So today’s weather was nothing less than foul. Rain, torrential at times. Cold and windy. I hung around hoping it would get better,but it never does… I just get more comfortable! On my way up the step hill that leads to the mountain I noticed a mum & daughter [little pink raincoat & pink brolly] out planting bulbs for the spring… in the pissing rain! oh to be five years old…. she’s going to be checking out the window all winter and in the spring she’ll be so excited….. An uplifting thought…. at the mountain I detoured past the abandoned ski lift on the other side of Mont-Royal behind the CEPSUM ond then through the cemetery and wondered what the crowds were doing out on such a miserable day… Then I noticed the TV trucks and remembered it was Remembrance Day…. how disrespectful of me, being so happy as i ran pas all the black umbrellas.
Anyway, I ended up running around the top a couple of times, and then tried to retrace my route home… got a little lost in the cemetery, but thats OK too… wondered where all these folk came from originally as the headstones are all arranged by race…. the St. Andrews Society has a stone lamenting that all these poor dead Scotsmen are so far away from their native moors & glens….. oh pahleeeze
Total time about 3:10 and as I was trying to keep warm I probably covered about 19 miles….. got home to a huge mug of tea, a hot bath and a humungus bacon sandwich

I have no problem justifying the calories…. and yes I reckon my heart/arteries can stand it…… On the subject of health: an acquaintance [nodding terms/chat at golf tournaments sort of acquaintance] passed away from liver cancer on Tuesday…… he didn’t even know he was ill. Just felt like total shit, went to ER and never came out…. I dedicate my bacon sandwich to Gaetan

…. a dreary evening in Ottawa, aren’t they all?

I’ve been coming to Ottawa every few weeks on and off for many years, and I don’t understand why anyone would live here…. it’s only saving feature is the Rideau Canal. Talking of which…. I decided I would go for a nice easy run for an hour or so before dinner…. cut along story short: I got lost after I decided to extend my run to an hour and a half. I deviated off into the “Experimental Farm” which was dark and spooky….. it started to rain, I missed a couple of turns on the way back… next thing I know I’m in a C-store asking directions. The eastern european dude behind the counter, looked me up and down….. tights & touque and then gave me directions as if I was driving… idiot! Anyway, I eventually found my way back to the hotel…. 2:30 Man was I thirsty/hungry/tired… but not a bad workout for a tuesday night!
Probably this was the run I needed, cleared my head of work… enjoyed the tunes on my shuffle…. I would share my playlist but my itunes/iphoto aren’t working and neither is my cd drive is dead and I’m waiting for a new one to arrive, I guess my little old Powerbook is getting old and bits are starting to fail….. Hmmmm machine

best looking puppy on the planet…..

I can’t wait…. to go pick up Gomez, without a doubt the most handsome Portuguese Water dog on the planet

no hangovers here…. but is Sea-Bass addictive?

one thing I really appreciate about my 10 years of pretty much 100% abstinence from alcohol is the lack of hangovers! I got into a conversation with some friends of about the same age/background as myself at about 2 in the morning, at a party on Friday night. We discussed which drinks worked best, how much H2O to consume, food, sleep and came to the conclusion that was no way round it! At 40-something if you drink anything more than a few beers/glasses of wine you will get a hangover to some degree and you will not perform quite as well the next day.
So while everyone else is doing the Cosmo’s & Chardonnay…… yours truly got into some serious finger food…. Holy shit, Chilean Sea Bass on toast, best get me some of that before the world runs out! Filet mignon on sticks, warm bite sized bits of tuna, blood oranges soaked in honey…. and an 8 foot selection of cheese! Total piggery! it was wonderful! not one waiter’s tray passed without me snagging a sample. Was this at all wise, having already overeaten at dinner about an hour before the party? …. like I care? it just tasted too frickin’ good for me to care.

So Saturday’s run on the mountain was more or less as per the schedule, albeit a little shorter. The weather here in Montreal at this time of year can be just perfect for running on the trails, cool & crisp….. the tricky bit is the footing. Wet & slippery with all the obstacles covered with leaves…. just forces you to pay attention. So in about 2:10 we covered about 14 miles which brings the weeks total to about 43 miles, I have it in my head that if I do 40-50 miles a week through the winter [with the right amount of cut-back weeks] I’ll be in fair condition to start my approach to July’s target. Sounds like plan?

better habits, winter routine kicks in…. and do Scotsmen jog?

hmmm…. again it’s been awhile since I blogged and it isn’t from lack of subject matter…. nothing really that exciting, the usual day to day pedestrian crud, and that’s OK, pedestrian can be OK sometimes. Training after my Vermont 50 this year just sort of flopped into an “easy run what/when you feel like it sort of no-routine” routine, which was OK too, for about a month. But after a while I start to need some structure and a target. I ran mostly on the mountain, rarely anything less than 10 miles and never fast. Autumn was really nice this year, or maybe it was just me…. Mtb’ed a bit too, it’s all good. TV seemed to take up more space than usual, work seemed to get more needy/stressy….. and at then little stuff starts to get on my tits, my mood starts to spike a bit and I don’t like myself when I get too curmudgeonly…… so I wrote a plan. Nothing Pfitzinger/Daniels, just a loose series that includes some intervals, some bricks, some longish mid-week runs and the run that I never do …. recovery. I can always find something else, burningly important to do.
This is week one and I’m pretty happy with the result given the low/inconsistant milage I’ve put in of late.

the thumbnails should expand…..

sunday: 2 hours, about 14 miles on the mountain/road
monday: feet up watching Prison Break

tuesday: treadmill at the gym. * miles w/ 8 x ,25 intervals. 53:12, 7:02 pace
with no aches or pains. Seems like I lost a little cardio as my HR is about 10
BPM above where we usually are… to be watched.

wednesday 5:30 am recovery run [i'm impressed!] about 4,5 miles, easy pace.

thursday 5:30 pm 6,35 miles easy pace

So I’m planning to take tomorrow off unless I get the urge, or I feel the need to go hide…… Saturday, rain or shine Tom & Gabriel want to go Mtbing and I’ll be on foot…. on the mountain with the boys it’ll be nice and slow and I’ll get the second run on Sunday….. all things being equal.

Musically, I have a Glaswegian group that are reminding me that I like mandolin….. sort of roots/crude unpolished…Sons & Daughters good solid jogging music…. do Scotsmen jog ? do watch the vid of Johnny Cash and do have a little dance about your cubicle….. and have yourself an awesome day.