…. 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

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.

two posts in one day…. a first, I think

So the other news of this week was the birth of 9 absolutely perfect little Portuguese Water Dogs. 4 males & 5 females…. some wavy some curly all beautiful. I am third on the list of choice, after the breeder and one other.

All things being equal, I get to bring my new running partner home at the beginning of November…… I can’t wait. I can almost smell that wet puppy smell from here… I feel like a big kid, priceless!!

On the subject of running: the taper continues. 8 days until race day….. it’s upon me again but nowhere near as scary as the first time, but that’s true of any distance….. I just came in from the most perfect couple of hours on Mont-Royal in the autumn sunshine, I ran to the mountain this morning which adds about 50 minutes to my workout and although I really don’t care for this added asphalt element the distance felt about right. +/- 14 miles
I can happily report that the legs feel strong & pain-free. I confess to having not modified my diet to balance with the drop in milage…. and last night’s Thai-fest left me feeling just a squeak heavy & bloated. Ah well… what’s a boy to do.

… a few odds & sods worth mentioning

So last night’s movie rental is well worth a mention. Following is low budget, noir-type film with a beautifully warped ending. Same director as Momento which I’ve yet to see.
Tonight’s ride on the mountain is also mention-worthy…. broke in my new bike on the mountain with Tom, only wiped out a couple of times. It seems lighter than my stolen Divinci, I love the disk brakes and the full suspension seems to make the steep climbs more do-able. There an adjustment that needs to be made on the gears as I lost my chain a couple of times.
I should have been running I guess….. I had scheduled to get up early and go to the mountain but it was one of those rare pull up the blankets, ignore the clock and go back to sleep sort of mornings. Happens sometimes. Yesterdays run was OK, while Tom played football I ran around Ile Bizard, about 18 kms at a nice steady 8:10 ish pace. Friday night I just ran my usual 6,5 miles around the block. Not a huge week for the milage, but that’s OK with me as I can’t see that any more hard fibre breaking workouts will add anything for the VT50 … call it taper I guess.
Today I spoke with the Portuguese Water Dog breeder to get an update on the pregnant mother of my new running partner…. pictured below pre-siring…

the puppies are due next weekend and according to a radiography…..[ yes they will do it for dogs too!] she has at least 8 little ones…. I can’t wait I’m so excited.

…. and Tuesday’s the trip to the gym.

I’m still not quite ready to start the taper yet…. well not in my head anyway. So what should have been a 6 mile recovery run turned into an 8 mile LT type run with 7 x 1/4 mile intervals…… felt good 56:37 (7:05)… which isn’t too shabby given last weekend’s 30 odd miles of hills. I’ll rest tomorrow

and as I write this the beeb is playing the Bonzo Dog Dodah band…… a true nugget of 60-70’s Brit Uber-culture… could I be pining for home. I’m wondering what was playing in Canada around then….. gotta wonder
.

hot shower or cool mountain stream?….. make mine a stream!

happily Jay peak is just an hour and a half south of Montreal, and as I was home alone this wekend I got to go do the training run with a bunch of what I would consider hard-core types…. Bill the veteran [100 pb of 19:xx], Ernie, last years 3rd place Challenger, a couple of crazy "frenchies", an 18 year old dude who paces Bill, dan the rd….. Roly & me.

I can very honestly say that I have never run anything like this…. miles of river-running, bushwhacking up mountainsides, singletrails that weave through forests that haven't been cleared in years…. the only thing we didn't tackle was the climb/descent of the mountain… we'll save that for race day. I now understand why the actual distance of this race is such a mystery, the weather conditions [rainfall] really dictate the course….. the RD will decide just before the race where we're all going.

For this training run we covered a total of 5hrs 20mins, of which 4 or so hours were actually running the rest was hiking/bushwhacking … and getting a little lost in the woods, with the RD. A nice workout that produced no discomfort anywhere in particular…. except from the bites from the deer flies

We got really lucky with our campsite … secluded, quiet and the sound of the brook rushing by to send us to sleep. Bliss, however shampoo doesn't lather in such soft water!

yesterday was the strangest day….

which left me feeling very stupid and more than just a little vunerable. What happened? I missed an important client event by exactly 24 hours. Being the anal punctuality freak that I am, everything is very carefully added to the agenda and sync'd withe Treo… so what happens if you put it on the wrong day…… You arrive at the golf course Prize contribution in hand to find that they event came and went without you.

Anyway golf's a total yawn! Spent the day taking care of a few outstanding things and then went for a run in the woods on the mountain….. a near perfect afternoon, warm & sunny…. but alas the trails were crawling with folk/tourists. The legs felt stiff and the shin felt achey so after about 40 mins of run/walk I decided to just brisk-walk the rest…. and save my self for the weekend

slightly different format for the chart today: Blue = speed or lack thereof Brown = % of max heartrate

So here's a a shakey YouTube film [done with a cellphone prolly] of the tune that's playing non-stop on my ipod…

So where was I?

Can I start by sharing a few photos that I took this weekend on Mont-Royal? I ran both mornings for a total of a little over 5 hours covering about 30 miles on a pair of freshly healed legs…. total bliss. A little more humid/hotter than I can prefer but I'll take any conditions rather than an injury….

so apart from my dead hard drive there were a couple of other things that happened over the past month. Probably the most significant was my finding Julie the fizzio II. Julie the fizzio I, really didn't have much of a clue what to do with a repeat offender like me… except refer me to Julie II who new exactly what was needed…. some very clever strength exercises, a wobble board, cross training and above all listening to the pain caused by the ashpalt.

I had an x-ray done about three weeks ago which showed a grey showdow next to the tibia, which they tell me is the calous build up of the bone repairing itself…. Guess what? I can add running Boston on a stress fracture to the list of dumb shit I've done in my life… It's a wonder I even finished…. thank the lord for Advil.

I would like to publicly forgive the thief that stole my beloved Da Vinci Cactus…. the best bike I've ever owned. His/her karma will bless them with hemarroids at some point. Bummer is that I really can't afford a replacment for a while, and I could do with the cross training…. I had actually invested in this bike as a plan b after I was benched with stress fractures in 04…. ah well <<<<insert huge sigh here>>>>

Constant craving….. so here’s the plan

so after a dreary day day of non-stop meetings with an outside view of nothing but concrete what could be better than a huge amount of cheese stuffed pasta in a blue cheese sauce, apple crumble & a couple of hours of hotel room…….

I really should be working, but I ain't. I'm laying on my huge kingsize bed fantasizing about the seasons runs/races…. getting muddy, hot, sweaty and going to a new place in my head…sick I know?
The legs are definitely coming back at a good rate of repair…. I will go easy on them from now until the Tuesday after Victoria day….. but then the fun starts……. May22nd I'm gonna train for Haliburton using a slightly heavier milage version of the VT50 schedule that seemed to work so well. I will also through in a couple of overnight runs, the Jay Challenge marathon an the Fatass 50K (maybe the 100K option who knows)…