Week of January 1

Sunday the 31st/Monday the 1st       I'm so lucky the original weather forecast of high winds and -14C didn't pan out tonight. I start my New Year's run on a clear, cloudless night with an almost-full moon that makes rooftops glow. There's no wind, it's -10C. It's an ethereal night to be running on what's already a very special occasion. I drop off gifts for the neighbours, then head down Northumberland and around Sunshine Gardens where the sun earlier today thankfully melted the ice on the roads. On a night like this it's easy to make running into something much more than mere movement. I have the beautiful Polegnala e Todora singing in my head as I run. In fact, there's nothing but that song and the full moon throughout my run. Maybe that's why I run feeling so light and open. I start up Marlborough Drive then turn onto the path to go back home. That's when the run becomes truly magical. The moon is so bright that the snow on the path is glowing and my shadow is crisp and defined. I can't believe how beautiful it is, and somewhere in those moments of awe the new year comes in. I cross Hanwell, stay on the path, then go down Rookwood and back up Northumberland to come home. 40min.

Wednesday       YEAH!!! Full moon, clear skies, no wind, and it's above freezing! I might as well be in heaven. I listen to Afterglow before starting my run and the song stays with me, floating through my head and making the evening so wonderful. The first few minutes out the door are a little rough. It's all the weight I've gained over the holidays, as well as all the bread I've been making - and eating - lately. But as I go around Sunshine Gardens and loop twice around Marlborough, I find my stride and that quiet place where it seems I can run forever. The pace is quite slow and my strides are short; the focus for the evening is really on technique and posture rather than speed or distance. I'm working mostly on my hips, in what Chi Running calls The Column, and on my arms. Although it gets a bit tiring at the end, running with a very strong core rather than slouching just feels good. I'm finally getting used to running with my thumbs pointing up (I used to run with my forearms turned so that my palms faced down.) It only took two months. Head across town on George Street then come back on Queen feeling fast and strong. 1h35

Friday       Environment Canada says there's no wind and it's +6C when I decide to go running. I think Environment Canada is wrong. It's a bit chillier and I'm cold for my entire run. The ground is right at the freezing mark and even though it isn't raining, there's enough water on the surface of the roads to have a thin sheen of ice everywhere. I have to do a lot of slow, short-strided running and even quite a bit of walking. Maybe that's why I feel so strong throughout the run! Around Sunshine Gardens, then up Marlborough and Golf Club Road. OK, maybe I'm not as strong as I thought: Golf Club Road gets me out of breath on the very first hill and I have to stop for a few moments. Ugh, haven't had to do that in a while! On my way back I find my stride and my posture and I'm impressed by how much faster I am once I find an easy way to tuck my arms in and to lengthen my torso. Cool! Literally, too. 1h10

Saturday       Global warming is such a great thing. I love the fact that it's January and it's 11 degrees Celsius when I start my long run this afternoon. My quadriceps are stiff, but thankfully the pain in both shoulders has almost completely subsided. After a near collision with a Volvo and a stupid driver just outside the driveway, I wander down to Waterloo Row and lace back a few streets to pass the time. Head up to the pedestrian bridge and shuffle across thick ice to get on the bridge. I don't feel like turning around at the end, so I shuffle and stumble through the shrubs on the side of the iced-over path. That ice won't be melting any time soon. Then up Canada Street and up the hill to the NBPower complex. My legs are tired but doing surprisingly well in the hills. On the way back I get confused and climb Murray Avenue thinking there's a road at the top that will take me back down to Maclaren. There isn't. I climbed that damn hill for nothing and now my legs are really tired. Back down Canada Street, through Devon and along Union to the Westmorland Street Bridge. 2h00

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Week of January 7

Sunday       Another warm day - above zero again - and sunny and very, very windy. I have this bright idea that I should really push myself today, because, you know, the last two days of hills and long runs/workouts really weren't enough. So off I go for swim practice (the first two hour practice I've attended since....November), then I go running with two other people who are considerably faster than me. And they're rested and faster. Yeah, me and my bright ideas.
      First we head down University and to The Green. The path is in decent shape, but my legs aren't: they really struggle to push off the soggy surface, and the headwind isn't helping. Normally I can pick up speed by picking up my cadence, but not this time. Past the Delta and along Woodstock Road, then up Golf Club Road. Now, I really like Golf Club Road, but this happens to be the third day in a row that I do hills. I'm OK once we reach the top of the first climb. The run back is a bit better. I refuse to get back on the path; some vestiges of rational thought remain. We turn onto Charlotte to cross the city and get back to the gym, and I know that I'm running on empty. I get flashbacks from Ironman Canada when I was overwhelmed by the desire to sleep. I'm also seriously hungry and this run can't end soon enough. 1h30

Tuesday       My legs are still stiff from this weekend's workouts. More worryingly, I'm still dealing with an impaired hamstring that got hurt last July. It wasn't in good shape on Sunday, and it's in terrible shape tonight. So no strides or cruise intervals as I had planned. On the bright side, I did receive a new gadget today! A basic Garmin Forerunner 101. At last, pace times! I had hummed and hawed about buying a GPS watch for a very long time and finally caved in over Christmas when Running Room had a sale on the Forerunner 101. What I've never liked about running with gadgets, including a heartrate monitor, is that running is the one sport where you can escape the world of numbers and statistics and data. The most technical you can get is a watch, and even that's not judging you like pace or distance. The whole idea of knowing so much about my run conflicted with my idea of running as a return to something grounded and leaving behind the real world for a while. How can you do that when you've got a bunch of satellites tracking you?
      Anyway, I want to get faster. At this point, my high-minded ideas don't quite match up against my drive and vengeance with the marathon course at Ironman Canada. It takes a while for the Forerunner to find the satellites this evening, even though I did set it up earlier. For the first 30 minutes I find myself checking the damn thing every few seconds for the pace time. It's infuriating. I'm a slave to this watch, which isn't even able to give a steady reading from one minute to the next. Eventually at 30 minutes I find my groove and I run decently. But when I go around Sunshine Gardens one more time my quads are very definitely hurting. I'm tired. But theTwo Oceans Ultramarathon is 87 days away. 1h10

Thursday       No fancy watch today. I'm not really in the mood for a run, so in order to convince myself to go out I have to find a way of making the run appealing, and the gadget stuff isn't appealing. Necessary for improvement, yes; appealing, no. It's also a bit chillier than I'm used to: -9, and the wind picks up a little during the run. I start from downtown and go down King/Woodstock Road, then pick up my regular Sunshine Gardens loop. After a few breathless minutes, I settle into a nice short stride. My left quad and hamstring are both hurting. Geez, what's it going to take to get them to recover? I go around Sunshine Gardens twice. I'm feeling better about my run, but not too adventurous. The good news is that I don't even notice the hill up Marlborough Drive (although I do notice the wind on the way back!) As I run the middle of my run I think of Lindsey Buckingham's cover of the Rolling Stones song, I Am Waiting. Maybe a bit of an odd song to think of when you're running, but I finally get over my grouchiness and finish off feeling great. 1h16

Saturday       The morning was awfully dark, but the sun came out this afternoon. It feels like I haven't seen the sun in ages. I'm glad I waited for it, even though the temperature dropped after noon and there's a bit of a windchill. I've got a two hour run in my schedule. My legs, particularly my hip abductors, are very stiff from two long, hard bike workouts this week, so I stay at an easy pace (I averaged 6:08 min/km according to my gizmo watch. I hate that watch.) But I've got U2's Bad and Kate Bush's Cloudbusting to accompany me and we do pretty well together as I go around Sunshine Gardens twice and up Golf Club Road.
        Cloudbusting lyrics, sometimes a little strange, fill me with a lot of hope: Ooh, I just know that something good is going to happen. / And I don't know when, / But just saying it could even make it happen. Thinking about those lines and a few events this past week lead me to wonder about how much power we really have to re-invent ourselves. What exactly does it take to turn your life around? At what point are we ready to do that, and why does it become harder and harder as we grow older? I want to run faster and become more competitive this year; it's something I've never considered myself capable of being, but now I seem to have reached that point where I'm no longer satisfied with what I have and I want to turn things around. Why am I no longer satisfied with what I had? Am I sufficiently dissatisfied to make sure I stick with my new goal, or am I ambivalent? I decide I'm sufficiently dissatisfied. But now the question becomes: what do I do about it? That's the hard part. I think of the quote at the top of this page: "To have what we never had, we must do what we've never done." So here I am, running with a watch I hate, finding out unpleasant things about myself; for example, I'm slow. OK, maybe I already knew that. Now I have proof. Damn watch. 1h52

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Week of January 14

Sunday       Training for a spring marathon - no, make that an ultramarathon - is going to be hard. Notice that I'm not saying "harder than I thought"; I knew it wasn't going to be easy. But that was before the training had actually started and reality hadn't hit yet. It started hitting today when I had a 2h30 long run scheduled and the temperature was -10 at noon. My legs were unbearably stiff, the accumulation of several days of hard workouts and yesterday's long run. They felt really good when I started, though. I coaxed myself out of the door on the promise that I'd keep the pace very slow and I'd leave the hated Gizmo Watch at home. I did not two but three loops around Sunshine Gardens. On the second loop it seems as if I found this wonderful rhythm and pace to settle into and time was flowing by. I was still running with Cloudbusting in my head, but I wasn't as caught up in analysing it as I was yesterday. I ran over to Marlborough Drive and started the climb. I made the mistake of stopping at the top to take a much-needed Gu and my quadriceps seized up. Oh, that hurt! I could barely bend my legs to get back into a run; I just sort of had to lean forward and start falling down the hill and hope that my legs revived themselves to keep me from going face first into the pavement. Two loops around Marlborough, and finally the realisation that my blood sugar was very low - seeing spots, lightheaded - and it was time to go home. 2h00

Thursday       A cold snap and lots of snow meant that I spent a lot of time on my bike this week. I actually felt like doing more biking tonight (weird, huh?), but the threat of a snowstorm tomorrow finally got me out the door for a run. It was -12C, no wind, and quite decent on the roads when I started. As I was dressing up with all my layers and longjohns and mitts, I really didn't feel like going out. But once I was out I had one of the best runs I've had in months. It must be all the biking and the Pilates; it could also be that yesterday was a rest day! Anyway, I had Afterglow in my head and running down Northumberland and across Charlotte I felt so liberated and light on my feet. The first time around Sunshine Gardens I kept my pace easy. Eventually I just couldn't resist the urge to speed up and increase my foot turnover. The roads were covered with packed snow but traction was great. By the third loop around Sunshine Gardens I felt like I was racing. I really worked on posture again, trying to roll my shoulders back and keep a very strong, still core balanced on top of the hips. The idea of thrusting my shoulders back and chest forward seems to make me gain some effortless speed. Now if only I could remember that all the time. Then to Marlborough Drive, around twice - the hill was easier on the second time - and back home. I figured this speed and aerobic capacity came from the series of long, hilly runs I did last week. Payoff for those hours when I felt miserable! 1h30

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Week of January 21

Tuesday       A very, very sad day today. I had to put down my sweet little Chickie. He had had a progressive bowel disease that got suddenly worse last year; for every two weeks of happy, cheerful Chickie, there were two weeks of heartbreaking sad Chickie curled up and barely able to move. I made the decision to put him down on Monday, and late today it was done. He died peacefully in the company of those of us who loved and had cared for him.
      There's a very small, special place in the human heart that only animals can fit in. They crawl in there, whether we want them to or not, and reward us with a love that defies explanation. Chickie was an unusually intelligent, bold and shrewd cat who demanded that he be adored and petted at every possible occasion. I remember once thinking, while cleaning up one of his messes, that we seem to get the pet we need, not necessarily the one we want. I needed to learn to ease up a little, not worry so much about keeping tangible things clean and in order, and see that the truly important things in life have nothing to do with being organised and everything to do with savouring the warmth and affection of another being. In those final moments that I was alone with Chickie, I thanked him for teaching me all that and for making me a better person. I don't think a human could have done it, and now that I think about it a little, I realise that I've changed more because of the animals in my life than the boyfriends I've had. I guess we allow ourselves to be more vulnerable with our pets, maybe because they don't threaten our identity and stature; we can be ourselves, not hang on to our pride, and because of that vulnerability we paradoxically find it easier to soften a little and grow more human. There are two lessons there: how to grow, and how to act so that we give others the best opportunity to grow. Thank you so much, Chickie.
      I wasn't sure I would be able to run this evening. My legs had been very wobbly earlier when I had left the vet. The temperature had also dropped and it was very late by the time I got stuff finished at home. I go out anyway, figuring it would be better than staying inside and being reminded of Chickie's absence. Because it's late it's also very quiet. My legs feel light and strong; Polegnala e Todora is in my head, a fitting song for tonight: a Bulgarian love song called Todora is dreaming. The run is about making peace with Chickie's absence. As I run I get faster and faster, much like what happened last time. I go around Sunshine Gardens, then decide to go up Golf Club Road, which I find a more soothing route since there's less traffic and I can look at the lights across the river and feel distanced from any problems going on. At the far end of Golf Club Road I realise that I'm really charging. I'm also just about frozen and it's definitely time to head back. I have to get ready for the return home: Chickie and Koshka had a post-run routine that never, ever once wavered and I figure that this might be the point that the pain becomes unbearable. As soon as I'd open the door, both cats would hop off the bed upstairs and come racing down the stairs, round the corner together (usually with Chickie bumping into Koshka), and walk toward me. Chickie would stop at my feet and meow to be petted, while Koshka would walk over to his food bowl and sit by it. I'd take off my shoes while chatting with Chickie, then go over to feed Koshka and give Chickie his treats. Tonight, there are no four pairs of cat paws quickly pounding down the stairs. The silence is a chasm between me and the stairwell. Koshka comes over, and then he too seems baffled; he turns to face the stairs, waiting for Chickie to follow up behind him. I realise that as long as I remember Chickie's lessons, then he's with me and I'm OK not hearing the paws come down the stairs or hearing the pipsqueak meow at my feet. He's still with me. 1h15

Wednesday       I should have stayed inside and biked tonight. Instead, I decided to go running because it was relatively warm and the roads were in good shape, while the forecast for tomorrow is very cold. But it was a pretty bad run, so bad that after my first loop around Sunshine Gardens I nearly went back home. I blame it all on Gizmo Watch, which seems to suck the karma right out of me. It was hard getting ready for the run because it was a routine I was used to with Chickie. I got all flustered and went back inside to put on an extra pair of longjohns since it was chillier than I thought. Then I forgot a card I wanted to mail. Then I got in an argument with Gizmo Watch which was insisting that I had moved recently and couldn't even remember what day it was. Finally I started running and my legs were so knocked out they felt bowlegged. Things got in gear on my second loop around Sunshine Gardens when my stride felt very strong and stable. That sensation of stability is new and one of the reasons why I seem to be able to find a good posture and let my hips do a lot of work without creating additional movement. Gizmo Watch was telling me that I was running at just over 6min/km, but I knew that just couldn't be true. I ran with Ray Lamontagne's Be Here Now, reminding me softly to not crumble into sadness for Chickie:

Don't let your soul get lonely child / It's only time it will go by
Don't look for love in faces, places / It's inside you, that's where you'll find kindness.

The headache I've had from three solid days of crying is getting worse. On the other hand, I realise that I'm enjoying this string of runs that I'm on where I feel like a real runner. I don't want to go back, even though I'm so tired that I can barely keep my eyes open while I run. When I do get back, Gizmo Watch proudly informs me that I did 10km in just under 53 minutes, averaging 5:23/km. Hey, maybe we'll get along after all.

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Week of January 28

Sunday       At last, winds that aren't rattling the walls! And sun! And - you'll never believe this - NO FREAKIN' WIND CHILL! Yesterday conditions were, uh, very different, which meant yet another bike ride in front of the TV watch Spiderman 2. Now I do appreciate what all this intense biking is doing to my legs, but whether it'll help me run an ultramarathon in just over two months from now is another thing. Oh yeah, that's true: I bought my plane ticket for South Africa!!! Right before finding out that my passport application had been rejected. Doh!
        So yes, it's official: I'm going to do the Two Oceans Old Mutual ultramarathon in Cape Town in exactly 68 days! I feel a bit anxious about plunking down the money to do this. I feel even more anxious about how little time I have to train and the challenge that the weather is turning out to be. Today my goal is to run for as long as I possibly can before either my legs give out or I freeze. I take Gizmo Watch with me. I'm happy with Gizmo Watch, until I finish the first loop around Sunshine Gardens and realise that the batteries are almost dead. In fact, they die 31 minutes into the run. I think I've used Gizmo Watch a total of three hours so far, so how in the world could the batteries be out? I'm not impressed. I can't imagine Garmin would make a watch for distance runners that doesn't last longer than that. Anyway, I head home to change the batteries (can you believe it?), then back around Sunshine Gardens two more times before heading up Golf Club Road. My legs are definitely exhausted from all the bike workouts, but they still feel pretty solid. I fidget a lot with a new half-balaclava I bought this week. I think about Chickie and imagine that he's at home waiting for me. That brings a sense of peace and focuses me more on my run. Gizmo Watch says my average pace is 5:39 until I reach the first climb on Golf Club Road. Wow, am I ever tired. I feel a little out of it when I go around Glengarry Court. On the way back the tailwind helps me pick up some speed. The last 15 minutes on the flat are very difficult; I feel like I'm trudging. Gizmo Watch's report: 2h15, average pace is 5:50min/km.

Thursday       I wasn't going to go running tonight, but when I checked the weather forecast on my computer I noticed that the temperature was going up instead of down. I figure I might as well take advantage of that before the weatherman realises he's made a mistake. It is nice to be running in decent temperatures, but today's snowfall has covered the roads with a slushy, almost greasy, layer and traction is a major issue. Gizmo Watch is with me to nag me about how slow I am. The batteries are almost dead (go figure.) Twice around Sunshine Gardens very, very slowly. The excrutiatingly slow pace is largely due to the snow on the road, but I've also got a Christmas song stuck in my head (!!) and it's pure torture. By the time I'm done with Sunshine Gardens my legs are feeling fatigued. My heartrate probably hasn't gone up at all and I'm certainly not out of breath. I go up Connaught for some hills, across to the university, and down into the Waterloo Row area. Running is becoming harder and harder as more cars pass over the snow and as my legs get increasingly tired. 1h24, avg pace 6:14min/km. Probably my slowest run ever.

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Week of February 4

Sunday       Why didn't I choose to do a spring ultramarathon last year? When the weather was warm and I could have done these long runs without obsessing over windchills and snowcover? But no, I chose 2007, the first year in, oh, about 15 that we get a real winter. There was way too much snow on the ground yesterday and way too much wind to go out. Instead, I did a brutal two hour bike ride and paid for it today on my attempt at a long run. I left Gizmo Watch behind because of the battery issue - I'm figuring it's the cold weather that's killing them early - and filled my head with Mozart's Sull'Aria from The Marriage of Figaro. Sull'Aria is the duet made famous in the move The Shawshank Redemption, when Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) locks himself in the guard tower and puts a record on the record player, then broadcasts the aria on the prison's speakers. Everyone stops, and as Red says softly in his narration,
"I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free."
        Andy gets locked up in solitary for his unofficial broadcast. When he comes out of it, Red asks him why he did it, confessing that he's not much of a music person. Andy tells him it was worth it to hear music: "That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music?...Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours."
        The two voices make me soar on the inside, but definitely not on the outside. I feel really sick today; in fact, at one turnaround when I pivot to retrace my footsteps, I pause and realise my legs are trembling with fatigue. I feel like I'm running on fumes. I keep it pretty simple, sticking to loops around Sunshine Gardens and being picky about staying on asphalt after the first loop when I see that I don't even have the strength to run on snow. But I'm captivated by those two sopranos. The run is tough, yet I'm making sense of the world around me and seeing where I fit in. I don't know too many other people who run with opera as their motivating music. They don't know what they're missing. 1h30

Saturday       I actually did run once this week. One hour on the treadmill at the Y after 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer. But this kind of unscheduled training before the longest run of my life in April is shameful. I've been biking so much that I actually stretched the chain in two months. But you should see my legs!
        Anyway, Mother Nature gave us a break today, stopped the wind, let the sun come out and the thermometer go all the way up to -8. I start very, very slowly; last Sunday's terrible 90 minute slog is still fresh in my mind. I find it odd that no music stays with me until I realise that it's the effect of not having the wind blowing. After weeks of hearing that wind or being stuck inside in a noisy office to get away from it, I'm outside and it's so...peaceful. There's not much traffic on the road and I even hear a few birds. Running at a slow, steady pace from somewhere deep inside suddenly seems so easy.
        I do four loops around Sunshine Gardens then go up Golf Club Road. I opt for the trail rather than Woodstock Road and I get a delightful surprise when I find a good length of the trail that has been scraped down to the gravel. I climb Golf Club Road without really getting out of breath, do Glengarry Court, and go over to the far end of Golf Club Road. There's an odd house on Glengarry Court that has a dragon statue on the front lawn. The current owners of that house bought the house three years ago and completely remodeled something quite ugly into an imaginative and highly functional building. They did some very nice landscaping and capped it all off with a very large and gorgeous dragon statue. I run by it today and imagine I could swing a ball of fire onto it and wake it up. Then I run down Glengarry Street and imagine all the poplars and tall, narrow pines waking up and walking over to the dragon. All of that buzzing and fantasizing comes from a movie I went to see last night, Pan's Labyrinth. As one critic described it, this movie may be the first masterpiece of the 21st century. You must see this movie. Do not take young children with you.
        Pan's Labyrinth is really two stories, both identical in terms of themes and moral lessons. The two stories reinforce each other, tracking two protagonists who are tortured by their fathers' absence and, failing to find direction within themselves, rely on something external - a faun for the little girl and Franco's fascism for the captain - to find the way that will lead to their rightful and glorified place in the world. The lessons are clear: the way is neither by orders, as the doctor tells the captain before he's shot, nor by trusting your instincts, which is what Ophelia tragically discovers when she gets two fairies killed. It is those who relentlessly, daringly face reality and the horrific pain that comes with it who survive and find strength and guidance amongst each other.
        That equivocation and the intensity of the movie, its incredible thoroughness at exploring these themes at all levels, are the reasons I'm so enthralled with it. But on a completely separate note, it also reminds me of the young girl I used to be: the bookworm who lived within her mind and found that the most engrossing toys were right in her head. Just imagine that tree coming alive and walking toward you. See the house that just got up to shake its legs out and then sat down again. Look at the birds on their way delivering goods according to some great schedule and world that they know. What if that squirrel could talk? What if he just did? I remember reading The Phantom Tollbooth when I was very young and being introduced to the idea that you could turn words and numbers and images - the very stuff we use to describe the things in the world rather than the things themselves - and play with them. Forget the Lego block; what about numbers? If there are three cars lined up on that road, what can I turn that concept into? And what if I just imagine that young tree is actually a faun trying to hide from me? The world is indeed a magical place, and it's all in my head. 2h30.

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Week of February 18

Sunday       Wow, a whole week without running. Actually, it's almost a whole week without doing anything. Work and weather are not combining to make the best conditions for training for an ultramarathon, which is (gulp!) 47 days away. I do two hours slowly and steadily today. There's not much in me afterward, but I did go to the gym for a long, tough workout yesterday. I start by going over to Waterloo Row for a change. The streets are surprisingly clear of snow and I enjoy myself in that first hour. When I come back to Sunshine Gardens I find roads that are covered with packed snow and ice. The tension from running on that kind of surface makes my left knee ache and, more worringly, starts a pain just below the ball of my right foot. 2h00

Wednesday       It was Office Girls Movie Night (we saw Breach with Chris Cooper. The movie is quite awful, but seeing Chris Cooper is worth the ticket price.) That meant that I didn't get running until very late. I was actually impressed with myself for making it out at all. It had been a good day at work and I seemed to be bubbling over with energy. Even my stride was short and light, like I was tapping quickly over the ground. I crossed downtown on Charlotte Street and went down to Waterloo Row. It was an area where I knew for sure that the roads were cleared down to pavement. The temperature must have dropped quickly sometime while I was running because the last half of the run was into a very chilly headwind. How much longer do we have of this kind of weather? Every forecast seems to promise warmer temperatures, but we're still dealing with -19 Celsius at night with even worse windchills. 1h00

Saturday       I'm ashamed to say that I didn't want to run today. I just didn't have it in me to face the ice, the bad footing, the traffic-dodging in snow-filled streets, everything about winter running that seems to drain all the pleasure I have in running. So imagine my surprise when I step outside, grumpy and resistant (it was a brief moment of sunshine filling my apartment that finally got me out the door), and find temperature above zero and clear streets! Woohoo! I trot slowly across town on Charlotte, do my lace backs on Alexandra and Grey, then come back and go around Sunshine Gardens. I've got a cheesy 70s song in my head - so cheesy that I'm not even going to say what it is - and everything is falling into place. The best part about the run is the effect of all the Pilates and core work I've been doing. My hips are really engaged, keeping my posture very upright and everything seems to be moving very efficiently. What's interesting is that I don't find myself slouching out of fatigue at the end of the run. In fact, I sort of sense that I've got this power source in me that I haven't figured out how to tap into yet. What a promising way to end a run. 2h00

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Week of March 4

Saturday       Yes, I'm back! No, I didn't fall off the face of the Earth. I just happened to be trapped in a cave called Work and it looks like I'll be staying there for the remainder of March, so entries may be sporadic. I did venture out today and take a road called Stupidity. First, I sprained my Achilles tendon at swim practice - yes, you read that right, swim practice - when I missed a flip turn and a foot snapped over the edge of the pool wall. That's such a freakish accident that I'm quite proud of it: I mean, how many people could actually do something like that? Not many, huh? Well there you go: yet another example of my unique nature.
        Anyway, I walked back from work yesterday and the long downhill stretch brought back the Achilles tendonitis. So I basically haven't trained for South Africa and am now injured. Argh! The only thing left to do is apply lots of ice to my tendons and lower my expectations for Two Oceans. The brutal cold spell we had this week finally gave way to a warm and sunny day. I stepped out gingerly in the afternoon and started running slowly down Northumberland. The focus was on staying relaxed, keeping the strides very short and the pace very slow. I tried to recall every ChiRunning principle I had used last year to keep the strides as fluid as possible. As I padded slowly down to Waterloo Row and then laced through the streets between University and the river I was amazed at how great I felt for someone who hasn't put on a pair of running shoes in two weeks. I've been doing lots of biking, relying on a Spinervals video that I think has done wonders for my VO2 max. My mind quieted more than usual during the run until I got to a court that I like to run down and back. At the end of the run was my other brush with Stupidity. As I went around the end of the court I saw someone standing in the window of the house at the very end of the road. "How strange that someone would just stand there between a sofa, a curtain and a window. Oh well." And I waved at them. When I got a bit closer I realised I had just waved to a life-size cardboard cut-out of Wayne Gretzky. Doh!
        Back across town on George Street to Sunshine Gardens. My heel started hurting as I went around the loop. Not taking any chances, I headed back in right away, still quite happy that I felt so good. 1h30

Sunday       It was a big debate whether I should run again today or not. I've read so many scary things about Achilles tendonitis, like the Achilles tendon the biggest tendon in the human body and therefore (because of its smaller relative surface area) receives less circulation than other tendons, which is why it takes so long to heal when injured. And that the number one reason for delayed recoveries is continued running, which is what I'm doing. So I promise myself I'll only go out for an hour. I have The Riddle playing in my head. It reminds me of those haunting and beautiful runs in the Similkameen Valley last summer just before Ironman Canada. Again, I'm keeping the pace very slow and everything as relaxed as possible. My heel hurts earlier than it did yesterday but that disappears about halfway through the run. I find it interesting to feel how my arms and shoulders have changed in the past few weeks: I'm much stronger across my latissimus dorsi and all my shoulder muscles than I ever have been thanks to lots of weightlifting and extra swimming at the YMCA. Because of those things, my shoulders feel broad and incredibly powerful as I run, and I'm a lot less tired overall. Good to know!
        The SuperStore where I do my groceries has a great DVD sale on these days. I used to never, ever buy DVDs; I mean, what was the point of buying a movie after you had seen it once? What exactly would be interesting in seeing something over and over again if you knew exactly what was going to happen? One bike trainer purchase and 97 viewings of The Lord of the Rings later, my opinion has changed. A few weeks ago I bought A River Runs Through It, which I had seen many years ago and remembered how moving it was. The story is narrated by Norman, the main character (the voice is actually that of Robert Redford, who finds a tone and a tempo that leave every word marked in your mind with their elegance. Simplicity really is the foundation of all great things.) There's one line in particular that really stays with me: "It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us." I chew on that line as I run. What - not necessarily who - do I live with and love, yet that eludes me? Can I find it here while I'm running? The very simplicity of what I'm doing and the effort to pare every extraneous motion and thought from that intention brings me closer to some raw place that is quite frightening by its reality. Maybe that's why we're so attracted to those that "elude us"; we sense that they hold a key to making our lives more real, but the price to pay in knowing them is the discomfort of knowing ourselves. I want to be a faster, stronger runner. I have no doubt that I can be. Indeed, I can be one of the best triathlete runners in my age group if I set my mind to it. It's something I know and yet eludes me, even if I love the action itself.
        There are lots of quotes in both the movie and the novel that are worth reading. One great site is here . "When I was young, a teacher had forbidden me to say "more perfect" because she said if a thing is perfect it can't be more so. But by now I had seen enough of life to have regained my confidence in it." 1h00

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Week of March 11

Tuesday       Every run is such a big deal now that I've got an angry tendon that may flare up into something serious and the longest run of my life - that I haven't trained for - three weeks away. Running is no longer just running. I've let myself get into a position where I'm a bit intimidated by the fact that I have to put on a pair of running shoes and run. How did that happen? I do two loops around Sunshine Gardens. Partway through the first one I get a sudden drop in blood pressure, something else that hasn't happened in a long, long time. It's the accumulation of way too many bad food decisions, too little sleep, and unusually long hours at the office. I turn back after an hour. 1h10

Wednesday       There's a light shower tonight and the temperature is a delightful +6 Celsius. I still dress up quite a bit since I got much too cold last night. Last weekend I switched back to my adidas Supernova, retiring the Nikes, probably forever. I blame the high air-cushioned heel that's Nike's trademark for some of my Achilles tendonitis. Just before the run I also read an excerpt from Roger Joslin's Running the Spiritual Path, which I haven't done in a long, long time. I had been reading bits and pieces of another book, but it didn't seem to be having the same effect as Joslin's book used to have on me. Tonight I open the page to the paragraphs on "When you cook...cook!" Running meditation and being focused. I manage it for a while as I run down to Waterloo Row. It's nice to have something to come back when my mind wanders back to work, to my soaked feet, to my heel. My heel is in fact doing very well, and I take a chance on pushing the run to 1h30. I run down Queen Street, up Smythe (and get my feet REALLY soaked!), then around Sunshine Gardens. My pace is as slow and relaxed as I can make it. As I start around Sunshine Gardens I begin shaping the posture and the attitude that I'll need at Two Oceans. What will my stride be? What song will be playing in my head? Tonight it's Paul Brady and The Island, not exactly a driving tempo, but relaxed and quiet and keeping me focused. 1h30

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Week of March 18

Sunday       Hello from Ottawa! A colleague and I are here to visit the national Library and Archives of Canada for work-related stuff. I have the unbelievable pleasure of staying at a hotel right in front of the start area for the National Capital running events in May. Fond memories! So naturally within 30 minutes of arriving in my room I'm right back out on the street in my running clothes on a gorgeous, warm, windy day and running up Elgin, around the Conference Centre, and down along the Rideau Canal. I feel great, but it's not really me, it's the huge tailwind that's pushing me along. I do spend quite a bit of time worrying about my Achilles tendon. Swim practice this morning seemed to make it feel much worse; I'll definitely be practicing with a pull buoy for the next two weeks. I run along the canal testing different types of strides and footstrikes until I've settled on something quite consistent and strong. Running along Rideau Canal is such a pleasure: no traffic lights, no sidewalks, no maneouvring around vehicles, just the sheer pleasure of finding a zone and staying there. Only in summer when the Fredericton trails are open can I run like this. I hadn't realised until today what I really missed about running. Running in winter always feels like work to me. It's something I have to do. Running in summer, on the other hand, is something that seems to resonate far more deeply. As I trot along the Rideau Canal I understand where that difference comes from.
        The wind is mighty strong when I pass Dow Lake, but settles back into a nice tailwind as I get up to Hog's Back Park where I turn around and head back home. Crossing by Dow Lake isn't so bad on the return. However, now I've got a headwind the whole way and it tires me out very quickly. I'm also getting really, really hungry. The pain in my Achilles tendon is completely gone. That's encouraging, but I'm still seriously considering pros and cons of downgrading to the half-marathon when I get to registration at Two Oceans in two weeks. As I get hungrier and hungrier I start getting an inkling of just how painful 56km will be on a body that's simply not ready for all that. It's much better to do 21km and let only my pride take the hit, rather than try 56km and suffer more serious damage. Run by Parliament and all the big government buildings, down to the Archives to scout it out, pleasantly surprised that I've still got lots of strength and cardio capacity for hills, then back to the hotel. 2h10

Tuesday       Who knew spending two days at the National Archives could be so exhausting? Frustrating, too. So I've got lots of energy to burn tonight on my run, even though I haven't eaten very well in the past two days and hardly anything to drink. The temperature seems to be very frosty when I check it on the Weather Network (television! Woohoo!), but I'm actually very comfortable for my entire run. I'm in the mood to do all the sites tonight. I start up Elgin and turn down Wellington to run by Parliament. There's the most incredible yellowish crest of a moon hanging between West Block and Centre Block, and Venus (I think) is burning bright just beside it. The crest is so thin and sharp it looks like it could cut something. I run by the Bank of Canada, the Supreme Court, the Archives, and then go down the Portage Bridge and cross over into Gatineau. The neatest thing about all this is that it's all one wide, empty sidewalk and I haven't had to stop for a single traffic light yet. I do a short bit in Gatineau and go by the Museum of Civilization. It's very impressive at night when you can peer inside the well-lit but empty interior. Just around the corner is the Alexandra Bridge with its wood pedway. I cross that and enjoy the sight of Parliament from the Outaouais River on a clear winter night. Then hang a left, go by the National Arts Museum and all the way down Sussex until I get to the Prime Minister's residence. Turn around and head back for the hotel. My Achilles heel is doing remarkably well; my right calf is definitely tight and the soles of my feet are cramping. I obviously haven't done enough yoga this winter to balance all the bike training I've been doing. But I'm impressed with how easily I run up inclines. In fact, I feel so strong in long hills that it's really quite fun to run up them. I think I'm just in a happy mood overall because I'm finally accepting my decision to do the half-marathon in Cape Town rather than the full 56km ultra. There's a lot less pressure in tonight's run because of that almost-decision. I'm not in severe PMS (pre-marathon syndrome), agonizing over every ache and pain, worrying about the logistics of carrying food during the run, predicting the locations of blisters that will erupt in the heat, and so on. This is one of my first real fun runs in a long time. 1h00

Thursday       When I got back from Ottawa yesterday, there was a magazine from the Two Oceans race organizers in my mailbox. Within minutes of arriving, I had it open, and Tuesday's decision to downgrade to the half-marathon started to waver. The photos of the outstanding scenery, the smiles on the finishers of the ultramarathon, the finish line itself...it was enough to make an injured runner weep. But there was hope! My heel had felt wonderful Tuesday! Surely I could do 56km in seven hours if it meant running at 11 minute mile! You can imagine how disappointed I was this evening when I started running and the pain in my heel was back. And it got worse as I ran, too. What in the world had changed things in two day? I'm blaming my orthotics. I didn't have them in Ottawa and instead had gone back to the Nikes (due to the cold weather while I was there) and had inserted heel lifts in them. Today I had run in my adidas Supernova with the orthotics. But now that I've seen the ultramarathon photos, deciding to go to the half-marathon is more difficult to accept than it was on Tuesday. We'll see how the weekend runs go. 1h30

Saturday       A perfect day for running. The sun seems especially clear. I start my run with a lot of trepidation and worry. Actually, I spend the entire run concentrated on my Achilles tendons (note the plural form) and worrying. I've taken out my orthotics and put in squishy heel inserts and that move seems to be paying off. The only problem is that now I've got the start of tendonitis in my right heel! It's just on the verge of becoming worse and doesn't really flare up until the last half of the run when I pause to cross busy streets, then push off from a standstill into a run. That probably puts excessive force on the tendon and shortens it, causing the pain. Anyway, the good news is that I did run for two hours. It was as slow and as quiet as I could make it. I used Paul Brady's The Island to stay in that easy pace. I think it's going to be running song for Two Oceans if I do decide to try the ultra. 2h00

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Week of March 25

Tuesday       I love it when a run is so much more than what I had expected. I started out a bit late and planned on doing 1h30, and I was very concerned about my Achilles tendons. I ended up running for two hours and not hearing anything from either heel! I started out by going down to Waterloo Row and lacing up and down the streets between Waterloo Row and University for almost an hour, running as quietly and softly as possible. I was running without my orthotics so my knee was a bit angry. To counter that and any twinge I thought I could feel in my heels I grasped onto some key ChiRunning concepts that have helped in the past. They seemed to work again this time. Relax the leg below the knee as much as possible; move the foot and the knee in circles, not in a back-and-forth motion; line up the hips with the legs and the shoulders. The knee pain disappeared quickly, and I think I got the extra benefit of being more efficient than usual. That's the only way that I can explain how great I felt as time went by. Maybe it was the song I was using: before heading out, I had played my best running song, Marc Cohn's True Companion. I've never been able to figure out why this really slow song has such a great effect on my running. It'll definitely be in my arsenal when I get to Two Oceans. 2h00

Sunday       One last run before leaving for South Africa. It's such a beautiful day outside and the temperature has bumped up farther than the forecast thought it would go. I start down Northumberland with very short, tentative strides that feel pretty good. The tentative strides soon turn into taut ones that seem to snap off the ground. The point of this run is just to get out and enjoy an hour of running, and to feel out my heel. I go around Sunshine Gardens, up Waggoner's Lane, then figure that maybe it's time I try a hill. It's been at least two months since I've run up one. I go out the Woodstock Road, enjoying the snow-free sidewalk (it's spring! Yippee!), then up Marlborough Drive. Wow! Things feel great! I'm careful to stay aligned as I go up, turn the corner, go down, and at the bottom I congratulate me heels on actually feeling better by the time I'm all done. On the way back home I turn into the Fredericton Cemetary. it's got a lovely dirt and gravel road looping around that's begging to be run on. For whatever reason the two soaring sopranos of Mozart's Sull'Aria join me as I run and I find myself just having a truly wonderful run. The sun is definitely a warm, spring sun; cars are driving by casually; I've got this gorgeous music in my head, and somehow this simple run is turning out to be very fulfilling. 55min.

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My travelblog for South Africa is here. I'll try to update it daily.

Week of April 21

Tuesday         A wet morning here in....Coquitlam BC. I'm here for a week for work, and my body is pretty out of whack when I get up to go for a run before lunch (I totally missed breakfast.) It's a bit discouraging to go back to putting on long running tights after the hot weather in South Africa. Not only is it long running tights weather, it's also really wet weather. I run down North Road, onto Lougheed, and eventually up and down the very nice Brunette Avenue. My mission is basically to find something that's relatively flat because I'm in bad shape: a few more pounds gained in South Africa, ITB screaming in both knees, and just slow overall. The first 30 minutes are OK. The last 30 minutes are all about pain.

Wednesday        Up very early to squeeze in a short run. It's not raining yet, although lots of wet stuff is in the forecast. I'm feeling a bit braver when I start out and I decide to go up North Road. I feel much better than yesterday and the hill isn't a problem at all even though it takes me 20 minutes to climb it. The best news is that the ITB pain isn't really there, and I haven't felt anything in my Achilles tendons. When I was stretching after yesterday's run I was amazed at how much flexibility I've lost in the past month. I do feel the stiffness while I'm running. 45min.

Friday         My last day in BC and what do you know, the rain stops! Friday afternoon at rush hour isn't the greatest time to go running, though. I start on North Road and get frustrated after running a few blocks and stopping at traffic lights at each one. Finally I turn up into a residential area that looks really nice with all the flowering red bushes, tulips, and wonderfully pink crab-apple trees. This is my first run with my outrageously expensive adidas Adistar. I like how quiet they are but they feel a little roomy in the heel. When I get back to my room I realise that I accidentally bought a wide model instead of the regular width. I do lots of hills (it's impossible not to in Coquitlam) and even find a few paths that end in totally different neighbourhoods. I Am Waiting is floating around in my head during this run. It fits really well in one stretch of road along a particularly affluent neighbourhood where everyone's got a lawn full of vibrant spring flowers, green grass, and no traffic. My pace is pretty slow and I'm surprised that after an hour of running (including getting lost) nothing is stiff, sore, or tired. 1h15

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Week of April 28

Tuesday         This is the first day of Ironman training, which I began by skipping my first workout this morning. Getting up for swim practice did not agree with my body's idea that I'm still on Pacific time. The evening was perfect for a run and there was a full moon rising which made it all the more special. It felt good to be back running in Fredericton. I did my usual route around Sunshine Gardens, up Marlborough, and through a bit of downtown. I was surprised at how much nagging pain was sticking around my left knee, and I did keep in touch with my Achilles tendon since it's been sore after walking back from work yesterday. Overall, however, running felt so natural, more so than before. I think the shoes are a good part of that. But trying to speed up in the last 20 minutes and finish at a tempo pace was tough! I had reacquainted myself with Gizmo Watch, which wasn't being all too positive about my efforts. For 1h05, I had an average pace of 6:08min/km.

Thursday         Tempo run tonight. I'm still working on updating my training program. I'd like to get a greater variety of threshold runs into the early part of the training, and also change the taper and steer it away from the focus on sprints and more to sustained tempo runs. But tonight it's just a plain tempo run. I can't believe that I have to wear a running jacket in May because of the cold edge to the wind. Still, at least I can run through Wilmot Park and along the Green for the first time since last year. I feel remarkably better than Tuesday: much lighter on my feet and my stride has a good snap to it. I think the new adidas are the reason for the better posture and the unusual but much improved running efficiency. Along the Green I keep a pace at around 5:40/km. All the way across the pedestrian bridge and on the path until Canada Street. I'm feeling kinda proud of myself to keep up such a good tempo for so long but then on the way back home just before the Devon woodyard - BAM! - I step on a pebble and my right ankle rolls in a terrible way. It had to be one of the most painful ankle rolls I've ever gone through. I hop around with trembling legs and hobble over to a park bench to elevate my right foot and wait for it to recover. Overconfidence. It gets you every time. My run back across the pedestrian bridge is a much more sedate 6:30/km, but at least I can run. 1h10

Saturday         A pretty good day for my first long run of the training program. I'm in long tights and have my gloves on, but at least it's not raining as the forecast said it would. The best part about the whole run is finally being able to run on the trails again. I do the Northside Trail fairly easily until I come up to the turnaround at Bridge Street and feel a little more tired than usual. On my way back I realise that I've lost a lot of the core power I had at this time last year, probably because I've spent most of the winter on the bike instead of using the elliptical trainer. That means that I don't feel my legs really grasping the ground and pushing off as strongly as they used to. The trade-off is that I do feel like a much more light-footed and efficient runner. I get caught in a nasty hailstorm in the last ten minutes of the run and sprint back home to keep my ears from getting shredded. 2h00

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Week of May 6

Tuesday         27 degrees when I start my run tonight. It feels strange to be in shorts and a t-shirt. I feel like doing Golf Club Road tonight, something challenging anyways. I'm starting to rebuild my training program for the year and I want to add a lot more threshold and VO2max workouts rather than rely only on track workouts in the last part of my program to work on speed. And from what I've been reading over the winter, it seems that the approach used to increase VO2max and pace is very different depending on whether a person is a fast-twitch or slow-twitch athlete. I think I've been doing the wrong kind of workouts for the last few years since most programs are designed for people with a lot more fast-twitch than me. That's all to say that my 1h15 run tonight, which would normally be an easy recovery run, turned into a hard hill session with a tempo pace in the last 20 minutes. Gizmo Watch said I was only doing a 6:10min/km pace, but I knew that was impossible. I was running around 5:15min/km. The only time I got an accurate reading was when I was running on the top part of Golf Club Road where there are no trees or buildings anywhere. Now what good is that to a runner? 1h16

Thursday         It's tempo night and I find myself on the same route as last week when I sprained my ankle. I feel heavy and awkward at the beginning of my run and I wonder how if I can even do a tempo this evening. But I get lucky when I turn onto The Green at the Delta and spot a runner in a white t-shirt ahead of me. My competitive side kicks in (does it ever kick out?) and of course I start chasing them. That's enough to get my mind off how bad I feel. I lose sight of them in the crowd on the pedestrian bridge, but by then I've got enough momentum to keep speeding along on my own. I think a hard bike ride last night somehow woke up some hamstring and gluteal muscles that were asleep all winter since my posture feels a lot more centred and I've got more power to maintain a stiff pace up any incline on the route. And my foot turnover is very fast. 1h10

Saturday         I was half-expecting a really bad run today. That's usually the pattern after a really good run like the one I had Thursday. And on top of that great run I did a hard two-hour bike ride yesterday, so the key powering muscles for a solid run were already quite exhausted. I was certainly very stiff during today's run and not as single-minded as usual. I had been listening to Annie Lennox's Stay By Me starting my run and that helped loosen me up and relax a little. Once in Marysville I ran out to the field on Riverside Drive and up to the path leading into the woods. It was discouraging running up that path and feeling just how stiff my legs were. Is it the extra few pounds I'm carrying that's doing this? The month off in South Africa? Yesterday's bike ride? Regardless of the cause, the only cure is probably to run even more. That's always been my best strategy for learning to run better and faster. Already this week's long run is easier than last week's. 2h10

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Week of May 13

Wednesday         I leave the apartment this evening with a tuque and mitts on! We even have a discussion about windchill and the possibility that the ground might be frozen before I headed out! A week ago I was running in shorts. Whatever happened to global warming? I was really looking forward to it.

Starting the run isn't so bad. I make the mistake of turning to Sunshine Gardens when I reach Charlotte Street, so I have a tailwind for the first part of the run. I overheat quite a bit and get sweaty, which means that when I turn back into the wind in the second half of the run my legs and hands freeze. Otherwise I feel really great and I'm a bit disappointed that I have to cut my run short once my legs start freezing. The start of long bike rides has added some tension or snap to my stride that makes me more efficient than usual; on the other hand, my right hip is really hurting and I have to stop twice to stretch it. The streets are unusually quiet because of the bad weather and Annie Lennox's smooth Stay By Me gives the run a restorative feel. I go around Marlborough Drive twice for the hills and check my Achilles tendonitis. No problem. The downhill stretch is a good time to really pick up the foot turnover and speed and then try to maintain those when I get to the bottom. I'm surprised by the fact that I seem to run faster when I've gained a few pounds. I remember thinking the same thing last October when I ran a really great and fast half-marathon in Moncton. At the time I didn't think I'd be able to do it because I was quite a bit heavier than after Ironman. But it's an observation I've made several times over the winter, and it's completely contrary to what most people experience. It would certainly explain why I ran so badly last year at IMC. I don't think I want to be as light as I was last year, which means that this year's training dilemma will be to find a way to be as fast on the bike as I was last year yet with the extra weight. 1h15

What if you slept?
And what if,
In your sleep,
You dreamed?
And what if,
In your dream,
You went to heaven
And plucked a strange
And beautiful flower?
And what if,
When you awoke,
You had the flower
In your hand?
Ah, what then?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Saturday         It's a long weekend, which of course means that the weather is wet and cool. There's a certain perverse logic to that and even Mother Nature thinks likes to stick to it. I did an intense out-of-the-saddle bike ride yesterday in front of the television and my hamstrings and gluteals are pretty tired today. I've got a 2h45 long run scheduled for today, but I'm a little leery of repeating my dubious training pattern for Two Oceans whereby I ran as much as I could when I had the time. The only thing I got out of that was tendonitis. So I cut it down to 1h30 and figure I'll do a longer run tomorrow if the weather is bad. I start on the Nerepis Road near Westfield, stopping at the shoulder to decide whether I should go left or right. Left is uphill, right is downhill. I go right. I'm way overdressed, starting my annual strategy of training for heat by adding an extra shirt. Last year I started that too late and didn't have the habit of wearing the extra shirt when the weather got really hot. By the time I get to the first intersection and the ramp up to Route 2, I'm soaked. I feel remarkably good, though: I like my posture, I like feeling straight and steady, and my heartrate isn't budging. Left, right, or straight? Right. As in, right uphill. So much for making this an easy recovery run. I climb up to Route 2 and turn onto the northbound lane, deciding that I'll run up to the Westfield exit and then back down Nerepis Road. It's quiet, the shoulder is wide, and the hills are long but not steep enough to really be a problem. I decide that they're perfect for some specific training. I use a similar idea to the ellipical trainer, keeping my posture vertical while really focusing on the push-off for each stride and a tighter arm swing. The effect is great: using the highway kilometre markers I can see that I'm averaging about 5:10min/km. When I reached the turn-off onto Nerepis Road I start to really run hard, but I've forgotten just how far the house is from the turn-off and after a while I have to slow down. 1h38

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Week of May 20

Tuesday         The temperature is falling very quickly this evening and I start my run from downtown on King Street quite late. As soon as I start I regret having only put on short running tights. There's an odd east wind blowing; I make sure I plan a route that gives me a headwind in the first half and a tailwind in the second half. My hip flexors are very tight, the consequence of lots of hills during my long bike ride on Sunday. Again, I've got that snap to my stride that I enjoy. Put that all together with The Island by Paul Brady and the elements for a good run are in place. I run across the pedestrian bridge and do a few loops in Devon. What I really want to do, though, is add some interval work to my Tuesday runs, which would normally be simple recovery runs. I have a hard time understanding the concept of a recovery run. If you're recovering, why run at all? Isn't Monday's day off enough? I want to experiment a little with my Tuesday runs and make them more into longer interval or threshold runs, and keep Thursdays as a shorter VO2Max run. So I stop at a corner in Devon, program my two interval timers on my watch, and do 4x5min at tempo pace with two minute recoveries. The intervals aren't technical and I'm not looking at heart rate or pace; I just want to run quite a bit faster than I usually do. The odd thing is that I seem to have a hard time pushing myself fast enough so that my cardiovascular system starts to feel any effect. My hamstrings are the only things that seem to be challenged. Around the one hour mark I figure I've had enough and trot back home on Charlotte Street. 1h20

Thursday         Tuesday night I'm too cold, Thursday night is nice and hot. Welcome to Canada. It's 26 degrees at 8:30pm and the sun is one huge orange fireball in a muggy sky. I'm unbelievably tired tonight. Somehow I lug myself outside and start down Northumberland Street for my tempo run. I'm not running with the snap that I had Tuesday night, but the fatigue melts away and I get a pretty good rhythm going. The effects of last Saturday's technique run and Tuesday's intervals are showing up because my cadence is naturally higher and I'm going faster than I usually do this early in a run. I'm headed for Golf Club Road, deciding that doing some fast hill running is good for power.

I've been a walking disaster the last few days. I think it's just the lack of sleep and some exam stress that are causing some malfunctions. I've fallen over a few times every day; I have bruises and scrapes everywhere below my knees (and a couple on my hands); this morning I spilled a full bowl of cereal and milk. Things are getting so bad that the clumsiness is now spreading to other people. I pass a cyclist on the path between Rookwook and Hanwell and a few seconds later hear a crash and a grunt. I look back quickly and see him picking himself up off the ground. He's young and his pride is probably seriously damaged and he wouldn't want anyone to know he fell, so I keep running. Up Golf Club Road without much effort (finally!) and then around Glengarry (even better) where I start the tempo part of the run. Wow, speed is coming easy tonight. It's the oddest thing: how can I be heavier AND more tired, and running faster? Maybe I should try being a couch potato. It might do wonders for my running. Turn around at the end of Golf Club Road and run hard all the way back down to the path on Woodstock Road. I finally feel like slowing down sometime after Hanwell Road. 1h08

Saturday         It's a hot one! My run is only 2h15, but I'm not used to the heat so I decide to go with my Fuel Belt. I start with two laps around Odell Park, and it feels great to be back there and running in summer conditions. I'm breathless and quite tired, and when I see how much pollen is floating around I think that maybe my lungs are just having a hard time finding some oxygen. The two laps in Odell Park are heavenly except that I roll my left ankle twice. I've rolled my ankle five times in the past week. Yeah, I'm tired. Back down to the Green and go with the nice tailwind all the way over to the pedestrian bridge. I can't believe how hot it's getting. Mentally I'm trying to go through this run as if it's Ironman Canada. That's a bit discouraging; this is a fairly short run and I'm thirsty and tired already. Then I remember that supper last night consisted of ice cream at 11pm. I guess this isn't such a bad run after all! 2h20

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Week of May 27

Thursday         In New Hampshire, my favourite state! Click here for the Mooseman race report.

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Week of June 3

Thursday         Tempo run tonight. I'm surprised to discover that my legs haven't really recovered from last Sunday's half-Ironman. I've always bounced back from half-Ironmans within a day or two, or at the very least I've never noticed any damage to my legs. I start by going through Wilmot Park, which in late evening in summer can be sublime when the lilac trees and pink bushes are blooming. I go around Sunshine Gardens and then head out on Woodstock Road where I start my 3x10min intervals. That's not really the same as doing a tempo run, but I find that if I don't put a little more structure to my tempo workouts then I tend to not give them my best effort. Ten minute intervals with two minute breaks are just enough to resemble a tempo run and at least mentally I have less of an excuse to slack off. At the corner of Woodstock Road and Golf Club Road a girl with an iPod casually blows by me. She doesn't even look like a runner and she's so much faster than me. What can I do but admire that? I start the intervals and realise that I have a hard time finding a pace that I know will be sufficiently challenging yet consistent over 30 minutes. My legs start cramping and halfway through the third interval I slow down and decide that this might be a bit much for them. Instead, I climb Marlborough Road and take it easy all the way home. 1h00

Saturday         So much good weather for, like, three days in a row! Wow! It's hot and dry today and I do my long run from Killarney Lake. One thing I did last year was do my long runs early in the day before the heat of the afternoon really hit. The purpose wasn't to avoid the heat, but to get to Odell Park before everyone else and enjoy the trails for myself. That was a mistake: I really didn't know how to handle the heat when I arrived in Penticton. So I'm glad I'm running in the afternoon. Sort of, in a sick kind of way. I know I'm going to have a hard run. I start down toward Two Nations Crossing and go downhill to Marysville. It's not a whole lot of fun running on the side of the road, traffic is bad, but otherwise I'm feeling OK. I'm trying to go as slowly as possible. Down the very long hill to Bridge Street and across to my favourite part of the trail. It's beautiful and hot, and Afterglow is in my head. The trails are totally quiet, as they usually are on Saturday afternoons.

Every now and then I look around at the trees and the scenery on the trail. I got my photos from the half-Ironman last week and I look so serious in them. There's none of the smiling that my old triathlon photos have. I know that's the result of a decision I made in order to get faster, but as I'm running this afternoon and really looking at how spectacularly green and bright the new summer foliage is, I realise that I've lost one of my biggest sources of inspiration in my running. When I was doing the marathon at Lake Placid two years ago, the sight of the sun through the trees and the incredible beauty of the area was enough to keep me going when things got rough. Since then I seem to have stopped seeing the way I used to. I've become one of those people that I remember writing about: the ones who are wrapped up in themselves and their pain and struggling with it all. This is definitely something to work on this summer.

Stop at the Irving to grab two PowerBars, then up the long, long hill to Wal-Mart. The hill isn't as bad as I thought it would be; the heat is having a much worse effect on me than I thought it would. At the top of the hill my chest feels like it's going to explode. Once I'm back at Killarney Lake I've still got another hour to go in the run, so we do three laps on the trail that goes around the lake. The first lap is a killer and after taking a ClifShot I get my head focused a bit. Stop at 3h00; there's just no point in going on in this sort of condition.

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Week of June 10

Tuesday         I screech in from work on my bike and fifteen minutes later I'm back out the door for a run. It's my "recovery" run that I'm still trying to figure out what to do with, but tonight I haven't quite got the time to do the full 1h25. It's really windy and I don't feel like going down to the Green where the wind will really be tough. Instead I go through Wilmot Park and start around Sunshine Gardens and think of some routes. My legs are really tight, just like they would be in a triathlon after getting off the bike. Focus on the posture, keep the strides short so that the heartrate slows down, and wonder why I haven't been concentrating as much on ChiRunning as I have in the past. It suddenly dawns on me that Odell Park is just around the corner from Sunshine Gardens. I normally never think of running in the park during the week because I run too late. Here's my chance! The idea of escaping into trails and woods for a little while during a hectic week is great. I do two laps and savour the ease that I climb the hills. I'm not sprinting or anything, but the climbs aren't costing me anything in terms of energy or heartrate. Ah, efficiency. I'm absolutely paranoid about twisting an ankle, so all the stretches of trail that I usually use to really mentally relax are not quite as enjoyable as they usually are. But all of this is better than nothing, and I'm grateful for the time I'm running today. 1h00

Saturday         I don't quite have time for my long run today: I'm off to Regina this afternoon. But there's enough time to squeeze in a one hour run, and on a partly cloudy, muggy Saturday, there's nowhere better to do this than in Odell Park. We start down Northumblerland, cross Wilmot Park, and trot over to Hanwell, which gives us enough time on the flat to warm up for the hills in Odell. I'm sort of hoping that the sun will come out because the park is so amazing when the sun filters through the canopy. I feel a little breathless and I'm not sure why. My legs are also a bit stiff from yesterday's bike ride. I feel better after the first loop, and a little more confident since my ankle doesn't seem to be as wobbly as it has been this season. 1h00

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Week of June 17

Monday         I'm in Regina. I'm not happy. I can't run. I don't understand how I can arrive in Regina on Saturday and by Monday evening still not have seen or heard of my luggage. This is Canada!! A First World Nation! I paid the equivalent of a year's salary for some African family to get here!! By 3pm I've decided that the best way to avoid fuming is to take control of the situation, or at least whatever part of it I can. I head off to Sportchek and spend a small fortune on swimming and running stuff. I rationalise that it's all stuff I was going to buy sooner or later, like a new bathing suit and running shoes.

By the time my roomates and I have stopped talking about sports, boyfriends, and ex-boyfriends, it's pretty late. The weather is warm and Regina feels abandoned. I run down whatever the main throughfare is and go toward the city. I feel great, but who wouldn't after two full days off? I like running without thinking about hills; I even sort of like running in straight lines for blocks on end. I think I made a total of three turns in the whole run. 1h10

Wednesday         Here's my Air Canada horror story: on Saturday evening, when I arrived in Regina, the flight attendant announced (while we were still on the plane) that the Air Canada Jazz counter was open if we were missing our bags when we went to pick them up. I remember thinking, "Hm, that's a bad sign if they're saying something like this before we get off the plane." Sure enough, out of the 80 passengers or so waiting around around the baggage carrousel in Arrivals, only about four people got their luggage. Otherwise, an entire flight of people left the airport without their bags. Since there were only two Air Canada people working in the airport that night, we had to wait about an hour to fill out our contact information.

Sunday, no bags. I started calling the Air Canada central baggage information line, which happens to be the call centre from hell located somewhere in India. The English language simply does not have a word to describe just how useless and frustrating those employees were. They didn't know where my bags were, they couldn't say when they were coming, they made up new answers every time I called, and they kept entering the wrong information about where to deliver the bags if they ever got to Regina. Monday, no bags. Tuesday, no bags until someone called from the airport to let me know that they had arrived. I called the company that was delivering the bags and the person who answered told me that Saturday's plane had transported wheelchairs and race wheels for disabled athletes competing in some event in Regina. Because the wheelchairs took up so much room in the plane's hold, all other bags had been left in Toronto and trucked to Regina! So Air Canada knew even before our plane left Toronto that none of us would be seeing our bags for at least another three days - and didn't say anything! I cannot think of another airline anywhere that would even think of doing this.

Anyway, today I could at least run with my orthotics and sunglasses, which came in pretty handy at 5pm on a very hot (29 Celsius) and blindingly sunny Prairie afternoon. I thought I'd be a little stiff, since I normally don't run very well right after work. I ran down from the university to the path along the Wascana Marsh. I go out to toward the Trans-Canada highway, then veer up a little hill and discover a really beautiful area around Assiniboine Avenue. There's a huge grey hare running around madly from house to house and I start thinking I'm a little crazy because that thing seems so out of place. I feel really good and I like my stride: it's short and snappy and my posture feels effortlessly upright. I discover Regina's only hill, Goose Hill Overlook, and run up to get a phenomenal view of the area. The area seems to be the outdoor activity centre for the city. There's lovely park to run through, lots of really fit looking triathletes training, and one of the most beautiful outdoor tracks I've ever seen. Back down to the path and on toward the centre of the city. Other runners are so friendly: everyone smiles when they see me. At my turnaround point I stop for a while to watch the local rowing club practice, the dragonboat practice, and the sea kayakers paddling around. Wow, I never knew Regina was so outdoorsy! Back to the campus with a goodtailwind and feeling really strong and happy. 1h30

Thursday         June 21st, the longest day of the year. I've had this ritual for the past ten years of going to watch the sun set on June 21st. It seems to me an amazing thing to watch stars and planets move, and for some reason it has rather special significance on June 21st, the summer solstice. I leave the residence at 8:40pm and run to Goose Hill Overlook. The sun doesn't set until 9:14pm, so I've got lots of time that I spend by doing some hill repeats at the Overlook. Can you imagine, doing hill repeats in Regina? Well, anything's possible, I guess. There's another very fit runner doing the same thing and he smiles and says something every time we pass. This is definitely one of the friendliest cities I've ever been in. I watch the sun set from the overlook along with several others. It's quite a sight: the sun is setting just to the west of downtown Regina, where the highrises and office towers are outlined black against the horizon. There's a massive thunderstorm just to the east of the city and I can see the occasional flash of lightning in the dark grey. Last week I remember disparaging the CBC's choice of "Prairie skies" as one of the seven Wonders of Canada, but I think I'll take that back. This sky awes me, not just right now but every time I pause to look at it.

Yesterday a classmate went back to visit the school he had graduated from 17 years ago. We got into a short conversation about what a good exercise it was to revisit certain milestones in our lives. We have such few opportunities to measure how far we have come in life, what has happened to us, and in what ways we've evolved. My sunset ritual and my New Year's Eve run are some of the ways I look back and measure just how good a job I'm doing at making sure I'm growing as a human being. It seems to me an important - even absolutely essential - thing to do, but I continue to be surprised at the number of people who laugh when I tell them about these rituals. I think they come close to calling me a prisoner of habit. But there's a huge difference between ritual and habit and I think people confuse the two mostly out of mindlessness. So where was I a year ago today when I was watching the sun set? Who am I now? Are things better or worse? What has changed? I remember asking and answering these questions last year and making a note of them, so that when I returned to the same point in 2007 I could see what had changed. Every year I feel like I've filled a piece of the jigsaw puzzle that is me. I still can't see the overall picture, and I don't expect I ever will, but at least I know that things are doing well if some insight and self-belief that weren't there last year are there now. And I can conclude right now, just like I did last year, that life is indeed good.

I wave good-bye to the other runner and head back to the university. It's a short run; I'm a little wary of the thunderstorm coming up. And I wonder where I'll be in a year from now. 45min

Friday         I start running in late afternoon on the hottest day in Regina so far. It feels like I'm in a toaster oven and I'm getting flashbacks from my bike ride at Ironman Canada last year. There's hardly any wind, the temperature must be at least 30 Celsius with zero humidity, and the sun is frying me. I've clearly lost whatever natural acclimation I used to have for running in heat. This is the fourth or fifth hot run of the year and, as with the other runs, I feel like I'm going to have a heart attack. I start on the Wascana pathway and go up to Assiniboine Avenue, through the park that feels like looks like it belongs in a fairy tale, and up Goose Island Overlook. The climb just about kills me - and this is Regina. One more time around Assiniboine Avenue then down to the pathway. I really want to do a two hour run, but the heat is getting to me at one hour and I can only trudge for another 30 minutes before shuffling back to my room. 1h30

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Week of June 24

Tuesday         Hot and muggy! I run through Wilmot Park and around Sunshine Gardens and enjoy just how summery everything looks and feels. The air is very still and the trees look lush and bloated with all the humidity. I did a fairly tough three hour bike ride last night and I'm feeling it a bit today. My heartrate goes right up, as it has during the past few runs. Two loops around an abandoned Odell Park and then on to Golf Club Road. I don't have the energy or speed to do some sort of threshold run tonight, so I figure I'll do hills instead. The problem is that I can barely make it up the hills without my chest feeling like it's going to explode. I do notice that the two laps in Odell Park have loosened my legs up quite a bit so that I'm running much better by the time I get to Golf Club Road. 1h45

Thursday         It's been a pretty rough day and so when I start my run this evening, right after a hard swim workout, it's raining and that just seems to suit my mood. I'm also disappointed in the series of bad run workouts I've been having lately. What's wrong with me? How in the world am I going to do a marathon in less than two months from now if I'm huffing and puffing on short runs?

I'm actually into the speed cycle of my training program. However, I'm changing things around from last year and have cut out most of the track workouts. Every time I go near a track I get violently ill, such is the association with how intense track workouts can be. Instead I'm trying the stuff I read about this winter: more threshold and longer interval workouts to spend more time at my lactate threshold while pushing for endurance. Tonight, for example, instead of 8x400m at a track, I'm doing 3x10min at a 5k pace with 2min rest in between intervals. The first interval is the worst because it seems as if I'm just not moving any faster even though I'm putting a lot of effort into it. The nice part about this evening's run is that the trails are completely abandoned because of the light rain. I have to wonder about all those people who tell me they love running in the rain. How come I never see another runner when I'm running in the rain?

During the second and third intervals I really try to focus on relaxing my hip flexors a little and not resisting a stronger stride. I found something similar earlier this evening when I was swimming and doing a hard 300m. When the 300m was over, I followed it with an easy 100m and found that I was so much more relaxed, longer and...faster. Yes, I've got to relax to go faster. Hm. 1h10

Saturday         I was cleaning out a basket full of papers and trinkets this morning and pulled out a little slip of paper with notes that I had written after the Mooseman triathlon. It was part of what was going to be my race report for Mooseman until Internet Explorer nonchalantly crashed three times while I was typing it. Anyway, I had written that I had found the run at Mooseman very hard that day. I was terribly disappointed in it because there was no reason to expect such a bad performance when I had done such a great one the year before. So what was the difference? On the note I had explained that it seemed as if I hadn't yet found the right balance between being intense on the course and being grateful. At the end of 2006 I had decided that it was time to be more intense and less emotional when I ran, that the "Aw, shucks, I'm just so happy to be hear" attitude was no longer useful. And somehow in that silly way of thinking I had lost my connection with the world around me. The one thing I relied on at Ironman Lake Placid to get me through my tough spots was how beautiful the world was. Where's the balance between keeping that and being faster and more focused?

That was the real point of my run today. I started about two hours after lunch and the weather was far too co-operative. 18 Celsius, partly overcast, with the occasional shower kept me cool and hydrated. That's very worrisome when you think that it was 15 degrees hotter in Penticton last year when I got off the bike and started running. I found a great pace right away; as soon as I got into it I knew I'd be able to run the full 3h45 I had planned for today. Ran around Sunshine Gardens, down to the Green, across the Northside trail and all the way out to Penniac, then back to Fredericton. I kept it pretty flat since Odell Park was too wet to run in and I didn't feel like facing Golf Club Road. The trails were completely abandoned; the air was clear and everything was so fresh. It was a great day to practice being grateful because it really wasn't all that hard when you saw how green things were and just how perfect everything seemed. I didn't reach for a single gel the entire time. I didn't even feel that I needed to stop. And in the last 35 minutes I picked up the pace and ran pretty hard. Maybe it was the cool weather, or maybe gratitude is really the key to having it all. 3h45

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Week of July 1

Tuesday         It's the start of the heavy training weeks, and what I hate about that is that feeling of chronic lethargy that arrives and doesn't leave until after Ironman. I'm tired. I'm always tired. I'm always on the edge of a sleep-deprivation induced headache. But I still stick with this training. What's wrong with me? I'm sure I'm not the only one asking that question.

Tonight's run is after a good swim workout at UNB. My shoulders and upper back feel heavy and tired, and as I start down Northumberland it seems as if my stride is about two inches long. I go through Wilmot Park and around Sunshine Gardens, trying to find a posture that will loosen me up a little. This weekend I pulled out my Ironman Canada notes from last year and saw the same comment that I had made last week: relax more to go faster. So that's what I'm trying tonight. The evening is turning out to be surprisingly beautiful after today's fluctuating weather cycles. I head over to Golf Club Road and start the long climb. My legs are heavily fatigued from the weekend's training, but I'm still impressed that I can climb like this a few days after a 3h45 run. What worries me is my right knee: it's very close to a full-blown ITB problem, and I haven't had that in years. I distract myself by looking around and enjoying the sun set, and sure enough doing that is enough to speed me up and get my stride to flow a little more. With the sun setting behind me at the top of Golf Club Road I get a long, long shadow cast in front of me. It reminds of Egypt and the night in the Old White Desert. It also gives me an opportunity to look at how much my hips are moving even though I don't have a naturally long stride. I can't recall what Chi Running says about having so much lateral hip movement, but I doubt it's all that good. Most of the really good runners I've seen have rock-solid torsos and hips when they run; on the other hand, I feel like I'm running very fluidly right now. 1h30

Thursday         I'm impressed with myself for getting out for a run this evening. Collapsing onto my couch and dozing off was such a tempting option. The rain stopped this afternoon and things were cool and quiet on the roads. Before starting my run I did something I hadn't done in a long time: dance. I'm absolutely convinced that dancing does something to my brain and my body that primes me for a great run. Why don't I do it more often? Heck, I even did it last year before the Moncton half-marathon; about 20 minutes before the start, I found a bathroom stall in the high school, put on my iPod, and danced to U2's Bad. Then I went out to run my fastest half-marathon ever.

So I danced to Afterglow this evening, then went out for a one hour speed session. I'm a little nervous about taking track workouts out of my training program. This is quite a leap of faith. Track workouts are painful, so like any typical triathlete I figure they must be doing me good. But the stuff I researched this winter overwhelmingly pointed to doing longer intervals for someone of my physiological build. Oh well, as the quote says at the top of the page, to have what we've never had we must do what we've never done. Gotta take a risk to make a discovery, right? So at the 16min mark on my watch I start a 5x5min interval workout (each interval at sub-5k pace, 1 min rest between intervals.) I'm really, really thinking about posture. I'm digging into my brain archives for every detail I can remember about ChiRunning, and I'm trying to bring that together with the lessons from swimming, that going faster means being more relaxed. The first 5min interval is OK, but I think I'm holding back and not going as hard as I could. That leads me to thinking just how often I do hold back. I mean, here I am training for something as physically daunting as an Ironman because I do want the pride and the sense of achievement that come with having pushed myself to my limits, but I'm still finding ways to avoid pain. Why this dichotomy? You'd think that after years of doing marathons, Ironmans, and even an ultra, I'd have mastered the art of facing pain and eventually gotten to the point where taking it on would almost be an afterthought. I've reasoned all that out by the third 5min interval so I decide that I had really better push myself harder if I want the final answer to say something uplifting about me. My foot turnover is really great and I feel fast. By the fifth 5min interval my lungs and my legs are burning, which is exactly what I was looking for. 1hr

Saturday         Another nice cool day. I'm really afraid of what this cool weather is doing to my ability to run in the heat. It really feels like summer hasn't started yet. I start my long run in the morning and go straight for Golf Club Road. Well, after my nice warm-up routine through Wilmot Park and around Sunshine Gardens. Unlike last week's long run, my pace is a lot stronger and I'm not so sure I can hold it for three hours. But I'm feeling good and if I haven't got the heat to push through then I'll exhaust myself by going faster. The hills are fine and running feels good. I through in Riverview Court off of Golf Club Road for some extra hills. I remember doing them the year I did the marathon in Venice (a flat marathon, too!) and I'm convinced they build some real leg power. Back down the hill and eventually to the Green. Now my IT band is talking to me. But after I cross the pedestrian bridge I get an even worse twinge in my foot. This one worries me since it's very sharp and thudding at the same time. Things start to get tough around the 2h20 mark. I'm a little surprised since that's earlier than usual. I work it through with some songs. Good posture is actually the key to feeling good. 3h00

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Week of July 8

Thursday        Finally, some decent summer-like weather! I miss the hottest part of the evening because I opt for swimming at UNB after work again. I get more volume in those evening swims, but I sacrifice speedwork since I really detest it in the pool. Anyway, I start my run this evening feeling incredibly exhausted. I haven't had supper yet and my arms and shoulders are heavy and tired. I don't want to run on the path too much since it's the time of the year when those clouds of little white bugs gather over it, and running through them is an icky experience. So I go through Wilmot Park and enjoy the feel of a July evening, then around Sunshine Gardens and start my intervals. I've decided on 3x8min (with 2min rest) followed by 2x4min (with 1min rest) ascending intensity. As usual, it takes me a while to get concentrated. On the second interval the sun is getting low and the light in the trees above me is almost an unreal sort of gold. While I'm running and looking up to admire it all I notice that I'm also running faster and more easily. It might look a little weird, but the sacrifices we make for speed!

Hunger really gets to me in the four minute intervals. The run back home once the intervals are done is the nicest part of the evening. I'm having a hard time enjoying runs for their own sake these days, and a lot of that has to do with how much I worry about the marathon at Ironman Canada. Last year's experience was truly awful and it was entirely my fault. During each training run that experience is one of the only things I'm thinking about. I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I figure that it's OK to worry about something that much as long as you're doing something about it. If I just worried and didn't run or train differently, then my time would clearly be wasted. And the worry has me searching for solutions, making me re-examine what I thought I knew about running, style, strategy, and nutrition. I suppose that's the whole point. 1h05

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Week of July 15

Monday         I didn't do my long run on Saturday since the weather made that a long bike day, and Sunday turned into a swim day. And today is the warmest day in ages (probably the last one for a while too.) I'm surprised at how heavy and tired I feel in spite of a recovery day yesterday. I take my time through Wilmot Park and put in two loops around Odell Park. I notice that I'm much more stable than I was two months ago when I was running on the trails. It must be the extra yoga I'm doing. The hills are easy and the path is very quiet for this time of the day. Then out into the sun and the heat and over to Golf Club Road for even more hills. Heck, I even throw in Riverview Drive and nearly get mauled by some little household dog.

The closer Ironman Canada gets, the more I remember how ugly last year's marathon was and just how unprepared I might be again this year if I don't find what Rich Strauss calls The One Thing. You know, what's the One Thing you'll come back to when everything else has fallen apart in the race? What's left? Every run I do these days is essentially an investigation into finding an answer to that question. At two hours into today's run I'm back on the flat part and going down to The Green. I'm incredibly thirsty and my legs are fatigued from the hills. Getting passed by every single runner on the path doesn't really help my quest. I do come back to Paul Brady's song, The Island, and around the 2h45 mark when I turn around at Canada Street to head home, the evening sunlight turns the path into a tunnel of brilliant of glowing green and warm yellow. I run across the pedestrian bridge and hear a Highland pipes and drums band practicing on the Green. People are wandering about slowly enjoying a rare July evening. The atmosphere reminds me of the final lap of the marathon in Lake Placid when I was bowled over by how beautiful and just right things were. I get off the path just to get closer to the sound of the pipes and use that music to move me a little faster. I run up Saint John Street to George and then Charlotte, and run into the sunshine on my way home. Running is starting to feel good; my pace is steady and I've found such a great rhythm that I start to wonder if I've got a runner's high. There's a woman watering plants near a sidewalk and the sun catches in the streaming water until it's white and almost sparkling ethereally.

The whole point of this long ramble is that it's pretty evident that I run better when I'm truly looking for the beauty in the world around me. It reminds me of Van Gogh's observation that "Those who truly love nature will see beauty everywhere." I feel a bit pretentious writing that, but it does seem that the more closely I look into the everyday mundane stuff,the more I am astonished and appreciative of what it contains. The sight of that water streaming over plants has to be one of the most beautiful things I've seen in days. But where my thinking gets stuck is that I feel that I have to make a connection between being inspired and finding a reason to run. All this nature appreciation stuff is great, but it doesn't answer the question of why I run, which I've always thought would be the true One Thing that would keep me going. It's just starting to dawn on me that I don't need to answer the question of why I run in order to find the One Thing. 3h20

Thursday         Another run right after a good swim. I've somehow got to convince my legs that it's OK to run when my arms are tired. Things are much better than last Thursday, however, when I felt like a slug. I do my usual routine of Wilmot Park and Sunshine Gardens, then out to Woodstock Road and back. I also do the same intervals: 3x8min with a longer rest than last week (3min), and 3x4min with a 1min rest. The eight minute intervals are a good approximation of a mile interval, and the additional shorter four minute intervals keep me in a VO2Max range without slowing down too much. I'm trying to judge my effort based on how much burning sensation I feel in my legs - the lactic acid build-up that will say when I've gone overboard. 1h10

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Week of July 21

Sunday         This is the closest I'm going to come to rehearsing an Ironman. My longest run is on a hot Sunday afternoon, and we were up early this morning for the annual Master's Grand Lake Swim. It's a truly spectacular day: no wind, sunny, a summer sky dotted with clouds. When I start my run in the afternoon I wonder how I'll make it through four hours. Everything is tired and I'm not used to the heat. I go around Sunshine Gardens and look at the trees, which seem to have blossomed somehow in the heat. Up to Odell Park for two stunning laps, then over to Golf Club Road for more hills. My mind is focused on finding ways to get through the heat. I decide not to do Riverview today since my Achilles tendonitis is flaring up just a little. I've been doing a lot of hills and really pushing the Achilles tendons lately. On the way down Golf Club Road I start into the eLoad, and at the 2:15 mark I try a mix of ClifShots and water. my strategy is the opposite of last year's: eat as much as possible and as early as possible. The eLoad and the ClifShots are a good combination.

I'm doing OK as I run along the Green. The first of the real fatigue starts quite early - before 3hrs - and I slow down even more. The Northside Trail is like a little piece of heaven at this point. I'm digging up all the strategies I know to keep myself inspired, and practicing those ideas so that they're not foreign when I'm struggling through the marathon in Penticton in a month. The big one is looking around me, seeing the sun in the trees and the way the light changes as the day passes. This morning's swim has so tired my back and shoulders that I keep finding myself hunched over and leaning ridiculously forward. Correcting that by running upright seems unusually hard. Hm, another thing to work on for Penticton. I'm a little worried that I'm running so slowly and that most of the trail is shaded and cool. More doubt and worry for the marathon. I'm happy about my nutrition strategy, however, and that mentally things finally seem to be falling into place. 4h00

Thursday         Summer is here! It's muggy and over 30 Celsius when I start my run after supper. According to my training schedule I should be doing some short track workout tonight. But in this heat there's just no point in even doing four to eight minute intervals as I've been doing in the past couple of weeks. I really want to go over to the Northside Trail to see the sun in the trees, so I plan for a long tempo run. This jives with my latest reading on periodisation and interval training: I'm in my peak workout weeks as far as volume goes, and now as I maintain that peak and then go into the taper, I should probably switch interval training for tempo training. I'm certainly not going to reduce volume as much as I usually do. Anyway, tonight something's working well. Really well. My legs feel solid and elastic at the same time. At 20 minutes I start into my tempo pace, my mind clears out and I've got my running song to add to this incredible evening. I head down the Northside Trail and stop on the edge of the fields at Marysville. I stop a long, long time. I'm enchanted by everything I see, and I take a long time to look and listen to everything growing, moving in the wind. All of this life that wasn't here a few months ago when I ran by in winter. Wow. I turn back up the trail and start toward Fredericton. It seems as if I'm seeing trees and light in a way that I haven't in a very long time. This really is something you have to practice, I realise, and I had let it go for so long. What was I thinking? 1h30

Saturday         The hot weather is sticking around. I resist the temptation to do my run early in the morning as I did last year when I wanted to see Odell Park before anyone else got there. I really need the experience of running in the heat. So it's directly to Golf Club Road for me. I'm feeling pretty good at this point. I climb the hills quite easily. I take a ClifShot at one hour into the run. My logic is that last year's experience of delaying food as much as possible was, contrary to what a lot of coaches and researchers say, a very bad idea. I need calories to run, it's easier to eat early in the run than it is later on, and all that crap about training your body to use fat by starving it is, well, crap. Your body doesn't adapt to anything if can't even get to the point where it can finish a workout.

Things get tough at the two hour point when I'm on the other side of the river, however. It's hot. And when there's a tailwind and the heat rises from the baked gravel, it's suffocating. I focus on the fact that I'm not trying to get any endurance benefit out of this; I'm trying to find a state of mind that will ride me through the rough moments. I just have to learn to deal with the heat. But I finally turn around when the tailwind sucks all the oxygen out of the air. I shuffle slowly back home. How will I do this in a month from now after a 180km bike ride? 3h00

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Week of July 28

Tuesday         I feel creaky this evening when I start my run. I want to do a longer run and see if I can pick up the pace as I did last Thursday, and I also want to keep practicing that ability to run and see more than what there is. That's really the thing that will keep me going in Penticton. I do the same route as last Thursday as well, going down to the pedestrian bridge and onto the Northside Trail all the way until Marysville. It's clouded over a bit; there's no sun lighting up the trees from within. But that just seems to make things more peaceful. Eventually I reach a strong pace and I just relax into it. I notice that my stride has changed quite a bit over the past year. My footstrike is somewhere directly under my torso, which is exactly what ChiRunning always advocated. It certainly does make things smoother. The sun makes an appearance in the last 20 minutes of the run and makes everything the most unreal orange. 1h30

Thursday         I want to make this a repeat of Tuesday's run, or better yet, last Thursday's run. The conditions are the same - hot and humid - and as I shuffle down Northumberland toward the pedestrian bridge I convince myself that my muscles will warm up soon and I'll be feeling better. Every joint aches, my Achilles tendons are threatening to do some serious hindering, and my left foot whimpers every time I pound on it. I haven't been in this sort of state in years. On the bridge I hear footsteps coming up to me and a young woman whizzes by. She's flying, like sub-18min 5km pace flying. She's just passed me as if I'm standing still. I have to smile because it's such a joy to see so much talent in other people. And then - and this might sound odd - I'm happy to see that I'm happy for her. Not resentful, not envious, but instead awed by how good she is and how amazing she looks.

The heat isn't bothering me at all, even though I'm wearing a heavy shirt and I'm dressed for cooler temperatures. My legs take a long, long time to warm up, and eventually I give up on the idea of trying a tempo run, which is what tonight is supposed to be. I do crank up the pace just a notch until I'm into at least a good half-marathon pace. Halfway down the Northside trail I see the fast runner coming back. Wow, she's probably doing a 12km run at that speed. I give her a huge smile and a thumbs up when she goes by me and her smile is just as big. Down to Marysville and I go for the loop up Coronation Street and then do a little out-and-back up Duke Street. I really like Duke Street. It's quiet and quaint, with views into fields that catch my eye. I haven't run up this street in at least a year. The hills feel good. Back onto the Northside trail toward Fredericton, just as the sun turns into that melting gold of late evening. It's time to practise seeing the beauty in the trees and the sun, adding my own music and thoughts to it all. Tonight it's Marc Cohn and True Companion. Eventually all the everyday thoughts start falling away and I find something to engage every sense. The sight of the sky between the V that the trees make on either side of the path when I look far up. The air moving over my skin. The reverbration that travels up my leg when my foot hits the ground. The sound of my breath, of shoes rhythmically padding over gravel. The smell of grass in summer with a bit of water on it. It's neat to run and to try to hold all of this and realise that this is the whole point of running. 1h50

Saturday         A series of wild thunderstorms late yesterday evening means the streak of very hot weather has broken. It's 25 Celsius (ie, cool in my books) and overcast, and I can tell that the cooler weather is going to have an impact on my run as soon as I start. It's amazing how much a few degrees can influence a run. My legs feel strong and rested when I start. Yeah, definitely the weather; it can't be that they actually are rested since I did a four hour tempo bike ride yesterday and I've run four times this week. It's my latest strategy of running for 30min after every bike ride and shortening my long runs. The idea now is frequency over duration. I want to get to the point where running seems like a natural activity, not a workout.

Because the weather is cooler and I can tell I'm going to have a good run, I put the emphasis on a high foot turnover and a strong, steady pace. The hills up Golf Club Road are so easy. I don't even notice the first (hardest) one. I go around Glengarry and don't notice that either. There's a garden on the south side of Golf Club Road that's overflowing with tall orange and yellow flowers, clumps of purple. It has to be one of the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen. The house has no neighbours and there's no fence around the yard, so I can stare at the garden for a good long stretch before I pass it. I take my first drink at 1h30, then a gel and too much water when I get to the fountain on the Green at 1h45. Eventually I'm on the Northside trail and looking around at the trees and patches of yellow flowers, running happily and feeling very relaxed. Things are going very well. It's getting easier and easier to see the beauty in things, which reminds me of Rainier Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet

...I think that you will not have to remain without a solution if you trust in Things that are like the ones my eyes are now resting upon. If you trust in Nature, in the small Things that hardly anyone sees and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable; if you have this love for what is humble and try very simply, as someone who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier for you, more coherent and somehow more reconciling, not in your conscious mind perhaps, which stays behind, astonished, but in your innermost awareness, awakeness, and knowledge.

It's funny that we have to practice this ability to see beauty. You would think that as human beings that would be our default state: if nothing else is in our minds, then the sight and presence of something of beauty is immediately brought to the forefront of our attention. But that's not the case, and I don't have an explanation for why that is. I'm glad I have my running and cycling to practice that sight and to remember what's important.

I drink too much at 2h20 before turning around to finish the 40min home with the strongest pace I can hold. My left foot, which has been giving me problems all through July, is now really bruised. The sun is starting to come out but I deal with the heat waves (made worse by the humidity from last night's rain) pretty well. It seems I've got the mental tools to handle the heat for short periods. 3h00

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Week of August 5

Tuesday         Another nice summer evening and I feel great as soon as I start my run. Really great. I think the shorter and more frequent runs in the past week have been a good idea; my legs aren't as trashed as they would be after long runs and my body seems to finally understand that running is a normal thing so it had better get used to it. After Wilmot Park I go for Sunshine Gardens and I can feel myself speeding up. It's like it's impossible not to go fast. I want to do a fairly intense hill workout today and I worry that I won't be able to keep up this speed. Only 15 minutes into the run and I'm already around or below an eight minute mile. But I decide to go with the flow. On the path between Rookwood and Hanwell the late evening sun is in the very last leaves of the trees so I run with my head up the entire way. Then up Golf Club Road as if it's flat. It feels so good to run fast. Tuck and Patti's subdued and uplifting version of Sitting Here in Limbo is in my head.

"Sitting here in Limbo
Like a bird ain't got a song.
Yeah, I'm sitting here in Limbo
And I know it won't be long
'Til I make my getaway, now."

I don't know where life will take me,
But I know where I have been.
I don't know what life will show me,
But I know what I have seen.
Tried my hand at love and friendship,
That is past and gone.
This little girl is movin' on. "

I love the idea of being in limbo: of being between two states of action or definition, and having faith in the temporary nature of where I am and not-knowing of what's coming. It's an idea that makes me profoundly happy for reasons I can't quite figure out yet. And it's completely at odds with the state I put myself in when I'm racing. A race is about as clear and defined state as you'll get. You know exactly where you are - your watch tells you, the distance markers are telling you, your mind is describing the pain in far too much detail to you - and you know that you want terribly for it to be all over. It seems in something as intense as a race, all of this information is good and the only way to deal with it is by not being "in limbo." But what if I totally changed that mindset? What would happen if I did an Ironman with the same unknowingness that I have tonight and that's making this run so spectacular? 1h20

Thursday         My legs are a little stiff this evening. Worse, my left foot is killing me. It gets so bad within ten minutes of starting that I seriously consider going back home. The pain lessens when I'm running on the path instead of asphalt. Around Sunshine Gardens and at 15min I pick the pace, even though I was running fairly hard already. Pound up Marlborough ("Where's the hill?") and down to Woodstock Road and eventually the Green. It's nice to be able to run this fast naturally. It takes me months to get to this point, though! 1h10

Saturday         I did a short brick run last night after a solid 2h45min tempo bike and I was a bit disappointed at how sluggish I felt. That sluggishness was there again this morning when I started an early moderate run in Odell Park. I've signed up for the Rockwood By the Bay Triathlon (Olympic distance) that takes place tomorrow. I need an opportunity to see how all the minor equipment and strategy changes work out in a race and this is as good as it's going to get. During the run I realise that I haven't done an Olympic-length race since...2004!! The problem is that I'm so terrible at short distance stuff that the likelihood of coming in near the back of the pack is pretty good. I just have to remind myself that tomorrow when people are whizzing by me.

My usual warm up across Wilmot Park and Sunshine Gardens. My foot is even worse than Thursday. How am I going to run a marathon in two weeks? On top of that, my left big toenail is about to drop off. Things are just not going well. But it's a spectacularly beautiful day, absolute perfection. The leafy green and streaming sunlight of Odell Park are calling. I do three loops and revel in how much stronger my legs have become over the years. The park is so serene and gorgeous I feel like I'm in a cathedral. I love whipping down the other side of the hill, accelerating in the little depressions and lengthening my stride across the wooden bridges. It feels amazing just to run. And forget about my foot. 1h15

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Week of August 12

Wednesday         This is my radical taper week. I did the Rockwood By the Bay Triathlon on Sunday as a test race for Ironman. I had a fabulous 10km run, shaving over two minutes off my second lap and really feeling what it was to run well and, as Lisa Bentley puts it, "from my happy place." It was a stunningly beautiful day and I ran for the sheer joy of it.

There's quite a bit less joy tonight. Koshka, my black cat whom I've had for ten years, has been missing since Monday night. I feel completely lost; one of the most stable and reliable parts of my life is gone. I simply don't know how to adjust. I start tonight's run very late. It's cool and the evening showers are over. Crickets are chirping everywhere. There's an incredible sense of peace in the area. This is my last run before leaving for British Columbia. I run simply because I need to, not for any specific training purpose. I take the route I usually do in winter - around Sunshine Gardens, up Marlborough, and straight back home - and as I go around I'm reminded of my New Year's run under similar conditions, when all was quiet and light reflected off clouds and snow to show the trail in the dark. It seems as if this has been a year of loss, when those things that have been close to me have left or I've finally realised that some of my greatest sources of joy and love are no longer within my reach. I have rarely run with such a sense of sadness. But as with anything that has meaning, it's a good run. 55min

Ironman Canada I'm hoping to post updates and, of course, a race report, while I'm in British Columbia for Ironman Canada. Click here for the IMC 2007 posts.

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Week of September 9

Thursday         There's nothing like doing an Ironman to realise just how easy your life is when you're NOT doing one. For example, things like having not one but two weather websites on your desktop all day long to monitor every change in the wind, temperature increase/decrease, and possible thundershower that could mean a total change in workout schedules. Actually going to bed before midnight. Not having six different workout outfits stinking up your closet and another four in the laundry basket. Having time to eat supper without calculating how much you can let stuff digest before you head out for another workout. Not looking at your watch every 20 minutes to see how much more work you can cram in before you screech out of the office and get your bike ride in before the sun sets. Yeah, this is the easy life.

I went out for my first half-decent run since Ironman this evening. I did do a 1.5hr run two weeks ago when the weather was nice, but my legs seized up part way through and I had a hard time coming back. So other than a bike ride (which resulted in the same seizing-up), I haven't been doing a whole lot other than eat, and I sure have been doing a whole lot of that. I felt really great tonight when I started. It was dark and I always run well when I don't see how slow I'm going. I went through Wilmot Park and then around Sunshine Gardens, doing my winter route up Marlborough Drive and back. I wanted to keep it short, but it was hard to stop at 50 minutes when I was feeling really strong and smooth. My stride felt like it was hitting at the right place; I wasn't bent over, my footstrike was a little behind my centreline, and I had good core power to keep things powered from the centre. Not bad for three weeks after an Ironman. 50min

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Week of September 16

Sunday         Sometimes life hands you a perfect day, maybe not in every respect but close enough that every minute feels like a gift. Now that Ironman training is over for the year, my criteria for a perfect day are pretty low. It's sunny, not freezing, and there's nothing on my schedule. This afternoon is the perfect time for a long run and it's nice not to add extra layers of clothing to mimic Penticton's hot weather. I run out to the Northside Trail and let the wind push me for a while. I've been doing a lot of training on the elliptical machine at the gym in the past week, something I haven't done in over a year. It really adds some power to the push-off in my stride and my legs feel much looser. A few old injuries creep in during the run: my left shoulder sprain is back, my left foot is definitely bruised toward the end of the run, and my right IT band is also chiming in with its own discontent. This part of the year has traditionally been the worst for me as far as injuries go, something I can't figure out. But today's run is still worth it. 1h50

Thursday         We're experiencing a lovely Indian summer here in Fredericton. Cool nights and hot, dry days full of sun and cloudless skies. I start off very late for my run and I'm surprised at how good I feel. This morning I had the not-so-brilliant idea of starting a candy bowl at the office for everyone, and I made the dumb mistake of putting it on my desk. Duh. I basically ate chocolate all day long, and when that happens I don't tend to run very well. But tonight my legs felt solid and my feet seemed to patter lightly as I ran. It must be all the work on the elliptical trainer. I run around Sunshine Gardens, thinking of all the reasons why I love running. I'm feeling so good I decide to go up Golf Club Road, singing "Find the time, find a way" from a Hothouse Flowers song. What I really like about running during this time of the year is listening to crickets. They bring such a sense of peace during my runs, marking out the evening from the day at the office with people and phones and email. The run is so great that I start to think about doing a fall marathon so that I could qualify for Boston. Hm. 1h10

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Week of September 23

Sunday         A late night run again. I've been eating terribly - and way too much - all weekend so I'm very surprised when I start my run and I feel so light on my feet. It's like I'm floating over the ground. It's late Sunday night so there's no one on the road, and I do Sunshine Gardens, Golf Club Road, and Marlborough Drive without seeing any traffic or meeting anyone. I love these kinds of runs. Everything is going so well. I don't know which comes first, the great run or the great mood. At the far end of Golf Club Road I use the downhill to pick up some speed and the last 20 minutes of the run I'm really flying. 1h12

Tuesday         I run downtown to The Running Room this evening to meet up with a 10k clinic group that's doing hill repeats for the first time ever. I remember when I used to hate hills, too. It's funny how we hate something because it's so much effort, and then as time goes by we start to like it - because it's so much effort.

The evening unbelievably warm - 28 Celsius - and later when I do my own run around Golf Club Road I imagine that I'm running in July on a late summer night. My legs are feeling really heavy even though they got yesterday off. It's fun to be running in daylight and get an opportunity to run on the path to the foot of Golf Club Road. The wind is very strong and I really have to get my technique and posture lined up so that I can find the power to run into it without fading. When I turn around at the far end the sun has started to set and the thin high clouds are glowing orange. Everything is bathed in a soft, surreal orange glow, which makes the trees whose leaves have changed colour even more beautiful. To make the evening even more special, there's a huge moon rising and I spend the last 20 minutes running straight toward it. By the time I get home I'm going pretty fast but I'm more tired than I thought I'd be. 1h30

Saturday         It's windy but clear and sunny. I've been looking forward to running on a day like today for a while. The fall colours are almost at their peak and I know from experience that the trail out to Penniac will be breathtaking. The days are shorter now and so weekends are the only opportunity I have to run on the Northside Trail during daylight. It's easy on the way out to Marysville; the huge tailwind pushes me along and I relax as much as I can, taking little light steps and listening to my feet pat the ground. At the turn in the path before getting to Marysville I spot a huge, elegant loon standing in a large puddle beside the path. It reminds me of the deer that I saw on the bike course at Ironman Canada. "Nature won't give up on you." I run out to the field along River Street and I'm shocked to see it mostly gone: there's an apartment building going up on the huge green space that I used to run across. Running back is fine. I surprisingly pick up a lot of speed in the last half hour. 2h00

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Week of September 30

Monday         I'm on the edge of getting the nasty cold that's going around the city. I didn't have a cold for years until I joined the Masters swimming club. Now one person gets it, and the 30 other swimmers who show up for swim practice that morning are doomed. I went out for a run tonight because I thought that if I did eventually get a cold, I wouldn't be able to run (misery-free, anyway) for a while. And if I didn't get a cold, then it was an extra run on a nice night. Sometimes I'm so smart I really surprise myself! (That's a joke, by the way.)

I want to do a longish run this evening. I listen to and fill my heart and my head with Mozart's Sul'Aria from The Marriage of Figaro ("How sweet the breeze will be this evening in the pine grove.") I start down Northumberland and feel great. I pad across Wilmot Park, keep things steady around Sunshine Gardens, and go up Golf Club Road. I feel incredibly strong, as if my feet are hitting the ground, finding energy, and gathering it and springing me forward with it. A hard swim workout yesterday gave my waist a good wake-up, and it's now doing its job at keeping my torso steady. As I go up Golf Club Road with two sopranos lightening my footstep, I start making a list of all the songs I'd put on my running-only playlist. Sitting Here in Limbo (Tuck & Patti), True Companion (Marc Cohn), The Island (Paul Brady), and Afterglow (INXS). And of course, Sul'Aria. If you were to listen to those songs while you were driving, you'd fall asleep and go right off the road. Why do they make me run so well, then? Probably because I relax, because their simplicity and sincerity make me open up to experience and run fully, if not more quickly. There is a profoundly, deeply happy place within me that responds to this music and turns that response into swift, easy running. It's interesting that I used to dance to things like Desert Rose (Sting) or When You're Falling (Afro-Celt Sound System) and then go out and run fluidly, but now I use that sort of music on the bike, more to find my focus and tempo. 1h20

Wednesay         This has got to be my day. As usual on Wednesday mornings, I go to the gym to do weightlifting and surprise myself by cranking up the weights on almost all my exercises. Then off to work, where a mishap in the building shuts the whole thing down and everyone gets to go home at 10am. On my way out of the office, a colleague kindly offers me his brand new SUV while he's away. And to top it all off, it's 21 degrees Celsius and the fall colours are amazing and the sun is out! I'm so happy that after I'm done zipping around town doing all my errands (in a vehicle!) I put on my favourite purple running shirt, shorts, my purple watch, and go for a long run out to Penniac.

I start very slowly. The intense morning workout as well as a lot of butterfly stroke at swim practice yesterday have exhausted my upper back. I want to make it all the way out past Bridge Street along the path because at this time of the year the birch draping over both shores of the Nashwaak River will have turned brilliant yellow, and it's quite a sight to see. The trail to Marysville is bordered by red and yellow maples. When I cross Bridge Street and go over to the other side of the Nashwaak, the maples are younger and they are a flaming red that stops me in my tracks. The views along the river are unreal. All the trees are in their most vibrant colours and the path is occasionally matted by orange pine needles that make for the most lovely running. I go all the way out to the second bridge just to catch a glimpse of the valley wall that tends to be the most spectacular part of the whole trail. Running back is a bit tougher since it's straight into a strong wind that has picked up. 2h05

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Week of October 7

Sunday         Thanksgiving weekends don't come much more beautiful than this one. I couldn't wait to get on the trails today to head out to Penniac to see the leaves. I'm pretty sure this will be the last weekend that they are so glorious; we're one windstorm away from them all falling down. As I warmed up down Northumberland and across town on Charlotte I noticed that my stride felt much tighter and stiffer than usual, but in a very toned way, not out of fatigue. Things were looking really good for making this run last at least two hours, which is the minimum amount of time I need to get out to Penniac. Amazingly, there was absolutely no one on the trail. A day of kayaking yesterday had pulled together my latissimus dorsi and my rhomboids, so I ran very tall. I had Somebody Touched Me by Bruce Cockburn in my head as I trotted quickly down the Northside Trail. It was amazing just how effortless this run was. I crossed Bridge Street and started the second part of the trail to the second Nashwaak Bridge. Somehow the colours were even more beautiful than they had been Wednesday; the air was clearer, the edges sharper, everything was just so dazzling. I stopped across from the wall of the Nashwaak Valley where the vertical display of reds, yellows, greens and oranges was most spectacular. On my way back I changed my song to Pologna e Todora and drank in as much sunlight as I could. What I really wanted to do was find a way to think only of this run and receive as much of this beauty as I could. One of the best and happiest runs of the year. 2h30.

Wednesday         On Monday I was kayaking with a friend through the Portobello Wildlife Management Area on the most beautiful, fiery red autumn day ever, on Tuesday I was flying across the country first class after a missed Air Canada connection, and on Wednesday I am running on the spectacular Hoodoos Trail in Banff National Park. Life just doesn't get better than this. I'm in Banff for a conference, and the weather is unusually warm and clear, so when the afternoon sessions are over I decided to go for a run. I only had a few hours of sleep, having driven in at some ungodly time in the morning, so I wasn't sure how long I can run nor what effect the altitude would have on me. I started from the Hidden Ridge Resort (I have my own fireplace! Guess what I was doing after the run.) The resort is a bit outside the town and up on a long steep hill to Tunnel Mountain. It's a bit overcast, no wind, and amid the green carpet of coniferous trees there's the occasional brilliant yellow birch standing out. It looks like something you'd see on a Windows background. Starting down toward the town of Banff is great. I get to the Bow River Trail and decide to turn west toward the Hoodoos Trail, which seems like the longest trail on the map. I'm feeling pretty good, good enough maybe for two hours.

I start down along the Bow River, and it's so beautiful and quiet that it almost seems unreal. The path goes up and rejoins the road, and I get a fantastic view of the river turning into rapids and the Banff Springs Hotel. It's all uphill until I come to a small parking lot where the Hoodoos Trail starts. The sign says it's 4.1km to the Hoodoos Lookout. I trot down the path and I'm surprised that I'm the only one on it. Eventually the path flattens out and I'm in a forest without shrub or undergrowth; it looks like something out of the movie The House of Flying Daggers. The path is flat, perfectly groomed, and beautiful in a remote, alpine way. Could I be lucky enough to be running here? I go around a dried-out creekbed and rejoin the edge of the Bow River, running around the bottom of a huge cliff that comes out of nowhere. Then across an alpine meadow that is golden grass bordered by pristine forest and the snow-capped mountains in the background. I almost feel like I don't deserve to be running in something so amazing.

There are two long uphill stretches that I either run up slowly or walk up, then I'm at the Hoodoos Trail Lookout. Wow. I don't know what else to say. You really had to be there. It reminded me of my run in the Drakensberg Mountains earlier this year in South Africa, when the scenery was just as imposing and breathtaking in its own way, available for anyone who cared to step out of their car or routine and see if they were lucky enough to own a pair of running shoes and an open mind. I remembered the last time I was in Banff, years and years ago. I was treeplanting back then and between contracts I would drive vehicles to other camps, stopping in Banff to gas up. I couldn't afford to stay in the hotels, so I'd sleep in the pick-up truck in a parking lot somewhere. It's amazing where time will take us.

I decide to go back the same way I came instead of taking the Tunnel Mountain Road that goes by the resort. I shuffle down the long hill stretches, marveling at how great my left foot was doing these days. When I get to the bottom I could feel my running legs coming back and my stride changing, becoming a lot stronger and aggressive. I don't want to trot or jog anymore, I want to run. Everything is so quiet with that silence peculiar to mountains. It makes me realise just how noisy my mind often is, even when I'm doing my best to clear it as I'm running. If there's the least bit of civilisation noise around - traffic, people, ventilation, etc - then some of the noisiness gets lost in that, so although I think I've quietened my mind, in fact not much has happened. But now in this vast silence it becomes easier to hear the noise and stop it, just letting myself hear the rhythm of my run. Through the meadow, around the dried-out creek bed, through the sparse forest, and up the hill. The toughest part of the run ends up being the long, brutal hill on Tunnel Mountain Road to the resort. 2h00

Thursday         I'm back out this afternoon for another long run in Banff. This time I bring my camera with me; I still look at the photos from the run in the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa and I'm so grateful that I have them. I start out a little tentatively, pretty sure that I'll be stiff and tired after yesterday's two hour hill extravaganza. But legs and muscles and energy levels are all doing very well, and so is the weather. There's a bit of wind, but lots of sun and that's always something to be grateful for when you're in a mountain range! Instead of writing all the amazing stuff I saw, I'll let my camera do the talking:

The long downhill stretch from the resort to the town of Banff:

The start of the trail at the end of Muskrat Drive near the centre of Banff.


Climbing up the road along the Bow River. The Bow Rapids are just below and the Banff Springs Hotel is across.



After picking up the head of the Hoodoos Trail and going down, this is where the path flattens and goes through a tranquil forest:



At the end of that forest the path comes out to a dried out river bed and the base of a cliff.



A shot looking back along the Bow River to the Banff Springs Hotel:



The gorgeous, almost unreal alpine meadow. I couldn't believe I had the luck to run through this.





A pair of deer off to the left as I headed uphill.




The view over the Bow Valley after the first major climb away from the Bow River.



Elk crossing! Lots and lots of them, including one with a good set of antlers. It got me running a little faster.





Where the trail meets the road to Tunnel Mountain.



Looking back at the valley I just ran. That's the Banff Springs Hotel about four kilometres away.



At the turnaround. I basically ran to the left of that little mountain in the middle of the photo, and on my way I chose to take the road that stayed to the right of it.


1h45

Saturday         Back home and on flat ground. Two days of hills and some altitude running mean that I'm running quite strongly today. I almost went to the gym but finally the colour of this very autumn afternoon got me out on the trails. The sky is overcast but it's a great day to be running. I've got that short, snappy stride again, the one that comes from doing either a lot of hills or a lot of time on the elliptical trainer. Down the Northside Trail to Marysville, trying to keep my pace slow, do a loop around the old cotton mill, then finally give in to the craving to go quite hard on the way home. I can't believe I could sustain this kind of speed for so long. 1h50

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Week of October 14

Wednesday         Wow, a warm, clear night in Saint John, New Brunswick. I'm not in Saint John all that often, and even less often when it's so beautiful outside. I'm staying at the Delta Brunswick, and the only reason why I mention that is because this awesome hotel chain puts little cards in each room with suggested routes for walkers and runners. What a fabulous idea!! The cards are small and stiff enough so that you can run without crumpling or folding them, there are a number of distances, and the streets are well indicated. Way to go, Delta.

I opt for the card called the Athlete's route, which is 6.5km long. Out I go straight up the extremely steep hill that leads away from the harbour. Not the way I'd want to start a run. I'm making my way to the causeway that will eventually get me to Bayside Drive. I love the people in Saint John, but when it comes to infrastructure and sidewalks, this city really sucks. There are sudden drops in the sidewalk, cracks, uneven pavement, and sidewalks that suddenly end, leaving me darting across traffic until I can find a path to get to the next sidewalk. It's a nice downhill to the causeway and I let my stride lengthen quite a bit. Up Bayside and eventually to the killer hill up Waterloo Street. It's brutal! But not brutal enough to stop me from doing another loop. I haven't run 6.5km since my taper for Ironman Canada and I'm feeling too good to stop. On the second loop I really start hammering until I get to Waterloo. My lungs start burning, my calves are whimpering, but at least I get to the top without walking. Phew - one of the hilliest runs I've done in a long time. 1h10.

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Week of October 21

Sunday         18 degrees, gorgeous, clear blue sky. Is it really mid-October in Canada? I don't spend too long on that question since I want to be out on the trails running. I do my usual route out to Marysville and I turn around at 1hr just past Bridge Street. Last week's hill run in Saint John and a tough workout on the elliptical trainer yesterday mean that my stride feels a little odd. I really like it, it just takes some getting used to. It feels like my legs are longer and I'm running with stronger hips that don't have to do as much to push me forward. I decide to do a threshold pace on my back and sustain that for a whole 40 minutes before I finally tire out. 2hrs.

Thursday         I tell a colleague this evening that I absolutely must run tonight, that my feet are itching to go. And if you saw the sky tonight, with the clearest moon and the luminscent deep blue everywhere, the glow and the shadows on the ground, you'd understand. This was a night made for running on quiet streets and paths, listening to the world and my breath. I listened to Afterglow before I started my run, and fell into my usual winter route around Sunshine Gardens and then up Golf Club Road. I added the loop around Glengarry Court and came back via Marlborough. It was a long, hilly run and I felt incredibly relaxed and fit, especially when I consider how little I've done in the past few days and how much I've been eating. I reflected on something I head read while I was in Banff, an article by a student of Krishnamurti. The student had written about his conversations with Krishnamurti, and one of his final reflections was

"Out of all the advice that Krishnamurti has given me, the suggestion which has proved to be the most helpful has been to listen to whatever sound happens to be at the moment - an airplane, the wind, the rain, the call of a crow - and then in this state of openness turn inwards and "listen" to and "look" at whatever is actually there. And this inward "listening" and "looking" is meditation - in such a state the mind does not chatter."

It's an incredibly hard thing to do. I was coming back toward on Golf Club Road, "listening" and turning inwardly. I couldn't sustain it for very long, but when I would catch that vibe my mind would indeed stop its chattering and I'd run feeling more real and more present. It reminded me of something a yoga instructor says toward the end of one of my favourite yoga DVDs, "Be defenceless." Take off whatever armour and effort you carry to make yourself fit into this world, don't behave to impress or convince or defeat, but be defenceless. Very unnerving, until you get used to it and realise just how happy you are to have let go of something that was so much effort for a risk that simply didn't exist.

I finished on the long stretch of path from Marlborough to Hanwell and all the way over to Smythe. The glow on the ground from the moon reminded me of my New Year's run on the same path. As I walked the last little bit home I saw a raccoon on the other side of the street calculating his probability of making it across in one piece. I stopped, he took off straight for the tree I was standing by, a car turned the corner so the raccoon stopped at the tree - about three feet away from me - and then kept running. Cute encounter. 1h20

Saturday         Soft drizzle on a quiet morning. This morning screams "Fireside! Cuddle! Good book and baking!" Alas, I am up at 4am to drive a friend to the airport and I've got way too much coffee in me to go back to sleep. So I go for a run. I don't have all that much time since yours truly is the maid of honour at her best friend's wedding this afternoon. But I do like having the quiet time to myself and I use it to do a few laps around Odell Park, something I haven't done in months. In fact, I've never run in Odell Park except in summer when I'm training. I warm up around Sunshine Gardens and I enjoy that Saturday-morning-sleeping-city feel to the day. It's like I'm the only one out here. I head up to Odell off of Hanwell; there's flagging tape everywhere to mark off a cross-country running event that will be taking place this afternoon. But for now I've got the whole park to myself. Unlike summer, autumn clears out all the spaces between the trees and the trail looks completely different. No birds chirping, just the sound of a little bit of rain pattering on the leaves. I have to huff a little up some of the hills - obviously I haven't been training for Ironman lately - and either listen to the quiet or think of what I'll say for the bridesmaid's toast this evening.

My friend is getting married after 11 years of being together with her soon-to-be-hubbie. It makes you wonder why they want to get married at all. After all, they've obviously got a good thing going, and if you knew them you'd figure out pretty quick that it isn't going to end any time soon. So why got through all this trouble - and trust me, a wedding is trouble - to essentially keep doing what they're doing? The same reason why most of us who are runners run, or why people have passions in the first place: to be part of something bigger than themselves. I like to thing that the institution of marriage is far greater and has stood the test of time more so than any couple that has been married. And for all the arguments about the relative state of marriage today, when you utter the word "marriage" it connotes more or less the same image and the same responsibilities to the partners regardless of their age, upbringing, or place. To get to that image requires something in each of us that we're probably not quite capable of; yet being married at the very least challenges you to realise that and then to see if you can fulfill it. "Common-law relationship" or "living together" just don't quite bring up the same image.

By then end of one hour I've got a pretty good idea of what I'll be saying and my legs are cramping as my running tights get wet. I go back home on the paths and then speed up on the last couple of blocks to finish at almost a sprint. 1h10.

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Week of October 29

Friday         Not a whole lot of running these days, even though I signed up for the Moncton Legs for Literacy half-marathon this coming Sunday. An I might not even be doing that since Hurricane Noel looks like it will be getting to Moncton at about the same time that I do. The funny thing is, I don't mind running in hurricanes since last year at almost exactly this time I did a half-Ironman in a hurricane. The problem is that I have a friend's car for a few weeks and I don't want to drive it in 120km/hr winds. But running in 120km/hr winds I have no problem with!

Anyway, I go out for a run this evening with a pre-race owrkout in mind, just in case I do decide to run on Sunday. That means a very hard, quite long run at or above race pace. I've got a race song, U2 Where the Streets Have No Name, selected because last year in Moncton I had such a great time running to U2's other song, Bad. There's an intensity to those songs that makes letting go so much easier. It's pitch black as I start through Wilmot Park, and I start accelerating very early around Sunshine Gardens. I wonder how I'll maintain this pace for 1h20min, but figure that the only way to find out is to do it. I do my winter route up Marlborough Drive, and it's on the way back downtown along Woodstock Road and George Street that I really push hard. I'm unusually clear-minded tonight. I think I'm just really, really happy, and that along with a great song put me in a frame of mind to try different things with my running. As I'm charging along Woodstock Road I try to sense what parts of me are resisting the effort to go faster, what parts are afraid or holding back. It's not a physical drill; it's more of a mental examination of why we hold back even when we're doing what we love most. And when I do key in to Where the Streets Have No Name and let go, I don't run out of energy or collapse as I was afraid I would. I pick up the pace even more down Queen Street and finally ease up a little as I head home. 1h20

Two notes: I found a neat website for runners and triathletes at Faithful Soles and registered my blog. And another really neat thing if, like me, you've got a growing collection of dead toenails in a drawer somewhere from all the running you've been doing: How to make your own toenail necklace. Show up at work with one of those and see how popular you are.

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Week of November 4

Sunday         I didn't make it to Moncton today. When I woke up the trees outside my window were bending over sharply and the wind was howling away. The heavy rain had stopped overnight, but I still wasn't keen on driving in these kinds of conditions and swim practice sounded so much more appealing. Late this afternoon the wind had died down completely, the sky had cleared out, and the sun was felt low and friendly so I went out to get on the Northside trails before it got dark. I kept things pretty slow in the first half but I felt very solid. It's an odd effect of swimming hard: exhausted back and shoulder, which turn into a more upright posture because slouching means I have to hold my arms up more. If I run upright, balance takes care of everything. Once in a while I'd check my form according to the ChiRunning stuff, but otherwise this was one of those run-just-to-feel-good runs. I ran out to the old dam on the Nashwaak, past Bridge Street, then turned around and surprisingly started to feel really strong. So I ran faster. And felt stronger. And kept running faster until I got home. 1h20

Monday         More bad weather on the way later this week, so I take advantage of the clear evening and quiet winds to go out for an easy one hour run. I don't feel like doing Sunshine Gardens/Marlborough Drive; instead, I cross the pedestrian bridge to wander around in Devon before doubling back on MacLaren Avenue. I don't really want to run fast, either, but when I turn around on MacLaren there's a bit of downhill and before I know it I'm running at well above a half-marathon pace. I find where I left off on Friday's run, seeing where the resistance is in my torso and hips, then letting it go and feeling myself accelerate.

The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
Meet them at the door laughing
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes
Because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rumi

Thursday         The city feels deserted when I start my run tonight. I'm not really in the mood for running, so I convince myself to get out the door by telling myself that it'll be a soft, easy run. I don't do anything too unusual, just the regular route around Sunshine Gardens and then up Golf Club Road. It's nice to listen to silence. Once in a while I think of the song The Riddle and that makes me think of haunting, gorgeous early morning runs on Upper Bench Road in Keremeos. Those are really great memories. I remember my Ironman marathon earlier this year, the pace I had found and that happy place, as Lisa Bentley calls it. This does turn out to be a slow run, but it feels as smooth as silk. I turn for home after 1h30min only because it's so late. Otherwise I think I would have run all night.

Saturday         Brrrr!!! A strong north wind made for a very chilly run today. I wasn't feeling too good and it showed up in the first few steps. I seemed to have no power at all in my legs, the result of a very hard workout at the gym last night on the elliptical trainer. My calves were exhausted, my hips and waist struggled to keep my torso upright, and my stride really felt like a shuffle. So I shuffled across the pedestrian bridge and out to the Northside Trail, into that really cold wind all the way to Marysville. I turned around at Bridge Street, wondering how the heck I was going to manage another hour of running. Things got better because that headwind turned into a tailwind. Still, I was really surprised at how utterly exhausting this run was. 2h00

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Week of November 11

Sunday         Just a short run today. It's thankfully warmer and sunnier than yesterday, and I'm also feeling much better. I'm in an especially grateful mood today: it's November 11th, Remembrance Day, the one day when we get to thank the people who have risked their lives - or given them up entirely under conditions that we don't even want to imagine - so that we can have the highest quality of life this world has to offer. Everything from waking up with a cat snuggled and snoring by my head, to going to swim practice with my friends, to coffee and toast with homemade bread while sitting in the sun with a good book and a cat, to this run right now - all of this is possible because of what someone else gave up. I hope I can pay it forward sometime in my own life.

We leave the YMCA and head toward the Delta, planning our run so that we have a tailwind along the river and then can run back across town in the more sheltered streets. My hips are killing me, the usual sign that it's time to lay off the elliptical trainer for a bit. I seem to have a hard time generating power from my torso and instead have to rely on increasing my foot turnover to maintain my pace. But it's a brilliantly sunny day and the wind and clear air make things feel wholesome, like this is about the healthiest, happiest thing I could do today. We run along The Green, cross the pedestrian bridge, then turn around and come back across town on Charlotte and Aberdeen. 40min.

Monday         No wind and lots of sun today! The wholesome running thing is still with me, so we decide to do our run on the lovely trails in Odell Park. We start down Northumberland, cross over to Rookwood on Saunders Street, then to Hanwell on the path. I like getting into Odell Park from the path on Hanwell since it's a lot less steep than the front gate entrance, and there aren't as many people watching me slow down and clamber up the incline! From there we do two laps on the lower half of the main trail. I love the feel of the the balls of my feet landing on the woodchips (I run with a front/forestep stride when I'm going uphill in the park.) Turn around when we hit the main trail, and pause to look at the sunlight coming through the trees. Back up to the secondary trail, and when we start to head down my sweetie, who's taken the lead on this part of the trail, suddenly decides to have some fun and runs the entire downhill section without holding back. We race down the steeper parts, let momentum carry us across the wood bridges, and finish up at the bottom back on the main trail saying "Geez, that was fun! Let's do it again!." And it's even more fun the second time around. 40min.

Wednesday         I'm late out on my run tonight. It's warm and breezy but the wind dies down in the later part of the run. I had other plans for the evening but tonight's conditions and tomorrow's forecast meant that it was a priority to get out this evening. My stride felt long and loping, not at all the short snap I've been feeling in previous runs. I go around Sunshine Gardens and up Golf Club Road, trying to put more speed into the hills than I usually do. I want to feel strong and it takes an awful lot of focus and, well, strength to do that. At the far end of Golf Club Road where I usually turn around I stop for a while and look at the clouds moving across the sky. It's one of those nights when the clouds are breaking up and flying by almost right over your head. I'm a sound person; before I see the world, I hear it. Everything happens through my ears. The most amazing sound of all is silence because it's so perplexing. We tend to think that events and things carry a certain amount of noise with them, and that the bigger the event or thing, the bigger its associated noise. Silence is equated to nothing. So to see clouds moving by and the evidence of great wind and power yet not here a single thing is something that holds me on this spot at the end of the road, staring at the sky. I finally get going and put in a very strong 30min back home. 1h20

Saturday         I so look forward to running on weekends now. They are my only opportunity to do long runs out to Marysville on the Northside Trail and feel like I'm not just running, but that I'm traveling. Running out to Marysville is easy since I've got a good tailwind on this very cool and blustery day. I run out to the field just below the local ballpark and stare at the huge mound of dirt that now blocks the view of the field and the path I used to take across it to get to the trails. Sometimes I really don't like progress. Sometimes I wonder where all the fields are going and what will give the runners who come after me a reason to run breathlessly in grass and leap over little ditches. I turn around and try to get Beethoven to drown out the huge headwind I'll now have for the next hour as I run home. The trails are totally abandoned and this might be my last chance for quite a while to enjoy the solitude. 2h00

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Week of November 18

Wednesday         I was in a foul mood today and so looking forward to a long, easy run to make things better. The part about being under the weather is that you usually aren't too creative, so I stuck to my usual Sunshine Gardens/Golf Club Road route. I wasn't too sure about doing more hills until I got to the foot of Golf Club Road. Some really hard workouts at the gym on the bike and the elliptical trainer had strained my Achilles tendons, and my hamstrings and quadriceps were completely exhausted. But the funny thing about running when I'm very tired is that I find a groove - a steady, almost effortless stride that I can maintain for hours. It's like falling into a trance, and instead of experiencing the run as a workout, it becomes simply another state of being. Tonight I tweak my stride a little, trying to find an extra bit of efficiency to make things even more fluid. I notice that I'm using my adductors and my hip flexors more than usual to lift my legs, and my hips and torso are working hard to stabilise everything. My legs feel a lot more relaxed this way. 1h30

Saturday         Lucky me, I am in Ottawa this weekend. What an uncivilised part of the world: there's already snow on the ground here!! My sweetie and I go running in the early evening. It's one of those runs where you decide to go more because you feel you should rather than because you really want to. I'm not too happy about running in snow and ice this early in the winter. But the path along the Rideau River is surprisingly clear and makes for a neat sight, the black showing up against the white lawn on either side and the glow from the streetlights. We head upriver on the path, which is squeezed between the river and the Vanier Parkway, and take it easy in the first half. I like the orangy glow that we're running in; it gives the run a sort of surreal effect and makes me feel like I'm running in my own world. We turn around after about 20 mintues and I decide to try to stretch my legs a little. An intense two-hour swim earlier today must have loosened up my hips and hamstrings because it seems easier than usual to play around with my stride. I leave my sweetie behind as I find my groove and "fall into speed." I find it easy to run faster or longer when I think that speed/endurance aren't things that come from within, but rather are great forces that already exist and that I just have to open myself up to. It's a bit along the idea of a run earlier this month when I had Where the Streets Have No Name. I just have to let go of the resistance that I use because of the fear of going fast and getting tired, and that letting go always feels like free-falling. 45min

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Week of November 25

Sunday         It's my sweetie's long run today. There's quite a bit of wind, but the temperature has gone up since yesterday so we decide that a paved path might be a bit less slushy than a dirt one. We head toward the centre of the city, along Wellington, and pick up the paved path just beside the new War Musuem past Portage Bridge. Unfortunately, the path isn't as clear as either of us hoped it would be. The wind off of the river has kept it icy, so I run slowly on the balls of my feet. The problem with that is that it weakens my left ankle, which eventually gives up on me and, on our way back along Wellington Street, I twist it and hit the ground with a a great big grunt. (And just in case you were wondering, yes, there were lots of spectators!) A few minutes of walking and packing snow around my ankle, then we're off again. We take a slightly longer but much more scenic route to cross the city centre, picking up the pace as we go. 1h30

Thursday         Work and weather are making for a tough combination to get out and running this week. But tonight after supper the rain suddenly stops, the wind dies down, and I really feel like going for a long hard run. I feel incredibly strong, too. Lots and lots of sit-ups have given me some good core strength that keep my posture upright with little effort. And my legs appreciate the extra time off they've had in the last few days. I do Sunshine Gardens and Golf Club Road, which turns out to be quite an adventure because of black ice. The temperature was a lovely +6C when I started my run, and not long into the run it began plummeting very, very suddenly. As I started down the far end of Golf Club Road my feet slide out from under me. I don't fall down, but I do notice that the surface of the road glitters like it's covered with black diamonds. I shuffle down and find a clear strip in the middle of the road, then warn an oncoming runner about the ice. When I'm back on clear pavement I spend some time looking for the resistance and stiffness that I unconsciously carry when I run. It's all a part of that idea of falling into speed. Tonight I seem to be able to maintain it only for very short periods of time. 1h20

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Week of December 2

Saturday         Back in Ottawa and it's a nice, Christmassy evening for a run. Actually, that's not what gets us out the door; guilt at not having run for three days in a row is what finally makes us lace up our running shoes. I've got my Gore-tex winter Nikes that are so old that I can't even remember the last time I wore them. But they seem to be doing well on the snow packed roads. We go toward Rockcliffe and climb up some easy hills, distracted by the mansions characteristic of the area. Quiet evening, no wind, no traffic, narrow snow covered roads winding through an upsacle residential area. Yep, good conditions for running. I pick up some speed on a downhill stretch and decide to stay at that pace for a while. I have to stop every now and then to wait for my sweetie to catch up so that I know where I'm going. 45min

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Week of December 9

Sunday         I hate winter. I hate those first few moments when you step outside the door in your running tights and the shock of the cold hits you. I hate running in slush, squirming for traction in snow, trotting gingerly on anything that looks like ice, wobbling over crusty snow. Wait a minute...it's not even winter yet! That doesn't start until December 21st! It's my sweetie's long run, which got shortened to a pleasant one hour, and we bundle up and head out. I want to go to the Rideau Canal where we saw runners running on pavement yesterday. I was so envious. So we start slowly on St. Patrick and zig zag our way to the canal, which is about 20 minutes of running away. I think of my run here last February and how delighted I was to run without stopping every few minutes at a traffic light.

There are quite a few runners out today, and the Running Room graduates are clearly identifiable by their super-slow shuffle and long Running Room jackets. I ask my sweetie whether he thinks the Running Room has been a positive or negative influence on running. It's a question I often ask myself, and even more often since my experience at the 2006 half-marathon in Moncton when everyone started walking after 10 minutes of running (the Running Room method.) OK, so more people are joining the sport, but is participation coming at the cost of something greater? I'm very happy that the hosuewife with two kids who couldn't walk five blocks is now buying a pair of running shoes and registering for a 10k race. True, if it wasn't for the Running Room she'd probably be up to her eyeballs in baby food and stress right now. But is she any happier? Or even healthier? And will the Running Room's religious and strict adherence to its methods and philosophy eventually take out what is so special about running? The Running Room insists that its clinic leaders teach the 10min run/1min walk method, that people aim to complete races rather than improve their times (less pressure), and that people run in groups (for safety.) The idea is that if you make it easy and achievable, people will feel more comfortable about joining the sport. But my point is that running isn't supposed to be easy. That's why finishing a marathon is called an achievement and watching two hours of television every night isn't. One is hard, the other is easy. I think Running Room has confused the tactic with the goal. The goal is not to run a 10k using whatever is most comfortable for you; the goal is to use running to discover yourself, and you can only do that when you're pushing yourself. I hope we never get to a point where we lose sight of that in this sport. 1hr

Saturday         I'm quite proud of myself for actually going out for a run today. It's a bitterly cold and windy winter day: -13 Celsius when I start, with a windchill of -21. But I'm lured out of the house by a brilliant sun and clear blue sky, something I don't get to experience very often in winter when most of my time is spent at the office. And I've got a new pair of Asics to try out: Womens GEL-Trabuco 10 Trail. I haven't run in Asics in at least ten years, but since most of my winter runs are short, I figured it couldn't hurt to try something other than adidas. What I like about these Asics is the rubber that covers a lot of the toe and sides where you normally get slush or water piling into your shoe when you step in a puddle.

Oh yeah, the run. I felt really strong running down Northumberland, which surprised me because I've done a few nights at the gym. The shoes had a low heel and I found that they rounded my stride more than the adidas and made me work harder to keep a good pace. Climbing Golf Club Road was tough because of that low heel: my Achilles tendon was straining and I felt like I was trying to rock my foot all the way from the heel to the toe, rather than just pushing off the ball of my foot. The wind was cutting across the golf course and for a few moments I thought about turning back. I did make it all the way to the end of Golf Club Road, however, and on my way back with the tailwind I tried to move into a harder pace. Funny, the strength was there, but I still felt like I was running "behind" my foot. The Nikes I wore last week were definitely the better shoe: better for traction on icy packed snow (the Asics did better on snow but were terrible on ice) and had a very high heel. But a high heel also means more rolled ankles. Can't have everything! 1h15min

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Week of December 16

Tuesday         Saturday's run was a bit of a confidence boost for me: if I could run when it was that windy and cold, then surely I could go out tonight for at least a little while, when the temperature was around -13 and dropping quickly. I did my usual winter route, around Sunshine Gardens, along Waggoner's Lane, up Marlborough, and then back around Sunshine Gardens for a little extra time. Two days off gave me a fresh set of legs, but thre was a lot of trotting lightly over icy and snowy patches on the ground. My adductors were stiff and tired, and I really missed my adidas. Unlike the old winter Nikes, the Asics don't have Gore-Tex lining over the toe box and I spent the first 20 minutes of the run wriggling my toes as I ran to keep them from freezing. Still, happy I got out tonight. 1h10

Saturday         Home for the holidays. The weather here is doing all sorts of wonky things, like dumping enormous amounts of snow on the ground one week, then promising to melt it all suddenly with some rain. Most of the side roads are barely walkable because of the amount of snow remaining on the ground even after the plows have passed. Main thoroughfares are narrow because of the huge snowbanks cascading into the street. It's very warm, however. I decided to run down to the river and then along it since I knew that the shoulder was always cleared and I wouldn't be running through slush. I'm feeling pretty slow and drained of all energy. I always feel like that when I'm here. I keep my stride as short as I can and the pace very easy. The first half of the run is pretty easy anyway since I've got a strong tailwind. Things are a bit chillier on the way back. 1hr

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Week of December 16

Sunday         It's even warmer today than it was yesterday, but it's also raining when I start my run. I do the same route as yesterday. The first half is uneventful. I tack on some extra distance past yesterday's turn around point. I'm surprised at how tired I am on the way back and decide to blame my Asics. By now the rain is really pouring and I'm totally soaked. I miss seeing the sun. 1h20

Tuesday         Merry Christmas! I got a special Christmas gift for today's run: sunlight! Gosh it was nice to run and be blinded by sunlight for a change. I do the same route as I did on last year's Christmas run, going across the bridge to Otterburn Park, then turning upriver and keeping on Chemin des Patriotes until I get to the little airport at St Matthias. I have Sitting in Limbo in my head and my pace is very, very easy. Once I get out of Otterburn Park I feel a lot more relaxed. The shoulder is nice and wide and I like looking at the sun setting on the other shore. There's a bit of a headwind that becomes a helpful tailwind when I turn around at the airport, which is closed for the season. While I'm on my way back home I look at Mont-St-Hilaire in front of me, the huge granite mountain that looms out of an otherwise completely flat agricultural region.

With the sun setting behind my left shoulder and the light catching in the mountain, I'm reminded of the early part of the Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town, when the sun was rising and a massive mountain face at the end of a long straight road caught the sunlight. That image has stayed with me, one of the most compelling ones of that run. When I had run this route at this time last year, I would have seen Mont-St-Hilaire in the same way. Then the mountain in South Africa, and now again another one catching the sun. I start to think that life isn't really about forging ahead and making new paths, but rather coming back to points that we have already lived and having gained the wisdom to make better decisions the second - or third or fourth - time around. A "clean break with the past" is not always as refreshing as it sounds, even though a year ago I would have been certain it was.

My legs are cramping terribly at just over one hour. By 1h20 I feel like I'm in the fourth hour of a marathon: my quadriceps have seized, my upper body aches, and I'm exhausted and lightheaded. I haven't felt this bad during a run in years. I keep slowing my pace to keep things comfortable. I climb up the stairs to the bridge rather than take the long way up the hill, then run across and watch the spectacular evening sky. 2h00

Friday         Hello from London! Yes, my sweetie and I are here in the UK for a special New Year's trip. We stumble out of the Heathrow after spending way too much time in line at Customs and Immigration, but make up for it on the smooth and efficient new Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station. We figure out where to go on the Tube and find our way to Astons Apartments in South Kensington. We're pretty thrilled that we can navigate so well with jet lag and all.

Jet lag doesn't deter us from taking the Tube to Westminster to visit Westminster Abbey. The crowds!! The crowds and crowds and crowds! I'm so glad we didn't come here in July during the high season for tourism. It's cool and blustery. We follow the crowds to Westminster Abbey, the first highlight on our list. I have to admit that I don't have much recollection of that visit. The half-lit interior, the jet lag, the crowds, the lack of oxygen...I stumbled around in a daze looking at memorial stones and wishing I could get out. Once we were out we walked down Whitehall Road and all the way to Leicester Square to check out theatre tickets for my sweetie. More walking and more crowds. I mean, like, masses of people. Around Piccadilly and Trocadero to a little street that seemed like an orphan from Chinatown, then finally home.

Hours after landing at Heathrow, we pop out of Westminster Tube station and - ta-dah - see Big Ben! Brrr.	Westminster Abbey after we're out and on our way toward Whitehall.

Saturday         Last night's rain cleared out and we have an absolutely gorgeous sunny day in London. We start the day the way every holiday should start: with a good run. We run up Gloucester Road to Kensington Gardens and discover a runner's delight in the middle of London. Every other runner in London discovered the same delight as well at about the same time, and we pass lots of runners from the local Serpentine Running Club. They really don't look like they're enjoying themselves. We run around Hyde Park and back into Kensington for a good one hour run.

The idea for the trip to London at this time of the year was to see the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of King Lear . I had bought tickets in October and the show sold out not long after. Starring Sir Ian McKellan as King Lear and getting rave reviews stating that it was the best production of King Lear ever, the play was a must-see for a Shakespeare fan like me. The New London Theatre in London's West End was packed to the gills, and no wonder. For over three and half hours we were held in wonder at Shakespeare's great commentary of the nature of man and just what exactly makes some among us great.

My sweetie had gone to see Mamma Mia! while I was at King Lear. We met up at the insanely busy Burger King on Leicester Square to compare notes, then headed out for an evening at the Tate Museum. The South End felt completely deserted after wandering around the West End on a Saturday night. The Tate is a fantastic building. Too bad about the exhibits. We spent 10 pounds each to see Louise Bourgeois, who was basically a famous sculptor with a lot of issues, most of them about men. Walking across the Millenium Bridge afterward was a nice change.

Sunday         We're having a bit of a hard time switching to London time, so it was a late morning getting out of bed. I really liked the idea of running in Kensington Gardens again. I can see why most other runners prefer it too: no need to worry about the frequent street crossings, the traffic, the crowded sidewalks, and overall it makes a really nice change from the rest of the day. So my sweetie and I started out with a nice 45min run through the park. We found Princess Diana's memorial fountain, which resembled a very elegant waterslide. Well, at least it was unique. I'm sure it's much nicer in summer. I'm not a morning runner so I was really hurting on this one.

The weather was greyer and warmer than yesterday. I have to admit that I underestimated the impact of the humid air on how cold we would feel; true, temperatures were around +8 Celsius, but with quite a chill. We took a long Tube ride out to the Tower of London, our only touristy thing on our list for today. For a good idea of what we say, click here and follow the tour by clicking on the banner on the bottom right of that page. We weren't the only people with the idea of visiting the Tower today. Getting tickets took over 30min. I wondered what it would be like to visit here during the height of tourist season in July. We caught the last Yeoman Warder tour of the day at 2:30, led by Alan who had been a beefeater at the Tower since 1998. For almost an hour he led us around the main highlights of the Tower and told stories, jokes, and explanations with a great sense of humour. It ws pretty impressive when you consider that this was his third tour of the day, it was quite cold, and he was speaking to a crowd of probably about 50 people. Listening to the history of the Tower is a bit like listening the history of royal England in a nutshell. Every conspiracy, family dispute, and war pretty much started or ended here. We ended it with viewing the Crown Jewels just before closing time. It's odd to be visiting tourist attractions in the dark, especially after South Africa where I couldn't be out after dark at all.

Looking behind us at the Tower while we're waiting in line for tickets. Below the wall is the ice rink.	Alan the Yeoman Warder who guided our tour.

In front of the Traitor's Gate, and Alan looking at little children in front of him, informing them that the Tower had no problems executing little children back in the day when it was popular.	At the end of the very long line to get in to that far building where the Crown Jewels are on display.

My sweetie and I bought tickets for ice skating, something we had decided that we really wanted to do during this trip. Ice skating in London isn't at all similar to what it is Canada: rinks aren't public, so you need to buy tickets for specific one hour time slots on the small number of rinks available in the city. The rinks are specially built and maintained over a short period of time in the winter so that you can skate even though the ambient air temperature is well over the freezing mark. We ate supper in a diner just beside the Tower, and at 6:00pm headed down to the rink to get our skates (skate hires are included in the ticket price.) At precisely 6:30pm, 100 people rushed onto the rink and all hell broke loose. That's exactly what 100 English people who have no idea how to skate look like when they get on a rink. Not that I was any better: I couldn't even remember the last time I had gone skating, and just barely managed to stay up (most of the time) for the hour we were on the ice. But the scene around us was true chaos: people careening into walls, walking on their skates, hanging on together in groups, and lots and lots of falling. One poor guy couldn't stay up for more than five seconds, and by the end I think his girlfriend was completely out of patience with him. Regardless of my own lack of talent, I have to say that skating in a rink in the moat of the Tower of London was quite an experience. My sweetie and I looked at the walls built by brickmasons a thousand years ago and wondered what they would have thought if they had been told that one day there would exist such peace in the world that people would skate in the rink. Then again, the concept of tourism didn't really exist back then. And that made me wonder what concepts would exist a thousand years from now that I couldn't even imagine.

My sweetie on skates. He and about two others out of 100 were probably the only people who could skate.	Walking toward the Tower Bridge after ice skating.

That smile says "Wow, I didn't kill myself while skating!"	Walking onto the Bridge and surprised at how many others were doing the same thing.

Afterward we decided that it was early enough in the evening to keep walking for a bit. We crossed Tower Bridge and strolled along the Millenium walk (also known as the Thames Walk or the Queen's Walk) . I remembered the last time we were here, in 2003 when we had run up this way the day after I had done the UK Half-Ironman. Found an interesting outdoor photo exhibition of famous moments in sports in the past two or three years. Back home on yet another long Tube ride.

Monday         We skip our morning run in Kensington Gardens today since the plan is to run this evening, which, of course, will make it New Year's Eve! Instead, we go straight to the British Museum where there's yet another horde of tourists ready to join us. We divert to a Starbucks first, where I get ready with grande vanilla latte. We decide to rent audioguides to help us through the day. It's something I think I'll do again in big museums or galleries: I usually get tired very quickly at these things because of the crowds, but with the audioguide I didn't seem to notice so much. What's interesting about the day at the Museum is that it feels like a quick tour of the travels that we've done in the past few years: first with Ancient Egypt, then Greece, then some of Europe. I tell my sweetie that we'll have to visit Italy next so that we can cover all the great ancient civilisations. We see the scarab we saw at Karnak Temple in Luxor, mummies that reminded us of the museum in Cairo, little statuettes similar to all the ones we saw throughout Greece. There's an amazing gallery for China and India, a little bit on Africa (including an eery chair made with machine guns), and one of my favourites, Korea and some exhibits on the history of Buddhism. All of this takes over four hours, and we covered only a fraction of what the Museum had to offer.

The British Museum.	Helen desperately inhaling Starbucks before facing the crowds.

Not a bad day when your tour starts with the Rosetta Stone. How do you beat that?	I have no idea what this is.

Can you believe this is 5000 years old?	The photo doesn't do justice the the ferociousness of this tigress, one of a pair that formed a gate in ancient Egypt.

A well-preserved Greek Temple. The British Museum went to great lengths to explain its position in keeping Greek artefacts rather than returning them to Greece, which has been asking for them. If these ruins were in Athens, trust me, they wouldn't look this good.	The museum has no idea who this Egyptian fellow was, so they call him Ginger. I wonder why.

We go back home and get ready for our run. Finally, an evening run! I hate running early in the day and only pick up speed later on, so this is a nice change. We start up Gloucester Road, find that Kensington Gardens are closed, so head left along Kensington and go up a quiet street toward Notting Hill. It's nice to feel warm and relaxed on this run. It's also neat to think that we're running on New Year's Eve in London. A quick 45min (and one close call with a vehicle) later we're back at Astons. Quick shower, change, back out at 9pm to St. James Tube station where we walk toward Big Ben and The Embankment for the New Year's fireworks. The police presence is overwhelming. As we walk down toward Whitehall we pass bus after bus parked on the curb and full of waiting police officers. We pick a spot on The Embankment not far from Big Ben and start our 2.5 hour wait until midnight. Occasionally there's a fine drizzle and I pull out the little umbrella my mother wisely gave me just before leaving home. Otherwise the time passes surprisingly quickly. There are lots of young and half-drunk people in the crowd, which makes people-watching quite entertaining. The Millenium Eye on the south shore of the Thames, the staging area for the fireworks, changes colours every now and then. About five minute before midnight the lights on the Eye start whirling around much more quickly, and ten seconds before midnight the tall building well behind the Eye lights up with the ten second countdown to midnight. It's quite something to hear the crowd counting down together. At exactly midnight, the firworks start while Big Ben, right behind us, sonorously rings in the new year. The best part of the entire evening is that first minute when the fireworks are going off while Big Ben is chiming away. The fireworks continue for another ten dazzling minutes. When they're over, the adventure of getting out of The Embankment area along with 700,000 other people begins.

It's another hour of stumbling around and trying to get away from the crowds while still getting to a Tube station before we're home. We finally find Pimlico tube station but get stuck in the crowds at Victoria. When we arrive at Gloucester, we head straight for the Burger King across from the station and take supper home with us. Home tomorrow afternoon.

My sweetie and I just before we head out for our New Year's Eve run.	The view of the Millenium Eye while we were waiting for the fireworks to begin.

One minute to midnight - and 2008 - according to Big Ben!	It's midnight in London! Happy New Year!

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The 2008 Running Journal is here.

Ironman ~ Anything is Possible.

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Last updated on January 6 2008 by Helen Rooney