Run for the balls

It's that time of year again and the many preparations for the season are under way. Lights and decorations, candles, stockings, little tiny reindeer and even tinier pace bunnies (can you spot him?) have now all been hung up with great care. But there is something very important still missing... Is it beer? Ice cream? No, it's chocolate balls!

Part way through Sunday's run with Andrew I let it slip that I had some difficulties getting through the border because of some things (gifts) that were going to be left behind and he immediately determined that we needed to run faster. Mind you with the cold temperatures of -15C we were already moving as fast as we could but we did manage to speed things up a little bit and finished our 13 mile run in about 1:50. A quick dash down to the Strawberry Patch for coffee and we were soon in chocolate heaven! Mmmm, something about running and chocolate just seems to go together.

These tasty treats have been a feature on this blog for many years now and I even revealed the complex recipe of peanut butter, dates, icing sugar, eggs and chocolate in an old post but can't seem to find it right now. Once again, we forgot to save any for Thomas so he'll just have to make his own, or is he still allergic to them?

Anyway, it was still a good if not shorter long run as I'm still having issues with my endurance which will only be fixed by a more regular routine of more running. Of note was my Santa joke which really got Andrew's funny bone and his idea for a new book about the various exploits around Boyden lake. He had an excellent title which I can't remember right now (am I losing my memory?) but maybe he can fill us in with a comment.

So, another short post as I haven't been doing that much but keep on running and enjoy the season.

The Moose are Back!

It was a great day for a run, once we shoveled our respective driveways and made our way over greasy roads to the usual meeting place at Boyden Lake. We had our 1st real taste of winter overnight with about 5-6 inches (10-15cm) of nice fluffy but sticky snow to deal with.

I was initially little nervous about going out in this and so sent a couple of emails/tweets to Andrew with my waffling noises. Need to check the roads, time to try out the new snowblower, maybe we should wait another hour...

But finally I get this message:

The snow blower is fine...get your maple leaf over here. I didn't drive 5 hours to have a little snow flurry keep you home! Marc


"Uh, OK, yes Sir, Captain Marc!" You see, the missing Blind Moose came up to visit and there's no stopping him once he gets going, and so there was no choice but to get going and make the trek.
The co-conspirators...
I was glad I made the trip and we had a great run, although it seems the running is often secondary when we get together because the stories, politicking, and jokes run fast and furious. They were really bad today with the dog jokes and blond jokes which will never be retold by me on pain of severe punishment and a permanent chocolate ball ban. Andrew did retell his 3rd chicken joke and it was even worse in the retelling. However, I think that Marc did get it because shortly after he was crossing the road and heading deep into the woods (I'm not kidding here).

It was a nice 13ish mile run and we were joined by Jon (what's his name) at the beginning for a few miles and saw Stephanie A just starting out at the end of the run. The roads were a little slushy and the snow kept building up on the soles of my shoes, causing my running style to be more of a scuffle/kick and drag your feet sort of a pace.

Lately my running has been slow, very easy low mileage with only 20-30 miles per week. Curiously my total for last week was exactly 26.2 in 3hr 55 min and Andrew had an interesting theory on this. "Aha, you're in 3:55 marathon shape because your fastest (and my only) 26 miles predict that." I wish that was so, but know that I need to start upping the mileage over the next month so that I can really get started on the training for the spring marathon.

That's all I got, need to run more so I can run more. Makes total sense doesn't it? Have a great week!

Tired

First, I was taken entirely and totally out of context by Andrew once again. The smallest comment made gets blown entirely out of proportion and I'm left defenceless. And yes, he did choke on his water and it serves him right!

re: Mile 7 comment "My wife wore me out yesterday." - I was raking leaves for several hours and then spent the afternoon cleaning up the garage so we can accommodate up to 2 cars, a motorcycle, power tools and a new snow blower. I spent the evening lying exhausted on the couch and then went to bed early so I could get up early to run with you know who!

re: Mile 8.5 comment "That dog reminds me of my daughter."- I saw a German Shepard dog which reminded me that my daughter is waiting for her new puppy which will be weaned in the next few weeks and is very excited

re: Mile 11.5 comment "I'm glad I kept my pants on."- A very low blow and he really did choke on this. It was a cool morning at about 0C/32F at the start and the light breeze during the return miles made me comment that I was glad I hadn't worn just shorts. Sheesh!



But seriously, it was a good thing that Andrew was with me today or I would have stopped the run after only a mile or two. For whatever reason (and I can think of several but none are obvious to me) it was just not my day today, feeling very lethargic and tired. Despite Andrew's great stories and bad jokes we still ended up cutting the planned 17 miler short to only 12. The chicken jokes as bad as they were deserved retelling at least on poor Ewen's behalf.

Chicken Joke #1:
Why did the chicken cross the playground?

Umm, why?

Because it wanted to get to the other slide!

Ouch, shoulda seen that coming.

Chicken Joke #2:
Why did the chicken cross the basketball court?

Hmmm, should know this. OK, why?

Because it heard the referee call fowl!

Double ouch, groan!!

Chicken Joke #3 will not be retold because I still don't get the punch line.

That's about it, it's been a slow week as I had to take several days off due to the dentist having a go at me once again. The details are too gory to go into, suffice to say that 4 days later my jaw is still sore. Hopefully next week will be better and I can slowly start building my base mileage up in preparation to start training for Big Sur.

Take care, have a nice week and make sure your dog wears their hunter orange when they go outdoors!

Back at it

Can you believe it?
And I didn't even get a chance to have 2nd thoughts about bowing out. There goes my streak after running this race for the last 10 years.

But at least my Plan B was already in the works and I'd registered for Big Sur a few weeks ago, just to be sure to get in. They have a 4500 runner limit for the marathon and are already near the 50% mark. I already know my bib number of 1981 which is a number I should be able to remember for certain personal reasons.
"If we were told that we could run only one marathon in our lifetime, Big Sur would have to be it." Bart Yasso, Runner's World

I've had a nice little holiday from running and blogging over the last several weeks as I had been out of communication while on a research survey aboard a chartered boat. We worked the waters of the Bay of Fundy for 2 weeks, doing tows with fine mesh nets for just hatched herring larvae as well as the other plankton in the water. Here's a shot of the boat safely tied to a dock but we spent more time bouncing around on the water with little opportunity to run. There was also very little inclination to do so because when I did hit the land it was harder than normal walking a straight line with my 'sealegs' not coverting to 'landlegs' very readily.
I couldn't resist throwing in this shot of a purse seine fishing boat passing by on a not so nice evening which made for a pretty picture at least.Anyway, I'm now back on land for the better part of a week and have put in a couple of short 4-5 mile runs in preparation for today's longer run with Andrew. We did the Boyden Lake loop today for a total of 13 miles and it was really nice to get back into action with my good friend. It was a nice day for a run despite the steady rain with temperature around 12C.


Andrew is now touting a new (conservative!) running plan that will only do base-building work through the winter and then morph into race preparation in the early spring once he decides on a target race. Myself, I'll be along for the ride on Sundays as we do the long runs together. Today's run went surprisingly well for me and we even tossed in some (5 or 6) 20-30sec striders over the last 3 miles. I told Andrew it was good for his fast twitch muscles and he went along with me or at least humoured me and jogged along as I tried to run fast.

That's it! Have a nice week and stay healthy out there!

PEI marathon report

I'm not sure where to begin. Maybe I'll just start at the start and see where this goes. I arrived at the Brackley beach area about 1/2 hour before the start and only had a few minutes before I ran into Trevor and his lovely wife who also ran the marathon today. After determining that Trevor was going to be totally at my mercy today with no watch or other aids, I hustled him over to the starting area so he could be introduced to the various pace bunnies, all of which we hoped to never see again and did not.
As Trevor so nicely describes in his blog (which has a wonderful blow by blow of the day's run) the course is simply picture postcard perfect if you have time to look around and enjoy the scenery. Here we are a few kilometers in, along the beach where we had to deal with a slight headwind of 10-15mph. Did I mention getting passed by a baby stroller? #$%& relay runners!

Here's Trevor and I at the 12k mark about to unload our sweaty gear on my wife and daughter who took this great picture. We had a great day and for the most part it felt like a nice long run as we just cruised along at a very easy pace. Or at least that's how it felt like to me but I think Trevor might beg to differ on this opinion later on in the race.
You might wonder how the heck we got this picture (about 18k) but a girl we had just passed kindly offered to take the camera off my hands and snapped this decent image of the two of us. Still feeling good from the looks of it. It really did feel easy for the two of us and I was constantly reminding my buddy to slow down or dial it back because I wasn't planning on letting go the reins until the 30k mark.
Woo hoo! Still having fun in PEI, somewhere between 20-30k on the trails.
But I think Trevor was having a harder time as we worked our way through course. Besides keeping his pace under control I kept on him about using different muscles and changing his stride once in awhile. The different terrain and gentle ups and downs of this marathon course make it nice for allowing you to do this but it's still a marathon and it gets to be a long way after awhile.
Thank goodness for the jokes and riddles at each kilometer when you don't have Andrew along for company. Even Trevor had to admit that many of the jokes were Andrew worthy (meaning really corny or bad but still made you chuckle). From 35k to the finish things got a little tougher for me and a lot tougher for Trevor but he never complained except to say that his stomach was bothering him. We worked together to tackle each section of the road and the stupid hills and more of those &%$#@@ relay runners that I kept wanting to trip or at least challenge them to a short sprint and just kept plugging away. I knew the key for getting us in under 4 hours was just to keep moving and not allow any walking and that's how it went.
We crossed the line exactly together but I forgot to check which foot our chips were on and so we got a 1 second differential in our times despite being in step. You beat me Trevor! Just wait till next time!!

It was a great day for a marathon and now 3 days later I'm feeling pretty well back to normal and may put in a few short runs to loosen up the legs a bit. I've been biking back and forth to work (which is only 2k) and the hills aren't bothering me any more. I'm also pretty much topped up on the post-marthon beer and ice-cream and so 'life is good'.

Take it easy on the roads and have a nice week!

PEI

We did it! 3:56 according to my Garmin and the race info is on my sidebar at RunningAhead.

Great race, evenly paced and I think we're even still friends after all the bad jokes and stories. Fun day and it was 'almost' a breeze though my legs beg to differ right now. Heading home and longer story later...

Cheers!

Winding down

It`s getting colder here lately and we`re running out of time to get all our chores done before the big freeze. I snuck home an hour early yesterday so I could help Jo out with the pond. I needed to take the pump apart and then get into the hip waders with some warm clothes and move the pond plants around so they can be put to sleep for the winter. It was a long process and I got cold by the end and needed a nice hot shower to get warmed back up.

This week has been really easy with the running as I only did 2 short easy runs to complete the taper for PEI, both of which were run at the progressive paces I`m planning to do with Trevor on Sunday. The runs didn`t quite go as planned and I found it difficult to hold back the pace. We`ll have to pay very special attention to this in the 1st critical 5-10km. Aside from this I`ve been feeling a little under the weather (achey, soreness, bit of a cough, headache) which I`m blaming it on the flu shot I got on Monday. It seems better now but not what you need just days before a marathon.

Forecast Issued : 4.00 PM ADT Friday 16 October 2009 is looking reasonable

Sat

• 5°C
  
• 60%

Sun

• 10°C
• 1°C

Tonight

Cloudy. Periods of rain beginning this evening. Amount 10 mm. Wind northeast 40 km/h gusting to 70. Low plus 1.

Saturday

Cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers. Wind northeast 30 km/h gusting to 50 becoming north 20 in the afternoon. High plus 5.

Saturday night

Cloudy with 40 percent chance of showers early in the evening then cloudy periods. Wind north 20 km/h becoming light near midnight. Low plus 1.

Sunday

Cloudy. High 10.

As long as the winds that another forecast is predicting don`t come to pass we should be all right. May need an extra layer for the 1st 10k or so but from there we`ll be warmed up and will just roll over the beautiful course. Wish us luck but all the hard work has been long done and it`s just time to collect our due reward!

Have a nice weekend!