Up and down

Good days and bad days lately, both running wise and otherwise. Gotta post more often, but there is just so much going on including work and family issues that have been more than a little distracting.

Started off Sunday with a nice slow easy 19 miles on a cool foggy day but the legs and body was tired from a busy day before. I hate to mention it but a nice 4 mile walk with Jo on Saturday evening to watch the 'Grand March' did me in a bit. This event is part of the high school graduation here where the parents get to escort their son or daughter and are introduced with the whole community attending. It usually takes place in the park but this year was rained out and took place in a crowded school gym. It was still nice to see all the spiffy suits and beautiful dresses and the happy grads who looked oh so young! (We never looked like that did we ;-) We've been through the March twice now and have one more edition coming up next year which should be fun as always.

So back to the Sunday run, legs a little heavy and the pace was slow. Had 2 podcast episodes of Phedippidations on the mp3 player to help pass the time. Steve Runner is a good listen if you need some motivation or plain old distraction during your run, check him out. After the run it was some rushing around doing church 'stuff' and then we packed up Steph for her voyage back to PEI and included a little detour to check out apartments in Truro. You can check out her blog for the blow by blow hear but it was 'nip and tuck' with luck prevailing at the last minute and a good place was finally found. Then continued on back to the island arriving in the late evening after about 8 hrs of driving. Ouch, the legs were not happy with this!

Monday, travel back from the island and a well deserved (I think) rest day. Didn't even bother to go back to work and instead watched some the the World Cup off the recorder. Can't decide which team I'd like to cheer for yet (like Thomas), perhaps the underdog 50-1 Ukraine? But I love the attacking style of the Brazilians...

Tuesday!! A very strange running day. Because work was so crazy and there were meetings before and just after lunch I was only able to fit in 5 miles over the allotted hour at an easy 7:47 pace. This was instead of the 10 with 4@1/2 as planned. Also included in this run was a pickup of the van from the garage, dropoff at home and then zoom back into work for the meeting that couldn't wait! Stewed the rest of the day, trying to figure how to 'get the run in' and astonished Coach with a 2nd run as soon as I arrived at home. "Where are you going? Didn't you already run today??" Mumbled reply "Yes, but didn't go as far as planned..."

Part B was a quick and dirty tempo run with a 1/4 mile warmup and then right into tempo-ish pace with miles at 700, 645, 702 and 709 for a 4 mile total of 27:56. Finished up with an easy 3/4 mile jog and the 5 mile run was done in only 37 minutes! Barely got warmed up (not really but it was a good, perhaps a bit fast effort).

Weds: down day and now that I'm writing the fog is lifting and this runner understands why this run was so hard. At the time I could not understand why the legs were so dead, the motivation was flat, and even at an easy pace it felt like real work (not much fun). You dummy, look at the day before! No wonder you were tired and plus it was a warm muggy day! Schedules are made to be flexible and to be broken, rearranged if necessary and here I was trying to put in 15 miles on dead legs and with not enough time to fit in the run during a semi-extended lunch. It was no surprise then, that eventually reason took over from insanity and the run was cut short to 8 miles. Must admit that I did feel a little defeated and let down at the time.

Thurs: Yah, almost the weekend and a one week holiday break! Played it smart today, with fueling before the run, water during and a gatorade pickup at home at 5 miles. Also warned my co-workers that I'd be late today and my phone could take messages if needed. Today's 15 miles were slow (8:20 pace) but it felt effortless, easy and relaxing going along using heartrate as a guide and not being worried about when the run would be over. The logbook has the notation 'decent run' which is just below 'great' on my scale.

Tonite I registered for the Grand-Bay 1/2 marathon on Saturday and so it looks I'm committed like the pig (not the chicken). No plans for fast times but rather to run a controlled effort race and to take what comes. I've run this race a few times and it's a challenging but fair course. I'm looking forward to the test.