Monday, December 14, 2009

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.

Sunday, December 06, 2009

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!