500 mile march recap: Day 6,7 & 8- And so it goes on

Sorry I've been MIA the last couple of days. I was busy with running (duh) but also, I've had some work to do for the store and with school. As well as trying to be a good guy and spend some time with the lady friend.

Thursday (Day 6): Got to the store early to do a quick run before I opened the shop. Sitting in the store all day with no one coming in is one of the most boring things to do in the world. That's a solid 10 hours in one place. I am a very antsy person. I need to be doing things, multiple things, all at the same time. I can't sit still for very long and my mind starts to wander. So nothing much fun to report.

In the evening I headed out to the treadmill just to have some bodies around me. running alone in the dark and cold is starting to get REALLY lame. Ended up with a solid 19 miles on that electronic beast and had a great day for mileage.

Recovery has become a must- fashion police be damned. Compression socks to increase blood flow and my New Balance 980 Fresh Foam for the best feeling, plush shoes on your feet. 

TODAY: 24 miles

Friday: I don't want to talk about Friday. I rolled out of bed and was able to shuffle through a lame 10 miles. Can you believe when I asked my dog if she wanted to go with me she just looked at me as if I were an idiot? 10 miles turned out to be it for the day. And that sucked because the rest of Friday just got glorious. It got up to 6 degrees (or so I was told) but because again, I was in the store by myself for 10 hours, I didn't get to experience the first taste of spring! I got pretty depressed and didn't run at night. I just couldn't mentally do it- I was so defeated after seeing the sun out all day and then when I end up leaving it's dark again and the temperature has dropped. Not Cool.

Crushing the remnants of winter in my New Balance MT110 trail shoes. Feeling great.

TODAY: 10 miles

Saturday: Saturday, the Runner's Mark First Half Marathon crew headed down tot he Hammer to run the back 9km of the Around the Bay (ATB) course (Out 9km, back 9km). It was us and about a million other runners out there. Carl told me that this was the big weekend for people to go to the course as it is 2 weeks out from ATB but I still have never seen so many runners out for something that wasn't an organized event or anything. It was great to see and most people looked like they were having a great time. Smiles all around (for the most part- once the hills started to kick in there was a lot of cursing going on). It was a pretty slow run; it was the furthest that the majority of the group had ever run before so there might have been a little trepidation. But hey, they got it done and they're doing great!
After the run I took my mom to go see Mr. Peabody and Sherman. It was a cartoon that she enjoyed as a child and this update was quite enjoyable. There was lots of spectacle for the little kids but the dialogue and the jokes were really geared towards the older crowd. There were even some pretty great pop culture references that only denizens of the internet like myself would fully appreciate.
When we got out of the movie theater it was actually SUNNY! So of course I was going to go for a run to enjoy it! Belly full of popcorn or not, I was going to get a glorious 8km run in the sun.

A glorious afternoon run down through Rattray Marsh and a long Lake Ontario.

TODAY: 16.2 miles

TOTAL:  133.3/500

500 Mile March- Day 5 Recap (In which I run on an indoor track for fun).

Well that's five days down. Now only... too many days left. I'm at the point where if I start to think about it, the more daunting it seems. Either way, a lot of days still to go.

But the good news is that I'm still feeling pretty good. yesterday I was pretty sore after slipping around in the snow on Tuesday night but I came back pretty well with a decent 18 minute 5k tempo on the track. I finished my last kilometer in 2:55 and felt great so I know I'm not losing a whole lot with mileage.

I was supposed to help a friend through the 5k but James was a goof and did a workout the day before. He was trying to tell me it was just some fun 200s but I wasn't buying it. But he still got the effort in which is important. he will be racing the Marden Half Marathon early April so he's been training pretty hard and getting ready for it. I expect him to do awesome so he better not let me down (pressure's on dude).

The name Marden brings up rather ghoulish memories from my days as a varsity athlete at the University of Guelph. You see, Guelph never had a real indoor facility until last year. In my first year we had a dome structure that was made by the same company that provided the Dallas Cowboys' training dome- you know, the one that toppled over and injured all those people a few years ago? Anyway, Guelph had one of those with a 175m indoor rubberized squared-off track.

I almost miss this place... almost.

 It wasn't the greatest to run in because of the square corners-a line was painted on that cut the corner into a smoother radius, but you were still flung way out with a slingshot effect coming out of it. Then with the Dallas Cowboys facility collapsing, safety concerns made Guelph tear out little dome down- the varsity track and field team was now without a home! Luckily for us, a new facility up in Marden was just being finished, complete with a 220m indoor track (although still squared off, the long straights were fun for indoors).

So every time we wanted to go to the track we would have to hop n a school bus and be bused up there for our track workouts. While not the worst, it ate a significant amount of time out of our day. Plus the corners. Oh god the corners. They were still so tight. I'm a wimpy runner. When things don't go my way I break pretty easily (or used to- i am getting a lot better). Plus I am a pretty springy runner from having tight joints. having a springy step and tight corners isn't fun. You feel like you are going to fly apart in different directions, blasted to oblivion and sprawled out on the track, limbs all over the place. It wasn't fun. I no like. Such distress. Much defeat. Sadface.

If you look real close you can almost see the dotted line that you follow to do a "corner." If you look harder you can see my tears and my broken spirit. 

Kids these days don't even know how good that have it at Guelph. the indoor track they have now actually has REAL CORNERS! No rounded squares, REAL LIVE CORNERS! The track surface may be slow as maple syrup but there are corners and that's all that I care about.

That is my aside for the day. Long winded and maybe a little dull but it's my life okay? No need to make snide comments about it.

The evening run went well. Even though it wasn't super cold, I am still so done with this winter it isn't even funny anymore. Seriously, if I'm not in shorts by March 20th I am going to flip my you know what and go live in a hole for the rest of my days.

Here's a picture of my bird checking out my New Balance Fresh Foam 980s to keep you coming back.

 MILES TODAY: 16.1
TOTAL MILES: 83.1/500

~E

500 Mile March Day 4 Recap (Snow... whay'd it have to be snow)

DAY 4 in the books!

The morning went well. I woke up early and ran with the pooch. Normally she goes out with my dad, but my dad went down to Whiteface to ski with a friend for a few days so I was on dog duty. She isn't exactly the best running buddy. She likes to stop and sniff a lot. Like every three meters. Then she sprints ahead and stops to sniff until I pass her then she sprints ahead again. She would do this for a while but I don't think she liked that fact that I wasn't going as slow as my dad. He tends to do a half-waddle/shuffle when he runs so I think the pooch thought that she could handle the run. But I could tell she was getting tired because she stopped sprinting ahead and just started to trot beside me looking rather dejected.

This is Peaches. She is wondering why I made her run with me. I told her I liked her company. She wasn't buying it.

We ran just over 7 miles together. She wouldn't look at me when I came home last night though. I think she was still miffed that she couldn't stop to smell all the beautiful yellow snow around the street corners.

Yesterday was also a great day because my New Balance shipment of shoes arrived! I had ordered a pair of RC1600s and 2 pairs of their new 980 fresh foam. I just have to tell you, the 980 fresh foam may turn out to be my favourite shoe ever. Sure, it isn't as responsive as say the 890 or the 1400, but they are light, super cushioned, and the upper is one par with the comfort level I get when wearing my Altra Instinct 1.5 around the store. And with a 4mm drop I don't get any of the odd jolts from a high stack height that I now get. I got two pairs because I was thinking I would wear one as a trainer and I would use another pair as a recovery shoe because of how soft and cushioned they are.

I decided to run in them last night but to my astonishment, it was snowing yet again! I thought screw it and let's get it over with. Tuesday nights are usually our clinic nights out of the store but only 3 of our runners showed up! I don't blame them; the snow was the type that just kind of really fine powder that just compresses and doesn't melt when cars go over it. It creates a layer of the slickest running surface you don't ever want to run on. And because it was clinic night, I usually try to run with the attendees but with the snow being so slippery and having to brace with every step to slow myself, I found it extremely hard on my groin and hip flexors. I ended up doing about 5 miles there, then just took off and finished another 4 miles at home.

What I am trying to get at is that I will be taking applications for people who want to massage my butt and quads. (PLEASE??? I'll be your friend!)

Day 5: BACK TO THE TRACK GONNA BE WACK!

MILES today: 16.5
Total Miles: 67/500