Seizing the Early Morning

It was the early morning sunrise that pulled me DOWN the hill at the start of my run this morning so that I could get a better picture of Lake Superior and the Slate Islands.  The sun doesn't rise over the lake any more, as it did in the winter, but the colours can still be so beautiful.

Once down the hill a ways, I thought I might turn this into a hill repeat workout so I continued to run down to the lake.  A side trail that I haven't taken for awhile beckoned, so I ran down it until I reached these cobbles.  Running on single track early in the morning when nobody knows where you are is probably not the best plan, but asking for a twisted ankle out there is pushing it too far.

So, a quick turnaround and back out to the main road...

with a quick pause to shoot some late marsh marigolds under the rickety bridge.

After the hills on the trail, I knew this was not the morning for hill repeats.  I just was not into it, so I snaked back through the subdivision (all uphill) to finish just under my goal of 5 km.

What a beautiful start to the day.

Long Run in June

As a teacher, June was always hell.  As an administrator - well sleep is just not happening, so I am not going to beat myself up when the runs don't happen either.


Today the run happened and I will focus on that.

It was quite warm (22C) and I wanted to avoid boredom so I did a favourite route just off Nelson road, through Eldorado Beach and into Amethyst Beach on the north shore of Lake Superior, where the breezes were actually too chilly at times, but the roads are mainly gravel, there is hardly any traffic, and the scenery is, in places, outstanding.

We are looking at the Sibley peninsula in the distance, and at the end of the peninsula is the Sleeping Giant.

As I was running back to the car, I saw this classic camp sign.  Not everyone wants the whole world to know what family owns the camp!

So here are the stats.  It was actually 12 km - but I neglected to restart my watch for awhile after stopping to take a picture.  It's hard to cheat in an out and back though!

Back on Track

Well, let's just say Week 17 was a complete write-off, and we are back on track for a beautiful Week 16.


I fought a bug and my brain all last week, and in spite of awesome intentions, I could not hit the pavement even once.


That was last week, this is this week.  I won't dwell on the past.


Today I fought with myself for 30 minutes to get out of bed, forgot my ipod and my HR monitor, didn't drink anything before leaving (and it's warm - 12C this morning), but even though my run was uncomfortable, it is done.  Not quite the 5K it should have been, but close, and better than 0K.

Morning scenery.

Rest Day and Start of Week 17

A well-earned rest day today, and a good thing because I am going on about 3 hours' sleep and it is past midnight already.  Ah, the life of a high school principal.  So will I really get up in 5 hours and run when I haven't left work yet?


I did think a bit on how training should look this week.  I need to get an easy 5K in, then I'm thinking that some intervals would be good.  I haven't done intervals for awhile, so a day of "What can you do?" might be the place to start.


My sorta long run should be half of my long run, so 5 K at a faster pace, and my tempo run should be a 2 km warmup, then 6 km at under 6:30s.  My long run will have to be 12 km this week.


So, that's four days of running this week.  I can throw in a fifth 5K if I can handle it.  I'm thinking right now that 4 days is ambitious enough, especially if sleep deprivation like this continues!

Long Run At Last

It's 5:45 and the holiday weekend is winding down.  After a rainy, cold day (high of 9C) the sun is now out and it could be a beautiful evening.  The beagle is on the couch, whining because he is hungry.  He has slept for the last hour while I finished the run we started together.

I have struggled with getting my long run in this week.  Today, after a conversation Jim and I had last night about the difficulties of balancing all the responsibilities of being an adult with trying to train and be an athlete, I realized that if I was going to get that long run in, I was going to have to approach it differently.


I only needed to do 10 km, so I decided to integrate it with other things I needed to do today, and since this is my holiday Monday, I decided it also needed to be a fun and enjoyable as possible.


I threw away the idea of trying to do a specific pace, loaded the ipod with some good 'slow run' tunes and some new psychology lectures, grabbed the beagle and my Garmin and headed out the door in the cold, rainy weather.  I did 2.5 km with Basso, letting him track a rabbit near the 1.2 km mark, letting him pull me in all directions so he could hunt, and stopping to talk with some neighbours.  It was relaxing, but slow.  


I dropped Basso back at the house, grabbed some good drinks, changed into something cooler and headed out to finish the final 7.5 km.

One of my pet peeves!

The psychology lecture was really interesting - out of Yale - on diagnosing mental illness.  One in four women will have major depression during their lifetime.  The biggest age group for depression is 18 to 24, and while bipolar is hereditary, major depression is not always hereditary.  There is some interesting research showing that two abnormal alleles on the gene for seratonin uptake can lead to depression after a major stressful event.


The other interesting piece is the definition of mental illness.  In short, a condition that causes distress (in self or others), dysfunction and deviance.


So not a bad run.  I cheated a few times and turned off the timer while taking a drink, so that skewed the results somewhat, but I easily kept the pace under 8 km/hr when the beagle was missing.


I paid for it though.  I had to run part of my last kilometre over again when I forgot to turn the timer back on after my drink.  I was too busy pondering how cool it was that after listening to a lecture on depression for 8 km, the song on my iPod was "If it Makes You Happy" by Sheryl Crow.  Timely, too, with all the Lance allegations in the news again today.


I do have to admit, though, that I was pretty happy to get back home to this gorgeous tree in our front garden!

Tempo Run

This was supposed to be my long run day, but I managed to put my run off long enough that I had only an hour left - so no long run possible.  I should have been okay, but I couldn't find my hydration belt, I never did find my ipod, I couldn't find running clothes.  These are all the things that need to be automatically organized and cared for as a runner, but I don't feel like a runner again yet.


I am not enjoying my running.  It hurts.  I don't want to do it. 


Today is the Firefighters 10 Mile Road Race in Thunder Bay.  I should be there, running it out in the rain with all the other runners, but I am not ready.  I look forward to racing again, to being in shape so that I can just sign up for a run and do it, to proudly wear the t-shirt, to laugh with all the other runners.


So I keep going, knowing this pain will lead to something good, something I can be proud of.

I fought my run yesterday.  The first km was tough, but even though I was running on new gravel - ankle eater for sure - I started to flow after a km or two and I was able to do get the kind of pace I wanted.  


I actually did 4 km under 6:30.  During km 6 I dropped a bottle in the mud and stopped to clean it!  


So I still need to get a long run in.  It is pouring rain today, but I have tons of paperwork to catch up on and I may just need some slow time out there on the trails to break it up.


I can't wait to see how my friends made out in the 10 miler.  I will be with them in 2012!


Upcoming runs in the Thunder Bay area here: http://www.10mileroadrace.org/article/other-great-races-321.asp

Hill Repeats

I've been under the weather this week - needing sleep and hungry constantly.  I'm not sure what's up but it was really hard to get out of bed no matter how many times that alarm rang!


Yesterday I procrastinated but finally got up and did a run down to the lake with hill repeats all the way back up.  It was a gorgeous morning and it was a tough workout.  I felt much, much better for having done it. The key is remembering how good I felt for having done it!

Sunrise over Lake Superior, Terrace Bay.

A few spring flowers.

Down on the beach at sunrise, Terrace Bay.