works of wanderlust

Category: running & adventure

My sport involves feet and trails and moving one quickly across the other.

  • head over feets, ten

    Autumn is probably my favourite season. The colours. The full nights sleep thanks to the sun setting at a normal time and the temperatures being cooler. The abundance of excuses to settle into a cozy quiet evening without feeling excessively guilty about squandering the summer.

    My running streak is over, which is a shame only because some people had just found out I was doing one and were congrats me on the effort… which I had to explain I had finished it and was happy with the foundation it gave me to ramp up towards my race and thanks anyways.

    But since I’m not running every day anymore, I had to focus on the quality of runs and not just the quantity, huh? That means starting the short but important build up to a confident ten miler distance.

    This last couple weeks I…

    Wednesday was just on the verge of too warm, but there was enough of a breeze that joining up with the Run Club for about six klicks in the evening was definitely a win. We ran a big suburban lap, complete with some unexpected elevation change in the neighbourhood. It had only been a couple days of rest, but it was my first post-streak run.

    I was having a bit of a recovery week so I didn’t get back out on the trails again until Sunday. It was our long run day, of course, and now that we’re officially “training” we cranked up our distance incrementally over the last weeks. I led the group on a 12km route into the autumn-toned creek valley and we tackled a few hills in the process.

    With Autumn arriving and the Kid’s birthday eating up a couple days worth of free time, I didn’t manage much for a couple days. But after some blood work on Wednesday morning I threw caution to the wind (rest your needle arm for two hours, they said) and drove to yet another new pool. I swam five hundred and some meters in Confederation pool, and tried out my new headphones underwater too.

    Our first run of Autumn happened a few hours later. I have other commitments (read: Japanese class) on Wednesday nights upcoming somy participation in future Run Club runs is up for debate. But I took advantage of this night off to join a trail-ish sunset run for nearly seven klicks in the chilly September air.

    Thursday, meeting again locally for a run from the local pub (for drinks after) we had to search out an alternative route to avoid following the same path we’d now taken two runs in a row previous. A bit of improvisation resulted in nearly seven klicks of suburban adventure… and then a beer and cheesecake. Running is so unhealthy these days. *sigh

    Sunday was another long run. The race is only about a month away at this point which means that I’ve been ramping up my distance for a couple weeks. The plan was to do fourteen klicks, but the plan was off a bit so we did an unplanned fifteen klicks. That’s alright, tho. Knowing we can do the distance is often as valuable as actually just doing it. And fourteen is better than fifteen.

  • head over feets, nine

    Training is whatever you make of it. I’m sure there are some strict rules for pros and people with hard core goals, but for a guy pushing fifty who’s been doing this running thing for nearly two decades, I’m still just making it up.

    I mention this because one of my current run crew pals is training for one of those “how many laps can you do in such and such a time” races. It’s in an old mine shaft in the mountains, and I suspect (because I’ve never done one of those) half of the training for that repetitive grind is mental. She logged twenty klicks yesterday doing sixty laps of (literally) the parking lot. And this is amazing if for no other reason than it is kind of min/maxing the whole training mentality, trying to be very analytical about check-boxing the training plan. And I hope it works. 

    But for me, lately, it has simply been getting time on feet—which I’ve been pretty poor at for the months leading into this latest foundation-building streak.

    It’s been a busy few days because of that… 

    I capped off the week with late-morning Friday run, finally getting a chance to try the new bone conduction wireless headphones I’d scored off the reward miles site. They are solid enough for my purposes, and waterproof for swimming. That will be my next big test. I logged about five klicks in the heat.

    Saturday I went and did Park Run. I started my streak with a Park Run two weeks back and probably would have ended it with a feeling-good sub-thirty 5k, but …

    Sunday was the annual Terry Fox Run in Red Deer so we drove down there to help out and participate. I mostly did the participating part, running (pretty much) two laps for a solid 9k run. I say “pretty much” because (a) the course was a too-short 5k out and back so I never would have hit 10k, and (b) when I was in sight of the start/finish/second lap, I had this feeling that my motivation was sinking enough to call it quits at, well, let’s just call it 4.8km, which is bad for a few reasons, not the least of which is it is short of my 5km minimum for a streak day, so I turned back a hair early and did a second lap without crossing the “official” line. But the whole thing was kind of an honour system race anyhow and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to muster much honour for a second lap if I strictly followed the made up rules anyhow.

    Speaking of streaks, I ran for sixteen consecutive days and logged about 100km in that span. I’m now at a crossroads because my work-back training plan for my race in October has me increasing distances starting next Sunday. This is a wee bit incompatible with the grind that is a streak, so I think I’m calling it today. I ran sixteen days in a row, started with a solid Park Run, ended with a Terry Fox Run, and logged a century. None too shabby. Now, as of Monday morning, time for a few days of rest (and hopefully some swimming) and I’ll get back at the training-proper for my October race.

    Reminder: Blogs are not a replacement for professional advice. Please read my note on safety and safe participation.

  • head over feets, eight

    I dug into the early week with an afternoon five klick run on Tuesday, squeezing in a neighbourhood lap before dinner time. I figured I’d get it out of the way and have my evening free and clear. It worked. 

    Wednesday was the usual Run Club meetup, and so I went to the drop in at 6pm and we did an out and back on the suburban asphalt (with a bit of off-road trail mixed in) and the weather wasn’t too hot but it was slightly uncomfortable at the upper ends of my safety range. We logged only about seven klicks.

    Thursday my streak continued and I organized a casual adventure run in one of the southside suburbs. We did a big lap down through the Windermere area, and had to double back for you-know-who showing up ten minutes late and then texting me. No problem. He did drive all the way across down in rush hour traffic for a run.

    Friday, I was feeling adventurous and up for an afternoon solo, so I drove down to the dog park and did some trail running across the river in the wilds.  I logged about six klicks on the flat wilderness run, which was a bit of an homage to RM who had started a hundred mile ultra that same morning down in the south of the province.

    RM was still running when I did my Saturday morning run around the neighbourhood again and logged a simple five klick lap. He would finish his 161km trail race after running straight through for 31 gruelling hours. I just got to brag that I’d hit day eight on my streak.

    Sunday the firesmoke was starting to creep back in a bit, though the air quality was only at a five so we met and ran nine klicks for my ninth day of streaking. I had anticipated a real slog, what it being the ninth day of a solid daily run, but I think I’m in a bit of high point on the streak right now and that nine klicks felt really, really good. I could have kept going—maybe even to my race distance.

    Monday I found myself back to the solo run life for a few days, and with a stretch of evening obligations needing to get my run in earlier in the day. I got out the door by 11am and did a respectable 6km lap around the neighbourhood, up near the grocery store and back along the freeway.

    Tuesday I was in a similar situation, but not wanting to repeat my route from Monday I took a reverso and started up the freeway path but took a turn the opposite way and looped up around the other grocery store for another 6km. It was the eleventh day of my streak and I’m creeping up to a total distance around 70 klicks for the span of it.

    I was back in the pool on Wednesday, but all the way across town. Needing to run an errand I took advantage of my morning proximity to a city rec centre and brought my gear to swim about thirty minutes. I gotta say, it’s a nicer facility than my home location—just a shame it’s a twenty minute drive down the freeway.

    Needing to continue my streak, I was back on the trails later Wednesday morning. Avoiding the monotony of just doing more laps around the neighbourhood, I drove closer to the trailhead of  the river valley trails and logged six klicks down and close to the dog park, including some great single track.

    On day thirteen of my streak, I was finally able to connect with real people again and we met for our regular Creek run. That whole meetup location started because of it’s location close to where The Kid had dance class, but now that she has moved on from her youthful extra curriculars the run meetup may need to adapt—or whatever. There were enough of us out last night that it’s hardly my decision anymore.

    Reminder: Blogs are not a replacement for professional advice. Please read my note on safety and safe participation.

  • going streaking

    I hear you. Four runs is hardly a streak. 

    But every streak has gotta start somewhere, right?

    I do my best training in the shoulder seasons: spring and autumn are seasons of inspirational motivation. Neither too hot nor too cold. The expectations of obligations are shifting. Races are tapering into short distances in the autumn, or ramping up as the winter snow melts. The spring and autumn feel like times of adjustment to new goals. 

    I got it in my head about a week ago that when the heat seemed as though it was about to dissipate, I would plant the seeds of a running streak into a new training plan and seek some desperately needed motivation.

    I admit, I’ve been slacking.

    Oh, sure. You non-runners out there see me on the trails a couple times each week logging five klicks here or ten klick there and ask “what’s the problem—you’re still actually running, aren’t you?”

    But there are definite degrees of training, and I have been idling in the lowest gear for the better part of a year, barely maintaining fitness let alone actually training for anything of consequence.

    Part of that has been a reluctance to race. Part of that has been dealing with a respiratory health puzzle. Part of it has been raw laziness.

    Now that the proper race season is over (the local marathon finished up about two weeks ago now) the pressure to train for anything substantial has waned for another year.

    But there it is—that notion of seasonal motivation as we creep ever closer to autumn and the end of summer. And while the heat is still hanging about, it is not nearly as oppressive as it was even a couple weeks back. 

    A running streak is nothing special or official. Ideally, casual runners should really take rest days. Running every day is the work of elite athletes with coaches who plan their training regimens around important recovery spells. But having tackled the idea of a streak many times in the past I know that one can fit in a run-every-day plan when life allows. 

    Logging a minimum distance or time each day wears you out. It’s exhausting, so doing it when life is busy, the environment is not cooperating, or an event like a race is upcoming makes the effort less compatible with a healthy choice. And heck knows, this isn’t advice to anyone: know your limits and your body and your own health if you attempt your own streak—and if you don’t, talk to a professional first. 

    I know I can generally and safely log a 5km minimum each day for about twenty to thirty days in a row before I need to take my feet off the gas and take a couple days of rest. 

    And the fuzziness of that number is the key right there: it’s always an experiment in listening. I push myself every day until I know I’ve pushed just far enough. How many days was I able to streak this time? I never know when I start, so every day is a new and fresh milestone. Four days in a row, right now? Yeah, that’s my longest streak in over a year so it’s worth celebrating. Am I aiming for thirty? Sure. Will I be happy with twenty? Probably. Would I settle for five? I’d be sad for a day, but of course. 

    The whole point of this, of course, is a kind of accelerated punch to my training. Stressing the body through daily runs—at least for me—puts me through a kind of ramped up punch towards a fitness goal. For example, I have a ten miler race at the end of October. I have been consistently running eight to ten klicks. So I need to effectively double my comfortable distance to sixteen klicks.  That’s not substantial, but also not as simple as it sounds if only because those ten klick runs have been bagging me.

    Adding six means one of two things: either (a) inching the distance up incrementally over the next eight weeks and then running the race as a progressive next step or (b) firming up my base with lots and lots and lots of shorter runs at first, then adding distance in the four or five weeks leading into the race. 

    The streak is an attempt at option (b)—build a firm base atop a year of slouching by running a streak, and then adding the time and distance to that as the autumn-proper kicks in. 

    The two plans are only subtly different, but the latter plan puts a bit more focus on front loading that foundation-building versus spreading it out across two slow months of incremental building. I’m not a doctor so I don’t know which of or even if these are healthy approaches, but both have worked for me in the past.

    The other aspect of the streak that gives this the win-win bias, tho, is the motivation factor. There is just something personally inspirational about daily run goals, making sure that each and every day I put aside at least thirty to forty minutes for a run—then logging it and counting up the days.

    And right now I’m at four.

    Slacking over, right?

    Reminder: Blogs are not a replacement for professional advice. Please read my note on safety and safe participation.

  • head over feets, seven

    With the pool closed now, I have been a couple of things fitness-wise, frazzled and lazy. I mean, it is going to take me a couple solid weeks to find a rhythm and routine again, and one of those fail points is definitely reared up as my lack of logging of everything here. Yeah, I haven’t posted—not that anyone but me is checking, but accountability is accountability, even to oneself.

    So I figured I would do two things: (1) try for a running streak in September and (2) reset this log starting on last Saturday (back in August) when my running streak properly started. 

    So Saturday, huh? Yeah, I woke up feeling motivated and drove down to Park Run. I don’t want to say I’m a rare participant in Park Run but the August long weekend was only my second outing of the year and my ninth overall.  The vibe is that of a race, even though people have literally argued with me about this online, but for me it checks enough boxes—start and finish lines, timed results, online records, lots of participants—that I feel like I’m racing, so I try a bit harder. As it was I pushed myself and came in just barely under thirty minutes, good but not great, but still anything under thirty feels like I’m not completely out of shape.

    It doesn’t strictly count as a fitness point, but I ordered a pair of wireless waterproof bone conducting headphones. I’m a normal kind of guy, after all, and I like to listen to some tunes while I work out. I tried the whole fruit-based pod thing and they get sweaty and fall out, and I know the new ones have improved—but then I saw the waterproof wrap-around version (no brands mentioned) were on the reward points website and so, I’m like, that seems like an upgrade for my purposes. They are currently on order and I won’t say a done deal, but I expect them in a week or two.

    Sunday we met thirty minutes early for our Sunday run because the forecast was for hot, hot, hot by mid-morning—and it wasn’t wrong. We logged an honest eight klicks and tried to keep it to the shade.

    I figure that pretty much anything I log with my watch counts as fitness, so having logged a two hour paddle down the river with my wife and dog on Sunday afternoon I can say, yeah, kayaking down a river is a workout. I was tired like crazy that evening.

    I was feeling dedicated to my still-young run streak on Monday but the firesmoke had rolled in and we cancelled our traditional breakfast run meetup—in that we still went for breakfast but skipped the run for health reasons.  But I had a run on my mind and a rec centre pass in my wallet so I hit the track and logged a five klicks track run shortly after we washed up from dinner.

    Now, summer vacation proper is over, effective as I write this knowing my kid is off to school again, and my days can be a little more focussed on getting back into the fall and winter routine—and that includes some serious ramping up of my training. Stay tuned.