works of wanderlust

Tag: terry fox run

  • 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.

  • weekend wrap, sixteen

    September is in full swing and half over as I write these words. It’s always so quaint to not only be surprised by the passage of time, but then to write about it as if anyone reading those words isn’t even further into the future and looking back wishing it were only the middle of September 2025 and not whenever they are.

    The weekend passed in a bit of blur so this may be a short recap.

    Friday, we chilled after a long week back to the normalcy of routine. The school year season, as much as it is now defined by semesters of university I suppose, began anew, and we all had classes and clubs and lessons that kicked into gear again last week, so an evening on the couch was not a terrible idea. 

    I have been refining my code for my *other* site, a “gram-ish” blog over at 8r4d.com/p which is what I built initially to post less on social media, but is all one big hand-coded bespoke CMS project. I mention it, because starting on Friday night I sat there with a computer open squashing a few more bugs and fine-tuning the code a little more. It’s been in the works for three years but is all one fairly mature product these days.

    Saturday I got up and ran Park Run. Sub-thirty for a five klick run, so my running streak (hitting fifteen days on Saturday) was paying off. 

    And then I was struck with the negatives of contracting work, because lacking a better plan I spent a few hours on the contract puzzle I had been left with on Friday afternoon post-sending a status update to my client.

    Our evening wrapped up at the Jube. Karin and I had tickets to a comedy show called The Stand Up for Canada tour, hosted by none other than Rick Mercer. It was two hours of patriotic date night laughs.

    Sunday was spent mostly in Red Deer. We got up, packed up, and drove south. The mother-in-law has been deeply entrenched on the organizing committee of the local Terry Fox run, and so we go down and help and/or run. This year I mostly just did the running part, making it day sixteen of my running streak. (And I think it may be the one to cap it off with so I can focus on properly training and not draining.)

    After a lunch in Red Deer we drove home, did the weekend grocery shopping and spent the rest of the evening chilling on the couch again. There’s only so much energy to go round these days, huh?