Boxing Day Race

On Boxing Day, I ran my third Harold Webster 10 mile race in Hamilton, Ontario. It was the 87th time this race has been run. I decided to go out at my Sunday run pace which I knew would allow me to complete the race without burning myself out. It sucks running five miles hard only to find that you have to run the next five miles while suffering miserably. The course was familiar to me so I surged on the hills and opened up on the downhills. At mile eight, we were forced to run on a snow-laden road which was like running on a corduroy road, very slippery, undulating and rough. The final two miles were on city streets which flowed downwards to the finish in the city centre. It was a great race as I felt quite relaxed for most of the race while running briskly. At the finish line, I was pleased with my time of 1:14 for ten miles putting me in the top 100 out of 600 finishers.
1m -- 7.25 2m -- 7.08/14.33 3m -- 7.23/21.57 4m -- 7.22/29.19 5m 7.23/36.42 6m -- 7.38/44.20 7m -- 7.17/51.38 8m -- 8.11/59.50 9m 7.19/1.07.09 10m 7.14/1:14.23

Home for the holidays

Late last week, my holiday plans were uncertain. I had a couple of modes of transportation for getting home for the holidays. While surfing I was able to locate a cheap flight to Toronto at an incredibly low price. It bought the ticket as quickly as I could. The past couple of days at my folks place have been relaxing and given me chance to get some much needed rest. I've read two books over the last little while. The first, "Cold Mountain," by Charles Frazier and the other is "Replay," by Ken Grimwood. Both books are a good read. I am glad that I had a chance to read "Cold Mountain" as it answered many questions that remained unanswered when I saw the movie. Jason's father gave me a list of recommended books to read over the holidays and "Cold Mountain" and "Replay" were highly recommended.

Yesterday, I decided to check some of my local geocaches and will head back to them over the next couple of days with a camera. There are some bouldering faces that I want to get Jason's opinion on as they could be climbable once the weather improves.

Salt

A quick weather update -- Ottawa set a new record over the weekend. We received one foot of snow over a 24 hour period. Now we return to the topic of the day, salt. Tonight, I went for a 48 minute run along the Rideau Canal and the path was in good shape. While getting dressed for the workout I noticed something, my shoe laces have become more stiff and white. The road salt in becoming infused in my laces which is making them stiff and hard to tie. I'll have to give my shoes a bath in a couple of days. Over the Christmas holidays,I'll be doing a 10 mile race in Hamilton which will be a good workout as I do my final preparation for my second Phoenix half-marathon in early January. The goal for this race is to better my time last year, 1:33.

Suggestor—Agreeor

On Friday night, I learned something new about the swing dancing roles. One of the teachers talked about the leader role and follower roles as suggestor and agreeors. The leader will suggest to the follower that they should do a dance move and the follower agrees/doesn’t agree that she wants to do the move. I had never heard the roles talked about this way. But it does make sense as a situation could arise when the leader suggests a move to the follower but for safety reason (risk of a collision with others) the follower might defer making the move. The rotation was fun as well as whenever we heard the Santa “ho-ho-ho” the follower would switch to a different leader. They added in a new dimension to the lesson which sucked a bit as we learned fewer moves. The instructions had to be explained in English and French which slowed things down a bit. One more week of dancing and then the 2007 season finishes.

Dashing through the snow...

This morning, I woke up to find that we had received four inches of snow overnight. Along with the snow can a brisk wind that was whipping up the snow creating white-out conditions. My plans of doing a 10 mile run along the canal quickly faded. It was time to cross-train. Today, would be a good day to finally go snowshoeing. I put on my goretex pants and add a couple of layers of clothing on top. The conditions were challenging as visibility was bad. Here is a picture of my snowshoes and snowlions in action. I snowshoed for about an hour along the Ottawa River until I reached Westboro beach before heading back. I took this picture on my way back. The way back was no easier than the way their as the wind and the snow had just about filled in my tracks making the trail hard to negotiate at times. Once back the mug of hot chocolate was a welcome sight.

Bouldering

Last night, I was back at the gym climbing working on my bouldering. I climbed the “red” route a couple of times to get my arms warmed up. While wondering around, the gym is still new to me, I discovered a couple of caves that were hidden away. I usually climb in the two gravel floor area and then migrate to the “X” platform room that I have talked about in blogs. The extra cave will give me some more challenges. The gym is having a bouldering fest all day tomorrow so I’ll stop in see what it is all about.

Ants and Pillows

The UOttawa fitness center is located in the basement of one of the large complexes. Tonight, as I was heading out for my run I had to walk upstairs counter to traffic flow. A massive herd of students/ants (so many) were heading down the stairs to write their final exam in the gym. They all looked worked up/agitated. It became clear quickly as they were clutching third year accounting textbooks. The conditions outside were equally as challenging, a fresh bed of 2" of snow had fallen over the afternoon and was still coming down quite hard. The main purpose of the run was to get some exercise with the hope of relieving a migraine that I have had for the past couple of days. Running in the snow was a unique experience as it felt as if I had pillows on my feet as the compression of the snow underfoot had a springy feeling to it. As the run progressed the conditions go worse and I cut back at the earliest chance (6.6km).

Snow

Late last weekend we had our first major snowstorm of the year. Over the course of 24 hours we received a foot of snow. I went around town wearing my Sorel Snowlion boots which can conquer even the toughest snow drifts. A couple of days later one of my favorite toys appeared on the scene. Every time I see it I get excited and recall my childhood days. The mystery toy is an industrial grade snowblower. Once the snow starts to accumulated on the curb and becomes a hazard out come the graders which move the snow into the middle of the road where a snowblower blows the snow into a passing dump truck. The snow is transport to a snow dump which sort of looks like this picture with the color inverted. The snow sits in huge mountain until in melts in the spring. One of these snow dumps is located near where I live so I usually take a moment to see how to has changed from day to day.

News

My rate of blogging has drop slightly recently but I hope to return to a more normal pace soon. I’ve been busy with school, work, my honour society and training. My next running race is coming up quickly on Boxing Day in Hamilton, Ontario. It will be the 86th edition of the Harold Webster 10 mile race. The race comes at a good time as the caloric expenditure of the race allows me to eat well during the holidays and not worry about gaining any weight. My plans for New Years aren’t settled but I’m hoping for something special this year. We will have to see. On another matter, I’m working on having an informal mentor. He is someone I have known for a couple of years and is mentoring a couple of other students and I am looking forward to his guidance and advice.