Long run and El

Tonight, I did my weekly long run which was challenging for two reasons, the heat and the wind. For most of the 16km/10miles I was facing a strong headwind that sapped most of my energy. When I had the wind behind me my legs felt like dead batteries. The wind on the way back was so strong that the sand and road grit started to sandpaper my ankles. When I was back at the university it was good to check off along long run.

Last Wednesday, I did a 12km/7m fartlek run with the folks I train with at the Running Room and it ended with a bit of a jolt. The final mile of the looped course is uphill and I could hear footstep approaching and then backing off. Out of the corner of my eye appears "El" whose mantra is "El loves hills." At this moment, I said a strong expletive and with a surge of adrenaline pulled away. The dose of adrenaline was stronger than needed as I was able to hold her off for half a mile. At the finish line, we had a good chuckle as she thought I was an easy target and I had overestimated the strength of her long legs. In four weeks time, we will do the fartlek workout again but we'll have three weeks of intense kilometer intervals before then.

Urban jetboiling

Tonight, I did something that has been on my "ToDo" list for a while is some Jetboil cooking. On Friday, I was over a MEC buying some bike stuff and grabbed two package of AlpineAire dinners. The idea is to test out meal in an urban setting before experiencing them in the wild only to discover that they are no good. I sort of wanting to make an adventure out of cooking dinner so I loaded my Jetboil, Nalgene bottle, utensils and roll of toilet paper into my backpack and headed out along the Ottawa River. The sun was starting to set so I couldn't travel too far but a handy park bench was nearby.

Both dinners required two cups of water and the nice thing about the Jetboil is that it has a 2 cup/16 oz mark on the inside of the pot. I set up the stove and had my first load of water ready to heat. The first dinner was AlpineAire Wild Tyme Turkey. The Jetboil was steaming in under a minute and I loaded the water into the pouch and gave it a good stir and set it aside for 10 minutes. The second batch of water was heated even faster and was loaded into the AlpineAire Pepper Steak Rice pouch. At this point it was time to get out the toilet paper for all the wrong and not obvious reasons. While both pouches were steeping I dried off the inside of the Jetboil pot and the lid and put the stove away and waited.

The Wild Turkey dinner was tasty but not as filling as the Pepper Steak Rice. A note -to-self to really stir the Pepper steak before serving as the salt and pepper tend to accumulate at the bottom of the pouch. The Pepper Steak Rice dinner would feed two people well. The Wild Turkey when combined with something else would feed two people satisfactorily.

First workout in shorts

Tonight I did my second intervals workout of the year. While doing my warm-up run down to the Running Room on Bank Street I found I was overheating and so I ditched my winter REI tights. My coach suggested I do the same workout that I did last week as it will take a few weeks for my body to adapt to running fast again.

4 x 1,000 meters on 60 seconds rest -- 4.09/4.18/4.20.4.30

Wordabble -- 200K

Today I experienced something that I had predicted might happen soon, that is, my high score in Wordabble went over 200,000 points. Over the past little while I have been inching towards this goal. It was a great milestone to surpass. A quick shout out to Jason and Adam for me one of my daily challenges. I openly wonder which will come next wordabble's first anniversary or reaching a high score of 500,000 points.

Multi-national swing dancing

One thing I like about the lesson that comes before the Friday night swing dance is that I get to dance with people who are dancing swing for the first time. Recently, I have been dancing with people from all over the world, such as from Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Germany and the Ukraine. I could usually get a hint from where there from through the chit-chat we exchange before we rotate. This influx of people from around the world is something new. I started talking to the regulars and they mentioned that the swing dance club has been advertising in the magazine and the newspapers that the diplomats read. This sort of explains why there are so many folks from various nations at the Friday night swing dance. So, the easiest way to meet foreign diplomats is swing dancing.

1st interval workout of the year

Last night, I did my first interval workout with the guys I train with at the Running Room. The bus strike and my recent soleus injury prevented me from starting the intervals a month ago. They are starting there second set where the rest time between each interals has dropped from 90 seconds down to 60 seconds. My workout took the form of a five miles warmup over to the experimental farm and then four 1,000 meter intervals with 60 seconds rest between. I was pleased that my legs survived the workout and my times are a little slower than they should be but using an horse analogy it feels good to be back in the saddle. After the workout I spoke my coach, Phil, and was pleased with my times but said to very gradually add speed back into my workouts as the intervals are always a jolt to one's system.

For the record: 4:14/4:08/4:23/4:37

I was hoping to do something this week but was held off by the snow and that is to have a Jetboil dinner along the Ottawa River close to where I live.

The Old Duffer and running

For the past little while I have been treating my legs with care as it has taken a little longer for my right soleus to heel than I would have liked. Last Sunday, I did my first 10 mile long run along the canal. I was on my way back and within 3 miles of the university when the hairs on the back of my neck went up. A speedster was closing and would pass me any minute. He thought I would be an easy target. He was in for a bit of a surprise and so was I. Very quickly he went by and opened up a lead on me. This irked me a bit. I caught up and increased the pace as it has been a while since I really stressed my legs. For the next two miles we both ran side-by-side with an ever increasing pace. Who would drop whom first? After two miles he disengaged. I eased up a bit as I could feel the lactic acid building in my legs. The university was quickly appearing on the horizon. I was feeling good as my legs were handling the pressure/stress. The old duffler did another surge and caught up with me. I responded with another surge and finished the workout with a smile of relief on my face.

On Wednesday, I did a 8 mile run and a 7 mile run on Friday. My strategy is to rebuild my base- training before add speed to the mix. On Wednesday, I will do my first set of 1,000 meters intervals. I'm a little behind my training peers but I accept that it may take a couple of speed workouts before my zest returns. Over the next little while I hope to do a 10km road race and may be a 13 mile half-marathon next month.

Culinary -- Hot Cross Buns

I like hot cross buns and with Easter appearing quickly on the horizon this blog entry is sort of appropriate. The large grocery chain in Ottawa sells hot cross buns all year long. They taste very good after a long workout or a hike with tea or hot chocolate. I recently learned that there are variations in how they put the white cross on top of the bun. I always thought that the white stuff was some sort of special baking material. My local bakery does something different. They put the cross on the bun after it is baked and it is a seam of fresh butter. This make these extra tasty. Over the next little while, I'll be eating a lot of hot cross buns giving me a chance to decide whether I like the baked cross or the butter cross.