Higher miles

I ran 8 miles tonight, 13km. Jake and I had been looking for a time to run together for a while and this was the first chance we had. It is so nice to have someone to run with. It takes your mind off the fact that you're running for over an hour. At the end we both had a bit of the jell-o legs, but felt good.

I feel 100% better then I did two weeks ago when I struggled through 6 miles.

A few shorter runs this week, plus I need to get my cross-training going again. Next weeks long run is 10 miles.

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UPDATE (05/30/07 21:10)

Not that you care, but I realized today that I misread my schedule and this weeks long run was only supposed to be 6 miles, not the 8 miler that I did. But that's ok, because this will give me the option now of building my long runs to be longer than the half-marathon race distance.

Oh, and I'm going for a nice long bike ride tomorrow morning.

Suffering for Jesus

The reason for the trip to Bermuda was a trip for the Youth Band that I help organize for our division of the Salvation Army. It's always fun to travel and if we're going to play for people it might as well be tropical! Yeah, some real suffering was done over THAT decision.

We flew out of Buffalo at 9:50am on Thursday, but with checking in, travelling in a group of 30 with over sized instruments, it meant being at the airport by 7:30am. Now is a good time to mention that Buffalo is a solid 4+ hour drive from where I live. Do the math and you can see that it was an early morning.

So the Windsor crew (9 of us) went to London the night before to sleep (although I didn't sleep a wink) and then we all took a coach bus from there to Buff. Other than the insane departure time from London (4am), things went great. Flying into Newark for our connection was cool, because I didn't realize how close it is to NYC, which I had never seen before, and we got a good view of the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty from our side of the plane. Side-note: Newark airport has stuff well priced. I bought a bagel w/cream cheese for $1.49, in an airport!

The next flight to Bermuda was great, although coming in for a landing and not seeing ANY land is a little freaky. By the time we got to our billets, had something to eat, drove around a few of the sights, I had been up for almost thirty hours. When I hit the pillow that night I didn't even move until my alarm went off 9 hours later.

Friday was a busy day, we played in a few schools, did an hour or so on street corners and then had some free time. I convinced the rest of the leaders to take a ferry with me across the island. We didn't have much time to do it, but it ended up timing itself perfectly. Plus, this gave us 40 minutes to sit on a boat in the Bermudian sun. The sacrifices of leadership, I know...

We had a sound check for our concert Saturday morning, then spent the early part of the afternoon at the beach, Horseshoe Bay. At first the water was cool, but it didn't matter it was the ocean and it warmed up nicely. A few hours in the sun and water and most of us looked fairly pink. It was pretty evident when someone had missed a spot on their backs with sunblock. I got burned a bit, but only in the spots I missed. It's a little itchy, but it was worth it.

Saturday night we shared a concert with their Divisional Bands and then we did the church service Sunday morning. A quick, and wonderful, lunch was provided to us after church and we bolted for the airport. It was over too quickly.

But us Windsor folk still had about 14 hours of travelling to do. We had a four hour layover in Newark, then our flight was delayed an hour because of weather, after we had boarded. We got back to London around 3:15am Monday and I was home by 5:20. Fortunately shift work has taught me how to handle being up all night and I just treated it like a midnight shift. Once Sue and Darcy were on their way in the morning, I went to bed.

I feels like a dream. A very vivid and detailed dream. I'll have to go back to make sure it was real...

Back Burned

"There's a double meaning in that" - Benedict, Much Ado About Nothing

I'm back from Bermuda. A full update will follow. Just a quick note to say how great it was. It was so beautiful and went so quickly that it felt like a dream. Even though we were there for a band trip, I did managed to find time to get a little sunburn.

Other than that and getting burned with horrible flight times, no complaints.

10k a ok

So I did another long run today and was much stronger mentally than last week. I even ran it a minute faster.

I thought that the fact that it was the hottest day might have had something to do with last weeks struggles, but today was plenty hot and I was fine.

I just need to suck it up and run.

The sacrifices we have to make

When I started my new job in November I figured that being at the bottom of to totem-pole, I would get stuck with working all the crappy shifts, holidays and have trouble getting time off when I needed it. Boy, was I wrong.

Somehow my schedule gave me almost all of the stat. holidays off. I had to work this Monday, but that wasn't so bad because it was preceded with four days off anyway! Plus, I go into work tonight and then I'm done until June 9th. Tomorrow I leave for five days on a trip to Bermuda with the Salvation Army Youth Band that I help organize, then I come back for three days of rest before leaving again for a week in Montreal for a family vacation.

When I finally have to go back to work, I only have 10 days in June where I'm actually AT work because I'm being sent to Ottawa for some training for four days. Score. I also had the shifts I was working changed recently, from 8 hours to 10.5 hours. The extended hours means I get more time off. Previously I was working 40 of 56 days (the length of our schedule). Now I work 30 of 56 days. This is going to be great once Sue is done work at the end of June.

The mind game

It's been said that running is 20% physical and 90% mental. Lately I've been finding that to be true.

Working shifts makes biking to and from work harder than in previous years, so my cycling numbers are way down. But I'm getting out there for more runs then usual, so while my fitness isn't great, it's still good. The thing is, every time I go out for a long run I have to battle my mind to make it through.

Today was no exception. I did a 10 k, my goal was to do it nice and easy, keeping my heart rate low'ish' and just getting to the end of it. I did two 3 mile loops, picking up a bottle of Gatorade at the half way point, so physically I was fine. I've been building my distance again slowly, so I have no concerns there. But mentally it was a slugfest. I don't understand why I beat myself up so badly. "The next mile is with the wind, there'll be no breeze." "There's not enough shade." "Am I dehydrating?" "The bottle is getting heavy." "Don't drink too much." and my favorite "My feet are too hot."

I've run that distance countless times. I've run longer than 10 k many times and have even run twice that far. So why the mental weakness? WHY? Over the next 10 weeks or so I plan on increasing my long run by about 2 miles a week, so in 4 weeks a 6 mile run will seem like a day off. Why the battle?

10,000

For no important reason I have a site metre at the bottom of this blog. I guess the real reason is so that I can know how many people are reading this and where they come from. Also, it's boosts my ego.

At 2:34 pm, May 13, 2007, I received my 10,000 th visitor. And it's not like I was visiting the site myself to inflate the numbers, this was a legitimate visitor all the way from Harare, Zimbabwe! I imagine it was one of two people that I know in Harare.

Thanks for visiting John or Rochelle!

Facebook

This is not an authorized plug for Facebook.com, but it is still a plug.

If you don't know what it is, basically you can look up people from your past, that you've lost touch with and reconnect (if they use facebook too, but right now it seems almost everyone does). There are other services like this (classmates, gradfinder), but facebook it miles better then those two combined. And it's free. My wife started using it about a week ago and commented how addicting it is. I used her account to look around for a day or two before getting my own account.

I refuse to use the word 'addicted', but I certainly am committed. I cannot believe how easy it to find people. People from every part of your own personal history. Grade school, high school, college, family, extended family, lost friends, long lost friends, co-workers, former co-workers, even ex's. Not that I have many of those...

For example: The day I signed up, I found my childhood best friend. A guy who I spent everyday with from kindergarten until the end of high school when we went to different colleges. I haven't seen or heard from him in at least 13 years and we've chatted for the last couple of days. If you played a lot of Tim Horton's Roll-up-the-rim and doubt that anyone ever wins big, well some people do. He won a Toyota Hybrid, but he doesn't drive so he sold it!

I give two thumbs up to facebook.

24 C - nice. Take two

So the last time I wrote about how nice the weather was, it turned cold again and snowed for about two weeks. Well, I'm going to risk saying that the weather is warm for good now. At least it better be. The three of us went down to the river this afternoon and then played on the sidewalk with Darcy's chalk. She loves being outside.

I'm getting my bike back from the shop tomorrow, so I can hardly wait to get out there again. I've been doing my best to run every second day, it's tough with shift work, but it gives me something to aim for.

Wow

My buddy Jake has been running marathons for the last three years. He started off with a respectable time of just under 4 hours and has lowered his personal best each time he's raced. He's done it the old fashioned way, hard work and a lot of miles.

Last Sunday he ran the Martian Half Marathon, with a goal of 1:30, 5 minutes better than his previous best. He ran a 1:30:39, finishing 50-something out of 1000-odd people, or in the top 5% of all finishers. You can read his account here.

Catching up

If you follow the little mileage counter I have in the right hand column, you'll see how far I've swam, biked and ran each year. I have an on-line that totals everything up for me, so it's not hard to keep track of.

So far this year I've run a little over 136 km. Nothing special, I know.

However, in January and February combined I ran 69 km. So far in March I've run 67.25 km. I plan on going out on Saturday to increase that total.

My bike is in the shop right now, getting the wheels trued and some spokes replaced, as well as fixing a clunk that I had in the steering column (probably a dead bearing). I should have it back soon and then I'll be cranking out those miles too.

24 C - nice.

I was sitting here at the computer and I noticed that the temperature was 23 C outside. By the time I got this post opened up, it jumped up to 24 C. And today is an off day for me! What was I thinking. Oh well, I have to work this afternoon, so there's no time to squeeze in a short run. Tomorrow is only supposed to be 18 C, I'll have to survive.

Warm weather means I can put the tights away! I think Sue is happier about that than anyone else.

Did you see the Amazing Race last night? It was, well, amazing. The teams are really spread out now, like over 24 hours between first and last. That never happens. The only unfortunate part is that the most annoying team is in first place.

First Race

Today was the first running race of the season, held by our local Running Factory. For grown-ups it is a 5 km race, for kids the offer a 1 km event and for little ones they have the Kids Dash, about 100 metres or so. Darcy came to see me run a few times last year and ever since then, she's been talking about doing a race. When I told her we could race together, she could hardly contain her excitement!

The big day was this morning, although the event is called the Spring Thaw at -5C it didn't really feel all that much like Spring. But the cold didn't dampen Darcy's spirit. She was ready to run the whole race, and she did! I don't think she's ever been this excited, she laughed the whole way down the street. Being one of the littlest little ones, she brought up the rear of the event, but that seemed to get the crowd going in her favor. I saw several people taking her pictures and heard lots more calling out to her. I heard someone say, "Look at how determined she is."

Once we crossed the finish line, she got her medal and several high-fives from the volunteers. Then she started asking for her racers treats, so I made my way over to the athletes snack table and grabbed something for her. Before her nap this afternoon she asked Mommy, "When's my next race with Daddy?" Hopefully she remembers this for a long time.

Oh, I ran the 5 km. Overall I finished in 52 place, 6 of 19 in my age group. I ran a 21:18, an improvement from last year, but I've still been unable to break the 20 minutes mark in a race. Jake ran too, blew away his PR and finished with a 19:05! That's sick. Fortunately, he got another year older and is now out of my age group, so I move up a place. Full results are here.

Close call

I've done a lot of driving in my day, 7 years doing some delivering and about 3 years working in car rentals. I haven't had an accident yet (knock on wood). That streak almost came to a brutal end last night.

We were on our way to Cambridge through some rainy weather and the closer we got, the worse the roads got. Near London the gusts of wind were moving us around pretty good and then we hit a big patch of ice that sent us into a wicked spin. Sue thinks we went around 2 1/2 times, I thought it might have only been 1 1/2. Who cares really. The point is that we were spinning out of control with traffic behind us closing in, including a tractor-trailer. Somehow we stayed in the lanes, off both shoulder, off the wall and out of the ditch. I have no doubt that my hands weren't the only ones trying to steer the car.

After the last spin we straightened out and I thought I had it fully corrected, but gave a little too much gas and we did another half spin. This sent us across the road and towards the ditch, but we were going slowly at this point and I was able to stop before going into the ditch.

It all happened so quickly that I really don't remember it all very clearly, but the one thing that I remember is that while were spinning, the tires barely squealed at all. Which tells me that we were on a pretty solid sheet of ice. I have to think that if we had been going sideways and hit a dry patch, this story would be completely different.

When we stopped, Darcy said, "Wow, what was that?!" We told her it was a big spin, she said, "I didn't like that. It scared me." Yeah, kiddo, it scared me too.

So we stopped at a hotel for the night and finished the last 30 minutes this morning. It was the right thing to do, as we saw several cars being pulled out of the ditch this morning.

Corner Gas

Do you watch Corner Gas? If you like good sarcastic Canadian humour, you should. Last night's episode was a brilliant parody of the Canada-Russia 1972 Summit Series. It was a table hockey match up between Karen, the rookie cop who passes crisply and trains fiercely against Brent, a beer swilling out of shape talent. I've been known to be a bit of a hockey history buff and this had all the details. Right down to Brent doing a spoof of Eposito's famous rant after game 4, Alan Eagleson (Wanda) getting carried away from the ice shooting the bird to the Russian officials, even having Espo fall on the ice before game eight, to great embarrassment.

Since art reflected life, I'm not spoiling the ending by telling you that Brent won.

I've been watching the first couple of seaons on DVD and a great question was raised by Hank: Where do people who live in igloos go to the bathroom? I've often wondering that about astonauts, but thanks to the internet, I can sleep well knowning that the space toilet only cost $23.4 million US.

The Great One

He turns 46 today.

Name Game

When we were expecting Darcy, choosing a name was not an easy task. Eventually we narrowed things down to a few shorts lists for either sex and after much negotiating we agreed on Darcy.

This time I think we're going to have a bit more fun. Like getting Darcy to approve suggestions. I had a good friend write with an idea, which I think is brilliant, but Sue is less than convinced. Sue asked Darcy about a different name and we let her decide which one she liked better. It went pretty much like this:

S: Darcy what name do you like better for the baby; Lucy or Omegatron?
D: Omegatron!

I think that settles it. Omegatron Titcombe, has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

And then there were two

I took a little heat at home for only being willing to throw out one pair of running shoes. So I took a leap of faith and threw out two pairs. Both pairs of Asics (#1 & #2 pictured) are now gone. A bit of a sad day...

Another thing that there'll soon be two of is children for Sue and I. You can read about that here.

And another thing that there'll be two of is Sue's cousin Glenn running two races in two days, also known as the Goofy Challenge. First a 1/2 marathon (21 km) and then the very next day a full marathon (42km). You can read about that craziness here.

Running Shoe Anonymous

Hi, my name is Nick and as this picture displays, I may have a problem. When it comes to shoes, everyday shoes, I own four pairs; one pair of winter boots, one pair of casual/dress shoes, one pair of every day runners (I don't actually run in these) and one pair of work boots. The work boots are issued to me and are only ever worn to and from work, so those don't really count.

I do, however, own a lot of running shoes. Some people would say that I have too many pairs. I probably have two many pairs (yes, very clever, I know...). But I can defend almost all of their existences. As you can see I have six, count 'em S I X pairs of running shoes and most of them are used frequently and only for running. Most of them...

What is perhaps the most disturbing part of my problem is that I know when I got them, how many races they've been used in, what the longest distance is that I ran in each pair and how many total miles/kms are on each pair. Oh, and I can tell you any of that off the top of my head.

Here's a partial index for you:

Pair #1: Asics Gel 1090: Apr 05 - 500km total (retired - now used only to cut the grass)

Pair #2: Asics Cumulus: Jan 06 - 465km total (retired - about to be disposed of)

Pair #3: Saucony Grid Pheonix: Jan 06 - 376km total (racing shoe for 06 - still active)

Pair #4: Adidas Tundra: Apr 06 - Used only for walking (still active)

Pair #5: Saucony Azura LC: Jan 07 - 3.2km (racing shoe for 07)

Pair #6: Adidas adiStar: Jan 07 - 5km (trainer for 07)

I know I'm not the only runner who is a little too obsessive about their shoes, I expect to hear some support from of you!

Good to know

Darcy was telling us about her day tonight during supper.

D: Bradan picked his nose and ate it.
N: That's gross.
D: Yea, that's yucky. I did it to my ear.
N: Did you eat it?
D: No, I put it on the blanket.