The long run glow

Todays long run brought to you by the Nose Creek path, from 32nd ave beside the Rockyview building, all the way up to the Huntington Hills golf course. We had turned around there during an 18 K run with Patricia, so this filled in my map further north.

It was cool overnight so we started a little after 9. The start was good. Maybe too good, as we discussed on the way back. There was a reason for the discussion. My legs were still feeling a little tired from the Wednesday run that I haven't told you about yet, and the massage.

So lets rewind a bit. I hadn't been sure how my last day at work would go. Perhaps I'd be told to not come in at all. I had hopes...

I ended up having to go in, so I planned for the 15 K hard run for the morning. I dropped Linda off at the LRT and came back to get changed. I got started at dawn, and it was lovely. Every time I looked the sunrise was a little different. The plan was to warm up, and then do 5 x(1K at 5K pace and 1 K easy). Except I goofed and that's not what the phone told me. I ended up doing it by keeping track myself. You can bet I didn't go over.

There was some thought of doing it around the reservoir, but decided that if I needed to bail out for some reason, that would make life difficult. I chugged a loop the loop pattern around the neighbourhood and it all went well. 15 K, 1:40:33, average 6:42 pace. The fast K were all just over 6 minutes, so I'm pretty pleased. All the easy ones were about 7 minute K pace. Overall felt pretty good, glad it wasn't any longer.

Then the last day at work. Then the massage. She worked me over pretty good, but she could have done ever so much more. The right ham needed it so bad.

Thursday, my first day of official "retirement" started busy. Swim. Donate some nearly perfect blood.  I was disappointed to see that the main donation clinic has the same crappy cookies as the mobile clinics. The chairs are more comfortable. My nurse had a beautiful singing voice going along with the oldies station, in between their memorized patter. 72 donations. Run some errands on the way home. Nap. BBQ.

Slept in, drank coffee, ran some more errands. Scoped out a starting place along the canal for the 32 K run in a few weeks. I want that one to be FLAT. As in, no hills. Started getting a nose sniffle after eating a spicy lunch. Watched Love and Friendship and loved it. I just love movies with witty dialogue.

Saturday the schedule says 26 K run. We started about a 7 min/K pace, and I felt great! I was happy running along looking at new scenery. The sun was up, and surprisingly warm already. I was sweating, Michelle was glowing. We followed the path, though it got a bit confusing, and we turned around where we would have ended up going into some northern neighbourhood. I was nervous. The customs might be different there.

Back and then up beside the golf course where there was a scenic lookout. I got some iphone photographs.

Up to about 12 K it went really well, then it got a bit hilly and we slowed down a little. I did, at least, I think Michelle was still ready to bound along. Walking up the hills felt pretty good. The wheels started coming off my wagon about 19 K. My legs, especially right ham were sending stiff notes of protest upstairs. 20 K was 7:35 pace slowest yet, 21 slower yet at 8:02 and several walk breaks, half marathon time of 2:32:34, and at 22 hearing 8:14 pace I was done. I figured no point in running myself into an injury, and I did not want to suffer through 4 more K taking nearly a half hour. Yuck. If it had been a 23 K run, maybe, but who does 23? Nice walk back to the car to cool down, and stretch. (As of later my legs are feeling better.)

Overall I'm pretty pleased. We discussed if we'd gone out too fast, but my legs were happy with the pace, and we were chatchatchat. (why are none of you surprised?) Sometimes I find running slower to be harder. It was all good till my legs got tired of the game. I'd had good nutrition all along, drinking about a litre of energy drink, plus eating maybe half a cliffs bar.  The hydration pack is working out really well.

The recent reads are

I am not an advanced marathoner, but it's Katie's bible. I think my training course is based on it. My difficulty with many non-fiction books is finding the sweet spot between "subject x for dummies" that doesn't tell me anything I don't already know just from being a breathing adult at least somewhat aware of the world. Some of those authors should be ashamed of themselves. The other end of the spectrum is "everything under the sun about subject x.1.2.3 (and not x.1.2.2 which is outdated as you should know) by and for experts." The info I might want is in there, but I'm not likely to find it, buried as it is under mountains of related material.

This is on the subject expert side of things, especially the training plans. I don't have it in front of me as I write, but I think the base plan was build around someone who routinely does about twice the weekly milage I do. I had slowly worked myself up to 100 K per month, and felt pretty good about that, although I fully realize there are some who do that nearly weekly. I figure I'm just barely at the point of being fit enough to get through a marathon, and with any luck I won't get sick or injured. Being able to sleep extra this month should be a big help.

The problem with the retirement book is that it's old. Not sure it's outdated, but it's from  almost 10 years ago. Our financial advisors are telling us this stuff and more beside. I zoomed through it, not finding anything I didn't already know. If you are new to the subject it's pretty good. I've covered some of the basic basics earlier in this blog. Spend much less than you earn. Debt is an emergency. Some of it is long term manageable debt, but work on getting rid of it. Credit card debt is an all hands on deck adrenaline fueled emergency. Until you've taken care of most of your debt, you don't need this book.

I'm not sure what's next on the reading list.