There was a plan to do lots of running in 2016 in preparation for a marathon. The idea was to do lots of the runs on the many bike paths beside water and mark it on the bike path map. Even though the marathon didn't happen, what with work scheduling me for an additional month, lots of runs did. The map was faithfully marked in highlighter. Unfortunately, highlighter doesn't show up as well in photographs as it might. I currently lack the Photoshop skills to do it electronically.
There's been lots of pathway construction and rehabilitation this year, and a few runs had some unexpected detour adventures. My run buddy is intrepid and up for whatever it takes. We got muddy shoes a few times, and while never actually lost, there were a few times I wondered just where we were going to end up.
Present day:
After I took much of September and October off (numbers later) we wanted to get out in the brilliant sunshine. Not too far, but we wanted to go someplace we hadn't run where we could see the mountains. Success! Plus it filled in a little hole in the map.
Today we parked at Carburn Park, and ran north along the Bow river to where the path stopped (construction) above Beaver Dam Flats in Lynn Ridge, then back and down to the dog park near Southland. Along the way we enjoyed a great view of downtown and the mountains, (I'll have to go back with the camera) plus the river. It was cool and perfect running weather.
As always we talked about everything under the sun, and stopped a few times to look at things. 9K, 1:07:31 nice and easy, even pace which is good what with the hills. As a digression when I was going through Mount Royal last week I photographed one home because I realized that it was perfect for one of my novel characters. Another scene is set near where we ran today, and I saw a couple houses that could belong to Mitch, one of Ceridwen's coworkers. Always nice when reality helps your novel.
I won't run tomorrow (never two days in a row), and I won't be trying to fill in any more of the map. I've already done more than I thought I would. The only piece that I missed was along the canal from Glenmore to Chestermere. Other than that, since it's hard to see the highlighting on the map, I'll give you a list:
- Fish Creek from end to end, both the north and south sides where the path exists. Plus on top on the north side.
- Fish Creek down along the Bow river under 22X.
- North along the Bow river both sides up to Southland, then the east side up to Ogden Rd.
- Both sides of the Bow from Ogden all the way through downtown out to Edworthy Park.
- From Edworthy on the north side through Bowmont Park to Stoney Trail
- Up the Nose Creek path from the Bow river up to Country Hills Blvd
- The Western Irrigation District canal from the Canoe club to Glenmore.
- Elbow river from the Bow down to the reservoir, on both sides where possible.
- Around the reservoir all the possible permutations. (I'm still kind of amazed I can run around the reservoir; in my head I think of it as a long way.)
- Down 37 St path back home.
- All the various pedestrian bridges along the way.
- A secret route out of downtown to home that is not along the river.
Some of these are plain runs, in the sense there isn't much to see, but for many of them there are spectacular views of the mountains, downtown, riverscapes, or scenic parts of the city, and sometimes if you get lucky there are sunrises or sunsets that take your breath away and you just have to stop and admire them. I have absolutely loved exploring the paths! Many of them were new to me (Bowmont Park is awesome!), and even some of the regulars I made a point of running the opposite way than usual.
It works out to:
- 38.7 K January
- 52.1 K February
- 60.1 K March
- 99.6 K April
- 102.5 K May
- 108.8 K June
- 127.7 K July
- 171.4 K August (oops)
- 56.6 K September, almost half of which was in one run, at the end of which I crashed and burned though I didn't realize how badly till a little later.
- 37.3 October, starting slowly again
- 855.2 is the year to date total. Probably my biggest run year ever, in my entire life including Ironman training.
I realize for some of you, these run totals are nothing special, but I'm pretty proud of my year. I need to say a big thank you to my run buddies Michelle (best run buddy ever! did I say?) and Patricia (even though she nearly killed me on an 18 K run) who ran with me, and to any number of blog buddies and other friends who encouraged me and took a polite interest as I blithered on about running.
I can hear some of you numbers people asking if I'm going to run 144.8 more K over November and December. I don't know. Stay tuned. Ask me again at the end of December. Do you get a special runner's pin for 1000 K in a year?
Here's the maps, looking weird as I tried to bring up the yellow highlighter. I took a look at marking up the electronic version, which I didn't see an easy way of doing, then figured out that posting an altered version on my blog would probably be a violation of their terms of service.
And a graph, because I just know some of my readers are numbers geeks, and will pine without a graph (hello Julie!).
Awesome, Keith. Love the map. Alas, I've no idea how far I've run this year because I haven't kept track. Weird, I know. I just took it one week at a time - aiming to run at least 3, preferably 4 times each week, with weekend runs getting longer and the odd hill training or speed session thrown in. It was a new approach for me but it sort of worked. There weren't many weeks when I didn't run at least twice and usually I hit the pavement at three times or more. That said, reading your blog made me wish I'd done a better job of keeping track so I'll plan on doing that in the new year.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on a terrific year of training. It's too bad about the marathon but what an interesting time you've had, seeing and learning so much, spending time with friends. From my own point-of-view, it was great having your company during my Calgary marathon journey in the spring. Hope we can do that again sometime.
Keep on blogging and running, my friend!