Mutual run buddy support

For years I ran alone.

Cue George Thorogood.
I run alone (thumpthump, thumpthump)
Yeah with nobody else, (thumpthump, thumpthump)
And you know when I run alone,
I prefer to be by myself!

Lots of times I ran alone and thought about stuff and it was good. I've worked through novel plot points, written blogs, thought about photo projects, worked my way through some obscure SQL (that was only the once and I washed my hands after), enjoyed the scenery, and generally loved it.

Not so much lately though. I've come to love running with BRBE and today was a really good reason why. She was feeling a bit down after a tough week. I wanted to run, but wasn't sure how much or how far, or where. We sort of talked ourselves into it, provide I picked the route and navigated. This is what we ended up with. 11 K, 1:36, 8:43/K. Normally BRBE and I run rock steady about 7/K to 7:30/K, but considering the alternative was total slackerpants, we're happy with it.

I'm sure my buddy Terry knows exactly where we went, and has probably been on all those trails, but most of them were new to me. That was part of the joy of the day, running down new trails, not really caring where they went. A few times they stopped at the river, so we would go back to the last branching and keep going. All the time chatting up a storm.

It was lovely! Not too hot or cold. The pace numbers look a bit slower, but think small trails and and some pretty good hills, scrambling across the creek once, and not being in a rush.

In other news:
The fireworks last night were best yet!
The B&W challenge is up on Facebook.
Next up is a batch of wine to bottle.

A photograph to baffle you.

Circumnavigating Sikome

I'll try not to gush too much.  It was just one of those lovely days for a bunch of reasons. In fact I'm so excited I forgot I'd published this morning. You may have missed a new series of abstracts.

Once upon a time when I was a kid, maybe 14 or so, I was out for a bike ride around town. I chanced to to meet up some other kids, one of whom I knew, and we rode around and had fun all afternoon, with nothing planned.

Today we didn't want to run. My hams are cranky, and BRBE's calves are not happy. But it's been crappy weather for a while, and today was lovely out this morning. We badly wanted to be outside, and landed on a bike ride in Fish Creek, not using our fancy road bikes.

Well holy doodle! I haven't had so much fun on a bike in ages. We've often run in the west part of the park and know many of the trails, so we noodled along. We explored a bit in Votier's Flats, then decided we could make it to Sikome Lake, such as it is. It turned out to be 34.5 K round trip over 2.5 hr or so, stopping lots of times to enjoy the scenery.

We didn't zoom but rode along enjoying a beautiful day, dodging a tonne of other people on the path. Some of them seem to have forgotten that many people move on the path, so if you're going to stop and chat or just admire the view, get off the path. Fortunately my squeaky shark noisemaker still works.

I had to laugh at one point, I was a bit behind Michelle, just out of sight around a corner. A guy coming towards us, turned his head and just about rode off the path scoping out her butt, then turned to look forward, with me looking right at him. Busted! He looked so guilty.

Yes, we waved as we went past Terry's place. One guy said hello to me as if he knew me, but I didn't get a good look. There was a guy on those ski-roller thingies, lots of people on bikes, a few on roller blades, some skateboards, plus lots of walkers and runners. Once I nearly rode off the path trying to see what kind of camera and lens a birder was using. A few times I wished I'd brought my camera, but then we never would have made to Sikome. It's nice to see so many people out enjoying the nice weather. Everybody is desperate for spring, and this is as good as it been for several weeks.

Contrary to the map below, Sikome is some damp sand just now. Later they'll charge admission to get in, but you couldn't pay me to go in the water. Every child in the water uses it as a toilet, and probably some the adults do too. Supposedly they have water treatment of the lake. Supposedly.

Along the way we saw scenery like this, though not exactly as represented.

The run map done as it's going to get!

Previously, on Keith's blog:

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!).

Several firsts!

Once upon a time I got on my bike, this was long before Estela, and from home rode all around the reservoir and back. It was an epic journey for me. The hills were like cliffs and were higher than the Cliffs of Insanity. It took a really long time. The route looks like this now, and was slightly different back in the day.

Gradually I got faster, but it was always a big ride for me. Then I got Estela and discovered the hills weren't really that big and trying to ride her along that route at speed was not a good idea. Somewhere along the way I actually ran around the reservoir for the first time.

Today was a run from home, around the reservoir, and back to home. There was a walk before and after. 22 K, 2:42:49 run time, 7:24/K pace. I only remembered after I was supposed to negative split the distance, but I was pretty tired the last few K and couldn't have pushed much harder. The first 11 K was 1:20:14, so I was just over 2 minutes slower. Oh well.

I was working really hard to get last Wed run out of my head and succeeded. I didn't run or swim Thursday or Friday, and went to bed early both nights. Today I felt a bit tired going in, took a K or so to find a pace, and settled in fairly even, hills slowing us down a bit.  Although we passed a couple of people on the way up to North Glenmore. (Yay us!) We stopped for a bio break in North Glenmore, and I checked out a possible photo vantage point (nope), but otherwise it was a steady run. Well, aside from the third first. (keep reading.)

So I'm pretty pleased, in case you hadn't noticed! First time I've done this route as a run. (first first.)

Yesterday I got some good news I can't talk about yet. Soon. Afterward I was shopping through MEC and picked out a hydration pack. Usually for long runs I put a little aid station on the front porch and do loops, but this time we were talking about doing a long point to point run down in Fish Creek. What with one thing and another we decided not to, and went around the reservoir instead. I didn't want to try to carry everything in pockets, so pack it was.

It has lots of pockets, including a pocket in a pocket which is always neat. 2 L capacity, which seems about right. One of the pockets is waterproof and my phone fits in it, so that's good. It fit comfortably right from the start, and once Michelle showed me the trick of getting all the air out of the bladder, I was good to go. (I had a whole bunch of bladder jokes going through my mind during the run for inclusion in the blog, but I'm over that now.) I'm really pleased with how it worked out. No shifting around, no chafing. (second first.)

I know that some of my readers have their special run buddy, but sorry guys, I have the best one in the world. Really! We've run together in cold and hot, rain and dry, chatting about everything under the sun. But today was a first, showing that special bond of trust between long time run buddies. She trusted me to gently dig around in some soft moist folds of skin, removing an irritant she couldn't quite deal with.

What's that you say? What??!! You perverts. We were on a public path, and her pants were on. I dug a bug out of her eye. You guys! Sheesh. Anyways, that was the third first. All in one run! We even saw some friends heading into Heritage park, and chatted very briefly.

It was a nice run, legs feeling pretty good, even toward the end. They were tired of course, especially hip flexors, but we chugged along. Long walk afterward checking out the new pedestrian bridge. Showered, nibbled some cold pizza, and the cats graciously gave me a recovery purr on the quads. Such a sleepy little face.

Hope the weather holds for a photo walk with the famous Neil Zeller tonight.

Bagged

Me, that is.

Wednesday after run, tired, bed.

Thursday, bailed on water run, and stayed in bed till the last second. Went to bed early once home again.

Friday, puttering around the house, then downtown for an evening photo shoot.

This is unedited. I started working with a couple of the shots, and didn't like any of the results. I think the manipulation was making things worse, so I've put it aside till I'm more awake.

I was astonished at the traffic downtown! The people who say it's empty after the office workers go home don't know what they're talking about. It took a long time to drive from the above shot to the bluff just north of downtown, and got some nice shots there. Watching two guys get into a fist fight over a parking spot (there was another a few yards along) was the highlight of the evening.

Then over to another spot for more shots. My eyes were getting tired, and the focussing wasn't going so well. Between shots I could just see the Globalfest fireworks. Home to bed. Once I edit the shots and clean them up I'll post the best of them.

Saturday up early for a 24 K run, 2:58, 7:26 pace, which is much slower than last week. Not sure why, but maybe having no gas in the tank was part of the reason. Good thing Michelle was there to keep me going. Waffles, shower, then a nap for a while, and I was good for not much the rest of the day. The loop the loop course probably doesn't make much sense now, but it did at the time.

Sunday, good for not much for the day. Relaxed, read, and was a cat bed for much of the day. A bit of MCK and stretching out tired hamstrings, and a sore lower calf.

Back to work tomorrow. Only a few more days. I can do this.

The hum of bike tires, the smell of lilacs

Mostly about my run today. If you're interested in someone more interesting and photogenic, check out yesterday's blog.

If I'd wanted a cooler run, I should have left earlier. Say, dawn. But I was asleep. Eventually I got up, made coffee, Linda got up, made waffles with fresh raspberries. We pigged out. Once my tummy settled I hosed myself down with sunscreen and headed out for a run.

I was aiming for about 15 K, and planned to run in Fish Creek to get at least some shade. At first I was struggling to run slower. Yes, slower! This is a long slow run, after all. Some random web page I found suggested that if race pace is 10 K per hour, then the long slow run should be between 7:15 and 7:45 per K. For the longest time I ran 7:30, paced by my awesome running buddy who has that pace dialed in. Lately we've been running a bit quicker.

A 7:15 pace seemed good, but my first 4 K were all under 7 minutes, even trying to run more slowly. Downhill and feeling fresh I admit. My legs wanted to run faster. Then I stuck around 7 minutes per K till just after turnaround at 7 and a bit K. I touched a bridge, and that seemed like a good place. Now heading back uphill. Even then I was just over 7 min per K till the bottom of the hill going out of Fish Creek. Up a big hill, in the blazing sun. That slowed me down a little, but I recovered and my last K was 7:11. In the end it turned out to be 15 K, 1:48, for a 7:11 average pace.  My phone says 21 c but it was hotter than that.

The entire way I was breathing easy enough to keep up my end of conversation, except for up the hill. Part of swimming fast is getting into the groove, and feeling the rhythm of the stroke. I was trying to find that in my run stride, but wasn't quite in the groove. My legs felt a bit heavy, and my quads were a little stiff. It seemed like each step was a slightly different size, and my left foot wanted to slide into place rather than landing neatly.  My pace and cadence are all over the place.

Plus I was distracted by the many, MANY bikes zooming along. I think an entire grade school class zipped by, then clustered up like a swarm of bees all over the path as me, some oncoming riders, and some riders catching up with me all arrived at the same place the same time. I was quite prepared to trample the little monsters, but their teacher was firmly ordering them off the path. I waved at her. You couldn't pay me to do that job, or supply me with enough duct tape to keep my sanity.

It was easy to feel the difference running in the shade, and running in the sun. I drank a whole bottle of Nuun laced water, then lots more after. Maybe carrying the water bottle made it harder to find my stride. I was loving the lilac smell. It was everywhere yesterday during the bike ride and today.

My legs felt tired and a bit creaky after the run. Could I have run 6 more K for a half marathon? Depends. In the shade, maybe. Not out in the hot sun. I have in mind the route from Black Diamond to Millarville. Not one speck of shade. Lots of hills. It could easily be another smoking hot day. Or snowing, we never really know here. Now that I think of it, snowing might be easier to deal with. I can always add layers, but there's a limit how many come off.

Some photos, just because. A reflection photo in the microwave of all things.

Celina was feeling extremely talkative this morning. No idea why. Here she is still lecturing us, while sunning herself.

Cats are so cute as they lie there sunning their tummy.

Whatever Curtis is thinking, it's very firm.

I love this sort of shocked and dazed look.

After the run I worked up more of a sweat mowing the lawn than the run did. Once the sun was off the gate I stained it as an experiment. We might do the rest of the fence like this.

Marathon and regular running maps.

You don't want to hear about Thursday at work. We both had a big glass of wine after. I felt fine after the fast run on Wednesday, and still feel fine now.

Friday was a bit of thrashing around in the pool. First in the dive tank, then the hot tub, then back in the (cold) competition pool for an easy easy 500, chat to Katie as she ran, back in the (what seemed lukewarm) hot tub.

Home. Breakfast, then picking up my buddy Janice. We had a nice cup of tea as she checked out the garden she's only seen photos of. Then it was off to drive the marathon course. Mostly. She lived here a long time ago, and there's been lots of changes. There's one piece near the zoo we couldn't drive, there was some road closures in East Village, and we skipped one bit of it going downhill through Mt Royal around K 25.

We both realized we were hungry just near the out and back on Memorial, so of course we stopped in at Lazy Loaf and Kettle. Then the rest of the course and back for package pick up. No line up. Strolled the expo and said hello to several buddies (Neil, Richelle, Rose, Madi, Martin ). Then back through really heavy traffic home again. There are some last minute nerves, but we are ready!

I, of course, am not doing the marathon. Here's the 10 K route.

It was a lovely way to spend most of the day, chatting with someone I've only seen a few times, but we both blog, and comment, and exchange witty banter on Facebook, so it's seeing an old friend again. (And neither of us are old, so lets just make sure that's clear!)

So the map project. I knew I was going to be doing lots of running this year. Along the way I've heard of people walking every street in New York, and there's a guy doing that in Calgary. I had the happy thought of doing my runs on different parts of the bike path, and decided to start with the ones nearest water. That's along Fish Creek, the Elbow River and Glenmore Reservoir, Nose Creek, the Bow River, and as an extension the Western Irrigation District canal.

I've been marking them off by highlighting them on a bike path map, but they don't show up quite as well as I'd like.

In case it doesn't show up in your browser very well, it's from the reservoir, down to Fish Creek, across to the Bow, upstream on both sides in places, missing one spot, then up Nose Creek to 32nd. Along the Bow, missing a spot, out to Bowness. I'll do missing bit on the Bow on a lunch time run from work, and along the Elbow maybe partly a run at lunch from work, and maybe from Talisman home running after work. There is sort of a plan. We did along the canal till the construction at Glenmore. I'll need to scout out a place to park and make sure there isn't any more construction along the canal. It would be nice to run it all the way out to Chestermere, over several runs.

Once all that is done, I'll start on the round Calgary bike path. I've already done some of it, but there's lots more. I think it's done early 2017, so some of it might be a next year thing.

A heroes and data rant

That week went by awfully quickly.

A while ago I saw a photo on Facebook. It showed a mangled car (probably a result of driver incompetence) and the caption said something like, "Don't you wish God were here?"

My instant answer was "NO! I want a trained team of emergency responders."

Which leads to just recently there was a cartoon in a paper. You probably saw this one. It had some "super-heros" on the left, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Spiderman, some others I didn't recognize. On the right was a tired looking fire fighter wearing a Fort McMurray T shirt. The caption said something like, welcome to the club.

I was seeing red, and I've been stewing about this for a while now. Lets see if I can say why in a rational way.

There is no disrespect intended towards the fire-fighters, but why anyone would think this is a compliment is beyond me. I have zero respect for those comic book "super-heroes". They are emotional children, and often do more damage "saving" the world than whatever the problem was.  They just jump in, unaware of the issues, and do whatever strikes them at the moment. What passes for character development, plot, and conflict bored me decades ago, and the recent movies haven't improved things a bit. Enough of them.

When fire-fighters zoom up to a burning building, there is a plan. Everybody has a role, and they've trained their asses off to do it. Where does the plan come from? Many decades of experience distilled from nearly every fire that's happened across every nation with organized fire departments. It's called data. What worked, what didn't. How new materials behave.  Fire behaves according to rules. Understand the situation, understand the rules, and you'll understand what the fire is going to do, and the best way to deal with it. Which isn't to say there are surprises because we usually don't understand everything about the situation.

In some cases they wire up a house with video cameras and let it burn to test specific things. I  once watched a video of an interview with a fire-fighter as he was saying it was weird to stand around while a home burned. They had to wait till the scientists gave them the go ahead.

There are lots of hazardous substances and situations where the rule for lay people to follow is "Stay away from that shit!" Who doesn't? Fire-fighters. They have to deal with that shit. I'm pretty sure I don't have the stones to look at a burning building, pull on my protective gear, and go in there to put it out.

Even the most rabid right wing nut doesn't propose cutting the training budget for fire-fighters. The best training available still results in injured staff and lost property, and nobody wants that. Plus even they realize it might be their home next.

But it isn't just the people going into burning buildings or fighting forest fires. They're the point of the spear and deserve every bit of recognition they get. Right behind them are a host of other people, though. Radio operators, planners, logistics, maintenance, the list goes on and on. There is a role for all of them in this, following a plan.

That's why they don't want untrained people around trying to be heroes. It's dangerous enough when they know who is doing what, and to have some idiot trying to protect his home with a garden hose just distracts them. On that note, I'm going to be utterly astonished if the people going through the burned areas to assess the hazards and try to make them safe do not discover some charred bodies in the ruins.

So back to those cartoons. The fire-fighter does not belong in the "super-hero" club because the so called comic book super-heroes do not measure up in any way. I'm not sure what club the emergency responders belong in, but it's going to be pretty exclusive.

Many of these people are modest and humble, saying things like, "I"m just doing my job." Which is true, except that it's a difficult dangerous job at the best of times. It wouldn't have taken things being much different for us to be having funerals about now. Plus, you don't see any of them punching out after their shift is over. They were going till they couldn't go anymore.

And whaddya know? The relief crews were organized as well, drawing people and equipment from all over the country in a planned way. This doesn't happen by accident. A lot of people spent a lot of time planning for emergency situations, and once this is all over, a lot of people are going to look at everything that happened to see what can be learned, and what could be done better. It's easy to overlook this kind of work, but there are a lot of people alive today because of it. This sort of stuff is what taxes pay for.

Back to regular programming. A nice relaxed swim, feeling the swim love on Monday, 1 K, 18:30, short course. Massage Tues, feeling really beat up after. Water ran with Katie about an hour on Wed, then 700 m easy swim feeling kind of clunky, weak, and feeble, long course. Ran 6K 38:21 feeling pretty good.

Thursday we went out out a greenhouse just east of town. I visited with a very nice cat and got this lovely pic of a pretty flower. No idea what it is.

I discovered these in a pocket of the car during clean out the car day. Lots of other crap too. I have no rational explanation for why I have a map printed in 1999 in my car.  It's the one at the top, with the logo of a company I haven't worked for in 16 years. It's probably been 5 years since I last looked at any of these, and there they were, getting in the way each time I put the seat down to put my bike in the car.

I was laughing as I took this shot. Curtis had just come up onto my lap, trampling Celina, then settled down on top of her so I could pay attention to him. It was purely an accident that she was getting his tail in her face. I'm sure of it. An accident.

Friday I water ran with Katie, Michelle, and Antje for an hour or so, though Katie was still going when I was forced from the water. Then 1K 19 minutes long course feeling nice and relaxed.

Today was cheering on my buddy Patricia doing her first half marathon! 2:10 or so, and congratulations! I cheered her coming and going at South Glenmore park, and she looked great! Just before she came back, someone called to me from a bike, but I was looking at Patricia, and I don't know who it was. I'm going to feel awfully dumb if it's someone I know well. Was it you? (later note, it was my buddy Sue Wills!)

Then I went out for my own run, 12 in a double loop around the neighbourhood, 1:22, 6:49 pace feeling pretty good. My legs were relaxed and happy. I could have run more, but I figured this was a nice neat map.

Two construction notes. In Fish Creek, where the path has been washed away for a while, the repairs are almost done. They dumped tons of rip rap into the water and built up the bank. The paving equipment is there, probably will be done early next week. That's right at the bottom of the map. At the very top the new pedestrian bridge over Anderson road is well underway.

Dialed back in?

Last night was get home, reassure the cats we actually lived here and were the same humans that left them a week ago. They were kind of choked at us. Unpack, putter around a bit, fall into bed. Crappy night's sleep.

Up for a Sunday swim. The pool was empty! Love it. The first 500 m sucked, as I thoroughly expected it to after a week of not swimming. 9:45 or so. Bleah. Then I gradually found the groove and got faster over the next 500 for just over 19 minutes. I'll take it. Played around in the water a bit, and soaked up the hot tub big time! I'm still sore after a big week of walking, and last week's 18 K, and running on a rocky gravelly beach. Here's the map of that. Look at all the blue! It's lovely running along the water.

Later in the afternoon we sprayed up the sunscreen and headed out to run in the heat of the day. So nice! I filled in the missing bit on the map in North Glenmore park. 11 K, 1:21, running just a little bit faster than usual. Along the way just outside the park I stopped for this.

Boring, yes? I have to admit it looks much better when it's full of bikes in T2 for Calgary 70.3. It was about 18 C, but I didn't really feel the heat. It just felt good to run in the warmth.

What else do you do in the heat? BBQ of course! Bison. Yum! Wine and relaxing on the patio after. Linda is still scoping out the garden, seeing how the various plants are doing. We are still well behind the BC gardens of course, but there are a few splotches of colour, like this.

Then to now

I realized as I was about to push the publish button you'd probably see the full horror of the first tummy shot in your Twitter or Facebook feed, and I didn't want to put you off a meal or anything. So I put in this pair of quiescent kitties. So calming, soothing.

Now to the subject matter at hand.
March 15
An ongoing post starting just after the Talisman 10 mile tri. There was a photo of me being passed by Terry on the run. My gut is way out in front, like below only more so. Sheesh. Time to do something.

I decided to cut down on sweets and taper back on the wine a bit. In discussion Michelle generously offered to support me by giving up gummy bears. Not that her petite geometry needs to lose weight.

The big trauma right from the start was freezing 13 of Linda's wonderful cookies so they don't tempt me day to day. These are not empty calorie cookies. Lots of good stuff in them, but there are choices that are more nutritionally dense.

So, for the next month, what does this look like? Wine, no more than one 5 ounce glass a day, and if I miss a day it doesn't carry over. No cookies, cake, bars or other treat sweets. Dial back on how thick the peanut butter and honey is spread on sandwiches.

Not that the scale number is the ultimate or anything, I weighed myself today, and will do so at the end. It isn't the measure of success, it's just an indicator number. (238.8, if you were wondering) Maybe I'll get a cloth tape and do some strategic measurements. (I didn't.) Or maybe I'll get a duplicate of that shot above, same shorts and jersey, see if it makes a difference. (I sort of did.)

March 17
So far so good. I haven't broken down and defrosted a cookie, or bought one from anywhere. I'm still feeling a bit tired from daylight savings time, at least I hope it's that and not my metabolism shutting down on low fuel.

April 16. So much for a near-daily recounting of the month. You weren't interested in the trivia anyways. You want results. RESULTS!

 I'm feeling great! The running has been going really well, running faster, and generally feeling lighter on my feet. Except for the last couple that happened shortly after tough bike rides, so that sort of understandable. The bike fitness is about where I expected it to be. Swimming sort of comes and goes.

Overall I got through the whole month without any sugar cravings. No cheating on cookies, and not even getting carried away with little balls of energy and recovery goodness. No cakes or treat bars. The closest I came to busting on the wine was one Saturday when I had two (measured) glasses, one 3 oz with lunch to finish a bottle, and a 4 oz with dinner. Lots of days I didn't have any wine at all.

There was one bad day where I'd eaten all the dates I'd brought for snacks, and all my lunch, and right after lunch I realized it was a long stretch to dinner. That wasn't much of a fun afternoon. Fortunately there was no work stupidity, or a bout of hangry might have happened.

I even had coffee at Purple Perk with buddies, and didn't have one of their treats in spite of being seduced by the 3 part butter tart chorus. I was pretty proud of myself after that. (Have you seen their treats? They are awesome!)

What is the future? I will go back to eating cookies and treats of course, but the trick will be cut down on the quantities. There's still lots of tummy that can be trimmed back, and I've got several months before the contemplated marathon. The lighter the better for that. The MEC marathon I've got my eye on is in October. So I've got 7 months to gradually build volume, and trim weight. At the 5 pounds a month rate, I could be down to what I weighed in high school, though I was pretty skinny then. I don't think that's a realistic target, or even a particularly desirable goal. During the IMC expo I got weighed, and they said I was 218 pounds. I'd like to be down around there again, and I think that is reasonable.

Here's the current tummy. It wasn't the best place for a side shot, because there's a really steep hill about 2 steps in every direction sideways and forward, but it was the best we could do post run.

That post run just happened to be 15 K, 1:52, for a 7:27 pace. The idea was to start at the canoe club, run down the canal to 50 Ave, cross over, get on the Bow River path, cross on Ogden Rd, go through the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary, cross the Bow again at Blackfoot, then run up to the pedestrian bridge over Deerfoot and back to the canoe club.

I'd consulted the detour map, which told me about some detours near 50 Ave. The map was wrong. We ended up going lots further south, and then cut off the loop north of Blackfoot. I was feeling really good till the last K or so. I thought we were at 12 K or so, and was surprised to hear the phone say 14 k. Getting back to the car was almost exactly 15 K and we strolled around the parking lot to cool down. It all makes a very nice addition to the pathway map I'm colouring in.

The swim yesterday was ok, and the one on Wed was very clunky. There was a 6 K, 43 min run on Tuesday that felt very heavy and slow. No surprise after a really hard bike ride.

So the month of no cookies, et al was good. The number on the scale was 233.3, so down 5.5 pounds in a month. I think most of it was off my tummy, since the fit of my pants hasn't changed. I'm pretty pleased about that.

The other piece we were talking about on the run. Typically running at a 7:30 per K pace my heart rate was up in the 130's. Today the average was 120 it says, but it took me a minute to remember to turn the Garmin off at the end. But most of the time it was low 120's today. So I'm running further with my legs feeling fine, at a lower heart rate, while maintaining the same pace. I'm pretty pleased about that too.

Spring is full go here. The grass is greening up, the lilies are going gangbusters. Linda has the garden pretty well all cleaned up from winter, and is thinking about annuals, and filling the planters she found. I still need to pressure wash stuff. Later today, if I get at it.

So RtN says to me HTFU

The Calgary cyclists of you already know exactly what happened today, and where.

For the others of you, contemplate this elevation chart.

The gray line is elevation, the orange line is speed. It was an out and back so the first half is a mirror image of the second half. Here's the route. It goes straight south of 22x on 37 St, only the name is changed. It stops at highway 549, the road that connects Millarville to Okotoks.

Cyclists here call it the Road to Nepal. Good pavement, not many cars, and all hills all the time. The level spots are measured in a small number of feet. Train on this and no course that's not actually in the mountains will phase you.

My riding buddy today was Leana, looking strong in her matching outfit. Our bikes are ready to go!

For all the weather predicted 27 C, it was actually pretty cool, maybe about 7 C when we started. There's a reason we both wore arm warmers till part way back. Good thing it wasn't 27, that and a still day runs my core temperature way up as I slowly churn my way up the hills. Leana is training for Ironman Boulder in a few weeks so the plan was to let her do her thing and I'd try to keep up.

Yeah. She pulled away on the uphills enough that I couldn't catch her on the downhills. This is where you learn how well your time on the spin trainer over the winter worked out. The road will tell you. It told me:
HTFU (the first word is harden.)
You are a weenie.
You haven't been training.
I'm being kind to you on your first ride here because there is no wind. You're welcome.
All the weight on your tires is hurting me, lose more weight.
No, the hills aren't steeper, or longer.
You are getting older and slower, while I am the same.

We stopped at the far end for a snack and headed back. Total ride was 51.84 in 2:23. This actually isn't far off early season rides for me, or when it's windy. My best time for this ride is 2 hours even. Everything felt pretty good for this ride.

Leana was fresh as a daisy when we got back, and I joined her for a 30 minute run, 4.11 K with a short walk break in there. My heart rate was steadily climbing. I think she could have run it somewhat faster.  Not me. This ride and run tells me I'm in no shape to be thinking of a half iron this year.

It's always nice doing a bike ride with buddies. This is the first time I've ridden with Leana, other than being in the same race together. I think I pushed a little harder than I might have otherwise, and I certainly would not have run afterward. We did get to chat along the way a bit. This was her first time, and I think she wants to do it again. Another convert!

We had a lovely snack in the back patio, and talked of many things.

Then a bit of yard work for me. Raking the tiny bit of back yard we have knackered me. It's still not 27 C and just as well. We have some flowers blooming! Such a pretty yellow.

The front yard is looking cleaner, lots of green things in the boxes.

I'm not sure what these are.

Some lilies pocking their heads out in the back garden. If I remember them from last year, they were huge.

I think this is a pansy.

BBQ chicken on a bun tonight. Soon. Just saying.