The running followup

Yesterday me and the best running buddy ever dared I mean encouraged each other to run outside. We've often run in the cold before, but this year it's got really cold, really quick. Why, just on Thursday I was running in shorts and a tech shirt. Indoors, of course, but it wasn't that long ago that shorts and tech shirt were fine for outdoors. Sometimes the temperature swings are tough to deal with. It's easier if it gradually gets colder and colder. You can experiment with layers. You can re-remember which pair of tights chafe if you don't wear another layer under them. Just saying.

Here I am getting ready. Lots of layers to go yet.

We were out for a lovely 6 K run down in Fish Creek, a bit slower than usual. We blamed all the extra layers. My run buddy was coming from an event where she had happened to be wearing makeup, and was so eager to be running she didn't wash it off. Her husband nearly giggled himself to death looking at this photo.

I promised tusks, and I half delivered. Sometimes I get one, sometimes two, and on one memorable occasion I had three, but the scarf was intimately involved there.

The running has been going pretty good lately. I took a bit of a break from it after overdoing it in August/early September, and I'm just getting back to consistent running again. I'd like to settle in at two 5 K runs a week, with ~10 K on the weekend, and do that for a while. I was looking over my summer run stats, and that 80 to 100 K per month distance seemed to be a happy place for me. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to make the 1000 K mark this year, but then, I hadn't planned to.

The swim has been a bit on and off as I tweak my stroke. I was doing really well, then the last several swims my shoulders and nearby muscles have been a bit cranky. Today was good, 1K long course 19:30, then 10x 100 various, and feeling pretty good after. The after swim was pretty darned good too, what with a certain water polo team showing up to practice.

The bike has been

It's still really cold here, and will be for a while yet. Maybe tougher photographers than me stand around waiting for the light to be right,  but typically not me. Not when it's this cold. Still, I saw this one coming and missed the really good light by THAT much.

Hashtag notaweenie

So this.

Plus

Plus.

Equals.

or

I love running with Michelle. She has a rock steady pace, and except for me going up the hills, it was all chatchatchat pace. We both nailed the layering. No SUAR ass-icles were formed in the making of this run, though I'm glad we weren't out in the wind any longer.

We didn't stop  for any other photos because we were afraid our phones would freeze (It's happened to both of us before)  but the Weasel Head is beautiful with snow and hoar frost on all the branches. We were alone for almost the entire run, which is unusual. This is a very popular place to run and bike, but I guess not at -16 C (4F).  The footing was very good, about half of it plowed, with a light layer of packed snow. The rest, down the hill and up the other side, had two packed paths so we could run side by side. Did I mention the chat part?

I'd mentally tagged 4 K as the turnaround point, and knew we were coming up on it at the bottom of the north hill. Michelle totally channeled Katie and said if we start up the hill, we go ALL the way up. So we did, imagining the police band piping us up.

Tusk season once again

It starts like this.

That's what it was like after the run. It had warmed up slightly.

That leads almost inevitably to this, the first tusks of the year. Still small because it wasn't really that cold out and it wasn't that long of a run. 6K or so, 53 minutes, nice and easy, being careful on slightly treacherous footing. Maybe an inch of loose snow in places, with a bit of slippery hardpack underneath.

As a reward for suffering through 2 pics of me, you get a good one.

RunKeeper compared to Runmeter

Still no buzz. Maybe later today or tomorrow.

Friday swim was about 1.8 K much earlier than usual. I couldn't believe it. There were 4 floaties in 4 50 m lanes, taking up the whole thing. The one lady got snippy with me when I hopped in and suggested we swim up the rope and down the middle. She had been wobbling along the centre lane marking, trying to take up as much space as possible, and flounced off to another lane when I started anyways. I was wishing the Swim Nazi would show up and set these people straight. I've never had a good swimmer be anything but cooperative about sharing a lane.

Later on 2 guys joined me. They noted I was the only person in the whole pool circle swimming correctly, and didn't want to fuss. We all had a good time and no problem sharing the lane.

Friday night I was down for 45 minutes of easy spin, just hard enough to get a bit of a sweat on, then stretched with some core after. Look very carefully at this photo. There is cat supervision happening. Look just under the jump rope hanging from the ceiling.

Saturday is my 13 K long slow run of the week. I've had Runmeter for a while, and mostly it's been pretty good for me. More options than I'll ever use. But recently it's been really pissy about measuring the distances accurately, and I've never believed the elevations.

My buddy Michelle put the details of one shared run on RunKeeper. To get at it I had to create an account, and later I downloaded the app to see how it compare to what I've got. So here's some screen shots.

Here's the overall view for Runmeter, and a close up of the graph and splits. You have to email the link from your phone to the main computer if you want anything to be a reasonable size, and there's times it's been pissy about that too.

Here's RunKeeper

I certainly prefer the RunKeeper map. The Runmeter one is more oriented to east west runs, and guess what, most of mine are north south, like this one. Yes, you can blow up the Runmeter one, but it's just more playing to get a screen shot.

The elevation on Runmeter seems to have behaved itself this time, and for this length of run the level of detail is about right. The RunKeeper elevation and pace aren't nearly as good and I can't seem to find a way to embiggen them. Runmeter gives a bit more information about the times, showing the actual time for each K, along with an average and fastest pace, which is sometimes nice to know.

In this case, the two apps agreed with each other quite closely. Both give verbal output. One is set for every K, and the other appears to be set for every 5 minutes. However I couldn't really hear them. They were in an inside pocket, and I had a hat on with the hood up. It was pretty cool, maybe -15 C with a bit of a wind. There were minor tusks. I'm not sure why the bigger tusk is on the left side. Maybe the wind has something to do with it.

Sometimes cats stretch themselves out in odd ways. Check how well Curtis blends into the floor, and how he's stretching his back legs. I didn't think cat legs really bent that way. Maybe he was hinting to me I should be stretching more. 

Overall the run went well. I brought along some cookies. It's interesting to nibble frozen cookies while trying not to inhale cookie crumbs. I'm really pleased with how steady my pace was. I just ran nice and easy. The one fast bit was crossing Anderson before the light changed. My feet felt a bit heavy and clumpy throughout, and there were a few minor complaints from my calf, but nothing serious. Overall a really nice run. Hardly anyone out on the path at all.

I'm well into The Silent Wife. The writing is well enough, but it's all exposition. The author is telling us what the characters are doing and thinking. So far, the characters have barely spoken to one another.

Best tusks this winter!

Once again some of my nearly perfect blood was drained off on Thursday. Maybe that's why the evening spin was so inept.

Friday was a rest day, though I did a bit of stretching. As I was taking the train home, they were announcing a delay in service to the north west line. A guy ended up under an LRT car at the Sunnyside station. Maybe I'm wronging him and he had a heart attack and fell off the platform at just the wrong time.

But other than that, it's his fault, and it cost the city millions. LRT repairs are expensive, plus the alterations to the transit schedules, all the emergency services people, and tens of thousands of people more than a little inconvenienced. It's not like the LRT goes skulking down the sidewalks looking to run over the unwary.

No. Most of the track is fenced. Where pedestrians cross the tracks there are lights, loud bells, and often gates. The drivers watch for wayward pedestrians, and warn them with a variety of noises, some quite loud. And still we end up with people and cars striking the train. Sigh. The city should send him a bill.

Saturday I was up early to run with Michelle down in Fish Creek. The plan called for 10 K, but my phone froze up so I didn't know when to turn around. Nice and easy. The big part of the day was the tusks! Here they are for your viewing pleasure. This is in the car after.

Here's the obligatory shared selfie. It was a beautiful clear morning and we needed the sunglasses. There were lots of other runners out, some of whom I think are part of the Facebook running group I belong to. Any of you recognize us?

After the run I was doing some work on the computer, and I kept hearing this odd sound. I thought it was something in the music that was playing. It turns out that the plastic water bottle on one of the shelves started leaking. The plastic was brittle and cracked, just sitting there, nobody touching it. I'd never realized such a thing could happen.

All the water had to go somewhere, and that was into the landline phone. It was totally soaked. We tried drying it out, but to no avail. It's not like it owes us anything, it's probably 20 years old. Yes, we still have a land line. It's worth the $24 a month or so to have a phone number to give to people we don't want to talk to.

We never answer that phone, unless someone has arranged to call us, or they talk to the answering machine and we want to talk to them. It simplifies our lives enormously to not give up something we were doing to deal with someone trying to sell us something, or ask our opinions.

So, in summary, here's how to get hold of me, should you want to:

• Call the phone number that's been in the book for more than 30 years now. Let it ring twice, talk to the machine. If I'm there I'll pick up. I won't run for it.
• Call my cell. If I don't answer you probably don't want me to. Get me during a workout and you'll get lots of heavy breathing. Some of you might enjoy that.
• Text the cell number.
• Tweet me, I'm enjoying Twitter these days. Feel free to follow me, and get notified when I blog.
• Facebook message or post. I'm not enjoying Facebook so much these days, but I haven't abandoned it yet.
• Regular email. I've got a half dozen or so email accounts, it can't be that difficult to find one. Why, one of them is listed in this very blog!
• I have a LinkedIn profile, and I'll link up to anyone that I've dealt with professionally. There's mail through that as well.
• I just signed up for Runkeeper. There is a friends thingie there too.

I hadn't realized that corded phones are going the way of the dodo. There were only a couple choices at the store, mostly it's cordless, which I don't like. The phone is light and flimsy and cheap. I have no real hope of it lasting 20 years, but we'll see. Maybe it won't need to. Maybe Harper will kill home telephone lines like he killed home postal delivery. (You don't really believe the nominal head of the postal service would do something so drastic without being told to do so by the ultimate control freak, do you?)

In a curmudgeonly comment, I remember when phones were sturdy. You could use them as tools for repressing teenagers and barnyard animals. Not anymore. I think my iPhone weighs more than this desk phone, and there's certainly more metal in the cell phone.

I've had some really good comments on my novel, and I've been working on the fallout. Can't wait to see what people say as they get deeper into it, and stuff happens. Poor Curtis. He's still adjusting. Look.