All Downhill From Here

My legs are whiny today. Yesterday was a day off running, but not really a rest day.

I grocery shopped for a couple of hours (two week’s worth of supplies). Didn’t find pumpkins until the 4th store ( Yes, I should have bought earlier…). After unloading groceries I baked bread – more time on my feet. I did sit down long enough to carve a very surprised looking pumpkin. Cooked up food for my helpless family – more standing. Sent Darling Hubby out with the kiddos trick-or-treating and started in on an hour’s worth of dishes – more standing. Finally sat down in between answering the door for adorable little tykes in costumes, and the 9 y.o. Little Mermaid and Daddy are home. The kidlet still has at least an hour’s worth of energy left and it’s only 7 pm; Daddy’s foot is hurting again. So I went out for her second hour, until I was a tired, cold zombie.

The mermaid turned into a raving maniac, MUST GET MORE CANDY!!! We came home shortly after 8 and my Sweetheart had gone through 12 y.o. Jack Sparrow’s candy already. We dumped out the psycho-mermaid’s haul and I was glad my man had rested enough to help her sort through it. We all had a little gorge and then went off to bed. We should have enough munchies until Valentine’s day or maybe Easter, I figure.

Today I will sit at my desk at work 🙂
I will not walk or stand anywhere for anything that can’t wait until tomorrow.

Not only did I multi-task on my run today, I saved $ and was environmentally friendly! I tucked my race registration for the Jingle Bell 10k race into my running pouch and jogged down a big hill to the Super Drug Mart to drop it off. Registering this weekend is important, as the Early Reg runs out tomorrow, upping the reg fee. I will be collecting donations for this race. I’ve never done that before, but one must start somewhere, I suppose.

I had it in mind to run 16k on my long run this weekend, but my feet legs decided that I’d had enough mileage this week and sent me home early, for 12. Fair enough, really. I’m pretty much a 3x per week runner, and this was my fifth time out in seven days.

To keep my mind off of the tired legs and not head STRAIGHT home I dipsy-doodled through crescents and bike paths. I found a playground I didn’t know existed, hiding between back yards in a crescent I’ve run through 10 times, at least. There was hardly any ice left, and a nice chinook wind blowing. It should be so nice when the kids are trick-or-treating tomorrow!

I also counted 7 Canadian flags. I thought of counting pumpkins too late into the run, so didn’t bother. I probably would have lost count, anyway. I think on my next long run through the crescents I’m going to count play grounds.

Some friends and I took another fellow Penguin from out of town for a sunset walk along the reservoir last night. We were out for about 75 minutes and saw huge flocks of Canada geese converging overhead. Hundreds! They flew so low over us we could hear their wings buzzing.

We had thought about showing Bird-Woman the rabbit trail, where we run the roller-coaster-like Weaselhead XC every February, but the trail was too slippery and we hadn’t brought shoes with enough traction. We stuck to the paved path instead. The paved path had ice, too, but it was mostly avoidable.

Ice really isn’t so bad. It doesn’t move, like ‘gators or snakes. I can hop over it or around it. If I really need to go on it, most of the time momentum and a little balance keep me going, provided I’m prepared for it.

I went out for a run under the lunar eclipse last night. It was a nice, clear evening with a gentle breeze and just below freezing. I stuck to a main boulevard where the pavement was free of ice. I ran East a little while longer than I’d planned, as I was feeling great, heading gently downhill, and wanted to look at the moon for just a bit more before turning back. I ended up doing 10 km instead of 7.5, as I’d originally planned.

No negative splits on the run because I had to run back up the darn hill and kept turning around to see the sliver of moon get smaller and smaller. I did my 10k in 1:06 (without a race number on!) and felt just ducky.

I don’t usually run two nights back to back, but a) the eclipse called me out and b) my schedule is looking darn busy today and tomorrow.. I might not be able to get another run in until the weekend. Besides, I only ran 5 km last weekend – I need to make up a little mileage.

Check out our Penguin teams’ results from the Confederation Park Cross Country 2004 . We weren’t totally last after all. We had a lot of fun at the back of the pack. Our teams were Butt the View is Better Back Here, Run Now Talk Later, and Zoom Zoom Zoom. The Mean Streaks had a couple of Penguins running with them, too.

We did one of the usual routes from Gord’s store last night. Nobody new showed up, but 5 of us Penguin regulars and about the same number of Gord’s group ran downhill (wheee!) past the Ukranian church, South over the river on Langevin bridge, and along the river pathway heading West. The long option was to 14th St., but we took the 10th St. bridge back over the river (medium option) and hauled our butts up the curling club stairs to get back up to the store.

It was dark before we even started out, but there was a full moon, and we mostly stayed on lighted, dry pavement. There was considerably less ice than last week, thank goodness, and it was easy to avoid. I think the air was a tad warmer than last week, too, at close to freezing.

We warmed up to quite a blistering pace by 20 minutes, and I realized that I was not going to be able to keep this up for the whole run (about 7km), so we slowed down a bit, and eventually took a walk break. Tri-babe was on a roll, so she kept on going, but Yo-go’s HRM was bleeping at 91% and LL had already slowed to walk a minute before. We caught our breath and resumed running at a more manageable pace, catching up to Tri-babe and her stitch on the way back from 10th St. LL stayed back with her and Yo-go and I carried on at our manageable pace. They caught back up just as we got back to the store.

By about 35 minutes my calves and ham strings reminded me that we’d run hard on Sunday, and shouldn’t we be done by now? I told them to hold on, we’d just go up a few flights of stairs and be almost done 😉

I should count how many flights of stairs there are on the curling club hill some time. It might keep my mind off the loud gasping sound I make while climbing them.

Momentum, right? (It’s been a long time since Physics 10.) Set an object in motion… like Me, for instance. Send me hurtling down a hill and watch me go.

I really don’t mind a couple of extra pounds, since my jeans still fit. I can carry all of my weight way further and faster and for much, much longer, with far less pain or tiredness than I could 5 years ago!

Todays run: At Gord’s Running Store with the group this evening. Don’t know which direction he’ll be sending us, but I’m sure there will be ice and darkness involved. We’ll see if the newbie who contacted me last week shows up.

I picked up the Pink Lady on the way to the Confederation Park 3 x 4k XC relay this morning at 9:30 am. The race wasn’t to start until noon, but we had some work to do before the race. We had both volunteered to make soup, so we delivered it to the kitchen and then went to a fence close to the end of the race course to put up cheering signs for our Penguin runners.

There were quite a few racers there, despite the recent large dumps of snow we’ve received this week. Not a whole lot of kids braved the 1km kid’s race, but my 9 y.o. daughter was amongst them. She’s done this race before, but I tag along on it for moral support and to curb her… exploratory nature (keep her on the path!). She did great, and I warmed up nicely before my race.

Tri-Babe and I were running first legs this year, and we’ve been training together, so we stuck together most of the race. On the uphills about 5 minutes into the course I slowed down a bit, and she chugged up past me. I followed her about 30 m behind until after the last big hill, and caught up to her on the flattish ridge. I say flattish because while we weren’t going up or down, we ran along the side of a hill, making our right feet land higher than our left. Tricky, when you consider we were running in ankle-deep snow.

I left her while I bounded down the last big downhill. Have I ever mentioned I LOVE running down hill? I gave a big, yodelly yahoo and careened downward, boing, boing, boing.

My daughter-dear was waiting for me near the finish and ran in with me. What a great cheering section!

I waited with friends for our other teammates to do their bit. Held a heavy, sleepy baby of one team mate and kept an eye on her other kidlet while she raced. When all the Penguins were in I collected my girl from the nearby toboggan hill and we headed to the hall for soup and sweets. I had my favourite, spicy carrot soup, with a couple of brownies and cookies on the side.

Someone asked me before the race today how long I was expecting to take to run it. I tried to recall how fast I’d done it last year in dry, warmer conditions, added on 3 more minutes to account for the ankle-deep sticky snow at my feet, and estimated 25 minutes. I did it in 25:01. Heck, I should get a prize for that.

Today I will run my 1000th km this year! I don’t know if I’ve ever run 1000km in a year – I wasn’t keeping track until Dawn gave me her Excel spreadsheet thingie last Christmas.

I will run it at the 3 x 4k Grand Prix XC race at Confederation Park today, with lots of buddies to help me celebrate. I technically need 4.5 km to reach 1000km, but will also be doing the 1 km kid’s race with my daughter, so I should reach my milestone (and one of this year’s goals) just before I head into the tunnel under 10th St. on my way back to the finish.

How cool is that?!