All Downhill From Here

No no, not for me, but for my Winter Olympian Duff. Apparently the Luftansa airline lost his and his team mate Paul Boehm’s sled runners about a month ago. These runner things apparently can take months to break in, so Duff and Paul are working on, um, regaining their edge.

Wow, this is just like when my friend Ellie had to break in new shoes real quick, before her Ironman race. Only maybe a little more pressure…

Hmmm, maybe we should be generous and give some of our competitors new runners, too? So they don’t feel left out?

Oh, if you’re wanting to receive instant news items regarding the February Challenge athlete you’ve chosen (you’ve chosen one, haven’t you?), a News Alert site like this Google one will send you relevant info as it becomes available.

This is a tough one! I’m having a hard time choosing just one Winter Olympics Athlete to follow for my challenge. I’ll inevitably be watching as many of them as I can, but to choose just one to shadow? Tough.

I’m looking forward to seeing our Canadian speedskaters totally rule the track this time. Since I often do my track workouts around the very ice on which they train, I feel a special bond there, but they’re not who I’m going to shadow for my February Challenge.

I’m also inspired by Cross Country Skiers and Biathlon competitors, especially since these two come from Alberta, but they’re not my choice, either.

In view of my blog name, I decided I need to follow sport that involves a slope. Downhill skiing sounded good, but then I started looking through some other options, and though this sport scares me silly, I’m going to shadow a Skeleton athlete, Duff Gibson. Here’s a man who’s not just brave in his sport, but he’s also a firefighter (Dawn will like that), plays guitar in a band, and he’s even my age.

I’m impressed with the whole Skeleton team – who wouldn’t be awed by people who launch themselves head first on a little piece of slippery, light material down a steep, twisty track of ice! Whoa, I wonder what his life insurance guy thinks of that.

I thought I had a photo of Duff by his fire truck, but I’ve lost it now. I’ll keep looking…

I ran a ladder-type speed workout at the Olympic Oval track last night. Dawn couldn’t be there, as she had some volunteer work to do for the Calgary Marathon, so she got in her own speedwork earlier in the evening. I’ll get to see her on Saturday, for the Nose Hill XC.

After a 4 lap warm-up Coach Derek assigned the distances for repeats:
A: 800m, 1000m, 12000m, 1200m, 1000m, 800m
or B: 600,800,1000,1000, 800, 600m.
The group laughed when I asked if there was a C (aka Penguin) option, but Derek kindly kept a straight face and suggested maybe a 500, 600, 800 ladder. We were to strive to keep our effort to Zone 5, which in terms of my effort scale comes out as “Not just not-talking. This is beyond not-talking”.

I was feeling brave, so opted with Sylvie to do Option B. She and I showed a couple of newbies where the markers were and showed them our idea of Zone 5 speed for those distances, and then the newest, youngest one (“I’m not a runner, I just play volley ball and need to improve my endurance”) cheerily proceeded to kick our butts. Miss Volleyball, you see, had a practice at 8:30, and at the rate we were going, she’d be late 🙂

Now I know why I never do the whole Option B workout – it took me over an hour and a half in total, including the warm-up, instruction, speed-work and cool-down to get it done. Usually I do a few repeats, look at the clock, and start the cool-down 45 minutes into the run, whether I’m done or not. No one is paying me to do this. No one is grading me on it. Whether I do it or not is purely up to my own determination. Last night I felt great, and had absolutely no excuse to reign myself in early, so I did it ALL.

At one point I discovered a drawback to instructing a newbie in the art of speed repeats. Tanya, a veteran of an Ultra last summer, is fairly new to this kind of training, so in between the distances I explained to her how we’re supposed to try to maintain a constant, challenging speed for each distance, with as little surging as possible. Tanya and I ran every repeat lap for lap together. In the last rung of the ladder, the second 600m, she busted me for speeding up over the last 200m. I just wanted to get it DONE!

Not that I hate repeats like some runners do (yet). Sometimes during these I just feel like if I don’t run faster, I’m going to just stop or fall over. Do you ever get that feeling?

I was pretty wiped by the time I got home, and very, very grateful to Band Boy, who made brownies while I was out. I snacked, had a bath, and was too tired to even read e-mail before hitting the sack. I attributed my grumpier-than-usual feelings this morning to fatigue from the work-out, but I’m glad I gave it the extra effort last night.

I did it. I ran on a Monday night! It took some serious packing of my schedule, but I finally managed to get in a run on a night when I don’t usually run. I’m a pretty regular Tuesday/Thursday/Weekend runner, but adding in an extra run during the week has been quite difficult.

Yesterday I got home from work at barely before 4, to catch the Little Runner off her bus. I immediately started making 4 loaves of bread, which I didn’t get to making on the weekend. Shortly after setting the bread to rise, Band Boy called from detention and I had to load Little Runner into the car and go pick him up. I was not impressed – guess who’s privileges just got cut shorter over the next couple of weeks? After we’ve just had a week-long, report-card driven lecture about handing in assignments?

5:25 we get home and both kiddos help make a quick supper of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. We managed to eat by 6, and I punched down the bread and answer the phone before taking Little Runner to girls club by 6:30. I hurried home, changed into running clothes, checked on the boy finishing his big assignment on my computer, and actually headed out for a run. On a Monday!

Once I took a few minutes to plan my route, I looked up at Orion and the Big Dipper and grinned. The roads were dry, there was no wind, and I was out there! I managed a couple of hills and 40 minutes of steady, gentle running before returning home.

After I got home I popped over to the store for milk and apples, frowned in the soup isle when I realized they’re not going to re-stock the bullion cubes I use all the time, that I’ve run out of, and then carried on to pick up Little Runner from girls club. Came home, started the washing machine, tucked in a kiddo, and folded other laundry on the couch while not really watching CSI Miami (The Flames game wasn’t aired on my channels Did we lose again?.)

And I get to run AGAIN, tonight! 🙂

Last Sunday the inlaws, kiddos and I took off to the mountains for a hike over the snow. We had to go quite a ways into the mountains to find enough snow! We usually go to Sawmill Creek in the Kananaskis, but as we could still see the tops of wild grass there, we drove 20 minutes further in, to the Chester Lake parking lot.

As usual, we geared up the youngest first and let her traipse around while the rest of us got ready. It was a nice day, hovering around freezing and cloudy, but not windy. Little Runner can never understand why it takes us so long to get going.

We hiked out and slightly up for about an hour, careful to stay beside and not on the ski tracks. We found a fallen log to sit upon, and lunched on koubasa, french bread and cheddar. Our lunch spot had great entertainment value, as it was on a slope, and occasionally we’d see cross-country skiers zooming down. No wipeouts, but let’s just say that some skiers were not as competent or confident as others.

We made it back to the van by around 3 pm and headed back home. While driving out of the park we met up with some big horned sheep along the road. There was an adorable family of 3 – male, female and baby whom I missed with my camera, as they were on the wrong side of the vehicle. Dad slowed down for me to get a shot of this one through the window shortly after that. I could have opened the door for a better picture, but he looked a little confrontational, and close.

I’m looking forward to getting out for another snowshoe day or two later this month. Hopefully there will be more snow.