January 14-20

Monday (13km)
Easy run with Chris for 56 minutes around his neighbourhood. I had to dash downtown for a dinner, so we cut it a bit short.

Tuesday
Off. Was planning to run with Chris, but I realized that I had taken the wrong pair of shorts to school. Played some extra games of cards instead.

Wednesday (Workout - 18km total)
A good workout with Steve's group. It was cold, but toughed it out. I did a relay with Chris, where Chris ran a loop (about 1km), then I joined him for his second loop, and he rested when I ran my second loop. In a 3-loop segment, then, we both did two loops continuously. Together we did 5x2 loops. My first loop was always 3-5 seconds faster than my second - not only did I have Chris to push me, I was not tired when I started the first loop. The loop was hilly and not exactly 1km so times do not mean a lot on their own, but I was 7:20-7:23 for each repeat of two loops.

Thursday (15km)
63 minutes with Chris. Good run up around Alan's neighbourhood. Sure was cold, though. I was wearing several layers of clothes. I did weights afterwards, with a short warmup and cooldown on the 'elliptical'.

Friday (cross trained)
It was dark and cold and I did not want to run on my own. I decided to go to the gym and cross-train instead. I hopped on what I call the elliptical, though I know it is actually called something else. I will try to figure out what it is called by the time I write my blog for next week. I set it to 5% incline, 23 resistance, and consistently hit 176 strides/minute for an hour. Perhaps a little hard the day before a time trial. Effort-wise, this was probably worth 15km of running.

Saturday (Workout - 13km total)
Frickin' cold. I had trouble finding all my winter running gear and showed up late to the practice. I did a truncated warmup and then the time-trial. My effort level was high throughout, but my time was not spectacular because of the cold weather and short warmup. I am pleased with the effort I put in, though.

Sunday (14km)
I had been complaining about the cold all week, but this was the worst day of all. I had three layers on top, and three from the waist to the knees, plus a neckwarmer and a toque. I was warm enough, but I did not want to go any farther. The extra clothes restricted my range of motion a little more than I liked. It was windy, but as some minor highlights, I saw several common mergansers and some common goldeneyes. In the afternoon I went to the gym and did another 25 minutes on the 'elliptical'.

Total - only 73km running, but elliptical work that would put me up around 90km for the week.