March 17-23

Monday (13km)
55 minutes with Chris. I had planned to meet him at 4:30 and run with him and Nathan, but Nathan did not show up. It turned out that the two of them had different ideas of what meeting at an office meant. My groin felt fine throughout the day (possibly related to the Tylenol I took in the morning) but by the time we ran it was not happy again. I really hope it clears up by my race on Friday.

Tuesday (13km)
Another short one. 56 minutes total, 54 of that was with at least one other person from the cross country team. It was a wet day. We went east to Adelaide, then back on Windermere. The highlight of the run for me was witnessing a collision. A van had stopped to let some jaywalkers through. The jeep behind had plenty of time to react, but did not in time, and hit the van. Our group stopped about twenty metres away to see if something would happen. The driver of the jeep then hopped out and started yelling at the jaywalkers "What are you going to do about it? Are you just going to walk away?" The jeep's driver was dressed in baggy pants, a flannel coat and a bandanna. He was not going to get much sympathy from the police. Good relaxing pace. I noticed my groin bothering me, but the slower pace helped.

Wednesday (workout - 14km)
I was worried about what Steve would throw at us two days before our 5k, but this seemed perfect. My legs were feeling dead on the warmup, but I shook that off once the workout began. We did 3x1km with three minutes rest, with the first two kms aiming for goal race pace (3:14-3:17 for me), and the last km at a faster pace. I went 3:09 (too fast), 3:14 (perfect), 3:02 (good). The course was re-measured tonight to give us an accurate km, so the first person to finish the third loop was going to set the new course record. I sprinted past Chris in the final 15m to make sure I took the record. It will be broken the next time we do that loop. We then did 6x200m downhill, and jogged back up. I just cruised it, worried about doing something stupid just before a race. It felt good. It is nice to have a confidence-builder leading into the race.

Thursday (10km)
A light run the night before my race. Steve had me down for 60 minutes, but I cut it back to 43. My legs felt dull and tired. There was a stiff wind in places. Feeling a little less optimistic about tomorrow.


Friday (5km race (16:36); 17km total)
I did not sleep well last night and felt sleepy tired this morning. I jogged down to the start line to save time. I felt nice and warmed up by the time the race started. I wore half-tights with a t-shirt and long-sleeve shirt underneath. Ben Perks and I worked together - we were not side-by-side, but we were within three metres until there were about 800m to go. We hit our first two splits beautifully: 3:16/3:17 and were moving our way up through the field. Our third kilometre was slow, according to Ben - about 3:23. We were still moving up on everyone, so everyone around us had slowed down. Ben got on my shoulder with a mile to go and was able to move ahead when I had to swerve to get around some walkers. I thought we might catch Dennis and an unidentified guy in front of us, but they maintained their gap. Ben pulled away a bit with 600 to go, but he let up too much heading into the line, and I made up about 8m in the last 50m of the race to just nip him at the line. I was 6th overall. I'm satisfied with the race. I thought 16:25 was about the fastest I could hope for today, and if not for a slow kilometre, I would have been right there. It felt easy - like my 5k at Around the Bay last year. I should have aimed for a faster time - around 16:15, maybe. Did a long cooldown and took advantage of the free massage afterwards.

Saturday (13km)
53 minutes. I ran quickly to get to Bob's office in time to meet Nathan and Chris. It was a bit cold for shorts, but that's what I wore. Saw a couple of deer only a few metres away in the subdivision by Perrin Park, otherwise the run had no highlights. My legs were feeling sore from the race yesterday, but the groin felt fine.

Sunday (workout - 18km)
This was a really good finish to the week. I woke up earlier than I needed to, but still managed to show up to the workout late. I was scheduled for 14km at Denfield, aiming for 3:45/km. I started with Chris, Dennis and Rob Watson. We hit the first four kilometres without any problem before we turned into the headwind. The next five-plus kilometres was hard. I had to really work to maintain the pace. Once we turned south on High Park, I could relax and started to hit the pace again. With the wind at our back on Sunningdale, Chris put a few steps on me, but when I handed off my fleece top at 12k, I immediately felt quicker and decided to do more. I made it to 16k before stopping. 59:20 for me, so faster than goal pace overall. I did a short warmup and cooldown to take it to 18k for the day.

Total - 98km. My best week in a while. Each of my hard days went well, and by Sunday my groin was giving me virtually no problems. I had taken the week off from weights, which probably sped my recovery.