September 1-7

Monday (14km)
Just over 58 minutes with Chris. We went from my apartment through Springbank. His legs were tired, and mine felt as though they had not yet woken up. It was not a great run. Stopped a few times for water - it was humid.

Tuesday (14km)
I got up quite early to use the gym before catching a train to Brockville. I fit in a 64 minute run (not very fast) earlier than usual for me so that we could eat an early dinner. It was hot and humid yet again. My left calf bothered me during the run, so I took it easy. Had a few hills in the run.

Wednesday (14km)
A scheduled workout day, but when I woke up my calf was still bothering me. I decided to do an easy run of 61 minutes rather than risk aggravating my leg further.

Thursday (14km)
58 minutes with Chris on the Brescia trails. My legs felt pretty weary, but I got through it. Did weights and core afterwards.

Friday (OFF)
I took the day off from running entirely. My body felt quite tired today and felt as though I could use a rest.

Saturday (about 8km)
I ran to Gibbons Park and back, and around the park to watch the UWO cross country team's intrasquad race. How I miss it... There was some good running, though as races go there was not much to it. Ryan Armstrong looked like he really wanted to win, and Kyle and Alex both wanted to beat him, but they seemed to realize that they could only in the last mile. It is nice to see how the team will be made up this year.

Sunday (race - 26km total)
A nice half marathon with short warmup and cooldown. It rained the entire race, and for a while afterwards. Steve suggested that Nathan and I do it as a tempo effort, but Nathan went with the leaders from the gun, with me sitting about 15 seconds back at 1km. Greg Wieczorek and a new guy - Graeme Saunders - were with me at that point, but Greg did not like the pace and picked it up at this point. Graeme and I made chitchat for the first 8km, with him running well beside me. We averaged 3:46/km for the first 10km. At 8k, Graeme told me to take off if I wanted to, but I told him that I wanted to stick to that pace for the next 5km, then make a move with 8k to go. He said that sounded good. We were sitting in 9th place at 13k, with Greg and Rod Henning about a hundred metres up, and Tim Wood another 200m on that. It took me about 3km to catch Greg and Rod, and I did not catch Tim for another 3.6km, but I got him. Heading up the hill in the last 1.2k, I realized that I had a chance to catch Michael Chapman as well. I passed him with 600m to go, and kicked in the final 300. Official time of 1:18:00. Not a stellar time, but a great way to run the race. I finished 5th and was happy about that. I do not think the weather affected me all that much. I was aiming for 3:45kms, and I was 1s/km slower than that. If it was not raining it would have been hot, and that would have brought new problems.

Total - 90km, with about 4k extra of elliptical effort. A good week.