November 3-9

Again, I let my updates slide for a while. My workouts were not great, and my races reflected that. I am now running in the post-Chris era, so most of my easy runs are on my own. I need to get back into a habit of updating my blog to keep my training honest.

Monday - 70 minutes (16km)
Pretty decent run on my own. It was dark by the time I started. I went south through Gibbons, took the bike path on the west branch of the Thames, and got onto Springbank, up to Wonderland, back on Oxford and Western Road. Felt good. It was nice to be able to wear shorts to run.

Tuesday - 60 minutes (14km)
An hour on my own. My legs did not feel as good today. They were a little less fresh. I went up to Alan's subdivision and did some loops up around that way. Another nice day. I did weights and core in the morning.

Wednesday - workout (20km total)
Tough workout today with plenty of hills. Jeff was with me on most of the pieces, and Max ran really well to stick with us for the second set. I did a double-loop of a hilly course, some hills (at a more relaxed pace), a double-loop, more hills, a double-loop, and a single-loop. I had Jeff to work with for the first two double-loops and the first loop of the third double-loop, but then I was on my own. The second lap of the third repeat was a bit slower, but still a good effort, and I came back well with the final single-looper. I worked hard on this one.

Thursday - 60 minutes (14km)
An easy run on my own. I ran from school to my apartment so that I could pick up my car and make it back to campus for my frisbee team's party, then off to bowling. I saw Greg Wieczorek as I was just finishing up, so I stopped to talk to him for a few minutes. A bit chilly tonight.

Friday - OFF
It was a scheduled rest day. I went to the gym and did core and weights, with ten minutes on the arc trainer (what I used to call the elliptical).

Saturday - 66 minutes (15km)
I slept late and missed the group workout. I ran on my own instead, hoping to get in a substitute for a long run, but I ran out of time to go for as long as I would have liked. It was a cool day. I went down to Springbank, and was planning to loop around for another fifteen minutes in my neighbourhood, but I ran out of time.

Sunday - workout (19km total)
I thought I would try to do the race simulation, but with the moist ground I sensed I would get really discouraged by my splits when running on my own, so I did a fartlek pyramid instead. 5-4-3-2-1-2-3-4-5 minutes hard, with one minute easy between each. It was a good solid effort, but the last two repeats had a couple of slow strides by the end. I did a 25 minute warmup and a 21 minute cooldown. It took a lot out of me.

Total - 98km. Close to three digits. If I included about 4k worth of work on the elliptical, I could call it 102k for the week.