Daily Archives: Friday, November 11, 2005

My first 14.4k

I ran to the Bird Sanctuary today and it turned into a 14.4k (8.95 mile) run. This is the farthest I’ve run in one session. The boardwalk had frost on it and was quite slippery in the shade. About 1/3rd of the way out I felt like my right leg was developing a shin splint, but it didn’t get any worse. I ran it off and the pain disappeared in just a few minutes. If the pain had gotten worse I would have slowed down appropriately. I took it easy and got back home in 2 hours. I’ll do that for a couple weeks and see how it feels. But I will take it easy the last week in November and the first week in December so that I stay fit for the 10k race in Calgary Dec 11th. Sort of a taper, almost as if I was taking this … Continue reading

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Northern Flicker

This is a picture of one of our local bird species, a Northern Flicker, Colaptes auratus. This is the yellow shafted variety. I took this picture in our back yard in September. These birds are really cool. They eat anys and they pick up ants and rub themselves with them to clean themselves. Also the formic acid in ants helps to remove parasites. After all the bleak fall pictures I just posted, I had to throw in a little color.

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My Training Areas Part 4

Here are thumbnails of the river trails along the North Saskatchewan River. It was cold the day my wife took these pictures. We walked the trail that day, but it will be a tough cross-country run when it comes to that. There are some really bad patches and lots of hills, one of which you practically have to climb on your hands and knees…

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My Training Areas Part 3

My hill-training hill. Here is one of the roads down into the river valley. The car is our car with me in it, and my wife snapping the photo. I stopped the car at the 200 meter mark which is how far I go before I turn around and come back down. When I ran repeats on this hill, on my last repeat I decided to go all the way to the top, which is another 300 meters farther than the car.

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My Training Areas Part 2

The HWY 60 bridge near Devon. I use this road to bike into town on my cross-training days. It’s a tough hill into town, and just as tough going back. It’s tough in other ways as well, such as the traffic hazard as you cross the bridge across the North Saskatchewan River Valley. This view is looking north towards my acreage which is 5 miles (8k) to the northwest. Truckers use the highway to discard chunks of steel and two by fours onto the shoulder of the highway, especially when they hit the bumps on the bridge deck. Ok, I’m being a little bitter about it. I’m just glad I haven’t been there when the missiles fly off the trucks. I wish they had more consideration.

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My Training Areas Part 1

Here is the boardwalk at the Clifford E. Lee Bird Sanctuary. There are also woodland trails. Great place to run except in the winter when the snow can be piled so high on the boardwalk that it is hard not to slip off.

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It’s a Deer’s Breakfast

These are two of 5 or 6 deer that regularly prune our trees and garden. They are really cute if you like watching them eating the unopened buds off our spring bulbs. Who needs to look at flowers anyway?

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