Monthly Archives: April 2007

Today’s run was supposed to be my weekly 17 km long run. But I am still pretty sore from trail running so I decided to cut back a bit. I had only planned to do 11 km but I met MM on the way back who was going by another route so I added 3 km to my run. The weather was windy and cold with a spattering of rain every now and then. Lots of people are checking out the bird sanctuary now that the weather is better and of course, it is the weekend as well. Tuesday I will probably be checking out Chickakoo’s race route.

…but it sure took me long enough. Running on asphalt is way more stressful on your bones and muscles than running on soft trail dirt. It’s good for building up your tolerance and endurance for long distance running, as long as you don’t over do it by increasing your distance or decreasing your time per unit distance too fast. I’ve been running all winter on asphalt. The roads I run on have absolutely no hills. Now that I can run on trails again, I am re-discovering an interesting fact. Hills hurt a lot. Even small ones like the ones I am now tackling. Also the trail surface is not flat and smooth like the roads. Even on a seemingly flat woodland path, your ankles and muscles you don’t normally use running on roads are working very hard adjusting to balancing on small irregularities. Even tiny elevation differences of 1/2 inch … Continue reading →

…or so I discovered in last Sunday’s 17 km trail run. I think they were pretty uncomfortable compared to my Saucony’s or my Mizuno’s. They are/were still useable, but why bother when I can run in better shoes? So in today’s 11 km trail run I wore my regular Saucony running shoes which I find perfectly adequate for trails. I guess I will be using the New Balance trail runners just for walking and everyday stuff. By the way a new Running Room location opened up in Riverbend here in Edmonton and I could not resist the opening specials. I bought TWO pair of Mizuno Waverider 9′s. I just love those shoes, now I have two for the price of one! Of course they will sit in the closet until I wear out my Saucony’s which will be after I have about 800 km on them. So far I have … Continue reading →

Here is an update on what’s happening with me. I am still very busy at home and at work. I have to resort to speed reading the posts on the running forum. So keep running everyone and have a great summer! Last week I ran 56 km. This week I run 30.5 because it is a rest week. It also happens to be the last week of my training schedule. This is the point where I should be beginning my marathon training plan. Since I am not doing a marathon 19 weeks from now, I have to do much less than a marathon requires. I plan on doing some sort of maintenance schedule where I run 3 or 4 times a week (33 or 44 km) plus one 16 km long run for a total of between 49 and 60 km per week. I will be biking alternate days. I … Continue reading →