johnsjar

I can hardly wait for tomorrow, I’m so excited! Why am I excited? Because tomorrow is the one day of the week when I get to run indoors, where I can wear shorts and a T-shirt instead of layers of winter running gear and slogging it through the icy and unforgiving cold, which I do twice a week anyway.

In the winter I like to run indoors once a week but I don’t like treadmills. Our local indoor walking/running track requires 4.4 laps per kilometer, which means 10 km is 44 laps. I like to do 50 laps though which is approximately 11.36 km.

I’ve been doing this every winter for a while now and I’ve discovered that there is no way I can keep count of that many laps. Oh sure, it’s all fun and games for the first few laps, and easy to keep count, but after the oxygen deprivation sets in and your brain starts to wander, it’s too easy to lose track. You begin to wonder if that was lap 27 or 25. No really, you do! The easy solution I found is to carry one of those small stock counters looped around one of my fingers. Every time I run past that water cooler that marks one lap, I just click the button and voila, one lap recorded.

I use the outside track of the three tracks, while slower walkers use the inside ones. There are a lot of seniors, kids, and others who don’t really understand or care about not taking up the whole track as they plod along (in spite of the signs saying not to walk more than two abreast). But I don’t mind since it is easy enough to go around them anyway, and I love the fact that at least they are out there doing something!

And at this time of year, there seems to be a lot of resolution makers who appear, but that crowd gradually thins and disappears as time goes on. You have the regular seniors who come often just to walk, you have mothers with their baby strollers also using the track, and you have athletes (mostly students of high school age) who run very fast for a lap or two, then they run down stairs two flights of stairs and come back up again. There are many types of people using the track many ways. The only thing that sort of bugs me about the track is that they have me always running in an anticlockwise direction. They reverse directions on other days, but it’s Wednesday when I go and I just wish I could run the other direction for a change!

They also have overhead speakers where you can listen to radio music. The track itself is fairly cushy and I always run faster on it than on the road.

I use this indoor running day to do speed work; that is a really quick run at race pace in an effort to beat the 10 km hour mark. I’ve never been able to do it yet, but my best time is 1 hour and 3 minutes and change. Usually I run it around 1:09 or so.

Anyway, the weekly speed run is an integral part of my marathon training which I will run May 2nd. So Sunday is my long run (next one is 14 km), Wednesday is my indoor speed run, and Friday is a 12 km tempo run, not at race pace but just at a comfortable level for me.

Monday is a rest day, so is Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, except that I do cross training on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

The cross training is 2 hours with a short break at the hour mark and is karate which is quite intense if you are a runner because of the amount of leg work involved. Still, I like it for the total mind and body workout which trains you to recruit more muscle and to increase your balance and motor coordination.

I can do intense workouts on treadmills if it involves short distance of less than 5 km (much less, ha ha) and I have the track steeply inclined for a hill type workout. I could like it more if there was someone running with me on a treadmill beside mine, like they have in the fitness centers. That way, old slow me could still run with the faster folk and have a chat at the same time. I think I’d like that.

Finally, the indoor track is an intense and difficult speed workout for me so it is good that I can – in the same building – go for a swim after and a dip in the massaging jets of the hot tubs.

Tomorrow is a good day. I can hardly wait!

Well the first class of 2010 was relatively easy. I don’t think any of us did any karate during the holidays and the Christmas break of almost a month didn’t help. Classes usually end during this time as the schools where we have our dojo are usually booked solid with Christmas activities for the students.

Anyway, I enjoyed the class. We did kata and more basics, and we did a lot of kicks against the mats that were being held up by some of us. I like using mats because we can use full power without hurting anyone. But I like sparring too even though I’m not very good at it because sparring teaches control and awareness that you just can’t get from kata or from hitting a mat. Sparring gives you a real opponent who almost never reacts in a textbook manner. It’s the closest thing to real street fighting we get in the dojo. Of course, a real fight is over in less than 30 seconds anyway. None of this dancing around stuff, or fancy moves like you see in the movies.

Fortunately, I plan to never get into a real fighting situation.

I’ve decided to stay at my level this year and not grade until next year. Unless things change drastically. I really want to focus on my basics and learn them well before I even think about grading to brown. Blue suits me nicely for the foreseeable future.

Today’s run was a good one. The weather was partly overcast and a lot warmer at -16 or so, so I was quite warm. I began the run a bit on the slow side, but achieved a negative split, averaging a 7:30 pace over 13 kilometers. I quite happy about this run to mark the beginning of my marathon training program. I just hope this time I can avoid injury.

I’m also glad the holidays are over and that Karate is starting up again this Tuesday. I’m looking forward to that. Speaking of which, I should go now and go through a few kata.

Fours layers of shirts…check…two layers of pants…check…hat…check…mittens…check…yaktrax…check…pepper spray…check…portable hot pack…check…socks…check…shoes…check…water…check…iPhone and Runkeeper program…check

Will to live…check

Feeling sorry for myself… check

All systems go! See you all in about an hour and a quarter after my 11 km run which will be partly through knee deep snow since I’ve decided to take to the trails even if I have to walk/slog through them just because I’m an idiot. The trail portion is only 2.5 km anyway.

OK so that was a mistake. Stay away from the trails. Far far away. That is, if you want to run them. I think I’ll be avoiding them until spring, for running purposes anyway. My Powerade became a frozen slushy mess in no time so I didn’t have much of it. The new interface on the Runkeeper program is OK but the audio feedback is…slower…than…snails… I used to be able to get a status update in less than 5 seconds, now it’s like…Distance———7———————-point—————-0——————–1———————————————-kilometers. -long pause- *yawn* average———————pace———————————6—————————————minutes——————————————forty———————————–three—————————————–seconds————————–per….

You get the idea. I’m damn near at the next kilometer before it’s finished. I don’t know what they did to screw that up, it was working fine before. The actual distance is still quite inaccurate. Today’s distance shows 10.7 kilometers, but I know the real distance is 11.15 kilometers. Still, it’s a fun app and I like it well enough to keep it.

Anyway, today’s run was anything but enjoyable. In fact, I didn’t like it at all. Too cold, too many clothes, too much icy wind. But, you can’t expect to love every run so I guess I’ll just suck it up and try to look forward to Sunday’s 13 km run in even colder weather. But at least I won’t be on the trails.

So far this year I haven’t done a bloody thing. Except drink coffee. And I’ve run a total of 0 km. Talk about lazy. Well, today I have to start running again, especially since my marathon training is supposed to start Sunday. Currently it is a lazy -19 degrees C and it is supposed to be a high of -13. It’s 11:17 AM and I should be out of here around 12:00 or 12:30 PM for an 11 km run. Oh No! It seems like there is currently a 26 kph wind which puts the wind chill at -31.

I hate running outside in this kind of weather. Well, like the famous Calvin and Hobbes cartoon says, let’s all go do something we hate. It builds character.

I rested as much as possible over the last month or so, but the holiday is over and now it’s time to get down to the business of serious training. Starting next Sunday January 3rd, 2010, I’ll be doing my first long run of my leisurely 18 week training period before the marathon. That training program starts out with a 13 km long run, maxing out at 32 km before tapering. Today I went out late, but got back just before dark. I was in Edmonton picking up a gas clothes dryer and didn’t get to run until I got back. I only ran 5 km but at least I got out there.

The gas dryer replaces a burnt out electric one that we’ve had for more than 20 years. Thanks, Dave Lockwood for that dryer you gave me then. Believe me, I’ll need the new gas dryer. When you run outside in the winter you create a washer load from the wet clothes you use in just one single run so it really piles up fast. We’ve been managing without a dryer for a month by hanging clothes up wherever there was a spare doorknob but that just won’t cut it for winter running. My clothes have to be clean and dry before my next run.

With the help of my friends, I have a campground already booked in Humboldt Redwoods State Park for the Avenue of the Giants marathon. All I have to do now is…run.

After tossing the bones, stirring some fresh chicken entrails with a stick, and dancing in questionable attire outside in the moonlight, my seers have finally shown me my marathon training schedule! I don’t have to start last week after all. I start tomorrow.

Sunday, May 2nd I will be running the Avenue of the Giants. Here’s hoping this old man can finish the distance amongst the old trees.