Ugh, swollen ankle.

I believe the snow covered mountain top is Little White Mountain, as seen from Okanagan Mountain Park.

In January I ran 22 times, and biked 6 times for a total of 228 km running and 45 km biking. I did lots of short runs, but had time to get in some nice long runs. Spent a few afternoons in Myra Bellevue Park running scared as I follow cougar tracks.

But it turns out there are just as many cougars around in Okanagan Mountain Park. I ran to the top of Okanagan Mountain Park for the first time, went all the way up to Divide Lake. I had always thought it would take longer, I'll probably start running it more often once the snow goes away. The climb up the main trail is 10 km long, with an elevation gain of 1200 metres.

Once you get to the top of the mountain you are greeted with a view of Penticton. Absolutely wonderful.

On top of the trail sign near Divide Lake.

After jumping off the sign, I thought I would get a wicked sweet fall into a 3 ft deep snow... apparently the snow was super hard packed.... it hurt.

I was pretty excited for the amount I ran this month, I had wanted to run more total miles, while doing shorter long runs which I did. And injury free too, everything had felt great.

Until I walked home from the pub last night, and woke up with my left ankle swollen and hurting to put weight on it. And I don't even remember how this could have possibly happened last night.

Ugh.

Goal evaluation: 19 days in.

Goals one and two are going strong still...




Goals three and four are definitely seeming like they are attainable. Have been only doing one or two long runs per week since school started again. None of my long runs have been on anything other than snow, which is just so much fun to run on. I really think that the snow running is helping me maintain a better form, with a higher knee lift and a longer more aware stride. And I feel as though my pacing is better having to force myself to run up hills slower while running in the snow.






The scorched sole location has been changed from the Myra Bellevue Park to the Okanagan Mountain Park. It should make for an interesting change, I have run the trails in Myra Bellevue Park so I felt like no matter what route they made there for 50 miles I would have run the trails before at some point so it's nice that it will change. Having said that I can't think of how they will make 50 miles of route in Okanagan Mountain Park, I guess we'll be running on the old Kettle Valley Railway bed, it's nice and all but it's so flat.



Here's a picture of the view from Okanagan Mountain Park







The goal of running every day already failed. School got in the way of that one, and school definitely trumpss running when it comes down to it.
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I was reading a blog and thought I would share some words that inspired me
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"sometimes we get stuck in other peoples perception of ourselves. we act a certain way because that is how we believe other people see us and how we believe others want us to act.

sometimes we also get stuck in our own perceptions of ourselves. we cease to move forward because we become rooted to the only 'us' we have ever known, the one who is still trying to achieve their goals. still trying is great, but that's exactly all it is"

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It really made me think about why we do things as individuals. My thoughts led me to no particularly useful thoughts, but I did some meditating on it. The part about ceasing to move forward made me think about the way I took Robert Pirsig to mean when he talked about 'static' vs. 'dynamic' quality in our lives.
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When we run, or do anything else that is physically challenging, are we really doing anything other than trying to find our way to a new 'dynamic' form in ourself, and hoping that transition comes through some sort of transcendental moment which we think can only be achieved through breaking through some wall, or from achieving a certain 'high'.
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Run!?!
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Nazzer