Week ending June 23 (scorched sole report)

 June 18 - June 24 (scorched sole week)

Mon: rest day

Tue: rest day

Wed:

am1: road run up highway 33 to pick up my mountain bike that I'd left at the end of philpott rd; 19.2 km in 103 minutes with 582 metre elev gain

am2: mountain bike back home; 20 km in 46 minutes

pm1: road bike from home to meet up for pace workout; 15.5 km in 37 minutes

pm2: pace workout; little bit of trails and a bit of road hill repeats; 7.5 km, 168 metre elev gain in 46 minutes

pm3: road bike home from pace workout; 15.1 km in 35 minutes

thur: short road run; 5.2 km in 29 minutes

fri: short road bike; 9.1 km in 23 minutes

sat: scorched sole 50 mile trail race: 80 km; 3,275 metre (10,670 feet) elev gain, in 9:48:50

sun: road bike; 26.4 km in 62 minutes

Weekly Totals:
Run: 111.9 km and 4,047 metre elev gain
Bike: 86.1 km
Total time: 16 hours 8 minutes

Scorched sole thoughts:

The race was in an inner city park for the first time; and it was a loop course. Five 16 km loops (each with 655 metre elev gain). I'm not one for loops, but with the race being exactly two weeks before sinister 7 I thought it would make for a well timed last long run and a race day situation to iron out any kinks that may be lingering before the big dance.

Lap times:
1. (1:39:15)
2. (1:44:46)
3. (1:56:13)
4. (2:06:03)
5. (2:22:27)
Finish: (9:48:50)

So, my goal for the race going in truly was to just have a well supported long training run, not pushing hard so I made sure not to over do it before sinister. I went out a little hard, and forgot about this goal for the first lap and a bit, but then slowed down into a better pace that felt right for the day. Someone had registered for the race that I figured to be the race winner, so I was happy with that because then I could know there would be no inclination of trying to shoot for the win, as I am nowhere near as fast as him. But he didn't show up race day. So the race started, and we headed out. I was in front with a couple friends, and a couple out of towners. The one friend had told me she was just going for a long training run, but she's a beast and that means nothing, she's competitive and race day is go time. The five of us were together for the first half lap; then it was just three of us in front. We were hanging together for awhile. the second and third aid station was the same location and coming in to the second time the volunteer asked about the friend that had been behind us coming in the first time, but came through ahead of us the second time, problem was she never passed us. Ha! She missed an out and back section, and then to top that she didn't do a couple km's down to the finish and back at the end of the first loop. Giggles all around, a local that runs the mountain regularly going off course... So she was quite aways ahead (she ended up doing the parts she missed later) but I was quite glad that she passed me without passing me though, because if it had been a normal pass, I may have been tempted to go and try and stick with her. She's a great runner, and I feel like I'm good enough that I could compete with her in a race, but definitely not in a race where my main goal is to not push hard. She ended up finishing an hour ahead of me.

Of the three of us that were left running together, the out of towner pulled ahead halfway through the second lap, but never made it more than 8 minutes ahead of me (but this never concerned me, we were where we were, no real focus on the time) we were usually within site of each other with the two out and back sections of the course. I pulled ahead of the other local friend I was running with halfway through lap three, and then started to reel in the guy in front of me. I caught the guy in front of me during the fourth lap, and pulled ahead after the transition into the last lap. Except, when it came down to 'racing' for the win, my philosophy for the day of taking it easy prevailed, and rather than pushing it and exploiting his tiredness to go hard for the first place male finish, I stopped and waited for the other runner to walk/chat the first ascent of the loop with him, and then at the top of the first ascent stopped and waited again to slow jog the easiest section of the course with him. After the major climb of the lap I had pulled away by a couple minutes, and then at the last aid station I think spent a little too much time chatting it up with the volunteers thanking them for coming out, and he caught me just after the last aid station. We chatted leading up to the last short climb of the course, and then with 3.5 km left I wished him well on his way, it was all downhill from there - he was a good downhill runner - and I didn't feel like pushing, I tried to stay true to my goal of the day, no excessive pushing. But then I was like, oh hell no! I'm gonna chase, so down one of my favouruite descents on the mountain I started to just give it hard. We came off one section of single track that led to some double track, which would then lead to the last descent, I was 15 metres behind him for first male finisher.....

So I stopped to chat with one of the race directors for a couple minutes with 2 km left in the race!!! Nice short chat and a hug and I was back on my way. Ended up finished in 9:48. I`ve only run three 50 mile races (the last three years of this event), different courses every year, I wouldn`t say this was the easiest course, and I got my fastest 50 mile time, without a purposeful effort to hold back. There was good mild rain and overcast skies for most of the race, except for most of the last lap which was a super heavy thunderstorm. I didn`t eat enough the first two laps (too much chatting) and came away with some heavy midsection chafing (didn`t vaseline down there, especially bad on a wet day). Other than that I had a great day. No cramps, no stomach issues. I feel very confident leading up to sinister. Just need to remember to start eating early, before I think I need it, and lube up, as well as the other things I was doing. As always, a good day at the scorched sole.

Week ending June 17 - quitting

June 11 - June 17 - being a quitter rules

mon june 11: no run

tue jun 12: 3 hrs 45 mins and 1,210 metre elev gain over 29.4 km in myra bellevue park. Ran mostly the perimeter of the park, and then into kuipers park as well

wed jun 13:

am: 3 hrs 27 min and 1,077 metre elev gain over 24.9 km in myra bellevue park. First 30 minutes by myself, then had company for the last 3 hours. Quite a nice run, even though it rained... again. The last two days I ran pretty much every trail in myra-bellevue park, and I don't think I can ever get tired of the park.

pm: pace workout (speed session). 15.5 km in 90 minutes with 466 metre elev gain. There was a 2.4 km loop marked, each with 70 metre elev gain, did 6 loops (2 minutes in between), a warmup and a cool down loop with 4 hard loops. I told someone before the work out my goal for the run was for 'total destruction' of my body by the end of the workout, and I feel like I got there. I love it.

thur jun 14: no run

fri jun 15: 14.3 km of road bike in 36 minutes.

sat jun 16: 6.8 km, 460 metre elev gain, in 65 minutes. The goal for the day was to do five ascents of pin cushion mountain (each ascent is 3.4 km up/down with 225 metre elev gain), but work the night before sucked, and then I couldn't sleep so I was running on 3 hours sleep. Cut the run short and went home to nap before work that afternoon. That's why I do longer runs on my days off.

sun jun 17: 15.7 km, 227 metre elev gain in 90 minutes. Road running up highway 33, then garner rd. Feels so weird to run where I usually road bike.

Weekly totals:
Run 92 km; 3,430 metre elev gain
Bike: 14.3 km
Time: 11.5 hrs

The elev gain totals are my most in a week since I've tracked my running, wished I could have got more time in, but saturday sucked and so be it.

I gave notice at my job today, my last day of work will be July 15. I plan on spending August, September, and maybe October travelling and running. Greyhound offers a discovery pass where you get unlimited use of their service for 60 days, I'm gonna buy one of those tickets, travel with a backpack and my running gear and run in some cool mountains. I have a few places to stay lined up already for couch surfing. It's going to be sweet.

The tentative plan is somtehing like this.
- Penticton, BC
- Winthrop, WA
- Redwood forest area, north california
- squaw valley, CA
- marin headlands, san fran, CA
- grand canyon
- boulder, colorado
- oklahoma city
- madiscon, wisconsin
- toronto, on
- montreal
- ottawa
- winnipeg
- calgary
- canmore
- revelstoke

I know I will for sure have couches to crash on in oklahome, madison, maybe toronto and winnipeg, definitely calgary. I'm thinking I may regsister for a 50 mile race mid sept in madison, and then a race in paris, ontario in late sept.

Running vacation in Canada / USA, how would you do it?

If you were to take a couple months to travel to places to ultra run, and then run in those places and drive in between, where would you go?

Who reads this? And Why?

Please comment if you make any sort of habit of reading my ramblings.

I was looking at my stats tracker for the first time in forever and noticed there are repeat readers. I mostly write out my thoughts as a way to look back at my training, so if something isn't working or I get injured I can look back and see what I did and change it. And with a history of alzheimers in my family I write this looking forward to the day that I may not be able to remember the details of the things I write about. And I have found that making sure to write at least once a week that I am more motivated to keep running.

So, what do you the reader get out of reading my blog? And why do you read it?

Today's stupid idea.

So, I was running today on the kelowna end of the

High Rim Trail

I ran to the 14 km marker of the trail. It was awesome.

So I was thinking I would run the whole thing next week. Totally doable, but then theres the logistics of doing it, and I really don't know all that many people able to do it on a tuesday, so I think of ways to get to Vernon and back on my own.

So the plan:

Before the day I do it I need to get my mountain bike to the Mission creek end of the trail.
The day of the run; get up early and drive to the trailhead at Cosens Bay in Vernon. Run 55 km on the hIgh rim trail (probably take 8-9 hours, the fastest time I could find was 6 hrs 15 min). Then mountain bike from the last trailhead to home (27 km), then road bike from home to get back to my car in vernon (56 km).

What could possibly be wrong with this plan?

Week ending June 3: Exhausted!

May 28 - June 3:

Sunday May 27: mistakes were made, frustrations were chased with poor choices.

mon may 28:

am: 7.5 km mountain bike home from work in about 30 mins

pm: 7.5 km mountain bike to work; 30 mins. Three hours sleep.

tue may 29: no run,

wed may 30:

am: road bike 92.51 km in 3 hrs 53 min. Biked from home to ok lake prov park, stopped for lunch for an hour and a half with my dad, then biked back. sweet forearm sunburn

pm: 5.75 km trail run in 50 mins with 200 metre elev gain; easy pace run

pm2: biking to pace run, and after: about 5 km and 23 mins

thu may 31: 6 hrs 15 min in Okanagan Mountain Park; 40.1 km and 1,833 metre elev gain. Ran to the peak via divide lake traila nd down on frederick creek trail and wildhorse canyon. I really love this run, but it's just such a tough run with how rough the conditions are, I will probably only run it this one time this year.



fri jun 1: no run

sat jun 2: 3 hrs 41 min trail running in myra bellevue park, 29.11 km with 1,158 metre elev gain.

sun jun 3: biked to watch a trail race, walked around a bit, biked to work, and biked home: 29.5 km biking in 71 min

Interlude: I have my television on, and point break is on, and there is the one really out there surfer and someone says about him "he's searching for it, the ultimate wave" Endlessly searching; but where do you find the wave? Inside you, from outside?

Weekly totals:
Running/hiking: 11 hrs 19 mins; 3,221 metre elev gain, 77.76 km
Biking: 6 hrs 27 mins; 142.01 km

Total: 17 hrs 46 mins running and riding

I'm quite happy with the total exercise time and elevation gain, even with a full work week. I feel completely exhausted at the end of the week, but that is probably more to do with starting the week on an energy deficit based on poor decisions.

Ramblings

pre-edit: this is probably confusing, any maybe considering how I often omit certain details that make ramblings make sense, it may make very little sense, but I feel like writing.

You know how all over the internet, facebook in particular, you see those memes sort of inspirational pictures with quotes written over them. I always seem to find them less than inspiring. In fact, I seem to find them completely contrary to the way I need to think in order to feel like I'm acting like a good person.

One phrase I find particularly confusing: "It's not about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself". Now, as I typically subscribe/like to lots of ultra running related things on facebook I have seen several varients of this meme from running sites. I assume I, the reader, am meant to feel like running in mountains is an activity that can be used to turn myself into something. As though I can become something better, from this it would seem that philosophically speaking I must first buy into the idea that we as people have any semblence of control over who we are, and if we did that we could change it. Neither of these last two statements do I believe to be true. I don't want to try and pin down any sort of science on a specific age, but surely it can be understood that our thoughts and beliefs are quite solidly formed by the time we are an adult, from both genetics, and from the way we are raised.

The idea that we can create ourself also seems to imply a desire to be able to control ourselves. This is understandable in todays western society where there is the pervailing feeling that an individual can not affect any real sort of change, so of course it would be attractive to be told that you can control something (yourself). The fact that ultra running groups are using this quote is even less surprising. The idea that ultra runners choose to run in the mountains because they are wanting an escape suggests they are not enjoying the society we live in, which is rather opressive (or some would say) so perhaps they feel by running and 'connecting with nature' they are able to exert more control, and create themselves, rather than accepting the fact that society exerts creative forces upon them.

It may be just me, but I find when you exert control on something (even yourself) and creating is an act of control, you never do as good as when you accept instead. the quote for me would better read "it's not about creating yourself, it's about finding and accepting yourself". Consistently I have found in life that failure occurs when I attempt to control and create myself. To do this one requires a certain high internal locus of control, again, only leading to failure.

All my life I attempted to control, only yielding negative results. When I made the conscious decision to turn my life over to the will of another, things started to turn around. Waking up everyday with the request in prayer "to be shown how to act in accordance with anothers will" and to ask especially "for freedom from self-will".

So, for me, it's most definitely not about creating myself. It is about finding and accepting myself, and letting myself be guiding by another in a positive way.

"thy will be done - not mine" is the path to the best life. To do this I think it best to accept the hands I've been dealt and embrace them.

I'm not sure if any of this made sense, probably over thinking, and really don't know if any of this made sense. I wish I could type as fast as I think.

Week ending May 27: feels like summer

May 21 - 27

mon may 21: no run

tue may 22: run 22.42 km with 1020 metre elev gain in 3 hrs 37 min; bike 13.81 km in 58 min

mtn bike from top of little white forest service road to bellevue trestle, ran upper crawford trail and some logging roads and the kvr, bike back to car



wed may 23:

am: 13.41 km road bike in 32 min

pm: 5.74 km trail run in 52 min

thu may 24: 15.61 km road run in 78 min with 224 metre elev gain

fri may 25: no run

sat may 26: 24.06 km run with 687 metre elev gain in 3 hrs.

sun may 27: 33.11 km road bike in 90 mins; 520 metre elev gain, up hwy 33 for a bit, then some fun loops on the back roads

Weekly totals:
Run: 67.79 km; 8 hrs 41 mins; 2,106 metre elev gain
Bike: 60.33 km; 2 hrs 33 mins

Didn't quite get as much exercise time in as I wanted.

Next year; I make less plans

Next year, I think I need to do my best to not register for as many races more than three months before the races. Yeah, that may mean I don't get to run in certain races that have wait lists and/or sell out in a day or less, but with how often I change my mind about racing plans (just look at the posts I've made about planning for 2011 and 2012 and compare to what I've actually done) I think it's a much better plan.

Also, I need to remember to read this at the end of the year when I start getting big plans in my head that should really be toned down.

Week ending May 20

May 14 - 20

I only ran on monday and thursday; total about 18 km of trails.
And also walked 5 times, and short bike ride 5 times (30 mins each time while dogwalking).

Accidentally had a rather easy post race recovery week. I'm not sure how well the working 6 days/58 hours works into a recovery week though.

Didn't today (monday) and will be bacm into a regular schedule now. And I bought a cheap mountain bike so I can add more variety into the exercise if I want.

Race thoughts, life plateaus, unanswered questions, thinking like a dig

I've had trouble thinking about how to come to terms with myself about my race day performance at my race at this past weekend. And strangely, sitting in the park watching my mom's dog (which I'm dogsitting for a week) and pondering some deep chats from earlier in the day seems to have gotten my head properly wrapped around it.

My current life philosophy has me to the point where my life goal is currently to be "happy and content like a dog". Tonight, after work I'm sitting in Ben Lee Park near the tail end of walking my moms dog, watching him wander around contented as possible, tail as high as it could get, no concerns in the world. Just ten minutes prior, I'd walked past an older guy walking his dog, a kodiak I think, on a leash and he says to me to call my dog back. I said something like "no worries, my dog won't hurt a soul and wouldn't fight back, he's as happy as can be". And sure enough, the other dog barks and bites at my moms dog, and my moms dog just runs away with his tail wagging, no big deal. He's happy and nothing can take that away. And I realise (EPIPHANY!) that this mental thought process is what I've been trying to get to for the last couple years. Well, this really isn't much pf an epiphany as I'm well aware of this, perhaps it felt like an epiphany for realizing that I'm now at that point.

In 2010 I used the motivation of training for the Death Race as a way to move beyond a horribly failed almost decade long relationship and a way to try to keep myself on a positive path, to stay out of trouble. It worked. But when the training stopped I fell back into old habits. Hard. Real hard. Working and running in 2011 I came to the realisation that for me to get past old life habits, and to maintain that I needed to maintain a running regiment that was very focused. And it worked. Even if it isn't necesarrily true, I view myself as a negative, 'bad', person, and I go through a daily effort to counter the habits instilled in me by my parents growing up. The efforts required to maintain a training program to get there (to a race I mean), the journey itself, seems to provide me with the tools that I need to transfer to the rest of my life to improve myself from what I perceive to be a not good person.

I overthink things, and take things too far in terms of my desire to 'fix myself' in this regard and think I need to become some sort of perfect before I go try and move beyond a certain plateau pf life improvement. For example, I've been single for three years because I feel I can't go looking to share my time with someone until I've 'fixed' myself.

Anyway. The end of my school year (2010-11) I was suspended from university for having a recieved a 'failed year record", basically a technical way of saying that I failed more courses than I passed. The reason? After falling out of training from my 6 month long crescendo of training for the death race I slowly fell hard back into old habits. Even though in 2011 I still managed to carry myself through finishing three ultras that year, I was into some bad habits. Most of that school year I was taking psychadelics on a daily basis, even while at school while working in a chemistry laboratory. Yeah, I got a couple A+ grades in the courses that interested and came natural to me, but failed the rest and thus received a 'failed year standing' and was told that I must take a whole year leave from school. This academic result came two months after me realizing that I was messing up bad and needed a change. I finally dragged myself to AA meetings and did that for 87 days in a row and intensified my previous sessions with the counsellor at school (drug and alcohol consellor I had seen on occasion regarding relationship issues in the past). And like my constant journey of changing myself from the person I felt I was to whatever the person I felt I wanted to become, I continued in my style of a couple steps forward, a step back, a couple steps forward... repeat etc. Except the last couple months had been a couple extra steps back, followed by a more intense effort to take a few giant steps forward.

When I recieved my email from the university saying I was to not attend university for a year I was okay with that. I looked at it as an opportunity to achieve a certain level of 'fix' to myself and then maintain a plateau of that work on myself. Except that didn't last. Working at the golf course (which I really enjoy most days as its very professional) I was abble to distract myself, it was good. But I was laid off at the end of October 2011 and ended up working five different jobs at restaurants that were just horrible. Quickly my illusions of reverting to advancing myself in the culinary world were shattered as I realized my summer job at the gold course was one of the few restaurants in town that was good to work at. Quickly I soured on the culinary world. Yet, I had maintained a clean lifestyle, no drugs in 2011, and since dropping alcohol from my life I maintained that. I acted quickly and re-acquainted myself with the counsellor at the university and wrote a fantastic letter to the dean of science at the university explaining my life situation and the challenges I felt I had overcome and exaplined I was a changed man and asked for my suspension from school to be reconsidered and to be let in early, I was totally over my time away from school and wanted to get that done and move on with my life. They let me back in, and in novembet I found out. At the same time I found out about the running group that I have been running with since the beginning of the year. Things were looking up. I felt good. But... I knew I needed motivation to achieve my goals at university. At the time I didn't realise it, but I think looking back at my success at the death race, and the coupled 'fixing' of self that is my constant life goal, was because of the consistency provided from running. I knew that I needed running back in my life in a much more consistent way to help me achieve my goals at school.

So I ran. And I've run a lot, I set lofty goals, and in my head self talked myself up. Motivated to the max, I needed it. May 15 and I'm already at 1450 km for the year. I've never run more than 2050 km in a year. Idle hands are the devils playground for me. I know this. For me my running goals, even though I tell myself they are, aren't running goals, they are life goals to help me achieve the level of progress I want in myself.

It's worked for me. Yes I'm a better runner, but the main life goal thus far into the year has been finishing my degree. I've done what I needed at school every day to do it. And so the thing is, the thing that drives me to run, has been done. At a meeting at my running group at the beginning of the year we were asked the goals for the year. I believe my answer was something about "being consistent" unsaid to even myself was that I wanted to be consistent in regards to how I act as a good person. The work dput into running, has me to a much better level of that than I have been before, I"m happy with that, It's got me to a point where I successfully got school done.

The last couple weeks before the Elk beaver 100 km race I was very nervous about school. At the beginning of the semester I had a meeting with the professor within the chemistry department in regards to double checking that I had met all my degree requirements. I only needed two courses to finish. I signed up for three courses, and knew that I only needed two to get my degree. And, I hated one of my profs. So without checking with the prof I switched courses and forgot about it. Until I had done my exams and was suddenly scared shitless about no longer meeting the degree requirements. Daily I checked the university website to see if my graduation application status had been changed to 'application approved". And I waited, and still kept training and running. And waited.

A week before the race I checked again. And it said "graduation approved".

YES!

I had acchieved my goal. The goal that I took two years too long to achieve, that I had lost relationships and friends through a course of revisiting drugs and alcohol that I wish I hadn't done so. But I had done it, and mostly through the realisation that running is the tool that took me to the place that made me able to do it. And suddenly, within a day (and a week of my 100 km race) I was totally de-motivated to race.

I had achieved the main life goal. And the journey of running took me there. I had already reached the finish line. I didn't know it at the time, and it's taken a few days of hard thought to get there, but I instantly lost motivation to race that race as I had already won. The motivation of the race, and the journey of the training, was the tool I needed to do what I really wanted.

So on the day of the race. When the going got tough, and the pain started to come that I knew would come because it's a long race and that sort of pain will come, and I knew that I could finish by pushing through that world and accepting that I would live in a world of self destruction to do so. I gave up. I quit. I stopped.

Nothing left. And I was completely okay with it. I know other runners who have DNF'd, and have read race reports of others that have done it and I expected it to feel so different. But I couldn't be any happier about DNFing. I smiled, and I was done. I finished the race I really needed to finish and that was good enough. Maybe a little silly that I needed to take a ferry ride and drive for a day and run four and a half hours to figure that out, but it was a great trip with the family, so that's okay.

Looking forward, I really don't know what to make of these thoughts. I feel like I'm satisfied with the time I've spent at this life plateau and it's time to get on with crescendo'ing upwards again.

At work today I had an extended discussion with a co-worker abouut things. About, not drinking and stuff, and I was saying stuff along the lines of me being hesitant to go after certain things in life because of the way I perceived myself. To which the response that I guess the way I am perceived at work by the way I act is much better than the way I perceive myself, so maybe the efforts and bettering myself are working, and it's time to step off the plateau.

What this has to do with running? I feel like my running adventures have been with the goal in the back of my head to "prove something". Not necesarily to anyone, but maybe just to myself. But, with feeling like I've reached a level where I want to be I don't feel a need to prove anything. So I'm not sure where I want to take that thought in regards running.

I very much enjoyed my journey thus far in the year of running; but I feel like the ratio of training to running up and down mountains for fun is a little off. I needed to register for the races I did to use them as a tool to keep myself motivated to achieve my non-running goals. But now, I don't think I really need or want to run three 100 km or greater races within a three month period. It's too much 'work' and not enough time to fuck around running in the areas I want, too regimented. I still know I want something to keep me 'future focused to race for. But I think I will change my schedule from: 146 km trail in early july, 195 km trail early august and 100 km road in mid sept to instead a schedule of 146 km trail in early july and a short 54 km trail in early sept.

I feel like I am ready to transition my running from being something I need to do in order to maintain the person I want to be and to use as a tool to achieve other goals; into something more fun based.

Where this will take me, not sure. Definitely an unanswered question on that way. But running like a contented dog is good for now, and having that take me where it does in my next race is just fine.

Interesting side note; I think in the last few months I've barely written a single deep thought on my running blog, just no side thoughts.

Week ending may 6

April 30 - May 6 (taper week) (six days until race)

Mon april 30: no run, rest day, work

Tue may 1: no run, work, was supposed to do a 40 km run but I just didnt feel it, my 100 km 3 day weekend caught up to me and I rested instead, well as much rest as work can be. Very glad i didnt run as work was a super hectic day.

Wed may 2: no work, run 6,84 km with 369 metre elev gain in 55 mins. Only about 21 mins of this was real running, the rest was super slow jogging or walking, or standing around checking out scenery

Thur may 3: no work, no run; day of errands and housework

Fri may 4: no run, work

Sat may 5: ran 20.39 km with 440 metre elev gain in 2 hrs 20 mins; slow running, work

Sun may 6: no run, work

I only ran twice. I took the idea of a taper/recovery week too far I think. I just didn't feel like running the first two days, and other things happened, and sunday work kicked my ass and I didn't feel like running after.

I feel mentally and physically prepared for my race in six days. I'm confident in my training plan, my mental plan for the race, my nutrition/hydration plan and I'm stoked and ready to go. Let's hope I'm blessed with a great day. No concern about running 100 km, I just hope I can do it fast and finishing strong and still feel good the next day.

Week ending April 29

April 23 - April 29: Build week 3 (13 days until next race)

Mon April 23:

pm-1: 8.73 km road bike to work in 23 minutes

pm-2: 7.99 km road bike home from work in 17 minutes

Tues April 24: no run, work

Wed April 25:

am: road run 30 mins, 30 metre elev gain, 6 km; ran dropped car off at shop, bussed to bike shop to buy a tube, ran home from bike shop

pm1: run 37 mins, 66 metre elev gain, 7 km; bike tire failure (the metal lining that keeps the tire in the rim was exposed from whatever caused my flat, blew out my new tube so I ran to work)

pm2: run/walk 50 mins, 33 metre elav gain, 7 km; run home from work

thur april 26: bussed to penticton, 4 km walking from greyhound station to my mothers house

fri april 27: 6 hr 52 mins run, 1043 metre elev gain, 60.32 km; ran from Penticton to West Kelowna on the highway with a detour up pin cushion trail in Peachland. Fairly tedious run, very glad I through in the pin cushion part. Got a rather painful sunburn on my calves.

sat apr 28: 3 hr 49 mins run, 1036 metre elev gain, 24.15 km; running in myra bellevue park with pace. Meant to only run 2.5 hours, but we did a nice easy paced route that included angel springs which had tonnes of water in it. Felt surprisinglt good considering the effort of the last couple days. worked that night

sun apr 29: 80 mins, 140 metre elev gain, 14.61 km; road running in rutland after work. fantastic evening weather. Was beautiful.

Weekly totals:
Biking: 41 minutes, 16.73 km
Running: 14 hrs 34 mins, 2375 metre elev gain, 123.18 km

This week was my third longest week of running ever, and April will finish with 394 km running which I'm pretty sure is the most of run in a month ever. Other than the fact that I"m rather tired from the last three days of running (99 km, 12 hours and work) and will be taking ibuprofen to get to sleep today, I feel good. No painful issues.

Very much looking forward to recovering and tapering to the race in two weeks. This week I spent 13% of my time awake running, and probably 20% of my awake time running or preparing/traveling and other stuff from running. I will probably rework my schedule next week to both my long runs on work days, so I can have a day where I don't work or run, and it will be glorious.

Week ending April 22

April 16 - 22; Build week two (of three); 20 days until next race

Mon April 16: no run; exam; work

Tue April 17: run in the morning before work; 33 mins, 50 metre elev gain, 6.41 km of easy road running around home. work after

Wed April 18: no work

am: 115 metre elev gain, 248 mins, 46.01 km of trails on the greenway flats. Maintained a steady pace for first marathon portion. Didn't feel the best though, still neglect my hydration while at work a little bit. Ran the first 42 km in about 3 hr 39 min, which is faster than any marathon race I've ever run.

pm: 506 metre elev gain, 104 mins, 9.91 km of trails. Hike up and down knox twice with some pseudo sprints in between. Intended on running between 50 - 55 in the morning, so I did more later that day.

Thur apil 19: no work; 198 metre elev gain, 64 mins, 8.96 km trails in penticton. Hobo trails, munson mountain and a bit of the kvr. Hot tub after felt so good.






Fri April 20: no run, work

Sat April 21:

am: 1124 metre elev gain, 192 mins, 20.53 km; trails in ok mtn park. I only ran 3 hrs 12 min, I wanted to go longer but didn't hit the trails until later than I wanted to, I woke up to a flat tire and had to put the spare on before heading to the trailhead. Ugh.

pm: 8.57 km road bike to work in 24 mins, no push at all

Sun April 22:

pm-1: 8 km road bike to work in 26 mins, no push at all

pm-2: 8.12 km road bike home from work in 18.5 mins, a little pushed

pm-3: 82 metre elev gain, 63 mins, 13.22 km of road running. Feet sore for the first 2 km as they always are post during post workk runs, paced around 4:30 min/km for about 6 km and then cruised home. Sunday night runs in 17 degrees are always a nice way to end the week.

My legs feel good on the week, looking forward to the challenged of next week (70 km long run planned)

Weekly totals:
Running: 11 hrs 48 mins, 2.1 km elev gain, 105.04 km.
Biking: 67 minutes, 24.57 km.
Total exercise time: 12 hrs 55 minutes