Week Two

This week was awesome!  I felt that I did everything this week that I wanted to.  Training runs?  Check.  Cross training?  Check.  Getting to bed earlier?  Check.  Eating healthy meals?  Mostly check.  Here's the day by day break down:

Monday:
It was super icy on our group run, but had one of those great nights where I felt like I could have run forever.  When the question was asked, "Should we do an extra loop?" I was practically giddy with joy.      Why can't all runs be like that?

Tuesday:
Into the gym for cross training on the bike, followed by weights.  It felt good to check this off my list.

Wednesday:
Another group run, this one not so good.  I'd had some spicy food earlier in the day and it just wasn't sitting well in my stomach.  Luckily, chatting with some others in the group and a shorter route kept it from being too painful.

Thursday:
Yoga!  I didn't sign up for yoga this session because I know I'm going to have to do some travelling for work which I'm already trying to plan around the running clinic.  Having another commitment on a set day just wasn't going to work, and I told myself I could just do yoga at home.  Sounds good in theory, but until this week I hadn't lived up to my own big talk.  It felt great to spend 45 minutes working on this.

Friday:
Oops, scheduled a run but the day got away from me!  A friend came over for tea with her 1 month old baby in the morning, and then I couldn't seem to get away from my desk/phone in the afternoon, so the run got moved to Saturday.

Saturday:
I just had a 30 minute run to make up for from the day before.  After cleaning up the house for what felt like forever, I finally got out the door around 3pm.  I knew I had my long run with the group on Sunday morning and the roads were very icy because of the snow, melty warm, frigid icy, weather cycle we seem to be on, so I took it slow around my flattest route.

As I was running, my spidey senses kicked in and I remembered being chased by dogs on this route just before Christmas.  With the icy roads, I didn't want a repeat (even though I've run this route numerous times and the chase only happened once), so I altered my route and turned just before reaching the property that the dogs came from.  I was still in familiar territory, running through a part of the neighbourhood that I frequently finish a 10K loop in, only in reverse. 

Turns out, my spidy senses were only slightly off, about a kilometer after I turned, I heard barking and turned to see two large, unfriendly looking dogs running towards me.  Luckily, I was on a stretch of road without much ice down the centre, and I was able to kick it into high gear and sprint.  Those dogs were fast and they kept chasing and barking and growling.  I was afraid to stop because I was sure that they would lunge at me!  Just when I didn't think I could keep my top pace up any longer, they backed off.  My biggest regret?  My Garmin battery was dead so I wasn't wearing it!  I would love to know how fast I was going!!

Sunday:
Group run day.  When I woke up this morning the Weather Network was saying it was -23C (-9.4F), and it was still sitting there when I left the house.  Our group is only supposed to head out until -18C, so I wasn't sure who would be there, if anyone.  I dressed for the weather, but brought my indoor running clothes too.  We were meeting at the rec centre, so at worst, I would brave the cold for an hour, and then finish up on the treadmill inside. 

Not everyone showed up, but about 10 of us headed out for our run.  Our pace was slow, our eye lashes were frosty, and our gels and water bottles were freezing up, but it was a great run.  We climbed a lot of big hills (the kind I normally avoid when I run long by myself), and we also went into the bush and ran on some crusty snowmobile trails as well.  This also kept the pace slow, but it was really nice to get off the road and run in an area I would never go alone.  I started my Garmin late and forgot to turn it off right away when we returned, but I think we went about 16K in about 2 hours.

I got home, had a hot shower, changed into dry long johns and fresh clothes, and headed back out with the BF for a hike.  Well, we tried to hike.  At our first stop, there were about 25 vehicles with big snowmobile trailers.  Not really the atmosphere (or the fresh air) we were looking for on the trails.  At our next stop, in an area where snowmobiles are banned, the snow had a thick crust that just wasn't quite thick enough to stop our boots from sinking through into knee deep snow.  We battled that for 45 minutes before deciding to try somewhere else.  (It was a good core workout though to keep balanced and keep from sinking deeper!)  Finally, we found a logging road with snowmobile packed tracks to walk on, but without snowmobiles using the trail at the same time.  By this time, we were losing the sun behind the hills, so after 30 minutes we headed home.  Despite the cold, it was a beautiful day to be outside.

Finishing this week, I'm feeling better about my training and am looking forward to the runs to come.  Unfortunately, I'm going to miss one of the group runs this week while travelling for work, but I always like running in a different town with a change of scenery.