Slacker

Another solid week of training and I'm really pleased with how my body has handled it. My goal last week was to increase the daily volume that much more, and hopefully feel good running long on the weekend.

Everything seemed to go very well all week with 5 days of running twice a day. I had one planned recovery day of 45mins, and then ended up cutting back to only 45mins on Sunday (instead of a long run) as I started to feel like I was fighting a bit of a flu bug on Saturday afternoon.

The big highlight of the week was my two physio appointments. It seems as though I've finally discovered the final piece to the puzzle of the past 10 months of injury. There have been a number of little things that have been addressed one at a time, but I seem to have the big picture now and through a combination of stretching, strengthening, rolling, sticking and physio manipulation, I have noticed very big changes just this week. The result in just a very short period of time has been that I now feel that I am running smoother and with equal strength and range of motion on both legs. This has been largely generated from freeing up much of the tightness in my right hip/psoas, which had been causing the knee pain, and indirectly the achilles pain.

The only drawback to all of this is the time that I need to spend daily doing rehab. I really just want to be out running, but realize the importance of the rehab work and have been hitting it hard.

I feel that right now I still need to be patient for a while, but am definitely in shape to start getting into shape....meaning that I'm not ready to think about racing to my best yet, but I can see that after another month or so that I could be in a better place to consider testing the waters.

Aside from running, we enjoyed a nice weekend with a couple of meals around the campfire in our backyard. We also set up a slackline between a couple of trees as a fun challenge to work on our balance. Brennan and Heather have also enjoyed giving it a go and I expect that we will be having yet another friendly competition in our house with this new activity.

Training Summary:

Total # of hours last week: 10:38
Total # of hours this year: 353:12
Streak (# of consecutive days of running): 7,552
Training Log Details for the Week

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Heather mastering the Slackline...

Snowshoe Magazine: Ask the Coach - Pre-Season Training

My 'Ask the Coach' column in Snowshoe Magazine featuring tips on pre-season training for the snowshoe racing season.

Training and Taper Advice

There are a lot of folks doing their final long runs and beginning tapering into Haliburton now, and I thought it was a great opportunity to share 'the secret'.

I'm a huge fan of the Clash and just finished reading 'Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer'. Great book and I highly recommend it.

Sara is currently reading it and I think has been quite surprised with some of the links to running...especially that Joe Strummer was a marathoner!

For some of the best training and tapering advice out there, you definitely want to check out what Strummer offers here.

Happy tapering!

An artist and his canvas

Brennan and my Dad working on building Brennan's mountain bike trail and jumps in our backyard today.

Steve Earle coming to Kingston

Very excited to see that Steve Earle just announced the Ontario dates of his current accoustic tour... and he's coming to Kingston on October 19th.

Steve Earle is, in my opinion, the best singer songwriter still putting out new material, and who is still performing.

We last saw him at the Festival of the Islands a few years in Gananoque and he put on an amazing show. I've been a huge fan since his early days for his mix of great songs in a political voice. This tour will be in support of his recent 'Townes' recording that was a tribute to his late mentor Townes Van Zandt.

The bonus part of this show is that Mike Plume will be opening for him. I've wanted to see Mike Plume live for a long time, so this will be a great opportunity.

With the concert being two days after the Sydenham Fall Trail Run, this will also be a great way to unwind from the busy schedule leading up to the race.

Tickets bought....third row :)

Tired Pipes and Daily Doubles

It feels good going into the new week with tired pipes.

Last week was a great week with an increase in training. Getting back up to 11.5 hours of running again feels good. This is the largest week since early June, when my knee injury flared up. Certainly not where I want to be, but a good start.

The increase last week was mostly due to higher weekday volume, and beginning to run twice a day again. Double runs seem to have been good for my knee and achilles. I have kept my long runs quite moderate for now until I get the green light though. Some faster paced runs have also been sprinkled in which seems to have helped with my stride efficiency. I've also been focusing on a little more flexibility work and continued rehab.

Tomorrow will be another physio appointment to assess my situation a little further and what I need to do next to get me back to 100%. I'm feeling good that I can keep increasing, but still feel that there is something generated from my hips that needs to be tweaked. I feel pretty confident that I will be able to turn it around quite quickly though.

On the armchair athlete side of running, there were a lot of great races to follow along this past weekend. As mentioned on my Twitter, congratulations to SHA runners David and JD for solid races at the Iroquoa Trail Test 32km. Both ran awesome races as final tuneups for Haliburton.

Elsewhere, there were some interesting races on the weekend that included Pikes Peak, Where's Waldo, Transrockies and Leadville 100.

Also, a huge congrats to Gary Robbins for setting a new speed record of 35hrs and 17min on the 220km East Coast Trail in Newfoundland.

Now, it's time to start thinking about when and where Sara and I can consider racing again this fall. We pondered this a lot during our run at Frontenac Park yesterday, but are still a ways off from making any decisions just yet.

Training Summary:
Total # of hours last week: 11:27
Total # of hours this year: 342:34
Streak (# of consecutive days of running): 7,545
Training Log Details for the Week

Video of Gary Robbins setting a speed record on the East Coast Trail and short interview...