Back At It

"In a world of counselors, self-help books and quick fixes, all I needed was some time alone on the trails." - Michael Lord

This about sums it up. Mike wrote this about a run he had this morning, and in doing so, eloquently described the effect that trail running can have on one's soul.

I had taken the last two days off as my right calf has been giving me grief recently. I twisted my right ankle a little last weekend while running a Thetis Lake, but it is generally fine. The specific part of it is that I think I tweaked a little muscle that has become quite tight and resulted in other pains in my Achilles and the bottom of my foot. The days off have helped, but so will acupuncture and massage and chiro next week.

My run today was fun. I found out I was not needed for the relay part of the New Balance 1/2 Ironman so I went to Elk/Beaver Lake with Jen and Trevor. I had planned on a 60 minute tempo run, with a 20 min warm up and cool down. We were hoping to see some old training partners racing. After the warm up and running about 25 minutes of the tempo with Trevor, I continued on, holding 3:50s at at a HR of about 168 for another 20 minutes. It was at this time that I ended up at the transition and I saw our friend Jonathon Caron come barreling out of transition. I decided to run with him. He was by far the fastest person out there, but he kept asking me if anyone was in front of him. I didn't realize that there was an extra $500 for the first person across the line, man or woman. In what is known as an "equalizer", different categories start at different times and the first person across the line gets the bonus money. I ran with Jonny for 5k and he looked great, but I don't know if he caught the lead women who started the run nine minutes ahead of him.

As well, in Des Moines today, more friends and former training partners were racing for the largest triathlon purse in history - $200 000 USD for first place in both the men's and women's race. Our old training partner, the wonderful Laura Bennett (nee Reback) won the women's race, while wonderful Victoria-girl Kirsten Sweetland was in the top three until 700m left in the race when she collapsed. No update on her, but she is one of those rare athletes that don't have an off-switch; she will run until there is nothing left. I think that is what happened on a hot, humid day in Iowa. Mr. Whitfield was in a similar position, running second for a good portion of the race, but ended up in sixth - amazing considering his last week (winning a World Cup Tri in Vancouver, hosting family, pending birth of his first child, arriving the day before the race). And Brent McMahon had a good go as well, finishing a solid 18th in a very deep field.

In other news, Adamo has decided to race Comfortably Numb. Damn damn damn.

Duration - 90 minutes
Intensity - steady state/tempo
Felt very good.