Home for a rest

This used to be the signal that the night at the John (the old campus bar at McMaster) was over and the reality lights were about to come back on. Inevitably, there would be a girl looking over at me with amazement, thinking to herself, "Oh jeez, this was a mistake."

However, the phrase is used tonight, not to indicate that someone would rather be somewhere else, but instead that I have been placed on "active rest". I had a good chat with coach (John Hill) tonight and he told me to put the watch away and go run for a month (not continuoulsy), but not to think about it. If I feel good, go longer. If I feel tired, play video games (ok, he didn't say that, but I think it is a good plan). For anyone who has read Einstein's Dreams, it is akin to going to "body time", as opposed to "mechanical time".

I am actually quite excited about this. While the workouts have shown me what I am capable f, I think that this month of running for fun is important. I will go back to the Maffetone-type training that I was doing for the past couple of years and learn the trails in this part of the world.

Tonight though was a 10k tempo holding about 3:35/km. It felt good and I hit the same deserted road that I have been on for all of these runs. I was out in the fading daylight, so I actually saw some of the hills I have been running, and they are not nice. But these hills, done over and over, are going to help me better (I have to remind myself of that). I think I will do some tempo over the next month, but nothing more than 40 minutes of effort and not too often. I am enjoying the feeling of running quickly in the dark too much to not do it once in a while.

The rain is supposed to subside over the next couple of days, which will be good, but I am curious how my first snowshoeing adventure at Grouse Mountain will go tomorrow since the temperatures hit about 11 degrees today. Might be a little slushy, but a lot of fun!