Saturday, September 06, 2008

Weekend Warriors

As I stood in circle with Ross Taylor, Kelly Guest, and Jordan Bryden comparing war wounds (Ross once had a 17 inch rod in his femur; Kelly and Joran both have had broken elbows with pins and wires; my comparatively wimpy non-displaced fracture of the 5th metatarsal), I realized that overall I have been quite lucky in my athletic career.  I have been involved in many different sports and all I had to contribute to the conversation was a broken toe.  I would love to believe that I am a warrior, but I will settle for cannon fodder at this time.  Seeing Kelly, an old training partner from Victoria, as well as Ross, Melanie McQuaid, Stefan Jakobsen, and Norm Thibault, well, it felt like I was back on the Island.  It was unexpected but quite welcomed.  Stefan and Mel won the races, while Kelly, recovering from the nasty broken elbow, won the 10k trail race.  Seeing them has added some fuel to my training fire, especially talking about Gunner Shaw with Stefan and the Thetis Lake Relays with Kelly.  

  The mountains look big here, but they are bigger in real life!

This conversation took place at the Canadian Off-Road Triathlon Championships at beautiful Buntzen Lake in Port Moody.  The venue is absolutely gorgeous and is the site of one of my favourite runs of the year - a two and a half hour epic trail run with Simon Driver as he lead me through about 6 of the 10 vistas around the lake (Buntzen Lake is also home to the ultra Diez Vista and a stop on the 5 Peaks trail race series).  I was at the race volunteering as Gray and Teri Taylor, my Brooks sponsors, are the race directors.  They were hoping that I might race the associated trail run, but I opted for the volunteering instead.  It was a difficult thing to not jump in the 5k run, but I am going to be good and not do something silly that might jeopardize the healing that has occurred to this point.

I came home reinvigorated and had a nap.  But then I went to the gym and did Workout B of the Turbulence Training program I am using, and then ran 30 minutes on the treadmill.  I wore my Garmin 405 for the first time since I broke my foot so that I could see my heart-rate.  It was a little higher than I had hoped it would be for 4:40/km (it settled in about 155 bpm).  I recognize that it is going to be a little while before my heart-rate drops back down, so I will diligently put in my base miles to help facilitate that.


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