Training Log Archive: W

Now that some people have walked along my usual trails, they're getting a big more packed down and a bit more runnable. Its still way slower than mid-summer, but I can actually get some decent push off and it doesn't feel like running in sand. Not *all* of it is quite like that, but its a significant improvement. Soon enough I can probably go back to using road shoes a lot of the time. That'll be nice.

First Flakes Loppet at Capilano. Yikes! This was bad. Well, the first lap was good, but it was all downhill from there. Not good conditions for me, very, very soft, and I'm not a lightweight dude. I probably could have used a softer pair of skis for one, but I went out probably a bit too hard and then started to hurt quite soon after. By the last lap I was well out of it but there was no one behind me so the motivation and drive to push past the pain was not there. But there wasn't definitely a lot of pain!

Great day to be out, nice weather, painful malleolus. Two weeks of no skiing was apparently not sufficient. I threw in a heel left in my left boot and it may have taken some of the pressure off, but not enough to eliminate it completely.

Now that it gets dark at like, 3, its getting tougher and tougher to get out for afternoon workouts. I tried to rejuvenate with a little nap, but that did not help at all, since I just felt more tired. But, I felt compelled to get out and do something, so went for a nice light jog.

Nice to be in some cushy road shoes too. My feet missed these.

Well, I went for a run in the snow. The usual longer loop that takes about 15 minutes longer thanks to the uber soft and deep snow. Its a tough slog. Lovely night to be out, rocking out to some sweet radio DJ-ing.

And then I got to the end, took a quick glimpse at my watch, pressed the stop button, and it promptly swallowed the workout. Like, reset, and the workout just gone. Not in the history, back to zero on the timer. Just, gone. Thankfully that brief glimpse help, and double thankfully I didn't bother to wear my HR monitor.

This must have been because I stopped using the paper clip to hold my watch together and got a real strap. It must have liked the paper clip.

Got in a little shop strength after work. We upped it to three sets, which wasn't too much of a problem. I mean, after you do one set up of chin-ups and do basically none on the second set, what's the harm in doing basically none on a third set too?

Oh, yippee, its -22 out. Still, trials by miles, so I ventured out and stuck to a quite slow pace to keep the lungs from becoming freezies. The wind was pretty heavy in places so I had to wrap up real real tight. Nice to have the entire river valley to myself though!

A little post-soccer basement strength. Since I don't have an indoor chin-up bar i replaced chin-ups with one legged squats, which is a good one! Did a bunch of balance and hip work afterwards as well, which is always a great burn (but doesn't count towards the training time).

The temperature and the snow continues to fall. I haven't actually been too motivated to get out the skis yet, the malleolus is still a tad sensitive from Lake Louise weekend, so I continued to go out.

I have finally broken down and gotten some Salomon shoes, the Speedcross. I'm very much off the "low-drop" bandwagon, as I feel at this point my form is fairly efficient and my calves just cannot take running in such a low drop show. I like landing full foot, and a nice high ramp angle enables my whole foot to contact the ground at once and I get a nice forward angled push-off. 10mm for the win!