It's been some time since I felt up to recording much about my running.  It just hasn't been the same since I started back up after the Canada Army Half-marathon.  I kept waiting for things to become more familiar, because that's what I wanted to write about.  It still hasn't happened, but I could not ignore this journal any longer.  It's like ( Read more... )

I will not be training with a clinic this summer. It's a decision I initially made last summer, after the low turnout made it impossible for me to train with anyone. I further developed the idea this spring, when I could see that the clinic system was no longer helping me improve all that much. My next step was going to be to personalize my ( Read more... )

It has taken me far too long to get back to this journal. This month has been a whirlwind of non-running related activity, after my typical week off following National Capital. I had meant to write about this race when I got back to work, but something very, very big came up. It is having a massive effect on my plans for this summer, so I will ( Read more... )

The last few weeks have been very stressful. I have managed to complete all my training sessions, but the judgement call I had to make regarding my shoe situation was a very rough hurdle to overcome. After my last post I immediately set aside the older model of Axioms, but that was the easy part. Much harder was figuring out, for certain, if I ( Read more... )

My feet have been speaking to me a lot in the last few months.  Unfortunately, their message is too simple: they are feeling pretty beat up.  I don't remember getting this level of complaint from them last year, so I have to conclude that something is not going as well this year.  But I am stuck with a guessing game to  figure out what is the root ( Read more... )

No more diversions or distractions, for this is it: the big month of training and nothing but training for the marathon next month. I have no other races to pull my focus away from the training schedule, which will be heaviest in terms of mileage this month. Mind you, March turned out to be quite heavy, too, and I am feeling the effects of the ( Read more... )

A little-known fact about me is that I took classical ballet lessons as a child, before I got into running. It formed the basis of my physical capabilities, helping me develop balance and coordination, as well as being responsible for the development of the leg power necessary for when I first started competing in cross-country running. Leaping ( Read more... )

It certainly wasn't a walk in the park this past Sunday. The course was scenic and the weather was gorgeous (at least during the race), but I was unable to fully enjoy it. At least the lessons that I am taking from this experience did not come at too steep a price, as I did swallow my stubborn pride and take the necessary steps to mitigate the ( Read more... )

It's come down to the final weeks of training, and the time has come to taper. Which is so not what one's body wants to do after months of building on mileage and progressively tougher workouts. Suddenly it's time to hold myself back, and conserve my energy for Race Day. This is probably the toughest part of any training cycle, because it's all ( Read more... )

In printing out copies for someone of my entries here over the past summer, I noticed a disturbing trend. Just flipping through my current mood rankings makes it seem like this training cycle hasn't been going very well. It went from "determined" to "lonely" to "frustrated", just looking at the entries relating directly to my training at those ( Read more... )