Well, we got robbed mid workout this week. We were out doing 30mins of hill surges. The loop we do the surges is roughly 500m and with the different types of runners all at different levels of fitness this time of the year the 5 of us doing the workout were pretty evenly spread out over the 500m. About 10mins in we saw these two homeless people come near where we had dropped our clothes, one was a guy with a bike and the other a girl on foot. 15mins into the workout Matt kind of slowed down told us that he didn't see our shirts where they used to be, and the homeless couple was walking away. Andrew and I circled back to double check if our stuff was missing, and of course it was. I immediately turned around and run after our lovely homeless couple. I caught up pretty quick as they hadn't made it very far. I may have yelled a few profane words as I came closer to them, as soon as the guy turned and saw me he got on his bike a started to ride away. Since I was in the middle of a surge session I was nicely warmed up and it didn't take me long to catch up to him again. Long story short, Andrew joined me with our culprit soon after and he denied stealing our shirts for a long while until finally admitting to it. We were pretty sure he still had Andrew's keyless entry beeper for his car so we had to go through his entire bag. After searching everything and being careful to not disturb any of his "magical artifacts" we couldn't find it and it is still missing. We're pretty sure he probably had it in his pockets or something in hopes the car will be back one day.
Other than that it was a pretty good week of training. Hard, but good. We were in a volume week so there as lots and lots of running. Everything is going really smoothly so far this year. I've been able to hit the workouts hard each week, and staying injury free. I'm actually looking forward to hitting the track in January.
Outside of track things are great. I'm really enjoying having a girlfriend down here this year and knowing/meeting people outside of the training group. Amy and our friend Brian got out climbing the other week, first time I had gone in a LONG time. It was really good to be on the wall again. We're planning on going again this week since I'm in a recovery week and will probably have a little more energy than any other week. After my solid 14miler on Sunday Amy and I checked out the Tempe Festival of the Arts. It was really cool, they blocked off a good part of Tempe near ASU and had tents set up all over the place. It was actually a little overwhelming how many tents there were. We also checked out a really cool restaurant called Roaring Fork. It's really more of a BBQ place, but I had really been craving a good spinach salad. Turns our Roaring Fork happened to have one and I was able to fulfil my craving. Amy got some fried chicken that was also really good. I plan on going back sometime because I really want to try their Dr. Pepper Baby Back ribs.
As I said I'm in a recovery now, only goal this week is the make the body feel good. More time spent doing self treatment than running this week.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
Broken Promise.
Well, I've gotten really bad at this. I keep promising getting better but never really do. I'd like to say this time will be different, but if history can predict the future, I'm not making any promises, haha.
I've been back in Scottsdale since October 25th. Things have been great since being here. I went to a pretty bad ass block party for Halloween. Some of the best costumes I have ever seen.
Starting October 31st we got back into prescribed training, rather than just doing whatever we felt like. Things have been going smoothly. I took the first 3 week cycle pretty easy. I just kept things under control and didn't really push anything too hard. We just finished the 1st week of a new cycle, an intensity week. I still kept things under control but started to up the milage and intensity of the workouts.
November 24th was round 2 of Thanksgiving. One of the benefits of living in both countries, two Thanksgivings!
Last friday I went to my first NCAA football game and tailgate. Unfortunately ASU isn't known as the biggest football school. It was fun, but slightly disappointed.
That about sums up the last little while. I will try to get back on the weekly update train.
Here's to hoping.
I've been back in Scottsdale since October 25th. Things have been great since being here. I went to a pretty bad ass block party for Halloween. Some of the best costumes I have ever seen.
Starting October 31st we got back into prescribed training, rather than just doing whatever we felt like. Things have been going smoothly. I took the first 3 week cycle pretty easy. I just kept things under control and didn't really push anything too hard. We just finished the 1st week of a new cycle, an intensity week. I still kept things under control but started to up the milage and intensity of the workouts.
November 24th was round 2 of Thanksgiving. One of the benefits of living in both countries, two Thanksgivings!
Last friday I went to my first NCAA football game and tailgate. Unfortunately ASU isn't known as the biggest football school. It was fun, but slightly disappointed.
That about sums up the last little while. I will try to get back on the weekly update train.
Here's to hoping.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
8km XC... Why not?
Well, it's crazy to think, but the time has almost come! Only 20 more days and I'll be heading back down to Scottsdale. I'm extremely excited as well as a little nervous. I feel like I have so much to do before I head down. I've already started to get a lot of stuff sorted out.
I wanted to give a huge shout out to both The Running Room as well as Hammer Nutrition. As usual, the man, myth, and legend, Matt Norminton and the Running Room have hooked me up big time. It's such a great feeling knowing that I can always rely on them for any of my training gear needs. Matt was also able to swing a little deal with Hammer Nutrition and hook me up with their best product, in my humble opinion, Recoverite. If any of you out there are struggling with properly recovering after your long and/or hard days, go out and get yourself some Recoverite. It's perfectly well rounded with 3:1 carb:protein, glutamine and a whole host of handy little things that help in all aspects of muscle recovery. Plus, they're based out of Whitefish, Montana basically counts as local!
Other than working like a mad-man and running around getting things organised I have been running. Granted, not as much as I would like to, or should be. I randomly hopped into an 8km Cross Country race this past Saturday. It went surprisingly well. I said to myself I was just going to use it as a bit of an up-tempo in the middle of an 11mile run, but as soon as I toed the line and got into that atmosphere my competitive nature kicked in. I still stayed pretty conservative but I did start racing a little more than I had planned. I ended up in 3rd place in a decent time of 26:48. Still ticked off 11miles that day, made for a slow and painful 10miles on Sunday.
Plan for the next few weeks; start making more sacrifices to get my runs in where they fit rather then saying "I'll do it later" and not ever getting around to it. I also want to get all my stuff organised for heading down to Arizona within a week, just to get that stress off my shoulders.
*On a side note. I no longer have my Facebook and Twitter synced. If by chance you blocked it on your newsfeed (I know I have in the past) you no longer have to worry about 1000 updates from twitter on your FB newsfeed. Promise.
I wanted to give a huge shout out to both The Running Room as well as Hammer Nutrition. As usual, the man, myth, and legend, Matt Norminton and the Running Room have hooked me up big time. It's such a great feeling knowing that I can always rely on them for any of my training gear needs. Matt was also able to swing a little deal with Hammer Nutrition and hook me up with their best product, in my humble opinion, Recoverite. If any of you out there are struggling with properly recovering after your long and/or hard days, go out and get yourself some Recoverite. It's perfectly well rounded with 3:1 carb:protein, glutamine and a whole host of handy little things that help in all aspects of muscle recovery. Plus, they're based out of Whitefish, Montana basically counts as local!
Other than working like a mad-man and running around getting things organised I have been running. Granted, not as much as I would like to, or should be. I randomly hopped into an 8km Cross Country race this past Saturday. It went surprisingly well. I said to myself I was just going to use it as a bit of an up-tempo in the middle of an 11mile run, but as soon as I toed the line and got into that atmosphere my competitive nature kicked in. I still stayed pretty conservative but I did start racing a little more than I had planned. I ended up in 3rd place in a decent time of 26:48. Still ticked off 11miles that day, made for a slow and painful 10miles on Sunday.
Plan for the next few weeks; start making more sacrifices to get my runs in where they fit rather then saying "I'll do it later" and not ever getting around to it. I also want to get all my stuff organised for heading down to Arizona within a week, just to get that stress off my shoulders.
*On a side note. I no longer have my Facebook and Twitter synced. If by chance you blocked it on your newsfeed (I know I have in the past) you no longer have to worry about 1000 updates from twitter on your FB newsfeed. Promise.
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Long Story Short
I suck at running and have been working like a maniac, thus no updates.
Plans for the future. Get better at running and get the heck out of dodge and back down to AZ where the living is easy.
Plans for the future. Get better at running and get the heck out of dodge and back down to AZ where the living is easy.
Friday, August 19, 2011
A Year in Review.
Well, once again I have been a little crappy at updating this. I suppose quite a lot has happened, but I think can summarize all fairly quickly and sufficiently.
After the great event in Moncton we bussed out to Halifax for the 3rd instalment of the NTL. The race wasn't overly exciting. With the top guns like Milne and Brannen not at the race, the possibility of picking up 8 NTL points was realistic and one of my goals. Of course running fast was another. However, I think a few of the other guys also had those 8 NTL points on their mind and even with a pacer we went out fairly slow. I ended up 3rd over all, but first Canadian getting the 8 points.
The next day I flew out to Toronto for the NTL finale. With my 8 points from Halifax and points being doubled in Toronto if I was the first Canadian again I had a real chance of winning the NTL for the 1500. I let the thought of beating certain people and $4000 get in my head too much instead of just going out and racing. I finished as 3rd Canadian, so maybe 5th overall in a decent time of 3:44. I still finished 3rd in the NTL picking up some cash.
After that took the next few weeks pretty easy and ran a completely unmotivated 1500 at Alberta Provincials. I wish could have done better and given a better show at provs, but I was just mentally worn out.
I can look back at each individual race and come up with things I could have done better, which is positive. It just means still have room to improve. But looking at the season as a whole I cannot complain. I only had 2 or 3 races that were under my old PB coming into the season. I took over 5 seconds off my PB.
As of late, I took 2 weeks completely off. If you are a loyal follower, you'll remember my post about my two week break from last year, or you can read it here. This year was nothing like that! This has been my tamest 2 week break in recent memory. In the first week I went down to Phoenix to spend some time with my girlfriend. She then got on a plane with me back up to Canadia, as she calls it. We landed in Calgary and drove up to Edmonton the next day to watch the new Mr and Mrs Norminton get married. The wedding was a ton of fun, it was exactly as a wedding should be. Good friends and good times.
I have been SLOWLY getting back into running. I try to get out the door every second day for 3 or 5 miles. Whether I actually go that often is a different story. If I feel the motivation, I go, if I don't, well then I stay home.
Other than that I have been putting some time in at the stores of the Running Room and making some extra cash that way.
That pretty well sums up the last little bit. If anything exciting happens in the coming weeks and months I'll be sure to write about it. If not, I'll make something up and write about that!
After the great event in Moncton we bussed out to Halifax for the 3rd instalment of the NTL. The race wasn't overly exciting. With the top guns like Milne and Brannen not at the race, the possibility of picking up 8 NTL points was realistic and one of my goals. Of course running fast was another. However, I think a few of the other guys also had those 8 NTL points on their mind and even with a pacer we went out fairly slow. I ended up 3rd over all, but first Canadian getting the 8 points.
The next day I flew out to Toronto for the NTL finale. With my 8 points from Halifax and points being doubled in Toronto if I was the first Canadian again I had a real chance of winning the NTL for the 1500. I let the thought of beating certain people and $4000 get in my head too much instead of just going out and racing. I finished as 3rd Canadian, so maybe 5th overall in a decent time of 3:44. I still finished 3rd in the NTL picking up some cash.
After that took the next few weeks pretty easy and ran a completely unmotivated 1500 at Alberta Provincials. I wish could have done better and given a better show at provs, but I was just mentally worn out.
I can look back at each individual race and come up with things I could have done better, which is positive. It just means still have room to improve. But looking at the season as a whole I cannot complain. I only had 2 or 3 races that were under my old PB coming into the season. I took over 5 seconds off my PB.
As of late, I took 2 weeks completely off. If you are a loyal follower, you'll remember my post about my two week break from last year, or you can read it here. This year was nothing like that! This has been my tamest 2 week break in recent memory. In the first week I went down to Phoenix to spend some time with my girlfriend. She then got on a plane with me back up to Canadia, as she calls it. We landed in Calgary and drove up to Edmonton the next day to watch the new Mr and Mrs Norminton get married. The wedding was a ton of fun, it was exactly as a wedding should be. Good friends and good times.
I have been SLOWLY getting back into running. I try to get out the door every second day for 3 or 5 miles. Whether I actually go that often is a different story. If I feel the motivation, I go, if I don't, well then I stay home.
Other than that I have been putting some time in at the stores of the Running Room and making some extra cash that way.
That pretty well sums up the last little bit. If anything exciting happens in the coming weeks and months I'll be sure to write about it. If not, I'll make something up and write about that!
Friday, July 8, 2011
Hub City Track Classic
Well, tonight I ran at the Hub City Track Classic here in Moncton, NB. For a relatively small meet it was able to pull together really good fields for all the races.
I wasn't quite sure how I was going to approach my race, but once the gun went and I found myself shot right into the lead I decided pretty quick. It happened to be Adam Kellar's birthday and I knew he had been chasing the New Brunswick provincial record, so I decided to help try to give him a nice B-day pressy and run 1200 hard for the boys and then just see what happened from there. I made it to 1200 in about 3:00 and some of the guys had started moving on me. After leading 1200 and taking the wind I was pretty exhausted and didn't have much fight left. I figured I had done a good job of making the race fast for everyone so I decided to just cruise home easy. Maybe not my best performance of the year, but at least I made it a race.
The crowd here was amazing. It was a relatively small meet, yet the meet directors did a fantastic job of advertising to the public and getting the media to cover it. It's a shame the bigger cities can't do the same for significantly larger meets. There were more people in the stands here than there were at the Canadian National Championships in Calgary. As I said the people who put this meet on did a fantastic job and I really hope they get the wish of being added into the National Track League next year, they deserve!
I wasn't quite sure how I was going to approach my race, but once the gun went and I found myself shot right into the lead I decided pretty quick. It happened to be Adam Kellar's birthday and I knew he had been chasing the New Brunswick provincial record, so I decided to help try to give him a nice B-day pressy and run 1200 hard for the boys and then just see what happened from there. I made it to 1200 in about 3:00 and some of the guys had started moving on me. After leading 1200 and taking the wind I was pretty exhausted and didn't have much fight left. I figured I had done a good job of making the race fast for everyone so I decided to just cruise home easy. Maybe not my best performance of the year, but at least I made it a race.
The crowd here was amazing. It was a relatively small meet, yet the meet directors did a fantastic job of advertising to the public and getting the media to cover it. It's a shame the bigger cities can't do the same for significantly larger meets. There were more people in the stands here than there were at the Canadian National Championships in Calgary. As I said the people who put this meet on did a fantastic job and I really hope they get the wish of being added into the National Track League next year, they deserve!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Whirlwind Update.
First of all, I need to say sorry for the giant cliff hanger only to leave you hanging for such a long time. I'm not going to write as long of a story as originally intended, instead I will try to recap as much as I can of what has happened since my last post. I will try to be much better in the coming weeks and months to get back to more frequent updates.
So, I wrote a little about OXY, but nothing too detailed, let me do that now. OXY was absolutely amazing. The warm-up, the race, the atmosphere, every other race. In 13 years of running have never felt as good as did during that race. I felt stronger, smoother, and more relaxed than ever have before. I ended up running 3:43.76, which was a 3 second PB, but also only .11 seconds off my carding standard. So I had a little bitterness to go along with my joy. Most everyone who ran OXY from my group either PB'ed or had a fantastic race, so the high from that far outweighed the .11 seconds.
After OXY went back to Scottsdale and spent a few days with Amy before heading back up to Canada. Somehow during my stay at Amy's convinced her to book a flight out of Calgary and join me on my journey. Having her with me really made the trip a lot better. It's actually quite a beautiful drive, if you don't get caught in crazy rain/hail/snow storms. It's also a lot more enjoyable when you don't run out of gas somewhere in the middle of Montana and have to pay a guy $5 for a gallon out of the back of his truck just to get you to the next town.
After the long drive I had a few days at home and then went up to Edmonton to run the Northland Park 1 Mile Road Race. As always the event was a lot of fun and helped fill my bank account to get me through the summer. A few days later I flew to Abbotsford for a little 1500 that was mediocre. When returned home after that finally had a few weeks in one place to just chill and get some training in.
After a solid 2 week training block it was time for nationals. They went pretty well. Heats went pretty much exactly as predicted. I made it through on placement which is a huge step forward from not making it at all. Then in the final I kind of got a little anxious and made some rookie mistakes, but I did beat 1 guy! On a whole, for our group, nationals was a huge success. We had 5 of 8 guys in the Men's 800, and got all 3 medals. In the 1500 we had 5 of 12 finalists, and 3 of the top 4. Lemlem got 2nd by a boob in the Women's 8 and Leanna was close behind her for 3rd.
I had a few days to decompress after Nats and then headed back to Vancouver for Harry Jerome and the start of the National Track League (NTL). As always, Jerome treated me well with yet another PB of 3:41.57, well under my carding standard. Two days later I came back and ran the 3rd fastest time o my life in Victoria at NTL #2. I was pretty happy with the way the west coast treated me.
I am currently sitting in a dorm room in Moncton. I am running yet another 1500 here tomorrow. The facility is amazing, the field is good and I'm excited to race. After this I am headed to Halifax for the 3rd stop of the NTL, move on to Toronto after that for the NTL finale, take about 2 weeks recovery and training then run Alberta Provincials. Provincials will mark the end of my 2011 season.
I already have some post-season plans. On the 28th I'm heading down to Scottsdale to visit my beautiful girlfriend Amy. I'll be down there until the 4th of August when we will both board a plane ad she will join me back to Calgary and then on to Edmonton to witness Ms. Jenn Kemp and Mr. Matt Norminton's wedding with me. I then plan to work my little butt off to make some extra billz before hading back down to Scottsdale to start the cycle all over again.
So, I wrote a little about OXY, but nothing too detailed, let me do that now. OXY was absolutely amazing. The warm-up, the race, the atmosphere, every other race. In 13 years of running have never felt as good as did during that race. I felt stronger, smoother, and more relaxed than ever have before. I ended up running 3:43.76, which was a 3 second PB, but also only .11 seconds off my carding standard. So I had a little bitterness to go along with my joy. Most everyone who ran OXY from my group either PB'ed or had a fantastic race, so the high from that far outweighed the .11 seconds.
After OXY went back to Scottsdale and spent a few days with Amy before heading back up to Canada. Somehow during my stay at Amy's convinced her to book a flight out of Calgary and join me on my journey. Having her with me really made the trip a lot better. It's actually quite a beautiful drive, if you don't get caught in crazy rain/hail/snow storms. It's also a lot more enjoyable when you don't run out of gas somewhere in the middle of Montana and have to pay a guy $5 for a gallon out of the back of his truck just to get you to the next town.
After the long drive I had a few days at home and then went up to Edmonton to run the Northland Park 1 Mile Road Race. As always the event was a lot of fun and helped fill my bank account to get me through the summer. A few days later I flew to Abbotsford for a little 1500 that was mediocre. When returned home after that finally had a few weeks in one place to just chill and get some training in.
After a solid 2 week training block it was time for nationals. They went pretty well. Heats went pretty much exactly as predicted. I made it through on placement which is a huge step forward from not making it at all. Then in the final I kind of got a little anxious and made some rookie mistakes, but I did beat 1 guy! On a whole, for our group, nationals was a huge success. We had 5 of 8 guys in the Men's 800, and got all 3 medals. In the 1500 we had 5 of 12 finalists, and 3 of the top 4. Lemlem got 2nd by a boob in the Women's 8 and Leanna was close behind her for 3rd.
I had a few days to decompress after Nats and then headed back to Vancouver for Harry Jerome and the start of the National Track League (NTL). As always, Jerome treated me well with yet another PB of 3:41.57, well under my carding standard. Two days later I came back and ran the 3rd fastest time o my life in Victoria at NTL #2. I was pretty happy with the way the west coast treated me.
I am currently sitting in a dorm room in Moncton. I am running yet another 1500 here tomorrow. The facility is amazing, the field is good and I'm excited to race. After this I am headed to Halifax for the 3rd stop of the NTL, move on to Toronto after that for the NTL finale, take about 2 weeks recovery and training then run Alberta Provincials. Provincials will mark the end of my 2011 season.
I already have some post-season plans. On the 28th I'm heading down to Scottsdale to visit my beautiful girlfriend Amy. I'll be down there until the 4th of August when we will both board a plane ad she will join me back to Calgary and then on to Edmonton to witness Ms. Jenn Kemp and Mr. Matt Norminton's wedding with me. I then plan to work my little butt off to make some extra billz before hading back down to Scottsdale to start the cycle all over again.
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