Snapping out of it

My re-introduction to running this past week was more difficult than I expected. I was rationalizing with myself earlier in the week that it was the darkness that was discouraging me, but that is a pansy excuse if I'm being frank. I did however find that running some different routes as the week wore on seemed to help me shake off the mental hiccup that was making running a chore. This sport is supposed to be fun after all! 

I'm still a little daunted by starting up workouts though. Tomorrow I will attempt my first session since the taper leading up to CI's. It's also likely that my legs will feel as if they have a little bit of lead in them, since I started McMaster's Get Jacked core program today. Last year I found doing Get Jacked seemed to help my body prepare well for faster stuff on the track as it minimized some structural weaknesses, and it helps to have something different to do during a few days of the week. Since I don't have easy access to an indoor track where I'm living, I am forced to substitute the running portions with quick intervals on the treadmill as I am doing the program in my work gym, but that certainly beats doing the entire session outside in the cold.

I'm thinking I will likely race next at the Dome Super Saturday Meet #1 here in Ottawa on December 15th. The Lious Riel dome is quite a hike from my house, otherwise I'd consider training there, but I'll just have to make-do on workouts out in the snow (which has finally arrived) and see what sort of fitness it yields me. Following that, I'll aim to best my time from last year at the Boxing Day 10 Miler in the Hammer. 

Closure

To the few people that read this blog, I apologize once again for the delays between posts. I'm afraid my reasons for not posting sooner are silly at best- I actually had posts written and saved on my computer, but often they were written a week or more after the race in question, and so I felt that I should also be posting up-to-date material in addition to back posts. But it's time to clear the backlog and finally post some content, so I'm posting four separate compositions today, with this one focusing on the CIS Cross Country championships and the big picture. Scroll further down for my OUA recap and the races that preceded it. 

Having met the athletic department's official standards for qualifying to the CIS meet for the first time (top 20 at OUA's), I was granted permission to fly into Pearson Airport Friday afternoon where Kevin would then pick me up and drive me the rest of the way to London.  

With my flight being delayed while on the runway for half an hour, I expected that we would be late for the banquet but hoped there would still be food to eat. As it turned out, Kevin and I arrived just before our table had been called up to the buffet table. I'll just make one comment about the banquet food as it's not my aim to call people out on this blog: at $40 a ticket, having the food run out after just one plate per person was a huge disappointment. Many of us sampled various things and expected to go back after for the bulk of our meal, but this was thwarted when kitchen staff told us no more trays would be brought out.

Food aside, the banquet was highlighted by appearances and speeches by the 1963 McMaster Marauders, who took the first men's CIS championship, as well as the women's champion Western Mustangs from 30 years ago. When one of the speakers from McMaster spoke of the course, where a 4 metre fence in the middle of a farmer's field had to be scaled, the hall cracked up. While I wouldn't want tall fences to be the norm on cross country courses, I'd love to at least see some hay bales that we'd have to hop over. Alas, Western is a finely manicured, well draining golf course with no hay bales in sight. But at least it has some hills. 

At the end of the banquet, everyone simply filed out to head back to their hotels. Unlike past years, I don't think I had a single conversation with runners from other teams, but instead was treated to "Individuals to Watch" and the CIS top 10 ranked teams, as if no one in the hall knew. To be frank, this sort of filler was why the banquet was better left after the race, when teams would be in full party mode and people would spend much of the dinner mingling between individual and team awards announcements.

 
Regardless, I had not travelled from Ottawa just to enjoy a banquet- I was there to race. A trip to the grocery store ensured I wouldn't be hungry that evening, and with all the variables that I could control now in my favour, I slept soundly that night.

Race morning was unremarkable except for how I felt: despite being the last race of my cross country career at Waterloo, I was not super nervous. Yet sitting in the back of my mind were my poor performances of the previous two years. I didn't need to be a CIS all-star to be satisfied, but I certainly didn't want to choke. My personal goal was top 50, though I obviously wanted to be as far under that goal as possible.

With the girls on course, we started our warm up. While I've written extensively of my own injuries, it should be noted that as a team we were quite banged up this season. Based on what I knew (and I'm sure there was more I didn't hear about), most of our sqaud had been banged up at some point, but of greater concern were the injury issues Dan, Charly, and Devon were having prior to the championship. How well would everyone hold up over 10k?

Once we returned and I had run through my drills, I started to have digestive issues. A pit stop seemed to settle things, and before I knew it my spikes were on...yet they did not feel right. My feet were hurting, so I scrambled to untie them both and shake out some residual dirt that had escaped my cleansing efforts post-OUA's.

With all of us ready to go, we huddled up the field from the start line for pre-race chant. Nothing particularly memorable was said by myself or anyone else around the circle, but we did our best to talk ourselves up, chanted, then headed back to the line. For Devon, Justin and myself, this had been a four year wait to finally race as a team at CI's. It felt good to have six of my own teammates in our own box surrounding me instead of other individual qualifiers as in previous years. 

From the crack of the gun, things felt fast. Maybe it was our starting box, way on the left side in box #2. Or maybe the field simply went out harder than I expected. Regardless, as a team we somehow ended up at the back of the field, but I did not realize this until multiple people confirmed such after the race. I figured we were near the back, but video evidence says we were right at the back. One thing was clear to me at the time however: I would have a lot of moving to do as the race played out to finish where I wanted.

Because I was leading the Waterloo team except for portions of the first kilometre, I didn't know what was going on with the guys behind me. Looking at the race footage afterwards showed me that Michael and Charly weren't too far behind me at all, and as I moved through the field were we were also moving up as a team man-for-man. One thing that I remember thinking with surprise during the race was how many guys from Laurier I had to pass on the first lap. In previous races there might have been one or two who went out ahead of our top four, but that afternoon I had to catch most of their team, and never even saw Soh Ikram, who had gone out hard and would eventually hold on to finish a stellar 27th. At the time I didn't give this much thought, and truth be told wasn't thinking about much at all except moving up to the next group ahead. 

Passing through 5k, I took a glance at the clock and was shocked. I had only run 16:27 for the first half of the race, when judging by the effort level I was certain I had covered the distance much quicker than that. Cross country is about placing first and foremost, but going into the race I was fairly confident I would (and would have to) run under 33 minutes to achieve my goal. Based on how I was feeling at that point, I knew negative splitting the second half was not in the cards- it was just a matter of picking off as many guys as I could and putting the time out of my mind. 

I continued to bring guys back in the next two kilometres, and was confident that I would finish well enough to avoid the “choke” label. But after closing on many of the guys who were within immediate striking distance by 7.5k, I struggled mentally with leading the group while trying to catch another pack up ahead. I was caught by surprise when Charly pulled up beside me and then started to pull away. Given how Charly's hip had been bothering him in the weeks prior, I will fully admit I didn't expect an amazing performance out of him, but held out hope for the team's sake that he'd still run well and score low for us. 

I'd like to say watching Charly pass stoked some sort of fire inside of me that shook off the rough patch I was in at that point. But the truth is a part of my brain resigned to finishing as Waterloo's second scorer, wherever that would have put me in race overall. But my body had other plans and I managed to keep the distance from growing after that, and eventually closed and tried to work with him as we approached the final kilometre. 

On the long straight to the finish, I was waiting 500m mark, spray painted in white on the ground, to throw myself further into the hurt box. When we reached it, I accelerated and caught up to Dave Cashin of Queen's, and then kept on kicking by him. I also passed a guy from Victoria, but to his credit he came right back up on me in the final 100 metres, and though I attempted to match his strides, it was in vain. I had finished 43rd overall, and 23rd OUA competitor.  I would not call it a performance on the same level as the one I had at OUA's, but I couldn't have been happier: I had finally run decently at the CIS meet in my third attempt, and I completed my season without having a down race. The most disappointing part of the weekend was learning that our cross-town “rivals”, the Laurier Golden Hawks, had beaten us by 7 points to finish 12th overall. This was despite  gaining over 60 points on them collectively as a team in the 2nd half of the race (I myself gained 22 places in the second half). This is the first time in my memory that we have lost to Laurier at a championship meet where both of our teams were competing. Full credit to Laurier for executing on the day. On a happier note, the Warrior women finished a fantastic 10th! I hope the Waterloo athletic department uses their finish as justification to send more teams on the bubble in the future.  

Some reflection….

When I started this blog after spring exams, my aim was to use it to chronicle my build up to the university cross country season, with the major goal of running at my third CIS meet. From the beginning, it was almost as if the blog acted as jinx; I battled injuries right from the first week back running post-exams and this continued through August. In a bit of cruel irony, a blog christened "Building the Base" instead served to document a summer where I never managed to run enough to build one. I've heard it said that a happy life makes for a crappy blog. This does not hold true for me. For someone who chose to start a blog about running, not being able to train properly was quite a buzzkill, and I got tired of writing about any injuries that crept up, so I often didn't compose anything at all. I'm hoping that this post can make up for that a little bit, by going into detail about how despite the setbacks, I had my best university cross country season.

If I had to pick a key moment during the months I spent training this fall, I would zero in on the morning of the 6th of September. I had been struggling with pain in my left forefoot for almost 2 weeks, and was frustrated to discover that each time I took time off the pain would return when I commenced running for more than a few days. This was especially disheartening because prior to this period I had begun using a foot pad after a trip to the pedorthist in mid-August. The foot pad took some of the pressure off my metatarsals and the improvement was immediate in the week after, but after gluing it down to the bottom of my insole (as I had been advised once I discovered the sweet spot for the pad's placement), I found the pain had returned. 

Unlike when I first encountered this type of pain in my foot, I am no longer concerned it is a stress fracture as I was 2 years ago. But running while my forefoot is screaming in protest is neither enjoyable nor a guarantee that I won't induce damage to the bones in my foot if I continue for significant periods of time. A summer of trying to manage the injury was ultimately unsuccessful. 

On that morning in September, I was fed up. Nearly two weeks of on-again off-again training where the pain had not improved had wasted my patience, and left me resigned to try and run through it. If I wanted a shot at running well in late October and early November, I needed to start putting in the miles sometime. And so I put on the shoes and headed out the door. 

I was in pain after only 3 minutes. Stopping at a bench along my morning route, I took off my left shoe, readjusted the insole, and considered my options. I could see the run through and likely be hurting the rest of the day, or turn around and walk home, then rinse and repeat the following day. Well…what did I have to lose? I tied up my shoe, jotted across the street to the bicycle pathway that runs along the Ottawa River, and continued. 

Something special happened during that run. Though I was gritting my teeth for the first couple minutes after resuming, by the turnaround point I was feeling better. At the end of the run my foot felt better than when I had started. And while I certainly wasn't pain free, I ran again in the afternoon. The next day I was in pain but it never worsened, and I soon found that alternating between two pairs of shoes that on their own caused my feet to hurt seemed to find a happy medium when I wore one pair in the morning and another in the evening. 

I'm not sure how the season would have gone if I had decided to turn back that morning. It wasn't as if my injury problems ended with that run- I had issues with my hamstrings, quads, and Achilles as I have mentioned in previous posts. But all of those resulted because I was finally able to run enough to beat my body up once my metatarsals settled down. After that morning, I was able to look past the next day in deciding how to train. 

Sport commentators often like to throw around the term "veteran experience" to describe the advantages a team or individual will have as a result of having competed at an event before, or experienced a type of training or preparation in the lead up. While I think more often than not experience in sporting events is over-rated (how many Kenyans get more than one shot at the Olympics given how competitive it is to make their team?), I found that the lessons I have learned over my four years running at Waterloo paid dividends this fall in how I handled injuries, planned my training, prepared mentally, and executed in races. 

When it comes to any niggles I have encountered in training, I have tended to favour a run-through approach over taking time off. In the case of my foot this fall, this turned out to be the right approach, especially since I had already tried taking time off. For other injuries, however, I have learned that one voluntary day off when something more than soreness has crept up can save me half a week or more of forced missed training. How do I know this? Each of the ailments I had this fall were something I had encountered before, the only difference in some cases being they were on the opposite side of the body. A strain in my vastus medialis two years ago had me completely baffled and scared as I could barely climb stairs, and I can recall sending panicked emails to then Waterloo coach Stephen Drew where I vented about losing fitness.  When the same affliction hit me this past September, I took one day completely off (struggling to walk), was riding a bike on the second, ellipticaling by the fourth, and racing on the sixth day after. My cross training likely limited any fitness losses (maybe even provided some gains) and allowed me to get rolling again, and I didn't sweat the lost miles. Other issues, like my sore Achilles tendons, were treated pre-emptively knowing they were likely to cause me problems based on past experience. I haven't had Achilles problems in a couple months now, but I continued to do the heel drops as a pre-emptive measure throughout the season and never missed a day because of them (again a departure from 2 years ago). 

When it came to planning out my training this fall, a major difference from when I was training alone in Peterborough was that this time I looked as solo workouts as an advantage for me, especially given my perceived lack of fitness. Rather than being thrashed at paces quicker than I could handle in the early season, I was left in complete control of my own destiny- if something felt too hard, I ran slower, and on the days when I felt good, I could open up the throttle with no one complaining. It also saved me from comparing myself to anyone; last fall I found that too often I would run a workout with the Mac team and then say to myself "well, I kept up with -insert name here- today, so I should be able to run with them in races", even though I have always firmly believed that that principle doesn't hold up very well. I was also able to plan my workouts around my schedule- when I was working at Dofasco last fall and had to put in extra hours, I found it hard to show up halfway through a workout at Mac and jump in. In Ottawa, if I had to workout alone in the dark, I would, but I wouldn't miss any intervals as a result. 

Coupled with my new attitude towards training was an altered planning process, where I actually planned my training by counting back from races and scheduling in sessions that I felt I needed. As an example, because of my lack of base mileage, I felt my endurance needed work, so right away I adopted the Sunday long run-Wedesday medium distance run concept championed by Mark Wetmore in Running with the Buffaloes, gradually increasing both over the course of the season until 1 week out from OUA's. 

Belief in my own training and my confidence in handling injuries was critical to my mental preparation before races this fall, where my expectations after the summer were tapered but I remained focused on the task at hand. I did my best to put things out of my mind before races (whether it was stress from work or other life concerns) and set realistic expectations for how I might run on a certain day. Despite having the thoughts of previous dismal performances sitting in the back of my head before CI’s, I did not crack under the pressure and ran decent. At both the fist and last meets,  I set realistic goals  and executed accordingly. 

Now after reading all of this you might very well be asking yourself "okay tough guy, so how come you only finished 43rd at CI's if everything went so great?" It's something I've thought about as well, and truth be told, I think I'd finish higher than I did this year if I'd run as well in previous seasons, but outside of that, I'm a firm believer if performing relative to the talent you're given with. I'm under no illusion that I'm some great runner. But the best part of running is your own personal improvement. I'm not going to be a world-beater, but I was much fitter this year than I've been before, and I have the results to back it up. After taking a week off (it wasn't really planned, but mentally I checked out), I'm ready to gear up again in preparation for track. I'm very curious to see what I can do this winter, where I hope to commit to racing every meet during the indoor for the first time. 

Full Circle

Roughly 10 minutes before the start of the 2012 OUA Cross Country Championships, I turned to Devon and Justin and smiled. "It's come full circle!"  Devon was in agreement. "Rain, cold and a muddy course. Just like Kingston back in first year." 

While Justin and Devon weren't exactly thrilled about the prospect of racing in these conditions, especially on the roller coaster course setup by the host York Lions at Kingbridge Centre, I couldn't have been happier. This has always been what true cross country is about to me: terrible weather and a challenging course, to juxtapose with the perfect surface and conditions expected for fast track races.  It was my expectation that the field would go out slow, putting a lot of guys in the mix early on. 

Four year ago when I participated in my first OUA's, Fort Henry Hill was hammered by rain and wind that had teams shivering under military tents set up by RMC prior to the start of the race. The men's race went out conservatively, and among the surprises to emerge (if judging by early season results) was Waterloo's Chris Hartman, who legged it out with the giants of the conference to finish 8th. I was the 2nd man across the line for the Warriors on that occasion, but was well back in the 50s. Regardless of my result, the epic conditions of that race in 2008 have remained the standard that I have judged each subsequent contest on the grass, and each year I have hoped for a repeat of that weather combined with hilly terrain to present itself at a championship meet to give strength guys like me a chance against the speed demons from the track. 

In 2009, a pancake flat Brock course was chewed up and muddy, but midterms leading up had me cooked mentally and physically, with not a single decent workout since the previous race. I once again placed in the 50s, and even more disappointedly finished as 5th man on the team despite never scoring lower than third previously. 

In 2010, a rolling Guelph course was provided but the weather was sunny, and following a season that was my first time training truly alone, I finished 27th at OUA's. I was happy with the result, and the golf course in Sherbrooke was sufficiently hilly and muddy that I would have been well suited to run decently at my first university national meet, but I was hurt for the two weeks prior to the CIS and ran poorly on the day, finishing 81st. 

In 2011, beach running and a monster hill were coupled with another (unfortunately) sunny day. I finished 31st, and was lucky enough to be part of the group that the school gave a crack at CI's. I was healthy, the course was muddy and rolling, but I raced poorly with no excuses this time on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City. That performance was mentally bruising, and took a long time to get over. Maybe I wasn't a strength runner after all. Some guys on the team were bringing up the fact that although I loved the rough conditions, I had never run well in them. I disagreed with that statement- both OTFA's and Club Nationals in 2008 were plagued by messy footing (mud and snow, respectively) and I had thrown together two decent performances. I still believed that poor conditions still gave me the best shot possible to take some scalps. 

Weather aside, I can recall a run along Wilmot Line not long after my dismal performance at OUA’s in 2009 where I expressed to Rob Bark that I believed that midterms, sickness or injury made a number of guys underperform at OUA’s each year relative to their ability. I felt then that if I could just get to the start line healthy and with some confidence, which for me meant the training in the last two weeks prior to the meet couldn’t go to Hell (despite midterms), I’d be giving myself a good shot at running well and surprising a few people. 

After racing at Guelph (see my previous recap below) I put in a week over 90 miles, my biggest of the season to that point, and was feeling quite tired on my long run the following Sunday, which then left my hamstring hurting the next morning. I ended up taking both Monday and Tuesday off, and surprisingly was pretty calm about it- I wasn’t planning to run mega miles the week of OUA’s anyhow, and I felt two days off wouldn’t affect my fitness. This concept would have come as a shock to younger versions of myself- I am normally absolutely rattled over an injury so close to a big race. Then again, this season has thrown plenty of wrenches that would normally have rattled me: a summer plagued by injury where I did not put in big base miles, week after week where I couldn’t seem to string together more than 3 or 4 days or running due to my foot, a resurfacing of my vastus medialis strain from 2 years ago, followed by a cold, followed by an earlier hamstring issue. Somehow I’ve actually managed to chill out and deal with each of these issues sensibly (I would guess that comes easier with low expectations). And so I approached this latest niggle the same way; I’d put in the work the week before- my legs were certainly not in need of miles. And so I let the healing process happen.

Wednesday morning I tested my legs and found my hamstring in much better shape, but my lungs burned from the run. However, I completed the original Tuesday workout that evening without a hitch, and a helping of 5 miles in the morning and evening Thursday had me feeling back to normal rolling into the weekend.

Friday I rode up with the Ottawa team, and was left a little baffled when we delayed our arrival to Toronto by first stopping in Belleville for over an hour (why sit on a bus when you can…sit in a mall foodcourt???) then headed to sit in their team hotel for 40 minutes instead of stopping at the course first. I knew my teammates from Waterloo would have already done most of their running and previewing of the course before the Gees Gees bus got there, so I changed into my running clothes on the bus and ran around the Ikea parking lot so I wouldn’t have to worry about doing a proper run when I got to the Kingbridge Centre. Running on thin strips of soaked grass sprinkled among the huge expanse of asphalt and concrete, I was surprised: my legs felt good. I returned to board the bus to the course, feeling relaxed.

Relaxation turned to excitement when we reached the convention centre that served as host. The landscape was indeed as hilly as had been advertised, with some brutal ups and downs. I couldn’t help but laugh. I knew some of the teams had taken Mactrack’s Google flyover at face value, believing the course to be quite flat, but I had heard otherwise from different sources. Jogging around the course with Kevin, I couldn’t help but smile. I was also glad I had taken the time to let the hamstring heal, because the inclines that we’d be facing would have done serious damage if I had any weakness in the muscle.

My only concern with the course was the final corner, which dropped down into a bridge at the end of the long downhill that concluded each 2.5k loop. No matter how many times I practiced it at full speed, I did not feel in control, and many times was forced to slow down to avoid bailing. I made a mental note to simply be careful during the race, undecided on how to attack it. 

That evening I went to bed early, feeling exhausted from the days leading up where I had not gotten enough shut-eye. The next morning I awoke with a bit of a headache but was otherwise feeling good. When Devon opened the window drapes, I saw it was raining and looked like it had been for most of the night. I was energized at the prospect of a muddy course, but with large portions of it being gravel paths, I did not expect I would need to put my "monsters" (13mm pins) in my spikes. 

Arriving at the course, with rain and wind battering the bus, the men's squad elected to sit tight until it was time for the warmup in order to delay our encounter with the elements as long as possible. Our bus driver, who had been very patient with us, even when we had left him in the parking lot much longer than expected while we grabbed dinner at a Kelsey's the night before, was keyed up to watch some former hits from network television and so popped in a DVD of a season of Prison Break. Watching this made me glad I had not spent time doing so when it originally aired. 

When we headed out for our warmup, we jogged briefly on a small section of the course, whereby I became convinced that the monster pins were to be a necessity on the grass (now mud), which had been already chewed up by just one circuit of the women's field with another to come. The weather had remained perfectly miserable since the morning: wet and cold. 

We headed down to our shelter set up near the line, and to be honest the moments pre-race have become slightly blurred. The moment that stands out is the exchange that started this post, and the feeling of excitement for a challenging course about to be conquered. The gun fired, and as I hoped, most the field crawled, allowing me to settle into a good position early. Almost immediately my feet were soaked, but that had to be expected, and so I didn't give it up thought. 

With plenty of inclines to deaden the legs, my strategy on the hills was to climb them as easily as possible and then make my gains on the flats and downhills. This appeared to be working early on as I noticed the breathing of guys around me was more laboured than my own. I also recognized that the size of my pins were clearly offering me an advantage on the grass (now mud) portions of the course, especially when it came to tearing off downhill. While I was slipping occasionally, I was nowhere near close to tumbling head over heels as I had watched some guys do. The downhill section into the bridge was also giving me no problems. 

At the five kilometre mark, I was feeling good (likely because of the slow pace), and completely focused on catching the next guy in front of me each time I moved up. And when I passed teammates cheering me on with one lap to go, I was made aware that I was closing in on a top 20 finish. That knowledge ignited something even deeper within me. Top 20?! If I catch a few guys and hold this I could finish top 20! Okay, let's go, up the hill, that's it, now start moving. Okay, you've picked off a couple. Crap, there goes Tommy Lecours, I can't go at that pace. Alright, stay with these other guys up the hill. You want top 20! Running scared! Alright, just a flat section and the downhill now, start running hard, make it hurt! Okay, opening up the legs on the downhill, CRAP TOO FAST, GONNA CLIP THAT TREE!!! …rolling onto my back now, hope I don't lose many places okay GET BACK UP, darn Ryan Armstrong just passed me, okay chase him down the hill, alright get off the bridge and then go! Now I'm kicking, there's no way I'm going to lose a place because of a stupid fall…ALRIGHT I'm passing Armstrong!! Okay, grit the teeth and hammer all the way to the finish, hopefully it's not too far…there it is! Top 20 here I come, YES! 

"That was quite the recovery," Western's Ryan Armstrong would eventually say to me in the finishing chute. I replied that the adrenaline from my tumble kicked in at the right moment. I couldn't believe it…I had thought I would run well enough given the conditions, but finishing in the top 20 had not even crossed my mind. When the official results came in I found out I was 17th. A smile didn't leave my face for the rest of that day. Finally I had proven to some of my teammates that terrible conditions were the best for me. It wasn't a Chris Hartmann-caliber performance, but to me it almost felt like it. The rest of the team also performed great, and we nipped Toronto for 7th in the OUA to match the girls' team performance. 

This of course leaves just one bit of unfinished business for the season. In my previous two experiences at the CIS championships, I have run poorly. Will the 3rd time be the charm? I can only hope so. The biggest difference this year will be that we are sending full squads, something each of us from the first year group (of when I started) had been waiting four years for. It's gonna be fun! 

Parkrun

Back in the summer, I wrote a post about my love of twilight track races because of their relatively cheap entry fees where personal satisfaction is the only prize. I complained about road races being expensive with silly t-shirt gimmicks that raise the entry fee for a product most racers can do without. In a perfect world, there would be cheap opportunities to race with no frills. 

As it turns out, there are indeed places where this pipe dream is a reality! While listening to old Marathon Talk podcasts (a great show that covers all things running that I re-discovered recently while being injured and needing something to listen to while on the bike/elliptical), I became intrigued at the frequent mention of "park runs" that the co-hosts had attended in the weekend prior to recordings. A quick Google search led me to discover the greatness of parkrun , an organization that offers free weekly 5km timed runs in over 100 parks across the United Kingdom, and 176 locations worldwide. You sign up once online (ever!), print off a barcode, and show up at any event around the world (you don't register for individual events- you just show up). Commence thrashing yourself for five hard kilometres, and later your official time will be emailed to you. The organizers even keep track of the best ever times (13:48 and 15:58 for men and women respectively, and Mo Farah doesn't even have the record!), but the only prizes given out are for attendance, to encourage people to come out each week and better themselves. Currently, over 24,000 people are showing up to these events every 7 days. 

parkrun founder and CEO Paul Sinton-Hewitt believes that no one should ever have to pay to race five kilometres, and desires every town in the world to have at least one park run. This guy sounds like he was cut from the same cloth as me! Let's stop for a second and think about the current obesity epidemic in many Western nations. Now imagine if people had an excuse to get themselves fitter with each passing week- there's nothing subjective about a 5k time; the improvements you make are in direct correlation to your improved cardiovascular fitness. Get more aerobically fit= lose weight= run fast. 

Rob Ford made a much-maligned comment a while back that Toronto's marathons, which twice a year contribute further to an already massive traffic headache, should be run in parks in the city. The logistics of such is quite laughable, especially given the huge numbers that both the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon and Goodlife Marathon draw- there is no park in the city big enough that could accommodate thousands of people running loops for 42.2 kilometres. But smaller 5K events? It would definitely be possible, as evidenced by parkruns spreading like wildfire in the UK. The idea of running 5ks in a park is genius really- the event is contained so its impact to the community is minimal, and police do not need to be hired to coordinate traffic closures. There is also the benefit of being able to run in a scenic area where the air is cleaner and the sites prettier. And while admittedly some of the UK parkrun events are run in areas where the park space is massive by Canadian standards (especially the Royal parks), there are also events where the spaces are confined and the course design has to be creative (which makes these events all the better- each course is unique based on the characteristics of the park, and no one is trying to create the flattest/fastest course possible). 

I won't go into too many more details here- if you're interested, you can check out the parkrun website I've linked. The bottom line for me is that these are the purest running events imaginable, and it is my hope that they cross the pond into Canada. One important note is for those concerned that charities and local runs would lose out on revenue: parkrun only runs 5km events, and promotes other events each week. I feel like they've got it all covered- great stuff! 

A quick update on my own running: I had a good week of training…wait, what?! How long has it been since I've been able to write that in the blog? Yes, I managed to string together 7 days of running, and while it wasn't close to my biggest mileage week ever, it was certainly a step in the right direction. I'm not holding my breath that I'll be able to avoid setbacks from here on out, but my confidence is certainly bolstered by being able to spend some decent time on my feet. 

I mentioned in a post of my season outlook in August that I'd like to have things coming together by the Vic Matthews Open in Guelph. It's incredible to think that that race is less than a week away! I'll say that as of right now I've been satisfied with how my races have gone, but Guelph will be likely be the race that brings me back to earth and lets me know where I stand two weeks out from OUA's.