I just want this pain to go away.

A little recap before I get into the nitty gritty of where I'm at today.

I had my lab presentation that I was procrastinating my last post and followed that up with a weekend of festivities. Starting with the Microbi Symposium which is always a good night out and then the Saturday going to the Parade of L

ost Souls out on Commercial Drive. Its more of a gathering than a parade. People dress up in their halloween costumes and there are street performers and drums. All round a good time.

I specifically like the people on stilts.

The following morning there was a nice change of scenery. Two friends of mine from the McGill Cycling Team are now living in Kelowna and were in town to watch the World Cup Speed Skating Competition at Pacific Coliseum.

This is short track speed skating and I had a childhood friend (Travis Jayner) racing for the American Team. I won't give too many details, but if you've seen it on TV, its 10X faster in person. Its really incredible to watch. My favorite event was the relay. For those of you who don't know what this is, what happens is there are 4 teams of 4. So 16 people on the ice all skating in circles. One person has to be doing laps at all times but the tag of for the next skater can happen at any time so its a chaotic 5000 meters of high speed skating that somehow doesn't result in a crash.

Check out this video (This is front the Vancouver Race) Canada is the Black with White stripes typically leading the race. Go to the end to really see the speed pick up.

Unfortunately Travis didn't have the best day, but it was still cool to see him skate.

The following week was fairly uneventful, I had a promising meeting at work with another lab where we brainstormed ideas and came up with some new objectives for the coming month. But the week was really just focused on Halloween that was coming up.

Thursday night a bunch of people from my building and I carved pumpkins. You can check out our work here, but I'll post mine just so you can see the awesomeness of Optimus Prime. 

For Halloween this year I had a whole lot of ideas and was debating what to be until the very last minute. In a clutch decision I decided to be Steve Prefontaine. If you don't know who he is, first off; FOR SHAME, and secondly, read up on him because he is pretty sweet. There are also two good movies on him; Prefontaine and Without Limits. I suggest watching both many times.

To perfect his costume I would need running attire, but most important is a beautiful growth of facial hair. Check and Check. With a little arts and crafts time I made the Oregon Logo to go on a shirt that he was so famous for and was ready to be on my way. My friends and I all decided to go to a bar party at the Blarney Stone which is crazy busy on normal nights, so on Halloween we decided to get there insanely early at 6:30 to make sure we got in and didn't have to wait too long. This turned out to be a great move because I know people who showed up at 8:15 and never got in.

The night was a big success and since we got there so early it was a fairly early night. I don't know about you but I can't last too long drinking when I start at 6 so my 1:30 AM I was home and by 2 in bed asleep. Lilia made fun of me for being old because this was really late for me.

Unfortunately the facial hair is all gone now and I'm naked and cold. People keep telling me I look weird and like a little boy without it, so I think I am going to grow it back. Time will tell for that one.

Now for a training update, which also goes along with the title of the post.

I haven't tried Biking yet, weather has been pretty crappy and I think psychologically I've been nervous about getting back out there after my leg injury for fear of it acting up again. The main reproach to fitness I've done is running. Last Wednesday I led the run practice which included a 2km warmup and then the main set was 1km repeats. I made it about 3.5km until my knee started to really hurt. This was in the same spot as the pain from after the marathon. I think that one of my tendons must be really tight still. I took the rest of the practice easy and then walked it off. 

Today being a week later I was hoping my knee would be better. Again I ran the warmup with everyone but then about 3km into the run my knee started getting that twitch to it again. That being said I quit running and became coach Vince from there with my stopwatch in hand and yelling voice ready to encourage and get mad at inconsistent pacing (Rich would be proud). 

I haven't really done any stretching since the marathon, so this resting recovery clearly isn't doing enough and active stretch recovery will be needed.

A little more serious than the tight knee though is the pain I get in my foot after I run. Its the same pain I got during the marathon which leads me to believe that I may have damaged something important in there. I really hope this doesn't stick with me for a while. I'm beating myself up over not getting outside and exercising, I've gotten really lazy since the marathon which is transferring over to the rest of my life as can be seen from the lack of updates on the blog, but getting myself out training isn't going to help anything either. Hopefully by my next update I will have taken steps to make things better. 

One fun thing thats been happening to me a lot lately, since I've been coaching the run practices, I've had a few people from work start asking me questions about running and fitness, and I find it really rewarding and exciting to have people showing an interest in fitness as a result of my influence. Hopefully I can make this spread.

Well I think thats all for now. I'm trying to catch up with work and the rest of my life right now, so training updates will be a little slow but maybe I will have more personal updates in the near future.

Thanks for reading