Dark Night Reconnaissance

Starting up this half marathon training following the workout plan found here has kept me very busy this week. I'm pleased to say that I didn't miss a workout. I did however have to change a few of them around. The reason being I encountered a few dilemmas along the way.

Since the workout plan is all set up for me, it should be simple, just go out there and follow it. Issue being this doesn't take into account how I'm feeling on any given day. Are my legs doing well, feeling stiff, any aches or pains?

For Sunday I had scheduled a long easy run of 13km. I set out planning to do this and then started questioning myself. Was I starting up this week too strong? What if I get shin splints from the sudden increase in mileage? I should have worked my way into this program and started two weeks from now. This is where the internal debate comes in, pride makes me want to finish the workout so as to not "cheat" at all along the way. Then reason kicks in saying that it isn't smart to push too hard.

In the end reason ended up winning out. I decided that Sunday I would take it easy, and then do my long run Monday so as to have the recovery day off on Tuesday.

That being said I did 8.5/6.5/13.5 km runs Saturday/Sunday/Monday, I feel this is pretty good, but I'm definitely looking forward to my day off tomorrow.

One thing I have come to realize this week, is that if I want to stick to this plan, I will need to plan my days well, I can't just wing it and do long runs every night, sometimes I'll have to wake up and do them before heading into work. Also, I'm going to need to really pay more attention to my body and not beat up on it. I'm really going to focus on stretching and icing right now. The last thing I need is to be all gun-ho in the off season and plague my season with an injury.

Now to the exciting stuff. My reconnaissance mission concealed by the darkness of night. Unfortunately/Fortunately  for this evening, all of my cold weather running gear is black (I really don't know who designs this stuff, they should know by now that winter its dark when you leave for work and dark when you get home, why make the gear all black as well?). The fortunate side of this coin is that my mission which I chose to accept was to break in to the UBC construction side at 16 and Westbrooke and take a peak at the progress on the new track being built there. Rumors have been swirling around as to when it would be finished, ranging from already done to sometime early next year.

With none of these answers satisfying me I decided to check it out myself. This wasn't so much premeditated, I was running by and saw a gap in the fence so decided to detour a little bit. 

Dressed all in black I stealthily passed by the gate, Underarmour sweater with built in hood pulled up for ultimate stealthiness. 

I must say, the layout of the track looks superb! My only complaint is that it looks like it was built in a rush. The track is clearly not flat in some area's and I feel while sprinting that you would have the sensation that the ground is slightly dipping under you. It really doesn't take much to notice this, I remember Lindsay Place High School's floor dipped by 1/8 of an inch on some of the tiles and you felt like you were missing a step sometimes. The one thing I am holding out for at the UBC track is that it still isn't finished. All that was done was the cement base, hopefully when they lay the top layer (Not sure what its going to be, I hope rubber), that they even out all the dips. I'm going to need a smooth surface if I'm going to run a fast mile!

Anyways, that was it for tonight, came home and made myself a milkshake with supper. I think I successfully got 70 grams of protein in me within minutes of finishing my run!