A Passion for Running

Aaron and I had a great 35 minute run on Friday, followed by a nice swim Saturday morning. Then I continued with my renovation by jumping into the re-wiring of what will soon be an open-design kitchen, dining and living room.

It was ugly. I spent about 16 hours crawling around in my attic doing the wiring while my Dad and Aaron did their part below (thank God for both of them). Physically, it was a huge challenge to have to crawl, crouch, lean and lay in the confined spaces of my rafters. Add to that the difficulty of having the move all the blown-in insulation around for every wire I removed and placed and…ugg.

So that was my weekend triathlon – run, swim, renovate. Next I’ll strip away our popcorn ceiling and then we’ll hire someone to put in a new California knock-down ceiling texture.

I hope you are all doing well and I apologize for my lack of presence in the blogosphere but I simply haven’t had any time.

Take care everyone!

Today rocked. I ran slow (mostly because I have to!) and was blessed with an abundance of running joy. 33 minutes of sauntering about in the woods.

And did you know Magpies are hunters? Today I saw one catch a mouse and eat it!

Well, I ripped out the drywall this past weekend. That was important because I wanted to see what kind of wiring changes I’ll need to make plus determine if the walls are load bearing (they’re not).

Anyway, here are some pictures of our (messy) home before I started ripping the drywall out and a few pics of Christopher (I couldn’t keep the boy outta there!) and Cassandra helping with the demolition.

Today is Martin Luther King day. What a good reminder for us all to practice love, kindness and tolerance for others.

Martin Luther King Day is today but he was actually born on January 15, 1929.

Here is a link to his famous I Have a Dream speach.

Yup, I’m here!

Sorry about the lack of interaction lately. Lori and I are busy getting ready for our living/dining room/kitchen renovation. We’re very excited about it. We’ve chosen our hardwood floor and kitchen cabinets and are close to beginning the demolition.

In running news, I have indeed been running. On average every other day. But man o’ man am I ever slow. The challenge has been in letting other runners pass me – runners that would not have been passing me a few months ago.

That said, I have done well in terms of checking Mr. Ego at the door and running at a very slow cardio base building pace. My goals for the next few weeks are simply to run with good form and continue building that base. Hat tip: Lydiard

Jeff over at breakingthetape just ran a smokin’ marathon. Way to go Jeff on a fantastic achievement and on qualifying for Boston! I’m so happy for ya buddy!

Nice article on the Runner’s World website titled Does Running Cause Arthritis by Amby Burfoot.

My wife is very happy. Very very happy. Wanna know why? It’s because she got a new van. And man o’ man did she ever deserve it. Our old van was so old and decrepid, things were breaking and/or falling off every week. No joke.

Here’s Lori with her new baby:

Two months off running and I gained 8 pounds. EIGHT! Holy crap. Time to start eating right, upping the water intake and putting some effort in.

Today I had my first at work lunch run since the injury and of 2006.

While I certainly enjoy running with other people, there is really nothing that compares to these solitary runs. I love them. They happen mid-day, so the sunlight is rejuvenating. They happen in Edmonton’s amazing river valley, so they are packed full of inspiring beauty. They contain the best quality alone time I can possibly imagine and they are the mostly likely time for me to achieve flow – most closely associated by folks like you and I as ‘runner’s high‘. Finally, there’s that after-a-run shower. There’s nothing – absolutely nothing like a hot shower after a sweaty run in Canada’s fresh, crisp winter air. Nothing.

I’m still nervous about the foot and set out today thinking I’d only run for 20 minutes as I had on New Year’s. The day after that first run, the muscles and tendons in my feet and lower legs were quite sore and it worried me. I guess I’ve gained a bit of a paranoia since the injury but that’s a good thing if it will stop me from making stupid mistakes like I have in the past.

Paranoia aside, the run was thoroughly enjoyable and, once I was out there, it was easy to convince myself to turn a 10 minute out and back into a 3o minute round trip.

The bad (but not surprising) news is that my endurance and strength have suffered considerably. I guess two months off running will do that to ya. That’s OK. I know that as quickly as one can lose those things, one can also gain them back.

The good news is that my form has not suffered much at all. In fact, in one way, it’s even improved. If you are a regular reader, you may recall that prior to getting injured, I had discovered bad pronation on my right foot and was working on correcting it. While I was injured, I continued to work on that problem. What I had found was that I’d been running and walking on the outside of my right foot. So, while I was injured, I concentrated on walking on my right foot as I do on my left – with even distribution of weight.

And it worked! Today, I was not fighting my landings and was making nice, even contact with the ground. The quickness of pulling my foot off the ground has diminished, but I am exceedingly happy about fixing that biomechanical problem.

The journey to good running form continues…