A Summary of September

It appears that I've neglected the blog, once again. I tend to get a little lazy when ENDURrun is over. I slack. I've been slacking in the blogging and also slacking in the strength work that I was doing leading up to ENDURrun, and a bit in the rest of my training as well. Not too bad... but I've been lacking a bit of motivation to work as hard as I wanted and intended. Looking back at previous years, I tend to feel about the same at this point every fall. Then I generally look back and see that it hasn't actually been nearly as bad as I thought it was. I really haven't been focusing on 50 mile training, though.... we'll see how JFK goes next month.

But for now... here's how September went.

I'm going to ignore the first three days of September.. for no reason other than it was the end of a week and I feel like starting with a Monday.

Sept 4-10 - The week of.... nothing, really. I can't think of anything of interest. It started with Labour Day, but nothing else was different than a regular week.
Monday - 6.2 mile run.
Tuesday - Wee WO: 7.1 miles, including 4x Marshall Hill.
Wednesday - 7.1 miles, combo of road and trails.
Thursday - WO: 4x 1.5 miles at half marathon pace. 15.7 miles total.
Friday - no run
Saturday - Long run with H+P: 17 miles.
Sunday - 10 miles
** Total mileage for the week: 63.2 miles. Total elevation gain: 3,097 ft. 

Sept 11-17 - Another week of nothing special.
Monday - nada
Tuesday - WO: 6 miles at half marathon pace. Total run: 8.3 miles.
Wednesday - 8 miles combo road and trails.
Thursday - Wee WO: 8 miles, including 4x 2 min hard.
Friday - 3.5 miles
Saturday - 15 miles
Sunday -  20 miles: 16 miles road, then 4 miles trail.
** Total mileage for the week: 62.9 miles. Total elevation gain: 2,844 ft. 

Sept 18-24 - The week of the Harvest Half
Monday - 7.1 miles trail
Tuesday - 0
Wednesday - 1 mile x2 commute runs in the day, then 6.3 miles in the evening.
Thursday - WO: 5x 1km @ 5K pace. Total run: 11.7 miles.
Friday - 7.6 miles
Saturday - 18.1 miles, including a half marathon at around marathon pace. This was a last minute decision to hop into a race (Harvest Half) since it was a super hot and humid day and aid stations sounded like an amazing benefit. Gillian and I ran most of it together, talking pretty much the entire time, then Gill went ahead to run the last 3K as a fast finish. I maintained my same pace for the last 3. She invited me along for her fast finish... I declined. :) We ended up finishing 1-2 for the women (small race). I ran 1:37 for the half.


Sunday - 13.3 miles, mostly trail.
** Total mileage for the week: 66.4 miles  Total elevation gain: 3,196 ft.

Sept 25-Oct 1 - The week of The Toad and the Beer Run.
Monday - WO: 8 miles including 8 min 10K pace and 10x 1 min hard.
Tuesday - 4.4 miles
Wednesday - 5 miles
Thursday - Wee WO: 7.8 miles including 6x1 min hard.
Friday - 3 miles
Saturday - Run for the Toad 50K. I ran this as a training race for the 50 miler, so I guess I'm doing *some* 50 mile training..... just not much that's 50 mile specific. The race was fun. Well, mostly. The last loop got lonely.... but the first 3 loops were great! It's a 12.5 km course, so you run that 4 times if you're doing the 50, twice if you're running the 25K. I ran it at a comfortable pace, but didn't dilly dally. I didn't race it, but I didn't saunter. I ran a solid 50K, finishing in 4:22, 10th overall, 4th woman.

Sunday - Kitchener/Waterloo Beer Run: 10ish K route with beer sampling stops. This was a super fun day with some of my H+P teammates.

** Total mileage for the week: 67.7 miles. Total elevation gain: 3.907 ft.

So there you have it: September (and the first day of October). Next up, Fall 5K Classic tomorrow... More proof of how much I'm focusing on training for a 50 miler. ;)

The Rest of March (and first 2 days of April)

In an effort to write more regular posts, I've decided to throw something together about what's happened since the Chilly Half. Nothing exciting has happened, so this may be really boring, but it will be something... and something is better than nothing, right?

I'm not going to bore you with too many details, so I'll just summarize each week and make note of anything that stood out for that particular week.

March 6 - 12: The week when I finally ran a 20+ mile run
The week after Chilly. I didn't do any structured workouts this week, but I did run with the Wednesday Night Tempo group at Runners' Choice. I had no idea what they were actually going to be doing, whether it was a longish tempo run or tempo intervals, so I just planned on following along and doing whatever they were doing. If they started to run hard, I ran hard. If they ran easy, I ran easy. It was good to mix things up a little and was fun to run with different people.

On the Saturday of this week, there was some more mixing up of things. This was the day of the "Pop-up run" where Run Waterloo and H+P planned a long run together on the ENDURrun Stage 1 course. The course is a 13ish km loop followed by an 8ish km loop (it's a half marathon). I ran the big loop, then the small loop, as one would normally run it, but then another big loop so that we (myself, Trevor, and Brian) got a decent long run in. It was my first 20+ mile run since the fall, so I was very happy to finally get one in. It was bugging me that I hadn't run any yet this year. It was also great that it went well! The average pace for the whole run was 8:18 min/mile on snow-covered roads, so I was happy with that.

March 13 - 19: The week when I finally ran 60+ miles
Last week included my first 20+ mile run in what felt like forever, and this week, my total mileage was finally over 60 miles. The week consisted Tuesday and Thursday workouts. One went well, one not so much. The Tuesday workout (4x 1 mile), I did on the treadmill and I just wasn't overly into it, so it was a struggle. The Thursday workout went so much better. I was back outdoors and I ran it with Steve, which made it feel so much easier! Thursday's workout was 2 miles warm up and cool down with 6 miles at half marathon pace. It was a nice confidence boost for this one to go well. On the weekend, snow surprisingly showed up on Saturday morning and made for some crappy wet snow and slush situations. I ran 18 miles with Gillian and we were slushed by vehicles several times. The following day, the weather was so much nicer! I got together with Trevor and Payton and ran a very enjoyable 11.7 miles.

March 20 - 26: The week when I caught a cold.
It was a solid week otherwise. I did a couple of workouts and I got in another 20+ mile long run.... I just felt a little more tired than usual doing them. I lucked out in that I only had a head cold, no chest involvement.

March 27 - April 2: The week of extra Toronto
I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I work for a company in Toronto. I work from home three days per week and I go into the office two. Well, that's my normal week. This week was different because there were a couple of events going on. We were hosting a client party at the office on Tuesday evening and I had a conference to attend on the Wednesday. Due to these events, I stayed in a hotel Tuesday and Wednesday nights and returned home Thursday night after work. I had great intentions of getting some solid runs in while I was in Toronto, but with the cold and with the time spent at the events, it didn't quite happen. I still ran, but not as much as I had hoped. It was probably for the best, though. I really did need to get over the cold.

My Tuesday evening workout became a short 3 mile progression, which went well. I squeezed this one into the limited time between the end of my work day and the party. I was glad I got something in.

The party was fun. Good food & drink, good people, music, and even caricature artists!

Versions of Me. #Caricatures from our client event earlier this week #freedom2picasso

A post shared by Vicki Zandbergen (@vickizandbergen) on Mar 30, 2017 at 9:45am PDT

After a late night a morning run was not going to happen before heading to the convention, which officially started at 8:30am, with breakfast starting at 7:30. I arrived shortly after 8. After getting back to my hotel at the end of the day, around 6:30pm, I was going to meet up with the Toronto contingent of H+P, but decided that a short easy run and early bed would be best. I ran a little over 4 miles.

On Thursday morning, my alarm went off and I decided that I was not going to run. I re-set it and got some more rest before heading into the office. I ended up taking a zero day this day and I was perfectly happy doing so. Friday was an easy 5 or 6 mile run after being back to working from home.

On the weekend, I had a really good run on Saturday. I did 16 miles, which included 12K at marathon pace and 2x 1K around half marathon pace. I ran all of the tempo portions with Emily, and the easy parts with both Gillian and Emily (Gill was ahead for the tempos). All three of us (as well as several others) are running Boston in a couple of weeks, so it was great to do this with them. My average pace on the whole run was slightly quicker than the pace of my current marathon PR, so I was definitely happy with how the run went.

Sunday, I had a two part run, as it involved running to watch my niece play volleyball. I ran there, and then ran home afterwards. I got in a little over 10 miles total.

All in all, it was a decent month of training and now I have just 2 weeks until race day. Getting sick was an inconvenience, but the timing was actually pretty decent. If I had to get sick, three weeks out from race day certainly is not the worst time. I only missed one workout, and ended up with a fairly minimal reduction in mileage in a week that ended with very solid long run workout.

So there you have it. I seem to have rambled a bit more than I expected to... :)

September

Here we are.... the last day of September 2016 and I've written zero blog posts all month. There is a reason for this.... I haven't raced. I know I don't have to race to write, but, it certainly makes it easier to think of something to write about! :)

After ENDURrun was over, I didn't really have any concrete race plans for the fall. My initial plan at the beginning of the year was to focus on a spring marathon, then the ENDURrun, and then a fall 50 miler.

With the anemia fun in the spring, I scrapped the marathon, which lead me to wonder if a fall ultra would even be a good idea. I decided to not make any decisions until late August, when I knew how my body had handled (and recovered from) a week of racing.

I took a very easy, low mileage week and then a week of more normal mileage, but no workouts, just easy running. Everything seemed to be going well, so I registered for JFK. From then until now, I've just been training (and working and regular life stuff, of course). There will be some races coming up, so there should be some blog posts coming as well... and they just might be slightly more interesting than this one.

It's been a while...

My last post was back in August... ENDURrun time... and I had an injured foot.
Since that time, my foot got better, training resumed, and racing happened. I was going to write a post about the time from then until now, but it turns out that's 10 weeks! So... I will break up this update post into two or three posts. Today's post will cover the weeks between ENDURrun and The County Marathon.

August 17 - 23
Total distance: 15 miles
The foot needed to get better and I needed to let it. This became very clear when I attempted to run on the Monday. I started running, it started hurting, I headed home. I ran one mile that day and I didn't run again until Friday. Those rest days were very good to my foot; I ran a pain free 7+ miles with Craig and Val on the Friday morning! Saturday and Sunday, I was camping with my family at Silver Lake Provincial Park so I kept the runs short (3.1 & 3.5 miles), but also did some paddling on both Silver Lake and Black Lake.

View from my SUP: Silver Lake

View from my SUP: Black Lake

August 24 - 30
Total distance: 61.3 miles
This week, I got back into training. I did a couple of workouts with Health and Performance, had some solid longer runs at decent paces, and was back to running every day. It felt great to be able to get back into training and not have pain.
M: 7.7 miles total including 3x (5 min half marathon effort, 5 min 10K effort, 3 min recovery) and some strides
T: 5.1 miles solo
W: Track Workout - 9.2 miles total including 2x (1 mile at half marathon pace, 400m recovery), 1 mile 10K pace, 400m recovery, 1 mile 5K pac
T: 7.7 miles with Craig
F: 4.2 miles solo
S: 10 miles with H+P
S: 17.3 miles with Lumi from Runners' Choice

August 31 - September 6
Total distance: 54.3 miles
I did one track workout (Yasso 800s) on the Thursday and it went quite well. On the Saturday, I had to drag myself through my 18 mile long run on a hot day. The rest of the week was relatively uneventful: just regular runs. I took one day off this week.

September 7 - 13
Total distance: 73.1 miles
Solid week with a midweek workout alternating marathon and half marathon pace and a Saturday long run of a little over 20 miles.

September 14 - 20
Total distance: 59.2 miles
M: 7.5 miles including 20 min half marathon effort, 4 min recovery, 6x 1 min on/off.
T: 8 miles
W: 6 miles including 10x 1 min on/off
T: 3.5 miles
F: 5 miles
S: 20.4 miles including 13.1 miles at slightly over marathon pace at Harvest Half
S: 8.6 miles

Finishing the Harvest Half - photo by Kailey Haddock

September 21 -27
Total distance: 46.4 miles
Taper time. Runs were a bit shorter, but included two H+P workouts a progression run on the weekend at the Laurier Loop 10k.

September 28 - October 4
Total distance: 49.9 miles
Marathon week! Shorter runs, a wee workout of 1 mile marathon pace into 1/2 mile (ish) half marathon pace, then 5x 1 min on/off, a day off on the Friday and a super short run on Saturday morning before hopping in my car and sitting in it for way longer than expected due to a highway closure... but I still arrived in Picton in time to grab my race number and to meet up with friends for lunch. I will go into this weekend in more detail in my post about The County Marathon, which I will write in the next few days.

So there you have it... somewhat of an update. Really, just a boring list of runs... but at least there were a couple of photos! 

A Super Quick Update

It appears I've been slacking in the blogging department again, so I thought I'd throw something together super quick as a bit of an update from the last post in October to now.

I've only run 2 races since my last post and both were short races in the Waterloo Running Series.

October 20, 2013 - Oktoberfest 5K
There are both 5K and 10K options for this race and I would normally choose the longer distance when given those options, but since the Oktoberfest 5K was my very first race ever back in 2006, I always run the 5K at this one.

This race went relatively well... the end result was good (a new PR), but the race itself didn't go that well. I went out too fast and had an absolutely miserable 4th km. Luckily, I was able to pick it up a bit again in the final km and finish in a chip time of 22:22.

December 7, 2013 - Santa Pur-Suit 5K
This was the 2nd annual Santa Pur-Suit, which was a fun event where my mom, sister, niece, and nephew also took part. All participants must wear the entire suit of pants, jacket, belt, beard, and hat. In looking at the photos, I was one of the few who kept their beard on properly for the duration of the race. Actually, my whole family did, so I guess we were raised to play by the rules!

This race went pretty well for me. I went out too fast again (or... I didn't keep up that pace like I should have... I will try to work on that) and slowed a bit later on, but finished in a time of 22:40 (chip 22:36), which was my second fastest 5K and was good enough for 4th place woman overall and a default 1st in my category (2 out of the top 3 female were also 30-34).

Other Running: This past Sunday was the annual Run to St Jacobs, which is organized by Runners' Choice in Waterloo. It snowed a lot from Friday right up to Sunday morning, and the roads were not cleared well, so it was more difficult terrain than usual. I was running the 19K route (which turned out to be just about 20K) after running 4km from my house to the store. Let me tell you, it felt more like 34km than it did 24km. The run was completed at Stone Crock in St Jacobs, where we had a well deserved buffet brunch. It was a great morning with lots of good running friends.

ENDURrun Stage 6: 10K Time Trial

It’s tough to run a 10K race the morning after Chicopee. My legs did not want to race today, but they had no choice (or at least I didn’t give them one) and my legs and I ran.

As with the 15K on Monday, this stage was a time trial, with runners starting a minute apart from slowest to fastest. Since the 10K distance is a popular one and since it is now the weekend, there were a number of guest runners. The guest runners submit their predicted finish time with their entry and are slotted into the starting order accordingly.

The course for Stage 6 is a point to point from a park in Elmira to the race director’s house in Conestogo. It is mostly on long stretches of country roads with minimal shade. The course is also a slight net downhill, so it does make for some good finish times.

After socializing in the parking lot for a while, it was my turn to start (I started 38th today). I waited for the countdown, while chatting with Lloyd for a wee bit… turns out he had my predicted finish time down as 47:33. Did he actually expect me to run that today? (My best 10K is 47:57)

I went out today, planning on running around a 50 minute 10K. As I ran along, I noticed that my pace for the first bit was a bit faster than I expected, but nothing crazy, so I wasn’t concerned about it and just kept running along, trying to find a good rhythm to maintain and keep going to the finish. It worked out well, as I only had 1 km at 5 min and all the others were a little bit faster. I finished the race in 48:19 and was 3rd female again.

I have my usual post-race food photo to include on this post, but I can’t seem to find my phone right now. I will add it to this post once I locate it.

[Edit: I found my phone, so here’s the photo.]

It was breakfast food day today.

Another Rainy Friday Evening

I was debating whether or not I should run tonight. Well, not so much debating as just not knowing. I hadn’t made any plans to run, but I hadn’t decided that it was a rest day either, so it was just kind of up in the air. Around 6pm I decided that since I didn’t have any food in the house, that I should go to the store and since I was going out to go to the store, I might as well run. So I did just that.

I left the house and ran up to the nearby trails. I decided that I would do a 3 mile run and then nip into the store, pick up a few things and walk home (the store I was going to is essentially across the street from the trails).

The sky looked a bit angry before I left the house, and it wasn’t looking any happier when I got to the trails. As I ran, I could hear thunder rolling, but it didn’t sound too close. I kept going and noticed a lot of downed trees from the storms that occurred last weekend and the weekend before. I hoped this was not any sort of sign of what was to come tonight.

About 2 miles into my run I started to feel a few drops. That’s alright. I don’t mind running in a little rain at all. I don’t even mind running in a moderate amount of rain… but then it happened… 2.5ish miles in, it started to POUR. I could see some flashes of lightning and I could hear some thunder, but it still didn’t sound very close, so I wasn’t too concerned. I was almost done my run. I just needed to finish up in the trails and head across to the store.

As I made my way out of the trails and crossed the street, the rain drops were hitting hard. They started to feel almost like they were solid. Luckily, I was where I needed to be, so I stood under the overhang of the store for a few minutes just to let some of the water drip off of me so that I didn’t make their floor TOO wet as soon as I set foot inside. It’s amazing how quickly you can get drenched in that kind of rain.

I did my shopping, the rain died down, I walked home, and then it started again. But this time, I’m in my house. I am now warm and dry and I am about to make some pasta and pour myself a glass of shiraz-malbec.

Phlox Run is Tomorrow…

But I’m not running it. I was tempted to… I wanted to redeem myself after last year’s silly dehydration race, but due to cost and timing, I decided against it. I’m writing an exam next Thursday, so I really shouldn’t be heading out of town to run at 25K race.

I’m not writing a blog post *just* to tell you that I’m that I’m not running a race tomorrow (although there’s not a whole lot more to this post), but I thought it was mentionable since I ran through some sections of trail this morning with phlox blooming on both sides. I took the above photo this morning at Bechtel Park.

Today’s run was nothing to write home about (although I am writing a blog post, so I guess it’s something to write to everyone about… hmm…), but it was a good run. I actually rode my bike to the park (just over 5 km) and then headed into the trails. It was my first time there since early fall.

I started out heading into the trails and was thinking that I would just run around in the trails for a while and not do anything too specific, but once I got in there, the familiarity took over and I started to run the race course for ENDURrun stage 3.. mind you, starting mid way through an actual loop. The familiar twists and turns put a smile on my face and even the pesky downhill that I took shoulder first last summer, causing me to hit my knee on something and have knee pain for months.. yes even that hill made me smile… although I noticed that I took it quite cautiously every time I went down it.

After I made my way through the trail section once, I decided I should run one actual full loop of the course, so out of the trails I went, making my way around the park, down into the meadow, and even running around the school yard to the approximate locations I recalled being the actual course (without the flags, it’s a bit less obvious), making my way back to the woods. As I entered the shady wooded area, the all-so-familiar relief of being in the shade after being out in the open came over me and my smile got even bigger.

I only did the full loop once, and finished up just with one more round of the trails before calling it a day. I stood by my bike for a minute after I was done, sweat dripping off of me, and was happy. I then hopped back on my bike and rode home.

I’m looking forward to racing at Bechtel this summer. Yes I am.

Update and Late Photos

I realized that I have not posted anything in a LONG time, so I figured I should throw something together. Actually, I had started a post after Easter, but didn’t finish it and therefore, never published it. So… I know this is super late, but better late than never, right?

First, the update:

I see that my last post was after the Re-Fridgee-Eighter. Well, I’ve run a few races since the last time I posted, so I let you my my results for those races and compare them with my times from last year.

March 24, 2013 - Around the Bay 30K – gun time: 2:44:23, chip time: 2:42:16 (PB)
2012 chip time: 2:42:44. Actually, I just noticed something right now when looking up the results. My gun time for 2012 and 2013 was exactly the same… to the second. Both were 2:44:23.

April 13, 2013 - ENDURrace 5K – gun time: 23:00, chip time: 22:55 (PB and first time I’ve ever broken 23 min for a 5K)
2012 chip time: 23:22

April 20, 2013 - ENDURrace 8K – gun time: 38:18, chip time: 38:14 (PB)
2012 chip time: 38:50 (that was my previous best 8K)

May 5, 2013 - Mudpuppy Chase 10K – gun time: 48:47, chip time: 48:38
2012 chip time: 47:57.
My 2013 PB streak (every race so far in 2013 was a PB) ended on the day of the Mudpuppy, but I still ended up with my 2nd fastest 10K time, so I’m happy with that.

And now… the Easter Run.

When I was at my parents’ house for Easter, I headed out to one of my favourite places to run in Eastern Ontario, the Long Sault Parkway. That probably doesn’t sound like the best place to run, but the road is technically closed from fall until May, so it’s virtually traffic free and offers wonderful views along the St Lawrence River.

The road/causeway itself is 10km from end to end and I decided to run a half marathon that day I started at the West end of the section of road, parked the car by the entrance, and ran along the road to the East end, where I turned around and headed back to my starting location.

I took some photos with my phone along the way. Here are a few. I hope you enjoy them.

As you can see from the photos, there was still some ice and snow, but it was also a very nice and warm spring day. I had a great run and got to enjoy the wonderful views of 2 countries as I ran, with water on both sides of me.

First Snowy Run of the Season

After running in a Santa Suit in above seasonal temperatures just a few days ago, today I was running in the snow.

I headed out to the Grand River Trail this morning to do an out and back between Freeport and Blair. My actual plan was just to run along the trail for about and hour, then turn around and head back. My turn around point was slightly under an hour just because I would have had to cross a major road and get over to another section of trail to keep going. At my turn around point, I was over 58 minutes, so I figured that was close enough. :)

It was a very enjoyable run this morning. The snow fell gently the entire time, the wind was relatively calm, my legs felt good, and I even saw a fox a little over 5K into the run. I wasn’t quick enough to photograph the fox (wasn’t expecting him), but I saw him trotting along towards me and then quickly turning around and running away. I did happen to take a photo of his tracks, which show his turn around point.

The bridges over the Grand River and over Hwy 401 were quite slippery this morning, but the trail itself was in quite good shape. There were only a couple spots where it was a bit icy and some small slush puddles.

Overall, I had a great time on my run this morning. I took it pretty easy and it was quite pleasant.

I took some photos to share with you. Enjoy.

Time to start my run at Schneider Park at Freeport

From the starting point, I had to run over this bridge and then under it, to get to the main trail.

Once on the trail, there are nice sections right beside the Grand River

As well as tree lined portions, just away from the river.

Here’s where the fox quickly turned and ran away.

Bridge over the Grand – it was a little icy

I couldn’t see the river from here, but this was my favourite section.

Just under 60 minutes, but looked like a good place to turn around…

And take a wee Sharkies break :)

Headed back down the way I came

Which takes you past the Pioneer Tower…

And this interesting tree…

past the small dam…

and back toward the first bridge.

After under, over, and under the bridge…

I was back at my starting point and finished my run.

Total distance: 19.43 km
Time: 1:56
Weather: –3 C, snow, wind 17 km/h SW

The Santa Test Run

Next Saturday is the first ever Santa Pur-Suit, a 5K and 3K running race and 1K fun run. In this event there will be 800 or more Santas running through town in full out red suits and beards.

Jordan Schmidt mentioned to me earlier this week that he was planning on taking the suit out for a test run through Downtown Kitchener and Uptown Waterloo on Thursday and asked me if I wanted to join him. Of course I said yes! This sounded like a lot of fun! 

Here’s how the run unfolded.

Jordan left his work in Downtown Kitchener around 12:15 and ran up to meet me outside of my work. He texted me when he was leaving so that I would know when to get ready and head outside.

My co-workers thought it was funny when I showed up at my desk with a Santa suit in a bag and they let me know that I HAD to come back to my desk with the suit on before heading out to run. When I returned in the suit, they insisted that I pose for a photo. My pose of choice? Holding my belly that shook when I laughed like a bowl full of jelly… but as pointed out to me by my friend Matt... “nothing fills out a Santa suit like a marathon runner.”

Around 12:30, I met Jordan at the corner of King & Union, where Julie took some photos as we started to run together.

Jordan and I headed up the street and ran to Waterloo Town Square, through Uptown Waterloo, and continued on to finish up our Santa Run at Runners’ Choice.

Along the way, as we ran through Uptown and past the university, we heard a lot of honks, "Ho Ho Ho", "Merry Christmas", and
comments of "you're going to make it snow", "you're a little early", and my personal favourite of the day "Thank you for putting this smile on my face".

It was fun.

Once we arrived at the store, Lloyd and Julie Schmidt were waiting for us. We took a few photos outside and then went inside and did a little video review on the suits.

The suits were hot on, but it was also quite warm out. It was 12 C (54ish F), which is definitely not Santa suit weather. I had shorts and a tank top on under my suit and I was mighty warm. The beard and hat were a bit warm on as well, but if the change in weather today is any indication (it was snowing on my way home from work), it will be much more comfortable on December 1st.

After we finished our little interview, I de-Santa-ed to the shorts and
tank top I had on under it, got a bag from Geoff (the store owner) to put
my Santa suit in, and ran back to work carrying the bag.

I got 5K of running in during my Santa Pur-Suit Promotion Lunch, half in a Santa suit and half not.

I hope to see many of you out in a big, bright, red suit next weekend. There is still time to register for the 5K, 3K, or 1K event on December 1st, so please visit Run Waterloo for more information on the Santa Pur-Suit and other races in the series.

To see the official suit review, click here.

Grand River Trail: Freeport to Blair

Last Sunday, I took some photos during my run along the Grand River with full intentions of creating a blog post later that night or at least the next day. This didn’t happen, of course, as it is now a week later and I am finally posting. Better late than never, right?

Let’s see if I can remember any of this run… it was a point to point run starting at the bottom of Kitchener, and ending up in Cambridge.

There were many people out and about on the trail that day; I saw cyclists, walkers, and runners (although not many runners). The nice weather and the fact that the new pedestrian bridge had just opened up 2 days prior were probably big factors in the numbers that were out. I’m sure in a month or 2, I’ll see a lot less people out there.

All in all, it was an enjoyable run with good weather and nice scenery. I will leave you with some photos.

I had to take a photo of the giant house that is being build backing onto the trail. It’s huge!

These next 2 photos are of the new pedestrian bridge that connects sections of trail on either side of the river.

Not too long after crossing the pedestrian bridge, I had another bridge to cross, but it was over something much less scenic: the 401.

On the other side of the highway, I found a new section of trail that I had never run on before. These last few photos were taken there. As you can see, I took a wee break to enjoy the view.

The Flat Lands of Eastern Ontario

As I mentioned yesterday, I went for a run on the roads around my parents’ house and took some photos.

I think the title of this blog post says it all.

Heron flying just above the water.