Red means run, son, numbers add up to nothin’

When I got back from NYC a couple of weeks ago I started to run on the trails which were a little muddy but bare of snow.  And then we got puked on and I was back on the roads, treadmill and dirt roads.  It took about 10 days for the trails to clear up again and now I think it’s safe to say that the snow is done for many months. 

My training since the 1/2 marathon has gone very well.  It took a few days to recover after the race but then I was hitting my best workouts of the year so far.  Typically in the winter we do an easy workout on Wednesday.  This past Wednesday I ran 15km in the morning and then found out we had about 10km of hard running in a 20km run that afternoon.  We did about half of the quality on the track which was both fun a little shock to the system since it’s been a little while.  I surprised myself with a 60.1 400m at the end of the workout chasing Milne around the track.  I followed that up on Friday with a long tempo session for some over-distance training for my next 1/2 marathon.  I decided after the Montreal 1/2 I will race Sporting Life 10km on May 1st in Toronto.  After that I will focus on the track for a little while before transitioning to marathon training in July.

There are a few things I will not miss about the treadmill now that I can run on soft surfaces from my house.  One of those things definitely has to be smelling other people’s farts while running.  Sometimes you might get a wiff of a fart while running with a group outdoors but it quickly dissapates in the open air.  On the treadmill the rankness seems to fester for an agonizing minute.  During that time I usually check out the people around me and see who looks guilty, is it the dude on the bike or the girl walking on the treadmill with a 15% incline?  Once I guess who the guilty culprit is I give them the “I know it was you” look.  If I smell the same brand again I figure they either don’t care or, more likely, I had the wrong suspect in the first place and I’ll give someone else the “you’re disgusting” look.