210

I ran 210 km in October, my highest month this year (and probably for quite a few years). Considering October included snow and rain and below average temperatures, I'm happy with that. Curiously, October was also the peak (of 160 km) for the 12 previous months. Maybe it's because I know winter is fast approaching.

I've averaged roughly 50 km per week for the last three months. That's getting hard to get in only three runs per week. I can do it with say 12 + 12 + 26 but it's easier to fit in an additional one or two easy 5 km runs e.g. 10 + 5 + 10 + 25.

Covid has actually been good for my running. With no travel and fewer other distractions, I've been a lot more consistent than most years. Over the last 12 months (which included some pre-Covid travel, I've averaged 30 km per week, whereas the previous 12 months I only averaged 20 km per week.

I'm also happy that at the same time I've managed to increase my pace a fair bit. That might be due to getting in more mileage. Or it might be a matter of breaking out of the rut I'd gotten into with my "standard" pace.

Mostly I'm happy that my body is handling it well. Touch wood and cross my fingers, my feet and knees etc. have been good. It wasn't that long ago that my IT band or feet problems made running even 5 km a painful experience. It's a good lesson - it would have been easy to give up and decide I just wasn't up to it, that I was too old.

PS. The cryptic titles of just numbers are partly a reminder to myself that numbers by themselves are meaningless.

Icicles

Usually I don't resort to photographing icicles till the end of winter, but this ice around the pond at Innovation Place caught my eye.

See all 9 photos in this batch

Print of the Week

A combination of favorite subjects - nature and abstracts. This is an unusual angle on a Crowned Crane from a zoo in Colima, Mexico last spring. I can't remember why the background was so dark. Probably just deep shadow versus sun on the bird's crest.

I recently replaced my old Epson 3880 with a new Epson P900. So far I'm really happy with the results. One of the benefits of age is that you're actually amazed by technology, rather than just taking it for granted.

25 in 2:15

Running is a mystery sometimes. Even though they were similar distances, last week's long run was totally different from this weeks. Last week was a struggle. I battled to maintain my target pace, got behind, then struggled even more to catch up. I blamed it on the wind, and that was probably a factor, but that doesn't really explain it. It was quite windy today as well, but without really pushing I got well ahead of my target pace. I ended up 15 seconds per kilometer faster than I'd planned, without really forcing it. It wasn't quite my fastest 21 km (half marathon), but it was my fastest 25 km. Last week I was in shorts, this week it was -5c (-10 with the wind chill) and I was running in long pants, jacket, toque, and gloves. There were even a few snowflakes in the air.

There are two young women that regularly pass me running. It wouldn't be so bad if they seemed to be working hard, but they chatter non-stop like they were out for a stroll. Of course, they're probably 40 years younger than me, but it's still depressing. Today I passed them. That was a nice boost to my ego, although totally meaningless. They were probably just taking it easy today!

Another achievement was finally pushing my Garmin's VO2 max estimate up another notch. I'm sure it has little connection to actual VO2 max. I only use it as a general estimate of fitness. It's always nice when it goes up, always depressing when it goes down. Lately I've been bouncing between 55 and 56. I'll have a couple of slow runs, or my heart rate will be higher than it should be, and I'll drop to 55. Then I'll have a few good runs and it'll go up to 56. Today, for the first time in the two years I've had my watch I made it to 57. If nothing else, it was confirmation that I did really have a good run today. I doubt it'll stay there, but it was nice to finally hit that mark. The problem with watching that number is that as I get older, it's inevitably going to drop.

I'd hoped that October would at least stay snow free and above freezing so I could get in a few more "comfortable" long runs. But it looks like that's not going to happen. Oh well, that's Saskatchewan.

Autumn Leaves