22kms in the books....

Time: 8:20am

Temperature: 0 degrees Celcius

Wind Chill: -6

Wind: SW 22km/hr

Well - we got up to run 22Km today. I went to Marlene's and we decided to run from her place instead of driving to the location in downtown Burlington. It meant we weren't going to get the monster hill in but we both decided we would be okay with that.

We did ENJOY a lot of hills along North Shore and I was pleased that I ran all the hills - even the long killer one before LaSalle Park. You think that hill will never in and one of my goals is to run that sucker every time I get to it.

We came back along the flat route and we had over estimated our turn-around point which means we could have had the 24K done for next week but at 22K we walked it in. We will save the 24K for when we should run it. :) Yeah - consider us slackers.

The run felt good - even the hills and it was great to be running with so little gear on. Lately it has been so cold that we have to bundle up - but today was nice enough to enjoy some lighter clothes.

I had a hard time with 17K- 19K but we had picked it up and was pushing it. With all the heavy deadlifting of CrossFit lately - my hams and but were feeling it. It's amazing that at 20K I was able to do a 6:02min/km for the last km. I was pleased...but sore and tired.

So -that is it for this week's long run. I better try to get a couple of short runs in this week - I have been slacking off on them lately.

Next week is 24K - I will have to do that on Saturday again as on Sunday is the Annual Robbie Burns' Race - 8K - and where else can you wear you kilt running?!?!?!

What a beautiful SUNNY Saturday!

Time: 1:30pm
Temperature: -9 degrees Celsius
Wind Chill: -
Wind: -

We had 20K on schedule for this weeks long run. Marlene is working this weekend and could not run Sunday morning so we agreed to run Saturday afternoon. This was great as we got to run with Kathy who runs on Saturdays. Not sure if Kathy wanted the company but she didn't kick us out when we showed up. :)

We started at Kathy's house and then headed East on Townsend to King Road. Then south to North Shore and along all the lovely hills of North Shore. This is part of the Around the Bay Route that I will be doing again at the end of March. It has the distinction of being the oldest road race in North America. Their claim is that it is "older than Boston".

Once we went all along North Shore and those killer hills we met Julie R at LaSalle park and she joined us. Kathy took us through the cemetery to hook up with Plains Road and out along that. Once we hit 10K we turned around - well - I had to belive we hit 10K as I forgot to start my Garmin again when there was a "pit stop" in the cemetery. Nice when they have washrooms for people to use. :) Then it was back the way we came and we had to do one more killer hill and then it was pretty much flat on the way back. We had a few sections of packed snow. I HATE running on that stuff. We finished on a nice patch of packed snow.

Everyone ran well. Marlene and Kathy ran together and the two Julie's stuck together. Glad it was done and even more glad that my knee didn't give me any problems I was worried about due to yesterdays fall at CrossFit.

It was a beautiful sunny day and it was so worth being out there for the longer distance. It seems like a long time since I have enjoyed that much sunshine. On a beach in Mexico with Jennifer might have been a BIT better but this was preety sweet too.

So - 20K is in the books and already thinking about next weeks scheduled 24K. Distance is building again and lack of sleep due to the puppy is adding up. I need afternoon naps. :)