My Hood (kinda)

Slowly building up the miles.  Managed to get up at 4:45 this morning for an 11 mile run which surprised the heck out of me.  Had an after work engagment and knowing that I wouldn't be able to do the run afterwork was pretty much the only thing that allowed me to get it done in the morning. 

Last week i did 40 miles which included a 15 mile long run downtown.  In fact, it was the same route I did two weeks ago. Took my point and shoot camera with me.  I got a small waterproof camera for Christmas and it's the first time I've really used it.  I initially had thoughts of filming my swimming stroke or checking out my flip turns, but as with any piece or pricey technology, there's just something about dunking it into water that doesn't seem right.  I've been thinking of maybe doing the Boston marathon part II picture thing.  One thing from last year was i don't think i got enough pictures of the race itself.  Sure I had a lot of pictures of me standing in front of mile markers but i had very little else from the race which i sort of regret. I'm definitely going to do the picture thing in Big Sur. Anyhow, i thought i'd give you a tour of my waterfront route since it was such a nice day, not a cloud in the sky and very little snow on the ground.. 

 Boats Stuck in Water

 Abandoned Soy Silos 

 Red Path Sugar Factory

 Closer look at artwork

Boats anchored for the winter

 Skating rink at Harbourfront

 Pier at the harbourfront

 Sailboat without sails

 Rogers Centre and CN Tower

 Ontario Place and the Molson Amphitheatre

 Windmill

 Ice

 Birds

 More Birds

 

 Pictures taken on the run

 Swans, (wonder if these are the same ones from last year)

 Floating restaurant on a boat

More Boats 

 

The Beach where i start and end my route

The Second Job

Today, I managed 8 miles with 4 at a tempo effort  The 4 LT miles ended up being at about 7:35 min/mile pace which is about where i was expecting it to be. Got up in morning to do it.  I've realized that I can't do runs after work. I just can't motivate myself do anything more than a short recovery run at the end of a long day.  

So today, good old Wiarton Willie predicted 6 more week of winter.  If it's 6 weeks more like the winter we've been having, that's fine with me.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to to take advantage of the lack of snow this past week.  Last week was the first week of a 12 week plan and it didn't go too well.  Only managed an 8 miler and a 6 miler and skipped the long run.   This whole training thing is started to feel like a second job.  I had this feeling leading up to my May marathon back in 2008.  At the time, the close to 70 mile weeks and the 6 days a week of running started to drag me down, but i kinda put up with it since I was so close to BQ'ing at the time.  Now with 2 hours of commuting on weekdays, i'm starting to get that same feeling but with far less running which is causing me to rethink this training plan and what i want to accomplish in Boston. Do i really want to requalify?  I'm already qualified for 2011 and probably won't be running it anyways, so the motivation is extremely lacking.  It's just very easy these days to put off runs.  I need to find where my mojo has gone.