I’m on the road again

Big road trip this weekend… 4 days, 1400 km (driving), 2 countries, 1 bachelor party, 105 km (running), 1 wedding.

A few hours before I set off on the road trip I did my second workout of the week which consisted of almost 20km of tempo in a 30km run.  Once again I was pleased with the workout and surprised that I bounced back as quickly as I did.  I was prepared for a mediocre week after two crappy ones but I skipped the mediocrity and hit the paces I would have wanted with uninterrupted training.

The road trip started in Guelph with Chris Moulton, then we picked up Greg Hutchinson in Mississauga and headed to Lake Placid.  In LP we stayed in a cabin outside of town with Taylor Murphy (groom to be), his three brothers and a couple more friends.  Taylor and I had a great run on the Jackrabbit trail in LP on Friday morning.  Taylor and I have put in many many miles together so it was good to get in a solid 17km with him.  That afternoon I took a nap while the rest of the guys drank beer and played croquet.  When I went on my second run Moulton and Blake were game even though they were a couple of beers in and kept me company for most of the 8km run.  I front-end loaded the week, (105km in 3 days) so I could go a little lighter while travelling, (105km in four days).

Can you believe a town of 3400 hosted the Olympics 31 years ago? Chris Moulton can’t.

After a late night on Friday I was up early for a 30km run Saturday morning.  This run ended up being the hilliest run of my life.  5km into the run I saw a trail up Baxter mountain and decided to take a break from the road.  This trail got steep in a hurry and after 1.4 km I was climbing up boulders but since I had it in my head I was getting to the top I stopped the watch and hiked. It was worth it for the view alone.  Once I got back on the road I ended up going downhill for the next 4km and knew I was in for one hell of a climb.  The ensuing ascent ended rose almost 1000 feet over 4.5km.  After that sweet run, a hot tub and a meal the three of us departed the cabin for Kyle Desormeaux’s wedding in Ottawa.

On the way to Ottawa we stopped for gas in upstate NY where this girl had a table with promotional shwag (t-shirts, frisbee, mugs) set-up outside the store.  I wasn’t sure what product she was promoting until she asked us if we would like to sample a free cigarette.  Seriously.

Kyle and Bridget had a great wedding that was really fun however, by this point we were all pretty wiped out.  On Sunday morning I had one of the flattest runs ever up and down the Rideau Canal before heading back to Hamilton.

This morning in Guelph Rob, Gillis, John Mason and I had a speedier workout to change things up a bit.  It was a mix of intervals from 400m to 2000m on the XC course and I was able to keep it under control and feel fast enough to get what I wanted out of the session.

We’ll do two more workouts this week before Sunday’s Acura 10 miler, although Friday’s session is going to be very small.  It will be fun to break out of workout mode and get after it a little more in a race.  Sure, it would be nicer to have had a few solid weeks of workouts before a race but I’ll take what I can get knowing the big prize is still 10 weeks down the road.

This is always a fun game… can you spot the differences between the two photos?

The ad is going to be re-run in the Globe and Mail sometime soon with the two NB logos back where they belong.  I didn’t care too much about the Contador finger-gun since it came out looking like an “L” anyways.