50 at 50

when i first heard of this i thought what a great idea! my friend and client jan niedoba turned 50 this year, and she decided to run a series of 5 and 10k races to make up a total of 50k. she also decided to collect money in support of all of these races. very cool! so between early (really early) morning training sessions with me, and lots of miles spent chasing the infamous tundra up and down hills and through the trail, she stepped on the start line for her first race on april 4.

below is a list of her races and times:
harry's spring run off 5k (35:34)

sporting life 10k (1:04:37)
acura toronto 5k (31:24)
island girl 10k (1:06:39)
longboat island 10k (1:07:10)
oasis zoo run 10k (1:06:52)

jan's farewell run at the zoo. 50 at 46.5 km.

i absolutely love when people set goals. and achieving them is just icing on the cake! congratulations jan - you did it!! 50k at 50. be proud of your accomplishment!!!

quiet week

not much excitement this week. did lots of lunges and abs at bootcamp on monday with the kids. tuesday did my usual 4 miles on the humber and threw in some crossfit - 200 pushups, squats, jump lunges and dips - and 10 reps of the 82 steps. nnnnnnnnnnnice!! wednesday, me and homey started from humber station and ran up and up the dingle before reaching coolis' and turning back. here's a pic of homey at the end of the dingle. wait a minute, he's standing on a rock . . .

homey finally got his vulture bait plate cover put on the benz. much better, although it looks like it reads, 'play dirty, run tails'. doh!!

thursday i did my 2 loops of palgrave. the legs have been a little cranky all week, so i just threw in some pushups (195) and abs (lots). resting up now for the weekend - want to do one more long run before moab. woo hoo! the city pylons are coming up, but opting for shorter distances. initially digger had expressed interest in running with me, but the beave advised against it. gee beave, you're so smart!! instead, they're all running 2.5 hours, and then spending the rest of the time drinking coffee in timmies with a bunch of nuns.

and, i booked my flight for texas in february - what could go wrong???

hockley run

it was a beautiful morning for a run in hockley. i convinced october that it was the 'less hilly' section and that she would be fine. we started on the 5th line and ran over to the 2nd - the bottom half of the infamous 'humpty dumpty' run from a couple of years ago. having been chirped by the captain on their last meeting, october, now disguised as september, was sporting her regulation pylon wear. (one more week until tights are allowed).

we came upon these little dudes just past the golf course.

as with all our runs in the past month, the forest was a spectacular wash of color. this is just by the big ravine before the 5th line.


and here i am trying to convince october that we only have ONE MORE HILL to climb. hehe!

awesome job today girl. for someone who claims to 'suck at hills', you sure kicked ass. be proud that you made it up every fricken one - including the nasty gravel road at the very end! running time was 1:35 and we covered around 7.6 miles.

cool quote from the captain . . .

"at our age, getting out of bed in the morning is an adventure, let's see what hurts today"

love it!!

saturday run

we eventually all made it to cooli's this morning for our saturday run. robbie came over from waterloo, captain and the beaver were up from the city, and the caledon pylons consisted of me, homey and onions. meanie had thought about coming, but according to the captain, the trails were wet. hmmm. anyways, we all got over to the 5th, where cap and the beaver opted for the 'big boy run', continuing over to airport road. the rest of us chose the 'little girl run' and headed back to the cars. robbie and onions immediately disappeared from sight, so me and homey went for the 'molasses leg pace'. homey managed to catch dozens of burrs coming back down the switchbacks, while i remained clean.

he also managed 3 lacerations and a mild contusion, although we're not sure what from!

took this pic from the bridge just north of hwy 9.

we were both pretty knackered by the time we got back, but we still managed the last stoopid hill coming out of glenn haffy. robbie and onions were long gone, so it was just the two of us off to timmies for coffees and a snack. i made sure i picked up the empties at the 7th before accusations of caledon water bombing surfaced again.

stoopid penguins

so my good friend and client liz'bet is finally heading to the antarctic to see her beloved penguins. she's also doing some insane hiking in argentina. i think it was about a year ago she decided to book this trip, and she asked me to get her in shape. we dragged her out of bed at 7:30 in the morning 3 days a week, we made her get on a treadmill, we made her walk up and down stairs in her big 'ice-field boots', we made her walk to work in hiking boots, we made her do hills on the treadmill in hiking boots, we made her walk to work, in hiking boots, while carrying a big backpack, and we made her do hundreds of squats, crunches and pushups. finally, this morning, after a few more hills, some abs, and the dreaded 'dead bug with a ball', miss liz'bet is 55lbs lighter and ready to take on the penguins.

here she is all freaked out cuz i'm making her exercise when she could be trying to repack her suitcase for the 57th time!

in her honor, i ran my usual 2 loops of palgrave, with 180 squats, pushups and leg drops, and 90 jumpsquats, crunches and laterals. plus 50 dips for good measure! and, my legs are still tired so i think i'll go easy this weekend.

and as for liz'bet, have an awesome time sweetie and go chase those stoopid penguins. come home safe to me, mum and pops.

luv ya !

speedy friend !

so on the weekend, my sexy running friend alistair came 14th overall in the toronto half-marathon !! can you believe it!!?? his time was 1:19:54 - who the hell runs that fast!!! in his words, 'i ran my guts out, it hurt but soo chuffed with the result'. awesome job ali - you are amazing!!! but i'm curious - what does 'chuff' mean????

me, well my legs were still knackered from back to back runs on the weekend, so i settled for an easy 4 on tuesday. did some pushups and stuff, but no hills. by wednesday, i was feeling much better, so i headed out from the tennis courts for my mid-week longish run. came upon these guys just past the stairs on the section of the humber north of castlederg!

despite the grayness of the day, the colors were still stunning. here are a couple more shots from the same section.

i ran to just before duffys' north before coming back, ending up with over 12 miles.

special thanks to richard for being so patient while he dug some crap out of a tooth and refilled it. he figured it was a bunch of cliff blox or power bars. i'm figuring it was the monster pecan butter tart i ate on sunday! i must say, that was by far the least stressful cavity i've ever had fixed. for someone who can run for hours on end i sure can be a baby when it comes to going to the dentist. i do think he was extra generous on the freezing though - as it was almost 8pm before i could feel my mouth again, and we had started at 3 ! AND he said we caught it just in time. if i had have left it, and then flown to vegas in 2 weeks, the pressure from the plane, and the altitude in moab would have made it explode - or something nasty like that! could you imagine!!!!

thanks again richard!! you da best!

shag carpets, curbs and stumps

this is one time i would have killed for a camera - or at least christine would have. woke up this morning really stiff - that'll teach me for not running easy yesterday. met christine and annie s over at humber station to 'try' and run. started off brutal - could barely move the legs up the first little hill! poor annie tolerated our pace for about 5 minutes, and then apologetically asked if she could go by - can't blame her at all ! me and little c persevered and made it over to the bottom of k2. what the heck, let's give it a go. i actually felt pretty good going up, chatting away, until - DOH - where did that little half inch stump come from. i went down, and christine immediately made the comment like 'gee, that didn't sound too good'. and then, as she was turning around, she noticed me lying in a pile of horse poo, with another just below my butt and a third just above my head. oh my god, we were laughing so hard. it took a good 5 minutes before we were able to stop, and then get me back on my feet. 12k of running, and i have to hit the one spot that has 3 lumps of horse poo on it. normally i could have recovered from such a small stumble, but today the feet wouldn't lift more than 2 inches off the ground. and so to robbies' statement of after a long run, trying to avoid shag carpets and curbs, we add half inch stumps! too funny!! we eventually made it to the top of k2 without further incident. the way back was fine too, except for a couple of mountain bikers complaining about a bit of mud on the trail. excuse me - you're mountain biking. haha, wait until they get to the section with the horse poo.

little c had to jet, so me and annie drove over to hockley for a sweet coffee and some yummy snacks. whoda thought an extra large muffin and a pecan butter tart could fill one up so fast??!! not to mention the caramel chocolate puddle. argh! anyways, another great fall day in the forest. thanks ladies!!

'life is good'

play dirty - run trails

the weather couldn't have been nicer for the annual running of the vulture bait trail race around fanshaw lake in london this saturday. the pylons had an impressive showing, with homey, robbie, vents, boots, the grumpy little portuguese, and mrs. beaver going for 25k, and me, captain, digger and the beave doing 50. much to the captains' dismay, there were way too many rule infractions to even count, and something was mentioned about resorting to handing out fines.

we managed to get distracted with the contents of diggers' cooler,

and further distracted by digger injuring himself before he even started (something about stabbing himself while trying to attach his race bib)

to the point where we found ourselves not at all ready when they started the race. clothing was not entirely in place, and watches hadn't even been reset from previous runs!

i managed to catch up with homey just before the end of my first loop, and could congratulate him on an awesome finish - especially considering he'd been on the disabled list for most of september and october! i don't have any exact times, but i think robbie was first pylon across the line, followed by boots, homey, mrs. beaver, vents and the glp. super super job everybody! and vents, don't even think you're giving up baby! you know it's not in the constitution, AND, i just won't allow it!!!

beave was the first finisher in the 50k - some stoopid fast time like 4:30 or something like that! damn skinny-little-boy-bum !!! digger and captain were just a minute apart, and i brought up the rear! digger caused a bit of an altercation by pushing some poor girl out of the way crossing the finish line, and the cap was forced into a sprint with some other guy. me, i came in without incident at 5:13, and would have been a bit sooner if i wasn't forced to 'pull a robbie' on the second loop. oh, and brian, sorry for passing you at the 45k mark and not recognizing you. and even more sorry for my horrible singing.

here's digger and the glp waiting for me to come in.


AND look who i met at the finish line! rita and harry! it was sooo great to see them! they took time out from their busy schedule of trying to spend all their children's inheritance to come and watch us. unfortunately though, they slept in, and missed christine coming across the line. DOH!

'honestly honey, we thought we had lots of time . . . '


here's captain and the beave post-race. not sure what cap's laughing at??



and here's me, homey and meanie queen mrs. beaver just being silly.

we were just about to leave, when they called nick roberts up for 3rd place - who the hell is nick roberts??? congratulations beave - love the trophy! and of course homey just had to get in the picture.


now let's take a look at homeys' new car. the country pylons are moving up in the world. we're driving a benz baby! check out the plate - be homey 016 - purely coincidental.


one last thing. we met scott simpson and his buddy adrian out on the course. both were wearing half of matt tathams' race bib. matt loved the vulture bait and it was only fitting that he run it one more time. you were with us in spirit my friend.



'long may you run'

thursday loop

did a fast 2 loops of the forest. managed to cut another 2 minutes off our record! also did some squats, pushups and situps (180 to be exact). legs a little knackered by the end but finished strong! chilly but beautiful day.

taking friday off and then to london on saturday for the vulture bait 50k. should be fun - lots of pylons attending!!

cool runnings

chilly week so far. i don't think the temp got above 10. ate wayyyyyyyyyy too much at the glps' on sunday and gained something like 7 pounds. argh!! tuesday was supposed to be an easy 4 with some hills, but i ended up doing weights first in the morning. my client 'paul (aka 'the tank') had to cancel. he took out his inner thigh moving firewood, which is incredible considering all the crazy stuff i make him do in the gym. here's hoping he gets better soon!! anyways, once i finished with the rest of my clients, i took off for my run to the big log (which is no more). on the way back, i decided to do 10 repeats of the 'homey shite hill'. felt pretty good!

wednesday is mid-week kinda long run day, and the schedule called for 12 miles. i parked at humber station, ran over to and up k2, and then up and up the dingle. here's a pic of a really cool tree down by the creek.

and here's a pic of me hanging out on the dingle.

yep, it's definitely getting cooler. how's the weather down in texas georgie??

she almost killed us !

it was 'take one of your clients' kids to run day' - what could go wrong?? well i'll tell you what -she's only 15 and she's only run 4k before. BUT !!!! she ran it in 14 minutes! good grief! i dragged christine out with me - told her about the 4k distance, but neglected the 14 minutes part. her dad brought her down to the tennis courts and planned on meeting us up at duffy's to see how she was making out. i told him we usually get up there within 26 or 27 minutes. hmmm! i guess both me and christine subconsciously decided we didn't want miss hayley thinking we were 'the old ladies', so we picked it up a bit. A BIT!! for the love of pete, we were at duffy's in 24 minutes! argh! we kept her going to the 9.1k mark before we turned around, and then brought her back to duffy's. we left her with her dad, and made our way back to the tennis courts at a much more sensible pace! as for miss hayley - great job girlie - you ran 9k today! and you ran it well. as for me and christine - well, it almost killed us!!

and so this gave me a total of just under 44 miles. next week picks it back up again and we have vulture bait 50k on saturday. should be great - lots of people going, including a special guest appearance by rita and harry! better make sure i have my heart on . . .

fall rocks

so i did my usual 2 loops of palgrave on thursday - by myself as homey's resting his calf (moooo). threw in some squats, pushups and situps (150) and managed to cut another minute off our time! down to 1:03. i remember it taking us almost 1:30 for 2 loops in the winter with all the snow. felt good and finished strong! not sure what georgie's been up to !????

this is an easy week according to my schedule, so i only had to do 14 miles. met up with homey, captain, the beaver, christine, vents and annie at cooli's for a reasonable 8am start. cap immediately took note of annie's tights (not allowed until november 1st) and labelled her 'october'. welcome to the pylons annie - you were warned! cap and the beaver tried some 'nuun' electrolyte tabs. beaver compared them to alka seltzer, and i think they finally stopped fizzing in caps' bottle about half-way back from airport road. the beaver hit the port-a-potties at the start, and we didn't see him again until almost the 7th line - must have been some good reading material in there! anyways, the pace was a little quick, and we all arrived at the lookout around 45 minutes later.

here's a pic of the gang trying to figure out where the cn tower is.

so homey, vents, christine and annie turned back at the 7th, while the 3 of us kept going over to airport road. vents gave me his gps thingy so i could measure the actual distance. the guys pointed out both spots where ankle sprains were incurred last week.

here's cys' shrine - how ironic that he fell right at this pylon! what are the odds?!!!

took this pic just before our fave (NOT) last climb coming out of glenn haffy. gave me an excuse to psych myself up! so beautiful!

the 3 of us got back to the cars with no injuries! here's a pic of the cap just finishing up the end of the k2 climb. total running time was just under 3 hours for 15.7 miles.

we weren't too sure, however, about the status of the old guy laying in the back of his pickup. relief settled in as he started talking and moving around. we then made our way over to timmies on hwy 9 for a coffee and snack. it was here that the captain paved his way to hell. there was some lady blocking the entrance to the parking lot, and just as he pulled up beside her, and started the hand gestures and some hollering, he realized she was a nun. not good!! payback was swift, as he had to wait the longest for his food, and was served a very small version of the usual roll that comes with the chili combo! be thankful that's all that happened cap! we finished off our morning with more discussion about our upcoming trip to moab!

i love my running buddies!

homey's back !!

monday was the usual - got up at 5 and did some weights. then tuesday headed out on the humber for an easy 5. picked the last hill before the rec center for repeats - started at the top with 25 pushups, and then ran down and up for a total of 8 times and 200 pushups. time out was an hour ten.

homeys' calf was feeling good enough to try a run with me. we started at humber station and ran up to the start of the dingle. the wind coming from the north practically pushed us down the gore road coming back. love running when it's all blustery like that!

just look how much stronger homey's become with all the crossfit we've been doing!! wow!!

more goofing around ! it's good to have my buddy back! and i'm happy to say the calf (mooooo) survived the run, even with k2 thrown in.

blueberry hill run

no christine again this weekend, so i opted for a blueberry hill run. there aren't actually any blueberries, and it's not much of a hill, but the moose named it a long time ago, and it stuck. tradition requires everytime you run by this post, you have to circle it and sing ' i found my thrill . . . ' anyways, headed out on my own around 10.

met up with annie ess on my way back. she finally got her lazy arse off the couch after cozying up with a book all morning! love the extra terrestrial effect of the vest for sure!!

and of course, being the clod that i am, i had to get her to take a pic of me. no, i can't just stand there and look normal.

finished up the weekends' training with a 2 hour run of almost 12 miles. headed over to the glp's for some weights, but not before we treated ourselves to a coffee and a nasty chocolate snack from mercatos. then got spoilt with a visit by the tony, bearing gifts of homemade lasagna and bread for dinner.

'life is good'

retired sauconys, a bee sting and 2 ankle twists

thursday i headed into palgrave for the usual 2 loops. i was on my own this week, as vents' holidays are over, and homey is once again on the temporary disabled list. stoopid calf! i'd had a massage from the ever-nasty channie the day before, and was feeling pretty good! i managed to cut 2 minutes off our record time, and included a bunch of crossfit. the run also gave me 450 miles on my old sauconys, so i figured it was time to retire them. they served me well, especially through the 146km of the sinister 7.

plans for saturday involved a repeat visit by the toronto pylons. i started out from humber station at 6:30 with my headlamp - it was still pretty dark. as i was just finishing off the dingle - the uphill part - i looked up and noticed robbie! he had come over from waterloo to join us!! we ran together up to cooli's, and met up with the rest of the guys - captain, digger, cy, vents, onions and the beaver. it was a pylon reunion! woo hoo! i believe there was only one rule infraction involving a pair of arm warmers, but we won't mention any names. after only 3 minutes and 47 seconds into glenn haffy, i made everybody stop so i could take a pic. i figured i wouldn't see the rest of them again!! do you like how they coordinated the shot, with the black shirts on the outsides, and the blue in the middle??!! almost as bad as the matching bel monte shirts last week.

me and vents managed to catch them at the top of the lookout by the 7th. notice how we all coordinated the colors again. what was up with that??!!!

and so the guys headed over to the water drop - no police this time - while me and vents kept going. well, vents stopped to turn around just before the entrance to the trail, but then decided to go a little further anyways. i was clueless as usual. while at the 'water station', cy managed to get stung, but was okay. the rest of us met up at the tai chi center, and i started on my way back. here's one of the brief moments the sun came out - on the 2nd switchback north of 9.

unfortunately, poor cy twisted his ankle just after leaving airport road, and had to walk up and eventually meet robbie for a ride back. and then a little later, digger was distracted by robbie going off to do 'whatever' in the bushes, and he too twisted his ankle. so according to cap, by the time they got to the dingle, there were only 2 of them left running. again, i was clueless. once i got back to my little red mazda, i drove up to the 7th to pickup the empty water bottles. i passed by cooli's and found cy sittting in the car waiting for the rest of the guys to finish. we decided to go and grab a coffee, and were later joined by the other 3 toronto pylons. we sat in timmies, digger with an ice pack on his ankle, and discussed training runs for our upcoming epic adventure to moab in november. in all, a great day!

thanks guys - life is good !

Off to the Marguerita Bar

Well, I just did my " Saturday Run " on Friday ..... night. It's a beautiful thing not to have that to do in the morning. I'm off to the Marguerita Bar for Salsa lessons. Hope my legs can stand up to the Hispanic pulse !

Kendra, have a great run in the morning. I'm gonna sleep in and go 9 on Sunday morning.

Beautiful sunset tonight in Dallas.... hope your sunrise is the same. xx oo

Oh lest, I forget to mention that my mealy mouthed, good for nuttin ex friend Freddie the former Knucklehead talked to me from his strenuous day on the golf course today. What an absolute puss !!

Basing Transition

Well, this weekend I will move from building a base to my first significant run of 18 miles.

I'm really feeling quite " Cocky " ( :) ) over my strategy of building back some muscle tone and hamstring strength prior to moving to a more traditional training schedule for a distance event.

I've run a series of 9 milers, but also have done some speed work, some hills and some runs with a 20 lb " Suicide weight vest ".

Kendra is making me post.... I have been lazy in that regard. But not too lazy to continue to call out my mealy mouthed, panty waist, sissy pants ex knucklehead team member.... Frederick the Apple for refusing to get on board and thus hastening his demise.

Btw, I know Kendra has a lot of friends... some of whom may be females. Please know that I am a pitiful divorced man that is willing to sleep with almost anyone ! So if you think I am witty and interesting, I will send you a first class ticket to Dallas for conversation and perhaps more !!

Hee Hee !!