Tag: running

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Health

Getting to PEI – Feb 2023 Edition

Again… working on that whole consistency thing…

Here’s the chart from the last update to the end of February.

28/2/2023RunGarmin bgnr 5k2.1 km20:079:27
25/2/2023WalkDefault2.1 km25:22:0012:09
25/2/2023RunGarmin bgnr 5k1.9 km20:1310:39
24/2/2023RunGarmin bgnr 5k1.2 km9:117:51
20/2/2023RunLearning2.7 km27:09:0010:02
15/2/2023RunLearning3.0 km30:09:0010:14
13/2/2023RunLearning3.0 km30:08:0010:05

A total of 16 km for February. Well, February is a short month. But yea, nothing between 22 January and 13 February. That doesn’t help the overall numbers at all.

Also though – no yoga on that little chart eh? I am feeling this today – early in March writing about February and thinking to myself, damn my hamstrings are tight….

But enough! Moving on now to the good stuff – see the change on 24 February? “Garmin bgnr 5k” is when I started a new training plan based off my new very fancy training watch: a Garmin 255 🙂

I’m sure I’m not using even half of what it can do but so far I love it a ton. I do still have the habit of setting it off when I’m just reading or whatever; my hand twigs the top right button and then the watch thinks that I’m about to do something active as opposed to sitting on the streetcar reading a novel lol

The garmin beginner 5k plan starts with you picking between three different online coaches – I chose Coach Amy. My first run was a benchmark test that was 9 minutes long:

2 minutes walking warm up

5 minutes running – walking if you need to

2 minutes walking cool down

Then the next two runs were:

5 minutes walking; 1 minute running x 3

There was also a good long walk in there that I counted! Mostly because it was me walking all the way to my massage ❤️ And yes, I am well aware that 1 minute running is a bit less than what I can do but I needed a win okay!

So 16 km in February plus the 81 km to the end of January = 97 km-ish. Which puts me near Pork Hope Ontario: moving link here.

Port Hope always meant I was half-way back to Kingston (where I went to law school) but apparently lots of other people will recognize it because IT – the movie IT and its sequel – were filmed in Port Hope; it stood in as the fictional Derry, Maine. (IMDB link to Port Hope).

PORT HOPE — Port Hope Municipal hall is now Derry Public Library for the filming of Stephen King’s It.

The other thing Port Hope is kinda known for, confirmed by wiki:

Port Hope is known for having the largest volume of historic low-level radioactive wastes in Canada

http://nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/waste/historic-nuclear-waste/index.cfm

And last, but definitely not least: Float Your Fanny Down the Ganny! The Ganaraska River (the “Ganny”) flooded in 1980 and caused oodles of damage to Port Hope. And now they commemorate this with a 10k race: canoe, kayak or “crazy craft!”

(a footnote: Google maps says it’s 1,700 km by car from Toronto city hall to Charlottetown city hall – so I am about 5.7% of the way there. Well hell!)

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Health

Uhm Running to PEI 2023

Getting to PEI (just catching up basically)

So it seems the last time I updated this was at the beginning of December. Which is really the last time I did anything consistently at all.

Here’s the post up to 4 December 2022.

And then from December to the end of January:

datewhatwherehow farhow longpace
22/1/2023RunrandomDef2.8 km28:5210:30
17/1/2023RunTreadmDef2.7 km28:0710:35
13/1/2023RunTreadmDef2.8 km28:0210:10
7/1/2023RunEG TrackDef2.6 km30:1911:43
4/1/2023RunTreadmDef3.0 km30:0510:00
3/1/2023Yoga Def 20:00 
2/1/2023RunTreadmDef2.6 km25:049:43
31/12/2022RunrandomRace5.1 km49:039:40
10/12/2022RunrandomDef2.8 km31:0611:14
6/12/2022RunrandomDef2.5 km26:1710:29

Oh look! ONE yoga session. One. Sigh.

28.5 km up to 4 December. And then 52.1 km (roughly) from then to the end of January – so 81 km. Which puts me really in the middle of nowhere it seems – between Newcastle and Newtonville in Ontario. Newtonville is considered the eastern end of the GTA (which, because I’m me, made me go look up “western end of the GTA” which is apparently Burlington. Distance from Burlington to Newtonville? 123 km by car as per google maps, 113 by foot.)

You’ll maybe notice a race in there. I decided to re-start running. Laura said “ohhh I like running with other people let’s run together.”

And then later, Laura “by the way, I may have roped Abby into this.”

And then “Oh and I found a race….”

So then Suzy (who’s moved on to marathons since the last time I ran with her) agreed to run the NYE race too.

The race was awful. I hadn’t run for 3 weeks before. I wasn’t nearly ready at all for a full 5k. But I did it and I didn’t die. Though maybe I should have had more than 1 pint before the race (even if I was the one driving).

I was worried (as usual) about being late. We were early enough to have pints before the race.

It did remind me though of all the reasons I like running (honestly it’s the time to myself, feeling the air and the rain (or snow) and being in the dark and the light and paying attention to new streets or sounds or smells. But the aloneness is awesome. And running by the lake? At night? In winter with the snow? BLISS.

As you can see from my tracking that bliss feeling kept me going for a week. And then I fell all to pot again with a really bad cold. So much so that I’m still trying to come back even though I’m writing this mid-February! I ordered myself a new Garmin running watch and also signed up for a new training app that I’ve never even heard of before. And well, tomorrow is a Monday so that’s as good a time as any to start again!

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Health

Getting to PEI (weeks 3-4)

I would really like to get a bit more consistent in doing the plan 3 days a week!

The stats for weeks 3 & 4:

4/12/2022RunrandomDefault3.5 km35:1910:06
2/12/2022RunrandomDefault3.6 km36:0810:04
29/11/2022RunrandomDefault3.1 km31:4410:19
26/11/2022RunTreadmillDefault3.0 km31:0710:19
23/11/2022RunTreadmillDefault2.8 km28:2010:01

What I tried to do was “catch up” to where I would be if I had actually done three runs a week. So Friday December 2 was week 4 day 2 and Sunday December 4 was week 4 day 3 (even though I should be somewhere in week 3). It was not at all fun – so instead I’m gonna go back and actually do week 3 properly.

Anyway though, I did run three times this week! Yippie! I’ve gone up from running 90 seconds to running 3 minutes (and walking 2) to running 5 minutes (and walking 3 and then walking 2 – those 5s though are where I died so going back to 3s and then I think 4s before I get to 5s again).

A 2-week total of 16 km (ish). And about 28.5 km to date.

I’ve made it along Highway 2 (which is called Kingston Rd here) to between Sheppard Ave East (Toronto) and Altona Road (Pickering) – so I am smack dab in Rouge National Urban Park. It’s apparently the largest urban park in North America.

ADDED: I found a place to track it on a map! PLOTAROUTE

There’s an Act! *swoon* The Rouge National Urban Park Act.

The centre of the park is the Rouge River. Which is also the boundary between Toronto and Pickering. It’s part of the Oak Ridges Moraine watershed. I’ve never really been out there but it looks amazing. I really wanna go!

A picture of trees, flowers and a path. Could be anywhere but apparently it's in the Rouge somewhere.
From the Rouge’s website.

Visit the Rouge is the Canadian government website for the park. It has all sort of links to the area and planning out a trip, including letting you know how to get there and parking info and there’s even an app. Hmmmm I did finally threaten cajole Q into trying snowshoeing with me this year (I’ve never done it!). This seems like a great place to go for that.

Map of the entire Rouge National Urban Park.
Parks Canada: https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/on/rouge/visit/cartes-maps

Oh and then I found this stunning map on the Canadian Geographic website:

A relief map of the Rouge National Urban Park - a sort of colourized street map.
https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/canadas-first-national-urban-park/#&gid=1&pid=2

I tried to find a photo taken from the park of the City and I found this from 2017 on Park Canada’s twitter account:

A picture of some dude in a hipster sweater staring (what I assume is wistfully) over fall foliage in the direction of Toronto.
Source: https://twitter.com/ParksCanada/status/921088974516518914/photo/1

If you look very carefully, the CN Tower is there (albeit very faintly) in the top left corner behind the other skyscrapers.

Anyway, a month to leave the city. And I’m a little under 4 weeks away from my first 5k race in ohhhh 4 years. What the heck race did I run in 2018? Oh yeah! A fundraising run for Shelter Movers – still an amazing organization.

Categories
Health

First two weeks of #RedleafWalking

A couple of friends decided to come along for the run/walk thing so at least one of my runs each week has been with them. It’ll take me a bit I think to try and not be overly self-conscious / self-critical but I’ll try!

So this is the end of two weeks – I’ve done four of the six planned runs. I’m okay with this because it’s four more runs than I did in the prior two weeks, or two months for that matter 😉

So stats:

19/11/2022RunrandomDefault3.7 km38:3610:30
17/11/2022RunTreadmillDefault3.0 km30:5910:18
12/11/2022RunrandomDefault2.8 km30:1010:38
8/11/2022RunrandomDefault3.0 km30:5310:29
I track on a website called https://www.runningahead.com/

For a 2-week total of 12.5 km (ish). Note that the 19 November run included a whole extra 5 min warm up walk due to technical difficulties lol

Highway 2 seems to be my standard route out of the city going east so 12.5 km away from Nathan Philips Square along Dundas St. until it turns into Kingston Road and along Kingston Road until it almost meets up with Danforth Ave.


AND that means I’m just looking out over one of the prettiest most utilitarian buildings in the city:

Go to: https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2017/07/photo-day-rc-harris-water-treatment-plant
credit info: image by Randy Hoffmann via Flickr

Yep – a water treatment plant. More specifically the R.C. Harris Water Treatment Plant. It’s still functional despite being in use since 1941. It’s definitely an art deco delight.

From Atlas Obscura: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/r-c-harris-water-treatment-plant

It’s often been used as a prison or evil genius headquarters – in tv and film 😉 In everything from Strange Brew to Guillermo Del Toro’s Mimic; from comedy to horror and a bunch of stuff in between.

Categories
Health

One step in front of the other

Learn to Run
(all over again)

#RedleafWalking

So one of the little things I thought I would start on Monday 29 August was a learn to run program again. My plan was to start slow and do each training day twice for the first month just to see how I, and my knee, held up. And then that fell apart a couple of weeks in when Toby went to BC for a couple of weeks and then Q and I went to PEI and then Edgar got neutered and THEN Q got COVID…. and well, it’s really never ending.

And recognizing that it’s never ending means I have to pick a new start date and stick to it. Something will always come up.

Thinking: We take Edgar back to the vet mid-November to remove the stitches. Then I will ask about starting him with the learn to run with me. He walks really well on a leash and the running at the start is a minute or two long only. I dunno. We’ll see.

Either way – and because I love winter – I am re-starting Monday November 14. Weeks start on Monday for me. It’s as good a day as any. (Note that the first draft had this at November 28. I couldn’t think of why so I bumped it to November 21, then to November 14. And now I’m wondering why I don’t just start on November 7?)

So the PLAN: I am following a 10K runner app.

Week 1 Day 1 (W1D1)

5 minute warm up

1 min run; 1.5 min walk x 6

5 minute cool down

W1D2

5 minute warm up

1 min run; 1.5 min walk x 8

5 minute cool down

W1D3

same as W1D2

Week 2 will be a little different: 1.5 minute runs and 2 minute walks get added to the mix. I might do Week 1 x 2 and then move to Week 2. It depends on how it all goes.

My plan is to walk/run on Mondays, Thursdays (while Q is in dance I can go run!), and Saturdays.

AND if I cannot run – which will be dependent only on the actual physical ability of my knee – then I will switch it to “walk with purpose; recovery walk” but I will still do it.

GETTING TO PEI

One of the things I did years ago when I started running was pretend I was running to PEI. I had so much fun with that that I am going to do it again.

My start, as I did in 2013, is Nathan Phillips Square, the home of Toronto City Hall:

Selfie with the Toronto sign in early October

So some fun facts: Nathan Phillips was the first Jewish mayor of Toronto. He was a lawyer, born in Brockville Ontario.

You can really tell the place was designed in the 1960s. Though I think it’s still awesome. It’s also been used a lot in movies so obviously I’m not the only one who thinks so.

from the other side of the sign

And then the ending spot:

Charlottetown city hall.

It took a year to build this “romanesque revival” style building from 1887 to 1888. It’s a National Historic Site of Canada as well.

From wikipedia.

I will add up the distance of my walk/runs every so often and we’ll see how far I get. The tag for this one is #RedleafWalking – it’s a long story but some of you will understand.

Every week seems silly at the start. We’re talking a few KMs of distance focused on the app (I am not including just the walking the dog KMs) maybe every 2 weeks to start? or 4? I dunno yet.