Garbage stinks, upcoming 10 mile race and when birds attack

Welcome to Toronto


I am really looking forward to racing this weekend. Seems like my last race was a long time ago. Ran this race last year when it was Nissan 10 miler which is now the Acura 10 miler. Same race, same route, new car sponsor. I will post a race report early next week.



So I have been MIA from this blog for way too long. Sorry about that kiddies. I will try to get back to my posting at least once a week schedule. Just started a new job that’s pretty time intensive but I am getting a good handle on it now. For the last few weeks I had time to either run or blog. I decided that getting the runs in was probably more important although at times my legs were wishing I had chosen to exercise my fingers instead.

Will not bore you with all the gory details of my training the last few weeks so here is a quick summary instead with the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good
Hit most of my training goals as I continued to build my base miles. Decided I will top out at 65 miles and hold it there for awhile. Last three weeks total mileages were:

June 26 to July 4 64.5 miles
July 3 to 9 65 miles
July 10 to 16 57 miles

This week’s mileage is a bit shorter as I am taking today off to rest up for the Acura 10 mile race tomorrow. One day tapers rule!!

I have managed to stick to training more racing less. Actually harder then I thought. The pull of signing up for something last minute and just doing it is strong. This is not helped by certain running club members trying to gloat me into racing. I just pretend I can’t hear them.

After a sub par 5k race followed by a terrible track workout my speed workout have bounced back. The last two weeks on the track were really excellent workouts for me. Special thanks to Rob H. for pacing with me. Coach George hardly got flustered with us at all except when we wanted him to do math for us… LOL.

The Bad
I had to battle through a cold in late June that forced me to change my training schedule which included cutting my long run short, ditching speed work for the week and taking an extra day off. Nothing worse then having a cold in the summer but what can you do.

Currently doing most of my long runs alone with my training partners not available due to injury and or other commitments. Running 20 milers alone can really suck. The good news is that I expect one or both to be back doing regular runs in the near future.



The Ugly
What is up with me and nature. During my tempo workout two weeks ago I was running along minding my own business when suddenly I saw a huge shadow over my head. An instant later a larger blackbird attacked me from behind. It tried to dig its claws into my head and then it beaked me. I kid you not it briefly landed on my head and beaked me. I could actually feel the upper and lower beak trying to crunch down on my head. And here I was under the impression that only zombies wanted to eat my brain. Luckily I was wearing a hat which prevented me from getting a gaping head wound.

Now you would think that this happened in the deep woods on some trail run but you would be wrong. It actually happened running along the lakeshore in front of Sunnyside pool. The path was packed with other runners and bikers yet I was the only one that was signaled out for this unprovoked attack. The guy riding a bike right behind me said its one of the funniest things he’s ever seen and it made his day. NICE.

I got my revenge tho. I went home and ate as much chicken as I possibly could…. Yummy. Take that bird. Who’s on top of the food chain now?



Even uglier … just about everywhere I currently run in Toronto. With the garbage strike entering it 5th week it’s become disgusting out there. I used to try and pick my running routes based on things like sidewalk traffic and how hilly the area is. Now I pick my running routes based on what streets have less garbage piling up and what areas don’t stink due to the temporary dump sites. Hey lets put a whole bunch of temporary dump sites in every city park that we can find. Brilliant City Council, JUST BRILLIANT!!