Last run in Yellowknife before Prague!

That's right gang as of next week I will only have Aurora, Markham, Chatham, Bracebridge and perhaps, maybe, Etobicoke, to run in before Prague itself. Tonight completed 5.7 Fartlek training on the treadmill here at the Anderson Thompson apartments in Yellowknife after returning from Inuvik.

Inuvik was great! Really pretty but very cold and I didn't want to rest my newly more or less healed lungs so I decided to go for a walk, take some pictures and run today back in my flat. Inuvik was interesting - very friendly people who really like living there. It is a town of approximately 2400 people, 60% of which are Aboriginal. Here is a picture of the main street which, as you can see, shows the flatness of the place. We are only 140 km from the Artic Ocean and at 68.4 Degrees North Latitude, it is the furthest place north I have ever been. A good place to read up on Inuvik, and it is worth doing, is the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuvik. Please note the church shown there, Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church, is very beautiful and I have included my picture of it in this post as well.

Today's song of the day was Bryan Ferry's fast and furious Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues. Next workout will be Saturday and you can expect a long run on Sunday. Talk to you all soon!

Paul

Fartlek on the Treadmill

Hi Gang,

Just a short post today - did an short but very intense fartlek session on the treadmill at my apartment in Yellowknife today. Probably a bit too intense as it left me coughing a bit but aside from that I don't feel bad.

I covered 3.3 km in just over 20 minutes and will attempt a longer, slower session tomorrow before tackling a run in Inuvik on Wednesday.

Song of the day - Back Street Luv by Curved Air and you should know that we have at least one successful answer on the trivia question - the rest of you need to reply by 11:59 PM EST on Saturday March 1st to qualify for a one of a kind, well five of a kind, unique prize.

Bye for now!

Paul

Back in Yellowknife!

Hi Everyone, today, as you can see from the photo, I flew out to Vancouver and then North and East again to Yellowknife. Tonight I managed an 8.4 km run in -15C weather and it was lovely. My good friend Duff pointed out a great trail to me and I followed it around really enjoying the beautiful scenary here on the Great Canadian Shield.

I am here until Wednesday when I head up to Inuvik, and weather permitting will go for at least a short run there so that I can claim to have run above the artic circle. Stay tuned.

As to our song of the day, let me use this occasion to launch a new contest for all our Prague 1/2 Marathon readers. Once a week between now and run day, I will ask a trivia question related to the song of the day. Answers sent to pmackin1959@gmail.com will be reviewed every Sunday and one correct answer picked for a prize which the winners will receive by post after I return from Prague. You have to include the answer, your full name and mailing address and what colour underwear you prefer wearing. Well, the last part is a joke... maybe.

OK so, here we go. Today's song of the day is Come and Get it by Badfinger. The question, what movie was this song featured heavily in and who were the two main stars of that film?

I will announce next week's winner along with the music trivia question of the week next Sunday. Have fun!

Paul

Five weeks today!

Well the good news is that I managed to run just under 13 km today - it was great. The bad news is that I have clearly lost some time to prepare for the 1/2 marathon and it is in exactly five weeks.

I am confident that I will be able to do it however but really don't want any more setbacks so I am going to really have to be dilligent for the next month.

Today's run was beautiful, it was -2C and I routed it through the Fairy Lake park in Newmarket which is just a great place to run. Many great songs presented themselves and I am actually almost at a bit of a loss as to what to pick. However, as an inspiration of mine once said "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" and with that in mind, I simply have no choice but to nominate todays song of the day as the Paul Anka version of Smells Like Teen Spirit. No need to thank me for this gem, it is just the kind of guy that I am.

Back in Yellowknife starting tomorrow - temperatures look better, I may even get to run outside.

See you soon.

Paul

So far so good.

Hi everyone

Well I have completed my second 6 km run in less than 24 hours and feel no ill effects! Not bad for an old guy.

Today's route was through central Chatham and was something new for me - I moved away from the core near the hotel and office here and did a more circular effort around the city. A beautiful day for it as well - not too cold and quite sunny. My lap pace was 6:38, not my best but certainly not bad.

Today's song of the day was playing just as I finished the run: Safety Dance by that fine Quebec group Men Without Hats. Great song to run to - lot's of energy.

Back at you again tomorrow - we are now going to try to get back into the swing of things in earnest.

Paul

I am back! Well, maybe...

The antibiotics do seem to be working - was able to get a 6km done with a 6:21 pace for my first road run in two weeks. I feel really good.

If all works out well tomorrow, I will try to get similar distance run then as well and we are back at it!

Song of the day was Hanging on a Telephone by Blondie.

Talk to you tomorrow.

Quick update

Hi everyone,

Well the penicilin seems to be helping and I am definitely feeling a bit better. Today I managed a two km walk on the treadmill followed by a circuit of pushups, crunches, curls and pulldowns. Felt pretty good but not ready to tackle a run yet.

Stay tuned...

Warmer but....

Hi guys,

I am back home and had a bit of a revelation whilest in the Northwest Territories. It was -50 most days I was up there except on Friday when it shot up to -30. Friends, it actually felt warm that day. At that point I suddenly realized that I was clearly being reprogrammed by my environment. Trust me though, -30 actually did feel warm.

Well folks I am still not 100% and have decided that I want to ensure I am better before I pick up running again. Remember when I was saying a couple of weeks ago that I was ahead on my training schedule? Well, this is proving to be a very good thing as I will clearly need that headroom. So here is the plan, I started on antibiotics for a chest infection yesterday and, hopefully, will begin running again in a couple of days assuming this clears up nicely.

This week I will be in Chatham and will update you when I start running again.

Keep the faith!

Still coughing, still -50

Hi Guys,

A better day aside from this persistant cough. I managed to do 6.9 km of fartlek on the treadmill today along with some lateral pulldowns and pushups.

It is still colder than a science experiment involving dry ice and my cough has yet to clear but I was able to squeeze out the run and am feeling pretty good. Today's song was Don't Let it Show from the I Robot album by the Alan Parson's Project.

Cough permitting, I will be back on the old treadmill tomorrow evening...

One rough week...

Well friends, it has been a rough week.

I spent three days in bed with a fever and a bad cough. Then another couple of days coughing my lungs out - all in a just a horrid time.

Today I am back in Yellowknife and felt good enough for a workout in the gym here in my apartment. I spent 30 minutes on the treadmill covering 5.1 km and then completed two circuits of the ususal pushups, crunches, pulldowns, thrusters thing.

It was tough and I am still coughing a bit - granted going in and in -50C weather isn't helping either but in the end I was able to get through the workout. Today's song of the day is the Tom Jones cover of Baby it's Cold Outside. Both Welsh and appropriate...

I will be doing another workout tomorrow, ramping up to a weekend outdoor long run. Stay tuned...

Sick as a dog.

Let me preface this blog with a comment - I don't do sick well.

I think I caught a bit of a cold from my son last week and that, coupled with the long run on Sunday has left me full of the "notwells". In fact, I feel horrible.

Still, after a sweaty night in bed. I was able to do a workout this morning and added a new exercise to my "mini-workout" - 3 sets of 15 thrusters with 20 lbs dumbells. A pretty horrible experience but does work the legs, core, arms and sholders.

I then proceeded to mount the old treadmill and hacked out a 3.5 km run. I felt really good after all that but it seems to have caught up with me a bit this afternoon.

My song of the day is a bit obscure but fun. In 1971 Don McLean released an album called American Pie - and almost everyone has heard the cover song - Madonna, sadly, did a bastardization of it as well. What is less known is that there is not one bad song on this album - it is nearly, in my opinion, a perfect LP with uniformly great tracks. One song stands out though, not as the best of the best but as the most unusual. This one is called Everybody Loves Me, Baby and it is truly unique. That song presented itself via my iPod at the 2.5 km point this morning and is adopted as our Song of the Day...

I will get back to you all once I can get out of bed...

Paul

55 days and counting

Hey everyone - I just did a manual recount on the days between now and March 28th - 55 days is what remains.

So, today there was an 18.6 km run! Wow! To paraphrase Marvin the Paranoid Android from The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "The First Billion Years was the worst. The second billion, that was the worst too. After that I went into a bit of a decline"

It is a considerable distance to run - the trick to it is to keep the pace low right from the start I aimed for a 7:30 pace for the duration and came in at 7:34 and given the snow on the ground and reasonably hilly terrain, well, that 4 seconds isn't too bad.

Speaking of hills, there is one killer hill on today's route near Thorton Bales, just coming onto Old Bathurst Street. Steep and long - my pace dropped to 9:04 for most of it and I had to stop to catch my breath at the top of it. While running up the hill, a song was playing on my iPod - Knife Edge by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. It has a really interesting beat, slow, methodical and grinding which was exactly what was needed to get up that hill. So, all that under consideration, I think I have to elect it the song of the day.

Tomorrow back into the gym for a mini-workout and recovery run and then we continue to add kilometers throughout the week.

Blog you all again soon!

Paul

Fartlek continues...

Hi gang, well the snow did keep me indoors today but I did manage to get a 7 km Fartlek session in with a best pace for 30 seconds of 4:43 second per km. Not a bad pace.

I also whipped off a hundred or so pushups - photographic evidence is attached. My form on pushups is improving but I still have a tendency to stick my butt up too high in the air. The form in this picture is good and having my feet on the stepping bench is a nice addition, makes it much harder and a better exercise.

Tomorrow the boys and I are with Andy our trainer again and Sunday is long run day - weather looks good for it too!

Today's song was Surrender by Cheap Trick - I could just hear Ricky Nelson twanging away during some of the hard bits of the run.

Updates coming over the weekend, gang. Stay tuned...