Sunny but colder than expected...

Confession time: because of other commitments, I haven't been to a Team Myles run for over a week. I really miss the experience of running with the team and I hope to be able to run with them more as we near the race date.

However, that hasn't stopped me from training! I went on my elliptical machine a couple times and this morning ran 6 kilometres on the Salt Marsh Trail.

The trail was a mix of ice, packed snow and frozen gravel, making it passable with caution. I had to be careful of my footing, which slowed me down a bit.

It was a beautiful morning today and although the high temperature was expected to reach 3 or 4 degrees Celsius, it was still below zero when I ran.

After my run, I joined my Cub pack for a 2 hour hike in Shubie Park in Dartmouth. As tricky as the Salt Marsh Trail was, the Shubie Park trails were much worse! We walked less than 2 kilometres, picking our way along the ice about 90% of the time. We had fun though, including the time when a few lucky Cubs had chickadees eating from their hands. To quote one of the kids, "I have done that before, but it's cool every time." It sure is!

Running In Florida

I know, tough stuff! I ran on both Saturdays that we were in Florida on vacation: once on the streets of Seminole and Largo (two communities in the Tampa Bay/Clearwater Beach area) and the second time I was barefoot on the sand at Clearwater Beach. I hadn't run on that beach since I had visited Florida when I was in high school. Only one minor cut on my foot from a shell fragment during the second run, which I see as a small price to re-live a memory from my younger days.

In between our times on the coast, my family and I went to Disney World. I am a logistics guy by nature and profession, so I took it upon myself to plan our days at Disney, including being the runner for Fastpasses. For those unfamiliar with Disney World, line-ups can be a real drag on your time, with wait times of over an hour for popular attractions. The Fastpass allows you to plan ahead and basically beat the line, provided you return to go on the ride at a later time that is appointed when you get the Fastpass.

Getting the Fastpasses meant that sometimes I had to go to a different part of the park to book a ride we wanted to go on, but that saved us from waiting in the heat for an hour or so per ride, which can seem like an eternity with two tired youngsters. This gave me the opportunity to sprint a few times a day while at Disney, on top of the hours of walking around that we did, too. I think there is value in some sprint training, to mix up the exercise for your body and maybe even speed up your longer runs!

Saturday Run Around Cow Bay

I wasn't able to go to this morning's Team Myles run because of family commitments, but I more than made up for it by running the loop around Cow Bay. It is about 7.5 kilometres. I have run it before but the first leg was all headwind today. For some reason, it didn't feel like the tailwind on the other side of the loop helped me as much as the headwind at the start made me work harder!

I used some of the warm-up moves and stretches that Devon from Push Fitness showed us before our Team Myles runs. I have found that it's good for me to do a bit of warm-up and stretching before a run. I have heard some other people say they don't stretch before, but I will err on the side of caution. The last thing I want is to be laid up with an injury that warming-up and stretching might have prevented.

Heart in Halifax

Really good concert tonight at the Metro Centre. Ann Wilson showed she still had her voice, albeit a few tones lower than 30+ years ago. She still belted out the memorable parts to Heart's classics and Nancy still rocked her guitar, mandolin, autoclave, and vocals.

Tonight's setlist (from memory and help from a setlist last summer in Nashville. There were a couple changes for Halifax, but this is basically the show):

1. Cook With Fire - off their latest album and my favourite of the 4 new songs they played. Good beat and rhythm, strong opener.
2. Heartless - classic, really fun to play on the drums.
3. What About Love - 80's fan favourite.
4. Straight On - another good song with a solid guitar hook.
5. Dog & Butterfly - slowed it down a little for this title track from the 70's.
6. Desire Walks On - title track of one of their albums that Ann admitted was not a commercial success. The chorus was very heavy and seemed like there was too much going on, especially for a Heart song where Ann and Wilson's talents should be at the forefront.
7. Hey You - new song. Ann played the autoclave. It was OK but the "na na na na" chorus seemed like they tried to write an intentional sing-along song.
8. Even It Up (with Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter intro/bridge) - great song and a clever mash-up with one of my favourite Stones songs.
9. Red Velvet Car - title track from the new album. It was just OK to me.
10. Alone - great torch song from 1987. Remember 1987? :-)
11. WTF - new song, heavy sound, second favourite of mine of the new songs they played.
12. Magic Man - great 70's song, the keyboard player did an especially good job with the sound at the end.
13. Crazy On You - one of my favourites to play on Guitar Hero.
14. Barracuda - my favourite Heart song. Here is video (sorry, only 3 minutes, to the end of the guitar solo, ran out of memory!):



First Encore
15. What Is and Should Never Be - Led Zeppelin cover that they nailed, especially Ann's vocals.
16. Love Reign On Me - The Who cover was well done, but would not have been my choice as a show closer.

Second Encore
17. Dreamboat Annie - for us Canucks since this album was first released in Canada. Nice tip of the hat to their band's Canadian roots to finish the show with this one.

It's official!

I received notification that I am registered in the Blue Nose 10K, part of the Scotiabank Blue Nose Marathon on May 22, 2011!

Our blogs should be online soon, but I will keep posting on here to keep a personal copy of my progress.

Good run last Saturday, same route as the week before but we ran more of it, almost all 5 kilometres. It wasn't nearly as cold as last week, so it wasn't a dealbreaker that I forgot my gloves.

Team Myles - Running Keeps You Warm!

This was my first Saturday run with Team Myles. We started at Push Fitness, walked as a group to the corner of Young and Inglis (1.6 km), then ran to the end of Young Avenue and returned to Push. The run was 3.4 km, for a total distance of 5 km.

It was sunny but very cold today, -16 with the wind chill, so I am glad I had fleece on under my outer layer. My calf injury did not flare up, so that is a good thing!

Unfortunately, I will be double-booked on Wednesday with my Cub pack, but I will do the 4.2 km run either Tuesday or Thursday.

Team Myles - First Run!

Well, it was my first run with Team Myles. The inaugural team run was actually on Saturday (January 15), but I was already committed to running a camp with my Cub pack when I found out the date of the first run.

Before tonight's run, we warmed up with Devon Norris of Push Fitness (he played for the Rainmen last year, this blog has numerous Rainmen entries). Devon got us ready to go and I enjoyed doing the stretches as a group, it reminded me of my rugby-playing days!

Tonight's run was 3 laps around the Commons, 1.4 kilometres each time around, for a total of 4.2 kilometres. We had to buddy up for the run, my run buddy was Peter Harrison. We ran at a good pace, did each loop in about 10 minutes. My calf muscle that I injured last year flared up again (I tweaked it last week, so this was not a surprise). Luckily for me, it did not disable me from running, although when I lengthened my stride to speed up a bit while passing some other Team Myles members, I felt it get close to tearing again. I am going to have to be careful with this thing, I don't want to miss out on training because of a preventable injury!

After the run, we visited Lifemark Physio to have our gait analyzed and to measure our feet for the Adidas running shoes we will get with Team Myles. Sara was very knowledgeable and I guess I have the biggest feet of all the Team Myles members, what an accomplishment!

I felt really good after the run, actually invigorated. I look forward to Saturday morning's run!