Yesterday and Today and 7K!

Behind those trees, "The Steps"!

      Yesterday, Sunday, I had a little bit of free time in the afternoon and really wanted to get out there for a run. Hopefully, I would be able to get 7K in the books, in an effort to continue upping the mileage. What I did, though, was fritter away a large chunk of the day doing pretty well non-stuff and then, by the time I finally gathered myself up to run, the sun was perilously low in the sky. It was still very bright though and bright sunshine is not something we've seen a lot of lately here in London, Ontario so I headed out anyway. I drove to the Oxford Street bridge, near the entrance to Kains Woods, and parked on the bridge (there is room for this). From there it was up the hill and into the woods and off I went!
   I can't honestly say the legs felt all that good, however, and the more I ran the more I had an opportunity to do the math in my head wherein I calculate the length of time I need to get in 7K versus the actual amount of sunlight I had to work with. The math really wasn't working in my favour and the very last thing I wanted to be doing was running through a forest in the dark. Not to mention the "coyotes at dusk" warnings posted at pretty well all of London's forested areas. So I cut things short, ran about half a kilometer, and the hiked the rest of the way, all in all about 4K. No big deal.

This is the top of what 230 pounds
of Brian Baker looks like!

    Today, Monday, I had the day off and, after a little bit of work stuff first thing, I was able to head out with lots of daylight at my command. I headed for Komoka Provincial Park and left my car at the easternmost end of it. I usually walk the first half kilometer to get warmed up but I took a couple of extra minutes when I got into the forest and did some stretching. I then started to run. Slowly. As usual.
   It was about 4 or 5 degrees Celsius today with no precipitation and a good deal of sunshine left over from yesterday. Pretty awesome for running! There were a couple of muddy sections due to recent rain and a little bit of snow but these were minimal and un-deterring.
   I'm out of shape. Today I was propelling almost 230 pounds of Brian Baker through the forest and that just ain't right and shouldn't be. For a variety of reasons, I have had huge meals lately (and often) and I have done a terrible job of showing any restraint. I hopped on (gingerly) the scales last night and by the time the digital readout had done its thing, I was weighing in at 229.5. It's been ages since I've weighed that much and my jaw just kinda dropped. Okay, time to get back to work. The only good thing about weighing that much is that I can get it off pretty quick if I'm a little more conscientious. This, however, only usually gets me back down to about 224 and there is truly so much further to go! Perhaps that gym membership I've never used....

The mighty Thames!

   The run today was fairly uneventful. Passed a few people enjoying the park, which is always kinda nice. In aiming for 7K, the plan today was to run for 4, turn around (you almost have to turn around, the park's only 4K long), and then run another 3, on the way back. This was over almost before I knew it and I then hiked another kilometer to get back to my car.
   A weird thing happened when I got into my car. As I was lowering myself into the driver's seat, all of the sudden I started to get a muscle spasm on the outside of my right calf and shin. It was quite uncomfortable and I hopped out of the car as fast as I could (not very fast) to get the leg back into a comfortable position. As I was standing beside my car, I lifted my leg off the ground and my foot started to rotate to the right, all of its own volition. A very strange thing to feel and watch---my muscles making my feet do things I hadn't asked them to do! I plopped the foot back down on the ground, stood on it and then walked around til it felt as though I could get back in the car and drive. By the time I got back home, it was more or less back to normal. I put the whole episode down to perhaps having over-exerted my lower legs with the uneven trail I'd just been on for the last almost two hours. Will keep an eye on it for next time!
   Last week I bought a combination lock. This was my radical first step toward getting back (it's been years) to the gym once more. This week, I'm actually going. The scary part is, I just told you I was going.....
   
   
   

Not the right kind of "cold, wet one"!

   I was checking my stats on Blogger just yesterday and what it told me was that there had been no page views that day and there had been no page views the previous day, either. This meant that people had stopped even accidentally reading my blog and was a sure sign that I had not written anything in a long, long time.

   

Out of the reasonably clear...

I really only blog when I run and I had not run in about four weeks, partially due to a nasty head and chest cold and then a stream of social commitments, not the least of which was my wife's 50th birthday. Today, however, was a day in which nothing had been planned and my legs were feeling kind of restless and so I thought let's give 'em a go!

   We have been through a long, bleak and wet spell in these parts lately and today was no different. Rain was in the forecast but by the time I was ready to go there was nothing more than a wet mist going on out there. I threw on a light running jacket just before I headed out the door, it wasn't really cold enough for one (it was 8C) but the mist just seemed to make it feel that much colder.

...and headed into the dark and dismal.

   I headed to Komoka Park, hoping to be able to park for free at the far end of it and, with the nasty weather today, this seemed like a pretty good bet. Sure enough, lots of room to park and off I went. My normal routine is to walk the first half a kilometer before breaking into a run and this is what I did today. I was a little worried after being off for four weeks that my legs wouldn't respond and was pleasantly surprised when they reacted appropriately.

If you're from around these parts
and do any kind of hiking or
even reading about it, then you've
probably seen this tree. It has all
sorts of  love notes on it but today,
in the wet gloom, it looked kind
of antediluvian and foreboding

   I wanted to run 7K today and had a bit of a rough idea what portion of the park I would use for this. About 3K in, though, it started to rain in earnest. This was no really big deal but then, when I looked down at my Garmin, it had switched from the usual screen telling me time and distance and had reverted to screen which shows me how my virtual run partner was doing. This would have been okay if perhaps I had set this up beforehand but i hadn't (I rarely use this option) and in fact my virtual partner today was riding a bike. And I was 24 minutes behind him/her. This was not helpful and, in the rain, I had a lot of trouble getting the Garmin back to the correct screen. When I eventually got back to the screen I needed, everything had been set back to zero!

   This, on its own, did not stop me from continuing my run but soon my ankle and Achilles started to act up and then I just lost my, for lack of a much better word, mojo. At that point, I turned around and walked it back in. No, I hiked it back in, that sounds better.

   By the time I made it halfway back, I was drenched. My running jacket is not rainproof and provided little comfort. It was only about 3 p.m. but it was dark in the forest and I actually started to run again just to get back to the car a little faster.
   So, as it turned out, I did not get my 7K run in and, really, this was fine by me. I had assuaged that restless feeling and this was the main purpose of getting out today. Hopefully, I can now get back into a more regular routine and actually give people something to read, either by accident or on purpose!