A Little Barkley Pain With My "Monday Off" Post

   On Monday, I headed out for another of my "Monday Off" runs, this time at nearby Kains Woods.

The real trail starts on the
other side if this pond.

   I was a little conflicted as I left the house. I knew I would likely be out for about two hours but I also knew that the Barkley Marathons would be reaching its time limit while I was out and I strongly desired to find out if Canada's Gary Robbins was able to finish under the time limit. Unfortunately, they were also calling for heavy rain shortly and I wanted to avoid that, if I could. I made the decision to head out anyway, knowing I would have the phone on me and could check social media when I wished.
   I was thinking yesterday that I wanted to hit the elusive 11K mileage mark if I possibly could. This had eluded me (again) this past Saturday and I really wanted Monday to be the day I got there.

Honestly, my 220-some-odd
(some-even) pounds barely
fits through this gate! lol

 
   It's been pretty mild in London the past few days and this meant running in shorts again, which is always awesome after a long winter. The first part of the Kains Woods trail, from the entrance I used, involves almost a kilometer's worth of multi-use trail which winds its way past a subdivision and then around a large collection pond. You then need to squeeze your way through a narrow post opening so that you can access the wooded trail portion.
   Technically, Kains Woods is just one long trail from end to end and as I got to the start of it there was a sign indicating the trail was closed. This was a little disconcerting but the sign was vague enough in its wording that I just ran past it and kept on going. The plan was to reach the end of it and then turn back until I eventually got to the 11K. 
   

My favourite part of the trail.

The rain started falling almost right away, just a light rain and nothing which gave me pause. In the beginning the legs felt pretty good. I was a little worried because on Saturday I was totally exhausted after my 10K run in Komoka and I'd only had the one rest day in between. There were quite a few sections where I was able to "let it all out" for extended periods and it felt great. Eventually the legs began to feel a little worse for wear and round about that same time the rain really started coming down and I turned around before I reached the end of the trail and headed back, still running. 
   Not sure if my hard running did me in or not but at 6.5K I decided to just walk it in. I took this opportunity to check on the Barkleys and found out that Gary Robbins had finished but had been six seconds late. Six seconds! This deflated me.

Just to prove I was there!

As I walked back I found it hard to imagine the pain and the effort he had undergone only to fall short by this amount. All I could think of was the thousands of opportunities he would have had to have saved six seconds, here or there. Honestly, I had a hard time wrapping my head around it.  Once I got back to the car, I had a chance to see some of the video of his return to camp and it was absolutely heart-breaking, getting me all choked up as I sat there. Later, after I'd gotten home and even more so on Tuesday after all the fallout, to find that not only was he six seconds late but had also gotten disoriented by fog and had not gotten in the proper mileage, I felt better. Sort of. Mainly, though I was full 

Through the trees, and across
the Thames, the fabled London
Hunt and Country Club. (be
careful how you say that...)

of awe at both Gary and John Kelly, this year's sole finisher, and all they had accomplished. As I was sitting there in  my car, the irony of me stopping after 6.5K and a little bit of rain compared to what the Barkley competitors had endured was not lost on me. I then remembered what the 10K had done to me on Saturday and it only cemented in my mind the the true nature of the athleticism and mental strength Kelly and Robbins possess. Well done, gentlemen!!

Another of my fave parts!

White Trail Only! (Almost)

   I headed off to Komoka Provincial Park this aft, primarily in an attempt to get an 11K trail run in.

May have been a sign...

   My plan was fairly simple---I was going to stick to the White trail, the one which runs through the park end-to-end, until I got my 11K in.
   It was about 6C when I actually got running and I had overdressed just a touch, could have done with one less layer. I knew I was overdressing, but I have this crazy need to be warm when I start running and am happier divesting myself of garments rather than the other way around. I also passed by fairly close to where I was parked and could have done a quick change but I never really was that uncomfortable.
   

Steep, muddy, rocky...

The reason why I'd planned just to stick to the White trail was that I've had the tendency lately to go exploring little side trails and then eventually finding myself, machete-less, trying to hack my way through underbrush and thickets to get back to any kind of marked trail. This has derailed my mileage plans several outings in a row now. This then the reasoning behind my "one trail" plan today.
   For the most part, the plan worked out okay. When I got onto the White trail I headed east and ran to the end. This had me running down a couple of steep, muddy (rain and snow lately), and rock-infested slopes. Then, of course, I had to turn around and then run back up them. The last time I'd been to Komoka, I'd avoided this section of trail mainly to not have to deal with these hills. Oddly, going down them is the worst part, due to the muddy rocks and gravity's tendency to fling you hazardously forward. Going back up is no treat but at least if you fall you stay right there.

Flat! Yes!

   At this point, I was headed back west and ran all the way to the other end of the park. This was pretty uneventful but also included a couple of truly steep and muddy climbs. Having reached the end, I turned and started running back, headed east. 
   Soon I found myself back where I had started from and, to get the mileage in, I had to start doing it all over again. Shortly after this, though, I screwed up with the plan. In an attempt to avoid the two steep and rocky hills, I took a side trail. It was also marked as "white" so I wasn't technically deviating from the plan. As has happened to me so many other times, though, the trail petered out and rather than simply backtracking, I went overland through thickets. The running stopped at this point and I was never really able to get myself started up again.
   

At the end of the trail...Lego!

I had put in 10K's worth of running and was pretty satisfied with that. I walked the rest of the way in and finished up at 11.5K.
   I was exhausted.
   I have only been this tired and in this rough a shape once before since I started trail-running and that was back last summer. Then, though, it was hydration. Today, it was the extra mileage and the hills. And the thickets. Briefly, I am sure, I'm missing running on pavement....

At this point, I was walking and
really didn't feel like bending over.

    

A Middle-Of-The-Week Run! Who knew this was even possible?

   One of the nice things about the switch to Daylight Savings Time is that it almost instantly makes it easier to squeeze in a run after work and before dinner. Today was the one day of the week I get off the earliest (4:00) and that, coupled with the fact that it's actually sunny today, gave me the urge to get out there on the trails.

Out of the park and into the forest...

   There is a park about a hundred meters down the street from us and one corner of it leads into Warbler Woods, another of London's environmentally significant areas, and that is where I headed. I never really think of this as an entranceway to Warbler and, instead, I usually run or hike over a kilometer to get to one of the other entrances. So tonight, I thought I'd just walk a hundred meters over to the park and another hundred meters later I'd be in the woods! And it almost worked out that way!
   I did find myself running along a nice little trail in the woods but this only lasted for about three minutes before I popped out again into the subdivision!
   

...until I came out of the forest!

Now if I had really been remembering the geography of where I was headed, I would have realized this would happen but, then again, I'm not really at that rememberin' age and so I found myself somewhat perplexed as to which way to go next. Fortunately, I took a few steps in the right direction and then saw another opening into the forest off of a nearby side street. From there I headed back in.
   It had been awhile since I'd run in Warbler and for some reason it seemed different. I put this down to having entered a whole new way and it took awhile for things to start to feel familiar.
   In my last blog post, I bemoaned the fact that we had had such little sun over the past month and the running gods must have heard me because today was beautiful and sunny, if somewhat nippy (0C). Things have continued to be dry and tonight presented pretty well the best running conditions I've had lately, with almost no mud at all!

Back INTO the forest....

   As I've talked about before, we had a huge windstorm here in London about three weeks ago and there was a fair bit of damage in the woods tonight. At one point near the end of the trail, a huge uprooted tree lay across it and I had to somewhat nimbly crawl my way through. This has been par for the course in London's forests the past three weeks.
   I finally made it to the far side of the forest and popped out on the Commissioners Road side. From there I ran in the grass along the sidewalks most of the way home. All in all, it was only about a 3K run but the forest part of it featured many steep climbs and descents and, for all intents and purposes, I had done a pretty intense hill repeat session. Probably even more importantly than that, I actually ran during the week! Whoop!

...only to have my way out blocked!

Back and Forth And Back And Forth On The White Trail

Just some of the scenery!

   I went for what seems to have become my weekly trail run again yesterday, once more at Komoka Provincial Park. It's a big enough park that you can visit it several times and still find little side trails and parts of it you haven't seen yet. So off I went!
   My plan was to run a full 10K and just stay on the white trail. The white trail runs from one end of the park to the other. Any other time I've been there, as much as I have run has been 8K so I wanted to up the mileage a bit.
   My plan was to have gone out Saturday so I had  filled a 1 liter container about 2/3 full and stuck it in the freezer, hoping that it would end up being slushy by the time I went out. Unfortunately, due to rain, I didn't make it out til yesterday and the 1L container now held a solid chunk of ice. I figured it would melt while I ran so I filled it up the rest of the way and headed off.

Half-way done and already tired!

   My real simple plan was to run the white trail from one end of the park to the other and just keep doing this until I reached my 10K. It was a pretty nice day to run, sunny and warm (a little too warm, maybe) and most of the trail had dried up from Saturday's rain. 

One end of the park....

   Being a sunny Sunday, it was also pretty busy. I kind of enjoy it when there are lots of people on the trails, it makes for friendly banter as you pass them. Today, because of all the back and forth running I was doing, I would pass the same groups of people multiple times. It almost gives you the time to build up a.....relationship, I guess you could call it!

The Thames always makes a good pic

   Remember my frozen 1L container? Well, it never melted, at least not all the way, and I very quickly used up all the drinkable water it had in it. After that, the water only came out in dribs and drabs, a little hard to re-hydrate that way!

Love this part

   Round about 9K, things started to seize up just a touch with both of my quads and my left calf. Not sure if it had anything to do with my (lack of) water supply at that point or whether it was just because it was the longest I had actually run in about two years. When you consider the terrain---steep, twisting, root-infested hills with boulders---it was probably the roughest run I've ever had and my lower extremities felt like they had iron rods running though them by the time I got back to the car (wasn't entirely sure I was going to be able to get in the car!)

And a totally un-related random pic of my two sons---Ben
and Bryant, at the World Cup game between Canada
and the Czechs! We won!

   As much as I'm enjoying the trails these days, I probably to need to get back out there on the streets for some shorter runs. Running just the once a week doesn't really do the trick!

    
   

Longest Run Ever? And Hydration Issues!

   Okay, so yesterday I made sure the Garmin was properly charged and headed off yet again to Komoka Provincial Park. On my last run there I'd had a specific mileage goal but the Garmin crapped out on me mid-run, so I was not quite sure what my mileage was that day.

Every fifty feet or so, you could
take a pic like this!

   It's September now and, right on cue, the weather has turned a little cooler and a lot of the crushing humidity has disappeared. It was still a warm 24C when I set out but it was a much nicer run than any of them lately.
   Had to pay a little extra to park as I was planning on being out for about three hours this time around and you have to pay for either 2 hours or 4 hours, so, $7.50 later, I was on my way! (exorbitant, I know...)
   I was determined to explore a couple of new trails when I came across them and so I did. The main trail at Komoka is the White one and you can see most of the things you might want to by sticking on it. There is also the Blue trail and I set off on it when I found it. After being on it only a short time, I then came across the Orange trail branching off of it and decided that I would see where it took me. It was a fairly short little trail and all it did was take me back to a part of the Blue trail I'd already been on so I filed this away for future reference.
   

The old parking lot. Kinda sad but
some great memories!

The Blue trail ended up taking me back to the old parking lot we used to use before they implemented the new pay system. I don't really miss it as it was a mess of potholes. Yesterday, it just looked a little sad. I then headed back until the Blue hooked up again with the White and I just stayed on that for the rest of the afternoon. My goal was to exceed 5K on this run and I did that fairly early. My next goal was to make it to The Steps. The Steps consist of a winding set of wooden landings which take you down to the Thames River, enabling you to run more or less along the river for a ways. There are 60 steps in all (I counted) and they make for kind of a refreshing change in your run or hike. Depending on  where you are in your run or hike, they can also be a little daunting. I've been up and down them several times and had promised myself that one of these days I would run up them, thinking this would be way off in the future. Yesterday, though, I decided to run up them, likely because I knew I was near the end of the running portion of my afternoon and would be able to recover afterwards.

Cool tree just off the Blue trail. Has
obviously been a meeting area. as it
is covered with carved messages.

   Well, I didn't exactly bound up the steps but I did manage to get up them, running. I briefly thought I would need to just walk the last flight but knowing this would take away from the accomplishment I forced myself to finish the thing off. Thank Buddha there was a bench at the top or I likely would have fallen in a heap! I'm kind of glad that there were no other people around at the time or likely the paramedics would have been called....
   The last time out, I'd gotten a little hungry so this time I brought along a sandwich to eat, my plan being to eat it at the top of The Steps. At the top of The Steps, however, I felt more like puking than eating so left the sandwich tucked away.
   At this point, the Garmin told me I was just shy of 8K so when I got back down the steps I started running again until I hit 8K and then I just hiked the rest of the way back, as had been my plan. 

One of those messages

   The park was busy, it being the weekend and all and I saw even more people than usual. They come in all shapes and sizes--- young couples, families with kids (some with babies in slings), people with dogs, older men with full backpacks, and the occasional runner. There is a rule in the park about dogs being on leashes and, unfortunately, this gets ignored a little too often. It is a little disconcerting to be running around a corner in the forest, only to come face-to-face with a couple of unleashed, large dogs who are strangers to you. Their owners are never far away but this doesn't alleviate the mini-tension which sets in. I always stop dead in my tracks when I see dogs, even the ones on leashes, until they pass. I was running in my neighbourhood once when I passed a couple with their dogs on leashes and thinking I was safe, did not give them enough leeway. In his excitement, one of the dogs suddenly leapt up on me, tearing a hole in my shirt and breaking skin. So I am extra wary of dogs! Most people with dogs in the park, though, have them on leashes and go out of their way to restrain them as runners or other hikers pass. One of the couples (with an unleashed dog) actually had a GoPro attached to its collar. They say it makes for a pretty interesting video and I must say I'd be interested to see the trails from a dog's perspective!

A creek beneath a bridge. I was VERY
thirsty at this point and the water was
SO clear and cold-looking....

   Okay, at this point, a little about my hydration fails. Until recently, in my 5K runs around the neighbourhood, I've been able to get away with a using a Fuel Belt 7 oz. arm band bottle. Unfortunately, this doesn't cut it for being out in the trails for three hours. I hate carrying anything when I run, so what I've been doing lately is bringing extra water in the car and then returning to the parking lot to refill the arm bottle. This is almost never convenient. I also find that I start to get hungry when I'm out so now there's a need to carry extra stuff with me. At this point, it seems almost inevitable that a hydration vest is in order, just which one? And can I afford it? Hmm...

A memorial bench, for a couple of
obviously well-thought-of hikers!

   Possibly coupled with my hydration fails, I actually started to cramp up yesterday, during the walking portion. At one point, I was walking up a steep, root-infested hill and realized that my right foot was not always going exactly where I was aiming it. Upon investigation, it seemed as though the muscles in that leg were not contracting properly. I was also getting the odd little twinge and I knew that I was borderline full-on cramping so I adjusted myself accordingly and became more mindful. At that point I was nearing 10k altogether and 8K of that had been running through a hilly forest. This is way more than I've done lately and not far off as much as I have ever done. And, if you factor in the terrain, it was possibly my longest run of all time so maybe a little cramping was in order! 

Once again, The Steps. They always
seem to make a good pic. I had just
run up them and had to sit for a while
before even being able to take the pic...

   Later that evening, after much re-hydration, a full-on cramp in my left inner thigh did take hold and I was in a fair bit of agony for about 5 minutes, til it settled. Lots of expletives, you should have been there! Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of contradicting info on the internet as to what actually causes cramps and what some preventative courses might be. My best guess is that yesterday it was a perfect storm of hydration issues and plain overdoing it. Will try and be a little wiser next time!

On The Way To The Hills (Pretty Little Pictures Of My Neighbourhood)

   What day is it today? Oh yeah...Thursday. Have been on holidays for a week and a half and have totally lost track of what day it is! What a great problem to have!
   So if it's Thursday today that means on Tuesday I set out on a little trip to the ever-reliable (and close) Warbler Woods to do some hill repeats. Most of Eastern Canada is in the middle of a drought and heat epidemic and London is no different. Because of this I had this conversation with myself on the way to the woods as to whether I should even be venturing outside. It was about 33C (91F) and the humidex was through the roof and I thought that these really were not the ideal conditions to be running in, particularly hill repeats. The headline "Runner Found Collapsed in the Woods" kept passing through my mind. In my defence, however, I have always been someone who was able to carry on performing strenuous activities in high heat. I also knew that the hill repeats would be, for the most part, in the shade of the woods.

   I walked briskly to the woods (in deference to the heat, I didn't run) and this was just under 2K. Along the way, I took some pics of my neighbourhood!

A quick walk to the end of my street
where I then...

...turn left and head up the long incline toward the Woods.

The hill just goes up until you get to....

...Holy Moses! Bullrushes!

Then, MORE bullrushes,  this time on the
left. Beyond the bullrushes, you can see...

...Warbler Woods, an environmentally
significant area!

Aahhh....shade at last!

The first (and worst) hill! Hard to tell
but it's about a 45 degree angle and
about twenty yards long with a
twist to the right at the top of this pic.

From the top, looking back down.
Pic is slightly fuzzy due to
my physical distress at the time! lol

   There were another four or five hills which were almost as tough as the first one but I managed to get out alive just fine! Basically I ran the hills and walked briskly the rest of the time (occasionally, not quite so briskly) until I exited on the far side of the woods. From there, about another kilometer back to my house, and re-hydration!
   

Trying Not To Get My Butt Kicked

   Last night, someone on social media threatened to come to my front door and kick my butt if I didn't get off it and go for a run and so, today, I did just that!
  I decided that I would just do a nice, easy run and maybe tack on an extra kilometer while I was at it. Currently, my "training" regimen involves nothing much more than getting out there and running the same 5K course over and over, with the occasional hill repeat session thrown in. This meant that today I would be doing a whole 6K! Woo hoo!

   The plan was fairly straightforward---I would run 3K in one direction and then turn around and run back. I left open the option of stopping after 5K but knew that I really didn't want to do that. I headed off in the opposite direction of what I usually do (so daring) and this meant that, thankfully, I was running more or less downhill for the first couple of kilometers. I got to the halfway mark feeling pretty comfortable, had a quick swig from the water bottle and then headed back. I hit the 5K mark with no real desire to stop and so kept on running. At this point, my slowly evolving plan now included a walk through Warbler Woods and perhaps some hill repeats therein. I estimated that running that final kilometer would have me reach the woods at the end of it and this was the way it more or less worked out. The final half a kilometer was a killer though and I knew there would be no running of the hills in Warbler.

For your perusal,  what  Warbler
Woods is all about.

I think coyotes come, hoping
to feed on old people....

   As it was, walking the hills in Warbler almost did me in. There is a series of about six hills, all of which seem to go straight up and twisting at the same time, not to mention the rocks and root systems along the way. Being a Saturday, I ran into a couple of other sets of walkers who all agreed that we were in the middle of a true cardio experience. About two thirds of the way through, things seem to level off a little and become a little more like a "walk in the woods". I couldn't help but think that there should be warning signs at either end of the forest just to warn people what they're up against. Especially old people. Like me.

Did I mention the treacherous root systems?

   Once out of the woods, it was another almost kilometer to get me back home where lunch and re-hydration awaited. My plan (why do I make plans?) is to gradually up the mileage on the weekends and try to get in a couple of shorter runs throughout the week.

Same spot, today.

My wife and I took this pic back
in the Spring.....

   So you know how some people have a running playlist of tunes, helping them kill time and/or motivate themselves on long runs? Well, today I had a blogging playlist---songs I listened to while coming up with this gem of a blog post. It will definitely "date" me but here it is anyway!

Cat Stevens-18th Avenue
Cat Stevens-Monad's Anthem
Paul Simon-Duncan
Richard Harris-MacArthur Park
Moody Blues-Thursday Afternoon
John Williams-Jurassic Park
Simon and Garfunkel-The Boxer
Miklos Rosza-King of Kings
Paul Stookey-There Is Love
Leonard Cohen-Show Me The Place
Tori Amos-Crucify
Nena-99 Red Balloons
Richard Shindell-Transit
Gary Jules-Mad World
Damion Rice-Moody Monday
Chumbawumba-Tubthumping
Tove Lo-Habits (Stay High)
Melanie-Stoneground Words

   Did I mention it might date me??

Thanksgiving Weekend running recap

   This past Thanksgiving weekend was one of the best ones, weather-wise, these parts (SW Ontario) have seen in a long time---for the most part sunshine and temps in the twenties.
   I took this opportunity to get out a couple of times, once for a timed 5K run and the other for a little session of forest-y hill repeats.
   I have been working diligently at trying to lower my 5K times from somewhere in the low forties back to somewhere in the mid thirties. Lately, I've been having a fair amount of success, generally being able to carve off 20 to 30 seconds at a time.
   Lately my 5K runs have been marked by sections of slow running, tempo running and walking. I run the same route all the time and it is somewhat hilly so I find that these different running speeds all were occurring round about the same portions of the route. What I've been doing is trying to go just a little faster on those sections when I reached them and restrict the amount of walking time whenever I felt like I needed to walk.
   This seems to be working! The nice part is that it means I'm running with a little bit of a plan which has fairly realistic goals attached. Here's what my Garmin's been telling me:

Just getting under 40:00
was psychologically huge!

And a little lower...

Still a ways to go!

   I don't listen to music when I run so what eventually happens that I either have the same few lines from a popular song running through my mind or, more often than not, it's a line of gibberish which pops into my head after I've established some sort of regular run cadence. As I was running on Saturday, though, I found that I was at some point simply counting my steps. Every time my right foot hit the ground, I'd count it. I'd go all the way up to a hundred and then start all over again at "one". This helped immeasurably with cadence and, psychologically, just kept me going. It also occurred to me in a flash that this is what I used to do, way back near the beginning, when I was running in the mid-thirties. Thought this was very encouraging! Later on this morning I'm headed out again and so will give it a try.

Hard to make it look steep in the pic...

   On Sunday, I knew I wanted to run but didn't want to do the usual 5K route so I headed off to Warbler Woods to do hill repeats. I've picked this spot to do repeats as it's quite scenic and features a string of steep hills throughout. Each hill is different and this only helps with the enjoyment aspect of it.
   There's about a kilometer and half of residential area that I run through before I get to the woods and it in itself is fairly hilly so I run to where the hills start and then I run hard up them and walk down the other side. This is kind of my modus operandi once I get into the woods, as well. 
   We've had so much summery weather this fall that the leaves have only just started to change so here's a bit of a photo dump of the forest and then coming out of it on the other side.

Warbler is just in behind
these purple whatever-they-are's

An extremely popular place! So
lucky that I live as close as I do!

Through the woods...

...but not this part...

...over one of the boardwalks...

...and at the gates at the other end!

Climbing up out of the park.

London is known as the Forest City,
so fall is a pretty time of the year.

Awesome colours!

Ooops! I may have said "Forest City"
just a touch too soon!

    
   So there you have it, a little bit of what the running long weekend was like! I'm headed out shortly and am aiming at perhaps cutting another 20 or so seconds off my time. Wish me luck!