This week is the last week of our training for next half marathon. I had something else lined during the Chilly Half so cannot sign up for the goal race. The training was really good and I am a lot better runner than i was when I ran the #STWM last year. 
We missed our last long run due to extreme cold and so had to cut it short. Nevertheless we did few 18K run's which is normally the max people train for half and than leave the few last Km for race day. I am sure I can finish the distance of 21K now with out being exhausted. I am dead at the end of long run but the recovery is much faster. I think part of it I have to attribute to weather. Running in cold weather is lot easier than running in Summer. As wrong as that sounds its the truth. People who struggle to breathe do find winter running hard but other wise winter running is lot less taxing on the body. If you religiously follow the dynamic and static stretch routine before and after the race there is a good chance you won't get in-juried in winter.  Summer with the heat and humidity body looses water so fast and than muscles cramp and tighten up much faster. 

I am thinking of signing up for the Good life Half in may. I am not sure what my schedule will be than so I cannot commit to it yet. I am going to continue to train for it and keep racking up the distance. I am going on a break for 2 weeks. I really wanted to do a race in Paris when I was going to be there. Unfortunately they don;t run as much in winter there. 

To make up for the distance from Sunday I can twice a day when I could. I could not cover the full gap of distance but it was good. I also started the strength training routine. Again the break for next 2 weeks might reset lot of things but I hope it does not. 

Not much to write again. Will be back to training in 2 weeks. 

Today it was supposed to be the last long run before the race. We were supposed to do 20K. For the first time this winter we had to respect mother nature and skip that. Winter was its peak today ,it was -27C and with wind chill it felt like -44C. I knew this before so I was layered with 2 t-shirts and good fleece running jacket and 2 trousers. Double sox , cap buff and gloves and still I could feel cold inside as soon as I stepped out of  my car.  I really was hoping that no one run's today and I was only going because I had to show up. To my surprise one person from my clinic was there. But the learn to run clinic was there as well which was really surprising to see. We all talked about how bad it is outside and decided not to stay out too long and run the 3K with learn to run clinic.  The plan was to run towards sunny side and not face the wind. We went east on Wellington to Parliament and I ran back to Yonge and hopped on to my car back home. 
Going east good once we started to run back the wind gust once in a while would go all into my lungs and the buff covering me was not good enough to hold it. 

We might do the long distance run tomorrow, the temperature is not big concerns but tomorrow the wind might be lot less. Overall this week was not bad considering that it was just 2 weeks from race its ok even if we miss our long run. I need to find a new half marathon race to run. I won;'t be doing the Chilly half mostly because I won't be there in town that day. I really want to run a destination race now and tried to find a race in Paris and Zurich but seems like they don;t run much in there winter. 
Garmin 610 could not lock the GPS today the cold really froze it and so the distance was off. It does not matter because we did not run the full distance anyway.

This week I have started my strength training routine, need to get more cross training days. I want to make the most out of the spring this year. Once the summer sets in running does get really hard. At the same stage when I was preparing for my last Half Marathon I was dead and injured. This time around I am feeling good and I am really looking to continue long distance running past the race day.  Not much to write about the route today.

It was a hell of day today for running. It has been snowing in Toronto since Saturday and I knew that it was going to slushly and slippery and it was exactly like that when I started today;s run. Given that it snowed all night the route had to be in city to avoid the trails which don;t get cleaned that fast. The route covered all the neighbourhoods of Toronto. We started from Financial district to Fashion district to Liberty village to Parkdale and than all the way east to Cabbagetown and leisleville. It was fantastic and may be should do it when the weather is good. It was fun and slow upto Roncessville but from there on the freezing rain started and soon my eyelashes' were collecting ice. They would stick so often and after a while I could not clean it because ice was all over. My jacket had thin ice sheet all over and the gloves were frozen.  

About when I hit Dundas and Bathrust I was thirty and so went for my water bottle only to find it as one solid block of ice. I tried opening the lid but it was blocked. Thought of stopping at timmes to grab water but I did not want the ice on me to melt. Once you get wet in cold weather its really hard to shake the cold off. Dry skin you can cover and run. My shoes were a mess I stepped into so many ice cold puddles and it was rock solid ice on foot. 

Here is how today route looked. 

Should one run when you are sick or no? I had this question about a year ago in summer. I always find that if I stay home when I am sick I get more sick and so I always try to get out. Last time I was really sick I decided to run the fever out and it was something people suggest they tried and the results went both ways. I think running with fever of flu really helps to get you breathing and gets lungs working at full capacity. I did take a advil/tylenol to get over the weakness. Nevertheless getting back to what happened last time I ran through the cough and apparently that sometimes is bad because you lungs pulls it deeper inside and makes your life hell,. So as much there is no harm running when have flu be careful with the simple cough. It can cause some bronchol infections which are hard to get rid off. So this time I rested for a whole keep skipped all the runs completely. To be honest I felt really bad some days when I was sick and just sitting on couch, so went for a walk on couple of days. Nothing extreme. I was worried that when I join the routine again it would set me back with respect to others. Luckily no one ran so I was good. 

The weather this week was no so great we had few really cold evenings and today;s run was not great either. The wind on some streches was really bad. My nose almost froze , my water bottle froze so could not hydrate. Hopefully it will good next week. 

With my job changing and no idea where I would working next (location wise), I am not sure if I will be able to stay with same group going ahead. I am going to miss the Chilly Half marathon and might have to pick a new race later in the year to make up for this one.I am thinking of doing good life now. Lets see..

Here is how today;s run went.  

So we did our 16K run today and it was a lot better than what it felt like in summer. I know the weather has lot to do with that, no more I am  running out of water. Infact I am not even using any gels. I did take few blocs mostly due to peer pressure but over all I feel really good. I was a bit under the weather today almost to the point wanted to skip the run. I did not and we all went slow and it was really a good run. Last Half Marathon at this time I was already going to a physio for my calf injury. I did get a small pinch this week at same spot as last time but stretching has helped to fix that. 
Dressing for weather in winter is really hard when it was extreme cold I always felt like I need another layer and today with just a t-Shirt I was soaked with sweat in balmy 3C and light rain. I was also surprised to meet new runners who ran only in winter and hated to run in Summer. I find running in winter is lot less taxing on the body. Its hard to stay hydrated in winter when you drink so little water but its lot easy to carry a bit of water in winter than summer. Anyway enough ranting about this. 

We are going to taper the runs down to 14 -12 and than again go up to 18 before we slow down before the race. Garmin for some reason was a bit off with distance today. I thought GPS did not get a lock but it got it right the whole route was also correct yet the distance was bit OFF compared to others and what it should have been. We went east to cherry beach and than to Leslie and marina around it. It was scenic to see the frozen lake and it was so quiet there.

Here is how the run went today ....

We are in week 10 of our training for next half marathon. I am still unsure if I can do the the Chilly half in Burlington, Its more my schedule in that week which I don;t have any control on. lets see.  This week we got the real taste of winter running and as the jet streams bought the cold Artic air down to Toronto. When I ran on Tuesday it was -21C wind chill and I thought I had see the worse of it. I was wrong Wednesday was really bad. As much as I can say take that winter it was a horrible day to run. We were supposed to hills and it was -18C without the wind. We decided to not do that and just run about 5K and come back. 

Sunday run was 14K and I did that last week too so I was hoping that to be easy. But we decided to do a new route which was really hilly and it was all the way up to Davisville on Jarvis and Mt Pleaseant. I was almost dead when turned back on Davisville but it was all down hill on the way back.
Surprisingly I found something in me on the way back and especially once we crossed Bloor I was actually able to blast through the last 3K. I really like now to go really like now to go slow at the start and blast at the end. I know this is going to take a while to perfect this because rest of the team tends to do opposite at start. Today the hilly route helped me to take it slow at the start.

Overall this was a good week. Even though I skipped my Thursday run I feel good especially with the cold weather I got my weekly numbers to grow and not get injured in the cold weather. Here is how the Sunday run went.

With new years and xmas I was expecting Holidays to be a relaxing time and I was going to not run as much. Things actually went well on running front. The fact that I had time I actually kept running as per my training schedule.  I am still unsure how this year is going to be compared to last and if I will be as committed as last year. I am hoping I can do better but who knows. Nevertheless the best way to start a new year was to have a race right at mid night on new years eve. It was a fun race and I could not find a better way to start a new year. 
The Sunday was a fun one with all the rain we ton of puddles and it started to rain with ice on the side walk it was fun. Again I have run in worse condition so it was not that bad. I was soaked by the time I was done. I also ended up doing a bit more than what I was supposed to do. The route was planned for 12K but I did 14K and some others did 16K. I guess the weather with rain and fog made it fun to run. I still seem to struggle pass 12K and need to find my energy reserves to pull through that phase. 

Here is how the mid night race went. 

Today I ran the resolution run and its about a year ago that was my goal race as end of Learn to Run Clinic. Since than I have almost run 900KM and for 100hrs. It is the longest I have been running consistently. It was fun year and I started with learn to run and went on to do a 5K than a 10K and than Half Marathon. 





I did almost 8 races this year and each one made me better runner and and we found a group which has stuck together for a year now.Here is a overview of all my medals and bibs.

This has helped me a lot over the year and apart from being  a faster runner I have got lighter and lighter still I have lot too loose and be a better runner. Overall it was great year and now I have lot of numbers to beat for next year. I am not sure how far I am going to be able run and keep this going.

So holiday time is here and this week probably was the last week we had full schedule of running at least as group. This was week 6 of training for next half marathon. We bumped the weekly number a about 5K thanks to the Thursday run. The Sunday run was still same as last week it was 10K
With holidays next week the clinic runs will not go as scheduled but I will have to run to keep myself active anyways. Next Sunday is also the Resolution run , it means something because I started running last Oct and that was my goal race about a year ago. I have come quite far from what I was than and I will blog what 2014 looked like from running perspective next week. This is how this week looked as far running goes. 

Time is moving fast and we are into week 6 of training already. This week we head to hill training and its going to be fun in wintry weather. The Sunday runs are about get a kick from next week. This week we shifted by 1K to get on even side of numbers and we did 10K. It was a fun run the weather warmed up a bit. we had to cancel our Thursday run due to the snow dump which left a ton of snow in side walks. It did not look like it would get cleared by the evening and no one wants to get injured or get the New Balance shoes filled with slush. SO it was good we cancelled it. 

This week we did regular 18K and it was fun week as usual only on running side. 
The next race is scheduled for Dec 28th I think its the Resolution run which I did at the end of my learn to run clinic last year and I have improved a lot since than. I think I did that in 45min and now I am hoping to get it under 30min. Hope I hit  my PB for 5K this year which is under 30.

here is how today's run went.