Today has been... interesting... and a complete write-off!
After the silliness of my schedule this week and my lack of running, I decided to do a long run - 25km - today.
Mental note: Remember to follow your planned route.
The route I planned out was lovely - starting at home, I ran down to Toronto's lakeshore (about 6.5km), along the lakeshore to Tommy Thompson Park (a wonderful wetland conservation area - another 5km), out to the end of the park (about 4km) then back to the nearest subway station.
All told, just over 25km.
If I followed it.
I completely missed my turning in Tommy Thompson Park (which turned out not to be at the end after all, but about 2/3 of the way along), and ended up doing an extra 3km that I hadn't factored in.
The planned 25km route was already 4km longer than my previous longest run this year... my final route was just over 28.5km, making it 33% longer. That's right - one-third longer than any previous run this year. Good one, Dave.
For the record, I had a great run. The scenery was great, the weather was generally perfect (except out in the park, which is completely exposed to the wind) and my legs felt comfortable... until about the 21km mark, anyway. We will never mention last 7.5km again.
I also had one of those stop-and-look moments which I have all too rarely when I'm out running. I took a wrong turn out in the park and had to briefly re-trace my steps. In doing so, I found myself looking across at Toronto's downtown skyline across the water. Very cool, and with today's weather, breathtaking. I allowed myself a few seconds to stop and soak it up.
The down-side of the run came later in the day after I got home.
By this point, my body was NOT happy with me. Sure enough, after re-fueling a little (on leftover pizza and wings... yep, that's what I ate last night and after today's run... don't judge me!) I crashed. Not voluntarily - my body gave me no choice on this one. First on the couch, then on (not in) the bed... for about 5 hours.
So, depending on your viewpoint I either had an excellent day or a completely wasted one. Personally, I don't have enough energy to decide which.
7 comments:
Sounds like a doozey of a run; getting lost on a long run is no good!
I'm debating following in your foot steps on finding new routes. Maybe not to the extent of running a new one every day, but I definitely need some variety once I get back out there!
Do you have a method to your madness, or do you just pick streets at random when you're planning your route?
Hi Doug,
I have a tiny bit of method to the madness:
- Try to pick a starting point away from home/work at least once a week if possible
- List out the obvious routes and hold them back for days when you don't have time/can't be bothered to plan out a new route
- Try to find different people to run with that know interesting places to run
- Identify all the parks/trails in the city, and run them one by one
That's about it! The rest is randomness. I'm a little apprehensive about finding routes in the winter - don't want to get lost when it's -25 out!
WOW! that's cool! And what is your average speed during the run?
Hi Vlad... for this run it was pretty slow - about 4:50/km (roughly 7:45/mile).
Cheers,
Dave
Emmm...roughly 12 km/h - not so bad.
I had a run today: 7km and 30mins - 14km/h
But I doubt that I can run 25km like you)
I began to run this summer.
Cheers,
Vlad
You're right - a 7k run is totally different to a 25k run... although they can both be tough, as you can see from some of my earlier posts. Congrats on your recent run - you must be pretty happy with that.
Tnx :)
Happy running)
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