This weekend I am heading north to Edmonton to see some family and attend a 1 year Halloween birthday party for some good friends of ours. I was speaking with another friend of mine today and of course we were talking about running. He said he found it very difficult to train when he traveled just because it was difficult to schedule it in. Things always seem to come up that derail the best laid plans.

Of course, this got me all worked up and the addictive compulsive in me has been mapping out exactly when I am going to get my runs in. I am slated to run on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday will be a bit shorter at about 5-K and Sunday will be longer at 10-K. My plan is to run first thing each morning, before the kids wake up. Nothing is scheduled at this time and I should have no problem ’squeezing’ my runs in. We’ll see - I will let you know how it works out.

I screwed up. I woke up this morning thinking it was like every other Tuesday I have had over the past couple of weeks. I went out running and ran a nice 7-K run.

When I got to work, I checked my email and glanced over an email that the Running Room sent out highlighting things that are happening at the store this week. I noticed the paragraph about the half-marathon clinic starting tonight but never gave it much thought. About an hour later, it hit me - holy sh$t that half-marathon clinic the email referred to was the one I was signed up for!

I went into this week knowing I started my clinic, but subconsciously thought it wasn’t until Thursday night since that is when my previous 10-K clinic was. Weird how the mind works.

Anyway, the first clinic night was tonight and it was a-ok. Our instructor, Don, is an enthusiastic first-time instructor who I think will do well. He has run a bunch of marathons, ultras, and is training for an Ironman this summer. Needless to say, an experienced runner. His 5-k route tonight was a little wonky but it got the job done. I never ran that route before - there was probably a reason for that! Oh well, next route I am sure will be much better.

So in summary, I actually ran twice today for a total of 12-k. I have never done that before and I won’t try to do it again anytime soon - felt a little too stressful on my body, especially my ankle. I am sure it would have been fine to do the whole 12-K in one run, but there was something about breaking them up that didn’t feel right. I think I will forgo my morning run tomorrow and do an evening short run tomorrow night - I can’t wait!

It is a dream of mine to be able to do some destination running in the future. I am not talking about traveling to Kelowna or Victoria (no offense to anyone) to compete in a race. What I am referring to is traveling to Maui or Spain to compete.

For example, wouldn’t it be wonderful to spend one-week prior to running in this race, and then recovering for another two-weeks after. Or how about this one, in the Cayman Islands. How cool would that be?

It would be a win-win for my wife and me as well. I would get to train for and run in races, and she would get some vacations out of it. We are going to start seriously looking in to this. I can’t wait…Have you ever done any destination running? Let me know where and what race.

A post over at Runner’s Life about running with a particular pace group got me thinking about my own running over the past few weeks. I commented on this post that the opposite effect happens to me - I often find that I push myself to run with a faster pace group during group runs than I do when I run on my own. I have not been involved in a clinic since my 10-K group finished up near the end of September. As such, the majority of my runs have been on my own and my Garmin read-outs are definitely showing a slower average pace.

I am glad I start a new clinic next week - training for the half-marathon in February. This will allow me to run with a group more frequently and I can once again start to focus on running a bit faster. I do need to learn how to push myself to run a bit faster during my individual runs, but for now I will let the groups push me along.

I ran this morning at about 5:45 am. This is not unusual for me. What was unusual is that my wife, kids, and I have had to move in with some family as we lose possession of our house on Wednesday and our new house will not be completed until December. I am very grateful to have such supportive parents that would take in my wife and a 4 and 2 year old, but if any of you have ever had to move BACK in with your parents, you will understand how it can be a bit stressful.

Anyway, my parents live just outside of Calgary in a little lake community that tries to remain as natural as possible. Therefore, there are zero street lights and I was running on relatively uneven pavement. To make things even more challenging, the temperature averages to be about 5-10 degrees cooler than in the city. It was cold. I managed to get about 6.5-k’s in but I was a bit worried for my ankles as I really could not see much. I have a head lamp that I may try tomorrow morning, if I can find it. If not, I might have to adjust my training to get my runs at lunch hour until we kick into daylight savings time.

It was more of a challenge than I anticipated. Until the time falls back (end of October I believe), it is going to get darker and darker that early in the morning. Oh the joys of running up in Canada!

Running is big business. Just look at the number of ads for shoes out there, Garmins and other GPS devices, as well as the many different options for organized training that exists. In 2002, there was an estimated10,485,000 runners who ran at least 100 days in the year. In addition, the running/jogging shoe industry sold $2.71 billion in 2002. That is a lot of shoes. And I would bet that these numbers are even higher now.

From a pure business perspective, I like the way that the Running Room has grown its business. There is a wonderful case study here in the power of focusing on the building of a community rather then just the business of selling runners and other accessories. Many runners visit a Running Room store at least twice a week for the Wednesday and Sunday runs. These runs are open to anyone. In addition, many runners come in one other night to attend their clinic. What an amazing way to build traffic through the store - at least one of these persons is going to buy something.

A friend I brought out this morning to the run was amazed at the community of runners that exists. I believe it finally convinced him to join me in my half-marathon clinic. That is one more clinic participant and I can almost bet, one more customer for a $120 - $200 pair of runners.

Note: Rereading this post it appears that I may have some sort of affiliation with the Running Room. I assure you that the only affiliation I have is through this website, where I provide a link to their products and receive a commission if a purchase is made online. I do not work for the Running Room in any other way - I am just amazed at the business model and how successful it has been.

I must admit that I have not weight trained since I started running. I find that I do not have a lot of time to fit in weight training as well as running (I guess I could weight train instead of blogging, but where is the fun in that!). However, I have been thinking that I really should try to do it for the following reasons:

1. It will help with muscle toning to make me look more buff
2. It will increase my metabolism as muscle needs more energy to build and feed them
3. It will help provide power to the legs to make you run faster and stronger
4. It rounds out the training - provides some variety to keep those muscles guessing

As I am going through some personal upheaval in my life - building a new house, moving out of an old house into a temporary house until new house is complete - I am going to wait until things settle down before I take on weight training. However, I am going to continue to train to my half-marathon schedule to ensure I am ready for February. As soon as I come up with my full weight training game plan I will post about it here and track my progress for y’all to see.

Do you other runners out there find you increase your running performance with weight training? What works best? Let me know by commenting below…thank you in advance for the assistance.

Sorry about the potentially downbeat topic here, but I came across this article about a 70 year old man who died doing what he loved - running.

I wanted to post this for no other reason that to highlight the fact that this gentleman was 70 years old and still racing. He was out there trying his best but it just happened to be his time during this race. I sincerely hope that when I am 70, I too am still running.

I hope that the media does not talk about this in terms of asking why this man was still running at his age, trying to put a negative spin on it. They need to portray it for what it is…motivation for continuing our sport so that we too can still run late into our years.

I have been reading a number of articles over the past few weeks about the “mainstreaming of the marathon”. This article mentions it, this one does, as well as this one.

So what is driving marathon participation up? These articles talk about the usual health benefits, friendship, and the ability to raise money for whatever cause the particular run is organized for. As a result of this reading I began to wonder why I, at this time in my life, have decided to complete a marathon in July 2006. What is happening in the world today that has influenced me to take up the challenge at the same time record numbers of people are also signing up?

I believe that people are hearing the ever-increasing warnings of the perils of our North American lifestyle. Movies like Super Size Me and the countless articles in our newspapers talking about the rising trend of obesity has had a definite impact on people’s concern for their health. These runners want to be healthier. This is a huge reason I wanted to complete a marathon - I was worried that all the training that I have done over the past few months to lose 40+ pounds would be lost if I didn’t focus on new goals to complete a half and a full. Running has made me healthier and it would be very upsetting if I lost that.

I also believe that running is a sport that is very accessible. There are few “barriers to entry” - other than a good pair of shoes you don’t need much else to train. A person can run whenever it fits into their lifestyle. It can be done alone or with a partner. Our lives just keep on getting busier and busier and a sport like running can easily fit in with a little planning and some dedication.

It is for these reasons - worrying about poor health and the accessibility of running - that I think running has gone mainstream. Raising money for causes is a positive impact that I am glad is happening. What do you think is driving the increase in popularity?

My wife is very supportive of my running. It is tough though. I can run up to 5 days per week and some of those days can be right after work at one of the busiest times of her day. We have two kids - a four year old and a two year old.

I try to do as much of my training before work in the morning. My reasons are simple:

1. I enjoy morning running
2. It can be the only time during the day that I may get a chance to get my run in

However, on the days that I run in the evening it is usually during one of my running clinic nights or a group run with a number of Running Room runners. The issue is that these runs start at 6:30 pm which is a very busy time with kids. Dinner happens around this time as well as the craziness that occurs when you try to convince a 2 year old that it is time to put the PJs on. They will do everything in their power to avoid this. The 4 year old is a bit better, but for some reason he usually decides that this is the best time to chase the dog all through the house, getting both himself and the dog all riled up. My wife tends to need me the most during this period as she is at her ropes end after a day with the kids. Therefore, when I head out the door to enjoy some lovely leisure time running it can be a bit difficult for her. But she puts up with it.

I asked her why. Her response was simply that she knows how important my running is to me. Amazing. You don’t find that type of support everyday and I realize how lucky I am. I imagine a weekend away is in order pretty soon.

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