A new week

On Friday, I ran during my daughter's goalie practice. It was completely dark. Middle of the night dark. There are plenty of paved paths around the sports facility, but only some are lit by streetlights. These all basically run alongside a busy road, so the path was also lit by headlights, more irritating than illuminating. I could really use a head lamp. That may be my next big running purchase, ahead of a coveted GPS watch. But safety is more important than keeping precise track of distances.

It takes some determination to run in the dark, and to follow a fairly boring back and forth path, repeatedly. I made it nearly 12km, though, in 55 minutes. I tried to hustle. The wind was sharp and cold. It will get tougher with snow and ice pellets added in. I was fantasizing about a running balaclava too. Hm. Christmas and birthday coming up, hint hint.

Tougher or more challenging? I don't mind the challenge.

I did nothing on Saturday except recover from too much fun on Friday night.

Yesterday, I ran during my daughter's practice at a different location, my favourite trails. Her practice starts at 4:30 and it was already getting dark by that time. And we still have another month of darkening evenings! Ugh. It's the lack of light that I mind, much more than the temperature. I ran the trails until it was too dark (around 5:15) and then I ran around and around a field until I'd gone about 55 minutes. It's difficult to estimate distance because the trails wind through bush and even with Google's geographic feature they aren't visible. I'm guessing it was similar to the previous evening's distance, though it involved more hills, so I likely went slightly slower.

The good news is that I felt on both runs that my legs were back in pre-marathon form. It took about two weeks to recover, but if that's all, that's pretty sweet. I could run another marathon next weekend folks! Except the season is over. And I'm not crazy.

Swim this morning. I was so tired my brain felt basically asleep, but I'd been having a bad dream that I didn't object to being woken out of (a social-pariah dream; I was in some awkward social situation with people who were younger than me by at least a decade, and I kept doing "mom" things with disastrous results; there you go, a peek into the insecurities of my psyche.) Anywayyyyyy. Once I got into the pool -- the real actual pool -- I felt pretty good, and only felt better as the swim went on. My stroke got smoother, it was easier to get into a rhythm, and I really didn't feel fatigued the entire swim. I was breathing pretty hard when I got out though. A good workout. With a little more time at my disposal, I felt certain I could have gone 3000m, but it would have taken too long. Plus some other dude got into my lane right about then and it didn't look like we were going the same speed at all. And the kids and my husband were at home waiting for me to return so they could take their turn at the pool. We're fortunate that we live so close to a pool. We can squeeze in four swim in two separate sessions before 8am.

I swam 2500m in 52 minutes. I was pleased. I was laying down a very consistent 500m swim throughout, anywhere between 10 to 11 minutes (I don't wear a watch in the pool or time my splits with any kind of precision, I just check the big clock at each 500m point.) My aim is to swim 3000m in 60 minutes, which I could just squeeze in if I'm in the pool exactly at 5:45. And if I could actually swim that far, that fast -- laying down 500m in exactly 10 minute intervals. I like a goal.