The Virtual Runner Running Blog

I’ve tracked my virtual run to date (23 Aug 2009) using Google earth and since 29 Mar 2009 my route has taken me past Ottawa, Ontario and past North Bay and Sudbury.  I’m still on Route 17 and I’m now running along the shores of Lake Superior and the virtual views are lovely.

My distance covered so far on my meandering virtual run across Canada is 2352 kilometres (1462 miles) and I’m happy to say that my motivation and drive is returning.

I’m now running in parts of my home country that I’ve never been to in real life.  The first 27 years of my life were spent in Canada and the farthest west I have ever been is Oshawa and that’s because that is where I was born.  The farthest west I have been and can remember is Ottawa.

I will see the rest of my own country in time and I’ll see it as a tourist and I’ll bring my son and wife from the UK.  I don’t know when or how but those are things to plan for the future.

I do get asked by a lot of people over here in the UK if I plan on moving back to Canada and the truth is, no I don’t.  I’m happy here in the UK and I’ve got a lovely wife, son and daughter.  I’ve built a life for myself in the UK and I enjoy it here.

As for my motivation returning, it might be linked to changing my trainers to my next new pair and because I registered for a marathon.  I was losing my motivation and it was partly linked to sore feet and achilles after runs.  The other day I decided to move on to my next pair of trainers that have been sitting in the bottom of the closet waiting for me.  I had bought two pairs of Adidas Supernova Sequence trainers (for the price of one) and I think I’ve only got about 400 miles out of them.  That’s not too bad considering I’m a heavy runner at around 15.5 stone (217 lbs).  I still can’t believe I was more than 18 stone (252 lbs) at my heaviest.  And I’m sure I was even heavier than that because at my fattest I never weighed myself… the shock would’ve been too much!

I feel much better now with my new trainers and my marathon goal.  I’ve even slowed down on my easy and long runs in order to facilitate the longer distances I’ll be doing.  All of the training plans I’ve seen for marathon distance have the average pace (for me anyway) much slower than what I have been running.  I suppose it makes sense as I will need to slow down in order to cover the whole 26.2 miles without breaking down.

As for non-running related matters, my wife is still as lovely as always and supportive of everything I do.  My son is still the cutest and the most clever little boy in the world.  My daughter and her husband are doing great.  My best friend Rob is back in contact again (kind of) and travelling around Canada on his own little adventure.  My laser eye surgery is next week (02 Sept 2009) and I’m getting excited.  We’ve got a nice little weekend holiday coming up and when we return I’m getting lasered!

That’s it for now.  I’m still running and I’m feeling it again.  I think that many people go through ups and downs in their training and not just for running either.  I’m just glad I’m feeling it again.

adidas, canada run progress, marathon training, my son, my wife, new trainers, robby kilborn, running log updated

Hasselt Flag

I’ve taken a break from running for four days.  It coincides with my wife’s trip to Hasselt, Belgium (flag on the left).  She went with her mum to visit family for her mum’s birthday and to attend Rimplerock.

That means it been me and my little boy from last Friday until Monday and it’s been good.  Yesterday my daughter came over to visit for the day and hung out with us. 

My and my son have been to a lot of different parks in a couple of days.  I’m trying to keep him happy and entertained and it seems to be working.  I’ve told him that mummy and nanny have gone on an airplane to Belgium and he seems to get it.

Today we went to a park that had an i-Play game and it was great for daddy!  I was running all over the place.  It’s basically like a giant version of a Bop It game.  I made it through all the six levels with my son laughing and laughing at me.  He thought it was hilarious watching daddy sprint around to “press it”… “stamp it”… “pull it”… etc etc.  I was really sweating.  Great game.

At the moment my son it lying on our bed watching TV and chilling out.  I’m sitting here writing this short update and this afternoon we’ll probably go out in the garden and find things to get in to…

I’ll be back to running again first thing on Tuesday morning.  I thought I would give my legs (especially my achilles) a rest for a bit.  It’s good to have a break sometimes and give your body a chance to heal.  Unfortunately my break also comes with me stuffing my face for four days… oh well.

On other non-running related news, I’ve found a political party that I’m actually remotely interested in.  The Pirate Party has just been formed in the UK and is already growing in membership very very quickly.  No wonder!  Most of the people that are joining the party are pretty IT literate and the party’s core policies are appealing:-

• Reform copyright and patent law. We want to legalise non-commercial file sharing and reduce the excessive length of copyright protection, while ensuring that when creative works are sold, it’s the artists who benefit, not monopoly rights holders. We want a patent system that doesn’t stifle innovation or make life saving drugs so expensive that patients die.
• End the excessive surveillance, profiling, tracking and monitoring of innocent people by Government and big businesses.
• Ensure that everyone has real freedom of speech and real freedom to enjoy and participate in our shared culture.

foot pain, my son, my wife, pains and niggles, Pirate Party UK

For those of you who haven’t checked it out, have a look at my personal list of “best running blogs“.  There are many great blogs worth reading and I can honestly say that they are all on my reading list in Google Reader.

I had my consultation at Optimax today to see if I am suitable for laser eye surgery.  I am!

My surgery date is booked for 2nd September (three weeks) and I’m really excited about it now.  I went through the procedure with the people at Optimax and all the statistics regarding the potential results. 

I won’t be writing much tonight I’m afraid as looking at my computer screen is killing my eyes.  They put the drops in my eyes that make the pupils dilate and they’re getting sore.  Everything is very bright.

Running is still going on and I’m currently trying to work out a marathon training plan.  In fact, you might be able to help!  I’ve been looking at training plans that are based on a recent finish time and the plans I’ve found show some pretty slow training paces.  Does this mean that I’ve been running too fast or that I just need to slow down for marathon training and concentrate on the quality?

If you’ve done marathon training before I’d certainly welcome your advice.

Finally, I got my “Training for the Brighton Marathon” T-Shirt.  It’s great!  I love running T-Shirts.

best running blogs, marathon training

Running log spreadsheet has been updated to 05 August 2009.

I’m well impressed with my increase in daily mileage!

canada run progress, running log updated