The Great White North

For those of you who read my blog I think that my absence of regular blogging is a clear sign that I am, indeed, on vacation! As you may or may not be aware I have already left Houston to return back to the Mother Ship in Canada on Monday. However, my absence of blogging has me slightly worried that I am only adding to people's stereotypes of Canada. For example, I can only imagine one of my Houston readers clicking on my blog and after seeing the SAME post that they have seen for the last 3 days thinking something like, "Well, he is in Canada now so he probably cannot access internet or phone until he returns." Or something like, "He probably has drunk way too much Canadian beer and is passed out behind an igloo somewhere." So, I decided I better make some time to quickly recap the last few days so that I am not adding wood to the Canadian Stereotypes fire, eh!

Sunday morning I enjoyed a casual 8 miles with my main man JD and SugarLand Steve. (As for my splits...who knows - my Garmin is buried somewhere in my suitcase right now!) I tell you what, I will gladly swap the perfect running conditions in Paris for the hot 'n muggy Houston conditions if it means I get to run with my homies here in Houston. Boy do I miss running with these guys. Afterwards I 'wasted' the morning away at Panera Bread with some more great company! At Panera Bread I was asked about an earlier comment I made where I said that I will never wear Nike shoes - do I have a political agenda against Nike?

The only political agenda I really have (because we Canadians are too docile to carry too many chips on our shoulders) is against Starbucks. Nike makes some of the best short shorts around, so I could not possibly dream of banning Nike from my wardrobe! But I started banning Starbucks about a year ago now and I see now that they are closing ~ 600 stores...looks like I am not the only one who chooses to go elsewhere. So, why the self-inflicted ban? Well, I used to go to Starbucks twice a day for a grande BLACK Americano. I used to get their drip coffee but I hated the inconsistency of their choice of blends. Americano is a consistent choice as it is just espresso + water (Tell the French that and they all cringe at the thought of wrecking a perfectly good espresso!). Awhile ago Starbucks raised their coffee prices because of increased energy costs. "Fine," I thought, "I will roll with it." No sooner than 8 months later the cost of my Americano increased again. "Why?" I asked my local barrista at my favorite Starbucks location. He replied, "Increased milk costs." I looked at him slightly confused, then I looked deep into my BLACK americano for a moment to ponder, then I looked back at him and asked, "Where is the milk in my coffee?" I refuse to subsidize the $5 cappacino or other milk-based concoction with my BLACK coffee. If some soccer mom wants here non-fat, skinny, upside down, semi-sweet, 160 degree, frothed, vanilla cappacino she can pay for the ingredients herself - I will not use my regular black coffee to subsidize her! And since then, no Starbucks for me!

Ok, off my soapbox and back to my vacation! I left Houston Monday morning for Calgary. Upon arriving I ran 10 easy miles (I am guessing that the average pace was ~ 7:18 min/mile). Running in Calgary felt the same as Houston in the sense that I had to try very hard to find the oxygen in the air! In Houston I had difficulty separating the water/humidity from the oxygen and in Calgary the oxygen is just too sparse! Everything about this run sucked...I was tired, mentally fatigued, and started to feel a bit of a sore throat coming on...

That sore throat takes me to this morning where I woke up feeling miserable. I got up early to try and squeeze out my quality workout as I have a very busy rest of my week up in the Canadian rockies. The quality workout called for 7 miles of Threshold running with some minor breaks scattered throughout. I managed 2 miles of Threshold pace, felt dizzy and thought that I was going to faint - I felt absolutely terrible. So, I have decided to blow off the quality workout as my body was giving me clear messages that it was tired. My recent travel combined with the fact that I tried to run my threshold run just 10 hours after running 10 miles the night before, and the fact that when I blow my nose that things just are not the right color all caught up with me (TMI, I know...sorry!). I managed to run 10 miles total. Normally when I cut workouts short I regret it later and tell myself, "Durn David, you could have done it" but today I have no such feelings. That tells me that I made the right call - my body needs a moment to catch up with all the changes I have thrown its way. On the bright side, I think it is just fatigue - I do not feel any potential injuries or nagging pains!

Tomorrow we are off to the mountains for hiking and whitewater rafting, which also means I probably will not run until Saturday. JD - what is the quality workout for Sat? (I "accidentally" forgot my running schedule in Paris!)

So, this week does not look like one I will fondly look back on when my training is done, but I know I will definitely look back on it fondly with my "family goggles" on and cherish every second of it - that is definitely more important to me.

ps - John - Yeah, I love the Landreth. I ran my very first marathon in them. My only complaint with them was that they were about 30 minutes too slow for me!!

Later, eh!