Streakin' out

How much can you taper in one day?

..and how much does it matter anyway?

You know how I take every Friday off? I didn't last week. I did a group run thing on Friday evening that totally confirmed I am not interested in being a part of a run group.

Though I did enjoy the bit where I buggered off by myself to run a bit of pitch-dark trail.

So that means I ended up running 13 days straight, from December 22nd to January 3rd, with 4 of those being double run days - I ran twice on Saturday, December 22nd; Wednesday the 26th (Boxing Day); Saturday the 29th; and Tuesday, January 1st (New Year's Day). All told, I put in 108.3km for an average of 8.3km per day.

Many of them were along various parts of the Grand River.

It was quite the mix of road, technical trail, rain, snow, clear roads/trails, mud, and - in one memorable instance - turning around because it wasn't actually a trail anymore.

When there are ducks swimming along it, it's no longer a trail.

Zoomed in - I wasn't kidding about the ducks!

Some were in the daylight, some were definitely not.

Both road and trail - gotta get used to headlamp running again sometime!

It felt great to break the 200km mark for December - as a matter of fact, I finished with almost 213km for the month, which is pretty solid. My ankle has been hanging in there, though my right achilles tendon and something up in my right hamstrings have been grouchy. 

My last run of 2018 was a rainy, urban road slog, so I'll show you this lovely sunset from Puslinch Tract instead.

None of the little niggles I have are getting worse - I wouldn't hesitate to put in a double run on Saturday of the same 10k + 6k ilk I did last weekend - but when viewed in the light of having the Stride Inside 6-hour tomorrow morning...well, it's maybe not so great.

This tree, however, is freakin' amazing.

There's also the minor detail that 10km is the longest single run I've done since The Beav 50k, which was now 8 weeks ago. The most I've run in a day was 10 miles, split as 10k + 6k last Saturday as I previously mentioned.

That, folks, is what we call "unprepared"

I had actually thought, during last night's run on snowy streets, about the possibility of just doing 4 qualifying 100 in 100 challenge runs - do 30mins, wait an hour, do another 30mins...repeat until the clock runs out or I'm incapable of running anymore, whichever comes first.

Oh, the ideas you get on runs like these..

But, I can't quite bring myself to do it. It is far from the spirit of the event, and feels unfair to my fellow runners who will be slogging it out for the full 6 hours. Not to mention, I have the same goal as every 6-hour for which I've showed up undertrained, un-tapered, overweight and/or injured: I'd like to get more than 42.2km in, and since I only managed a hair over 48km last year when I was in decidedly better condition, I think keeping my non-moving time as minimal as possible is my only hope.

At least there won't be any hills.

I'm slightly gnrft (that's not a typo) about not running today - with 25 runs in the first 20 days of the 100 in 100 challenge, I'm hanging in decently in the top 30 and I think I'm actually the 1st place female at the moment.

Only by dint of having more time/mileage in than the 2nd and 3rd place women,
both of whom have the same number of runs.
It's a much tougher field than last year.

I know, too, that attempting to shuffle along for 6hrs tomorrow will eliminate any possibility of pulling off a double run for a few days, and might mean having to take a day or two off entirely. While I'm an idiot about chasing somewhat pointless goals, I do recognize that I should try not to cripple myself completely - the last thing I need is another season like 2018.

Also: there are so many trails I'm just getting back to running!

So just for today and tomorrow, I'll forget about the silly challenge - I've gone for a lovely walk in the sunshine on my lunch instead of a run, and tomorrow I'll simply go do my best. It may be somewhat annoying that it'll be a beautiful day outside, but there will be wonderful company on the track as I toddle through the endless loops, and I can use the time to try to get my lazy legs re-conditioned to doing bigger mileage at a time.

So hopefully there can be more exploring like this!

I just hope they decide to cooperate, as it's only 2 weeks until Frosty Trail..