Kicking Balls

In my seemingly unending effort to keep my body well enough to keep running I will try almost anything. Case in point I woke myself up extra early on Tuesday morning because I had to fit the run in before work, or not at all. Instead of trudging around the concrete sidewalks of my neighbourhood I decided to grad my son's soccer ball and head over to a local pitch.

It was less than one kilometre to get there, and I felt a bit weird running while holding the ball. Nevertheless, as soon as I hit the grass I dropped the ball and proceeded to kick it ahead of me as I ran around the field for the next eight kilometres. It was great! The ball kept my bouncing left and right (though not as much as I'd expected since I thought I'd be useless at dribbling, but it turns out I am not that bad after all) and varying my pace. The grass was very forgiving and I definitely benefited from getting off the concrete. After finishing on the grass I really felt a tremendous difference when running home from that hard concrete. The 10km was very easy and I'm sure helped all sorts of ways as far as muscles and tendons go. I will do this again no doubt.

In the evening Owen, my eight year-old, ran his first ever 5k with my wife! Congrats Owen! They even incorporated a really tough hill up Beechwood Drive. I am thinking of signing us up for a 5k race sometime later in the year and running it with him.

Today it was back to work (I'd been at a conference for two days, and so no weight training and such). After dropping the kids off at the bus I walked 2k to warm up and then ran the rest of the way, 4.5km, to work. It was nice and easy, and I continue to absolutely love commuting on foot.

In the afternoon I hit the gym for an upper body weight training session. At the end of the day it was time to hit the streets again to run home and then onto Owen's baseball practice. The run was pretty good, actually. Certainly better than I expected it to be, though I did overheat a bit. I ran across Queen Street and then dropped into the Don Valley up to Pottery Road, at which point I ran up that massive hill and home. I'd planned on running eight kilometres, but ended up running 9km for a total of 13.5km on the day. I am just twelve kilometres shy of my monthly goal now, and knowing myself it looks like that will likely be the mileage I will be aiming for on Friday, the last day of the month of April.