Saturday, August 21, 2010

A Capital Run

Ha ha ha, what a witty title - NOT! We are in Ottawa, our nation's Capital, and that is where I was to do my long run one day earlier than normal on account of travel plans.

We arrived late Friday night, and more like early Saturday morning, and so my waking up took quite a while. It was not until 9:30am or so that I was finally off and running, one bottle of Gatorade and two packages of Gu in hand. I have never tried this Gu that so many of you runners speak of, but my lovely wife had returned from a trip to a local running store earlier in the week with a bunch of these types of goodies when she was dropping off old running shoes for recycling.

Anyway, I was a bit hesitant as to how this run would go partly because of the shift in days from Sunday to Saturday, partly due to my tired state from the long drive the night before, and partly because I was venturing out for the longest training run I'd ever attempted.

I set off at an easy pace and ran down to Dows Lake and then around and along the Canal to the pedestrian crossover at Ottawa University, at which point I ran back to Dows Lake on the other side of the Canal. I had my first Gu on the pedestrian bridge; it was the 'just plain' flavour. After the first loop, which took me to about 13km, I stopped for a short bathroom break at the pavilion on Dows Lake and then proceeded to do the same loop again.

The second loop went quite well and again I had another Gu on the pedestrian bridge (I think this one was called 'espresso love', and it was pretty good as far as goopy things go). By now my Gatorade was all gone and I refilled my water bottle at a fountain a short way down the path once I started up again. My stomach was feeling pretty good, but I thought it was wise to stop for another bathroom brake, this time the sit down kind, at the pavilion before starting my third loop. I was at about the 25km mark by this point.

The third loop was a bit tougher as I was getting tired, though that was not particularly surprising or anything. I didn't go all the way to the pedestrian bridge on this one and chose to cross over the Canal at the Pretoria Street Bridge before making my way back to Dows Lake. This was the toughest stretch as I was pretty much spent but kept on running. I suspect this is what the last bit of the marathon will feel like, and it was gratifying that under these circumstances I was still able to maintain the same pace that I had run for the entire duration.

In the end I managed to finish off my longest ever training run of 35km in 3:20:20 and walked the last two kilometres or so back home. I am now over 1500km for the year, and well on my way to my mileage goal of 266km for August as I am sitting at 215km with more than a week to go.

A couple slices of pizza, a shower, then some more "proper" food, and we were off with the boys to a very nice indoor swimming pool for some fun. There was even a nice hot tub there and, yes, I did partake a little bit.

Now we are back, getting ready for dinner, and I am getting sleepy. Tomorrow we are off to Quebec City as we begin our journey out to the Gaspe. I can't wait!

Labels:

2 Comments:

Blogger Andrew is getting fit said...

That's a pretty decent run!

I love running in new places myself.

August 22, 2010 at 5:43 PM  
Blogger Ace said...

This is making me want to plan a Canadian vacation some day...

August 26, 2010 at 2:09 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home