"The Decision 2010"

Lebron, Shmebron. Who's that?

A much more important decision occurred on my run this morning. The forecasted break in the heat and humidity did NOT happen and I found myself staring down the barrel of a +26C thermometer at 5:30am, and I'm sure with the humidity it was up there in the mid-30s. As I walked out my front door I was hit with a wall of air that felt thick and sticky. Yum.

But that's okay, I told myself. It would be another slow and steady run, which is the smart thing for me to be doing this year anyway. I felt pretty good and started off at a nice trot with no clue about the route I would be running. Ultimately I trusted my autopilot and headed down to the Lake and the boardwalk, just like on Wednesday. Everything was going fine until at about the 6km mark I was faced with "The Decision": find a washroom or tough it out?

If you are a runner you know exactly what I am talking about, and sometimes the decision is not always immediately clear. At that moment, as I heard a gurgle in my innards, I was not sure if that was just a "settling of affairs" or a prelude to disaster.

As I hit the halfway mark of my run at the end of the boardwalk my mind was made up: find a washroom or face the consequences. The boathouse at that point has a public washroom, which apparently is closed at that time in the morning. Strike 1.

I turned around and headed back down the boardwalk towards Kew Gardens, where I knew of another public facility. With every step I was praying for that washroom to be open, but upon reaching the door my tug at the handle proved otherwise. Strike 2!

Now I was faced with a Sub-Decision of "The Decision": search out another public washroom further down the boardwalk or turn up towards Queen Street and jump into the Tim Horton's that I knew would be open up there? It took about a millisecond for me to make up my mind and I was off, heading towards Tim's.

This marked the first time ever that I used a facility in a restaurant and not purchased anything. I felt bad for doing so, but I would have felt even worse had I continued without stopping. At least that is how I justified my decision...

Anyway, the rest of the run was not much better, but at least I was no longer a ticking time bomb. Shortly upon leaving Tim's the rains came pouring down and I had to wring out my shirt a bunch of times as my clothes soaked up water faster than a Sham-Wow and weighed me down. In the end I managed a decent 15km run, made all the better by "The Decision", which I believe was much more important than that Lebron guy's choice and I didn't need to hold a whole city hostage for an hour to do it.

Poor Cleveland. This morning I suspect many Cavs fans have intestinal pain akin to what I started feeling at about the 6km mark of my run. My suggestion is that they should all go down to Miami and relieve themselves on Dwayne Wade's front lawn (since I don't think Chris Bosh has had time to buy a house yet).

400!

This marks my 400th post on this blog, which is a bit crazy since it means that I've been able to keep this "journal of sorts" for almost two years straight. It's been a great resource when I want to figure out why something hurts, if I am having trouble deciding on a route to run, or to compare my pace and heart rate type statistics from previous runs of similar distance. Luckily I have had too many of these types of reports...

This morning I woke up at about 5:30am to get my run done before heading off to work. It seems that I have come to prefer the longer morning run to the running to and from work thing that I've been doing for the longest time. It's not even the "glad to get it out of the way" thing, but rather the fact that I don't have to cope with carrying a backpack. The warmer weather causes the straps on any bag I try to chafe my skin and it's just not cool.

Anyway, this morning I was out by about 5:45am and running. I didn't have much of a plan on which route I would run, but I did have a firm distance goal and a very vague pace goal. All of my running is of the slow and steady variety, but that can mean anything from 5:00/km - 6:30/km pace (8:00/mile - 10:30/mile). I was hoping to stay closer to the lower end of the scale.

The early morning creaks and pains in my knees and ankles were not as bad as usual, and that is a welcome trend, so I started off at a decent warm up type trot. By the second kilometre I was well below 6:00/km pace for the split and my average was sliding down below that threshold as well. As I ran up, around, and then through Rosedale things were looking good, and then the 10k mark hit...

I'd been feeling a bit of something I'll just call tension in the lower abdomen for a bit here and there throughout the run, but at the 10k mark it felt like someone stuck a knife into my intestine and proceeded to twist it. It's likely how the Brazilian's felt today as a nation while watching that own goal go in against the Dutch...

I even considered walking, but in the end I am so glad that I didn't. Why? Because when I hit the desired 12km mark and stopped running I had a couple of hundred metres left to walk and it was more painful than running. At one point I was staggering along half bent over at the waist. It's a good thing it was still early or some of my neighbours might have wondered what the hell was wrong and come out to check up on me.

The worst part, now that the pain is over, is that I have no idea what caused it! I am racking my brain to think back on what I ate, what I drank, or whatever in the day or so leading up to this morning and nothing seems out of the ordinary. Very frustrating...

Anyway, that was how my first run of July went. It can only get better from here!