Time to Taper

One week to go until my first 100km - Elk Beaver near Victoria on Vancouver Island, so finally it's time to taper. Like for most runners, I have a bit of a love/ hate relationship with tapering. On one way it feels good to take it easier, not having to squeeze in runs around everything else going on in life and actually having time to do other things - catching up with friends, watching movies and just catching up on life in general. To be fair I am usually a little obsessive about my training so will cut out a tonne ofther things in life before I cut back on my running so It's nice to have time to breathe and chill a little. But on the otherhand it seems illogical having spent so much time training to now just cut back - little niggling worries start getting into my head that I am taking it too easy and that race day is yet to come so I should still be training! After spending months running and hitting the gym I start to feel uneasy by cutting things back. But at the end of the day I know I could definitely over do it this week but it would probably be hard to under do training this week - so less is better and will hopefully bring me to the start line refreshed and with a spring in my step! Of course I'm resisting filling my time when I would normally be running with other activities - I've thought of going for a swim or a bike ride but that would probably re-awaken muscles that have not be used in a long time and do more harm than good! I got a good cruisey downhill ski in yesterday and will run later today and also do yoga - but those are things I do all the time. I'm also trying to catch up on sleep (something I usually don't get enough of!), eating good and looking forward to some shorter, easy pace runs this week. I'll be heading to Vancouver on Thursday and so looking foward to catching up with friends and running with my Pacific Road Runners family that evening for the first time since September - yay! Lots of club runners will be racing at Vancouver marathon on the day after I race Elk Beaver so I'm confident they won't push the pace to much on Thursday and that they will be holding back on the beers too! Now time to rest....

Sweet Smell of Spring!

Spring?! But it's mid April. Yep, well I live in the frozen Canadian Rockies and it is only this last week that it really feels like spring has sprung and OMG it is so lovely! It feels almost like it was worth putting up with all that snow and bone-chilling temperatures to experience the amazingness of warm sun and bare trails now. It's been warming up for a bit now but 10 days ago - bam - 25cms of fresh snow. I mean I should be excited - I live in a ski town afterall - but I had just begun to glimpse bare trail and it was yanked away from me :( But this last week we've been getting up to 15 degrees in the day and I've switched to 3/4 tights and a t-shirt for my runs which feels like total liberation from the bulky layers of winter. Yesterday I started my 4hr run at 3 degrees and by the time I got back home it was plus 15 - woo hoo!

Today I ran out to Lake Minnewanka which is an hour on pavement each way. There still aren't many runners out but cyclists are coming out of hibernation and we all greet each other with over the top hellos and smiles as we pass each other, clearly happy to be back at our favourite activities. Once at Lake Minnewanka I extended my run to hit the trails along the lake shore - and wow, no snow, no ice - just pure fun on some rocky mountain single track! The trail was pretty dry and even sandy in sections but what I loved most was the scree like tracks - a type of terrain that I always think of so typical of this area and reminds me of my first big hike when I lived here 11yrs ago and learnt the joys of scree skiing on the descent of Cascade mountain. I could have stuck to the trail forever but made myself turn around earlier than I wanted and I was glad I did as the hour back on the tarmac really pounded my hips.

I am so excited about exploring new trails this summer, lots of fun to be had I'm sure. Only trouble is with all this sun, beautiful trails and snow covered peaks, I keep getting flash backs of my summers spent in the Bernese Oberland in Switzerland - one place that I would go back to in a flash. I can feel a return to the specacular Jungfrau marathon one year pretty soon...
http://www.jungfrau-marathon.ch/ws2/en/

Rave Reviews just keep coming in for the Montrail Rockridge

Rockridge Picked as “Best for Rugged Terrain” in Shape Magazine

Richmond, Calif. (April 1, 2010) –The Montrail Rockridge™ has been honored once again in the April 2010 issue of Shape magazine, a premiere women’s fitness and lifestyle magazine. The Shape Shoe Awards testers selected the Rockridge as “Best for Rugged Terrain.” The Rockridge was also recently awarded “Editors’ Choice Best All-Arounder” in the April 2010 issue of Trail Runner magazine.

“The feedback we are getting with the Rockridge right now is incredible,” said Todd Lewis, Montrail Product Manager. “For the second year in a row, and the second time this season, Montrail has turned out award-winning trail runners, testament to the Product Development Team’s running know-how.”

The 2010 Rockridge™ is a low-profile, neutral shoe with outstanding cushioning perfect for dirt, rock and fire roads. It features the VEL last (think Velocity for speed) designed specifically for trail runners with its medium-volume fit and roomy toe box. The outsole has been optimized for moderate to technical trail conditions with deflecting lugs for cushioning and perimeter digging lugs for traction up and down hills.

Shape testers specifically called out the mesh upper that “keeps toes dry and cool” yet “withstands pokes from branches.” The newly designed outsole on the Rockridge “...makes you feel ‘secure enough to run anywhere without fear of slipping.’”