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I lost my first toenail from running in September 2008.  I remember it very well, as it happened on a weekend house boating with about 20 close friends.

To make it worse or more disgusting, I stubbed said toe while drunk and stumbling around a rocky beach so my foot was not a pretty sight, bloody and nail hanging off.  After much disgust from the girls on the boat I took the time for a little self pedicure and removed the toenail.  I’m not sure why exactly but inside I was quietly proud at having lost a toenail due to my running.  I guess I saw it as some sort of badge or token of dedication to my sport.

With this reasoning, I slipped my precious toenail into my pocket (where else?)

toenail necklace

and held onto it so show off to my friends on return from the house boating trip.  Sadly that toenail got misplaced. In the wash no doubt as a pocket is no place for prize possession toenails.  But I was intrigued, as a fairly new runner who was starting to lose toenails; I wondered who else out there had been losing toe nails and what they did with them.

My curiosity eventually led me to this great post over at Scott Dunlaps Trail Runners blog, titled – Making your own toenail necklace.  Just when you doubt your own sanity, something like this turns up and leaves you feeling somewhat normal again.

In keeping with the theme, I had lost 2 toenails since the first, and just yesterday, I lost 2 more.  I am keeping these ones in a very safe place, as in another 6 months or so, I can start working on a small piece of toenail jewellery, nothing as extravagant as a necklace, something a  little more subtle, like a bracelet perhaps..?

Think of structured, purposeful physical activity as a necessary counter-balance for your artificially-sedentary lifestyle and surroundings.

It’s also very insightful to study the athletic perspective on training, competing, and winning and losing.

Successful athletes are purposeful. Training is undertaken for a purpose, not simply to burn calories- that’s why couch potatoes use the word “exercise” and athletes use the word “training:” “training” implies a purpose for the activity.

Full article by Charles Staley on www.brinkzone.com

Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, Jan 17th 2009

I sacrificed a fun filled weekend snowboarding up at Whistler with about 20 friends this weekend to focus on my training and get in a couple of key workouts.  I was also unfortunate enough to come down with a head cold early on Friday afternoon, but wasn’t going to let that slow me down or deter my path for the weekend.  I started out with an effort at the Steve Nash gym Friday after work,  It wasn’t pretty and mostly a struggle, but I got the time in and feeling fairly spent after, I turned in an early night.

Saturday morning saw me up early and heading over to the North Shore for a Dirty Duo training run.  We met at Lynn Canyon park and the scheduled run was for 13km.  I donned my Yaktrax again for this one as there was still a ton of snow around and we took off over the suspension bridge in into the trails.  The trails were a mixed bag, lots of hard pack single track, with a few sparse bare patches.   Ned’s was a disaster, and had me hiking most of it as it was just hard, deep icy stuff.  I had a couple of falls here and copped a few bruises on the shins and was very happy to get onto Fisherman’s and take in the scenery as we ran parallel to the river.  There were a few fast downhill sections which I opened up on and plenty of  hurdles with all the fallen trees but the real treat for me on this run were the uphills, where I learnt to climb a lot more economically by using smaller strides with a faster leg turnover.  I usually fell strong on the hill and put in a hard, long powerful strides as my main effort, yet, I found that by using shorter strides and taking much quicker steps that I could more effectively climb, maintain my heart rate and not feel as fatigued at the top.  It all came together on the final climb of the run up Homestead Trail, which is a nice 1km climb that I was able to fly up and not feel too bagged at the top.  We ended up covering 13Km in about 1hour and 40.  I felt really strong through the entire run and am really enjoying these runs on the more technical trails.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/invitation/dashboard.mb?episodePk.pkValue=7469019

Sunday had me up just as early as Saturday and back over to the North Shore, this time meeting up with some friends at Parkgate village for some snowshoe action up on Seymour.  It was magical up there.  The temperatures were up to 18 degrees and some patches of trail felt like running past an open oven door.  The trails were the very runnable and easily the easiest snowshoeing terrain I have run on this winter.  I actually enjoyed the workout!  We got in about 5 or 6km and again was some good climbs and some fast downhills.  The views at the top of Dog Mountain were unbelievable as the city was blanked in a thick coat of fog only identifiable by a few skyscrapers in the downtown core poking through.  There were a lot of hikers out today and it was nice to see some in shorts and tshirt!

Dog Mountain, Jan 18th 2009

It was a solid week in training.  I decided to run over to the community centre on Tuesday night for my tempo run, then decided on my tempo run to make it a 10km instead of a 7km and proceed to run home afterwards, totalling 17km for the evening.

With my first Ultra looming, I am conscious of trying to up my mileage and have decided to tally weekly totals to more closely monitor my weekly mileage and ensure that I can not just get through Chuckanut, but actually enjoy it.

Weekly mileage for Sunday 18th Jan – 41km.

17km on the road
13km in the Trails
11km on snowshoes
2 Gym sessions
1 Kickboxing class

Yaktrax are a great little innovation that greatly increase traction of a shoe and are especially useful when running in harsh winter conditions, in snow and on ice.

I got a chance to take my Yaktrax for a spin on the weekend when I did an 11km training run with some of the friendly folk at Mountain Madness and North Shore Athletics. It was the first day of the 25km Dirty Duo training clinic and while I have not joined the clinic, I plan to run with them as a drop in at any chance over the next 8 weeks.  I need to learn the Nth Shore trails and want to know the course before race day on the 7th March.

When meeting at the trail head, I was hesitant to put on my Yaktrax and had them stowed in my pack, thinking they were there “just in case” I needed them.  Well I made a good decision to put them on before entering the trail as the snow base was up to a few feet in spots and the trail was single track and hard pack snow.  First thoughts were WOW. I instantly felt safer and more sure footed, and I was still on the road and hadn’t even entered the trail yet.  Throughout the run the Yaktrax performed better than expected and I was able to climb easily and had the confidence to really stride out on some of the downhill sections.  They just made running in bad conditions so much more enjoyable.  The only negative point on the Yaktrax might be a user error, but I found near the end of the run that they were starting to slip up the outside of my foot somewhat, causing them to be less effective.  I stopped to fix them a few times and yanked the strap a bit tighter and they seemed ok.

I love the Nth Shore trails and plan on running them as much as possible this year. We were out for a little over an hour and a half ran the Baden Powell, Bridle Path to Old Buck and then return to Hyannis Drive.  The conditions were fun, thanks to the Yaktrax, there were some fun little creek sections and a ton of hurdles due to heavy snow and high winds in the area.  All in all it was a great morning out running and Yaktrax get the big thumbs up from Pricey.

In a former life, well actually in this life, 6 years ago, I was a skydiver.

I was registered with the Australia Parachute Federation as a student skydiver and took the 9 jump student course at Skydive Queensland in Nerang on the Gold Coast of Australia.  I was pretty hooked on jumping and completed 17 subsequent jumps and mastered the art of tracking, turning and backflips!

With this as background I thought I would share a video from a post I read yesterday from over on Scott Dunlap’s – A Trail Runners Blog.

These guys are simply crazy and the video is amazing!

My 2009 training is now officially underway, with the goal races being:

1. Dirty Duo 25km – March 7th

2. Chuckanut 50km – March 21st

The weekly training format will look something like this:

Monday – Yoga, Gym
Tuesday – Boxing, 7-10km Tempo
Wednesday – Gym, Snowshoe @ Grouse
Thursday – Snowshoe @ Seymour : Alternating with : Speed work with LGRR
Friday – Gym
Weekend – Gym and Long Run

Its a pretty packed schedule with some hard doubles early in the week, but I am really embracing the challenges ahead and have slipped right back into a training mindset after a pretty slack month of December.  Hopefully all the work in the soft stuff on the next few months will translate into some strong legs come the trail running season.  It’s also important for me to make sure I’m getting in some good long runs in Feb as the Chuckanut will probably see me finishing in 6 hours, so I will need to be trained for time on legs as well as strength and speed.

Of course rest and diet will also play into this training program and I have started to follow John Berardi’s PN program more closely this week.  I’m eating a ton of veggies and quality lean protein at every meal.  The change in particular is dropping complex carbs from the menu unless after a workout.  This is by no means a low carb diet, but the theory is based more around nutrient timing, and how the body can best utilize the food you give it. Checking out my schedule above you can see that there will be plenty of time for whole grains in my diet over the next little while.  I did feel a little lethargic on Tuesday night’s tempo run, but that could have had something to do with the ridiculous conditions, wind, ice and water that I had to contend with.  In any case, the diet will be monitored closely and changes can be made depending on energy levels as the week’s progress.

All in all I’m feeling strong in the body and mind and am off and going at 2 pretty tough challenges for March!

I had a fantastic day yesterday up Grouse mountain with some friends hitting up the snowshoe trails.  It wasn’t my first time running in the snow (a good 18km on Christmas morning after a freakish snowfall in Vancouver takes that trophy) but it was my first time running in snow shoes and my first time running on a ski hill and not boarding.  Coach Campbell was not only kind enough to lend me a pair of snowshoes, but he lent me his new atlas run shoes and ran in his older model himself.  What a stand up guy!  It was a bit of a dawdle getting up the mountain, with a sea bus, bus, lining up for a pass, the gondola and then bag check and rentals, I was itching to get moving once I got the shoes on!

We started to head for the only real trail on grouse and Coach and I trotted off full of beans and ready for a good workout.  B$ and Tanya were slowly trotting behind, loving the experience, and taking in the fresh snow and panoramic views on offer.  The first (and actually the whole) part of the trail started up hill and quickly narrowed to single track.  I was eager to get in some good work and coach and I pushed ahead of the girls at a steady pace and began the first climb.  Well, I might as well have been racing as my heart rate responded that way.. straight up.. close to 100 percent max.  My jacket came off and the conversation stopped as I wheezed and concentrated on the narrow track and the work of putting one shoe in front of the other.

We climbed, we rested and ran back to the girls and then climbed again.  Then we climbed some more, hiked a little, rested and climbed.  It was a very humbling experience coming off a bit of a running high point to be put back in my place, trying to climb this mountain, quickly, with aluminum and plastic flaps strapped to my feet.  But I sucked it up and pushed hard and loved every minute of it.  The reward at the top of Dam Mountain was a few more minutes rest and a photo op but the weather was variable and while there were sunny patches there was also a bit of light snow.  The the real reward was in the downhills.  Everyone LOVED the down.  I was a bit hesitant at first, taking long strides and a few tumbles along the way, but for the most part I was able to descend with a relative quick pace and remain relatively in control bounding and sliding, arms flailing and smile beaming for all to see just how much fun it is charging down a hill in 2 feet of powder.

I think one of the things I enjoyed about the day was that there is A LOT to learn from running in snowshoes.  I felt like a total newbie, I kept on kicking my ankles in the shoes, and I was fascinated by the technique and my lack thereof.  It is by far the best cardio workout I have done and will build very strong legs for the coming trail running season and with so many little skills and tricks to learn I am already thinking about heading back up and running again.

This is definately a sport that is demanding but for the effort you will reap the rewards and im prepared to give it %100 effort.

I love working at Flight Centre. Our healthwise leader the lovely Anna Fisher has put together some WWF style championship belts for some of the ‘elites’ in the company.

I am lucky enough to be the current holder of the Healthwise Half Marathon championship belt!

Dave Emilio is looking good in his Marathon belt, little does he know that I will be gunning for it come May in Vancouver when I run the Vancouver Marathon.

* Pictures Here *

I stumbled across this workout last night, searching for some new medicine ball exercises.  Im a pretty big fan of the mens health stuff, and usually give their workouts a second look over.

The circiut consists of 10 seperate exercises, 20 repetitions of each moving onto each exercise with no rest.

This circiut is an amazing ab workout!  I was pretty excited to give it a go today and warmed up quicky with 5 minutes on the treadmill.   The workout had a great flow to it and was challenging but definately achievable.  I clocked my set to be about 11 minutes and I was pretty quick pausing only to check on the next exercise.

Im definately going to work a couple of sets of this circiut into my weekly schedule.

I ran in this great cross country race this morning – The Gunner Shaw Memorial Cross Country race.  The course was a tricky little 5k loop that ranged from sand, to mud, rolling hills and grass, hardpack trail and `the puddle` that was about 100m of ankle deep water.  We ran the loop twice for a total of 10Km.  Because if the terrain, and muddy wet conditions I wasnt really bothered with my watch, and forgot to start it and then forgot to stop it at the end of the race.  In any case without seeing the official results I think I finished around the 40 minute mark..?

The race itself was alot of fun, and to be honest I did struggle for the first few k`s perhaps even the first loop.  It was a very strong field of runners and perhaps I was still suffering a bit from my christmas party the other day.  I eventually found my stride and a great little race within my core group of loins gaters ensured.  I knew we would all be running around the same pace as we all have similar 10km race times, and upon inspection of Lindas race photos there are a few where you can see how close we all were as a group.  I need to add that I wan not happy with my choice of footware for running in the mud, my shoes were horrible and I lost traction numerous times in the mud.  Rae put the heat on me about 7km in and flew up the muddy hill in his spikes while I slipped and slode off to the side, it was a bit frustrating and I used that frustration to catch Rae up in the next km, and as we entered the puddle side by side for the last time I dug deep and just charged throught it.  Luckiy I was able to hold him off for the last km and had a strong finish on a more forgiving surface as we sprinted to the line.  It was great to be able to turn around and watch your team mates roll in one after the other all just seconds behind.  I got dirty and wet, it was a great work out and lot of fun and good to see alot of familiar faces out running in the mud and having a good time.

So that wraps up the racing season for 2008, and it was a good way to end it.  I have achieved 2 of my major goals this year in running with impressive 10km and half marathon PB`s and have a bunch more set up for 2009, perhaps even a marathon and definately an ultra.