Week of Nov. 29th - Dec. 5th, 2004

Monday 11/29
9pm – ran 50 minutes easy after getting back from class. I ran up to the IF fields and did a few laps. I felt like I was walking, but I was running pretty fast. People have been started to tell me that I look really skinny. I guess that means that I am getting in rocking shape.
8 miles

Tuesday 11/30
5pm – ran a workout on the track. I ran a 20 minute warmup with some drills and strides and then 4x1k in 2:54, 2:52, 2:50, 2:47, with 1 minute recovery. I really felt like I was just cruising. However, first time wearing track spikes and the achilles did not like it at all. It was sore on the last one. I’ll just wear the heavier one school black Nike XC spikes for the race.
8 miles

Wednesday 12/01
I took the day off to let the achilles heal a little bit. I iced twice and put on Rainbolt’s magic anti-inflammatory cream (ketoprofen). The ankle definitely felt tender walking on it. I spent all day running CPK assays, it sucked.
0 miles

Thursday 12/02
10am- I ran 35 minutes in the morning to test the ankle. It felt really good, and I think it will be ok for the race on Saturday, but we’ll see I’ll certainly wear the safe spikes, even though they are really heavy.
5 miles

Friday 12/03
4pm- Dave Penney picked me up and brought me to the hotel, where we changed and headed out to the course. It was very windy and cold, but I ran about 35 minutes and then put on my spikes for 4 strides and some drills. It was nice to see Dave again, I don’t think he has seen me run in about 10 years.
5 miles

Saturday 12/04
2pm- Canadian Cross-Country Championships – 2nd place. The race went out very conservatively because of the wind I think. We were 3:10 at 1k and then 6:15 or so at 2k. Things started ratcheting up around 3-4k when I went up to the front with Simon Bairu and we started pushing the pace. It was pretty much Bairu and I all the way to 9km, when I started to feel really bad. Reid was up there for a while, but I think the surging got to him. At 9km, Bairu put about 25 meters on me pretty quickly, and it’s as if I settled for 2nd which was the most disappointing part of my race. I finished ok though, and I felt very good at the finish, not very tired at all. I think I needed one race before this one and I may have won the race. But Oh well, my training and fitness is going in the right direction. After the race I did not cool down, since I was immediately chaperoned to doping control and I stayed there for two hours. That night was fun at the post party, good times.
9 miles

Sunday 12/05
OFF – recover from the race
0 miles

Week Total – 35 miles