Here is the 12K run that we did on Saturday. It went out the Golf Club Road and gave everyone a good dose of hills. I know it was cruel, but what doesn't kill you ...

Monday run

I took the day off work on Monday, thanks to a lot of built up overtime from the last few weeks. It was a wonderfully relaxing day, where I played with Izzie and reintroduced myself to my wife. In the evening, when everyone was in bed I tried my first "speed" workout in quite some time. I opted for 3x800 to get myself back in the swing of things. My running has been sporadic at best recently, so I just wanted to see how things would go. The snow, ice and wind conspired against me at a few points but in the end I'm glad I got out.
My 800M splits were 2:59, 3:15 (ran into a fierce headwind) and 3:05. My 800M splits are normally low 2:50s but I'll take them on a night like last night.
My lack of serious running in the last two weeks may take me out of the running for Ottawa. I still have to make a final decision but I don't want to travel all the way there for a race that I'm not prepared to run.

Marathon stats

Marathonguide just posted the 2006 marathon statistics for the United States. Now I know this is a Canadian running blog, but I think there is some really interesting information contained here and I can't imagine our stats being much different than our friends south of the border.
For instance, the marathon is continuing to see growth in the number of participants. The number of people toeing the line in the U.S. in 2006 grew by 3.7 per cent with almost 400,000 people finishing marathons. I'm really not sure what to make of the gender breakdown and perhaps we read much into them other than both men and women are flocking to the sport. The number of male finishers increased by 3.8 per cent compared to a 3.5 per cent increase for women.
The average time in my 25-29 age group is 4:24:22, which makes me feel a bit better about my own times! Anyway, the fastest age group is men between 40-44, which is 4:20:44.

Running Room -- Nutrition session

For all my Running Room half-marathon friends, I don't have any notes to post from Barb's session last night. However, she did leave some helpful material that I'm going to try and photocopy for those who couldn't attend last night's group.
As well, I don't have a 12K route for Sunday just yet but I plan to post it before Friday.

Happy Valentine's Day runners!

I'm not sure if Saint Valentine was a runner, but I assume he was. All those endorphins must have stimulated, ahem, our good saint. But I digress. Last week was the opening of the legislature, which meant my running really suffered. I missed my Tuesday night class because that coincided with the Speech from the Throne. I didn't get out until Friday, which was a 5K tempo. I finished in 20:48 or so, which was a bit slow for my normal pace but I was happy considering the long lay off and the rough conditions. I got out for my long run on Saturday night. I intended to run 20K but I stopped at 19K because I was running loops of the neighbourhood and I just couldn't stomach running down Goodine one more time. And on Sunday, Elle and I went out with the group for 9K. They all did 10K, but Elle decided she wanted to take off her gloves around 7K and didn't want to put them back on, so I cut the run a bit short and just met up with everyone after the run. And finally, last night was our running group, so I got in our 4K run. There is supposed to be a storm tonight but I'm really hoping to get in another run.