Saturday, January 23, 2010

The Smells of Running

I am on a roll, as the daily smells wafting through the air during my runs continues. As you may have read, initially it was manure, the next run was the combination of gelcoat and acyrlic paint from a local business. I even said, I wonder what will happen tomorrow. I wasn't expecting anything honestly; however, I was first greeted with the smell of bark mulch as parks management had apparently covered the usual first 2.5km of gravel with bark mulch within the last few days likely (it wasn't like that last Saturday).

The heavy rains we have had lately caused some flooding and random streams to flow all over the place, which in turn took out parts of the trail. They rebuilt the trail and then put down bark mulch. They even altered part of the trail by taking out a sharp corner around a tree that led onto a wooden bridge. Anyways, I am not a fan of the fresh bark mulch smell as it irritates my nose and throat. I was thankful when the trail when back to its original footing after 2.5km.

I hit a couple of parks when I complete my long runs and today was no different. In one of these parks, I came across the second smell of the day. Adam Campbell recently had a facebook status about the same thing. The second smell of the day was..... weed. Yep weed. Now I don't know about any of you, but I personally am not a fan of the smell, especially when I am running. I think it was a car full of young men that left the parking lot as I went by; however, I am not sure. Nevertheless, I had my fill of smells for the day. Oh and I hit the lovely bark mulch on the way back at the end of my run too.

That is now 3 days of unusual smells, so hopefully that is it! Speaking of running, some may wonder why I never really discuss my training details on this site. I generally kept it rather simple with "good workout, good week, bad workout" etc. Well, I have decided to keep these details to myself out of respect for my coach. Training details are boring to read anyways, right D? So to sum up this week, it was a down week and as usual with down weeks the tiredness caught up with my body; however, I finished off the week strong feeling excellent for my long run this morning.

Race #2 of the VIRA series is tomorrow at 11am. The Cobble Hill 10km. Good luck to everyone running. I am feeling better about not racing. I am seeing the results I want in training and I don't need all these little races to help me attain my goals. I am still looking forward to seeing some wicked awesome results from friends though. Go Westwood Running Club and also Bastion Running Club.

Before I go, I must let you all know that Steve, whom I know is a favorite especially with Todd and D (not sure who Charisa prefers) growls. Yes that is right, my kitty growls. He growls at his brother Socket when Socket comes near his favorite toy that he drags across the room. I am not sure whether I will be able to get that on video as it is pretty quiet so I would have to be close up, but trust me.... he growls.

Off to watch the Canucks, hopefully beat Chicago. Our top 3 D men are out with injuries. No Mitchell, No Salo, No Bieksa. 1-0 Canucks right now.

1 comment:

D said...

I LOVE the smell of weed, but definitely not when I'm running. Err... well it's the smoke that really bugs me, not the smell.

As much as I don't enjoy reading the details of other people's training (especially yours *cough*), I think the most important thing is that an athlete's workouts are a coach's property. It is not the athlete's to share and I applaud you for showing your coach such respect!!