I arrived at the Pembina Running Room (ran out of Keneston last year) and received my hat. It also came with a 15% coupon attached. Immediately upon exiting the store, an older gentleman with his wife noticed my knee braced and inquired about my injury. I chatted with them for a bit, telling my story while we waited for the run to begin. The regular group was to run 10k to the east into St Vital park. Everyone else was running or walking west down the bike path to Waverly and back. I quickly dropped off my keys inside the store and fell behind the running group. I took up the rear as everyone ran through the parking lot to the bike path. Once I reached the bike path, I took the the right as to let other pass me on the left should they choose. Then came the annoying part. There was these 2 mothers running with 2 young girls while one mother pushed one of those big wheeled running strollers with a 3rd child inside. Now they were running behind me, and the girls kept running ahead of them. One at a time they would run ahead of them and pass me on the left. They would then pull to the right, slow down in front of me and turn to face their mom. I would have to dodge them as they kind of jogged back or stop right in front of me. This happened 4 times as they alternated doing this. I got really annoyed, but as we approached a downhill, I gained some speed and eventually lost them. They never caught up the rest of the run.
So I've ran this route several times last summer, but due to my injury, I haven't done so this year because my distance never took me this far from home. It's a hilly route, as opposed to the Keneston location's flat route I ran last year. I started off running 5 min, then walking a minute, but after a 3 intervals, I was walking a little bit more. There wasn't much to say about this run, as it was pretty uneventful. I ran 5.14 km in 39:50. My pace was 7:44 min/km, which is faster than any of my runs this spring/summer thusfar. None of my runs had a pace under 8:20 min/km. I'd have to attribute running with a group, as I want to perform better in front of others. At least it's an improvement. I'm going to continue running just 5-6 km, until I get to a pace that I'm happy with, and then I'll start to increase my distance.
I arrived back at the running room and they had various refreshments for our post run. Ice tea, some juice samples, power bar samples, orange and apple slices. I picked up some take home samples of a vegan protein shake, hemp seeds and a deodorant.
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| Post run selfie in front of the Running Room |
This year will be uneventful in terms of running. I have booked my ACL reconstruction surgery for September and will be off work for about a month. I have no plans on running any races this summer, as I'm not running any long distances. I also won't be able to run the WFPS half in October, so I'll end up selling my bib. My friend Oskar from Calgary also had knee surgery recently and their insurance covers the cost of a cooling machine. Here, I'd have to rent one for approximately $125 for 3 weeks. He was kind enough to lend me his. He conveniently lives close to some other friends in Calgary and dropped it off. It was to be picked up by some of my friends visiting Calgary during their Western CA/US roadtrip. Borrowing the cooling machine will be better since I won't have to return it if I need it longer.
