Ottawa Army Run 2009. On Sunday I took part in the Army Run in Ottawa. It started off with a bang - literally - they shot off a cannon to start the race. It was a beautiful course that started downtown and ran along the Ottawa canal all the way to the experimental farm, around Dow's Lake and then onto Queen Elizabeth Drive back downtown. Dave followed me the whole way cheering me on every 5kms or so. It meant a lot to have someone on the course with me since I was running alone.

I started out pretty strong setting a new personal best for the 10km with a time of 73'49". The second half of the run slowed down as I was having a lot of pain in my lower back. My new orthotics have been great for my feet, no pain there, but they are a killer on my lower back. I think I need to make an appointment to check them out. I came across the finish line at 2:47:22 coming in 317/334 in my age/gender group (yay not last!).

After the race Jen, Melanie, Jim and I went to Le Nordik to soak in the nordic baths. Jen asked about massage cancellations and luckily there was an opening so I had a 60min swedish massage to aid in recovery. Thanks Jen! I love massages! We stayed at the spa for almost 4 hours - I love that place - especially the hot tubs.

Check out happy Taylor in the hot tub with the sunglass burn:

Milestones abound. You know it's kind of great being a 'newish' runner or at least a sucky one. Improvements happen all the time! When I was a kid I always got the "Most Improved Player" award just because I sucked so much to start off with. Since I've recently become more comfortable running a slowish pace for longer periods I've recently started to challange myself other ways: running faster, or longer. Today I beat my record and ran continuously for 40 minutes straight plus I beat my 5k personal best record which was previously 36'05"!

New Milestone. Yesterday I had a good run. I did my 5 minute walk warm-up and then started into an easy jog on the account of my leg injury. And this something surprising happened...I didn't feel like stopping. So I jogged 35 minutes straight! And I could have gone longer but my scheduled run was up. I felt good, I was able to ignore pretty much everything and think about something other than running and the moment (don't worry I still kept an eye out for cars and bears and such...). Hopefully I have more runs like this one in the future. More good news, my thigh doesn't have pain which is great since my long run is scheduled today.

My Fastest Runs

Before Today's Run:

After Today's Run:Check it out! I left today with the mission to run fast instead of my usual mantra, "just survive." As you can see I destroyed my 1 mile and 5km personal best times. I have a goal of completing a sub-30min 5km run at some point and have decided that after the marathon training is over that is what I will concentrate on. This is just a step to completing that goal.