Happy Canada Day Weekend

It's been a few days since my last post.  I was travelling for our Canada Day weekend.  We have an annual golf tournament in Guelph, Ontario with some friends that I travel with every year to Myrtle Beach.  This year's tournament co-incided with Canada Day and a 50th birthday celebration for one of our golfers.  I took advantage of the trip to visit my grandson and you can see him enjoying the fireworks in this picture.  I was able to maintain my training regimen while golfing twice and travelling 600 km (375 mi) over 4 days.  I ran 8.5 miles on Friday, 5 miles on Saturday and 5 miles on Sunday.  All 3 were great runs but Friday's was particularly nice;  an early morning run along the river in Springbank Park in London Ontario. This is one of my favourite routes. My weekly mileage was 39 miles which is above target during my base building.

Monday brought a return to reality...to work...and to the heat and humidity.  We have forecasts in the low 90's all week with a slight chance of rain on Friday.  Humidity makes the temps feel over 100 every day.  Last night, we scheduled our run at 8:00, hoping for cooler weather.  It had cooled down to 90!  My training called for a 6 mile run and, I'm happy to report that I completed it at an 8:40 pace, burning 839 calories in the process. I drank 16 oz of water along the way and a bottle of G2 when I finished. I wonder if you burn more calories in hot weather?

Tonight, I am supposed to do 4 miles with a rest day tomorrow however I am switching these days and cross-training tonight as we start our summer hockey schedule.  For the next 7 weeks, I have 90 minutes of hockey on Wednesday evenings.  In 2 weeks my marathon training kicks in to high gear as we start hill workouts on Tuesdays for 5 weeks, followed by track workouts for the next 5.  This is in addition to ramping up mileage.  Throw in the odd round of Saturday morning golf and that makes for a very busy summer!

I am experimenting with diet to see if it has any noticable effect on training, time and weight loss.  I have noticed that through increased mileage and regular hill workouts, I have lost 5 lbs since early April.  While I am not overweight (or big-boned LOL) I was happy to see this weight loss and would like to trim another 5 lbs to get down to 162 lb.  I am trying a diet that is less dependent on red meat.  Typically, I would have red meat about 4 times per week, including the odd hamburger for lunch.  I am trying to cut that to twice per week, replacing it with chicken, turkey or tuna.  I will re-introduce fish into my diet this week, likely salmon cooked on the BBQ.  My veggie intake has been good but I am increasing fresh fruit in my diet.  Finally, the most challenging part for me is reducing certain carbs such as breads and starches.  This week I started eating quinoa as a replacement for rice and potatoes and really like it.

That's all for now, other than a "shout-out" to my youngest daughter who, at 18 finally got her first summer job. Way to go Emma! I hope she finds out that making money allows you do do a lot of things that you can't do otherwise- concerts, clothes etc.

Despite the heat, I am still running to feel youg.