16.7 Mile (27 km) Long Run

Today we did a 12.7 mile long run around the core of London. Here was our route:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=5245614

It was an early start for me, though, as I got up at 5:30 AM to drive from Lucan to GoodLife downtown for the 7 AM "Boston Breakfast Club" where I joined about a dozen runners training for the 2015 Boston Marathon in April. We got an extra 4 miles (and change) before the rest of the group started with about 100 runners total.

It was not fun running. While the temperature was great (+1 C.), there it was snowing lightly mixed with a bit of rain, so it was pretty hard to avoid hitting puddles on the streets. Sidewalks were pretty much impassible -- roads were the only option to make anything like an acceptable pace without rolling an ankle.

My average pace for this run was slowwwww at 5:47 per kilometre. Just about every step forward included about a 2 inch slide backwards. Not fun. But we got through it.

One of the challenges with this run was with rude and dangerous drivers who didn't feel they needed to share the road. 99% of the drivers were fine and would slow down or move to the centre lane when available. But all it takes is that 1% to be rude and/or dangerous to make the run not a lot of fun. The good drivers would move over into the centre lane. But the occasional driver would not give us any room nor slow down. One guy (who had two wide open lanes) actually stopped his truck with about a foot of space between the truck and the snow banks. I got him to roll down his passenger window and asked him whether he knew what the law is. He said he didn't care what the law is -- so I'll be reporting Mr. 333 5MW to London's finest.

Next time, I'm going to carry my Contour GPS helmetCam and clip it on when traffic is approaching -- or maybe find some way to secure it to my body so that it can record the entire run. The good thing about the Contour is that it shows the time and exact location, so if we ever need to go to court, there is no question about the car, the driver and the exact situation. I'm getting just a bit fed up with that 1% who don't know the rules of the road.