What’s it like being a shape?  A man probably in his mid sixties asked as I was running down Dufferin Street this afternoon on the final stretch home from my run. It was the furthest I’ve ran since mid December and still was only just over 8 miles. During my run I was thinking about how out of shape I have gotten these past 6 weeks. I took nearly a full month off from running. I would go out here and there, but no more than 15-20 miles TOTAL since the middle of December. “Gah, I’m outta shape” I keep on telling myself these last few weeks I’d been itching to get out but never did. This was surprising knowing how much I look forward to runs, how much better I feel after and all that jazz.

As I past this man on the street I couldn’t think of what to saw in response to his query so what ended up coming out was “*Deep sigh* It’s a lot of work!” That’s all I had… I was worried of coming up with a smart ass remark and still I feel this was the best I could do but wasn’t that good at all.

Either way this encounter got me thinking how running skews one’s perspective of what “In Shape” really is. Here I am coming back from a ~8 mile run loving life that I was able to get out this afternoon kicking myself for not getting out sooner and thinking I am getting fat from taking 6 weeks off but to others and complete strangers I am like a super athlete or something and am in shape. 

Today these were my stats:

Definitely not by best but still something to be proud of for being able to accomplish. When you compare yourself to the best of the best you often forget that what you are able to accomplish is still something to be very proud of your self for doing. I am not saying don’t compare yourself to people better than you, there’s no better way for inspire you to do better but never loose sight of what you have accomplished yourself and be proud of that accomplishment as well!

Either way it was a great day for a run, I loved it and I also got some self-reflection going in regards to my current physical fitness and how other possibly perceive it. As well as I think today is my official beginning of training for this year’s Toronto Good Life Marathon this May 15th 2011! Anyone else running this one?

I’m pretty excited I get to do a nice run through High Park this morning. I haven’t really have had much time since I moved into the Parkdale area - I’ve managed to get one High Park run in. While looking for hill training routes around Toronto I came across this blog post on TorontoRunner.com with what seems to be a nice 27KM long run! I don’t have time today but maybe tomorrow I’ll test out the route, at least in the next week or so.

I have also came across a list of routes on the Running Room’s site with 38 routes sprouting out from the Bloor West store. Definitely something to look into.

Anyways I’m off to High Park and the Lake Shore for a run. Have everyones a nice long weekend!

I just registered for both Toronto Marathons this fall. The Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon and the Goodlife Fitness Marathon. Two marathons in 3 weeks seems like a lot but I ran the Ottawa marathon and than the Niagara Ultra 50km which was 3 weeks apart so I think I should be good, lets just hope that I keep up my training. 

Originally I wanted to be able to do both Toronto Marathons because there was serious talk about cancelling one of the marathons because there had been too much public complaint of road closers in the Toronto core. Serious, with all the talk about our race becoming overweight traffic congestion and drivers should never have the ability to prevent an an athletic event, especially one like running and marathons, they draw huge numbers into the city and give people goals to aim towards athletically, whether it is a 5km foot race or a ultra I feel the promotion of any physical activity should prevail. That is just my thought though. 

Anyways here are some pictures and my results from the Niagara Ultra and Ottawa Race Weekend that I hadn’t had time to upload until now.

Ottawa Race Weekend 

At Ottawa Race Weekend the following is what I was doing:

Niagara Ultra

At the Niagara 50km I ran the following:

 46 184 Jordan Shaw 4:58:00 LM-39 14/28 38 5:58 4:57:43 Toronto 

This morning I got out for one last long run before the Ottawa Marathon. I wasn’t pushing myself and did a 16miler. Also, after about a year of having a GARMIN Forerunner I finally installed the program to log my runs. It’s pretty amazing. As seen below for this run. If anyone is in the Scarborough area and wants to take a look/run some of my routes I have an account with MapMyRun and this route can be seen here. I don’t use their iPhone app for training but I use it to keep a more accurate and shareable route with others.

I am getting excited for Ottawa next weekend!!

Who’s run an ultra before? Is it worth doing? Was it harder/easier than you thought it would be? Any different training than a marathon other than ‘running farther’? Would you do another? I’m seriously considering them.