Weeks 36 and 37: Very wet

So, once again it's been a couple of weeks since my last post. The weather has been pretty miserable for the last week and a half. There has been lots of rain, and as a result, poor road conditions for running. It's definitely getting cooler here, most days it's 3 or 4° C, and the winds have begun picking up. The sun is setting now at 7 p.m., so my runs during the week are all in the dark. These factors combined have not made running much fun of late. I am also in the process of turning our sealift crate into a shed, and the rain and wind have not helped that any.

Week 36 I only got for four runs, as I skipped Sunday due to rain. That was the Labour day weekend, so I did get out for a good run on Monday. All the runs that week were 12 km or more; in all I did 48.75 km at an average pace of 4:32 minutes/km.

Week 37 I did five runs, but due to the weather two were close to my minimum (about 8 km each) and my pace was generally slower. I did 48.70 km at an average pace of 4:46 minutes/km, putting me at 1,347.4 km so far for the year, and a deficit of 77 km. I've been able to trim 10 km+ off the backlog each of the last three weeks, so if I keep up that pace I hope to be caught up in another eight weeks or so.

My mother is in town visiting this week, so that's been nice. Alexa has really been enjoying hanging out with her grandmother. She leaves on Wednesday, and then we leave for Toronto on Friday for a week vacation. It looks quite a bit warmer there, so I'll try to get some good runs in while I'm down south.

Weeks 34 and 35: Getting back into routine

So, clearly I'm out of practice with the whole "one post per week" thing.

Week 34: I ran on Sunday, and then was scheduled to leave for Sanikiluaq bright and early on Monday. Arriving at the hangar shortly after 6:00 a.m., we were told there were mechanical problems with the plane. The call was finally made that we wouldn't be leaving that day, so I went into the office. The trip was shifted by a day. I didn't make it out for a run on Monday, between the early start and the need to go to bed early to prepare for the early start on Tuesday.

Tuesday we got away pretty well as scheduled, and arrived safely in Sanikiluaq. I did not get out for a run, but did get out early Wednesday morning (recorded using a handheld GPS, since I had forgot my GPS watch at home). Sanikiluaq is pretty quiet before 7 in the morning! We returned to Iqaluit that day, although didn't leave until 8:00 p.m., getting home around 11:00. I did another run Thursday, and my fourth for the week on Saturday. Although there was a trip scheduled to look at carving stone sites on the weekend, that ended up being cancelled, which means my travel for work is now done until January!

My total for that week was 39.10 km at an average pace of 4:37 minute/km. Although it didn't make much of a dent into my backlog, I also didn't lose further ground.

Week 35: I got five runs in this week, completing 50.2 km at an average pace of 4:38 minutes/km. This puts my total at 1250, with a deficit of 97.6 km still to make up.

Alexa is currently working on her next three teeth, poor thing. She continues to develop quick; today she made it up all the stairs in our unit (perhaps 20) by herself (with Daddy following closely behind). We also took a video this week of Daddy reading a book called "Peek a who?" to her - she loves the part at the end that says "Peek a you!", which has a mirror. The cute part is that she kisses the baby in the mirror.

My mom is going to be coming for a visit in less than two weeks, so we're all looking forward to that. And shortly thereafter we'll be leaving for our trip to Toronto to see our friends Ryan and Karolina, among other things (like the zoo!).