Tonight I cranked out a Mount Doug gutbuster trail run. It was dusk when I left and a balmy Victoria 17 degrees (Celsius). My new shoes felt great and I pushed pretty hard. Early on my twilight trek I became aware of a shadow in the Douglas Firs bounding along side of me. The small white tail doe was on my same trajectory and seemed to say not only am I faster but I don't need trails either (it proves that no matter how hard you train there is always someone or something that can run further, faster, and in hairyer terrain). Not 10 minutes later I spooked two lazy does rounding up large mouthfuls of lush spring rain fed grass. The deer hardly raised their heads as I tore past. I began to push up the backside of Doug (north) when a small yearling started at my poky approach. That was 4 deer in less than 20 minutes of running. The only wildlife observed over the next half hour were the sedentary bipedal mammals who drove to the summit of Doug to observe the transformation of day to night. I often see interesting expressions on peoples face as they see me run by. I can't quite figure out what is going through their minds, it must be something since they definitely react to my presence. Perhaps it is my musty shirt that doesn't see enough time in the washing machine. I didn't see any more deer until I was about to pop out of the trail onto the road for my last leg of the run. In the middle of the trail broadside to me was a large buck in full velvet. I was quickly approaching and he could care less. As the gap was quickly diminishing I wondered if this buck was going to move or if he was going to attack me. Finally with only a few meters remaining between him and me he rotating his back end just enough to let me past. I was almost tempted to reach out and touch his back with my finger tips. I wimped out last second but he was close enough. I never experienced a deer so fearless. Perhaps generations of limited predators on the island and cohabitation with us hairless creatures have nurtured a healthy population of deer that know they are safe from all but cars and the occasional stray cougar. I love running the trails of Vancouver Island. By the way my new shoes handled the terrain with ease. There was one close call with an ankle roll but it mainly dealt with a poor foot placement as a result of the shrowd of darkness descending over the forest.
I just finished reading a book by Ernst van Aaken Called "Van Aaken Method". I am a huge proponent of long slow distance and started working towards the "Lydiard Method" way of training earlier this Spring. Van Aaken was experimenting with long slow distance before Lydiard, as early as the 40's. Though both methods are quite similar there are some slight differences. I experimented with both over the last bit and have merged the methods into a plan that works well for me, with my plan resembling Lydiard's method the closest. These endurance centered methods are the extreme opposite of the tempo or interval training methods that experienced popularity in the middle of the last Century, the premise of which is to run many anaerobic intervals (using more oxygen than you can breath causing lactic acid to form) without full recovery between intervals. What is Long Slow Distance? In a nutshell the theory involves running every day and running as much mileage...
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