Yesterday marked the start of this year’s actual training. Outdoors, back on the road! The last 2-3 weeks I’ve been warming up on the treadmill, but that’s nowhere close to the outdoors. I hate treadmills. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no easier way to put your knees through unnatural pain! But I had to suck it up and slowly get my legs to the legset (kinda like mindset!) that the season is coming. So, yesterday was the first run outdoors following what has been a brutal winter. Add to that my considerably prolonged break since a painful initiation to plantar fasciitis mid last year. Yesterday also happened to be almost 100 days to The Whole Enchilada 50K Ultra in Durham, on the 20th of June. Finally, the weather started to feel like the end of winter at +10c. All put together, I was not going to miss this day to get outdoors and run in the freshness (or is it actually a dirty mess?!) of the melting snow and clean air!

Slowly prepping with a few 2k’s and 3k’s on the treadmill, I wanted to do a proper 5k to kick this off. I started at Burnhamthorpe W & Confederation heading south, turning right on Conf & Central Parkway west, at Michael Goetz sec school, towards Mavis Dr, but turning right on Grand Park Drive just 100m before Mavis, hitting Burnhamthorpe Rd W, coming back to Burn & Conf. That is exactly 3km along residential areas and back at the busy Mississauga downtown intersection. Then I turned left and ran on Conf for another kilometer till Rathburn, finally turning right on Duke of York Blvd, wrapping up the 5k exactly at the Celebration square. This 5k route is among my favorites, not so far behind Riverwood. Come the next few weeks when all the ice melts and Riverwood is safe to run on, I could combine the two routes and eventually get to 15k ranges.

Here’s to a great season!

Cheers!