1/2 Marathon Training

Pretty cool place eh? This is where I did my long run last week, and where I'm going later today. When it's just too cold to run outside, ie with a wind chill of negative 20Celcius, I've been running on a treadmill at the Univ of Ottawa. But I can't handle being on a treadmill for distances longer than 6k, or just over 3 miles. That takes me a little more than 30 minutes, and unless there is something good on tv, I start going insane. So I found this indoor track where I can avoid the cold and not go insane as quickly. So far my longest run is 16km (10 miles), which I did last Saturday and will do in a couple hours. I've run 5 days a week, without missing a session, since Feb 6th. In other words, I'm in week 10 of my 16 week training schedule. I started out running around 21km per week (13 miles) and am now up to 39km this week (24miles). So far I've run a total of 243km (151miles) in about 26 hours 30 minutes. My average km isn't that fast, 6:30, or 10:30 min per mile. I'm really excited about training while on vacation. I leave for NYC tomorrow and will run 5k, 6, and 7k. In Toulouse I will run 5, 6, 7 and 12km. In Nice I wil run 6 and 18km. In Annecy, by the Swiss border, I will run 6k twice. In Paris I will run 6, 8 and 18km. It'll be great to get to know these cities in this way!

Colbert Report

Stay up late on Monday night and watch the Colbert Report on Comedy Central; I'm going to be in the audience! If you've been reading my blog over the years, then you know that this will be the third year in a row that I've got tickets to a tv show taping for my dad and I. Last year dad and I went to the Daily Show, where Adam Sandler was the guest. In 2005, we saw President Bill Clinton on David Letterman, with Ringo Starr as the musical guest. It's hard to top seeing a former President and a former Beatle, and it probably doesn't, but I can't imagine a funnier combo than seeing former Dem. nominee Sen. John Kerry face off with Stephen Colbert! While I really would love to see both people in the photo, I am pretty pumped about

going to this taping. If you're interested, as a teenager I went to a few other tapings, including seeing: Martin Short on Letterman, the CBS Cosby Show, Spin City, Ron Howard and Stephen Baldwin on the Daily Show. I was also at a Phish concert that was later used for a Vh1 special and a Springsteen concert that was part of an HBO emmy award winning program, not to mention the times I've been in the background on the news during my political travels. I guess I've seen a few interesting things in my day, eh?