The EPIC junk food run: McDonald's and Easy Cheese

What good is any diet if it doesn't have a cheat day built in? It's hard to say, but since going Bulletproof I haven't felt a need to cheat on my diet... and yet, I decided to drive south into the United States of America for an EPIC junk food run! My main goal was to secure American McDonald's for my lovely partner who cannot eat at Canadian McDonald's because of allergy restrictions.

Montana.  After crossing from Saskatchewan into Montana I quickly realized that I no longer had phone service! Luckily the border guard gave me maps of Montana and North Dakota after a search of my car and examination of my credentials confirmed that in fact I really was going to kill a Saturday going on an international junk food run. The border guard strongly advised me to cross into North Dakota where I would have better junk food options.  So after filling the tank in Scobey, Montana, I literally pointed the car east and drove... and drove... and drove...

and I drove some more, and then passed through a few small towns before reaching ND.

What: McDonald's
Where: Williston, North Dakota

America. The land of all day McDonald's breakfast. It was bliss to have my first Big Breakfast in several years.  Though truth be told, aside from the biscuit and hash brown, I wasn't too impressed.  I accomplished my first task when I grabbed some American hamburgers for the entire family.

What: Easy Cheese
Where: Albertson's in Williston

Now this just falls into the category of totally unnecessary. I picked up a "can" of this cheese as well as some bacon Ritz crackers and enjoyed a meal of bad bad bad food.  For dessert I had two Reece's and one Snickers candy bars.  I washed them down with a can of Diet Pepsi!

After that, however, I could eat no more. My body, which had put up with too much, wanted actual electrolytes like potassium and calcium, not the mysterious ooze that is Easy Cheese.

So, I grabbed a few more cans for the kids--they loved it, as well as some halloween candy and Tupperware for the excess McDonald's food.


The trip home was long and foggy. I was met with near disbelief when I spoke to the border guard upon re-entering Canada. I'm a very transparent person, so I knew my car would be searched once again after telling them I was on a junk food run.  After the search one guard smiled and said "You must really love your wife."

Driving back to Saskatoon in the dense fog was the toughest part.  In Regina I had a Gu gel... and let me tell you, Gu is useful even when you're not running.

In retrospect, was it worth renting an SUV and driving 1200k for a junk food run?  Financially, it was the sort of trip that would make an accountant cry. But you only live once.

The end of winter

The rare slope in Saskatchewan.  This particular shot was taken on the trails south of town.  Regular Saskatonian runners (and cyclists) will recognize probably every hill anyway. 

What's left of the snow girdles the trail.  It's surprising how far out of town you can get so quickly.

Under the south Circle Drive Bridge over the the South Saskatchewan River.

I made it back to Nutana only to find that, for some reason, The Room is going to be playing at The Roxy Theatre as part of their "bad movies" series.

After I finished my 21 kilometre run, I hopped on the bike what I had hoped would be another 50 clicks.  Alas, I lost my enthusiasm once I reached the unpaved portion of Spadina Crescent.

On the way back to the house, though, I stopped to snap this pick.  Soon enough the snow will be a memory... I hope.

Beef Research Station? ... cancelled 2015 Saskatoon Police Marathon and dirt roads

So I'm running along a dirt road here in good old #Saskatoon and what do I come across? A "beef research station". University of #Saskatchewan #beef #strange

A photo posted by John (@misterspalding) on Apr 29, 2015 at 2:43pm PDT

For the longest time I've wanted to explore a stretch of dirt road off Attridge Drive here in Saskatoon, but for whatever reason just haven't gotten around to it... until recently.  There is something nice and different about reducing the pounding of the long by sticking to a dirt road.
This kilometre-long path has the occasional stretch of hardened bicycle-dug rivets that seem to disappear just at the point where they become annoying.  And that's the thing about dirt roads, they're unpredictable with all the sharp rocks and stones that you come upon.
The path continues into Sutherland "Beach" (this is Saskatchewan, remember that) and down through a grove of trees onto the asphalt-paved Meewasin Trail.
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Today emails went out to those of us who have signed up for the 2015 Saskatchewan Marathon.  I started to feel that familiar nervous feeling I get when I realize I'm going to be racing.  Although the term racing is a funny one... I mean really, what are we racing against?

*
The 2015 Saskatoon Police Half Marathon was cancelled due to inclement weather (i.e. heavy snowfall).  It really was the perfect storm as we had been experiencing Spring weather for quite a bit of time--to then have a half marathon wiped out all of a sudden because of something like that really sucks.  I did not register for this year's race (though I was definitely looking forward to being a spectator), and it's a good thing because not only was the race not postponed, but no refunds were issued either.  My position remains that races should be postponed, not cancelled.

Winter in Saskatchewan is coming within hours...

(top is Celsius, bottom is Fahrenheit)

As I write this post, a few puddles remain on the paved alley behind the confectionary adjacent to the yard of my apartment complex.  These puddles will freeze tonight and likely stay frozen until the spring.  That's quite a thought considering that how much snowy precipitation we're going to see over the next five-six months.
As it is now, we're right on the tipping point of winter.  The change from not-freezing to freezing is almost imperceptible (unless you are water), and yet it transforms the landscape for the city's runners quite a lot.  And as I've run plenty of times on snow and ice, I'm not really too concerned.  But it should be said that my next run (tomorrow morning) will be done with a temperature somewhere in the high teens (Fahrenheit).  It would be nice if things didn't get any cooler than they are about to get, but let's face it, -30 or -40 are real possibilities--not sure how I feel about running in such weather.

On the other hand, I've upgraded to Saucony Guide 7's (which were on clearance at Running Room).  If it gets cold enough, I may skip an outdoor run to review them, though such a review would prove fairly worthless given that the 8's are now available.

Brainsport's Gingerbread Run is scheduled for November 22nd here in Saskatoon.  I hear that the race is completely sold out--I might have entered the 10k race, but I'm not in race shape right now.  The Saskatoon Road Runners just had their prediction mile run as well.  Were I to predict my mile, I think 7:45 would be about right.

Right now my goal is to get into marathon shape, and that means building up to running distances beyond 21k--so far I have yet to breach that threshold.

Humboldt recap + Injury!

It just so happens that we arrived in town at the same time as the carnival!

So I'll start with this: until this spring I had a twisted pelvis.  Chiropractor fixed it, but I'm still adjusting, which means I'm susceptible to things like IT band syndrome and so forth.  Naturally on my third consecutive weekend of racing things didn't go so well.

About 1.5 kilometers into the race, my right knee became an issue.  At that point, unable to really run, I walked the rest of the way--I might also add that instead of doing the full 10k route, I "switched" to doing the 5k and removed my race bib.  As of now, I'm not going to be doing any more racing until I'm at least 90% healed.  

So my next adventure will consist of strength training and cross training.  Lunges?  Check!  Squats?  Check! Mountain biking?  Check.

As it turns out, back in May I won a 6 month gym membership to Good Life Fitness (good, evidently, at any of their locations in Canada).  So we'll see how that works.

More important than the gym will be actual cross training so that I keep my conditioning.  If there's one thing I don't want to do, it's feel gassed after only running a few miles.

Today's race, the 2014 Conexus Sizzler Strut, was in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, which is about an hour east of Saskatoon.  Despite the fact that flooding appears to be a serious issue in Humboldt (at least when it rains), the city's elevation is actually greater than that of Saskatoon.

Jasmine and I camped out--despite the rain--under a small pavilion.  All the tent campsites at the local campground were flooded pretty bad!  The ground under the pavilion was so saturated with rain water, that when I removed one of the tent pegs, a small clump of wet earth came with it.

The second night we stayed at Pioneer Hotel Motel on 9th Street.  I'm not a huge fan of hotels/motels, but this one was pretty good and old-fashioned.  Notable was the diner on the ground floor--Sunday morning breakfast buffet was $10.99, and worth it.

The rain came and went all weekend, leaving behind vast puddles, soaked streets and an even more lush greenery than before.  On the way back to Saskatoon, we encountered this:

So that's the recap for today.  It anyone has has been battling Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction, feel free to reach out to me.  I'm always eager to hear how folks have dealt with this.

More photos from Humboldt:

Saskatchewan Marathon Day Photos

Check out the Recap page for the official race recap.