Up for the challenge by FatFrank

Today was another act of total stubbornness as I just took off at 6:30am heading for Montreal to run the Course Populaire de Lasalle, a road race, that wasn’t even close to being scheduled. Sometimes, those impromptu runs are the most enjoyable and they can sometimes create some suprinsingly fast times. So here's how it started out: Friday while we were out having a few drinks at the University bar, Dodu asked me if I wanted to pace him on a 10k, a distance he never runs, to get him to run a good time for once in his life. He was looking for a 33:20 so I agreed to take hang around with him so he would have someone to run with. So everything went as planned for the first 5k in 16:35 with a nice pack of 10 about one minute behind the leader (Baghdad) who took it out like a wild mongoose. I was feeling relaxed and ready to roll and since there was still a good pack to stick around with Dodu, I thought to myself that I might as well react to the move that was being made. The pack somewhat splitted and we reached the 9k mark with only 4 guys still fighting for second place. I ran the last K in 2:56 and managed to run away from the other 3 and take silver in 32:30.

I was kinda expecting a good race since training went well in California even though I had long hours of work. Heads up for the sneaker lovers out there, ASICS are bringing out an amazing line for Spring 2010. A new line of lightweight trainers will be available as well as new racers. An injected shoe named the Thunderbird (which they will probably change) will definitely become my new baby. Same for the Speedstar 4, an all red one piece vamp light trainer that will be just awesome for the fast pace stuff.

In other news, my buddy Alex was running at the World XC championship in Jordan on Saturday and placed just short of the top 100 spots while still placing second Canadian.