After yesterday’s run, I spent a lot of time with recovery- stretches, ice, and my new love; the foam roller. My legs felt back to normal this morning and although my end time has now jumped from around 2:05-2:10 at the beginning of the challenge to 2:15-2:20 this week, I’m feeling pretty good and the time difference doesn’t seem all that big. I was lucky with the weather again – 18° and sunny.

I didn’t mention in yesterday’s post about the bird that attacked me on Day 16 so thought I would mention it in this one instead. Along the Waterfront Trail in Port Credit, there’s quite a few parts of the trails right in the thick of nature. As I was running closer to Marie Curtis Park, a black bird swooped down from a tree trying to grab the top of my head (this has happened three times previously before where the bird actually grabbed my hair). It is actually terrifying and I hate birds so it makes it 10x worst. So on today’s run all I could think about was another bird swooping out of nowhere and grabbing the back of my head. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s happened enough times to me that the fear is legitimate. I caught myself looking back a lot and up in the trees and almost running into a bush a few times. I did try to distract myself with my audiobook, but the thought of the evil bird that attacked me yesterday was at the back of my mind.

There was only about 3k left in my run and I ran to a public bathroom on route. Before I entered, I looked up and saw a nest, then saw a robin swoop right in front of my face. It scared me so much that I fell forward and bashed my knee on the door to the bathroom. If anyone saw me I probably looked like an idiot, but it still gave me a heart attack. Not a big fan of the birds right now and didn’t even think that this would ever be the top of my mind during this 70 day half marathon challenge. Maybe I’ll start wearing some sort of protective headgear for the remaining 53 days 🤔

Probably the most “interesting” thing that’s happened on my run so far. Despite all that, my end pace was 6’26k/13’30mi after 2 hours 17 minutes and 41 seconds.

*Follow my journey as I run 70 half marathons consecutively on behalf of Oneiric to raise funds for the Canadian Cancer Society. Any donation big or small makes a huge difference. To Donate, visit our #RUN70 Canadian Cancer Donation Page.