The Strength Session Finished Second

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I ended last week’s post by saying Ha Ling was waiting.

It snowed.

Not a dusting. A proper late-April dump that ensure the trail would be more frustrating than fitness building. So I went to the road instead and ran hill repeats. Ten of them. Up and back, up and back, until I’d collected 256 meters of vertical on pavement instead of alpine trail.

It was not Ha Ling. It was what Thursday had available.

I’m not complaining about the snow. Well, maybe a little. However, spring in Alberta is always a crap shoot. You train in the mountains long enough, you stop treating weather as an obstacle and start treating it as information. Thursday told me: not today. I said fine, and found the next best hill.

Muskoka

By Friday I was somewhere else entirely.

I was in Muskoka — Lake Country, Ontario — for a speakers retreat. A few days with people who do similar work, in a place that exists specifically for stepping away from the noise. Lake of Bays. Birch trees. Cold water. The kind of quiet that doesn’t happen in cities.

There’s something worth naming about that context. The work I do is about human connection, helping people build it, understand it, use it as the variable that changes everything. A retreat like this one is that work made real. I’m creating connection with other people while, if I’m doing it right, maintaining connection to myself.

For me, maintaining connection to self includes moving. It includes the run. It includes not abandoning the physical discipline that keeps me grounded when everything else gets loud. I can be fully present in a room full of people all week, and still need to get out alone in the morning and put in the kilometers. Those two things don’t compete. They reinforce each other.

Friday was a 4am alarm, a 7am flight from Calgary to Toronto, then a three-hour drive to Lake of Bays. I was out of the house before the sun was up and didn’t stop moving until I was standing at the edge of a lake in Muskoka twelve hours later. I got a 30-minute run done that evening. Late, tired, but done.

The strength session didn’t make it. That’s the honest version. You leave your house at 4am, you travel across two time zones, you drive three hours, you show up for the people in the room — and by the time you have thirty quiet minutes to yourself, the strength circuit loses. I ran because running is the thing I will always find a way to do. The strength session finished second.

That’s two Fridays in a row now. I’m keeping track.

Saturday

Saturday morning I ran 24.3 kilometers through Muskoka. 2 hours and 32 minutes. 415 meters of vertical. Heart rate averaged 152, which for that distance and terrain is honest, aerobic, controlled effort.

It was one of the better runs of the year so far.

I didn’t know the roads. I didn’t have a route planned. I just ran into the lake country and let the terrain decide. Rolling hills, forest roads, the kind of morning that exists for exactly this. No agenda other than time on feet. No mountains, no drama, just a long run in a beautiful place that I was lucky enough to be in. I ran in shorts and a tee shirt outside for the first time in a long time. It poured rain. I got soaked. I loved it. The guys laughed at me when I got back to the house. “Did you go for a swim?”

Some of the best training days happen somewhere you didn’t plan for.

Week 2 Reality

The numbers: 58.4 kilometers, 1,015 meters of elevation gain, one strength session out of two.

Two consecutive weeks running about 30 percent over the BASE phase target. I know coach Claude flags that as a concern, but I am so f’ing ready for this. The first month of a training block is supposed to feel like you have more in the tank he says. I do. Oh, man do I ever and I love it. Peak weeks are months away. I’m not supposed to be a hero in April but I feel good and suspect my peak weeks will just be at a new level.

The volume felt good. The vert was solid, 1,015 meters against a 600-meter target, split between Thursday’s repeats and Saturday’s long effort. Nutritionally the week was consistent. Nothing to flag.

The Strength Problem, Week 2 Edition

Last week I said strength work needs a better system. This week I missed it again.

Same day, same pattern. Wednesday session happened, 47 minutes, lower focus, core work, done. Friday session didn’t. Travel ate it.

I want to be careful here because I already told you last week that travel isn’t an excuse. I meant it. A 7am flight is a real logistical constraint, and a three-hour drive after landing is a real day. I’m not going to pretend I had six free hours and just chose badly. Friday was genuinely compressed.

But here’s what I also know: the Friday session is specifically designed to travel well. Short shakeout run. Then a bodyweight circuit that requires nothing but floor space. No gym, no equipment, no weights. I’ve done this template in hotel rooms and conference corridors. The barrier is low on purpose.

The constraint on Friday wasn’t access. It was energy and decision-making at the end of a long travel day. That’s honest. And two weeks in a row means it’s a pattern worth taking seriously.

I know what this looks like at kilometer 120 of FatDog when the trail is steep and uneven and my quads need to be there. The mountains don’t care what happened on my calendar in April. They just present the climb.

Week 3

On the road again. Already in the plan, the system I built knows where I’ll be and schedules bodyweight sessions accordingly. No gym required. No excuses available. It’s already accounted for.

Tuesday is the first real tempo session of the build: 10 minutes easy, 20 minutes at tempo, 10 easy. The first time this block I’ll be running with actual intention around pace. BASE phase is mostly Zone 2, building the engine quietly, teaching the body to work efficiently at lower intensities. Tempo is a reminder the engine needs to rev, not just cruise.

Ha Ling is still there. Buried in snow right now, but still there. I’ll get back to Canmore. The mountain will still be waiting.

It always is.

The mountain doesn’t adjust. The distance doesn’t change. I am the only variable that can adapt. And adapt I will.