Exploring

18 miles in 2:37 (8:43 min/mile pace)

So today I had wanted to do about 18 miles. I'm getting pretty bored with my around home route and the waterfront route is getting a tad repetitive as well. I started driving downtown a few years ago for some of my long runs because i was training for the waterfront marathon. It is a bit of a hassle to drive down but I enjoy it. With a 10 mile race downtown today, i knew getting down there to my normal starting location was going to be a bit of a chore so I decided to try out the local trail system. I did some planning and my intent was to try and get down to Edwards Gardens which Google Earth says is about 9.5 miles from my home. I figured I could run down there and refuel and then head back.

With the relatively cool weather of late, I wanted to see if there were any water fountains on the route and if not, I wouldn't risk dehydrating since I'd still be able to survive with only one refill. I ended up losing my sense of direction and didn't quite get down to my final destination. I took a wrong turn and ended up running through an industrial park and stopping at a convenience store to buy a bottle of water. Route can be seen here.

Ran into the HR spiking problem again. It started right after i came to a fork in the trail and i stopped trying to figure out which way to turn (BTW, I turned the wrong way). When I started back up again, HR spiked which continued on till i stopped at the convenience store to buy water. I didn't really realize the HR spiking at the time, since the HR was at about 170 which isn't out of the ordinary for me. When it spikes, it's usually in the 180's or higher on a long run. On the way back, the HR was no longer spiking and i gradually increased the pace. Looking at the chart, I didn't realize the huge elevation gain and loss on this route. No wonder, it felt like I was working so much harder on the way back even considering the slight increase in pace.

So this was definitely something I think I could do again. The tree cover keeps the sun off and there's enough traffic on the trail to keep things interesting. There was only one fountain on the route that I could see at the 5 mile mark which I think is about perfect since if I had actually gotten down to Edward's Garden at around the 10 mile mark, it would mean that I could refill the water bottle every 5 miles or so. I was also thinking that I could drive to Edward's Garden and run from there to the south. Hopefully the elevation loss and gain wouldn't be too bad from there.

So I signed up for a 5k race this Friday. This week is supposed to be a cutback week for marathon training so it fits into the training well as I can treat it as a bit of a taper week. I plan to do about 10 miles on Tuesday, 7 miles or so on Wednesday with some 800m repeats and then the race on Friday. I'll figure out what to do next weekend depending on how the race goes.

Have a good running week all!

100 pushups

So the week so far has looked like this:

Tuesday: Did about 9.5 miles which included 4x1200m repeats done at 3:58 min/km. HR topped out at 186. I thought that doing longer repeats might help me build up some stamina to hopefully hold this type of pace over a continuous 5k.

Wednesday: Went to the Running Room "20 minute challenge" and did 2 miles. The Running room store hosts an annual event that encourages people to come out and be active. They give out free hats to people that attend. I don't normally run at the running room and honestly I only went cause i wanted to get the 20% off coupon that comes with the hat, since I need a new pair of shoes. I was going to go buy the shoes this weekend, but I received a flyer in the mail yesterday from another local running store saying that they are having their annual sale starting next week. I think I bought 3 or 4 pairs of shoes at last years event, and I'll probably do the same this time. The shoes they are advertising are actually cheaper than what I would get at the Running room with the 20% discount so I guess I'll wait.

Thursday: Did 10.3 miles which included 4 miles at LT pace (7:04, 6:54, 6:56, 6:54). Did the old shopping mall route. Ran into the Tachycardia (hr spiking) thing during mile three, but was able to run through it. I would normally slow down or stop, but it didn't seem to effect the running so I continued. It stopped right after a slowed down after LT mile 4. I should probably get it looked at at some point.

Saturday: 6 miles recovery @ 9:15 pace.

I thought it might be useful to work on some core and upper body strength, which I really have not done any of in the past few years. Today was my first attempt at the 100 pushups program. I've read a lot of other bloggers doing this and thought I'd give it a try. Well I was only able to do 15 pushups on my initial test and I couldn't get through the first day workout which required 5 sets which means I'm a skinny weakling. I guess I'll have to keep repeating the day 1 workout till I can finish it. I'll probably work in some upper back exercise also to balance things out. I'm sure that when I start those, I'll be equally as inept. Gotta start somewhere...

Just one more attempt...

Tuesday: Did 9 miles which included 10 strides around the local track. Stride the straightaways and slow jog the turns. These seem to be getting more fluid. Leg speed seems to be increasing.

Wednesday: Did 4 miles recovery at 9:23 pace

Friday: Did 10.2 miles at about 8:38 pace in the evening.

Saturday: Did 6 miles recovery at 9:42 pace in the morning. This was a bit tougher than I expected. With a little over 12 hours from the last run, I was dehydrated and not really recovered that well.

Sunday: Did 17.3 miles by the lake at 8:51 pace. I drove to the lake to do this run. An Indy Car race was on at the lakeshore and I wasn't sure if the trail to the west was closed or not so I ran east instead. I forgot my HR watch at home and ran only with the garmin. Been signed up with Run Saturday for a while, but didn't like that I either had to share everything or nothing. I don't need people knowing where I live. They seemed to have fixed this by offering privacy locations where if the run starts or stops close to a certain point, it won't include the map. The engineer in me likes the graphs and stuff the site generates.

I consumed a crap load of candy this past week and think I put on some weight. Wanted to try and burn some of it off. I didn't really eat a lot on Saturday, but tried to keep super hydrated. Plan was to run this at about 9 min/mile pace. I started to increase the pace towards the end though when I was pretty certain I wasn't going to bonk. It helped that it was kinda cool and a little breezy. Lots of people out at the beach today.

So I'm looking at making one last attempt at a sub 20min 5k at the end of the month. I was eyeing the Acura 10miler/5k which is next weekend but that might be a bit too soon and I don't like the fact that it would mess up my long run. I'm currently looking at one on the 24th which is on a Friday which means I would still be able to get a long run in on the weekend. It would also allow me to focus on some interval work these next two weeks.

Changing it up

I've been finding it hard as of late to get up in the morning to do my training runs. Lately I've been doing them after work. I've been a faithful follower of Pfitzinger's marathon plans for a few years now and it's gotten me where I need to be. This is the 3rd straight year that I will be doing one of his plans and looking at his schedule, it's just gotten a little too familiar, not necessarily boring, but it's just sort of like going through the motions. Three years ago, I was all gung-ho about the plan and looking forward to each run, nowadays it seems to be ho-hum, and I think this is what's keeping me from getting up early in the morning.

So I intend to still follow the plan somewhat, but will modify things to throw in some variety. For example, this was supposed to be 32 miles week (week 1) of Pfitz 18 week/55mile plan , but I wanted to try and see if I could do week 3 which is 40 miles in case I decide to try an earlier marathon. Rather than follow the plan, I did the following

Wednesday: 8 miles with 10 strides

Friday: About 10.5 miles with 4 at LT and 4x400m at fast pace. I ended up splitting the 4 LT miles into 2x2 miles because the HR was spiking. LT portion was at about 6:57 pace. Then threw in some 400m repeats at 6:05 pace, the first three with 400m slow jog recoverys (about 2.5-3 min) and the last one with a 200m recovery of 1.5 min. My goal in doing the repeats is to try and make 6:25 pace (ie, 20min 5k pace) feel somewhat easy. I'm hoping to get the recovery periods shorter.

Saturday: 6 miles recovery

Sunday: 16 miles at about 8:24 pace. Did this as a progression run. Did this by the lake. Knowing that this was going to be tough, I overcompensated by drinking too much the day before and this morning which means I had to stop to use the facilities. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that the city workers strike which is currently ongoing which has affected things like garbage pickup also affected the washrooms on the trail; they are all closed. Thankfully, at least the water fountains are still on. So after taking a pitstop in the bushes at the one mile mark, I realized I had to go again at about the 7 mile mark, but lucky for me, the temporary garbage dump that the city had setup in one of the parking lots by the lake had porta-potties for the picketing strikers. I was never so happy to have that garbage dump there. Anyhow, back to the run, the first 8 miles were done fairly slow, at a little faster than 9min/miles. The HR was less than my recovery HR. Miles 9 through 13, I increased the pace to the high end of my long run HR which turned out to be at about 8min/miles. With 3 miles to go, I then proceeded to try and do the progression portion where I start to increase the pace, mile 14 done at 7:32 pace, mile 15 and 7:13 pace and mile 16 at 6:57 pace. I could start tasting ammonia towards the end of mile 16 which I only have experienced at the end of 5k races so I'm pretty sure i was tapped out speed wise and energy wise. Still I"m pretty happy with the run. More details of the run can be seen here.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day to all! Just finished watching Sarah McLachlan perform in Ottawa. She happens to be my favorite singer.

Haven't updated in a week so here's what happened.

Last week looked like this.
Tuesday: 7 miles GA with 10 strides
Thursday: 9 miles GA
Saturday: 6 miles recovery
Sunday: 14 miles

Week so far was i did 8 miles with 10 strides today.

This is the first week of an 18 week marathon training in preparation for the Hamilton marathon which is on November 1. I'm still on the fence and may decide to do the Toronto one instead which is two weeks earlier. It would require me to jump ahead two weeks into the plan, but i think it's doable. I like the Hamilton one because it fits in nicely with the Pfitz tune-up races which are on Saturdays. I've had problems in the past with finding races on the Saturdays, but the November plan lines up nicely with two 10k races on Saturdays for the 2nd and third tune-up races. It also lines up nicely with a Woman's half marathon for the first tune-up race. I don't think they exclude males, it's just that they don't give prizes to males. I don't really care about prizes, but I think it would be extremely awkward to be do the race as a male being severely outnumbered. I probably would just do a tempo run instead of the race.

I'm looking at some summer 5k, but they're all quite pricey. When did it become okay to charge $50 for a 5k race? I just want a 5k time. Don't need a shirt or medal; I have enough of those.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day all!

It seems at the beginning of each summer training season, I always have this one really miserable long run where I didn't drink enough the day before and didn't drink enough during the run. Well today was that one run. I wanted to do 14 miles today and though I got through it, I ended up having to walk lots at the end. I still haven't gotten used to the warm weather yet and I was sweating buckets. I carried only one thing of bottled water when i probably should have brought a gatorade bottle or my fluid bottle. My HR was spiking all over the place and i was just too dehydrated at the end. I guess I just need these types of runs to force me to remember to keep hydrated. The run is here.

Lesson learned (again).

Run the Lake 5k Race Report

I've previously done the 10k that's part of this event. This was the first time I've attempted the 5k. I arrived to a steady downpour of rain and blowing wind and had some reservations about running it. Picked up my bib and a timing chip. I think this was the first time they've used chips. They had previously timed it manually. Did a bit of a warmup, not much, probably about 10 minutes or so with some all out strides. My HR was spiking which i usually find happens when i suddenly start exerting a lot of effort. I was eventually able to get it to settle down prior to the race start and then lined up, trying to jog in place to keep the HR from dropping too low. By this point, the rain was coming down lightly, but there was a heck of a wind coming from the west. Since it was an out and back course, the first half went directly into the wind.

As usual, the goal was to try to maintain 4min/km. The km markers were off so the splits aren't quite right. First km was about on pace. Garmin measured it as being 1.02km and a time of 4:02 which was 3:57 pace. Now usually, the first km one is jockying for position and you don't really feel the effort level, that comes during the 2nd km.

During the 2nd km, the effort level was a bit much due to the head wind. I tried to tuck in behind a few people, but they were all going a bit too slow, so i had to pass them. 2nd km marker was measured as being 964m, with a split time of 4:12 which was 4:21 pace. Oh well, there goes the sub 20 attempt. I was having trouble with my hat as i had to keep my head looking at the ground to keep it from blowing off. I should probably have flipped it around so the bill was at the back. I normally wear hats to keep the sweat from getting into my eyes, but on such a short race and the fact that it was fairly cool with the wind, i probably didn't need the hat.

3rd km includes the turnaround and has a generally uphill. There was a group of about 5 or 6 people that passed me at this point. I should have tucked in behind them, but it seemed like they were doing quite the pace and i wasn't sure i'd be able to keep up. Looking the finish times, they finished around the 20 min mark so in hindsight, I should have stuck with them. Once I hit the turnaround, the wind now became a tail wind and the going got a lot easier. The marker for this was way off. It measured 1.13 km with a split time of 4:53 for a pace of 4:19.

4th km was much faster. With the wind at my back and a gentle descent, I got a second wind. The 4th marker was measured as being 969m with a split of 3:57 which was 4:04 pace.

Last km was Ok. I played back and forth with one guy. He ended up passing me for good with about 200m to go and I just didn't feel like trying to pass him again. The last split measured as being 964m with a split of 4:01 for 4:10 pace.

So overall time was 21:06 which was 4:13 pace or 6:47 min/mile. The highest the HR got was 188 which was during km 4 where I averaged 186. My average was less than 185 for all the other ones. I know that my max is probably around 192 and I'm not sure how much extra speed I could have obtained by maxing the effort level. I came in 3rd in my age category and won a medal! There were only three people in my age category, but hey that's not my problem. I'll take what i can get. You can see the race here.

I was able to average 6:46 pace for a 10km about a year ago, so this is somewhat frustrating. Of course at this point last year, I had just come off of BQ'ing and a good marathon training cycle and had a lot of endurance. Now, not so much with the junk milies that I've been putting in while readying for my Boston and Ottawa marathon fun-runs.

I was thinking of trying again next week, and though I probably could have run it a little faster, the truth of the matter is that I'm pretty sure I could not have raced it a minute faster to get below 20 minutes. As a result, the sub-2o attempt will have to wait a little while until I can get my LT threshold back to a level similar to where it was last year. Not sure how long it'll take, but I'm hoping that a month of marathon training will be sufficient.

Warming Up

Did 12 miles on Sunday at slightly slower than 9min/mile pace. I decided to take a different more hilly route than i would normally do. I managed to do the last .3 miles at about 6:40 pace which got me thinking about warming-up. Being able to crank out an elevated pace (albeit short) at the end of a 12 mile run had me realize that my having had such a touch time right from the start of the race on Saturday may have been a result of not being properly warmed up. Due to the nature of the airport setup, I did the race with zero warm-up.

Today, I did 6 miles with 4 at LT pace. I wanted to try and keep the mileage low this week so I decided on 6 miles top. I did the less than one mile jog to the shopping mall and started into it, but the pace was really feeling tough. I managed the first mile in 7:16 and then did the second in 7:29. My HR was spiking. I decided to take a 2 min rest break which caused the HR to return to normal. Then was able to do 2 more miles in 7:04 and 6:47. It's remarkable the difference in effort between the two 2-mile repeats. I do know now that one mile is not sufficient for me to be warmed-up for LT type pace. In the past, I've usually done at least 2 prior to an LT run.

So, it looks like I'll be trying another 5k race this Saturday. It's by the lake. I've done the 10k there before and will try to get a decent warmup prior to that.