Race signup

Did 6.6 miles this morning including 11 strides. I was supposed to only do 10, but it's hard to keep track of them when one is running and I ended up doing an extra one by accident. I did a 3 mile warmup and then did 6 strides over the next 3 miles. I would do each stride then slow down to long run pace basically trying to recover while constantly running. By the end of the 6, I was going slower than recovery pace for the recovery portions, though the strides were getting progressively faster. I ended up doing the last 5 with walking recoveries. I probably should have eaten a gel or something before hand. My left knee was a bit sore afterwards and it's bothering me a bit now. I've been thinking of getting a sports massage or trying ART to deal with the knee pain. I've never had a massage before other than those free ones they give you at races. Hopefully, the massages won't hurt too much.

Oh yeah, I signed up for both the 15k race in August and the 5k race this weekend. I'm not sure what goal I should have for the 5k. My official 5k PR is 21:30 set about a year ago, but I also ran the first 5k of a 10k last November in 21:15. Last year, I did most of my interval workouts at what I was guessing to be my 5k pace of 6:40 min/mile which is about 20:42. I'm thinking that's about where I'm at right now. Will know for certain come Saturday...

And so it begins...

First day of an 18 week training plan. Pfitzinger's plan had 7 miles with 10 strides today and 9 miles on Thursday. I'm leaning towards doing a 5k race this weekend. I've done one the past two years before starting a fall marathon training program. There is one that is usually held in the beginning of June around the campus of a local university but they're not holding it this year due to construction. There's a 5k race about a 30 min drive on Saturday which would still allow me to maintain my schedule of a long run on Sunday which I'm looking at doing. So I thought it might be better to flip the Tuesday and Thursday planned runs to allow a bit of a taper, plus the strides would hopefully allow my legs to remember how to turnover more quickly.

So today called for 9 miles at general aerobic pace which I've always done at long run pace which Pfitz' says is between 8:00 and 8:45 min/mile for a 3:10 marathon pace (10-20% slower). I usually do this at a HR of less than 160 so I tried to maintain the HR to see where the pace is.

Lap	Lap Time	HR Avg		Lap	Lap Time	HR Avg
1	09:05.7	140		6	08:06.7	160
2	08:09.7	156		7	08:00.6	159
3	08:07.3	156		8	08:23.2	159
4	07:53.7	161		9	08:10.5	160
5	08:05.2	161		10	03:25.3	157

Pretty much where it should be, though I felt I was working harder than I normally would at GA pace. I'm not sure if I could hold this pace for 20 miles though. It was relatively cool this morning and a pretty good weather for a run so I wouldn't be surprised if the pace slows down over the next few weeks at this HR as the temps creep up.

Pfitz suggests some tune-up races for the last couple weeks of the marathon training. There are 3 planned in total. Checking around, there's a 15 k race and an 8k race on the exact days that Pfitz wants the races to be. Coincidence or what? The 3rd race will probably be a Yasso 800 workout which I did last year and found to be a pretty good predictor for the marathon. Anyways I mention the races because the 15k race is at an event I ran last year. In order to encourage early registration, they are offering those who ran last year an opportunity to win some prizes (including a $1000 New balance gift certificate). The deadline for early registration to be eligible is May 31st. I rarely sign up early for races (except for marathons that close early) though the prospect of free stuff is tempting.

Long Recovery Run Sunday

Friday: Did 2x1200 + 2x800 + 2x400 at the track with a short warm-up and cool down.

Lap	Lap Time	Distance	Pace
2	04:53.0	1200	06:32.9
4	04:51.2	1200	06:30.5
6	03:16.6	800	06:35.5
8	03:18.3	800	06:38.9
10	01:36.0	400	06:26.2
12	01:38.7	400	06:37.1

I still have a tendency to start off each interval fast and then slow down towards the end, except for the 2nd interval where it seems I was able to maintain the pace towards the end. The highest HR I hit was 189 which was during that second interval. Used 200m walking recoveries, except for the recovery between the last two 400m when I did a jog recovery. That resulted in the last 400m being tough. HR shot up and pace was down a bit, almost the slowest interval of the session.

Saturday: Did 5km recovery run.

Today: Did 15.5 miles at recovery run pace. I haven't been too happy with my reocvery runs these last couple of weeks. I usually try and do them at a HR of less than 150, but as of late, my HR has been in the low to mid 150's while doing them. I just haven't gotten used to what a recovery run should feel like with all the speed and LT work I've been doing these past few weeks. So today, I decided I would do my whole long run at recovery HR which is under 150. I thought it would be good to do this now, since my 18 week marathon training starts this week. Also this is the first time in over 2 months where I've run on three consecutive days, so it just made sense to take it easy.

Lap	Lap Time		Lap	Lap Time
1	09:40.4		9	09:04.7
2	09:25.9		10	09:13.6
3	09:22.1		11	09:26.7
4	09:23.6		12	09:22.6
5	09:35.1		13	09:23.9
6	09:22.8		14	09:22.2
7	09:23.0		15	09:29.9
8	09:22.1		16	04:48.3

So in terms of my marathon training plan, I've decided to use Pfitz' 18/55 mile plan again. I had wanted to try and do the 70 mile plan in the hopes that more mileage would lead to a better shot of BQ'ing in the fall, but thinking back to last year, I was barely able to handle the 55mile plan. I had thought of trying to split the difference like Ryan is doing, but coming back from injury and still feeling the odd ache and pain, I think it's best to air on the side of caution. I'm going to change the plan slightly over the next couple of weeks to accommodate a 5k and a 10k race on some of the upcoming Saturdays. I plan to do longish recovery runs the day after which shouldn't screw up the overall training effect. My hope is that the races will give me a baseline of my current fitness and allow me to determine come September if a BQ attempt is realistic.

Happy running all!

Perfect weather for a run

The last couple of weeks have had me doing a track workout on tuesdays and an LT run on thursdays. I decided to switch it up this week and reverse the order. My calf was still tight on Monday and Tuesday so I waited until today for the LT run. This morning was almost perfect weather for a run at about 12C with no wind.

I've been doing 2x2 mile intervals at an LT pace during the last couple of weeks. Today I wanted to try and do the 4 miles continuously.

07:05.2

07:07.3

07:07.4

07:09.3

These were much better than the last couple of times though my HR started drifting a bit high during the 3rd and fourth miles. I like that it was a fairly consistent pace throughout the whole run. This was encouraging since I was able to do this at faster than my Boston pace.

BTW, I received a VISA bill in the mail today dated November 2006. I obviously didn't pay it off on time which meant I ended up carrying a balance into the ever so expensive Christmas season. Stupid interest charges. I thought I'd just forgotten to pay the bill. Damn Canada Post. It must be a conspiracy between the post office and the credit card companies.

Long Run

Saturday: 5km recovery run
Today: 15.5 mile long run.

After doing a half last week at a fairly fast pace, I thought I'd push the distance to 15 miles this week and slow down. It's been almost 10 weeks since I ran that distance. Averaged a little under 9 min/miles while trying to keep the HR under 160. Did the run by the lake and it was quite windy in places. My left calf is still tight and has been for a couple of days now. Right now my inner shin has the same dull achy feeling that I felt a few months ago that eventually forced me to stop running. I'm hoping that the dull achy pain is really a result of the tight calf and that it'll go away once the calf loosens up and that it's not some symptom of another problem. I've been constantly massaging my calf and using an ultrasonic device I purchased a while back. I'm still not sure if the ultrasonic thing is actually doing anything, but i'm going to keep using it just in case it does.

Race pics!

They got around to posting race pics from last weekend. Here are some of mine.

Calf tightness

Redid last weeks LT run on Thursday. Still not up to doing 4 continuous miles so ended up doing 2x2 miles. Average pace was a little better than last week and the HR was a little lower so i'm improving a bit.

07:07.2

07:19.3

07:10.6

07:18.6

Based on my experience from last fall, I figure that my marathon pace is done at a HR of about 170. Therefore, in order to run a BQ time in the fall, I will have to be average this type of pace at a HR of 170. Right now, that seems very far off and would require me to drop my HR by 10 points.

After the run yesterday, my left calf tightening up. I think this is the same feeling I had that led to my recent time off, so I'm being very careful with it and trying to massage it as much as possible.

More speedwork

Did more track work this morning. Good thing cause we just got majoring dumped on with rain over the past few hours.

Lap	Lap Time	Distance	Pace
2	04:49.6	1200	06:28.4
4	04:07.0	1000	06:37.5
6	03:16.5	800	06:35.3
8	03:19.0	800	06:40.3
10	03:17.3	800	06:36.9
12	02:32.4	600	06:48.8

Had intended on doing 2x1200 and 3x800 intervals, but suffered a major side stitch part way through the second 1200m and had to slow down and cut it short at 1000m. Did 400m walking recoveries for the 1200 and 1000m interval and did only 200 m for the rest. I'd like to be able to do these with a slow recovery jog rather than a walk since I feel like i'm cheating when I walk. As for pace, I'd like to think that I'd like to be able to do these at a 6:30 pace which I'm hoping is my current 5k pace which is probably pushing it a bit, but hey I can dream.

Half Marathon Training Run

I signed up for the half marathon today on Saturday. I wandered around the expo with the intent of buying the same pair of shoes that I'm currently running in (i.e. last years model). I found someone that was selling them but not wanting to lug around a box, i decided to buy them after I was finished browsing. This was a bad idea, as I ended up buying two pairs of shorts, including a race ready pair, a running jacket and pair of socks that are "specifically designed socks to provide advanced performance for regular and extreme sports." Anyhow after spending way too much money on clothing, I ended up not buying the shoes which was the only thing I had intended on buying! Oh well!

Well I arrived kinda late to the start, that is, I had actually pulled onto the freeway offramp 45 minutes before the gun sounded, but unfortunately with the mass of cars trying to converge at the same spot, it ended up taking me 40 minutes to travel about 1km into the parking lot. I dropped off my bag and decided to head to the portta potties. I was in there when the gun went off. I had decided to do this as a long run, so it didn't really matter if i was late, so I took my time getting to the start line. It was about 10 minutes from the start of the race to when I actually crossed the start line.

My plan was to try and start off at my long run pace and slowly speed up to about 8 min/miles which is what Pfitz suggests should be the fast end of my long runs for a 3:10 marathon finish. My hope was to get some data to see how I improve over the summer.

Starting right at the back with lots of slower people proved to be quite the confidence booster as I ended passing lots of people throughout the whole race.

Lap	Time	Lap Time	Pace (min/mi)	HR Avg
1	0:10:19	10:19.1	08:18.2	164
2	0:15:22	05:03.3	08:08.1	165
3	0:24:56	09:33.7	07:41.6	166
4	0:29:56	04:59.9	08:02.6	169
5	0:34:45	04:49.0	07:45.1	171
6	0:39:37	04:52.1	07:50.1	172
7	0:44:28	04:50.6	07:47.7	174
8	0:49:39	05:11.7	08:21.6	176
9	0:54:03	04:23.2	07:03.6	174
10	0:59:04	05:01.0	08:04.4	171
11	1:03:47	04:43.8	07:36.7	171
12	1:08:36	04:48.5	07:44.3	172
13	1:13:18	04:41.8	07:33.5	175
14	1:18:00	04:42.1	07:34.0	174
15	1:22:54	04:53.9	07:53.0	174
16	1:27:46	04:52.5	07:50.7	176
17	1:32:36	04:49.3	07:45.6	176
18	1:37:07	04:31.7	07:17.3	182
19	1:41:47	04:39.7	07:30.1	182

The course was marked in km and I missed the 1 and 4 km markers so laps 1 and 3 are actually 2 km each. Laps 8 and 9 are a bit screwy since I forgot to hit the lap button till I had passed the marker so 8 is bit long and 9 is a bit short. The laps were generally okay though they were all a bit fast. The knee was holding up fine so I tried to do the last two km at LT pace. Final time of 1:42:09 chip time.

Temperature was cool and there was very little wind. It was kind of a bummer though as I had planned on trying to BQ at this marathon and the weather was almost perfect marathoning weather. Hopefully this stuff will be around come marathon day in the fall.

Long day

Just got home from work and I'm exhausted.
Did 7 miles total this morning with about 4 at LT pace, which has dropped off quite significantly since last year. Wanted to do 4 continuously, but realized at the end of mile 2 that i was in pretty bad shape. Ended up stopping for a 2 minute walking recovery.

07:16.4

07:32.5

07:27.7

07:37.3

It's been 7 weeks since I last did an LT run so I kinda was expecting this to suck and suck it did. Hopefully this will improve somewhat over the next 2 weeks as then I start an 18 week marathon training cycle.

I had intended to sign up for a half marathon this weekend to do my long run. Today was the last day before the price went up, but was still pretty expensive at $60. Unfrotunately I didn't get around to it until late in the day and when I tried to sign up, I found out they the online registration had closed which means I would have to sign up at the expo and pay $75 which is highway robbery! My brain isn't working properly right now so I"ll have to decide tomorrow. (umm, later today).

Speedwork

Woke up this morning to do my run. There's so much of a difference when I can get out in the morning where it's light outside and NOT cold. Looking back now, I don't know how I was ever able to motivate myself to get up during the winter months to go for an early morning run. I had planned on doing an LT and an intervals workout this week. I decided to do the intervals today.

Quick jog over to the track and started into it. I ended up doing 4x800m, 600m, 2x400m, 600m with 200m walking recoveries. Here's the HR and splits.

Lap	Lap Time	Distance	Pace
2	03:06.1	800	06:14.4
4	03:10.1	800	06:22.4
6	03:12.3	800	06:26.8
8	03:11.5	800	06:25.2
10	02:21.7	600	06:20.1
12	01:32.8	400	06:13.4
14	01:30.9	400	06:05.7
16	02:25.6	600	06:30.5

It was kinda hard to judge the paces for these things. I had wanted to try and do them at the pace I was doing last fall at about 6:40, but it was hard to judge. I started off each interval fairly fast and died off towards the end. For the last interval, I tried to maintain a constant speed which worked out a little better, albeit i was a little slower and still trailed off a bit towards the end. Though I thought these paces were a little fast, they are pretty much in line with what McMillan suggests based on my fall marathon time. Ideally, I'd like to run a 5k soon to get an idea of where my VO2max is. There are a couple in June that I'm considering.

My knee was a bit achy after the run so that's still a bit of a concern. I'm trying to stretch and strengthen my legs which I think has contributed to my recent knee issues since these are both things I've neglected in the past.

Thanks for reading!

Slowly getting there...

I did a 11.5 mile long run today. Knee's still bothering me a bit but not to the point where it changes my stride. My HR is higher than it usually is for my long runs but considering the long time off that's expected. During the second half of the run, I tried to get my HR down with the pace slowing down accordingly. I did a few minutes at tempo pace towards the end to see if the legs would hold up. It's funny cause the slight knee pain went away when I started running faster.

Mile	Lap Time	HR Avg
1	08:54.0	144
2	08:41.3	159
3	08:43.5	162
4	08:43.5	165
5	09:02.1	163
6	08:45.9	165
7	08:36.7	164
8	09:05.8	160
9	08:55.5	160
10	08:56.7	158
11.5	12:40.1	159

Total for the week is 23 miles. I was going to try and do 30 next week, but I think that might be pushing it. I think I'll try some intervals to get used to running faster since I'm considering a 10k in a couple of weeks.

Post-marathon

Saw this over at another blog.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-hCuYjvw2I

It's funny cause it's so TRUE!!!

Vacation Day

After a long week, i was able to take my day off. Drove across the city this morning to drop of my camera for service. I went to the zoo on my day off last week, but my camera crapped out which bothered me at the time cause it was a very expensive camera and it was out of warranty. A quick search on google revealed that the problem I was having was very common with the early versions of my camera to the point where the manufacturer posted an advisory on their website that they will fix the problem even if the camera is out of warranty. Only problem is it'll take approximately 4 weeks to get back.

As for running, I did 6 miles on Wednesday at about a 8:15 pace and did another 6 miles this morning @ about 8:45. I'm going to try and get into double digits this weekend. My shin/ankle pain seems to be gone, but there's still a bit of a nagging knee pain. But I think it's on its way to recovery. I've been trying every single quad strengthening exercise I can find on the internet and i now have DOMS in several of those muscles, but I think that's a good sign.

Just to add to the sad note about some other birds, there was a Canadian goose that had a nest in a little planter's box just outside my office window. I've been keeping tabs on her to see when her eggs would hatch, but I think an animal or something got to them as the mom was standing around, quacking (or whatever sound they make) and poking her beak into the nest earlier this week almost like she was looking for the eggs or the little guys that would have hatched from them. There's still another nest on the other side of the building in another planter's box that has eggs in them. Hopefully that mother will be more vigilant!