Waiting at the airport...

so it looks like i didn't have to worry to much about making the 35 minute connecting flight since they decided to go cancel the first flight anyways. Apparently Chicago is getting hit pretty hard by old man winter and all flights in and out of there were delayed. So I'm sitting right now at the airport in Toronto waiting the extra two hours until the flight takes off.

Damn.

Boston registration for this year is closed now. Oh well. Life goes on.

Going to Napa...

So I'm heading to Napa! I'm leaving Friday and have no idea what I'm going to do when I get there. I've a bit worried about a 35 minute period in which I have to make a connecting flight in Chicago though. It was with either this or me having to catch a really early flight out or spend triple the airmile points to catch a direct flight. I have no idea what I'm going to do when I get there so I"m basically winging the whole holiday.

Running since Saturday was uneventfull. I decided to do my 12 mile long run on Sunday outside. It warmed up a bit and the sidewalks were clear. i realized that I haven't run outside in two weeks and figurered I should get one done before the race. I did the same route I did a few weeks ago of12.1 miles and it took me about 1 minute longer, but my HR was about 5 beats higher. The run a few weeks ago was before I got sick.


Yesterday, I did a 6 mile recovery run at the gym and today I did a 7 mile GA run with 2 miles @my Boston pace. The Boston pace portion was done at a HR of under 170 for most of the run which is a good sign. When I did these last fall before my first BQ attempt, it was closer to 177. Of course the running on the treadmill is a bit different than running at the track so it may not be a fair comparison.

I'm still trying to decide if it's worthwhile to go for another BQ attempt or to try and scale back to something a bit more modest. If I hadn't got sick, I would be trying for sure, now I'm just not sure.

Still deciding...

So I still haven't decided if I'm going to Napa next weekend. I still haven't booked a flight yet.The reason being that I've been trying to figure out if I'm coming down with a cold or something. I've not feeling completely okay and have a bit of a feeling of unwellness. I've been trying to figure out if it's me just recovering or if it's me on my way to something worse.

So this past week for training was pretty uneventfull and consisted of:
Tuesday: 7 miles recovery
Wednesday: 2 miles recovery, + 4 miles (6:48 pace) + 2 miles (7:13 pace)
Friday: 5 miles recovery with a few 45 seconds bursts at 6 min/mile pace

These were all done at the treadmill at the gym. I switched into a new pair of shoes and it's been causing me a bunch of weird pains in my legs and I've been giving myself some painful massages over the past few days. I'm planning a 12 miles long run tomorrow at the gym so hopefully things will be okay for the run.

So I requested to take next Friday and the following Monday and Tuesday off. I'm not sure that it'll be granted since it is quite short notice. It usually hasn't been a problem in the past, but with the recent merger at work, they may be doing things differently now.

MoreTreadmill Running

Did 17 miles inside. It's not so boring with the televisions if they're actually showing something interesting. Today interesting distraction was "America's Best Dance Crew". I'm sure it would have been even more interesting if I could have actually heard the music they were dancing to.

Anyhow 17miles done. Started out at 6.5 mi/hr (9:13 pace) for 2 miles, bumped it up by .1 mi/hr after that every mile until 7.5mi/hr (8:00 pace). Maintained that pace for 4 miles then did 2 miles@ 8.3 mi/hr (7:13 pace) which is my Boston pace. An older guy was using the treadmill beside me and his treadmill kept picking up my HR monitor signal and I think he thought he was having a heart attack when he saw the 150 show up on his treadmill! I had to explain to him the problem. The Boston pace portion was done at a HR of about 170, though it was getting to around 175 right near the end. I think I get excited when I realize that I only have a couple minutes of running left and it shoots the HR up. Anyhow the 170 HR is a good sign cause that's what I think my HR should be while doing marathon pace which means that it might be possible to go for the BQ attempt. I'm just not sure that I've done enough LT running to improve the stamina required to hold it for 26.2 miles though.

Again I noticed with my run today and the recovery run yesterday that I seem to be nailing a 180 cadence. I think it may have something to do with me spending time stretching after each run. Before I would just do a couple of quick stretches, but this past week, I've really focused on trying to stretch my hamstrings using different methods. Depending on how I point my foot while stretching, I've found that I can increase the stretch on the hamstring.

Lastly congratulations to Ryan who set a PR and BQ'd at the Last Chance for Boston marathon!

Recovery Run

5 mile recovery run at the gym today. I considered doing it outside since it was bright and sunny with no wind but a little bit cold at -7C. Started out at 6.5 mi/hr for 2 miles and then bumped it up by .1 miles every mile after that. I've been thinking that it's better if I do my runs indoors to get me used to running in warmer temperatures. I think it'll be easier to adjust from running in warm temperatures to running in cold than vice versa. Speaking of which, the long range 14 day forecast for the night before the marathon is a low of 3C which is actually pretty good. I have to wait until tomorrow before I can get an estimate of the high on the actual day of the race, but it's looking to be no higher than 15C which is about perfect marathoning weather. Hoping that there's no wind or if there is that it's a tail wind.

So went to the little get together yesterday and everyone at the new firm seems genuinely friendly and looking forward to the merger. I still have some doubts myself. The other firm is moving into new downtown office space in the autumn of 2009 at which time we will then join them. This means that it's going to require a bit of a commute for me.

Happy V-day!

Headed back to the gym again to try and do some intervals on the treadmill. Did 3 miles warmup at about 9:15 pace and did 3x1miles @6:18 pace. Was panting pretty bad on the last one. Then finished it up with 3 and a bit miles @ 9:00 pace for a total of about 10 miles. These intervals were done at a pace that was about what I did last fall so I'm hopefully in the same shape that I was in last fall.

Took another step towards running the marathon. Booked a hotel. Lucky enough to get a room at the host hotel but it's $209 a night for 3 nights. It's not even the peak season! That's crazy. I can always cancel it without penalty which is good. I may try and get a cheaper room somewhere if I can find one. Still looking at flights. I just might have enough airmile points to cover the flight if I don't mind taking a red eye home. Not sure if I should make a real vacation of it and stay a couple extra days. It seems a long way to go just to run a race and not do anything else.

Turnover

Did 5 miles of recovery on the treadmill today. Ran in the Nike Free's again. I'm not sure what happened but I was able to get my cadence to 180 while running at a pace of 9:15 min/mile. I can barely do that while doing LT pace. I think the combination of the Nike Free's and me having done an LT run yesterday caused my muscles (and brain) to remember how to turnover quickly.

There's been an interesting turn of events of work. As some of you may know, I work at a l aw firm but am not a l awyer. The firm is a very small boutique that specializes in i ntellectual property. Well we were told on Monday that we are "merging" with another much larger full service firm. In essence, we were bought. I'm not sure what to think. We have all been invited to attend an "informal" get together at the other firm on Friday where there is supposed to be "no agenda". I guess we'll see.

LT run

So I'm still considering the marathon in 3 weeks. Decided today to try to see if I could hold an LT pace for what I should be running for a BQ time since I'm still thinking there's a possibility of a longshot attempt at a BQ.

I did a 15km race back in August and averaged 6:49 pace so I thought I would try and see if I could hold that pace for 4 miles at what my LT heart rate should be of less than 180. Most of my LT runs lately on the treadmill have been at 8.6mi/hr which is about 6:58 pace. Had to do it at the gym today cause the weather outside is just a nightmare. I did a 4 mile warmpup and then set the treadmill at 1% elevation and 8.8 miles an hour for a 6:49 pace. The HR hit 181 a couple of times towards the end but i seem to have handled it okay. I was thinking of trying a simulated treadmill 10k race on Saturday to see if I could hold a pace which would translate into a BQ time. But I don't want to bite off more than I could chew since I haven't done any interval running in a while. Trying to suddenly do 6:30 to 6:35 pace might be a bit of a shock to the legs and I don't want to risk an injury.

Also you'll note that I've kinda changed the blog back into semi-anonymous mode. There's a reason that I'll probably let you in on in a little while but there's a need for me to be a little bit unsearchable.

On the treadmill...

10 days since my last post. Whoops. So I recovered from the cold and I've cut back on the mileage and squeezed in a bunch of shorter runs. Basically, since my last post, the runs have went like this:

Feb 2: 5 mile recovery
Feb 3: 14 mile long run
Feb 5: 5 mile recovery
Feb 6: 4.5 mile GA with 2@ LT pace
Feb 7: 6 mile GA with 4@ LT pace
Feb 9: 5 mile recovery
Feb 10: 20 mile long.

So today I did something I've never done before. A 20 mile long run on the treadmill. Longest previous treadmill run was 16 miles. Wasn't quite as boring as I thought it would be. Had to take the treadmill route cause it was windy as heck today and really cold outside. I'm in no mood to try and tackle the weather outside. It was also quite mild on Saturday and all the snow and crap turned to slush which just refroze this morning the sidewalks nice skating rinks. It's been a tough winter so far. Apparently, we've received as much snow this winter as we've received in the past two winters COMBINED and winter is not even over yet and there supposed to be another 10 cm coming on Tuesday.

So you might be wondering why I did a 20 mile long run today. Well I'm rethinking my decision not to do the NAPA marathon on March 2. I don't think I can BQ, but I think I might be able to PR. I was PO last year with not being able to PR and if I can PR now it would leave me a few months to build up to a solid base prior to attempting another marathon cycle for the fall. I'd like to try and get to a base of about 50-55 mile prior to starting marathon training, which would allow me to hit 70 miles/week or so for peak mileage. Since 55 miles in the past would have been my peak mileage, I think I'm going to need a couple of months to get the body use to it.