tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-304152222024-03-13T14:13:01.096-04:00R-Cane Training BlogARCANE (adj.): known or knowable only to the initiateArcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.comBlogger565125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-13576714800520172412017-06-18T23:45:00.000-04:002017-06-18T23:45:09.213-04:00REVEL Mt. Charleston Race RecapSo the saying about what happen in Vegas....<br />
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Late last year I was contemplating what spring race I wanted to do. The usual standby being either Goodlife or Mississauga, leaning towards Mississauga as I hadn't done that one in a while and I'm still not too convinced that the Goodlife course is or has been properly measured. While browsing around the Runner's world forums late last year, I got my first hint of this race in Las Vegas as supposedly a fast course. It fit in well with the training schedule and was the week before Goodlife/Mississuga. To summarize the course basically has a 5000 ft (about 1500m) elevation drop from start to finish.<br />
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Truth be told I was contemplating making another BQ attempt but was pretty sure I wouldn't be in much better shape at the end of the training cycle as I was last year so ultimately was going to expect the same result of running a BQ time, but probably not making the cutoff. The way I looked at the 1500m elevation drop basically meant that there would 1500m that I wouldn't have to run as it was essentially given to me free.<br />
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The plan was originally to see how I did at Around the Bay and if I couldn't hold a 3:10 marathon pace for the 30k , then I would think about doing Revel Mt. Charleston. No I didn't quite hold a 3:10 pace (barely) during ATB and it felt a bit harder than I would have liked so I started giving serious thought to the downhill race after ATB. The problem with that was the race sold out at the end of January. However I continued on with the training targeting Mt. Charleson hoping that I would get in off the wait list. . On a whim, I also decided to post an ad on Craigslist seeking a bib just before Around the Bay. The transfer policy for the race is quite generous letting people transfer right up until practically race day. I figured if someone didn't contact me by the time the taper would start, I would extend my training by one week and do Mississauga. Luckily a few days before the taper, I was able to secure a bib. As it turns out there were a few people looking to unload their bibs on the race's facebook page the week leading up to the race (as this was after the refund period) so I think if you're quick to act and monitor their facebook page like a hawk, you can probably secure a bib quite easily even if it's sold out.<br />
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I decided to travel down on Thursday for the Saturday race. The weather forecast was looking okay. Just above freezing at the start (at 7000 feet) and kinda warmish 16-17C at the finish line by the time I was expecting to finish. This was the best I could hope for because the temperatures in Vegas in the week prior to the marathon had highs in the 30's. The wind was also co-operating coming from the north west as the race generally run in an north north easternly direction for most of the race and a southernly direction at the end. One thing I hadn't planned on but started to worry me was a collegaue was telling me about the difficult time he had when visiting his brother in Utah and that it took him a week to get acclimated to the thinner air and here I was giving myself one day to adapt. I hoped that the downhill portion would make up for the thinner air and any difficulty I had.<br />
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Picked up my bib on Friday at a smallish expo. I did need to buy some gels which I did. I also got to try a neat device called the Rapid Reboot which is compression system. You basically stick some hipwader like air bag things around your legs and it pumps air into the bags which compress your legs. Felt like a good massage. Would love to own one but at $1000US for the system, not cheap.<br />
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Then decided to drive the course to get an look at the elevation and to see if there were any hills. The course profile is a bit deceiving since 5000 ft of elevation drop tends to minimize the appearance of any hills. There were a few which I took a mental note of.<br />
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Got some take out pasta to eat back at the hotel but had difficulty eating. Forced myself to eat even though I wasn't hungry. <br />
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Race started at 6:30 in the morning and buses were leaving the finish line at between 4 and 5am. This actually was okay for me as I tried to stay on east coast time which means wake-up time was 3:30am or 6:30 east cost time so that wasn't an issue. I stayed on the strip and required about a 20 minute drive to the bus pickup location which was in NW Vegas. I was expecting the casino to be empty at 3:30am in the morning, but it was still quite lively. Got a couple of strange looks dressed up in my oversized throw away clothing strolling through the casino.<br />
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Ended up on the first bus to arrive at the start line which meant first dibs at the portapotties. It also meant an almost 1.5 hour wait until race start. The start line is actually located at a place with a bunch of little cabins and a chalet that has a restaurant. Last year, the chalet was closed and people had to wait outside. This year they opened it up so that people could stay warmish which was great as it meant I wouldn't have to wait out in the cold. There was only a limited capactiy so once it filled up, they prevented people from going in so good to have been one of the first ones there. Chatted with some people and talked hockey with a couple of people from Boston and Vegas. Kind of odd. I guess the first thing people bring up when they find out you're Canadian is hockey.<br />
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So with 30 minutes to go, left the warmth of the chalet and did one last portapotty stop. Actually had to wait for a bit and didn't get in until with about 10 minutes to go. Headed to the start line and just barely had enough time to drop off my gear and settle into the start area.<br />
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As for the plan, I decided that I was going to run this without a HR monitor nor a pace band. I thought that 3:15 would be easily doable based on the fact that I did 2:15 (and change) for the 30k distance which predicted a 3:15 marathon, and that anything under that would be due to the downhill portion, alas my 1500m of not having to run. While I had hoped this might mean 3:10 or better, Anything beyond what I've been able to run these past few years would have been good. <br />
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The race started and I was beside the 3:15 bunny. The first half mile of this race is actually uphill and is probably the steepest uphill of the race so I decided I would take the first mile easy. The uphill portion in the first half mile is all but negated by the downhill portion for the remaining .5 miles of the first mile so I wasn't too worried about that.<br />
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1 mile: 7:40<br />
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Hit the first mile well behind pace, but wasn't too worried since the downhill portion was about to begin.<br />
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2 mile: 6:55<br />
3 mile: 7:02<br />
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So down the mountain we go picking up speed. Now you really have to appreciate the grade of the course. Mile 2 has about 300 ft of elevation drop and mile 3 has over 200ft. For comparison, Goodlife Toronto has about 350ft of total elevation drop also over the course of a few miles, but I was about to repeat this elevation drop for over half the course.<br />
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4 mile: 7:16<br />
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So mile 4 appears to slow down back to my regular marathon pace, cause I think there was a hill on this portion. At this point of a race, you shouldn't be hurting, but my legs were aching a bit and I felt like I was huffing and puffing more than I should. With the course starting out with an uphill, it's hard to gauge effort and then launching immediately into 7 min/mile pace doesn't leave much time or room to recover. I had read a lot about trashing one's quads on downhill races so I was trying to mitigate that by running efficienctly, increase cadence, not overstriding and letting gravity pull me down, but that doesn't seem to have worked as I could feel my legs were not fresh.<br />
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5 mile: 7:08<br />
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As originally laid out mile 5 was supposed to have this little loop that runs into a parking lot, but they had some difficulty with getting a permit so they had to reroute the course by eliminating this loop and then adding an out and back later in the race. At the time, I thought this would be good because the loop had a bit of a hill to it.<br />
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<br />
6 mile: 6:57<br />
7 mile: 7:14<br />
8 mile: 6:48<br />
9 mile: 7:08<br />
10 mile: 7:15<br />
11 mile: 7:25<br />
13 mile: 14:47 (Missed 12 mile marker)<br />
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So continue down the hill with a couple of fast miles and a couple of slow miles. With no pace band, I had no idea how far ahead of pace I was at. I knew I was under 3:10 marathon pace, but how much under i wasn't sure. I was hoping to get an idea at the half mark because that's where the half marathon was supposed to start. However due to the last minute course change and the elimination of the loop in the first half, the half marathon start line did correspond to the half marathon mark of the full. I passed the 13 mile mark at 1:33:37. add on about 45-60 seconds for the extra 0.1 mile and I was pretty happy about the time. <br />
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<br />
14 mile: 7:31<br />
15 mile: 7:28<br />
16 mile: 7:30<br />
17 mile: 7:28 <br />
18 mile: 7:26<br />
19 mile: 7:22<br />
20 mile: 7:24<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xy_s9cy9mzc/WT4PfvXlKRI/AAAAAAAAB9o/eAcpxqRnN_AbKDm0nJTiq2Lr_nYa8M4xQCLcB/s1600/gatorade.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="210" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xy_s9cy9mzc/WT4PfvXlKRI/AAAAAAAAB9o/eAcpxqRnN_AbKDm0nJTiq2Lr_nYa8M4xQCLcB/s200/gatorade.jpg" width="200" /></a>After the half marathon, I started to slow down a bit. I think this was because of the wind from the north west. After mile 13, the course heads in a north eastern direction so the wind which had been providing a bit of a tailwind for most of the race became a crosswind. Still not too much to impede your effort and it was only causing a slight slow down in pace. It was during this time that I started to think that I was getting dehydrated. As I usually do, I carried a gatorade bottle for the race that I drank from at each mile marker, in addition to drinking at each aid station. After the half mark, I ran into some bottle issues in that the twisty cap on my gatorade bottle wouldn't twist open. I ended up having to resort to unscrewing the cap to drink. I was careful not to drink too much before the race which in hindsight was a mistake. There weren't too many aid stations, only 13 for the full marathon, 6 in the first half and 7 in the back half. I had taken only one cup of fluids at each aid station by this point which was maybe only a quarter to half filled. Usually by the 30 km mark of a marathon, I will have finished my gatorade bottle. By the time I had reached 19 miles this time, I still had quite a bit of fluid left in my bottle. My bottle issues and the few aid stations, it was clear that I wasn't drinking enough. With about an hour to go in the race, I decided to just chug the rest of the bottle and hope to avoid getting even more dehydrated, tossing the bottle just before the 20 mile mark. <br />
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21 mile: 7:33<br />
22 mile: 7:54<br />
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Miles 21 and 22 were also a bit slower because I stopped to walk at each aid station to ensure I took in multiple cups of fluids.<br />
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23 mile 8:16<br />
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So mile 23 was where the race kinda fell apart. Remember that loop that they had taken out earlier on in the race? Well they had to add that distance back in, which they did around the 23 mile mark. the probelm was the back portion of the out and back was directly into a strong wind that had been at my back for most of the race. It was horrible, probably stronger than the wind that was at Goodlife last year. Now 8:16 doesn't seem that bad for the mile split but you have to consider that the wind portion comprised only about 150m of mile 23 where I went from running about 7:40 min/mile pace on the out portion to over 9:30 pace on the back portion into the wind. There was still another 500m of this stuff that was going to be in mile 24. Add to this was there was slight incline which slowed me down further. I made a time check at mile 23 since I didn't have a pace band and I knew that 3.2 miles remaining is a little over 5k. I passed 23 miles at 2:49:30 and some quick math suggested I had 25 minutes to run 3.2 miles to finish under 3:15 which means I would have to run a little under 8 min/mile and this was still with about 500 m left of running into the headwind with the uphill that I had been struggling with for the past 150m. And remember this was only to get me to 3:15, which was my BQ time. So I made the decision at this point that though I could possible make a BQ time, getting a time that would make the BQ cutoff which I would think would have had to have been at least 2:30 under was just not going to happen. I had planned to take a few days in the Grand Canyon and do some hiking and didn't want to beat my legs up anymore then they already were so I walked the rest of the race. <br />
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24 mile: 14:14 <br />
26 mile: 25:23<br />
26.2 mile: 2:08<br />
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I did try to slow jog a couple of times, but shut it down realizing there was no point. I did jog the last 0.2 miles of the race and ended up finishing with a time of 3:31:12.<br />
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To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I went into the race thinking that 3:15 would have been easy and that the downhill would have added to whatever cutoff I needed. I should have drank more at each aid station or at least chugged a bottle of water right before the start. I definitely felt that I was working harder with the thinner and dryer air. Maybe I needed more time to acclimatize to the altitude before the race? I can definitely say that it was not as easy as I thought it would be. Looking at the Strava autosplits which shows Grade Adjusted Pace, it reports paces of 8:30's. It did not feel like I was doing 8:30 min/mile pace. <br />
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<a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/1334591173" target="_blank">Polar Race Stats</a><br />
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<td class="xl72" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"><u>Mile</u></td>
<td class="xl72" style="text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"><u>Split</u></td>
<td class="xl72" style="border-left: medium none; text-align: center; width: 82pt;" width="109"><u>Time up<br /> on 3:15</u></td>
<td class="xl72" style="border-left: medium none; text-align: center; width: 75pt;" width="100"><u>Time up on 3:10</u></td>
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<td class="xl73" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;"></td>
<td class="xl73" style="text-align: center;"></td>
<td class="xl74" style="border-left: medium none; text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl74" style="border-left: medium none; text-align: center;"><br /></td>
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<td class="xl67" height="34" style="border-top: medium none; height: 25.5pt; text-align: center;">1</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:39.6</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:13</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:24</td>
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<tr height="34" style="height: 25.5pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="34" style="border-top: medium none; height: 25.5pt; text-align: center;">2</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">06:54.7</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:19</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:04</td>
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<tr height="34" style="height: 25.5pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="34" style="border-top: medium none; height: 25.5pt; text-align: center;">3</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:02.4</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:43</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:09</td>
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<td class="xl67" height="34" style="border-top: medium none; height: 25.5pt; text-align: center;">4</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:16.4</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:53</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:07</td>
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<tr height="34" style="height: 25.5pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="34" style="border-top: medium none; height: 25.5pt; text-align: center;">5</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:08.2</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">01:12</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:14</td>
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<tr height="34" style="height: 25.5pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="34" style="border-top: medium none; height: 25.5pt; text-align: center;">6</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">06:57.4</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">01:41</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:32</td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">7</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:13.8</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">01:53</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:33</td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">8</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">06:48.3</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">02:32</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">01:00</td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">9</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:08.2</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">02:50</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">01:07</td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">10</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:14.6</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">03:02</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">01:08</td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">11</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:25.6</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">03:03</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:57</td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">12</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"></td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"></td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"></td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">13</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">14:47.3</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">03:09</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:40</td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">14</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:30.6</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">03:05</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:25</td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">15</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:27.6</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">03:04</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:12</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">16</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:30.3</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">03:00</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:03</td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">17</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:27.7</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">02:59</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:16</td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">18</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:26.1</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">02:59</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:27</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">19</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:22.0</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">03:04</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:34</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">20</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:24.3</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">03:06</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:43</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">21</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:33.2</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">03:00</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-01:01</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">22</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">07:53.5</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">02:33</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-01:39</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">23</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">08:16.2</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">01:43</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-02:40</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">24</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">14:13.6</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-05:04</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-09:39</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">26</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">25:22.6</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-15:34</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-20:31</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl67" height="17" style="border-top: medium none; height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">26.2</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">02:07.8</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-16:12</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-21:12</td><td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
.<br />
So judging from the splits, I seemed to be doing all right up until the 22 mile with a 2:33 cutoff bank which then dropped 45 seconds in the next mile due to the wind.<br />
<br />
Official Timing Results<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BwLq-KMfb5s/WTt-wvJYFjI/AAAAAAAAB9I/aNHhDCwsys8DkULV4M9suK_Zfcb14yxhQCLcB/s1600/splits.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="204" data-original-width="656" height="124" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BwLq-KMfb5s/WTt-wvJYFjI/AAAAAAAAB9I/aNHhDCwsys8DkULV4M9suK_Zfcb14yxhQCLcB/s400/splits.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
On the plus side, the race gives out free hi-res race photos and videos. Mine look terrible.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TOm4vvJ433Q" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
As for the race, generally well put together. Very efficient, though I would have liked to see a little more fluids in the cup's at each aid station. Though the downhill is nice, there's no shade at all for practically the whole race so if you have a nice clear sky, the sun is beating down on you as it was on that day. I should have worn sunglasses. The wind helped cool you down so I never really felt warm, but I was definitely dehydrated after sweating way too much and not getting enough fluids.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AL4xlDMmF7Y/WTxBF8usolI/AAAAAAAAB9Y/vp408PUDlgAkhxketNYTKN80Np06Da3IACLcB/s1600/Finish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="324" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-AL4xlDMmF7Y/WTxBF8usolI/AAAAAAAAB9Y/vp408PUDlgAkhxketNYTKN80Np06Da3IACLcB/s320/Finish.jpg" width="291" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Horrible Finish Line pic. Notice the salt stains. </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
So, I'm not sure where that leaves me for the BQ attempt for this year. I've been giving some thought to maybe doing Erie again, maybe Hamilton. This is all complicated by the fact that I got into the Berlin marathon through the lottery, though I'm not sure I want to go this year. I would have if I had BQ'd at this race, but it's scheduled right between Erie and Hamilton. Ideally, I would take a shot in Erie which might get me into Boston 2018, and if I don't succeed, I would have about 2 months of preparation to try again in Hamilton with their downhill course for Boston 2019. Doing Berlin in between would complicate that though I suppose I could try again in Berlin but that would be less than a month between Erie and Berlin which would be less than ideal.<br />
<br />
So afterwards, spent a couple of nights in the Grand Canyon. I had tried to do the Vegas/Grand Canyon thing back in 2010 when I did Boston 2 Big Sur, but it was really on a compressed schedule and I didn't really get to spend any quality time in either place, something that I've always regretted. Returned this year and had a much better time, though no hiking as legs were still quite sore from the race, even with the 3 or so miles of walking at the end.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YOesZf3AmuI/WT6J2UvYVaI/AAAAAAAAB94/DRRZB31iXcs1xY_C0gerjWOEJAiwnt7TQCLcB/s1600/GrandCanyon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="810" data-original-width="1290" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YOesZf3AmuI/WT6J2UvYVaI/AAAAAAAAB94/DRRZB31iXcs1xY_C0gerjWOEJAiwnt7TQCLcB/s640/GrandCanyon.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Top of the world.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-76857188656334885382017-05-21T11:52:00.001-04:002017-05-21T11:53:51.489-04:00Backs In Motion 10k 2017Did the Back's in Motion 10k about a month ago. Did this race <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2015/04/backs-in-motion-10k-race-report.html" target="_blank">two years</a> ago as a marathon pace test run the week before the marathon I was doing at the time as it's relatively close to home. It seemed to work out well that year and the race also fell the week before my spring marathon this year so I thought I would try again.<br />
<br />
Like two years ago, the training plan had a 12 mile long run. I had planned to do 6 miles before the race as warmup and then do the 6.2 miles at expected marathon pace, but I only managed to squeeze in 5 or so before the start because I started late and that only meant I had about 5-10 minutes between the end of the warmup and the start of the race.<br />
<br />
Goal pace for this was an easy 4:30 min/km or about 7:15 min/mile which equated to a 3:10 marathon.<br />
<br />
Tried to start off slow, but hit the first km at 4:19 and first mile marker at 6:49. As usual, too fast. Tried to ease off on the throttle a bit, but the second km is downhillish and so passed the second km at 4:19 also. I should probably also mention, my HR started doing the racing thing right from the start. Just ran through it. From that point on, I kinda hit my splits though they were a tad on the fast side. Two years ago, they messed up the turnaround which caused the course to be long. This year they had the turnaround properly marked with a volunteer dressed up as a big orange pylon with an air horn. No chance of missing the turnaround this year. Bumped up the pace a bit in the last two km to try and pass some people. Nice being able to pass people without actually having to redline.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PSJKimSSedQ/WSG1cMc_iWI/AAAAAAAAB8k/cHN6YA_zEgsdXKJ4PkoahhVKuDIUJ4EoACLcB/s1600/backsinmotion2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PSJKimSSedQ/WSG1cMc_iWI/AAAAAAAAB8k/cHN6YA_zEgsdXKJ4PkoahhVKuDIUJ4EoACLcB/s400/backsinmotion2017.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the start.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="min-width: 150px;">
</div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 128px;"><colgroup><col span="2" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64">KM</td>
<td style="text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64">split</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center;">1</td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center;">04:19.1</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center;">2</td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center;">04:19.7</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center;">3</td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center;">04:20.4</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center;">4</td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center;">04:26.6</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center;">5</td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center;">04:24.4</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center;">6</td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center;">04:23.3</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center;">7</td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center;">04:26.6</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center;">8</td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center;">04:25.7</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center;">9</td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center;">04:20.8</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center;">10</td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center;">04:15.4</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
So finished overall in 43:42 which was a bit faster than the 45 minutes flat I was aiming for. <br />
<a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/1317725342" target="_blank">Polar stats.</a><br />
<br />
I was working a bit harder then I probably should have, but I thought that since this was after a 5 mile warmup, that 4:30 pace would have felt easier if I was fully rested. At the time, I thought this was looking on the up and up for my marathon which was the following week. Ended up finishing 3rd in my age group. No chance at getting anything higher since the 2nd place guy was under 41 minutes. Ended up with a gift certificate for a pair of diabetic compression socks. I'm not sure if these are the same as the sports compression socks. Will order and see, though I have three pairs of compression socks already, I hardly use them.<br />
<br />
There didn't seem to be as much swag this year as two years ago. They do seem to give discounted entry fees to the students (it's a chiroparactic school) so I suppose they don't bring in as much money as a normal race would. Nevertheless, I like this race as it's a challenging course and well put together and has inside warmup and cooldown and actual washrooms. One downside is no chip time. Only gun times, even though they use chip timing.<br />
<br />
They did have this <a href="http://www.optogait.com/" target="_blank">Optogait</a> system after that there were giving free analysis for which is a treadmill setup with a bunch of sensors that gives you feed back on your running form. Gives you measurements of a bunch of different things about your gait and any differences between your right and left legs. I apparently have an imbalance where I run with my right leg generating more propulsive force than my left which I suppose is not unnatural since I'm right handed. While interesting to know, not sure what I'm supposed to do to correct it, but I guess that's the point, they want you to sign up for their training to try and fix it. Still as a numbers go, it's very interesting. Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-12748504946906973612017-04-01T19:09:00.000-04:002017-04-01T19:18:08.377-04:00Around the Bay 30k Race Report 2017Did Around the Bay last weekend. I've done it a few times over the years, but it's always been part of a training run with a portion of it at marathon pace. The training plan had an 18 mile long run with 14 at marathon pace. Around this time last year, I did this same run at 7:15 min/mile pace for the marathon pace portion (not at ATB, but on a normal training run) so I thought I could try that again. However, if I were able to hold that pace for another 4.6 miles I might qualify for the silver medal which the race gives out to those who finish in under 2:15 gun time. I wasn't sure however this would be doable. A 2:15 30k equates to a 3:15 marathon according to McMillan which means if I'm roughly in the same shape as last year, trying for 2:15 would be racing at my limit for the 30k distance. <br />
<br />
I stayed overnight in Hamilton at the same place I've stayed the
previous two years. Have that down to a science now, breakfast,
consisting of oatmeal with brown sugar, bagel with PB and jam and a
waffle with syrup and a little bit of water to wash it down. Left hotel
room 10 minutes before start, jogged to the start line for a brief
warmup, stood around for a few minutes and then the race starts.<br />
<br />
Gear consisted of shorts and long sleeve T over a short sleeve T which
was about perfect for the conditions, just above freezing, windy but no
rain.<br />
<br />
I had initially planned to start with the 2:15 pacer and scoped out at the expo that there were actually two pace bunnies this year. One of the guys was the same guy who ran the 3:15 marathon last year at Goodlife and who had started out too fast, the other guy seemed to have good pacing performances in the past with nice even splits, so I was going to run with him and use the group to block the wind at the start which was coming from the NE. However, once in the corrals on race morning, the guy I had intended to follow had dropped down to pacing 2:25 which meant that I only had one option for pacers which was the fast start guy.<br />
<br />
Having thought about it some more, I decided not to try to stick with pacer because I was pretty sure he was going to go out too fast, add to this that he was actually at the back of the first corral which means he also had to make up the gun-chip difference. I thought trying to chase after the silver medal wouldn't be worth it. Medals don't mean too much to me. I have shoeboxes of medals in my closet that I haven't looked at since the day I got them. I thought I could still chase 2:15 for a chip time but I wouldn't try for the gun time because the forecasts were predicting wind and I thought it would be better to start off a ways back so I would have people to block the wind for me. <br />
<br />
Some general comments. I decided not to run the race with a pace band. I normally always have a pace band, but I thought the math would be easy to do on the run if needed (4:30/km, 9:00/2km). The markers seemed all over the place at times. Pretty sure the 10k marker and timing mat was misplaced because everybodies 10k split time seems slow and everyones 10k-15k split time seems fast. The first 15k of the race is into the headwind at times and I tried my best to tuck in behind people where I could. I wasn't too concerned with split times or pace but just tried to run a good effort level and found that keeping my HR around 170 seems to work. Didn't have any HR issues early.<br />
<br />
The 2:15 pace bunny was behind me for the first mile so maybe he was going to be okay, but then he took off and I let him go. Looking through his Strava race, half of his miles in the first half were sub 7 min/miles with a couple of sub 6:45's in there (a 2:15 30k is 7:15 pace) Glad I didn't try to stick with him. Approaching the 15k mark, I could see the clock was around 1:07:30, in fact checking the split times after I hit the half mark at EXACTLY 1:07:30 (gun time) (1:07:11 chip) which was putting me on track for a 2:15 guntime finish. This actually surprised me as it means I had made up the chip gun differential and the first half had the head wind. I started giving thought that maybe I could still chase after the silver medal. The next little bit would have a tail wind where I could bank some time which I could give back up when I got to the "hill". Easier said then done, because the rolling hills on the next 5k, even with the tail wind, didn't allow me to bank any time whatsoever. Crossing over the 20k mat, I was about 5 seconds over where I needed to be for the silver medal, but with the hilly part still to come, wasn't too sure that I was going to be able to ramp up the pace. This was compounded by my HR spiking just after the 23k mark. At this point, I had run 14 miles at marathon pace and was contemplating slowing down/stopping to try to get the HR to reset. I ended up just continuing to run and not bothering with split times anymore.<br />
<br />
Down the hills and then up to "heartbreak" which was not pleasant, but thankfully this hill is relatively short and over with quickly. I think I did one time check within the last 5 km which I think was at the 28km mark because I remember thinking at the time that 2:15 chip time probably wasn't realistic, but that I would comfortably finish before 2:16 (The split had me 40 seconds over 2:15 chip). However looking back in hindsight, the 28k marker was severely misplaced as it seems like I was a lot closer than I thought. If I had checked at the 27k mark, I would have seen that I was right on the bubble. In the end I finished in 2:15:10 chiptime. Gun time was 2:15:30 which means I missed the silver medal by 30 seconds. Could I have found an additional 10 seconds over 30k? yeah probably. Could I have found 30 seconds? Maybe. Pretty happy with the effort level though.<br />
<br />
Splits are as follows. Polar data is <a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/1233531711" target="_blank">here</a>. <br />
<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 322px;"><colgroup><col style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2852; mso-width-source: userset; width: 59pt;" width="78"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 3218; mso-width-source: userset; width: 66pt;" width="88"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 3364; mso-width-source: userset; width: 69pt;" width="92"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64">KM</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: medium none; text-align: center; width: 59pt;" width="78">Time</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: medium none; text-align: center; width: 66pt;" width="88">Split</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: medium none; text-align: center; width: 69pt;" width="92">Time relative to
2:15</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">1</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:04:30.6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:30.6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:00.6</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">2</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:09:17.5</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:46.9</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:17.5</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">3</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"></td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:23.0</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">4</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:18:03.6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:23.0</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:03.6</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">5</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"></td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:24.6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">6</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:26:52.7</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:24.6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:07.3</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">7</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:31:20.5</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:27.8</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:09.5</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">8</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:36:03.3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:42.8</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:03.3</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">9</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:40:27.7</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:24.4</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:02.3</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">10</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:45:55.6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">05:27.9</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:55.6</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">11</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:49:18.0</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">03:22.4</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:12.0</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">12</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:53:48.7</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:30.7</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:11.3</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">13</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:58:19.2</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:30.5</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:10.8</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">14</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:02:46.5</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:27.3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:13.5</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">15</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:07:11.6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:25.1</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:18.4</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">16</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"></td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:33.8</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;"></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">17</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:16:19.3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:33.8</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:10.7</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">18</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:20:41.5</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:22.2</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:18.5</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">19</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:25:07.8</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:26.3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:22.2</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">20</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:29:35.3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:27.5</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:24.7</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">21</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:33:56.3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:21.0</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:33.7</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">22</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:38:38.6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:42.3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:21.4</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">23</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:43:13.3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:34.7</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:16.7</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">24</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:47:49.1</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:35.8</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:10.9</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">25</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:52:37.0</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:47.9</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:07.0</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">26</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:57:01.2</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:24.2</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:01.2</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">27</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">2:01:30.6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:29.4</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:00.6</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">28</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">2:06:39.7</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">05:09.1</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:39.7</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">29</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">2:10:52.7</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:13.0</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:22.7</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">30</td>
<td class="xl66" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">2:15:10.0</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:17.3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">00:10.0</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J7Ea8mzpHg8/WOA1GAl5-7I/AAAAAAAAB70/8VKoY4nyCGUHr4k_2E6aB1hmyBoFbjS4gCLcB/s1600/ATB30k.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-J7Ea8mzpHg8/WOA1GAl5-7I/AAAAAAAAB70/8VKoY4nyCGUHr4k_2E6aB1hmyBoFbjS4gCLcB/s400/ATB30k.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
So the race went pretty well. I'm still not sure that I could sustain this pace over the course of a marathon as it's been 9 years since I've been able to do that and fitness wise. I don't feel that much better in terms of fitness than I was last year where 3:10 was a pipedream but who knows, maybe the taper can increase my pace by a few second per km which might put me in the ball park. I don't necessarily need to run a 3:10 marathon, but just close enough to clear the BQ cutoff under 3:15. What that cutoff is though is a bit of a crapshoot so the more time the better. Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-75117912736754366882016-10-22T20:49:00.003-04:002016-10-23T15:26:24.322-04:00Scotiabank Waterfront Half Recap 2016Paced the 1:45 half at Scotiabank again this year. With no marathon training to rely on, I needed to maintain some level of fitness over the summer, which totally went into the crapper during the film festival. Normally when I have a pacing gig, I like to do an LT workout at a pace where the equivalent race time says I should be able to do an equivalent time at the pacing distance. So about 3 weeks ago, I did an 3 mile LT run at a pace that says that for a 3 mile time trial, I should be able to do a 1:42 half. I extended that to a 4 mile LT run the following week which also said 1:42 half. Still not quite convinced, two weekends ago, I did 15 miles which included 13 miles at about 7:45 pace (1:45 is 8:00 min/miles) so I was pretty confident that 1:45 would be doable.<br />
<br />
Normally going into the last week of an important race, I am extra careful about not getting sick or injuring myself, which I completely ignored this final week and with my luck, I started to come down with something on Tuesday and a had a full blown cold on Wednesday/Thursday. Immediately, went on the Cold-F/X (not sure this works, but hey I was desperate) and Vitamin C and it seemed to have settled down by Sunday. Still not completely recovered however, but at least I could breath through my nose.<br />
<br />
I found that in the past, I tend to overcompensate when something goes wrong and I realize now that my drinking too much at my race back in May led to me not hydrating enough going into this race. I didn't quite drink enough on Saturday and was probably a bit dehydrated going into the race. I had left home somewhat late and arrived at about 8:00 for the 8:45 race start. Parked at the Eaton's Centre but made the mistake of trying to cross Bay to city hall by walking south, not realizing that they weren't letting people cross Bay because the 5k race had started at 8:00am. So after backtracking a bit, it was probably around 8:15 and so had to find bag check, take my pre-race gel and headed into corrals at about 8:30. Didn't even get a chance for a bathroom break, but didn't need to as it would turn out.<br />
<br />
Some general comments for future reference. As is typically, I started the race too fast even though I had made a conscious attempt to be slow. The Polar GPS pace (left arm) was way off for the first km, but the Garmin (right) seems about right so maybe next time I will just let the Garmin dictate the pace at the start. I made an immediate correction during the 2nd km and was basically on pace by the 2 km mark. It was very humid, including a light drizzle of rain at the start. Rain stopped after a few kms, but the ground was slick and a bit slippery. Coming down Bathurst, I heard someone behind me take a nasty spill. Normally on this part of the route, I run down the centre of the street between the two sets of streetcar tracks. I've done this in the past to avoid the camber of the road and get an optimum GPS signal, but I think this might be dangerous because as people crowd around, there's a risk of people stepping on the train tracks on either side of me and falling which might have happened this time. Last year, an elite runner broke her leg on the streetcar tracks so in hindsight, probably best to stay on one side of the road. <br />
<br />
Generally on pace for most of the race, picking up time on the downhills (3-8km). The slow down at 7km is due to the train overpass at Bathurst-Front. I think the slowdown at 12km was an aid station issue since both GPS's show I slowed down to slower than 9 min/mile pace for a short period of time. It might also partially be a tangent issue since this part is a bit curvy. Slowdown at 19km is due to the Lakeshore overpass at Spadina.<br />
<br />
Developed a side stitch on right side about half way through. Probably due to lack of hydration. It was really starting to bother me late into the race to the point that I was having difficulty carrying the sign. I normally hold up the sign for the whole race, but was having difficulty doing so because of the cramping. I tried to just carry it by my side for a short while, but realized there was no point carrying it like this if no one was going to see it, so I decided to toss it at an aid station near the 18 km mark. I still had the time goal on the bunny ears and was wearing a sign on my back so that would have to do. It was a struggle towards the end. I tried to do the breath on the side opposite the side stitch thing to lessen the pain, but this required a 1-1 breathing pattern and a slow down in cadence which caused me to run less efficiently, which means I had to expend more effort to do so.<br />
<br />
During the last km, I usually try to be encouraging to people running up Bay, but I was in my own little world of hell trying to maintain the proper pace with my abdomen begging for me to slow down. Checked my watch at the 200m and 100m to go mark and saw that I was pretty close to my goal time so no room for error. In the past, I'm up by at least 15 seconds so I can take the last little bit easy. Not this year. Ended up finishing at 1:44:56.<br />
<br />
Splits are as follows<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 360px;"><colgroup><col span="5" style="width: 54pt;" width="72"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl63" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">KM</span></span></td>
<td class="xl63" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cumulative Time</span></span></td>
<td class="xl63" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Split</span></span></td>
<td class="xl63" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Goal Time</span></span></td>
<td class="xl63" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Time Under</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:04:53</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:53</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:04:59</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:06</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:09:58</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">05:05</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:09:57</span></span></td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">00:01</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:14:57</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:59</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:14:56</span></span></td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">00:01</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:19:51</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:54</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:19:54</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:03</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:24:43</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:51</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:24:53</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:10</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:29:26</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:43</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:29:51</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:26</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">7</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:34:32</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">05:06</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:34:50</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:18</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">8</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:39:28</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:56</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:39:49</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:20</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">9</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:44:27</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:59</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:44:47</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:20</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">10</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:49:26</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:59</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:49:46</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:20</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">11</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:54:23</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:57</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:54:44</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:21</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">12</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:59:30</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">05:07</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0:59:43</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:13</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">13</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:04:31</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">05:02</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:04:42</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:10</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">14</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:09:28</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:56</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:09:40</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:12</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">15</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:14:27</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">05:00</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:14:39</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:11</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">16</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:19:27</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:59</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:19:37</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:11</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">17</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:24:27</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">05:00</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:24:36</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:09</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">18</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:29:27</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">05:00</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:29:34</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:08</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">19</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:34:32</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">05:05</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:34:33</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:01</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">20</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:39:29</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">04:57</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:39:32</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:03</span></span></td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl64" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">21.1</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:44:56</span></span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">05:27</span></span></td>
<td class="xl66" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1:45:00</span></span></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-00:04</span></span></td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6ly7iuNqZM0/WAms6sJTHHI/AAAAAAAAB6k/iG3uYCsM5ZENEb7oLgbh4iiBeabqz3HIwCLcB/s1600/scotia2016-splits.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="126" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6ly7iuNqZM0/WAms6sJTHHI/AAAAAAAAB6k/iG3uYCsM5ZENEb7oLgbh4iiBeabqz3HIwCLcB/s400/scotia2016-splits.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/908985170">Polar Route and Stats</a> <br />
<br />
HR did spike at 16km but had turned off HR display so didn't know. My HR was also much higher prior to this hovering in the upper 170's. I think this was a remnant of the cold and it being quite humid and relatively warm (was 19C at start). I did the 15 mile run the weekend before in the upper 160's. <br />
<br />
Generally, pretty good split times and even pace. In previous years, they only had a 10km intermediate timing mat, whereas this year they added timing mats at the 5km and 15 km mark which allows me to track who actually ran the race with me. I imported the finish line results into Excel and calculated gun time splits for everyone and then sorted by gun time finish. Using the advanced filtering feature, I can generate a list of people who finished within 30 seconds of my gun time who also were within 30 seconds of me at each of the 5, 10 and 15k mats. In total there were 26 people who fit this criteria.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R6zO6bri9B0/WAwCNZ8b8kI/AAAAAAAAB64/spWBDXXYwqc86Gb0Eo6PlCkbG8Fe-CGwQCLcB/s1600/scotia2016-finsihers.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="319" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-R6zO6bri9B0/WAwCNZ8b8kI/AAAAAAAAB64/spWBDXXYwqc86Gb0Eo6PlCkbG8Fe-CGwQCLcB/s400/scotia2016-finsihers.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Engineering degree comes in handy...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
There were also 37 more people who were within 30s of me at the 5, 10 and 15k marks who finished outside of the 30 second finish window, 6 of whom finished more than 30 seconds ahead. <br />
<br />
So all in all, quite happy with the pacing performance this year, even despite the side stitch. Still need to work on that first km though... <br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="500" src="https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/embed/1408404609" title="Scotiabank Waterfront Toronto Half Marathon 2016" width="465"></iframe>
Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-51496252463655707382016-10-16T20:19:00.001-04:002018-04-22T04:08:45.584-04:00Oh Well..<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<br />
So I didn't get into Boston. The cutoff was 2:09 which means I wasn't even close. I needed to run 3:12:51. Looking back at my BQ run in May, it didn't matter that the last 7 km was into a brutal headwind, I was already behind by the 35km mark. Relying on the BQ estimates that other people were calculating proved to be a bad choice. The method they used was somewhat accurate last year, but not remotely accurate this year.<br />
<br />
This has had me rethinking the Boston qualifying attempts. The past 2 years I've just tried to squeak in by using the previous years cutoff as a guide. This hasn't worked and the issue is that everyone is now aiming to beat their BQ time by 5 minutes to ensure that they can register for the first week. While it would be easy to say that I should just train for 3:10, the part of me that thinks back to how hard it was 8 years ago to run a 3:10:23 on higher weekly mileage and I start to question whether it's even doable now. But of course, I don't actually have to run a 3:10 as I just need to clear enough time to make the cutoff so a slip to 3:12 during a 3:10 attempt might be okay. This is a lot better than initially aiming for 3:12 which doesn't leave a lot of room for error.<br />
<br />
Another side of me says hey I can wait a few years and my BQ time increases to 3:25, but I thought it would be neat to aim to run Boston at least once in each age category which means I would need to do it within the next 2 years before I age-up into the next category.<br />
<br />
I haven't really tried to train for a 3:10 marathon in a long while so I guess I'll have to see how it goes, if it even goes at all. It's easy for me to say now what I intend to do over the winter, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men... <br />
<br />
<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-12761230686804274202016-09-12T19:07:00.000-04:002016-09-12T19:07:03.529-04:00Registering for BostonBoston registration started today, but with the new rolling registration system and me having less than a 5 minute buffer, I won't be able to register until next Monday. I booked my hotel for Boston last week as I'm pretty confident I will be able to get in. There have been a bunch of different people(<a href="http://www.namethatbostonmarathoncutoff.com/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.namethatbostonmarathoncutoff.com/">here</a> and <a href="http://community.runnersworld.com/topic/bq-for-2017-analysis">here</a>) who have been data crunching the results list of various races over the past year and they are predicting a minimal cutoff because there are a lot fewer qualifiers compared to this time last year. Most of the drop off was due to the warm conditions in Boston this year, but also a lot of other races this past summer have had crappy conditions so the pool of potential qualifiers have dropped significantly. Actually, the whole idea is a pretty interesting data mining project. If they had this registration system back when I was in grad school, I probably would have taken the task to do the analysis as it's fairly rich dataset that would have been easy to work with. <br />
<br />
Looking at peoples times is one thing, but the one wildcard in this was the number of places that Boston was going to offer next year. All of the above analysis assume that the number of entries next year would be the same as last year which was 30,000. Obviously, if the number dropped, with fewer place available, the competition gets more heated and the analysis would go out the window. I was holding out on committing to Boston until I knew the number of places for next year, which they announced last week at 30,000 so that was good and the hotel was booked.<br />
<br />
I also applied to the lottery for Tokyo and London for next year which take place in February and the week after Boston, respectively. With my luck, after striking out over the past few years, the one year I don't want to get in will probably result in me getting into both of them! I'll cross that bridge when I get to it though it'll be a nice problem to have. Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-40004928461372587042016-07-01T07:18:00.001-04:002016-07-01T07:18:27.760-04:00Run For Hutington Disease 10k RecapI did a 10k race last Sunday, but I didn't actually end up racing it. After doing a marathon, I usually like to do a few shorter races to test where the fitness is. I had originally planned on doing the Run for Lions event which is on the Saturday that I had done <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2015/06/port-union-run-for-lions-10k-race-report.html">last year</a>, but I slept in. I also had a weird twinge in my ankle on Friday. I had switched shoes recently and I think it ended up stressing my ankles so the extra day of rest would hopefully be beneficial. The race takes place at Sunnybrook park, and starts at the same place as the Korean Peace Marathon and Spring Into Action races that I've done before, but the route was different. While the other two races are a 5km out and back course. This race consisted of a 2.5 km out and back course that we would have to do twice. While this might seem a bit boring, I actually don't mind this route as it eliminates a big hill that is present when you do the 5km out and back course.<br />
<br />
I arrived Sunday morning and it was a bit warm and I don't like racing in warm weather. While I had hopes of setting a PR, I quickly realized that this was going to be unlikely. I did the warm-up HR spike thing which I did get to go and reset, but as soon as I started, the HR took off right away hitting 190 in less than a minute. I ended up running to the first water station which is just after the 2.5 km turnaround and then decided that with the HR spiking that I would shut it down. I then proceeded to walk hoping to get the HR to reset. I thought it did a couple of times, but as soon as I started running again, the HR would take off. In the end, I spent the next 4.5km or so trying to get the heart rate to reset. Was finally able to get the HR to come down shortly before the 7km mark for good and then proceeded to run out the rest of the race at a moderate effort.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/666591500">Polar Stats and Route</a><br />
<br />
So here's crazy HR.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UEBYNikUpMA/V3SXLONuJcI/AAAAAAAAB50/hdwsd6TwSzkx1hnK-eOBQYRMEy8wqgEDQCLcB/s1600/Huntington%2BDisease%2B10k-2016HR.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UEBYNikUpMA/V3SXLONuJcI/AAAAAAAAB50/hdwsd6TwSzkx1hnK-eOBQYRMEy8wqgEDQCLcB/s640/Huntington%2BDisease%2B10k-2016HR.png" width="640" /> </a></div>
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HR at start is well over 190 and over 200 by the time I shut it down at the first turnaround, whereas at the end, the HR is at around 180 even though the pace is roughly the same. You can also see me doing the run/walk thing in between. Normally, when I walk, the HR is just over 100, but when it spikes it hovers at around 140 or so. You can see when it spontaneously resets at just over 40 minutes when the HR drops suddenly and that's when I start running again to finish the race. </div>
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Finish time was 58 minutes or so, which I guess isn't so bad when you consider that I walked for a good chunk of this. It was nice to actually enjoy the route and take in the scenery. It would have been better if I didn't have to pay a $50 entry fee to do so, but I got a tech shirt out of it and the money goes to a good cause so I suppose it's okay.</div>
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I'm finally getting the HR thing looked at again so hopefully I"ll have more information to better decide if its okay for me to actually just run through these HR episodes. </div>
Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-78073289925409524402016-05-20T22:15:00.000-04:002016-05-20T22:15:03.583-04:00DilemmaWhile talking with Kenny at the start of the Goodlife marathon a few weeks ago, he mentioned that he had considered doing the Whitby International marathon as his after Boston race which is taking place this weekend. I had never considered doing Whitby, but it's timely placed and a relatively flat course. I started thinking about maybe doing Whitby shortly after finishing Goodlife. I'm not sure that a 45 second BQ cushion that I had at Goodlife would be enough. Would have liked to have at least a minute or something similar to what I had last year. I would have had a good three weeks of rest and recovery between the two races. While I've done 2 weeks before, it wasn't ideal and I think three weeks would totally be doable. <br />
<br />
However, I did have to take stock of what my fitness level would be and what time I could reasonably run. While Goodlife was a net downhill course, Whitby is a flat course that starts and ends at the same place so no net elevation change. I honestly think while doing Goodlife that I was more fit than I was doing Goodlife last year and if not, for the crazy headwind over the last 7 km I would have at least matched my time from last year. The question however is how that fitness would translate onto a flat marathon course and that I'm not sure of. <br />
<br />
Crunching the numbers from Goodlife, the only time I was able to really bank under 3:15 was a result of the downhill drop of Goodlife. If I eliminate the first half of Goodlife, from the 21.1k mark to the start of the wind at about 35km, I only averaged about 7:29 pace over the flat section which would have put me at a 3:16 marathon if extrapolated to the full distance. Goodlife though was a crappy day with rain weighing down my clothes and I had a side stitch issue so maybe I could knock a minute off of that in more ideal conditions. If I look at my time in 2015, I did the last half of the race at about 7:25 pace which would put me at a 3:14:36 marathon, still slower than the time I had this year. Could I do more? Sure, maybe if I hadn't pigged out on food in the last few weeks and put on about 2-3 pounds, so it was looking like that trying to do Whitby in the hopes of bettering my BQ time would not be in the cards, until I started doing some digging around in Garmin Connect. <br />
<br />
While the Whitby marathon claims that it is a certified course and a Boston qualifier, I'm not too sure. I say this for two reasons. Firstly, the Whitby course doesn't appear on the <a href="http://www.acroad.ca/Directors/CourseMeasurement/CertifiedCourses/">official list </a>of certified courses in Canada. While the list does have an entry for the WIN marathon, this was for the course in 2010 which is not the same route that is shown on the WIN marathon website or the same route that was used last year. There doesn't appear to have been a measurement of the new course that was certified. Now this isn't necessarily an issue if the course actually is the marathon distance as you can always get it certified later, if need be. <br />
<br />
However, there's a possibility that it's not even the right distance which leads to the second reason why I don't think the course is certified. While scouting around on Garmin Connect to see what the actual route looks like based on previous people that have run the course, it appears that no previous Garmin has measured the course at being at least 42.2km<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uECZm6TVf9k/Vz-890iHjII/AAAAAAAAB5k/WfLPhcol8xo5fJaJiDn14407BffVdKwbQCLcB/s1600/WinMarathon.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="422" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uECZm6TVf9k/Vz-890iHjII/AAAAAAAAB5k/WfLPhcol8xo5fJaJiDn14407BffVdKwbQCLcB/s640/WinMarathon.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Less than 42.195km "marathon"?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
While 5 people running is not a big sample size, the fact that none of them show a distance of at least 42.195km is a bit of a concern. Now GPS isn't precisely accurate, but generally, based on past experience, GPS measurements of marathons are longer than the actual distance, not shorter. While I'm not sure how actually short the course is, the longest is about 80m short while three of the routes show 200m short. 200m short would be about 55 seconds of running that I wouldn't have to do, which would be a big bonus for someone like me who's on the bubble.<br />
<br />
Of course knowing all this could potentially taint any supposed BQ time and I'm not sure I would be willing to benefit from this. Would it be cheating if I intentionally ran a BQ time on a course that I knew was short? That's a good question, and I'm not sure it's something I want to have to answer.<br />
<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-52141717922304097552016-05-04T19:15:00.001-04:002016-05-04T19:41:21.688-04:00Goodlife Toronto Marathon Race Report 2016I ended up doing Goodlife again. Yes, I know I said <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2015/05/goodlife-toronto-marathon-race-report.html">last year </a>that I wouldn't after the terrible organization, but sometimes the weather throws you a curve which ended up being a forecast of strong winds coming from the northeast. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BWRGJyMaCZ4/Vyky3ggz7OI/AAAAAAAAB4k/wY3hHCbbIK8OoQjJ7AX9B6vwwowCnkpbwCLcB/s1600/weather-Wednesday.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BWRGJyMaCZ4/Vyky3ggz7OI/AAAAAAAAB4k/wY3hHCbbIK8OoQjJ7AX9B6vwwowCnkpbwCLcB/s320/weather-Wednesday.png" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Forecast on Wednesday before race.</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: 0px; margin-right: auto;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Strong winds from the east favored Goodlife as it's a net west course with only the last 7 km or so running into a headwind. Mississauga on the other hand has about double that running into the wind at the end. I little bit of wind I would have been able to handle, but this was gale force stuff so logic justified Goodlife.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Race morning was pretty much the same as it always was. Woke up at 5am for a 7:30 race start. Downed a bagel with peanut butter with a little bit of gatorade and was out the door by 6:15am on the way to the start line. Took a short detour before parking to figure out if they had correctly placed the 1km marker and yeah they had, so hopefully no <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2015/05/further-reflection-and-thoughts-about.html">F-up like last year</a>. There was little bit of drizzly rain which wasn't too bad and of course the wind, but you could hardly feel it at the start line. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Goal for this race was to be 3:12:20 which was about 10 seconds faster than last years Boston cutoff which was about 7:20 min/mile or about 4:33 min/km. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Downed a gel with 30 minutes to start and was going to start warming up with about 15 minutes to go. Bumped into Kenny who had just done Boston and was ninja running this race to try and re-BQ, which he <a href="http://yumkerun.blogspot.ca/2016/05/race-report-toronto-marathon-2016.html">did</a>. Goal for warming up was to get the HR to spike to hopefully get it to calm down before the race start, which I was able to get it to do. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">So as the race starts, my goal was to start off at the right pace and to maintain a nice steady cadence and proper breathing to avoid the HR spike. First two km were at exactly 4:33. I was kinda running with the 3:15 pace bunny for a bit at the start, but not for long because the 3:10 bunny and the 3:15 bunny were within 10 seconds of each other for at least the first 10km of the race. I think the 3:15 guy was going out too fast and the 3:10 guy was going out too slow. I won't go into the km by km split as the tale of the tape is listed below.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Even though I was carrying a pace band, I knew the course profile and the weather were going to wreck havoc with split times so basically my strategy for the race was to be close to where I wanted to be after the Hog's Hollow hill (about 6km in), pick up some time on the downhill portion of the race (12-20km), pick up some additional time heading west (20-35km) with the tailwind and then hang-on for the last 7 km into the easternly headwind. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: small;">Strategy didn't quite play out as planned. By 10km in, I was only 10 seconds behind where I planned. By the half I was 26 seconds ahead of where I wanted to be (1:35:44). I didn't pick up anytime on the western portion and actually started bleeding back the time. The portion running through downtown wasn't as easy as I thought. Even though the wind was supposed to be at our backs, there was a couple of times there was strong headwinds. Also my HR spiked shortly after the half mark. At least I got through to the half way point without it spiking. </span><span style="font-size: small;">By the time I hit 26km which was the start of the waterfront portion of the westernly route, I only had 8 seconds banked which I then proceed to give back (and then some) as I was running west. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Even though there was a tailwind, I started to give back time because of two issues that were beginning to bother me. Firstly, I could feel the makings of a side stitch starting to form on my right side. I was trying to do the breathing thing where you time your footstrike on the opposite side of the stitch as you exhale, but that was only working a little bit. The second issue was that I started to feel that I needed to pee. I had carried a gatorade bottle that I had been drinking from for most of the race, plus a cup of water at each aid station along with three cups of water to down my gel at the race start and then add that it was raining and that I wasn't really sweating because of the cool weather and it all adds up to a bladder filling up. Now that I think of it, I think the two issues were related. The side stitch could have been caused by the extra weight. While running by the restrooms in Coronation Park, a place that I've stopped at many a time, I started to think how much time would I lose if I stopped. I didn't have nearly the amount of banked time that I would have liked and with the headwind still to come, I wasn't sure if I could afford to stop. I continued on. Ran through Ontario Place and past the finish line on the way west. This was a route I had run many a time and I started to visualize where I could possibly stop for quick break and not lose too much time. I thought that Marilyn Bell Park would be a good place, but decided not to when I got there because there were spectators there. I continued on and down the hill near the Legion building and then I see two portapotties up ahead on the trail. Finally! But of course, once I get there, they are both occupied. Damn! I continue on. At this point, I started thinking about just peeing on the run. My shorts were already wet and it was raining so there was going to be a good 10k for any liquid to dilute itself, and I don't think anyone would have noticed but modesty got the better of me and I held it in. I hit 35 km and I was 50 second behind where I wanted to be. I was still in BQ range, but only 1:49 under with 7 km of 30km/hr headwinds to come. Not so good. </span><span style="font-size: small;">As it would turnout, neither the pee issue or the side stitch would bother me after 35 km, because I now had something else to worry about. The gosh darned F'in wind.</span></td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JOpv4v10VA8/VylQNThU3MI/AAAAAAAAB40/CL1Z2xshjfI4B1hRguFOxqV7FE-8fcD8ACLcB/s1600/weather.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JOpv4v10VA8/VylQNThU3MI/AAAAAAAAB40/CL1Z2xshjfI4B1hRguFOxqV7FE-8fcD8ACLcB/s640/weather.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Actual weather measurements. Race was between 7-11am.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">So at least the weather forecast was right. I had been mentally psyching myself up for the whole race to conquer this last 7km which I knew was going to be tough. My original pace band goal was out the window. My goal now was to just simply BQ with as much time as I could and to basically just leave it all out on the course. The first two km's of the last seven, I was trying to get a sense for what pace I could sustainably maintain running into the 35km/hr headwind and I figured on 7:40min/mile pace which was 20 seconds slower than my original goal. This was also easy math to do as it meant that if I could maintain that over the last 5km, I would lose about a minute of time. That, I considered acceptable so that's what I tried to maintain. Basically I ran the last 5km as if I was running in a a 5km race. Breathing hard in a panting one-one pattern like in a 5 k race. Trying to run the tangents and basically trying to shut out everything but getting to the finish line. The hill in front of the Legions building didn't even phase me. As I finally approach the finish line and turn south to finally get out of that wind with only about 50m to go, I was pretty much spent. Couldn't even muster up enough energy to sprint these last 15 seconds or so. Crossed the finish line and I was done.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Finish time of 3:14:15. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">BQ cushion of 45 seconds. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Timing mat splits are:</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ggHSvDB7qLA/VylX6TZq6lI/AAAAAAAAB5E/xudZObYPPMwr8iD1TNq89lBnAM_vXPVHACLcB/s1600/goodlife2016%2Bsplits.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ggHSvDB7qLA/VylX6TZq6lI/AAAAAAAAB5E/xudZObYPPMwr8iD1TNq89lBnAM_vXPVHACLcB/s640/goodlife2016%2Bsplits.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">2:47 Positive Split<span style="font-family: inherit;"> which wasn't too bad.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Comparing this to last year's race, I ran the first half 48 seconds faster this year, ran the western portion (13.9km) 7 seconds slower this year and ran the last 7.2 km 66 seconds slower this year (and remember that last year also had the extra 20m added on because of the parking lot issue). Overall I was 25 seconds slower this year, despite the fact that last year I had calf<span style="font-family: inherit;">,</span> blister and HR issues.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The only accurately placed marker prior to 37km last year was the 27km marker so if I <span style="font-family: inherit;">split that up, from the<span style="font-family: inherit;"> half timing mat to the 27km marker (at Ontario place) which involves running in the downtown core, I ran that le<span style="font-family: inherit;">g 12 seconds slower this year and from 27km mark to the <span style="font-family: inherit;">35km turnaround which is along the waterfront, I ran that 6 seconds faster<span style="font-family: inherit;">. 2:47</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/553073351"> Polar Stats and Map</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Overall splits are as follows</span></span></div>
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<u><br /></u></div>
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<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 358px;"><colgroup><col span="3" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2596; mso-width-source: userset; width: 53pt;" width="71"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 3474; mso-width-source: userset; width: 71pt;" width="95"></col>
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<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"><u>Km Marker</u></td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"><u>Split</u></td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"><u>Pace (min/mi)</u></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center; width: 53pt;" width="71"><u>Actual Time</u></td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center; width: 71pt;" width="95"><u>Banked Time Relative to 3:12:20</u></td>
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<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">1</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:33</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:19</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:04:33</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:00</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">2</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:33</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:19</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:09:06</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:01</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">4</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">08:52</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:08</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:17:58</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:16</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">5</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:44</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:37</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:22:42</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:05</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">05:11</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">08:21</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:27:53</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:32</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">7</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:01</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">06:28</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:31:54</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:00</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">8</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">9</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">10</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">13:51</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:26</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:45:45</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:10</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">11</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:35</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:23</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:50:20</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:12</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">12</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:36</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:24</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:54:56</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:14</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">13</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:25</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:06</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:59:21</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:06</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">14</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:19</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">06:57</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:03:40</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:08</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">15</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:29</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:13</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:08:09</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:13</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">16</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:40</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:31</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:12:49</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:06</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">17</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:31</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:16</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:17:20</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:09</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">18</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:18</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">06:55</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:21:38</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:24</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">19</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">20</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">09:10</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:23</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:30:48</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:21</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">21</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:30</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:15</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:35:18</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:25</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">21.1</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:35:44</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:26</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">22</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">23</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">24</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">13:57</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:29</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:49:15</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:08</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">25</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">26</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">09:07</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:20</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:58:22</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:08</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">27</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:39</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:29</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:03:01</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">-00:02</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">28</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:42</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:34</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:07:43</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:06</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">29</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">30</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">09:16</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:27</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:16:59</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:15</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">31</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:34</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:21</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:21:33</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:16</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">32</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:33</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:19</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:26:06</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:15</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">33</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:38</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:27</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:30:44</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:20</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">34</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:34</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:21</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:35:18</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:20</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">35</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">05:04</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">08:09</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:40:22</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">00:51</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">36</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:44</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:37</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:45:06</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">01:01</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">37</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:44</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:37</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:49:50</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">01:12</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">38</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">39</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">09:16</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:27</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:59:06</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">01:21</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">40</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:52</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:50</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">3:03:58</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">01:40</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">41</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">04:33</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:19</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">3:08:31</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">01:39</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">42.2</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">05:43</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:40</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">3:14:14</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">01:54</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> </span>I think I was late hitting the lap button for km 6 (which includes part of the hill) and that's why km 7 seems so fast, but I'm not sure. Wish I had gotten split at the 8km mark. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">A couple things about the course. The markers were correctly placed this year (Yeah!!) and the <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2015/06/that-damn-course.html">issue I pointed</a> out last year with the parking lot that added about 20m onto the course was also corrected. (Yeah!). The 35km split seemed excessively long. I measured this in google maps and that split is about 100m longer than 1km. All the other splits around it seemed about right so I'm still thinking something is up with that course.</span> <span style="font-size: small;">Water stations on the waterfront portion weren't well manned. I can understand that with the miserable weather, volunteers maybe don't want to come out. Those that did come out I give all the credit in the world to so I can't fault them for that. I think not stopping to pee was the right call. A part of me thinks that if I had unloaded the extra weight, I would have been faster over the western part of the course. I fully expected that portion to be faster than last year, but it wasn't. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Wore a sleeveless-T, shorts and dollar store gloves which I think was about right given the conditions. Never really felt cold until after the race was over. . </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"></span>
<span style="font-size: small;">Post race was not pleasant. After running in the rain for 3 hours and then having to come to a complete standstill in the chute to get a medal and then having to shiver my way to the other side of the parking lot to pick up my checked gear which was out in the rain for two hours and then having a really small change tent that could not be used because it was packed, it was not a pleasant experience. Also, they had shut down the street car service to the Ex and not told anyone so I ended up having to walk to the streetcar loop across from Coronation Park. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">So I got my BQ by 45 seconds. Will that be enough? There are some people in the <a href="http://community.runnersworld.com/topic/bq-for-2017-analysis">Runners World Forums</a> who are trying to crunch the numbers to guess at the cutoff and they are predicting a very low cutoff due to the warm weather in Boston this year and the fewer number of people that actually requalified at Boston. So maybe 45 seconds will be enough. I have no desire to make a fall marathon attempt as I don't really want to train hard over the summer. I tried to do just maintenance miles last year, in the hopes that I would be able to qualify just before the window closes, but it wasn't really enough and of course there's also the crapshoot of what the weather is going to be in mid-September. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"> I don't think I want to do marathon training this summer so I'm leaning towards sitting tight and hoping for the best. </span><br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TRggoqwdbEY/VyqCbjvw08I/AAAAAAAAB5U/tZ-cqA2mThgg9Uk7PNdDgQj_lKer3b8wgCLcB/s1600/Goodlife2016Medal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TRggoqwdbEY/VyqCbjvw08I/AAAAAAAAB5U/tZ-cqA2mThgg9Uk7PNdDgQj_lKer3b8wgCLcB/s400/Goodlife2016Medal.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-15090457401606004842016-04-26T19:23:00.000-04:002016-04-26T19:23:34.993-04:00Spring Into Action 10k Race ReportDid a 10k on Sunday to practice marathon pace effort again. I did this last year and found it useful to help remember what marathon pace felt like the week prior to the marathon. Last year, I did the Backs in Motion 10k which ideally I would have liked to do again, but this year, that race is on the same weekend as Goodlife/Mississauga so that obviously wouldn't work. Last year, the Spring Into Action 10k was on the same weekend as Goodlife, but this year they moved it to being a week early. I guess it all works out in the end.<br />
<br />
Like last year, I wanted to do the race on not so fresh legs so I planned to do 6 miles beforehand. I planned to do day of race registration since reading online, it seemed it was actually slower to pick up your stuff if you were pre-registered. The issue with this is that registration only started at 9am and the race was scheduled for 9:50am, so even if I was the first person registered, I probably wouldn't be able to squeeze in the 6 miles before race start. I ended up splitting the initial 6 miles into two 5k segments. I did 5k upon arriving, registered and then did another 5k.<br />
<br />
The route is the for the most part the same out and back route as the <a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/226015993">Korean Peace Run 10k</a> which I'd run before. There was a difference in that the turnaround for this race actually corresponded to the 5k mark whereas the Korean Peace Run makes you run a little further out to a point that has a loop in the path which makes the turnaround a little easier and less jarring, it also makes the route about 300m longer.<br />
<br />
The course didn't really have km markers. There was a 1km marker which seemed to be accurately placed, but it was only there because there was also a 2km race so the 1km marker signified the turnaround point. There was also a marker at the 5km mark to signify the turnaround (obviously). They weren't that many marshals, but the route is fairly simple, so they probably didn't need that many. There was no one at the 5k mark to tell people to turnaround, but the sign was fairly obvious and they made a specific announcement about the turnaround sign before the race so I doubt there were any issue for that. <br />
<br />
As for the actual race, I was hoping to get feedback on HR and marathon pace in a race atmosphere. Looking through the results last year, it seemed that there were a lot of fast people in the race so I thought there would be a lot of people to run with. Unfortunately, this was not the case as I basically had to run by myself from the 200m mark on. Looking back, I think the course last year was very short because some 15 year old kid ran a sub-26min 10k last year(world record!) so apparently there weren't that many fast runners.<br />
<br />
As usual, I started the race way too fast. I hit the first km marker in 4:09 (6:41 min/mile pace) and immediately had to back off on the effort to get back on pace. My GPS then autosplit at the 1 mile mark at 6:59. Unfortunately, my HR spiked at the 6 min mark so I didn't really get a good gauge on HR vs. pace. I think I'm starting to notice a pattern in that it will spike when I ease off the throttle as I had the same thing happen last year too. I'm hoping if I can avoid starting out too fast, there won't be a need to ease off the throttle which will give me more of a chance of the HR not spiking. I didn't hit the lap button at the 5km mark, but the GPS route seems to suggest I turned around at around 22:25. The only other split I have is the last km which I did in 4:25 (7:06 pace).<br />
<br />
The GPS autosplits are<br />
1 mile: 6:59<br />
2 mile: 7:17<br />
3 mile: 7:17<br />
4 mile: 7:26<br />
5 mile: 7:13<br />
6 mile: 7:15<br />
0.2 mile 1:15 (7:04 pace)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/539413115">Polar Stats and Map Route</a><br />
<br />
<br />
As i said, I basically had to run the race by myself. There was one guy who pulled up to me at about the 2km mark, but I noticed that one of his shoelaces was undone and he was breathing pretty hard so I wasn't sure how long he would be around. I passed him on a hill and didn't hear from him again. I ended up catching up to another guy at about the 8km mark, but he started to speed up when he heard me coming. I contemplated racing him over the last 2km, but my goal in this was to maintain marathon pace. The 4 mile split contained the turnaround so that's why that seems slow, but for the most part, I was aiming for 7:20 pace and was able to hit that okay. Final finish time was 44:41 (7:11 min/mile pace) with what seems to a be an almost even split.<br />
<br />
The results say I finished 4th overall, but I know that there's at least one guy (the 8km guy) who aren't in the results. I think their times were listed in the 5k race. My time was initially in the 5k race results also so I had to get the timer to change that.<br />
<br />
Fairly good race. Free BBQ after. I'm not sure if there were awards. I doubt it as the entry fee was cheap at $25. The race raises money for diabetes research and offer 2k, 5k and 10k races with various team/family entries available. I would definitely do this again if fit into my schedule. <br />
<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-37116983245202576672016-04-23T20:56:00.001-04:002016-04-23T20:56:22.800-04:00Non-Running Preparation for the MarathonIt was around this time last year that I was trying to decide which race to do, either Toronto or Mississauga. I'm still waiting to decide and will wait until the weather and wind forecasts firm up a bit. Last year, my only concern was the weather with a little concern about the course profile. Since that time, I've learned that I also have to be concerned about the race organization. While deciding last year that I wouldn't do Toronto Goodlife again, I've had some time to reflect and have had a change of heart. <br />
<br />
The big issue I had <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2015/06/that-damn-course.html">last year </a>was the markers which I had figured out were actually placed for the 2013 course and as a result were <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2015/05/further-reflection-and-thoughts-about.html">300m earlier</a> than they should have been. The length of the course being 20m longer than it should have been, I've decided I could live with as it would only add a little bit onto the time, which are easily made up for the fact that the elevation profile of Toronto offers an additional 35m elevation drop over Mississauga.<br />
<br />
So I came to the conclusion that if this years route was the same as last years route, then I would be fine with doing Toronto again. Even if they decide to bungle up the placement of the markers again (which I can easily see them doing again since the <a href="http://www.torontomarathon.com/races/race-maps/">race maps</a> they have on the website still refer to the 2013 course), I realize that I can compensate for this by just using the painted lines on the road rather than the signs, which is something I should have adjusted to doing last year.<br />
<br />
The big question that still remains is whether the course this year would in fact be the same as last year. There's no indication that the route is going to be different, the course certificaiton listed on the Goodlife website is stated to be "CAN-2012-025-BDC" which if you look this up on the Athletics Canada website refers to <a href="http://www.acroad.ca/certificates/2012/ON-2012-025-BDC.pdf">5k race in Strathroy</a>. As mentioned above, the website also has a race map of the 2013 course, which is not the same route that has been run in the past two years. The website prefaces this by saying "Note that these maps are only intended to be a guide – all courses are certified and may vary slightly from this representation." No kidding. <br />
<br />
I think a fair assumption would be that the most recently measured course is the one that the organizers intend to use, which would be <a href="http://www.acroad.ca/certificates/2014/ON-2012-029a-BDC.pdf">one</a> measured in 2014 (ON-2012-029a-BDC), which is the one we ran last year. The only reason I can see it changing is if there's some sort of construction on the route that would require them to detour the route at the last moment. If they had to, they might add on to the course, or possibly (like in 2014) subtract from the course. While I don't mind running a short marathon course (assuming no one finds out), I'd hate to have to run significantly more. <br />
<br />
To ease my fears, I decided today to drive the entire course to see if there might be any issue and I'm glad to say there doesn't appear to be any. I especially scouted out the turnaround at the Humber Bay Park east park. It appears that someone had already gone through most of the course and painted the curb lines onto the road where the markers *should* be placed and they match up with the 2014 measured course. The line paintings are bright orange this year and should be easily discernible. The other thing I want to be able to do if I run Toronto is to figure out early if the markers are misplaced. While I couldn't see the 1k and 2k painted lines while driving, thanks to Google's streetview, I figured out the locations of where the 1k and 2k markers should have been based on these pics taken in May 2015 which should correspond to last year course (and presumably this years). <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wcslC9Nksdg/VxwSjm3tgEI/AAAAAAAAB4Q/xvmHEFso_DczYhof87ccWPsn--Zecj_LQCKgB/s1600/1k%2Bmarker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wcslC9Nksdg/VxwSjm3tgEI/AAAAAAAAB4Q/xvmHEFso_DczYhof87ccWPsn--Zecj_LQCKgB/s640/1k%2Bmarker.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">1k Marker Location, <a href="https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.7720348,-79.4136138,3a,51y,257.14h,61.8t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1spPggxUVTsJJ9WYJD7MgknQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en">Streetview Link</a></td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jQsmeL95oQY/VxwSmK8yjVI/AAAAAAAAB4U/3NjEAb2UViEHq7rAiOIEa9a9RW5GbG69ACLcB/s1600/2k%2Bmarker.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jQsmeL95oQY/VxwSmK8yjVI/AAAAAAAAB4U/3NjEAb2UViEHq7rAiOIEa9a9RW5GbG69ACLcB/s640/2k%2Bmarker.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2k marker location. <a href="https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.763212,-79.4114446,3a,50.4y,263.44h,68.24t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sVEg38BvsDymXEcaVr8zdQA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en">StreetView Link</a></td></tr>
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<br />
So if the 1k and 2k marker signs aren't at these two locations (or relatively close since they are in the middle of intersections) then I'll know within the first 10 minutes of the race that the markers are f'ed up again. But at least this time, I'll be ready for it!Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-41547638061622158832016-04-04T20:51:00.000-04:002016-04-04T20:51:48.293-04:00Around the Bay Race Report 2016Well that didn't go according to plan. So after posting how great training was going, I ended up getting food poisoning or something soon after. I was gassy and bloated all day Friday and my abdominals were sore and achy on Saturday. I had tried to do a short recovery run, but called it quits after about 200m. It felt like a side stitch, but at recovery pace. Started to worry how the heck was I going to do 30k on Sunday. I had thoughts about not going, but with the entry paid for and a hotel room already booked and too late to cancel, it was going to seem like a waste. So I made the drive to Hamilton. At the very least, I figured I'd have to do a long run anyways so I might as well do it in Hamilton.<br />
<br />
The weather forecast looked bad, but looking out on the morning of race day, it wasn't so bad. There was no snow, clear skies and it didn't seem too windy judging by the smoke stacks on the tops of buildings. I had a hard time deciding if I wanted to wear shorts or pants. If I were racing, it would have been shorts, but if I was going to treat this as a long run, I wanted to be somewhat comfortable. Still not having recovered from the food poisoning, I was pretty sure this was going to be a long run, so I ended up wearing the pants.<br />
<br />
So left the hotel about 20 minutes to race start and jogged to the starting line. The abs were feeling okay during this short jog so I started to reconsider whether I wanted to just treat this as a long run. In the end, I decided that I would start with the 2:15 pace bunny and adjust on the run.<br />
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I lined up behind the pace bunny and the race starts. For the first little bit, I was running at the right pace. Unfortunately, the old nemesis, the HR spike reared it's head about 4 minutes into the race. I ended up doing 4 miles with the pace bunny, but then decided to shut it down once I got to an aid station where I could try to get the HR to calm down, which it didn't. I then spent the next 3 miles walking and running in the hopes that the HR would reset which it finally did a little after 7 miles. With the silver medal now out of the equation, I just wanted to put in an honest effort the rest of the way. Miles 8 to 13 were run at a steady effort at between 7:35 and 8:00 min miles. During mile 14, the HR spiked again which just luckily coincided with another aid station so I took another bathroom break, grabbed some water and started walking. The HR reset pretty quick this time and I was able to run the rest of the race without incident trying to maintain a HR of about 160 which ended up being at about 8 min/mile pace. Increased the pace for the last km to about 7:15 pace just to get some more HR information. <br />
<br />
Finish time of 2:28:13 chip time. For more detailed tale of the tape, you can get more information from the <a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/498467465">Polar stats</a>.<br />
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Here's the wacky HR. Starts out fine and then about 4 minutes jumps by over 30 beats per minute. Looks to have reset at about the 50 minute mark where it remains steady until the 1:40 mark where it spikes again and then resets pretty quickly after a brief stop and walk where it remains okay for the rest of the race.<br />
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I was glad to have worn the pants. There were occasions during the first 4 miles where I felt too warm but this was with a tailwind doing 7:15 pace. Those thoughts quickly went away when we finally hit the wind.<br />
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So I guess the silver medal will have to wait for another year. They're bringing the dreaded Valley Inn Road hill back next year so that may not be the best of things for a silver medal attempt, but I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't have been able to hold the required 7:15 pace for the whole way. Occasionally during the race, I got abdominal pains. Not quite as painful as a side stitch, but just enough to bother me and make me think about slowing down. I've never experienced this gassy and bloated feeling before and am still trying to figure out what caused it. <br />
<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-41760440031037552962016-03-31T20:45:00.000-04:002016-03-31T20:45:51.211-04:00Training UpdateSo it's a little more than a month out to the marathon. Training has gone surprisingly well this time around. I've managed to get most of the training runs in, with the odd skipped recovery run. Was able to do all the long and LT runs. This past winter has been good weather wise. Not too much snow. Still, I did do a big chuck of the runs at the gym. After doing the early wake up and run at the gym before work last year, I decided that my gym runs would be done after work this time which worked out okay. Almost all of the LT runs were done on the treadmill, with the exception of the last 7 mile one which was done outside at 6:58 min/mile pace on the soccer field route. <br />
<br />
I also got lucky with the marathon pace runs this time around. Temps for each were above freezing which allowed me to run in shorts outside and minimal upper body wear. I had a bit of a decision to make this year. Last year, the last MP run coincided with Around the Bay which is a 30k road race in Hamilton. This year, the race is taking place this weekend. However, my MP run was scheduled for last week. I had some thoughts to delaying the MP so I could do it at ATB, but the weather forecasts a week out for this weekend were not looking good. Temperature wise it was to drop below freezing with sustained winds of 30km/hr and up. Compare that to the weather last weekend which was just above freezing and low winds. <br />
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What they say about the bird in hand applied and I figured with the good weather last weekend, to take what I had and then figure out what to do in Hamilton come race weekend. Glad I did, as after a two mile warmup, I was able to crank out 7:15 min/mile pace for 15 miles . Over the course of the training cycle, I've been gradually increasing my MP by 5 sec/mile. I started out at 7:30 pace (end of January), then 7:25 (End of February) and this time around it was supposed to be 7:20 pace, but I tried for 7:15 pace at the start, just to gauge what the effort level was like to see if I could maintain it for any length of time and it seems I was able to maintain it for the whole thing. I wanted to practice that pace because I was trying to figure out if I was in good enough shape to try for the silver medal at ATB. For men, those who finish under a 2:15 gun time get a silver medal, those under 2:00 get a gold and everyone else gets a bronze. 2:15 would require 7:15 pace for the 30k. <br />
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As of right now, they are predicting -4C temps with wind from the west at 20km/hr with gusts up to 40km/hr for the morning, which is not too good. With a circular route, it means tailwind for the first 10k or so and then for the last 3 km, but a headwind from 10k to about 27k. I still haven't decided what I will do. On the one hand, doing marathon pace efforts on back to back weekends is probably not a good idea, but I think if I can maintain the 7:15 pace for the whole thing without getting injured, it would set me up for a really good marathon time a month from now. I'm guessing that they will have pacing groups for the 2:15 time so I could probably use the group to block the wind. I just have to remember to stay with them from the start, unlike what I did in Erie last fall. Lesson learned!<br />
<br />
As for my goal of doing weight training. That hasn't gone as well as I'd liked. It started out well, but lately I usually end up with only one weight training session a week tops with maybe one additional core work out. Not as often as I would have liked, but still way more than I've done in the past. I've also been stretching more. It seems with the running in the evening thing, I get more time to stretch after the run, whereas before, I was quick to get changed and move on because I had to get to work. I guess it's all about time management. <br />
<br />
So that's about all for this update. Hope you're all having a good training season. Spring weather is almost here (though technically it should be here already, damn Polar vortex...)<br />
<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-58792012803098990212015-12-29T20:09:00.000-05:002015-12-29T22:30:49.568-05:002015 Year in ReviewIt's been a few years since I've done any sort of year in review for the blog. I guess it's mostly because in the last few years, I only "trained" for a portion of the year so updating the blog and reflecting on things for the year didn't really make sense. This past year has been the first year in quite a few years where I really tried to train over the entire year which included training through last winter. Most of this training was for the purpose of trying to get back to Boston which did result in a qualifying time last May, but as it turned out, this wouldn't be enough. While there was always a desire to get back to Boston, if I don't, it's not the end of the world. I suppose as the bombings fade into history, the feeling of wanting to go back has begun to diminish, which is a shame. As runners, we should never forget. I suppose I could always try to <a href="http://www.letsrun.com/news/2015/05/the-evidence-is-overwhelming-mike-rossi-the-viral-marathon-dad-is-a-marathon-cheat-and-should-never-have-been-on-the-starting-line-in-boston/">Rossi </a>my way to a BQ time. I find the whole Rossi thing to be fascinating. As someone whose marathon times are near the time that he allegedly ran to get into Boston, it's interesting to see how his training paces and race times are not similar to anything that I'm doing which leads me to conclude that he definitely cheated. <br />
<br />
I don't really want to do the heavy training that was required in the past, but I do want to maintain some level of running that allows me to remember why I fell in in love with the sport to begin with, but to give me enough free time to do other things that inevitably get put on the backburner when training gets more involved. Having said that, while going through my Daily Mile profile a few weeks ago, I realized that I was on track to break my record for yearly mileage of 1891 which was set back in 2009 and that I only needed to average about 35 miles a week to get to 2000 for the year. While 2000 is a nice round number, it's just a number, one more than 1999 and one less than 2001. Alas, with the odd missed run and the Christmas break, the 2000 goal is unattainable right now. I am currently at 1950 for the year so a new record which included a run today. I think I may have actually run more at some point over a 12 month period in the past, but for the calendar year this is a record, with still a few days to go.<br />
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Speaking of which, this was the first day of a new training cycle to prep for a May 1st marathon. Again, im targetting one of the Toronto based ones on that date. Yes, I'm even considering the Goodlife course again even with the <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2015/06/that-damn-course.html">disastrous markings</a> from this past year. I just have to be more aware of the possible screw ups and be prepared to adapt. The weather has been pretty good these past few weeks, but as Murphy's law would indicate, the first day of my training plan had mother nature dump a few cm of snow with rain on the ground. Ending up going to the gym. First treadmill run since March. Yeah, I've been paying gym membership fees for the past 9 months. I did go a few times to swim, but no treadmill running or anything else since March.<br />
<br />
I donated blood last week trying to get at least one donation in for the year, probably should have done it sooner so the first few weeks are going to be a bit of an effort in recovery trying to recover my red blood cells. I think this upcoming year, I will try not to go crazy on the mileage, but will try to do more strength training. I've always said that in the past, and I may do it for a week or so and then I just stop doing it. Leading up to my 5k back in November, I spent about a month doing core work and leg strength exercises and that seemed to work allowing me to PR, but in December, I slipped off the bandwagon. I hope to change that in the new year and to do at least 2 strength training sessions per week and to supplement that with more stretching exercises. I've been going to the RMT during December to use up my benefits and it's embarrassing how inflexible I am and how much it hurts when I get an assisted leg stretch. Of course, this is all good in theory, whether it works out, time can only tell.<br />
<br />
As for races this year, there weren't that many. There were the two marathons and then two 10k's, two 5k's and an 8k race. I may try to do more races next year, but I'll have to see how the training goes. I will probably not use races as training runs as I've done in the past. I'm currently registered for Around the Bay on April 3 and I'm thinking of trying for the silver medal which requires a 2:15 gun time over 30k. This would be 7:15 min/mile pace which is the pace that would be required for a 3:10 marathon. I've never actually raced a 30k. Any I've done in the past have always been done at part of some marathon training thing as either a long run or marathon pace run so this should be new. <br />
<br />
Wish any readers out there, the best of wishes over the holidays and may your training for 2016 be injury-free.<br />
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<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-38201559484279669492015-11-19T22:30:00.000-05:002015-11-19T22:30:00.086-05:00Holly Jolly Fun Run 5k Race Report 2015I decided to do a 5k last weekend. I've tried to go sub-20 in the 5k on numerous occasions, all of which have failed miserably. At the very least, I was hoping to best my PR which was 20:21 set back in 2008. I haven't been doing much training since the marathon, just doing easy miles. Two weeks ago, I did a 3 mile LT run around the track at around 6:50 min/pace and that seemed sustainable and then last week I did 5x1k at 4min/km pace to see how the speed might hold up and that went okay so I thought why not? I was originally planning on doing the Downview 5k which I did last year. This year they moved it into the airstrip field and the race takes place on the runway so perfectly flat, but that race ended up selling out a week early. The only other option, so I thought was a 5k in Whitby, 30 minutes away, along their waterfront which is a bit hilly. Then on Friday, I heard on the news about the Santa Claus parade in Toronto which was taking place that Sunday and the <a href="http://www.thehollyjollyfunrun.com/">Holly Jolly Fun Run</a>. This race takes place along the route right before the parade and while it's advertised as a "Fun Run", it's actually a race that's chip timed on a certified 5k course. Doing a bit more searching around, the course is a definite PR course being net downhill, with the first half being completely flat and the second half having almost a 100 ft elevation drop, with no uphills. Also since it takes place before the Santa Claus parade, you have lots of kids and their families lining the streets cheering you on providing a big city marathon type atmosphere, but you only have to run 5k!<br />
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Online registration had ended, so I headed downtown on Saturday to register. I was expecting to pay $100 as a last minute entry since that was the last pay tier on the website. Yikes!. It's not as bad as it sounds since you get a $50 tax receipt for a charitable donation and the race itself would be $50. When I got down there, I found out it was only $70, still with the $50 tax receipt so the race was only $20. Apparently the $100 also gets you 4 VIP tickets to the parade. The actual kit consisted of a red toque and red mittens.<br />
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So race was actually at noon which means not having to wake up early. Got down to race site at about 10:45 which was a bit too early. Mulled around for a bit and checked bag at the last second at 11:30. Wore sleevelees T and shorts but it wasn't too cold, about 12C.<br />
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Warming up for this was a bit difficult. While on the side streets where it would have been easy to do strides, I realized the sidewalks were filling up pretty quick with people and that I might have difficulty getting to the startline so I ended up getting onto the course fairly early. I couldn't really do strides on the race course, cause there were little kids crossing back and forth on the street so you really couldn't build up any speed without the risk of running them over, so I ended up just doing some light jogging for about 5-10 minutes and then got into the corrals.<br />
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One thing I've learned about 5k's is that I tend to go out too fast. In fact, I would say most people who do 5k's go out too fast. I decided I was not going to start anywhere near the front. They were announcing that people near the startline should be capable of doing a 5k in less than 25 minutes. Okay that's me. Then they announced they had a separate corral for people who would go less than 20 minutes. Okay that could be me, but I wanted no part of that so I started a bit back. Ex-Raptor Dikembe Mutombo was there as part of some promotion and was taking selfies.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sX8Yl-A9Jtc/Vk6EvK8IrsI/AAAAAAAAB3I/cTUxF8J36ng/s1600/mutombo%2Bselfie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sX8Yl-A9Jtc/Vk6EvK8IrsI/AAAAAAAAB3I/cTUxF8J36ng/s400/mutombo%2Bselfie.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's me in the back.</td></tr>
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The way I figured it, if everyone went out too fast, then the people I started wtih would probably be going out at 4min/km pace but would quickly fade, so my plan was to rely on them to make sure I was at the proper pace. <br />
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So the race starts with some confetti cannons and we're off. I hold back for the first little bit and am slowly passing people so the plan worked. First stretch is a straightaway and I quickly try to settle into a good breathing pattern. Do a quick pace check and it's hovering at around 6:20pace which is exactly what I wanted. My HR monitor strap started to slip down and I had to hike it back up. Was worried that it might come undone. The km markers were marked with people wearing sandwhich boards which when you think about it makes sense since it would be hard to see signs on the sidewalk and having a person wearing it means it's mobile in the case that it needs to move around. <br />
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1km: 3:56<br />
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First km is perfectly on pace, continue running a bit and my GPS watch hits the first mile at 6:22 and was feeling quite proud of myself. I kinda thought the crowds would be louder, but I guess the people aren't there to see me runs and that's okay. I continue running trying to hold a steady pace, constantly checking my watch for lap pace. Pass by the 2km sandwich board person and time checks off at<br />
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2km:4:07<br />
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So this was a bit slow, even though my watch had said I averaged 6:19 min/mile pace for this. I was still feeling pretty good and not fading as I typically do when I go out too fast. At this point, I had turned south and was running down University where the downhill starts. We go around University circle and then the straight stretch by hospital row with the large buildings. I didn't really rely on GPS pace after the 2nd mile clicked in at 6:14 since I knew the tall buildings were messing with the crappy GPS on my watch. My goal at this point was to just to gradually catch people. I missed the 3 km marker, but ended up passing the 4km mark at:<br />
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4km: 7:56. (3:58 min/km pace)<br />
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So crossing the 4km marker, I was still breathing quite hard, but still wasn't experiencing the fade that I normally do. Also my HR hadn't spiked to this point though even if it had, I wouldn't have known since I hid the HR display on my watch. With just about 4 minutes left of running, was feeling pretty good. Continue on gradually catching up to and passing some people (and getting passed myself by a few) and head south under the Go train tracks and then turn left with about a 100m to finish in Maple Leaf Square. Could see as I turned the corner, that the clock was well under 20 minutes and knew that the sub-20 was going to be in the bag. Ended up doing the last km in<br />
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5km: 3:50<br />
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So final chip time of 19:49, gun time of 19:55. Finished 21st overall and 5th in my AG, though there were no prizes so placements don't really matter. <a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/281639385">Polar stats and map.</a> HR maxed out at 189 right at the end and there were no sustained HR spikes. There does appear to have been one at the start, but it looks like it reset pretty quick. It could also just have been my HR strap slipping down and it not getting a good signal. I readjusted just before the 3 minute mark where the signal drops off. <br />
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So yes, I did get my sub 20, but some of that was due to the net downhill course. I'm still pretty sure, even if the course had been flat, I would have still PR'd. I haven't set a PR in any race distance in more than 6 years so this was a welcome end to the training season. Definitely a fun race and I would definitely do it again!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sFMsgQqDF8I/Vk6QFuuT_QI/AAAAAAAAB3Y/laCe88UlQtU/s1600/holly-jolly-fun-run-toque.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sFMsgQqDF8I/Vk6QFuuT_QI/AAAAAAAAB3Y/laCe88UlQtU/s320/holly-jolly-fun-run-toque.jpg" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New Favorite Toque!</td></tr>
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<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-59618488029178426932015-10-30T23:04:00.000-04:002015-11-19T22:30:20.321-05:00Scotiabank Waterfront Half Report 2015Ran the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half-Marathon as the 1:45 pacer again two weekends ago which is the 7th year in a row I've done it. It's always a fun time and a chance to give back to the running community. I enjoy doing the pace bunny thing, but a part of me thinks that by doing the pacing gig, I give up a good opportunity to do a race in the fall that is close-by. I could have signed up do the full marathon which would have given me a month to recover from my mid-September race. As it is right now, I would have to travel to Niagara Falls or Hamilton in the weeks after Scotiabank to run a full.<br />
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I know for a few years, they had backup bunnies for the full at each race time. The backup bunnies would get a free entry to the race, but would only get the pacing gear if the original bunny dropped out and they were called up. Pacing gear consists of a free pair of shoes, a hat, shorts and the pacing T-shirt. I'm not sure if they offered the backup positions this year, but it seems that being a backup full marathon pacer might be a good deal if you want to run the full.<br />
<br />
In past years, Brooks was the sponsor and they provided the shoes and gear and the distribution to the runners was done very well. It appears this year that the race couldn't find a shoe sponsor who was willing to pay to be the official sponsor. The race appears to have struck a deal with Asics to provide the official race t-shirts, but there was no other Asics branding anyone else. I guess no one wanted to pony up the cash. As a result, the race itself ended up purchasing the gear for the pacers which consisted of Asics shoes and no-name brand shirts and shorts. I'm sure that they were able to get a discount for the shoes. I don't know if it was a result of the race having to pay for the gear, but the pacing team also appears to have been a tad smaller with 5 fewer than last year. We didn't actually get the gear until the week before the race and didn't get the shoes until the day of the expo. The hat was kinda interesting. It wasn't one of those generic running hat, but a limited edition <a href="http://runningmagazine.ca/ciele-releases-limited-edition-scotiabank-toronto-waterfront-hat/">Ciele</a> that retailed for $45. <br />
<br />
I headed down to the expo Friday after work to do a one hour PR thing that all the pacers are required to do during race weekend. It's an opportunity to meet with racers and answer any questions that people might have. In year's past, we had a spot in the official shoe sponsor retail area, but this year they positioned us at the signing wall where people could sign and send good wishes to others.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uZK7K3GU7yY/Viz_FRJm_LI/AAAAAAAAB18/fTds4vr0TUA/s1600/pacerselfie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uZK7K3GU7yY/Viz_FRJm_LI/AAAAAAAAB18/fTds4vr0TUA/s320/pacerselfie.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pacer Selfie!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
On race morning headed down fairly early. The race started at 8:45am, but the race was saying that bag check was only open to 8am. This wasn't quite true as it was open much later. I think I dropped off my gear at 8:15am. Another pacer from California wanted to take a pacing group shot at 8am, so I ended up doing that but there was only a handful of us who showed up, maybe 8 or so. Moved into the corrals at 8:30 after downing a gel and drinking about 2/3 a bottle of water. Wore the Polar M400 on one arm, but still not quite trusting the GPS on it, also wore the Garmin 405 on the other arm which I've used successfully in the past.<br />
<br />
I wont go through a km by km breakdown since I've done that last year.<br />
<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 345px;"><colgroup><col style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2962; mso-width-source: userset; width: 61pt;" width="81"></col>
<col style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 2633; mso-width-source: userset; width: 54pt;" width="72"></col>
<col style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="height: 15pt; text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td class="xl66" rowspan="2" style="text-align: center; width: 61pt;" width="81">Cumulative <br />
Time</td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: medium none; text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64"></td>
<td class="xl66" rowspan="2" style="text-align: center; width: 54pt;" width="72">Goal<br />
Time</td>
<td class="xl66" rowspan="2" style="text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64">Time<br />
Under</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">Km<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></td>
<td class="xl65" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">Km Spilt</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">1</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:04:56</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:56</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:04:59</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:03</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">2</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:09:53</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:57</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:09:57</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:04</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:14:43</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:50</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:14:56</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:13</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">4</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:19:39</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:56</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:19:54</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:15</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">5</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:24:32</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:53</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:24:53</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:21</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:29:21</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:49</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:29:51</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:30</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">7</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:34:23</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">05:02</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:34:50</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:27</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">8</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:39:23</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">05:00</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:39:48</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:25</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">9</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:44:30</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">05:07</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:44:47</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:17</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">10</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:49:31</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">05:01</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:49:45</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:14</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">11</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:54:26</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:55</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:54:44</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:18</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">12</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:59:24</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:58</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">0:59:42</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:18</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">13</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:04:25</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">05:01</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:04:41</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:16</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">14</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:09:21</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:56</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:09:39</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:18</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">15</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:14:19</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:58</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:14:38</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:19</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">16</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:19:15</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:56</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:19:36</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:21</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">17</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:24:12</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:57</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:24:35</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:23</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">18</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:29:12</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">05:00</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:29:34</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:22</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">19</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:34:09</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">04:57</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:34:32</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:23</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">20</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:39:10</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">05:01</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:39:31</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:21</td>
</tr>
<tr height="20" style="height: 15.0pt;">
<td class="xl65" height="20" style="border-top: medium none; height: 15pt; text-align: center;">21.1</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:44:39</td>
<td class="xl68" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">05:29</td>
<td class="xl67" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">1:44:59</td>
<td class="xl69" style="border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; text-align: center;">-00:20</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
A couple of things. Goal pace was about 4:59 min/km and I really had intended on being slow for the first 2 kms and that's what I told people I was going to do since the first two kms are on a bit of an uphill. It's only about 25m so not a heck of a lot but I should have been slightly slow the first two km even though the actual pace was around where I wanted to be overall. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MZNbHRS8ew4/Vi2WOuRxBOI/AAAAAAAAB2M/jqcxzMV5tiI/s1600/stwm2015Elevation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MZNbHRS8ew4/Vi2WOuRxBOI/AAAAAAAAB2M/jqcxzMV5tiI/s640/stwm2015Elevation.png" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
The third km kinda levels out and this was a little too fast on my part (4:50). I think it's because I was running down the centre of the street running west on Bloor and coming to an aid station, I veered to the north side of the street since everyone was running on the south side and sped up a bit so the running north and then running south again wouldn't lose too much time but it looks like I sped up too much. Plus maintaining the effort level after the uphill portion probably caused me to be a tad quick.<br />
<br />
Km 4 through 6 are basically downhill and this is where I picked up a bunch of time which was my intent. At 6 km, I was 30 seconds ahead of where I needed to be. Almost half of that was gained in the first 3 km which shouldn't have happened. I'm not sure why km 9 was so slow. It looks to be a fairly flat part of the course. It could have been a tangent issue as this was on lakeshore with the three lanes of traffic or it could have been my subconscious slowing me down knowing that the 10km timing mat was coming up which I crossed at 49:30 which was 15 seconds ahead of where I wanted to be which I think was okay. From this point on I think I figured out the pace properly and with no tall buildings around, I could rely on the garmin for accurate pace feed back. From that point on to 20k, I was hovering between 4:55 and 5:00 min/km. At 20km I was 21 seconds ahead of where I wanted to be which means I had picked up an extra 6 seconds over 10k which I think was acceptable.<br />
<br />
Like last year, my HR monitor strap slipped down and eventually became unhooked again. This happened at the 30 minute mark. I had actually tightened the strap in the corrals just before race start and it stilled happened. It never happens during training or during my races. I think it must have something to do with carrying the sign which requires me to hold my arm up. The jostling and the weird arm position, must cause my chest and ab muscles to flex in a different way that allows the strap to slip down. I tried to hike it back up, but could only do it on the one side at a time while carrying the sign and that caused it to come undone. I ended up just carrying the strap the rest of the race. <br />
<br />
The last 1.1 km is running up Bay St. which is a slight incline. At this point, I had 21 s in the bank and was facing a bit of a dilemma. Sure I could slow down a bit and eat into that 21 seconds and finish closer to my goal, but I still had a bit of a group with me. This was different then in years past when I would rarely get people that would run with me the whole race. They would either get dropped or take off in the last few kms. Yes there were those types of people this year, but there was a small group including one girl who literally ran beside me the whole race. She refused to stray more then a few feet. I had noticed she was breathing quite heavily at the start and usually that means they'll drop off, but here she was running beside me during the last km still breathing quite hard. So these people had earned that extra 21 seconds as a result of my errors and I think it would have been selfish to take that away from them so I maintained the 5 min/km pace going up Bay and did the last 1.1 km in 5:29 which is exactly 4:59 pace. Yeah! So finished in 1:44:39 which is 21 seconds under my goal, but probably the most satisfying finish as a pacer job as looking through the splits, there were a bunch of people who started with me, crossed the 10k mat with me and then finished just ahead of me. Yes, I did end up yelling at people to pick it up with 400m to go and off they went. <br />
<br />
I ended up buying the race pics cause I thought there were a couple that might look okay. I've never really had a good one as a pacer. It's hard to tell with the small thumbnails they give. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-09QGuQh1FTA/VjQtHXu8pQI/AAAAAAAAB2k/RzXy_-A-Z18/s1600/scotia2015pacer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-09QGuQh1FTA/VjQtHXu8pQI/AAAAAAAAB2k/RzXy_-A-Z18/s400/scotia2015pacer.jpg" width="165" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Near the finish</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZV_55KLAiwE/VjQuK4NGLXI/AAAAAAAAB2w/t-l6XWHR-UY/s1600/scotia2015pacer-sleep.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZV_55KLAiwE/VjQuK4NGLXI/AAAAAAAAB2w/t-l6XWHR-UY/s400/scotia2015pacer-sleep.jpg" width="137" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clearly sleeping on the job</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
A fellow bunny had forwarded me this comment from someone and it's always nice to see that people take notice of good pacing, though my recollection of the start doesn't quite jive with what he said, but hey I'm not going to take issue if he thinks I did a good job.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">"I
thought I'd chime in with my pacer experience at SWTM Half Marathon.
F rancis N g was the 1:45 pacer and his pace was solid. With all the
traffic for the first 1.5 km we were a little behind pace, so to make up
for the set back he picked it up, slowly and deliberately, and by 3 km
we were back on pace and he never wavered. He paced by effort, not by
pace so the uphills were a bit slower and the downhills were a bit
faster. I kept him about 10 steps behind me until about the 19 km mark
when I picked it up as much as I could. He brought everyone in at
1:44:39. I will look for a pacer again for my next target Spring race."</span></span><br />
<br />
Cool!Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-35229450515773912512015-10-06T22:40:00.001-04:002015-10-06T22:40:54.576-04:00Toronto Peace Marathon 10k 2015 Race ReportTwo weekends ago, I ran the KCCA Toronto Peace run. I ran this race <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2014/09/toronto-peace-marathon-10k-race-report.html">last year</a> and thought I'd do it again this year just to see where the fitness was at. I only decided to do it late in the week and they didn't offer registration through the normal channels but did it themselves and then pay through PayPal or you could pay on the day of the race. I thought it would save them a little money if I just paid in cash, but in hindsight that was probably a bad idea since from their standpoint, why would you register someone if they haven't paid?<br />
<br />
Anyhow, how I prepared for the race was a recipe of how not to do prepare for the race. I left home early enough and got about 2/3 of the way down to the race site by car when i casually glance down at the passenger seat where I had thrown the stuff that I thought I would need: water bottle, gel, sunglasses and phone. I realized that I had forgot my wallet so I had to turn around to go back. I guess I should have just paid online. Anyhow, by the time I get back to the race site, there's only about 30 minutes to race start and of course I'm not registered so I have to sign up again and they have to phone in my reg info to the timing mat guys. They used the same bibs with the straps that they had last year and I had forgotten the safety pins that I would need to clip the straps to my shirt in my car so I jog back to the car. I quickly jog back to the race site and I notice my HR is spiking, and there's only a couple of minutes to race start. I ended up lining up about half way into the crowd and am trying to do everything to get the HR to reset, but nothing seems to be working. The horn goes off and at this point I'm trying to decide if I should wait or just go. I ended up just deciding to go and treating the run like a good tempo effort.<br />
<br />
The first little bit, I just try to maintain a nice steady pace and end up passing quite a few people. About 500 m in, I look down at my watch to get a sense of how fast I'm going and I notice that my HR is reading about 175 which means it had reset. Nice. I noticed my lap pace is about 6:30's whch was a tad fast. I was hoping to go a bit faster than the time I ran last year of 44:03 (6:55 min/mile pace), but I was feeling kinda good and with the HR somewhat normal, I had high hopes.<br />
<br />
The route was actually a tad different this year. Overall, the start and turnaround were the same as last year, but they added some slight differences where the route forks into two paths, the out portion would take one fork and then the return path was on the other fork. The km markers were non-existent so I only have GPS splits.<br />
<br />
1 mile: 6:31<br />
2 mile: 6:41<br />
3 mile: 6:41<br />
4 mile: 6:49<br />
5 mile: 7:13<br />
6 mile: 6:55<br />
6.4 mile: 2:38 (6:35 min/mile pace)<br />
<br />
I ended up passing most people in the first mile. During mile 3, I ended up passing a white-guy which I thought was a little strange, but I realized after that he was Patrick Brown, the leader of the PC party in Ontario. He was going at a pretty good clip. At the turnaround, I see there's only two guys ahead of me, one guy who I'm pretty sure I'm not going to catch and another guy who's only about 15 second ahead of me. They had a timing mat at the turnaround this year so no timing issues like what happened to me last year. Split time of 21:05, but I think this was a bit longer than 5k, maybe 5.1k. So after the turnaround, I gradually try to reel in the one guy I think I can catch and I pull up beside him, but I don't think the guy liked being passed as he sticks with me running right beside me for a while. During mile 5, he pulls ahead of me and charges up the hill, but I think he went up too hard on the hill, as I was able to slowly pull up to him and pass him for good after the hill.<br />
<br />
Finish time of 43:33 which was 2nd overall, first in my age group. The route was a bit more than 10k. My GPS says it was 6.41 miles. I measured it last year in Google Earth and that was 10.245km , but I thing the route this year was a tad longer so maybe 20-30m more so I think the 6.41 mile measurement is about right which means I averaged about 6:48 pace for the whole thing which is about the same as I what I ran this spring.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Unlike last year, I ended up going to the awards ceremony and did win an age group prize, a Korean dinner plate set and a glass plaque. They also had a raffle for a tablet, TV and round trip airfare to Korea. So pretty good for only a $25 entry fee. I noticed this year, that there really was an effort to speak more English during the race and afterwards. I think it probably had to do with the fact that there were so many non-Korean politicans around. In addition to Patrick Brown, the premier, Kathleen Wynn was at the race as well as a whole bunch of people from different areas running in the federal election. I can understand if you'ra the local candidate from the area where the race takes place, but why would a candidate from up in Thornhill get special mentioning at the awards ceremony in mid town Toronto, I don't know.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u3oaeihtISk/VhSCVIJPTLI/AAAAAAAAB1s/PiK4YvptmJY/s1600/IMG_20150926_122009579.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-u3oaeihtISk/VhSCVIJPTLI/AAAAAAAAB1s/PiK4YvptmJY/s400/IMG_20150926_122009579.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Age Group Prize</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
When I started the race, I had assumed my HR would be high for the whole thing, but funny enough, no HR spikes as can be seen from <a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/226015993">Polar data</a>.
HR touched 186 once and then hit 185 a few times in the middle. It started to drop after the hill on the way back into the low 180's.
I wonder if I could have run faster. I definitely slowed down during
mile 6 but maybe I could have kept the HR up for a bit longer. <br />
<br />
I'm starting to wonder if 6:50 is my limit for speed. I always seem to hover around that pace when I get tired. This is the same pace that I ran a 10k in back in June and the 8k back in April. Even back in my faster days, I don't think I ever did my LT run's faster than 6:50 pace. I think it may be breathing limit for me as at this pace, I'm generally panting quite hard. If I increase my ventilating limit, maybe it would allow me to go faster. I was thinking maybe if took up swimming a bit more seriously in the upcoming months in addition to doing some more weight training, I might be able to change that. Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-68680990454476703902015-10-03T20:52:00.000-04:002015-10-03T20:52:32.310-04:00Oh well...As expected, I didn't get into Boston. The cutoff this year was 2:28 which is a significant increase over last year and was even more than the cutoff the year after the bombings.<br />
<br />
Even if I had ran my goal time in Erie of 3:13:15ish, that wouldn't have been enough and I would have needed another 45 seconds beyond that. I suppose I'm okay with that. <br />
<br />
With Boston out of the question for next year, it now turns to what's next? I decided not to enter the Tokyo marathon lottery for next year which we had to in August. The race is in February. I had already entered the London marathon lottery, which was in late April and with the potential of Boston, I didn't want to run the risk of getting into all three. As it turns out, I'm doing none of them. I did enter the Berlin Marathon lottery and the results of that come in November for a race next September so if I don't get into that, I may try to do Tokyo through a tour if spaces are still available. It would mean another training cycle would have to start towards the end of October which means no more marathon attempts for the rest of the year.<br />
<br />
As for the 2:28 time period, that seems kinda high. That's already half way to lowering the qualifying time by another 5 minutes. While I have previously said that I had no desire to attempt another 3:10 marathon in my life, here I am looking at having to do one to get into Boston. While I like running, I don't necessarily like having to train hard to run a marathon so I''m not sure Boston will be in the next few years if it requires me to run that fast. 3:15 I can kinda manage, much faster than that I don't know. My BQ time drops by 10 minutes in a few years so there's always that possibility.<br />
<br />
As for the rest of the year?<br />
<br />
I do have to do pacing duties for the scotiabank half again. I've done it for the past few years and it's a good time. They changed sponsors this year. While it was Brooks the past few years, they switched over to Asics this year and they've had some problems getting things worked out. We still haven't received our pacing gear yet and it's two weeks to race day. Thankfully, Asics isn't a full sponsor so we aren't mandated to wear their shoes like in previous years. That's good for the marathon pacers since they don't have to worry about untested and unfamiliar shoes on race day.<br />
<br />
I did do the Peace run last weekend. 10k race and came in 2nd overall, race report to come. Not sure I want to do any more races. With the Boston letdown, I have no desire to race anytime soon so I guess I'll just enjoy these next few weeks of running for no particular reason.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-32311848506460404822015-09-25T21:08:00.002-04:002015-09-25T21:08:53.855-04:00And the Waiting Continues...So I applied to run Boston next year with my 70 seconds. I'm 99.9% positive it won't be enough though. The number of people who got in after week 1 is more than it has been in the previous 2 years which most likely means that the cutoff will be more than it was 2 years ago at 98 seconds and there's a good chance it may be higher than 2 minutes. <br />
<br />
With the cutoff being so high, I'm leaning towards not doing another marathon this year since I'm not sure I would be in a position to run a 3:12 marathon, maybe after another full training cycle, but certainly not after a 5-6 week between marathons program. <br />
<br />
I registered for a 10k race tomorrow which is the Korean Peace Marathon (10k) which I did last year. It's inexpensive and would allow me to get a good tempo effort in which has been severely lacking in my training this past summer. I may also with the time left in the year take another shot at the sub-20 5k and maybe race a half which I haven't done in 5 years. Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-83842185786482155592015-09-19T09:57:00.000-04:002015-11-19T22:30:34.042-05:00Erie Marathon 2015 Race ReportTo quickly summarize, I finished the Erie (Presque Isle) Marathon in 3:18:10, about 5 minutes slower than I would have liked so no BQ time, unless I can get my birthday changed on my ID to show that I'm actually 4 years older.<br />
<br />
Took the day off on Friday and drove down. I was hoping to leave midday and avoid rush hour, but didn't leave until about 3pm. Who knew that rush hour begins at such an earlier time. Crossed the border in Fort Erie on the Peace Bridge, the same bridge that I crossed during the Niagara Falls marathon last year. I think I arrived at around 7pm or so. I ended up staying at one of the closer hotels to the race site, which in hindsight, i probably didn't have to do since it's literally in middle of nowhere. Not much else to see or do in the area. If I had to do it again, I would have stayed more in "downtown" Erie, which had more eating options. Saturday I spent driving around trying to find stuff, which was miserable because it rained all day. Not just light stuff but buckets of the stuff. I was worried about this carrying forward another day, which would have been a disaster. I had to drive into the state park where the race takes place to pick up my kit and there was flooding on the roads. I felt sorry for the exhibitors at the kit pickup since it took place outside under tents on grass. Even under the tents in some places, you had to stand in one-inch standing water. Thankfully, the rain was forecast to go away by the following morning, but they were predicting a strong wind.<br />
<br />
After picking up my kit, I was trying to find one of those gatorade drink bottles with the twisty spout on the top which I could use during the race. I didn't bother to bring anything from up north since I had assumed they would have them. I had to try a number of different place: Walmart, Target, K-mart, a few grocery stores and a pharmacy, nothing. I eventually did find one in a dollar store of all places, where I had gone to buy some throw away gloves.<br />
<br />
After getting that and a throw away rain poncho in case the rain didn't subside, I had to head back to the park for the pasta dinner, which wasn't what I thought it would be. They offered it during registration and it was really cheap. I realize why when I got there. It was in a small pavilion that was outside. While there was protection from the rain, there wasn't protection from the wind which was still blowing around quite significantly. Basically, the seating consisted of a bunch of picnic tables. You would grab your food, eat and leave. No entertainment other than chatting with other people. I was in and out in a little over 30 minutes I guess. Headed back to the hotel after to veg out and went to bed at about 10:30.<br />
<br />
I had set my fitbit to wake me at 4:30am, which was good cause when I woke I noticed that the alarm clock in the room was blinking. I guess there had been a short power failure or something during the night. Hopefully no one doing the race had slept in because of it.<br />
<br />
Ate my customary bagel with peanut batter, washed down with some water and gatorade at around 5am and left for the park at around 5:30am. There were some traffic issues getting in and I wasn't parked until about 6:05 or so. The temperature while driving into the park was a bit warmer than I would have liked. The thermometer in my car was saying that it was 17C, which is a bit warmer than the 13-14C, they were predicting and this was when it was still dark out. While walking to the race start (should have brought a flashlight), all I could hear was the howling wind rustling through the trees. Not a good sign. Arrived at the race start and did the portapotty lineup a few times to empty the system which was difficult, it being completely dark. Luckily I had my phone which provided some illumination. I did some light jogging but I wouldn't really call it a warmup. Moved into the corral with about 5 minutes to 7am which was the race start time and positioned myself just behind the 3:15 pacer. Then proceed to wait another 20 minutes or so just standing around as they delayed the start by 18 minutes. Glad I hadn't warmed up more. They played the Canadian and US anthems and then we were off.<br />
<br />
First mile consisted of me trying to start off slow. As is typical, I wanted to avoid the HR spiking thing so I didn't want to get too far ahead of pace. The first little mile was on a fairly narrow road, and it was hard getting into the proper pace with the bunch of people. According to the lap pace functionality of my watch, I quickly found myself falling behind pace and the 3:15 pacer moving ahead of me. I started to up the pace a bit and hit the first mile marker at <br />
<br />
1 mile: 07:35<br />
<br />
So 1 mile in and I'm already 10 seconds behind where I wanted to be, no problem. At this point, the crowd has thinned out so I decide to try and run the next few miles at the proper 7:22min/mile pace that I was aiming for using my polar M400 for lap pace feedback I missed the 2nd mile marker, but hit the third at<br />
<br />
3 mile: 14:51 (7:26 min/mile pace)<br />
<br />
My watch had me doing 7:21 min/mile pace for the two miles which was the pace I was aiming for, but it seems that it was off compared to the actual splits. I realized that this was going to put me into a bit of a hole if I kept bleeding off 5 seconds every mile. At this point 4 miles in and I'm already 19 seconds behind where I wanted to be. I started out the 4th mile kinda quick because I realized I was dropping behind, but thought I had dropped into a tad bit faster than goal pace to try and gain back a few seconds over the next few miles but then I hit the 4 mile marker at slightly faster than I wanted.<br />
<br />
4 mile: 7:09<br />
<br />
I'm not sure if this was accurate or not since my GPS pace was 7:19 which seems like a big difference. I should mention that by this point I've run for about 30 minutes and my HR was acting normal. It was averaging in the mid 160's which is what I'm guessing is around where my marathon pace HR should be so things are looking good. In fact, I remember thinking around this time that this was going to be a good HR day since it hadn't spiked and I was more than 4 miles in. Alas, it would not last, as the HR spiked during mile 5. Since I knew from May that I could run pretty much the whole marathon distance with it spiking, I just continued on.<br />
<br />
5 mile: 7:29<br />
<br />
Mile 5 was a crappy split, even though my watch said I averaged 7:20 pace. The GPS on this polar watch is quite crappy and probably with it being worn on my left wrist facing the interior of the park with the trees, it was having a hard time figuring out my pace.<br />
<br />
I decided I needed to make a a concerted attempt to catch back up to the 3:15 pace group. The reason for this was the wind. The strong wind that was coming off of Lake Erie was from the NW. The course is a two loop course and the way the course was laid out, the wind was going to be a head wind starting at about 9.5 miles and then again at the 22.5 miles mark. The 3:15 group I could see in the distance was pretty big and I would need them to block the wind. The only problem was they were about 40 seconds ahead of me. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-idIh1On9xsk/VfyorAIp5KI/AAAAAAAAB1E/oaPQ3PnUrXY/s1600/eriemarathonmap.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="264" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-idIh1On9xsk/VfyorAIp5KI/AAAAAAAAB1E/oaPQ3PnUrXY/s400/eriemarathonmap.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Erie Marathon Course</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
I spend the next few miles bumping up the pace. With the crappy GPS, I needed to run a bit more of an effort level to try and catch back up to them.<br />
<br />
Mile 6: 7:17 (GPS pace of 7:15)<br />
10k split: 45:53 (7:23 min/mile pace from start)<br />
Mile 7: 7:07 (GPS pace 7:09)<br />
Mile 8: 7:20 (GPS pace 7:14)<br />
Mile 9: 7:33 (GPS pace 7:17)<br />
<br />
I was still having some concerns with the GPS pacing which was inconsistent. By mile 7 I had caught back up to my pace band and was slightly ahead of where I wanted to be. Mile 9 has the only "hill" of the course which is just a short incline up a small bridge which then quickly drops back down again. It's a bit steep, but short. The problem was that by mile 9, I was still a little bit behind the group. By the 10k mark I was 20 seconds behind and I was trying to catch up but I think they were pulling off splits that were faster than the 7:27 that they should have been aiming for so I wasn't gaining as much ground as I would have liked. I also couldn't bump up the pace that much more to try and catch them because I was concerned that my lack of LT runs this past summer wouldn't allow me to run much more faster than I already was without hindering my performance. Bottom line was that by the 9.5 mile mark when the headwind started, I was not with the 3:15 group and had to struggle through the wind on my own.<br />
<br />
Mile 10: 7:26<br />
Mile 11: 7:30<br />
Mile 12: 7:27<br />
Half Split 1:37:09 (7:25 min/mile pace from start)<br />
Mile 14: 15:07 (2 mile average 7:33)<br />
<br />
So these miles show the tale of the tape. With no group to block the wind, and everyone else around me starting to slow down, I had to fight through the wind on my own. The pace wasn't too bad, but the effort felt hard. While I had caught back up to my pace band at mile 7, by the time I hit the half, I had already slipped back behind by a not too insignificant margin of 32 seconds. Also the pace was feeling a tad tough. Usually, I pass the half and it should feel normal. Not like at the start of the race, but it shouldn't feel like a struggle, like it was at this point. Now it could have just been because I had run for a few miles into a head wind, but I was pretty certain at this point that it was going to be hard for me to surpass the 3:13:50 that I ran back in May as it was going to require me to run a 30 second negative split for the second half and I was already having difficulty maintaining the required pace at this point, but I soldered on trying to hold pace and see how long I could go.<br />
<br />
Mile 15: 7:24<br />
Mile 17: 14:36 (7:18 pace average)<br />
Mile 18: 7:53<br />
<br />
I'm not sure what happened during mile 18 that slowed me down so much, but I think it could have been long since I'm pretty sure the 2 mile split before that where I supposed average 7:18 can't seem right so it must have been short.<br />
<br />
Mile 19: 7:29<br />
Mile 20: 7:36 (Official Split of 2:28:55, 7:27 pace from start)<br />
<br />
So I got to the 20 mile timing mat and with the 20 mile mark being the "half-way" point of the race, I knew that it just wasn't go to happen so I started backing off the pace since I knew the bridge hill and the wind were coming up. This pace would have put me just over a 3:15 marathon, but with this race not being a double dipper that would qualify me for 2017, meeting a 3:15 qualifying time now was going to be meaningless to me since I already had a faster qualifying time from back in May. Rest of the race went as follows.<br />
<br />
Mile 21: 7:47<br />
Mile 22: 7:58 (bridge hill)<br />
Mile 23: 7:51 (start of windy portion)<br />
Mile 24: 8:04<br />
Mile 25: 8:10 <br />
Mile 26: 7:30<br />
Miles 26.2: 1:57<br />
<br />
I only stopped to walk once which was for a short bit during an aid station in mile 25 to make sure that I downed two cups of fluids since I had assumed that this was the last aid station for the race. Other than that, I ran the entire way. I was able to bump up the pace for the last mile or so just so that I could finish strong.<br />
<br />
Final chip time of 3:18:10 which put me 202 overall and 31st in my age group. <br />
<br />
Yes, I'm a bit disappointed with the time, but not all races can be great. I did think the temperature was a bit warmer than I would have liked. I never really felt warm, but looking through the race pics, I see that my shirt was sweaty and I see a bunch of other people had removed their shirts. I think the wind helped to cool you down, but we were still sweating and losing fluids. I don't think I every got dehydrated but I think I was getting close to it by the end, thus why I had to stop to drink fluids during mile 25. Also I think the scrambling around the day before didn't help. My fitbit shows I walked about 7k the day before the race and that didn't include the 2 mile shakedown run so maybe I was a bit more tired then I should have been on race day.<br />
<br />
The post race support is pretty good. The mylar blanked, water, bananas, chocolate milk and subway sandwiches. I hand around for a bit and got the obligatory post race photo with medal.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qyLmXA4J9Os/Vf1hw05XQLI/AAAAAAAAB1U/Ac_VPliCOj0/s1600/Erie%2BFinish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qyLmXA4J9Os/Vf1hw05XQLI/AAAAAAAAB1U/Ac_VPliCOj0/s320/Erie%2BFinish.jpg" width="285" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't mind the portapotties in the background!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tSz2bDwx9Z0/Vf1hwrN8O0I/AAAAAAAAB1Q/QXsBIh5xLyg/s1600/Erie%2BMedal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tSz2bDwx9Z0/Vf1hwrN8O0I/AAAAAAAAB1Q/QXsBIh5xLyg/s320/Erie%2BMedal.jpg" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Medal!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
So generally nice race. Lots of aid stations, once every mile and well stocked. The delay at the start was a bit unnerving because it undid any warmup you may have done. The temperatures as I said were a tad warm and the wind was not pleasant. With a loop course, you would think that any headwind would be counteracted by a tailwind at some point, but it doesn't work like that on Presque Isle. When you're running into the headwind from the NW, you're running right by the lake. When the wind would theoretically be a tailwind, you're running on the other side of the peninsula where the interior of the park with it's trees block the effects of the wind. The course would have been perfect if it had been run in the reverse direction.Tailwind by the lake, headwind blocked by the trees.<br />
<br />
Polar GPS and HR info and the course map is available <a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/211602367">here</a>. HR spiked at 32 minute mark about 4.2 miles in and lasted the whole race. My HR during the spiking portion was about 5 beats slower than it was back in May so maybe I could have run a bit faster cardio wise.<br />
<br />
Some raw stats.<br />
<br />
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 312px;"><colgroup><col span="2" style="width: 48pt;" width="64"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 3437; mso-width-source: userset; width: 71pt;" width="94"></col>
<col style="mso-width-alt: 3291; mso-width-source: userset; width: 68pt;" width="90"></col>
</colgroup><tbody>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64">Mile</td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center; width: 48pt;" width="64">Split</td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center; width: 71pt;" width="94">Actual Time</td>
<td class="xl68" style="text-align: center; width: 68pt;" width="90">Time Ahead<br />
of Goal</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">1</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:35</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:07:35</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:12</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">3</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">14:52</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:22:27</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:19</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">4</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:10</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:29:37</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:07</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">5</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:29</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:37:06</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:13</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">6</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:18</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:44:24</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:09</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">7</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:07</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:51:31</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:00:07</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">8</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:21</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:58:52</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">0:00:08</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">9</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:33</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:06:25</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:02</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">10</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:26</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:13:51</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:05</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">11</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:30</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:21:21</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:13</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">12</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:27</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:28:48</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:17</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">14</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">15:07</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:43:55</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:39</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">15</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:24</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">1:51:19</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:41</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">17</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">14:36</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:05:55</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:00:32</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">18</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:53</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:13:48</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:01:02</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">19</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:29</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:21:17</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:01:08</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">20</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:36</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:28:53</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:01:22</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">21</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:47</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:36:40</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:01:46</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">22</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:58</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:44:38</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:02:22</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">23</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:51</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">2:52:29</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:02:50</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">24</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">08:04</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">3:00:33</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:03:32</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">25</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">08:10</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">3:08:43</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:04:19</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">26</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">07:30</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">3:16:13</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:04:27</td>
</tr>
<tr height="17" style="height: 12.75pt;">
<td class="xl68" height="17" style="height: 12.75pt; text-align: center;">26.2</td>
<td class="xl67" style="text-align: center;">01:57</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">3:18:10</td>
<td class="xl69" style="text-align: center;">-0:04:55</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
10k split: 45:53 (7:23 pace)<br />
Half split: 1:37:09 (7:26 pace beteen 10k and half)<br />
20 mile split: 2:28:55 (7:31 pace between half and 20M)<br />
Finish: 3:18:10 (7:56 pace between 20M and finish)<br />
<br />
So it looks like I will have to wait and see if my 70 seconds from May will be enough to get me into Boston for 2016. Registration for us mortals will start on Monday so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.<br />
<br />
I have had some thoughts on maybe trying to do the Hamilton marathon in November so not to waste the summer of training and shoot for a BQ time for 2017 but that's a bit in the air. I guess I'll see if I get into Boston 2016 and then decide.Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-35842853119470599922015-09-11T09:45:00.000-04:002015-09-11T09:45:09.424-04:00It's On!I'm going to Erie.<br />
<br />
The weather forecasts haven't really changed much temperature wise. Now being only 48 hours out, I can get hourly forecasts and all sites are generally predicting ok temperatures. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z3Q0YaFGbAI/VfLWxZA-c2I/AAAAAAAAB0Q/SS8iTcQV0jU/s1600/accu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Z3Q0YaFGbAI/VfLWxZA-c2I/AAAAAAAAB0Q/SS8iTcQV0jU/s1600/accu.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Accuweather</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yymWbuReOUY/VfLWxWx8fEI/AAAAAAAAB0U/X7TNo0sxxgQ/s1600/weathe.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="65" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yymWbuReOUY/VfLWxWx8fEI/AAAAAAAAB0U/X7TNo0sxxgQ/s400/weathe.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Weather.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dyms5exQdVQ/VfLWxWNxYeI/AAAAAAAAB0Y/IAdEEmtxjZs/s1600/weathernet.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dyms5exQdVQ/VfLWxWNxYeI/AAAAAAAAB0Y/IAdEEmtxjZs/s1600/weathernet.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Weather Network</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J7fNIE10LhU/VfLWx0JoQEI/AAAAAAAAB0g/ZK8FvVaNVQc/s1600/weatherunder.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-J7fNIE10LhU/VfLWx0JoQEI/AAAAAAAAB0g/ZK8FvVaNVQc/s1600/weatherunder.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Weather Underground</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
All under 15C. I'd still like it a tad cooler, but I suppose it's way better than what they've been having recently. I went for a run this morning in 16C and though it was nice for a recovery run, marathon pace requires a bit more effort so the extra coolness would be welcome. The wild card is now they are predicting a good chance for rain, not a lot though. On the plus side, it probably means cloudy day which means no sun bearing down on us. <br />
<br />
The Montreal and Rochester forecasts for next week are predicting higher temperatures so I suppose I'd rather take my chances with Erie now than hope for cooler temperatures next week. <br />
<br />
I was reading on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ErieMarathonAtPresqueIsle">facebook page</a> for the marathon and someone mentioned that there are biting insects when they were out there last weekend. For some reason, I'm like a magnet for mosquitoes so this has me a bit worried. I guess I'll have to wear some insect repellent the morning of, but I've never worn that during a race and you know the old adage, don't do anything new on race day. Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-84747923071206742912015-09-05T17:43:00.000-04:002015-09-05T17:43:04.990-04:00Last week of Taper (maybe)So the Erie marathon is next weekend and I"m leaning towards going. If this crazy heat that we've had this past week continued on, I would not have gone, but the weather forecast is borderline. I had decided a few weeks ago that I would only do Erie if the low temperature for race day was under 15C. Any warmer, and I think it would be too warm to run a good time. I've been monitoring the extended forecasts for the past week and it's hovering around that temperature. I'm not sure which forecasts are more accurate so I figured I would check them all. Today 8 days before the race, the forecasts are looking as follows.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sX7JPSIq1g0/VetaoS_ku3I/AAAAAAAABzs/fuqetsLEyO4/s1600/accuweather.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sX7JPSIq1g0/VetaoS_ku3I/AAAAAAAABzs/fuqetsLEyO4/s1600/accuweather.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Accuweather</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9zXTMeEHFDo/VetaoYU88sI/AAAAAAAABz8/Bc8x5VIAW48/s1600/weatherchannel.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="58" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9zXTMeEHFDo/VetaoYU88sI/AAAAAAAABz8/Bc8x5VIAW48/s320/weatherchannel.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Weather Channel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2XLbmNDnlnY/VetaoivBSVI/AAAAAAAABzw/EwIAfwpWjX0/s1600/weathernetwork.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2XLbmNDnlnY/VetaoivBSVI/AAAAAAAABzw/EwIAfwpWjX0/s1600/weathernetwork.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Weather Network</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pKnfN5A22Z8/VetaoRlXeSI/AAAAAAAABzo/MEWiG7tcIDs/s1600/Weatherunder.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pKnfN5A22Z8/VetaoRlXeSI/AAAAAAAABzo/MEWiG7tcIDs/s1600/Weatherunder.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Weather Underground</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
All the US sites are reporting under 15 for a low and the Canadian one is reporting 16C. So it's still a bit iffy. Race starts at 7am which is just after sunrise so I don't think the high temperatures for the day will come into play. Adding to this is that the extended forecasts for September 20th in Rochester NY, which is a marathon a week later that would allow me to double dip for Boston, is forecasting almost perfect marathoning weather with a low of 10C and a high of 12C. Rochester is a bit hillier course so I'm not sure the better temperatures would offset the hills. <br />
<br />
Hopefully the temps will drop down a bit more for Erie that will make the decision easier. Where's that Canadian arctic air when you need it?<br />
<br />
As for training this past summer, I think it's been okay. I loosely followed the Pfitz plan, but didn't do all of the extended LT runs. My goal was just to build upon, but not necessarily crush training to at the very least maintain my fitness level. Total mileage is about the same, but the quality probably wasn't there. Fitness wise though I think it's probably about the same or maybe a bit better than it was back in May, if only due to increased aerobic fitness. However I'm a bit heavier, maybe only 1-2 pounds so not a lot but from what I've read that could add a few seconds/mile to marathon pace. As for the pace I'd like to aim for, I think 3:13:15ish is around where I want and maybe I'll adjust in the later parts of the race if I'm feeling good. This is around 7:22.6 min/mile and 4:34.8 min/km. Yes I realize this is anal retentive like precision and is only about 1 second faster than the pace I ran back in May, but the courses were different. Whereas Goodlife was a course with a big elevation drop, Erie is flat so I figure that the Goodlife course probably added a few extra seconds to my average pace so I'm hoping that a summer of training will get me those seconds back plus one more. <br />
<br />
<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-46003247123203613882015-08-03T19:43:00.001-04:002015-08-03T19:43:36.984-04:00Double DippingTraining for this cycle has been sort of on track. I've been loosely following the Pfitz plan that I've follwed so many times before, but I haven't done all the runs as prescribed. My goal was to try and maintain fitness gained over the winter to make another BQ attempt in September before the BQ qualifying window for 2016 runs out. So the odd missed run or LT run cut short hasn't worried me too much.<br />
<br />
A few weeks after my May marathon, I had signed up for the <a href="http://eriemarathon.org/">Erie Marathon</a> on September 13, 2015. It's relatively close by in Erie, PA and is about a three hour drive away. I was initially looking for a race that would allow me to double dip, that is qualify me for both 2016 and 2017 and in years past, the Erie Marathon fit the bill. I had assumed that this years race would do the same. In July, Boston released the timing for the registration phase for the 2016 race and it appears that it's a week later than in years past which means that the Erie marathon is no longer a double dipper. It would allow me to qualify for 2016, but not 2017. A race done a week later on September 20, 2015 however will allow a double dipping.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LXO5rKGX290/Vb_7nI1QSGI/AAAAAAAABzU/4CORy_HqF_s/s1600/doubledip.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="298" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LXO5rKGX290/Vb_7nI1QSGI/AAAAAAAABzU/4CORy_HqF_s/s320/doubledip.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes George, double dipping is okay ... for races.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
So this now poses an interesting dilemma for me. I liked Erie because it's pancake flat, but the no double dipping thing is making me reconsider. I've looked into races on September 20 which would be double dippers and there are a few, including one in <a href="https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwiU6PTShY7HAhXKbT4KHZtcBew&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rochestermarathon.com%2F&ei=Mfa_VdSLIMrb-QGbuZXgDg&usg=AFQjCNE3Qk00WzgdNnQ3pQkopZQynVn21g&sig2=L15NpxfykznFACMH1b1O4A&bvm=bv.99261572,d.cWw">Rochester, NY</a> which is even closer. There's also one in <a href="http://www.runrocknroll.com/montreal/en/">Montreal</a>. However, these courses seem hilly by comparison and I'm looking for a fast, flat (or net downhill course with few hills). If I had been a bit more serious about training and bumped up the mileage, these might be doable, but I don't think my fitness is that much greater than it was back in May so there isn't really much more of a cushion for me. I'm still looking at September 20 options as there seems to be quite a few marathons on that date. I originally had no plans to fly and was looking for something relatively close by, but I will re-evaluate that if I can find a race with a fast course.<br />
<br />
The other option is to do two marathons this fall, one to qualify for 2016 and one for 2017. I could do the Erie race and then do a November/December race which allow at least 6 weeks of recovery from the first marathon. The <a href="http://hamiltonmarathon.ca/">Hamilton marathon</a> on November 1 is close by, is a net downhill, fast course which is a good BQ course. If I wanted to fly out to the west coast, <a href="http://runcim.org/">CIM </a>is an option in December if it doesn't fill up. Running two races isn't ideal however. The last option is to not run a September race and only attempt to qualify for 2017 by running an October or later race and hope that my time in May will be fast enough for 2016. This is a bit iffy as <a href="http://boston-qualifier-stats.blogspot.ca/">a blog</a> has done a calculation and is guestimating the cutoff will be 90 seconds for next year. The only way this would drop is if Boston announces a significant increase in the number of participants for next year. This isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility so there's still a chance that my 70 seconds will be enough. <br />
<br />
So I still have time to think about it with a little over a month to go until Erie. It's a tough decision to make and I'm still weighing the options. Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-89651716791786308242015-07-05T07:30:00.000-04:002015-07-05T07:30:37.414-04:00Rebecca Run 5k Race ReportI ended up not doing the pride 5k race last weekend. It was forecasting wet and windy weather so wasn't sure I wanted to do that. Instead decided to do the Rebecca Run 5k which was yesterday. I've done this race before and it's my PR race from back in <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2008/07/rebecca-run-5k-race-report.html" target="_blank">2008</a>. Going into this I really tried to taper and probably overkilled. I did 8 miles which included 5x800m on Tuesday at 4min/km pace and then rested for the rest of the week. I was hoping to try for the sub-20 thing, or at the very least to best my PR.<br />
<br />
Race takes place up in Newmarket. I ended up signing up in person at the last minute. It was a bit steep for a 5k at $60 (even last minute), but it goes to a good cause which is supporting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_muscular_atrophy" target="_blank">Spinal Muscular Atrophy</a> research. I probably wouldn't pay that to a for-profit race, but this I don't mind. Race kit wasn't too great. My previous time, it was well packed. This year, it was only a shirt and an Esso 5c/L gift card discount for 100L of fuel.<br />
<br />
I arrived with only about 30 minutes to race start and downed a gel and some water with about 20 minutes to go. Proceed to try and do the warm-up with the HR spiking as usual which it did and then tried to get it to calm down. Then with about 5 minutes to go, downed a half bottle of water and then headed into the corrals. They had corrals setup and the first corral was sub 21 minutes which I was in. I didn't want to start right at the start, but with the narrow paths, I did want some room to maneovour if I needed it. I was probably 2nd or 3rd row back. The course this year was different than in previous year due to construction. Before, it was a mix of pavement, boardwalk, crushed gravel and a tour of the little park area. This year was a straight out and back on pavement.<br />
<br />
So the race starts and I start to go out as usual nice and controlled trying to get a feel for the pace. I was targeting around 6:25 min/mile pace (4min/km). Breathing seems in check and everyone seems to be going the right pace. I glanced down at my watch and notice my "lap pace" is in the 6:05 min/mile range which I thought couldn't be right so I continued to chug along. I missed the first km marker, but looking back at my GPS data, it would have reported about 3:50 which is 6:10min/mile pace which was way too fast. My watch beeps at the 1 mile mark and it reports a 6:07 first mile which I still thought couldn't be correct so I continue on. About the 6:50 mark, the HR starts spiking. I think I was trying to adjust my breathing rate and I could just feel it take off. I decide to see how far I can go before I start feeling the effects. I pull up to the 2 km mark and hit the lap button and see a split of 7:40. F?ck. Waaaay too faast. This was 6:10 min/mile pace over 2 km. At this point, I'm feeling that I'm already starting to fade but I guess that I've banked about 20 seconds so I figure I can slow down a bit to recover over the next km including the turnaround and maybe I can salvage the race. The third km hits at 4:17 which puts me just about on 20 min 5k pace, but I couldn't switch gears and ramp the speed back up. A couple of times during km 4, I start to think how easy it would be do just walk it in, but I try to push through. 4km is in 4:18 and the 5km was in 4:21 which included a sprint towards the end. I had kinda given up during the 5th km and there were a couple of times, I ease off the throttle, only to try and increase it again when I realize that it's only a couple more minutes of running, but still the last km was the slowest of the race at 4:21 (7min/mile). <br />
<br />
2km: 7:40 (3:50 min/km pace)<br />
3km: 4:17<br />
4km: 4:18<br />
5km: 4:21<br />
<br />
<a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/130796824" target="_blank">Polar stats and route </a><br />
<br />
The HR took off at the 6:45 mark and held that way for most of the race. It ended up resetting by itself with about a minute to go in the race. Max HR (during the non spiking part) was 187 right at the end. <br />
<br />
So finish time of 20:37. Finished 13th overall and 4th in my age group. Course seems measured right and the marker distances seemed okay. 16 seconds off my PR so not as close as I would liked. Really started to fade after the turnaround, but think that was mostly do to the 2 km of running at a pace much faster than I would have liked. I'm sure the HR spiking had something to do with it also. Looking back at the race, I probably should have tried to start out at a perceived 10k pace which based on my effort two weeks ago would have put me at about 6:30min/mile pace which would have hopefully made the race less of a struggle towards the end. Also, I probably should have trusted the GPS lap pace measurement earlier on which would have allowed me slow down sooner. I'm still not sure I trust the polar GPS measurement so it's hard to rely on the pace it's reporting, but I guess I have to rely on something. The missed 1 k marker was my fault since it was clearly there because I saw it at the 4k mark (out and back course). I probably should have hit the lap button around the 4 minute mark to reset the lap pace cycle which would have allowed me to realize that I was going too fast sooner. <br />
<br />
I really like the race and the new route. The out and back worked and there didn't seem to be to be any problems with congestion. There was the odd pedestrian on the path. I don't think there were any cyclists, as that could have been a problem but here were signs warning people that there was something going on. There was an aid station just after the 1k mark which is also at the 4k mark on the way back. They have hotdogs afterwards as well as fruit, chips, cookies, cottage cheese and chocolate milk so quite the food spread was put on. Temperature wasn't too bad at about 17C, no wind and there were a few clouds so the sun wasn't too much of a problem.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wjr1qYErpHo/VZhuf3bO09I/AAAAAAAAByY/90tMfl9-Oy8/s1600/StartFinish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wjr1qYErpHo/VZhuf3bO09I/AAAAAAAAByY/90tMfl9-Oy8/s320/StartFinish.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orderly Finish Line and Organization</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l1MQfdNkxhk/VZhuaBiDrMI/AAAAAAAAByQ/8KlT0ddMSDs/s1600/RebeccaRunBBQ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l1MQfdNkxhk/VZhuaBiDrMI/AAAAAAAAByQ/8KlT0ddMSDs/s320/RebeccaRunBBQ.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">BBQ setup</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
I stuck around a bit after to read the stories about the children effected by SMA. Every year they have a different honoree and they have a little write up, usually from the perspective of the parents, of how it's affected them. It's heartbreaking to read some of these stories especially when you read that a newborn only lived for less than a year. You can read some of their stories <a href="http://www.rebeccarun.com/honourees.html">here.</a><br />
<br />
The race was near a community centre where they had a bit of a farmer's market. I stuck around a bit longer than I had planned because they had this 11 year old kid who was on stage performing. He was pretty impressive. He played the piano and guitar and he sang. Here a video of him doing some Billy Joel. <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kGdJ-0-JzSA" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
I'm not sure I will attempt another 5k until the fall. I really would have liked to see how I would have done if I hadn't started out so fast. Next time, I think I'll just trust the GPS and run at exactly 6:26 min/mile pace and then just try to hold it till the end. I can't seem to figure out pacing in 5k's myself and I don't do enough of them or interval training to really get a handle on the effort level. I might try to do a time trial around a track at some point but it's hard to do those on ones own so it helps to have others to run with. There doesn't seem to be anything good in the summer, so it looks like it'll have to wait until fall. <br />
<br />Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30415222.post-89957978417205744002015-06-21T19:52:00.000-04:002015-11-19T22:30:47.595-05:00Port Union Run for the Lions 10k Race ReportDid a 10k race yesterday. I've been wanted to try out a shorter race since the marathon to see where the fitness was at. The <a href="http://www.runforthelions.ca/" target="_blank">Run for the Lions race</a> coincides with a <a href="http://www.waterfrontpark.ca/" target="_blank">local Waterfront festival</a>, but it's out in the east end, rather than downtown. It's a small little thing, but it seems it would be a good family thing, because there are a bunch of kids activities, like rock climbing, small simple rides and inflatable bouncy castles, all for free. The race is just one of the components of the festival, though the race isn't free.<br />
<br />
I did this race back <a href="http://r-cane.blogspot.ca/2008/06/5k-race-report.html" target="_blank">in 2008</a>. I did remember doing this a while back , but thought I had done it before I started this blog so didn't bother to check my race recap. Back then it was only a 5k and it was really more of a fun run. No official race results and you had to time yourself. Googling around a bit, it seems that they have evolved the race a bit. They added a 10k option, and have chip timing so it's somewhat official. I originally wasn't sure I wanted to do the race because the course originally was an out and back with the first km or so along the lake and then you head north, presumably uphill. My race recap from before seems to suggest that the uphill part isn't so bad.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OMOU6gLyZrA/VYdL_t_x7QI/AAAAAAAABx0/SjciZEHpIKw/s1600/course.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="231" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OMOU6gLyZrA/VYdL_t_x7QI/AAAAAAAABx0/SjciZEHpIKw/s400/course.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original Course</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
However, while checking around earlier in the week, the race announced they had to change the route because of wash out conditions on the trail heading north. So the 10k race was changed where it was an out and back to the east to cover off 5k (and have the 5k'ers finish), past the start/finish line and then run west for another out and back to cover off another 5k. This means that most of the race would be on the waterfront which I presumed was going to be flat so I registered. It was cheap at only $35. We got a cotton t-shirt. No age group awards, no medal, no frills, which I'm completely fine with. <br />
<br />
After registering, the race director sent out an email saying the new route has a significant hill at about the 8 km mark even though it's on the waterfront. Oh well. My goal doing this was to try for 4:15/km (6:50min/mi) pace for a finish
time at around 42:30. I managed this pace for the 8k a few months ago
on a hilly course so I thought trying to push that to 10k on a less
hilly course with some additional weeks of training would be doable. Prepared for this race in a similar fashion to how I prepared for 8k race I did a few months ago including the breakfast of 2 packets of instant oatmeal and the warmup about 20 minutes prior to start which consisted of getting the HR to spike which it did, doing 2 hard strides and then walking around to get it to calm down and was ready to start. <br />
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There was a mass start of 10k'ers and 5k'ers so I positioned myself a little back from the start. Only took me 2 seconds to cross the start line. Start was a bit delayed which was sort of annoying because I didn't want to cool down too much. Anyways after a short delay, we are off. First little bit, I start off smooth and controlled, trying not to blast out of the gate. Come to the 4 minute mark and I start looking around for a 1k marker. None to be found. Great, the course wasn't marked. Guess the race hadn't evolved as much as I would have liked, since they didn't have markers back in 2008 either. <br />
<br />
My Gps autosplits at the 1 mile mark at 6:31. Yikes, a bit fast. I continue on and reel in some people. The second mile includes the turnaround at the eastern part of the course which also has an aid station handing out water. Somewhere during the 2nd mile, I check my watch and it shows my HR is spiking, but looking at it afterwards it appears my HR monitor wasn't getting a good reading. 2nd mile split is 6:54. I don't think I consciously slowed down at this point, but maybe I did because I wanted to back off the effort level. Also since this mile contained the turnaround, I'm sure some time was lost to the sudden deceleration of the turnaround. There was also a wind coming from the east so that was also a factor.<br />
<br />
We continue running back towards the start line and I'm running with 2 other guys and we're sort of jockeying for position which is sort of good cause it results in a fairly good mile 3 split time of 6:41. Nice. The other two guys move ahead of me at this point and it seems that they are turning on the gas and I realize that they are most likely doing the 5k and so they are almost finished.<br />
<br />
As I approach the start/finish line they had a weird three chute split of the timing mat. 5k's would finish on the left, 10k's would finish on the right but coming from the opposite direction and those like me at the moment who were half way through the 10k would run through the center. The center chute wasn't that wide, maybe 1.5m or so but because it was a small race (34 total people doing the 10k), there wasn't much congestion. Running over the timing mat however gave us an intermediate split time which is something you usually don't get during 10k races. The timing mat gave me a "5k" split time of 20:31 which I saw on the clock as I was approaching. I had a feeling right away that the 5k was probably short since there is no way that I just ran 4:06min/km (6:36min/mi) pace for 5k. So the two guys as I thought, peel off to the left chute to finish and I continue on. At this point, I'm running by myself, and have no idea how many people are ahead of me. I can see the lead woman about 40m ahead of me and I'm slowly catching up to her. I pass her shortly before the 4 mile mark which has a split of 6:44. Pretty good. At this point, we're heading north on the first of two out and back portions at the western part of the course. This first part follows the path of the normal course which heads north. There were some smallish hills, but not the sustained uphill that I thought. As I approach the turnaround I had counted that there were three people ahead of me. As we reach the turnaround, another aid station and then we head south. At this point, I'm resolved to running by myself since I'm pretty sure I can't catch the three people in front of me and I'm just hoping I can hold off the lead woman We head back towards the lake and once we hit the waterfront trail, we then do another out and back to the west. This part contains the hill that the race director was warning us about and boy it's a doosie. This would be the slowest mile of the whole race at 7:18. Another turnaround, and water station and we head back east towards the finish line. Mile 6 is 6:50 and the last little bit which my GPS measures at 0.1 was done in 33s. <br />
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<br />
Final finish time of 41:33 which would be a 10k PR by about 30 seconds. Pretty sure the course was short though. My GPS measures it a 6.1 miles which is about 160m short. I asked around after and various people had it measured at between 9.66km and 9.85km. I measured the course in google maps and it measures as being 9.82km. Not quite exact due to the hills, but close enough. My time for 9.82 km would have me at 4:14min/km (6:49 min/mile pace) which would convert to a 42:19 10k time so goal was met. I came in 4th overall. <br />
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1: 6:31<br />
2: 6:54 <br />
3: 6:41<br />
4: 6:44<br />
5: 7:18<br />
6: 6:50<br />
6.1: 0:33<br />
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<a href="https://flow.polar.com/training/analysis/117653992" target="_blank">Polar stats and map</a><br />
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I had thought during the race that my HR was spiking, but it was jumping all over the place and I can see afterwards that it was just not getting a good reading. It started doing this during this week. I wonder if the battery is running low. I've only been using it for a couple of months so it's hard to believe the battery is dying. It does appear to get some good readings at a couple of places, including a sustained stretch from the 4 to 4.8 mile. Highest Hr was 185 for a brief moment. <br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Uo6gC1UGx9w/VYdDQ8O7aPI/AAAAAAAABxY/cmAfWoOrXZM/s1600/portunion2015-HR-polar.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="143" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Uo6gC1UGx9w/VYdDQ8O7aPI/AAAAAAAABxY/cmAfWoOrXZM/s400/portunion2015-HR-polar.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Polar HR</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I also ran this with my Fitbit which has an optical HR sensor and it reports a non-dramatic HR profile with no spiking. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7hlb8mXSV4o/VYdE-V6ni7I/AAAAAAAABxk/L18fnALAKVo/s1600/portunion2015-HR-fitbit.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="69" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7hlb8mXSV4o/VYdE-V6ni7I/AAAAAAAABxk/L18fnALAKVo/s320/portunion2015-HR-fitbit.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">FitBit HR</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Nice course. Nice scenery. Might do it again, if they fix some of the issues like having marker signs on the course. Also, the course could easily have been made longer by extending any or all of the turnarounds by some additional distance to make up the 180m or so difference. As I mentioned before, the race isn't really the main event of the festival. I wouldn't say that it doesn't get the attention that it deserves, since I'm sure a lot of time and effort still went into organizing the race, but I get the feeling that the race director isn't a runner so wouldn't be familiar with what might be important to racers. For me for a 10k race, it has to be a fairly accurately measured course with markers. Even if the total distance isn't accurate, as it was here, having markers on the course is still important as it gives me the ability to pace myself, without having to rely on GPS. <br />
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I am contemplating doing the Pride 5k next weekend, to take a crack at a sub 20 minute 5k on a certified course, but I think it will depend on the weather. I don't like running short races in the heat. Otherwise it will have to wait until the fall.Arcanehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11291146140722678535noreply@blogger.com2