Goodlife Toronto Marathon Race Report 2015

"Pain is temporary. Internet race results are forever"

This was an interesting statement that I saw on a video promoting the Backs in motion race that I did a few weekends ago. As it would turn out, this would be my mantra for this race.

The short story is that I ran 3:13:50 which is 70 seconds under my 3:15 Boston Qualifying time.  Whether or not that is sufficient to get me into Boston in 2016 is a question up in the air.  Since they went to the new qualifying system, just running your BQ time isn't sufficient anymore.  You now have to run x seconds under, where x is determined only after everyone applies.  This year, the magic number was 62 seconds, in 2014 (the year after the bombings), it was 98 seconds.

My goal time going into this was 3:13:45 which was a nice even 4:35 min/km split time.  In truth, this goal time was my worst case scenario as I considered the 75 seconds under 3:15 to be the minimum I would need for a qualifier.   I've always used pace bands as a guide to give me an idea how far ahead or behind I would be at any point of time.  With km markers, there were 42 potential places where I could do a time check. This has worked well for me in the past and I've always finished under my goal time (when I haven't blown up), so I prepared the nice pace band with 41 splits that would be my safety blanket during the race.

3:13:45 Pace Band

Going into the race, I prepared for it like I've been doing recently which is to say I gluttoned out on all things carbs (pasta and pretzels) and drank lots of water and ate salt pills. I was popping the salt pills three at a time, 2 to 3 times a day. Evening before the race, I weighed myself and was 149 pounds which was much heavier than the 141/142 that I've been recently. I knew however that a bunch of that would be lost the following morning.  My goal was just to get the carbs in me.

Race morning had me waking up at 5am for a 7:30am start. Breakfast of a bagel with peanut butter and strawberry jam. Took some sips of water, just to wash things down.  I would normally drink a whole bottle of gatorade during breakfast, but I usually just end up having to pee later. I was still feeling bloated anyway from the previous evening. Left home at about 6:30 and arrived at the start at about 6:50.  40 minutes to do my prerace prep. In hindsight, this probably wasn't enough time.  Dropped off bag check and lined up for the portapotties. The line-up wasn't too bad but it could have been quicker.  Lot of half-marathoners in line even though they weren't starting for another hour.

Warm up consisted of some slight jogging. I downed a gel and about half a bottle of water about 15 minutes before start. Was trying to get the HR to spike but it didn't while doing the light jogging. I then stopped to stretch a bit and then could feel it take off. I then proceeded to try and get it to calm down, but I only had about 5 minutes to race start which wasn't a lot of time.  Walked into the starting coral and tried to do the crouch and breath out hard thing to get it to calm down. Someone caught me doing it on youtube.

Crouching just before race start

I guess it looked like I was praying or something. I was just breathing out hard, staring at my watch hoping the HR would come down.  This is with about 45 seconds to go I gather before the race start which was cutting it close. The HR did eventually come down with only seconds to spare and so I was able to start the race with no HR issues. I did however decide that I was going to start out slowly and if the HR spiked, I was just going to run through it and see how far I could get with it spiking. So the horn blows and the race start.

I didn't start as close to the start as I would have liked, but I wanted to start off slow and controlled and make sure I didn't go out too fast.  I missed the first km marker (if there even was one) and I also missed the first mile marker (again if there even was one). Wasn't soo sure, because there were a lot of people spectating and they could easily have been blocking the view.

First km split I hit was the 2nd km which lapped at

2km: 7:55.

I had made a conscious decision that I was not going to worry about HR and secondly that I wasn't going to look at my split times until after the Hoggs Hollow Hill which is at about the 5km mark. In hindsight, this was a mistake because if I had looked at the 2km split mark I would have known that something was off.  There was no way that I had covered the first 2km at faster than 4:00 min/km.   I should also mention that my HR did spike just after the 1 mile mark (based on GPS), but that I would just run with it. As it would turn out, I would end up running the whole race with the HR spiking.

4km: 8:54 (4:27 avg)
5km: 4:30
6km: 4:53

So after the 2 km, there's a nice gradual descent as you approach the "hill" which is the only real significant hill in the race. It's  a significant grade, but relatively short.  I hit the 6km marker and do a time check. According to my watch, i was more than a minute ahead of where I should be. Nice, or so I thought. I couldn't actually believe it, but hey the numbers don't lie (or do they?).

7km:4:34
8km:4:38
10km:9:09  (4:35 avg)

So km 7 through 10 are basically right at the 4:35 pace I was averaging. All the while, my time checks are telling me that I really am quite a bit ahead of where I wanted to be.  I passed the 10km mark at 44:36 which should have been 45:55.  This means I had almost 80 seconds banked at this point.

11km: 4:41
12km:4:36
13km: 4:40
14km: 4:38
16km: 8:41 (4:20 avg)

As we continue down Yonge St. I seem to have found my pacing groove and found a bunch of people who are doing my pace and who don't seem to be too labored. Around 13km, something got really tight in my left calf and it started to hurt.  It felt similar to the injury I had prior to the New York marathon a few years ago. It felt tight and was getting sore.  I spent the next few km contemplating whether I wanted to stop to stretch it out or just continue on. As I had over a minute banked, I could stop for a quick stretch and wouldn't lose too much time. But I ended up deciding to just continue on as stretching it could have made it worse.  I missed the 15km marker and together with the 16th km involves the big downhill near Casa Loma so that's why that split is fast. 

17km: 4:17
18km: 4:32
19km: 4:44
20km: 4:43

17km also involves the descent down Rosedale Valley Rd. which is the reason for that fast km.   With the big descent of the course now over, time checks said that I had almost 2 minutes banked.  I couldn't believe my good fortune. Km 19 and 20 were a bit on the slow side and involve running south on Bayview Ave. I think this is where I could feel the makings of a blister in my right foot.   Great.

21km: 4:28

So this is the part of the race when I first starting wondering about the placement of the markers.  You see, passing by the 21 km mark, my watch had me at 1:34:40 which would have put me at a bank of a minute and 45 seconds. I was ecstatic with this, because it meant that I would pass the half mark at 1:35:xx. After crossing the 21 km marker I was eagerly looking for the location of the half timing mat so that I could trigger it and report my results to those monitoring at home. After all, a half marathon is 21.1 km so the mat should only be about 100 meters after the 21 km marker.  The thing is I run 100m and no timing mat. I ran a bit more and still no timing mat. So I start thinking that maybe they don't have a timing mat for the half. A bit unusual, but not unheard of.  We then make the turn onto Eastern Ave. and that's when I then see a timing mat in the distance.  Uh-oh. That can't be the half timing mat because it's no where close to the 21 km marker.  Anyhow as I pass the timing mat, I ask the official waiting there and he confirms that this is the half timing mat.  So my official half chip time is

21.1 km: 1:36:32 (official time)

So this had me thinking. There was no way it took me 1:58 to run 100m so it was either the half timing mat was in the wrong position or ALL the km markers in the first half were mismarked.  I found it hard to believe the incompetency that would be required to misplace every single marker in the wrong place, but there were the numbers staring me in the face.  I didn't actually try and figure out how far ahead I was at the half but if I did I would have seen that I was only 21 seconds ahead of my 3:13:45 goal time.

22km: 4:34
23km: 4:32
25km: 9:18 (4:39 avg)

Km 22 to 25 run west through the downtown core and there's a bit of a head wind. Not bad enough to slow you down a lot, but just enough of a cooling breeze. I continue to hit the lap button at the various markers because I don't really have much else to go on for pacing feedback. The GPS wasn't too great in the downtown core. It seemed the distance between markers was accurate, its just that all the markers were several hundred metres earlier then they should have been. After the downtown core, the gps would get better and I had my watch set to autolap on miles which thankfully keeps track of autolaps seperatly from the manual laps so I was able to get some additional feedback on pace for the rest of the race.

27km: 10:31 (5:16 avg, but not correct since it involves corrected marker)

So the 27 km marker was an interesting marker since this was a 2 km split and had me at 2:03:37 which is only 21 seconds ahead of where I should have been at (like at the half). So it appears that this may have been the first time a marker was actually correctly placed in the race. I had high hopes that maybe this would mean that the remaining markers would be accurate which would mean that I would have a good 15 km to work with to make sure I was under my goal time.At this point, we past by the finish line and head west on the out and back portion on the Martin Goodman Trail.

28km: 3:00

Unfortunately,  the accurate markers didn't last long as the 28th km was short and quite significantly so. At this point we are now on the Martin Goodman trail and having done this route many times, I sometime noticed spray painted lines on the side of the trail marking where various races intend to put the markers.  Sure enough, a few hundred metres later, I see a 28km marking on the side of the trail.  Whoever was responsible for placing the markers had clearly messed up. I still had in the back of my mind some hopes that the half timing mat and the 27 km marker had been misplaced, but I started wondering if I should increase the pace just to make sure.

With all the drama over the markers, my left calf still continued to hurt and the blister in my right foot, under the big toe was starting to irritate me a bit more.  The calf issue was painful, but it wasn't as bad as when I did NY, so I continue through it, as they say pain is temporary. The blister on my right big toe, just off the side of the toe was a new sensation for me, as I've never had a blister there.  It hurt, and I had to change my gait a bit to compensate. I was actually more worried that it was going to start bleeding profusely and my white shoes would turn red, kinda like when you see nipple bleeders. Pain I could deal with to a point, and I had not reached that threshold yet. I was hoping that I wouldn't for the rest of the race.

30km: 9:26 (4:43 avg)
31km: 4:40
32km: 4:40
34km: 9:07 (4:34 avg)

I'm not sure why km 30-32 were slowing me down a bit. This part of the course I've run so many times. It wasn't wind.  While the forecast was predicting wind, there was none to be felt heading west. Maybe I lost focus a bit or maybe the markers were just misplaced a bit and they were trying to get back some distance.  There was one part where they were doing some construction on the trail and so we had to make a wide birth to go around so that could have added a few seconds.  Anyhow, the 34 km marker still had me 94 seconds ahead of where I wanted to be. I was hoping that there would be more people to run with, but I was basically running the west bound part of the race alone. I  would pass the occasional person, but most, if not all the people I had encountered were slowing down.

35km: 2:41:03 (official time). 

The 35 km involves a little loop in Humber Bay Park East. They had a timing mat at the 35 km mark. It wasn't marked as the 35 km mark, I only found out after.  Anyhow, I noticed that they used a slightly different route than they had used last year.  After reading online about possible marshal issues in previous years, I made sure to scout out the GPS routes from runners that did the race last year so I would know where to go.  It seems that they made us run a bit longer this year.

Turnaround in 2014

Turnaround in 2015

Great. According to the official time, at the 35 km mark, I was now officially behind where I needed to be by about 21 seconds. I didn't know this at the time and was running in blissful ignorance to my predicament.

37 km: 15:48. (can't calculate average because it was sometime during these 15 minutes that the markers "corrected" themselves.)

As it would turn out, it seemed that only from 35 km mark on, were the markers now correctly placed. The fact that there was no 36 km marker either didn't help.  This first sign that I realized that I might be in trouble was at the 37 km maker when I hit the lap and saw that I was behind.  I didn't  do the math to see how far behind I was, I just knew that I was behind. With only 5 km left to go and about 22-23 minutes left of running, I needed to make up the time. It didn't help that heading east back towards the finish line, there was a headwind.  I think the wind ended up coming from the south and you do sort of running in a southeasternly direction so maybe that's where the wind was coming from. I had put too much faith in the markers and I was now going to have pay for it. I tried to increase the pace ever so slightly thinking that if I could make up a few second per km that would work out okay.  My calf was still hurting and my toe was also blistering. Look down and no blood on the shoes. Ok gut check time. Mind over matter, I kept saying to myself.

38 km:4:28
39 km:4:36
40 km:4:43

From 37 km on I was trying to run the tangents. 2 lanes were closed to traffic, and most runners were just hugging the curb. Knowing that I couldn't give back any time, I was weaving back and forth across the two lanes. A made up some time in the 38th km, but I was staring to worry as I knew the hill in front of the Canadian Legion building was upcoming. It wasn't a big hill and I had charged up that hill on many occasion during long runs, but at this point of the marathon, knowing the time I needed to make up, that hill was going to feel like a mountain. The 39 km was not as quick as I would have liked it, maybe I was subconsciously reserving some energy for the hill.  I charged up the hill as best I could, putting my head down and panting all the way up.  Crested the hill and headed the 2.2 km home.

41km: 4:27
42.2km 5:18 (4:25 avg)

I continued to try and up the effort level as I approach the finish line. I had not bothered to look at my watch for these last few km though I would continue to push the lap button for post race analysis.  I was downright sprinting as hard as I could at the end and when i crossed the finish line, the watch said 3:13:53. I was happy that I had gotten under 3:14 and happy to have beaten the 62 second magic number for Boston this year, but I was not happy that I did not beat my goal of 3:13:45.  My actual chip time turned out to be 3:13:50 which put me at a 70 second magic number and only 5 seconds over my goal time.  Yes, that doesn't seem like a lot, but if you think about it, this is only 8 seconds under the magic time that I would have needed to get into Boston this year. I think this is borderline. I had hoped to actually be a few seconds under 3:13:45 to give me a bit more of a cushion and am pretty sure I could have raced this a bit more effectively, if the markers were even remotely accurate at some point prior to the 35 km mark.

Timing stats are as follows:

 If you didn't know better, it would look like a nice evenly run race. A 46 second positive split between the first half and second half is the closest I've ever come to a negative split while racing. Even better when you consider the first half involves over 100m of elevation drop.

Polar stats show that my HR spiked just after 8 minutes where I went from mid 160s to high 180's.  It would remain in the mid 180's for the rest of the race.  As soon as I stopped running at the finish line, it calmed right back down.  It's funny how it works that way. At least I know that I can run almost an entire marathon with it racing and not hit the wall.

I started the race with a bottle of gatorade which I ended up finishing at the 31 km mark. I carried 4 gels at the start, but only ended up consuming 2.5 of them. I had switched to Vanilla Cliff Shots from Gu and power Gels.  I just seem to like the taste of them better and I've found that even if I don't wash them down I can run with them in my mouth without feeling the need to gag from the sickly sweet taste.  I didn't suffer any quad cramps and didn't really hit the wall at all. My left calf ached from the 13k on and the blister was annoying, but bearable.  My right calf twitched a few times but nothing really of concern.

For those interested in the raw numbers.

Km Marker	Split	Actual Time	Banked Time Relative to 3:13:45
1
2	0:07:55	0:07:55	-01:16
3
4	0:08:54	0:16:50	-01:32
5	0:04:30	0:21:20	-01:37
6	0:04:53	0:26:14	-01:19
7	0:04:34	0:30:48	-01:20
8	0:04:38	0:35:27	-01:17
9
10	0:09:09	0:44:36	-01:19
11	0:04:41	0:49:17	-01:13
12	0:04:36	0:53:53	-01:13
13	0:04:40	0:58:34	-01:07
14	0:04:38	1:03:13	-01:04
15
16	0:08:41	1:11:54	-01:34
17	0:04:17	1:16:12	-01:51
18	0:04:32	1:20:44	-01:55
19	0:04:44	1:25:28	-01:46
20	0:04:43	1:30:11	-01:38
21	0:04:28	1:34:40	-01:45
21.1	official	1:36:32	-00:21
22	0:04:34	1:39:14	-01:46
23	0:04:32	1:43:47	-01:49
24
25	0:09:18	1:53:05	-01:42
26
27	0:10:31	2:03:37	-00:21
28	0:03:00	2:06:37	-01:56
29
30	0:09:26	2:16:04	-01:40
31	0:04:40	2:20:44	-01:36
32	0:04:40	2:25:25	-01:30
33
34	0:09:07	2:34:32	-01:34
35	official	2:41:03	00:21
36
37	0:15:48	2:50:20	00:27
38	0:04:28	2:54:48	00:20
39	0:04:36	2:59:24	00:21
40	0:04:43	3:04:08	00:29
41	0:04:27	3:08:35	00:21
42.2	0:05:18	3:13:50	00:05

As you can see, for most of the race, I thought I had over a minute banked. It seems that only the half marker, the 27 km marker and the 35 km marker and on, were correctly placed.  This in my opinion, is unacceptable.  I wonder how many people ended up missing they goal time on this course because the markers indicated that they were ahead of where they wanted to be?  When the course finally corrected itself, you only had 5 km to make-up lost time.  Hard to due at the late stage of the race.

Thinking back I'm not very impressed with the organization of the race.  It started with the fact that they don't give you a bag for the bib and t-shirt you get at the expo.  You have to sign up for a Goodlife "contest" before they give you one which is just an excuse so they can call you up and get you to come in for a free trial gym membership.  They make you sign up for colored corals but there's no corals at the start. So why bother with colored corals in the first place?  The markers, you've heard me discuss enough. At the finish line, they have gatorade, but they didn't hand out bottled water.  Instead, they served you Brita filtered water in these little cups. I wouldn't even call them Dixie cups, they're more like a shot glass worth of water.  I ended up having to get one refilled 4 times to make even a cup worth of water. On the plus side, the medal is huge.

I do think they had close to the 20 aid stations that they advertised. The race website says they had one at the turnaround spot at 35 km, though they didn't.  Generally found them well manned and no issues with getting multiple cups if needed.

Someone asked me at work that I must have been happy with the time, and I really didn't know if I was.  Yes, it's my second fastest marathon, the fastest marathon I've run in the past 7 years and the closest I've come to a negative split.  The misplaced markers have just left with a bad taste in my mouth as I feel I could have gone faster if I had known earlier that I needed to go faster. I think the bottom line is if the time is fast enough to get me into Boston, then I'll be happy with the performance. If not, then I won't be. Of course, I won't know the answer to this until September.

Whatever the outcome in my quest to Boston, I do feel that I'm unlikely to ever do this race again.

And so I'm doing....

...Goodlife Toronto.  While checking the weather forecast last Sunday for this upcoming Sunday, I realized that The Weather Network Tablet Android app actually breaks down the forecast by morning, afternoon and evening for the seven day forecast.  It's weird that you can't get this information from the phone app or even the website.  You can get hourly forecast 36 hours out, but more detailed info from 36 hours to 7 days is only available from the tablet app. 

I like the Weather Network app because it gives you the ability to really drill down to a specific location by postal code.  For example, the forecast by the lake is cooler then it would be for up near the start, as it should be. I'm not sure how they are able to do it, but I appreciate the added information. So I've been monitoring the forecast for the Toronto Islands which is pretty close to where most of the 2nd half of the marathon will take place.

Monday 8pm

Tuesday 8am

 

 

 

Wednesday 8pm

Thursday 8pm

 I was really only concerned with the Morning forecast. I had to register by Wednesday evening and the Sunday forecast for that looked great on Wednesday evening. Slight wind from the south and a low of 9C and high of 13C in the afternoon meaning that it should stay relatively cool during the morning hours.So basically with the east-west wind taken out of the equation, (or so I thought), I signed up for the course with the bigger net elevation drop, which was Goodlife.

Forecast now is a little worse. Starting out at 11C with a SW wind so they'll be a bit of a headwind for the 15km stretch in the 2nd half, but it might be okay since it's a bit warmer. Not much I can do to control it now. 

So surfing around last night, I almost immediately was having second thoughts.  I've never run the new course and haven't run it since the moved it to May from October so I was surfing around to get an idea of what to expect.  The course seems to have not gotten good organization compliments on Marathon Guide and has gotten poor scores on MyNextRace.  The organizer is the same guy who managed the Sporting Life 10k disaster a few years ago before he was let go. 

Here's to hoping it won't be too bad.  Hopefully, nice weather means more volunteers will show up which means better manned water stations.  In any event, I don't think I'll take any chances and will carry a gatorade bottle with me.

Decisions, Decisions...

I'm supposed to run a marathon in a weeks time. Which marathon I'm doing however I'm not sure of.  It's either Mississauga or the Goodlife Toronto marathon.  I've done Mississauga before; I first BQ'd there.  I've also done Goodlife before, but haven't done the new course which finishes down by Ontario Place.  However, I'm very familiar with the 2nd half of the Goodlife course since it involves the same route as the 20 miler route that I sometime do down on the waterfront.

So here's my thinking so far.


Both courses are net downhill course, Toronto has a net drop of 112m whereas Mississauga has a 77m drop. Toronto has one killer hill in the first few miles of the race, whereas Mississauga has a bunch of rolling hills towards the end, but is generally flatter.

Mississauga Profile

TO Goodlife Profile

The additional drop in the TO course would give it some extra points for a faster marathon. Additional points go to TO for probably having more marathon participants so there's more people to potentially run with. A caveat to that is that Mississauga actually has more people to run with at the start since they mass start both the half marathon and full runners so you can run with a bunch of half marathons until the split off point. However after the split off point, it can be lonely which I don't want to have to do again like I did at Niagara.

TO course has more aid stations, I think. They are advertising 20 aid stations total whereas Mississauga is advertising every 4 km (or about 10-11). I don't know if I can rely on these numbers. I know that the TO course has run out of cups in the past and an easy way to get around this is to remove aid stations. No one really keeps track of these things on race day so I don't know how realistic the 20 number is.

In terms of race day logistics, TO start line is closer to where I live whereas Mississauga requires me to drive across the city.  Both races start at 7:30 so there's no benefit there though I'd have to get up earlier to do Mississauga due to the travel time.

So having considered all that, it looks like TO has most things going for it, with the one exception of the weather. Up until today, weather forecast for next Sunday was 30km/hr winds from the west which is a tad on the strong side.  Both courses have parts where they run in the westernly direction. It's just that the TO course has more. The TO course is a net west direction route since the finish line is west of where it starts.  On the other hand Mississauga is a net east course since the finish line is east of the start. Also a big chunk of the Mississauga westernly route is at the start, where there's a lot more people (from the half) that one can use to block the wind.  Also in the MIssissauga course, there are no more westernly parts after the 25km mark. The TO course on the other hand is all west from 21 to 35k with only the last 7 km or so with a tail wind. There would in theory be some people to block the wind during this 14k stretch, but not as many people as there would be in Mississauga (at the start).

Having just checked the weather now, they are forecasting a 10km/hr wind now from the east. Now this would put TO ahead for sure. The forecast is also showing a low temperature of 9C with a high of 19C and sunny. That's a bit too warm for my liking.  Maybe a nice slow easternly wind wouldn't be too bad towards the later stages of the race to help cool off.

So what this all means is, well I don't know.  If the weather forecast stays the way it is, TO will be a slight favorite. If the wind switches back to from the  west, then I don't know.  I just may have to rely on flipping a coin at some point. 

Backs in Motion 10k Race Report

This race has been on my radar for a few years. It's about 3 miles from my home which is relatively close when you consider I live out in the boonies.  I stumbled across it a few years ago while doing a long run. It's close to the entrance to a trail system I use for some of my longer runs that allows me to run a fairly long distance without having to worry about stopping for traffic lights.  This race never really fit into my schedule though since 10k races on long run Sundays, a few weeks out from a marathon don't generally work for me.  

The Backs in Motion 10k takes place at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic college which is a school for teaching chiropractic care, thus the name of the event. I decided to do this at the last minute to practice marathon pace.  I still don't have a good handle on marathon pace effort and HR. The Around the Bay marathon pace was done with HR spiking. I've thrown in the odd 1 mile at MP effort since then but my HR seems very low for those so it could be I wasn't warmed up enough. I thought if I did 10k at marathon pace effort, I'd get a good handle on where my fitness might be at for the race next week.

The training plan had 12 miles on the schedule. Initially, I thought I'd run the three miles there, do the race and then run three miles back. However, I wasn't sure how much stuff they were going to give out as part of the race kits and I didn't want to have to carry that stuff home on the run back so I ended up driving there.  Arrived there at about 7:30 for a 8:45 start. Had planned to get the bib and then do a 6 mile warmup and then do the race at marathon pace effort. Slight wrinkle was that when I arrived, the late registrants (ala me) didn't have bibs or chips yet and they were still working that out so I decided to just head out for the 6 mile run and hope they figured everything out by the time I got back. 

One thing with the warmup was that I was trying to avoid the HR thing that has plagued me and so as soon as I started the 6 mile warmup, the HR was spiking.

Spiking and then not spiking

I walked for a bit, but it's still high. I then ran for a mile and then tried to walk again and it then finally calmed down.  Then proceeded to run the rest of the warmup without HR incident. I ended up cutting the warmup short to about 5.35 miles since I still needed some time when I got back to pick up my bib and stuff.

Got back and was thankful they had worked out the kinks and had a bib and chip ready for me. I was worried about having to line-up again but most people were doing the 5k race so no line-up to pick up 10k stuff.  I had hoped to try and keep my HR up while picking up the bib and all, but as it would turn out, not good enough.  Line-up at the start where there was no timing mat (only gun time), hopping up and down trying to keep the HR up and then the race starts. 

The goal was to try and run this at 4:35 min/km pace (7:23min/mile) which would put me in just under 3:14 marathon shape. The first 2 kms are in a coned off lane of the road so it's a bit tight. I hit the first km marker at 4:17 and past the first mile mark at 6:47, even though this involves a bit of a descent, this was waaayyy too fast.  Effort doesn't feel too hard though. Come up to the 2nd km and it clicks at 4:15. Also the HR spiked towards the end of the 2nd km. I could feel exactly when it happened as I was easing off the throttle, going down a hill where the HR jumped from 168 to over 190. I just decided I'd run through it and hope that it would come down. The third km is now in the trail system and hit the 3rd km at 4:19, but I think this might have been a bit short since the next km is bit long at 4:46. Together, these two average 4:33/km pace which isn't too far off what I was aiming for.

Damn HR

I ended up missing the 5km marker (not sure if there was one), but there was a bit of a wrinkle in that the turnaround point on the path wasn't really well marked. Apparently, there was a traffic cone on a little foot bridge that was the turnaround point, but there was no sign indicating that and no one there to marshal people. It wasn't exactly weird seeing the cone either because the foot bridges were made of wood planks and the cones could very easily have been there to mark areas of loose wood or holes in the bridge. Anyhow, I run a bit more and a guy in front of me starts to turn around yelling that he thinks we passed the turnaround point. I wasn't sure myself and because the start and finish don't involve the same route, it wasn't strictly an out and back course so I couldn't tell from the GPS. I knew that there were a few people still ahead of us, including the lead woman and since we hadn't seen her yet, I thought that we should keep running which we did for a bit and then sure enough the lead woman with a pack of a few other guys starts running towards us with her arms shrugging. Apparently they had run to the end of the trail and there was no one there so they headed back.  We then turn around and start heading back ourselves. We ended up basically telling everyone that we pass that they should turn around since everyone had seemed to make the same mistake that we did.

The next marker I would pass would be the 6km marker which was 11:15 which was a two km (and change split). GPS measures this split at 1.48 miles which is 2.38 km which was 4:43 pace (7:36 min/mile) but this includes some slow down due to turning around and  some WTF moments. From this point on the finish I manage to have locked down the right pace and finish with 4:36, 4:33, 4:37 and 4:27. I ended up talking a bit with a guy during one of the final km who had just run Boston. He asked me about Around the Bay since I was wearing the race shirt from that. I'm not sure if he was in the race or not. Hopefully not as I ended up passing him.

So in the end, I finished in 47:07
1km: 4:17                    
2km: 4:15                    
3km: 4:19 (short)
4km: 4:46 (long)
5km: unknown
6km: 4:36
8km: 4:33
9km: 4:37
10km:4:27

Further Race stat info.

Ended up getting some chiropractic care from an intern which included some trigger point release on a muscle in my back and a back and neck adjustment. I have no idea if chiropractic stuff works but I suppose it doesn't hurt to try.  So I wander over to the gymnasium after where they are having the post race festivities to get some food (bagels and creme cheese, apples, pairs, yogurt) and check the results list.

7th overall and 1st in my age group! Not bad for a marathon pace run.

I think however that this should have been 8th overall since there was a guy who had run all the way to end of the trail who I ended up passing on the way back and he technically would have finished ahead of me if he had turned around sooner. He wasn't in my AG so my first place ranking for that is correct. I don't think anyone passed me after the turn around fiasco who shouldn't have been ahead of me so there was no being short changed on that.

I ended up wining a tube of biofreeze, a heating/ice gel pack and a gift certificate for "one free pair of running shoes with custom orthotics", from The Orthotic Group.  Orthotics are generally expensive and I have flat feet so this might be actually useful to me. The certificate says "assessment and casting by senior intern only". I'm not sure what that means. I think maybe I can only redeem it at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College where it would be done by an intern as opposed to getting it done by a real licensed chiropractor outside of an academic setting. 

So this was sort of fun. Not bad for $50 entrance fee. We ended up with a long sleeve tech shirt and a bunch of other free samples so it was worth it, especially if the orthotics thing works out.

Of course, the one thing I had wanted to do was to try and get some HR feedback from the MP run which I didn't get so I'm basically still clueless about where my marathon pace effort might be. Oh well.  I need to decide soon which race I'm doing since online registration closes on Tuesday/Wednesday. I'm still not sure. I'll post some thoughts on that in another post.

Updates

So just to give you some training updates. The weight loss for the month of March was a success. I'm down to around 141 pounds or so which is the lightest I've been in over 5 years.  Going to try and go back to eating normal now so I'm not constantly in a state of calorie deficit.  I think I'm going to try some HR marathon pace work to see where I might be fitness wise.  I had hoped to gain some more information from Around the Bay about that, but the HR spiking precluded that.

I also bought a Polar M400 GPS watch which I've been eying for a while now.  I've been running with the Polar RC3 for a few years ago and some annoying traits for it (no lap pace, no display of HR when paused, no customizable screens) have all been remedied with the new M400.  I noticed the price on the thing was creeping up due to the CDN dollar and a store was trying to clear out the old stock at a discount so I decided to get one. I only bought it a few days before ATB and ran that race with it.  I've only had a handful of runs with it, but while the features lacking from the RC3 have been added, I find the GPS on the M400 to be just terrible.   Looking at the 8km race I did last weekend, it recorded the certified 8km race (4.97 miles) as being 4.84 mile which seems quite a bit off. It had my average pace at 7:01 min/mile which is 10 sec off what it actually was. I can understand being a little off due to cutting corners and the hills probably lost some distance, but that seems like a lot.  Even on my regular routes that I've measured over the years in Google earth and run with other GPS watches, the M400 constantly under measures distance where I'm missing as much as 40m over a first mile.  It appears from the interweb that not everyone is having GPS issues with their M400 so I'm hoping to play around with it a bit more to figure out what it's limitation are or at the very least to get used to its undermeasuring performance.

Harry's Spring Run-Off 8k Race Report

Pfitz wanted up a tune-up race this past weekend and Harry's Spring Run-off in High Park fit into the schedule which is an 8k race on a hilly course. I did this race back in 2008 in the prelude to my first (and only) 3:10:xx marathon. Back then, I wasn't sure what to expect from the race and I was thoroughly psyched out by the hills and I ended up finishing in 33:57.  I honestly didn't think that I'm in 3:10 marathon shape so I went into this thinking that I would be unable to come close to that time.  I've been doing my LT runs this past winter no faster than about 7 min/miles so I thought that pace might be doable during this race with the hills. I signed up for this a few weeks ago, but only realized today that the race was probably having difficulty selling entries so that had a whole bunch of discount codes that were floating around on social media to get $10 off the price.  Lesson learned. Always check social media before signing up for a race.

Fueling for this consisted of much of what I did to prepare for Around The Bay which consisted of excessive carbo loading leading into the race. I was on a weight loss kick for the month of March which left me feeling spent during most of my runs so going into ATB, I decided I would just pig out on carbs and any little weight gained would be offset by the increase in energy I would have which worked out well. Tried to do the same thing. Race was at 10am. Woke up at 7:00am, ate two packets of instant oatmeal (maple and brown sugar) and about half a bottle of gatorade. Left shortly after 8am as I had to get down to pick up my race kit which was opening at 8:30am. Arrived down there at about 8:45 found some good parking and made the short walk to pick up my kit then walked back to the car to drop off the crap promotional material that was included in the race kit and make a final call on race outfit which consisted of knee length shorts, a single long sleeved t-shirt and a singlet over top of that. Dollar store gloves and running cap. Headed back to the race start and stopped off at the high park running room to use their facilities and moisten the HR monitor strap (no line-ups). Arrived back at site and lined-up for one last portapotty usage.

So the HR issue I encountered during ATB was and has always been a bit troublesome going into races. Pops up at inopportune times. At marathon pace effort levels it's managable, but during short intense races if can mean all the difference in the world.  I had wanted to prevent this from happening this time. I've had some success in the past with doing a warm-up that gets the Hr to spike and then giving it a couple of minutes to calm itself and the problem doesn't pop up during the race.  The key I've found is to get the HR to spike, and then having sufficient time to let it "reset", but doing it late enough that I don't cool down too much before the race starts.  With about 15 minutes to go, I ate a gel and started the warm-up and could tell right away that the Hr was spiking, did two hard strides or so and then proceeded to try and get it to calm down which consisted of about 10 minutes of walking around and taking deep breathes. Eventually, the HR returned to normal. Then did some light jogging just to make sure and then made my way to the start line with about 5 minutes to go till race start. I was in the first corral, but was stuck near the back.  I was jumping around and jogging in place for the 5 minutes to try and keep the HR up over 100 so I wouldn't cool down too much and then we are off.

1 km: 4:14

The first corral was supposed to be reserved for quicker folk, but they considered quicker folk to be anyone that could do the 8k in under 39 minutes which is still a pretty wide range of paces. Took me 14 seconds to cross the start line. Needless to say, first km was crowded and I found myself weaving in and around people. I hit the first km at 4:14 (6:47 min/mile pace). Back in 2008 I did this first km in 4:00 so pacing was good so far, though I wonder if I would have gone faster if I didn't have to weave around so many people. They also had a timing mat at the 1 mile mark which triggered at 6:48 so my pace for the first little while seemed fairly consistent.

2 km: 4:03

After the 1 mile mark, the route plunges down a hill.  This is the dreaded hill that we end up having to climb in the last 200m of the race, but it was nice to enjoy it while it lasted.  Speedy.

3 km: 4:12

The third km still has some gently declines and is mostly flat except for the last little bit which is on the first half of the first uphill of the race. At this point, I've settled into a fairly good breathing pattern and the crowd has thinned out enough that I've got some room.

4 km:  4:24

4th km continues up the hill and trying  not to go too hard.  I've been giving the occasional glance down at the watch and see the HR is still acting "normal" which was in my LT HR range of less than 180 or so.  Good so far.

5 km: 4:08
6 km: 4:08

The 5th km was fairly flat I think except for the end which is the start of a downhill plunge which continue on into the start of the 6th km.  This hill is steeper than the one during the 2nd km I think. It's very difficult to just float down the hill and let gravity pull you down cause there's a good chance you'll wipe out. I ended up having to apply some braking effort to maintain control during the decent.

7 km: 4:17
8 km: 4:35

The 7th km is sort of flat with some gentle and mild rollers. I grabbed a cup of water at the start of the 7th km aid station just to get some liquid into my mouth. It was during the 7th km that I get the ammonia feeling  when you can start tasting ammonia in your mouth which suggests one is moving from LT mode into a VO2Max mode and faster.  The end of the 8th km is tackling the big hill and ends up being the slowest of the race.  I tried to charge up the hill, but I think I ended up just doing this by providing a good effort.  Once the hill is over, we make a turn and there's about 20-30 metres to the finish line. I couple of people pass me during this last bit.  I'm not sure why I didn't increase the pace during the last little bit. I wasn't prticularly feeling out of it, but I also had no desire to sprint past the finish line. It'll be interesting to see what the finish line race pics look like for me. hopefully, I won't look too much like I'm suffering.

Final finish time of 34:04 which averaged 4:16 min/km (6:51 min/mile). This isn't too far off the time of 33:57 which I ran back in 2008. It would probably of been a lot closer if not for the weaving during the first mile and if I had bothered to work a bit harder on the last hill. My HR peaked at 182 on the last hill.  I've been using 187 as my max HR which I experienced during a 5k race last fall.  The average HR calculated for the race was only 171 but that included a bunch of drop-outs so I don't lend any credence to that. More detail can be found at  Polar stats.

Fairly happy about the time and effort level.  Still have one more tune-up race to due. Will probably do either an LT run or Yasso's 800's.

Around the Bay 30k Race Report

Did Around the Bay Road two weekends ago which is a 30k race around the bay in Hamilton.  I only decided to do this at the beginning of March when I realized that it fell on the same day as an 18 mile long run which was supposed to include 14 miles at marathon pace.  As the race wasn't sold out, there were a bunch of people trying to unload their bibs on kijjiji and the race even allowed bib transfers for a $15 fee so I ended up paying only $65 (includin the transfer fee) for a bib that would have cost me over $100 if I had registered directly.

One problem with doing this was that the cut-off date to sign up for one of the faster corrals had already passed and since you had to actually submit proof of a qualifying time, I thought they were going to be pretty strict about the corrals and not allow people to transfer into them at the last second. Was intending to start off slow, so I hoped it wouldn't be too bad.

Hamilton is just far enough away that it's a bit of a pain to have to drive there the day before to pick up your race kit (no race day pickup) and then travel  there again the next day for the race. Even if you have someone picking up your bib for you, there's the logistics of driving there race morning with a bunch of other out of towners trying to do the same thing so I decided to stay the night before. But of course, by the beginning of March, most hotels in Hamilton are sold out and though there are a few in the outskirts of Hamilton, it would mean you had to drive in on race morning anyways. Basically, I ended up checking every hotel several times a day in downtown Hamilton hoping that there would be some cancellations, so a couple of rooms popped up. Unfortunatley, with scarcity comes cost so ended up with a room for $200 a night in downtown friggin Hamilton.  I gave some serious thought to AirBNB (Uber equivalent for overnight stays), but the closest place was still about a km away from the start line. Since there was no bag check and they weren't handing out nice warm ponchos or mylar blankets like they do in NY, it was going to be a chilly walk back, so I thought. So in the end, I ended with my $200 room about 200 m away from the start line.

The perks of a $200 suite room is that it comes with free breakfast which started at 7am which was just about enough time before the 9:30 start time to get stuff digested. One toasted bagel with peanut butter and jam and one bowl of instant oatmeal with some brown sugar.

Hung out in the hotel room with until about 15 minutes to go so didn't have to do the portapotty lineup and found the ability to just veg out to be relaxing. The night before I wasn't sure what to wear and so was weighing the options. I had brought running pants and two different pairs of shorts (knee length and Race Ready). For tops, I had brought conventional long sleeve, a slightly thicker thermal long sleeve and then a thick quarter zip and a thin quarter zip, both long sleeves. I had also brought a singlet, but wasn't sure what I was thinking with that.  The weather forecaset was predicting a start around freezing, but they were predicting it would warm up to 5C by the end of the race.  They were also predicting some potentially gusty winds in the later portion of the race.

Weighing the options, I decided on the thicker thermal long sleeve together with the thin quarter zip outer later.  I also decided to wear the race ready shorts. Wasn't really a weather decision to go with the shorts, but more so because it had more pockets to carry stuff.  I had to bring my gels and carry around my hotel key card and car keys (no baggage check available) and my running pants only have one pocket in the back.

So walk to the corrals and down a gel with some water. Was able to wiggle my way to the front of the open corral which was just behind the seeded corals. Only had to wait around for a few minutes before the race started and off we went. The plan was to start off a slow controlled pace for a few miles and then gradually ramp up to marathon pace. Was planning on running the marathon portion by feel and to judge by HR.

1 km: 5:13

First km was fairly well paced. Lots of room, not too many people in the way. Feeling pretty good. Trying to stay nice and relaxed and keep the HR in check.

2 km: 4:44
3 km: 4:34

The 2nd and 3rd kms are on a bit of a downhill (the first km is downhill also) as you run towards the lake. So these were a bit faster than I would liked. Effort level still felt sort of easy.

4 km: 4:49

At the start of the 4th km, there are these railway tracks that cross the street and there was the ominous sound of a train ringing its bell. It looked like there were a few rail cars that were slowly inching their way backwards towards the road.  There was a cop there monitoring the situation. I'm not sure what happened and if runners had to stop. I would think they could have waited about 15 minutes and all the runners would have cleared through. I haven't read anything about runners getting held up, so i"m assuming that's what happened. Half way through the 4th km, I decide to start the marathon pace portion to get a good feel for it by the time I hit mile 4 (at about 6.4 km) which would allow me to get a good solid 14+ miles in at marathon pace and to also possibly stop and slow down if I ran into HR issues.

5 km: 4:35

5th km was on target and pace.  Ideally 4:35 pace is the marathon pace I'd like to be able to run as that would put me in sub 3:14 marathon range and a possible BQ.

6 and 7th km: 9:40 (4:50 avg)

Up until this point, I hadn't had any HR issues and things were going well. Breathing was under control, HR was fairly low and controlled. Km 6 has the first little bit of a hill which is actually a bit of an overpass that crosses over a road.  Try to maintain pace going up that. As it's an overpass, there's an immediate downhill on the other side, however when I ease off on the throttle going down the hill, I feel the HR skip a beat, look down at the watch and it's spiking. Damn. I continue to run on trying to figure out if I should stop to let it calm down or if I should keep going. I was so distracted at this point, that I missed the 6th km marker.  I continue on for a little bit, then we move onto a ramp going up onto an elevated expressway/road. I decided to walk up the overpass hoping the HR will settle down. Nope, it doesn't.  I continue on.

8 km:  6:40

So now approaching the 5mile mark, I had to make a decision to either get the HR under control so I could get the 14 miles in at marathon pace or to just try and ride through it. I try for the former coming to a complete standstill to try and do crouch and Vagal maneuver thing to get the HR under control. I try for about 30 seconds and nothing, I walk for a bit and then try again. Nope, HR is still racing. At this point, I feel silly being at a complete stop with people running by me, including one guy dressed as a hot dog.  Once the hot dog guy passes me, I decide that I'll just continue on at marathon pace effort level and now worry too much what actual pace I was doing.

9 km: 4:46
10km: 4:11

So I quickly catch up to and pass the hot dog guy. These two kms are lumped together because I think I was late hitting the lap split on 9 and therefore a quick 10th km. Together, these were a 4:29 average. The 10km timing mat had me at 48:49 (4:53 pace) which I think was actually pretty good considering that included the walking and not moving bit.  The 10 km includes the decent from the elevated expressway and then a climb onto an overpass.

11 km: 4:35
12 km: 4:31
13 km: 4:31
14 km: 4:41
15 km: 4:25  (1:11:36, 4:46 min/km pace (7:41 min/mile)

I don't actually remember much about these 5 km. Timing mat has these at 22:47 for a 4:33 pace which would be excellent if I could maintain that during an actual marathon. Remember this is being done with my HR pumping away in the mid 180's when it should normally be in the mid-160s.

16 km: 4:29

The start of km 16 has us going over a metal grate bridge. You have to be a bit more careful at this point. I think I was consciously trying to land flat footed at this point. I'm not sure the holes were big enough to actually cause people to trip and fall, but you never know. Ideally, if they put some mats on it like they do in Chicago, it would be better.

17 km: 4:36
18 km: 4:42
19 km: 4:35
20 km: 4:39 (5km split, 23:04, 4:36min/km)

18 km is when I think we started hitting the wind since this is where it appears the pace started to slow a bit. I also seem to remember a lot of rolling hills in this part.  4:36 pace would put me at a 3:14 marathon which is borderline BQ territory.

21 km: 4:50
22 km: 4:38
23 km: 4:42
24-27 km: 18:17 (4km average, 4:34)

The next few km are again into the wind and I continue on. I missed a whole bunch of markers from 24 to 27. I think the wind may have blown them over as a couple of times there were some signs face down on the ground, but I wasn't sure if they were construction signs or km markers so I just passed them by.  We pass by the grim reaper at about the 25 km mark (I'm guessing) as we run by a cemetery.  I suppose it's a tradition, but I think it's morbid to have a guy at the 25 km mark dressed as a grim reaper telling people they aren't going to make it.  Enough people have died during races that it won't be particularly humorous if it happens one of the years at ATB.  

28 km: 4:32
29 km: 4:41
30+ km: around 5:27

The runners had particularly thinned out quite a bit at this point. The race heads south which is still into a bit of a wind.  The last km seemed excessively long. I didn't quite stop the watch at the finish line. But it was still probably around 5:20 for the last km which included about 200m of a tempo pace and downright sprinting at the end while trying to race some guy that was booking it to the finish line (He beat me, damn).

Chip time was 2:21:41 for average pace of 4:43 min/km (7:36 min/mile).

Staring from km 9, I ended up doing 22 continuous km (13.7 miles) at about 4:37 min/km (7:26 min/mile) pace.  Including the couple of early marathon pace km, I did over the 14 miles I set out to do, most of which was at the spiking HR. Polar stats available here. HR spiking starts at about 24 minute mark.

The course was apparently long as is evident from this news article. I find the race directors attitude towards the inaccurate course to be a bit poor. He says:

"The only people that are affected are members of Athletics Canada, who have age records and Athletics Canada is more than welcome to get (the course) measured if they want but I'm not doing it," "I've had no complaints from average runners. I just don't think it's a problem."

I don't care that the course was longer than 30km. I've certainly run enough races where distances were short or long, but I find this attitude to be poor.  If you're going to advertise it's a certified course, then the course should be certified.  Yes, they made a change at the last minute because of construction, but they knew about this for weeks ahead of time.  They should have made arrangements to have the new course re-certified, even if they weren't going to use it.

To be honest, I also dislike the fact that there was no bag check.  The website states, "Due to recent events and security precautions, baggage check will no longer be available." To me this is a cop out for trying to be cheap. If races like Boston and New York can offer a bag check, so can this race.

On the way out of FirstOntario Centre (where the race finishes), I heard my name being yelled. I looked up and saw my running Prof from my masters degree.  I had  "run" into him at a 5km race before. I had introduced myself to him at the time, but I don't think he remembered me as it was two years since I had taken his class where over a period of 4 months, I saw him once a week for a couple of hours. Anyhow we traded war stories and actually there's a race picture of us together.

Please pardon the watermarks.

This is a few km from the finish. I had no idea I had passed him at this point or he could be in the process of passing me.  He actually finished ahead of me by about 7 seconds going by gun time, but since I hadn't started up near the front, my chip time was quicker.

So my reward for finishing was some frozen yogurt. There was a grocery store that were selling serve yourself soft ice cream/yogurt and toppings for a flat price. Normally serve yourself ice cream ala Menchies is sold by weight so the more you put in your cup, the more you pay, but these guys were just selling it by cup. In hindsight, I should have put a lot more in there.  Rookie mistake, I guess.

Training Update

Well I'm 12 weeks into the 18 week training program. I've gotten most of the runs in so far with a good chunk of them having been done on the treadmill.  I did sort of skip the big Pfitz 7 mile LT run. Not that I didn't try it.  I've done all the LT runs this time around at the gym and when it came time to do the 7 mile one, I tried it outside, but it just felt so much harder and I ended up giving up on it.  Yesterday was supposed to be a tune-up and with nothing in the area, I tried a 6 mile LT run, but had to bomb on that to after 3 miles. It was windy. 

I think a major part of the reason why these have been sucking is that I made a conscious effort to try and lose some weight during March. 5 years ago, I was hovering in the low 140's whereas at the beginning of March, I was in the mid to upper 140's.  I figured the best way to give me any shot of running a good marathon was to lose some of the excess baggage. I was targeting 1 pound a week for a total of 4 pounds for the month, which I thought was a modest and safe amount, but it's just left me with a lack of energy for the higher intensity runs and I'm always constantly hungry.  I'm so far on target and down about 3 pounds from the beginning of the month.  I'm sure I've lost some muscle tone as well as some fat in the process.  With a marathon race at the beginning of May, I figured if I could cut the weight in March, I could give my body a month to recover from any ill effects. 

As for the race I'm doing, I haven't decided yet.  There are two in the area on May 3. One is the Toronto one and the other Mississauga.  I've done them both and would prefer Mississauga (first BQ was done there), but Toronto has the faster course so I'm not sure.  I think it'll probably end up being a weather decision so depending on which direction the wind is going, I'll pick the course that offers the best possibility of a fast race.  There's also the possibility of a late May marathon as well.  I was looking at Ottawa, but I think that will be sold out soon.  The other option is down in Buffalo. Hopefully it won't have to come to that. 

As for spring races, I'm targetting a few.  I'm signed up to do Around the Bay 30k next weekend, but I won't be racing it.  The training plan has an 18 mile long run with 14 at marathon pace, and the 18.6 mile race would give me an opportunity to practice race pace during an actual race.  I signed up for it relatively late so wasn't able to sign up for the seeded corrals. I'm hoping it wont be too bad with the congestion at the start.  I figure a few early slow miles and then ease into race pace.

The Pfitz plan also has two more Saturday tune-up races. There are two that potentially fit the bill. The first is Harry's spring run off 8k in High Park which I'm signed up for on April 4.  The last time I did this was in 2008 where I finished in just under 34 minutes. I'm not sure I can run that based on my LT runs. I'd be happy if I can do 35 minutes.  The second race is a trail race (10k or 15k) in Burlington as which is an MEC race.  Not sure I want to do that. I'd much prefer a road race and don't want to risk getting injured so close to race day.

I'm sort of waiting for the cold to disappear so I can start peeling off these layers of clothing. Hopefully, the added weight loss will allow me a better opportunity to get a faster time.

Zap Zap Zap

Training has been going okay so far. Weather hasn't been too great,  so a lot of my runs this time around have been at the gym. 11 times so far since I signed up and all of them at a distance of 9 or more miles. I've been doing my recovery runs outside, come hell, high water or blizzard just so I won't be considered a running wuss.   There's a big 20 miler on tap for this weekend and as much as I would love to do it outside, the people in the know are forcasting snow for this weekend, so it's looking like three or so hours at the gym on Sunday. 

Running at the gym has brought up another point that I've completely forgotten about and that's the static electricity build-up.  Sometimes when I run at the gym, whenever I touch the HR electrodes on the treadmill, I get a little bit of an electric shock.  This could be due to my electric personality or maybe it's my static personality. Ha, Ha, I made a joke. Yes, I know it's static electricity.  Now since I'm not normally in the habit of touching the electrodes, it normally wouldn't bother me, but the charge build-up causes my chest HR monitor to go berserk as you can see below.

Static Running w/ Polar

Beginning is a bit wonky until my body starts generating some sweat. Feedback is okay up until 1:15 mark when the HR monitor starts going crazy.  My HR isn't actually jumping up and down which I know since I've been wearing my Fitbit device on these runs as well which records HR optically and it shows the HR as follows.

See, nice and normal looking.  The slight drop in the middle is from when I had to stop to restart the treadmill and the little spike at the end was when I tested out a sub 7min/mile pace for about a quarter of mile.  As for the fitbit, I'm liking it so far. I'm still not entirely sure how accurate the HR is. I've been running with both the chest strap and the Fitbit and there are times when I swear, the fitbit is cheating by reading the signal from the chest strap since it's exactly the same and there are other times, I think WTF, why is it so different?

Towards the end of this particular run, I would touch the electrode every couple of strides and zap, zap, without fail. I've always thought that this was due to the static build-up created by technical polyester running clothes rubbing up against my skin, but I was reading up on it a bit more today and it seems that the static build-up can also be treadmill specific and that the act of the rubber track constantly whirring around can also create static electricity.  I don't run into the static problem on every treadmill run, so maybe this is the case.  I think I'll do some experimentation on this.

I think I'm going to try washing my clothes in fabric softener which supposed remove static cling.  I normally hang dry my technical clothes and don't wash them with liquid fabric softener. I've always been under the impression that the fabric softener destroys the wicking properties of technical clothes, but I'm not really sure. Maybe something else to test out.

Secondly, I think I'll have to try testing the various treadmills at the gym to see if there's any pattern to it. I haven't run there enough to have run on the same treadmill twice yet, so I have to try that.

Thirdly, I suppose humidity and weather it another potential issue. Dry air leads to more static electricity. I can't really control that so that's a bit of a wild card. 

Anyways, who says science can't be fun!?

Yes, I'm a nerd. 

Training and Fitness Trackers

So after a little bit of catching up, I"m back onto the training schedule so far. Things are going okay.  Thankfully there hasn't been snow on the ground which has made running outside "easier", but the wind can be a bit of a pain when its blowing and it's cold. 

The gym thing is going okay.  I've only been there twice to run on the treadmill, both times to do LT runs.  I also managed to get a swim in last weekend. First time I've swam in at least 5 years. DOMS is settling into the arms now which I suppose is good. Water there is too warm I find though. I guess the pool temperature is setup for aqua-aerobics which is a class they offer and the casual swimmer. For any serious swim workout, it makes you want to throw-up. 

I got a fitbit charge HR.  I bought it last week cause with the tanking CDN dollar, it is actually cheaper to buy it here in Canada then to buy it in the US with the exchange rate. That tells me that they'll probably raise the price of it pretty soon.  Garmin is apparently raising the prices of their devices here on February 1, so I figure now is a good time to buy stuff before the prices start going through the roof. The device is a fitness tracker that also measures HR, but does so without a chest strap.  I wasn't too sure how well the device would work and googling around, most people say that the HR is a bit hit or miss.  I've only had it for a week, but I find the accuracy to be bang on so far. I"ve done a few runs outside and the HR seems to match what my polar HR monitor gives.  But then again, it was being used in cold conditions, with no sweat being generated and buried under multiple layers of clothing so there was no possibility of light interference. I wore it to the gym this morning in the hopes of seeing how it worked inside on a treadmill during an LT run, but I forgot to start the workout tracking mode where it records more detailed data.  The only HR data I had then was the daily HR monitor which only reports average HR every 5 minutes so I can't compare data for that.

I'm liking it so far. I'll post something more detailed once I've gotten a few more weeks of usage under my belt.  

Another fail

So the second week of training last week was also a bit of a fail. Only managed 18 miles total which included 9.5 miles  at the gym Thursday morning where it was freezing cold and windy. This was the first time I've ever gone to the gym before work.  Was there and running at 6:15 in the morning. This included 4 miles at LT pace, which was split into two parts because of HR issues. Yeah, that's happening again. Afterwards went straight to work. I have to work out the logistics a bit better since I forgot a bunch of stuff, like a hair brush and conditioner for my hair so I was walking around all day with frizzy hair.

My shins and ankles were quite sore in the days following. I'm not sure if it was the LT run or the fact that it was my first run on a treadmill in several years that caused the soreness. It was so achy that I only managed a 3 mile recovery run for the rest of the week and decided to skip the long run to let the legs recover.  I did do 9 miles on Monday outside and the legs seem to be okay. I did another 9 miles today with 4 LT miles at the gym so I guess I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if any leg parts get achy again. I'm hoping to get to 40 miles this week which should hopefully put me back on track.

Gym Rat Wannabe

Happy 2015! First week of marathon training has been a fail. Squeezed in 8 miles on Tuesday, 6 miles on Saturday and 12 miles yesterday. Was supposed to do an LT somewhere in there, but I've been recovering from a bit of a cold so held off.  It hasn't even been that cold or that there's snow on the ground and am having difficulty trying to get the runs in. Not a good sign which caused me to realize that I probably need to sign up for a gym membership. Whenever I've done winter training before, I've always had the safety net of a gym membership even if I still did most of my runs outside.

The problem being in the past, I hate signing one year contracts since I know that come April, I won't set foot inside the gym until the following December.  Signing up for a membership is kinda like buying a car.  The sales guy is trying to size you up and figure out how much money they can extract from you and you're in there trying to get a fair deal. LA fitness opened up a new place close by to where I live and the good thing is they do month to month, provided you pay an initiation fee.  I went  to visit last week to try and get the sales pitch.

Quite nice place, everything's completely new, plenty of treadmills, classes, squash courts, a basketball/volleyball court and a swimming pool.  I had done some googling around and it seemed the price that everyone has been getting is $100 initiation fee and $40/month which I consider to be fair.  So when I sit down with the sales guy, he shows me the "regular" rate which is $100 initial fee and $70 a month or $200 fee and $60 a month, but because of a sale that have, they are offering it for $100/$50 or $200/$40.  This is a higher initiation fee than what everyone else was getting so I told him I'd think about it.  I kinda realized afterwards, that you have to play hard to get. The first thing they ask you is what are your fitness goals. If you go in and say that you're there everyday and use all the machines and play squash and basketball and swim, they will try to charge you more because they perceive that you think there's value to joining the club and are willing to pay for it.  I had mentioned that I would probably swim and do spin classes and weights and use the treadmill. To be honest, I would have signed up for the $100/$50 option that he offered if I didn't know better since I had decided I was willing to buy 4 months of treadmill access for $300.  In the end, I ended up visiting another LA fitness and went through the same pitch, but said that I only used the treadmill (which is true) and that I had no intention of doing classes or using the pool (maybe not so true) and ended up getting the $100/$40 price which I was looking for so I signed up. The membership is good at all the clubs in the Toronto area so I can still use it at the original club I wanted to.

I haven't actually tried the gym out yet, but it's looking like I may get that chance soon.  The temperatures are dropping down now and though I'm going to try and do the outside running thing ( i even bought some more winter gear), it's nice to have the option of running inside once again. Also it's been a while since I've swam so that'll be something I can look forward to.