Happy Turkey Day!

It's Thanksgiving day up here in Canada today and a day off both from work and training. This past week of training went fairly well as follows.

Tuesday: Little over 8 miles which include 5x600m at about 6:20 pace. Ran this with the garmin. Since the sun hadn't risen yet, i ended up running this with the garmin so i could use the backlight button to figure out my 200m splits. Kinda missing my HR data though. I have the big 3x1600m repeat session this week so i'll probably run with both to see where it's at. I'll be able to get my battery changed in my HR watch this Friday.

Wednesday: 5 miles recovery at really slow pace. Probably close to 10 min/miles.

Friday: Little over 4 miles which included 6 strides. Did this in the rain in the evening. Wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. Strides felt smooth and fluid. It seems that strides never feel fluid for me until the taper.

Saturday: Little over 8 miles done which included a little under 5 @ LT pace. Pfitz had a tune-up race planned, but there weren't any races nearby so i did some LT laps around the track. I had meant to do 5 miles or about 20 laps. Actually i wanted to do 20.5 laps cause 20 laps is only 4.97 miles and i clearly wanted to go over 5 miles. I ended up miscounting and ended up at 19.5 for 4.85 LT miles. Did the first 11 laps (2.73 miles) at about 6:56 pace and then did the last 8.5 laps (2.1 miles) at 6:49 pace. HR wasn't getting a good signal for the first 10 minutes or so of the warmup.  Liking that during the LT portion, the HR did the plateau thing which means it gets to a certain point and then plateaus which seems to imply that the effort is sustainable. First 11 laps, the HR plateaued at around 173 and the last 2 miles, it plateaued again at about 178/179 when i increased the effort.

Sunday: Longish long run of 17.5 miles at 8:01 pace. Did two loops which I know are exactly 12.1 and 5.4 miles respectively. They say you're supposed to maintain intensity while cutting back on mileage during the taper so i wanted to run this by HR trying to keep it just below 160 which would force me to maintain a good effort. i did but found that some of miles were a bit faster than i would have liked.

So you're probably all waiting to anxiously know which marathon I've decided to do and to be quite frank I'm still not completely certain.  I would say that it's about 80% chance that i'm doing the Niagara falls full and a 20% chance i'll do Hamilton the week following.  At the beginning of last week, I had given some thought to doing Toronto which is next weekend.   I wasn't sure that with all the commuting, whether I would be able to get my runs in and was afraid i would lose too much fitness, but with the runs getting a bit shorter during the taper and me getting use to the commuting thing, that idea was quickly kiboshed. Right now, the one thing that concerns me is the weather and more importantly the wind.  Niagara is a point to point course in basically a northwestern direction which means if there's a head wind, you're in for a long day.  I've been keeping an eye on the weather in Niagara this past week and it seems the wind generally comes from the southwest which isn't too bad.  There were a couple of days where the wind came from the north for a few hours which is a bit of a concern.  Right now they are predicting winds from the east for race day, but i think it's too far out for those to be dependable.    Looks like it will be a week of the marathon decision.  In any event, I'm going to reserve a cancelable (is that a word?) room in Niagara for race weekend and hope for the best.

Pondering marathon pace

It's coming to that time where i should probably nail down what fall marathon I'll be doing.  Right now, if i continue the training plan as is, i would be doing the one in Niagara falls.  A week early is the Toronto one and a week later is Hamilton.  With several weeks left to go, it would be easy to adjust the schedule now.

There are a number of different factors that I'm considering.  I've done the Toronto one before.  Have not done either Hamilton nor Niagara.  Weather is always a factor.  During the spring, I had intended Hamilton to be the main goal, but it's on November 1 and with the weather getting cooler now, I'm starting to think that Nov 1 might be too late and too cold.  The other variable that has come into this is what goal time do i want to attempt.  3:15:59 is my BQ time for next year and i would like at a minimum to obtain that, but a part of me wants to take a shot at going sub 3:10.  A (small) part of me has always been nerved that I needed to use that extra 59 seconds that Boston gives you to qualify. Being the numbers geek that I am, always seeking precision, I've found myself  feeling a tad guilty when telling someone I've qualified for Boston by running a 3:10 marathon when in fact it was 3:10:23. I know it's only a 24 second difference but the engineer in me just is bothered. Anyways, I figured that if I went for 3:10, i would need the extra 2 weeks of training.  I had also decided i would only attempt 3:10 if I was absolutely certain that I was more fit than I was back in May of 2008 when i ran that 3:10:23, which leads me back to my training.

This past week of training looked like this.

Wednesday: 12 miles with 7@LT pace.
Thursday: 6 miles recovery
Friday: 12.1 miles
Saturday: 6 miles recovery

The Wednesday run is the big Pfitz training run that I usually dread.  Back in the first few weeks of the plan when one is struggling to put down 4 miles at an LT pace, I always look forward in the plan and wonder how the heck am I ever going to do 7 continuous miles at the same pace.  Started off with two very slow recovery miles and then started into it.  LT miles went off as 7:12, 7:04, 7:00, 6:57, 7:03, 6:56, 6:51.  First two miles felt hard.  Probably not warmed up enough. HR spiked on the 4th mile.  I had noticed that my HR was less than 170 for the first 3 miles when I usually try to keep it between 170 and 180 for LT runs.  I tried to increase the pace during mile 4, but this caused the HR to spike. With only 3 LT miles left, I ended up just running through it and the Hr dropped back to normal within a mile after me slowing down.   I'm still trying to figure out if there's anything that i can do to try and prevent this.   I've read that this can be caused by electrolyte imbalances and lack of sleep so i've been trying to make sure those are addressed by eating salt pills and going to bed relatively early.  This run has me thinking that in regards to fitness, I'm probably very close to where I was back in May 2008.  At the time, in the week leading up to that marathon, I did 3.5 miles at 7min/mile pace on a track and averaged a HR of 167-168.  Based on the info before the spike now, i think i was probably averaging about the same and this is still with about a month of training to go. 

The Thursday recovery run was done at 9:04 pace.  I'm starting to like recovery runs.  I try to work on my cadence and don't have to worry to much about tiring out.  I try to consciously run these slower than 9 min/mile and am always interested in where the HR is.  For these, it was lower than 140 for most of the run.  This i like.

The Friday run was a 12 mile General Aerobic run.   I started slow and gradually built up the pace over the course of the run. No HR spike. Towards the end, did a couple of sub 8 min miles and finished with one mile at a 3:15 marathon pace (7:26 min/mile).  Interesting thing was that the average HR during that last mile was around 160.  In the past, this would be the maximum HR that i would have during a long run.  That I might be able to hold a 3:15 marathon pace at this HR kinda has me thinking that 3:10 isn't out of the realm of possibility.  I kinda wish my HR hadn't spiked during that marathon pace, 30k race a few weeks ago cause it sure would be nice to have a little more data to support that goal.

Today my recovery run sucked.  I did 6 miles at over 10min/mile.  I weighed myself before the run and my weight was down to where it would be after a long run so i knew i was dehydrated.  Did 3 miles of a little faster than 10 min/mile, HR then spiked, walked for about a mile and then did 2 more at slower than 10min/mile.  I guess you have to have these types of runs every now and again to keep you honest.

Long run of at least 20 miles tomorrow.  Will probably try and do a tad on the fast side.

Hope everyone enjoys their long weekend!

Training Update

It's now 10 or 11 weeks to marathon day depending on which one i decide to do.  I've finished week 8 of an 18 week Pfitz program. 


Friday: Did 11 miles including 6 miles at an LT pace of 7:01 min/mile pace.  This has been my LT pace for a long while now.  Can't seem to speed it up any further. 

Saturday: 6 miles recovery at about 9:25 min/mile pace

Sunday: 22 miles at 8:58 min/mile pace.  This was hot. It started at 21C and was 26C by the time I finished and that's without factoring in the humidity.  Hadn't really carboloaded they day before so wasn't looking forward to this.  Headed downtown for the lake.  Plan was to start slow and see how i felt half way through, but ended up staying at this pace for the whole run.  In order to try and prevent dehydration, i drank a bottle of gatorade right before the run.  First couple of miles didn't feel so great with the liquid sloshing around in my stomach, but by 4 miles, i was feeling better.  Even so, by the time I finished I was very dehydrated even having taken extended water breaks. 

Did a different route than I did last week.  Headed east, rather than west since there's a bit more tree cover for parts of the run.  Next week, I'm doing a marathon pace run as part of a 30k race which will follow much of the same path.  The race is in the evening and is on Saturday which requires a slight tweaking of this weeks schedule.  I'll be moving all my runs up a day and trying to do them in the evening.  The temperatures for the evening for the next couple of days is looking to be warm/hot and potentially humid.  Guess we've been lucky so far this summer with relatively cool weather which is good for training so a couple of days of hot weather is probably due.

Looking at HR

Gotten all my runs in for this week as planned. Thought I would document some HR stuff.

Tuesday: Did a little over 10 miles with 5 miles at LT pace. Averaged 7:04 pace for the LT portion. Did them around the track. It was about 20C in the morning to start and it was a struggle to roll out of bed in the morning to get this done. I'm sort of disappointed with the pace on this. I had thought I would be able to maintain this consistently below 7 min/mile especially on a flat track, but I think the relatively warm weather kept me from being able to hold the right pace. The effort felt harder than the 5 mile LT run I did last week on a non-flat route yet the pace was slower. The HR stayed below 180 which is where I like to keep it for LT runs, but don't like that the HR was constantly increasing throughout the LT portion. I normally like when it reaches 180 and then stays there for the entire run as it basically means that it's sustainable. Now it could just be that 5 miles was too short to see the plateau effect and the warmish weather may have contributed to it cause I was sweating buckets towards the end so who really knows.

Wednesday: Did 4.1 mile recovery run at 8:52 pace. It was relatively cool for this run at less than 15C. HR for recovery runs I've always tried to keep below 150 and a pace of no faster than 9 min/miles. I had no trouble keeping below 150 and it was lower than 140 at times. Pace however was 8:37 which is a bit too fast. If it wasn't for the slow first mile done at 9:26 pace, the average pace would have been much faster. I was comparing this to the HR during the Ottawa marathon where I was doing 8:45 pace but my HR was in the high 160's. I am in much better shape than I was back then.

Thursday: Could not force myself out of bed in the morning so ended up doing my 11 mile run after work, but wasn't feeling the greatest. I had eaten two lunches today. Lately, I'm famished come lunch time and ended up eating at noon, only to find out that some of the co-workers were taking a visitor out to lunch at 12:30. Not wanting to be anti-social I joined them with the intent of only nibbling on some of the Chinese food they were ordering, but I ended up having an entire second lunch. Needless to say, I was super stuffed this afternoon and my system had not quite processed it by the time of the run so I carried the bloated feeling for most of the run. First three quarters weres done slow and picked up the pace for the last quarter. Two interesting things to note are that HR was higher though pace was slower for the first three miles then the recovery I did yesterday (it was the same three mile route). Probably due to it being warmer and me being heavier. Second, based on the data from the end of the run, I think I can maintain a sub 8 min/mile at a HR of less than 160 though I"m not entirely sure cause I didn't wear the garmin today. Will have to test out this theory on Saturday.

I've been kinda wondering what my resting HR is these days. Last year when I got my wisdom teeth pulled, the nurse said it was 37. This was just after what I would guess was my peak fitness point. A couple of years ago, I wore my HR monitor to bed and it was 45 (i know I'm weird). I'm going to try wearing it to bed tomorrow to see what it is. I'm guessing probably around 40.

Warming Up

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

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

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

Little bit of a setback

Hit a little bit of a stumbling block. Did a little over 7 miles on Thursday. Plan was do 9 or so that included a 4 mile LT run and rather than do it at the track like I have been the past little while, I headed to the 1 mile route that i've used in past years around a local shopping mall parking lot. On the 2 mile jog over there, i noticed my right achilles was tight but i figured it would loosen up. Started into it and managed 7:08, 7:03, 7:05 and 7:01 mile splits with the achilles continuing to bother me. Once that was done, i slowed down to a recovery pace for one more lap where my achilles started to really ache. I then proceeded to limp back home.

I guess the three days of running in a row totaling 22 miles with two kinda hard workouts wasn't a good idea after a relatively light 14 miles of running the previous week. I think I've narrowed the issue down to some trigger points in my calf that are causing my achilles to be overexerted so i'm trying to kneed those out using the Stick. I had this same problem in my left achilles while trying to ramp back up after Boston. You'd think i would have learned by now. So it's been two days of rest with lots of icing and then try for 10 miles tomorrow at a slow pace.

In the midst of the 55 mile week

Did 6 miles at recovery pace on Tuesday with 6 strides. Strides felt surprisingly smooth. They've felt very unnatural these past few weeks and with last week being a recovery week and just having done a relatively slow 30k, i was surprised how well they went.

I'm in the midst of the peak week for the 55 miles/18 week training plan for Pfitz. Yesterday was the training run that scares off most people from Pfitz' training plans. The dreaded 12 miles with 7@LT pace. I woke up in the morning but it was raining outside and having spent most of the 30k race on Sunday running in the rain, I was not in the mood to repeat it, so i waited until after work. Problem was that after work, the wind was blowing around like crazy and I wasn't in the mood to run laps around a track with the wind, so i decided to head to the gym. I think this has been the latest in the winter training season that I've been to the gym. I still have to cancel my membership at some point cause I know i won't go back there until next winter.

So the run went better than I thought it would. I warmed up with 3 miles @9:40 pace and then started in at 7:13 pace which is what I've been able to handle in the buildup over the past few months and is consistent with my MP run two weeks ago. HR was barely squeaking over 160 for the these first three miles so I started to ramp up the speed with each subsequent mile to 7:08, 7:03, 6:58 and finally 6:53. Even at the end of it, my HR maxed out at 174 when it normally would be closer to 180. Then finished off with two miles or so at 8:00 min/mile and the HR was below 160. I know the treadmill can sometimes make you think you are faster than you actually are, but this was encouraging and I'd like at some point to see if I can maintain this pace outside.

BTW, my Boston marathon mail kit showed up a few days ago. Only 17 days to go!!

Soreness

Did 11 miles on Friday with about 6 miles at an LT pace of 7:18 pace. I ran into the HR spiking problem which has plagued me in the past and it was hard to get a judge of effort level. Maybe I could have gone faster, don't really know. Did these again around the track which is good for helping me maintain a constant pace, but I'd like to get back to do my shopping mall LT route since that's got some small hills in it to keep me honest. Won't be able to do that until the huge piles of snow have melted. Next LT is scheduled for end of March so hopefully mother nature will warm things up soon.

Did 6 miles recovery today at about 9:45 pace. I tried the new Asics shoes again today. This is the third time I've run in them. The soles of my feet don't hurt as much as they did the first time I used them, but I'm noticing that a bunch of other muscles in my legs are starting to get sore. I'm uncertain if it's the new shoes or if it's that my older shoes have worn out or if it's because i'm approaching 55 miles/week threshold again which has given me issues in the past or whether its a combination of all of them. Either way 20 miles is on the scheudle for tomorrow. What shoes to wear? Maybe I'll flip a coin...

It's really cold

Not quite -19C this morning, but still pretty cold at -16C. 10 miles with 5 @ LT pace on the schedule. Alarm went off at 5:45, but laid in bed for half an hour trying to convince myself it would be better to do it later. Finally rolled out of bed, put my winter stuff on and headed out. A t-shirt, a long sleeve shirt, a second thermal long sleeve shirt and a fleece shell. two pairs of gloves and a winter toque, thermal underwear and running pants.

Did three mile warmup to the track where i started into it. We haven't gotten a lot of snow lately and the sun has been out a lot. I had assumed that the track would be clear since most of the snow everywhere else is gone, but one end of the track still had some snow and ice on it. Had to do some careful navigating at that end. Was supposed to do 20 laps, but ended up with 21. I seem to always lose count and either do one too many, or not enough. This ended up being 5.2 miles at an average pace of 7:15min/mile. Then did one additional lap at recovery and then did the one mile jog home. My water bottle ended up freezing half way through the tempo run. Even with my fancy bottle with the kicker valve and me constantly shaking it, the water froze solid in the top part of the bottle after 45 minutes. Next time, i think i'll have to use gatorade since it should have a lower freezing point.

So it seems I 'm starting to get faster. This was slightly faster and slightly longer than the LT run I did 2 weeks ago, but this is still a long ways off from when i could average this pace over an entire marathon.

Poodle Puppy...

Headed out this morning to do 9 miles with 4 @ LT pace. Pretty good weather. It was -10C but there was no wind which is how i like it. Most of the snow has melted and the track at the local high school is clear. Decided to head out and do the LT run there. Did a very slow 3 mile jog to the track and then did 17 laps (4.2 miles)at LT pace.

Ran the LT part by HR trying to keep it at just under 180. I ended up averaging 7:23 pace for the LT portion. This however included one lap where I had to stop because a guy walking his poodle let him off the leash and he started running beside me. I slowed down a bit hoping that the dog would get bored and go back to his owner who was yelling for him, but he just stayed with me. He then starting bumping into my legs. I don't think he was trying to bite me or anything, but i ended up having to stop cause he was so small and I was afraid that I might accidentally kick the poor little guy.

Finished off with another 2.3 miles at about 9min pace. Total for the day was about 9.5 miles @ about 8:40 pace.

Man this sucks...

... is what i was telling myself today. I decided to try and do a a 4 mile LT run outside this morning and it did not feel good at all. Did a three mile slow warmup to the track and started into it, trying to keep the HR below 180. Average pace was about 7:33 or so, complicated by the wind blowing quite hard during one of the straightaways. You can kinda see the phenomenon as the HR would rise during part of the track while running into the wind and then would drop back when running with it.

This past week was pretty non-eventful. I did about 8 miles on Friday, 4 miles on Saturday and 13 miles on Sunday. The Friday run was split between 2 miles outside and 6 or so at the gym. It was too slippery on the sidewals and there was no point in potentially injuring myself by slipping on ice. The 4 miles on Saturday was outside and the 13 miles on Sunday was at the gym.

I've going to go register for another gym membership tomorrow morning. The new company which I technically joined at the beginning of December gives us $600 a year for fitness related expenditures which means if i don't spend the $600 tomorrow, I will lose it for 2008. The place i'm going to join is one of the gyms run by the city and it doesn't have quite the amount of equipment that my current gym has, but it does have a swimming pool (which my current one did have, but not anymore) and also an indoor running track which i'm hoping will come in handy over the next couple of months. Not sure if i'm going to cancel my current membership yet though. I'll do it eventually, but I'll see how the indoor track training goes at the new place.

Happy New Year All!!

Cranking up the Speed.

So I'm going to try to post a bit more often now that training is starting to ramp back up a bit. Did a little over 10 miles today with 3 in the middle at LT pace. It sure is dark in the morning. Can't wait for daylight savings to end so that there's a bit more light in the morning. Don't like the thought of leaving work and having it be pitch dark outside though. Did the LT portion around the track. 12 laps. Tried to keep the HR just below 180 and I ended up with the 3 miles of LT being done at 7:06, 7:09 and 7:06 pace. Ideally I'd like to try and maintain that pace for a half marathon in about a month, but I'm not sure if that's realistic. I haven't run an LT type run of more than 1 mile for more than 2 months now, so it just maybe that the cobwebs have to be shaken out a bit.

This is pretty cool video. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHC_Qyov2Xc

Another 5k attempt

Tuesday: Did about 6 miles including some VO2Max intervals around the track. Did only 3x800 and 2x400m. HR was spiking all over the place and I was just out of energy. I think it may have had something to do with bad sleep.

Today: Did a little over 9 miles which included 4 miles at LT pace. It was very cool today. Started out at 14C which was refreshing. Headed over to the track to do 16 laps of LT which I ended up averaging 6:51 pace for. I did these at the track cause I wanted to throw in some intervals at 5k pace after to try and get used to the feeling of running 5k pace on tired legs. I was only able to handle an 800 and then 2x400m at 5k pace afterwards. Needed to use walking recoveries cause I was pretty tired after each rep.

Signed up for another 5k race this weekend. Will try again for sub 20. Hope to be able to go out at the proper pace this time and hold on. I think this will be my last 5k attempt at least for this summer. I will next try a 10k at the end of July to hopefully break 42 minutes and then I get my wisdom teeth pulled!! Yah!!!! Depending on how that recovery goes I will probably then start training for a fall half. I haven't decided on Chicago yet, but it's looking more likely that I won't do it this year.

LT Run

Yesterday: Did a little over 9 miles including 4@ LT pace. I've been doing my LT runs around the track lately but realize that this has been handicapping my pace sensing abilities. I headed to the shopping mall in the morning to do my 1 mile LT loop. Pace was surprisingly consistent with the following splits:

06:56.4

06:55.8

06:55.9

06:56.6

HR seemed about right though my HR spiked on the last mile. I had to push hard through the final mile to maintain pace.

Today: Did 3 miles recovery.

So sent my deposit in to Marathon Tours for Boston accommodations for next years marathon. The prices that MT are giving are ridiculously cheap compared to what is being offered through any other site and the cheaper hotels from MT are already getting filled so I thought I should do it sooner rather than later. I probably should have done this a month ago, but when you have 11 MONTHS till the actual race, you usually expect that you have some time left. This got me thinking of whether I should book a hotel for Chicago in the fall. On the flight over to Chicago back in 2006 my seat mate was telling me that she booked a last second room at a reasonable rate. She said that the hotels get so many cancellation in the last two weeks prior to the marathon that it's easy to wait until the last second to get a room. This seems believable, but I don't like leaving things to chance.

Speaking of trips, have you seen the latest Where the Hell Is Matt video? Check it out. Makes me smile

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Here's the low def Youtube version. I love the song, and tried to buy it but amazon won't let us Canadians buy it online. :(

Cool is cool!

So we've had some really weird weather as of late. We had thunderstorms for several straight days. I took a day off from work on Monday and went to the zoo where I got pelted by a hail storm amongst other things. Largest chunks of hail I've ever seen. Some of them were about the size of a small gumball.



So the weather has gotten a bit cooler as of late. It's about 10C in the morning's which is perfect running weather. It allows me to go outside in shorts and a t-shirt and I don't generate too much of a sweat. My runs over the last two days have been good not having to worry about the heat.

On Tuesday, I did a little over 9 miles including 3@LT pace. Did these again around the track. First lap was quite slow at about 7:15 pace. Though I didn't plan it this way, it ended up being a progression run The first 4 laps (1 miles) were done at 7:01 pace, the next 4 at 6:54 and the last 4 at 6:51. I didn't like that the HR kept climbing of the course of the run, but I realize now that the reason for this was that I was gradually speeding up.

This morning, I did about 6.5 miles @ recovery but it included 6 strides. I've noticed that my cadence rate has dropped off a bit over the past few weeks. I noticed leading up to my last marathon that strides really help to improve cadence. With the 5k coming up, i thought it would be a good idea to do some strides now to prepare. It might be a bit too late to derive any benefit from them, but it's a good mental trainer. My HR was way down for this. Probably averaged about 9:25 pace for the non strides part. I'm going to try practicing some 5k running tomorrow around the track. I'm curious as to what the HR will be since it's still going to be quite cool.

Short LT Run

Did a little over 8 miles yesterday including 3 at LT pace. Went to the track to run laps. Ending up trying to keep the HR below 180.
LT laps were as follows.

Lap Time	HR Avg	Pace
01:40.5	165	06:44.3
01:40.9	175	06:46.0
01:41.4	178	06:48.0
01:43.6	178	06:56.8
01:43.7	178	06:57.2
01:44.1	179	06:58.8
01:45.8	180	07:05.7
01:46.5	179	07:08.5
01:47.7	178	07:13.3
01:46.7	179	07:09.3
01:45.8	180	07:05.7
01:44.1	181	06:58.8

Started out okay, but pace started to slow down towards the back end. I haven't done an LT type run in over a month so this was kinda expected. It wasn't that boring since there was lots of activity at the track. High school soccer teams were out practicing and lots of kids playing on the track. Makes me wonder how I ever could ever deal with running solo over the winter.

More HR training...

Thursday: Did 15.3 miles outside before work.This is the longest mid-week run I've ever done before work. Wasn't too sure how I would feel for this considering the relatively hard VO2Max workout I had done the previous day. In keeping with the HR training, I was trying to keep the HR just below 160. It was just about perfect weather for running. Started out at about 5C, finishing at 8C with no wind. First couple of miles were at recovery pace. Mile 5 was a split time of 7:45 or so. Thought that it was a garmin blip but then all the other following miles were at the same pace also. Including the first slow miles, I averaged 7:56 for the entire thing was suprised the heck out of me.

Today: Did 9.4 miles. This was supposed to be a general aerobic run but I wanted to do a bit of a LT run. Even though it's gotten a bit warm lately, there's still snow melting in the shopping mall parking lot where I usually do my LT runs and the parts where the snow has melted just has piles of crap that have accumulated over the winter and shovelled into the area. I headed to the track to try for 5 miles at LT pace. 20 laps around the track is not the funnest thing to do, but it didn't seem to bother me that much. I was really interested to see what the pace would be at my LT HR which I'm guessing is just under 180. The first lap was done at about 7:02 pace while trying to get a feel for the effort. I then settled into between 6:50 to 6:59 pace for the remaining laps. I lost track of the count after a while and did an extra one by accident which I was able to do at 6:46 pace. 21 laps in total, average pace of 6:55 over 5.2 miles or so.

I've volunteered to be a 1:45 pace bunny at a local half marathon next weekend. This is an 8 min/mile pace which at the time, I didn't think would require too much effort for the half marathon distance. I only realized about the extreme hilly nature of the course after. The lowest point in the course to the highest is about a 225 feet (68m) climb which takes place over about 1.5 miles. This is about a 2.8% grade. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to maintain that pace climbing that hill. Good thing is that we get to go down that hill afterwards.

Nice LT run.

Thursday: Did really slow 4 mile recovery run outside. First mile was over 10min/mile. Miles 2-4 were about 9:40 or so.

Friday: Did 9 miles with 5 at LT pace. Considering the hard time I had with 3 miles at 6:48 pace last week at the gym, I decided to aim for 6:58 pace (8.6mi/hr). The temperature outside is still hovering around freezing which means icy sidewalks so no outside LT work yet. I also usually set the treadmill at level 3 of the random hills which causes the grade to fluctuate between 0 and 2.9%, but decided to cut back to level 2 which only goes up to about a 2.2% grade I think. First 2 miles were recovery at 9:13 pace. Really low HR. Didn't get to above 140. When looking back to this recovery run back in February where the first two miles were done at the same pace but I was already over 140 half way through the first mile should mean that my fitness is improving. After the recovery portion, I started into the LT miles, but noticed that the HR wasn't getting high enough. First two miles were done at a HR of less than 170 and the peak during mile 3 was only 172 or so. I bumped up the pace for mile 4 to 6:53 pace and then to 6:48 pace for mile 5. Finished off with 2 miles@ 8:00 pace. I think all the running outside lately is making the treadmill running seem easier. In hidsight, I would have liked to see if I could have handled 6:48 pace for the whole run.

Today: Did 5 mile recovery with 6 strides. Didn't wear a watch or the garmin so not sure of pace. I'm going to try and not worry so much about pace on recovery runs, but rather to just run comfortably slow. With the six days of running a week now, it'll be more important to treat these runs as true recovery runs rather than days to slip in more GA work.

Still deciding...

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

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

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

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

LT run

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

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

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