My Hood (kinda)

Slowly building up the miles.  Managed to get up at 4:45 this morning for an 11 mile run which surprised the heck out of me.  Had an after work engagment and knowing that I wouldn't be able to do the run afterwork was pretty much the only thing that allowed me to get it done in the morning. 

Last week i did 40 miles which included a 15 mile long run downtown.  In fact, it was the same route I did two weeks ago. Took my point and shoot camera with me.  I got a small waterproof camera for Christmas and it's the first time I've really used it.  I initially had thoughts of filming my swimming stroke or checking out my flip turns, but as with any piece or pricey technology, there's just something about dunking it into water that doesn't seem right.  I've been thinking of maybe doing the Boston marathon part II picture thing.  One thing from last year was i don't think i got enough pictures of the race itself.  Sure I had a lot of pictures of me standing in front of mile markers but i had very little else from the race which i sort of regret. I'm definitely going to do the picture thing in Big Sur. Anyhow, i thought i'd give you a tour of my waterfront route since it was such a nice day, not a cloud in the sky and very little snow on the ground.. 

 Boats Stuck in Water

 Abandoned Soy Silos 

 Red Path Sugar Factory

 Closer look at artwork

Boats anchored for the winter

 Skating rink at Harbourfront

 Pier at the harbourfront

 Sailboat without sails

 Rogers Centre and CN Tower

 Ontario Place and the Molson Amphitheatre

 Windmill

 Ice

 Birds

 More Birds

 

 Pictures taken on the run

 Swans, (wonder if these are the same ones from last year)

 Floating restaurant on a boat

More Boats 

 

The Beach where i start and end my route

The Second Job

Today, I managed 8 miles with 4 at a tempo effort  The 4 LT miles ended up being at about 7:35 min/mile pace which is about where i was expecting it to be. Got up in morning to do it.  I've realized that I can't do runs after work. I just can't motivate myself do anything more than a short recovery run at the end of a long day.  

So today, good old Wiarton Willie predicted 6 more week of winter.  If it's 6 weeks more like the winter we've been having, that's fine with me.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to to take advantage of the lack of snow this past week.  Last week was the first week of a 12 week plan and it didn't go too well.  Only managed an 8 miler and a 6 miler and skipped the long run.   This whole training thing is started to feel like a second job.  I had this feeling leading up to my May marathon back in 2008.  At the time, the close to 70 mile weeks and the 6 days a week of running started to drag me down, but i kinda put up with it since I was so close to BQ'ing at the time.  Now with 2 hours of commuting on weekdays, i'm starting to get that same feeling but with far less running which is causing me to rethink this training plan and what i want to accomplish in Boston. Do i really want to requalify?  I'm already qualified for 2011 and probably won't be running it anyways, so the motivation is extremely lacking.  It's just very easy these days to put off runs.  I need to find where my mojo has gone.

Once in a fortnight...

or i guess it's been a fortnight and a half since I last posted.  12 week training plan for Boston starts this upcoming week and I've been trying to slowly ramp up the mileage.  I did 40 miles three weeks ago, 44 miles two weeks ago but i kinda fell off the wagon this past week where I only got a 10 miler in during the week and a 15 mile long run on Sunday. 

Most of mileage to date has been of the slow base building type. I had hoped to try and do about 7 miles of my Sunday long run at a marathon pace effort to throw some speed back into the mix.  Drove down to the lake to do it which is the first time I've been down there in a long while.  Ran into Yumke during my slow warmup and stopped to chat for a bit.  Tried to crank out some marathon pace effort but i just wasn't feeling so great.  I did manage one mile at 7:45 min/mile pace and had hoped to continue this for a few more miles, but when i hit the turnaround point, the headwind was just too much and i had to slow down.  Still the overall pace for the 15 miles was 8:45 min/mile which was about 30 seconds/mile faster than i've been doing all my other runs for the past few weeks so I'm satisfied with the effort. 

We've been somewhat blessed this year with winter, or lack thereof.  There hasn't been too much snow and the weather has been relatively mild lately.  That's apparently going to change this upcoming week, but being able to get through January without too much snow has been nice which means I haven't had a need to signup for a gym membership.  Here's to hoping that February is just as nice. 

January: Go get the donut

Got up at 4:45 this morning to get a 10 mile run in. This is the earliest I had ever gotten up to get a run in. This was also the first hard core run I've had this season. I bailed on a 12 mile long run on Sunday outside. It was too cold and windy and it was snowing and ended up doing at the gym.

There's something peaceful about running in the dark with no one around on a thin layer of freshly fallen snow. Though I had to work a bit harder cause of the snow, i managed to get through it at about 9:35 pace which i think is pretty good considering the blood donation last week.

I think however that this is about my limit for waking up early. I once got up at 5:15 once to get a 15 miler in and thankfully the 12 week training plan I'll be using tops out at only 12 miles for mid-week runs. I should hopefully speed up by then such that I won't have to wake up so early to squeeze the whole distance in.

Last year, I purchased a running calendar in February or March for 2009. It's amazing how cheap calendars get after January. I think I paid $2 for it. It's a running calendar with a little saying on each month with a running related picture. Here's the one for January:

 Go get that donut!!

2009 Year in Review

Another training year comes to a close and looking back I topped out at 1891.1 miles which is the highest yearly total ever.  I came to this realization on January 30 and had considered trying to squeeze in an extra 8.9 miles on the 31st just to get me over 1900 for the year but decided against it.  I had an appointment to donate blood on the 31st which I had postponed from a few weeks earlier because I had thought i was coming down with something.  I had not given at all in 2009 and thought i should get at least one donation in for the calendar year. 

So 2009 will always be about Boston and the first time running it.  Actually there were a couple of marathon firsts for me this year, first time pacing a marathon, first time doing three in a calendar year.  Along the way, i did a bunch of races, but i think i only raced a handful.  For 2010, i'm going to try to not enter races unless I'm actually going to race them.  The one exception is Big Sur which is 6 days after Boston so i'll probably not be in any shape to do that fast.

As for what races I'll do this year.  There's Boston and Big Sur.  I'll probably do Harry's 8k cause it fits in nicely for a tune-up race for Boston.  I will apply for the lottery again for New York hoping to not get in.   I have not decided if I want to do a fall marathon if i don't get into NY.  I was looking at Berlin which I'd like to do one day as it's one of the five marathon majors, but i'm thinking that should wait until after i get a handle of when i'm doing New York.  I will probably be applying for the lottery for London in 2011 or even go the tour route which guarantees entry.  I also want to take another shot at the 100 pushup challenge which i started a while back but gave up on after a week

That's all i have planned at the moment or what I'm thinking about right now.  Here's to a happy, safe and injury free 2010.  Happy Running all!

Merry Christmas!

I really gotta start posting more often...  So week 1 of marathon training which was last week was a bust cause i think i came down with a one day cold or something.  Did only one run of 6 miles which was on the Sunday which was my "long" run which i suppose is long if you haven't run at all during the week.  This week is (will be) slightly better.  Ran 6 miles on each of Tuesday and Wednesday.  Going to do 6 miles tomorrow morning and then a double digit run on Sunday. I think I'll try and build up the mileage slowly and then try for a 12 week training program for Boston. 

Merry Christmas/Festivus to you all!

The Winter Blahs

The past three weeks have seen me running twice, a 6 miler on the 7th and 10 miles yesterday. Both runs were relatively slow.  I'm suffering from a mild case of DOMS right now. 

An 18 week program to prep for the Boston marathon would start tomorrow with a 7 miler with some strides. Though I'm going to try and start it, I don't hold out much hope in being able to keep to the schedule.  With winter arriving soon, I'm dreading the colder weather days.  I went out in shorts and a long sleeve T yesterday.  It was just above freezing with little wind so that was bearable.  As the temperatures get colder, the wind gets nastier and the snow starts accumulating, my motivation starts to disappear and its far easier to role over in bed to sleep in, then to try to battle the elements outside for a training run.  I've been looking into signing up for a gym membership downtown so that I can fit in lunchtime or after work runs, but don't like the prices which are $80/month with a one year commitment.  From past experience, I wouldn't use the thing during the summer, so not sure I want to throw away the money.  Going to try the morning run thing for a while first though.

Whitby 5k Race Report

Ran this race 2 weekend's ago.  They also hold a 10k and a 10 miler.  It's a bit strange since the same location also hosts a half marathon in the the summer along with a 5k and 10k.  So i did a Whitby 5k race back in July and this race is called the same thing.  Confusing.

Long story short is I finished in 20:26 and i'm pretty sure the course was short.  It was a different route than the short 5k i ran in July, but it was still short nonetheless. Garmin measured it at 3.06 miles which is about 75m short.  Mapped it out in Google Earth and it says its even shorter than that.  As usual, i ran into HR issues.  I wore the HR monitor but put electrical tape on the readout cause I didn't want the readout bothering me during the race.  Was okay for the first 2 km which were right on pace (4:00, 3:59), started to slow down during km 3 (4:11), had a miserable 4th km (4:33) and then was able to speed up for the last km (3:40 for .58km about 3:58 pace).  Felt like crap during the 4th km.  Checking out the HR afterwards, my HR spiked just after the 2km mark and then returned to normal just before the 4th km marker which would explain the slow down in the middle of the race and the speed up at the end.  But then again, all my 5k's tend to follow this trend so i don't know if it's a result of the HR thing or not.  It would make sense though. A 5k is run at the limits of ones VO2Max and anything that can change that obviously will have a big impact on performance.  The HR monitor slid down off my chest with about 500m to go so that's what the drop in HR right at the end.

Finished 15th overall and 5th in my age group.  They gave out a nifty orange toque.  Not really nifty in the sense that I would wear it in public(maybe i'd wear it in a race), but nice to get something other than a t-shirt. They had soup and sandwiches afterwards.  They used a completely different route this year for the 10k and 10 miler.  Apparently they didn't have anyone telling people where to turn around for the 10k so a lot of the 10k'ers ran longer than they should have.  There was one woman at the finish line who was really pissed of about it and complaining to anyone that would listen.  Yikes, I just smiled, nodded my head and moved along. 

Though i didn't win any prize at the event, i received an email a few days after telling me I had won something and should send them my address.  I had signed up for Road Warrior program a while back.  It was started by the guy who organized the pace bunnies for the Scotiabnk waterfront races.  The program offers a grading system where you basically race against yourself but your improvement in times is compared to other Road Warrior participants at a given race.  They basically average your times over the past year to an equivalent 5k time and if you are able to run faster times than that you are more likely to place higher in the Road Warrior standings. In theory, this sounds great, but unfortunately it's idiots like me who intentionally run slow during a lot of races that end up screwing up the curve.  Prior to this race, the Road Warrior program had me as a 23:58 5k runner. This was due to my races at the beginning of the year when I was practicing to be a pace bunny and also due to someone who was accidentally given my bib and chip who ran a 38 minute 5k back in June. So when it comes to race day, and I'm able to put down a 20-something 5k, the program thinks I had a great improvement and ranks me high.  Very easy to game the system.  I didn't respond to the email asking for my address cause it felt like I had cheated and didn't deserve the prize which was a pair of socks. 

I was contemplating trying another 5k before years end, but I have a blood donation appointment next week which when combined with the fact I haven't run in two weeks means I'm probably not going to be in racing shape before the new year.  I guess, it'll just have to be another goal for the new year.

Still here...

Been over three weeks since last post.  Don't have much in the way of training updates as I haven't run since my 5k race on November 22.  I still have to write a race report, but there isn't much to say other than I failed again at the sub-20 attempt.  I've been finding that i don't have much to report other than training totals which i'm sure most people other than me are not interested in.  So i'll try and post a bit more about other stuff.

Before i forget, you should go congratulate Jen and Barb on their Ironman finishes last week in Arizona.  They've posted fairly detailed race reports with lots of pictures so go and read. 

As for me, the commuting thing is sucking up a lot of my free time and I had found that I was falling behind in blog reading.  I realized that I had a lot of idle time sitting on the subway and the bus and thought it would be prudent to see if i could do my blog reading while in transit.  My blackberry isn't too great for reading RSS feeds.  I had considered getting an iphone for the sole purpose of being able to read blogs but realized that it wouldn't work too well in the subway which got me thinking about offline reading for the iphone.  If there was an app for that (sorry At&T) it would also work with the ipod touch which i have.  Did a little bit of research and there were a couple of apps that synced with Google Reader and will download RSS feeds and allow you to read it offline and then upload the read count back to Google.  Tried that for a few days but one issue i had is that the readers only downloaded text and not pictures.  Since I subscribe to a lot of photography blogs, not being able to see pictures made the experience less than ideal.  There were a couple of apps that said they would cache pictures but they didn't work too well only download pictures from a few posts.  With over a hundred postings a day to read i wanted something that would download everything.

That's when i found GRiS (Google Reader iPhone Sync) that promissed to do just what i wanted but it wasn't on the Itunes apps store which meant I had to bypass the Ipod security by jailbreaking the thing.  A bit scared to do this, but it was really easy to do.  GRiS was a little bloated in size, but it did just what i wanted.  It takes a few minutes to sync in the morning, but is able to fill up over an hour worth of travel time.  I'm also finding that i'm actually reading more blogs as opposed to just skimming which is what i used to do.  Feel much more informed now.  I do have issues with trying to comment on posts since I'm offline.  If I see a post i might want to comment on , I star it in GRiS (its a google reader thing) which then gets resynced with google reader for later review and comment but that doesn't work too well as i'm always a few posts behind.  I guess that's the nature of offline reading.

Well, that's it for now.  Will try and go for a run tomorrow.  Hope i'm not too sore afterward.

Racing a short 5k?

Since i last updated, i've moved onto shorter stuff. Topping out at 8 miles or so during the week and then a long run in the low to mid teens on Sunday.

Last Tuesday: Did 4 miles recovery

Last Wednesday: 8 miles including 5x1000m (3:57 per repeat)

Saturday: 8 miles including 4 miles LT at 6:53 pace
Sunday: 12.5 miles averaging 9:16 pace. I bonked big time on this run. I hadn't quite recovered from the LT run on Saturday and though started this okay, i struggled to maintain 9:30 pace towards the end.
Tuesday: 8 miles including 4x1200m (4:52, 4:48, 4:48, 4:47) 20min 5k pace is 4:48 so first was slow and the others okay
Today: 6 miles recovery about 9:15 pace

So the reason for the shorter and faster stuff is to prepare for another try at breaking 20min in the 5k.  I've looking at a race on Nov. 22 which is in a little over a week. The race is in Whitby and i think the route might be the same route for a 5k race I did in the spring.  However I observed at the time that I thought the course was short.  After doing a little searching on Garmin Connect and Motionbased where other people with garmins have raced the course, i'm almost certain it's short as they all report a distance of around 3.05 miles (about 90m short) . There's another 5k on the same date close by but it's an out and back with a hill and i don't like hills so it looks like i'm going to be choosing this short one even though i'm pretty sure it's not 5k.  Maybe I'll get lucky and they measure the course accurately this time. 

On to the shorter distances

Last week consisted of a whole lot of rest days and then a 3 mile recovery run on Saturday and a 10 mile long run on Sunday at about 8:40 pace.

So an 18 week training plan for Boston starts sometime at the end of November/early December. Prior to then, I'm going to take another shot at breaking 20 minutes in the 5k. I've found a bit of a support group in the Runners Worlds forums. There's a bunch of people that are all aiming for sub 20 in the 5k so it's interesting to keep track of what other's are doing training wise and performance wise.

If the 20 min 5k is successful, i may also take a shot at PR'ing in the 10k before years end. It probably doesn't help that I've eaten more chocolate over the past week than I have in the past 6 months. I still have a 95 pack of mini chocolate bars left over from Halloween that hasn't been opened. I think I'll have to bring it in for my co-workers cause I have no will power.

Niagara Falls Marathon Race Report

(edited to correct half split time which was based on gun time not chip)
So I decided to run the Niagara marathon. It basically came down to either Niagara falls or Hamilton which is a week later. I thought that Niagara would be more influenced by weather and Hamilton had the faster net downhill course, but in the end I choose Niagara because it had more aid stations. From their website, Hamilton only had 12 whereas Niagara probably had over 20.

Signed up for the marathon on the Wednesday before the race, which was the last day one could register due to immigration reasons. Apparently they have to send a list of the participants to both Canadian and US immigration to make sure you're name doesn't set off alarm bells. I ended up staying at the Sheraton by the Falls. I had wanted to stay either there or at the Crown Plaza since these hotels were right by the bus pickup on race morning. I didn't want to be walking any distance on race morning. I ended up having to stay two nights at the Sheraton since they required a two night minimum and it was actually cheaper to stay for two nights there than to stay for one night at the Crown Plaza.

Evening before the race, i partook in the race sponsored pasta dinner which was being held at the Crown plaza. It started at 5pm, but i thought that was a bit too early. I ended up eating at around 6:30pm. Ended up sitting beside a tall lanky guy from just outside of Chicago. Made a bit of small talk and started talking about races we had done. I was trying to get a feeling for how fast the guy was and pretty much decided he wasn't a fast guy since he didn't talk about qualifying for Boston and he had done a bunch of smaller races. I asked him what his goal time was and he said: "Around 2:35". Yikes, guess i was wrong. He ended up finishing fourth overall in just under 2:40.

Two tables over from us were sitting the Smiths (Tara Quinn and Andrew), the husband and wife team that ended up winning the race. Was very tempted to try and get a picture taken with them, but decided to let them be.

Think I had about 4 plates of pasta, not full plates mind you, but I was defintely stuffed when i headed back to my room.

Was in bed by 10:30pm and set the alarm for 6:30am. Ended up waking up at 6:00am. Ate a bagel with peanut butter at about 6:45am with some water. Left my room and headed down to the bus at about 7:20. Boarded the bus for the little over hour bus ride to Buffalo. Got held up a bit at the border cause some of the people on the buses in front of us didn't have the right documents. My bus was filled with a Japanese tour group who had come to do the marathon which probably meant the US immigration guys were a bit more cautious with our bus. Arrived in Buffalo at the Art gallery at around 8:45 and had about an hour to kill before the race start. wondered around a bit seeing what passes for art these days and ended up chatting with some of the pace bunnies. As it would turn out there was no 3:15 pace bunny this year.

With about half an hour to go, I headed out to do my warm-up. For marathons, i usually just do some light jogging for 5-10 minutes. But this time, my goal was to try and get my HR to spike. I've had this problem before but I've had it happen enough times that I've realized if i can get the Hr to spike during warm-up and then allow it to come back down, it usually doesn't bother me afterwards. When I did my half a few weeks ago, i had the same problem with the HR spiking during the warmup but once it came back down, it didn't happen again. So i was able to get it to spike and then come back down which i thought was good, but i think i did the warmup too early cause i was basically standing around for 15-20 minutes afterwards and would end up with the Hr problem during the race.

So i wander to the startline and ask around a bit and find one guy who's going for 3:15 so we line up together and start the race. Decided to leave the garmin at home though i did run with my HR monitor which i've found useful for gauging effort in the past.

Race starts and the first little bit is a bit confusing in that you do a big loop that has you retracing the first little bit of the race which means you pass the 1 mile marker a few hundred metres into the race not realizing that it's only vaid once you've completed the first loop. Buffalo tends to get a bad rap as being a bit of a dump, but the area we were running in was quite nice with some nice homes. Not a lot of spectators, but wasn't really expecting them on the US side of the border.

Mile 1: 7:20
Mile 2: 7:21

Pass the first mile marker at 7:20 which is slightly faster than the 7:27 which i was hoping for. Fall into a bit of a rhythm and am clicking along. My HR is tad high at about 175 which was concerning me a bit but i figured it could be the adrenaline and the start of the race. During the 2nd mile, the one thing i had feared occured which was my HR spiked. I passed the 2 mile marker also a bit fast at 7:21. At this point, i was trying to figure out whether i should stop to let it calm down or just continue on. it was still a bit early in the race so i thought i could handle a mile or two with the HR racing.

Mile 3: 7:19
Mile 4: 7:18

During these miles, I let my 3:15 companion go. I didn't actually slow down, but he started to speed up a bit. In the end, it was for the best. I wanted to be able to stop if I wanted to and didn't want to be dragged into someone else's pace. The HR thing was starting to worry me. I was able to do 12 miles during a marathon pace run a few months ago, but i'm pretty sure that i couldn't maintain this type of HR the whole way. In fact, looking back at the marathons that have sucked, i think it may have been cause my HR was racing. I don't have the HR data to prove it, but i'm fairly certain that was the reason. So at this point, I was thinking that maybe i should stop to let it calm down. I ended up deciding to wait until after the bridge cause the effort up that might cause the HR to go racing again.

Miles 5-6: 14:34 (7:17 pace)

The peace bridge and crossing the border happens somewhere during miles 5 or 6. I had kinda feared the bridge since the elevation profile on the website has this thing as a steep hill, but it wasn't as bad as i was expecting. It was still a hill, but it's over with pretty quick and is immediately followed by a very long gradual descent which drops you to lower than where you began the hill. Though good from an elevation standpoint, there was a really strong headwind on the bridge.  I had to grab my hat a couple of times to keep it from blowing off. The wind wasn't really noticible in Buffalo, but it was clearly felt here out in the open.  So I missed the mile 5 marker which was presumably on the bridge since i was looking at the ground. After the bridge, we did an out and back in Fort Erie. At some point, i looked down at my watch and realized that the HR had returned to normal.  Yah, I wouldn't need to stop.  But in order to make sure it wouldn't spike again, i had to make sure that i maintained the proper pace.  By this point, I had caught back up to my fellow 3:15 pacee who was now running with a bit of a group.  There was a bit of a head wind in the out portion, so i tucked in behind the group and let them lead the way.  Coming back it was nice to have the wind at our back.

Mile 7-8: 14:46 (7:23 pace)

having tucked in behind a group, I missed the mile 7 marker.  Seemed to hit the paces properly.  The group I was going with was motoring right along and I was starting to settle into a groove.  I had carried a gatorade bottle with me all along drinking diligently. I've done enough marathons to realize that I can never get enough fluids from the aid stations unless there are a heck of a lot of them where i can grab two or three cups at a time (like in chicago) so it helps to bring along an extra bottle. 

Miles 9: 7:29
Miles 10: 7:17
Miles 11: 7:27
Miles 12: 7:32
Miles 13: 7:27
Mile 13.1:  1:36:42 1:36:34

Miles 9 to the half way mark went by without too much incident.  The group I was running with slowly started to pull away.  We were running into a bit of a head wind after mile 10 and though i would have liked to have stuck with them to block the wind, I was clicking on at my expected pace and had close to a minute banked so i decided just to run my own race.  The other 3:15 guy stayed with me for a while but i passed him somewhere shortly after the 12 mile mark.  Hit the half way mark at 1:36:42 1:36:34 which averaged 7:23 7:22 pace.

Mile 14: 7:25
Mile 15: 7:24
Mile 16: 7:26

So passing by the half way mark, we are running due west into a direct westerly wind.  It wasn't that strong but still noticible.  I had banked 48 seconds ahead of 3:15 pace and even more if you factor in that Boston needed 3:15:59 so i decided at this point to just run by HR and slow down if the wind dictated it. 

Mile 17-18: 14:55 (7:28 pace)
Mile 19: 7:38
Mile 20: 7:23

One thing was that the mile markers coincided with the aid stations which was a bit problematic since one had to grab a cup of water, hit the watch split and then drink This required a bit more dexterity than I was capable of and i ended up spilling lots.  Over the course pf the race, i took three gels, half a gel at a time, but i don't really remember where. . 

Mile 21-22: 14:52 (7:26 pace)
Mile 23: 7:32


Mile 26.2:  24:01 (7:30 pace)

Don't have much else to comment about the last little bit of the race.  I just sort of chugged along.  I had a couple of spasms in my calves a couple of time, but nothing really sustained.  I found that the markings for the half marathon helped since it gave me another opportunity to gauge how far ahead I was.  For example, I knew when i passed the 9 mile mark of the half, i had exactly 3.1 miles (5k) to go.  Also the 10k markers were present which helped during the last 5k (it's an out and back course from the finish line) so at that point, i stopped hitting the lap button on my watch since i was getting more feedback by using the km markers from the 10k route than the mile markers on the full route.  I should mention there is a nice downhill after the 25 mile mark.  Picked up the pace right at the end and crossed the finish line in 3:14:24 averaging 7:25 pace overall.

First Half: 1:36:42 1:36:34 (7:23 7:22 pace)
Second Half: 1:37:50 (7:28 pace)
1:08 1:16 positive split.

Closest I've come to a negative split in a marathon while racing.  Probably could have gone a bit faster in the 2nd half, but was only looking to BQ so I'm happy with it. HR (and elevation profile) looks as follows.I seemed to have averaged 171-172 during most of the race which was about 4-5 beats higher than what i had averaged during the marathon pace run last week.  This seems to be consistent when i raced back in 2008 where I average about 163 for the MP run and then ended up averaging 168 during the actual race.

Didn't have too great of race pics.  Not looking for or smiling or waving at the camera.  I guess that happens when you're racing for time.  Here's one of me near the end where i look like i'm motoring right along.

That's it.  Spent the extra day in Niagara where I couldn't have asked for better weather.  I leave you with a few pics from Niagara Falls
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2 marathons, 2 coasts, 6 days...

Yes, I fully intend to be in Boston for the marathon next year. It's kinda funny cause guess what arrived in the mail today?

This was a training shirt for the Boston 2 Big Sur challenge being offered by the Big Sur marathon. I had always intended to do the Big Sur marathon in 2010, but at the beginning of the year i had heard that in light of it being the 25th anniversary of Big Sur in 2010 that they were going to offer a new entry in which you did Boston and then 6 days later, you did Big Sur. You get a bunch of extra things like the training shirt and a jacket. I thought it would be kinda neat to be part of a group of only 400 people able to say that they did this.  I had thought that this was only going to be a one time event, but it seems that they are going to be offering this every year now.  Oh well.  Sign up for this event took place back at the beginning of September. The problem for me was that I had not actually qualified to run Boston in 2010 as my previous qualifier was only valid for 2009 and I wasn't going to be able to wait until after I qualified cause I was sure it was going to sell out, so i took the chance and registered. I think I was probably filling out the online entry form in September, 2 minutes after it opened but even then 74 other people had been able to register before me. Not wanting to upset the running gods about boasting about running a race that I hadn't technically qualified to run yet, i was very reluctant to tell anyone. 

Well with the BQ now out of the way, I can now proudly announce my intention to do both next year.  Winter training should be fun, assuming i can find the time.

Week in Review

Last week went as follows.


Tuesday: 6 miles at recovery pace.

Wednesday: Little over 7 miles which included a couple of miles at marathon pace at the local track.  Was trying to get a gauge on HR vs. marathon pace.  Started the MP portion with two laps at faster than MP then slowed down to MP. HR was at about 167 for the marathon pace portion which was done at 7:23 pace.  Had the HR spike which had me a little concerned.  More details on this in another post.

Friday: Little over 5 miles recovery with 6 strides.

Saturday: 2 miles recovery

Sunday: Raced the Niagara Falls marathon in 3:14:24 and qualified for Boston 2010
(as he writes nonchalantly).  Race report to come, though it may take a few days. 

Still feeling not quite ready...

First off, congratulations to Yumke for running a great race and qualifying for Boston.  Go read his report, if you haven't already.

Since I last updated, I had two runs.  Friday was 5 miles with 6 strides and Sunday had a 12 miler planned.  As coincidence would have it, the start line for the Toronto marathon was a little over 6 miles away from my home.  Plan was easy.  Run there, watch the start and run back.  tried to time it so i would get there with about 10 minutes to the start line.  Course was a lot hillier than i thought it would be - at least a 50m elevation drop and then rise.  Had to maintain 9 min miles to get there and had the HR start spiking and couldn't stop to let it calm down. Got there about on schedule and ran into Kenny and wished him luck and then parked myself at the 1km mark with my cowbell and waited for the crowd to come. 5 minutes later it was done and i headed home at a slower pace. 

The is the last week of the taper, but i don't feel as good as I normally would.  This commuting thing really is starting to take a beating on me.  One thing i didn't account for is the amount of walking I do every day now.  walking to the bus stop, walking up and down the stairs to get to the subway, walking to and from the subway to work.  My legs just feel super tired all the time now.  Not sure there's much i can do about it other than maybe driving to work every day, but that would probably be mentally very frustrating having to sit in traffic for much longer than it would take me on public transit. 

Weather update for Niagara: cloudy, rain, breezy with wind from the WSW at 25km/hr. that's not too bad.  Bit of tail wind in places, bit of a cross to slightly headwind towards the end. I think I have to register tomorrow if i intend to do it since they cut off date is Wednesday..  

Getting cooler...

Thankfully the good thing about the taper is that my runs are shorter and there's less of them. Week so far has been 7 miles with 6 strides on Tuesday and 8 miles with 3x1600m repeats on Wednesday. I was kinda scared about yesterday's run. After being a bit too slow for the 1200m repeats two weeks ago and finding the 600m repeats last week a little on the tough side, i wasn't sure that I was going to be able to do the 1600m repeats at the right pace. managed to do them at 6:32, 6:27 and 6:23 pace. This was a tad slower than I've done these things in the past, but my HR also seemed a bit lower. Mind you the lower HR could also have been a result of it being really cold.  Had to pull out my fleece top and running pants on for this run.  The other positive thing is I was able to do this with jog recoveries. When I've done 1600m repeats in the past, I've always had to walk the recoverys.

The one good thing about working downtown is that I can attend the expo tomorrow for the Toronto marathon.  It's two blocks from where I work so I'll probably check it out at lunch time and hopefully be able to get the battery replaced in my HR watch.  Speaking of which, I think I'm going to wear the HR monitor to bed again and see if it's much different from the last time I did it.

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.

How do people do it?

So this past week marked the first week that I had to travel downtown to work. I live out in the boonies and everywhere I"ve worked has been within a 15 minute drive from home. I used to wake up at 7:30 on non-training days. Now i have to be out of the house by then to be able to make it to work before 9am. In the past, I think the earliest I had gotten up on a work day was 5am for a 15 mile run and I only did that once. I woke up at 4:45 on Thursday to get a 10 miler in before leaving. I've just found myself exhausted when I get back home. How do people do this day in and day out? So week went like follows.

Tuesday: 5 miles including 6 strides in the evening

Thursday: 10 miles including 4x1200m at 5k pace. This run started and ended in complete darkness. I ended up going to the track to try and do these. Normally, i would be able to maintain a good 6:20 min/mile pace since i can get pacing feedback every 200m and can constantly adjust. With complete darkness and my watch battery close to dying so i can't be constantly pushing the light button (i'm hoping it'll last till the Toronto marathon expo where they usually have a polar authorized jeweler to change the battery and do leak testing), i tried to run this by feel and wasn't very successful. I did the repeats with the following average paces: 6:45, 6:39, 6:34, 6:27. I ended up using the light after each repeat cause I could never get the pace right. I'm thinking I should bring a head lamp to allow me to see my watch.

Friday: 10.2 miles at 8:09 min/miles in the evening after work. Super tired afterwards.

Saturday:5.4 miles recovery at 9:19min/mile pace in the morning. Was very dehydrated afterwards. tried to drink a lot to prepare for long run on Sunday

Sunday: This was the last super long run planned for this training cycle. Did 21.4 miles and average 8:09 min/mile pace. Started out kinda slow and then by the middle I was clicking along at close to 8min/miles and then finished up with about 2 miles at slightly faster than marathon pace. It was relatively cool. I drank a bit too much the day before and during this run cause I had to stop to use a restroom on three different occasions.  Had some HR spiking problems which was right after my final restroom pitstop.  Ran with it to the next water fountain where I ate a gel and let it come back down.  Ran the waterfront route.  A little less busy.  I wonder how many of the people running are training for one of the Toronto races in two weeks?

Okay, I should probably be in bed now since it's almost 11:30pm and the work week starts tomorrow.  Good night.

Scotiabank Pacing Report

Did the Scotiabank waterfront half on Sunday as the 1:45 pacer. Finished 13 sec fast.  Happy with it.

Preliminary stuff for future reference. Woke up at 5am and consumed 3/4 of a bagel and some water. Left home at about 5:50 and was in the Eaton's Centre parking lot off of Shuter by 6:20. Race started at 7:30am. I think this was about perfect for prepping to race.  Allowed ample time to use the facilities, have a quick warm-up jog and get into the corrals by 7:20 or so.

I normally pace using a garmin.  Having looked at enough garmin maps of last years Scotiabank races, I was aware that garmin data was going to be useless for the first few and last few km of the race.  You're either running down the heart of Toronto's financial district with tall skyscrappers or under the Gardiner expressway which is an elevated highway across the waterfront. Either way not very good for getting satellite locks.  With my tendency to start races too fast and not wanting to do this here, I decided to use my Polar foot pod to assist for these portions of the race.  As it would turn out, the data was a bit flakey. I sometimes run into problems when running under hydro lines and I think the street car overhead cables had a similar effect. 

We ended up getting some nice swag from Asics who were sponsoring the pacers.  We got shoes, socks, shorts, the ever fashionable hat with bunny ears and a nice looking pacing t-shirt.

Front and Back

The thing is that this was way too small.  This was a medium size and was too tight on me.  For about 5 minutes, I was actually thinking of wearing this as it's not often that one gets to wear too tight lycra and say that you were forced to do it by someone else (apologies to lycra wearing cyclists, but I think you'll agree with me that there are some who shouldn't be wearing them).  However, i went for a quick 30s run outside with it on (after dark so no one would see me) and i could feel the seams rubbing up against my skin.  With the possibility of rain and the old adage of don't do anything new on race day, the thought of 21km of friction didn't appeal to me.  I ended up wearing the official race shirt (which was unbranded).

Move into the corral at 7:20 or so which wasn't a lot of time.  I had wanted to be in there by at least 7:15, but the entrance to the corrals was really crowded.  I waited for about 5 minutes in line to get into the corrals, taking the time to set up my garmin, but when the line didin't budge that much, i ended up squeezing through.

Got into the corral and answered questions about the pacing which required alternating between 10 minutes of running and 1 minute of walking.  Got asked a lot about 1:45 continuous pacer which wasn't being offered.  I directed these people to the 3:30 full marathon pacer who was running continuously.

Race starts and i start out at a nice comfortable effort.  Hit the first two km at 4:53 and 4:49 when they should have been at a bout 4:45.  Then started the one minute walk break and wasn't that far off by the time 3km came around so i figured the slightly slower run pace could be made up for during a slightly faster walk phase.  As it would turn out, most of pure km split times (that didn't include a walk break) were done at about 4:50 pace and this turned out to work quite well.

So during the first walk break, I surveyed the crowd and  had picked up about 25 people.  When the walk restarted, as i had feared, my HR spiked.  I just put it out of my mind and ran the next 10 minutes fine and then when i took my second walk break, the HR dropped back down and stayed that way for the rest of the race.

The rest of the race was pretty straight forward. Got a fairly solid garmin lock at about 4km and relied on it for pacing up until about 18 or 19km, when the garmin started losing signal. By this point, I think the muscle memory had sort of set in and i could seem to maintain this pace till the end without relying on technolgy.  Kinda funny during the walk break, i only had about 5 people left.  Some had dropped off and some had taken off to finish faster, but i mentioned to the remaining few that there was only 6 minutes of running left after the walk break.  One lady then asks me how much further there is to go and i respond that slightly less than 2 km and she then takes off.  She told me after the race that she had thought the half was actually 26 km long and wasn't sure she was going to make it, but when told that it was only 21, she felt relieved and was able to finish strong.  I guess it's all about mindset.  If you think you can, you will.  The last km is sorta cruel.  They moved the start/finish line further north last year and though the course was once labelled as being pancake flat, the last km is now a steady incline.  My HR basically rose during this last km, as i was trying to maintain a steady pace as i only had about 15 seconds banked at this point.

Garmin Route and Lap Splits

One thing that I kinda had a question with is running the tangents. It's easy enough to do when running alone, but i was very reluctant to run tangents when I had a large group following me as I had feared that the group would create chaos while cutting through a bunch of other runners.  I ended up sticking to the right side of the road meaning that i probably ended up running slightly more than I should have, which means that the people who were running with me were probably running slightly longer than they should have.  this could easily have resulted in a loss of 5 sec/km on some of the curvier parts of the course. 

Ended up finishing 13 seconds ahead of pace.  I ended up carrying the big pacing sign with me for the entire race.  Though kinda big and bulky, it was really light.  A problem I had with it was the handle part was made of a thin plastic tube that seemed fairly rigid, but when the wind would blow, the tube would bend.  Should have probably reinforced it with a piece of wood or something.  .Here's a pic after the finish that i really like.  I'm thinking I might actually buy this.

Does it look like i'm wearing a running skirt?

Had meant to do another 4 miles after, but I just didn't feel like it.Went out to check out my new office building which was at the 300m to go sign.  I had actually hoped to park there on race morning, but they closed off the side streets that led into the parking lot so no dice.

Weather was very humid as it had rained all night.  I didn't find it too bad, but a lot of people were complaining about it after the race.  Had lots of fun.  Would happily pace a half again and hopefully will be able to do it next year also. 

Week in Review

This week was a bit of a cutback week in mileage. About 43 miles total.

Tuesday: About 8.5 miles which included 5x600m at about 6:20min/mile.

Wednesday: 11.2 miles at 8:48 min/mile pace.

Both the Tuesday and Wednesday runs were in the morning though it was warm at about 20C and humid. The 11 miles on Wednesday felt hard. Two weeks ago, I did the same course at 8:04 pace. It's amazing what cool weather allows us to achieve.

Friday: Did a little over 8 miles. Wanted to recalibrate my footpod again. I played around with the locations on the laces and moved it higher up on the shoe and got more accurate pace data. I also took this opportunity to practice the 10 and 1 thing which I haven't done since last October.

Saturday: Did the Friendship Run at the Running room downtown. About 2 miles total distance. This was at 9am in the morning and basically meant that i lost the entire day as I had to do a shift at the Asics booth at the race expo at 2pm and then the race pasta dinner at 5pm which i got a free ticket to. I ended up skipping the pasta dinner as I had to catch up on some other things.

Sunday: Did the half marathon as the 1:45 pacer in 1:44:47. Fairly happy with the time though the anal part of me thinks I should have been able to bleed off some of that extra 13 seconds since it was banked at around the 19km mark. Race report to come.

This upcoming week is the last training week before the taper. Well that's assuming that I do the Niagara full. If I decide to do Hamilton then i have to put an extra week in somewhere. I think I have to make a final decision sometime this week though. This should be an interesting week as starting tomorrow I have to commute downtown to get to work which means more time in transit and less time available for morning running. I'm going to try to do some really early morning runs, but that's easier said then done.