Double Dipping

Training for this cycle has been sort of on track.  I've been loosely following the Pfitz plan that I've follwed so many times before, but I haven't done all the runs as prescribed.  My goal was to try and maintain fitness gained over the winter to make another BQ attempt in September before the BQ qualifying window for 2016 runs out.  So the odd missed run or LT run cut short hasn't worried me too much.

A few weeks after my May marathon, I had signed up for the Erie Marathon on September 13, 2015. It's relatively close by in Erie, PA and is about a three hour drive away.  I was initially looking for a race that would allow me to double dip, that is qualify me for both 2016 and 2017 and in years past, the Erie Marathon fit the bill.  I had assumed that this years race would do the same.  In July, Boston released the timing for the registration phase for the 2016 race and it appears that it's a week later than in years past which means that the Erie marathon is no longer a double dipper.  It would allow me to qualify for 2016, but not 2017.  A race done a week later on September 20, 2015 however will allow a double dipping.

Yes George, double dipping is okay ... for races.

So this now poses an interesting dilemma for me.  I liked Erie because it's pancake flat, but the no double dipping thing is making me reconsider.  I've looked into races on September 20 which would be double dippers and there are a few, including one in Rochester, NY which is even closer.  There's also one in Montreal.  However, these courses seem hilly by comparison and I'm looking for a fast, flat (or net downhill course with few hills). If I had been a bit more serious about training and bumped up the mileage, these might be doable, but I don't think my fitness is that much greater than it was back in May so there isn't really much more of a cushion for me.  I'm still looking at September 20 options as there seems to be quite a few marathons on that date.  I originally had no plans to fly and was looking for something relatively close by, but I will re-evaluate that if I can find a race with a fast course.

The other option is to do two marathons this fall, one to qualify for 2016 and one for 2017.  I could do the Erie race and then do a November/December race which allow at least  6 weeks of recovery from the first marathon.  The Hamilton marathon on November 1 is close by, is a net downhill, fast course which is a good BQ course. If I wanted to fly out to the west coast, CIM is an option in December if it doesn't fill up.  Running two races isn't ideal however.  The last option is to not run a September race and only attempt to qualify for 2017 by running an October or later race and hope that my time in May will be fast enough for 2016.  This is a bit iffy as a blog has done a calculation and is guestimating the cutoff will be 90 seconds for next year.  The only way this would drop is if Boston announces a significant increase in the number of participants for next year. This isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility so there's still a chance that my 70 seconds will be enough. 

So I still have time to think about it with a little over a month to go until Erie.  It's a tough decision to make and I'm still weighing the options. 

Rebecca Run 5k Race Report

I ended up not doing the pride 5k race last weekend. It was forecasting wet and windy weather so wasn't sure I wanted to do that. Instead decided to do the Rebecca Run 5k which was yesterday. I've done this race before and it's  my PR race from back in 2008.  Going into this I really tried to taper and probably overkilled.  I did 8 miles which included 5x800m on Tuesday at 4min/km pace and then rested for the rest of the week. I was hoping to try for the sub-20 thing, or at the very least to best my PR.

Race takes place up in Newmarket.  I ended up signing up in person at the last minute. It was a bit steep for a 5k at $60 (even last minute), but it goes to a good cause which is supporting Spinal Muscular Atrophy research.   I probably wouldn't pay that to a for-profit race, but this I don't mind.  Race kit wasn't too great. My previous time, it was well packed. This year, it was only a shirt and an Esso 5c/L gift card discount for 100L of fuel.

I arrived with only about 30 minutes to race start and downed a gel and some water with about 20 minutes to go.  Proceed to try and do the warm-up with the HR spiking as usual which it did and then tried to get it to calm down.  Then with about 5 minutes to go, downed a half bottle of water and then headed into the corrals.  They had corrals setup and the first corral was sub 21 minutes which I was in. I didn't want to start right at the start, but with the narrow paths, I did want some room to maneovour if I needed it.  I was probably 2nd or 3rd row back. The course this year was different than in previous year due to construction.  Before, it was a mix of pavement, boardwalk, crushed gravel and a tour of the little park area.  This year was a straight out and back on pavement.

So the race starts and I start to go out as usual nice and controlled  trying to get a feel for the pace.  I was targeting around 6:25 min/mile pace (4min/km).  Breathing seems in check and everyone seems to be going the right pace.  I glanced down at my watch and notice my "lap pace"  is in the 6:05 min/mile range which I thought couldn't be right so I continued to chug along.  I missed the first km marker, but looking back at my GPS data, it would have reported about 3:50 which is 6:10min/mile pace which was way too fast.  My watch beeps at the 1 mile mark and it reports a 6:07 first mile which I still thought couldn't be correct so I continue on.  About the 6:50 mark, the HR starts spiking.  I think I was trying to adjust my breathing rate and I could just feel it take off.  I decide to see how far I can go before I start feeling the effects.  I pull up to the 2 km mark and hit the lap button and see a split of 7:40.  F?ck. Waaaay too faast. This was 6:10 min/mile pace over 2 km.  At this point, I'm feeling that I'm already starting to fade but I guess that I've banked about 20 seconds so I figure I can slow down a bit to recover over the next km including the turnaround and maybe I can salvage the race. The third km hits at 4:17 which puts me just about on 20 min 5k pace, but I couldn't switch gears and ramp the speed back up. A couple of times during km 4, I start to think how easy it would be do just walk it in, but I try to push through.  4km is in 4:18 and the 5km was in 4:21 which included a sprint towards the end.  I had kinda given up during the 5th km and there were a couple of times, I ease off the throttle, only to try and increase it again when I realize that it's only a couple more minutes of running, but still the last km was the slowest of the race at 4:21 (7min/mile). 

2km: 7:40 (3:50 min/km pace)
3km: 4:17
4km: 4:18
5km: 4:21

Polar stats and route

The HR took off at the 6:45 mark and held that way for most of the race. It ended up resetting by itself with about a minute to go in the race.  Max HR (during the non spiking part) was 187  right at the end. 

So finish time of 20:37. Finished 13th overall and 4th in my age group.  Course seems measured right and the marker distances seemed okay.  16 seconds off my PR so not as close as I would liked.  Really started to fade after the turnaround, but think that was mostly do to the 2 km of running at a pace much faster than I would have liked.  I'm sure the HR spiking had something to do with it also.  Looking back at the race, I probably should have tried to start out at a perceived 10k pace which based on my effort two weeks ago would have put me at about 6:30min/mile pace which would have hopefully made the race less of a struggle towards the end.  Also, I probably should have trusted the GPS lap pace measurement earlier on which would have allowed me slow down sooner.  I'm still not sure I trust the polar GPS measurement so it's hard to rely on the pace it's reporting, but I guess I have to rely on something.  The missed 1 k marker was my fault since it was clearly there because I saw it at the 4k mark (out and back course). I probably should have hit the lap button around the 4 minute mark to reset the lap pace cycle which would have allowed me to realize that I was going too fast sooner. 

I really like the race and the new route. The out and back worked and there didn't seem to be to be any problems with congestion. There was the odd pedestrian on the path. I don't think there were any cyclists, as that could have been  a problem but here were signs warning people that there was something going on. There was an aid station just after the 1k mark which is also at the 4k mark on the way back.  They have hotdogs afterwards as well as fruit, chips, cookies, cottage cheese and chocolate milk so quite the food spread was put on.  Temperature wasn't too bad at about 17C, no wind and there were a few clouds so the sun wasn't too much of a problem.

Orderly Finish Line and Organization

BBQ setup

I stuck around a bit after to read the stories about the children effected by SMA. Every year they have a different honoree and they have a little write up, usually from the perspective of the parents, of how it's affected them.  It's heartbreaking to read some of these stories especially when you read that a newborn only lived for less than a year.  You can read some of their stories here.

The race was near a community centre where they had a bit of a farmer's market.   I stuck around a bit longer than I had planned because they had this 11 year old kid who was on stage performing.  He was pretty impressive.  He played the piano and guitar and he sang.  Here a video of him doing some Billy Joel.  



I'm not sure I will attempt another 5k until the fall. I really would have liked to see how I would have done if I hadn't started out so fast. Next time, I think I'll just trust the GPS and run at exactly 6:26 min/mile pace and then just try to hold it till the end.  I can't seem to figure out pacing in 5k's myself and I don't do enough of them or interval training to really get a handle on the effort level.  I might try to do a time trial around a track at some point but it's hard to do those on ones own so it helps to have others to run with.  There doesn't seem to be anything good in the summer, so it looks like it'll have to wait until fall. 

Port Union Run for the Lions 10k Race Report

Did a 10k race yesterday. I've been wanted to try out a shorter race since the marathon to see where the fitness was at.  The Run for the Lions race coincides with a local Waterfront festival, but it's out in the east end, rather than downtown. It's a small little thing, but it seems it would be a good family thing, because there are a bunch of kids activities, like rock climbing, small simple rides and inflatable bouncy castles, all for free.  The race is just one of the components of the festival, though the race isn't free.

I did this race back in 2008. I did remember doing this a while back , but thought I had done it before I started this blog so didn't bother to check my race recap.  Back then it was only a 5k and it was really more of a fun run.  No official race results and you had to time yourself.  Googling around a bit, it seems that they have evolved the race a bit. They added a 10k option, and have chip timing so it's somewhat official. I originally wasn't sure I wanted to do the race because the course originally was an out and back with the first km or so along the lake and then you head north, presumably uphill. My race recap from before seems to suggest that the uphill part isn't so bad.

Original Course

However, while checking around earlier in the week, the race announced they had to change the route because of wash out conditions on the trail heading north. So the 10k race was changed where it was an out and back to the east to cover off 5k (and have the 5k'ers finish), past the start/finish line and then run west for another out and back to cover off  another 5k. This means that most of the race would be on the waterfront which I presumed was going to be flat so I registered. It was cheap at only $35. We got a cotton t-shirt. No age group awards, no medal, no frills, which I'm completely fine with.

After registering, the race director sent out an email saying the new route has a significant hill at about the 8 km mark even though it's on the waterfront.  Oh well. My goal doing this was to try for 4:15/km (6:50min/mi) pace for a finish time at around 42:30. I managed this pace for the 8k a few months ago on a hilly course so I thought trying to push that to 10k on a less hilly course with some additional weeks of training would be doable. Prepared for this race in a similar fashion to how I prepared for 8k race I did a few months ago including the breakfast of 2 packets of instant oatmeal and the warmup about 20 minutes prior to start which consisted of getting the HR to spike which it did, doing 2 hard strides and then walking around to get it to calm down and was ready to start.

There was a mass start of 10k'ers and 5k'ers so I positioned myself a little back from the start. Only took me 2 seconds to cross the start line. Start was a bit delayed which was sort of annoying because I didn't want to cool down too much. Anyways after a short delay, we are off. First little bit, I start off smooth and controlled, trying not to blast out of the gate. Come to the 4 minute mark and I start looking around for a 1k marker. None to be found. Great, the course wasn't marked. Guess the race hadn't evolved as much as I would have liked, since they didn't have markers back in 2008 either. 

My Gps autosplits at the 1 mile mark at 6:31. Yikes, a bit fast. I continue on and reel in some people.  The second mile includes the turnaround at the eastern part of the course which also has an aid station handing out water.  Somewhere during the 2nd mile, I check my watch and it shows my HR is spiking, but looking at it afterwards it appears my HR monitor wasn't getting a good reading.  2nd mile split is 6:54. I don't think I consciously slowed down at this point, but maybe I did because I wanted to back off the effort level. Also since this mile contained the turnaround, I'm sure some time was lost to the sudden deceleration of the turnaround. There was also a wind coming from the east so that was also a factor.

We continue running back towards the start line and I'm running with 2 other guys and we're sort of jockeying for position which is sort of good cause it results in a fairly good mile 3 split time of 6:41. Nice. The other two guys move ahead of me at this point and it seems that they are turning on the gas and I realize that they are most likely doing the 5k and so they are almost finished.

As I approach the start/finish line they had a weird three chute split of the timing mat. 5k's would finish on the left, 10k's would finish on the right but coming from the opposite direction and those like me at the moment who were half way through the 10k would run through the center.  The center chute wasn't that wide, maybe 1.5m or so but because it was a small race (34 total people doing the 10k), there wasn't much congestion. Running over the timing mat however gave us an intermediate split time which is something you usually don't get during 10k races. The timing mat gave me a "5k" split time of 20:31 which I saw on the clock as I was approaching. I had a feeling right away that the 5k was probably short since there is no way that I just ran 4:06min/km (6:36min/mi) pace for 5k.  So the two guys as I thought, peel off to the left chute to finish and I continue on.  At this point, I'm running by myself, and have no idea how many people are ahead of me. I can see the lead woman about 40m ahead of me and I'm slowly catching up to her. I pass her shortly before the 4 mile mark which has a split of 6:44. Pretty good. At this point, we're heading north on the first of two out and back portions at the western part of the course.  This first part follows the path of the normal course which heads north. There were some smallish hills, but not the sustained uphill that I thought.  As I approach the turnaround I had counted that there were three people ahead of me.  As we reach the turnaround, another aid station and then we head south.  At this point, I'm resolved to running by myself since I'm pretty sure I can't catch the three people in front of me and I'm just hoping I can hold off the lead woman We head back towards the lake and once we hit the waterfront trail, we then do another out and back to the west. This part contains the hill that the race director was warning us about and boy it's a doosie. This would be the slowest mile of the whole race at 7:18. Another turnaround, and water station and we head back east towards the finish line. Mile 6 is 6:50 and the last little bit which my GPS measures at 0.1 was done in 33s.


Final finish time of 41:33 which would be a 10k PR by about 30 seconds. Pretty sure the course was short though. My GPS measures it a 6.1 miles which is about 160m short. I asked around after and various people had it measured at between 9.66km and 9.85km. I measured the course in google maps and it measures as being 9.82km. Not quite exact due to the hills, but close enough.  My time for 9.82 km would have me at 4:14min/km (6:49 min/mile pace) which would convert to a 42:19 10k time so goal was met.  I came in 4th overall.

1:    6:31
2:    6:54
3:    6:41
4:    6:44
5:    7:18
6:    6:50
6.1: 0:33

Polar stats and map

I had thought during the race that my HR was spiking, but it was jumping all over the place and I can see afterwards that it was just not getting a good reading. It started doing this during this week. I wonder if the battery is running low.  I've only been using it for a couple of months so it's hard to believe the battery is dying. It does appear to get some good readings at a couple of places, including a sustained stretch from the 4 to 4.8 mile. Highest Hr was 185 for a brief moment. 

Polar HR

I also ran this with my Fitbit which has an optical HR sensor and it reports a non-dramatic HR profile with no spiking.

FitBit HR

Nice course. Nice scenery.  Might do it again, if they fix some of the issues like having marker signs on the course. Also, the course could easily have been made longer by extending any or all of the turnarounds by some additional distance to make up the 180m or so difference.  As I mentioned before, the race isn't really the main event of the festival. I wouldn't say that it doesn't get the attention that it deserves, since I'm sure a lot of time and effort still went into organizing the race, but I get the feeling that the race director isn't a runner so wouldn't be familiar with what might be important to racers.  For me for a 10k race, it has to be a fairly accurately measured course with markers.  Even if the total distance isn't accurate, as it was here, having markers on the course is still important as it gives me the ability to pace myself, without having to rely on GPS.

I am contemplating doing the Pride 5k next weekend, to take a crack at a sub 20 minute 5k on a certified course, but I think it will depend on the weather. I don't like running short races in the heat. Otherwise it will have to wait until the fall.

That Damn Course

So two weekends ago, I had to do some duties at the High Park Running room as part of the SWTM tune-up runs which I'm going to be pacing again this year.  This allowed me to run down by the lake again which was the first time I've been down there since the marathon.  I realize now that looking back at my race, I knew at the 28k mark that the markers were f?cked up and I should have adjusted at that point to using the painted lines on the trail to mark my time, rather than rely on the signs.  By the 28k mark, we're on the MG trail and it would have been easy to look out for the painted lines on path that was maybe 10 ft wide.  When I reran part of the course, sure enough, there were clearly painted lines which wold have allowed me to figure out my pacing properly after the 28k mark.  Hindsight, 20/20.

Having had another few weeks to consider the race and in addition to the course being completely mismarked, I think it was actually long by a little bit. The big difference between the turnaround last year and this year which accounted for about a 200m difference was bothering me because that difference would easily have cut off 50-55 seconds off a marathon time, but having done a bit more research, it appears that the course in 2014 was short by 200m. Now that isn't to say that this year's course was accurate either, which I'll get to in a bit.

So how do I know this? I first started out by downloading marathon routes from Garmin Connect to compare this year's and last years route. There's a nifty little website that lets you plot the two routes and compare them against one another. Looking through the routes, there are a couple of differences. The first is the turnaround, which I already pointed out previously, the second is the stretch by Marilyn Bell Park where in 2014 the course took the northern path, whereas this year we took the southern path and the last is the stretch around King St.

King St - Pink(2015), Blue(2014)

Marilyn Bell Park - Pink (2015), Blue (2014)

Turnaround -Pink(2015), Blue (2014)

If you're interested in the whole route comparisons, you can see them here. There's also the 2013 course in there as well which I will get to in a bit.
 
The start was also slightly different in 2014. It was actually a bit further north, but it's only a minor difference so I'll let that slide.  So why the difference?  The actual route as it would turn out was the route that we ran this year (ie, the pink route).  In 2014, I'm pretty sure there were construction issues.  For example, I know that last year, the diagonal part on the King St. route that we ran this year was completely ripped up to install street car tracks so they had to detour the route by running a further block west. In fact, I'm pretty sure this is what caused them to adjust the start line since this would have added a bit more to the course which they tried to then remove from the start of the course. I'm not sure of the detour around Marilyn Bell Park, but I suspect it was construction also, but the difference between the two routes doesn't look that far off.  The big difference is of course the turn around where they lopped off a big loop.  I'm fairly certain that this was forced on them because there's a little foot bridge that I seem to remember being closed off which caused them to have to detour and cut off about 200m of the course. 

Now you're probably asking well how do I know that this year's was the right course, maybe last year's was the right course and they just made us run longer this year for no good reason?  Well no. There's a website that contains information on certified courses in Canada and the one from 2014 seems to indicate that the pink route is the correct route.  They show the diagonal running from King St and show the big looping turnaround and the fact that we were supposed to take the route by the lake (which we did).

Official Certified Course for 2014/2015 - Western Part

Turn Around -Actual

Turn Around - Theoretical

 

So yeah it would have been nice to run a 42.0 km full marathon in 2014 due to the fact that they had to cut the course short due to construction. I had started this little exercise in the hopes of being able to show that the reason I missed my goal time was because they made us run 200m longer than we needed to, but alas that doesn't appear to be so, but while looking at the certified course, something else jumped out at me, which was the section after the turnaround when we return to running on Lakeshore Blvd.

Lakeshore Avenue return

In 2014 (blue), the course cuts through the parking lot, whereas this year we had to run AROUND the parking lot.  If you look at the certified course, it shows the correct course was to cut through the parking lot. 

Cutting Through

I had previously remarked that I think they had laid out the markers based on the 2013 course, which is confirmed by this little tidbit.  In 2013, the turnaround was very different.  The course didn't actual cut through the park with the pentagon above. Instead, it ran over into the next park to the west and then ran north to Lakeshore Blvd. You can see the comparison in the GPS comparison or the 2013 Certified Course.  See more closely below.

Turnaround :Green(2013), Blue(2014), Pink(2015)

 This comparison also shows why the markers were 300 m early this year since the course ran a little further north from the start than it did in 2014 or 2015.

At the start: 2013 (green), 2014(blue), 2015 (pink)

My Goodlife race report had remarked that there were no 35k or 36k marker signs this year. I realize now that this was because they were placed for the 2013 course and those particular locations did not coincide with any part of the route this year. So there was no reason for us to run in the area of these markers and they went unseen. This also caused the detour around the parking lot since the placement of the 37k marker in 2013 was slightly different than it should have been this year.  In the 2013 course, the runners had returned to LakeShore Blvd by the 36k mark and so the 37k maker was also on Lakeshore which is born out by my GPS which shows I pushed the lap button on Lakeshore, above the parking lot.

Lap 27 corresponds to the 37k marker.

  However the 37k marker for this year SHOULD have been in the parking lot as seen below by this line painting which is consistent with the certified course route above which shows the cutting through the parking lot.  

Painted 37k marker, looking north toward Lakeshore

So I think what happened is that the course marshal who was responsible at that point saw the 37 km marker was on lakeshore blvd and naturally assumed that the runners must somehow detour to get there which means that they directed us to run around the parking lot rather than do what we were actually supposed to do which was cut through it.

I measured this out and this detour would have added about 20m to the course which at my expected marathon pace would have added 8 seconds onto my marathon time.  Since I actually finished 5 seconds over my goal time, this means that I SHOULD have finished 3 seconds under my time, IF THE DAMN COURSE WAS PROPERLY MARKED!

This is somewhat satisfying as this means I ran a pretty good race and would have met my goal time if not for the incompetence of whomever was responsible for plopping down the marker signs.

So even with that the time probably won't be fast enough to get into Boston next year.  I did sign up for a last chance for Boston marathon in mid-September in the US but odds are that I probably won't be doing it.  I had hoped to take the summer off from heavy training and free up some time to do other things.  I don't necessary need to crush a marathon time.  If I did it, I would only try for 3:13 or so which is less than a minute faster than what I did in May so maybe I can get by with just maintenance miles.  Will have to see how it goes.

Further Reflection and Thoughts About the Markers

I've had some time to reflect on the race two weekends ago and I suppose I'm okay with the time. If I had asked my pre-race self would I be happy to be within 5 seconds of my goal time, but have a calf issue similar to what I had in new york for more than half the race in one leg, a blister on the foot of the other leg, and my HR spiking for the entire race starting from the 8 minute mark, I probably would have said great job.

I'm fairly certain most of the course was mismarked.  Starting with the infamous 2km marker which had me (according to it) doing sub 4 min/km pace from the start.  Thanks to this Youtube video, I grabbed a screen cap of the location of the 2km sign.

"2km" marker on marathon course

What's interesting to note is that normally, they have a spray painted line on the road which indicates the location of where the marker should be.  Notice that there's no paint line underneath the sign?  The reason for this is that this is nowhere near the actual 2 km point of the race.  In fact, if you start to walk down the street, you eventually come across this innocuous spray painting in the middle of an intersection that is the actual location of the 2km mark.

Actual Location of the where 2k sign should have been.

This is almost 300 m after the actual placement of the 2km marker according to google maps.

So my 2km split time of 7:55 was actually a 1.71 km split time which would have given me an average pace of 4:38 min/km from the start which isn't too far off from the 4:35 I was initially aiming for.  Unfortunately, this 300m error for the placement of the markers carried on for most of the race. 

For example, at the 21km half sign, I manually hit the lap button on my GPS which reported my position as being here on King St.

21km Sign location

 We then head south and then turn west onto Eastern Ave. I didn't push the lap button when I crossed the half, but my chip time at the half was 1:36:32 and according to my GPS my position when I was at 1:36:30 was in the following location. 

Approximate position of the half marathon timing mat.

In theory, the 21 km marker and the half marker should only be separated by 100m. But in fact, the two points were separated by 430m according to google maps.

It took me 1:58 to pass from the 21 km marker to the half mark which if we assume is 430m averages out to 4:34min/km pace which again is not far off from the 4:35 pace I was aiming for.  So again, the marker sign was earlier by at least 300m.  As far as I can tell from my splits, the actual distance between the signs was about right, they were just positioned at least 300m earlier then they should have been.  I guess the timing mat guys were responsible for setting up the half marker and actually looked for the line painting that indicated the half mark whereas the rest of the markers were setup by someone who didn't bother looking for the line painting on the ground.

The other issue is the difference at the turnaround point between last year and this year which added what I guess was about 200m.  As far as I can tell, the start line and finish line were the same as last year and the route looks to be the same so either this year the course was long by 200m or last year the course was short by 200m. 

After doing a bit more sleuthing around, I think I figured out what happened. I started to wonder how it would be possible for someone to precisely place the markers in the wrong place by exactly the same amount. The answer to this is because they had a list of places or possibly GPS locations to put the marker signs, but the list was actually not for this years route, but for the route in 2013.  In 2013, the course ran a bit further north (about 300m) from the start line then this year and so the markers would have been positioned earlier by about 300m compared to this year. The turnaround position in 2013 was much different and presumably 300m shorter to make up for it. As a result, this year, the markers were positioned 300m earlier then they should have been.  This is a major FU if you ask me. 

This got me thinking as to whether I would have actually run the race differently if the markers had been correctly placed. As for the first half, going in, I thought with the net downhill, I would have banked at least a minute by the half mark and in actuality I had only banked about 21seconds.  Remembering that my calf was giving me issues and my HR was elevated, I probably would have backed off on the effort level a bit and probably ended up running the first half pretty much the same.  I ran most of the the first half thinking that I had 90 second banked which allowed me to run with very little sense of urgency or pressure which I suppose is good.

As for the second half, I think I started to drift off from goal pace starting at 29/30km as this was when I pulled off 4 km at slower than 4:35 min/km pace.  At the time, I was sitting on what I thought was 90 seconds of banked time so the odd slow km didn't phase me. If the markers were correctly placed, I would have realized I had dropped behind my goal time much sooner than the 37 km marker which would have allowed me to adjust accordingly.

How much faster I would have run?  At the very least, if I had run km 28-32 on pace, I wouldn't have given back the 26 second I lost during these 4 km so i so suppose 26 second or about 21 seconds faster than my goal time or about 96 seconds under my BQ time would have been possible, but again  this is all in theory.  Lots of stuff could have still gone wrong.


Anyhow, I've spent some time looking at whether my 70 seconds under my BQ time would be sufficient to get me in for 2016.  In 2013, it was 98 which I thought it would be the maximum since that was the year right after the bombings. With this years, being 62, I thought the number would just get smaller. What I hadn't factored in was that in 2013, Boston actually expanded the field quite significantly and even then the cutoff was still 98 seconds.  When they returned to the normal size field this year, it was 62 seconds, but this doesn't consider that 2013 Boston was a warm day and the percentage of re-qualifiers from Boston was down.  This year, Boston was relatively cool and the percentage of re-qualifiers was much higher which means the pool of BQ's for next year will be higher than it was this year so more competition.

Someone in the Runner's World forum is trying to predict the BQ magic number based on qualifiers from marathons so far in the year and as of now, they are predicting a cutoff of 84 seconds which puts my qualification out of reach and this doesn't consider any of the early fall marathons that still have to come. There are some flaws in the methodology being used, but I suppose it won't be too far off.  I've been toying with the idea of trying to run one of these early fall marathons myself to try and go for a faster time, but I would basically have to start the heavy marathon training again right away which I don't really want to do. Plus my left calf is still giving me some issues and it feels similar to what it was leading up to NY and don't want to make it worse so that I have to take months off like last time. So Boston 2016 is looking less likely and I suppose I will just have to come to terms with that.

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.