Calm Before the Storm

As I'm writing this the snow is starting to accumulate outside, and we're likely in for a few days of nasty weather. I intended to do an 11K walk this afternoon, however given the weather I'm likely going to do a short ride on the bike instead to work around the snow. Fortunately, tomorrow calls for a ride as well so I might be able to work around the worst of this storm. I'll likely have some significant ground cover to deal with during my Tuesday Tempo run, however that's easier to deal with than what's outside right now ;)


Either way, the weather this morning was much nicer so I managed to get my 20K LSD run in without any issues. Same basic route as last week, with a few small changes near the end as the sidewalks through the park were clear this time around. Unlike last week, however, I was more familiar with the route which allowed me to be a little more strategic about the pacing.

Things started out really well, so I stepped up the pace a little more than planned and managed to hold it for the duration of the run. I got a little warm last week as I over-did the layering, so dressing a little more intelligently this time around certainly paid off as my heart rate remained lower despite the faster pace. The weather overall was quite nice, with a comfortable 3C temperature and an overcast sky. The wind was brutal in some of the exposed portions of the route (unfortunately coinciding with the uphill portions), but most of the course is well shielded so it didn't pose too much of a problem.

I hit the 20K mark in 1:36:52, clocking an average pace of 4:50min/km (vs 4:55min/km last week) and a average heart rate of 157bpm (vs 159bpm). Unlike last week, however, I felt like I could have easily gone further if I wanted to. While I was tempted, I elected to stick with the plan as I wanted to be careful not to overdo things. Full telemetry is provided below:

Week 48: Review

This week was a lot more stable than the last, and fortunately all of my scheduled sessions went as planned. I did intentionally scale back the cycling a bit this week to strike a balance between the fitness benefits and staying motivated. While the 2.5 hours it takes to ride 80km is fine outside, it is mind-numbingly boring when sitting on the trainer. I won't be able to clock the mileage that I was last month, however I also want to make sure that this doesn't become a chore.

On a contrasting note, I expanded my Sunday run to 20km last Sunday in order to get myself over the 35 mile/week limit and stabilize at that point. Given the modified distance, I also elected to try a new route as well. Rather than the usual laps around a subdivision south of me, I did an out and back route that gave me a little more variety. As I'm not in a formal training schedule, I figured that now is the time to experiment with things a bit to give myself some more options once I do get into the program.


In addition to mixing it up a little, this route added substantially larger hills than my normal route provides so it made things a little more challenging. Given the topology of the Around the Bay race that I'm aiming for, working some hills like this into my schedule is likely good preparation. Either way, as things went well on this route last week I'll likely give it another shot this time around before I start playing with other options.

Weekly Totals:
Running: 58.5km
Walking: 45.4km
Cycling: 120.1km
Total: 224km

As noted above, the plan at this juncture is simply to hold myself at the current mileage so next week's schedule will be pretty much a mirror image of this week. It does look like the weather is going to be a little more of a variable in the upcoming days, but there isn't a whole lot that can be done about that ;)

Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 20K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady

One thing that I have been playing around with is the possibility of getting a VO2Max test done. The marathon is a delicate balancing act of various different physiological characteristics, so knowing where the various limits are would be quite useful. I'm still not 100% sure what my maximum heart rate is, and while my current estimate of 215bpm (my highest recorded heart rate) has worked well for me so far the extra stresses of the marathon could easily bring out the difference between theory and reality. Further, having a clinically measured VO2Max value would allow me to get precise readings on my caloric expenditure, thus simplifying the process of figuring out my nutritional requirements during long runs.

The plan...

For the last few weeks I've been trying to figure out my major training goals for the next cycle as I'm getting near the point where I need to start making preparations. My major goal this time around was to work my way up to a full marathon sometime during the next year. The question, of course, was how to best go about reaching that goal.

The two main concepts that I was playing around with were to either go right ahead and target the Mississauga Marathon in mid-May, or to target the 30km Around the Bay race in March as a stepping stone for a full in one of the Toronto marathons. The former had the advantage of allowing me to train in cooler weather as well as getting me to my target faster. While there is more than enough time to properly train for this distance, I was concerned a bit that the jump from 21.1km to 42.2km was a bit too big to make in one big leap. Naturally, the latter had the advantage of allowing me to fit in another training cycle to climb to 30K first and get comfortable with longer distances. The other advantage to the latter was that the weather on race day would likely be better.

After playing around with training schedules, I've settled on working around a bit of a hybrid plan. I'll use the 55mi/18wk Pfitzinger marathon program targeted for the Mississauga marathon, with Around the Bay worked in as a tune-up race. In mid-March, I'll make the call on whether I feel that training has gone well enough for the full marathon. If it has, then I'll go ahead with the plan as designed. If it hasn't however, I'll refocus on running ATB as my goal race and then prepare to start a different training cycle for the Toronto marathons.

This gives me the benefit of getting in a 30K race either way, and the ability to select my route based on how things actually progress rather than having to guestimate that at this juncture. Further, if the first time around doesn't work out I'll have first-hand experience with the training program when I re-start it in the summer.

Either way, I'll be officially starting this program in the first week of January through to the race on May 11th. Until then, I'll be holding at my current 58km/36mi per week level until that point to get my legs ready for the coming increase in mileage.

Week 47: Review

Despite a major snow storm and significantly cooler weather, I managed to get all of my running sessions in as planned. In some cases icy trails did make things a bit difficult, but fortunately most of those patches were relatively short and easy to work around. Naturally, the extra work of getting suited up for running in the cold is taking a bit of getting used to. Given the choice between the hot summer and cold like this, however, this is certainly preferable as it's easier to add more layers to stay warm that fight off overheating ;)

Unfortunately I wasn't so lucky with walking and cycling this week. During my cycling session in the previous week, I tweaked my right calf muscle while doing one-legged drills. I didn't think much of it at the time as it didn't really bother me much. By my walk on the following Saturday afternoon, however, it began to hurt a bit more and continued throughout the next couple of days. Fortunately, it didn't appear to bother me at all when running so it didn't get in the way of those workouts. To keep it that way, however, I elected to avoid the walking and cycling sessions until it healed.

As such, I missed my cycling sessions on Sunday and Monday, as well as my walking session on Tuesday afternoon. This was compounded by getting stuck in traffic due to a snowstorm on Wednesday, so I lost another cycling session there as well. Fortunately, all signs of the pain were gone by Wednesday so I was able to get back into my normal routine by Thursday. Combined, this took a big chunk out of my overall mileage but as the walking and cycling are simply supplementary to my running routine it didn't form much of a practical setback.

With that said, my cycling session on Friday went much better than the week before. To avoid boredom I mixed in some interval work, which definitely made it easier to keep going. As such, this time I was able to keep going for a full 50km. I'm not sure if this tactic will work to get me back up to 80K, but I'll have to work my way back up to that level to see.

Weekly Totals:
Running: 56km
Walking: 25km
Cycling: 50km
Total: 131km

As this was my third week of running 56km and things have gotten quite comfortable, I'll be stepping up the long run to 20km tomorrow. That will bring my weekly mileage up to 58km (a little over 36 miles) where I'll likely stay for the foreseeable future. I'm also adjusting the cycling plan down a bit this week to deal with getting used to riding indoors. Other than those two adjustments, however, everything else will be identical to the previous week.

Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 20K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady

Week 46: Review

The weather this week was pretty unpredictable, and disrupted my ability to do my cycling routine much more than usual. Rather than the ~200km per week I've been averaging lately, I only managed to get 40km in this week. As noted in my previous posts, as this is unlikely to get any better I elected to move the bike inside to maintain some degree of consistency in my training.

Fortunately, the weather hasn't been much of a problem for running and walking so I managed to get all of my planned sessions in. The only (minor) modification to the schedule was that I ran Thursday's 10K through High Park closer to tempo pace than the steady pace that was called for. This wasn't really intended, but the enthusiasm of running this course rather than my usual routes got the best of me. I managed to average about a 4:34/km pace, which is somewhere in between my ~4:20 tempo pace and 4:45 steady pace.

Weekly Totals:
Running: 56km
Walking: 94km
Cycling: 40km
Total: 190km

Going forward, I'm going to have to tweak my cycling routine a bit to adapt to using the indoor trainer. The longer rides are unlikely to be feasible inside, so I will likely have to do shorter rides more often and/or dial up the intensity a bit. Fortunately, the cycling is simply a means to improve my overall fitness, so losing a bit of mileage on this front isn't a huge deal.

As for the running, I will likely be holding at the current level for the time being. I was flirting with pushing the long run a little further this week, but as the weather is supposed to be pretty miserable tomorrow (wet snow) so I'll likely hold off on that for now. Either way, it's getting down to the point where I have to figure out what I will be doing next season so I can start preparing for it.

Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 18K LSD/30K Cycle
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Fri 30K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady

Breaking in the trainer...

As mentioned yesterday, due to the weather that we get this time of year I elected to make the move to riding the bike inside until Spring. With the tire and skewer changed yesterday, I cleaned off the bike this morning, hooked it up to the trainer and made sure that everything was working. After lunch, I got changed into my cycling gear, switched on a couple of fans and got started with my normal routine.

While I had originally planned for an 80km ride, I elected to modify that to a 30K ride instead as the prospect of two and a half hours of staring at a wall wasn't terribly enticing. I set up a television to fend off boredom, but there isn't a whole lot on at that time of day so its utility was somewhat limited. Fortunately the bike and trainer (Kurt Kinetic Road Machine) were much quieter than I expected so, unlike my treadmill, it was possible to clearly hear the TV while riding. As such, my best bet is likely to do my longer rides at night when enough good stuff is on to entertain me ;)

Either way, it did get the job done and wasn't quite as mind numbing as I expected it to be. I managed to cover the equivalent of 30km in a little under an hour, averaging a 30.8km/h pace for the session. Naturally, longer rides will likely be a different thing, but if I can find something decent on television they might not be that big of an issue either. The one big upside, however, is that not having to deal with stop signs or traffic means that my average speed is a lot more representative of overall performance than on the road.


One of the other big advantages to using this trainer is that it allows me to monitor my power output, something that would normally take relatively expensive equipment to do. As the manufacturer of this model carefully calibrates their trainers at the factory, it is possible to calculate the power output directly from the speed of the bicycle's rear wheel. Unlike riding outside (where wind speed/direction, road surface, incline, etc. all play a part), all of the resistance is supplied by the fluid chamber so this mapping is predictable.

In this case, my average power output works out to a little under 240 watts. My maximum speed was 48km/h (did a sprint near the end of the session), working out to a peak output of about 680 watts for about a minute. Have to do a little more reading to see whether those numbers are good or not, but it is definitely interesting to have an objective metric to measure my cycling progress with ;)

10K in High Park

As I've noted in the last few updates, the weather has gotten to the point where it is getting in the way of maintaining my cycling routine at the level that I'd like. While adverse weather is little more than an inconvenience on foot, it can pose a significant risk while riding so I've aired on the side of caution. Unfortunately, leaving enough time for recovery for my Running and Cycling schedules limits my flexibility so this has resulted in significant mileage deficits. Given that it's the middle of November, things are unlikely to get any better until Spring so I elected to make the move over to my indoor trainer.

As such, I headed down to the bike store earlier today to have them make some adjustments for use on the trainer (changing out the rear tire and skewer). As the shop is adjacent to High Park and I knew it would take about an hour to do the work, I figured that I'd kill two birds with one stone and do my 10K run while I waited. Aside from more efficiently using my time, it also gave me an opportunity to compare my fitness to the 5K Harry's Spring Run-Off race that I did earlier in the year.

Either way, after dropping off the bike I suited up and started running down Bloor street toward the park. I entered the park at the North entrance and down West Rd., breaking off to a trail alongside Grenadier Pond, down the side of the Queensway and finally up Spring Rd to complete the first lap. At this point (the half-way mark), I then headed back down West Rd. for another lap. After the second time up the hill, I then headed up to Bloor and back to the store.

In the end, I managed to reach the 10K mark in 45m57s with an average pace of 4:34/km. My heart rate averaged 167bpm over the entire route, although it did reach 180 when heading up the Spring Rd. hill. For comparative purposes, I managed to hit the 5K mark in 22m54s which was a little more than a minute faster than the Spring Run-Off race last year (where I was pushing much harder than I was today). Regardless, the hills were much less of an impediment this time around which definitely made the route a lot easier than last time.



Overall, it was nice to give this route another shot and the weather managed to hold out quite nicely despite the threat of rain. Going off of my regular routes is certainly a good thing every once and a while, as it highlights the gains that are often harder to see on day-to-day runs. I'll have to make more of an effort to do similar runs in the future, possibly doing a few of the same races I did last season.

Either way, with the bike prepared I'll likely be setting up the trainer tomorrow and giving it a shot. I generally hate running on a treadmill, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle staring at a wall for the two and half hours it takes to ride 50 miles, but we'll see how it goes.

Week 45: Review

Aside from the rain on Monday, it was a pretty good week weather-wise. Naturally, that rain prevented me from doing my 80km ride on Monday, however I partially made up for it by doing an extra 50km ride on Tuesday morning instead of the planned walk. Unfortunately, I also had to cut Sunday afternoon's ride a bit short as I forgot to take into account the time change when figuring out when the sun was going down. Aside from those issues, however, everything else went as planned.

The 18K LSD run on Sunday was certainly a lot easier with the cooler weather that we are experiencing right now. I managed to maintain an average pace of 4:52 for the duration, hitting the 18km mark a few seconds before 1:28. Further, I also managed to keep my average heart rate down to a very comfortable 154bpm (~64%HRR). I'll likely do another 18K tomorrow, and if all goes well I can play with the idea of pushing it a little further the following week.

On the cycling front, with some great weather on Tuesday I elected to go off of my normal route and give some bigger roads a try. After doing about three laps of my normal route to warm up, I took a quick break and then headed out along a north-south route that I've heard good things about. From an exercise point of view, it is definitely a much better route as it allowed me to ride non-stop at a steady 34km/h pace for almost an hour. Further, there were some very good rolling hills at points in this route, which added significantly to the challenge. The downside, of course, was that the speed limit was about 80km/h for most of the route, so the vehicular traffic was going a lot faster than it does on the residential roads that I'm used to. In addition, it primarily passes through farmer's fields, so on a windy day there would be little to protect me (and at these speeds headwinds can be very significant). This type of riding will certainly take some getting used to, however there is only one way to do that ;)

Weekly Totals:
Running: 56km
Walking: 38km
Cycling: 194km
Total: 288km

The other significant thing this week was that my year-to-date running and walking mileage crossed the 5000km mark. Unfortunately, I didn't start separating the two sports in my training logs until the middle of July, so I'm not exactly sure how much each of them contributed to that total. My ballpark estimate would be somewhere in the region of 2000K run and 3000K walked, but without the time to go back and modify all of those entries I can't be sure. Either way, that is a lot of ground covered over these few months and hopefully just the precursor to many more!


As for the upcoming week, the plan is to pretty much stay the course. I've now gotten back to the peak mileage of my last training cycle, so it's just a matter of getting my body used to this level of work before stepping it up again. If all goes well, I might push things ahead a little in the following week, but we'll have to wait and see on that front.

Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 18K LSD
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady

Week 44: Review

A combination of rain, heavy winds and the first significant snow storm of the season conspired to mess with my cycling schedule this week. I did manage to get in a 50K ride on Thursday and my scheduled half-century ride on Friday, but other than that I didn't get any further time on the bike. This is starting to become a bit of a trend, however there isn't a whole lot that I can do in these scenarios.

Fortunately, the adverse weather wasn't much of a problem for my running or walking sessions. All of my runs went as planned, and I am definitely getting to the point where this level of mileage is beginning to become comfortable. The step up to 8K on my tempo run went well, and despite fighting a 35-40km/h headwind for most of the run I still managed to maintain my planned pace (4:30/km). Other than that, last week's schedule was pretty much a mirror of the week before so there isn't much to report there.

Weekly Totals:
Running: 52km
Walking: 77km
Cycling: 135km
Total: 264km

Given the success this week, the plan is pretty much to hold to the same thing this coming week. I'll be increasing tomorrow's LSD run to 18K to get myself used to longer runs again, and I'll likely bump next Saturday's run up to 10K as well. That will bring my total mileage to about 56km (~35 miles), keeping me climbing upwards but doing so slowly enough that things can remain comfortable. I will have to make a decision as to what my plans are for the next training cycle relatively soon, however the objective at this point remains building a strong base for whatever that will be.

With respect to cycling, that will largely be dependent on what the weather permits. The forecasts appear to indicate that Monday will be a problem again, however it's looking like the rest of the week should be nice so I might be able to make up for that. Either way, given that it's November now I'll likely be moving the bike onto the trainer sooner than later - however I'm trying to get in as much time outside as is humanly possible before that happens.

Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 18K LSD
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady