Week 23: Review

This week was a bit of a mixed bag weather-wise, as we had a lot of intermitant rain that interfered with my plans a bit. I managed to get my Monday and Saturday rides in without issue, but Wednesday and Thursday saw heavy rain so I had to skip those sessions. The temperature was actually pretty good this week, and on the days where I managed to avoid the rain it was actually quite pleasant out there.

Wednesday was probably the worst day, as asside from Around the Bay, the group run that night was probably the wettest one I've ever done. In addition to the torential downpour, the streets were covered in large ponds that were impossible to go around. Adding to the fun was a tidal wave that hit a couple of us as a van drove through a deep pool of water at 80km/h and soaked us from head to toe. Due to the weather, we decided to stick with a 6km route rather than the 5 miles (~8km) that I had planned - I hate to skimp on mileage, but given the weather and the fact that I'm still within my recovery period I didn't put up much of a fight ;)

Fortunately, yesterday was near perfect and I managed to get an excellent 75km ride in without any problems. The cycling group didn't end up getting together again this week, so I was on my own and elected to give a slightly longer ride a shot. The temperature was nice, so two bottles of water were more than sufficient and the winds weren't too bad. For the first 57km I managed to keep my average speed above 31km/h, but heavy traffic and a bit of a headwind on the last segment of trip dragged my average down to 30.1km/h by the time I returned home.

More Detail

With respect to running, aside from the shortened Wednesday run everything else went according to plan. Friday's run was the first time back to speedwork, which felt really good after several weeks of running with the brakes on. This morning was also the first General Aerobic run (9 miles/14.5km), and I took full advantage of that with an average pace of 4:50/km despite a pretty nasty headwind in some portions of the route. My heart rates have dropped significantly over the last week or so and are beginning to approach normal levels. They aren't quite what they were before the Marathon, but they're now down to about 5bpm of that point so it shouldn't be too much longer.

On another note, I ran some reports in ProTrainer to add up my totals for a post on twitter and realized that my totals here were a bit off. I've just been manually adding the weekly totals to the year to date numbers, and must have missed a week or two along the way as they were short of the actual distance. Either way, I've replaced the YTD field with the information that ProTrainer's reports indicate but eventually I'll have to go back and figure out what I missed ;) Until I do that, just disregard those totals in previous weeks (the weekly totals are correct, just the YTD totals).

Weekly Totals:
Running: 39.8km (24.7mi)
Walking: 2.1km (1.3mi)
Cycling: 135.6km (84.3mi)
Total: 177.5km (110.3mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 1187.1km (737.6mi)
Walking: 152.5km (94.8mi)
Cycling: 1,602.8km (995.8mi)
Total: 2,421.6km (1,504.7mi)

The upcoming week looks like it's going to be a bit dodgy as well, so my plans will have to be a bit fluid to compensate for variations in the weather. With the cycling group getting back together, however, hopefully we'll be able to piece together a longer ride to make up for any mileage lost earlier in the week. That will, however, depend on how far the others are interested in going ;)

Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Ride (probably not going to happen)
Tue 7mi (11.3K) GA
Wed 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 50K Ride
Fri 8mi (12.9K) GA w/8x100m
Sat 80K (?) Group Ride
Sun 10mi (16.1K) GA

Week 22: Review

It certainly was a good week this time around, as the recovery is coming along nicely and the weather has let me get out more on the bike than I'd planned. All of the residual pain is pretty much gone at this point, and I can freely run without any issues at this point. My heart rate is still running higher than normal, however, which is an indicator that the recovery is not entirely complete regardless of what I'm feeling ;) I'm sticking pretty much to the five week recovery plan in Pfitzinger's book, although it's certainly been difficult to keep a reign on my pace.

Weather-wise, the heat and wind have made a few of my cycling and running sessions challenging, but fortunately I made it through without any issues. It is certainly going to take some time to get the body used to the heat, as what we've been experiencing is nothing compared to what we will be getting in the coming months. With the body used to running in comfortable 10-15C weather, however, the humidity and 30+ temperatures do take their toll.

Thursday's ride was probably the most challenging, as I took an eastbound out-and-back route but the westerly winds were brutal so the ride back was pretty much a constant fight. With the wide open farmer's fields, the headwinds hit speeds near 50km/h which made me feel like I was dragging a dump truck behind me ;) Compounding this, I ended up running out of water with about 12km left, so the final part of the ride (which included some nasty hills) was even more of a challenge. I debated with myself a few times how awkward it would be to go through the drive thrus of the coffee shops along the way (can't really leave the bike unguarded outside, so going in wasn't an option), but figured that I was close enough to get home.

This weekend, however, has been beautiful for outdoor activities and I've taken advantage of it as best I could. It's been pretty warm as well, but not to the point of being hot enough to cause problems. As such, I tacked on another 12km on my long ride yesterday (making it 62km), and after my run this morning I couldn't resist taking the bike out for an easy 25km this afternoon. A 100km charity ride (Giro T.O.) was rolling through town this morning, and after running by clusters of cyclists for the duration I had lunch, grabbed the bike and went right back out ;)

In addition, I also took a couple of short and slow rides with my father who's trying to get into cycling as well. We're slowly building up his endurance, speed and grade tolerance in the subdivisions in the area, and hopefully we'll be able to do some proper rides before the summer is out. Hopefully the weather remains decent over the next little while, so we'll have some opportunities to work on that ;)

This Week:
Mon 51.7K Ride (29.9km/h) + 8.3K Easy Ride w/Dad (17.7km/h)
Tue 8.3K Recovery (footpod battery died, so had to play it by ear)
Wed 33.1K Ride (29.0km/h) + 8.1K Group Run (5:03/km)
Thurs 52.7K Ride (28.1km/h)
Fri 9.7K Recovery (5:16/km)
Sat 62.1K Ride (30.2km/h) + 10K Easy Ride w/Dad (19.4km/h)
Sun 11.3K Recovery (4:57/km) + 25.1K Ride (29.3km/h)

Weekly Totals:
Running: 37.4km (23.2mi)
Walking: 2.1km (1.3mi)
Cycling: 243.8km (151.5mi)
Total: 283.3km (176.0mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 957.8km (595.1mi)
Walking: 150.4km (93.5mi)
Cycling: 1,313.4km (816.1mi)
Total: 2,421.6km (1,504.7mi)

Due to scheduling issues our cycling group hasn't met up for the last three weeks (this week due to several people running races in Ottawa), but fortunately we should be back on track this coming Saturday with a few new people. We're talking about doing some longer rides at this point, which will be a good opportunity as it's difficult to push very far when riding on one's own. I just have to be more careful about not losing the group at times, as the further we get out the less familiar I am with the roads and how to get back on track ;) With that said, while I am a bit faster than most of the others, they generally have more experience with long range rides so hopefully things will even themselves out as we travel for longer periods.

Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Ride
Tue 5mi (8K) Recovery
Wed 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 50K Ride
Fri 7mi (11.3K) GA w/8x100m
Sat 50K Group Ride
Sun 9mi (14.5K) GA

The week after...

As noted in my previous posts, I was pretty sore after the Marathon. The cycling helped a lot on Tuesday, but the first run back on Wednesday (data) was pretty difficult as the legs were still quite tired despite the slow (5:38/km) pace. I started out with the group, but as they wanted to do 10K I elected to short turn it and do the scheduled mileage so as not to push it too hard this early after the race.

On Thursday I did another ride (data) to loosen things up which worked quite well again. I had hoped to throw in a few small hills, but the wind was brutal (gusts were approaching 60km/h) so I figured that it was safer to stay close to home. Naturally, thanks to the wind my speed was all over the place, but as on Tuesday it was a good workout and left me refreshed at the end.

I headed out for my second run on Friday morning (data), and while it started out a bit rough the legs started feeling a lot better after the first kilometer. I still took it relatively slow until the last kilometer, and then opened up to see how the legs were doing. Average pace was 5:18/km, although a lot of that was thanks to the speed added in the final stages (finished at a 3:53/km pace).

As I was feeling good, I headed in for a quick lunch and then headed back out on the bike shortly afterwards (data). As the weather was much better, I went down to the subdivision south of us that has a few smallish hills and did a few laps. Thankfully, the legs were quite comfortable for the duration of the ride and took in the hills with little trouble. I focused on powering my way uphill, and allowed myself to relax a bit on the flats and downhill segments. Average speed was 29.3km/h, although I managed to pull off a few uphill sections at a 37km/h pace.

Finally, on Sunday I did my third run (data) - a short 5 mile recovery run. Fortunately, this time out the pain was pretty much gone and the legs felt great. My heart rate was a little high for the pace, however, so I kept myself at a slowish (~5:22/km) pace and simply enjoyed the run. Thanks to this session I'm feeling a lot better about my recovery, and look forward to enjoying a few longer runs in the weeks to come.


At this point, I can comfortably climb stairs again and there are no real noticeable problems left over from the race a week ago. I'm going to try a proper ride (ie ~50km range, 80km/h roads, big hills) later this afternoon and will likely follow that with a short ride with my father (who's just getting back into cycling). Naturally, I'll be following Pfitzinger's recovery schedule religiously over the next four weeks and will try my best to take it easy (as much as that is against my nature).

Weekly Totals:
Running: 24.7km (15.3mi)
Walking: 1.0km (0.6mi)
Cycling: 92.9km (57.7mi)
Total: 118.6km (73.7mi)

Marathon Week Totals (catching up):
Running: 69.6km (43.2mi)
Walking: 1.3km (0.8mi)
Cycling: 0km (0mi)
Total: 72.2km (44.9mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 1,014.7km (630.5mi)
Walking: 150.6km (93.6mi)
Cycling: 1,162.5km (722.3mi)
Total: 2,327.8km (1,446.4mi)

The main question at this point is what to do after the recovery period. Finishing the Marathon was my long term goal, and now that that's been met I have to figure out what comes next. The natural next step would be to focus on getting my time down to 3:10:59 in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon. If I focus on that goal, my best bet would be to target the Goodlife Toronto Marathon in October and build for a 3:20 finish, then hopefully push for a BQ next spring. The timing works out quite well for this, as I'd be starting the 18 week schedule right after the fifth week of the recovery schedule.

The other option would be to focus on Triathlons, and stick to half marathons on the running front so that I have enough time for that training. I'm pretty comfortable with the bike and running bits at this point, but I have a lot to do on the swimming front and those pesky transitions will require a good deal of experience to master. Long term I'd like to eventually push towards an Ironman (which includes a Marathon, after a 2.5mi swim and 115mi bike ride), however that will take a few years and a lot more work than I've done this time around.

Either way, I have a few more weeks to figure it out and the plan doesn't necessarilly have to be one or the other. Chances are that I'll likely stick with plan A and just work some short triathlons in this year to get a bit of a taste for the sport, and worry about seriously training for it next year. Fortunately, many of the lessons inherent in the marathon will be significant for multi-sport events, as the endurance aspect is important for the length of time that larger triathlon distances consume.

Recovery

The Marathon takes a lot out of you, and my legs were pretty sore for the afternoon following the race. Once I got going I was okay (albeit with a healthy limp), but getting started was difficult and anything that required lift (sitting down, standing up, climbing/descending stairs, etc.) was extremely unpleasant. This is pretty much par for the course from everything that I've read, so I sprayed them down with cold water when I showered (chickened out of the ice bath) and rested them as much as possible.

Yesterday, things were a bit better - the all around pain was still there, but it was less significant. My quads were still quite weak, however, so going up and down the stairs was still a big ordeal. Fortunately, I work from home so I didn't have to move around too much and continued to rest them as much as possible. By the end of the day, the overall pain was significantly reduced and the weakness in the quads was really the only major impediment left.

Waking up this morning I was pretty much in the same boat. As such, I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to get back to running tomorrow afternoon. I was playing with the idea of riding my bike a bit to aide in recovery, but as it was my quads that were the problem I was a bit concerned about my capacity to pull that off. I continued resting it in the morning, and things improved a bit so I decided to take the bike out and simply play it by ear.


Once I got going, the discomfort disappeared and the legs felt fine. To play it safe, I stayed within the confines of my subdivision and simply did laps of the 2 mile (~3.2km) loop. This ensured that I was close to home in case anything went wrong, avoided having to deal with high speed traffic and kept me on relatively flat ground. Naturally, I started out gradually and slowly accelerated to test the waters. Aside from a few short sprints to deal with vehicular traffic, I avoided doing anything too strenuous and kept the ride relatively gentile.

After reaching the 30K mark, I did a quick cooldown and then pulled back into my driveway. I put the bike away, changed my shoes and did a full suite of stretches to take advantage of the warm muscles. Fortunately, the effect that the ride had on getting rid of the remaining discomfort appeared to persist. The quads are still a little sore when climbing stairs or sitting/standing, but I can now walk comfortably and the limp is completely gone.


Either way, this is a significant improvement and I'm feeling a lot more confident about my ability to get back into running tomorrow evening. In the space of about an hour the condition of my legs has improved more than it did over the last two days. I used this technique after my half marathon in September and it certainly helped then, but this is a much more dramatic example of it's effectiveness.

Mississauga Marathon: Race Report

Quick Note: Some of the kilometer markers (especially at 10K) were pretty dodgy over this course, and as I added lap markers manually the sections below will be a little off. I'll post both the split time and my own corrected pace for each (based on the average pace on my Polar, with a correction to offset a minor calibration error).

I got up at 4:45am this morning to get prepared and head out to the Marathon site, leaving at around 5:30am. By 6:00 we got to the start and it was about 5C with a bitter north wind, so I was feeling a little concerned about my choice to run in a singlet and shorts. Fortunately, as the family came with me the car was warm and very near to the start line. I hit the washrooms then headed back and relaxed for a while. At about 6:45 I headed out again to the washrooms, and after a brief period back in the car headed down to the start line at about 7:10. At this point, the temperatures were much better and the wind had shifted to the West, but it was still pretty cold. Yumke was waiting at the 3:20-3:40 marker, so I quickly headed over there to say hello.

On the previous day he was going back and forth about whether to aim for 3:15 (what he needs to qualify for Boston) or 3:30 (to enjoy it), and elected to go for the latter. As such, I would have some company and a reliable pacer to help me along the way. This turned out to be a much bigger benefit than I'd expected, as the 3:30 pace bunny was going way faster than the pace he should have been doing (more on that later). As the start grew near, I passed off my jacket to my family and we prepared to get started. We were marshaled forward, they sang the national anthem and then the (incredibly loud) starter's pistol (canon?) signaled the start of the race.

1K 4:56 4:56/km

We shuffled forward and the 3:30 pacer got well ahead of us so we figured that we'd catch up with him after getting through traffic. Once we crossed the start line, however, it quickly became apparent that he was going much faster than he should have so we let him go and decided to handle things ourselves. We both had pace bands and running computers, so we would be able to manage things decently enough. Regardless, we did a good job of getting the first kilometer at about the right pace - probably the first time that I've ever managed that!

2K 4:54 5:02/km
3K 5:03 5:03/km
4K 4:39 4:48/km
5K 4:49 4:56/km

The next section was pretty much a straight shot down Burnhamthorpe and we were heading into the wind. Fortunately, I had warmed up significantly at this point and was feeling pretty comfortable temperature-wise. The headwind did make things a little more difficult, but this section was downhill so it didn't pose too much of a problem at this juncture. Most of the 4th kilometer was a pretty significant grade (-2%), so we opened up a bit to bank some time for the more difficult sections. Regardless, we still saw nothing of the 3:30 pacer so he must have been way ahead of us.

6K 4:58 4:55/km
7K 4:59 4:51/km
8K 4:32 4:55/km

The next segment of the run took us through the UofT Mississauga campus, and was a small downhill followed by an uphill segment. The legs were still fresh at this point, so the hills were no problem. At the 8K water station, yumke took a pit stop and instructed me to keep going. As such, for most of the eigth kilometer I was on my own but I was careful to maintain my pace so he didn't have to push it too hard to catch up to me (he's a much stronger runner, so it likely wouldn't have been a problem).

9K 4:45 4:46/km
10K 6:38 4:57/km (measured as 1,340m)

Yumke caught up to me a bit before the 9K marker, and we continued on. With the course's largest hill coming up at the 10K mark, we saved our energy a bit in preparation for the hill. Once we hit the 9K marker, we took out our Gels in preparation for the aide station at the 10K mark - taking them in as we climbed the hill.

The 10K marker was significantly out of place, and there were a few other runners who commented about it. My numbers show a distance of a little over 1.3km between the 9 and 10K markers, so this split (and the next) are a little wonky. Fortunately, it was significant enough that it was easily noticable so it wasn't a huge problem. With that said, the sign was just at the top of the hill so it's likely they simply couldn't keep it up on the grade. The spray painted markings on the pavement were more than likely in the right place, but I didn't think to check for that and based my lap marker on the sign itself.

11K 3:15 4:52/km
12K 4:55 4:50/km
13K 4:42 4:51/km
14K 4:55 4:51/km

After the hill we hit a relatively flat region, with a mild net downhill (~1.4%) which allowed us to recover quickly from the uphill segment we just finished. There were some pretty impressive homes along this segment, and a significant ammount of tree cover to keep us in the shade and protected from the wind. Near the end, we exited the residential area and begain to approach the QEW.

Near the end of the 14th kilometer, we passed under the highway so we had a small downhill and then uphill on the other side. At this point, the course was basically along a service road so the nice scenery of the last bit turned into a more industrial segment. Fortunately, once we got past the highway we were back into a residential segment.

15K 4:46 4:52/km

The next kilometer was again a nice residential area, finishing off with a right turn onto another residential street. It was at this point that the half-marathoners broke off from us, so the traffic got much better and it was easier keep our desired pace. At the same time, we moved to a much narrower segment of the road so we had to place ourselves a little more carefully.

16K 4:55 4:59/km
17K 4:57 4:59/km
18K 4:52 4:56/km
19K 5:01 4:59/km
20K 4:56 4:58/km

The nice residential section continued over the next few kilometers, with a couple of turns as we made our way along the route. We took our second Gels just before the 18K marker, but the aide station wasn't there so we drank a bit of Gatorade to wash it down. Fortunately, the station was about 500m down the road, so when we came to it we took some more water to finish off the process.

21K 4:36 4:46/km

After the 20K marker, we left the residential segment and turned onto an arterial road (Southdown). With the half marathon marker not far ahead, the wider surface to run on and a slight downhill we must have picked up the pace a bit here as we logged in a 4:46 kilometer. The chip recorded a half time of 1:43:19 which was about 1:41 ahead of schedule, but a lot of that was thanks to the hills in the first half of the race (which we wouldn't have in the second).

22K 5:07 4:53/km
23K 4:49 4:50/km
24K 4:56 4:48/km

The next segment took us down Soutdown Rd. and then turned right at the Petro Canada plant toward the turnaround point. The wide-open road had us going a little faster than we should have in retrospect, but it was still quite comfortable so we pushed on.

Near the end of the 24th kilometer, the 3:30 pacer went by us in the opposite direction. We were already going beyond the planned pace, and he was nearly a kilometer ahead of us at this point. Naturally, he didn't have very many people left with him at this point as he was pretty much on track for a 3:25 or faster finish.

25K* 5:59 4:50/km
26K* 3:58 4:56/km
* I was a bit confused as to whether the 25K marker was for the outgoing or incoming direction when we passed it, and selected the wrong option here so the splits are way off (pressed it on the way back when it should have been the way out).

At about the 25.25K mark we hit the turnaround point (an incredibly tight turn, BTW) and started heading back the way that we came. As we were switching from West to East, this changed the wind so that it was at our back and made things significantly easier. As this segment was an industrial area, there wasn't a whole lot of protection from the elements.

27K 4:47 4:50/km

The next kilometer took us off of the road and into a small lakefront park. This gave us a bit of repreive from the hard industrial area to a great view of the lake. There was a small dip as we headed to the lake and came back up to the road, but they were pretty mild so they didn't cause much of a problem.

28K 4:59 5:00/km
29K 5:02 4:58/km

Near the end of the 27th kilometer, my right quads got a little tight. They weren't posing much of a problem, but it got me a bit worried as there was still a long way to go from this point out. On yumke's advice, I changed my stride a little to give the muscles a bit of a break and it worked great - by the end of the 28th kilometer it was feeling much better.

At this point we were leaving the industrial area and re-entering another residential section of the city so the scenery got much better. This was a relatively flat section, but from my drive of the course on Friday I knew that there were some rolling hills coming up in the next bit so we took it a bit easy here.

30K 4:56 4:52/km
31K 4:57 4:57/km
32K 4:51 4:47/km

As mentioned, this section had a number of rolling hills which, while not huge, were a bit of a challenge at this point in the race. We powered through them however, slowing down a bit on the uphills but speeding up on the way down.

Just beyond the 31K marker, we passed by our pace bunny who was walking at this juncture and didn't appear to have anyone left with him. This would be the last that either of us saw of him, but we were definately glad that we didn't attempt to follow him at the start!

Once we got back on a major road (Lakeshore), we picked things up a bit and continued on our way. This was the final segment of the race, and the point where I passed into new territory as I'd never run more than 20 miles before this point. I was a bit tired from the hills in the last section, but overall I still felt pretty good.

33K 4:47 4:47/km
34K 4:58 4:51/km
35K 5:05 5:00/km

At this point, the hills in the last section began to catch up with me a bit. The right quads started acting up again, and while the trick I used earlier did help it would come back shortly afterwards. It wasn't really impacting my speed much at this point, however it was concerning me. By the 35K marker, my left leg started to feel a bit tired as well so I told yumke to take off and slowed down the pace a bit to let it recover.

36K 5:14 5:14/km

Half way through this kilometer there was a pretty big hill, and given the issues that I was having I elected to take a walking break on the uphill segment to give everything a chance to recover. It worked well, as my legs felt a lot better by the end and it also allowed my heart rate to recover a bit.

37K 4:47 5:07/km
38K 5:43 5:26/km
39K 5:24 5:10/km

This was probably the hardest segment of the race, as the fatigue came back a few times and I needed to take a number of running breaks. I tried to run slower in the running bits, but my body was still programmed for the 5min/km pace so I pretty much had to alternate between fits of running at pace and walking to recover. The legs appeared to still have their full strength, but they were pretty sore at this point. If I had pushed through a bit harder I may have done better, but I didn't want to risk having to hobble to the end so when it got too difficult I took a break.

In this segment, the aide stations were only providing water so I started drawing more on my own supply of Gatorade. The muscles weren't really cramping so I wasn't sure if it would do anything, but I figured that it was better to be safe than sorry as I don't have a lot of experience with that particular ailement.

40K 5:49 5:24/km
41K 4:35 5:03/km

When I hit the 40K marker, I took a longer break than before (a little over a minute) in the hopes that it would do more work. I was getting concerned about whether my target was starting to slip away at this juncture - while we had banked a good deal of time in the first 35km, I was quickly bleeding that away with the walking breaks.

Fortunately, the longer break appeared to do the trick and I managed to run the rest of the kilometer without any further stops. At the 40K marker, however, the third corner of my bib broke off so I had to quickly stop, pull it off and put it in my pocket. Once that was done, I picked it up again and ran pretty much the entire kilometer.

42.2K 6:11 5:07/km

After the 41K marker, however, the fatigue came back so I had to take another break to let everything recover. Learning my leason from the previous stop, I gave myself a full minute to regain my composure and picked it up again. At this point the fatigue was getting worse, however, and I was seriously concerned about my ability to make it to the finish in my desired time.

Wanting to have a strong finish, I took another short break as I was passing into the bay. At this point, however, I could see the finish line and I decided to push through the pain and fight my way to the finish. As I passed around the bend, the legs were getting very sore but I kept fighting and continued to pick up the pace. The last 500m was a hell of a fight, but when I saw the clock counting towards 3:30 I knew that I was safe and opened up to a full sprint to get my gun time under the wire. I blew across the line with 5 seconds to spare at a 3:52 pace with a chip time of 3:29:03, well under my goal.


I brought myself back to a walk and the legs quickly felt a lot better. In retrospect, if I would have fought a little more earlier I likely would have been fine. I've run into the same problem in a number of races, and I tend to be a little too concerned in the final miles about budgeting my energy. Marathons are supposed to be hard, and the pain that I was feeling near the end was likely par for the course.

After getting my chip removed and getting my medal I hit the washroom to take care of a bit of excess hydration. I grabbed some food and met up with my family, then did my stretches while the awards were handed out. I looked around for yumke (who finished in 3:24:12) but as there were so many people in the finishing area I changed my clothes and we headed back to the shuttle busses.

Normally we'd go out to a restaurant to grab lunch after a race like this, but as it was mother's day we figured that they'd all be packed so we elected to simply grab something quick and save the celebration for another day. My legs were (are) pretty sore at this point, so it was probably a good thing anyway as the extra walking around likely would have been quite difficult ;)

Either way, I managed to meet my goals and had an excellent experience today. Hopefully I'll be able to pull more of these off in the future, and if I can avoid the interuptions that I had this training cycle I might be able to avoid the issues that I had this time around. As I was only able to get one of the 20 milers in, that was likely the main culpret for my problems.

Chip time: 3:29:03 (overall results)
Gun time: 3:29:55
Pace: 4:57K
Place overall: 196/1413 (86.1 percentile)
Place in men: 171/804 (78.7 percentile)
Place in age group: 12/47 (74.5 percentile)

Full Telemetry

Mississauga Marathon Done!

I'll write up a full report a little later, but thanks to yumke's help I managed to come in under my goal and finish the Mississauga Marathon in 3:29:03 (4:57/km average pace). The final bit was definitely hard, but thanks to some banked time and a hard push at the end I managed to get where I wanted to be. Fortunately, I didn't hit the wall or run into any muscle cramps so I didn't make any major mistakes - just plain old muscle fatigue as the end grew near. Time to rest up a bit, and I'll post more detail when I get a chance!

Final Hours...

Down to twelve hours before the Marathon and I'm just putting the final touches on everything at this point. As the weather today was pretty crappy, I elected to skip the 4 miler that the schedule had planned for me as it wasn't worth getting the shoes wet. I had a good run yesterday, and everything is feeling pretty loose so the extra rest will likely do me more good one way or the other. Fortunately, the reports for tomorrow are looking a lot better - the probability of rain has fallen and the temperatures are pretty close to ideal. It will be a bit windy, but that wind will be at my back for the final portion of the route so it may help more than it hurts.

Fortunately, I was able to drive most of the course on Friday when I went to pick up my race kit, and it looks pretty good. Many areas have decent shade from well developed tree canopies, and the hills aren't too bad (although they may look a lot different during the race). While the last bit is a bit exposed to the winds, the fact that it will likely be a tailwind should reduce the impact of that. Either way, the scenery along the way are quite nice and hopefully that will help to make the event all the more memorable. With that said, driving that distance makes it apparent exactly how far 42.2km is as it took me almost 1:15 to cover it by car...

I also took the time to grab a new pocket for my fuel belt, as the zipper on the one that came with it broke so it would have made it difficult to carry Gels with me. I looked at a few other options (such as Raceready shorts), but I didn't want to try something new at this point so I stuck with what has worked for me in the past. The new zipper is the same as the old, so it will likely fail as well - but for the time being this will get me through the race and I can look at alternate options at a less sensitive time.


On the topic of nutrition, I've elected to use gels rather than rely soully on Gatorade as it will make it easier to ensure that I get in all of the calories that I need. I will still carry 32oz. (~1L) of Gatorade and use it to supply me with about 200kcal of energy during the race, but I'll also take in four GU Energy Gels (Vanilla Bean flavour) with water from the aide stations at ~45 min increments. In total, that will work out to an intake of 600kcal of carbohydrates (4x100kcal from Gels and 200kcal from Gatorade), 660mg of Sodium (4x55mg from Gels and 440mg from Gatorade) and 220mg of Potassium (4x25mg from Gels, 120mg from Gatorade). Naturally, I'll also likely take in additional Gatorade from the aide stations along the way which should give me a little more than that.

As I've never run this distance before, I have no idea how much energy I will require for the race but I've talked with a number of people and settled on this number given the information I've found. This is the type of thing that one learns with experience, so it will likely be easier in future marathons but for the time being I have to rely on the experience of others around me ;)

I still have to put my bib on my race shirt and attach my timing chip to my shoes, but other than that I think I've got everything under control at this point. I'll likely re-read some of the segments in Pfitzinger's book to refresh my memory, and will try to get as much sleep as possible tonight (as futile an effort as that may be). The plan is to be at the start line by 6:30 at the latest, which doesn't leave me as much time as I usually like but I figure that the extra sleep is likely more important at this juncture.

Mississauga Marathon: Final Days

Down to less than 3 days before the race and the taper is coming to an end. I'm heading out tomorrow morning to pick up my race kit and will likely try and drive as much of the route as possible. Luckily, the organizers have a detailed map with a full elevation profile (here) so I have a pretty good idea of what to expect but it would still be beneficial to see it in person.

One thing that I did miss earlier in the week was an offer to have custom pacebands made up prior to the packet pickup. To get them, I would have had to send an email by Monday in order to pick them up at the expo. Unfortunately, there was no mention of this when I registered I didn't go back to check until yesterday so I missed the window. Regardless, it appears that they will have generic bands on hand at the expo so hopefully it'll work out anyway. I could always make my own up, however having it laminated with a proper closure would be significant benefits.


Either way, getting back to the plan the target is still for a 3:30 finish (~5min/km). Given that I've done a good number of my long runs near this pace (including a 20 miler at a 5:09/km pace) this is likely a bit conservative, but as this is my first shot at this distance I'd rather play it safe than sorry. A lot of things can go wrong at this distance, so leaving a little extra in reserve is likely a good idea either way. If the legs have it in them near the end, I always have the option to pick it up and aim for something better.

Fortunately, this time my target lines up with a standard mark so I'll hopefully be able to make use of the pacers provided by the race organizers. At the Scotiabank half marathon the pacer for my target time wasn't there, and at Around the Bay my target was half way between so this is really my first opportunity to take advantage of this type of thing. Fortunately, yumke may also be targetting this pace for the first portion of the race so even if the pacer doesn't work out I may have some help.


The Mississauga Marathon course is a net downhill race with only a few small hills to deal with so pacing should be pretty even. Naturally, those hills will feel more significant than the normally do because of the distance so I can't just write them off, but it is an easier course than most Marathons in this area. The main challenge will likely be the winds near the end of the race, as it finishes up along trails by Lake Ontario so it's quite exposed. With the weather reports calling for 30km/h winds, that could easily be a significant issue. The upside, however, is that this segment of the race heads eastward so that wind will hopefully be at our backs at that point.


The tricky part will be the fueling aspect of this distance, as I don't have a lot of experience with that at this juncture. I've experimented with Gatorade and Gels on my training runs, but as I topped out at 20 miles (~32.2km) the benefits weren't really apparent. It was enough to indicate that neither should be a problem, but it's difficult to figure out exactly how many calories I will need to take in. Fortunately, pretty much everyone that I've talked to appears to suggest that somewhere in the region of four to five Gels should be sufficient without causing any problems.

My original plan was to stick with Gatorade as it has all of the necessary components in approximately the right mixture. The problem with that, however, is that I can only carry about 32 oz (~200kcal) on my water belt so I'd have to be partially dependant on the aide stations to make up the rest. This, in and of itself, isn't a big problem but trying to keep track of how much I take in at those stops would be impossible, so it would be difficult to ensure that I take in the appropriate quantity. With Gels, it is easy to keep track of how many calories are taken in (although it won't help with tracking the ammount of water and electrolytes).


As for the next couple of days, I still have a couple of short runs left (a 5 miler tomorrow and a 4 miler on Saturday) and fortunately it looks like the new shoes have broken in so they'll likely be suitable for the race itself. The calibration check on Sunday appears to have done the trick, and I'll double check that on tomorrow's run. Looking over race reports from previous years, it appears that the kilometer markers may not be terribly reliable so it will be important to make sure my watch is providing as accurate numbers as possible.

Week 15: The final stretch...

Finished my last long run this morning, and now am less than a week away from the Marathon. Only four more (relatively short) runs left prior to the start, so the training is pretty much done and it's just a matter of getting the body rested up for the race itself. The taper has been doing a lot of good to this point, and it's been extremely hard to hold myself back as the legs feel like they can go a lot faster than they normally do ;)

Either way, I took special care to control my pace this morning. I still wasn't able to get myself down to 5:30Ks, but the 5:13Ks were still an improvement over the 5:05s I've been averaging in the last few weeks for my long runs. One thing that didn't help on that front was the four laps of the track (to calibrate my Polar for the new shoes) I did at the apex of the run, as that always prompts me to accelerate a little more. The weather was pretty much picture perfect, and I felt great for the duration of the run so I'm feeling pretty confident about next week.

As for the rest of the week, things pretty much went according to plan. The ride on Saturday got a little mixed up when I missed a turn while ahead of the group. I looped around, but didn't know the entire route so I only found them when I got back to the finish point. The upside, however, is that for a significant portion of the ride I was cruising at a 36km/h clip while trying to cut them off at the pass (ended up being the wrong pass) which is certainly a good sign with respect to my cycling capacity. It's often difficult to gauge how hard to push on the bike, as the feeling is quite different from running - hard efforts tend to feel tougher while you're going, but you recover much faster the moment you let up.

Weekly Totals:
Running: 53.0km (32.9mi)
Walking: 2.2km (1.4mi)
Cycling: 111.7km (69.4mi)
Total: 166.9km (103.7mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 920.4km (571.9mi)
Walking: 148.3km (92.1mi)
Cycling: 1,069.6km (664.6mi)
Total: 2,138.3km (1,328.7mi)

As per Pfitzinger's plan, the cycling sessions are off for this week in preparation for the race so there will be two full rest days. After the marathon, I'll likely more than make up for that as I've found it to be a good replacement for running during the recovery phase of a big race. The low impact nature of cycling allows the recovery process to go ahead, but it still allows me to keep working the muscles and cardiovascular system so I'm still in good shape coming out of it.

Upcoming Week:
Mon Rest
Tue 6mi (9.7K) Recovery
Wed 7mi (11.3K) Recovery w/2mi (3.2K) @ Race Pace
Thurs Rest
Fri 5mi (8K) Recovery w/6x100m
Sat 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun Mississauga Marathon

Brutal Winds...

Went out today for my scheduled 50km ride and got tossed around like a ragdoll for pretty much the duration ;) There was a constant 30-40km/h wind coming from the south-west, but there were also gusts approaching 70km/h that took a lot out of me on the way back. To put it in perspective, I averaged 30.6km/h for the main stretch heading out (ascending 300ft) and only 26.0km/h on the way back (descending 430ft.) thanks to the wind. Despite the net downhill aspect, the headwinds didn't allow me to build up the speed I'd like on the steeper descents so the small uphill segments were a lot more work than usual. Naturally, the flats were also a lot slower than usual due to the extra drag that I had to deal with.

Aside from the additional work, however, the crosswinds were likely the worst part of it as it made it difficult to stay in a straight line. Under a constant wind it isn't a huge thing, as you simply go slower to keep your power output constant. The gusts, however, push you back and forth and require constant changes to the steering inputs to keep the bike on the road :( Thankfully there wasn't a whole lot of traffic out this afternoon so I didn't get into any trouble, but this is certainly something that I'll have to look for in the future and select a different route - this path took me past open fields with little to no protection from the wind, a more urban route would have been a smarter plan today.

Distance: 54.37km
Time: 2h00m18s
Speed (Avg, Max): 27.1km/h, 68.7km/h
Heart Rate (Avg, Max): 150bpm, 171bpm
Calories Burned: 1303kcal
Basic Telemetry (The RS800sd doesn't work with Polar's cycling sensors, so distance speed were manually entered from different cycling computer)

Either way, I managed to complete the route as planned - 7 miles with 8x100m scheduled for tomorrow!

Week 14: Review (2 Weeks to Go)

I'm now down to two weeks to go before the Mississauga Marathon and well into the taper at this juncture. The nerves are starting to build a bit at this juncture, but fortunately my runs lately have gone quite well so that does a lot to help calm them. The marathon is an intimidating distance, and as it's about 10km longer than I've run before that stress is likely to build over the next little while. Regardless, the only thing that I can do about it is to do my best to get the training right over these coming weeks so that I'm as prepared as I possibly can for the eventual race.

As for this week, I got most of what was planned in although I had to move things around a bit because of scheduling issues. I had a family event on Sunday, so I didn't have enough time to fit in the scheduled 16 miler so I originally planned to move it to Saturday. The cycling group started this week, however, and I figured that doing the long run and the group ride on the same day wasn't the wisest idea. As such, I moved Saturday's 8K run back to Thursday, Sunday's 16mi run to Friday and Friday's 4 miler to Sunday. As such, it was a little out of sequence but I managed to get everything in that was scheduled without any major problems.

Friday's long run was a little wet as a storm system came in with about 7K left, so I ran through some pretty heavy rain for a short while. It was a relatively warm day, however, so the rain wasn't entirely a bad thing at that point in the run. I was a little more tired during this run than I was on the 20 miler last week, however that was likely related to the reduced amount of recovery time due to switching the days around.


As noted above, Saturday was also my first time out with the cycling group which worked out quite well. Up until this point, I've done all of my outdoor rides on my own so riding with a group was a new experience. Unlike running, the aerodynamic speeds we are traveling at mean that drafting is an option which can make a significant difference when riding. Being in a group also makes us more visible to motorists, so it is a lot safer out on the high-speed rural roads that we're traveling on. Naturally, like running the social aspect of the group is also a significant advantage in and of itself and is a great way to get pointers from more experienced riders.

This group is made up primarily of runners that I know from the Running Room, so it was a natural progression from what I was doing. There is a cycling shop around here that has a pure cycling group, however they are a much more aggressive group and I figured that it wasn't the best way to learn the ropes. Given my limited experience in this environment, I elected to give myself a good amount of space between the other riders - that would significantly reduce the drafting benefits, but given my limited experience in handling of close quarters I didn't want to risk anything.

Either way, I showed up in front of the Running Room shop at about quarter to 8, unloaded the bike and got it ready. The others trickled in slowly and we chatted for a while until the last of the individuals showed up. Once everyone was ready, we started out and headed north. The pace was a little slower than I was used to (~27km/h), but we were looking at a relatively hilly course so saving energy was a good idea at this point. The first 10km was basically uphill, but it was a relatively small grade so it wasn't that much of an issue. I stayed near the back of the pack for most of this segment as I was still a bit skittish about getting to close to anyone.

After that point, we started into some rolling hills with significantly higher grades. The fellow who was in front of me at this point was slowing down significantly when we hit the uphill segments, so I passed him and accelerated to catch up to the front pack. This allowed me to gain a lot more speed on the downhill segments, which meant more momentum to push me up the hill and, despite the higher speeds, actually made the hills easier to handle. After a while we were getting a good distance apart, so we slowed down a bit to let everyone catch up and then got back up to speed once we were all together again.

At around the 20K mark, we started getting into much larger hills. The more experienced riders were getting down into a tucked position and coasting down the hills to build up speed so I figured that I'd do the same. Even without pedaling, however, I was accelerating a lot faster than the rest of the group on the downhill portions (possibly due to my Cervelo's aerodynamic tubing, although it's hard to believe that it makes that big of a difference) so I pulled in front, powered my way down and used as much momentum as I could to push back up. This worked quite well, as I'd generally get about 2/3rds of the way up before having to pedal again.

The only downside, however was that I would put a lot of distance between myself and the rest of the group after each set of hills. Fortunately, between the 30-43km marks we went back to a relatively flat (apparently downhill, although at a very low grade) segment that I coasted to allow them to catch up. I'll have to figure out how to handle this type of thing in the future, as I'd prefer to stay with the group for the duration of the ride. The only catch, however, is that unlike running slowing down doesn't always make things easier as it means one has to expend more effort pushing up the hills.

We finished off with some more big hills in the last ~5km or so, but that short stretch meant that there wasn't too much time to build up much of a lead. When we got to the top of the last big hill, we stopped at a coffee shop and sat down for a bit of relaxation after our workout. When we were finished, they headed back to the Running Room shop and I just headed home from there (we were within 1km of my house, so there wasn't much sense in going out there and then fiddling with getting the bike back in the car).

Either way, it was a good experience and I'll stick with these guys as best I can this summer. I gained a lot of confidence in handling, and feel a lot better about following closer next time we go out. While I was faster than most of them for this ride, they have a lot more experience with the longer rides so chances are that things will even out a lot more as the distances increase. The furthest I've gone up to this point is about 87km, and this group has gone a lot further than that so their experience will be quite helpful one way or the other.

Weekly Totals:
Running: 62.8km (39.0mi)
Walking: 2.4km (1.5mi)
Cycling: 72.9km (45.3mi)
Total: 138.1km (85.8mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 867.4km (540.0mi)
Walking: 146.1km (90.8mi)
Cycling: 957.9km (595.2mi)
Total: 1971.4km (1,225.0mi)

The weather today is pretty good, and I'll be heading out for another ~50K solo ride in a little while. The rest of the week is going to be unsettled, however, so I'll have to play things by ear as far as cycling goes. Fortunately, I don't really have any plans that will interfere with my runs so I should be able to get all of them in as scheduled.

Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 7mi (11.3K) GA w/8x100m
Wed 8mi (12.9K) w/3x1600m @ 5K Pace
Thurs 50K Cycle
Fri 5mi (8K) Recovery w/6x100m
Sat 50K Group Ride
Sun 12mi (19.3K) LSD

Let the Taper Begin...

Just finished my last (and only) 20 miler under pretty much perfect conditions out there. I was planning on targeting a 5:30/km pace, but my body didn't want to cooperate on that front and I ended up averaging 5:07/km. Either way, I felt great for the duration of the run (likely thanks to the weather) and even had enough left at the end to accelerate substantially for the last two kilometers (4:47 and 4:21 respectively). As such, it's done a lot to boost my confidence for the marathon in three weeks - just have to cross my fingers that the weather will be half as good as it was today.

Details (via RunSaturday)

Either way, this was the last run before the three week taper begins so my mileage will be dropping from this point on. This should allow any residual injuries to heal themselves and hopefully when I reach that starting line I'll be able to give it everything that I have. I've trained harder than ever before over the last 15 weeks and, while there were a few setbacks, I'm certainly in better shape than in the past. Thankfully, aside from the blister everything else is feeling great so hopefully that process will continue ;)

While today did a lot to boost my confidence, I think that I will still stick with the 3:30 goal for the marathon this time out. I might be able to do better, but there are a lot of things that can go wrong over this distance and I'd rather play it safe the first time through. As noted in previous posts, I tried the equivalent of a 3:20 pace during Around the Bay and it was a bit more than I could handle. While I'm in better shape at this point (the first injury cost me a couple of weeks in close proximity to ATB), I don't think that it's necessarily enough to make up for that difference.

As for cycling, I took my weekday sessions off to help the blister to heal. While cycling would likely be easier than running for it, this was my last hard training week so I wanted to avoid skipping runs if at all possible. As I missed the other two 20 milers in my schedule, I didn't want to miss the final chance this week. Cycling is just cross training for me at this point, so I'm open to skipping those sessions if it will help. I had hoped to make it up a bit on the weekend, however the great weather has brought out the hordes so the bike shop was backlogged and I had to leave it there over the weekend to get the rear tire switched back out for outdoor use. Unfortunately, the weather this upcoming week doesn't look like it will be great for riding either - but I'll have to work around it as best I can.

Weekly Totals:
Running: 81.2km (50.5mi)
Walking: 3.4km (2.1mi)
Cycling: 0km (0mi)
Total: 84.6km (52.6mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 804.6km (500.0mi)
Walking: 143.7km (89.3mi)
Cycling: 885.0km (549.9mi)
Total: 1833.3km (1,139.2mi)

Cycling will likely be a little more unpredictable than normal this week as I've taken the bike off of the trainer, so the weather will be a significant factor again. With that said, riding outside is much better than inside and I'll be able to begin increasing the mileage once again (50K was about all that I could psychologically take inside). I can't do too much right away, as cross training is also supposed to be tapered along with the running - but I might still try to squeeze in some longer rides and just do fewer of them.

Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8mi (12.9K) Recovery w/5x600m @ 5K Race Pace
Wed 30K Cycle + 6mi (9.7K) Recovery
Thurs 50K Cycle
Fri 4mi (6.4K) Recovery w/6x100m
Sat 10K Simulated Race
Sun 16mi (25.7K) LSD

RunSaturday

A little more than a month ago, one of the individuals in my running group mentioned this site on their Facebook account so I took a look. There were a number of sites like this, however most of them only worked with Nike+ and Garmin products and were pretty limited in their ability to analyse the data that was captured. Nonetheless, I've always liked the idea of being able to share detailed running logs with friends so I was very open to the idea of any site that provided the level of detail that I wanted and could work with my Polar. This blog does a decent job of that, but the workflow for posting detailed telemetry from each run wasn't really practical so it only really helped with the major sessions.

Either way, after checking out the site I was disappointed to find that it didn't support Polar's products at the time. Thankfully, however, the site's owner appeared to be very open about the development of the site so I gave him a shout and offered my assistance. After a bit of back and forth, I dug up a bunch of sample files (making some up as well to test certain scenarios) and worked with him to work out the format of Polar's files and do what I could to assist him in getting things up and running. I asked around and got some further samples for Polar devices I didn't have immediate access to from another blogger. Within a week or so, we had the system operational and I was able to begin uploading my files. There were a few minor bugs, largely due to oddities in the way that Polar formats their files but overall it was functional and allowed me to achieve what I wanted to.

Since that point, I've been uploading my sessions and keeping a second copy of my running logs online (in addition to the copy stored locally within Polar ProTrainer). The site offers the ability to pull up detailed plots of telemetry from sessions covering multiple sports, as well as a large variety of analysis features that aren't present in Polar's software. Further, it has an excellent mapping system that is much more sophisticated than gmap pedometer (which I was using previously to make up routes) and allows me to attach those maps to my exercise sessions (the RS800sd can't record GPS tracklogs, that feature was added in the RS800CX). As a result, in addition to being able to share my sessions I also have a number of tools that I otherwise wouldn't have had access to.

The site is free to use, and currently doesn't have any advertisements. It has a great community for discussing various topics related to fitness, and the author is extremely active on the site and willing to address any issues that come up. It can also be connected to your Facebook, Twitter and Blogger accounts, which can cut back on having to go to a bunch of different sites every time you want to post an update. As such, if you are interested you can join by clicking on this link. More information is available on the main website at www.runsaturday.com.

For reference, you can follow my progress via my profile.

Catching up...

The last couple of weeks have been quite busy and I haven't had much opportunity to update this blog, so I have to catch up a bit here ;) After the Harry's race mentioned in the previous post, the hamstring issues persisted a bit so I elected to cut my Sunday run short (to 8K) and take a couple of days off running to let it completely heal. In it's place I did some cycling (50K on Monday, 30K on Tuesday) as that seemed to help, and by Wednesday the discomfort was completely gone. I took it easy and only did 10K to make sure everything was as expected, but as that run went well I picked up where I left off.

Naturally, this weekend was Easter which complicated my running plans a bit. As I was heading out to a family function right after Church, I wouldn't have time to do the 17 miles that I had planned. As such, I originally intended to move the 4mi recovery run to Sunday, and shift Saturday's 5 miler and Sunday's 17 miler up one day. Unfortunately, I was busier than expected on Saturday and didn't get back home until later so I ended up doing the 4 miler and going to the Easter Vigil that night so that I could head out at sunrise and get the 17 miles in before I left.

When I was getting ready to head out, the temperature was -4C and there was a nasty 45km/h north wind making it even worse. I threw on my jacket, some gloves and a headband and headed out the door along my planned route. Given my revised Marathon target pace, I knew that I'd have to do a lot to slow myself down for this run (I usually do long runs at a 5min/km pace, which is now my targeted race pace). The goal was a 5:30/km pace which felt excruciatingly slow, but I kept my eye on my watch and made sure to regulate it closely. After a couple of kilometers I got the feel for it and it wasn't too difficult, but I did have to check myself after every downhill segment as I'd pick up the speed and not want to lose it.

Shortly after passing the local Running Room shop, a couple of other runners in my group passed me in their car (on their way to the Sunday group runs that I completely forgot about) and after a quick hello I continued on my way. Around this point (~9km), I was starting to feel some friction on the arch of my right foot and as it wasn't going away, I stopped and took the shoe off to investigate. Everything looked fine, so I pulled the sock tight to make sure it wasn't a crease, put the shoe back on and continued running. The friction continued, but as I didn't see anything that I could do about it I let it be. Fortunately, it wasn't really bothering me all that much and after a while my mind just filtered it out.

Either way, when I got to the last four miles I was running straight into a headwind with very little cover so it was a bit of a fight. Unfortunately for long runs like this I don't really have much option to avoid this sort of thing, as we're flanked on three sides by conservation areas so if I want to stay in civilization (ie not running on 80km/h roads without sidewalks or curbs) I have to head south. Luckily, the sun was warming things up at this point so while it was cold it wasn't as cold as it could have been. Further, there were a lot of other runners out at this point and it was encouraging to be able to blow past them this long into a run ;)

Once I finished, I stretched for about 15 minutes and then quickly headed in to shower. Even with the headwind in the last segment, I felt good for the duration of the run thanks to the slow pace that I was maintaining. In the end, I completed the 17 mile course in 2h28m32s, or about a 5:25/K pace. The last two miles were actually quicker than the rest of the route (~5:19), as I likely overcompensated a bit against the wind. Either way, other than the spurt at the end my pace was pretty close to target and relatively even across the course so I'm happy with that as well.


After I got inside and took off my shoes, a blister had developed in the area that was bothering me. I'm not entirely sure what caused it, as my feet weren't really that wet and I've been using this type of shoe for a couple of years without any problems. This particular pair does have a lot of miles on them (~690km), but I generally keep shoes until about 800km so it should still have a good deal of life in it. It's possible that the marathon training is wearing them out faster than they have in the past, as I'm accumulating those miles much faster. Either way, I'll grab a new pair and retire these as soon as possible to avoid any further problems but I'm still a bit curious as to what caused the problem this time out.

I didn't do my cycling session yesterday to allow the blister to heal, and it appears to have mostly gone away today so I should be okay for my run this afternoon. This is my last week of hard training before the taper, and I've lost a good deal of mileage over the last few weeks so I'm renascent to skip any sessions that I don't absolutely have to. With that said, the last thing I need is another injury so I have to be somewhat careful about it (while blisters aren't really a huge problem in and of themselves, I may subconsciously try to protect it and throw off my gait in the process, causing other issues).

Either way, weekly mileage for the last little while is as follows:

Week 13:
Running: 59.9km (37.2mi)
Walking: 1.2km (0.8mi)
Cycling: 0km (0mi)
Total: 61.1km (38.0mi)

Week 14:
Running: 25.6km (15.9mi)
Walking: 0km (0mi)
Cycling: 25km (15.5mi)
Total: 50.6km (31.4mi)

Week 15:
Running: 51.2km (31.8mi)
Walking: 1.9km (1.2mi)
Cycling: 130km (80.8mi)
Total: 183.1km (113.8mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 860.1km (534.4mi)
Walking: 143.4km (89.1mi)
Cycling: 1040.0km (646.2mi)
Total: 2043.5km (1269.8mi)

I've also been playing around with Twitter to post daily updates of my running thanks to a compelling post by yumke. I still need to get into the habit of remembering to update it, and I'll likely want to work some other information into the mix but anyone interested can see my posts here. If at all possible, I'll be attempting to generate any entry for all of my sessions with basic information as well as a link to the telemetry on RunSaturday.

Harry's Spring Run-Off 5K Race Report

I ran this race last year with some friends, and afterwards we went out for lunch and discussed the possibility of doing it again this year as a team. As such, when I was planning my races this season I sent out an email and we signed up as planned. When the other races came into place, it ended up being less than a week after Around the Bay, so it was evident that I wouldn't be able to run it at full speed - but as it's a relatively pleasant (albeit challenging) course, I figured that it was still worth it.

After my recovery run on Wednesday with the group, however, my left hamstring was a bit sore so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it. I took Thursday and Friday off to let it rest, and it got much better but was still a bit sore this morning. I headed out anyway, and figured that I'd just go slower than usual and just play it by ear. Worst case scenario, I figured that I'd just skip the race and simply join everyone for brunch afterwards.

I got down to High Park just as the 8K race was starting (which one of our team-mates, yumke was running as well) and headed down to the staging area to grab my chip and check my bag. Once I was done with that, I jogged around a little to see how the leg was doing. It was still sore, but it was significantly improved so I elected to go ahead and see how things went. I did a few extra stretches to make sure that everything was lined up, and then set out to look for everyone else.

I first found Sean, and as he was grabbing his chip he found the rest of the group and we met up prior to heading out to the start. We lined up about 80' from the starting line as no one was really planning on pushing too hard and waited for the start. While there, I ran into Walter from my half marathon clinic (who was also at Around the Bay) and after a brief conversation we wished each other good luck and the race was started.

1K 4:51.2 159bpm

At the start of the race, the hamstring was a bit sore but as it warmed up it got progressively better and after about 500 meters the pain was almost completely gone. I still didn't want to push too hard, but it did give me the confidence to stick with the rest of our group as we were maintaining a pretty comfortable pace. Traffic was pretty light as this is a smaller race, and wasn't much of an issue at this juncture.

2K 4:35 169bpm

After we rounded the curve and started heading downhill, we picked up some speed and I settled in with yumke as his pace was about right. As neither of us was going all-out, we were able to comfortably talk durring this segment. While he is a significantly stronger runner than I am, he had run the 8K race a little over an hour before so he wasn't treating this as a competitive race either. Sean passed us on the hill and remained just in front of us for most of this segment of the race.

At the end of the second kilometer is the start of a pretty massive downhill (~300m/-10.7%) that was pretty hard on me last year. I held off on the brakeing as much as possible and let myself barrel down the hill and it worked a lot better this time around. Average pace for the hill was 4:17/km, with a cadence of 102spm thanks to my shortened stride.

3K 4:30 175bpm
4K 4:30 178bpm

About half way through the third kilometer we passed Sean and continued forward along the course. This is a relatively flat segment, with a few small rolling hills but with the big hill comming up at the end of the race one has to keep things under control so that there is enough reserve left for that final push. As the leg wasn't giving me any trouble though, I pushed a little harder in the fourth kilometer to increase the challenge a bit.

5K 4:36 185bpm

After the 4K mark, my breathing had become a bit more laboured (as it usually does in a short race like this) so we weren't talking nearly as much as we did in the early kilometers. Before we hit the incline, we were averaging a 4:21 pace and it felt a lot more like this sort of race generally does. With the hill comming up, however, I couldn't push too hard as I had to make sure that there was enough left to get to the top.

For the first 250m of the hill, I managed to maintain my speed but as the grade increased (+3.2% to 8%) so did my heart rate and I had to back off a bit. At this point, Kenny was breaking away from me but I had little choice but to slow down to make it all the way up. I managed to keep my pace above 5min/km for this segment, but that's a far cry from the 4:21 that we were doing leading up to the hill.

Once I crested the hill, I made the right turn and then opened up for the last 20 meters - hitting the finish line at an even 4:00 pace. In the end, I covered the 5K course in 22:56.4, about four seconds slower than Kenny. Sean finished a little under a minute afterwards, and after we caught our breath we grabbed some gatorade and our finisher hats and headed out of the chute. Frank caught up with us as well and we headed back to the staging area where we agreed to meet up.

We got our bags, did some stretches and after the rest of the group made it down to us we headed out to breakfast. The restaurant (Dr. Generosity) was quite busy thanks to the crowds generated by the race, but once we got our table the food was great.

Chip time: 22:56.4 (overall results)
Gun time: 23:06.3
Pace: 4:35K
Place overall: 90/1359 (93.4 percentile)
Place in men: 81/653 (87.6 percentile)
Place in age group: 11/117 (90.5 percentile)

Around the Bay: Elevation

As mentioned in previous posts, my elevation data from the Around the Bay race was pretty noisy due to rain intruding into the altimeter port. My previous posts on this topic have attracted a lot of traffic, so I was a little disappointed in not being able to provide better information after the race. Thankfully, another blogger (Arcane) gave me a shout and supplied me with his altitude recordings so that I could properly close off this topic.

The following is a clean and accurate recording of the elevation of the Around the Bay 30K course (click on the image for more detail). The only downside is that the footpod wasn't used, so the x-axis is plotted against time rather than distance (so grade calculations are impossible). Fortunately, he manually added kilometer markers and his pace was pretty consistent so it still provides a much better idea of the overall elevation of this course than my previous posts.



The other plots incorrectly showed additional hills in the 26-28km range of the race that weren't there, and fortunately this one doesn't have this issue. That segment of the route consists of a road cut into the edge of a hill, and then crosses a large bridge, so the extrapolated plots were likely following the contour of the underlying terrain rather than the man-made roads. There were a few other inconsistancies through the route (eg 21-22km), however this data reflects my memory of the course a lot better than the others.

Either way, a big thanks goes out to Arcane for generously supplying the necessary data so that I could finish off this topic on a proper note!

Recovery

As I mentioned in my report, I felt pretty good following the race but things started to get sore over the following hours. Yesterday was pretty bad as well, as I was still limping around a bit (especially when descending stairs) and the pain in my left ITB was back (although not nearly as bad). As such, I've been resting the legs and doing some light stretching to help alleviate those pains and it started getting much better yesterday evening. The ITB pain, fortunately, disappeared completely in the afternoon but I'll still have to be careful with it.

This morning, everything was feeling much better. The joints are now fine, and the only pain left is in the muscles themselves. I'm certainly feeling muscles that I didn't know that I had before, but it's moving around and is much easier to deal with. The limping is pretty much gone at this juncture, although stairs are still challenging ;) I'm planning on doing a relatively easy session on the bike this afternoon to speed the recovery process by pumping a bit of blood through the tissues as that worked well for my after my half. If that works out well I hope to go out with the running group on Wednesday (although naturally for a shorter distance than normal).

I've got another 5K race (Harry's Spring Run-Off) on Saturday, and with the Marathon less than six weeks away I need to do what I can to usher the recovery process along. While I was a little worried yesterday about my capacity to get back up and running in time, I'm feeling a lot more confident of it at this point. I'm certainly not going to be breaking any personal bests on Saturday, but it's good to work a few casual races into the mix every once and a while to just enjoy the experience. The Harry's 5K is run through a nice and scenic course, so it should be a good experience as long as the weather holds out ;)


On another note, looking over my race telemetry today I noticed that I managed to cross the half-marathon (21.1km) mark of the Around the Bay course in 1h39m57s. I made sure to get to that point before stopping to retie my shoelace the first time, but didn't get around to looking at the time until now. Getting my half marathon time below 1:40 was the goal for Scotiabank last year, and while I missed it by 1m46s at that point, it's satisfying to know that I was able to hit it this time around (especially since I had to run another 8.9km after that point) ;)

Around the Bay: Race Report

Around the Bay was my first attempt at the 30K distance, and is an important part of figuring out what I will be capable of when it comes to the Marathon in May. I had a minor injury a few weeks back that lost me a bit of mileage, so unfortunately I wasn't quite as well prepared as I otherwise would have been - however that sort of thing will happen in any training program so it has to be figured in.

Either way, I lost a full week of running while it recovered and then a good deal of mileage the week afterwards while I tried to ease back into it. The end result was that I only got two long runs in over the last five weeks, which has certainly slowed me down a bit. As last week's run went quite well, however, I elected to give this race a shot at my targeted marathon pace to quantify exactly where I was.

I should also mention that I elected to switch off the auto-lap feature of my Polar, and manually press the lap button at each marker along the course. While I was relatively confident of my calibration, this measure provided a level of protection as if it was off I would still have split times to measure my pace. Fortunately, the two sets of numbers appear to be pretty much perfect for this race (other than a few anomalies, but I'll discuss those later) so that wasn't really necessary - but it didn't hurt to be sure.

As such, I headed out with my family at about 7:15 this morning and arrived in Hamilton slightly after 8:00. They went to grab breakfast, and I headed up to Copps Coleseum to get ready for the race. As it was pouring rain outside at the time, I stayed inside of the building for the majority of that time, as did the vast majority of the nearly 5000 other runners. I walked around a bit, and ended up finding a few people from my local Running Room - we chatted for a while, then headed out to the starting line at about 9:10.

The organizers had us go around the block rather than walk directly to the line, so it took a few minutes to get into place. As it was still raining pretty heavily at this point I got pretty wet during this stage, but fortunately as the start approached it began to lighten up a bit. As all the good cover was taken by the time I got there, I got in position about 20 meters from the start line and waited for things to get going. While I was there, I ran into my instructor from the Half Marathon clinic I took last fall, as well as one of the other runners who was in the group. We talked until the starter's horn sounded, and we were off.

1K 4:52 157bpm

Traffic at the start was pretty heavy, and it took a while to abate given the sheer size of the crowd. In addition, there were a lot of potholes filled with water which made going in a straight line somewhat difficult. As such, my pace was a little slower than I had planned (4:52/km vs. 4:45/km) over this segment. Regardless, the rain wasn't posing much of a problem and I was feeling very good so it was difficult to keep myself from going faster at this point.

2K 4:37 166bpm

Naturally, after seeing my split for the first kilometer I paid more attention to my pace reading in the second kilometer and passed people as necessary. As I was still feeling quite good at this point, I got a little over-enthusiastic at this point and went a little faster than I should. Naturally, in heavy traffic it is often difficult to nail down a specific pace as you often have to choose between staying behind someone and going slower than desired, or accelerate past them and go faster than intended. With my concern about going too slow, however, my tendency was to select the latter more often than the former ;)

3K 4:37 167bpm

The third kilometer was more of the same, as the traffic was still pretty heavy and a lot of runners weren't keeping a very steady pace so I had to pass a lot of individuals. Things were starting to thin out at this point, however, so things were beginning to take shape. As my heart rate was still under control, I didn't worry too much about the higher speeds as I knew that I'd end up slowing down in the hills so having a bit of banked time at this point didn't hurt.

4K 4:44 168bpm
5K 4:45 169bpm

At this point the crowd had thinned out significantly, and I had settled in with a group of runners going at the same basic pace. As such, I pretty much nailed my desired pace for this segment with a small bit of variance for passing people or dodging large puddles. I was still feeling great, and my heart rate was stable so I was feeling pretty good about my chances.

6K 4:40* 169bpm
7K 4:42* 169bpm
8K 4:43 169bpm
9K 4:38 170bpm
10K 4:36 170bpm [Official GunTime: 47m21s, 4:41/K]
11K 4:41 170bpm
* (I missed the 6K marker, so it was added manually using the recorded distance rather than by the markers on the route. As such, the 6 and 7K split times may be slightly off due to variance between the calibration of the footpod.)

At the 6K mark some of the group I was running with started falling back, and as that happened I accelerated a bit more to pass them. As such, my pace was gradually drifting back up however I did what I could to keep it in check. There were a few small overpasses in this region, which gave me a bit of a taste of how my legs would deal with hills later on in the route and everything was still feeling great. My legs wanted to open up at this point, but I knew that to survive this distance I had to keep to the plan.

12K 4:45 167bpm
13K 4:48 166bpm
14K 4:48 165bpm
15K 5:06(4:45)* 166bpm [Official Gun Time: 1h11m28s, 4:44/K ]
16K 4:23(4:45)* 165bpm
17K 5:07(4:49)* 163bpm
18K 4:46 164bpm
*I'm pretty sure that the 15K (and possibly 16K) marker(s) wasn't in the right place, as these splits show a significant variance from what I felt I was doing as well as what my recorded pace readings show. The first number is the time taken between markers, and the second is the pace that my watch recorded.

The 12-18K segment went well, with me settling back into my target pace. At this point I was beginning to feel a bit tired, so I redoubled my focus on controlling my speed and made sure to budget my energy for the latter stages of the race. The lift bridge fell between the 15 and 16K marks, and the metal grid that it was composed of was a bit slippery so I slowed down a bit. Fortunately, as it wasn't too long that didn't amount to much.

19K 4:54 164bpm
20K 4:47 166bpm [Official Gun Time: 1h35m20s, 4:45/K]

At the 19K mark, we started entering the rolling hills which increased the difficulty of the run. At this point, they were relatively small hills (both short and of limited grade), but with one after the other they added up. As such, my pace suffered in this segment and my legs were beginning to feel a lot more stressed than they had in the first two-thirds of the race.

21K 4:57 168bpm
22K 6:11(4:57)* 163bpm
* Pace excluding the break to re-tie shoelaces.

The 21st kilometer started with a small downhill segment (540m/-3.3%) and ended with a long uphill (470m/+5.5%), so it began the most challenging portion of the course. While my pace was significantly reduced, I managed to crest the hill without burning myself out. That did a lot to boost my confidence, and give me hope of meeting my target.

Just before the 21K mark, however, my left shoelace came undone despite the double knot that I'd tied it with. With the wet roads and rain, the shoelaces were saturated with water - making them slippery and allowing them to slide loose. As such, after hitting the marker I pulled over to the side and re-tied the double knot.

Unfortunately, the wet gloves I was wearing made that process difficult so after fiddling around a little I pulled them off and tied the knot, then restarted. The process of pulling off the gloves, however, inverted the fingers and I couldn't get them back on without pulling over again and adjusting them so I lost a bit more time there. While I had plenty of reserve in my 5K race a couple of weeks back, at this point I was pretty tied so I didn't push it and simply kept my pace where it was comfortable. Due to all of that (and the second big hill), my split for the 22nd kilometer was a pretty brutal 6:11.

23K 4:56 167bpm
24K 5:04 169bpm
25K 4:51 168bpm

At this point in the race, I was starting to feel the fatigue set in. As there were a few significant downhills in this section, I took them easy and used them to give the legs a bit of a break for the big hill that was coming up. Having run the Valley Inn hill the day before, I knew how large it was and with tired legs it would be quite demanding. Fortunately, I also knew that it wasn't terribly long and once it was over the rest was pretty much flat ground.

26K 5:32 166bpm

The 26th kilometer basically consisted of a huge downhill portion (615m/-8%) and then a steep uphill portion (500m/+6.6%). Due to the grade of the downhill segment, and the condition of my legs I had to brake a bit more that I would have liked to control my speed. As such, I didn't conserve as much energy as I would have liked, and given the state of my legs I decided to take a brief walking break as I ascended the hill.

That worked out well, as it helped to abate some of the fatigue without stopping my forward motion. As I've done a good amount of power walking in the past, I was able to maintain an 8min/km pace over this break and still give the legs a break. After about 40 seconds (~80m), I attempted to run again but with my legs being tired and the grade of the hill I quickly elected to fall back and take a longer break after about 130m. As such, I took another 65 seconds (~130m) walking break and returned to a run for the final 120 meters of the hill.

27K 4:42 171bpm

With the hills now behind me, and only 3K left to the finish (a good portion of that downhill) I opened up again and returned to my planned pace. I was still tired, but the walking breaks helped a lot to give me a second wind. Naturally, knowing that there was so little ground left did a lot as well ;)

28K 7:25(5:19)* 163bpm
* Pace excluding the breaks to re-tie shoelaces.

About 400 meters into the next kilometer, however, my left shoelace came undone again. Given the trouble I had last time, I elected to forgo the double knot (as I could easily tie the reef knot with my gloves on) and hoped that it would hold out until the end. Getting started again was difficult at this point, as the tired legs combined with the full stop made things difficult. My breathing and heart rate were still well under control, however my hamstrings were resisting so I elected to take another short walking break (55s/115m).

I started running again after that, and while I was still tired it was feeling much better than it was before. Unfortunately, my shoelace was coming loose again so I quickly stopped, bent down and tightened it. This was a short enough break not to be a problem, so I was okay once I got started again. About 90 seconds later, however, the shoelace came undone again so I stopped, took off the gloves and retied the double knot (costing me a little under a minute).

29K 4:24(4:52)* 169bpm
* My recorded pace and the split time for this kilometer significantly disagree. While I did accelerate in this segment, I find it hard to believe that I was going anywhere near 4:24/K at this point so I'm guessing one of the markers wasn't correctly positioned (my guess would be the 28K marker, but with the problems in that segment I can't be sure).

Once I passed the 28K marker, the road started heading downhill. While my legs were still quite tired, knowing that there was so little distance left I pushed through and got myself back on track. As noted above, my split time for this kilometer was 4:24, but given what I felt and it's significant disagreements with my Polar's pace readings I'm guessing that one of the markers was simply out of position.

30K 4:48 172bpm

The final kilometer was pretty tough, but I continued to push through and kept up my pace from the last split. I had to slow down a bit as we made the right turn into Copps due to a bottleneck forming, but once I got onto the ramp I allowed myself to accelerate rapidly. We then made a right turn into the ice surface, and I broke into a full sprint - hitting the finishing line at a 3:26/K pace. Despite all of the problems, I still managed to maintain an average 4:55/K pace over the entire course, which is still a pretty good result.


All-in-all it was an excellent experience. While I came up significantly short of my goal, the difficulty of this course combined with the problems I ran into mean that I'm still feeling pretty good about it. Given the fact that I spent nearly three minutes at a full stop for all of the shoelace-related problems, and that none of that really provided much recovery benefit in a run of this length, my resulting pace wasn't that far off of my target. If the restarting issues are worked into that calculation, I'd get even closer.

With all of that said, I will certainly have to look over this race carefully to decide whether this pace is realistic for the full marathon in a month and a half. I had a lot of difficulty toward the end of the course, and while the hills and the faster-than-planned first kilometers played a part in that the extra 12.2km of the marathon add a lot of demand. Pulling back to a 3:30 target (~5min/km pace) would certainly be a safer bet, but I will have to see how things go over the next few weeks and make a call one way or the other.


At this juncture, my legs are pretty sore so I'll have to be careful about how I build back up to my training. After stretching I actually felt pretty good, but things started getting tight again on the ride home so we'll see how things go over the next couple of days. It's a bit of a balancing act as, on the one hand, my body needs some time to recover from the stress of this race, but on the other I've only got three weeks before the marathon taper so I can't give up too many miles. Tomorrow will definitely be a full rest day, but I'll have to figure out the rest of the week ;)

Chip time: 2:27:48.6 (overall results)
Gun time: 2:28:18.3
Pace: 4:55K (4:48K minus stops)
Place overall: 655/4915 (86.7 percentile)
Place in men: 539/2616 (79.4 percentile)
Place in age group: 44/184 (76.1 percentile)

Note: Due rain and sweat getting into the altimeter port, the elevation data for the course is a bit rough and doesn't really provide a lot of information. If you look closely at the plot you can see the overall trends within the noise, but it's difficult to make it out at a glance. Given my previous posts, I had hoped to post a detailed elevation plots for people running this race in the future, however this data isn't likely to be terribly useful at this juncture (I will attempt to figure out a way to work the noise out, however).