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)

Race Report: Achilles 5K

The Achilles 5K was supposed to be my first race of the year, however my injury a couple of weeks back put that at risk. Fortunately, the knee has gotten much better and after yesterday's eight miler, I elected to head out anyway and treat it as a fun run. The weather was forecast to be pretty much perfect (~6C, clear with little to no wind) so it looked like a great opportunity.

My last 5K race was back in May, and I've come a long way since then so I originally had high hopes for this race. Had I gone all out, I likely would have been able to approach 20 minutes this time around. Given the knee, however, I didn't want to push anything to make sure that I'd be 100% ready for Around the Bay in two weeks. As such, the plan was to play it by ear but air on the side of caution.

I headed out so that I'd arrive a little over an hour early, picked up my chip and headed down to the start. While I was waiting, I did a number of quick jogs and carefully stretched after each one to make sure that everything was ready for the race. As the start grew closer, I met up with yumke and got into position near the front of the pack.

1K 4:12 168bpm

Once the starter's horn sounded, I took off with the group and everything was feeling pretty good. Initially, I stuck with the pack at about a 4min/km pace but elected to fall back to play it safe. I eventually settled into roughly a 4:15 pace, as it felt quite comfortable but was hard enough to be a challenge. After getting onto Wellington, the crowd had thinned out significantly and I was running with a relatively steady group of people.

2K 4:08 180bpm

Shortly after the 2K mark, unfortunately, my left shoelaces came undone so I had to stop for a little over twenty seconds to retie them. After I got them retied, I accelerated to catch back up to the group that I was running with before the interruption and then picked up the planned pace. I caught up with them just after the turnaround point (~2.4km), however they were beginning to fade so I ended up passing them after a minute or so.

3K 4:05* 184bpm
* Pace calculation excludes the interruption to tie shoelaces as Polar's software doesn't count zero-speed segments in averages.

I slowed down a bit after hitting the 3K mark, as the average pace over the last kilometer was higher than I targeted. While I was still feeling pretty good, I didn't want to push the knee too hard so I elected to pull back a little and play it safe. Regardless, a lot of the people ahead of me were fading so I was still passing people regularly during this period.

4K 4:12 186bpm

After I hit the fourth kilometer, I was still feeling quite good and hadn't had any sign of pain from the knee. As I was making extremely good time, I figured that opening up a bit wouldn't hurt so I carefully began accelerating. This went well, and there was still no sign of problems so I pushed myself past the 4min/km mark. As I approached the final hundred meters, I saw the clock approaching 21 minutes so I broke into a full sprint to try and make it in under the line.

5K 3:55 190bpm

As it was close, I wasn't 100% sure whether I managed to sneak in before the 21 minute mark. My watch read 20m58s, but there is always some degree of variability in when exactly the buttons are pressed so I wasn't sure. The official clock was a couple of meters in front of the finishing mats, so it was impossible to see it as I hit the line.

It's been a while since I've pushed myself that hard for any significant distance. I held back for the first four kilometers, but the last one was definately a hard push. I don't think that I would have been able to maintain that pace over the full distance, so even without the injury a sub-20 5K was likely not in the cards but I certainly could have been able to get close. It would have been nice to see what was possible with an all-out 5K, but unfortunately that wasn't practical this time out.

Regardless, I managed to take 1:46 off of my personal best even with the injury which is something to be happy about. I've got another 5K race in three weeks (Harry's), however it's a week after Around the Bay (30K) and has some pretty substantial hills, so it's unlikely that I'm going to be setting any other records there ;) While I may have lost some fitness over the last couple of weeks, it will return as I get back into my regular routine.

Chip time: 20:55.6 (overall results)
Gun time: 20:58.2
Pace: 4:12K
Place overall: 95/1337 (92.9 percentile)
Place in men: 84/578 (85.4 percentile)
Place in age group: 22/109 (79.8 percentile)

Average Heart Rate: 181bpm (~87% MHR)

Full Telemetry:

Picking Things Up

As I'm playing with the idea of running a 5K race in a little more than a week, I wanted to try and give a hard training run a shot to make sure that I was up to it. I originally planned on doing a simple tempo run today, but after my 30K ride this morning I was feeling quite good so I figured that I'd step it up a bit. As such, I set out with the plan to warm up, then target a sub-4min/km pace until about the 3K mark and fall back to a slower pace for the last 2K.

The first 2.5K felt great, and in a few cases I had to reign myself in from going faster. After that point my breathing became a little rough and I was getting tired, but I managed to push through to the 3K point and fell back to a walk for a short break. This was a bit of a pleasant surprise, as I figured that this pace would tire me out a lot sooner and getting to the 3K mark would be more of a fight. I'm pretty sure that maintaining this pace for 5K is still beyond reach, however in a race situation 4K is certainly within the range of possibility.

Either way, after 80 seconds of walking my heart rate had recovered back to a comfortable 150bpm so I began running again. I started off at a relatively comfortable pace and, as I was still feeling quite good I allowed myself to accelerate - performing kilometres four and five at 4:22 and 4:14 paces respectively. When I hit the 5K mark, 21:26.6 had passed which was a little slower than a month ago, but as this included a walking break it's definitely a good indicator.

Total Time: 21:26.6
Average Pace: 4:17/km (4:09/km minus walk break)

Breakdown:
0-1K 4:14/km
1-2K 3:59/km
2-3K 3:58/km
3-3.16K 8:20/km (1:20 Walking Break)
3.16-4K 4:22/km
4-5K 4:14/km


Full Telemetry

As for the rest of the week, I did the 8K run as planned on Tuesday and everything felt back to 100%. On Wednesday, I went to the local Running Room and did a 10K group run as no one else was doing an 8K. I had planned to do a 30K ride on Wednesday, however the rain made that impossible so I deferred it to this morning.

Tomorrow, I had originally planned another full rest day but as I'm feeling pretty good I'll likely try a 50K ride to work back toward the normal groove. Saturday I'll be doing another 8K run, and Sunday will depend on what I choose to do with respect to the race. Hopefully things will continue along the current trend, and I'll be able to get my mileage back up to what it was before the Half.

Back into the Routine...

As noted in yesterday's post, the plan was to do a 6K recovery run this morning and start building back into my normal routine. As planned, I headed out, warming up with a brisk walk for 1K and then breaking into a slow run (~5min/km). At first, my right hamstring was still a little sore, but after a couple of minutes that faded away and everything felt fine. I slowly accelerated to faster paces as the run progressed, in an attempt to gauge how well everything had healed in the last week. Things continued to go well, but as I was approaching the 5K mark I elected to call it quits a little earlier than planned given that the hamstring was still a little sore at the beginning of the run.

Either way, other than that minor hiccup the rest of the run went well. The first kilometer was run at a comfortable 5 min/km pace, followed by a faster 4:46K, and progressing through a 4:36K, a 4:33K and finally a 4:19K. All of those paces felt great, and there was no residual pain at the end of the session so things are looking good to get back into the swing of things. I'm thinking of taking tomorrow completely off to see if that will resolve the tight hamstring (while I haven't been running much this week, I've taken the bike out every day so that might be aggravating it a bit), and hopefully that will allow me to get through a longer run on Tuesday without any issues.


In other news, after writing yesterday's post I realized that the Zoo Run had sold out shortly after my half so I guess that that won't be an option either way. Looking over the race schedule, I don't see many 10Ks left this year so I might forget about that for now. There's always the option of showing up on race week to see if any spots open up then, however I'm not sure I want to go to all of that trouble for this race.

The other idea I'm flirting with is running the 5K race associated with the Toronto International Marathon, as it's been a while since I've run one and it would be nice to see what all of the training over the last few months can do for me there. I've already done a training run that was substantially faster than my current PB (21:23 vs. 22:41), so it would be interesting to see what I could pull off in a racing scenario.


Longer term, the next full marathon clinic at the local Running Room starts at the end of January and targets the Ottawa marathon in late May. I'm debating whether I want to go this route, however, and am thinking of just picking up a good book on the subject and finding another training plan. That would allow me to get my training started a little earlier, giving me a little more time to climb the ladder and the option to target a marathon a little earlier in the year (as it can get quite warm in late May). Either way, I'll have to do a little more research on different training programs before I figure out which path is best.

Progress...

In lieu of the speedwork session this week we elected to simply do a tempo run to aide in recovery for the race and assess our fitness level. Unlike conventional group runs, we were given a fixed course and instructed to go at our own pace - attempting to cover the ~6K route in as little time as possible.

It had been a while since we had done tempo runs, as our schedule switched these out for Fartlek sessions a few weeks back. We've primarily been doing runs focused on endurance, with a couple of runs focused on short spurts of high intensity (fartleks, speedwork and hill training). As such, I elected to push a bit harder than I had on previous tempo runs to get an idea of how far the training in the last little while has paid off.

After the talk, we warmed up with a short walk through the parking lot and took off as soon as we got to the road. I started off by feel and didn't worry too much about my formal pace. After looking down at my watch I noticed that I was going at about a 4:20 pace. This was a little faster than I had planned, but I figured that I'd give it a shot to see how it panned out.

As the run continued, my heart rate was still under control and there was no sign of fatigue in my legs so I kept that pace up. Fortunately, the traffic lights along the route were on my side (for a change) and allowed me to keep moving for the entire session. As I approached the 5K mark, I noticed that I was doing very well so I pushed things up a bit and hit it in 21:33. This is more than a minute faster than my personal record in racing this distance, and was achieved with significantly less effort.

After hitting that milestone, I backed off a bit as I was running at a 3:56 pace which wasn't really sustainable for long. Once things stabilized again, I dialed things up to a near sprint (3:36 pace) as I made the final turn and finished the run in a total of 24:26. Looking back on the telemetry, pacing appeared to be relatively stable so that bodes well for my ability to manage my speed by feel.

Either way, this is definitely a good sign as it demonstrates that the training over the last few months is paying off in my overall fitness level. Being able to maintain a sub-4:20 pace for nearly 25 minutes and keep my heart rate below 85% is certainly a promising sign. Once the half marathon is finished, I'm going to have to find some shorter races again to see what I can do in an all-out effort.

Summary
Distance: 5.7km
Time: 24:26.2
Pace: 4:19
5K Time: 21:23

Full Telemetry

Long Road...

Ever since I was a kid, I had been battling with my weight. I had been walking short distances (2-3km) several times a week, however my work had me sitting at a desk all day so that was pretty much the only activity that I was doing on a daily basis. I'd loose a little weight here and there, but I'd catch a cold, get derailed for a week and fall back again. Add in the fact that it didn't take much of an excuse to convince myself to skip a session (bad weather, something on TV, etc.) and at best I was simply treading water.

First Steps...

Fast forward to December 2006. I had just had a physical and got reamed by my doctor once again for gaining weight, and was just coming off of a nasty cold that shut down my exercises for a week or so. Given the short term determination that those stimuli prompted, I decided to make up the lost mileage by doing two 3km sessions a day for the next week.

By the end of that week, I was down about 3lbs and the extra mileage felt quite good so I figured that I'd stick with it for a little while longer. Things continued to go quite well, and while the weight loss dropped to 1-2lbs per week pretty quickly, it remained enough motivation to keep going. As time passed, I got faster and began adding mileage to maintain the session time. That in turn reaped significant benefits, so I slowly began increasing the time of the sessions as well. The progress continued over the next few months.

By March I was up to about 12km per day (two 6km walks), however I ran into a bit of a snag as I was beginning to develop some nasty blisters on my feet which stopped me from pushing much further. A week off (due to a trip out west) and new pair of shoes temporarily remedied the problem, however the crappy Reebok cross trainers that I was using didn't last long and it came right back a couple of months later.

The Importance of Proper Equipment

When the new shoes began to self-destruct on me (around June) and the blisters were worsening again, I figured that it was about time to get fitted for a proper pair. A new Running Room store had opened in the area, so I figured that it was my best bet in finding a shop with staff that actually knew what they were doing. That turned out to be a very good move, as the fellow that fitted me was extremely helpful and spent about 45 minutes finding the right shoe and getting some proper (non-cotton) socks to go with them.

Armed with proper equipment for a change, I was again able to begin increasing my mileage and speed. As before, this reaped significant advantages and by August I had settled into covering about 20km per day (two 10km walks). At this juncture I was approaching 200lbs, feeling much better than I had for many years and was determined to keep things up. I flirted a bit with adding some running into the mix, however I didn't really have any sort of formal plan so my success was limited.

By the end of September I picked up a Polar heart rate monitor to help me out with my training. Being an Engineer, the concept of working with hard numbers and objective measurements was quite appealing. Naturally, it proved to be a very powerful tool and helped me to take a much more formal approach to the exercise. Especially useful was the ability to quantify the number of calories that I was burning, as it put those little numbers of the nutritional panels into context. Eating a 100 Calorie snack is a lot less appealing when you consider how much work you'll have to do to burn it off ;)

From Walking to Running

When the new year rolled around, I joined the Learn to Run clinic at the local Running Room store to step things up a notch. In addition to getting a proper background and formal plan, this clinic also gave me a great group of people to run with, helping to make the transition a lot easier than when I attempted it on my own. The clinic sessions went well, culminating in a pair of 5km races (due to scheduling conflicts).

The first of these was the Frosty 5K in Burlington in the beginning of March. In addition to being my first attempt at running a formal race, it was also the first time that I would be running this far (the LTR program only targets running for 20 minutes) so I went into it not knowing what to expect. Given my prior runs, I hoped to finish somewhere in the range of 25 to 30 minutes, but I elected to run the race by feel and not worry too much about it.

Shortly after meeting up with the group and getting into position, we were away and navigating through the crush of people. After about 5 minutes I managed to get ahead of the main pack and was moving along at a much faster pace than I had attempted before, but I was feeling great so I elected to keep it up. When I hit the 4km mark fatigue started to set in, however I managed to fight through it and keep going. The final stretch of the race was a pretty nasty hill that took a lot out of me, however I managed to make it up and hit the finish line in 24:22 which was much better than I had expected. Needless to say, it was an incredible experience and drove me to want more.


Two weeks later, armed with some real world experience, I ran the second goal race (the Achilles 5K in Toronto). In addition to being another great race, it also provided an opportunity to met up with a couple of friends from University (yumke and Fitzy) who were also running it. With a more detailed plan this time around, I managed to further improve my pace throughout the race. Compounding this was the fact that Fitzy passed me near the end of my second walking break, making it into a proper race with both of us sprinting to the finish and me clocking in at 23:43.6.

After the race, we met up for lunch to catch up and yumke managed to talk us into running the Harry's Spring Run-Off three weeks later. Unlike the previous races, this was a hilly course running through High Park so it added another variable to the equation. While I had some (smallish) hills on my normal training runs, I hadn't done any formal hill training (the Running Room doesn't add this until the 10K clinic) so I began adding some on my own. It certainly took some getting used to, however with a little work and some minor pace adjustments it quickly began to get easier.

When April rolled around and Harry's 5K approached, I headed down to high park a couple of days before the race to pick up my kit. While I was down there, I walked the course to get an idea of what I was going to be looking at. It was certainly a much more challenging course than the previous races, however knowing what to expect helped me to work out a rough plan to make sure that I had enough left to conquer that final hill.

On race day I headed down early to pick up my timing chip, and met up with yumke near the 8K starting line. After the 8K race started, I headed back down to the 5K start and met up with Fitzy. We talked for a while, and then proceeded to the starting line to make sure that we had a good position near the front of the pack. When the race started, we headed off with the pack. Looking down at my Polar, I saw that our pace was way too fast at about 3:50min/km so I moved over to the right and slowed down to the 4:40min/km pace that I had planned, letting Fitzy go ahead. Given the topology of the course, I closely monitored my pace and continued to hold back to make sure that I had enough in me for the final uphill push.

When I finally did hit the hill about 450 meters from the finish, I was still feeling quite good so I opened up and headed up as quickly as I could. As a good number of people ran out of steam at this point, I passed about twenty of them on the way up which did a lot to boost my confidence. My legs were pretty tired as I crested the hill, but with yumke and jellypepper cheering me on I pushed through and gave it a sprint for the last 100 meters finishing in 24:03.4. After the race Fitzy, yumke, jellypepper and I met up and headed out to grab some lunch.

At the same time as the above, the LTR clinic had finished and I started with the Running Room's formal 5K clinic. Our previous instructor was teaching it as well, and the majority of the group from the LTR clinic also came along so it made for a seamless transition. Things went along very well, and by mid May I was out for the Hazel 5K race (part of the Mississauga Marathon).

The start was a bit rocky due to a large group of children that positioned themselves at the front of the starting line. This forced me to go a little faster (~3min/km for the first 300 meters, ~4min/km for the next 200m) than I would have liked to in order to get past them, which left me more fatigued than I was used to. Either way, I fought through and covered the 5km course in 22:41.2.

Going Further

As the Running Room's 5K clinic was based on timed runs rather than fixed distances, I was up to doing about 7-8km per run by the time it was finished. With a few weeks before the 10K clinic started up, I figured that I'd look for an intermediate distance race and work toward it in the meantime. After a bit of digging, I settled on the Night Crawler 5 Miler in mid June which yumke was also running.

The training went quite well and was mostly a matter of figuring out what kind of pace was realistic for the distance. When the race came around, I headed down to the course and picked up my kit on site. After meeting up and talking with yumke, we headed up to the starting line and after a bit of confusion of where exactly that was we got into position. When the horn was sounded, yumke took off ahead of me and I headed out at my planned pace.

Due to a much more competitive field than I was used to, there was a lot more traffic to deal with for the duration of the race. Fortunately, I found a group that was moving at about the same pace as me so that didn't pose too much of an issue. Things got a little crowded heading up the hill near the end of the race as some people started slowing down, but with a little weaving I made it up. Once over the top of the hill, I opened things up for the final ~500 meters hitting the finish line in 38:18.

Next Steps

This, in turn, brings us to the present. With the Night Crawler under my belt, I originally planned to start the 10K clinic but elected to do the Half Marathon instead (as the former was a bit less aggressive than I would have liked). I'm now in the seventh week of that program, with the goal race being the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Half Marathon on September 28th. I'm also getting ready to run a 15K race (Midsummer Night's Run) tomorrow in order to get a better idea of what pace to attempt for the goal race.

Anyway, from this point on I hope to use these pages to record my progress and hopefully provide some tidbits of information that others might find useful. Having gleaned a lot of great information and inspiration from other blogs (especially yumke's), it seems like a good way to pay that back.