Week 26: Review

This week was my first one back into the marathon training schedule, and while the individual runs were longer the total mileage was actually a bit less than last week. Naturally, there were more aggressive sessions in there as well (including my first LT run since the marathon) and it felt good to get back into the routine. Unfortunately, the weather added a bit of complexity as there was a lot of rain, so I had to move things around a bit.

While the schedule called for a rest day on Wednesday, I didn't want to miss the group session so I went out anyway. We ended up doing almost exactly 7 miles and while it was raining pretty heavily the whole time, it was actually surprisingly pleasant as the rain helped to cool things down a bit. The group was pretty fast this week, averaging a little under 5min/km with a fast spurt at around 4:20/km near the end. I had originally intended this to be a recovery run, but this worked out just as well ;)

Looking at the weather reports, however, Saturday was looking worse and worse so I was a bit worried about fitting in my cycling sessions. I had naturally missed the Wednesday session, and was likely to miss Friday as well so I really needed to get the long ride in somehow. As such, I decided to move things around a bit so that I could do the ride on Sunday when it was supposed to be clear (albeit hot). Had I simply moved the sessions back, however, that would mean five days of back-to-back running so I needed to make some more complex adjustments. Given the 7 extra GA miles I banked on Wednesday, I elected to simply add 2 GA miles to the 4 mile recovery run (moved from Saturday to Friday) and then doing my 12 mile run on Saturday morning.

Fortunately, that panned out and I was able to squeeze everything in as planned. I did do a lot of running in the rain this week, but unlike biking it doesn't really pose a safety hazard so that's not too much of a sacrifice. Naturally, this means that I hit my running target for the week but my cycling mileage was way down (120km done vs 185km planned).

Sunday's long ride went quite well, although the heat and humidity certainly upped the difficulty factor. I was busy in the morning, so I couldn't go out until nearly 3:00 - as such, the sun was shining at full bore, the temperatures were approaching 30C and the 75% humidity wasn't helping either. Fortunately, on the bike you get a built-in 30km/h wind to cool you down so other than going through a lot of water it wasn't too bad. I did hold back a bit to avoid any trouble (averaging only 29km/h vs. the 30-32km/h I usually do for this distance) which probably wasn't necessary, but I didn't want to risk anything.

While I was at it, however, I took the opportunity to check out the Aurora Running Room and ask a few questions about the Triathlon program I was looking at. I already got some great information from another blogger (who is already a participant), however I wanted to get an idea of exactly where the store was located (it ended up being about 35km), as well as getting some more detail about the schedule and how it would overlay with my existing plan. It certainly looks pretty good, but the main caveat is that the seminars are on Saturday mornings which clash with my existing group rides. I was hoping that possibly the rides in the session could replace those, however it doesn't look like they'll be hitting my current mileage any time soon. Still have to think about it a bit, as the swimming sessions would be quite useful but I also don't want to mess up my cycling training either.

The other upside to this was that I was able to top off my water bottles while I was there, so I left with an ample supply to help deal with the heat. After that, I headed south a bit for a ride around Wilcox lake and then took a bit of a circuitous route back home. I managed to get a good 50 miles (~80.5K) in this time around, and it felt quite good despite the heat and humidity I had to deal with. It's looking like the group rides will be back up and running next Saturday, and hopefully we'll be getting in some decent mileage on some new routes ;)

Weekly Totals:
Running: 53.1km (33.0mi)
Walking: 1.1km (0.7mi)
Cycling: 119.9km (74.5mi)
Swimming: 1.4km (0.9mi)
Total: 175.5km (109.1mi)

Year to Date:
Running: 1,348.1km (837.7mi)
Walking: 168.7km (104.8mi)
Cycling: 1,985.8km (1,233.9mi)
Swimming: 3.8km (2.4mi)
Total: 3,506.4km (2,178.8mi)

The upcoming week is looking like it will be pretty decent. While it's going to be quite hot, there isn't a lot of rain forecast so I'll likely be able to stick to the plan pretty well. I will have to make sure that I drink enough fluids, but other than that it will hopefully do a lot to get my body used to this kind of weather so that I can fight my way through the summer ;)

Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Ride
Tue 8mi (12.9K) GA w/10x100m, 1hr Swim
Wed 30K Ride, 10K Recovery (Group)
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) GA
Fri 30K Ride
Sat 80K Group Ride, 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 13mi (20.9K) LSD w/8mi (12.9K) at Marathon Pace

Longer term, I also have to work on selecting some intermediate races this season to act as tune-ups for the bigger ones. The Midsummer Night's 30K in August is likely to be one of them, but I'm hoping to fit in a 10K and at least one more 5K along the way. I'm also flirting with running the half marathon again at the Scotiabank waterfront marathon, however I'll have to see how everything lines up with my training. The triathlon stuff will make these races a little more complicated, but I'll have to see what I can do ;)

Week 42: Review

It's been an interesting week, as I've had to get used to running entirely by feel as I increase my mileage. Pacing has been going better than I expected, and has been improving significantly through the week. Naturally, it takes a lot more work to manually plot and measure routes, then memorize waypoints and time things manually. It's getting easier, however, as most of my routes are variations on one another so once certain points are remembered they are useful for future runs.

Either way, most of the sessions this week went along quite well. On Monday, I managed to pull off an 82km ride in 2:47:29, hitting the 50 mile (half-century) mark at 2:43:20. That works out to an average speed of 29.4km/h, about 2:24 short of a 30km/h ride. Given that I was averaging about 26km/h the last time I rode this distance (before the half marathon), that is a significant improvement. The half-century ride on Friday didn't go quite as well due to heavy winds and traffic, but despite those conditions I still managed to average 28.4km/h.

With respect to running, things went pretty well to plan other than switching Thursday's 8K run to a 10K. As noted above, pacing was a little faster than it should have been for most of these sessions but it got much closer by the end of the week. For instance, the 8K 4:45 run at the start of the week was done at a 4:38 pace, while the same run on Saturday was at a 4:41 pace. Still not perfect, but going in the right direction.

Weekly Totals:
Running: 42km (48km)
Walking: 32km
Cycling: 185km
Total: 259km

As noted in the previous review, last week's Sunday and Saturday sessions were switched around which mixed up the weekly totals. When the 14km long run from the previous week was factored into this week's total instead of last week's, the total distance run was 48km. This brings me close enough to get beyond 50km next week, where I'll likely stabilize for the next little while to get my body accustomed to this training volume. To play it safe I'll likely continue to stay away from speedwork or hill training, as I'm still a bit renascent to do those types of sessions by feel.

Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 16K Steady
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 7K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 8K Steady

Beyond that, I'm still playing around with a few different ideas for my long term plans but the priority at this juncture is to focus on keeping my base up. Whatever the plans end up being, I'd like to get back into some form of formal training program by the beginning of next month so I'll have to figure things out by then ;)

Fighting Headwinds

The schedule called for another half-century (50mi/80.47km) ride today, so I headed out a little after lunch. Unlike the ride on Monday, the temperature was much more comfortable (11C vs 25C) although there was a pretty nasty wind coming from the north. After doing a quick inspection of the bike, I set off and headed down to my normal route and got going at a pretty good pace.

Things went quite well until the 20K mark when the wind picked up a bit. Unfortunately, the direction of the wind translated into a headwind during the uphill segments and a tailwind when heading downhill. While the tailwind did speed things up a little, the extra efforts required to ascend the hills forced me to use lower gears than usual and hurt my average speed. While I averaged about 33km/h for the first 20K, I was only averaging about 28km/h at this juncture and was getting tired a lot faster than normal.

After a few more laps, I started to get a little more comfortable with the wind and picked up my speed again. At this point (approx. 45K), however, the schools along the route were starting to get out, resulting in a lot of cars gumming up the works. I was able to maintain a good clip in the straightaways, but I had to slow down significantly to navigate around parked and slow moving cars every couple kilometers. This only lasted for about 45 minutes, but it was enough to further depress my average speed.

Once the school traffic cleared, I was able to pick it up again. The wind was still there, so it wasn't as fast as usual, but I was able to average about 29km/h at this point. The uphill sections were still a fight, however I took it a little easier on the flat segments which did enough to keep my legs fresh. People were starting to come home from work at this point so there was still more traffic than usual, but it was moving well so it didn't pose much of a problem.

Unfortunately, as I was approaching the 70K mark, my rear wheel ran over a small field of debris. To make sure everything was okay, I pulled over and checked to find a small piece of glass embedded in the tire. It was a small wound that likely wouldn't be a problem, however if it was left there it would work it's way deeper into the tire so I headed home rather than risk it. As soon as I got back, I let a little air out of the tire, removed the shard and pumped it up again. Looking over the damage, it doesn't look like it is very deep so it likely won't be a problem but I'll naturally keep an eye on it. It wasn't really worth heading back out for 9K more, so I packed everything up and did my stretches.


Overall, I covered 71.53km in 2:29:07 for an average speed of 28.8km/h. Not as good a ride as the 2:41:48 (29.8km/h) 50 miler on Monday, however hopefully I'll be able to crack 30km/h next Monday. I will have to find a way to head out a little earlier for these rides to avoid the traffic, although fitting a contiguous three hour block into the schedule is quite difficult. It may also be worth moving off of residential roads and onto arterial routes at this juncture as my technique is a lot stronger than before, although that means dealing with higher speed traffic and much larger hills (albeit less of them).

The other issue that has become evident at this point is that I'm going to have to grab a proper pair of cycling gloves. Given the cold today, I took out the gloves that I use for running but they made manipulating the shifting levers a little awkward. They did the job okay, however I imagine that gloves designed explicitly for this sport would likely mitigate these issues.


Tomorrow I'm scheduled to do an 8K steady run, followed by a 16km LSD run on Sunday. Other than the wind, it looks like the weather will be nearly perfect for running this weekend. A few of the other members of my clinic are running their half marathon (the GoodLife Fitness Toronto Marathon) on Sunday, so it looks like things are lining up well for them!