I kind of ended up backing myself into a corner this morning, as I pushed back my 20 miler from yesterday to today as the weather reports indicated that it would be cooler. Unfortunately, it ended up being about the same around here, so I was left with little choice but to head out into the 40C+ (104F) temperatures and fight through it. Due to a couple of heavy runs near the end of last week I couldn't push it to Saturday, and with another heavy week coming up I couldn't really push it to Tuesday either.
At first it wasn't too bad, with the humidex floating around 38C (26.3C ambient + 93% humidity) and overcast skies it wasn't exactly comfortable, but it was bearable. While the heat wasn't a big problem, the soupy air was still pretty difficult to breathe which made things significantly more difficult than I would have liked. Either way, I focused on controlling my pace to make sure I didn't push too hard and create a problem, although it was difficult to put down that mental focus in an environment like this. I wasn't able to slow myself down as much as I would have liked, but I was still quite comfortable and my fluid reserves were doing pretty well.
Unfortunately, about 45 minutes into the run the clouds parted and the sun started shining through. The ambient temperature had creeped up into the 30s at this point, and while the humidity was a little lower the humidex was well into the 40s. As such, the sun beating down on me was making things considerably more difficult and my heart rate was running a bit higher than I would have liked. I started taking in more fluids to offset this, and that worked well for a while but it also meant that I was draining my supplies faster.
Just after the 14K mark (about 1:15 into the run), I stopped into a 7-11 and picked up another bottle of Gatorade to refill my bottles. Once topped off, I continued on but at this point the heat was beginning to hit me harder than it had before. I tried to refocus on backing off the throttle a bit, which helped, but the humidity meant that my sweat wasn't evaporating so my core temperature was climbing and making it more and more of a fight.
Just before the 18K mark (~1:33), I pulled into a community centre to cool off a bit and get some water. When I restarted, it was evident that it was going to be extremely difficult to get in the full distance as my HR was continuing to run significantly higher than normal, and the rest stops weren't really doing a lot to help with that. As such, I refocused my aim to make it to the Running Room shop and then play it by ear - if things continued along the route they were going, that would give me the option to abort and call for a pickup.
Over the next few kilometers I ended up burning through the Gatorade that I had left, and things were getting progressively more difficult. I took a few short breaks to allow myself to cool down, but looking at my heart rate it was evident that it would be unwise to try to get the full distance in - while I could likely have done it, it would have significantly increased recovery time and potentially hurt the quality of the other runs this week. As such, I sped up a bit over the last few kilometers and headed over to the shop. Once I hit the 23K mark, I fell back to a walk, then stopped out front and did my stretches. I popped in, made my call and then bought some more Gatorade and cooled off while I waited.
As much as I hate quiting early, especially on these critical 20 milers, I have to look at it from an overall perspective. I could have restocked my bottles at the RR and continued on, but doing so would have left me significantly depleted and likely would have hurt more than it would have helped. In retrospect, heading out on Sunday morning would have likely been the better bet - the temperatures were about the same, but the skies stayed overcast so there was no sun to fight with. Either way, I made the decission that I did based on the best information that I could find - unfortunately, weather forecasting is an inexact science so it's difficult to work around problems like this :(
Showing posts with label telemetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label telemetry. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Week 28: Review
Came up a little short this week as I ended up missing both of my recovery runs due to scheduling issues. Wednesday was Canada day, and I was out with the family for the entire day so there wasn't an opportunity to get out. On Saturday, I was busy in the morning and had to do my long ride in the early afternoon. As such, I planned to do the 4 mile recovery run right after to make for a brick session and get a feel for the combination of the two sports. Unfortunately, I ended up heading out a little later than I would have liked and was concerned that running that close to the long run on the next day.
On the cycling front, I missed the Wednesday session for the same reason as Running, and the weather limited what I could do on other days. Swimming was a little short as well, as I got to the pool a little later than expected and only had 45 minutes before they kicked us out. Either way, the sessions that did get fit in were harder than usual (thanks to headwinds on the bike and time limits in the pool), so regardless of the reduced mileage I got in some good training.
This morning's run started off pretty well, with decent temperatures (~23C/30% humidity) but that quickly changed. The humidity stayed within reason, however the temperatures rose to a much warmer 28.8C by the end of the run. While not as bad as it's been in the last few weeks, I'm still not completely used to it so it took it's toll. After the first hill, my heart rate wasn't recovering as quickly as usual so I was running at higher levels than I should for a long run. As such, I took a few breaks along the way to keep the HR in check.
Adding to the complexity, I also ended up running out of Gatorade (despite bringing a little under a liter with me) after the last major hill. Combined with the heat, that made the final stretch quite difficult and I ended up stopping about a quarter mile short of my target to avoid overshooting my house and adding a ~1K cooldown walk at the end. Will have to remember to bring some more change along with me on future long runs so I can stop and refill my bottles at the halfway point (my hydration pack can only carry four 8oz bottles).
Either way, I managed to average a decent 5:00/km pace for the 14 miler. My heart rate averaged 160bpm, although it hovered at around 170bpm at points (the average was depressed partially by the breaks) so it was still pushing well beyond the mid-to-high 150s I usually target. I should note that while my HR was high, aside from the last bit my perceived effort wasn't noticeably heavier than usual. Had I not been wearing the HRM, I likely wouldn't have bothered with the breaks.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 51.2km (31.8mi)
Walking: 8.6km (5.3mi)
Cycling: 109.9km (68.3mi)
Swimming: 1.0km (0.6mi)
Total: 170.7km (106.1mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 1,458.5km (906.3mi)
Walking: 181.2km (112.6mi)
Cycling: 2,272.0km (1,411.8mi)
Swimming: 6.4km (4.0mi)
Total: 3,918.1km (2,434.6mi)
I'll be busy tomorrow morning and it looks like the weather will go downhill in the afternoon so I'll likely not be able to fit in a ride. Other than that, this week should hopefully go according to plan. Running will continue to scale up, and I'm hoping to squeeze out another 100K ride on Saturday. As far as swimming goes, I'll likely hold at the one mile level and just focus on building stamina and speed. Given the proximity of the triathlon I'm hoping to work on switching over to doing two sessions per week.
Upcoming Week:
Mon Rest
Tue 8mi (12.9K) GA w/10x100m
Wed 30K Ride, 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) GA, 1.6km swim
Fri 50K Ride
Sat 100K Group Ride, 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 15mi (24.2K) LSD
On other fronts, I finally managed to get out and try on the Oakley Radar and Jawbone sunglasses for the bike. Out of the two, the Jawbone appeared to be a slightly better match - the Radar's top frame appeared to obstruct my vision a bit when in lower positions whereas the Jawbone arched up and stayed out of the way. They had a model called Radar XL that resolved this issue, however taller bridge looked a little goofy so it wouldn't really be useful for anything other than cycling.
The main catch with the Jawbone, however, is that I'm not sure how well ventilated it would be compared to the Radar. The Radars have an open frame design allowing more air to get around the base of the lens, whereas the Jawbone has a more closed-in design. Most of the Jawbone lenses are vented so that should help a bit, but it's difficult to judge this sort of thing inside of a store. The other caveat is that the Jawbones are still hard to find at this point, so getting specific styles/lenses is tricky at this point. My preference would be to get the Transitions version of the glasses that change their transmission level depending on light levels, but I've been unable to find them anywhere.
On the cycling front, I missed the Wednesday session for the same reason as Running, and the weather limited what I could do on other days. Swimming was a little short as well, as I got to the pool a little later than expected and only had 45 minutes before they kicked us out. Either way, the sessions that did get fit in were harder than usual (thanks to headwinds on the bike and time limits in the pool), so regardless of the reduced mileage I got in some good training.
This morning's run started off pretty well, with decent temperatures (~23C/30% humidity) but that quickly changed. The humidity stayed within reason, however the temperatures rose to a much warmer 28.8C by the end of the run. While not as bad as it's been in the last few weeks, I'm still not completely used to it so it took it's toll. After the first hill, my heart rate wasn't recovering as quickly as usual so I was running at higher levels than I should for a long run. As such, I took a few breaks along the way to keep the HR in check.
Adding to the complexity, I also ended up running out of Gatorade (despite bringing a little under a liter with me) after the last major hill. Combined with the heat, that made the final stretch quite difficult and I ended up stopping about a quarter mile short of my target to avoid overshooting my house and adding a ~1K cooldown walk at the end. Will have to remember to bring some more change along with me on future long runs so I can stop and refill my bottles at the halfway point (my hydration pack can only carry four 8oz bottles).
Either way, I managed to average a decent 5:00/km pace for the 14 miler. My heart rate averaged 160bpm, although it hovered at around 170bpm at points (the average was depressed partially by the breaks) so it was still pushing well beyond the mid-to-high 150s I usually target. I should note that while my HR was high, aside from the last bit my perceived effort wasn't noticeably heavier than usual. Had I not been wearing the HRM, I likely wouldn't have bothered with the breaks.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 51.2km (31.8mi)
Walking: 8.6km (5.3mi)
Cycling: 109.9km (68.3mi)
Swimming: 1.0km (0.6mi)
Total: 170.7km (106.1mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 1,458.5km (906.3mi)
Walking: 181.2km (112.6mi)
Cycling: 2,272.0km (1,411.8mi)
Swimming: 6.4km (4.0mi)
Total: 3,918.1km (2,434.6mi)
I'll be busy tomorrow morning and it looks like the weather will go downhill in the afternoon so I'll likely not be able to fit in a ride. Other than that, this week should hopefully go according to plan. Running will continue to scale up, and I'm hoping to squeeze out another 100K ride on Saturday. As far as swimming goes, I'll likely hold at the one mile level and just focus on building stamina and speed. Given the proximity of the triathlon I'm hoping to work on switching over to doing two sessions per week.
Upcoming Week:
Mon Rest
Tue 8mi (12.9K) GA w/10x100m
Wed 30K Ride, 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) GA, 1.6km swim
Fri 50K Ride
Sat 100K Group Ride, 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 15mi (24.2K) LSD
On other fronts, I finally managed to get out and try on the Oakley Radar and Jawbone sunglasses for the bike. Out of the two, the Jawbone appeared to be a slightly better match - the Radar's top frame appeared to obstruct my vision a bit when in lower positions whereas the Jawbone arched up and stayed out of the way. They had a model called Radar XL that resolved this issue, however taller bridge looked a little goofy so it wouldn't really be useful for anything other than cycling.
The main catch with the Jawbone, however, is that I'm not sure how well ventilated it would be compared to the Radar. The Radars have an open frame design allowing more air to get around the base of the lens, whereas the Jawbone has a more closed-in design. Most of the Jawbone lenses are vented so that should help a bit, but it's difficult to judge this sort of thing inside of a store. The other caveat is that the Jawbones are still hard to find at this point, so getting specific styles/lenses is tricky at this point. My preference would be to get the Transitions version of the glasses that change their transmission level depending on light levels, but I've been unable to find them anywhere.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Week 27: Review
As predicted, this week was incredibly hot and gave me my first real taste of running/cycling under sustained high temperatures this season. While I was doing a good deal of running last summer, I was only training for a half marathon at the time so I wasn't doing the volume or intensity that I am now. As such, I was burning through Gatorade and water to fight my way through all of the planned sessions.
Cycling isn't too bad in this weather, as at the speeds one travels there is a pretty healthy wind to evaporate the sweat and help cool down the body. The only caveat is that on the really hot days (such as the 34C/60% humidity we had on Wednesday), when you inevitably come up to segments where you have to stop (traffic lights, stop signs, etc.) the heat can really hit you. It's kind of a weird feeling to dread the breaks in an exercise session, but on days like this that 30km/h headwind is the only thing keeping you going ;)
Either way, I did end up making some adjustments this week due to the conditions. The group had to do a little over 12K (~8mi) on Wednesday, so I ended up doing that rather than the 10K recovery run I was looking at. With the humidity, however, the thick air made it much more difficult than it would normally be - while we were running at a general aerobic pace (~5:00/km), my heart rate reached tempo levels in the last few kilometers. We took a couple of brief walking breaks as well, as one of our group members was having a lot more trouble than the rest of us.
I was scheduled to do a 10 miler on Thursday, but as the 8 miles done the day before were extra (Wednesday was supposed to be a rest day in Pftizinger's schedule) and it was still pretty brutal out there I figured I'd just make up the difference. As such, I took a five mile course and split it up into 1 mile warm-up, 2 miles at GA, 1 mile cooldown and then walked the final mile. The net result was to put me a little ahead of scheduled mileage for the week and I didn't have to burn myself out once again ;)
Saturday's long ride went quite well, as some rain had come through on Friday night and knocked the temperature and humidity down a bit. It was still well into the 30s with the humidity taken into account, but that was a lot better than we'd had earlier in the week. At about the 25K mark, I popped into a convenience store to resupply my fluids before it became a problem - drinking a bottle of Gatorade and refilling my depleted water bottle. Other than various traffic stops along the way, I managed to complete the entire 70K ride without any further breaks. As I took care to avoid the urban areas that have slowed me down on the last few rides, I was able to comfortably maintain a 30km/h average speed even with some pretty significant hills (cumulative ascent was over 3000 feet). This was a bit of a shorter ride than I've been doing on Saturdays, but with the first of the Marathon Pace runs the next day I didn't want to push it too hard this weekend.
As for Sunday's long run, I was dreading it a bit for most of the week. This would be the first time since Around the Bay that I've run a significant distance at this particular pace (4:45/km), so I was concerned that it would be difficult. They were also calling for significant quantities of rain, so I was concerned that that would just add to the difficulty. Fortunately, while it was pouring when I originally planned to go out the radar showed an opening that would hit at around 4pm so I elected to push it back. This worked out well, as when I headed out the rain was mostly gone (a little drizzle, but nothing significant) the sky was overcast and the temperature was a comfortable 21C.
I programmed the watch to give me a 6km warm up, which would just get me past the big hill prior to launching into the 8 mile marathon pace segment. I'd have to do that hill at pace on the way back, but hopefully by that point I'd be well into my rythum and able to push through. I kept my pace under control during this segment, and was especially careful on the climb to keep my heart rate under control. At the top of the hill I ended up hitting a stop light which gave me a bit of time to recover prior to doing the last 600 meters at recovery pace.
When the watch beeped to signal the start of the marathon pace segment, I accelerated and still felt quite good. I looked down at the readout and saw I was going at a 4:20 pace so I put on the brakes a bit and pulled myself back to the 4:45 pace I was targeting. This continued to proove difficult, and I spent a good deal of the first couple kilometers looking down at my wrist to keep myself at the right pace. Despite the yoyo pacing for the first 3K or so, however, I managed to keep my average pace in the right ballpark - averaging 4:41, 4:43 and 4:42 respectively. I was still feeling good and was partially relieved that my problem was the body wanting to go too fast rather than having to fight to speed up ;)
After that point, however, I got into a residential area where I had to pay more attention to my suroundings and couldn't monitor the watch as closely as I would have liked. The end result was that my pace continued to slip into the high 4:30s, although it stayed pretty stable there. As my heart rate was comfortably within zone 3 I didn't worry too much about it and played it by ear. I was still feeling quite good even with the faster pace, which did a lot to boost my confidence. I continued this for the next little bit until I got back to the hill.
Going down, I was careful to monitor my heart rate to make sure that I'd be able to power myself back up without having to slow down. My pace was still a bit fast, however that was more down to gravity than it was to effort ;) Once the incline started switching it became difficult to maintain pace so I decided to punch it. While it was difficult at the start, once I got up to speed it actually ended up getting a lot easier and I managed to push past the apex of the hill at a healthy 4:13 pace. Suprisingly, even with that push my HR only peaked at 176bpm (~81%) and I was still feeling pretty good. Fortunately, at this point I ran into another stop light that gave me a chance to recover a bit before finishing the last 4K of the marathon pace segment.
Once I got going I was back into the yoyo routine of trying to keep my pace where it was supposed to be. Unfortunately at this point the clouds were breaking up and the sun started shining through, so the temperature and humidity were climbing fast. Thanks to this, the last 3K of the MP segment was probably the hardest part of the run - however I managed to fight through (although it was quite a relief when the watch beeped to signal that it was over). With the hard part done, I did the last 2K of the run at a recovery pace and added a brief 400m walk at the end to help cool off.
Either way, it felt quite good to get such a strong effort in this time around and has shored up confidence in my ability to maintain the pace required for a 3:20 marathon. I have a lot of work to do in getting a feel for this particular pace, as the extra speed isn't a huge deal for an 8 mile segment but would be catastrophic for a marathon distance. That will just be a matter of more practice with it, however, as my gravity toward the 4:30 pace is likely simply because of the tempo runs that I've done over the last few weeks.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 59.2km (36.8mi)
Walking: 3.9km (2.4mi)
Cycling: 176.3km (109.5mi)
Swimming: 1.6km (1.0mi)
Total: 241.0km (149.8mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 1,407.3km (874.5mi)
Walking: 172.6km (107.2mi)
Cycling: 2,162.1km (1,343.5mi)
Swimming: 5.4km (3.4mi)
Total: 3,747.4km (2,328.5mi)
This upcomming week is going to be a bit tricky, as the rain is back for a good portion of the week which will mess things up a bit. Given the weather today I elected to skip the cycling session (although in retrospect I likely could have pulled it off in the morning). Wednesday is Canada day so I'll be busy with family for most of the day, so regardless of the weather there's no way I'll have time for a bike ride (and I'm not even confident I'll be able to fit in the scheduled run). Fortunately, the weekend looks like it will be good at this point so I'm going to try to load a lot of the cycling mileage at the back end of the week.
Upcoming Week:
Mon Rest
Tue 10mi (16.1K) GA
Wed 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Thurs 8mi (12.9K) GA w/4mi LT, 1.6km swim
Fri 50K Ride
Sat 100K Group Ride, 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 14mi (22.5K) LSD
The other thing that I'm going to have to start looking into is getting a good pair of sunglasses for use on the bike. I've ridden through a few swarms of bugs in the last week or so, and regardless of how small they may be they make quite an impact at 30-40km/h ;) The tricky part is that cycling glasses are difficult to do right as they have a lot of constraints to deal with - they have to be small and light so they're comfortable and don't obstruct your field of vision, but they also have to be strong enough to take high-speed impacts from debris kicked up by cars/trucks. Doing a bit of digging it appears that Oakley's glasses are the best balance, however they're a bit pricey for what they are so I'm still looking around at alternatives as well. With that said, I don't mind paying a bit of a premium if they are genuinely better as it's the type of thing that could last me for a while.
In other areas, I've elected to just push on with my own training for the Triathlon. The clinic would have been helpful, but the scheduling conflict with my group rides was a big problem. Going beyond 100km is extremely difficult to do on one's own, for both safety and logistical reasons (rides of this length generally benefit from a lunch stop at the apex, and without someone to watch the bikes that's difficult to pull off). I would have liked to get some experience with simulated transitions and mass start swimming, but as I'm not really aiming to be competitive in Orillia I can work around those shortcommings.
Cycling isn't too bad in this weather, as at the speeds one travels there is a pretty healthy wind to evaporate the sweat and help cool down the body. The only caveat is that on the really hot days (such as the 34C/60% humidity we had on Wednesday), when you inevitably come up to segments where you have to stop (traffic lights, stop signs, etc.) the heat can really hit you. It's kind of a weird feeling to dread the breaks in an exercise session, but on days like this that 30km/h headwind is the only thing keeping you going ;)
Either way, I did end up making some adjustments this week due to the conditions. The group had to do a little over 12K (~8mi) on Wednesday, so I ended up doing that rather than the 10K recovery run I was looking at. With the humidity, however, the thick air made it much more difficult than it would normally be - while we were running at a general aerobic pace (~5:00/km), my heart rate reached tempo levels in the last few kilometers. We took a couple of brief walking breaks as well, as one of our group members was having a lot more trouble than the rest of us.
I was scheduled to do a 10 miler on Thursday, but as the 8 miles done the day before were extra (Wednesday was supposed to be a rest day in Pftizinger's schedule) and it was still pretty brutal out there I figured I'd just make up the difference. As such, I took a five mile course and split it up into 1 mile warm-up, 2 miles at GA, 1 mile cooldown and then walked the final mile. The net result was to put me a little ahead of scheduled mileage for the week and I didn't have to burn myself out once again ;)
Saturday's long ride went quite well, as some rain had come through on Friday night and knocked the temperature and humidity down a bit. It was still well into the 30s with the humidity taken into account, but that was a lot better than we'd had earlier in the week. At about the 25K mark, I popped into a convenience store to resupply my fluids before it became a problem - drinking a bottle of Gatorade and refilling my depleted water bottle. Other than various traffic stops along the way, I managed to complete the entire 70K ride without any further breaks. As I took care to avoid the urban areas that have slowed me down on the last few rides, I was able to comfortably maintain a 30km/h average speed even with some pretty significant hills (cumulative ascent was over 3000 feet). This was a bit of a shorter ride than I've been doing on Saturdays, but with the first of the Marathon Pace runs the next day I didn't want to push it too hard this weekend.
As for Sunday's long run, I was dreading it a bit for most of the week. This would be the first time since Around the Bay that I've run a significant distance at this particular pace (4:45/km), so I was concerned that it would be difficult. They were also calling for significant quantities of rain, so I was concerned that that would just add to the difficulty. Fortunately, while it was pouring when I originally planned to go out the radar showed an opening that would hit at around 4pm so I elected to push it back. This worked out well, as when I headed out the rain was mostly gone (a little drizzle, but nothing significant) the sky was overcast and the temperature was a comfortable 21C.
I programmed the watch to give me a 6km warm up, which would just get me past the big hill prior to launching into the 8 mile marathon pace segment. I'd have to do that hill at pace on the way back, but hopefully by that point I'd be well into my rythum and able to push through. I kept my pace under control during this segment, and was especially careful on the climb to keep my heart rate under control. At the top of the hill I ended up hitting a stop light which gave me a bit of time to recover prior to doing the last 600 meters at recovery pace.
When the watch beeped to signal the start of the marathon pace segment, I accelerated and still felt quite good. I looked down at the readout and saw I was going at a 4:20 pace so I put on the brakes a bit and pulled myself back to the 4:45 pace I was targeting. This continued to proove difficult, and I spent a good deal of the first couple kilometers looking down at my wrist to keep myself at the right pace. Despite the yoyo pacing for the first 3K or so, however, I managed to keep my average pace in the right ballpark - averaging 4:41, 4:43 and 4:42 respectively. I was still feeling good and was partially relieved that my problem was the body wanting to go too fast rather than having to fight to speed up ;)
After that point, however, I got into a residential area where I had to pay more attention to my suroundings and couldn't monitor the watch as closely as I would have liked. The end result was that my pace continued to slip into the high 4:30s, although it stayed pretty stable there. As my heart rate was comfortably within zone 3 I didn't worry too much about it and played it by ear. I was still feeling quite good even with the faster pace, which did a lot to boost my confidence. I continued this for the next little bit until I got back to the hill.
Going down, I was careful to monitor my heart rate to make sure that I'd be able to power myself back up without having to slow down. My pace was still a bit fast, however that was more down to gravity than it was to effort ;) Once the incline started switching it became difficult to maintain pace so I decided to punch it. While it was difficult at the start, once I got up to speed it actually ended up getting a lot easier and I managed to push past the apex of the hill at a healthy 4:13 pace. Suprisingly, even with that push my HR only peaked at 176bpm (~81%) and I was still feeling pretty good. Fortunately, at this point I ran into another stop light that gave me a chance to recover a bit before finishing the last 4K of the marathon pace segment.
Once I got going I was back into the yoyo routine of trying to keep my pace where it was supposed to be. Unfortunately at this point the clouds were breaking up and the sun started shining through, so the temperature and humidity were climbing fast. Thanks to this, the last 3K of the MP segment was probably the hardest part of the run - however I managed to fight through (although it was quite a relief when the watch beeped to signal that it was over). With the hard part done, I did the last 2K of the run at a recovery pace and added a brief 400m walk at the end to help cool off.
Either way, it felt quite good to get such a strong effort in this time around and has shored up confidence in my ability to maintain the pace required for a 3:20 marathon. I have a lot of work to do in getting a feel for this particular pace, as the extra speed isn't a huge deal for an 8 mile segment but would be catastrophic for a marathon distance. That will just be a matter of more practice with it, however, as my gravity toward the 4:30 pace is likely simply because of the tempo runs that I've done over the last few weeks.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 59.2km (36.8mi)
Walking: 3.9km (2.4mi)
Cycling: 176.3km (109.5mi)
Swimming: 1.6km (1.0mi)
Total: 241.0km (149.8mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 1,407.3km (874.5mi)
Walking: 172.6km (107.2mi)
Cycling: 2,162.1km (1,343.5mi)
Swimming: 5.4km (3.4mi)
Total: 3,747.4km (2,328.5mi)
This upcomming week is going to be a bit tricky, as the rain is back for a good portion of the week which will mess things up a bit. Given the weather today I elected to skip the cycling session (although in retrospect I likely could have pulled it off in the morning). Wednesday is Canada day so I'll be busy with family for most of the day, so regardless of the weather there's no way I'll have time for a bike ride (and I'm not even confident I'll be able to fit in the scheduled run). Fortunately, the weekend looks like it will be good at this point so I'm going to try to load a lot of the cycling mileage at the back end of the week.
Upcoming Week:
Mon Rest
Tue 10mi (16.1K) GA
Wed 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Thurs 8mi (12.9K) GA w/4mi LT, 1.6km swim
Fri 50K Ride
Sat 100K Group Ride, 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 14mi (22.5K) LSD
The other thing that I'm going to have to start looking into is getting a good pair of sunglasses for use on the bike. I've ridden through a few swarms of bugs in the last week or so, and regardless of how small they may be they make quite an impact at 30-40km/h ;) The tricky part is that cycling glasses are difficult to do right as they have a lot of constraints to deal with - they have to be small and light so they're comfortable and don't obstruct your field of vision, but they also have to be strong enough to take high-speed impacts from debris kicked up by cars/trucks. Doing a bit of digging it appears that Oakley's glasses are the best balance, however they're a bit pricey for what they are so I'm still looking around at alternatives as well. With that said, I don't mind paying a bit of a premium if they are genuinely better as it's the type of thing that could last me for a while.
In other areas, I've elected to just push on with my own training for the Triathlon. The clinic would have been helpful, but the scheduling conflict with my group rides was a big problem. Going beyond 100km is extremely difficult to do on one's own, for both safety and logistical reasons (rides of this length generally benefit from a lunch stop at the apex, and without someone to watch the bikes that's difficult to pull off). I would have liked to get some experience with simulated transitions and mass start swimming, but as I'm not really aiming to be competitive in Orillia I can work around those shortcommings.
Monday, June 22, 2009
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 ;)
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 ;)
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Week 24: Review
Managed to get a good deal of work in this week, although I did miss my Monday cycling session due to weather concerns. Rather than take the day off, however, I elected to go out for an 11K power walk (~8:17/km pace) so that the day wouldn't be a total loss. Walking used to be the mainstay of my schedule, and I kept it up in the earlier stages of my running but with the miles that the marathon training schedules require I havn't had the time to mix them in alongside the running and cycling. When time permits, however, it's a good way to squeeze in a few extra miles without the training load that running would impose.
Aside from that, I also got around to doing my first proper swimming session in a long time after my run on Tuesday. The last time I did any significant number of lengths was nearly 18 years ago, so naturally my technique was pretty rusty. I've certainly done some swimming since, but most of that was recreational in nature with little in the way of sustained efforts required for lengths. Breathing was naturally my biggest issue, and loosing track of that meant that I had to take rests frequently to let it catch up. I had no problem breathing over my right shoulder, but for some reason I was having a lot of trouble taking in air over my left. While I likely could have had a better session just sticking to the one side, I didn't want to reinforce bad habits so I forced myself to alternate.
Regardless, I managed to put down a little under 1100m in around 1h15m (including breaks as I had no way to time and record individual lap times), which is pretty slow but not too bad for my first time back. It did take a good deal out of me, however, as the cycling and running sessions on the next day were pretty difficult. That's somewhat to be expected, however, as swimming involves very different muscle groups than the other sports and I have a lot of work to do before I get my fitness up in those areas. I do have to find a proper training program to get myself to where I need to be, however for the time being I'll just go out on a regular basis and log as many miles as possible to iron out the wrinkles ;)
The one thing that is a bit frustrating is that I don't currently have any mechanism to record my telemetry from these sessions. I've used my heart rate monitor for walking, running and cycling and it was an invaluable tool when getting started in those sports as I could gauge the proper effort when I had no experience in figuring that out by feel. Unfortunately the 2.4GHz band that Polar uses for communication between the heart rate strap and the wrist unit can't penetrate water, so it won't function in this environment (both parts are submersion rated, but they don't do much good when they can't talk to one another).
I was looking at the Suunto Memory Belt (which stores HR data in the heart rate strap itself) a few months back, however from what I've seen it appears to be difficult to keep in place unless you are wearing a wetsuit. Swimovate's Pool-Mate device looks interesting, however without a way to upload the data to a computer its utility is limited (as it can only provide averages, and not detailed plots). Will probably have to wing it for the time being, but I'll keep my eyes open for electronic aides that may simplify this sort of thing ;)
Aside from that, I managed to do all of the runs as scheduled. We did an 11K group run on Wednesday rather than the 8K scheduled as the others needed a bit more distance, so there's an extra 3K on my weekly totals this time around (makes up for the 2K I missed last week). Either way, it was apparently national running day in the US on Wednesday so I'll chalk it up to celebrating alongside our southern neighbours ;)
I was playing with the idea of trying out a 100K ride on Saturday, however time constraints limited me to the 75K route that I did last week. Upped the pace a little versus last time (30.5km/h vs. 30.1km/h), although a lot of that was again gated by the traffic on Rutherford so I'll have to find a better return route. The group ride didn't materialize again this time around, so it was a solo ride once again. Either way, I'm hoping to give a 100K ride a shot this upcoming Saturday as the 75K rides have worked well so far ;) Just keeping my fingers crossed that the weather lines up to permit that!
Weekly Totals:
Running: 51.2km (31.8mi)
Walking: 11.9km (7.4mi)
Cycling: 137.4km (85.4mi)
Swimming: 1.1km (0.7mi)
Total: 201.6km (125.3mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 1,238.3km (769.4mi)
Walking: 164.4km (102.2mi)
Cycling: 1,740.2km (1,081.3mi)
Swimming: 1.1km (0.7mi)
Total: 3,144.0km (1,953.6mi)
The upcoming week is the last of my recovery program, so I'm going to have to solidify the details of my next training cycle in the next few days. If I do elect to go with the Toronto Goodlife Marathon (which I'm pretty sure will be the case), the 18 week program will begin as soon as this one ends. I'm roughly flirting with aiming to do the tri-a-tri race (375m swim, 10K ride, 2.5K run) in Orillia at the end of August, as it should give enough time to get a decent swimming base in so that I can get some experience with the transitions prior to (hopefully) racing some proper triathlons sometime next summer. Either way, I'll likely have another post tomorow or the day after with details on what I'm aiming on doing with the summer and fall seasons ;)
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Ride (probably not going to happen)
Tue 7mi (11.3K) GA
Wed 30K Ride, 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 1hr Swim, 30K Ride
Fri 8mi (12.9K) GA w/8x100m
Sat 100K Group Ride, 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 11mi (17.7K) LSD
Aside from that, I also got around to doing my first proper swimming session in a long time after my run on Tuesday. The last time I did any significant number of lengths was nearly 18 years ago, so naturally my technique was pretty rusty. I've certainly done some swimming since, but most of that was recreational in nature with little in the way of sustained efforts required for lengths. Breathing was naturally my biggest issue, and loosing track of that meant that I had to take rests frequently to let it catch up. I had no problem breathing over my right shoulder, but for some reason I was having a lot of trouble taking in air over my left. While I likely could have had a better session just sticking to the one side, I didn't want to reinforce bad habits so I forced myself to alternate.
Regardless, I managed to put down a little under 1100m in around 1h15m (including breaks as I had no way to time and record individual lap times), which is pretty slow but not too bad for my first time back. It did take a good deal out of me, however, as the cycling and running sessions on the next day were pretty difficult. That's somewhat to be expected, however, as swimming involves very different muscle groups than the other sports and I have a lot of work to do before I get my fitness up in those areas. I do have to find a proper training program to get myself to where I need to be, however for the time being I'll just go out on a regular basis and log as many miles as possible to iron out the wrinkles ;)
The one thing that is a bit frustrating is that I don't currently have any mechanism to record my telemetry from these sessions. I've used my heart rate monitor for walking, running and cycling and it was an invaluable tool when getting started in those sports as I could gauge the proper effort when I had no experience in figuring that out by feel. Unfortunately the 2.4GHz band that Polar uses for communication between the heart rate strap and the wrist unit can't penetrate water, so it won't function in this environment (both parts are submersion rated, but they don't do much good when they can't talk to one another).
I was looking at the Suunto Memory Belt (which stores HR data in the heart rate strap itself) a few months back, however from what I've seen it appears to be difficult to keep in place unless you are wearing a wetsuit. Swimovate's Pool-Mate device looks interesting, however without a way to upload the data to a computer its utility is limited (as it can only provide averages, and not detailed plots). Will probably have to wing it for the time being, but I'll keep my eyes open for electronic aides that may simplify this sort of thing ;)
Aside from that, I managed to do all of the runs as scheduled. We did an 11K group run on Wednesday rather than the 8K scheduled as the others needed a bit more distance, so there's an extra 3K on my weekly totals this time around (makes up for the 2K I missed last week). Either way, it was apparently national running day in the US on Wednesday so I'll chalk it up to celebrating alongside our southern neighbours ;)
I was playing with the idea of trying out a 100K ride on Saturday, however time constraints limited me to the 75K route that I did last week. Upped the pace a little versus last time (30.5km/h vs. 30.1km/h), although a lot of that was again gated by the traffic on Rutherford so I'll have to find a better return route. The group ride didn't materialize again this time around, so it was a solo ride once again. Either way, I'm hoping to give a 100K ride a shot this upcoming Saturday as the 75K rides have worked well so far ;) Just keeping my fingers crossed that the weather lines up to permit that!
Weekly Totals:
Running: 51.2km (31.8mi)
Walking: 11.9km (7.4mi)
Cycling: 137.4km (85.4mi)
Swimming: 1.1km (0.7mi)
Total: 201.6km (125.3mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 1,238.3km (769.4mi)
Walking: 164.4km (102.2mi)
Cycling: 1,740.2km (1,081.3mi)
Swimming: 1.1km (0.7mi)
Total: 3,144.0km (1,953.6mi)
The upcoming week is the last of my recovery program, so I'm going to have to solidify the details of my next training cycle in the next few days. If I do elect to go with the Toronto Goodlife Marathon (which I'm pretty sure will be the case), the 18 week program will begin as soon as this one ends. I'm roughly flirting with aiming to do the tri-a-tri race (375m swim, 10K ride, 2.5K run) in Orillia at the end of August, as it should give enough time to get a decent swimming base in so that I can get some experience with the transitions prior to (hopefully) racing some proper triathlons sometime next summer. Either way, I'll likely have another post tomorow or the day after with details on what I'm aiming on doing with the summer and fall seasons ;)
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Ride (probably not going to happen)
Tue 7mi (11.3K) GA
Wed 30K Ride, 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 1hr Swim, 30K Ride
Fri 8mi (12.9K) GA w/8x100m
Sat 100K Group Ride, 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 11mi (17.7K) LSD
Sunday, May 31, 2009
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.
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
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.
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
Monday, May 18, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
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.
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.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
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)
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)
Sunday, March 29, 2009
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).
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).
Friday, March 27, 2009
Checking out the Route...
As I'm going to be heading down on race morning rather than using the hotel as I originally planned, I went down to Hamilton this morning to pick up my race kit. As I had a 5 miler planned for the day, I elected to go down a little early and run out to the 26K mark of the Around the Bay Route and back. That would get me down to the base of the final hill, and knowing what to expect from that terrain may help psychologically near the end of the race when fatigue is setting in. It also gave me a chance to explore the area a bit, and get familiar with the configuration of everything so I'll be better prepared when it comes to race day.
The weather this morning was pretty much picture perfect. A nice warm 7C, clear skies and only a slight breeze coming in off of the lake. After finding a parking spot (which took a little longer than expected), I headed out along York Blvd. with the target of maintaining a comfortable 5min/km pace for the duration of the run. The first little bit was a bit choppy as there are a lot of traffic lights/street crossings in this section, but once I got out of the downtown area things picked up.
The first 900 meters or so was basically flat ground, followed by a small uphill segment (400m/+2.6%). After that was about 1.4K at a very slight downhill grade (-0.5%) and then a 900m flat segment just before the big downhill. With that said, there may be a bit of variance in these numbers as I was running on the sidewalk which didn't follow exactly the same contour as the road we will be using on Sunday. Either way, all of this was extremely comfortable, and it was a struggle to keep myself from trying to accelerate to a faster pace for the duration.
At this point, I approached the turn onto the final major hill of the route (Valley Inn Rd. ). This is a very narrow street with a pretty rough surface (lots of open potholes and patches), so it will be a challenge on race day. Fortunately, the centre of the road looked pretty good with the majority of the issues on the edges so it shouldn't be too bad on Sunday (when the cars won't be there). All in all, the hill works out to about 500 meters with an average grade of 6.6% although there is a small flat section about two-thirds of the way down where it passes a railroad landing.
At the base of the hill is an extremely narrow wooden bridge (barely enough for one car) which is likely to become a bit of a bottleneck, but hopefully the crowds will be thin enough at that juncture to avoid any issues. Once I crossed the bridge, I then turned around and headed back as I didn't want to do too much mileage two days before the race. Had I kept going, I would have climbed another significant hill (longer, but with a smaller grade than the last) - fortunately, during the race that portion will be a downhill segment ;)
Naturally, as I came back the same way as I went the above covers the details of the return trip (with the hills reversed, obviously). As I overdressed a bit for the weather, sweat was building up and the altitude readings go a little wonky. Fortunately, as the course was symmetrical the altitude data for the first half is all that is really necessary here ;)
When it comes to race day, the Valley Inn Rd. hill will certainly be a challenge. I had to slow down a bit to ascend it this morning, and my legs were a lot fresher than they will be on Sunday when I hit that point. Fortunately, once I get up that hill the rest doesn't look like it will be much of a problem and that final downhill segment will likely be pretty good. Additionally, the downhill section just before this hill looked like it should help things out - it looks like it's steep enough to give a little extra speed, but not so much as to be uncomfortable (ie require heavy braking to control descent).
Either way, when I got back to Copps Coliseum I grabbed my stuff and headed inside to pick up my kit. Things were handled quite efficiently there, and after getting the kit and looking through the sponsors' booths I got lunch and headed back to the car. I then did a quick drive through the route (a little intimidating that it took about 36 minutes to do that), and headed back home before the rush hour traffic set in.
The weather this morning was pretty much picture perfect. A nice warm 7C, clear skies and only a slight breeze coming in off of the lake. After finding a parking spot (which took a little longer than expected), I headed out along York Blvd. with the target of maintaining a comfortable 5min/km pace for the duration of the run. The first little bit was a bit choppy as there are a lot of traffic lights/street crossings in this section, but once I got out of the downtown area things picked up.
The first 900 meters or so was basically flat ground, followed by a small uphill segment (400m/+2.6%). After that was about 1.4K at a very slight downhill grade (-0.5%) and then a 900m flat segment just before the big downhill. With that said, there may be a bit of variance in these numbers as I was running on the sidewalk which didn't follow exactly the same contour as the road we will be using on Sunday. Either way, all of this was extremely comfortable, and it was a struggle to keep myself from trying to accelerate to a faster pace for the duration.
At this point, I approached the turn onto the final major hill of the route (Valley Inn Rd. ). This is a very narrow street with a pretty rough surface (lots of open potholes and patches), so it will be a challenge on race day. Fortunately, the centre of the road looked pretty good with the majority of the issues on the edges so it shouldn't be too bad on Sunday (when the cars won't be there). All in all, the hill works out to about 500 meters with an average grade of 6.6% although there is a small flat section about two-thirds of the way down where it passes a railroad landing.
At the base of the hill is an extremely narrow wooden bridge (barely enough for one car) which is likely to become a bit of a bottleneck, but hopefully the crowds will be thin enough at that juncture to avoid any issues. Once I crossed the bridge, I then turned around and headed back as I didn't want to do too much mileage two days before the race. Had I kept going, I would have climbed another significant hill (longer, but with a smaller grade than the last) - fortunately, during the race that portion will be a downhill segment ;)
Naturally, as I came back the same way as I went the above covers the details of the return trip (with the hills reversed, obviously). As I overdressed a bit for the weather, sweat was building up and the altitude readings go a little wonky. Fortunately, as the course was symmetrical the altitude data for the first half is all that is really necessary here ;)
When it comes to race day, the Valley Inn Rd. hill will certainly be a challenge. I had to slow down a bit to ascend it this morning, and my legs were a lot fresher than they will be on Sunday when I hit that point. Fortunately, once I get up that hill the rest doesn't look like it will be much of a problem and that final downhill segment will likely be pretty good. Additionally, the downhill section just before this hill looked like it should help things out - it looks like it's steep enough to give a little extra speed, but not so much as to be uncomfortable (ie require heavy braking to control descent).
Either way, when I got back to Copps Coliseum I grabbed my stuff and headed inside to pick up my kit. Things were handled quite efficiently there, and after getting the kit and looking through the sponsors' booths I got lunch and headed back to the car. I then did a quick drive through the route (a little intimidating that it took about 36 minutes to do that), and headed back home before the rush hour traffic set in.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Week 12: Review
Today signals one week to go before the Around the Bay 30K race, so just as I was ratcheting the mileage back up I'll be tapering off a bit to prepare for it. This week was scheduled to be my last 55 mile week, with a 20 mile long run to cap it off. With the race next week, however, I added a couple of more miles to my mid-week runs and then scaled the long run back to 13 miles to give the legs a rest. The end result was a little over 50 miles for the week (81km to be precise).
With that said, to help prepare for the race I tried to focus on routes with a significant number of hills in them. This morning's run, for instance, had four reasonably substantial hills (460m/+4.8%, 600m/+5.7%, 939m/+3.9% and 2216m/+0.9%) tucked into the third quarter of the route. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get an elevation plot for the ATB route so I'm not entirely sure how big/long the hills in the back half of the route are. Either way, I'm a lot more comfortable with them at this juncture so hopefully my preparation will be sufficient ;)
Cycling-wise, I did both 50km rides on Monday and Friday, but took Wednesday off as I figured it was unwise to do it as well as the 11 miles that I was scheduled to run in the afternoon. As I figured that the others at my Running Room group wouldn't be interested in the ~18km that I was planning on doing I headed out about 50 minutes early and ran 6 miles in the vicinity of the store (at a 4:40/km pace), and then another 6 with the group (at a 5:08/km pace). It was a little longer than expected but, as mentioned above, it allowed me to scale back a bit on the mileage this morning so it paid off.
At this juncture, my legs are a bit tired but nothing specifically is sore so the tapering this week should freshen them up in time for the race. The knee is mostly better, but there still is a bit of a twinge in it so I'll have to be careful with it. I'm still stretching it regularly to make sure that it continues on it's path, and hopefully the rest this week will help with this as well.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 81.0km (50.3mi)
Walking: 5.2km (3.2mi)
Cycling: 100.0km (62.1mi)
Total: 186.2km (115.7mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 723.4km (449.5mi)
Walking: 140.3km (87.2mi)
Cycling: 885.0km (549.9mi)
Total: 1748.7km (1,086.6mi)
As for the upcoming week, I'll play it by ear and see what feels right however I'm tentatively planning on just transplanting the final week of Pfitzinger's schedule in place of the scheduled sessions. The basic layout is the same, and it's just a matter of reducing the mileage on some of these days. I'll also be significantly scaling back on the cycling mileage, as it's not really necessary for race preparation so it's better to use that time for rest and recovery.
Wednesday will be the largest in flux, as I'm definitely going to be heading out to the Running Room and will likely do whatever the group is interested in. A number of other group members are also running this race, so I hope to figure out what they're doing so I can figure out the logistical details of what I'm going to do on Saturday and Sunday.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 30K Cycle (Easy)
Tue 6mi (9.7K) Recovery w/5x600m @ 5K Race Pace
Wed 7mi (11.26K) w/2mi (3.2K) @ 30K Race Pace
Thurs Rest
Fri 5mi (8K) Recovery w/6x100m
Sat 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 30K Race (Around the Bay)
As for the race itself, the plan right now is to target a steady 4:45/km pace, or roughly a 2h23m finish. With the hills in the latter stages of the race, I may have to pull back a bit on that target a bit, but like any race I'll have to see how it feels once I get out there. I do have to figure out my fuelling and hydration strategies, but I've still got some time to think about that.
With that said, to help prepare for the race I tried to focus on routes with a significant number of hills in them. This morning's run, for instance, had four reasonably substantial hills (460m/+4.8%, 600m/+5.7%, 939m/+3.9% and 2216m/+0.9%) tucked into the third quarter of the route. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get an elevation plot for the ATB route so I'm not entirely sure how big/long the hills in the back half of the route are. Either way, I'm a lot more comfortable with them at this juncture so hopefully my preparation will be sufficient ;)
Cycling-wise, I did both 50km rides on Monday and Friday, but took Wednesday off as I figured it was unwise to do it as well as the 11 miles that I was scheduled to run in the afternoon. As I figured that the others at my Running Room group wouldn't be interested in the ~18km that I was planning on doing I headed out about 50 minutes early and ran 6 miles in the vicinity of the store (at a 4:40/km pace), and then another 6 with the group (at a 5:08/km pace). It was a little longer than expected but, as mentioned above, it allowed me to scale back a bit on the mileage this morning so it paid off.
At this juncture, my legs are a bit tired but nothing specifically is sore so the tapering this week should freshen them up in time for the race. The knee is mostly better, but there still is a bit of a twinge in it so I'll have to be careful with it. I'm still stretching it regularly to make sure that it continues on it's path, and hopefully the rest this week will help with this as well.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 81.0km (50.3mi)
Walking: 5.2km (3.2mi)
Cycling: 100.0km (62.1mi)
Total: 186.2km (115.7mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 723.4km (449.5mi)
Walking: 140.3km (87.2mi)
Cycling: 885.0km (549.9mi)
Total: 1748.7km (1,086.6mi)
As for the upcoming week, I'll play it by ear and see what feels right however I'm tentatively planning on just transplanting the final week of Pfitzinger's schedule in place of the scheduled sessions. The basic layout is the same, and it's just a matter of reducing the mileage on some of these days. I'll also be significantly scaling back on the cycling mileage, as it's not really necessary for race preparation so it's better to use that time for rest and recovery.
Wednesday will be the largest in flux, as I'm definitely going to be heading out to the Running Room and will likely do whatever the group is interested in. A number of other group members are also running this race, so I hope to figure out what they're doing so I can figure out the logistical details of what I'm going to do on Saturday and Sunday.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 30K Cycle (Easy)
Tue 6mi (9.7K) Recovery w/5x600m @ 5K Race Pace
Wed 7mi (11.26K) w/2mi (3.2K) @ 30K Race Pace
Thurs Rest
Fri 5mi (8K) Recovery w/6x100m
Sat 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 30K Race (Around the Bay)
As for the race itself, the plan right now is to target a steady 4:45/km pace, or roughly a 2h23m finish. With the hills in the latter stages of the race, I may have to pull back a bit on that target a bit, but like any race I'll have to see how it feels once I get out there. I do have to figure out my fuelling and hydration strategies, but I've still got some time to think about that.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
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:
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:
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Back to Running...
Yesterday's walk went smoothly, so I started back on my running routine this morning in order to get myself back up to speed. To play it safe, I started out at a slow (~5:45/km) pace and gradually ramped it up a bit to test the waters. After about 3km without any issues, I stepped it back up to a ~5:00/km pace to see how my legs handled it. My heart rate was higher than usual (understandable given a week off), but other than that everything felt fine.
At the 4.5km mark, I stopped for about five minutes and did a few stretches against a lamp post to take full advantage of the warmed up tissues. Once complete, I started running again and continued to pick up the pace through 4:45/km and finally up to 4:30/km for the home stretch. Once I hit the 4 mile point, I switched over to a moderate walk (~8min/km, ~130bpm) and did another mile to carefully manage my cooldown. Once I got home, I did another full suite of stretches (~15 min) to get everything into shape and headed inside.
Note: That blip in the heart rate near the 1km mark is due to poor contact with the HRM strap. I'm used to running at higher intensities, and at this level I don't sweat quite as much as I normally do. Will have to be more careful when wetting the contacts next time out ;)
Either way, I'm pleased by the progress so far and this is certainly a good sign that I'll be able to get back on track. It's obvious that I've lost some degree of fitness with the downtime, however that will return with sustained training. I will have to be careful not to get overconfident and mess things up again, however I also don't want to be overly conservative either. Tomorrow night I'll head out with the Running Room group, as that should help to keep my pace under control and I might be able to get some pointers from the other runners.
As for Achilles this Sunday, I definitely won't be able to do it all out but I might consider heading out anyway and just treating it as a fun run. I'll certainly have to see how the rest of the week goes, but it would be nice to get into the racing mood again even if it isn't possible to push as hard as I'd like ;)
As noted in my last review, I'm hoping to be able to find some time to fit in some swimming this week as that would likely be the best thing for this situation. Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've spent any significant time doing lengths so there will certainly be a bit of a re-learning curve involved ;)
At the 4.5km mark, I stopped for about five minutes and did a few stretches against a lamp post to take full advantage of the warmed up tissues. Once complete, I started running again and continued to pick up the pace through 4:45/km and finally up to 4:30/km for the home stretch. Once I hit the 4 mile point, I switched over to a moderate walk (~8min/km, ~130bpm) and did another mile to carefully manage my cooldown. Once I got home, I did another full suite of stretches (~15 min) to get everything into shape and headed inside.
Note: That blip in the heart rate near the 1km mark is due to poor contact with the HRM strap. I'm used to running at higher intensities, and at this level I don't sweat quite as much as I normally do. Will have to be more careful when wetting the contacts next time out ;)Either way, I'm pleased by the progress so far and this is certainly a good sign that I'll be able to get back on track. It's obvious that I've lost some degree of fitness with the downtime, however that will return with sustained training. I will have to be careful not to get overconfident and mess things up again, however I also don't want to be overly conservative either. Tomorrow night I'll head out with the Running Room group, as that should help to keep my pace under control and I might be able to get some pointers from the other runners.
As for Achilles this Sunday, I definitely won't be able to do it all out but I might consider heading out anyway and just treating it as a fun run. I'll certainly have to see how the rest of the week goes, but it would be nice to get into the racing mood again even if it isn't possible to push as hard as I'd like ;)
As noted in my last review, I'm hoping to be able to find some time to fit in some swimming this week as that would likely be the best thing for this situation. Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've spent any significant time doing lengths so there will certainly be a bit of a re-learning curve involved ;)
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Week 8: Review
After a short reprieve last week, it was back to the usual winter weather for the majority of this week. Tuesday's run was pretty good, but when Wednesday rolled around the snow came back and made things difficult again. Unfortunately, this meant that my two longest runs (11 and 18 miles) were performed under relatively hostile conditions.
Due to this, I was pretty tired after my Thursday run so I skipped my Friday bike session to help accelerate my recovery for the Saturday and Sunday runs. Regardless, I managed to get all 50 of the scheduled running miles in this week. While it's going to take some time to get my body used to this kind of mileage, I've gone through this before so it's just a matter of time and training ;)
To illustrate the effect that the weather does have on the runs, however, I've posted telemetry from both my Tuesday run (Sunny, clear roads and -2C) and my run earlier today (Heavy snow, 4-6" of groundcover, -6C). In the former, I managed to comfortably complete 10 miles (16.1km) in a little under 82 minutes. The LT portion (5mi/8km) of this run was done at a 4:36/km pace, and the remainder at around 5:00/km (which took a lot of effort not to accelerate beyond).
The latter, however, was a complete contrast to that. I was plowing through 4-6" of snow-cover and it was difficult to maintain a 5:30/km pace. Significant portions were blocked up by drifts and castoff from the roads, which forced me to slow down even more - resulting in an average pace of only 5:48/km. Naturally, the wind and blowing snow didn't help either and made it quite a fight to get to the end.
It didn't appear that the city's sidewalk plows came out at all as I didn't find a single block of dry concrete anywhere along my route despite the fact that the roads were perfectly clear. Unfortunately, with these longer range runs I have to stick to major roads and with the snow drastically reducing visibility I was renascent to spend much time on the asphalt. Either way, I managed to get the full 18 miles in one way or the other ;)
I also took the opportunity to try out a running gel during this session as I figured it may be necessary for this distance. It was certainly a much better experience than the Shot Blox that I tried last year, although it will take some time to get used to their texture. The one downside, however, is that I couldn't get the package open while running and ended up having to stop and take off my gloves to rip off the cap (visible on the plots just after 13km). As such, I'm going to have to work out a better way to handle them in the future.
As for whether or not it was necessary, I'm still not 100% sure. I haven't really run into any problems with energy depletion on my past runs, although this is my first venture into the range where that begins to become a problem. I normally bring about 8oz. of Gatorade (~50 Calories) on my runs, but left it at home this time around in case there were any potential interactions between the two. I burned about 1900 Calories over the duration of the run (largely thanks to the additional effort the snow mixed in), and only took in a single 100 Calorie gel so that would indicate that I should be able to handle an 1800 Cal. deficit.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 81.6km (50.7mi)
Walking: 1.7km (1.1mi)
Cycling: 50km (31.1mi)
Total: 133.3km (82.9mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 538.4km (334.5mi)
Walking: 122.6km (76.2mi)
Cycling: 615.0km (382.1mi)
Total: 1276.0km (792.9mi)
Next week is another step up, totaling up to 54 miles (87km) with my first stab at a 20 miler (32.2km) in a week. The rest of the week is going to be difficult as well, with a 12 miler on Wednesday and another 10 miles (with 6 at LT) on Friday. My legs are pretty tired right now, so this is going to be a pretty challenging week once again.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 7mi (11.3K) Recovery w/6x100m
Wed 30K Cycle + 12mi (19.3K)
Thurs 50K Cycle
Fri 10mi (16.1K) w/6mi (9.7K) @ 15K Pace
Sat 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 20mi (29.0K) LSD
Due to this, I was pretty tired after my Thursday run so I skipped my Friday bike session to help accelerate my recovery for the Saturday and Sunday runs. Regardless, I managed to get all 50 of the scheduled running miles in this week. While it's going to take some time to get my body used to this kind of mileage, I've gone through this before so it's just a matter of time and training ;)
To illustrate the effect that the weather does have on the runs, however, I've posted telemetry from both my Tuesday run (Sunny, clear roads and -2C) and my run earlier today (Heavy snow, 4-6" of groundcover, -6C). In the former, I managed to comfortably complete 10 miles (16.1km) in a little under 82 minutes. The LT portion (5mi/8km) of this run was done at a 4:36/km pace, and the remainder at around 5:00/km (which took a lot of effort not to accelerate beyond).
The latter, however, was a complete contrast to that. I was plowing through 4-6" of snow-cover and it was difficult to maintain a 5:30/km pace. Significant portions were blocked up by drifts and castoff from the roads, which forced me to slow down even more - resulting in an average pace of only 5:48/km. Naturally, the wind and blowing snow didn't help either and made it quite a fight to get to the end.
It didn't appear that the city's sidewalk plows came out at all as I didn't find a single block of dry concrete anywhere along my route despite the fact that the roads were perfectly clear. Unfortunately, with these longer range runs I have to stick to major roads and with the snow drastically reducing visibility I was renascent to spend much time on the asphalt. Either way, I managed to get the full 18 miles in one way or the other ;)
I also took the opportunity to try out a running gel during this session as I figured it may be necessary for this distance. It was certainly a much better experience than the Shot Blox that I tried last year, although it will take some time to get used to their texture. The one downside, however, is that I couldn't get the package open while running and ended up having to stop and take off my gloves to rip off the cap (visible on the plots just after 13km). As such, I'm going to have to work out a better way to handle them in the future.As for whether or not it was necessary, I'm still not 100% sure. I haven't really run into any problems with energy depletion on my past runs, although this is my first venture into the range where that begins to become a problem. I normally bring about 8oz. of Gatorade (~50 Calories) on my runs, but left it at home this time around in case there were any potential interactions between the two. I burned about 1900 Calories over the duration of the run (largely thanks to the additional effort the snow mixed in), and only took in a single 100 Calorie gel so that would indicate that I should be able to handle an 1800 Cal. deficit.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 81.6km (50.7mi)
Walking: 1.7km (1.1mi)
Cycling: 50km (31.1mi)
Total: 133.3km (82.9mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 538.4km (334.5mi)
Walking: 122.6km (76.2mi)
Cycling: 615.0km (382.1mi)
Total: 1276.0km (792.9mi)
Next week is another step up, totaling up to 54 miles (87km) with my first stab at a 20 miler (32.2km) in a week. The rest of the week is going to be difficult as well, with a 12 miler on Wednesday and another 10 miles (with 6 at LT) on Friday. My legs are pretty tired right now, so this is going to be a pretty challenging week once again.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 7mi (11.3K) Recovery w/6x100m
Wed 30K Cycle + 12mi (19.3K)
Thurs 50K Cycle
Fri 10mi (16.1K) w/6mi (9.7K) @ 15K Pace
Sat 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 20mi (29.0K) LSD
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