Weather last week was pretty rainy, so I ended up pushing most of my rides back to the end of the week. For the first half of the week, things were going great - I was picking up speed in the pool and got a good strong 30K speedwork session in on the bike. I also added an easy walk back into the routine to work my way back towards running.
Unfortunately, after my swim on Thursday I went to pick up some bottles for my water cooler and ended up tweaking my lower back. That, in turn took me out of commission for the remainder of the week and took a big chunk out of my mileage. In addition to the weekday rides that I had to miss, it also meant bowing out of the group ride on Saturday. Fortunately, it got better relatively quickly but I played it safe to avoid re-injuring it.
As I've noted here, I have had these sorts of problems on and off for a while now mostly thanks to a lack of strength in that area. Running and Cycling do wonders for the legs, and Swimming helps with the arms and upper back, but none of them do much at all for the muscles in between. Mix in the muscle imbalance in my legs, and starting back into an aggressive program and I'm likely more prone to this than under normal circumstances.
The only real solution is to add some strength training into the mix, but I've never been fond of that sort of workout so it's difficult to stick with it. I really need to find some type of exercise that I actually enjoy that helps with this, but so far I'm at a loss on that front. Aside from a general dislike of indoor exercise, I've always been more inclined to long continuous efforts rather than structured workouts. Unfortunately, strength training combines those two things pretty heavily so it makes things difficult for me :P
Week 32 Totals:
Running: 0.0km 0.0mi)
Walking: 4.1km (2.4mi)
Cycling: 32.7km (20.3mi)
Swimming: 7.3km (4.5mi)
Total: 44.1km (27.4mi)
Either way, this week I've been working my way back into the normal routine as the back is feeling a lot better. I avoided swimming for the week as it uses those muscles the most and didn't want to push my luck. Instead, I just focused on the bike and forced myself into doing a couple of strength training workouts. I also got back into walking by doing a 5K session on Thursday, and will likely continue this in the coming week.
Thankfully, by the end of the week I was feeling about 99% better so I managed to meet up with the group for a 90K ride up to Lake Simcoe and back. We met up early in the morning and headed over to Warden and then north until we hit water. This was a new route, and it turned out to be pretty much perfect - great scenery, very little traffic and the roads were in great condition. It is rides like this that remind me why I love riding so much, and getting back into this sort of trip felt great after missing so much of the summer so far!
Along the way, there were tonnes of other cyclists out including a number of large groups. On the way up to the lake, there was a group of four triathletes that were going about the same speed. We kept leapfrogging each other for a while (they were relatively slow climbers), and talked a few times when we got stopped by traffic lights along the way. As things flattened out a bit, we started riding with them to get a good draft train going. Unfortunately, the slower members of the group got dropped once we started flying so we had to back off and let them catch up.
Eventually, we ran into some more hills and ended up catching back up with them a little further up the road. We again got into a good strong train, but after a while I looked back and realized that I'd lost everyone so I broke off again and pulled over for a few minutes to let them catch up. At this point the remainder of the route was pretty much all downhill, so we took it easy until we got to the lake and took a short break by the waterfront.
The only downside to this route was the fact that there were absolutely no convenience stores along the route. For rides longer than about 80K, I usually stop somewhere near the half way point to grab some food to fuel the ride, so I don't generally bother bringing many calories. Fortunately, there was some sort of a baseball tournament just south of us so I bought a bottle of Gatorade to refuel a bit.
As it was a net downhill to the lake and the wind was coming from the south-west, the return trip was a good deal harder than the way up. About 8K from the lake I was loosing contact with the group again so I started soft-pedaling to let them catch up. One of the stronger riders caught up and noted that the others were going to meet up with us at the end, as they were struggling and we'd just end up pushing them harder than necessary if we held back. As such, we got into aero and went full bore into the wind.
It didn't take too long before I was on my own again, but given that we had agreed to go at our own pace I just stuck with it. A few more kilometers down the road a large peloton came by, so I accelerated and joined up with them. They were going at a pretty good clip and while I had to work harder than before to keep up, it was worth it to cover the ground faster. On the flats and descents it was relatively easy, but every time we hit a significant incline it took everything I had to stick with them. At this point the lack of fuel was starting to hit me as well, but I fought to stick with them until they turned off at Vivian Rd. and I was back on my own.
At this point I was slowing down a bit, as I still had a good amount of climbing to do and my energy levels were pretty drained at this point. I fought on until I got back to the final stretch, then took a short break to switch around my water bottles (at this point it had been about 30K since I put my feet down). As I was getting ready to start up again, the rider that I dropped earlier caught up and we rode the short trip back to the cars.
Either way, it ended up being a great ride all around. Good company for the first half of the ride, and then a good hard fight for the second half to build up strength/stamina. At some point I probably should look into joining a more formal group for some of my rides, as that stretch was probably the best workout I've gotten on a bike in a long time. Either way, aside from the nutrition snafu things went swimmingly so I'm looking forward to some longer/harder rides in the coming weeks!
Week 33 Totals:
Running: 0.0km 0.0mi)
Walking: 5.0km (3.1mi)
Cycling: 233.9km (145.3mi)
Swimming: 0.0km (0.0mi)
Total: 238.9km (148.4mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 758.6km (471.35mi)
Walking: 37.5km (23.3mi)
Cycling: 2744.9km (1705.6mi)
Swimming: 169.1km (105.1mi)
Total: 3710.1km (2305.3mi)
Showing posts with label walking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label walking. Show all posts
Sunday, August 21, 2011
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
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 8, 2009
Week 6: Review
The last three days have been pretty much textbook perfect running weather, and have done wonders in decimating the massive snow piles that have accumulated over the last month or so. There was a bit of cold and snow in the early week, but once we got through that it got up to a high of 8C on Saturday which is quite the reprieve from what we've been dealing with lately ;)
Unfortunately, after the 15 miler last Sunday I began to have a bit of discomfort in my upper right leg. It was likely caused by the fact that I've been spending a lot of time lately running on the roads rather than the sidewalks. As I tend to religiously stick to the left side of the road for safety purposes (going against vehicular traffic), the camber of the road creates an imbalance in my stride (as my right foot is repeatedly hitting ground higher than my left, it hits the ground with much greater force than usual). While this isn't a big deal in and of itself, when the body is continually pounded like this for an extended period it can cause problems. This was likely exacerbated by running long stretches on the larger roads, as the camber at the edge of a four lane road is generally much more aggressive than that of a two-lane residential street.
In the interests of letting it heal, I skipped the cycling session on Monday. By Tuesday it was improved, but there was still a bit of tightness there. It wasn't really bad enough to throw off my running schedule, so I went out for the Tuesday run anyway. Fortunately, it didn't really cause much issue with my running and actually improved a bit over the duration of the session. It was still a bit uncomfortable to walk on it, however, so I skipped my walk that afternoon to let it get better.
On Wednesday, I elected to give the scheduled 30K ride a shot to see how it would work. As cycling doesn't have the impact of running or walking, this worked quite well and any discomfort completely disappeared while I was riding. It even stayed away for a few hours after the ride, although it did start to come back afterwards. I did my 5mi recovery run at the Running Room as usual, and like the day before it wasn't really an issue.
As the previous runs went well, I did my 10 miler on Thursday but skipped the scheduled walk in case that would help. On Friday, I did my ride as usual (although I scaled it back to 40km due to scheduling issues) with the same results as I had on Wednesday. At this point, it was significantly improved but again wasn't completely gone so I elected to skip the 5 miler on Saturday morning. This does mean that I lost a bit of running mileage, but I figured with the long run scheduled the next day it was worth it to ensure that I'd be able to make the most of it. It was certainly a shame as the weather yesterday was incredible for this time of year, but it's better to be safe than sorry on this front.
Which brings us to this morning, where I set out for my first run with a chunk at marathon pace. The schedule called for 16 miles with 10 of them done at marathon pace. I'm still not 100% sure what that should be, as my fitness has improved significantly since September so my previous race times don't really mean a lot at this point. As such, I looked over my data for the last little while and settled on giving a 4:45/km pace a shot (which works out to a little over 3h20m for a marathon distance).
Given the issue with the leg, I carefully plotted a course that would allow me to stick with the sidewalks for the majority of the run. Thankfully, the heat over the last few days had melted a significant amount of the snow so the problems that I ran into last week wouldn't really be an issue this time around. What I didn't properly anticipate, however, is that as the temperatures had dropped below freezing overnight there were a good number of icy patches that I had to deal with. As the snow banks didn't completely melt, in many places they formed a dam on either side of the sidewalk trapping the water and allowing it to refreeze.
Fortunately, the clear portions were pretty much bone dry so these ice patches were easy to see, however I had to slow down significantly when passing over them. In some areas (especially on hills, where the water ran down the sidewalk) these patches were quite large, so they had a significant negative effect on my ability to maintain my desired pace. For a normal long run this wouldn't be a big issue, but when trying to maintain race pace it made it difficult to keep my heart rate up where it needed to be.
Despite these issues, however, the run went quite well. I averaged an overall pace of 5:05/km, with the 10mi segment at 4:52/km. Running the raw numbers through a spreadsheet however, my median pace worked out to a perfect 4:45/km so when the obstructions are factored out I stayed pretty close to where I needed to be. Unfortunately, my heart rate was much lower than it should have been during this segment and it's hard to tell if that was the fault of (a) the periodic slowdowns or (b) if the pace was a little slower than it should have been. Either way, I'll have to do some more experimenting with different speeds to figure out where I need to be.
As I missed the 5 mile recovery run on Saturday, my mileage is a little short this week (40mi vs. 45mi). Naturally, the two walks and cycling session that I skipped also mean that those numbers will be a little lower than usual. Either way, the leg is feeling a lot better today and as next week is a recovery week hopefully it will get back to 100% soon.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 64.8km (40.3mi)
Walking: 2.3km (1.4mi)
Cycling: 70km (43.5mi)
Total: 137.1km (85.2mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 395.5km (245.8mi)
Walking: 119.7km (74.4mi)
Cycling: 485.0km (301.4mi)
Total: 1000.2km (621.5mi)
As noted above, the upcoming week is a recovery week so mileage will drop down a bit (to 37mi) before jumping up to 50 miles the week afterwards. Other than the bump in the road this week, the training program has been going quite well so far and as long as I'm a little more careful things will hopefully continue along that path ;)
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8mi (12.9K) w/10x100m
Wed 30K Cycle + 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 8mi (12.9K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 12mi (19.3K) LSD
In other news, I'm now officially registered for the Mississauga marathon so I'm committed to seeing this program to the end one way or the other. There is still a lot of training to be done which is only going to get harder and harder, so I figure that locking myself in will help to keep me motivated ;)
Unfortunately, after the 15 miler last Sunday I began to have a bit of discomfort in my upper right leg. It was likely caused by the fact that I've been spending a lot of time lately running on the roads rather than the sidewalks. As I tend to religiously stick to the left side of the road for safety purposes (going against vehicular traffic), the camber of the road creates an imbalance in my stride (as my right foot is repeatedly hitting ground higher than my left, it hits the ground with much greater force than usual). While this isn't a big deal in and of itself, when the body is continually pounded like this for an extended period it can cause problems. This was likely exacerbated by running long stretches on the larger roads, as the camber at the edge of a four lane road is generally much more aggressive than that of a two-lane residential street.
In the interests of letting it heal, I skipped the cycling session on Monday. By Tuesday it was improved, but there was still a bit of tightness there. It wasn't really bad enough to throw off my running schedule, so I went out for the Tuesday run anyway. Fortunately, it didn't really cause much issue with my running and actually improved a bit over the duration of the session. It was still a bit uncomfortable to walk on it, however, so I skipped my walk that afternoon to let it get better.
On Wednesday, I elected to give the scheduled 30K ride a shot to see how it would work. As cycling doesn't have the impact of running or walking, this worked quite well and any discomfort completely disappeared while I was riding. It even stayed away for a few hours after the ride, although it did start to come back afterwards. I did my 5mi recovery run at the Running Room as usual, and like the day before it wasn't really an issue.
As the previous runs went well, I did my 10 miler on Thursday but skipped the scheduled walk in case that would help. On Friday, I did my ride as usual (although I scaled it back to 40km due to scheduling issues) with the same results as I had on Wednesday. At this point, it was significantly improved but again wasn't completely gone so I elected to skip the 5 miler on Saturday morning. This does mean that I lost a bit of running mileage, but I figured with the long run scheduled the next day it was worth it to ensure that I'd be able to make the most of it. It was certainly a shame as the weather yesterday was incredible for this time of year, but it's better to be safe than sorry on this front.
Which brings us to this morning, where I set out for my first run with a chunk at marathon pace. The schedule called for 16 miles with 10 of them done at marathon pace. I'm still not 100% sure what that should be, as my fitness has improved significantly since September so my previous race times don't really mean a lot at this point. As such, I looked over my data for the last little while and settled on giving a 4:45/km pace a shot (which works out to a little over 3h20m for a marathon distance).
Given the issue with the leg, I carefully plotted a course that would allow me to stick with the sidewalks for the majority of the run. Thankfully, the heat over the last few days had melted a significant amount of the snow so the problems that I ran into last week wouldn't really be an issue this time around. What I didn't properly anticipate, however, is that as the temperatures had dropped below freezing overnight there were a good number of icy patches that I had to deal with. As the snow banks didn't completely melt, in many places they formed a dam on either side of the sidewalk trapping the water and allowing it to refreeze.
Fortunately, the clear portions were pretty much bone dry so these ice patches were easy to see, however I had to slow down significantly when passing over them. In some areas (especially on hills, where the water ran down the sidewalk) these patches were quite large, so they had a significant negative effect on my ability to maintain my desired pace. For a normal long run this wouldn't be a big issue, but when trying to maintain race pace it made it difficult to keep my heart rate up where it needed to be.
Despite these issues, however, the run went quite well. I averaged an overall pace of 5:05/km, with the 10mi segment at 4:52/km. Running the raw numbers through a spreadsheet however, my median pace worked out to a perfect 4:45/km so when the obstructions are factored out I stayed pretty close to where I needed to be. Unfortunately, my heart rate was much lower than it should have been during this segment and it's hard to tell if that was the fault of (a) the periodic slowdowns or (b) if the pace was a little slower than it should have been. Either way, I'll have to do some more experimenting with different speeds to figure out where I need to be.
As I missed the 5 mile recovery run on Saturday, my mileage is a little short this week (40mi vs. 45mi). Naturally, the two walks and cycling session that I skipped also mean that those numbers will be a little lower than usual. Either way, the leg is feeling a lot better today and as next week is a recovery week hopefully it will get back to 100% soon.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 64.8km (40.3mi)
Walking: 2.3km (1.4mi)
Cycling: 70km (43.5mi)
Total: 137.1km (85.2mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 395.5km (245.8mi)
Walking: 119.7km (74.4mi)
Cycling: 485.0km (301.4mi)
Total: 1000.2km (621.5mi)
As noted above, the upcoming week is a recovery week so mileage will drop down a bit (to 37mi) before jumping up to 50 miles the week afterwards. Other than the bump in the road this week, the training program has been going quite well so far and as long as I'm a little more careful things will hopefully continue along that path ;)
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8mi (12.9K) w/10x100m
Wed 30K Cycle + 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 8mi (12.9K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 12mi (19.3K) LSD
In other news, I'm now officially registered for the Mississauga marathon so I'm committed to seeing this program to the end one way or the other. There is still a lot of training to be done which is only going to get harder and harder, so I figure that locking myself in will help to keep me motivated ;)
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Week 5: Review
The weather this week was pretty brutal, with heavy snowstorms on Wednesday and Thursday that made running quite difficult. On Wednesday, we ended up cutting the 5mi recovery run a bit short (5.7km/3.5mi) as the 6' of slush we were pushing through made it somewhat pointless to keep going. Accumulation was fortunately not as bad on Thursday, however it was snowing heavily while I was doing my 10 miler which made the session somewhat unpleasant.
Fortunately, this weekend has been much better. Yesterday was a little cold, but other than that the roads were mostly clear and the snow didn't come until the late afternoon so it was a non-factor. As such, I increased my distance from the planned 4 miler to a 10km in order to make up for the lost mileage on Wednesday. The mixture of the nicer weather combined with the clear roads made this a much more pleasant run than I've had for a while.
Further, the weather today was as close to perfect as it gets around here. A nice warm 6C, little to no wind and sunny skies let me keep most of my winter gear at home and run in much more comfortable clothing than normal for this time of year. After running for a couple of months now wrapped up in winter clothing, it was certainly refreshing to be free of the toque, mittens and neck warmer ;)
Unfortunately, while the roads were in near perfect conditions many of the sidewalks weren't. While this isn't an issue on my shorter runs, as I can generally just switch to the road when necessary, with the longer runs I need to use some 80km/h arterial roadways that make it dangerous to leave the sidewalks. As such, portions of this run were much harder than usual (ie the choppy portions of the cadence/pace plots below), and in some parts I had no choice but to go out on the road if I wanted to keep running. Either way, once I got around the obstacles it worked out to be quite a nice day for a run, and plodding through the snow makes for good strength training ;)
With respect to my other sports, I managed to get most of my walking in this week, as well as all but one cycling session. Hopefully things will slow down a bit next week, and I'll be able to pick up the slack on this part of my training ;)
One other upside this week is that my copy of Pfitzinger/Douglas' Advanced Marathoning 2nd edition finally showed up. For the last few weeks I've been using a copy of the first edition borrowed from the library, so there will be some minor changes in my schedule as the new book makes a few tweaks in the plan. The books are mostly the same, with a few minor differences (eg expanded supplementary training section, small tweaks to the schedules and the addition of an 85 mile/week program) but I figured with the update coming out it made more sense to get a copy of the new one.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 68.8km (43mi)
Walking: 32km (20mi)
Cycling: 80km (50mi)
Total: 181.8km (113mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 330.7km (205.5mi)
Walking: 117.4km (72.9mi)
Cycling: 415.0km (257.9mi)
Total: 863.1km (536.3mi)
For the upcoming week, I'll be adding my first long run with a section at race pace. That is likely going to be a good challenge to see how well I've progressed over the last few weeks, although there will likely be some learning involved. The one thing I will have to do, however, is find a better route for that run as plowing through snow will be a much larger problem when higher speeds are necessary.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 9mi (14.5K) w/5mi (8km) at LT
Wed 30K Cycle + 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 16mi (25.8K) LSD w/10mi (16.1km) at Marathon Pace
As the prices for the races that I'm looking at go up this month, I'm in the process of registering for them now. I registered for Around the Bay a few weeks back, and added the Achilles 5K last night. I'll probably be officially registering for the Mississauga Marathon in the next couple days as well, as it's price goes up and having that one locked in will likely help to motivate my training that much more. I'm still flirting with a few other options, as well as trying to work out what I want to do after this training cycle.
Fortunately, this weekend has been much better. Yesterday was a little cold, but other than that the roads were mostly clear and the snow didn't come until the late afternoon so it was a non-factor. As such, I increased my distance from the planned 4 miler to a 10km in order to make up for the lost mileage on Wednesday. The mixture of the nicer weather combined with the clear roads made this a much more pleasant run than I've had for a while.
Further, the weather today was as close to perfect as it gets around here. A nice warm 6C, little to no wind and sunny skies let me keep most of my winter gear at home and run in much more comfortable clothing than normal for this time of year. After running for a couple of months now wrapped up in winter clothing, it was certainly refreshing to be free of the toque, mittens and neck warmer ;)
Unfortunately, while the roads were in near perfect conditions many of the sidewalks weren't. While this isn't an issue on my shorter runs, as I can generally just switch to the road when necessary, with the longer runs I need to use some 80km/h arterial roadways that make it dangerous to leave the sidewalks. As such, portions of this run were much harder than usual (ie the choppy portions of the cadence/pace plots below), and in some parts I had no choice but to go out on the road if I wanted to keep running. Either way, once I got around the obstacles it worked out to be quite a nice day for a run, and plodding through the snow makes for good strength training ;)
With respect to my other sports, I managed to get most of my walking in this week, as well as all but one cycling session. Hopefully things will slow down a bit next week, and I'll be able to pick up the slack on this part of my training ;)One other upside this week is that my copy of Pfitzinger/Douglas' Advanced Marathoning 2nd edition finally showed up. For the last few weeks I've been using a copy of the first edition borrowed from the library, so there will be some minor changes in my schedule as the new book makes a few tweaks in the plan. The books are mostly the same, with a few minor differences (eg expanded supplementary training section, small tweaks to the schedules and the addition of an 85 mile/week program) but I figured with the update coming out it made more sense to get a copy of the new one.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 68.8km (43mi)
Walking: 32km (20mi)
Cycling: 80km (50mi)
Total: 181.8km (113mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 330.7km (205.5mi)
Walking: 117.4km (72.9mi)
Cycling: 415.0km (257.9mi)
Total: 863.1km (536.3mi)
For the upcoming week, I'll be adding my first long run with a section at race pace. That is likely going to be a good challenge to see how well I've progressed over the last few weeks, although there will likely be some learning involved. The one thing I will have to do, however, is find a better route for that run as plowing through snow will be a much larger problem when higher speeds are necessary.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 9mi (14.5K) w/5mi (8km) at LT
Wed 30K Cycle + 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 5mi (8K) Recovery
Sun 16mi (25.8K) LSD w/10mi (16.1km) at Marathon Pace
As the prices for the races that I'm looking at go up this month, I'm in the process of registering for them now. I registered for Around the Bay a few weeks back, and added the Achilles 5K last night. I'll probably be officially registering for the Mississauga Marathon in the next couple days as well, as it's price goes up and having that one locked in will likely help to motivate my training that much more. I'm still flirting with a few other options, as well as trying to work out what I want to do after this training cycle.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Week 4: Review
It was another pretty hostile week weather-wise, although not nearly as bad as last week. While there was some cold to deal with, there wasn't too much snow so it was just a matter of wearing the appropriate clothes and fighting through it. Further, as the temperature rose above freezing this week it helped to melt away a lot of the snow we've accumulated over the last few weeks. As such, I was able to execute all of my running sessions this week at the correct pace. This was especially important on Tuesday, as four of the days eight miles were at a tempo pace that would have been difficult to maintain on snow-covered paths.
In addition, today's 14 miler went quite well (completed in 1:51:38) as the weather cooperated for a change. Temperatures were relatively comfortable in the -11C range, there was little to no wind and the roads and sidewalks were mostly clear. To add the extra mile, I worked in another decent sized hill (about 600m/5% up and ~300m/-9% down) along with a few other minor modifications to fill in the difference. As this was new ground, I was very careful to control my speed; managing a 4:57/km pace and an average heart rate of 151bpm (65% HRR). Mixed with the favourable weather, this translated into a relatively comfortable run.
As for cycling and walking, scheduling was again a little complicated this week so I failed in get all of the scheduled sessions in. With that said, I did push a little harder on my cycling sessions this week to try and make up for the lost mileage. I will naturally have to focus on getting them all in this week, but we'll have to see how reality lines up on that front ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 64.3km (40mi)
Walking: 15.4km (10mi)
Cycling: 60km (37mi)
Total: 140km (87mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 261.9km (162.8mi)
Walking: 85.4km (53.5mi)
Cycling: 335.0km (207.9mi)
Total: 682.6km (424.2mi)
This upcoming week is a modest increase, with an extra mile on Wednesday and again on Sunday. While I was a bit concerned about how well I'd deal with the mileage increase, things went quite well this week so the 15 miler next week shouldn't be too challenging. The one thing I will have to start worrying about is the nutrition aspect, as my mileage is beginning to get to the point where it will be necessary to take in fuel during the race.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8mi (12.9K) w/10x100m
Wed 30K Cycle + 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 15mi (24.2K) LSD
In addition, today's 14 miler went quite well (completed in 1:51:38) as the weather cooperated for a change. Temperatures were relatively comfortable in the -11C range, there was little to no wind and the roads and sidewalks were mostly clear. To add the extra mile, I worked in another decent sized hill (about 600m/5% up and ~300m/-9% down) along with a few other minor modifications to fill in the difference. As this was new ground, I was very careful to control my speed; managing a 4:57/km pace and an average heart rate of 151bpm (65% HRR). Mixed with the favourable weather, this translated into a relatively comfortable run.
As for cycling and walking, scheduling was again a little complicated this week so I failed in get all of the scheduled sessions in. With that said, I did push a little harder on my cycling sessions this week to try and make up for the lost mileage. I will naturally have to focus on getting them all in this week, but we'll have to see how reality lines up on that front ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 64.3km (40mi)
Walking: 15.4km (10mi)
Cycling: 60km (37mi)
Total: 140km (87mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 261.9km (162.8mi)
Walking: 85.4km (53.5mi)
Cycling: 335.0km (207.9mi)
Total: 682.6km (424.2mi)
This upcoming week is a modest increase, with an extra mile on Wednesday and again on Sunday. While I was a bit concerned about how well I'd deal with the mileage increase, things went quite well this week so the 15 miler next week shouldn't be too challenging. The one thing I will have to start worrying about is the nutrition aspect, as my mileage is beginning to get to the point where it will be necessary to take in fuel during the race.
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8mi (12.9K) w/10x100m
Wed 30K Cycle + 5mi (8K) Recovery
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 15mi (24.2K) LSD
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Week 3: Review
The weather this week was pretty nasty, with ambient temperatures staying down in the -20C range. While there wasn't a lot of snow until last night, the road salt used around here becomes ineffective below -16C so the roads and sidewalks were in pretty bad condition. Fortunately, the wind wasn't too bad on most of the days so the windchill only got down to about -25C - cold, but not as bad as some of the days in December. With that said, I skipped a few of my scheduled walks on account of the cold as it's more difficult to stay warm at lower intensity levels.
Things did warm up significantly last night, however along with the increased temperatures came a huge load of snow. While the forecasts were only calling for about 10-15cm, we got a little over a foot of snow up here. Mix in drifting and material plowed off of the roads (and onto the sidewalks), and significant portions of my trails had much more. This naturally made my 13 mile long run quite difficult this morning, as pretty much all of my route was pretty slushy and I had to charge through 3' of snow for a 4km stretch (couldn't safely switch to the road due to the 80km/h speed limit in that section).
As such, I forgot about trying to maintain a set pace and simply ran by heart rate. Naturally, this meant that I was going slower than usual. My overall pace was a pretty sluggish 5:46/km, and I only averaged a 6:49/km pace through that 4km section. Either way, my average heart rate was about 155bpm (67.5% HRR) which put me in about the right area for this type of run. Given that I usually average about a 4:50-5:00/km pace at this intensity, however, that gives you an idea of the conditions of the roads ;)
Regardless of the weather, I managed to get in all of my runs including an extra session on Wednesday as I wanted to get in a run with the group. While I had intended to do a 4mi recovery run, the showing wasn't quite as good as usual so we joined another group doing hill repeats (7x400m@7%). Fortunately, the higher intensity didn't seem to hurt and it was likely good preparation for the Around the Bay race anyway ;)
With respect to the cycling sessions, I had to shorten a couple of them (Mon 50->30km, Wed 30->20km) due to time constraints, however it's likely a good thing as it allowed me to ease back into the mileage on that front. I'll have to focus on getting these miles in as much as possible, as with the weather getting more and more hostile the utility of this training will likely become more significant (especially if I have to miss some running sessions).
Weekly Totals:
Running: 65km (40mi)
Walking: 12km (7mi)
Cycling: 100km (62mi)
Total: 177km (110mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 197.6km (122.8mi)
Walking: 70.0km (43.5mi)
Cycling: 275.0km (170.9mi)
Total: 542.6km (337.2mi)
The weather for the upcoming week is likely to be much warmer, however we're likely going to get a good deal more snow. Fortunately, it should be spread out enough that the city can keep things reasonably clean (assuming the forecasts are correct this time). Either way, not much that can be done other than simply deal with what mother nature throws at us ;)
Aside from that, this week is also going to be breaking new ground as it calls for a 14 mile LSD run on Sunday. Up until this week the longest distance that I've run has been a half-marathon (21.1km/13.1mi), so this signals the beginning of escalating my mileage once again. I've made a good deal of progress over the last few months getting myself prepared for sustained high mileage, however it is good to be exploring new territory once again ;)
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8mi (12.9K) w/4mi (6.4K) @ 15K pace
Wed 30K Cycle + 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 14mi (22.5K) LSD
Things did warm up significantly last night, however along with the increased temperatures came a huge load of snow. While the forecasts were only calling for about 10-15cm, we got a little over a foot of snow up here. Mix in drifting and material plowed off of the roads (and onto the sidewalks), and significant portions of my trails had much more. This naturally made my 13 mile long run quite difficult this morning, as pretty much all of my route was pretty slushy and I had to charge through 3' of snow for a 4km stretch (couldn't safely switch to the road due to the 80km/h speed limit in that section).
As such, I forgot about trying to maintain a set pace and simply ran by heart rate. Naturally, this meant that I was going slower than usual. My overall pace was a pretty sluggish 5:46/km, and I only averaged a 6:49/km pace through that 4km section. Either way, my average heart rate was about 155bpm (67.5% HRR) which put me in about the right area for this type of run. Given that I usually average about a 4:50-5:00/km pace at this intensity, however, that gives you an idea of the conditions of the roads ;)
Regardless of the weather, I managed to get in all of my runs including an extra session on Wednesday as I wanted to get in a run with the group. While I had intended to do a 4mi recovery run, the showing wasn't quite as good as usual so we joined another group doing hill repeats (7x400m@7%). Fortunately, the higher intensity didn't seem to hurt and it was likely good preparation for the Around the Bay race anyway ;)
With respect to the cycling sessions, I had to shorten a couple of them (Mon 50->30km, Wed 30->20km) due to time constraints, however it's likely a good thing as it allowed me to ease back into the mileage on that front. I'll have to focus on getting these miles in as much as possible, as with the weather getting more and more hostile the utility of this training will likely become more significant (especially if I have to miss some running sessions).
Weekly Totals:
Running: 65km (40mi)
Walking: 12km (7mi)
Cycling: 100km (62mi)
Total: 177km (110mi)
Year to Date:
Running: 197.6km (122.8mi)
Walking: 70.0km (43.5mi)
Cycling: 275.0km (170.9mi)
Total: 542.6km (337.2mi)
The weather for the upcoming week is likely to be much warmer, however we're likely going to get a good deal more snow. Fortunately, it should be spread out enough that the city can keep things reasonably clean (assuming the forecasts are correct this time). Either way, not much that can be done other than simply deal with what mother nature throws at us ;)
Aside from that, this week is also going to be breaking new ground as it calls for a 14 mile LSD run on Sunday. Up until this week the longest distance that I've run has been a half-marathon (21.1km/13.1mi), so this signals the beginning of escalating my mileage once again. I've made a good deal of progress over the last few months getting myself prepared for sustained high mileage, however it is good to be exploring new territory once again ;)
Upcoming Week:
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8mi (12.9K) w/4mi (6.4K) @ 15K pace
Wed 30K Cycle + 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Thurs 10mi (16.1K) Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 4mi (6.4K) Recovery
Sun 14mi (22.5K) LSD
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
2008: Year in Review
This time last year, I had never run seriously and had trouble keeping it up for more than a few minutes. I started with a learn to run clinic in early January, worked my way up to 5K, then pushed myself through a 15K race and eventually finished a half marathon in late September. At this point, I'm about to start formally training for a full marathon and can only hope that this coming year will be nearly as productive.
Unfortunately I didn't properly separate the running and walking sessions for the first half of the year, so I'm not sure how much each sport contributed to the overall totals. Either way, the basic totals are as follows:
To put that in context, 5,700km is approximately the distance from Toronto to San Francisco through Vancouver ;) With the cycling factored in, add in another leg to Austin, TX. Looking back, that is a staggering distance that speaks to the amount of work that was put into my training.
To outline the progress that has been made over the last year, the following table illustrates some major metrics that have changed significantly.
My weight is now approximately where I want it, so the objective for the new year is simply to improve my overall performance for racing purposes. I've outlined my plan in previous entries, and will likely post a more detailed version in the next week or so.
Unfortunately I didn't properly separate the running and walking sessions for the first half of the year, so I'm not sure how much each sport contributed to the overall totals. Either way, the basic totals are as follows:
| Total Distance on Foot (Running + Walking): | 5,698.4km (3,540.8 mi) | |
| Total Distance on the Bike (since Late August): | 2,765.5km (1,718.4 mi) | |
| Total Distance Overall: | 8,463.8km (5,259.2 mi) |
To put that in context, 5,700km is approximately the distance from Toronto to San Francisco through Vancouver ;) With the cycling factored in, add in another leg to Austin, TX. Looking back, that is a staggering distance that speaks to the amount of work that was put into my training.
To outline the progress that has been made over the last year, the following table illustrates some major metrics that have changed significantly.
| 01/01/2007 | 01/01/2008 | 31/12/2008 | |
| Weight | 240lbs | 180lbs | 151lbs |
| HR-Rest | 74bpm | 62bpm | 43bpm |
| Running Index | ? | 41 | 66 |
My weight is now approximately where I want it, so the objective for the new year is simply to improve my overall performance for racing purposes. I've outlined my plan in previous entries, and will likely post a more detailed version in the next week or so.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Week 52: Review
As expected, it was quite a busy week so I wasn't able to get in everything that I had planned. Fortunately, I was able to fit in all of my runs as scheduled, so only the cycling and walking sessions were hurt by this. The weather did make some of the runs this week harder than normal (Sunday's session especially), however, and I had to shovel out the driveway a few times so I got in a little extra work one way or the other ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 58km
Walking: 15km
Cycling: 80km
Total: 153km
With Christmas now winding down, I plan to focus on getting as much in as possible in the upcoming week. Things will naturally still be a bit busy, but with only a couple of weeks to go before I formally start training for the next season I want to make sure that I'm in as good condition as possible.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 21.1K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Weekly Totals:
Running: 58km
Walking: 15km
Cycling: 80km
Total: 153km
With Christmas now winding down, I plan to focus on getting as much in as possible in the upcoming week. Things will naturally still be a bit busy, but with only a couple of weeks to go before I formally start training for the next season I want to make sure that I'm in as good condition as possible.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 21.1K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Week 51: Review
As Christmas approaches things are getting busier, so I wasn't able to get in all of the sessions that I would have liked. Thankfully, I managed to get all of my running and most of my cycling in, and the walking took the brunt of it. Fortunately, most of the bad weather this week ended up falling on my off days so things actually worked out pretty well.
The only exception to this was my 10K run on Saturday morning, as the snowfall from the day before made it much harder to run than normal. As such, my pace was a significantly lower than normal 5:06/km (vs. 4:45/km). Further, it was also extremely cold (-25C) but fortunately there wasn't any appreciable wind so with the proper clothing that didn't pose too much of a problem. Either way, given the nasty weather this week I do count myself lucky that I missed most of it ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 60km
Walking: 14km
Cycling: 125km
Total: 199km
The next week is supposed to be pretty nasty weather-wise, and tomorrow's run especially is going to be difficult. They're calling for another 8cm tonight (combined with 15cm that's already on the ground from Friday) with another 15cm to come sometime tomorrow. Temperatures will likely be somewhat higher, but there will likely be much higher winds so that might offset any advantages. Either way, I'll just focus on getting my heart rate in the right zone and my pace will be what it is ;)
Naturally, with Christmas this week the schedule is going to be tighter than normal so I'll likely be missing a few sessions. I'll do everything in my power to keep my running mileage where it is, but the walking and cycling are likely to take a few unplanned hits this week.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 21.1K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
The only exception to this was my 10K run on Saturday morning, as the snowfall from the day before made it much harder to run than normal. As such, my pace was a significantly lower than normal 5:06/km (vs. 4:45/km). Further, it was also extremely cold (-25C) but fortunately there wasn't any appreciable wind so with the proper clothing that didn't pose too much of a problem. Either way, given the nasty weather this week I do count myself lucky that I missed most of it ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 60km
Walking: 14km
Cycling: 125km
Total: 199km
The next week is supposed to be pretty nasty weather-wise, and tomorrow's run especially is going to be difficult. They're calling for another 8cm tonight (combined with 15cm that's already on the ground from Friday) with another 15cm to come sometime tomorrow. Temperatures will likely be somewhat higher, but there will likely be much higher winds so that might offset any advantages. Either way, I'll just focus on getting my heart rate in the right zone and my pace will be what it is ;)
Naturally, with Christmas this week the schedule is going to be tighter than normal so I'll likely be missing a few sessions. I'll do everything in my power to keep my running mileage where it is, but the walking and cycling are likely to take a few unplanned hits this week.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 21.1K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Week 49: Review
While the weather this week was supposed to be pretty miserable, it ended up working out to be quite nice for pretty much all of my runs. This morning's 10K was certainly a cold one, but nothing that a few layers couldn't take care of. It was snowing quite a bit for my walk this afternoon, however not enough had accumulated yet to pose much of an issue for me (although the cars were having some trouble with it). Tomorrow is likely to be interesting, but I'll likely cover that in another post.
Thanks to that weather, all of my sessions this week went pretty much as planned. As such, the only thing of note was that I increased my tempo pace a little as my heart rate wasn't getting as high as it used to. I managed to complete my 8K run on Tuesday in 34:13 at roughly a 4:15 pace. My heart rate averaged about 172bpm, or a little under 75% HRR which is about right for this sort of run. For comparison, last week's tempo run averaged 165bpm for its 4:26 pace, which only works out to about 70% HRR.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 58.3km
Walking: 39.2km
Cycling: 150km
Total: 247km
Naturally, the storm system that is moving through right now is likely to make tomorrow's long run somewhat interesting. While I can deal with the cold, snow accumulation could add some complexity to my 20K route as the city often takes its time to clear some portions of it. Either way, there isn't a whole lot that I can do about it so it'll just be a matter of doing whatever I can to work around the obstacles. Fortunately, I'm not in any sort of formal training regimen so if I have to slow down a bit it won't be the end of the world ;)
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 20K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Thanks to that weather, all of my sessions this week went pretty much as planned. As such, the only thing of note was that I increased my tempo pace a little as my heart rate wasn't getting as high as it used to. I managed to complete my 8K run on Tuesday in 34:13 at roughly a 4:15 pace. My heart rate averaged about 172bpm, or a little under 75% HRR which is about right for this sort of run. For comparison, last week's tempo run averaged 165bpm for its 4:26 pace, which only works out to about 70% HRR.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 58.3km
Walking: 39.2km
Cycling: 150km
Total: 247km
Naturally, the storm system that is moving through right now is likely to make tomorrow's long run somewhat interesting. While I can deal with the cold, snow accumulation could add some complexity to my 20K route as the city often takes its time to clear some portions of it. Either way, there isn't a whole lot that I can do about it so it'll just be a matter of doing whatever I can to work around the obstacles. Fortunately, I'm not in any sort of formal training regimen so if I have to slow down a bit it won't be the end of the world ;)
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 20K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Calm Before the Storm
As I'm writing this the snow is starting to accumulate outside, and we're likely in for a few days of nasty weather. I intended to do an 11K walk this afternoon, however given the weather I'm likely going to do a short ride on the bike instead to work around the snow. Fortunately, tomorrow calls for a ride as well so I might be able to work around the worst of this storm. I'll likely have some significant ground cover to deal with during my Tuesday Tempo run, however that's easier to deal with than what's outside right now ;)
Either way, the weather this morning was much nicer so I managed to get my 20K LSD run in without any issues. Same basic route as last week, with a few small changes near the end as the sidewalks through the park were clear this time around. Unlike last week, however, I was more familiar with the route which allowed me to be a little more strategic about the pacing.
Things started out really well, so I stepped up the pace a little more than planned and managed to hold it for the duration of the run. I got a little warm last week as I over-did the layering, so dressing a little more intelligently this time around certainly paid off as my heart rate remained lower despite the faster pace. The weather overall was quite nice, with a comfortable 3C temperature and an overcast sky. The wind was brutal in some of the exposed portions of the route (unfortunately coinciding with the uphill portions), but most of the course is well shielded so it didn't pose too much of a problem.
I hit the 20K mark in 1:36:52, clocking an average pace of 4:50min/km (vs 4:55min/km last week) and a average heart rate of 157bpm (vs 159bpm). Unlike last week, however, I felt like I could have easily gone further if I wanted to. While I was tempted, I elected to stick with the plan as I wanted to be careful not to overdo things. Full telemetry is provided below:
Either way, the weather this morning was much nicer so I managed to get my 20K LSD run in without any issues. Same basic route as last week, with a few small changes near the end as the sidewalks through the park were clear this time around. Unlike last week, however, I was more familiar with the route which allowed me to be a little more strategic about the pacing.
Things started out really well, so I stepped up the pace a little more than planned and managed to hold it for the duration of the run. I got a little warm last week as I over-did the layering, so dressing a little more intelligently this time around certainly paid off as my heart rate remained lower despite the faster pace. The weather overall was quite nice, with a comfortable 3C temperature and an overcast sky. The wind was brutal in some of the exposed portions of the route (unfortunately coinciding with the uphill portions), but most of the course is well shielded so it didn't pose too much of a problem.
I hit the 20K mark in 1:36:52, clocking an average pace of 4:50min/km (vs 4:55min/km last week) and a average heart rate of 157bpm (vs 159bpm). Unlike last week, however, I felt like I could have easily gone further if I wanted to. While I was tempted, I elected to stick with the plan as I wanted to be careful not to overdo things. Full telemetry is provided below:
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Week 47: Review
Despite a major snow storm and significantly cooler weather, I managed to get all of my running sessions in as planned. In some cases icy trails did make things a bit difficult, but fortunately most of those patches were relatively short and easy to work around. Naturally, the extra work of getting suited up for running in the cold is taking a bit of getting used to. Given the choice between the hot summer and cold like this, however, this is certainly preferable as it's easier to add more layers to stay warm that fight off overheating ;)
Unfortunately I wasn't so lucky with walking and cycling this week. During my cycling session in the previous week, I tweaked my right calf muscle while doing one-legged drills. I didn't think much of it at the time as it didn't really bother me much. By my walk on the following Saturday afternoon, however, it began to hurt a bit more and continued throughout the next couple of days. Fortunately, it didn't appear to bother me at all when running so it didn't get in the way of those workouts. To keep it that way, however, I elected to avoid the walking and cycling sessions until it healed.
As such, I missed my cycling sessions on Sunday and Monday, as well as my walking session on Tuesday afternoon. This was compounded by getting stuck in traffic due to a snowstorm on Wednesday, so I lost another cycling session there as well. Fortunately, all signs of the pain were gone by Wednesday so I was able to get back into my normal routine by Thursday. Combined, this took a big chunk out of my overall mileage but as the walking and cycling are simply supplementary to my running routine it didn't form much of a practical setback.
With that said, my cycling session on Friday went much better than the week before. To avoid boredom I mixed in some interval work, which definitely made it easier to keep going. As such, this time I was able to keep going for a full 50km. I'm not sure if this tactic will work to get me back up to 80K, but I'll have to work my way back up to that level to see.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 56km
Walking: 25km
Cycling: 50km
Total: 131km
As this was my third week of running 56km and things have gotten quite comfortable, I'll be stepping up the long run to 20km tomorrow. That will bring my weekly mileage up to 58km (a little over 36 miles) where I'll likely stay for the foreseeable future. I'm also adjusting the cycling plan down a bit this week to deal with getting used to riding indoors. Other than those two adjustments, however, everything else will be identical to the previous week.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 20K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Unfortunately I wasn't so lucky with walking and cycling this week. During my cycling session in the previous week, I tweaked my right calf muscle while doing one-legged drills. I didn't think much of it at the time as it didn't really bother me much. By my walk on the following Saturday afternoon, however, it began to hurt a bit more and continued throughout the next couple of days. Fortunately, it didn't appear to bother me at all when running so it didn't get in the way of those workouts. To keep it that way, however, I elected to avoid the walking and cycling sessions until it healed.
As such, I missed my cycling sessions on Sunday and Monday, as well as my walking session on Tuesday afternoon. This was compounded by getting stuck in traffic due to a snowstorm on Wednesday, so I lost another cycling session there as well. Fortunately, all signs of the pain were gone by Wednesday so I was able to get back into my normal routine by Thursday. Combined, this took a big chunk out of my overall mileage but as the walking and cycling are simply supplementary to my running routine it didn't form much of a practical setback.
With that said, my cycling session on Friday went much better than the week before. To avoid boredom I mixed in some interval work, which definitely made it easier to keep going. As such, this time I was able to keep going for a full 50km. I'm not sure if this tactic will work to get me back up to 80K, but I'll have to work my way back up to that level to see.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 56km
Walking: 25km
Cycling: 50km
Total: 131km
As this was my third week of running 56km and things have gotten quite comfortable, I'll be stepping up the long run to 20km tomorrow. That will bring my weekly mileage up to 58km (a little over 36 miles) where I'll likely stay for the foreseeable future. I'm also adjusting the cycling plan down a bit this week to deal with getting used to riding indoors. Other than those two adjustments, however, everything else will be identical to the previous week.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 20K LSD
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Fri 50K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Week 46: Review
The weather this week was pretty unpredictable, and disrupted my ability to do my cycling routine much more than usual. Rather than the ~200km per week I've been averaging lately, I only managed to get 40km in this week. As noted in my previous posts, as this is unlikely to get any better I elected to move the bike inside to maintain some degree of consistency in my training.
Fortunately, the weather hasn't been much of a problem for running and walking so I managed to get all of my planned sessions in. The only (minor) modification to the schedule was that I ran Thursday's 10K through High Park closer to tempo pace than the steady pace that was called for. This wasn't really intended, but the enthusiasm of running this course rather than my usual routes got the best of me. I managed to average about a 4:34/km pace, which is somewhere in between my ~4:20 tempo pace and 4:45 steady pace.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 56km
Walking: 94km
Cycling: 40km
Total: 190km
Going forward, I'm going to have to tweak my cycling routine a bit to adapt to using the indoor trainer. The longer rides are unlikely to be feasible inside, so I will likely have to do shorter rides more often and/or dial up the intensity a bit. Fortunately, the cycling is simply a means to improve my overall fitness, so losing a bit of mileage on this front isn't a huge deal.
As for the running, I will likely be holding at the current level for the time being. I was flirting with pushing the long run a little further this week, but as the weather is supposed to be pretty miserable tomorrow (wet snow) so I'll likely hold off on that for now. Either way, it's getting down to the point where I have to figure out what I will be doing next season so I can start preparing for it.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 18K LSD/30K Cycle
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Fri 30K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Fortunately, the weather hasn't been much of a problem for running and walking so I managed to get all of my planned sessions in. The only (minor) modification to the schedule was that I ran Thursday's 10K through High Park closer to tempo pace than the steady pace that was called for. This wasn't really intended, but the enthusiasm of running this course rather than my usual routes got the best of me. I managed to average about a 4:34/km pace, which is somewhere in between my ~4:20 tempo pace and 4:45 steady pace.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 56km
Walking: 94km
Cycling: 40km
Total: 190km
Going forward, I'm going to have to tweak my cycling routine a bit to adapt to using the indoor trainer. The longer rides are unlikely to be feasible inside, so I will likely have to do shorter rides more often and/or dial up the intensity a bit. Fortunately, the cycling is simply a means to improve my overall fitness, so losing a bit of mileage on this front isn't a huge deal.
As for the running, I will likely be holding at the current level for the time being. I was flirting with pushing the long run a little further this week, but as the weather is supposed to be pretty miserable tomorrow (wet snow) so I'll likely hold off on that for now. Either way, it's getting down to the point where I have to figure out what I will be doing next season so I can start preparing for it.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 18K LSD/30K Cycle
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Thurs 30K Cycle/10K Steady
Fri 30K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Week 45: Review
Aside from the rain on Monday, it was a pretty good week weather-wise. Naturally, that rain prevented me from doing my 80km ride on Monday, however I partially made up for it by doing an extra 50km ride on Tuesday morning instead of the planned walk. Unfortunately, I also had to cut Sunday afternoon's ride a bit short as I forgot to take into account the time change when figuring out when the sun was going down. Aside from those issues, however, everything else went as planned.
The 18K LSD run on Sunday was certainly a lot easier with the cooler weather that we are experiencing right now. I managed to maintain an average pace of 4:52 for the duration, hitting the 18km mark a few seconds before 1:28. Further, I also managed to keep my average heart rate down to a very comfortable 154bpm (~64%HRR). I'll likely do another 18K tomorrow, and if all goes well I can play with the idea of pushing it a little further the following week.
On the cycling front, with some great weather on Tuesday I elected to go off of my normal route and give some bigger roads a try. After doing about three laps of my normal route to warm up, I took a quick break and then headed out along a north-south route that I've heard good things about. From an exercise point of view, it is definitely a much better route as it allowed me to ride non-stop at a steady 34km/h pace for almost an hour. Further, there were some very good rolling hills at points in this route, which added significantly to the challenge. The downside, of course, was that the speed limit was about 80km/h for most of the route, so the vehicular traffic was going a lot faster than it does on the residential roads that I'm used to. In addition, it primarily passes through farmer's fields, so on a windy day there would be little to protect me (and at these speeds headwinds can be very significant). This type of riding will certainly take some getting used to, however there is only one way to do that ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 56km
Walking: 38km
Cycling: 194km
Total: 288km
The other significant thing this week was that my year-to-date running and walking mileage crossed the 5000km mark. Unfortunately, I didn't start separating the two sports in my training logs until the middle of July, so I'm not exactly sure how much each of them contributed to that total. My ballpark estimate would be somewhere in the region of 2000K run and 3000K walked, but without the time to go back and modify all of those entries I can't be sure. Either way, that is a lot of ground covered over these few months and hopefully just the precursor to many more!
As for the upcoming week, the plan is to pretty much stay the course. I've now gotten back to the peak mileage of my last training cycle, so it's just a matter of getting my body used to this level of work before stepping it up again. If all goes well, I might push things ahead a little in the following week, but we'll have to wait and see on that front.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 18K LSD
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
The 18K LSD run on Sunday was certainly a lot easier with the cooler weather that we are experiencing right now. I managed to maintain an average pace of 4:52 for the duration, hitting the 18km mark a few seconds before 1:28. Further, I also managed to keep my average heart rate down to a very comfortable 154bpm (~64%HRR). I'll likely do another 18K tomorrow, and if all goes well I can play with the idea of pushing it a little further the following week.
On the cycling front, with some great weather on Tuesday I elected to go off of my normal route and give some bigger roads a try. After doing about three laps of my normal route to warm up, I took a quick break and then headed out along a north-south route that I've heard good things about. From an exercise point of view, it is definitely a much better route as it allowed me to ride non-stop at a steady 34km/h pace for almost an hour. Further, there were some very good rolling hills at points in this route, which added significantly to the challenge. The downside, of course, was that the speed limit was about 80km/h for most of the route, so the vehicular traffic was going a lot faster than it does on the residential roads that I'm used to. In addition, it primarily passes through farmer's fields, so on a windy day there would be little to protect me (and at these speeds headwinds can be very significant). This type of riding will certainly take some getting used to, however there is only one way to do that ;)
Weekly Totals:
Running: 56km
Walking: 38km
Cycling: 194km
Total: 288km
The other significant thing this week was that my year-to-date running and walking mileage crossed the 5000km mark. Unfortunately, I didn't start separating the two sports in my training logs until the middle of July, so I'm not exactly sure how much each of them contributed to that total. My ballpark estimate would be somewhere in the region of 2000K run and 3000K walked, but without the time to go back and modify all of those entries I can't be sure. Either way, that is a lot of ground covered over these few months and hopefully just the precursor to many more!
As for the upcoming week, the plan is to pretty much stay the course. I've now gotten back to the peak mileage of my last training cycle, so it's just a matter of getting my body used to this level of work before stepping it up again. If all goes well, I might push things ahead a little in the following week, but we'll have to wait and see on that front.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 18K LSD
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Week 44: Review
A combination of rain, heavy winds and the first significant snow storm of the season conspired to mess with my cycling schedule this week. I did manage to get in a 50K ride on Thursday and my scheduled half-century ride on Friday, but other than that I didn't get any further time on the bike. This is starting to become a bit of a trend, however there isn't a whole lot that I can do in these scenarios.
Fortunately, the adverse weather wasn't much of a problem for my running or walking sessions. All of my runs went as planned, and I am definitely getting to the point where this level of mileage is beginning to become comfortable. The step up to 8K on my tempo run went well, and despite fighting a 35-40km/h headwind for most of the run I still managed to maintain my planned pace (4:30/km). Other than that, last week's schedule was pretty much a mirror of the week before so there isn't much to report there.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 52km
Walking: 77km
Cycling: 135km
Total: 264km
Given the success this week, the plan is pretty much to hold to the same thing this coming week. I'll be increasing tomorrow's LSD run to 18K to get myself used to longer runs again, and I'll likely bump next Saturday's run up to 10K as well. That will bring my total mileage to about 56km (~35 miles), keeping me climbing upwards but doing so slowly enough that things can remain comfortable. I will have to make a decision as to what my plans are for the next training cycle relatively soon, however the objective at this point remains building a strong base for whatever that will be.
With respect to cycling, that will largely be dependent on what the weather permits. The forecasts appear to indicate that Monday will be a problem again, however it's looking like the rest of the week should be nice so I might be able to make up for that. Either way, given that it's November now I'll likely be moving the bike onto the trainer sooner than later - however I'm trying to get in as much time outside as is humanly possible before that happens.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 18K LSD
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Fortunately, the adverse weather wasn't much of a problem for my running or walking sessions. All of my runs went as planned, and I am definitely getting to the point where this level of mileage is beginning to become comfortable. The step up to 8K on my tempo run went well, and despite fighting a 35-40km/h headwind for most of the run I still managed to maintain my planned pace (4:30/km). Other than that, last week's schedule was pretty much a mirror of the week before so there isn't much to report there.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 52km
Walking: 77km
Cycling: 135km
Total: 264km
Given the success this week, the plan is pretty much to hold to the same thing this coming week. I'll be increasing tomorrow's LSD run to 18K to get myself used to longer runs again, and I'll likely bump next Saturday's run up to 10K as well. That will bring my total mileage to about 56km (~35 miles), keeping me climbing upwards but doing so slowly enough that things can remain comfortable. I will have to make a decision as to what my plans are for the next training cycle relatively soon, however the objective at this point remains building a strong base for whatever that will be.
With respect to cycling, that will largely be dependent on what the weather permits. The forecasts appear to indicate that Monday will be a problem again, however it's looking like the rest of the week should be nice so I might be able to make up for that. Either way, given that it's November now I'll likely be moving the bike onto the trainer sooner than later - however I'm trying to get in as much time outside as is humanly possible before that happens.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 18K LSD
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 10K Steady
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Week 43: Review
This week has seen a lot of unsettled weather, which threw a wrench into my plans for cycling. Heavy rain and wind on Monday made the planned 80K ride impractical, so I simply did some walking in its place. I had hoped to make up for it throughout the rest of the week, but Tuesday was also a write off because of the rain and Wednesday was extremely cold so it was difficult enough getting the planned 50K in. At that point I was flirting with the idea of doing more than 80K on Friday, but when the day came time constraints made that impossible.
As such, my cycling mileage is lower than I would have hoped this week, but as I'm not really training for anything that's not really a huge issue. The sessions that I did have on the bike were quite productive, however, so all was not bad news. My half-century ride on Friday went extremely well, and I was able to maintain a 32km/h average speed until ~55km in when the school traffic started building up. Even with that, however, I managed to maintain an overall average speed of 29.6km/h over the 50 mile route. I'm hoping to get that above 30km/h before I have to pack it in for the winter, so it's just going to be a matter of getting in as many miles as I can.
As for running, things went pretty much to plan this week. I managed to get my weekly mileage back up to 50km (a little over 30 miles), and plan to hold around that level for the next little while. This was the peak of my previous training program, and my hope is to build up my base level to this point prior to beginning any marathon training. Fortunately, running isn't as sensitive to the weather as cycling so it's a little easier to stick to the plan when dealing with unsettled conditions.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 51km
Walking: 69km
Cycling: 145km
Total: 265km
As my intent is to maintain this running mileage, this week's plan will be very similar to last week's plan. The only difference with respect to running is that I'll be upping Tuesday's tempo run another kilometer to give a bit more of a push on that front. Cycling-wise things will be similar as well, and hopefully the weather will cooperate this time around ;)
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 16K Steady
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 8K Steady
As such, my cycling mileage is lower than I would have hoped this week, but as I'm not really training for anything that's not really a huge issue. The sessions that I did have on the bike were quite productive, however, so all was not bad news. My half-century ride on Friday went extremely well, and I was able to maintain a 32km/h average speed until ~55km in when the school traffic started building up. Even with that, however, I managed to maintain an overall average speed of 29.6km/h over the 50 mile route. I'm hoping to get that above 30km/h before I have to pack it in for the winter, so it's just going to be a matter of getting in as many miles as I can.
As for running, things went pretty much to plan this week. I managed to get my weekly mileage back up to 50km (a little over 30 miles), and plan to hold around that level for the next little while. This was the peak of my previous training program, and my hope is to build up my base level to this point prior to beginning any marathon training. Fortunately, running isn't as sensitive to the weather as cycling so it's a little easier to stick to the plan when dealing with unsettled conditions.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 51km
Walking: 69km
Cycling: 145km
Total: 265km
As my intent is to maintain this running mileage, this week's plan will be very similar to last week's plan. The only difference with respect to running is that I'll be upping Tuesday's tempo run another kilometer to give a bit more of a push on that front. Cycling-wise things will be similar as well, and hopefully the weather will cooperate this time around ;)
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 16K Steady
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 8K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 8K Steady
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Week 42: Review
It's been an interesting week, as I've had to get used to running entirely by feel as I increase my mileage. Pacing has been going better than I expected, and has been improving significantly through the week. Naturally, it takes a lot more work to manually plot and measure routes, then memorize waypoints and time things manually. It's getting easier, however, as most of my routes are variations on one another so once certain points are remembered they are useful for future runs.
Either way, most of the sessions this week went along quite well. On Monday, I managed to pull off an 82km ride in 2:47:29, hitting the 50 mile (half-century) mark at 2:43:20. That works out to an average speed of 29.4km/h, about 2:24 short of a 30km/h ride. Given that I was averaging about 26km/h the last time I rode this distance (before the half marathon), that is a significant improvement. The half-century ride on Friday didn't go quite as well due to heavy winds and traffic, but despite those conditions I still managed to average 28.4km/h.
With respect to running, things went pretty well to plan other than switching Thursday's 8K run to a 10K. As noted above, pacing was a little faster than it should have been for most of these sessions but it got much closer by the end of the week. For instance, the 8K 4:45 run at the start of the week was done at a 4:38 pace, while the same run on Saturday was at a 4:41 pace. Still not perfect, but going in the right direction.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 42km (48km)
Walking: 32km
Cycling: 185km
Total: 259km
As noted in the previous review, last week's Sunday and Saturday sessions were switched around which mixed up the weekly totals. When the 14km long run from the previous week was factored into this week's total instead of last week's, the total distance run was 48km. This brings me close enough to get beyond 50km next week, where I'll likely stabilize for the next little while to get my body accustomed to this training volume. To play it safe I'll likely continue to stay away from speedwork or hill training, as I'm still a bit renascent to do those types of sessions by feel.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 16K Steady
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 7K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 8K Steady
Beyond that, I'm still playing around with a few different ideas for my long term plans but the priority at this juncture is to focus on keeping my base up. Whatever the plans end up being, I'd like to get back into some form of formal training program by the beginning of next month so I'll have to figure things out by then ;)
Either way, most of the sessions this week went along quite well. On Monday, I managed to pull off an 82km ride in 2:47:29, hitting the 50 mile (half-century) mark at 2:43:20. That works out to an average speed of 29.4km/h, about 2:24 short of a 30km/h ride. Given that I was averaging about 26km/h the last time I rode this distance (before the half marathon), that is a significant improvement. The half-century ride on Friday didn't go quite as well due to heavy winds and traffic, but despite those conditions I still managed to average 28.4km/h.
With respect to running, things went pretty well to plan other than switching Thursday's 8K run to a 10K. As noted above, pacing was a little faster than it should have been for most of these sessions but it got much closer by the end of the week. For instance, the 8K 4:45 run at the start of the week was done at a 4:38 pace, while the same run on Saturday was at a 4:41 pace. Still not perfect, but going in the right direction.
Weekly Totals:
Running: 42km (48km)
Walking: 32km
Cycling: 185km
Total: 259km
As noted in the previous review, last week's Sunday and Saturday sessions were switched around which mixed up the weekly totals. When the 14km long run from the previous week was factored into this week's total instead of last week's, the total distance run was 48km. This brings me close enough to get beyond 50km next week, where I'll likely stabilize for the next little while to get my body accustomed to this training volume. To play it safe I'll likely continue to stay away from speedwork or hill training, as I'm still a bit renascent to do those types of sessions by feel.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 16K Steady
Mon 80K Cycle
Tue 7K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/50K Cycle
Thurs 10K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 8K Steady
Beyond that, I'm still playing around with a few different ideas for my long term plans but the priority at this juncture is to focus on keeping my base up. Whatever the plans end up being, I'd like to get back into some form of formal training program by the beginning of next month so I'll have to figure things out by then ;)
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Week 41: Review
This week signaled the end of my recovery period for the half marathon, and the start of getting my mileage back up to where it was before the race. The training plan peaked at about 50km (~31mi) and I'd like to get back to that level again before pushing much further. What I do after that will depend a lot on what my next big target race will be, so that is still up in the air.
As for the possibility of doing a race next weekend, with my watch out of commission I'm likely not to bother at this point. While I don't mind running training sessions without pace readings, I'd be a bit nervous to attempt an all out effort without them at this point. The logistics of getting down there would have been complicated at this point anyway, and it shouldn't be too difficult to look for another 5-10K race down the road a little (when I have a better idea of my longer term plans).
Either way, other than the snafu with the watch everything went well this week. The lingering tightness that bothered me last week is gone, and I've done a few runs of varying intensities without any issues coming up (see the last few posts for details). As such, it's just a matter of climbing back up the ladder and preparing myself for whatever comes next ;)
Weekly Totals (Week 41):
Running: 44km
Walking: 57km
Cycling: 138km
Total: 239km
As noted in the last post, I did my long run today instead of tomorrow due to scheduling issues with Thanksgiving so that throws the weekly mileage off a bit. When the swapped sessions are switched around, this week basically consisted of about 38km, and next week will get me up to about 45km. To make sure everything is 100% I'm going to take another week off of the hill/speed training and I'll work that back in during the following week. If all goes well, this will get me back up to 50km/week by week 43 and allow me to stabilize at that point for a little while before I start any new programs.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 8K Steady
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 5K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/30K Cycle
Thurs 8K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 8K Steady
As for my longer term plans, I've started reading everything that I can find on Marathon training in order to get a better idea of what I'll be up against. My initial plan was to target a Full Marathon next May, however I'm also playing with the idea of doing a couple more Half Marathons in the spring and then targeting a Full in the fall. With the original plan, the training would have ideal weather but there is a good chance of the race being on the warm side. With the alternate plan, however, the race will likely be more comfortable but the training might be a bit of a fight. Regardless, there's still a good deal more research to do before I make any decisions!
As for the possibility of doing a race next weekend, with my watch out of commission I'm likely not to bother at this point. While I don't mind running training sessions without pace readings, I'd be a bit nervous to attempt an all out effort without them at this point. The logistics of getting down there would have been complicated at this point anyway, and it shouldn't be too difficult to look for another 5-10K race down the road a little (when I have a better idea of my longer term plans).
Either way, other than the snafu with the watch everything went well this week. The lingering tightness that bothered me last week is gone, and I've done a few runs of varying intensities without any issues coming up (see the last few posts for details). As such, it's just a matter of climbing back up the ladder and preparing myself for whatever comes next ;)
Weekly Totals (Week 41):
Running: 44km
Walking: 57km
Cycling: 138km
Total: 239km
As noted in the last post, I did my long run today instead of tomorrow due to scheduling issues with Thanksgiving so that throws the weekly mileage off a bit. When the swapped sessions are switched around, this week basically consisted of about 38km, and next week will get me up to about 45km. To make sure everything is 100% I'm going to take another week off of the hill/speed training and I'll work that back in during the following week. If all goes well, this will get me back up to 50km/week by week 43 and allow me to stabilize at that point for a little while before I start any new programs.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 8K Steady
Mon 50K Cycle
Tue 5K Tempo
Wed (AM/PM) 10K Steady/30K Cycle
Thurs 8K Steady
Fri 80K Cycle
Sat 8K Steady
As for my longer term plans, I've started reading everything that I can find on Marathon training in order to get a better idea of what I'll be up against. My initial plan was to target a Full Marathon next May, however I'm also playing with the idea of doing a couple more Half Marathons in the spring and then targeting a Full in the fall. With the original plan, the training would have ideal weather but there is a good chance of the race being on the warm side. With the alternate plan, however, the race will likely be more comfortable but the training might be a bit of a fight. Regardless, there's still a good deal more research to do before I make any decisions!
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Week 40: Review
With the race on Sunday, the remainder of this week has largely been aimed at recovery. In order to avoid losing too much fitness, however, I elected to focus on cycling as that allowed me to get in some reasonably good workouts without straining anything too much. As such, I've been out on the bike every day (except for Sunday) this week, doing 50K on Friday and around 30K on the remaining days. The weather has made this a little difficult this week, but other than a few minor issues I've managed to work around it pretty well.
As mentioned in the previous post, I also did a quick 9.5km walk on Wednesday and a short recovery run on Thursday morning. I've avoided doing any running/walking since, as I wanted to give everything time to heal before I started pushing it again. While a few things still feel a bit tight, nothing hurts anymore so I think it's about time to start working back into my normal routine.
Weekly Totals (Week 40):
Running: 24km
Walking: 15km
Cycling: 213km
Total: 252km
Also, as I didn't end up doing a review last week due to the race I figure that I should put my totals up here:
Weekly Totals (Week 39):
Running: 25km
Walking: 10km
Cycling: 68km
Total: 103km
The upcoming week is naturally in a bit of a flux, as it will depend a lot on how each of the sessions goes. If at all possible, I would like to run the 10K Zoo Run a couple of weeks from now, however whether I'll be able to get in enough serious training before it is still up in the air. While the recovery is pretty much done now, other than the race the last two weeks have been pretty light so hopefully I haven't lost too much strength.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 6K Recovery/30K Cycle
Mon Rest
Tue 8K Steady
Wed (AM/PM) 8K Steady/30K Cycle
Thurs 5K Tempo
Fri Rest
Sat 8K Steady
Sun 10K LSD
With the half marathon now in the books, I'm starting to play around with what I'd like to do longer term. If at all possible, I'd like to work a full marathon in next year sometime - however how I'm going to approach that is still up in the air. Either way, this is really material for another post as this one is getting long enough as it is ;)
As mentioned in the previous post, I also did a quick 9.5km walk on Wednesday and a short recovery run on Thursday morning. I've avoided doing any running/walking since, as I wanted to give everything time to heal before I started pushing it again. While a few things still feel a bit tight, nothing hurts anymore so I think it's about time to start working back into my normal routine.
Weekly Totals (Week 40):
Running: 24km
Walking: 15km
Cycling: 213km
Total: 252km
Also, as I didn't end up doing a review last week due to the race I figure that I should put my totals up here:
Weekly Totals (Week 39):
Running: 25km
Walking: 10km
Cycling: 68km
Total: 103km
The upcoming week is naturally in a bit of a flux, as it will depend a lot on how each of the sessions goes. If at all possible, I would like to run the 10K Zoo Run a couple of weeks from now, however whether I'll be able to get in enough serious training before it is still up in the air. While the recovery is pretty much done now, other than the race the last two weeks have been pretty light so hopefully I haven't lost too much strength.
Upcoming Week:
Sun (AM/PM) 6K Recovery/30K Cycle
Mon Rest
Tue 8K Steady
Wed (AM/PM) 8K Steady/30K Cycle
Thurs 5K Tempo
Fri Rest
Sat 8K Steady
Sun 10K LSD
With the half marathon now in the books, I'm starting to play around with what I'd like to do longer term. If at all possible, I'd like to work a full marathon in next year sometime - however how I'm going to approach that is still up in the air. Either way, this is really material for another post as this one is getting long enough as it is ;)
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