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:

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.

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

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

Taking Advantage of the Weather

As noted in my previous posts, the weather lately has been somewhat hostile and has significantly complicated my running sessions. Fortunately, aside from a little rain the weather was much better than it has been in a while - little to no wind and a comfortable 6C. There was still a bit of snow left on the ground from previous days, but most of the pathways were clear so I didn't expect that to be a huge issue.

As I was busy in the morning, I moved the run back to the afternoon and headed out a little after 3:00pm. In addition, I figured that I'd try out a slightly different route than normal, as when I do start increasing mileage again the more roads I'm familiar with the easier it will be to plan things out. The route that I selected incorporated the same return path (and primary hills) that I have been running over the last few weeks, but I took a major road out rather than the residential streets.

The first kilometer was a bit slow as the roads still had a good deal of slush, but once I got out of the subdivision things cleared up nicely. After a quick 22 second stop at the traffic lights, I picked it up again and headed out at a faster pace. I was able to maintain that pace (~4:41/km) for the next seven and a half kilometers without any issues. At this juncture, I was at the southernmost point in the route and began making my way back north. After stopping for another set of traffic lights (12 sec), I had about 2km left to flat ground to run before I hit the hills.

I managed to maintain a 4:45/km pace over this segment and slowed down once I hit the hills to keep my heart rate on track. With the reduced pace (~5:15/km), I managed to keep my heart rate below 170bpm and was still feeling pretty good by the time I cleared them. I was now at the 12km mark and making good time, so I elected to try and see how far I had progressed in the last couple of months. After a brief 24 second traffic stop, I picked it up for the home stretch.

When I got to the 18K mark, I had managed a 4:48/km pace and saw that I was within striking distance of my STWM time so I pushed it a little harder. At this point it started drizzling a little, but with the higher temperatures it was actually somewhat helpful. When I got to the 20K mark, I was at 1:35:38 and therefore needed to do the final 1.1km in 6:08.6 to meet my mark. At this point, I opened up to do the final stretch at a 4:23/km pace and hitting the mark at 1:40:25. Even working the traffic stops into the equation, my total time was still 1:41:23 or about 23 seconds faster than my race.

This certainly shows the benefits of the additional mileage that I've been doing over the last few weeks, as I didn't put anything near race pace into this run. It was certainly harder than my average long run, so it isn't the type of thing I'll do on a regular basis - however by this point I'm pretty well fully recovered so it didn't take too much out of me.

Either way, results are as follows:
Total Distance: 21.1km
Total Time: 1:40:25 (1:41:23 w/traffic stops)
Average Pace: 4:45/km
Average Heart Rate: 162bpm (71% HRR)

Full Telemetry:

Week 50: 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: 58km
Walking: 36km
Cycling: 150km
Total: 244km

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) 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

Into the Cold...

As noted yesterday, the weather reports called for extreme cold and heavy winds today and they were pretty much right on. When I headed out for my 20K run this morning, the ambient temperature was -12C and a bitterly cold ~50km/h wind was coming out of the north-west. With the wind-chill factored in, this worked out to the equivalent of nearly -30C. As such, I put on the warmest running clothes that I had and made sure to minimize the amount of exposed skin. While I have run in colder weather than this, those runs were of a much shorter duration (less than 30 minutes), so the nearly two hours that this session would take would make for new ground.

Compounding this was the fact that the roads and sidewalks were in relatively bad condition, so I had to very closely watch my footing to avoid ice and uneven surfaces. Given that the route that I've been using for the last two weeks had some steep descents (up to 12%), I figured that it was worth taking another path to make sure I remained safe. Further, this route is largely a north-south path, so that north wind would be a significant problem on the way back (which is also where the biggest hills are located).

As such, I elected to take an out-and-back route to a large mall to the south east of me. This meant that the bulk of the route (and the majority of the hills) would be done in the east-west direction to avoid dealing with a headwind. Further, as it is a more developed area it is better shielded from the elements and the sidewalks were likely in better condition. Finally, as the half-way point was a relatively large indoor mall it gave me the option of going inside to warm up without having to stop.


Either way, after getting suited up I headed out a little before noon. The sidewalks in my area were covered in snow, so I did the first segment of the run on the side of the road. Unfortunately, the roads weren't perfectly clear either so it took a good deal more effort than usual to maintain speed. As such, my first kilometer was run at a much slower than planned 5:07/km pace. Fortunately, my heart rate was in the right ballpark so this wasn't a huge issue.

The next portion of the route was along higher traffic roads, and was run with the wind at my back, so I was able to pick it up a little more. Kilometers two through four were done at an average pace of 4:45/km, which was actually a little faster than planned. At about the 2.5km mark I was up to temperature and was feeling quite comfortable, which helped to alleviate my concerns about the cold.

At this point I began traveling east and approached the first large hill of the route (1600m long, 4% grade). Unfortunately, the sidewalk along this portion was covered in a heavy coating of snow so it took a good deal of effort to maintain speed. Unlike the previous sections, however, the traffic along this road travels at much higher speeds (~80km/h) so I had no option but to stick with the sidewalk.

When I hit the hill, this started to become an issue as running up the grade combined with fighting with the snowcover increased my breathing rate. Normally this wouldn't be a problem at all, but as my face was covered with a neck warmer I had to fight a bit harder to get that air in (as the fabric got sucked into my mouth when I inhaled). Fortunately, my heart rate wasn't affected much by this so it was more of a discomfort than a practical impediment to my performance.

Once I managed to crest the hill, the snowcover remained an issue so my speeds continued to be slower than planned (~5:05/km). As this was a LSD run, however, my focus was on keeping my heart rate down so I didn't worry about it too much. Either way, I pushed on until I hit the second hill along the route (a highway overpass, ~600m/5%). Given the shorter duration of this hill, however, it didn't pose much of an issue.

At this point (~9.5K), I was approaching the mall and had to make a choice as to whether I wanted to head inside or not. While I was feeling relatively good temperature-wise, the neck warmer was still an issue so a chance to pull it off for a short period to allow my breathing to catch up was quite attractive. Naturally, the downside to this option was that as it is only a few weeks before Christmas navigating through mall crowds at speed was not going to be easy. Either way, I figured it was worth a shot so I headed in at the north-west entrance.


Once I cleared the doors, I took the face mask, hat and gloves off and continued heading south through the walkway. While there was a good deal of traffic to deal with (as you can see from my pace variability in the telemetry), it wasn't quite as bad as I was expecting. Naturally, I did go slower than outside (averaging a 5:16/km pace), but I did manage to get my breathing back under control and my sweat-logged clothing had a chance to dry out a bit. As I approached the eastern end of the mall, I put my stuff back on and headed back into the cold.

Since the sidewalk on the north side of the road appeared to be a little more clear than the south side I was using before I elected to switch sides for the return trip. There was still a good deal of snow on the ground, however it wasn't quite as bad so I was able to average a 4:59/km pace for kilometers twelve through fourteen. Breathing became an issue again, but I found a few ways to work around that so it wasn't quite as big an issue. When I got back to the first hill, I had to cross over to the southern side of the street again. Fortunately, the rise in this direction was much shorter (500m/4%) so it took a good deal less effort to work through it.

After another decent kilometer (4:58/km), I had to turn right and begin to head north to get back home. Unfortunately, this meant I was running directly into the cold wind that was at my back for the start. Fortunately, I only had two more kilometers left to go so I bunkered down and pushed my way through. I managed to maintain a 5:00/km pace for the 19th kilometer, and then opened up for the final stretch. The last kilometer was painful as I was in an open area with no cover, but I managed to push through a 4:42K nonetheless. Once I hit the 20km mark, I broke back to a walk to begin cooling down.

Once I got home, I did my stretches and then began stripping off all of my protective clothing. My jacket and neck warmer were pretty crunchy at this point, and my hat had a nice quarter-inch thick coating of ice around the brim. It certainly illustrated exactly how cold it was out there, but fortunately the gear did a relatively good job of keeping me in the right temperature range. The neck warmer was really the only problem for me, so I'll have to look into some alternative choices for scenarios such as this.

Either way, results are as follows:
Total Distance: 20.0km
Total Time: 1:49:01
Average Pace: 4:57/km
Average Heart Rate: 162bpm (71% HRR)

Full Telemetry:

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

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:

Week 48: Review

This week was a lot more stable than the last, and fortunately all of my scheduled sessions went as planned. I did intentionally scale back the cycling a bit this week to strike a balance between the fitness benefits and staying motivated. While the 2.5 hours it takes to ride 80km is fine outside, it is mind-numbingly boring when sitting on the trainer. I won't be able to clock the mileage that I was last month, however I also want to make sure that this doesn't become a chore.

On a contrasting note, I expanded my Sunday run to 20km last Sunday in order to get myself over the 35 mile/week limit and stabilize at that point. Given the modified distance, I also elected to try a new route as well. Rather than the usual laps around a subdivision south of me, I did an out and back route that gave me a little more variety. As I'm not in a formal training schedule, I figured that now is the time to experiment with things a bit to give myself some more options once I do get into the program.


In addition to mixing it up a little, this route added substantially larger hills than my normal route provides so it made things a little more challenging. Given the topology of the Around the Bay race that I'm aiming for, working some hills like this into my schedule is likely good preparation. Either way, as things went well on this route last week I'll likely give it another shot this time around before I start playing with other options.

Weekly Totals:
Running: 58.5km
Walking: 45.4km
Cycling: 120.1km
Total: 224km

As noted above, the plan at this juncture is simply to hold myself at the current mileage so next week's schedule will be pretty much a mirror image of this week. It does look like the weather is going to be a little more of a variable in the upcoming days, but there isn't a whole lot that can be done about that ;)

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

One thing that I have been playing around with is the possibility of getting a VO2Max test done. The marathon is a delicate balancing act of various different physiological characteristics, so knowing where the various limits are would be quite useful. I'm still not 100% sure what my maximum heart rate is, and while my current estimate of 215bpm (my highest recorded heart rate) has worked well for me so far the extra stresses of the marathon could easily bring out the difference between theory and reality. Further, having a clinically measured VO2Max value would allow me to get precise readings on my caloric expenditure, thus simplifying the process of figuring out my nutritional requirements during long runs.

The plan...

For the last few weeks I've been trying to figure out my major training goals for the next cycle as I'm getting near the point where I need to start making preparations. My major goal this time around was to work my way up to a full marathon sometime during the next year. The question, of course, was how to best go about reaching that goal.

The two main concepts that I was playing around with were to either go right ahead and target the Mississauga Marathon in mid-May, or to target the 30km Around the Bay race in March as a stepping stone for a full in one of the Toronto marathons. The former had the advantage of allowing me to train in cooler weather as well as getting me to my target faster. While there is more than enough time to properly train for this distance, I was concerned a bit that the jump from 21.1km to 42.2km was a bit too big to make in one big leap. Naturally, the latter had the advantage of allowing me to fit in another training cycle to climb to 30K first and get comfortable with longer distances. The other advantage to the latter was that the weather on race day would likely be better.

After playing around with training schedules, I've settled on working around a bit of a hybrid plan. I'll use the 55mi/18wk Pfitzinger marathon program targeted for the Mississauga marathon, with Around the Bay worked in as a tune-up race. In mid-March, I'll make the call on whether I feel that training has gone well enough for the full marathon. If it has, then I'll go ahead with the plan as designed. If it hasn't however, I'll refocus on running ATB as my goal race and then prepare to start a different training cycle for the Toronto marathons.

This gives me the benefit of getting in a 30K race either way, and the ability to select my route based on how things actually progress rather than having to guestimate that at this juncture. Further, if the first time around doesn't work out I'll have first-hand experience with the training program when I re-start it in the summer.

Either way, I'll be officially starting this program in the first week of January through to the race on May 11th. Until then, I'll be holding at my current 58km/36mi per week level until that point to get my legs ready for the coming increase in mileage.

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

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

Breaking in the trainer...

As mentioned yesterday, due to the weather that we get this time of year I elected to make the move to riding the bike inside until Spring. With the tire and skewer changed yesterday, I cleaned off the bike this morning, hooked it up to the trainer and made sure that everything was working. After lunch, I got changed into my cycling gear, switched on a couple of fans and got started with my normal routine.

While I had originally planned for an 80km ride, I elected to modify that to a 30K ride instead as the prospect of two and a half hours of staring at a wall wasn't terribly enticing. I set up a television to fend off boredom, but there isn't a whole lot on at that time of day so its utility was somewhat limited. Fortunately the bike and trainer (Kurt Kinetic Road Machine) were much quieter than I expected so, unlike my treadmill, it was possible to clearly hear the TV while riding. As such, my best bet is likely to do my longer rides at night when enough good stuff is on to entertain me ;)

Either way, it did get the job done and wasn't quite as mind numbing as I expected it to be. I managed to cover the equivalent of 30km in a little under an hour, averaging a 30.8km/h pace for the session. Naturally, longer rides will likely be a different thing, but if I can find something decent on television they might not be that big of an issue either. The one big upside, however, is that not having to deal with stop signs or traffic means that my average speed is a lot more representative of overall performance than on the road.


One of the other big advantages to using this trainer is that it allows me to monitor my power output, something that would normally take relatively expensive equipment to do. As the manufacturer of this model carefully calibrates their trainers at the factory, it is possible to calculate the power output directly from the speed of the bicycle's rear wheel. Unlike riding outside (where wind speed/direction, road surface, incline, etc. all play a part), all of the resistance is supplied by the fluid chamber so this mapping is predictable.

In this case, my average power output works out to a little under 240 watts. My maximum speed was 48km/h (did a sprint near the end of the session), working out to a peak output of about 680 watts for about a minute. Have to do a little more reading to see whether those numbers are good or not, but it is definitely interesting to have an objective metric to measure my cycling progress with ;)

10K in High Park

As I've noted in the last few updates, the weather has gotten to the point where it is getting in the way of maintaining my cycling routine at the level that I'd like. While adverse weather is little more than an inconvenience on foot, it can pose a significant risk while riding so I've aired on the side of caution. Unfortunately, leaving enough time for recovery for my Running and Cycling schedules limits my flexibility so this has resulted in significant mileage deficits. Given that it's the middle of November, things are unlikely to get any better until Spring so I elected to make the move over to my indoor trainer.

As such, I headed down to the bike store earlier today to have them make some adjustments for use on the trainer (changing out the rear tire and skewer). As the shop is adjacent to High Park and I knew it would take about an hour to do the work, I figured that I'd kill two birds with one stone and do my 10K run while I waited. Aside from more efficiently using my time, it also gave me an opportunity to compare my fitness to the 5K Harry's Spring Run-Off race that I did earlier in the year.

Either way, after dropping off the bike I suited up and started running down Bloor street toward the park. I entered the park at the North entrance and down West Rd., breaking off to a trail alongside Grenadier Pond, down the side of the Queensway and finally up Spring Rd to complete the first lap. At this point (the half-way mark), I then headed back down West Rd. for another lap. After the second time up the hill, I then headed up to Bloor and back to the store.

In the end, I managed to reach the 10K mark in 45m57s with an average pace of 4:34/km. My heart rate averaged 167bpm over the entire route, although it did reach 180 when heading up the Spring Rd. hill. For comparative purposes, I managed to hit the 5K mark in 22m54s which was a little more than a minute faster than the Spring Run-Off race last year (where I was pushing much harder than I was today). Regardless, the hills were much less of an impediment this time around which definitely made the route a lot easier than last time.



Overall, it was nice to give this route another shot and the weather managed to hold out quite nicely despite the threat of rain. Going off of my regular routes is certainly a good thing every once and a while, as it highlights the gains that are often harder to see on day-to-day runs. I'll have to make more of an effort to do similar runs in the future, possibly doing a few of the same races I did last season.

Either way, with the bike prepared I'll likely be setting up the trainer tomorrow and giving it a shot. I generally hate running on a treadmill, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle staring at a wall for the two and half hours it takes to ride 50 miles, but we'll see how it goes.

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

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

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

Getting Used to the Cold Again

Fortunately, my RS800 got back from Polar Canada's service depot yesterday so I was able to get back to my normal running routine. I was definitely impressed with their service, as once shipping times were taken into account they took less than two business days to complete the work. Naturally, I would have rather not have had the problem in the first place but it is good to know that they can get repairs done this quickly.

Either way, the plan called for a 10K run this morning, so I headed out just after 10am. Despite the clear skies, the temperature was below zero and snow that fell yesterday was still on the ground. As such, I wore a long sleeve running shirt, a pair of gloves and a neck warmer to keep myself warm. I did a 1K walk to warm up, and then broke into a run when the watch's auto-lap feature beeped.

I finished the first kilometer a little slow, hitting the mark in 4:48. Kilometers two and three went along similarly, hitting them in 4:46 and 4:47 respectively. By the fourth kilometer, I began to pick up the pace and hit the mark in 4:43. Even at this point, however, my heart rate was still in the 150s which is a lot lower than it usually was so I allowed myself to continue to accelerate a little more.

The fifth through ninth kilometers were all in the low 4:40s to high 4:30s, but my heart rate still remained in the mid-160s. As such, I let myself go faster than usual in the final kilometer - taking 4:28 to reach the finish line. Overall, the 10K running portion took 46:49, for an average pace of about 4:41.

Despite the final push, my heart rate peaked at 173bpm which was still quite comfortable. The cold adds a lot of complexity to running, however it certainly makes it easier to keep the heart rate under control. It does make me wonder how well I could have done had I run the Goodlife Toronto Half Marathon this weekend instead of the Scotiabank Waterfront Half ;)



Given the missed bicycle rides earlier in the week due to weather issues, I replaced the planned 30K in the afternoon with a 50K ride. While it did warm up a little in the afternoon, it was still below 3C so it was still pretty chilly. Naturally, this is more of a concern on the bike than it is on foot, as the continuous ~30km/h wind tends to make for a nasty windchill. Regardless, I had already missed significant mileage on the bike this week so I was determined to make it up one way or the other.

Either way, I put on my cycling shorts, a long sleeve running shirt and a cycling jersey on top and headed out. Once I got going, the temperature wasn't too bad as the heat generated by my body did a decent job of keeping me comfortable. The only thing that ended up becoming a problem was keeping my feet warm, as they don't do a lot of work on the bike so the cold air does get to them. It didn't really become too much of a problem, however it is evident that I need to look into getting a set of windproof booties to put over top of my cycling shoes.

As for the ride itself, I wasn't able to push as hard as I would have liked as the legs were still a little tired from the run a couple of hours before. Either way, I managed to average about 29km/h for most of the laps around the subdivision. Around 2:30, however, the school traffic started building up again so fighting my way through all of the cars slowed a couple of laps down to the 27km/h range. Overall, I managed to average about 28.1km/h including the warm-up and cool-down segments, finishing 50.65km in 1:48:07.


Tomorrow morning has another 10K run scheduled, with an 11K walk in the afternoon. I might try and replace that walk with another ~30K cycle to make up for lost mileage but I'll have to see how things feel. Friday I'll be looking at doing another half-century, and possibly more if everything feels good so I can't push too hard tomorrow. Fortunately, the weather over the next couple of days looks like it's going to be near perfect so hopefully that means that I can stick to the plan better than I have for the first half of the week.

Winter is on its way...

After quickly checking the weather this morning, my original plan was to do my 7K tempo run in the morning and then do a 30-50km ride in the afternoon when the rain was supposed to stop. I was supposed to do an 80K ride yesterday, however as it rained for most of the day I had to give up on that plan and simply did two 11K walks instead. As such, I was hoping to make up for part of that today after I did the scheduled run. Regardless, I headed out about 10:00, and as soon as I got out there it was clear that the wind (which I didn't pay attention to in the weather reports) was going to be an issue.

My route this time around was basically a straight shot down a major road, which provides me with a relatively flat course (versus the hilly routes that I usually use). For tempo runs this is generally a better match, as it allows me to operate at the right level without having to worry about burning myself out on the hills. The downside to this route, however, is that it is much more exposed than the residential streets that I usually run on, so the effects of the wind were more pronounced than normal. Adding to the complexity was that this was my first attempt at doing a tempo run completely by feel (I did last week's on the treadmill), so there was going to be some difficulty in allowing myself to go at the correct speed (4:30/km) without loosing control.

Either way, I hit the 1K mark in 4:42, about 12 second slower than planned so I stepped things up a bit. I accelerated a bit too much, however, and did the second kilometer in 4:22 so I pulled back a little to correct for that. By the 3K mark, I managed to get myself to the right pace - finishing it in 4:29. This continued to the 3.5K mark, which I hit at 15:48 (about 3 seconds behind overall pace).

At this point, I turned around and started heading back the way that I came. Unfortunately the wind had continued to pick up, and I was now fighting a ~40km/h headwind. I managed to keep my pace up, hitting the 4K mark at exactly 18:00 (4:24/km). The cold wind was making it much more of a fight than usual, however, so I elected to pull off the route and take side streets to finish the distance.

Unfortunately, as I didn't have my watch, falling off the route onto roads that I usually don't run on meant that I had no way to gauge my mileage beyond this point. As such, I decided to switch to a timed run rather than a fixed distance, and would continue until I hit 31:30 (7km x 4:30/km). Pacing was naturally completely by feel at this point, as I would have no way to determine it until I could get home and chart out the remainder of the run. As such, I just locked into the feeling that worked earlier in the run and stayed at that level.

I wasn't 100% sure of the layout of the roads in this area, so a lot of my routing had to be made up on the fly. I stuck with smaller roads where the houses shielded the roads/sidewalks from the wind and eventually hit the time limit and broke back to a walk. After about 500 meters, I stopped and did some stretches, then continued for another ~3km back home.

Once I got back to my computer, I pulled up gmap-pedometer.com and charted out the remainder of my route to figure out exactly how far I had gone. Fortunately, things worked out extremely well with the second segment of the run taking up 3,012 meters. Added to the 4K portion that was run as planned, that worked out to a perfect 4:30 overall pace.


As for the cycling, it is looking like that won't be possible today either. There is an extremely gusty 50km/h wind out there right now, which would throw me around like a rag doll if I headed out on the bike. Add in the fact that there have been on and off snow flurries over the last couple of hours, and it's not very friendly weather to deal with at this juncture. As such, I'll likely end up doing another walk this afternoon and will have to try and get in a longer than usual ride tomorrow.

Fortunately, the weather reports seem to indicate things will be much better tomorrow through Friday so as long as they are right it might not be much of a setback. If things work out, I might try and give a metric century (100km) a try on Friday - both to make up for the lost mileage yesterday, and to see how my stamina holds up (it should take about 3.5-4 hours to complete that distance).


With all of that said, I managed to pick up a fluid trainer (Kurt Kinetic Road Machine) for a great price at a bike show on Saturday, and ultimately that will allow me to continue to use the bike when the weather makes it impossible to ride outside anymore. Unfortunately, indoor trainers are apparently very hard on tires, so it is generally best to take good tires off the bike (replacing them with purpose-built tires, or old tires that you don't mind burning through) before riding on a trainer. As such, it doesn't really help a lot with short spells of weather like this week. When the weather starts being impractical more often than not, however, I can switch things around and do my rides regardless of the weather.

The only question at this point, however, is whether riding inside for extended periods will be as boring as running on the treadmill. With that said, there will certainly be less of a choice on this front. While I can run in pretty much any weather, the same cannot be said for a road bike - especially with the nasty winters that we get up here. As such, if I want to keep the cycling up during the winter, the trainer is going to pretty much be my only choice.

Back up to 16K

As planned, I headed out this morning to do a 16K LSD run and get back into the routine of these longer runs. The target was to average a 5:00/km pace, but as it would be impractical to try and memorize 16 waypoints I just focused on a few landmarks along the course and timed myself off of those. Fortunately, the weather was nice and cool so that made it a lot more comfortable than similar runs of this distance done earlier in the year.

Either way, I hit the 1K mark a little behind schedule at 5:07 so I adjusted my pace a little to compensate. The 2K mark came at 10:03, and the first major waypoint (at 2.75km) was hit at 13:45 (just about erasing the initial error). I made a bit more adjustment to my pace at this point to try and keep myself on track, eventually hitting the 5K mark at 24:57 (maintaining a 4:59 pace for this segment) and getting a good feel for the pace.

The next segment was an uphill portion which required a bit of an adjustment, but I managed to keep myself to a 4:57 pace until the next waypoint at 7.31km which I hit at 36:23. Still a bit fast, but much closer than the majority of the runs that I've done this week ;) This continued to the 10K mark, which I hit at 49:45, averaging a 4:58 pace.

After that point, I started going a bit too fast again and hit the 11.87km mark at 58:57 for an average pace of 4:55. As this was the final waypoint, I was a little concerned about the trend so I redoubled my efforts to control pace. In retrospect, I overcompensated a bit as I only averaged a 5:04 pace for this segment, hitting the 16K mark at 1:19:54. Either way, this slowdown simply compensated for the too fast portions earlier in the run, resulting in an overall average pace of 4:59 - finishing a mere 6 seconds earlier than planned.

It definitely felt good to get back to doing these longer distance runs, and being able to pace things this closely helped a lot to boost my confidence. The only problem that I did have was that I overdressed a bit and was pretty warm by the end, but figuring out exactly how much to wear this time of year is a tricky thing. Either way, I can only hope that rest of my runs this week go as well as this one did!