Congrats to IMUSA finishers

Just a quick note also to congratulation the folks from Peak and the old Running Room clinics and groups who completed the race yesterday. It was very inspirational and emotional to watch you all keep going.

So congrats to the Mike and Andrew from the RR and Stefani, Glenn and Darcia from Peak. I'm sure there were others but its amazing how hard it is to find people during the race. Fantasic job all.

Post Ironman USA

Today is the day after IMUSA. Yesterday was a long very satisfying day. I had to be at my volunteer commitment at 4:45 AM (this is what I do on my holidays ….). I left the finish line oval at midnight after the last finisher came across at 11:59 PM.
For volunteering this year I did Body Marking and Wetsuit Peeling. Both were a lot of fun. The view of the swim race from the swim finish was fantastic. Lots of crunching down to right numbers on legs during the body marking.
By the end of the day I was pretty exhausted and again had walked a considerable distance during the day and night.
I had decided to move my long run to today which was the right thing to do. Squeezing in 3 and half hours during the race plus getting cleaned up just wasn’t going to happen. So this morning I trotted off to do my run.
Now there is only one water fountain that I know of in the town. I had to plan my long run by looping back to refill my water bottle every 45 min to an hour. That actually worked out okay. I used the water refill to get in a good volume of water so that the bottle would last my longer out onto the course. I continue to use the Hammer stuff in the bottle for carbs and protein. I started with one bottle of heed to get in some of electrolytes.
I was scheduled to do 45 min in zone 1, 2hours in zone 2 and 45 CD/Zone 1. The end result today was 45 in zone 1, 1 hour 35 min in zone 2 and 15 min CD. While doing my 2nd loop in zone 2, I was not holding the pace. It was obvious that the legs were still holding some residual effects from yesterday’s big day. I expected this but wasn’t quite sure how it would play out. In the end it was obvious that I should make sure not to make things worse for the next few days. The effort during the zone 2 segments felt good.
It was good mentally to try running on not fresh legs.
Tomorrow has 30 min in zone 3. I’ll do it before I leave Lake Placid to make sure it gets done. Then I can relax when I get home to Ottawa tomorrow night.
That’s it for now.

Another great day in Lake Placid

Just a few quick words tonight. Tomorrow is the big race. I have to get up at 3:45 to get to my volunteer commitment on time. This year I signed up for “Body Marking” for something different.
Today was a really nice, sunny not too humid of a day. I got to run and later was able to get a swim in on the Ironman course.
Today was probably the first day that the run didn’t feel too bad which is amazing considering everything that I did yesterday. Legs are still sore from the cycling but overall I’m not too bad. The humidity or lack of it made the run a lot more comfortable. Also everything was only in zone 1 today. Hills are still hills and this place is definitely not flat. So I worked a bit on the hills but didn’t push too hard to keep this to a true recovery run.
Later in the afternoon I went for a quick swim in Mirror Lake. It was quick ‘cause that’s all I can do. I still enjoyed it though. Lots of people still swimming today.
The crowds really picked up today. Everybody had to come in at some point to drop their bike off. It’s an amazing number of bikes many of which are worth way too much money.
Best go get ready for some sleep. Tomorrow will be a big day.

Big day in Lake Placid

Today started off with yesterday’s workouts. I had switched the off day yesterday since it was so miserable outside. I still got wet today but not as bad.
On the cards for today was a 60 minute run with 10 minutes in zone 3. I’ve noticed that the runs here in Lake Placid are definitely harder than usual. Every day is a bit better and this morning’s run was better than my last run for sure. At least for the run I didn’t get rained on.
Today was also the day to try one of my goals that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. With a good friend John, we did one loop of the Lake Placid ironman bike course. OMG. What a challenge. On top of that I nearly wiped out on the first downhill when I was getting some serious rear wheel wobble. The extra weight that I had lost since last year really helped on the hills. This is good since there are a lot of them right through to the end. We finished it but I was very glad to be done. There’s no way I could have down a second loop. Total distance ~93k.
Interesting, my legs are okay for walking. I’m sure they’ll hurt tomorrow. The bike will stay locked up for a couple of days.
The next three days will require some careful planning. Tomorrow is a straight forward run for an hour. That’s okay as I really need the easy day. But Sunday I have 210 minutes scheduled and its race day. I can’t decide if I’ll do it Sunday or move it to Monday. There’s no way that I can do that kinda of effort tomorrow after today’s run /ride combination. What probably makes sense is to do it Monday when I get home.
Tomorrow I’ll hit the race expo again to see if there’s anything else worth picking up. Not all of their kit had arrived yet if you can believe it.

Nissan 10–miler Race notes

Results:
• 76th out of 1193 people
15th of Men 40-44
64 Man, 12 women ahead
• Average HR: 171 bpm
Max HR: 180 bpm
• Out and back course:
Slowest km: 4:22 (km 15)
Fastest km: 4:00 (km 2)
• Note: At the end of km 8 and the start of km 9 was a quick water break hence slightly slower for those 2 kms.
1 4:16
2 4:00
3 4:02
4 4:10
5 4:10 20:38
6 4:08
7 4:10
8 4:14
9 4:18
10 4:10 21:00 41:38
11 4:10
12 4:11
13 4:17
14 4:16
15 4:22 21:16 62:54
16 4:06 67:00
0.17 0:39 67:39

- Pre-race rest / Nuitrition
o Poor for the 3-4 days before the race
o Ranged from 4 to 6 hours a night for the three days prior. Shouldn’t have watched the Tour de France as it gave me a second wind each night.
o Work was very busy as we we’re trying to solve a critical issue for a minor release that was due to go out the door this week while I was off.
o Ate reasonable well all week at least. Nothing that I would say that was junk.

- Weather
o Warm and very humid. Sunny as well. Approx. 15-17 degrees at race start.

- Pre-race nutrition
o Not quite enough fluids pre-race. In total 1 500 ml bottle 45 minutes before the race.
o Due to travel to race, I ate an energy bar for breakfast plus 1 pack of Cliff Shots. This felt okay though. I had a good dinner the night before with my cousin in Pickering

- Weight 186.0 lbs. Still up from the spring marathon.

- 1st 5k
o First three k were a bit fast. Garmin was having problems picking up the pace hence I didn’t know for sure that I was running this fast.
o Didn’t feel comfortable for the first three k. In part this says to me that I didn’t warm up enough.

- 2nd 5k
o I wouldn’t change a thing for this section. Kept the pace even but aggressive.

- 3rd 5k
o I don’t think realized how much I was fading in kms 13-15. This is a part of the race that could be changed. In hind sight I could have pushed to get the average pace of 4:08-4:10 that I wanted. I obviously had some left for the final km.

- Race nutrition
o Very little involved here as I generally don’t take in fluids for this short of a race. I made an exception at 8 km to get some liquid in as my mouth was quite dry.

- Post-race thoughts
o Target pace was bang on. Execution was really good with only minor things to change.
o This was much closer to where I was for the day. Considering that I had very poor sleep and lots of stress for the three or four days before the race, the result was fantastic. With better rest perhaps more would have been available to me on the day.
o This was a really big in getting my race pace to where it needs to be. With each of these shorter races I’m getting a lot closer to the ideal pace for achieving my best possible time. Didn’t get to a pucky stage but didn’t have much left at the end either.
o Next year’s goal: < 4:00 min/km pace and top 40 placing.

Lake Placid, first full day

First full day of holidays on my own. I’m in Lake Placid (LP) for the Ironman USA weekend. It rained all day after breakfast. The weather network described it as “heavy”. I don’t think they were wrong. I decided to switch my off day tomorrow to today.
Hard to describe this as an off day. I’ve walked at least 10k in LP today. My Inn is about ½ to 1 km from most things of interest. I walked to breakfast; I walked unsuccessfully to find a coffee shop with wireless access other than Starbucks where I am now; I hit a bike store to get a lock for the bike; I hit the Ironman USA overpriced souvenir shop; I hit a book store to get some good reading for the rest of the weekend.
They have a nice diner here in town for breakfast although it is 1.5 k from the hotel. Tomorrow the Inn starts serving breakfast for the rest of the weekend. Lunch was also good but slightly fancier (crab cakes and spinach salad).
The atmosphere here is amazing. People are running, riding and swimming like crazy. Every other car has a bike worth at least 2 grand. Don’t show up here if you have more than 20% body fat (pregnant women excepted).
Tomorrow I’ll run 60 minutes with 10 minutes in zone 3. Yesterday’s zone 2 run was challenging. Partly this was due to travelling all day but mostly due to the constant up and down terrain here. In total it was only 20 minutes in zone 2 but I certainly worked hard to keep the right pace. This was originally supposed to be Tuesday’s run but some reason I total missed that that was the run for Tuesday. No harm.
Tomorrow I’m also hoping to do one loop of the bike course (90k). If the weather clears up this should be okay. I’ll do this at a nice easy steady pace. Nothing crazy.
Since the race is Sunday I’ll do my long run on Saturday otherwise it will be too difficult to get it all in. At least on Saturday I can rest for the remainder of the day if I need it.

I want to blog!

I always enjoy blogging when I can hence it’s too bad in a way that I haven’t been able to keep it going more consistently. Being more consistent starts with the first entry. Here goes.
Where am I in general?
1. Working towards the Edmonton marathon on August 12th.
2. Just finished the Canada Day 10k (40:47)
3. Getting ready to run my first 10-miler this weekend in Toronto. (Targeting 4:10 pace)
4. Also getting ready to spend 5-days in Lake Placid, NY around the Ironman USA weekend.
Where am I this week?
- Last night’s run was great. Legs were moving really well and it felt effortless. Ran with the Boys at the Running Room.
- Tuesday’s run was hard with the high humidity. I hit the right target pace for the zone 2 work that I planned but it was a lot more effort to stay at that pace. After 75 minutes of zone 2 I backed off and called it a day.
- Sunday / Monday no runs. Sleep pattern was off which can really throw my schedule off. I also needed to be better organized on these days to get the runs in. Sometimes life just gets in the way. I’m comfortable with my decision to not push it and just accept that it was what it was.
Tonight is a zone 1 run with 15 minutes of zone 3 thrown in the middle to spice things up.
After tomorrow I’m on holidays for a week and a bit which will be great. It should be fairly active in Lake Placid while I’m there. I’m going to bring my road bike and swim gear to cross train a bit. The challenge will be to not do too much and too make sure that I get my runs in first every day.