Hot workout at the track

Tonight was another hot one. It was my first night at the track since my marathon. It was nice to be running a somewhat structured run again tonight. The workout was 70 minutes total with 10 x 1 min @ faster than 5k pace and 1 min easy.

The heat was what it was. It made it harder to keep the pace consistent. Overall the intervals turned out to be faster than I needed which was interesting. I needed to run about 3:45 pace. My results showed that I ran between 3:19 and 3:35. There was also a bit of feeling out the pace which accounts for some of the large range. Part of this was also just figuring out if there was a comfortable pace in the heat.

I felt pretty good for about 6 or 7 of the 10. The last 3 were a little tougher. I was glad to only have to do 10 tonight. In the spring I was routinely doing 15 sets of this type of workout.

In the end, I’m glad I ran in the heat. I felt happy to be finished but not absolutely trashed. Interesting that I felt better tonight than last night’s group run. I think it’s easier when you’re in control of what you’re doing. Last night was a bit more about what the group wanted to run.

Tomorrow is a day off. I’ll want to stay active but I want to ensure that a) I get enough sleep and b) I get the recovery I need going into the weekend.

One last comment. The location of Immaculta High School track is pretty good. It has easy access to the Canal for warm-up and cool-down. The track itself is in okay shape; not perfect but okay. And its reasonably close to home.

The heat wave continues ...

I have to say I’m feeling like burnt toast tonight. Ran at the RR tonight as per plan. John and I worked the last half of our run fairly hard. Given that the temperature was around 30 and humid and sunny, the result was predictable. As crazy as it sounds we could have pushed harder but backed it off a little bit in places to keep it manageable.

It’s always a toss up as to whether or not to deviate from the plan and run a little harder on a planned Easy Run day. Certainly for the first ½ I was okay. The fun was really in the second half which is mostly uphill. The pace in pure terms probably didn’t dip below 4:20 at the most but it just felt really hard to push anywhere near that pace.

In the end I think this run was more about mentally pushing myself when I’m not in control of the pace. There was no way that I was letting John go in the last section. This probably was the real benefit of tonight’s run.

Going forward I’ll need to be cautious about doing these faster runs. It’s good race prep at the moment for my Canada Day 10k but in the long run it will affect my planned hard workouts ever Thursday night.

Tomorrow night it’s back to the track for 10x 1 min on / 1 min recovery at just slightly faster than 5k pace. It’ll be hot tomorrow so it should be interesting again.

Hot weather is finally here :)

Summer was rung in with a sweltering 30 degrees c today. Warm enough that I ran without my shirt on for the first time this year. I know, I know, how many people did I scare. That aside it was the right thing to do as it was the most comfortable way to run.

I also decided that I didn’t want to run with the water belt. To make up for the lack of fluids I planted a bottle around the 1/2 way mark on Corkstown Road. This was a really good idea. First of all the belt would have just added to the heat and forced me to wear a shirt to avoid chaffing. The placement worked well as I went by the bottle twice; once on the way west on Corkstown and on the way back on the path where it comes very close to Corkstown again. It was much nicer to run without that belt.

Tonight was a 70 minute run with 30 minutes at my Steady State (SS) pace (4:14 – 4:21 min/km) in the middle. I felt it more with the heat tonight but my pace and HR were actually very good. I think you feel more in part as the burns more to breathe harder in this hot weather. I averaged for 4:15 for the SS section tonight.

Where I did see the heat have an effect was during the last cool down section. My HR in particular was higher than past weeks and in general I just felt it more.

Overall, I have to say that running in this heat was okay. It’s a lot better than January in my book.

Tomorrow night its back to the RR for an easy 10ish k with the guys. I also start doing a few strides from this point on after my Wednesday and Saturday runs. After this week I’ll also start adding morning recovery runs. During the spring build up they were particularly helpful after the tougher workouts.

It's Hot out there baby!

Hot weather is finally here. This week looks like it will be very hot all week. At least hot for us. Today was in around 27-28 c (low 80s) and humid. The humidity is the part that gets us here in Ottawa.

Today was an Easy Pace run day. Ran for an hour from Westboro (home) to Dow’s Lake to the Bank Street Bridge and back. Afterwards I walked down to my Monday night yoga class. The walk did me good.

This week’s yoga was a lot easier than last weeks. Perhaps almost too easy in parts. I missed the flow that we had in last week’s class. Lots of breaks today. It was probably good however considering the heat.

Yesterday I completely forgot too blog. The day I guess kinda of gotta away from me. I’m not too worried about that.

I think that my fluid intact was good today. I don’t always carry water for an hour run but today I took a bottle of electrolyte solution and had another bottle at my yoga class. Even then I bet that I could have taken more. Right now I don’t feel too bad.

Tomorrow is another Steady State run along the river and the bike trail between Carling and Moodie. I’ll need to watch fluid intake before, during and after as they’re calling for another day in the 80s.

Gatineau Park Run #1 for the weekend

Just finished a nice run in the park. Starting from Gamelin I ran up to Pink Link and back. Kept the pace easy but the hills are still the hills.

Right now I’m sitting @ Les Saisons Café having a piece of Coffee Cake and a Cappuccino. Weather is perfect and not too hot.

It’s amazing how much more enjoyable the run is when you keep the pace reasonable. This certainly was one my nicer runs in a while. Lots of people in the park including some families. Most folks are on their bike of course given the hills but I did pass a few runners. At least I’m not the only crazy person up here today!

Bought a copy of Run Fat Boy Run to watch tonight. Should be fun. Jo-Anne’s away so I’m on my own hence I get to pick the movie.

Greg sent me a slightly revised schedule for the next few weeks to get a bit more faster running in before the Canada Day 10k. More of a focus on going faster with good leg turn over. I think it should help. After this run I’ll probably do the Glen Tay 14.7k race in August in Perth.

End of the week

Feeling very fatigued tonight. It was a busy week in all aspects of my life. My regular weeks are busy enough but we also had some work being done at the house hence not as much down time. There will always be weeks like this; fortunately not every week.

Looking forward to the weekend runs. Think I'll run up in Gatineau park both tomorrow and Sunday. Trying to get some hills in.

11 days to my next race (Canada Day 10k).

Night everybody. Sleepy time.

Runnin in the rain

Quick post tonight.

Had a great run tonight that reminded me of how I felt in Montreal. The plan was for 70 minutes total with 30 minutes in the middle at my Steady State pace range. This is 10 more minutes at the Steady State pace than last week.

Surprisingly the pace felt easy tonight. A large part of that was that my HR was lower than last week (163 vs 167). With the HR lower I felt like I had room to go faster or longer if I had too.

The last two Steady State runs had not felt comfortable. They were doable but there was a lot of hard work to get them done. It makes you wonder if you’ll ever be able to run that pace again. It’s almost like magic when the day comes again and you’re running the pace at a comfortable exertion level.

Tonight’s run started in the rain but after the first few minutes the intensity was not there. It was really just a drizzle by the end. It’s easy to not want to run in the rain but it really felt nice once I got goning. Need to remember that in the future.

New short term goal and where am I at today

Here’s a new goal: Blog every day until the end of my holidays in July. And believe it or not I do want to do this as I enjoying blogging and have been missing it for a while now.

So what’s on today? Today is an easy run 50-60 minutes. I’ll be going up to the Running Room (RR) and run with the guys.

For tonight I want to be sure to not overdue on pace. I’m feeling quite stiff today from Monday night Yoga class. It was a good class but we worked continuously from start to finish in a kinda of a constant flow. This is okay it’s just the fact that I haven’t done a continuous flow like that for quite a while. Perhaps it was a good reminder that I need more classes like that.

If I can be smart about my pace tonight it should allow my body to recover fully before tomorrow night’s more challenging Steady State pace run.

Being stiff from the Yoga class also showed that in general I recover well from my runs. After most runs, even the tougher ones, I don’t feel as bad. Using the RUNRR from McMillan helps with the muscle recovery.

I’m always amazed on days like this that I can even run. I call it the old man syndrome. I know in my head that I can go and do the run. My body is suggesting a different message. Even during the run I may not feel good until 30 or so minutes into the run. Some days just take a while to get into a good groove. I’ll stretch a bit at least before the run tonight.

Bottom line: It’s a gorgeous day (+ 25c) and very little wind. Should be a great night for a run.