Urban Runner

Canada Day 10k

2009-07-03T18:41:00.003-04:00

43:04 min
10.06 km
4:17 min/k
7 min/mile
AvgHR 168

Splits:
3:59,4:01,4:09,4:16,4:22
4:29,4:17,4:27,4:24,4:21

HRs:
154,166,169,170,169
170,170,171,171,171

Sportstats results:
Place *** Name *** Bib# *** Time *** Chip *** Pace ***
60 Brian LAWLESS 133 43:05.3 43:04.1 4:19

Category *** Category Place *** Gender Place
Men 40 - 49 12/49 50/203

Notes:
- stitch from 7 k for the rest of the way in partially caused by eating to close to the start time.
- very humid
- never got into a good rhythm around the 4:00 min pace.
- My HR didn't feel high but the legs felt sluggish on the day. No get up and go so to speak.
- faster kms tended to be the ones with the slight rolling hills.
- the pace felt like I could go on for quite a while just not faster on the day asuming the stitch would go away eventually.
- seamed to fall back into my half marathon pace which is becoming more comfortable for me.

Back in the saddle again ...

2009-07-03T18:38:00.001-04:00

Missed a few days blogging. Been trying to catch up on rest and have as a result been less on the computer.

Today is my rest day. Tomorrow I have a 65 minute run planned. I think I’ll drive up to the park in the morning again to run up to Pink Lake. I’m looking forward to it as I feel a bit sluggish today. Needed more activity in my day today. Damn that work stuff gets in the way.

I’ll post a separate blog for the results from Wednesday’s race. Never really seemed to get out of my comfort zone. I suggested to Greg that I might add another 10k this month.

Looking forward to the weekend to get some good runs in. I’ll add some bike riding this weekend as I want to get some miles in before going to Lake Placid on the 23rd.

Hot workout at the track

2009-06-25T22:29:00.001-04:00

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 ...

2009-06-24T21:49:00.002-04:00

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 :)

2009-06-23T22:13:00.002-04:00

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!

2009-06-22T22:12:00.001-04:00

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

2009-06-20T14:40:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-19T22:45:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-18T23:02:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-17T16:34:00.007-04:00

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.

Mississauga Marathon Comments

2009-05-21T11:45:00.003-04:00

Summary
• I definitely feel confident that I can run
sub 3:10 pace. What will be necessary is to
work on some of the race logistics so that I
don’t give up time unnecessarily. There is
no fear in trying to run that pace given my
recent training, lead up races and this race.

• Was thinking that I would easily settle
into the pace. For the next race I’ll be
more diligent about getting on pace right
away given current fitness levels. In Montreal
this wasn’t as much of an issue as there
were many more people around me to push
the pace in the early stages.

• After 31k my effort was really good.
Aside from getting fluids the pace was very
strong. Passed a lot of people in the last
10k. From a competitive standpoint this was
the best part of the race.

• No people pushing me in my pace as I had in
Montreal.

• Strong head winds for some sections of the
course. I found these sections tough to push
through without red-lining it.

• Need to better balance fluid intact. Stomach
was extremely unsettled for a good part of this
race.

• Drank fluids at more fluid stations but less
per station. Need to practice drinking out of
the cups. Previously I would carry a bottle
which I don’t like doing. Stopping at more
fluid stations meant losing a small number of
seconds more often and hence was less efficient.

• Felt strong and ready on the start line.

• I felt that my mental preparation for this
race was really good.

Highlights
• Getting competitive at 32k when most people
were fading.
• Getting to 40k and then knowing that I would
make Boston and have a solid PR.
• Knowing that I will continue to get stronger
and faster.

Gear
• RaceReady shorts with lots of pockets for
gels, no belt.
• Light weight top was fine even with the
cooler weather.
• Shoes: Mizuno Wave Elixir 4
Shoes were good. I wondered if couldn’t
have run in the Mizuno Wave Ronin 2 shoes
that I had used in Montreal and for the
Around the Bay 30k. Wave Elixir has more
support which was good for the longer distance
but feels less like a competition shoe.

Nutrition
• Instant Oatmeal for breakfast 2 hours
before race time
• 1 500ml bottle of SPR-3 1 hour before
race time.
• 1 gel 20 minutes before race time
• Post race recovery. 3 bottles of Ensure
to get my 90g of carbs in right away.
• Rice stir fry the night before which was
better for me that pasta which doesn’t always
digest well.

Rest
• Friday night was solid
• Saturday afternoon 2 hour nap
• Saturday night reasonable.

Mississauga Marathon Results and splits

2009-05-21T11:19:00.019-04:00

Overall results:
102/1413 Participants
Garmin Watch Pace: 4:41
Avg HR 154 bpm

Place

Name

City

Bib#

Time

Chip

Pace

What’s in a pace target.

2009-05-04T21:02:00.002-04:00

The last few weeks have been interesting. I have fantastic support from my running peers as they all want to see me qualify for Boston for the first time. So do I for the record.

Most of the comments have been of the nature to just run only as much as I need to qualify. This would be a 4:59 min/km pace. The challenge with this is that it’s not the speed that I trained at. If you’re going to run 4:59 I believe that you have to train at or around that pace. I’ve not had good success with running just below the Boston qualifying pace in the past.

This brings me to the crux of the matter. My position is that I need to race at the paces that I’ve trained at and can run comfortably at for the whole distance. Not necessarily to the second but within a reasonable range of these times. This does not mean that I need to race at my top end. That would still be foolish.

After a lot of soul searching and stress I came to the realization that this pace means a pace that is comfortable for me, a pace that I can sustain, a pace that I have demonstrated on my long runs. Is it 4:59, no; is it 4:30 who knows. All I know is that I will get into a comfortable groove next Sunday, a groove that I can sustain for the whole race.

I don’t think I will know exactly what the pace will be until Sunday. This was what happened in Montreal 3 weeks ago for the 1/2 marathon and what I expect will happen next week in Mississauga. I do expect that the taper will give me more energy to sustain the pace.

I don’t want to be a fool on Sunday either. Translation: I don’t want to get too competitive in the 1st 20k. In Montreal, one of my key success factors was getting competitive with those around me during the middle and later parts of the race. This is will be okay after 20k, not before.

I do expect that I will push the pace, not let people pace me and in general strive for a strong second half pace. Key phrase is second half. Again who knows what that pace will be.

One of the things I liked about my last race pace long run was that I didn’t look at the watch until after it was over. I still hit a good solid sustainable pace. I needed to be able to run by feel and that has been happening. This is a good confidence builder going into the weekend.

In summary: run by feel; run within myself; run competitively in the 2nd half. Oh and drink lots of fluids along the way. And that my friends is my final answer.

What it took to get ready for this race.

2009-04-27T20:57:00.003-04:00

This is in part fact (stats), in part a gratitude list, and in part a remembering what it took.

• Changed coaches after 3 years in February of this year. Big decision but I had to try to figure what works for me and what doesn’t. Working with Greg McMillan of McMillanRunning now.
• I’ll have logged a little over 1500 km by race day since the start of the year. 11.87k per day average as of today (27 April). Peak week was 123 km which was actually very achievable. Last week was 118 km.
• My average pace in the last two weeks before the taper (or Peaking phase as McMillan calls it) was sub 5 min (4:57 and 4:54 respectively).
• I did every workout but one with the McMillan program. For that one I needed an extra recovery day.

• Every Tuesday and Thursday I did speed, tempo or Fartlek workouts at the track. We’re truly spoiled having the indoor track at the Dome. I had great support from Dave, Jim and others at the Dome.
• I was willing to try my straight long runs without carbs which McMillan uses for his elite team. The idea is train the brain that it can do the run when it’s getting low on carbs. Brain training is a huge part of running long distance.

• My wife supported me (at least on the surface ;) ) throughout this period as I worked towards my goals. None of this would have been possible without her.

• I had a massage every two weeks to keep things inline. Thanks Paula.
• Yoga was also helpful. Once a week with Tatiana and other days with the DVD.
• Ryan Grant helped make sure I was in the right shoes. I used up more than my share of time with him.

• I setup a nice series of build up races to get to the marathon. 10k early March, 30k end of March and the ½ Marathon mid-April. The Yasso 800 workouts also gave me a good indication of where I’m at.

• I still ran with the group at the Running Room on Wednesdays to keep it real. This helped in a lot of ways.
• A big reason why this cycle has gone so well also is that I’ve really enjoyed the running. It’s been a lot but it’s been okay because I've wanted to do it.

Demi-Marathon de Montreal

2009-04-20T11:49:00.009-04:00

April 19th, 2009
1:30:24.4
4:17 min/k avg pace
210/1854
192/1243
8/166

Weather: Cool, -1 overnight, sunny, warmed very quickly.

Pre-race Activities: Arrived in Montreal Saturday afternoon, picked up race kit, was settled into Hotel by supper time.

Nutrition
Saturday: Pancakes and strawberries Saturday morning to get a good base of carbs.
Small steak for super, veggies, mashed potatoes, one piece of chocolate cake.
Deliberately didn't go for heavy pasta the night before the race as it doesn't digest well for me. Overall ate a bit more than I needed.
Sunday: Oatmeal for breakfast with a banana.
One bottle of water on the way to the race.
1/2 a bottle 20 minutes before the race start.

Splits and Comments:
Km Split Fluids Comments
1 4:11
2 4:14 * Mouth was a bit dry hence therefore started fluids (Gatorade) right away.
3 4:09
4 4:15 Slight head wind as we came back around the island.

5 4:11
6 4:20 * Good fluid break.
7 4:14
8 4:14 *

9 4:18
10 4:25 *
11 4:21 This and the next k were harder. Not sure why, just wasn't able to push as hard through here. Slight headwind but nothing serious.
12 4:26 *

13 4:12 Started to really work it with a group I was running with. Didn't want them to catch me. This was a straight 2k section.
14 4:12
15 4:15
16 4:25 * Last fluid break. I was thinking that a gel would have been good here but still felt pretty strong and kept pushing.

17 4:15
18 4:15
19 4:16 Had a really good group from here to the finish. We really pushed each other. Again trying to keep them behind me within reason. I think only one guy I just let go as we just moving too fast.
20 4:18

21 4:01 Strong steady push. Wasn't aware that I had dropped it down quite that much. Again the group was pushing hence fast through here.
At the start of this k, 2 of the guys went right by me. Caught them both in the last 150m. Finishing in lock step with one of them.
0.1 3:50 Felt strong right to the finish. No big sprints here but strong and steady.

Overall comments
- Working with the two groups really made the difference. First at km 13 and then starting from km 19. Both of my PR 1/2 marathons have been when I've had a group to push me.
- Took 3-4 k to get into a good rhythm. Need to think a bit more about my warm up.
- Really focus in this race on a good leg turn over, keeping steady and not over striding.

Post Race Nutrition
- Forgot to bring my liquid carb drink for post race recovery. Drank what was available at the finish to compensate.

Around the Bay Road Race 2009

2009-03-30T19:54:00.008-04:00

Time 2:20:38.7
Overall place 384 / 4926
Gender place 334 / 2623
Category place 57 / 521 (Men 45-49)

Splits
10k 47:21
15k 1:11:13
20k 1:34:27

Time to retie shoe laces at 4k ==> 1:35 min

Pre-race Comments:
- Arrived on Friday, picked up race kit that afternoon.
- Easy run Saturday AM. Felt pretty good.
- Did additional stretching Saturday evening as left hamstring had been tight during the week.
- Nutrition was good coming into race day.
- Sleepy was okay Friday but short. Saturday night was good.

Race morning:
- Raining and just above freezing
- Was able to get good start position. Almost 7000 lined up.
- Oatmeal for breakfast 2 and ½ hours before race.
- One bottle of sports drink (with carbs) (SPR-3) 1 hour before race.

Race:
- Shoelace, although double knotted, unfortunately came undone in km 4. First time ever. In the process of pulling the laces loose I accidentally pulled the knots tighter. Raining and cold, hence took approx. 1:35 – 1:40 to get re-tied.
- Tried not to take off too quickly after starting again. It happened, there was no need to panic.
- Basically 4:30 for most of the race on the flats.
- I wanted to ensure that I was getting enough liquids in during the race hence stopped regularly to drink. Stops were pretty quick and only resulted in a few seconds lost per stop.
- 2 gel breaks (1 gel each time). These took longer but the race was long enough that I wanted to ensure I had enough carbs to push through to the end.
- Hills started around km 18. Mostly rolling hills for the first while with one long slow hill. Then a stretch of about a k that was basically flat, followed by the one long S-curve kind of a hill.
- Last 3 k was a gradual downhill to the finish.
- Wind was more of a factor through the middle section along the lake. More exposed through those sections.
- Rained most of the race but not heavy rains fortunately. The net effect was that it kept things pretty cool as the temp was only in the 30s.
- Felt strong through the hills and through the final sections. Passed a lot of people on the hills which tells me my hill strength is probably not that bad right now.

Post-run Analysis:
- Although more of a risk I think I could have taken a few seconds faster per kilometre. I felt strong right through the end. 2:15 was possible on the day but I would have needed to be more aggressive to achieve the result (excluding the time lost for the shoelace incident).
- Hydration overall was excellent. The cooler day helped.
- The two gel breaks mostly likely was about right. Need to think about training and taking the gels while I run as I lost time walking getting them open and then consumed.
- Left knee was tight at times. Need to focus on muscles around the knee this week.

Recovery:
- Felt quite good after the race. More fatigued the next day but I was able to an easy recovery run Monday morning. Overall, I’ll need a few days of good rest.
- No sharp pains in any one area. Will continued to work the left side due the tightness I felt around the knee. Trying to get an extra massage in this week.

Prognosis for upcoming training and ½ marathon in Montreal on April 19th:
- I definitely feel that I’m training around the right paces. Recovery has been good.
- For the ½ in Montreal I’ll plan to be more aggressive and see what is possible.

TrainingPeaks tool Review

2009-03-24T17:24:00.004-04:00

Review of my initial trial of Training Peaks web based tool for capturing my running stats.

Athlete Profile
Primary Sport: running
Supplemental Sports: Yoga, cycling
Current tool: SportTracks
Watch: Garmin 405 with HRM

Costs: not free, too upload my content from the Garmin watch I need the paid version

Not Reviewed: Nutrition components

Why did I review this:
- Read that Simon Whitefield uses this tool.
- Sportracks is not perfect either.

General Pluses:
- Able to easily enter future workouts

General Negatives
- Reporting is poor. For example,
○ difficult to generate custom reports or
○ Can't view the year at glance sorted by weeks.
○ Can't look at year to date numbers
- Can't add other sports or activities such as Yoga or Strength and Conditioning workout.

GUI -- General
- Took some time to get used to the interface. Not everything was intuitive.
- GUI doesn't respond to page down inputs. In the Dashboard and Journal this is a pain especially for someone who prefers to use the keyboard.

GUI -- Calendar view
- Should open to view at least one previous weeks data. Force to scroll back to view last weeks data.
- Weekly summary column useful.
- It would be nice to have the week number for the calendar year.

GUI -- Spreadsheet view
- Not clear to me what I would use this for. No summary data hence would it not just be easier to read of the calendar view data. Lacks organization at the row level (i.e. Totals).

GUI -- Dashboard view
- Fitness summary not that relevant for single sport athletes.

GUI -- Journal view
- Hard to navigate up and down without using a mouse. This tends to slow me down.
- Would prefer to have all of these windows in a single tabbed view.
- Graph Pod useful to see most of the primary data at a glance.
- Map pod okay but would prefer Google Earth map. That's just a personal preference.
- Free form aspect of the comments and notes seams useful.
- It would be nice to be able to edit the distance on laps. In the winter we run indoors and hence don't have the distance recorded. Also there are times when you don't wear the watch. The overall distance can be edited but not the individual laps.
- Equipment needs to have categories for shoes. For example, daily, race shoes, retired shoes, etc.

More to follow as time permits

--brian

1st time doing Yasso 800s

2009-03-20T08:38:00.003-04:00

Really excited about the results from the track last night. This was a real breakthrough run for me. Needless to say I'm quite please about the implications.

Details:
W/U + Drills: 24:26

Yasso 800s:
Splits
3:03, 2:59, 3:00, 3:05, 3:01, 3:03, 3:03, 3:02, 3:01, 2:57

Rest breaks:
3;11, 3;11, 3:11, 3:06, 3:07, 3:04, 3:07, 3:08, 3:05, approx. 2:00

Peak HRs:
173,174,174,174,177
173,173,179,177,176

Avg HRs:
162, 164, 165, 163, 165, 165, 166, 165, 167, 166

Avg HR during recovery:
136, 139, 139, 140, 140, 141, 142, 144,

St. Patrick's Day 10k

2009-03-16T16:20:00.012-04:00

Overall Place 34th out of 432
Time 42:20.9
Category Men 40-49
Category Place 9/56
Gender Place 29/191

Splits
1st half (4:05, 4:09, 4:12, 4:15, 4:25)
2nd half (4:05, 4:08, 4:10, 4:05, 4:09)

Notes

Pre-race

Good sleep
Oatmeal for breakfast at 7:00 AM (2 hours before race start)
1 bottle of SPR-3 75 minutes before the start.
Weather -10 c (14 degrees Fahrenheit) with a brisk wind in our faces on the way out.
Clothing
Tights
2 long sleeve shirts and a vest. This was about right. Not too hot, not too cold.

Warm-up

Easy 20 minutes running
Stretching
Pre-start pick ups to get the heart race going
How did I feel at the start
Not bad but not as fresh as Wednesday evening.
Felt strong and mentally ready to work it.

Target time

Low 41 minute mark.

Race

Pushed hard through first k. First k split slower than normal. Planned to be under 4 minutes for the first k as per my normal 10k races.
Not as much spring in my step in the early stages.
Focused on keeping pace steady and finding the right zone to be in after the first k.
Brisk wind in our face on the way out.
At the half dug in and pushed. Caught next guy ahead in the 6th k, caught the 2nd guy at the end of the race, no others close.
Managed to keep one of my running friends behind me who had only been about 25 feet behind at the half. It was good to know he was there pushing me.
Worked to keep pushing through final kms (miles). Strong through to the finish line.
Stomach not too happy at the finish.

General comments

As mentioned above felt much fresher on Wednesday than I did on race morning. Even with the day off. Thursday run felt really good as well.
Not sure if the temperature and wind were the difference. One of the faster woman that I know was telling me she was off by a couple of minutes on the day.
Felt stronger as the race went on. 2nd half was strong but fast.
Mentally I felt my 2nd half was really stronger. First half could still be improved.
Overall pleased with the effort. It often takes me a couple of races to really start nailing these early spring/late winter races.
Generally speaking I feel I am on track for where I need to be for the 30k race in March 29th. Targeting 2:15 for the 30k race.

2008 Stats

2009-01-15T13:05:00.000-05:00

Total kilometers for 2008 = 3302 km
Total hours for 2008 = 287:41 min
9.0 km per day for every day of the year.
63.5 km per week average
47 min 17 sec per day for every day of the year.
5.5 hours per week for every week of the year
Average pace for the year was 5:15 min/k or 11.4 km/h
Burned 249,688 calories
Highest week = 103 km (Feb 10th - 16th)

End of good week

2008-08-29T15:58:00.000-04:00

Was in for an extra massage / ART work today. This has been the biggest week that I've had by far in a long time. In addition to the three weight sessions, we started Zone 3 (read fast) workouts this week. The extra work with Paula was a really good idea.

It's clear that I'll need to work in a lot more stretching in the next few weeks as things continue to ramp up leading to the Army 1/2 next month and the Toronto marathon in October. This week was more of challenge to allocate enough time for stretching.

This was also a real break though week. Both the Tuesday Zone 3 run and the Thursday long Zone 2 run were the best I've had in quite a while. For the zone 3 I was suppose to be only hitting 4:25 min/k for the 5 minutes at the top of the zone. As I went along I got faster and faster eventually hitting 4:08 min/k for the last of the four sets. Thursday had similar good results. I hit my target 5:00 min/k for the 1st 25 min section but then was able to run under 5 (4:48 and 4:51) for the remaining sections.

Today is a rest day and that's okay with me. Tomorrow I have my long run (2:45) which I'll do the 1st 16k with Jim. I'm still trying to get my zone 1 pace way down to get my aerobic threshold where I went it. For the 2 races I want to ensure that a 5:00 min/k pace is squarely in zone 1. This weeks workouts have given me much better confidence that things are falling into place.

Random observations

2008-08-25T17:45:00.003-04:00

Last week was a good week from several perspectives.

I worked hard at keeping my pace slow as planned to ensure that my aerobic threshold comes back to where it was as soon as possible. It was off due to being sick and traveling for the most part.

Keeping the pace slow reminded me how it should feel when you're in the right zone. This is easy to forget and usually results in me running too fast. I don't have to be in the top of my zone 1. The bottom and the middle are okay places as well. Go figure.

I think the timing of the rest week was pretty much ideal as well. I need the rest and the chance to do my workouts when I was fully rested. It's easy to end up doing the workouts not fully rested.

Anyway, more later ....

Week of August 20th - 24th

2008-08-25T17:14:00.010-04:00

This weeks batch of runs ....

1. Rest week.
2. Best week I've had in a long time. No sinus / allergy issues. Diet was good.
3. Kept the paces reasonable all week and didn't try and overdue it.

Day	Date	Total Time	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Comments
Wednesday	AUG 20	40	11.5	142	Ran with the group but kept the HR as low as possible. Felt really good during this run.
Thursday	21	45	10.8	140	Ran from Peak out along Castle Frank to Terry Fox and back. Somewhat dehydrated during this run hence I felt the heart rate was higher than it ideal.
Friday	22	28	9.4	126	Ran with Jo-Anne at lunchtime downtown. Very relaxed run. Finished with the stairs behind parliament.
Saturday	23	150	10.9	141	Nutrition was good before the run. Had 2 clif bars at 5:30 but that seamed to do the trick. 1x600 ml bottle for the 1st 90 and 1 more bottle for the last 60.
(1st 90)		89	5:35	136	Ran with Jim from his place @ 6:50 AM Pace was very comfortable. No places to refill the bottles on this route.
(last 60)		101	5:18	147	This section had a lot of downhill as I headed down the transitway to the river. Felt good throughout the last hour. Interesting however, that my HR was so high. Probably dehydrated in this section.
Sunday	24	45	5:46	133	Ran in Combermere. The route was equivalent to running in the Gatineau's. Felt sluggish during the run probably due to the big dinner the night before and the lack of any kind of warmup on the route. The route started straight uphill. No other options for this route.

2008-08-20T15:08:00.009-04:00

Last weeks runs

*** General Notes

1. Due to some scheduling
conflicts and thunderstorms when I was available on Sunday and Tuesday, I
shifted my weekday runs by 1 day last week starting with the long run on
Sunday which I did Monday.

2. In general, after Tuesday
felt a little off for the rest of the week. In thinks it case of allergies kicking in.
I was still able to run just more clogged up in the sinus cavity than
anything.

3. Last nights run was the
best run I've had in a long time. This is in terms of how I felt and how I perceived the effort.
This bodes well.

Day	Date	Total Time	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Comments
Monday	AUG 11	150	10.7	142	Trying to run by feel
Tuesday	12	36	9.6	128	Easy ran with a group at the running room which forced me to keep it really slow. Good recovery run. Shorter than planned total run distance.
Wednesday	13	1:36	4:40-4:49 for each of the 1k splits.		Gatineau Park for my 5x1k hills -- Oy Kept the distance at 1k as that was what I had been doing on Corkstown Road. I really challenged myself on this run. Going to Gatineau Park was good.
Thursday	13	0			Did Strength & Conditioning but did not run. This was a case of listening to my body which was saying not too push it that day.
Friday	14	90			Did my 60' in z2/ 30' Z1 This was interesting as I tried very much to run by feel. I was targeting a long fast steady run for the 60' in zone 2 but overshot. It was good on the one hand in that pace was challenging but doable. Bad on the either hand in that it definitely took longer to fully recover from the run.
		30	4:54	151	1st half of 60' Z2
		30	4:51	164	2nd half of 60' Z2
Saturday	15	75	10.7	142	This was a great run and felt really good.
Sunday	16	95	11.0	148	Ran with a Pat along the river. The overall speed was a faster than planned. Difficult to keep it slow enough. Legs felt stiff on this run probably still from Friday's effort. Ran very early (6:30 AM) as well.
Monday	17				Recovery Day
Tuesday	18	40	11.0	138	This was the best run I've had in ages. :) Did a bit of an experiment. Kept the hard rate solidly under 140 for the whole run. Garmin takes a couple of minutes to properly lock in the HR hence the avg number slightly higher than what it was in reality during the run. Didn't look at the speed until the end of the run. This run felt that I could go on like this forever.

Traveling a bunch ...

2008-07-31T13:19:00.000-04:00

I've been in Minneapolis all week on a last minute trip for work. I've run just not a lot this week.

Lake Placid was interesting. I arrived there just in time to get sick. First time in a long time. Not much fun. Some sort of Stomach / Intestinal bug.
- On the Saturday I did run, just not the scheduled two hours as I hadn't been able to eat anything.
- I ended up doing my long run Tuesday night after I got back which worked out fine.

Tuesday/Wednesday after Lake Placid I had good runs.

Thursday home again sicker than a dog. Same thing. Obviously what ever went through my system wasn't gone.

By Saturday I was feeling okay again. I ran both Saturday and Sunday as scheduled.

Monday through today I've been in Minneapolis as noted. I've run each morning here but just straight runs. Today I head home. No planned trips after this (personal or work).

******
There is some good news out of this bug that went through me. On my run last Saturday I felt the same as I had on race day here in May. Same symptoms in that I wasn't able to take in much of my SP3 mixture and felt somewhat unsettled. I had good size breakfast about four hours before the run and it was obvious that it had not digested. I strongly suspect this was the same pattern in May.

If I experienced this last Saturday and in May there must be a common link. It may be worthwhile to talk to my doctor. Alternatively it may be a food allergy of some sort.

*******

Distance	Total Time	Time	AvgHR	Fluids	Gels	Comments
1		4:25	182			Probably not quite warmed up enough. 1st k was a bit hard as a result.
2		4:36	149			Need to be more vigilant in these early kilometers and not loose time for no good reason. A little bit loose through the next couple of k.
3		4:40	150	*
4		4:28	150
5	0:22:46	4:37	148	*		Was trying to find a good rhythm. Might have been better to just lock into the pace and let the rhythm work itself out.
6		4:35	154
7		4:35	152	*
8		4:36	152	*
9		4:28	152			A lot of downhill through here. Moving well for this and the next k.
10	0:45:29	4:29	150
11		5:13	150	*	*
12		4:37	149			Again probably should have just locked into the pace for this and the next 4k.
13		4:41	148	*
14		4:34	150
15	1:09:12	4:37	152
16		4:40		152
17		4:48		154		Head winds.
18		4:37		154
19		4:51		151		Head winds. Difficult section for this and the next k.
20	1:32:58	4:50	152
21		4:41	149	*	*
22		4:37	151
23		4:45	149	*
24		4:38	153
25	1:56:29	4:50	154	*		Head winds in this section again.
26		4:36	157
27		4:36	155
28		4:46	156			Really strong heads for last half of 28 and majority of 29.
29		5:01	154
30	2:20:14	4:46	151			A bit of recovery here after the windy section.
31		5:07	153	*	*	Long uphill section
32		4:37	157	*		Started to push strongly from here. HR jumped up as a result.
33		4:38	157
34		4:23	158
35	2:44:00	5:01	160			Uphill for a little more than half of this k. Some time lost at fluid station after the hill and then continued to push.
36		4:33	157
37		4:45	156	*		Minimal fluids at this point.
38		4:39	158
39		5:00	155	*		Feeling very woozy at this point. Too many fluids. Kept it steady for the next 2 k but was not feeling great. Legs felt fine though. Took one sip of water, no Gatorade.
40	3:07:40	4:42	158
41		4:41	159			Was able to ramp it up again for the finish but still too many fluids.
42		4:20	163
42.2	3:18:10	4:18	168