11 days to go till Mississauga Marathon

I suppose I should actually think about the marathon and my tactics at this point. First, an update on training. In the past few weeks, I've added some speed sessions and V02 work and have pushed the pace a bit on my routine runs.

Today was supposed to be 3x1600 but since I'm racing a 10K over the weekend, I opted to just run four miles, no sense in wasting energy at this point.

For some weird reason, I was famished after my run and had a big dinner and still hungry. Wonder what's going on, some sort of pre carbo loading?

Here's what I want to do for the marathon: Ideally, run it to enjoy it and to run a strong marathon without stopping or falling part. That, for me, would be picking a reasonable pace given my on and off training this past winter. As of today, that's a 5 minute kilometre, so the target will be 3:30, sub that if I can.

Three races in three weeks, or the marathon sandwich

For some odd reason, I'm breaking the marathon training rules. Next Sunday, I'm running in the Sporting Life 10K race (presented by my employer, National Post) as part of the company team. I signed up for that a few months ago. In 14 days, my next marathon, Mississauga. Then a week after Mississauga, I run the Capitol Hill 10K in Washington DC.

Here's the thing. I intend to give more than a little effort next week. For my marathon, I think I'm picking a relatively conservative 3:30 target time. And the Capitol Hill race will be run as recovery.

Here's my schedule the last week which includes my last track workout and a race on Sunday.

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 7 miles with 8x100
Wednesday: 8 miles with 3x1600
Thursday: Rest
Friday: 12 miles
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: 6.2 mile race

Mileage update:
January: 119 miles
February: 162 miles
March: 133 miles (two sick weeks will do that to you)
April (month to date): 186 miles
Last week: 44 miles
Year to date: 601 miles

Yeah, my year to date mileage is a little low and if I kept up that pace, I'd hit the 1700 to 1800 for the year. The summer is going to be another monster running one, so I still expect I'll be close to 2000 by year's end.

Speed sessions galore

I feel like I have built up the endurance over the past month so in that sense, I'm ready for the marathon. Running at a strong pace pushing towards lactate threshold, I'm not so sure. So instead of doing just my prescribed miles, I've been heading to the track or throwing in fartlets.

On Thursday, went up to the track for the first time of the season. Yes, I've managed to skip so many track sessions. Kinda stupid but life will do that to you. Here are my splits,

5X600:
1. 2:06
2. 2:15
3. 2:18
4. 2:20
5. 2:22.

I targeted 2:20s to 2:22 so I was pretty off the first two splits

Yesterday I had 4 miles scheduled and I ended up doing just over 5 miles and also ended up turning it on a bit for about a mile. I was running on Lakeshore and seeing the rush-hour traffic, I decided to really step it up and tried to keep up with a postal delivery truck. I beat it and on the way to a 3:47 kilometre, pretty fast. It got the heart going and it felt good.

Today, Pfitzinger-Douglas program called for a 8K to 10K tuneup race, but I didn't really want to find a race, so I headed up to the track to do some V02 track work. Since I did a V02 session on Thursday and added speed to my recovery run yesterday, I only wanted to do light work. I did the following.

3x800
1. 2:58
2. 3:06
3. 3:03
(That was very bad pacing, way too fast as it was more like 3K race pace than 5K, which should have been around 3:10)

After the three, I was tired so decided to do one mile. Had to swerve to avoid a group of runners but did it in 6:07.

Here's the map, from this site that I've seen other bloggers use. Runsaturday.com.

A runner's lifelong journey

One of my closest friends also happens to be the Facts & Arguments editor at the Globe and Mail. Anyhow, she has a great touch in editing and selecting stories and I love it when an occassional running piece appears. And yes, she's an occasional runner who has a treadmill in her basement.

A nice piece in today's paper titled "Runner's high" written by Steve Kelly, a lifelong runner who says his best days are behind him but pays homage to what running has given him, from the beginnings when he found the sport before it became popular, to his glory year, which was many years ago. Here's a bit but worth reading yourself here.

Fortunately, I know that other measures are important too. Like the lessons running has taught me about myself, about my limitations and, most importantly, about my potential.

I'm glad to have read this a few days after I wrote my last post about my long distance and long term view of what running is to me.

Elephant in the room (or, trying to ignore my Boston aspirations until now)

Me at the finish at Toronto Scotiabank last year, my failed BQ attempt.


Today, my thoughts are with friends and fellow runners who are in Boston running the grand old daddy of marathons. I can't lie that I wish to go there one day. In fact, there's a good reason why I didn't write much about my failed BQ attempt last fall -- it hurt too much to think about it. Maybe it's about time I confront that.

The first time I thought seriously that I could somehow make it to Boston came even before I ran marathons. I got back into running in 2004 and started serious road racing in 2005: That year, I fell in love with the sport and by that fall, I'd done my first two half marathon with a 1:35 and 1:34. Here's a thing about that time -- until I had raced 13.1 miles, I never really thought I could do well at long distance running. But I saw that if you doubled a 1:35 half and added 10-15 minutes, I was within striking distance of a BQ.

That 3:10:59 has been that holy grail for me, and as I ran my first two marathons in 2006 and 2007, my sights were set on 3:20, a time I thought would be a building block toward my ultimate goal.

Last spring, almost a year ago, I made my breakthrough, running the Flying Pig Marathon in a sub 3:20. I felt fantastic and strong and even with all the hills of Kentucky and Cincinnati, I powered through the last miles. That, and faster 5K times told me I could perhaps start thinking of making my BQ attempt.

I took a break after my spring marathon but made a commitment to ramp up the training and mileage and I set a hometown marathon -- Toronto's waterfront -- as my venue to make the attempt. In the four months, I have never put so much into a single effort. My mileage was just way more than I was used to: 6 days a week of running, 14 milers on a weekday, 20+ milers, countless track and tempo work. And I was true to the program with no exceptions.

I will not deny that I was in the best shape of my life. Could I have done more? Undoubtedly yes, but time is a massive commodity I have in short supply.

Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon is a bittersweet experience. I was hitting all my splits, it was clockwork. But when I hit the 37K mark, with only three miles to go, calf cramps and subsequent walk breaks took an entire summer's training away from me. I wasn't able to make it to my next goal of 3:15 which would have BQed me for 2010.

Funny, walking home from the race, I tried to come to grips with a wide range of emotions, but I can only describe myself feeling resigned. What an odd feeling. I knew that there was so much not in my control that day, like the heat or a lack of the promised 3:10 pacer. I knew I had run a strong strong race on a warm day, and I had learned so much by running alone about what I could do. I knew I also had to learn more about dealing with the pain associated with running a marathon.

I don't think the summer of training was a waste. There are definate gains I made during those 18 weeks that I bring to myself today -- some sort of reslieance and the ability to run through exhaustion.

So I'm in the taper for my sixth marathon, and last night, I watched a video on Runner's World shot at the Charles River. The reporter was asking runners who were running Boston about getting the BQ. One thing resonated with me. It wasn't the advice to pick the right training program, or doing speedwork three times a week. It was this: You have to keep on trying.

Mississauga Marathon is on my comeback route. I'll run it once again humbled by the distance, I'll aim to run it wisely, with a strong pace and improve upon hydration and fuelling. I'll take a few easy weeks after that, but by June, I'm going to build up the mileage. I've rested and thought through the mistakes all fall and winter, and even just started running again for the love of it, and I've come to grips that BQ is not the sum of my running. It's a milestone, but not getting it won't make me any less of a runner. I've run too many miles in the past five years to make one race one that defines me.

That said, my next birthday in August just bought me another five minutes. So might as well keep on trying.