Today's the longest run in the cycle and looking forward in my schedule, I don't have another long run of this length. When you do the higher mileage programs, 22 milers don't really scare me like they used to. The weather is usually my biggest fear.
I was up at 6:30 for the run. The weather is really cool this week so it was conducive for faster speeds.
As you can see from the map below, you can cover a lot of ground in Toronto. I started out east and passed a group of runners waiting for one of them who needed a bathroom break. They passed me and I let them go, giving a little bit of a chase but they were going too fast for me. I struggled to get beyond a recovery pace at first but after 5 miles, I started to warm up and started to speed up.
Fuel wise, I took in two gels at the 12K and 24K marks. It seemed to do the trick as I also had about 16 oz of Gatorade in my bottles.
Fast forward three hours and I had passed the 22 miles and I felt so good I added a little more mileage. I ended up with 36.5K or 22.6 miles in 3:04. The average pace was 8:09 miles or 5:04 kilometres. Not bad for a long run.
For the week, I logged 67.5 miles or 108K. For the month, 227 miles or 365K. Looking forward, I have speedwork starting this week and this weekend calls for a race. I will do a tempo run instead on Saturday.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Saturday, August 29, 2009
I like to...
Courtesy of a 1 kilometre run around my neighbourhood. Did another 10K in a more normal fashion
Monday, August 24, 2009
Now for some long mileage
After last Saturday's 30K race, I'm left feeling pretty confident that I can do well at a fall marathon, given the right weather conditions. Marathon pace actually felt comfortable, not easy, but doable with more training.
I'm now left with five weeks of heavy training before the taper begins. The Pfitzinger schedule has me doing a 70 mile week, a 68 mile, a 64 mile then another 70 mile week.
I'm not quite going to ramp up the schedule right up to that max, as I just started my new job today. I have some track work and key tempo runs I'd like to get in the next two weeks, otherwise, some of the recovery days i'll just take off to ensure I do quality work justice.
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 6 miles a.m. / 4 miles p.m.
Wednesday: 15 miles
Thursday: 6 miles (option to skip or tone down to 3 miles)
Friday: 11 with 7 at LT
Saturday: 5 miles (option to rest or crosstrain)
Sunday: 22 miles
The key looking at the schedule above is to keep endurance up (ie., a 10 mile day followed by a 15 mile run), some tempo (Friday's LT, shudder the thought) and the long long 22 miler on Sunday. Friday and Sunday are hard days as is Wednesday. In short, wow, this will be a tough running week.
Here goes nothing.
I'm now left with five weeks of heavy training before the taper begins. The Pfitzinger schedule has me doing a 70 mile week, a 68 mile, a 64 mile then another 70 mile week.
I'm not quite going to ramp up the schedule right up to that max, as I just started my new job today. I have some track work and key tempo runs I'd like to get in the next two weeks, otherwise, some of the recovery days i'll just take off to ensure I do quality work justice.
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 6 miles a.m. / 4 miles p.m.
Wednesday: 15 miles
Thursday: 6 miles (option to skip or tone down to 3 miles)
Friday: 11 with 7 at LT
Saturday: 5 miles (option to rest or crosstrain)
Sunday: 22 miles
The key looking at the schedule above is to keep endurance up (ie., a 10 mile day followed by a 15 mile run), some tempo (Friday's LT, shudder the thought) and the long long 22 miler on Sunday. Friday and Sunday are hard days as is Wednesday. In short, wow, this will be a tough running week.
Here goes nothing.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Race report: A Midsummer Night's Run: 30K
The marathon pace run is probably the most important leading up to the race day. I tend to like them a bit more than tempo runs and I tend to enjoy track work, which at least is short term pain.
I missed last week's MP run that called for 12 miles at pace as part of a 15 mile run. I really wanted to do the 30K race, or 18.7 miles, mostly at pace. I figure that if you do pace runs by themselves, it's a much harder effort because you have to keep up the pace yourself. If you run it as part of a race, it becomes easier to get your head around it. So why not get the 5 extra miles if you have other runners to pace with, water stops and a route blocked off by pylons and volunteers.
I've run this race twice before, having done the 15K two years ago and the 30K last year. The organizers are tweaking with the race, having the 30K group start an hour before the 15K runners. I thought this was a nice tweak, I think a year ago we started 15 minutes after the 15K runners, which made for interesting racing.
I met up with Fran as we decided at the last minute to pace together. We both have the same BQ pace so we agreed on at least 13 miles at pace then we'd decide where to go from there. We saw Lee and his sister. Lee was going for his MP (which is pretty much as fast or faster than my tempo pace).
1-5K
We seeded ourselves near the front, but back enough that we had to jockey for position. I lost Fran in the first 600 metres or so but he caught up and we started pacing together. We're both about 8 or 9 weeks out till our marathons so while we're in shape, I wasn't sure I was at peak fitness. As you can see, we're kinda trying to find our rhythm and pace (which was 4:38 kilometres).
04:41
04:40
04:36
04:34
04:34
6-10K
The next while was in and around the Leslie Spit, a park that has asphalt, gravel and dirt. Not easy to make it around the varied surfaces but I was really thankful that we had lots of cloud cover and that the wind was nice. It was pretty humid, though cooler than I'd expected. I was taking fluid at every water stop but I tried to sip some of my own reserves.
I was a little worried about my body's ability to keep up the pace for a long period but by the 10K mark, I felt that my heart rate was settling and the pace was feeling appropriately comfortably hard. Fran was in a similar place so we kept it up. We stayed pretty silent running side by side, talked a little, traded split times. No matter what, it was a lot easier to have someone to share pacing duties. I took my first of two gels at the 10K mark.
04:35
04:33
04:34
04:33
04:40
11-to-15K
We looped around the lighthouse and took a bit of running on gravel before we were again on proper surface. Bu the important thing was that we were very much on pace. By this stage, we were mostly passing runners as we kept up the running, even into a headwind.
04:32
04:38
04:36
04:35
04:38
16-20K
As we made our way out of the park, Fran thought that he had something fly into his nose. A few kiometres later at a portapotty stop, it turns out that a fly had. Amazing. That's never happened to me. With that taken care of, we headed up Leslie and started east toward the Beaches. It was just the two of us and another runner ahead of us who we traded places with a few times. Otherwise, we still hitting our splits. I was feeling pretty good, again it was made easier with a running partner. Fran told me at some point that his heart rate was spiking and that he'd probably slow down after the 21K mark.
04:38
04:35
04:36
04:37
04:33
21-25K
We hit the last kilometre together along the winding route around the Ashbridges Park. The half marathon mark was done in about 1:36:07 (I think our actual time was about 1:35:57). If that's the case, that was a much faster than planned half mark. Fran said good luck and I made my way through the rest of the race.
At this point, on my own, I decided to start eyeing runners ahead of me. I thought that maybe if I were to continue a strong pace, I should at least establish that I could run alone. So I started upping the pace to gain on a few runners ahead of me. You can see this in my splits for 22 and 23, when I did a 4:23 and 4:25, quite a few seconds faster than I'd been doing. I had gained on a few runners at this point when we hit the boardwalk. I was starting to feel the effort for those two fast kilometres and I guess they could have done me in, but I kept on telling myself that I didn't have much farther to go. Besides, it was kinda fun running around people on the boardwalk telling them to move because a race was coming through.
04:32
04:23
04:25
04:30
04:34
26K to 30K
The last stretch is the turnaround to the end. I was at this point passed about 5 runners and came across two runners. A woman and a guy, who we both passed. There was another male runner about 20 metres ahead of us but it looked like he'd continue his fast pace. So for almost the rest of the race, I slowly tailed the woman. It wasn't until the 27K mark, as we hit the one sharp downhill/uphill section, that I gained ground on her and passed her, only to be passed again by her about 400 metres later. We again fell into pacing, with me running either by her side or a little behind.
The last few kiometres is run on the same route as the 15K's last bit so we came across runners who were going at about 1:15-1:17 finish. Our pace had us going quite a bit faster, so here we were, blasting out 4:30 or so pace passing these runners. Some of them realized we were 30K racers and shouted out encourgement. One guy pushing his kid on a stroller told him that we were '30K runners', 'they're doing this speed for the whole 30K!'
That gave us a boost and we just gunned it to the end. With about a kilometre to go, I upped the pace to about 4:25 and finished strong. I turned back after the finish to congratulate the woman and shook her hand. As it turns out, she was the 3rd overall woman finisher.
04:28
04:33
04:34
04:32
03:35 (4:23 pace)
I was pretty shocked by my final time. I had hoped to do a consistent paced 2:19:30, but ended up with a strong 2:16:17 with a 4:32 pace (coinciding with a 3:11:40 marathon). Obviously, I gunned it in the last 9K since I lacked pacing patience, but it was gratifying to know that with another six weeks or so of quality training, that I was able to pump out this performance on a semi humid day.
Not bad at all. We caught up with a bunch of runners to share war stories about the sport for hours. Later, after two hours of beers and food, I ran home. In total, I ran 39K yesterday. Think today's run, if at all, will be pretty short.
Chip time: 2:16:17
Overall: 44/771
Gender: 42/385
Group: 13/107
Not to mention the blisters I've had to deal with.
I missed last week's MP run that called for 12 miles at pace as part of a 15 mile run. I really wanted to do the 30K race, or 18.7 miles, mostly at pace. I figure that if you do pace runs by themselves, it's a much harder effort because you have to keep up the pace yourself. If you run it as part of a race, it becomes easier to get your head around it. So why not get the 5 extra miles if you have other runners to pace with, water stops and a route blocked off by pylons and volunteers.
I've run this race twice before, having done the 15K two years ago and the 30K last year. The organizers are tweaking with the race, having the 30K group start an hour before the 15K runners. I thought this was a nice tweak, I think a year ago we started 15 minutes after the 15K runners, which made for interesting racing.
I met up with Fran as we decided at the last minute to pace together. We both have the same BQ pace so we agreed on at least 13 miles at pace then we'd decide where to go from there. We saw Lee and his sister. Lee was going for his MP (which is pretty much as fast or faster than my tempo pace).
1-5K
We seeded ourselves near the front, but back enough that we had to jockey for position. I lost Fran in the first 600 metres or so but he caught up and we started pacing together. We're both about 8 or 9 weeks out till our marathons so while we're in shape, I wasn't sure I was at peak fitness. As you can see, we're kinda trying to find our rhythm and pace (which was 4:38 kilometres).
04:41
04:40
04:36
04:34
04:34
6-10K
The next while was in and around the Leslie Spit, a park that has asphalt, gravel and dirt. Not easy to make it around the varied surfaces but I was really thankful that we had lots of cloud cover and that the wind was nice. It was pretty humid, though cooler than I'd expected. I was taking fluid at every water stop but I tried to sip some of my own reserves.
I was a little worried about my body's ability to keep up the pace for a long period but by the 10K mark, I felt that my heart rate was settling and the pace was feeling appropriately comfortably hard. Fran was in a similar place so we kept it up. We stayed pretty silent running side by side, talked a little, traded split times. No matter what, it was a lot easier to have someone to share pacing duties. I took my first of two gels at the 10K mark.
04:35
04:33
04:34
04:33
04:40
11-to-15K
We looped around the lighthouse and took a bit of running on gravel before we were again on proper surface. Bu the important thing was that we were very much on pace. By this stage, we were mostly passing runners as we kept up the running, even into a headwind.
04:32
04:38
04:36
04:35
04:38
16-20K
As we made our way out of the park, Fran thought that he had something fly into his nose. A few kiometres later at a portapotty stop, it turns out that a fly had. Amazing. That's never happened to me. With that taken care of, we headed up Leslie and started east toward the Beaches. It was just the two of us and another runner ahead of us who we traded places with a few times. Otherwise, we still hitting our splits. I was feeling pretty good, again it was made easier with a running partner. Fran told me at some point that his heart rate was spiking and that he'd probably slow down after the 21K mark.
04:38
04:35
04:36
04:37
04:33
21-25K
We hit the last kilometre together along the winding route around the Ashbridges Park. The half marathon mark was done in about 1:36:07 (I think our actual time was about 1:35:57). If that's the case, that was a much faster than planned half mark. Fran said good luck and I made my way through the rest of the race.
At this point, on my own, I decided to start eyeing runners ahead of me. I thought that maybe if I were to continue a strong pace, I should at least establish that I could run alone. So I started upping the pace to gain on a few runners ahead of me. You can see this in my splits for 22 and 23, when I did a 4:23 and 4:25, quite a few seconds faster than I'd been doing. I had gained on a few runners at this point when we hit the boardwalk. I was starting to feel the effort for those two fast kilometres and I guess they could have done me in, but I kept on telling myself that I didn't have much farther to go. Besides, it was kinda fun running around people on the boardwalk telling them to move because a race was coming through.
04:32
04:23
04:25
04:30
04:34
26K to 30K
The last stretch is the turnaround to the end. I was at this point passed about 5 runners and came across two runners. A woman and a guy, who we both passed. There was another male runner about 20 metres ahead of us but it looked like he'd continue his fast pace. So for almost the rest of the race, I slowly tailed the woman. It wasn't until the 27K mark, as we hit the one sharp downhill/uphill section, that I gained ground on her and passed her, only to be passed again by her about 400 metres later. We again fell into pacing, with me running either by her side or a little behind.
The last few kiometres is run on the same route as the 15K's last bit so we came across runners who were going at about 1:15-1:17 finish. Our pace had us going quite a bit faster, so here we were, blasting out 4:30 or so pace passing these runners. Some of them realized we were 30K racers and shouted out encourgement. One guy pushing his kid on a stroller told him that we were '30K runners', 'they're doing this speed for the whole 30K!'
That gave us a boost and we just gunned it to the end. With about a kilometre to go, I upped the pace to about 4:25 and finished strong. I turned back after the finish to congratulate the woman and shook her hand. As it turns out, she was the 3rd overall woman finisher.
04:28
04:33
04:34
04:32
03:35 (4:23 pace)
I was pretty shocked by my final time. I had hoped to do a consistent paced 2:19:30, but ended up with a strong 2:16:17 with a 4:32 pace (coinciding with a 3:11:40 marathon). Obviously, I gunned it in the last 9K since I lacked pacing patience, but it was gratifying to know that with another six weeks or so of quality training, that I was able to pump out this performance on a semi humid day.
Not bad at all. We caught up with a bunch of runners to share war stories about the sport for hours. Later, after two hours of beers and food, I ran home. In total, I ran 39K yesterday. Think today's run, if at all, will be pretty short.
Chip time: 2:16:17
Overall: 44/771
Gender: 42/385
Group: 13/107
Not to mention the blisters I've had to deal with.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Sharpening up
Race day is finally here. It's been a month since my last race, a 10 miler. Today's 30K will be interesting. My last run of 30K or more was about two weeks ago, and I've had a relatively light two weeks of running. All's good though, and I have to trust in the training of this past summer.
My goal is not necessarily time, but try to get my body accustomed to marathon pace in a race setting. My BQ pace is 4:38 kilometres or 7:29 miles which is a little less aggressive than last year's pace of 4:30 kilometres or 7:15 miles. Last year, I nailed the 4:30 pace and finished with a sub 2:15.
Today, I'm going to see how things go, but the feeling great version is to aim for a progressively faster run that would have me do a sub 2:20. The perfect pace run would land me around 2:20 to 2:22. If I were to do about 13 miles at pace, I'd probably land around the 2:25 mark. We'll see, weather will factor into this I'm sure
I'm toying with bringing my fuel belt since there will be water stops every 3K.
Finally, with my race pack, I finally landed one of those MORE-tal pin with a 75K, which is the total distance I'll have done at this race after tonight. I ran the 15K two years ago and the 30K last year.
My goal is not necessarily time, but try to get my body accustomed to marathon pace in a race setting. My BQ pace is 4:38 kilometres or 7:29 miles which is a little less aggressive than last year's pace of 4:30 kilometres or 7:15 miles. Last year, I nailed the 4:30 pace and finished with a sub 2:15.
Today, I'm going to see how things go, but the feeling great version is to aim for a progressively faster run that would have me do a sub 2:20. The perfect pace run would land me around 2:20 to 2:22. If I were to do about 13 miles at pace, I'd probably land around the 2:25 mark. We'll see, weather will factor into this I'm sure
I'm toying with bringing my fuel belt since there will be water stops every 3K.
Finally, with my race pack, I finally landed one of those MORE-tal pin with a 75K, which is the total distance I'll have done at this race after tonight. I ran the 15K two years ago and the 30K last year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)