A tempo run by feel...

I'm in DC today, escaping Toronto just as another winter storm is set to dump up to 40 centimetres in the next 36 hours or so. Hope the March break crowd can get out of the city.

I tried for a very long time to catch a signal on my Garmin today. First, in R's balcony, then again out on the street. Then a third time about a kilometre into my run. I really wanted it to work because it was my 10 miler with 5 at LT.

My contingency plan was to run by feel. I would run at around a 4:20 pace and run for about 36 minutes to bring me in around 5 miles. I did two and a half loops of part of the Mall. It was a bit tricky cause I didn't know if I was running too fast. I timed each loop and the first and second were only four seconds off each other (not bad). At the end I did the 36 minutes flat. When I got back to R's place, I plotted the run on Gmaps and found that I did just over 5 miles (5.2 miles) in 36 minutes, which gave me a pace of about 4:17.5, which is actually about three seconds faster than the planned 4:20K pace. It also works out to 6:54 miles.

So after that I ran a bit more, then my freaking Garmin connects but goes wonky. After settling down, it captured a signal, so I reset it and finished my run.

Mileage:

Leg 1: 1.25K
Leg 2: 8.35K (5.2 miles at lactate threshold pace of 4:17)
Leg 3: 0.7K
Leg 4: 6.4K (Garmin finally worked for this bit)

Total: 16.7K or 10.4 miles

Calm before the storm

As I write this, yet another winter storm is raging in Toronto. This one is calling for a bunch of snow, a sheet of ice and more snow on top. This will make commuting to work interesting.

We knew this was approaching, so I planned to get up early this morning (4:30 a.m. in winter is definitely worse than 4:30 in the summer). I did my 11 miles in about 1:35. This was less than 10 hours after I did a four miler recovery last night.

Simply said, I've done a fair bit of running, having gone out in each of the past six days. In that time, I've done 57 miles or about 91K.

Think it's time for a rest day.

Flying Pig Marathon: 9 weeks to go

Training is going well so far. Because of my schedule and the weather, I've had to switch up my days and also missed my 8x100 strides because I simply don't have a lot of actual solid ground to run in the other day. What is good is that I've kept up my mileage so I'm feeling strong right now.

I just took a look at last year's mileage and I'm, surprisingly, at double the mileage for the same period a year ago! I wasn't in marathon training last year and also R was moving to DC so there was a lot of days I could have been running that I was doing other things. Funny thing is, we have way more snow on the ground this year so it's a more severe winter.

2007	2008
Week 1: 31 miles Week 2: 15 miles Week 3: 22 miles Week 4: 9 miles Week 5: 17 miles Week 6: 10.5 miles Week 7: 17.5 miles Week 8: 15 miles Week 9: 26 miles Total: 163 miles or 262.5K	Week 1: 24 miles Week 2: 46 miles Week 3: 34 miles Week 4: 37 miles Week 5: 42 miles Week 6: 25 miles Week 7: 40 miles Week 8: 43 miles Week 9: 45 miles Total: 332 miles or 534K

Mileage creeps up this week. Here's the schedule, as usual up for tweaks

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 10 with 5 at LT
Wednesday: 4 recovery
Thursday: 11 miles
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 5 recovery
Sunday: 17 miles

A long run and fall marathon plans

Absolutely beautiful day. A chilly but comfortable -2C with a little bit of wind. The sky is only spotted with clouds so it's sunny and nice. A good portion of my 16 miler (26K) route today was covered in snow so I was forced to run on the side of the road and about 5 miles in the snow/ice in the Beaches. But it was great. Actually, fantastic.

I wore three layers (silk base, a fleece/polypro top and a wind vest), a hat, tights and a baseball cap with shades. Also for once I brought my fuel belt and tried a pack of that GU sports drink (they gave out samples in DC last fall). Not bad tasting and glad I had the water to hydrate with. Also took out my iPod Shuffle loaded three episodes of This American Life. Yes, I don't often run with music but it's been my saviour this winter to get my mind focused on other things.

Started off with about a 8:29 mile pace, slowing during the snow runs but sped it up to 8 and sub-8 for the last four miles. Total run, 16.16 miles done in 2:18:27 with average pace of 8:34 miles or 5:19 kilometres.

Also, this morning I signed up for the ING New York Marathon lottery. Might as well start entering since I don't know how many tries it'll be. For my for-sure marathon, I have it narrowed down to a Toronto one or, more likely, the Marine Corps Marathon.

Well, that's for later, for now it's the Flying Pig Marathon that's coming up quick!

Knocking another one out

Nice day. A bit windy. Felt really tired during my run. Maybe it's fuelling or maybe I've done two back to back challenging runs. Well, my third run, just over 10K or 6 miles, in three days brings me to about 28 miles for the week. I'm lucky to have caught up on my mileage. Will rest up today for tomorrow's big 16 miler.