Running strategically

I've done hills in marathons, never liked them, always suprised me. I like them early and I'd rather have one steep one than dozens of hills.

On Sunday, I took the subway all the way up to the start line of next week's Toronto Marathon, my seventh.



It's a net downhill course, which in basic terms means a fast first half, but within those first 21K - as I found Sunday - there are some monster hills. The map above shows the elevation. You can see in yellow some of the big climbs, and the downhill parts in red (there are big ones!).

As I ran up the first one, known as Hogg's Hollow, I felt my effort skyrocket so that I had to walk at the top. There were a few other medium sized elevations in the first 12K.

On Marathon Day, I do not intend to walk these hills. My PB marathon actually coame on a course that's known to be hilly, the Flying Pig Marathon.

"Run slower at the same effort" is what we're taught to run hills. I'm going to try that, slowing to a 4:45 to 4:50 in the kilometres I'm hitting hills. I'll make it up in the downhills.

I'm really happy I did the course review -- the last 21K of the marathon is mostly run on my daily training ground, which should be an advantage I think.

The big worry I have is having smart pacing. One think I do not want to see happen is too many too-fast kilometres on the downhills. If I'm perfectly paced, I should run the first half in about 1:38. The net downhill effect, I hope, will get me to that point at around 1:36:30, which would give me a great buffer.

There's fuel, then there's fuel

Stocked up on some carbs and race-day fuel today, and was a little shocked that my purchase of a pair of socks and a bunch of GU gels and chomps put me back more than $50.

For about $10, I bought some fresh made pasta and sauce, which means let the pasta eating week begin!

Back to the fuels, I've finally found the fuel for me -- GU gels digest the best for me and do not cause as much problems as others. The main problem is that I find others a little too hard to gulp down. I've used GU through the summer, mostly one or two during a long run.

Today, I saw that the store had stocked up on the Roctane gels, which are especially made for long distance, marathons or more. There's a huge difference in the nutritional components. I'm going to try one during my 13 miler tomorrow.

Tuning up

With 10 more days until marathon day, I headed to the track tonight to do my last Vo2 Max workout. I've done quite a few of these over the years using the Pfitzinger program, a 3x1600 or three, one mile repeats.

A 4K warmup to the track and I did the three repeats. I do these at 5K speed so I aimed at 6:26 miles (a 20 minute 5K)

Here are the splits

1. 6:19 176 bpm average (185 max)
2. 6:26 180 bpm average (186 max)
3. 6:26 180 bpm average (189 max)

These aren't my fastest 3x1600, I've done them in 6:14 in previous years. Yet, I'm happy with the time. I never really struggled through the laps and I feel like I could have gone faster. I had to do a lot of weaving tonight as runners were taking the inside lane, but I concentrated on constant pace without it feeling too hard.

Back to basic pair of running shoes?

In my years of running, I've settled into a pattern of finding the shoe that gives me comfort, and sticking to them. So while I've never really gone away from the Asics brand, I've usually purchased the GT 2100 series (now at GT 2140) in no large part because they're popular but they also do quite well for my feet.

In the past year, I've tried more neutral running shoes as the GT series tend to give you a lot of support. I found going back and forth between neutral and motion control very noticeable. Some times I'm not sure which shoes is best.

When I first started getting into serious running, one of the shoes I tried was the Asics 1100s, a step down in the price category from the GT series. I last used them in the winter of 2005/2006.

Also in those years, I've gotten into long distance running. Doing 55 to 70 mile weeks puts a lot of stress on you, but it's not much mileage compared with those mega mileage runners who pound out 100 a week.

(Don't worry, this is going somewhere.)

Like a lot of runners, I'm in the middle of the new book Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. It's quite the book that mixes in profiles of personalities, a fascinating portrait of the Mexican Tarahumara tribe of natural-born runners and a study in ultra running. I won't give anything away by saying that Christopher advances the notion that we're "born to run" and not only that, that the modern shoe is a bane to our natural stride and running form.

While listening to the audio book during my runs, I've listened to my form a lot and I do notice that I have lots to work on. I need to feel the road, and to lightly hit the ground while gaining speed and turnover.

Anyways, the other day, I bought a pair of 1140s, and today took them for a test ride. Funny, I had the feel of a new running shoe but with the little less cushioning and the 'lower riding' feel of these shoes, I felt a more natural runner. My friend Lee, who also uses 1100s, confirmed this to me on Twitter, saying he found the GT 2100s too "restrictive" and they messed with mechanics.

Gonna try these shoes on my long run tomorrow. They felt great today but a long run will test that.

The running base

I've entered the marathon taper for yet another marathon cycle and like in previous years, the big question is always, am I ready?

The graph above shows my first six marathons, one in 2007, one in 2008, three last year, and one so far this year (I'm running two this month!). Last year is the benchmark to which I can compare my latest training cycle. You can see in the graph that I put monster mileage in last summer, hitting in one crazy month 300 miles. My result in 2008's BQ attempt is pretty straightforward -- I didn't hit up to the potential that I had built up to.

This year, I ran a strong spring marathon off a relatively light training program. The key mark for endurance for me is reaching 200 miles a month. That tells me I'm putting in the long runs in the weekends plus plenty of mid-week mileage.

So while this year I haven't put in the mega mileage, I have four straight months of putting in 200 miles or more. Aside from my little leg injury that put me out for a week, I'm happy that I've got enough quality runs in.

As they say, it's in the bag now with the taper beginning. I have about 55 miles this week and it's all downhill from there. My job the next while is to get plenty of sleep, keep my fitness from slipping too much, stretching as much as I can, and fitting in my last few longish runs (a 17 miler, 13 miler). I'm looking for a race this weekend in Washington, but that's about it.

I ran 15K today, half of it with my friend Lee, who's running Chicago in a few weeks. I had lots of questions about fuelling, about tapering and stretching. We trade a lot of shop talk. We're both in the middle of our tapers so the type of conversation that we had a month or so had shifted from speed workouts and long runs to how to race a marathon or how to survive those last miles.

I will run my seventh and eight marathon in the next month. Lee will run his 12th. He's run Boston a few times and I'm aiming at my BQ. Between us, we've logged thousands of miles (I've run 7100 miles since I started logging my daily miles in 2006 -- yikes) but yet we feel like we've a lot to learn.

Taper time, it gets to you.