Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Around the Bay 30K race -- hills, strategy and is it hard? Yes

There's a good chance that if you're going long in these winter months in Southern Ontario, Around the Bay is probably on your race schedule. Mine as well as I'm running my sixth Around the Bay in a few weeks. Posts I've written in the past on the Around the Bay 30K Race gets a lot of search interest this time of year. You want to know how hard Around the Bay hills;  Strategies to race it; What the elevation profile looks like

Before I tackle some of the frequent questions, you may want to read a few posts I've written, including last year's strategy guide.

Other posts on Around the Bay:


On to the questions:

Is the Around the Bay hard? How difficult is Around the Bay?
Well, yes, I guess, cause it's 30K. Which is a pretty long distance for those used to doing half marathons. Seriously, the distance is actually perfect, the hard part the last third of the race that is made up of a series of major hills (both up and down). Those unprepared to tackle such elevations can find themselves out of gas. (More on the hills and course.) I suppose if you're 'running' the race that it's totally doable in a comfortable pace. Racing, however, is another thing.

What's with the Around the Bay bronze, silver and gold medals?
The graduated medal system is pretty neat and strict. All racers will earn at least a bronze, but men can earn silvers (2 hours to 2:15) or golds (under 2 hours) while women who do 2:15 to 2:30 can get a silver and under 2:15 with a gold. They go by the clock (not chip) so if you're aiming for one of these medals, you should line up properly and start your watch when the gun goes off.

Around the Bay finish.


Are there Around the Bay pacers?
Yes, and they have enough of them targetting the various levels (for medals). Do pay attention to them, I once followed a 2:20 pacer who was going way too fast one year. I let him go by the 3K mark and caught him 22 kilometres later. I've been a pacer at a few half marathons and I know that a few years ago the organizers were looking for pacers for these time slots: 2:00, 2:15, 2:30 continuous, 2:45, 2:45 continuous, 3:00, 3:15

How hilly is Around the Bay?
In truth, it's as hilly only as the kilometres 21 to 27, so really not that hilly overall. I like to think of Around the Bay as essentially three big uphills, a few medium sized rises, and it has it share of downhill as well. You are deep in hill territory (North Shore Blvd) 21K in. Read my strategy guide from last year on the race for more details.

What's with the Around the Bay last hill?
Yep, it's a killer. Spring Garden Road. BIG downhill. Big uphill. My advice is to coast down the hill and regain your breath, then attack the upside purposefully. There are several rises so you just have to concentrate, don't use up all your energy, bump up your stride at the top, and get ready to hammer it home at the end..

View Larger Map

Reader Paul sent a link to a video he took of the hill. Illustrates quite nicely the three-stage rise.

Does Around the Bay do pace bands? 
No they don't make 30K pace bands but you have a few options. I use a pace calculator to figure out my splits. Once you know the pace you're going for (say, 5 minute kilometres for a 30K), just find the closest equivalent marathon pace band. The Running Room guys usually stock them at the expo. Of course you can just print out your own pace, or memorize the milestones you want to hit.

Around the bay is older than Boston?
Yep, it's the oldest running road race in North America.

What's with the Around the Bay shirts and what colour is it in 2013?
First, I have no clue what colour it is, so if you know, let me know. And yes, they're pretty awesome shirts. Read here for why


First time running tips for the Around the Bay (food, rest and don't change anything!)



Overview of the 2012 race


You have any questions or any answers to share, by all means leave them here. Happy racing!
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Monday, March 11, 2013

63 days of winter

I love watching the seasons turn. The beginning of spring is made so much more sweeter if not for the cruel months that preceded them. Those spring races are earned in those winter months -- we know that -- I know that. In just two weeks, I'll be racing 30K and in five short weeks, I'll be tapering for my next marathon.

The last time I took a rest day... well, how do I put it..  I faintly remember not the rest day but the first of many days spent embracing the cold. I'm not much for going on running streaks. In all my years of marathon training, I've cherished the rest days, loved kicking it back for one day out of seven. That is, until Jan. 7 happened, nine weeks ago. I haven't stopped running outside.

Since that January Monday, I've charged ahead. Skipped one rest day, then another. A two week running streak somehow became 21 days. An intended rest day on a Friday was also accompanied by a big snow storm, so what did I do other than stomp around in the newly laid powder? Heaven.

Marathon training has a certain cadence to it. It requires a certain amount of ramp up, when you build up your fitness and miles, until you reach the point where you give in to rest. Rest, they say, helps rebuild your body into a stronger version of itself. Even the more advanced of the training programs throw in much repetition into the mix, whether it calls for speedwork once a week, or an ever increasing long run. Inevitably, it calls for rest.

But by 28 days, something had kicked in. A slow 5K run was as good as a day off. The warmth of my living room? Bah. A measily -8C? Childs play. I plotted every week so I could hit my long runs, rearranging my schedule to hit a 17 miler in "perfect" -10C as opposed to the snowy, windy -5 the next day.

I tend to forget, but I first fell in love with distance running one winter almost a decade ago. Something badass about running in the frosty weather. Something "fun" in trudging through snow. Something hardcore in making it through a blizzard. And although this winter has had some rough days, in the 63 straight days of winter that I went out there -- from Jan. 7 in sub-zero conditions, through two 'so-called' snowstorms, countless mid-week melts that turned the trails to skating rinks -- I survived intact, grateful to breathe in the air, earning every post-run coffee, stacking my fitness in my favour.

Forty two days became forty nine until the math got too hard to rely on my memories of x times 7. By the time I reached this morning, I knew that nine weeks of straight running revived the runner in me. Just in February, on a 28-day month, I managed somehow to do more miles than I'd done in the monthly totals I tallied between last April and October, my supposed real running months.

So yes, I'm glad spring is almost here, I'm happy I ran the other day in short sleeves, I'm looking forward to running in daylight after work and I'm eager to race again with some regained mojo.

Today, I pulled myself out of bed, and out for a few miles. Didn't have much in me, my heel sore, my legs not into it. Maybe it's time to take a day off. Rest? It'll come. I'll need those fresh legs. Spring racing is here.

The streak: 9 weeks; 63 days; 54 hours on the roads; 378 miles/608 km travelled
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Sunday, February 17, 2013

The joy of running

The snow had narrowed the sidewalk that leads home from work, slowing me down as I was rushing to get back to my condo. It was a Friday, and apparently we were having the worst snowstorm since 2008. My sense of urgency was so I could put on those winter runners and go play in the snow in the fading daylight -- too late, as usual, this time of the year.

In front of me, a woman and her two kids were struggling down the sidewalk. Rather, she was struggling and her boy was bounding into the snow, running in short bursts then landing with emphasis, the imprint of his tiny boots barely making an impression on the mound of snow.

Earlier that day, while winding down, I had come across a piece in the Guardian titled Why we love to run. It's an absolutely gorgeous piece but several excerpts resonated with me:

Running brings us joy. Watch small children when they are excited, at play, and mostly they can't stop running. Back and forth, up and down, in little, pointless circles. I remember, even as an older child, I'd often break into a run when walking along the street, for no reason. There's a great moment in The Catcher in the Rye when Holden Caulfield, caught in the uneasy space between childhood and adulthood, is walking across his school grounds one evening and he suddenly starts to run. "I don't even know what I was running for – I guess I just felt like it," he says.

---

Racing along out on the trails, or even through the busy streets of a city, splashing through puddles, letting the rain drench us, the wind ruffle us, we begin to sense a faint recollection of that childish joy. Somewhere a primal essence stirs deep within us; this being born not to sit at a desk or read newspapers and drink coffee, but to live a wilder existence. As we run, the layers of responsibility and identity we have gathered in our lives, the father, mother, lawyer, teacher, Manchester United-supporter labels, all fall away, leaving us with the raw human being underneath. It's a rare thing, and it can be confronting. Some of us will stop, almost shocked by ourselves, by how our heart is pumping, by how our mind is racing, struggling with our attempts to leave it behind.


Read the rest here

Running is so seemingly simple, which begs questions like "how can you put out a monthly magazine dedicated to a sport about putting a foot in front of the other." Or how can one write a running blog for seven plus years and still have something to write about thousands of miles later, 1200 posts in. Funnily enough, there's plenty to say.

That's where I am. In those early years of training for marathons, every run had a story, a distance to log, a new challenging workout to master. As the years go on, I haven't found the passion die, but wanting to capture more of the essence of what running is.

So what is it?

Running is a sport for soul searchers, and which each successive movement, we find communion with our true selves. Recently, as I huffed and puffed my way through a dark path, I watched steam rise from my mouth, impeding the view of the icy trail. I worked hard to stay upright through the patches of black ice and through that danger, and working past the pain, I felt what I've always gotten from the run. To carve out time back for myself. To feel at once lonely and powerful. To reconnect with something so innate in our modern lives. I love the phrase poetry in motion, and you can capture it more often than not if you go out enough, run enough. In simple words: Moving, Speeding, Sprinting, Striding, Gasping, Running, Living.

Joy.

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Tuesday, February 05, 2013

28 days later

I'm an advocate of rest days, and although I would feel bad about missing weekday runs, I usually hit the roads four out of five days during the work week. Although that's a lot of days when you have to make plans to run, I usually found one day to kick back and relax. Usually it was a Friday.

I started the new year sick, and it really wasn't the way I wanted to begin my marathon training. I wanted to get the miles going, to kick myself back into motion. Sluggish was a fairly good description of what my legs felt like -- and I was out of breath, my heart really not into hard work.

Clearly, I was not in the shape I wanted to be in. In December, I would be running miles in the 8:40 to 9:10 range, a pace that I wanted to lower in a big way. I entered January with hopes of upping the mileage, lowering that pace and to feel like I could not only do the distance, but start bring back the form I'm used to.

The streakers, and there are many in the running world, are the odd sort of our sport. I have long suspected that a few runners I see on the trail almost without fail at least once (or twice) a week may be on running streaks. And yes I mean time, not clothing optional. They run every day, never stop. I read about them in Runner's World, or see a few quests unfold on social media, but it was really nothing I was interested in pursuing.

I mean, I run a lot already -- why try to make it more complicated than to force yourself out.

Through my quest to regain fitness, to restart my training, I pledged to do consistent running. First step was to convince myself that I had to start building more miles. Second, was to believe that 4-6 miles was a perfectly reasonable minimum mileage during a weekday run, when I would been happy with 5Ks. Third was to again cajole my body into doing a medium distance run during the week, say of 8-10 miles (shock!). Fourth was to take no Saturday or Sundays off, and to focus on getting endurance back -- say start at 13 miles and start building my way back to 19-20 miles by mid-March.

Of course, that really meant reforming all my running habits, to face winter head on and to take no excuses (or prisoners).

Suddenly, I had two weeks of training behind me and a 14 miler that went off reasonably well. Then I figured that in another week I'd regain fitness, so I kept on going out. Then on a Friday, a usual rest day, I saw a beautiful blanket of snow cover the trail, so I went out for a few miles to enjoy the experience.

Meanwhile, my longer runs were paying dividends. I'd done a few long runs (11 miles, 13 miles) at 8:50 mile pace. By the time I was reaching the third week of my running streak (20 days in), I ran almost 14 miles at 8:27 pace.

Something clicked. I never stopped running (I never really do) but the consistency was bringing back my fitness, and 27 days into my running streak, two days ago, I found myself running 15 miles at a 8:05 pace. I remember hitting the half marathon mark and was a little shocked to see 1:46 on my watch. What the heck happened there?

Sure, the weather was perfect, but in that solid month of training, I was rebuilding myself, starting to recapture something.

And in that time, I feel stronger, my form is improving. On the 28th day, yesterday, I went out for a run, and for the first time in a long time, I started to race my watch. It wasn't a breakthrough, but I fought to keep the stride up, the heart racing and sprinted through the last 50 metres, finishing the run with an average 7:40 pace. Not blistering, and shockingly not even fast enough to hit my best marathon pace, but it was good to feel that.

Okay, so you can rebuild a runner, from the ground up. Part of it is rediscovering why you loving running so much -- being outside, feeling strong. Part of it is putting in the work and seeing what you get back.

So after after 28 days -- with my longest streak I can remember -- today, I made a choice. I decided to go out for a run.



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Saturday, February 02, 2013

Running with Vine video, Twitter's new app

As I wrote recently, I've been snapping great pictures on the run with my smartphone, as runners get treated to beautiful views along the running trails.

Today, I busted out my iPhone and played with Vine, Twitter's new video app that lets you record (in spurts if you'd like) a six-second video. Doesn't sound like much and lots of debate over why six seconds, but we've seen pretty cool videos that play on a loop.

Running happens over many minutes, even hours. Runners travel far distances, and get to pretty cool areas by foot.

Somehow, the repetitive nature of running makes the six seconds actually flow with running. I've compiled a bunch of Vine videos I've seen taken by runners, starting with one of my own, taken over the course of 16 minutes and 3K. (Sorry if I blow up your browser, it's a lot of video!)



















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