EndorphinBuzz

1h38?!?

2011-05-31T20:11:00.004-04:00

Ottawa Race Weekend was again this year an amazing event. I am always amazed by the amount of crowd support and the sheer number of runners participating in the various events. This was the first year that I was part of the Ottawa FrontRunners and they have a tradition of meeting up before and after the race as well as a delicious post race BBQ.

The weather forecast for the day had been all over the place the week leading to the event. Anything from sun and cloud with a high of 22 to thunderstorms and 32 with humidex had been forecasted. The weather at the start of the race was muggy and humid and around 20 degrees. I met with the runners from the club before the race for a bit of friendly competitive chatter and group shot and then quickly headed to the start line. Now I'm not sure why this happens every year but the corrals were too full and there was no room to squeeze in where I needed to be. I wasn't really racing this race so I didn't worry but even at the 2:00 pace area it was still very busy. Maybe the race marshals should ensure that runners take their appropriate place in the corrals or plan for more room if runners are all registering for the same corrals. Then 1:30 to 2:00 corral could probably also be split up in at least 2 or 3 larger corrals.

The gun quickly fired and a few minutes later I crossed the start line where my mom was waiting to wish me good luck! The new route continued down Laurier instead of going to Parliament hill and while I missed seeing the hill, it made the race feel a lot more urban to go through the downtown core. Lots of supporters were lining the street on Laurier as well. We quickly reached the turning point on Lyon and a bit later turned on Somerset on our way to Chinatown. The runners were not really thinning out and I was a bit faster than the runners around me so I continued to zig zag to keep a decent pace. The arch in Chinatown was a nice sight to see, I have never crossed it on foot from the middle of the street before :) I was surprised there weren't more members of the Chinese community cheering, maybe it was too early? I started to get a bit hot but at least the sun wasn't out so I knew that if I kept hydrated I would be fine.

After Chinatown we headed across Little Italy where the families were out in full force. I always get this really friendly feeling when I visit this part of town, as if everyone knows or want to know everyone else :) The runners were starting to thin out a little bit and it got really comfortable as we started heading to Hintonburg. This was definitively the neighborhood were the community came out in the largest number. The sidewalks on both sides of the street were lined with coffee toting families with strollers, dogs and all manners of signs and balloons. That's where my friends from FoodiePrints were waiting for me with a charming and very encouraging sign bearing my name! I was so happy to see them I crossed from the right side to the left and almost tripped over a police car! Sadly they didn't take a picture of that event, it would have been a funny race pic :)

We then went along the stretch that I was dreading a little bit. I knew that the crowd support would be thinner along the Ottawa Parkway. Thankfully a lot of the runner's support crew knew this as well and the parkway was not as lonely as I had feared. I remember one DJ station where the booming beats could be heard from a few hundred meters before reaching the top of the hill, that gave me quite a boost. Heading into Gatineau, a light mist started refreshing the runners. I looked at my time and knew that even though I wasn't racing I was doing really well. I had slowly picked the 2 hours pace bunnies and the 1h50 had also been reeled in. Could I do the same for the 1h40? Once the mist turned to water I realized that I could go for it without being afraid of blowing up and started picking up the pace a little bit. Coming back into Ottawa, I saw my good friend Thiago cheering runners on and taking pictures. Another refreshing boost! Every time I see a friendly face cheering for me along a course, it gives me extra incentive to run fast, little did I know what was in store later. Going down Colonel By I saw the members from the Ottawa FrontRunners toting cameras and cheering club members as they went by. They took this amazing picture of me, I think it may be my best ever running picture so far.
After getting a boost from the FrontRunners, I also saw my mom and her boyfriend cheering for me just a little bit after. I knew I was doing well and I could finish strong and looking at my watch I realized that my laid back goal of 1h50 was actually way too conservative. If I kept the pace I would break 1h40. My competitive side got the best of me and I increase the pace even higher. It was nice to turn at Pretoria instead of having to go all the way to Bronson. After the turn I pretty much entered my finish sprint. I had loads of gas in the tank so there was no use holding back. I passed a lot of people in the finishing chute and felt like a superstar. I finished with a time of 1h38 and some change. Not a personal record but a new personal course record for Ottawa if there is such a thing.
I met up with the rest of the FrontRunners and found out that my training Nemesis, Mark, had finished with a shorter time than I did. I'll have to get him in a rematch even if he is considering retiring while he is ahead :)

Looking at the speed chart, we can clearly see how my progression went as the race went by. I got faster and faster until the final sprint.

Thanks to all the volunteers, supporters and runners that participated in this weekend's activities. There is something about large races that make running even more fun :)

Oh yeah, I forgot to say I signed up for the ScotiaBank Toronto Waterfront Marathon at the Race Expo. I guess I have to start training for real this time. In the estimated finish time slot, I wrote down 3:05 which would be a BQ for Boston 2013. Hopefully writing it down makes it happen, I will put in the training required over the summer :)

Ottawa Race Weekend

2011-05-26T19:22:00.003-04:00

Ottawa Race Weekend is almost here. I've been really quiet on the blog lately but if you follow me on Twitter or FaceBook, you will know that I suffered another respiratory infection about three weeks ago, this time a Pneumonia. I got a new treatment of antibiotics and it seems to have cleared up quite well. I ran on Sunday and again on Tuesday and today so I'm feeling up to the challenge of a Half Marathon.

My race plan is not to race :) I will enjoy the new route and spectate as I run through some of Ottawa's most interesting neighborhoods. I am not expecting a PR, not even close. I hope to squeak in under 1h50m but even then if I don't meet that goal I won't be sad.

If you are in Ottawa let me know through a tweet, comment or FaceBook message. I'm having a pasta dinner at my place on Saturday and we could meet up before the race, I always enjoy meeting fellow bloggers.

As I plan the rest of my year, I'm looking back at this blog and wondering what to do with it. I really enjoyed sharing my training journey with you guys but time is getting really short here between all the various pressures of life. I will try to keep the blog alive, at least for race reports and some more general observations about running but I do not think it' s possible for me to produce the number of posts I used to. Thanks for being readers throughout the year and cheering me through some difficult times and I hope I was able to share some of my success and joy with you all. I suggest you follow me on Twitter or become my friend on FaceBook if you want to be kept up to date with my training. I will be picking a fall marathon (maybe tomorrow at the Expo if there are good deals) and will be planning to break my 3h19m time then. Hopefully I can BQ and/or BG (Boston Guarantee, it's a new term I made up, I should write an entry about that some day) which would be a BQ - 20 minutes to make sure I can be one of the first to register.

Back to training

2011-04-29T06:59:00.002-04:00

As much fun as the post PB high is, I realize that I have another race in exactly a month from today where I want to PB again so I had to go back to training. I am not quite sure how to train for a half marathon anymore. Should I just take my marathon training and cut it in half? I like the long distance tempo runs too much to do that! At the same time, summer is around the corner and my bike is a very appealing alternative to the bus system to get around so my training will not be completely focused on running this year :) Summer is also a very social season so hopefully I'll find a way to continue to squeeze my training in, for now it's been a bit of on and off where I cancel some of the planned sessions in favor of happy hours and dinner with friends...

Here is the training I have completed since the Half in Montreal:

Tuesday 19 - Tempo run with Ottawa Front Runners - 10km in 46:54
Thursday 21 - Speed training with Ottawa Front Runners - Fast laps at ~4m/km, recovery at 5m/km
Sunday 24 - 20km bike commute to Easter dinner - 49:38
Monday 25 - 20km bike commute from Easter dinner - 46:19
Tuesday 26 - Tuesday run with Ottawa Front Runners (wet and windy, rings a bell?) - 10km in 50m (1 fast km at 4:25)
Thursday 28 - Speed work was canceled when no one showed up so I went long - ~17k in ~1h25m (rainy again!)

So while I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front, I was able to continue training. I tried to return to the pool this week, however the pool was closed because of a chemical imbalance. I'll try again next week :) I also have to get back into the weight training, however with tapering for Ottawa Race Weekend coming up, I'm not sure how much of a routine I can make of that one :)

If anyone is coming down for Ottawa Race Weekend, get in touch with me, we can arrange a pre-race or post-race meetup. I will be hosting a pasta dinner on the Saturday night for anyone interested, non-runners also welcomed! Leave a comment with your email or DM me on Twitter.

Montreal Asics 21k

2011-04-21T07:28:00.006-04:00

Wow! Montreal Asics 21k turned out to be quite a fun weekend! The weather was really scary on Saturday night with a mix of ice pellets, wet snow and freezing rain. I spent the Saturday walking around and shopping, not the best race prep routine, I know! It did warm up a little bit for Sunday morning but it was still quite wet and I was really worried about the weather. The day started with my friend Thiago participating in the 5k run.
The weather did not stop people from enjoying their races:
Unfortunately for him his race was really wet with rain everywhere and huge puddles on the course:
He still did a really good time coming in just over 22 minutes:
Once Thiago finished, we got ready for my race that started an hour and a half later. Lucky for me the rain cleared up and all that was left to deal with was the 25km/h gusts of winds here and there. After much debate about wind breakers and thighs vs loose pants, I decided on my tempo outfit that has seen me through some fast times before:
We slowly headed to the start area and I waited for the gun to get going. With about 2500 runners, the start area was crowded but it was still manageable.
As soon as we started running I noticed the gusts of winds. We ran by the giant roller coasters of La Ronde and then looped it up to run by the start line again (this course looks familiar! ;). It was a good thing that the course is fairly loopy, with all the winds, it helped break up the resistance to alternate between tailwind and headwind. I ran well and fast. My conservative strategy was to run the first half at a 1:40 pace and see where that would go. Instead I let myself get carried away by the tailwinds and didn't worry about my speed until I hit a headwind where I pushed to maintain my target pace. This paid off big time with my KM splits:

4:40
4:36
4:31
4:26

Thiago was really good about finding spots to see me.
I kept going after the first loop where started heading towards the F1 race track.

4:25
4:31
4:32
4:33
4:39
4:30
4:31

Running on the race track was awesome. I could see the stands where all the spectators come to watch the races. Tire marks were visible everywhere. I chatted with someone from Ottawa that had been to the race before and he kept recounting me where he saw cars pass each other, etc. Surely everyone's minds were on the track and how cool it was to run on it. When I passed by the start line, I noticed the small squares that the cars use to align themselves and the inscriptions Salut Gilles! at the start line. How awesome! Once we turned around the water bassin, the wind really became a killer. Runners organized in flocks (just like geese) and took turns breaking the wind for the rest of the group.

4:36
4:48
4:47
4:41
4:40

My strategy was to conquer the wind and to the surprise of my fellow runners to issue a huge shout: AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!! every now and then to release some of the pressure and get some more frustration to carry me through. Sorry guys if you found this annoying :) We finally turned the corner and got into more sheltered area where the wind wasn't such an issue. That's where I started thinking about my finish and realizing that I was way ahead of 1:40 and that if I pushed, I could probably even break my goal of 1:38, which I thought before the race was pretty aggressive already without the crazy winds.

4:30
4:40
4:26
4:35
4:37

Then a final sprint to the finish line that was tucked away after a turn and somewhat uphill!
With a last minute sprint where I passed 2 or 3 guys, I was able to finish with a super time of 1h37m20s! A new PR! I was ecstatic. Couldn't believe my eyes! Look at my time! Look at my time! Awesome! Yeah! The Endorphin were surely rushing through my veins!
Overall this race was an awesome event. Even with the weather I would do it again. The course is a bit loopy but affording us the ability to run on the race track really makes up for it. If I was the organizers I would rejig the finish area a bit. I like to see the finish line from far away so I know how much I should push. Also put markers like they do in Ottawa 1km to go 800m to go, 500m to go, etc. The swag was decent with a good shirt and an OK medal. The fact that I spent the weekend shopping in Montreal also made the experience one to repeat often ;)

I think I ran a decent race and wouldn't change anything about it. My chosen outfit was comfortable, my strategy of bringing my own sports drink allowed me to stay hydrated on my own terms and my pacing paid off big time. Now I have to see if I can repeat this in Ottawa and break the 1:35 mark.
Right after the race we showered at the race facility (how awesome is that where you can shower right at the race!) and headed home on the bus. We were fortunate that the bus wasn't full, so I could kick it up and relax with a nap:
A lot of the Montreal runners are coming for Ottawa Race Weekend so we'll see you out there!

Ready for Montreal!

2011-04-13T06:50:00.004-04:00

First of all, I apologize for being so quiet lately. If you are my friend in real life or even on FaceBook, you will know that I have been going through some changes over the last few months that culminated over the last 4 weeks, the most significant one being my return to being single. It's allowed me to refocus my priorities and objectives and devote lots of time to my training. I'm actually doing great given the circumstances and have a positive outlook on life and beyond! Now that this is out of the way, let's talk about the good news!

I feel very much ready for Montreal. I believe I can get a new PR and probably even break 1:40 if I am having a good day. Yesterday's training was a regular speed 10k with a 2km speed test thrown in there that was meant to confirm my confidence about this weekend's half marathon. I ran with my friends from the Ottawa FrontRunners. Let me rephrase that, I met with the FrontRunners and Mark and I went ahead and left everyone else in our dust ;)

While I had warned Mark that I would speed up for a 2km interval at the middle of our run, he was caught by surprise when I darted off. To my surprise, he caught up with me and didn't even feel winded. We'll have to be rougher on him in the future, he is definitively under training. The 2km went by fairly quickly with splits of 3:52 and 4:06! Woot Woot! I was aiming for 4:20 splits so my confidence is now way up. The recovery after wasn't even that difficult with the next 2 kms at 4:51 and 4:45. Look at all that green on the heatmap:
I think I'm definitively getting my shape back this Spring. It was awesome to be running in shorts and short sleeve tshirt again. I am looking forward to my performance in Montreal and the rest of my running season this year!

If you are in Ottawa, consider joining us for the Ottawa FrontRunners speed workouts on Thursdays. We meet at 6:30pm at the Lisgar entrance of City Hall and head to either Parliament Hill or a local track to do some drills. We try to keep the drills varied every week and the bunch is always a fun group to be with.

Run for Japan!

2011-03-19T11:55:00.005-04:00

As I'm sure you have heard in the news, Japan has been the victim of a huge earthquake and a devastating Tsunami. In solidarity to Japan, I have participated in the Run for Japan! initiative. There are a lot of runners in Japan, in fact the Ottawa Marathon last year was won by a Japanese when Arata Fujiwara set a new course record.

I ran a total of 10 miles (16km) dedicated to the victims of the natural disasters in Japan, their families and their friends and I then donated to the Red Cross for their operation in Japan. It is my hope that the world will unite and help Japan come out of this.

Hopefully Japan can come out of this quickly and return to normal. Some good news today out of Osaka that there were close to 155,000 people that applied for the Osaka Marathon which has a cap of 28,000 runners.

My thought are with you Japan and I hope that other runners and non runners will donate and have thoughts for you.

New Ottawa Route

2011-03-09T18:59:00.004-05:00

There was big news with Ottawa Race Weekend earlier this week. New routes were unveiled for pretty much all the weekend's various events. Notably, the half marathon and marathon course were reviewed to snake through more neighborhoods. Runners will get to run through the arch in Chinatown, go down Preston street through Little Italy passing through Wesboro and snaking alongside the Ottawa river before going to Gatineau.
The new courses still have to be measured and finalized. Overall, I think the new route is a good change and will allow runners to see a bit more of the city. I can't wait to see the type of support that runners will have in Chinatown, Little Italy and Wesboro. Hopefully the stretch along the Ottawa River parkway is not too deserted. We do lose the amazing sights of running on Wellington in front of Parliament Hill, the Supreme Court and the National Archives buildings, but it is very likely that out of town runners will venture to these sights anyways even if in town just for a day or two.

Making it all better

2011-03-08T21:16:00.004-05:00

While I was running today, my running buddy asked me if I was having a good day. He noticed a pep in my step and he thought I was having a really good day. My answer was quite to the contrary. I had an awful day. Work has been really crazy lately and the frustrations are building up. Running is a very good outlet for all that rage and long tempo runs like the one that was on the training plan tonight are the perfect way to end the day and make it all better. Pounding the pavement has deep psychological healing properties for me. Hitting the road and letting my legs roar and fly through the dusk air felt like such a relief after a day of complex scheduling and planning issues. The simplicity of running and the physical effort really made my day!

I didn't even use music on my 8k pre-run before I met the club for our regular Tuesday night run. I took my usual warm-up route into Gatineau through the bridges. It seems that the department of Public Works of our cities just decided to give up on one of the bridges and wait for the warmth of Spring to naturally get rid of the snow, you'll notice the dark blue there on the speed heat map.
By the time I got to the running club meeting point, the frustrations had been channeled through my legs and vaporized into a very decent 8.5km and I was ready to challenge the fresh legs of one of the club's faster runner Mark. We ended up completing our usual 7km canal-side winter route at a very decent pace and I finished up with the final leg home to hit a total of 18km in 1h27m - 3 minutes ahead of my training target of 5m/km or 1h30. I figure that if I add in the extra effort of running in the icy/snowy roads and the slowdown on the bridges and the few red lights, I probably could translate this tempo run into a 1h25 run! It is looking better and better for a new PR in Montreal next month.

Cold and Fast!

2011-03-04T08:01:00.003-05:00

I am getting back into the training groove and today's -21 celsius with the windchill didn't stop me from going out for a quick speed workout before my work day starts. I hope this is the last time I have to wear a face mask to run, I feel like Spring should be just around the corner but it's a bit shy in showing itself.

This is my first satisfying intervals training since I came back from Miami. I feel I am finally getting my legs back. Hopefully when the weather improves and I can shed a few layers of clothing / protection, my speed will be back to where it was in the fall. I did my usual 8km loop around the bridges into Gatineau. I really like seeing green on the speed heatmap. Hopefully I can run the whole thing in a green tint or even get some yellows later this season.
Even this early in the day there was still some traffic and not all the lights were collaborating with my speed training. Two of my intervals were impacted by ~15 scconds waiting for the light to change. I can't wait until the paths are clear to return to my routes that do not have interruptions from traffic lights :)
I am getting confident that I will be ready for April 17 in Montreal. I'm hoping for a new PR which should be fairly straightforward (I *will* regret those words, I know!) since my half marathon PR currently stands at 1h43m from 2 years ago.

Faster than robots

2011-03-01T06:54:00.005-05:00

Machines may be able to beat us at Jeopardy, but they have not mastered the Marathon yet!
This story about a Marathon for humanoid robots states that the race was won in just under 55 hours, with a very close finish of 1 second. Amazing. You can watch the hilarious little guys here:

Cross training + speedwork

2011-02-27T09:23:00.003-05:00

Running only about 30-35 kms per week, I find myself with some extra energy and free time over what my marathon training schedule was requiring so I decided to start cross training again. When I was in the Caribbean, I swam a lot and when I came back I started to miss it so I got a membership at my local pool and started swimming twice a week.
I'm also looking forward to summer and biking outdoors so I started getting ready for it and dusted the stationary bike and started using it once or twice a week when the weather outside is not appealing enough for a run. Hopefully with a late fall marathon in mind, I will be able to enjoy a bit more physical exercise for fun this summer, last summer's intense marathon training left me too tired and time stretched to do any biking or hiking for leisure.

I know where you think this is going :) There is no triathlon planned in my immediate future but I'll keep all options open...

I've also started assessing my speed and where the bronchitis and training hiatus has left me. The bad news is that I have lost some speed. The good news is that I am still fairly fast by everyone's standards. My intervals sessions that were challenging me at 4:15m/km with 5:00m/km rest for 6 sets in October are now challenging me at 4:30m/km with 5:30m/km rest for 3 sets. I can't wait for the snow to melt at the track so I can really get at it and get my speed back.

I think I am better off than I was at this time last year. I'm not expecting to get back to my previous speeds in time for Montreal in April even if I aim at a new PR there. There is plenty of time to gear up for my A goal race in May where I hope to break 1h35 for the half in Ottawa.

Boston Getting Faster still

2011-02-19T14:20:00.004-05:00

The blogosphere has been very actively discussing the new changes for the Boston Qualifying times and registration process. While the 5 minutes and 59 seconds cut in 2013 is the most obvious change, the one most likely to impact runners is the progressive opening of registrations for runners 20, 10 and 5 minutes under the official BQ times. For an in depth look at the likely consequences of this move, read Ray's very insightful analysis on his blog, the DC Rainmaker.

I share Marlene's concerns that this will make it more difficult to qualify and run Boston. I also, like Yumke, realize that just qualifying won't be enough. My new target to guarantee a Boston slot is 2:50 for 2012 and 2:45 beyond. I already gained lots of time last year, I think I can achieve this eventually. At last resort, I can just get older. The upside of this new goal is that 2:45 will be a golden ticket almost everywhere guaranteeing me entry into other coveted races such as New York and London marathons.

Perth Kilt Run 2011

2011-02-18T06:48:00.004-05:00

Long time readers will remember last year's Kilt Run in Perth. This event was a lot of fun last year and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a small yet fully supported / cheered race. The 5 miles go by so quick you don't even realize you are racing and the crowd support was awesome. Running in a kilt was a lot more comfortable than I had expected and seeing everyone sporting theirs was quite a hoot.

The race organizers somehow found my blog entry last year and commented on it. They came back this year a few weeks ago before I left for the Caribbean to announce their plans for this year. The date has changed a little bit to coincide with the long weekend in July when Perth is hosting Lord Provost of Perth Scotland.

If you still have your kilt from last year (or own a kilt for other reasons), you will get a 30$ rebate on your registration but hurry up, registration prices increase on March 6th and closes on April 2nd. More details about the Perth Kilt Run on their website.
I'm not sure if this will fit in my race calendar but it's definitively a race I would like to do again!

Running on a cruise ship

2011-02-15T06:52:00.004-05:00

Right after the Miami half marathon, I quickly showered and boarded my cruise ship for a week long journey through the Caribbean. There were a lot of runners on the ship that also had visited Miami for the race and then rewarded themselves with a cruise. I wanted to keep my fitness on the ship, especially given the amount of good food that is available, I didn't want to come home and have lost speed and gained weight. Some of the people chose to run on the islands we visited but I felt our time on the islands was already pretty short so I felt it was better to exercise while we were at sea. My ship, the Carnival Glory, came with a fully equipped gym with half a dozen treadmills, but I dread the treadmills. I was fortunate that it also came with a running track at the top deck.
It was my first experience running on a cruise ship and I didn't expect the running track to have such tight turns
Or to actually be so short. According to the sign, it was 181 meters so about 6 laps to a Kilometer or in my case 30 laps for a 5k or 45 laps for a 7.5k. I didn't manage a 10k on the boat...
The turning and twisting quickly became boresome. I waited until sunset on all counts to go for a variety of reasons. Usually, sunset would be the time when we sail off so I had time to come back from the Island and start getting ready for my run. It also was a time where it was a bit cooler, the Caribbean sun can be quite hot! Sundown was also a time where people retreated to their cabins or the restaurant, leaving the running track less crowded. I didn't check it out at sunrise but I was told that there were a lot of walkers crowding the track at that time and during most of the day I could see people taking their time. Sunset also gave me some inspiring sights to take my mind away from the number of laps remaining. I saw one other runner using it during the day and two more that were using it at the same time I was.

The first time I ran on the ship, I brought my trusty Garmin out and waited for a GPS lock. I found out that the ship was moving at a pretty high speed of 37 km/h so I was doing an amazing time of 1:30m/km just standing around! Couple that with the 10-20 km/h winds out at sea and you have a deadly combination for runners.
I didn't even seem to make a serious dent in the speed of the ship on the way back either.
It was a really interesting workout to say the least. Going towards the aft (back) of the boat felt like flying. All I had to do is jump and let the wind carry me and the boat slip from under me. On the way back to fwd (front) of the boat, I had to fight heavy winds and the motion of the boat. This was very much like an interval training but with strength instead of speed. Difficult workouts are the best for results, right? For added complexity, factor in the rocking of the boat on the waters and you get uneven footing and balancing issues. This was especially noticeable at the turns. Still overall, I would rate this workout more enjoyable than a dreadmill run. Anything is better than a dreadmill, right?

On the first run, I was able to stick in there for 30 laps (5km). On my second one, I achieve 45 laps (7.5km). My third workout had a goal of 10km but the heavy winds took the better of me and I stopped after 30 laps (or maybe it was that free rum punch they gave me at happy hour that killed my determination?!?).

Having the Garmin was very useful to count the laps and see how I was doing speed-wise with the lap timer but the GPS was pretty useless while I was running. It is neat once I am back to see where the boat was at these times when I was running.
I would definitively run on a cruise ship again. I'm happy that next time I'll know what to expect :)

ING Miami half marathon

2011-02-09T15:11:00.008-05:00

Wow. What an exciting week this has been :) Now that I am back home I can take some time to report on my trip to Miami for the ING Half Marathon. The first thing I noticed when we got to Miami was that it wasn't as warm as I had feared. I think Miami was in the middle of a cold spell which worked fine for me, coming from -30 weather, I can catch any break I can to stay somewhat cool during the race.

I did a quick systems check run on Saturday morning to make sure I had everything I needed and to see where the start line would be. I immediately found that even if the weather was quite comfortable and breezy for walking it, it got quite hot when running especially in the sun... I found out that the start line was just a short walk from my hotel, great! I then headed to the expo in the Afternoon in South Beach (thank you to the organizers for the free shuttles to South Beach!) and I must say I was very impressed. This is by far the biggest race expo I have ever been to. All the companies were there and the swag was huge. There were also lots of really good deals to be had. I just wish I didn't have all my equipment already, I would have spent like a drunken sailor. What I got was a new pair of sunglasses (forgot mine at home), a new bright orange windbreaker that transforms into a vest (cool design!), a ING Miami Marathon hat (souvenir) and a PowerBalance band. I had seen the PowerBalance bands before and I was a bit skeptic but Alex insisted on getting it for me to help me through the race. I'm not sure if it makes that much of a difference but I know that if I believe it works, it will work, so I will try to believe in it ;) I'll wear it for a while and then report on it :)

After checking out all the latest innovations in shoes, nutrition and checking out all the cool races (anyone up for a race in Brazil? they had a huge presence) we went walking around South Beach. Not necessarily the best thing to do before a race but I like being a tourist :) The water was too cold to swim in but we dipped our feet and then lounged on the beach for a while.
It was cool to see all the runners carrying the orange ING bags that were walking everywhere at South Beach. It definitively adds a community feeling to the race when you realize that the town is overtaken by a horde of runners for the weekend. We met runners from different states and countries far away. Quite a few were from Canada as well. I even met some of them that were going to the same cruise as me after the race! Judging by the amounts of runners on the boat and the race shirts that I saw, I'd say there was at least 2 dozen runners that went for a post-run cruise :)

We caught a movie at a local theater and then headed back to downtown with the last race shuttle. I found a nice restaurant to get spaghetti and meatballs and realized that I was not the only runner that homed in on this Italian eatery. There was about an hour wait to get the pasta but once it was delivered it was very delicious and the portion decent enough for a half marathon. We then hurried back to the room to get everything ready for the race and a bit of sleep before waking up at 4:30am.

The 6am start I guess is designed to take advantage of the lower temperatures in the early morning and to minimize the amount of disruption to traffic. We still heard lots of complaints from the taxi drivers about the race whenever we told them that is why we were in town :) While it was a bit chilly, I still wore my sleeveless shirt because I knew it would get warmer. I showcased my new jacket until I had to leave for the corral where I handed it to Alex, I didn't want to lost it on the course...
Met some interesting people as usual while lining up for the port-o-potties and when I got in to my corral. What I noticed right away as I was waiting in my corral is that runners in Miami really like their headphones. I'd say over 50% of runners around me were wired up. That's much higher than the usual 20% I see at races here in Canada. I really don't blame them for using music to help propel them to the finish, I do it all the time when I train, but for me a race is a communal experience and having everyone in their own bubbles takes a little bit of the excitement away from me. The start area was huge and they had giant screens and an American flag they claimed came from the twin towers in NYC. I don't know if it is the darkness with all the lights or the giant screen display but the start line felt like a rock concert... Pretty cool!
The start for the wheelchairs was sounded and everyone started getting really excited. Then the elites started and about 10 minutes later my corral finally crossed the start line. It was slow running at first while everyone got into their comfortable paces. I wasn't sure how fast I would race this event yet because my training had been very uneven after the recovery from bronchitis. I was pretty comfortable with the 2h30m bunny for a bit but then I decided I could do better so I started kicking up a notch. The spectators where pretty plentiful along the course and the atmosphere was very positive and party-like among the runners around me. I remember when I passed my cruise ship just as it was docking and started telling everyone around me that this was my destination, not the finish line :)
We quickly crossed the bridge into south beach and we were rewarded by a beautiful sunrise.
I know you guys have commented about my pictures before while I run and you have to know that I take over 200 of them. Most of them end up blurry or of my feets and armpits. I still usually get a few good ones that are usable. This next one has me smiling like a lunatic. I wasn't sure if I should use it but I think it's hilarious so here you go:
Here's another one that I wasn't sure I should keep :)
Running on Ocean drive in South Beach was pretty cool. The palmtrees, the ocean and the sun made a very magical combination:
I wish the whole race was beside the ocean. As we turned away from Ocean drive, one of my favorite song was playing at a spectating area: The Time by Black Eyed Peas, another boost to make my race even more enjoyable. Before I knew it, I saw this Mile 7 sign.... We passed by the convention center where we picked up our packets the day before. I've been here before!
What do you mean, halfway already !?!
This is where I heard two runners beside me talking very excitedly about how far from the Publix we were. Not having Publix in Canada, I didn't quite know what they were talking about so they informed me that it is a supermarket chain. I'm still not quite sure why that would be exciting to run by but they were pretty happy about it so I left them alone. Turns out that Publix has an entire mile devoted to them.
With all kinds of funny turtles and rabbits cartoons and lots of cheerful spectators. That is probably what the two guys were excited about :)

I knew that I had the race locked in. I still felt strong and I knew I was having a good day so I stopped worrying about my speed and let myself go. I sped up significantly and caught up quite a bit of time. I even stopped for a bathroom break but still managed to stay on track with my fellow runners. I realized that finishing in under 2 hour was attainable if I gave myself a bit of a boost so I continued pushing.

It was getting pretty hot with the sun out there but I knew the race was almost over. I kept drinking the sports drink at the stations and I kept going.
The last few stretches were downtown and a bit twisty but it felt great. I totally floored it for the last miles with a pace around 4:30m/km (7:15m/m) and a sprint like I've never done before for the last 500 meters.
I was very impressed when I looked at my watch and saw that I finished under two hours. The official time: 1:58:00 even! Great stuff. Some nice lady offered to take a picture of me when she saw me wrestling with my camera. I wanted to be sure to catch that endorphin induced smile for everyone to see:
Overall this was a great race. I took a picture of my medal at the hotel room:
And quickly showered and changed to get to my boat that was leaving for the Caribbean in the afternoon. YAY!

I'm really happy that I was able to run Miami despite my bronchitis. I definitively made the right choice in playing it safe and not doing a full. Even if I did a negative split with a huge speed boost at the end, I do not think I would have had a good time on the full course if I had attempted the Marathon.
The shirt from the race is actually not that bad. They had a glitch and gave full marathon shirts to a lot of halfers, myself included, but the lineup to get that rectified seemed daunting so I decided to keep the full shirt.
The medal is pretty cool. It's colorful, it rotates, has a fake diamond in the palm tree and has a beautiful ribbons with palm trees and Miami Famous inscription.
I would totally run Miami again in the future. I probably will try lots of other races before but the organization, course and crowd were all fantastic. Definitively a top race in my experience.

Ready, Set, Wait!

2011-01-26T06:39:00.004-05:00

With about 60 hours left before I land in Miami and 4 days to race start, there's not much more I can do to make myself ready. I will soon start the nutrition and hydration routine that has seen me through numerous races in the past. This race is a little bit different. It compares a lot to my first ever half marathon where the goal was to finish strong, not necessarily with any time target in mind. Coming back from Bronchitis, I have lost a significant amount of speed and endurance and until yesterday, I wasn't sure if I had it in me to run 21km this Sunday. Knowing that long distance races are often much more of a mind-trick than a body workout, I set out to run 18km, to prove to myself that I can do it. Whether that was smart or not 5 days before the race, I am not certain. What I do know is that without having done this training run, the mind tricks and the race day goblins would have started to creep up on me at km 15 or a full 6km before the end, roughly a half hour. Now I have those goblins beat until probably km 19, where a mere 10 minutes will see me end the race. I think I may have won the mind battle ahead of time, take that Goblin! Long distance runners will know what I am talking about, non runners, trust me on this, it makes all the difference to be able to trust yourself and your training until almost the very end.

Yesterday's 18km was done at 5:30m/km pace, so if I do everything right, I should come in a bit under 2 hours. But I don't really care if it takes me 2 and half hours on Sunday. The course will be beautiful and warm and the cruise boat doesn't leave until 4pm. With a 6am race start, that's plenty of time to finish, enjoy the party, get cleaned up and then head for the boat. I for one will not be sad to leave the Ottawa cold behind. We've been having a patch of -20 to -30 Celsius with some rough winds making it feel even colder.

I'm not sure how much time I'll have to update the blog after the race. Follow my twitter feed if you want to know how I did. Oh, would you look at that, it's now 59 hours before touchdown ;)

I'm BAAAAAACK!

2011-01-17T20:32:00.006-05:00

Yeah! I feel great today. Well, that may be overstating it a bit, but I felt good enough for a run. My first in almost a month! Most signs of the bronchitis are gone so I figured I should start training again, seeing I have a half marathon in two weeks ;) I tell you I really needed this run. Even if at 8.5km in 45 minutes it's nothing to be really impressed with, getting back out there and pounding the pavement felt great. I never realize how much I love running until I miss it for a while... The Endorphins are flowing and I'm sure Alex will be relieved that Grumpy has left the building :)

It was cold and not having run through the winter made me a bit short of breath (or is that from the bronchitis?!?) but I just kept going at a very easy pace. From looking at the speed heatmap, I look pretty steady except for where the GPS reception was spotty.... I overdressed but that is okay, I knew I wouldn't be pushing it speedwise so I wanted to be sure that I would be comfortable even if I had to slow down considerably.

This run today is giving me great confidence for Miami. Even though I switched to the half, it still will be a challenge for me to finish it. I am not hoping for a PR but only to finish quickly enough to be able to hit the hotel for a shower before heading to the boat for our post race Caribbean cruise!

16504

2011-01-14T22:35:00.002-05:00

16504... That is my BIB number for ING Miami Marathon. It is a bit weird, I usually look forward to a race, but this one I am not really feeling yet. I haven't run in over a month now, afraid that if I start running too soon I will allow the bronchitis to come back. I still have a bit of a cough but maybe the laziness has taken root after a month of not running. Chilly temperatures are not helping either... I will have to get off my butt soon if I want to stand a chance out there in Miami. I did get confirmation that my entry was bumped down to a half, but despite what a lot of people say, a half is not ONLY a half, it's still a respectable distance. I may decide at the last minute to cheer on the racers and forego the medal, who knows.

For all of those interested, Ray the DC Rainmaker is hosting another giveaway. This one is really worthwhile: a 310XT Garmin ForeRunner! So head on over to Ray's giveaway post and comment, blog, tweet and facebook all about it to get more chances!

Halving Miami

2011-01-08T09:37:00.004-05:00

Thank you all for your kind words and your thoughtful advice. I have requested to have my registration switched to the half in Miami. I am doing much better now but not well enough to run yet. Hopefully I can start running again later this week and be in decent shape for Miami, otherwise I may skip the race altogether :(

I do have that itch to go out but it would not be wise yet.

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T15:22:00.002-05:00

Happy 2011 to everyone! You may have seen my tweet already... I wanted to wish everyone all the best for the New Year and lots of PRs and PBs, races, inspiring runs and goals fulfilled. I hope everyone will be happy and have success in all their endeavors and of course, peace on earth!

As for me, I've been very quiet on the training front. That cold I thought I had back in mid December was actually a bronchitis that I am now recovering from (antibiotics, nose spray, inhaler and syrup are part of my daily medication regiment). I've been resting as much as possible to make sure this goes away quickly and I am not sure what to do with Miami. There is a cruise at the end of the race that is non-negotiable but I'm thinking about reducing the distance to a half. It would be a shame to travel to Miami and not run the full course, but with no decent runs in the last 2-3 weeks and only 4 weeks to the race, I'm wondering how much I can rely on muscle memory come race day. I'll see once I am better where the break has left my endurance before I take a definitive decision.

Take care and, again, all the best for 2011. I've met some wonderful people online that inspired me and I hope to continue to build these relationships and give some back over the next 12 months for all that I have received.

Overtrained + C4C

2010-12-20T07:00:00.004-05:00

I've been suffering a bit from a cold and I tried to continue training during and I realized that I am really overtraining. Wikipedia lists the following symptoms for overtaining:

Persistent muscle soreness (Delayed onset muscle soreness)
Persistent fatigue
Elevated resting heart rate
Reduced heart rate variability
Increased susceptibility to infections
Increased incidence of injuries
Irritability
Depression
Mental breakdown

Okay, I may not have all of them but I definitively have fatigue, infections and more soreness than usual. The cure has many options from reducing the amount of training to reducing the intensity or doing cross training. I'm not quite sure how to mix up my training with Miami coming at me furiously (less than 6 weeks away now) but I will try to reduce the intensity and maybe even cross train on the bike instead of the shorter medium runs.

This week I did not accomplish the 80km that the training plan wanted. I did finish my 21k tempo but I cut short every other run and ended up with a 19k long run yesterday. The mind just wasn't in it and with the body recovering from a cold, the endurance wasn't there yet either.

Time for Cans for Comments. Christmas has just sneaked up on me this year. I hope you guys realize that it is next Saturday! The malls were crazy yesterday, it took us more time to park than we spent shopping. We got everything we need so let's make sure that less fortunate families also will, comment early and comment often. For each comment, I will give a non-perishable food item to charity.

PS: Thanks to Dalla for the beautiful picture!

Weather woes

2010-12-13T07:05:00.004-05:00

Phew, what a weekend. The weather took a turn for the worse here in Ottawa yesterday with Freezing rain, snow and regular rain all mixed up. It looks like all that beautiful H2O has frozen overnight to create very dangerous sidewalks. I'm glad I went for my long run on Saturday morning. The knee didn't complain too much during the run but there is definitively something going on with my mechanics right now, I feel a bit sorer and tighter than I would expect and some muscles I didn't know existed are sore. I think it's because of the snowy/slippery sidewalks, makes for a much more difficult run than dry pavement. The 32km long run took 3h01m, which is about where I want to be for the easy runs. I'll try to rack up the kilometers this week to sync back with my training plan but with the weather we've been experiencing, I'm not sure I'll have enough time with good weather to put in the required 80km...

Thank you for the (1) comment on the Cans for Comments, look for it again this week!

Cans for Comments + Benched

2010-12-08T06:49:00.005-05:00

Holidays are fast approaching and while I've been slacking off on the Cans for Comments since September, now is the time to make up for it. It's a simple concept, you comment on this blog post and I donate a can (or other non perishable item) to a local food bank. I'll spice things up for the month of December and add that if you are a blogger and do a C4C on your blog, I'll make your comment count for 10 cans, just mention your blog in the comments. Here is a picture of my last contribution when my friends at foodiePrints made me realize that I skipped over a few months.
Running news aren't that good lately. I had a sensitive left knee that was quite worse than the usual soreness. I decided to bench myself for a while. I could easily have blamed the weather or some other cause. The Truth is that I am not that sad to be benched and get a bit a a break even though I realize that I'm falling behind in training and that Miami is only 7 weeks away.. I had a good stationary bike session on Monday and expect to get back on the road for a short test run tonight... Hopefully it's nothing serious and I can get back to business quickly, I have a 20 miler planned for Sunday after all ;)

Winter Running

2010-12-02T20:14:00.003-05:00

Winter is coming fast to Ottawa. While the last few days have been a bit warmer, we've had some snow and ice already. Last Friday's run was a typical winter run and as is the case with most runs, I thought of great topics to blog and one of them was how beautiful it can be running in winter. Unfortunately by the time I got home, all my eloquently composed sentences just drained away like the sweat in the shower. One sentence that I remember had something to do with how magical it can be to turn the music off and appreciate the beauty and stillness of a frozen and desolate landscape with nothing else than the crunching sound of a thin layer of ice breaking under my feet. It sounded better at the time with the moon shining over the freezing water of Dow's lake. I do love running in all kinds of conditions and appreciate the variety of conditions that running in Canada gives me.

Winter running can be scary especially to our southern neighbors who right now are blogging about bundling up for their runs in 40/50 Fahrenheit. The trick is layering up and knowing what works. After a few times only, I had learned to add or remove layers as required. I am always amazed at how comfortable I can be running with so little gear, as long as I don't stop or slow down I am usually okay. Slowing down or speeding up to maintain the body temperature can also be quite helpful if the layering are not quite adequate.

I'm pretty happy that I am back within my training plan this week. While I did shift a few things around doing a 10k and a 16k instead of two 13k runs, the total weekly mileage is exactly where it needs to be. Last Sunday's slow and easy 32km run was also quite fast, especially for the last 7km where I met up with the Frontrunners and got too excited while talking to notice that we sped up significantly :) As a result I've been the sorest I remember being in a long time after a training session.

2011 Plans

2010-11-28T07:45:00.002-05:00

I think I'm about done for racing in 2010. While I was thinking about doing the Running Room's Resolution Run again this year, it sold out in Ottawa so no can do.

2011 will start with a bang for me with the ING Miami Marathon on January 30th. Right after the race, I'll be boarding a Caribbean cruise for a full week of rest and relaxation. I have to admit that not really having lots of downtime for my training has put a pretty big burden on me. I now feel that about 50% of my training runs I do because I have to, not because I want to. So that's why I plan to slow down training a bit after Miami and start looking for shorter races.

I've always wanted to do an event on the Gilles Villeneuve F1 circuit in Montreal and the Banque Scotia 21k de Montreal might be just the event. It's in April so I still get a decent break after Miami and it can be a checkup run before Ottawa. I haven't raced a half in a while so I'm pretty confident I can PR in a big way if I can maintain my speed throughout winter.

I will run Ottawa Race Weekend again. Not quite sure what event I will do but most likely a half with maybe a 5k the night before.

I'll be looking at some shorter events (5km or 10km) throughout the summer and would like to end the year with a bang with another Marathon. Perhaps I will go back to Toronto for the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon which I thought was a great event in 2008 or maybe go a bit further to Niagara Falls International Marathon for the only Marathon that ends in a different country than it started.

What about you, what will your 2011 look like?

Top 10 Marathon Thoughts

2010-11-26T07:00:00.001-05:00

I may be a bit late in catching up with this clip from David Letterman about the top 10 things that go through your mind while running a Marathon. While it is focused on the NYC Marathon, I think most items could work for any Marathon.

What thoughts are going through your mind while running a long distance race (besides are we there yet) ?

Happy thanksgiving to my American friends!

Medals gallore

2010-11-23T06:45:00.001-05:00

Marlene posted her medals back in July and issued a challenge to other bloggers to show her their own cache of medals. I was in the process of moving so I could not respond right away but when it came time to put my Hamilton Marathon medal away, I remembered her challenge. While I may not have as many medals as her and her husband, I think I still have some decent ones to talk about.

Here are all my medals, arranged in chronological order:
My first medal ever was a running medal. Appropriately it was also one of those rare placement medals as opposed to a participation medal. It remains to this day my only placement medal for running. It was way back in grade school and it was for a local cross country run. I don't even remember how I placed, whether it was second or third, but I do remember that my coach/gym teacher was quite angry that I had stopped to chat up one of the teachers that was manning one of the booths to supervise runners :)
I remember those running years fondly and I regret a bit stopping my running once I moved to a different city and changed schools. I think that this early running experience planted a bug in me that re-awakened a decade later and continues to fuel my passion for the sport.

My second medal is not even sports related. The geeky side of this runner earned this medal at a mathematics championchip called Concours Pythagore. The medal is dated 1991:
Again, I don't remember how I placed but this was a very significant event, where the brightest mathematic students of the entire province drove to Rigaud for testing and calculating. I was in grade 4 or 5 and this felt like quite an experience competing with all these brainy and glasses wearing kids. I'm glad I only had to do it once :)

This medal I didn't even remember I had. It must have been a participation medal or otherwise there must have been only 2 or 3 of us competing in my category because I was never really that good at Judo:
I can't believe there is a 10 year gap in medals before I earned my next one. The next one is significant because it is my first one of the recent era of running. Nothing shorter than a half marathon would suffice to introduce me to organized races with the ING Ottawa Half Marathon 2006:
This medal is not the prettiest of the bunch, but it holds a special place in my hearth. I had a very ambitious goal of finishing under 2 hours which I thought was uber fast. At 2h08 I didn't meet my goal but I had an awesome time and I was hooked. I found the next local half marathon and immediately signed up!

The Ottawa Falls Colours half marathon medal is not the nicest one of the bunch but at least it is event specific and features the year. The pink necklace gives it an extra distinction :)
I was able to breach the 2 hour mark for this one. In fact, at 1h46, I totally destroyed my previous time!

Fast forward a few months and I was ready to try myself against the ING Ottawa Half-Marathon once more. The 2007 edition saw me improve my time some more with 1h43.
An injury prevented me from running a fall half marathon that year. I was determined to get back to running despite a painful Plantar Fasciitis injury and signed up again for the ING Ottawa Half Marathon which was becoming somewhat of a tradition.
My running career was back on track even if it wasn't a new PB with a time of 1h50. I really liked that medal at the time, it was my first "rotating" medal.
I then decided to set my sights upon a mythical distance: The Marathon. I had promised a few years ago that I would run a Marathon before I turned 30 and, well, the clock was ticking. So I jumped in and trained with what I felt was an adequate training regimen of 2 runs a week combined with a biking regimen of about 150km while I was commuting to work. That kind of training was not adequate for a Marathon and I suffered through one of the most painful 2 hours at the end of race. But I did finish (4h37m) and earned this beautiful medal:
I like how heavy and sturdy it feels. The imitation gold color is great
And the necklace is silky and heavy at the same time:
This is one classy medal and still to this day one of my favorites.

I decided to switch things up a bit after that and start training for a triathlon. I still ran the Ottawa Half Marathon (ING stopped supporting the race in 2009) and achieved another PB with 1h40m24s.
Ottawa kept improving it's medal with another "Rotating" medal and a nice thick necklace. This is a medal that still stands out in my collection.
My next event would be a triathlon. Something called a sprint which is about half of an olympic distance.
This is where I earned this medal. The medal is not event specific and the year is only featured on the necklace. A bit disappointing to be honest. I didn't race another triathlon since, not because of the medal, but rather because training for Triathlon is a bit of a challenge with the swim times, bike maintenance and other travel commitments for all the equipment.

Going back to running felt like a bit of a let down so I decided to go back to the Marathon distance. I picked a destination that would motivate me throughout the training: Los Angeles.
I'm not sure why anyone would care that this is the 25th edition. In their defense this medal features my favorite necklace ever. It's smooth, thick and features the route along with some pictures of the icons alongside their scenic route:
I thought a bit about what distance I would do in Ottawa. I really enjoyed the half marathon and could have locked in a really decent time, but I was also very fit and wanted to take advantage of my fitness level and see if I could break my newly established PR at LA.
I think that this is still my best overall medal. The necklace could use a bit more work but the medal itself is beautiful. It's shiny, it rotates and is also colorful.
As you know I ran the Hamilton Marathon about 2 weeks ago. I locked in a new PR even if I couldn't achieve the most revered BQ. The medal was a bit disappointing:
Not only is the medal generic and not dated as well as not event specific, even the necklace is barely dated and not event specific.

These are the medals that I have earned until now. I have big plans for 2011, starting with the Miami marathon. I'll write a post to discuss these plans soon...

In the meantime, if any race organizer or medal designer is reading this, here is what I look for in a medal. I want something that is special and that stands out. I want the medal to clearly say what I did (Marathon, Half Marathon, etc) and where I did it (City, Disney, whatever). I also want it to be dated (the year is enough unless the event is reoccurring multiple times during the year). The medal should be thick and made of quality metal and if possible have some room to engrave my name and time. The necklace should be thick and yet feel like silk or velvet. I really like the LA one where they feature the route and some key icons that we passed by while running.

What about you, what do you look for in a medal? What is the coolest medal you ever received?

Back on the (chilly) road

2010-11-21T15:56:00.003-05:00

I've been quiet recently but rest assure that I am working my way back into a training plan to be in good shape for the Miami marathon on January 30th. After a full week of rest and relaxation, this week was a bit more busy training wise. I squeezed in two weight sessions and two runs. My first run was a systems check of about 6 km to see how everything felt and this morning a short 21km to get me back into the long run on Sunday routine. I always forget how substantial 21km is after dabbling in long runs of 30km or above for the last few weeks of my training plans.

This morning I joined the FrontRunners club here in Ottawa. They are a very friendly GLBT bunch and they meet a few times every week for a run and then breakfast. I didn't know what to expect so I didn't really prepare myself to be able to do breakfast after the run and besides, I needed a bit more distance than the regulars are used to. So I joined them for the first 8km and it was nice to run with company. I think I ended up going a bit faster than I planned but it was within endurance range so it's all good. My running partner left for breakfast while I kept going for another 10km loop to lock in the 21km I felt was appropriate for my return to long runs. At 1h44m it was a bit faster than a long slow run would regularly have been. I will definitively try to schedule my runs so I can run with them again. Maybe I can do my extra distance before I meet them so I can partake in the breakfast :)

Winter is coming here in Ottawa and today was quite chilly with the wind. I saw -11 on the weather network with the windchill but it didn't feel that cold. The layers are coming out of storage and the mathematics that comes with calculating how many layers and how heavy each should be is something akin to riding a bicycle, once you figure it out, you never have to learn it again. I was quite pleased with my 2 lights layers with a windbreaker on top. I added some hobo gloves and a tuque and was kept at an ideal running temperature throughout the workout.

My friends and local foodie celebrities at FoodiePrints were running their own Cans for Comments campaign and they made me realize that I have been totally forgetting running my own monthly drive. When they issues a call on Twitter for their followers to match their donations, I stepped up so I'm now on the hook for 25 items for the food bank. Stay tuned for my own campaigns to return weekly as the holiday season quickly approaches.

Bust :(

2010-11-08T14:18:00.009-05:00

I didn't have to think long about the title of this post. While the news is not quite that bad, the title of my last post was BQ or Bust, and even if I did establish a new PR, it wasn't nearly fast enough to qualify for Boston at my age. As I had outlined in my previous post, race strategy could go either way, what I didn't anticipate is that even while blowing up I would still land a respectable PR with 3h19m10s. The race itself was epic for me, as I guess every marathon is. I moved through the entire range of emotions in this race, from despair to elation to despair again.

I felt pretty ready for the race. Having traveled a full day ahead so that the day before could be spent resting and a proper night's sleep could be guaranteed. My pre-race nutrition and hydration was right on schedule. I went to bed even 1 hour earlier on the count of daytime savings being over. I woke up fresh and ready to tackle the distance.

I finally got to meet Marlene when I was headed to the start line. Her husband looked ready to race, even going through the effort of doing warmups before the race. Don't get me wrong, I totally respect warmups, but for a marathon, I need every mile in me before the race, there's no juice to spare for warmups. Things turned out differently for Marlene's Hubby as you will most probably read soon over Marlene's blog, he turned in a new PR by 16 minutes! I saw Marlene multiple times during the race and her cheering and M&M costume always brought a smile to my face and added speed to my stride.
At the start line, I realized how small a race this was. At 1500 marathoners, this is the smallest marathon I ever attended. A far stretch from LA's 25,000 or even Ottawa's 6,000. There was a pretty diverse crowd of young and old and everyone seemed upbeat about the perfect weather. I noticed how some people were carrying camelpacks. I found it funny to bring your own hydration at a race, kinda like bringing a sandwich to a buffet. I found out the reason why once I was on the course. Water stations were a bit sparser than I am used to and e-load was the chosen race drink. I am not very familiar with e-load but it did not feel sweet or taste like anything except salt. I regretted not bringing my own bottle of sports drink.

Warming up at the start line, I realized I was hanging out with the fast guys. It was a smallish race but being that close to the start line can be a bit intimidating. No waiting around after the gun looking at those heads bobbing up and down, when the gun goes off, you get going! Everyone settled into their own speeds fairly quickly.I settled into a good groove right at the start with a fast first 2 kilometers, right on pace for a BQ.

4:27
4:28

At about km 2, my left leg had a weird feeling in it. Not sure if it was the cold or if I was rusty from tapering. I didn't know if I should stop to relace my shoes, maybe they were too tight? I slowed down to see if that would help. I got a bit worried that there was something seriously wrong with my leg after the feeling didn't go away after a few kilometers and even considered dropping out to prevent serious injury. Eventually the feeling went away at about km 10.

4:30
4:33
4:38
4:32
4:36
4:32
4:33
4:33

At kilometer 10 I realized a was a bit behind on my 3h10 goal. Nothing major with about 20 seconds to make up but I realized that I had two choices if I really wanted to qualify for Boston, get faster or get older. I wasn't getting any older on the spot so I decide to get faster. Throughout the race, I pictured a fictitious runner called BQ and always remained aware of how far ahead (or even behind) that runner was. So I pushed a bit harder and got back on track.
It was great to see Alex cheering for me. I felt really good about the race so far. Marlene was also cheering a bit further down the line. Seeing her in her M&M costume was awesome and gave me an extra kick. Qualifying for Boston is what draws a lot of people to this race. Everyone was keeping track of where they were and where they needed to be. Some people had given up already by then and would wait for the next year when they would fall into a new category.

4:27
4:27
4:30
4:35
4:23
4:22
4:27

I was now back on track right where I wanted to be. The next portion of the course then started getting a bit downhill. I knew a downhill section was coming but if I knew how much of a slope it was, I wouldn't have stressed about getting back on track. It actually felt like cheating a bit to go down the slope.

4:18
4:19
4:19
4:26
4:20
4:13
4:12
4:17

I felt like I was flying. I accumulated a lead of almost 2 minutes over my fictitious BQ foe. I was so happy, I felt like it was now impossible for me to mess up and not make 3:10. Images of flying over the finish line at 3:08 flew in my mind while I ran down the slope. Once the downhill section was over, my pace felt slow even when it was 4:30m/km. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to keep it up. I kept chugging along as as much as I could.

4:23
4:25
4:27
4:49
4:31
4:25
4:30

Marlene was waiting after an underpass and her M&M costume brought another smile :)
By that point I was becoming a bit thirsty. Avoiding the salty eloads at the water stops may not have been the best decision. I had brought my own gels and some starburst candies as well so I hoped that my carbohydrates were being replenished in time but there just wasn't enough water out there to quench my thirst. Shortly after km 32, my slow descent into hell started.

4:43
4:38
4:55
4:46
4:51

As I entered into the final stretch of 10km, I felt the wall coming on. I mentally calculated my minimum pace to keep my 3:10 goal alive and realized that a 4:40m/km pace would be difficult with what seemed like a pretty strong headwind. Environment Canada reports winds of up to 25km/h yet I don't think everyone felt the wind the same way. The wall sometimes has its ways with runners. I watched helplessly as my fictitious BQ opponent closed the gap and passed me. My legs were painful, the juice was gone and my spirits were quickly falling. As we turned around the final bend, I was hit by what felt like a wall of wind. It literally took all the energy I had just to keep going. I started the painful mental process of adjusting my goal to 3:12 then 3:15 to finally dig deep just enough to actually keep going instead of sitting by on one of the comfortable-looking and appealing park benches by the side of the path we were running on.

00:06:18
00:05:28
00:06:39
00:05:44
00:05:14

These last few kilometers were the most difficult I ever had to run. Finishing this race was even more difficult than the painful crawl of my first marathon. I just wanted to get the race done and over with and move on. Seeing everyone passing me by while I took walking breaks and extended every effort I could to just keep going. The disappointment I was feeling at not meeting my objective added to my exhaustion and made me feel really bad. Some really happy runners were prancing around shouting to the world that they were heading to Boston after trying for 10 years.

The final lap was pretty cruel with the runners going by the finish line and looping an extra few hundred meters. Wouldn't this race ever end? My Garmin reports the final 450m at 3:46 for an official chip time of 3:19:10. Marlene caught this great picture of an exhausted runner trying to stay together long enough to cross the finish line.
I was really glad to have finished. Coming in under 3:20 was actually fairly impressive given that the last 10km took me over 53 minutes. It's a new PR but could have been much lower if I raced smarter. I will learn from this to study the course profiles ahead of time to better plan my races. I could have taken it a bit easier on the first half to keep more ammo for the last end. Knowing that the water stations were 3km apart and knowing that eload wouldn't agree with me, I could have designed an hydration strategy that would have helped a bit.
I think the speed heat map tells the story pretty well.
And I wish I had taken a look at this elevation chart before I raced:
Overall, I think Hamilton's Road2Hope Marathon is a really well organized race. It's very small so there's not as much cheering as a bigger race could offer but there were cheerers peppered around the course. The course itself is fairly fast, if raced smart, even if a bit boring. The finishing kms would be very scenic if one had energy to take in the scenery. I'm not sure I would race this one again unless I was specifically looking for another go at the BQ. I think that I will do my time and train so that any race can be a BQ rather than try to cheat and pick a fast race to qualify.

My plans for now is a two weeks vacation from training. I know that I probably will not be able to withstand 2 weeks without getting out there but I'm not entering a training plan anytime soon. Miami is still on the table but I started wrestling with the idea of switching to a half marathon or at least of taking is easy and enjoying the scenery instead of pushing again for another PB/BQ. I know that I have a much faster race in me if I race smarter next time. I think 3:15 would be doable and I could hold it together until the end. As with every marathon, I learned a lot about myself during training and even more during the race. Marathons are life changing experiences in any case, difficult ones are even more meaningful if you ask me. As a friend told me yesterday, the fact that I ran faster than ever and managed not to get injured means I am doing something right.

BQ or Bust!

2010-11-03T07:11:00.004-04:00

I am usually fairly conservative when setting race goals. I like to be able to achieve them and reflect on my success. This time however is a bit different. I've been fairly straight forward with my goal to qualify for Boston eventually. With all the hard work I've put in over the summer, this might happen this Sunday. I could probably set a reasonable goal of 3:20 and shatter it at 3:18. However, I think a BQ (3:10) is achievable if I have a good day so I'll be pushing as hard as I can for as long as I can and then hang on and see where that goes. I realize that I may be putting a PB in jeopardy if I completely blow up at km 30, however I want to get that BQ under my belt so I can take it somewhat easy with my training for Miami.

The long term forecast looks pretty good for Hamilton with chilly but sunny temperatures. There's a slight 20km/h wind, we'll just have to hope that it's not going directly against the course. I have my outfits picked out, my gels tucked away and my shoes ready to roar. All I have to do now is trust the training and convince myself that this is not a cold I feel coming on and that my feet are not suffering from plantar fasciitis from walking around my winter boots for 10 minutes. Tapering is hard. I didn't remember running so many kms during the last week of training but looking back at my training log for my past marathons, I am right on par with another 10k run tomorrow and then a 6km Saturday before the big dance on Sunday. I may not post until after the race so follow me on Twitter in the meantime.

7 days!!!

2010-10-31T19:11:00.003-04:00

Less than a week left until race day. This is pretty exciting stuff. When I started training for this marathon 16 weeks ago, I didn't feel like I would ever get to race day. The grueling long runs, the exhausting speed training and the crazy things I had to eat in the last few weeks will hopefully pay off in a big way on race day. I'll follow up with a race goal post but for now the focus is on keeping the taper gremlins away.

Running "only" 50kms this week made it seem like I was procrastinating. I have to rationalize the feeling that I get in my legs when resting and convince myself that they are not injured and will be in top shape and ready to perform next weekend. No, this is not a stress fracture or a pulled muscle, it's just how it feels to not be tired all the time! Even the creaking in the morning feels different :)

Eating is also a difficult balancing act. Not running the crazy distances that the peak training was asking means that even though my appetite may be for seconds and thirds, the reality is that I have to be careful if I don't want to pack a few extra pounds come race day :) I've grown accustomed to the bottomless carbs and delicious desserts. Now I have had to cut back a bit to ensure that I hit the start line with the minimum amount of extra luggage ;)

It's been difficult to fit all the training in and find the motivation to keep going, especially the last few weeks. I am really happy that I managed to fit in most of the training plan for the last 3 months, only skipping a week's worth when I moved and even then I compensated wherever possible. I feel ready for the race and positive about giving a good performance in Hamilton.

If you are in Hamilton, let me know. We'll be there from Friday on. The long range weather report looks pretty good with sunny and sub 10 degree temperature. Depending on last minute weather, I'll be running with a variation of my chinese "orange blur" outfit that saw me through breaking 45 minutes for 10km last winter at the Richmond road race.

Over the hump

2010-10-14T06:53:00.004-04:00

Wednesday is referred to as hump day sometimes. My Wednesday was a double hump. As I will be traveling this weekend, there won't be time or comfortable settings for a long run so I decided to squeeze in my 38km run, the longest of this training cycle, into a weekday. I don't know if the dread and anxiety of planning a run like that on a weekday evening is worse than the pain of actually doing it but I'm glad it is all over. Night running has its advantages. It's much quieter and a bit cooler than daytime running. It also gives a whole new perspective as you see things in the dark. Even the trails seemed different. I kept imagining giants spiders weaving a web that would catch me like we often see in bad horror movies. I saw a few other runners and quite a few cyclists out there.

The first 20 kms were easy peasy. The next 5 started to get difficult. I knew my nutrition wouldn't be where it needed to be so I brought along some gels, which is very unusual for me in training. I had the first one at km 25. It gave me a boost and something to think about other than the amount of kms left. At around km 30 I started losing it. Km 33 saw me stop for a walk break. What? A walk break? Me? I started doubting myself and that is never good. I took another gel and resolved to finish the distance running. Two walk breaks later, I finally decided to not allow myself any more breaks and run for it and ran the last 2 kms without breaking. I even ran an extra 500m to make up for it. Such is the mind of the runner. In 3h45m it's 8 minutes faster than the 38km run leading up to my 3:27 marathon. I hope that means I am in good shape.

The low 70km that next week requires will seem short compared to the heavy weeks I have endured recently. Then it's all downhill for taper until the race. Woohoo!

Good luck to everyone racing this weekend. Go get that PR!

Thankful

2010-10-11T08:27:00.005-04:00

For us Canadians, this weekend is thanksgiving. I have had the opportunity to reflect on what I am thankful for and a big part of what I cherish in my life is due to running. The positive things that running has given me are really what I am thankful for. I love having more energy throughout the day because my morning run went well or just because the training regimen has trained my body to be ready for anything. The rush of endorphins after a hard training keep me sane even in difficult moments. The "me" space that running gives me to think things through and plan ahead is priceless. Plus the positive changes that running had brought to my body cannot be overlooked.

So I thought I'd write up on what I am thankful for, the things that motivate me to run or makes running easier:

Thank you to the exceptional runners that provide me inspiration such as Ray Zahab and Terry Fox.
Thank you to the regular Joes and Janes everywhere, running along at races and during training. Seeing you out there makes it easier for me.
Thank you to the online community that shares their training experiences, provides tips and tricks and makes running more social. (yes, I'm looking at you Marlene, Yumke, RoadBunner, LARunner, ChichRunner, Mel, Mel, Ray, Laurel, iRunNation, and countless others I am forgetting right now)
Thank you to the race sponsors, organizers and volunteers for putting out great events and to celebrate our running community.
Thank you to the apparel and footwear designers, engineers and retailers for making sure we are equipped with the latest and greatest to make running comfortable and safe.
Thank you to the National Capital Commission (NCC) and Ottawa city council for making Ottawa a city with so many parks and trails.
Thank you to friends and family for asking how I did with my training or at my last race. This support means the world to me.
Thank you for a financial situation that allows me to equip myself properly and travel to exotic and fun races.
Thank you for a healthy body that can take all the pounding of training and continues to deliver exceptional race results.
Last but not least, thank you to my dedicated lover Alex. He puts up with my hissy fits, finicky nutrition schedules, pre-race anxiety and long training hours. I couldn't do it without you.

Training this week was my biggest week ever with almost 104km. Not only did I have an out of plan 5k race to up my weekly mileage but I used an opportunity on Sunday to take a lead on next week's training since the week will be extremely busy and I will be traveling during the weekend. I'm still not sure how I will manage the 38km easy pace after work on Wednesday or Thursday but I'm sure I'll find a way to fit it in :)

20:30

2010-10-08T07:06:00.004-04:00

This will be short. I just wanted to share with you that I raced a 5k in 20m30s yesterday, a 2 minute improvement over my time last year. It was a charity 5k at work and lots of fun to be running with my co-workers from different departments. I came in 25th which is pretty exciting given the speedy people that were there! I'm not quite fast enough to beat the 20 minute mark that a colleague challenged me to, but then again I didn't want to push too hard and jeopardize my real race next month. 5k is a different beast than a marathon, that is for sure. How did I celebrate? By running a sub-1hour 13km after work, of course :)

Check out the DC Rainmaker blog today for a Timex Global Trainer giveaway.

H&M

2010-10-06T08:06:00.003-04:00

H&M is a famous clothing store, but the H&M I am referring to isn't a big chain. You may remember a few months back, I was trying to decide what marathon to run next and I was undecided with two of my choices. You know that I will be attempting to BQ at Hamilton's Road2Hope marathon but what I haven't shared with you yet is that I wasn't able to resist a very tempting offer from runnfun.ca and decided to go ahead and book their Miami Marathon and Cruise package. H&M is then my new challenge: Hamilton & Miami.
The goal is still a BQ at Hamilton and then a scenic fun marathon at Miami but if for some reason I am unable to obtain my BQ at Hamilton, then the race is on for Miami :) I will spend 7 days after the race being pampered on the Carnival Glory visiting exotic beaches and hopefully take in a bit of snorkeling.
Training this week has been pretty good so far. I'm trying to cram it all in early in the week so I can get a head start on next week's mileage since the week after I will be busy travelling for a conference. I went really back to back with a tempo 18k (+3k warmup/cooldown) yesterday evening at an average 4:34m/km. No wonder this morning's 16k intervals wasn't quite as satisfying with fast intervals at 4:24m/km.

Fall Running

2010-10-03T16:26:00.003-04:00

Fall Running is really special. The combination of the cooling temperature and the trees changing color create an environment that is perfect for runners. Add to that the fantastic training I've been doing this summer and I feel strong and confident when setting out on my runs.
This week was very wet here in Ottawa so I did something I shouldn't have and postponed my two biggest workouts (19k tempo + 32k easy pace) to the weekend. I still managed to get pretty satisfactory results.

Tuesday was supposed to be the original day for my 19k tempo but I started way too fast and to top if off there was a weird weather phenomenon where the temperature actually rose 10 degrees when I got to Dow's lake at about 6km. I switched gears and decided to abandon the tempo workout and run a total of 13k to make up for Thursday's planned track workout.

Wednesday was much better where I squeezed in an interval workout. Quick intervals at an average of 4:06m/km for the fast kms and 4:52m/km for the slow kms. Workouts like these where I exceed my goals are what makes running so satisfying. Every now and then I set a challenge that I am able to crush and it works wonders for my confidence.

Thursday's make-up 19km tempo did not happen. It was a dreary and raining day here in Ottawa so I decided to postpone the 19k to Saturday and do an indoor strength workout instead. Friday was also a strength day since I didn't have enough time to get suited up and get a good distance in.

Saturday's tempo run was another confidence booster. The plan called for a warmup of 1km, 19km at tempo pace and then 2 km of warm down. I actually strayed a bit and had a fairly fast warmup and didn't switch off the engine until I reached the half marathon mark (21.1km). I finished the 21.1km distance in 1h34m40s. That's 20 seconds under my BQ time if Boston was a half. Doing this speed in training is definitively a real positive development. I wouldn't have been able to sustain for another 21.1km but then again I didn't follow pre-race preparations such as taper and hydration.

Sunday's 32km was a bit difficult to get into. I was still a bit sore from Saturday's tempo run. The cooler temperature and the beautiful colors turning in the trees were definitively a big motivation.
The route took me across the river for a beautiful view of Parliament
And then alongside the Ottawa and then Gatineau river on my way to the Gatineau Park. Beautiful colors everywhere mixed with the sunshine gave me a glow that helped me get through the difficult workout.
If you take into consideration the steep hills
as well as the numerous times I stopped to snap pictures, I think the 2h57m is pretty decent for an easy pace run.

With only two more weeks of heavy training before I start slowing down and tapering, I feel very confident about Hamilton. If you are racing in Hamilton on November 7th, drop me a line, we can meet up!

35k is a long way!

2010-09-26T10:51:00.004-04:00

Phew, what a training week. At 85km total distance this week, I am in the 2nd heaviest week of my training cycle. Things slow down a bit next week with a 80km week and then the final stretch begins with another 85km week and a 90km week before slowly reducing the distance before tapering begins. This week's runs were pretty successful with a great tempo on Tuesday, a satisfying 16km of intervals on Thursday (avg 4:10m/km for fast intervals, 5:12m/km for the slow intervals), a medium tempo 13k (4:56m/km) on Friday and an easy pace 35km yesterday.

I've said it before, the easy pace long runs are everything but easy. 35km is a long distance to cover, at any pace! Yesterday's route took me over the canal, alongside the Rideau river through Beechwood to the Aviation museum and then alongside the Ottawa river until it was time to turn back and take an alternate route home through Rockliffe.
What a beautiful city in the fall. Colors are turning on the trees and the quietness of the path alongside the Ottawa river combined with the fall colors made me want to stop running and take my time to enjoy the scenery :) Being an easy pace run on back-to-back-to-back running days, I wasn't too worried about my speed. Logging the miles was my main concern.

The run went really well except for one little detail. Alex always laugh at me when I carry my camel pack with the tube to drink while I am on the run. That's pretty much the only way I can think of carrying 2L of sportsdrink when my route doesn't include cornerstores everywhere along the way. For those of you watching the Office, you'll have noticed this week that Dwight started using a camel pack to stay hydrated because he is too busy between his many jobs. This gave Alex plenty of opportunities to poke fun at me and my drinking tube. Well, when I came back from my run, he had a lot more opportunities to make fun of my hydration techniques. You see somewhere at about km 15, my camel pack sported a leak. By km 20, my backpack was sloshing around and the sportsdrink was permeating through the backpack mesh and made my shirt and shorts all wet and sticky. I eventually stopped to empty the backpack (twice) and ran out of sportsdrink by km 25. At least I could look forward to drying now that there was no more sportsdrink to leak onto my back :)

Next week will be a bit of a break before the last stretch of this training run. Only 80km in the plan with the long run capped at 32km. This should be easy :)

The Training Wall

2010-09-21T20:56:00.005-04:00

Most long distance runners can tell you a story about how they hit the wall during their race. Some hit it first during a half marathon. Some do after 30km of running and some never really seem to hit it at all. I've been lucky in a sense since I haven't had to deal too often with the wall. My first marathon saw me hit it head first and the wall caused me to question my resolve to finish the race and even to enter future races. I did cross the finish line proudly but not without a significant amount of pain and what seemed like a superhuman effort to keep going. Fast forward to today and it seems that ever since I started following a training plan the wall has been easier to deal with. The race day mental game is one that can be conquered during those lonely training runs in the dead of winter or early morning when everyone else is sleeping. The training is probably having me more prepared for race day as well. Someone once told me that during a race you race up to when your training runs out and then you just slug it out. My last 2 marathons I didn't feel that my training ran out, I felt ready and thoroughly enjoyed race day. Of the approximate 1200 kms required for my training plan, the last 42.2 were definitively the most enjoyable and memorable ones. To a properly trained marathoner, race day is a crown to the achievement that is the training cycle and should be celebrated as such.

This training cycle, I seem to be hitting the wall hard during training. My individual runs are fine once I get started but sometimes I feel that running is starting to get in the way of my life :) Often I have to give myself an extra kick to get out there and do my training runs. As I can start tasting the home stretch of my training, I am realizing that the weeks of training for a marathon and the feelings one goes through are pretty much identical to the race day mental games, but on a longer time scale. I caught myself last week discussing my training schedule with a colleague and I even uttered the words "Maybe I should quit running". This is the wall talking. I should not listen! I remember thinking the same thing around km 30 in my first marathon. Just like a smoker resolving themselves to quit a bad habit. Of course, I can't imagine my life without running, but maybe, just maybe, I ought to take it a bit easier. Of course I want to qualify for Boston someday and I feel that the sooner it happens the better that will be and I can always relax after, but on the other side I'd like to be able to stay up late on Saturday nights and have a drink with my colleagues once in a while after work without worrying about the impact on my training :)

The remedy for the training blues? More training. And quality training. Today, I took the legs out and unleashed them for a long tempo run. This is by far my favorite type of run. I feel like a jockey taking his favorite horse out on the track for a speedy session. The legs going full tilt, the feeling of speed and power resulting from each step is something that I find very addictive and fulfilling. At 4:31m/km for the tempo portion (total of 21.1km in 1h39m24s) this was my fastest 10k in a while and would have been a PR if it was a half marathon.
Look at all the green on the map. I could get used to speeds like this. If I can do two of those in a row, a BQ is within reach. With 5 more weeks of training and proper tapering, I think I am on the right track. Runs like the one I did today are the perfect remedy to break down that wall.

Army Run

2010-09-20T06:39:00.002-04:00

The Ottawa Army Run is now becoming a can't miss event on Ottawa runner's calendars. The army theme has a broad reach and this run is able to catch many people that may not necessarily be interested in running otherwise. The race expo features military vehicles for runners to explore and the race has lots of army related touches such as the camouflage themed race shirt, the adrenaline pumping giant cannon start and the dog tag "medals" given to those who complete their events.

Two distances were offered to runners this year, a 5k and a 21k. The weather was perfect for a run even if towards the end the sun started beating down and making it a bit warm for some runner's taste. (That's what I heard anyways, I was shielded away in a tent the whole time :) Lots of smiling runners achieving personal bests or otherwise just having a good time on what some called a fairly challenging course.

I couldn't fit the 21k in my schedule again this year so I decided to volunteer for the baggage check. This is my favorite volunteer selection since I get to see the runners before they start the race, anxious, nervous, confident and focused and I also see them after, tired, beaming, proud and sometimes barely able to walk :) We processed a lot of bags this year, the estimate I hear was about 2000!
We didn't lose a single bag even if we got a few scares where some people would mark 2 numbers on the bag. In theory, the first finisher gets the bag back and finds their friend. In reality the first finisher gets the bag, cannot find their friend and the second finisher not knowing they are not the first finisher are also looking for the now gone bag. We had a few nervous people that got reunited with their friends while looking for the bag. Eventually everything worked out but the stress of not finding the bag combined with the soreness and tiredness of having just raced did create some uncomfortable moments. Notice to runners out there, don't expect us to check your car keys, ID, visa card, room key, pocket change or wallet. These will get lost so we won't even accept them. Some people were checking in their jacket. I guess it's all right but still causes a lot of problem and is a risk for runners that the jackets will get damp / dirty since they will be on the ground, probably with a bag on top.

It's always fun to be involved in an event even when I don't run it. There's this feeling that I get around runners that makes me feel at home! It's also pretty cool to see the events from the other side and figure out how everything works out in the background. To all those that raced the army run and thank me for volunteering: THANK YOU! Thank you for being out there and creating this vibrant community

Week in review

2010-09-12T21:29:00.004-04:00

This week was a return to my training plan. I did my 4 runs and 2 weight sessions. I'm pretty happy being able to squeeze all of the training in.

After Monday's 21k tempo the next set was a 16k intervals. I did pretty well keeping my fast intervals under 4:30m/km until my watch decided the battery was dead. I think I completed the workout as planned but I'll have to rely on my gut feeling for that. Thursday's 13k fartlek was pretty good, I breached the 4m/km quite a few times!
Friday was a rest day and Saturday was an easy weight day. I'm still watching Dallas while doing my weights and the current intrigue of who shot JR is really entertaining :)

Sunday was the long run. The plan called for a 32km distance and I needed to go back to the house to do some more cleaning so my plan was to do a reverse commute while adding a few detours to come up to 32km. It was nice to be able to take my time and not rush into a meeting right after my run, Sunday runs do have their advantages :) I did fairly well with a moving average of 5:20m/km. I had to give myself a pit stop at a mall along the way for relief and a new bottle of sports drink as I ran out of crystals and couldn't mix my camel pack as usual. Turns out today was a perfect day for a long run. The forecasted rain didn't really materialize while I was running except for a very light sprinkle towards the end.
I am always amazed at the thoughts that cross my mind while doing a long run like this. At the 17km mark, I looked at my watch and thought to myself: that's pretty cool, I only have 15km left. 15km seemed like a short stroll after completing the first half of my run :)

In the mix was Iron Maiden, Yann Perreault, X-Dream and Distance to Goa 7.

Back to schedule

2010-09-09T06:42:00.002-04:00

Phew. What a week! Packing, moving, unpacking. It's tough stuff. Most people think my training is tough but the real tough part is fitting it all in. I missed a total of 3 runs during this hectic week. I think the soreness of moving means that even though it wasn't as focussed as my usual training, those days were not really wasted away.

I got back on schedule Monday with a really good tempo 18k + 3k warmup/cooldown at about 1h40m. Tuesday was a weight day in my new home gym. My screen is not up yet but I still had my portable DVD player so I could keep going with my Dallas. I'm currently at beginning of season 4 with the very exciting plot twists of finding who shot JR :) Yesterday was a 16k intervals which I think I did pretty well with most of my fast intervals around 4:30m/km.

Today is a short 13k and tomorrow I'm taking the day off training to host a housewarming. Drop me a line if you are in Ottawa and would like to drop by :)

Moving week

2010-09-01T07:14:00.001-04:00

I knew moving week would get busy so I threw in some extra mileage last week for a total of 81km while the plan called for 75.

Noteworthy was my super intervals run of 6x2.5km with 5 minutes rest. I completed all the intervals at 4:30m/km or less. Sunday's tempo run didn't go so well with a new heatwave hitting Ottawa it was difficult to get any kind of speed...

I redeemed myself this week with an easy pace 32k (20 miles) at a 5:15m/km pace (2h48m).

I am not sure when I will find time this week to run next. Packing and moving boxes count as training, right?

Keeping up

2010-08-19T06:01:00.006-04:00

It's becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the demands of work, training, preparing for the move and ... blogging. Unfortunately blogging is one of the first to be neglected when time runs low and you have probably noticed that my updates are getting further and further between. I expect this situation to start getting better in September once the move is done and work lets up a bit. In the meantime, I'll try to stick with a minimum of at least one post a week.

This week in training has been very positive. A planned intervals run on Monday was somewhat successful despite the heat. I managed to keep all my slow laps averaging at 5:10m/km (great!) and my fast laps at 4:48m/km (could have been better). On Tuesday, I ran in to work for my slow long distance run. It was very difficult for some reason but I still achieved a respectable 5:33m/km for the 26km distance. In general, I want to aim for a 5:15m/km or lower on my slow runs but there's no sense in pushing too far and breaking apart. Yesterday's speed play (Fartlek) was all over the place as I believe is required for these types of efforts.
It's good sometimes to get out there and push as fast as possible for short periods of time.

I only have a 18km tempo run to reach my training plan total of 70km this week. This will probably happen Saturday.

Week 4 ?!?

2010-08-13T21:26:00.004-04:00

I looked at the calendar yesterday and realized that time has flown by so fast this summer. I counted down from Hamilton marathon and to my surprise, I am already in week 4 of marathon training! I do not think it's a big deal. I've been pretty good about keeping the long runs and doing at least one or two speedwork per week over the summer but I expected I had more time to get ready. I still think there is enough time to get faster and stronger and hopefully have a decent shot at a BQ (3h10) in Hamilton.

This week's training started with an interval that totally blew up and ended up being only 8km on Monday. The heat combined with my eagerness to go fast killed the rest of my workout.

Tuesday's slow long run was done by commuting to work. I thought I needed 29km for week two, turns out week 4 is also 29km so I did well :) At an average of 5:15m/km, I am right where I want to be for the slow runs. It felt funny doing detours on my way to work but the scenic view was much better than the usual concrete jungle I pass through to save time and the streets were much quieter earlier in the morning. I was most impressed with my consistency throughout the workout, staying mostly between 5:30 and 5:00.
Thursday's attempt at intervals was a bit better than Monday's with fast intervals of 4:10, 4:12, 4:12 until it fell apart again with my last intervals at 4:57, 4:49, 4:56. Slow intervals were 4:34, 4:50, 4:57, 5:12, 5:18 and 5:36. I guess I have to slow down a bit more for the slow intervals so I can keep up the fast ones. I should know better by now :)

Today is Friday the 13th so I wanted to even out the badluck and set a goal of 13km at 13km/h. I guess the 13 is not that unlucky for me since I was able to complete this feat within 12 seconds of my goal. Wooohooo. If I can do this 3 times in a row, I can probably qualify for Boston :) I could get used to seeing so much green on the heatmap!
Tomorrow will be another run to catch up to the total of 75km that week 4 requires. Now that I know which week I'm in for sure I'll try to stick with the program...

Page 6!!!

2010-08-07T06:40:00.004-04:00

Do you subscribe to iRun magazine? You probably do if you have run a major Canadian race in the last year. If you do, please find this month's issue and turn to page 6. You will see a picture of yours truly in full crowd waving glory :)

This is pure awesomeness and it is giving me the kick I needed to jumpstart my next phase of marathon training. It's funny the way I heard about it, I was talking on the phone to a work colleague I have never met for the first time and she asked me whether I was a runner. Out of the blue. I figured we had colleagues in common and she had heard of me but then she explained that she saw my picture in the magazine and wondered whether I was the same person :) I rushed home that night to find the magazine and found myself!!!

This week's training been almost enough to qualify for week one of marathon training. I had some good speedwork on Monday with a tempo @ 4:43, a slow 24k at 5:35 on Wednesday and a great intervals session yesterday at 4:16/5:05.

I'll have to make a decision on a marathon date soon and while reviewing my choices, I am tempted to do a double again for Hamilton and Miami. Not quite as crazy as RoadBunner's 2 in a row Bear lake adventure but about the same as I did earlier this year with LA and Ottawa. Hamilton because it is close by and rumoured to be a good one to qualify for Boston and Miami because, well, it's Miami! Plus they have an offer on the Miami marathon where you can do a cruise after, how cool would that be!?! The only negative side is that I would be in heavy mileage mode for about 4-5 months again.

Super week

2010-08-02T14:04:00.004-04:00

Last week was actually a pretty good week for training for me. I am resetting my training for my next marathon (destination undecided at this point, Hamilton and Miami are both leading contenders). That means that the distances that were tempo runs during my last cycle will now be "long slow distance" runs. I ran to work again last week at a respectable pace of 5:26m/km. It's difficult to slow down but I know in the long run it will pay off :)

I had two off days where I procrastinated and found reasons not to train but then I bounced back with an amazing tempo run (10k at 46m27s) on Friday and then a good interval run on Saturday where I finally reached my 4:20m/km goal for average tempo portions. I could probably have had all the intervals under 4:20 if it wasn't for that hill!

4:09, 4:11, 4:19, 4:29, 4:14 (average: 4:17m/km!)

Sunday was a bit of a downer, I attempted a long slow run again but had to cut it short when my left calf started to complain. I can see how 2 back to back speed sessions would do that :)

I'm still not exactly where I'd like to be to start my next marathon training but depending on the date I may already be in the cycle :) I'll have to really put in the effort to bump up my speed if this one will be the one where I try to qualify for Boston (the time I need is 3:10, a pace of ~4:30m/km or 7:18m/mile if my math is right)

Sunday Interval

2010-07-25T08:50:00.005-04:00

Finally the weather cooperated a little on Sunday morning and I had a window for a very productive workout. I went with a simple formula with kilometer intervals. I did my usual route which is unfortunately a bit hilly on the second half. I have yet to find a flatter route that gives me an almost perfect loop without tracking back.
I still managed decent intervals even if the second half was not quite as fast as I would have wished. I always like to see the color difference on the heatmap:
I am almost at my goal of 4:20m/km for the fast intervals but I'll have to work on my 5:00m/km on the recovery intervals.

Recovery intervals: 5:04, 5:22, 5:25, 5:22, 5:19, 5:09 (average: 5:17)
Fast intervals: 4:13, 4:18, 4:28, 4:29, 4:31 (average: 4:24)

The satisfaction rating for this workout is very high :)

Custom file in the mix.

Satisfaction equation

2010-07-24T07:15:00.005-04:00

While running, I came up with a formula to calculate how satisfied I will be with my training session once I am done. There are a few variables in there. Difficulty is the technical difficulty of the workout. The more difficult the workout, the higher this value will be. Am I trying to break new grounds for speed or distance for example? Environment is related to the weather conditions, is it hot, cold, windy, raining, etc? The more challenging environmental conditions are, the higher this number will be. Success is how successful I am in meeting the goals of the workout. A complete success would be a 1 where a partial success would be a 0.8 and a failure a 0.5 and cutting the run short 0.2. Motivation is whether I feel like doing the workout or if I am forcing myself to do it because I am having one of those days. If I want to do the workout, this number will be 1. If I procrastinate around a bit before getting out, this would be 0.8. If I have to bribe myself with all kinds of rewards this would be 0.5. The equation goes a bit like this:

Difficulty * Environment * Success / Motivation = Satisfaction

So a workout last week where I was trying to break new ground speedwise (1.5) in hot weather (2) and failed at my interval (0.8) still yielded a high satisfaction rating (4.8) since my motivation had been really low (0.5) and I had to really work at getting out of the door.

How do you keep satisfied when not everything is going your way?

I want to run Boston

2010-07-15T08:02:00.005-04:00

I've been fairly quiet recently. The early heatwave over Ontario and the now regular hot temperatures are putting a break on the amount of training I would like to do. Last week I ran to work in what has been the most difficult long run for me in quite a while. The temperature at 6am was already around 25 degrees celsius (feels like 30 with humidex). By the time I could see my work building in the distance, my pace had crawled to 7minutes per km. I even ran out of sportsdrink from my 2L camelpack and had to stop at a convenience store to get some more. Once I got in the AC, I didn't want to step out in the oven-like weather again!

This week I have been on vacation and trying to keep my running schedule has been tough. We have AC at the house so often a usually dreaded weights session in the home gym will look better than stepping out for a few kms. I was still able to get in some mileage but not quite as many as I would have liked. An interval session on Monday saw me break the 4 minute mark for the first interval km, I think it might be a first for me, yay!
The remainder of the workout suffered a bit for this extravagance but the confidence boost it gave me is priceless. Here are the numbers:

Slow: 4:49, 5:23, 5:05, 5:12, 4:59 and 5:29
Fast: 3:55, 4:37, 4:35, 4:29 and 4:21

I think I can get my fast intervals down to 4:20-4:15 if I am having a good day and keep at it. I'd like to hover more around the 5:00 mark for the slower intervals but I'll take what I can get ;)

This morning, as I woke up early to try and beat the heat for my tempo run, I kept asking myself what kind of person would wake up at 6am on their vacation to go and inflict their body physical pain?
I had a pretty good run even if the heat did slow me down a bit towards the middle portion. I'd like to see a lot more green on this chart. The plus side is that while I was running, I came up with an answer for my question. What kind of person wakes up at 6am on a vacation? The kind of person who wants to run Boston that is. And I DO want to run Boston so I'll have to keep to find ways to beat the heat and get my workouts in to shave those 17 minutes I need.

What about you, how do you beat the heat and stay on course?

Q&A & Running to work

2010-07-02T16:21:00.006-04:00

Out of all my training, it seems that the running to work is the one that elicits the most questions and surprise. I would have thought the gruelling 35km in the snow would have been more noteworthy but then, these happen outside of "regular" life so people don't really think about these. I'll take the opportunity here to answer some questions that I've been asked by fellow runners, colleagues, friends and family about my running to work. Feel free to add questions in the comments (about running to work or anything else) and I will address them in later posts.

Most people worry about my schedule. They figure that 24km is a long distance and that to run that far would take forever. In my case it takes about two hours. The bus commute is about an hour on average so really the run is only "costing" me an extra hour plus the prep time. Not so bad. So I usually end up adjusting my start time a bit so I only have to wake up one hour early.

The route is also an object of curiosity. Everyone has their own idea about what route I should take. I often get suggestions to use the pathway by the river. While it is a very scenic and somewhat quiet route, it would add over 2km to my commute. Waking up at 4:30am already, every minute I can save counts. I use the shortest route going straight on Hazeldean, Robertson, Richmond and switching at Scott street until I reach downtown:
It has the advantage of being mostly flat, having sidewalks for about 80% of the way and wide shoulders for the remainder. Being always on a bus route should something disastrous happen is also a plus. I also like that the route is lined with cornerstores, gas stations and malls where I could stop if I needed a break or if I run out of sportsdrink.

Nutrition always seems to fascinate non-runners. What does one need to eat to fuel up for a 2 hour run? I usually try to carbload the night before with a big serving of pasta, rice, potatoes or another source of easy to break down carbs. Morning of, I have my usual bowl of cereal and add a toast or waffle with a thick layer of peanut butter & honey or Nutella. During the run, I hydrate with a heavily mix sportsdrink (I usually add 30 to 50% more crystals than instructed). I do not use gels, salt tabs or other supplements but that is something I am looking into experimenting with this year. Once I get to the office, I shower and head for the coffee shop where I grab a 500ml of cocolate milk. That usually ties me over until lunch where I have a regular size lunch...

Stretching is also very important for me. Ever since I started a rigorous stretching regiment, both before and after training, I have been virtually injury free. I stretch my calves, my achilles heels, my glutes and do some squats to relieve my knees.

I've heard lots of comments from non-runners that if they had to run for 2 hours, their day would be over after the run. They don't seem to think that it would be possible for me to have a productive workday after this type of workout. For me, it's quite the opposite. I do not have hard stats to prove it, but I feel much more efficient when I run into the office. The rush of running sets the tone for a day of hitting and pounding that usually end up damaging my task list more than on a regular day. Plus the 2 hours I spend on the road prior to work has me thinking about all the issues currently facing me and has me devising strategies and plans to address the harder to solve problems. I feel that by the time I get to work, I got most of my day figured out already and the remainder is just following through.

The sweat generated by 2 hours of cardio exercise is also a focus of many inquiries. I am fortunate that my office offers showers, lockers and even an iron and ironing board for those of us that cycle or run into work. I bring my clothes to the office at least a day ahead and changed into the fresh set after showering. I stow my sweaty clothes away and bring them back with me at night to throw them in the washer, sight unseen (and un-smelled!).

Now that I will be moving downtown, everyone is telling me that I won't be able to run 25km before work anymore. I don't quite get it, I can still run for 2 hours, shower at home and walk the 10 minutes to work if I wanted to. And being downtown will give me the flexibility to do the other distances as well in the morning to take advantage of the cooler temperatures.

This reminds me that I've been forgetful about the cans for comments last month. Let's make this post a triple hitter, for every comment, I'll donate 3 cans to the local food bank. I have to move in September anyways so those cupboard won't be emptying themselves!

Perth World Record Kilt Run

2010-06-28T19:23:00.004-04:00

When I first heard about the Perth World Record Kilt Run, I thought it was a really neat idea. It was perfect timing to give me a small break during summer and be part of a Guinness world record. I couldn't resist signing up before the quota was filled. According to organizers, 1210 registrants were allowed to register, honoring the year of the founding of Perth, Scotland.

The weather was a bit iffy, calling for rain, but eventually cleared up and remained fairly good for the duration of the race. We even got some sunshine after the race. The required Kilt was provided as part of the race kit:
A colleague of mine asked if it was a real kilt. Apparently the real deal are quite heavy (30 lbs) and feature a leather pouch at the front. Of learning of what the organizers provided us, he jokingly referred to my kilt as a plaid skirt ;) The kilt was remarkably comfortable to run in and only got a bit hot on the second half of the course.

What stroke me at the start line was the sheer diversity of runners. All genders, sizes, ages and fitness levels were represented. This felt more like a block party than a race. The McKenna clan in particular was well represented with members all wearing an identifying shoulder strap

Lots of people wore costumes. Someone even carried a sword the whole way. I really hope it was hollow, these flashy guys were quite the crowd pleaser
My strategy for the race was to go hard but not burn up. I'm not used to 8km as a distance. I felt really good after 2 km
The course was really beautiful while we were in downtown Perth. That town has a lot of character with the older buildings and small town feel. The course then winded down to the Golf course where we ran on somewhat muddy grey paths. This would have been very scenic and pleasant if the paths were not so muddy :) I wish there would have been more water stops during the golf course portion
At the Golf course, I got chicked. If you've been reading for a while you'll know that while I respect girls and I know that a lot of them are faster than me, being chicked is not something I really take to. I proceeded to tail her for about a kilometer and passed her the first opportunity I got. She kept tailing me and challenging me throughout the race but I finished about 10 seconds ahead of her :) I did shake her hand at the end and thank her for challenging me and ensured a pretty speedy 36m35s finish (4:31m/km pace!) I am really happy with this performance. We stuck around a few minutes to cheer the other racers in and take in the fair-ish atmosphere that overtook downtown Perth
Overall this race was a really neat experience for me. From the running in a kilt to the beautiful details taken to welcome runners. See this beautiful start / finish castle for example
It felt like the whole town came to play with cheerers virtually everywhere. Lots of storefronts were displaying this kitschy banner
There will not be official word from Guinness for a few more weeks, but if the record is recognized and there is an attempt to break it again next year, I will definitively try to make it!

Back on the road

2010-06-15T06:11:00.004-04:00

I ran to work yesterday and it felt great to be back on the road. The legs are still a bit slow but I didn't push them yet. My plan is to take it easy while maintaining my base over the summer and start training again in August for a late fall marathon.
The commute usually takes me a tad over two hours. At 2:13, it was significantly slower than usual. I figure I have to get that time down to 1:45 to be at a Boston Qualifying pace. The BQ scenario will be the one I will have in mind as I train and hope to do a sub 3:10 marathon in the fall.

In the mix was Astrix, Les Trois Accords and The Killers.

New Pics + Ray's Giveaway

2010-06-04T06:25:00.003-04:00

I've already ranted about the price of race photos. This race is no different with a single photo costing you $38 for a download. It's a shame because if they were priced a bit more reasonably, I'd be buying them. There are a few nice ones.

Also be sure to check out Ray's blog today for a super exciting giveaway of a Withings WiFi scale!

Ottawa Marathon 2010

2010-06-02T06:07:00.004-04:00

The Ottawa Marathon is a yearly event that is part of the Race Weekend here in Ottawa. Organizers claim it to be the largest marathon and largest running weekend in all of Canada. It sure feels that way with over 30,000 runners out in the different distances and the countless volunteers and cheerers that line the course.

I was actually pretty relieved when I woke up to find out that the weather forecast that started at 29 Celsius (84F) and sunny on the Wednesday were nowhere near accurate. The adjusted forecast on Sunday morning was 15 Celsius (60F) and cloudy with a 21 Celsius (70F) maximum. Perfect running weather!

We got to the start line a bit later than planned so there's no pre-race pictures. I had just enough time to visit the port-a-potty and get in my corral before the gun went off. I had spied the 3:40 pace bunny and planned to follow it for a while until I knew how I felt about the race. I knew that I could beat 3:40, especially given the perfect conditions. I even had a secret hope of closing in on 3:30 if I was having a great day, more on this later. We started at a pretty good pace. The lower number of marathoners made the start much more orderly than previous year's half marathons with their 10k+ runners.

I settled into a nice pace as we passed parliament and I got so much into the groove that I don't even remember which bridge we took to Gatineau. I remember that at some point the 3:40 pace bunny and his following got a bit on my nerves. Someone even said to one of his runners that she shouldn't talk since she needs every little bit for the end. Feeling great and ready for a big day, I decided they were definitively not my crowd and I hurried on along. The new course took us to a much nicer part of Hull than in previous years. The Lac-des-Fees promenade was actually a bit scenic if you could ignore the sewer renovation project. Local residents were out and about in their pajamas with a cup of coffee in hand, smiling, waving, clapping and cheering. I loved it!

Soon enough we were heading back towards Ottawa. I got to see my mom waiting for me on the bridge. That was such a energy booster / awesome moment.
My mom had been a little late as well and missed the start but I had prepared a map with a list of possible sightings and estimate times for me to go through. I forgot to tell her at the bridge that I was actually a bit faster than the planned sightings because I was so excited to see her and her boyfriend cheering me on. Alex was at a good vantage point on top of the bridge to capture these great pictures.

The race then took us into Beachwood and then Rockliffe which is a bit of a swanky neighborhood in Ottawa. It was great to see the people outside their Mansions, cheering the runners on. It was much less hilly than I feared and overall I felt I was doing great even if I was running a bit faster than planned. As I crossed the halfway mark at 1:42:46, I had to make a decision. Slow down a bit and lock in a reasonably good PB or keep up the speedier pace and go for broke under 3:30. I decided to keep going while monitoring everything to ensure that I could adjust quickly in order to salvage the race.

The second part of the race was spent mostly holding on to my lead. I made an analogy of a surfer riding the wave to the beach and that is totally how I felt. I had reached the crest of the wave and now all I had to do was hang on. I hadn't told my mom and Alex that I was going much faster than planned so even my optimistic sighting times for each point of the race were now too late. They missed me by about 2 minutes at the canal and Laurier. I kept the speed up and enjoyed the company of other runners. Two guys behind me were really funny. Race day is not when you want to start doing mathematics, especially not at km 28. Their 3:30 pace bunny had just failed them with a leg cramp and they didn't know how to continue. I tried to help them a bit with the math but my own pace band for 3:40 was pretty useless as well at this point :)

As we passed Bronson, I started having stomach cramps. Panic started setting in. I will not be able to finish. I screwed up on my hydration. I shouldn't have had this double mocha gel at km 25. My whole race will be ruined. Then I realized I was past km 30 and that the dreaded wall was probably trying to control me. I slowed down a tad and focused on my breathing and reasoned with myself. I have trained for this. My long runs have taken me further than this point and I have experienced this before. I will get through it and everything will be fine. Turns out that 10 minutes later I was back in pace. As we finally turned around and started heading back to downtown, I knew this race was in the bag.

I kept feeling strong and fast as I passed marathoner after marathoner. I love reeling in people even if it is ever so slowly. Then the half marathoners merged and the speedy ones started passing me by, making me feel really slow. I checked my watch and my pace was still very acceptable so I tried to ignore them. They motivated me to push a little harder but at this stage of the game there wasn't much fuel left in the tank for sprinting. Alex was waiting for me at km 39 and what a relief to see him waving around and taking pictures.
The Endorphins mixed with the reduced flow to the brain creates some interesting emotions and feeling inside. I could have stopped and hugged him but the finish line was calling me. I'm not sure what I was thinking in this picture. I think my eyes are closed and it looks like I'm saying I got nothing on me officer :)

As the roar of the crowds got louder, the resolve to finish and the taste of victory was getting overwhelming. I didn't even look at my watch anymore, I knew I locked in a PB, I was pretty certain I was under 3:30 but really I wanted to finish this one in style. When I reached the finish line I saw my mom and Michel cheering me on. I think they were more excited than me and seeing them made me cheer and shout. I can't wait to see the official race pictures, they will be interesting for sure. When I finally crossed the finish line, I didn't want to stop. Most people collapse or go into a walk right away but it took me a good 5-10 seconds to register that I was done and I could shut it down. I eventually found Michel and then my mom and we chatted it up a bit until I saw my friend Falk finish. This guy is fast. Super fast. There's no way I could have beaten him. Yet, there he was, crossing the finish line after me! Woot woot! This is major bragging rights I earned right here!
I almost don't want him to race another marathon because until he does, I can say I'm faster ;)

Overall this race was really awesome. The new course is much prettier than previously even if some parts felt a bit lonely. The music stations could be closer together (some even seemed abandoned). I think that the focus of this even is really on the half-marathon but still the marathon is a very worthwhile destination on race weekend. The beautiful runners and plentiful crowds make for an interesting race. The rotating medal is also pretty cool.

The numbers:

The Course:
So I've decided to take 2 weeks off training. I may go for short runs but nothing over 15km. After that, when I start training again, my new mantra will be : 17 minutes to Boston! I will get there, yeah baby yeah! Hopefully I can squeeze in a race this fall and get closer to that 3:10 BQ. Any good marathons in November in your part of the world?

Sacrifices

2010-05-23T10:17:00.005-04:00

Tapering always leave me with lots of time to think about the weeks that went into training for the race I'm about to tackle. This training cycle has been particularly long. Planning for 2 spring marathons felt like a super idea back in the fall. I could build on the success of the first one and really set myself up for a fantastic summer of training. What I didn't realize is that without much downtime between the 2 races, it would mean that I would be in a really long training cycle, falling right back in the thick of things right after Los Angeles. I've been effectively in ramp-up training mode for almost 6 months!

I've touched on the dollar costs of running before, but lately I've been more concerned about the other sacrifices runners must do to reap results on race day. The training regiment necessary for a stellar race day performance requires these sacrifices.

We have to learn to resist that snooze button and get our butt out there early otherwise there won't be enough time to rack up the mileage that the training plan demands. If we delay our runs too long into the day we'll have to deal with hotter weather, making us sluggish and turning our otherwise enjoyable runs into a tough slog to the finish. I consider seeing the sun rising a rare privilege, so as an early morning runner I've been really lucky to witness this natural spectacle many times this year.

Being able to wake up early and deliver a good training session requires some discipline on the evening front as well. Runners will often have to turn in extra early to ensure they are well rested for their run the next day. This has earned me the nickname of grandpa quite a few times here around the house and some joking about being close to my pumpkin time when my eyelids start getting a bit heavy :) I have to say no to going to the late show at the movies and skip on lots of social outings or shows that would take me too late into the nigh.

The time commitment alone is monumental to train for a marathon. I'm averaging about 10 hours a week on the road, that doesn't even include time preparing, fueling up and doing laundry. Trust me, the laundry heap alone is quite the task, especially in winter :) You can be as good a multi-tasker and time manager as you want, a 10 hour a week deficit over 24 weeks is a lot of time to make up. I am lucky to have a supporting crew that is willing to put up with the time commitments and sometimes mood swings that training (and especially tapering) can bring about.

We also have to watch what we eat. Too little of this type of food and there won't be enough fuel for the ride. Too much of other types of foods will mean extra weight, making our journey to the finish line slower and tougher than it needs to be. I didn't count the amount of carb-loading dinners I had, but with 80-90km a week and two runs of over 25km during the peak weeks, there was enough to go through all the pasta combinations. I also switched to Sushi and that worked quite well even if the folks at the all you can eat sushi restaurant look at me funny now.

There's also some things that are not permitted until a satisfactory performance like alcohol. I don't seem to be able to train properly after I drink, even if it is just one. Still, I really like mixed drinks and consider myself an apt mixer, so this one was a bit difficult for me. Throughout my training cycle, I would allow myself one alcoholic drink per week, the evening after my long run. More often than not a Cosmo, mixed just the way I like it.

We also ask those around us to make sacrifices when they spend an otherwise fine day around smelly athletes trying to recognize us in the crowd so they can cheer and give us that extra boost of energy needed for peak performance.

Despite all these sacrifices runners are a grateful bunch. Always thanking mother nature when conditions are favorable. I also like to hug race volunteers at the finish line but for some reason the favor is not usually returned : -)

Reflecting on the last 6 months of ups, downs and in-betweens, there is one thing that is sure in my mind: Running has made my life better. Like an old friend that is there when I need it, running helps me through the rough patches and makes the happy times happier. I know I can count on it. Even if I have a bad training session, I got out there and gave it all I could. I committed and delivered to the best of my abilities and the feeling of accomplishment that running gives me is priceless. The Endorphins are just bonus points ;)

Exercising or Exorcising?

2010-05-20T06:14:00.004-04:00

Sometimes when I set out for a run I do so in a serene context and just focus on having a good time. Other days, where some things are bothering me, I use my running as a way to exorcise my demons or pound the pavement as an outlet to the frustration caused by the hurdles I faced during the day or know I will be facing soon. This week has been a bit like that. Combine some minor disappointments at work with some increasingly annoying inconsistency in the totally awful Ottawa Bus Service and you have the recipe for a post-workday run that feels more like a session with the punching bag!

Tuesday's run was meant to be a 16k run at medium pace. That's the only medium paced run of the training cycle. I am not sure what medium pace should be. Turns out I probably never will because by the time I actually got home, about 2 hours late from when I wanted to be, I was so frustrated that I made it a tempo run. And a fast tempo run too! In 1h16, it gives me a pace of 4:48m/km. Phew!

Yesterday's 13km was intervals and I usually dread intervals but there were still a bit of frustration to fuel my run.
I think I may even have forgotten to slow down for one of the rest intervals ;)
I decided on a 1km warmup with alternating between fast and rest kms. Interval time were;

(5:40), 4:20, (5:10)
4:20, (4:57)
4:32, (5:06)
4:24, (4:58)
4:32, (5:07)
4:30, (5:15)

Pretty spot on with my target of 4:30 for the intervals and much faster than my 5:15 goal for the rest periods.

In the mix this week was the always soothing Deedrah and the pounding and driving Psychedelic compilation from 3D Records.

PS: I think I convinced Alex to move back downtown. We are seeing some properties tonight.

Hot 29k!

2010-05-17T05:54:00.003-04:00

I promise to never be cocky about a short 29k again. I should respect any distance, even if it is not over 30km :) I wanted to sleep in on Sunday so I set out a bit late at 10:30am. That was probably my first mistake. My second mistake was not packing any ice cubes in my sports-drink. The first hour or so was fairly easy, but as the day wore on, it got progressively hotter. In the middle of summer training, this wouldn't be a huge problem, but I am not used to running that hot yet, so I had a bit of a meltdown / heatstroke and started slowing down significantly. I even walked for part of my last 3 kms (what!?!). I still managed to somewhat hit my easy pace goal of 5:30m/km at 5:34m/km but this run should have been way easier.
Reading my tweetstream, I'm not the only one that suffered from the heat. Here's to hoping that weather on race day is more manageable. The 7am start time should ensure everyone is done before heat starts building up.

In the eclectic mix was Daniel Belanger, Nine Inch Nails, Hallucinogen, Joujouka and Orbital.

Speed work

2010-05-12T06:03:00.004-04:00

My last week of training before taper has a lot of speedword involved. Monday was a long tempo run, so I ran to work again. While 2h04 for 25km was not my fastest performance, I am really happy about how constant it was. No all over the map variations for each kilometer with most kms within a narrow 20 seconds/km range for an average of 4:58m/km. I think that is good.
Tuesday was time for the dreaded intervals. I decided on a 1km interval with 1km rest. I seem to handle those better than the more intense variations and with race day a little over 2 weeks ahead, I want to minimize the damage on the legs. I ran within my goals with speedy and consistent intervals.
Times for the intervals (and rest) were 4:28, 4:29, 4:25, 4:28, 4:23, 4:35 (4:56, 5:08, 5:08, 5:14, 5:00, 5:11, 5:24). Funny thing is, during km 7, I sped up without thinking about it before correcting myself into a recovery pace :)
I think that the one thing I am taking away from my training right now is that I'm getting that much needed consistency. It will be key for me on race day to select a pace I can sustain over the duration of the race and stay within that pace as much as possible.

Wet and Cold 38k

2010-05-09T08:50:00.005-04:00

It is somewhat ironic that throughout this training cycle the weather has been almost perfect, except for my longest run! Yesterday's 38km was done in a wet, cold and windy climate. I joined @isfalk and Tricia for the first 35km so at least the adventure didn't seem so horrible. I don't know why, but sharing intense or difficult workouts make them easier to handle :)

Tricia was the route master and came up with this route. It was pretty much ad-hoc I think based on how we felt and also to avoid hills, especially on the later portion. We went through a few portions of the Ottawa Marathon course.
I don't usually "correct" RunSaturday but I can see that there is a big portion missing and the Garmin says 38.4km so it seemed unfair to leave it at the 37.1km that RunSaturday wanted to have. Our goal was 6m/km and we stayed pretty close to it!
What I find the most impressive is that I finally reached 400km over the last 30 days. Woot!
It's all downhill from here, meaning there are no more >3 hours run. For some reason, I find that anything under 3 hours is easier to fit in the schedule and not so daunting. There was talks about repeating the group run for next week if the mileage and speeds are aligned again so I'm looking forward to more company on my long runs. It's a bit more difficult to schedule them in and to think about logistics but definitively worth the trouble.

PS: Happy Mother's day to all the moms out there. You guys are an inspiration for fitting it all in and yet always beaming positivity and love for your kids!

Windy Tempo

2010-05-06T19:18:00.004-04:00

When I got home tonight, I knew the workout would be a bit challenging because I knew it was windy. Just how windy however is surprising!
46km/h winds! Can you believe it?

Alex was nice enough to play coach tonight. I tuned the bike up for him so he could test drive it since he wants to start using it to commute to work next week. We didn't want to go too far in case something happened to the bike. The Palladium Auto Park was the perfect place to go! LifeIn360 was asking before about a paved track and this is probably the closest to it in Kanata as far as I know. Traffic is usually pretty quiet (especially on Sunday mornings!) and the almost perfect circle is just about 1km around, making it really easy to pace and plan distances.
A couple of loops later, my 12km tempo was almost over. At 4:51m/km it was pretty good considering the wind! It gives me a bit of confidence after my somewhat slow commute to work yesterday (24km in 2h07).

I broke out a pair of new shoes today. I think my other pair has quite a few miles in them already (2 marathon training cycles is a lot of kms!) and I'll probably start thinking about slowly retiring them after the race so I have to get the new pair ready and broken in. I like to alternate for about a month between the two pairs before I completely switch. This is my third pair of Saucony Triumph. Last time they were on sale I stocked up by getting two pairs and this is the last new pair that was gathering dust in my closet :)

Next up is the biggest run of the training cycle at 38km. OUCH! I'm almost looking forward to tapering even if I know I'll be like a big baby, crying because I want to run and feeling so full of energy I won't know what to do with it. The race is a bit more than 3 weeks away and I feel ready. I just have to be smart and finish up this training cycle in beauty!

Interval Monday

2010-05-03T20:55:00.003-04:00

Today's training called for a "short" interval run of 16km. Whew. I'm in really deep when 16km is a short run and I have to do intervals too! You've probably picked up already that I'm not a big fan of intervals. I'd rather run a long tempo than do intervals or track but I understand their usefulness so I set out for a simple program tonight when I got home from work: 1km warmup followed by 7 sets of 1km at 4:30m/km or faster speed followed by 1km of rest hopefully around 5:30m/km and a final slowish km to seal the deal.
I must say I'm pretty proud about my course-making abilities. I decided on the course quickly while I was thinking up how to make a route that would not be too boring and yet safely within the distances of home. I actually missed a turn but it turns out my initial idea was a bit short so the detour made the distance perfect!

While I like seeing so much green on the heatmap, it's the pace chart that tells the full story:
For the number freaks like me, here are the full details of what I think is a pretty awesome performance:

Speed intervals: 4:11, 4:18, 4:26, 4:19, 4:24, 4:31 & 4:37
Rest intervals: 5:15, 4:53, 5:20, 5:02, 5:19, 5:23 & 5:39
Average pace throughout: 4:53m/km

The timing was definitively not the best. Right after work, when everyone is barbecuing their dinners, the smells made me really hungry. Add in the fact that I didn't think it was necessary to bring hydration since it didn't look that hot and you've got one major case of the dry mouth and growling stomach! Still, I'll take this balmy weather over a frozen water bottle run in the dark of winter.

In the mix was the hilarious Guy-Phillipe Wells.

Easy 35k!?!

2010-05-01T14:32:00.005-04:00

I know that the easy in Easy 35k on today's training plan refers to the pace, and not the overall effort but I always find it misleading. There is nothing easy about running 35km, at any pace!

I chose to explore the west end of the Trans-Canada Trail. I'm really lucky to live within a short stroll of the trail and while I've run eastbound many times, I had never really went past Stittsville Main going West. There is not really a way to make it into a loop so it meant an out and back course, but the weather was beautiful and I had loaded good tunes to keep me going so I knew it would be worth it.
The trail itself is really nice. An old converted train track I believe. The crushed stone is easy on the feet and the trees provide for shade and break the wind a little bit. It's really amazing that one can escape the city so easily and seemingly be in the middle of nowhere. The further I went along the trail, the more desolate it got with encounters only every few kms.
I grew up in the country so it is always refreshing to go back to a more natural environment. The spring is definitively in the air as the buds are sprouting all around. Fragrances of early flowers were a good picker upper when I needed a bit of a boost. Very earthy smells were everywhere, a little bit like what burning sage smells like.

I even got to see some canadian geese!
The run itself was pleasant. I didn't need to push too hard but there are always mind games when long distances such as this one are on the menu. I've become quite adept at dealing with the wall so I think I did fairly well. Easy pace runs are supposed to be run at 30 seconds to 1 minute slower than marathon pace, so at 3h22, I think I did pretty well. Next week is the big 38km and then it's all downhill until the race. I'm pretty happy about achieving the training plan's required 90km this week!

As an aside, for those who are contemplating their first marathons or for people that just enjoy running themed movies, check out Run Fatboy Run. I think the scene about getting over the wall is worth the watch on its own. I was thinking I should watch it again before my next race!

There is a 15 seconds / km difference between my Garmin and MyTracks. I'll believe the Garmin as that's what I wear at races and it's usually pretty accurate.

In the mix today was Orbital, Carla Bruni, Rob Zombie and Psy Harmonics. Talk about eclectic to ensure boredom will stay away.

Cresting the wave

2010-04-29T18:07:00.004-04:00

Today I ran to work. The plan called for a marathon pace effort. I think I overdid it a bit. Either that or my next marathon will be fast. At 4:54m/km, my marathon time would be about 3h33m. I don't think I can sustain this speed for a whole marathon yet but who knows, with the crowds cheering, maybe I will speed it up :)

Today's run was very pleasant. I always like longish tempo runs. It feels like at the beginning of the run, I am pushing hard to get a good groove going. Once the groove is established, I feel like I am being pushed by the established pace to keep it up and continue doing well. The image that came to my mind today was a surfer cresting a wave, totally in control, riding the wave to the beach. That is how I felt today, totally in control of my machinery and riding the wave I created in the first kilometers all the way to downtown. What a pleasant feeling. The Endorphins were really flowing freely today. Then, toward the end of the run, something funny happened. The Testosterone came out and I started thinking about the Ottawa Marathon, my next race in about a month. Some of you may have seen my tweet after finishing the run, proclaiming that @ottawamarathon has nothing on me. I felt invincible and right then and there thought that I would shred the course apart. Even if the new course hasn't been finalized, I feel that I will do well on May 30th.

The pace itself was fairly consistent, staying between 5:00 and 4:40 once I warmed up.
I've been using both my Garmin and MyTracks from Google on my new phone. Preliminary thoughts are that the voice feedback is fun. It mixes in with the music playing in my BlueTooth headset and feels fairly non-intrusive. However, it's not the best way to see progress in between updates and there's no way it offers as much info as the display on the Garmin. The phone screen is somewhat hard to see in the sun and since it's up on my arm, almost on my shoulder, it's not as easily accessible as a watch. Accuracy is pretty good with about 5% difference between the mileage recorded by the Garmin and the phone. It wouldn't be my only tool but as a secondary/backup device it works well enough. It doesn't offer all the workouts and other advanced features of the Garmin but that's probably just Software related. If someone could come up with a watch like accessory and maybe heartbeat and footpod that works with BlueTooth then maybe we could talk about serious competition. I'll keep looking for other apps and eventually write in a in-depth review / comparison of all of them :)

Tuesday Intervals

2010-04-28T05:58:00.005-04:00

Leave it to me to schedule two speed workouts back to back! With my busy schedule it's not always obvious to fit all the workouts in but this time I think I did a good job. With the weird weather we had in Ottawa, I didn't quite know how to dress. I had to dig into my winter clothes to make up for the up to 30km/h wind gusts, making the balmy 2 celsius feels more like -5. Fortunately for me, the wet snow that had been falling in the early morning had stopped long enough for the sidewalks to dry up a little bit by lunch time. I borrowed this interval workout from Marlene last time and I liked it enough that I wanted a second crack at it. 1km warmup followed by 4 sets of 2x1km at interval speed with 500m cooldowns.
First set at 4:20 and 5:43. total failure against the wind and going uphill (do I sound like I am exaggerating? I might be a bit!). Second set at 4:22 and 4:47 (much better!), third set at 4:56 and 4:45 (is it over yet?) and last set at 5:04 and 4:30 (finally I'm done!). Not quite as consistent as I'd like but a good showing overall considering the wind gusts and the fact that I ran a track workout the night before! A total of 12km completed in 2 seconds short of 1 hour so I can call it at 4:59m/km, yeah!

You probably already know that I use RunSaturday a lot for all kinds of analysis and mapping. One of the things you may not know about RunSaturday is that it allows you to quickly see how you are doing on a dashboard type page when you log in. I love seeing how far I've trained in the last 30 days and this week I noticed I am above 300km for the last 30 days. Woot woot!
If you are the least bit serious about tracking your training, I recommend you check www.RunSaturday.com out. It supports a whole range of fitness devices and best of all it's free and open. Even if you don't have a device or train indoors, you can still enter all your relevant information manually for running, biking and swimming. I just love it!

If you have a bit of time today, check our RoadBunner's awesome picture review of Big Sur. That's one race I wouldn't mind doing some day!

In the mix was Children of Paradise's Urban Alien.

Track Monday

2010-04-27T05:57:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was a return to the track. I did the usual 4 sets of 4x400 with 2x400 rests but switched to a different track for a change of scenery and headed to the Sacred Heart High School. I'm pretty lucky to have two tracks within ~3km from my house, it gives me alternatives to changes things up.

I don't know what's up with me an my Garmin but I just can't seem to program it properly these days. I missed a step on the repeat and I think that's why I did an extra 400 again :)
My times were pretty good considering the wind. Mother nature must have something against me because every time I try to do speedwork the winds are blowing. I felt pretty good about my sluggish performance once I got home and saw the the winds were blowing 20-25km/h (as reported by The Weather Network).

Times for the fast 400s were:

1:48, 1:45, 1:47, 1:51
1:49, 1:49, 1:51, 1:51, 1:52 (yup, an extra, blame it on the Garmin!)
1:44, 1:53, 1:46, 1:51
1:47, 1:52, 1:50, 1:49

The track is always a test for my legs as well. I usually get all kinds of soreness and sensitivity after a good track workout. I'm happy to report that, after a good stretching session, the legs were almost back to normal. My training must be working!

PS: What's up with the snow this morning in Ottawa?

Week in review

2010-04-25T16:12:00.004-04:00

Another week gone by where between the pressures of work, training and family, I didn't have time to blog! The week was very good training wise with 81km out of 85 the plan required. I'm calling it done :)

On Monday, I did a quick 12k at lunch in about 58 minutes. Nothing special to report other than the legs felt great. Tuesday was a weights day, I did my 2 sets satisfactorily.

On Wednesday, I ran in to work. The plan called for a 22km tempo run so I stretched it to 25km and finished in a little over 2h02m. It feels so good to let it all out once in a while and wonder at how well training has been progressing. I love the feeling I get when my legs are giving me what I want, I feel like a well oiled machine!

I remember looking at my watch at the 21.1km mark and realizing that if this was a half marathon, it would be a PR. This, during training with nobody to chase. Awesome. Some of my friends even saw me running and mentionned it on Twitter. Thanks @isfalk and @tgrevatt, that's a super boost to know that not only I felt great, fast and strong but also looked it :) Look at the speed heatmap (thanks RunSaturday again for this amazing feature!)
At 4:54m/km, it's a very respectable effort that is probably responsible for what came next. On Thursday, I was supposed to do an interval run. I picked 2x1k with 500m rests. However, the legs didn't agree and the wind started acting up so I finished with the first 2 intervals within my goals, the next 2 a bit slower than I wanted and then gave up and ran the rest of the way at a pretty even pace. Total of 12k at 1:01, not that bad.

I switched the long run to Saturday because my boyfriend got tickets to the Senators' hockey game on Saturday through a recognition program at work. I had 32km to do and decided to head for the trails (crushed stone, not really trails). I knew I'd be a bit short but there's a few places to loop around to add extra kms near my house anyways. I am really lucky that we have such wonderful trails here in Ottawa.
Even saw some horses that didn't look like they wanted to race
I had dressed a bit to warm and ended up slowing down near the end as mid day was approaching. I still managed a reasonable time of 3h01m22s which is about 5:42m/km, only 12 seconds/km slower than I wanted.

With a total of 81km for the week, I think my work is done. Next week is 90km. OUCH!

Week in review

2010-04-18T17:12:00.004-04:00

Phew, the week flew by. After Tuesday's track workout, I did a quick 8km (38:44) on my lunch time on Wednesday. On Thursday, I ran in to work for a 24km workout. At first I thought it would be real slow and after 10km, I started experiencing sensitivity in my right knee. After a brief painful moment where my knee felt like it was being pricked by a needle, everything calmed down and I was able to reach some good speed and get to work in time for my meetings with a time of 2h03 (~5:10m/km pace). Funny enough, my knees haven't felt better in weeks since that workout. I guess something needed stretching and that brief painful moment was just that happening. I'll keep an eye on them still.

Today, Sunday, was the long run. The weekly ritual for all long distance runners. I had a 35km to do and I really didn't feel like it. I got out of bed (15 minutes later than planned) and, after a bit of procrastination, hit the road. Whoever arranged this perfect running weather for Ottawa has my full gratitude. Low single digit temperature with sunny skies made the difficult distance easier to handle.
I ran into quite a bit of wind, but that's all right, it will just end up making me stronger, I guess. I usually cruise through the long slow runs at an almost tempo pace. I recognise the value and benefits of the slow run but I just don't like feeling sluggish. I didn't really have a choice today as the combination of kms already in the bank, poor nutrition and fairly late bed time yesterday made the engines cringe when I tried to push past a 5:45m/km. The fact that yesterday's thai dinner was really not enough to fuel me for the entire duration became really obvious after km 25 where things started slowing down even more. I finished in 3h26m (5:55m/km pace, not bad for the conditions).

With a total of 85km this week, I'm tracking pretty good to the training plan. I wish I has been a bit faster today but my legs feel great so that's definitively a positive aspect. Next week's long run is back down to 32km even as my total remains 85km. I'll have to look back at last year's summer routes. I used my old winter routes on the road this week since I was too busy to design a scenic route through the numerous and beautiful paths and parks available around here.

In the mix today was Sun Project's Zwork, Daniel Belanger's Nous, AC/DC's Blow up your video and OOOD's Breathing Space.

Track Tuesday

2010-04-13T21:54:00.005-04:00

My knees haven't hurt at all today so I figured it was time to pound them real hard and head to the track. A quickly programmed 4x400 with 2x400 rest repeated four time would do!
Unfortunately I didn't program the Garmin the right way (even after bragging over the weekend about how easy it was to do!) and ended up doing 5 fast laps before I realized I had doubled up the fast laps.

1:39, 1:48, 1:43, 1:49, 1:52 with rests of 2:21, 2:12
1:41, 1:34, 1:41, 1:45 with rests of 2:03, 2:07
1:42, 1:48, 1:44, 1:47 with rests of 2:20, 2:01
1:43, 1:47, 1:40, 1:44 with rests of 2:46, 2:18

Not bad at all, with an average of 1:44 (4:10m/km). With the warmup and cool down I came about 100m short of 18km in about 90 minutes. Awesome.

I'm always taken aback by the runner's high I get from letting the engines go full tilt. The Endorphin was flowing freely tonight. I can't believe that a painful workout can also be so enjoyable.

Back on schedule

2010-04-11T17:39:00.005-04:00

The small break that I took from training after Los Angeles is officially over. This week saw me return to my training plan with a total of 84km (the plan asked for 80). I'm pretty confident I can maintain the plan again until race weekend at the end of May. I hope I can get back in the groove of blogging at least a few times a week instead of rushing to lump it all in at the end of the week.

Monday was a 16km tempo at a pretty even 5:01 pace
On Wednesday's interval, I tried to copy Marlene's 2km intervals with 500m rest. While I wasn't able to get progressively faster like she did, I still got satisfactory intervals of 4:26, 4:34 and 4:30, 4:39 and 4:22, 4:35. I don't know how I managed to keep a 4:30 pace for an entire 10km back in January. I wonder if I could do it again at a race... I just love seeing so much green on RunSaturday.com's heatmaps:
Friday was supposed to be a 20km tempo, so I ran to work. Not quite the tempo I was looking for at 5:13 but it just didn't feel right to push faster.

The plan on Sunday was a long slow run of 32km. Some friends were doing a 10km run downtown that I was told would be quite slow so I felt it was safe to join them for the last portion of my own run after running to downtown. Add in some delays because it's early Sunday morning and a last minute change of venue and my quite comfortable 6:00 pace was no longer reasonable if I was to meet them at the agreed time. I was a bit unfamiliar with the route I was taking so I even threw the afterburners on for a bit and managed a 5m/km pace for a few kms to ensure I would make it in time. I got there about 2 minutes before we set out at a leisurely 7m/km pace. Two of us managed to sprint for the last 2 kms to put in a bit of an extra effort. I ended up with 2 more bonus kms in the bank at an overall pace of 5:41.

LA Afterthoughts + C4C

2010-04-05T10:30:00.000-04:00

I received lots of online and offline congrats and comments about LA! Thank you! One of the things that came back the most was about taking so many pictures yet crushing my goal at the same time.... How did I manage it?

First of all, I don't think my goal was too easy. I think I just had a very rare perfect day. The fact that I was in a timezone 3 hours behind made the 7am start quite a late one for my eastern system and my nutrition was going right on schedule prior to the race, thanks to an All-you-can-eat pasta special for the Marathon at Maria's downtown LA. The weather was gorgeous. Even if it got a bit hot in downtown, once when we started going towards the sea the refreshing breeze came in to cool us down. The course was fabulous with lots of sights to take your mind off the grueling task of putting one foot before another and the community support was outstanding, recharging my batteries at every turn. I can't forget mentionning that my dad was also inspiring me to push the limit of what I knew I could do.

As the picture taking, I think it actually helped make me faster. Marathoners will know that the course can get pretty lonely and boring. It's not unusual to strike up a conversation with fellow runners when breathing is allowing it. Taking our minds off the littles aches that are developing or not thinking about how much fuel is left in the tank versus how many miles are left on the course is paramount to a good performance. Having the camera and thinking about the pictures and the sights that I wanted to bring back to friends and family did just that for me. While the running backwards was a bit dangerous (I almost tripped at least twice!) it also gave my muscles a break in the motion and I think this had a positive effect.

Where do I go from here? I have another marathon scheduled for the end of May, in my hometown with friends and family watching. I'll have to do well! My goal is simply a repeat of my LA performance to confirm that I am strong and can use the summer to get even faster towards that elusive Boston Qualifying time (3:10 for me).

LA Marathon, like most major races, had a bunch of race photographers on site. I never understood the race photography economy. While I do realize they spend tremendous amounts of money to take all these beautiful pictures such as this one:
What I never understood is the market for these pictures. A single picture will cost you $60. Granted they also offer an "economical' download of all the pictures they take of you for a "modest" $80. I can't justify myself paying that much money for pictures. Yes, I want a copy. These are amazing pictures of what is for the most part an extraordinary event, but seriously, $60 per picture? I had a chat with the girl at the counter at the expo about this. She seemed to hold a position of fair responsibility in the company and all she could do to validate that $80 for a download of all the pictures was a fair price was that it was their most popular product. I don't have an MBA in race photography economics, but let's say there are 50 photographers paid a per diem of $2,000 (I think this is generous, especially for LA where every closet paparazzi has good quality photo equipment), that's only $100,000 of fixed cost per event. Add in a generous amortization of $50,000 per race for website and bib recognition software and you only have a fixed cost of $150,000. If you sell a download package to %10 of the field at $80, that's $200k ($50k of profits). If you'd sell the same package for $25, you'd probably get %50 or more of the field buying it, that's over $300k ($150k profit). Maybe I'm wrong and there's already %50 of the field buying the download and I'm totally off the track here with my numbers.

If you are in the race photography business, I think your sweet spot for an almost universal buyin is about %25 of the cost of the race entry fee. For $25 or less, I'd buy the pictures before the race, before I even see them and not ask for a refund if they are no good. Anything over $30, I'll wait to see the results and if they are good I will get them. Anything over $40 I won't even think about it even if the picture is worthy of Time Magazine or National Geographics.

One of the benefits of having gone to LA is that I broke my phone so I got this new one:
It's more like a computer than a phone really and it has a GPS. I've seen lots of software for running and tracking distance, pace, etc and I will be trying them out in the next few weeks to see if there is a possibility of replacing my garmin. Less electronics to carry while I run is better in my books but I think it will be difficult to replace the purpose built Garmin watch with a more general use device like a phone. More on this as I experiment with the various software. If you have any suggestions for a good running software that runs on Android, let me know!

I totally forgot the C4C with the race excitement so I'll use the comments on my race report for the March numbers, so 8 food items will be donated to the Kanata Food Cupboard. Don't think that's enough to feed the needy? Leave your comments here for April's C4C, for every visitor that leaves a comment I'll donate one non-perishable item. If we go over 8 comments, I'll double March's donation!

LA Marathon 2010

2010-03-28T13:40:00.000-04:00

I am a bit late for my review so by now you have probably heard all about the pre-race chaos that occurred with cars and even the official race shuttle busses. Here is my perspective. I woke up early and headed out to my designated shuttle pickup point at 6am, a little under an hour and a half should be enough to cover what took me about 10-15 minutes on Friday when I went to the expo. I was shocked when I got to the pickup point to see a large crowd waiting for the bus.
After talking to some other racers, it became clear that no busses had picked up runners for at least half an hour. Getting a bit anxious about my race experience, I started thinking about alternatives. The start line was only a few miles from my location, probably runnable. The course actually snaked by less than a mile from where I was standing, I could always join at that point even if that meant giving up my official timing. After a bit of nervous discussion with fellow racers, a race official showed up and informed us that there was an accident on the freeway (the only access route to Dodgers Stadium apparently) and that it was being cleared up and more busses were on the way. No answers about whether the start would be delayed or other measures to ensure a good experience for all the late runners. The busses did eventually show up and we headed into traffic. The freeway was a parking lot! Runners were getting out of their cars and running amongst the traffic. I sincerely hope no one got hit doing that, it looked really dangerous!

At about 7:30, someone announced that the start would be delayed until 7:45 (20 minutes). That gave us enough time to get there, but not really enough time to go to the washrooms and line up where we needed at the corrals. I waited patiently for my spot at a portopotty while Alex was giggling about the people going in the bush. I decided then and there that I was too civilised for the bush and that I would wait for an available portopotty. I was racing the chip anyways, not the gun so even if I started late it should be ok. All that time in line gave me plenty of opportunity for some pre-race stretching and posing :)
I heard the gun and all the cheering that went on with it, wishing I was part of the excitement and not waiting in line to relieve myself before the race. I then realized that the race route actually cut between the start and portopotties, what a confusing setup! Anyone getting to the race late or needing to go before starting had to cut across lanes filled with runners. Anyways, I eventually did make it across with no accident and slowly started to make my way to the start line.

The people at the back of the corrals had just started moving, it must have been insanely crowded at the 9m/mile and under corrals. I felt like I was in the peanut gallery of the race but at the same time I felt really fast as I zoomed by the walkers and slower joggers. I crossed the start line anxiously trying to get through the thick crowds where I could, to get to a comfortable speed. I was so worried about finding the open spots where I could pass people that I didn't even think of starting my watch time until about 30-45 seconds into the race!

The views from up the hill where Dodgers stadium is are pretty cool.
After circling the stadium for what felt like forever, we finally hit the road and went into what I think is east downtown LA!
The first part of the course started as downhill but then had quite a few uphills. I remember one of the hills had big asian drums and the rhythm was awesome to pull me up the hill. I don't know if it's because I was so far back but it felt like everyone just stopped and walked on the uphill portions. Weird. Here is a forced smile near an important looking LA building.
I slowly got into my groove and maintained a decent cruising speed. I was really disappointed at the water stations. People would just stop suddenly (Dangerous!) instead of grabbing the water as they run. Some of the early stations ran out of water it looked like. Their positioning also seemed off, either after tight turns or in narrower streets where all the traffic made it hard to keep up the pace. As you can see there were quite a few people on the road!
I used my strategy of drinking the first cup, using the second cup on my head and drinking a third cup when available. I don't know what happened with the sportsdrink sponsor Powerade but it wasn't often available at the stations and when it was, it felt a bit weak. I'm used to mixing my own and usually am quite generous with the sugar so maybe that was the recommended mix.

One thing I noticed right away is that the community was out in full force! There were people cheering virtually every step of the way except maybe for the veteran's hospital and a bit of Santa Monica blvd. People brought noisemakers, drums, flutes, costumes. There were even rogue water stops and people giving out candy and fruits. I went against my mom's childhood advice and accepted candy from a stranger, the Starburst was exactly what I needed, thank you Starburst man! The constant cheering really made me feel like I was one of Hollywood's stars! Thank you random people who tried (and mostly succeeded) in pronouncing my foreign name!

I feel that one of the best part of the course is as we slowly headed towards Hollywood. I was really happy to see the Hollywood sign in the distance!
A little later I saw a bunch of kids wielding a water hose. I ran up to them and drenched myself in the water, much to their disbelief and amazement. I guess the weather wasn't that warm for Californians, but for this Canadian, 20 degrees celsius is hot! The water was refreshing! Thanks guys. 5 minutes later realised that I was carrying my phone in my nylon belt. Ooops, I hoped it would still work at the end of the race, more on this later.

I finally reached Hollywood. One of the most exciting portion of this course. Don't try these running backwards photos at home, they can be dangerous!
The famous Chinese theater was a great sight, too bad it flew by so fast.
Even Big bird was here!
There's a hard rock cafe coming soon to Hollywood. Cool!
I loved this sign at the Laugh Factory about running harder for free healthcare, just one of the touches that makes this race feels like the entire city is behind it.
I think this Diner is famous, I had a vague recollection of having seen it before.
I was also told that this Ketchup restaurant claims Ashton Kutcher as one of its investors
Going into West Hollywood was a hoot. Not only was there gorgeous guys to cheer us on, the water station was manned by drag queens. Hurray for diversity!
This is my favorite picture with the Beverly Hills sign
With all the sights and cheering going on, I didn't really have a sense of how much distance I had covered already. I still felt pretty strong and didn't have to worry about the pace yet since I was running a bit ahead of my sub-4 goal. Every time I looked at my watch, I would see the picture of my dad that I had attached to it and almost always forget to look at the time or pace.

I don't even remember where the halfway mark was but I remember that I was looking at my handy pace band that ClifBar was nice enough to give away at the expo (you can also print your own).
Calculation while running can always be difficult but I understood that I was well on my way to a sub 4 hour chip finish and that if I really wanted to, I could probably catch up to the gun and have a sub 4 hour gun finish as well! I made that my mission, to continue on a rockstar pace and shatter all expectations!

Going in to Rodeo drive was a bit surreal. I don't think I could afford to walk down that street on a regular day and here I was running by all the flagship stores where the super wealthy spend their dollars
Right after the Rodeo drive portion of the course, there were a bunch of green aliens hanging out at the Nike store. I remember them being loud and jumping around up and down trying to attract attention and cheer us on. Then I saw they were handing out Gatorade bottles. The real deal
I detoured to get one since the official on-course hydration and nutrition felt very poor. Thank you Nike! If I was a local, I would go and spend a bundle at that store just to thank them for saving my race!

A bit later, I ran into the Cheer alley. Imagine a bunch of cheerleading teams competing to see who can outcheer the others. I love it!
The crowds on the street got a bit thinner after that as the main attractions of the course were behind us.
The miles still went by fairly quickly as we passed the Veteran's Hospital and other minor LA landmarks. I remember being a bit surprised at how strong I felt when I saw this sign:
Only a mile and some change to go? Wow. I never really hit the wall at this race. I was really happy in the last few miles with the downhill slope and the ocean breeze.
The finishing chute was nice with the palm trees and fairly crowded the closer we got to the actual finish. I didn't see the sea, maybe because I was too focused on getting to the finish line with a smile :)

I crossed the finish at a gun time of 3:55 and some. Not bad at all. My official chip time came in at 3:39:59. Wow. What a PR! I ran the whole time thinking about how strong my dad was and how much I wanted to be like him and make him proud. This race and PR is %100 for him and it will be a tough one to match when I run on my own.

After finishing up, I realised that my cell phone was inoperable due to the water that got into it. I had big hopes of meeting all kinds of people I touch base with online but unfortunately couldn't follow through with those plans. I was really lucky that Alex spotted me and yelled my name out. It would have been real difficult to find him without cell phones to coordinate our locations!

Here is a picture he took of me with the medal.
Overall the LA Marathon was an awesome experience. Despite the anguish at the start and the frustration of not starting around runners running the same pace as I was, I still had an almost perfect race. The water stations were a mess and I hope they can be fixed for next year. They also need to have more nutrition on the course. I didn't think that a major marathon could get away with not giving out gels on the course.
The swag also could be better. The shirt is really dissapointing, especially considering the entry price. The medal also is a bit simple and to feature the 25 in large characters as they did is a bit funny. Some people at the office actually thought I came in 25th at the finish and earned this special medal :)
The one redeeming feature of the medal is the ample space at the back for an engraving:
I don't think I will run LA again next year for the simple reason that it is a long way away from home for me. If I was a local I'd most certainly participate again and hope that they can fix the minor logistical problems they experienced this year. Maybe they need to work on the slogan a bit. While we did run from the Stadium to the Sea, I was kind of expecting the start to be in the Stadium and finish line to actually be on the beach. Maybe I was dreaming if I thought that this was possible.

PR at LA Marathon!

2010-03-21T19:08:00.002-04:00

Just a tease for now, more details later...

Ready, Set ... Wait!

2010-03-20T11:20:00.005-04:00

Marathons are really exciting events. It's the culmination of months of training and the celebration of having achieved or maintained a level of fitness long sought after. It's also a test to see if the training was done well and if the mind can follow through once the training runs out on the course. For this reason, I find that the few days before a race are difficult. I'm worried of catching something, eating something that won't feel right or doing something silly like twisting an ankle while walking around.

The actual day before the marathon is the worse. I haven't had a decent long run in weeks. My energy stores are overflowing and I'm so excited that I cannot sleep. All there is left to do is to continue to hydrate and fuel up and ensure that I am ready for the big day. That's definitively the plus side of the day before the marathon, I can throw the calorie counter to the wind and eat as many carbs as I desire!

Having arrived in LA yesterday, I checked out the fantastic running expo. It's like a giant mall where every store is running related. Fun!
I met ChicRunner at the expo, where she was promoting the Long Beach Marathon. I didn't really get anything at the expo since prices were really high in my opinion (even after factoring the high Canadian dollar). I kinda like the black vest but I can't really convince myself that it is worth $100. All the free food and drink samples and interesting talks were definitively worth the time I spent at the expo.

This morning, I went for a quick warmup 5k. I never knew LA was so hilly! I only got spotty GPS signal, I hope I get better reception during the race tomorrow.
I saw two different film crews getting ready to start their day. No stars yet, I don't think they get up that early :) It's pretty cool to be in LA where everything is famous.
I'll try to be a good tourist today while finding a way to stay off my feet. I want them fresh for the task ahead tomorrow!

En Route to LA

2010-03-18T07:24:00.003-04:00

By the time you read this, I will most likely be en route to Los Angeles to run the marathon. The last few weeks have been quiet on the blog as I've been extremely busy and dealing with the recent loss of my father. The Los Angeles trip will be an opportunity for me to recharge my batteries and honour my dad by dedicating this race and the expected PR to him.

Even if my training has been uneven in the last few weeks, I think I have a solid base to work with and perform quite well at the race. I think that I have a sub 4 hour marathon in me, whether it comes out in LA is still unclear. This will be a fantastic and scenic course so if I need to slow down to admire the scenery, I will. On the other hand, if I see a celebrity, I'll spare no effort to leave them behind in my dust :) Do you hear that Shia and Gordon? The race is on!

If you're in LA and want to meet up, leave a comment or @ msg / DM me on twitter. Also follow my twitter feed on Sunday for results right after the race if I am lucid enough to tweet about my experience :)

Still here

2010-03-10T20:49:00.002-05:00

Haven't posted in a while as my schedule has been really stretched. I did make time for training and ran a total of 54km last week as I'm slowly entering tapering.

My work has me in Baltimore this week and the weather has been totally gorgeous. I couldn't help but make time for quick runs after my conference yesterday and today with 8 miles and 12 miles runs around the waterfront. I'm not sure if this is typical for Baltimore but there were lots of runners about the waterfront. This city is really neat even if a bit quiet. The cobblestone streets add a certain charm to this city.

I don't have a lot of running left until LA. I can't believe it's only about a week away! I'm excited about meeting some online folks there.

60km weekend + C4C

2010-02-28T16:33:00.001-05:00

With the wet and snowy weather giving me an easy excuse to bail on my training plan this week, I found myself catching up this weekend with 2 longish runs.

First, thanks for your comments during my slump. I'm happy to say that it lasted a whole 3 days. On Thursday I did a weights session and found a dreadmill on Friday where I lasted an entire half hour for what I hope is a total of 3.5 miles. It felt way too fast to be kilometres. I guess the treadmill is a learned exercise for longer distances. I can't believe some people that are doing their 2 or 3 hour runs on the machine! I remember a few years ago when I had regular access to one that I was able to do up to 60 minutes before getting bored. Maybe if there was something more exciting than curling playing at the gym I could have thoughed it out a bit more ;)

So on Saturday I set out to replace a workout that should have been done on Monday with 22km.
I was pretty happy with the pace (5:26m/km) for a total time of 1h58m27s.

Then the very next day, on Sunday, I went out for the longest run of this training cycle: 38km. I wouldn't necessarily have chosen to do back to back with the 22km but time has been very scarce these days and the weather today was just beautiful. It's starting to feel like spring already and I'm grateful for not having to worry about my water freezing or even catching something nasty if I decide to slow down and my sweat freezes over. My shoes didn't like the muddy conditions but then they are on their last lap anyways so I won't worry about them too much.
With a pace of 5:43m/km I would be about 1 and a half minute behind my 4 hour goal for the marathon but then I don't expect I'll run a 22km the day before the race :) My sleeping schedule hasn't been optimal either and nutrition also has been a bit hectic with meals at odd hours and from sources that I wouldn't consider healthy or nutritious.

I must admit I'm pretty happy that the longest run is done. All the upcoming "long" runs are under 30km until race day. These smaller training runs are easier to fit in the schedule and easier to recover from.

Because people are hungry throughout the year, this post is my monthly cans for comments post. You know the drill, you leave a comment and I donate a non-perishable food item. This month's cans will go to the Kanata Food Cupboard. Let's hope we can beat the 5 items donated for January.

Off the wagon

2010-02-24T07:01:00.003-05:00

I have sort of fallen off the wagon this week. While this should be my highest mileage week for this training plan, a series of events have created a perfect storm and provided with an easy excuse to put my training aside. There is not much I can do about the amount of work that I have to do and the extra hours that I'm putting in while this is busy season at my department. I also have little control over my dad's health and wanting to be there by his side to support him. The wet and snowy weather does put a damper on any outside run but I could have toughed it out or just found a treadmill, indoor track or gym somewhere to fill in while the street is not appealing. Truth be told I did not have the dedication to get back out there and pound the pavement after an almost perfect 12 weeks streak of training. I welcomed the excuses with open arms.

The comforting factor in all this? It's only been 3 days without a serious workout and I feel guilty as hell. Guilty enough to write this entry, kick myself in the butt and find the motivation to salvage this week while there is still time. The 38k long run this weekend won't run itself and it will be real painful if I don't get a few short runs in between to loosen up.

Snowy Sunday

2010-02-21T16:55:00.004-05:00

Funny how weather predictions and actual weather sometimes differ quite a bit. Yesterday's forecast (at least the ones I heard) called for Sun & Clouds. What I got this morning was a bit of snow. Just enough to blanket the ground and make things a bit messy.
Still, having already shifted my schedule around to accommodate the 35km that the plan called for today, nothing could stop me! Running while it is snowing out there has a certain charm to it anyway. The beats of the music, the pounding of the pavement, the fog when I breathe and the endorphins coursing through my veins all combine to create an hypnotic effect and keep me focused throughout the run.

I had picked a route that I expected would cut through the wind and not be too painful. I think I was right for about 90% of the course, so that's a win for me.
I was able to maintain a pretty decent and somewhat steady pace with mostly blue and light blue on the heatmap.
I saw a few other runners out there. One woman I talked with a bit. She's aiming for Around the Bay 30km and possibly a Triathlon. Other runners must be getting ready for the Ottawa Race Weekend.

I didn't get bored with an eclectic mix of music. I discovered Iron Maiden may be the best running music ever, one of the songs I heard today I never quite really realised before is called The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Celine Dion, Hallucinogen and Indica also spiced things up for variety.

The reward for the race was a lovely Dim Sum outing with my forever understanding and supporting boyfriend Alex.
The best thing about running in winter is that even after long runs, I don't need to ice my knees, the wind did that throughout the run already ;)

Not so quiet week!

2010-02-20T09:33:00.005-05:00

While the blog has been quiet this week, if you follow my twitter account, you'll know that I was just busy ramping up the kilometers, meeting fun people and otherwise taking care of business. There's also some personal events that have been taking a lot of my time, hopefully the situation will get better soon.

So the training plan looked like this:

Sunday: 32km (easy pace)
Tuesday: 21km (race pace)
Thursday: 13km (intervals)
Saturday: 13km (track)
Total: 79km

What I delivered:

Sunday: 32km (2:59, isn't this race pace?)
Monday: 10km (48:34, I think this is tempo)
Tuesday: 6.5km with Run Ottawa group (1.5 warm up, 5k "hard" at ~4:35m/km)
Wednesday: Cashed in a rest day
Thursday: 24 km (2h03, I'm pretty sure this is race pace or maybe even too fast)
Friday: 10km (47m16s, blowing some steam, life has been tough this week!)
Saturday: Weights
Total: 81.5km

I think I'm on track for LA Marathon in 4 weeks. I'm not following the training plan to the letter but I think I'm doing enough of the right things that I'm keeping up with the expectations. Tomorrow's a 35km easy pace run, I still don't know where that will take me.

Good luck to @momsgot2run in the Winterman tomorrow! I wish they had a 35km distance so I could join you ;)

RIP Nodar

2010-02-13T14:22:00.004-05:00

Dear Nodar,

You don't know me and I don't really know you either. I wouldn't be able to point out your hometown on the map and probably wouldn't even be able to pronounce your full name: Nodar Kumaritashvili. However there is something I know about you. You were a very courageous man and had an unwavering dedication to sports excellence. You set an example and inspired countless young people that will dedicate their lives to sports and in turn inspire others.

I was shocked, with the rest of the world, to learn about the tragic accident that happened at the track. The world lost a bright young athlete and I join your family, friends and the world in mourning your departure. I dedicate this morning's gruelling 32km run to you. Athletes like you inspire me to always push myself further to reach and exceed my objectives. It's sad that you were never able to really reach your full potential.

One thing that I know for sure is that long after the controversy surrounding your early and brutal departure has quieted down, our memories of your dedication and the inspiration you have given us will live on in our hearts forever. Rest in peace Nodar.

"Short" 23km?

2010-02-12T16:39:00.003-05:00

You know you are deep into marathon training when the "short" runs on your training plan balloons all the way to 23km (14 miles). That's roughly the distance to run home so that's what I decided to do yesterday. I wouldn't have been able to put in 2 hours of running into my schedule if I had to bus home first (~1h). The fact that we were having another pot luck at work was just bonus for last minute carbo loading!

This was supposed to be run at race pace but after a very busy and tiresome week, I didn't think I had it in me and set out for a slightly easier pace. I had great music in the mix. California Sunshine to remind me of my goal race in LA, Anik Jean to set a good rocky beat and Nine Inch Nails to bring out my testosterone and lead me to a spectacular finish, hugging a 5m/km pace for the last half hour.
In a total of 2h08m, it's not bad, especially after 2 back to back 10k runs, both under 49 minutes on Tuesday and Wednesday. In the last 3 days I have run the marathon distance. And I still have to do 32km this weekend, phew!

Today at lunch I did a different kind of cross training and headed out to the Rideau canal for a quick skate.

I have to admit I'm really looking forward to warmer weather. While the extra amount of daytime light is good, I can't wait until I can just head out instead of taking 15 minutes to dress up after worrying about how many layers I need and how to keep my water from freezing. My clothes washer will be happy too, I seem to fill it up with just 1 run's worth of sweaty layers.

Marathon Marketing

2010-02-09T06:30:00.005-05:00

If you ran in the Ottawa Race Weekend last year, chances are you received one of the personalised postcards last week.
I thought the these were really cool marketing tools with my finishing time at the front and a spot to mark my goal for this year at the back
This campaign is definitively effective in my case since I signed up for the marathon! it's a bit soon for specific goals but I'll be gunning for a PR for sure.

Time has been rare these days to update the blog and comment on yours. I did make time for a 32km (20m) run on Sunday that was a bit tough in the 15-20km/h winds. I did finish it in 3h02m so that's not too too bad but my legs were definitively feeling it! I'm guessing that the -19 with windchill did not take into account where I was running into the winds at 10-12 km/h ;)

In the mix this week is Les 3 accords, AC/DC, Delirium and Orichalcum & the Deviant.

Cost of running + 3 in 3

2010-02-05T19:37:00.005-05:00

I've been needing a new pair of running shoes for a while now and looking around for good deals on shoes has gotten me thinking about the cost of running. While running is probably one of the most affordable and accessible sports, there are definitively costs, especially for long distance runners.

A good pair of shoes will set you back about $125-150 and last around 500 km. Not to forget other equipment such as tech shirt, shorts, tights, socks and hats, especially in winter with so many layers! Other equipment may be the beloved Garmins, iPods and other technology tools making our runs better. There are also the obvious costs of races and travel to races that hang in the balance.

On top of that, there are nutritional costs. Sport drinks are pretty affordable at 5$ for a tub of crystals that will make 8 liters, enough for a few long runs. Other nutrition costs are the more costly gels and supplements such as glucosamine to ensure healthy joints. I expect that proteins and carbohydrates should be featured in higher quantity in a runner's diet than someone who doesn't exercise much.

There are also a lot of training related reading materials, association membership fees, magazine and coaches that can add up without noticing. I'm pretty lucky I can withstand the elements and run outside in the cold, that way I don't need a gym membership even if I did equip my dreadmill-less home-gym with quite a bit of equipment that I hope can make me a better runner.

Adding it all up makes me realised how much money I devoted to running over the years. I think every penny spent running is a worthwhile investment in making me a faster runner, happier person and most probably a healthier human being. If I was to add up all the running related dollars I've spent in a year and divide by the kms I ran, the cost would come at about $2 per km. That's something to think about on my long runs as the bill keeps getting longer!

Life got pretty busy in the last few days so I had to shuffle my schedule around a bit. I was still able to do 3 back to back running days totalling 32 km. Not bad. I was right on the money for my goals both times yesterday at 10km in exactly 50 minutes and today with a 60 minutes 12k. I don't usually have the power in the legs to do anything else than just keep up when I do back to back, especially after Wednesday's fartlek session. I'm especially happy about today's speed profile, almost a flat line throughout.
It's the first time I notice that I run an exact split with my both my first and last 6km clocking in at exactly 30 minutes!

Let's see how I fare on Sunday's long 32km.

Wednesday Speed Play

2010-02-03T21:52:00.003-05:00

Today's training session was a Fartlek. While it may sound like a body malfunction, Fartlek actually means "Speed Play". I haven't done a lot of these because I don't really enjoy them. I prefer a constant speedy (tempo) run than the burst of speed that Fartlek calls for. I'm not even sure if I do them properly, looking at my pace chart I'm kinda satisfied that I did some burst of speed. I may try to sustain the bursts for longer periods next time I get around to doing another speed play session. I shortened the duration a bit since I didn't have enough time to do the entire distance prescribed by my training plan.
I think that the out of breath and close to collapsing feeling is normal for this type of workout. If there were two things I would like to see on my next chart is a more constant pace for the easy sections and a longer burst duration. Other than that I'm fairly happy with ~49 minutes for 10 kms. One thing I never know when I do these types of speed workout is how the total time is supposed to compare to a tempo run.

How weird street fair in the mix.

Longest one yet!

2010-01-31T16:00:00.001-05:00

After chickening out yesterday due to the super cold weather, I realised that I had traded extreme cold for a bit of snow this morning. Still, to get a balmy -12 celsius, I can live with the snow. I still bundled up in order to be comfortable for the ~3 hours that I would be on the road.
This morning's run was my longest yet in this training cycle - 35km. The whole time I thought that this was the longest my training plan required (I knew I had to do it again in 2 weeks) but I checked just before writing this entry and I actually have to do a 38 km in 4 weeks - ouch!

I decided to go a bit everywhere and avoid looping. The roads I picked were fairly quiet and for the most part clean and with ample shoulders. I even saw a deer on Timm road. There were lots of runners on Corkstown road and it gave me some energy to know that was not the only cooky one out there. I hadn't run to North Kanata since the summer. Coming back I did a bit of a detour to add more kms but it still wasn't enough so I ran around my neighbourhood for the last 1.5km.
I was pretty impressed with how well it went. While it was long and a bit painful at the end, I was very impressed to see that only 2 kms (around the time I tried to take a picture of the deer, which didn't turn out well at all!) were above 6 minutes.

One thing that really surprised me is how hilly Kanata is. I never really noticed before on shorter runs, but let me tell you that on a longer run, the hills do make a difference. Here is the profile for today's route:
I look forward to a long run of *only* 32km next weekend :)

In the mix today was another assortment of various genres. Les Cowboy Fringants, Michael Buble, Tangerine Dream, Return to the Source and Matsuri.

BRRRrrrrrrr! + C4C

2010-01-29T17:42:00.004-05:00

A cold snap has descended on Ottawa but that didn't stop me from going out to run. The alternative (dreadmill) is not one I am excited about! So I went in what the weather people described as a -32 celsius with the windchill. I didn't wait around for my GPS to warm up and catch a signal so the route is not totally accurate.
I kept it easy for the ~6km loop of the bridges. I know I have to mix it up but it was difficult to keep it slow in such a cold weather, I just wanted the run to be over! To be honest it didn't feel that cold but my glasses did get all frosted from the water condensation from breathing. And I don't think I get a good bounce from my shoes in such cold weather!

What I find kind of interesting is that the speed profile almost matches the altitude profile. I was going faster on the uphill than the flat surface...
Back in the holiday period, I was running a Cans for Comments campaign and pledged to continue to do it all year so here is this month's entry. It's simple: for every visitor that leaves a comment on this entry, I will donate a non-perishable food item to the local food bank. I also encourage you to give what you can to Unicef, Care or your favourite relief organisation for Haiti. I know I have given and plan to do so again regularly until the country is back on its feet.

I have a long run planned for the weekend. I'm starting to chicken out already because of the weather. Hopefully I'll grow some chest hairs overnight and brave the conditions!

Tempo Tuesday

2010-01-27T20:56:00.004-05:00

I don't know why every workout seems to be a tempo workout these days. It seems that all my runs lately also involve looping of some sorts. I had originally planned a scaled down easy 6km for lunch today, not having time for a full run. But when one of my meetings ended early I decided to take the opportunity to double that to 12km since I thought it would be cool to have run 60 km so far this week. That also meant that I had to up the pace just a bit to make it in time for my after lunch meeting. I did 2 loops of the bridges:
Finishing the run in about 58 minutes, I got back just in time for my after-lunch meeting to find out it was not happening due to some technical difficulties. Ah well, at least I have another tempo run under my belt.

I really love the marathon training plan from Canadian Running. While I'm not really using the plan as is, I'm taking lots of inspiration from it to know when to run tempos, easy pace and also to ration the amount of weight-training I am doing. From the results I'm seeing, I think it's working. While I never really counted my weekly mileage in the past, I don't ever remember going over 60km and I still feel perfectly fine, if a bit sore. 18 months ago when I trained for my first marathon, my long runs would take all my energy away and my knees would hurt for days. Yay for being in such good running shape in the middle of winter!

Loopy loops

2010-01-25T21:07:00.004-05:00

With the balmy weather we've been getting recently, it was the perfect time to try my new HeadSweat hat that I won thanks to RoadBunner's cute bunny Mario. Check him out today, whatever it is he's begging for, I would give him, he's just too cute :) This hat is my favourite ever. Light and airy as well as very comfortable thanks to the plush lining. I can't wait till summer so I can test it under hot conditions but I'm sure the lining will absorb whatever my forehead throw at it.

I decided to run tonight before all the rain we've been receiving freezes over and creates dangerous running conditions. In true masochist fashion, I settled on loops again. The sky seemed full of water ready to pour down so I didn't want to venture too far away for the 16km (10 miles for my American friends) at marathon pace I was scheduled for. I always have a problem following pace guides and it turns out that this training run was more of a tempo run than what was called for.

I chose to loop at the Palladium Auto Park. This might not be the average runner's first choice but the close proximity to my house, the fact that the loop is somewhat quiet (think 1 car every 45 seconds with a 30km/h limit) and the super safe conditions due to clean road and the abundance of lights and camera surveillance made this an easy choice for me.
The 12 loops (~1km each) went by real quick with only 1 loop over 5 minutes. Total time for the 16km run was 1h17m. I think I will feel it tomorrow. For now all I have is a bit of soreness in my left knee, not bad.

PS: I registered for LA Marathon today, yay!

Commitment Run

2010-01-23T17:20:00.000-05:00

I always have a problem with commitment for races. I've had issues in the past where I couldn't devote the time required to training and ended up running races I wasn't prepared for. RoadBunner's comment on my last entry made me think about my goals for this year. My boyfriend and family know I will run LA Marathon. My boss and colleagues know that I will run LA Marathon. Even you guys know I will run LA Marathon. But until this morning, I didn't really know if I would run LA Marathon.

My training plan called for an easy paced 32km run today. I'm not sure why they call easy but it certainly was far from easy. My first challenge was getting out of bed. Despite the beautiful sun shining outside, I didn't feel like getting up. I finally pulled myself out of bed, had a quick breakfast and procrastinated a bit, trying to find reasons not to run. I finally got dressed and headed out the door after a sleepy Alex asked me why I didn't get up earlier for my 3 hour run instead of delaying all the days' other activities :)

Once I was out, I really enjoyed the beautiful sun:
I didn't know where I was going. A good 32km course is hard to find around here in winter. I knew of a good ~6km loop so I decided to do it 5 times. I must be a bit of a masochist to think up of such a plan. The upside that my oxygen deprived self identified quickly was that I could opt out of the long run every time I ran by close to home.
The first loop was difficult even if the weather was gorgeous! On more than one occasion I tried to find a reason to stop after the first loop and motivation became an issue. I knew that my usual food rewards would not be enough to keep me going so I decided put my participation in the LA Marathon in play. If I finished this 32km training run today, I would finally sign up! Thankfully I also had some pretty pumping music to keep me going and even if I'm a bit ashamed to say, Aqua's Candyman actually saved me and gave me the motivation to keep plugging at it. Say what you want about Aqua being over-the-top cheesy but this morning, their music was to my ears what a handful is Skittles is to my taste buds :)

Speedwise I did really well in keeping an overall pace that is pretty reasonable.
My average speed for the entire run is about 5m23s/km or 11.1 km/h. My slowest km was 5m39s and my fastest 4m59s. Pretty even if you ask me.

The course itself was really boring. I saw 1 other runner and some people walking their dogs. Most of it was deserted.
Still, I managed to go around this loop 5 times, proving that I really really want to go to Los Angeles :) And if finishing this run wasn't an achievement worthy enough already, I finished on track for a sub 4 hour finish. YeeHaw! I'm not sure I could have kept going at that speed for another 10 km but I'll figure that part out in LA :)

In the mix today was a totally random assortment of music. Aqua's Greatest Hits, Mes Aieux's En Famille, Total Eclipse's Delta Aquarids, Space Tribe's ShapeShifter and Xerox and Freeman's Human Race.

#ottsocialrun

2010-01-22T06:22:00.003-05:00

Yesterday after work, I headed out to the first ever #ottsocialrun event. It's basically a bunch of local twitter folks that got organized and invited everyone else :) Thanks for @isfalk and @tgrevatt for organizing! I ran into @cyclaw on my way to the restaurant and asked if he was also part of the tweetup, it's not often restaurant goer are dressed in running gear :) @tgrevatt was already waiting for us and @momsgot2run didn't take long to appear. When @isfalk joined us, we waited a bit for a few late runners but none showed up so we went on our merry way.

I decided to join the long run team (basically me and @isfalk) while the others went for a shorter run. Our was a perfect 10k going over Gatineau and back.
Our pace was fairly reasonable if quite uneven due to the talking and traffic lights. We talked about everything and anything, running, travel, work, etc. We finished in 52 minutes and headed inside for cold drinks, warm food and friendly conversation. This was definitively the best part for me, I don't have that many running friends so this felt like a real runner geekout. I think everyone was wearing a garmin and being asked about what model it is was quite a change from my usual: why are you wearing such a monstrous watch?!?

I'll definitively join again if this event becomes a monthly tradition.

Grey Lunch

2010-01-19T17:50:00.003-05:00

The unusually warm weather we've been having lately is a curse for skaters wanting to experience the thrill of skating on the canal but it has given runners a bunch of clear sidewalks to run on as the snow and ice melted away. In today's grey day (I think I haven't seen the sun in a week!), I went our at lunch for a short 10k to stretch my legs after the weekend's unexpected performance...
Nothing was out of the ordinary for the 48m49s run except that I enjoyed seeing some former colleagues (twice) as I looped around the bridges. I hope we get a bit of sunshine in time for my next long run, I need vitamin D.

In the meantime, I'm getting pretty excited about the Ottawa Social Run coming up on Thursday.

Richmond Road Race

2010-01-17T13:00:00.001-05:00

When I left for the Richmond Road Race, I was a bit worried about the weather forecast. I had never run in Ice Pellets before and that didn't seem very comfortable.

Lucky for all of us runners, the threat never realised itself and the weather stayed clear of rain even if the dampness made the cold a bit more biting than expected. I followed the advice I usually give to newbie winter runners, when you get cold, run faster and you'll warm up!

I was impressed by the amount of people at the race and it was fun to meet a bunch of people I'd been socialising with online but never actually met. Finally I got to meet Laurel that is behind Lily on the road and also met Treena and Shirley (@momsgot2run). Some random people I met were from as far away as Smith Falls, impressive.

The race was pretty well organised with change rooms and cafeteria style seating (complete with a lunch including hot soup after the race!). I stayed inside a bit so I didn't have to freeze outside while waiting for the race to start. 10 minutes before the gun, I headed outside.

The run started with a countdown and start signal from a megaphone and everyone went on their way.
There were some pretty fast people out there and soon enough they were too far to even see. The pavement was mostly dry and afforded a good traction. I seemed to be in with a group pacing for 45 minutes and even if my goal was 50 minutes, it felt all right so I decided to stay with them for as long as I could. After 3km, I realised that I was on track for a really good race and felt like I could keep it up.
When I reached the halfway point at km 5, there was a clock and the volunteer manning it told me: "Good work, 22 minutes and 40 seconds, you are halfway there". I knew that if I could do a negative split, I would likely break the 45 minutes. It was a stretch effort, but definitively worth trying. I kept plugging at it and the slight downward slope on the way back as well as the backwind really helped me get those 10 seconds back. I must have overshot a bit because when I reached the 9km marker, I noticed that I had a 15 seconds lead on a 45 minutes finish. I gunned it, knowing that I had a PR in the sack and finished with a time of 44 minutes and 23 seconds! YeeHaw!

This race wasn't chipped but there was a guy reading the bibs and putting them in a computer, the old fashion way. I'm assuming that counts for real, unlike my previous fastest 10k training run which was interestingly enough, 44 minutes and 24 seconds!

Now I will go read a book by the fireplace with a hot cup of coco. Well deserved R&R this afternoon :)

Mild lunch

2010-01-15T23:15:00.004-05:00

Today at lunch the weather was fairly mild and a bit wet but that didn't detrack me for going out for a somewhat easy 10k. I did my usual two bridge route and felt pleasantly fast and comfortable.
Without any pain in my knees from my 30km run three days ago, I was able to post a time of 50m34s fairly effortlessly. Things are looking up for Sunday where I hope to break the 50 minute mark!

Marathon training is feeling pretty good this year. I'm having less trouble sticking to the plan and I think that the weight training is helping out with what was previously my weak knees. Although I am not looking forward to the next few long runs, I'm getting a good feeling overall that I am making progress towards my goals.

In the mix was Armin Van Buuren's State of Trance 2008.

Long Tuesday

2010-01-13T19:39:00.004-05:00

With this weekend's upcoming Richmond Race, I had to schedule my long run during the week. Tuesday after work, I put my running gear on and headed home. There's a bit of insanity to winter running that makes the experience a bit more extraordinary. I don't know if it's the braving the element aspect of it or just the crisp air that brings on this feeling, but there's a part of me that really enjoys it.

The training schedule called for 30km for my long run this week so I took a bit of a detour and kept going on Carling until there was no more visible sidewalks. I headed down Moodie where I had a total surreal experience. If you want to feel randomly out of place, try running by the side of the road at 6pm on Moodie while wearing a headlamp.
One of the most memorable moments of this training run happened on Moodie. If you are a long distance runner, you will know that when you are pushing the body hard enough, the brain starts to go a bit wonky. A little bit after my 16th kilometer, I looked at my Garmin and got a revelation type of moment. My big revelation was that in about 20 minutes, I would have only 10km to go. I'm not sure why that was such a good thing but I felt encouraged beyond belief. In every run there's a moment where you know whether it will be a good run or not. Sometimes that happens early on, this time it happened at about half way through.

I kept plugging away and defended myself against an attacking dog and dodged cars to reach the most difficult point for the evening. I was about 1.5km from home but only had clocked 25km so I had to keep going past the easy route and go all the way around palladium drive to do a loop at the palladium auto park.

The pace for the first 2 hours is surprisingly even
That must have contributed to my overall pace of 5:54. I wasn't feeling the cold until I started slowing down. My hydration backpack didn't freeze since I kept the backpack and long straw under my jacket.

Running for 3 hours makes for a lot of room in the mix with Yann Perreau's Un serpent sous les fleurs, Garou's Gentleman Cambrioleur and Mark Allen's Inventive Steps.

I was really happy get home.

Run home

2010-01-09T13:50:00.003-05:00

On Thursday, I decided to run home again. I don't why but I really like it when people ask me how far that is and to see their reaction when they realize it's a 25km run. They'll think I'm crazy and to be honest, I sometimes think that myself as well but the experience is definitively worth it. I did go fairly slow with the uneven, sometimes snowy sometimes icy condition.
Hydration has always been a problem for me in the cold of winter with my water bottles freezing. This time I was prepared with a hydration backpack that I tucked under my windbreaker so it kept warm enough not to freeze and ensured that I had a steady supply of hydration, electrolytes and yummy sugars.

I even did a bit of a detour to add an extra 3km to meet my training goal of 28km. My average speed was about 6min/km. I'm not sure I'm totally happy with that but I'll use the poor traction and abundance of traffic lights as an excuse for the somewhat slow performance.

After a strenghtening workout yesterday, today was time for a short tempo run. The weather guys insisted the windchill factor was -27 celsius so I wore an extra fleece layer under my windbreaker and didn't even feel the cold. While my sweat froze in my tuque and gloves, I didn't feel cold at all.
I think I was pretty fast with a 4:56min/km average for the 6.6km. I felt great with no soreness at all in my knees from Thursday's long run. Awesome. Oozie Goodness in the mix.

Snowy Revenge

2010-01-05T19:25:00.003-05:00

With the neverending snowy conditions, I took my revenge today at lunch and managed to do my full double loop of 10k.
I noticed the paths were much cleaner in Ottawa
than they were in Gatineau
After I got started things were flowing pretty easily. I felt light and didn't slip once. I do feel sore in muscles I didn't even know I had. Am I deluding myself that the uneven conditions are helping me develop strength? I never tire of the view of parliament from the bridge
I'm starting to wonder if I remember what it feels like to get traction on clean side walks. I was pretty satisfied with my time of 51m21s with Mark Allen's Inventive Steps in the mix.