Friday, December 31, 2010

2010 Year In Review

So, here it is. The END! (of 2010, that is...) It's with a bit of a melancholy feeling that I completed my final training run of this year. Perhaps it was the treadmill that made it so as I plodded through an easy 5 miles (8km) at an average pace of 5:18/km. Or maybe it was the fact that I am already looking toward the next 365 days of training and am well on the road to forgetting the accomplishments of 2010. Either way, it is what it is.

It seems not that long ago that I built up my training plan with the goal of running the entire year injury free, and THAT was the main goal. To quote from my second post of 2010 back on January 8th:

"I really want to have a consistent year of running rather than the up and down, off and on sort of thing that happened throughout 2009."

I am very pleased to report: GOAL ACCOMPLISHED!!!

Of course, there were carrots that helped me along the way. The main one was to complete my first marathon. I did that too! Although I broke down in the last ten kilometres of the race it gave me the confidence to shoot for bigger and better things in 2011 (though that will be a different post on this here blog). I also ran my first Half Marathon and had a great time following the 1:45 pace bunny on my way to a finishing time that was much faster than I thought I could achieve.

It was not a year of many races, and I believe that helped me to stay on course. Instead, 2010 was a year of monotonous slow running up until the middle of November when I started to pick up the pace while experimenting with faster turnover. I focused on a weekly average mileage goal for each month and built from 25km/week in January up to over 50km/week by the Summer. It was a good strategy because it allowed me to completely ignore my pace. As a result, I never missed a week of running and skipped only three training runs due to aches and pains over the entire year.

And what's a recap without some stats? Just a bunch of prose, if you ask me. So here's my bullet list of stat like things:

  • I ran 238 times
  • I ran 2326.15km (1445.4 miles) (compared to 975.5km in 2009)
  • I averaged 193.85km per month (compared to 81.29km in 2009)
  • I averaged 44.61km per week (27.7 miles) for the year
  • I averaged 9.77km per run (compared to who knows what in 2009)
  • I managed 19 times to go over 50km for the week (compared to just once in 2009)
  • I managed twice to get over 80km (50 miles) for weekly mileage
  • Every month was over 100km, and 5 months were over 200km
  • I worked out 199 times at the gym and shook the runner's knee that plagued me for more than a year
  • Overall I managed 486 "activities" (including running, weights, walking, and stationary cycling), which averaged out to 1.33 activities per day! (And that doesn't include biking to and from work almost every weekday.)
  • And, most importantly, I lived to blog about it!
In short, 2010 was a memorable year that served to only whet my appetite for more. I have to be conscious of my health going forward and continue to stay as conservative as possible, but I am very much looking forward to going after more aggressive goals that are based a bit more on speed rather than distance in 2011.

Next up is to design a training plan for the next year, and to set some specific targets to shoot for. I just hope that the fine folks at the BAA don't mess too much with the BQ standards (as rumoured). The 3:15 marathon is a big goal for me and one I feel I have an outside chance of achieving. If it is made much more difficult I'll be depressed (for a short while)...

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Sunday, December 26, 2010

Back into the 20s

After I'd finished my marathon the recovery period lasted at least one month. Since the beginning of November I've been slowly working my mileage back up, but my long runs have been rather slow in coming. This was partly due to working on my turnover, which improved my training paces quite a bit. I'd also started to do more interval and tempo type runs, mostly on the treadmill, so my legs have been feeling the effects, as they say.

I had decided that my goal was to get back to running twenty kilometres for a long run before the year was out, and today, on the last possible Sunday of 2010, I finally managed it! Mother nature didn't make it pleasant, however, as I was met with -12C (-21C with the wind chill) weather in the Nation's Capital for my attempt. I had not prepared myself for this type of cold and, consequently, had not brought the right type of clothing. Be that as it may I was not about to let the chilly wind stop me from running and off I went after sleeping in until almost 9am.

The run was not particularly tough physically, but mentally it was rather difficult to keep a positive outlook as the distance slipped by at a snail's pace. My actual running pace was decent (5:09/km overall, 8:18/mile), but it sure felt longer than the 1:43:09 that it took to complete my 20km long run.

But it's done and I am satisfied that I have made it back into the 20s before the New Year.

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Friday, December 24, 2010

Steady State

It's all quiet on my front. Most Christmas Eve's in my past have been rather stressful and chaotic, but today (in big part due to my lovely wife) things are almost normal. The kids came by the office to meet Santa in the morning. One of them thought it was cool, the other (strangely enough the younger one) exclaimed "That Santa's a fake!" as soon as he laid eyes on him. I'm proud, yes. Just wish he hadn't done it in amongst a bunch of other kids who are still gripped by the magic of the Season!

Anyway, it is what it is...

This day also brought me two running gifts. The first in the form of another unspectacular 5km jaunt before breakfast. The second upon the treadmill in the form of a "steady state" run wherein I pushed myself a bit and survived to tell (type) the tale (in html table format, of course):

DurationSpeedPace (miles)Pace (km)
5:006.7mph8:57/mile5:34/km
30:008.3mph7:15/mile4:30/km
5:006.2mph9:39/mile6:00/km
40:007.9mph7:46/mile4:45/km

The total worked out to 8.4km on account of me deciding that I should take a full five minutes of cool down. Normally I'd stop at 5 miles, but I figured I'd keep jogging along as my heart rate diminished. I did take note that I made it through that distance in 37:49, which was neat to see (4:42/km, 7:34/mile). More importantly I ran for a full half-hour at faster than planned marathon pace based on the whole BQ standard for my age group! It wasn't easy, but I can't say it was the toughest workout ever either. I think as long as I do it in small increments I'll be able to stretch this pace up to over an hour's worth of running sometime near the end of Winter. I will admit that tempo runs are the toughest mentally to get up for and to complete. I suspect it's because they have a special combination of physical exertion and mental boredom that one has to overcome all at once.

Much like a race really, only without the satisfaction and landfill goodies at the end...

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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Toughing it Out

Boy, was I ever tired this morning! I couldn't sleep last night and at about 2am, right around the time of the Lunar Eclipse that was happening and visible in North America, I found myself outside on my back porch with my pyjama bottoms flapping in the wind looking up at the Moon. I was joined by my wife and then by Owen for the festivities, but Malks was not to be awakened and he remained blissfully asleep. The Moon was a deep orange-red at the time and I thought it was pretty cool.

By the time I was out for my morning run at 6am the Moon was a very bright white. I'd never seen it so bright before, but perhaps the effect was the result of the contrast created by the deep red that I saw earlier in the morning. Anyway, I had a decent though very slow and slightly creaky 5km run before breakfast.

Then, as I was heading to the gym at lunch, I was a bit concerned that I wouldn't be able to finish the planned workout on the treadmill. In my mind I was supposed to run thirty minutes at 4:30/km pace. Then, just as I rounded the corner next to the gym, I realized that today was a treadmill interval day! For some reason that seemed easier to tackle than the other and, as it turned out, I was right.

Here is the summary of the run:

DurationSpeedPace (miles)Pace (km)
5:006.2mph9:39/mile6:00/km
5:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
5:008.7mph6:53/mile4:17/km
4:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
4:008.7mph6:53/mile4:17/km
3:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
3:008.7mph6:53/mile4:17/km
2:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
2:008.7mph6:53/mile4:17/km
1:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
1:008.7mph6:53/mile4:17/km
4:106.2mph9:39/mile6:00/km
39:107.6mph7:50/mile4:52/km

The total was 8km (5 miles, actually and as usual). It was tough, but thoroughly doable and I feel like I am making progress.

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Monday, December 20, 2010

Monday is a Bummer

Each Monday not only brings the start of another work week, but more depressing than that it also means that my weekly mileage meter is rolled back to zero. After working all week to add some hard earned kilometres and diligently tracking them both in my training log, on Garmin Connect (when the bloody site isn't experiencing "scheduled maintenance" or just doing its typical crapping out whenever I try and input manual activities), and on the sidebar on this here blog it's not a very nice feeling to have to erase all that hard work and replace is with "0". No fun...

Case in point. For the past week I've been struggling through what was supposed to be a recovery week and not necessarily succeeding. My intent was to go easy, but instead I had some great runs and was not exactly "recovered" come Sunday. Hill running on the treadmill on Tuesday. A decent paced run indoors again on Friday. A few recovery paced short runs sprinkled here and there and I was a bit sore when heading out for my short long run in the falling snow.

Nevertheless, things started off creaky, but quickly loosened up. I found myself running at a decent pace, or what I thought was a decent pace because I didn't check the Garmin at all. It just felt decent. I had decided to keep the long run in the short range and settled on 14km. At the halfway mark I turned for home with a jump in my step and kept chugging along. With about four kilometres left to go what looked like an MMA fighter (or at least someone who might find cauliflower ears attractive) popped out in front of me and proceeded to run just a bit faster than me with an long springy stride that will eventually lead to injury if left uncorrected. Well, that was a challenge of sorts that I could not pass up. I increased my turnover just a touch and my pace quickened enough to keep up with my potentially dangerous and unwitting adversary. It was great! Although I was starting to labour a bit near the end, and long after my foe had stopped, the pace was not that difficult and I likely could have held it a bit longer. In the last kilometre I went even faster and it ended up being at my BQ pace (should the folks at the BAA decide to leave the qualifying standards where they are, though there are lots of hints and pranks around so one can't help but think that where there's smoke there's fire) at 4:35/km (7:22/mile).

Nice! Fourteen kilometres done at an average pace under five minutes per (4:58/km, to be exact, which translates to 7:59/mile). Not bad for me, but not exactly in the recovery range either.

Anyway, the weekly total at the end of the run was a decent 45.5km. I was happy to type that into the sidebar, and to update my monthly (139.5km) and yearly (2248.75km, which is less than three miles shy of 1400) totals. Then, Monday morning came and my 45.5 became a big fat ZERO.

Here we go again...

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Friday, December 17, 2010

Garmin, This Bugs Me!

I don't know about you, but I like my metrics. Yes, I am slow. Yes, my mileage is modest at best. But I still find a lot of satisfaction in watching my improvements add up on my computer. One of the ways in which I do this is the Garmin Connect service that replaced Motionbased a while back. Although it is far from perfect the site does serve an important purpose for my training since it gives me one place where I can input all my running, strength training, and whatever else I may be doing and then allows me to look at historical reports based on activity type.

Anyway, I know it's somewhat stupid but I do find tracking my progress important to maintaining my motivation at a high level. Freeze your nipples off cold and dark as hell in the early morning? I'll still go out even if it's only because I may not want that guilty feeling that comes with having nothing to enter into the training log.

So it has been somewhat frustrating that Garmin Connect has been on the fritz and will not allow me to enter any manual activities for the past two days. I've contacted their support department, and to their credit they have responded quickly. But solutions are not imminent. The last communication was a brush off: "There will be updates to the website next Wednesday. Wait and try after that."

Thanks for nothing.

At least I still managed to go out in the cold and slippery morning for a slow 5km run. And then at lunch I hit the treadmill for a steady 8km where I did the first five minutes at 6.2mph (6:00/km, 9:39/mile) and then jumped the speed up to 7.6mph (4:54/km, 7:53/mile) for the rest of the run. That means that I ran 7.22km at the faster pace, which is kind of cool. The incline was set at 1% for the whole thing and when I hit the Stop button at 5.00 miles on the nose the timer read 40:24.

Now I just want to load it up to the Interweb thing and release some more endorphins!!!

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Treadhills

That's what you get for trying something new I suppose. During my self-imposed "recovery" week I decided that simply running easy on a treadmill was too boring. Intervals were out of the question, so how could I make things more interesting?

Hills!!!

Well, virtual hills. I set the treadmill on the "Random Hills" setting at Level 12 and began to trot at 6.2mph for a nice 5 minute warm up. The machine cycled through some incline settings that topped out at 5% and I realized that the lowest setting was going to be 3% if I stayed at this Level. Since I was trying to take things easier I took the drastic step and dropped the difficulty Level down a whopping one setting to Level 10! Now the lowest the thing would get would be 2%.

OK, I can handle that (I thought to myself) and after the first five minutes I set the speed at 7.5mph (4:58/km, 8:00/mile in flat ground outdoor type conditions). That is when the fun started...

I quickly realized that I had set myself up for exactly the type of workout that I didn't want: intervals! Hill intervals no less!!! Did I quickly change the settings and choose to run a nice even training jog? Hells no!!!

The treadmill did this:

  • 1 minute @ 2%
  • 1 minute @ 5%
  • 1 minute @ 2%
  • 1 minute @ 6%
  • 1 minute @ 2%
  • 1 minute @ 7%
  • 1 minute @ 2%
  • 1 minute @ 8.5%
I cycled through this almost three complete times, but on the third repeat I hit the 30 minute mark, which happened to occur right after I finished the 7% incline setting interval, and changed the difficulty to Level 3 (0% low setting, 2.9% high setting). After all, I was supposed to be taking things easy and these were starting to get challenging!

Anyway, it was definitely not boring so I suppose it's a "win" on that front. Ultimately I ran 5 miles (roughly 8km) in 40:52 (5:05/km, 8:11/mile average pace). It was a good workout and I will definitely do this, or something like this, again. But as far as recovery week goes this was NOT part of the plan.

Perhaps I should have braved the -13C and really windy conditions that made it feel like -25C and taken an easy run before work?

Didn't think so.

But on a happy note this run pushed my monthly mileage up over the 100km mark, which means I've been into triple digits every month in 2010! Nice. Perhaps next year the goal will be to do the same in miles...

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Sunday, December 12, 2010

You Spin Me Right Round

Boy, did I ever NOT want to go for a run this morning! The weather forecast was for snow and rain and when I woke up I could tell it was half right. You can't hear snow falling, but you sure as hell can hear rain (especially if you have skylights, which we do). On top of that I could also hear the wind. There was lots of that too, just to add more crap to the crappy mix.

Anyway, I'd been thinking that after three solid weeks of running I am due for a nice recovery week and I was very close to starting that a day early. However, whatever makes it so that I am riddled with guilt if I miss workouts got me dressed and into the great outdoors for my long run.

Within minutes I was soaked and the front of my pants stuck to my legs like glue making running a bit more challenging. The wind was from the East and that's the direction I chose to start for obvious reasons. For whatever reason I decided to stick close to home and chose a large section of the neighbourhood to do some loops, therefore breaking up the wind in the face running a bit. However, this also made the run particularly boring and mentally more difficult than it should have been.

That being said, I'm glad to say that I persevered and ultimately had a decent run. I managed a soggy 16km at a nice pace of 5:09/km (8:17/mile). With this run my weekly total went over 50km for the second week in a row and now my yearly mileage has crossed above 2200km! (To be exact I am future gazing from my suped up and flux capacitored Delorean and sit at 2203.25 kilometres, and well into the Middle Ages as far as Imperial goes at 1369 miles).

As I noted above I am going to force myself to take a bit of a break in the form of a down week. Although my body is holding up well I know from past experience that running up the mileage for more than three weeks in a row ends more often than not in injury for my wonky body. It will be difficult to hold back, but I'm trying very hard to look at the big picture that includes two goal races next year, one of which will hopefully be a BQ attempt in the Fall.

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Friday, December 10, 2010

Double Double, Hold the Cream and Sugar

This shoulder injury, which finally seems to have turned a corner and allowed me to do a light upper body weights session on Wednesday, has afforded me the opportunity to do more two-a-days than ever. And I've been liking it! Makes me wonder if I will ever get back to doing three upper body strength training sessions per week ever again...

But that's another story. Today found me dragging my ass out of bed slowly and still making it out for a decent recovery paced 5km run. The snow will be coming to T-Dot today and over the weekend and with it warmer temperatures have arrived. I was treated to something just below freezing and it felt warm!

Then, at lunchtime, I went for another test of my hoped for 30k pace. Last week I did this steady-state run and managed to complete 20 minutes at 4:30/km pace. This time I was planning to go for a bit longer. As I walked to the gym I had my doubts that I would be able to complete the session, but was determined to grin and bear it. I was very tired for some reason that I'm sure has nothing to do with my six year-old waking up at 2am a couple of nights ago and the School Christmas Concert that went down last night and pushed things later than normal after a couple of hours spent in a stuffy gym that smelled more and more like and armpit with each passing minute. Nah, that couldn't be it!

Once on the treadmill things went quite well and I was pleasantly surprised to find that this time around the pace did not seem as arduous. Here's the breakdown of my 8km (5 mile) run:

DurationSpeedPace (miles)Pace (km)
5:006.2mph9:39/mile6:00/km
5:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
25:008.3mph7:15/mile4:30/km
3:516.2mph9:39/mile6:00/km
38:517.7mph7:46/mile4:50/km

Another small step towards my goal of qualifying for Boston next Fall!

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Tuesday, December 7, 2010

More Treadmill Intervals

For the second Tuesday in a row I managed a double consisting of an easy recovery run before breakfast and a bit of an interval session on the treadmill at lunch.

The morning run was done on sidewalks that were well covered with snow and with footing that was less than ideal. Nevertheless, it was good to be out running at a liesurly pace and completing a decent recovery-paced 5km.

At lunch I was feeling a bit lethargic, yawning constantly even before heading out to the gym, and I was a bit worried that I simply would not have a very good time of it. My plan was to do the same workout as last Tuesday, which consisted of a step down set of fast and faster intervals starting at 5 minutes and going down to 1 minute. Once I started running my warmup I decided that I would not let my tiredness hold me back and even made the decision to go just a bit faster on the fast intervals than last week.

It all worked out quite well and I even was able to push the speed up to 9mph for the last one minute interval! Not super fast or anything, but a good result for me. The plan is to someday do this type of workout where the recovery pace is my planned marathon pace, but I have a long way to go to achieve that feat. The total run added up to 5 miles, which is a bit more than 8km, but I am counting it as such in my training log since the difference is negligible even if it makes that final pace calculation less flattering (so I am using 5 miles for that math).

Anyway, here's yet another glorious HTML table thanks to cut-and-paste goodness:

DurationSpeedPace (miles)Pace (km)
5:006.2mph9:39/mile6:00/km
5:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
5:008.6mph6:59/mile4:20/km
4:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
4:008.6mph6:59/mile4:20/km
3:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
3:008.6mph6:59/mile4:20/km
2:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
2:008.6mph6:59/mile4:20/km
1:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
1:009.0mph6:40/mile4:09/km
4:206.2mph9:39/mile6:00/km
39:207.6mph7:52/mile4:53/km

And lastly, a big congratulations to Dylan Wykes who won the California International Marathon over the weekend leading pretty much the entire way! I ran into him last year at the Toronto 10 Miler where he ran by asking for directions to the starting line and so I've kind of followed him since then. He happens to be studying for his Masters at the same program where my wife earned her degree, which is also neat. Anyway, cool to see him win and get a massive PR in the process!

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Sunday, December 5, 2010

Cracking 50s Again

This week ended with a bit of a brain fart on my part, but all's well that ends well. After a nondescript 5km recovery run on Saturday morning I headed off on what was supposed to be another sixteen kilometre "long" run on Sunday. As I ran along not pushing the pace and just enjoying the run despite the chilly wind that blew directly in my face on the out portion I got a little mixed up with my mathematical calculations. I didn't realize until the turn at at the nine kilometre mark that 9 + 9 = 18km and not 16!!!

Silly, but I managed to get home in time to get ready and drive Owen to his basketball game. On top of that this marked the first time I cracked fifty kilometres for a week since my marathon in late September. The total ended up at 55km and I would have achieved the same result had I turned around at the appropriate spot on my long run. Nevertheless, I am pleased to be back up into the fifties for mileage.

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Friday, December 3, 2010

LeBron James - The Return Proves Disappointing, but Entertaining

Not much you can say about last night's return of LeBron James to Cleveland. Loved the crowd's venom, hated the result.

And I found this picture rather entertaining:


I've taken the liberty to circle the elements that are of particular interest:
  • The two guys flipping King James off
  • Craig Sager's dead rat of a rug (does he honestly think people don't notice!!!)
  • Yoko Ono preparing for a deep freeze or something at the expense of some unfortunate furry creature
I can't spot any sweatervests in the crowd, but I find those entertaining as well (for the record). I call them "swests", and so should you.

Oh yeah, I did some running today...

Before work I trotted out in the cold and dark for a nice recovery paced 5km, and it was pretty good. So good, in fact, that I wanted more!

Therefore, at lunch I hit the treadmill yet again and had a faster paced workout:

DurationSpeedPace (miles)Pace (km)
5:006.2mph9:39/mile6:00/km
5:007.5mph7:59/mile4:58/km
20:008.3mph7:15/mile4:30/km
5:007.3mph8:12/mile5:06/km
4:416.2mph9:39/mile6:00/km
39:417.6mph7:56/mile4:56/km

The total was 8km (adding up to 13km on the day and a second double of the week!) and that 20 minute section in the middle there was key to this run since the pace corresponds to faster than planned marathon pace (BQ style) and it's something I'm shooting for in the Around the Bay 30k next March. It's aggressive, for me, but I think doable with proper training.

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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

A Must Read for All Runners

No, not my blog (I'm not deluded), but rather a paper published recently by a smart guy who researches things that I can't understand at two little known places with no prestige called Harvard and MIT. Have you heard of them? Paper mills, I suspect...

That aside, it's still important for any marathoner, whether would be or experienced, to understand what their body is capable of on race day. More to the point, an answer to the all important question of what pace can I run in order to make it to the finish without "hitting the wall"?

Well, Mr. Rapoport has come up with a mathematical formula to answer that very thing. And if you don't like math he's taken it upon himself to also set up a web based calculator* to help you figure it out and still keep your sanity intact. (Where does he find the time!)

And if YOU don't have time to read the things he's taken the time to type out you can listen to the podcast that alerted me to this wonderful research (thanks again Dad!) here, or download the mp3 version here if you want to combine your next training run with some grey matter exercise.

Oh, and you're welcome... What this means, of course, is there will be less people staggering along at the end of your next race that you can blow by with an overinflated sense of satisfaction. But only if they read the stuff, and reading, as we all know, is really difficult unless it comes in the form of 140 characters or less, which invariably means that you are NOT reading this sentence or anything past the first paragraph...

Where was I? Oh yes, my legs are weak...

So, to give you a glimpse of what you should already know I must now REALLY concentrate on getting my legs not only stronger, but also bigger. Why? What, you haven't clicked the links and become wise in the ways of glycogen stores and wall hitting avoidance?! Sheesh...

Now onto some squats:

1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and-CRAMP!!!

Stupid science...

* The calculator is some JAVA based thing that doesn't seem to load on my computer. Now, I like my JAVA as much as the next guy, preferably with one sugar and two cream, but do I really need to replace my 2004 laptop to make this thing work? Bogus. And yes, I am using Nitmos' red asterisks thingy here. And no, I am not ashamed...

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