Into thin Air..

Are those mountains in the background? Yes, it probably a little too soon to already write a blog post for this, but I figure I should write it now instead of a couple days before when I'm anticipating I won't have tonnes of time to write a post. Really though, it's only 2.5 weeks until the biggest trip of my life. For those who don't know yet, May 17 I am heading up to 7000ft altitude in the absolutely stunning Wasatch Mountains of Park City, Utah, where the ski/bobsled venues were for the 2002 Games in Salt Lake. I will be there for one month the absorb the effects of the lower atmospheric pressure, and therefore the lower driving pressure for oxygen. I think it's pretty cool that many people go on long vacations hoping to come back a different person, whether more relaxed or more cultured, etc, but with a trip up to altitude to train hard for one month my body will literally be different. The blood running through my body will be nice and rich with hemoglobin, and the have the ultimate oxygen carrying capacity to my thirsty muscles, elevated buffering capacity, and improvement in the structural and biochemical components of muscles such as the capillary density and mito density. So yes, I will be different. On my trip I'm hoping to give a more detailed day-by-day summary of not only what I'm doing, but also I will take you through the physiological adaptations that my body will going through, for instance Day 1: Dehydrating itself to trick the brain into believing the hematocrit is not reduced. Truly, besides having the month to immerse myself into my running, and come back with a new sense of mental toughness, physiological prowess, and a new view of what a hill is, this trip is going to be so great because it really will involve applying what I've studied through four years of university. I can't tell you how many courses whether Kine 2010/2011, 4010, 4120, 4445, etc we have learned about the physiological effects of altitude, and me personally for my lecture on Carbohydrates discussed the nutritional implications athletes need to keep in mind at high altitude.

Picture doesn't say but to me from my own research this looks to be taken from the
Glenwild Loop - about 1.5 from my condo. 

Why Park City? Well, my condo sits at 7000 ft, the perfect altitude to lower Hb sat% sufficiently, and not too high so that I can't train at all. Park City is ranked in the Forbes Top 20 Prettiest Places in North America, and is home to over 350 miles of beautiful trails in the mountains (some trails go up to 10500ft) with varying terrain, from smooth single track to rocky mountain ridges, forested sections, open slopes, and everything you could ever need. The training spot is so well respected that the elite Nike Oregon Distance Project coached by Alberto Salazar, including stars like Galen Rupp, Mo Farah, and Dathan Ritzeihein choose Park City for their altitude training camp. The smooth flat Rail Trail about 200 ft from my condo door is completely flat and packed dirt/with some paved sections will be where I do marathon specific, or half-marathon specific workouts, and the Park City High School 8-lane rubber track on the other side of my condo building about 0.5 km will be my spot for fast stuff. Hopefully, the students don't mind, with a sweet cafeteria with a breakfast/lunch/dinner menu and a vegetarian option I should just bring my St. E uniform and go in for a cheap and tasty looking meal. Heck, an added benefit of being at mountain time: I can watch the West Coast Games without having to pull an all nighter. But really, the place looks great, and when I get back I will race as much as possible in the first month back. What do I expect my performance to be? I'm not sure, studies are varied over sea-level performance after altitude training. Some say it works some say it doesn't because they suggest that because of the altitude you can't get those some high-quality faster speed sessions in which means you may lose leg turnover, and the neuromuscular connection to fast leg speed. Plus there are some responders, and non-responders as is the case in most training protocols. Regardless of what the research says I look to the population based data over the control trials, because out of the 215 running performances by runners who have run under 13 minutes for the 5 km, 214 trained at high altitude. Based on that stat, I really stopped listening to studies which said altitude training may not work. So for my performance I say if I'm able to train hard (baring any tibia mishaps - knock on wood) there's no reason why I can't rock that races in the subsequent weeks and really make up for the dreadful winter/spring filled with injuries, and disappointment. With ample time between training sessions, I will hope to give daily updates, and pictures from my long time coming trip into thin air.

Commit to the Comeback

2.5 weeks since the beating at the Around the Bay 30k. My body and mind were broken. I left Hamilton, not knowing what to do or how to do it. I was completely lost. But a couple days went by, and a starting swimming, and doing crazy long high intensity weights/core workout in the basement. Even managed to get myself boxing on the heavy bag in the basement, and working the speedbag. I added new tougher core exercises that really got me sweating, and heart rate soaring. I don't know what my weight is right now, but I would have to guess even after only 2.5 wks, because I was hitting the weights, swim, and bike really hard (all strength based workouts), I've probably added a few pounds of pure muscle. Really seriously, I said to my Dad the other night after some power exercises with the medicine ball, that I would maybe have to back off a little cause I could feel the muscle actually packing on in my upper body, especially the back muscles (rhomboids, and lats from the swimming). But I decided today since my leg really was feeling quite good, for an easy 8k on the grass around my old elementary school St. Joseph the Worker. No world records, not that I was trying or anything, I just wanted to see if the tibia was better. My overall evaluation, was it was pretty good. Not 100%, but their was no pain for the majority of the run, and when I felt a slight ache it was nothing compared to what it had been. So, I'll see what it feels like tommorow, and keep taking it day by day at this point, at the current moment their are no races on the calender so basically I'm not in a rush. Obviously I would like to get back to running big mileage weeks again soon, but after having quite a bit of fun putting on muscle, biking, boxing, and swimming the last few weeks I'm content for the moment with taking it slowly. Having said that their are a few races that I'm dreaming of doing in the following months. For example, the Forest City 5000m (May 4th at night on the track under the lights) sounds really awesome. I've also been planning on taking a month long trip up to altitude in Park City Utah (7000ft at the hotel so perfect elevation for quality altitude training - not too too high and not too low, and trails that go well into the 10000s). On my return, I graduate and then was hoping to do a slew of racing in the subsequent weeks while still reaping the benefits of altitude (a half marathon, a 10k, another race on the track, and a 5k on Canada Day). That's the dream, and I have truly being having dreams about being back on the track again (some good, some bad). Something I've been using for inspiration to get believing that I can comeback is this clip from the Scotiabank Marathon last year. I trimmed the clip to about 2 and a half minutes. It may not look like much but our group is rolling at the point going 3:20/km and were roughly the 11k mark here about 37 minutes into the race. I like the song because the lyrics really describe what I was feeling at the point "feel your body groove." And it was I felt awesome here rolling along the waterfront with Canadian Record holder Lanni Marchant and Krista Duchene, along with 2:17 marathoner Rejean Chiasson. Obviously, me in the blue singlet if you couldn't tell. 

What Now?

If you've been staying up-to-date with my last couple post, you'll know that heading into Around the Bay this past weekend I was seriously questioning lining up due to a persistent, and agonizingly painful injury to my right tibia. But me being me, I decided to at least take the warm-up and make a decision if I felt the leg would be good enough to let me run. I warmed up with some running ABCs, and other drills, but due to the huge mass of people at the start line, and the race directors closing off access to the road in front of the start line, I couldn't actually get any strides at race pace in prior to the start. In the few drills that I could do there was some discomfort, but I figured once the adrenaline started pumping at the gun the leg would be okay. The gun sounded, and we were off. The six Kenyan runners in the race took off, and within the first 100m or so there was the pain. Maybe if I was able to do some strides before the race I would have realized that this wasn't going to work, but stubbornness and pride to finish what I've started made me keep going and just pray that eventually maybe after the first couple kilometers the pain would settle. Kenyan runners have this expression that if you look at your watch in the first couple kilometers then its going to be a long long race. Well, I looked at my watch within the first couple hundred meters, and then a few hundred meters later. "BEEP," one kilometer completed, okay 29 to go I thought to myself. A few hundred meters later, okay 28.6 kilometers to go. Very early on, this was not going well. My stride felt weak, and awkward. My breathing was very heavy, and my competition was looking smooth and relaxed. At the moment, I was running once again in Krista Duchene's group, the same group I was with for the first 21k of the Scotiabank Marathon last October. But, this was not the same Frank that raced in Toronto 5 or so months ago. I couldn't stay with them, I could feel my heart rate racing, as it was taking so much effort to pull my injured leg along. I drop back to the next group with a few young guys in my age group. I let both of them set the pace, both in front side by side, and me tucked right in behind. Despite my sweet drafting technique, the gentle but long grades of the new first half of the route and the still penetrating wind coming out of the north-east was taking its toll on me physically and psychologically. My leg was hurting, and I felt uncomfortable. I was looking at my watch way too often, and really had to push harder than the pace indicated. We weren't ripping or anything, but because behind our group of three there was no one close, I knew I would have no chance of making it through this race if I was dropped by these two guys, since the wind would just kill me on my own. So, I really had to push to stay with the guys who were letting loose on the downhills. This took alot of effort for me as I was clearly guarding my leg. My left was doing the majority of the work, as I was pretty much running on eggshells on my right side. Despite the pain, we made it to the 10k at 35:26 - I got the 10k at 34:47 for the Scotiabank, so I wasn't thrilled with the start, but I briefly felt a little hope. Although, I was still hurting, I kept thinking maybe it will open up, and I can rip it to the end, plus because we have gone out a little easier, I will probably have some energy down the stretch to hammer it. Plus, leading up to the 10 k point the three of us had picked off 3-4 of the guys from Krista's group, and there were only a couple people left in her group. So I was thinking despite, those Kenyans way up ahead, my positioning may not be too bad. Then, 12 k or so and the pain got a little worse and I had to drop back from the one guy left in our trio, the other dropped back at 10 k. I was one my own now, at 12 k, so I knew this was trouble. This was much too early with 18k left to be on my own, especially being on my own in pain, as it would make it very easy to slow substantially since nobody would be pulling me along forcing me to push through the pain. I popped my first gel right then, and carried on. Thoughts started flooding my head, and I tried so hard to stick with it. I passed Ryan (he was also running injured with IT band problems) from the run from the grapes, and that gave me a little surge. I tried to re-focus, and put down a solid surge to catch back up to a couple other guys, but the leg just hurt too much to really hammer it. At 14 trouble came, my left quad now was feeling pretty gnarly, probably from being pissed off at working so hard for

On my own too early, but trying hard to get back.

the last 50 minutes. Now I was in real trouble. Across a steel grate bridge beat the heck out of my tibia, and this was really getting ugly now. Got to 15k in 53:20, and although I thought that it meant I could still PB I if could hold on and repeat that for the next 15k, I also knew that I was it deep trouble with my situation, and that my pace was starting to show it over the next couple kilometers. At 17k, entered the 3:40 kilometer range, and just now was entering the hilliest, toughest part of the course. At 18k, on a downhill after a steep up, my left quad seized up and was really giving me issues now, having to almost come to a stop, and seriously, considered stopping when I saw the medical tent at the next water/aid station. I couldn't bear though the thought, of stopping with 11k left, I just had to push through and pray the quad injury would pass so atleast the tibia was "all" I had to deal with. I won't go into complete detail on the next 7k or so because a. you probably are tired of hearing me complain, and b. I really don't want to relive that experience. To sum it up, it was absolute agony, and had a surreal feeling. It was as if my eyes glazed over, I wasn't paying any attention to the spectators, the scenery, the massive hills. I just put my head down, and every step hurt me to the bone - literally and figuratively. I have never felt that amount of pain in my life, at this point I wasn't competing with my fellow competitors, I wasn't trying to stay on their tails as they passed me on the downhill leading up to the biggest hill on the course and on the Ontario Road Racing Circuit at 26k, I just wanted to get to the finish. I hobbled down the steep incline, and gave whatever I had left on that massive hill. The last three k to the finish was less than inspiring, as I got past by multiple people, some of which I had a half-marathon PB 9 minutes faster than theirs, I got to the line. It was over, finally. Final time was 1:51:38 for the 30k, so 3:44/km avg. Not only, was it two minutes slower than last year's time, at Scotiabank I got to the 30k mark in 1:46:15. Obviously, I was dissapointed.

Last few k and suffering.

I thought that was it, but the fun was just getting start. Monday, Tuesday and now today I am struggling to walk, the quad seems like it has healed, but my tibia is in shambles. The optimist in me thinks maybe that race was necessary, because if not for this clear message to take a break, I would have just kept running and pushing through the immense pain. For now, I can't entirely say what the gameplan is, when I will be running again, when I will race again. What I do know is that I never want to experience that feeling on race day again shown in the picture to right. Because of that I am 99.99% pulling out of the Ottawa Marathon in May, and really going to have to rearrange my entire season. Until, I heal up, I can't start marking any days on the Calender, or making any plans. I need to take note from what other athletes including a hero of mine Tiger Woods has done, just recently pulling out of the Masters to take the necessary time and get healthy. For me, the breakthrough last year served to be such a dangerous thing. It made me feel as though success was so close, and obviously I rushed trying to attain my goals. I need to teach myself, and accept that I am 21 years old, and that time is not an issue. I will not let my injuries over the last 4 months deter me, and block my path to success. Although, I am far from my dream, I still believe that I have the talent and discipline, and that if I can break through the shackles of injury and run freely, I can someday run for Canada on the international stage. I have to realize that it takes time, and the process does not happen over a year like last year, or two. I need to be patient, and if I continue to work hard, but also be smart and realistic, everything will someday fall into place.