Thursday, October 29, 2015
High Motivation can be incredibly Dangerous
I don't know if I have divulged the information yet, but in the summer I committed to running the Houston marathon on January 17. A lot of thought went into my decision, including what it would be like having to run my high-high mileage weeks in the heart of winter in the snow belt. Despite the weather here, and then having to run in 20 degree weather in Houston on the day being a big point of debate for myself, I was really excited to take on the challenge. September was really a great month of training for me, and probably the most consistent amount of time i've been able to train for a really long time. I was consistently logging 100 mile plus weeks with a lot of speed word in the process. My hip pain that has lasted for seemingly forever began to subside early in the month, and was feeling great. Then October rolled around the corner, and I was eager to finish the cross country season with a strong performance in Queens (10k) that would propel me to competing in the Canadian Championships in early November. About 10 days out from Queens though my hip problem re-emerged and got progressively worse by the day. My expectations went from the possibility of running a pb at Queens to maybe not being able to race at all. I had two decent workouts the week leading into the race, and figured that if I warmup up well and got my adrenaline really pumping then I could maybe still run well, maybe not a pb but a decent time. The day was windy and cold, and my mindset just wasn't right. I like to think of it in terms of what my focus is on. For example, at Western (8k) a few weeks before all my focus was on the first 1.5 miles which were all uphill and finished with a very steep hill. My focus was on getting through that bit without stringing myself out too much and then looking to pick off competitor by competitor in the final few miles. That plan worked very well as I was probably in around 80-90th place after the first couple miles and finished in 27th in 26:09. Overall my focus was completely external, compared to just prior to the race start in Queens where focus was entirely internal focusing on nothing about my competition, the battle within our team to make top 7 to be able to represent Mcmaster at nationals, or about the course. Instead my focus was solely about my hip and whether it would blow up or not. The race started at a conservative pace, and ended that way. I got into a rhythm running 3:15/km and even though aerobically speaking it felt incredibly easy, when I looked ahead to the next group up I just kept thinking about what would happen if I started pushing it hard to get up there, would the hip blow up if I started surging and blasting the uphills. So instead I kept the pace the same, and finished 32:30ish according to my watch (there was no chip time). Even though a mid-32 10k is nothing to be ashamed about, I was really upset seeing fellow competitors collapsed huffing and puffing on the ground at the finish, whereas I felt like I had so so much left in the tank. In fact, my Dad said after the race he didn't even think I was sweating and said throughout the race, where he got to see me on many different occasions (it was 4 laps of a winding course so it was great for spectators), and said he hadn't seen me look the comfortable in a race before. Even my coaches after the race said I looked incredibly smooth throughout, but I hate to break it to you all but when I'm racing I usually have a very distinct pain face/style of running. As my Dad said during a big workout in the weeks leading up to the race (the video i posted earlier) I normally look like I'm trying to accelerate more and more throughout a race, or in that case an interval. After the race I started thinking about Houston. I ran on Sunday, but had to cut my long run short because of severe pain in the hip. I figured I'd ice it, take Monday off, and then re-focus for the week ahead. Oddly enough, I ended up being a solid week of training I ran 165 kilometres with 3 workouts including possibly one of the best long run workouts of my life on Sunday. The workout on Sunday, was a new thing I would be trying in this build up to Houston which was focusing the majority of my effort on having high-quality long runs. It was a 20 mile (32k) run, with a 2.5 mile warmup, then 4 mile, 3 mile, 2 mile, and then 1 mile at Marathon pace or a little faster, then a 3.5 mile cooldown. So overall it would be 10 miles (16.1k) of hard running in the midst of a 32km run. My goal set back long before I even signed up for Houston was to run a 2:27:42 marathon which would equate to 3:30/km average pace throughout. The 4 miles (6.4k) was done in 22:39 which is 3:32/km pace, and the 3 miles (just short of 5k) was done in 16:57 also 3:32/km. Both of these repetitions were done on a constant uphill segment of the rail trail, and into the wind that day. Then turned back and did the 2 miles in 10:57 (3:25/km), and the 1 mile in 5:20 (3:20/km) which really made me happy since this was already like 24 or so k into the run so to pump out a 5:20 without a problem was a great feeling. I was so pumped up after this workout, I felt great, the hip was not a problem, and I was feeling incredibly optimistic about Houston. Monday came around, and again I was incredibly pumped to start up another good week, and then that would set me up for a monster week from the Nov 2-8 since I have it off from school just before starting my next placement. Got out of bed, and boom, my left knee, ya I said my left knee not my right hip which was the problem, completely buckled. It felt like someone jabbed and then twisted a knife into my patellar tendon. I couldn't extend my knee without this type of pain, and very nearly fell down the stairs when I had to carry my bike down the stairs of the apartment building to go to school. I pedalled to school that day pretty much one legged, only using the left leg to pull up on the pedal and not at all to push down since extending the knee was the biggest problem. I obviously decided to take the day off running and would bike instead on my cervelo. The knee was not much of a problem on Elektra (that's her name) since when I was in the aero bars my knee was never getting into that painful position. I had so much drive and motivation to keep the build alive for Houston, that I decided to run the workout I had planned early in the morning on Tuesday. The knee hurt bad at the start, but it seemed to loosen up, and was not much of an issue during the 1k intervals at 3:11-3:12/km. In the evening I had another run to do on the schedule, but took one or two strides and said there was no way this would be possible. The knee at this point was in an incredible amount of pain. And my hip was also hurting. I can run through one injury, I've done so many times, but when i don't know which side to limp on I have to call it. Wednesday I took off again from running, and biked on Elektra for 2 hours without any problem. Today, after my final exam and told myself the goal was just 30 minutes. I tried, took a couple strides and again the pain was brutal. Turned back in and started this post. My favourite runner, who I've been following since I started this journey in first year of undergrad, Ryan Hall, said that if you are a big dreamer you need to be very resilient because your going to get knocked down a lot, and right now I feel like I've been taking beating. I thought with this latest string of injuries, in the last 24 months, yes a whole 2 years, I can honestly say that I've been healthy and able to run without limitations, for less than 12 weeks. There was the 4 weeks in Park City, the few weeks afterwards, and a few weeks here in September and early October. When I signed up for Houston and mapped out my build-up to Scotiabank in 2013, compared to my build to Houston to match week to week to give me a gage of where I should be at. According to that this week should have been 185 kilometres, and next week should have been 200k corresponding to the Aug 5-11th week in 2013. Instead this week I am currently sitting at 16k. Training for 2:27:42 was going to be a challenge period, but to have to train with an injury (or multiple injuries in this case) is almost impossible. So the plan at this point is up in the air. If the knee magically gets better overnight then thank God, and maybe I can still manage to run the race even without good training at this critical time point. Many of you might be thinking that I'm over-reacting how is this possibly a critical time point when there is like 11 weeks or so to go until the race. Well let me put it this way, in reality 4 weeks out from the race is my last monstrous 200k+ training week cause then the 3-week taper begins running 180, 150, then race week which was 103 with the race included. In addition since this week would end up now being a tiny mileage week I'm not going to go straight to a 200k week next week. So I would probably want to do 100 mile week to get back into things, then 180, then the 200. But wait that mean 3 weeks to get back, well now its the week before December. The race is january 17, and the taper begins December 28. So really that mean you would only be able to get in 4 weeks of high-quality training. See what I mean, time is tight. Anyways I''ll update you through my twitter if any miracle happens.
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
Workout Sunday
Just click watch on Youtube so you can change to 720p. The sounds isn't great so if you want to here what I'm saying at start and throughout you'll have to turn volume probably to max. Final Splits: 3:14, 3:17, 3:12, 3:12, 3:07, 3:08, 3:04, 3:03.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
The Road Ahead and how I got here in the first place
This weekend I ticked off another thing on my list of goals to accomplish in running: Compete in a collegiate cross country race and be competitive. You need to understand although I've finished 1st overall in a total of 15 different road races ranging from the 5k to the half marathon, in high school I was a little better than an average runner. Sure I was the fastest distance runner in my high school by a landslide, I remember literally lapping my peers over and over again during "practices," but when it came to the big time races I always finished just outside OFSAA standards. Three times on the track - twice in the 3000 and once in the 2000m steeplechase, I finished 6th when top five made it to OFSAA. In fact during the steeplechase it was a competitor in another heat who beat me to finish 5th by less than 1 second. Then in cross country I finished twice in the teens once 18th once 17th when top 15 made OFSAA. In high school, I never really trained, and never received any help learning how to train. I often think about where I would be today if in high school I went to an athletics focused school like Bill Crothers or Cardinal Carter. It really is amazing to me to see the difference from where I was coming out of high school compared to my teammates. Amazing to think that I am not one of few, no I am the only person on the McMaster roster who did not compete at OFSAA, even more so not only did the guys on my team all go to OFSAA, most have have placed very high in the standings and medalled in the races over the years. Speaking now with all these guys however it makes me realize the incredible difference between our backgrounds and perhaps why I always finished just barely on the outside looking in. In high school, all these guys actually ran. Now what I mean is they actually had a structured training program that they followed, a training program that included base training, a strength based workout stage, and then race-specific workouts leading into various races in cross country or track. They actually ran solid mileage, more than most average marathoners run in their training. With the combination of a solid base of mileage, with strength and speed workouts built on top of it really it isn't a mystery why I could not break through and take these guys when it came to the central meet at york or the regional meet at Boyd Park. You know what my training entailed:
Cross Country Coach (French/Religion Teacher) First practice of the week: Today try to run some laps.
Second Practice of the Week: Today lets aim to run a few laps again. And so on for the rest of the season.
As you can see it was a sophisticated training method. There was no speed work, no base mileage, really no mileage to speak of. I was running only four times a week, and probably a few kilometres (maybe 4-8k at most if I was to guess- I didn't wear a watch or anything) each session. Compare that to most of the rookies on the cross/track team currently who were averaging probably somewhere in the 60-80km range if not more back when they were in high school. But then came my undergrad at York University, and a track and field course that I took. Going into the course I really had no intention of pursuing running competitively. Part of the course entailed running or participating in various track and field events and based on your results you were given a mark out of 10. We completed all the events including triple jump, shot-put, javelin, discus, the 60m dash, 200m, a few others, and then the one everyone dreaded: the mile. I remember everyone in the class shrieking at the thought of having to run a mile, and then being marked on your time. If you ran a sub 5 minute mile (faster than 3:06/km) you received 10/10. The race started, I lapped everyone multiple times, and received 10/10. I don't remember the exact time, but it was sub 5. Afterwards I thought hey maybe I'm better at this running thing then I thought. I knew from cross country practices even in elementary school that I was able to seemingly run forever. Maybe not fast at the time, but the distance of the practice or race was never an issue. Then don't quite know what I was thinking at the time since most at this point may choose to sign up for a local 5k or something, but I decided right then and there that I was going to run the Mississauga Marathon. And no I wasn't going to run just one marathon that year, I signed up for two. This is a guy who at this point had never even competed in a road race before. Sure maybe the Terry Fox run every year, but never a competitive race. I don't think I even knew how far a marathon was. Then I remember watching this documentary called the Spirit of the Marathon which documented 5 runners, two elite and three average runners, and their journeys to the Chicago Marathon. After watching that documentary I can say my life changed. I became absolutely consumed and obsessed by the challenge that the marathon represented. I watched that documentary so many times I could probably recite the lines for you. I don't really remember much about my build to my first in Mississauga in terms of what mileage I was running but I do remember various runs here or there. For example I remember the first time I ran a 32 km long run. I remember everything about it from the route I took to the feeling I got near the end. I really knew absolutely nothing about fuelling at the time, so I took no gels, no water, nothing with me except for my start and stop, no bells or whistles stop watch. And I remember it was the first time I would ever run what now seems like a small incline of a hill up Arnold in Thornhill. I remember making the turn up Arnold from Yonge St, and as I approached the 29-30km of the run, feeling like I couldn't run straight, was getting extremely light headed but battled on and wandered through in a daze-like state the last couple kilometres of that run. But instead of deterring me, that run motivated me even more and a few weeks later completed my first marathon in Mississauga on a cold and rainy morning, qualified for Boston right there, won my age group, and my journey had begun. A few months later, and more training, I took 16 minutes off my time to run 2:56 at the Scotiabank Marathon where I probably could have actually ran 2:50-2:52 if not for my hamstring completely seizing up on me going on the overpass over the DVP - damn DVP, always a pain. Sidebar: didn't even know the splits still existed for that race on sportstats, and didn't actually realize I got to the 10k mark at 39 minutes, then the 30km mark at 1:57!! 1:57 holy smokes that's 3:56/km for 30km. My goodness I ran well,, not to sound too vain. But wow that's with no real structure in a training program, no workouts, just running. Was 2:18 at 35km, then at 38-39ish was when the pace fell off the rails from the hamstring. I remember literally falling to the ground screaming in pain (well swearing/screaming) starting to ball my eyes out than got up and hobbled to the finish line with one hand basically holding/splinting my hamstring in place, and cringing with every movement and every stride.
2012 wasn't quite as magical. After Scotiabank in 2011 I was sidelined for 2 months with my first injury, a stress fracture in my tibia, came back, but soon after had to reduce my training volume again due to IT band syndrome in January and February of 2012. That year I didn't have any huge breakthroughs running 2:52 in Scotiabank in October after I went out little too fast with a 37 minute 10k split, and 1:20 through the halfway point, fell off the rails a bit at the 35-40k split, but did manage to actually finish quite strong. However, that year I did complete my first and second half marathons, and did learn a lot more about training when I started an excel spreadsheet tracking all my runs and mileage. Anyways, 2013 you guys all know about since that's when I started blogging, and when I really had a huge breakthrough season with pb's all over the map, a 1:12:22 half, a 32:40 10k, and finishing with the build and subsequent race of my life at Scotiabank 2013 with a 2:34 marathon.
The point of why I was writing this was showing where I came from and how I started, to last weekend competing in the University of Buffalo Stampede Cross Country Race. You could say I come full circle. 6 or 7 years ago you could ask me if this day would ever come of competing on and scoring points for the second best cross country team in the country, and I would've probably laughed. The race was on Grand Island in New York State. It was pouring rain all day, the course was wet and sloppy, but I felt pretty good to get after it. Well pretty nervous, but I mean the body felt good. We started and rolled quickly through the first mile in 4:58 (3:05/km), and then through 5k in 15:50. Felt good for the majority of the race except 1 stretch from about 5-6 and a bit kilometres (it was an 8km race) where I felt my breathing getting a little out of control, but finished strong for 26 minutes (3:14/km). Overall as I said to my Dad before the race, who came to drop off my passport the night before, if I finished 26 minutes, 28 minutes, or 30 minutes, whatever the time, if at the end of the race I could walk without pain in my tibia/hip I was happy. In the end, 26 minutes for a cross country race is pretty darn good, heck on the road that would be pretty decent. I just looked up a couple 8k races from last year, 26 minutes would give me 4th overall at Harry Spring Run Off even if I didn't take like 30 seconds off the time to estimate what 26 minutes is equivalent to on the road. So now onto this week. As a team we are starting to pound big mileage. This week I'm on track for about 170km. Workouts have been going really well, as I'm starting to feel more an more comfortable with the faster paces. Still this biggest thing I need to improve are my downhills. During the race, I noticed how well most of my competitors took this one very short but steep downhill on the course whereas I jaunted down carefully in comparison. Even one of my coaches commented after the workout on Tuesday that he noticed I'm tensing up on the downhills, and I just have to trust myself and let everything go to accelerate down the hill. Up next is the Western Invitational on the 26th which is one of the most difficult cross country courses in Ontario. Until then I'm continuing to focus on building big mileage and focusing a lot on strength which our new strength and conditioning program designed for our team seems to really be helping with. I won't taper at all for this one since the big one of the year to determine if I get to go to the Ontario and Canadian Championship will be the 10k in Queens on the 17th of October. Here are a few nice pics from the race:
Cross Country Coach (French/Religion Teacher) First practice of the week: Today try to run some laps.
Second Practice of the Week: Today lets aim to run a few laps again. And so on for the rest of the season.
As you can see it was a sophisticated training method. There was no speed work, no base mileage, really no mileage to speak of. I was running only four times a week, and probably a few kilometres (maybe 4-8k at most if I was to guess- I didn't wear a watch or anything) each session. Compare that to most of the rookies on the cross/track team currently who were averaging probably somewhere in the 60-80km range if not more back when they were in high school. But then came my undergrad at York University, and a track and field course that I took. Going into the course I really had no intention of pursuing running competitively. Part of the course entailed running or participating in various track and field events and based on your results you were given a mark out of 10. We completed all the events including triple jump, shot-put, javelin, discus, the 60m dash, 200m, a few others, and then the one everyone dreaded: the mile. I remember everyone in the class shrieking at the thought of having to run a mile, and then being marked on your time. If you ran a sub 5 minute mile (faster than 3:06/km) you received 10/10. The race started, I lapped everyone multiple times, and received 10/10. I don't remember the exact time, but it was sub 5. Afterwards I thought hey maybe I'm better at this running thing then I thought. I knew from cross country practices even in elementary school that I was able to seemingly run forever. Maybe not fast at the time, but the distance of the practice or race was never an issue. Then don't quite know what I was thinking at the time since most at this point may choose to sign up for a local 5k or something, but I decided right then and there that I was going to run the Mississauga Marathon. And no I wasn't going to run just one marathon that year, I signed up for two. This is a guy who at this point had never even competed in a road race before. Sure maybe the Terry Fox run every year, but never a competitive race. I don't think I even knew how far a marathon was. Then I remember watching this documentary called the Spirit of the Marathon which documented 5 runners, two elite and three average runners, and their journeys to the Chicago Marathon. After watching that documentary I can say my life changed. I became absolutely consumed and obsessed by the challenge that the marathon represented. I watched that documentary so many times I could probably recite the lines for you. I don't really remember much about my build to my first in Mississauga in terms of what mileage I was running but I do remember various runs here or there. For example I remember the first time I ran a 32 km long run. I remember everything about it from the route I took to the feeling I got near the end. I really knew absolutely nothing about fuelling at the time, so I took no gels, no water, nothing with me except for my start and stop, no bells or whistles stop watch. And I remember it was the first time I would ever run what now seems like a small incline of a hill up Arnold in Thornhill. I remember making the turn up Arnold from Yonge St, and as I approached the 29-30km of the run, feeling like I couldn't run straight, was getting extremely light headed but battled on and wandered through in a daze-like state the last couple kilometres of that run. But instead of deterring me, that run motivated me even more and a few weeks later completed my first marathon in Mississauga on a cold and rainy morning, qualified for Boston right there, won my age group, and my journey had begun. A few months later, and more training, I took 16 minutes off my time to run 2:56 at the Scotiabank Marathon where I probably could have actually ran 2:50-2:52 if not for my hamstring completely seizing up on me going on the overpass over the DVP - damn DVP, always a pain. Sidebar: didn't even know the splits still existed for that race on sportstats, and didn't actually realize I got to the 10k mark at 39 minutes, then the 30km mark at 1:57!! 1:57 holy smokes that's 3:56/km for 30km. My goodness I ran well,, not to sound too vain. But wow that's with no real structure in a training program, no workouts, just running. Was 2:18 at 35km, then at 38-39ish was when the pace fell off the rails from the hamstring. I remember literally falling to the ground screaming in pain (well swearing/screaming) starting to ball my eyes out than got up and hobbled to the finish line with one hand basically holding/splinting my hamstring in place, and cringing with every movement and every stride.
2012 wasn't quite as magical. After Scotiabank in 2011 I was sidelined for 2 months with my first injury, a stress fracture in my tibia, came back, but soon after had to reduce my training volume again due to IT band syndrome in January and February of 2012. That year I didn't have any huge breakthroughs running 2:52 in Scotiabank in October after I went out little too fast with a 37 minute 10k split, and 1:20 through the halfway point, fell off the rails a bit at the 35-40k split, but did manage to actually finish quite strong. However, that year I did complete my first and second half marathons, and did learn a lot more about training when I started an excel spreadsheet tracking all my runs and mileage. Anyways, 2013 you guys all know about since that's when I started blogging, and when I really had a huge breakthrough season with pb's all over the map, a 1:12:22 half, a 32:40 10k, and finishing with the build and subsequent race of my life at Scotiabank 2013 with a 2:34 marathon.
The point of why I was writing this was showing where I came from and how I started, to last weekend competing in the University of Buffalo Stampede Cross Country Race. You could say I come full circle. 6 or 7 years ago you could ask me if this day would ever come of competing on and scoring points for the second best cross country team in the country, and I would've probably laughed. The race was on Grand Island in New York State. It was pouring rain all day, the course was wet and sloppy, but I felt pretty good to get after it. Well pretty nervous, but I mean the body felt good. We started and rolled quickly through the first mile in 4:58 (3:05/km), and then through 5k in 15:50. Felt good for the majority of the race except 1 stretch from about 5-6 and a bit kilometres (it was an 8km race) where I felt my breathing getting a little out of control, but finished strong for 26 minutes (3:14/km). Overall as I said to my Dad before the race, who came to drop off my passport the night before, if I finished 26 minutes, 28 minutes, or 30 minutes, whatever the time, if at the end of the race I could walk without pain in my tibia/hip I was happy. In the end, 26 minutes for a cross country race is pretty darn good, heck on the road that would be pretty decent. I just looked up a couple 8k races from last year, 26 minutes would give me 4th overall at Harry Spring Run Off even if I didn't take like 30 seconds off the time to estimate what 26 minutes is equivalent to on the road. So now onto this week. As a team we are starting to pound big mileage. This week I'm on track for about 170km. Workouts have been going really well, as I'm starting to feel more an more comfortable with the faster paces. Still this biggest thing I need to improve are my downhills. During the race, I noticed how well most of my competitors took this one very short but steep downhill on the course whereas I jaunted down carefully in comparison. Even one of my coaches commented after the workout on Tuesday that he noticed I'm tensing up on the downhills, and I just have to trust myself and let everything go to accelerate down the hill. Up next is the Western Invitational on the 26th which is one of the most difficult cross country courses in Ontario. Until then I'm continuing to focus on building big mileage and focusing a lot on strength which our new strength and conditioning program designed for our team seems to really be helping with. I won't taper at all for this one since the big one of the year to determine if I get to go to the Ontario and Canadian Championship will be the 10k in Queens on the 17th of October. Here are a few nice pics from the race:
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015
A New Challenge
Hey all how are things. Taking the week off from doing a formal post for the weekly workout series. If your still eager and really want a workout here's a nice one I've done many times, it's a ladder style workout so it is aimed at speed development.
The Workout:
Warmup+Drills
3-5 sets (depending on abilities) of 600, 400, 300, 200 all at around 5k pace
So you run the 600m then 1:15 rest, 400m then 1 min rest, 300 then 45 second rest, then 200m and 1 min rest before starting the next set with the 600. This workout is a very high intensity one because as the speed increases the rest between intervals decreases and the 1 min between the 200m and the subsequent 600 is very difficult. Anticipate that your heart rate will be very high and you'll be breathing hard throughout the workout. Like I said it's ladder or pyramid type workout in this a broken 1500 since the 600+400+300+200 all add up to 1500m, and feel free to go after it anywhere from 3-5 times. If your still relatively new to workouts do three of them so 4.5k total of hard running, if you love pounding big long sets 5 of them will leave you winded and more than satisfied afterwards. Any questions regarding the workout feel free to comment below.
Now onto the main purpose of this post. A couple weekends ago I traveled to Wilson, New York to compete in my first ever triathlon. This time however, since my hip has continued to give me problems and after the Canada Day 5k I had to take about a week and bit off due to persistent pain in the hip, back and tibia my mileage and speed work was not up to snuff to give the full olympic distance a go. So I decided to compete in the aqua bike event which is the exact same as the olympic triathlon for distance on the swim and bike just no run afterwards. So just the first two legs of the triathlon but still a formal event which many people willingly choose to do because they dislike running, but it also worked great for an injured runner like myself. So the task at hand was a 1500m open water swim in Lake Ontario, then a 40k bike. When I arrived at the race I could see immediately that the swim leg of the race was going to be brutal. The water had big waves about a 1m high (I think the race director said 3.5 feet) and after doing a tiny warmup swim I was actually scared to go back into the water. This wasn't really the usual pre-race jitters, this was more being downright scared that I was going to choke on water from the huge waves coming towards us on the way out and drown. Heck this was only my second ever open water swim so I was already unexperienced swimming in the open water let alone in such choppy conditions. Suffice to say I was starting to miss the pool lines at the bottom of the clear blue lanes in Thornhill. But I hadn't come all this way to give up. In addition since the water was so dangerous the race director who had already doubled the on-water firefighter staff who would travel alongside the swimmers in a boat in case anyone needed rescue or wanted to quit, and called the coast guard to check if the water was safe-ish for swimming, decided to cut the swim from two laps of the 750m course (1500m total) to one lap. This helped to ease a little bit of the anxiety at least. Soon the gun sounded and we were off. I started off just trying to focus and stay as relaxed as possible. I knew if I started panicking about the choppy conditions I would be in trouble, so I just tried to focus on one thing and one thing only: the orange bouy way out there marking the turn to the right (it was a square loop). I was really unable to find any rhythm whatsoever since the waves kept breaking up my stroke. I would basically reach my arm out to catch for my next pull and would have my hand either meet the water earlier than I anticipated due to a wave, or delayed longer than I anticipated from being at the depression in the water from an oncoming wave. But just kept focusing on the bouy ahead and it did seem like I was moving decently. Made the turn and swimming perpendicular to the waves now I could feel my stroke amping up and was starting to now focus on pulling my hand through the water harder and harder. I started take 4-5 strokes between breaths and was starting to pass bunches of swimmers. Eventually made the turn back to shore and despite having my rhythm throw off again due to the waves, heard the race director as as exited the water say that I was first place out the water. I was pretty stunned and found later that I held 1:28/100m for the 750m swim which I probably could just barely do in a pool let alone choppy open water, so I was stoked.
Ran up the stairs out of transition and did an okay job getting through transition. I was pretty happy how quickly I was able to get my wetsuit off, but was a little slow wasting time grabbing a sip of gatorade. Was through transition and next up was a 40km bike ride. My game plan was to hold my FTP (functional threshold power) which based off an all out 20 minute effort about 3 weeks before the race was 266 watts, but if multiplied by 0.95 is 252 watts for an hour long effort, which is roughly what I was aiming for. First 5k flew by and I could feel like I was in a really good rhythm. Was about 50m back from the only person ahead of me at this point(the guy had passed me in transition from the water to the bike). I was trying to just hold my wattage not by mashing on my pedals but rather by maintaining a very high cadence at about 106 rpm. As we made the turn back south there was the slightest grade uphill probably 1.5-2% only, and I gathered myself to make a decisive pass. Held about 350 watts for 30 seconds or so then burst passed at 550 watts. From this point on just kept flying at 106 rpm, and one 5k split I had averaged 114 rpm. In the end my average power was exactly 251 watts, but normalized power was 257 watts. I finished first place completing the 40 km bike course in 59:05 which is an average speed of 40.5 km/hr. I was more than happy with this result. It was also a great learning experience to understand what it was like swimming in open water, going through transition, and experiencing the feeling that my legs would go through during a bike race. It was a very different kind of fatigue/hurt than I would experience during road races of various distances. This feeling was more like constantly going back and fourth over the "red line" crossing into anaerobic fuel sources and a kind of burning sensation in the legs throughout the bike portion of the race.
A couple weeks and tempo runs later, I felt I was ready to give the full olympic triathlon a go. The race I chose to compete in was the Peasantman Steel Intermediate (Olympic) Triathlon in Penn Yan, New York - the Finger Lakes region. The Steel race distance prides itself on being just that much more difficult then the ironman distance, in that the leg distances are just slightly longer. So instead of the typical Olympic distance which is 1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run, the Steel Olympic Distance is a 1 mile swim (1609 m), 47.5 km bike, and a 10.5 km run. Arrived in Penn Yan the day before the race to scout out the course and try my own first wetsuit, the Nineteen Frequency. The water was beautiful but quite warm with the wetsuit on, and was unsure if there would allow wetsuits or not based on the temperature - luckily enough the temperature was just barely wetsuit legal by the USAT standards so I was excited. I had run that morning, and then biked the 47.5 km course to scout it out. What I learned was that the swim was the only flat part of the race course. There was hill after hill out on the course, including one 7 mile long hill (that's 11.2 km). So ya I was kind of now nervous because my bike and its gear ratio was set up to pound a flat course. Also in the back of my mind was the fact that the Tuesday before the race going up a big hill near Hwy 9, my chain had actually snapped into pieces. I must have made a poor gear change and not realized that I had done so and then the added tension now on a misaligned chain/chainring must have been enough to snap it into pieces. So even though it was probably my own fault, and now I had a high end dura-ace chain on the bike, it was still in the back of my mind. My Dad took notes for me at the athlete's meeting which was going on while I was on the bike, gave me the run down in the car on the way back to the hotel and we were set for Sunday.
Woke up Sunday had the usual breakfast, and went off to the race site. We arrived in great time checked my bike into transition got my body paint, timing chip and was ready to go. Just as I was about to start body gliding my entire body for the wetsuit about 50 minutes before the race I looked at another competitor who was in the half steel distance getting ready to start his race (it started at 7:30 mine was at 8). I saw him strapping on his goggles, and just then realized that I left my super expensive Speedo Fastskin Elite goggles in the hotel room. Now for legal purposes I won't devulge how far the hotel room was from the race site but my Dad all out sprinted to the car and somehow got back to the hotel and then back to the race site to hand me the goggles with ten minutes to spare before the race. I guess it was good traffic cops were manning the turns on the bike course and not on Pre-Emption Rd back to Geneva. I managed to get my wetsuit on by myself, and other than the minor heart attack when realizing I forgot the goggles, I felt pretty good. Hopped in the water warmed up a little and before you knew it we were off. I started out very fast, and quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to do any bilateral breathing for this race since the sun to the east was just so low still in the sky and too bright to look that way. I started regretting not having more shaded triathlon specific goggles (mine are competitive swimmer goggles) but soon would take advantage of the huge benefit these goggles offer. I started off to the left and when I breathed to the right I could see a few swimmers ahead and to my right. I worked hard to veer that direction and eventually got within a few meters of the two of them. I was breathing hard already at this point but my stroke felt awesome. I felt in control and powerful. Oddly enough although on the bike I prefer to sit in a slightly lower gear and maintain a very high cadence, in the water I prefer a slower stroke per minute rate but pulling hard on each stroke. as we approached the turn the two of them were really pushing hard and I was needed to work very hard to stay up with them. Witnessed some awesome technique by one of them to turn around the bouy, whereby they flipped onto to their back and rotated around the bouy using a couple backstroke pulls. Seemed to help them take the turn really quick and not lose any speed. This will definitely be a strategy that I will use next time. On our way back I started hammering, swimming at 1:07/100m for a bit as the leader seemed to really kick in into high gear on the way back to shore. That's faster than I've ever swam in my life. Then my goggles came into good use. When I caught up with the leader the peripheral vision that my goggles give me due to their design allowed my to see my opponent to the left of me while under water pulling. He was sighting often to swim in a straight line back to shore, so what I did was essentially let him sight for me and swam in his line since my goggles allowed me to keep an eye constantly on him. Eventually I worked my way onto his feet and just sat there until the end of the swim averaging anywhere from 1:12/100m to 1:24/100m which again I normally would not be able to even swim that in a pool. When I arose out of the water I was once again thrilled with my swim and was 2nd out of the water. Only problem was that I got passed in the transition run over to the bike area thanks in large part to some significant orthostatic hypotension when I got up out of the water (lightheadedness due to a drop in blood pressure (BP) that you may feel when getting up off the couch to quickly for example). I was not completely shocked by this since the Friday heading into the race had my BP and resting heart rate taken and it was 82/66 and 45 beats per minute respectively. Apparently this is quite a common feeling for triathletes after the swim since you're going from a supine position to upright position and running in a matter of seconds.
So onto the bike. Transition was pretty smooth this time much better than the last race. My game plan for the race in terms on nutrition was to have a 768 mL bottle of water + 1 Skratch labs hydration mixed into it, and a gel about 15 minutes into the bike then at about the 30km mark. I also planned to have a gel about 2 miles into the run. So I started the bike in third position. The first 5 km or so I felt pretty sluggish. We were heading into the wind and up a constant grade at this point which didn't help, plus I had gone pretty hard on the swim. By about midway through the 5-10km split I started to feel alive again, and my cadence rose from 96 to 102 and speed from 33km average to 38.7. On a slight downhill portion I cruised at 50 km/hr and reached 60.5 km/hr. By this point I had already passed both my competitors. I could just feel on every hill from about 15-40km that I was distancing myself from the rest of the field. I saw so many competitors ahead of me (who were in the steel man and half steel man distance which started before me) using what I think is poor technique for the hills. They were either doing one of two things: either staying in their aerobars for too long on the uphill, or using way too big of a gear. If you stay in your aerobars you are already putting your body at a mechanical disadvantage. In an upright position your glutes can be recruited to a greater degree, and if you own a power meter you can clearly see that in the aerobars for a climb its impossible to achieve the same power output as you can upright. Second, as the DurianRider says (great, informative and funny youtube channel) winners spin. If you've ever watched the tour de france and seen chris froome, you'll see his legs spinning like crazy up a climb. Try it yourself put the bike in a very easy gear and spin up a hill. You'll see the power output soar through the roof and probably pass a lot of other riders. After purchasing my power meter, I feel my climbing has now become one of my biggest strengths despite my tri bike not really being built for climbing. Since I've employed this strategy of spinning up climbs at a super high cadence I can pass so many people. Even just on my Saturday and Sunday rides where there are big groups out riding up north in oak ridges, I pass so many on climbs thanks to this strategy. With power, it has become so much easier to judge my effort level and has helped me from going over my threshold too early in a climb. I can simply say to myself maintain 320 watts on a climb for example and look at nothing at except that number on the garmin and I'm up the hill before you know it.
So back to the race, a cool part of the race was all the Amish folks out and about with horse and buggy, and we were told in the athletes meeting just to pass on the left. It was pretty cool. With about 10k to go on the bike I had a little conversation with myself in my head. I started thinking about the run, and thinking maybe I should ease up a bit to save something for that leg of the race. But I thought the bike at this point was my biggest weapon, so I was going to try to gap my competitors as much as possible heading into the run. So I continued to hammer the last 10 k and for an entire 5 minutes my speed did not dip below 42 km/hr. It rose constantly from 42 km/hr up to 60 km/hr then back down to 50 km/hr. It was one heck of 5 minute span where I felt I may have just locked up a victory knowing I had the run left to go, which despite not being at the same level it was last year after Park City or two years ago before Scotiabank, still is kind of my thing. As I entered the park however, and was mentally gearing up for the run something bizarre, but probably inevitable in hindsight, happened. My hamstrings, calves, quads, hip flexors, pretty much my whole body suddenly started cramping up. I carefully dismounted the bike because I didn't want to make any sudden movement at this point. I had no idea how far ahead I was of 2nd place, but knew this was going take sheer willpower to get through this run. I said inevitably because I vastly underestimated how much I would sweat on the bike since Sunday was just sweltering hot, and also I didn't really think about the fact that I probably came out of the water already about 2% dehydrated since if you've ever been in a wetsuit you'll know it can be steamy hot in there since your essentially wearing a think piece of rubber (neoprene). Also the water remember was just borderline wetsuit legal so I had sweat a lot on the swim leg, and then even more so on the bike thanks to the heat. As my Dad said after the race he could see even from where he was that as I quickly put my shoes on for the run that sweat was pouring off my face and body. So I took the other gel right then instead on waiting and started taking in as much water as I could. I started the run and passed 1k in 3:30. I was actually pretty surprised by that but by the 1 mile marker I was praying to just make it through the run in one piece. Its rare for me but I was actually taking as much water as I could at the aid stations, taking 1 or 2 cups, one to drink the other just to pour over my head since the dehydration mixed with the high heat on the day was really starting to make me overheat. Still though I was running at around 3:30/km pace and the hip and tibia actually felt okay. Really though I wasn't thinking too much about them specifically because I was pretty much running in fear the whole time of my body seizing up on me and having to stop. I got to the turnaround glanced at my watch to mark the time, and then when I saw 2nd place looked at my watch again and calculated that I was 5 minutes and 40 seconds ahead. Now even though I calculated with about 5km to go that it would take a miracle for 2nd place to catch me I still didn't feel that this one was in the bag by any means since I knew my body could just seize up and cramp at any point. In fact, at one point I had actually turned my body to take a quick check behind and felt my opposite hip twinge a little, so I knew with the dehydration still in effect I needed to be careful, run smart, and just stay as smooth as possible until the finish. Finally, I got to the finish and heard my name announced as the Peasantman Steel Distance Triathlon Champion, and I was thrilled. Thrilled but actually too tired to raise up my arms to celebrate my victory. Post race I drank three full gatorades, another bottle of scratch, and three bottles of water all before I had even got to the car to go back to the hotel. So since this is a crazy long post I'm going to wrap it up here. Basically, it was an amazing experience, and I learned so much. In addition I felt I pushed myself to a new limit, and can't wait to race another and push even harder.
The Workout:
Warmup+Drills
3-5 sets (depending on abilities) of 600, 400, 300, 200 all at around 5k pace
So you run the 600m then 1:15 rest, 400m then 1 min rest, 300 then 45 second rest, then 200m and 1 min rest before starting the next set with the 600. This workout is a very high intensity one because as the speed increases the rest between intervals decreases and the 1 min between the 200m and the subsequent 600 is very difficult. Anticipate that your heart rate will be very high and you'll be breathing hard throughout the workout. Like I said it's ladder or pyramid type workout in this a broken 1500 since the 600+400+300+200 all add up to 1500m, and feel free to go after it anywhere from 3-5 times. If your still relatively new to workouts do three of them so 4.5k total of hard running, if you love pounding big long sets 5 of them will leave you winded and more than satisfied afterwards. Any questions regarding the workout feel free to comment below.
Now onto the main purpose of this post. A couple weekends ago I traveled to Wilson, New York to compete in my first ever triathlon. This time however, since my hip has continued to give me problems and after the Canada Day 5k I had to take about a week and bit off due to persistent pain in the hip, back and tibia my mileage and speed work was not up to snuff to give the full olympic distance a go. So I decided to compete in the aqua bike event which is the exact same as the olympic triathlon for distance on the swim and bike just no run afterwards. So just the first two legs of the triathlon but still a formal event which many people willingly choose to do because they dislike running, but it also worked great for an injured runner like myself. So the task at hand was a 1500m open water swim in Lake Ontario, then a 40k bike. When I arrived at the race I could see immediately that the swim leg of the race was going to be brutal. The water had big waves about a 1m high (I think the race director said 3.5 feet) and after doing a tiny warmup swim I was actually scared to go back into the water. This wasn't really the usual pre-race jitters, this was more being downright scared that I was going to choke on water from the huge waves coming towards us on the way out and drown. Heck this was only my second ever open water swim so I was already unexperienced swimming in the open water let alone in such choppy conditions. Suffice to say I was starting to miss the pool lines at the bottom of the clear blue lanes in Thornhill. But I hadn't come all this way to give up. In addition since the water was so dangerous the race director who had already doubled the on-water firefighter staff who would travel alongside the swimmers in a boat in case anyone needed rescue or wanted to quit, and called the coast guard to check if the water was safe-ish for swimming, decided to cut the swim from two laps of the 750m course (1500m total) to one lap. This helped to ease a little bit of the anxiety at least. Soon the gun sounded and we were off. I started off just trying to focus and stay as relaxed as possible. I knew if I started panicking about the choppy conditions I would be in trouble, so I just tried to focus on one thing and one thing only: the orange bouy way out there marking the turn to the right (it was a square loop). I was really unable to find any rhythm whatsoever since the waves kept breaking up my stroke. I would basically reach my arm out to catch for my next pull and would have my hand either meet the water earlier than I anticipated due to a wave, or delayed longer than I anticipated from being at the depression in the water from an oncoming wave. But just kept focusing on the bouy ahead and it did seem like I was moving decently. Made the turn and swimming perpendicular to the waves now I could feel my stroke amping up and was starting to now focus on pulling my hand through the water harder and harder. I started take 4-5 strokes between breaths and was starting to pass bunches of swimmers. Eventually made the turn back to shore and despite having my rhythm throw off again due to the waves, heard the race director as as exited the water say that I was first place out the water. I was pretty stunned and found later that I held 1:28/100m for the 750m swim which I probably could just barely do in a pool let alone choppy open water, so I was stoked.
Ran up the stairs out of transition and did an okay job getting through transition. I was pretty happy how quickly I was able to get my wetsuit off, but was a little slow wasting time grabbing a sip of gatorade. Was through transition and next up was a 40km bike ride. My game plan was to hold my FTP (functional threshold power) which based off an all out 20 minute effort about 3 weeks before the race was 266 watts, but if multiplied by 0.95 is 252 watts for an hour long effort, which is roughly what I was aiming for. First 5k flew by and I could feel like I was in a really good rhythm. Was about 50m back from the only person ahead of me at this point(the guy had passed me in transition from the water to the bike). I was trying to just hold my wattage not by mashing on my pedals but rather by maintaining a very high cadence at about 106 rpm. As we made the turn back south there was the slightest grade uphill probably 1.5-2% only, and I gathered myself to make a decisive pass. Held about 350 watts for 30 seconds or so then burst passed at 550 watts. From this point on just kept flying at 106 rpm, and one 5k split I had averaged 114 rpm. In the end my average power was exactly 251 watts, but normalized power was 257 watts. I finished first place completing the 40 km bike course in 59:05 which is an average speed of 40.5 km/hr. I was more than happy with this result. It was also a great learning experience to understand what it was like swimming in open water, going through transition, and experiencing the feeling that my legs would go through during a bike race. It was a very different kind of fatigue/hurt than I would experience during road races of various distances. This feeling was more like constantly going back and fourth over the "red line" crossing into anaerobic fuel sources and a kind of burning sensation in the legs throughout the bike portion of the race.
A couple weeks and tempo runs later, I felt I was ready to give the full olympic triathlon a go. The race I chose to compete in was the Peasantman Steel Intermediate (Olympic) Triathlon in Penn Yan, New York - the Finger Lakes region. The Steel race distance prides itself on being just that much more difficult then the ironman distance, in that the leg distances are just slightly longer. So instead of the typical Olympic distance which is 1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run, the Steel Olympic Distance is a 1 mile swim (1609 m), 47.5 km bike, and a 10.5 km run. Arrived in Penn Yan the day before the race to scout out the course and try my own first wetsuit, the Nineteen Frequency. The water was beautiful but quite warm with the wetsuit on, and was unsure if there would allow wetsuits or not based on the temperature - luckily enough the temperature was just barely wetsuit legal by the USAT standards so I was excited. I had run that morning, and then biked the 47.5 km course to scout it out. What I learned was that the swim was the only flat part of the race course. There was hill after hill out on the course, including one 7 mile long hill (that's 11.2 km). So ya I was kind of now nervous because my bike and its gear ratio was set up to pound a flat course. Also in the back of my mind was the fact that the Tuesday before the race going up a big hill near Hwy 9, my chain had actually snapped into pieces. I must have made a poor gear change and not realized that I had done so and then the added tension now on a misaligned chain/chainring must have been enough to snap it into pieces. So even though it was probably my own fault, and now I had a high end dura-ace chain on the bike, it was still in the back of my mind. My Dad took notes for me at the athlete's meeting which was going on while I was on the bike, gave me the run down in the car on the way back to the hotel and we were set for Sunday.
Woke up Sunday had the usual breakfast, and went off to the race site. We arrived in great time checked my bike into transition got my body paint, timing chip and was ready to go. Just as I was about to start body gliding my entire body for the wetsuit about 50 minutes before the race I looked at another competitor who was in the half steel distance getting ready to start his race (it started at 7:30 mine was at 8). I saw him strapping on his goggles, and just then realized that I left my super expensive Speedo Fastskin Elite goggles in the hotel room. Now for legal purposes I won't devulge how far the hotel room was from the race site but my Dad all out sprinted to the car and somehow got back to the hotel and then back to the race site to hand me the goggles with ten minutes to spare before the race. I guess it was good traffic cops were manning the turns on the bike course and not on Pre-Emption Rd back to Geneva. I managed to get my wetsuit on by myself, and other than the minor heart attack when realizing I forgot the goggles, I felt pretty good. Hopped in the water warmed up a little and before you knew it we were off. I started out very fast, and quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to do any bilateral breathing for this race since the sun to the east was just so low still in the sky and too bright to look that way. I started regretting not having more shaded triathlon specific goggles (mine are competitive swimmer goggles) but soon would take advantage of the huge benefit these goggles offer. I started off to the left and when I breathed to the right I could see a few swimmers ahead and to my right. I worked hard to veer that direction and eventually got within a few meters of the two of them. I was breathing hard already at this point but my stroke felt awesome. I felt in control and powerful. Oddly enough although on the bike I prefer to sit in a slightly lower gear and maintain a very high cadence, in the water I prefer a slower stroke per minute rate but pulling hard on each stroke. as we approached the turn the two of them were really pushing hard and I was needed to work very hard to stay up with them. Witnessed some awesome technique by one of them to turn around the bouy, whereby they flipped onto to their back and rotated around the bouy using a couple backstroke pulls. Seemed to help them take the turn really quick and not lose any speed. This will definitely be a strategy that I will use next time. On our way back I started hammering, swimming at 1:07/100m for a bit as the leader seemed to really kick in into high gear on the way back to shore. That's faster than I've ever swam in my life. Then my goggles came into good use. When I caught up with the leader the peripheral vision that my goggles give me due to their design allowed my to see my opponent to the left of me while under water pulling. He was sighting often to swim in a straight line back to shore, so what I did was essentially let him sight for me and swam in his line since my goggles allowed me to keep an eye constantly on him. Eventually I worked my way onto his feet and just sat there until the end of the swim averaging anywhere from 1:12/100m to 1:24/100m which again I normally would not be able to even swim that in a pool. When I arose out of the water I was once again thrilled with my swim and was 2nd out of the water. Only problem was that I got passed in the transition run over to the bike area thanks in large part to some significant orthostatic hypotension when I got up out of the water (lightheadedness due to a drop in blood pressure (BP) that you may feel when getting up off the couch to quickly for example). I was not completely shocked by this since the Friday heading into the race had my BP and resting heart rate taken and it was 82/66 and 45 beats per minute respectively. Apparently this is quite a common feeling for triathletes after the swim since you're going from a supine position to upright position and running in a matter of seconds.
So onto the bike. Transition was pretty smooth this time much better than the last race. My game plan for the race in terms on nutrition was to have a 768 mL bottle of water + 1 Skratch labs hydration mixed into it, and a gel about 15 minutes into the bike then at about the 30km mark. I also planned to have a gel about 2 miles into the run. So I started the bike in third position. The first 5 km or so I felt pretty sluggish. We were heading into the wind and up a constant grade at this point which didn't help, plus I had gone pretty hard on the swim. By about midway through the 5-10km split I started to feel alive again, and my cadence rose from 96 to 102 and speed from 33km average to 38.7. On a slight downhill portion I cruised at 50 km/hr and reached 60.5 km/hr. By this point I had already passed both my competitors. I could just feel on every hill from about 15-40km that I was distancing myself from the rest of the field. I saw so many competitors ahead of me (who were in the steel man and half steel man distance which started before me) using what I think is poor technique for the hills. They were either doing one of two things: either staying in their aerobars for too long on the uphill, or using way too big of a gear. If you stay in your aerobars you are already putting your body at a mechanical disadvantage. In an upright position your glutes can be recruited to a greater degree, and if you own a power meter you can clearly see that in the aerobars for a climb its impossible to achieve the same power output as you can upright. Second, as the DurianRider says (great, informative and funny youtube channel) winners spin. If you've ever watched the tour de france and seen chris froome, you'll see his legs spinning like crazy up a climb. Try it yourself put the bike in a very easy gear and spin up a hill. You'll see the power output soar through the roof and probably pass a lot of other riders. After purchasing my power meter, I feel my climbing has now become one of my biggest strengths despite my tri bike not really being built for climbing. Since I've employed this strategy of spinning up climbs at a super high cadence I can pass so many people. Even just on my Saturday and Sunday rides where there are big groups out riding up north in oak ridges, I pass so many on climbs thanks to this strategy. With power, it has become so much easier to judge my effort level and has helped me from going over my threshold too early in a climb. I can simply say to myself maintain 320 watts on a climb for example and look at nothing at except that number on the garmin and I'm up the hill before you know it.
So back to the race, a cool part of the race was all the Amish folks out and about with horse and buggy, and we were told in the athletes meeting just to pass on the left. It was pretty cool. With about 10k to go on the bike I had a little conversation with myself in my head. I started thinking about the run, and thinking maybe I should ease up a bit to save something for that leg of the race. But I thought the bike at this point was my biggest weapon, so I was going to try to gap my competitors as much as possible heading into the run. So I continued to hammer the last 10 k and for an entire 5 minutes my speed did not dip below 42 km/hr. It rose constantly from 42 km/hr up to 60 km/hr then back down to 50 km/hr. It was one heck of 5 minute span where I felt I may have just locked up a victory knowing I had the run left to go, which despite not being at the same level it was last year after Park City or two years ago before Scotiabank, still is kind of my thing. As I entered the park however, and was mentally gearing up for the run something bizarre, but probably inevitable in hindsight, happened. My hamstrings, calves, quads, hip flexors, pretty much my whole body suddenly started cramping up. I carefully dismounted the bike because I didn't want to make any sudden movement at this point. I had no idea how far ahead I was of 2nd place, but knew this was going take sheer willpower to get through this run. I said inevitably because I vastly underestimated how much I would sweat on the bike since Sunday was just sweltering hot, and also I didn't really think about the fact that I probably came out of the water already about 2% dehydrated since if you've ever been in a wetsuit you'll know it can be steamy hot in there since your essentially wearing a think piece of rubber (neoprene). Also the water remember was just borderline wetsuit legal so I had sweat a lot on the swim leg, and then even more so on the bike thanks to the heat. As my Dad said after the race he could see even from where he was that as I quickly put my shoes on for the run that sweat was pouring off my face and body. So I took the other gel right then instead on waiting and started taking in as much water as I could. I started the run and passed 1k in 3:30. I was actually pretty surprised by that but by the 1 mile marker I was praying to just make it through the run in one piece. Its rare for me but I was actually taking as much water as I could at the aid stations, taking 1 or 2 cups, one to drink the other just to pour over my head since the dehydration mixed with the high heat on the day was really starting to make me overheat. Still though I was running at around 3:30/km pace and the hip and tibia actually felt okay. Really though I wasn't thinking too much about them specifically because I was pretty much running in fear the whole time of my body seizing up on me and having to stop. I got to the turnaround glanced at my watch to mark the time, and then when I saw 2nd place looked at my watch again and calculated that I was 5 minutes and 40 seconds ahead. Now even though I calculated with about 5km to go that it would take a miracle for 2nd place to catch me I still didn't feel that this one was in the bag by any means since I knew my body could just seize up and cramp at any point. In fact, at one point I had actually turned my body to take a quick check behind and felt my opposite hip twinge a little, so I knew with the dehydration still in effect I needed to be careful, run smart, and just stay as smooth as possible until the finish. Finally, I got to the finish and heard my name announced as the Peasantman Steel Distance Triathlon Champion, and I was thrilled. Thrilled but actually too tired to raise up my arms to celebrate my victory. Post race I drank three full gatorades, another bottle of scratch, and three bottles of water all before I had even got to the car to go back to the hotel. So since this is a crazy long post I'm going to wrap it up here. Basically, it was an amazing experience, and I learned so much. In addition I felt I pushed myself to a new limit, and can't wait to race another and push even harder.
Saturday, August 8, 2015
Summer Workout Series #4
How ya'll doing? Hope you enjoyed last week's workout and feeling faster by the week. The reason I didn't post earlier in the week is because this week's workout is a little different. Instead of talking about a true speed workout, this week I'm talking about the importance of the long run.
What is it: the concept of having a long run inserted in runners' weekly schedule is not novel. In fact pretty much every single program you will ever look up includes a weekly long run whether you are training track and field all the way to marathons and ultra marathons. The long run is quite simply exactly what it sounds like, it's a longer run (crazy eh). Now there is quite a bit of variance in the distance of the long run, but basically it should be a minimum of 90 minutes to actually get any effect, but its distance should not account for more than 25-30% of your weekly mileage. So if your a 80 mile (130 km) a week runner your long run should't be more than 20 miles (32 km); if only a 40 mile/week runner (65 km) no more than 10 miles (16 km). In terms of scheduling long runs or progressing them it really all depends on your goal race that your training for. For instance if your a 5 km runner the long run's purpose is basically to increase your cardiovascular efficiency as well as to condition and strengthen muscles and tendons to be able to withstand the pounding your body takes during gruelling workouts on the track. In contrast, if your a marathon runner the long run is meant more to prepare your body physically and mentally to be able to withstand the distance of the race. So it will help increase your muscle and liver glycogen storage to be able to last longer in race essentially before bonking, and also to prepare you mentally to be able to stay focused for a sustained period of time. In that sense, since a long run for a track runner or shorter distance runner, 5-10k races, is really only meant to improve your ability to withstand your training on the track or fast road workouts it really doesn't have to be progressed. You may simply insert a 90-120 minute run into your weekly schedule every week. In comparison, a half marathon/marathon runner will work to progress their long run gradually working your way closer and closer to the total distance of the race. Now for progression, this really depends on your level of experience and abilities. For some odd reason runners have this thought ingrained in their minds that for a marathon the goal is to get the long run up to 20 miles (or 32 km) about a month out from their race, although I believe this is nonsense. The long run can be however long you want it to be, 20 miles is not like this magical number where if you make it to there your set to go for 26.2. In fact, I think this is totally inaccurate since based on my own experience in marathons, and other marathoners that I've talked to it's at about 37-38 km where my legs start to shake and my sense of time and place starts to get distorted. Usually at 32 k I kind of feel decently fresh (of course I'm getting tired but still I can still feel my legs, and I feel in control). So why not take it a little further. Really it's up to you, if your experienced give a bit longer of a run a go in the range of 35-36. When gearing up for 2013 Scotiabank I did the following progression a 32k, 32k, 34, 37, 38, 38, 40, 40, 41, 43 (the 43 was done in 2:45 btw), 36, 32, and then smoked a 2:34 42.2 marathon and actually felt pretty decent start to finish which I attribute 100% to being used to doing the long long distance long runs, and being used to being out for that long.
How Fast: Okay well you thought the distance of the long run had a lot of variety, well the pace and structure has even more. Basically, long runs used to be only though of as these LSD runs (long slow distance runs) where you trotted along at a conversational pace. But the long run can be so much more. You can do progression type long runs starting out nice and easy pace and getting faster and faster throughout eventually finishing at or just under marathon pace which helps prepare you to be able to run at that goal speed on tired legs and will simulate the race more closely. I did one long run in 2014 where I started at one pace for the first kilometre and then played a game for the next 35k of the run trying to just beat the previous kilometre's time. It actually made it pretty fun/strategic because I wouldn't want to beat the previous kilometre by too much so say 4:15 to 4:01, because that would mean the next would need to be faster than 4:01 and so on, which would basically start getting too fast too quick. On the other side I wouldn't want to be too too close to the last kilometre time because I gave myself a penalty kilometre if the previous kilometre's time was not beaten having to run the next kilometre under marathon pace. Aww those were fun times.
After progression long runs, there are "workout long runs" where you basically embed interval workouts into the long run and this could really be any workout from fartleks to tempo runs. For example one long run I did last year, I ran the first 30 minutes easy, then for the next 30 minutes alternated running 1 min hard at half marathon pace, 1 min easy (so 15 total hard minutes), then ran easy again for 30 minutes then another set of 1 min hard/1 min easy for 30 minutes, then finished with 30 minutes easy. I've also found throwing a tempo run into the long run is great practice, for instance training for 2013 Scotiabank one of the 38 k ones in there I did a 5 mile (8k) tempo run to the finish which again helps learning the feeling of running hard on tired legs.
In Summary the long run is an essential part of any runners program whether running 3000m to the marathon. And for me for example, it is always my favourite part of any build. I look forward to it every week. My biggest word of advice I can give you for your long run is do not think of one particular long run like the so called golden 32 km mark as the difference maker between a good race and bad. A good race comes from a collection of long runs mixed in with great speed workouts to make a great race. So with that the long run shouldn't take away from your weekly speed workout, if so your either going to far on it, or going to hard. Long runs as I've explained are incredibly flexible on how fast and how far, so you don't have to think I need to do exactly "X" distance or whatever. Again your performance on race day is the culmination of months and months of training. Until next time keep piling on the training.
What is it: the concept of having a long run inserted in runners' weekly schedule is not novel. In fact pretty much every single program you will ever look up includes a weekly long run whether you are training track and field all the way to marathons and ultra marathons. The long run is quite simply exactly what it sounds like, it's a longer run (crazy eh). Now there is quite a bit of variance in the distance of the long run, but basically it should be a minimum of 90 minutes to actually get any effect, but its distance should not account for more than 25-30% of your weekly mileage. So if your a 80 mile (130 km) a week runner your long run should't be more than 20 miles (32 km); if only a 40 mile/week runner (65 km) no more than 10 miles (16 km). In terms of scheduling long runs or progressing them it really all depends on your goal race that your training for. For instance if your a 5 km runner the long run's purpose is basically to increase your cardiovascular efficiency as well as to condition and strengthen muscles and tendons to be able to withstand the pounding your body takes during gruelling workouts on the track. In contrast, if your a marathon runner the long run is meant more to prepare your body physically and mentally to be able to withstand the distance of the race. So it will help increase your muscle and liver glycogen storage to be able to last longer in race essentially before bonking, and also to prepare you mentally to be able to stay focused for a sustained period of time. In that sense, since a long run for a track runner or shorter distance runner, 5-10k races, is really only meant to improve your ability to withstand your training on the track or fast road workouts it really doesn't have to be progressed. You may simply insert a 90-120 minute run into your weekly schedule every week. In comparison, a half marathon/marathon runner will work to progress their long run gradually working your way closer and closer to the total distance of the race. Now for progression, this really depends on your level of experience and abilities. For some odd reason runners have this thought ingrained in their minds that for a marathon the goal is to get the long run up to 20 miles (or 32 km) about a month out from their race, although I believe this is nonsense. The long run can be however long you want it to be, 20 miles is not like this magical number where if you make it to there your set to go for 26.2. In fact, I think this is totally inaccurate since based on my own experience in marathons, and other marathoners that I've talked to it's at about 37-38 km where my legs start to shake and my sense of time and place starts to get distorted. Usually at 32 k I kind of feel decently fresh (of course I'm getting tired but still I can still feel my legs, and I feel in control). So why not take it a little further. Really it's up to you, if your experienced give a bit longer of a run a go in the range of 35-36. When gearing up for 2013 Scotiabank I did the following progression a 32k, 32k, 34, 37, 38, 38, 40, 40, 41, 43 (the 43 was done in 2:45 btw), 36, 32, and then smoked a 2:34 42.2 marathon and actually felt pretty decent start to finish which I attribute 100% to being used to doing the long long distance long runs, and being used to being out for that long.
How Fast: Okay well you thought the distance of the long run had a lot of variety, well the pace and structure has even more. Basically, long runs used to be only though of as these LSD runs (long slow distance runs) where you trotted along at a conversational pace. But the long run can be so much more. You can do progression type long runs starting out nice and easy pace and getting faster and faster throughout eventually finishing at or just under marathon pace which helps prepare you to be able to run at that goal speed on tired legs and will simulate the race more closely. I did one long run in 2014 where I started at one pace for the first kilometre and then played a game for the next 35k of the run trying to just beat the previous kilometre's time. It actually made it pretty fun/strategic because I wouldn't want to beat the previous kilometre by too much so say 4:15 to 4:01, because that would mean the next would need to be faster than 4:01 and so on, which would basically start getting too fast too quick. On the other side I wouldn't want to be too too close to the last kilometre time because I gave myself a penalty kilometre if the previous kilometre's time was not beaten having to run the next kilometre under marathon pace. Aww those were fun times.
After progression long runs, there are "workout long runs" where you basically embed interval workouts into the long run and this could really be any workout from fartleks to tempo runs. For example one long run I did last year, I ran the first 30 minutes easy, then for the next 30 minutes alternated running 1 min hard at half marathon pace, 1 min easy (so 15 total hard minutes), then ran easy again for 30 minutes then another set of 1 min hard/1 min easy for 30 minutes, then finished with 30 minutes easy. I've also found throwing a tempo run into the long run is great practice, for instance training for 2013 Scotiabank one of the 38 k ones in there I did a 5 mile (8k) tempo run to the finish which again helps learning the feeling of running hard on tired legs.
In Summary the long run is an essential part of any runners program whether running 3000m to the marathon. And for me for example, it is always my favourite part of any build. I look forward to it every week. My biggest word of advice I can give you for your long run is do not think of one particular long run like the so called golden 32 km mark as the difference maker between a good race and bad. A good race comes from a collection of long runs mixed in with great speed workouts to make a great race. So with that the long run shouldn't take away from your weekly speed workout, if so your either going to far on it, or going to hard. Long runs as I've explained are incredibly flexible on how fast and how far, so you don't have to think I need to do exactly "X" distance or whatever. Again your performance on race day is the culmination of months and months of training. Until next time keep piling on the training.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Summer Workout Series #3
Warmup +Drills +Strides
12-20 X 400m @ 5k pace w/ 60 sec jog recovery (every 4th repeat hammer interval)
Cooldown
Thursday, July 23, 2015
Summer Workout Series #2
Apologies for the length of the video to get to the workout you could skip to about 8 minutes or so.
1) Warmup +Drills +Strides
2) 2X2 miles w/ 3min between repetitions (First 1/3 @ HM Pace, Mid 1/3 @ 10k pace, Final 1/3 @ 5k pace) take 4-5 minute jog after this set going into the following
3) 8X200m @ 1 mile-5k pace w/ 100m recovery then 4-5 jog before
4) 2X2 miles w/ 3min between repetitions (First 1/3 @ HM Pace, Mid 1/3 @ 10k pace, Final 1/3 @ 5k pace)
5) Cooldown
Forgot to mention both 2X2 miles can be on road by track and 200s on the track.
Enjoy
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Summer Workout Series #1
This is the first instalment of a new series of blog posts helping runners out there achieve PRs across all distances especially those in the 5k-marathon range. I will describe in detail workouts for you to complete and challenge yourself with to become a faster stronger runner. All the workouts will have a slightly different focus, and challenge you in a different way. Throughout the series, if there are any personal questions you have about what you should do, or could do to improve comment below the post I will respond to your comment within 24 hours. This is a free coaching service essentially that I am setting up, so whether you have a question about the week's workout or advice on supplemental training such as strengthening, nutrition, or gear such as footwear feel free to comment below. Hopefully these help not only to become a better runner but throughout the series I will also include information about why I'm choosing the selected workout parameters, so that in the future you know how to design a good fluid and effective workout for yourself.
Week 1
Most of these workouts are designed to be done on Wednesday since that will give you a good amount of time to recover and be at full capacity for your weekly long run on the weekend. If it cannot be completed on the Wednesday due to other life commitments Tuesday or Thursday would work as well - just don't want to go Monday right after long run or Friday or Saturday before the long run depending what day of the weekend you choose to complete the long run.
Our first workout for the series is a speed based workout with a mixture of some aerobic strength. First off you want to start with your warmup. Your warmup should be about 20 minutes of easy running. Following the warmup, perform a set a running drills. Everyone has a slightly different routine of drills but a great starter routine can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhzzpZVMtl4. After the drills you want to perform about 3-5 stride repetitions. Strides are about 60m worth of accelerating up to about 85% of your top speed. So almost like a short sprint (but not quite as fast as a sprint and not long enough to get any fatiguing effect). The purpose of strides is two-fold. One, it helps just further activate our bodies physiologically, and two psychologically it helps to prime our bodies to run fast (it also helps to get any pre-race or pre-workout nerves out). After that your warmup is complete. I know right roughly 35-40 minutes of just warming up, but trust me watch any diamond league track meet, or major road race and you'll see all the elites performing similar type warmups. Pretty much the only time when I wouldn't perform such as extensive warmup is before a full marathon. With a half marathon it really depends on your level of mileage, overall ability and experience. For example before a half marathon I will perform this exact same warmup running about 5k pre-race usually out on the course to familiarize myself with my surroundings just a bit then starting the drills and strides. However for a first time half-marathoner I probably wouldn't perform such a long warmup. On to the workout.
Should have mentioned before, perform your warmup run from your house to a track nearby.
Part 1: 15-20 minute Tempo Run: A Tempo run is also called a threshold run. This is because this is run at just below your lactate threshold which for most corresponds to your 1 hour race pace. So the pace you would be able to sustain for 1 hour in a race. This pace for speedy runners is approximately half marathon pace but for others may be about 10k pace - if your a 60 minute 10k runner. The best way I've found to describe a tempo run is a pace that is comfortably hard. Your breathing is definitely accelerated but your in control and in rhythm. For me I do my tempo runs at about 3:20-3:24/km. The best source I can suggest to find your tempo run pace would be https://www.mcmillanrunning.com. Simply enter a recent race time and future goal race time and it will calculate all your training paces from easy runs, to tempo runs, cruise intervals, to speed work paces to sprint paces. The purpose of this tempo run is two-fold. One it will help boost your pace that you can sustain at lactate threshold (increase lactate threshold), and two it helps you mentally to get used to running at speed for a sustained period which is what racing obviously entails. Do this tempo run on the road nearby the track. Tracks are great for speed stuff but tempo runs are really meant to simulate racing, which unless your a track runner is done on the road.
Part 2: Ya that's right I said part 2. I never said in the introduction these workouts were meant to be easy. They are definitely made for runners with a decent base of mileage under their belts. When I refer to base, I mean at least 2-3 months of consistently running decent mileage without injury. So take about a 5 minute or so jog break in between the tempo run and part two. For part two perform 3 set of the following: 800m at 5k pace, then 200m jog active recovery, the 400m at 5k pace with 3 minutes in-between sets. So in summary form 3X(800m, 200m jog, 400m) 3 minutes between sets. This is mostly a difficult workout because the 200m rest in between the 800 and 400. By far the most important parameter of any workout is the rest between intervals. A great example is if your doing a 5k race and prior to the race you perform a workout of 5X1km at your goal 5k pace. If you say I did 5X1km at pace it doesn't really equate very much to the race if you took 5 minutes in between each interval. Because well during a race it is 5 of those intervals straight and no rest in-between. Ideally then during any workout you want the rest to be short as possible because then it will better mimic the conditions felt during the race. There are some exceptions to this but I will explain in future posts. So going back to what I was saying 200m is not a lot of time between intervals so that 400 will definitely be a challenge since your heart rate will still be quite elevated. This workout is also challenging yet extremely effective because you are working on keeping a high leg turnover and running fast, despite running on some decently fatigued legs due to the tempo run. This will help build some aerobic strength and mental toughness, and also will help your legs understand and learn how to run fast when tired which will help in the later stages of races. The 400s and 800s will also be above lactate threshold so they will help train your body with lactate clearance. One thing, which I will probably say bunches of times over the next few posts is that a very important thing to having a good workout is to really try to focus on the interval at hand. So when your flying through your 800 don't be thinking, O god I have a 400 coming up right after this. If you do that, you will subconsciously of maybe consciously slow yourself down and the workout's quality will go down with it.
So to sum things up:
1 - Warmup: 20 minute jog to track
2 - Drills
3 - 3-5 Strides
4 - 15-20 minute tempo run
5 - 5 minute jog
6 - 3X(800m @ 5k pace, 200m jog, 400 m @ 5k pace) 3 minutes between sets on on all track
7 - Cooldown 10-15 minutes
I hope you understand everything, if not comment below. Enjoy the workout, it's a tough one, but I hope your willing to take on the challenge. If completed feel free to comment below to share your feelings on the workout.
Week 1
Most of these workouts are designed to be done on Wednesday since that will give you a good amount of time to recover and be at full capacity for your weekly long run on the weekend. If it cannot be completed on the Wednesday due to other life commitments Tuesday or Thursday would work as well - just don't want to go Monday right after long run or Friday or Saturday before the long run depending what day of the weekend you choose to complete the long run.
Our first workout for the series is a speed based workout with a mixture of some aerobic strength. First off you want to start with your warmup. Your warmup should be about 20 minutes of easy running. Following the warmup, perform a set a running drills. Everyone has a slightly different routine of drills but a great starter routine can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhzzpZVMtl4. After the drills you want to perform about 3-5 stride repetitions. Strides are about 60m worth of accelerating up to about 85% of your top speed. So almost like a short sprint (but not quite as fast as a sprint and not long enough to get any fatiguing effect). The purpose of strides is two-fold. One, it helps just further activate our bodies physiologically, and two psychologically it helps to prime our bodies to run fast (it also helps to get any pre-race or pre-workout nerves out). After that your warmup is complete. I know right roughly 35-40 minutes of just warming up, but trust me watch any diamond league track meet, or major road race and you'll see all the elites performing similar type warmups. Pretty much the only time when I wouldn't perform such as extensive warmup is before a full marathon. With a half marathon it really depends on your level of mileage, overall ability and experience. For example before a half marathon I will perform this exact same warmup running about 5k pre-race usually out on the course to familiarize myself with my surroundings just a bit then starting the drills and strides. However for a first time half-marathoner I probably wouldn't perform such a long warmup. On to the workout.
Should have mentioned before, perform your warmup run from your house to a track nearby.
Part 1: 15-20 minute Tempo Run: A Tempo run is also called a threshold run. This is because this is run at just below your lactate threshold which for most corresponds to your 1 hour race pace. So the pace you would be able to sustain for 1 hour in a race. This pace for speedy runners is approximately half marathon pace but for others may be about 10k pace - if your a 60 minute 10k runner. The best way I've found to describe a tempo run is a pace that is comfortably hard. Your breathing is definitely accelerated but your in control and in rhythm. For me I do my tempo runs at about 3:20-3:24/km. The best source I can suggest to find your tempo run pace would be https://www.mcmillanrunning.com. Simply enter a recent race time and future goal race time and it will calculate all your training paces from easy runs, to tempo runs, cruise intervals, to speed work paces to sprint paces. The purpose of this tempo run is two-fold. One it will help boost your pace that you can sustain at lactate threshold (increase lactate threshold), and two it helps you mentally to get used to running at speed for a sustained period which is what racing obviously entails. Do this tempo run on the road nearby the track. Tracks are great for speed stuff but tempo runs are really meant to simulate racing, which unless your a track runner is done on the road.
Part 2: Ya that's right I said part 2. I never said in the introduction these workouts were meant to be easy. They are definitely made for runners with a decent base of mileage under their belts. When I refer to base, I mean at least 2-3 months of consistently running decent mileage without injury. So take about a 5 minute or so jog break in between the tempo run and part two. For part two perform 3 set of the following: 800m at 5k pace, then 200m jog active recovery, the 400m at 5k pace with 3 minutes in-between sets. So in summary form 3X(800m, 200m jog, 400m) 3 minutes between sets. This is mostly a difficult workout because the 200m rest in between the 800 and 400. By far the most important parameter of any workout is the rest between intervals. A great example is if your doing a 5k race and prior to the race you perform a workout of 5X1km at your goal 5k pace. If you say I did 5X1km at pace it doesn't really equate very much to the race if you took 5 minutes in between each interval. Because well during a race it is 5 of those intervals straight and no rest in-between. Ideally then during any workout you want the rest to be short as possible because then it will better mimic the conditions felt during the race. There are some exceptions to this but I will explain in future posts. So going back to what I was saying 200m is not a lot of time between intervals so that 400 will definitely be a challenge since your heart rate will still be quite elevated. This workout is also challenging yet extremely effective because you are working on keeping a high leg turnover and running fast, despite running on some decently fatigued legs due to the tempo run. This will help build some aerobic strength and mental toughness, and also will help your legs understand and learn how to run fast when tired which will help in the later stages of races. The 400s and 800s will also be above lactate threshold so they will help train your body with lactate clearance. One thing, which I will probably say bunches of times over the next few posts is that a very important thing to having a good workout is to really try to focus on the interval at hand. So when your flying through your 800 don't be thinking, O god I have a 400 coming up right after this. If you do that, you will subconsciously of maybe consciously slow yourself down and the workout's quality will go down with it.
So to sum things up:
1 - Warmup: 20 minute jog to track
2 - Drills
3 - 3-5 Strides
4 - 15-20 minute tempo run
5 - 5 minute jog
6 - 3X(800m @ 5k pace, 200m jog, 400 m @ 5k pace) 3 minutes between sets on on all track
7 - Cooldown 10-15 minutes
I hope you understand everything, if not comment below. Enjoy the workout, it's a tough one, but I hope your willing to take on the challenge. If completed feel free to comment below to share your feelings on the workout.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Post Race and What's Next
I didn't update you all on the race in Barrie from June 7th since I was waiting for the race photos to be posted.
The Recap
Gear: Skechers GoMed Speed 3 Shoes Boston Marathon Edition, Skechers Race Singlet and Skechers 2inch Racing Split Shorts
Pre Race: Arrived to the race in good time with a lot of uncertainty and nervousness. I knew that I would give it my best, but I had not yet tested the hip on any sort of hill at race pace (the Barrie course is very hilly for the first half), let alone for 21.1 km. I had an overwhelming feeling of under-preparedness due to a lack of race specific run workouts leading into the race. Looking back on my May 2014 training logs and into June until my PB 1:11:03 at Barrie last year, as you remember I was having the time of my life running consistently 200 km a week at 7000-10000 ft above sea level in Park City. During that time I logged 15 hard run workouts ranging from three 12 k tempo runs, a 1-2-3-2-1km X2 fartlek style run, 5X broken 1500, 4X3.2k, 8X1km, 25X400m, and some others that I won't divulge because they are my secret mix of interval workouts that I came up with myself to put a major hurt on the physiological systems that I don't won't any competitors who may be reading to know about (I actually really enjoy developing workouts and literally spend hours going over how to design a set of intervals try to force a certain adaptation. It's the reason why I would absolutely love to coach a cross country team one day.) But anyways back to the race. In contrast to last year, where I felt like I could run the legs off anyone in the province, this year I had done all of two workouts. Now you might say o so you did do some workouts heading into the race, I thought you didn't do any. Well let me say, those weren't really what I would consider: a) half marathon specific type workouts, and b) the resulting pace and feel of those two was less than inspiring. I had done one 6X1mile workout - my first workout back from injury the Monday before the race and then a 30 minute tempo run on Wednesday just 4 days before the race. Despite those both being a bit slower
than half marathon pace, it felt like I was sprinting, and during the mile repeats my heart rate was holding at 182-185, which most likely is not sustainable for 21.1k. So overall I was quite nervous. I went for 20 minute jog before the race, did my drills for 15, then tried to get some idea of where in the heck this course route was heading, then lined up, and was off. (You can click on photos to see full-size with full-resolution).
Race: Felt decent to start, first kilometre I always consider a freebie and really wasn't worried about the hip at this point since there's usually so much adrenaline pumping that it would take a heck of a lot to put a person down. Went through 1k in 3:10, and got into my rhythm at about 3k. For 1st and 2nd km my stride length was 1.60 meters and 1.55m, with cadence of 198 steps per minute and 194 per minute respectively. At 3k, from my garmin data you can see what I mean by getting into rhythm since my cadence dropped 193 spm and 1.51m stride and stayed that way for the next 6k with the stride length changing by no more than 1 cm and stride rate changing by no more than 1 step per minute plus or minus. Just kept repeating two mantras in my head the whole way, "Smoothly cruising," and "What else would you rather be doing," (which I've started to repeat through most of my training runs and bikes when I'm struggling to stay focused or hurting). Rolled through 5k mark in 16:48. In that first 5k keeping with the Barrie half marathon tradition, took a wrong turn and had take a u-turn to get back on course. According to my garmin data (which is incredibly accurate to the point it can see if I'm running in the shoulder or on the sidewalk), this fiasco cost me 28 seconds. But got back on course and angrily pushed the pace for a minute or so to try to get back onto pace. Now when I say on pace, really for this race I had no burning desire to force myself to run a specific pace, just wanted to keep it smooth and cruise at whatever pace I felt was comfortably hard.
At 9k mark I got a wind of energy, and figured this was the time to try to capitalize so I made a pact with myself to push the pace a bit until about 13k mark. Just figured in my head that would mean roughly a 13 minute or so effort, and that 13 minutes of hard hard running would be doable with the current hip situation - since I had managed to get up the hills with not too too much of an issue, and it could pay dividends in the end. So reeled off a 3:18, 3:19, 3:20, 3:22 km, and on 13 going into 14 k while I was pleased with how that went, entering now the back half of the race which is on a loose gravel path I was starting to hurt, not in my hip but overall fatigue was seeping in, probably due a combo of a lack of mileage at race pace heading into the race and now being back into the wind. Pace went from 3:25 to 3:31 all the way to marathon pace for a split at 3:40. That pissed me right off so tried to re-focus, re-group and get back down to business. The race was in the bag at this point, up by about a mile from second place, and even though my soul intention of this race was to just win for the third straight year, I'm not the type of person to settle for just the win. I wanted to prove to myself that despite no big mileage or workouts heading into the race, I was still in great shape aerobically speaking from all my cycling and swimming and strength work, and therefore could still run a decent time. So I buckled down and really tried to start churning the legs. Went from 1.44m stride at 189 spm to 1.53m stride at 191. Hit the 20k mark in 1:09 and gave it everything that was left (there wasn't much at this point - especially with not taking an ounce of water or gel throughout the race - been a year since my last half so just didn't really think about it), put down a 3:05 km and finished 1:12:05 (without the 28 second wrong turn would be 1:11:37) winning by 6 minutes over 2nd place, and completing the three-peat. I think it is pretty darn good to be only 34 seconds slower than last year, despite the huge discrepancy in run-specifc training between the two years. And hey, 4 races this year 3 wins, let's keep it rolling until the Canadian XC Championships in November.
Post-Race
First of all, thankyou Skechers Performance Division for giving me all the gear I need to be successful this season. The Go Meb's are pretty awesome. They are super comfortable for a racing flat, and fit my feet quite well. Light and fast, plus they just look cool when looking down at my feet.
The day after the race I was in quite a bit of pain all around, especially in my back. And the back issue has now lasted 2 weeks - it's the same issue in my left lower back that I had in February. But it's not going to stop me. Wednesday night headed over after my final exams to Stratford for a 10k race. I was intending on this being a tempo run to see how the back was doing and was going to just run at half-marathon pace and keep it smooth. But found out just prior to the race that despite a very short stretch at the beginning and end of the race being on road about 7k was on an incredibly hilly, and some parts muddy trail with twists and turns, roots, etc. So nice easy tempo where I was intending on running about 34 minutes (again just a cruise effort just to test if my back could handle another race this coming weekend), became a hard hard effort. Talking to the course designer before the race, it was funny how proud he was of how difficult he had made it, I chuckled through gritted teeth. But anyways, ran 34:00 just as I was intending, but a solid 34 minutes of effort for a new course record, and 4 minute win. Eye-opening in some respect to see that wow cross country running is dang tough - I wish I wore my heart rate monitor because after cresting one of the biggest hills (which was also high grass covered) my heart rate must have been over 200. I literally felt my heart thumping against the wall of chest and was just gasping for air when I got to the top. But with that, although my back was in some serious pain during my cool down, it wasn't unbearable today so most likely heading to Burlington on the weekend for a 10 miler. It's not 100% at this point but the main race that I'm 99% intending on doing and everything for the next month will be building towards in the Humana Chicago Half Marathon on July 19 where I will look to run under 1:10 and maybe finish top 12 - Kenyans and some of the big guns come out to this one. So until next time, remember the line as your grinding away the miles, "What else would you rather be doing."
The Recap
Gear: Skechers GoMed Speed 3 Shoes Boston Marathon Edition, Skechers Race Singlet and Skechers 2inch Racing Split Shorts
Pre Race: Arrived to the race in good time with a lot of uncertainty and nervousness. I knew that I would give it my best, but I had not yet tested the hip on any sort of hill at race pace (the Barrie course is very hilly for the first half), let alone for 21.1 km. I had an overwhelming feeling of under-preparedness due to a lack of race specific run workouts leading into the race. Looking back on my May 2014 training logs and into June until my PB 1:11:03 at Barrie last year, as you remember I was having the time of my life running consistently 200 km a week at 7000-10000 ft above sea level in Park City. During that time I logged 15 hard run workouts ranging from three 12 k tempo runs, a 1-2-3-2-1km X2 fartlek style run, 5X broken 1500, 4X3.2k, 8X1km, 25X400m, and some others that I won't divulge because they are my secret mix of interval workouts that I came up with myself to put a major hurt on the physiological systems that I don't won't any competitors who may be reading to know about (I actually really enjoy developing workouts and literally spend hours going over how to design a set of intervals try to force a certain adaptation. It's the reason why I would absolutely love to coach a cross country team one day.) But anyways back to the race. In contrast to last year, where I felt like I could run the legs off anyone in the province, this year I had done all of two workouts. Now you might say o so you did do some workouts heading into the race, I thought you didn't do any. Well let me say, those weren't really what I would consider: a) half marathon specific type workouts, and b) the resulting pace and feel of those two was less than inspiring. I had done one 6X1mile workout - my first workout back from injury the Monday before the race and then a 30 minute tempo run on Wednesday just 4 days before the race. Despite those both being a bit slower
Race: Felt decent to start, first kilometre I always consider a freebie and really wasn't worried about the hip at this point since there's usually so much adrenaline pumping that it would take a heck of a lot to put a person down. Went through 1k in 3:10, and got into my rhythm at about 3k. For 1st and 2nd km my stride length was 1.60 meters and 1.55m, with cadence of 198 steps per minute and 194 per minute respectively. At 3k, from my garmin data you can see what I mean by getting into rhythm since my cadence dropped 193 spm and 1.51m stride and stayed that way for the next 6k with the stride length changing by no more than 1 cm and stride rate changing by no more than 1 step per minute plus or minus. Just kept repeating two mantras in my head the whole way, "Smoothly cruising," and "What else would you rather be doing," (which I've started to repeat through most of my training runs and bikes when I'm struggling to stay focused or hurting). Rolled through 5k mark in 16:48. In that first 5k keeping with the Barrie half marathon tradition, took a wrong turn and had take a u-turn to get back on course. According to my garmin data (which is incredibly accurate to the point it can see if I'm running in the shoulder or on the sidewalk), this fiasco cost me 28 seconds. But got back on course and angrily pushed the pace for a minute or so to try to get back onto pace. Now when I say on pace, really for this race I had no burning desire to force myself to run a specific pace, just wanted to keep it smooth and cruise at whatever pace I felt was comfortably hard.
At 9k mark I got a wind of energy, and figured this was the time to try to capitalize so I made a pact with myself to push the pace a bit until about 13k mark. Just figured in my head that would mean roughly a 13 minute or so effort, and that 13 minutes of hard hard running would be doable with the current hip situation - since I had managed to get up the hills with not too too much of an issue, and it could pay dividends in the end. So reeled off a 3:18, 3:19, 3:20, 3:22 km, and on 13 going into 14 k while I was pleased with how that went, entering now the back half of the race which is on a loose gravel path I was starting to hurt, not in my hip but overall fatigue was seeping in, probably due a combo of a lack of mileage at race pace heading into the race and now being back into the wind. Pace went from 3:25 to 3:31 all the way to marathon pace for a split at 3:40. That pissed me right off so tried to re-focus, re-group and get back down to business. The race was in the bag at this point, up by about a mile from second place, and even though my soul intention of this race was to just win for the third straight year, I'm not the type of person to settle for just the win. I wanted to prove to myself that despite no big mileage or workouts heading into the race, I was still in great shape aerobically speaking from all my cycling and swimming and strength work, and therefore could still run a decent time. So I buckled down and really tried to start churning the legs. Went from 1.44m stride at 189 spm to 1.53m stride at 191. Hit the 20k mark in 1:09 and gave it everything that was left (there wasn't much at this point - especially with not taking an ounce of water or gel throughout the race - been a year since my last half so just didn't really think about it), put down a 3:05 km and finished 1:12:05 (without the 28 second wrong turn would be 1:11:37) winning by 6 minutes over 2nd place, and completing the three-peat. I think it is pretty darn good to be only 34 seconds slower than last year, despite the huge discrepancy in run-specifc training between the two years. And hey, 4 races this year 3 wins, let's keep it rolling until the Canadian XC Championships in November.
Post-Race
First of all, thankyou Skechers Performance Division for giving me all the gear I need to be successful this season. The Go Meb's are pretty awesome. They are super comfortable for a racing flat, and fit my feet quite well. Light and fast, plus they just look cool when looking down at my feet.
The day after the race I was in quite a bit of pain all around, especially in my back. And the back issue has now lasted 2 weeks - it's the same issue in my left lower back that I had in February. But it's not going to stop me. Wednesday night headed over after my final exams to Stratford for a 10k race. I was intending on this being a tempo run to see how the back was doing and was going to just run at half-marathon pace and keep it smooth. But found out just prior to the race that despite a very short stretch at the beginning and end of the race being on road about 7k was on an incredibly hilly, and some parts muddy trail with twists and turns, roots, etc. So nice easy tempo where I was intending on running about 34 minutes (again just a cruise effort just to test if my back could handle another race this coming weekend), became a hard hard effort. Talking to the course designer before the race, it was funny how proud he was of how difficult he had made it, I chuckled through gritted teeth. But anyways, ran 34:00 just as I was intending, but a solid 34 minutes of effort for a new course record, and 4 minute win. Eye-opening in some respect to see that wow cross country running is dang tough - I wish I wore my heart rate monitor because after cresting one of the biggest hills (which was also high grass covered) my heart rate must have been over 200. I literally felt my heart thumping against the wall of chest and was just gasping for air when I got to the top. But with that, although my back was in some serious pain during my cool down, it wasn't unbearable today so most likely heading to Burlington on the weekend for a 10 miler. It's not 100% at this point but the main race that I'm 99% intending on doing and everything for the next month will be building towards in the Humana Chicago Half Marathon on July 19 where I will look to run under 1:10 and maybe finish top 12 - Kenyans and some of the big guns come out to this one. So until next time, remember the line as your grinding away the miles, "What else would you rather be doing."
Friday, June 5, 2015
Barrie Half Marathon
No no the blog isn't dead, there have just been so many things going on lately that I haven't had a minute to sit and update you all on the current state of affairs. Let me start by just giving a quick recap on what I've been up to the last couple months, and where I plan to go from here. If you don't remember after Around the Bay, for the second year in a row, I got injured. What's new right. This one though really came out of the blue. With previous injuries, I've usually been able to see them coming for a while, or really just ran through injuries until the point where I can't physically make a stride then take time off. This one was had a real quick progression from feeling something a little weird, a tight kind of feeling in my right hip after the race, then two days later could barely walk. Was forced to take an entire 28 days completely off running to rehab the injury, which was most likely according to both my own judgement and my clinical instructor (a top physiotherapist in Ontario) that I had a tear in a couple muscles in my hip. One of those muscles (tensor fascia latae) is a critical stabilizer to the whole hip, and proper functioning of the knee hinges on it, the other was most likely pectinues (a hip flexor, internal rotator of the hip, adductor, as well as critical for pelvic stability). Don't ask me how I managed this, cause I have no clue. But anyways, by no means did this mean I couldn't still train. Biking didn't seem to hurt the leg, and I captured my love of cycling once again. I bike over 300k per week for the first 3 weeks, then just under 500k (488km) the fourth week. Also swam a shade under 30k per week during that time period. Starting to love training like a triathlete so much I got inspired and bought a true time trial bike. Her name is Elektra. This Cervelo P2 is a lightning fast spitfire on the tarmac, waiting patiently to be unleashed on the triathlon scene.
But before then there are other matters that must be settled. In May, I made my comeback. It was a really slow start but the hip started to progress one run at a time. In the month I ran 425k, biked 1600k, and swam 80k, plus did 20 hours of strength training. One solid month. For the majority of the month, I thought that the Barrie Half Marathon was June 20, and figured I would be able to get ready in time to put fourth a decent effort to try to win for the third straight year. However, I found out not too long ago that the race was actually June 7, and this put a lot of pressure on me to rush the hip pretty substantially, and had to do a couple workouts to see where I was at. Last Monday (May 25) did my first workout in over 2 months, tried and true mile repeats. Starting with 4 of them trying to just feel it out and let the pace come to me. I went about as good as it could have. The pace wasn't staggering, but it was decent, only problem was that it was just at half marathon pace, and it felt real fast, almost like I was sprinting. That Thursday, I tried a tempo run and same thing, the hip wasn't too bad, just felt a lot harder than the pace would indicate. I've probably pushed way too hard to get back, since about 4 weeks ago I started feeling a couple bumps in the hip just medial and inferior to the ASIS (the bone you can palpate at the front of your hip). Well they went from being able to feel a couple slight bumps and thinking that it was just inflammation in the area that collected in the lymph nodes (a big network of them at that part of the hip), to being able to feel 4 distinct perfectly round and freely moveable nodules. Just like last fall this is probably a good indication that I got more calcific tendinitis due to poor repairing of the muscle tear. But I can run, it hurts like the dickens for about the first 15-20 minutes of every run, then feels progressively better. However, it definitely has affected my stride on that side. During the weight bearing portion on the right leg it hurts the most, and I'm thinking its just those little calcium buggers basically getting squished and impinged on the muscle. To compensate, and this was especially evident early in my comeback based on both the wear patterns on my shoes and the auditory feedback I was getting on ground-contact, my left foot is striking the ground much harder than my right and the last 2 weeks I've been getting some oo too familiar pain on the medial border of that "someday will be graphite" tibia. Well you might say, this really sounds like a pretty bad cycle that I'm getting into now, but Monday did 7X1 miles and it actually was solid. Not solid given my status, but solid in that if I did that last year I would have been somewhat content with the effort. Then Wednesday did a 9k tempo at projected half marathon pace, and again it went pretty well. I mean still not 100% but its run-able and decided to give it a go for this Sunday. Why you ask. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if me the two-time back-to-back champion didn't at least try to defend my title. If at 6k, where there is a steep hill which is giving me some nightmares right now and making me real nervous, there is a good amount of pain in the hip, I'm calling it there, and I'll know that I tried. I say that now, but this time I'm going to try my best to stick to the plan. For me, I know even if I feel some real pain in the hip, I'm not the type of person to pull off and sulk on the side of the road. Normally, I will push myself to keep going until I can't physically lift my foot off the ground, but I will try to constantly remind myself during the race that the future in more important, and while this race seems like the be all and end all right now it's not. However, based on this weeks two workouts, I can give it a decent effort. This race will definitely be about aerobic strength and nothing else because really with only 2 real workouts under my belt going into the race, I'm relying about 100% of my aerobic fitness that I have build up not only the last few months, but for last 5 years in change of training. The tempo run was a good start knowing at least that I could go 9k at race effort, but let me tell you thinking that there is 12k to go after that is scaring the hell out of me. I was pretty tuckered out after that, and going into the race with less mileage and less workout time that ever is intimidating. What I do have going for me is knowing that if I can push myself for 5 hours straight on every Sat and Sun for the last 6 weeks or so, pushing till I've bonked completely numerous times, or a few Sunday's ago yacking right on the lawn after, I can push myself for 70 something minutes. It will not be a PB, and whether I win or not I will be proud of myself for trying my best. So wish me luck that the hip holds up, and allows me to be able to grind through 13.1 miles and finish.
But before then there are other matters that must be settled. In May, I made my comeback. It was a really slow start but the hip started to progress one run at a time. In the month I ran 425k, biked 1600k, and swam 80k, plus did 20 hours of strength training. One solid month. For the majority of the month, I thought that the Barrie Half Marathon was June 20, and figured I would be able to get ready in time to put fourth a decent effort to try to win for the third straight year. However, I found out not too long ago that the race was actually June 7, and this put a lot of pressure on me to rush the hip pretty substantially, and had to do a couple workouts to see where I was at. Last Monday (May 25) did my first workout in over 2 months, tried and true mile repeats. Starting with 4 of them trying to just feel it out and let the pace come to me. I went about as good as it could have. The pace wasn't staggering, but it was decent, only problem was that it was just at half marathon pace, and it felt real fast, almost like I was sprinting. That Thursday, I tried a tempo run and same thing, the hip wasn't too bad, just felt a lot harder than the pace would indicate. I've probably pushed way too hard to get back, since about 4 weeks ago I started feeling a couple bumps in the hip just medial and inferior to the ASIS (the bone you can palpate at the front of your hip). Well they went from being able to feel a couple slight bumps and thinking that it was just inflammation in the area that collected in the lymph nodes (a big network of them at that part of the hip), to being able to feel 4 distinct perfectly round and freely moveable nodules. Just like last fall this is probably a good indication that I got more calcific tendinitis due to poor repairing of the muscle tear. But I can run, it hurts like the dickens for about the first 15-20 minutes of every run, then feels progressively better. However, it definitely has affected my stride on that side. During the weight bearing portion on the right leg it hurts the most, and I'm thinking its just those little calcium buggers basically getting squished and impinged on the muscle. To compensate, and this was especially evident early in my comeback based on both the wear patterns on my shoes and the auditory feedback I was getting on ground-contact, my left foot is striking the ground much harder than my right and the last 2 weeks I've been getting some oo too familiar pain on the medial border of that "someday will be graphite" tibia. Well you might say, this really sounds like a pretty bad cycle that I'm getting into now, but Monday did 7X1 miles and it actually was solid. Not solid given my status, but solid in that if I did that last year I would have been somewhat content with the effort. Then Wednesday did a 9k tempo at projected half marathon pace, and again it went pretty well. I mean still not 100% but its run-able and decided to give it a go for this Sunday. Why you ask. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if me the two-time back-to-back champion didn't at least try to defend my title. If at 6k, where there is a steep hill which is giving me some nightmares right now and making me real nervous, there is a good amount of pain in the hip, I'm calling it there, and I'll know that I tried. I say that now, but this time I'm going to try my best to stick to the plan. For me, I know even if I feel some real pain in the hip, I'm not the type of person to pull off and sulk on the side of the road. Normally, I will push myself to keep going until I can't physically lift my foot off the ground, but I will try to constantly remind myself during the race that the future in more important, and while this race seems like the be all and end all right now it's not. However, based on this weeks two workouts, I can give it a decent effort. This race will definitely be about aerobic strength and nothing else because really with only 2 real workouts under my belt going into the race, I'm relying about 100% of my aerobic fitness that I have build up not only the last few months, but for last 5 years in change of training. The tempo run was a good start knowing at least that I could go 9k at race effort, but let me tell you thinking that there is 12k to go after that is scaring the hell out of me. I was pretty tuckered out after that, and going into the race with less mileage and less workout time that ever is intimidating. What I do have going for me is knowing that if I can push myself for 5 hours straight on every Sat and Sun for the last 6 weeks or so, pushing till I've bonked completely numerous times, or a few Sunday's ago yacking right on the lawn after, I can push myself for 70 something minutes. It will not be a PB, and whether I win or not I will be proud of myself for trying my best. So wish me luck that the hip holds up, and allows me to be able to grind through 13.1 miles and finish.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Race Report: Bay 5km
Maybe it is possible to sometimes hype yourself up so much to do something that you actually dig yourself into a hole by making that accomplishment seam like some mythical far fetched goal. Well that was basically my Sunday wrapped up in a poorly worded statement. I think I made sub 15 seem so glorious in my mind, that I actually somehow psyched myself out. I can't tell you how many things went wrong in this race since it literally seemed doomed from the get-go. I figured sub 15 was possible given my strong showing in workouts leading into the race. Two weeks ago I did 5X1km in 2:58/km avg, with only 90 second rest. Couple days before that was 25X200 in 33ish 2:45/km after a 5k tempo with a very short rest, did 12X400 at pace after a 5k tempo, 6X800 at pace and under, and then 8X600 in 2:55/km avg the wednesday before the race which was especially motivating since for some reason I just hate 600s, no problem with 400s or 800s, but 600s seem to beat me up from the inside out and doing them successfully for really the first time ever the wednesday before the race gave me a whirlwind of confidence. While all these hard workouts among others (like a 10k tempo in mid 33) were in the bank arriving in Hamilton Sunday morning, for the first time in months my mind started thinking about something else than the clock, and that was the weather. It was cold, and incredibly windy with wind gusting close to 50km/hr. I figured I would need to hammer the back half of the race where I would at least have help from the wind, but was incredibly nervous for the first half were it would be uphill York Blvd's hill and into the wind. One thing I will say is that despite competition being better at big races, I'm really not a big fan of them. Just like how I don't like downtown Toronto, or downtown Hamilton for that matter, I don't like the chaos that surrounds the start line of big races. Unlike small races where I can warmup in peace and quite and think about nothing but my game plan, rehearsing over and over in my mind the feelings I will encounter while out on course, and my plan of action for various course segments, then toss my warmups aside seconds before the gun, in big races people are walking across right in front of me while I'm warming up, and you usually need to start lining up and tossing your warmups well before the gun because it is difficult to connect with whomever is holding your stuff moments before the race. This race was no different, not saying that I didn't warmup well or anything but standing at the start line for 8 minutes without moving right before the gun since the race for some reason started late didn't help. After the delay the gun sounded and we were off, and within about 5 seconds my mind was once again wandering. Pressed start on my watch but nothing happened, pressed start again and again and still nothing. No joke the first 30 seconds or so of the race I had my head down looking at my watch, running fast still, but not really paying attention to what was around me or going on. Once I finally got the watch to start the four leaders were up well in front of me pushing the early pace, and I knew not even a quarter mile into the race that I was in trouble. The leaders were probably a good 10 seconds ahead if not more, and around me a group of 6 guys was forming and now we were turning onto York heading right into the stiff wind and uphill. I had two choices, get stuck in behind this group and draft my way up the hill and then try to close hard in the second half or try to bridge the gap between the two groups on my own into the wind and uphill. I decided to stay with the second group but quickly realized this was the wrong decision. Not entirely sure how fast the first kilometre was since my watch was started late, but based on where my watch beeped obviously after the actual 1km mark it was probably in the 3:07 range (my watch said 3:08 but it had missed the first few hundred meters which are usually quite fast). I felt like I was jogging with this group and initially had thought wow I must be feeling really good right now since the pace felt really comfortable, but instead it was actually because we were going very slow. I had to leave this group and surge up to one straggler who had fallen off the lead pack. I got him relatively quickly, and soon realize he was also going quite slow. I said out loud to him at this point, "Let's work together here to catch the leader well ahead by now," but obviously he didn't really know what that meant. I intended on him tucking in behind me for a bit to shield from the wind and draft while I push the pace hard, then he could come in front of me well I take a rest bite in behind him. Instead though he stayed on my right shoulder, and I started getting annoyed since this wasn't helping anyone. Suffice to say my mind was wandering and not even thinking about sub 15 anymore. Honestly, I just lost my focus right from the gun and the watch fiasco and struggled to regain my focus. I had built this race and going sub 15 up and this epic thing and yet it went by so quickly. Before I knew it had 1 km to go, and was wishing I could take a mulligan on this one. I tried going hard that last kilometres but still just like the rest of the race despite my body feeling fine, and feeling like jogging, I couldn't seem to get out of fourth gear. Don't know what it was, maybe I was just so demoralized by the first kilometre since I knew for sub 15 it would take a near perfectly executed race. Anyways strolled across the line in 15:46, about 50 seconds off my predicted time, in fact slower than the 10k pace that I was intending on going for the Yonge St. 10k April 19th. Wasn't even out of breathe at the end, just incredibly disappointed and confused at what had just happened. How could I run so slow, with my body feeling so good - for the time being at least.
I say for the time being since after the race during my cool down, where I spend the majority of the time angrily talking to myself, I felt some tightness in my right hip (in the fall it was my left hip). I thought it was probably just some usual post-race soreness, and brushed it aside. Drove back to Thornhill in silence, angry, and then even more angry when I realized halfway back that I had in fact won the 20-24 age group, and would've won a prize. Now even though I didn't feel like I deserved a prize, I still thought well if someone gave me some gift card and some apparel or something it might make me feel a little better. I was so upset when I got back I wanted to do a workout, since I really didn't feel the race took a lot out of me, and it's what I've been doing for the last year or so after shorter races. But three intervals in that tightness/pain/cramping feeling returned to my right hip, and cut the workout short. Jogged back home, ice bathed and thought that was the end of it. Monday the hip was sore in the morning, but throughout the day it felt better and better, and by 6 when I started my run it was fine. The first little bit of the run it felt sore, but nothing crazy. Halfway in it started feeling marginally better but then the last 6-7k was agonizingly painful, and had to stop a couple times to stretch it which didn't seem to help. That night it was brutally painful to palpation, and on stretch, and then in the morning the familiar feeling that I had experienced in the fall was back. I was struggling to weight bear on the right leg, and couldn't go up the stairs leading with my right. So taking the day off running, and thoughts of the fall's injury are flooding through my mind. Is this going to be another 3.5 month injury like the last one. Originally I was even planning and about to sign up on Sunday for the Jordan 5km to give sub 15 another go, but now my mind is thinking will I even be running the Yonge St 10, or the Scotiabank Ottawa Half Marathon. I cannot afford another injury, and really it was only in March that I finally stopped feeling the discomfort in my left hip. So even though I was running in December, it was really like 6 months before I think I completely healed. Feel's like Deja vu after last year Around the Bay had me on the sideline and unable to compete in the spring race I had signed up and paid for.
I say for the time being since after the race during my cool down, where I spend the majority of the time angrily talking to myself, I felt some tightness in my right hip (in the fall it was my left hip). I thought it was probably just some usual post-race soreness, and brushed it aside. Drove back to Thornhill in silence, angry, and then even more angry when I realized halfway back that I had in fact won the 20-24 age group, and would've won a prize. Now even though I didn't feel like I deserved a prize, I still thought well if someone gave me some gift card and some apparel or something it might make me feel a little better. I was so upset when I got back I wanted to do a workout, since I really didn't feel the race took a lot out of me, and it's what I've been doing for the last year or so after shorter races. But three intervals in that tightness/pain/cramping feeling returned to my right hip, and cut the workout short. Jogged back home, ice bathed and thought that was the end of it. Monday the hip was sore in the morning, but throughout the day it felt better and better, and by 6 when I started my run it was fine. The first little bit of the run it felt sore, but nothing crazy. Halfway in it started feeling marginally better but then the last 6-7k was agonizingly painful, and had to stop a couple times to stretch it which didn't seem to help. That night it was brutally painful to palpation, and on stretch, and then in the morning the familiar feeling that I had experienced in the fall was back. I was struggling to weight bear on the right leg, and couldn't go up the stairs leading with my right. So taking the day off running, and thoughts of the fall's injury are flooding through my mind. Is this going to be another 3.5 month injury like the last one. Originally I was even planning and about to sign up on Sunday for the Jordan 5km to give sub 15 another go, but now my mind is thinking will I even be running the Yonge St 10, or the Scotiabank Ottawa Half Marathon. I cannot afford another injury, and really it was only in March that I finally stopped feeling the discomfort in my left hip. So even though I was running in December, it was really like 6 months before I think I completely healed. Feel's like Deja vu after last year Around the Bay had me on the sideline and unable to compete in the spring race I had signed up and paid for.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Frosty 5k and Training Update
As you already know this past weekend I was competing in the Frosty 5km in Burlington. It is part of the VRpro race series, and the Chilly Half Marathon was also being run, which was won by Reid Coolsaet. Arrived to the race in good time for a good long warmup run, drills, and strides. Other than my back still really bugging me, it was great to breathe the fresh air of the outdoors, not the dry desert air of the indoor track. Before the race I had thought that the competition would be pretty good, but within the first 100m of the race, I knew I would be pushing the pace from the front. The first kilometre went exactly as planned - run a sub 3 to build a little buffer. I was gunning for 15:25 (3:05/km) to act as a tune up for Around the Bay. Second kilometre was perfect as well, running a 3:05. My stride felt pretty good, nice and quick, not crazy long, but a fast cadence. First kilometre averaged 1.75m strides with 192 steps/min, and second k was 1.64m strides with 198 steps/min. Third k was still feeling good, and saw at the turn around that the win was in the bag, but I wasn't here for the win, I was hear to put up a time. Third was 3:05, still 1.64m strides with 198 step/min, so clearly in a good rhythm. Fourth k was a little rough, my left hamstring started tightened up a bit, and a small hill took a little bite out of my legs, but still got through it in 3:08.8, stride length was 1.63m and cadence slowed to 195 steps/min. But refocused and came storming back to run a 3:02 to the finish peaking at 215 steps/min. Overall time was 15:21 beating my actual PB by 19 seconds from last year. Definitely was a good hard effort, and really took something away from the race. Basically, I strongly believe that running fast obviously takes a tonne of training and hard work, but I think the mental aspect perhaps has even more of an impact. For instance, during the fourth kilometre I could feel my hamstring starting to tighten a little bit, and literally for a tiny instant I could hear a little voice in the back of my head (I think of it like the little Devil on your shoulder) saying the win is in the bag, you don't have to keep pressing, you could slow down, lose this feeling of not being able to breathe, let the hamstring relax, and coast into the finish for the win. But I didn't listen and kept pressing, and really opened it up to the finish. Running fast is about how willing a person is to go down into that dark place and hurt, push through, and when you feel you pace slowing slightly, push harder, and not give in to the temptation. I really do believe in a saying that a great runner on my team mentioned in one of his blog posts that its about how willing someone is to tickle the reaper. If your going to run fast, it will hurt, but you need to understand that the feeling is temporary. You need to withstand that hurt and discomfort for 15 minutes. It is such a new experience, and a new challenge that I'm ready to take on, training for this short speedy stuff compared to the marathon. For example, in the 2013 Scotiabank Marathon, where I set my PB, it hurt absolutely, but a completely different type of hurt. During a marathon during those last 10k or so especially on the stretch on Queen Street on the concrete street car tracks, your body physically hurts. It hurts because, well quite simply you've been running for a awful long time. But during a marathon I never got to the point that my breathing rate became uncontrollably fast, heart rate was red lining, and legs hurting in a completely different way. I think of it like during a marathon the pain is mechanical, whereas during a 5k the pain in metabolic or physiological. The point is I love a challenge and I'm ready to try to red line for 15 minutes in a few weeks.
Today was one of my hardest workout in a really long time. Monday, Tuesday I kept the pace pretty easy (but the mileage was still pretty big) to recover from Sunday since after the race I threw in a broken 1500: 200,300, 400, 600 small but mighty little post-race Alberto Salazar style workout. So today was 3X1mile at 15 minute 5k pace, then a 200m+x amount at the same pace until I started feeling uncomfortable. The 200 was just to make it 5k of work, and wanted to just stay at the pace right until the second I felt the pace starting to dip. The key with this workout, and with any I guess, was the rest period. I kept the recovery jog in between the repeats at 1min. The first one went splendidly at 4:48 for the mile or 2:59/km pace. Then the second mile beat me back, and I got destroyed. I really wasn't anticipated how short the 1 min recovery in between would feel, as in the past doing 6-10 by a mile workouts my rest has been a lot longer in-between, in addition to the pace not being nearly as quick. When my watch starting counting down the seconds to the next repeat I was caught off guard, and my heart rate had only got back down to 162, so I was starting the next repeat already breathing pretty hard, and by about 500-600m I was feeling it. The pace slowed big time, and I ran in at 4:57 or about 3:05/km pace. The third one I tried hard to rally and was able to get back to 4:52, and then ended up adding on 310 meters at 2:58 pace. Overall, I was content with the workout. I was a little upset about the second mile but happy with how I tried to rally back on the third. Still, considering the roads weren't great, and that I was on my own, to get that close to a race effort made the workout a success. With elite 5k training the majority of the workouts are usually 400s or 600s or 800s mostly because to get pumped up enough to hold 5k race pace for mile repeats in a workout on your own is pretty tough. In fact an article I was just reading on elite 5k workouts talked about how though some elites need to get in 3x1mile on a minute rest to feel ready for the race, but that those athletes are very rare. Anyways, so I'm enjoying right now putting a lot of thought into my various workouts trying to make them as specific as possible. On Friday I'll be doing 8x600 in 1:45, and I'm eager to get after it. And I'll see maybe in a couple weeks I can give one more go at the 3X1mile. Below in just a short clip of the race on the weekend (it could be seen in 1080p just change the setting on the bottom right).
Today was one of my hardest workout in a really long time. Monday, Tuesday I kept the pace pretty easy (but the mileage was still pretty big) to recover from Sunday since after the race I threw in a broken 1500: 200,300, 400, 600 small but mighty little post-race Alberto Salazar style workout. So today was 3X1mile at 15 minute 5k pace, then a 200m+x amount at the same pace until I started feeling uncomfortable. The 200 was just to make it 5k of work, and wanted to just stay at the pace right until the second I felt the pace starting to dip. The key with this workout, and with any I guess, was the rest period. I kept the recovery jog in between the repeats at 1min. The first one went splendidly at 4:48 for the mile or 2:59/km pace. Then the second mile beat me back, and I got destroyed. I really wasn't anticipated how short the 1 min recovery in between would feel, as in the past doing 6-10 by a mile workouts my rest has been a lot longer in-between, in addition to the pace not being nearly as quick. When my watch starting counting down the seconds to the next repeat I was caught off guard, and my heart rate had only got back down to 162, so I was starting the next repeat already breathing pretty hard, and by about 500-600m I was feeling it. The pace slowed big time, and I ran in at 4:57 or about 3:05/km pace. The third one I tried hard to rally and was able to get back to 4:52, and then ended up adding on 310 meters at 2:58 pace. Overall, I was content with the workout. I was a little upset about the second mile but happy with how I tried to rally back on the third. Still, considering the roads weren't great, and that I was on my own, to get that close to a race effort made the workout a success. With elite 5k training the majority of the workouts are usually 400s or 600s or 800s mostly because to get pumped up enough to hold 5k race pace for mile repeats in a workout on your own is pretty tough. In fact an article I was just reading on elite 5k workouts talked about how though some elites need to get in 3x1mile on a minute rest to feel ready for the race, but that those athletes are very rare. Anyways, so I'm enjoying right now putting a lot of thought into my various workouts trying to make them as specific as possible. On Friday I'll be doing 8x600 in 1:45, and I'm eager to get after it. And I'll see maybe in a couple weeks I can give one more go at the 3X1mile. Below in just a short clip of the race on the weekend (it could be seen in 1080p just change the setting on the bottom right).
Thursday, February 26, 2015
The Pavement Beckons
Ah finally, exams over, and now 1.5 weeks off before a 6-week placement at a Sports Medicine in Ancaster, finally getting to do what I came to McMaster to do. Did well on exams, and now my focus shifts 100% to training for the next little bit. As you know, last Friday I raced a 3000m at UofT. Going into the race, and during, I was not feeling close to 100%. I would say besides Around the Bay last year, I've never felt less motivated to start a race with my back feeling like there was a knife at the left sacroiliac joint, plus fighting through a cold. And as everyone probably knows when you have a cold, with congestion, a headache, and just overall feeling like garbage, your sleep is affected. So I really didn't sleep very much that week, and really did not want to race. Not to mention in the morning I had my OSCE, the practical exam, at 8am which for everyone is extremely stressful. And with the race starting at 9pm in Toronto, let's just say it was a long day. However, I felt compelled to race. For me, I can't stand the thought of committing to something, and then not following through with it. If I didn't race that night or at least give it a try, I would never forgive myself. It's the same reason I raced Around the Bay last year on a stress fracture. So I raced. Let me tell you, people can question my speed, if I have the talent to make it big in athletics, or my training practices, but no one on this green (white) earth can question my ability to push through, grind, and my overall mental toughness. As soon as I walked into that building at UofT, I could feel the dryness in the air hit the back of my throat. For someone with a cold, I knew this would be tough, and it was. In the past two races, I've started feeling the burning sensation reach the back of my throat after the first 6 laps or so, but this time off the gun I felt the discomfort, not to mention feeling the pain in back as the vibration from the every initial contact to the ground traveled up my leg to my pelvis, and to my back. Despite still not making the 8:45 time I set out to achieve (finished 8:54 - 2:58/km), on this night in the condition I was in, I was happy to finish the race. I do actually believe that it was one of my better tactical races that I've had. Through the first 200 or so I was dead last (not surprising given the good competition at this meet). I worked hard to pass one guy in front of me, then the next lap the next guy, then another, to eventually leading the pack. If not for one unfortunate sequence on the bell (final) lap would've actually finished in third. You could see in the video, as the bell rang I got completely boxed in by three other runners, and there was literally no where for me to go. I couldn't pass them not because they were running too quickly for me but instead because I had no space to stretch my legs out and let loose. Between 3rd and 10th place there was only a 2 second difference so it was an incredibly tight race. Usually I would have said an incredibly enjoyable race, but trust me, if you were there anywhere near the track you could see that I was in a world of pain. I felt like I couldn't breathe, and was panting start to finish. It was rough during, and even more so afterwards. It felt like I swallowed a ball of fire. I couldn't stop coughing, and it hurt just to breathe. This actually continued for a good 3 days afterwards - it wasn't until Monday that I couldn't feel the burning sensation in my throat anymore. Still I'm glad I raced because I learned another thing about myself. That's the purpose of racing, and of running in general - to experience something that you can't experience in any other realm of life, and to learn about your true self down to the core. In other words it allows you to learn what your made of. And well, I learned that I do have what it takes to be a great runner because simply stated no one can possibly push themselves harder than I do and grind like I can. Think about who do you know that after an experience like that on Friday night, would be looking forward to their 5k race only 9 days later. And that's where my focus lies now.
My SIJ is still hurting, talked to a couple other runners today and they said they've both got that when they've jumped into indoor track workouts too quickly. Apparently it's something about how sharp the turns are on the corners of our track, and just puts an incredible amount of stress on your joints. But obviously, I'm still ticking, and will obviously still race on Sunday. Workouts this week have gone pretty well. Monday was 3X6min tempo-ish pace, Tuesday was an easier run day just a 60 minuter was 5Xa big long hill (about 400m long) then an hour of weights, then today (wednesday) was I'd say one of the best workouts I've had in a while despite feeling my back throughout, just kept grinding through. Workout was a 5k warmup, then 10 minute tempo run on the road at 3:12/km then headed up to the track for 3 sets of a broken 1500. This is an Alberto Salazar workout that I love and have done twice before, once in Park City, and then once before my Pb 10k later in the summer. It's 3 sets of 600m, 400m, 300m, 200m - 1:15s rest between the 6 and 4, 1 min between the 4 and the 3, and 45 s between the 3 and 2 then 1:30s between sets. 600s were done in 1:47, 1:45, 1:44, 400s were 1:10, 1:10, 1:08, 3s were 52, 52, 51, and 200s were 35, 35, 32. The last set was done in spikes hence the 2-3 seconds faster. Overall everything averages out to 2:53-2:55/km so I was very happy. Even threw in a good swim afterwards. So Sunday is a 5k in Burlington. Don't know what the conditions are going to be like, I guess you never know for a winter race, so it's kind of tough to set a goal time. But overall my goals for 2015 besides competing for the Canadian Cross Country Championship later in November, are to run a sub 15 5k, a sub 31 10k (something like 30:58), and a sub 1:10 half hopefully 1:09:30ish. But I'm not aiming for the sub 15 this weekend. This weekend I'm aiming for a good hard effort running 15:25ish or 3:05/km pace. This may sound kind of conservative, but first or all let me say 15:25 a'int no breeze, and would technically be a PB, even though last year I ran 15:16 it was on a short course. Second, everything right now is building toward the Around the Bay 5k at the end of March, which is in fact where I'm going to be aiming for the sub 15 given the faster competition, hopefully better conditions, hopefully a healed back, and a much faster stronger Frank. This year I'm tentatively setting my training plan right now and what I'm planning on doing is incorporating a much more periodized schedule into my program. I want to work in 4-week microcyclyes, where I run big mileage with lots of speed work for 3 weeks, then reduce mileage by about 50% for the 4th week, then repeat the cycle again but with higher mileage over the 3-weeks. In terms of racing, I'll try to work my schedule out so that at the end of each of the easy weeks at the end of the 4-week cycle I race. So for instance, 3-week block after Sunday, then easy week with Around the Bay on the weekend, then 3 weeks hard, then 1 week easy with a 10k on that weekend - maybe Toronto Yonge St. to try to get sub 31 given the downhill or the course. So that's what happening for now, until next time as the Kenyans say Train Hard, Win Easy. (The UofT video is below)
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