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."

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.