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: