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.

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.