Rose City and the Plans for the Future

The next race on the schedule was the Rose City Long Course Triathlon in Welland, ON on June 26. This was a 2km swim followed by a 56 km bike on a flat course. Heading into the race, I was so pumped about my swimming starting to come back to form thanks to starting to work with a swim coach from Milton, Sheryl Ross. She is amazing, and knows her stuff so well. Her background as a kinesiologist really makes the approach very scientifically based, and has been putting together my swim program which I will be following through the summer, and into the winter. After only 1 session with her I felt my stroke had become that much more efficient. The game plan was to work on basically lengthening out my stroke, so that I'm completing the stroke fully with complete tricep extension, and starting my pull slightly earlier. Also, I've been working hard on maintaining core stability in the water, bilateral breathing, and not lifting my body vertically in the water as I pull through the stroke, so all my power is dedicated to forward movement through the water. So far the workouts have a great mix of drills, and pace work, and it really makes the time fly in the pool, being able to shut down and focus on only my form, and not having to think about what interval I should do next, or combination of intervals to do each day.

So now onto Welland. My swim wave of (ages 18-39) started 1 minute after the 15 pro/elite group. The swim course was amazing. It was at the Flatwater Centre in Welland where they held the rowing events for the paralympics last summer, so it meant that the water was very clean. The course was a simple rectangle swimming about 900 meters out then across to the other side of the river, 900 m back and then back into the swim transition for 2km. Initially, when planning out how long the race would take, my goal time for the swim was 30 minute or 1:30/100m. After the pros went, my wave was sent off. It started at a furious pace, according to my watch I averaged 1:12/100m for the first 200 meters! I reached the 1km mark at 13:46. By approximately 600 meters I caught up to the tail end of the pro/elite group who started a minute before, and began passing. By about 1200 meters I caught a second pack of the pro group and passed them. I completed the 2km in 28:59 for a solid 1:26/100m average pace. This was the sixth fastest swim of the day among all racers in all categories. I'll explain later why I'm especially happy with this result. So now onto my girl Elektra. There was a very long run up to the transition up a set of stairs, and then an even longer run from the transition to the road where we could mount our bikes. Out on the course, the first half was entirely into a headwind (17 mph steady gusting to 30), that was hurting slightly from the left side as well. This meant gearing slightly down to keep my cadence nice and high. I saw up ahead after about 5km a rider slogging it in a big gear, and knew I would catch them shortly. Picked them off pretty quickly and according to strava's estimate, my surge to past was at 816 W, and had been averaging about 300 W for the first 10

kilometres, which is 5.4 W/Kg. After another few kilometres I saw my next victim up ahead by a good margin. It took a while but eventually at about 21km he was within striking distance. I tried to make a move to pass but about 10 m away from him I decided it was not going to be a clean pass so dropped back to a legal distance, regained some energy, then yelled at myself to let er rip. I averaged 340 W (6.1 W/kg) for the next 3 kms, and took a quick look back at the turn, and had him beat. So my position was looking even better. Past another competitor a little later and now made the turn back to the finish. The wind had changed slightly, it was helping a little but was now more of a straight south wind which meant a crosswind. I kept my cool, geared up and pounded it back to the finish. The final 20 km I averaged the highest power average I ever have with 352 W for about 27 minutes. That is 6.3 W/kg!! Tour de France numbers. Over this time I averaged 44.5 km/hr, meaning I completed the 56.5 kms or so in 1:23:13 for an average speed of 41 kph. It was one of the best bikes I've ever done, and my overall time was 1:55 for the win (four in a row). Was hurting bad into that headwind on the first half, but just took it 1 minute at a time. What I was most proud at was that another elite cyclist in my division was neck in neck with me in terms of my bike split, meaning that my swim won me the race, since I was out of the water 4 minutes faster than him. This gives me confidence that I'm not a one trick pony with just being able to win races on the bike, but being able to go toe to toe with some of the better swimmers in the sport which bodes well for my future.

So the game plan is now to do the Niagara Triathlon on July 17 and try to pb the swim. After that I'm hoping my running is back to form, and I'm able to compete in the National Championships which I've qualified for in Nebraska August 14, and then do a half ironman in August as well. After that will likely do Guelph Lake in September, and then another half ironman (Niagara Falls Barrellman) later in September which will be the provincial championships. After that the race season is not quite done, as I would like to do the US National Championships for the Aquabike in Miami in November. Luckily, doing these crazy tough bike workouts right now in the heat of my apartment is probably pretty similar to what weather I can expect in Miami. Today's workout was no joke, 2x7 minutes at 110% FTP, 2X5 minutes at 115% FTP, 1x3min at 120%, 1x 2minutes at 125% FTP. My apartment was 90 degrees Fahrenheit at the time, and with the intensity of the intervals after the fourth interval, I was no lie in tears from the extreme discomfort I was in. I have no idea how but I was able to dig even deeper for the two subsequent intervals with my heart pounding along near maximum, and legs absolutely searing from the lactate surging through them. But how did I make it through, I kept repeating over and over I KNOW I CAN DO THIS. I actually think letting out that emotion stirred up some more adrenaline and helped carry my body through the last two intervals. Forgot to mention that I was carrying a huge amount of fatigue into this workout with a number of difficult workouts in the days prior, including a 172 km long ride from Thornhill to see my grandparents on Canada Day in Trenton. For that ride the final 92 kilometres was completed 2:30 hours for 37 km/hr average speed. It was a beastly ride, and I felt like I could keep going for much longer afterwards which is re-assuring for my future plans to one day compete in Kona for the Ironman World Championships.

A Lengthy Update

It's been a while since I last updated my blog but I wanted have something more positive to write about than what I left you with after my last post. This was becoming a super long post so I split it up into two separate ones the second of which I'll post in a couple days I promise. Since it's been so long I don't even really know where to begin. First a quick recap. So as you recall the day after the 8 km race in April, I sustained a very bad injury to my left leg. I was unable to run or even walk without severely limping due to pain around my knee, radiating down into my lower leg and foot. If I had tried running it would be tolerable for a few seconds before feeling like a pressure was building in my lower leg, until feeling like it was going to explode. If I tried to walk slightly faster, the pain would be so gross my whole leg would give out from underneath me. I was convinced it was compartment syndrome, however this injury was the strangest injury that I've ever sustained in that the pain was never consistent. Some days it would feel as though it was my knee that was the problem, and other days it would feel as though it was my lower leg that was the problem in the anterior compartment of shin. Sometimes it would feel similar to a stress fracture at the medial part of my leg. And other times it would feel as though it was a hip problem. I had seen a therapist here at McMaster, who thought it was a problem in one of my hip muscles as well that was impinging on the nerve specifically the femoral nerve that was causing the pain to radiate Down into my knee and into my lower leg as well. He worked on my hip, and I kept up my homework that he had given me to work out some tightness in my glute minimus specifically, and the posterior side of the vastus lateralis (one of the quad muscles) near my ITB band. The homework consisted of a lot of painful active release techniques, and balance exercises to improve the strength of my hip muscles. I also did a lot of work simply stepping forwards onto the left foot and bringing my hips forwards as I did so, while keeping my abs tight, and my pelvis in a slight posterior tilt. Essentially, for a solid 2 months my core/strength workouts essentially had been aimed at re-inventing how I move. I've always known that I run with quite a severe amount of lordosis in my lumbar spine couple with an anteriorly rotated pelvis. Overtime this has given me a plethora of frontal hip problems and lower back problems. Specifically my hip flexors, since they have been needing to work so hard from an anatomically disadvantaged and lengthened position. Within the first couple weeks I saw my knee pain disappear, however the pain in my lower leg persisted. Like I said before this was the strangest injury I've ever had, and the most debilitating in terms of gross pain. I can't remember how many times I said to people yes it's compartment syndrome, to then less then a week later saying yes it's 100% a deep stress fracture in the tibia, to no it's a stress fracture of the fibula, to it feels like a high degree ankle sprain.

Throughout this time, I had been putting in monster weeks on the bike and in the pool. I had been averaging anywhere from 25-35km in the pool, and 450-550km on the bike per week. As I mentioned before in my last post, I have been following an intense program provided by TrainerRoad for the indoor trainer, and was in the midst of the build phase of the program (there are three phases: base, build, speciality). Whereas the base phase consisted of many sweet spot workouts or workouts about 10-20% below my threshold, with a focus of increasing the amount of time I could tolerate at a sub-threshold power, the build phase, in my opinion, was much more demanding in that it consisted of weekly VO2 max workouts, and bi-weekly over-under workouts, and well as a bi-weekly long ride. The VO2 max workouts consist of 6-10 shorter intervals in the 3-4 minute range at 120-125% FTP with the aim of increasing my aerobic and anaerobic power. The intervals are setup in a way such that you are supposed to be barely able to finish each interval. Overtime, I could start to see the improvements and felt my VO2 max was beginning to respond. For example, one workout which was 10x3minutes at 115% FTP saw my Heart Rate climb up to 196-197 which was the highest heart rate, other than my VO2 max test in my undergrad, that I ever achieved on a bike. Subsequently, two weeks later I did 9x4 minutes but this time at 120% FTP, and my heart rate didn't get above mid 170s indicating that my VO2 max had likely increased. What I found even more demanding than the VO2 max workouts, were the over-under intervals. These consist of longer intervals in the 10-12 minute range where you go from 95% FTP to 105%, and back to 95, then back to 105 and so fourth. This means that as you increase to a %FTP where your muscles begin to flood with a combo of fatigue and lactate, you stay there for a bit, and then the "recovery" though is still at a very high intensity of 95%, so essentially you are forced to try to work through the mounting fatigue and burning in your legs while still pedalling and working at a very high intensity. Essentially, these intervals work to increase your ability to better buffer lactate, increasing not only how long you can work above your FTP but also increasing your FTP itself. I just realized that I've been throwing around the term FTP a whole lot in this last paragraph, and for those of you who do not know what FTP stands for, it means you're functional threshold power which is representation of the maximum power you can sustain for one hour.

The results were incredible. I felt so good on the bike, I built up the confidence to enter into my first ever bike race, which was the Grey County Time Trial in Blue Mountains on May 27 at 7pm. So many new things to take in at this race. My first bike race, my first time trial in any sport, my first time facing professional cyclists in a UCI World Championship Qualifier. A time trial, in case you don't know, is what they call the race of truth. You may have seen it on tv in the tour de france for example where the cyclists have on the skin suits, aero (pointy back) helmet, big disc wheel on the back of the bike, and riding solo at very high speeds on a closed course. Basically, riders go off in one minute intervals, so it is an entirely a solo effort against the clock, and then against competitors to see who had the best time. Now normally, since speed is the name of the game in a time trial they are normally done on flat fast route. Stupidly this was done in Blue Mountain, with categorized climbs, one stretch on a gravelly road, and many turns. Not exactly built for speed, which was frustrating not only to me, who was going to test and push my limits on the bike, but to the professionals who flocked here for the UCI World qualifier. This course was be no means a proper time trial course, it was a road race course which they slapped the name time trial onto. Still it was pretty cool to start on a start ramp to be unleashed onto the course. This one would definitely be challenging for me, considered the gearing on my bike (with an 11-23 cassette) was not build for the hills, and also I was one of two of the only competitors who didn't have a disc or aero carbon wheels on their bike. I had heavy alloy rims on my bike, since the new wheels which I purchased had not yet been delivered, which would again hurt me on the climbs and on the flats. But I tried to keep my mindset such that it was a race against the clock, and an opportunity to push myself into a new realm of pain on the bike. The course was 33.5km long and in such a short amount of time had 1400 ft of elevation gain. Within 1 minute and 8 seconds may heart rate was at 180 bpm. I forgot to mention, unfortunately the week leading into the race my power meter on my bike which itself is worth 3000$ stopped working out of the blue. I have relied on power data throughout my training with TrainerRoad, and was intending on holding a specific power plan for the race course, which was critical to my pacing strategy. Since many readers following along may be runners and not cyclists, to put it into more relatable terms, think about it as though going into a marathon you have trained for 16 weeks and intended on sticking to 5 min/km to run a 3:30 marathon and then in the week before the race, your watch stops working and you need to race without it. So I had no data to go by except for heart rate to judge my effort, which can be incredibly unreliable since so many factors affect it. Anyways back to the time trial, so after the first couple turns, by 4 minutes when the road straightened out and turned into the wind, my heart rate was up at 186 and was travelling 44-50 km/hr. On the category 3 climb, according to Strava which can make a rough estimation of power output based on speed and the gradient of the climb I averaged approximately 400 Watts (almost 8 w/kg) for 3.5 km and heart rate peaked at 190 bpm. It really is a totally different feeling then running in a race, where here it felt literally like my heart was beating out of my chest and legs were absolutely burning. Anyways to skip a little ahead. I conquered that climb, then pounded it to the finish with a couple more hills to get over before then. On the gradual descent back to the finish I peaked at 80 km/hr which was a big confidence booster for me. I'm not going to lie, fast descents scare the daylights out of me, but to hit this speed on one and not touch the brakes gave me a lot of confidence, confidence which I would need in my next race up, the Milton Triathlon. But before I get to that, to sum up the Time Trial, which in warmup based on the look of my competition who were mostly professional category 1 and 2 cyclists and the fact that everyone had bikes with light carbon wheels and aerodynamic discs, along with 1000$ skin suits for aerodynamics, I thought I was going to come dead last, but actually managed a mid-pack finish, and averaged 39km/hr for 51 minutes on a hilly course with garbage roads. So I was very pleased with my effort, and according to Strava which again gave a rough estimate of my power it said my estimated power averaged was 300W. This would have been a new FTP. The next morning after staying over in Blue Mountain, I biked back to Thornhill. I was initially thinking this was going to be an easy downhill ride back since I had a 4.5 hour ride scheduled at an easy intensity on the trainer road plan. It wasn't. It was crazy hilly especially when in the cliffs in Mono, and climbed almost 4000ft. Not to mention this was on a day with an extreme heat alert with the temperature in the low 40s with the humidex, and o ya to add to things was into a headwind start to finish, with the south winds bringing in the hot air. So I would say it far from a recovery ride, but again I pulled through and sucked it up to finish strong. About 2 hours in I wanted to give up so badly, my heart rate was very high throughout and was breathing very hard start to finish thanks to the heat. Going up one monster climb in Mono which was about a 15 minute long steep climb I was struggling, but I tried to convince myself that I did not have a phone in my back pocket and that this was the only way home. It worked. I was able to re-focus, and grind away the miles.

Now onto Milton. But before I get there, I should mention that biking was not the only thing I was up to. In early May I started swimming with 4 elite triathletes at Mac on a regular basis, all of whom are better swimmers than me. But I figured I would never get better by continuing to swim random workouts on my own at my own pace. Initially, I was needing to go all out just to stay near their feet in the water. For example, we would have sets in the beginning where they would say okay so were going to do 12x50m leaving on 45 (meaning the repetitions start every 45 seconds, so if your finished in 40 then you get 5 second recovery before the next interval, if you finish in 45, then you just keep swimming hoping you can pick up the pace to get some recovery before the next one). They would say 12x50 in 45 just building into the set. I would say sure and instead of going easy would need to go flat out start to finish make the pace time. The problem was that this was a building set into the main set which was supposed to be much harder. Well I was already going flat out. After about a week of flogging myself, I started seeing huge gains, and basically was setting new personal bests every day, and now was able to keep up and do the sets the right way.

So the Milton Triathlon was a sprint distance triathlon, meaning it was a 800 meter long swim and a 30 km bike. This race is part of the Subaru Triathlon Series, which always attract high level competition. Since I was still not running consistently and pain-free at this point I was entered in, into the Swim/Bike Division. Meaning exactly what it sounds like, there is the same swim, same bike, and your finish is at the end of the bike. My wave went approximately 6 minutes after the first wave, and 3 minutes after the seconds. By about 1 minute into the race, there was no one near me in my wave, and a couple minutes later I caught the second wave. I meandered through this wave of swimmers, and after a few more minutes caught up to the first wave of the race. I had a great swim doing the 800 meters in 10 minutes and 40 seconds. Then I ran out of the water, and got it going on Elektra. The race is known for a very long steep climb up the escarpment, and again my bike wasn't really built for this, but I passed countless numbers of riders, and was beginning to dominate the competition (remember the people I was passing had started 6 minutes before me). Eventually I was passing some of the elite cyclists in the sport as the rain began to fall. The roads were starting to get wet, and we still had to go back down that same hill that we previously climbed up. Again I went down it with no fear peaking over 80 km/hr on wet roads, with a hard left hand turn right at the base of the hill (gulp). Got through it, and finished the race incredibly strong. I had won my race by a huge margin, and had the fastest bike split of the day, and very close to the course record. I covered the 30km in 45 minutes for 40 km/hr average speed.

Next up was the Guelph Triathlon, also part of the Subaru Series, where I would be doing the Olympic Distance Swim/Bike on the Saturday (1.5km swim, 40km bike) and then the Sprint Distance Swim/Bike (800m, 20km) as well on the Sunday. Going into the race my swimming was not quite as strong (I was just not feeling as strong in the water in the workout leading up to the race) but still managed to hold a pretty good pace of 22 minutes for 1500m (1:27/100m). I got out of the water in a great position, and got onto my deadly weapon of a bike Elektra, which was now equipped with awesome deep carbon wheels. Once again I dominated the race, and won again by a massive margin. This time I had the third fastest bike split of the day, in a much deeper and more elite field which included a number of professional triathletes. I completed the 40 km in 1 hour 1 minute on a windy day, and rolling course which a couple major climbs. On the way back (it was an out and back course) I averaged anywhere from mid 40s to 65 km/hr. Next day right back to the course, and familiar feelings winning the race once again propelled to victory by my bike split completing the 20 km in 29 minutes flat. This was a pretty tough feeling race to start with on the bike, as about 5 km in I was thinking trying to double on consecutive days was a bike idea as my legs felt a little flat, but battled through and broke the race up into 1 minute segments, focusing on holding a consistent cadence, and not dwelling on the pain mounting in my legs.

Here's a post-race photo with my beast of a bike, and new stunning wheels:

So three consecutive wins, and next up would be my toughest challenge the Rose City Long Course Triathlon in Welland with details in my next post. 

To sum up this post though, one quote comes to mind from the great Tim Allen in Galaxy Quest, "Never give up, never surrender." When everything seems to be going wrong, and there is seemingly no answer, trust in your abilities, and believe that you will overcome whatever obstacles that face you. Hard work pays off, and those times where you think you can't keep going, or need to slow down, believe that your work ethic and your perseverance is what will set you apart from your competition on race day and in life in general. I constantly say to myself in training one of my favourite quotes, "We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." (Aristotle)

Thanks for reading, and until next time, get outside, and enjoy the day pushing your so called limits. 

Race Roster Spring Run Off 8 km and Post-Race

Last weekend (April 9) I lined up to compete in the newly named Race Roster Spring Run off 8km, formally the Harry's Spring Run off. Post-Achilles 5km, the 4 weeks of training leading up to race day could not have possibly gone any better. I was carrying zero injuries, and my stride felt completely free during workouts. Free to surge as I pleased, and for the first time in ages it seemed, I was able to just walk out the door and start running without having to get myself mentally psyched up to push through any injury and the accompanying pain. As I mentioned previously I've been following a plan by the world's best running coach, Jack Daniels, who has coached numerous Olympians and national class runners. The only minor alteratation I made on the program would be on occasion pushing the Thurs workout to a Friday (Good Friday) so I could prepare better, and one other case where I changed the date of a workout to accommodate for weather. Over the 4 weeks my training looked like this:

March 14 - March 20: 142 km Running (over 6 days, 1 day off); 290km Cycling (over 5 days), 9 km swim (over 2 days); 3 hours strength training

Key Run Workouts that week: Tues: 6x5min at I pace (3:12/km);
Thurs: 25 min T pace (3:21/km) then 4 x 200m at R pace (33 seconds);
Sat: 60min M pace (3:30/km)

March 21 - March 27: 152 km Running (over 7 days), 290 km Cycling (over 7 days); 3 hours strength training

Key Run Workouts that week: Tues: 2x10min (T/I pace) on 1 minute recovery followed by 10k easy, then 2x10min (T/I pace) same recovery -- pace was between 3:12/km-3:16/km (total of 40minutes at T pace);
Friday: 30 min M pace straight into 5 minutes T pace straight back into 30 min M pace --> ended up with 12 miles in 1:06 flat which is 3:25/km for 19.4 km and 1 more mile for 1:11 half marathon on my own in ice storm

March 28 - April 3: 133 km Running (7 days, 1 just 10k shakeout), 380km cycling (over 7 days), 3 hours strength

Key Run Workouts that week: Tues: Track Session: 2 sets of 1,2,3,2,1 min R pace intervals on 1 min recovery, 5 minutes between sets pace ranged from 2:48/km to slowest of 2:58/km
Friday: 20 min T pace, 10 min T pace, 5 min T pace (averaged 3:18/km for 10.66 km) 5 minute recovery between intervals

April 4 - April 10: 140 km Running (7 days, 1 just a shakeout, 1 race), 170 km Cycling (4 days Recovery week in base plan, last week before enter build phase), 3 hours strength, 5 km swim

Key Run Workouts that week: Mon: 30 minute M pace straight into 20 minutes T pace --> overall 15 km in 50 minutes which is 3:20 per kilometre continued on is 1:10 half marathon (route including 8 turn arounds since only a 2 mile stretch where there wasn't any ice on road and that would put it into 1:09 high range)
Thurs: Pre-Race Workout: 2-2-3-2-4-2-3-2-2-2 minutes on 30 seconds recovery overall 7.64 km in 24:00 (3:08/km)

Saturday: Race Day

Was feeling very confident that I would be able to lay down a good race given the weeks of great workouts leading into race day. Unfortunately the weather wasn't exactly cooperating, and combined with the hilly nature of the course in high-park, I knew I would need a more a cross-country directed mindset on race day, where time was irrelevant, and it would just be all about placing and effort. There was a strong north wind making the -4 degree air temperature feel -14. Damn cold for my split shorts and singlet. I had never been in high park before, and about 1 km into my warmup realized it was very hilly. There would be only 1 stretch along the course which would be close to flat for about 800 m, and up and down and twisting around for the rest of the course, with two bigger hills at the 3km and then the final 8 km where the race featured a #killthehill challenge - They put a timing mat at the bottom of the hill and the finish was right at the top of the hill, and whoever went up the hill the fastest would get an additional prize. This race always gets a stacked field and this year was no different with approximately 25 elite male runners, including myself.

During my warm-up I ran into Paul Rochus, another great runner who has competed on McMaster's Cross Country and track teams for the last few years, and who teamed up with me this fall to do our long runs together. While the rest of the team would go do there long runs going up and down hill after hill and scampering around rocks, roots, and trees, Paul and I preferred our long runs to be at a little faster of a pace and all about locking into a pace and into a rhythm, so we would keep our long runs on the rail trail and pump out more distance in less time. Paul also recently joined the Skechers Performance team, and debuted in the half marathon at the Chilly Half this March with a sizzling 1:09:40.

At 10:15 we were off, and the race got out crazy fast. For the second race in a row I was kind of sleeping at the wheel so to speak, and slow to react to the leaders moving out very quickly. I took way too long to recognize the situation and I knew given the conditions it would be paramount that I get into a pack. We turned up the hill at the 1km point and I was in a group that I knew I had to get out of soon. So despite turning now back into the strong N wind, after a lot of thought in such a short period of time saw Paul's way up ahead and decided I needed to try to split this long gap solo to them. I cut to the outside from behind my pack and surged up. I calculated in my head that based on the size of the gap this would be about a 7-10 minute long effort to get up to them so I made sure not to completely go into the red early in the long effort. Fortunately about after a couple minutes 2 of the runners from the group fell back and I picked them up and used them for some assistance for then next 2 minutes. After the hill at 3km was hurting a bit, but by 4km I had narrowed the gap to 9 seconds and just kept repeating over and over in my head that I would catch Paul's group. I kept repeated over and over that with each stride I was gaining and would eventually get them. At 5km I got another one of the runners who had fallen off, and at that point it was only Paul and Matt Loiselle (a 1:04 half marathoner, and 2:16 marathoner) left up ahead. Right after the 5km point there was an incredibly steep twisting downhill, no more than about 30 m long, which I did not see until I got within a stride of it, thanks to a big tree at the top of it. It took me by surprise and entered the steep drop at about 2:50/km and almost fell head over heels, and I had to brake very hard in a hurry. Thankfully there were no cameras/recorders there since I actually swore pretty loudly when I braked really hard. But continued on, and now there was a decently flat stretch near the bottom of the park. I had past Matt soon after the descent, and Paul was next in my sights. One runner in front of Paul, pulled out of the race, and now I figured I must actually be in a decent placing. From 15:30 into the race until 18:00 my pace didn't drop below 3:04/km and could feel I was putting myself back into a decent time. Was now less than a few seconds back from Paul and heard at 7km we we in 7th and 8th.  My goal heading into the race was top-10. Leading up to the #killthehill hill I put approximately a 15 second long (not very long I know) surge in and made a clean pass on Paul. Shouted a word of encouragement to me teammate as we made our way onto the base of the hill. Powered up it but was trying to save the slightest amount of energy, because I had thought that at the top there would be a plateau and then a couple hundred meters to the finish line. I figured with Paul close behind me that final couple hundred meters would be a grind sprint to the finish with a guy who has much more track and cross country experience than myself, so I tried to conserve a little energy for that effort. Unfortunately, this is why it pays to see a course in person before-hand because right at the top of the hill lay the finish line. While I crossed still in the lead over Paul, was marginally disappointed since had I known the finish came up so soon I would've given a much harder effort on the hill. Regardless, it was a fantastic race, and result, finishing 7th overall in such a powerhouse field, finishing on this course and with the cold and wind in 25:55 (which on a flat course I would think is in the 25:20-30 range (in fact the grade adjusted pace on strava puts it at 25:28)), and also managed to nab first in my age category for a nice shiny gold medal. What I was most pleased with was how I battled. After missing the boat on the first kilometre to get into the fast group, I could have easily coasted with the second group and run 27 or something, like I did last year after missing the lead group at Around the Bay 5km. But I didn't, I said to myself, I didn't come here to coast, and even if this is going to take a huge solo effort to get up to the first group I'll try my best, and battled and battled for the better part of 5.5km solo to finally make it up to the group and then go on to finish ahead of them. Was very pumped, and figured given my current fitness level, and beating runners who have run 1:09 half marathons, and 1:04 half marathons, that come May 1st in Mississauga I would dismantle my pb of 1:11:03.

The next day I got up early and was super motivated to continue on this great stretch of training. Got to the pool nice and early, had a good swim and was pumped to get out and tackle a steady easy pace long run (as the program suggested). Throughout the first 10-15 km or so I was just thinking about my race, and Mississauaga coming up. Kilometers were rolling by. Until after about 75 minutes I felt something weird in my right leg. It felt like my right whole leg got really heavy, and my knee gave out 2 or 3 times. Based on where the pain in my knee was I figured it was a minor irritation, some patellar-femoral pain (runner's knee), continued to the finish of the run and actually ended up finishing quite strong. However, now and again the knee/leg would get this feeling. It's very hard to put into words but it felt like a vice going around my knee joint and making the rest of the leg below feel very heavy and like it was wanting to give out. I iced the knee afterwards however, the leg continued to hurt throughout the rest of the day, not crazy 10/10 pain, but it was definitely sore and causing my to have a very minor limp. On Monday, that limp was a whole lot worse, and decided to take the day off running. On Tuesday, the pain was definitely still there is the morning, but as the day wore on the pain improved and by the evening I felt ready to run again. I had a workout scheduled for that night, and decided I would warm-up and after about 25 minutes warmup decide if I could go on with the workout or not. After the warmup I could feel it but it was nothing crazy. It was more in my mind than anything, and didn't feel my stride was affected. The workout was 3x5min T pace on 1 min rec, then 3x3 min I pace on 2 min rec, than 3x400m R pace 400 m rec. Got through the first 3 5 minuters at 3:15/km and thought that was that, minor blip no big deal. First 3 minute at 3:08/km, second 3 minute got to 1:30 in and within a stride or two after the halfway mark of the interval stopped dead in my tracks. It felt like barbed wire wrapped tightly around my entire knee. I stopped, and tried to hobble home. Wednesday, I could barely walk, Thursday was not much better. By Sunday I felt like the worst had past and after jumping up and down in the basement here at home, I thought I was good to give it a go. I tried to be smart, and would run about 45 minutes very slowly along and would re-evaluate then and give my usual pace a go. After 45 minutes I could feel it but I guess the slow pace was never putting my leg into that same position that caused the major issues and when I ran up to my easy pace, same thing from the Tuesday night, and had to walk about 1 hour back home. Now here the bizarre thing, after the run, and the day after, and now here 2 days later it is not my knee that I feel at all, instead it feels like my tibia has a stress fracture in it. Completely baffled how a stress fracture would be able to come up so suddenly since it's like like I've being running through this at all, and why on Sunday, and Tuesday I felt such severe pain around my knee not my lower shin bone.

At this point this is seeming like a pretty severe injury, whatever it is, and Mississauga is off. Likely Ottawa Half Marathon which was my back-up incase I didn't hit my goal time in Miss. is off as well, as well as Barrie. Overall, looks like my season of racing is over. The pain is actually so bad that in the pool I'm unable to kick, which would also mean my Half-Ironman plans are off. At this point nothing is on the schedule, nothing looks remotely doable. So this long stretch of injuries just keeps seeming to continue, on a on. With past injuries I could feel them coming, and I'll admit my stubbornness helped to precipitate them. For instance in December when I stopped running due to a stress fracture, I had been dragging myself through runs for more than a month and a half at that point. With this what sucks the most is that I went from the best training and racing in my life to not being able to get up easily out of chair, go up or down the stairs, or take a pain free step, within a 1 day span. I was believing that I had turned the corner, and could finally start legitimately improving again. I can't improve by training 1 or 2 months at a time before getting injured for a month. It takes 6 weeks alone to reach a new level of fitness, but that's assuming your starting from your baseline. The last 3 years it usually takes 4 weeks before I feel I'm even at my baseline again, then I'll get a couple weeks at the most out of it to increase my fitness level before getting another injury, and having to start from ground zero again. Based on 2:34 marathon in 2013 which really seems like a lifetime ago now, I should have been already well on my way to being on the cusp of breaking 2:20 in the marathon. I was thinking this fall I would run Scotiabank again, and rock a mid 2:2x:xx, but it is actually impossible for me to even sign up for races anymore that far in advance because I'm unsure whether I'll be injured or not come race day. It really seems as though right now it's not even a question of will I get injured or not, and instead what will get injured. I'll try to update you on my status, but I won't promise it will be soon as I don't want to write blog posts about such depressing topics. I would like to someday write posts about the future, and improvements, and goals, and dreams being accomplished. Instead right now, I feel like I had this fire burning within, and it's been extinguished. I don't feel any hope and desire is left in my body or mind to go through this again. And I'll admit that while I enjoy biking, and sometimes enjoy swimming, nothing and I mean nothing in the world makes me feel how I feel out on a run. It's not like this magical thing out there from start to finish of a long run or something, of course there are times out there mid-interval where I feel my heart pounding, and breathing becoming out of control that I'm not enjoying it, but it's every now and then for a few short moments out on a run, that I feel happy and like whatever is going on in my life doesn't matter. Soon the moment will pass, but it's that feeling that I'm in search of each and every time I go out the door to run. In a way it's because it's so brief that make it that much more special. And why I'm addicted to it. It's why I don't just give up, and finally say enough is enough. Because despite the horrible lows that I've experienced due to injury over the past few years, it's that short short moment of happiness and satisfaction that makes it something I need in my life, and why I will not give up.

2016 is Officially Underway

This past weekend, I competed in the 17th edition of the Achilles St. Patrick's Day 5km run in downtown Toronto. When planning my race season for the year, the goal was to choose A-list races with good competition to push myself to improve and to see how I really stack up against the elite. Although I think smaller races have their place in a season's schedule, and even though it's fun to win races by huge margins, my performance times would eventually start to plateau if I never really needed to push myself truly out of comfort zone. Plus the bigger races have the added bonus of giving me more recognition in the running community, and will really help for me to get my name out there, as well as the brand I represent, Skechers. I was having a discussion earlier today, about how many people fail to see the big picture and not capitalize on opportunities with regards to education, but I think the same type of philosophy can be applied to my running. I don't want to be a elite runner who people at races or in the community don't really know. I want to be someone who race directors approach before races to ask about how training has been going, and when other runners look at the confirmation list and see my name they know who I am, and what I'm capable of. This status would not be possible if I restrict myself to small B-list races. I look at the opportunities that running may lead to, and for my soon to be career as a physiotherapist where having connections means everything, getting my name on the map will be incredibly beneficial. That being said, I'm not saying I'm never going to run smaller races ever again. Small races have their place in the year's schedule for a number of reasons. Firstly, when planning a season it is critical to periodize both your training in terms of having different and distinct training phases, as well as periodize your races. In a full season, you should really only have a few A races. Races that you are planning, and structuring your training around. A races are the ones you will do a full taper for, whereas B races you may do a very small taper, and C priority race are races that you will just train right through, and really just use as glorified training days. Second, smaller races which you could win by a big margin can help boost your confidence, going into other races, and help to indicate if your training is on the right track or not. Third, smaller races can be great for practicing some things during the race that you may not in a bigger race, such as starting very fast and seeing if you can hold on, or being able to change up into a bigger gear when your running solo, which may come in handy in the later stages of big races once the pack has broken. Lastly, small races can be a lot of fun, have some nice prizes, and let you run in some towns which you probably have never run in or heard of sometimes before. So to sum it up, this year I'm really going to try to have a good mix of racing on the big stage as often as I can, as well as smaller races for the above reasons. 

So onto the race. The weeks leading up to the race, training was really starting to come around. Was nailing pretty much every workout, was logging a good amount of run mileage, as well as a good amount of overall training stress with big bike workouts (5x per week) and swimming (2x/week) mixed in. At 10:30 the race was underway. My main competition would be Matt Leduc, Robert Brouliette, Predrag, and former Canadian national team runner Alex Hutchinson. Going into the race, I had not run a road race since last Canada day, and hadn't raced period since Queens 10k cross country in October. With that in mind, my goal was pretty conservative, with my A goal of being under 15:45, and B goal under 16. Sounds extremely conservative, but really I just wanted to get in a good strong effort, and shake out some of the cobwebs that built up since last October. The conditions on race day initially seemed pretty good. It was around 6 degrees which was perfect, however the wind from the east was hollowing. We started and headed west as a big group over to Spadina, and as we crested the hill Leduc surged ahead, and I let him go. It was only about 800m into the race, and I got a little nervous that I was already running solo, with a gap building between Leduc and myself, and me and those behind me. Hit the first kilometre in a comfortable 3:08 (uphill majority of the way), and rounded the turn onto Wellington going east passing the 1 mile mark in 5:01. This is when things got a little crazy, as that stretch on Wellington was the equivalent of running in a wind tunnel. The pace slowed but kept saying to myself I would catch Leduc on the way back. Hit the second kilometre in 3:04, and then the third in 3:06. As we turned back (out and back course) with the wind at my back I started winding it up and really turning my legs over to try to catch Leduc. The two mile mark came at 5:00 (3:06/km), and then the third mile with the wind at my back was a 4:46 (2:56/km). Then turned onto Bremner again with a few hundred meters to go until the finish. I had significantly closed the gap between Leduc and myself, but going back into the wind at that point made it really difficult to put a real assertive sprint to catch him before the line. I was still able to grind out 2:47/km pace for the last few hundred meters, and finished in 15:27, I have video proof now of 15:27 even though the gun time said 15:29. But whatever, I accomplished my goal finished second overall, Leduc was 15:15, won some money, and Skechers athletes finished 1, 2 so it was a great way to start the season. 

The last thing I wanted to talk about was about my improved mindset for training and racing. About a month and a half ago I purchased a training software called TrainerRoad which I can say legitimately revolutionized my approach to training. The software has over 800 bike workouts to be used with an indoor bike trainer, and many different training plans. Currently, I just finished week 5 of 8 of the Half Ironman High Volume Base Phase plan, next up will be the 8 week build phase, and then the Speciality phase before my A ironman races. The week finished with a solid 3 hour, 105km ride on Friday night. Besides hugely improving my physical fitness level, my VO2 max last measured at 86 ml/kg/min (same number Lance Armstrong achieved with some added help), it has completely changed my mindset and ability to cope with discomfort and pain during a workout (by pain I don't mean something like bone pain or anything thank god, just pain from lactate surging through my legs, my heart feeling like it's going to beat out of my chest, and overall building metabolic fatigue). In the past, I would go into a hard workout knowing that it would hurt, and during a workout only being able to recognize that yes I was in fact hurting and that was the end of it. TrainerRoad though has taught me that it's not only about recognizing the pain, but instead being able to do something about it, and not dwelling on the fact that your in pain/discomfort. It has essentially taught me how to cope with the pain to be able to finish the workout strong. For example, strategies such as saying to yourself within a 20 minute interval, "This is hard but I can do another 30 seconds" and then 30 seconds later saying it again, and so on. And eventually, before you know it, that interval will be done. Or another strategy during that same 20 minute intervals when you've reached the 18 minute mark, is reminding yourself that at this point with 90% of the interval completed there is no physiological reason that could possibly stop you from completing the interval, so there is no excuse to give up and not finish this strong. Another example of what I've found to be an especially useful coping strategy is to hide your discomfort. Imagine that there is another competitor right beside you, and you do not want them to see how much pain your in. You want to make it seem to them that you're churning out watt every watt effortlessly, instead of making it look like your about to break. This one really tricks the body into thinking and believing that you're not actually going as hard as you may be, and will really help you to maintain that high level of effort. There are numerous other strategies that I've now learned to be able to say okay your in pain, but now what are you going to do about it, and I even used some of these during the race. Such as at the 2 mile mark saying to myself, this is hard but I can last another half mile, and then half mile down the road saying it again. And then at the about the 13 minute mark of the race saying to myself that there is no physiological reason why I can't finish this strong, so suck it up and push hard until the finish line. 

Anyways so the season is off to a great start, the next big race up will be the Race Roster Spring run off in Toronto. Until next time, happy running. 

From the Ashes

Date of this post: Feb 1

My goodness it's been a long time since I updated my blog. Why has it been so long? Well I was tired (and probably you too) of constantly doing negative blog posts. Of course sometimes it's necessary to write those kinds of posts, because if I only write about the positive and totally disregard the negatives then I'm being dishonest, and the blog was really intended to be a place where I can be quite open about my feelings. However, this time around its all positives. As you may or may not have remembered last summer I had signed up for the Houston Marathon in January of this year. I'm not going to go too much into this because that's not the purpose of this post, but essentially during my build up, I dragged myself through severe pain from a number of injuries from my persistent hip pain that had been going on since March 2015, knee pain that came on suddenly at the end of October, and a stress fracture that was developing in my left tibia as usual. On December 6th the pain had become so severe in my left tibia that I could only manage a few steps starting my long run, and had to limp back to the car, and call it right there. I was down and felt horrible. But after a couple weeks of sulking and healing, I started back up again. My first week back I managed 100k, week 2: 120, and since then averaged 140k for the last 4 weeks. In fact, since i started running again on December 21st, I have not taken a day off running. I've been biking 5 days per week Monday to Friday on the trainer for 70-90 minutes in the evening, doing a half hour of core/strength everyday, and on weekends swimming Saturday and Sunday morning. On Saturday I've been doing a double run, where I'll run 10 miles back from the pool, then hop in the car and run 10 miles on the AlterG treadmill (video below) for a nice 20 mile, or 32k day. The AlterG has really been a critical part to my comeback since during the week I haven't been doing any run workouts on the road. On the AlterG I run at 83% of my body weight, and that little bit of weight reduction means I can incorporate speed workouts relatively safely into my week. So for example, I've done a ladder type workout, I've done 400s on the machine, and just last weekend I did a tempo run which turned into a 31:40 10k run. On the road I've really just been trying to get back to being able to run consistently, and be able to build my strength to end this 2 year long cycle of injuries.

That being said, I'm not going out there and mindlessly running 20k at snail pace. In fact, last week my average run speed throughout the week was the fastest it has been since July of 2014, after coming back from altitude. Sure I'm not doing structured workouts like mile repeats or anything, but I've tried just running purely by feel, and well I've been feeling quite well recently. Essentially, I looked back to what I had done early in my running career, and discovered that all my runs, workouts or not, were at a pretty fast pace. Although, studies indicate that at faster speeds there is greater impact forces on the tibias (primary weight bearing leg bone) for example, I don't think those studies take into account the impact of running economy. My theory is that when I run at slower "recovery" type speeds, my form breaks down since I'm holding myself back the entire run. Basically, I'm running with one foot on the brake. Now when I'm feeling good I just run to my desire and don't worry about whether the pace is "too fast" or not. This is exactly what I did when I first started running where I would just go outside and run. When I got to a hill I would gallop up it and then blast down the other side. And honestly, this is the first time since crossing the line at the Scotiabank Marathon in 2013, that I am loving running again and believing that this is what I was born to do. In contrast, the past two years, after trying to get myself psyched up to go out and run dreading it, out on the run I would be looking at my watch again and again counting down how many miles were left. Now I go out and can feel some new energy surging through my entire body, making me want to go faster and faster, and further and further. I'll get to the end of my 12 mile run, and say to myself hey we still got some time before class still, lets pump out another mile. Concurrent to my re-kindled passion for running, I've been improving significantly on the bike. The past three weeks my average power has been the highest it's ever been overall, and I've even seen significant improvement during individual workouts from week to week.

 In terms of my game plan for season, I am enjoying running so much at this point that a part of me doesn't really want to ruin that feeling by gearing up for another race. I do love the feeling of testing myself in races, and pushing my limits, and being able to reach another gear that I would not normally have on a usual training day. I will still obviously be racing this year not only to get this feeling, but also I kind of have to given that it is in my contract with my amazing sponsor Skechers. I've been re-signed by Skechers just recently, and I'm excited to represent them once again this year. Looks like they have some amazing new shoes coming out this year, and I'm looking forward to trying everything. Back to my ongoing internal debate, I think a big part of not wanting to put a race firmly on the schedule is that in the spring time of the last 2 years I've had some really bad luck, and not been able to race a bunch of times for races that I've signed up for. For example, 2 years ago I signed up for the Ottawa marathon, only to get a stress fracture in March, and had to cancel that race. Then last year I had signed up for Mississauga Half and the Toronto Yonge St 10k, and had to pull out of both of those due to the hip injury, also in March (possible pattern?). Then obviously the Houston Marathon recently which I wasn't able to race. As much as its not a huge deal having to pull a race off the schedule, something that needs to be mentioned is that let's face it races these days are not cheap. Anyways, after I've decided what race I want to do in Spring, I'll update you. For now it's looking like early March I'll do a rust-buster of a race probably 10k or if feeling really good maybe a half. Then will likely be doing Around the Bay 30k, then a 10k in mid-April, then Mississuaga Half, then if still injury-free let's hope, a full like the Ottawa full. Then I would be taking a 2 week break off running, but would still aim to train 20-25 hours a week on the bike and in the pool as I transition into all out triathlon training. Planning on two half-ironman's this summer both in the US, and then the USA Age Group National Championships in Omaha, Nebraska in August which I qualified for last year in Penn Yan, NY. Until next time thanks for reading. Below are two AlterG videos.

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.