1000 km+

Not much time to write recently, but I feel the need to pat myself on the back. I passed the 1000 km mark for 2008 with a 15 k run on Nov 8. This is a pretty big jump from the 500 km that I ran in 2007.

I've had a hard time getting back into a 3x/wk routine, partly because of time & partly because of a bit of lingering pain from my July ankle sprain. I did run 3x last week, and plan to maintain that for the rest of 08. I've also started some daily ankle exercises.

This week I've also been doing a bit of reading on marathon training plans. If my ankles are feeling good at the start of January, I'll probably start training for a May marathon and see how it goes.

1 month since sprain

I sprained an ankle one month ago today. Not a horrible sprain, but I did feel some tearing, and had a 2" long bruise on the outside of my heel a few days later. I've been meaning to post an update since then but.....

I tried to do a couple of easy 5k runs around 2 weeks after the sprain. The 1st was ok, but after the 2nd my ankle was quite sore. At that point I abandoned thoughts of a September half marathon.

I got my bicycle out of the basement, and figured I'd need to use this to maintain some level of conditioning. My commute to work is 21 km each way, so between my 1st route finding ride and twice to work last week I cycled close to 120 km last week. Not bad, since I hadn't ridden in about 2 years!

I also did an 8.5 km run on Sunday, at around a steady state pace. My ankle was a bit sore towards the end, but was ok the next day. So, there seems to be a bit of improvement there, and hopefully in about a month I can be back to a normal schedule.

Hot 10 Miler

I did my first 'long' long run since my half - 16 km on a hot afternoon. The temperature was only 27 degrees C, but it felt much hotter on the roads. The 1st couple of kms felt great, and hence I was running too fast - around 5:30/km. I then kept a pretty steady pace around 5:45/km until I turned around at the 8 km mark. Up till 8 km I could tell I was working, but it was ok. When I turned around it suddenly felt astonishingly hot, and I just felt the energy drain away. The run back felt really long. Plus my water was way too warm to be enjoyable.

Looking at my time/km from that point on its like a slow ramp up, with every single km a bit slower than the one before. Looking at the data after the run, the other fun thing is that as I was slowing down, my heart rate was increasing steadily, until it hit my max rate about 200 m from home.

All in all not a fun run after the midpoint, but nothing was too sore either during the run or today.

Half Marathon Race Day

We got downtown early, and even though it was still quite cool out it felt like it was likely to be a warm day. I made a last minute change from a tech shirt into a singlet. I found out last week that a friend was running, and aiming for the same pace, so we decided to start together. We made it really clear though that if either of us wanted to go faster, we’d just take off. My goal for the half marathon was to do it in under 2 hours, and I was hoping that hitting a 5:30/km pace would be a good pace. I was pretty nervous yesterday and today about whether I could hold that pace for the whole race though. I wanted to do the 1st 2 km at a 5:40 pace, for a bit of time to warm up, and since I knew that the crowds would make it hard to set my own pace. Before the race they announced that there were 10,000 runners starting the half marathon today.

We got a pretty good start, and didn’t really have to do any weaving through traffic at all. We saw someone fall just a bit behind us after about 500m, and I slowed almost to a stop, but people seemed to be doing a good job of getting her back up. Yesterday someone almost got trampled in the 5k, and I was pretty upset to see nobody slowing at all to help. It only took us about 3 minutes to settle into a good pace. I knew we were going a bit fast, and sure enough the first km took 5:18. OK I said, we’re going too fast, we should ease up a bit. The second km took 4:56. At that point I decided that I was feeling really good, and would see what I could manage, but that I absolutely needed to ease up a bit and focus on effort level. So we kept knocking off km’s, running at around a 5:15/km pace.

The run through Gatineau went pretty well. There was almost no crowd support there, just the occasional curious looking onlooker. But as we came back over the bridge to Ottawa around the 9km mark the crowds picked up. Our gun time at the 9 km mark was 49:00. From that point on there were people cheering all the way in. There’s a long stretch along the canal from around km 10-15, and we saw several people down getting medical help along here. It was really feeling hot, the sun was just blazing. Then we finally went up to a bridge to cross the canal, and I was sure I was going to make it. I kept feeling good, and we kept up the pace, and were even going a few seconds per km faster from kms 10-16.


Across the canal we picked up the 1:50 pace bunny, and were around her and her group a lot at that point. At km 17 I picked up the pace a bit more, almost losing my friend in the process. Km 17 took 4:53, but after that I slowed back to about a 5:05/km pace and there was my friend at my elbow again. Someone in the crowd gave me a freezie here, it looked so inviting but when I tried to eat it I thought it was coming back up. Someone else gave me an ice cold water bottle – much better. With 3 km left to go, I started to feel worn down. My legs really wanted to stop. The 1:50 pace bunny was telling her people they were right on target, and to go ahead, but looked to be seriously hurting. My Garmin told me that the 1:50 pace bunny had little chance of finishing in 1:50. At the 19 km mark, we left the 1:50 bunny behind, but I was starting to seriously hurt. I tried reminding myself of the 2 km last stretch of one of my runs, but that didn’t help at ALL. But I was hanging in and holding the pace, km 19-20 took 5:09. The rest is a blur, I was dead on my feet, but wasn’t willing to stop. The last km seemed to take forever, but I was convinced that slowing down would only prolong it at this point, and I was NOT willing to slow down. With 500 meters to go I was having a hard time imagining running that far! The crowd was great here though, the bleachers were packed with people. My friend gave a burst of speed in the last 50 m, and finished 2 seconds in front of me. My final chip time was 1:51:11. I honestly feel like that is as fast as I could possibly have run it, there was barely enough left in the tank to get me to the recovery area.

My final pace (Garmin) was 5:11/km or 8:20/mile.

53 Commandments

I really like the following, from this link:

The 53 Runner’s Commandments
by Joe Kelly

1. Don’t be a whiner. Nobody likes a whiner, not even other whiners.
2. Walking out the door is often the toughest part of a run.
3. Don’t make running your life. Make it part of your life.
4. During group training runs, don’t let anyone run alone.
5. Keep promises, especially ones made to yourself.
6. When doing group runs, start on time no matter who’s missing.
7. The faster you are the less you should talk about your times.
8. Keep a quarter in your pocket. One day you’ll need to call for a ride.
9. Don’t compare yourself to other runners.
10. All runners are equal, some are just faster than others.
11. Keep in mind that the later in the day it gets, the more likely it is that you won’t run.
12. For a change of pace, get driven out and then run back.
13. If it was easy, everybody would be a runner.
14. When standing in starting lines, remind yourself how fortunate you are to be there.
15. Getting out of shape is much easier than getting into shape.
16. A bad day of running still beats a good day at work.
17. Talk like a runner. “Singlets” are worn on warm days. “Tank tops” are worn to the beach.
18. Don’t talk about your running injuries. People don’t want to hear about your sore knee or black toe.
19. Don’t always run alone.
20. Don’t always run with people.
21. Approach running as if the quality of your life depended on it.
22. No matter how slow you run it is still faster than someone sitting on a couch.
23. Keep in mind that the harder you run during training, the luckier you’ll get during racing.
24. Races aren’t just for those who can run fast.
25. There are no shortcuts to running excellence.
26. The best runs sometimes come on days when you didn’t feel like running.
27. Be modest after a race, especially if you have reason to brag.
28. If you say, “Let’s run this race together,” then you must stay with that person no matter how slow.
29. Think twice before agreeing to run with someone during a race.
30. There is nothing boring about running. There are, however, boring people who run.
31. Look at hills as opportunities to pass people.
32. Distance running is like cod liver oil. At first it makes you feel awful, then it makes you feel better.
33. Never throw away the instructions to your running watch.
34. Don’t try to outrun dogs.
35. Don’t trust runners who show up at races claiming to be tired, out of shape, or not feeling well.
36. Don’t wait for perfect weather. If you do, you won’t run very often.
37. When tempted to stop being a runner, make a list of the reasons you started.
38. Never run alongside very old or very young racers. They get all of the applause.
39. Without goals, training has no purpose.
40. During training runs, let the slowest runner in the group set the pace.
41. The first year in a new age group offers the best opportunity for trophies.
42. Go for broke, but be prepared to be broken.
43. Spend more time running on the roads than sitting on the couch.
44. Make progress in your training, but progress at your own rate.
45. “Winning” means different things to different people.
46. Unless you make your living as a runner, don’t take running too seriously.
47. Runners who never fail are runners who never try anything great.
48. Never tell a runner that he or she doesn’t look good in tights.
49. Never confuse the Ben-Gay tube with the toothpaste tube.
50. Never apologize for doing the best you can.
51. Preventing running injuries is easier than curing them.
52. Running is simple. Don’t make it complicated.
53. Running is always enjoyable. Sometimes, though, the joy doesn’t come until the end of the run.

Tuesday Run

I ran 6 km yesterday, 3 km at an 8 year old pace, 3 km at around 6:00/km. It was a pretty easy run, but I did feel like I was working a bit harder than I expected to. I'll be doing a 4 km run tomorrow, as my last run before race day.

They've improved the forecast for Sunday, getting rid of the showers. The weather forecast now calls for a high of 23 and partly cloudy.

Carbo loading begins today.

I came across a couple of good links on nutrition & carbo loading:

Carbo-Loading

Endurance Secrets

10k + 2k

I did another 10 km run yesterday at an easy pace, then another 2 km with Krash. Everything felt good. The combination of the Thorlo socks and the Mizuno's seems to have solved my fit problem, so I think I should be ready for race day now. I'm planning on a couple more short runs this week (5-8 km) just to keep my muscles moving.

The forecast for Sunday is looking pretty good: A high of 22 deg C, and occasional scattered showers.

Two More

Two more done.

I did an easy 8 km run on Tuesday, and a 7.7 km fartlek run today. For today's run I did 4x 500 m intervals in around 2:20 each during the run. The schedule had me doing a short tempo section, but I decided to have some fun and put in just a little bit of speedwork. This seemed like a good time to put in a bit of fast paced running, since my next 3 runs will all be at a slow pace.

I'm down to 10 days till raceday, so I don't think any training I do now will really increase my conditioning. I'm mostly just trying to keep the rust off.

20 km !!!!!

I did my 1st 20k+ run yesterday: 20.2 km in just under 1:59. Its two weeks to race day, so that was my last long run. This was the 4th run I've done over 10 miles, and by far the easiest. I was really tired at the end of all the others, this time I actually felt really good at the end. I'm really happy about that, I was waiting for the long runs to start feeling easier. I did have some tightness around my left heel, that was pretty constant up until the 13 km mark, then eased up. I went out the Trans-Canada trail, that was a really nice relaxed place to run. Very nice to have no streetsweepers to avoid. I kicked up the speed a bit after around the 15 km mark, but I did keep the speed under 5:40/km.

Thorlo socks combined with my Mizuno's seem to be giving me a pretty good fit plus I like the extra padding of the Thorlo's. I was kicking around whether to wear my Mizuno's on race day. I've pretty much settled on them now, since they are noticeably lighter than my other shoes.

My legs are a bit tired today, but nothing is out-of-the-ordinary painful. I'm a bit surprised that I didn't have any pain at all in my left quad, either yesterday or today.

I'm moving into a bit of a recovery mode now, dropping my mileage down a bit this week from last.

Race pace preview

I ran 12 km at a 5:29/km (8:50/mile) pace after work yesterday. I've been wondering about whether doing the half marathon in under 2 hours was realistic, I figured that the best way to get a handle on it would be to run about half the distance at the pace I'd need to run and then see how I felt at the end.

I did my Mansfield route. I ran the 1st 2 km a bit slower (5:40) as I want to do in the race, then settled into my pace for the rest of it. The last 10 km was actually at a 5:25/km pace, so I could see my average pace coming down as I ran. It felt good, it was a hard workout but I wasn't destroyed at the end. I think I should be able to hold that pace through the race, but I guess I won't be feeling great at the end.

In hindsight, I should have put that run in on Tuesday, to have a bit more rest time before Sunday's long run.

Foggy Morning

Interesting running conditions this morning. I was on the road by 6, and it was 1 degree C and foggy. There was a little dusting of snow, and everything was wet from last nights rain. I started off on the roads heading north. As I came around the first corner I saw that the sun was just up and was an amazing shade of orange. It was really spectacular, it actually made me (almost) happy to be outside rather than comfortably sleeping.

I headed west on the trans-Canada trail, and went a couple of km farther than I have before. This part was great, the trail goes through a swamp, with a pond that had about a dozen Canadian Geese in it. There was steam rising off the water, and it was totally calm with the trees & geese reflected in the water. Let the record show that this was very close to as nice as being in bed would have been.

The total distance was 12 km, including 5 km at a 5:18/km tempo pace. The total run took me 1:11.


Final note: Another of those pesky street sweepers passed me right near the end, I really think they might be after me.

Street Sweepers

My legs felt dead all day yesterday, I wasn't sure how I was going to pull off an 8k run this morning. I had thoughts about pushing back to lunchtime or after work, but the schedule just wasn't going to work for either of those. The next two weeks are the last hard weeks I have before race day, and I don't want to mess them up.

So I dragged myself out of bed. The temperature was around 1 degree C, but the wind chill was lower, and on one section it was really blowing. I trudged down the road at about a 7 min/km pace. I felt very sluggish but I was moving. On the road heading north two street sweepers passed by in my lane about a minute apart - I usually trust cars to give me space (especially in the morning) but something about street sweepers gives me the creeps. Go figure.

I did settle into a decent pace after a couple km, but it was a slower pace than normal. No pain in either achilles during the run today - I'm hoping the difference isn't that I was wearing my old Nike's today. I'm planning to start Thursday's run with 6 km at the same pace, this should give me a good comparison between the shoes.

19 km

I ran 19 km late this afternoon. It was supposed to be this morning, but the bug that I've been fighting off this week continues to be a bit disruptive. It was about 5:00 when I was finally able to hit the road.

I was supposed to run 18 today. This wasn't one of those 'I felt good so I went another km' deals. This was a mapmyrun.com sucks situation. Mapmyrun.com shows a road in Richmond that crosses from Huntley to Shea Road. So as I ran down Huntley I was looking, and looking, and looking, and the realized I'd definitely gone too far, and I turned onto the next street. I worked my way through a neighborhood and eventually found my way to Shea, after going about an extra km. Note that google maps does not make the same mistake as mapmyrun, so in the future I'll stick with the far superior gmaps pedometer for route planning.

I did the run at a 5:55 per km pace. My right achilles was a bit sore around 12-13 km, and again a bit later, but it did ease up again along the way. All in all it went pretty well, but I'm spectacularly tired now.

Cough

Woke up with a cold this morning. I knew I was getting sick yesterday, so I decided not to do my morning 8k. But since today was scheduled to be the last run of an easy week I wanted to get it in, so I went out after work. The pace was ok, and I was glad to get the run in. I have a couple of days off now before going long on Sunday, I think I should be back at 100% by then.

49.1 km

I ran 5 k easy yesterday, and 2 k really slow today. That put my weekly running total at 49.1 km (30.4 miles). I'm including the two 2k runs done with a 6 year old at about 8 min/km in that total.

Right now everything feels pretty good, and next week is my monthly easy week.

Tempo plus Pace

Tempo day yesterday. As usual, the tempo run was a hard workout. I did 3 km easy, followed by 5 km at around a 5:10/km tempo pace. The tempo part was a real struggle, it was an out and back and the first half had a slight climb and headwind. The second half should have been easier, but I was thrashed from the earlier part. I did about 3 km on the way back at a 5:25/km pace to get a feeling for whether I could run that pace when I'm tired. I actually wanted to do 5:40 on the last 3, but just can't seem to get myself to that pace. The total run was a bit over 12 km.

It finally warmed up here, 21 degrees C yesterday! I was able to do my first run of the year in shorts and a t-shirt.

I'm scheduled for 5 km easy today, which I can hopefully do after work before big-time carbo-loading.

Up Early Again

This morning's run totally reminded me of my previous experiences with early morning running. It was all I could do to drag myself out of bed, get out the door, and stagger down the road. I just hope it was early enough that none of the neighbors saw me starting off, since it definitely wasn't pretty.

I did run 9.6 km, and after about 3 km I got into a decent comfortable rhythm. Today was supposed to be run at an easy pace, and there was pretty much no chance of running at anything faster than that.

No pain in either Achilles today. I did have a bit of a sore quad and tightness in my calf muscles, but that was probably just leftover from Sunday's run.

Another record

I set an impressive new personal best today: Most Gu’s consumed on a run (2). Once again, Gu good, Sportsbeans bad.

It was the longest run I’ve ever done in distance as well, 18 km. The run took an hour and 50 minutes, and I’m still feeling pretty tired. I was pretty focused on trying to keep my heart rate down today, to make sure I wasn’t pushing too hard. I was aiming for around 140, but making sure it was under 150 the whole time. On my 16 k run a couple of weeks back my heart rate was averaging 152 over most of the run, today it was at 141 until the last few km.

Today was the first time I've felt really comfortable in my Mizunos for a full run, so maybe I've finally got them broken in properly.

I don't like Sportsbeans

Today was my weekly “faster than easy” pace run. Today I did 11.5 km after work, with 7 km of it at 5:28/km. That’s around the pace I’d like to be able to do the half in. It went pretty well, but I’m not convinced I can hold that pace for the full race. I guess the good news is I’m not convinced that it’s impossible either.

I tried sports beans on today’s run. Conclusion: I don’t like sports beans. I can’t run that pace and chew beans at the same time, I just felt tired and out of synch every time I popped a bean. I wound up saving about half the beans till the pace part of the run was done.

My right ankle was a bit sore today, but didn’t seem to be particularly bothered by the run.

Up with the roosters

Early morning running has really never agreed with me. Yes, we could debate whether my definition qualifies as early, but whatever. When I've done this in the past, I've always felt very sluggish (but also pretty heroic for being out there so early). As much as I enjoy my lunchtime runs, their length has turned into a problem. At this point my typical mid-week run lasts anywhere from 50 minutes to upwards of an hour. The reality is I'm away from my desk for the run duration plus an extra 25 minutes, and then land at my desk not having eaten lunch. My mid week runs are going to have to migrate to either early morning or after work.

I decided to try my easy day before work, I set the alarm for 6:05, only snoozed once, and actually managed to get myself out of the house around 6:25. I made an effort to go really slowly, but did get into a pretty typical rhythm after about a km. I went for 9 km, in 54 minutes. It wasn't great, but it wasn't horrible either. I had to rush a bit to stay close to schedule, but was at work just about 15 minutes later than normal (thanks for making my lunch sweetie!). I'm not sure if I could do a tempo day in the morning and survive the workday, but this seems ok for the easy runs.

Another long run

The schedule today said to do a 10 km long run, but it was a ‘flexible’ 10. My intention was to back off to 8 k if I was feeling sluggish, or go a bit longer if things felt good. The weather was perfectly sunny, and about 5 degrees C.

I wound up running out to the site of the ‘historic’ Mansfield Township. I didn’t realize that there was such a place until I came to a weather-beaten sign indicating that I was passing it. The sign said a lot more than that, but I didn’t stop to finish. In any event, this sign was on one of the most perfect running roads I’ve ever found. It goes through farmland , which is always a plus, since there is almost no traffic. But unlike most other farm roads in the area, this road is paved. I was passed by about one car every 5 minutes, and almost all of them moved far enough over that I didn’t need to break stride.

I went a total of 14 km today, at an average pace of 6:00/km. I didn’t feel like I was working nearly as hard as I was a week ago.

Wet Recovery Run

I really don't run at my recovery pace much. The training plan I put together has been along the lines of quality not quantity, with three runs/week most weeks. But I did put in a 4th run for a few weeks, to bump my weekly mileage up closer to the range where most half training plans say it should be.

Which brings me to today's recovery run. I was quite tired after yesterday, and today's forecast wasn't offering any encouragement. As I was lounging in the hot tub around 11 last night I actually decided my best bet was to get up and run in the morning, before the rain started, so I set my alarm early. Right. Then I thought maybe I'd skip it for the day, quality not quantity, right?

At lunchtime I decided I might as well go. It looked like snow when I decided to go, but by the time I got out there it was rain mixed with snow, with the temperature right at the freezing mark. I did a very slow 5k at my recovery pace. As expected, my legs were still sore from yesterday.

This was the longest week I've had since I returned to running. I ran 38.5 km this week, with a total time spent running of 3 hours, 49 minutes, 56 seconds.

Hard Tempo

I did 10k today at lunchtime. It was a tempo day, so I did 30 minutes at my tempo pace of around 5:15/km. That was a seriously tiring workout. I was hungry at the start, which didn't help matters. About 3km into the tempo part I was really feeling it, but after a couple of minutes of wondering if 30 min at tempo pace was too much, my energy level rebounded. I did add 4 strides to the end of my workout during the cooldown part of my run.

I was actually going to do 1 km cruise intervals instead of the constant tempo pace, but once I got going I remembered why I hate intervals. I was constantly looking at my Garmin to see when my first 1 km lap was up. At around 900 m it dawned on me that if I did the workout I was planning I could look forward to 30 minutes of staring at my watch. Also, I had a hard time with the early pace, and was running most of the 1st km way too fast (around 4:45/km). So, I went back to the 30 min tempo run.

Rainy Day

I did a 7 km run today at lunchtime, in the rain. I did it today at a 6:01/km pace, once again faster than intended. Today I had an excuse though, since I knew I was late for something. Part of me thought I should stick the the 6:15 pace I wanted to be running, since the something I was late for was called at the last minute over lunchtime. The other part thought I should just pick up the pace. My legs were a bit heavy, and my left quad was a bit stiff - but really it wasn't bad. Even the rain wasn't too hard, and it did seem to convince the cars to be more polite than normal.

Saw an interesting article in RW last night on things to eat while running. I'm tossing in the link here so I can find it later.

RW Foods for Energy

16 km

I did my 1^st ever 10 mile (16 km) run today. I did it at an average pace of 6:01/km, which is a bit faster than I’d planned. My legs are pretty tired, but nothing feels too bad right now. It was actually a bit harder than I expected, the last couple of km felt really long.

Today’s run is definitely the longest I’ve ever run, both in time and distance. Before starting to train for the half marathon, my longest run involved getting lost in the Swiss countryside. I’m not sure exactly how far that one was, but it took 1:15 and at the time I figured about 14 km. Also, on my long Swiss run, I didn’t run the whole time, since I wasn’t exactly sure how long it would be.

Orthotics

To conclude easy week, I did a 7 km run today. I decided to try running without my orthotics, to see how it felt. I'm still not sure. It felt pretty good, but like there was just a bit of extra tension on my achilles. The upside was having less weight in my shoes felt great. I was running about 15s/mile faster at the same heart rate. I'd love to be able to run the race without the orthotics. But I probably won't - I'll try it only if I'm able to do a couple more runs without them with no problems.

I loved my music choice today, Radiohead In Rainbows. Just the right length and beat for an easy 7 k.

Long Run Schedule

When I first put my program together, I was considering two options for the last pre-race push to longer distance. I was leaning towards sticking with Smartcoach, but also looking at Galloway’s training plans.

Smartcoach sticks to the 4 week blocks, with the longest long run of each right before the recovery week, but all 3 long runs within the block are close to the same length. So, my long runs would be 9, 9, and 10 miles over the next 3 weeks, followed by an easy week. Then they would be 10, 11, and 11 miles, followed by an easy week before the race.

Galloway has a different approach, alternating each week between the long run and a short run during the 8 wks prior to race day. The Galloway schedule goes (in miles) 9.5, 4, 11, 4, 12.5, 4, 14, 5, race. I like that this would get me to 3 runs over 10 miles, plus the alternating long weeks should decrease the chance of injury.

I'm kicking around thoughts of combining these two programs, with the alternating long runs from Galloway, and the 4^th week being all easy runs from SC. If I use the Galloway approach, I’ll drop the distance of the long runs a bit, since I’m planning on my longest being in the 18-20 km range.

I was playing around last night with my handy excel schedule maker, and here’s what my schedule looks like if I use the alternating weeks (click to expand).

Easy

I took a different approach to today’s 6km easy run. Since this is my easy week, I focused more on my heart rate. I wanted to keep it under 140 for the entire run. This went pretty well, I didn’t manage to keep it under 140 the whole time, but did keep it there most of the time. This helped keep my pace closer to where I want it than focusing on my pace has.

Easy Week

The training program I've been following is based loosely on the Runners World SmartCoach. I adapted it to replace its speed work with runs that are more beneficial for a half marathon training program, but kept its weekly long run progression, and approximate weekly mileage.

SmartCoach divides the training into 4 week sections, with the 4th week of each section being an easy week - lower mileage and all runs at the easy pace. This was one of the things I really liked about SmartCoach. This week is one of my easy weeks.

I ran a bit over 34 km last week, and on Friday I felt like I didn't need the down week - but my 7 km run yesterday reminded me of why the recovery week is necessary. I didn't really have the energy that I've had during my long runs. I also did a bit of a hard kick at the end, but really wasn't able to sustain it as long as I thought I would. So into the easy week I go.

Tempo

Today was one of those days where there were lots of reasons not to run. Somebody dropped a 1:00 mtg on my calendar. I was feeling off today. My right achilles has been just a touch sore for the last day. Then someone dropped an 11:00 on the calendar, and someone else asked me in mid conversation if I had a headache, since I didn't look good. So, I started thinking maybe I shouldn't run...

BUT, I decided to give it a shot, and maybe just do a short easy run today, instead of the planned tempo run, and do the tempo run tomorrow. So I asked to get the 11:00 rescheduled. About a month ago I had a day where my achilles was a bit sore, and I decided that I was going to have to see how it responded to running, since there's no other way I'll ever get to the half (or other unspoken larger goals).

The 1st couple km were ok, so I decided to do the 5 km tempo part at the slow end of my tempo pace. Really, this was me not wanting to run tomorrow as much as anything. The problem with this plan is that I have a hard time running at the slow end of my tempo pace, I wound up right in the middle (5:18/km). It was a bit more work than normal. I cut it right at 8km, as The Plan says. I did find myself thinking about tossing on another km, till I realized that if I did, I wouldn't have time for lunch.

There were a few times on the run today when my achilles had just a bit of an ache, but they passed quickly.

CrossTraining

I did my crosstraining today. The Schedule has me doing this on Wed or Fri most weeks, but I kind of consider it optional. So it has gotten pushed out of the way by reality for the last few weeks.

I decided to do it today, partly because I felt a bit of a side stitch during last Sunday’s run, and I know the xt workout can help prevent that.

My current cross workout is pretty light:

• 10 minutes rowing (2 km)
• Abs workout
• Chest machines
• One handed curls
• Leg presses

The entire workout only takes about 35 minutes, so there isn’t much excuse not to do it.

New Shoes

I bought a pair of Mizuno Waverider 11's from Runner's Warehouse. Today was my easy run day, scheduled for 5k, so I gave them a try.

The fit is a bit different from my Nike 30-40's, they are a bit looser; they also are noticeably lighter. I was feeling my achilles a bit during the 1st 2k. Not too painful, but I really don't want to even get the least twinge out of it.

At around 2.5 km, just about 100 m past a dead-end turnaround, a colleague passed me heading out. I hate being passed. In this case it was someone who I know is a slightly (?) stronger runner than I, but I decided to see if I could hold off being passed at least for a little while. I've gotten much more conservative in my old age though, I only picked up the pace about 35 seconds per km. I was surprised, the new pace felt great, it really didn't feel like I was outside my easy zone. After I picked up the pace I settled in, and didn't notice my ankles at all. I did need to sprint for about 50 m at one point to get through a traffic light, and the new shoes felt awesome when I was going flat out.

My schedule this week called for 5k today, 8 Thursday, and 3 on Friday. This is the 1st time I've added a 4th run into a week. I tossed an extra 2 km onto today's run in case I decide the Friday run is a bad idea.

14 km

My long run for this week was 14 km. I did it today in a 6:08/km pace.

My left achilles had a bit of a twinge in it this morning, but didn't bother me during the run. I was feeling really sluggish today, but once I got moving it was ok - a Gu around 7 km helped too.

It was very windy, and when I realized the wind was coming down from the north, I scrapped my plan to run south. It seemed like a better idea to have the wind at my back for the 2nd half of the run. So, I ran up into town, and as much as possible tried to stay inside the neighborhoods where the wind wasn't as nasty. Then around the 8 km mark I turned onto a straight shot south. This worked great, I felt awesome running with the wind behind me! My legs felt a bit heavy at the end, but not too bad.

Half Pace

Today's run was intended to be at my (hopeful) half marathon race pace. I called these runs race pace in my original training schedule. After putting that together, I found a workout called a Steady State Run which is pretty much the same thing. The Steady State Run is done at a pace that you could run for 20-30 km in a race situation. In training these are done for between 25 and 75 minutes. For me this pace is between 5:26 and 5:35 min/km.

The total distance was 10 km, with 6 km at the race pace of 5:25. Next time I do one of these I'm going to make sure to slow down to between 5:30 and 5:35. I did this outside at lunchtime. It was cool (around -7 C) and a bit breezy, but the sun was nice and the roads were dry. It took me a while (about 2k) to get used to the pace, but after that it wasn't too bad. It was a hard workout, but I wasn't destroyed afterwards.

More on tempo runs

A friend sent me a question about tempo runs today. She's a first time half marathoner, and her training program called for her to run two tempo intervals of 1600 m.

I suppose this is ok, but I think its overcomplicating things for a first half. As soon as you start putting intervals into your mix, you are forcing yourself to look at your watch a lot more, adjust your pace a lot more, etc. If you plan to really race the distance, then intervals, speed work, and such make sense, but for the casual racer they aren't going to add anything except complication and likelihood of injury.

I think that training for your 1st half you need 3 paces: Your long (or easy) pace. Your tempo pace. Your planned race pace. Part of the training is getting comfortable at these paces, and learning to keep your pace fairly steady. To get comfortable at these paces its important to do some runs at each pace off the treadmill. The tempo pace is the fastest pace of the three I've listed.

For the tempo runs, start with 20 minutes at your tempo pace or a distance that will take you around 20 minutes. Always warm up at least a mile at the slow end of your easy pace first, and cool down at least a km at the same pace at the end. So, if your schedule calls for 5 miles, and the 20 minute tempo portion will cover 2 miles, run 2 miles easy, 2 miles tempo, 1 mile easy. When you are comfortable doing the 20 minute tempo portion, increase to 25 minutes, then 30, 35, and finally 40 minutes.

OK, what pace should you run? The tempo pace should be a pace you can hold for an hour. Great, how do you know, if you're running 20 minutes?

If you have a Heart Rate Monitor, use the best-runnning Karvonen calculator to figure out your Zone 3 Heart Rate. But you should know your pace. Use the McMillan calculator, or add around 20-25 seconds per mile to your 10 k race pace.

More info on tempo runs is in these links:

Runners World Article

Runner's Resource

Snow

I managed to do all of my long runs outside this year - until today. Two feet of snow fell yesterday and last night, and there was no way I could go out there - or at least run out there.

So off to the treadmill. Today was supposed to be 12 km, but I wound up doing 8 miles (13 km), and increased the treadmill incline to 2% for the last km. Total time on the treadmill was 1 hour 21 minutes. I watched TV for part of it, but wow, its amazing how bad the new Terminator series is. I watched CNN for a bit, but finally just listened to music for the last 20 min. Hopefully thats the longest run I have to to inside.

After the run I spent some time on my new favorite crosstraining: Snow Clearing.

Tempo run

Today's my tempo run day. Strictly speaking, in my schedule Thursday is 'anything faster than long pace' day, but in reality these are planned to be tempo runs. If I'm finding that these aggravate my ankles I'm planning to drop the tempo pace.

There's a lot I like about the Runners World Smart Coach, but from what I've seen it is unrealistic regarding its faster tempo workouts. My personal opinion is that there is no place for speed workouts, hill workouts, or overly long tempo workouts in a first timer’s half marathon training. That opinion is based on the correlation I've observed between me doing these workouts and me getting nagging injuries (100% correlation, if you're wondering). So, when I put my schedule together, I used Smart Coach to determine weekly mileage and long run distance, and then ditched all the speed workouts, and absurdly long tempo runs.

For my tempo runs, I've started with 20 min at tempo pace, with the additional km at the easy pace, around 2/3 before the tempo portion, 1/3 after. I’m now doing 25 min at tempo pace, which is around 3 miles. Today’s run was 8.4 km total, 2 km easy, 5 km at a 5:16/km pace, 1.4 km easy. It was quite slushy/snowy on the roads which made it harder than it should have been. In any event, I'm finding the tempo workout to be the hardest one on my schedule.

I had no idea 3 Days Grace would get me in trouble! I suppose if I mention that the White Stripes ‘Seven Nation Army' got me moving today I risk finding out that it is really about Attila the Hun sacking some pristine village on the Danube, so I guess I won’t mention it.

Easy Day

I really like the McMillan running calculator. The McMillan web page is geared more towards competitive runners than someone trying to complete his 1st half, but the info on their web page about paces and workout types is great. These are my target paces based on my 5k time (24:44).

Today was my 'easy' day, scheduled for 5 k. I've had a hard time keeping to my easy pace, I always seem to drift to slightly faster paces, and then wind up more tired than I should be at the end. Both ankles were sore last night (actually my legs in general were sore), and I was a bit worried that the training might be too much; I was very determined to keep the pace in the right zone today.

The weather looked pretty nice today, about -5 C and sunny. The wind kept it cooler than I expected though. I changed the display on my Garmin to display average pace on the main screen last night, this helped me keep the pace where I wanted it. Everything felt good today, no pain at all. Not sure why, but Pain by Three Days Grace made me feel good today. Anyways, since I was going slower than normal, I had extra energy and wasn't ready to stop at 5. I wound up going 7k, at a 6:12/km pace.

Night Run

Yesterday’s run was quite different than planned. I’d hoped to go out for a 12k in the afternoon, but wasn’t paying enough attention to schedules. As it turned out, I wasn’t able to get out of the house till 6:30. The temperature was at around -5 C as I was starting, and since there had been some melting during the day the shoulders were slick.

My ipod decided to start acting up, about a minute into my run it crashed. Well, I reset it, and it crashed again. For the 1^st 3 km I kept taking off my gloves (brrr) resetting the ipod, holding it while it rebooted, having it crash, deciding I’d run without music tonight, then after a few minutes decide to reset it again, etc. The fact that I had a new playlist I wanted to listen to wasn’t helping my attitude. Anyways, after about the 5^th reset I tried a different playlist and it worked fine.

I ran up into town, traffic was pretty light so it wasn’t too bad running on the road. I came out of town at around 6 km on some backroads towards home, and this part was fantastic. Up until then I hadn’t realized that it was a perfectly clear night. I had about 25 minutes on this stretch, with no streetlights running under the stars. I started hearing a clunking noise next to me at one point, took me a few minutes to realize it was the water in my bottles freezing.

I ran 12.5 km, at a 6:03/km pace. I was a bit concerned about my right Achilles last night, but none of my assorted injuries are too sore today.