STRAVA Summary

Friday, October 31, 2008

Past few days

Had a good run on Wednesday night. Ran with Roger, Terry, Tim & Hellaina. Felt good, although when Tim pushed the pace, I had a hard time keeping up. Last night after work I ran down to the Running Room to meet Roger and then we did the same loop we did on Wednesday except in reverse. It was a nice night out, although coming back and running home was into the wind and it had cooled off. Finished with 20.2k. I'll take tonight off (Halloween). Supposed to run 4 hours with KevO tomorrow morning.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Week So Far

I got out for a good run on Monday. Went to the Chiropractor after work and once I got home I got ready and went out. First attempt at running with my camelback, not an issue. Although something with pockets on the front would be better. Anyway after I started running through the trails off Ardagh, I realized with the diminishing light that I hadn't brought a light with me, which wasn't a problem at this point as it was still light enough. Running along Mapleview I was getting a little apprehensive about trying to run the trails behind Home Depot etc. with out a light. As it turned out it wasn't that difficult. The run behind the VR was a little harder, following the shadows at the edge of the trail. This is where you really get to notice light pollution. When I emerged from the bush, actually long before, I was almost blinded by the amount of light.
Finished 19.5k and felt good.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Weekend

Well I didn't quite do what I had originally planned this past weekend, but maybe that was a good thing. After running a lot at the end of the week, I took Saturday off and only ran 19k this morning. I'll run Monday and probably make up for it. To day's run was good, nice and easy and a beautiful morning. It wasn't as cold as I expected and it didn't rain. Actually the sun was out for a while.
Got the news earlier that Kevin ran 2:54 in Niagara. Man he's just a machine.
Took a some pictures of the medal from Indy, so here it is.

Friday, October 24, 2008

Recovery week? Yeah right.

Again I am not doing what the experts recommend. Rest and recovery after a marathon. I guess it the thought that in 4 weeks I'll be running the JFK 50 mile run, about 30k further than I have ever run before.
Ok, so I didn't run Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday I ran with the usual crew and some new faces. A nice "easy" 11k, then I played hockey (first time this year). The first couple of shifts were tough, but after a while it got easier and then my back started to hurt a bit.
Last night for some reason I decided I needed to get out and do a bit of distance. So I put on my trail shoes and ran a mix of trails and road and finished in the dark doing 17.5k. Right hamstring was fairly tight at the end, but is ok today. Lower back is still fairly stiff. Tonight I will go out to the Running Room, I was thinking of running down there, you know to save the environment and get in MORE miles. We'll see.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Sub 3 Marathon - Indy report


Well Indianapolis is a beautiful city and hosts a very nice race through the suburb of Lawrence. This scenic race starts & finishes in Historic Fort Harrison and on Saturday October 18th myself and Brendan Kavanagh lined up to take part with 5600 others competing in the various events, including the half and relay. After a total of 9 hours driving over 2 days we arrived safely and went to the expo, probably the most dissapointing part of the weekend. Not very big at all, but still a few freebies. That night Brendan found his Garmin not working and all attempts to find a remedy failed. So Brendan was to rely on a regular watch and a pace band, how old school! Luckliy I still had my Garmin. So between us we both planned to run sub 3 hour marathons. In the morning we grabbed our Starbucks coffee and headed to the start, set up my Garmin virtual partner to run 3 hours and we were ready. It was a cool and partly sunny morning, perfect for a marathon.Shortly after 8:30am we were off and running, maintaining a "comfortable" 4:10/km pace through the first 8 miles or so through some nice subdivisions and other parts of Fort Harrison, we then entered Fort Harrison State Park and some nice paved tree lined bike paths. This is where my Garmin crapped out, a "memory full" alert came up and I had to delete everything including my virtual partner. This left me with only my pace and Brendan for support. A few hills through the park slowed the pace a bit, but we got back up to speed before leaving the halfers as they cut off to the finish. We headed on to the out and back through more parks and tree lined streets. Still the pace was good a couple of gut checks and some support from each other and we were good. The turn around was at 19 miles and we turned into an unsuspected head wind. From here it was going to be where we would either fail or go on to new heights. Brendan let me know at 19 miles we were about 40 seconds back of 2:58 pace, still doing well. We maintained that through 21 miles, but at 22 we had dropped to 1:00 minute off pace, but still under 3 hours. At 23 miles I asked Brendan what our time was, 2:37. We would have to maintain at least 4:30/km to come in under 3, so I picked it up a bit. I didn't realize it at the time, but Brendan had stopped to water the bushes. Eventually I noticed his presence no longer there, but I did not dare look around. At 25 miles we came up to the last hill and that slowed myself down, but I got to the top and tried to put the hammer down (at least as much as possible at that point). Couple of turns and back towards the finish area, I knew it was going to be close!.
A few weeks ago I had a dream of finishing this race in 3:00:01 and was hoping that wasn't a premonition. I turned the last corner to see the time as 2:59:30 with about 100m to go, although I ran as fast as possible at that point I cam across the line at 3:00:04
What would my chip time be? At last I looked around. No Brendan yet, he came around the corner in a couple of minutes and finished in 3:02:24.
Surprisingly we both felt good, Brendan's wife Marie joked about us feeling so good we should drive to Columbus and the marathon there on Sunday. Not a chance. Later that evening we finally got the chip times and I had finished in 2:59:59.5, unbelievably .5 seconds under 3 hours. Brendan came second in his age group and I came 5th. Although Brendan set a Pb by 1 minute, missing the sub 3 goal left a bit of a bitter taste. We both know that there was more in us.After re checking the results it seems we came 28th & 32nd, but even more impressive was that we moved up from 39th & 40th at the half. Otherwise a great day at a great race, and I would recommend this to anyone who is interested. Indianapolis Marathon link

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Last Week

Well there is only 6 days till the Indianapolis Marathon and so far so good. Friday night I did a good tempo run although I wasn't really planning that, it just happened. This morning we did a 16.5 k race pace run. Even though it ended up being a little slower than race pace (4:18/k as opposed to 4:12/k) it felt good. I was a little worried going into it, but now that it is over with I feel better. Nice morning for a run, about 10C and sunny. This week I'll run a short easy run on Tuesday night and on Wednesday Brendan and I will do a bit of short intervals (100m) to finish off the training. Thursday off to Indy.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Wednesday to Friday

Wednesday's run was a fairly good "easy" run with Brendan and Terry. Terry is running really well and was running great on Wednesday considering he ran a PB in the PEC Marathon on Sunday. The run ended up a little quicker than planned, surprise? No. Still it felt fairly good except for a bit of a twinge in the left groin.
Last night I took it easy and watched the Leafs beat Detroit, alright, great start. Lets start planning the Stanley Cup Parade. LOL.
Tonight I'm going to run down to the Running Room and if no one is there I'll run home again. I'll probably make it a tempo or fartlek run. See if I have any trouble with a quicker pace 1 week from Indy. Sunday is suppoed to be a 16k marathon pace run, we shall see.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Recovery Run

I've been a little stiff and sore since Saturdays race, so the thinking was I needed a run to loosen the legs up a little. It was a little tough at first and not the best of runs, but I'm sure it was well worth it. Only did just over 9k (9.2k, 43:33 for a 4:44 average km). Nice cool night though.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Run for the Toad
















On a perfect day for running, cool and cloudy, my race wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but finishing healthy this close to an important race (Indy in 2 weeks) is probably more important. Probably went a little too quickly again, but as usual it felt good. The first 2 laps (25k) went well, 1:03 & 1:04, but by the end of the 3rd lap (1:10) I knew it was going to be a struggle. So after Brendan caught up with me we walked/ran the rest of the last lap in 1:36 for a final time of 4:54, 25th overall. In hindsite it was a good move to back off for the last lap. Also finishing the 50k were Kevin in 4:24, Roger in 5:30 and Sylvie 5:50. Joan, Esther & Sue completed the 25k walk as well.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

What Does the Future Hold?

Well I got an e-mail from Kevin on Tuesday with a link to one persons experience at the Haliburton 100 mile race (http://ouser.org/results/08/hf08_ds.pdf). A good read, but unfortunately it gets me thinking about the possibility of running a 100 mile race, most likely the Haliburton race. Anyway I guess it will all depend on the JFK 50 Mile race in November and how it goes. I have to start thinking with the mentallity that slower is better when it comes to ultras. Maybe not so much with the 50k's, but definitely anything longer.

In Preparaiton for the Toad

Other than Saturday this will be a down week and it started off with a 11k tempo run on Tuesday. I had bought new shoes on Monday night and I mean new, they are the Nike Air Zoom Elites and wow do they full good. I came out of the driveway like I was on springs. I was probably a little slower than the past weeks runs, but I still averaged 4:23/km and felt good. Wednesday night was supposed to be a nice easy run, but as usual we ran fairly quickly (4:33/km), but it felt good again. So now it is rest time until Saturday.