#120 It's all about the numbers!

There are now but eight weeks until the Boston Marathon on Monday 21 April. For a few reasons, I opted not to run the Peterborough Half yesterday and will instead race the Chilly Half in Burlington this Sunday, which boasts a flat (and potentially fast) course, a competitive field and means I'll get to line up with many of my fellow Black Lungs Toronto teammates, where we hope to have a strong showing as a club. I'm feeling very fit these days and am eagerly albeit anxiously looking forward to testing myself with a longer race. We'll see how things go on Sunday.

If you haven't already realized, (marathon) training is very much the same day to day, week to week, month to month: run everyday, sometimes twice, go easy most days, hard on others, then run even further (and hopefully faster)... And so rather than bore you with words and details, here are some numbers which can have the same effect.

Training: the past 4 weeks...

12. 27 Jan-2 Feb: 144 (16-25-22-23-23-0-35)

11. 3-9 Feb: 147 (18-19-16-25-23-13-33)

10. 10-16 Feb: 158 (16-26-28-26-26-10-26) Winterman Half (1:19:00; pacing)

9. 17-23 Feb: 150 (16-17-21-26-16-14-40)

The next 8 weeks...

8. 24-2 Mar: 100 (16-24-16-12-8-0-24)  Chilly Half (Goal: 1:13:xx)

7. 3-9 Mar: 150 (16-24-24-21-21-10-34) 

6. 10-16 Mar: 160 (16-24-24-24-24-12-36) Achilles St. Patrick's Day 5K (Goal: 15:xx)

5. 17-23 Mar: 150 (16-24-24-21-21-10-34)

4. 24-30 Mar: 100 (16-24-16-10-8-0-32) ATB 30K (Goal: ??? Was planning to pace; very tempted to race)

3. 31 Mar-6 Apr: 140 (16-24-24-24-16-16-20) 

2. 7-13 Apr: 120 (16-24-33-0-16-10-21) Yonge St. 10K? (Goal: 35:00 flat; pacing)

1. 14-20 Apr: 80 (16-20-16-12-8-8-0)

0. Mon 21 Apr: 42.2 Boston Marathon (Goal: TBD Each day I am more and more tempted to go for it)

Happy end of February; Hoping that March brings some spring!

#119 The one where I almost won

As of yesterday, which was also the Family Day holiday here in Ontario, there are now nine weeks until the Boston Marathon...

Training update time!

This is now (okay, almost) the critical period where there is no longer time to get injured or experience significant setbacks (ok, when is there ever?). The race start is slowly coming into sight and all training is now being tailored specifically to the goal race (i.e. It's all about endurance). However, nine weeks is still a long time. There is still plenty (too much?) time and pressure to keep building fitness, adding mileage and progressing towards the eventual finish line. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of this period!

Luckily, there are a few tune-up races and rest weeks planned which strategically provide a much needed physical and mental break from the seemingly un-ending training and (in Ontario anyway) the relentless winter we've been forced to deal with this year.

This is one of such weeks where I'll be racing the Peterborough Half on Sunday (And yes, that means missing the Gold medal hockey game at the Olympics. So far however, I've seen nothing from Team Canada to suggest our place in the game is secure and so perhaps I won't be missing much). In case you're wondering my goal for the race is to run a sub 1:14. Last year I finished second running 1:14:20 in near ideal conditions. And although I won't be close to my PB for the distance (1:12:58), I do hope (and expect) to run slightly faster this year on the same challenging out-and-back course.

And so in order to have what I hope is a great race and result, and to prove that all the time training in the snow, slush, ice and wind has been worth it, I'm planning to take this week as a significant "down" week and scale back considerably on the training mileage and intensity. This means running 'only' about 100K, including the 21.1K race on Sunday. This aims to provide the necessary rest and recovery that my body (as well as my mind) rightly requires (and deserves) after three progressive weeks in which I ran 144, 147 and 158 K's. 

Last week, I had originally planned to run 100 miles (161K) but opted out of my 5K cool-down after the Winterman Half Marathon (and thus fell 3.4K short...the OCD in me was thoroughly tested). Being in Ottawa for the long weekend to visit friends and experience some of Winterlude, I was all-too-happy to pace my BLT buddy Chappers to a sub 1:19 result and what turned out to be 1st overall! We ran together (pretty much side by side although not hand in hand) for the whole thing and after moving into the overall lead around the half-way point, we ran a smart negative split and finished as comfortably as we could. This was all the more impressive considering the temperature on race morning was a mean minus 20 (and that was BEFORE the windchill). 

It was a great event overall with the only drawback being the rather hilly out-and-back loop course which we needed to complete a full four times and also meant weaving and dodging around dozens of fellow participants and having to squeeze on the sidewalk for short sections. The event was held in the impressive Canadian War Museum which provided warm and comfortable race amenities and the organizers did an excellent job overall. We also won some great prizes including an amazing event blanket, New Balance product and gold, silver and bronze medal lanyards.

Two happy, and still slightly frozen, Black Lungs at the end of the Winterman Half.

With my sights specifically set on Peterborough and doing all the little things right this week, I'll put off looking/thinking forward past Sunday but be sure to post a subsequent update shortly. The weather still isn't getting any better here in Toronto (we got a fresh 5cm of snow last night and are expecting rain later this week) so "surviving" this training cycle is still very much the goal. 

I'm also 'working' on an exciting new opportunity to support and be supported by an excellent organization which I hope to announce shortly.

Until then, keep training, running and aiming to always be better!

#97 Why Don't We Do it in the Road

The Road to Boston: Midterms

It's currently Sunday morning, quarter to nine (8:45) and I'm waiting for my ride to Peterborough to run the half marathon which doesn't start until 12:30pm.

As Darren put it, this is the first midterm of the cycle and the first real test of endurance on the 'Road to Boston.' Despite the less than ideal weather this morning (fresh snow continues to fall which equates to slick and perhaps slippery roads), I am feeling fantastic going into the race after putting in several very solid weeks of training including good workouts and long runs.

I'm not even sure what my expectations are for today but I feel I should most certainly be in sub 1:16 shape if all goes well. The Peterborough course isn't exactly a PB course (and nor is this time of year) as it has a fair number of rolling hills and even a few monster climbs. Check out the course route and elevation profile here. Anything 1:15:xx today would be great and a 1:14:xx at this point would be simply amazing.

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It's now after 8pm and I'm back from a busy yet incredible day on the roads, mostly driving/commuting but some racing as well. A day which saw me run a 1:14:20 (3:31/k) over 21.1k at the Peterborough Half and secure me second place overall. Equally amazing were the results posted by my BLT brethren who placed 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th and 8th as well as several others in the top 25. In short, we owned that race today and it was indeed a great day for the 'Black Lungs.'

The race itself was anything but easy and seemed to be the polar opposite of flat. It was far worse than I remembered when I ran it back in 2011 (in 1:19) but was perhaps the perfect tune-up race for Boston (now only 7 weeks away). I ran alone for the vast majority of the race only sharing the lead with the eventual leader (Derek Snider in 1:12:22) for the first 2k or so. When he said it was his first ever half-marathon I considered I could perhaps beat him. But when he told me he could run a sub-30 10k, I was happy to see him take off ahead and leave me to my own race. Doyle was not far behind for the first half of the race and I was always aware of his presence from the sound of his footsteps. We were only a hundred or so metres apart at the turnaround, but somehow I managed to pick up the pace and secure my second place for good early in the second half of the race.

Although the course covered rolling hills from approximately 5-16k, the real challenge was a single hill at ~5/15k that needed to be ascended and descended twice (not sure which was worse) and was by far the biggest challenge of the course. The wind was mild at best but just happened to harass us for the better part of the final 5k which made things seems much more miserable. As I often do, I avoided looking at my watch (I did so only twice: seeing 5k pass in 17:35 and 10k in 35:25) but rather ran by feel for the majority of the race. And although there were times I didn't feel fast at all, I still managed to hold my pace relatively steady and in fact ran a slightly negative split (37:15 first half vs 37:05 second) which is always a good strategy to take. Although my time is about a full minute off my PB for the distance, I'm thrilled to have it come on this course at this time of year. There are still some tough weeks of training ahead and lots of mileage to run, but this result seems to suggest I am on course to producing a PB at Boston which is really the primary objective.

After the race, we were treated to amazing facilities at the YMCA, a great spread of food and the best prizing I have ever seen at any event. For finishing second overall, I got a duffel bag, a t-shirt, a water bottle, a tub of (blue) Gatorade powder, and 'Axe' accessory pack, a free entry to next years event, a $25 Running Room gift card and a certificate for a free pair of New Balance 1600 shoes (worth like $160)!!! Incredible. And Doyle got the same for finishing third and a bunch of the guys got free shoes as well. Hells yes, we'll be back!

New Balance 1600s: My soon to be newest (and lightest) acquisition in the pursuit of  PBs.

Next up is three hard weeks of training (all 100+ miles), the Achilles 5k race and team challenge on March 17th and then another mini-taper for ATB (30k) a week later (on 24 March). Then it's pretty much taper time to Boston, where a 2:34 is looking more and more attainable.