Ottawa Marathon(DNF), wk11

Well i'm just going to write a quick note here, I have made it a rule not to evaluate a bad race until 2 or 3 days has passed so I aim to do just that. But here is how it played out for me. I decided the morning of the race that I would go with the 2:17 pace group because I was still having breathing problems in Ottawa, so I thought it wise to go out conservatively. I also decided that since i was going out with the slower group(the other group was going at 2:15 pace, which is actually a big difference believe it or not) that I would get rolling at 10miles after we had gone through all the hills. I stuck to this plan and sped up at about 10 miles but after a couple of kms felt aweful and by 20k I realized it was not going to be my day and I would likely struggle in and run somewhere around 2:22-2:24 which to me is not acceptable. I mean no disrespect to the guys that ran in that range but at this point in my career it does not do me any good to run that kind of time. As I stated after the race "you've got to know when to fold 'em." Anyhow, that is the nature of marathoning, on race day, anything can happen, given the way training went, I felt there was an equal chance of me running well or running poorly, and unfortunately things didn't work out.

That special time of year, wk10

It only comes but once or twice a year, where you rest and your body starts to heal up and get ready for the big one. It is another one of those truths about marathon training. You are never fresh, you are always sore, tired, and beat up, at least in my experience. Until of course you back off for the marathon race, the taper. The purpose of the taper is to recover from the weeks of hard training, and I mean completely recover to the point where you are fully healed up and your body has time to supercompensate. Supercompensation is basically the result of the training effect. You tear your body down, and it rebuilds to a stronger state than it was before the teardown. Supercompensation, with regards to your marathon macrocycle is this rebuild to a stronger state on a massive scale. If your taper is designed perfectly race day will come when your supercompensation is at its highest point before it settles into your new baseline fitness level. As I say this I realize it is hard to picture without a graph. Basically you back off and you begin to feel like a wild caged animal and you hope that at the height of your caginess is when race day comes and you are ready to bust out a supreme effort.

Peaking is often called the 'art' in sport, I suppose if you were to do a great deal of scientific tests you could take the art and guessing out of it, but for the vast majority who don't have their own personal lab the ability to bring the body around to peak on just the right day is truly a work of art. To be perfectly honest I'm a crumby artist, however I am definitely feeling rested and healing up nicely so I feel like things should come around nicely for the race. I am on a daily basis, feeling better all around, psychologically I am feeling better than I have in weeks, months even, which is very exciting. Things are looking good, the excitement is mounting, here is how the week played out.

Early in the week I could still barely breathe and was very frustrated, but come Tuesday I woke up to pouring rain and was uplifted! I decided I would do along run if my breathing was improved and sure enough the rain must have knocked the pollen out of the air so I did a 22mile progression run but pretty relaxed and averaged just over six minute miles. The rain continued into Wednesday so I did a medium long run with a 5mile pick up at 5:20/mile pace which felt great. The rest of the week I just did easy 10mile runs with 1k pick ups to sub 3min pace to open up the legs and as a result I am feeling better every day, I will likely do one medium workout tomorrow morning.
Breakdown:
LR - 22mi @ 6:02/mi
MdL - 15mi w/ 5mi @ 5:20/mi
Supp - 1 - Strength Session
- 1 - Yoga Session
- 8 - 1k pick ups at <3:00/km
Volume - 80mi

Oh the Anticipation, wk9

The last time I raced a full marathon, I mean really 'raced' a marathon was back in 2005 in Ottawa. It was my first competitive one and there were really only 3 main Canadian guys in it, myself, Jim Finlayson, and Matt McInnes. It's hard to believe it has been three years, and even harder to believe I am saying that at only 25years of age. That race was awesome for many reasons, mainly because I had never been fitter and when you are really fit the marathon is a really fun event. The nature of the marathon, because the distance and duration is so much more of a challenge than shorter events you get to run the first half and then some at a comfortable pace. For those who aren't competitive runners or have not run a marathon when very fit it is hard to imagine I suppose. Because of this fact, a great deal of the race is very enjoyable, you are running fast, taking turns leading and even chatting sometimes, while anticipating the second portion of the marathon, the racing part. At least that is how Ottawa is likely to play out for myself anyway. Some marathoners, Bill Rogers for instance, was someone who actually liked to get out and run hard through the middle of the race and put the competition away so that he could relax through the latter part of the race, so he would push from around 6 to 10 miles, and wouldn't necessarily experience the race as I have said above. I suspect the race in Ottawa will not be like that for me, and that the top Canadian pack will go out and run together at an even pace through halfway. This year there are going to be more than 3 guys which is awesome and I am really excited about it. To be out there rolling with a pack of guys who are all striving for a similar goal is going to be a really great experience.

Despite having a lackluster couple of weeks recently I have let go of my panic and relaxed. One of the things with marathon training in particular, is that you put in a lot of work over a long period of time. There are ups and downs, but because this work has been over a period of months come race day, if you prepare in the few days prior to the race and are rested, that fitness will come forth. Part of training full time, and in my position, not having a coach, provides you the time to analyze everything, and in my case too much, which has led to getting worked up about things in the present and immediate future which is foolish, but a natural consequence. I am confident in my training. Over the last 9 months I have trained more consistently than any time in my life, and I know that come race day, excluding any circumstances I cannot control, my body, mind, heart, and spirit will be ready to put forth a supreme effort, and I could ask for nothing more. These are exciting times in Canadian Marathoning and I am glad to be a part of it. 12 days 15hours and some odd minutes to go.
Breakdown:
LR - 22mi @ Relaxed Pace
MdL - 15mi w/ 11mi @ 5:35/mi
Supp - 2 - Strength Session
- 2 - Yoga Session
- 10 - 1k pick up in off day runs @ ~3:05/km
Volume - 84mi

Despair, 11.2mi @ 5:35/mi, full tilt

For all intensive purposes, excuse my language, I am totally and completely fucked. Today, after a day off, I go out and run and my breathing is so restricted that I quit my run at 11.2 miles because I was running pretty much balls to the wall. I just looked back on my log and I've done the latter 14miles of 22 mile long runs at a faster pace than I did this 11miles. That is atrocious. I am disheartened to say the least. My legs actually didn't feel too bad, but I was seriously breathing like I was running a 1500m race and by 8 miles my chest was actually aching. I wish I could stay positive but I am having a really hard time, things feel like they are unraveling in a big fuckin hurry. I can let a couple of bad workouts go but now I'm in full panic mode. I don't think I can handle any more mental beatings from here on out so I've decided(and this could change) that I am going to do a relaxed long run on Sunday, then do a gradual two week taper, problem is the last couple weeks have been shit anyway. Ugh. Well to end this on a semi positive note, my ipod earphones crapped out the other day and I picked up some new ones yesterday, and they kick pretty good.

Day Off

It's early, and I've already been up for quite a while. Crawled out of bed at 5 am today, well actually I just sat up and started eating cold, plain whole wheat spaghetti I had left next to my bed to replace the glycogen emptied out of my liver while I slept. Not the most appetizing breakfast. I have been preparing for today's workout for a few days now, doing 1k pick ups in my easy runs to get the legs moving, eating massive amounts of quality carbs, accompanied by quality proteins and fats yesterday, keeping hydrated and topping up the tank this morning at the crack of dawn. Good practice but when I looked out the window and see that the wind is a good 25km/hr and I have about 50 laps of alternating 3:06 and 3:17 kilometers, I am more than a little deflated. This is where having a group to train with is really nice. Anyhow, I'm not feeling up to the task today and haven't for a few days so I am taking a day off, completely, aside from the massage this evening. Looking back at my log, it turns out I haven't taken a full day off training in 63 days, not since I was still in Toronto and took a day off because I didn't feel like fighting the snow with the knowledge I would be running in balmy westcoast weather in a matter of days. What on earth am I going to do with myself? I suspect my day will consist of a lot of walking, maybe go to the grocery store for the 4th consecutive day. I have a new found interest or hobby if you will, a good one. The other day I stopped into chapters and picked up Chris Carmichael's Food for Fitness book and have improved my diet considerably. Even he says you should not make broad sweeping changes to your diet because it takes your body time to adjust but over the last week I have been eating way more quality foods and have felt the difference, in energy levels in particular right away. It is kind of sad that I have left it until this point in my life and career to really put any amount of effort into my diet but it is just one of many things I have learned or come to realize in the last year that I will need to do to reach another level in my training and competitions. I am actually beginning to enjoy going to the store and finding new foods I have not eaten before, and I never thought I'd say it but I am actually enjoying preparing them as well, something about the anticipation of how they are going to make me feel once they are absorbed into my body(I still don't get excited about taste, maybe that will come in time.) Well my morning coffee is wearing off here so I'm heading back to bed, oh glorious day off!

Reality Check, wk8

Well, well, well. Tough week. This week was a bit of a mess, I found myself getting really stressed out about finding a place to live, not just finding a place but a city! When I was in Victoria last weekend I actually found a great place but during this week I spent some time in East Vancouver and realized that I really do belong there and it is where I am going to live. So even though I found a place and committed, I had to let some really nice people know I was bailing, which weighed on my mind a lot, and now I am looking for another place in East Van. So anyway, on Tuesday I had a good massage, but man the last 3 massages I have had have really taken a lot out of me which was a contributing factor to the disaster that was specific workout number one. I hate to complain or make excuses but the world was not allowing this workout to happen. Leading up to the workout I was still very sore from the massage, spent a long day in Vancouver the day before, got a short sleep the night before with a phone call in the middle of the night from a friend, it was windy, and if all this wasn't enough there was an elementary school track meet starting and I had to quit the workout at 7k because I had to dodge too many kids. Like I say, this workout was just not in the cards. I would have rescheduled it but I had a massage appointment that evening.

Workout number two. Luckily I got my shit together on Saturday and relaxed, fueled up and got a good rest the night before my Sunday morning workout. I had actually planned this one for Monday but because Thursday's workout didn't work-out I bumped it up. The planned workout was 10miles at moderate pace(6min/mi), 10miles at race pace(hoped for 5:05/mi)...no dice. For better or for worse these two workouts this week are meant to be very specific, and if you cannot complete them you have chosen a pace that is too fast for you. That is the bottom line. I can overlook the first workout because the circumstances did not allow for an accurate judgment but today's workout there was no excuse. The first 10miles of the run felt great right from the start, I figured I was going to have an excellent run. As I headed into the second 10miles I dropped the pace down to 5:11/mi, then down to 5:05/mi, then 5:06/mi, then during the next lap I slowed to 5:09/mi while I was taking a gel and it was game over, I ran the next lap at 5:14/pace and threw in the towel. As I was running I could tell that the 5:05/mi pace was going to be a little too hard but was too stubborn and tried to keep working for it but I was right on the edge, I mean so close to the edge that the few breaths I gave up in order to take down my gel were enough to send me over the edge of my LT. SO, what do you do? Although this is just one workout, it is a very, very important workout, and I need to be true to myself and decide if my goal pace of 3:10/km is a realistic and attainable goal. At this juncture I have to say that it is not necessarily realistic, it is possible that on race day with a taper and so on that this could happen BUT for training purposes, for the next specific workouts the goal pace must be adjusted. How much though? During the workout today, because those quick miles of 5:05/mi were just over the edge for me, the adjustment need not be drastic and I think 4-5 seconds per mile is about right, I will actually say more specifically a pace of 3:12/km, which is 2:15 flat for the marathon distance, unfortunately one minute outside of the Canadian Olympic B standard, but thats not to say something special can't happen on race day.
Breakdown:
Workout #1 - 7km(3:05.1, 3:12.7, 3:06.6, 3:16.4, 3:06.4, 3:14.9, 3:06.4)
Workout #2 - 10mi @ 6:00.2/mi + 5.3mi @ 5:09.4/mi
Supp - 2 - Strength Session
Volume - 96mi