Labour Day

Does running after kids all day count as cross training? If so I had a marathon session. It doesn't count? Pity. It should. I think I logged more time on my feet today than I did on Sunday's run.

Sunday run

I missed my Friday run so I ran 10K on Saturday at a slightly faster pace to make up for it. It was a brilliant idea until it was time for my Sunday run.
My neighbour came out for the first half of the run but my goal distance was 23K while she was hoping for 30K. The way out was great. We kept on a conversational pace for the 11.5K that we were together. On the way back is when I started having some dead legs. I didn't have any splits slower than 5:05 if memory serves but they were a chore. My breathing was also fine, but I just lost my comfortable pace that I enjoyed heading out. I finished in 1:53:59.

Aint that the truth

"We all have dreams. In order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline and effort." -- Jesse Owens, American running legend

Hilly Tuesday morning

I had a chance to sleep in until 5:30 this morning. It was absolutely wonderful. When I realized my dying Garmin had no juice in it, I decided to turn my 11K tempo run into my hill run instead, no need for GPS when you're running up and down a hill. So six boring repeats. However, I felt much better today than last week during the hill session. I still have no idea why people enjoy hill repeats.
When I trotted out to start my run, my legs were a bit stiff. But as I soldiered on they were are showing very little residual impact from Sunday's 30K. I was really pleased by the lack of stiffness, which I'm taking as a sign that my training is slowly, very slowly, turning a corner.

Sunday run in Bouctouche

Although I am typing this about 10 hours after I finished, I feel remarkably refreshed for running 30K this morning. I had one of the most scenic 30K runs of my life, only Banff nothwithstanding. I had stressed all night about where I would get my run in, not knowing where any runner-friendly areas are in Bouctouche. So I went for a safe route, which turned out to be absolutely amazing. I ran beside the Northumberland Strait along the highway as the sun peaked over the ocean. Of the highlights, 4K on the Bouctouche Dune boardwalk because at one point it was ocean to the right of me and ocean to the left of me.
I ran fairly aggressively out because I had the hills and wind in my favour, which meant I fought a serious headwind for the final 15K. I was not impressed with the wind and hills on the way back. At the turn I had built up a 250-metre cushion which had vanished by 29K. Thankfully I had a bit more gas in the tank so I could finish in 2:29:51, meeting my 5:00 min/K goal. It seems that of late my long runs are the only ones that I consistently finish on pace.

Easy Saturday run

I missed my Friday run, which is extremely disappointing. But that just amps up the pressure to have a strong finish to the week. We are visiting the inlaws this weekend, so a quick 8K around Bouctouche Bay before lunch. Today is just stretching out the legs for my LSD tomorrow. It was pretty hot by the time I got back to the house, so you cannot believe how thankful I am today was not my long run!
Now my only problem is finding a 30K run in relatively unfamiliar running surroundings.

Sunday run

Up at 5 a.m. for my 26K LSD run. I didn't have time to fuel up, aside from a bite of a banana and trying to escape before I woke up any of the girls. It was pretty dark on the way out so I skipped the trail and opted for the slightly hillier Lincoln road route. I ran some really uneven splits. I don't believe in the first 13K I was more than 10 seconds above or below my goal pace, but they did jump around a lot. I'm not sure if that was because of Garmin errors or me errors -- I'd like to blame the former rather than the latter. On the way back, the sun was coming out and so I turned back to the trail. I could also feel the heat picking up, thankfully I could open up the front of my shirt a bit.

I noticed that I my splits were starting to sag a bit, nothing major, but they were all five or eight seconds slower than I intended. At 8K to go, my dying Garmin announced "low battery" so I figured I needed to pick up the pace or fear it actually going kaput while en route. I picked up my tempo and finished most of my splits around 15 to 20 seconds faster. If memory serves, I ended up running 26K in 2:09:43 at 4:58 pace. My quads are still a bit tight, but it was a decent run. I just wish it didn't start so early.

Saturday run

I had a simple hill repeat on Thursday. It was an easy run to my regular repeat hill and ran four repeats. My first hill session of the season and I don't have any complaints. I ran hard on the repeats but I could feel my lunch coming up on the last repeat. That I'd like to avoid in the future.

Today started very busy, final day of Elle's 4U soccer season and then a princess-themed birthday party (thankfully parents were exempted). As they slept, I went out for an easy 8K run, ave. pace 4:22. It felt good. Getting ready for my LSD tomorrow.

Let's try this blogging thing again

I'm not promising to be a daily blogger again, mainly because my training is not nearly as consistent as it should be right now. But I'm ashamed how long this blog has been silent. I need motivation. So here goes nothing:

It's an offday for me, which is actually good timing considering the deluge of rain. I ran 25K yesterday, my longest run so far as I ramp up for my planned fall marathon. (I will still believe that when I see the bib pinned to my running shirt.) My training has been sporadic over the past months, but I'm getting out four to five times a week lately. My split times aren't where they should be, in fact I'm quote disturbed by how they are not falling faster. But the most encouraging part of my Monday run was how relatively free I am today of any tightness in my legs. Perhaps a small sign of progress. At this point, I'll take any glimmer of hope.
I'm struggling to remember how I coped with running in the rain every day when I lived in B.C. It seems like such a chore now.

Sunday night run

Sadly, this is the last day of my vacation. But I did get a 5K run in this evening. It isn't the 30K that I had planned, but that was scuttled earlier this week. I was out for a planned 12K run on Thursday and after 3.8K I felt something twig in the back of my left quad, I ran for another 100 metres and then the twig turned into a pop. For those who don't follow my made-up lingo for leg pains, the pop hurt a lot. I stopped, massaged it out, made it to 4K and realized I was turning around. I slowed my pace down by about a full minute and just aimed at getting home. Friday I had scheduled a 10K run with a friend and I had to do it, we had cancelled about six times. The first 3K felt manageable but the last 4K (I wasn't tempting fate) was stiff. I took Saturday off and ran tonight. I can feel it back there but whatever was injured isn't hurting too much. I'm really hoping it isn't anything serious because I've finally been stitching together some decent training weeks.

Ouch

I got up at 5:05 a.m. to run 30K. I will blog more later. All I can say now is: ouch.

Daily Quote

Last night was chaos at work, didn't get my run in. Not very happy. I can't skip it tonight, even though it is pouring rain. Here is an inspirational quote for an otherwise blah day.

 

"Taking charge of your body can help you take charge of your life. And that power can help you go wherever you want to go, every single day." Cheryl Bridges Treworgy, former U.S. cross-country runner.

Tuesday's intervals

Alas Wednesday is my rest day and I feel I deserve it after three solid days of consecutive running. I had a great interval session last night. I opted for 6x800m repeats.

My splits were quite consistent, which is encouraging because the last few times I've done interval sessions my initial splits were on pace and then I started slipping at the end.

For the record they were: 3:01, 3:00, 2:59, 2:55, 3:00 and 2:59.

The 2:55 lap was a bit of an anomaly. I glanced down at my Garmin and I think I misread the pace so I really kicked it up in the last 200 metres and was pleasantly surprised when I crossed the 800 metre threshold. It is one of those sessions where I was finished thinking, "maybe I should add two more repeats just for fun." That is the bizarre thing about intervals is during the lap I'm pushing it to the point where I'm not sure I could go much faster (and still do another repeat) and yet at the end I still have some energy leftover. Perhaps I'm not pushing enough? Anyway, t his is moot because the little voice on my shoulder advised against it, so I went home had a bowl of cereal and dozed off to sleep.

The one interesting side note on this run is that when I calculated the distance and time, I ran 4.8K in 17: 55. I know those splits have 90 second recovery periods built in but that would put me on pace to break my  5K PB. Just something that popped into my head.

Quote of the Day

"I often wondered why runners could accomplish what they did. It's like analyzing love or passion. Why I had to run remains one of the mysteries of my life." -- John J. Kelly, American marathoner

Another 8K in the books

Mondays are normally my rest days but considering I took almost all of last week off and Saturday, I felt that my legs could handle skipping my rest day. So I went out for another leisurely 8K keeping in mind that Tuesday is my speed day and I want to do six or eight 800 repeats. I felt a lot stronger on Monday's run than Sunday's run but I tried to keep the pace relaxed. I finished in a shade over 35 minutes, so about 35 seconds faster than the night before. It was a fantastic night for a run, the air was cool, there wasn't much wind and I had a decent amount of light out. I'm starting to get worried about my shoes. They should have been replaced a few months ago but I thought I could postpone it due to my sorry March/April/May running schedule. Sadly, I think the time has come to retire them pretty darn quickly.

Quote of the Day

I subscribe to the Quote of the Day from Runner's World. They are normally pretty good, so instead of just hitting delete, I'm going to post the ones that I like here for all of you who still visit my blog despite my lack of updates recently.

"I've always felt running is a form of meditation. Running enables us to stop our lives, to go out and find a safe place for ourselves."

-- Nina Kuscsik, first official women's champ with her 1972 Boston Maraton win and two-time NYC Marathon champion.

A nice easy 26K

Today was my first run since last Friday, we were in Maine for a vacation and while I had my running gear, alas no running happened. Unless you count running from outlet store to outlet store as training. I didn't think so.

So today, I went out for a 26K run. If you call last week a cutback week, where I missed a LSD, this is 4K farther than my last LSD. In my mind, this isn't pushing too much, and I hope to get 30K or 32K on my next LSD. Back to this run, my first 13K were pace, plus 25 seconds or so. Aside from the first two splits and a few sprinkled here and there, I kept that pretty close the entire time -- so they were supposed to be between 4:50 min/k and 5 min/k. The final 13K were supposed to be near goal marathon pace, so around 4:30 min/k. I only had four splits of more than 4:40 in the last half, which is four more than I had hoped but it was still a good run. I only had one sub-4:30 min/k, however, and I had been hoping for a few more of those. I finished in about 2:03:30, my Garmin is in the van. I did a negative split on the way back and I just missed by about 24 seconds doing the second half in under an hour.

My last two LSDs have given me some hope that my training is going somewhere. I just don't feel like my short stuff is where it should be. Why can't I hold a sub-4-minute pace for longer than 5K? Last year, I was running 18:40 5Ks in training with some kick left at the end. I hope it is just the lack of mileage. I won't be ready for a great Saint John marathon but I'm hoping Moncton will be a more approriately timed event, training wise.
 

Sore legs

I capped off a decent training week on Sunday with a long run. And for the first time in quite some time, it was a long run not just because I took my time. Although my training schedule said I should be running 18 miles on Sunday, I thought that might kill me, so I compromised on 18K. I figured, I had run more than 10K in several weeks, that it might do more harm than good to run 18 miles. Understanding that I had to take it easy, I kept all my splits between 4:40 and 4:55. I had only a few sub-4:40 and only a few higher than 5 minutes. (Although I had a bizarre Garmin error around the Beaverbrook Art Gallery. There was no way I ran 5:53, so I'm assuming I was credited with a few fast splits earlier. Bizarre.) I finished in 1:27:55 or so. I felt great after I ran. My legs are a bit sore today but that's to be expected. Aside from all the little bugs that were flying around the trails, it was a splendid evening run. My wonderful wife had protested my run, which delayed it for a good hour. She kept saying that it was too humid or too hot, but I needed to get in the run. There was really no option. If I'm going to finish a marathon this season, I need to crank up the training, so skipping runs is no longer possible. Running down by the Green and the art gallery, there were a lot of people out for Sunday strolls or jogs, it was really reassuring to see so many people active.

Tuesday evening repeats

I have to say, I'm starting to like 800-metre repeats. If I'm going to spend time working on speed drills, I much rather running 800s and 1,000s than 400s or other odd distances. I had a pretty decent workout on Tuesday night, although looking at my splits, one can definitely tell in which direction I was running into the wind. When running into the wind my splits were 3:02, 3:04 and 3:05 and running with the wind, my splits were 2:58, 3:00 and 3:00. I'm still working on a way to eat a bit for supper so I'm not completely sapped for energy when I start my run, but only eating enough so I'm not in pain during my drills. It's a delicate balance that I must admit, I'm still having a difficult time striking.

Blown out of Bouctouche

This season I've told myself repeatedly that I will not dwell on poor race performances until I start actually putting in the training required that should translate into decent race times. That applies to my weekend trip to Bouctouche. I was heading there with the girls anyway, so my dear wife could read Harry Potter in peace and quiet. Friday night I stayed up late so I could buy her book at midnight, got to sleep around 1 a.m., up at 6 a.m. to drive to Bouctouche. My inlaws were waiting at the race start line with my bib, I pinned it to my shirt, warmed up for 15 minutes and then ran. Bouctouche's 10K race is one of my favourites for its nice, scenic route. The first year I ran it, 2005, I benefited from a beautiful wind at my back. This year, my lack of training was exacerbated by a stiff headwind for the entire race. I tried to keep my pace to 4 min/K to 4:05 min/K. That worked for the first 6K or so, then it all went downhill ... just as the course started tilting uphill. I ended up around 43:40, not the 46 minutes the results page lists. The best part of the entire race was finishing and then having the girls waiting for me. That makes any race, even the worst, worth running.