Lucky 7's

It's been a busy week and time for a recap of how things went. The countdown clock says only 30 days left which means one more week of full training and then the 3 week taper. It's actually been a fairly normal week for a change with no travel, work trips, crazy meetings or anything really unusual here in our day to day life. The weather (until today) has been great and I was able to run in shorts and a long sleeve shirt for 3 of my runs with temps between 5 to 8C (40-45F) and only a bit of wind and rain (unlike the Sunday cold washing machine run).

Started off the week with my standard rest day on Monday and was feeling tired from the cumulative stress from the week before.

Tues was just an easy 8 miles for the 1st time this year in shorts. I tried to relax and just go easy but still came in at 8:00 pace despite feeling a bit stiff and sore.

Weds - and time to get serious again with some real effort. Before this run I was very apprehensive and nervous as to being rested enough to finish the workout. The run began with a nice long warmup run of about 3 miles and then clicked the watch to start a series of 7x1000m efforts at about 10k pace or 4:00/km with a 400m jog between each. This is actually slightly better than my 10k pr pace but it was an arbitrary goal for today's run. This run was done on the roads on the only flattish long piece of street we have around the main town core and I kept going back and forth passing the same people walking. They must wonder what that crazy older man is trying to do to himself!

The graph below shows the result from my garmin with the blue line as speed (mph) and the matching heartrate spiking and trying to keep up in red. Notice also how heartrate remained elevated afterwords on the final jog home. But back to the spurts and stops my times came in within a few seconds of the 4:00 goal for each kilometer and having the Garmin in lap mode (showing average pace) helped to keep me in the groove. They got progressively harder to do mentally and I only struggled to hold pace on the final run segment.

Hard, easy, right? The final mile or so at an easy pace was quite a nice relief.

Thursday found me pretty bagged but not overly stiff and sore, just a general tired and so it was a relief to just do an easy 8 mile recovery run. There was a light rain which made it a little on the cool side but that was ok. The pace was easy at 8:10 but probably still a little fast for recovery. It seems there's only one slow down speed in the legs.

Today Friday is the day for a medium long run and I had a choice of hills or marathon pace miles to make. With the cold temperatures and wind (back to -6C and windchill of -12C) I decided it would be difficult to hold a hard tempo pace on tired legs. Instead I opted for a staple of my Boston plan which is a series of hard downhill runs to teach the legs to run fast and to withstand the pounding of going down at speed.

The result below is what my killer hill workout looked like today with the green line for elevation in feet. The hill didn't grow during the workout but somehow the Garmin got tricked as one point. My hill of choice is the Bunny Hill (where all the bunnies live; gotta get a picture one day) which has about 200 ft of drop in a 1/2 mile. It finishes down by the beach which goes across to Minister's Island at low tide and usually has very little traffic.So... after a 5 mile warmup it was time to bite the bullet and run down the hill! Pace going down averaged 7:00 or less as I tried to hold back a bit and keep it near my marathon goal pace of 7:15. Unfortunately without a convenient elevator or car I then had to jog (slowly) back up the hill to begin again. The locals must think I've totally lost it by now. And repeat, hard down, easy up. And again, and again, etc. It was good to have the ipod along today to keep me occupied but eventually on the 6th repeat the legs started to complain about the abuse. Time to stop you say? No!! Now's the time to do another when the hurting is good and so seven it was! Followed by a struggle back up and another 2 miles to finish me off for the day at 15.

Result: sore tired legs that are shakey hours later going up and down stairs but will be that much more ready for the abuse that will come on April 16.

Plan for the Sat. is to just do an easy hour run which will bring me in around 70 miles for the week. After that, rest up for Sunday's run with Andrew again, weather depending as we're going to get slammed tonite and tomorrow with another nor'easter.

Have a great weekend! Time for ice cream here...

Sunday's are good days

First, here's a nice link to the Ottawa Ice Sculpture competition. Click on a carver in the list and you can see the design and some great pictures of the best ones. The competition is ongoing with the masters competition and the amazing snow sculptures can be seen here.

Second, I've been a real slacker with keeping up to date on my blog lately. It's been ridiculous again at work and the first thing that seems to go is writing up the latest happenings. Even my blogline reading and commenting is way behind. However, I'm keeping up the running end of things no matter what and with only 8 weeks to go the end is in sight.

Rewind to last Sunday which seems like ages ago now. The three amigos got in a super fun run on our standard Boyden Lake loop with a Sipayik Trail loop thrown in for good measure. The conditions were decent with good footing, light winds but a little on the cold side at -15C (5F).

Oh yeah, just to put my 2 cents worth about my comment at our little break at the Farmers Market. I must have been getting a little impatient about all the stretching and lolligagging or something as I started up the road with "Let's get this show on the road!". Didn't realize what an impression that this made on 'the boys' but they quickly fell into line and then proceeded to crank things up and put the 'old man' in his place.

Lots of good conversation made it seem like a short easy run but it got a little tough in the last mile or so. I was just hanging on for dear life as Marc picked it up when he started to smell the apple pie and brownies waiting for us at the car. I spent the rest of the day flaked out on the couch rehydrating with whatever could be found in the fridge.

Monday - rest day
Tues - hill workout (profile above) on a local incline called 'The Bunny Hill', not because it's easy but because a local resident raises rabbits and there are often bunnies along the roadside. I only noted one today but maybe they were indoors with the cold and windchill of -25C (-15F). Today's 11 mile slogfest was brutal with the wind but I was well dressed for it (love my new balaclava) and the roads were mostly bare. The hill section of the run was a set of 4x 1/2 mile downhill efforts at a cruising marathon pace which ended up close to 6:30/mile with the steep incline. Slow jog up and repeat then finish with an easy run back to the start.

Weds - another dumb work trip which messed up our Valentines Day plans at home. I now have a big IOU to make up. We had to leave early in order to beat the snow storm that was barrelling up the coast from Downeast no less (not from the Great White North). When we got to Dartmouth there was time to get in an 8 mile run along with a few strides and another run was in the books.

Thurs - up early to get a run in before the meetings but the streets and sidewalks were treacherous with ice and snow. Even with the good old Yaktrax it was tough sledding but managed 6.5 miles without falling down. Pace was near 9 minute though.

Friday - home at last again but the roads are barely plowed and my medium long run was a true slug/slog fest. Again it would have been un-runnable without the Yaks and still nearly fell a few times on the slick roads as I barely managed to get in 11 slow miles with a nasty north wind blowing. I totally agree with Andrew's sentiment, "Enough already with this winter cold".

Sat- blew off any attempt to run in the cold and jumped on the treadmill for a change of pace. After a few miles warmup and a few pickups I was able to put in 5 miles at marathon pace (7:18 avg) and with heartrate below 150. It felt good to move a little faster for a change in just shorts.

Total for the week of 66 miles with 97% of my plan completed. The week was a repeat of what I'd intended last week as the next 5 weeks will be aimed at race preparation. I'm considering running the Hypothermic 1/2 marathon next Sunday in Saint John but may hold off and see how bad (or good) the weather is going to be.

Have a great week everyone!

What a crazy week!

The week started out on Sunday in Ottawa amongst the ice sculptures which were pretty cool! But instead of a long run it was 8 miles of skating on the canal and my streak of 12 long runs of 20+ was ended.

Another neat sculpture which stands about 5 feet high.

But back to reality a few days later with a work trip to Dartmouth, NS. Winter really has quite a grip on us now as we've been in the deep deep freeze for about 2 weeks now with no end in site. I was able to get a 7 miles in early on Tuesday before our meetings but it was a might nippy at -28C with the wind. Any thoughts of going fast or too long were quickly squashed as I was on a tight schedule.

On Weds there was a bit more time before starting our trip back home so was able to fit in a decent hill workout in downtown Dartmouth. After a 3 mile easy warmup I found myself at the foot of the Maple Street hill which is well know by local runners and an unwelcome part of the annual Bluenose marathon. My workout plan called for 6 hills and that's what I was able to pull off but the urge to walk became quite strong after about 3 of these at about 3 minutes up and 2 minutes jogs back down. The hills and valleys in elevation and heartrate tell the story. Finished the run with another 3 miles back to the hotel.

Thurs - back home at last and just an easy 8 miles on heavy legs. Also submitted my Boston application and received a little bonus cheque for my age group placing at Wineglass. A little late but that's fine.

Friday - another cool day with winds and windchill near -20C and waited till later in the day to get my medium long run of 15 miles in. Ran it as an out and back figuring to run into the wind on the way out and do my marathon pace miles on the return leg. But somehow it seemed that the wind was shifting continually and was in my face during most of the way. Still managed to get in 5 miles at just under MP at 7:30 pace and heartrate of only 147 avg. It was work but quite manageable despite the weather and all the layers. Maybe the new shoes helped!

Here are the new shoes, Mizuno Wave Riders and this is pair #23 for this brand. They work very well for me and I can easily get 500-800 miles on them before it's time for fresh ones. Bought 2 pair so that I can save one for the marathon.

Today was just a short 1 hour run to give the legs an easy day before the long run planned with Marc and Andrew on Sunday. It was cold again but I've got the layering thing down pretty good now.

Total for the past week was only 53 miles for 73% of my planned week. Oh well, at least my Parrot predictor is coming down to near the 3:30 mark. Actually looking at my plan, next week is scheduled to be a rest week but since I've slacked off so much this week, maybe I'll call this a rest week and just repeat what I'd planned last week. Does that make any sense? I'll bounce it off 'the boys' in the morning and see what they think.

Happy running!