Sunday, June 27, 2010

My offer for the busy person



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Saturday, June 5, 2010

My Fall 2010 Marathon lineup

Alright so this year, I decided to do 2 back-to-back marathons again, but not at 6 or 10 day interval like I've done before...can you say Glycogen depletion? I learned my lesson (although it sure was fun to challenge myself like that...) so this time I will be running Montreal as my last long run before my taper 3 weeks before the Toronto Scotiabank Waterfront marathon.

My Montreal run will actually be an initial 10k reeeeeeaaaaallly slow, followed by a 32 km at a decent clip. Last year, I ran Montreal a couple of months before running NYC marathon and I shouldn't have been running that distance that early in my training for NYC so I did a 10km slow, 20k at my target race pace and then the final 12 km slow again. It was ok but I had overtrained by the time NYC came around and was dealing with a nagging knee problem. Doc said I had been doing too much mileage - I've been averaging over 2000 km a year for the last few years, so maybe he's right. Anyway, long story short, I've revised my running training to run no more than 3 days a week and have been doing so since last fall. Knee problem solved. I also cross-train 2 days a week for a total of 5 workouts per week. This is the FURST training plan and you can find a sample of it that I put together for a friend of mine in the post called Training Jiha, If you're interested.

Ok, so back to my Fall marathons. Over the next few months I'll be posting my training stories below. Previously, I used to do weekly recaps, but they were just too much work to maintain and plus I felt guilty if I didn't write anything in a particular week.

And in case you didn't notice, I am running these in support of Blood cancer research, so if you'd like to support me in this, I would definitely be grateful for your encouragement. Here is the link to make a secure donation online or if you prefer to make a snailmail or fax donation, you can download the form here.

Thanks for your support and please and share with your friends!

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Week ending 6 Jun - still in pre-training but I have to build up to 15km Long Run distance for when my training plan starts so I ran 12 km LSD last week, did some threshold intervals on Wednesday (1 mi warmup, 4 x 400m intervals at 10mph 2% incline with 400m recovery jogs, 1 mi cooldown = 4 mi total) it was tough and I was sucking wind big time on the intervals but it's funny how good you feel afterward...On Saturday I did my 15 km long run without any difficulty but I averaged an 11 min/mi pace which is much slower than I will have to do during my training so I need to do more intervals and core training to get my speed up...

Week ending 13 Jun - First week of training. I was a bit sore on Monday so I walked for 45 min. On Tuesday I did T-intervals (1 mi warmup, 4 x 800m intervals at 8.5 mph 2% incline with 1 minute recoveries + cooldown = 4 mi total). I was supposed to do 3 x 1 mi intervals at 9.2 mph but there was no way I could keep that pace so I scaled it back. Taking time off from roadrunning all winter and running in snowshoes has caused me to lose a lot of speed. It's really disconcerting! Oh well, the health is good, no injuries, so it's all good. I'll just keep at it.  On Sunday I ran 8 miles cross-country.  It was a hoot but I was supposed to do 13 miles (I should have run Saturday morning when it was cooler, but instead I ran late afternoon the next day after a brunch and mowing the lawn.  I down almost a litre of Gatorade on that run, so it was hot - even in the woods! Lessons learned.

Week ending 20 Jun - Tuesday I did T-intervals (1 mi warmup, 4 x 800m intervals at 10 mph with 1 minute recoveries + cooldown = 4 mi total).  I didn't incline this time because I wanted to see if I could maintain the prescribed pace for the entire interval, which I could but I did hold the bars every once in a while.  My HR went as high as 163 bpm which is 92% of my max and I was in that zone for almost half of the entire workout, but it quickly dropped back down to below 120 bpm during the minute recoveries, which is a good thing and in keeping with Jack Daniels method as well.  Thursday was ladders;  I started out to warm-up for a mile at 5.5 mph and then 1 mi @ 6.5 mph, then 1 mi @ 7.5 mph, then 1 mi @ 8.1 mph, then 1 mi @ 6.5 mph, 1 mi @ 7.5 mph, and a short cool down to bring the total to 10k.  Overall a great run and a good change of pace for treadmill running.  12 mile long run on Saturday morning (2 min/mi slower than my target pace).

Week ending 27 Jun - Tuesday was a new level of intervals for me - I had to change treadmills, to use the older kind you often find in physiotherapy clinics, so that I could crank it past 10 mph.  I also had 2 machines going simultaneously - one at my interval pace and the other at my recovery pace - it's just easier that way rather than fiddling with the speed settings all the time...So here is my workout : 1 mi warmup, 1200m @9.9 mph (200m recovery), 1000m @10 mph (200m rec.), 800m @10.1 mph (200m rec.), 600m @10.3 mph, 1 mi cooldown.  This was intense and it took everything for me to keep those paces but I did it!  I also got a few strange looks hopping from treadmill to treadmill, but hey, my gym is pretty dead these days and I think I keep the staff amused so they don't complain that my workouts are longer than the posted limits of 20 minutes per machine.....he, he.  Wednesday was crosstraining day so I did 45 minutes of spinning and worked up quite a sweat.  I'm feeling tightness in my calves from Tuesday's intervals so Thursday is probably going to be interesting...Well it actually went really well!  I ran a 5 mile tempo run up and down then mountain with a 1 mile warmup/cooldown. Sunday I ran 16 miles and it was HOT! I ran out of water so I cut my run short. My pace was not fast (again) but I felt okay. I made sure not to overexert myself or get dehydrated - slow and steady was the order of the day...

Week ending 4 Jul - Tuesday I was still a bit sore from my weekend run so I decided to work through lunch on my fundraising campaign .  On Wednesday I did some killer intervals (5 x 1000m @ 10mph with 400m RI). It was brutal but I managed with 0% elevation - I should be running on the treadmill at 2% all the time...On Thursday I ran instead of cross-training because it was my last day of work for the week and I wanted to run the mountain.  It was a beautiful 1st of July so I did a 1 mile warmup and 5 mile tempo run followed by a 1 mile cooldown.  It was a gorgeous run! I will have to bring my camera one day to snap pics of the cityscapes I get from up there...Sunday was a 17 mile jaunt.  I was tired even before I left.  My legs probably didn't fully recover from 2 back to back days of running during the week. I was really tired when I got home and fell asleep while watching Toy Story with my kids...

Week ending 11 Jul - Monday and Thursday were cross-training days.  On Monday, I cycled for 45 mins and Thursday I mixed it up by embedding some core strength exercises between 2 twenty minute sessions of biking and rowing.  Tuesday, I ran some intervals (3 x 1600m in 6:12 with 1 min rest between. I couldn't maintain the pace for more than 400m without 5 second breather before continuing. Total 6miles) and Friday I managed to squeeze in some tempo intervals at the track in between thundershowers (5km).  Sunday was a clawback long run to build back some strength so I inserted 4 tempo bursts and some hill sprints just to keep it interesting.  The first was a 20 minute burst about a half hour into the run.  The second was a 10 min burst at 1.5 hours in and the third and fourth were 5 mins. each and 5 minutes apart.  At the end I did 10 x 10-second sprints up a hill to shock my fast twitch muscles a bit (I always love these because you pick up some great speed but for not long enough to produce lactic acid.  Total run distance on Sunday as 16 miles.  All told a great week!

Week ending 18 Jul  - I have to say it was a strange week for running given the odd weather and the upcoming summer vacation.  I started out by planning to do a Tempo run on the mountain on Tuesday. But the skies opened up yet again as I was making my way up University St. to the mountain trailhead. While an avid runner, I'm not hardcore enough to run in a torrential downpour in my road shoes on slopping wet mountain trails, so I ducked into the Royal Vic hospial and ran up 1000 stairs instead. (I did 12 x 84 stairs). I think that qualifies as hill training...then on Thursday, my Tempo run 1 mi warmup + 3 mi @ 7min/mi pace (with 30 second water break each mile) + cool down = 5 miles in 41 mins flat. Glad that's done!  No cross-training this week, I was too busy woking on my new blog launch.  Saturday was a write off and Sunday, I tried to get up at 5 am but I was just too tired, so I opted to do a water running session in the afternoon instead.  After an hour with the Aquajogger, my whole body was fatigued.  That was a great workout!


Week ending 25 Jul -