ABC, that 5k was really hilly. That's a good job on a tough course.

Congratulations Alan. The marathon is a great accomplishment even if it was a difficult finish. It's even more impressive considering you had to train during this winter.

Is anyone having trouble with the new Garmin connect and tapiriik syncing with it?

I've now had a week to try to figure out what I want to do next.

Obviously I am a little disappointed with my performance in the marathon, but it is very easy to understand how I blew up and I've been reassured that it is a very common rookie mistake.. so I think it is time to put it behind me and learn from it and figure out what my next goals are.

Talking with my wife, I think we're going to aim for Hartford in the fall (October). I'd do the Hartford marathon and she's going to do the half. My goal this time will not necessarily be a specific time, but instead a goal of negative splits with the intent of not blowing myself up. :)

Between now and then, I'm going to take the next 3-4 weeks to just recover and take it easy, slowly building my base back up. Like 13 miles total this week, and not doing any speed work for a little while. Most things I have read recommend one day for each mile raced, which would put recovery from a marathon at close to 4 weeks of easy.

So that will put me around the beginning of April and I'm going to tackle some 5k and 5 mile races for fun in the area. I would like to see if I can improve my PR there since I have not raced that distance since the fall.

I have in mind two half-marathons as well.. perhaps Worcester Half-marathon in June and Surftown in August. I ran surftown last year, and think it would be great to do it again, plus it would be right before taper time for my Hartford marathon in the schedule.

Now, if the weather would actually get above freezing any time soon, I would absolutely love it.

It's understandable that you're disappointed, but running a marathon is difficult. Just the fact that you completed the run is an accomplishment in itself. It has to be one of the most difficult physical feats that a person can accomplish. You're one of the people that I look at on Strava and find myself hoping I can get to where you are some day. I think maybe this is a good time to be like a cornerback who just got burned - sometimes you need to have a short memory. :)

With today's outside slow 5k (6:10 per k) I'm officially back to running.

For the last 3 months I barely did anything, just ran on a treadmill at the gym or did indoor biking once per week or less and i didn't know how to register them in Strava. Now i know, so i'll add the gym workouts and treadmill runs.

Between getting more and more responsibilities as I got promoted in my company, lots of travels for work around Europe, USA and Canada, the very long and unusual rainy winter in Spain, a vasectomy surgery and some family issues, I always found an excuse to not to run outside or at all.

I have re-gained the 3kg I had lost already by the end of the year and I wanted to lose 10 by June, so now 10 to go again in only 3 months. Will start today to control the amount I eat. I have always ate healthy (enjoy salads, vegetables, do not ever eat snacks or sugar drinks), but too much amount for being then sitting in front of a computer for 10 hours a day.

As start, I have told my wife that from today i want in my plate exactly the same amount of food she eats, instead of double. It should work at least until I learn to leave food in the plate when i feel full, as I always eat whatever is on my plate not matter how much it is.

I need also to control what I eat when outside home, as there I find it harder to control myself both on the amount and on what I order. It's like hey, I'm in a restaurant, party time! and the problem is that I eat outside three times per week, either for work or with family as wife loves to go outside on weekends and kids want to go to eat pizza or burgers.

Another goal i had was to run a half marathon on 27th April, but of course i'm far from ready. Instead i have signed for the event but for the 10k race instead, that will be my first race ever. I have a month and a half to get ready, and I have ran up to 15k in October, so it won't be an issue to at least run it fully.

Hope you will see me active in Strava again at least 4 per week!

Welcome back Icy!

I was so excited about the temperature being above 40F, that I went out for a bike ride during lunch. I forgot to charge my new garmin edge for my bike and it died like 4 miles in. Woops.

Back to snow tomorrow though, so was nice being above freezing while it lasted :)

Ok, I think I have my race schedule for the spring/summer/fall worked out for the most part.

I might throw in some additional races along the way just to run as a training run, but for now I think this is what my target is:

March:
March 22 - Malden Rotary 10k (training run - not racing)

April:
April 5 - CMS Weekly 5k
Apr 13 - Millbury Parents Club 5k

May:
May 3 - Grafton Gazebo Race (5 mile)

June:
June 15 - Worcester Half Marathon

July:
Wife's Plans for racing? (First week of July)

August:
Aug 24 - Old Wethersfield 10k

September:
Sep 14 - Surftown Half Marathon

October:
October 11 - Hartford Marathon

The only hole there that I am not sure of is July. That month is super busy for me, I have our family yearly trip to Quebec that month, and at the end of the month we have a trip to Chile. The first weekend of the month is my yearly anniversary trip with my wife and she may or may not plan something running related wherever we are going.

looks like a pretty solid racing schedule Alan, lots of variety :)

FM

Shit, just when i was starting to get back into running and registered for a 10k race by the end of April, i started feel dizzy and have double vision when looking at the sides.

I have gone through some tests this week including a brain MRI and it looks that might be the start of Multiple Sclerosis. I have been prescribed corticoids to fix fast the problem with my view as next week i'm travelling to USA (Phoenix) for work. Once i get back i'll go through some more exhaustive and specific tests to see if it's finally MS or not.

I'm of course shocked, as if it finally is MS, in 10 years i can be on a wheel chair and I'm just 38yo (in the worst case, there are a lot of different types and severity grades of MS, sadly i'm reading and learning a lot about it now).

Anyway once i stop to feel dizzy hopefully in a few days, i'm going to start running again, as being healthy is now even a higher priority.

Oh my gosh Icy, I hope that it ends up being something far more trivial than MS.

Good luck, Icy. I hope it turns out to be nothing.

Jeez, sorry to hear about this Icy! I'm with the others in wishing and hoping this is something less serious.

dang, that's rough Icy, hope it's nothing and you'll be all right. Keeping you in my thoughts!

FM

Sorry to hear Icy! Crossing my fingers here.

Praying for you, Icy. Keep strong!

Really hoping this turns out to be something else for you. Stay strong.

I really hope this turns out well, Icy. Take care.

Are the RunKeeper training progams any good. Thinking of doing the half-marathon training program.

I did the 10k under 60 mins one pasty year and was good. 3/4 running days per week, good distances and paces, and a good way to motivate yourself. This summer I'll try the half marathon one too.

Overall it's a good alternative to keeping your own excel sheet, less detailed but easier to follow up and to update it.

Whish you could enter your own programs.

And btw guys, thanks for your words, I don't want this thread to go Off topic, I might create a new one just for my health in the future depending on how things end going.

I haven't used any before. Just looking over the Runkeeper plans, they seem to look ok. The only thing that I don't like is that they have you pick how fast you want to run the half marathon and then base your training paces on that, rather than basing it on your current fitness level.

From my understanding, pacing yourself based on a goal is more dangerous than pacing yourself based on your current fitness level. Otherwise, they seem to have a mix of various types of runs (tempo runs, intervals, strides, long runs, etc) and they also have a decent number of weekly miles which is pretty important. As far as I can tell, the long runs are not too much of the weekly miles either which is good.

I guess the only other thing that seems to be missing is in general an explanation of why you are doing the various exercises to understand what the goal of each different type of workout is, but I suppose that is easy enough to look up on the internet for the most part. (Runkeeper doesn't seem to call the workouts tempo runs or intervals or such though by name which might make it a little difficult)

Dola... I sure hope that when you get up to the 10+ mile runs in the training that you aren't doing those all on that track! :)

I did I think 15-16 miles on an indoor track during the winter and it was one of the least fun running experiences that I have had!

Alan, did you do some experimenting with a zero drop shoe recently? How did that go for you?

I picked up a pair recently and tried it out today. I was concentrating on cadence at first and ended up starting way too fast. I never got totally comfortable but I'll try it out again next week. I've been trying to land mid-foot with my regular shoes but I fall back to heel strike if I'm not concentrating.

Probably not! Although I do feel like it is easier on my legs than pavement.

I am still trying them out. I am a mid-foot striker even with 8mm drop shoes that I normally wear, but everything that I have read when switching to a zero drop shoe, you want to take it slowly so you don't end up with an achilles injury.

Since I was recovering from my marathon last month anyways, I took it super slowly so only ran a mile at a time with them thus far. I'll likely start increasing it a little more the next month or two and see if I can keep introducing them without any extra strain.

My goal likely will be at least short term to run one shorter run a week in them, and then the other shoes for longer runs. I've been thinking about getting a second pair of zero drop shoes with more cushioning at some point to wear for longer runs, but just not sure yet.

I do feel when I wear them though that they feel easier to run in efficiently, they are lighter weight and scuffling my feet when I run.

Generally tracks are softer material so are definitely easier on the legs. Another option for softer course to run on is trail running, if you have any nice trails around you. (Even though for me, my effort on trails for the same pace as roads is much higher and is a harder workout).

The one thing that I would be worried about though, is if your race is going to be a road race, you eventually want to increase your running on asphalt to let your skeletal system get used to it. Otherwise it may end up being pretty shocking on the day of the race.

Hey cool.. wife and I got selected in the lottery for this year's Peachtree Road Race. Guess I'll add that to my race schedule this year. Pretty excited about doing that one :)

Over the past couple of weeks I've been too concerned about my metrics that I've forgotten how to enjoy running. Cadence, form, foot strike, easy pace, long run pace, race pace. I've read articles and watched videos. It's changed how I run, and I'm not liking it.

I just need to go out and run free. It starts today.

Congrats Alan! How many runners to they limit at this race?

Not sure about this year, but I believe the number is 60,000

It is the largest 10k race in the country, and also the United States Men/Women 10k championships so plenty of elite runners there too.

For me though, this was a tradition growing up, watching this every year in Atlanta. Perhaps nationally not the same level as a Boston marathon, but locally it has been a big deal my entire life.

What I found that helped was to make sure on your easy pace days, that you just run it by feel. Most of my easy pace days I don't even look at my watch or worry about pace. My wife sometimes doesn't even wear her watch on easy pace days.

Easy pace days are a great day to run with a friend or whatever. You should be able to have a conversation while running easy pace without getting winded. If you arent able to, then you are running it too fast. On easy pace days, pick somewhere fun to run, nice scenery or run with a friend or whatever. Those days are important to just enjoy the running.

Go for it.

Running, relaxing, and zoning out is a great way to spend some time.

Sorry for the last minute announcement, but I realize I hadn't posted this. I'm on my way to another race this morning. This one is the Run Seal Beach 10K, the first of a series of three called the OC California Race Series.

Good luck! Have fun.

Hey hey! Hope it went well!

FM

I had a half marathon today. There was a Clydesdale division that I was hoping to be able to place top 3. Last year the winner for that division was around 1:48 but it is a hilly course so I though 1:48 would be a decent time for me.

The temperature this morning was perfect, probably between 50 - 55 after some warmer days last week. I was able to climb the hills pretty well and finished with a 1:42:34. I checked the results when they were posted and the top three in my division all finished in the 1:37 range so I ended up with 4th place in the division.

It's no huge loss but my son placed in his age division in the 5K and won a mug so now I have to deal with him talking trash to me all weekend. It was a fun morning.

Nice job in your half! Sorry that you are not quite the athlete that your son is, but it is good at least that he can carry the family honor! :) :)

Seriously though, very nice time, especially for a hilly course!

and good luck ABC in your race!

I did a 15k race this morning, but didn't race it. I had a 9 mile tempo run scheduled, so just decided to do it during the race, keeping at the scheduled pace.

Best kind of training runs with 400-500 others! :)

Well, I finished! Not as well as I had hoped, but I don't mind. The first two miles were tough as I started the first too strong, with the second a big struggle which pretty much set the tone for the rest of my run. Once I settled down my established pace was slower than I planned, and I knew early on I wouldn't PR.

Anyways, after about 5.5 miles I was supposed to turn in to the main streets, but I continued on and discovered my error and had to backtrack. I went about 0.3 miles further than I was supposed to run.

My run is posted on Strava. I'll post the official results when I get them. I'm guessing I finished last in my division again. :p

Et tu Alan Tay?

Good job ABC. Even if you end up last in your division you probably finished first for running the most miles at the race.

Good job ABC, those last 2 km were some very nice negative splits!

Todd, that was a rough HM course, good job as well!

FM

As some of you may have seen on Strava, this weekend I did the Ragnar Relay in Southern California. It's one of the continuous overnight relay races, and this one went from Huntington Beach down to San Diego. We did the 195 miles in about 29 and a half hours. We were a 12 person team (you can also do a 6 person Ultra team), so we each ran three legs of the relay. I was assigned the longest segments and ran about 25.5 miles for my three assigned legs. I was our first runner at 11 AM Friday morning (5.5 miles), then my second leg (12 miles) was at about 10:30 Friday night and then my final leg (8.1 miles) was at around 7:15 Saturday morning. My team "made" me run another mile alongside one of our other runners to go over 26.2 for the race.

Overall, it was a lot of fun. Great experience with some friends. Not a lot of sleep, but you can make that up later. If you have the chance to do something similar with any of your running friends, I'd recommend it.

Great to see a bunch of folks getting after it this week.

I'll be joining the list next weekend, have a 5k over near Wrigley Field to start off my season. Just hoping to get my legs a little more under me after a lousy winter. No PRs coming up in April, but expect to be challenging last years times again by mid/late May.

Also, signed up for Strava Premium ... got that as a Christmas present from brother, but just now cashing it in as I'm running outdoors again. Didn't seem like there was a lot of value to be had with the Premium for my treadmill runs.

I love seeing all these race reports. They seem to come almost every week. Great job this weekend, Alan, HRM, and digamma!

And good luck on your 5k next week hoopsguy.

That Ragnar SoCal is on my bucket list. But I definitely need to get more miles under me before I can tackle such a beast.

digamma, I ran the Ragnar SoCal two years ago, and have been looking to get back (my team from that time isn't from SoCal and hasn't come back out for it). It's great fun. It sounds like you did very well. Way to go! That 12 mile must have been brutal, especially as that would have been in the central-northeast San Diego hilly area, if they followed a similar course to the one we ran, although at least it was at night and was decent weather.

My most difficult leg (and again, don't know if your race included this part) was a 9.5 mile stretch from Imperial Highway in Yorba Linda to Green River Road in Corona, which takes you on a run along the Santa Ana River. It was a sweltering heat (90+) at high noon when I ran it, and it ended with a ridiculous uphill. I made decent time (around 9 minute miles, I think), but that was just tough. My four mile midnighter, even all uphill, was a breeze after that. My Saturday run was through the foggy old town La Jolla area right along the beach, and that was really pleasant. I did one last short stretch of a run just before we crossed over to Coronado, but we split that one up a bit (we only had 10 runners).

It's quite the experience, not just for the running and the endless nature of it, but also just being around your team for all that time. It was great! Hope you had a great time.

ABC, just do it! Trust me, I went in with very little expectations or much running history, and it was still completely worth it.

Maybe if digamma isn't locked into his squad for next year, we can all run it together next year, and recruit some other Angeleno FOFCers to join us.

That Ragnar does look awesome. I've been wanting to do something like that, but unfortunately my group of running friends here locally is roughly 6-7 and definitely not the ultra-running type. I am so very un-social to try it with people I don't know most likely :)

Alan, I was the same way. Our team just kind of came together when a friend of ours and her father needed four to complete their van. I have one friend who is a triathlete and two other guys who have just started running. We all happened to be at the same 40th birthday party one afternoon and she asked one of us--we all said we'd do it if everyone there agreed. So that was our six person van and she was the only person who knew the folks in the other van. We ended up getting to know them a bit, but it was definitely more about our six.

It does take a lot of logistics and planning.

There are a couple of ultra marathoners that have run various segments in my area over the years that have dominated most of them. Yesterday I managed to snag one of the weaker ones from them on a run that evidently they did as a warmup for a longer hillier run :)

I don't care the circumstances, I still am ahead of both of them in a segment! I sent my wife a text yesterday about it too :)

Millbury Parents Club 5k Race Report:

Copying this over from my Running log that I keep:

So after a couple of weeks off due after a weird reaction to my last run (shooting pains behind my shin for about a week every time I tried anything other than a normal walk), and a couple of bike rides that seemed to go OK i thought I'd try a run and see if there was any after effect

I usually run 8 miles, but the route I went has get outs that meant I could cut down to 3 or 6 miles if need be... But I got lost, so it turned into 10!

Good news is that it doesn't feel as if I'm going to have anything other than the soreness I'd expect after running 25% longer than planned, and it seems that I can keep up a 7.30 mile pace for 10 miles!

Have to say well impressed by Alan T's race: you seem to have gotten fast all of a sudden! With your dedication you'll go even faster and further in no time.

Nice race, Alan.

Alex, that sounds like shin splints to me. The couple of weeks off was probably a good idea. Hopefully you'll be fine now. That's a nice pace for 10 miles.

And I must also mention that I can remember a time when I was almost as fast as FrogMan but that time has long passed. He's more animal than man at this point. I'm looking forward to that half coming up. You're going to kill it.

Alex, that 7:30 pace of yours is a GREAT pace a 10 miler, very well done, especially for a guy who's been off for a little while.


lol, thanks man, I'm feeling better and better about it. If anybody's not on Strava and wondering what he's talking about, he's certainly refering to my latest pace test, over 15K that I ran this last Saturday. Pretty happy with how it went, especially considering how much time I'd spent on the treadmill and not on the road, I was kinda apprehensive about finding back the streets and pushing myself off the pavement instead of simply letting my stride go with a belt moving under me.

Here's a link to this run on Garmin Connect:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/478569947

The 3 5K splits came to 22:00, 21:45 and 22:00 for a total time of 1:05:45 and an average pace at 7:03 per mile.

I had a goal pace of about 7:14 per mile for my upcoming half marathon, that'd give me a finish time just under 1:35:00. I'm now thinking I should aim for a faster pace all along. Even more so that the course is downhill for a long part of the first half of it, then flat, not going back uphill. Take a look at this:


That's about a kilometer and a half of slight uphill, then about 8 more going downhill, where I could seriously let it fly, and then flat out until the end. I have regularly been doing downhill running on my treadmill, at -3% incline to get my quads used to it so they're not completely shot when I get to that second half of the race so hopefully that downhill running in the race won't be such an issue.

Only three weeks to go until race day, May 4th, following the training plan but there's this one thing bugging me. Maybe Alan is the one who could help the most but all can feel free to chime in. I'm following a sorta modified Hal Higdon advanced half marathon plan that now looks like this:


As you can see, the plan has 4 three weeks sections. W1 has a long run with some HM pace into it, W2 has a simple long run all at easy pace of same duration and W3 is a race/pace test, ending with race day on W3 of the fourth three weeks section. Duration/distance of both the long runs and the races/pace tests have increased as the weeks went on.

See that yellow "14k pace" cell. The original Hal Higdon advanced half marathon plan called for a full 2 hours long run, all at easy pace. To me, exactly 7 days before race day, it simply didn't make sense to do that. At my usual easy pace, i.e. 5:30/km or 8:51/mile, this means I'd run more than a half marathon exactly one week from my actual half marathon. To be exact, I'd run something like 21.8km or 13.56 miles.

I originally modified the plan to include a 14K at HM pace instead, that's about 8 miles at race pace but I'm now unsure about this. For a taper, this seems like a bit too much at race pace so now I might still do a 13-15 km run but more as a progression, ending with maybe 2 miles at race pace toward the end.

Open to all opinions...

FM

The week before a half, I like 8 or 9 miles at close to race pace so I like your modification there. Your work is done at that point. You aren't likely to gain fitness the weekend before the race so I look at it as a good opportunity to train for actually running the race.

What does that Higdon guy know anyway? :)

Another good motivational video:

Not sure if anyone has seen it.. Strava Labs has a pretty cool tool here:

http://labs.strava.com/flyby/

You can enter the URL to a strava activity and it will tell you who else that logged an activity on strava also ran past you or near you or with you in the activity.

So did you fly past some other biker, maybe they are on strava and you can see who it was here.

dang, that's pretty cool. On my very long run of last Sunday, a rider came close to passing me but turned just before he did!!! :)

FM

I'll also be running a half on May 4. The Orange County Half, the second in a series of three in the Beach Cities Challenge.

Just like last time, I'm just lookin' to finishing the dang thing!

Saturday I'm going to run a local 5 mile road race for the second year straight. It is going to be the first time that I will have run a race two years in a row so I am eager to see how much I have improved since last year.

When I ran this race last May, it was actually my first great improvement as far as pace in a race goes. It was the first time that I ran any distance (more than a 5k) under a 9:30min/mile pace. I ended up with a 46:09 for the race and at the time set my fastest ever splits for 1k (4:41), 1500m (7:16), 1 mile (7:53), 3k (15:41), 2 mile (17:02) and 5k (27:13).

Since then, I've obviously gotten faster and it is now only my 28th best 5 mile time, but I still remember fondly how awesome it felt after the race last year. My current best 5 mile time was a 5 mile race last November at 41:13.. and I really want to try to get under a 40 minute time this weekend for the race.

It has a pretty daunting hill though..



My strategy last year was to try to get through the first 2 miles without killing myself and then trying to set a 5k record on the back half.. which is pretty much exactly what I did. 9:44 and 10:24 for the first two miles and then a 27 minute 5k where I nearly blew up in the last mile.

So this year I guess I'm going to try to do the same thing.. just a bit faster up the hills and hope as I fly down the back side that I don't trip and end up rolling down hill for 300 ft :)

The fastest that I have ever run that hill was a 9:34 pace last month and the hill before that 9:14 pace.. so my best guess is I can try to push myself at a 9:00 and 9:30 first two miles and that will mean I need a 21:30 5k the last half which would be about a 90 second PR for me on that distance (helped with the huge downhills though)...

So I guess we will see how it goes :)

Gotta say that the elevation change tracker on RunKeeper sucks. I'm running on a basically flat track. Little elevation change!

Am I misunderstanding? It sounds like you're saying you are running on flat land and not seeing any elevation change. If you're running on flat land, wouldn't you not have any elevation change?

I'm running on a flat track, and it is saying I climbed 544 feet.

From this morning:

That's a tough course, Alan. That downhill makes my knee hurt just from looking at the chart.

Good Luck this weekend FOFC'ers. Steve is about to crush this half.

Short answer is most Apps are not super accurate with elevation.

Longer answer is a pretty good article here:
Understanding Sport Device GPS Elevation Issues | DC Rainmaker

Interesting. Thanks, Alan.

Here's a cool flyby video of my half marathon this weekend. Looks like a beautiful course.

just posted this over on the Lose It! runners thread
======================================
"Putting miles in your training log is like putting money in the bank. You begin to draw interest on it immediately." - Hal Higdon

Went out in the cold rain this morning for my last real training run before the race this Sunday thus closing my training log for a few days. ;)

Ran a 30 minutes progression run that started easy and peaked with a pace averaging at 4:10/km (6:42/mile) in the last 5 minutes before going back to an easy jog for the last 5 minutes.

See the 500m split paces of the run (minutes/km):
06:08
05:22
05:10
05:06
04:58
04:46
04:40
04:36
04:22
04:10
05:08
05:12

I like these kinds of runs. Any other rainy morning, I probably would have gone down to the basement and would have run this progression run on the treadmill but I wanted to do it outside, with the race coming very soon. I wanted to feel the wet pavement under my feet since there's a good chance it'll be (very) rainy on Sunday.

They are forecasting 80% chance of rain but fairly warm weather compared to what we've had so far this Spring, between 45 and 55F. I feel ready for this, ready for anything. About as ready as I felt when I tackled my last few big karate belt gradings (Shodan, Nidan, Sandan). Sunday can't come soon enough...

Time to talk goals... Been going back and forth about what pace to aim for, given all the variables in play here. Brace yourselves, here's me dumping my deep thoughts on you all, let's call this a pre-race report... ;)

It's my first half marathon. My original goal for race pace when I started this training cycle was around 4:30/km or roughly 7:14/mile. This was mostly based on the Jack Daniels calculator estimate based on my previous 10K PR of 43:11. I'm reevaluating this estimate mostly because of how the course is set up.

The race course starts with a slight uphill for maybe the first 1.5 to 2 kilometers, then starts going downhill and keeps going that way for a good while. This is where doing that one long run on that downhill part comes into play. During that run at race pace a couple weeks ago, I averaged a pace of 7:16/mile over the first couple kilometers uphill that kinda took me by surprise then averaged 6:56/mile over the next 4.5 km going mostly downhill. Thing is during most of that race pace section, my heart rate stayed in check at an average of about 151 BPM. I could probably go a bit faster without really taxing my body for the rest of the race. It's a point-to-point race and the way it's set up, after the downhill, we'll stay on flat ground the rest of the way...

If I also look at my 15K pace test run done on a mostly flat course in which I averaged a pace of 7:05 over 15 km, I'm thinking I should be able to hold at least that pace until the 15th kilometer, so for a good chunk after the downhill portion. Let's say I let up a bit and go back to about 7:14 for a couple miles then mount a final kick for a mile at about 6:40 or so, I could look at a finish in close to 1:31:30. That's my A goal. :)

My B goal would be to at least maintain an average pace around 7:14 and that's a finish in around 1:35.

My C goal is to at least beat my training run PR set in that last long run which is 1:46 or so, a 5:01/km pace or 8:05.

I know anything can happen and I could wake up feeling sick on Sunday but not finishing this race would be a huge letdown so I'm not even putting that down as a goal...

I have set my Runkeeper live tracking thingie to active and will turn the posting to all my friends before Sunday so at least Patrick should see a post at about the start of my race. If any of you are on Runkeeper and want to follow me, send me a friend request. Here's my profile over there:
Steve Gougeon Levis, QC, Canada | RunKeeper

I don,t plan to fuss too much with it though, and I might start the runkeeper app before they say "go", in order to put it back in my belt, so the first km might be off by quite a bit. Otherwise you should be able to follow my run. ;)

Race website says my bib number is 368 and results should be posted at this link at some point during the day:
http://www.sportstats.ca/

The race is currently in the "Upcoming events" and is called "Demi Marathon International Oasis De Levis"

Race starts at 8:30 and I should be taking most of Sunday afternoon off, that's if I don't have to go grocery shopping, heh ;) It's one of those crazy weekends for us. Teaching karate Saturday morning, then picking up my bib in Old Quebec while my wife will be driving around our oldest son to his last rehearsal for his drum show that is on Sunday evening. We then attend a dance recital by my goddaughter in the evening. Then race in the morning on Sunday but I also learned yesterday that ou youngest son has a soccer practice from 8:30 to 9:50, so he will not be seeing anything of my race. Then in the afternoon, my wife has to do the dojo cleanup and in the evening is the aforementioned drum show by our oldest son. It's gonna be a crazy weekend but will end so well with that show. I love seeing him perform, makes me so proud...

I have already planned what I want for dinner, a good old poutine with lots of cheese. I'm already salivating over it.

Hope I didn't bore you all to death. If you're still reading, thanks a lot. I'll be back over the weekend or early next week with some kind of race report then my marathon plan will start with a reverse taper and the crazy planning of 3 races in 6 weeks (might even make it 4 in 8 weeks) to start it all off.

Take care, good luck to everyone else racing this weekend and happy running everybody else! :)

more specifically to us here, good luck Alan and ABC for your races this weekend! :)

FM

that was a very cool flyover. Kinda make it seemed like a long course though ;)

That loop about midway through (right at mile 6.5) is gonna be kinda hectic. I'm sure some racers will be tempted not to do the loop and will head straight to the right ;)

Have fun in the race!

FM

On Sunday I am doing the hardest ride I ever have or probably ever will do. The elevation is actually 4k more than shown here:

Kill Bill V11.1 - A bike ride in McLean, VA

Last year 20 riders started and less than half finished. I'll post a trip report if I live!

KILL BILL

Good luck subby! Whatever you do, don't break your collarbone again!

If I had a dollar for every time... :)

Alan and FM, looks like you both have solid gameplans for your races. Good luck!


If I'm correct that loop actually runs underneath the main road. To bypass the loop, you'd probably have to jump some barriers. :p

ahh, actually makes a lot more sense that way. Didn't look like that with the flyover... :D

FM

I finally got around to getting a Road ID. If anyone wants one, I think you can snag a discount if you order through my link:

http://RoadID.com/invite/4DF7M-TAF44QG9TXZ

The nudge I needed to do this for myself. Thanks, Subby!

Yeah, Road IDs are great. I recommend anyone that goes running/biking/walking/hiking/whatever to get one. You never know when you may have an accident or get hurt or have some medical issue and people who see you have no idea who you are.

I always wear my road ID when I go out, just in case, can never be too careful..

Yep. It just makes sense.

Well good news and bad news for today's run.

Good:
Beat last year's time by almost 4 minutes exactly (3:59) for an improvement of about 45 seconds per mile.
I beat my 3k and 2 mile splits from last year by about 45 seconds each and my 5k split from last year by about 1:30.


Bad:
No 5 mile PR for me, ended up 50 seconds behind it. (Today's race had double the elevation gain though).
Obviously didn't break the 40 minute barrier for 5 miles, even though that seemed fairly unlikely with this course.


So my observation is that I really handled the hills in the first two miles better. In fact, I ran both hills faster than I ever had before. The first hill I did in 7:49 pace compared to 10:00 pace last year, and my best ever pace on that hill of 9:14. The second and by far larger hill I managed a 9:28 pace compared to 10:31 last year and my best ever on that hill had previously been a 9:34.

I was aiming for a 9:00 and 9:30 so was pretty much a full minute ahead of my goal at this point. However, the next part where I had to set a 5k personal record by nearly 90 seconds on the back half just wasn't going to happen :)

Mile 3 this year was 8:12 compared to 8:58 last year (improvement of about 45 seconds but 15 seconds behind where I needed to be.)

Mile 4 this year (huge down hill) was 7:59 compared to 8:02 last year (no noticable improvement). Which tells me that on the downhill last year when it is more to do with your legs not blowing up than your cardio, I pretty much didn't really improve enough here. I really needed to gain like 30 seconds on this segment.

Mile 5 (where I pretty much blew up last year) was pretty much the same this year :) I saw that I would have to run a 7 minute mile to make the 40 minute mark and knew that wasn't happening so kind of mentally checked out a bit here. 8:55 this year compared to 9:10 last year. (improvement of 15 seconds). I took 2 walk breaks in this mile and probably if I had pushed through it, i could have at least gotten a PR. My heart rate was pretty hammered though at this point. I was 180+ from mile 3-5 and was just struggling.

In the end, your fitness level is what your fitness level is. I'm happy for the improvement over last year so at least I'm on the right track. I'm pretty sure on a flatter course that I could break 40 minutes. :)

I have a month until my next half marathon. My goal is pretty much to run today's race pace for the entire half marathon. I think I can do that but have a few weeks here to get the extra work in.

nice race Alan, good improvement all around! :)

Tomorrow's the day, a couple last checks and to bed we go...

FM

Good luck tomorrow, FrogMan! Kick butt!

Frustrating run yesterday. The race was marked by chalk on the sidewalks, except where we were running across a grass field for about 1/4 mile in the middle of the road race. There were also a number of people out directing traffic. Of the 200 or so people entered in the race, I was fairly close to the front, maybe somewhere in the 25-50 range. And yet, I somehow only ended up running 4.4K when I crossed the finish line.

Through the first 4K, I was trending for a season best time for a 5K, likely improving by 30-45 seconds from my run three weeks ago. My time on my watch was off because I forgot to hit it upon crossing the finish line, as I was flustered about the 4.4K distance. I went to look up the time at the site, fearing that I would not be listed since I did not complete 5K, only to see that there are no reported times for the race. As in, no link to see where participants finished overall or by bracket.

So I think it is safe to say that I won't be running this race again. And I'll likely be a little more careful about signing up for smaller races going forward if this is what I can expect from local townships trying to throw an event together. Location was great for me, but I would rather travel and extra 30-60 minutes for a 5K race where I can actually run 5K and see results from the race the next day.

In the meantime, next race is about 3 weeks out. I'll modify my training times based on what I forecast I would have run but I'm still miffed to have wasted basically Friday (did not run on day off, nice weather, but saving legs for race) and Saturday for what largely feels like a waste of time and money.

Hoops, I had a 5k race like that once around here too. It was for a local school as a charity fund raiser. So I decided to not let it bug me too much though in this case.

Usually you can tell if the course should be somewhat close to 5k distance if it is noted as a certified course in the race descriptions. (Even on those there may be a small discrepancy from your GPS watches though just due to how technology works on the watches)

Frogman, you ok? That's a scary looking picture on FB.

yeah, for those of us who don't speak french what happened?

He was doing really well in his race today, but then collapsed/passed out about 1k from the end. (He had run a little more than 12 miles, around 12.5 miles almost). He was taken to the hospital and they wanted to do some tests to make sure there was no issue with his heart.

His last response to me was that he was actually feeling really well in the hospital, as if nothing had happened but was obviously very upset/disappointed that he did not manage to finish, especially since he was doing so well.

He said he would update more later, so hopefully it is nothing serious and just a case of over-exertion or something.. Crossing my fingers for a speedy recovery for him.

Aw man, tough news, considering how much you trained for this. Keep strong FM. Keep us updated.

Dola.

As for me, a quick recap on my half today. I Bonked at mile 8, discovered I had a bloody nipple at mile 9, and I had leg cramps at the final stretch, preventing me from having a strong finish.

Full report to follow tomorrow.

Sorry guys forgot to come back around here to update ya. I'm fine as Alan reported. In facts, the body doesn't feel much more beaten up than after most longs runs, except for my lower back, thanks to sitting at an akward angle on a soft hospital mattress for most of the day. Most likely culprits are dehydration and low blood sugar level but the ER doc wanted me to see the cardiologist as Alan said simply to rule out anything irregular with my heart. They drew some blood twice but everything came back normal. That impromptu visit allowed me to know that my blood pressure is pretty low, in a healthy kinda way, 58/102...

I will learn from this and will bounce back but I've already decided to make some changes to my race shedule for this Summer. I will not attempt a full marathon in August but instead will do another half.

Thanks for all the well wishes, really appreciated.

FM

Glad to hear you're okay.

Did they at least turn off your Garmin?

WHEEEEEEEE

Sorry to read about this, but glad that ultimately you seem to be fine. That would be pretty scary.

Wow, nice!

:jawdrop:

Impressive, Subby!

On a related bike note, my dad rode the MS 150 bike ride in DFW this weekend. When he first told me he was going to ride it, I thought he was crazy. He hadn't ridden much at all. They had a lower mileage option, where you ride 50 miles on Saturday then 25 on Sunday.

My mom said she kept waiting for a call on Saturday to come and pick up his carcass. :) But he made it the full 50 miles. On Sunday he started out, but his legs hadn't recovered enough to do the ride, and he had to call it quits after 5 miles. Still, pretty impressive for a nearly 65 year old with only a couple of months of training.

don't know who, but someone did ;) I know my headphones were around my necks on our way to the ER and I could still hear music, but my phone was in the pocket of my hydration belt...

FM

I didn't realize much about it as it happened to be honest but it did scare the bejesus out of my close ones. My wife and oldest son were waiting for me at the finish line and I had given her an approximate finishing time. Once in the ambulance, the EMT asked me if anyone was waiting for me at the finishing area and I went "oh crap, my wife!". He asked me if I wanted them to call them and I told him "ok, you dial but I will talk to her". She later told me she would have really freaked out had she only talked to the EMT.

I got to the ER before them, obviously, and when they got there, my son looked at me with lots of deep concerns into his eyes. My wife was concerned too but after a few minutes she said she needed to go to the bathroom and i was left alone with my son. I squeezed his hand and realized he was weeping like a little baby. He's 17 and weighs about 30 lbs more than me, to simply the remember and tell you the scene is making me all weepy.

Our youngest son (10yo) had a soccer practice during the race and my mother-in-law went with him. My wife said she called them at our house when she was on her way to the ER. She said he broke down crying when my mother-in-law related the news to him.

I'm a pretty solitary person and never think that people care about me. I gues that's stupid but that's how I am. These demonstrations of emotions touched me like you wouldn't believe...

FM

Glad to hear it is nothing worse than a scare, FM.

Glad you're ok, Steve. Yowza. That sounds scary.