Running Dads

Michael has summarized things nicely already and I don’t have too much to add given that we ran together the whole time, but here’s my additional thoughts:

My big goals for this race were:
1) Finish, and
2) Stay steady the whole way.

For the past few days I’ve been eating really well – lots of pasta, lots of Foo-ade, dry bagels, no booze. I had a good rest last week and felt confident. I hadn’t trained as hard for this race as I have for past races, though, so I was expecting to finish between 3:15 and 3:00.

Goal #2 meant I needed to pick my pace and stick with it. Michael and I started at the same pace and he was keeping time with his watch so I just ended up sticking with him. It was great. The first 15k flew by and I felt strong the whole way. We stopped briefly for water once or twice, and every kilometer Michael would say how we were doing for time. One thing I really appreciated was early in the race when I was chatting with him I started speeding up and he pointed that out and we slowed back down to our pace. This happened one or two other times and I attribute our good time to these simple things.

I had my gel just as we were heading into the hilly subdivision at 17km. Two years ago I remember being really tired at this point because I had run too fast from 12km-17km and only got through this section by forcing myself to keep up with my personal-pacebunny. This time we were strong the whole way and while I was starting to feel some pain we continued to hold a steady pace.

My longest run during training was 20km and that’s where I really started to feel pain. I’m 100% sure that without Michael beside me I would have stopped to walk over and over and over again and would probably have had a time closer to 3:30 instead of 2:58. I kept hoping for the big hill but it was much closer to the finish than I thought.

Finally we reached the hill and as Michael said I just put my head down and did it. A LOT of people were walking and it felt really good to pass them all. I don’t feel like I went too fast but when I reached the top I felt a sudden tingling in my face and hands and realized I was close to exhaustion. I looked back and saw Michael not far behind me and was thrilled to have a few seconds to walk without feeling guilty. I don’t think I could have kept running without passing out.

The last 4km were awful. I wanted to stop 100 times. Michael is saying over and over that I kept him going but it’s way more mutual than he makes out.

Then we were done. I felt disgusting for 8 hours and almost was sick once or twice. Today I’m sore but not too bad.

Marden here we come…

Distance: 30k
Time: 2:58:40

Success! I had wanted to do this in 3 hours and I did it. I should actually say ‘We’, because Pete and I ran this one side by side pretty much the whole race and our times are identical.

There isn’t much to say about the first 10 or 12 kilometers. We set out at a pace that was around 6 minutes/km and stayed pretty true to that. Somewhere in there we made up a couple of minutes. I felt totally fine and was glad that most of my training had been done at a faster rate. I think it made it easier to go for a long time with out really struggling. All day, I really focused on my posture and stride, I didn’t let my self fall into my run, but instead kept my head up and drove my legs forward. This made it easier and until the bitter end served me well.

I had a gel and some gatorade around the 11 or 12 kilometer mark and we kept moving on at the same steady pace. I still felt fine.

We got into the part that absolutely killed me the first time, the 8 or 9 kilometer stretch that winds though the residential area and ends with a big hill.

It went very, very well. Pete and I zipped through this part. Up and down the hills we kept moving at the same ‘easy’ 6minute/km pace.

Somewhere in there, around the 20k mark I had another gel and some water and gatorade. The water was delicious, cold and refreshing. I was feeling good and was still maintaining my good posture and stride.

We reached the Big Hill at the 26k point. It was longer, but not as steep as I had remembered it from 2010. Peter absolutely killed it. He ran right up it, without a problem. I was not nearly as fast and Pete finished about 20 or 30 meters ahead of me. Although it wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination, I was glad to have run up the whole thing and spent most of the time passing people. At the top I walked for a few minutes. Peter kindly waited for me while drinking some water.

On we went for the last 3.5 kilometers, still on pace for just under 3 hours. The last part is ‘easy’ in that it is mostly down hill. I really struggled. I’d given what I had to make it through the hills in good time and I didn’t feel that I had anything left to give. Going from the 27-29 kilometer mark seemed to take an eternity. I felt sick and wanted to stop. We definitely stopped and walked for 30 seconds once. We may have done it twice. Kudos to Peter for driving us forward through this last, very hard part. He kept us moving at a pace that would get us there in less than 3 hours. Also, much respect to him for staying with me when he very clearly could have kept going and had a better time.

After the agony of kilometers 27-29 the last part actually didn’t seem that long. I was really tired and had definitely abandoned the good stride that had taken me so far, but the end was in reach. I felt terrible and wanted to slow down, but Pete kept us going.

We finally reached the finish line in the hoped for time of under 3 hours. It felt great to achieve this goal. Thanks again to Pete for making sure that it happened.

Lessons: I carb loaded the day before the race. This seemed to pay off. I wasn’t hungry at all during the race, in fact I wasn’t able to really eat until 7 tonight.

My training seemed to pay off. The core work and squats gave me much better posture and stride and carried me through most of the race. Training at a faster speed meant that I could also relax, run a slower pace and feel great for nearly the whole 30k.

Next time: I’ll train more (yes, I’ve made this vow before). A few more long runs wouldn’t have killed me and I can always work on running faster.

(Protip, if we do this in 2013: Park next to the Rolly Rocket BBQ. It isn’t too far from the race and is a great post game meal spot.)

I had a pretty good push to the finish. I had a good run of about 20k at a pace that was faster than what I need to do on race day.

I tried to do one more very long run last night, but about half way through I realized my legs were stiff and tired. I hadn’t given myself enough recovery time from the last long run. I cut it short (just 12.3k) and called it a night.

Now all I need to do is rest my legs and get ready for Sunday. I’m eating well this week and will start to carb load on Friday and do it in earnest on Saturday. My primary memory of the last Around the Bay was being very hungry. I don’t want that to happen again.

After a great January and a good start to February my training go halted when I went to Mexico and then basically took an extra week off. Altogether, I went two weeks without doing the all important ‘LONG’ run.

I did do a few shorter runs in that time and did some strength work, but overall my training was not what it should have been. All of a sudden I’m a little more than two weeks from the race and I’ve only done one run 20k or longer.

Last night I went out and tried to run 20k. At least, I thought I ran 20k. When I got home and mapped my route, it turns out I only went 18.7k. That’s not so bad, but what is frustrating is I felt really good the whole race and thought my time was pretty good. It turns out I was only running 5:43/k which is much slower than my goal.

I will get out again in the next few days for a longer run, probably in the 24k range. Hopefully my pace will pick up.

At the beginning of the month I decided that I needed to make sure I ran 30k each week in order to stay on track for Around the Bay. I decided to just make it 120k per month. It didn’t matter how I did it, but I figured that if I ran that much I’d be doing enough to prepare for the race.

I planned it so that my long runs got longer each week and that I would have 16k left to do. I managed to find excuses to not run for the last 5 days and all of a sudden it was Jan 31st and I was 16k short of my goal.

For some reason this was really bothering me so at 11pm on Tuesday night I put on my shoes and went out for that last run. I feel very happy right now. I’m glad I met the goal.

February will be challenging. It is shorter, so I’ll have less time to reach the 120 goal and I’m going to be in Mexico for a week. I will try to run during that time, but I know I won’t be able to get in a really long run. I’ll have to push hard in the next couple of weeks to build a cushion to get me over that week. It might be good to have a rest week anyways.

My other February goal is to really work on my core. I’m going to do 500 push-ups, 1000 squats, 1000 sit-ups and 50 minutes of planking. Wish me luck.

I went for a 14k run on the weekend. It was good. My time was decent despite the fact that I had to run through ice, snow and slush most of the time.

I made a classic mistake after my great run. I went to a friend’s house, watched football and ate nachos, doritoes and brownies. Then I was too full to eat a healthy dinner. After dinner (while watching MORE football) I drank two beers.

The running is good, but I can’t get into the habit of following it with bad food. I won’t lose weight or get in shape that way.

Not a great week, but an OK week. I had one 12k run on a cold night and I was better about my core work. Diet was medium. Some days good, some days bad.

I’ve run 65 k so far this month. I”m slightly behind the pace I need to be on for 120 for the month. A big push this week should get me back on track.

I don’t know if it was the cold, but after my run this week I had some bad chafing. I’ll need to find a solution to that quickly.

Posting each and every run gets a bit boring. This time around, I’m just trying to run at least 130km each month. I figure if I can do that, it won’t really matter whether it was done in long runs or short runs. Just the effort to run that distance will get me ready for running around the bay.

After a few runs last weekend, I had some foot pain most of the week. I was pretty nervous about it and spent time on google and reddit trying to diagnose (who needs a doctor?). I started to think it was a fractured metatarsal (broken foot) or hopefully just strained. Whatever it was, I did the smart thing and stayed off it for several days and iced it twice a day.

It seems to have worked. By the weekend the pain was gone and I was able to go for a 5k run and a 13k run on the weekend. The lesson here is, it is better to take a few days off than to push through the injury and be forced to take a month or more off.

Distance: 5 miles (treadmill)
Time 45 min

We’re back at it in 2012. Michael has already recapped our training plans and progress so I don’t need to re-state them. I’m excited about the 120k/month. I think it’s a very manageable (January) goal. Ultimate is Wed/Thu evenings so I’ll probably end up doing Tuesday/Friday/Sunday runs.

Yesterday was reaaaally cold. I cancelled my gym membership in early December but of course they make you pre-pay one month, and you need to give them one months notice, and they can’t start counting days until the end of a payment cycle, so somehow I’ve ended up with a gym membership until the middle of March. I doubt I’ll go often but with it so cold yesterday I hit the gym and was reminded why I cancelled my membership. The hardest part of the run was the boredom. It didn’t help that half the TVs were very fuzzy (and this is supposed to be the ‘nice’ gym in Guelph).

Race registration is complete. There’s no turning back now.