Mercer Island Half-Marathon

I ran the Mercer Island, WA half-marathon this weekend as a tune-up for the quickly approaching Boston Marathon in 4 weeks. Tune up indeed!

I was forewarned that the course was hilly and the competition stiff, and had set my expectations accordingly. Completely opposite from the pancake flat, lulling half in Phoenix in January, there was no single stretch of flat that simply allowed me to settle into a pace - instead, a continuous series of quick, undulating ups and downs as we circumnavigated Mercer Island. Good thing the island happens to have a circumference of 13 miles :)

The winding course also meant that it was necessary to run tangents and watch footing as the camber of the road changed constantly. Cut inside down through the turn, back outside up around the bend, over and over.

My race strategy was to see how I felt on race day and run accordingly. If I was feeling off, the plan was to run at marathon goal pace (4:45/km); "on" was anything faster than that. My heart rate skyrocketed from the get go, holding around 179, higher on the hills. Although I have not been tested for a couple years and my zones have probably changed, I tend to view 180 as a zone 3 "redline"...so was trying not to get too freaked out by the read out on the HRM. From the perspective of perceived exertion, I felt like I was around 80-85%. I took my first gel at 30 minutes because there was no electrolyte drink on the course and was feeling a little thirsty. At 10k, my watch said 44:00 and I decided to keep at 'er.

From 8k through 16k, the course wound upward, followed by a sharp downhill section at 18km. At this point I felt freaking fantastic and knew I was in PB territory. If I could hold a 4:30/km pace, I would be under 1:35....which was baffling because the course was so much harder than Arizona.

If there is one lesson I have learned from running marathons, however, it is that feeling "freaking fantastic" is fleeting at best. And sure enough..."freaking fantastic" lasted about 200 metres. Wham! At precisely 18.14k, some nasty race planner decided to insert a mother of a hill that rose 40 metres in elevation over the next 600 meters. I sucked wind and tried to focus on anything and everything to distract me from the hill and my spiking heart rate. 185bpm. Yikes.

At 19k we were rewarded with a sharp downhill. Aaah. I kept my turnover high and sped up. Back down to 176bpm. And then another uphill, followed abruptly by ANOTHER uphill to the finish line. Seriously....a three hill uphill finish. Gaaaasp. Ack. Despite knowing that the finish line was only a few hundred metres away, I seriously contemplated walking up the last hill. 1:34 on my watch. Big hill in front of me. So long PB.

As far as finishes go, I left everything out on the course on this day and could not have run another step. My watch was telling me 1:35-something and honestly, I didn't care. I was extremely proud of the effort and yet humbled by the hills. It was a good reminder that you can run a perfect 9/10ths of a race and watch it go in the toilet on the final 1/10th.

The running gods must have felt sorry for me on this day, however, because they managed to rewind the clock....or perhaps I was just moving quicker up that last hill than I felt? Final time: 1:35:01 and a skinny little 7 second PB.

Stats:
Official finish time 1:35:01
Pace: 4:28/km
Overall 179 / 2137
Female 24/1060
Category 5/ 193

Hello, windshield....

Sometimes you are the windshield, sometimes you are the bug. Yesterday was decidedly a "bug" sorta day.

After coming off my highest volume weekend of training to date, I admittedly overdid Monday a little with a 2500m swim at noon and the Mike McIvor-designed "hilly" stage 12 of the Peak winter racing series (aka 25.4k of indoor racing hell....gasp!). This did not prepare me well for what Tuesday had in store.

At 4:45am, my alarm rudely reminded me that this was the first day of my swim sessions at UBC with the Pacific Dolphins. Gone was the warmth and comfort of my tri-swim class at the downtown YWCA, replaced with the brash reality of a gruelling workout in the outdoor long-course pool at UBC. Let's just put it this way....I got my a** handed to me in the slowest lane!

The combination of an early morning start and a cumulative 3 days effect of pretty heavy workouts left me completely exhausted all day, yet I meekly managed to lace up my trainers for the 45 minute steady state run prescribed by my schedule. Gone was the spring in my step from the weekend, replaced with lead-filled legs and utter fatigue. My glacial pace of 5:20 on the first km felt like the 40k marker of a marathon....oh how quickly your body can remind you exactly who is boss. It was an absolutely gorgeous evening - sun setting over English Bay, calm water at Kits beach - but I wasn't revelling in the scenery. Every step was a push. I willed myself to run 3k, then 4, then 5, so absolutely relieved when I reached my turnaround point.

Eating humble pie seems to be a good thing once in a while...keeps me focused and reminds me that I have limits. I'd rather realize that now than on race day.

So no windshield today. All bug. But tomorrow will be better!

13:30

With just under six months to go until Ironman Canada, I'm in my second base-building week and am starting to adjust to the volume. Maybe this thing is achievable after all....but there is still lots of work to do.

This past week I logged 13 hours, 30 minutes and actually enjoyed most of it to boot! Having the winter Olympics in the background was a great motivator as well as the unseasonably warm weather.

I spent 6:30 on the bike, 5 hours running and 2 hours swimming, including a 100k ride on Saturday morning and a 20-mile run on Sunday morning. Admittedly, I freaked out a little early in the week upon realizing that I only have 7 weeks to go until the Boston marathon with no 30k+ runs under my belt, but am feeling a little more confident about my race preparations after having put in the 20-miler on Sunday at a 4:57 pace.

Last year this time I was logging 100+ km weeks, so it will be interesting to see how the lower run volume and massive amounts of cross-training impact my marathon. It is really strange to me to spend more time on the bike than running :) Somewhat interesting, however, is that my average run pace is faster than in previous training blocks - this week was 61 km at 4:59, the previous week 57km at 4:38. I attribute this to more high quality run workouts and fewer recovery runs. Only time will tell if this approach translates to success on race day.

Pre- and post-workout nutrition is still a challenge, and I am struggling a bit to manage my diet. So. Hungry. All the time. I feel like I'm eating constantly and yet still having hunger pangs pretty regularly, which is really surprising because I estimate that I am consuming in the neighbourhood of 2800-3000 calories a day. It's also really hard to juggle eating well with the training volume, full-time work and life in general...damn those gummy bears!

The little engine that could!

My second workout of the day today was a 10k run up 4th Avenue hill towards UBC hill. My usual flat route out along Spanish Banks was a no-go because it had started to rain pretty hard and the wind was picking up - the path along Spanish Banks is really exposed and would have been pretty miserable. So instead, I chose a more sheltered, but hillier route that included the 1k climb up along 4th Avenue...bear in mind this was supposed to be a relatively "easy" run. :)

Whilst running up the hill, for some particular reason, I recalled the children's book "The Little Engine That Could" and its motivational mantra "I think I can, I think I can". I couldn't get it out of my head! By the time I reached the crest of the hill, I was actually giggling as I pictured myself as the little blue steam engine bravely puffing up the hill. "I thought I could, I thought I could!"

Not a bad mantra at all....for a single training run, a cumulative goal to finish Ironman and even life in general!

Recovery week over. Sigh.

Exactly a month away from January's half marathon, I've now completed a full four week training cycle - three weeks of build, followed by a "recovery" week of volume decrease. Best of all, I'm happy to report that I survived this first cycle of periodization with no major training hiccups and no significant deviations from my planned schedule.

My peak week of the cycle, starting Feb 1, was 12 hours of training and was still about building base and volume. Remarkably, by the end of it, I felt tired but in that *good* tired way. :)

Forcing myself to log workouts makes me diligent and less apt to skip out. I also really like how each workout is focused on a particular skill or goal - drills, tempo, cadence, etc. It is not about logging the time or just dialing it in - each workout is an accomplishment in and of itself, and I feel so motivated to put the effort in.

Lessons learned and observations this month:

• Cinnamon hearts do not make good pre-run fuel.
• For every hour riding in the rain, you will spend an hour cleaning and maintaining your ride...this pain of this maintenance time is roughly equivalent to the suffering of enduring an indoor workout on the bike trainer. I'm not sure which is the lesser of the two evils.
• I am the only person capable of getting bike grease all over her face while changing a flat. Could be a new spa trend.
• Fenders are attached to your frame. :)
• Wide tracks reduce stroke count.
• Running up SFU hill is bloody painful. I will never, ever complain again about UBC hill....comparatively it is a bunny slope.
• My new yellow lenses for my Oakleys ROCK. There will always be sunshine in my world with those things on!!
• HATE how workout log starts its training weeks on Mondays and has no functionality to change the start day. I know this is just a mental block...but hate it.

I have roughly 10 hours ahead of me this week.....looking forward to it!

R.

Race report: Phoenix Rock N' Roll Half

Although the Boston marathon is famous for its qualifying standards, guaranteed entry into New York is actually more difficult to attain. The open female qualifying time for NYC 2010 is 3:23 marathon or 1:37 marathon; the Boston qualifying standard of 3:40 for under 35 and 3:45 for 35-39 seems downright easy by comparison....AND Boston actually affords you the extra 59 seconds whereas NYC does not.

Having missed the 3:22:59 cutoff at the Victoria marathon by a scant two minutes (lol!), I was determined to meet the qualifying time within the cutoff period for NYC 2010...meaning I had to qualify before January 31, 2010. The PF Chang Phoenix Rock N Roll marathon seemed the ideal race choice - fast, flat, sunny Arizona weather and one of the only viable January race options.

So with NYC qualifying at the back of my mind, my friend Emma and I set off for Phoenix. The PF Chang Rock'N Roll Arizona is actually three events (a half, marathon and ultra) having a combined entry of 33,000 people and world-class entrants (Deena Kastor rocked my age category with a 1:09 half). I had somewhat of an idea as to what to expect. Crowds. And indeed....we were not disappointed in that regard.

Our weekend was spent eating, battling crowds of people and attempting to find taxis....as well as marveling at the scene that is Scottsdale, AZ. The race expo was an absolute nightmare - congested, crowded and hot. I have resolved NEVER AGAIN to attend a race expo the day before a race, ever ever ever. Although well-organized, the sheer volume of people and their entourages made the expo really unappealing.

I woke up early Saturday morning for a quick 2.5k "shake out the legs" run and was mortified to discover that not only were my legs incapable of managing more than a 5:30/km, but that the dry weather (and possibly elevation) made my breathing laboured. My left achilles was also nagging me. I've had this happen before and tried as best I could to shake it off....no training would help me now - sleep and nutrition for the 24 hours before the race would be the only remaining factors I could control. I hydrated well (maybe too much), snacked on my pretzels and bananas and had a wonderful pre-race meal at a cute Mediterranean restaurant - potato soup in chicken broth with arugula, pita and hummous, veggie pappardelle.

(A humorous side note - when I asked the concierge to suggest a running route, he said I should check out the "waterfront". I tried to keep a straight face. The "waterfront" in Scottsdale is in fact an irrigation canal....not quite the "waterfront" that Vancouverites are used to. LMAO!)

Sleep the night before the race was fitful, made worse by 2:30am partiers returning to their room. Luckily security turned up quickly, but I was unable to get back into a good sleep. I was pretty much awake from 3:30am onwards, and finally resolved at 4:45am that I should just drag my tired butt outta bed. The day would be all about will....I was achy and tired and not enthused.

Getting to the start line was a logistics nightmare. Our taxi had to backtrack around race road closures to take us to the finish at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, where we caught a school bus to the start line 13 miles away in Phoenix. Reminded me a little of the early morning ride to Hopkinton :) The half and full marathons were two separate races, with no shared start, route or finish; hence the half marathon starting corrals were relatively easy to find despite the fact that the start area was geographically challenged (read: huge). The half was a wave start with 1000 runners/wave so with my predicted (hopeful) finishing time of 1:37, I was assigned to wave two. It was a loooong walk to the start! Given my insomnia and our early start, however, we had more than sufficient time to drop bags, grab a coffee (it was cold!), do several pottie visits and make our way up 5 or so odd blocks of starting corrals.

I knew that in order to finish under 1:37, I needed run my 10k pace the whole way. There was no room for error and no chance to decide partway through that I was going for it. Either I went for it from the start or not. My race plan was to evaluate how I felt in 5k increments. Running a great half was not important enough to blow the rest of my season with an injury. If it was not my day, I was not going to force it.

Exactly 1 minute after the wave 1 start, wave 2 was unleashed. The pace out of the start line was glacial....clearly self-seeding does not encourage honesty. It was very hard to get into a pace. Almost 5k passed before the group I was running in had trimmed down to a consistent group of runners. I hung out behind the 1:35 pace bunny from mile 2.5 onwards, trying to stay just under a 4:30/km and knowing that I could not afford to fade much without losing the prospect of finishing under 1:37.

5k. 21:49....eek! A little fast, I knew I had to rein it in, but was still feeling great.

The course was dead straight from miles 2 through 9, mildly uphill, so it was easy to let my pace get out of control. My focus was keeping my stride quick, light and even and keeping my head down - it was just too hard to stay motivated when I looked up because you could see the endless stream of runners stretching out for miles in the distance! At 3 miles the headwind started - while it was keeping me cool, it was work to stay at pace.

10k passed quickly. 43:45. Feeling OK and on pace for 1:37, would re-evaluate in 5 more kilometres.

After 10k, the group of runners I was with did not change much. Everyone was shifting into maintenance and keeping an even pace. I didn't really talk to anyone, but noticed that compared to other races there seemed to be a lot of females around me. I stuck to the back of a male runner whose cadence was good and tried to use him to shelter the wind. He seemed to recognize this tactic, and moved to the other side of the road after about a km of tailing him. At 12k, the course blessedly turned...albeit a long straight stretch 90 degrees to the south, but it was still a welcome change from the monotony! I made a conscious effort to stop at the water stations just before 12k and 14k, taking a few walking steps to get the Cytomax down. It was starting to get hot and 14-15k marked the biggest elevation gain on the course, albeit not much, but it definitely felt like a hill!

15k. 1:06:37. I was losing pace a little, but still the fastest 15k I have ever run. I was in for the haul.

I started the countdown in my head. 6k, 5k, 4k. Not feeling well at 20k, slowed to take another slug of water, but I hung in there. My head felt woozy from the heat and I wasn't able to process pace and projected finish time, so I just stopped looking at my GPS.

It felt like an eternity after passing the 1k left sign. I couldn't see the finish line and there were runners sprinting by me....my legs were no longer responding when I told them to move faster. I can imagine I had that look on my face :) When I saw the finish line clocks approaching, I forgot that I was actually a minute less because of the wave start...I just saw 1:36:20 and started sprinting. I needed 1:36:59 and wasn't letting that slip by mere seconds.

Pressed stop on my GPS when I crossed the line. 1:35:13. A smile came over my face when I realized my failure to take into account the 1 minute gap on the wave start.....not only was I sub 1:37 and had qualified for New York, but it was also a half-marathon PB for me! Great way to start the 2010 season!!

Stats:

Official finish time 1:35:08

Pace: 4:29/km

Overall 527 / 21,518

Female 91/ 13,521

Category 15/ 2,316

2009 by the numbers

The thing about having technology constantly at our fingertips is that exercise - running, biking, swimming, hiking, whatever - is not just exercise anymore. Whatever stat you are looking for is out there. VO2 max. Heartrate. Cadence. Pace. Elevation. Calories burned. Carbs burned. Brain cells burned.

Some of it is science, some of it merely amusing....and some of it probably just plain flawed.

Training is no longer about going out for a run or a ride. It's about making every workout count for its intended purpose, working on form, improving on weakness and creating strength.

As geeky as it is....it's certainly interesting to look back on the numbers for 2009:

Total distance traveled: 4,131 km

Total calories burned: 182,202

Elevation gain: 83,134 m

Number of runs: 186

4 marathons, 4 half marathons, 2 triathlons

Number of rides: 51

Marathon PB: 3:24:56

Boston PB: 3:29:59

10k PB: 43:31

First olympic tri: 2:35:41

New bikes: 2

Pairs of runners: 5

Tires changed: 7

Gels consumed: more than I care to count!

Gels thrown up: 1

Oyster shots eaten on marathon course: 0

Post-marathon visits to McDonalds: 1

I am such a nerd!!