Charts on demand

The last five miles of an eight mile day that Tim had me do last week. The first three miles were just gradual builds and I reset the Garmin before I started tracking the intervals. Six 400s in 86' and four 200s in 42' both with 100m walk, 100m easy jog recovery. A mile and a half of easy jogging afterward to top it up to eight miles for the day. Solid.

Race Week!

This is the view looking down on where I'll be spending my day this Saturday. This weekend is the XTC Canadian National Offroad Triathlon Championships at Buntzen Lake in Port Moody. Gunner is going to throw down in the full distance triathlon event and I can't wait to see him unleash all that furious fitness! He's as fit as I've ever seen him.
I'm going to toe the line in the 10K trail run and I'm super pumped about getting up there and letting it all hang out. Figuratively speaking, of course.



I've attached the course description for the run this year. Font's a little small but give'r a click and it should be legible. Last year the field for the trail run was comically thin (I think 7 runners) so it will be interesting to see what things look like this year.


Either way, Saturday will be awesome because after the race all of us are headed back to the Gunn's townhouse for a little BBQ action, free meat provided by Jamie's folks in Saskatchewan who ship us a half a beef every spring! Organic, free range, grass fed strip loin anyone? Good times.

You know you're a nerd when....

Is it wrong that one of the highlights of my labour day weekend was getting new socks? Bought my first couple of pairs of Balega Enduros and they are plush. Put some miles on in them this morning and I already feel a little faster. I'm pretty sure it's the socks that make this guy such a beast!
This morning was a scheduled recovery day with an easy 6 miler at HR less than 150. The idea was to just get the legs moving and allow them to soak up some of the heavier training from the weekend(which I'll cover in a bit. Be patient!) Walked from the townhouse to the road and fired up the trusty ole 305. I know that elsewhere on the interweb there is a lively debate raging about the necessity of 'gadgets' in running, but for me buying a Garmin with HR resurrected me (for better or worse) as a goal oriented runner. Again, is it a bad sign that the more numbers I can look at at the end of a run, the happier I am? I feel like if I go to the bike rack after school someone might shake me down for my lunch money.
Anyways, the 305 found the satellites and the HR monitor fired up and showed 57 BPM, which is about 10 beats lower than normal. Didn't think too much of it, just chalked it up to being well hydrated and rested. Shuffled down the street for half a block, and when I looked again the HR read 159 AND CLIMBING!!! By the time I was 1/2 mile from my house, the Garmin said 192 and I was toddling along at about 12 minute miles trying to get the HR to drop. At that point, I actually wondered if I might be having a heart attack. Ok, not really, but what the ???? If I stopped to walk, it would plummet to about 100 BMP but as soon as I started to jog again, BANG back up through the roof! I told myself that I would run another mile or two and if it didn't settle down, I'd call it a morning. Sure enough, another 1/2 mile later I'm bumping up against 8 minute miles at 140BPM. Weird. If any of you have experienced something like this I'd love to hear about it.
Overall, training is cranking along and the body is holding up well under the added stress of increased intensity. No lingering pains, no missed workouts, no sleeping in. Still hovering around 50 miles per week and feeling good. One thing is for sure: having a schedule that doesn't just include more long miles at 135 BPM sure helps to get me up and out the door.
This week had two pretty tough workouts back to back on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was an eight mile progression run laid out as:
2 miles @ 8 min/mi.
2 miles @ 7:45
2 @ 7:15
2 @ 7:00.
Hit the paces right on the money and felt good about the effort. This is the first time I've run guided by pace rather than HR in a progression run and the difference was noticeable. I had the Garmin setup to only display pace and distance so I wouldn't be distracted by HR data while I was running. I really felt a jump in perceived exertion when I crossed below 7:30/mile and looking at the HR graph later, there was an uptick in BPM at that pace. And truth be told, the 7:00 pace felt hard. But hey, if it was easy it wouldn't be worth doing!
Sunday was 2:20 at somewhere between 8:00 and 8:40 without the HR monitor. Started off slowly and built towards that pace range. Ended up averaging around 8:20/mi overall with the later miles being closer to 8:00. Total distance about 16 miles and with some more water and a couple more gels could have carried that pace for another 10 miles no worries. If I ever figure out how to do it, I'll throw some workout graphs from the Garmin software up here. There's a good one from last week's track session!

The internet is like a high school girl

Man, gossip travels fast in the interweb! I post last night and when I get to work this AM there are already comments from some super sleuths who've unravelled my little clue. I have to say, though, that I'm no Agatha Christie (couldn't think of a guy who writes mysteries. Who wrote the Hardy Boys novels?). Brian had flat out said that we were thinking of doing the Vegas marathon in his blog post on Wednesday. Next time I try to 'build a mystery' it will have to be a little tougher.
So, yeah, it's about 95% decided that I am going to switch my target race from Seattle to Las Vegas. I think what may have clinched it was the hour that Brian and I spent running in the pouring rain on Thursday morning. Imagine that, but 5 degrees. And windy. That's Seattle.
There's actually a lot of good reasons to consider Vegas over Seattle, precipitation and temperature being a big one! Average highs in Vegas in December are 17 degrees with lows around -2. That's 62 and 29 for those of you south of the 49th. Seattle doesn't get quite as cold, with an average December low of 3 degrees (37F) but it never really warms up either: average high for Seattle in December is a lowly 8 (47F). And let's not forget the precipitation. Any one who's ever grown anything in their garden, be it tomatoes or something more exotic, knows that if you want a plant to grow up nice and green you have to water it. Well, in keeping with today's theme, I'll bet you can figure out the mystery behind why they call Seattle the 'Emerald City'. Yup, it's rain. Lots and lots or rain. No wonder this is the city that brought us the world's most famous hot beverage chain. They average 6.1cm per month in Seattle in December. Compare that to Las Vegas squeezing out an arid 0.3cm PER MONTH. To summarize: Vegas, start cool and dry, finish warm and sweaty. Seattle, start cold and wet, end colder and wetter. Ummmm, right.

After round one we have Vegas 2, Seattle 0.

Plus, the course in Vegas is alleged to be a faster course. Any help in that department is welcomed.

Vegas 3, Seattle 0

Add to that the fact that Lucho is racing Vegas and I would have a chance to actually meet the bringer of the pain instead of just thinking of him as an email address with a beard.

Vegas 4, Seattle 0

And lastly, I have heard rumours of an after race party hosted by a famous reality TV contestant and the chance to win some $$$ racing against his speedy girlfriend.

Frankly I'm starting to feel a little bad for Seattle. It's kinda like picking on the slow kid. Or watching a Canadian boxer in the Olympics.

I'm still shooting to throw down a 3:10 and earn myself a trip to Boston, but it's starting to look more and more like I'm going to do it here:

rather than here:

Vegas, baby. It's on.

Crossroads

After a lot of discussion about whether or not my training would continue, Jamie and I decided that I should continue on with my efforts towards qualifying for Boston. I was really feeling like it was selfish of me to ask Jamie to support me in that goal given everything that's happened but she was quite insistent that I not quit now, with only 14 weeks (yikes) left. She made the great point that probably in a month, or two, or three, when I had healed up a little, I would look back with regret on my decision to stop running. And I think she's right.

With that in mind, and getting closer every day to my goal race (which may be changing!Stay tuned for the official announcement. Let's just say it's a little dryer than Seattle) I figured that I should probably switch over from base building and start adding some faster (relative term!)efforts to my schedule. Problem was, I didn't have any idea how to do that. So, after a couple emails, some begging and a very generous bribe, Lucho agreed to help guide me through the next 14 or so weeks. Just kidding about the bribe. That man has too much character to accept a bribe. All I had to do was ask. And just in time too. I can't tell you how excited I am to have a coach like Tim willing to work with me. This is a fast dude who's just geeked out on running and has some pretty impressive athletes already in the stable, including this California Speedster! I better change it up from FatDad to FastDad if I want to roll with this crew!

To get away from things for a bit, Jamie, Violet and I headed out to Saskatchewan to see Jamie's parents. For those of you who may not have heard of this extraordinary place, I've attached a map. It's the one in red with the creatively drawn borders.




The shape of the province gives you a good idea of what you should expect from Saskatchewan if you should ever go there. If you can imagine what a rectangle would look like if you could turn it into a landscape, you'd get Sask. It's one massive prairie.

Jamie's folks have a 20 acre hobby farm about 20 miles outside of Swift Current in the Southwest corner of the province and it was awesome to get out there and chill for a bit. We stayed a week and the weather was sunny and hot the whole time we were there. Early mornings even on vacation to get some running in before it got too hot.

Trip was good, and it was the first week on the new schedule from Tim. I told him I was looking forward to hurting a little and learned quickly that I need to choose my words more carefully! This definately wasn't base building anymore. 60 mile week and felt great.
One thing about the prairies in the Summer: they are a runners dream. In the morning, I walked to the end of the driveway and looked to the right:

Then to the left:

And off I went. Hundreds of miles of dirt and gravel roads in every direction. Just me, the moose,(yup, two crossed the road about half a mile in front of me. HR spiked up and I was stopped!) the antelopes, the owls, the gophers, the cows, the buffaloes, the falcons, and the grasshoppers. Oh, sweet mother, the grasshoppers. On my Sunday long run I was out for 2:30 and I saw four cars and a tractor. What more could you ask for?

Heavy Heart

It's been a little while since my last post and I wish that it was just the usual laziness/busyness that has kept me from my computer. Sadly, that's not the case.
As many of you know, Jamie and I were expecting baby #2 in the first week of November. On Thursday August 7th, Jamie had some bleeding so we went to the hospital. When we got there we found out that our baby had passed away. Our son, Oliver, was stillborn at 27 weeks on Friday August 8th at 2:11 am. He weighed just over 2 pounds and was 34cm long.It has been a long hard couple weeks with many more to come. I know this blog is usually a place to post about training but it didn't seem right to not write something about this. Thanks to all our friends and family who have offered support. Your thoughts and prayers have been much needed and appreciated.

Back at it!

After a rough week and a half, I'm back at it and feeling good. Two eight mile efforts the last two days and although I can tell my fitness dropped a little and I am still sluggish from being sick, things are definitely on the upswing. My legs were feeling really springy and i couldnt help but add some hard efforts at the end of last nights session. Man, it feels good to run fast. Average HR 144, but I maxxed out during the heavy efforts at 190!
Ran another 2400 meter test and I'll post the results here tomorrow. The numbers were pretty good considering the context of the test. Thanks to Jamie for helping me keep things in perspective! Expect another old school result picture post.

Sent off my registration for the XTC Canada 10K trail race yesterday and I'm stoked to toe the line. September 6th is race day and Brian and I are heading back to pre ride/pre run the course on Monday. Last time we went it was rad and I can't wait to get back there again.