Half marathon training – Week 8 – Easy week
| 20/08 | - | Rest Day |
| 21/08 | 6.0 miles | Easy run: avg 10:08 min/mile |
| 22/08 | 5.0 miles | Easy run: avg 10:15 min/mile |
| 23/08 | XT | 45 min on the elliptical machine & light weights |
| 24/08 | - | Rest Day |
| 25/08 | 6.0 miles | Easy run: avg 9:43 min/mile |
| 26/08 | 3.1 miles | Recovery run: avg 10:23 min/mile |
| Total | 20.1 miles | YTD: 731.5 miles |
Coming into this week I’d done back-to-back 25 mile weeks and spent 8 hours cleaning the apartment on Sunday. I didn’t realize how much this had taken out of me. On Tuesday morning I felt like I was running through syrup. My legs just would not move as quickly as I wanted them too and by the time I made it home I was spent. I blame it on a combination of fatigue, an empty stomach and the humidity. I still managed, what is for me, a very respectable “easy run” pace but it was harder than it should have been. Wednesday I felt a bit better.
On Saturday I decided to run an experiment. I ran with my Garmin but I did not look at all during the run. I just went by feel and tried to run a comfortable pace. I thought it would be interesting to see what my body did naturally. I was shocked to see that I averaged 9:43 min/mile. My splits were also quite consistent which is nice. My Saturday runs are always a little easier than my week day run (same effort yields a faster pace) because I have time to eat and then digest for 2 hours before running. Nutrition helps.
I’ve had the CBC and NBC broadcasts of the Track and Field World Championships on the TV while I’ve been pottering around the apartment this weekend. I watched the men’s marathon yesterday and the men’s 100m final is going to be on later today. Because its taking place in Japan everything is tape delayed so I’ve banned myself from reading sports news online. This is getting me pumped for the Olympics next summer!
Half marathon training – Week 7 – Shoe hierarchy
| 13/08 | - | Rest Day |
| 14/08 | 6.0 miles | Easy run: avg 9:38 min/mile |
| 15/08 | 6.0 miles | Tempo run: 4 miles @ 8:42/8:27/8:27/8:14 min |
| 16/08 | XT | 45 min on the elliptical machine & light weights |
| 17/08 | - | Rest Day |
| 18/08 | 10.1 miles | Long run: avg 10:05 min/mile |
| 19/08 | 3.1 miles | Recovery run: avg 10:43 min/mile |
| Total | 25.2 miles | YTD: 711.4 miles |
I have now reached the half way point in my training for the Royal Victoria half marathon. Only seven more weeks to go! I finally registered for the race this week. My transportation to and from Victoria is also now booked. I’ve been studying the course map and reading the webpage to collect all the data I can. The most important thing I’ve learned so far is that, as is typical of Canadian races, the course will be marked each kilometer and every 5 miles. Even though I’ll have my Garmin I’m thinking about converting to kilometer pacing for this race. A 1:59:55 half marathon is equivalent to a pace of 5:41 min/km.
In other news, I think it’s time to retire my second pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTS 6s. I’ve had this pair since January but since I always have 2-3 pairs of shoes in rotation they’re only at 342.5 miles. In this case that’s 59:08.18 hours of running! I was hoping to get 350-400 miles on them but they seemed pretty flat on Saturday’s long run so it’s time for them to be demoted down a rank in my shoe hierarchy:
- Shoes being broken/saved in for racing
- Shoes being used for everyday training
- There are two possible paths here:
- Shoes that stay in my locker at the gym for use in cross training
- Shoes to be used as street shoes
- Shoes that live in Ottawa for use at the cottage or mowing the lawn
Sailboats on Elliott Bay
On Thursday evening I had dinner with my Dad and one of his friends at the Waterfront Seafood Grill on Seattle’s Pier 70. It was a beautiful summer evening and we were treated to a view of dozens sailboats on Elliott Bay and a great sunset over the Olympics. The only thing that could make a scene like that better is a dessert like this:
Essential Reading
Attention: Cute Ceci Story! When I was 3 years old I really really loved the Babar books. So much so that I asked my mother to take me to Paris. Becuase, you know, that’s where Babar lives. I guess I was pretty persistent because at one point in frustration she said something along the lines of: “Ceci, at some point in your life you will go to Paris!” A few days later she picked me up at preschool and the teachers told my mother that they thought our upcoming trip to Paris was very exciting and asked when we were actually going. I guess I’d assumed that some point meant soon and had gone ahead and told everyone I was going to Paris.
Well I am finally going to Paris later this fall with my mother. In preparation I have assembled the essential reading above. Oh and I need to relearn French. Must get on that.
Half marathon training – Week 6 – Double digits!
| 06/08 | - | Rest Day (Travel to Victoria) |
| 07/08 | 5.0 miles | Easy run: avg 10:21 min/mile |
| 08/08 | 7.0 miles | Speedwork 3x1600m @ 8:08/8:14/8:08 min |
| 09/08 | - | Rest Day (Travel to Seattle) |
| 10/08 | XT | 60 min on the elliptical machine |
| 11/08 | 10.1 miles | Long run (no pace, Garmin ran out of battery power) |
| 12/08 | 3.1 miles | Recovery run |
| Total | 25.2 miles | YTD: 686.2 miles |
On Saturday I did my first double digit mile run since the marathon. I set out intending to do the 9 miles on my schedule but less than a mile into the run my Garmin ran out of battery power. I had recharged it on Wednesday in Victoria but I think it must have accidentally turned on in my luggage on the boat back to Seattle and drained the battery. I was planning to do a 4.5 mile out and back course but without the Garmin I didn’t know where the turn around would be so instead I decided to do my tried and true 10 mile course. I did the run by feel without any knowledge of my pace or specific timing for walk/water/gel breaks. I’m too type A to do this every week but it’s nice every once in a while.
When I did the Vancouver half marathon last year my longest training runs were two 10 milers in the two week preceding the race. For the Seattle half marathon I did an 11.5 miler two weeks before the race. I’ve now done a 10 miler a full 8 weeks before the race. I am very excited about this. Granted 1.5 of those 8 weeks will be mostly lost to a short trip to Europe I have planned with my mother. Still I feel pretty good about where my weekly and long run mileage is right now. I feel like I have a lot of room for improvement in the speed department, especially if I want to beat 1:59:56, but hopefully that will come with more time and training.
August long weekend trip
There is no August long weekend here in America but that didn’t stop me from taking my own very long weekend last week: back to Ontario for M&E’s wedding and then on to Victoria for Matt’s return to the west coast. The trip looked something like this:
- Thursday: Bus to Vancouver, Fly to London
- Friday: In London, S&M’s Rehearsal Dinner in Chatham
- Saturday: Train to St Catharines, M&E’s Wedding in Niagara-on-the-Lake
- Sunday: In Niagara-on-the-Lake with parents
- Monday: Fly to Victoria
- Tuesday: In Victoria
- Wednesday: In Victoria
- Thursday: Clipper back to Seattle
So that’s 7 nights away from home spent in 4 different beds for an average nights-per-bed rating* of 1.75. It was a pretty exhausting trip but it was still great. Niagara-on-the-Lake was particularly lovely. We were there for M&E’s wedding (which was wonderful) but we also managed to fit in a wine tour at Jackson-Triggs and a performance of The Philanderer at the Shaw festival with my parents. Oh and a trip to Cow’s ice cream.
This was the last wedding I’ll be attending in 2007. In the end Matt and I were invited to 6 weddings this year although we only managed to attend 3 and 2 of them respectively. This is partly because twice two weddings were scheduled for the same day! So far I think I know of one wedding in the plans for 2008. Ah the life of the late twenties over educated almost yuppies. At least it means I keep getting to buy pretty party dresses!
* This is a rating my parents and fellow United Nations families in Burma used to employ to describe how relaxing their home leave was. Obviously the lower the number the more exhausting the trip.
Half marathon training – Week 5 – Short and quick
| 30/07 | 3.1 miles | Recovery run: avg 10:25 min/mile |
| 31/07 | 5.0 miles | Easy run: avg 9:41 min/mile |
| 01/08 | 6.0 miles | Tempo run: 4 miles @ 8:48/8:39/8:35/8:28 min |
| 02/08 | - | Rest Day (Travel to Ontario) |
| 03/08 | 8.4 miles | Long run: avg 10:39 min/mile (hot and humid in London) |
| 04/08 | - | Rest Day (Niagara-on-the-Lake) |
| 05/08 | - | Rest Day (Niagara-on-the-Lake) |
| Total | 22.5 miles | YTD: 661.0 miles |
This weekly update is a little late because as you can see from above I’ve been out of town since Thursday. In fact I am currently in a cafe in Victoria so I’m just going to post the table and let it speak for itself. I will say one thing though, check out the progressively faster splits I pulled off during the four tempo miles last Wednesday!