Monthly Archives: October 2007

Fall Classic training – Week 2 – Race-simulation long run

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22/10 XT 60 min yoga class
23/10 6.2 miles Speedwork: 5x1000m in 5:12/5:23/5:16/5:05/5:09 (1 min)
24/10 3.0 miles Easy run: avg 10:00 min/mile (treadmill) & yoga class
25/10 6.0 miles Tempo run (hard): 2.5 miles @ 8:56/8:25/4:03
26/10 - Rest day
27/10 4.2 miles Easy run: avg 9:54 min/mile
28/10 9.0 miles Race-sim long run: 1-6 avg 10:13 min/mile, 7-9 avg 9:00 min/mile
Total 28.4 miles YTD: 940.9 miles

This Sunday I did my first Race-simulation long run. The instructions were to run 6 miles at a comfortable pace (50-90 seconds slower than half marathon goal pace) and then 3 miles at half marathon goal pace plus 20-30 seconds. So for me that meant 6 miles at 9:30-10:10 min/mile and then 3 miles at 9:00-9:10 min/mile. I was in Victoria this weekend so Matt and I ran most of the run together. We did the first 6 miles at an avg of 10:13 min/mile which was a little slower than the goal but it was a pretty hilly course so that’s understandable. Then we picked up the pace. Ouch. I managed to actually average 9:00 for the last 3 miles but it took a huge effort. My legs felt heavy (I blame the early hills) and it took a lot of concentration to force myself to keep up the pace. I guess it’s good training for last few miles of a race.

Other than that it was a pretty standard week of training. I struggled a bit with Thursday’s tempo run. I think I might have actually been a bit dehydrated! I’m watching my water intake pretty closely now just to be on the safe side. Oh and yoga is kicking my butt. Seriously, I consider myself to be reasonably fit and flexible yet I spend class trying to figure out how it is physically possible for people to be in these poses. My teacher is wonderful though. She calls us all beautiful at least five times per class and I’m a sucker for that. I think I have a lot to gain by being there so I’m going to keep it up. Maybe I’ll even start to improve!

Fall Classic training – Week 1 – Survived!

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15/10 XT 60 min yoga class
16/10 5.8 miles Speedwork: 6x800m in 4:14/4:09/4:07/4:03/4:05/4:04 (1 min)
17/10 3.0 miles Easy run: avg 10:00 min/mile (treadmill) & yoga class
18/10 6.0 miles Tempo run: 4 miles @ 8:42/8:34/8:20/8:10
19/10 - Rest day
20/10 11.0 miles Long run: avg 9:50 min/mile
21/10 4.0 miles Recovery run: avg 9:57 min/mile
Total 29.8 miles YTD: 912.5 miles

I survived the first week of my new training program. Having week 1 clock in at nearly 30 miles is a new experience for me but I think all in all it went pretty well. I’m still adjusting to running in autumn weather. Sunrise in Seattle is at about 7:30 am right now and last week we had typically raining and windy weather. On Wednesday morning I looked outside at 6:15 am and I just did not want to deal with running in the cold, dark, windy and rainy conditions. I could probably handled 2 of the 4 but not all 4. So I immediately came up with a plan B and got myself into school by 7:30 am so that I could do an easy 3 miles before my lunch time yoga class. I did the same thing on Thursday and did my tempo run at lunch. Although that was because I had an important meeting with my advisor at 9:30 am and not because I whimped out of running in the morning. That seems to work OK and I’ll probably keep that schudeule up for the rest of the quarter.

I finally broke my Green Lake habit on Saturday morning. Since moving into the neighbourhood at the start of September I’ve been doing all my long runs around Green Lake which means they’ve been almost pancake flat. This time I did a big loop through Ravenna Park, across the Montlake bridge into to the Arboretum, along Interlaken Blvd, across the Eastlake bridge to Burke Gillman trail, up the Stone Way hill and finally back along Green Lake to home. The hills definitely look more out of my legs than I’m used to but I think it will be good for me.

I’ve now broken into the 900′s for my year to date mileage. I anticipate breaking the 1000 mile mark sometime during week 4 of this training program. Breaking 1000 was one of my goals for 2007 so it will be pretty exciting when I get there!

Up next: Fall Classic Half Marathon

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The Victoria half marathon two weeks ago was a huge success for me (race report). I built my weekly training mileage up to 30 miles/week and took 4:23 off my personal best. Now I want to build on that success and the best way for me to do this is to keep up my training and run another half marathon in November. Specifically I’ll be running the Fall Classic Half Marathon in Vancouver on November 18. The start line of this race is about a 10 minute walk from my sister’s apartment so how could I not run it? Since I’m not running Seattle this year (due to my desire to not be in Seattle for the 4-day Thanksgiving weekend) this seemed like a good substitute. Plus I get to hang out with my sister and recover from the race by going to a Canucks game that night.

For the last year I’ve been using the Runner’s World Smart Coach generator as the basis for my training programs. However, a few months ago Runner’s World had a half marathon edition and it featured a half marathon program designed by Ryan Hall’s coach Terrence Mahon. (For you non-runners Ryan Hall set a new American record in the half marathon running 59:43 last January). Here is a brief plan description and the week by week chart. I figure, if it’s good enough for Ryan Hall it’s good enough for me!

In addition to a weekly long run and a few easy runs I’ll be doing both a speedwork session and a tempo run each week. The program also features “race simulation” long runs where you do the later miles at near race pace. That’s definitely taking it up a notch for me. It’s a 10 week program but since I don’t have that much time before my race I’ll be doing weeks 1-4 and 10 (the taper week). I’ve already completed week 1 (more on that in another post) and so far its going well. I’ve picked a race pace goal of 8:40 min/mile for no better reason than it’s a nice round number and just a bit quicker than the 8:49 min/mile I averaged in Victoria.

The final course map for the Fall Classic isn’t posted yet but it will be a 2 loop course (11.1 km then 10km) which will be a new experience for me. I read a few fellow runners’ race reports from last year and it sounds like it’s a moderately hilly course. Hopefully a few hilly long runs will help me prepare for that. It also sounds like they had horrendous weather last year. That’s OK, I’ve chosen to race in Vancouver in November, I’m expecting it to be cold and wet. Still, I’m looking forward to it. Right now I’m not too concerned about setting a new PB. I’m just excited to have a target race.

Phedippidations World Wide Half Marathon

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World Wide Half Marathon Finishers Certificate

What the heck is the Phedippidations World Wide Half Marathon you ask? Well, Phedipidations is my favourite running podcast and the World Wide Half is an event in which fellow runners across the world are running a half marathon on or about this weekend. I used my Victoria half marathon time for this event and have my finisher’s certificate to prove it. I’ve linked to my race report from the WWH results page so to any fellow runners who may have surfed on over … welcome!

Race Report: 2007 Victoria Half Marathon

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The short story

I put 14 weeks of directed training into the 2007 Royal Victoria Half Marathon. I’m happy to report that I was able to average a pace of 5:29 min/km and set a new personal best of 1:55:33. What follows is a detailed race report but here’s the short version: I ran hard and it was great.

1:55:33

Pre-race

I woke up at 5:30am on Sunday morning and had green tea, oats, 1L of water and half a banana for breakfast. The weather forecasts were calling for scattered showers and about 10C during the race so I chose to wear shorts, a long sleeved technical shirt and a running vest. It was only raining very lightly when I left Matt’s apartment at 6:45 am. It was about a 20 minute walk down to the start/finish area. Because Matt was going to meet me at the finish I didn’t bring a bag down with me to check. After a quick porta-potty stop, some shoe adjustments and a Garmin sattelilite search I was at the starting line about 15 minutes before the start. I lined up between the 2:00 and 1:50 signs slightly closer to the 2:00 sign. At this point it was about 12C, cloudy but not raining. I was a little worried that I might have been overdressed but there were a lot of runners wearing a lot more than I was (long pants and jackets) who were obviously prepared for the windy rainy worst case scenario.

km 1-5 in 5:43.3 / 5:16.0 / 5:28.4 / 10:46.6 (avg 5:26.9 min/km)

It look me just under 2 minutes to cross the staring line and from there I was off and aiming for a steady pace of 5:27 min/km. I wasn’t feeling nauseous but my stomach wasn’t feeling settled so I was a little worried about how the race would go. I tried to settle into my target pace and just take the race as it came. I’d decided to pace myself in km since they were marked on course. This worked well in all aspects but one: it totally threw off my water/gel/walk breaks. I usually have water and walk for 1 min every 2 miles taking gels at miles 4 and 8. I think I managed to get the 2 mile walk in but after that I was totally off schedule. I hit the right average pace over the first 5 km but it felt harder than I would have hoped considering this was the start of the race!

km 6-10 in 5:41.5 / 5:48.2 / 5:17.8 / 5:32.9 / 5:19.6 (avg 5:32.0 min/km)

This section started with us running in circles through Beacon Hill Park. It was sort of neat to get to see runners both ahead of and behind us in the race. Kms 6 and 7 were a bit slow due to some slight uphills. Sometime in there I took my first gel. I was concerned that the gel was going to do bad things to my unsettled stomach but strangely it actually made it feel a bit better. Up until now I’d been feeling a bit warm but once the course hit Dallas Road on the coast the temperatures seemed to drop and I was happy to be wearing my vest. Even through there aren’t any major hills on course there were several small hills and my downhill kms (see 8 & 10) were coming in much faster than the uphill ones. At the end of 10 km I was still hanging in but I could tell I was really pushing my abilities.

km 11-15 in 5:27.7 / 5:25.9 / 5:45.5 / 5:09.4 / 5:24.1 (avg 5:26.5 min/km)

Amazingly I nailed my pace in the first few kilometres of this section. There was a bit of confusion near the 12 km mark where for some reason runners coming in opposite directions were crossing through each other’s paths. It was a mess (and I hope they fix it for next year) but I didn’t let it upset me. I had a slow km 13 where I took a walk-water-gel break and then another walk break through a water station. All the water stations on course were well stocked although they didn’t seem evenly spaced so I relied a lot on the 16 oz water bottle I was carrying. By the time I hit km 15 I was hurting. However I was back on Dallas Road so I tried to convince myselft that I was really heading home now.

km 16-20.1 in 5:44.3 / 5:40.5 / 5:36.4 / 5:24.5 / 5:51.0 (avg 5:32.7 min/km)

My legs really started to protest as the kms ticked away. I saw the marathon leaders run by so I tried to focus on that for distraction. Kms 16, 17 and 18 were over my target pace and I was getting passed more than I would have liked. I stopped really monitoring my pace at this point and I just tried to run as fast as I could. I figured sub 1:55:00 probably wasn’t possible but I was still on pace for a huge PB so that was enough motivation to run hard. I look my last walk break during km19 and after that I resisted every urge I had to slow down and walk. There was no 20 km sign (or I missed it) so that last split is a 1.1 km split.

km 21.1 in 5:10.8

I tried really hard to “throw down the hammer” in the last km and I managed to pull out my second fastest split of the day. The last km had a lot of turns and I just kept waiting for one of them to reveal the home stretch. Matt (who had run the 8K earlier in the day) was cheering in the last 100m but I totally missed him. I had “finish line tunnel vision” again. I was exhausted and a bit wobbly when I crossed the finish line but I was thrilled with my result.

Finish time 1:55:33 (avg 5:29 min/km or 8:49 min/mile)

Mile splits: 8:56 / 8:38 / 8:44 / 8:49 / 8:50 / 8:41 / 8:45 / 8:57 / 8:25 / 8:57 / 9:03 / 8:41 / 8:38 / 1:29

Post race

After picking up my medal and downing some water and gatorade I picked up half a bagel and fruit and went to meet Matt in front of The Empress hotel. I was still a bit spacey but I was feeling great. A fellow runner took the picture of Matt and I below. I’m still a little amazed that I pulled off a 1:55:33 half marathon. It was hard and I was pretty uncomfortable for most of the race but it was great.

Matt and Cecilia post race

Place overall: 1290/3869 (66.6th percentile)
Place in gender: 488/2377 (79.5th percentile)
Place in age group (F2529): 84/301 (72.1th percentile)

Placing is based on gun time (1:56:50) and includes walkers.

1:55:36 1:55:33

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Bib Name Age
Group		 City, Prov Time Pace
Gun Chip km Mile
3523 Cecilia Cotton Women 25-29 Seattle, WA, USA 1:56:50.5 1:55:36.3 5:29 8:49

Full race results here.

Update: My official race results are below

====================================================================

Final    Place                          Bib   Gun     Chip      KM

Place    In Sex     Place In Division   No.   Time    Time     Pace

====================================================================

1290  488/2376 F   84/301 Women 25-29  3523 1:56:50 1:55:33PB  5:29

Half marathon training – Week 14 – Race Ready

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01/10 - Rest day
01/10 4.0 miles Easy run: avg 9:56 min/mile
03/10 3.2 miles Easy run: avg 9:41 min/mile
04/10 5.2 miles Tempo run: 3 miles @ 8:24/8:15/8:10 min
05/10 - Rest day
06/10 - Rest day
07/10 13.1 miles Half marathon race day!
Total 25.5 miles YTD: 867.7 miles

So there it is. I did my last training run this morning and all at this point I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be for Sunday. I’m pretty excited about the race and optimistic about setting a new personal best. I’ve trained hard and even though I took time off when I was on vacation I feel good about my level of fitness right now. With that in mind, I present my race goals:

  • Goal #1: This is the dream goal – 1:55:00
  • Goal #2: Set a new PB – <1:59:56
  • Goal #3: Push hard and enjoy myself no matter what the pace

In order the achieve a finish time of 1:55:00 I need to run at an average pace of 8:46 min/mile or 5:27 min/km. That’s quick and to be honest I’m not sure I can do it. I’m a little worried that I’ll only be able to hold this pace for a while and then I’ll fade big time. But nothing ventured nothing gained right? My other concern is that the course has some rolling hills and most of my runs have been flat. My final concern is the weather, specifically the wind. I can handle running in the cold and the wet (hello, remember the Seattle half last year!) but the course is quite exposed in parts and high winds would not be fun. Here’s a sample of the current weather reports for Sunday in Victoria:

I’m bringing a wide selection of running clothes with me to Victoria and I’m just going to hope for the best!

Since this weekend in Canadian Thanksgiving, Matt and I are going to be heading to Vancouver after the race to hang out with friends and family there. It might take me a few days to get a race report up so in the meantime you’ll be able to check live race day results here. Just select Half Marathon from the drop down menu and then search for me either by name or use bib number 3523.

Finally no training cycle would be complete without a graph!

2007 Victoria half marathon training - what actually happened