Back into it again

I have finally locked in my schedule for the Scotia waterfront on Oct. 16. Choose to use the one from The Running Room. Good news is there is plenty of time. Bad news is my casual running up until a few weeks ago was not nearly enough. In any case I'm on track, more or less - heading out for 19K in the morning, weather looks perfect.

Some random thoughts about this years training:
1. Should I join a running group?
2. Long runs mean more time for my "books on tape", well books on MP3 actually.
3. What is a good running log? I've been using Excel, so I copy my distance & heart rate manually from Garmin TC. Suggestions?
4. I need to find a good food for the long run, what's good?

Cheers,

Perfect Weather

Finally! Loving this weather we are getting. Wonderful 10K today on the Beltline. Felt slow, but it is early in the season and I am slowly ramping up.

Sporting Life 10K

It's 5:30AM - bad sleep, starting a head cold, stressed out at work... I could not imagine a better reason to kick off the running season!

It has been a while, as usual, since posting. However I did continue to run last year. Did the 1/2 at Scotia in 1:58. Would like to have done the full, but I was a long jury duty that interrupted training.

So my goal for today is to be under an hour. The weather looks perfect!

How soon to run again?

I've taken the week off. Everything feels normal, legs were fine after a couple of days rest. I'm debating if I should do the Toronto 1/2 marathon in couple weeks. I've read that it is best to take 2-3 weeks off and start back very slowly. Seems a little too slow for me.

I'm going to take my daughter out for a little run and see how it feels then take it from there.

Cheers,
Peter

Race report: Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon

It's finally done, my first Marathon!

Well it was a great day with tough finish. My time was 4:46. Much slower than I was hoping for. Here are the splits:

10K 56:27
21.1K 1:59:16
30K 2:59:19
35K 3:44:55
40K 4:30:23

The event was great, perfect weather, a little humid to start, great crowds and volunteers. I started out making sure I didn't go too fast. The goal was to stick with 5:30-5:40/KM. I completed the 1/2 in just under 2 hrs which was right on target. Then at about 28K I ran out of steam and started getting stomach cramps. I forgot to pack gel's or anything to eat, assuming there would be gels provided. Big mistake. Even with a good breakfast I didn't have the energy. I was meeting my family at around the 32K mark and they would have a Mars bar for me (my usual snack). I got my snack at about 38K but was really hurting by then.

I walked a little from 28-35K to get rid of the cramps. After 38K I also started getting muscle cramps in my leg. It made running extremely painful, only had these once before in training. In the end my time was a lot slower in the second half especially the last 10K.

Still recovering now and the legs are sore. But I'm glad I've done it! Now have a target to beat for the next one. I just need to convince the family first.

Cheers,
Peter

Only a few days left

There are only a few days left before the big race! I haven't uploaded my Garmin in a while but I have been sticking to the training plan. Did the last long run on the same day as the Terry Fox Run. It's always a busy day as I am involved with TFR... up at 5:30 to help set up the UCC course, run the 10K, then went and ran another 23K, cleaned up then into the TFR office to help with their computers to collect stats for the day. Home at 7pm to put the kids to sleep then one last thing at midnight - take the rental truck back and get back home on the scooter. While I was planning on doing the 37Km for the long run I figured all the extra work that day made up for the missing 4K.

Can't sleep tonight. The problem with tapering off is all the excess energy when you don't run.

Ready as I'll ever be for the big day on Sunday. Can't wait to finally do it after 2 years of training now.

Cheers and good luck to all those joinging me on Sunday.
Peter

Amateur Movie Night

I am just returning from a failed movie night with friends. Went out for beers and dinner with some friends, which was great. However, went to see District 9 and were stuck in the second row with a bunch of drunk teenagers around me. Aggghhh!!! The movie looked great, but not that close - way to hard to even see what is going on. Also cheap Tue. nights brings out all the amateur movie goers who have no appreciation of how difficult it is to arrange a night out when you're a parent.

Anyway my lessons learned from tonight - don't go to movies on Tue night!

Tomorrow morning is going to be rough getting up for my run.

Cheers
Peter