Last one for the road

Six more sleeps to Hamilton Marathon and you know what? It's taper, bitch! Which makes me feel very much like this:

By the way, I swore I'd never put an animated GIF on my blog, but Jesse Pinkman is legit. He's just too much fun to look at. So, before I get too dizzy looking at him, I thought I'd recap my last week of training (scroll down to get the GIF out of the screen).

I was supposed to do all kinds of workouts: strength training, a bit of biking, a bit of swimming, speedwork, fartleks on a hilly route, easy run, long progressive run, even a short recovery run. But life and work got in the way and although I could have sacrificed a few things here and there to get all my workouts in, I chose to listen to my body and not overdo it because let's be honest here, the last two months have not been easy, despite cutting the training volume in half.

Monday I was supposed to run 12km easy, which I ended doing on Tuesday because Monday night there was a lot of rain and wind and I was not in the mood to fight either of them. Tuesday I also went swimming and had my second private lesson with Sean Bechtel, a pro athlete who gives swimming lessons at a pool about 3 min away from my house. He also took video and for the first time ever I could see myself underwater. You can watch his video analysis here (he said much more while I was there). Bottom line, I've got work to do. This was in the morning, and in the evening, as soon as I came home from work, I changed into my running clothes and literally ran out the door. I really needed to de-stress and wanted to do the run around Professor's Lake before the nightfall. Mission accomplished.

On Wednesday I was supposed to do Yasso's on the track (10x800m with 400m recovery). Yeah, right. I'm not sure why, but I didn't go... I must have been tired and watched Netflix instead. Oops, no, it was Zin's birthday and we all went to the restaurant and ate a lot. On Thursday, it was group swim in the evening with the tri club and I should have done a short recovery run as well. But I ended taking my older son to the hospital for an MRI (he had been scheduled for that night) and again, no workout.

Which brings us to Friday and I knew that I had to play catch up. 14km Fartleks on a hilly route were on the menu. After lots of negotiations with hubby, we ended going together after our regular Tim Hortons dinner. We bickered the whole time and despite going around the lake again, I had a miserable time. I was feeling tired and defeated and didn't want to be there. Anyway, got it done and we did not kill each other.

Saturday came and even though coach was optimistic and wrote a 2h ride outdoors in the program, I ended doing 1h on the trainer (which was the suggested alternative by the way). Too cold, too windy, a recipe for disaster, so I passed on the fall foliage and fresh air.

And finally Sunday and the last long run before the mini one week taper. 22km progressive run which was supposed to go like this: 3km easy,  6km marathon pace, 10km 1/2 marathon pace, 3km easy. Coach loves these killer workouts and I never doubt him anyway, so I was ready for it. But in my infinite wisdom, I decided to run on the Etobicoke Trail, which comes with its own hills of death. Just because my Fartleks were not hilly enough on Friday. Talk about being masochistic.
Anyway, I suited up for the run, took a few Clif Blocks, a gel and two bottles of water and off I went. Easy pace, 6:15min/km as usual, then after 3km I switched gears to marathon pace. I was aiming for 5:55min/km, but I ended running at 5:45min/km. I just could not dial back and hit the right pace, not easy when it goes up and down...Then it was time to go even faster to 1/2 marathon pace, and based on my last half, 5:37min/km seemed like a good pace to be at. My GPS watch was all over the place, again because of the hills, so I had no clue how fast I was going, but the average was around 5:35. The turn around point happened to be after a big hill and I was huffing and puffing and really struggling with the change in incline. I ran 1 more km like this, then looked at my heart rate and realized that I was way up in Zone 5 and hell knows for how long I had been hanging in there. I tried to slow down, but the heart rate would not follow. Eventually I told myself, I'm done with this, I'll just try to make my way back home without passing out.

It was really tough, the last 10k felt like a death march. What kept me moving was the fact that I know that this is supposed to happen during the last 10km of a marathon. And with this workout I managed to get to that dark place, where the only thing that mattered was to put a foot in front of the other. It ended being my fastest training run over 20km with an overall pace of 6:04min/km, but it absolutely killed me. My season is complete, I met my goal, even if I didn't run the marathon yet. I survived the toughest mental struggle while running this year, which came close to the experience I had riding the Muskoka bike course for the first time. And it wasn't even during a triathlon. I told my coach earlier this year that I needed this as I knew that it would prepare me mentally for whatever is yet to come, aka the Ironman. It's like a check mark on my training calendar: sufferfest done. Now all I need is to put it in practice once more at the Hamilton Marathon.

It will be easy to spot us. Look for Carol and I yelling at the water stations:

But no hard feelings, please. It's all Jesse's fault.
Yeah, bitch!

A history of LSD

LSD as in long slow distance, of course! I always feel weird saying it, so most of the time I just refer to it as "the long run". For me, anything over 1.5h falls into this category. However, in this blog post, I will only talk about runs over 20km long, just because I want to see the end of it. Just like when you're running long. I have only been training for marathons for 3 years, so this should be relatively quick though.

2011 - Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon training
After completing my first half-marathon in 2010, it was time for me to "double down". I was putting in the training as required, working with a coach for the first time. I managed to do three long runs, then the whole Universe turned on me and I pulled a calf muscle attending a "mandatory corporate fun day" (I still hate that day), I had gallbladder surgery and lost my father to cancer all within the same month. Needless to say, the marathon did not happen. But for the record, here is how my last long run went. I was doing 9-1's (running for 9 minutes, walking for 1 minute). My average pace was 7:29min/km (12min/mile) (Runkeeper link - that's how I remember all this stuff by the way)

First words after workout: "Pretty hard, but happy I got it done. 9-1s weren't that bad".

I did this long run at the same time as Carol, who was also training for Scotiabank, her second marathon. She's always been my inspiration as she was the one to get me off the couch. I will never thank her enough.

2012 - Mississauga Marathon training

In the history of "screwing up your training before the marathon", this one ended in the books. I ran the Paris Marathon as my longest run, but that story already has its own blog post. It's still my marathon PR and it was all an "accident", albeit a very happy one. You can read all about it here. Back to the LSD runs though, the longest run before Paris/Mississauga was a mere 23km, which I ran in 2h30, with a pace of 6:31min/km (10:45min/mile) (Runkeeper link - with pretty photos!)

First words after workout: "Great, challenging run".

I was finally enjoying running again, taking on some challenges too, such as the Etobicoke Trail which is very hilly. I even bought a bike and started training for triathlons.

2012 - Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon training

Fast forward a few months, and I was on my way to a redemption run. I wanted a PR at Scotiabank really badly, so I put in the time and focus to train properly, with my longest run being a 32km, which happened to be in France again, on one of the hilliest routes ever, called "La Coulee Verte". I managed to finish it in 3h30 (I was training by time back then), with a pace of 6:34min/km. I wrote about it before and you can see the Runkeeper data here. The heart rate was all poopy though, so don't pay attention to it. I replaced my Garmin strap afterwards.

First words after workout: "Igny-Paris par La Coulee Verte. Oh boy!! Why isn't France flat? That hurt."

I was doing all my runs with Zin as he liked sharing the pain with me, which ended biting him in the butt since I registered him for the marathon as well. He ended having a much better experience than me, so no complaints in that department, but I kinda wish he was still running that slow so we can train together more. He's now too fast for my own good, so our runs are more and more disparate. I suppose it's time for me to crank it up a notch, but it shall wait after the Ironman because speed and IMs don't work together when you're a noob like me.

2013 - Hamilton Marathon training

This year, my A race was Muskoka 70.3, so again, I have not been training for a marathon per se. I just decided to go for it on a whim, and I'm doing whatever I can to put in as many long runs as possible. Including the half marathon in Muskoka, I banked 5 runs of 20km or more to prepare for this marathon, which is in a week from now, with the longest being 26km along Lake Ontario, just like in 2011. This is what actually prompted this blog post, it was a way to close the loop on three years of training on the same grounds. My LSD pace was again faster, but I owe it to my coach who pushed me on the track every week over the summer.

First words after the workout: "Long run with Carol. I needed some inspiration before the marathon".

Once more, I ran with Carol, but she went for 32km in 3h15. She's rather badass, I know. This year, we will both run Hamilton, our first marathon distance together, and we're both going for a PR. Personally, I just want to hang in there and wait for the pickle juice to do its magic. ;-)

Bottom line, I am happy to see such improvement over a period of 3 years and I hope to go out there and have fun running with friends, trying to keep up with them, without going all out. I don't want to injure myself before the Ironman, so I won't be pushing the pace too much, but I will do my best to come back home with a PR. If those long runs were to be an indication of where my fitness is at compared to last year, then I should not worry too much. 

Now, one question remains: which shoes am I going to wear??

Another week in the bag!

I can't believe that I'm already two weeks away from taper for Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon - where did the weeks go?? That's the good news. The bad news is that I still have the two longest runs ahead of me, but if they go as well as today, then ... ok, not saying anything more or I'm going to JINX them! So, today was 2h30 of alternating Zone 2/3 and we decided to run from home to the Etobicoke Trail for 1h15 and back. Not a bad idea... until km 18 or so when I realized that we had quite a nice hill to climb back up. Too bad Scotiabank is not hilly because with all the ups and downs on the trail and the Heart Lake Hill x 2, I would have become a pro at running vertical.

Oh wait, that's what I said when I ran Mississauga as well and we all know how that went... some days there CAN be too many hills. But at least I'm going to be prepared for Around the Bay 30K, that has some nice ascents as well as I discovered earlier this year. Anyway, I think I found a good measuring tool for my fitness level, doing this back and forth on all my long runs at least for another 2 weeks. The only difference will be that the second hill will come later and later in the run, so that's going to be interesting.

Now with the GROSS, chaffing returned today, with one of my last bras under test (Under Armour), but I will spare you the pictures. Let's say it's not as bad as before, but it still stings. Where it got surprising though, was with the blisters on the feet. None between my toes since I was wearing the Injinji toe socks and that part seems to be working well, but on the sides, not so much. I give you an artistic diptych because I like playing with the Diptic app on my iPhone and taking pictures of my feet.

Sorry, you cannot complain, I haven't shown you my blisters since the Paris Marathon. Here's a better picture if you cannot stomach the one above. This was before the run, because the after was almost as dramatic as the feet.

The other activities for this week included pool x 2 (already covered), strength training, the usual Wednesday brick, which I completely murdered and even beat my road biking PR, then on Friday, the return of the negative split which wasn't too shabby either.

Then yesterday, we went out for our weekly long bike ride and the weather and just about everything was perfect, of course, it was supposed to be "easy", so for once I had fun and didn't suffer on hills or trying to race hubbs. Shitload of pictures ahead, from all angles because that's a first.

Damn, it was a good day out there! We even saw a flock of vultures, about 40 of them, circling a farm. Need to send the CSI there? I hope not. They were pretty cool though, all perched on those bald trees, just like in the Jungle Book cartoon.

That was the first movie that I remember seeing when I was a kid so it left quite the indelible memory, ok? Here, have some fun too, trying to figure out what you're gonna do. Because I don't know what I'm gonna do. Do you?

A beautiful day

I don't want this day to end, it's one of these days when the good keeps on coming. It started early for a Sunday, but long run oblige, I had the opportunity of running with a buddy, so I was not going to miss out on that. Alas, because of the Daylight Savings Time that happened last night, I wanted to make sure that my phone would ring on time, so I took it out of its dock, set a manual alarm for 6:45am and went to bed. It didn't ring. Fortunately I had another alarm set up for 7:30am that coincided with the time I was going to meet with my running friend, so I jumped out of bed, sent an apologetic SMS and prayed that he was going to wait. Nice guy as he is, he said not to worry, so I put on my running clothes, water in my bottles, grabbed a protein bar and a banana, a Gatorade and off I drove to our meeting point. 20min on the clock since I came out of bed, I was on the trail. For someone like me who isn't a morning person, that was rather unfreakinbelievable. We run for 2h on the Etobicoke Trail and averaged 6:37min/km for a total of 18.3km, which was to be the second miracle of the day. Last year I run the same trail at 8min/km, so this proves how much faster I've gotten. I was really happy with this run, I even threw in a 200m sprint at the end. Below is a picture from my favourite part of the trail, even though it was hilly like hell.

After the run I came home and went out for a walk to get coffee and "flush" my legs. A short 1.5km to the nearby Tim Hortons, no big deal. But by the time I cam back, I was STARVING. We decided to go to Pizza Hut since last time we went there was 1 year ago!! I just couldn't get the gooey oozy cheesy crust out of my mind. Thank goodness that the cheesy crust was also thin, so we figured that in 3 small slices there would be around 680cal, half the number of calories I burned on my run. The chicken lover's on a cheesy crust was a go! I devoured those 3 slices. Soooo good.

We made one more stop on our way back home, by Baskin and Robbins for ice cream. I only had one scoop of Rainbow Sherbet, pretty satisfying stuff.

Later on, the day warmed up so much, it was too beautiful to spend it inside. Hubbs prepared our bikes and with the excuse of going to pick up passport photos from Shoppers Drugmart, we went out for another tour of Brampton. 1h, almost 20k, we thoroughly enjoyed this one. Legs are still a-ok, hope they will not complain too much tomorrow when I'm going to throw a brick at them. Well, sort of, I'll have to do 30min bike, followed immediately by 30min of running - this is called a "brick" in triathlon jargon.

I'll leave you with this link to my 2h run and this one to the 19.4k ride. I hope you enjoyed your day as much as we did!