Training Log Archive: W

Holy crap its my absolute last training in Edmonton. 3:00 at 3k pace w/ 2 minutes rest, reducing by 30 seconds each time until we did 4 x 30 seconds. I felt like, after the 1:30 that my hamstring was about to full-on rupture, so that seemed like a pertinent time to scale it bad just a tad. Yeah, just a tad.

Now, which cutesy Disney song to play that symbolizes my journey off to the new world? Tough choice, there's just so many ones to choose. Let's go on the nose.

C • Super tough choice. 3

Naturally, a day later I had to go pull all those flags down again. That's... about it. Except I really think that city trucks, when they're doing construction in the river valley, shouldn't be driving 40km/h straight up the trail. Seriously, I shouldn't have worried about getting smeared by a car on a gravel trail.

Strange, I don't seem to have the time these last few days to blather on about training.

Went out and hung up ribbons for a reenactment of my Wednesday night event from last year because I couldn't bear the thought of another "pick your own" night. Turns out Laurier is just way, way to thick in summer.

As Nev and I had discussed, though, I think that the river valley still could put on a solid sprint and maybe a middle on certain maps, at least for Alberta Championships standards. That would be a reasonable venture.

But only in early spring or late fall. August... not so much.

A bit of a wobbly run with Nevin the day after the half. After I warmed up it felt better, and significantly, significantly, better than last time.

Today, I felt old. Aside from various mirror related reasons, there were so many elements of this race that made me feel that my best running days are behind me, wasted by sheer laziness between the ages of 16-25 and ineffective training from 25-28.

My goal was 1:15. I thought that with my low 56:00 10 miler, 1:15 would not necessarily be an unreasonable goal. But I feel like things started to go south a few days ago when I had a root canal done and my dentist gave me some medication which really kind of did a number on my digestion. I've been finding that everything just blasts straight through me and my energy levels are not exactly through the roof. I would have appreciated the dentist mentioning that.

The field was crazy elite, with about 5 guys who PB in the 63s, but plenty of sub-elite guys that I figured would be right around my speed. The first 4k was exceedingly fast, which I swore I wouldn't do, but I'm a racer, I can't help it. There was a group of four of us, and they simply ran away from me. I wondered if I could have worked a little bit harder and hung on, but I really felt like the race was long and I have a perpetual fear of blowing up. Slowly but surely they ran away from me, and I had the ever-present nagging of the cyclists for the lead woman right on my tail.

I was feeling pretty demoralized from about 6-12k, generally running by myself, and certainly not re-experiencing the advancing feeling I had in the 10 miler. I tried to consume sport drink at each of the aid stations to see if that boosted my energy at all, and it maybe did, but for no more than 2-3 minutes.

Eventually with about 2k to go the women's lead cyclists passed me, which I assumed meant she was about to blaze by me, as I was not feeling driven to the line, but it was actually another guy that past me first. I think that was probably a blessing in disguise. I didn't really want to push hard to try and beat the women's winner to the line, because nobody likes THAT guy, so him passing me made me sigh a little and go for hanging on. I didn't catch back up to him, but I stuck with him and finished about 4 seconds behind him, and a solid 20 second buffer before the female winner came in. I'm just glad not to be in the picture.

I'm sure people will think that 1:16:32 is a pretty good time, but I had a goal, I didn't hit it, and I don't think I ran very well. The pavement was not kind on my legs (though no calfmaggedon), and I really didn't have the drive I thought I felt in the 10 miler. I guess its been a long 2 months with Europe and Nationals and driving, and I didn't really prepare specifically at all for this.

Still, I'm bummed. And I feel old.

Unfortunately there's no time to winge.

Now its time to start running uphill. A lot.

C • Racing 6

C • Jersey 3

Let's call this.... half-marathon warm-up, so I can round out my numbers.

A nice light cruise before a half-day of working at the shop (actually it turned out to be an almost full day since Marcelo was a no-show. Under the Shaw, these girls were trying to promote their charity run in September by chasing after runners and telling them about their run. They'd approach you and start running alongside so that they could talk about it and you wouldn't have to break stride. I actually thought that was really quite clever. I mean, if they were middle aged men, maybe not, but they were cute and female, so... SOLD!

A light Friday evening run with Nevin through some trails in Whitemud. I kind of like that loop, a little different the usual Whitemud route. I'm gonna miss it.

Morning run highlighted by my Garmin eating my workout. Adrian is in town so we did the ol' Laurier loop. The weather has tanked so it was about 13 degrees. Perfect weather. Weird given 5 days ago it was 31 with 4,000% humidity. I was almost wishing I was wearing gloves. Yay Canada weather!

Legs still feel good with only three days to go, but I'm really rolling my calves to make them as mushy as possible. Very worried about a repeat of calfmaggedon from the spring.

Also, I kinda wanna start playing soccer again.

C • ... 5

Combined some orienteering with some race-readying intervals. First did the course which was planned by one of the new folks, and it was actually pretty good! There was possibly a few too many controls in green, but apparently she was told that some controls were too easy. Obviously, I don't know which ones, but there were several legs where the legs were solid, only to be kinda lessened by miserable control locations. I certainly hope it wasn't those ones or someone is getting miserably led astray. All in all though, given its mid-summer and the forest is thick, this was quite nice. Then followed it up with some half-marathon intervals, at slightly faster than race pace. At first I was having trouble even getting to that pace, but by number three (the uphill one, coincidentally), it was feeling much better. Perhaps I need to *gasp* warm-up??

An evening yog with Nev through the river valley. Its still warm, but getting slightly less warm and certainly way less humid. By next weekend it should be in the -teens! Perfect half-marathon weather.

You know how, sometimes when you do certain things repeatedly in a list, you decided to switch it up and do some from the bottom for a while? Yeah, this is that.

I finally coaxed some people to do a 3000m time trial with me! I've wanted to do an outdoor one on a Mondo track in a long time. Naturally we went out to the one in Sherwood Park which is windy and not Mondo because some guy who didn't even run wanted to. You can see how much sense that makes.

Anyhow, still a lingering cold, but I'm not one to turn this down, so I think I started off conservatively, but actually did my first 400 in 73-74, which is slightly faster than 9:30 pace, so actually not unreasonably slow or fast. I think stayed pretty even the entire race, and went through with 800m to go at about 7:00. I thought that this would maybe give me a shot at a PB, but I basically did two more 75s laps and sputtered in at a 9:29.

So, close. But not quite. Definitely an outdoor PB, but I wonder if I could have gone under if it wasn't quite so breezy. I'd really like to race someone who can run a 9:00 or 9:10 and just try to hang on.

Any volunteers?

A nice evening ride with Nev with probably a bit too much pavement (this was my own doing). Its gotten cooler, though, with a light breeze and not crazy humid like yesterday. I haven't ridden in Mill creek for quite some time and I'm certain there's some new trails I don't know of, several of the old ones are ruined with some flooding or are simply overgrown.

Also my bike is in dire, dire shape. A lot of creaking and squeaking.

TT warm-up and cool-down, and extra seconds so that my training has an even number.

Well, regardless of whether I'm over my cold or not, I wanted to get out before the shop and try out my new shoes for next weekend, the Adidas Adios Boost. I really love running in my NB1600's, but after the St. albert 10miler's calf-maggeddon, I wanted to jack up the cush a bit, and everyone claims (and by everyone, I mean, Adidas) that this boost foam is the new shiznit.

And, its okay. Its weird because the foam is very squishy just by pressing on it. But when running it feels much firmer. Not nearly as soft as as Brooks Pure shoe, but it does have the smoothness feeling of my Pearlizumi N1's. Considering how little material there is underfoot (comparatively), it does feel like there's quite a bit of cushion while still remaining pretty light. I think I'm going to be making so weight sacrifices, but I would hope that the last 5k will be less painful than the 10 miler because of it, and I'll be able to maintain my form better.

And its, like, 400% humidity out there right now. I don't know how some people can live in conditions like that on a daily basis.

Its been a very non-training week this week. This almost cold has been lingering for a week now, its quite irritating. Its at that point where I could definitely go training, and feel just fine, but when I wake up in the morning and before going to bed I feel a little stuffy and throaty. I used to just tough it out and forge through, but I do think that increase the length of the cold by a solid 25%, so I try to resist these days.

Nevertheless I went out to the Wednesday night "orienteering-adjacent" run at Hermitage park. Mosquitos, everywhere. Apparently there's 2.5 times more than the usual at the point of the year. Its quite terrible. You know what else was.... no, no. I 'll stop.

Westerns Long. I would have really kind of liked to race like this last week, but I was much calmer now so I generally executed everything fairly well. Certainly, I was less enchanted with my route choice to two, as the obviously good one was totally not noticed by me. On the other hand, the route I took was more difficult and I generally executed it perfectly, so let's call it a great value. I think that in general, my plans were better, I was more focused, and the map was a little on the easy side. There was one control where I simply could not come with a plan and it showed, since I got lost. I imagine this requires just a bit more skill to be confident in seeing smaller features as big features.

Quickroute here:
http://orienteering.ca/doma/show_map.php?user=will...

I had a great plan for this race: "Don't be stupid".

And HEY, it worked!

Although I think the map and course were relatively easy, I'm most pleased that once I caught my two and four minute man (both very good in their own right), I didn't completely implode in worrying more about them than me. Sure, I did a little, and hurried a bit more than necessary, but there were two long-ish legs where I was able to run through them, and then I nailed the next 4-5 to put myself solidly in the lead. Unfortunately one of them caught me again when I decided to go over some cliffs rather than around. Turns out the other side of cliffs are really steep. Almost cliff like.

So, good race. I think I could and should have run faster in certain spots, but I was being very deliberate and very careful, especially with leaving a control with a solid plan (welcome to two years ago).

Event: Western Canadian Championships
 

Wait, I'm supposed to log on this site? OH RIGHT!

Western's sprint. I raced at varying levels of embarassingly bad. I think I've done so many urban sprints that I forgot that sometimes, you actually have to navigate in a sprint. In reality I should have approached with the attitude of it being a very short and fast middle, but I did all the lazy things you can kind of get away with in an urban sprint (like basically using your compass only as thumb-bling) that totally screw you over in a forest sprint. But, I got maximal bang for my buck as I went from 7 to 9 to 8 to wrong way to 8 to 9 to 11 to 10 to 11 again. Bonus controls!

I didn't take a day off, per se, I played tennis. If I had to trade a long run for tennis, I would take the long run since I'll be far less sore. So, this run had to suffer through some soreness in my hamstrings, and particularly my left shoulder. Still, it felt good to get off the trails and on to the road and run [relatively] fast. Sure it may have been a highway with psychotic truck drivers. But, it was a refreshing change. I'm convinced I'm getting sick so I felt I had to scale it back a little.

Then again, I've been convinced I've been getting sick for a month now, and it still hasn't happened. Fingers crossed!

Relay day! Alas, I did not have a team, so I figured I'd do the first leg by myself in the mass start and then see what happens. We had a bit of a group going until number 4 where I managed to nail the control and Thomas did not, so I was free and clear until the end. I made some dumb mistakes in the latter half which was actually quite tricky, and wasted some time at the control that *cough*, wasn't quite put out yet, but if anyone was to get stuck at that first, the guy with no official team was probably the best one to have that happen to! I took a detour to the finish to point it out, and all was sorted out.

Because of the mistakes in the latter half, unfortunately I finished the first leg within sight of the real leaders, so as I ran to two I decided it would be unfair to lead the front team into the controls, so I packed it in to let the race decide itself independently. Kinda wish I hadn't botched those controls because then I would probably been free and clear to do the whole thing, but, oh well. I could feel a cold coming on, so best to play it safe.

Well, I probably cared too much, and that was my undoing. I put a lot of pressure on myself for this race, because it would have meant sweeping the nationals, and also three-peating the nationals long. And I really think it was mine to win, and I lost it with big mistakes on 2 and 13, 13 being the most egrigious.

Even now I'm not entirely clear where I went. The problem was I left 12 and was unclear on which of the two possible re-entrants I was going down, but I had an arrogant attitude that I'd either see the flagging to 14 if I was in the second one, or I'd cross the spur and be in the right re-entrant. Neither of those things happened, I crossed over the spur and saw neither the control nor any flagging, at which point I decided to go down to the creek, and try to relocate from there, but I got to the creek and didn't know where I was along it. That was pretty dumb. Eventually though I think I determined where I was and came back up to find the control.

I suspect I passed over top of the rock I was looking for, but with it being on the underside I blew right past it. At that point I really started to chase the race and lost more time on 15, 18, and took poor routes to 22 and 23.

Quite disappointed, no doubt. A physical long is my kind of long, but I stopped focusing for a lengthy amount of time and I screwed myself. I need to find a way to re-direct my passion for competing well in a particular race into productive thoughts and actions. The less I care, the better I seem to do sometimes.

Long M21E - Splits

The hardest part of the race was finding the start triangle. After that, I felt like I was lost the entire time. Although it looks relatively easy, the Whistler village map was quite tough because everything seemed to happen so fast. I was most definitely unclear on where I was coming into 5 and 8-9. I think I took several weak routes, too, including 7-8 and 11-12. But, it wasn't all bad, I think that taking the stairs from 10-11 was a solid choice and I had that figured out before arriving to 10. I also wisely invested time from 3-4 by coming to a full stop and figuring out exactly where 4 was, which was the undoing for a great number of people.

I didn't feel the fittest I've ever been, but I tried to channel advice and whenever I felt I needed to hurry I just relaxed a bit and tried to smooth my stride out. However, I'd like to see myself to a bit more planning during some straight running, such as between 10-11 and 14-15 and especially 19-20. I think I would have saved a few seconds on the following legs if I'd done that.

All things considered, though. A solid, if unspectacular race.

Sprint M21E - Splits

Event: 2014 Canadian Champs
 

Nationals Middle, the one national championship that has eluded me thus far.

The rumours were flying around at the arena about how difficult, both physically and technically, this was going to be. Certainly the finish chute suggested it really, really would be. It was twisty uphill sprint with some rocks, logs to jump, and basically a cliff halfway. If the finish is that gnarly, the rest of the course must've been!

I actually found, while running on the warm-up map, that it wasn't so bad, because the mapping was so ludicrously good. Distinguishing between rocks and non-rocks, cliffs and non-cliffs, small marshes, plateaus, it all made sense. It seemed quite easy to completely botch it since it was quite difficult, but I never felt like anything was ambiguous or misleading.

Ultimately, my undoing to Thomas was that I was being too careful. I tried to stay in the moment and not get too ahead of myself, but that required to scale everything back very much, and I also missed key information that would have saved time, especially at 12 when I didn't grasp the sheer size of the hill behind the control, which was so distinct that it should have made finding that particular control a cakewalk. But, I stopped too high and wasted 20 seconds standing still.

I didn't lose that kind of time on many other controls, but there was simply quite a bit of stopping and walking, double-checking, and being sure, possible to an excess. It wasn't feature paranoia, which is good, but I'd still like to be better so I could walk slightly further out on the razor with the confident of not falling off.

Another question, why don't I race like this in Europe? Criminy.

Middle M21E - Splits

Geez, that was a lot of driving. Used Thursday to work and pack and drive to Canmore, then spent most of Friday driving from Canmore to Whistler. I will say, the road from Cache Creek to Whistler is both pretty fun and pretty amazing. The part with the huge canyon with the ? river is quite amazing, and the rest just wanted me to take up (virtual) rally driving again.

But, I finally finally got Whistler and had a chance to toodle off to the training map at Lost Lake, which is apparently not relevant for either races, but, whatever! I found myself distracted and not focused, so I felt that needed to be remedied for tomorrow's Middle.

Shock and awe: it DID!