Thursday, July 4, 2013

I am back baby....

Took a bit of an hiatus from writing...well not much of an "hiatus" since I was struggling enough to keep up with the blog. But, a new training cycle has started and stories need to be told!

On the schedule:

July 20: Try-a-Tri
August: Midsummer's Night 15K on the Island
Sept: Army Half
Oct: Scotia Half

In the mean time I set a PB in the Pearson Runway Run 5K at 21:14. Was quite pleased with myself.

The training cycle has started. Ran a track session yesterday. 2.5k To the track as a warm up. 5 x 400m around 4 min pace and 2.5k back as a cool down. Felt good!

I ahve been sdealing with some leg pain in my lower right leg. Apparently a nerve isn't happy with me...the nerve... Some stretches seem to be controlling it for now.

Next week I'll be at the cottage, hitting the lake for open water swims and the roads for bike and run.

Staying on the Road 2 Run.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Transformation

Time for before and after....long term:

Before (1997):
Sorry for the quality, had to be a picture of a picture....



Before (2012):



Now (2013):






Down 35 pounds as of this morning...and feeling better than ever.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Race Reports

Yes, that title is indeed in plural. I owe...uhm not sure who I owe, but I owe a report on the Goodlife Half and one for the SportingLife 10K. I am happy to report that both resulted in PBs for their respective distances.

Goodlife Half
My beautiful wife and I went to the race expo to pick up our kits. Turned out that the expo was rather small and there weren't really any "kits" to pick up. Both the bib and the shirt were just handed to us. Many hand written notes to make sure you activated your bibtag prior to leaving. Very amateurish, certainly left me wondering how many people were going to forget. And, left me wondering what the next day was going to bring.

Pre-race logistics weren't a big deal and after a nice quick visit with a fellow Maniac close to the start line and a quick warm up, it was time to get into the corrals. Except, there were no corrals. Eventually volunteers showed up with signs with expected finish times, however by then everybody had lined up and nobody was going to move.

No need for this report to be long, the short is that it was clear the race was going to have trouble at the water stations near the end of the half pack. It was also clear that I was going to deal with GI issues the whole route as well. I never felt comfortable and the whole race was a real struggle. BUT, and it is a pretty big but, I finished in a PB of 1:43:50. It really is hard to complain when setting a PB.

No announcer at the finish line, nothing special in the finisher's area. For a big city event, this really was all extremely mediocre.

SportingLife 10K
This race is organized by the same company and Race Director as the Goodlife Half. No bags when picking up the race kits. The corrals were poorly marked and no "policed". The audio system was completely inadequate for the number of people, as was the number of porta-potties. The hydration stations were a disaster for those who needed them. Many people had to wait to cross the finish line. Yes, you read that right, wait to cross the finish line, cause it was so congested. Cheap medal, poor organization of the finisher's area. All in all, for the foreseeable future, if Glassman organizes it, I won't be running it.

The course is great though. Mostly down hill, right down Yonge Street. I set a PB at 44:17 and am very happy with that. My beautiful wife set a great PB with 51:44. All in all a succesfull day for us.

Time to keep training to break some mroe PBs and stay on the Road 2 Run

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Nervous?

Sunday is Race Day. Sunday is the day I have been training for since early January. Sunday it is time to see if the hard work is going to pay off.

Now is the time my nerves are slowly to build. Not sure if it is nervousness or just excitement. Ran 6k at anticipated race pace last night. Will be running 10k at that same pace tonight. And then it is pretty much nothing till Sunday morning. Going to be a long couple of days....

At this point, the plan is to go out at a pace between 4:50 and 4:55 a km. I will re-asess that pace at roughly 7 km intervals and adjust if necessary. If I am feeling great, I may try and push it closer to 4:44, which would get me in just under 100 minutes.

On the weightloss side of things. I am down just over 30 lbs and quite happy with myself. Plan is to lose another 15 lbs and get my BMI in the normal category.

Sunday is going to be a great day on the Road 2 Run.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Taper....

Getting to that part of the program where we start to taper, cutting down mileage and intensity to get ready for race day. But, I am getting slightly ahead of myself.

To this date, I have two half marathon races to my credit. The first one I finshed in 1:55, the second in 1:46. Then I stopped running for a year, got fat and started running again. When I started again at the beginning of this year, my goal was just back to getting in under 2 hours. I figured that with my weight and with a year of pretty much no exercise, that would be the best I could do.

This past Sunday we ran the half marathon distance as a training run. The route we follow is relatively hilly and has a fairly significant incline in the second last km. I finshed it in 1:48 and a bit. Yes, yes, I was very happy with that. Needless to say, I needed to change my race goals a tad. The plan at this point is to go out at a 4:50 to 4:55 pace and adjust if necessary. This would translate into a 1:41 to 1:43 half. If I am feeling really well, I would really like to get very close to 1:40, but I am not convinced that is a pace I can maintin at this point.

In the mean time, my weightloss is continuing as well. I am back to wearing clothes I haven't been able to wear in quite some time. Such a great feeling, on par with the elation felt after a succesful long run.

Have races scheduled for the remainder of the year as well, so we just keep chugging along on the Road 2 Run.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

We carry on

What do we do when we have a bad run? We carry on, until we have a good run.
What do we do when we didn't reach a goal? We carry on until we succeed.
What do runners do? We carry on.

This is exactly what I've had on my mind since the senseless bombings on Monday. If there is anyting we can really do to show our support, it is to carry on and strengthen our resolve to one day make it to Boston.

With that in mind, I had a great tempo run on Tuesday and a great track workout on Wednesday. I am hitting or exceeding my paces. My legs seem to be recovering relatively well after workouts and I am feeling strong.

I would really like to get close to 1:40 for the Goodlife Half. There, I have said it.

We carry on, on the Road 2 Run.

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

No words

No words to describe what has happened in the last 24 hours. Wanted to blog about a great run I had on Sunday, how I was looking forward to running my next couple of training runs, how I am continuing to lose weight.

Today I will just go run and reflect.