A Run Down Memory Lane

Happy Turkey Everyone! We are a week away from the
Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon (hyperventilating into a paper bag) and
this holiday Sunday finds me in Kitchener for the last long training run. I’m
running today with my Virtual Training Partner Jess in person on this gloomy
morning. I’m nervous, because I have been focused on CrossFit (with some
running) and Jess has been a running machine. I don’t want to slow her down and
after turkey dinner and an inadequate breakfast I was not in peak form. 

We set off at 845a at a nice leisurely pace and slowly
ramped up as we went. Now I haven’t lived in Kitchener in 20 years, but I certainly
don’t remember it being mountainous. Mountainous? Yes, I’m confident we climbed
the Matterhorn at some point today. We were running in and around the
neighborhoods I grew up in and some of the roads we travelled today I haven’t been
down in almost 20 years. We trekked past Blessed Sacrament (School and Church),
Monsignor Haller (my elementary school) and past Mount Trashmore (McClennan
Park to you new folks). The changes were something to see.

Today was the first long run that I would be using Gels on.
People may say why start using them? Well I use them when I race and when the
distance gets long I will need the fuel. As we got past the 5K mark I started
having trouble with my legs. I wasn’t having issues with wind or stamina, but
my hip flexors and quads were having huge problems and they just kept feeling
more and more like lead. As we crossed 8k I had to walk for a minute to try and
get some feeling back. We picked up the pace again and ran smack into a steep
(short) uphill trail. BAM. Clearly I need to add more hill running into my
training. As we crossed the 11.5km mark I was in trouble. I had a stitch in my
side and as much as I wanted to hit the 16k goal, it wasn’t happening today.

I told Jess to go on without me, but she was a trooper and
literally pulled me for most of the day. You never leave your wingman and she
stuck with me. It’s clear that I will have to have more than a banana and a Gel
for breakfast on race day and maybe some carb loading for dinner the night
before. 

Splits

12m32s

11m26s

11m15s

11m33s

12m13s

12m24s

13m08s

12m30s

1m31s (226m Sprint Finish)

There were a lot of records set on this run including
longest time, 1h38m and longest distance 13.10KM. You can see by the splits
(which are by the mile) where the trouble started. I burned 1,683 calories and
had an average heart rate of 150BPM maxing at 172BPM. The average pace was
7m32s/KM and while that isn’t where I want to be, considering how I was feeling
I will accept it. My run cadence wasn’t where its’ been lately though and I was
only getting an average of 77SPM (strikes per minute) which is down from the
normal 80+ and way less than the goal of 100.

Thanks for sticking with me Jess, I will do my best to be
better on Game Day. 7 days away. Hyperventilating. Calm, be calm, you can do
this. I did manage to sprint the last 50m, but when I was done today, I was
done. It took me 10 minutes to peel myself off the front porch of my parents’
house…

Beez

Word of the Day: Gravy

Oh, if you made it down to the bottom, this was the
aftermath of my night out with Ace. It is also the second time that while out
with Ace that I have ended up coming home with Mangoes. Yeah, I don’t get it
either.