You wouldn't have to look too far back in my blog history to read my Victoria Marathon Race Report as my blogging lately has been quite inactive. If you read it you would see that my time last year was 3:36:31 and my goal for this year was to qualify for Boston. Well, as soon as I heard that the Boston qualifying times were dropping by 5 minutes I decided that that goal was too hefty and gave up on that, instead I figured I would settle for a new PR.

My training has been okay lately. I've been getting a good long run in almost every Saturday and have slowly been building up the mileage over the past couple of months. I've also been doing some uphill strength training by doing the Grouse Grind every Wednesday night. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I did it three times one night. I've also been getting some good cross training by biking about 200km a week including a nice weekly ride up Mt Cypress. I feel like I've been doing a lot of the right things.

Lately on my long runs I've been getting some pretty serious pain in my left knee. I've been pushing through the pain to get my mileage up but end up running at an extremely slow pace near the end (about 6 min/km). Honestly, the pain has made me skip a few runs to allow myself to recover which has pushed me off my training plan and I wont be able to reach the distances I was hoping for prior to the marathon.

With the knee pain it seems unlikely that I will achieve a new PR this year and if I did decide to push hard through the pain I run the risk of injury and with big plans for next year, including Ironman Canada, injury is not something that I want right now.

I've been contemplating downgrading to the half but have now decided to stick with the full and take my time with it. I'll probably walk a bunch and take it nice and easy and just have fun with it. I figure I'll come in around 4 hours but I'm okay with that. I can just tick off one more marathon completion. I'm planning on running the BMO marathon in May so I can shoot for a good time for that one. For now I'm just going to do it for the experience and not so much the time.

Race day is October 9 in case anyone wants to come cheer me on. Your smiling faces are always helpful.

The Victoria Marathon has come and gone and I am happy to report that I was able to complete it in a new personal record time of 3:36:31.

Going into this event I had a lot of doubt and uncertainty. Haunted by memories of my first marathon 5 years prior, I figured I was in for a lot of pain and a slower than desired time. I decided about a week ago after talking to fellow UBCTCer Melanie van Soeren to run with her for as long as I could and then finish what was left on my own after she dropped me. She told me her goal time was 3:40 - Boston Marathon qualifying time for females her age putting us at a 5:15/km running pace. Following this pace, the best I could finish would be 3:40 but more than likely, I figured I would come in closer to 4 hours. I had this window in mind and was psyched for race day.

Race day came and I finally found Mel in the pack of runners waiting to start with 1 minute to spare. We chatted for a minute and then came to find out 20 seconds before the race started that her new goal was 3:30 running a 5min/km pace. This was 15 sec/km faster than I had planned for and was faced with the need to make a split second decision to risk burning out and running the faster pace, or sticking with my 5:15 plan and running alone. Well, of course I had to gamble and stick with Mel. It was the right choice.

Before I continue, I need to mention how incredible this race course is. It was so nice to be back in Victoria, running through scenic Beacon Hill Park, and along the water on Dallas Rd and Beach Dr. Mostly flat, with slight undulating hills. The spectators are so supportive and the volunteers were great. It's a well run event and I recommend it to anyone thinking about making the trip here to do it.

Continuing on: We started running and impressively stuck to our pace quite well. We both were feeling great and frequently made comments to each other about how awesome the race was going. I held onto Mel for about 32 km when I knew I couldn't hold the pace anymore, and she seemed to be speeding up. I wished her good luck and cut it back. At this point I was well ahead of my 3:40 best case scenario goal and was quite happy to have that as my new worst case goal - did that make sense?

My pace became slower and slower as my untrained legs began to hate me for putting them through this, but I need to say, the pain was nothing like my previous marathon. I guess although I didn't log a lot of long distance runs this year, my experience that I've gained over the years, as well as all the Half Ironman triathlons I did must have helped. In fact, I never walked (besides through the water stations to drink); well, I sort of did once but found it to be more painful than running so I figured why walk when I can run and get it over with sooner?

I ended up finishing better than 3:40 as mentioned above by 3 and a half minutes. Considering how I signed up for this thing last minute and only directly trained for it for three weeks I am ecstatic about the result!

I need to do a big shout out to Mel and say thank-you for your excellent pacing, without her help I know I would have been a lot slower.  She did great by the way, coming in at 3:30.

I'm waiting for the professional photographers to post race day photos on their website that I can swipe but until then, I've got one photo stolen from Scott's facebook that he took of me at 41.2km.  Thanks Scott and Celeste for cheering me home!

41.2 km in and still this good looking!

Thanks to my Garmin I've got my splits as follows:

1 - 5:14

2 - 4:48

3 - 4:54

4 - 4:49

5 - 4:57

6 - 5:03

7 - 4:51

8 - 4:47

9 - 5:00

10 - 4:54 - 50:01 10km Split

11 - 4:54

12 - 4:51

13 - 5:03

14 - 4:52

15 - 4:44

16 - 4:45

17 - 4:55

18 - 5:02

19 - 4:51

20 - 4:51

21 - 5:01 - 1:45:09 Half Way Split

22 - 4:45

23 - 4:53

24 - 4:55

25 - 4:51

26 - 4:51

27 - 4:53

28 - 4:52

29 - 4:51

30 - 4:47 - 2:29:04 30km Split

31 - 5:07

32 - 4:58

33 - 5:17

34 - 5:07

35 - 5:29

36 - 5:34

37 - 5:28

38 - 5:56

39 - 6:02

40 - 5:40

41 - 6:03

42 - 5:26 - 3:36:31 Finish

I think it's pretty obvious where I really started to hurt. I hadn't trained my body beyond 30km in 5 years and it shows but it doesn't matter, I'm happy. I actually dropped a minute from 20 to 30 km so I think that's cool.

I want to put a big congrats out to Winston Guo for reaching his goal of qualifying for Boston with a time of 3:07:53 and to Vincent Lavallee for running a blistering 2:58:14 and becoming a true runner. Good job guys, you inspire me. And with that said, my goal for next year - qualify for Boston (3:10)!

Days until the marathon: 8

Lately I've been debating for race day whether to run fast up front and put some time in the bank but resulting in a really slow pace at the end, or starting slow and trying to hold that pace the whole way through, theoretically finishing at the same time. The second option seems like the better one but it's also so risky. I haven't ran longer than 30km in 5 years so I have no idea how my body will respond when I hit that point. Will I even be able to hold the slower pace? I might be a snail at the end either way.

To test out my options, today I ran 22km at a slower than normal pace with the hopes that I could judge how I felt at the end to see if I could hold this pace for much longer. At the end I was starting to hurt but could still pick up the pace to sub 5:00 min/km if I wanted to which was a good sign but I still don't know how I'll feel after 30km. I guess I'll just have to wait until the marathon to find out. I think I'm going to try the slower steady pace.

Since I'm not competitively running this marathon I had an idea that might be fun. I'm thinking about taking my camera with me on the run. I'll take pictures of my friends at the start. I'm thinking about taking a picture of my face every 5km just to see the progression of pain. Also, instead of spectators taking pictures of me, I'll take pictures of them. It's like a club where the outside is the inside, and the inside is the outside. Doesn't that blow your mind?

Days until the marathon: 13

About 20% of my year's total running mileage has occurred within the last month. Continuing my current training plan all the way until the marathon, that number will change to 30%. Surprisingly, it actually feels kind of good to be pounding the pavement a lot more again. Prior to triathlons, I started as a runner, and my running was my strength last year. This year I spent most of my time focusing on biking which paid off well but my running suffered as I hardly did it at all.

Today I decided to join up with the UBCTC for their Monday evening run through the UBC Endowment Land Trails and ended up running 10.5km at an easy 5min/km pace.  What was great about it was two things:

1. There were tons of people there, maybe the largest showing I had ever seen at a club running event, more than last year anyway. Actually, I didn't recognize more than half of them. It's nice to see so many people expressing interest in triathlon and in my opinion, finding a great group of people to train with.

2. How easy it was; we had done 8.5km and were almost done the run, I had to peel off to make it a little longer because I didn't want to stop. Sure we weren't going fast or anything, but I started to feel like this kid, or at least how I would feel if I were wearing such a sweet costume, hmmmm, Halloween is coming up...

It's great to see the progression and really fall in love with running again. I was starting to think of myself as a cyclist but now I see there is no way that I could give up running.

Sure, my training has started too late to make this marathon turn out amazingly, but I hope, that when the marathon is over, I can keep this motivation up and keep on running. It's exhilarating.

Days until the marathon: 14

Yesterday I set out on my longest run of the year.  Having ran 25km the week before I wanted to up it to at least 30km with the possibility of 34km. With rain the days previous I had been psyching myself for a cold and wet morning but as it turned out, it was quite lovely. It was a nice cool overcast morning, then the sun came out, and then there was a light breeze. With the day being as nice as it was I really had no excuses I could pull out.

I guess there's no need to drag this out into a long story.  Simply put, I ended up running 30.5km. It was slow and painful and tiring and it made me start to regret signing up for the marathon. Thinking about having to run another 12km at that point did not appeal to me. Trying to get into marathon shape in 3 weeks apparently wasn't the brightest idea. Oh well, too late now.  I'm not dropping out and I will finish, I just might be walking like a cowboy for a week or two after.  I guess I should be working on my Howdy's and Yee-Haw's.

My self designed training plan says it's now time to taper. No more long runs.  I plan on doing about 10km on Monday, 12km on Wednesday, and 22km on Saturday.

Yesterday I decided since the Victoria Marathon was only 3 weeks and 1 day away I should develop a training plan and start training for it. I ventured out on my longest run of the year; the plan: 25km.

I ran from my place down to Ambleside Park, back along the water to the Lions Gate Bridge, over the bridge to Stanley Park and down to and around the Seawall, and then back home. I was about 10km into my run and feeling great.  I had previously thought that running for 20km without biking 90km right before (which is what happens during the Half Ironman Triathlons) would be a cinch and thus far it appeared I was right. It didn't take long before I was proven wrong.

At about 16km my legs were hurting and with 9km to go my run turned from enjoyment to pure endurance. Anyway, I got through it.  I made 25km in 2:10. I feel confident that I will finish the marathon and I'm setting my goal time for sub 4 hours.  I'm pretty sure that with a few more weeks of training I would be able to go sub 3:30 but I'll save that for another year.  There's no point in pushing myself too hard and getting injured.

On a side note: one thing I forgot about was nipple chaffing.  Yes I'm one of the unfortunate ones who suffers from such.  There was a point on my run, and even now, where I wonder what hurts more, my legs or the nips. I'll have to remember to lube up before my next long run.

So with three weeks left before race day, meaning only two training weekends remaining, I plan on running a 30-34km run next Saturday and a 20km the week after to taper with a couple 10km runs in between.

On an additional side note: I had never done the whole Stanley Park Seawall before and it is quite gorgeous.  I saw Third Beach for the first time - it might be the nicest looking beach I've seen in Vancouver. I also ran about 7 feet away from a skunk.

Okay, I realize that everyone has a different definition of the word hardcore.  I think it can pretty much be summed up by this picture:

Or of course we have this one:

There are so many sport heroes and legends to draw inspiration from.

With race season fast approaching I have determined that it's time to stop mindlessly training and time to get serious again.

With that said I've decided to set a goal to log 180km of running starting now by the end of March.  That may not seem like a lot but keep in mind I am also swimming a couple of times a week and cycling every week as well.

I invite any one else to set new goals for themselves.  Please feel free to share them with me and we can work to push each other.

I don't think it would be fair, or realistic, to only share my successes in sport.  Although today did not turn out the way I had hoped, the experience that I gained will be beneficial to my long term success.

If you have been reading my previous posts, you will have seen my goal (and slight obsession) with running a sub 19 min 5 km.  I attempted this last week, details and story can be found here, and was unable to clock a determined sub 5 min time due to measurements that were off... I'm not going to repeat last week's blog.  Anyway, since I theoretically achieved this goal I figured I would run 5km at the track and get an official time under 19 minutes.  I thought I had this in the bag.

It was a beautiful day today and I couldn't resist making the attempt.  I enlisted one of my fellow class mates to go with me and off we went.  I could tell during my warm up that it wasn't going to be as easy as I had anticipated.  My legs felt like they were lacking the power I needed them to have.  Regardless of this I decided to go for it anyway figuring that after a couple of laps they would be feeling right and things would go well.  I was wrong.

My plan was to run 90 second laps.  This would lead to an overall time of 18:45, allowing some breathing room in case I had a bad lap or two.  I ran my first lap in 80 but then I got back on track running roughly: 88, 89, 91, 92, 92.  At this point I was having a hard time holding 92 and I forgot all about that extra 11 seconds I put in the bank from my first lap.  As I neared the end of my seventh lap I decided to call it quits finishing that lap in a slow 95 seconds.  I just didn't have the juice.

After I went home feeling slightly discouraged I began analyzing the event and realized that I had forgotten about that fast first lap and realized that had I actually held on, even though my laps were getting slower, I could have quite possibly accomplished my goal.  I decided that I was going to skip swim practice that afternoon and head back to the track and try again.

I had a good lunch - trying to put the energy back into my legs, relaxed for a while, drew up a new race plan and off I went back to the track.

I felt sore and weak, probably a result from the earlier attempt, but decided to proceed.  The race went almost exactly as the first attempt except I ran 8 laps instead of 7 before I decided to quit.  Actually I ran 8 laps, took a minute rest to catch my breath, then ran the last 4.5 laps to at least finish the race.

Do I feel bad that I quit?  Actually no, I don't.  My goal wasn't to do a 5k; my goal was to do a sub 19 min 5k.  I knew that I wasn't going to be able to hold that pace and so there was no need for me to run a 19:05 5km, I've already done that.

I'm surprisingly not that disappointed - I mean, I was initially, but after contemplating the events I've come at peace with it.

My Reasons:

1. Occasional failure makes success more enjoyable.  When I do reach this goal, I will know that it didn't just come easy and that I worked for it and earned it.  I will be proud of it.
2. This failure has caused my to look at my current training program and see my definite short falls and point out what needs to change.  This will not only help me with this 5k goal of mine, but will provide me with greater gains that will help me in the long run (excuse the pun).  Had I not failed today, I may not have realized the changes that must be made to my training program and would have missed out on possibly months of additional gains.

My Promise:

I have not quit.  I will reach this goal.  I will give a report on my success before the end of this year.  Count on it.

Last night I ran a 5km.  With a PB set in the early spring of this year of 19:13, I was hopeful to drop that time by at least 14 seconds to go sub 19min.  As the time drew near to leave my home and start heading over to the UBC Triathlon Club office to meet my fellow racers (26 in all) I started pulling out the Vincent Lavallee excuses. I was thinking about all the Doritos and Reese Peanut Butter Cups I had eaten the day before (dang you Safeway and your sales!).  My nutrition for the past couple of days was worse than poor and I have been sleep deprived lately because of the demands of school.  With all that on my mind, I was still hopeful of reaching my goal.  Lacing up my new Mizuno Wave Revolver racing flats, I was determined to reach my goal.

The route was a 900m block near UBC campus in the Endowment Lands.  It's nice because there is very little traffic and the terrain is relatively flat.  The biggest challenge was tracking my pace time.  Normally I like to time each km but with the loop being a hundred meters short of that I had to time myself per every 900m.  I figured I needed to run each lap in 3 minutes and 25 seconds which would bring me in just under 19 minutes.

The race started, light rain, dark, and a little cold - but not bad.  My first lap was 3:11, well above my goal pace.  I felt good but decided to slow it down to prevent a burn out.  My pace reduced to be on track and more or less stayed that way for the duration of the race.  I slowed a little at the end but my fast first lap more than accounted for that and I was well below my goal time.  After rounding lap 5, with half a lap to go to reach 5km I was feeling confident that I would reach my goal.  I had some gas left in the tank, picked up my feet and ran a good finish.

When I crossed the finish line I heard someone yell out my time: 19:04.  I was crushed.  I had executed my run well and it went according to my plan.  I assumed that I had miscalculated the time I needed to run each lap in and went home.

I later retrieved my lap times from my watch and imported the numbers into an excel spreadsheet I keep for all my time trials.  I began to scratch my head because my pace was good and I should have finished in under 19 minutes.  Did I run the last 500m slower than my goal pace?  That didn't seem right, that last 500m felt good.  I was confused until a saw a facebook status update from Scotty-Doo stating his time for a 5.1km.  Suddenly it all began to make sense.  Apparently the course was slightly mis-measured.  According to three people running the race with gps watches, the route (after averaging the three numbers) was 5.13km.

By using my average pace and scaling my time down to what would have been 5km, my time should have been 18:35.  This would have been great.  I feel like I earned that time yet I don't quite feel right claiming it.  I have been debating over stating my 5km best time as 19:04 - even though the course was long, or 18:35 - even though it's not official.  I've decided for now that my 5km PB is 19:04.  I feel somewhat ripped-off but I just don't feel right guessing what my time would have been.

This experience has inspired my to run another 5km.  I want that sub 19 minute time and I wont stop until I get it.  In three weeks there is a race called the Fall Classic.  They have 5/10/21.1 km options.  I was originally planning on running the half marathon but seeing how I haven't been doing any distance training as of late, this seems like the perfect opportunity for me to reach my goal, and have an official time to go along with it.  I'm no longer upset.  I'm looking forward to this next race.