I'm not a fan of the Chariots of Fire theme so I prefer to play this song (below) while muting the running video (above). Still keeping a piano tune.
Now I know what people mean when they say you’ll KNOW if you get H1N1. If someone says they might have had it, or they ‘think’ they had it, they didn’t have it. You’ll KNOW if it’s H1N1. It hits hard and it’s very taxing on the respiratory system. After 4 days of not even leaving my house and then another 4 days of doing no more than a little walking I went for a 25 minute run. My legs felt noticeably weak from lying in bed for two straight days. I’ve run a couple of times since and my body is feeling much better now. I’m still waiting for all my congestion to clear before I do anything more than an easy run.
Although I missed the National Cross-Country Championships I’m very happy with the way my season went. I would classify my fall season as a transition from marathon to 10km fitness. I still have a long ways to go before I’m hitting the workouts I need to hit to run a good 10 000m but I’m further ahead than I thought I would be by this point. The H1N1 was only a minor setback because I really didn’t take off more time than I normally would after the season. And as long as I’m working out by the end of this week I’ll be right back on track.
I know some people like to read training details… The last workout I did before I went to Japan was a good indicator that I was ready to run 13:40. I did it alone on the track and had Andrew Yorke, dressed in a sweet suit, calling out splits. The workout was 6 X 1000m with 90 seconds rest and then 4 X 400m with 90 seconds rest and 3 minutes between the km’s and 400’s. 2:50, 2:50, 2:48, 2:48, 2:48, 2:45, 65, 64, 62, 60. The first five 1km repeats were very controlled as well as the first few 400 repeats. I got it going a little for the 2:45 and 60 but I was cautious to not leave my race in that workout. It all ended up going according to plan as I felt good for race day and ran 13:38.
The plan for the next few months is to continue running good mileage (many weeks in the 180-200km zone) and concentrate on strength and endurance type workouts. Once again I’ll do a few indoor races to help with my leg speed, break up the training and just have some fun.
I’m not sure if these are Japanese super heroes or parking police?
I went for a couple of hikes when I was recovering from H1N1 just to get out of the house.
I won’t be racing the AGSI Canadian Cross-Country Nationals tomorrow. I’m still quite sick with what the doctor thinks is H1N1 although I didn’t have a swab to confirm. The last two and a half days have been brutal but I’m starting to come around a little this afternoon. If I continue this path of improvement I hope to able to at least watch the races tomorrow.
This will be the second year in a row that I’ve missed Nationals XC after 10 straight. And once again the Run for Toad trail race in October kept my XC streak alive as I have raced a XC race each fall since I my first in grade 6.
The bright side is that I didn’t catch this virus on the way to Japan. Ever since the Zoo Run things have really started to click and workouts kept getting better and building on each other. I knew I was getting back the 5km-10km fitness that I wanted after my injuries and marathon training but it’s always nice to actually put it into a race. Having run 13:38 on the roads confirmed that I’m on the right path. I didn’t really think too much of the 5km at the time because once the race was over I was already concentrating on Canadian XC. After spending the better part of two days lying in bed I thought about the 13:38 a little more and really appreciated it.
My plan was to take a week off of running after National XC so really the rest just started a little earlier. I’m glad I have the luxury of time because I know I need to fully recover from this before serious training resumes. A week off of running sounds a lot better than the three months I had last year with a broken foot.
Good luck to all those racing tomorrow. GO SPEED RIVER!
Last year at AGSI Canadian XC on crutches
The Chiba Ekiden went really well for me. I ran 13:38 on the roads (net downhill of 25m) in my first 5km in almost two and a half years. Going into the race I figured I could finish fourth and hopefully pick off the Kenyan, Yuichiro Ueno or Mottram. I ended up fourth and those were exactly the three guys in front of me.
I started out at the back of the pack and went through 800m in 2:12, that was the only split I got. From 800m to 1200m I passed about half of the 15 competitors and then slowly made my way into third with about 1km to go. Ueno unleashed a kick, left me in his dust and caught the Kenyan. The Canadian team ended up 8th overall.
Unfortunately I picked up some sort of virus on the way home and I’m pretty damn sick. I can’t even imagine racing Nationals this weekend unless things get a lot better really fast. So that’s the short summary, time for sleep…
Thanks Richard Lee for the race pics.
| 順位 RANK |
ナンバー No. |
記録 TIME |
チーム名 TEAM NAME |
競技者氏名 ATHLETE NAME |
所属 MEMBER |
備考 REM. |
チーム記録 TEAM-TIME |
順位 RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
1 |
13:23 |
オーストラリア AUS |
ｸﾚｲｸﾞ・ﾓｯﾄﾗﾑ MOTTRAM, Craig |
AUS・オーストラリア |
|
13:23 |
( 1) |
| 2 |
13 |
13:32 |
日本 JPN |
上野 裕一郎 UENO,Yuichiro |
JPN・エスビー食品 |
|
13:32 |
( 2) |
| 3 |
7 |
13:33 |
ケニア KEN |
ﾆｺﾗｽ ﾏﾝｻﾞ・ｶﾏｸﾔ KAMAKYA, Nicholas Manza |
KEN・ケニア |
|
13:33 |
( 3) |
| 4 |
3 |
13:38 |
カナダ CAN |
ﾘｰﾄﾞ・ｸｰﾙｻｰﾄ COOLSAET, Reid |
CAN・カナダ |
|
13:38 |
( 4) |
| 5 |
14 |
13:46 |
日本学生選抜 JUT |
柏原 竜二 KASHIWABARA, Ryuji |
JUT・東洋大学 |
|
13:46 |
( 5) |
| 6 |
11 |
13:48 |
スウェーデン SWE |
ｵｰﾚ・ﾜﾗｰﾚﾝｸﾞ WALLER?NG, Olle |
SWE・スウェーデン |
|
13:48 |
( 6) |
| 7 |
10 |
13:50 |
ロシア RUS |
ｸﾞﾘｺﾞﾘｰ・ｱﾝﾄﾞﾚｴﾌ ANDREEV , Grigoriy |
RUS・ロシア |
|
13:50 |
( 7) |
| 8 |
12 |
13:53 |
アメリカ USA |
ｼﾞｮｰﾀﾞﾝ・ﾎｰﾝ HORN, Jordan |
USA・アメリカ |
|
13:53 |
(  |
| 9 |
15 |
13:55 |
千葉選抜 CHIBA |
安西 秀幸 ANZAI, Hideyuki |
CHIBA・ＪＡＬグランドサービス |
|
13:55 |
( 9) |
| 10 |
8 |
13:58 |
ポーランド POL |
ﾙｶｼｭ・ﾊﾟﾙｼｭﾁﾝｽｷ PARSZCZYNSKI, Lukasz |
POL・ポーランド |
|
13:58 |
( 10) |
| 11 |
6 |
14:06 |
イタリア ITA |
ﾕﾘ・ﾌﾛﾘｱﾆ FLORIANI, Yuri |
ITA・イタリア |
|
14:06 |
( 11) |
| 12 |
5 |
14:33 |
フィンランド FIN |
ﾄｩｵﾏｽ・ﾖｷﾈﾝ JOKINEN, Tuomas |
FIN・フィンランド |
|
14:33 |
( 12) |
| 13 |
4 |
14:47 |
中国 CHN |
馬 吉福 MA, Jifu |
CHN・中国 |
|
14:47 |
( 13) |
| 14 |
2 |
14:51 |
ベラルーシ BLR |
ｲｰｺﾞﾘ・ｻﾞﾎﾞﾛﾉｸ ZHAVORONOK, Igor |
BLR・ベラルーシ |
|
14:51 |
( 14) |
| 15 |
9 |
14:52 |
ルーマニア ROU |
ｲｵﾇﾄ ﾌﾛﾘﾝ・ｴﾅｹ ENACHE, Ionut Florin |
ROU・ルーマニア |
|
14:52 |
( 15) |
I’m off to Japan tomorrow for the Chiba Ekiden. START LISTS just came out. If the order is correct it looks like I’ll be racing Craig Mottram and Stefano Baldini in the 5km lead-off leg. I was hoping to race Yuichiro Ueno from Japan. The last time I raced him I was .04 back, which was also my last 5000m, back in July 2007! The Japanese team looks to be very strong as they have employed all their studs. The Kenyan team looks strong but it could be a LOT better, similar to the US team.
It is possible to watch the Chiba Ekiden live over the internet. I’m not sure how easy it is but the instructions are HERE.
I brought down my mileage last week to 165km and I’ve been feeling the pop back in my legs already. This week is a huge front-end load (2/3 of my weekly mileage in the first 3 days) with the travel tomorrow and race on Monday I won’t be doing much after this afternoon’s workout. Looks like the weather is going to be great for a track workout on November 18 (11C and sunny)!
Congrats to the University of Guelph Gryphons XC team who captured both the Women’s and Men’s national university titles. That’s Five in a row for the women and Four for the men! Matt Brunsting had a brilliant race to win and set a course record at Fort Henry and will be looking on extending his season at National XC in Guelph on Nov. 28th. Once again our Speed River squad looks very strong for the national title.
I ended up winning the Athletics Canada Fred Begley Award for outstanding athlete in off-track events for my Canadian Marathon title and 25th place at the World Championships Marathon.
Sore dewa (goodbye)
2009 International Chiba Ekiden – Team Entries
Japan
Japanese University Select Team
Chiba Prefecture
Australia
Belarus
Canada
China
Finland
Italy
Kenya
Poland
Romania
Russia
Sweden
U.S.A.
Big news was announced for Toronto and Hamilton on Friday… we’re getting the 2015 PAN AM Games! Man I wish we had secured the 2010 Commonwealth Games or the 2011 Pan Ams, but better late than never. With these games comes a new 15 000 seater stadium and a practice track. Although the track in the main stadium may get ripped out after the games to accomodate the CFL. Right now 2015 seems so far away.
I just finished my third “up week” in which I recorded my three highest mileage weeks ever (3 week avg was 195km). This fall I had two sets of three weeks “up” which is one more than I had before the Berlin Marathon. I feel very fit right now and I think after a couple of 160km (100 mile) weeks my legs will be ready to race. Sometimes it still seems crazy to me that 160km is a “down week” for me but then I remember that I’ve been doing this running thing for a while.
Some people have asked me why I’m running more mileage now than I did before my marathons. Ideally I would run more mileage during marathon training than XC/10 000m training but my training for the marathons was not ideal for a couple of reasons.
Before Ottawa I was still building up from a broken foot and I topped out at 146km (highest 3 weeks averaging 137km). While training for Berlin I was able to build up to 191km (highest 3 week avg 188km) but because of the short time frame between marathons I had to start my taper before I could build any higher.
My mileage is very similar now than it was for the marathon but my training is quite different. My long runs are shorter and my workouts are shorter, faster and are more frequent. With the increased intensity and frequency of workouts I find my recovery runs are done a little slower. I did fewer workouts while training for the marathon but each workout was longer so the overall volume of quality is pretty similar on a weekly basis.
The craziest part about the marathon training in the summer and my training today is that the temperature was pretty much the same. Looking forward to another 18C day tomorrow!!! What will November 28th bring us this year?…
Now I’m off to see the Junior Boys concert.
TRAINING.
On my last blog I was pretty happy about running my highest mileage week ever and was feeling pretty good about it. This week started off with a workout on Monday which gave me three hard days in a row (Sat workout, Sun long-run, Mon workout) which I usually don’t have however, last week we switched the Friday workout to Saturday. Needless to say I pretty much hit a wall on Tuesday. I was dragging my feet on both my morning and afternoon runs and hills seemed to present themselves with a 20 pound bag on my back. On Wednesday morning I went really easy again, to be honest I didn’t really have a choice. While warming up with the team for the workout on Wednesday afternoon I wasn’t sure what to expect from the workout, and we were about to do 20 X 400m!
I eased into the first repetition and felt pretty good. And then I still felt good going two seconds faster. The workout ended up going very well for me, I guess my legs came around just in time. I’ve only really surprised myself a few times this whole year in workouts and Wednesday was one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been happy with the vast majority of my workouts since April but rarely have I hit significantly faster paces than expected. My last 400m was run in 60 seconds flat, which is the fastest 400m I’ve run in well over a year (two injuries and marathon training will do that).
To make sure I wasn’t overdoing it I made sure Thursday was a very light day, which means running about 1/3 of the daily mileage I’m used to. Once every week I have an easy day or a complete day off of running to make sure I get my recovery in.
OUT OF HOW MANY?
Fred Begley Memorial Trophy |
||
Off-Track Athlete of the Year |
||
Simon Bairu |
Regina, SK |
Canadian Cross Country Champion |
Reid Coolsaet |
Hamilton, ON |
Canadian Champion & Top Canadian finisher at World Championships (Marathon) |
Evan Dunfee |
Richmond, BC |
Canadian Junior Champion & CAN-USA Dual Meet Gold Medalist (10km Race Walk) |
I’ve been nominated for the Athletics Canada Fred Begley Memorial Trophy for best Off-Track Athlete of the Year . It’s an honour to be nominated for this award although I was quite surprised to read “Top Canadian finisher at World Championships Marathon” as one of my merits. Many people have congratulated me on “top Canadian” which I don’t really like for many reasons.
Here are the main Reasons:
1) The Canadian team went to Berlin to race other countries, not each other.
2) I finished 25th at Worlds. That in itself is a better indication of how I fared against the rest of the World.
Now I can handle hearing the ‘top Canadian finisher’ comment from people who don’t really understand competitive running. But to come from Athletics Canada, the governing body of competive track and field in this country, well I have to at least blog about it (yep, still hate the word blog).
I understand when someone who doesn’t run asks me “out of how many?” after I tell them about a race. To real runners it doesn’t mean much to beat up on weekend runners or if top professional runners are ahead of you, achieving a personal best in itself is rewarding. I’ve had a poor showing where I’ve finished 10th out of 9000 runners and I’ve had a great performance where I’ve finished 11th out of 13 runners (those two examples are from 10km races where the later was two minutes faster!). Maybe my other accolade for the Fred Begley award should read ”8th out of 12 000 in the Boilermaker Road Race,” haha.
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I’m going to start putting up my blog at www.runningmagazine.ca as well as here. In order for new readers to figure out who the heck I is I wrote an introductory blog. I included a little write up about my most memorable race so those that know me have something mildly interesting to read.
Before the Race about 10 of us decided to warm-up in the Zoo and check out the a bit of the course. Well a little turned into a lot as we got lost trying to find our way back to the parking lot. It was pretty funny trying to figure our way out of there and getting turned around a few times. The 20 minute warm-up turned into a 30 minute warm-up and we got back to our race gear with 13 minutes before the gun. So a quick change, pit stop and a few strides and we were on the start line.
On the start line, (less than a minute before the gun), Scott looks over to me and says I’m soft for wearing a t-shirt. So the shirt came off before the gun…
Off the line I was quickly in, about, 10th place and for some reason I stayed there for the first 2.5km. Bairu, Mosely, Josephat and Loiselle put a gap on the guys who were in front of me and thats when I finally woke up. At 3km I had worked my way through the chase pack and then quickly caught Josephat and then Loiselle but Mosely and Bairu were still much further ahead. Gillis was following me the whole time a couple seconds back. By 6km Bairu had dropped Mosely and I caught up to Mosely at 7.5km. At 8km I started to make an effort to reel in Bairu but after 1 km of that I had barely made a dent in his lead and pretty much settled for second place while keeping an eye on the Mosely and Gillis who were not far behind me. I held onto second place, 10 seconds arrear of Bairu and only a few seconds ahead of Gillis who finished in third place.
I thought I was going to run faster than 29:57 but given the turny course and my effort I’m fine with that time. It may actually be a 10km road PB even though I’ve split 10km in 29:21 in a 15km race. Also, my nationals winning streak came to an end after having won my last four (‘07 5000m and XC, ‘09 ‘thon and 10 000m).
Thanks to Ron O’Hare for the pics.
In reality I think I had settled for second before the gun even went off. Mainly because Bairu had run 27:50 this past summer and I knew what kind of shape I was in when I ran 27:56 and I know that I’m not there right now. I feel very fit but the race sharpness and the speedier stuff is not quite there. Which isn’t a surprise seeing as I’m coming off a summer of marathons and I’m in my base phase. I’m confident I can PB over 10 000m next spring but it’s been a while since I’ve been in the 5km-10km ‘race zone’.
I had over 160km on the week and I felt pretty good the day after the race and today’s workout also went well. This Saturday Speed River is hosting the “Big Workout” on the Nats course. So if you’re keen to do a kick-ass group workout you should come out, everyone is invited.
I should be selected for the Canadian team to compete in the Chiba Ekiden on November 23rd in Japan. The Chiba Ekiden is a marathon split into six legs (10km, 5km, 10km, 5km, 5km, 7.2km) and switches male/female each runner. I’ve heard it’s a fun race, huge crowd and a great experience. I was initially hoping that Bairu and Gillis would also be running but they have opted not too. I can’t really blame them since I’ve twice opted not to race as it’s quite a bit of travelling for the week of National XC.
Mass Appeal
The first week back doing workouts and drills always leaves me feeling pretty sore, that’s where I am right now. Three workouts this week and 1/2 of Wednesday’s was done on the indoor track. I’m going to do a few more track sessions this winter than I did in recent years as I want to reconnect with some 3000m ’speed’ that has alluded me because of injuries and marathons. I find racing indoors exciting and a good place to brush up on racing tactics. If you can manuever around people on a 200m track you should be fine once the outdoor season rolls around.
***
My 25th place at Worlds was not good enough to get me carded (funded by the federal government) this year. I’m not surprised at all because I didn’t hit the mandatory time standard (2:15:48). The reason I believe I didn’t hit the standard in Berlin is because it was pretty hot that day (23C). Most of the runners were a few minutes back of what they could have run and I was only 1 minute off of the carding standard. I knew going into Berlin it was more than likely to be hot with the 11:45AM start time. I would have been better off running a fast 10 000m in Europe or a big city marathon (Chicago) in the fall to hit a carding standard.
The definition of carding is to fund those athletes who are likely to be in the top 16 at a World Championships or Olympic Games. To make progress towards that particular goal we felt it was crucial to run and get the experience at the World Champs, although the best way to get carded would have been to forgo the World Champs and race fall marathon . Athletics Canada (AC) has sent a clear message, ‘run to get carded and forget representing your country’…. but how do you finish top 16 at Worlds or Olympics if you don’t race the major champs, hmmm?
The funniest part is that I sent in an appeal about my situation because I felt my performance at Worlds was worthy of being carded. Some lady, who I’m pretty sure is clueless about running, tells me I didn’t hit the carding standard, a fact I outlined in my appeal. Don’t tell me something I already acknowledged, have the balls to tell me that my performance at Worlds is not on a level to be carded.
It’s fun to bitch about this but in reality not being carded this year won’t change anything for me. I still have Quest for Gold funding and support from Speed River, New Balance and Power Bar. The motivation is still there (maybe stronger) and my goals are all still intact. Now I don’t have to report to the AC distance coach although I’m still required to fill out my CCES whereabouts for drug testing… if they don’t think I’m good enough to be carded then why would they want to drug test me?
Happy Holidays from this, random, family to yours!
from → Running, commentary