Training Log Archive: RLShadow

Fairly short and easy recovery run (recovering from 20K race yesterday). Legs felt surprisingly good, but I didn't have a lot of energy.

Started at Ellison Wetlands trailhead on Empire Blvd; ran 2 miles south on trail system, almost but not quite to Old Browncroft. Retraced route on the way back.

C • I was curious 2

Warmup for race.

Phelps 20K race. I wanted to have a good effort so I rested the two days prior to the race. Usually I like to get out for a short run the day before a race, but this time I decided I really needed the time off as I had run some unusually high (for me) mileage during the last 5-6 days.

I placed 78th out of 241 overall, and 6th out of 15 in my age group. A consolation is that the nearest one ahead of me beat me by around 3 minutes, so it wasn't a case where a little more effort would have affected my age-group place. (However, I would have had a better age-group placing if I were in either an older or a younger age group -- if I were younger, in the 50-54 group, I would have been 5th out of 25; if I were older, in the 60-64 group, I would have been 2nd out of 7.)

I like this course. There are two significant hills, otherwise it's fairly flat. I didn't do as well on the hills as I might have hoped, given that I've tried to do a lot of hill training this year. The first hill (between 5-6 miles), I pretty much held my ground with people around me, but didn't gain anything. The second hill (between 7 and 8 miles), I wound up walking for around the last half of it. I could have run, but I decided that I could walk almost as fast as the people around me were running, and use a lot less energy. So I lost a few places, but after that hill, I passed a lot of people in the closing miles of the race, so I think conserving energy on that hill may have helped me in the long run.

Some of the mile marks were off by a bit; mile 7 and mile 12 in particular (around 1.1 miles from the previous mile mark). Since the course is certified, that meant that some miles were short. Instead of giving my mile splits, I'll give the pace per mile per the Forerunner:

Mile 1: 8:07 (minutes/mile)
Mile 2: 8:01
Mile 3: 8:04
Mile 4: 7:49
Mile 5: 7:57
Mile 6: 8:56 (included the first hill)
Mile 7: 7:40
Mile 8: 8:55 (included the second hill)
Mile 9: 7:28
Mile 10: 7:48
Mile 11: 7:45
Mile 12: 7:24
Last 0.42 miles: 7:17 minutes/mile

The Forerunner said the course was 12.47 miles, compared to the theoretical 12.42 miles (only 0.4% off, pretty good agreement it seems; although I would think that if anything, errors that a GPS device would incur would tend to underestimate distances rather than overestimate them).

C • Running uphills 2

Cool-down after race (per Gil's suggestion!).

C • You will feel tomorrow anyway 2

Still at the cottage on Lake Simcoe. Anne and I did a somewhat abbreviated version of the long run we did on Monday. Started on roads, then on rail-trail for around 3-4 miles, then back on the road that goes along the shoreline. I felt OK, actually surprisingly good considering it was only two days after the previous long run. But that was helped by the pace being quite slow and comfortable for me. We did take some walking breaks, few at first, more later on in the run.

Medium length, medium intensity run on bike paths in Orillia, Ontario. Very warm day. Anne got in a short run first thing in the morning; I didn't want to go with her because I figured she really needed an easy recovery run after the very long run the day before, and I know that even when I feel I'm running slow, it's pushing her a bit. So I waited until near mid day when the temperatures had risen to around 85. Cheryl, Anne, and I drove into town; they did some shopping while I ran. Fortunately, most of the trail was shaded, but last section I was on was not.

Stayed at a cottage on Lake Simcoe near Orillia, Ontario for a several-day vacation. Cheryl, Anne Schwartz, and I were there (cottage is a Schwartz family cottage).

Anne and I went out for what was to be a 3-hour run (recognizing that walk breaks were going to be a part of it). We started out trying to run 12 minutes / walk 1 minute, and kept that up for the first hour, approximately. Then walk breaks became somewhat more frequent in the second hour.

In the third hour, I could tell that Anne was really struggling. This was probably partly due to her missing a few weeks of running in early July, due to an ankle injury at the Finger Lakes 25K trail race on June 30. She gamely stayed in shape by doing as much walking as she was able to, but still, missing that much running has to hurt. I suggested that we cut the workout a little bit short and head straight back when we were at around the 2:15 mark, which would have gotten us to the cottage at around 2:45. Still a decent length run in my book! But she seemed to feel bad that I wouldn't be getting my target 3 hour run in, so she led me on a much more roundabout way back. She was doing a lot of walking at that point, so it took longer than she had figured. I ran a little additional distance during that last stretch, running out to a landmark around 1.3 miles away and back to her, while she walked during that time.

Route was on rural roads and a very nice rail-trail, with a stop for a swim at a public dock on Lake Simcoe at around the 2-hour mark. Started at 7:30 am when it was pleasant, finished near after 11 am when it was much warmer and the sun was a real factor.

Even though the pace was slow for me, and there was a lot of walking, it was a very good workout for both of us.