Training Log Archive: W

Welp, training plans kind of went out the window given the driving rain and wind. Its like September rolls around and the weather says "okay, time to be miserable!". So, put on some gloves and headed out to at least go for some form of run. I'm not gonna lie, the plantar fasciitis still feels like its lingering in the background whenever I go for a longer run or to multiple back to back to back volume. Still, once I got out there and got moving, it really wasn't so bad, and there were almost no offleash dogs to content with.

Shock and awe, I actually got on the bike! I wanted to do an afternoon workout, but my legs have been pretty grumpy lately. So I good spin did them quite nicely, actually. Headed out to ride my favorite neighbourhood. Its all fancypants so naturally they get the best pavement. Nice and smooth and fast!

C • Neighbour 4

Early morning Fast Trax training before a long day at the shop. The workout was 60 minutes with slowly building up to 90% of my goal race pace. I spent the first 10 minutes decided what my goal race pace was. With a 10k coming up next weekend, I settled on a 32:30 10k. If my math is correct(ish), 3:30 is a 35 minute 10k, so I 'though' it was about 3:20 pace, and 10% less than that is 20 seconds, so I ultimately I aimed for 3:45. I got to that conclusion about 10 minute in, so aimed to cruise at that pace for around 50 minutes. Unfortunately, the River Valley is a valley, and the trail doesn't always stay at the bottom! So, the run also included 3 major climbs out of the river valley (around 40 meters) and many smaller climbs of 15-25 meters. Obviously they're not colossal climbs by an means, but if I tried to maintain 3:45 on that kind of incline, I'd get to the top and be way, way, out of the intended effort zone. So, when it was flat and fast, I was doing okay. What mostly hurt were the legs after a sustained hour long effort all on pavement. Ouch.

A pleasant cruise out to the new Fort Edmonton bridge and around. I would have liked this to be longer and less... dark, but I was on hold with the stupid insurance company for an hour. Criminy, super annoying. Saw very few people on the entire run though, which was nice.

Having a heck of a lot of trouble getting motivated to go out for workouts in the last few weeks. Losing regular morning training partners makes the morning interval workouts even more lonely than usual. This is pretty common for me, since its after the peak season high, and I can't really go on vacation per se, because I use up all my vacation for race and training time. Its back to the grindstone with working 6 or 7 days a week and trying to get back to the 2 trainings a day mode. Especially with the PWT coming up, I really feel like I need to put in a few quality, fast and hard track workouts, but those are really some of the toughest, physically and mentally. Anyone want to come and visit for a week and do morning track workouts? Free room and board......

I'd actually really appreciate it if it got colder. I think that would make workouts a bit more pleasant. Come on fall, here we come.

Well, attempted to go do track intervals, but the track was occupied, so I went to Keilor road and did them on a paved bit. I was going to do 5 x 800m followed by 2 x 1 mile at just a bit faster than my pace I'd go for my approximate 5k pace. At least, that's kind of what I thought. Since I didn't have any measurements, I ran the first one for 2:07, and hoped that was where 800m was. As it turns out I wasn't even remotely close, my Garmin says I did 670m. Ouch. I kind of thought I'd be capable of running a 2:07 without too too much trouble, perhaps not. Its hard to know. I do'nt spend enough time on the track or racing measured road races to have an idea of my pace on an empirical level. That will be remedied in a week and a half at the Stony Plain Rotary 10k, my first road 10k in... wow, a long time.

Then did the "miles" on an uphill. Naturally they weren't a mile, more like a 4:45 minute interval. Did not feel fast at all. Legs felt very heavy.

In 2004 at the Opening Ceremonies in Athens, they had Tiesto DJ the entire parade of the athletes, which then got released as an album (coincidentally titled "parade of the athletes". Its good stuff, quite a bit of it, here's one part:

Headed out east of Sherwood Park for a roller-ski with Paul on the Range Roads. Very good road conditions out there! Rotated between 10 minutes of skating, double poling, and legs only.

Hands are very, very unhappy right now. Blister city.