Race report - 5K PR!

I have no idea where this came from. This morning I got up after a horrible sleep and looked outside, only to see pissing rain and gail force wind. At least, temperatures were above freezing. I ate my breakfast, drank my coffee. About 40 minutes before the race, I got dressed and ran slowly about 1.5 miles to the race itself where I switched my shoes to my beloved Nike Free 3.0. The Resolution Run is a low tech, self-serve race. There is no official finish time, you are supposed to time yourself, which is not a problem since I'm running with technology that aircraft carriers didn't have access to only a few years ago.

5K races are intense but because they are so short, you see the light at the end of the tunnel from the start. My previous PR on that distance was 21:44, which I ran last St-Patrick's day. I won't bore you with the race, except to tell you that it was wet, really windy and that the sun came out at the end and reflected off the wet pavement so the last 500m you had to run basically blind. I ran hard, looked at my pace on my Garmin 305 maybe 5 times and sprinted the last 200m. My Garmin shows a heart rate at the finish line of 198 bpm, which is 2 bpm higher than what I had seen before. I actually had a cramp in my left calf about a minute after the finish.

20:31. Damn. Was the course short? Maybe, but the conditions more than made up for it if it was. Exactly one year ago, I ran 23:44 on the exact same course. I think it might be possible for me to break 20 minutes. That would be unbelievable. 

I wasn't really expecting much because of my two failed attempts to break my 10k PR last month. I think that was too close to my marathon and 2 week break.

This race time gives me a VDOT of 48 (see Daniel's Formula), up 3 from my previous VDOT of 45. I'll have to decide if I will use the new value for my 50 Miler training. I don't really want to, because it makes the training so much harder, but if I don't, I won't translate my gains to the longer distances so I will probably use the new adjusted paces. Harsh.

That's it for this unexpected development!

Heart Rate Musings

I know I've visited this topic in the past, but this blog is about things I think about while running, and lately I've been thinking about heart rates.

There is an aura around heart rates. People tend to assume that a low heart rate means you are in good physical condition. It is true, but not if you use the number as an absolute number. Having a rest hr of 65 means nothing. For me, it might mean trouble and for you it might mean you are in the best shape of your life. Running a tempo run with a hr of 145 means nothing if you don't also take into consideration the person's maximum heart rate and possibly the rest heart rate. The difference between the two is the heart rate reserve. 

I see a lot of focus put on heart rate monitoring lately. A fact I find disturbing is that to calculate the all important maxHr (maximum heart rate) most books  simply refer to the infamous formula used to calculate the maxHr from the age. I will not show the formula because it is USELESS. Sure, as an average for the whole population, it might be very precise, but as a running tool for you as a runner, it is no good. There is a very good chance that your maxHR is way off the number calculated using that average.

Case in point: me. My maxHr, according to the formula, should be around 178. My real maxHr, as observed in a number of races is around 195. For me to train using the training zones calculated using a maxHr of 178 makes my training stupidly easy and ineffective.

When I started running, I used those zones and found that I almost had to walk on my long runs, because I was supposed to maintain an hr of under 133 (75% of max). I quite simply could not do it. ANY kind of running brings my hr above 140. All my other types of runs were uncomfortable. Any kind of effort would blow the hr under which I was supposed to train. I thought I was physically challenged.

I tried the advice I saw in a book, and tried to find my ACTUAL maxhr by running hill repetitions. My hr did go up to 184 so I knew something was amiss. I decided to use 185 and my training felt better.

Finally, I ran a few races with my hr monitor and later when I analyzed the numbers I saw sustained periods with a hr of above 190. The highest I've seen was at then end of a 5k, with a value of 196. I never look at my hr while I race, but I still wear my Garmin and record the data.

So if you just bought yourself a heart rate monitor and you have a minimum of training, do yourself a favor and sign-up for the next 5k race in your area. Run it as hard as you can. Try for a good kick at the end. That should take you close to your maximum. That should make your training more effective and enjoyable, especially if the number you used was way off.

Winter blahs - and it's not even Winter!

Not much happening. Xmas tree is up. Following the plan. This week I should run between 35 and 40 miles, including a 10 miles long run on Sunday. I'm not too sure how I'm going to get my hills in. I drove by my favorite hill, and the snow has pretty much made the sidewalk unuseable. The city doesn't maintain the sidewalk there. Maybe the rain will clear it up before tomorrow.

My week looks like this:

Mon: Rest

Tue: 6 miles @ base pace

Wed: 1.5 mile warm-up + 6x90sec hills at 1-mile pace + 1.5 mile cool-down

Thu: 6 miles @ base pace

Fri: 6 miles @ base pace + 6 x 90sec intervals @ 3k pace

Sat: 6 miles @ base pace

Sun: 10 miles @ base pace

Although my running is going well, I still haven't gone back to the bike and swim. I should take my bike to the gym this week and leave it there. That way, it would make it easier to just go there and jump on the computrainer.

I'm still a bit bummed about not beating my 10k PR. A year ago, if you'd told me I would ever run 45 minutes, I would have been delirious with joy. Now, I'm wondering how to get below 42 minutes. Can I ever do 40? Well, not this year. I'm working for distance and I doubt if I can speed up significantly while doing that. Next summer I will embark on a 10k sharpening program and we'll see where that takes me. In the mean time, my dreams of dramatic speed improvements will have to wait.

The weather is getting more difficult for quality workouts. Going all out on ice can be a bit scary. My lunch run today was quite nice except for the fact that my feet were completely drenched in iced slush by the end of it. Still, my home made spikes are performing nicely. I hate running with the shell, but it was raining.

From Running

The easy ones are all gone ...

Well I couldn't do it. Raced my final 10k race last weekend and although I thought it was in the bag, I finished in 45:25, 25 seconds over my goal. It would be tempting to blame technology. According to my Garmin 305, my pace was fine but errors do add up and by the end of the race, my 305 showed a total of 10.15 km. So either the course was a bit long or I didn't run a straight enough line but the end result is that I finished just over my 45 minutes goal, again.

The thing is, even if I'd had perfect info, I'm not sure I could have run any faster. It was cold and windy. At pretty much any given point on the course, if I tried to go faster I got a side stich burning on my right side. My average HR for the whole race was 182 (90% of my max HR) and the last 5k was at 187 (94% maxhr). Sure, sitting here, I'm thinking I could have gone faster. But if I rewind to yesterday, all I remember of the last 5k was wondering when this was going to be over. My splits were all within 10 seconds of each other. I ran a good race, but I didn't have it in me.

Gone are the days of big surprises, except for bad ones. I guess I'm at that point now where I REALLY have to work hard to break a PR. My speed hasn't really improved on shorter distances since I started my marathon training last Spring. My 10k and 5k PR both date from last March. I guess I should be happy I didn't loose speed when I increased my racing distance. The point is that to beat my PR, I would have to really work on speed. I've plateau'd. To be honest, I feel like I can't run any faster. I know I can, but I feel like it's impossible. Hard, painful work should change all that.

For now though, I'm going for distance. Boston in April, 50 Miler in May. Then, in the summer, project speed will begin...

Race Report - Whitby Waterfront 10km race

Last year, I ran this race as my first 10km race in decades so I decided to run it again. It's a fairly small field (about 150 runners for the 10k) and most of the really fast runners go for the 10 miler. Just in case, I had "studded" my Nike Free 5.0 but it turned out that the course was fairly clear of snow and ice and I decided to run in my favorite shoes: my beloved Nike Free 3.0. I didn't overdress for the temperature, which was about -3C with no wind. I wore my Mizuno Breath Thermo underlayer with another looser top, my Mizuno tights, a cap and gloves.

I did a decent warmup, gulped half my small bottle of Gatorade and lined up at the start with about 5 minutes to go. Just as the gun is about to go, behind me I hear a women talking to her friend: "Janine, did you double-knot your shoe laces?". I look down and FUCK, I sure didn't! I bend down but before I can remove my gloves the gun goes off. I start running. My goal in this race was to break 45 minutes to see if my short distance fitness is on par, after all that marathon-training craziness. The course is fairly flat so I was able to maintain a 4:30-ish pace. At the 5k mark, I feel something down there, I look down and sure enough, my right shoe lace is undone. I take off my gloves, stop, and double-knot both sides. I get up and giddyup. 6k, 7k, 8k and all of a sudden I'm getting close to the finish. As I approach the line, I look at the clock and it says 41-something. Wtf? I finish in 41:55, gun time. Something is wrong. I look at my Garmin 305 and the distance says 9.21km. The course was short by friggin' 800 meters. Everyone who's not wearing a GPS device is all excited about their time.

Anyway, I'm still happy with my race. My chip time was 41:38, my pace was pretty much in line for a 45 minutes 10k. I finished 3rd in my age group, FAR behind the 1st and 2nd place, who also finished 1st and 2nd overall with times in the low 35 minutes. Ringers! I finished 8th overall, in the top 10%, which is by far my best ranking ever. 

Now I'm wondering if I should race the Chilly Willy 10k or half-marathon next Sunday. Hmmm.

Winter-proofing my Running Shoes

Ice is back on the roads and sidewalks. I hate ice. But there IS ice (and snow) on the ground and I DO have a 10k race tomorrow. Desperate times call for desperate measures so I decided to use a technique I've read about on a few web sites.

WARNING: If your shoe has the words GEL or AIR in their name, be VERY careful where you place the screws.

I've inserted a number of hex head metal screws in the sole of my shoes. I tried them on the sidewalk in front of my house (well, my neighbour's since MY sidewalk is scraped clean!) and traction was vastly improved. Running on regular surface was a bit noisy but seemed to be fine.

So tomorrow morning, if the race officials tell us that there is ice on the course, I will wear my studded shoes.

Blood donations and performance

PLEASE NOTE: I am not a doctor and everything in this post is based on me, an experiment of one.

If I look in the index of any of my running books, and I have A LOT, for "blood donation", I find no entry in any of them. So when I got a call about two weeks after running the Toronto marathon, I said sure, no problem. I used to give blood regularly when I lived in Quebec City because the Red Cross (back then) came to the building I worked in about 3 times a year. I didn't really run back then. Since moving to Toronto I hadn't given blood, I felt a bit guilty and felt the need to atone.

So I went, gave my bag and came home. I didn't run until 3 days later because I was taking it easy after the marathon and all. When I did run, I felt incredibly sluggish. I was running fairly slow but I felt like I had no energy. This was the shortest run I had done in 6 months and I was TIRED. When I downloaded my Garmin 305 data and saw my heart rate, I was worried. It was WAY high. I had run at my recovery pace and my heart rate was basically the same as when I had run my first 10k race! WTF? Did I damage my heart or my leg muscles? That whole week I felt like I'd lost half my fitness. I could run slow just fine, but hills and striders were really hard. The second week was a bit better and now in the 3rd week I finally am starting to feel more energetic. I have a 10k race on Sunday, so we shall see.

I looked in all my books and found little of interest, except a little blurb in "Lore of Running" about inducing anemia with blood donations, but nothing specific. I found a few comments from other runners in running forums that complained of the same symptoms after donating blood. When I talked to my doctor she laughted and said it takes up to 3 months to eliminate all the effecst of a blood donation but that I should be back on track within 3 to 4 weeks of donating.

I am so happy I didn't do it a few weeks before my marathon. This would have been devastating. Training for a marathon takes the better part of 6 months and wrecking a race because of a lack of information would have been very frustrating, to say the least. I had always been told the effects of a donation would only last a couple of days. But then again, I should have known better since they won't let you give more for another 53 days! Duhhh!

So yes, I will give blood again. But I will do it knowing what the effects are and how long they will last (at least for me).