Going Long (again) in 2024

Goodwill Road Route.  Recovery pace:  8:27.  

This just in:  April was the coldest month in the history of Sudbury - ever.  Thanks, Captain Obvious.

Was finally able to take my speedwork outside.  Decided to run 7 x 800s, which is what I did all winter on the treadmill.  Down Radar Road.  Definitely a lot faster than my 7:00 pace on the treadmill ... I was hitting closer to 6:00.

With everything combined, ran 1:18:49 with an average pace of 7:53.  And the rain didn't start until I finished.

Radar Road Route; 8:24 pace.

Steady rain, and on the cold side, but fine for running.  Except when the big trucks roared by and kicked up a wall of water.  That was nasty.

It rained hard most of yesterday, but the sun was shining today and, once the fog burned off, it has turned into a perfect running day.  Around 7C/45F with little wind.

Radar Road Route.  2:13:49 running time; 8:22 pace.

Radar Road Route; 8:23pace.  Perfect running day. Sunshine.  Little wind.  7C/45F.

Skead Road; 8:13 pace.

Radar Road Route; 8:31 pace.  Going to Ottawa today for tomorrow's March for Life, so a couple of runs along the Rideau Canal coming up.

A glorious run along the Rideau Canal in Ottawa.  You gotta love it!

Same as yesterday.  Rideau Canal.  Glorious.  Home today.

May as well report this as a race, as unorthodox as it was for me.  It was actually a lot of fun.

I parked 3 miles from the start line and ran there.  Made it about 10 minutes before start time.  Ran the race, paused a bit, and then ran 2 miles back towards my truck, walking the final mile, giving me a 50km Ultra race time of 4:34:11 (not including the pauses, and not officially measured as such - so not an official Ultra).

I made a mistake by leaving my auto pause turned on, so I didn't have an accurate measure from the marathon portion on my GPS.  The advantage of that is I know exactly how much time I spent at the aid stations:  10 1/2 minutes.  That's not bad, actually.

Excluding those aid station stops, my mile splits were very even.  Between 8:15 and 8:30 mile pace throughout, with some faster splits along the way.  The exceptions were the miles after mile 26, where I hit a couple of 9:00 mile splits.  Since this was a double loop, I'm able to compare my timing mat splits accurately between the first half and the second half:

1st Half           2nd Half

27:20                29:12

23:20                23:47

32:29                33:45

30:26                30:14

Those splits correspond to the 8 person relay transitions, so should be about 3 1/4 miles apart, give or take.  So, I did slow down in the second half - but that must have been mostly longer time spent at aid stations, as my recorded paces stayed pretty much the same.

There were only 21 of us in the Marathon, but there were also 157 in the Half and 10 teams in the 8 person relay, so just under 200 of us on the start line.  I was the only one in my age division, by the way, so I won it :)  Was the 4th of 16 males.

Beautiful day:  Sunshine with some gusty wind in places.  7C/45F at the start, and 17C/63F at the finish.  I just had fun with this, so was able to high five the spectators and chit chat with the aid station folks along the way.  I never pushed myself at any point and felt strong at the finish.  Well, the marathon finish anyway.  The final 2 miles after my pause were REALLY hard to do.

Since this was a dress rehearsal for my 100 km Ultra in 5 weeks, some comments on things I learned:

Pace was good.  I might slow it down a bit to around 8:45 for the longer event.  Even if I'm hitting 9:00, I'll be okay with that as long as I don't linger in the aid stations.

Aid stations:  I tried to time it so I was emptying my hand held every 3 miles.  I carried 10 baggies in a waist pouch, each holding 1.5 scoops of Tailwind.  Before I got to the aid station, I pulled out one baggie and I took the lid off my hand held.  Then things got really messy.  It was just too hard for me to efficiently pour the powder from the bag into the bottle.  I was consistently losing a fair portion - on my hand, arm, ground, helpers.  Sticky when wet.  I discovered the best technique was to have an aid station person do it for me.  Well, 3 of the 4 who did it, did a good job.  The one was as bad as me.  I'll have to look at using smaller baggies.  I used the sandwich size.  I'll try the half size for the Ultra.  Trying to do it while running was impossible, so I think I have no choice but to get someone to do it for me in the aid station.

The water was less of an issue, but it was a lot easier to fill the bottle directly from the big water container, as opposed to pouring cups of water in.

There are 20 aid stations in my 100 Ultra, so it would be good to be as efficient as possible in them.

Other than having to run twice the distance, the only other challenges I anticipate in Niagara Falls are the heat - likely to be a LOT hotter than it was today - and the big hill going up (and down) the escarpment.  I'll likely end up walking a good portion of that ... I did not walk anything today.  Oh, the travel too.  It was SO nice to have only a 15 minute drive to the start line today!

Oh, one small feel good victory:  of the 10 teams in the 8 person relay, only 6 finished ahead of me, and 3 of those by less than 5 minutes.  I noticed they were pretty young runners on those teams, so it gives this old man a certain sense of satisfaction that I can keep their 5km pace over a 42km distance :)

That's it.  Now I'm heading 'home' to celebrate my mom - it's Mother's Day, after all.

Radar Road Route; 8:22 pace.  Quads were a little sore after the weekend, but felt mostly okay for this run.

8:10 pace on the Radar Road Route.  Cold, at just 1C/34F, and breezy, but the rising sun and clear skies made it all good.

Dug out a foundation on Wednesday for a shed I'm going to build, and shovelled 3 tons of gravel into it and packed it yesterday.  Figured I'd be pretty sore today, but so far, so good.

Radar Road Route; 8:20 pace.  My highest weekly mileage ever, at 69 miles.  Same thing next week, and then I taper.

Gorgeous day.  20C/68F with full sun and just a gentle breeze.  I really need to get more training days like this, since it will be nothing but hot in Niagara Falls next month.

8:15 pace on the Radar Road Route.

Skead Road; 8:30 pace.

Some speedwork to spice up the week:  7 x 800 at 5k pace.

Since I have a burial to do tomorrow, I switched my long run to today.  That had the added benefit of running in the heat of the day, since I couldn't leave until 10:30.  I am not a hot weather runner, nor an afternoon runner, but those are the realities of my next Ultra, so today was a small test for that.

Ended up running 3:45:35 for an average pace of 9:01/mile.  I know I went out too fast - I was averaging 8:44 at the halfway mark, and was still sitting at 8:46 at the 18 mile mark.  I really started feeling it there, however, and it was a real struggle to finish.  Step   ...   by   ...   step.  Lead in my legs.

They had called for rain with possible thunder showers, but at most it sprinkled - so little it basically evaporated as soon as it landed.  It was overcast most of the time, until the last hour or so anyway.  The temperature sat at around 21C/71F with humidity in the low 70s, so not nearly as hot as what I'll face in a few weeks, but a small taste of it.  

The take away for me is to slow down from the start.  I'm thinking I should aim for around 9:00 - 9:15/mile.  With the aid station stops, I'll be thrilled to finish the Ultra with an average of 10:00/mile, after all.  Just over 10 hours.   I have one more 20 miler next weekend, so I'll try that out then.  Realistically, if we get temps into the 80s, which is a high probability, even a 9:15/mile pace will be unsustainable for me.  In that case, my goal will be to simply finish.

Well, that didn't go as planned.  12 miles scheduled to complete the back to back.  Ran 4.

Right quad.  Was sore after yesterday's run, and especially going up and down stairs.  Was still sore this morning, but I figured I could handle 12 slow miles.  Wrong.

I should have turned around at mile 2 when I knew I wasn't going to complete the distance.  But I pushed another half mile, hoping to get in 5.  But a mile from home, I was forced to walk the rest of the way.  I was only trudging at that point anyway, and the pain was starting to shoot into my hip.

Tomorrow is a scheduled rest day anyway; we'll see what Monday brings.  It's only muscle soreness, and not an injury, so at worst I might have to take one extra day off.

So, that right quad was sore all weekend, and yesterday I decided to take a rest day, instead of my normal 10 miler.  I'm in taper mode anyway, so I think it was wise to err on the side of caution.  Had a massage in the afternoon and that seemed to help.

Today was my regular 6 miler; 8:38 on the Goodwill Route.  I was going to stretch it out longer to make up for some of yesterday, but I'm glad I didn't.  The right quad is still a little sore.  

9 miles on the Skead Road Route, plus an extra 3 miles on the Goodwill Route.  I was nervous about going out and then feeling the right quad rebel, but I was feeling decent enough that I added a couple miles on today's 10.

Still not 100%.  I thought maybe I'd run tomorrow to make up for the extra rest day, but now I'm thinking to leave well enough alone.  I do still have a 20 miler scheduled for the weekend, after all.