Sights Set on San Fran

This is one of my last big training weeks for my first 50km race in San Francisco. Here is a summary of the training I'll be doing:

Monday - Rest day
Tuesday - Hill training on Mountain Highway
Wednesday - Strength training with Pricey
Thursday - Track workout
Friday - Bike ride and strength training
Saturday – 19km run with Mountain Madness and bike ride
Sunday – 30km Chuckanut Mountain training run

Stay tuned for a post on the Chuckanut run.

Boo Race!

I was back and forth all last week trying to decide if I should run the Hallows Eve Half Marathon. There were lots of pros to running it including; getting more race experience (I've only raced in one half marathon before), support Peter Watson who is the race director and a lot of my friends were racing it. The con was I've been training pretty hard for my first 50km race and my body was definitely telling me it could feel all the training. I woke up race day, looked outside and saw a beautiful day so I decided to run it.

This last minute decision meant there was no taper, like with everything I do I am always looking to learn and grow from my experiences. Lesson #1 tapering is important. This race was an import lesson in tapering so I'm glad I did it. It demonstrated the importance of intelligent training and not getting caught in a cycle of Train hard. Race hard. Train hard. Race Hard. It’s a basic instinct for runner's/competitive people. Everything we do is based on hard work, we train, we brave the elements, we endure, we don’t wimp out, we don’t like rest, we are “forces.” But it’s good to taper and it’s ok to go easy on training runs our bodies need to recover. With hard work and consistency, I know I will grow stronger and faster but I will be keeping in mind that it can be counterproductive to my performance to maintain this hard work mentality right up to race day.

The race started at Jaycee House in North Vancouver. After I registered and said hi to some of the Mountain Madness crew I headed back to my car to finish getting ready. After an easy warm up to get the blood flowing in my legs I was ready standing at the start line with a couple minutes to spare or so I thought. This is when I realised my first mistake of the day.

Mistake #1 thinking you are ready, standing at the start line with 3 minutes until the gun goes and realising you forgot your timing chip in the car! After spiriting back to my car for my timing clip and then back to the start line, I was now ready to run with 30 seconds to spare. A positive to this minor stress is I was able to provide my friends a little laugh.

The gun goes and we’re off. Immediately I could feel my training in my legs; they felt heavy and like cement. The race starts immediately with a small hill climb. I could see my friend and adventure racing partner Chris Price in front of me looking really strong. Tom Craik zipped by me on this climb, obviously he chirped at me as he passed. My legs were feeling fatigued so I told myself run your own race, pace myself and keep my heart rate in check.   In the photo below is my friends Duncan "The Lazy Trail Runner" and Chris "Pricey Runs".

I settled into a groove along the lower river and just started to enjoy the rain free day. I started to think about how cool it was that I had decided to run this race the morning of the race. How many people could wake up on a Sunday morning and just decide I’ll run a half marathon today? This made me smile and enjoy the day little more. Not long after my friend Brad passed me on a stair climb he had just rolled his ankle but was fighting through it, I wished him luck and he carried on.

Pacing myself on Varley trail with a guy who I don’t know but we chatted a bit and shared a laugh, he mentioned he liked our pace and said we could run like this all day. However to my dismay he dropped me once we hit the Baden Powell stair climb. I didn’t run as much of this selection as I am capable of running but I tried to make sure I kept my pace as quick as possible. Repeating in my head “Comfortably Uncomfortable” and “Playing on your edge, pushing your edge further.” Both are sayings are from my favourite spin class teacher Tim, they definitely get me through the leg burn. Three girls and two guys passed me in this section they were all good climbers and my goal became keeping them in sight so I could try pass them on the technical downhill I knew was coming up.












When I hit Mountain Highway they were almost out of sight but I find this hill selection very runnable. I ran this section and was encouraged to notice I was making ground on everyone who had passed me on the Baden Powell climb.  During this climb was when I heard "You didn't move to Toronto!" it was my friend Randy (see picture below) a great hill climber and avid rock climber.  I filled him in on my decision to accept a position with Bell Canada and not to move to Toronto.  We climbed together for a bit and once we hit the downhill I let my legs open up and take me, I passed 4 of the 5 I had been eyeing up. I managed to hold them all off until the climb up Lynn Loop. One girl passed me on this climb but I promptly passed her upon reaching the top flatter section. Lynn Loop left me feeling good knowing I was almost done all the uphill’s.

I felt best during the last 5km and managed to lose a few people who had been running pretty close to me on the Lynn Headwaters connector. My last few races have ended with me sprinting to the finish against someone else. This race lacked that adrenalin filled finish but I managed run across the finish line in 2 hours 10 minutes leaving me lots of room for improvement and proud about completing my second half marathon on a beautiful Vancouver Sunday morning.  Thanks to Peter Watson for putting on a great race and bringing together a great group of runners. 

My afternoon was spent at one of my favorite coffee shops where I enjoyed inspiring music, a delicious latte and even managed to get a little homework complete.  Mondays a rest day for me and Tuesday its back to hill training.

SUGOi Warehouse Sale

Great deals on technical gear:
Friday November 13th 1-8pm
Saturday November 14th 9-3pm

Think Pink

My friend Nicole recently surprised me with one of the best birthday gifts.  Bright pink running compression socks by CEP; they are prefect and match my other bright pink running gear.



















I already own a pair of Sugoi Race and Recovery compression socks which I love, they are grey in color.  The Sugoi socks are great, I wear them for running and recovery; they help to increase blood circulation and oxygen flow for musculature which helps to enhanced your performance.  Plus I really like to run in shorts and the knee high socks help prolong my short wearing season.  My new CEP socks have become my designated recovery socks because I think they are just too pretty to wear in the trails, I will sport them around home and town to help speed up my recovery time.  Thanks Napster:) 

Burke Mountain

Long run Sundays can be wonderful but adjusting to the pouring rain in Vancouver can be challenging when you've been spoiled with months (and months) of beautiful weather. The rain is not all bad; it's giving me the chance to test out my two new running jackets. Yes, I made a mistake and bought two new running jackets this year - don't ask.

Seeing that I live in one of the best places on earth I've been trying to ensure I'm running in new places. Living close to the wickly awesome North Shore means I sometimes forget to venture out to the other amazing places in the local area. Today Stefan and I met early and drove out to Coquitlam, he’d researched a new run for us on Mount Burke.

The mountain is a popular destination for hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, and winter snowmobile trips. On the drive out Stefan also mentioned that it was the site of an old ski resort, this was evident from a couple of the signs we passed on the way up the mountain. I forgot my camera so no pictures until next time.

I loved the signage for the old ski resort so I did a bit of research and found out in the 1970s, the mountain was the site of a minor ski development, including a lodge at the top of the mountain (we saw the sign for the lodge), a rope tow and a ski village lower on the mountain. The ski area was abandoned when a fire burned down the lodge.

The run was great, super wet but overall very good terrain. We've received a ton of rain in the past few days so the rivers were raging and pretty difficult to cross. Today’s river crossing was definitely the most rugged river crossing I've been through to date; Stefan actually had to pull me across a couple of times.

On the way up we passed four lakes which will be spectacular in the summer. The route is pretty well marked but due to all the rain some of the paths were flooded so there were parts that were difficult to navigate.

Upon reaching the summit Stefan found this small container which I abruptly told him to put down (we didn't know what it was). He proceeded to make fun of me – and rightly so - asking me if I honestly believed that people were planting bombs in the middle of a deserted mountain top? I laughed and he opened it… relieved to find he was correct – no bombs! It contained a notebook from 2002 filled with notes from people who have reached the summit. I would have liked to read more of the entries but we were freezing cold so we quickly wrote our note, grabbed a gel and started our descend back to the car.

The way down was easier to navigate and we popped into some of the mountain biking trails. I'll definitely be coming back here to run and ride again. The trails are prefect for mountain bike training as they are less technical then the ones I normally ride on the North Shore.

 

Poker Run 400

Tuesday nights I normally run but this week I tried a new workout called Poker Run 400. I heard about it from my friend Chris and my brother Travis so I knew I had to give it a try.

What is Poker Run 400?
Each suit represents a different exercise and the number on the card is the number of reps you do. Face cards are worth 10 reps and aces are 16 reps. I recommend doing the exercise with a partner who flips through the entire deck while you perform the exercises while being timed. In the end you end up completing 400 reps.

Spades = Sit-ups
Hearts = Burpees
Diamonds = Squats (with the dumbbells if you like)
Clubs = Pushups


What you need?
One full deck of cards, a stopwatch, a mat, dumb bells and a partner.

Chris and I planned to meet at his gym after work but on my walk over I noticed how beautiful it was outside I suggested we find a park to work out in - I love being outside, gyms make me claustrophobic. We picked a park in Coal Harbor with a fantastic view of the ocean and North Shore Mountains.

The workout was hard but actually really fun, a great variation to the typical gym workout. I managed to complete my set before the rain came and just as the sun was setting. Then it was my turn to torture Chris just as the rain started. He ended up with a really tough set of cards in the beginning of his workout. I haven't decided if it's better to get the high reps done at the beginning or end...

I finished in 18:02 (without weights) and Chris finished in 21:05 (with weights).  A great workout we will definitely do again followed by our favorite post workout drink Avalon Chocolate Milk .

Rubble Creek

Since Monday was a holiday I decided to plan a long run.  I've been wanting to run Rubble Creek since I missed this race because I was in Cumberland for Momar on September 27th and with it already beginning to snow I knew it would only be runnable for a couple more weeks.

With the route selected I emailed a few friends to see who was interested in joining Chris and I, within no time there were 10 people committed to our Epic Holiday Monday run. Our meeting time was 7:30am at Park Royal so I wasn'tt sure how many people would actually turn out. We ended up having a fantastic turn out - 14 amazing runners.

The day was spectacular; the sun was out and the sky was clear so we got to enjoy views along the way. The run was about 24km and took us around 3 hours at an easy pace.

My friend Chris made a wicked video check it out.