99 km no problems

Dududu-didudu dududu-didu…. Ah, the Olympics, what a great motivation to run (that was the music from the Olympic medal ceremonies by the way). I've caught a fair bit of the action, even waking up at 7:30 to watch the women’s marathon yesterday. I've really enjoyed the action so far. If you missed the distance races, here is what an analyst had to say about the women’s marathon. Interesting I say, but it’s worth noting that the runner who didn’t wait for things to happen, Mary Keitany, finished outside of the medals in 4^th. I’m looking forward to the men’s marathon on Sunday. A Kenyan will win, but there’s a chance it could be too cold like the Stockholm marathon and then anything can happen...

Check out the ruffles... I accidentally grabbed Anais shorts in the morning and had to run with them for 16 miles... They are comfortable.

  After the 10-miler a couple of weeks ago I set myself the task of running faster. It appeared to me as of late I’ve been scared of breathing hard during my runs so I intended to change that. SO after a 5-mile run the day after the event, I should have been sore but wasn’t, I did an 8 mile progression going from 7:30 to 6 min mile pace over the course of the run. When I hit 6:30-15 pace it seemed like I couldn’t run any faster but then I pushed just a little harder and voila a managed around 6:00 pace for the last two fast miles. It was like I needed to break through a wall and once I did 6:00 pace was no harder than 6:15 pace. So don’t be scared to push the pace this summer for a few miles. The week of the race was a 40 mile week with 6 runs.

With the big race in September now in sight I decided to make myself a training schedule for the next few weeks. It was time to push the envelope just a bit and I made an attempt at running each day of the week, which I’ve never done. I did tempo intervals, sprints or strength routines after easy runs, hill-repeats, a long medium-fast run to build stamina, and a 16 mile run. I also set a goal for this training period to make sure I do the little things. By that I don’t mean drinking raw eggs and running slalom around street signs like the guy in Run fat boy run, but rather:



a) making sure I eat a fruit or something little within 15 min of my run
b) doing my stretches after each run
c) consistently doing strength work and
d) not skipping a run because “it’s only a short run and it doesn’t really matter if I go or not”.  With that in mind, I went for a short run the day following my 16-mile run and I’m glad I did. The long run was harder than I thought it would be but now all other runs seem so much easier. The week concluded with an 8 mile run with Anais and I had done it - ran every day of a week for a total of 99.8 km (or 62 miles) and without any pain or fatigue. I kept going into the next week before taking a break after 10 consecutive days of running.

One of my favourite runs was a fartlek run of four times alternating 0.8 miles at near 10k pace with 0.8 miles of slightly faster than average pace (for me 6:50 pace), which works “speed-endurance”, basically meaning how long you can run at a faster pace such as during a 5 or 10k race. The key is not to completely recover during the slower part of the workout. As always, I include about 15 minutes of warm-up before and cool-down of easy running at a very comfortable pace after the run. I’ve had a real pep in my step as of late resulting in a short, fast, relentless stride - it’s almost like speed-walking. Speaking of which, I noticed that the winner of the 20 km Olympic speed-walk event, well, “ran” just a tad slower than my pace during the May half-marathon..

So everything was working out quite nicely, back in shape and ready for weeks of preparation for the half, when on Saturday I went for a long run with Anais. Two miles into the run I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my lower leg and looked down and saw some large insect attached to it, possibly a hornet, which had stung me. During my runs I’ve been chased by dogs, attacked by birds but this was the first time I had suffered an injury...in the process I dropped our water bottle, stepped on it with my other foot and twisted my foot awkwardly. I was in some discomfort but toughed it out and completed the run. The insect sting was alright, but later that night I could hardly put weight on my other foot and was thinking the worst… Even though there was minimal swelling it felt like a sprain. I quickly looked for examples of similar injuries on-line and uncovered that ex-Toronto Raptor Vince Carter, famous for being out extended periods with ridiculous injuries, once had missed two weeks because of a foot sprain, which greatly instilled hope I wasn’t going to miss much more than maybe a week of running. I applied ice and elevated my foot to help with the healing. In the morning it wasn’t much better, I was limping, but as the day went on I felt stronger and the next day I could walk without any discomfort..what  a relief! Today I ran 5 miles no problem, strangely fast recovery.