W/E July 29 - Kamloops Marathon - 1st - 2:35:25

A few months ago while I was still living in Victoria I discovered the Kamloops Marathon was going to be resurrected after lying dormant for 20years and decided, since I would be moving to Cache Creek, that I would definitely run it. As a new race and being a local more or less I wanted to come out an support the race and put in a good effort. And being in Secwépemc territory I wanted to come out and represent as a person of this land. A few weeks ago I got in touch with the race organizers and told them i̓d like to come out and Phil and Karen were super accommodating, literally they put me up at the TRU residences for a couple of nights which was great. They also asked if I would do a talk at the race expo on the saturday before the race and I agreed.  I have only done one other talk before and that was when I lived in Toronto and was asked to talk about my running philosophy and in particular about the relay run took part in to Alaska in ̓06. So, this time around they suggested I talk about training and in the end I just rambled on about running for about half an hour. There were maybe 20-30 people so it wasn't too daunting to public speak. I̓ve been running for so long now and have been a student of the sport for so long its not so hard to just ramble away. I enjoyed it as a more or less first experience and had a lot of positive feedback afterward and today after the race. Thank you those who stuck around to listen, I hope it was useful!

Race day.  Knowing that its Kamloops and it would be hot out the start time for the race was set at 6am. This would normally be very early for me but i̓ve been getting up at 530 most days anyway so it wasnt too bad. 430 was a bit excessive but not unbearable.  As far as the race is concerned, it went really well and was indicative of my fitness. We headed out at a reasonable pace, myself, and eventual second and third place finishers Nick Sunderland and Richard Brewster. Nick and I pulled away from Richard after a couple of kilometers and then I pulled away from Nick somewhere around 9k I guess and then I was on my own.  It turned out there were virtually no Km markers on the course so I just settled into a pace that would hopefully work out the best possible time given my fitness. And thats how it went. I just locked into a good pace and ground it out. I had a rough patch between 30-35km but came out of it and cruised the last 7km at a pretty good clip.  The thing i̓m probably most happy about were my guts. I actually woke up with heartburn, which is rare, and throughout the run it actually improved. Usually the pace of a marathon is a bit too quick to be able to digest gels without some discomfort with acid coming up into my throat but today that was not the case at all.  My plan going in was to practice nutrition the way I would take it in an ultra or long run, start fueling early and have a gel on the half hour. Additionally, due to the heat, I wanted to try taking some S-Caps! electrolyte tablets. So, I took one at 1h15 and 2hrs.  I think what happened was the electrolyte tabs actually settled my stomach and so I would say actually, that this was the best my guts have felt in a race, maybe ever.  I̓m not sure how it would have factored in, but I didn̓t get enough water down during the race. Could be it helped with the stomach issues, not sure, but it didn̓t seem to affect my performance much.

All told it was a really good weekend, meeting people, making new friends, doing the talk, running well, great weather, and reppin̓ hard in Secwépemcul̓ecw.

Mon - off + core wkt
Tues - 9.2 + Arrowstone + core wkt
Wed - 4 x P-line hills (84, 94, 87, 83) + core wkt
Thurs - 9.2 Arrowstone
Fri - off + core wkt
Sat - 15 mins jog
Sun - 26.2 mi - 2:35:25

From July 29, 2012

From July 29, 2012

Photos Courtesy Dirk Handke

Summer Marathons...

Good luck to the 5+hr marathoners it's going to be a warm one. Tougher than me.

W/E July 22 - Arrowstone Hills

It was another spotty week but I managed to get the key workouts in so it was pretty good overall. I've been battling for the last few weeks with getting out the door in the morning. Reason being that I'm a night person but the weather being as warm/hot as it is forces me to be out the door around 630, which means a 530 wake up. I typically cannot get to bed before 11 and usually in bed closer to 12 so it makes the wake up a tough one. Adding to this is just being tired from getting into shape. Anyway, as I said the week was still a success in my mind. Here's how it went:
Mon - off
Tues - 9.2mi Arrowstone
Wed - 2x3x 90 sec hills (forgot to record splits)
Thurs - off
Fri - 9.2mi Arrowstone
Sat - off
Sun - 31mi long run, just under 4hrs

The long run today was a pretty decent one even though the average pace was fairly slow. I left from my house then ran up Back Valley Rd, took the Arrowstone Creek forest service road up to a point I knew was over 15 miles. From mile one onwards there was very little downhill until near the end of the out portion of the run, the map and elevation is below. So it was a good climb, I saw one black bear, a rabbit, a dead snake, two deer, and a motorcyclist. Other than that I saw some absolutely gorgeous sights. There really is nothing like running in the hills and mountains in the early morning light. One particular spot I stopped as the sun was shining through blackened trees from a forest fire a couple of years ago and there was only a field of purple fireweed growing amongst them. My photo below doesn't do the scene of regeneration justice, it was simply gorgeous.  The route itself was not exceedingly steep but it brought me up to the Arrowstone Hills plateau which is at and above a mile in elevation, again the photos don't do the view justice but it was an extremely pretty run. After the turnaround at 2h20 there is a bit of a climb which was tough but the last 12miles was almost entirely downhill so I was able to get moving and my quads held up well. Great run overall, and a perfect end to the week.

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

From July 22, 2012

W/E July 15 - Settling...a bit

A bit better, but an unplanned trip down to Vancouver and semi-unplanned weekend at Whistler resulted in skipping out on the long run. Feeling pretty good overall though, had a good off-day run today feeling reasonably recovered and strong from the weekend. I'll likely push things up a bit this week and do my long run on Saturday so I can do my hill workout earlier next week and have a few days to recover for the race. Obviously, given the training i'm not expecting anything spectacular for the Kamloops Marathon but i'll be aiming for sub 2:30 as i'm pretty certain the course is fairly flat. It turns out i'll be doing a little talk at the expo as well just talking about my philosophy regarding running.
I attached a map of my "off-day run below. Although I only did it twice last week i've made it my regular easy/recovery run. But I guess the fact is its far from ideal as an recovery run due to the fact that its a 2300ft climb in 4.6miles or 45mins, then a ~32min descent. So, that means its above the aerobic effort level you would want for recovery during the ascent, and the descent makes for some damaging eccentric loading on the quads.  I've decided to do it anyway though because I feel I need more climbing strength in general and tough quads for the longer distance races i'll be doing in the fall. 7-8 Hills tomorrow and Saturday i'll be aiming for a 30-35mile long run. Looks like the weather is going to let up a bit and will only be a high of 26 then which should help a bit.

Mon - off
Tues - 9.2 mi Arrowstone
Wed - 5x Powerline Hill (91sec, 89, 94, 89, 86)
Thu - 9.2 mi Arrowstone
Fri - 7mi Seawall
Sat - 60 mins in Whis
Sun - off

From July 17, 2012

FYI,  on the left part of the photo is one of my band's reserves, bottom centre is Cache Creek, and one square from the bottom and three from the left is where my grandmother spent a large chunk of her childhood living with my great-great-grandparents.

W/E July 8 - Back at 'er

Kind of a bumpy week. Don̓t remember why I took monday off to be honest, but its my 'easy' day anyway. Tuesday was nice and easy but I was tired and just scouting out the hill where I was planning to do hill repeats on wednesday. That didn't work out because I made an impromptu trip into Kamloops to check out a few of the AFN National Chief candidates, which was relatively uneventful but I wanted to check out the politikin. The 72min run in Arrowstone was great. From my house I headed out the back door and then, up. Arrowstone is a "provincially protected area" and i'm hoping to find a route to circumnavigate it, then link up to the hill I ran around this morning, on the map below. I also took a trip up to Xat'súll(Soda Creek FN), for a Secwépemc storytelling session which was a good time and met some Neskonlith family I had only just found out about a few days ago(the link anyway), which is super cool. Anyway, I had a good run along the Fraser on Saturday then got home in time to rest up for my big run on Sunday.

Truthfully, i'm not all that fit, so I was a bit worried about heading out for a 23mile run where I would not be able to take any shortcuts home. At the same time its a good strategy to force myself into fitness. Fortunately, despite only having one gel, the run went really well. I headed out good an early since the forecast predicted 22 degrees by 9 am, and 34 in the afternoon.  I figured i'd run the loop counter-clockwise since on the highway i'd be out in the open and the low sun would be cooler. Turned out it was a good plan too because there was virtually no traffic making for a very pretty run. Reaching the turnoff after an hour I wound my way up Battle Creek Rd(I think thats the name) till I hit Back Valley Rd. then cruised downhill back to my house. Just, like, that. Very happy that 23 miles felt as good as it did. Now to find a 30 mile loop for next weekend!


Mon - off
Tues - 50mins
Wed - off
Thurs - 72 mins Arrowstone
Fri - off
Sat- 75 mins Xat'súll
Sun - 23mi Battle/Back Valley Loop
Total: ~52 mi

From July 8, 2012

From July 8, 2012

From July 8, 2012

From July 8, 2012

From July 8, 2012

From July 8, 2012

Recap and plans

I decided to do some racing in the spring mainly to try and bag a few bucks to help fund my move to Cache Creek come June. The plan was to get in decent shape for the Vancouver Marathon in early May then use the fitness gained from that to run well at the Calgary marathon at the end of May. I figured if I didn't do much running in between I could be recovered and strong for Calgary.

The marathon in Vancouver went really well. I had done a few hill workouts an some long tempo stuff out at Elk lake and was feeling pretty good about running sub 2:30. In your average Van Marathon this would get you in the running for a top three finish and potentially top spot for a local. To my dismay there were 4 Africans brought in along with Jason Loutitt, Graeme Wilson and David Jackson. I definitely had more of a race on my hands than I was expecting. Turns out Jason didn't show and David was actually running the half. So anyway the gun goes off and the four African guys take off and it's a handful of us also-rans running together. As we settled into a solid pace Greame and I traded off leads looking to run around 2:26 pace. I wasn't sure if I had that in me but figured I'd help Greame out as much as I could. For the first 10k or so there was an unknown wrestler guy in front of us but we weren't too worried about him and Anthony Palermo was tailing us as well. Things were reasonably uneventful until 15k in we're we saw the first Kenyan guy drop, so we were in 4th. Coming into 30k we were notified the third place Kenyan guy was looking rough too so I decided to push the pace when we hit the Seawall with Greame following suit. Shortly after I saw the 3rd place Kenyan dude standing by the second beach pool. So all of a sudden I was in third and potentially going to make a good payday. Time to get serious. With Greame a few steps behind I sped up a bit more and he covered the move so I decided to get up on my forefeet and really get moving. I had decided to wear my training shoes because of some calf sorenes, so getting up on my forefeet made a big difference. Greame couldn't cover this move and over 4-5k I was able to open up a considerable gap and maintain through the finish. 3rd place overall, first Canadian citizen and first BC resident netted me two much needed Gs. As we suspected after the race the course was long, so my 2:29:22 was for 42.195k + 382m. Somewhere around 2:28 I guess.

The following weekend I jumped into the Oak Bay Half and limped to a 72:11 for third. Then two weeks later headed to Calgary for another marathon. Calgary was uneventful as I had some gut issues and was unable to eat or drink. The lack of nutrition and legs that were only feeling okay going in resulted in an absolutely brutal last 12-15k and finished up 5th in 2:33.

In retrospect more care was needed to recover for Calgary but some other life stresses were unavoidable like moving. Anyhow it was a fun month that earned a month easy.

And that's how it's been, nice and easy but time to get back at it. I'm living in my traditional territory, secwépemcul'ecw (the land of the Shuswap) and loving every minute of it, particularly the running. There are dirt roads everywhere and hills in every direction not to mention little underbrush so you could run in a straight line in any direction so long as there isn't a rock bluff. I'll write more about this in time. It's planning time though. I've started mapping out some good loops and sketching a training plan to accommodate the races I'd like to do. Which are:
Kamloops Marathon - July 29
Edmonton Marathon - August 17
Steve King Classic 100k - September 15
Victoria Marathon - October 7
TNFEC 50mi - December 2(redemption!)

Pretty full slate. Victoria will depend on the recover from the 100k. Speaking of 100s, I've scheduled a few 100mi weeks. Never thought I'd say that again. Anyway that's all for now. Here's a photo of my backyard:

Testing

Just trying out the blogger app. Seems a bit limited but might give it a try. Finally getting back to fitness with a 2h15 run yesterday in the hills/mountains above Back Valley Road outside of Cache Creek. A location where my grandmother was raised for some time by her grandparents. My family lived in that valley for generations. It's occupied by a number of farmers now. Saw a couple of white-tail bucks and a few quail. Still no snakes :)