FLOAT ON

You know what sucks? Bronchitis sucks!  I was really congested on the weekend and was hoping that it would clear by Monday’s workout.  Not only did it not clear up, it actually got worse.  The funny part was that CBC was filming the workout Monday morning and my voice was really crappy for the interviews.  Although I took that workout a little easier I could tell that my congestion was pretty severe and it reminded me of when I had bronchitis back in 2006.  I went to see the doctor today and she confirmed that I have bronchitis and prescribed antibiotics.

As far as the build-up to the Olympic marathon is concerned I’m not worried (at this point).  I feel that I will be back on track by early June.  I will have to scale back the intensity for the next 10-14 days to make sure I don’t tax my system too much and I recover.  I’ve had similar set-backs before so I know how to play the game.

Unfortunately that also means that I will not be racing the Ottawa 10km on May 26th.  The best case scenario is that this is behind me by early next week but I’ll have missed two important workouts which would really effect a race in less than two weeks time.

Good news: Shawn Brady’s “All For The Run”  music video (filmed, edited and produced by Mike DelMonte) hit the fundraising target.  The money is going to recuperate production costs and help off-set my training costs. http://www.indiegogo.com/allfortherun  A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who donated to the project.  It is very much appreciated and the money will go to good use.

Last night New Balance officially launched the 890 v2 Canadian with a great event in Toronto.

For some reason they didn’t go in this direction for the campaign…

I’ve been really enjoying Bill and Sons Towing web series (new show every Thursday). Check out the first three episodes below.  I guess I have to mention that there is some foul language here…

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Thanks to everyone who made donations to Run Canada Month (April), especially Millard,Rouse & Rosebrugh LLD and Longboat Runners club for their very generous donations. All donations, which were matched by Athletics Canada, are going to help training costs for Eric Gillis, Dylan Wykes and myself as well as programs to promote running.

The second fundraiser project that I have the good fortune of being a part of is a music video.  The song is “All For the Run” by Shawn Brady and the video was produced, filmed and edited by Mike DelMonte.  Shawn came up with the idea to help raise some money for my training while getting the running themed song out to listeners.  Mike decided to film the Yonge Street 10km and then some other running close ups as well as some footage of the band rocking out.  The video turned out really well and the song rocks.  It was a good thing I won the race otherwise it wouldn’t of had that feel good ending for the video, haha.  Definitely check out the video http://www.indiegogo.com/allfortherun?c=home and you can hear Boston marathon champ Wesley Korir cheering from the lead car before the song breaks in.

On Thursday evening we’re going to the launch party of the NB Canada 890 in Toronto.  This version of the 890 v2 (my ‘go to’ trainer) will be offered exclusively in Canada at your local running store in June.  A portion of the sale will go to Speed River and help out the club with expenses, mainly physical therapy.  So ya, if you buy a pair you should feel very good about yourself!

Can you see the distance in my eyes?

Eric and I just finished up our first official marathon workout towards the Olympics.  Our marathon build-up starts 14 weeks out.  For the first 2 weeks we’ll mainly be getting used to the volume of the workouts and not killing ourselves to hit race pace or anything.  Once we feel comfortable with the volume we start to chip away towards our race pace.  This morning we did a 50 minute tempo run and it went better than I thought it was going to.  It always takes me a few weeks to start feeling good and while today wasn’t blazing by any means the last 15 minutes was pretty honest and it left me really pumped for the next few months.

This is the stretch where we really have to be focused and that means turning down some appearances.  This week we had the opportunity to appear on CTV and CBC but it would have got in the way of a workout and we had to pass it up.  If I start doing all these extra things then my running/recovery/energy would take a hit and then all of a sudden I wouldn’t be running good times and then no one would ask to appear or speak or whatever.  Running fast always has to be the main priority and now more than ever as we prepare for the biggest stage.

Some other videos from the past week

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/video/video-meet-canadas-marathon-men/article2416092/

http://therecord.blogs.com/london_calling/2012/04/were-going-there-to-haul.html

A bunch of people have asked about the shoes I raced with at Yonge Street 10km. I thought I would show them off here and shed some light.

The shoes I raced in are New Balance 1400 that were made for the upcoming Olympic Marathon (thanks JF Fullum at NB!). Unfortunately this colour of the 1400 is not for sale.

However, on June 1st New Balance is releasing a Canadian version of the 890 v2 which will be available in most running stores across Canada.  A portion of the sale of this shoe will help support physical therapy for Speed River Track and Field Club athletes.  Also, towards the end of May there will be a contest on Runningmagazine.ca where you can win a free pair of the Canada 890.

In this video you can see the gap that Kip put on me with about 400m to go.

I’m looking forward to the new web series Bill & Sons Towing which premieres Thursday April 26th. Check out the trailer…

Yonge Street 10km happened this morning and I was able to repeat as the winner, barely.  I wasn’t nearly as aggressive (or focused) as last year and hence wasn’t pushing the pace for a fast time.  Kip Kangogo seemed to be in good shape, my main concern was to win.  There was quite a large group of us at 3km and even still at 5km but by 6km when Josephat started pushing I had a feeling it was going to come down to Kip and I by the way the others looked.  I was right.  After I surged a couple of times it was just Kip and I with a couple of km to go.  With about 500m to go Kip put a little gap on me.  I told myself this was fine, just don’t let it get any bigger.  It got bigger. With 400m left I really started to doubt that I would catch back to Kip even though I knew I had another gear if I dug deep.  With 200m to go I was gaining on Kip and knew that I should plan it so when I passed him there wouldn’t be enough time for him to react before the finish line.  I have to pat myself on the back for my tactics.

Yonge Street 10km. Mike DelMonte photo.

1 28:35.7 COOLSAET, Reid Hamilton  
2 28:36.0 KANGOGO, Kip Lethbridge 
3 29:01.2 ONGERI, Josephat Hamilton 

This coming week will be a down week for me which means I’ll run about 3 times, all short and easy.  On Tuesday my run will be filming some running footage for a video for Shawn Brady’s single “All For the Run.” Check it out, there are some Once a Runner references in the song. After the chill week I’ll have one week of mileage and then I’ll get into the marathon build-up.  This week will be nice to completely recharge but I’m really looking forward to the grind and pushing my limits for the Olympics.

I liked this article from the race/recent training/Olympic outlook.

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Milne vs Jeroen update: Milne ran a 3:54 mile for second place at the Mt SAC relays.  They’re both racing this coming weekend at Stanford, Taylor in the 1500m and Jeroen in the 5000m.

MtSacMile

Dylan Wykes’ 2:10:47 for 7th place at Rotterdam today qualifies him for the Olympic Marathon!  Funny enough, for me, that is the least surprising result of the four Canadians who were aiming at the Olympic standard. Rob Watson’s 2:13:35 isn’t too surprising either because I’ve known for a long time he had that sort of performance in him but it was still a 3 minute PB.  It was nice to actually see him execute well and make a big step forward in his marathon career, Good work Destroyer!  Dylan ran 2:12:57 in Toronto last fall and because I know firsthand how tough the weather was that day he was actually much closer to the standard than what appeared on paper.

It was Lanni Marchant and Krista Duchene who had the really big breakthroughs.  Lanni ran 2:31 and Krista 2:32 knocking something like 13 minutes and 7 minutes off their PB’s, respectively!  I saw Lanni training in Kenya and knew that she was stepping up her mileage significantly and Krista had a great ATB 30km so they were both poised for PB’s but I still didn’t predict such improvement by these two, congrats! (Women’s Canadian Olympic standard is 2:29:55).

We had done a bunch of running with Dylan up here in Flagstaff before he left for Rotterdam and I had a good feeling about his upcoming race.  It’s great that we’re going to have 3 men running the Olympic Marathon for Canada, something that hasn’t happened since 1996 (Peter Fonseca, Carey Nelson and Bruce Deacon).

Kelly Wiebe won the Vancouver Sun Run today in 29:12, a good result for the young up-and-comer who scared me a couple of times last year in 5000m races on the track.  Both times he made moves in the last lap which I had to dig deep in order to hold him off.  Eric finished 4th which isn’t as good as he may have wanted but seeing as it was his first race since last October’s Scotiabank marathon I think he’s doing alright.  Kip Kangogo was a close second to Wiebe and I’ll have my hands full next weekend at the Yonge St 10km vs Kangogo.

Yesterday in Flagstaff, AZ we woke up to a bunch of snow on the ground.  Boorsma and I were planning a long run in the trails but decided to change it up and drive 45 minutes down to Sedona where it was supposed to be 8C and sunny.  However Sedona didn’t clear up like it was supposed to so we ended up wasting the day waiting around for the weather to break.  It didn’t and we ended up running in a snow storm here in Flagstaff.  It was actually only coming down hard for the first 15 minutes of the run and the rest of the run was pretty good other than one nasty stretch of wind and blowing snow on an uphill.  It kept snowing last night but it’s already pretty warm today, the snow is melting fast and should be fine for the afternoon workout.  Chris Winter and I are planning to do some 3 minute intervals on the dirt roads.

Training continues to go well here.  My mileage has been relatively low (187km, 175km last two weeks) and I’m feeling pretty healthy (thanks to Ron O’Hare who was here for a few days of physio treatment).  I got a nice dose of reality on Thursday when I did 1km repeats on the track with Taylor Milne and Kyle Boorsma.  I was happy with my workout even though I felt pretty damn slow averaging 6 seconds slower per km!

Not the typical Arizona weather people often think of.

Before I get into a tale of a very epic dinner on the town I’ll give you a quick update on my training.  Recovery from the 30km went well, my hamstring feels much better although there are a few little niggles to straighten out (tight diaphragm, annoying rib head in my back and a wonky knee cap) .  Thankfully Ron O’hare came out here today (at least he should be in Flagstaff by now) and will offer his special physio skills to get the kinks out.  I had one good workout and one pretty good workout this week as well as a 45km long run.  The long run was actually my longest ever by time as I ran longer than 3 hours.

On Thursday we (Kyle Boorsma, Taylor Milne, Eric Gillis and myself) decided to go to Dara Thai restaurant in town (great place btw).  We also invited Dylan Wykes and the Belgians (Pieter Desmet, Jeroen D’Hoedt and Koen Naert). In 2008 we went to this same restaurant with Pieter, Jeroen and a couple other Belgians.  I think it was their first time to America, and a Thai restaurant, because all four of them ordered fried shrimp and didn’t know about tipping.

Anyways, back to 2012… the Belgians arrived at 7pm for our 6:30 dinner and within a couple of minutes Jeroen is talking smack about how fast he’s going to run this year in the 1500.  Milne is taken aback by the sheer cockiness and they enter a debate which ends with them making a bet on who will run faster this year over 1500m between the two of them.  The reason why this bet is consequential is because said bet is for $1000!  That is a lot of dinero for us runners!

I will put updates on this blog for both Milne’s and Jeroen’s races this season, stay tuned.  Note: Jeroen’s PB is 3:36.07 (2011) and Milne’s is 3:36.00 (2008). Interestingly Milne ran 3:36.71 in the same race as Jeroen’s PB.

Since we’re all in a betting mood by now it only makes sense to play credit card roulette.  There are 8 of us so we decide to pull two cards out of a touque to split the $142 bill (including tax and tip) two ways.  We get the waitress to pull out the cards one at a time. The first is a black Aeroplan card which both Gillis and I have so we both get out of our seats to take a closer look and sure enough it’s mine.  Then the second card is pulled and once again it’s a black card, Gillis doesn’t bother to read the name this time, he knows.

Yesterday we drove down to Phoenix for a track meet at ASU.  Good results from a lot of Canadians. Jason Dunkerly hit the paralympic standard in the 1500m running 4:08.  Malindi Elmore won the 1500m in 4:16, Dana Buchanan 4:21, Rachel Cliff 4:30.  Nate Brannen won the 1500 in 3:39, Martinson 3:41, Boorsma 3:43, Alex Genest 3:47, Chris Winter 3:50.  Lemlem won the 800m in 2:02 and Hilary Stellingwerff was right behind her in 2:02.92.

Gumby cacti on the way down to Phoenix

Graham Hood, Eric Gillis, Reid Coolsaet, Alex Genest, Taylor Milne, Kyle Boorsma, Chris Winter