Before I go off the grid (well i”m not going completely off the grid, but I like that saying) I’ll leave you with a couple of jewels.

First off, John, our farmer training partner, started a blog, JWM Blog.  Of course my normal rules will apply before adding him to the blogroll (content seems good so far, time will tell about consistency).  A little lacking on accuracy as John has the impression CBC will be replacing Coronation Street with the live marathon coverage…  live marathon coverage in the morning is going to be on CBC.CA.   John cannot watch videos over the internet where he lives because with “dial-up” it takes him three times as long to watch anything because of load time.

The second present I offer you is a 45 minute version of the 1987 World Championships marathon featuring (and I mean featuring) Peter Maher (Canadian legend). The cool part about this marathon is that people come and go and come back. As inspiring as I found this video you don’t have to worry about me taking a particular tactic to heart this weekend, you’ll know what I mean if you watch.  John, here’s 2hrs and 15min of viewing pleasure for you.

STWM Sunday morning at 8:30 (race starts at 9am) on www.CBC.ca/sports.  Lots of coverage available through www.stwm.ca 

1 week to go until STWM!

The taper is fully on, which means I have to figure out how much to run each day this week so I don’t overdo it.  Running 100-110km in one week isn’t that much for me anymore and when you factor in 44km coming in one day,well it doesn’t leave much running for the other 6 days.  The opposite is true when I’m trying to hit high kilometre weeks.  During those weeks I plan ahead to make sure I’m not packing in too much at the end of the week to hit my target.

We have one more little workout, (very little), before Sunday and a small stride session tomorrow. Our last workout, on Friday, went well.  We did some 3km intervals on the roads a touch faster than race pace.  It would have been fun to get after it a little more but that wasn’t the point.  Kind of like today with the amazing weather, it would have been a great day to put in a solid long run around 35km, but now that it’s taper time I wasn’t going to run more than 90 minutes.

Watching the Chicago marathon this morning was inspiring one week before my marathon.  They streamed it live on NBCChicago.com and the coverage was as good as could be expected.  At mile 19 Wesley Korir threw down a huge move which Moses Mosop covered and continued on with covering 25-35km in 29:01 (14:32 and 14:29).  Mosop was just killing it and then it got a lot harder for him as his next 5km was 15:17. However his lead was so big he was able to cruise it in for the win and course record.  Liliya Shobukhova (three-peat) got the women’s CR and ran her last 2.2km 12 seconds faster than Mosop!  Ryan Hall ran 2:08:02 going through the 1/2 in 1:02:56. That’s Ryan’s 3rd fastest marathon (out of 9) so a pretty good result which helps my confidence as I ran with him (most of the way) at the Virginia Beach 1/2 five weeks ago.

Don’t forget to catch the action Sunday morning at 8:30 on CBC.ca (streaming globally) and  Canadian Running will be hosting a live interactive blog during the race.  There should also be Twitter updates from @speedriver, @alnbrookes and @canadianrunning. You can link to everything from www.stwm.ca

2 weeks to go until STWM

The taper begins.

This was my last week over 200km. Today was my last long-run, 30km.  Yesterday was my last banger of a workout, 5 X mile.  Now it’s time to put the finishing touches on the training and let the pop reappear in my legs.

In the past 12 weeks I’ve averaged over 200km/week which is about 15km/week more than last year in the same 12 week period.  Our full specific marathon build-up is 14 weeks but I don’t like throwing the last two weeks in the average because it just pulls it down, haha.

Another difference this year is the amount of external pressure I am experiencing.  It really hit me when I was watching the Berlin marathon on CBC yesterday.  At the end of their coverage Scott Russell told the viewers to tune-in on October 16th as Reid Coolsaet aims to break Jerome Drayton’s 36 year old Canadian record.  It was weird watching the statement from the TV even though I’ve read it in print a few times.  For a second it seemed a little scary but more than anything it made me excited.  I guess I could have taken it either way but I’m glad distance running is getting some attention and it helps having a good plot.  For many years we’ve complained about the lack of media attention so now that we’re getting something I might as well embrace it.  Part of me even feels like playing it up and making bold statements, but I’m not sure I could do that without laughing.

Internal pressure vs external pressure.  Last year I probably put more pressure on myself to break the Olympic standard than I am putting on myself to break the Canadian record.  I think that is because I’ve been focused on making the Olympics for a much longer time.  In 2005 when I made the World Championships in the 5000m it only seemed logical to shoot for the Olympics in three years time.  Having not had the chance to chase standards in 2008 due to injury put even more fire in my belly.  Hopefully the media attention on the record chase will ease some external pressure off of Eric and Dylan chasing the Olympic standard at Scotiabank because I assume they’re already putting enough pressure on themselves.  Heck, maybe it will allow them to go to work silently on the record on October 16th.

Something cool that I got the opportunity to be a part of is www.whatmyphonesaw.com. It’s a page where numerous Canadian athletes post pictures of…well, whatever.  There’s a cool video of Adam Van Koeverdan, titled “Fortress of Solitude,” about his remote training camp in Algonquin Park.  It’s a great piece and it opened my eyes up a little more to kayaking.  For some reason I always pictured rowers and paddlers training back and forth on a strip of water in a lake or river, similar to swimming in lanes which, I find boring.  But Adam can paddle 35-40km from lake to lake in an awesome landscape, similar to doing a long-run in the trails… just watch the video.

3 weeks to go until STWM

STWM will be streamed live on CBC.ca/sports and will be re-aired with interviews etc the following weekend on the TV.

Last week was very eventful for me, solid workout, STWM press conference, 10km race, wedding up North and a long-run.  It was also an eventful week for the marathon, in Berlin Paula Radcliffe returned with a great posting (2:23), a great debut marathon by Scott Overall (2:10:55) and the men’s marathon world record was broken by Patrick Makau who ran 2:03:38!  Check out the coverage on CBC television on Oct 2 at 2pm.

The STWM press conference on Friday at the Fairmont Royal York was much better than I thought it was going to be.  Often these things are poorly attended and not much comes from them but the marathon in Canada is sexy right now and people seem to care.  After a general introduction (Dylan Wykes, Eric Gillis, Rob Watson, Matt Loiselle and myself) we had ono-on-one interviews with various media outlets.  I announced that I was going after Drayton’s record and that seemed to generate a lot of interest.  For those that read this blog that should come as no surprise.  I could be very happy with my result even if I don’t get the record and I know it’s a very tough one to beat.  Having said that I’m going to give it a shot as I feel I’m in a position where it’s possible.

The beards are generating a lot of attention.

Here are some of the stories that came out of the press conference.

Toronto Star/The Record

Globe and Mail

Hamilton Spectator

After the press conference Rob, Eric and I ran 10km of the course through the rolling Beaches section in the pouring rain.  Today I had an interview with CHCH that will likely air tomorrow and on Wednesday CBC is coming to Guelph to feature Rob, Eric and I going into STWM.

At the Toronto Zoo on Saturday morning we had great weather, a formidable field and a challenging course for the Canadian 10km championships.  This was the last Canadian distance championship that I haven’t won (5000m, 10 000m, 1/2 marathon, marathon, cross-country being the others) so I had extra motivation.

Brunsting with his pterodactyl start

Just before the 5km mark

I set the pace early on with a 3 min km before Josephat made a move after the 2km mark which spread out the field quite a bit.  After that it was Dylan, Eric, Josephat and I with Rob and Giitah right behind us.  After 5km (14:49) Eric pushed the pace quite a bit and then it was just the two of us by 6km.  At 8km it was clear that Eric and I were well clear of the rest of the field and I decided to push the pace and covered that km around 2:50.  Gillis didn’t let me ease up any and I had to push right through to the finish.  Considering how tired I felt mid-week and the challenging course I was very pleased with my time of 29:34.

After the race it was another race to get to Kim and Taylor’s wedding at the French River.  I checked into doping right away to fast track the process and get the heck outta dodge.  I was able to pee right away but only got in 50ml of the required 90ml.  This meant I had to drink a couple of bottles of water and try again.  Once again I only managed 25ml, man I was dehydrated.  But I stood there anyways with my pecker out for 20 minutes trying to will anything I could into the cup.  After a while realizing nothing was going to happen I went outside, cooled down a bit and drank a couple more bottles of water.  I thought I was ready but once again only 10ml came out and I was 5ml short.  I knew it was enough but they weren’t budging on 90ml.  At this point I really had to take a #2 and was having problems relaxing enough to pee as I didn’t want a poo party in my shorts.  Once I came to grips with what I needed to do I apologized to the doping chaperone and did my business with him 2 feet from me.  After that I had no problems peeing enough to meet the quota.  Two years ago at the Zoo the process took 20 minutes, this time it was almost 2 hours!!  Hence I was about 1 hour behind my schedule.

Once I got in the car my GPS said I’d arrive at 3:07 with the ceremony scheduled to start at 3:00.  I was confident I could melt off 15 minutes over a 370km drive and have just enough time to throw on normal clothes and make it.  Low and behold the 3 litres of water I drank after the race caught up to me and I had to pull over 4 times in the first 2 hours for pit stops.  I got to the lodge just after 3pm, threw on pants, shirt and shoes, neglected the socks, tie, jacket and shower.  Luckily they were running 20 minutes late and I sat down just in time.

Taylor Murphy and Kim’s wedding was a lot of fun and a good time to hang out with many good friends.  Taylor is the best XC training partner I’ve had and one of the nicest dudes around.  The venue was amazing but with very technical trails and asphalt roads I decided to do my 35km long-run back in the Hammer.  I felt really good for the run considering the previous days race, the long drive and late night.  Only having one beer at the wedding saved me.

French River

I was way late for the 'first dance' picture and rushed to take the photo, zoom would have been nice

A good portion of the Guelph crew

Many an icing went down

4 weeks to go until STWM

1 week to go until Oasis Zoo 10km

Another successful training week in the books. It was my second highest mileage week this build-up and it also included a full 42.2km session.  In past marathon build-ups I’ve never run more than 40km and this time I’ve done it twice.  Running the full distance makes me more confident about handling the distance come race day.  Most importantly the big runs haven’t beat me up too much and I’ve been able to recover properly.  Well, I guess we’ll see in our workout tomorrow if I’ve recovered well enough, but so far I feel pretty good.

The 42.2km run was very similar to a 38km run we did last year where we do a significant portion at/close to marathon pace.  We had a couple of variables play to into our advantage this year.  Instead of a sweltering 28C at the end of the run it was a refreshing 11C.  That meant taking in less fluids and losing less than 2% of my body weight.  We also ran our tempo portion on a flatter loop, although the wind was a factor this year.  During the tempo I averaged about 5 seconds faster/km than last year but factoring the heat and course it was probably a 2 second/km difference.  Which bodes well because I want to run STWM 2 seconds/km faster than last year.

Sometimes it seems like a daunting task to run 42.2km at a certain pace and I always have to remind myself that when I taper it just feels easier.  Racing flats, adrenaline and spectators help too.

With 4 weeks left of training and a 10km on Saturday it looks like I’ll be racing with a lot of miles in these legs.  I don’t mind that at all because STWM is still the big goal this fall and I know my main competitors are in the same boat as me.  It’s just not worth dropping the mileage at this point in the build-up.  This is an important time to build and maintain fitness, train enough without killing yourself.

Tuesday morning (7:20) on CBC radio there will be a piece on our training group.  It was recorded in the car with Dave, Moulton and Troy as they followed and handed us bottles during a workout.  Now I’ll get to hear what goes on in the support car…

There’s been a lot of great track races since Worlds but the 10 000m at Brussels Diamond League on Friday sticks out as my favourite.  Just watch the last 2km

5 weeks to go until STWM

Maybe you noticed that I’ve added a race to my schedule before the marathon…  I’ve decided to race the Oasis Zoo 10km on Sept 24th.  I was hesitant at first to have this race on my schedule because of the high training load at this point in my build-up.  I wasn’t sure how long after the 1/2 marathon we’d wait before we did our big session.  Turns out recovery went well and we’re scheduled for a big one on Thursday, which gives me more than a week to get ready to race the 10km.  The mileage will still be high for the Zoo Run but it will be the effort that counts.  I feel more comfortable not having a 6 week gap between races, although it seems weird that I think 5 weeks is just fine.(?)

So yeah, big workout in a couple of days.  This session should tell us a lot about the kind of pace we’ll want for the marathon.  It will also be a good opportunity to refine our fuelling protocol which will mimic elite aid stations approximately every 5km in the race.  Last year when we did this workout it was 25C, this time around it should be much cooler.  This week is also scheduled to be my second biggest mileage week of the build-up, everything else should be easier after this.  But just because it will be marginally easier does not mean, for one second, that I can just chill until the race.

My legs are feeling much better after taking Friday completely off and having a “lighter” workout yesterday.  We did a whole bunch of 2 minuters however, we stayed on the trails and kept the pace relaxed.  For a while it seemed that just as my legs were going to recover it was time for another banger.  I had some residual fatigue in my quads for a while, and I guess that is just part of marathon training and I think I might get served another dose soon enough.  I think as long as you don’t carry that fatigue for too long it’s all right.  That’s one reason why I have a light day every week where I run less than half the mileage I would on any other typical day of the week.

I watched the last episode of Entourage last night, it’s a shame it’s over, but at least everyone turned their lives in the right direction within 30 minutes, haha.

Athletics Canada Press Release for Oasis Zoo 10km/ National 10km Championships

5.5 weeks to go until STWM

Since the 1/2 marathon I’ve been hitting it pretty hard, big mileage, racing a car, all culminating with a tough workout yesterday (which went really well). So today I’m taking my first day-off of running since July.  I usually don’t go that long without a rest day but I guess I’ve just gotten carried away with training.  However, my legs are telling me to chill out for a day and that’s what I’m gonna do.

OK, racing a car wasn’t actually that hard.  For the first few blocks I was trailing the car and I was pushing the pace around 3:40/km.  At that point I figured I had no chance and thought; there’s no shame in losing to an Aston Martin.  But then the traffic swelled and I was able to cruise past the car.  A few blocks later it was clear that I was going to kill the car so I slowed up quite a bit.

Filming for the documentary continues and here is a little interview after the Virginia Beach 1/2 marathon.