Something’s hanging down on the boneyard tree
‘Another blog already’ you ask? Well there are some important things that one should know before the weekend…
1st. There will be live updates from Chris Winter at Nationals. If you’re not going to catch the race live in Guelph then you can log onto http://www.runnerspace.com/Canadian-Cross-Country-Championships . There will be videos of the race posted later on.
2nd. I got an ultrasound today on my foot. My ligaments and tendons look good, which is a relief. There is fluid under my fat pad, basically I have a deep bruise. I’ll need to rest my foot in order for it to clear up.
3rd. World Cup Alpine skiing starts up again this weekend on CBC. I’ll miss Saturday’s Downhill but I’ll be able to catch the Super G Sunday.
4th. There’s a pumpkin way up in a tree. I run by this spot often but it wasn’t until I was taking a rest between 1 minuters that I actually saw this…
So I got with a sick tight click and went all out
Speed River is looking for another team title this weekend and it looks like we’ll have competition from TOC. It’s not often I get to run as a team and it’s cool that we’re vying for a National title. It’s nice having Mark Vollmer back running for Speed River, I’ve been running on XC teams with him since my highschool days at Westdale. It’s too bad Alex Genest isn’t running for Speed River since he’s been a solid training member with our team for a while now. Taylor Milne, Eric Gillis, Chris Winter, Nigel Wray, Allan Brett and Kyle Boorsma are not racing this weekend. Here’s our line-up:
Matt “The Champ” Brunsting. The Champ is a 2 X CIS XC champ (2008 and 2009) and is coming off a 14:04 5km yesterday in Japan. He’ll be good to go this Saturday as long as he catches up on some sleep which might be hard with all the excitement about the new Harry Potter movie! No late shows this week Champ.
Reid “Coldneck” Coolsaet. I’m the only person whose name isn’t Bairu to win senior nationals XC in the past 8 years. I’ve only been running every other day for the past few weeks, how long can I taper for???
Cody “Heath” Murray. Solid XC guy for the Gryphons this season and would have been up there at CIS if his team wasn’t so deep. He gets less sun that I do, somehow this is possible.
Maxime “Poutine” Paquette. If he’s making the trip up from Tennessee he’s ready to go, or maybe just needs a good basket of sloppy french fries. Max has made good improvements down in Knoxville with his “laissez-fair” attitude towards training.
Derek “Kong” Snider. Don’t mess with D-Snides. Derek may be wearing more one-pieces and visors lately but he’s been training and racing really well this fall. If he believes he will be up there, he will be.
Cleve “Cleveland” Thorson. This guy can be in the 10 in both the race and the Brass Taps beer count. Cleveland was sick and threw up minutes before AO’s the other weekend and still went out there and raced.
Mark “The Commish” Vollmer. A true XC guy through and through. His pace over 10km XC might actually be faster than his 5000m on the track. He will pass a lot of people throughout the race. He also has a high performance hair cut this fall.
Rob “Destroyer” Watson. We all know Destroyer is the toughest dude on the course and he’s in great shape. Will his one ‘down’ week from marathon training be enough to race fast? Probably. Destroyer promises to behave at the after party this year, we’ll see…
EDIT: I didn’t mean to leave these next two animals off the line-up. Their names simply weren’t bulked together with the rest of the Speed River team on the entry list…
Lee “The Hammer” McCarron. This kid comes from Gillisland and likes cross -country. He’s kind of like a mini Vollmer except he has a 1500m PB that starts with a 3. I think he’s had some of his best workouts this fall and is ready to make his mark at senior nats. He’s also one heck of a water bottle caddy.
Tim “The Kid” Konoval. He calls himself “The Kid” because he attended Uni in the same city in which Sid “The Kid” plays hockey. The Kid is quite talented over many distences but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like to feel any discomfort when he runs. If he wants to be tough this weekend he’ll run well, if not you know he’ll be looking handsome on the course for his fans.
There are some good comments on my last blog entry. I don’t mind people commenting on my training, if I did mind I wouldn’t write a public blog, or at least de-activate the comments option. Anonymous posts usually won’t get a response but ‘asdf’ raised a valid point. Or, perhaps ‘asdf’ is a competitor and doesn’t want me running nats, haha.
As far as my foot goes it feels fine most of the time while I’m running and for a couple of hours after a run it feels pretty good. I’m planning on getting some imaging done to get some more info on the injury. If this race was leading right into specific marathon training I would definitely be more cautious but I’ll have more than a month before my build-up begins in mid-January.
The workout on Saturday went really well. I was a little worried going into the workout because of my lack of running but my fitness is fine (good amount of x-training) and I’m running enough to keep my running legs. Our workout consisted of a small tempo to get warmed-up and then 3 sets of 1500m + 500m (60 seconds between intervals and 3 minutes between sets) and then 1km at the end. Here’s the crazy part; all my 1500m times were within 3 tenths of a second (4:25.5 to 4:25.8). And because each set consisted of 2km of running on a 2.5km loop each 1500m was run on a different section. The km at the end was 2:48. The reason why I was happy with the workout was because I was able to run under control and didn’t suffer. Don’t get me wrong, it was a tough workout however, I didn’t feel like I was going to the well, that will be for this Saturday!
I finally got around to recycling my shoe boxes after a couple of years and thought I’d take an epic pic before I flattened and tied them.
It’s kind of geeky but I often take pics of the Catalpa in my backyard. The mist and street light make it look pretty cool.
I heard a voice say catch me if you can
My club, Speed River, is hosting the Canadian Cross Country Championships in Guelph on November 27th. This is the fourth and final year that the race is being held in Guelph. In the first year, 2007, I won the race (thanks to Bairu not showing up, haha). In 2008 I broke my foot less than a month before the race. In 2009 I was in good shape and I came down with H1N1 flying back from Japan less than a week before the race. Needless to say I want to race this year, badly.
My cross-country training started late because of the September 26th marathon however, by late October things were clicking along pretty well. Mileage was solid around 180km/week for three weeks and workouts were building on each other. A pain in my foot was getting slightly worse (sometimes if got better) as the weeks went by until finally last week I ony ran three times. So far this week I’ve only run once.
Yesterday I went to see the doctor about getting a cortisone injection to clear up my foot faster but she said that if I got the shot I shouldn’t run for seven days. Well if I got the shot 11 days before the race and I had to take 7 days off then I wouldn’t want to race anyways. Plan B is to keep on given ‘er… well actually the plan to take some prescription anti-inflammatories and keep running every other day with a special foot insert. My foot is slowly getting better. I’m sure it would heal faster if I took complete rest from running, but like I said, I stubbornly want to race nationals. If my foot gets any worse I will call off the race and take some rest.
This Saturday I’m going to do a workout on the National XC course and decide if I’m ready to race Nationals. I’ve been cross-training pretty well but with such a lack of running there is still a big question mark. I hate making big decisions off little information but I really feel that I can get a good idea of my fitness with some work on a familiar course.
Did I mention that Simon Bairu is not on the start list? I’m sure I’ll have my hands full with a lot of other guys given my lead-up to the race.
Here’s a video of the 1979 World Cup. There are a few reasons why this video is cool: There is a 10 000m at the World Cup (now called the Continental Cup the longest distance is 5000m). Peter Butler from Canada is in the race. The World Cup was held in Canada (Montreal). Finally, the last two laps are awesome (with that in mind just watch the first 1 minute and the last 2 minutes).
Lift up your feet and put them on the ground
Well I won’t be racing the Casablanca 8km tomorrow because my foot is still bothering me. I went to the Chiropodist (I didn’t even know that word existed) yesterday and I was told I have capsulitis of the second toe. If you’re having foot problems I suggest going to see Dr. Marando at the Niagara Foot Care Clinic in Grimsby. My plan is to hit up the X-training and let this thing heal in the hopes of running Nats XC. My main priority is to be ready for a Spring marathon and be 100% for training in January when the build-up begins.
Speaking of January, my trip to Kenya has been pushed back one week. It turns out the Cinque Mulini race in Italy is this year’s European Club Cross Champs and there is no race for non-Europeans. I had read that this year’s race was going to be the ECCC but I didn’t realize they were cutting out the international elite race. The new plan is to race in Hannuit, Belgium on February 13th. As much as I was looking forward to racing through barns (windmills) I’m happy to be going back to Belgium.
A lot of people asked me what happened to Simon in NYC but I never saw him after the race. I did get a chance to see him the day before the race. I also saw him just after mile 17 and he was looking pretty good. Apparently a few miles later he ran into fueling issues and hit the “wall” and ended up in an ambulance. It sounds like he didn’t really need the ambulance, just needed some food, article here.
Bairu on 1st Ave, just past 17 miles.
Park ’em NYC style.
CIS XC Champs in Sherbrooke this weekend. Let’s GO GRYPHONS!!
Now there’s no leaving New York
I spent all of last week in NYC. For the first four days I was there with New Balance filming a commercial that will air in February. I’m not sure how much actual ‘face-time’ I’ll get as there were about 12 NB athletes from all over the place and I was not one of the main ‘stars’. The shoot itself was quite the experience and was a much bigger production than I anticipated. I think the spot is going to look really cool and I can’t wait to see the finished product.
The set of the NB production.
NB treated us well for the trip and then everyone was scheduled to leave on Thursday. I asked them to book my departure flight on Sunday to stay on my own so I could watch the NYC marathon. Let’s just say it would have been better to live cheaply and then upgrade instead of having the good life and then downsizing.
On Friday I did a workout through Central Park and saw a bunch of the marathoners doing some running and light strides. Two-time NYC marathon champ Marilson Gomes Dos Santos was watching me do a workout and gave me the look as if to say “you’re nuts for going hard two days before a marathon”. I’m guessing he recognized me from the World Champs last year because I was surprised it looked like he knew me. My workout went well but it beat up my left foot again, too much road in one week. The next day I was again running in Central Park and as I passed Marilson I gave him the “you don’t want to be racing me” look, complete with a head nod. He gave me the “I’ll see you on the line” stare right back. I’m sure he’s a nice guy but it was kind of fun to play head games with him when I’m not even racing.
The women’s race was really close. 1-2-3 neck and neck 39km into the race!
Here’s a shot of eventual winner Gebre Gebremariam right before the 40km mark. I was waiting for Bairu to come by and after a while I realized he must have dropped (he did at 22 miles). I was so interested in Bairu’s result that it didn’t occur to me until a little while later that I didn’t see Haile G go by either.
So back to my foot. It was really sore after Friday’s workout and I decided to not run again that afternoon. On Saturday I was scheduled for 30km but was ready to pull the chute if my foot was in too much pain. I strapped on a pair of NB 860’s (lots of cushion) and ran about 25 of 30km around the soft Bridle path and reservoir. Even after a 30km run my foot was feeling better. On marathon day I was running around the streets trying to catch glimpses of the race so this morning I relegated myself to the pool. Once again this will be a week where I spend plenty of time in the pool to heal my foot as I prep for the Tim Horton’s Casablanca 8km in Grimsby this Saturday.
I got to do some sight-seeing on this trip and one of the things I thought was really cool was the High Line. It’s an old raised railway that has been converted to green space. Right now it spans about 10 blocks in Chelsea but it’s going to be much longer in the near future. Here’s pic of the High Line and another one from the High Line looking into the city before sunset.
Old times good times
I thought I’d give an update on my last race but since I’m pretty busy here in NYC I’m going to make this a quick one and fill in space with pictures and a link to a great article.
This past Sunday I raced a Masters XC race at Sunnybrook Park (a master is technically over 40 but they let 30 year olds race as well). I went up to Sunnybrook with the Harbour team who wanted me to run for them to help them dethrone the Newmarket Huskies. The plan was foiled by someone and I ran solo for Speed River. The Harbour guys finished second, again. I won the race in 25:23 although Jerry Kooymans won the overall age-graded result as I was second. Unlike Senior Nationals, the Masters run up the steep hill at Sunnybrook. And not the same hill I ran up at OFSAA many years ago, but the ‘Bob Moore’ hill.
She’s a steep one! And muddy too.
OK, here is the fascinating read of the week, it’s the confessions of Eddy Hellebuyk. I love how he names names. It makes you wonder what other drug cheats will come clean after years of denial.
the clouds keep rolling on in
It’s been one month since I raced the marathon and I now have my fourth workout under my belt. The next six weeks will be devoted to 10km cross country training. My second workout back was a long tempo and that went well, god knows I’ve done a lot of those workouts in the past few months. A couple of days later I did 7 X 5 minutes which was a bit slow, but not bad. Today I did 1km, 1.5km, 2km, 1.5km, 1km with the group in Guelph. Today’s workout was a little uncomfortable but seeing that it’s been a while since I’ve been in that zone I would say things are coming along just fine. I’m glad I don’t have to race Matt ‘the Champ’ Brunsting in the next few weeks as he was rolling over the XC course today.
Last week when I was doing the tempo I kept stepping on stones right on the ball of my left foot. I was running beside Destroyer and I would let out a little yelp when it hit the ‘sweet spot’. I think my foot is bruised (don’t think it’s anything worse) so I’m going to run in a more cushioned shoe than I’m used to for a couple of weeks. I’ll also up the pool running a bit and cut back slightly with my mileage.
On Sunday (24th) I participated in the Audi Best Buddies 10km road race in Toronto. This race has a lot of potential, for the innaugural event the race was quite impressive. The Shops at Don Mills is a great venue, the organization was top notch and the course is nice with a couple of challenging hills. I ran with one of the corporate sponsors from Audi for the 10km and came in with a 48:46. Scott Moir (45min) ran with us for the first 5km and then sped ahead to make sure he beat Mike Weir (50min), they had some all-in-good-fun-trash-talk beforehand.
Here’s a shot after the race, a very positive group of people.
I’m really looking forward to watching the NYC marathon on November 7th. Kimbia has a cool series on Bairu, Nelson and Flanagan who are all debuting in the marathon. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to watch the race.
Next up for me is a XC race this Sunday at Sunnybrook park. It’s an 8km masters race with a team component. I’ll be racing with some of my friends and I’ll be the young guy on the team which is a fun change from being the ‘vet’ on the Speed River team. Two weeks later I will be running the Casablanca road race in Grimsby and hopefully by then I should be able to go reasonably hard and set-up Nationals XC.
It seems strange how we used to wait for letters to arrive
I was the official starter for a high school XC meet by my house last week. I was also officially late for the first race and officially waiting on the wrong starting line for the third race. It’s actually pretty pathetic that I was late seeing as my house is less than 1km from the start line.
Back in my early highschool days we had to wait for the newspapers to print the results to find out how other regional meets went. Now kids are able to watch their races on sites such as Flotrack and Runnerspace later that day. Runnerspace was covering the meet last week and asked me a couple of questions. I didn’t answer the first question too well… I think I was worried about missing the start of another race and I was holding the starter’s pistol this time.
I thought the lurkers in the background (1:03) were going to provide some entertainment.
Aftermath
Not too much to write about as I’m just getting back into the running thing, so if you want to read a long post I suggest you go to Max Paquette’s blog .
I have a busy week coming up. I have a talk Tuesday at Runner’s Life in Peterborough, Thursday I’m talking to a marathon group in Oakville, Friday I’ll be at the Hammerheads banquet, Saturday I’ll be at the Running Company in Oakville and finally on Sunday I’ll be at the Audi Best Buddies 10km in Toronto. Some of these things I put off to do after the marathon as to not interfere with training, some came up because of the marathon and others just happen to fall this week. I couldn’t even imagine having a week like this when I’m training for the marathon. This is a good time to be doing this extra stuff as I’m not yet up to full XC training volume.
Flotrack has a pretty cool 5 part series on Geb that they are showing in anticipation for his NYC marathon debut on November 7th. I’m going to be in NYC to check out the marathon live. I’ll have to figure out the best way to watch the action unfold and cheer on Bairu.
Well, I’ve got to run to keep from hiding
Recovery from the marathon keeps going much better than expected. I waited 10 days like I said I would and started back slowly. I’ve had a few good runs and I’m really looking forward to getting the cross-country season underway.
I’m going to start heading to 4:30 practices with Speed River 2-3 times/week with a focus on the National XC Championships at the end of November. Since June I’ve been training with Gillis (sometimes Destroyer too) in the morning. That training was all good and fun but there’s nothing like the camaraderie of the whole group.
For the past week I’ve been organizing a training trip to Iten, Kenya for January. My plan is to go there for four weeks and then race a European XC race on the way home. The problem is that I’m having a hard time finding 2011 dates for some of the good XC races at the end of January or beginning of February. Once I know where I’m racing I can book my flights. Training in Kenya and racing a European XC race have always been on my bucket list and I think the timing works out well with conjunction of an April Marathon.
Why Kenya? The altitude (7500 feet) and temps (mid-20’s) are a big draw but I also want to dive into their running culture and witness it firsthand. I think I can learn a lot while training in Kenya.
In the meantime I’m trying to learn a little Swahili.
Here’s picture of the track in Iten. Insert joke about U of G’s campus…
Kwaheri.
FLOAT ON 