I guess I wasn't kidding when I titled my last post ... six bloody weeks ago!! It isn't really practical (or even remotely interesting!) for me to detail out 6 weeks worth of workout material, so I'll just try to hit the highlights.
As I mentioned in my last entry, I was preparing for the Oak Bay KOOL 1/2 Marathon. I've gotta give a shout out to Dave Milne and his staff at Peninsula Runners for putting on a great event. Race day (May 25th) dawned calm and cloudy - perfect racing conditions! I took off at the start maybe a wee bit too fast (3'49" first km) but settled down and hit the 10K mark at 39'59" - bang on projected pace. The second 10K has a bit more "up" than "down" in it, so I wasn't tremendously surprised with 40'55" for the second 10K split. Official finish time ... 1:25:03, which was fast enough for a 14th place overall finish, and a (surprising!) 3rd place in my age category. The full list of results is here. One other point of interest for this race - having run most of the course on my own, I was lucky enough to hook up with 2 other runners for the last 4 km's or so (is 3 runners considered a pack?). We traded off the lead several times, and with just a few hundred metres to go (most of which was uphill) they took off and left me in their wake. I just didn't have anything left in the tank for a solid finish kick. Kudos to them both for pulling me along those last few km's - thanx Jordan and Greg.
This year, so far, has been a banner year for me in the running department - I've set PR's at 5K, 10K and half-marathon distances, and have thus far remained mostly injury-free. All the signs are pointing to another PR this fall at the Royal Victoria Marathon in October. There are no guarantees at the marathon distance, tho .. last year I started the race feeling totally pumped for a PR, and ended up not even finishing (see this post for a full recap). This year, I have chosen to follow a (very ambitious!) training program designed by Bruce Deacon. I'll try to keep you posted on my progress - I'm finding it very hard to squeeze in "blog time" between work and running and the rest of my life.
I did hit one major milestone earlier this month. Before I get there, I have to digress into a bit of history... Although I ran in high school and military college, I drifted away from the sport in 1990. For the next 14 years, I didn't pay much attention to my health ... I smoked for over 10 of those years, and tried quitting several times before it finally stuck. There were a couple of failed attempts at returning to running in earnest as well. I marked my official "quit date" as August 28th, 2004. My "return to running" started (painfully, if memory serves) on October 1st that same year. Since that first run, I have been faithfully logging my workouts, and keeping track of my total mileage. On June 3rd, I officially passed the 8000 km mark of cumulative distance. I haven't figured out how many training hours that translates into - lots and lots would be the short answer!
As I mentioned in my last entry, I was preparing for the Oak Bay KOOL 1/2 Marathon. I've gotta give a shout out to Dave Milne and his staff at Peninsula Runners for putting on a great event. Race day (May 25th) dawned calm and cloudy - perfect racing conditions! I took off at the start maybe a wee bit too fast (3'49" first km) but settled down and hit the 10K mark at 39'59" - bang on projected pace. The second 10K has a bit more "up" than "down" in it, so I wasn't tremendously surprised with 40'55" for the second 10K split. Official finish time ... 1:25:03, which was fast enough for a 14th place overall finish, and a (surprising!) 3rd place in my age category. The full list of results is here. One other point of interest for this race - having run most of the course on my own, I was lucky enough to hook up with 2 other runners for the last 4 km's or so (is 3 runners considered a pack?). We traded off the lead several times, and with just a few hundred metres to go (most of which was uphill) they took off and left me in their wake. I just didn't have anything left in the tank for a solid finish kick. Kudos to them both for pulling me along those last few km's - thanx Jordan and Greg.
This year, so far, has been a banner year for me in the running department - I've set PR's at 5K, 10K and half-marathon distances, and have thus far remained mostly injury-free. All the signs are pointing to another PR this fall at the Royal Victoria Marathon in October. There are no guarantees at the marathon distance, tho .. last year I started the race feeling totally pumped for a PR, and ended up not even finishing (see this post for a full recap). This year, I have chosen to follow a (very ambitious!) training program designed by Bruce Deacon. I'll try to keep you posted on my progress - I'm finding it very hard to squeeze in "blog time" between work and running and the rest of my life.
I did hit one major milestone earlier this month. Before I get there, I have to digress into a bit of history... Although I ran in high school and military college, I drifted away from the sport in 1990. For the next 14 years, I didn't pay much attention to my health ... I smoked for over 10 of those years, and tried quitting several times before it finally stuck. There were a couple of failed attempts at returning to running in earnest as well. I marked my official "quit date" as August 28th, 2004. My "return to running" started (painfully, if memory serves) on October 1st that same year. Since that first run, I have been faithfully logging my workouts, and keeping track of my total mileage. On June 3rd, I officially passed the 8000 km mark of cumulative distance. I haven't figured out how many training hours that translates into - lots and lots would be the short answer!
One last bit of news ... Michelle and I are looking forward to July 1st - we're both participating in the HBC "Run for Canada" here in Victoria. I'm running the 10K event at 8:00 AM, then Michelle and I are going to do the 3km walk together at 10:00. We're both very excited - it's a great cause and a fun way to spend some time together, too!
That's enough for tonight (that's more than enough you might say!) I'll try to post shorter, more frequent entries, but I can't promise anything. For anyone who stuck around to the end of this post, thanx for taking the time to read.
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