Vancouver Sun Run and Victoria Times Colonist - Race Reports

I even have geeky graphs and analysis in this post, ala Science of Sport

Vancouver Sun Run and Victoria Times Colonist

It is the peak of the spring running season in British Columbia at the moment and the last two weeks have heralded two of the major 10km races on the Calendar. Both these races are sponsored and promoted by the local newspapers and hence get a large turnout.

Vancouver Sun Run

First was Vancouver’s Sun Run which tours the edge of Stanley Park, English Bay and Vancouver with 50,000 other runners and walkers. This course taunts a conservative pacing effort and negative splits with a downhill first km and two bridge crossings in the second half of the race.

After what I felt was a restrained first mile I looked at my watch and was at 5:07 mile pace, a lot faster than my plan of 5:25. The race then cuts along the bay and groups tend to form, unfortunately I couldn’t really find a defined pack and didn’t risk expending the energy to bridge to the large pack about 100m ahead.

After the halfway point I was a 17:20 and looking to accelerate off the top of the Burrard Street bridge. However in the second 5km I ended up focussing on trying to maintain a pace in the headwind that sprung up and maintain position. With no pack to speak of and still carrying the remnants of a cold this section was a bit of a slog, ended up going with a runner who was accelerating through and managed to pick up a couple positions in the last km over the Cambie street bridge.

End result 35:21 finishing 93rd overall. Not as fast as I would have liked by ran pretty strong and just lacked the speed that I was hoping for.

Victoria Times Colonist

After recovering pretty quickly from Sun Run and having a good hit out at the Forerunners clinic midweek decided to do the” Newspaper double” and head over to Vancouver Island for the Times Colonist 10k a week later. With my season of triathlon racing approaching soon I decided to train through this one and still get my miles in on the bike in the couple days before.

Having ridden to Victoria from the ferry the night before and having done my normal Friday Night and Saturday Rides I came to the start line reasonably fresh considering I had clocked 200km on the bike in the previous 36 hours.

The main goal for this race was to start conservative and pace it well. So crossing the 1km mark in Beacon Hill Park right on 3:30 meant my goal was achieved! Only problem was had 9km of a race left and about 12000 behind me so still had to work . After maintaining my pace for the next couple km’s I settled into to a small group and looked to go with any small breaks. Doing this allowed me to gain a couple places coming into the 5km mark which I passed at 17:32.

The next couple of km’s weren’t great and lost a bit of ground on my pace and couldn’t hold the group I had caught at 5km. managed to hold the gap at around 15 seconds and worked to maintain this as we left the coast and the view of the Olympia mountains and headed up the hill and into downtown Victoria. With about 1km to go it was attack or be attacked and finished of with a 3:21 km grabbing about 3 places in the 400m for a final time of 35:46 and 48^th Overall.

Week in review

In the space of 7 days had two good but not great races and definitely improved my pacing strategy over the week. To only run Times Colonist 26 seconds slower with no taper compared to the Sun Run was a good sign for the triathlon season to come. Having come off a cold and a March injury was happy to be running well even though did not PR in any of the races

Have been training and running in my Newton Trainers and Racer’s for the last 6 months now and my feet feel a lot less beat up than they did previously allowing me to focus on achieving the targets of my specific training sessions.

Next on the agenda is a couple months of training focussing on hitting training goals each week with a few “no taper” races thrown in to the mix before focusing on one of the Half Ironman Triathlon races on my schedule and the Scotiabank Half marathon.

2009 Thus Far

Date	Race	Time	Overall Place	Division	Division Place
Jan 11th	Pioneer 8km	27:52 (PR)	34/630	M25-29	10/28
Jan 25th	Chilly Chase 10km	34:51 (PR)	3/169	M20-29	3/9
Feb 1st	Icebreaker 8km	27:13 (PR)	13/215	M25-29	4/16
Feb 8th	San Diegeto Half Marathon	1:19:32 (PR)	16/1302	M25-29	3/85
Mar 8th	Harry’s Spring Run-Off 8km	28:11	21/973	M25-29	7/74
Mar 28th	Dave Reed Spring Classic 5km	17:10 (PR)	12/226	M20-34	9/43
Apr 19th	Vancouver Sun Run 10km	35:21	93/42450	M25-29	28/2606
Apr 26th	Times Colonist 10km	35:46	48/9932	M25-29	12/463

Upcoming Schedule

Date	Race
May 10th	Bare Bones Duathlon (Tentative)
May 24th	Shawnigan Lake Half iron Triathlon
June 7th	Persona Oliver Half Iron Triathlon
June 12th	North Shore Credit Union Longest Day 5km (Tentative)
June 14th	Edge to Edge Marathon Relay (Tentative)
June 21st	Victoria Half Iron or Sprint Triathlon (Tentative)
June 28th	Scotiabank Half Marathon
July 1st	Canada Day Open Water Swim (4km)
July 12th	Vancouver Half Iron Triathlon
Aug 30th	Ironman Canada Triathlon

Ninja Training 101

Welcome to the world of ninja Training summarized in a blog post.

What is Ninja Training?

Ninja Training has two definitions;

A. Dressing up totally in black without lights and climbing and descending cypress totally by feel. (IPod with Rally like directions around i.e; Medium Left.). This is not recommended however I am positive I know a couple people who train like this

B. Ninja Training is abandoning the coordination involved in organizing rides with people, planning routes, meeting at designated times and having structure in training. Ideally some night riding is also involved

This weekend could be looked at as my first ninja session of 2009. After work on Friday gunned it home and hopped on the road bike for 1:50 with the daylight remaining and did a 60km ride out to Iona and back via UBC both ways.

Saturday morning decided to show to the club ride and headed out on the Tri bike with Jared, did a couple loops of Iona, headed out richmond for a bit of a sojourn through Steveston then back through UBC with a couple of hard efforts. With ride back and from st georges was most probaly around 95km. Ride route is here, may have missed a couple parts

After a quick lunch and trip to Speed theory for some bike stuff drove to the ferry. After ferry and buffet dinner had 40km ride on road bike into Victoria. Ferry was alte so this involved some ninja riding.

Stayed at Dave and Rhea's 1km from the start of Times Colonist. Went and grabbed package in the am and after warmup and the like the last few minutes ticked down quickly as always. Pain clock then started and we were running. Race report will follow but had a good race, poor section between 5km and 8km but managed to hold position relative to others from 3km on and ran down 3 people in the last km and had a strong finish.

After post race chill headed out on the bike with a quick stop in a fort street cycles. Got advice on differnt routes back to the ferry to avoid quadra and ended up going on the galloping goose trail. My turn off for interurban came quick and although I had my lite back pack with my Newtons and running clothes decided to head out on the trial for a bit. ran out of pavement at km 10 but kept on riding the road bike on the gravel path (a couple interresting short climbs trying to get traction and ended up riding till km 45. Knowing I had the ferry journey back, hit the road a t this point and after a lunch of salami and a mars bar headed back along sooke road before another 10km or so on the trail and then up the coast to the ferry. In the end 5 hour 20 minutes on the bike at a good recovery hr (legs were shot from the 10km) and about 130km of riding (can't gmap full trail).

Ride map is here Definetely not high intensity riding but with about 45km on gravel was definetely a cool ride at a relative low intensity. Hitting hills on west saanich at the end made for a good workout.

Ninja weekend summary;

Avoided all "organisation" in workouts - Partial check, did race and show up to a club ride. Clkub ride did end up being a choose your own adventure.
A lot of solo riding - check
no real plan - check
Night riding - check
Off road riding - check
Absolutely shattered - check
Exotic Locations - Do Sooke, saanich, steveston & victoria count?
No one really knowing exactly were you are- check

In 48 hours
- 325km of riding (200 miles)
- 10km running race (time 35:46 - 48th overall)
- 2 Bc ferries buffets

It's Been a While - Sun Run Post Race Thoughts

Too many posts sitting in the draft folder so here is the bullet post;

Last couple weeks sick, Easter practiced headwind riding with 40% lung capacity in the Okanagan. 10km flat section with tailwind avg. 50km an hour was fun :) Rest was a step closer to hell but no rain so can't complain.

So Sunday was my "A" Running race for the early season. Coming off a cold/allergies had a pretty rested week and felt pretty good coming into the race. Race plan was to take it easy and split 5km around 17 min, conserve energy up the bridge before giving it on the way home.

Full race report is to follow so this is more of a training log entry.

10km - 35:21

M25 to 29: 28/2606
Male: 85/18687
Overall: 93/42540

Start to 1km (3:07) [3:07]

Had a seeded spot so did the normal wait till alst second to get to start line and started about 3 deep on the left side.

Had errie feeling of having left lane to myself for a while down Georgia and tried to hold of the pace in the first km (Split 3:07)

2km (3:26) [6:33]

As headed into the park felt good and went through the mile at 5:15 which was good based on the elevation drop. Ended up splitting km in 3:26, right on plan.

3km (3:24) [9:57]

Was trying to moderate effort here until the 3km mark and had a 3:24 km whihc was good but in reflection may be should have tried harder to stay with a pack at this point.

4km (3:36) [13:13]

Paid for not being with a pack, especially as there was a semblance of a headwind and was trying to moderate effort through this section.

5km (3:46) [17:20]

This has the little uphill kick via howe. Was amybe a little bit to consciuos to run this conservatively and not blow up for no reason that I actually eased into it. Was stil outside a formed pack at this time which did not make it easy. Especially at this point started to feel that lung capcity was not at where I would have liked with the urge to cough on coming on any of the uphills. Would say lung capcity was at 90% which made it really hard to red line.

6km (3:36) [20:56]

This includes the bridge and plan was to take it easy up until the top. Even doing this this took the heck out of me, and when I tried to give it on the downhill was more of a recovery.

7km (3:42) [24:37]

Not sure what happened here, remember was really working to get on to a group and feeling the wind. Also felt like I was working very hard to go slow.

8km (3:39) [28:16]

This is the grind along second and has a little incline. Really started to feel lung capacity here. One thing in reflection is that maybe should have focused on running form and cadence here a little bit more as do not remember doing this. Started to find a group here and went with it at this point.

9km (3:36) [31:52]

Next year my aim will to be done by now. Felt like accelerated a little through this section but the watch doesn't lie. Relative to others was holding pace but this is were staying with a group may have benefited me as there was a good group formed about 200m ahead that would have been nice to hold on to.

10km (3:28km) [35:21]

Got into to true race mode, had a guy working on me in the last km coming up the bridge, pushed the bridge hard to get a break but only got about 10m on home. Downhill had to free wheel and ended up getting him by about 3 seconds so. Was cognizant enough to see Den and Leah taking photos (Action shots to come - can over analyze my foot strike)

Lessons Learned

- Lung Capacity is a pre requisite for a 10km
- Gotta choose your group and fight with it past the 2km mark. Once there gone there gone
- Training has worked well, even though did not run as fast as I would have liked, given 2 weeks off in mid march due to injury and a sickness ladden last week running 35:21 is 2:31 faster than last year and felt like that the speed is there and should bode well for the tri season. Running a lot stronger and in some regards felt like could have tacked another 5 or more km's on at 3:40km pace

Next on the agenda

Good training block, have 3 hours to decide if I should TC10km on the island this weekend. Off for a recovery jog to decide if the ferry is worth the effort.

Shout Outs

Nick - awesome run in Boston 2:50:11 - Here course had headwinds worth at least 5 minutes or so.
Les - First ever running race and ran the whole 10km - sweet effort

Posting because I should

So just a quick post to keep up some continuity. Not much inspirational here but working on a couple posts including how to incorporate commuting into your training as well as sharing my training plan for Q2 2009.

Good week thus far, had another session of Chiro and it went well and have done a couple runs this week with 14km seawall run on Tuesday with 8km of speed work (33 sec hard, 66 seconds recovery x 20 repeats) in the middle.

Had forerunners run tonight which was a 3 mile progression run which ended up running in 18:50 and feeling pretty fresh.

Week holds the following, long run of 2 hours tomorrow night with a 90min cool down on the bike before a weekend of riding with 8 hours to be spent on the bike over the weekend and begin ingraining good habits for the next quarter.

Q1 report to be written up in the next few days, some positives and negatives as well as a few lessons learned with which to build the base for Q2 and fitness for IMC.