16 Mile (24.56 Km) Long Run - A tough run in heavy humidity..

I don't do well in humidity. But, still, you'd think by now after doing runs up to 24+ miles in this training session, a 16 mile run wouldn't be a challenge on a humid day. But you'd think wrong. It seems everyone was being challenged. I just took it easy and ran with Bob Ripley the entire run. Bob was happy with the run -- it was a fair bit faster than he's done generally. Here are our splits:

5:29
5:26
5:39
5:25
5:29
5:30
5:25
5:18
5:20
5:25
5:52
5:46
5:46
5:32
5:13
5:24
5:41
5:42
5:33
5:23
5:25
5:24
5:41
5:44
5:45
5:38 (pace for 560 m.)

We took LOTS of water stops. I drank a cup of water at every chance I got and I was still dehydrated at the end. Our pace, overall, was 5:32 per kilometre. Today, I'll take it!

Excellent 9 mile tempo run from Gibbons Park

Tonight, the Legendary Marathon Training Coach, John Ferguson, had us doing a 9 mile tempo run. This was the same run as last week, which did not go well for me. But this week was different. Several degrees cooler and virtually no humidity. When I started the run, I felt cautiously optimistic, but by the time I hit the turn-around point (across the walkbridge to Thames Valley Golf Course), I really wasn't sure how it would work out. Erin Visser ran with me for the first couple of kilometres. I was targeting 4:35 per kilometre. Here are my splits:

5:37
5:42
5:19
5:13
5:14
5:17
5:18
4:34
4:35
4:33
4:30 (up Terry Fox Parkway!)
4:32
4:37 (through Harris Park!)
4:27

By any measure, this was a very successful run. I felt strong the whole way. I didn't stop at any water stops. My average pace on the way back was 4:32.61 (7:19/mile). The only time I've run a 9 mile run better was in October 2011 (before my personal best marathon) when I did the first 7 km back in 4:31.14 -- but it was a much different route. (http://blog.brucelamb.com/2011/10/tempo-run-149-km-448-average-pace.html). And this was much faster than my March 29 2012 run (http://blog.brucelamb.com/2012/03/hamstring-treatment-week-20-tempo-run-9.html) when I did it in 4:36 per km and my July 25 2013 run ( http://blog.brucelamb.com/2013/07/9-mile-tempo-run.html) which was 4:35 per km.

It was a good day!

5 x 1 Mile Repeats on a Humid Day in Gibbons Park

Coach John Ferguson told us to go easy tonight. 31 degrees C before we started, plus the humidity (I heard "feels like 40+ degrees" today on the radio) meant that things could go sideways pretty quickly. He told us to do the first repeat at marathon pace (7:50/mile) -- but we couldn't go that slowly. Here are my splits:

7:20.67
7:14.18
7:13.02
7:10.08
7:00.80

After the first mile, I targeted 7:30 per mile, but I still couldn't go that slowly despite the fact that I was breathing hard. For the last repeat, though, I really wanted to get under 7 minutes -- and probably would have if I hadn't had to do a 180-degree about face a the half mile mark to run back to the starting area.

So, a tough night to run, but we made the best of it. Quite happy with the result!

Long Run - 39.41 km (24.5 miles) from Wharncliffe & Briscoe to Port Stanley

Today was the 2nd of 3 Port Stanley runs. Bernie LeForte and I started out at 7:20 AM from Wharncliffe Road at Briscoe and started making our way towards Port Stanley. It was supposed to be a hot humid day, but while I was still overheating, the temperature reached about 22 degrees with a bit of a breeze from the south and overcast. So, as August runs go, the weather wasn't awful. I was targeting 5:17 per kilometre (8:30 per mile). Here are my splits:

5:50
5:35
5:20
5:13
5:11
5:15
5:17
5:16
5:18
5:21
5:15
5:20
5:18
5:08
5:07
5:23
5:23
5:23
5:15
5:13
5:22
5:17
5:16
4:59
5:40
5:28
5:39
5:27
5:19
5:17
5:16
5:19
5:17
5:33
5:31
5:03
5:10
5:22
5:22
4:53 (pace for 410 m.)

Total time: 3:30:06. Average pace: 5:20. So pretty close to my target.

I took extra long breaks in the second half of the run, though, just to cool down. My daughter Karen gave me a couple of extra "in-between" water stops at the 2K marks between the last two water stops and the finish at Port Stanley. She had wash cloths in ice water which did a great job of cooling me down. So, by the end, I finished reasonably strongly.

Was it a great run? No. But it was a good run, and I finished the distance so I'm happy.

Tempo Run - 9 Miles. Didn't go well...

Tonight was a bit humid and about 25 degrees -- so I wasn't sure how our 9 mile tempo run was going to go. I found out pretty much as soon as I made the turnaround back to Gibbons Park from the walkbridge to the golf club: Not well! I was targeting between 4:30 and 4:35 per km. Here are my splits:

5:28
5:13
5:15
5:17
5:18
5:16
5:16
(Turnaround)
4:32
4:32
4:41
4:42
4:54
5:33
5:17

My average pace was 5:06, which doesn't sound terrible. But my legs felt like lead and so by the time I hit the water stop at the forks (which my original plan was to skip), I was just trying to hold it together. Steve Dixon paced me back for those last 2 kilometres which we just did as a cool-down.

So, pretty much par for the course on a warm, slightly muggy day!

Speed Work - 4 x 1 Mile Repeats

Tonight, Coach John had us doing our first set of mile repeats. We were to do 4 repeats with a 2:30 break between each repeat. I was aiming for 52 second 200 splits (6:56 per mile). Here are 1 mile splits:

6:55.14
6:51.82
6:53.74
6:51.08

So I beat my goal with every lap and was able to push it for the last repeat. My average was 6:52.95 per mile -- almost identical to the average I did in April 2013 (6:53 even).

It was a good night!

Excellent 35.38 km (22.1 mile) Long Run

Today, Coach John had us start with about a 1.6 mile out-and-back in Gibbons park, and then we continued our regular circuit down to Boler and Southdale, over to Wickerson, an out-and-back along Baseline to West Del Borne, back into Byron, up to St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary (Sanatorium & Oxford), and back through the park to Gibbons again.

Marc Labreche, Brian Kilborne and Bernie Laforte let me tag along. They had a very healthy pace all the way back. Here are our splits:

5:44
5:51
5:46
5:34
5:21
5:18
5:20
5:18
5:18
5:24
5:15
5:22
5:34
5:36
5:34
5:21
5:01
5:32
5:05
5:03
5:12
4:59
4:55
5:14
5:02
4:49
5:06
5:07
5:10
5:05
5:10
5:02
5:00
5:08
5:04
4:48 pace for 380 m.

Note that we were considerably faster coming back then we were going out -- and the last 10k were basically a gradual uphill from the far west end of Springbank Park

Average pace 5:16/km over 35.38 kilometres. I'll put this in the books as an excellent run!