July 12th, 2010
Taipei, Taiwan 101 building and city scape.
I’m back in Taipei after a few months in The Czech Republic. The next month of training will be in preparation for a series of three races in Canada – Loop the Lake (Half Marathon, August 7, 2010), Canadian Derby Edmonton (Half Marathon, August 22, 2010) and the Toronto Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon (September 26, 2010).
The Czech portion of my training focused on strength. Running the Silva Nortica cross country marathon in June involved hills and the need for endurance. I enjoyed being in the woods, the uneven terrain and solitude reminded me of Canada. My heart would go through the cycle of jumping out of my chest and recovering as I made my way up and down the trails. Gasping for breath brought back fond memories of the trails on The Sunshine Coast just north of Vancouver.
Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger and Scott Douglas
The Canadian races will be an attempt at increasing my speed. Loop the Lake is a training event where I’ll monitor my fitness level. A 5 min/km pace will test how well I can maintain the pace over the duration of the race. Based on the results, the Edmonton race will be an incorporation of the feedback and an effort to set a new personal record (PR) at the half marathon distance. 1:49:29 is the PR time to beat. At 5km/min, 1:45:00 could be the next race duration I’ll fixated on for my number days. Both races will ultamatly lead to the goal of a strong finish at the Toronto Marathon a month later. Running a sub 4 hour marathon remains as my main focus.
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Tags: Moving to Taipei, Running Goals, Tempo Run
Posted in 10km, Intervals, Tempo Runs, Training | 4 Comments »
July 7th, 2010
Running sequence by Eadweard J. Muybridge
After running the Silva Nortica it occurred to me that not all marathons are created equal. The effort needed to run 42.2 kilometers can vary greatly depending on the conditions of the route and the climate of the event day.
Runners are obsessed with time as a means to track ones progress but also as a way to compare themselves to other runners. When only time and distance are variables in the comparison the results can be unreliable. Often there are many other factors at play.
Rock climbing has a comprehensive rating system called the “Grade” system. Two participants can exchange experiences and related rating values of a climb as a basis of comparison. I think distance running could use a similar system. An example of such a system is one used by events like Dipsea, the oldest trail race in America. An explanation of their handicap system is on their web site.
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Tags: Running Goals, Silva Nortica, Why I Run?
Posted in Silva Nortica, Why I Run? | No Comments »
June 29th, 2010
Silva Nortica - Run this way!
42 kilometers, an impressive distance considering most people use their car to drive to the corner store. Often promoted as “flat and fast“, city marathons attract thousands, sometime tens of thousands of participants. Then there’s the cross country marathon, again 42 kilometers but the terrain varies greatly. With the addition of water crossings, forest trails, rocky paths and of course the beloved hills, it’s difficult to compare. They’re still called “marathons” due to the distance but the effort necessary is in a whole difference league. The city marathons look like a trip to the corner store after running a cross country event.
The Silva Nortica Marathon was my third marathon and my first cross country race. I recently completed my second marathon at the Prague International Marathon. Read my entry on the Prague event to get an understanding of where I’m at in my running career. In summary, I’m still very new to the process, not an absolute “newbee” but still a lot to learn.
Silva Nortica Marathon Map with a marker to Krumlov, the city Jani introduced me to as the short residence of the great painter Egon Schiele in 1911.
The Silva Nortica Marathon is actually the “little” run of the event. At the same time, a 85 kilometer ultra marathon event does a loop covering both sides of the Czech and Austrian border. I spent all of my time in Austria with the end of the race at the border crossing into the Czech Republic.
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Tags: Cross Country, Pain, Running Goals, Silva Nortica, The Czech Republic, Tourist
Posted in Czech Republic, Injuries, Races, Running Locations, Silva Nortica, Training | 2 Comments »
June 24th, 2010
Bugs, they’re everywhere. As we run, our mouths wide open, scooping up as much air as humanly possible, bugs find the pipeline that starts with our mouth irresistible. Interestingly most people have an issue with bugs. At first sight most go into a fit of rage, jumping and waving our hands typically ending with the death of the creature. Why are we so afraid?
As runners, we encounter many of our winged friends. Some simply bounce off of our foreheads while other less fortunate actually enter our bodies. Intentional or not, our instinct is to get them out as fast as possible. On a rational level, why do we resist a little added protein to our diet? We eat flesh all the time. The ideal of catching fish and eating it soon after is considered perfection by many. The fact that the fish probably enjoyed eating it’s favourite bug a few minutes before it found our hook doesn’t seem to be an issue.
Running in Alberta, the roads at dusk always left my chest and face covered in little black flies. Running too slow gave them an opportunity to land and indulge in some of my blood. I think of it as a great motivator, run or be eaten. With my mouth open, I even had the opportunity to sample a few of them before I became dinner. I think of it as the cycle of life.
There is always “the one that got away“. True to any self respecting fish tale, my comparable bug story involved a hornet at English Bay in Vancouver last summer. Towards the end of a long run, fatigue running high, I could see a bug in the distance. Flying perpendicular to me, our paths were sure to cross. In slow motion, the bug turned in a wide arch heading strait towards me. My mouth open, what are the chances it would fly strait in? Apparently 100%, to my shock my head was filled with a buzzing sound.
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Tags: Embarrassment, Masochistic, Pain, Vancouver
Posted in Injuries | 2 Comments »
June 22nd, 2010
I love running hills. There just happens to be a few races that have hills. Just about every cross country race has hills and the ultra-marathons (anything over 42km) seems to have them by default. If you happen to have masochistic tendencies it helps as well.
Silva Nortica marathon 2010 start. I'm the one in yellow with the blue cap.
Perspective seems like a good thing to mention in this discussion. When I say “hills”, perhaps some think of little ups and downs on the road. I mean elevation changes in general. Elevation changes over the course of a race, typically measured in hundreds of metres, sometimes thousands. It’s rare that a city marathon has even the slightest elevation change with event sales pitches talking of “flat and fast”. There are a few hilly road marathons that I have on my wish list but in general it’s all about going as fast as possible. Hills don’t lend well to a fast race.
I recently ran my first cross country marathon, the Silva Nortica. My finish time was 5:02 which put me very close to the back of the pack of 20 contestants. Something to note about cross country and ultra races in general, they’re small. There’s often not a lot of fane fare to the events and not many contestants. Five hours is not impressive in the city marathon realm where they’re typically tens of thousands of runners, actually it’s not impressive in cross country either but still a milestone for me. In my limited experience, I would call Silva Nortica the hardest and the most proud of a race I’ve run to date.
42 kilometers across the Czech and Austrian country side in the Silva race made my last marathon, the Prague International Marathon seem easy. The distance was the same but the effort necessary wasn’t even close. I’ll provide details on my Silva Nortica run in a later post, for now I’ll describe it simply as “kick ass” in more ways than my bum is willing to mention at this time.
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Tags: Hills, Masochistic, Prague International Marathon, Silva Nortica, The Czech Republic, Tourist, ultra marathons
Posted in Czech Republic, Hills, Prague International Marathon, Races, Running Locations, Silva Nortica | 1 Comment »
