Around The Bay Race '08

I have recently been training at about 100km to 110km /week. On my long runs of 30km I have been running the last half at marathon pace or doing some threshold pace (5 x 1 mile). I have been getting some help from a coach over e-mails. I am going to be meeting this coach in Pickering on the 15th. I originally was going to keep my mileage for training at the same level and start doing some more speed work. I was told that I should do the above because my shorter races are fast and I should be able to do the marathon at my goal of 3:10. (i.e. Vdot table of 10k at 40 minutes indicates an expected race time of the marathon at around 3:10.)

I think that this training is working! I ran the around the bay race at 2:12:02. The start was terrible, just like the 5k race 2 years ago. So many people. However, this time it was mostly my fault for not going out early to get a good spot. I didn't cross the start until about a minute and half. My chip time was about 2:10:34. I started out just jogging with the slower group at the back, but quickly realized that I had better get going a little bit more. The crowd was just not thinning out fast enough for me. So I ended up running on the side walk for about 2k passing people. I thought I was running too slow. I didn't see the kilometer markings until about 3k into the race. I pressed the lap button on my old heart rate monitor watch. I decided to try that one again instead of my garmin. I remember a number of times seeing 4:12, 4:17, 4:20...yada yada. Never 4:25, which was my original goal pace. The crowd was starting to thin out, but I was still passing people. There was one point where I thought this one lady would be running at about the same pace. This was just past half way through the race. I checked my watch at the next k and it was around 4:32. I motored on, then got a stomach cramp at about the 21st kilometer through the rolling hills. I skipped the next water station and the cramp went away. I was feeling good, and starting to feel the pace a bit, but it really wasn't that bad. I got another cramp just before the big hill. It was really starting to peeve me off. It went away finally. I just ran at a respectable pace the rest of the way in. I am not really sure what it was but less than a kilometer away from the finish, I see this lady I mentioned above pass me. That's OK I thought this is just a training run for May 11 in London, just save it baby!

The legs felt really good afterwards, nothing like what they were at the Toronto Marathon. I also ran about 90k this week and feel like have recovered.