CIM Week 8: traveling and training, Part III

This week started in Toronto (pronounced "Toronno" 8). We were in a high rise hotel in the financial area near the center of things but not easy to run these streets so stuck to the treadmill.


On Wednesday I got up early to do 8 miles with three x  2 mile repeats at marathon pace on the treadmill. With the inclination set to 1% (yes, SUAR, we did know about this..did you did miss this memo somehow?) completed this run.


Immediately afterward I felt a little "off"..hard to put my finger on but I figured I'd feel better after breakfast. 

I did but it didn't last, within a couple of hours I was feeling like death-warmed-over..i..e I was getting a bug of some kind. This kinda threw me into a funk because I know that this could turn into something that messes up my training for a couple of weeks easily and that makes my CIM attempt even less likely to be a PR.


I tried to rest as much as possible but there was some sightseeing to be done and so wasn't able to just pack it in and crawl into bed.


I had three days between me and Sunday's long run , which HAD to happen...so starts the thinking process on how to optimized my chances of keeping things on track but also not making my cold (or whatever it was) worse.


During these three days we also were traveling along down to Buffalo, stopping to see Niagara Falls on the way. Both of us had been there as kids but it had been a long time. They were cool! It was a rainy day so we didn't linger but we took a short cable car ride over the whirlpools  and headed on tho Buffalo.

The next morning in East Aurora (just outside of Buffalo) I had taken my rest day early the day before and felt *much* better. Therefore I decided to do a test run and see how it went.





















I was supposed to be doing 5 miles at 1/2MP but it was obvious after 1/2 mile into the first mile that wasn't a good idea. I slowed down and did 4 miles at a recovery pace...thinking even that might have been a mistake. Off we went touring some famous houses in Buffalo (built by Frank Lloyd Wright).




Luckily the next day I felt somewhat better. I took it as a rest day...which was good as we were flying to LAX. I felt better as the day went on (although normally level of tired from traveling. Next day we got up at 6:30 am and did 17.5 miles with miles 11-17 at MP. This was on a 3 mile loop course with about 110 feet of hill in it. I felt like I was working pretty hard for the first mile (ignore the HRs below..the garmin HR monitor was wigging out) but eventually I felt in the groove..

Split	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Max HR	Avg Cadence	Elev+	Elev-	YPB
1	1.00	10:50	147	212	86	91	0	1.105
2	1.00	9:10	137	168	88	30	76	1.401
3	1.00	9:19	148	176	87	0	50	1.276
4	1.00	9:53	133	158	86	59	1	1.337
5	1.00	9:42	131	149	86	71	50	1.383
6	1.00	9:34	128	152	86	0	74	1.437
7	1.00	9:54	134	159	85	42	9	1.327
8	1.00	9:52	131	147	85	86	17	1.362
9	1.00	9:11	124	147	87	0	88	1.546
10	1.00	9:37	129	143	86	16	22	1.419
11	1.00	9:07	137	153	87	101	0	1.409
12	1.00	8:48	134	152	88	0	81	1.493
13	1.00	9:02	131	143	88	0	39	1.487
14	1.00	9:22	142	157	87	103	0	1.323
15	1.00	8:58	136	149	88	28	75	1.443
16	1.00	9:11	130	138	89	0	56	1.474
17	1.00	9:02	139	149	88	23	0	1.399
18	0.58	11:16	127	141	84	11	10	1.221
Summary	17.58	9:30	134	212	87	663	648	1.382

I was very happy to get that long run in and avoid any long term effects from the bug that hit me..it could have been much worse! Oh, and I replaced the HR monitor battery when I got home...so far it seems to be back to normal. 

Next stop...the end of this week: CIM week 7!

Week 9 CIM: traveling and training, part II

Week 9 was a light week (step-back week)..which was a good thing.


After the Deerfield wedding, (which was wonderful...did I mention lots of dancing and up till late before the aforementioned long run @ 6:30am?) we decamped to North Adams, Mass. It's way in the upper left corner of Massachusetts.


My sister and her husband live nearby in Vermont and so we visited with them for a couple of days...seeing some local sites..

downtown North Adams Ma.

We stayed in downtown North Adams. The first day dawned and it was only lightly raining and I had some hill sprints. I went over to East Main St and did what you see below. Not super speedy but I was was still a bit tired from the long run two days before. 


North Adams is a town "in transition", i.e. it was a hopping place when the Sprague Capacitor factory was operating, but that shut down long ago. The huge and beautiful old buildings were re-purposed for the Mass Museum of Contemporary Art, which is very cool, but that hasn't generated too many jobs out there.

Split	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Max HR	Avg Cadence	Elev+	Elev-	YPB
1	0.07	6:57	131	142	92	27	0	2.015
2	0.07	6:60	145	153	97	0	0	1.821
3	0.05	8:39	120	130	94	0	0	1.630
4	0.05	7:40	120	133	93	0	0	1.913
5	0.05	7:35	115	129	94	10	0	2.087
Summary	5.57	11:05	121	165	83	273	256	1.312

Chateau Frontenac

The next couple of days involved treadmill running only ..nothing very interesting to report..and we had made our way from North Adams up to Quebec City, Canada. For a couple of nights we stayed at the Chateau Frontenac..amazing place. Lots of walking here of course including a 2 hour walking tour of the old city 8)

greenspace created at old port Montreal

Next stop Montreal! We stayed near the Vieux Port (old port). I cased out the area the day we arrived as a place to run my 10k time trial the next day. Alas the developed part for tourists was about .8 miles long so we did a back and forth run until we hit 10k.


This route went along the old canal that was built to let boats bypass some very fast, nasty rapids on the Saint Lawrence river.


They had a restored tugboat on the canal.

canal at Montreal old port

This run went well...I hit pretty good paces with an HR that wasn't too high. There was a stiff headwind/tailwind running which didn't help when it was a headwind. Also, having to stop and reverse course every .8 miles cost a few seconds...

Split	Distance	Avg Pace	Avg HR	Max HR	Avg Cadence	YPB
1	1.00	8:02	137	143	91	1.599
2	1.00	8:06	141	144	90	1.541
3	1.00	8:09	142	145	90	1.521
4	1.00	8:04	143	146	89	1.526
5	1.00	8:15	145	148	89	1.471
6	1.00	8:11	143	146	89	1.504
7	0.21	8:03	146	148	90	1.519
Summary	6.21	8:08	142	148	90	1.526

My PR from two years ago for 10k is an 8:00 pace....this is garmin pace so I'm probably 12s per mile slower than my PR..but during that race my average HR was 152, not 142 and I'm pretty sure 10 bpm would get me to a pretty big PR.  I would need the actual race situation to crank the adrenalin to do that but my point is that I'm pretty fit.


I'm also not done yet..on to CIM week 8!


After the 10k we went hiking up in the Mont Royal park (That's where the name Montreal comes from) and eveybody was up there! It was a nice warm sunny day and everybody was enjoying the last bits of summer weather. The walking is really good to keep from stiffening up after a hard run.

view from Mont Royal

can you believe we are in a big city?