Toronto Waterfront Marathon - Training
I spent a decent chunk of the spring injured, and had to drop out of the Toronto Marathon (as distinct from this Waterfront one), very sad. I did some physio, some stretching, and I spent June getting back up to a fairly basic level of fitness and then most of July doing a regular 7-8km run around the only park in Scarborough. This was enough to convince me to try again for a marathon, and, luckily, Toronto has two every year. And now that time has come.
Proper training started, or so I claimed, on July 23, with a mostly gentle 16km run, during which I had my first taste of Tommy Thompson Park, a bit of (kind of scrubby) land that sticks out into the lake, but it’s long, flat and straight and gives you a nice view of the city once you get to the bottom of it.
I stuck mostly, life allowing, to Hal Higdon’s Advanced 1 Training Plan. The long runs were Tuesdays and Sundays (sometimes Saturday instead), and here’s some of the highlights:
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August 20, 30km. Aimed for a pace of 5:20/km, came out at 5:19 so happy days. Sunday is my weekend “sleep” day where I don’t have to get up and deal with the kids, so I got up at 6:45 and got this done before lunch.
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August 26, 32km. Less than a week later, slightly longer, slightly faster.
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September 10, 10km. A race! Got a chip time 10k PB, came 22nd overall. Disrupted the training schedule a little bit, should also have been doing a 32km this day, but I had paid for a race so race I did.
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September 16, 32km. Back to business. My parents were visiting Canada so I could do a child handover and disappear for a couple of hours. 5:10/km, felt pretty good. Third fastest 30k, after two other actual marathons.
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Then I got a horrific cold, felt like my throat was full of broken glass for a week, tried to sleep, failed to sleep, still had to do tourist activities and trips to the beach. Tried to run once or twice. Didn’t go that well so I stopped. Until…
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September 24, 32km. Recovered! Mostly. On call for work, so I couldn’t go more than 5 minutes from home, had to do it after the kids were in bed so I trudged out just before 8pm and ran up and down the local streets for close to three hours. I crossed Coxwell Avenue, the most major road in this segment, something like 18 times and managed to not get hit by anything. Took my body about an hour after getting home to be in any condition to sleep. Did 7k the next day and did not feel great about it. Taper begins.
My diet has been hit and miss (particularly when my parents were here), and my weight has, despite all of this running, been pretty steady around 63-64kg, whereas I think in real peak condition I’d be closer to 61-62kg. I think there were only two or three times where I skipped a run due to just really not being up for it, which is pretty decent considering how much I have to squeeze this into lunchtimes and pockets of space and early mornings. Did some speed training on the track in a nearby school, until school actually started up again in September and they booted me out.
I’ve done 637km since July 23, have slept pretty well, all things considered. Only got sick twice (including last week, which I mostly just ignored). My resting heart rate is about 38.
Race is Sunday, goal is under 3:10, let’s go.