H2H 2006

This past weekend was the 2006 Haney to Harrison relay. I didn't run for a sprained ankle, so I took pictures instead. At least until it started raining so hard that I was worried about Tam's camera.

The most entertaining part of the whole evening is the party, which was in the same place as it was in 2005. I wonder if they've washed the floor since.

Tam ended up running the same leg as I did last year, and beat my time by 2 minutes. Grr.

jack | posted Mon Nov 6 10:23:35 2006 | #
category: outside/running

The blackberry bush won.

After taking about 2 weeks off running to see if my knee would stop hurting,
I decided to take a nice easy jog around the soft trails of Burnaby Lake.

It's been about 3 months since I ran around Burnaby Lake, and the vegetation has exploded. On my way out of the park I lost a fight with some blackberry
brambles and bled home on the skytrain.

The good news is my knee doesn't hurt in the old way anymore.

jack | posted Wed Aug 2 22:41:26 2006 | #
category: outside/running

Vancouver Half Marathon

Fast forward to Sunday Morning. Around 0600h. The Half Marathon started at 0700h. It was pouring rain, and about 279K (6C) out. The race start was about 2
blocks away from our current apartment, so we avoided having to check any gear,
have to find parking, or try and figure out how to get to the start.

I've never run a half marathon before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Tam and I, over much discussion decided to run together at 7:30 minute miles for
the first 10km, and then settle into our own paces.

This worked out pretty well for me, as 7:30 per mile is probably slower than I'd run if I were pace myself. I have to admin that the slower initial pace,
combined with the heavy traffic at the start probably prevented me from blowing
up half way through the race. By the second mile, the lack of any real
warm-up, and the cold, wet weather were taking their toll, I could feel my
calves begin to tighten.

By the 5th mile, I was relaxed, and feeling good. When we got to Stanley park and the 10km mark, I convinced Tam to let me pace off of her to the top of
Prospect point.

We made it up the hill, and then Tam and I split up and fell into our own paces. I immediately proceeded to bomb down the other side of the Prospect
point hill. This was our home turf, so we knew what to expect.

The remainder of the race was fairly flat, with the exception of a few hills that I'd forgotten about -- a climb to get out of Stanley park, and the climb
from Beach Avenue up to Pacific Boulevard.

All told, I finished the race strongly at 1:37:23 on my watch, which was 4 seconds slower than the official "net" time of 1:37:19 posted later during the
day.

A few notes about the Vancouver Half Marathon:

The course is actually surprisingly hilly, with 175m of ascent (at least according to the altimeter in Tam's watch). This isn't really reflected in the
course profile listed on the website.
There was no water at the water stations in Stanley park -- which meant 10km without water. Good thing it wasn't hot.
They race organizers had put a timing mat about 20m in front of the finish line, and using it to call the runner's names as they approached the finish
line. I liked this.
The course was scenic. When I had a chance to look around. I don't remember much of the second half of the race.

jack | posted Mon May 8 13:30:17 2006 | #
category: outside/running

It's All About How You Look Naked

The H2H race was this past Saturday. Good times were had by all. I think. Many thanks to Deb and Allison
for organizing everything.

It turns out that I suck at running up hills. And my leg had a wee hill in it. It takes a lot of energy to haul my fat ass up a hill of that
size.

15.12km is the longest I've ever run in a race, and I learned a few things:

Power Gels rock.
I can work harder than I thought.
I'm overweight.

Even though everyone I know that ran Leg 3 kicked my ass (Spencer, Abe, Kathy, Claudia) on the race course, I most certainly won
the party. The U of A Computer Engineers taught me something: "When you can't
win, lose with style."

jack | posted Thu Nov 10 22:43:04 2005 | #
category: outside/running

Haney to Harrison Relay Race

Looks like Tam and I are registered for the Haney to Harrison relay race through Tam's triathlon club.

I managed to get the longest(15.12km) of the available
legs.

Should be fun.

Maybe I should start training again. It's only 6 weeks away.

jack | posted Tue Sep 20 09:37:44 2005 | #
category: outside/running

Three hours is a long time to do anything

When I picked Tam up from swimming on Wednesday, Emlyn was mentioning that he wanted to start doing some long, slow, distance running on hard surfaces. The Oliver Half Iron run was on hard surfaces, and he had done his training on the trails in the UBC endowment lands. I suspect he spent the last 10km of the 20km run part of the Oliver Half Iron Man pondering why this isn't such a good idea.

We met up on Sunday at 0900h at the Coast Guard station at the Burrard Civic Marina, and jogged down to Science World, past the Abreast in a Boat Dragonboat Festival, up to Stanley park.

And ended up on the finishing leg of the Scotiabank Half Marathon. It was kind of nice having people cheering us on. Some of them even asked where our race numbers were.

We cut off of the seawall just before the finish, ran around Stanley Park counter clockwise, ran back over the Cambie Bridge, and then back to where we started.

Denis, another Triathlon nut (anyone who does Iron Man is a nut) joined us. Apparently I work with him. No wonder he looked familiar.

I noticed a few things about running long distances:

We had trouble keeping pace. We would start at 6 minutes/km, and 10 minutes later be running at 5:30 minutes/km.
I went through about a litre of Gatoraide and about a litre of water.
I wore out at about 30km. It was a sharp, short decline, so I took the bus home.
Three hours is a long time to do anything.

jack | posted Mon Jun 27 16:08:30 2005 | #
category: outside/running

Intervals

After far too long dithering, I finally started doing intervals. My exercise program for intervals is simple. 4 minutes warm up, 10 loops around a hysteresis with a high point of 180 beats per minute, and a low point of 140 beats per minute, and then 4 minutes cool down.

I was reminded of why I don't like doing intervals. During the up phase, I'm running pretty fast, which means that a lot of the seawall is too dangerous. I also think the battery in the chest strap of my heart rate monitor needs to be replaced, as it had this nasty habit of not updating, right about when I should have been hitting 180bpm...

jack | posted Sun Feb 20 20:11:05 2005 | updated Mon Oct 23 23:31:24 2006 | #
category: outside/running