Friday, January 29, 2010

January 29th 2010

Hi There,
Well it’s been an interesting week or so since I last spoke to you. I took some time off from work and trained a little more than usual, I didn’t however get out and ski at all. Instead I decided since it was so nice that I would ride my bike out on the road. I ran in the morning and then rode out towards Devon in the afternoon. Thinking that it would be warmer in the afternoon than the morning. I had forgotten that my left foot gets frozen out on the bike… it’s been awhile since I last rode my bike in the winter. On one of my spins my foot wasn’t that bad, but on another one it took almost an hour for me it to warm up afterwards. I had also forgotten how much clothing you need to wear while out on the bike, more than I would wear while out running in similar temperatures. One of the things I like about cycling this time of year is that drivers almost always do a double take when they see you.

I was reading on the Irish independent website about how the cold snap that they had in Ireland during January had caused some of the country’s top runners to head to warmer climates so that they could train properly without the risk of getting ill due to the cold or injured due to the snow and ice on the ground. This made me laugh, and I seriously thought of emailing the reporter that wrote the piece about what it’s like to run outdoors in Edmonton during the winter. I mean Ireland had approx two weeks of the kind of weather we have for 4-5 months of the year, only in Ireland would snow bring a country to its knees.

So far in 2010 I have changed my mind as too which events I would concentrate on, and depending on how things shape up I think that this year will be a marathon heavy year with (right now I’m thinking) 3 marathons. I’m thinking of both Calgary and Edmonton, although they are only about 10-12 weeks apart that I’m not sure how that will work out. I’m thinking Calgary as it’s the provincial marathon championships and then I heard on the grape vine that the course for this year’s Edmonton marathon is changing to a flatter route than the previous year’s course. So we’ll see how that develops, I’ve spoken to a few people about the Edmonton marathon course and they reckon that it is much harder than Boston, which I’d believe as running up MacKinnon ravine can’t be easy after having run 18 or miles.

I read Nate Jenkins blog pretty regularly and as you may notice he always posts his training from the previous week, it gives you a good idea of how a professional runner trains, he always has a summary of the week and some pretty good quotes at the end of each posting. But what I like most about Nate’s blog is that he takes time to reply to people that shoot him any questions. So I thought that I would try to include my mileage per week and break down some of the workouts as I thought it would give you an idea how a not so professional runner trains. Please bear in mind that running (as much as I love it) is only a hobby for me as I work full time and have a family to look after and provide for, before I can head out running.

I’ll start next week with the mileage, my weekly mileage (until the snow melts) is about a steady 100K per almost every week. The only thing that changes are the length of the intervals and whether I run a hill workout or a tempo workout that week. Due to work and family commitments I’m limited in the amount of time during the week that I can put into my running.

Anyways thanks for reading
Niall

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The Weekly Rant

Starting this week I think I’ll add a “weekly Rant”.

This week’s rant has been on my mind for some time now and it’s to do with Marked /Unmarked Crosswalks. If you run downtown at lunchtime you must at some point cross the street at an intersection. If like me your daily run takes you by Churchill square and Canada place you’ll know how crazy it can crossing any of those crosswalks within a 3 block radius of the Canada place building. It is almost a daily experience between the hours of 12:00pm and 1:00pm that I see people (myself included) almost hit by cars. If the Air Transport Safety board knew of the sheer number of near misses that occur on a daily basis, they would investigate and then close that area down. It can’t just pedestrians fault as I’ve walked across the lights with the white man up there and someone in either a minivan or a pickup truck decides that they are not stopping, like today when I point to the lights which were in my favour she just stared at me blankly. The worst crosswalks are definitely the unmarked ones as again (maybe it’s the minivan and pickup) don’t even look to see if anyone is crossing. I even had one lady see me but wave me off as she drove through the cross walk without slowing down.


What is worse is when you graciously point out that you are in the crosswalk and the White man is there or you’re in the crosswalk and more than halfway across the road, drivers of said minivans and pickups get very upset, not because they almost hit you. but the fact that you are reminding them who has the right of way. Are there prizes for almost hitting pedestrians? Is this how Deer feel when they get trapped in a cars headlights?


In true Edmonton fashion the drivers argument (from reading about cars hitting people or cyclists in the Journal) is that it’s almost always the pedestrians or cyclists fault. Don’t believe me – Next time there is some killed in a crosswalk or on a bike read the comments section under the story.


And I'm done......til next week!!!

January 12th 2010 – here we go......

WWell its only 12 days into the new year and that means that I’m 12 days overdue with a blog post. As I mentioned in a previous post I will be posting more often. But you know I find it hard to post about things other than running, not because I don’t have a life outside of my daily lunch hour runs. It’s mostly due to not wanting to say too much that may or may not come back to bit me.


Overall I think my running has been going well considering that I had the post Holiday cold that everyone seems to pick up. This had an impact on my running as I stopped for a few (5) days and am now just getting back into it, I’m still coughing now and again but it’s going away. Prior to catching my cold I was starting to do some good quality intervals on the treadmill, running 5 x 800m at 5 minute mile pace with 400m recovery and 5 x 3 minutes at 5 minute mile pace. These 3 minutes are slightly longer than the 800m repeats they are good to put into a training plan as it works out to be just short of the 1K distance.


Since this is Edmonton and sometimes winter can go on forever here, I got myself a pair of new skis that I am yet to try out. A couple of years ago I skied pretty much all winter and ended up with a fairly VO2 due to the intensity of the skiing. I don’t plan on doing that much skiing this year but just enough to make the purchase of the skis worthwhile and enough that it can give me a break from running, I'll still run every day only now I'll also add skiing. While I was trying to get rid of the cold I decided that I would invest in a pair of the Vibram Five Fingers check out the website - http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/index.cfm In my next update I’ll let you know how I’m getting on.