Thursday, April 29, 2010

Speed Play – Session 1

Distance : 5.0 mi
Time 50

I started the summer session for the interval workout workshops with Kory (again).  This set goes for 10 weeks and finishes in early June.  So with my legs still very heavy from the half marathon effort we headed to the outdoor track at the Glenmore Athletic Park to do workouts outside.  (Ah summer).

There was another group working on the track so our group laid out an ad hoc track on a vacant soccer field.  What could be better doing speed work outside on grass – but not barefoot.   Running on grass should do a lot for foot confidence and ankle strength.  I can feel the difference in required effort, it is about halfway between beach running and track running.

We did the usual warm-up 4 min @50%, 3 min @ 60% and 2 Min @70%,  then did dynamic stretching and finally the speed workout.  It was a random fartlek like workout.  We would jog for a minute and then at a whistle pickup the pace for a random interval between 30 seconds and two minutes.  The tough parts are that you never know what effort to put out as the time is random and you never know when the intervals are going to end.

The reasoning behind the workout is to teach pace for sustainability.  I find it to be one of the harder workouts.   It was a good thing that the session was on Tuesday night as it started to snow on Wednesday afternoon and was downright unpleasant by this morning.

 

Plod On.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Calgary Police Half Marathon

Distance : 21.1 km (approx) 
Time 1:49:00 (approx)

This is my first half marathon so I guess I set both my best time and my worst time at this distance.  Times are approximate until they post the official results.

Tough race – the first half was fast and seemed to be all downhill.  The second half seemed to be all uphill and into the wind.

The long trek up the 90 avenue hill and the weasel head hill just about did in my hamstring and had to slow to an almost walk to avoid doing damage.

Alexandra at Making Waves has some great graphics showing the route, race profile, and the white stuff that we woke up to this morning.

This is a great race with great volunteers and is very well organized, the course is scenic and a little challenging.  I give it 2 thumbs up. 

Kudos to the Westhills running room group I thought we were well represented.

 

Plod on

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Let the Taper Begin


30th Annual Calgary Police Half Marathon 8 A.M.
5th Annual Calgary Police 5km Run & Walk 8:30 A.M
Sunday, April 25, 2010,
Mount Royal University, 4825 Mount Royal Gate SW

Number: 423

I have been silently running a little but not really training for this event.  I just might set a personal worst in the half marathon.