#RunVan Update 8 – Hills and a Cap Crusher

I’m currently training for the 2013 BMO Vancouver Marathon and am one of six official bloggers. Each week I’m providing updates on my training and experience leading up to May 5. You can read my first six posts here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

My marathon training is coming along, and its almost even time to start thinking about tapering. Beautiful, beautiful, tapering. But not quite yet. I still have to get in at least two more solid long runs, as my longest run thus far is only up to 30km. I was supposed to do 35k on Sunday, but I was having some slight knee pain, and my body was just too worn down from the week of training. I really had no gas in the tank to crank out 35k so I decided to call the run at 13k and give myself a chance to rest.

The reason I was worn out was from a punishing week of hills. It started with hill repeats on Wednesday with a speedwork clinic I’ve recently joined. That was followed up on Thursday by a run up Burnaby Mountain, and that was followed up on Friday with a 13km run which included several more large hills. All of that was then followed up on Saturday with running the 8km Cap Crusher. A short race, but one that was very challenging and had no less than 500m of elevation gain.

Really, there was no logical reason for me to do the race given that I’m in the middle of marathon training and I knew it would hamper my Sunday long run. I initially thought I would ‘take it easy’ and I somehow even mustered the willpower to register for the 8km instead of the 13km course. However, as a brand new race there was a relatively small field and the majority of the runners were in the 13k course, so I was surprised to find myself in the lead pack off the start line and staying there. So instead of taking it easy, I basically gave it everything I had, knowing that this was a rare opportunity for placing in a race.

After the race I took my son to his ski lesson on Grouse Mountain and did a bit more running with Jeff up the snowshoe grind.

The result was an awesome day of running, but at the expense of the week’s oh-so-crucial long run. Sunday morning I awoke with a niggling pain in my knee that had me limping a bit. It felt like something that would work itself out after getting warmed up, but even aside from the knee, I could just tell my body needed a break.

So again, I find myself short on mileage logged this month. I’ll probably finish with about the same mileage as March 2012, which is not good. At least the quality of my speedwork has been much improved since last year, so if I can knock out a few good long runs over the next few weeks I may be ok as of yet!

But I don’t have too much to complain about, since I took my first ever W at a race. Something I never thought I could pull off.

Video still by Pacer Films