Day #2 Heart study
This morning I headed over to uOttawa for the second part of the heart rate study, the VO2 test on a treadmill. After doing a warmup on the treadmill and then some stretching, it was time for the fun to begin. There are a couple of ways to conduct the test, one ways is to incrementally speed up the treadmill until you can no longer run as fast as the treadmill is spinning and the second, is to keep the treadmill spinning at a constant rate and gradually increase the grade angle. For this test they opted for later and it simulates hill climbing. The test started off well as the angle of the treadmill was adjusted every minute but then something bad happened. I started to sweat and nose clip started to slide off. When the clip was on we were starting to get a VO2 value in the low 50s with the expectation that my final VO2 would be in the mid 60s which is similar what I had done a couple of years ago. The researcher decide because the results were coming out so inconsistent to pull the test. I was having a good time and as I was getting into the “groove”/”zone” and my legs still felt fresh.
The plan is to re-do the research early next week and with the hope that they can locate a non-defective nose clip.
1st interval workout of the year
Last night, I did my first interval workout with the guys I train with at the Running Room. The bus strike and my recent soleus injury prevented me from starting the intervals a month ago. They are starting there second set where the rest time between each interals has dropped from 90 seconds down to 60 seconds. My workout took the form of a five miles warmup over to the experimental farm and then four 1,000 meter intervals with 60 seconds rest between. I was pleased that my legs survived the workout and my times are a little slower than they should be but using an horse analogy it feels good to be back in the saddle. After the workout I spoke my coach, Phil, and was pleased with my times but said to very gradually add speed back into my workouts as the intervals are always a jolt to one’s system.
For the record: 4:14/4:08/4:23/4:37
I was hoping to do something this week but was held off by the snow and that is to have a Jetboil dinner along the Ottawa River close to where I live.
Geocaching, the military, and bow hunting
Yesterday, I was out geocaching and with the expectation that it would be cool and quiet afternoon. This was not too be. As I was driving up to the trailhead I passed two groups of army recruits decked in cammo, face paint and carrying an assortment of rifles, sniper scopes, and machine guns. They looked like a serious and dangerous bunch. At the last moment, I noticed that most of the guns were plugged. They were hoping to ambush another platoon concealed much deeper along the trail. Lucky for me the first geocache was in the opposite direction and an easy find. I continued along the trail and noticed a guy in cammo sitting midway up a tree keeping very calm and quiet. Later I would find out that the woods were occupied by deer hunters with bows. The third cache find was what I call a “gotcha.” The cache was suspended 15 feet in the air and hanging from the nub of a branch. Standing on a three foot stump and using a 10 foot long branch I was able to knock the cache down. As I was lifting the cache back into place along came a couple of deer hunters wanting to know what I was doing. I showed them the cache and my GPS and explained what geocaching was all about. Before they headed back along the trail I asked them what to do when in the woods during deer season; do you move silently or make some noise. They suggested to make more noise that you would expect of a deer prancing through the forest.
Raining and running…
On my way to work today, I felt compelled to take off my winter gloves. Something unexpected was happening where I live; it was raining for the first time this year. It felt good to feel the rain landing on my hands. If you live in Vancouver or Victoria, British Columbia, I think this thought would come with a groan as it is always raining on the west coast. This can mean that warmer weather is on its way. There was a downside to this warm trend. The snow is starting to melt forming large puddles that one must dart between. This is made more challenging at night when it is hard to distinguish between the black road and a puddle. This became more apparent during my a href=”http://www.runningroon.com/”Running Room /aworkout in the evening. I ran down to the store trying my best to avoid getting a soaker but failed miserably. The workout took the form of four mile warmup followed by 5 x 1km repeats on 90 seconds rest. It was my first speed workout of the year so it sets a benchmark on which I can only improve. (4.04/4.09/4.24/4.24/4.22) On Friday, I head down to my folks place and will run in the a href=”http://www.burlingtonrunners.com/goodfriday/”Burlington Good Friday 10 mile race/a. The race is long enough that I can only treat it as a training workout.
Phoenix Half-marathon parthttp://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/photo#5158142882052942002 1
Getting therebr /br /Friday January 11br /br /My adventure started at 5:00 am when I caught the taxi to the airport. I arrived at the airport a little later than expected and was whisked through security and customs with the stern warning that if I did hurry I might miss my flight. This had the unintended affect of boosting my blood pressure needlessly, as once I was in the departure lounge it was announced that the 6:30 am departure would be delayed due to light bulb issues. There was some talk in the lounge about how long it could take to replace a light bulb. As time went on the airline staff called up more and more folks rebooked them on other flights. After a five hour delay our flight took off and we landed in Philadelphia an hour later. My new flight to Phoenix would leave late afternoon so I had lunch and spent much of the afternoon surfing the web with my laptop. I had packed a Robert Ludlum thriller novel helped in passing away the time. The flight to Phoenix was uneventful and JB met me at the airport. In keep with tradition, we had supper at PF Chang’s and started off the meal with lettuce wraps. The main course was Chicken Chow mien. JB dropped me back at the hotel and I bedded down after a 21 hour day.br /br /Saturday January 12br /br /I awoke at 7:00 am local time which is 9:00 am Ottawa time and headed down for breakfast. My first stop would be Arizona State University (ASU) which is the location of the half- and full-marathon finish lines as well as the shuttles to the start line. My goal was to see how much time I would need on Sunday morning to walk/jog to the shuttle buses. The further they were away to earlier I would have to leave. The distance was 1.5 miles. While on the campus, I tried my hand at some geocaching but couldn’t find a single geocaches but found a a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/photo#5158142834808301682″petrified log /ainstead. As I was heading back to the hotel, JB texted me and we set up a rendezvous time. Once back at the hotel, I checked with the front desk and they confirmed that there were still some seats available for the 6:15 am shuttle to the start line. This was a relief. I took the last available seat. My legs would be grateful on Sunday morning.br /br /Early afternoon JB arrived and we headed over to REI to pick-up an order that I had placed over the Christmas holidays. It was a relief to find that the down jacket I had ordered fit. While trying on the jacket we starting talking to a staff member originally from Michigan and she was able to give me a good overview of the features of the jacket. From REI, we headed to downtown Phoenix to the race expo which was twice as large as last year. I quickly picked up my race package and we checked out the rows and rows of exhibitors. We next headed out for lunch at a local burritos chain. The next part was cool as we drove up to one of the highest part in the Tempe/Scottsdale/Phoenix area, a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/photo#5158142882052942002″South Mountain/a, having an elevation of 2200 feet. It is a long a windy road without any guard rails. The a href=”http://picasaweb.google.com/moulec/Phoenix_Jan2008/photo#5158142869168040098″trash cans/a are elevated and set at an angle because of the coyote threat. The panoramic view from the top was awesome.br /br / It was then onto JB’s place where I met his folks and watched and listened as he played a variety of pieces of music on his piano. It was great listening to him play his concerto. Our plans of eating at the Spaghetti Factory were scuttled when we learned the wait time was 90 minutes. We opted to have a pasta dinner at a nearby fast food place. Before heading back we stopped at Kroger’s to get some bananas, fig newtons and pretzel goldfish. Before calling it a night I laid out my running gear for the morning.
2008 Goals
2008 Goalsbr /br /* Run a 1:30 half-marathon timebr /* Go on more OHOC outdoor adventuresbr /* Do more hiking tripsbr /* Climb more of the 46ers (46 highest peaks in the Adirondacks , NY)br /* Loose 10 lbs by May 30 (race date –National Capital half-marathon)br /* Hike the West Coast Trail/Shenandoah National Park/strikeOld Smoky National Park/strikebr /* Run a faster Baltimore half-marathon ( 1:34 ) in October 2008br /* Visit Brent ( Algonquin Park ) by canoeing and portaging and bring along a digital camerabr /* Reach 500,000 Babble point (now 350,000) www.playbabble.combr /* Do more cycling (road and mountain biking)br /* Geocaching goal 900-1000 finds by Dec 31 2008br /* Become more mobilebr /* Complete an Olympic Distance triathlon (1500m swum/40km cycle/10km run)br /* Swing dancing – Learn the Lindy Hopbr /* span style=”font-style: italic;”Take the train to Baltimore/span
Salt
A quick weather update — Ottawa set a new record over the weekend. We received one foot of snow over a 24 hour period. Now we return to the topic of the day, salt. Tonight, I went for a 48 minute run along the Rideau Canal and the path was in good shape. While getting dressed for the workout I noticed something, my shoe laces have become more stiff and white. The road salt in becoming infused in my laces which is making them stiff and hard to tie. I’ll have to give my shoes a bath in a couple of days. Over the Christmas holidays,I’ll be doing a 10 mile race in Hamilton which will be a good workout as I do my final preparation for my second Phoenix half-marathon in early January. The goal for this race is to better my time last year, 1:33.
News
span lang=”en-us”span style=”font-family:Times New Roman;”My rate of blogging has drop slightly recently but I hope to return to a more normal pace soon. I’ve been busy with school, work, my honour society and training. My next running race is coming up quickly on span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1196891074_0″Boxing Day/span in span style=”border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); cursor: pointer;” class=”yshortcuts” id=”lw_1196891074_1″Hamilton, Ontario/span. It will be the 86thsup/sup edition of the a href=”http://www.boxingdayrun.ca/”Harold Webster 10 mile race/a. The race comes at a good time as the caloric expenditure of the race allows me to eat well during the holidays and not worry about gaining any weight. My plans for New Years aren’t settled but I’m hoping for something special this year. We will have to see. On another matter, I’m working on having an informal mentor. He is someone I have known for a couple of years and is mentoring a couple of other students and I am looking forward to his guidance and advice./span/span
Stamps and awesome workout
When I was growing up my father would sing a famous span style=”font-size:-1;”Flanders and Swann song called, “Mud, Mud Glorious mud.” I did a quick google search and found this a href=”http://www.google.com/url?sa=tamp;ct=resamp;cd=3amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metacafe.com%2Fwatch%2F95157%2Fmud_glorious_mud%2Famp;ei=xyJOR_2IAZm2ep_IuZQNamp;usg=AFQjCNH8sBcDSliM1Rw8QVEOYINfelGXBgamp;sig2=6UsPdi_ZUp52jIAYRHsQxA”video/a. I guess you could ask what does this have to do with stamps. For the past little while I have been singing my own variation of the song, “Stamps, Stamps, Glorious Stamps.” I recently volunteered to put stamps on membership cards for my a href=”http://www.goldenkey.org”honour society/a. Tonight, I finally finished after putting stamps on 700 envelopes. The chore started out with 300 envelopes but I volunteered to do some more. So, once I had put on a couple of hundred stamps I started to sing the song to keep my focus. It is a relief to get the chore finished.br /br /Tonight, I had an awesome workout. The conditions were a crisp 15F/-9C with a windchill of 3F/-16C. It was the coldest conditions that I have run in this year. I was cold walking down to the canal. Once at the waters edge I started at a fast pace to warm myself up. After two miles I was starting to sweat. For the next five miles I was able to maintain a pace of 85% of my aerobic threshold. The workout felt great.br //span
Snow…wet and not enough
Overnight, we got our first dose of snow (two inches). It came in the form of wet snow which melted during the day leaving wet slush. I was hoping for more as I’m eager to go skiing as well to start snowshoeing but this will likely have to wait until after Christmas.br /br /Tonight, I had an awesome run, it was one of those “flow” experiences when you run very fast and smooth almost as if you are on auto-pilot. This was unexpected. Earlier in the day, I got my annual “flu” shot and was starting to feel under the weather. Things continued to feel iffy as I was heading down to meet the running group. Once we started out on the run at a brisk pace I quickly moved in the grove and was able to spend most of the workout running very fast which sort of felt effortless.
