Turnover

Training went sort of downhill after the last blog as my left foot started to act up in a different way than before. On the Thursday before the opening meet of the New Year in Guelph, the 5th metatarsal side was hit with a sharp pain towards the end of my run in the evening. There had been some general soreness for a couple days so it likely shouldn't have come as a surprise, and I took Friday off. On Saturday, the day of the meet, I planned to race the 1500 and 3000, but after limping through a warm up before the 3K I knew I would most likely have to drop out if I chose to go through with the race, so I scratched my name from the start list. The 1500 had been earlier in the day and did not leave me too happy; I didn't get off the line quick enough in my heat and had to work myself up through the field. If it weren't for the help of teammate Matt Melnik bridging the gap to the leaders and pulling me along, I wouldn't have been in the mix at the finish, where I thanked Matt for his hard work by kicking past him in the final 300 to run 4:17. 

I took Sunday off and grew quite concerned as the pain increased in intensity, still all on the 5th metatarsal side. Naturally I started to read up on the possibilities of having actually done damage to the bone, and could not rule out a stress fracture, though I was still leaning towards the pain being muscular as with all my other foot issues. After cross training Monday I tested the foot with a typical workout day on Tuesday and was confident it could not be a stress fracture given how it responded, though I still ended up getting an x-ray later on in the week for safe measure. 

The rest of the week the pain improved and so Windsor was a go, where I raced the 3000 and 1500. The 3K was really frustrating from my standpoint…I wasn't super confident in my fitness and so didn't want to lead, but there was a lot of meaningless passing and cutting-off going on during the race (of which I cannot call myself blameless). I even utilized the much-vilified inside pass from my bag of tricks when rookie Dan Fournier and I were stuck behind someone falling off the lead pack. The only part of the race I was happy with was the finish: I closed the last 400m in 66, and the last 200 in 31, likely the fastest I've ever finished a race, which speaks more to having too much left than any improvements in speed. The video of my heat is below: 

The 1500 the next day went better for me, even in the times are comparable in scoring. I raced more aggressively and knocked 5 seconds off from what I ran at Guelph. 

I'll be skipping out on Western and running McGill in two weeks for the first time since my first year at Waterloo. Hopefully I can shake off some bad memories, as the last time I was there I ran 9:20 in the 3K after watching Megan Brown post a 9:11 in the same event…I thereafter referred to her as the castrator from the dominant way in which she crushed the women's field and me. 

16 times better

I've raced twice since my last blog, my first foray back into competition since CI's back in mid-November. I altered my original plan mentioned in the last post by choosing to race only the 1000 as my indoor season opener at the Louis Riel Dome in Ottawa. This was mainly due to time constraints, as I did not feel like waiting around all day to race the 1500 (since registration for all events had to be completed before noon). 

I rather optimistically registered with a 2:38 seed time, which had me third on the start list in the fastest heat. Seeing the heat sheets were cause for some pause; I was worried I would not live up to my seeding place. As it turns out, while the time was well off (I ended up running 2:42), I still finished third overall since most of the speed demons at the meet had entered the 1500 (going through 1k quicker than I completed my race in). I had mixed feelings about the effort; the first lap of ~63 had felt quite good, but the next lap was 66 seconds and I finished the final 200 at the same pace, running only 33 seconds as my legs started to leaden up. Perhaps if I had someone to work off of in the second lap I may have run faster, but I'm not sure. Regardless, this was coming off a 90+ mile week and with my fastest paces in training being done on the treadmill, so I wasn't too disappointed. 

The week after the race my training left something to be desired as I finished up things at work, packed up my stuff, and finally made the drive home on the 23rd. This lowered my confidence somewhat headed into the Boxing Day 10 miler in my hometown. I hoped that I could still run a decent time, but my expectations were not incredibly high. 

Race morning brought a dusting of snow and ice to the roads, which actually perked me up slightly; I figured the slight changed in conditions would make the race more interesting from a competitive perspective. Once on course, however, the roads and paths were quite clear (ignoring the stretch of gravel/dirt/snow on the Radial trail), but the wind was a different story altogether. Following the gun, I let the lead group of nine go ahead at a pace I could not hold, which meant I was immediately running solo into the wind heading towards the Waterfront trail. The strength of the gusts were obvious when turning onto the bay front and running along the path with the wind at my back produced a 5:14 mile following one close to 6 minutes when the wind was in my face. 

Apart from a stretch from miles 2 to 5 where I was sitting on a (now) masters runner named Pedrag who has consistently beaten me every year since I started running competitively, I ran the rest of the race solo, trying to track down the guys in front of me while keeping my distance from those closing in from behind. At the five mile marker I went past Alex Meyer, but could not keep pace with Pedrag as he went chasing off the guys in front up the Longwood Avenue hill. It was not until I was in the final mile that I would catch a flagging Rejean "Chainsaw" Chaisson, giving me an eighth place finish. Rejean explained to me later that he was having training issues and had abandoned his original plan which would have had him running Houston Marathon in January in an attempt to hit the qualifying time for the World Championships this upcoming August. I was admittedly a bit of a fanboy talking to him, even referring to him as Chainsaw when he introduced himself, and complimenting him on his awesome runs previous Toronto Waterfront marathons. I offered him the best of luck in sorting out his issues to get back running some super fast times. 

My reaction to the race? I was quite happy. The wind was brutal (though my training log from last year noted windy conditions as well), and I still ran almost a minute faster than last year (55:38 vs. 56:21), . Considering my confidence going in wasn't too high, I can be nothing but satisfied with the outcome- it was a good rebound following the 1k. 

And now 2013 is upon us! This is a big, big year for me: in 4 months I will have completed my undergraduate education, and will immediately be thrust into the real world (but not before a big trip overseas!). It'll be interesting to see what I can muster up indoors- aerobically I think I'm there, so it's just a matter of how quickly I can get my legs turning over. I'll try and keep the updates coming.