Tag Archives: Cross Country Running

2012 race season is a wrap

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Well it’s officially over; with one exception of a charity turkey trot at the end of October.
I haven’t posted for a long time; life just got so busy so fast. Last thing I posed about was Sinister 7 – an amazing race.

For the month of August I only raced 5 peaks Chickacoo. This is one of my favorite of the 5 peaks series; this year not so much because I had bronchitis. In pure Teagan style I told Jesse I wasn’t going to race and would just come support him; as we are driving down the little road in to the park I said fuck it. I can’t let you race and me sit there. SO I ate an Aleve, Tylenol day cold and sinus and used tigerbalm as Vicks on my neck to help me breathe. This concoction of drugs made my race a bit wonky noodles I thought my head was going to explode pounding down some of the hills but I finished dead lungs and all!

There I am dying at the top of the huge hill.

 

September started along with the Wednesday night series my personal fav. I couldn’t race the whole season this year due to a compressed disc in my back. Some days are good days and some are bad days so that went along with racing. My back acted up for all of September and in to October when I was supposed to run the Grizzly Ultra 50K. Looking back I shouldn’t have tried to race at all but I am stubborn and have a hard time taking no for an answer.

So October came and we headed down to Canmore to race; I was ready to go had a bunch of Aleve in my hydration pack and said its go time. Deep down I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish it my back just couldn’t take 50K of trail pounding. I started the race and felt good my first 10K were stellar I was right on pace for my projected 6 hour finish and things were good to go. Then at about 11k things started to fall apart I felt my low back start to swell and my knee seize from pinched nerves. I started to walk the hills and had an internal mind fight about if I should continue or not. I realized I just couldn’t put my body in the position of further pain. I decided to take it easy for the last 3K in and enjoy myself. I came through transition and went to our gear tent to grab some race food and my poles. I knew I shouldn’t keep going but I started to head out on leg two – as I started to head out I stopped and turned around and came back in. Probably one of the smartest and hardest decisions I have ever made I HATE to quit. I went to our gear tent dropped my pack, and poles and realized I had to turn over my timing chip and pull. That was hard to say out-loud that I couldn’t go any further because I was hurt. All in all it was a great experience and a well run race. It taught me a lesson or two also.

Grizzly Ultra 50K

After Grizzly I came back and finished off the Wednesday night races; I usually was in the top 10 in my age category which isn’t too bad for being hurt. Now racing season is over it is time to reset and ease off the distance for a while and keep up the solid and effective workouts. I am spending more time on my road bike and in the pool. Next year I will be doing Ironman Calgary 70.3 on top of my usual trail and ultra races! Pretty dang pumped.
Well that is all for now!

The summer post sin 7

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After Sinister 7 this year my body gave me a giant F you. My legs were tired and I felt completely depleted; the week post Sin I ran 40km when I should have been resting this also did not help my cause. So I decided not to sign up for Merriot Duathlon (where I wanted to get top 3 to apply for Tri Canada POO) and not to sign up for the St.Albert Tri and not to do the Edmonton half marathon. I really wanted to do the St.Albert Tri and the Merriot Duathlon this year because I have been putting lots of km on my road bike and in the pool since Sin ruined my legs and I mixed up my training. Two years ago when I did the St.Albert Tri-a-tri I got second so I really wanted to come back and push hard in the Sprint – however there is always next year and the year after that! Next year I will for sure I am going to race a Duathlon qualifier.

For the last few weeks I have been running 30km/week and a minimum of 30-50km on my bike! I even had a 35km road bike business meeting; it was awesome minus the fact I couldn’t clip out fast enough at one spot and ate poo during a meeting so embarrassing. On the long weekends Jesse and I always go to Jasper so of course we were there August long! We hiked/ran Whistlers with Chocolate his first big hike and did all the normal stuff. I got a few good runs in while we were there and our puppy thinks camping in the bomb diggity because the tent is a giant snooze pillow and he thinks deer should be his best friend.

Snoozing in the tent.

On our hike. Someone is more interested in the birds.

So pretty. Whistlers.

Things are finally back to normal this weekend we are going to the cabin, next weekend we race 5 Peaks Chickacoo one of our favorites minus Devon which is the BEST ONE EVER; and then we will be back in Jasper for September long with our best friends and their new puppy. Him and Chocolate are becoming the best of friends.

Then from there we are back to September, which for me is the busiest time of my life; because I work in a post secondary and I start coaching cross country again. I have tailored my training to cross country specific now, last week was my first week back training specific XC and it was awesome. My fastest 5km time was 24 minutes so I am very pleased and my 30×1 w/ 1 intervals went really well. I will be training XC specific with a mix of ultra training thrown in there (Sunday LONG runs) because on October long I will be soloing the Grizzly Ultra 50km with Jesse and our best friends will be there to cheer us on and help with our pup. Love them AND we get to have a big thanksgiving together.

Anyways back to zooming; MY FAVORITE race series of all time starts in a few weeks the Frank McNamara Wednesday night races – fall races are much harder than spring but they are awesome because all the post secondary teams run them so there its lots of people and I get to run with my team! This will be my 5th year of Franks races between all the members in my family including Josie we have a bizillon franks shirts!

I was looking in to doing Canada Pentiction Ironman next year but it is just too much money right now because we want to buy a house and on top of our normal warm holidays registration alone for the full iron = one week in Mexico; so I am thinking of doing Canada Calgary Half Ironman and my dad and I are doing the 175km Tour de’l Alberta 175km together because he road bikes also!

That is all for now and remember to eat healthy because;

hahahaha too funny I had too!

Winter Training Plan

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Race season is almost officially over for the 2011 year! One last XC race on November 5th at Goldstick then poof all done. This was an amazing race season and I am super excited for next year. I have started and made my winter training plan that will take me in to February. The biggest new and exciting thing on my training plan…..Cross Country skiing! The ultimate cross training for runners and something new for me to try. Over the weekend Jesse and I went on a hunt for Cross Country Ski’s and then realized my father had 2 pairs in our basement that exactly fit Jesse and myself. AMAZING AMAZING! Also thank you father because I know you read my blog <3. I will start training as soon as we get some beautiful white stuff ie snow; then in January I am going to take the learn to loppet course to prep for the Birke. Since I snowboard in Jasper quite frequently on weekends I will move my training around during the week and then hopefully get out running or XC skiing the day after before home time.

February will be a big month since I am going to do the 30km Birke and the Edmonton hypo half marathon.

My new training plan is a mixture of cross training, LSD, speed work, and tempo 5 and 8km runs. I am aiming to keep my running mileage over 30km/week and XC skiing mileage pretty high; well as high as it can go. I have incorporated swim training and my beloved Moksha once a week along with the normal 3 times/ week lifting; I will now be doing legs once a week to build strength; leg day sucks nuts.

This week will look like….

Monday – Lift chest and tri’s and 5km run ( I only did because I feel malnourished and deathly tired)
Tuesday – Moksha and 8 km run
Wednesday – Lift shoulders/bi’s/back and 5km run
Thursday – Swim and Intervals
Friday – would normally be legs but I race Saturday so only 5km
Saturday – RACE 5km
Sunday – OFF or legs but prob snoozing Sunday

2011 Goodlife Fitness Victoria Marathon

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This thanksgiving Jesse and I spent the weekend in Victoria. For 2 reasons; 1) to visit my best friend and 2) run the Goodlife Fitness Victoria 1/2 marathon.

This was an amazing race and a good personal race for myself. The course was fast but not flat. There was enough elevation change to make it interesting for a road marathon. I decided to run this race by doing 10 and 1′s. This is running 10 minutes walking one and staying diligent to this regardless of feeling great or shitty. After the first 10 minutes it took all of my will power to stop and walk for a minute. My course goal was under 2 hours or 2 hours flat. I ended up running a 2:04, which was 4 minutes off my goal and finished in the top 50% of my age category.

None the less I was really happy with this time for a few reasons,

  • I have been having horrid stomach problems as of late
  • I have been training for XC and trail exclusively

In retrospect I could have run a 2 hour for sure.

The day before the race I did a 4 km prep run out onto the breakwater and along Dallas road; it was awesome and a good warm up to elevation change. But for some reason my Garmin decided not to record that run; it has been doing that every so often.

There were 6000 people in the half marathon it took me about 5 minutes to get over the mats to start the race and then I had to do some heavy recon to pass a crap load of people to get in good position. My first 10km was done in about 55 minutes so my split time was really off; this is what pisses me off because I didn’t push out the last half properly. I slowed down on 2- 10 minute sets, which I think cost me that extra time. However it was a great race environment and a well organized course. Aid stations were positioned perfectly and they had a TON of volunteers helping out. Kudos to them. The finish of the race was great the finish shoots were easy to get around and then the food was right there! Next year we will be going back to Victoria to run this again or might go to Kelowna to spice it up. This defiantly will not be the last time I run this marathon.

In other news – The Wednesday night races come to a finish next Wednesday. Always sucks because they are so fun. On Sunday I am running the 5 mile in the Mustard Seed Fall Classic. My legs have been like cement the last few days after the 1/2 and training runs have not been stellar to say the least. Hopefully they can pull it together for Sunday. Ooks race this weekend in Camrose so I will be out there coaching. It will be a bittersweet day because Camrose is my FAVORITE XC course of all time and I have run so well on it; but it is exciting to watch other people compete and enjoy it. I may or may not take them on a run through of the course before the race so I get to run a bit of it!

Photo from Victoria – The best suffer face ever! I am also too cheap to buy them so I take screen shots!

5 Peaks Devon

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Last Saturday was 5 Peaks Devon; the last of the series! Kind of a bummer because the 5 Peaks races are AWESOME. For the 100th time and last time this year I will say this but the course was marked amazingly, great volunteers, great overall production.

The first 4km of the course was tough a ton of elevation change and great hills. Very few races make my ass hurt the next day but this one did big time. The last few km of the course were easy and fast; I had a great run.

Here is a crappy screen shot of the elevation map of the course.

Now I really enjoyed the 5.5 km mark because I LOVE running down hills; I run very fast down these hills to boot so I pass lots of slow pokes who are worried about their knees! Just zooming away.

Now back to the part about me having a great run. IT WAS AWESOME. This is the first run of any sorts race, training, LSD, you name it that I did not feel like shitting my pants, rolling over and dying from pain, and or puking. Stomach problems are finally at bay for now, which benefited the crap out of me Saturday. I did not run 100% because I was being cautious about my stomach but I ran hard and well. I finished 11th overall in my age category and was like 1 minute away from being 6th or 7th. It is amazing how much seconds matter in some races. After the race I had so much energy I could have run it again I was bouncing all over the place; Jesse thought I was crazy. I also raced in my new Saucony A4′s since my Fastwitch ones died and the new Fastwitch’s are not as nice; they are equally awesome. All in all such a great race, day, and people.

My training has been focused on cross country/trail as of late. My stomach has also put a damper on the long run training. The next races I have coming up are 2 Wednesday night races (XC) and the Victoria half marathon. Since the half is less than two weeks away so I will try to throw in a few long runs on road before we get to Victoria next Friday.

Week of training

Monday – 6km of hill repeats Keillor Road hill
Tuesday – REST
Wednesday – 6 km George Smith Special Wed Night Race
Thursday – 16 x 1 w/2 Trail
Friday – 8km tempo
Saturday – Rest or 5km road OOKS are in Calgary racing – I am there coaching
Sunday – 15km LSD

Here are some photos from the race on Saturday some good suffer face in some of them!

Suffer faceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee ^

 

As the 5 Peakers say…..

Get off the road!