Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Toronto 2 Marathon problem "solved" seriously who gives a crap



VERSUS




So I guess its time to weigh in on this two marathon in one city nonsense.
As most of you in and around Toronto know there are two fall marathon in this city. For those readers outside of Toronto yes its true we have 2 marathons the Scotia Waterfront Marathon and the Toronto Marathon. Not only are these marathons both in the fall but they are only three weeks apart.

Well this situation is now “solved” by the morons that run this fine city. Yes I said it MORONS. The solution was to threaten to kill one of the marathons if one of them didn't move to the fall. In the end the Toronto Marathon agreed to move. Really they didn't have much of a choice.

Now before I continue I should say this. I have no problem having one marathon in the spring and one in the fall. It makes sense and will allow anyone that wants to to run both to do so, that is good (I guess). That's not what really pisses me off about this whole “discussion”. Both races are well run and decent races. I have run the full SWM and the Toronto HM and I don't really have anything negative to say about either race. I liked both.

However to the city of Toronto (those that run socialist city hall) I have a great deal to say about this because this whole thing as been a steaming pile of crap. It has been political opportunism at its absolute worst in the guise of making the city better. Something that these jackasses have become very good at.

So what precipitated the city forcing one of the races to move. Well a couple of things. Lets take a look at them shall we (insert my cynical sarcastic voice here).

The city claims that because of the marathons being so close together they received may angry calls about all the street closures from motorists. This is unacceptable so they had to do something. Hmmmm ...... I would be laughing out loud right now if not for the urge to scream.

If this is the case and the city is so concerned about road closures and traffic complaints then I am sure that I will at least see some of the following things take place.

An end to the labour day parade. I mean it closes down main streets, brings in no money and the only ones watching are people waiting to cross the street.

An end to Taste of the Danforth. I mean come on the once great event has become nothing more then a corporate sell fest. Not only that it closes down the busiest street in Toronto and it lasts 3 days.

While were at it lets get rid of the Molson Indy. What an inconvenience closing down the Lakeshore for 3 days just so race cars can go around and around.


Funny this is the same bunch of dolts at City Hall that were not concerned at all about motorist complaints (or residents for that matter) when they decided to tear up St. Clair Ave in order to create a dedicated streetcar lane. This 30 million 1.5 year project that once complete would save riders an entire 90 seconds on the 8 km trip soon became a 90 million 5 year project that cost many St. Clair merchants their businesses. Add to that the creation of speed bumps on any residential street that isn't a dirt road and you can see just how important keeping motorist happy is.

The reality is that they manufactured this issue to make it look like they were doing something. It helps take the focus of all the real problems of the city which are massive and it gets easy votes. Since there is little to no support of the running community in Toronto there will be little backlash and the city can claim that its working with and listening to the citizens of the city. Talk about a farce.

The second thing I keep hearing is that this will create a more recognizable International Event. This is the same argument that was being used to call for only one marathon. In fact this morning I heard Mayor Miller claim that this would begin to elevate SWM to the level of New York and Chicago. What utter nonsense. I mean are you serious?

New York and Chicago (also London, Boston, Berlin etc.) have something Toronto doesn't have and never will have. Its called fan, spectator and city support. In these cities marathons are seen as all encompassing events. In Toronto they are a traffic hassles. In fact the only news reports you hear in the days leading up to the marathons are about road closures. NICE! Last year the actual race was hardly even mentioned in major papers including the sports sections. Who won... who cares!! For either marathon to grow to NYC proportions it would have to be loved like the Toronto Maple Leafs and that aint going to happen.

This is not going to change. I mean really lets say you are going to run a fall marathon. You live in the mid west and are going to travel to the race. Will it be Chicago, Philadelphia, New York or Toronto. Can you say one of these things is not like the other. I think you can. But hey I am sure that Toronto will become a huge destination race. Maybe we can bus the 20 spectators to different parts of the course to cheer.

By the way last fall I had to do a local race as I had run Paris in the spring and I chose .... wait for it.... neither. I ran Hamilton instead.

I am glad that both races survive and are now in different seasons but I also feel bad for the Toronto Marathon as it will have to compete with Ottawa and Mississauga. Good luck with that.

And what Toronto fall marathon will I be running this year (before the switch)? Well again this year it will be neither as the plan right now is to do Chicago.

Monday, February 15, 2010

worst week ever / best week ever .. training update


The last two weeks have been a tale of two training extremes where I had one of my worst training weeks that I can remember followed by one of my best.

February 1-7
After a good start to the week (which followed a very good previous week)it soon all came to a crashing end. On Sunday night I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of my spouse pouring glasses of water into the toilet. Half asleep I thought how strange until I realized that wasn't glasses of water.. oh ooh.

Monday
10km recovery run. All is well. Kim home with the flu.

Tuesday
13.5km easy run on hills. Kim feeling better. I began to think I might escape the flu

Wednesday
No run as I was way to busy puking. Kim is feeling much better. Miss my club run as my running "friends" use this private time to plot an elaborate prank against me after all what are friends for (I will cover the prank in my next blog). On a more upbeat note Kim feeling much better.

Thursday
Able to move from the bathroom floor to the couch. Hurray? No run

Friday
Think I am feeling a bit better. Go into work. Bad decision. No run.

Saturday
Feel almost normal. Run 13km easy.

Sunday
Feel okay so head out on my long run. First 10km go fine. At 11km my heart rate begins to climb. I am running easy pace but my heart rate is at threshold. Tough it out until 22km then decide to be smart and cut my long run short. This is only the 3rd time in 2 years where I have cut a run short. The other 2 involved heatwave conditions. I am so not impressed but know its the best call.

Week total
36.4 miles (58.5 km) total for the week which is pretty much a write off at this point in my training. You might say it was in the toliet. Oh well better luck next week.

I officially designate the first week of February "The Week of Barf"

Feb 8 to 14th
Monday
10km recovery run. I feel normal. HR is fine.

Tuesday
14.5km easy run on hills. Feel good. Hulk smash kind of good.

Wednesday
19km partial tempo run with the club. 6km easy, 6km tempo, 7km easy. Its freaking cold and windy. I run the tempo portion maybe a bit too hard but its hard to tell with the wind. The puking feeling I have at the tempo part of the run has nothing to do with the flu.

Thursday
12.6km easy run. Feel really good. No lingering effects from Wednesday but I still run slow per coach Rogers orders.

Friday
14.3km Hill workout. 5km warm up, hill circuit, 5km cool down. Hill circuit consists of doing 200 - 300 meters of bounding up the steep portion of Central hill in high park then continue running to the top. Then a small recovery loop at the top of the hill and then back down the hill at top speed. This is followed at the bottom of the hill with a set of 5 strides at 5k pace. Then repeat. When Roger went over the workout I though it looks way too easy, maybe I should add in a third set. Man was I wrong. This work out was deceptively hard. My legs were jello during my cool down run home with my legs hurting in all new strange and wondrous places.

Saturday
12.6km easy run with hills. Legs were still toast from Fridays run so went slow.

Sunday
34km long run. Ran with other club members. It went very well. I was nervous because of my meltdown the week before. Maybe I forgot how to run long. No problems and my HR stayed where it should. Was planning on inserting some race pace miles in but instead did the entire run a little bit faster then normal. Thanks to Lynn, Kelly and Coby for pushing the pace.

Week total
117km or 72.8 miles
This is the most mileage I have ever put in for a training week. Legs tired but feel good and healthy. Next race is the Peterbrough HM in 2 weeks.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

goodbye base training hello hills... last months training stats.


Base training is done and seems too have gone pretty well. I dropped my mileage down quite a bit in November and early December. I have now built it back up to 65+ miles a week and have no nagging injuries at this point in time.

Last week was the start of the hill training phase. When I got my program from Roger it set me back on my heels on first glance. First off it moves me to training 7 days a week which is a first for me but more then that I am seeing never ending hills. The next 6 weeks look like this.

Monday - recovery run
Tuesday - hills (easy)
Wednesday - tempo
Thursday - easy run
Friday - hills (hard)
Saturday - hills (easy)
Sunday - long run (on very hilly route)

After the initial shock however I realized that its really not much different then what I was doing last summer. I ran trails that were very hilly every Tuesday and Saturday but since they were on the trails instead of the road I never really thought of them as hills. Yeah I know that sounds strange but there it is.

First week of hills went well but I have lost 2 days of training this week with a bad case of the stomach flu. Also as the pictures attest to it has gotten kind of cold again.

Last Months Training Stats.

Here are my January Training Stats
Days run: 27
Days off: 4
20 mile runs: 2
Races: 1 - 8k

Total Miles 249







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