Tag: Maurten

2020 week twenty

Stuff Read
– Why Hard Exercise Feels Worse When You’re Alone – Alex Hutchinson
– We’re Betting on Athletes – Mark Gainey & Michael Horvath
– Strava Cuts Off Leaderboard for Free Users, Reduces 3rd Party Apps for All, and More – Ray Maker

Kilometres Ran
week twenty – 60.3

2020 to date: 1,280

I really didn’t need Alex Hutchinson to tell me that going hard solo is hard but there it is. I’ve missed the Mile2Marathon Wednesday night group workouts a lot. And while I’ve managed to pull together a pretty consistent solo workout Wednesday regiment with the help of my coach, I have noticed that I’ve under performed and more than a few times tapped out a rep or two early, which I would have never gotten away with on a “normal” Wednesday. If you’ve followed along on here at all, you probably know I’m a bit of a Hutchinson fan, so it was an extra special treat to have him come out for a Q & A on the M2M athlete’s Zoom Tuesday this week. Then this morning (Monday, because it’s a holiday long weekend), Strava dropped the anvil onto its millions of users by announcing that a swath of key features were going behind a paywall and I’ve been spending the afternoon trying to figure out what that all means. The DC Rainmaker blog (although cycling focused) provides probably the best run down that I’ve seen (I didn’t look too hard, but Ray Maker goes pretty deep dive on this one). The biggest changes are to Segments and Route Builder, the latter being that it’s no longer free (which is pretty huge). The Segments piece is a bit more nuanced. As I understand it, free-users will no longer see deep analytics into their own Segment achievements and will only see the Top OA and Top Women for each segment. So, no more clicking “People I’m Following” or selecting your club to see how you’re measuring up. Now you have to pay for that. And while that’s annoying, it’s less annoying for me…potentially. I’ve been a premium subscriber for almost as long as I’ve been running. It just seemed like one of those things that you just buck up for when you start getting serious about this stupid sport that everyone reminds you how free it is except for three or four pairs of shoes per year plus race entries plus that one time you happened to be in Paris almost exactly a year earlier and picked up a ridiculously overpriced running top because you saw it and while you’d never actually heard of Satisfy you had to have it and now you’re addicted to all of their gear. But I digress. My point is that since I’ve been paying for Strava for a while so I’m not sure that I’m going to notice except if this new paywall causes an exodus of the people I enjoy following. I’m already curious to see how many people never actually read the announcement, and won’t even notice the features they’ve lost. I’m just happy that Strava finally created an algorithm to auto-flag impossible segment efforts, because the amount of flagging I’ve done this pandemic has been exhausting. Now if only they could collate top 10 personal efforts (I’d be happy with top 3 to start…I mean, they’re already doing it anyway…just show it to me) and make Beacon actually reliable, I’d be reasonably happy. After all, it costs like two Maurten Caf gels per month. Speaking of which….

With the cancellation of the Berlin Marathon I suggested to Coach that I run a marathon time trial and he replied, “nah.” Well, not really. He replied with a few questions that I hadn’t thought about and that made me rethink a marathon casual, let alone a TT. So I decided to go try to PB the half marathon distance, and set Wednesday as the day. I treated the whole thing as much like a race as I could, proper taper, my typical fueling routine, neurotic weather app checking…I’d planned the route and set the race start time under the Burrard Bridge as 7 a.m. rain or shine. I took a warm up jog from my house and got there about ten minutes before. What looked like a drencher had stopped and conditions were what I find pretty ideal. It was damp but not raining, cool but not cold, bit of a breeze. A bit too humid (mid 90s) but I can’t have everything. At 7 a.m. on the nose I set out for a clockwise loop around Stanley Park, followed by a clockwise loop of Lost Lagoon, then back onto the Seawall for a counter-loop of the Park and finish on the Seawall south of Second Beach Pool around the 8.5 KM plaque. I had a great start and stuck to my game plan to hang around 4:05 pace, but I pretty much knew it wasn’t going to be my day before I got to halfway. I hit 10 KM and was right in between the 10 KM splits in my fastest and second fastest half marathons but I had a bit of a struggle looping the Lagoon. At 13 KM as I started into the counter-loop I took a Maurten Caf and then for the next three kilometres I tried to hold it down. It was awful. I know the run-till-you-puke feeling and this was something different that I’d only experienced once before…at CIM. It sucks to finally figure it out now but there it is. Between Brockton Point and the Girl in a Wetsuit I passed a cyclist out with his camera taking photos of a humpback whale in the harbour (I missed it). He would catch up and pass me a bit before Siwash Rock and we had a short chat as he did. He had a pretty nice Canon slung on his back, so I told him about where I expected to finish and said if he got a couple shots of me there I’d pay him for his trouble. I was struggling quite a bit by now but I managed to keep it together and not completely bonk. I let my watch roll over to 21.12 KM before clicking it off at 1:30:02 for my third fastest half marathon and fastest one solo.

Pandemic (AKA Stay TF Away) face needs a razor. Photos: Brian Powell

Brian Powell (Insta: vancouverotter) was there with his camera. He emailed a few shots to me (including one of the whale I’d missed) but wouldn’t accept any payment, so I asked him to choose a charity from the Scotiabank Half Marathon Charity Challenge and I made a donation in his name to CLICK per his selection. A few days before I’d received an email from those Marathon Photo shysters offering me 30% off photos from my 2019 races. I donated the undiscounted amount.

As I’m apt to do, I took a bit of a dive into my race and came away with a few insights. While I was disappointed to not get a new personal best, I was pretty happy with my performance, especially considering it was completely solo. I took a 20 – 30 second break at 10 miles to give my stomach a chance to settle, and that seems to have been the difference between this being my second (at First Half this year) or third fastest half marathon. This one had a bit slower start but a much better second half than First Half. The other thing I did was to turn this route into a Strava Segment, and I was a bit surprised to find that there are a few other people who have run it (or at least through it) including one name that I recognize (who is much quicker than me). But in making this Segment I also gave myself another Crown and I thought it might be fun to challenge some other M2Mers to take it away from me, what with the virtual RunVan BMO Half Marathon* race currently going on, and the virtual Scotiabank Half Marathon** coming up this summer. It is going to be very interesting to see how that pans out with Strava’s new business model launching today.

PS – I should also mention that I have *most of* a crate of Maurten Caf that expires at the end of September that I’d be willing to trade 1-1 for Maurten regular or Endurance Tap Caf if anyone is interested.

*I submitted this activity as my virtual BMO Half Marathon and as of writing I’m currently top in my age group and top 10 overall, which is weird because I’ve seen Strava activities a lot faster than mine tagged as their virtual BMO, but they aren’t on the leader board. I’ll take it for now, but I don’t expect to still be there when the virtual BMO window closes

**I am seriously considering taking another stab at this route for my virtual Scotiabank Half Marathon later this summer. I just need to find the right window amongst the M2M Virtual Race Series (that you should totally check out).

2020 week six

Stuff Read
She was a running prodigy – Michael Doyle – The Globe & Mail

Kilometres Ran
week six – 41.1

2020 to date: 343 KM

I planned on writing about something else I read this week and then yesterday I woke up and made a cup of coffee and checked in on social media before my race eve shake out run and this was everywhere and I read it and if you haven’t read it yet then you should click the link above and go read it because it is way more important than any nonsense that you’re going to read here today. And if by the time you’re here the G&M has taken it down or moved it behind its paywall then just let me know and I will post the PDF that I saved in anticipation of that happening one day. I am horrified at the complete institutional failure on the part of the University of Guelph and Athletics Canada. Reading it made me sad, but it’s an important read and Megan Brown’s courage is commendable. I hope if nothing else that it spurs positive change. The response to the article posted by Athletics Canada does not inspire much confidence.

A few of the 85 Mile2Marathon crew in today’s First Half. Me and my chicken legs are in the middle-ish there. Photo by Taylor Maxwell.

It was race week and as is my luck the throat tickle that I was fighting became full-on plague that had me wiped out all week. I ran Wednesday’s workout solo so as to not spread it to the crew and my solo effort was awful. I was pretty disappointed. This was my fourth crack at the First Half half marathon, and this race has proven to be my nemesis in spite of it being on the Seawall and a counter-clockwise loop of Stanley Park – my most frequented running route. My first crack was just bad luck – the annual Vancouver snowstorm (that every year everyone seems to forget happens every single year) happened to fall on race weekend and, for the first time in its history, the race was cancelled. In 2018 I went into the race with a niggle in my knee and finished barely able to walk (but too prideful to walk off rather than finish, to my detriment). Last year I wrecked my achilles a bit beforehand, and ended up using the race as a load test to see if I would be able to start a marathon build. It was fun, I suppose. I jogged the first seven and when things seemed like they were going okay I picked it up to goal marathon pace for the next 14, according to stats passing 147 others after 10 km, but still finished a rather disappointing (for me, at the time) 1:37:43. This year was going to be my year but my luck and a pesky virus had other plans. I resigned myself to go out at A Goal marathon pace around 4:25/km and if things held together well enough, shoot for a negative split and at least set a new course personal best. But that’s not how it went at all. As the countdown to gun start I threw out my run plan and decided to race.

Trying to keep up with Aaron Carveth and John Hamilton. Photo by Taylor Maxwell.

I’d lined up with a few Mile2Marathon crew mates in the start corral – a couple on my level and a couple a few steps quicker – and decided to hang with them until I blew up or coughed out a lung. It was a stupid plan but that’s what I did. And it went great. We swapped leading a few times and for the most part held the pack together until crossing the 10 KM marker in 41:09 – on pace for a 1:26 finish – then I started to really feel the pace. I managed to hang on until 15 KM (Strava says 1:01:20 for my fastest 15 KM but I reply “bullshit.”) After that the fade was on. But I was having a pretty good day and I knew sub 90 was a realistic finish.

Just past 19 KM and on the home stretch. Photo by Stephanie Coleridge.

I took my last Maurten at 18 KM and hoped to kick at 19 KM to home but it didn’t kick. The hill from the Seawall to Beach winded me and I had little left for the next hill from Beach to Pacific under the Granville Bridge, but cresting the top I knew it was all downhill to the finish line. I rounded the last corner and checked for the clock but it was obscured behind the finish arch. I didn’t see my time until I’d crossed – 1:29:36 – for my second fastest half marathon on a day I figured I was going to call-it-in after just barely deciding not to stay in bed. I had a bit of a coughing fit in the finish chute for good measure. Later at home I checked my stats. I’d taken over eight minutes off this course but over the second half of the race I was passed by 65 other runners. What a difference a year makes. I’m convinced that if I wasn’t sick I wouldn’t have suffered the fade, so there’s going to be some lingering thoughts of missed opportunity, but right now I’m just thrilled with the race. It was a great day and I’m so glad I decided to give it hard from the start. Next up, a week of altitude training at 7,300 feet. Excited!