The following is a guest post by Jeff Cooper who decided to commemorate Remembrance Day by running from 11:00 am until 11:00 pm.

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The number 11 has always had significant meaning in my life. When it was brought to my attention that 11/11/11 was also Remembrance Day, I just knew I had to do something special to commemorate this once in a lifetime opportunity.

The plan revolved around running because that’s our passion. So the idea for a 12 hour run was just a natural thing to do. With the support of my wife and friends, I planned the day. I would begin at 11:00 am and run until 11:00 pm doing a 10.5 mile loop into Sunnybrook Park. I would return back to the starting point at the Second Cup at Bayview and York Mills every 2 hours to make it easy for anyone who wanted to participate. Since we were planning to do 6 loops (100km), there was lots of time for people to come out and join in the fun.

There were 14 of us to begin the day at 11:00 plus 2 dogs that had a blast. The second loop at 1:00 had 7 of us and 1 dog and the third loop began at 3:00 and had eight runners and a new dog. At 5:00 it was dark so this changed things up a bit. Headlights and flashlights came out but that didn’t scare anyone away. In fact, we had 7 runners out for both 5:00 and 7:00. The final loop at 9:00, began with just 2 of us and another joined in along the way. This was very special because they had both already run earlier in the day and came back out just to help me get it done!!

When finished, I realized …hey, it’s not about me; it’s really about all the others!

In summary, the run went great! No major issues from anyone. Over 30 runners and 3 dogs participated and considering the forecast, the weather was better than expected. I felt pretty good for most of the run but definitely realized that I could not have done as well without all the fantastic help and support from the group.

SIMPLY AMAZING!

So, why running to Remember What’s Important…

I began adding this phrase to the end of my weekly emails to our group, The Ultimate Warriors, over a year ago and I’m still constantly being asked to explain what this means. However, it’s really for each person to decide for themselves.

For me, running just became a way to acknowledge so many things that I was fortunate enough to have in my life. After 6 surgeries in the last 6 years, I have become very appreciative of the fact that I can still be out there doing something that I love to do. My level of awareness, through running, has carried over into the rest of my life and most importantly, the people that are in it.

When I started running many years ago, I used to run to forget all the bad things… negative thoughts and feelings, stress, lousy days, failed relationships, etc… I know my focus changed after one of my many races, the Sunmart 50 miler in Texas, as I was already booked to have my spine fused 3 days later. I finished the race then cried my eyes out as I didn’t know if I would ever be able to run again.

Then it really hit me and I started to think about what was important to me.

My second revelation happened after my wife Iris started running. At Seaton Trail 52K, I was struggling and Iris caught up to me. She could have easily gone on to pass me but chose to stay with me. She has since done this a couple more times in races like Haliburton 100M where she could have won outright but chose to stay with someone struggling. Knowing how talented and competitive she is and seeing this from her had a profound effect on me. I found it very inspiring to once again be reminded, through her, to remember what’s important.

Hugs and kisses, deep conversations, holding hands, friendship, sharing intimate thoughts and feelings, love and affection, children, family celebrations, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, politics, employment, schools, hospitals, commercial activity, religious events, races, sporting events, returning phone calls, replying to emails. So what do all these very important things in our lives have in common?

They all touch, reach out to and involve other people!!

Yes, we all get caught up in the daily grind of our own personal lives. However we do not live in a vacuum. In some way, shape or form, we always need other people in our lives. We cannot survive without them. They should never be taken for granted. Never forget to appreciate, always take and make time for others, never forget to say thanks, always treat people with respect. There are always those who have less than we do, who are less fortunate than we are!

In summary, I ask …”when you look in the mirror, do you like who you see?”

Remember …

Whats …

Important …

Some days this sport seems a little crazy, even to me.  I have endured countless long runs over the years.  Depending on the week/month/year/training cycle, that long run could be anywhere from 10km to 40km.  Sometimes I feel as though I could just keep running (usually when I have company, and we are chatting away without a care in the world) and other times I feel like I want to be back home before I hit the 2km mark.  It all depends on the day, I guess.

On Sunday, myself, my brother Scott, and my husband Patrick headed out on a mild, sunny morning for a long run.  Hubs was planning a shorter run, so he left us part of the way into it.  We chatted along, and a dog even joined us part of the way through (we were out on some country roads).  This dog didn’t seem threatening, so we were cool.  I do, however, get nervous whenever dogs follow me on a run on country roads.  What if the dog got too far from it’s home?  What if it got hit by a car?  Too much to worry about, pups!  Owners, if you’re reading, please keep your cute K-9’s from following me! Anyway…although it was a gorgeous day, it was windy.  We didn’t know just how windy it was, as the wind was to our backs for the first half of the run.  I wish I could save all of that energy that the wind gives as it pushes us from behind!  As we turned into the opposite direction, (the direction of home) that wind decided to be the focus of our run for the next hour.  Yeesh.  That wind that brings tears to one’s eyes.  That wind that whistles and blows past one’s ears with such force it is hard to keep a conversation.  That wind that made me wish there was an alternate route home.

Here are some things that do not help, regardless of effort:

1. Yelling “Okay, wind, we’ve had enough!!”

2. Running backwards.  Too much effort.

3. Yelling other, less PG talk to the wind.

4. Attempting to convince running partners to let you “draft” them.

5. Speeding up.  This only makes you more tired.

As it turns out, the only thing that helps when running with such wind is to plug on and accept it as good training.  And, be thankful that it isn’t race day!  I feel so lucky that my windy run still had sun, and none of my parts froze in the process.  I am glad I am writing about this here, so 2 months from now, when I am feeling the cold, icy snow out there, I can look back at this post and laugh at myself for complaining about a little breezy run I had on a sunny November day!

By Karen Karnis

Cory Freedman wants to be clear: while there are no awards for them in the Toronto Women’s Run series, men are certainly welcome.  It’s just that, with the number of female runners rising year after year, Freedman saw the potential for a different kind of event.  “Sixty percent of finishers of all race distances from the half-marathon and shorter are women,” she says. “In the early 1990s, there had been a race series geared towards women. Around the year 2000, I thought, there is a need for this now more than ever.”

So, what makes a race that is geared towards women different?  Freedman describes the Toronto Women’s Runs as friendly and non-intimidating, yet highly competitive.  “There is a universality to these events,” she says. “We have the fastest women in the country and absolute beginners. We have youth – moms with their daughters and their friends.”

Freedman tells the story of a girls’ hockey team whose coach had them train for the 5K in October 2010.  They complained about it, but they all trained and finished the event. “This year,” says Freeman, “they approached their coach and said ‘we want to do this again this year!’”

So what goes into an event that has women of all ages and abilities coming back for more?  “I wanted it to be cool enough that I would want to do with my friends,” says Freedman.  Everyone on the race committee is a runner, and they have high standards.  “They take pride in delivering great races. We’re all about going above and beyond to deliver great customer service,” she adds.

The series is known for stellar organization – everyone knows exactly what they’re supposed to do, and the events are well executed.  “We have great volunteers. Most of them are runners who want to give back, so they really get it,” says Freedman.  Of all the questions on their post-race satisfaction surveys, runners give the highest scores to the volunteers.  They also strive to leave Sunnybrook Park cleaner than when they found it, leading to comments from city staff that they’re happy to have the series as guests.

To put together a top-notch event, Freedman and her crew look at what they would want to see at a race and focus on everything down to the finest details.  Of course there are the obvious features:  the chocolate on course, the firefighters handing out water, the medal that you can wear as a necklace; but it doesn’t end there.

“There are always line ups for washrooms pre-race, so we have a volunteer stationed there to keep the line moving – she looks for the empty port-o-lets with no line-up and points them out,” says Freedman.  And at the end of the race, when you least feel like standing in a long line up again, pre-bagged food is handed out, keeping lines short and moving quickly.  There is always a change tent so runners who don’t want to go home in wet clothes have some privacy, rather than trying to duck behind trees, towels or each other.

The ongoing support of Mizuno also goes a long way to help make each event a success. “The thing I love about working with Mizuno is that they are as committed and engaged as I am,” says Freedman.  “They knew what we knew and got involved with us the first year – it’s more of a partnership than a sponsorship,” she adds.

Of course, the runners are not the only people who benefit.  In the 2011 season, the series raised $50,000 for the Pediatric Oncology Group of Ontario (POGO). Among other things, POGO works to ensure that all children with cancer have access to state of the art treatment, and assists families of childhood cancer patients financially.

With Freedman’s extensive experience in the charitable sector, one might think it would have been hard for her to choose a charitable partner.  After all, as the former Director of Events for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, she guided the CIBC Run for the Cure. She also launched and implemented Team Diabetes.  However, she says that POGO was an easy choice.  “The thing I love about POGO is that they’re really nimble,” says Freedman. “A family with a child in cancer treatment sees household income drop by about a third, and POGO makes sure the money gets to families who need it right away.”

By: Josh Seifarth

As a coach, I have a great interest in developing a training plan and watching it evolve. Although it is easy to be convinced otherwise, training is simply the application of a stress designed to produce a desired response. When training to complete a running event in a certain time you would desire a stress response to training that would progress you towards achieving that performance. This is where applying the principle of specificity correctly in training pays large dividends at races!

The principle of specificity is quite simple and, once understood, easy to implement. The basic definition is that training must progress from general to specific as the event approaches and that you must train that specific exercise in order to improve it. In our case that means in order to maximize running, we must simply run. This is not meant to mean that cross-training is necessarily a bad thing, but that it is more effective to run more if you wish to maximize this skill. Furthermore, the training required to maximize your performance over 5km should be different than what would be required to maximize your marathon. This is where careful planning of the progression from general to specific should be implemented.

Once you have planned a goal race, whether it a 5km or a marathon, you can work backwards from race day and create a skeleton outline of the type of training you need to be focusing on at any given time. The weeks most closely preceding the race date should be the most specific, which means that there should be an emphasis on efforts at goal race pace. The volume of these workouts should be representative of the race distance, meaning that marathon-specific workouts will be of a much higher volume than 5km-specific workouts. An athlete preparing for a 5k will be completing intervals of a significantly higher relative intensity than that of an athlete preparing for a marathon. On the flip side, while an athlete preparing for a marathon may be completing intervals at a lower intensity they should be totaling a much higher workout volume.

As you plan further away from race day the training should become more general. An athlete preparing for a marathon should focus on short efforts significantly above goal race pace combined with long steady-state runs slightly below race pace. These efforts will build the support for completing the marathon-specific workouts that are emphasized closer to race day. Likewise, a shorter distance runner may focus on longer steady-state runs well below race pace, and efforts slightly above goal race pace. You will notice that I used the terms “well below” and “slightly above” regarding shorter-distance races and may be wondering why. The answer is that because these races are run at a higher percentage of an athlete’s maximum speed it is simply impossible to run proper workouts at the same relative difference in speed as a person training for a marathon would.
For example:

A 3:00 marathon runner may do speed work at 110% of marathon race pace. This would work out to be around 6:11 per mile when race pace is 6:52 per mile. A 6:11 pace for this type of runner, although stressful, should be within reason and would be similar to the effort produced in a 10km race. This would allow the runner to have sufficient volume in his/her workout for it to be effective.

For a runner with a goal of 18:30 for 5km, a race pace of 5:57 per mile, a workout at 110% of 5k race pace would be at 5:21 per mile. This type of effort would be similar to running a one-mile full-effort race. It would be safe to say that a runner attempting a workout that this pace would not last very long, and the workout would probably not have the desired effects.

If you are having trouble conceptualizing this theory, a great way to look at it is by drawing a straight line in the middle of a piece of paper. This line represents your goal race pace. The far left side of the paper represents today, and the far right side represents race day. If you’d like you could number the weeks remaining across the bottom of the page for more clarity. As outline above, the weeks closest to the current time represent training that should be more general with the goal of increasing overall running fitness and the weeks closest to race day are the most specific with the goal of working at race pace. To represent this concept you can simply draw two lines, one about an inch above and the other an inch below, that converge on, and follow, the “race pace” line about 3-4 weeks out from race day. As you may have guessed, the upper line represents workouts of shorter volume performed above race pace while the lower line represents workouts of higher volume performed below race pace:

The above outlined concept provides a framework for how to progress the specific workout portion of your overall training program to meet your event specific goals. The most effective progression proceeds from general to specific in an event-dependent manner and should be planned well before race day draws near. Low-volume, high-pace workouts should increase or maintain volume while maintaining or slowly converging on goal race pace, while high-volume, below-pace workouts should increase volume while maintaining or slowly converging on goal race pace. When in doubt, consult the principle of specificity and assess how far you are away from your goal race to determine the type of workouts you should place emphasis on.

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Josh Seifarth

Age: 22

Home town: Windsor, Ontario (currently still there)

School: Bachelor’s of Human Kinetics – Movement Science @ University of Windsor, currently working on a Master’s of Human Kinetics in Exercise Physiology at the same institution

Training: Long Course Triathlon

Athletic Endeavours: Race as an Elite Triathlete in 2012 to gain experience while finishing my academic studies

Currently Coaching: Dayna Pidhoresky