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.

***
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

Running is usually considered a solo sport.  My road to Boston has been a total team effort from my coach Dr. Stephen Connor (referred to usually as “Dr. Stevil”), Rebecca (my favorite writer who wrote into iRun), Lisa (my pace bunny), my running girls and boys, to my biggest supporter, my husband Scott. Scott has taken on a new job on the team – “blog editor”.

I’ve just returned from #2 of the big 5 (ran Chicago with my Dad in 2003). I ran New York City Marathon with 5 girlfriends.  What a great way to start my iRun journey to Boston!  It was a slow start – 25 minutes slower then my Toronto qualifying marathon.  I guess that’s what happens when you have to take 8 weeks off running because of plantar fascitis, start a new full time job and busy raising two wonderful kids. My foot is 100% ready and I now have a new drive to get back to a sub 3:45 marathon. My “team” is going to be huge at Boston. I don’t want them to have to wait that long to see me run across that finishing line. I’m giving myself one more week to fully recover than we start hitting the pavement. I have a little detour before Boston – a family trip to Disney with a little 42.2k race thrown in – cause 42.3k would be crazy!

To commemorate Remembrance Day, Toronto coach Jeff Cooper will be running for 12 hours from 11:00 am until 11:00 pm, and he’s inviting anyone who is interested to join him for part of the day. Cooper states he is running to “remember what’s important.”

If you would like to run to remember, here are the details provided by Cooper:

I will be starting from our usual Bayview and York Mills location from the Second Cup and running the 10.4 mile loop to the bridge … 6 times!

The running plan for the day is as follows:

To run the 1st, 3rd and 5th loop heading South down Bayview and finishing West along York Mills.

To run the 2nd, 4th and 6th loop heading East along York Mills and finishing North on Bayview. (just the reverse direction).

Due to some park construction, this route may vary slightly.

NOTE: We will be leaving approximately every two hours so if you plan on coming out to join me for a run, please judge your time accordingly.

If you plan to come out and run after 5:00 p.m. when it’s dark, please remember to bring a headlight, flashlight etc

If you are available, willing and able on 11/11/11, I would love to have you come out join me. Hope to see you all out there!